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Welcome to Connolly Middle School. Connolly is proud to offer a challenging and enriching curriculum for your child. Connolly’s faculty and staff strive to create an environment where a shared commitment to learning, critical thinking, cooperation, tolerance, and self-discipline will enable students to become lifelong learners and responsible citizens.
Connolly Middle School offers a unique educational experience because of the AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination) program. We are recognized as an AVID National Certified School and are proud to be an AVID National Demonstration Site. Research validates that the AVID college-readiness system works for all students. AVID’s proven methodologies implemented throughout each subject increase rigor and promote academic achievement for general, gifted, and special education students.
Connolly’s west campus is home to ASPIRE Academy, which is designed for the most academically gifted middle school students. ASPIRE teachers regularly challenge students intellectually and creatively to reach their full potential.
The music programs at Connolly have a long tradition of excellence. Connolly is proud to be one of the only middle schools in the state of Arizona to provide a full symphony orchestra experience to band and orchestra students. Connolly’s Symphonic Band continues to be recognized by the Arizona Band and Orchestra Directors Association for “representing the finest in music education in Arizona!”
We acknowledge that the most effective instruction in the middle school emphasizes academic integrity while making an emotional connection with the students. Our school has a special spirit! Academics and the emotional connections are consistent. Students feel that they are part of the Connolly family.
Connolly Middle School students, parents, and educators share responsibility for quality education. We welcome parent and family involvement. It is our belief that by working together, we accomplish more for every child.
We are committed to all students’ success. Please visit our school and see why our school motto is “Whatever It takes, we are college bound!”
Kathryn Mullery, Principal | <urn:uuid:8f39ad59-0ebf-4bde-9587-72c897286bfd> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://tempeschools.org/our-schools/middle-schools-6-8/connolly-middle-school | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280791.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00360-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93733 | 421 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Republicans watched President Obama crash against the shores of health care reform over and over again over the last seven years. Now the wheel is in GOP hands, and the politics are only more treacherous.
Republican leaders are excited at the prospect of fulfilling their longtime promise to replace the Affordable Care Act, Obama's signature legislative accomplishment, and injecting more free market principles into health care. But the path is long, complicated and carries enormous risks, potentially taking the entire insurance system with it in the process.
The main problem is that there is no perfect replacement: Any changes they make to the system will inevitably create new winners and losers, just as Obamacare did. There is a long list of agonizing choices ahead for Republican lawmakers, many of whom are new to the nitty gritty of health care policy.
"There is no way to cover more people, have higher quality, and have it be cheaper," Aaron Carroll, a health care researcher at Indiana University, said. "If there was, everyone would do it.
Under Obama, Republicans successfully defined themselves in opposition to the new health care system. By keeping their fingerprints off the ACA, which passed in 2010 with no GOP votes at all, Democrats were forced to accept political responsibility for the entire health care industry — the good, the bad and the ugly. Now that dynamic will be reversed and it's up to Republicans to fix the system.
"They have to do some sort of repeal bill, it's a political necessity, and once they do that they own it," Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economist who has long advised Republicans on health care, told NBC News. "So they need to get it right."
Lawmakers face a Herculean task of finding a health care plan that can please conservative activists, business groups and voters, and then carrying it to passage, which will very likely require Democratic support.
To Republican small government advocates, the ACA was a body blow for individual liberty that exploded federal spending, raised taxes and put the country closer to a government-run health care system. But many of Trump's supporters reject that ideology. They simply want better, cheaper health coverage — even if it costs the government more — and expect the president-elect to deliver on his pledges regardless of whatever philosophy is behind it.
These two worlds are set to collide over the next four years. No one is sure what the resulting system will look like, but here's the general road map.
The First Steps
Republicans face two immediate hurdles, one in the immediate term as they look to repeal large chunks of the Affordable Care Act and a more long-term challenge as they work out its replacement. Both of these are related because decisions made on a repeal bill affect their options on the replacement.
The repeal bill is different than most legislation in that it will rely on an obscure parliamentary maneuver called reconciliation that allows the Senate to pass certain budget items with only a bare majority. The upside for Republicans is that they won't need any Democratic votes; the downside is that there are rules limiting what they can include in the repeal measure.
There's some consensus in the incoming Trump administration and among congressional leaders that people who gained insurance under through Obamacare's subsidies should keep it while they work out its replacement. But there's no agreement yet on how long this period should last. Some experts say it should be as long as four years while conservative House members are pushing for two or less, fearing that anti-Obamacare momentum will fade over time.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), a key vote in the Senate, argues Republicans need to pass a replacement simultaneously and some influential conservative policy experts agree. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) has also expressed misgivings, saying he is worried about "kicking the can down the road."
The American Medical Association is also calling for the GOP to detail its replacement plan first. Others on the right argue that Senate leaders should challenge parliamentary rules and repeal the entire bill outright in one fell swoop.
Republicans, who only have a 52-seat Senate majority now, will eventually need to work out a bipartisan deal that can get past a Democratic filibuster with 60 votes to achieve a full replacement. The hard deadline for repeal could encourage both sides to finally compromise on a permanent fix — maybe even one that's not far off from Obamacare in coverage. Or it could arm a ticking nuclear bomb inside the health care system that accidentally destroys it when they find they're too far apart. And no one knows what the political environment will look like when the time to discuss a replacement arrives.
Keeping Zombie Obamacare Alive
Assuming there's a delay built in, the next question is how to keep the insurance market functioning before a new system is put in place.
Republicans are eager to repeal the individual mandate, an unpopular tax penalty paid by people who refuse to buy insurance, but doing so could cause chaos in the insurance market.
Under Obamacare, insurers are required to offer plans at the same price to sick and healthy individuals alike, and this section of the law can't be altered through the congressional budget reconciliation process. But there's also nothing forcing insurers to sell plans on the exchange. If the mandate disappears and enough healthy people drop their coverage, the resulting losses could cause insurance companies to raise premiums or withdraw from the market.
There are ways to get around this and the insurance industry's lobby, AHIP, has indicated that they could potentially live without the individual mandate if changes are made elsewhere. But in the short term, the solution may require Republicans to cover insurers' losses with federal dollars, a move that conservatives have previously decried as a bailout.
Republicans are nervous about taking the blame for a collapse and, led by Trump, have spent the week preemptively arguing Democrats will be at fault if things go awry. They point to problems with the individual market that preceded the election: Premiums jumped 25 percent nationally in the last enrollment period (although the vast majority of those covered were eligible for subsidies to offset the cost) and some major insurers threatened to withdraw because too few healthy customers were signing up for the companies to turn a profit.
"Don't let the Schumer clowns out of this web," Trump tweeted on Wednesday, referring to the Senate Democratic leader. "Massive increases of ObamaCare will take place this year and Dems are to blame for the mess. It will fall of its own weight - be careful!"
These issues have caused serious concern, but they're still far off from the "death spiral" that getting rid of the individual mandate without a viable alternative could cause. There's also been a surge of signups for Obamacare since the November election that could potentially keep prices more stable next year.
Regardless of who Republicans blame for any problems, the job of fixing the situation would fall to the Trump administration and the GOP-controlled House and Senate. Democrats are hoping that might give them the leverage they need protect large swaths of the law.
"There will be chaos in the health care system and it will be on their shoulders," Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) told NBC News. "If they want to solve the problem they created they are likely to need bipartisan assistance and I want to come back with something as good or better than the Affordable Care Act."
Next: The Hard Part
Repeal is difficult, but the tougher part is coming up with a full replacement.
Obamacare has never been broadly supported, but many of its benefits are popular. The percentage of Americans without insurance has plummeted from 17.1 percent in late 2013, when the insurance exchanges launched, to 10.9 percent in 2016, according to Gallup.
As Democrats are quick to point out, repealing the law without a replacement could knock 22 to 30 million people off coverage they've obtained through private insurance or Medicaid, according to the Urban Institute. As many as 52 million non-elderly Americans have pre-existing conditions that insurers often used as an excuse to raise premiums or deny selling coverage in the pre-Obamacare world.
Republicans argue that apocalyptic descriptions of full repeal are a straw man argument because whatever they choose as a replacement will improve on the pre-ACA environment when it comes to coverage. Some Obamacare critics also complain that it's unfair to use a coverage expansion that relies on forcing people to buy insurance as a baseline.
While there's not a consensus yet, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price have both put forward plans in the past that would offer substantial tax credits to individuals who don't get insurance through work to help pay for care.
Those subsidies, while structured differently than the ACA's (they rise with age, rather than income), could grow more generous if Republicans bring Democrats into the room to negotiate a final deal. But any deal that substantially raises spending would enrage conservative activists, some of whom already consider plans that include tax credits "Obamacare-lite."
"I don't think there's a market for reducing subsidies in the aggregate, but the type of subsidies will change," said Thomas P. Miller, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and conservative critic of Obamacare.
The biggest issue is how to pay for it all. The ACA is financed by a mix of cuts to Medicare Advantage providers, taxes on the medical industry and on high-end insurance plans, and taxes on wealthier Americans. These sources bring in enough cash that the law is actually projected to reduce the debt by $350 billion over the next decade, despite large increases in health care spending.
Republicans, who have long complained that the ACA is too expensive, already have some tough decisions coming up in the initial repeal bill. Republican candidates routinely criticized the law's Medicare cuts in prior elections, but they're expected to keep them to finance their plan. However, the initial repeal could wipe out the law's tax provisions, which would dramatically reduce the pool of money available to preserve Obamacare's coverage gains. Democrats are already preparing to accuse Republicans of cutting taxes for the rich at the expense of health insurance for the poor.
To help balance the budget, Ryan has proposed dramatically reducing Medicaid spending over time and giving states more control over how they use it. Nearly 70 million people currently rely on Medicaid and CHIP programs, a federal/state partnership that covers lower-income Americans, and any cuts could jeopardize their coverage. It could also create political tensions with governors and state lawmakers, some of them Republican, who have used Obamacare's expanded Medicaid funding to plug holes in their budget.
Some Republican proposals, like Price's, would cap tax benefits for employer health insurance coverage to raise more revenue, which could cause business owners to seek cheaper and less generous plans for their workers.
Policy experts in both parties have long complained that employer tax benefits are an inefficient way to provide coverage, but any significant changes could spark a backlash, since they're the dominant means that working individuals and families obtain insurance.
Democrats were mostly careful to avoid touching employer-based health care when crafting the ACA for this reason. One of the most unpopular provisions of Obamacare was its so-called "Cadillac tax," which targeted only the most expensive employer plans, and Democrats cut a deal with Republicans to delay it last year amid complaints from unions.
Holtz-Eakin predicted few Americans would notice the difference to their plans under the kinds of tweaks proposed by Price, but acknowledged that it would take courage from Republicans to adopt them.
"Politically, people don't love change," he said. "The employer market is the one place the Affordable Care Act didn't change and also the place that's performed the best since passage."
Taking Care of Trump's Base
Most Republican plans would also reduce regulations on what benefits insurers are required to offer in their plans and on how they calculate their prices. With fewer rules, insurers could potentially reduce premiums.
Not everyone would be affected equally, though. The ACA effectively penalized younger customers and subsidized older ones by preventing insurers from charging more than three times as much based on the customer's age. The Ryan plan would extend this multiple to five. Republicans would also have to decide whether to keep Obamacare's rules requiring insurers to charge men and women the same amount — before the law, women paid higher premiums in part due to maternity costs.
Some people could also lose insurance over time. While the ACA requires insurers to accept new customers and offer them similar prices regardless of whether or not they have a preexisting condition, Ryan's plan would only require them to offer similar premiums if they maintained "continuous" coverage.
"That certainly provides some protection, but a lot of people could fall through the cracks," Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told NBC News. "If you need a new roof on your house and can't pay your insurance premium for a while, you could be locked out."
That means older Americans with unstable employment and income would stand the most to lose from these changes. Unfortunately for Republicans, that sounds a lot like the blue-collar voters in struggling areas that Trump relied on to win the primaries and general election.
To address this problem, some Republicans have proposed funding high-risk pools that pay insurers to take on sicker patients. Once again, cost is the major obstacle: They only will work if there's enough money to attract insurers and keep premiums affordable. A proposal from the American Enterprise Institute by conservative experts estimated the starting price tag at $10 billion a year with increases over time to keep up with need. Ryan's plan budgets "at least $25 billion" over a decade, but details are scarce.
Along this journey, Republicans will also drag behind them the accumulated weight of criticism they have leveled against Obamacare as well as the boasts their politicians (and especially the president-elect) have made about its impending replacement, some of which do not line up.
"Everybody's gotta be covered," Trump said on "60 Minutes" in September 2015. "This is an un-Republican thing for me to say, because a lot of times they say, 'No, no, the lower 25 percent, they can't afford private.'"
His top aide Kellyanne Conway also drew attention when she said on MSNBC this week that no one who "currently has insurance" will lose it under a GOP replacement. Republicans have been loathe to make that promise, since any plan that cuts spending and removes the mandate is likely to cover fewer people.
Trump also promised not to cut Medicaid, which is a key part of many Republican proposals.
It's not just Trump, either. For years, the lack of a clear GOP position has allowed politicians to echo their constituents' complaints about their health care coverage without naming which trade offs they'd tolerate themselves.
"Taken together, the goals that have been articulated by the incoming administration and by many of the repeal advocates are impossible to achieve," Robert Reischauer, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said in a panel discussion last month.
Obama and Democrats paid a major price for falsely promising "If you like your plan, you can keep it," only to see millions of people lose their plans and have to buy new ones on the exchange in 2013. Now they're eager to remind voters of Republicans' promises — progressive Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders even put Trump's Medicaid tweets on a poster during a floor speech on Wednesday.
As they transition to crafting real policy, Republicans are trotting out more rhetoric that could come back to bite them. In just the last week, Trump and numerous other lawmakers have assailed Obamacare for high deductibles on its plans.
High deductibles are one of the biggest complaints consumers have about the plans on the exchanges and Republicans are undoubtedly hearing about it from their constituents around the country.
But, as Republicans are about to discover, the leading conservative alternatives don't actually offer provisions that restrict high deductibles. That's because out-of-pocket costs are a feature of most policy proposals, not a bug, which encourage customers to use tax-free Health Savings Accounts to pay for individual expenses. The idea is that by pushing customers to have more "skin in the game," they'll shop around and drive down costs across the industry.
Stephen Parente, a professor at the University of Minnesota who has run estimates on Ryan's proposed plan, told NBC News that the most prominent Republican proposals would likely "lead to plans that will have higher deductibles, but are more affordable" thanks to relaxed regulations. This argument has yet to be tested politically, though.
"The ACA was controversial and disruptive, and unwinding it would be at least as controversial and disruptive," Levitt, of the Kaiser Family Foundation, said. "As previous presidents have discovered, making campaign promises on health care can be popular, but actually slogging through the details is generally quite unpopular." | <urn:uuid:34120653-b769-4abd-8133-3c5e550309e7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/president-obama-the-legacy/tough-choices-loom-long-road-replacing-obamacare-n704021 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279915.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00279-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971083 | 3,419 | 1.578125 | 2 |
"The problem was identified that many small communities in central Penobscot County Maine are having difficulty providing the level of fire and emergency medical services demanded by the public. The purpose of this applied research project was to explore if consolidation of fire protection agencies could improve the delivery and efficiency of fire and emergency medical services in central Penobscot County. The descriptive research methodology was used to answer the following questions: Question 1. What are the benefits of consolidating fire protection agencies? Question 2. How have other governmental agencies consolidated fire protection services? Question 3. Are local municipal officials in central Penobscot County receptive to the consolidation of fire protection services? The procedures in this research included selecting the communities and their respective fire departments to be studied, which were the fourteen cities and towns in central Penobscot County. A literature review of fire department consolidations, mergers and regionalization efforts was conducted to examine the benefits, limitations and challenges facing fire protection agency consolidation. A survey was conducted of local municipal officials, including town managers and local fire chiefs from the fourteen communities to determine whether they are receptive to consolidation and what concerns they would have with consolidation of fire protection services. The results of this research determined that there are many benefits to be derived from consolidation of fire protection services between the fourteen communities in central Penobscot County."
United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency, Learning Resource Center: http://www.lrc.fema.gov/ | <urn:uuid:d8c369f5-d46f-4eab-a195-99f9a181197b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.hsdl.org/?abstract&did=4399 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572089.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814234405-20220815024405-00065.warc.gz | en | 0.943708 | 348 | 2.265625 | 2 |
You know things are bad when venture capital is panicking.
Venture capitalists live at a higher altitude than most investors -- they take the long view. With the glaring exception of the dot-com boom (which they helped create by pumping half-baked startups into the stock market), they have always shrugged off wild market swings.
But last week, Sequoia Capital, one of the most respected venture shops in Silicon Valley, called in entrepreneurs and CEOs of its portfolio companies for an emergency meeting to, as blog GigaOm
, "buckle down for what could be the worst economic downturn of their relatively short lives."
Sequoia, which backed
, among others , did this once before, during the dot-com bust. This time, details and Powerpoint slides
on the Web, and the message was stern enough to sober up anyone.
There are all kinds of scary phrases that CEOs never want to hear, like: "death spiral," "years to recovery," and "spend every dollar as if it were your last." There are also words startups hoped they'd never hear from a VC, like "need for profitability," "must-have product" and "become cash-flow positive as soon as possible."
"Get real or go home," one Sequoia executive told the assembled crowd, sounding a bit like a coach at halftime to a losing team. "We're talking survive. Get this point into your heads," barked another.
Until very recently, venture capitalists were shrugging off the credit crisis. The last market blowup had Silicon Valley as ground zero, they reasoned, so now it's someone else's turn. We'll ride this one out as Wall Street suffers.
And they had a point. For the past few years, money was flowing around so freely that any decent venture firm raising a fund had no problem raising cash, and some were even turning it away. Having learned the hard lessons, most were more selective about what startups they backed, and therefore relatively confident if a recession hit.
Still, there were bad signs. A University of San Francisco survey of Silicon Valley VCs showed confidence among them has been falling for a while.
For a few years, the IPO markets hadn't been terribly friendly to venture-backed startups -- even after some of the more onerous aspects of Sarbanes-Oxley were rolled back. Now the climate is looking even drier.
According to Renaissance Capital, global IPO activity slowed to only 20 companies going public in the third quarter, raising $9.3 billion. That's down from the year ago figure of $34.8 billion and the recent high of $94.3 billion in the first quarter of 2008. So in less than a year, money raised by IPOs around the world has plunged more than 90%. And that was before the global market selloff.
U.S. venture-backed companies are also making up a smaller piece of that pie. In the first quarter of 2008, only five venture-backed companies went public, but at least that was five more than went public in the second quarter, according to Thomson Reuters. (Data for the third quarter isn't available yet.)
Some VCs have been worried about a prolonged IPO drought. In a release decrying a "capital market crisis" for startups, National Venture Capital Association Chairman Dixon Doll said, "Imagine the implications if
, Google, or
decided to forgo a public offering and become acquired because the public market option was unappealing. The 'next Genentech or Google may be making that decision right now."
The merger market will probably be just as meager soon. Sure, we'll see a pop in buyouts once tech stocks bottom --
is reportedly waiting to re-pounce on Yahoo! and is also sniffing around
Research In Motion
-- but most of the deals will be fire sales, which are very bad for VC returns.
Then there's the liquidity question. As
writer Michael Copeland explained, when a venture firm closes a fund it simply collects pledges, not the actual cash itself. They later dial up their limited partners for that cash. But a lot of those investors are over a barrel and can't -- or won't -- pay up. So some funds, mostly the less prestigious ones, won't have the money they thought would carry them through the hard times.
Sequoia won't likely have that problem. Burn a firm like Sequoia, and it will cost you beyond the next few years. Rather, Sequoia's 12-step meeting was an attempt to shake things up and see what rises to the top -- that is, to see which companies can generate cash, and which simply burn it.
But many VC firms are facing a scarcity of capital to fund startups and all are facing a scarcity of exits. It's like a baker with little flour to bake goods, but not enough customers to buy the baked goods anyway. It sort of balances out, but it's not good for business. | <urn:uuid:832ab68b-b5f3-4131-b57f-f43455e88886> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.thestreet.com/opinion/tech-venture-capitalists-feeling-the-pain-10442144 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572043.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814143522-20220814173522-00471.warc.gz | en | 0.97541 | 1,113 | 1.59375 | 2 |
U.S. DOE Technical Assistance Project
The Technical Assistance Project, or TAP, is a program which provides "state and local officials with quick, short-term access to experts at U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) National Laboratories for assistance with their renewable energy and energy efficiency policies and programs.
TAP helps states with individual, short-term assistance in the following crosscutting topic areas that are not the responsibility of a single DOE technology research program:
- System benefits charges or other ratepayer-funded utility energy efficiency and renewable energy programs
- Renewable energy and energy efficiency portfolio standards and renewable fuel standards
- Use of clean energy technologies to reduce air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions
- Use of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies on state and local public lands and facilities
- Use of renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies for state and local disaster relief, mitigation, and planning
- State and regional energy efficiency and renewable energy assessments and planning
- Sustainable community and building design
- Clean energy project financing incentives and mechanisms
- Other renewable energy and energy efficiency activities supported through DOE's State Energy Program.
Resources available at the TAP website could be useful for designing similar programs internationally. | <urn:uuid:1709e0c8-2fc9-4bf3-8b8f-e3bc75de761d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://en.openei.org/wiki/Technical_Assistance_Project | 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 | 0.893981 | 245 | 2.8125 | 3 |
HANOI, June 27 (Xinhua): Vietnam recorded 637 new Covid-19 cases on Monday, up by 80 from Sunday, according to its Ministry of Health.
All the new infections were domestically transmitted, reported in 39 provinces and cities.
The Vietnamese capital Hanoi was the pandemic hotspot with 188 new cases recorded on Monday, followed by the northern Hai Phong city with 64 and the central Da Nang city with 62.
The newly reported infections brought the total tally to 10,744,085 with 43,084 deaths.
Nationwide, as many as 9,656,467 Covid-19 patients, or nearly 90 percent of the total infections, have so far recovered.
Nearly 230 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines have been administered in the Southeast Asian country, including roughly 204.6 million shots on people aged 18 and above, according to the ministry. - Xinhua | <urn:uuid:a3ba7d90-7f96-431b-beec-805f798fc71d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.thestar.com.my/aseanplus/aseanplus-news/2022/06/27/vietnam-reports-637-new-covid-19-cases-on-monday-june-27-all-cases-are-domestic-transmission | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571745.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812170436-20220812200436-00470.warc.gz | en | 0.964438 | 193 | 1.554688 | 2 |
A language is a system of visual, auditory, or tactile symbols of communication and the rules used to manipulate them. Language can also refer to the use of such systems as a general phenomenon.
Language is considered to be an exclusively human mode of communication. Although other animals make use of quite sophisticated communicative systems, none of these are known to make use of all of the properties that use to define language.
|This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Language. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with the India Wikia, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.| | <urn:uuid:f15665e4-0825-45f5-bd61-97c6908b3c89> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://india.wikia.com/wiki/Language | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280730.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00244-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927986 | 131 | 3.203125 | 3 |
by Jonathan & Tom McKee
Title: The Celebration of American STUFF
Text: II Chronicles 31
Big Idea: Thanksgiving is an American tradition that is especially meaningful for the
Christian because it gives us an opportunity to change our focus from our prosperity to God.
Sound Byte: Thanksgiving is a time to switch the focus from OUR STUFF to THE GOD WHO
GAVE US THAT STUFF
Introduction: How do we handle our American success & prosperity?
I love the story of the farmer who worked hard and had a beautiful farm. A friend said to him,
"Wow, God has really blessed you." The farmer responded, "You should have seen this
field when God was doing it by himself—it was a mess."
What was this farmer saying? I draw several conclusions from this story. Before I share them,
consider—what do you think the farmer was saying? (Feel free to turn this intro into a small or
large group discussion)
He might be saying:
Perhaps at times this farmer felt all of the above. We don't know for sure. The real question
is how do we feel about what we've achieved? How do we feel about the blessings of our hard
work, especially when it comes to Thanksgiving season.
- God needs me, for without me this land would be weeds and rocks
- God and I are a team—we work together and He does His part (the rain and great soil)
and I do my part (work the land)
- Between me and God, I am the hardest worker—I sweat
- Cursed be Adam who, because of his sin, I have to work so hard
- I am thankful to God for the opportunity to do my creative part in this section of land
that God has seen fit to give to me
As I was thinking about the farmer, I thought about the first American Thanksgiving and how the
people had this big pot-luck thanksgiving meal and praised God for a great year. They praised
God for a new land, they praised God for new neighbors, and they praised God that He had blessed
the crops of their field. Bottom line—they were thanking God for all their STUFF! They were
thanking God for their prosperity. They felt rich and blessed. That is the beginning of what
we Americans now call Thanksgiving.
A little girl was praying the other night and she said, "God, thank you for my family, thank
you for my house, thank you for my dog, my room, my toys and my new jacket. Amen."
That about covers it, right? Thanks for all my STUFF!
A high school kid just got a new IPOD for his birthday. That night he said a quick bed time
prayer. "God, thanks for the IPOD. Wow. You really came through. Amen."
Is that what prayer is all about?
Is that what Thanksgiving is all about?
After all... it's not bad to stop and thank God... is it?
If you think about these kids and if you think about the first American Thanksgiving... you
notice the same thing. As I thought about this, I was reminded of this type of celebration in
the Scriptures going all the way back to II Chronicles 31. Ezra is writing this account for a
very specific reason. People in Ezra's time were struggling, like many of us, with their
prosperity and blessings; they were so blessed by God they did not know how to thank God for
such blessings. They realized that they sounded like that little girl and that high school kid
praying, "Thanks for all my STUFF!"
They didn't know how to thank God for their prosperity without focusing on the prosperity and
not on God. Too often we focus on the blessing and forget the actual source of our
Ever feel that way? Ever feel that you don't know how to really thank God?
Well, in this passage, EZRA writes a success story. And the success story he writes is in the
book of II Chronicles, chapter 31. He tells them, "Hey, we had a king by the name of
Hezekiah who was concerned about the lack of meaningful worship and the lack of knowing how to
thank God for the many blessings they were all experiencing. So this King Hezekiah sets out a
way to thank God and outlines a profile of what that worship should focus on."
Hezekiah helped them (SOUND BYTE) switch the focus from OUR STUFF to THE GOD WHO GAVE US
Thanksgiving is a time to switch the focus from OUR STUFF to THE GOD WHO GAVE US THAT
Hezekiah has a little thanksgiving service. And the profile of Hezekiah's thanksgiving
service is ...
I like to think of it as the three directions of thanksgiving—upward, back and forward.
- First, look upward to thank God as the provider of your prosperity.
- Second, look back at the blessing you've received and give back to God out of your
- Third, look forward to a greater prosperity.
I. Thanksgiving is an opportunity to turn our hearts upward to the
source of our prosperity (v. 1, 2) LOOK UP
Now when the festival ended, the Israelites who attended went to all the
towns of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh, and they smashed the sacred pillars, cut down
the Asherah poles, and removed the pagan shrines and altars. After this, the Israelites
returned to their own towns and homes.
The first step of thanksgiving is to turn our hearts from worshiping STUFF—things that bring us
temporary happiness—to God.
Hezekiah then organized the priests and Levites into divisions to offer
the burnt offerings and peace offerings, and to worship and give thanks and praise to the Lord
at the gates of the Temple. (2 Chron. 31:1-2, NLT)
Thanksgiving is a time to turn our hearts upward and switch the focus from OUR STUFF to THE GOD
WHO GAVE US THAT STUFF.
In the first Thanksgiving celebration in American history, we see a guy who helped the first
American settlers turn their hearts upward. William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth colony in
1623 sent out his famous declaration in which he said, and I am going to paraphrase Bradford,
"Since God has really outdone Himself with us this year and we have tons of Indian corn,
wheat, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, game, fish and clams, and has given us a year of
peace..." (and he goes on and on and on and on about the blessings of God during the past
year) "that we the Pilgrims should gather between the hours of 9—12 on the first Thanksgiving
and listen to our pastor and then give thanks to Almighty God for all His Blessings."
Notice that Bradford asked that they listen to the teaching of the Bible (the pastor) and
then they give thanks to Almighty God.
How do we usually thank God in America? Often we go around the Thanksgiving table and share our
thanks. It might sound like this ...
All of these things are important and significant, but the focus is on family and stuff—not God.
We get caught up talking about how prosperous we are.
- I thank God for my family
- I thank God for my friends
- I thank God for my health
- I thank God for my stuff
I believe that Hezekiah wanted people, before they got to the stuff they were thankful for, to
focus on God.
To make sure that the people focus on God, he has them do two things: 1. Get rid of STUFF 2.
Worship and take an offering.
In the time of Hezekiah, there was some bad stuff that they needed to get rid of. There was not
only idols, but some sexually explicit stuff like those Asherah poles that distracted the people.
Luckily, we don't have any sexually explicit stuff around us today that distracts us (sarcasm
implied). They burned down all idols and turned to worshipping God—God alone.
As you can see, this is a two step process. 1. They removed things in their lives that take away
the focus on God alone. They removed the stuff that did NOT belong in their life. Do you have
anything that doesn't belong in your life? Do you have idols that distract you from Godly
things? Maybe we have some sexual temptations that are conveniently beamed into our house
through cable or the internet that we need to remove. Notice that Hezekiah had them totally
destroy this stuff. If Hezekiah was a teenager, he probably would have cancelled his cable
service if that's where the distractions came from, or ripped the high speed internet cord from
But then... 2. They turned their attention to God, taking an offering, and worshipping Him
Some of us might need to get rid of something before we can really switch our focus to God
alone. Some of us might be like the one armed lawyer.
A lawyer opened the door of his BMW, when suddenly a car came along and hit the door, ripping it
off completely. When the police arrived at the scene, the lawyer was complaining bitterly about
the damage to his precious BMW. "Officer, look what they've done to my Beeeeemer!" he
whined. "You lawyers are so materialistic, you make me sick!" retorted the officer.
"You're so worried about your stupid BMW, that you didn't even notice that your left arm was
"Oh no!," replied the lawyer, finally noticing the bloody left shoulder where his arm
once was. "Where's my Rolex?!?"
King Hezekiah had them strip themselves of all distractions so that they could turn their
hearts upward and truly focus on God.
When we have totally stopped to strip ourselves of all but God, then it is time to move to the
second direction of our Thanksgiving—looking back at what God has given us.
II. Thanksgiving is an opportunity to look back at God's blessings
and give back to God out of our prosperity. (vv. 3-8) GIVE BACK
The king also made a personal contribution of animals for the daily
morning and evening burnt offerings, as well as for the weekly Sabbath festivals and
monthly new moon festivals, and for the other annual festivals as required in the law
of the Lord. In addition, he required the people in Jerusalem to bring the prescribed
portion of their income to the priests and Levites, so they could devote themselves fully
to the law of the Lord.
Have you ever noticed how when professional athletes, those multi-millionaires, do some
volunteer project, they often say, "I'm giving back to the community." That's what
Thanksgiving is—giving back on how much we have been blessed. The word Thanksgiving is
made up of two words—Thanks and Giving. We often forget that giving is part of
The people responded immediately and generously with the first of
their crops and grain, new wine, olive oil, honey, and all the produce of their fields.
They brought a tithe of all they owned. The people who had moved to Judah from Israel,
and the people of Judah themselves, brought in the tithes of their cattle and sheep and a
tithe of the things that had been dedicated to the Lord their God, and they piled them up
in great heaps. The first of these tithes was brought in late spring, and the heaps
continued to grow until early autumn. When Hezekiah and his officials came and saw
these huge piles, they thanked the Lord and his people Israel! (2 Chron. 31:3-8, NLT)
The crazy thing is, you will receive more joy out of giving out of your own prosperity, than
if you kept it all to yourself.
I'll never forget a quote in Time magazine from a former tobacco company executive who
turned into an anti-smoking crusader. He said, "I don't need the cars and fancy ties and all
those trappings that consumed me once. My enjoyment comes when some kid comes up to me and says,
'I'm never gonna smoke.' I can take that to the bank, whatever bank you want to call it."
(Jeffrey Wigand, Time, February 14, 2005, p. 8.)
Giving back is part of Thanksgiving.
This reminds me of our text. Notice how the people give thanks to God by giving—a giving that is
based on the blessing of God on their prosperity. First, (vs. 3) Hezekiah gave an offering from
his own wealth. Then he told the worship leaders (the priests and Levites) to exercise their
gifts of leading worship (v. 4), and then he told everyone else to make contributions (tithe)
so that the worship leaders could quit their jobs and be paid to work full time leading worship
(v 4). During the time of Hezekiah, the people had devoted so much time into their own stuff
and had not been thankful of God by giving their tithes and offerings to the Lord... so much so
that the worship leaders (the Levites and Priests) had to go out and find jobs and therefore
they didn't have time to lead worship.
That's still true today. The majority of the church contributes very little to God and His ministry
through the church.
A 7-year-old girl noticed how much her parents put in the offering plate in church one Sunday
morning. After church, her mother commented, "The choir was awful this morning." The
father commented, "The sermon was too long."
Their daughter added, "You've got to admit it was a pretty good show for a dollar."
This is what was happening back in the time of Hezekiah. The worship leaders had to moonlight
just to survive because people weren't giving back to God.
And notice what happens. When the people give of their first fruits (v. 5), Hezekiah saw
"heaps" of gifts and they all praised God.
But the giving is based on our prosperity. Notice the word First fruits. What does this
Verse 7 says that they did most of their giving in the third month and in the seventh month.
This is very important. The third month was the grain harvest and the seventh month was the
vine and fruit harvest. In an agriculture society, where you have two major harvest seasons,
the people gave at that time. Our first American Thanksgiving celebration was in the fall,
after the harvest.
So what does that mean to me? It means that when I am blessed (in 21st century American culture
its called payday), I give first. I stop and thank God for his past blessing of the work He
provided for me.
And that's what the backward look of Thanksgiving is. It is stopping to thank God for our past
blessing and then giving back to Him the first fruits (on payday) from that blessing.
Looking back at God's blessings helps us switch the focus from OUR STUFF to THE GOD WHO GAVE
US THAT STUFF.
But our thanksgiving doesn't stop there—there is a forward look.
III. Thanksgiving is the opportunity to look forward to the future
prosperity that God has for us (v. 21) LOOK FORWARD
In all that he did in the service of the Temple of God and in his
efforts to follow the law and the commands, Hezekiah sought his God wholeheartedly. As a
result, he was very successful. (2 Chron. 31:21, NLT)
Wow, what does this mean? I love this verse. It sound's like if I give thanks by tithing the
first of everything, I'll be rich. When you read all of the verses 9-21, you will note that
Hezekiah restores worship and everyone prospers. Doesn't that sound great?
Is that what Ezra is saying?
Yes. That is exactly what he is saying. In fact it is the message of the Bible. When you read
the books of Deuteronomy and Joshua and Judges you read over and over again that God promises
to Israel that if they obey the laws they will prosper. And when they obeyed, they prospered
and when they didn't they were killed, captured and lived as slaves.
What does that mean for us today. God's promises are the same. But the key word is "prosperity."
What is prosperity?
I believe that it is two things:
First, a prosperity in worship. What happened when people thanked God by giving a tithe of
their prosperity? The leaders of worship could quit their other jobs and devote themselves to
the teaching and leading of worship so that the people could focus on a strong knowledge and
worship of God. That is prosperity. Today, when people give of themselves in proper worship,
the church can flourish. They can devote themselves to teaching and worshiping. (Acts 2:42)
Second, a prosperity in the blessings of God. Is this wealth, healthy families, and security?
I believe that it can be. Let's face it, when you follow God's principles, you worship Him and
obey His righteous commands (the Ten Commandments), you are in the place to be blessed by God.
But I believe that this is the hardest part of Thanksgiving. Because too often when we are
blessed by God, we become like the farmer who said, "you should have seen this land when God
was doing it alone" and we focus on our work, our goals, our family, and our prosperity. And
that is not really prosperity because it lacks the first aspect of prosperity—worship. Let's
face it, often it is hard to worship God in a way that leaves the blessing to Him—not us.
To thank God for Him and then to thank God for all of His blessings and even give (I love
giving—generosity is so much fun), but to only give lip service to God is not Thanksgiving.
Then my prosperity becomes an idol. The first thing Hezekiah did was to tear down the idols.
I don't have an actual Asherah pole to tear down, but I have STUFF. Beyond the bad stuff that
I know I shouldn't have... I also have some good things that can become distractions: if I do
good in school, I can become successful, if I do good in sports, I can become successful, if I
am popular, then I am successful... I am thankful that I am so successful—and that is my
Asherah pole. Hezekiah tells me that I need to get rid of that idol.
That's the trick. Look forward to what God is going to do for you... but keep your focus on the
provider, not the provision. We need to switch the focus from OUR STUFF to THE GOD WHO GAVE
US THAT STUFF.
When you really get a hold of Thanksgiving, and the lesson from Hezekiah, what we see is that
Thanksgiving is really about focusing on God and thanking Him. We can see God's work as we
look up, look back and look forward. As we look, we switch the focus from OUR STUFF to THE
GOD WHO GAVE US THAT STUFF.
CLOSING STORY: (this is a good opportunity for you to insert a closing personal story
that illustrates how you were able to switch your focus from STUFF to the provider of the STUFF.
The following is a story I use.)
I'll never forget the best present I ever received from my grandpa. It actually wasn't
something I wanted... and I don't think I've really ever used it, come to think of it.
It was Grandpa's last Christmas with us. His health was slipping and we knew that his time with
us was short. There were times that Grandpa looked around the room and didn't know where he was.
His memory was failing and we often had to remind him who he was talking to.
Christmas morning arrived and each of us opened presents one at a time—that's our tradition. My
kids tore open packages with new toys, dolls and stuffed animals. My grandmothers carefully
opened their presents: new socks, lotions and Christmas candies. I was "Santa" that year. It
was my job to hand everyone their presents and organize who opened what and when. Every once
in a while I stopped being Santa for a moment to open a present for myself. A new sweatshirt
from Grandma. A new DVD from my brother.
Near the end of the morning almost all of the presents were gone. My Grandfather, in a moment
of clarity, instructed my Grandma to go get a present from the car. Grandma came back from the
car with an old hand saw with some ribbon tied onto it and small piece of paper scotch taped to
the handle. I took the saw from my grandma and saw that the small folded piece of paper had my
name on it—Jonathan—in Grandpa's handwriting. I opened the piece of paper and this is what is
This saw was mine for the last 30 years. It's a fine blade, I've built many things with
this saw, you've probably seen the results of this saw's work around the house.
I kept the note, and the saw is hanging proudly in my garage next to my other tools. I don't
think I've ever used it—I have a nice DeWALT Skill Saw. To be honest, I don't think I'll ever
have a use for it. But I'll never get rid of it. It was my favorite present that Christmas.
I've been on several jobs where others noticed this saw and admired it. I've been offered
money for it more than a few times but always refused.
The saw is still in good shape, but I am not. I had the blade sharpened and it's ready for
I wanted you to have it Jonathan.
Grandpa died later that year. He left a legacy of love and hard work. His saw represents both
those things to me.
To anyone else looking at it, it's just a dumb ol' handsaw. To me, it's a reminder of who
Grandpa was. That Christmas, my focus wasn't on the gift, it was on the provider of the gift.
My thanks wasn't for a saw, my thanks was to the provider of the saw.
And that's what our focus should be this Thanksgiving. We need to switch our focus from OUR
STUFF, to the GOD WHO GAVE US THAT STUFF.
GET THE BRAND NEW BOOK THAT PEOPLE ARE CALLING "JONATHAN'S BEST EVER WRITTEN"
click here for more | <urn:uuid:8b081b9f-d191-4dfc-8e40-9cf1c0ab676d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://thesource4ym.com/talks/Thanksgiving.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284405.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00034-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976456 | 4,859 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Do you know what it feels like to hold a grudge? I believe in not holding grudges. It can destroy families, friendships and can also destroy lives. Holding grudges and not letting them go can cause many mixed emotions like depression, sadness, and stress. Having grudges can make you upset about things.
My dad holds a grudge towards my uncle. They didn’t talk for a good eight years. My mom and my siblings have tried to help my dad get passed it. It was about their own restaurant and my uncle wouldn’t consider him as a worker, but he was. He wouldn’t get paid or anything .Going into the eighth year is when they finally started talking a bit. We were glad he had let it go a bit. My cousins and I had a hard time trying to hang out. We would be scared of what our fathers would say. We stayed together and I think that was a little help letting them get pass it.
It can destroy friendships. I had a friend that I held a grudge towards her. I didn’t talk to her for a year. She was one of my best friends to. That was because she backstab me. When I started getting over it she had moved. She left with us fighting. I regret not letting go from it. I’ve learned from it. That’s why I don’t hold an anymore. You live life better without any.
It can destroy lives too. I don’t know if it’s just me but getting along with my family is very important to me. I feel bad and sad when I don’t get along with my family. My dad is sometimes sad about it to. I can tell because he talks about family a lot. It’s sad to hear my dad talk about it. He tells us not to hold grudges. We want all of us to get along. I’m so glad that the fight is going away.
You see how holding grudges can affect you and what you do. That’s why for me, I let them go now. I don’t like holding them. I can forgive and forget now. I think everybody should forgive and forget. You live life so much better without holding grudges. Holding grudges can affect you and what you do. Holding grudges isn’t good this I believe. | <urn:uuid:51d8f717-0ffb-406d-9e8e-3556479bbcd7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://thisibelieve.org/essay/65616/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571692.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812105810-20220812135810-00069.warc.gz | en | 0.984918 | 510 | 1.679688 | 2 |
How do you economically produce huge parts with intricate geometry that has a tendency to warp but must withstand critical applications in a demanding environment? Here’s the answer.
Here are five important aspects of the design and manufacturing process that everyone should understand to properly and successfully implement metal additive manufacturing within your company.
Because metal additive manufacturing processes are complex and require extensive material and process knowledge, it can be difficult for a metal fabricator to see how or when 3D printing might fit. To help make sense of it all, let’s consider the basics of additive manufacturing and 3D printing and how it all relates to metal fabrication.
The durability and strength of metal, coupled with a nimble approach to product development and reduced lead times, are driving the widespread adoption of metal additive manufacturing for orthopedic care and prosthetics. Here is one example where 3D metal printing recently proved to be a truly lifesaving process.
A functionally integrated, bionically optimized vehicle structure offers new potential for lightweight construction and greater manufacturing flexibility of automobiles.
The Brazilian Senai Institute of Laser Innovation has ordered a $1.8 million SL-8600 hybrid laser/MIG system based on Cartesian machine tool motion for laser welding, additive manufacturing and more.
Further development of SLM Solutions into an AM solutions supplier is a strategic step for GE Aviation in becoming a digital industrial company.
This strategic alliance aims to develop the first integrated Simulation-Process-Machine system.
The TruPrint 1000 laser metal fusion system from TRUMPF is a perfect fit for job shops, medical or dental customers, or for R&D environments.
Additive manufacturing enables layer-by-layer processes to fabricate three-dimensional products. See the continued improvements in materials and processes that are producing more industrial additive solutions than ever.
The spindle-powered wireless 3D Print Head from Hurco enables shops with no solid modeling experience to transform their WinMax part programs into a 3D printed rapid prototype directly on their CNC machine. | <urn:uuid:e24e6d6f-2fa5-4c09-a558-52d1159af97d> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.fabricatingandmetalworking.com/zone/metal-forming-fabricating/additive-manufacturing-systems/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719453.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00229-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909085 | 408 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Richard Branson’s Virgin Oceanic sub is poised to be the first of this new fleet of commercial subs to start probing the depths—it should launch this year.
The deepest point in the ocean, the bottom of the Marianas Trench off the coast of Guam, is the scene of a new kind of space race: a deep-sea submarine race, undertaken by such private investors as director James Cameron, Virgin Group mogul Richard Branson, and Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt. Citing the excitement of exploration, all are involved in the construction of next-generation submersibles to plumb the trench and other deeps, taking advantage of price reductions in many components and the dearth of such innovation in the scientific community. Though designed to take the builders and other thrill-seekers to incredible depths, the ships are by and large not intended to be one-shot wonders, William J. Broad of the NYTimes reports:
“It’s not a publicity stunt,” [one builder] said of the planning effort. “We’re commercial vehicle builders. We want a product that can be used repeatedly without any difficulty — one that is very elegant, very safe and very competitive.”
After entertaining the entire planet with the movie Avatar, director James Cameron is now taking his expertise to space–specifically to Mars. He’s helping NASA build a 3D camera for its next rover, Curiosity.
The space agency announced that Cameron is working with Malin Space Science Systems Inc. of San Diego to develop the camera, which will be the rover’s “science-imaging workhorse.” The rover, which was previously known as the Mars Science Laboratory, is scheduled for launch in 2011.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory had recently scaled back plans to mount a 3D camera on the rover, as the project was consistently over-budget and behind schedule. But Cameron lobbied NASA administrator Charles Bolden for inclusion of the 3-D camera during a January meeting, saying a rover with a better set of eyes will help the public connect with the mission [Associated Press]. Cameron, whose 3D spectacle Avatar earned more than $2 billion at box offices worldwide, had developed a special 3D digital camera system for the film, and felt the space agency could benefit from his expertise. | <urn:uuid:0ea1d7fb-9873-43ae-8a3e-6ed8e734cc84> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/tag/james-cameron/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280763.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00519-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954886 | 479 | 2.265625 | 2 |
The Monty Hall Puzzler
Remember the age old game show, "Let's Make A Deal," with Monty Hall and Carol Merrill? Well, a couple of months ago, we posed a little puzzler inspired by said game show. The puzzler involved switching boxes and changing the odds of winning the big prize. And boy, did it cause an uproar!
We practically started World War III.
The puzzler itself was pretty straightforward. When we gave our answer-- that switching would increase your odds of winning big, all Hell broke loose. We got satchels full of mail--much of it on letterhead from prestigious universities, with inscriptions like, "The Josiah Wadsworth Endowed Professorship of Statistical Phenomenology, Department of Applied Mathematics, Somewhat Prestigious University." Many of the letters were vituperative... and some were even downright nasty. We got mail that told us we were wrong headed, mail that told us in exactly which wrong place our heads must be, and mail telling us where we could put our heads, provided they weren't there already.
Well, now we're here to prove that we're right. Why go through all this trouble? Because what could be more fun than proving a bunch of pompous academics wrong!!
Here's a refresher on how the game worked. Behind one of the boxes, was the Grand Prize. Behind the other two? Lame consolation gifts, like a year's supply of Rice-A-Roni (the San Francisco treat), or 144 boxes of Ring Dings. Your job? Pick the winner.
Once you've made your selection, Monty would reveal one of the other boxes to be what he called, a "zonk"-- that is, a dud. Now, there are two boxes: the one you picked, and the remaining unopened box.
We've now arrived at the crux:
Do your odds of winning improve if you switch to the other box? The answer, unequivocally, assuredly, beyond any doubt is.... No. Wait, we mean... YES. Yes, yes, yes! A thousand times, yes. Not only do your odds improve, but they go from 1-in-3...to 2-in-3. Case closed. | <urn:uuid:36838c12-decd-4965-8cfe-548674da9bd2> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.cartalk.com/content/monty-hall-puzzler-12?answer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719136.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00466-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956828 | 467 | 1.898438 | 2 |
During a short inspection tour around the exhibition halls in the museum, Minister of State for Antiquities Zahi Hawass announced that the seventy objects broken during the foiled looting attempt will be back to their original condition within five days, following comprehensive restoration.
Restoration was also carried out on a statue depicting the boy-king Tutankhamun on a panther. He pointed out that procedures are now being taken to re-open all the archaeological sites around Egypt.
Hawass told Ahram Online that reports being published in the media claiming that the Memphis, Saqqara and Abusir necropolis were plundered are untrue. These sites, he continued, like all archaeological sites in Egypt, are safe and have not been looted.
The tombs of Maia, and those belonging to the two brothers, Mereruka and Tiye, in Saqqara, which some newspapers claimed had their paintings damaged, proved inaccurate. These tombs are safe and sound.
He also asserted that the two mummies that were reported as damaged in the museum, were in fact unidentified late-period skulls and not royal mummies. They were temporarily stored inside the gallery, next to the CT scanner laboratory.
“When they were retrieved from the thieves on their way out of the museum, the skulls were in the same condition that they had been in storage,” Hawass confirmed. | <urn:uuid:a93f9c34-3411-488e-bdd8-b626cc6980cc> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/9/40/5092/Heritage/Ancient-Egypt/Egyptian-Museums-priceless-artifiacts-restored-.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00458-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.984586 | 284 | 1.71875 | 2 |
* The Extra Credit Teacher Home Purchase Program announced by Angelides early this year. This program is available to teachers who agree to serve in low-performing schools for five years. Teachers who are applying for assistance under Teacher Flex can also apply for this program if they meet the requirements, Smith said.
The $150-million Extra Credit program could provide 4,000 teachers a tax credit of 15% of their mortgage interest, worth up to $1,800 a year. Officials will start accepting applications for the program in the fall.
* The "Teacher Next Door" program introduced by the Department of Housing and Urban Development last year. The effort is based on HUD's popular "Officer Next Door" home loan program.
For teachers, HUD offers a 50% discount on homes that have been foreclosed on by the Federal Housing Administration in distressed neighborhoods. Teachers must promise to live in the homes for up to three years.
The government reduced the down payment requirement to $100 on these homes if they are purchased with FHA-insured mortgages. So far, about 120 homes are in escrow under the program in 14 states. About 34 of these homes are in California.
* The American Home Ownership and Economic Opportunity Act of 2000 being debated in Congress now. This housing reform package would allow public and private schoolteachers to qualify to buy homes with minimal down payments and deeply discounted property prices.
Under the bill, teachers would be able to obtain mortgages with 1% down for up to $219,849 through the Federal Housing Administration. Teachers would also be able to buy houses at 50% discounts off appraised market values and with $100 down payments.
To qualify, teachers would need to be employed full time in elementary or secondary school education and must not have owned a home in the local school district for the last year. The legislation is set for final action in the U.S. House of Representatives and could be heard by the Senate later this session.
For More Information * Teacher Flex: See http://homesforteachers.com or call Bank of America at (888) 815-2724 to apply over the phone or visit a Bank of America branch to apply in person.
* CalSTRS Home Loan: Visit http://www.strs.ca.gov/benefit/homeloan/homeloan.html or call CalSTRS at (800) 228-5453.
* Teacher Next Door: Visit http://www.hud.gov/tnd/tnd.html or call HUD at (800) 217-6970. | <urn:uuid:f8eb170f-b1d4-41c7-a6fb-b3c65c554d05> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://articles.latimes.com/2000/apr/09/realestate/re-17593/2 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00163-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9546 | 530 | 1.578125 | 2 |
TRANSSION Holdings (TECNO’S parent company) has received approval to launch of the standardization of terminal computing photography.
This is also the first time that TRANSSION’s effort in mobile device computing photography was recognized by international top experts.
Computational photography is the key smartphone image development trend. With this remarkable milestone of ITU-T achieved by TRANSSION Holdings.
TECNO is in a great position to be the pioneers in this field by establishing the research framework and further its R&D investment for its continued development in camera leadership to distinguish itself from the market.
Mobile photography, unlike traditional single-lens reflex photography, is often limited by hardware size and imaging module technology. Therefore, computational photography systems that focus on software and hardware collaboration and image processing algorithms play a critical role for mobile phones to improve photography quality and enrich image functions.
The mobile device computing photography system is able to reconstruct the scenery, lighting, and the subject of the photo by utilization imaging control, image calculation and processing, combined with artificial intelligence and mobile internet technology. The system can also create a new image application system pushing past the limits of mobile phone photography and improving photo effects and user experience.
With this milestone, it’s easy to expect TECNO placing an emphasis on the photography effects in its pioneer camera phone CAMON series, ensuring every new generation of the CAMON series receives a significant boost to the imaging technology.
TECNO keeps innovating and takes the research and application of computational photography to the next level. TAIVOS technology in the TECNO Camon series is built on the approved computational photography standards TRANSSION submitted to ITU-T, TAIVOSTM.
The technology enables up to 15-frame synth with an imaging time of just 4.68 seconds while most other smartphones only achieve this in 5.5 seconds or even 7 seconds. That means that the photographs shot with TAIVOS are built from a composite of 15 image frames that can be analyzed and recombined pixel-for-pixel, vividly capturing each element in your scenes with optimal contrast.
The newest CAMON 16 will come with professional and perfect portrait mode for consumers thanks to the TAIVOS technology. It packs a dedicated microprocessor that works together with AI algorithms to do one job: significantly enhance night-time photography: optimizing processes and renderings by making images clearer, enhancing night shots, and overall improvement through high-performance imaging algorithm capabilities.
TECNO is also developing multiple AI vision algorithms on TAIVOSTM to better optimize their photo and video output quality. | <urn:uuid:6b266349-fd98-4a12-8edf-f261b053f441> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://techmoran.com/2020/08/27/transsion-gets-approval-to-launch-terminal-computing-photography/?noamp=available | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570871.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808183040-20220808213040-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.929006 | 534 | 1.5625 | 2 |
An Alpha Site is an offworld base operated by the Tau'ri, generally, as per its designation, the primary such.
The Alpha Site was originally established to serve two main purposes:
- Contingency base: in the case of an overwhelming Goa'uld attack on Earth (a very real possibility during the Stargate Program's first years in operation), the heads of Earth's governments and other key personnel would be evacuated to this off-world base, where they could organize a resistance or, in the worst case, preserve a remnant of the human race
- Quarantine: if SG teams want to bring artifacts or other samples back to Earth or if a teammember acquires some pathogen off-world, these can be quarantined at the Alpha Site without risk of exposing Earth to unknown technology or biota
As the Tau'ri presence in the galaxy and their engagement in the fight against the Goa'uld increased, Alpha Sites were also used to train and coordinate allied forces such as Free Jaffa and the Tok'ra, stockpile materiel, and develop prototype technologies.
|This is a disambiguation page; that is, one that points to other pages that might otherwise have the same name. If you followed a link here, you might want to go back and fix that link to point to the appropriate specific page.| | <urn:uuid:9c11bf9c-09c9-4da2-bb76-358cb7ff73c5> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://stargate.wikia.com/wiki/Alpha_Site | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281574.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00022-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941783 | 278 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Shark seen cruising Dunedin's Andersons Bay
A small shark has been spotted swimming around Dunedin harbour.
Jeff Ormandy captured the shark on camera on Wednesday morning.
The fish, which is understood to be a blue shark, was cruising around the Andersons Bay Inlet.
Ormandy said he captured the footage on his way to work at the University of Otago when he spotted the fin.
* Fishing friends encounter great white shark near Frenchman Island, Whangarei Heads
* Five sharks spotted off Peka Peka and Waikanae Beach
* Large shark washes up at Kapiti's Te Horo Beach
* Shark spotted in waters of Pilot Bay, Mount Maunganui
* Fact: Sharks pretty much only bite men. Here's why:
"It was just cruising along the shoreline."
Ormandy said it was a "pretty unique" experience.
He had lived in the area for about four years, and in the Otago region his whole life, and this was the first time he had seen a shark in the small inlet.
However, it was not unusual to see sharks further out in the harbour, along with octopuses and kahawai.
Others had since spotted the shark, which was still in the inlet on Wednesday afternoon.
This isn't the first time a shark has been spotted near people this summer.
Earlier this week a group of friends gathering fishing bait in Whangarei had a rare, hands-on encounter with a great white shark - in a spot where one of them normally went diving.
Hamish Clarke captured a video of the shark approaching the boat near Frenchman Island in Whangarei Heads while the group was out catching bait for an upcoming fishing competition.
And earlier in February, five large sharks were spotted off the Kapiti Coast.
Just days before a shark was spotted at Mount Manganui's Pilot Bay.
A witness said the shark was about 2 metres long and just swimming around the area. | <urn:uuid:0964da04-02e6-47b4-ab7d-174c1f0d8298> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/77230390/Shark-seen-cruising-Dunedins-Andersons-Bay | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720000.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00024-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977692 | 419 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Tip the trash collector? Etiquette experts say, ‘Yes’
For those who think they are done holiday gift shopping, or at least done planning their holiday gift lists, think again.
According to etiquette experts, some Americans forget to give holiday gifts or tip those who are part of their regular lives, be it their child’s teacher, the trash collector, a baby sitter or dog groomer.
But before you curse the etiquette experts for suggesting you spend more money in what may be a tight budget year, please, hear them out.
The holidays are an important time to acknowledge those who may never be thanked and you don’t have to break the bank to give them gifts, experts agreed.
“Sometimes, a heartfelt handwritten note will be worth more than all the money you could spend on a gift card,” said Leah Ingram, one of those etiquette experts.
Ingram, author of 12 books including “The Everything Etiquette Book,” has had articles published in Parade and InStyle magazines and has been interviewed on CNN and by The Wall Street Journal and New York Times.
Ingram thinks service providers regularly involved in your life deserve to be acknowledged during the holidays.
For example, a child’s teacher deserves some sort of present such as a gift card or a note, Ingram said.
Again, showing appreciation doesn’t have to be elaborate.
“You don’t want to go out and get a teacher’s gift and feel buyer’s remorse. It’s supposed to be a good feeling. If you know you can’t spend what you wish you could, that’s where the handwritten note comes in,” Ingram said.
Jeff Kirtland, spokesman for School District 51, said the school district has a policy against the frequent giving of gifts by one child to a teacher. It also frowns on giving expensive or elaborate gifts to district personnel.
However, children giving small gifts to teachers during the holidays isn’t out of the ordinary, Kirtland said. It is wise for parents to check with a school district regarding a gift-giving policy.
But etiquette experts such as Ingram don’t think people should stop with teachers.
“What I sort of think the rule is, the service providers you deal with on a regular basis, it’s probably nice to recognize them on the holidays,” Ingram said.
Hairstylists, postal carriers and trash collectors are examples of professionals involved in people’s lives on a regular basis who deserve something extra during the holidays.
Some of those individuals may be municipal employees and, as is the case with school districts, municipalities may have policies about gift giving.
The city of Grand Junction doesn’t allow employees to accept gifts. A note to an individual trash collector or to a group of city employees would be acceptable, said Kristin Winn, spokeswoman for the city.
She doubted city employees often received any holiday “thank you’s” for their work.
How people choose to recognize baby sitters, dog walkers, delivery people, hairstylists and others is an individual decision, Ingram said.
For some people, it’s giving an extra monetary tip.
For other people, it’s something specific, such as purchasing a manicure for a daycare provider up to his or her knees in dirty diapers.
Giving and receiving holiday gifts should leave smiles on people’s faces, according to “The Etiquette of Holiday Tipping” by Dr. Jodi Stoner, a clinical psychotherapist, and Lori Weiner, a life coach.
“Remember, do only what you can afford,” the women wrote. | <urn:uuid:b689c44c-2602-4952-9e73-948702447084> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/articles/tip_the_trash_collector_etique | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280891.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00163-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952357 | 785 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Querol N., Jurjo T. Cirici R., Ripoll A., Cuquerella A., Ascione F., Arkow P., Pintor M., Gaba S., Otazu E. “Why should medical doctors care about animal abuse?” WONCA 2012 c/o Vienna Medical Academy. Julio 2012. http://www.woncaeurope.org/content/p1029-why-should-medical-doctors-care-about-animal-abuse
N. Querol1,2,3, T. Jurjo1, R. Cirici1, A. Ripoll1, A. Cuquerella4, F. Ascione5,2, P. Arkow6,2, M. Pintor7, S. Gaba8, E. Otazu1; 1Hospital Universitari Mutua Terrassa, St Cugat, Spain, 2The National Link Coalition, Stratford, NJ, United States, 3American Society of Criminology, Division on Critical Criminology- International Green Criminology Work Group, Columbus, OH, United States, 4Institut Medicina Legal, Barcelona, Spain, 5American Humane Endowed Chair Executive Director, Institute for Human-Animal Connection, Denver, CO, United States, 6Chair of Latham Foundation's international Child and Animal Abuse Prevention Project, Philadelphia, PA, United States, 7School of Criminology, Universiy of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, 8Hospital Universitari Mutua Terrassa, Terrassa, Spain.
Over the past 25 years, researchers and professionals in a variety of human services and animal welfare disciplines have established significant correlations between animal abuse, child abuse and neglect, domestic violence, elder abuse and other forms of violence. We will discuss the first studies in Spain about interpersonal violence and cruelty to animals and the legal, medical and social implications. In a sample of inmates we have observed conduct disorder and important lack of empathy, especially in the individuals with a high rate of violence in their felonies including animal abuse. Mc. Donald’s and Pincus’ triads may be useful to evaluate the dangerousness or can be an important indicator for risk assessment. Regarding violence to animals within the context of domestic violence, previous studies reveal that 71% of pet-owning women entering women’s shelters reported that their batterer had injured, maimed, killed or threatened family pets for revenge or to psychologically control victims; 32% reported their children had hurt or killed animals. 68% of battered women reported violence towards their animals. 87% of these incidents occurred in the presence of the women, and 75% in the presence of the children, to psychologically control and coerce them. Mistreating animals is a warning sign that others in the household may not be safe. The Commission against Family and Gender Violence of the Primary Care Centers of Sant Cugat and Valldoreix is developing a Multidisciplinary Program to Attend Women victims of domestic violence and their companion animals. We have established collaboration with SPCAs Fundacion Altarriba and Cau Amic to provide shelter for their companion animals in case it is needed. The results during the first year of evaluation, shows commonalities with other studies. | <urn:uuid:fed69a83-ac8b-45f3-b06a-e0a451a394cd> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.gevha.com/analisis/articulos/violencia-general/1394-why-should-medical-doctors-care-about-animal-abuse | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280364.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00036-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.890513 | 679 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Too many Ohioans die from pollution from coal burning power plants
Ohio produces more air pollution than any state in the country, largely due to
the fact that 82% of our electricity comes from coal burning power plants. Pollution released from coal plants comes from harmful gases, metals, and fine soot.
New EPA rules protect public health
The U.S. EPA is proposing a series of standards for air and water pollution that would protect public health. These rules would prevent releases of mercury, acid gases, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, and ozone, and would protect lakes and streams from superheated water coming out of power plants. The U.S. EPA estimates that the rules would prevent up to 36,000 deaths a year. The rules could reduce health care costs by $120 billion every year, which translates to $42 in savings for every dollar invested by power companies.
Urge Senator Brown to support U.S. EPA rules that will protect our health from polluting coal plants. Please be sure to include your return address. Letters are best when written in your own words. Here are a few points to get started:
- Rules proposed by the U.S. EPA are good for our health and good for the economy.
- We don’t believe the utility industry’s scare tactics and neither should you.
- Coal pollution hurts my family’s health in these ways_________
- The new rules would protect Americans from mercury, acid gases, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, ozone, and superheated water releases. We cannot afford to continue to let power companies profit from our health problems.
Mail your letter to: | <urn:uuid:719bac6e-89fa-45d6-9014-898d5a6ef8b4> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://ohiocitizen.org/please-write-u-s-senator-sherrod-brown/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00492-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952574 | 341 | 3.171875 | 3 |
People from all religious, political and social persuasions believe that societies need family values. But what are family values? They are defined as the moral and ethical principles traditionally upheld and transmitted within a family, as honesty, loyalty, industry, and faith, but the fact of the matter is that "Family values" has become a cliché; so general that it is meaningless. With time comes change, and through the centuries, family values has shifted from “Leave it to Beaver” and “Little House on the Prairie” to “Reba” and “Rosanne”.
Barbara Kingsolver displayed the traditional family through the “Family of Dolls” she possessed as a child. They consisted of a nuclear family, “Dad, Mom, Sis, and Junior” (327). The traditional working father, cooking mother, and smiling children are the postcard of the traditional American household. There were no prior marriages, no children from prior relationships, no threat or even thought of divorce. The children would show a great amount of respect toward their parents and would help with all of the chores around the house. There were no infidelities, no drinking problems, and no drugs. Nita Casagrande, my great-grandmother, said that her “father worked while (her) mother stayed home and took care of the children. It was the way things were, and any other way of living was frowned upon.” Those traditional values that are so adorned refer to that brief flicker of time when the white middle class were kings.
With the start of a War, America’s family traditions began to shift. Richard Rodriguez points out that “Mom (was) forced to leave home out of economic necessity” (346). Simultaneously, social changes and emancipation were underway. Gays and Lesbians began protesting for their rights, and women began the feminist movement (346). Sexuality became open, and issues such as birth control and abortion became relevant. Since the Colonial era, the only thing constant about families is change.
It is no longer unusual... | <urn:uuid:62f5ce3b-80db-40b8-9fec-13dbed6596e2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.brainia.com/essays/Farytales/44052.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00493-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978521 | 436 | 3.53125 | 4 |
The beauty of pressing flowers
JamJar Flowers is Melissa Richardson and Amy Ireland's pressed flower company which creates pressed flowers that are not only beautiful works of art, but a wonderful way of preserving a favourite plant, a bouquet or even an entire garden. Words Natasha Goodfellow photographs Andrew Montgomery
Melissa Richardson picks up a fallen cosmos bud in her south London garden, and pops it into a vase to prolong its life. Her love of flowers and their preservation is what led her, after 27 years of running a model agency, to start JamJar Flowers in 2009. “People were always sending flowers for the models and, since we didn’t have enough vases, they’d all sit about dying,” says Melissa. “That depressed me.” Her idea – to deliver seasonal bouquets in vases or jam jars (‘because that’s what we put our pickings in when we were kids”) – caught on and business flourished until, in 2014, a commission from Mulberry for a show invitation using pressed flowers sparked a new direction.
“We said yes immediately, even though neither of us had ever pressed flowers professionally before,” says Amy Ireland who had by then joined Melissa. Two frantic weeks followed as they researched the process and began pressing. “We learnt the hard way,” says Amy. “We’d been using ammi, which was pressing beautifully and then all of a sudden, supplies dried up and we had to try dill instead, which was a disaster.” Luckily, more ammi was found, Mulberry was happy – and Melissa and Amy were hooked.
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When, in 2017, they were asked to produce an installation for a three-month long exhibition, pressed flowers were the obvious choice. “We’re such a small team and couldn’t have gone in and topped up fresh flowers every day,” says Amy. “We wanted to do something that would last.” They produced a roll of wallpaper using pressed flowers and a bespoke panel of mounted, framed pressings. It generated both huge amounts of interest and is one of Melissa and Amy’s all-time favourite commissions: a request to create another bespoke panel – a floral record of the land and woodland around an extraordinary house on Dartmoor. “That was the first time we’d taken the presses to site,” says Melissa.“We pressed straight out of the ground, picking wild strawberry plants and ferns the owner took us to.” Others have been similarly inspired, asking for pressings of blooms they had in their wedding bouquets or for portraits of favourite plants. “It’s such a lovely idea to preserve the look and feel of a garden,” says Amy.
The pair now take their presses with them wherever they go, building up an archive of blooms for their work. Picked, dry blooms are placed in the press, sandwiched between blotting paper to draw out their moisture. “You can manipulate the flowers to get the shape you want,” says Amy, nudging a sweet pea flowerhead to accentuate the natural curl of the stem and pinching off an obfuscating tendril. Flowers positioned, a layer of non-absorbent card is placed on top and the process repeated until the press is full. Then it is screwed tight, dated, and left for four to six weeks (checking after two weeks and then every week or so) until the paper and the flowers are perfectly dry.
“The more delicate the flower, the better,” says Melissa. Roses, peonies, daffodils are best avoided, as are white flowers, which are the first to turn brown. Once pressed, the flowers are then mounted on card using tweezers to carefully peel away the paper and a little glue applied to the sturdier elements – the stem, leaves and buds. Opening the presses is the most exciting part of the process. “It’s always a surprise,” says Melissa, unveiling her latest pressing. “You never know what’s going to work. Look at this poppy. The petals shouldn’t really be folded like that but look at it.”
How to press flowers
The less moisture the better
Leaving space around the flower helps the paper to draw out moisture.
Press for weeks
They should be left inside the press for four to six weeks until the paper and the flowers are perfectly dry.
Pick the right blooms
Delicate flowers, such as fennel, cosmos, poppies, geums and everlasting sweet peas, “which press like a dream”, are ideal.
Flowers for pressing should be as fresh as possible and dry (not dewy).
Find out more about JamJar’s pressed flowers at jamjaredit.co.uk
Summer sale! 3 issues for £5
Try 3 issues of Gardens Illustrated today for just £5.
Subscribe today and enjoy beautiful places, top planting ideas and expert advice for your garden.
*Offer ends 1st September 2022. This offer is only available to UK residents paying by Direct Debit.
Container Gardening Special Edition
The Gardens Illustrated Guide to Container Gardening.
In this special edition, discover colourful flower combinations and seasonal planting schemes for pots designed by leading plantspeople, and essential know-how for container gardening success.
Just £9.99 inc UK p&p | <urn:uuid:2b00f8ab-30b2-4777-8f97-e1e64d0e0aee> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.gardensillustrated.com/feature/pressing-flowers-how-to-jamjar/?image=2&type=gallery&gallery=1&embedded_slideshow=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572033.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814113403-20220814143403-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.958342 | 1,164 | 1.601563 | 2 |
At This Creepy Libertarian Charter School, Kids Must Swear ‘to Be Obedient to Those in Authority’
By Marian Wang, ProPublica
In late February, the North Carolina chapter of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation—a group co-founded by the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers—embarked on what it billed as a statewide tour of charter schools, a cornerstone of the group’s education agenda. The first—and it turns out, only—stop was Douglass Academy, a new charter school in downtown Wilmington.
Douglass Academy was an unusual choice. A few weeks before, the school had been warned by the state about low enrollment. It had just 35 students, roughly half the state’s minimum. And a month earlier, a local newspaper had reported that federal regulators were investigating the school’s operations.
But the school has other attributes that may have appealed to the Koch group. The school’s founder, a politically active North Carolina businessman named Baker Mitchell, shares the Koch’s free-market ideals. His model for success embraces decreased government regulation, increased privatization, and, if all goes well, healthy corporate profits.
In that regard, Mitchell, 74, appears to be thriving. Every year, millions of public education dollars flow through Mitchell’s chain of four nonprofit charter schools to for-profit companies he controls.
The schools buy or lease nearly everything from companies owned by Mitchell. Their desks. Their computers. The training they provide to teachers. Most of the land and buildings. Unlike with traditional school districts, at Mitchell’s charter schools there’s no competitive bidding. No evidence of haggling over rent or contracts.
The schools have all hired the same for-profit management company to run their day-to-day operations. The company, Roger Bacon Academy, is owned by Mitchell. It functions as the schools’ administrative arm, taking the lead in hiring and firing school staff. It handles most of the bookkeeping. The treasurer of the nonprofit that controls the four schools is also the chief financial officer of Mitchell’s management company. The two organizations even share a bank account.
Mitchell’s management company was chosen by the schools’ nonprofit board, which Mitchell was on at the time—an arrangement that is illegal in many other states.
Charters are privately run but government-funded schools that are supposed to be open to all. Policymakers and many parents have embraced charters as an alternative to poorly performing and underfunded traditional public schools. As charters have grown in popularity, an industry of management companies like Mitchell’s has sprung up to assist them.
Many of these companies are becoming political players in their states, working to shape the still-emerging set of rules charters must play by. A few, including Mitchell’s company, have aligned themselves with influential conservative groups, such as Americans for Prosperity and the Koch-supported American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.
This new reality—in which businesses can run chains of public schools—has spurred questions about the role of profit in public education and whether more safeguards are needed to prevent corruption. The U.S. Department of Education has declared the relationships between charter schools and their management companies, both for-profit and nonprofit, a “current and emerging risk” for misuse of federal dollars. It is conducting a wide-ranging look at such relationships. In the last year alone, the FBI sent out subpoenas as part of an investigation into a Connecticut-based charter-management company and raided schools that are part of a New Mexico chain and a large network of charter schools spanning Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.
Two of Mitchell’s former employees told ProPublica they have been interviewed by federal investigators. Mitchell says he does not know if his schools are part of any inquiry and has not been contacted by any investigators.
To Mitchell, his schools are simply an example of the triumph of the free market. “People here think it’s unholy if you make a profit” from schools, he said in July, while attending a country-club luncheon to celebrate the legacy of free-market sage Milton Friedman.
It’s impossible to know how much Mitchell is taking home in profits from his companies. He’s fought to keep most of the financial details secret. Still, audited financial statements show that over six years, companies owned by Mitchell took in close to $20 million in revenue from his first two schools. Those records go through the middle of 2013. Mitchell has since opened two more schools.
Many in the charter-school industry say that charter schools are more accountable than traditional public schools because, as Mitchell is fond of saying, “parents can shut us down overnight. They stop bringing their kids here? We don’t get any money.”
Moreover, Mitchell said, students at his two more established schools have produced higher test scores at lower costs than those in traditional public schools: “Maybe Baker Mitchell gets a huge profit. Maybe he doesn’t get any profit. Who cares?”
But many charter supporters question that perspective. The National Association of Charter School Authorizers, a group that promotes best practices for overseeing charter schools, says schools should be independent from their contractors. Mitchell’s dual roles as both a charter-school board member and a vendor, for instance, were a blatant violation of those standards.
“This kind of conflict of interest is what I would consider shocking,” said Parker Baxter, a program director for the group.
“This isn’t as if one of the board members happens to own a chalk company where they buy chalk from, and he recused himself from buying chalk,” he said. “This is the entire management and operation of the school.”
Mitchell was pushed by North Carolina regulators to step down from his schools’ board last fall, a move he derides as unnecessary. “It’s so silly,” he told ProPublica. “Undue influence, blah blah blah.”
But concerns about his influence continued even after he stepped down. One board member resigned in frustration over the role of Mitchell’s company. Two others also quit around the same time. Mitchell still serves as secretary for the board, taking notes and doing the meeting minutes. Asked about frustrations among board members over his involvement, Mitchell said, “Everybody’s free to their own opinion.”
When charter schools were first established in the early 1990s, supporters sought flexibility and freedom from the bureaucratic rules they believed hamstrung traditional schools. Charter schools have leeway over their calendar, curriculum, and who they hire and fire. In most states, they do not have to follow many of the processes meant to prevent corruption and misspending of public dollars, such as putting contracts out for competitive bidding.
Mitchell moved to North Carolina in 1997, a year after the state passed a law allowing charter schools. He said he dreamed of starting a school after selling his computer business in Houston in 1989. He had planned on a private school, but when he moved to North Carolina and read about charters, he said he figured that was his chance. He applied to open his first school in 1999, laying out his plans to teach what his company website describes as a “classical curriculum espousing the values of traditional Western civilization.” He opened Charter Day School the following year.
Settled into the southeastern part of the state, Mitchell quickly connected with the state’s big political players, including conservative kingmaker Art Pope. By 2002, he was sitting alongside Pope on the board of the John Locke Foundation. The foundation is part of the State Policy Network, a Koch-supported group of think tanks whose agenda includes steering public funds away from traditional schools and toward charters, vouchers, and tax credits for homeschoolers.
From the beginning, concerns about excessive profits and Mitchell’s conflicts of interest dogged the new school. In 2001, the Internal Revenue Service rejected the group’s application for tax-exempt status, noting Mitchell’s dual roles as both a board member and head of a company doing business with the board. The IRS also noted the bank account shared by the schools’ nonprofit and Mitchell’s for-profit company, and that the school was leasing space from another company owned by Mitchell.
“Mr. Mitchell thus controls both your management company and your lessor,” the IRS wrote in a denial letter. “He has dual loyalties to you and his private, for-profit companies. This is a clear conflict of interest for him.”
The school’s board—with Mitchell as a member—protested. It went back and forth with the IRS and eventually made some concessions. For example, it set a limit on the management company’s fees and required board members to recuse themselves from votes in which they had financial interests. It also sent along a letter from an independent real-estate professional who evaluated the school’s lease and offered assurances that it was at market rate. (The real-estate professional, as it happens, worked at the same firm as the board chairwoman’s husband.)
Many of the things flagged by the IRS were left unchanged. Mitchell and an employee of his remained on the board. The joint bank account and the leasing arrangement also stayed the same. But having reached something of a compromise, the IRS approved the school as a tax-exempt nonprofit in March 2002.
Mitchell’s second school, Columbus Charter School, opened in 2007, in rural Columbus County. That school and Mitchell’s first, Charter Day School, have won recognition several years in a row for their performance on state tests.
But comparing the performance of these two schools to their traditional-school counterparts is complicated by the fact that they have comparatively low percentages of needy students, who tend to score lower on standardized tests. For instance, 37 percent of test-takers at Columbus Charter School earlier this year were “economically disadvantaged,” compared to the county’s 74 percent. The two schools do not provide busing or participate in the federal free- and reduced-price lunch program—services that are considered key to ensuring broad access.
Mitchell says his third school, Douglass Academy—whose diversity was celebrated by a visit from the Koch group—is the only one that provides transportation and food for students. Its target population is children in several Wilmington housing projects. Students at the school, which opened in 2013, haven’t yet taken state tests so there’s no data to show how they’re faring.
Mitchell’s schools are also distinguished from public schools by their different tone. Staff and students pledge to avoid errors that arise from “the comfort of popular opinion and custom,” “compromise,” and “over-reliance on rational argument.” Students must vow “to be obedient and loyal to those in authority, in my family, in my school, and in my community and country, so long as I shall live.”
The schools also use a rigid instructional approach in which teachers stick to a script and drill students repeatedly through call and response. Latin is taught as early as elementary school.
Mitchell’s company has managed the schools’ staffs with similar rigor. A strong sense of hierarchy took root as the schools expanded. When a new corporate office was built to house the management company, teachers jokingly began calling it the “White House.”
From the “White House,” Mitchell and other top administrators could watch teachers in their classrooms via surveillance cameras installed in every classroom, in every school. During a tour of school grounds with this reporter, Mitchell and the school’s IT director discussed surveillance software called iSpy. “We need to call it something else,” Mitchell offered with a chuckle. “Call it iHelp or something.” Mitchell said the cameras give administrators the ability to observe teachers in action and offer them tips and coaching.
As Mitchell was looking to expand his enterprise in the mid-2000s, he ran into a roadblock. North Carolina, like many states, had been cautious when it first allowed charter schools and had placed a cap on their growth.
By the time Mitchell applied in 2007 to open a charter school in Duplin County, the state was nearing that cap—and his plans fell through when the State Board of Education, deciding among three charter applicants, chose the other two schools to fill the spots remaining that year.
Mitchell wanted to get rid of the cap. Restrictions were being lifted or eliminated in many states, thanks to lobbying from the charter sector and to federal incentives set up by the Obama administration, which awarded states money based in part on their openness to charter schools. Mitchell and others favoring charters pushed for North Carolina lawmakers to follow suit.
In 2011, they got what he wanted.
Republicans took control of the state legislature and swiftly eliminated the cap on charter schools. Mitchell was also given a coveted position on the state’s new Charter School Advisory Council, an influential committee tasked with reviewing charter applications and making recommendations to the State Board of Education.
It was a turning point for Mitchell. Over the next two years, he got the go-ahead to open two more schools. With both, he appeared to benefit from unusual exceptions or political intervention.
One of them was Douglass Academy, Mitchell’s school for needier students in downtown Wilmington. Under state law, charter schools must have at least 65 students enrolled, but Douglass Academy was well below that. Mitchell’s colleagues on the advisory council gave him a temporary waiver that allowed the school to avoid closure while it tried to boost enrollment.
“I would say it was unusual,” Joel Medley, head of the state’s Office of Charter Schools, said of the temporary waiver. According to Medley, the only other charter schools in the state that received such waivers got them on a permanent basis because of geographic isolation or because they had set out to serve special student populations deemed ill-suited to large-school settings. Neither condition was true of Douglass Academy, whose leadership blamed the enrollment troubles on difficulties securing a facility. The school has since cleared the state’s minimum, though enrollment is still far below the school’s own projections.
Mitchell’s fourth school, South Brunswick Charter School, also lucked out. In 2013, the school’s application failed an initial screening and was put in a stack of applications excluded from further consideration. But then the president of the state Senate, Sen. Phil Berger—the same Republican lawmaker who appointed Mitchell to the Charter School Advisory Council—intervened on behalf of frustrated applicants. The whole stack was re-evaluated—a “one-time decision,” said a memo from the advisory council, due to “extraneous circumstances.” Berger did not respond to a request for comment.
Even upon re-evaluation, a subcommittee of the council voiced unease about aspects of South Brunswick’s application, including “concern that two of seven board members are active employees” of its management company.
But Mitchell’s fourth school was nevertheless approved, with the stipulation that members of the management company, including Mitchell, step down from the board. South Brunswick Charter School opened its doors this summer at a temporary site. A permanent spot is in the works—on land purchased by another one of Mitchell’s for-profit companies with plans to lease it back to the school.
Mitchell’s influence has also reverberated beyond his four schools.
In 2013, the state legislature passed a sweeping charter school bill pushed by Mitchell that loosened oversight and regulation. The law relaxed requirements on how many of each charter school’s teachers had to be certified, giving schools more flexibility and potential savings on labor costs. It also included a perk—a tax exemption—for landlords who, like Mitchell, rent property to charter schools.
Parts of the bill echo legislation pushed forward in other states. ALEC, for example, has promoted legislation across the country to make it easier for non-teachers to start teaching, sidestepping what it sees as cumbersome licensing requirements. Parts of the North Carolina bill have the same wording as ALEC model legislation.
Mitchell was intimately involved in seeing the bill through as chair of a pro-charter lobbying group, the NC Alliance for Public Charter Schools. Asked about the tax break and whether he had pushed for provisions that would directly benefit him, Mitchell told ProPublica, “There was another group that pushed that through. I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
But a lobbyist for Mitchell’s group, Debbie Clary, said, “It was our bill. I was the only lobbyist working on it.” Clary added: “The person most engaged was Baker [Mitchell].”
Mitchell’s group also posted a note on Facebook after the bill was signed, calling the new law the culmination of two years of work by the Alliance. “The Alliance was able to gain an exemption from county or city property tax, no matter who owns the property, if it is used exclusively for a Charter School,” the note read.
Mitchell has close ties with Sen. Jerry Tillman, the lawmaker who sponsored the bill. “We’re good friends,” Mitchell said. “We talk.” Records show that Mitchell wrote Tillman’s campaign a $4,000 check a month after the bill was signed—the maximum that state law at the time allowed an individual to give directly to a candidate each year. Tillman did not respond to requests for comment.
Mitchell and the Alliance didn’t get everything they wanted.
Over the years Mitchell had pressed lawmakers to move charter schools largely out from under the authority of the State Board of Education. Mitchell said he views the state board as a force restricting the free market through overregulation and protecting “the monopoly of the government-run schools.”
Parents at Mitchell’s schools were urged to press their elected officials to remove charter schools from the purview of the State Board of Education: “Your legislators need to hear from you and know of your support for an independent Office of Charter Schools,” said a school newsletter. “Let them know you do not want the State Board of Education controlling charter schools.”
The 2013 bill introduced by Tillman spelled out much of what Mitchell wanted. It proposed the formation of a Charter School Advisory Board that would make all the major decisions about approving new schools and renewing or revoking existing charters without having to answer to the State Board of Education.
But the state’s other main pro-charter group deemed the proposal too extreme and came out strongly against it. An amended bill eventually passed that created a new board without all the power Mitchell and the Alliance had sought. And while Mitchell was appointed to the board, he resigned earlier this year while under pressure over conflicts of interest. He told ProPublica he stepped down because it became a lot of work.
Mitchell has also expressed frustration with a state law passed this summer that requires charter schools to comply with public records laws. Still, the new law does not apply to charter management companies such as Mitchell’s.
The board of Mitchell’s charter schools has repeatedly tangled with local news outlets that have made public records requests seeking salaries and other financial details from the schools. Last month the StarNews of Wilmington filed a lawsuit against the schools’ nonprofit board, alleging that it has violated the state public records law. (The board chair for Charter Day School, Inc., John Ferrante, did not respond to requests for comment.)
Mitchell himself has taken a hard line against disclosures of financial information concerning his for-profit companies. For private corporations, he wrote on his blog in July, “the need for transparency is superfluous” and is simply a mechanism for the media to “intrude and spin their agenda.”
In North Carolina and many other states, the battle over charters is no longer about whether to have them. Instead, it’s largely between those who believe in regulating them and creating mechanisms for public accountability and those, like Mitchell, who believe that’s the job of the free market.
“That’s the fight in North Carolina,” said Damon Circosta, executive director of the A.J. Fletcher Foundation, which sees charter schools as a way to improve public education. “That free-market ideology has taken hold with this newer legislature.”
Large national for-profit charter management companies have joined regional powers like Mitchell to lead the charge. They’ve found allies in local lawmakers. Tillman, the co-chair of North Carolina’s Senate education committee, for instance, recently berated state regulators because he was upset more schools were not being approved.
North Carolina is at a crossroads when it comes to charters, said Eric Guckian, the top education adviser to Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican.
Two kinds of people get in the charter-school business, said Guckian: “Group one, they’re looking for entrepreneurial opportunities. Group two, they’re looking to run high-quality schools. My bias is toward the latter. That’s not to say I have anything against entrepreneurship, but I don’t think that’s a reason for getting into the education space.”
Gov. McCrory has tried to step in where the legislature has not. At his urging, the State Board of Education has gone beyond what the law requires and is requiring schools to submit salary information for employees of charter-management companies—numbers that Mitchell believes should be private.
“There’s no statutory basis for it,” Mitchell said of the new requirements. His schools’ board submitted basic budget documents in response to the agency’s order, but it withheld information on management-company finances, stating that the board “does not possess individual salaries paid by any private corporation that furnishes services.” Asked what he’ll do if the agency objects, Mitchell said, “We’ll see what they say and deal with it when it comes.”
He views these new requirements as a sign that North Carolina is moving in the wrong direction, toward an overregulation of charter schools. “I see the banks of the river narrowing,” he said. “In a few more years, there will just be a very narrow channel to navigate in. A lot of the freedoms will be regulated out.” | <urn:uuid:340e8d8b-5839-45d6-96c2-f66fa71fcb10> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/15/at-this-creepy-libertarian-charter-school-kids-must-swear-to-be-obedient-to-those-in-authority.html | 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 | 0.974771 | 4,759 | 1.796875 | 2 |
My friend Jon Lebkowsky put together a really excellent group for our panel at SXSW. The panel focused on the challenges of blogging in countries where there’s no reasonable expectation of freedom of speech. On stage, we had Shava Nerad from Tor, Rob Faris from the Open Net Initiative, Shahed Amanullah of altmuslim.com, and Jasmina Tešanović, a Serbian journalist and blogger – a great range of speakers from experts on technical constraints on speech to people who’ve written and spoken from very difficult countries.
Rob Faris opens by suggesting that the cyberutopian fantasies of the Internet as an open, special place beyond national boundaries, is being dismissed as a fantasy. At least two dozen countries are filtering in the Internet and there are others ONI is watching closely – there’s a concentration of countries that filter the Internet in the Middle East and in East Asia. In many cases, filtering doesn’t just block sex or drug content, but prevents people from accessing political content. Filtering is messy and incomplete – Rob suggests we take a moment and have some sympathy for the poor censors, who are taking on an impossible task, as it’s very difficult to block any content without collateral damage. (His tongue is firmly in cheek.)
There’s many ways to filter the Internet, Rob points out, beyond simply blocking access to controversial sites. Governments have started imposing licensing and registration requirements on online authors, and threatening liability for ISPs for allowing certain content. These restrictions have a chilling effect on online speech, turning the ISPs, or the individuals who post content, into censors or self-censors. Other countries like Cuba keep net prices so high that they functionally supress dissent by keeping many dissenting voices offline. He suggests that we should expect to see a convergence between controls on offline and online media – countries that control their press are very likely to want to control what people access on the Internet.
I agree with Rob’s contention that online and offline media restrictions are merging, which is why my talk started with Freedom House’s map of press freedom in 2006 – according to Freedom House, press freedom is in scarce supply in much of the developing world. I argued that we’re seeing the rise of citizen journalism first and foremost in nations that are “moderately repressive”. Countries that thoroughly inhibit dissent, like North Korea, Turkmenistan or Burma, aren’t seeing rapid emergence of citizen media – even if citizens had access to tools of online expression, the consequences are too high for most citizens to use them. In developing nations that are not especially repressive (like Ghana, which gets a “free” rating from Freedom House), the growth of online citizen media is somewhat retarted by the wealth of other opportunities for expression, like debates on talk radio.
In countries that threaten but don’t entirely shut down speech, like Iran, China and Egypt, we often see a strong move into citizen media – the rise of the Iranian blogosphere in 2003-5 is strongly correlated to a crackdown on the independent press, and a large number of journalists moved from banned papers to publishing blogs. I pointed to a couple of favorite examples of activism in citizen media: Sami ben Gharbia’s Tunisia Prisoners map, the Zimbabwe Council of Trade Unions video of protesters being beaten, Alaa’s blog from prison, the Bahrain land use maps featuring Google Earth footage. I point to some of the ways that states try to shut down online media: blocking sites (pointing to Nazret.com and the blocking of Ethiopian blogs), blocking tools (pointing to Pakistan’s Don’t Block the Blog campaign), registering bloggers (pointing to Mahmood’s Den and activism around resisting registration) and arresting bloggers (poining to the Free Kareem campaign.)
(Eric Case from Blogger mentions that the Pakistani blog block has been lifted – he’s right, sort of. What’s unclear is whether the block has been lifted temporarily, because the Pakistani authorities have been blocking a huge range of sites – my friends in Pakistan speculate that the block will be reinstituted shortly. Much more on this forthcoming on Global Voices in the next day or two.)
What can we do to fight back? I point to Isaac Mao’s site and the “notisaacmao.com” site that he points viewers towards when his main site is blocked – mirroring sites is key to keeping them accessible when blocked. Blogging under psuedonyms using privacy tools allows bloggers like Sleepless in Sudan to speak freely in situations where they’d otherwise be threatened. Publicity across the blogosphere – as we see for Karim – is one of our most powerful tools. I ended with a call for solidarity and a willingness to agitate for speech fo all threatened bloggers, not just the ones we agree with – we’ve got to be prepared to support Muslim Brotherhood bloggers in Egypt as well as dissidents like Karim.
Shava Nerad of Tor outlines the basic operation of the Tor network – a set of routers designed to obscure connections between the client requesting a web page and the server offering the page, protecting the identity of the user. She clears up some of the misconceptions about the network, pointing out that Tor can’t be asked to release user information to legal authorities because Tor doesn’t have that information. She also makes an interesting point: that it can be counterproductive to demand American levels of free speech in countries trying to make the transition from authoritarian to more open governments. She sees Tor as a pressure release valve for societies who are allowing change but trying to control the pace of that change. She points out that China could easily block all of Tor and has, for some reason, chosen not to. For two weeks before the anniversary of Tienenman last year, the Chinese government ordered the Tor nodes within China taken down – they were allowed to return online shortly after the anniversary.
Shahed Amanullah, the founder of altmuslim.com, explains that moderate muslim bloggers find themselves under pressure from two sides – they experience pressure from the governments they’re criticizing, but they also experience pressure from muslim extremists, who are not interested in dialog but in shutting down discussions. He points out that, at a moment where the Islamic world is in flux, trying to cope with modernity, it can be difficult to encourage and empower free speech – he tells the sad story of a friend who has tried to open a bookstore in Iraq and discovered that inviting open dialog on controversial issues is a dangerous and difficult stance.
Blogging is important because it breaks the monopoly on information claimed by the press, letting people get around the dictum, “Let’s not talk about certain things.” He argues that “the freer the discourse, the more moderate the Islamic practice is,” and hopes the sort of discourses that take place in blogs will eventually be a moderating influence. To allow this to happen, we need to “use technology to pry the doors open from the outside”, using tools like Tor and Psiphon. We need to read and publicize the work of bloggers, showing governments like the government of Egypt that the world is watching. And it’s incumbent upon us to advocate for persecuted bloggers.
In the discussion that follows the session, Shahed makes the excellent point that it’s difficult and dangerous for moderate Muslims to refute extremist viewpoints online. The danger is not so much from the extremists being critiqued, but from the US government monitoring participation in extreme sites. Shahed would like to encourage moderate friends to respond on these sites, but worries that participating in these sites will be viewed as being involved with terrorist activities and lead to intervention or questioning by US security agencies. It would be very smart for the US government to figure out how to assuage these concerns – in the meantime, this is a phenomenon which silences moderate Islam’s best spokespeople in the US.
Jasmina Tešanović mentions that her name badge for the conference simply reads “Jasmina” – in the process of registering, she’s lost her surname and her country. SXSW’s system can’t accept the diacritic marks in her name, and doesn’t recognize “Serbia” as a country, wanting to put her as a citizen of Yugloslavia, a country that hasn’t existed for ten years. She tells us that this experience of losing her identity isn’t an unfamiliar one. Talking about the surreal experience of “seeing myself on the TV being bombed as I was being bombed,” when she lived in Belgrade during the NATO attacks, she discovered that she couldn’t trust any media. “Milosevic’s TV lied all the time,” she says, but NATO lied as well, denying civilian casualties and failing to talk about “collateral damage”.
To give voice to these “invisible victims”, she began writing letters via email to a large list of recipients – it would be called a blog now, but the technology didn’t exist then. She wrote anonymously, giving witness to the sights and emotions of life during wartime, and tried to speak to foes as well as friends. Speculation grew about authorship of the letter – now published as “Diary of a Political Idiot“, excerpts of which are available online. ABC News contacted her and wanted to interview her, but didn’t want to compromise her identity. She realized that there was no safety in anonymity – “Milosevic could kill me, so could random looters or NATO – my only safety is in the public square.” So she came out, and became one of the most visible and passionate voices about the war. She’s now active in Blog B92, a project documenting the rebirth and reconstruction of Serbia which she believes is the only free, uncensored media in the country. She tells us that the site gets a great deal of hate mail – she’s passing it onto researchers who study hate and facism as fertile ground for study.
All in all, it was one of the best panels I’ve been on in recent memory – a real honor to appear on stage with these folks. I wish more folks had been able to see it and hope I can get my hands on a podcast of it soon. | <urn:uuid:3131b9c6-fbab-4d7e-8696-93b8c2dcc0e1> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.ethanzuckerman.com/blog/2007/03/13/sxsw-blogging-where-speech-isnt-free/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280761.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00093-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952557 | 2,188 | 2.0625 | 2 |
ERIC Number: ED328023
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 1990-Jul
Reference Count: N/A
Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Mental Illness: Views from Africa, India, Asia and Australia. Monograph Series, Number 49.
Anthony, William A., Ed.; Wolkon, George H., Ed.
Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, v14 n1 Spec Iss Jul 1990
This special journal "Theme" issue presents a collection of papers reflecting the psychiatric practices and community treatment for persons with severe psychiatric disabilities in Asia, Africa, Australia, and India. Some of the papers were presented at the 1988 meeting of the World Association of Psychosocial Rehabilitation (WAPR) in Lyons, France. Compared to technologically advanced nations of the West, the developing nations' approach is characterized by more efficient utilization of scarce resources, culturally syntonic diagnostic and treatment procedures that merge indigenous healing systems with scientific modalities, and the inclination of most third world practitioners to integrate the patients' families into the healing process. Papers include: "Rehabilitation in Mental Illness: Insights from Other Cultures" (Harriet P. Lefley); "Report of a World Health Organization (WHO) Meeting on Consumer Involvement in Mental Health Services"; "Psychosocial Rehabilitation in the Developing World: Progress and Problems" (M. Parameshvara Deva); "An Example of a Community Based Mental Health/Home-Care Programme: Haidian District in the Suburbs of Beijing, China" (Shen Yucun and others); "Nigeria: Report on the Care, Treatment and Rehabilitation of People with Mental Illness" (Tolani Asuni); "A Model for the Care of People with Psychosocial Disabilities in Sri Lanka" (Nalaka Mendis); "Integration of Psychosocial Rehabilitation in National Health Care Programmes" (Vijay Nagaswami); and "Rural Psychiatric Rehabilitation and the Interface of Community Development and Rehabilitation Services" (Douglas A. Dunlap.) (JDD)
Descriptors: Community Development, Community Programs, Cultural Differences, Developing Nations, Family Involvement, Foreign Countries, Home Programs, Mental Disorders, Mental Health Programs, Psychiatric Services, Rehabilitation Programs, Rural Areas
Psychosocial Rehabilitation Journal, 730 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215.
Publication Type: Collected Works - Serials
Education Level: N/A
Sponsor: National Inst. on Disability and Rehabilitation Research (ED/OSERS), Washington, DC.
Authoring Institution: World Rehabilitation Fund, Inc., New York, NY.
Identifiers - Location: Australia; China; India; Nigeria; Sri Lanka | <urn:uuid:4498d2b8-0d4a-4670-a06e-852c2457d149> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED328023 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281162.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00539-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.795131 | 578 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Q:Can you please tell me what are the contents of the course on Introduction to Accounting in the Associate in Science and Math?
A:The Associate in Science and Math degree program has dedicated course on Introduction to Accounting. This course usually is worth 2 credits in total. It is designed to provide students with strong understanding of the basic concepts of making financial statements. Students are given strong hands on experience in this course for a much more comprehensive learning.
Q:If I complete my associate in science and mathematics, will I have the option of transferring my credits to a bachelor's or a baccalaureate degree later?
A:Yes, most associate in science and mathematics programs are designed in such a way so as to make your progression to a four-year bachelor's or baccalaureate as smooth as possible. The areas of concentration that you can opt for later include applied mathematics and mathematics education. The associate program will also develop your base in various mathematical applications such as algorithms, graphical utilities as well as other technological tools.
Q:Is it possible to pursue an associate science in math program online?
A:Yes, it is now possible to enroll in online associate math and science programs. Online education has become very popular due to a number of reasons. Students can easily study from any location and not have to be physically present in classrooms. The main purpose of online education is to make higher education accessible and affordable for everyone.
Q:Will associates degree in math and science prepare me for entry level jobs?
A:An associate degree in math and science will help you understand the field at a primary level. You can prepare for entry level and assistant level jobs with this qualification. However, it is recommended that you should further pursue high education at bachelor level to prepare for more high paying careers.
Q:How long is the associate of science mathematics online?
A:The duration of an online associate degree in science and mathematics can vary, depending on institutes, as well as the individual preference of students. Generally, an associate degree takes two years to complete in a traditional institute. However, students can acquire the benefit of self paced education with online programs. | <urn:uuid:851cac1c-aa5e-4b39-a604-58efff059626> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.excite.com/education/science-math/associate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719273.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00064-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956917 | 441 | 1.890625 | 2 |
A viewing of the HBO special “Freakonomics,” which turns chapters of the popular book into little mini vignettes, along with a conversation with my father prompted me to investigate the aspects of human behavior with regard to incentives when considering the rise of Steroid use by major league baseball players in the late 1990s. One of the overriding themes in Freakonomics is that any aspect of human behavior can be predicted by analyzing the incentives facing those persons when making a choice.
So the question here is, were the growing incentives to players in terms of rising baseball salaries directly tied to the growing use of Steroids in the mid 1990s?
Steroids had been around for many years prior to appearing en-masse in Baseball. The most infamous use came from the East German Olympic teams during the late 70s and early 80s, who systematically doped their own athletes (mostly without the athlete’s knowledge) from 1971 until 1990. But seemingly only after the 1988 Seoul Olympics saw sprinter Ben Johnson test positive for one steroid and admitted the use of a host of other Steroids, Testosterone and HGH substances did the “Steroid Era” in baseball start. In fact, 1988 is also acknowledged as the beginning of the era in the Mitchell Report (per Section D of the Summary, pg SR-14). However, I’d argue that the mainstream usage of Steroids didn’t occur for a few years after (see the rise of 45+ homer seasons below).
Here’s a chart of Mean and Median US household income from 1974-2010, with the Minimum and Maximum MLB salaries, the Average MLB salary, that MLB salary listed as a multiple of the US mean income, and the number of 45+ home run seasons seen per year:
|Year||Median Income: Current Dollars||Mean Income: current dollars||Minimum MLB Salary||Maximum MLB Salary||Average MLB Salary||Avg MLB salary as multiple of Mean US income||# of 45+ Homer Seasons|
There’s several landmark seasons of note in terms of escalating Salaries through this list. By year:
- 1975 saw Catfish Hunter become the first “true” Free Agent subject to bidding wars among teams, and signed a 5yr/$3.35M deal with the Yankees that resulted in his league-leading salary to nearly triple the league leading salary from 1974.
- 1979 saw Nolan Ryan become the first $1million/year player.
- In 1982 George Foster became the first $2M/year player.
- By 1989, Kirby Puckett became baseball’s first $3M/year player.
- In 1992, Barry Bonds hit free agency on the heels of MVP seasons in Pittsburgh and more than doubled the previous high annual salary.
- By 1996, salaries were rising quickly; Albert Belle signs a $10M/year contract.
- 2001 saw Alex Rodriguez‘s infamous Texas contract kick in, paying him $22M/year, nearly $7M more per year than the next closest player (Kevin Brown, who signed baseball’s first 9-figure contract).
- Rodriguez opted out of that same contract and re-negotiated the terms even higher with the Yankees, eclipsing the $30M/year mark by 2009.
Meanwhile, take note of the red-colored years of 1996 to 2001, the core of the Steroid Era. 1996 saw no less than Six players eclipse the 45 home run barrier, including Brady Anderson in a complete aberration year for the lead-off hitter (he hit 50 homers in 1996 but averaged just 19 per 162 game segment and never hit more than 24). Suddenly in 1998 no less than Nine players eclipsed the mark, lead by the Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa home-run hitting competition that transfixed the nation and “saved” baseball. Too bad we now know what America didn’t know then; that both players were using Performance Enhancing drugs to beef up, help power out baseballs and take advantage of a slew of new ballparks that opened in the era that featured cozier dimensions and more offense.
By 2002, enough pressure from the front office towards the player’s union had taken place to start testing, leading to the infamous “anonymous survey” done of players in 2003 that resulted in “between 5-7%” of players testing positive, leading to mandatory testing in 2004. By 2008 we were back down to homer levels not seen since the early 1990s, and baseball didn’t see a single player hit the 45 homer barrier in 2011. But historically the damage has been done; the home run leader boards from the time period in question lists like a Who’s Who of steroid accusations, and a generation of middle-aged baseball writers who grew up idolizing the home run leaders of yesteryear now seems set to penalize these players for their drug usage (proven or otherwise, as with the Jeff Bagwell Hall of Fame case).
But, everything I just wrote is known narrative. Lets talk about the explosion of baseball salaries as compared to the common man. In 1975 the average MLB salary of $44k was a little more than 3-times the mean US household income, having risen only gradually over the years thanks to the Reserve clause and a non-existent players union. It was a boon for owners, who kept salaries down and profits high. But the low salaries also meant that most baseball players were considered “within reach” of the every-man in America. Players weren’t paid such ridiculously high salaries that they essentially live in a different world from the fans (as is the case today with most professional athletes in this country): these players were considered “just like us” to a certain extent, and frequently had off-season jobs, working along side the same people who paid a few bucks for a bleacher seat to cheer them on. “America’s Pastime” largely earned that title from being the only sport in town for most of the century, but was also helped along by the “within reach” argument.
By 1980, with the country in a severe recession and gas lines around the block, Joe Public slightly increased his average pay. However, Baseball players, thanks to the breaking of the reserve clause and the rise of Free agency were seeing a boom in salary hikes. By 1980, the average MLB wage was 9 times the median income in the country and a few ballplayers were making $1M/year. This ratio of US income to MLB income grew slightly over the next decade; ten years on in 1990 the average MLB wage was just 16x the US income. But changes were about to come. In 1996 the MLB salary multiple was 23-times the US mean, but by 2001 it was nearly 40-times the US mean salary. The average MLB salary more than doubled inside of these 5 years. This change coincided exactly with the beginnings of the Steroid era and also mirror the 6 year stretch where the game saw its historical rise in home runs.
So the question is: is this coincidence? Was the rise in steroid use driven by player’s desires to maximize their earning potential or was it vice-versa (i.e., players discovered steroids could escalate performance, started using and producing and that lead to the quick rise in payroll?) Or was this all more attributable to weaker pitching driven by expansion and smaller ball-parks?
I think you can make the case that home run hitters were highly compensated and were commercially the “heros” of the game (remember the “Chicks Dig the Long Ball” commercials?), and other players figured out that Steroids helped pack on muscle mass and enabled themselves to hit the ball further and faster (to say nothing of the fact that steroids enabled players to come back from injury faster and to stay stronger through the season by virtue of added muscle mass), and rode the trend. Hit 40-45 home runs one year, sign a contract extension the next. Suddenly the game found itself full of juiced up, highly compensated sluggers with a massive ethical problem.
What do you think?
- The Mitchell Report, December 13, 2007
- The Census Bureau historical Income charts through 2010.
- Cot’s Salary database (now part of Baseball Prospectus)
- Wikipedia list of “Highest paid players” historically.
- Baseball-reference’s list of salary leaders per year to 1985.
- SI 2005 article on Landmark Steps in Free Agency.
- Some Minimum Salaries come from BizofBaseball.com site.
- A fantastic paper titled Economic History of Baseball, from the 2002 range.
- A list of historical minimum and average salaries from baseball-reference.com.
- CBS Sports list of average baseball salaries historically.
- Baseball-reference’s List of top-10 homer leaders by season.
- A nice study of salary “firsts” at stltoday.com | <urn:uuid:f465c6d0-9ac9-488e-b0f8-74d5257d5417> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.nationalsarmrace.com/?tag=albert-belle | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280587.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00559-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930736 | 1,870 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Planet Erra - The information the extra-terrestrials gave to Billy Meier about their home world.
By Kåre Bergheim
27TH of May 2013
References: Aus den Tiefen des Weltenraums….Kontakte mit den Plejadiern/Plejaren Eduard Meier (1997) Was mir die Ausserirdischen über ihre Heimat mitteilten. Pages: 207 Die Plejaden/Plejaren. 209 Die Namen 210 Einmalige plejadisch-plejarische Vornamen 210 Anredeform 211 Regierungsform 212 Die wohngebäude 213 Ernährung 215 Pflanzen 216 Haustiere 217 Sprache 217 Schrift 219 Das Zahlensystem 220 Fahrzeuge resp. Fluggeräte 221 Verkehrsunfälle 222 Arbeitsmethoden 225 Multiduplikatoren 227 Künstler 227 Kunst der Malerei 228 Musik 230 Eheschliessung 234 Sexualität und Nachkommenschaft 236 Totenbestattung 237 Strafvollzug 239 Krankheiten – Sport
The Pleiades visible from Earth is an open star cluster in the in the constellation of Taurus. With the naked eye approx. seven out of the about 300 of the Pleiades stars, located in the centre area, can be seen from our planet during very good visibility. The overall diameter of the constellation is about seven light years, at a distance estimated to be approximately 420 light years from Earth.
The Pleiades stars have a relatively young age, which is 62 million years according to information from the Pleiadian/Plejarans. The stars are not being orbited by inhabitable planets; consequently no suitability exists for carrying any form of life, no matter in what form that could be. Thus there exists neither any type of plants or animals, nor humans or spirit forms etc.
The few existing planet formations around some of the Pleiades stars are inhospitable, life-hostile and themselves still half suns like the parent star itself. The parent stars are hot, blue stars resp. suns, and as mentioned all are still very young and will not become very old because they will again vanish only after a short period.
Around the Pleiades stars are still remnants of the gas cloud recognizable, from which they emerged millions of years ago. The constellation of Taurus covers an immense area and was one of the first constellations in the night sky to be given a name by people on Earth. The constellation refers to one of the oldest domestic animals of humans, the bull.
Billy Meier has consistently from the very beginning, in contact 31 dated 17 July 1975, provided the distance to planet Erra as being 500 light years, or about 80 light years beyond the Pleiades stars visible from Earth.
Left Wide field image of the Pleiades star cluster (M45) Credit: NASA, ESA and AURA/Caltech
For more than 5000 years has this star constellation had a quite special interpretations on Earth, namely due to the spring equinox which could be found there. The star constellation, as well as the bull as an animal, was revered and worshiped in almost every known advanced civilisation prior to the turning point to modern times. The constellation probably contains the most well-known stars in general like the Pleiades stars, the Hyades and the Crab Nebula, whereby the constellation name probably has a very deserving highlighting in this specific region of heaven.
The main star in the constellation is Aldebaran, a giant in about 68 light years distance, referred to as a long period variable star. Its diameter is about 36 times our sun. The Crab Nebula exists as a remnant of a stellar explosion which could be observed on Earth in the year 1054 A.D., but which already took place 4442 years ago, counted back from the year 1996. The Hyades are around 500 million years old and they are also uninhabitable stars like the Pleiades.
The central core of the Pleiades star cluster moves with a speed of 144 000 kilometres per hour through space, which correspond to a speed of 40 kilometre per second. The silverly-blue gas and matter nebulae surrounds practically all the Pleiades stars and receive its light from the stars behind, which then is being reflected. A reason why it is referred to as a reflection nebulae.
The home star and the home planet to the Pleiadians/Plejarans, as already explained, is not located in or next to the Pleiades stars which can be seen from Earth and are therefore located in our space-time structure, but lie another 80 light years further away, beyond these stars, hence the distance from Earth is about 500 light years. Moreover, the Pleiadian/Plejaran home star and home world exist in a dimension which is a fraction of a second space and time shifted in the future.
In this other space-time-level exist a star constellation with different inhabitable planets, namely 10 of them in number, of which four of them are inhabited by people in the sun system Tayget, who also call their star cluster Plejaren resp. Pleiades and Pleiadians, because they are not residing far from those Pleiades stars which are located in our space-time structure.
They keep this name description, like all other Henok line descendants do, for other constellations etc. and for certain planets in their different dimensioned living spaces. Thus, at least the stars resp. suns in Plejaren star cluster are named after the names of the suns of the Pleiades stars which apply in our dimension.
In the Pleiades/Plejaren, the space-time shifted dimension to the Pleiadians/Plejarans, is the planet most similar to Earth called Erra. It is also the home of Semjase, Quetzal, Pleja and Ptaah as well as being the actual administrative planet of the Pleiadian federation where the allies can be found in a distance as far as 6 billion light years away.
A so called dimension door was created by their distant forefathers for around 52 000 years ago, which since that time enabled the Pleiadians/Plejarans to enter into our dimension at will. This dimension door is also used as a communication channel which makes it possible for the Pleiadian/Plejarans to maintain their communication between both dimensions at all times and in fact without time delay because their communication signal is transmitted on a plane where by artificial technological means it is possible to utilize a spiritual energy carrier, whereby there is practically no limit to the transmission speed and the signal reaches the destination billion of light years away the moment it is sent out.
The same communication system exists with all federation members, in other foreign dimensions as well with Askets people in the DAL-Universe, and some of the other people living there who are in alliance or are friends with the Pleiadians/Plejarans. For this purpose was a dimension door likewise created between the two sister universes. This also took place about 50 000 years ago.
The method of communication is explained in more details some years later in the contact notes.
The spiritual energy carrier Meier here talks about, which they use for the artificial and technical created communication signal is then called by another name, sub-neutrinos. Sub-Neutrinos are a type of element which exists on a level that is below Neutrinos. It is a level we have not yet discovered and it will take several thousands of years, according to their estimate before we do so. In the book Billy Meier wrote in 1978 called Existentes Leben im Universum (The existing life in the Universe) he writes that there are seven (7) levels from the atom level and down to the first, which is a level consisting of pure energy, defined as Spiritual / Creation Energy. So from the first pure spiritual energy level there are seven processes of change. Meier define the fourth level under the atom as the first spiritual level, since the elements contained in this level, and those beneath it, are no longer pure matter. Which suggest the spiritual energy carrier Meier here talks about, which also goes under the name sub-Neutrinos, and which they through artificial technological means utilize for communication purposes, is at level four or lower under the atom.
Below are the two relevant quotes in this regard:
The seven levels under the atom
Reference EXISTENTES LEBEN IM UNIVERSUM (1978/1993) by ‘Billy’ Eduard Albert Meier page 288
Excerpt – My translation:
“It will still take a very long time and many years before the terrestrial scientists discover the truth that the atom only represents the highest level in the seven processes and seven units of matter creation, and exactly that is still a long way to go.
Today, the physicists know of, first the atom (once considered to be indivisible, but which then was divided and split and caused hundred-thousandfold deaths = Hiroshima and Nagasaki = Nuclear tests in USA and USSR which brought thousands of deaths), then the elementary particle level, and the quark level, which first was discovered only few years ago and still retains just as many unsolved mysteries as the elementary particle level.
However, the scientists have already gotten closer to the truth going backwards from the seventh level (atomic level), because they have found the sixth level (elementary particle level) and the fifth level (quark level) without having researched them so far. However, already they have also pushed forward down in the fourth level – and also here they face a mystery.
With the fourth levels under the atom (and therefore in the third level of the development value) they have come across an element which can no longer be described as pure matter and which gives the scientists their biggest problems and riddles, because it is unknown to them that from the atom down, the levels become more and more refined and ultimately the elements change into pure energy (spiritual energy / Creational energy), out from which the coarse-material matter develops after first going through seven processes of change, … ” Billy Meier (1978)
Unter Bezugnahme auf EXISTENTES LEBEN IM UNIVERSUM (1978/1993) von ‘Billy’ Eduard Albert Meier, Seite 288
“Noch wird es sehr lange und viele Jahre dauern, ehe die irdischen Wissenschaftler die Wahrheit dessen entdecken, dass das Atom nur die höchste Stufe im Siebenprozess und in der Siebenheit der Materiewerdung darstellt, und genau das ist noch ein sehr langer und weiter Weg. Heute kennen die Physiker erst das Atom (das einst als unteilbar galt, das dann aber geteilt und gespalten wurde und hunderttausendfachen Tod brachte = Hiroshima und Nagasaki = Atomversuch in den USA und der UdSSR, die tausendfache Tode brachten), dann die Elementarteilchenebene, und die Quarkebene, die erst vor wenigen Jahren entdeckt wurde und noch ebensoviele ungelöste Rätsel aufgibt , wie die Elementarteilchenebene. Doch schon sind die Wissenschaftler von der siebenten Ebene (Atomebene) rückwärts laufend der Wahrheit näher gekommen, denn sie haben die sechste Ebene (Elementarteilchenebene) und die fünfte Ebene (Quarkebene) gefunden, ohne sie bisher erforscht zu haben. Bereits aber sind sie auch in die vierte Ebene hinab vorgestossen – und stehen auch hier vor einem Rätsel. Mit der vierten Ebenen unter dem Atom (und somit in der dritten Ebene des Entwicklungswertes) sind sie auf ein Element gestossen, das nicht mehr als reine Materie zu bezeichnen ist und das den Wissenschaftlern die grössten Probleme und Rätsel aufgibt, denn es ist ihnen ja unbekannt, dass sich vom Atom her abwärts, die Ebenen immer mehr verfeinern und die Elemente schlussendlich in reine Energie (Geistenergie/Scöpfungsenergie) übergehen, aus der heraus sich erst durch sieben Wandlungsprozesse hindurch die grobmaterielle Materie entwickelt,…” Billy Meier (1978)
The faster-than-light energy carrier called sub-neutrinos:
With reference to: Plejadisch-plejarische Kontaktberichte, Gespräche, Block 8 (2005) Contact 316 dated Thursday, 19. July 2001, at time 16.23 Page 297: My translation above the German original
Now I would like to ask what technology and energy carrier do you actually use for your intergalactic and planetary communication. I know that your technology is aligned in such a way that there is no time loss in your communication, and in fact not even when conducted across millions and billions of light years away. Can you explain to me something about it, or is it all a secret?
83. We are using the technique of negative velocity, by which a signal already manifests itself at destination through appropriate communication equipment, before the actual broadcast, respectively transmission of the signal, has even started.
84. The signal therefore reaches the destination already by the input of the signal.
85. The transmission distance is unlimited and therefore reaches through the entire universe.
86. The energy carriers you ask about is the actual signal carriers by which everything in the entire universe is connected together and by which the cosmic communication of all things, all life and all existence takes place.
87. These energy carriers are not detectable, and certainly not usable, without suitable and high-precision technical apparatuses.
88. They are absolutely invisible to the human eye, and they have the property to penetrate any matter without restraint, and when I say any type of matter then I also mean it, because in the entire Universe there exist no matter or antimatter which cannot be penetrated with unabated speed by these energy carriers, classified as having a billion fold light speed.
89. These faster-than-light energy carriers are sub-neutrinos.
90. By our technology it is possible for us to fit them with signals which likewise happens with billions of times the speed of light and which has the effect that the signals spread out like lightning in the whole universe, in fact indefinitely in all directions.
91. Then, in order to pick up the signals, special and highly sensitive sensors are necessary through which then the signals are transferred to a separator and decoded.
But our science knows about the neutrinos.
92. That is correct, but I am not speaking about the neutrinos which are known to the terrestrial scientists, but of sub-neutrinos, of which the scientists on Earth do not know that they exist.
93. Also, they will not come across them for a long time.
What do you mean with not for a long time? Fifty years or a hundred years?
94. I am talking about several thousands of years.
Unter Bezugnahme auf Plejadisch-plejarische Kontaktberichte, Gespräche, Block 8 (2005) Dreihundertsechster Kontakt Donnerstag, 9. Juli 2001, 16.23 Uhr. Seite 297
Jetzt möchte ich einmal fragen, welche Technik und Energieträger ihr eigentlich für eure intergalaktische und planetare Kommunikation benutzt. Wie ich Weiss, ist eure Technik derart ausgerichtet, dass es keinen Zeitverlust bei der Kommunikation gibt, und zwar auch dann nicht, wenn diese über Millionen und Milliarden von Lichtjahren hinweg betrieben wird. Kannst du mir da etwas erklären, oder ist alles ein Geheimnis?
83. Wir benutzen die Technik der Negativgeschwindigkeit, durch die ein Signal bereits am Zielort sich durch entsprechende Kommunikationsgeräte manifestiert, ehe die eigentliche Sendung resp. Aussendung des Signals auch nur begonnen hat.
84. Das Signal erreicht also das Ziel bereits bei Eingabe des Signals.
85. Die Sendedistanz ist dabei unbegrenzt und reicht also durch das gesamte Universum.
86. Die Energieträger, nach denen du fragst, sind eigentliche Signalträger, durch die im gesamten Universum alles miteinander verbunden ist und durch die die kosmische Kommunikation aller Dinge, allen Lebens und alles Existenten stattfindet.
87. Diese Energieträger sind ohne geeignete und hochpräzise Hilfsapparaturen nicht feststellbar und schon gar nicht nutzbar.
88. Für das menschliche Auge sind sie absolut unsichtbar, und sie haben die Eigenschaft, unhemmbar jegliche Materie zu durchdringen, und wenn ich sage jegliche Materie, dann meine ich das auch, denn es existiert im gesamten Universum keine Materie oder Antimaterie, die von diesen Energieträgern, die einer milliardenfachen Lichtgeschwindigkeit eingeordnet sind, nicht mit ungebremster Geschwindigkeit durchdrungen werden könnte.
89. Diese überlichtschnellen Energieträger sind Sub-Neutrinos.
90. Durch unsere Technik ist es uns möglich, sie mit Signalen zu bestücken, was ebenfalls mit milliardenfacher Lichtgeschwindigkeit geschieht und den effekt hat, dass sich die Signale blitzartig im ganzen Universum ausbreiten, und zwar unbegrenzt in alle Richtungen.
91. Um die Signale dann aufzufangen, sind spezielle und hochsensible Sensoren erforderlich, durch die dann die Signale an einen Entzerrer übermittelt und entschlüsselt werden.
Die Neutrinos kennt unsere Wissenschaft aber.
92. Das ist richtig, doch ich spreche nicht von den Neutrinos, die den irdischen Wissenschaftlern bekannt sind, sondern von Sub-Neutrinos, von denen die Wissenschaftler der Erde nicht wissen, dass sie existieren.
93. Auch werden sie noch lange nicht darauf stossen.
Billy Was meinst du mit lange nicht? Funfzig Jahre oder hundert Jahre ?
94. Ich rede von mehreren tausend Jahren.
The elements existing between the 4th and the 7th level beneath the Atom are no longer pure material. This is where the energy carriers can be found which they call sub-neutrinos. Sub means below the neutrinos we have discovered. The sub-neutrinos move with billion times the speed of light and penetrate everything. With advanced technology they are able fit signals to the sub-neutrinos and utilize them as signal carriers. This way they achieve communication without time loss. The signal from Earth to their home planet travels to and from their dimension through an artificial made dimension door which is also used as communication channel.
Left: This is one out of 1476 photographs in total taken by <Billy> Eduard Albert Meier at Hasenböl-Langenberg above Fischenthal, Switzerland on the 29th of March 1976. It is photo number 157 and it shows the underside of a Pleiadian/Plejaran space craft 7 meter or 23 feet in diameter. The craft is being piloted by Semjase and she is doing a demonstration flight.
Family names are not only common by people on Earth but also by the Pleiadians/Plejarans, Billy Meier was told by Ptaah, who also is the commander of one of their large mother ships. Their family names are however formed differently and taken from other origins than what is the case with people on Earth.
Billy writes that on a question to Ptaah, as to how the choice of name by a marriage is applied, he was told the following: This is by them regulated by law, namely in the way that the female spouse and the resulting offspring from the marriage will always, in every case, take the family name of the husband resp. the father. This is so arranged for the reason that only in this way can mix-up in relationship as well as in the family tree be avoided. Already for a very long time ago their forefather found that it came to incredible confusions when female spouses kept their pre-material family name and even transferred it to their offspring. From that originated a lot of trouble and confusion from which a lot of incest (inbreeding) resulted, which is what happened by the old Jews in Sodom and Gomorrah as both cities degenerated into mere incest-groups.
Unique Pleiadian/Plejaran first names
At the present time (1997) each of the first names Semjase, Pleja, Ptaah and Quetzal are only given once in the entire Pleiadian/Plejaran federation; and Billy adds that the holders of these names are persons who he are in contact with. The mentioned names are no longer common by the Pleiadians/Plejarans but are expected to again find increased use in the future.
Billy writes that the reason why these names are in individual cases still being used was given to him by Ptaah. Ptaah told him that the above mentioned first names have been handed down and preserved since ancient times both in Quetzal’s family as well as in his own family, namely because they have important historical meanings. All other families and people on their home planet Erra have other names from the modern era while people and families who are not Pleiadian/Plejaran but are members of the federation naturally have names which have nothing to do with the Pleiadians/Plejarans resp. the Lyrians.
Forms of address
Each human life is of equal value, no matter if rich or poor, if famous or not, or if they have a high ranking position or holding just a simple position, and regardless of if they carry an honourable title or not. Every person is a human being which is why everyone must be treated equally. The Pleiadians/Plejarans live according to this directive and as a result since a long time ago they have also been striving not to differentiate when addressing people face-to-face.
In this way, as a result, are all people by them being addressed as you (German <Du>) and with first name. This also applies for strangers who have never seen each other before. Therefore by greetings no differences come to light which also makes everything extremely simple and correspond to the standard of politeness.
Unfortunately this form of address has not got completely through to all the people of the federation because certain sweeping changes and old deep-rooted habits often takes hundreds and thousands of years of time to move to something new just because the traditional are too strongly anchored in a human. For this reason have the you-greeting form, also by the Pleiadian/Plejaran not prevailed a hundred per cent, especially by ordinary people, when they for example meet an Ischwisch.
Therefore everything takes its time, also by the Pleiadians/Plejarans, before fundamental innovations on a broad scale can be implemented; considering that these extra-terrestrials can look forward to an average age of 1000 earth years, then it is probably understandable that old deep-rooted habits etc. often require hundreds of years to be changed, in particular by old people who for several centuries have stuck to certain old habits.
By the Pleiadians/Plejarans is by greetings not the hand reached out and shaken as is customary in the western world. As a greeting is the right hand raised and placed on the heart area stretched flat
whereby the person in front is showing his/her respect by bowing the head and the upper part of the body slightly forward.
Form of Government
By the Pleiadian/Plejarans, as well as by all the allies of their federation, only one single state entity and one single government exist, which act as its law enforcement and execution force of what is being given as advice by the High Council. The High Council is not located on a federation planet but exist as half spirit-we form in the Andromeda-region, ca. 2,2 million light years away. The half spirit forms of the High Council possess a huge amount of knowledge and corresponding wisdom, which is why they were selected as the supreme advisory form by the Pleiadians/Plejarans and their federation allies, which has a population of 127 billion people in total.
And as the name High Council already indicates, it only give extremely high quality advice and issue no commands, whereby the advice is communicated through the Ischwisches of the respective peoples government which then present everything to each individual citizen who are then free to follow the advice or not at their own discretion.
The rule in this process is, however, that the every individual and peoples follow the advice from the High Council in full, recognizing that these are high-quality guidelines. However, this requires that people are to the extent evolved they have learned and understood all creative-natural laws and commandments and also live in accordance with them. A fact which, for the time being, cannot be realized on Earth because here still, only through human laws and commands, decrees, rules and regulations etc., can it be ensured that order is maintained, consequently such a form of government, as by the Pleiadians/Plejarans and their allies, is still utopian and illusory for people on Earth.
There are no parties and politicians in Earth human terms, but only 2800 spiritual leaders per planet, who form the central government of the planet and who are also in contact with the High Council, and also maintain contact and carry out tasks with peoples and government of other worlds. They inform a further 28 000 spiritual leaders of all activities, as well as about the advice from the High Council, who in turn give their knowledge and information to a large number of additional spiritual leaders who then stay directly in contact with the people and instruct, inform and provide them with guidance.
Consequently the spiritual leaders make the effort, with all resources to their disposal, to ensure the spiritual and consciousness related development of the people, which has resulted in that practically all of the population have reached approximately the same evolution level, by which no longer stark evolution differences exist, as is the case on Earth. This also ensures that the mentioned form of government, through advice from the High Council, can actually effectively be implemented without cross-fighting’s and the like appearing, because all normally accept the advice from the High Council as being high value advise and follow them by their own decision.
Although there are also are several larger cities, with multi-story apartment buildings on Erra, the central planet to the Pleiadians/Plejarans, there are however no tower blocks in form of high rises and sky scrapers where people have to live crammed together. Between the individual residential buildings, can extensive parks and gardens to be found, which are provided with neatly arranged footpaths.
There are also well-ordered landing places for aerial vehicles, for person or goods transport, to be found at central points, which as a whole are jointly owned, and can be used by everyone according to their needs. Streets of any types are completely unknown because the Pleiadians/Plejarans use no land vehicles at all. Therefore are all residential areas pure pedestrian zones where no noise, traffic chaos and pollution, through exhaust fumes, exist.
The majority of the Pleiadians/Plejarans prefers not to live in cities, but away from them, in green surroundings, resp. live in the country, namely in one family houses which have a hemispherical or spherical shape and a diameter of 21 meters. The construction materials consist mainly of very resistant metal alloys or from synthetic materials which is extracted from the ground and primarily from sand. This synthetic material is similar to our silicone.
Each one family house stands on its own, on a fertile land, which as a rule is a hectare (10 000 square meters = 100 x 100 meter) large. The common household resp. families on these land plots strive, according to possibility, to become self-sufficient, accordingly each dwelling having for example its own water and power supply which is not dependent on a public network. For own requirements each family, or other housing units on these plots of land, establish their own fruit-, vegetable-,herb- and flower garden, which always are being worked and nurtured with great pleasure.
More generally, is each piece of fertile land utilized for planting of natural food, making it arable and cultivated. A homestead is in such a way, and so large built, that it only offers space for a five-person family and no more because the advisory adopted maximum number of offspring amount to no more than three children per woman. It is an advice from the High Council, which like all other advises, is being followed.
For reasons of keeping peace etc., should parents-in-law not be living in the same household as their married children, a rule which is consistently and uniformly abided by. In-laws can however reside on an adjacent property, in their own one family house, but should under no circumstances interfere in matters of their children, when they are married or past their upbringing age. Also this is a rule, like many others, which is entirely complied with. After 14 to 16 years the children leave their parents’ house to be educated in smaller groups of the same age.
Since the man, in contrast to the monogamous disposed woman, is polygamous is this by the Pleiadians/Plejarans taken into account in the way that the man can marry up to four woman, which also prevent prostitution, which no longer exist by these extra-terrestrials since ancient times. When, pursuant to this rule, a man therefore has two, three or four wives then they often reside in a so called square, consisting of a proportionately large piece of land and of two three or four one family houses, consequently each wife has her own refuge and in this way her own residence and her own household.
With regard to the buildings, one last thing to point out is that these are built absolutely earthquake-resistant against the most severe tremors. They are also absolutely secure against lightning and basic storms etc. All buildings, also when they are very large, are seamlessly made in one piece, normally have few storeys and have a suspension system of some kind of buoyancy chambers.
The Pleiadians/Plejarans live on mineral and vegetable, as well as animal products, whereby they are mindful of striking a balance. The main values of their nutrition are made up of fruit and vegetables, whereby they reject any form of pure vegetarian food because such a form of nutrition could have negative effects which could manifest itself in the way that the thought activity and the consciousness related ability to react exceed the normal healthy limit and lead to a positive degeneration.
In such an outcome is the healthy criticism ability lost whereby a person no longer is able to distinguish the real from unreal. Too little vegetable nourishment and too little fruit resp. an excess of animal products result in the exact opposite, namely an inertia in thoughts and in the reaction ability as well as a certain violent temper and an uncontrollable wildness, which often degenerate into a pointless aggression in a way which is not exactly desired
The Pleiadians/Plejarans forego neither Fruit and vegetables nor any animal products like meat, butter and cheese. So these things are as essential for them as it is for people on Earth, therefore they also keep cows. These are however only used for milk production, but never to be slaughtered and eaten. If animals have to be killed for consumption, then this happens only in absolute necessity whereby only the smaller animals, like for example rabbits and chicken, are slaughtered .
Nevertheless, the Pleiadians/Pejarans do not have to forgo meat specialities because they have several different meat dishes on their menu. But this also raises the question how this can be reconciled with what is previously mentioned, that they do not slaughter animals. The answer to that is simple and is related to the fact they produce the meat, which is essential in their nutrition, in an artificial way, as they, one the one hand, cultivate it by the means of cell cultures, piece by piece, through fast processes, or on the other hand, reproduce it through so called multi-duplicators.
Therefore, no one on Earth should be surprised to learn that the Pleiadians/Plejarans produce meat, like on an assembly line, to cover their meat demand without having to slaughter a single animal and deprive its life. Should it nevertheless happen, that that too little, or even no food from animal products are available, then this food can of course be replaced with equivalent substances from vegetable products, or products from the fauna, but not for endless time, because if the substitutes are not again balanced with meat products, little by little damages can occur over time.
Adults (also people on Earth) are able to put up with a one-sided and pure vegetarian diet for a relatively long time without damage, at least as for physical effects, while this is different by children and youths, because by them growth disturbance and other negative consequences may emerge.
The direct ancestors to the current day Pleiadians/Plejarans, who in earlier times lived on Earth, brought all kinds of animals and plants from our world to their planets and in particular to Erra, the main planet, which they made arable and cultivated. This venture resulted in that all plants which are growing on Earth today also exist there, beside many others, which have been collected from foreign worlds and planted there.
For the daily nutrition of the population are fruits as well as types of grains, potatoes, berries and all sorts of vegetables grown. All this food can nevertheless not be compared with the similar types on Earth, because there exist a great difference between the Pleiadian/Plejaran and Earth products in that the field crops and berries etc., as well as the fruit and vegetables on Erra are a lot more nutritious, thirst-quenching and tasty than similar types on Earth. If one eats the fruit, the cereal products, the berries or the vegetables, then it not only satisfy ones hunger and thirst, but it really fills one up for a long time, Billy writes. If the nutrition is processed into a special form of dry food and durability food then it satisfies the hunger and thirst for up to 90 hours.
Not is just the aroma of the various fruit varieties, vegetables and berries more intense than what people on Earth are used to, but also all colours are a lot more intense, richer and stronger. Just to mention one example, while here on Earth the green in nature often appear dirty and greyish, an observer on Erra would see a clean rich green. That firstly has to do with the pure clean air which exists everywhere on Erra, which is not in the slightest filled with toxic pollutants of all kinds, which is the case on Earth. Secondly, it is owed to the very busy working androids and robots which in an exemplary way look after, correctly handle, nurture and maintain the trees plants and flowers.
On the main planet, Erra, is beside the normal horticulture, the fruit-growing and the ordinary agriculture, also another gigantic appearing farming practised, which people on Earth would hardly consider possible. It involves a farming which is also operated by androids and robots, whereby naturally humans are as always also engaged. It involves a very special plant- and tree cultivation.
This particular plant cultivation grows in enormous greenhouses, established specially for that purpose in which the plants thrive in a climate adjusted to them. The plants themselves must be described as giants’ plants because their sizes are enormous. Thus maize plants are farmed there which have 18 meters high stems on which cobs are hanging which are 2,20 meter long and 20 to 25 centimetres thick.
Billy writes that he saw peppermint plants reaching a height of 15 meters, beside other plants which, when seen in proportion to our plants on Earth, made ours look miserly. The largest of theses giant plants are probably the apple-, pear-, and cherry trees as well as other sorts of trees, which are stretching up to 120 meters high in the sky. There are also tropical fruits represented like for example oranges, grapefruits, dates, figs and bananas etc. whose fruits are gigantic.
Mammoth-apples, as Billy calls them, are the size of a large pumpkin, with a weight of 20 to 30 kilograms. He estimated a banana to be a good 50 centimetres long, and the oranges were just as big as the apples etc. Such gigantic fruits are however not used in a normal household but are, without exception, industrially processed, for then to be exported to other worlds, where shortages of food exist.
In order that this assistance can be provided, which takes place without any exchange in return, are these giant crops farmed, and that is the only reason it is being done. This also applies to vegetables, berries and potatoes etc. which are grown in this gigantic way, in special greenhouses, whereby for example a cabbage can easily become one meter in diameter and a raspberry-like fruit can be as large as a large pomegranate on Earth. And although, in this case, there effectively exist an overgrowing, or gigantic growing, through genetic manipulation, the fruits, berries and the vegetables etc. taste just as good, strong and aromatic like those of normal size.
Also the Pleiadians/Plejarans keep different pets; however these are being kept in a way completely compatible with their species and therefore never in human living spaces. Animals never belong in residential living spaces, where humans live, because they are invariably infectious- disease- and epidemic carriers. Of this reason are all pets of all species living in specially designed enclosures, outside of human living areas. Thereby are only those animal species, which by their nature are not affected in their way of living being in such an enclosure, kept this way.
Wild animals for example, which require a very large open space, which cannot be ensured in captivity, are therefore under no circumstances captured and kept in enclosure. But there are always animals which as pets are accustomed to human beings and get along with them on the free space allotted to them without their way of life being affected. No pets are being pampered and considered or treated like family members; consequently it is also a taboo to caress and to kiss animals in human living spaces or even to bring them with into bed.
The Pleiadian/Plejarans explained that anyone who acts against this rule not really only endanger their own health, but also commits an animal cruelty because such a breach of the rules leads to a completely unnatural keeping of animals and degeneration. Therefore there are no violations on Erra in this regard, and if the Pleiadians/Plejarans touch an animal, they clean their hands before they again touch something else or another person.
On the home planet to the Pleiadians/Plejarans is a unified language spoken called Sarat. Additional languages do naturally exist, as well as different dialects. In order to become understood in the entire federation, was a universal language resp. federation language created, the so called Samtee. This language is learned by every Pleiadian/Plejaran alrady from childhood as a second mother tongue. These two languages, beside the real mother tongue to the respective people are learned, whereby according to Ptaah’s information, the total number of languages spoken in the federation amount to 127 603.
The writing in use today by the Pleiadians/Plejarans leads back to ancient times and Semjase explained to Billy the following about the characters: The characters which they use today are only 11 000 years old and they adopted them at the time from their forefathers who lived on Earth. Their old writing systems are very complicated while the present one is very simple. It was developed at the time by several of their scientists on Earth who used constellations, visible from Earth, as templates. They connected certain constellations and thus obtained certain forms. When, as a result, their writing consists of small circles and lines, then these circles represent stars and the small lines simple connections.
This writing was forgotten on Earth after it was passed on to literate Earth people by their forefathers and used for a few centuries, whereby it then however underwent multiple changes.Today, only a few writings belonging to people on Earth (such as the ancient Hebrews) have modified and unrecognizable made characters which trace back to their writing.
This explanation by Semjase took place at the 31st contact on the 17th of July 1975 on which occasion Billy asked her to draw it, something she willingly did. Consequently Billy was able to reproduce it.
Their alphabet, drawn by Semjase:
Since time immemorial the Pleiadians/Plejarans have been using the decimal system with numbers 0 to 9, as is in use today everywhere on Earth. The Pleiadian-Plejaran numbers are differently shaped than those used today by the majority on Earth, and which originally arose from Indian numerals. The numerals commonly used today correspond to the 10 Arabic numerals of the decimal system, whereby it was the Arabs who adopted the numerals from the Indians, whereupon the numerals then originated from the Western Arab Gobar numerals, or dust numerals, in the 10th century in Catalonia and was introduced by monk Gerbert (later pope Silvester II.) to the calculation stone in occident, or Western world, whereby at that time the numerals were still used without the zero.
These Western Arab numerals are closer to the Indian type than the current East-Arabian numerals which are still in use. The numerals or digits of the Pleiadian/Plejaran decimal system are given as follows:
Our numerals, or number and decimal system, ultimately leads back to Pleiadian/Plejaran origin, because it was the Pleiadians/Plejarans who at early times, by the means of impulse-telepathic transfer, instructed mathematic talented people in India in this regard, whereupon later the Arabs benefitted from this, as this then took over the number system and decimal system. The Indians themselves created their own numerical symbols; consequently the Pleiadians/Plejaran numbers did not come into effect.
Vehicles or Aerial vehicles
There are no land vehicle in use by the Pleiadians/Plejarans on Erra, only aerial vehicles exist throughout, which are of different types and for different purposes. There are therefore no streets, as already mentioned in the section residential buildings. Between the homes and the landing places for aerial vehicles, as well as in the countryside, there are only walkways which are solely used by pedestrians to cover shorter or longer distances or going for long walks.
These walkways are not only used by people, but also androids, which by lay persons are indistinguishable from humans. Through the countryside leads long trails through which neither the fauna nor the wildlife are affected. For all person and goods transport, within the area of the planet, serve exclusively only aerial vehicles or hovering flying objects, which have a variety of different purposes, but which only have two different variations in their external construction, thus there are spherical aerial vehicles or discus shaped objects, whereby the discus aerial vehicles are comparable to the smaller space crafts, which are available in all sizes for space travel.
For the transportation of people, the hovering vehicles are constructed for one to five persons, whereby each dwelling, each residence or every family dispose over at least one transportation vehicle of this kind. As for vehicle need for a family, that is a purely an individual matter, thus an adult individual, according to need or request, can claim their own hovering flying device. Naturally, it might also be that two or three persons share a flying device, but the number of five persons in a vehicle must never be exceeded.
Should it therefore happen that a larger group want to head for a destination, then neither travel- nor charter aircrafts are available, therefore many of the small crafts must subsequently be used instead, of which each provide space for five persons. However, such mass travels practically no longer appear by the Pleiadians/Plejarans because the people frequently are on the move around the entire planet and therefore have no need to undertake special trips outside of those that are part of their daily routine.
At the same time, that all these aircrafts do not produce any pollution should not need to be especially emphasised, because the Pleiadians/Plejarans have no means of transport, work machines or any type of devices etc., at all which produce and release substances harmful to the environment. Fossil fuels of all kinds have never been used, let alone considered, by the Pleiadian/Plejarans since the settlement of the planet. As a result, the planet is also in this respect unspoiled and not in any way exploited.
As a rule, all aircraft and other machines, devices and robots etc., fly and work almost or completely silent, consequently people do not have their health affected through noise from machinery. All crafts fly as a rule at high speed, which can be increased according to needs and desires, where nevertheless optimal safety is ensured through control equipment.
As vehicles here is the subject matter, Billy adds, it should not be left out to make reference to a unique attraction on the main planet Erra. It refers to an <Earth automobile museum> which is operated by a friend of Ischwisch Questzal. In a huge area of several hectares, on barren land, is a gigantic, free hanging hall built, in which all wheeled vehicles and tracked vehicles, ever built on Earth, are parked and can be admired.
They include also duplicates from unique prototypes which never created a sensation on Earth and often were built by amateur craftsmen, but which were studied and recreated by Quetzals friend. Whereas models, which were manufactured in several units or mass-produced, found their way from Earth to Erra, as the owner of the museum always dealt with it in person on Earth.
As the museum initiator, he also cherish a rather special hobby, namely in his free time, alone or together with friends, he venture on trips into the wilderness with a vehicle of terrestrial origin which he has reconstructed and equipped with a drive based on the common Pleiadian/Plejaran drive systems, so that no poisonous gasoline, or diesel exhaust fumes, are released into the environment. This is a vehicle he is especially proud of – an Earth Land Rover from the year 1978.
Billy does not go into further details exactly how this museum owner on Erra got hold of the cars on Earth, but to their advantage they look like us and he could simply go into a dealership and buy a car and bring it back home. Cash for purchase he could for example obtain through the sale of precious metals. Billy was not allowed to take photographs of Semjase for the reason that she at times needed to venture into our populated areas, wherefore a photo of her would jeopardize her security. She told Billy that she also carried a set of normal of clothes for this purpose.
Traffic accidents due to technical malfunction no longer exists since ancient times, which also applies to space travel. In order to avoid accidents resulting from technical defects and the like, a rule exists that all vehicles, in the air and on water (underwater vehicles) as well as in space, after each use, undergo an extremely accurate control, even if they have been used for only one or two hours. This meticulous inspection is carried out twice, namely in the first way through an in-vehicle and never-failing inspection equipment, which each split second during the flight, monitors and controls every function, every manoeuvre as well as the stability etc. of the flying craft.
The second way take place, after every use of each flying craft, through a very thorough inspection by an in-flight vehicle android, which is always present in the flight craft and also steers it towards the destinations that has been programmed by the user, whereby the programming take place in verbal form by giving the android the necessary information. The android is also connected to a traffic guidance system, which automatically monitors the various trajectories for all vehicles and coordinate it in such a way that no flying craft can collide with each other.
As a result of these regulations, Billy was told by Quetzal, there have been no traffic accidents for a long time. These had only taken place in limited numbers because all safety measures had been ignored and overridden through influences which not were due to human errors and could not be controlled, or through external influences, which could not be mastered because they were of unexpected cosmic or elementary form. In this form, according to the Pleiadian-Plejaran data, during the last 2000 years only 16 traffic accidents were recorded, which however in each case only caused material damages to the flying object, but never any injuries etc. to the humans which sat inside them, because this was prevented by the protective shields.
Among the Pleiadians/Plejarans on Erra are everybody – adults as well as youths – obligated to work two hours daily for the community, and in fact for free. The work place and the work as well as the working period are not fixed, but can be changed from day to day according to wish. There is therefore no contract, which would make it a provision which everybody would have to comply with. But for every human it is appropriate and a self-commitment that the necessary workload is carried out daily according to need, with regard to exactly which activity is best suitable for the person in concern to fulfil.
Among the Pleiadians/Plejarans there is also an exceptional high consensus of community wellbeing as well as community spirit, therefore nobody shirks away from the two hour daily work. This allows them, according to wish, to carry out garden and agricultural work or perform activities in any production sites etc., whereby these are, however, generally of controlling nature, which naturally does not mean that also manual and research work also have to be carried out, which are off limits for robots and androids and fall exclusively in the in domain of human competence and intelligence. The actual work is carried out by robots, androids and multi-duplicators, but as mentioned creational-creative activities of technical and consciousness related nature are done by humans.
Since each person is free to choose the daily work, the work period and the work location, the Pleiadians/Plejarans on Erra often fly a long way overland in order to land somewhere they prefer and work in an industrial premise or in a garden- resp. agriculture building in order to fulfil their two hours allotted work. In this way the Errans travel around their entire planet, because this working arrangement applies to their whole world.
This principle serves to promote the coexistence of larger communities as well as the planetary community, whereby many planet-wide friendships are established, neighbourly love is achieved, and harmony is being fostered among the entire population. After completing the two hour work obligation, everyone is totally free to organize and use their free time as they wish. In that respect it is not like that they simply become lazy, so to speak, but they utilize the time for the most diverse meaningful activities, which often also consist of voluntary further work.
Among the Pleiadians/Plejarans it is not uncommon for someone to have studied, resp. learned up to thirty different fields of knowledge, which also normally are often put into practise during their average life of 1000 years. Besides, it should also me mentioned, Billy adds, that the Pleiadians/Plejarans consider every type of manual activity as absolutely necessary to advance their spiritual and consciousness related evolution.
For this reason are also manual-physical activities of all types carried out, for at least two hours daily, as counterbalance, or compensation so to speak, to consciousness related form of activities. As comparison in this regard, Quetzal once explained to Billy that the majority of Earth’s population, with regard to their spiritual-consciousness related development, needed on average 11 hours with manual work, while among the Pleiadians/Plejarans only just two hours is needed. People on Earth, with regard to their consciousness related development, have not yet advanced to such an extent that they can cope with more leisure time, standing in stark contrast to that on Earth, the working hours are more and more shortened.
According to Quetzal’s explanation, also typewriting and medical work and so forth and so on, belong to manual work, which nevertheless also involves consciousness related work. If learning, then the quantity and the degree of difficulty of the learning material are the determining factors for the need of manual-physical work. Because the larger the quantity and the degree of difficulty of the learning material is, the greater the need for physical activity becomes. If this is taken into account and complied with in full, then the learning ability also increases, because the manual activity creates a calming and a certain balance in the consciousness, as well as in the psyche and in the body.
The private gardening of vegetables, berries and fruit etc. is highly valued among the Pleiadians/Plejarans. And even though they have enough land cultivation machinery, as well as robots and androids, through which the major work is done, they do not use them in their own gardens. Instead of deploying machines, robots and androids, the Pleiadians/Plejaren work in their own gardens by laborious manual work, hence more or less all of their people have hands which are accustomed to work, whereby some also show calluses.
In contrast is the soil cultivation in the public use- resp. state owned operations carried out by machines and robots which are in many cases operated by androids, and in some cases by humans. By the cultivation of the soil and the plants, are all efforts put into avoiding that the equipment and robots, as well as the androids, humans and work machines, come into direct contact with the very fertile soil. Thus with all work machines and robots, it is solely about equipment which are hovering above the ground with long limberly metal arms, which at greater or lesser length, work the soil and are tending to the plants.
Other machines have long suction arms, similar to a vacuum cleaner, on which the suction funnel is mounted in the front. Through these is the soil lifted up from the earth, transported into the machine and saturated with oxygen and then spat out again through a second discharge hose accompanying the suction hose, whereby the earth is virtually dug up, loosened and enriched with oxygen and nutrients.
Similar equipment also exist to insert seed and young plants into the soil or to gather in the harvest. For the removal of weed there is a another separate work flying machine with a special flexible metal arm which is lowered from the work machinery and which suck the weed out from the always loose soil and bring it inside the work machine where it in a quick process is converted into humus, which then immediately is again returned back into the soil.
Thus basically all work machines and robots hover above the ground, whereby also the androids and people always remain inside the aircrafts and do not touch the ground. In this way is the soil not weighed down, neither by heavy machinery, nor by footprints from humans or androids. In this regard it may also be of interest to mention, Billy adds, that by the private gardens, on very rare occasions, this type of equipment is also employed if it becomes necessary to regenerate the soil.
For the daily two hours of compulsory labour, each citizen receives everything they need and are entitled to. Partly they may do so at distribution stations and they can also partly do it directly to their home through a distribution- reps. Purchase device. Means of payment is not required for this, then such has not been in existence by the Pleiadians/Plejarans since time immemorial.
All necessities etc. can be obtained for free because everybody simply only receives what they need for living and for their wellbeing. This is also a reason why there exists no need to steal and it is why theft and the like are absolutely unknown. The personal commitment of each individual is simply that the daily work load of two hours is completed, something which is also strictly complied with by each and every citizen.
Such practises are naturally then also only possible when all inhabitants of a planet have reached an evolutionary level in which materialism is no longer important. For this reason would such a system would be completely impossible on Earth today and also in the distant future. To such an evolutionary level, belong naturally also the relevant attitudes with regard to that all meaningful work is not considered to be bad and a burden, and a restriction of the personal freedom in the way this unfortunately still today is the case, and even increasingly so. Also manual, as well as consciousness related work, belongs to life, and represent an essential tool to sustain and promote one’s own evolution.
As the first and perhaps the most important point to mention is that all production plants, factories and industrial facilities to the Pleiadians/Plejarans is located underground and in infertile regions, whereby no kind of air polluting waste gases and smoke etc. arise. There are no smoking and steaming chimneys etc. polluting the air. All building materials, of any kind, as well as tools, machines, medication, vehicles and in parts food as well, is replicated by multi-duplicators.
That this partly is also done with food products, even though this is also produced in a completely natural ways through garden-, fruit- and farm production, is due to that certain things simply only can be produced in this way, like for example even meat products, because the cultivation of cell-cultures is a long process. By Pleiadians/Plejarans are also robots and androids manufactured by multi-duplicators.
Multi-duplicators are as a rule gigantic apparatuses, colossal copying- and duplicating machines so to speak, through which even small space crafts can be manufactured, resp. duplicated, beside countless other products, in which there are no limits to the amount of variations, and which down to a hair, faithfully replicate everything – not just on the outside, but inside, down to the last atom and molecular structure.
In order to be able to replicate any product, it is necessary to possess an atomic blueprint-template, through which a multi-duplicator is being programmed, which take place in the way the object to be duplicated etc. is <read-in> through a multi-duplicator scanner whereby the duplication then can take place, and in fact in any desired number.
Each multi-duplicator works on an electron-energy basis, whereas electrons are virtually inexhaustible. The duplicator taps the inexhaustible seas of electrons which are present everywhere in the entire universe, whereupon the captured resp. gained electrons are transformed into the required working material, from which the desired products are developed and can be multiplied according to preference.
In addition, the electrons also supply the required propulsion and work energy to these wonder apparatuses. This full automatic production process is operating wise, residing under the responsibility of robots and androids, which also maintain these apparatuses. Consequently in this process, there is really nothing more left over to do for humans than to exercise control functions.
Naturally, Billy adds, there exist not only the enormous multi duplication facilities which is constructed for large scale and mass production, but also smaller apparatuses in this respect, which can be found in every household as well as in every flying craft designed to carry people, even the smallest ones. Of course multi duplicators can also be found in every space craft both in the smallest and, of course also in the largest.
But nevertheless, not all food is simply duplicated through such apparatuses, as already mentioned, but the majority of the food are naturally produced and consumed fresh. However those kinds of natural food are also being preserved in different ways, and are also being processed into dry products.
There exist of course also artists of all kind among the Pleiadians/Plejarans, like for example musicians, singers, painters and sculptors etc. These have a high standing amongst the people and are highly valued, although they are not hyped up and adored or glorified etc., which is the case here on Earth. Even though they are highly appreciated, they are not regarded and treated as somebody special; consequently no personality cult is established around them.
Their talent is simply accepted and honoured as such – but nothing more, because also such a profession is nothing special, because their giftedness is just a talent like any other, without the respective person, for that reason, is being more honoured or is met with more interest etc. , even though their status and prestige are high.
The artists themselves are modest and do not consider themselves to be somebody special, and besides they work their daily two hours daily, like all other people for the common good and the community of the entire planet. And since no financial resources exist among the Pleiadian/Plejarans, also no profiteering occurs.
All artists carry out their work out of pure idealism and from an inner desire, exclusively in their free time. Their artworks of all kind, even music and singing, and so on and so forth, are projected via huge screens in every household, or exhibitions and concerts take place in buildings specially built for this purpose.
Art of painting
There only exist one true art of painting among the Pleiadians/Plejarans , namely the natural. Billy mention that according to the explanations and interpreting given to him by the Pleiadians/Plejarans known to him, the true art of painting lies in the ability to completely lifelike reproduce by hand all kinds of things existing, like this was practised by for example Albrecht Dürer, Michelangelo and Anker etc. This also includes futuristic and fantasy type drawings and paintings, when these show the objects etc. naturally.
But each people have their own painting technique which we to some extent know of, just like oil painting and water colour paintings etc. By the the Pleiadians/Plejarans can moreover a painting technique be found which create the most amazing depth effect. Through a very special colour mixing and painting technique, the painting appears in such a way three-dimensional as nature itself.
Only what with has been natural created with their own hands count as art of painting among the Pleiadian/Plejarans and everything which is not natural (also all other things outside the art of painting), is not considered as art. Abstract paintings (and sculptures etc.), which not naturally reproduce various objects, are seen as confused products of mentally disoriented people who are not sufficiently connected to even being able to recognize reality and live with it.
Photography does also not belong to art because it is not created with one’s own hands, but with the help of a device or an apparatus etc. True art is therefore something which not every person possesses. Paining a few smudges on the wall or squirt blobs on paper is something even apes can do and that in fact no longer has anything to do with art; by contrast, technical and suchlike paintings or certain graffiti works etc., which also is valued as art. The completely unnatural terrestrial paintings are therefore frowned upon by the Pleiadians/Plejarans, unless it concerns truly valuable, natural artwork.
The artistic genre music is for the Pleiadians/Plejarans extremely valuable for the build-up and balance of the psyche, but only when it sounds really harmonious. The physical laws of acoustics are overall applicable in the entire universe, naturally of course are the instruments with which harmonic tones and sounds are created as fundamentally different and diverse as the different tones and tone sequences themselves.
The music to the extra-terrestrials is also very diverse and foreign for people on Earth. The music to the Pleiadians/Plejarans, in particular, is very highly evolved, beautiful harmonious and electrifying, thus people on Earth are not at all able to stand it long term, because the state of the complete harmony grow without bounds and would become an insatiable urge which could cause a kind of addiction.
Billy writes that this is also the reason for that he, during his visit on planet Erra as well on board the space ships, was not allowed to bring along, resp. record on tape, any music and bring it back to Earth. Three earthly musical pieces resp. certain sequences from them, which he had in his presence in 1997 when he wrote this, have a certain similarity with the harmony of the Pleiadian-Plejaran music, and they are <Bolero> by Maurice Ravel, "The Ride of the Valkyries" of the opera <The Valkyrie> (2nd part from the complete work < Ring of the Nibelung> by Richard Wagner and the <prisoners’ chorus> from the opera <Nabucco> by Giuseppe Verdi.
The Pleiadians/Plejarans have conservatories (like naturally other universities as well, namely also for other types of arts etc., just that these schools are called something different). These schools are however only attended by really interested people, who then, after their study work for the benefit for the whole of their humankind. Therefore, it never occurs, Billy adds, as is the case here on Earth unfortunately, that untalented performers, with their variety of disharmonic performances, appear in public and are becoming cheered by those who are disharmony corrupted, even though the performers themselves neither understand anything of music instruments nor of singing, but only crackling and producing noise in an absolute disharmonious way.
As Ptaah explained, the humans of the Pleiadian/Plejaran people and races always compose and produce their music according to their evolution, knowledge and understanding, as well as according to the feelings and thoughts, the ethic and the awareness, and hence according to the characteristic features of their personality resulting from this.
And since a great balance and tranquillity dominate in these relations, also the music is structured in such a way. But precisely in this respect, in contrast to that, it can only be realized among Earth humans with dismay, that they frequently create so called music, which truly no longer has any relevance to music, but organised noise and music defined disharmony, which affect the psyche and the consciousness, acting destructive on it, whereby it then begins to react disharmonic and people go crazy in an uncontrolled manner.
This so called music is therefore nothing different from being a back image of those who create it or are listening to it, and whose psyche and mindset as well as healthy attitude to life is crippled or destroyed and their evolution has worryingly stagnated with regard to that these people are life-hostile and life-incapable and walk on the path of great destruction, like Quetzal and Ptaah as well as other Pleiadians/Plejarans have explained in uniform statements.
This so called music of terrestrial character, which has nothing to do with really good music made by Earth people is, according to Pleiadian/Plejaran statements, nothing more than a screaming disharmony with the worst destructive vibes, with malicious contempt for human beings, contempt for Creation, desire for destruction and disregard for human rights and life itself. This quite contrary to music which are really good, harmonic and constructive for the psyche and consciousness and which also have an evolution building effect, have a positive approach to life and enhances the respect for humans and other life forms and foster compliance with the life forming creational-natural laws and commandments.
The maturity for marriage is first reached at the age of 70 among the Pleiadians/Plejarans. That does not mean that they are not physically able to lead a marriage already at the age of 20, because they become sexually mature already at the age of 12, on average. Nevertheless, as a matter of principle, no marriages take place before the age of 70, namely on the one hand to become maturely developed, and on the other hand, because up to this age a great deal of different activities needs to be learned, whereby forming a family would only get in the way.
The training is extremely important, as well as the life experience gathered and learned, which after getting married guarantee that the marriage stays in place, so that divorces no longer have to be taken into consideration. Until the age of 70, the Pleiadians/Plejarans practice sexual abstinence with other partners, in order to carefree being able to focus all their attention towards their spiritual-consciousness, occupational and life-experience related development, whereby also the factor of controlling the sex drive plays an important role.
If two persons meet and come to assume that they have developed, or are able to develop, deep feelings and emotions for each other, then they are committed to two full years to seek clarity if their feelings and emotions are existent and genuine or not. Of course this time can become extended with several years according to wish. If both of them, after this time period, agree that the feelings and emotions they assumed for each other is truly genuinely based, then they are tested if they really belong together, by various experts on the matter.
First after having successfully completed the test, may both of them unite in a marriage, if in fact everything is okay from both sides for a marriage and the necessary preconditions have been fulfilled, like for example really profound feelings and emotions, affection and love as well as their parenting skills in raising offspring, and so on. A marriage normally last for the entire life, but it can also afterwards be dissolved if it turns out that the assessment, or part of it, gave a false impression. But this has not happened as long as anybody can remember, so it is safe to say that such a case no longer occurs.
The two-year (or extended years) period before the marriage, is divided up in such a way that those concerned during a time of 7 days may only meet once for several hours, in order to not to compromise the necessary distance to each other. In doing so they are however free in how to organize their rendezvous, whereby sexual activities, however, are taboo and in no way permitted. A rule, which also everyone in fact comply with, something Billy writes he was assured of time and again. Such acts and relationships are first allowed when the aspired marriage, on the basis of the passed tests, has become a virtual unavoidable and done matter.
If the two persons carry out an activity during their trial period, which makes it necessary for them to come together more than once during the week, then there is no objection against that, because it is only a purely personal gathering which is against the rule. This ruling aims at ensuring that the marriage candidates, after being together, each time have a week long time to thoroughly think over what they together experienced and talked about etc. If factors appearing during this trial time which gives reason to consider against a marriage, then the concerned are wise enough themselves to break everything off and give up, if they not beforehand have been alerted by those testing and giving advice that a such a marriage would only bring harm.
I everything goes well, and if the two-year trial time is mastered in a positive way, then follow a last test which consist of a one year separation, during which both are not allowed to see each other at all and which serves that both once and for all clarify their feelings etc. If these remain constant in unvarying form, during the year, then there is no longer any objection against the two getting married.
For this last test, many voluntarily let themselves be transferred to other foreign planets, or on to space ships which carry out various missions far from home etc. This takes place for the reason that sufficient distance is gained and without influence from the partner everything can again be thoroughly reconsidered, also in regard to the feelings. After that, follow the definite and final assessment by the advisory and those being tested.
As already mentioned earlier, divorces among the Pleiadians/Plejarans have not occurred for as long as anyone can remember, although they can in fact be pronounced and carried out. But this only happened when the cases were extreme, thus when a gross violation took place against the creational laws and commandments of marriage. Under this aspect, includes of all things the adultery in particular, which by the Pleiadians/Plejarans constitute a <breach of covenant> and is very seriously assessed, consequently those found guilty are exiled for life.
But as mentioned, the evolution level of the Pleiadians/Plejarans is very high, hence such offences, for this reason alone, no longer occur, which is also why that polygamy prevail, which creational-naturally apply to the man, Billy adds, while the woman is monogamous and carry extensive reckoning and is given attention as well as abidance – unlike many people on Earth who pay no attention to this creational-natural based fact.
Naturally, Billy adds, the question also interested him what happens when a Pleiadian-Plejaran person fall in love with a human of foreign origin, resp. from another planet or another race, upon which Semjase gave him the following answer (My translation):
“Should a person of our race fall in love with another worldly and spiritually (consciousness related) inferior race to ours, in the sense that they both want to unite, then this possibility is clarified according to our laws. If the facts prove that all the necessary conditions are fulfilled, then the marriage may take place. At that, it really does not matter whether the life form from the other world live beneath our spiritual (consciousness related) level, because in such circumstances they are developed to our spiritual (consciousness related) level, by our scientists. However, these incidents are rather rare.”
“Sollte sich ein Mensch unserer Rasse in eine andere weltliche und uns geistig (bewusstseinmässig) unterlegene Rasse verlieben in dem Sinn, dass sich die beiden vereinen möchten, dann wird diese Möglichkeit nach unseren Gesetzen abgeklärt. Ergeben die Fakten, dass die notwendigen Voraussetzungen aller Art erfüllt werden, dann darf die Eheschliessung erfolgen. Dabei spielt es wirklich keine Rolle, ob die andersweltliche Lebensform unter unserem geistigen (bewusstseinsmässigen) Stand lebt, denn in solchem Fällen wird sie durch unsere Wissenschaftler unserem geistigen (bewusstseinsmässigen) Stand gamäss höher entwickelt. Diese Vorkommnisse sind aber recht selten.”
With regards to jealousy, no problems at all predominate among the Pleiadians/Plejarans. At earlier times, they nevertheless also had to go through the evolutionary related learning processes in this respect and learn to free themselves from jealousy, something they succeeded in first at a higher evolutionary level, whereby Semjase explained the following (My translation):
“A completely anti-material thinking person is no longer able to create any jealousy in himself because his thinking has become all-embracing which in jealousy consider all possession as unworthy of honour, and in love and happiness elevates it to common property, however, always in terms of that his dignified solidarity is in compliance with the given laws and rules, namely by each side. When two people by us unite in a marital union, it does not mean taking possession of the partner, but quite simply a union in fellowship. Hence, with that come no possession rights into the picture, but only love, understanding, and joy in pleasing the other. Every partner remains absolutely free in what they do and pleases, like in cases of decisions etc., are all matters dealt with in a mutual agreement. In regards to fulfilment of laws and order in an evolutionary sense, and in every respect, are mutual clarifications and understandings necessary, which are given by certain rules of the arrangement. ”
“Ein völlig antimateriell denkender Mensch vermag in sich keine Eifersucht mehr zu erzeugen, weil sein Denken zum Allumfassenden geworden ist, das in Eifersucht alles Besitztum als ehrunwürdig erachtet und in Liebe und Freude zum Allgemeingut erhebt, jedoch immer im Sinne dessen, das seine ehrwürdige Verbundenheit in Befolgung der Gesetze und Gebote gegeben ist, und zwar von jeder Seite. Wenn sich bei uns zwei Menschen zum Ehebund zusammenschliessen, dann bedeutet dies nicht ein Besitzergreifen des Partners, sondern ganz einfach ein Zusammenschluss in Verbundenheit. Also treten dabei nicht irgendwelche Besitzrechte in Erscheinung, sondern allein Liebe, Verständnis, und Freude am Erfreuen des andern. Jeder Partner bleibt völlig frei in seinem Tun und Lassen, wie bei Entscheidungen usw. in gegenseitigem Einverständnis aller Belange gehandelt wird. In Erfüllung von Gesetz und Gebot in evolutionärem Sinne und in jeder Beziehung. Diesbezüglich sind gegenseitige Abklärungen und Einverständnisse erforderlich, was gegeben ist durch gewisse Regeln der Ordnung.”
A marital union among the Pleiadians/Plejarans does not take place in a similar way as here on Earth. In order to enter into a marital union, only the necessary tests are called for, as previously described; but then no marital status ministerially, ideological, or official procedures exist, which have to be observed and implemented. The sole obligation among the Pleiadians/Plejarans is the registration of each person, resulting naturally in that also the descendants become recorded. Whereby also the civilian status and all additional necessary information are recorded, like place of residence, date of birth, special or professional skills etc., whereby all this information however only serve for population control etc., without that it becomes evaluated or used in a negative way, therefore also no data protection is needed, like this occurs out of necessity on Earth.
Also, there exists no danger of a totalitarian control through the registration of information among the Pleiadians/Plejarans as this unfortunately happen more and more on Earth. By the Pleiadians/Plejarans is the personal freedom of the individual of the highest priority and very highly valued, therefore no one has to suffer under the thumb of freedom limitations, and precisely this freedom also applies to the marital union. In this regard Billy asked Ptaah once, officially, whereupon he received the following answer (Semjase-Kontaktberichte) (My translation):
“ … The process of a marital union with us is that such a union first preceded by a two year assessment period, during which both the future partners live far separated from each other in order to examine the feelings etc. for each other. Then they undergo different voluntary tests and clarifications related to their marriage ability in all areas, which also of course include the offspring factor and parenting skills.
These verifications, which include practically all areas of a marriage, are carried out by authoritative wise people resp. spiritual leaders and voluntarily accepted by those being tested. If as result the conditions for marriage are found being met, then the two, who loves each other, enter into a marriage in free form. This means that they join together in a free marriage, without the existence or need of any official provision or union.
Nor would such a form of marriage be a good thing and besides would be fraught with a great deal of problems because an official union amount to an inevitable constraint which is made up of certain official regulations etc. This corresponds to the experience which already our forefather made, which is why the way out from many ills which originated in the official marriage was sought in the free marriage, as we practise them today and which serves us well.
The numerous old mistakes, which often led to very evil assaults, and even killings in the official marriages, are since that time rectified and do not take place at all anymore, which nevertheless has nothing to do with the fact that not differences of opinion can arise, which however no longer gets out of control, like they did at much earlier times, when the official marriages still applied by rule.
The free marriage and thus the free alliance of marriage offers a lot of advantages, including, among other things, that the two partners do not feel chained together through official constraints in the way this really is the case in an official marriage because there is an official-law based obligation. As a result the marriage partners also do not feel free, in the way this actually is the case in a free marriage.
However, not being free creates many, and very often unsolvable problems, because the freedom of taking one’s own decisions and actions is lacking as a result of the fact that the partners are tied together by an official regulation in the way that they cannot necessarily separate from each other simply of own free will when their marriage does not harmonize etc., but that this is only possible by following official regulations and a corresponding action. In a free marriage the partners themselves join together, out of their very own decision, in order for themselves to decide about everything and anything in their marriage in an absolutely free form.
This also guarantees that the feeling of belonging together becomes very strongly pronounced, as well as the sense of responsibility concerning all matters of the marriages and towards the partner. That should actually suffice as an explanation. ”
“…Der Vorgang einer Eheschliessung bei uns ist der, dass einem solchen Zusammenschluss zuerst eine zweijährige Prüfungszeit vorausgeht, während der die beiden zukünftigen Partner weit voneinander getrennt leben, um ihre Gefühle usw. Füreinander zu prüfen. Danach unterziehen sie sich verschiedene freiwilligen Prüfungen und Abklärungen in bezug auf die Ehefähigkeit in allen Bereichen, wozu natürlich auch der Faktor Nachkommenschaft und die Erziehungsfähigkeit gehören.
Diese Prüfungen, die praktisch alle Bereiche einer Ehe in sich einschliessen, werden durch massgebende Weise resp. Geistführer durchgeführt und von den zu Prüfenden freiwillig auf sich genommen. Wird dabei eine wirkliche Ehefähigkeit befunden, dann bünden sich die zwei einander Liebenden zu einer Ehe in freier Form. Das bedeutet, dass sie sich in einer freien Ehe zusammentun, ohne dass eine amtliche Vorschrift oder Zusammenfügung besteht oder erforderlich wäre.
Eine solche Form einer Eheschliessung wäre auch nicht gut und zudem mit sehr vielen Problemen verbunden, weil eine amtliche Zusammenfügung einem unausweichlichen Zwang gleichkommt, der aus bestimmten amtlichen Vorschriften usw. besteht. Dies entspricht einer Erfahrung, die schon unseren Vorfahren eigen wurde, weshalb der Ausweg aus vielen Übeln, die durch die amtliche Ehe entstanden sind, in der freien Ehe gesucht wurde, wie wir sie heute praktizieren und sehr gut fahren damit.
Die vielfältigen alten Übel, die in den amtlichen Ehen oft zu sehr bösartigen Übergriffen und gar zu Tötungen führten, sind seither behoben und treten überhaupt nicht mehr in Erscheinung, was jedoch nichts damit zu tun hat, dass nicht Meinungsverschiedenheiten auftreten könnten, die jedoch nicht mehr ausarten wie zu sehr viel früheren Zeiten, als eben noch die amtlichen Ehen vorschriftig galten.
Die freie Ehe und also das freie Ehebündnis bietet sehr viele Vorteile, so unter anderem auch den, dass sich zwei Partner nicht durch einen amtlichen Zwang aneinander gekettet fühlen, wie dies bei einer amtlichen Ehe ja tatsächlich der Fall ist, weil eine amtlich-gesetzmässige Verpflichtung besteht. Dadurch fühlen sich die Ehepartner auch nicht frei, wie dies eben bei einer freien Ehe tatsächlich der Fall ist.
Das Unfreisein aber schafft viele und sehr oft unlösbare Probleme, weil die Freiheit der eigenen Entscheidung und Handlung fehlt infolge der Tatsache, dass die Partner durch eine amtliche Vorschrift aneinandergebunden sind in der Art und Weise, dass sie sich nötigerweise nicht einfach aus eigenem Willen voneinander trennen können, wenn ihre Ehe nicht harmoniert usw., sondern dass dies nur durch die Befolgung amtlicher Vorschriften und einer dementsprechenden Handlung möglich ist. In einer freien Ehe tun sich die Partner in freiem Willen selbst zusammen in ureigener Entscheidung, um über alles und jedes in ihrem Ehebündnis selbst zu bestimmen in absolut freier Form.
Dies gewährleistet auch, dass das Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl ausserst stark ausgeprägt wird wie auch das Verantwortungsbewusstsein in bezug auf alle Belange des Ehebündnisse und gegenüber den Partnern. Das sollte eigentlich als Erklärung genügen.”
Sexuality and offspring
When one look at the sexuality and the matters of offspring to the Pleiadians/Plejarans, Billy continues, then it is very regrettable having to notice that in this respect creational-unnatural opinions, practices and ideas prevail in many cases among people on earth, which in many cases can only be termed primitive. Due to false, and often traditional conditional educative methods, many people on Earth have a completely false conception and even an absolutely distorted relationship to this matter, which is why it may be of particular interest to briefly touch on how the Pleiadians/Plejarans conduct themselves in relation to sexuality and offspring.
In doing so, the first point which should be stated is that they, in this respect, remain on a creational-true-to-nature level, which applies all over the universe. Although they reach physical maturity when they are 11,5 years old, while the sexual maturity and fertility is reached at about 12, it does nevertheless still takes around 60 years after that, before they assert their reproductive ability. That is to say, first at the age of 70, at the earliest, do they get married. A rule they consistently abide with.
In order to best possible facilitate the lengthy development process up to this age, is sexual abstinence practiced, whereby this is gone through in useful discussions together with other persons. This abstinence however only relate to a sexual union with the opposite sex, which does not, however, mean that homosexuality among men would occur, because this has no longer existed among the Pleiadians/Plejarans since ancient times.
Since homosexuality is a gene-related matter, Billy adds, it was banished from human life through an appropriate genetic manipulation, but only because it involved a naturally occurring anomaly, not because it would be reprehensible, as unfortunately many people on Earth assume and as a result hassle, insults and cause grief to those affected, which is a particularly condemnable characteristic of people on Earth.
Thus, two-gender abstinence predominates among the Pleiadians/Plejarans until the age of 70. Two-gender abstinence means, in the course of this, sexual abstinence, which therefore only equate to sexual intercourse between man and woman. No other abstinence is however required, therefore self-satisfaction (onanism/masturbation) is permitted, performed and is certainly not reprehensible, sinful or creational-unnatural, like Christian circles vehemently claim and propagate.
If one look at the circumstances of sexuality and offspring among the Pleiadians/Plejarans, Billy adds, one cannot fail to notice that by them everything takes place very naturally, something also Semjase explained with the following statement (My translation):
“We produce our offspring in the same natural way as is also common by humans on Earth and all other physical life forms in all other universes (dimensions). Another form of procreation does not exist, apart from exceptional cases, as under certain circumstances is a spiritual procreation carried out, which however constitute an extremely rare event. As well as an insemination in artificial form which for the most part is only applied in extreme cases for the survival of species.
But, on the whole, is procreation of offspring oriented towards on the normal act of sexual intercourse, because only this form corresponds to the naturalness and the given creational law and requirements. And only the observance of this form, in clearly defined ways, ensure the continued existence and the spiritual (consciousness related) evolution of a life form, because both spiritual as well as artificial procreation holds many dangers because the offspring procreated in this way, with absolute certainty, degenerate due to hardly noticeable mutations, which over time, little by little, makes entire races of life forms into becoming physical and spiritual (consciousness related) monstrosities.
They also lose their power of resistance and the normal way of thinking. Therefore spiritual as well as artificial insemination without fail, inevitably over time, leads to degeneration – mentally as well as physically.”
“Wir zeugen unsere Nachkommen auf dem ebenso natürlichen Wege, wie es auch den Erdenmenschen und allen andern materiellen Lebensformen in allen Universen (Dimensionen) eigen ist. Eine weitere Zeugungsform existiert nicht, wenn von Ausnahmen abgesehen wird, da unter Umständen eine geistige Zeugung vorgenommen wird, was jedoch als sehr seltenes Vorkommnis zu bezeichnen ist. So auch eine Befruchtung in künstlicher form, die meistens nur in extremen Fällen zur Arterhaltung Anwendung findet.
Im grossen und ganzen ist aber die Zeugung der Nachkommenschaft auf den normalen Beischlafakt ausgerichtet, denn allein diese Form entspricht der Natürlichkeit und der schöpferisches Gesetz- und Gebotsgebung. Und allein die Befolgung dieser Form in genau bestimmten Bahnen gewährleistet den Fortbestand und die geistige (bewusstseinsmässige) Evolution einer Lebensform, denn sowohl geistige als auch künstliche Zeugung bergen Gefahren in sich, weil die so erzeugte Nachkommenschaft mit absoluter Sicherheit kaum erkennbaren Mutationen verfällt, die im Laufe der Zeit nach und nach ganze Lebensformrassen zu körperlichen und geistigen (bewusstseinsmässigen) Ausgeburten machen.
Sie verlieren auch ihre Widerstandskraft und die normale Denkform. Somit führen geistige wie künstliche Befruchtung im Laufe der Zeit unweigerlich zur Degeneration – bewusstseinsmässig wie körperlich.”
Unfortunately, Billy adds, people on Earth are often misguided in regards to the sexual issues and have in particular become misinformed through ideological false doctrines; nevertheless people are able to free themselves from these kind of confusions and what is not true or not when they are just willing to teach themselves what is true and recognize that the sexual union, the sexual intercourse between man and women, in no way just serve the procreation of offspring, but goes far beyond that in that it also serve to maintain the psychic balance and the psychological well-being.
To this end is sexual intercourse not only allowed, but even very necessary, which however doesn’t mean that adultery and prostitution therefore can be practised. Thus this truth should not be falsely understood or be deliberately misinterpreted and should never degenerate into an unrestricted self-indulgence, because needless to say there are also here rules and order which needs to be observed so that no degeneracy take place.
According to the Pleiadian/Plejaran requirements, is on Erra a maximum number of just three children per couple pre-existing (always according to the population possible on a planet) (a number which also is true on Earth). In this way is the overall planetary population is kept within the sustainable and food providing capacity of the planet. Thus, the three children marriages form the step to nip a possible emerging overpopulation in the bud.
Every birth of a child by the Pleiadians/Plejarans take place in a natural way, which means that every birth take place without pain-relieving medication as this give the greatest benefit to both child and mother, which Billy writes that this is what he was told by them. Such a natural birth has great advantages physically as well as consciousness wise.
Burial of the dead
Because death plays an important role in the life of humans, Billy writes that he naturally also asked the Pleiadians/Plejarans about in which manner they buried their dead. He readily received for example the following information from Semjase:
(My translation above the German original)
“The burial is just as known and common to us as it is on Earth. For this purpose we have special storage place facilities outside of inhabited areas. Since ancient times we have still maintained the cremation for very rare cases, if such is wished for.
In addition to burial, is the elimination of the body, from which life has escaped, common. These are matters of individual wishes, so that either form of burial can be used. But the burial is being done the natural way because that is how it has been done since the earliest era.
However, there is nothing preventing elimination when the fluidal forces, still lingering for a certain time in the lifeless body, has been lost and no longer needs to be considered, which of course becomes transitory through elimination or cremation. The fluidal forces can linger for centuries, however, at the maximum so long as until the skeleton is destroyed.”
“Es ist uns die Erdbestattung ebenso bekannt und gebräuchlich wie auf der Erde. Hierzu verfügen wir über spezielle Ablageanlagen abseits der bewohnten Gebiete. Von alten Zeiten her haben wir auch noch die Feuerbestattung beibehalten für sehr seltene Fälle, wenn eine solche gewünscht wird.
Nebst der Erdbestattung ist die Eliminierung der lebenentwichenen Körper üblich. Dies sind Dinge individueller Wünsche, so die eine oder andere Bestattungsform Anwendung finden kann. Die Erdbestattung aber findet die natürliche Form, denn so ist es gegeben seit Urbeginn.
Einer Eliminierung steht aber nichts im Wege, wenn das Verlustiggehen gewisser noch einige Zeit im leblosen Körper anhaltender Fluidalkräfte ausser acht gelassen wird, die natürlich durch die Eliminierung oder Verbrennung flüchtig werden. Die fluidalkräfte können Jahrhunderte anhalten, längstens aber so lange, bis das Skelett zerstört ist”
It is unfortunately always argued or assumed that the extra-terrestrials are some kind of supernatural beings, who no longer have any faults in their character and consequently no longer need any laws, commandments, rules, regulations and provisions as well as code of conduct and guidelines etc. This assertion corresponds to a grave error or simply an absurd claim of ideological making etc. The truth namely is that everywhere, where the creational order and laws as well as commandments have become an absolute matter of course, there also exist laws and commandments.
This is therefore always the case everywhere where human life forms are still tied to material bodies. Even the overall highest developed human life forms, who still require a human body, cannot avoid having certain laws, commandments, rules, regulations and guidelines of their own. And even after a human one day loses his physical body and becomes a pure spirit form, even then he will still come under laws and commandments, only that these no longer then are of human, but of creational nature.
That in particular means that all life forms, still possessing a body, have many faults, which is why evolution adjusted law and commandment legislation is absolutely necessary and unavoidable; and this is also then still required when the course-material body have long since become a thing of the past.
Therefore do not the already very highly evolved Pleiadians/Plejarans get by without laws and commandments etc. either, even though no longer any criminal offences occur by them. But also they are nevertheless not free from errors, thus it suddenly could be the case one day that an offence could occur, for whatever reason. And precisely for this reason there are certain disciplinary laws in place, even though they are only preventive.
If it so happens, that a person is guilty of an offence, it is then dealt with according to the scale of the offence or felony. A mistake committed is therefore always called by its name and never covered up, which means that also a fallible human stand by his act, because according to the clear logic of the Pleiadian/Plejarans, it simply makes no sense to cover up any wrongdoing in the way this is a common practise by people on Earth.
First of all making mistakes is a necessary process for the development, and in fact it is an imperative factor, because it is something which can be learned from, whilst mistakes are being recognized and eliminated. In this way do mistakes and sources of error become evolutionary factors, which in the course of time become eradicated and which lead to the correct behaviour, whereby the same mistakes are never again being committed in the same exact form.
Since the legislation to the Pleiadians/Plejarans correspond to their spiritual (consciousness related) level, they are consequently also humane. A fact which very many of Earth’s legislations cannot boast of, if one only thinks of torture and the death penalty, Billy adds. Therefore, by the Pleiadians/Plejarans it never happens that offenders are caused physical or psychological harm through any torture, or even that anybody are being robbed of their life as a punishment .
Depending on the degree of an offence or a crime, a guilty person would either be banished to a lonely, far remote island or to a specific selected planet for this purpose – by serious criminal offences up to for life. But the law requires at that on the places such measures are being performed, can never both sexes be banished, therefore special and segregated places for men or women are provided for.
However, the same laws prevail everywhere, that is, the offenders find themselves, on the places where such measures are performed, completely on their own and in the sweat of their faces have to earn their daily bread. They must create their own tools themselves, because machines and equipment are not provided to them – just simply the very minimum of what they need in order to enable them to start a new life by themselves.
They are also permitted to make small machines and the like, but so that this does not create an opportunity to escape, periodic controls are made whereupon possible secretly made work facilitating equipment or escape aiding apparatuses are eliminated without mercy. Besides, it is made sure that the offenders cannot initiate contact with other non-criminal persons but remain among their fellows.
According to a statement from the Pleiadians/Plejarans, which Billy here quotes as follows: (My translation above the German original beneath) “This form of punishment ensures the greatest possible guarantee that order is being complied with, and on the other hand the offenders do not become a burden to the people. Moreover, this form of punishment is very humane and useful, because during the life long (or also shorter) exile time the offenders are not hindered in their development (because all necessary material for studies and learning in all respects are being brought to them by the policing forces). ”
“gewährleistet dise Strafform die grösstmögliche Sicherheit für die einzuhaltende Ordnung, und anderseits fallen die Fehlbaren nicht der Volksmasse zur Last. Ferner ist diese Form der Bestrafung sehr human und zweckdienlich, denn während der lebenslänglichen (oder auch kürzeren) Verbannungszeit sind die Fehlbaren in ihrer Entwicklung nicht gehemmt (weil diesen von den kontrollierenden Kräften alles erforderliche Material für Studien und das Lernen in jeder Hinsicht gebracht wird).”
Diseases – Sport
Diseases occur in the whole universe on virtually all material planets in a smaller or larger numbers, consequently no life form is immune against them. Diseases are largely also an inevitable occurrence, in order to ensure mutations and with that the evolutionary change of life forms to a more viable and more vulnerability resistant life. Therefore, in a sense, diseases and mutations close ranks in the way that from certain diseases, a mutative resistance develops against them, whereby the life quality becomes improved and a physical organic development follows.
In this way are diseases and mutations closely connected because from certain disease follow, by mutation, a certain resistance, whereby the life forms become more viable. This does certainly not, however, apply to all diseases because other diseases are created through the wrong way of living by the life forms themselves and appear with destructive and annihilating consequences. These types of diseases, it can be said, are the regulators correcting the false ways of living; thus an inevitable appearance and result of something which is wrongly practised.
Then there are those diseases to consider, Billy continues, which occur as a result when different life forms mingle among each other in the way that they simply live together, like for example what people do with animals, where they on hand cramp them together in stables and enclosures in different genre-related ways, and on the other hand in the way that people live together with animals in their residential buildings and in addition treat them as equals.
Billy further writes that out of these factors develop an unusually large number of diseases and epidemics, which are not mutative evolutionary caused, but which can be attributed to pure irrationality and disregard for the creational-natural laws and commandments. And especially in this regard are people on Earth acting irrational and even criminal because they, by living together with animals in own residential living quarters and by equal treatment of animals in how they are handled, contribute to numerous diseases and epidemics which develop by mutation when bacteria and viruses from animals and humans combine with one another and in this way develop into deadly pathogenic germs.
It becomes in particular bad, in this regard, when people treat animals like humans, kiss them or let themselves be licked by the animals, sleep in the same bed as animals and allow them to eat from the same plate as also being used by humans etc. – or when sodomy or sexual practises is practised with animals (Billy here refer to for example AIDS, an epidemic which originated through sodomy with vervet monkeys, which is what the Pleiadians/Plejarans explained to him).
From what has been explained, it clearly can be recognized that very many diseases and epidemics develop solely through the irrationality, a wrong lifestyle, and a know-it-all attitude of humans. From the above mentioned reasons, it is by the Pleiadians/Plejarans an unalterable rule that no animals at all to be held in human residential areas or to consider them as companions; any form of caressing of animals is equally taboo in the same way as a humanization is.
This also results in that no diseases or epidemics appear by humans at all which can be traced back to animals, which naturally also is the case the other way around and whereby it is avoided that new diseases and epidemics etc. can came into being in the first place. This fact also contributes to that the Pleiadian-Plejaran races and people as well as all of the federation allies have been able to keep themselves free from diseases and epidemics, to what end naturally also the medical science has contributed significantly.
This in turn makes it clear that foreign planets therefore do not have to bear the huge number of diseases and epidemics, as well as physical deformations etc., as is the case on Earth. Therefore, depending on rationality of the human life form, these ills can be controlled and contained, like this simply is the case by the Pleiadians/Plejarans, who have practically tackled all diseases and epidemics and only suffer from very mild things, which are physically caused, such as for example headaches or vision difficulties etc., which however are firmly in control and no longer pose any kind of problems.
Health difficulties may however occur on planets foreign to them, if there are diseases there which their bodies are not immune against resp. which their immune system have not developed any antibodies etc. against, something which for example was the case for some years, as the Pleiadians/Plejarans could be affected by cold; however a problem which now (1997) also has been solved.
Naturally, Billy continues, is also sport practised by the Pleiadian/Plejarans and therefore are also sports competitions being organized. Sport however, means something different for the Pleiadians/Plejarans than what it does here on Earth. Professional sports are considered as unacceptable as any type of extreme sports. What is regarded as athletic performance all remains within the limits of the natural performance which is practised in addition to the normal daily activities, consequently, for example by a sport competition have all participants equal chances to win.
Types of sport which are just practised for self-affirmation or to satisfy a thrill are throughout considered unacceptable, which also apply to things which can be dangerous to life, in the way practised here on Earth by people who Billy sees as being psychological sick and consciousness disturbed show-off, image and risk addicts who are unable to meet life with the necessary respect and reverence.
This is quite different by the Pleiadians/Plejarans who value any life form extremely highly and preciously, which is why they neither endanger their own nor a stranger’s life, neither by extreme and sick form of sport nor through any criminal acts or criminal acts of war etc. Life means the most valuable of all properties, and that cannot be changed with the meanest, most devious, most degenerate and feeble-minded attitudes and opinions towards life; and that is not only the view of the Pleiadians/Plejarans and all their federation allies, but is also his own view, Billy writes, and with certainty is it also the view and opinion of all those who are able to reflect on life in a normal and sensible way.
Left: This is photo 49 out of 1476 photographs in total taken by <Billy> Eduard Albert Meier at Berg / Rumlikon, Switzerland on the 14 June 1976. It is a Pleiadian/Plejaran space craft 7 meter or 23 feet in diameter. The craft is being piloted by Semjase and she is doing a demonstration flight.
Photo: <Billy> Eduard Albert Meier
<Billy> Eduard Albert Meier (right), in 1976 surveying landing tracks made by a spaceship from the region of Vega in the Lyra star constellation. The space ship was piloted by one of his extra-terrestrial contacts, a woman named Menara.
This is photo number 311 taken at Ambitzgi / Wetzikon in Switzerland on the 29th of September 1976
Photo: Hans Schutzbach
An international team of astronomers has used the technique of gravitational microlensing to measure how common planets are in the Milky Way. After a six-year search that surveyed millions of stars, the team concludes that planets around stars are the rule rather than the exception. The result appeared in the journal Nature on the 12th of January 2012.
Pdf: One or more bound planets per Milky Way star from microlensing observations
Left The Milky Way over the 1.54-metre Danish Telescope at La Silla Credit: ESO/Z. Bardon
Below: Alena holding a ray gun belonging to Menara. The ray gun was test fired the same day. Alena comes from the planet SATER which is about 33 pct smaller than Earth. The planet is 157,3 million kilometres away from its central sun in the Lyra star constellation, but in another space-time configuration. She is 148 centimetres tall and her people are members of the Pleiadian/Plejaran federation.
Photo: <Billy> Eduard Albert Meier 6 July 1977
Light brown - Alena's sking color can here be seen as being light brown. She looks similar to people living in countries surrounding the Mediterranean ocean. This was as much as Billy was allowed to publish of her face. Only enough to tell what her skin colour is, but not enough to jeopardize her security should she need to carry out tasks which would involve her having to mingle in our society.
Photo: <Billy> Eduard Albert Meier 6 July 1977
Left: Alena in in Billy Meier’s office holding the ray gun belonging to Menara
Alena comes from the planet SATER which is about 33 pct smaller than Earth. The planet is 157,3 million kilometres away from its central sun in the Lyra star constellation, but in another space-time configuration. She is 148 centimetres tall.
Photo: <Billy> Eduard Albert Meier 6 July 1977
Semjase gave a lot of information about her home planet to Billy Meier
Left: This is the first pencil drawing of Semjase made by Eugen Eichenberger (1982) after the description given to him by Billy Meier. | <urn:uuid:15e48997-9713-4eba-bc2b-ed08a6b0d5aa> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.meiersaken.info/Planet_Erra.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280899.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00577-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906609 | 24,643 | 2.546875 | 3 |
Section 6: Mix TransportAnchor: #i1008967
Mix transport involves all actions and equipment required to convey HMA from a production facility to a paving site including truck loading, weighing and ticketing, hauling to the paving site, dumping of the mix into the paver or material transfer vehicle hopper, and truck return to the HMA production facility (Roberts et al., 1996). Ideally, the goal of mix transport should be to maintain mix characteristics between the production facility and the paving site. Transport practices can have a profound effect on mix temperature at the paving site, aggregate and/or temperature segregation of the mix and mat quality. This section will discuss the types of trucks used for mix transport and the various considerations involved with mix transport.Anchor: #CACIHJGG
There are three basic truck types used for mix transport classified by their respective HMA discharge methods:
- end dump
- bottom dump (or belly dump)
- live bottom (or flo-boy).
End Dump Truck
End dump trucks unload their payload by raising the front end and letting the payload slide down the bottom of the bed and out the back through the tailgate (see Figure 6-11). End dump trucks are the most popular transport vehicle type because they are plentiful, maneuverable and versatile. Some general considerations associated with end dump trucks are:
- When the bed is raised, it should not contact the paver. Bed contact with the paver may affect the screed tow point elevation, which can affect mat smoothness.
- The truck bed should be raised slightly before the tailgate is opened. This allows the HMA to slide back against the tailgate, which will cause it to flood into the paver hopper when the tailgate is opened. HMA that trickles into the paver hopper is more susceptible to aggregate segregation.
- Truck-paver contact should be established by allowing the paver to move forward into a stationary truck. This ensures that the truck does not bump the paver too hard and cause the paver to lurch to a sudden stop, which could cause a rough spot in the mat.
- Once the paver and truck are in contact, they should remain in contact. This ensures that no HMA is accidentally spilled in front of the paver because of a gap between the truck and paver. Usually the truck driver will apply the truck’s brakes hard enough to offer some resistance to the paver but light enough so as not to cause the paver tracks to slip from excessive resistance. Most pavers can also be coupled to an unloading truck using truck hitches located on or near the push rollers.
Figure 6-11. End Dump Truck. © Copyright 2006 University of Washington
Bottom Dump Truck
Bottom dump trucks (see Figure 6-12) unload their payload by opening gates on the bottom of the bed. Internal bed walls are sloped to direct the entire payload out through the opened gates. Discharge rates can be controlled by the degree of gate opening and the speed of the truck during discharge. The discharge is usually placed in an elongated pile, called a windrow (see Figure 6-13), in front of the paver by driving the truck forward during discharge.
A windrow elevator is used to pick up HMA from the windrow and feed it into the paver hopper. Windrow elevators do not have any method of regulating material flow, which makes it necessary to place the correct amount of HMA in the windrow to match the paving width and depth being placed without allowing the paver hopper to run out of mix or become overloaded.
Figure 6-12. Bottom dump truck in an urban setting. © Copyright 2006 University of Washington
Figure 6-13. Windrow made by emptying a bottom dump truck. © Copyright 2006 University of Washington
Live Bottom Dump Truck
Live bottom (or flo-boy) dump trucks (see Figure 6-14) have a conveyor system at the bottom of their bed to unload their payload. HMA is discharged out the back of the bed without raising the bed. Live bottom trucks are more expensive to use and maintain because of the conveyor system but they also can reduce segregation problems (because the HMA is moved in a large mass) and can eliminate potential truck bed – paver contact (because the bed is not raised during discharge).
Figure 6-14. Live Bottom Truck. © Copyright 2006 University of Washington
Each truck type is capable of adequately delivering HMA from a production facility to a paving site. However, certain situations such as the ones listed in “Table 6-2: Truck Type Situations” below, may make one truck type advantageous over another.
Possible Truck Type
Paving on congested city streets
Better maneuverability because it has no trailer and is smaller than a bottom dump or live bottom truck.
Paving using a mix highly vulnerable to segregation
Live bottom trucks deliver the HMA by conveyor, which minimizes segregation.
Paving on rural highways
Usually has a larger capacity than end dump trucks (therefore fewer trucks are needed) but requires space and equipment for windrows.
There are several mix transport considerations, or best practices, that are essential to maintaining HMA characteristics between the production facility and the paving site. These considerations can generally be placed into four categories:
- loading at the production facility
- transport within the truck
- unloading at the paving site
- operation synchronization.
Loading at the Production Facility
Loading at the production facility involves transferring HMA from the storage silo or batcher (for batch plants) to the transport truck. There are two potential issues with this transfer:
- Truck bed cleanliness and lubrication. Truck beds should be clean and lubricated to prevent the introduction of foreign substances into the HMA and to prevent the HMA from sticking to the truck bed. Non-petroleum based products should be used for lubrication such as lime water, soapy water or other suitable commercial products (Roberts et al., 1996). (The product should come from TxDOT’s list of approved release agents.) Petroleum based products, such as diesel fuel, should not be used because of environmental issues and because they tend to break down the asphalt binder.
- Aggregate segregation. HMA should be discharged into the truck bed so as to minimize segregation. Dropping HMA from the storage silo or batcher (for batch plants) in one large mass creates a single pile of HMA in the truck bed (see Figure 6-15). Large-sized aggregate tends to roll off this pile and collect around the base. Dropping HMA in several smaller masses (three is typical) at different points in the truck bed will largely prevent the collection of large aggregate in one area and thus minimize aggregate segregation.
Figure 6-15. Truck loading under a storage silo. © Copyright 2006 University of Washington
Truck transport affects HMA characteristics through cooling. HMA is usually loaded into a truck at a fairly uniform temperature between 250 to 350°F (see Figure 6-16). During transport, heat is transferred to the surrounding environment by convection and radiation and the HMA surface temperature drops. This cooler HMA surface insulates the interior mass and thus transported HMA tends to develop a cool thin crust on the surface that surrounds a much hotter core (see Figure 6-17 and Figure 6-18). Things such as air temperature, rain, wind and length of haul can affect the characteristics and temperature of this crust. Several measures that can be taken to minimize HMA cooling during transport are:
- Minimize haul distance. This can be accomplished by choosing an HMA production facility as close as possible to the paving site. Closer production facilities create shorter haul times and result in less HMA cooling during transport. Unfortunately, many paving locations may not be near any existing production facilities and economics may prohibit the use of a mobile production facility.
- Insulate truck beds. This can decrease HMA heat loss during transport. Insulation as simple as a sheet of plywood has been used.
- Place a tarpaulin over the truck bed. A tarp over the truck bed (see Figure 6-19) provides additional insulation, protects the HMA from rain and decreases heat loss. A study by the Quality Improvement Committee of the National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA) studied truck tarping and found that the HMA surface temperatures of tarped loads dropped more slowly than untarped loads but temperatures 100 mm (4 in.) below the surface between tarped and untarped loads were not significantly different (Minor, 1980).
Figure 6-16. Infrared picture of an HMA storage silo loading a truck showing the hot uniform temperature of the mix. © Copyright 2006 University of Washington
Figure 6-17. Infrared picture of a truck dumping HMA showing the cold surface layer crust (blue) and the hot inner mass (red). © Copyright 2006 University of Washington
Figure 6-18. Infrared picture of a truck dumping HMA showing the cold surface layer crust (blue) and the hot inner mass (red). © Copyright 2006 University of Washington
Figure 6-19. Driver covering his truck bed with a tarpaulin. © Copyright 2006 University of Washington
In most cases, truck transport appears to cool only the surface of the transported HMA mass; however, this cool surface crust can have detrimental effects on overall mat quality if not properly dealt with. Actions such as reducing transport time, insulating truck beds or tarping trucks can decrease HMA surface cooling rate. Additionally, since the majority of the HMA mass is still at or near its original temperature at loading, mixing the crust and interior mass together at the paving site (“remixing”) will produce a uniform mix near the original temperature at loading.
Unloading at the Paving Site
HMA unloading involves those procedures discussed in 'End Dump Truck' under “Truck Types” as well as a few other basic considerations such as:
- HMA should be unloaded quickly when it arrives at the paving site. This will minimize mix cooling before it is placed.
- Before HMA is loaded into the paver, the inspector and/or foreman should be certain it is the correct mix. Occasionally, paving jobs require several different mix designs (i.e., one for the leveling course and one for the wearing course) and these mixes should not be interchanged.
Ideally, HMA production at the plant, truck transport and laydown at the paving machine should be synchronized to the same rate to minimize accumulation of excess HMA in any one of the three segments. Realistically, however, this synchronization can be quite difficult because of varying laydown rates, unpredictable truck travel times and variable plant production. Detailed information on operation synchronization can be found in:
National Asphalt Pavement Association (NAPA). 1996. Balancing Production Rates in Hot Mix Asphalt Operations, IS 120. National Asphalt Pavement Association. Lanham, MD.
Ideally, all operations are designed to meet optimal mat laydown rates. However, these rates can vary based on paving width and lift thickness. Also, complicated paving locations such as intersections or near manholes and utility vaults can temporarily increase or decrease the laydown rate.
Truck transport should be planned such that the HMA transport rate (expressed in tons/hr.) closely matches plant production rate and laydown rate. Some factors to consider are:
- number of trucks to be used
- truck type
- average truck hauling capacity
- production facility output rate
- availability and condition of storage silos at the production facility
- time to lubricate the truck bed before transport
- waiting time at the production facility
- loading, weighing and ticketing time at the production facility
- time to cover the load (when tarpaulins are used)
- distance between the production facility and the paving site
- average truck speed.
Traffic plays a large role in HMA delivery rates because it affects truck speed. Especially in congested urban areas, heavy and/or unpredictable traffic may substantially increase, or at least vary, truck travel time. As truck travel time increases, more trucks are needed to provide a given HMA delivery rate. Therefore, as traffic gets worse, trucking costs increase. Additionally, the unpredictability of traffic may result in either long paver idle times as it waits for the next truckload of HMA or large truck backups as several trucks all reach the paving site or production facility at the same time.
Finally, production facility output is typically controlled to match haul or laydown rate. However, this can result in suboptimal plant efficiency or HMA uniformity, which may increase plant exhaust output, shorten emission control device lifetimes, and affect contractual payment if payment is tied to HMA uniformity. It may often be more economical to run the production facility at maximum rate and store excess material in storage silos for discharge into trucks as they arrive. Storage silo insulation has progressed to a state where dense-graded HMA can be stored in them for up to a week at a time without significantly affecting HMA characteristics. However, gap graded mixes such as SMA or OGFC should not be stored for more than 2 to 3 hr.
In sum, synchronization should be the goal but it is often difficult to achieve (based on varying laydown rates, haul time and traffic) and may result in plant inefficiency and HMA quality degradation. If a production facility has modern well-insulated, airtight storage silos and is producing a dense-graded HMA, it may be beneficial to run the plant at maximum production rate and store the mix until needed rather than try and match haul or laydown rate.Anchor: #i1009359
Mix transport can have a large impact on flexible pavement construction quality and efficiency. Mix characteristics such as laydown temperature, aggregate segregation and temperature differentials are largely determined by transport practices. In general, there are three types of HMA transport trucks: the end dump, bottom dump and live bottom dump (flo-boy). End dump trucks are most common, however, bottom dumps and live bottom dumps are well-suited for certain situations. Key considerations in mix transport are:
- truck bed cleanliness and lubrication
- proper mix loading techniques in order to prevent aggregate segregation
- haul distance and mix temperature
- timely mix unloading and unloading of the correct mix.
If properly managed, mix transport can successfully move HMA from the production facility to the paving site with little or no change in mix characteristics. | <urn:uuid:34ec7f11-6c88-482b-8a74-6ae691696e64> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://onlinemanuals.txdot.gov/txdotmanuals/pdm/mix_transport.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281450.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00179-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9229 | 3,041 | 2 | 2 |
Chapter 1, Lesson 4 Multimedia
Particles of a Solid
- The atoms of a solid are strongly attracted to each other
- Solids keep their shape because of these strong attractions
- The atoms vibrate but do not move past each other
Comparing Solid and Liquid
- The atoms of a solid are so attracted to each other that they vibrate and don't move past each other.
- The molecules of a liquid are attracted to each other, but move more freely than the atoms of a solid. The molecules of a liquid are able to move past one another.
Heating and Coooling a Metal Ball
- At room temperature, the ball fits through the ring.
- When the metal ball is heated enough, it will not fit through the ring.
- When the ball is cooled back to room temperature, it fits through the ring again.
Heating and Cooling a Solid
- When a solid is heated, the particles move faster and move slightly further apart
- When a solid is cooled, the particles move slower and move slightly closer together
Molecules in a Room Temperature and Hot Metal Ball
- At room temperature, the atoms in the ball vibrate but do not move past each other
- When the metal ball is heated, the atoms vibrate faster. Their motion competes with their attractions and the move a little further apart
- Lesson 1: Water is a Polar Molecule
- Lesson 2: Surface Tension
- Lesson 3: Why Does Water Dissolve Salt?
- Lesson 4: Why Does Water Dissolve Sugar?
- Lesson 5: Using Dissolving to Identify an Unknown
- Lesson 6: Does Temperature Affect Dissolving?
- Lesson 7: Can Liquids Dissolve in Water?
- Lesson 8: Can Gases Dissolve in Water?
- Lesson 9: Temperature Changes Dissolving
- Lesson 1: What is a Chemical Reaction?
- Lesson 2: Controlling the Amount of Products in a Chemical Reaction
- Lesson 3: Forming a Precipitate
- Lesson 4: Temperature and the Rate of a Chemical Reaction
- Lesson 5: A Catalyst and the Rate of Reaction
- Lesson 7: Energy Changes in Chemical Reactions
- Lesson 8: pH and Color Change
- Lesson 9: Neutralizing Acids and Bases
- Lesson 10: Carbon Dioxide Can Make a Solution Acidic
- Lesson 12: Natural Resources & Synthetic Materials | <urn:uuid:e25bc505-6258-4c1d-9b82-e9bd596d0b6b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.middleschoolchemistry.com/multimedia/chapter1/lesson4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279189.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00060-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.863789 | 523 | 4.375 | 4 |
Last week Dr Charlie Thompson and PhD student Sam Griffith from Geology & Geophysics began a fieldwork project investigating the survivability of DNA in submerged bone. Cow femur bones, acting as human analogues, are being submerged at four sites in estuarine, riverine and marine areas in Hampshire.
In the environment a number of physicochemical and biological processes directly impact DNA degradation in bone and also control the rate at which other agents of bone diagenesis and biomarker decay operate. However, our understanding of these processes is still incomplete. DNA degradation is being investigated in natural environments and in controlled laboratory setting, so variables influencing survival can be identified, isolated and quantified – (prolonged and periodic burial in bottom sediment, variations in turbidity/hydrological regimes; wet and dry cycles and the influence of microbial activity are being explored).
Ultimately the study hopes to establish whether the potential for DNA extraction is relatable to bone’s diagenetic state and taphonomic histories. Better understanding in this area could prove very useful for archeologists and forensic practitioners alike by improving screening of bone samples recovered from aquatic contexts – this may help bone tissue with most potential for successful biomarker extraction to be targeted for analysis.
This fieldwork is part of a wider collaborative research project with Dr Tim Thompson (Teesside University) and Dr Rebecca Gowland (Durham University) exploring human bone taphonomy in aquatic environments. | <urn:uuid:8fab1786-6486-4ac2-8899-0852f7031855> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://blog.soton.ac.uk/ggblog/2014/06/g-g-team-begin-fieldwork-looking-at-dna-degradation-in-submerged-bone/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572581.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816211628-20220817001628-00077.warc.gz | en | 0.918756 | 292 | 3.171875 | 3 |
The recent rise in popularity of IM (instant messaging) has driven the development of platforms and the emergence of standards to support IM. Especially as the use of IM has migrated from online socializing at home to business settings, there is a need to provide robust platforms with the interfaces that business customers use to integrate with other work applications. Yet, in the rush to develop a mature IM infrastructure, it is also important to recognize that IM features and uses are still evolving. For example, popular press stories1 have raised the concern that IM interactions may be too distracting in the workplace. This concern suggests that we still need to fine-tune the interface design for IM so the benefits of quick, lightweight communication can be gained without creating a distracting burden for users. How can the industry meet the demand for robust platforms and standards for IM without locking out innovation and development?
In this discussion, we want to demonstrate how research prototypes that explore future directions can be used to guide and inform current efforts to develop an infrastructure. Our experience in using and studying IM has identified future opportunities in what we will refer to as “awareness services.” That is, beyond the instant text-chat capability and sense of presence among online colleagues that IM provides, what other cues of activity should collaborators share to help coordinate their work? When a person you want to contact is not present, what information can the system provide to help you coordinate contact in the future? Even when you are physically present, can the system provide cues for when you are mentally receptive, or “available,” to being interrupted?
As examples of potential solutions to these issues, we summarize three research prototypes that demonstrate future directions in awareness services:
These three prototypes, along with other research in this area,2, 3 demonstrate concepts that go beyond IM to a broader set of awareness features and services useful for coordinating group work online. Reflecting on the technical implications of our research prototypes informs the evolution of the platforms and standards being developed to support IM today, so they can anticipate (or at least not become an obstacle for) future directions in awareness services.
A major focus of the Awarenex design was tailoring the interface for using IM in the work environment.4 While the same need to contact remote people that made IM popular at home was also useful in the work environment, what aspects of the work environment affected the design of IM functionality? The work environment suggested, for example, integrating other resources such as an online calendar and phone. There were also concerns about the potential distraction of using IM at work.
The interface for Awarenex offered two novel approaches to designing an IM service driven by this work-environment context:
Exploring these interface features led to a design that contrasts with most commercial IM systems by identifying technical requirements for integrating new sources of awareness information and sharing it in realtime to support the coordination of distributed collaborators.
Figure 1 illustrates the ways Awarenex integrates other realtime awareness information to help users find good times to establish contact. For each entry in the Contact List, Awarenex shows not only the user’s name, but also their “locale”—an indication of whether they are in their office, at home, or another location. A locale usually corresponds to a physical location, but it is more intended to convey a high-level description of the person’s context rather than their precise physical location. For example, the “mobile” locale covers many physical locations and lets others know when the person is “on the road.” This is an example of how an awareness system can balance the desire to know a remote person’s context against the concern that precise location information may be too revealing. As systems become more location-aware, they need to support notions of location that range from physical coordinates to conceptual description.
An indication of the user’s absence is reflected by displaying any inactive duration of the user’s keyboard or other input device (displayed in parentheses in figure 1). Beyond this presence information, such additional activity indicators as whether the user has an appointment scheduled in their online calendar or is engaged in an IM or telephone call are included. Taken together, these indicators give cues about whether the user is preoccupied with some other activity, and thus is less receptive to additional incoming communication. Our experience with the value of adding awareness indicators in Awarenex suggests the need for an extensible framework that affords adding new sources of awareness information as they become available. To provide the flexibility for growth, the entire system—including the protocol, notification servers, and clients—needs to have the ability to accept, propagate, and display forms of awareness information that may not have been known when the system was designed.
If the Awarenex Contact List suggests that now is a good time to interact, Awarenex provides further realtime awareness cues to help negotiate the conversational process. These cues illustrate the wide range of awareness information that an IM infrastructure needs to support information sharing in realtime. Awarenex provides an IM recipient with a sense of an approaching interaction by presenting a small “Contact Preview” when someone initiates an IM (see figure 2). This contrasts with how most commercial IMs pop up a window when someone initiates an IM. The Contact Preview is a one-line panel that scrolls down from the top of the screen, showing the first line of input being typed into the IM window. This panel, along with an audio alert, provides a subtle sense of approach and an indicator of the incoming IM’s topic (somewhat like the subject header in e-mail). The recipient must acknowledge the incoming IM by clicking in the Contact Preview before the IM window opens up.
On the sender’s side, the background for an IM window is shaded gray until the recipient acknowledges the Contact Preview. This cue helps participants know when they are mutually engaged in an IM conversation. This indicator of mutual attention addresses a syndrome found in many commercial systems where the first exchanges of conversation are often used to confirm whether the person is really “there” and attending to the IM.
Figure 3 illustrates how Awarenex transmits text input character-by-character to support a sense of conversational flow in IM. This approach is in contrast to most commercial IM systems that buffer the text until the user sends the message (usually by selecting either Return or Enter). Seeing the other person’s typing appear character-by-character not only provides a cue of whether that person is in the process of replying (instead of attending to other things), it also affords the possibility of anticipating what is being said before the typing is completed. While buffered messaging is closer to realtime than e-mail, character-by-character messaging even more closely models the synchronicity of face-to-face and voice communication. Because the reader can anticipate what the writer is going to say, they can begin forming their response sooner, resulting in more efficient communication exchanges.
Figure 3 also illustrates the leave-taking interface designed in Awarenex. In contrast to most commercial IM systems, which close the windows as soon as a user ends the IM, Awarenex has a “Goodbye” button that initiates the leave-taking interface. Pressing “Goodbye” prints a system-generated message into the chat (“John waves goodbye”) and starts a series of diminishing dots. This indicates an intent to end the IM, but leaves the IM connection open to provide some time (10 seconds) to negotiate any last-minute exchanges. Just as people in face-to-face conversation foreshadow when they are ready to leave by closing their notebook, stowing their pens, and packing up other props they have used in the conversation, Awarenex indicates this intent while still allowing time to gracefully negotiate ending the conversation. If no further conversation happens before the 10 seconds expire, the IM windows will close, thus ending the conversation.
These Awarenex features suggest other kinds of information beyond passing text among IM clients that need to be distributed by an IM infrastructure. Through the Contact Preview background indicator for mutual engagement in an IM, character-by-character text transmission, and the leave-taking interface, Awarenex demonstrates the value of sharing cues that people can use to negotiate starting, maintaining and ending IM conversations. Whereas the proposed standards currently under consideration treat text messaging and awareness information as separate components, Awarenex demonstrates the need to embed some forms of awareness information into text-based conversations. Furthermore, future standards for text messaging should accommodate the character-by-character flow of text, as demonstrated in Awarenex (and UNIX talk before it), to allow users to engage in more natural, synchronous communications.
Awarenex and other IM and presence systems provide information about whether people are reachable for communication. But what if those individuals that you would like to contact are not reachable? Should you wait briefly to see if they will return, find someone else, or send a voicemail or e-mail message? When will they likely receive such messages?
Studying how colocated people handle the similar situation when a person is “away,” researchers found that coworkers maintain a sense of each other’s temporal patterns, or “rhythms,” of presence.5 This kind of awareness is useful for coordinating good times to attempt contact or plan meeting times. Remote collaborators, however, have difficulty forming and maintaining such “rhythm awareness” because they are not aware of each other’s comings and goings over time.
In our own research group, which was split between sites that were separated by 2,500 miles and three time zones, we found this was partially alleviated with the use of Awarenex. Over time, we noticed that Awarenex not only provided an immediate sense of who is reachable for contact, but also gave a sense of long-term temporal patterns during the workday. For example, we became attuned to when our remote colleagues arrived and departed for the day, and when they left and returned from lunch. In our Rhythm Awareness research,6 we explored how analyzing awareness information over time could be used to infer rhythmic patterns that would be useful in coordinating distributed group work.
The Rhythm Awareness project models an individual’s historic patterns of presence and uses the model to predict when someone will likely return from recurring periods of absence (e.g., morning arrival, lunch, weekly meetings).7 It can also be used to forecast imminent departure so that remote coworkers can catch each other before they leave.
As an example of how rhythms can be used to facilitate communication, figure 4 shows a screenshot of the integration of rhythm inferencing in an Awarenex Contact List. In this example, the current time is 12:14 on a Thursday in the U.S. Pacific time zone. The first entry indicates that Bo has been inactive for 50 minutes, which does not correspond to a rhythmic pattern, so no prediction is made. The system infers that John is at lunch (75 percent probability) and predicts he will return on or before 12:50 (ETA, or estimated time of arrival). Rosco, an East Coast worker, is logged out, probably gone for the day, and the system predicts he will return on Friday morning around 5:15 (8:15 EST). The entry for Jean, who also works in the eastern standard time zone, is different in that she is currently active but is approaching the end of her day. The system indicates that if others want to reach her before she leaves they should do so before 1:28 (ETD, or estimated time of departure). Placing these predictions in an IM Contact List provides prospective callers with information they need before attempting to contact someone. Thus, callers can decide whether to attempt to reach a different person or leave an asynchronous message for a currently unreachable recipient.
The Rhythm Awareness research demonstrates a new kind of awareness information that calls for infrastructure support in the capture and analysis of temporal aspects of awareness information over time. Recording and analyzing data increases a system’s storage and processing requirements beyond merely propagating awareness information.
A concern raised by realtime presence and awareness information is that it could subject people to even more interruption as more people are aware of when others are online. The fact that you are physically reachable does not necessarily mean you are mentally receptive to being interrupted. In fact, the computer activity that indicates your presence may occur when you are most busy and least receptive to an interruption. The conventional way of avoiding unwanted interruptions is to explicitly let others know when you are not “available” by setting your status to “away” or “busy.” This approach often fails, however, because it requires direct action that few people take—especially when they are busy.
Another way to manage availability is to have the system gather clues from your environment and present an inference about your availability. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University conducted a study to determine the most salient sensors in making an availability inference of an office worker.8 Based on their results, our research group prototyped the Lilsys system, which consists of the most salient sensors identified: sound, phone usage, and computer activity. In addition, Lilsys includes a motion sensor to detect a person’s presence, a necessary condition for inferring availability. We also added a sensor to detect when the door is open or closed for staff who close their door when they do not want to be disturbed.
Lilsys synthesizes information collected from the sensors and attempts to infer when the person is not available for an interruption. Figure 5 illustrates the information flow as sensor data are fed to an inferencing engine, which posts the inference to a presence service, which in turn propagates the inference to clients. The inferencing engine makes an assessment of the person’s unavailability based on the amount and type of evidence collected by the sensors. To suggest a person’s inferred unavailability to a prospective caller, Lilsys uses a traffic-sign metaphor: neutral (no inference), a diamond-shaped yellow “warning” sign that indicates possibly unavailable, and a triangular, red-bordered “yield” sign to indicate the person is probably unavailable.
Availability inferencing can coexist with setting explicit status in a presence system because they have complementary tradeoffs. Whereas setting status explicitly requires user action, the sensors collect information passively. Also, explicit status is obtained only when the user remembers to set it, while the availability inference is updated as soon as a change in the user’s context is sensed. On the other hand, while an availability inference is necessarily vague, explicit status can be descriptive. Rather than presenting all of the details about a person’s context, Lilsys presents an abstraction of the person’s unavailability, which provides a measure of privacy by hiding the details of a person’s activity. Individuals have differing tolerances for privacy/publicity trade-offs.
Awareness systems need to help users understand the tension between their desires for privacy and availability to others, and they should allow users to control the extent to which they wish to present full details about their context versus an abstract inference of their availability.
Because Lilsys integrates information from a variety of sensors and other sources, it demonstrates yet another type of awareness service with implications for the architecture of platform infrastructures. In this case, the raw information from each source is potentially sensitive and not necessarily salient to users, while the resulting inference is salient. This suggests that a presence/awareness infrastructure should not necessarily propagate all forms of information to clients—some data should be routed only to trusted services that synthesize the data and inject an inference back into the infrastructure for propagation to clients.
Presence is a unique and compelling feature of IM systems today, but it currently indicates only whether a person is reachable at the moment. Effective communication requires richer awareness information of current and future reachability, context, and availability. The three research prototypes presented here serve as examples of the kind of collection, analysis, and sharing of awareness information that infrastructures for future communication tools need to be capable of supporting.
For example, in addition to simple online presence, Awarenex demonstrates integration with other realtime sources of information, such as whether the user has a currently scheduled appointment in their online calendar or is engaged in a phone call. In addition, Awarenex illustrates that IM should be seen not as a communication channel in isolation, but as part of a spectrum of computer-mediated communication that includes e-mail, telephony, voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), desktop videoconferencing, application sharing, calendar, and more. Thus, communication media need to have interfaces that integrate with each other to provide users with an experience that allows them to pick the right media for their needs. Research has shown that conversations that start in IM often migrate to another medium (e.g., phone, visit).9 Communication media architecture should allow for easy and dynamic transitions among themselves to support this practice.
Awarenex also illustrates various approaches to supporting conversational mechanics, such as character-by-character transmission of text and a negotiated leave-taking sequence that helps participants gracefully end their conversations. This support of conversational mechanics emphasizes the use of instant messaging as a nearly synchronous form of communication, providing features closer to a face-to-face conversation than to mail. However, proposed standards under the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) working group’s Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol (IMPP) encourage a nearly asynchronous mode of communication, losing the awareness of conversational engagement and the ability to anticipate conversation utterances. For example, although the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) does not preclude sending a message one character at a time, the header and XML formatting of the message would dwarf the one-character content. Platforms need to allow the use of a text-oriented streaming protocol—similar to those for audio and video streaming—for enriched, synchronous text messaging.
Another important concern is the privacy and security of awareness information. The very utility of awareness information in helping colleagues coordinate their activities also makes it important to maintain control over who has access to that information. Trusted associates, such as close colleagues and family, may have access to more information than those who are unknown to you. Developing mechanisms for giving the user control over who can see awareness information and how to negotiate sharing that information with others needs to be part of the development of any products that share awareness information.
Rhythm Awareness demonstrates that analyzing records of awareness information over time can provide useful functionality in predicting a person’s future state. Lilsys further demonstrates the realtime analysis of multiple points of context data to infer when a person is less available for an interruption. Taken together, they illustrate that, in addition to scaling to large numbers of connections, awareness services need to consider scalability of storage (for data collection) and processing (for data analysis). Furthermore, awareness services need to provide a means for adding new forms of awareness inferencing to the system as they are developed.
Platforms and standards designed to support IM and presence services of today should also anticipate developments in awareness information to support ongoing development. Client applications, too, must be able to display presence information not known when the clients were designed. Standards being proposed under the IMPP working group do include an extensible format for propagating presence information. We need to safeguard such extensibility from being diluted by incompletely implemented services that carry only de facto “standard” presence information. Furthermore, while these standardization efforts address the propagation of information among distributed components of the system, we also need to consider standardization of mechanisms that will allow clients to display new forms of awareness information when they are developed.
The popularity of IM has shown the utility of rudimentary presence information for facilitating communication. The research prototypes described here, along with other research in this area, suggest an emergence of promising awareness features that would further help distributed work groups communicate and coordinate their collaboration. Technical platforms and standards need to support the ongoing development of awareness features and be capable of including new awareness information and services as they emerge. The technical infrastructure also needs to address privacy concerns so that users can easily understand and trust their control over who has access to this information. By developing platforms and standards today that anticipate and accommodate future developments in awareness services, we can build communication tools that will gracefully support the emergence of new awareness services as they become available.
1. Bhattacharjee, Y., A swarm of little notes. Time 160, 12 (Sept. 16, 2002), A4–A8.
2. Horvitz, E., Jacobs, A., Kadie, C., and Koch, P. Coordinate: Probabilistic forecasting of presence and availability. Proceedings of the 18th Conference on Uncertainty and Artificial Intelligence. (July 2002), 224–233.
3. Atkeson, C., Fogarty, J., Forlizzi, J., Hudson, S., Kiesler, S., Lee, J., and Yang, J. Predicting human interruptibility with sensors: A Wizard of Oz feasibility study. Proceedings of CHI (2003), 257–264.
4. Begole, J., Bhalodia, J., Li, F., Tang, J.C., Van Kleek, M., and Yankelovich, N. ConNexus to Awarenex: Extending awareness to mobile users. CHI 2001 (March 31–Apr. 5, 2001).
5. Zerubavel, E. Hidden Rhythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1981.
6. Begole, J., Smith, R., Tang, J.C., and Yankelovich, N. Work rhythms: Analyzing visualizations of awareness histories of distributed groups. Proceedings of CSCW. (Nov. 2002), 334–343.
7. Begole, J., Hill, R., and Tang, J.C. Rhythm modeling, visualizations and applications. To appear at UIST 2003: Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. (Nov. 2003).
8. Atkeson, C., et al., 2003.
9. Bradner, E., Nardi, B., and Whittaker, S. Interaction and outeraction: A study of instant messaging in the workplace. Proceedings of the CSCW. (Dec. 2000), 79–88.
JOHN C. TANG studies how people use technology to guide the design and development of new technology. His current research focus is designing new ways to support distributed work groups with a particular interest in awareness and IM. Prior to joining Sun Labs in 1990, Tang worked at Xerox PARC developing and studying several shared drawing prototype tools. His doctoral research at Stanford University studied the use of shared workspaces in group design activity.
JAMES “BO” BEGOLE joined Sun Labs in 1999 as researcher and developer of collaborative computing. Begole received a B.S. in 1992 in mathematics from Virginia Commonwealth University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in 1998 in computer science from Virginia Tech. Prior to his studies, he served in the U.S. Army as an Arabic language interpreter, stationed in the United States, Panama, Egypt, and Greece. Begole’s research motivation is to explore applications of technology to do things not otherwise possible, primarily in the realm of distributed collaboration.
Most current impressions of how Instant Messaging (IM) is used in the workplace stem from anecdotal reports obtained through interview studies or marketing surveys. Although these can help people gain a sense of prevailing practices, such studies are typically based on only a small set of users and are devoid of data derived from direct observations. While at AT&T Labs, four colleagues and I had the opportunity to study a very large sample of monitored IM interactions—over 21,000 IM conversations involving 437 users conducted from mid-2000 to late 2001. Alan Walendowski, Steve Whittaker, Diane J. Schiano, Candace Kamm, and I analyzed the IM conversations we collected and were interested to discover that some of the most popular notions about the character, functions, and styles of IM in the workplace are mistaken. For example, contrary to prior research, we found that workplace IM is primarily used for complex, work-specific interactions, with only a portion used for the type of “quick question” or coordination activities most often mentioned in the literature. Only 28 percent of the conversations we monitored proved to be simple, single-purpose interactions, and only 31 percent focused chiefly on scheduling or coordination matters. Moreover, we found that people rarely switched from IM to a different conversation medium once discussions grew complex, as is frequently suggested in reports of IM usage. These findings, along with some others discussed next, suggest certain design considerations for applications developers.
We found evidence of two styles of use, only one of which is currently widely acknowledged. In the interactions we monitored involving people who either infrequently use IM or rarely communicate with each other, we discovered that messages tended to focus chiefly on scheduling and coordination matters and that the conversations were slow paced and involved little threading or multitasking. Frequent IM users, on the other hand, tended to use IM more as a tool for collaboration, with discussions covering a broad range of topics via many fast-paced interactions—each with many short turns in the conversation, much threading, and a predisposition towards multitasking. Although people consistent with our “light user” profile have until now been generally regarded as typical of all IM users, our research suggests that the majority of IM traffic actually involves heavy users working collaboratively to address complex, work-specific problems.
Our study examined IM conversations logged on a prototype instant messenger application called Hubbub, which is similar to other IM products in that it includes a “buddy list” feature that enables awareness of—and ready access to—other potential conversation partners. Also, like other IM products, Hubbub supports near-synchronous, text-based interactions between participants.
Altogether, we captured 303,648 messages comprising 21,213 conversations between 692 pairs of users over the course of 16 months. From these conversations, we applied a variety of quantitative measures to learn more about their characteristics. First, we distinguished between heavy users and light users. Those who averaged three or more IM conversations a day were considered heavy users and the rest were considered light users. We also tracked these people’s conversational partners, again distinguishing between heavy and light users. Then we conducted a content analysis on a smaller sample of the data (500 conversations among 28 users) so that we could categorize the character of the conversations. When we analyzed what people were using instant messages to accomplish, we discovered several interesting findings, namely:
One design implication that might be derived from these findings is that although integrating voice or video with IM may serve to simplify media switching, people might make less use of this feature than expected. Our study suggests that some people seem to be very effective at discussing complex work topics using nothing more than text. And since all users often multitask while engaged in IM conversations, it would be a mistake to tightly integrate IM with certain applications, thereby making it difficult for users to jump from one application to another.
Our results also suggest that the characteristics of heavy IM use—multiple, brief, intermittent interactions throughout the day whereby the lines of communication are more or less left open for spontaneous conversation—mirror the nature of impromptu pair-wise interactions in other media. This finding suggests that other tools intended to supplement or work with IM should seek to support the characteristics of the sort of lightweight, unplanned interactions we witness each day in the places we work.
ELLEN ISAACS is a freelance interaction designer and researcher, focusing on the design and use of tools for communication and collaboration. Before going out on her own, she worked at AT&T Labs, Sun Microsystems, and several defunct start-ups. She coauthored an interaction design book, Designing from Both Sides of the Screen (New Riders, 2001) with Alan Walendowski. Isaacs is currently working on projects that are related to the capture, management, and sharing of photographs and videos.
Originally published in Queue vol. 1, no. 8—
see this item in the ACM Digital Library
Eric Allman - E-mail Authentication
Internet e-mail was conceived in a different world than we live in today. It was a small, tightly knit community, and we didn’t really have to worry too much about miscreants. Generally, if someone did something wrong, the problem could be dealt with through social means; “shunning” is very effective in small communities.
Vipul Ved Prakash, Adam O'Donnell - Fighting Spam with Reputation Systems
Spam is everywhere, clogging the inboxes of e-mail users worldwide. Not only is it an annoyance, it erodes the productivity gains afforded by the advent of information technology. Workers plowing through hours of legitimate e-mail every day also must contend with removing a significant amount of illegitimate e-mail. Automated spam filters have dramatically reduced the amount of spam seen by the end users who employ them, but the amount of training required rivals the amount of time needed simply to delete the spam without the assistance of a filter.
John Stone, Sarah Merrion - Instant Messaging or Instant Headache?
It's a reality. You have IM (instant messaging) clients in your environment. You have already recognized that it is eating up more and more of your network bandwidth and with Microsoft building IM capability into its XP operating system and applications, you know this will only get worse. Management is also voicing concerns over the lost user productivity caused by personal conversations over this medium. You have tried blocking these conduits for conversation, but it is a constant battle.
Joe Hildebrand - Nine IM Accounts and Counting
Instant messaging (IM) has become nearly as ubiquitous as e-mail, in some cases—on your teenager’s computer, for example—far surpassing e-mail in popularity. But it has gone far beyond teenagers’ insular world to business, where it is becoming a useful communication tool. | <urn:uuid:93e2faa3-f779-4609-ba03-6ab220962ce4> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://queue.acm.org/detail.cfm?id=966718 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285315.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00573-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934664 | 6,248 | 1.921875 | 2 |
The start of the video to 3:49 captures a meeting at which Ray Kappe, faculty and students agree on a process for refining the structure of the graduate studios.
From 4:23 to 36:16 are series of brief clips without sound of start of the school year activities: students painting the Rhomboids, talking on a payphone, putting up signage, drinking beer, lounging on the patio, making a silkscreen and screen printing t-shirts with a “SCI-Arc” logo. The images flicker, are washed out, and interrupted with artifacts.
At 36:17, there are scenes of the Main Space filling up with students and faculty for the Fall 1978 orientation.
At 41:10, Ray Kappe begins the orientation with general remarks on the upcoming year, noting the recent NAAB accreditation, thirteen new faculty, and acquiring land in Topanga.
Kappe announces the instructors for the Fall 1978 design studios:
•1A/B: Ahde Lahti, Glen Small, Terry Gwilliam, David Gray
•2A/B: Terry Glassman, Phyllis Birkby, Bill Simonian
•3A/B: Jim Stafford, Howard Lathrop
•4A: Roland Coates, Ray Kappe
•5A: Alberto Bertoli, Anthony Lumsden
•1GA: Michael Rotondi, Daniel Herron
•2GA: Eric Owen Moss
•Community Design Studio: Mike Black
At 51:25, Kappe introduces the seminar instructors, each of whom describes the content of their course this term:
•Henry Katzenstein, Physical principles of architecture
•Glen Small, Natural structures
•Terry Rainey discusses some changes in the independent studio format
•Jonathan Kirsch, Writing and communication
•Stephen Albert, Project and office management
•Ena Dubnoff describes the Landscape architecture seminar she teaches with and Elsa Leviseur
•Shelly Kappe, The Ascent of Man, and Evolution of the modern movement
•Sid Brisker, Mechanical systems, and Architectural detailing (also an experimental Internship program)
•Terry Glassman, Architecture, planning and the social sciences
•Ken Klaus, Music history
•Tom Anderson describes the Advanced structures 1 & 2 seminars he teaches with Richard Brown
•Rex Lotery, Urban design
•Ross Sutherland, Drawing
•Eric Owen Moss, Architectural theory
•Jack Park, Low impact technology
Kappe concludes with a discussion of studios that will be analyzing the SCI-Arc facility this term.
At 1:49:09, Kappe introduces two new staff members: Anne Landon (Librarian) and Beth Farnsworth (Admissions). Another member of the staff, Sherrie, notifies students about the insurance policy, mailboxes, and cube spaces. Arlene Ainbinder notifies students about tuition.
Kappe concludes the morning by announcing the studio space assignments. | <urn:uuid:dca02597-57e3-4871-9923-b53120a7b137> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://channel.sciarc.edu/browse/start-of-sci-arc-s-fall-1978-term-september-5-1978 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571987.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813202507-20220813232507-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.826364 | 627 | 1.664063 | 2 |
June 16, 2012
The U.S. military’s unmanned X-37B robotic space shuttle returned from orbit at 5:48 a.m. in California (1248 GMT)from a secretive 15-month test flight, Air Force officials said on Saturday.
The miniature space plane, also known as Orbital Test Vehicle-2, or OTV-2, touched down at California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base, 130 miles northwest of Los Angeles. It was only the second U.S. vehicle to make an autonomous runway landing from space.
“With the retirement of the space shuttle fleet, the X-37B OTV program brings a singular capability to space technology development,” said Lieutenant Colonel Tom McIntyre, X-37B program manager. “The return capability allows the Air Force to test new technologies without the same risk commitment faced by other programs. We’re proud of the entire team’s successful efforts to bring this mission to an outstanding conclusion.” | <urn:uuid:4e25bdb3-92ee-4cf9-b623-af231ac8b2a5> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.infowars.com/secret-military-mini-shuttle-lands-in-california/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719908.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00159-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.890778 | 209 | 2.9375 | 3 |
146. The Council considered a note by the Director-General on the strategy for the future work of FAO 1. It welcomed this opportunity of a policy discussion on the role of FAO in the United Nations family and in the world at large, as well as the orientation of its substantive work.
147. The Council agreed that, while a number of organizations had an interest in various aspects of agriculture, FAO should be recognized as the one intergovernmental body with overall responsibility for policy setting and policy advice in the fields of agriculture, forestry and fisheries. This depended not only on confidence in the secretariat and the quality of its work, but also on the positive cooperation of all governments, whether from developed or from developing countries. It was also necessary for governments to adhere to the same position in the various organizations to which they belonged, in order to avoid taking decisions in other bodies that were inconsistent with the policies they had themselves established in FAO. The actual strategy of FAO could not be considered in isolation from the strategy of Member Nations, and the Council believed that its effectiveness would largely depend on the extent to which Member Nations themselves applied it in the framework of their national policies. The Council noted, in this context, the statements of several members from developed countries that the strategy now being worked out by FAO would be of value for their bilateral programmes of assistance.
148. The Council supported the Director-General's views on the need for defining sectoral strategy within a broad framework for total development, and agreed with him that the establishment of such a framework represented the main coordination task of the United Nations itself. The current work on the preparation of the Second Development Decade was a step in the right direction, but a number of members agreed that there was still a need for some form of planning mechanism for the United Nations family as a whole. The establishment of an overall development strategy would enable the numerous agencies involved to obtain stronger support for sectoral goals, to work together in closer collaboration, and ultimately to achieve a considerably greater impact. The Council noted that the Director-General would be pursuing the question further with the Secretary-General and the heads of other agencies.
1 CL 51/14.
149. The Director-General had proposed that the Organization select five broad highpriority areas, within which would be made concentrated efforts in the formulation and execution of action programmes and the mobilization of external resources. The five areas of concentration were:
Work on high-yielding varieties of basic food crops;
Filling the protein gap;
A war on waste;
Mobilizing human resources for rural development;
Earning and saving foreign exchange.
The Council found itself in general agreement with this approach, and with the choice of areas. It was pointed out that the proposed strategy was action-oriented and field-oriented, and should serve to increase the effectiveness of FAO's operations. At the same time the Council noted the intention of the Director-General that the concept of the five areas would be applied flexibly and not dogmatically; priorities for assistance were set, at the national level, by the individual governments, and if assistance was requested outside the five areas the Organization should do its best to provide it.
150. It was noted that the secretariat had made preliminary studies in each of the five areas, but that much work remained to be done in defining “priorities within priorities” and working out action programmes in consultation with governments and other agencies. The five areas should be considered on an equal footing; action in one area should not be considered as necessarily more important than action in another. The circumstances of individual countries differed widely, and the detailed priorities to be applied in each case would have to be worked out with the governments concerned. The Council noted the important role which the forthcoming regional conferences could play in considering the application of the priorities at the regional level.
151. A number of members drew attention to the effect which the strategy proposed by the Director-General might be expected to have on the regular programme. Expressions such as “concentration of efforts” implied that at least some of the Organization's activities outside the five areas might be reduced or suspended. The Director-General in his opening address to the Council had said that, as part of the reorganization of FAO, he intended to review all traditional activities and try to eliminate those which had now become of doubtful value; this statement was welcome. Some members pointed out the relevance of this process to the Director-General's indication, given in the same address, that he was thinking in terms of a 12 percent increase in the substantive programme for the biennium 1970–71; such an increase might be more acceptable to their governments if it were related to a programme of work and budget which had been reduced by the elimination of those activities which did not seem worth continuing in the light of present-day conditions, so that the budgetary increase could be less than half of the 12 percent suggested. 1
152. Many comments were made by speakers on the description given in the Director-General's note of the possible scope of action under the five areas. In general, members welcomed the broad interpretation proposed by the Director-General, and there was a considerable measure of agreement on his views. However, a number of members held that the treatment of the area entitled “Earning and Saving Foreign Exchange” was inadequate if interpreted as an expression of the Organization's intentions with regard to trade problems; there should be a determined effort, in association with UNCTAD, to improve the trade position and prospects of the developing countries. Some members also held that the description of “Mobilizing human resources for rural development” left room for improvement. In the human factor lay the key to all development; this area of concentration therefore deserved to be treated with particular care. One of its most important components would be institutional improvements, on which insufficient stress was laid in the Director-General's note. On all five areas, members made detailed suggestions 1, which the Director-General promised to take into account in the further work to be carried out by the secretariat.
153. The Council agreed that the Director-General should make contact with governments and with other organizations to work out comprehensive action programmes; individual programmes or projects would be presented to potential donors as they were formulated. The preliminary secretariat studies would be completed and published in order to encourage further analysis and discussions. The important question of arrangements for governmental review of activities under the five areas was considered in conjunction with the future of the Technical Committees. 2
1 See CL 51/PV-5 and CL 51/PV-6.
2 See paras. 110 – 117 above.
154. The Council had before it a note by the Director-General 1 in which he stated that, as a result of a thorough review of the Campaign to date, he had reached the conclusion that it had made a direct and substantial contribution to the attainment of FAO's objectives. He therefore proposed a continuation of this type of activity over the period of the Second United Nations Development Decade; set out certain main lines for future Campaign activity; commented on the title of the Campaign and reported the organizational changes he proposed to make. The Director-General asked for the advice of Council in establishing a method by which, in accordance with Resolution 6/65 of the FAO Conference, it could review the more detailed proposals he would submit to the Fifteenth Session of the Conference.
155. In an introductory statement, the Deputy Director-General underlined the Director General's intention that future Campaign activities should be still more closely related to the programmes and priorities of FAO. He reminded the Council that plans under consideration for the Second United Nations Development Decade laid stress on the mobilization of public opinion to support and further the Decade's strategy of action, and said that the wide base of public support already established through FFHC, would enable FAO to make a major contribution to this aspect of the Second Development Decade. Furthermore, the Campaign drive to secure the positive involvement of young people in development action had brought a strong new reinforcement to FFHC and to FAO's work.
156. The Council noted that the Director-General proposed to retain the title of “Freedom from Hunger Campaign,” and there was general agreement with this decision. However, some members said it was important that within the Campaign there should be a constant effort to underline the relationship of FFHC to development problems as a whole. A number of speakers pointed out that the various aspects of development were closely linked and that the public support which could be mobilized through FFHC could be of value also in this broader field. Other members said that while they agreed with the decision to retain the present title for the world campaign, they might find it necessary to use different titles for their national committees, which would reflect national problems and priorities more accurately, while continuing to operate within FFHC.
157. The Council then considered what mechanism might be most appropriate to review the detailed proposals for future Campaign action which the Director-General would prepare for submission to the Fifteenth Session of the FAO Conference. Various proposals were put forward, including the establishment of an Ad Hoc Committee; the establishment of a Committee of the Whole of the Council, and the possibility of referring the Director-General's proposals for study by the Programme Committee. A number of members expressed the view that it was important that all members of the Council should have an opportunity to study the proposals, since these would be of major importance for their national programmes. It was also pointed out that, in the normal course of its work, the Programme Committee must examine any proposal for FAO activities.
1 CL 51/15.
158. The Council agreed to the Director-General's proposals to extend the campaign for the period of the Second Development Decade, subject to a mid-term review as suggested by the Director-General. It was generally agreed that the present title of the Campaign should be maintained with variations to fit local circumstances. The Council supported closer integration of FFHC activities with other FAO programmes. It accepted that the most appropriate location for the Campaign office was within the Office of General Affairs and Information. Finally, the Council agreed to refer the Director-General's detailed proposals to a Committee of the Whole of the Council, which would meet immediately prior to its Fifty-Second Session. The Director-General's proposals should also be referred to the Programme Committee, and its views would be taken into consideration by the Committee of the Whole. It was understood that the detailed plans for future action would be based on the summary ideas the Director-General had placed before the Council and which had been endorsed, with particular stress laid on the importance of education and nutrition, increased field action and the involvement of youth.
159. General - The Council considered the reports of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Sessions of the Programme Committee 1, and the relevant Council documents on selected sectors and activities of the Organization as follows:
Office of Assistant Director-General, Agriculture Department - CL 51/16
Animal Production and Health Division - CL 51/17
Land and Water Development Division - CL 51/18 and CL 51/18 Add.1
Plant Production and Protection Division - CL 51/19
Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Atomic Energy in Food and Agriculture - CL 51/22
Forestry and Forest Industries Division - CL 51/20 and CL 51/20 Sup.1
Nutrition Division - Cl 51/21
160. The Council expressed appreciation for the review undertaken by the Programme Committee, and approved the findings and proposals presented in the relevant sections of the Committee's report.
161. In view of the usefulness of the reviews undertaken in the past, and bearing in mind the modifications with respect to the Technical Committees of the Conference, the Council emphasized the importance of continuing such reviews on an improved and strengthened basis by the Programme Committee and by the Council itself.
162. The Council stressed in particular the need for greater comparability in the contents of the documents submitted by the Secretariat, and the need for the Secretariat to adhere more closely to the approved format.
163. The Council requested the Programme Committee at its next session to reexamine the format, guidelines and procedures for the preparation of future review papers, aimed at further improving and facilitating the review exercise.
164. The Council stressed the importance of work in the future on genetic resources of agricultural crops, domestic animals and forest trees.
165. The Council welcomed the information that continuing efforts would be made, particularly with respect to the 1970–71 Programme of Work and Budget, to bring the work programme into appropriate alignment with the five broad priority areas for concentrated efforts, in harmony with the other needs of the Organization, and that this would entail a higher degree of selectivity in the future.
166. Office of the ADG, Agriculture Department 2 - The Council noted that, within the structural reorganization, the Office of the Assistant Director-General, Agriculture Department replaced in a large measure the former Office of the Assistant Director-General, Technical Department. It recognized however, that the new Office of the Assistant Director-General, Agriculture Department differed considerably from the latter in staffing and in some of its operational responsibilities.
1 CL 51/5 and C1 51/6 - Part I.
2 CL 51/16
167. The Council also noted that within the new structural organization, the offices of the assistant director-general should be regarded primarily as extensions or arms of the Director-General's own office. They should contribute substantially to the policy-making process, and to ensuring that policies were implemented. In this process, they should exercise general oversight over the work of the divisions under them, ensure coordination among those divisions, and be the main instruments for the achievement of interdepartmental coordination, particularly at the policy level.
168. In the light of the above, the Council recognized that the format of the review papers and the procedures for undertaking the review of the activities of the divisions were not suited to the offices of the assistant directors-general and that, in the future, such review documents should not encompass them.
169. Animal Production and Health Division 1 - The Council supported the programme activities of the Animal Production and Health Division, and welcomed the trends of its future work; one member however, stressed that every effort should be made to obtain accurate livestock statistics as a basis for improving livestock economy.
170. The Council considered that there was a special case for action by international organizations such as FAO to conserve and make effective use of genetic resources for the improvement of animals. Whilst supporting the need for the conservation of more productive strains, breeds and species, the Council considered that in so doing there was a risk that desirable genes might be lost, and that to avoid this, stocks of germ plasm should be kept from less productive species and breeds so as to be able to reintroduce desirable genes from the conserved material.
171. The Council also considered that there was a need for greater emphasis on the breeding, feeding and management of livestock to meet the present emphasis on animal health:
It was thought that the establishment and strengthening of regional vaccine centres for better animal health facilities should receive urgent attention;
the Latin American members requested that attention be given to stimulating research, particularly into the prevention of foot-and-mouth disease;
one member asked that present quarantine regulations be further reviewed, so that, without jeopardising animal health, Member Nations would have greater opportunities to export their cattle.
172. Attention was drawn to the severe livestock losses still being caused by the tsetse fly. The need for appropriate disease survey and control work, especially through regional and intercountry programmes was reiterated, and a long-term study of the matter was suggested.
173. Land and Water Development Division 2 - The Council expressed the desire that all the soil and fertilizer work in the Division be consolidated within one framework, and expressed the hope that no duplication in the investigations of plant, soil and water relationships would occur with the Plant Production and Protection Division.
1 CL 51/17
2 See CL 51/18 and CL 51/18 Add.1.
174. The Council was reassured that no duplication in such investigations took place, and that the Director-General had ensured the coordination and technical integration of the appraisal of soil resources, soil management and conservation; thus the World Soil Resources Office had become a part of the Soil Resources and Survey Branch, and the FFHC Fertilizer Programme had been included in the Soil Management, Conservation and Fertilizer Use Branch. The Chief of the Soil Resources and Survey Branch has been appointed as Coordinator of the work of the two branches.
175. A number of members stressed the importance of land and water development projects within their national programmes, and one member referred to such projects with special reference to rice growing. The view was expressed that the Land and Water Development Division should receive special attention in the allocations of the budget for 1970–71 because of the importance to Member Nations of the subject matter covered by the Division and the large size of its field programme. Furthermore, the Division has been affected to the greatest extent by the reorganization, and its size has been significantly reduced.
176. The Council was informed that before the reorganization the Land and Water Development Division was carrying about 30 percent of the workload of the UNDP/SF projects assigned to FAO, with 961 field posts and 64 Headquarters officers. Today, the Division was still responsible for the largest number of field posts, i.e. 685, with 20 Regular Programme Headquarters posts and 16 Headquarters posts funded by UNDP/SF. Assurance was given that the Director-General was giving due consideration to strengthening the Division.
177. Some members requested further explanation concerning the relationship between FAO, UNDP and UNTAO. It was explained that the statement on this matter contained in document CL 51/18 1 was not representative of the Director-General's view, and that he would be discussing such relationships with UNDP in November.
178. It was also explained that because the fundamental role of water in all aspects of economic development, and particularly in agriculture, was now universally recognized, it was not surprising that projects with a major water resources development component should represent a large part of both UNDP and FAO operations. One of the most prominent characteristics of such projects being their multipurpose nature, they called, more than any others, for appropriate coordination to distribute operational responsibility among the various United Nations organizations concerned.
179. “Grey areas” being particularly wide in the case of water resources development projects, FAO had greatly appreciated the constructive action taken by UNDP to review objectively all elements, before assigning operational responsibility to United Nations agencies in this field. It was believed that the UNDP policy in this regard was guided by the following three principles, with which the Council agreed:
All UNDP projects should be clearly geared toward well-identified development purposes, generally built around a main theme, even though they may be complex or multipurpose;
except in the case of operations large enough to be split easily into separate and well-coordinated projects of sufficient size, there should not be, for the sake of efficiency, more than one executing agency for any given project;
the executing agency for complex or multipurpose projects should be the agency which had the greatest competence in the field in question.
180. The main obstacle to the success of irrigation projects was the incomprehension, if not divorce, which existed between agronomists and civil engineers. FAO was trying to surmount this obstacle, for instance through the work of the Land and Water Use Commission for the Near East and in field projects including hydraulic engineers, pedologists, agronomists and other specialists.
1 See para. 13 of CL 51/18.
181. Plant Production and Protection Division 1 - The Council emphasized the need for strengthening the Division's work on high-yielding varieties, especially with regard to the production, certification and distribution of high quality seed. In this connexion, it was pointed out that regional centres for the study of wheat diseases, particularly rusts in the Near East, and for research on seed improvement in Africa, were urgently needed. The exploration and conservation of genetic resources also required continuous attention, particularly for preserving local biotypes. In order to fully utilize introduced materials, adaptive research should be effectively carried out.
182. Work on crop diversification and on individual crops should be given proper attention in order to assist governments in achieving a balanced economic development.
183. As the FAO/WMO/Unesco agro-climatological study provided valuable guidance in agricultural development, it should be extended to cover many more areas.
184. In the field of plant protection work on safe and efficient use of pesticides should receive renewed emphasis in the future Programme of Work, while the control of weeds, control of plant diseases and pests of economic significance, and plant quarantine should receive major attention so that effective assistance on these subjects could be provided to Member Nations.
185. Joint FAO/IAEA Division of Atomic Energy in Food and Agriculture 2 - The Council had before it the report of the Programme Activities of the Joint FAO/IAEA Division. In accepting the comments of the Programme Committee, it noted the desire of the Committee to be kept informed of further developments on various aspects of the programme.
186. Forestry and Forest Industries Division 3 - The Council recognized the importance of forestry activities in the economic development of the developing countries and agreed that the Division's work in forest industries, economics and marketing could be a prime contribution to the priority area “promotion of foreign exchange earnings and savings.”
187. It emphasized that priority should also be given to other work of the Division in afforestation, especially in arid areas, farm forestry, forest fire control, education and training, and forest influences in relation to the conservation of natural resources. FAO's work in conserving forest gene resources and developing high-yielding varieties of trees was acknowledged as being especially important for the future and deserving the cooperative support of international agencies. The Council agreed that this work also should extend beyond the protection of existing forest gene resources into the development and utilization of such resources having importance in the future. The need for close cooperation between the Forestry and Agriculture Departments in this type of activity as well as in range management and the conservation of natural resources was acknowledged.
1 See CL 51/19.
2 CL 51/22.
3 CL 51/20 and CL 51/20 Sup. 1.
188. The Council noted the present status of negotiations with regard to preparations for the Seventh World Forestry Congress scheduled to be held in 1972. By 15 August 1968 which was the deadline set by the Director-General, four countries - Argentina, Chile, Greece and U.S.S.R. - had expressed their wish to host this Congress. The Council noted the statement by the observer from Argentina, supported by the delegations from Brazil and Colombia, confirming the invitation extended by his government to hold the Congress in Argentina. Preliminary contacts with governments wishing to host the Congress would be completed in time to present to the Council at its next session the information it would need to select the host country for this important forestry event. In this connexion, the Council noted that the World Forestry Congresses were not a direct responsibility of FAO.
189. In view of its general approval of the recommendations of the Director-General and the Ad Hoc Committee on Organization to accord departmental status to the Forestry and Forest Industries Division 1, the Council suggested that the Director-General give special attention to the additional budgetary support the Department would need to further develop its forestry and forest industries activities within the framework of FAO's overall programme.
190. Nutrition Division 2 - The Council reviewed the activities of the Nutrition Division, and concurred with the comments made thereon by the Programme Committee at its Fifteenth Session 3.
191. Statutory Bodies 4 - In keeping with the recommendation of the Programme Committee, the Council requested the Director-General to ensure a strict application of the criteria established by the Fourteenth Session of the Conference, not only to proposals for the creation of new bodies, but also to the continuance of existing ones, with a view to achieving a gradual, but substantial reduction in the number of such bodies and in the overall number of meetings.
192. The Report of the Third Session of the Committee on Fisheries 5 was introduced by Mr. R.I. Jackson, Assistant Director-General (Fisheries) in the absence of the Chairman, Dr. Babacar Diop. The Council expressed its appreciation of the manner in which the Committee on Fisheries was carrying out its terms of reference and gave general support to its conclusions and recommendations.
193. The Committee on Fisheries had carried out an examination of the general trends and organization of the work of FAO in the field of fisheries, which had been reviewed by the Programme and Finance Committees 6. The Council agreed with the Committee on Fisheries that the fishery activities of FAO should continue to be strengthened in view of the rapid development of fish production and trade, and the opportunities in this field that present themselves to developing countries. The Council endorsed the Committee's view that even greater emphasis should be placed in future programmes on fishery industries; including more effective utilization of fish and fish products. The Council also placed emphasis on investment studies to be carried out in the Department of Fisheries in collaboration with the Investment Centre, which should assist both international banks and private investors. The Council therefore favoured the proposed restructuring of the Department into three divisions by the relocation of activities concerned with vessels, fishing methods and gear, and products and marketing, into a new Fishery Industry Division. There was also some discussion concerning vertical as distinct from horizontal organization of subject matters covered by the department, and the Council agreed that the existing vertical structuring appropriately met the present requirements of the work of the Organization in fisheries.
194. Some members expressed disappointment that the rate of expansion for 1970–71 visualized in the Report of the Committee on Fisheries fell short of that which had been envisaged at the time of the Thirteenth Session of the Conference. Some members would have liked to have seen more resources made available to inland fisheries; others emphasized the importance of education and training.
1 See paras. 75 and 115 above.
2 CL 51/21.
3 See paras. 24 to 30 of CL 51/6 - Part I.
4 See paras. 233 – 237 below.
5 CL 51/8.
6 CL 51/5, paragraphs 3 – 8.
195. The Council noted that the Indian Ocean Fishery Commission, recently established by the Council on a recommendation of the Committee on Fisheries, had already met; and in this context the Council reiterated the desire expressed by the Conference at its Fourteenth Session that extra budgetary sources of funds be sought for support for resource surveys and other activities of FAO's regional fishery bodies, and in particular the Council desired that consultation with the UNDP regarding appropriate support for this Commission's activities in the Indian Ocean should continue actively.
196. The Council noted the Committee's conclusion that it was too early to assess the merits of the present system of balloting for the election of its members which had been adopted by the Conference at its Fourteenth Session (Resolution 15/67), and the Council agreed that the present system should be given a longer trial.
197. Bearing in mind its decision in respect of the Technical Committees of the Conference, the Council decided to lay aside consideration of the relationship between the work of the Committee on Fisheries and that of the Technical Committee on Fisheries of the Conference, to which reference had been made in the Committee's report.
198. The Council was informed 1 of further developments in implementation of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2172 (XXI) on the resources of the sea, ending with recommendations arising from a consultation that had taken place in Paris only the previous week. The Council found itself in agreement with the proposal that the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission should be more closely linked with FAO and other interested agencies, so that it could play an important role in the formulation and coordination of the expanded programme of international collaboration in marine science for which the United Nations General Assembly had called. This would be done without, for the present, removing the Commission's constitutional and administrative base from Unesco, and without, on the other hand, abridging in any way FAO's responsibilities for fishery research. The Council also agreed in principle that FAO should join with Unesco and WMO in providing the IOC Secretariat and carrying out activities in support of the programmes to be formulated by IOC. The Council noted with approval that a senior staff member of the Department of Fisheries had already been designated to develop closer liaison with IOC in matters concerning marine science. The financial implications of the proposed closer relationship between FAO and IOC would require careful study when more detailed proposals came before the Council and Conference, as part of the Director-General's Programme of Work and Budget. Some members drew attention to the need for respecting the rights of coastal states when planning and carrying out research at sea.
199. The Council noted the proposal to replace World Fisheries Abstracts by a review journal 2, and some reservations were expressed; the Council, however, agreed with the proposal to proceed with a specimen issue, including review articles, in time for the Conference at its Fifteenth Session to come to a final decision.
200. The Council supported the Committee's views on marine pollution 3, and endorsed the establishment of a Joint IMCO/FAO/Unesco/WMO Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of Marine Pollution 4. Some members expressed the wish for further studies to be undertaken in the fields of pollution of inland waters, since this had important implications for the inland fisheries.
201. The Council noted the Director-General's proposal to consult with the experts on fish culture and related fields, and agreed that such experts should meet on an ad hoc basis during the current biennium, subject to the availability of funds.
1 CL 51/INF/3.
2 CL 51/23.
3 CL 51/25.
4 Designated as a Panel of Experts under Article VI-4 of the FAO Constitution.
202. The Council noted an amendment adopted by the Committee on Fisheries to its Rules of Procedures, Rule II-5 of the Rules of Procedure of the Committee on Fisheries to read:
“5. Each Member Nation of the Committee may appoint alternates and advisors to its representative on the Committee.”
203. The Council agreed that the statutes of the Continuing Working Party on Fishery Statistics in the North Atlantic Area (CWP) be amended as to its composition and title, and confirmed its establishment under Article VI-2 of the Constitution 1. The Council accordingly adopted the following resolution:
COORDINATING WORKING PARTY ON ATLANTIC FISHERY STATISTICS
Noting that the Continuing Working Party on Fishery Statistics in the North Atlantic Area was established by the Director-General, under the authority conferred on him by Resolution 23/59 adopted by the Conference at its Tenth Session, jointly with the International Council for the exploration of the SEA (ICES) and the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries (ICNAF);
Considering the usefulness of this body to the participating agencies in connexion with the establishment of standard concepts, classifications, definitions, reporting methods and forms relating to statistics on the Atlantic fisheries;
Noting that the Committee on Fisheries had made certain recommendations at its Third Session with regard to the modification of the Working Party's title and composition and that these recommendations had already been approved by ICES and ICNAF;
Endorsing the recommendations made by the Committee on Fisheries;
Decides that the title of the Continuing Working Party on Fishery Statistics in the North Atlantic area shall henceforth be changed to “Coordinating Working Party on Atlantic Fishery Statistics.”
Decides that the Coordinating Working Party on Atlantic Fishery Statistics shall be composed of experts; FAO, ICES and ICNAF each appointing up to four experts in accordance with their respective constitutional procedures;
Authorizes the Director-General, in accordance with Article VI-3 of the Constitution, to determine the terms of reference of the Coordinating Working Party on Atlantic Fishery Statistics in agreement with ICES and ICNAF;
Authorizes the Director-General to appoint the experts to be selected by FAO and to promulgate, after determination of the Working Party's terms of reference, amended statutes to reflect the contents of the present resolution;
Confirms that as far as FAO is concerned the Coordinating Working Party on Atlantic Fishery Statistics is a working party of experts established under Article VI-2 of the Constitution;
Agrees that FAO continue to provide the secretariat services for the Working Party.
1 CL 51/24.
204. The Council reviewed the report of the Director-General on matters arising out of ECOSOC, the ACC and the UNDP Governing Council sessions held since April 1968, 1 and generally endorsed the manner in which the Director-General was arranging FAO's contribution to matters of interagency cooperation in order to further the process of economic and social development.
205. The Council received a report on the implementation by FAO of the relevant resolutions of the General Assembly on the granting of independence to colonial countries and peoples 2. It noted the constructive steps already taken by FAO implementing the resolutions, and endorsed the line taken by the Director-General that he would continue to respond positively to General Assembly - Resolution 2311 (XXII) in a manner consistent with the FAO Constitution and the mandates of its governing bodies.
206. The Council noted the interim report on the efforts being made by the Director-General to reach an agreement with UNIDO, in order to enable the two Organizations to pursue their activities in the industrial field without duplication and with maximum cooperation in areas of common concern. It expressed the hope that the agreement would be concluded early in order to eliminate the present uncertainty.
207. The Council received a report 3 on developments since the Fourteenth Session of the FAO Conference, with regard to the problem of cooperation between FAO and Unesco in the field of agricultural education.
208. It noted the action taken by the Director-General to find a solution to the problem in consultation with his colleagues in Unesco and ILO, which had resulted in a concrete basis for future cooperation. The Council accordingly approved the AideMémoire submitted to it setting forth guidelines of cooperation between FAO, Unesco and ILO, which had been signed by the three Directors-General on 3 May 1968.
209. It noted that the Executive Board of Unesco and the Governing Body of ILO had already endorsed the Aide-Mémoire, and that the Agreement had been welcomed by the Forty-Fifth Session of the Economic and Social Council.
210. The Council further noted that an Inter-Secretariat Working Group on Agricultural Education, Science and Training, as envisaged in the Aide-Mémoire, had already been established and had already held its first meeting in August 1968.
211. Having regard to the fact that the term “agricultural education” embraced a complex field of interrelated activities, the Council recognized that the Aide-Mémoire had necessarily to be confined to defining only broad areas of major responsibility. It expressed the hope, however, that effective cooperation could be developed within this broad framework if the three parties concerned approached the problem in a spirit of cooperation and mutual trust.
1 CL 51/26.
2 CL 51/26- Sup. 1.
3 CL 51/28.
212. Several members referred to the essential importance of linking agricultural education and training to the practical needs of agricultural production and development, and stressed that FAO, in implementing the provisions of the Aide-Mémoire, must play a major role in technical education and training directly related to agricultural development.
213. The Council suggested that there should be a trial period of reasonable length during which it should be informed of progress made in the implementation of the Aide-Mémoire so that it could decide on any further action, if necessary. Meanwhile, it was unnecessary to establish an Ad Hoc intergovernmental committee under Article III of the Relationship Agreement between FAO and Unesco.
214. The Council adopted the following resolution:
ARRANGEMENTS FOR COOPERATION BETWEEN FAO, UNESCO AND ILO, INCLUDING THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JOINT ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION, SCIENCE AND TRAINING
Recalling the question of division of responsibilities between FAO, Unesco and ILO in the fields of agricultural education, science and training, which has been the subject of extensive deliberations at the Fourteenth Session of the FAO Conference and the Forty-Eighth, Forty-Ninth and Fiftieth Session of the FAO Council;
Having noted with satisfaction the agreement which has been reached between the Directors-General of FAO, Unesco and ILO on methods of future cooperation and coordination in these fields, as reflected in the Aide-Mémoire signed jointly by the three Directors-General on 3 May 1968, the text of which is reproduced in Appendix G to this Report;
Noting that the Aide-Mémoire envisages the establishment, with the approval of the governing bodies of the three Organizations of a Joint Advisory Committee;
Considering that the establishment of such a Committee would be conducive to the adoption and pursuit of a concerted approach by the three Organizations in the fields referred to above;
Having considered the draft Statutes of the proposed Joint Committee as set forth in the aforementioned Aide-Mémoire;
Noting that these draft Statutes have been approved by the governing bodies of Unesco and ILO;
1. Hereby endorses the Aide-Mémoire setting forth Guidelines for Cooperation between FAO, Unesco and ILO in Agricultural Education, Science and Training;
2. Approves the establishment of the Joint FAO/Unesco/ILO Advisory Committee on Agricultural Education, Science and Training mentioned therein which shall be considered, as far as FAO is concerned, as a Committee of Experts set up in accordance with the provisions of Article VI-2 of the FAO Constitution;
3. Further approves the Statutes of the aforementioned Joint Advisory Committee, as set out in the above-mentioned Aide-Mémoire;
4. Requests the Director-General to inform the Council periodically of developments in the implementation of the Aide-Mémoire.
215. In considering the format for reporting on the progress of operations under the FAO/IBRD Cooperative Programme and other investment programmes, the Council took note of the recommendations of the Programme Committee. The Council agreed that in reporting to the Conference on these programmes the secretariat should not only give progress data as suggested in format, but also information on the general problems and difficulties encountered in common by groups of countries in obtaining finance for investment projects, without however giving out any information infringing on the secrecy of the bank-client relationship.
216. The question of relating the investment activities to the new priority areas of FAO work was also considered and, while approving in principle the need for these priority areas to be taken into consideration in the formulation of investment programmes, the Council also noted that there was need for flexibility and that investment activities needed to be guided primarily by the wishes of individual governments, that they involved major policy decisions, and that the criteria of financial institutions would necessarily play a major role.
217. A view was expressed that the budgetary resources being provided for the Cooperative Programme with the World Bank and the Area Banks were not adequate and should be increased. The Council noted that the Director-General was allocating from the Contingency Fund an additional $50 000 to the FAO/IBRD Cooperative Programme during the current biennium and that talks were being held with the World Bank for a stepping-up of the activities and budgetary resources in the 1970–71 biennium, following the World Bank's announced intention to quadruple its investment in the agricultural sector. As regards the programmes with the regional banks, the Council noted that the funds included in the current biennial budget were not likely to be fully used because of the late start in some of these programmes and that if the development of the programmes indicated that an increase in the budgetary allocation for the next biennium was justified, the Director-General would give it due consideration.
218. The Council noted that the Memorandum of Agreement between the Asian Development Bank and FAO had been approved by the Bank's Governing Body with only minor changes of an editorial nature, and that it had come into force on 4 April 1968. The Memorandum of Understanding regarding cooperation between the African Development Bank and FAO had come into force on 1 June 1968. Following the signing on 1 April 1968 of a Memorandum of Understanding on Procedures, the implementation of the Agreement with the Inter-American Development Bank had been placed on a more systematic basis.
219. The Council noted with satisfaction the initiatives taken for an arrangement with the Central American Bank for Economic Integration.
220. The Council recalled that the Conference, at its Fourteenth Session, had approved FAO's participation in the United Nations Joint Inspection Unit on the basis of the conclusions reached at a joint meeting of the Administrative Committee on Coordination and the ECOSOC Committee on Programme and Coordination. As regards reporting procedures the Inspectors' reports are to be placed before the Council with any comments the Director-General may have. The Council would then forward to ECOSOC and its Committee on Programme Coordination only those parts of the reports which concern the coordination of FAO activities in the economic and social field with those of other organizations in the United Nations system.
1 Agenda item 12; see also paras. 276 – 277, 286 – 290 and 348 below.
221. The Programme and Finance Committees had suggested that the Council might wish the reports and the comments of the Director-General to be reviewed first by these Committees before the Council took any action 1.
222. The Council approved the suggestion of the Committees and requested the Director-General to work out in consultation with the Programme and Finance Committees detailed procedures for the handling of these reports. These detailed procedures should provide for the submission of the Inspectors' Reports to the Committees together with the detailed comments of the Director-General, including any action that he had taken or was prepared to take as a result of the recommendations in the reports. These procedures should also be developed in the light of the procedures relating to the manner in which reports of the Joint Inspection Unit should be submitted. This was being developed by ACC in cooperation with the Secretariat of the Joint Inspection Unit.
223. The Council recognized that it was not possible, due to the shortness of time, for the first report of the Joint Inspection Unit (prepared by Inspector Robert M. Macy on his visit to Turkey) to have been submitted to the Programme and Finance Committees with the detailed comments of the Director-General. As a special procedure for the handling of this report, the Council authorized the Programme and Finance Committees to consider the report and the detailed comments of the Director-General at their next sessions in the spring of 1969 and at their Joint Session to be held at that time and, on behalf of the Council, to forward to ECOSOC and to the Committee on Programme and Coordination those portions of the report of their Joint Session which concern the coordination of the activities of FAO in the economic and social field with those of other organizations in the United Nations system. The Council, at its Fifty-Second Session would review the matter and send any comments it had to ECOSOC and the Committee on Programme and Coordination in a separate document to reach them during their summer sessions.
224. The Council had before it a note by the Director-General 2, referring to the request of the Fourteenth Session of the Conference that the time and place of the Second World Food Congress be decided by the Director-General in consultation with the Council, and advising the Council that the Government of the Netherlands, by letter of 4 July 1968, had offered in principle to host the Congress at The Hague in June 1970.
225. In his introductory statement the Director-General expressed the view that the Fifteenth Session of the FAO Conference should have the opportunity to examine the Indicative World Plan and give it authority, before the Plan was presented to the wider forum of the Second World Food Congress. The time proposed by the Government of the Netherlands in its generous offer to host the Congress was therefore a suitable period.
226. It was the intention of the Director-General to start the planning of the Congress programme immediately. To guide him in this he proposed to designate a Preparatory Committee of personalities drawn from a cross section of society. The Congress would be given a clear orientation toward action. Main components in the programme would be the practical implications of the Indicative World Plan and of the strategy for FAO's future work.
227. The Council expressed its appreciation to the Government of the Netherlands for the offer to host the Congress. It agreed to the time proposed and authorized the Director-General to accept the invitation. It authorized the Director-General to set up a Preparatory Committee under Article VI-2 of the Constitution.
1 Para. 10 of the Joint Report of the Programme and Finance Committees, CL 51/5.
2 CL 51/46.
228. In a brief statement the observer for the Netherlands expressed his Government's appreciation to the Council for having accepted the invitation. The Netherlands would make every effort to create favourable conditions for a successful Congress. It was the hope of his Government that particular attention could be given by the Congress to translating FAO's development strategy into concrete action programmes. Since FAO would be celebrating its Twenty-Fifth Anniversary in 1970, the Second World Food Congress might provide an opportunity to present the public with not only a set of coordinated policies for the future as presented in the Indicative World Plan, but also with the results of 25 years of development assistance in the field of food and agriculture.
229. The Council was informed of the joint preparatory work of FAO, Unesco and ILO and the sessions of the FAO Advisory Panel on Agricultural Education and the Ad Hoc Working Party of Selected Administrators of Agricultural Training Programmes had been held in May 1968 on the planning and organization of the World Conference. Host facilities and an offer of $50 000 towards expenses had been made by the Government of Denmark for holding the conference in Copenhagen, probably in July 1970. There was also a further major item for discussion to be added to the list in document CL 51/47: “A New Strategy for Investment of External Aid to Agricultural Education and Training in Developing Countries.”
230. The Council also noted that joint sponsorship of the Conference by FAO, Unesco and ILO implied that countries which were members of Unesco or ILO but not members of FAO would have to be invited; and that Russian, an official language of Unesco and ILO, would be the fourth working language of the conference. The budgetary implications of the conference were being examined in detail and would be considered shortly by the three organizations.
231. The Council endorsed the proposals and expressed its satisfaction over the practical collaboration of FAO, Unesco and ILO in this matter of vital concern to developing countries. It also wished to record its appreciation for the generous offer by the Government of Denmark and its pleasure that the conference would be held in Copenhagen.
232. While discussing the major topics of the conference, the Council noted the importance placed by developing countries upon ways and means through which the million of small farmers, farm families and the rural communities in which they lived, could be helped to play their part in progress and development. Although some members felt that Conferences should be held on other subject matters, agricultural education and training were central to the achievement of this objective. The conference must essentially be a practical one and effective follow up action an absolute necessity. In this connexion, some members stressed the desirability of holding meetings on this subject at the regional or at the national level in developing countries. Several valuable suggestions were made for consideration by the planning body. It was, however, considered essential to limit the scope of the conference in order to achieve its objectives. It was also important to get appropriate representation from developing countries and to assist this process support through fellowships was essential. Several countries had already intimated their support for the conference by offering fellowships. In this and other matters related to the conference, the organizers would continue to keep in touch with all governments and organizations willing to lend their support. | <urn:uuid:7eedb2cd-bf70-4e3a-abd4-5a58a43ab38e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/007/83907E/83907E05.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279650.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00434-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963389 | 10,038 | 2.125 | 2 |
Canada is in many ways a country of limits, a paradox for a place that enjoys virtually unlimited space. Most of that space is uninhabited, and much of it is uninhabitable. It is a country with a huge north but with most of its population in the south, hugging the U.S. border. An uneasy and difficult country, Canada has nevertheless defied the odds: it remains, in the 21st century, a haven of peace and a beacon of prosperity. Erudite yet accessible and marked by narrative flair, The Penguin History of Canada paints an expansive portrait of a dynamic and complex country.
About the author
Robert Bothwell is professor of history and director of the International Relations Program at the University of Toronto.Jean Daudelin is assistant professor at The Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University.
Other titles by Robert Bothwell
Insiders Reflect on Foreign Policy, Trade, and Defence, 1968-84
Whose Man in Havana?
Adventures from the Far Side of Diplomacy
Your Country, My Country
A Unified History of the United States and Canada
Canada's National Uranium Company
Canada and Quebec
One Country, Two Histories: Revised Edition
A Traveller's History of Canada
Canada Among Nations, 2008
100 Years of Canadian Foreign Policy
Alliance and Illusion
Canada and the World, 1945-1984
Canada and the United States
The Politics of Partnership | <urn:uuid:edb6b969-6056-41fc-b11a-a2c4f3f53566> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://49thshelf.com/Books/P/Penguin-History-of-Canada | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00267.warc.gz | en | 0.878489 | 307 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Through much of the post-World War II era of trade liberalization, organized labor and freetraders struck a grand bargain: negotiated agreements that lower tariffs in the United States would be accompanied by extra welfare benefits available to people who lose their jobs because of import competition. As many free traders see it, such programs can help mollify the opposition to new trade agreements and as such are a sacrifice worth making. But that bargain has broken down. The new Democratic majority in Congress has given only half-hearted support for new trade agreements and has so far refused to grant President Bush new authority to negotiate and submit them to Congress without the risk of deal killing amendments.
The Trade Adjustment Assistance program is a relic of the past that reflects a different economy in a different political setting. The very existence of trade adjustment assistance perpetuates the myth that freeing trade creates special “victims” who deserve special programs simply because of the reason for their unemployment. But for every worker who is displaced because of competition from imports or “off-shoring,” 30 others lose their jobs for other reasons such as changes in technology and tastes, and domestic competition. Studies have suggested that workers displaced because of import competition were equally successful at finding new jobs as other unemployed workers. Systemic changes that help workers adjust to new opportunities, such as increasing the portability of health insurance and retirement savings, and increasing labor market flexibility to create new jobs, would be more fitting policy prescriptions for a free society and a dynamic, service-oriented economy. | <urn:uuid:24da6c29-f26d-4606-9b3f-fd43147f26f3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.cato.org/publications/trade-briefing-paper/maladjusted-misguided-policy-trade-adjustment-assistance | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280900.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00003-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966912 | 310 | 2.609375 | 3 |
As the head honcho leading an organisation, being a good CEO isn't an easy job. Sure, they'll probably pay you more (or much much more) than the average salary man down the food chain, but the expectations are often sky high.
For a start, a good CEO has to have vision, ambition and the ability to inspire and motivate the troops. She needs to be great with forging relationships with customers, employees, partners, board members, investors, suppliers, government regulators and other stakeholders. Functioning as a mentor, coach, drill sergeant, and referee, she wears multiple hats depending on whom she speaks to.
With a watchful eye on the bottomline - particularly in today's jittery financial markets - the CEO must walk the tightrope between betting the farm or maintaining status quo. While he must push the envelope for change if the occasion calls for it, the CEO must also preserve certain semblance of order as total anarchy wouldn't lead to any form of progress.
A good CEO needs to also have both telescopic and microscopic optics, zooming out to see the bigger economic and industry-wide picture and zooming in on the infinitesimal intricacies of product and service features.
Is it then possible for one to find a "Perfect CEO". Well, Steven Levy of Wired Magazine thinks he has. In fact, he is none other than the recently bereaved Steve Jobs.
By now, you would have read tonnes of tributes and lots of leadership lessons (some good ones here, here and here) on Steve Jobs. Some of you may have even bought a copy of his best selling biography.
Sure, Steve Jobs was a great man, but the perfect CEO?
Quoting from Levy, Steve has these qualities which distinguish him from the rest:
"Understanding customers and what they want, even if they don’t know it yet.
Mastery of market dynamics with the acumen of a poker champ.
Commitment to excellence and brutal rejection of “good enough.”
Accountability when things go wrong.
Charisma that makes product launches as exciting as a Springsteen show.
...the ability to defy the corporate equivalent of nature’s law."
Levy went on to cite that Jobs has mastered the "Innovator's Gyre", where each game changing breakthrough is followed by another, and another, and another - a counterpoint to the Innovator's Dilemma. Everybody knows the story of the iMac, iTunes, MacBooks, iPod, iPhone, and iPad.
Like any outstanding leader, Steve Jobs also has a dark side. We know that he has a mercurial temper and is extremely overbearing in ensuring his way (or the highway). He has also embroiled the company in various law suits and been known to maintain a high degree of cloak-and-dagger secrecy. Transparency and openness isn't one of his greatest strengths.
Personally, I feel that perfection may be too strong a word to describe Steve Jobs. For sure he does have fabulous qualities, but his huge overwhelming presence has also made it difficult for Apple to earmark a clear successor. His reluctance to contribute to society through philanthropy has also left a dent on the otherwise sterling reputation of Apple (compared to Bill Gates for instance).
Are there other candidates for the "Perfect CEO" award? Who would you nominate and why?
Labels: CEOs, Chief Executive Officer, corporate leader, leadership, management, Steve Jobs | <urn:uuid:129f8843-3cbb-4278-a7ad-bfc31ff06096> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://coolinsights.blogspot.com/2011/12/was-steve-jobs-perfect-ceo.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279224.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00485-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965412 | 716 | 1.695313 | 2 |
As it turns out, there’s more to being “hangry” than a missed meal. In fact, there’s an armful of research that points to a very real mind-gut connection, which links our brains to trillions of bacteria in our guts.
A web search of “mind-gut connection” reveals a plethora of books on Amazon, topical articles – both academic and amateur – and news stories. It’s a lot to shift through, especially if you’re just stumbling upon this connection, and references to your gut as a “second brain” can be a bit curious.
So, let’s take a brief look at the mind-gut connection and find what it means for us.
Get Reacquainted With Your Gut
Your gut, or, more formally, your gastrointestinal tract, is a series of organs joined in a long, twisting tube. It includes your mouth, esophagus, stomach, and small and large intestines. The latter of these includes your colon and rectum.
Your GI tract is filled with roughly 100-trillion bacteria, also called “gut flora.” (That’s almost 10 times as many cells as there are in the human body.) This flora helps break down foods and liquids. Nutrients are extracted to give your body energy, allow it to grow and repair cells.
Bacteria are a big part of a gut’s health. Like you, your gut flora need a good diet, such as whole grains, fruits, vegetables and fermented edibles, including your favorite kombucha or kimchi. Sugar-rich food and drinks – with or without artificial sweeteners – and unhealthy fats tend to be bad for the bacteria.
An Information Superhighway
A feeling of being “full” after a meal should be familiar to most of us. That feeling is a signal that originates in the cells of your stomach and small intestine, which release hormones to tell your brain when you are full or hungry, or to create digestive juices. On top of that, nerves connect your gut and brain and do a handful of things, such as “making your mouth water” when you see or smell food.
The mind-gut connection isn’t new. Back in 2012, the American Psychological Association released a detailed story on it, and its author points out that recent interest in the connection is supported by a “flurry” of research that appeared around 2010.
In rodents, scientists found changes in an animal’s gut can affect neural development. By adjusting the ratio of helpful and disease-causing gut bacteria, they were able to alter the animal’s brain chemistry. In particular, they were able to make a subject more bold or anxious.
Likewise, they found even a little bit of stress can alter the microbial balance of an animal’s gut. Among a handful of outcomes, this could make a body more vulnerable to infectious diseases.
Your Gut and You
In human beings, gut flora produce neurochemicals with a variety of uses. A brain uses these chemicals to regulate a number of processes, including learning, memory and mood. In fact, gut bacteria are responsible for providing an overwhelming 95 percent of a body’s serotonin, also known as the “happy chemical.”
Yet, there’s still a lot we don’t know about the mind-gut connection in humans. According to one source, taking a probiotic – which contains helpful bacteria – could reduce anxiety. It gets a bit complicated, but the gist is that a particular type of probiotic, Lactobacillus (L.) rhamnosus, has the most promise of lowering anxiety.
A study of animal and human subjects found that when given Lactobacillus (L.) rhamnosus, it “helped rodents exposed to stressful conditions or ones that had intestinal inflammation,” the author writes.
While researchers weren’t able to find conclusive evidence of a similar outcome in humans, the author writes, a lack of good gut flora has been associated with irritable bowel syndrome, Alzheimer’s disease and depression.
Go with your gut. If you’re curious if your diet is having a negative effect on you, now’s a good time to plan a visit with a gastroenterologist.
At Premier Medical Group’s Gastroenterology Division, we’ll help you address your concerns and design a plan to lead you to a healthy gut and your best life. Schedule an appointment today. | <urn:uuid:42c0925b-6578-464e-97b2-07baf9f8d902> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.premiermedicalhv.com/news/whats-your-gut-say/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573029.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817153027-20220817183027-00269.warc.gz | en | 0.938145 | 961 | 2.71875 | 3 |
We report the generation of two types of self-accelerating surface plasmon beams which are solutions of the nonparaxial Helmholtz equation in two dimensions. These beams preserve their shape while propagating along either elliptic (Mathieu beam) or parabolic (Weber beam) trajectories. We show that owing to the nonparaxial nature of the Weber beam, it maintains its shape over a much larger distance along the parabolic trajectory, with respect to the corresponding solution of the paraxial equation - the Airy beam. Dynamic control of the trajectory is realized by translating the position of the illuminating free-space beam. Finally, the ability of these beams to self-heal after blocking obstacles is demonstrated as well. | <urn:uuid:b225aedd-c550-4e9c-95d8-c11c6798bccd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://cris.tau.ac.il/en/publications/rapidly-accelerating-mathieu-and-weber-surface-plasmon-beams | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571719.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812140019-20220812170019-00277.warc.gz | en | 0.925441 | 153 | 1.5625 | 2 |
The Moodle page defaults to a "Topic Outline" setting. However most teachers prefer a format that allows you to lay out assignments by week. You can change this by going to the Administration Block on the left and click "Settings". You should not have to modify the names or course ID numbers. The Summary is for the catalog description of the class.
Under this is a dropdown for "Format". Here you can change the format to "Weekly", set the number of weeks for the course and the start date. If you plan to have students working in groups you can enable that under the "Groups" dropdown. There are two choices here: "Separate Groups" can only access the work of those in their own group, while "Visible Groups" can see all the work that is being done in the class. You can of course see everyone's work regardless.
If you are still setting up your course you can decide whether or not your students can access it or not using the "Availability' dropdown. Here you can also make your site available to visitors who are not enrolled in the class.
Make sure to hit "Save Changes" when you're done. When you return to your site you'll see it's now laid out in weekly content blocks | <urn:uuid:a6e2c2ae-4b07-44f4-b42a-912fd4a11fb1> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.sonoma.edu/moodle/2011/03/moodle-blog-5-customize-course-settings.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280929.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00428-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941616 | 261 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Magnitude 7.7 quake strikes Chile, tsunami warning issued
A major 7.6 magnitude earthquake jolted southern Chile on Sunday, prompting thousands to evacuate coastal areas, but no fatalities or major damage were reported in the tourism and salmon farming region.
The quake was felt in the southwest Argentine city of Bariloche. Chile is the world's leading copper producer, but there are no major mines located near the zone affected by the earthquake.
There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries.
The quake's depth was about 34.6 km (21.5 miles), the U.S. Geological Survey said. According to media reports, the quake was felt in the southwest Argentine city of Bariloche. | <urn:uuid:5fab3166-608b-4bd0-bfcd-3096bae22d8d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.pratidintime.com/news.php?s=world-news&id=7778&t=magnitude-7-7-quake-strikes-chile-tsunami-warning-issued&sld=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281424.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00333-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976533 | 146 | 1.96875 | 2 |
The following is complete text of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's opening remarks at Aung San Suu Kyi's first visit to the United States in more than 40 years, an Asia Society event held at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, D.C., on September 18, 2012.
Well, it's wonderful to be back here at USIP, especially for this extraordinary, auspicious occasion. I want to thank USIP and congratulate Jim Marshall upon becoming president. We certainly look forward to working with you. And I want to thank the Asia Society and Henrietta Fore and all who represent the commitment that started in the 1950s but has certainly stood the test of time, and we very much enjoy working with you as well.
Now the purpose for this gathering is quite an exciting one because we have here an opportunity for someone who has represented the struggle for freedom and democracy, for human rights and opportunity, not only in her own country but seen as such around the world. So it's wonderful to see Suu Kyi back in Washington as a free and forceful leader of a country opening up to the world in ways that would have been difficult to imagine even recently.
Those flickers of progress that President Obama spoke of last — a year ago, summer — have been growing and strengthening in the times since. Hundreds of prisoners of conscience have been released over the past year, including some just this week. Opposition political parties have been legalized and their members have won seats in parliament. Restrictions on the press, and on freedom of assembly, have eased. We've seen laws that have been enacted to expand the rights of workers to form labor unions, and to outlaw forced labor. And the government has reached fragile ceasefires in some long-running ethnic conflicts.
Suu Kyi’s courage and moral leadership never wavered through years of house arrest and persecution. And she and other opposition leaders have now joined with President Thein Sein and the new government to take the courageous steps necessary to drive these reforms.
I have met with the President twice, in Naypyidaw and then this summer in Cambodia. I look forward to welcoming him to New York next week for the United Nations General Assembly. This morning at the State Department, Suu Kyi and I had the chance to talk about the work still ahead, and there is a lot of work. I think one of the important reasons for her visit at this time is to remind us of how much more still lies ahead — from strengthening the rule of law in democratic institutions to addressing the challenges in many of the ethnic conflicts and in Rakhine State. The government and the opposition need to continue to work together to unite the country, heal the wounds of the past, and carry the reforms forward. That is also key to guard against backsliding, because there are forces that would take the country in the wrong direction if given the chance.
So we in the State Department and in the Obama Administration are certainly the first to say that the process of reform must continue. Political prisoners remain in detention. Ongoing ethnic and sectarian violence continues to undermine progress toward national reconciliation, stability, and lasting peace. Some military contacts with North Korea persist. And further reforms are required to strengthen the rule of law, increase transparency, and address constitutional challenges.
But the United States is committed to standing with the government and the people of Burma to support this progress that has begun but is still a work in progress. We've taken steps to exchange ambassadors, ease economic sanctions, and pave the way for American companies to invest in the country in a way that advances rather than undermines continued reforms. And we are in close contact with government and opposition leaders. Our first-ever Ambassador to this new Burma, Derek Mitchell, is here with us today. And he, along with the team that Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell lead, are not only in constant communication but ongoing consultation with many representatives of different constituencies in Burma so that we can provide the help and support that is necessary and appropriate.
Last December, I had the honor of visiting Suu Kyi in the house that was once her prison, and we talked about many things, including the challenge of moving from protest to politics, from symbol to stateswoman. That is what her country needs from her now. I know a little bit about how hard that transition can be. It exposes you to a whole new sort of criticism and even attack, and requires the kind of pragmatic compromise and coalition building that is the lifeblood of politics but may disappoint the purists who have held faith with you while you were on the outside.
Yet in the months since Suu Kyi walked out of house arrest and into the political arena, she has proven herself to be a natural — campaigning hard, legislating well, and staying focused on what can be done right now and tomorrow and the day after tomorrow to move her country forward.
So I think you are in for a great opportunity this afternoon, as will be many American audiences in the days ahead, as she has a very generous schedule of activities. I, unfortunately, have to depart back to the State Department, but it will be certainly a great pleasure for me now to introduce someone who is not only a Nobel Laureate and a hero to millions, but also a busy member of parliament and the leader of her political party. Please welcome Aung San Su Kyi. | <urn:uuid:b5596649-1ade-4572-8e48-7207f8be879c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://asiasociety.org/blog/asia/clinton-us-committed-standing-myanmar-government-people | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279933.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00126-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974468 | 1,098 | 1.71875 | 2 |
In this Section
249927 Sex Trafficking of Women and Girls in Three Major Cities in the United States: Implications for Local Health Systems
Monday, October 31, 2011: 9:30 AM
Background: Human trafficking for commercial sexual exploitation leads to devastating physical and psychological outcomes and poses serious public health risks including transmission of sexually transmitted infections such as HIV. Of the estimated 14,500-17,500 individuals trafficked annually into the United States, 80% are female and 70% enter the commercial sex industry. Domestic minor sex trafficking through forced prostitution is also being increasingly recognized as a problem among American youth.
Objectives: We examine sex trafficking of women and girls in three major U.S. cities in order to identify potential future anti-trafficking roles of local health systems.
Methods: Using comparative case study methodology, we conducted semi-structured interviews of 67 key health and non-health informants in Los Angeles, New York and Boston. Main constructs include prevalence, composition, mechanisms, and determinants of sex trafficking; health consequences and needs of victims; current local health system response; and barriers to greater health system participation. Data analysis was carried out using qualitative software.
Results: Sex trafficking of women and girls involves highly complex, yet systematic mechanisms of recruitment and control. Multiple factors facilitate trafficking including childhood sexual abuse, lack of income, and demand for commercial sex. Currently, health services for victims are patchy and poorly coordinated. Low levels of awareness of sex trafficking among health professionals and victims' health-seeking behaviors are among several factors operating as barriers to a greater health response.
Conclusions: Modeled after the child abuse and domestic violence movements, a more comprehensive and coordinated health system response to sex trafficking may help alleviate its devastating effects on vulnerable women and girls. Education and training programs for health professionals are needed. As frontline providers, emergency and other community-based physicians are uniquely positioned to engage not only in routine treatment of trafficking victims, but also in prevention, victim identification, and referral activities. This may represent a distinct opportunity for the medical and public health communities to introduce trafficking as a public health policy issue and lead the medical community's efforts in addressing this form of interpersonal violence.
Learning Areas:Provision of health care to the public
Public health or related public policy
Keywords: Vulnerable Populations, Access to Health Care
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the medical director of the Initiative to End Slavery at the Division of Global Health & Human Rights and was a lead investigator on the multi-city case studies on sex trafficking.
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.
See more of: Women's Health: : Abuse, neglect, and unequal services
See more of: Medical Care | <urn:uuid:aa6ce81c-5a7b-4280-adbd-b5e4751c54a5> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://apha.confex.com/apha/139am/webprogram/Paper249927.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00327-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92393 | 602 | 2.125 | 2 |
- encode-for-pre - encodes text so it's suitable for inclusion in a HTML PRE element, or in a regular tag with HTML spacing.
- encode-for-argument does the same thing as encode-for-pre, except it also encodes quotation marks as SGML " so they can be used in HTML element attributes.
- encode-for-tt - attemps to encode the text so it can display in a TT element with proper spacing. The keyword argument
first-char-nbspcontrols whether the first character should be rendered as a non-breaking space if it is a space in the input text.
Try it online with this html encoder [broken links; source code at https://github.com/dmitryU/debian-lisp/tree/master/html-encode] | <urn:uuid:8b6e4cd8-d3e4-402f-8245-5b44e5d3eb5f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://cliki.net/html-encode | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00227-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.754723 | 173 | 2.046875 | 2 |
The kidlets' favourite Easter activity (that does not involve chocolate or candy) requires concentration, a steady hand and a sense of humour.
Tower of Bunnies is a gem that I found on the shelves at Walmart for $4.
Now, I am not a Walmart fan. I know that their prices are right, but I prefer to spend a little bit more to support local, small business and know that my purchases were not made by children in sweatshop factories in developing countries. But, this game is a lot of fun.
The game come with 30 bunnies in 6 colours, clear plastic discs for making the floors of the tower, 2 carrot hooks and a die.
According to the back of the package, the players build the tower by placing 6 bunnies (one of each colour) on the perimeter of the plastic disc, and then adding another level until all the bunnies and all the discs are used. Then the players take turns rolling the die and removing a same colour bunny until the tower collapses.
Sometimes the kids play by these rules.
As I encourage my kidlets to think outside the box (and toy package), some of them have been creating their own games.
Sometimes the tower is built with all the same coloured bunnies on each level until it gets so tall that it comes tumbling down amid peals of laughter.
I was told that these were robo-rabbits on a mission. The focus of the mission was a bit nebulous - the save the world, or destroy the world ... or both!
I love this game.
I love the focus that it requires. I love the fine motor skill development. I love the camaraderie. I love the fodder for the imagination. I love the laughter. I love this game. Even if it is from Walmart! | <urn:uuid:61df55ef-e641-4945-97d4-ad1033c84abd> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.rubberbootsandelfshoes.com/2012/04/my-fave-easter-game-is-from-walmart.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281450.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00181-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957335 | 380 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Syracuse, N.Y. - New York State has started the process of rolling out COVID-19 booster shots to all eligible residents.
Anyone who received the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at least six months ago can get the booster so long as they're part of a certain group. Among those who can get their shots are people 65 or older, people between 50 and 64 years old with an underlying medical condition, and people between 18 and 64 years old with a high risk of exposure to COVID-19 due to their occupational or institutional setting.
There are already opportunities coming up to get a booster in Central New York. Wednesday, Kinney Drugs will be giving boosters at the OnCenter from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. Make your appointment here.
Wegmans and Price Chopper/Market 32 are making it convenient to get a booster, too. The supermarket chains say the shots are available at pharmacies located right inside of their stores. However, an appointment to get a booster shot is required.
Customers who are getting a shot are asked to bring their COVID-19 vaccination record card with them or other proof of vaccination.
Anyone who received a Moderna or Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine can't get a booster shot yet. | <urn:uuid:5046728b-8ceb-45e2-9ad2-6619b4b376b9> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://wsyr.iheart.com/content/2021-09-28-pfizer-covid-19-boosters-rolling-out-in-cny/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571502.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811194507-20220811224507-00067.warc.gz | en | 0.965492 | 265 | 1.65625 | 2 |
A Minnie Mouse costume can be made using a simple red and white polka dot dress and bow with black mouse ears. However, if you want your Minnie Mouse costume to stand out and be really authentic, you've got to get the make up right. Here are some tips on using make-up to get the perfect Minnie Mouse look. Make-up tips can be altered for a Mickey Mouse costume, as well.
To recreate the basic image of Minnie Mouse's face, you need to paint a nose and the black outline on your face. For the nose, use black liquid eyeliner to draw a small circle (about the size of a dime) on the tip of your nose. To create the outline of Minnie's face, use black costume make-up to color in your forehead and temples. Start at your eyebrows and color everything above your eyebrows and the area directly to the left and right of your eyebrows (your temples). The makeup on the forehead should come to a slight tip on the bridge of your nose, forming a sort of widow's peak.
Note: Minnie and Mickey Mouse do not have whiskers. This is a mistake that many people make.
Put neon blue eye shadow on your eyes. Start at your lashes and spread the eyeshadow all the way up to your eyebrow. Get a bright pink blush and put it on your cheeks in big circles. As finishing touches, wear bright red lipstick and false eyelashes. All of this make-up will distinguish Minnie's face from Mickey's.
Spray hairspray all over your face (except for your eyes and mouth) to make sure that the make-up stays put and doesn't smudge.
To get the look of vintage Minnie (from the 1920s), rather than a modern Minnie, you only need to change a few things. Use white face paint to paint the rest of your face that is not covered by the black make-up. Modern Minnie has a tan face with her black fur, whereas vintage Minnie has a white face with her black fur. You should also wear purple eyeshadow instead of blue.
To make a holiday Minnie Mouse costume, substitute blue or purple eyeshadow for a color indicative of that holiday. For instance, wear orange eye shadow for Halloween, red for Christmas, silver for New Year's, etc. | <urn:uuid:7301574e-8a5e-4d25-aac3-3d9a8f2770af> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.ehow.com/way_5271614_minnie-mouse-costume-makeup-tips.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281069.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00271-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919054 | 485 | 1.539063 | 2 |
How Schizophrenics Can Help Your Hypnosis: Binds and Double Binds
The art of Conversational Hypnosis is much about language; the ways you use the language, when to use certain skills and how to apply those skills. All of these factors are important to learning how to have a smooth interaction and insert undetected and agreeable suggestions into the mind of your clients.
Stealth Tactics are a way of doing just this. These tactics are used for distracting critical factor or overwhelming it to the point that the suggestion goes in undetected. The stealth tactics you learn here will eventually be combined with all the other language concepts to create a larger picture of how everything works together smoothly to create better lives for everyone.
The final Stealth Tactic you are going to learn is called Binds and Double Binds. The Bind and Double Bind come from a line of thought called the Double Bind Theory of Schizophrenia. This was a theory that came from a famous Anthropologist in the 1970’s named Gregory Bateson.
Bateson investigated the cause of schizophrenia in our society and came up with the Double Bind Theory of Schizophrenia. This theory came to the conclusion that schizophrenia was a way that children developed to cope when presented impossible decisions by their parents. An example would be a parent that beats their child and explains it by saying the violence is just a way I show I love you.
The child is presented with an impossible choice that of a desire to be loved by their parent versus the desire to avoid violence. The study concluded that this impossible choice caused schizophrenic conditions in children presented with these choices.
So the question comes, how will schizophrenia help you in your hypnosis? The answer is the creation of binds and double binds. As we have just set out a bind is giving someone a choice that doesn’t actually exist, it is an impossible set of choices to choose from. These of course can create some rather unpleasant experiences if you do not proceed correctly with this concept.
Although you are creating the illusion of choice you are not really giving the person you are conversing with a real choice. When you learn to do binds correctly you will make your listener feel empowered by the fact that there is a choice and still be acquiring the information or lack of resistance you initially wanted. This is a way of redirecting resistance in you are giving a choice that implies the very thing you want but gives them a choice about the thing you want. Either way you are getting what you want, it really doesn’t matter which option they end up choosing.
Now in a double bind you will use the word “or” to create the actual double bind. Let’s take the example that you are a jewelry sales person and you say to a customer, “Would you like your diamond set in gold OR silver?” In this double bind you are giving the customer a choice but you are still implying that the customer will be buying the diamond.
It is important that you are aware of the word “or” so you can consciously create double binds as well as notice when they are being used on you. If you recognize when someone is using a double bind on you, once you recognize it there is a way out. If you decide not to accept the bind or double bind on any level you will be denying it and creating a new freedom for yourself.
Now double binds are very common and at times it is not negative to fall into one. Regardless of whether you are deciding to accept or deny the double binds you hear daily you can still maintain awareness for them. Remember that a double bind is an illustration of choice, usually using the word or to separate the options.
Within this Stealth Tactic there is a Special Tactic included called Conscious-Unconscious Double Binds. This is merely a way of using double binds hypnotically. In this concept you will be able to allow some aspects of the subject’s behavior to be controlled consciously and others unconsciously. No matter which way it goes, which behaviors are being consciously and unconsciously controlled the behavior is still being implied.
Within this same concept of Conscious-Unconscious Double Binds it is important to understand that you can do things two different ways. We can all do things two different ways, those are unconsciously or consciously. You can read the words on this paper focus on them and think about them or you can read them and daydream about what it would be like to put them into action.
In understanding binds and double binds it is important to recognize the conscious and unconscious minds and how they work. As hypnotists we work with the conscious and unconscious minds on a regular and consistent basis, however defining these is difficult.
Now the trouble here is no one really knows how the human mind works. There is no philosopher or psychological researchers who have been able to define the human mind in concrete terms. There are so many ways to interpret the word mind that giving it a definition is extremely difficult.
Although no one can accurately and concretely say what actually happens inside our heads we know from life experience that certain results come from certain effects. As to why the results are what they are can only be theorized about but we know that trauma causes pain, denial and other defense mechanisms.
As hypnotists it is important for you to have an understanding of the conscious and unconscious minds.
A simple way to describe the process of the mind we know are that consciousness is the type of awareness you can focus on. It is known that the conscious mind can hold up to 5-9 ideas, experiences or thought processes at one time. The conscious mind is also responsible for making choices and plans.
The unconscious mind however is responsible for a huge amount of tasks. It holds all our memories, experiences, insights, habits and wisdoms that we have built up over the span of our lives.
We have discovered that it is safe to say that everything that happens within our minds and bodies are unconscious or semi-unconscious events. Our unconscious is the master controller but will also take commands from the conscious mind. The instructions that the unconscious will take from the conscious must be presented in the right way in order for it to stick; this is the art of suggestion. We either made suggestions to ourselves or others make suggestions to us.
As a hypnotist you can disguise those suggestions with Stealth Tactics, and one of those is the bind and the double bind we have discussed here.
For more information please visit http://www.conversational-hypnosis.com | <urn:uuid:0c2ab471-55f6-4553-b35c-d2d85604ffd0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://conversational-hypnosis.com/articles/a27.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280410.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00456-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95642 | 1,331 | 1.71875 | 2 |
PMS Breast Tenderness
PMS Breast Tenderness: Understanding Cyclical Mastalgia
The medical term for what most women call "breast pain" is mastodynia or mastalgia. It is often felt as breast soreness, tenderness, heaviness, throbbing, and/or aching, although some women feel sharp stabbing or shooting pains. When it occurs premenstrually and is resolved by the onset of the period, it is called PMS breast tenderness, "cyclical mastalgia," or "cyclical mastodynia." And, if you're reading this article, you may already be familiar with the feeling of tender, swollen, painful breasts for days or even weeks before you get your period. Your breasts may become too painful to touch, whether by a partner, a child, or even yourself. Your bra size may increase; for some women, it becomes painful to wear a bra at all. One of the most difficult aspects of recurrent breast pain is that—as with nearly all pain syndromes—the cause is incompletely understood, so treatment options are too often inadequate, involving uncertain outcomes or intolerable side effects.
The most important identifying characteristic of PMS breast tenderness is that it occurs regularly, and cyclically, in the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle, during the two weeks before the period. Sometimes, breast pain is a woman's only premenstrual symptom, but more commonly breast swelling and tenderness are part of the spectrum of PMS, accompanied by other emotional, physical, and cognitive symptoms. The swelling is usually not confined to the breasts, although that can be the most painful area. Your ankles, hands, feet, and abdomen can also feel swollen—indeed, whole-body bloating is one of the most common symptoms of premenstrual syndrome. Premenstrual tenderness usually occurs in both breasts, although for some women the pain is one-sided, or one side can be much worse than the other.
Breast pain of all kinds (not just the premenstrual type) affects up to 70% of women during their lifetime, and is most common between the ages of 30 and 50. While mild breast pain one to four days before your period is considered normal, 11%–30% of women experience moderate to severe mastalgia that can last upwards of five days per month.
Breast Pain, Cancer, and Fibrocystic Breast Changes: Common Sources of Confusion
Every woman should know that breast pain is rarely a sign of cancer, although breast cancer diagnoses can present with a symptom of breast pain. More often, breast cancer presents with symptoms of a breast lump; a change in the size, feel, or shape of the breast; or fluid from the nipple. Pain and swelling caused by cancer does not rise and fall with cyclical hormonal changes, however. Of course, if you are concerned it is best to consult your healthcare practitioner. In many cases, the most useful thing your practitioner will be able to do for you, in regards to breast pain, is to offer reassurance that your symptoms are benign.
One of the most common causes of breast pain is "fibrocystic breast disease." This is not a true disease, but rather a condition that that results from normal changes in breast tissue. This condition does wax and wane through the menstrual cycle, but unlike simple cyclical mastalgia, is accompanied by changes you can feel ("lumps and bumps") in your breasts. A couple of myths about FBD persist. First, caffeine does not appear to cause, and caffeine avoidance does not appear to cure, fibrocystic breast changes. Also, women with fibrocystic breast changes are not more likely to develop breast cancer. In fact, one study suggests that women with fibroadenomatous changes may be less likely to develop breast cancer. However, enough confusion and controversy exist about changes in breast tissue and the meaning of mammography and biopsy results, that you are always better off discussing such matters with your healthcare professional.
You Can Overcome Breast Pain
There are natural measures you can take that can help you overcome breast pain. Most of them would be advantageous to you for overall health regardless of your condition.
First, confirm that you have a well-fitted bra. You may find that a different bra is required premenstrually in order to relieve the breast tenderness. Sports bras can provide better support during activity, and some women find wearing a softer bra during sleep helpful.
Second, consider your stress level. There is evidence that stress worsens cyclical breast pain, and that relaxation therapy can improve it. Even though caffeine has not been proven to worsen breast pain and cyclical mastalgia, some women find that they are sensitive to it. If you suspect sensitivity or that your caffeine intake increases your stress level, a trial of weaning off or avoiding caffeine may be worthwhile. And, of course, there are many benefits to finding a way to handle the stress in your life, and many ways to handle life's stress.
Finally, ground flaxseed has been recommended for breast pain. Flax is an excellent source of fiber and essential fatty acids, and can easily be mixed in liquids or food—but you should never cook it, as this destroys the benefits of the oils in the seed. We recommend buying the preground seed and keeping it sealed in the fridge or freezer—even the heat generated from grinding it yourself is worth avoiding, and most reputable sources of flaxseed grind it at low temperature. Follow the instructions on the label for dosage. Adding fiber and essential omega-3 fats to your diet also helps improve your digestion, immunity, and heart health.
Real, Natural Relief—So You Can Feel Great All Month Long
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- PMS Cramps—Safe Natural Relief
Menstrual and PMS cramping pain can be crippling, making it difficult to work, socialize, and to function in your life.
- PMS Bloating
Learn five DIY tips for natural relief from premenstrual bloating and weight gain.
- PMS Food & Chocolate Cravings
Do you feel a magnetic pull to chocolate and sweets before your period? PMS food cravings are real and have done in many a diet. | <urn:uuid:5024efe9-7d12-4a96-a973-744cf9943209> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.pmscomfort.com/pms-pmdd-symptoms/pms-breast-tenderness.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719136.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00468-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950452 | 1,501 | 2.9375 | 3 |
The Oath of Hippocrates*
I do solemnly swear by all I hold most sacred:
- That I will be loyal to the profession of medicine and act justly toward its members;
- That I will lead my life and practice my art with virtue and honor;
- That into whatsoever home I shall enter, it shall be for the good of the sick and the well, by the utmost of my power, and that I will hold myself aloof from wrong and from corruption and from the tempting of others to vice;
- That I will exercise my art solely for the benefit of my patients, the relief of suffering, the prevention of disease and the promotion of health, and I will give no drug and perform no act for an immoral purpose;
- That in the treatment of the sick, I will consider their well-being to be of greater importance than their ability to compensate my services;
- That I will be a faithful guardian of trust whose stewardship of secrets is beyond reproach; and
- That I will commit myself to a lifetime of continued learning of the art and science of medicine.
These things I do promise and, in proportion as I am faithful to this oath, may happiness and good repute be ever mine, but should I trespass and violate this oath, may the reverse be my lot.
*This oath was revised by The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill School of Medicine, Class of 2002.
Adaptation of the Prayer of Maimonides**
Dr. Roper’s introduction: To conclude our ceremony, (name of selected faculty member – usually Executive Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs), will now lead the graduates who so choose in a version of the Prayer of Maimonides adapted by members of the Class of 2010. The prayer was written by Marcus Herz, a German physician, in honor of the Jewish physician and philosopher Moses Maimonides. As we express our respect for all of the religious traditions represented here today, I would like to invite everyone to join in celebrating the sentiments of the prayer according to your own beliefs and traditions. Please rise and remain standing until the graduates and faculty have left the auditorium.
Leader: Graduates of the Class of 2015, join with me:
Before I begin my devoted life as healer, I seek strength of spirit and fortitude of mind that I may faithfully execute my work. Let not desire for wealth or benefit blind me from seeing truth. Let me be worthy of seeing in the sufferer who seeks my advice - a person - neither rich nor poor, friend or foe, good man or bad; of a person in distress, show me only the man, woman, or child.
If doctors wiser than me seek to help me understand, grant me the desire to learn from them, for the knowledge of healing is boundless. But when fools deride me, give me fortitude! Let my love for my profession strengthen my resolve to withstand the derision even of people of high station. Let my path stay illuminated, for any lapse in my knowledge can bring illness and death upon those trusted in my care. Let me find strength in body and soul, that I might maintain within me a perfect spirit appropriate to the responsibilities of my life’s work.
**This prayer was adapted by members of the Class of 2010. | <urn:uuid:a31eb518-de5c-4c41-af7c-d2ce31693133> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.med.unc.edu/md/graduation/for-students/oath-and-prayer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283689.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00353-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947475 | 679 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Botanical name : Dioscorea pentaphylla Linn.
Names: Vidari kanda
English : Wild yam
Hindi : Vidhari Kand
Malayalam : Kattukizangu, Kattukachil
Rasa or Basic Taste : Madhura (Sweet)
Guna or Quality : Guru or heavy, Snigdha or slimy.
Virya or Potency : Seeta (cold potency)
Vipaka or Taste after digestion: Madhura (Sweet).
The useful part of Vidarikanda is Tuber and it helps to pacifies vitiated vata, pitta, emaciation. The medicine is found effective in different forms for different diseases such as skin, gastric related complaints such as anorexia, colic, burning sensation, vomiting, inflammation. For females it helps to prevent menorrhagia and general debility. It is also used to promote breast milk production similar to shatavari.
Medicines like Vidaryadi kashayam, Vidaryadi Lehyam are examples.
posted by Dr.Vijay
on 11 September 2010 19:00 | <urn:uuid:264baf6d-4441-4986-b07f-dd8ef0154973> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://answers.myyog.com/question/uses-of-vidarikand-758-960 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281162.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00535-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.850811 | 247 | 2.34375 | 2 |
Real Estate Agents and Salespeople may do some or all of the following:
List and sell properties for all sorts of people.
They will research and calculate the value of properties to give an indication of a fair market value.
They will market the properties for sale online or in brochures, completing professional documentation.
They will arrange open homes and organise private viewings, and take care of legal requirements like “Health and Safety.”
They will negotiate property sales and contracts, and show professionalism in knowing the correct laws that govern the Real Estate industry.
Part of the job involves organising building inspections and reports. They will investigate anything that needs to be disclosed to a prospective buyer.
Real Estate agents are required to keep their knowledge of the industry up to date and act within the legislative framework and standards set by the Government.
Real Estate Agents and Salespeople need to have a knowledge of:
Sales techniques and data base management to keep in touch with buyers and sellers.
Knowing where to look for information about market trends and property values, sales, town planning etc.
They will learn about the requirements for financing, basic accounting, and keep up to date with the relevant Acts that govern the Real Estate Industry.
They need to be proficient in knowing about property locations, different house types, and be upfront when it comes to disclosure of any facts known about a property.
They need to know where to look for building and council information relating to a property as well as be alert to anything that needs to be disclosed.
They may need to work very long hours, including weekends and evenings and can be in the car a lot getting to numerous buyers appointments.
The hours are long, but the rewards are great if you are successful.
You will get to meet a diverse range of people from all walks of life and you will encounter many challenges along the way.
You will need a good attitude, good ethical values and integrity to succeed where many fail.
Need content for your newsletters?
If you find it difficult to find time to create newsworthy content for your buyers and sellers newsletters enquire here for an affordable solution | <urn:uuid:12640df3-fc3f-4c89-8b07-9c7d3ff0ae9c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://women-in-realestate.com/career-planning/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571246.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811073058-20220811103058-00268.warc.gz | en | 0.944074 | 438 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The GAU-8 Avenger is not a gun to play with. It’s so massive that the rest of the airplane has to be built around it. The primary function of the weapon is to take out enemy tanks. This is done by its incredibly high firing rate. The GAU-8 Avenger fires a whopping 3,900 rounds per minute. Because of this, the Avenger holds the record for largest gun in a combat jet.
The heavy gun was introduced into combat in 1977 after a lengthy development by GE. 40 years later, the GAU-8 Avenger remains an important piece of military technology and very impressive to see in action. You definitely don’t want to be in a tank if you see one of these flying overhead. | <urn:uuid:1d368153-83a9-4686-a2e2-7fc4393adc81> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.wimp.com/reloading-the-worlds-largest-combat-jet-gun/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00216-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955033 | 152 | 2.203125 | 2 |
The completion of the Certified SOLIDWORKS Professional Advanced Weldments (CSWPA-WD) exam proves that you have successfully demonstrated your ability to use the SOLIDWORKS tools for Weldments.
Employers can be confident that you understand the SOLIDWORKS tools that will aid in the design of Weldment components.
Recommended Training Courses:
Note: You must use at least SOLIDWORKS 2010 for this exam. Any use of a previous version will result in the inability to open some of the testing files.
Exam Length: 2 hours
Minimum Passing grade: 75%
Re-test Policy: There is a minimum 30 day waiting period between every attempt of the CSWPA-WD exam. Also, a CSWPA-WD exam credit must be purchased for each exam attempt.
All candidates receive electronic certificates and a personal listing on the CSWP directory* when they pass.
Exam features hands-on challenges in many of these areas of SolidWorks Weldment functionality:
- Weldment profile creation
- Placing the Weldment profile in the Weldment profile library
- Basic and Advanced Weldment Part creation
- Weldment corner modification
- Placing gaps at corners and segment intersections
- End Caps
- Weldment Part modification
- Trim/Extend Command
- 3D Sketch Creation
- Cut List Folder management in the Weldment Part
- Cut List creation in the Weldment Drawing
*This option must be set in your online certification account to show up in the directory.
**Login required for access. Full access requires an active Subscription Service contract. | <urn:uuid:dd892725-4d79-461d-afee-422458de2986> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.solidworks.com/sw/support/8539_ENU_HTML.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282140.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00130-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.859763 | 333 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Adelphi University has been a leader in the community in the effort toward energy conservation and a greener environment.
In an effort to reduce the carbon footprint of the University, we have installed geothermal systems, energy efficient fixtures, and conserved resources whenever possible. We have also purchased 100% green power for the campus.
The next logical step was the purchase of a solar energy system. Solar panels were placed on the roof of Swirbul Library to provide maximum exposure to solar energy while remaining conscious of the aesthetic requirements of the Village of Garden City. The 180 solar panels provide a 50 KW solar energy system. The estimated yearly output is 57,000 KWH. The total project cost was offset by rebates from LIPA. It is an investment into new technology and with the rebates from LIPA, will be cost efficient.View System Output Online
Photovoltaic solar energy is virtually a silent system. The photovoltaic cells are made of semiconductor grade silicon, which is silicon with other additives that increase conductivity to produce impurity-rich, performance-enhanced multi-crystalline silicon. The combining of elements produces a positive charge. The photons, which are particles of energy from the sun, excite the electrons causing them to break off and flow, generating direct current electricity proportional to the amount of sunlight or photons. An electric field acts as a diode to force electrons freed by light absorption to flow in a certain direction, but not in the reverse direction. This flow of electrons is a current. With the use of a converter, the direct current is changed to alternating current and fed into our electrical grid. The angle of the solar panels to the sun is an essential element of the efficiency of the panels. A slight change in the angle can increase or decrease efficiency by as much as 50 percent.
Due to the fact that solar panels produce only a small amount of electricity compared to their size, it is imperative that they are placed in a position in which the optimum level of exposure to photons is achieved. The photovoltaic solar systems have no moving parts and require little maintenance. | <urn:uuid:640f4274-c71d-4536-9fcd-46cb95d2dfeb> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://green.adelphi.edu/energy-efficiency/solar-panels/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280292.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00341-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936218 | 433 | 3.015625 | 3 |
NASA plans to launch a new military satellite from a Virginia spaceport late Tuesday (June 28), a flight that could potentially create a spectacular sight for skywatchers along the U.S. East Coast.
The U.S. Air Force's Minotaur 1 rocket is slated to blast off from a NASA launch range at the Wallops Flight Facility and Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport at 8:28 p.m. EDT (0028 GMT). The mission: To launch ORS-1, a Department of Defense satellite built for the Operationally Responsive Space Office.
ORS-1 would be the Operationally Responsive Space Office's first working satellite. The spacecraft is considered an "important step to demonstrate the capability to meet emerging and persistent war-fighter needs," NASA officials said in a statement. It is also expected to support the military's intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance needs by hosting an innovative sensor system.
Weather is a key factor for Tuesday night's launch. Currently, forecasts predict a 30 percent chance of good launch weather for the planned sunset blastoff, Wallops officials said.
A NASA map available here shows the likely ranges of visibility for Tuesday night's launch.
Should clear weather prevail, the four-stage Minotaur 1 rocket will lift off on Tuesday during a three-hour launch window that closes at 11:28 p.m. EDT (0328 GMT Wednesday). An 8:28 p.m. EDT launch would closely coincide with sunset along the Atlantic coast.
Located just south of Assateague Island, Va., NASA's Wallops Flight Facility is on Wallops Island and is home to a multi-user spaceport located on Virginia's Eastern Shore. Tuesday's planned evening launch would mark the fourth attempt to launch an orbital rocket from this coastal Virginia range in the past 4 1/2 years.
Over the years, similar rocket launchings have routinely taken place from California's Vandenberg Air Force Base. Rocket launches that have occurred around the time of sunrise or sunset have left long, glowing contrails in their wake that have been seen for hundreds of miles across California's southwestern desert.
While many West Coast residents may be quite familiar with such launch sightings, they are very rare in the East, and as such may end up surprising millions of people if the Minotaur 1 launches Tuesday night as planned.
Wide viewing area
According to NASA, observers who are situated within about 300 miles (500 kilometers) of the Wallops facility appear to have a reasonably good chance of catching a view of the Minotaur 1 contrail within the first few minutes after launch. [Amazing Nighttime Shuttle Launch Photos]
The rocket will be launched on a southeast trajectory and should be visible, depending on cloud cover and one's viewing location, in the eastern U.S. from southern New York to North Carolina. It may also be seen as far west as West Virginia and much of Pennsylvania.
By looking at the rocket's projected path as well as using previous Minotaur launches with similar orbital trajectories from Wallops Island as a guide, I have determined that at the moment of the third stage burnout, about 3 1/2 minutes after launch, the rocket will be situated about 100 miles (160 km) east of Wallops Island and at an altitude of 67 miles (108 km).
That works out to a potential radius of up to 1,000 miles (1,600 km), suggesting that Tuesday's post-sunset launch might be visible from even greater distances — perhaps as far north as southern Maine, as far south as northeastern Florida and as far west as eastern Kentucky.
The key to making a sighting is to have a clear, unobstructed view of the horizon in the direction of Wallops Island. For example, a viewer in Raleigh, North Carolina should look toward the northeast; in Providence, R.I., you should face southwest; in Pittsburgh, Pa., it'll be in the southeast.
Areas near and along the immediate Atlantic coast have an advantage since skies will be darker and sunset will arrive earlier than it will for inland locations to the west.
Eerie launch contrail?
Should the launch occur on time, for places to the west/away from the Atlantic coast (where the sun will still be up), it is debatable whether the light from the rocket or its accompanying exhaust plume will be readily seen against the blue daytime sky.
A December 2006 photo of a Minotaur rocket launch from Wallops — taken 20 minutes before local sunrise by Geoff Chester from Alexandria, Va., who was about 100 miles from the Wallops launch facility — shows one possible view. In the photo, which shows a view looking east, the rocket is visible beyond the top of the twisting exhaust plume, with the waning crescent moon at the upper right. [See Chester's amazing launch photo]
In contrast, if the launch is delayed by roughly a half hour to an hour, the background twilight sky will be darker, but the the Minotaur 1 won't climb into sunlight until about a minute or two after liftoff. The exhaust plume would then be illuminated by the sun and may create a nice eye-catching display, becoming gradually contorted by high-level winds into strange and exotic corkscrew patterns and, possibly, prismatic colors.
A 2005 home video of a Minotaur launch shot by Doc Searls with his son, from Santa Barbara, Ca., under just such conditions demonstrates that, with the right lighting geometry, these events can be spectacular crowd-pleasers.[Watch the Minotaur rocket launch video]
Copyright © 2011 Space.com. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:183048a7-2f24-4e4a-bb08-0e1785a1c13d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2011/06/28/sunset-rocket-launch-tuesday-may-surprise-east-coast.html | 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 | 0.947612 | 1,147 | 2.515625 | 3 |
When power words are said we all have a fast reaction. There is an image that comes to mind depending upon what we learned in our families and cultures. So, take a moment and see in your mind’s eye a picture of the word “man”. Did you see a strong, muscular guy, perhaps wearing jeans and a fit to the skin tee shirt? Maybe it was a sophisticated type in a well tailored suit with the perfect stripped tie. Did the first snapshot that came to you resemble your dad or a favorite teacher?
Now, do the same with the word woman. What did you see? Was it an earth mother with long flowing hair and a kind smile or perhaps a model from one of the ubiquitous perfume ads in magazines? Remember the hip “You’ve come a long way baby” cigarette ads that showed strong, can do women standing on terra firma ready to make it happen?
Now, take a moment and think about the women you work with. How similar are they in dress and speech? Are there cookie cutter models of women where you work or a freedom of expression? And think about yourself and the image you present. How free are you to say and do what you want? Do you hold back or are you front and center in your assertiveness and the way you present your ideas?
We all fall into categories around gender role stereotypes that are important to discuss. No one is left out. We all, from our earliest learning, modeled and mimicked those around us to find our way. We did this to learn about what it means to be a man or a woman from those around us. We are all products of the family systems we grew up in and the culture of the times. We are also in bodies that dictate some of our behaviors and our hormones have already determined much about the impact and consequences of sexuality on our lives. So talking about gender stereotypes and leadership success is multifaceted and complex, way more than a lot of numbers and statistics.
I believe there is a way to redefine who we are and what makes us happy (and the issue of women’s happiness is popping up in article after article these days) by observing, understanding and transforming the patterns from the past that have dictated today’s behavior. We need a long lens to go back in our own personal histories to connect the dots of what it meant to be a woman through the generations. It is only then we can take what it good and healthy as we move forward and change what has been handed to us that no longer works in the present time.
Research and statistics have pointed to women leaders as more socially oriented and collaborative while men counterparts are seen as task oriented and dominating. When women act autocratically they are seen as “behaving like a man” and often get lower points for the quality of the way they lead. Yet, when they go for consensus there are frustrated comments that women can’t take a stand.
I believe this double bind lies at the heart of the struggle around women, leadership and happiness. If you take a stand in a no-nonsense way you lose and if you look for agreement you lose. Women have had to deal with the dilemma of the double bind for centuries. Just think about child bearing and child rearing. Think about the swirling emotions around abortion. There is always a tug and pull around working mothers vs. non-working ones.
Each of us needs to look at the messages handed to us from the women who came before us to find our own way OUT; to Observe, Understand and Transform the patterns of our personal and collective past, to stand on the shoulders of those who came before us and find a new, effective way to lead from personal strength, no matter what! | <urn:uuid:ee10fc6d-39da-43b3-8c46-114fa0aab0c2> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.womenonbusiness.com/gender-stereotypes-and-leadership-success/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571246.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811073058-20220811103058-00268.warc.gz | en | 0.96589 | 774 | 1.96875 | 2 |
SmartCluster is a software designed to create a safe communications systems while using a public network – the Internet. SmartCluster is an OpenVPN server, which offers three functions for the creation of safe private networks in a public environment.
- As an OpenVPN server it connects clients (Conel routers and end user computers) via the OpenVPN tunnel. It creates communication links between individual tunnels and thereby enables individual devices, which are behind the various tunnels (Conel routers) connected via local area networks (LAN), to communicate with each other.
- Based on the user-defined network configuration and connection parameters of VPN tunnels, SmartCluster creates a configuration file for Conel routers. During the configuration process SmartCluster also creates secure certificates for both sides of the secured OpenVPN tunnel, therefore, the user can install individual Conel routers easily into the virtual private network, including a complete security system against attacks or unauthorized access to individual local networks.
- SmartCluster also informs the user about the connection status of individual routers, so it is also used as an instrument for basic network management.
The SmartCluster solution
SmartCluster provides solutions for applications where you need to connect devices connected via local area networks (LAN), and a router, which provides communication with the local area network (LAN), and does not have (cannot have or it is not desirable) a public internet IP address.
With SmartCluster you do not have to deal with issues relevant to the assignment of fixed public IP addresses, or private APNs (Access Point Name) by the GSM / UMTS network provider.
SmartCluster provides solutions relevant to the network security and secure connection of individual local networks.
SmartCluster provides a solution to the problem of how to connect devices which are behind routers with SIM cards belonging to the various GSM/UMTS operators. This is also for devices that are located in various countries and use local tariffs without a roaming service, but also use the SmartCluster communication server.
Please do not hesitate to contact our sales department to create a demo account on our test SmartCluster server. | <urn:uuid:f46f3dd5-9c5c-4252-848b-2eb06ce54ade> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.bb-smartcellular.eu/smartcluster/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719079.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00033-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905369 | 432 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Education can make all the difference for veterans transitioning from the military to a civilian career. Yet many do not know how best to leverage GI education benefits they earned or how to use the skills they gained during military service to earn a degree or career credential. Veterans thinking about college can improve their chances for success with the following steps:
1. Start the way you want to finish
In the military, your work was defined by the mission. Now the mission is you and your future. Begin by having a clear civilian career goal in mind. Do you want to pursue a career similar to what you did in the military or something completely different? Either way, the first step is to create a solid plan.
First, confirm that your desired field is in demand in your region. Next, explore whether a degree, an industry-recognized certificate, or an apprenticeship is the best route to success.
2. Be an informed college consumer
Student veterans are busy adult learners, juggling school, work and family. Look for a college that values and supports its student veteran community. Below are some questions to ask admissions representatives when researching colleges:
Do you have a dedicated leader to support military students? A single point of contact who is knowledgeable about military students can help you navigate your way through the college experience.
Do you have military education discounts and scholarships? Do you waive the application fee for military students? Military discounts, scholarships and fee waivers can signal that the school values student veterans.
Do you give college credit for military learning? The knowledge and skills you obtained in the military may qualify for college credit. To find out, order a copy of your Joint Services Transcript (JST). The JST lists credit recommendations from the American Council on Education (ACE). If you served in the Air Force, request your Community College of the Air Force (CCAF) transcript. Before you enroll, ask how ACE credit recommendations or CCAF transfer credits will be applied.
What services do you have for military students to help them achieve their career goals? Check to see if the school has career counselors who are knowledgeable about the translation of military skills into the civilian workforce. Ask about job placement rates and salary data for graduates in your program.
How do you assist veterans in accessing available GI education benefits and financial aid to defray costs of tuition, housing and books? You want to start the process of applying for available GI benefits as soon as possible. Commonly-used VA education benefits include the Post-9/11 GI Bill (Chapter 33), Montgomery GI Bill — Active Duty (Chapter 30) and Montgomery GI Bill — Selected Reserve (Chapter 1606). You also want to complete a FAFSA form to determine if you are eligible for federal financial aid.
3. Allow yourself time to adjust to your new mission
The transition from the military to civilian, academic culture can take adjustment, and various resources can help ease the process. Introduce yourself to your colleges veterans services team. Reach out to the student veterans organization on campus. If there is a veterans’ lounge or resource center, spend some time there and get to know other student veterans. These resources can help position you for success. Here’s to you achieving your academic and career goals!
Amy Sherman, AVP for Innovation and Policy, Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, [email protected] | <urn:uuid:8b7e3ef6-66b3-4d75-b4ee-bfefad1363fd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.impactingourfuture.com/empowering-our-veterans/3-important-steps-for-all-veterans-heading-to-college/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00469.warc.gz | en | 0.949903 | 682 | 2.140625 | 2 |
The Obama economy is tough for almost everyone, but teenagers may be feeling it more than others. Seven out of ten teens are not able to find a job this summer. Is it the minimum wage?
Are kids lazy? Do they have realistic expectations? Should teens be expected to work?
Bill Whittle discusses important employment and education issues facing families today. | <urn:uuid:db670ec8-796b-4fce-8666-65dd743a0555> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.patrioticmoms.com/archives/category/teenagers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00168-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946411 | 72 | 1.648438 | 2 |
A BLD - Envisioneer Building Project File is a file that has been created by the BIM software program Envisioneer. This particular file type is used by architects, engineers, carpenters and other individuals who want to design or remodel a building. The file displays both 2D and 3D objects and will help a person to accurately gauge the specifications for the area before starting construction. It can also help those who are doing smaller jobs such as installing lighting and framing. There are four different version of the Envisioneer software program; these are Essentials, Construction Site, Professional and Express. Each program type has its own express purpose and some builders may need more than one program.
File Extension BLD
Product(s) that can open BLD file
Envisioneer Express Having the best 3D models can be easier then what you imagine, if you have the proper program to do the work for you. The issue which many... | <urn:uuid:626afe01-b401-45fc-9845-dab832a77894> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.softango.com/extensions/bld | 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 | 0.946132 | 194 | 2.265625 | 2 |
We live in a world, unfortunately, where we’re exposed to all sorts of materials that can cause our body harm, from BPA in plastic food storage containers to pharmaceuticals in our water.
This means that while we’re already worrying about getting the right food into our mouth, we also have to make sure we’re cooking our real food in the right pots, pans, and casserole dishes.
But how do you figure out what the unsafe cookware IS in your kitchen, anyway?
What Is Cookware and Bakeware Made Of?
Your kitchen is probably stocked with numerous materials in your pots, pans, baking sheets and casserole dishes. Here are some of the most common and whether they’re keepers or get-rid-of-them-ers, in alphabetical order:
You’ll find aluminum right on the cooking surface of pots and cookie sheets most often, and as part of the heat conducting element in many pots and pans. I’ve written about aluminum pots and pans and the risks of aluminum before, including the many diseases that have been linked to aluminum.
There was some speculation/research years ago about aluminum being a major cause of Alzheimer’s, but even the Alzheimer’s Association and Alzheimer’s Society cite research demonstrating no link between aluminum and the disease.
Although I grew up eating out of aluminum pots almost exclusively, I do try to avoid cooking with it as much as possible now (a better safe than sorry technique). It’s unclear whether aluminum has any truly valid health risks, but there’s definitely a complication with aluminum cookware:
In part because any acidic foods, like tomatoes, wine, vinegar, and citrus foods, will leach aluminum into the food, I don’t trust it. I don’t want to have to think about which pot or pan I can use for a certain recipe. If you’ve ever stored anything in an aluminum pot, especially something acidic, you can practically taste and smell the metal in the meal.
For me, aluminum is a no-go. If you’re unsure whether a surface is aluminum, one test is that aluminum is not magnetic. You can also call the company that makes your pots and pans and ask them if there’s aluminum and if it touches the food or not. (Since aluminum is a good conductor of heat, it’s often used in the base of a pot, but sandwiched between layers of stainless steel or copper.)
2. Anodized Aluminum
Anodized aluminum is a bit of the new kid on the block. Aluminum is processed with electrical charges and an acid bath, causing the surface of the pot or pan to oxidize, or anodize, becoming much harder and more durable, as well as not leaching into foods.
I think I agree with Dr. Weil:
According to manufacturers, anodization seals aluminum so that the metal cannot leach into food. Anodized aluminum shouldn’t react to acidic foods, so you can theoretically use these pots and pans for preparing rhubarb and sauces with tomato, wine or lemon juice – ingredients that you shouldn’t cook in traditional aluminum pots.
3. Cast Iron
As one who eats traditional foods in part because they’ve been around a long time and aren’t as altered/processed by humans, cast iron fits right into my worldview.
My cast iron pan is old, heavy, and has plenty of rules that come with it, but I love cooking in it.
The iron can and does leach into the food, but in this case, it’s a trace mineral that our bodies need. When folks are fighting low iron, doctors often recommend cooking in cast iron.
This may be an old wives’ tale. The iron in cast iron is likely not bioavailable, i.e. it isn’t usable by our body, and the best way to get iron is to eat appropriate whole foods. The metals taken in via pots and pans are expelled as waste products, and some people’s systems (auto-immune diseases in particular) cannot expel the heavy metals and they become harmful. (This is from email conversation with the founder of Ceramcor. My official statement: Oh, phooey.)
The downfalls of cast iron:
- Can’t use soap
- Have to “season” with oil after each washing
- Can be difficult to cook/clean things like scrambled eggs – I’d never bother with cast iron pancakes, for example, because I’d have a sloppy mess on my hands. It’s not that I’m afraid to add fat; it’s just that you have to add it so much and so often. I always hit this point where suddenly the scrambled eggs, which had been moving over the surface as if it was Teflon, being to stick. Then I have to spend 5-10 minutes washing one pan. Annoying.
The upsides of cast iron:
- Adds iron to your diet (maybe?)
- No adverse health effect known
- Can easily cook something dry, then wipe out (no dishes!) and use again
- Can cook at high temps
- Holds heat really well
Do you cook with cast iron? What maintenance tips and tricks can you share?
Related: Recipes in Cast Iron Skillet
4. Ceramic Ware
Ceramcor, the company that makes Xtrema, uses a proprietary ceramic clay, so I can’t say exactly what’s in it, but it’s tested free and clear of lead and heavy metals. This is the type of pan Mercola recommends (but he also sells it, so…). Here’s my Xtrema pan review.
The important point to remember when using ceramic is to make sure the company guarantees lead-free glaze – it’s worth a Google search or phone call to check out the brand you’re using.
UPDATE: This is my new favorite healthy non-stick pan review.
5. Enameled Cast Iron
One of the downfalls of cast iron is the need to “season” it with oil after each washing (and some people – my husband, ahem – get thrown that you can’t use soap).
Enameled cast iron coats a cast iron pot or pan with porcelain (glass) so that you get the even cooking and heat retention of cast iron, the safety of non-reactive glass, but the convenience of being able to wash it as you would any other pan (you still can’t use metal utensils though).
I had a huge enameled cast iron pan kind of like this one, but I found that it was (a) very heavy, (b) hard to store, and (c) I only used it for tomato-based dishes (and no lid fit it) and defaulted to my regular cast iron 99% of the time. I gave it away when we moved.
Mine was white inside and not non-stick at all, but I see some updated versions are black and looks like Teflon – I wonder if it’s any more non-stick or if it’s just an illusion. I really need something to cook eggs in!
I can see the appeal of enameled cast iron if a family just hated to season the cast iron, but for me, I just stuck with the status quo.
If you look into one, you may want to choose a size that will fit a lid you already have, since that will have it more versatile in the kitchen.
Glass is wonderfully non-reactive, rarely scratches, and although it doesn’t conduct heat amazingly, it does an acceptable job for cooking oatmeal or soup. I don’t see many glass pots or pans sold nowadays, but my MIL has a set with lids and everything. In fact, hers looks exactly like this “vintage” pot at Amazon (don’t tell her that her stuff is already “vintage,” ok?) I frequently see glass pots and pans at thrift stores, so keep your eyes open there if you’re on a budget.
I choose glass for storage, mixing bowls, and casserole dishes. I particularly love my Pyrex casserole dishes with lids – I put leftovers directly into the fridge and can heat them up again in the oven or toaster oven if the whole family is eating. You know how I hate dishes!
A note from a reader who experienced the “exploding Pyrex” firsthand reminded me to pass on this note: don’t heat your glass dishes over 350ºF, or they could explode. For real. This from me, who just baked 3 glass dishes of gluten-free cornbread at 400F tonight. Hmmm…
When I first started reading about keeping my family healthy and discovered that Teflon was a fairly if not very hazardous substance, I was totally overwhelmed. Not only was everything I was learning about going to kill me and my babies (or at least give us cancer), but I had a kitchen literally full of non-stick pans.
Even the pots we got for our wedding had a non-stick surface. I used them every. single. day.
It took several sequential baby steps, but I eventually phased them out of my kitchen completely. I did lots of yard sale/thrift store shopping and asked for a few nice pieces of safer cookware for birthdays/Christmas.
There’s a whole separate post about Teflon and non-stick surfaces, but here are some quick notes:
- Teflon has an adhesive in it called perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA).
- PFOA has been found in the blood of 9 out of 10 Americans and even breastmilk.
- In high doses, it’s linked to cancer, low birth weight, and a suppressed immune system, and it may even raise LDL (bad) cholesterol in children.
- At temps over 450/500ºF, carcinogenic fumes from Teflon kill birds.
- When scratches get in the non-stick surface, the material beneath is exposed, usually aluminum. Plus, Teflon could get directly into your food.
Although the EPA is on record stating that even consuming small flecks of Teflon that get caught in your food has not been known to cause any health maladies, in my humble opinion, Teflon is still something to be very wary of, if not downright frightened.
If I’m not mistaken, there was a time that everyone thought – and the government stated – that tobacco was not harmful to people’s health, either.
The government isn’t always right, folks.
Things are moving in the right direction – the EPA has labeled PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid, which bonds the Teflon onto the pan) a likely carcinogen and is asked major producers to phase it out by 2015.
That’s a good thing since PFOA has been seeping into water sources all over the country and has been detected in the blood of 90 percent of Americans. (source)
PFOA has been linked to low birth weight, other birth defects, cancer, pregnancy-induced hypertension and preeclampsia, and even high cholesterol in children – the cancers particularly in areas near plants where PFOA is produced. (source)
While I’m avoiding Teflon on my own stove, I know the rest of the world isn’t, so I’m comforted by the fact that I have a powerful Berkey filter to get other people’s junk out of my water supply.
**PFOA is also in food containers, and stain-resistant furniture, carpet, and clothing!** (source)
I made that part bold because was totally new information to me. I know my husband has plenty of khakis and dress shirts that are “stain resistant.” My laundry-hating self thought that was splendid until about I read that…
I’ve really run the gamut on silicone, first being a huge proponent of the baking mats as a safe alternative to scratched, non-stick, aluminum baking sheets, then being wary of the material, then doing more research and deciding silicone was safe.
Now almost another year later, I received a comment from a reader sharing the following:
Sidestepping for the moment the issue of contaminants, in order to make any plastic, solvents are needed, along with heat, time, and a reaction vessel (container). Once heated, mixed, reacted, poured and molded, some solvent always, always, ALWAYS remains. It is embedded in the plastic – yes, silicone is a type of plastic – and this solvent will immediately absorb into food from the surface, and over time those solvents will leach out from the inside of the plastic and continue to absorb into your food. For a very long time, like for the life of the bakeware you are using. Some of these solvents are what keep the plastic flexible, so when they’re mostly gone, so is your bakeware. Do your own research on hexane and methylene chloride (aka: dichloromethane) which I once used in massive quantities in labs. You will not like what you read on the MSDS and yes, I’ve read them. And I don’t like it either.
Silicone chemistry is not trivial, and it is big, huge, enormous business. These compounds permeate our lives in this post-industrial, age of chemistry era in which we live. Are these chemicals safe? More importantly, are they safe for life, especially human life? Well, as for silicones, they are entirely man-made; nowhere in nature have any ever been found. There is an entire, very large book written on the analysis of silicones: The Analytical Chemistry of Silicones (Chemical Analysis: A Series of Monographs on Analytical Chemistry and Its Applications). A. Lee Smith (Editor).
Do keep in mind that even in the face of overwhelming evidence, manufacturers of a product or a group of products will go to their grave insisting that the evidence is flawed, that it’s anecdotal at best, that it’s skewed, and that it’s just plain wrong or fabricated. They will sell out the health and the life of anyone who gets in their production way. Always. The only time a company ever does the right thing is when the government finally gives in to the truth and forces them to change. Change costs money and time (money again) and no business willingly changes just because it’s the right thing to do. Ever.
It all really comes down to this question: Who do You Trust?
Do you choose to trust the makers of products who want your money at all costs? If you really believe that businesses exist not to make money, then maybe. Or do you trust your own skepticism? I’ll tell you what, I trust YOUR skepticism more than I trust any manufacturer on this planet. I trust mine even more than yours. You should trust yours as much as I trust mine, you don’t need a degree in chemistry (or anything else for that matter) just to question.
This was the second or third such comment I’d received over the years talking about this subject, and it finally hit home. I threw out my silicone mats was going to throw out both of them but ended up only pitching the ugliest, stained up one. I think I wanted to keep one for covering casserole dishes without lids like I demonstrated in 7 Ways to Avoid Plastic Wrap. I’m weak!
UPDATE: Maybe it’s okay that I kept it – another point of view from Ceramcor: Silicone is not a plastic, but a rubber material from inorganic compounds. (I have heard this before, that it’s not plastic; that’s why Life Without Plastic, for example uses silicone in their food storage lids.) He also quotes Rebecca Woods, renowned in the field of health and wellness (and quoted in The Everything Beans Book, I might add), as supporting food-grade silicone as safe. What to believe?!
What do you think about silicone? Whom do you trust?
9. Stainless Steel
For quite some time, I’ve been thinking stainless steel was a perfectly non-reactive metal and an excellent choice for my pots. I even bought some at a garage sale, because the pot set we received for our wedding was all non-stick, and I wanted to move away from that. I use my stainless steel mixing bowls a lot, too…
However, now I keep seeing little things like this:
I know Dr. Mercola is against stainless steel because of the leaching properties, for nickel in particular. (He does say (link removed) it’s a better choice than aluminum, if you’re keeping score.)
I think I’m heading to the kitchen to test some magnets on my pots; Dr. Mercola also shares:
I’ve been wanting to get stainless steel baking sheets to replace my nasty ones, but now I don’t know. I may just continue using my old ones and cover them with parchment paper (which is coated with silicon, le sigh).
As long as there’s no lead in the glaze, stoneware is an awesome, traditional option. Pampered Chef sells high-quality stones and even casserole dishes, although I have more trouble with them because you’re not supposed to use soap on stoneware.
However, I cannot live without my TWO stoneware sheet pans. I make the best rolls, biscuits, cookies, pizza, and soaked homemade granola (although I usually do it in the dehydrator now) on them. Huh-yum! With my ugly non-stick, scratched up cookie sheets, I burned the biscuit bottoms every time. No more!
If you’ve never tried stoneware, I highly recommend it.
A reader recommends Rada Cutlery as another brand with incredible stoneware.
Added bonus: It even keeps your pizza warm longer once out of the oven.
How to Make the Switch to Safer Cookware/Bakeware
Pots and pans can be some of the most expensive items in your kitchen, I realize that. When I started learning about safe surfaces vs. unsafe ones, I was appalled to realize that almost 100% of the pots and pans I used regularly had a non-stick surface. I hadn’t had them that long and didn’t have a few hundred buckeroos (or more) to drop on a nice new set.
I decided to take it one day at a time. I was already using my mom’s old cast iron pot sometimes, so I decided to try to default to it more. I chose the large pot that is stainless steel instead of the Teflon-lined one for most of my soup cooking.
It was a series of simple switches that did it. I didn’t really look to buy anything, but I kept an eye out for stainless steel pots at garage sales and put a second cast iron pan on my birthday list. It took me a while, but even found a solution for cooking scrambled eggs without Teflon.
I’m seriously on the hunt for something safer (and we never turn the heat up). When I used my Teflon griddle for pancakes, look what the air purifier taught me.
I’m not at the end of my journey, but I’m still working on it. Wherever you are in the move toward safer cookware and bakeware, choose one unsafe material you have in the kitchen to omit (or use less often, at least).
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links from which I will earn a commission. See my full disclosure statement here.Unless otherwise credited, photos are owned by the author or used with a license from Canva or Deposit Photos. | <urn:uuid:dcd08de7-9e7a-416c-9d2a-1c03cb0390da> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.kitchenstewardship.com/choose-safer-cookware/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570868.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808152744-20220808182744-00073.warc.gz | en | 0.955965 | 4,286 | 2.578125 | 3 |
As part of their Year 7 castles topic, all students were set a task of making a model castle as an extended history homework project. The History department had some fantastic lessons showcasing the castle models, where students were able to present their models to the class.
All of the History Department have been incredibly impressed with the high quality models made this year. They had castles made from Lego, poly filler, card board and modelling clay to name just a few!
They also received several castle models made from cake which went down a treat! A huge well done to all of the Year 7 historians who made castle models this year. | <urn:uuid:0ae6969e-e38a-4dc6-8c3b-2ea092ca3250> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.bewdley.worcs.sch.uk/2019/07/09/year-7-castle-project/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.993643 | 125 | 2.46875 | 2 |
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Animated television programs
Children's television programs
Fiction television programs
Video recordings for the hearing impaired
|Material Type:||Animation, Juvenile audience, Videorecording|
|Document Type:||Visual material|
|All Authors / Contributors:||
John Coates; Dianne Jackson; Dennis Abey; Niamh Cusack; Josie Lawrence; Pam Ferris; Ian Holm; Derek Griffiths; Sheila Hancock; Rosemary Leach; Patricia Routledge; Mike Stuart; Nick Comley; Beatrix Potter; Stuart Brooks Animation (Firm); TVC, Inc.; BBC Video (Firm); Warner Home Video (Firm)
|Language Note:||English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing.|
|Notes:||Title from container.
Based on the original Peter Rabbit Books by Beatrix Potter.
Originally released between 1993-1994.
|Credits:||Music, Colin Towns.|
|Performer(s):||Voices: Niamh Cusack, Josie Lawrence, Pam Ferris, Ian Holm, Derek Griffiths, Sheila Hancock, Rosemary Leach, Patricia Routledge.|
|Description:||1 videodisc (approximately 77 min.) : sound, color ; 4 3/4 in.|
|Details:||DVD, region 1, full screen (1.33:1) presentation; Dolby Digital stereo., DVD-5, NTSC.|
|Contents:||The tale of Pigling Bland / directed by Mike Stuart and produced by Nick Comley for Stuart Brooks Animation --
The tale of Samuel Whiskers or the roly-poly pudding / directed by Mike Stuart and produced by Nick Comley for Stuart Brooks Animation --
The tailor of Gloucester / directed by Jack Stokes and produced by John Coates for TVC.
|Responsibility:||Beatrix Potter ; Frederick Warne & Co., Ltd. ; produced in association with the BBC ; series producer, John Coates ; series director, Dianne Jackson ; live action director, Dennis Abey.| | <urn:uuid:8b1b925c-c321-418f-8166-68186cd39be0> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.worldcat.org/title/tale-of-pigling-bland-and-other-stories/oclc/185036877 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719136.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00467-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.74578 | 448 | 1.695313 | 2 |
A broken timing chain or belt could result in a damaged timing cover. This happens when one or more of the components inside that cover fail, and lash out against the inside of it. The reason why that would be bad is because those timing components need to be kept free of dust and debris. Additionally, if the timing belt or timing chain cover even develops a crack, it could get much worse and start to chip into fragments. This could disrupt the synchronous timing of the camshaft and crankshaft; resulting in poor engine performance and terrible fuel economy. And that's if they fall inside the timing cover. If they fall out and hit one of the drive belts, you could lose the functionality of one ore more of your accessories like the power steering pump, alternator, A/C compressor, etc. In short, any damage to the cover could spell disaster if it goes unattended for too long.
The switch from flat-head engines to overhead valve engines in the 1930s brought engineers the need to synchronize the camshaft and crankshaft via a chain. The chain would link the gears on both shafts, and remain oiled so that it could be properly lubricated at all times. A metal timing chain cover
would be added to the front of the engine block so that no dirt or debris would foul up the lubricant on the chain. It also separated the chain from other components like the drive belts and hoses. Later, the timing chain was replaced with a timing belt, but the timing cover still remained. Though it would now be made of plastic. And while today's engines are ever more complicated, these covers are now built to integrate the oil pump, water pump, and other components as well; making its integrity ever more important.
Accessing your timing belt or timing chain cover is difficult, and will be easiest with the engine lifted out of the engine bay. Some mechanics will find it possible to access it if the front bumper cover and radiator are removed. However, this is not always possible. But once all the engine's accessories have been removed, the timing cover should be exposed and will be ready for removal. Remember to use new gaskets when you replace your cover.
Car Parts Discount recognizes the importance of using only the best parts when rebuilding or repairing your engine. That means everything from internals and moving parts, to hoses and timing covers. And when it comes to timing covers, CPD offers quality reproductions as well as genuine original equipment. No matter which you choose, we can get you the parts you order in a matter of days. Your downtime and repair costs will be greatly reduced when you buy from our website today. | <urn:uuid:a0d37c82-786c-4e2a-89bf-d366d243061e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.carpartsdiscount.com/auto/timing-belt-chain-cover.html?3594=2776 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571198.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810161541-20220810191541-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.958306 | 547 | 2.046875 | 2 |
This site is not associated with, nor does it represent the views of any particular fire department.
It also has no association with the ISO.
The use or application of the ISO rating system varies all over the country.
Check with your local fire department, or the ISO, if you have any questions.
Ratings and the Fire Service
ISO - Insurance Service Office - This is a,
for profit, organization that provides statistical information on risk.
many years the "ISO Rating" had a large impact on most fire departments.
The ISO (PPC) rating is from 10 - 1. With "1" being the best.
At one time, almost, all insurance companies calculated rates based upon
the ISO rating. ISO would come to your city and assess a Public Protection Classification. They would then sell this data to the insurance companies.
Just about every aspect of a city and a fire department was evaluated
everything from the training aids a fire department owned to the distance
between fire hydrants. ISO wanted fire departments to conduct 20 hours
of training per man, each month, in order to maximize points for every
training aid. Historically, very few cities ever received a "Class
There have been times where only one city, out of the nation, would receive
Presently there may be as many as 40+ cities with a "1" rating
in the U.S. This is still a small percentage when one considers the thousands
of communities nationwide. There is little incentive for a community to
strive for a "1" rating since the step from a "Class 2" to
a "Class 1" results in little or no difference in homeowner rates. When
a city does get a "Class 1" rating they will often proudly display
it on their patches, apparatus or website.
now ISO ratings might have very little, if any, effect on insurance premium
rates in many states. Some insurance companies have discontinued
purchasing ISO data and using it to calculate rates. Instead of using
a theoretical risk evaluation they have opted for a system where they
use the actual loss within a zip code. (This includes all losses due
to fire, flood, lightening, hail, etc.) After an article, a few years
ago, on the subject, in an International
Association of Fire Chiefs newsletter about how State Farm Insurance
had decided to go to a "subzone" system in several states, State Farm was contacted. State Farm told me that they felt that they were one of
the last companies to go to the zip code method of calculating premiums.
They thought that most smaller companies had adopted this prior to them. State
Farm is the largest homeowner insurance company, in the U.S., and writes
over a third of all homeowner policies in many states with a 20% average
of 2001 State Farm has abandoned the use of ISO in Illinois, Texas, Oklahoma,
Pennsylvania, Arizona, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Vermont, and Wisconsin
in favor of the Subzone Rating Factor System. They have plans to do so
in other states. (See
magazine articles link.)
Update: The Texas Department of Insurance now has a FAQ page about ISO.
Here is what they say.
"What does the PPC system mean to me?"
"Every city, town or area that provides fire protection services is subject to being graded to establish a PPC. Individual buildings -- including your house -- are subject to the community's PPC. When calculating property insurance premiums, insurance companies using the PPC apply a factor that reflects a particular community's PPC."
"Do PPC ratings vary from company to company?'
"Yes, it can, because some insurance companies do not use ISO."
In some states the insurance companies can use a host of other factors to determine your insurance premium. Some companies will place a great deal of influence on your credit score. (Another reason to improve your score as much as possible.)
something in mind as you consider the effect of ISO in your area. Insurance
is something often highly regulated by individual states. While State Farm
has abandoned the use of the ISO, Public Protection Classification (PPC)
rating in many states, they may not be allowed to do so in others. A few
states have successfully stopped State Farm from implementing the new system.
(i.e. Louisiana and North Carolina) A few others have tried to fight State
Farm's desire to change. (Arkansas)
The state of Georgia requires all insurance agencies to consider ISO ratings
in setting premium rates.
many cases it is the fire associations or fire chiefs who are fighting
this change. The perception might be that dropping the use of ISO ratings system
Many departments, especially rural ones, use the structure of the ISO rating
system as a way to justify resources in budget discussions. ISO rates everything
from the amount of fire apparatus to the age of it. You can get points
for very specific types of training equipment. Examples of this would be "cut-away" fire
hydrants or pumps. Just about everything a fire department has, or does,
is evaluated. Fire departments fear, that without ISO's influence, convincing
cities to buy equipment, or hire personnel, will be harder.
some chiefs believe that no longer depending upon ISO has made their job
easier. They are now better able to paint a picture where more people or
better equipment translates into lower fire loss. How well the fire department
performs, which can be related to how well it is equipped, staffed and
trained, directly affects insurance rates. Lower insurance rates could
also mean more people and industry* might move to a city. Many city councils
can now be made to see a value in having a good fire department. Fire prevention
programs and better code enforcement can be an easier sell also.
In some states ISO ratings might still be used to calculate commercial
insurance rates while zip code loss, or the "subzone" system is used for homeowners.
are many states where ISO is still the predominant factor in setting insurance
rates. But even in states where ISO is no longer used, many fire departments
have continued to gauge their success by their ISO ratings. They often
boast that an improvement in ISO / PPC rating will translate into a certain
percentage rate of savings for the homeowner. Perhaps they just like having a yardstick by which to measure
their success. Some may see it as bragging rights. But apparently, some
may not know that this change has taken place. ISO is not spending time
and money to let people know where the value or their services have been
diminished. (Who would?) While it is possible that some insurance company
might still use ISO in any state, it is not likely that even a majority,
of homeowners, will see a reduction in premiums in a state listed above,
if a rating is improved. You can find many fire departments, in the states
above, who say on their website, that a better ISO rating = lower insurance
rates. Some declare it emphatically. "...this means an approximate
14% reduction in homeowner’s insurance premiums" Others
might just imply it. They may say something like, "...is recognized when
home insurance rates are determined."
anyone has more current information on ISO, please send it to me.
I did recently receive an email from a concerned retired N. J. Fire Chief.
His name and other information lead me to discover that he is probably very knowledgeable.
I emailed him back with my response and a request to use his name. I never heard from him again.
I figured my email ended up on his spam folder. Having said that, here is his comment and my response.
His name has been omitted.
"You need to update the ISO information. 9 out of the top 10 insurance companies use ISO's data, including State Farm."
That was the extent of the message I received. Here is my response. I have no idea if he every received it.
The information I have is that they “use” it, but it is a tiny part of their assessment.
When I contacted State Farm (in 2011) they told me that the factor that determines your actual rate the most, is your credit score.
As I am sure you know, this can vary greatly from state to state.
All I am after is accuracy. If you can send me some documentation, from State Farm, or whoever, I would love to pass that along.
Until then, may I put your email on the website for people to see?
I want to give them another perspective.
I would also like to tell the readers that you are someone who should know because of your experience and credentials.
Any more information you could give me is welcomed.
But here is what I currently have to support my position.
"Some insurance companies don’t use the ISO ratings in their calculations of premiums, while others use the ratings along with a number of other factors such as the age of a home and the type of roof.”
"With so many variables involved, it’s nearly impossible for consumers to predict how much money an improved ISO rating could save them, but they should be aware of any factors that might make a difference.”
Here is a another article:
"Keep in mind that some insurers, such as State Farm, don't use ISO ratings but instead rely on their own data to calculate fire risk."
I contacted State Farm (Texas) in 2011 about this subject.
I was told that State Farm divides a county into subzones beyond the 1-7 score and perhaps even smaller divisions than that, to determine your premium rate. They also (reluctantly) admitted that your credit score might be a huge factor in what you pay for insurance.
I called my State Farm agent who said that, in Texas, they did not use ISO, but rather their own internal system that divides up a county. But just to be sure, and get more details, they would contact their underwriters and ask the same questions. I was called back and it was explained that they DO NOT use ISO for homeowners insurance rate calculations. They use their own system which rates an area from 1-7. For example, regardless of the city of Dallas' ISO rating, it may have several different scores, depending upon the many regions the county is divided into. The small suburb I live in (in another county) has an ISO rating of 2, but a State Farm score of 1. They were a little guarded about how they determine their ratings, but they were firm about not using ISO.
I will concede that State Farm might use the ISO more in calculating commercial rates, but I don’t really know.
I know that Georgia requires insurance companies to use ISO to calculate rates. Does New Jersey do so as well?
Since the Texas Dept of Insurance website says that ISO is a NJ based organization, I would wager that it does.
A USFA /FEMA report from California said this:
"State Farm and other insurance companies have moved away from ISO rating. State Farm is the nation’s largest insurer of residential properties and stopped using the ISO rating in 2000.
State Farm developed its own system of determining rates using the five digit zip code system to reflect prior claim experience in that area (Kang, 2006).
Western Mutual Insurance Group described a method similar to State Farm, they based their premiums on losses and risks within a gi ven zip code area and the distance from a staffed fire station.
Premiums are lowest if a home is within 3 miles of a fire station.”
There is always a chance that ISO will have some relevance on a home insurance rate.
However this varies depending upon: situation, state, insurance company and more.
I have seen some unsubstantiated reports that in many states, not only does State Farm not use ISO to any serious degree, but neither does Allstate and others.
The Texas Department of Insurance website only says, over and over, "some insurance companies do not use ISO.”
I also base my claim, that ISO has little to do with most homeowner’s rates, on the fact that in many communities, State Farm writes over half the policies.
My local FD went to the city council and asked for more stations and equipment because this would improve our rating.
Was that true?
Would going from a 2, to a 1 change anyone’s rate?
Given the fact that every person on the council had State Farm, I would say that the statement was false.
(Of course I didn’t mention that to anyone other than the chief, who was a friend of mine.)
I will certainly contact State Farm again, to see if anything has recently changed.
Thank you for your interest in keeping me honest.
Here is an article from an insurance business website.
2001 Article in Firehouse Magazine about State Farm's change, with more
on the PPC and ISO rating system.
It also talks about the "Subzone Rating Factor" system.
NOTE: Apparently Firehouse has moved the article and this link no longer works.
If someone finds the article, please email me the correct link.
The same story can be found at this "Fire Chief Magazine" link.
2001 Arkansas tried to fight State Farm's change to the "loss per
zip code" system.
with a great deal of information on ISO and the PPC. | <urn:uuid:0eba8b49-0259-4818-b190-419228e4bfd0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.fireserviceinfo.com/iso.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279189.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00055-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956963 | 2,812 | 1.601563 | 2 |
The American Artwork Therapy Association encourages recognized requirements for artwork therapy education, ethics and practice. Volunteer committees consists of people and different professionals in the field definitely work on governmental affairs at the national and state level, clinical dilemmas and skilled development. The Association’s determination to continuing education and study is demonstrated through their annual national discussion, journals, its distance understanding capacity which can be in growth and national prizes realizing quality in the field of art therapy.
During record, Aesthetic appearance has been useful for the applications of therapeutic, but artwork therapy did not emerge as a distinct occupation before 1940s. Early in the 20th century, psychiatrists became significantly interested in the artwork their individuals with mental infection created. And teachers were discovering that children’s artwork expressions reflected developmental, psychological, and cognitive growth. The job of numerous modern artists of the period used equally ancient and child-like models to state mental sides and dispositions (Dubuffet, Picasso, Miro and Braque, for example.)
By the mid-century, hospitals, centers, and rehabilitation stores increasingly began to include artwork therapy applications combined with more traditional verbal therapy practices, realizing that the procedure of fabricating artwork increased recovery, wellness, and wellness. As a result, the career of art therapy grew in to a highly effective and essential way of communication, analysis, and treatment of young ones and adults in a number of settings. Nowadays, the profession of artwork therapy has obtained importance in healthcare services through the entire United Claims and within psychiatry, psychology, counseling, training, and the arts.
Artwork practitioners, as identified by the National Artwork Treatment Association, are masters stage professionals who maintain a diploma in art therapy or a related field. Academic requirements contain: theories of art treatment, counseling, and psychotherapy; ethics and standards of practice; assessment and evaluation; individual, class, and household methods; individual and creative growth; modern dilemmas; study practices; and practicum activities in scientific, neighborhood, and/or other settings. Artwork practitioners are experienced in the application form of a number of art modalities (drawing, painting, sculpture, and other media) for evaluation and treatment.
Artwork counselors are professionals trained in both artwork and therapy. They’re experienced in individual growth, psychological ideas, medical practice, religious, modern and imaginative traditions, and the therapeutic possible of art. They choose art in therapy, examination and research, and provide consultations to allied professionals. Artwork therapists assist people of all ages: persons, couples, people, organizations and communities. They offer solutions, independently and included in clinical groups, in options that include emotional health, rehabilitation, medical and forensic institutions; community outreach programs; wellness centers; schools; nursing domiciles; corporate structures; open companies and separate practices.
A skill specialist needs a certificate to apply art therapy. Artwork therapy accreditation differs from state to state.
Artwork treatment handles a part of the mind that’s frequently practical when the rest are dysfunctional or maybe not functioning well.
Several can benefit from art therapy, including hospitalized children, teens, people and the elderly. In addition, art treatment advantages the emotionally ill. In many cases, people that have depressions, anxiety and anxiety brought on by trauma or developmental challenges have trouble expressing their deep feeling. Producing art often allows them to begin to become released from their own dysfunctions.
Older people, and especially Alzheimer’s individuals, suffering from various levels of memory loss, time and place dysfunction do to aging may react to pulling, painting and building and commence to assume control and regain a few of these missing capabilities.
Studies show that artwork treatment sessions with seniors have inspired storage and head function–creative motion has paid down the dangers of comes and incidents and encourages balance and movement. The Museum of Modern Artwork in New York has a program named “Match and MOMA.” On Tuesdays, once the Memorial is usually shut, number of Alzheimer’s people and their caregivers tour the galleries. The excitement of seeing and discussing graphics enriches their lives and stimulates them mentally. Considering that the establishment of this system, many patients have exhibited marked development in memory, cognitive consciousness and self expression.
The best AI generate art helps prisoners address their angers, fears, and resentments. Through creating, they begin to see themselves and know what inspired them to commit a crime. And art creating provides many to be able to create a talent that may enrich, not only their lives, nevertheless the lives of others.
Artwork and the innovative process brings stability, self-esteem and enjoyment to anyone who is challenged by emotional or physical disabilities. Through the creative process, deep-seated feelings appear in an soft, nurturing atmosphere. Individuals are allowed to generally meet their worst doubts, anxieties and problems by performing art that expresses that challenge. When it’s identified, see and discussed, usually the overwhelming proportion is diminished. In a group, the participants know that the others have doubts and issues also, just like them. Eating problems can be addressed and sometimes, treated by imagination as the underlying reason behind the disorder is frequently concealed and emerges through the art work.
Artwork therapy, effective in a specialist placing, creates a sense of self, that that will be frequently lost in seniors, Alzheimer’s individuals or individuals with psychological illness. Sensory excitement through art making fills in wherever there is a deficit of feeling of home and sensory stimulation. That is established through the usage of any and all employs of art materials and abilities, including painting, drawing, water color, collage or sculpture. | <urn:uuid:46cda2dc-8f42-42ce-8c05-f67deef6b5c7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.gt86academy.com/art-treatment-wellness-alternative/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.951298 | 1,148 | 2.640625 | 3 |
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I’m a quarter Welsh. My darling grandmother grew up in the Rhondda Valley, a small mining town where her father was the school principal. She didn’t speak a lot of Welsh, other than to delight us by reciting the longest train station name in the world (Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch). I was always aware, though, of the word ‘ cwtch’ . She didn’t use it often, but I knew it was special; it was almost said in a whisper. I remember her using it once in hospital, when we first thought she was dying. It’s a special sort of cuddle, she said. And that it is: a ‘cwtch’ (pronounced ‘kutch’, to rhyme with ‘butch’) is the Welsh word for a cuddle or hug, but it’s also so much more than that.
Its second meaning is a cubbyhole or cupboard; a small space in which to store things safely. Blend those two meanings and you get a better idea of what the word means: it’s the wrapping of your arms around someone to make them feel safe in the world. It’s precisely what my grandmother needed, and gave, as she started to see her life slip away from her. I remember nuzzling into her neck, smelling the Youth Dew perfume she wore on her papery skin, and feeling like there was no safer space in the world. That is exactly how a cwtch ought to make you feel: safe, warm, comforted.
‘Cwtch’ is the Welsh word for a hug, but it’s also so much more than that (Credit: Veteran Photography/Alamy)
You may also be interested in: • Where being nice is the law • Why Poland will never have hygge • The Greek word that can’t be translated
It’s an emotionally significant embrace and an intrinsically Welsh word that evokes a sense of home. My grandmother was some 17,000km from her Welsh home when she died in her sunburnt adopted home of Sydney, Australia. It is of little surprise to me that she would use that word then, wanting, probably, to transport herself back to where she grew up. It’s in times of fear, danger, distress and melancholy that we most need a cwtch. It’s not a casual gesture of affection; it’s a profound one, and it was invented by the Welsh.
Hugs are for everyone; cwtches are only for a few
“It’s not just a cuddle or a hug – it’s something special and something I wouldn’t do with everyone,” said Amy Jones, a Welsh Londoner whose mother comes from Cardiff and father from the Valleys. “A cwtch is what my parents would give me when I was young and had fallen over, it’s something my husband and I do on the sofa when we’re in a blissful cocoon, it’s what I give my friends when they’re stressed or sad. A cwtch is something you do when you’re overflowing with joy and love at another person’s sheer existence in your life that you can’t help but try and squeeze that love into them; it’s a safe space of love and comfort for someone who needs it; it’s all the best parts of being alive and loving someone, in a pair of arms. Hugs are for everyone; cwtches are only for a few, very special people in my life.”
Despite not being Welsh themselves, Jones’ husband and friends know the word and they’re well aware how much it means to Jones – both as code for ‘I need emotional support’ and as a motif of her Welsh identity. Like my grandma, Jones uses the word to take herself back to her roots. “I haven’t lived with my family in six years, but the word cwtch takes me right home. But more than that – when someone asks if I want a cwtch, they’re doing so because they know how much it means to me, and it makes me feel incredibly seen and understood.”
The word cwtch is intrinsically Welsh and evokes a sense of home (Credit: Photos by R A Kearton/Getty Images)
Dr Mercedes Durham, senior lecturer in sociolinguistics at Cardiff University, says that we use words like cwtch to distinguish ourselves as having a particular national identity. “Language has a lot to do with our identity and our culture. The word ‘cwtch’ is used by Welsh speakers and English-speaking Welsh people to indicate that they’re Welsh. It’s an emblem of being Welsh. In linguistics, we talk about the commodification words, and using them to sell an identity. People use this word to prove that they are Welsh. In gift shops, there are mugs and T-shirts that say ‘everyone can hug, only the Welsh can cwtch’. There are strong positive connotations for Welsh people.”
Interestingly, the word ‘cwtch’ is used both by Welsh-speaking people and English-speaking Welsh people. It’s even gaining a little traction in the English language, at least with people who have Welsh friends or family. Jonathan Dent, senior assistant editor of new words at the Oxford English Dictionary, has noticed an uptake in its usage.
‘Hug’ and ‘cuddle’ might be serviceable English equivalents, but neither of them will ever convey everything that ‘cwtch’ does
“It was named as Wales’ best-loved word in 2007 , has been used in wedding vows and is now flourishing in new contexts. A Twitter search shows the word in significant daily use on the platform, with people looking forward to a cwtch from their cariad [sweetheart], longing for a cwtch from anyone or offering one another virtual *cwtches*.”
He says there are other Welsh words we might use out of their traditional linguistic context, but we may not always get across the full nuance of their meaning. “The meanings of the Welsh words hiraeth (‘a sense of homesickness or nostalgia; longing; wistfulness’) and hwyl (‘a stirring feeling of emotional motivation and energy; a feeling which inspires passionate eloquence’) are often said to be impossible to capture in English, although we still have to try. In the case of cwtch, ‘hug’ and ‘cuddle’ might be serviceable English equivalents, but neither of them will ever convey everything that ‘cwtch’ does to someone who has grown up with the word.”
Cwtch was named as Wales’ best-loved word in 2007 (Credit: Ian Gibson/Alamy)
There is an enchanting profoundness to the word ‘cwtch’ that is not entirely translatable in English. And yet, it’s so lovely to add foreign words to our vocabulary, especially when we can’t quite land on the right English word. “One explanation for why we start using these words outside our own language is that there is a semantic gap in our own language or an experience we can’t quite articulate and then we discover a word for it in another language and we latch onto it,” said Dr Tim Lomas, professor in positive psychology at the University of East London and author of The Happiness Dictionary . “It’s a bit like the word ‘ hygge’ . Hygge is everywhere these days, and we use it to try and capture some of that enviable Nordic lifestyle. These words are more than words; they’re about a way of life and a state of mind. I don’t see why cwtch couldn’t have a similar movement to hygge. It would allow us to make a way of living around it, around cosiness and safety.”
We need cwtches more than ever
Could ‘cwtch’ be the new ‘hygge’? Could we use it to evoke and sell a sense of comfort and warmth? Could its popularity be an endorsement of intimacy and kindness? Eifion Griffiths, a third-generation Welsh textiles maker and owner of wool company Melin Tregwynt, thinks we very well could. “Like our interest in the concept of hygge, using the word cwtch is a contrast to a world of darkness and danger,” he said. “If you’re upset, you need a cwtch. If you’re wandering around happy, a cwtch doesn’t come into it. We need cwtches more than ever, I think, because it’s not a very comfortable world at the moment. You have to understand, when you give someone a cwtch you’re not coming on to someone. It’s a non-threatening hug, it’s not a danger or a threat. It’s a safe space, something that takes you back to your childhood, something that makes you feel warm – not just physically but emotionally.”
Eifion Griffiths: “[A cwtch is] a safe space… something that makes you feel warm – not just physically but emotionally” (Credit: Henn Photography/Getty Images)
Some days, there’s nothing I’d like more in this world than a cwtch from my sweet, doting grandmother. She was an exemplary giver of cwtches: warm, generous, affectionate without reserve. She was, despite leaving the Rhondda Valley as a teenager, idiosyncratically Welsh, and to show that, she’d use words like ‘cwtch’. It is a deeply significant word to anyone who was born in Wales, and truly anyone who loves someone Welsh. She’d be proud to think that more people had started using it, that more people were actively making one another feel safe and warm.
Why We Are What We Are is a BBC Travel series examining the characteristics of a country and investigating whether they are true.
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If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter called "If You Only Read 6 Things This Week". A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Travel, Capital, Culture, Earth and Future, delivered to your inbox every Friday. | <urn:uuid:074824a8-a18c-43df-9f03-b328f696ac8c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.doyenlifemuseum.com/cwtch-the-hug-invented-by-the-welsh | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572215.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815235954-20220816025954-00672.warc.gz | en | 0.95882 | 2,310 | 2.140625 | 2 |
July 9, 2021
Public health officials advise three new deaths in people with COVID-19 are being reported today:
• a male in his 30s from the Winnipeg health region, linked to the B.1.1.7 (alpha) variant of concern;
• a male in his 70s from the Prairie Mountain Health region, linked to the alpha variant of concern; and
• a male in his 80s from the Prairie Mountain Health region.
The current five-day COVID-19 test positivity rate is 5.1 per cent provincially and 4.6 per cent in Winnipeg. As of 9:30 a.m. today, 74 new cases of the virus have been identified. However, two cases were removed due to data corrections. This brings the net-new number of cases today to 72 and the total number of lab-confirmed cases in Manitoba to 56,739.
Of the 74 cases reported today, the COVID-19 data shows:
• 22 new cases in the Interlake–Eastern health region;
• five new cases in the Northern health region;
• one new case in the Prairie Mountain Health region;
• 13 new cases in the Southern Health–Santé Sud health region; and
• 33 new cases in the Winnipeg health region.
The data also shows:
• 1,030 active cases and 54,549 individuals who have recovered from COVID-19;
• 141 Manitobans hospitalized with COVID-19 in Manitoba and neighbouring provinces including:
– 52 people in hospital in Manitoba with active COVID-19 as well as 85 people in hospital with COVID-19 who are no longer infectious, amounting to a total of 137 hospitalizations;
• a total of 37 Manitoba patients receiving intensive care for COVID-19 including:
– 14 people in intensive care units in Manitoba with active COVID-19 as well as 19 people with COVID-19 who are no longer infectious but continue to require critical care, amounting to a total of 33 ICU patients in Manitoba; and
– four Manitoba patients in intensive care units outside the province, all of whom are in Ontario;
• 41 patients previously receiving care in an out-of-province ICU have now been returned to Manitoba hospitals for further care; and
– no COVID-19 patients were transported out of province for care yesterday;
• 1,465 laboratory tests were completed yesterday, bringing the total number of lab tests completed since early February 2020 to 842,723; and
• the total number of deaths in people with COVID-19 is 1,160.
Possible exposure locations are listed online by region at the province’s #RestartMB Pandemic Response System webpage. For up-to-date information on possible public exposures to COVID-19 in regions, visit https://www.gov.mb.ca/covid19/updates/flights.html#event and click on your region.
Additional data on variants of concern is updated from Tuesday to Saturday at https://geoportal.gov.mb.ca/. Data related to COVID-19, outbreaks and some downloadable and historic data can also be found at this site. | <urn:uuid:69e45f08-ba16-4128-ac7a-16440050e5b3> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://peguisfirstnation.ca/covid-19-bulletin-483/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572021.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814083156-20220814113156-00070.warc.gz | en | 0.946832 | 668 | 1.5625 | 2 |
As we have been saying, the rising price of food has really begun to take a toll on low income New Yorkers. In particular, food stamp recipients are feeling the pinch. As the NY Daily News reports this morning, "Rocketing food prices are slimming down the Eric Gioia poverty diet.
The Democratic city councilman from Queens struggled to survive last year when he spent a week living on $28 - the average food stamp allowance for a single recipient. This year, the same allowance would leave him starving."
Clearly, more needs to be done and help may be on the way. In Washington a new farm bill is seeking to address the food stamp allocation, and hopefully the benefit levels will be raised to meet the new economic challenge of grocery sticker shock. Councilman Gioia told the News: "Last year, I lasted five days and I was out of food," he said. "I had to go to a food pantry to get through the week. "This year, I'd last three days." With last year's budget, Gioia loaded up on pasta, tuna, ramen noodles, white bread and a handful of vegetables. This week, he shopped for the same groceries. The bill was more than $6 higher - a 25% price increase."
And the food stamp recipient is not alone of course. All New Yorkers are feeling the pinch, a pinch that is exacerbated by the loss of local supermarkets; with six East Harlem markets shutting down in the past few years. So the grocery price rise and the loss of supermarkets are a tandem issue, and addressing one means we need to also address the other at the same time.
As we've said elsewhere, the supermarket crisis couldn’t have come at a worse time. As grocery prices rise not only in this city, but all over the world, the loss of our larger local food markets puts an additional strain on strapped consumers. When the neighborhood supermarket, faced with a rising rent that it can’t afford, gives way to a bank or a chain drug store, the community is forced to shop at higher priced bodegas and delis.
We're looking forward to a joint rally and press conference with the food advocates on May 28th; and we're really looking forward to belling the Vornado cat for its unconscionable decision to evict a South Bronx supermarket from its home of over two decades. | <urn:uuid:dd28367a-fb2c-41a8-ada4-d46514467f7f> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://momandpopnyc.blogspot.com/2008/05/stamping-out-hunger.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719273.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00065-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962963 | 492 | 1.796875 | 2 |
In the age of electronic communication most people find it impossible to go a day without email. In the workplace email is a valuable tool, not just for communication, but also for recording information and exchanges. But dangers lurk in the deep recesses of servers that store all that communication, and in the case of a workplace investigation what is and isn’t there can come back to haunt a company that hasn’t taken the right steps to preserve and delete.
Knowing what and how to delete electronic communication is critical, yet many companies don’t have a clue. The answer lies in an Email Retention Policy: a document that describes the company’s guidelines for retaining and destroying emails.
What’s in an ERP?
An Email Retention Policy typically includes:
- a retention schedule for employees to easily integrate into their routines
- a set timeframe for how long emails will be stored
- explicit directions for what information should be kept and what information should be destroyed.
- information about the way in which the data is kept and where.
An effective Email Retention Policy must be easy to understand, so that employees will have no problems implementing it.
Why You Need an ERP
The Email Retention Policy defines which data needs to be preserved and for how long: Some companies face industry regulations, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), SEC, Sarbanes Oxley (SOX), and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA), that require them to retain electronic data for a certain period.
In addition to regulatory compliance, certain data might be important for the company and must be retained for internal reasons.
Why Delete Data?
The Email Retention Policy also defines which data does not need to be retained. If certain data is not important the company does not want to store this data. The reason for this is two-fold:
- Storing data costs money and can slow down systems. A mail server was not designed as a storage system; it was designed as a communication system. Mail servers that have large message stores are slower to search through, backup and restore. It does not make sense to suffer these consequences for data that is not important.
- The more data you have, the longer an eDiscovery search will take on a court order and the more costly it will be. If a US company faces a lawsuit, they will need to comply with the eDiscovery rules from the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP). Although according to the FRCP it is up to the company to decide for how long to store data, there must be a clear retention policy in place that states which data is retained, for how long and by what means. It is important that these guidelines are adhered to, so that if any destroyed data is ever requested as evidence, the company is able to prove that it was destroyed according to company guidelines, and not to cover up evidence.
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Set It, but Don’t Forget It
Unfortunately Email Retention Policies are far from set-it-and-forget-it programs. Compliance regulations constantly change and implementation problems may arise at any time.
Although it might be daunting to create an Email Retention Policy, don’t be discouraged. Create an email retention team involving members from IT, Legal, Compliance and Human Resources and start by documenting the company’s retention needs and requirements. Once the email retention requirements are clear, discuss how these can be achieved. This will usually be a combination of employee guidelines as well as implementing an email archiving solution.
Taking the time to ensure you have an effective Email Retention Policy will save you hours of sleep lost to worrying about the monsters lurking on your servers. | <urn:uuid:ade3059a-9824-4f62-bcd7-afcbb08123db> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://i-sight.com/resources/avoiding-an-e-discovery-nightmare-in-a-workplace-investigation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00169-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929705 | 793 | 1.734375 | 2 |
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Reviewed December 29, 2015
Carryover is the process by which unobligated funds remaining at the end of a budget period may be carried forward to the next budget period to cover allowable costs in that budget period. The carryover of funds enables grantees to use unexpended prior year grant funds in the current budget period.
Most grants have automatic carryover authority, and grantees do not have to request approval from the NIH in order to carry over funds from one budget period to the next. Grantees that do not have automatic carryover authority are required to submit a written request. The following mechanisms typically do not have automatic carryover and require NIH prior approval:
- Cooperative Agreements (U)
- Program Centers (P30, P50, P60)
- Awards to Individuals, including Fellowships (F)
- Non-Fast Track, Phase 1 (one-year) SBIR (R43) and (one-year) STTR (R41)
- Training Grants (T) Carryover requests for trainee slots will not be considered, but in rare circumstances, carryover for trainee-related expenses and travel could be considered.
- Clinical Trials (regardless of activity code)
Prior to submitting a request for carryover, the grantee is encouraged to discuss it with their Program Officer (PO) and Grants Management Specialist (GMS). In addition, the grantee must ensure that the Federal Financial Report for the last (and all prior) budget period(s) has been submitted and accepted by the NIH Office of Financial Management. Carryover requests must be limited to actual needs for the current budget period. Subsequent needs would be considered in future budget periods.
All carryover requests must be made in writing (or via e-mail) to the GMS assigned to the project and signed by the Authorized Organization Representative from the grantee institution. Requests should be submitted in a timely manner, within one year of the end of the budget period from which the funds were unexpended, and must include the following information:
- Grant number and PI name
- Amount of funds to be carried over
- Explanation for the unobligated balance
- Plan for expenditure, including a description of activities to be carried out during the carryover period, and how the activities relate to the aims of the project
- Detailed budget in PHS 398 format (Form Page 4) and justification for all items, including detailed budget pages for any subcontract costs
- Checklist page reflecting the requested F&A costs for the prime grantee and any subcontracts
When preparing a justification for a carryover request, grantees should answer the following questions:
- Why were the funds not spent in the past year?
- What additional work will be done during the current grant year that is not possible with the budget currently allotted to this year? Thought must be given to how the work will be accelerated; for example, will more staff be hired, effort increased or more assays run?
- Is the request essential? Are costs reasonable, allowable, necessary and in line with the existing budget? Are there new costs that were previously unforeseen? How will the work be impacted if the funds are not carried over?
If the request is approved, a revised Notice of Grant Award will reflect the additional authorized funds for the current budget period. If carryover is denied, you will receive correspondence from the GMS.
The carryover process should take no more than 30 days from receipt to notification of a decision.
Contact information for your PO and GMS can be found on the Notice of Grant Award. | <urn:uuid:3aefbd8c-266c-4593-a09c-bac10c553754> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.niams.nih.gov/funding/Policies_and_Guidelines/carryover_requests.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00322-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941971 | 773 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Michael Graves died today in Princeton, N.J. One of the most famous U.S. designers of his generation, and a pioneer of architectural Postmodernism, Graves was born in Indianapolis, earned his bachelor of science in architecture from the University of Cincinnati, and continued his studies at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. His eponymous firm, which he founded in 1964, has offices in both Princeton and New York City.
Graves first came to public attention via the book Five Architects (Oxford University Press, 1975), which featured the so-called New York Five, a group of similarly minded architects that also included the late John Hejduk, the late Charles Gwathmey, Peter Eisenman, FAIA, and Richard Meier, FAIA. All five architects went on to prestigious academic and professional careers. Graves received the AIA Gold Medal in 2001, and the 2012 Richard H. Driehaus Prize. He also taught architecture at Princeton University for decades and was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects.
Graves's breakthrough project was the Portland Building (1982), a municipal government building in Portland, Ore., which was the subject of recent controversy, when rumors circulated about its possible demolition. Other notable projects include the Swan and Dolphin Resort hotels (1987) at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla.; the Central Library at the Denver Public Library (1990); Martel, Brown, and Jones Colleges at Rice University, in Houston (1999); and expansions of both the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (2006) and the Detroit Institute of Arts (2007).
As his career progressed, Graves became equally well-known as an industrial designer, creating a famous teapot for Alessi with a whimsical bird spout and numerous products in partnership with retailer Target. In 2003, Graves contracted an infection that, within days, led to paralysis from the waist down. His response was to become an outspoken champion of accessible and healthcare design and design the Prime TC wheelchair and other products for the disabled and elderly. In 2013, President Barack Obama appointed Graves to the United States Access Board, also known as the Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board, an independent federal agency that "promotes equality for people with disabilities through leadership in accessible design and the development of accessibility guidelines and standards."
For more work by Michael Graves, please visit ARCHITECT's project gallery. | <urn:uuid:bb5f60de-92aa-4967-a9c4-59c1e7b649e8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.residentialarchitect.com/practice/michael-graves-dead-at-80_o | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280891.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00155-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965286 | 481 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Development a house is a pricey venture that may take time. One has to rent common contractors and architects and pass a mile additional to shop for all of the building fabrics for the home. Alternatively, with modular, cellular, and manufactured properties, other people can now breathe as they are able to now turn into house owners. Modular properties are factory-built properties and are assembled on-site. Those properties have won recognition because of housing shortages and the excessive value of creating a livable house. Why are many of us who prefer manufactured, modular and cellular properties? Learn on to be informed the advantages of those properties.
1. Extremely Reasonably priced
Most often, when one makes a decision to construct a manufactured house, they only purchase cellular house portions and bring together them, spending much less cash than construction a brand new house from scratch. It could possibly value an individual round $62, 200 to construct a manufactured house, nevertheless it will depend on the scale and fabrics. Alternatively, if one builds a brand new space, they are going to most likely spend greater than $272, 200 for a single-family space. It’s the least expensive method people can turn into house owners of fine quality, livable properties in nowadays’s difficult financial instances. Modular properties provide a very good alternative for middle-income earners and people who wish to save when construction properties.
However the house owners want to watch out when purchasing the modular house segments or portions. Some producers be offering high quality cellular house portions, whilst others be offering poorly built segments. Sooner than purchasing, people will have to analysis to grasp respected sellers providing high quality construction segments and fabrics. This may occasionally ensure that they construct effective, comfy, and sturdy properties.
2. House owners Have Keep an eye on Over the Development Procedure
Any person who has ever labored with common contractors to construct a house is aware of how irritating it may be. Some contractors can building up the fee alongside the best way, making house owners dig deeper into their wallet to finish the venture. Some even finally end up in debt. Some contractors even lengthen the venture and use low-quality fabrics to maximise their income. Alternatively, when one considers construction a cellular or modular house, they don’t seem to be prone to revel in such issues.
House owners are answerable for the entire venture. They purchase cellular house portions from providers in their selection and construct a custom designed house with appropriate fixtures, ground, home windows, doorways, roof, storage, and different elements. The landlord could make changes alongside the best way with out the approval of a clothier or contractor. However you want to touch a competent clothier when making important adjustments to a cellular house to steer clear of structural problems someday.
3. Speedy Development
Establishing a site-built house can take time, relying at the design and measurement. Most often, construction a brand new house from scratch can take weeks to months to be finished. If an individual needs to begin residing of their new space quickly, they will have to imagine going for manufactured properties. One has to purchase cellular house portions and rent a group to collect them. The putting in place and assembling procedure strikes all of a sudden, making sure the house is finished in only some days or perhaps weeks. This is helping them save money and time.
4. Can Have All Facilities Present in Website online-Constructed House
Every other advantage of manufactured properties is that they’ve all of the facilities found in site-built properties. A modular house may have hardwood ground, wall-to-wall carpet, energy-star home equipment, high quality fixtures, an effective kitchen, a well-designed rest room, and extra. There’s no important distinction between a manufactured house and a site-built house in regard to facilities. What the landlord needs will also be put in within the cellular house all through building or renovation.
5. Power Environment friendly Houses
Because of technological developments, new manufactured properties are energy-efficient in comparison to built properties. They characteristic energy-efficient home equipment, air con programs, and water warmers. As well as, they characteristic high-performance home windows, roofs, and different buildings to make sure house owners spend much less cash on calories expenses. The landlord will even set up sensible home equipment and lighting to make sure they just activate when they’re used. It will lend a hand decrease calories intake at house.
6. Manufactured Houses Respect Price
Many of us suppose that modular and manufactured properties don’t admire in price. In reality, the general public suppose that cellular properties depreciate with time. However that isn’t if truth be told true. Manufactured properties admire price similar to site-built properties. Alternatively, the worth will depend on the preliminary value of shopping for cellular house portions and assembling the home, the native housing marketplace, the age of the house, and enhancements completed at the space, amongst different components.
If an individual owns an previous manufactured space and desires to promote it, they are able to building up its price via making some upgrades or renovations. They are able to purchase cellular house portions like ground, roof, and different fixtures and set up them, and that can make the house draw in a greater worth and discover a purchaser temporarily. Moreover, one can replace the out of doors area, which is able to lend a hand lift the house’s price. The price will depend on how one looks after the house.
Pointers for Opting for a Provider of Cell House Portions
If an individual is making plans to purchase cellular house portions, they want to search for a relied on portions distributor. An individual will have to imagine the recognition of a distributor earlier than anything. If a distributor has a very good recognition, they are able to purchase from them. Respected cellular house portions providers have certain opinions on their web pages from previous consumers. Providers with many unfavourable opinions will have to be have shyed away from. It is usually recommended to invite for suggestions from modular or cellular house owners. A provider beneficial via many householders will most likely provide high quality portions for manufactured, modular, and cellular properties.
As well as, other people short of to construct manufactured or cellular properties will have to imagine the timeliness of a provider. A just right provider will have to ship the cellular house portions as agreed and on time. They will have to now not reason useless delays all through building to make sure house owners get into their new properties once imaginable. Additionally, one will have to make a choice a provider providing a variety of cellular house portions starting from ground and home windows to roofs. This guarantees that house owners deal best with one provider for all the building venture. It’s handy and less expensive to paintings with a unmarried provider for all of the building portions. Most significantly, imagine costs. Make a selection a producer or provider providing the portions and provides at cheap costs. | <urn:uuid:606907ca-e08f-4b4c-9ac8-d8e9b5b40466> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://latazacoffeehouse.com/advantages-of-modular-cell-and-manufactured-houses.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571692.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812105810-20220812135810-00072.warc.gz | en | 0.951017 | 1,424 | 1.671875 | 2 |
2 b He talked with God not that he shulde punish Israel, but yet lamented their falshode & so his wordes made against them.
4 ! God hathe his Church althogh it be not sene to mans eye.
8 / Or, pricking.
9 d Christ by the mouth of the Prophet wisheth that which came vpon the Jewes, that is, that as birdes are taken where as they thinke to finde fode, so the Law which the Jewes of a blinde zeale preserred to the Gospel thinking to haue saluation by it, shulde turne to their destruction
11 g The Jewes to followe the Gentiles.
14 i That they might be jelouse ouer Christ against the Gentiles, ans so to be more feruent in loue toward Christ, then the Gentiles.
15 k The Jewes now remaine, as it were, in death for lacke of the Gospel: but when bothe they & the Gentiles shal embrace Christ, the worlde shalbe restored to a new life.
16 l Abraham was not onely sanctified, but his sede also which neglected not the promes.
16 y All things are created and preserued of God to set forthe his glorie.
17 n That is, the Church of the Israelites.
26 r He sheweth that the time shal come that the whole nation of the Jewes thoght not euery one particularly, shalbe joyned to the Church of Christ.
29 s To whome God giueth his Spirit of adoption, and whome he calleth effectually, he can not perish: for Gods eternal counsel neuer changeth.
29 ! The giftes of God without repentance. | <urn:uuid:74404dfd-cc40-4f93-9764-492603774291> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://goodbooksfree.com/commentaries/genevanotes/45011.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573399.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818185216-20220818215216-00076.warc.gz | en | 0.946101 | 386 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Shifting from carbon-emitting energy sources to renewable ones will be an essential part of addressing climate change, but the path to a renewable power grid is uncharted. A few states have already set specific renewable energy goals; last March, New Mexico passed legislation mandating that, by 2045, the state’s public electric utilities will be 100 percent carbon-free. This February 26-28, an SFI working group explores how New Mexico might best approach the transition to renewable energy sources, and what lessons could be useful for other regions.
The working group includes SFI faculty and other researchers, as well as experts who work in advocacy, government, and New Mexico’s public utilities.
“SFI has held lots of workshops on the theory of power grids, but to really work toward decarbonization, we need to dive into the details —hence the mix of local and global expertise,” says SFI Professor Cris Moore, who is organizing the workshop with External Professors Jessika Trancik (MIT), Seth Blumsack (Penn State), and Paul Hines (University of Vermont). Moore expects the meeting will result in “strategies specific enough to New Mexico to be useful, but at the same time provide insights that we can export to the rest of the world.”
Planning for a low-carbon energy future is inherently uncertain. We don’t know how demand, prices, or regulations will shift, and renewable energy sources themselves are variable over different timescales. Planning for daily fluctuations in wind speed or sunlight will require different technological and financial strategies than for rare, severe events that might, say, envelop an entire region in cloud cover for a week.
A primary question in planning a net-zero energy system is how to avoid highly suboptimal lock-in, says Trancik. “Once infrastructure and technology develop, it can be hard to put on the brakes. If we move toward a renewables-heavy system, for example, we’ll need ways to address extended shortages even if they pop up only, say, a few times every twenty years,” she says. It’s important to plan now for future challenges, and that includes keeping available several paths to deep decarbonization that also ensure reliable energy supply.
While many people are already thinking about specific technologies and solutions to production, storage, and transmission, Blumsack says this working group will be more focused on the transition process, using New Mexico as a test case. “We want to think through the transition process for New Mexico — where the state is going to have to make critical decisions and what those critical points might be — and then offer those lessons to apply in other states.” | <urn:uuid:ac46715c-7bff-41d4-9f79-01e633d27ffa> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://santafe.edu/news-center/news/decarbonizing-energy-supply | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570767.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808061828-20220808091828-00473.warc.gz | en | 0.936373 | 566 | 2.921875 | 3 |
The contribution of clinical pastoral education to pastoral ministry in South Africa : overview and critique of its method and dynamic, in view of adaptation and implementation in a cross cultural context.
Training and pastoral supervision in Christian ministry has been in existence prominently since the 1920s, when the development of pastoral education as a distinct discipline and function of ministry arose out of Clinical Pastoral Education. Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) has as it focus the professional education for ministry. This brings students of theology, ordained clergy, qualified laypersons and members of religious orders into supervised encounter with "living human documents" in order to develop their pastoral identity, interpersonal professional competence, and spirituality; including the skills of pastoral care and counselling, pastoral assessment, integration of theology and ministry, group leadership and pastoral theological reflection. The founders of Clinical Pastoral Education, Anton Boisen, William Keller and Richard Cabot, all from the East coast of the United States of America, adapted the methods of professional education in psychiatry, medicine and social work respectively. Some years later Seward Hiltner established a primary identity with theological education and ecumenical Christianity. A survey of literature from the 1960s shows a vitality and variety among CPE supervisors along with research and publications of theologians of note. These influential theologians are Don Browning, John Patton, Charles Gerkin and Steven Pattison to name a few. CPE originated in the USA and spread to Europe and Australia, but does not fit easily into the culture and methods of ministry training in South Africa. For CPE to be valid it must incorporate the cross-cultural customs and traditions in its context. The difficulties with CPE in South Africa centre on some components at the core of the process, and its paradoxical nature within the learning experience with regard to language, gender issues and questions of length and context. These and other specified difficulties open the discussion on the need for adaptation if CPE is to be successfully implemented in the South African context. Important as CPE is in pastoral ministerial training, it is recognised that it is not the only method of training and education in a cross-cultural context. This thesis explores and critiques the methods of CPE and argues that transplanting a process of education, albeit apparently successful, from overseas is not necessarily acceptable in a cross-cultural society. It is suggested that transformation along with a new model for the South African CPE process is necessary, taking into account the diversity of local African cultures. Existing theories, beliefs of CPE and current literature have been explored and applied to and tested in the South African situation. This thesis presents the results in the form of a design of a new model.
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
A critique of the pastoral care ministry of the Anglican Church in the time of HIV and AIDS : a study of the pastoral care ministry of the Anglican Church to HIV positive lesbians in the gay and lesbian network in Pietermaritzburg. Wright, Tracey Chantelle. (2014)Abstract available in PDF file.
Clinical pastoral education for Igbo society : a cross cultural model for a family/community-based educational process in pastoral care. Ozodi, Christopher Chinedu. (2005)CPE is Western in origin, it can be transplanted and adapted to the Igbo soil and be fedb with the local nutrients. In the view of the researcher, this can bring about a new CPE model which is called the "Family/Community-Based ...
Pastoral care and counselling for mothers whose children developed epilepsy and cognitive impairment : a challenge to the church. Sutherland, Adri Mariette. (2003)A dissertation presented on the availability of Pastoral Care and Counselling for mothers whose previously normal, healthy children, developed epilepsy and became intellectually handicapped. The dissertation covers the ... | <urn:uuid:11eec850-37ff-4096-b549-572f2f69b0bf> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://researchspace.ukzn.ac.za/xmlui/handle/10413/3002 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719465.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00096-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930037 | 778 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Sunday, September 20, 2020
Sunny skies and comfortable temperatures in the mid sixties are over the Steamboat Springs area early this Sunday afternoon. We’ll see warming and dry weather for the upcoming work week except for a small chance of showers later Tuesday. A couple of weak cool fronts are then forecast for Friday and again Saturday, with first westerly and then northwesterly winds increasing as the jet stream grazes our area.
While high temperature today should be around our average of 70 F, they should be in the mid-seventies through midweek. A weak and diffuse wave of energy and moisture will pass by from Monday through Tuesday nights in flow from the southwest, so look for some increasing clouds and the possibility of showers by later Tuesday. But chances for precipitation are low, and like last night, any showers that do form will be light.
Tuesday will also mark the autumnal equinox when, at 7:30 am MDT, the sun passes over the equator on its journey to the southern hemisphere. So while we still be losing daylight everyday through the winter solstice, we will start to lose it more slowly.
Meanwhile, a weak storm currently over the Gulf of Alaska is forecast to be pushed eastward over the work week by a stronger eastward moving storm in the Bering Sea. While both storms will pass to our north, they will be close enough do drag a weak cool front through our area Friday and a stronger one Saturday, similar to the ECMWF forecast from last Thursday’s forecast. Both will be dry, and both will increase the winds, first from the west later Thursday and then eventually from the northwest by Friday night.
Ahead of the stronger cool front on Saturday, temperatures will rise from the mid-seventies on Wednesday to the upper seventies and low eighties for Thursday and Friday. Look for increasing wildfire danger as temperatures soar to much above average along with increasing winds.
While Saturday will likely be the coolest day of the upcoming week, a ridge of high pressure is forecast to build over the West Coast during the weekend, so expect above average temperatures to return under continued dry weather. Longer range weather forecast models continue the warm and dry weather through the following work week, but stay tuned to my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon for any changes to that forecast. | <urn:uuid:2c606012-fbc0-4e99-b954-accf3aba3d74> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://snowalarm.com/blog/index.php/2020/09/20/warm-and-pleasant-weather-this-week-with-a-small-chance-of-tuesday-showers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571989.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813232744-20220814022744-00474.warc.gz | en | 0.945276 | 481 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The crypto-currencies have been given many names. Bitcoin [BTC], in particular, it has been compared to things like tobacco. Ethereum [ETH]meanwhile, he got a backlash before his transition from Proof-of-Work [PoW] to Proof-of-Stake [PoS]. In a recent interview, Nicholas Weaver, a computer scientist, explained why he considers Ethereum a “self-assembled Ponzi scheme”.
There is a fairly large gap between the two worlds. Some have embraced cryptocurrencies because they believe their emergence is inevitable. Few others, however, continue to criticize the industry and believe that cryptocurrencies are not real currencies. Weaver fell into the latter category, as he was quite popular for his criticism of the cryptocurrency industry.
In his latest interview, Weaver addressed the highly anticipated Ethereum network update, “The Merge”. You started by noticing how PoS really solved many of Ethereum’s problems.
The Ethereum network has long been reported for its high fees and scalability issues. Union, however, solves none of this. That’s why he said, “but proof-of-stake doesn’t solve Ethereum’s problems.”
The switch to PoS has been ETH’s book for a long time. The developers have been working on it for years. But the community was approached with constant delays. Although the merger is expected to take place in September, several members of the community continue to remain skeptical. Weaver was one of them, he said
“So, first of all, Ethereum has promised proof-of-stake since its inception. And it’s always been six months since now. So wake me up when the transition happens. “
Is Ethereum Ethics a Lie?
Each crypto-verse network adheres to certain principles of its own. On the same topic: 2 good reasons to buy Ethereum now and 1 reason to wait. Likewise, the Ethereum network lives by the mantra “the code is law”.
Ethereum issuance is extremely unstable. It certainly doesn’t seem programmatic to me. I thought the Ethereum community lived by “the code is law” not “the code is law except when we have to change it”.
This thing is not decentralized. Central planning at its worst. pic.twitter.com/C909lf01Dq
While several people blamed the channel for not complying, Weaver also lashed out.
“The Ethereum community has already proven that its mantra ‘the code makes the law’ is a lie. If you steal their money, like the original DAO hack, they will change the code to steal it again. And the passage to the betting test literally says that whoever has the most money makes the rules. “
13:00 When the DAO incident was solved by a hard fork, it was an example of human governance over an IT system.
The whole “code is law” is not a belief shared by any serious Ethereum person.
Layer 0 is always the law: people.
Be vigilant and consult your financial advisor before making any investment decisions. Mirror-Mag cannot be held responsible in case of bad investments. Before using any third party service, you should do your research. | <urn:uuid:a79676c4-59b4-467a-857e-edbd7be30688> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://northfaces.us/2022/07/28/no-the-transition-to-pos-will-not-fix-ethereums-flaws-and-heres-why/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572221.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816060335-20220816090335-00078.warc.gz | en | 0.967996 | 680 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Born Richard Ghormley Eberhart, April 5, 1904, in Austin, MN; died after a brief illness, June 9, 2005, in Hanover, NH. Poet and educator. The works of Richard Eberhart brought him fame and honor. Two of his most famous poems, "The Groundhog," and "The Fury of Aerial Bombardment" can be found in many anthologies and collections. He won all of the most prestigious awards for poetry, including a Pulitzer Prize. In addition to writing poems, Eberhart also taught at Dartmouth College, inspiring his students to fully express themselves in poetry. Jay Parini, a professor at Middlebury College and a former colleague of Eberhart's, told the Los Angeles Times, "I saw so many poets come through his door and seek him out. He was a poet of real achievement."
Eberhart was born on April 5, 1904, in Austin, Minnesota. His father worked as a vice president for the George A. Hormel meatpacking company. Unlike many poets and writers, Eberhart's childhood was a happy one. The family home was a 40-acre estate, named Burr Oaks, which he would later use as a title for a volume of poetry.
Eberhart began his college education at the University of Minnesota, but after his freshman year, his mother died of cancer. His father lost the family fortune during this time as well. There was still enough money for Eberhart to complete his education, so he transferred to Dartmouth. After receiving his bachelor's degree, Eberhart worked as a crewman aboard a freighter in the South Pacific. He worked several odd jobs, including as a tutor for the son of the King of Siam, before pursuing a second bachelors degree at Cambridge University in England. He also earned a masters degree at Cambridge. He entered Harvard University for postgraduate work, but only stayed for a year. Eberhart also released his first volume of poetry, A Bravery of Earth. He embraced Romanticism in his poetry, but his use of short lines and irregular rhythms kept him from fully participating in the style. According to the Chicago Tribune, Eberhart told New Hampshire's Concord Monitor, "Poems … are milestones, to see where you were then from where you are now. To perpetuate your feelings, to establish them."
Though Eberhart strongly wanted a career in poetry, it did not pay the bills, so in 1933 he joined the faculty of St. Mark's School, a boys' school, located in Massachusetts. He taught English for eight years, and some of his pupils included Robert Lowell, also later a Pulitzer Prize winner, Blair Clark, future editor of The Nation, and Frank Parker, an accomplished artist. In 1941, he married Helen Butcher and joined the Naval Reserve. During World War II he worked as a gunnery instructor.
After the war ended, Eberhart worked for the Butcher Polish Company, his in-laws' family business. After several years, he returned to the world of academia, first teaching at Princeton. He taught at several universities, before becoming a writer-in-residence at his alma mater, Dartmouth, where he would remain full-time until 1970, and part-time until 1981.
Eberhart also continued to release several volumes of poetry, including Reading the Spirit, Song and Idea, Burr Oaks, Great Praises, The Quarry: New Poems, Fields of Grace, and Maine Poems. Eberhart also wrote plays, and was a founder of the Poets' Theater. He also helped many aspiring poets, including Allen Ginsberg of the Beat Generation. Eberhart celebrated each new generation of poets, but he himself was considered old-fashioned and continued with his usual style throughout a career that spanned six decades. Eberhart also lectured at numerous colleges and universities, accepted several guest teaching positions, and held readings at various locations. From 1959 to 1961, he was the Consultant in Poetry for the Library of Congress (a precursor to the poet laureate position).
In the world of poetry, there are four major awards and Eberhart won all of them. In 1962 he won Yale University's Bollingen Prize for distinguished achievement in American poetry. Following the release of Selected Poems, 1930-1965, Eberhart was awarded the Pulitzer in 1966. In 1977, he won the National Book Award for Collected Poems, 1930-1976. Eberhart also received the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America in 1986. He was a fellow of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.
In addition to his love of poetry, Eberhart was an avid outdoorsman. He cross-country skied until the age of 90. Every year he and his family summered in Maine, where he enjoyed boating and was usually seen ferrying friends and colleagues around. After a short illness, Eberhart died at the age of 101 in his home in Hanover, New Hampshire on June 9, 2005. He was preceded in death by his wife, and is survived by his daughter, Gretchen, and son, Richard, as well as six grandchildren. Sources: Chicago Tribune, June 13, 2005, sec. 1, p. 9; Contemporary Poets, 7th ed., St. James Press, 2001; Independent (London), June 16, 2005, p. 39; Los Angeles Times, June 14, 2005, p. B10; New York Times, June 14, 2005, p. A21.
— Ashyia N. Henderson | <urn:uuid:ec48fb74-bbc2-4c74-ad2d-331f993c1da8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.notablebiographies.com/newsmakers2/2006-A-Ec/Eberhart-Richard.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281424.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00335-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.989287 | 1,155 | 2.4375 | 2 |
LGBT Groups & Others React to Manning’s Announcement
Shortly after Pvt. Bradley Manning, who was sentenced to 35 years in prison this week for leaking classified documents to Wikileaks, told the world on Thursday that he identifies as a woman and wants to be called Chelsea Manning, a number of LGBT rights groups reacted to the announcement, applauding Manning's bravery and stressing that media outlets ought to respect her and use the proper, feminine pronoun.
"Regardless of how she came to our attention, Pvt. Chelsea Manning's transition deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. As she requested in her letter, journalists and other officials should use her chosen name of Chelsea and refer to her with female pronouns," a statement by the Human Rights Campaign reads. "Using the name Bradley or male pronouns is nothing short of an insult. Media, having reported on her wishes, must respect them as is the standard followed by the AP Stylebook."
The HRC goes on to say Manning "deserves the same thing that any incarcerated person does -- appropriate and competent medical care and protection from discrimination and violence. The care she receives should be something that she and her doctors -- including professionals who understand transgender care -- agree is best for her. There is a clear legal consensus that it is the government's responsibility to provide medically necessary care for transgender people and the military has an obligation to follow those guidelines."
Officials from Lambda Legal echoed HRC's sentiments in a similar statement, saying, "Transgender people -- like all people -- deserve health care and are constitutionally protected in prison. Period. In fact the U.S. Supreme Court has previously ruled in Farmer v. Brennan on the right of transgender people to be free from cruel and unusual punishment while in prison which includes withholding medically necessary treatment."
GLAAD released a statement as well, urging the importance that the media use the proper pronoun when referring to Manning.
"Because Chelsea Manning wrote a now widely-circulated letter asking to be referred to with a specific name and with female pronouns, and because this AP guideline exists, there should not be confusion or entire articles speculating as to which name and pronouns should be used to refer to Chelsea," GLAAD's statement reads. "In addition to using the correct name and pronouns, reporting on Chelsea Manning also provides a space to discuss the specific issues facing transgender people in prison, and those facing transgender people in the military. These are complicated topics that are addressed by different organizations respectively."
GLAAD also pointed out that a number of major news publications, including the Associated Press, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post "referred to Manning with a male pronoun throughout stories about her announcement Thursday morning that she wished to be identified as a woman and had wished to be called Chelsea, not Bradley."
"We would probably criticize the media overall," Ferraro said when asked about GLAAD’s reaction to such references. "Chelsea Manning’s announcement today and subsequent media judgment reflects a lack of education on covering transgender people. Media today should respect Chelsea Manning’s announcement and that includes using female pronouns when speaking about her and that includes referring to her as Chelsea."
The ACLU LGBT Project responded to Manning’s announcement and discussed gender dysphoria, saying Manning "will be seeking hormone therapy as a part of her transition during her incarceration," and went on to add that "public statements by military officials that the Army does not provide hormone therapy to treat gender dysphoria raise serious constitutional concerns.
"Gender dysphoria is a serious medical condition in which a person’s gender identity does not correspond to his or her assigned sex at birth, and hormone therapy is part of the accepted standards of care for this condition."
Though many within the LGBT community have lauded Manning’s announcement, at least one transgender women has taken issue.
Kristin Beck, the former Navy Seal who came out as transgender in June, issued a statement, sharply criticizing Manning for using the issue of gender identity for her own gain.
"What you wear, what color you are, your religion, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity has no basis on whether you are a CRIMINAL or NOT," Beck posted on her Facebook page. "For this person, whether male or female to use gender identity to act ’BADLY’ is a slap in the face to me and everyone who does not fit the ’Binary Gender Norm.’ It is not an excuse for anything illegal or unjust.
"This person took an oath to protect American interest and defend the constitution, and took additional oaths due to security clearances to protect information that leaders deem secret," Beck continued. "There are legal avenues to whistle blow or bring attention to issues. THIS person is a liar and a thief and a traitor to many people. If Bradley is truly ’Chelsea’ then ’she’ is a traitor to ME personally. There is no excuse." | <urn:uuid:86c08457-9694-455c-91ea-950798659e3c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://boston.edgemedianetwork.com/news/national/148553/lgbt_groups_&_others_react_to_manning%E2%80%99s_announcement_ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279915.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00277-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965267 | 1,010 | 1.867188 | 2 |
A new set of avionics features on the flight deck of the Boeing 757 will make it even easier for crews to navigate or to avoid potential dangers in flight.
The first 757-200 equipped with the features was delivered to Icelandair April 20. All future 757s will incorporate the avionics upgrades.
The new enhanced ground proximity warning system features a display screen on the flight deck instrument panel that depicts terrain ahead in vivid red, yellow or green.
To determine what is ahead, the enhanced system uses the airplane's altitude, ground speed, longitudinal/latitudinal position and other data in conjunction with a built-in database of worldwide terrain. When terrain shown on the display is solid red or yellow and the system sounds a voice alert, the pilot immediately knows terrain is too close and must be avoided. The previous system did not have the terrain display or the look-ahead capabilities.
In addition, the 757 now has a predictive windshear system which uses color displays to alert flight crews. With new weather radar, the system looks for downbursts of air which indicate windshear conditions that the airplane might encounter when landing or taking off. When a downburst is found, the system sounds a voice alert and also provides a red or yellow icon on the display screen. The new system gives the pilot more reaction time than previous windshear systems.
The 757 also has a new Flight Management Computer (FMC). The improved FMC allows airlines to select options for advanced air traffic management, navigation and communications.
Those features include the Global Positioning System (GPS) that uses satellite signals to navigate during most phases of flight.
Another feature is a Satellite Communications System (SATCOM), which allows voice and data communications between the airplane and the ground. Even on long oceanic routes, passengers can telephone people on the ground and the crew can talk to air traffic control or request that weather forecasts and other data be sent to the airplane en route. SATCOM supplements the high frequency communication system currently in use in the 757 fleet.
The Boeing 757 family consists of the 757-200 and the new 757-300, which was delivered for the first time in March 1999. Flight decks for both models are designed for two-crew operation. Both models also share a common flight crew rating with the Boeing 767 family.
The 757-200, which can carry up to 239 passengers, has a range of 4,520 statute miles (7,420 km). The 757-300, which carries up to 289 passengers, has a range of 4,000 statue miles (6,436 km). | <urn:uuid:a814cca0-ccc4-4e5b-8dd4-ab5e0172ba8a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://boeing.mediaroom.com/1999-04-29-Boeing-Upgrades-757-Avionics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573193.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818094131-20220818124131-00478.warc.gz | en | 0.920333 | 540 | 2.453125 | 2 |
In 2011 we will be having fun hiking in the rugged New Mexico wilderness. The Philmont Scout
Ranch High Adventure center will be our home. We can take 24 on the Trail. Make sure you are on
the list for this fun in the wilderness.
PHILMONT SCOUT RANCH
Philmont Scout Ranch, the Boy Scouts of America's premier high-adventure base, challenges
Scouts and Venturers with more than 200 square miles of rugged New Mexico wilderness. Backpacking
treks, horseback cavalcades, and training and service programs offer young people many ways
to experience this legendary country.
Adults have opportunities of their own at the Philmont Training Center. World-class courses and
seminars cover all aspects of Scouting—all amid Philmont's dramatic scenery.
This Web site www.scouting.org/philmont will
answer most of your questions about this most famous Scouting landmark.
Born in 1938 as Philturn Rockymountain Scoutcamp, today's Philmont Scout Ranch is a bustling
center for high adventure and training. Youth and adults take advantage of the ranch's camping,
training, and work programs. Most activity takes place during the summer, but Philmont also offers
its Fall Adventure and Kanik winter program.
More than 820,000 Scouts, Venturers, and leaders have experienced the adventure of Philmont since
the first camping season in 1939. Throughout its existence, conscientious attention to low-impact
camping techniques have helped maintain the ranch's wilderness flavor.
The area surrounding the ranch is rich with history, from the Native Americans who made this arid
land their home to the land barons of the 19th century. The town of Cimarron boasts a number of
historical buildings, including the St. James Hotel—site of at least 26 killings during Cimarron's | <urn:uuid:b3deb77d-e60e-451a-9662-5c27b7951b17> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://troop42.com/Philmont.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720972.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00251-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.913966 | 387 | 1.664063 | 2 |
The government has also issued a travel advisory asking citizens travelling to and from China to follow certain precautionary measures. It stated that as on January 11, as many as 41 confirmed cases of the infection by a novel coronavirus have been reported in China, and one person has died.
The situation is being monitored in consultation with WHO, Union Health Secretary Preeti Sudan said, adding that keeping in view the limited human-to-human transmission of the virus, infection risk at global level is perceived to be low.
Health Minister Harsh Vardhan took a stock of public health preparedness in the country on Friday.
"However, as a matter of precaution, the Ministry of Health has instructed screening of international travellers from China at designated airports namely, Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata through thermal scanners. In coordination with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, in-flight announcements are also being made," a health ministry statement said.
The ministry has also issued necessary directions to all those concerned on laboratory diagnosis, surveillance, infection prevention and control and risk communication. Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme has been geared up for community surveillance and contact tracing.
The National Institute Of Virology, Pune, and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) Laboratory are coordinating testing of samples for the novel coronavirus (nCoV) in the country.
Hospital preparedness with regard to management and infection prevention control facilities has been also reviewed during high-level meetings. Advisories and infection prevention and control guidelines have been shared with the states, the statement said.
"According to WHO, the situation is still evolving and preliminary investigations suggest link to the sea-food market. Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses, which cause illnesses to people and also circulate in animals including camels, cats and bats. In rare cases, animal coronaviruses can also evolve and infect people.
"The Government of India is regularly reviewing the public health preparedness in the country since the news broke," a health ministry statement said.
As directed by the Health Ministry, meetings of a joint monitoring group were convened under the chairmanship of the director general of health services on January 8 and 15 with representations from various stakeholders and WHO.
"The public health preparedness is being reviewed on day-to-day basis and the core capacities to timely detect and manage importation of the nCoV into the country are being strengthened further," the Union health secretary said.
State governments have also been advised on the necessary precaution to be taken on the issue. The health ministry is also in touch with the Ministry of External Affairs, and the immigration officers at the designated airports have been sensitised, the health ministry statement said.
The advisory issued by the government stated that even though the mode of transmission of the novel coronavirus is unclear as of now, those visiting China are advised to avoid travel to farms, live animal markets or where animals are slaughtered, and refrain consuming "raw or undercooked meat".
The WHO on Thursday stated that not enough is known about the novel coronavirus to draw definitive conclusions about how it is transmitted, clinical features of the disease, or the extent to which it has spread.
"The source also remains unknown," it said while urging all countries to be prepared to tackle the spread of the virus. "WHO encourages all countries to continue preparedness activities on the novel coronavirus," the global health body had tweeted.
- Front Page
- Pure Politics
- RBI Raises Repo Rate by 50 bps to Tame Inflation
Amid geopolitical uncertainty and supply chain glitches, the central bank abandoned forward guidance but said that monetary policy will be “calibrated, measured, and nimble” to ensure financial and economic stability.Rate Hike may Affect Realty Sales
Currently, home loan rates are hovering around 7.4% after staying at a decadal low of 6.6% for nearly two years.In Twitter Battle, Musk Flags Co’s India Stand-off
Twitter admitted it didn’t disclose the litigation to Musk or contact his companies during the interactions it had with regulators in India. It said the platform did not need to disclose these interactions.
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ETPrime stories of the day
8 mins read
7 mins read
4 mins read | <urn:uuid:3737bd3f-ec11-4db7-afa8-a941f432d996> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/travellers-from-china-to-be-screened-for-novel-coronavirus-at-delhi-mumbai-kolkata-airports/articleshow/73328356.cms | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570793.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808092125-20220808122125-00669.warc.gz | en | 0.970568 | 905 | 2.046875 | 2 |
BMW and a business location activity
I was reading today that BMW i8 engines are to be built in Birmingham. Why would the German-based car maker want to produce engines in the UK? What’s brought them here?
I often find this is a great induction session for students who are new to Business Studies, or those progressing from AS to A2 and are looking to apply their knowledge and understanding.
You might like to read through the article above and pick out the reasons that the author identifies as BMW’s main motivations.
I sometimes show a FlowingData clip tracking the growth of Walmart across America and ask the same sort of question: what factors could account for the pattern of growth as the retailer spreads across the states?
Another question to ponder is the general merits of the UK as a business location. What might draw businesses here and why? That’s a more open, less specific question than the BMW example.
Perhaps a local focus might be more relevant or interesting to you. Because I live in Norwich, I like navigating through the Invest in Norfolk site promoted by Norfolk County Council. Does your local council provide a similarly compelling list of reasons for firms to invest in your neighbourhood? Other East of England locations like Cambridge get plenty of coverage in the national press with their ‘Silicon Fen’ tag line.
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Comprehensive collection of topic worksheets and case studies covering the Year 2 teaching content for AQA A Level Business. Perfect for lessons, homework, revision & cover!
Topic-by-topic worksheets and exam-style case studies - ideal for teaching individual topics for the whole Year 1 (AS) teaching content for AQA A Level Business.
Much cheaper & more effective than TES or the Guardian. Reach the audience you really want to apply for your teaching vacancy by posting directly to our website and related social media audiences. | <urn:uuid:ef0c0a45-1892-4380-a6cb-c474099837d8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.tutor2u.net/business/blog/bmw-and-a-business-location-activity | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281450.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00180-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93829 | 391 | 2 | 2 |
Back in the 1960s, Walter Mischel, a psychology professor at Stanford, conducted an experiment called the "marshmallow test" on a group of four-year-olds. A child was given a marshmallow and told he could either ring a bell to summon the researcher and get to eat the marshmallow right away or wait a few minutes until the researcher returned, at which time the child would be given two marshmallows. It's a simple test of self control, but only about a third of kids that age will wait for the second marshmallow. What's more interesting, though, is that success on that test correlates pretty well with success later in life. The children who can't wait grow up to have lower S.A.T. scores, higher body mass indexes, problems with drugs and trouble paying attention.
“What’s interesting about four-year-olds is that they’re just figuring out the rules of thinking,” Mischel says. “The kids who couldn’t delay would often have the rules backwards. They would think that the best way to resist the marshmallow is to stare right at it, to keep a close eye on the goal. But that’s a terrible idea. If you do that, you’re going to ring the bell before I leave the room.”
According to Mischel, this view of will power also helps explain why the marshmallow task is such a powerfully predictive test. “If you can deal with hot emotions, then you can study for the S.A.T. instead of watching television,” Mischel says. “And you can save more money for retirement. It’s not just about marshmallows.”
In his TED Talk (embedded below), motivational speaker Joachim de Posada uses the marshmallow test to urge people to have better self control and, perhaps, make us less likely as a society to repeat the financial troubles of the recent past. (He also has funny video of children taking the test.)
But can we learn to not eat the marshmallow? Mischel is still trying to figure that one out (the New Yorker's profile of him goes into more detail). He knows that he can teach kids to master the marshmallow test itself:
When he and his colleagues taught children a simple set of mental tricks—such as pretending that the candy is only a picture, surrounded by an imaginary frame—he dramatically improved their self-control. The kids who hadn’t been able to wait sixty seconds could now wait fifteen minutes. “All I’ve done is given them some tips from their mental user manual,” Mischel says. “Once you realize that will power is just a matter of learning how to control your attention and thoughts, you can really begin to increase it.”
But whether that learning translates into success as an adult is not yet known. Mischel is planning a large-scale study of kids in New York, Philadelphia and Seattle to see if self control can be taught. And he and his colleagues have begun working with the KIPP program of schools where self control is one of the fundamental "character strengths" to be taught. (The KIPP academy in Philadelphia even gives kids a shirt with the phrase "Don't Eat the Marshmallow.") The final answer, though, won't come for years. However, as someone who would not have eaten the marshmallow at age four (or so my mom says), I can say that having will power does pay off in the end. | <urn:uuid:8bb7c5f7-8e66-4f2f-8c77-887be7299316> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/marshmallows-and-a-successful-life-15497083/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280221.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00238-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970017 | 736 | 2.890625 | 3 |
With the nation's engineering schools heavily engaged in military research, the United States Navy looked to liberal arts colleges to provide their recruits with basic education. Early in 1942, the Navigation Bureau of the Navy approved a Williams curriculum for its V-1 program, a "non-militarized preinduction program."[1.1] The program encouraged Williams men to apply and guaranteed two years of college. After these two years and a comprehensive exam, the top 45% of the class graduated to V-5, the aviation cadet program, the rest being enrolled in the V-7, a program for regular ensigns. Twenty-five Williams men applied to the V-1 program, and eleven were accepted.[1.2] Of these eleven, six passed the exam and moved on in the program.[1.3]
Figure 22: Aviation at Williams in World War II
After the success of the V-1 program, Williams was chosen as one of twenty schools to participate in the V-5 program in December 1942. The V-5 program, also known as the Naval Flight Preparatory School (NFPS), attracted two hundred cadets in January, 1943, with two hundred more to follow in both February and March. Williams provided twenty-eight full time instructors (the Navy provided twenty-two) to teach a three month program in navigation, physics, math and communications, according to an intensive schedule.[1.4]
Figure 23: Learning Airplane Mechanics
The twenty-eight Williams faculty members who participated were required to devote four hours per day to the NFPS, and one hour per day to regular curriculum. Mathematics Professor Donald Richmond, reflecting on the changed nature of the college and the curriculum, wrote, "Williams has the opportunity to preserve the values of a liberal education amid trying circumstances".[1.5]
Figure 24: Inspection
With only 315 regular Williams students in residence, in Spring, 1943, the Navy saw ample room to start yet another program at Williams. The program, dubbed V-12, was designed to train officer candidates. In May 1943 Williams College was chosen to participate along with Harvard, Holy Cross, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute: 440 apprentice seamen came to Williams that July. While still on active duty, these men would continue their college training. Forty enrolled in an accelerated pre-medical program; the rest studied math, physics, English, history, chemistry, foreign language, biology, psychology, Mechanical Drawing, and Descriptive Geometry. Williams faculty taught these subjects in three sixteen week terms, while Naval instructors taught Naval Organization and Customs, and Physical Training. Clark, the geology building, was evacuated to house the V-12 classes.[1.6]
Coincidentally, V-1 and V-7 students from Amherst were assigned to continue their V-12 training at Williams. The irony was not missed by the College Catalog:
"This was a return to the fold, for one hundred and twenty two years had passed since a contingent of Williams men went from this valley over the hills to swell the rolls of the College then opening its doors in Amherst."
Figure 25: Graduation , V-12, 28th Batallion, 1945
Within two weeks of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Robert Kitteridge '43, President of the Undergraduate Council, petitioned the administration for more courses of a military nature. In response, the administration organized a "Committee on Cooperation with the National Defense Program." Its goal was to "provide practical means to achieve (the) desire for the participation in the defense effort as expressed by the trustees, faculty, and the undergraduate body." Five courses were introduced, two as part of the regular curriculum and credit system, and three termed "extracurricular," for which no credit was offered. Of the two regular courses, one was simply a revamped astronomy course. Astronomy 3-4: Navigation, Meteorology, and Practical Astronomy, created by adding navigational studies to the old ASTRO 3-4. Mathematics 1b-2b: Math for Military and Naval Training was entirely new. Both proved very popular with students, and were filled to capacity immediately.
Figure 26: Wartime Radio
Extracurricular courses proved to be equally popular. The most intensive was "Metal Shop Practice," offered by a physics professor, Ralph Winch, and the college's head machinist, George Woods. Taken by forty-one juniors and seniors, it met three hours a week for fifteen weeks. The course offered instruction in blueprint reading, metal inspection, pattern making, brazing, spot welding, use of a lathe, miller, and planer. Physics Professor Howard Stabler offered basic training in radio work, including receiving, transmitting, and simple radio construction.
Professor Stabler's course became part of the regular curriculum for the '42-'43 school year as Physics 5b and 11b. Those who graduated from Stabler's course entered the Signal Corps as radar men. The Flying Club offered the third extracurricular course. Its lectures on elementary instruction in aviation ground work attracted over one hundred students from Williams and Bennington.
Of the natural sciences, physics was the most relevant to wartime technology. As a result, physics was emphasized more than other sciences:
"Because of the highly complicated nature of the instruments of modern warfare, the armed forces require very large numbers of men with technical knowledge and skills for which a background in physics and mathematics is essential...There is a serious shortage of men who are needed to operate and repair the many recently developed devices employing high frequency radiation for communications, detection, and fire control."
In summer 1942 enrollment in physics courses quadrupled. Professor Stabler remembers feeling that there were students in his class taking physics for the sole purpose of having "a grasp of the subject to suit the military and not for the enjoyment that others found in the subject." In 1944, The American Institute of Physics ranked Williams twelfth in the number of physics majors for all the colleges and universities in the United States.
World War II created increased interest in physics. Before the War, few students aspired to a research career in physics. Afterwards, however, a new attitude prevailed, based in part on physicists' major contributions to the development of radar, proximity fuses, and atomic weapons. As Professor Winch noted, "The physics profession is growing. A physicist is now looked upon as a useful animal, even in peacetime."
As Williams civilian enrollment plummeted -- only 108 civilians enrolled for the 1943-44 school year -- so also shrank its faculty ranks. Many professors, almost exclusively in physics, and even a few students, were called away to do military-related research.
In February 1943, Professor Stabler was transferred to the MIT Radiation Laboratory, a major center for wartime research. Professor Emslie soon joined him there. Professor Crawford, Chairman of the Physics Department, and James Curry, a chemistry professor, were called to the Radio Research Laboratory at Harvard. In 1944, two juniors were sent to the Radio Research Lab, and one was sent to Cal Tech for related research. In April 1944, Professor Park was transferred to the same Radio Research Laboratory, and then later to England. That left Professors Benefield and Winch, with some Navy instructors, in charge of the Physics Department. When finally Benefield was called away, Winch, alone, was not bitter about his overwhelming responsibilities: "We could not permit an electronics expert to teach Navy students when radar research was urgently needed for these students and others (if they) were to be kept alive and fighting". Thus, during the War, Williams physics faculty taught cadets some basic and military sciences, but made more enduring contributions away from Williamstown.
Professors' sacrifices of time and the pursuit of personal research were major contributions in their own right. Professor Park recalled, "We were required to teach 102 hours per month during the war. Thus, we had no social life. But, we all understood that the effort was necessary. The essence of all war programs is that it is heresy to consider the end of the war imminent. Constant effort was necessary."
Professor Winch, the remaining member of the Physics Department, provided an exemplary model of constant effort. Three temporary faculty -- Professors Fischer, Reinheimmer, and Beer -- were brought in to help Winch with the workload. Some of the Navy students helped as well. Later Winch rightfully expressed pride in the V-1, V-5, V-7 and V-12 graduates: "It is interesting commentary on the Williams training in math and physics that these men became 'staff members' and made valuable contributions with no more training."
Even temporary help was not sufficient. Department capacity, in terms of laboratory apparatus and supplies, was 175 students; more than three times that number, 562, needed instruction. In the true spirit of liberal arts education, and with the patriotic fervor of wartime, other Williams faculty received some quick training and then taught physics in the V-12 program. The group included Professors Barrow from music, Beals from philosophy, Parker from theatre, Cole, Matthews, and Waterman from biology, and Perry from geology. Winch applauded their efforts and sacrifice: "The regular faculty members of literary and social science divisions saw here a job to be done, prepared themselves at tremendous cost of time and effort, and did the job with the usual high Williams standards."
Not only did instructors learn new disciplines; sometimes they were forced to improvise teaching apparatus. For example, in 1944 Professor Kirkpatrick, one of the Naval instructors, needed apparatus for his V-12 course on steam and internal combustion. Williams had no such apparatus, so Kirkpatrick and others scoured the countryside for appropriate props. Winch recalls, "From abandoned mills, beached pleasure boats, and secondhand machinery dealers came the weirdest assortment of junk Williams ever saw." The old boiler room of the heating plant was refurbished, painted and the "junk" moved into the room. Kirkpatrick was able to get all the decrepit machines running, and trained 178 ensigns in the new Williams Heat Power Laboratory.
Responding to the pressures of wartime emergency, faculty from all disciplines did their part as needed, some on a larger, national scene, some at Williams. They readily adapted to a new rhythm of teaching and administration, acquired new skills, and resourcefully created their own instructional materials in a time of scarcity. The sense of common commitment, involvement and shared sacrifice inspired extraordinary effort and achievement; it left its mark upon those who participated in the wartime programs. At war's end, however, former disciplinary divisions, loyalties, and commitments resurfaced. The technical would no longer dominate the curriculum. Nonetheless, in the words of Professor Park, "The military program instituted during World War II liberalized us all. It greatly boosted scientific awareness at Williams."
The years immediately following World War II marked a brief period of enhanced interest and activity in the sciences at Williams. President Baxter's enthusiastic support of the sciences, the advent of graduate education in the sciences, and the resurgence of the Science Club all testify to improved status for the sciences. The fifties, however, seemed to to be a time of consolidation and evaluation of postwar change.
World War II had increased interest in science on the part of both students and faculty. In 1954, the President's report of 1954 showed that there were 145 science majors out of 1,267 students enrolled in science courses. When compared with similar figures for 1937 and 1938, when there were only 80 science majors our of 1,039 students enrolled in science courses, it is clear that science's popularity had grown significantly in the post-war era.
James Phinney Baxter '14 had come to Williams in 1937, after President Tyler Dennett, in his "Reign of Terror", cut funds to the bone, putting the college in a state of paralysis. Baxter was primed to bring great change to the college, but the Depression and then the War stifled his attempts. President Roosevelt, a personal friend of Baxter's, appointed him official historian of the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD), a post which he held from 1943 to 1946. Baxter's account of the OSRD, Scientists Against Time, written during the War, won a Pulitzer Prize for history in 1947. More importantly, it introduced Baxter to all the great scientists of the world, and instilled in him a new love of science. Professor Park recalls this turning point for science at Williams, saying "The sun began to shine on the science department".
By 1951, Williams had a new, modern physics-astronomy laboratory, and a new biology-psychology laboratory, as well as new graduate programs in the sciences. Authorized to grant a Master of Science degree, the College graduated six to eight students a year in physics, as well as one or two in chemistry. According to Professor David Park, first Chair of the program, Baxter began the program for three reasons: (1) students who needed extra course work for other graduate schools could enter Park's program for a short time, (2) graduate students could be used as teacher assistants, an advantage never before used at Williams, and (3) the Sprague Electric Corporation in nearby North Adams promised to help subsidize the program if it could send some of its research personnel for graduate level work in physics. At the time, Sprague maintained a large industrial research laboratory. When the corporation downsized and finally moved its laboratory in the late 1960s, the program gradually died out.
Baxter also reminded the Williams College community that science was not the only subject of importance. Like his 19th century predecessors, he recognized that blind pursuit of science without the guidance of values and morals could have dangerous implications. Consonant with his view, President Baxter strongly urged students not to ignore courses that were short on technology but long in the big picture.
"If men are to be asked to train, and perhaps to fight and die in defense of democracy, it is as necessary for them to understand its real nature, and the long struggles which have characterized its development, as it is for them to require the special skills necessary for industrial production. Important as are physics, chemistry and engineering alike in peace and in war, so too are the studies that develop tolerance, without which our nation may be hopelessly divided: a well grounded understanding of modern industrial society, more necessary than ever today; and faith, without which the cause of democracy would already have been lost beyond repair."
The faculty, too, shared Baxter's vision of science as but a part of a well rounded and well grounded citizenry. In 1945,The Science Club, discontinued for security reasons during the war, resumed its activities. The club was composed of 37 faculty members, many of whom had conducted research in electronics and radar research during the war. Its president, Dr. Samuel Mathews of the Biology Department, stated that the club's new purpose would be, "A better understanding of the advancements in science with special emphasis on the effect of the war on these developments." The club sponsored a new series of lectures, held in "roundtable" format, to permit more open discussions in hopes of encouraging novel, thoughtful, or creative insights about the issues under deliberation. Frederick L. Schuman, Professor of Political Science, and Ralph Winch, Professor of Physics, gave one of the most interesting talks, on the implications of the atomic bomb. In a later talk Winch foreshadowed the eventual problem of nuclear proliferation. He stated that the U.S. would not have a monopoly on the atomic bomb for long (5 years at the outside) because, "in science, anyone who asks nature the right questions will get the same answer as anyone else, regardless of race, color or creed."
[1.1] "Navigation Bureau Approves Williams Courses for Navy", Williams Record, vol. 55, No. 36 (March, 27, 1942), p. 5. | Back |
[1.2] Williams Record, vol. 55, No. 38 (April 10, 1942), p. 1. | Back |
[1.3] Williams Record, vol. 55, No. 39 (April, 17, 1942), p. 1. | Back |
[1.4] "Navy Contingent of 200 Expected January 7 - Baxter," Williams Record, vol. 56 (December 12, 1942), pp. 1-2. The 4 subject schedule for 12 weeks was as follows: Navigation: twice/day, 6 days/week. Physics: twice/day for 3 weeks, then 3 hours/day for 3 weeks on "Aerology and Engines". Mathematics: twice/day for 3 weeks, then "The Theory of Flight" 1 hour/day, 6 days/week for 7 weeks, stressing "Familiarization with Aircraft" for 2 weeks. Communication: 1 hour/day for 12 weeks. | Back |
[1.5] "The Navy Moves In," Williams Alumni Review, vol. 35, No. 3 (March, 1943), p. 83. | Back |
[1.6] "On the Campus," Williams Alumni Review, vol.35, No. 4 (June, 1943), pp. 117-119. | Back |
Williams College Catalogue, 1943-45 (Dec. 1943), p. 28. | Back |
"Williams in National Defense," Williams Alumni Review, vol. 34, No. 2 (December, 1941), p. 56. | Back |
Ibid. | Back |
Ibid., p. 56-57. | Back |
Williams College Catalogue, 1942-43, (October 1942), p.130. | Back |
Telephone interview with Professor Stabler , April 22, 1992. Note Prof. Stabler's echo of Prof. Richmond's recognition of the 2 essentially conflicting curricular purposes. | Back |
Ralph P. Winch, "The Williams Physics Department During World War II," The Williams Alumni Review, vol. 39, No. 4 (May, 1947), p. 122. | Back |
Ibid., p. 126. | Back |
Williams Alumni Review, vol. 36, No. 1 (Dec., 1943), p. 7. | Back |
Winch, op. cit., p. 123. | Back |
Interview, with Prof. David Park, 4/16/92. | Back |
Winch, op. cit., p. 124. | Back |
Ibid. | Back |
Ibid., p. 125. | Back |
Ibid. | Back |
Interview with Professor David Park, 4/16/92. | Back |
Ibid. | Back |
Ibid. | Back |
Williams College President's Report, 1941, p.7. | Back |
"Science Club Resumes Round Table Meetings," The Williams Record, Vol. 60, No. 3 (December 6, 1945), p.4. | Back |
Ibid. | Back |
"Winch Gives Talk on Atomic Energy, "The Williams Record, Vol. 60, No. 7. | Back |
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This essay has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the work written by our professional essay writers.
Information Communication Technology has changed and improved the traditional ways of communication. The University of Salford UK have identified the potential benefits of these telecommunication technologies. This led to the development of online Notification system and information delivery services, the 'Blackboard' and 'Webmail' respectively, which enabled the students and the members of the university to access the information and request for this service at anytime available online.
As SMS is rapidly becoming a candidate technology for youths, who are exchanging messages more than telephonic voice for communicating. The majority of students want to be notified through SMS. Hence, To improve the effectiveness of notification system, this can be achieved by providing an appropriate understanding of student's feedbacks, behaviour and requirements to identify the effectiveness of this system and the factors that affect the use of SMS in this service, which may leads to possibly improvements, therefore this research focused on students' perspective on Salford Universities notification system.
Information Communication Technology has changed and improved the traditional ways of communication between the masses of society. This ICT revolution has erased all the barriers of communication (Qiu, 2007). With the invent and implementation of sophisticated mobile technologies helped the organizations to provide better services to consumer, promote themselves and to improve their business processes. The mobile technologies like Mobile devices or PDAs(Personal Digital Assistant) started gaining more fame and popularity. It massively penetrated the markets (Balsubramanian & Shankar, 2009).
A reliable platform of communication is achieved by integrating these powerful handheld devices with sophisticated wireless telecommunication services, Mobile computing and various types of networks. Loads of E-mails, SMS(Short Message Service), telephonic Voice and other multimedia applications are successfully exchanged over this platform.This resulted, increase in various number of mobile computing applications. Modern notification systems can be viewed as one such type of application (Bamba & Barnes, 2007).These notification systems are been successfully implemented in the different endeavors of society.
The Prestigious Universities across the world, including University of Salford UK have identified the potential benefits of Notification system and web services. This led the University towards the development of its own online notification system and information delivery service, 'Blackboard' and 'Webmail' respectively, which enable students and the members of university to access the information and request for the service anytime available online. It is important that this notification system delivers a high standard and quality of service, to the students and staff.
Also, SMS is rapidly becoming a candidate technology for youths, who are exchanging messages more than telephonic voice for communicating. The majority of students want to be notified through SMS as it is having high targeting possibility (Tran, 2003).
This research aims to increase the resource available relating to the effectiveness of notification system. Investigation in this area will specifically focus on Salford universities notification system, which identifies the students perspectives towards using SMS in current system.
To ensure the system and the investment is worthwhile, an appropriate understanding of students behaviour, requirements and feedbacks towards the system can improve the effectiveness of this service and possibly attract more students.
This leads to the following research questions for the dissertation:
"How SMS can enhance the Notification System of The University Of Salford ?"
"What are the factors that affect the use of SMS in University of Salford's notification service?"
RESEARCH AIM AND OBJECTIVES
The aim of this research is to evaluate the effectiveness of SMS(short message service) technology on University of Salford's Notification system from the students's perspectives and how SMS(short message service) technology can enhance the current notification system. In order to address the aim of this project, the following objectives will need to be achieved:
To conduct a literature review on the impact of SMS on student's, University of Salford Notification system and the factors that affects the use of this service.
To conduct research using Interview and Questionnaire methods to collect information on Student's perspective towards Current Notification system.
To analyse the research information collected and identify the Student's point of view towards Notification system relating to the literature review.
To provide recommendations and possible improvements, for the Notification System based on the research information from the Student's perspectives.
The Impact Of 'SMS' (Short Message Service) Technology:
The development of mobile telecommunication technologies and IT have made revolutionary changes in society. With the liberalization of telecommunication and rapid growth of cellular industry have interconnected the people around the globe (Qiu, 2007). Mobile Technologies like Mobile devices and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) have become an important part of both enterprises and the customers. Further Balsubramanian & Shankar (2009) said that the demand of mobile devices and PDAs is rapidly increasing. Also they are massively penetrating the markets. Tsang, Ho & Liang (2004) believed that mobile devices being very personal in nature and always-on- always with you, have very high targeting possibilities.
All the E-Commerce transactions conducted generally via PCs (Personal Computers) or Laptops, the same transactions can be conducted by using the handheld mobile devices or PDAs by connecting to any matured wireless network. Where the transactions include banking, shopping, stock trading and other services. Which resulted in a completely new Mobile technology driven commerce known as M-Commerce (Mobile Commerce). M-Commerce in general is well recognized. Several authors have made an attempt to define M-Commerce. For example Barnes, (2002) defines M-Commerce as "any transaction with a monetary value that is conducted over a wireless telecommunication network". In the view of Liang et al (2007) M-Commerce is the extension of E-Commerce (Electronic Commerce). Ngai and Gunasekaran (2005) also have viewed M-Commerce as a subset of E- Commerce and a outcome of sophisticated wireless technologies and devices which allows the conduct of e-commerce activities over a wireless network.
The integration of such mobile devices with sophisticated Mobile telecommunication services, mobile computing and various kinds of networks have overcome most of the technological barriers for communication, thus making them a reliable platform for exchanging the information (Bamba & Barnes, 2007). According to Kim & Park (2008) E-mail, SMS (short messaging service), voice telephone service, and other multimedia applications are some of the different mediums of communication available on mobile phones. On the other hand Ilari, Mena and Illarramendi (2009) suggest that the attribute of anytime and anywhere availability of mobile computing services has led to the growth of Mobile computing applications. Notification Systems can be viewed as one of the examples of such applications.
"Modern notification system is a combination of software and hardware that provides a means of delivering a message to set of recipients" (Wikipedia, 2010). McCrickard & Chewar (2003) viewed Notification systems as interfaces which enables the user to access the required information. The user need of notifications is well recognized by information provider (Vastenburg, Keyson & Ridder, 2008). Additionally McCrickard et al (2003) said that the users want to be notified by the information relevant to them or their task.Where the notifications can be commercial advertisement, critical information alerts, or Educational information that can be notified through messages or e-mails. E-mails, Text messaging and multimedia messaging on mobile devices are rapidly growing (Balsubramanian & Shankar, 2009). As compared to the other services, SMS being a low-cost communication service is experiencing a rapid growth. Bamba & Barnes (2007) defines SMS as "store and forward communication system for mobile phones".
Further, 65% of all mobile phone users approximately are communicating via SMS (Kim & Park, 2008). Additionally SMS is rapidly becoming a preference for youths , who are exchanging messages over the mobile phones much more as compared to voice telephone service in order to stay connected with their friends and family. Where UK's youth spends £100,000 on messaging everyday (Tran, 2003). On the other hand Tran (2003) says SMS channel is of great potential and is not only limited for communicating over mobile phones but also adopted by organizations for marketing their products to the member of the younger generation. Leppaniemi & Karjaluoto (2008) viewed SMS in marketing as a brand vehicle and also found it to be capable of targeting consumers in a special context. The marketers are engaged in either permission-based or call-to-action (pull-based) mobile advertising. Where, in permission-based mobile advertising the promotional messages are send to the consumers with their permission and in call-to-action mobile advertising the user is asked to send messages for grabbing reactions on internet, TV or radio product promotions.
According to Houser and Thornton (2004) majority of japanese students are using mobile phones. As per the survey conducted more than 95% of the students use mobile phone. Thus most of the Japanese universities are now using mobile phone as a medium for education. And when enquired maximum students wanted to receive the notifications about administrative tasks such as room change, receiving the assignment deadlines, job vacancies, and university events through a very powerful SMS (short messaging service) on their mobile phones.
Stone (2004) suggests that the adoption of technology is rapidly growing in the education sector. It is important that the use of technology should be positive. The SMS is very popular amongst the students. As per the case research conducted by Stone (2004) on Kingston University, it evaluated SMS as a candidate technology and demonstrated that majority of the students in the university wanted to use SMS services as the support system. Like receiving the notifications about exam schedule(time, location and date), Some wanted to receive the time bounded administrative notifications such as change of lecture room and time of lectures or tutorials.Students of Kingston university were also interested in receiving their grades, deadline of assignment as SMS which are send through blackboard.
The Prestigious University of Salford has its own online Notification system and information delivery service, 'Blackboard' and 'Webmail' respectively. Looking at the popularity and power of SMS, it can be used as a tool for supporting the students of University of Salford in order to enhance the learning experience. By using it in the notification systems on a large scale it might help to ensure effectiveness of the system and probably enhance the service.
Paradigm refers to various ways of thinking about some aspect of world. Research paradigm reflects people assumptions and reflections about the nature of knowledge (Oats, 2006). It determines how research is conducted, especially how data is collected and analysed (Collis & Hussey, 2003).
Different paradigms have different views about a thing and different ways of acquiring knowledge for it. Generally, there are three major research paradigms; Positivism, Interpretivism and Critical Research (Oats, 2006). These paradigms with different research strategies help in determining the use of Information Systems by people.
Positivism: It is the oldest research paradigm, used from the time of newton. Many researchers follow this research approach. Positivists believe that the study of social reality should be done using methods of natural sciences (Oats, 2006). Term knowledge may be used only to phenomena that are confirmed by senses (Bryman & Bell, 2003). The main aim is to derive hypotheses that might be tested. This method represents the positivism of exploring the conceptual methods of the data architecture, creation of the data asset suitable for organisation, design structure for data modelling and data replication and the critical factors in implementing procedures. The positivist paradigm tends to find the relationships between variables and forming laws that describe previously tested linkages (Oats, 2006).
Interpretivism: This method of research believes knowledge to be the creation of human experts (Oats, 2006). Interpretivism is different as compared to positivism where it does not prove/disprove a hypothesis but identify, explain, and explore how all the factors in a group, organization, team and so on are related and interdependent (Oats, 2006). According to Black (2006) Its strength is the capability of finding the complexities and meanings of instances in a research.
Critical Research: It is neither well-known nor widely accepted research paradigm. The aim is to criticize the interpretivist researchers as they fail to derive the patterns of power and control relevant to our perception of the world (Oats, 2006). The goal is to to identify the power relations, conflicts and contradiction in our world and attempt to eliminate them as being reason of domination (Oats, 2006).
1.1 Selected Research Paradigm (Includes Justification)
For this research the most appropriate would be the Interpretivist research paradigm. Because all the factors driving the Notification System in University of Salford are to be identified. Also, the complexities involved in using 'SMS (short messaging service)' technology on a large scale in Notification System needs to be explored.
2.1.1 Case Study:
A case study is defined as "an empirical enquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real life context, especially when the boundaries between the phenomenon and the context are not clearly evident" (Yin, 2003). The goals are to gain clear picture, obtain rich insight and explore the complex relationships by investigating one phase or instance of a particular case (Oats, 2006).
In a case study an attempt is made to gain the broad perspective which is achieved by describing, understanding and controlling the process that has to be implemented (Oats, 2006).
Through case studies one can get innovative ideas about the process, study rare phenomena ,challenge theoretical assumptions for theory testing and building, and can handle complex situation very easily.
As only single person gathers and analyses the information it has a poor reliability and no set of protocols of doing a research which is time consuming.
2.1.2 Action Research:
."Action research is the enquiry with the people rather than the research on people" (Herbert Altrichter et al, 2002).It is particularly used by professionals in order to investigate and improve their working practices (Oats, 2006). As it can be either a positivist or interpretivist or critical research, it is essential to select the paradigm before starting with the research in order to determine the quality of it.
It is useful in contextualising the improvements related to the people of real world.
It is capable of filling the gap between academic and real world of people.
It is best suited for constructing and refining the processes involved in system development and problem solving.
Many of the researchers are unaware of this research strategy.
It is incapable of generalising the outcomes and establishing the causes and effects in a research.
In action research its not possible to meet the expectations of everyone involved in it.
Survey research means a systematic collection of data from a sample of respondents in order to understand and to predict future behaviours, attitudes, decisions and lifestyles of a population (Oats, 2006). Survey are widely established and used in the field of Information Systems. Pinsonneault and Kraemer (1993) defined survey as a method of "gathering information about the characteristics, actions or opinions of a large group of people, referred to as a population." There are three main characteristics of using this method, these includes asking people to collect information in a structured format, a quantitative method that can be used to identify information concerning with relationship between variables and it can also be used to collect a fraction of the study population, which can generate the results for the full population (Pinsonneault and Kraemer, 1993; Malhotra and Grover, 1998). It is mostly associated with positive paradigm for research.
Surveys are very economical. It can cover more people and gather a lot of data in short period of time at low cost. This research strategy can help the people with weaker communication skills as it can be done online or by post.
Survey does not provide detail information on research topic.
90 surveys out of 122 has a response rate below 51%, which shows there are very low response rates, when conducting surveys (Pinsonneault and Kraemer, 1993).
There might be irrelevant or dishonest answers towards some of the questions, due to the nature of conducting questionnaires.
Experiment is a research strategy which aims to prove/disprove a theory (Oats, 2006). This strategy is widely used in the field of Information systems and computing especially for evaluating the Human-Computer interaction. In experiments the researcher takes many precautions during detail observation and measurement of outcomes that occur when any factor is added or removed. It involves identifying the factors affecting experiment (Oats, 2006).
It is widely accepted and implemented research strategy.
It is the only strategy which can prove casual relationships.
As it is conducted in Laboratory the researchers are not obligated for visiting any field.
Experiment is artificial as it is conducted in laboratory hence the real world situations are not compatible.
The variables are impossible to control.
2.1.5 Grounded theory:
Grounded theory is obtained through the social research by grounding theory in data to study the behaviour (Goulding, 1998). It allows the researchers to propose a new theory on existing information with a aim to enhance or add more information to it, as very little is known (Oats, 2006). Generally, it falls under interpretive paradigm of research.
It helps researcher in generating good ideas, obtaining reliable information, and derive findings.
By using this research strategy a detailed information about a particular phenomenon can be obtained which is influenced by the context in which the study is undertaken
As the data analysis is required in the grounded theory it becomes more time consuming, may lead to frustration and take research in different direction.
According to Maanen (2006) Ethnography is the study and representation of culture. Ethnography helps us to know the representation and meaning of the behaviour and explores how it is integrated with wider social and cultural experience in the life-world of the consumer (Oats, 2006). The ethnographer actively participates with an aim to construct a holistic picture of culture considering the social and economical aspects of the culture.
This strategy provides a detailed and a clear picture of a certain situation with all aspects.
It can be used to challenge the findings from research strategies like experiments which are artificial in nature.
It is useful in studying various when a implementation of new system arises in the fields of Information technology.
It is good for studying any research topics of information systems which are ambiguous and complex.
In ethnography, it is difficult to manage time, handle information, maintain social relations, dealing ethical issues and so on effectively as the ethnographer is at high demands.
It is not well established.
Detailed study of all the situation and process is necessary making it difficult for researchers to give in recognizing concept.
2.2 Selected Research Strategy (Includes Justification):
The notification system in university of salford has to be evaluated and explored. The Case study has been chosen as a research strategy because, the goals are to gain clear picture, obtain rich insight and explore the complexities involved in the current notification system and investigate how the use of SMS technology can enhance it.
Data Collection Methods:
Interview is a planned conversation between two people having an agenda, purpose and assumptions in it. Myers and Newman (2007) said that interview is an important data gathering tool for detail information. There are different types of qualitative interviews, including Structured Interview, Unstructured or Semi-Structured interview and Group Interview (Oats, 2006).
Structured interview are well prepared before conducting an interview with a set of questions, whereas, semi-structured or unstructured interview are prepared with an incomplete script, which varies from the interviewer. On the other hand Group interviews are carried out with two or more participants (Myers and Newman, 2007). According to Myers and Newman (2007) the disadvantage of interview are, it is often under time limit and it is possible for interviews to be affected. Larsen (2003) suggested that by using open ended questions, the participants would gain more opportunities to respond and express their point of view. Further Larsen (2003) also stated that, after the open ended questions asking some critical questions would help to identify and lead to the important information. Thus, there are benefits of using both questioning methods.
Questionnaires are the the set of questions which are already defined and placed in determined order (Oats, 2006). It is conducted in the absence of researcher, asking people to collect information in a structured format (Oats, 2006). The Advantage of using this data generation method is that it is very economical and easy for researcher. The disadvantage of using questionnaire found by Pinsonneault and Kraemer (1993) shows, there are very low response rates, when conducting surveys using questionnaires. Also, there might be irrelevant answers towards some of the questions, due to the nature of conducting questionnaires.There are different techniques that can be used to improve the effectiveness of this questionnaire. Flower (1995) stated it is important to design questionnaire that is easy as possible for the participants. Lucia et el,. (2007) suggested that Questionnaire should be user friendly.
Documents are the instant source of data as they are readily available. It has less ethical problems attached to it. The main problem is its accessibility. Accessing to it can be either expensive or not possible (Oats, 2006).
3.2 Selected Data Collection Method (Includes Justification):
Data that is collected can be either quantitative or qualitative data.The research can be quantitative or qualitative depending on the data collected. Quantitative data will be numbers, statistics and financial data which will be presented as tables or graphs and qualitative data will be usually the text or words which will be the data that already exists (Oats, 2006). A combination of both quantitative and qualitative methods has been selected.Using the questionnaire and interview methods can provide a set of more accurate data for this research.
Data Analysis Methods:
Data analysis is a method for arranging and investigating the collected data using narratives, graphs, charts or tables. The main idea of data analysis is to draw conclusion based on the data patterns (Oats, 2006). It can be either a qualitative data analysis or quantitative data analysis or can be both.
Quantitative information would be collected from the questionnaires, which can be shown in chart and graphical format. Qualitative information would be collected from the semi-structured interviews for identifying the relevant information relating to the research questions, which leads to the factors affecting the use of Notification system and the aim of this proposal. A combination of both quantitative and qualitative methods has been selected for the research.
EVALUATION OF METHODS ADOPTED
This research focuses on Current Students of University of Salford and existing Notification system , which identifies information about the current Notification system and optimizing the use of this service. To provide an effective research, a Case study has been chosen as a research strategy as the goals are to gain clear picture, obtain rich insight and explore the complexities involved in the current notification system and investigate how the use of 'SMS' technology can enhance the current Notification system. To collect the relevant information, using a mixture of both quantitative and qualitative methods is more appropriate for this research.
A combination of both data collection methods could provide a set of useful data to improve the effectiveness and flexibility to discover important data and information for this research. Quantitative method is helpful in identifying information concerning with relationship between variables, whereas qualitative method is helpful in gathering detail information. Interviews and questionnaires will be used. In interviews, using open ended questions would give the participants more opportunities to respond and express their points of view, therefore both open and close-ended questions will be used for the participants. The Questionnaires on the other hand will help the researcher for obtaining feedback from students, on receiving notifications from the university through 'SMS' instead of 'e-mails'.
The Research can be done differently provided time and resources available by conducting the interviews at the administrative level of University of Salford. Implementing 'SMS' on a large scale for notification purpose is a critical issue, as the university already has its well established webmail notification system and hence it is time consuming to evaluate the critical success factors in using 'SMS' instead of 'E-mails'. With the time available the key features of 'SMS' , the impact of it on young students and how the implementation of it would enhance the experience of notification of students would be explored.
Interview is a planned conversation between two people having an agenda, purpose and assumptions in it. In Interview the researcher gets an instant feedback on a particular topic.Face to Face interview makes it more comfortable in knowing the topic deeply. Good at gaining the in depth and detailed knowledge regarding research topic.
Questionnaires are the the set of questions which are already defined and placed in determined order. It is conducted in the absence of researcher, asking people to collect information in a structured format. They are the cheapest way of data collection.They can be send via post, telephones or through e-mails.
It is very difficult for having a interview with administrative level. They are generally time consuming. There is a possibility that they might be misleading.
In questionnaire the truthfulness of answers to the questions cannot be checked. Researcher cannot help in answering the questions. It might cause frustration for participant in responding it.
As the research is processed in one of the highly reputed educational institutes of UK (United Kingdom) the ethics to obtain information about a system within a institution is considered as the right to confidentiality. The ethical issues considering the Notification system depends on the certain issues relating to the teleological and ethical relativism. The right of information is accessed by the questionnaires and interviews. The ethics of right to anonymity is maintained when the details of certain administrative person is not revealed.
The right to confidentiality is considered outmost in carrying the research. The confidential matters of one sector and another is not accessed by another sector. Individual integrity should be maintained.
Thus, the ethical standards of doing the research in enhancing notification system of university of salford is maintained.
POTENTIAL RELEVANCE AND CONTRIBUTION
The practitioners don not have to worry about the information they have submitted, it will not be known to anyone as the research data collected through the interviews, case study and questionnaire is highly confidential.The literatures related to this research have found that the only limitations to this research is the cost factor.
This research proposal identifies the students perspective on SMS Technology and the key factors that affect the future use of it in Notification System of University of Salford.
The research on the study of Enhancing the notification system in University of Salford can be done in three months of time.
Following is the research plan for next three months:
In first two week after the research proposal the basic knowledge about impact of SMS technology and all probabilities of using it in the notification system will be studied through books, journals and internet. Acquiring relevant knowledge would lead to success in the research.
In the third and fourth week research strategies have to be implemented like case study including interviews and all the necessary data will be gathered. During the next month I will discuss my research with the concerned administrative people in the University of Salford, have some interviews with the technical analysts who are working on the notification system and identify the factors involved in enhancing the notification system.
At the month end data collection, data implementation, data analysis, management and security issues will be done. The last month is needed for the documentation process, validation and verification has to be done in the end of the research where the research will be finally approved. | <urn:uuid:7b5e87c2-7117-494e-a8d2-b02c2fd53bec> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.ukessays.com/essays/information-technology/information-communication-technology-has-changed-information-technology-essay.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00042-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925897 | 5,697 | 2.71875 | 3 |
The world's worst polluter is worried about climate change, and is now the biggest global investor in green technology. Here's everything you need to know.
How much does China pollute?
China has overtaken the U.S. as the world's largest economy, and over the past two decades its blitz of industrialization has pulled millions of people out of poverty — and pumped millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere. From 2008 to 2013 alone, annual energy consumption in China rose more than 50 percent. Some 70 percent of that electricity was generated from the worst possible source: coal. China burns as much coal as the rest of the world combined, and it now emits twice as much total carbon as the U.S. (although Americans still lead the world in per capita emissions). You can see the results in the thick haze that blankets Beijing and just about every other city. In fact, just a handful of China's 500 largest cities meet World Health Organization standards for air quality.
How bad is the smog?
Air pollution kills more than half a million Chinese people every year. Runners in the Beijing International Marathon last year had to wear face masks against the smothering yellow haze, and smog alerts routinely force cities to ban driving and temporarily shut down factories. The filth has begun to cause what Chinese authorities fear most: political unrest. China now has more than 50,000 environmental protests a year, mostly local demonstrations against planned factories and waste incineration plants. Communist Party officials and business leaders aren't happy about the pollution, either. "Watching people wearing anti-toxin masks in the capital is pretty embarrassing," said Yun Gongmin, head of China Huadian, one of the largest state-owned energy companies. "Nobody wants to live in a polluting city for fear of getting diseases."
What is China doing about it?
China's authorities are making a major push to curb emissions, both to ease the smog and alleviate the consequences of climate change. In Washington last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced that a national cap-and-trade program, the world's biggest, would begin in 2017. Chinese companies that emit more greenhouse gases than the allowed cap will be fined, while those that emit less can sell their credits. China is also pouring money into renewable energy, investing $90 billion last year alone, more than any other country. It has ramped up its solar power at a staggering rate, building sprawling solar farms in the Gobi Desert and increasing capacity this year by 18 gigawatts, an amount equal to the entire solar capacity of the U.S. China is already the world's largest producer of wind power, with thousands of turbines installed in the windy west and plans to more than double the number of turbines over the next five years. It's also the world's largest hydropower producer, home to half the world's 80,000 dams and building many more every year.
Is that making a difference?
At a 2014 summit with President Obama, Xi pledged that China's emissions would peak by 2030 and then drop. Less than a year later, China is already ahead of that goal, with emissions now predicted to peak in 2025. In the first few months of 2015, China's coal use fell almost 8 percent compared with last year's, a reduction equal to all the carbon dioxide emitted by the U.K. over that period. Part of that drop came because of China's economic slowdown, but the country's new commitment to renewables means that even when the economy picks up, the extra power will come from greener sources. In 2009, China pledged to reduce its "carbon intensity," the ratio of emissions to energy produced, by 45 percent by 2020. It's now more than halfway there, so authorities have set themselves a new goal of 65 percent.
Can these numbers be trusted?
China has moved so fast to expand the use of green energy that much of its new capacity is just that — capacity. Getting the energy produced hooked up to the power grid so it can be consumed will be a huge challenge. Many of the wind and solar farms, for example, are far from big cities, and authorities haven't yet worked out a way to store and transport all the energy they produce. China's big hydropower projects, such as the Three Gorges Dam, have also displaced millions of people and taken their own toll on the environment. Meanwhile, even though China is ramping up renewables, it is still the world's biggest user of coal. And as Chinese consumers grow more affluent, they use more energy. Last year, China's per capita CO2 emissions passed those of the EU.
How will climate talks be affected?
A thorny source of discord in global climate talks has been the disconnect between what is expected of rich Western countries and what is expected of developing nations. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, for example, had no binding limits for emissions by China, India, or any country in Africa or South America, while the U.S. was supposed to slash emissions by 7 percent. Congressional Republicans were furious at the perceived double standard and blocked U.S. ratification of Kyoto. But China's new push to lower its emissions undercuts the argument that Western efforts to combat climate change won't ultimately make a difference. At the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Paris at the end of this year, China has said, it, too, will commit to binding emissions cuts. "We should firmly pursue green, low-carbon, circular, and sustainable development," Xi told the U.N. General Assembly last month. "China will shoulder its share of responsibility."
Climate change has already forced the resettlement of a quarter million people in China. Over the past 50 years, the average temperature in the central region of Xihaigu has risen by nearly 4 degrees Fahrenheit and rainfall has fallen by a third, making some areas uninhabitable. Until recently, residents relied on stored rainwater, and in dry years spent half their earnings trucking in water just to stay alive. Local authorities finally gave up and relocated the entire town of Zhoutao to the nearby city of Hongsibu, and water was diverted from the Yellow River to accommodate them — all at a cost of some $1 billion. "Three main factors led to the ecological fragility of Xihaigu: nature, human impact, and climate change," Hohai University analyst Chen Shaojun told The Guardian. As temperatures rise, many more Chinese may be forced to move. | <urn:uuid:f96cc1e7-6616-4746-b50d-480966f02411> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://theweek.com/articles/582032/chinas-green-revolution | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280718.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00401-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963384 | 1,325 | 2.6875 | 3 |
COBLESKILL, N.Y. (NEWS10) – Work is underway at SUNY Cobleskill to save the American burying beetle from going extinct. Earlier this year, SUNY Cobleskill’s Environmental Management Program was awarded $140,026 through the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Recovery Challenge Grant initiative to reintroduce the beetle into New York State.
The large shiny black beetles marked with orange patterns have been roaming the planet since the age of dinosaurs, but in 1989, they were added to the endangered species list.
“I want to point out which I think is really cool about our efforts here at SUNY Cobleskill, the three other reintroduction attempts throughout the U.S. are all associated with zoos. This is the only project since 1989 that’s being done at a university,” said Dr. Brandon Quinby.
The American burying beetle is known for their breeding habits. Parents will look for decomposing animals, bury them, and use it to feed their larvae.
Dr. Quinby has been studying the beetle for fifteen years. His education has taken him all over the country to further understand the complicated creature. He’s working alongside Dr. Carmen Greenwood, students and a talented team of scientists on the project.
“In the last decade or so, we’ve seen a vast number of insect species in decline. In the case of the American burying beetle, it’s die-off was closely related to that of the passenger pigeon, which was a main source of breeding support for the beetle,” said Dr. Carmen Greenwood, associate professor of Fisheries, Wildlife & Environmental Science at SUNY Cobleskill.
As part of the first step of the grant funding, a breeding colony of beetles was brought to SUNY Cobleskill from Roger Williams Zoo in Providence, R.I., where species conservation efforts are also underway. The group at SUNY Cobleskill is currently studying sister species of the beetle before they will begin the breeding process.
The beetle used to cover 35 states and three Canadian provinces. By 1989, it was known in Oklahoma and Block Island, R.I. There are now confirmed populations in nine states.
“By the looks of things we’ll probably be reintroducing the American burying beetles to New York in 2023 and monitoring them throughout that reintroduction, carrying it into the future,” said Dr. Quinby. | <urn:uuid:dc3929f0-ec2f-4633-9386-6f4a7366bdd1> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.binghamtonhomepage.com/news/local-news/suny-cobleskill-working-to-reintroduce-american-burying-beetle-in-nys/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570977.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809124724-20220809154724-00473.warc.gz | en | 0.964732 | 509 | 3.078125 | 3 |
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Tuesday, February 2, 2010
The State Of The Internet
Focus.com offered this great graphic that tells exactly who uses the Internet, what they do with it, and how often. Unfortunately, the graphic won't go any larger than you see on the left in Blogger, so you'll have to go to Mashable to see it in full.
Here are some of the interesting points that the graphic makes:
- Internet use is as even as it gets. 74% of men use it, but so do 74% of women.
- 93% of people ages 18-29 use it, 70% of people 50 – 64 are online, but only 38% of people 65 and older.
- The higher the income level, the more someone has broadband access.
- 94% of college graduates are online (that low?), while only 39% of people with less than a high school education are.
- Just like you'd expect, Internet use is up significantly in just the past five years. In 2005, 27% of people surveyed used the Internet “several times a day.” Now it’s 38% (once again, that low?)
- 58% of users have a desktop computer while 46% have a laptop.
- Ages 25 – 44 make up the majority of people who blog. Only 7% of people under 25 do but people 55 – 64 make up 14%.
- 54% of bloggers consider themselves experts on whatever it is they’re blogging about, 15% are "confessional" and 16% are "snarky." 41% are journalistic while 44% are "humorous."
- Norway has the highest level of Internet penetration, while the United States is in fifth place.
- Japan has the fastest Internet connections on average with the average speed at a whopping 61mbps!!! The US is 15th with an average of only 4.8mbps.
- The average mobile Internet connection is only about 700 Kbps, which is no surprise if you own an iPhone and you like to surf the web. | <urn:uuid:7440d5aa-92e5-4311-98a5-f3971b5d3a35> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://music3point0.blogspot.com/2010/02/state-of-internet.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281162.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00532-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954209 | 454 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Marking time in September 2004
Discussion of the ingredients of cutler’s resin continued on the oldtools list today. Steven Longley has turned up an American supplier of pine resin, also called brewer’s pitch. You can buy it from Jas Townsend & Son, Inc.
Daniel E L Yurwit added this to the exchange:
FWIW, the Apache also made jugs woven from plant fiber (a “tuss”) to carry water, and coated them heavily with pine tar resin to waterproof them. Some still work effectively 100+ years later.
But there’s more. Ryan McNabb had this to say:
The Kirby Paint Company, a family owned marine paint concern, has the Real Deal - genuine pine tar the likes of which you’ve never seen unless you’ve served with Lucky Jack on the HMS Surprise. Thick enough to float a hammer and with a smell like Heaven on steroids.Friday Update: Jerry Davis added this from the southern USA…
If you live in a rural area, check with your local farm supply store (aka feed store). Mine sells pine tar in small (8 oz) cans. It is handy for dressing wounds, applying to horn stubs after dehorning and lots of other uses.
…and BugBear came up with a link to Pine tar; history and uses on the San Fransciso Maritime National Park website:
Few visitors to any ship which as been rigged in a traditional manner have left the vessel without experiencing the aroma of pine tar. The aroma produces reactions that are as strong as the scent; few people are ambivalent about its distinctive smell. As professionals engaged in the restoration and maintenance of old ships, we should know not only about this product, but also some of its history.
Pardon me, as I jot down a recipe. Cutler’s resin is 8 oz pine pitch, 1/4 cup carnauba wax and 4 oz of beeswax, melted together in a double boiler and used hot. Mark Marsay wrote on the oldtools mailing list:
I usually use cutlers resin when attaching handles to blades — seems to work better than epoxy with the marking knives and various odd shaped scraper knives and chip carving knives I sometimes make.
Someone asked why this concoction is better than epoxy. Mark gave his reasons:
Well, apart from the galootishness of it, it is probably the best glue for attaching dissimilar materials I have come across. It holds like mad, yet has enough flex to allow differential expansion, and it doesn’t creep, allowing you to use it on bone or ivory without staining. It is also a huge amount easier to clean up runs and squelches than epoxy is. As you are in the UK, you can get pine pitch from Baldwins, just off the Elephant and Castle. … BTW, Baldwins are also good for most natural colouring agents - I get all my alkanet and logwood from them! | <urn:uuid:cf0a979d-efd2-458c-90c3-de823cc5e4cd> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.marquis-kyle.com.au/mt/2004_09.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00240-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955665 | 625 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Donate £100 and secure £1000 for our wildlife
With your help we can secure funding to enable a number of projects to project our amazing wildlife and wild places to go ahead.
Through the landfill tax fund we can access substantial grants that are vital to our work. But to release these, we need to secure a 10% match contribution.
Cumbria Wildlife Trust
Cumbria Wildlife Trust can access significant grants through the landfill tax fund. But to release this money we need to provide a 10% contribution.
Only by securing this 10% can we release the money to enable us to achieve our conservation projects to protect and enhance our wildlife and wild places.
We will be able to use the donations to secure ten times more funding.
This, in turn, will enable us to deliver a wide range of conservation projects both on and off our nature reserves.
A donation of £100 will be used to secure £1000 towards direct action to:
- protect our valuable wildlife and wildplaces
- increase biodiversity and
- increase public access and enjoyment of our environment
To secure donations to enable us to release funding worth 10 times more and protect our wildlife
Activities» Raise awareness of and gain public support for our conservation work.
Success will be measured through the number of donations received and the funding secured.
Take action now to ensure that juniper trees in Cumbria do not become extinct in the coming years.
Activities» With volunteer surveyors, establish what juniper woodlands exist and the condition of these.
» Improve the condition of and increase area of juniper woodlands in Cumbria through targetted planting of young juniper trees and positive management.
» Protect existing juniper woodlands in Cumbria so that they do not deteriorate and die out over the coming generations.
» Increase biodiversity.
Success will be shown through comparison of pre and post project data demonstrating number of:
-woodlands increased in size
-Cumbria's juniper does not die out
Restore Drumburgh Moss Nature Reserve-a peat bog (nature's carbon sink) and UK BAP priority habitat
Activities» Extend the area of active raised mire by maintaining the groundwater level on the mire surace all year round, benefitting a wide range of wildlife.
» Increase habitat and creation of new BAP habitats through creation of an improved wetland complex, lowland wet grassland and raised mire.
» Make the surrounding land more resilient to future floods and increased water levels.
» Restore the area's hydrological functioning and active peat forming process.
Success will be...
- area of habitat restored
- active peat bog creation reinstated
- species present on site
- volunteers involved with project
Enhance the habitats at Smardale Gill Nature Reserve for wildlife.
Activities» Undertake practical management to improve rich grasslands and ancient woodlands.
» Install fencing to exclude grazing stock from certain areas and allow natural regeneration of delicate flowers and plants.
» Carry out scrub control to create wildlife corridors and areas of open calcareous grassland-particularly important for the rare Scotch argus butterfly
» Improve and increase biodiversity at the nature reserve through removal of non-native species and achieving favourable conditions for the habitat
Success will be...
- area of habitat improved
- increase in biodiversity (flora and fauna)
To undertake conservation work to protect our precious environment, wildlife and wildplaces.
Activities» To work with people to generate a renewed enthusiasm and passion for the amazing wildlife that can be found right on our on doorsteps.
» Carry out our vital conservation work on nature reserves and projects in the wider countryside to benefit our unique wildlife and wild places.
Success will be...
- project complete
- species protected
- habitats improved
- people involved and enthusiastic about their local environment
Our project will protect the quality of Cumbria's wildlife & wild places. With your help, we can care for rare and endangered habitats & species so that they do not disappear.
If we do not undertake these projects endangered species and habitats are at risk of decreasing in number and ultimately dying out. We can't let this happen.
Success will be monitored through monitoring and comparison of before and after survey data.
We have been offered landfill tax funding towards our juniper project, work at Drumburgh Moss and Smardale Gill Nature Reserves.
To release this money we must be able to provide match funding of 10%.
Cumbria Wildlife Trust has a proven track record of delivering conservation projects and has staff who are both qualified and experienced to achieve the work required.
We will discuss the requirements of individual donors but will reporting will include:
- regular written updates
- photographs of our projects
- statistical information demonstrating our reach
- visits to the sites to see work that is being undertaken as well as completed
Budget - Project Cost: £20,000Loading graph....
Amount Heading Description £20,000 third party contribution Amount required to secure grant offers
The individual conservation projects will take place across Cumbria, England (including the Lake District).
The main beneficiary of the projects the environment, biodiversity and wildlife.
The volunteers taking part in the project will gain increased skills and practical experience.
General public and visitors to the Lake District and Cumbria will also benefit through an enhanced environment. This in turn will lead to an enhanced visitor experience and increased visitor spend in the area.
Cumbria Wildlife Trust is the othe only voluntary organisation devoted solely to conserving the biodiversity of Cumbria's wildlife & wild places. We are committed to creating whole landscapes rich in wildlife to safeguard threatened species & habitats and have a wealth of experience delivering projects.
We have been offered landfill tax funding to deliver these project and just need to secure the 10% match to release these grants.
Read more about the Charity running this project.
Cumbria Wildlife Trust Staff
All of our staff have a wealth of experience delivering projects with volunteers and good relationships with landowners that will enable the projects.
We have strong and experienced team of over 400 volunteers that support the Trust and help us to complete our work. | <urn:uuid:434017d1-f215-4a9a-8684-f7bea2dac164> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://secure.thebiggive.org.uk/projects/view/8831/donate-100-and-secure-1000-for-our-wildlife | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721141.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00417-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.880123 | 1,276 | 1.984375 | 2 |
May 1, 2014
Students’ ceramic birds to help museum restoration effort
By Stephanie Choate
A flock of multi-colored birds of all different species have settled on the walls of the Birds of Vermont museum, all created by Williston Central School third and fourth grade students.
Students in MC Baker’s art classes have made approximately 250 ceramic ornaments of native birds in a project that combines art, science and literature. The art exhibit, called “Wings of Clay,” opens May 11 at the Birds of Vermont Museum in Huntington.
“It’s absolutely amazing, especially for the age, that they’ve done these pieces of art,” said Erin Talmage, executive director at the Birds of Vermont Museum. “The museum is all about where natural history meets art, and this is a wonderful exhibit that portrays that.”
Ornaments will be for sale as part of the museum’s “Bridges to Birds” fundraising effort, a project intended make the outdoors accessible to all for environmental education, aid bird conservation and stimulate the appreciation of nature, according to Talmage.
The fundraiser is also needed to repair major damage after a flash flood swept through the area last July, creating a ravine and destroying the main access to the museum’s entrance.
The museum’s goal is to build a tree house, demonstration gardens for people to learn about native birds and butterflies and how to attract them and to rebuild the museum’s entrance walkway and paths.
“Students can come out and check out the walkway and garden and tree house and know they were part of making it happen,” Talmage said.
The exhibit is part of the museum’s special programming for “Why Birds Matter,” this year’s International Migratory Bird Day theme.
The ceramic birds will be on display alongside the museum’s nearly 500 wooden carvings of native Vermont birds, created over a lifetime by self-taught carver and naturalist Bob Spear.
The opening reception for the “Wings of Clay” exhibit is set for May 11 from noon to 4 p.m. Donations are accepted.
For more information about the fundraising effort or exhibit, call 434-2167 or visit www.birdsofvermont.org. | <urn:uuid:4f55d3ab-5d7d-43fd-8b59-e63cc4fd498b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.willistonobserver.com/young-sculptors-help-bird-project-take-flight/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280364.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00031-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936487 | 492 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Setting permissions individually for each user of a database can be a time-consuming and error-prone process. For most databases, permission management based on groups, rather than on individual user IDs, is a much more efficient approach.
You can assign permissions to a group in exactly the same way as to an individual user. You can then assign membership in appropriate groups to each new user of the database, and they gain a set of permissions by virtue of their group membership.
For example, you may create groups for different departments in a company database (sales, marketing, and so on) and assign these groups permissions. Each salesperson becomes a member of the sales group, and automatically gains access to the appropriate areas of the database.
Each user ID can be a member of multiple groups, and they inherit all permissions from each of the groups. | <urn:uuid:e647d418-8d1e-4d8c-a015-a22ea20d2849> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://dcx.sap.com/1001/en/dbdaen10/da-pergrpo.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280504.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00135-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932702 | 171 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Martinsburg Office NOW OPEN!
Come see us at 214 S. Market St.
Learn More About…
Did you know that hearing loss increases risk of dementia? If you don’t use your brain hearing, you can start to lose your cognitive processing of what it does hear. only heard by the individual
Tinnitus is a buzzing, hissing, humming, roaring, whistling, cricket-like or pulsating sound in the ear that is normally only heard by the individual and not able to be detected by others
Technology Addressing Hearing
Hearing aids have been proven to improve the user’s social, psychological and physical sense of well-being. by the individual and not able to be detected by others
Risk of Falls and Balance
Having problems with balance or dizziness? Search within to find the different reasons you might be suffering from these symptoms and more. only heard by the individual
Importance of Early Treatment
Your treatment plan includes training to help your brain and hearing work in unison with your hearing aid. only heard by the individual and not able to
Sound creates connections and enhances lives. At Lemme Audiology Associates, we understand its importance, and we can help you hear what you’ve been missing. We have the experience and technology to assess and treat your individual needs. We know hearing loss can be frustrating and we want to provide a solution that will improve the quality of your life.
We’ll take the time to learn about your situation, educate you about hearing health, and work with you and your family to find the solution that best fits your needs and your budget. Tell us your story. We’re all ears.
Hearing Health Services
- Hearing Loss Prevention
- Tinnitus Treatment
- Hearing Evaluations
- Vestibular Evaluation and Treatment | <urn:uuid:5a79dcb4-efe7-4fb0-8f64-4de9b23ca171> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.lemmeaudiology.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00470.warc.gz | en | 0.930914 | 387 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Cerebral Palsy and Medical Marijuana
This article has been fact checked by a Board Certified Pediatrician. Sources of information for the article are listed at the bottom.
For any content issues please Contact Us.
Cerebral palsy and medical marijuana might be useful in managing severe seizures and epilepsy. Research on the use of medical marijuana in cerebral palsy is still limited. Findings from some studies suggest that it offers a host of benefits, including pain control, reduction of spastic movements, reduction of seizures, and more.
Survey of Pain Treatment Study
In 2011, the results of a study on the treatment of pain in people with cerebral palsy were published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). A total of 83 adults with cerebral palsy participated in the study, which consisted of trying 23 different medications for pain, including medical marijuana.
The study reported the legs, lower back, and hips as the most common painful areas. According to the paper,
“The treatment that was rated as providing the most relief was marijuana; however, less than 5% of the sample reported ever using this drug for pain.”
Medical Marijuana and Spastic Quadriplegia
Spastic quadriplegia is the most severe form of cerebral palsy, affecting all extremities, the face, and the trunk. The majority of children with spastic quadriplegia cannot walk, and their speech is usually profoundly affected.
While the limbs can be extremely stiff, their neck muscles may be weak, making it difficult for them to hold their head up. Physical pain and communication problems are common in those with spastic quadriplegia.
Although more data are needed, the few studies conducted on the use of medical marijuana for spastic quadriplegia symptoms indicate that it offers numerous therapeutic benefits.
For example, a study published by the NIH in 2007 states that clinical experience and animal studies demonstrate that the active constituents in marijuana help to control partial seizures frequently seen in people with spastic quadriplegia.
Another study published in 2014 showed marijuana to be effective in reducing painful muscle spasms. Although the study focused on people who experienced muscle spasms associated with multiple sclerosis, spasms are among the most common symptoms in people with cerebral palsy.
Federal guidelines make it difficult for scientists to continue conducting in-depth research. However, many states now permit medical marijuana to be used to treat spasms and pain. Louisiana is the only state that allows its use specifically to treat spastic quadriplegia without a doctor’s referral.
Cannabis Oil (CBD)
Cannabis oil, or CBD oil, named after one of the many compounds found in marijuana, has gained popularity in recent years, especially after a special aired on CNN involving a young girl who once suffered from close to 50 convulsive seizures every day.
After exhausting every other possible option to help her, the girl’s parents turned to a formulation with a high concentration of CBD oil, now known as “Charlotte’s Web” after their daughter’s first name.
Photo by Rhonda Prather
Charlotte’s parents titrated the CBD oil over several weeks while continuing the seizure treatment plan already in place. After weeks of using the oil, the frequency of Charlotte’s seizures went down to only two or three per day.
The CBD oil treatment became so successful that Charlotte eventually weaned off of her other anti-seizure medications. She also began walking, talking, and even riding her bicycle, things she had difficulty doing before. According to her father, Matt,
“I literally see Charlotte’s brain making connections that haven’t been made in years. My thought now is, why were we the ones that had to go out and find this cure? This natural cure? How come a doctor didn’t know about this? How come they didn’t make me aware of this?”
Charlotte’s mother, Page added,
“I didn’t hear her laugh for six months. I didn’t hear her voice at all, just her crying. I can’t imagine that I would be watching her making these gains that she’s making, doing the things that she’s doing (without the medical marijuana). I don’t take it for granted. Every day is a blessing.”
More and more companies are offering CBD oil as a treatment for children with cerebral palsy who experience seizures and muscle spasms, and chronic pain.
It’s important to thoroughly research companies and attempt to get your physician’s advice before deciding on any kind of medication. However, that state laws and even personal preferences may prohibit your child’s doctor from giving you a recommendation for CBD treatment.
The Myth of “Getting High” and Medical Marijuana
One of the legitimate concerns of parents considering medical marijuana treatment for their children is the “getting high” factor. According to David Casarett, MD, author of Stoned: A Doctor’s Case For Medical Marijuana, THC is the compound in marijuana that’s responsible for producing the feeling of being high.
The majority of medical marijuana and cannabis oil products have such a low concentration of THC that they do not produce a high. Medical marijuana and CBD oil generally contain a higher concentration of CBD. It is the CBD ingredient in marijuana that helps treat seizures and muscle spasms.
It’s THC that gets you high. If you feel euphoric, or if you’re unfortunate enough to have bad side effects (like hallucinations), those are due to THC. So marijuana probably will get you high as long as it’s got some THC in it. But, CBD, on the other hand, doesn’t have any of those brain effects. In fact, there have been studies using 300, 400, or 600 milligrams of CBD — which is a really whopping dose — with no psychological effects whatsoever.”
“So, if you’re using marijuana or marijuana products that are low in THC, then no, you won’t get high. That includes, most notably, the concentrated oils that are used [to treat] pediatric seizures.”
Speech Disorders and Medical Marijuana
Medical marijuana may also benefit those with cerebral palsy who have speech disorders and impediments, such as stuttering. Speech repetition and stuttering are frequently associated with cerebral palsy. Although these issues aren’t life-threatening, they can be extremely debilitating to people when they want to communicate more effectively.
Jacqueline Patterson has lived with cerebral palsy and a severe stuttering issue since she was a little girl. In 2007, she created a documentary entitled In Pot We Trust, where she detailed how marijuana not only helped reduce her speech problem significantly but also improved her severe muscle pain and stiffness.
Unfortunately, Patterson used marijuana in Missouri, a state that doesn’t allow its use for any purpose, including medical indications. Consequently, her four children were taken away from her, but she took her case to Missouri representatives. While speaking to the group of legislators, she said,
For the first time, my muscles were not tense. And words slid from my mouth, from gggghhh — from me at a fluid pace instead of sssss-stuck on my tongue like a g-ghh — like a train wreck.”
Patterson didn’t have much success convincing the chairpersons that day that the medical use of marijuana was turning her health around and helping her family. She eventually moved to California along with her four children. She now advocates for marijuana as a treatment for people with cerebral palsy and other disorders.
There’s very little clinical research published on medical marijuana and stuttering, but numerous physicians in several states advocate its use as an effective treatment option for speech problems.
Talk to your child’s medical team before trying any marijuana-based medicine. There might be good reasons your child shouldn’t have it.
Lifelong Financial Assistance for Your Child’s Birth Injury Cerebral Palsy
- Survey Results of Pain Treatments in Adults with Cerebral Palsy. (2011, March). PubMed Central (PMC). National Institutes of Health.
Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3036542/
- Mortati K , et al. (2007). Marijuana: an effective antiepileptic treatment in partial epilepsy? A case report and review of the literature. – PubMed – NCBI. National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17609644
- Syed YY , et al. (n.d.). Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol/cannabidiol (Sativex®): a review of its use in patients with moderate to severe spasticity due to multiple sclerosis. – PubMed – NCBI. National Center for Biotechnology Information.
Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24671907
- By Saundra Young. (2013, August 7). Marijuana stops child’s severe seizures. CNN.
Retrieved from: https://www.cnn.com/2013/08/07/health/charlotte-child-medical-marijuana/
- David Casarett’s Stoned: A Doctor’s Case for Medical Marijuana. (2016, March). PubMed Central (PMC).
Retrieved from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4938260/
- Millitzer, J. (2013, December 9). Watch This: Smoking Medical Marijuana Transforms Woman with Cerebral Palsy. Fox 2.
Retrieved from: https://fox2now.com/news/watch-this-smoking-medical-marijuana-transforms-woman-with-cerebal-palsy/
Page Medically Reviewed and Edited by Gina Jansheski, M.D.
Gina Jansheski, M.D. is a Board Certified Pediatrician and a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She has been a practicing pediatrician for over 20 years, working primarily with hospitalized patients and children with special needs.
It’s Legal. Will It Help?
opens in a new window While the country still battles state-by-state on whether to legalize marijuana, a recent change in federal law has opened the floodgates on sales of products featuring cannabidiol, one of the non-psychoactive components of marijuana, or cannabis. With legalization came immense popularity, and now it seems CBD is for sale everywhere and in everything. From CBD bath bombs to edible gummies and oils, it is for sale in gas stations, natural food stores and kiosks in the mall. So what is CBD? Is it safe? And can it help people with spinal cord injury?
What Exactly is CBD?
The ways that CBD differs from marijuana can be hard to understand. Starting with a lesson in plant biology is helpful to define the differences and similarities between the two. Cannabis is the genus of the flowering plants that breaks down into three species: cannabis sativa, cannabis indica and cannabis ruderalis. The word hemp is used to describe a strain of one of these plants that has less than 0.3% tetrahydrocannabinol or THC — the ingredient in the cannabis plant that causes a psychoactive reaction or high. “Marijuana” is commonly used to label the plants that contain more THC, though the industry is taking a stand against the term “marijuana” to rebrand these products as part of the wellness industry.
CBD can be sourced from plants containing small or large amounts of THC. Cannabidiol is just one of many phytocannabinoids (naturally-occurring cannabinoids) found in cannabis. Others are CBC (cannabichromene), currently being studied as a cancer tumor inhibitor and stimulator of bone growth, and CBG (cannabigerol), which treats fungal infections and kills bacteria. Laws regarding growing and processing of hemp were murky until recently. With the passage of the Hemp Farming Act of 2018, hemp was removed from the federal listing of schedule 1 drugs, which had placed it in the same category as heroin. Now, farmers can legally produce this crop in the U.S.
With a legal product easily available across the country, people with disabilities have begun to explore relief in many forms. For spinal cord injury specifically, many claim CBD helps with stress and anxiety, inflammation, neuropathy, chronic pain, spasticity and sleeplessness — all without the high from the THC.
A Restful Night
Bert Burns, C6-7 quad, has always been an athlete, and after 37 years of wear and tear he turns to CBD to help calm his tired body. Burns’ first job post-injury was as a sports and fitness specialist for Shepherd Center in Atlanta, which made wheelchair sports available on a constant basis. Burns got hooked on racing and trained his way to becoming a Paralympian. He earned a gold medal in the 4×400 relay at the 1992 Paralympics in Barcelona and went on to be a part of the 2000 Paralympics, winning medals in the marathon and 5,000 meters, and the 2004 Paralympics in Athens. That was his 87th — and last — marathon.
In addition to his career as a wheelchair racer, Burns made time for wheelchair rugby. He loves the game’s intensity, but not the physical degradation that came with it. “There’s cutting, turning and holding people and that puts a lot of pressure on your shoulders,” he says. “Plus, 37 years of using your shoulders instead of your legs and knees takes a toll.”
Currently, Burns doesn’t have everyday pain that he treats with CBD but uses the oil every night to assist in a good night’s sleep. “Even though I take medication for muscle spasms, I’d wake up literally every two hours. I never really got a good night’s sleep because my legs had spasms. I’d take it and within 15 minutes, I would be out and sleep great all night long. The next morning I wouldn’t wake up groggy at all.” In fact, with the CBD, Burns doesn’t seem to have any side effects — just the benefit of quality rest.
Another value of CBD for Burns is the ability to take less medication. Taking muscle relaxers made him foggy in the morning, hampering his ability to enjoy his life as a father of twins and a successful businessman in the medical supply industry.
Dosages have been trial and error. He’s been taking CBD for around seven months, using a tincture of oil and CBD first. The next time, he ordered gummies from the same manufacturer and didn’t get the right reaction, “It was hard to judge the number of gummies to take. Two didn’t work and three made me feel less clear. I didn’t feel the consistency was there.”
Helping Many Symptoms
With a fairly recent T7 injury, Amanda Oliver has been struggling to get back to living the life she wants and has found CBD to be helpful in a variety of ways. The biggest effect of CBD for Oliver has been reducing muscle spasms. She takes four doses of baclofen every day, staggered every six hours. “When my PCA comes in the morning to help me get up, it’s impossible,” she says. “Every time they touch my leg or it brushes across the blanket, it starts kicking everywhere with spasms. The baclofen was the only thing that kept that in check until the gummies.”
Taking the gummies makes a remarkable difference, “Even if I sleep through two doses, I wake up and I’m still spasm free, which is insane.”
On top of helping with spasms, a little CBD has been invaluable for her anxiety. “I do feel really relaxed. My brain wanders a lot and I overthink everything, and [with CBD] these thoughts calm down a little bit.”
Like Burns, after a long day in her wheelchair, Oliver counts on CBD to make sleeping easier. A few gummy cubes taken a couple of hours before bed relieves tension so she can get quality rest. “All my muscles seem to be letting go,” she says.
Other than the hassle of having to go to a dispensary to replenish her CBD supply, Oliver’s only complaint is that CBD’s high cost makes her hesitate to try other brands or delivery methods. “I don’t want to invest in other products because of the risk of it not working.” Like Burns, she hasn’t noticed any side effects to the supplement, only the benefits.
As a physiatrist in Washington state, Dr. Gregory T. Carter is no stranger to people with spinal cord injury using CBD and cannabis products. “The vast majority of my patients with SCI are using some form of cannabis,” he says. “There is still much we need to learn about cannabidiol. However, there is good animal model evidence that the cannabinoids work, at least partially, through some of the same pathways as baclofen.”
Despite the small amount of scientific research available, Carter recommends cannabis products for people with spinal cord injuries. “Cannabinoids work and they are very safe, plus there are many other potential benefits,” he says. “Cannabinoids have immunomodulatory and neuroinflammatory properties, which contribute to the anti-spasticity and pain-reducing properties of cannabinoids.”
Carter doesn’t have enough scientific evidence to conclusively say that CBD works as well as the entire plant, including THC. Many experts suggest that a full-spectrum product using all the cannabinoids would be best to get the most value. His suggested dosage is based on studies, saying, “the available data would indicate that most people can get a beneficial antispasmodic and analgesic effect by using average daily doses of under 5 mg per day, although some may require a larger amount to obtain relief.”
As far as how to ingest, Carter suggests vaporization for fast effect, and oral routes — like sublingual tinctures and edibles — for chronic dosing.
Is There a Downside?
While Oliver and Burt claim to have experienced minimal to no detrimental side effects, doctors and researchers are doing their best to provide more definitive answers. In a study published in 2017, researchers at the National Center for Biotechnology Information, a division of the United States National Library of Medicine, assimilated literature from clinical studies on the safety of CBD and published the overall results. They found a positive result for CBD use with the most frequently reported physical side effects being diarrhea, tiredness and a change in appetite or weight. Also, none of the studies seemed to indicate that a higher dose of CBD was required after time to achieve the same positive result.
Altogether, the studies found that consistently taking CBD, even in high doses of 1,500 mg per day, is tolerated well by humans. Some studies did report a reaction with hepatic drugs — medicines that are processed by the liver. CBD blocks an important enzyme that allows more of a medicine into the system than normal. Doctors don’t know all the drug interactions that are possible with CBD, but a few that have been suggested range from anti-anxiety medication, prescription blood thinners and even Advil. This is similar to grapefruit, which interacts with prescription medications through the same process as CBD. It is important to talk to a physician to establish that CBD is safe to combine with any medications that are being taken.
Carter is among the many professionals and people with SCI/D who are excited to see what more in-depth research finds. “I think the whole area of cannabinoids for use in chronic neurodegeneration, including spinal cord injuries, both traumatic and acquired, is wide open for further research and exploration and holds tremendous potential.” | <urn:uuid:a0d959af-964f-4fd5-8ff7-0f3685d3ed41> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://sourcecbdremedy.com/cbd-oil-for-pain-in-paralized-limb/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571989.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813232744-20220814022744-00466.warc.gz | en | 0.959008 | 4,314 | 2.609375 | 3 |
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Using modern, fast, MCMC methods to cluster a dataset. Data are modelled as clusters of multivariate Gaussians. Each cluster can have a different covariance matrix.
Selecting the number of clusters, and covariance model, is a challenge. Often, the BIC is used as an approximation to the Bayes Factor. With MCMC, we can compute the Bayes Factor more accurately.
This methods leads to improved performance in the case of datasets with a large number of small clusters. | <urn:uuid:629d5c66-ccf3-4625-a412-919c9601e73b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://fr.slideshare.net/aaronmcdaid/mc-daid-oct30mcmc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00222-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.877917 | 115 | 2.09375 | 2 |
HIPAA gets tougher on physicians
■ New privacy regulations mean practices face more legal scrutiny and higher fines in case of an information breach.
Washington A revised set of federal privacy rules is expected to have a significant impact on the way physicians run their practices.
Revised privacy notices will need to be displayed in prominent areas of doctors' offices and on practices' websites. Patients will be able to ask for copies of their electronic health records or restrict the information given to health plans if they self-pay for services. And perhaps most important, practices might be subject to serious fines if any of their business associates cause security breaches.
On Jan. 17, the Dept. of Health and Human Services issued a final omnibus rule to strengthen the patient privacy protections established by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. The rules not only expand the individual rights of patients but also tighten federal breach notification requirements under the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act of 2009. The result is that physician practices potentially face more legal scrutiny by the federal government as well as new administrative burdens, said Robert Tennant, senior policy adviser with MGMA-ACMPE, the medical practice management association.
Under the new privacy rules, doctors now must assume the worst-case scenario in the event of a possible privacy breach. Previous regulations had required a practice to notify affected patients and the federal government only if it determined that a breach involving patient records had occurred and that it carried a significant risk of financial or reputational harm to patients. This raised concerns from privacy advocates that practices shouldn't have the discretion to determine these matters.
The new rules eliminate that standard and replace it with a stricter one. Now any incident involving patient records is assumed to be a breach, and unless a practice conducts a risk assessment that proves a low probability that any protected information was compromised, the breach must be reported. Tennant said the new standard will result in many more official reports of breaches, as well as additional work and costs to physician practices.
A closer look at business associates
HIPAA typically has focused on health care professionals, health plans and other entities that process health insurance claims. But because some of the largest security breaches have involved business associates of plans, doctors and other professionals, HHS said it was extending many of the law's requirements to these entities, as well as their subcontractors.
For physicians, a business associate may be any firm that handles patient data, such as a storage provider, a shredding company or a benchmarking firm that measures physician performance. With contractors becoming as fully liable as everyone else affected by HIPAA, physicians' offices are going to take on additional legal responsibilities as well, Tennant said. For example, if someone paid to shred patient files instead throws the documents into a trash bin and causes a breach, the practice also is subject to enforcement violations caused by that business associate, he said.
“To make matters even more challenging, there are significant potential fines associated with these violations, upwards of $1 million-plus for particularly egregious cases,” Tennant said.
The days of getting a slap on the wrist for a privacy breach are over, he added. “There's now the potential that the government will be more aggressive in enforcing this.”
Deborah C. Peel, MD, chair of advocacy group Patient Privacy Rights, however, said past fines had been too low and that raising them would help strengthen needed patient protections. The new $1.5 million maximum fine per calendar year for violations is still too low for many corporations, “but it's better than $25,000 a year,” Dr. Peel said.
There may be some relationships with business associates where the increased risk for liability won't apply, said Patricia Wagner, an attorney at Washington law firm Epstein, Becker & Green PC, who specializes in privacy issues. An example of this is an accreditation agency, which “can't be an agent of the entity they're surveying because they're supposed to be independent.” Still, doctors will need to spend a lot of time examining all of the contracts they have with various business associates to see if any need restructuring to reduce their own liability risk, she said.
Practices with limited time to tackle this could prioritize the relationships they're most worried about, Wagner said. These may be the ones that handle the most patient health information or the firms the practice isn't as familiar with.
Although the rules specify Sept. 23 as the compliance date for the new regulations, health care professionals have an extra year to revise existing business associate agreements to become compliant.
Notices of privacy need revising
Physicians will need to revise their notices of privacy practices to explain their relationships with business associates and their new status under the final rule. They also will need to explain the breach notification process, Tennant said. There are new stipulations on where these revised notices must be placed in physicians' offices.
“You have to put it in a prominent area and make it available for patients if they wish to review or keep a copy,” or on the practice's website, he said. While it doesn't need to be reissued to current patients, the revised notices must be given to all new patients.
This actually offers a good opportunity for a practice to review its notice for any needed updates, Tennant said. Many practices haven't revised these documents since HIPAA's original privacy regulations came out in 2003. “They may have changed to an electronic health record, or have contracts with health information exchange organizations. They may be involved in an accountable care organization.”
MGMA-ACMPE has asked that practices receive more time beyond September to meet all of the new requirements.
Other stakeholders said additional clarification is needed on language relating to patient requests. Patients, for example, can ask physicians' offices to transmit their health information to third parties, such as family members, but such requests must be in writing, said Shari Erickson, vice president of governmental and regulatory affairs with the American College of Physicians. This creates an obligation on the part of the physicians' offices to collect information on all of these types of third-party requests. The penalty for noncompliance remains unclear.
It's also not clear which vendors will support the provision that patients can have electronic access to their medical records, Erickson said. She suggested that practices follow up with vendors directly.
While they include important data security protections, the rules in other areas don't necessarily guarantee that certain new requirements will be followed, Dr. Peel said. She cited the provision that patients can restrict health data given to plans if they pay out of pocket for drugs or services. “HHS did not require segmentation technologies so that [patient health information] can be protected and selectively shared. Instead, the information should be 'flagged' so only the 'minimum necessary' information is disclosed,” she said.
The success of the rules is going to depend on whether contracts between covered entities are enforced, Dr. Peel said. “Contracts do not enforce themselves any more than laws do. Therefore, most enforcement of the rule depends on inside whistle-blowers.” | <urn:uuid:ea3fd39e-0ca8-48e7-b278-76ff5518ab27> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.amednews.com/article/20130204/government/130209968/1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283301.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00501-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957695 | 1,469 | 1.710938 | 2 |
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