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The Dance and Media concentration provides theoretical and practical experience for students who wish to record, document, present, and/or manipulate images related to the body, dance and movement.
Dance and Media students work in artistic, scholarly, archival and arts admin-istration/marketing contexts. Through a variety of experiences inside and outside the classroom, they are taught to think critically about the conception and production of audio and visual media for use in live, recorded, and web-based applications. Dance & Media students have participated in internships at NYC performing arts spaces, print and online publications, recording studios and events/marketing companies. At MMC, Dance & Media students have worked as photographers, videographers, writers, sound designers, programmers, performers, graphic designers and digital media artists, often using sophisticated technology and software packages.
A variety of sub-concentrations permit the exploration of specialized interests in the Dance and Media field: video production, audio production, digital imaging and web-based media, photography, and graphic design.
REQUIREMENTS FOR DANCE & MEDIA CONCENTRATION
|COMM 109 Sense and Medium||3|
|DANC 351 Dance Composition I||3|
|DANC 370 Movement, Media, Theory||3|
|DANC/ COMM 216 Digital Sound Workshop||3|
|Choose one of the Following||3|
|DANC 291 Music for Dance|
|Art 116 Color & Design|
|Special Focus Courses|
|Two sequential courses from any one of these areas:||6|
c. Digital Imaging & Web-based Media
d. Audio Design & Production***
e. Graphic Design
|***upon completion of COMM 216 Digital Sound Design, this sub-concentration may be met with any two of these courses| | <urn:uuid:375d1c5c-7e58-4bc4-8004-14c8617beafe> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://mmm.edu/departments/dance/dance-media.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280065.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00541-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.850246 | 373 | 1.609375 | 2 |
⌚ June 11, 2012
Ejecter is a small, free, open source program that makes it easy to eject USB media devices from the computer. When a USB or other external device is connected, an icon appears in the panel. (The exact icon depends upon the installed icon theme.)
Clicking the panel shows a list of devices. To eject a device, simply click the device’s eject icon icon, and the device is unmounted.
Ejecter is available in the Ubuntu repository and can be installed from the Ubuntu Software Center. | <urn:uuid:524dd824-41bf-4ce2-9bc3-11db90ea4a61> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://delightlylinux.wordpress.com/2012/06/11/ejecter-a-convenient-way-to-remove-usb-devices/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281162.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00536-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.868483 | 115 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Downtown Tel Aviv on a Friday evening. The restaurants and bars are packed, the streets thick with people. Cars are circling the city looking for somewhere, anywhere, to park. For those used to the orderly parking of American cities or in Western Europe, Israeli car-parks are an eye-opener; a study in creative chaos. Sidewalks are rammed with vehicles. Pairs of cars wedged into single spaces. Wheels on kerbs, everywhere you look.
According to Gilad Japhet, Founder and CEO of MyHeritage – with 75m registered users, the most popular family network on the Internet – they also serve as the best way to explain the sheer density of startups in the country. “There is something in the Israeli character best defined by the term ‘chutzpah’,” he says, speaking at his office in Or Yehuda, near Tel Aviv.
“Chutzpah in Hebrew and Yiddish is that feeling that I can do something, even if you tell me that I can’t. Israelis are very creative problem-solvers, and the best way to look at it is in an average parking-lot. Go to a parking-lot in the U.S. and see how the cars are parked. They are all same distance from the dividing line and their tyres are usually straight. Then visit an Israeli parking-lot. It’s a big mess. Everyone improvises, people will go into spaces diagonally, and over the sidewalk and into patches of mud.
“Israelis just improvise and break the rules, and breaking the rules means you don’t follow protocol. If the standards and norms are blocking your growth you invent new ones. Chutzpah, I think, really characterises Israeli entrepreneurs. They never take ‘no’ for an answer. If something seems impossible, they just find a loophole and solve it that way.”
The highest density
Whatever the theory (and there are a bunch of them) behind Israel’s astonishing success at tech startups and high-tech more generally, 2013 was a standout year, with highlights including Google’s $1bn acquisition of mapping service Waze, website builder Wix’s IPO and Moovit raising $28m, in a round led by Sequoia, to revolutionise the way we use public transport.
A tiny country with a population of just 7.9m, Israel -- which has more companies listed on the NASDAQ than Europe, Japan, Korea, India and China combined -- was ranked in 14th place (out of 142 countries) by Cornell University’s Global Innovation Index 2013, and in second spot, behind Silicon Valley, as a startup ecosystem. Meanwhile, Tel Aviv was ranked #2 in the world for startups by Startup Genome, with the city believed to have the highest density of such companies anywhere in the world.
In his acclaimed 2009 book Start-up Nation, Saul Singer, (and co-author Dan Senor), pinpointed a number of key factors behind Israel’s startup phenomenon, including the lack of hierarchy and emphasis on problem-solving in Israel’s (conscription) military and the ‘nothing to lose’ immigrant mind-set of many of its population.
Sitting at the dining-room table in his Jerusalem apartment, Singer reflects on the five years since his book’s publication and says the underlying reasons for Israel’s unmatched success at innovation hold equally true today. There’s no evidence that Israel is any better at generating great ideas than anywhere else, he argues, but what there seems to be “a bit more of” are the added extras which transform ideas into innovation and, ultimately, businesses.
Echoing Japhet’s analysis, Singer says the first of these are copious amounts of drive and determination. “We talk about chutzpah, audacity and a whole basket of things which lead Israelis to be very driven, not to give up and take on very large problems,” he says. “The other thing is a willingness to take risks.
“If you don’t have those two extra ingredients to add to ideas, then they won’t turn into startups and innovation. So really what the book ends up being about is ‘Where did Israel get a bit more of those two things?’ From there, we talk about how the whole country is a startup and how it took a lot of drive and determination, and willingness to take risks, for it to come into existence.”
21st century skills
The second major factor that is still true today is the military, says Singer. Not so much as a source of technology or even of immersive technological training, though both of those are significant, but rather for the way military service imbues young Israelis with what has come to be known in the education world as ‘21st century skills’, he explains.
“People are realising there’s a huge mismatch between education and work. Schools aren’t really producing people with the skills that companies are looking for. So what are companies looking for? It turns out they want things like leadership, teamwork, strategic thinking, decision-making, emotional intelligence and all these things we don’t teach in school.
“But Israelis ended up picking this stuff up in the army. Not all those things, but particularly those things around leadership, teamwork and sacrifice. I think sacrifice is actually an important value for startups and entrepreneurship, because there’s usually an easier way to make a living than to do something as difficult and risky as starting your own business.”
But the single most important skill learned during national service is ‘mission orientation’, continues Singer. “The main thing the military tries to teach you is what a mission is. How do you balance the need for success with the need to take risks? This turns out to be absolutely critical for startups.”
The final and oft-quoted ‘X factor’ is that Israel is a country of immigrants, who by definition were driven enough to move from one place to another, taking risks to life and limb along the way. Japhet points to his grandparents on both sides of his family, who emigrated from Europe to Israel before the Holocaust.
“I’ve been bred by these four grandparents and a lot of Israelis living today have a similar background to them,” he says. “Israel is the startup nation because its founders were risk-takers which is exactly the characteristic of entrepreneurs.”
In his office at IDC Herzliya -- Israel’s first and only private university, which was established in 1995 and based on the American Ivy League model – Shimon Shocken is rattling through the instantly recognisable logos on his screen. They include those of Google, Microsoft, eBay, Intel, Apple, Cisco, AOL, CA, Facebook and Salesforce.
Anyone passing by his door would be forgiven for thinking that the founding dean of IDC’s Efi Arazi School of Computer Science was proudly listing the tech giants now employing his former students, but Schocken is making a quite different point. “We’re very proud that every one of these famous companies acquired a company that was started up by our students or faculty members,” he announces, with a disarming smile. “Actually, Google bought two of them.”
Schocken, who resigned a tenured position at a leading American university and returned to Israel twenty years ago to help found IDC, is well-positioned to discuss the scale of entrepreneurial activity in Israel – and compare attitudes among Israeli students with those in the U.S.
“There are many explanations [for Israel’s success], but one of them is simply momentum,” he shrugs. “I taught in several universities in America, very fancy places like Harvard and Stanford and so on. Stanford is unique in terms of its entrepreneurial DNA. But at Harvard, for example, when you ask a student what they want to do when they grow up, they invariably tell you something like ‘I want to be a Senator’ or ‘I want to be a CEO’ or ‘I want to go into investment banking’.
“Very few students will tell you ‘I want to start up my own company’,” he says. “It’s not something which is expected, whereas in Israel it somehow became almost the normal thing to do. The Jewish mother who wanted her son to become a doctor or a lawyer, now wants him to become an entrepreneur.”
Schocken also identifies Israeli students’ willingness to talk back and question their professors as reflecting a ‘disruptive’ attitude to authority, typical in entrepreneurs. When he taught in the U.S., he says students would ask questions and then dutifully write down his answers. In Israel, he’s grown used to a quite different reaction.
“I’ll teach something which is a very established result in mathematics or computer science and when I write it on the board, some schmuck raises his hand and says ‘But this cannot be true!’. At the beginning, I was shocked and didn’t know how to react.
“So there’s this mentality, which sounds like disrespect, but I don’t think it’s disrespect, which I see as more like extreme scepticism. They don’t take things for granted, which we think is very good here, because that is one of the secrets of entrepreneurship.”
Schocken also cites the close synergy between the IDF and the startup community as a key influence in shaping Israel’s startup scene, particularly in the area of cyber security. “There are intelligence units in the army, especially Unit 8200, which have superb R&D centres and recruit the best and brightest high schools students,” he explains.
“They have their own ways to identify the best recruits. So many youngsters in high schools are trying very hard to get into these units, as these are the best places to acquire critical experience in systems development, because they are working on some of the most interesting problems you can think of in security and artificial intelligence, image processing and so on.”
There’s another way the military helps feed Israel’s startup ecosystem.
Tree-lined Rothschild Boulevard is one of Tel Aviv’s most beautiful streets and home to myriad tech firms including The Gifts Project, a social e-commerce platform for group gifting which was acquired by eBay in 2011. Founder Ron Gura, who now runs eBay’s Innovation Center from the same location, says much has been written about the influence of the IDF, particularly in the area of cyber security and fraud, but one of the most pertinent aspects is frequently overlooked.
“My personal two cents worth is something that I see in our team [at eBay Innovation], 80% of whom originate from the same unit in the army,” he says. “For me, that’s where the advantage kicks in. Let’s say you hire a 21-year-old and he was in the best possible unit in the best army in the world. At that stage, he has just three years grown-up experience, even if he was coding before that. That makes him worth something to a company. But what if I were to tell you that this guy worked back-to-back, in the same room, with two other guys in your company, your dev lead and your product manager, for three years? That becomes the holy grail!
“Getting a self-contained team that you can just deploy as is -- it already has the hierarchy, the self-esteem, the awareness of each other, the trust, the knowhow of how to cooperate with one another, all learned from working back-to-back for three years in a team – that’s the key. Especially when you think the alternative to this group is probably hiring five or six different people, all strangers, and just telling them to collaborate, when they probably won’t even get along.”
Yet for all the plaudits and acclaim, Gura sees a flipside in Israel’s startup density and wants to voice his concerns. There are hidden dangers, he says, in the glittering success, such as the way the ecosystem feeds off itself, breeding exit-focused entrepreneurs and an M&A culture. “The fact that there’s more VC money in Israel, second only to the Valley, not just per capita, but in absolute numbers -- that alone explains why you see so many startups, here, because there’s demand on both sides,” he says.
“I’d argue that that’s not necessarily a good thing. We have so many people opening businesses, that maybe we’ve crossed a line and now there are too many. Exits, in themselves, should never be the goal, and in my short experience, I don’t know anyone yet who had a successful exit when that was their goal in the first place.”
Miracle on the Med
Nevertheless, Israel’s high tech ‘miracle on the Med’ remains the envy of technology hubs and governments across the world. The Wall Street Journal reported that, according to IVC Research, acquisitions and IPOs of Israeli companies totalled $6.6bn in 2013, with startups raising $2.3bn in venture funding – a ten year high. Start-up Nation author Saul Singer predicts the country’s success surge has yet to peak.
“The people I’m talking to think 2014 is going to be even bigger than last year,” he says. “There are going to be more IPOs -- the Wix IPO broke the ice, I think -- and more M&As, and the ecosystem here is doing well generally. What you’re seeing is it’s getting more mature in the sense that the exits and the companies are getting bigger, because the entrepreneurs are more experienced. They’ve already done a few startups and then they get to the point where they have to decide ‘Do I want to take this one all the way to being a big company?’”
There continues to be a debate in Israel, says Singer, over why the country has so far failed to create tech giants with global reach on a par with Facebook and Google. “The implication of that is that startups are not that significant, only big global companies are,” he says. “I kind of differ with that perspective.
“Yes it would be great if we could produce a Facebook or a Google, but I don’t think that should be necessarily our measure of success, because our comparative advantage is startups and what we’re seeing around the world is that that’s not such an easy thing to do. Startups are something everyone is trying to figure out now, and the fact that we’re good at it, is something we should be building on and not complaining about.”
He adds: “If we’re going to produce a Facebook or a Google, it’s going to come from a startup. The most important thing for us as an ecosystem is to raise the quality and quantity of our startups and, then, the rest will certainly follow.” | <urn:uuid:0838d211-e948-4ed6-8379-866e7da2c9fd> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://docstalk.blogspot.com/2014/06/cop-israels-startup-velocity.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279489.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00008-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968008 | 3,265 | 1.726563 | 2 |
The garden at Ardtornish has been sculpted out of a rocky hillside from every part of which there are extensive views south west along Loch Aline to the northern hills of the Isle of
The soil is shallow, stoney, acid, and wet or boggy in many places. Rainfall averages 85 inches (2150mm) and gales occur frequently.
Despite these apparent drawbacks, many fine plants thrive here, plants which can be difficult in drier regions. To the front of Ardtornish House is a fine verandah, adjoining a mixed border and formal lawn which had more Cotula (an unusual weed from New Zealand) and moss than grass until a fairly recent re-sowing improved this.
Eucryphia x nymansensis
"The Ardtornish Garden" by Faith Raven includes a short history of the Garden, with photographs of the people who have owned it and of the people who have worked in it and of the plants they grew. It describes the changing colours of the seasons in the Garden and how the work of the gardener has to fit in with the difficulties of the climate. Take a tour of the Garden using the detailed maps and see some of the best view points and the most interesting plantings. 105pp
£10 plus £2.60 postage and packing.
Phone:01967 421288 and ask for Alan.
Email: The Ardtornish Garden
Write: Ardtornish Estate, Morvern, Oban, Argyll PA80 5UZ | <urn:uuid:e8403715-9ce1-4464-b8b0-bf6430561069> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://ardtornishgardens.co.uk/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00546-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949319 | 318 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Most Israelis are discharged from regular army duty and then go to see the world. They go to India. They trek through Nepal. They escape to Thailand. In fact, there are so many Israelis in parts of those countries, street signs, store and hotel markers are in Hebrew. One shopkeeper in India was shocked to find out there were only about six and a half million Israelis. He thought that since his town was constantly overrun with men and women from the Jewish state, there must be hundreds of millions of them. Other young Israelis go to South America for months at a time, hiking through the Andes. Many go to both Asia and South America. When they return to Israel, they may register in one of Israel’s nine universities, many of which are world renowned, including Tel Aviv University, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, the Technion in Haifa, and, of course, Jerusalem’s Hebrew University. Others might go to one of several dozen colleges in Israel.
But because Talpiot cadets serve at least nine years in the military, they immediately begin studying for their academic degrees at the age of eighteen, when they enlist. When they finish their coursework at Hebrew University, they have their bachelor’s degree in mathematics, physics and/or computer science. This advantage gives them peace of mind, knowing that they won’t have to start their studies after they’re out of the military.
When the army is paying for you to study, however, you don’t have the luxury of falling behind. In Talpiot, if you do drop back, you’ll get kicked out.
Speed has always been an important part of the program. Because Talpiot students get fewer weeks to study than their university counterparts, the academic program moves faster. One reason for that is simply because the cadets are in the army and they have other things to do. Another reason is that the army is intentionally training the cadets in how to think faster.
There is no magic to making a student learn faster. The way it is done is to emphasize group learning. The thinking is that if you’re with other cadets in a military-like setting twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, you bond. When part of the group moves faster, the rest of the group will keep the pace.
The speed of the coursework is much quicker than at a regular university. The cadets train and learn as a class. Academic competition is not part of the program and there is no cheating in Talpiot. Many of the professors allow students to share work, as they encourage cadets to help one another. The thinking is that each cadet brings different kinds of strengths from different backgrounds, integration is greatly encouraged. That emphasis on teamwork helps create high levels and higher speeds for development and for learning the course materials.
But sometimes that speed can be a problem and the 25 percent dropout rate attests to the challenge. Even some of the top Talpiot recruits who went on to become some of the most successful Israelis of all time have complained Talpiot’s coursework moves too fast.
Marius Nacht is a co-founder of Israel-based Check Point Software Technologies. Their Internet protection software defends almost all of the companies in the Fortune 500 from web-based attacks. Nacht is a graduate of the second class of Talpiot. He was born in Romania while his parents waited anxiously for the Romanian government to grant their family exit visas. In the 1960s, Romania held its Jewish citizens hostage. If they wanted to leave, the Jewish Federation of North America had to cough up a $5,000 ransom for every exit visa. His parents had started the immigration process a decade before the paperwork finally came through.
Nacht was three years old at the time, and does not recall his first days in Israel. But he does remember growing up in a rough, industrialized part of the coastal town of Ashkelon. He says his family’s situation gradually improved to the point where they were eking out a middle-class existence. Back then, standardized testing wasn’t exactly part of the norm, so Nacht’s family didn’t realize Marius had a special academic gift – and neither did Marius.
His father insisted that he attend a vocational high school, a place where he could learn a trade. Marius attended ORT, one of many programs funded by the global Jewish community. He says, “I wasn’t interested in it. I was doing what he told me to do. We studied many things, including electronics.”
In 1980 an army recruiter came around looking for the brightest students. It was rare for the army to look beyond the established high schools in the major population centers of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa. And it was even rarer, in those early days, for the Talpiot program to recruit someone from outside of those areas. But from Marius’s class, two students were selected for Talpiot testing. | <urn:uuid:f54757f4-03e1-4b0b-93ef-1b6344aaec8d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.beliefnet.com/faiths/judaism/articles/the-worlds-fastest-learning-curve.aspx | 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 | 0.974518 | 1,052 | 1.875 | 2 |
Dear Gramps,There are people in the church who would suggest that eating meat is something the Lord prefers we as Latter Day Saints not do. My question is: why is it that we serve meat dishes in the temples everyday, why does every ward social include meat in one form or another, why does the church own one of the largest cattle farms in the world, why does the church includes meat as part of their welfare food deliveries? I have come to see that the word sparingly as found in the 89th section of the D&C, is open to much interpretation among church members. Will there ever come a time when the church will officially declare that sparingly means almost none at all?
Myra, from Florida
Nope. I doubt very much that the Church will ever put a quantitative definition on the word “sparingly.”
Now, apparently you are asking why organizations within the Church serve meat when there are people in the Church who suggest that the Lord prefers that we become vegetarians. I’m sure that you can find people in the Church who would suggest all sorts of foolish notions. But our Church does not get its doctrines nor its practices from the suggestions of its members, but rather from those who preside with the keys of priesthood authority.
Perhaps we could examine the Word of Wisdom and other scriptures with respect to eating meat. In doing so, it will be easy to understand why there is such variant opinions on the eating of meat. In D&C 89:12 we read that the flesh of beasts and fowls are for the use of man, but “nevertheless they are to be used sparingly.” We learn from verses 14 and 15 that wild animals should be consumed for food only in times of famine and excess of hunger. From this we can assume that the term “sparingly” would not mean so infrequently as only in times of famine or excess of hunger, and also that the word “beasts” refers to domesticated animals.
Now we have the controversial verse 13, which reads “And it is pleasing unto me that they [the flesh of beasts and fowls] should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.”
In light of that scripture, what do we do with D&C 49:19, which reads—
For, behold, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which cometh of the earth, is ordained for the use of man for food and for raiment, and that he might have in abundance.
Here is an apparent controversy, where one scripture says that the flesh of beasts and fowls are made available that we might have an abundance and the other that they are only to be used in times of winter, cold or famine.
Let’s see if we can shed some light on this apparent controversy. In the first place, when the Word of Wisdom was given there were many food fads being promoted, among them, the abstinence from eating meat. D&C 89:13 was given in part to refute that practice, but when it was given by the Prophet, and published in the early editions of the Doctrine and Covenants, the comma after the word “used” was not there. In fact, that comma was added when the Doctrine and Covenants was first divided into columns in 1920.
Now, if you remove the questionable comma, the sense of that statement is as follows—
And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine,
[but at other times as well.] That verse is now in perfect accord with D&C 49:19.
So, it appears that it is alright to serve meat in the temples and at Ward socials and for the Church to raise cattle to help feed the poor and to have meat available in the Church Welfare Program. Enjoy! | <urn:uuid:cf210b5f-d5a7-41fe-9a5d-c7e88a0cc4ed> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://askgramps.org/if-according-to-dc-89-we-are-to-eat-meat-sparingly-why/ | 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 | 0.978719 | 821 | 1.8125 | 2 |
UNITED NATIONS – Too often only half of the money from donors is getting to the millions of people devastated by conflicts and natural disasters who desperately need humanitarian aid, the co-chair of a U.N.-appointed panel said Wednesday.
Kristalina Georgieva, the European Commission's vice president for budget and human resources, said the nine-member panel trying to find new financing to help the rapidly growing number of people needing humanitarian aid is urging donors and aid organizations to work more closely to drive down costs.
"Humanitarian money is like gold" because it saves lives, she told a briefing on the panel's report. "But our goals very often are very low karat — a 9 karat gold — because we take a dollar or a pound or a yen or a ruble, and by the time it gets to the recipient it shrinks to only half of what it is worth."
Georgieva said this is because of transaction costs, administration and "because of us creating bureaucracy."
The report said the world is spending around $25 billion to help 125 million people today — more than 12 times the $2 billion spent in 2000 — but there is still a $15 billion annual funding gap. It warned that if the current trend continues, the cost of humanitarian assistance will rise to $50 billion by 2030.
The report focuses on three solutions: mobilizing more funds, shrinking the need for aid by preventing and resolving conflicts, and improving the efficiency of assistance.
"There are plenty of examples where 90, even 95 cents on the dollar get into the hands of people in need," Georgieva told several journalists after the briefing, and these should be emulated as best practices.
In addition, she said, "the most impressive development we have seen" is giving aid recipients cash instead of providing them with food, shelter and medicine which may undermine local farmers and kill the local economy. But she said cash "is still a very small fraction of humanitarian assistance" and urged much greater use.
Georgieva also asked "how come today only 0.2 percent of funding we provide goes direct to local organizations when we know that ... they are the first line of defense when something tragic happens?"
The panel called for an end to competition between aid organizations and between humanitarian and development agencies, which Georgieva called "competitive inefficiency."
"We want to see it moving to be collaborative efficiency," she said. | <urn:uuid:0c1afecf-5ff8-433b-add5-3d4b551671c5> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/02/03/un-panel-too-often-only-half-aid-money-get-to-needy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280364.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00035-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962968 | 496 | 2.1875 | 2 |
From: Obama Campaign Headquarters
To: Bob Kerrey, Ann Coulter
Re: Presidential middle names
It has come to our attention that you are tickled by Barack Obama's middle name. We fail to see how "Hussein" is any funnier than "Sidney"—John McCain's middle name—so we decided to explore the issue further. Our examination of the middle names of past presidents and current candidates revealed the following:
Hillary Clinton's middle name at birth was "Diane" not "Rodham." Why the cover up?
Thomas Woodrow Wilson, John Calvin Coolidge, and Stephen Grover Cleveland all jettisoned their pedestrian first names to run on more distinctive—and memorable-at-the-polls—middle names.
Jimmy Carter's real name is James Earl Carter, which made him a white Southerner who shared two-thirds of a name with Martin Luther King's assassin. The "G" in Warren G. Harding stood for "Gamaliel," a Pharisee and the first of many famous rabbis bearing that name. If his opponent, James Middleton Cox, attempted to make Harding's Jewish middle name an issue in the 1920 election, he failed.
"Hussein" means "handsome one" in Arabic and "Alan" means "handsome one" in Breton, so why aren't people giggling over Chester Alan Arthur's name?
After some confusion at West Point, Hiram Ulysses Grant emerged with a new name: Ulysses Simpson Grant. Yes, Simpson. Like the wife-killer.
"Hussein" would, in fact, not be the silliest middle name for an American president. That would be a tie between Rutherford Birchard Hayes and Richard Milhous Nixon. Still, Millard Fillmore retains the crown for silliest overall moniker, with or without a middle name.
The "S" in Harry S. Truman actually stood for "Saddam." | <urn:uuid:8758cf85-87e8-4964-b726-05c31845b921> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/03/nell-scovell-at | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280504.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00140-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919124 | 408 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Dianthus, often called carnations, are a profusely blooming annual or perennial flower. Annual varieties produce for one year but the perennial varieties add color to the garden for several years. The intricate blossoms come in a range of colors, from white and pink to red and lavender. Carnations are often started indoors from seed or purchased as bedding plants at garden centers. Transplanting them to the garden properly ensures they continue to thrive and don't suffer too much shock from replanting.
Set carnations transplants outside during the daytime one week prior to transplanting. Bring them in each night and set them out again during the day. This gets them accustomed to outdoor conditions and prevents transplant shock.
Lay a 1-inch layer of compost over a garden bed. Till it into a 6-inch depth using a hoe or power tiller.
Dig the planting hole to the same depth as the nursery pot and about twice as wide. Space the holes 6 inches apart for dwarf carnations or 1 foot apart for regular carnations.
Remove the carnation transplant from the nursery pot. Set the root ball inside the planting hole so the plant sits in the soil at the same depth it was at in the nursery pot. Refill the hole with soil and lightly firm it around the plant.
Water the carnations thoroughly after planting. Continue to water weekly, providing about 1 inch of water to the bed each week.
Lay a 2-inch layer of mulch over the garden bed. Use organic mulch such as wood chips. Mulching prevents weeds in the carnation flower bed and also helps retain moisture in the soil. | <urn:uuid:fb2e6822-3eb4-45cb-a07b-bebe429751b8> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.gardenguides.com/92897-transplant-carnations.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718423.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00271-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933009 | 336 | 3.09375 | 3 |
Picture: The easiest blackberry recipes are jam and coulis.
Perhaps the easiest thing to do with all those luscious blackberries is to make jam, or coulis. But there are plenty of other options, too.
Blackberries are wholesome and nutritious. They have good amounts of vitamin C and the seeds are rich in vitamin E.
There are lots of easy ways to prepare them and they are easy to find throughout August and September in many country areas. The best of the season is over by Michaelmas (at the end of September). But in some seasons you can still pick usable fruit in October and even early November. The quality is not generally so good with later fruit.
It's even quite a pleasant task collecting them, apart from the odd scratch, of course. Pick on a dry day after a dryish spell.
Pick the bright shiny looking ones. If they are over-ripe they start to lose their shine.
Don't pick near roads because of the pollutants which may affect the fruit. Roadside berries may be larger, however, because of the increased levels of CO2. It's certainly worth avoiding any field margins where crops may have been sprayed with toxic chemicals.
Of course you can use fresh commercial or home grown fruit equally well. You can get blackberries earlier in the year from fruit farms.
Easy Blackberry Recipes: First, jam. Jam is very easy to make and it can be used as an ingredient in its own right. It is an excellent way to store excess fruit.
If you are not already a jam maker, start with small quantities at a time. The process is far easier to control.
First rinse the blackberries for a few moments under running water. After all, flies are quite fond of them, too.
Remove any stalks or over-ripe fruit and then weigh them.
Put the washed and weighed fruit into a large heavy saucepan. Stainless steel is ideal. Traditional brass preserving pans are OK but they do tend to leave a slight taste from the metal, which can't be good. Cast iron, on the other hand, actually provides us with traces of iron which our bodies can use to bolster iron levels in the blood. Satinless steel is best because there is no imparted flavour and blackberries are in any case a fairly good source of iron.
Add 1 pound of sugar for each pound of fruit. Heat slowly until the sugar dissolves, stirring all the time. When the sugar has totally dissolved you will not be able to feel it when you press the tip of a wooden spoon into the mix. If you feel a slight crunch, or grittiness, keep stirring!
When you are sure it's all dissolved, turn up the heat until the jam mix boils freely. You will find that it rises up in the pan and gets quite frothy. This is why you should choose a large pan for the amount of fruit.
Skim off any scummy looking froth from time to time. You can skip this bit by adding a small knob of butter at the end.
Start testing for setting point by dropping a little of the mix onto a cold plate. The jam is set when it wrinkles as you push it sideways with the tip of a spoon or your finger tip.
If you want to be sure that the jam does not become over-cooked, you should take the pan off the heat while you test for the setting point.
When setting point is reached turn off the heat and bottle the jam.
You must used sterilised and hot jars for this, otherwise you risk the jam cracking the pots. Sterilisation is important to stop bacteria and moulds spoiling the jam.
You can sterilise with sterilising fluid or you can just boil the jars in hot water in a pan for a few minutes. It is best to lift the jars off the surface of the pan with a trivet. Dry them thoroughly before adding the jam.
Alternatively, clean the jars thoroughly in hot soapy water, rinse them and dry them with a clean tea towel and then heat them in a medium oven for about ten minutes.
If for any reason you do use cold jars, always put a metal spoon into the jar to transfer some of the heat from the jam. If you don't do this you risk the jar cracking from the sudden change in temperature.
Cover and seal with jam paper (wax paper rounds, usually sold with labels and cellophane covers) and close-fitting lids or cellophane.
You can find jam covers and labels in the co-op in the UK. Cling film is also OK as a temporary cover. You can cut your own rounds to cover the jam from greaseproof paper - but it's a bit fiddly. Covering the jam with greaseproof paper rounds helps to keep out unwanted spores and so deters mould.
You can use recycled jam jar lids, too but make sure they are really clean and well sterilised. Check the contents every few months if you are storing jam for long periods.
Suitable jars and lids such as the ones pictured here and above are available from Amazon.
Easy Blackberry Recipes - Jam and Other Uses:
You can add a little lemon juice if you like. It helps with setting because it is a natural source of pectin and helps the flavour, too.
Low sugar jam
You can also make this jam with less sugar. Jam made this way will take longer to reach setting point. About 3/4 pound to a pound of fruit will work but it will need to be eaten fairly quickly as the jam may crystallise without added pectin. I usually use about 12 - 14 ozs of sugar to the pound
If you like a firm-set jam, just add a little fruit pectin with the sugar. You can buy sugar which already has added pectin but it tends to be relatively expensive.
Another way to be sure of the jam setting properly: add some apples because they are naturally high in pectin. Apple and blackberry is a great combination but keep the blackberries as the main ingredient or the jam will tend to be a bit bland.
For most variations just keep to the proportions: for every pound of fruit a pound of sugar.
This will ensure a product which keeps well. Most blackberry recipes for jams and jellies can be adapted to other fruit depending on pectin content. Blackberries mix well with raspberries and blueberries for example. They also go very well with plums.
Blackberries also make an excellent coulis which can be added to yogurt or other desserts. Follow the recipe here: Easy coulis. Some people may prefer to make a coulis from strained blackberries, as the pips can be a bit noticeable.
Blackberry jelly recipe
You can also blackberries to make blackberry jelly. Here's a simple blackberry jelly recipe.
Blackberries could easily be used in fruit leathers - not something I've tried yet. Here's a page on how to make them: An easy fruit leather recipe
For more easy blackberry recipes please see Blackberry pie recipes.
If you have blackberry recipes of your own, please share them by clicking the Your Tips button on the nav bar. All ideas are welcome. I haven;t made chutney with blackberries yet but I'm sure they could be a fine ingredient.
There are some great books on jam making. Take a look at Making Jams and Preserves for a good basic guide.
The Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving also has recipes and procedures for home canning. It contains 400 recipes for all kinds of preserves including jams, pickles and relish. It will suit the amateur or experienced jam maker alike.
If you would like to get your jam making to a professional level of expertise then Blue Ribbon Preserves: Secrets to Award-Winning Jams, Jellies, Marmalades and More is the best book for the job. The author gives detailed instructions and pays plenty of attention to safety, as well as to fine tuning skills. She has certainly won plenty of awards for her jam making to back her claims!
175 Best Jams, Jellies, Marmalades and Other Soft Spreads has plenty ofrecipes for the dedicated jam eater. It is well laid out with a recipe per page in most cases. Some surprising choices too - orange juice curd or basil jelly anybody?
Easy Blackberry Recipes - Jam and Other Uses Copyright Greenfootsteps.com 2009
Please do not copy without permission. This site is protected by Copyscape | <urn:uuid:462a257d-6831-48fd-9b6a-588ae81074ac> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.greenfootsteps.com/blackberry-recipes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279189.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00064-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945148 | 1,780 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Variable recombination dynamics during the emergence, transmission and ‘disarming’ of a multidrug-resistant pneumococcal clone
- Nicholas J Croucher1, 2, 3,
- William P Hanage1,
- Simon R Harris2,
- Lesley McGee4,
- Mark van der Linden5,
- Herminia de Lencastre6, 7,
- Raquel Sá-Leão6,
- Jae-Hoon Song8,
- Kwan Soo Ko9,
- Bernard Beall4,
- Keith P Klugman10, 11,
- Julian Parkhill2,
- Alexander Tomasz7,
- Karl G Kristinsson12 and
- Stephen D Bentley2, 13Email author
© Croucher et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014
Received: 9 April 2014
Accepted: 12 June 2014
Published: 23 June 2014
Pneumococcal β-lactam resistance was first detected in Iceland in the late 1980s, and subsequently peaked at almost 25% of clinical isolates in the mid-1990s largely due to the spread of the internationally-disseminated multidrug-resistant PMEN2 (or Spain6B-2) clone of Streptococcus pneumoniae.
Whole genome sequencing of an international collection of 189 isolates estimated that PMEN2 emerged around the late 1960s, developing resistance through multiple homologous recombinations and the acquisition of a Tn5253-type integrative and conjugative element (ICE). Two distinct clades entered Iceland in the 1980s, one of which had acquired a macrolide resistance cassette and was estimated to have risen sharply in its prevalence by coalescent analysis. Transmission within the island appeared to mainly emanate from Reykjavík and the Southern Peninsular, with evolution of the bacteria effectively clonal, mainly due to a prophage disrupting a gene necessary for genetic transformation in many isolates. A subsequent decline in PMEN2’s prevalence in Iceland coincided with a nationwide campaign that reduced dispensing of antibiotics to children in an attempt to limit its spread. Specific mutations causing inactivation or loss of ICE-borne resistance genes were identified from the genome sequences of isolates that reverted to drug susceptible phenotypes around this time. Phylogenetic analysis revealed some of these occurred on multiple occasions in parallel, suggesting they may have been at least temporarily advantageous. However, alteration of ‘core’ sequences associated with resistance was precluded by the absence of any substantial homologous recombination events.
PMEN2’s clonal evolution was successful over the short-term in a limited geographical region, but its inability to alter major antigens or ‘core’ gene sequences associated with resistance may have prevented persistence over longer timespans.
KeywordsBacterial evolution Antibiotic resistance Recombination Mobile genetic elements Coalescent analysis Phylogeography
Despite the high frequency of horizontal sequence transfer in the pneumococcal population, the spread of multidrug-resistant (MDR) Streptococcus pneumoniae has primarily reflected the global dissemination of particular clones rather than the acquisition of resistance by resident, sensitive genotypes . MDR pneumococci were first identified in 1977 , with the phenotype becoming very common in some countries during the 1980s due to the spread of several MDR clones [3, 4]. However, the absence of such bacteria from Iceland meant no penicillin resistance was detected among S. pneumoniae on the island until December 1988 . This was in spite of the country having the highest per capita consumption of antibiotics of the Nordic countries at the time .
Levels of resistance subsequently rose to a peak in 1995, by which point 24.2% of Icelandic clinical pneumococcal isolates were penicillin non-susceptible [7, 8]. The majority of these were of serotype 6B and also exhibited resistance to co-trimoxazole, chloramphenicol, tetracycline and macrolides [6, 7, 9]. Genotyping demonstrated that the pneumococci sharing these characteristics were a clonal outbreak closely related to isolates found in Spain in the late 1980s, defined as the Spain6B-2 or PMEN2 lineage , suggesting a transmission from Western Europe .
Consequently, an effort was initiated to reduce consumption of antibiotics that achieved a 35% fall in dispensing to Icelandic children between 1992 and 1997 . The prevalence of PMEN2 fell over subsequent years but despite these alterations in clinical practice and the presence of other MDR genotypes , serotype 6B pneumococci still constituted around 3% of Icelandic penicillin non-susceptible clinical isolates in 2010 . The genotype was found to be variably prevalent in different communities, disappearing from some but persisting in others in a manner that was suggested to relate to local antibiotic prescribing rates and herd immunity . Furthermore, some PMEN2 representatives with losses of particular resistances were identified, which may have been a sign of adaptation to reduced antibiotic consumption . In the case of tetracycline and macrolides, reversions to susceptibility appeared to have occurred through more than one type of mutation, as they were associated with both the presence and absence of the associated resistance gene.
As well as being found throughout Western Europe from the 1980s onwards [6, 14–17], the PMEN2 lineage has also been detected in the United States [18–21], South America [22, 23], the Middle East , South-East Asia [25–27], Australia and Japan . Multilocus sequence typing (MLST) generally finds such isolates to be of, or similar to, sequence type (ST) 90. This suggests it is closely related to the PMEN22 lineage, first identified in countries around the Mediterranean [30, 31] and subsequently found in Western Europe and the United States [32, 33]. The PMEN22 genotype is associated with ST273, which differs from ST90 at only two of the seven MLST loci, and generally has a similar resistance profile to PMEN2 with the exception that representatives are typically β-lactam susceptible. An international collection of 189 isolates was, therefore, assembled to identify the relationship between these two lineages and trace the emergence and spread of the PMEN2 clone. This included 118 isolates from Iceland to reconstruct the outbreak on this island in detail, and thereby characterise its initial success and subsequent population dynamics in response to altered antibiotic dispensing practices.
Multiple resistance elements across a diverse collection
A second clade corresponded to the PMEN22 lineage (Figure 1). This clade had a relatively high r/m: 18.84 overall and 13.73 excluding recombinations within MGEs. These isolates all inherited the insertion of a single, novel large Tn5253-type ICE, consequently named ICESp6BST273 (Figure 2 and Additional file 6: Figure S5). Macrolide resistance across the clade was mainly the result of a Tn917 cassette within the ICE carrying a ribosomal RNA methylase gene (ermB). Chloramphenicol resistance was the result of a cat chloramphenicol acetyltransferase within a pC194-type sequence as part of a gene cluster very similar to the Ωcat(pC194) element found within Tn5253 [see Additional file 6: Figure S5]. De novo assemblies indicated this sequence could transpose to different loci within the genome, sometimes integrated into the ICE or Pneumococcal Pathogenicity Island-1, as was observed for the archetypal element . This represents a further example of sequence exchange between ICE and this island [42, 46]. The PMEN22 clade was generally β-lactam sensitive, except for a single resistant isolate (SN33007) that was predicted to have imported 23 segments of sequence, totaling just under 254 kb in length, that affected the penicillin binding protein genes pbp1a, pbp2x and pbp2b, but not pbp2a or murMN.
Diversification and dissemination of PMEN2
β-lactam resistance was independently acquired by the largest clade, corresponding to PMEN2, all isolates of which were distinguished from the Outgroup and PMEN22 clades by 17 shared segments of recombinant sequence that totaled 156 kb in length. This resulted in the import of resistance-associated alleles of pbp1a, pbp2x and pbp2b, but no contemporaneous recombinations affecting pbp2a or murMN were detected. Resistance to tetracycline and chloramphenicol resulted from the acquisition of ICESp6BST90 on the same branch of the phylogeny, which was shared by all PMEN2 representatives through common descent [see Additional file 6: Figure S5]; this contained both a Tn916-type element and a Ωcat(pC194)-like element [44, 45] [see Additional file 7: Figure S6]. Therefore, the antibiotic resistance determinants of PMEN2 and PMEN22 appear to have been entirely independently acquired. Many isolates were also resistant to macrolides owing to the acquisition of the ermB gene carried on either the Omega cassette or Tn917, both of which appear to have been acquired more than once during the evolution of PMEN2 [see Additional file 5: Figure S4]. Based on one atypical Tn916-type sequence [see Additional file 8: Figure S7], it seems likely that both cassettes were acquired by a recent common ancestor of one particular clade of three isolates, thereby arranging two highly similar ermB genes in tandem. A subsequent intragenomic recombination between them appears to have deleted the intervening sequence, resulting in a reversion to tetracycline susceptibility owing to the loss of the tetM gene, but leaving the aminoglycoside resistance gene aph3’ and ermB in its place.
A plot of the root-to-tip distance of the isolates within the PMEN2 clade relative to their date of isolation revealed a significant linear correlation (n = 168, R2 = 0.63, P value <2.2 × 10-16) that suggested a date of origin around 1967 [see Additional file 9: Figure S8A]. A Bayesian coalescent analysis of the clade estimated the most likely date of origin to be 1969 (95% credibility interval, 1962 to 1974), implying a point mutation rate of 1.11 × 10-6 substitutions per site per year (95% credibility interval of 9.82 × 10-7 to 1.24 × 10-6 substitutions per site per year). This origin is likely to have occurred in Western Europe (Figure 1), in accordance with the site of the first identification of the clone . PMEN2 then seems to have spread to other continents on multiple occasions, concurrent with isolates undergoing extensive diversification across much of the genome.
Clonal evolution within Iceland
By contrast, the Icelandic isolates formed two clades (IC1 and IC2), neither of which exhibited strong evidence of having engaged in homologous recombination (Figure 1). Clade IC2 appears to represent a relatively unsuccessful transmission to the island; all six representatives were macrolide sensitive, as they carried versions of ICESp6BST90 lacking an ermB-containing cassette. The most recent common ancestor of IC2 was estimated to have existed around 1984 (95% credibility interval, 1980 to 1987) shortly before the first clinical isolate was detected, but no isolates belonging to the clade were detected from 1994 onwards. The IC2 isolates corresponded to three similar pulsed field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) patterns ; although no putative homologous recombinations were identified within this group that might have caused such diversification, there were five recombination events within MGEs indicating that the acquisition of autonomously mobile elements may have caused the alterations. The larger IC1 clade was composed of 112 isolates and appears to have entered Iceland at a similar time, around 1986 (95% credibility interval, 1985 to 1987). These isolates were generally macrolide resistant due to the insertion of Tn917 into ICESp6BST90 (Figure 2).
Only 20 recombinations were detected within clade IC1, of which 14 occurred within prophage and appear to represent the movement of viral sequences. Each of the remaining six events imported no more than eight substitutions, far below the mean of 104 substitutions per recombination in the wider collection. Consequently, all of the isolates tested near the start of the outbreak corresponded to a single PFGE type , and the clade’s r/m was 0.18, falling to 0.024 when recombinations within MGEs were excluded. This seems largely due to the insertion of a prophage, henceforth referred to as ΦIC1, into the comYC (also known as comGC) gene, which encodes a component of the competence pilus essential for the uptake of exogenous DNA into the cell . The integration of prophage into this locus has previously been experimentally associated with the loss of competence for transformation . Sequence read mapping to ΦIC1 revealed that related viruses with very similar integrases, which seem to target the same locus based on cases where the prophage could be assembled de novo, appear to have inserted into PMEN2 representatives across the world on several occasions [see Additional file 10: Figure S9 and Additional file 11: Figure S10]. This analysis of prophage distribution also showed that the ΦIC1 virus is absent from the chromosomes of many isolates within clade IC1, indicative of frequent loss. Based on de novo assemblies, the comYC gene seems to have returned to a functional form in these samples, demonstrating that the MGE’s excision is precise. However, loss of the prophage was not associated with a detectably elevated rate of sequence import, as only one of the putative homologous recombination events was associated with isolates carrying ‘repaired’ comYC genes.
Phylodynamics of the Icelandic outbreak
The phylogeny supported the hypothesis that PMEN2 entered Iceland from Western Europe (Figure 1 and Additional file 4: Figure S3), but not the suggestion of Spain in particular being the source, which was based on genotyping of isolates SP522 and SP681 (Figure 1). The isolate most closely related to clade IC1 was from Germany, albeit from 1998, post-dating the estimated dates of clades IC1 and IC2 arriving in Iceland by around a decade. The transmission and population dynamics of clade IC1 subsequent to its entry into Iceland were reconstructed using a coalescent model to combine the sequence alignment with the detailed epidemiological information available. This analysis could be performed independently of the rest of the collection, as this clade alone showed a significant correlation between root-to-tip distance within the clade and day of isolation (n = 112, R2 = 0.56, P value <2.2 × 10-16; Additional file 9: Figure S8B). This estimated the date of IC1’s common ancestor as around October 1987 (95% confidence interval September 1986 to August 1988), consistent with the overall analysis of the PMEN2 clade.
‘Disarming’ of an MDR clone
Group 3 isolates were again tetracycline sensitive, but differed in also being susceptible to macrolides, having apparently lost both the tetM and ermB genes. This phenotype appears to have emerged twice within clade IC1; in both cases, it was associated with the excision of the Tn916-type element. This loss was evident both from comparison of de novo assemblies with the reference, as well as an absence of sequence read mapping to the element (Figure 5). The removal of the ICE was precise and led to the restoration of a gene encoding a zinc-dependent peptidase that appeared to have been split by the insertion of the Tn916-type component in the formation of the composite ICE. Aside from the deletion within Tn916 driven by the tandem ermB genes, this element was stable across the rest of the PMEN2 clade, as observed in other lineages .
Group 4 isolates were tetracycline resistant but macrolide sensitive, despite retaining the ermB gene and, by implication, the Tn916-type element. This phenotype was found in a single clade of three isolates within IC1. De novo assembly revealed this to be the consequence of 8 bp of the ermB CDS being replaced by 7 bp of divergent sequence, introducing a frameshift mutation that truncated the resistance gene. The disruptive 7 bp sequence is an inverted copy of the same pattern of bases found downstream within ermB, suggesting that the change may have been driven by an unusual intragenomic recombination. This mutation only appears to have occurred once across the entire collection.
Group 5 isolates were defined as those displaying susceptibility to chloramphenicol; however, it was not previously possible to determine whether this was correlated with the loss of the cat chloramphenicol acetyltransferase gene. Analysis of the de novo genome assemblies revealed that the frequent emergence of this phenotype in the collection was, once more, associated with isolates both possessing, and having lost, the ICE-encoded gene. One clade of isolates had a 9.36 kb deletion within the Tn5252-type component of the ICE that eliminated part of the Ωcat(pC194)-like element, including the cat gene; this appears to have resulted from an intragenomic recombination between the long tandemly-repeated sequences on either side (Figure 5D). This unstable element also appears to have been lost outside of Iceland on several occasions [see Additional file 6: Figure S5]. However, no obvious candidate mutations causing chloramphenicol susceptibility could be found affecting the Ωcat(pC194)-like element in other group 5 representatives, although ambiguities in establishing the element’s mobility and insertion site made it difficult to fully characterize in all isolates. Group 6 isolates, susceptible to chloramphenicol, tetracycline and macrolides despite retaining the required genes, similarly lacked any obvious mutation underlying their resistance profile.
The PMEN2 lineage appears to have emerged in the late 1960s, around the same time as PMEN1 (Spain23F-1), when β-lactam non-susceptible pneumococci were first being detected . Therefore, PMEN2 is likely to have been one of the first such genotypes. Both PMEN1 and PMEN2 seem to have acquired near-identical penicillin-binding protein sequences, and both acquired cat from pC194, and tetM from Tn916, as part of a Tn5253-type element [42, 47]. While PMEN1 was more successful in many countries, it was PMEN2 that predominated in Iceland, despite the presence of other MDR clones (PMEN1 among them) . More specifically, clade IC1 of PMEN2 appears to have been much more successful than IC2, which may reflect the macrolide resistance cassette carried by clade IC1. This is supported by the observation that treatment with erythromycin was associated with double the risk of carrying penicillin resistant pneumococci as treatment with β-lactams in Iceland at the time .
The fall in dispensing of antibiotics to children that started in 1992 is likely to have reduced the selection pressure driving PMEN2’s success within Iceland . In the mid-1990s, this seems to be reflected in the instances of the MDR clone being ‘disarmed’. Each of the reversions to chloramphenicol, tetracycline and macrolide sensitivity occurred both in the presence and absence of the relevant resistance gene; furthermore, some of the specific mutations were homoplasic within clade IC1. Such convergent evolution is likely driven by selection; this would suggest that these resistance mechanisms impose a fitness cost upon the host cell and, therefore, tend to degrade as they became less advantageous . However, these variants appear only to have enjoyed limited success, and primarily seem to have been observed when the PMEN2 clone was present at a comparatively high frequency relative to the use of antibiotics in children selecting for resistance. Both the count of clinical isolates and apparent change in Neτ indicate a drop in the prevalence of clade IC1 beginning in the mid- to late-1990s. Once the clone fell to a lower, stable frequency in response to this change in prescribing, the pressure to revert to a sensitive phenotype is likely to have been reduced. This may explain why no further reversions to macrolide resistance were observed from 1997 onwards. Alternatively, the limited success of these variants may indicate that such mutations are only adaptive over the short-term to atypically low antibiotic use in a certain community .
By contrast, non-ICE ‘core’ sequences that caused antibiotic resistance were stable within clade IC1. For instance, resistance to penicillins and co-trimoxazole was retained despite the declining use of these drugs. This is inevitable in the context of the clonal evolution of clade IC1; in the absence of allelic replacement at dyr (encoding dihydrofolate reductase, the sequence of which determines susceptibility to trimethoprim), folP (encoding dihydropteroate synthase, the sequence of which determines susceptibility to sulphonamides) or penicillin-binding protein genes, reversion to the sensitive ancestral sequences was not possible. This is similar to the pattern of evolution observed in serotype 3 isolates and in contrast to the rapid import of divergent sequence observed in PMEN1 and PMEN2 isolates from outside Iceland in this collection. This absence of transformation largely appears to be the consequence of the disruption of comYC by the insertion of prophage ΦIC1, although it is not clear why the isolates lacking this element still do not import sequence diversity from other pneumococci. It may be that the prophage is unstable only during disease or laboratory culturing, and that, in fact, the prophage remained inserted in all carried IC1 isolates. This failure to adapt to changing levels of antibiotic use in children through horizontal import of sequence may have played a part in the subsequent decline of clade IC1 in Iceland after the mid-1990s.
Alternatively, the lack of antigenic diversification resulting from the absence of recombination may have contributed to the genotype’s fall in prevalence. The high density of recombination events affecting the pspC locus outside of the IC1 clade suggests a selective pressure to alter such antigen-encoding genes. Therefore, the decrease in clade IC1’s frequency may be the consequence of the resident population accumulating herd immunity to the genotype ; this may be particularly acute in Iceland, as the phylogeography of the lineage suggests that only Reykjavík and the Southern Peninsular region sustained the genotype long-term, potentially acting as a source for the rest of the country. Declining transmission within these communities may have resulted in an ensuing fall in the rate of spread of the clade to other locations. Furthermore, as the acquisition of a capsule differing extensively from 6B seems unlikely within clade IC1, it seems destined for elimination following the introduction of polysaccharide conjugate vaccines (which induces immunity against both serotype 6A and 6B) in 2011 .
PMEN2 emerged in the 1960s, and a single transmission into Iceland in the late 1980s appears to have been particularly successful despite its lack of sequence import through homologous recombination. While this limitation did not appear to inhibit the loss of antibiotic resistance found on mobile genetic elements, it prevented modification of ‘core’ sequences associated with resistance and antigenic diversification, which likely contributed to its decline after the mid-1990s.
Selection of isolates for sequencing
Isolates with an MLST profile similar to that of ST90 were supplied by the sources listed in Additional file 1: Table S1. In the case of the Icelandic representatives of PMEN2, isolates were selected to produce a temporally even sample over the course of the lineage’s spread across the island when possible; these were supplemented by a set specifically chosen as exhibiting atypical resistance profiles. Isolates were supplied by the same set of clinical centres over the course of the study, but the region from which they received samples was reduced from the entire island pre-1995 to only the Capitol and Southwestern regions post-1995. However, these two districts accounted for the vast majority of isolates across all years.
DNA sequencing and phylogenomics
DNA was sequenced as multiplexed libraries on the Illumina Genome Analyzer II and HiSeq platforms, and the raw data deposited in the European Nucleotide Archive (ENA), as described by the read lengths and accession codes in Additional file 1: Table S1. Serotype and sequence type were identified as described in to check the integrity of sample handling. Sequence reads were mapped against the reference sequence of S. pneumoniae 670-6B (EMBL accession code: CP002176), an annotated complete genome , using SMALT v0.6.4 as described previously . MGEs were identified in the reference genome through alignments with other complete pneumococcal genomes. Polymorphisms were identified using criteria defined in . Samples showing signs of contamination, based on the quality of de novo assemblies and signs of the presence of multiple alleles in mapped sequence read data, were discarded. Only samples with a mean coverage across the entire reference genome above 25 fold and able to call bases at >90% of reference positions, were used in the phylogenomic analysis. This generated a reference-based whole genome alignment for phylogenetic and clustering analyses. The identification of putative recombination events, and generation of a phylogeny based on vertically-inherited point mutations, was performed as described previously . This method identifies recombinations as regions of the genome affected by high densities of base substitutions on individual branches of the phylogeny, which may reflect homologous recombination or the movement of MGEs. Therefore, to exclude horizontal sequence exchange likely driven by the latter mechanism, homologous recombination events were defined as those occurring outside of the annotated MGEs in the reference sequence.
Independently, the same whole genome alignment was analysed using BRATNextGen , assuming three clusters, using a learned value of alpha, a window size of one kilobase and a significance threshold P value of 0.05 (as calculated from 100 permutations).
Bayesian coalescent analyses
For the analysis of the PMEN2 clade, the topology of the phylogeny was fixed as that of the relevant clade of the overall phylogeny, in order to maintain consistency with the prediction of recombinations. Analysis with Path-O-Gen revealed that this phylogeny displayed a significant correlation between the root-to-tip distance of a sample and its year of isolation [see Additional file 9: Figure S8A]. The nucleotide alignment used was the subset of positions at which base substitutions occurred within the clade, with those substitutions introduced by recombination excluded from the alignment, and the dates of isolation used were the year, or range of years, provided in Additional file 1: Table S1. Samples for which no information regarding date of isolation was available were each associated with a uniform prior distribution across the range of years of isolation of the rest of the collection. Analysis with Bayesian evolutionary analysis using sampling trees (BEAST) used a general time-reversible (GTR) substitution model with a single rate category and a lognormal relaxed molecular clock rate . A Bayesian skyline plot was used as the population demography prior . Ten chains of 100 million states each were run; 50 million generations were removed as burn-in and the remaining data combined. All parameters were estimated with estimated sample size (ESS) values above 200, with the exception of the year of isolation of samples SPN11926 and SN11927. However, joint marginal plots demonstrated that neither of these parameters showed a significant correlation with any of the values described in the text. This model was compared to four others: a strict molecular clock, a random molecular clock, a lognormal relaxed clock with four rate categories and a lognormal relaxed clock with a Hasegawa, Kishino and Yano (HKY) substitution model. These analyses used the same input data and were processed in the same way, and the same parameters were estimated with ESS values above 200. As assessed by Bayes factors , these alternative models all fitted the data less well than that used for the analysis described in the text [see Additional file 12: Table S2]. In the case of the model using four rate categories the fit was only slightly worse as judged by Bayes factors. However, the coefficient of variation in the absence of multiple rate categories (median estimate of 0.42; 95% credibility interval of 0.32 to 0.52) was not found to provide evidence of extensive rate heterogeneity, hence this alternative model was rejected.
For the analysis of the IC1 clade, the day of isolation was used, where available; otherwise, the 15th day of the month of isolation was used as an approximation of the day of isolation. Again, a significant correlation between root-to-tip distance and day of isolation was observed [see Additional file 9: Figure S8B]. The analysis was otherwise conducted as described for the overall PMEN2 clade. The displayed tree and Bayesian skyline plot was calculated using 10,000 trees (matched to the equivalent number of states) derived through removing 50 million generations from each of the ten 100 million generation chains as burn-in, then resampling the remaining generations at a frequency of 1 per 50,000. All values were estimated with an ESS greater than 200. This model was also compared to the same four alternative models as described above [see Additional file 13: Table S3], and once more the only other model to give a similarly good fit to the data as the described analysis was that using a lognormal relaxed molecular clock with four rate categories. However, the inclusion of the rate categories did not significantly improve the fit, and the coefficient of variation in the described analysis with a single rate category had a median value of 0.33 (95% credibility interval of 0.22 to 0.45), which suggested there was not strong evidence of extensive rate heterogeneity. Hence, the model with multiple rate categories was rejected on the grounds of parsimony.
A discrete state phylogeographic model was used to reconstruct the transmission of the IC1 clade across Iceland . When testing for significance of the observed patterns through permutations, 100 versions of the alignment were generated in which the locations were randomly reassigned to isolates. The tree, sequences and dates of isolation were held constant. Each permutation was analysed with BEAST using the same model, but with a chain length of 10 million generations; this was sufficient for the parameters of the discrete states phylogeographic model to have converged. One million of these were removed as burn-in and the remaining trees (sampled at a frequency of 1 per 5,000 generations) used to determine the robustness of the phylogeographic reconstruction.
Analysis of accessory genome distribution
For identification of novel accessory genome components, Illumina sequence reads were assembled using Velvet . This was run iteratively to identify the k-mer that gave the highest N50 value, while maintaining an expected level of coverage above 20, as described previously . Scaffolds were then generated using SSPACE2 , which were subsequently improved using the post assembly genome improvement toolkit (PAGIT) pipeline . Sequence alignments were performed using BLAT with default settings and displayed using ACT . The ICE displayed in Figure 2 have been submitted to the ENA with the following accession codes: ICESp22664 (HG799489), ICESpDCC1902 (HG799491), ICESpDCC1738 (HG799492), ICESpDCC1524 (HG799493) and ICESp6BST273 (HG799495). ICESpSPN8332, displayed in Additional file 8: Figure S7, has been submitted to the ENA with accession code HG799498. The prophage sequence in Additional file 11: Figure S10 have been submitted to the ENA with the following accession codes: ϕDCC1738 (HG799497), ϕK13-0810 (HG799496) and ϕIC1 (HG799490).
To ascertain the distribution of sequence reads across the collection, reads were mapped to the accessory genome component using BWA v0.7.3 . The coverage plots were then generated using Samtools . Heatmaps were generated using Biopython .
This work was funded by Wellcome Trust grant number 098051. NJC was funded by an AXA Foundation postdoctoral fellowship. We thank the core sequencing and bioinformatic teams at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute for their support. We thank members of the Active Bacterial Core surveillance program of the Emerging Infections Program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Global Strain Bank Project, for contribution of strains provided by LM. The Global Strain Bank Project is a PATH-funded collaborative project between Emory University, the CDC and external contributors. We thank Dr. Thibaut Jombart and Prof. Christophe Fraser for helpful comments, and attending authors are grateful for the opportunity to discuss the project at the PERMAFROST workshop.
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This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. | <urn:uuid:279c6e38-204d-4c2a-b424-7f97946e9351> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://bmcbiol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1741-7007-12-49 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988722951.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183842-00210-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.886883 | 12,138 | 1.75 | 2 |
The 2nd Caribbean Workshop on Disaster Risks Management will take place at “Old Havana and its fortifications” World Heritage site in Cuba from the 13th to the 17th of May 2013.
The workshop is organized by UNESCO Havana Office and the World Heritage Centre, in coordination with the National Council for Cultural Heritage of Cuba and the cooperation of ICOMOS and ICCROM. It is part of the Caribbean Capacity Building Programme (CCBP) for World Heritage and is financed by the Netherlands Funds-in-Trust at UNESCO.
The overall objective of the workshop is:
- to train Heritage Experts in the Prevention and Management of Disaster Risks and for them to become capable of promoting (in association with specialized agencies) the inclusion of Heritage into the overall plans for Risk Preparedness established in their respective countries.
- to associate as much as possible the Management of Disaster Risks for World Heritage with the UN procedures applied for international emergency assistance, thus enhancing the definitions and the understanding of the procedures established in the World Heritage Convention.
The singularity of this workshop will be the overall and cross-industry approach to the World Heritage Convention, as a coordinated strategy among UNESCO sectors to assess the lessons learnt and the new challenges on risk prevention and management facing the World Heritage sites in the Caribbean.
Heritage Experts from Aruba, Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and agencies of civil protection as well as other participants, will discuss their experiences on Disaster Risks Management in the increasing challenges of the sub region. This workshop will examine: cases studies analysis on Heritage Risk Preparedness and Management; the adaptation and mitigation of Climate Change and the procedures applied by United Nations to international cooperation. Experiences from media professionals and teachers will also be shared.
Or see the website: http://www.unesco.lacult.org/noticias/showitem.php?lg=2&id=3564 | <urn:uuid:2a5e4ecf-edcc-4a99-9b92-dacd5393d827> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://whc.unesco.org/en/events/1047 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719646.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00127-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918553 | 392 | 2.125 | 2 |
Recommendations to Support Staffing DecisionsJuly 2014
Topics: Human Resources Management, Project Management
The authors have developed a recommender system to assist project managers at MITRE with identifying and learning about potential candidates for open project positions. Features were added to the user interface for the recommender as a result of a pilot study in which the recommender was used to suggest job candidates for open positions. In this paper we explain how the recommender is implemented, describe the pilot study, and discuss the improvements to the user interface that were made to support the study. | <urn:uuid:769cff7f-1bf9-4207-bfbe-1eb8f4c30a36> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.mitre.org/publications/technical-papers/recommendations-to-support-staffing-decisions | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570692.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807181008-20220807211008-00676.warc.gz | en | 0.96272 | 113 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Twelve year old Reena and her seven year old brother Luke like in the big city with all its noise and smells and fun things to do. However when Reena's parents lose their jobs at the newspaper, her mother suggests that they consider moving. Reena suggests they move to Maine. It is a suggestion immediately accepted by her mother because her parents met in Maine.But Reena is not happy.
Their move to Maine is not well received by her families' friends. But they pack up and move to a small harbor town with "gentle mountains" opposite the harbor and around it. There they rent a
"small old house
with a woodstove inside
and an apple tree outside..."
Reena and Luke ride their bikes
"discovering our new town
its people and dogs and old houses
its winding lanes and gnarled trees."
They also see a farm with what Luke calls "Oreo cows", black and white cows which are black at both ends and a white belt in the middle. The girl in farm field tells them they are called Belted Galloways. As it would happen, Reena and Luke would pass the farm, Birchmere Farm every day on their bikes. The cows were a bit frightening to Reena but she noted that every day teenagers came to work on the farm. Reena's brother Luke loved to draw but now his superhero characters have morphed into farmer-like people.
Just before the farm, on the edge of town, on Twitch Street, sits the house of Mrs. Falala, an old lady who by the towns people owned at least a cow and a pig. Reena and her brother often hear the sound of a flute coming through the open attic window. One day Reena's father takes her and her brother to visit Mrs. Falala, but the visit does not go well. A menacing cat and a "fat black hog" greet them. Reena's dad brings Mrs. Falala two books, which turn out not to be what she wants.
Meanwhile, Reena's mother finds a job teaching English at a private school near their town, but her father is still looking for work. Reena and Luke are sent back to Mrs. Falala's with more books. This time they encounter fourteen seagulls on top of the roof and a long black snake "slithering along the gutter". Mrs. Falala hauls them into the house. The books are somewhat better, but Mrs. Falala admonishes Luke sucking his thumb and tries to flick it out of his mouth. This leads to Luke telling her not to touch him and Reena tell her to leave him alone. Mrs. Falala yells at them to leave immediately. By the time they reach home, their parents have heard what happened and they tell Reena and Luke that Mrs. Falala claims they were disrespectful to her. This leads Reena and Luke's mom to visit Mrs. Falala by herself. When she returns she tells Reena that Mrs. Falala is very charming and that Reena and Luke can really help Mrs. Falala. They will start tomorrow.
Moo is a delightful novel that tells the story of two young children who are volunteered by their parents to help an elderly, eccentric woman. In doing so they begin to fit into their new life and come to love the strange but kindly Mrs. Falala.
Creech tells her story in free verse that captures the essence of the emotions of Reena and her brother as they navigate this challenging time in their lives. At first Reena is reluctant to move away from the city. Reena states that she is
"full of buses and subways
and traffic and tall buildings
and crowds of people
and city noises
honking and sirens and
and city smells
bakeries and car exhaust
hot dogs and coffee
and city lights so bright..."
"Would I know what to do
and how to be
However, when Reena and her family arrive in their small harbor town, she almost immediately finds good things about it - the wide sidewalks and quiet, curving lanes allow her and Luke to ride their bikes everywhere and discover their new town. One of those discoveries is learning about cows, which Reena states she thought were like "a LARGE lamb; soft, furry, gentle, uttering sweet sounds." However she quickly discovers they have large heads, enormous noses and make deep, loud mooing sounds. They also have slobbery mouths. And, quite frankly, they scare her.
And then Reena meets Zora, Mrs. Falala's cow. At first she's terrified of the cow as Zora's obstinate nature proves to be challenging. She butts both Reena and Luke and refuses to go where they lead her. But Mrs. Falala insists the children care for Zora and that they show her at the fairs. Mrs. Falala tells Reena that Zora is uncooperative because she doesn't know her and that she needs to introduce herself to Zora.
Gradually Reena forms a bond with Zora, learning how to care for her and how to show her. No longer is Reena afraid and instead she comes to believe that the cow is lonely. Although Zora remains temperamental the bond deepens and a sort of trust forms between the animal and Reena. By the end of the story, Reena is describing Zora as "that stubborn, crazy, belligerent, sweet, sweet heifer." She recognizes the good and bad qualities of Zora's nature and even uses the correct term to describe her "cow".
Likewise, Luke develops a bond with Mrs. Falala. Luke loves to draw and while Reena has been caring for Zora, Luke has been teaching Mrs. Falala to draw. Zora and Mrs. Falala help Reena and Luke adjust to their new life in a rural town. They learn new skills and make new friends. And eventually Reena's family is given a very different life through an unexpected tragedy.
As it turns out, Mrs. Falala was likely looking for someone to take over her farm and Reena's family seemed like a possibility. When she passes away, Reena and her family are not only saddened but wonder what will happen to the animals and the farm. Creech provides her readers with a satisfying, heart-warming ending.
Moo is a lovely short novel that would make a great class read-aloud and would interest young readers who enjoy books about animals.
Picture attribution: By Amanda Slater from Coventry, England - Belted Galloway, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4855943
Moo by Sharon Creech
New York: Joanna Cotler Books 2016 | <urn:uuid:87f98a33-b399-4358-aa04-dbf4593785cf> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://librisnotes.blogspot.com/2016/12/moo-by-sharon-creech.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00546-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97914 | 1,409 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Getting to the Root of Sewer Problemsby John W. Monck, Engineering Services Inc, Floral, City, FL, USA,
Abstract: The ability to quantify and qualify work schedule in a clear, logical and precise manner can make the difference between an effective preventive maintenance program and one of 'trying' to 'put out the fires. ' Since an average sanitary sewer system has more than 1600 manholes and well over 100,000 joints to every 100 miles of pipe it is easy to see the need of a good information retrieval system. Daily input from T. V. inspections and completed work orders provide a constant update of a sewage system. Root ratings from 1-9 quantify the severity of the root problems. Chemical applications can be scheduled by severity, area, manhole section, etc. An interesting feature is the systems ability to generate all types of reports from stored data. The computer reviews the entire system or one manhole section with equal ease and accuracy.
Subject Headings: Manholes | Vegetation | Scheduling | Maintenance | Sanitary sewers | Information systems | Project management | Fires
Services: Buy this book/Buy this article
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MANDALA X illuminates the Vedic Hymn of Creation’s quest for ultimate cause. The immediacy of the sound vibrations and movement waves – the thirty-voice chorus, twenty-instrument orchestra, and nine dancers moving through DANSPACE’s compact performance space in a continuum with the surrounding audience – this immediacy is designed to draw the audience members physically and emotionally into the urgent search.
Sanskrit chanted by a venerable elder and sung in English translation by a very young boy soprano; traditional Indian dance hand gestures ”carried” by modern dance bodies; a chorus singing high in the balcony above, detached and witnessing the drama in the performance arena, while the witnessing audience flows into the breath of the dance movement – these are a few examples of sound and movement juxtapositions and transpositions. These choreographic and compositional techniques themselves are meant to suggest the interpenetration of time, space and mind, and the relationship between ancient Indian thought and modern scientific investigation.
In the final moments of this dance oratorio, the dancers fade into the source of light and sound from which they had originally emanated, while the boy soprano innocently sings the ancient questions: ”Who really knows, who here will proclaim – from where was it created? From where this creation arose – whether it is upheld and sustained or not – Whoever looks down upon it from the highest heaven – indeed He knows – or perhaps He does not know.” Theoretical physicist Stephen W. Hawking concludes his book, A Brief History of Time, with a similar suggestion of the limits of human knowledge of ultimate cause: ”If we find the answer to that [why the universe exists], it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason – for then we would know the mind of God.” | <urn:uuid:ed93ce7e-7b7f-4898-96ec-504bc702e765> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://kathakensemble.com/repertoire/mandala-x-creation-a-dance-oratorio/mandala-x-in-performance/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573029.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817153027-20220817183027-00278.warc.gz | en | 0.94058 | 379 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Update: The museum's arrival in Nashville has been delayed due to mechanical issues. Tuesday is the earliest it will arrive. More details at the Tennessean.
A variety of Nashville groups have brought the Modern-Day Slavery Museum to Nashville this weekend, starting with a showing at Second Presbyterian Church today and moving to other sites Saturday and Sunday. The museum offers an interactive accounting of current cases of U.S. slavery in this decade, using a replica of a truck where tomato pickers where chained up at night.
Nashville has at least twice been the site of modern-day slavery arrests. In 2005, the Jersey Journal and the AP reported on a woman found here who was alleged to be part of a ring that held 13 adult women and 6 juvenile women captive, all from Honduras. In 2008, WTVF reported on two men charged with holding a 22-year-old Mexico City woman captive for sexual servitude.
Here is the press release about the Nashville showings of the traveling slavery musem:
On October 17, the Florida Modern-Day Slavery Museum rolls into Nashville to spend three days teaching residents the hidden stories behind our discount produce. The mobile museum's itinerary includes:
Second Presbyterian Church
3511 Belmont Blvd, Nashville
WHEN: Noon-7pm, Sunday, October 17
WHEN: 9am-4pm, Monday, October 18
Rio de Dios Church
12966 Old Hickory Blvd. Antioch, TN
WHEN: 9am-1pm, Tuesday, October 19
Nashville City Hall
1 Public Square
WHEN: 4pm-8pm, Tuesday, October 19
The free museum operates out of a replica of a cargo truck where Florida tomato pickers were nightly chained, in circumstances which a 2008 grand jury described as “slavery, plain and simple.” The Museum's exhibits, developed in consultation with workers who have escaped from forced labor operations as well as leading academic authorities on slavery and labor history, focus on the roots of modern-day slavery, the reasons it persists, and solutions.
The stop in Nashville is part of a wider tour of the Southeast. Katy Savage, a co-founder of Nashville Food Sovereignty, which is coordinating the Museum's visit, says: "The Museum's mobility means that the stories of farmworkers can begin to spread as widely as the produce they harvest.”
The Museum is part of an educational campaign created by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, www.ciw-online.org, a group of migrant farmworkers who help investigate and prosecute slavery cases in Florida's fields, and also work for improved conditions for agricultural laborers. Under the slogan that "Consciousness + Commitment = Change," the CIW has achieved unprecedented concessions from the corporate food industry, with giants like McDonalds and Taco Bell signing agreements with them to monitor conditions in the fields they buy from and pay workers directly a penny for each pound of tomatoes. Their current campaign targets Publix Super Markets, which until now has refused to come to an agreement with CIW members.
Tristan Call, founder of Vanderbilt Campaign for Fair Food, which is bringing the Museum to campus, says: “The Nashville Civil Rights movement was famous for bringing justice to the lunch counter. Now its time to bring justice to the entire food system.”
Nashville's Civil Rights heritage will be remembered in a resolution presented to City Council on October 19th which welcomes the museum to Nashville and condemns modern slavery of any form. The Museum hits Nashville just months after a local scandal in which H-2B guestworkers were allegedly held in forced labor conditions.
Carlos Santiago, a local worker and organizer with the Nashville-based Workers' Dignity Project, supports the work of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. “Workers need to face this crisis together," he says. "If we do, we can improve the situation of workers who are abused on the job, whether farmworkers in the fields or workers here who have their wages stolen by bosses. Anything we can do to support the CIW, we will stand in solidarity with them.”
Nashville Food Sovereignty is a coalition working to identify and eliminate the root causes of injustices that lead to hunger and poverty in the world, and move toward democratically-produced food systems at home and globally. The Vanderbilt Campaign for Fair Food is a student-led organization aiming to partner with administrators to shift institutional food sourcing towards fair, local, and organic options. The Workers' Dignity Project is a volunteer-run project which educates low-wage workers about their labor rights and provides support for direct action against wage theft. | <urn:uuid:1bfc910e-c54d-452e-b517-b9e5d304c79a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.hispanicnashville.com/2010/10/museum.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280761.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00098-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958288 | 966 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Looking out over the beautiful rolling hills of Kin Kin, I stop and reflect this ANZAC Day on how lucky we are in Australia. We don’t have to worry about conflict, IEDs, land mines or hostile gunfire. Australia is a wonderful country. Yet it wouldn’t be what it is now without the sacrifice of brave men and women – past and present. As a nation we celebrate their legacy, and rightly so! They fought so we could enjoy freedom and safety – to pursue our own dreams and through them make this land of ours a better place for the future.
Australia lost 61,966 of its finest in WWI and 40,500 in WWII.
In 2010 in Australia: 45,499 people died from circulatory system diseases, 43,293 from cancer and tumours and 11,954 from respiratory system diseases. In ONE year alone 100,746 people died from these three chronic disease groups. This is only 1,720 people less than we lost in BOTH world wars!
In a report on preventative health published by Queensland Health, they state: “Most chronic diseases are preventable.”
Are we building a better country for us and our children? We must choose: a country built on a foundation of vitality through healthy lifestyles, or the other – as we are now – one with an increasing burden of mostly preventable lifestyle-related diseases. What is your choice?
This ANZAC Day, let’s choose to honour the sacrifice of our brave men and women. Let’s rise to the challenge of choosing a healthy future for this wonderful country. One we can look back on and be proud of! | <urn:uuid:5232147a-606f-4fb6-8041-b800da1ebb25> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.lvs.com.au/reflections-anzac-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280730.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00255-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942791 | 345 | 2.1875 | 2 |
On this day in 1830, Emily Dickinson was born. Now celebrated as a poet of note, it wasn’t until her death in 1886 that the true scale of her profound poetry was both discovered and appreciated...
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"Morro Bay ~ Rock" Top 5 Page for this destination California Things to Do Tip by Yaqui
California Things to Do: 1,034 reviews and 1,974 photos
This 576 foot rocky mound was first sighted by Cabrillo in 1542 and is now a famous landmark for the town of Morro Bay.
Morro Bay has many unique qualities compared to other Californian ocean side communities. It has a natural embayment, and the Army added to that by building breakwaters across the north end of the harbor to have access to the rock. This allowed a wonderful open area for day camping and fishing access to the ocean. Plus, the surfers like to launch into the breakwater end that allows them to swim to the waves. It also gave birdwatchers a unique access to watch many species of birds especially the Peregrine Falcons that live in their natural environment safely.
Although, the power plant does cast a shadowy figure (necessary evil) that is unappealing, the bay and the rock are still lovely to look at and enjoy. This area is also ideal for kayaking because of the breakwaters. So enjoy the shops, restaurants and outdoor activity. Just relax and have a good time.
Morro Bay Chamber of Commerce & Visitor Center:
845 Embarcadero Road, Suite D
Morro Bay, California 93442
Directions: Morro Bay, California 93442
More Things to Do in California (107)
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Yaqui's Related Pages
Have you been to California?Share Your Travels | <urn:uuid:cea04040-c51a-4a7f-8812-34a057de4931> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://members.virtualtourist.com/m/p/m/1e7d9b/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280899.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00575-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923267 | 328 | 1.804688 | 2 |
As Europe’s debt crisis unravels, leaders in the most troubled parts of the region have found an unlikely savior: China. Why its investments in Spain, Greece and Portugal are so smart.
Just as billionaire investor Warren Buffett swooped into the rescue when General Electric (ge) and Goldman Sachs (gs) found themselves battered during the height of the financial crisis, Greece, Portugal and Spain have found a vote of confidence from China at a time when talk of bailouts and debt defaults are unnerving international investors. It's quickly becoming the world's lender of last resort.
Earlier this week, China promised to back Spain by signing $7.3 billion in deals, which included investments in everything from energy to banking, as well as a $7.1 billion acquisition of certain assets of the Spanish oil firm Repsol. What’s more, the country expressed confidence in the Spanish economy when Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang on Wednesday reiterated that Beijing would continue buying up debt from the euro zone’s fourth-largest economy. China is already one of the biggest foreign owners of Spanish sovereign debt with about 10% of its total foreign holdings.<!-- more -->
This follows China’s pledge to back Greece and Portugal, although leaders have yet to confirm details of its bond purchases. Last summer, China struck more than a dozen major commercial contracts for business in Greece in what was its largest European investment to date.
Of course, there’s plenty of self-interest at play here. The euro zone is China’s largest export market, so the country has lots to lose financially. And in a way, China has everything to gain in terms of winning friends at a time when its international reputation has suffered over what many consider an undervalued currency.
“From the Chinese side, I think it is an irresistible opportunity – a huge public relations coup at relatively little cost,” says Barry Naughton, China expert and professor at the University of California in San Diego.
A wider crisis in the region could send the euro on a downward spiral, making Chinese exports less competitive across the region. This would not only be bad news for Europe, but it would also work against China’s growth prospects as the country has overwhelming relied on exports to become one of the fastest growing nations in the world.
Of course, China is not in the position to single-handedly save Europe from its financial mess, just as Goldman Sachs and GE probably didn’t survive the crisis purely on Buffett’s purse strings.
What does matter is appearance. The way China values its currency has increasingly become a sensitive topic, especially as many economies look to export more during the economic recovery. And China has long been criticized for holding way too much in foreign-exchange reserves – a whopping $2.6 trillion, which is more than any other country holds. The Asian giant is America’s largest creditor, with more than half of its reserves invested in Treasury securities and other U.S. government bonds. However much this might unnerve U.S. leaders as the typical “China is taking over the world” rhetoric takes holds, it appears the tone might certainly change in times of crisis.
“When you’re desperate to sell your debt, you don’t worry about somebody holding too much of it,” Naughton says.
It’s true that Beijing is under pressure to make wiser investments with its reserves after suffering some large and high-profile losses during the global financial crisis. But the way Naughton sees it, with China converting some of its foreign reserves into government bonds from Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal – or even just saying that they are going to – the country implicitly pushed back the criticism, helping build a case that there’s indeed some value in holding such reserves.
Now that China has so publicly announced its support for troubled Europe, this could very well position leaders to smooth out some of the rough patches developed over the past year. China may no longer be cast as a self-interested, unfair player in the global marketplace and instead become regarded as a contributor of global economic stability.
Moreover, the investments may prove quite profitable. “The question is just the risk,” Naughton says. “But the risk is relatively low, since if things go really bad the European Union, or its constituent governments, or the European Central Bank will presumably step in.”
If anyone can bear the risk, he adds, it’s probably China with its lofty reserves.
More on Fortune.com: | <urn:uuid:a8d970e6-f396-47f6-b1f0-7dd86c8c3b50> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://fortune.com/2011/01/07/china-buys-a-better-image-in-europe-on-sale/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00167-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963571 | 946 | 1.734375 | 2 |
The concept of Bitcoin mining is always interesting to keep an eye on. Whereas this was designed to be a decentralized industry, a new report confirms that is anything but the case in 2020.
TokenInsight often releases some interesting statistics regarding cryptocurrencies.
Bitcoin Mining Still has a big Problem
In this particular report, the concept of Bitcoin mining and how centralized it is receive a lot of attention.
The company’s predictions for 2020 are not overly promising either.
TokenInsight claims how four firms will control 98% of the Bitcoin mining market share by the end of this year.
Of those firms, Bitmain is the biggest name most people are familiar with in this day and age.
Companies such as Canaan, Ebang, and MicroBT will also continue to make their mark on the industry.
It is evident that Bitcoin mining requires dedicated hardware, often referred to as ASICs.
Very few companies are willing to dedicate their research and development arms to this particular industry.
Cryptocurrencies are still very niche, thus there is no real interest from most mainstream manufacturers.
Nor does it appear that competition will emerge from within the cryptocurrency industry itself.
It appears that Bitmain will be the company noting the strongest individual growth and eventually control 63% of the mining hardware in a few months.
CryptoMode produces high quality content for cryptocurrency companies. We have provided brand exposure for dozens of companies to date, and you can be one of them. All of our clients appreciate our value/pricing ratio. Contact us if you have any questions: [email protected] None of the information on this website is investment or financial advice. CryptoMode is not responsible for any financial losses sustained by acting on information provided on this website by its authors or clients. No reviews should be taken at face value, always conduct your research before making financial commitments. | <urn:uuid:ca7832e4-a2d0-46bc-b90e-f30287f04e6d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://cryptomode.com/the-centralization-of-bitcoin-mining-will-only-worsen-in-2020/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570767.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808061828-20220808091828-00478.warc.gz | en | 0.953286 | 376 | 1.742188 | 2 |
I’m taking a quick look at Gen3D, a CAD tool for generating complex structures.
The company, based in Bath, UK, quite near where the RepRap project began two years ago and now has a Windows-based option, is eponymously named “Gen3D” for generating 3D structures in CAD.
The design concepts used by Gen3D seem a little different from some other paradigms I’ve seen, where 3D structures can literally “evolve” from nothing into complex and utterly unrecognizable yet function shapes. Gen3D is not like that at all, and seems to employ more of a “short cut” paradigm.
Gen3D frequently uses the concept of “Flowpaths”. These are automatically generated structures between two or more points within a 3D design. For example, if you need a conduit between two surfaces, you start by defining a series of nodes in 3D space representing the end points of the conduit.
Once defined, the nodes can be used to create a “Flowpath” between them. This structure can then be modified in a number of different ways. For example, you can change the diameter of the tube, or change it to a rectangular extrusion, etc.
The idea is to enable easy re-engineering of older parts for 3D printing. This is done by defining Flowpath points for the inputs and outputs of a system. Here we can see how this works to re-engineer the design of a hydraulic manifold:
This sounds straightforward, and it is. It’s a remarkably simple paradigm that’s easy to learn, yet it can very rapidly generate highly complex structures that are usually makable only by 3D printing tech. I suppose it’s somewhat like an advanced version of lofts and extrusions, but easier to use.
Flowpaths can be generated in several different ways. For example, you can have them conform to an existing surface, if you require them to lay alongside a component. You can also generate helical Flowpaths around an object, or circular and rectangular patterns. It’s quite flexible.
In addition to the Flowpath method, Gen3D includes another useful generator functions: Lattices. You can, for example, transform a solid structure into a customized lattice. The lattice parameters are easily input, and the generation occurs quickly. By strategically defining lattices as part of a component, one can significantly reduce the part weight.
Gen3D has published a series of very short videos explaining how this all works. They’re short because it is ridiculously easy to use the features, and that’s a very good sign.
While the software certainly generates 3D structures, it’s not “fully generative” in that it completely creates the end design. Instead it is more like a toolbox where you can apply a number of functions to more quickly complete a design in a way you might not have imagined.
Gen3D sometimes refers to the software as a “Design Accelerator”, and I think that term is probably most appropriate, because that’s what it does.
The company offers a 14-day free trial of the software through a quick 50MB download. The software runs on Windows only, and requires at least 8GB RAM and a graphics card to function.
If you’re looking for a straightforward way to easily speed up your design sessions, Gen3D might be something to consider. | <urn:uuid:dab38865-21c9-4354-89ba-e210497d753e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.fabbaloo.com/2020/06/another-generative-3d-cad-alternative-gen3d | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571719.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812140019-20220812170019-00276.warc.gz | en | 0.932955 | 753 | 2.765625 | 3 |
The study of anemia in gestational diabetes mellitus.
High Hb levels in pregnancy has been reported to be individual risk factor for GDM and low Hb levels and Anemia have shown to result in lowering the risk of GDM. Most such studies are from outside Indian country. Hence our study aims at investigating the possible association between Anemia and GDM in South Indian Women.
Aims and Objective:
* To investigate possible association between Anemia and Gestational Diabetes Mellitus (GDM).
MATERIALS AND METHODS:
* A total of 130 patients were screened for study out of which 100 were eligible for study. Demographic data, past obstetric history, detailed clinical examination including height, weight and BMI were taken. Blood sugars, HbA1c, complete blood counts including peripheral smear were estimated.
Place of study:
* The data for this study was collected from 100 GDM patients from out-patient and In-patient of Vani Vilas hospital and Bowring & Lady Curzon hospital, BMC & RI, Bangalore.
* November 2012 to July 2013
* Either newly detected GDM patients or on follow up
* Between age group of 18-35years.
* Renal impairment
* Thyroid dysfunction
* Overt diabetes either type 1 or 2.
* Statistical methods: Descriptive and inferential statistical analysis has been carried out in the present study. Results on continuous measurements are presented on Mean [+ or -] SD (Min-Max) and results on categorical measurements are presented in number (%). Significance is assessed at 5 % level of significance.
* Students t test (two tailed, independent) has been used to find the significance of study parameters on continuous scale between two groups Inter group analysis) on metric parameters. Chi-square/ Fisher Exact test has been used to find the significance of study parameters on categorical scale between two or more groups.
* Statistical software: The Statistical software namely SAS 9.2, SPSS 15.0, Stata 10.1, Med Calc 9.0.1, Systat 12.0 and R environment ver.2.11.1 were used for the analysis of the data and Microsoft word and Excel have been used to generate graphs, tables etc.
RESULTS: A total of 100 GDM patients were investigated. The mean age of the patient was 26.09 [+ or -] 3.4years.The overall prevalence of Anemia was 7.0%.The mean HbA1c was 7.80 [+ or -] 0.63. Mean haemoglobin was 12.01 [+ or -] 1.29 g/dl and it was positively associated (r=0.75) with impaired glucose metabolism. The mean blood glucose at 0hrs and 2hrs after was 158.73 [+ or -] 35.97 and 274.40 [+ or -] 67.04 mg/dl respectively. Haemoglobin level was highly correlating and statistically significant with prevalence of GDM (P<0.05).
Our study found that the incidence of anemia in GDM patients was considerably lower than the incidence in normal pregnancy. Those patients who had anemia, their peripheral smear examination showed majority to be Normocytic Normochromic Anemia. Other observations in our study revealed that younger age was associated with Anemia; BMI was not significantly associated with GDM.
Table 1: Age distribution of patients studied Age in years No. of patients % 19-24 37 37.0 25-29 46 46.0 30-34 17 17.0 Total 100 100.0
Mean [+ or -] SD: 26.09 [+ or -] 3.38
Table 2: Region distribution of patients studied Region No. of patients % Rural 1 1.0 Urban 99 99.0 Total 100 100.0 Table 3: BMI (kg/[m.sup.2]) distribution of patients studied BMI (kg/[m.sup.2]) No. of patients % <23 26 26.0 23-30 65 65.0 >30 9 9.0 Total 100 100.0 Mean [+ or -] SD: 26.23 [+ or -] 3.77 Table 4: Previous bleeding of patients studied Previous bleeding No. of patients % No 97 97.0 Yes 3 3.0 Total 100 100.0 Table 5: No. of deliveries No. of deliveries No. of patients % 0 2 2.0 1 76 76.0 2 14 14.0 3 4 4.0 4 & above 4 4.0 Total 100 100.0 Table 6: Incidence of anemia in patients studied Anemia No. of patients % Absent 94 94.0 Present 6 6.0 Total 100 100.0 Table 7: Age distribution according to incidence of Anemia in patients studied Age in years Anemia Total No anemia Anemia 19-24 34(36.2%) 3(50%) 37(37%) 25-29 44(46.8%) 2(33.3%) 46(46%) 30-34 16(17%) 1(16.7%) 17(17%) Total 94(100%) 6(100%) 100(100%) Lower age is positively associated with incidence of anemia with p=0.117 Table 8: BMI (kg/[m.sup.2]) with incidence of anemia BMI (kg/[m.sup.2]) Anemia Total No anemia Anemia <23 25(26.6%) 1(16.7%) 26(26%) 23-30 56(59.6%) 5(83.3%) 61(61%) >30 13(13.8%) 0(0%) 13(13%) Total 94(100%) 6(100%) 100(100%) BMI is not statistically associated with incidence of anemia with p=0.710 Table 9: P Smear findings of patients studied P Smear No. of patients % MCHC 3 3.0 NCNC 97 97.0 Total 100 100.0 Table 10: P. Smear findings with incidence of anemia P Smear Anemia Total No anemia Anemia MCHC 0(0%) 3(50%) 3(3%) NCNC 94(100%) 3(50%) 97(97%) Total 94(100%) 6(100%) 100(100%) Table 11: Baseline variables according to incidence of anemia in patients studied Anemia No anemia Anemia Age in years 26.09 [+ or -] 3.37 26.17 [+ or -] 3.87 BMI (kg/[m.sup.2]) 26.29 [+ or -] 3.86 25.31 [+ or -] 1.76 Pulse rate 80.28 [+ or -] 10.32 80.33 [+ or -] 13.35 Blood pressure 118.82 [+ or -] 8.28 120.10 [+ or -] 5.20 Hb 12.21 [+ or -] 0.99 8.93 [+ or -] 1.50 FBS 159.85 [+ or -] 35.95 141.17 [+ or -] 34.52 PPBS 283.81 [+ or -] 59.44 238.00 [+ or -] 49.65 HbA1c 7.42 [+ or -] 0.79 7.17 [+ or -] 0.82 Total P value Age in years 26.09 [+ or -] 3.38 0.955 BMI (kg/[m.sup.2]) 26.23 [+ or -] 3.77 0.540 Pulse rate 80.28 [+ or -] 10.45 0.990 Blood pressure 118.90 [+ or -] 8.11 0.710 Hb 12.01 [+ or -] 1.28 <0.001 ** FBS 158.73 [+ or -] 35.97 0.219 PPBS 281.06 [+ or -] 59.69 0.068+ HbA1c 7.41 [+ or -] 0.79 0.450 Table 12: Correlation of Gestational DM with incidence of anemia GDM Anemia Total No anemia Anemia No 94(94.00%) 0 94(94.0%) Yes 0 6(100.0%) 8(8.0%) Total 94(100.0%) 6(100.0%) 100(100.0%) GDM is significantly associated with incidence increased Hb with P<0.001 **
DISCUSSION: In this study we investigated the possible relation between Anemia and GDM. To our knowledge there are no studies from South India in this regard. We found that the incidence of anemia specifically Microcytic Hypochromic Anemia was considerably lower in GDM women compared to Non GDM pregnancy.
In a somewhat similar study Annika Helinet al (6) discovered that women with high dietary iron intake and high Hb had increased risk of GDM. But the study didn't include Indian women. Similarly Qiuet al (7) demonstrated an association between high Heme Iron intake during pregnancy and the risk of GDM.
Iron is a highly reactive component with a possibility to participate in harmful reactions. (8) Iron excreted from human body is with very limited mechanism and thus intake of iron is highly regulated according to body needs. (9)
Iron could interfere in Glucose metabolism by following possible mechanism.
* Iron decreases insulin secretion and metabolism in liver which leads to peripheral hyperinsulinemia. (10)
* Iron overload results in oxidative stress in pancreatic (3-cells that leads to destruction of Islet cells and thus decreases insulin secretion. (11)
CONCLUSION: Our study suggests that incidence of anemia especially Microcytic Hypochromic Anaemia is considerably lower in GDM. These finding suggests that routine supplementation of iron irrespective of Hemoglobin (Hb) levels should be reconsidered in risk group women and iron supplements to be given only to women who has anemia due to Iron deficiency anemia, though studies on a larger group is warranted.
(1.) American Diabetes Association Diagnosis and classification of diabetes mellitus. Diabetes Care2012; 35 (Suppl 1):S64-71.
(2.) Ferrara A. Increasing prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus: a public health perspective. Diabetes Care 2007; 30 (Suppl 2): S141-6.
(3.) Ford ES, Cogswell ME. Diabetes and serum ferritin concentration among U.S. adults. Diabetes Care1999; 22: 1978-83.
(4.) Powell LW, Yapp TR. Hemochromatosis. Clin Liver Dis 2000; 4: 211-28.
(5.) Fernandez-Real JM, Lopez-Bermejo A, Ricart W. Iron stores, blood donation, and insulin sensitivity and secretion. ClinChem 2005; 51: 1201-5.
(6.) Helin A, Kinnunen TI, Raitanen J, Ahonen S, Virtanen SM, Luoto R. Iron intake, haemoglobin and risk of gestational diabetes: A prospective cohort study. BMJ Open. 2012; 2: e001730.
(7.) Qiu C, Zhang C, Gelaye B, et al. Gestational diabetes mellitus in relation to maternal dietary heme iron and nonheme iron intake. Diabetes Care 2011; 34: 1564-9.
(8.) Papanikolaou G, Pantopoulos K. Iron metabolism and toxicity. Toxicol Appl Pharmacol 2005; 202:199-211.
(9.) Andrews NC. Disorders of iron metabolism. N Engl J Med 1999; 341: 1986-95.
(10.) Fernandez-Real JM, Lopez-Bermejo A, Ricart W. Cross-talk between iron metabolism and diabetes. Diabetes 2002; 51: 2348-54.
(11.) Cooksey RC, Jouihan HA, Ajioka RS, et al. Oxidative stress, beta-cell apoptosis, and decreased insulin secretory capacity in mouse models of hemochromatosis. Endocrinology 2004; 145: 5305-12.
(12.) Nilufar Islam, Saleha Begum Chowdhury. Serum Ferritin snd Gestational Diabetes Mellitus: A Case control study. Ibrahim Card Med J. 2011; 1(2):15-19.
(13.) Lao TT, Ho LF. Impact of iron deficiency anemia on prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus. Diabetes Care 2004; 27: 650-6.
(14.) Chen X, Scholl TO, Stein TP. Association of elevated serum ferritin levels and the risk of gestational diabetes mellitus in pregnant women: the Camden study. Diabetes Care 2006; 29: 1077-82.
[1.] Srinivasa V.
[2.] Nagaraja B. S.
[3.] G. Chandra Mohan
[4.] Akila V.
[5.] Prakash Kikker Gowdaiah
PARTICULARS OF CONTRIBUTORS:
[1.] Associate Professor, Department of General Medicine, Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, Bangalore.
[2.] Professor, Department of General Medicine, Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, Bangalore.
[3.] Post Graduate, Department of General Medicine, Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, Bangalore.
[4.] Post Graduate, Department of General Medicine, Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, Bangalore.
[5.] Associate Professor, Department of General Medicine, Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute, Bangalore.
NAME ADDRESS EMAIL ID OF THE CORRESPONDING AUTHOR:
Dr. G. Chandra Mohan, Room No. 202, 2nd Floor, BMCRI Mens PG Hostel, Hospital Road, Shivajinagar, Bangalore-560001.
Date of Submission: 12/05/2014. Date of Peer Review: 13/05/2014. Date of Acceptance: 30/05/2014. Date of Publishing: 07/06/2014.
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|Title Annotation:||ORIGINAL ARTICLE|
|Author:||Srinivasa, V.; Nagaraja, B.S.; Mohan, G. Chandra; Akila, V.; Gowdaiah, Prakash Kikker|
|Publication:||Journal of Evolution of Medical and Dental Sciences|
|Date:||Jun 9, 2014|
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Land Systems Division (Slavin) has completed the development
of the "Urban-Fighter",
an up-armored and improved M-113 Armored Personnel Carrier.
The vehicle is optimized for Missions Others Than War and Low
Intensity Conflict (LIC), particularly in urban environment.
The Urban-Fighter is considered to augment and replace IDF unprotected
or less protected vehicles currently operating in counter-insurgency
operations in the West Bank.
By the end of June 2007 IMI delivered the Urban-Fighter’s
prototype to the IDF for testing. IMI expects the IDF to decide
on potential procurements after the tests completion. Unlike
other M-113’s up-armoring projects, the ‘"Urban-Fighter"’
required only minor automotive upgrade, which further contributes
to its cost effectiveness. In fact, converting a plain M -113
into a fully equipped Urban Fighter is expected to cost about
10 percent of the cost of a Mine
Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) currently produced for
the US Army and Marines. The vehicle’s protection was
enhanced to stop heavy machine guns, shrapnel and most types
of Improvised Explosive
Devices (IED)s utilizing the Iron
Wall technology armor suite developed by IMI, providing
bulletproof protection, as well as counter IED / Explosively
Formed Projectiles (EFP) protection. In addition, the Urban-Fighter
uses improved slat armor, protecting it from attacks by RPGs.
The new vehicle offers features hitherto unavailable to APCs,
including armored transparent side windows, offering unobstructed
visibility upwards and sideways. 360 degrees observation and
firing capability is provided for the commander and another
crewmember by a raised cupola fitted with transparent armor.
Firing ports are imparted for warfighters in the front, sides
and rear. The fighting compartment was has also been redesigned
with the addition of blast-protected seats, improving the survivability
of the crew to attacks by mines and IEDs. The vehicle can carry
eight fully loaded troops and a driver.
The driver’s position was greatly improved, compared
to conventional M-113s and is now fitted with two windows and
side and rear looking video cameras eliminating the ‘blind
areas’ that necessitated direction by the commander. The
new driver’s compartment ensures good visibility under
most driving conditions, for safe driving on roads, dust roads
and cross country. The current configuration retains the ‘steering
sticks’ however the vehicle can be installed with an optional
steering wheel to further simplify driving.
IMI's Land Systems Division is Israel's leading armor systems
house, developing and producing advanced protection systems
for heavy, medium and light vehicle applications. Among the
company's current programs is the designing and production of
the special armor elements used on the Merkava tank, the development
and production of the modernized Turkish M-60 tank and the design
and production of protection suites for the IDF's new armored
infantry fighting vehicle (Namer). | <urn:uuid:1d89a785-72ed-4afd-bdce-17e4757c9d31> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.defense-update.com/newscast/0707/news/150707_urbanfighter.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720845.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00085-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.909072 | 659 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Online Lottery – How Lottery Winners Are Selected
If you’ve ever wondered how lottery winners are selected, this article is for you. Lottery games are easy to play, simple to organize, and can offer huge prizes to lucky winners. The average American spends $220 on lottery tickets each year. As the payout increases, so does the amount people spend on tickets. While the growth of national lotteries is not a sign of a growing gambling culture, it does indicate that the game is popular and widely played. In addition, a lottery can generate a significant amount of money for state-funded projects and local community development.
Today, lottery games are available in 44 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. The only states that do not offer state-wide lotteries are Alabama, Alaska, Hawaii, Mississippi, Nevada, and Washington D.C. Powerball and Mega Millions are popular multi-state lotteries, which are regulated as joint efforts among participating states. In addition to these state-run lotteries, many regions around the world operate their own lottery games.
If you are not familiar with lottery laws, you can always buy a lottery ticket online. Most websites and applications allow you to buy lottery tickets online. When purchasing tickets in person, the location doesn’t matter. In fact, some states require lottery players to be native citizens of their state. If you’re planning on playing the lottery online, be sure to research your state’s rules. And remember, playing responsibly is the best way to increase your chances of winning big.
There are many ways to play lottery games online, and the options are increasing. You can also join lottery games in other countries. The US, UK, Australia, France, Belgium, Italy, and the UK all offer online lottery sales. However, the lottery websites vary across the world. In some countries, you can play lottery tickets online through government-run websites. You can also choose to play lottery games in Europe through a government-run website.
The practice of drawing and dividing property by lot dates back to ancient times. The Old Testament teaches Moses to conduct a census of the people in Israel, and then divide land by lot. The Romans also used lotteries to distribute property and slaves. In fact, it was a common entertainment during ancient Rome. The ancient Greek word apophoreta, which means “that which is carried home”, refers to the game of chance.
If you win the lottery, you may choose to receive a lump-sum payment or a series of smaller payments over a number of years. A lump-sum payment is less exciting up-front, but the amount you receive will be taxed less than what you won. However, the payment you receive could also be invested, allowing you to make more money in the future. Depending on your circumstances, annuity payments are often better than a lump-sum payout.
There are many benefits to purchasing lottery tickets in bulk. For example, if you play the same lottery numbers over again, it is smart to buy tickets in bulk. In New Hampshire, you can purchase one hundred tickets at once, and in some cases, play the same numbers for 104 consecutive drawings. You can also buy a single ticket if you wish, but never buy more than you can afford. A lot of money can be made from a lottery ticket. | <urn:uuid:dc97598e-f051-4a13-b5d0-e349c9321e11> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://ws4gl.org/online-lottery-how-lottery-winners-are-selected/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570871.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808183040-20220808213040-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.963818 | 701 | 1.5 | 2 |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Haley Chitty
Director of Communications
NASFAA receives Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant to study the use of prior-prior year data
Washington, DC, January 30, 2012: The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), announced today that it has been awarded a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to study the use of prior-prior year (or two years prior) income data in place of the prior year (one year prior) data, which are currently used in determining eligibility for student financial aid. The goal of this exploratory study is to determine whether students and families would benefit from a simple change in required data—from reporting prior-year tax data to reporting “prior-prior year” (or PPY) data.
“Because prior-prior year data are more readily available to students than prior-year data, more students could feasibly file their federal financial aid application with final tax information at the same time they are applying to colleges, and long before institutional and state deadlines,” says NASFAA President Justin Draeger. “The use of prior-prior year data potentially offers students earlier financial aid information, which could increase college access.”
“Of course there are also potential challenges that arise with any change of this type,” Draeger added. “We are excited to use this research grant to delve deeper into this topic and ultimately determine whether a switch to PPY could help families without compromising our ability to measure relative need.”
Among the potential benefits of requiring prior-prior year data:
As with any across the board change to federal data requirements, the potential for negative consequences exists. Some in higher education believe that using PPY is less accurate in determining student aid eligibility because such an estimate is further removed from students’ current financial realities. This concern becomes particularly problematic for independent and non-traditional students, whose incomes could be more likely to fluctuate from year to year.
Preliminary results will be presented at the 2012 National Conference in Chicago this July and the final report will be released in fall 2012.
The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) is a nonprofit membership organization that represents nearly 20,000 financial aid professionals at 2,800 colleges, universities, and career schools across the country. Each year, financial aid professionals help more than 16 million students receive funding for post secondary education. Based in Washington, D.C., NASFAA is the only national association with a primary focus on student aid legislation, regulatory analysis, and training for financial aid administrators. For more information, visit www.nasfaa.org.
Publication Date: 1/30/2012 | <urn:uuid:79ec93ab-4051-4c5f-b4ab-6cfa78daef06> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.nasfaa.org/news-item/2980/National_Study_Will_Examine_the_Use_of_Earlier_Income_Data_in_Student_Aid_Eligibility | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279189.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00063-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935997 | 572 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Cultural Relations and Political Considerations: The British Council in Eastern Europe during the 1980s
Keywords:Cultural Relations – Political Considerations – British Council – Eastern Europe – Cultural Diplomacy.
AbstractEstablished between the Two World Wars in 1934, the British Council was charged to undertake Britain’s cultural relations with other countries. However, its direct involvement and adjustment to Britain’s sudden political decisions, on the international scene, is an indication on the inter-relationship between the British cultural section and the other sections of British foreign policy despite the structural separation of the British Council from British Embassies abroad and the autonomous status this cultural agency was believed to enjoy.
How to Cite
SAHEL, D. M. (2017). Cultural Relations and Political Considerations: The British Council in Eastern Europe during the 1980s. European Journal of Social Science Education and Research, 4(3), 143–150. https://doi.org/10.26417/ejser.v10i1.p143-150
Copyright (c) 2021 European Journal of Social Science Education and Research
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. | <urn:uuid:8e4cfc1e-e80e-488a-b343-e24175ca3298> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://revistia.com/index.php/ejser/article/view/6507 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571950.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813111851-20220813141851-00675.warc.gz | en | 0.874624 | 295 | 1.609375 | 2 |
OUR BURNING PLANET
Leaded petrol finally phased out — could coal follow suit?
Leaded petrol has officially been phased out after alarms were raised over its medical implications more than a century ago. For years, studies and reports have also shown health and environmental concerns over coal. Perhaps the phasing out of leaded petrol has lessons for coal.
Following 19 years of campaigning through a private and public partnership led by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep), leaded petrol has officially been phased out and all its stocks exhausted. This followed the last of its reserves being used up in Algeria two months ago.
Leaded petrol, which contains harmful amounts of lead, caused more than one million premature deaths every year and has been linked to the contamination of dust, air, soil, water and food crops.
The fuel also led to health risks for strokes, cancer and heart disease, has links with dementia and, according to one study, may have reduced the intelligence of children who grew up in the leaded fuel era. It has also been suggested that the ban on leaded petrol has led to a decrease in violent crime. The ban has saved the global economy $2.44-trillion due to the health costs associated with leaded petrol.
When the campaigning to phase out leaded petrol started, 86 countries were using it. This was despite research showing that leaded petrol was poisonous and caused the deaths of workers almost 100 years ago. Most high-income countries had phased out the fuel by the 1980s, while low to middle-income countries were still reliant on it, with South Africa banning the fuel only in 2006.
Much of the pushback against the phasing out of leaded petrol came from countries that claimed older vehicles still needed the fuel, Jane Akumu, a Unep manager, told Daily Maverick.
“Countries that had refineries were still a big challenge. How to move to unleaded petrol, the upgrading and [associated] justification and cost configurations, etc [were also a challenge],” Akumu said.
Blueprint for phasing out of coal
A similar story has been playing out over the effects on towns near coal plants from the pollution caused by the electricity generation process. With calls for a just transition escalating, backed by evidence of respiratory and environmental effects, the phasing out of leaded petrol could be a blueprint for the phasing out of coal.
“The package here for leaded fuels does present exactly what we are seeking to do under the Paris Accord, precisely. It is a bigger ask and more complex, but there are lots of lessons we can learn,” said Inger Andersen, executive director of Unep.
Africa and the Middle East are expected to phase out coal by 2034. With South Africa’s energy supply still more than 80% reliant on coal, the country has 13 years to meet its targets as set out in the Paris Agreement.
“There are many parallels between this programme and the energy transition and also achieving the aims of the Paris Agreement. It needs all sectors of society to be included because everyone has a role to play in the transition to a net-zero future,” said Brian Sullivan, executive director at the International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association.
Just transition limitations
South Africa’s efforts towards a just transition to greener energy to redeem its status as Africa’s biggest polluter — because of its coal dependence — are being slowed by debate over the capacity of renewable energy to carry South Africa’s base-load. Furthermore, with the unemployment rate hitting record numbers, much of the conversation has been around what will happen to the more than 100,000 workers relying on the national power utility for employment.
Limited funding and developed countries not meeting their climate financing commitments have had a damaging effect on the progress of South Africa advancing its renewable energy sector. Although policy regulations moving towards the 100MW embedded generation threshold have increased, the completion of the Medupi Power Station, which uses 16 million tonnes of coal a year, makes for one step forward and three back.
With the respiratory health of those in towns near coal power stations in serious decline because of poor air quality, and seven million deaths globally due to air pollution, there is no doubt that the lessons from the phasing out of leaded petrol are many.
“We must now turn the same commitment to ending the triple crisis of climate disruption, biodiversity loss and pollution. We need to shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy. We need global mobility with no emissions at all. We must reform our energy, food and financial systems to create a world of peace that works with nature, not against it,” said UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Thandile Chinyavanhu, Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner in South Africa, said that the end of leaded petrol was evidence of what can be achieved when a global approach towards a common goal is taken. She added that the end of leaded fuel was the end of a toxic era, showing that the phase-out of fossil fuels was possible.
“Africa’s governments must give no more excuses for the fossil fuel industry. Pulling off a just transition from dirty coal and other fossil fuels in South Africa and elsewhere in the continent will protect community health, avoid catastrophic climate change and ensure decent employment for the youth,” the campaigner said. DM/OBP
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In this exclusive audio interview Emmy Winner Charlotte Robinson host of OUTTAKE VOICES™ talks with Orlando Del Valle who serves on the Board of Directors of The History Project. Del Valle’s photos are part of a significant art exhibit “Pride: 40 Years of Protest & Celebration” that The History Project is presenting in collaboration with the Boston Center for Adult Education and runs through June 30th at the BCAE. The History Project was established in 1980 by a group of historians, activists and archivists. The organization is the only group focused exclusively on preserving the history of Boston’s LGBT community and on making that history accessible to future generations. We talked to Orlando about the exhibit, The History Project and issues facing our LGBT community.
Massachusetts is celebrating its 8th anniversary of legalizing gay marriage. When asked what his reaction was to President Obama finally coming out in support of marriage equality Del Valle stated, “Everyone wants what they want when they want it, which is the kind of sensibility that we have today. I’m thrilled that he has and I know that he wanted to do it. I understand that people say, ‘Well it’s about time and that you’re too late’ but the reality is that Massachusetts is not the rest of the country and not the rest of the world. What he does and how he does it has to be really controlled and resonate so he will be re-elected. Otherwise we’ll have a country that will be ruled by essentially corporate interests which is all about money and not about anything else. And the first ones to go will be people of color, gay and lesbian and transgender people, I mean that kind of thing. So I’m, happy that he did it and I think it was very brave of him.”
Drawn from The History Project’s archive, “Pride: 40 Years of Protest & Celebration” traces the development of Pride in Boston from a sparsely attended protest against the War in Vietnam to a massive celebration that draws hundreds of thousands of participants in June. The pieces displayed in the exhibition showcase the immense cultural and political changes that have affected New England’s LGBTQ communities over the decades. Along with Del Valle’s photos are black and white portraits by photographer Joel Benjamin and artifacts including banners, buttons and t-shirts. The exhibit reflects the rich diversity of our LGBTQ community and the role of Pride in creating a safe space for self-expression. The exhibition is free and open to the public during the BCAE’s normal business hours, Monday through Friday from 9:00P to 5:00P and on select weekends at 122 Arlington Street, Boston, Massachusetts.
For More Info: TheHistoryProject.org | <urn:uuid:91d6d700-82fc-4bb2-84c2-27109291b974> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://voices.outtakeonline.com/2012_05_01_archive.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00489-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961418 | 573 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Since Warren Weaver coined the term “molecular biology” in the late 1930s, technological innovation has driven the life sciences, from the analytical ultracentrifuge to high-throughput DNA sequencing. Within this long history, the invention of recombinant DNA techniques in the early 1970s proved to be especially pivotal. The ability to manipulate DNA consolidated the high-profile focus on molecular genetics, a trend underway since Watson and Crick’s double-helical model in 1953. But the ramifications of this technology extended far beyond investigating heredity itself. Biologists doing research on a wide variety of molecules, including enzymes, hormones, muscle proteins, RNAs, as well as chromosomal DNA, could harness genetic engineering to copy the gene that encoded their molecule of interest, from whatever organism they worked on, and put that copy in a bacterial cell, from which it might be expressed, purified, and characterized. Many life scientists who wanted to use recombinant DNA techniques were not trained in molecular biology. They sought technical know-how on their own in order to bring their labs into the vanguard of gene cloners. Manuals became a key part of this dissemination of expertise. | <urn:uuid:fed03538-826c-45ed-b4be-b4e3edbb7294> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://historyofknowledge.net/author/a-creager/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571950.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813111851-20220813141851-00665.warc.gz | en | 0.95251 | 243 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Clitic Doubling in the Balkan Languages
This volume is a collection of articles on clitic doubling, a phenomenon that has preoccupied generative linguists since the 1980s, when its theoretical importance was noted. Clitic doubling is prevalent in the Balkan languages. However, generative studies initially dealt with its properties in Romance languages, with the Balkan patterns coming increasingly into focus. Since the mid-nineties, these patterns presented a variety of challenges to the generalisations reached on the basis of Romance, while also raising new research questions. The volume deals among other things with the following aspects of the phenomenon: its extension within and outside the Balkan Sprachbund and the observed variation; its realizational possibilities and the constraints on the status of the doubled DP (direct or indirect object, pronominal or non-pronominal); its semantics (definite, specific, presupposed, neither) and pragmatics (topic or not, D-linked or not); its temporal and locational genesis; the relationship between the clitic and its associate. | <urn:uuid:fe86bf60-3f13-4532-b162-070cf07708bf> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.jbe-platform.com/content/books/9789027289896 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283301.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00508-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948398 | 217 | 2.046875 | 2 |
3:41 p.m., Sept. 16, 2010----Two recent rankings have placed the University of Delaware among the world's top universities.
In a ranking of the top 500 high impact universities around the world based on a research performance index, UD is listed at 165, and another ranking of the world's top 200 universities puts UD at 159.
High Impact Universities
The research ranking is on an Australian website, High Impact Universities 2010, that is a pilot project to benchmark the research performance of the world's top universities. The basis of the rankings is a numerical measure of the quality and consistency of publication or research output.
Universities are ranked on an overall basis, and by faculty rankings for different disciplinary groups.
UD's overall ranking of 165 puts it between the University of Tennessee Knoxville (164) and Baylor College of Medicine (166).
In the rankings by disciplinary group, UD is in the top 100 for two areas: “Engineering, Computing and Technology” at 69, and “Arts, Humanities, Business and Social Sciences” at 97.
World University Rankings
The University's rank of 159 is included in a list of the top 200 universities in the world in annual rankings released Sept. 16 by Times Higher Education of London.
With an overall score of 50.4, UD is tied with Erasmus University Rotterdam. Just before UD in the rankings are Indiana University and Iowa State University (both 156) and the Medical College of Georgia (158). Following UD are Arizona State University and Boston College (both 161), National Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan (163) and Georgetown University (164).
Among universities in North America, UD is ranked 72nd.
The rankings are based on evaluation of five categories: teaching, research, citations, industry income and international mix.
U.S. universities dominate the rankings, taking the five top slots: Harvard (1), California Institute of Technology (2), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (3), Stanford (4) and Princeton (5). | <urn:uuid:9cbe8eb9-3248-40c6-bb1d-89ff555eda85> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www1.udel.edu/udaily/2011/sep/worldwide-rankings091610.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00496-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.888532 | 419 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The visible light and the electromagnetic spectrum
When a beam of white light, by the sun, passes through a prism is split into different colors (corresponding to the different frequencies of light) forming the spectrum. Violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red are the colors visible from the human eye composing the "visible spectrum"; but the light extends for a much wider range of frequencies. At higher frequencies, above the violet, we have: the ultraviolet, X-rays and gamma rays. At lower frequencies, beyond the red, we have infrared and the wide spectral region of radio waves. The visible light, therefore, is that part of the electromagnetic spectrum that impresses the visual organ, but it just takes a small part.
The Blue light
Particular attention should be paid to "blue part" of the spectrum (The blue light rappresents a particular form of electromagnetic radiation, of the visible spectrum, short-wavelength, between 380 nm and 500 nm) that may have, at the same time, effects damaging at the human eye and positive health effects. If the radiation is major than 460 nanometers, it is defined as "good blue light", below of such lengths, instead, is defined as "bad".
The "good blue light" has a fundamental function in the biological clock sync and acts on cognition, memory, sleep and on attention, through action on the retina.
The harmfull blue light
Below 460nm, the blue light becomes highly dangerous for the 'human eye. It is, further, the large amount of blue light (not natural) emitted by electronic and digital devices, LCD and LED (such as display, TV, tablet, computer, etc) and interior lighting devices.
Harmful effects of blue light
Overexposure to light blue can 'give insomnia, irritability', attention declines and major ocular pathologies, such as:
- DRY EYE
- IRRITATIONS, PHOTOPHOBIA
- CONJUNCTIVITIS CHRONIC
- MACULAR DEGENERATION
Ultraviolet radiation are emitted from the sun or from artificial sources such as tanning beds or sun lamps. They are invisible and imperceptible but can severely damage eyes and skin.
Among the ocular pathologies:
- EYELID CANCER
- BURNING AND TEMPORARY
- BLINDING INDUCED BY RAYS UV
- MACULAR DEGENERATION
The solution: SAFER®
The damages caused by UV ray can be avoided wearing suitable medical devices.
SAFER is the "shield" lens that even if it is white, guarantees an high protections up to 420 nm, filtering 28% of the blue light and 55% of the harmful blue light.
The lens acts as a real screen that rejects much partre of harmful blue light completely protecting the eye.
|HIGH PROTECTION UP TO 420 NM|
|REJECTS MOST LIGHT BLUE DAMAGED|
|PROTECTS THE EYE AS A SHIELD|
|SAFER IS A WHITE LENS|
|BLOCKS 100% OF UVB AND UVC RAYS|
|BLOCKS 99% OF UVA RAY|
|FILTERS 55% OF HARMFUL BLUE LIGHT|
|ALLOWS TO PASS THE GOOD BLUE LIGHT|
|FILTERS 28% OF BLUE LIGHT|
|GUARANTEE CLEAR VISION|
Who can use it
- CHILDREN: to protect their eyes at a delicate stage of growth
- YOUNG PEOPLE: that use a lot the electronic devices
- ADULTS: to a daily protection
- SENIOR CITIZENS: as preventive use
“Ai sensi delle Linee guida del Ministero della Salute del 28/03/2013, relative alla pubblicità sanitaria concernente i dispositivi medici si avvisa l'utente che le informazioni ivi contenute sono esclusivamente rivolte agli operatori professionali." | <urn:uuid:db75ffb5-a075-4f8a-ad1b-bdd0d0065f7d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.daioptical.com/language/en/safer-en/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572021.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814083156-20220814113156-00070.warc.gz | en | 0.813091 | 884 | 3.640625 | 4 |
3.2 How do I find out how to do something in Emacs?
There are several methods for finding out how to do things in Emacs.
The complete text of the Emacs manual is available via the Info
hypertext reader. Type C-h r to display the manual in Info mode.
Typing h immediately after entering Info will provide a short
tutorial on how to use it.
To quickly locate the section of the manual which discusses a certain
issue, or describes a command or a variable, type C-h i m emacs
RET i topic RET, where topic is the name of the
topic, the command, or the variable which you are looking for. If this
does not land you on the right place in the manual, press ,
(comma) repeatedly until you find what you need. (The i and
, keys invoke the index-searching functions, which look for the
topic you type in all the indices of the Emacs manual.)
You can list all of the commands whose names contain a certain word
(actually which match a regular expression) using C-h a (M-x
The command C-h F (
for the name of a command, and then attempts to find the section in the
Emacs manual where that command is described.
You can list all of the functions and variables whose names contain a
certain word using M-x apropos.
- You can list all of the functions and variables whose documentation
matches a regular expression or a string, using M-x
- You can order a hardcopy of the manual from the FSF. See Getting a printed manual.
You can get a printed reference card listing commands and keys to
invoke them. You can order one from the FSF for $2 (or 10 for $18),
or you can print your own from the etc/refcards/refcard.tex or
etc/refcards/refcard.pdf files in the Emacs distribution.
Beginning with version 21.1, the Emacs distribution comes with
translations of the reference card into several languages; look for
files named etc/refcards/lang-refcard.*, where lang
is a two-letter code of the language. For example, the German version
of the reference card is in the files etc/refcards/de-refcard.tex
- There are many other commands in Emacs for getting help and
information. To get a list of these commands, type ‘?’ after | <urn:uuid:34d5ce9b-5c1a-42fd-bb4b-48ef378a6a4c> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/efaq/Learning-how-to-do-something.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719027.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00303-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.824499 | 525 | 2.515625 | 3 |
(Story archived from Nov. 28) Is the heat too hot to handle? Come and enjoy a “Gotta Have Sunny Ice Cream Float” and support the first year medical students in their “Sunny Buddies” Community Health Group.
Sunny Buddies is a project at the John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) in which our MD students are paired up with their “Buddies”– adults with intellectual disabilities, who teach our students a different perspective of medicine through sharing various activities and outings together. The partnership also helps the “Buddies” get much-needed social interaction in a safe friendly environment.
This year’s participants include MS-1 Chih-Wei Chang, who is paired with his Buddy, a 44 year-old man. They have already had outings for lunches, to see movies, and to throw Frisbees. “We’re hoping to gather everyone’s buddies (a total of 6) and do a big outing by the end of next semester to celebrate with them,” said Chang. The funds raised through the “Float” sales will help!
Come to Kulia Grill this Wednesday, November 28, from 11:30 AM to 1:30 PM.
More about Sunny Buddies:
In 1998, Dr. Melissa Bloom started Sunny Buddies while she was a first-year medical student, and now she serves as faculty advisor. Lori Lutu from Easter Seals Hawai`i provides valuable insight into developing interpersonal skills between the MS1′s and their buddies. Kenton Kramer of the Office of Medical Education is also an adviser to the “Buddies” program. | <urn:uuid:1a191348-4707-431e-9cd5-504bb56ee79c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://blog.hawaii.edu/uhmednow/2012/10/13/come-and-enjoy-a-gotta-have-sunny-ice-cream-float-on-nov-28th-kulia-grill/ | 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 | 0.961707 | 357 | 1.835938 | 2 |
|SPROC to look for existing record in passed table name||7||46|
|MS Access Define a New Field Name In A Query When Special Characters Are Used In The Field Name||14||28|
|Access importing CSV that has commas in currency and needs 2 cols formated for numbers to text||5||32|
|Set focus on next field when character count = 5||9||10|
Join the community of 500,000 technology professionals and ask your questions.
Connect with top rated Experts
18 Experts available now in Live! | <urn:uuid:b02c0276-655a-4908-9cf9-3ea83fc39f05> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/28552464/Where-is-menu-coming-from-what-is-invoked.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00220-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.783193 | 118 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself
Decades ago, as a school teacher, my Mom found a way to manage her class. With a lot of class – I might add. While the staff complained about how hard it was to control the students and keep them quiet, she introduced a revolutionary idea.
In the timetable, she introduced, alongside subject classes, games, crafts and other academic stuff, the “Do nothing period” Everyone was curious about exactly what might happen during this 35-minute time slot. She told them that she intended doing nothing, and that they were free to do whatever they wanted. They could talk their heads off, they could yell, they could just sit quietly, take a nap – whatever they wanted.
Of course they thought it (and she) was weird.
But you know what? It worked like a charm.
The first day, they freaked out.
The second day was a little more subdued. I mean, there’s their teacher just sitting quietly watching them, so it must have felt a little odd.
The third day, some of them were just sitting quietly and drawing, or just fiddling with stuff.
By the fourth day, many of them sat quietly.
The strange thing was, this class was considered the noisiest in that section.
The next week, Mom introduced meditation to these 8-year-old children. Some of them would fidget a bit, while some would become drowsy. But almost all of them calmed down in 20 minutes, stayed quiet for the next fifteen and felt refreshed at the end of the class.
They were more attentive during class, and performed better. They generally seemed to enjoy everything more.
This practice continued for as long as Mom taught in that school – which was around 6 years – and she incorporated it in all the classes she taught, including high school.
What she really introduced was the necessary downtime those children needed to recoup their focus and energy.
“…But what I like doing best is Nothing.”
“How do you do Nothing?” asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.
“Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it, What are you going to do Christopher Robin, and you say, Oh, nothing, and you go and do it.”
“Oh, I see,” said Pooh. “This is a nothing sort of thing that we’re doing right now.”
“Oh, I see,” said Pooh again. “It means just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear and not bothering.”
“Oh!” said Pooh.”
― A. A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner
Most of us have busy schedules and an ever-growing to-do list. We keep wishing for time “off”, but I am guessing that it really doesn’t happen. Stress quietly builds up. We start getting just a little dissatisfied with life. We start whining a little bit.
Instead, what if we became conscious of this process and incorporated the habit of doing nothing for at least a few minutes every day?
Just sit still with a blank mind, as if we were just clearing out that mental space to let in fresh air? Quite like taking a clean plate for a meal?
When was the last time you spent a quiet moment just doing nothing – just sitting and looking at the sea, or watching the wind blowing the tree limbs, or waves rippling on a pond, a flickering candle or children playing in the park?– Ralph Marston
Doing nothing is not actually doing nothing. If you look at it from the point of view of interacting with someone, you actually become a little vulnerable. When you stop steering the conversation and allow things to flow naturally, you actually begin to understand the person better.
At the same time, you also project confidence in yourself. You have the power to stop doing nothing when you wish and you portray that that things you are involved will be just fine even if you take a break!
Doesn’t that feel good?
Doing nothing is pretty much like a skill you have to learn, which is ironic, since it should come naturally. It isn’t just about not doing anything because we are obviously always doing something. Nevertheless, we must cultivate this necessary survival skill. We must learn the pleasure of being idle, savoring the moment, focusing on our senses.
Sometimes, it is okay to have no agenda. Remember the days when we just met our friends and wandered aimlessly with nothing to do….and not looking for anything to do? Don’t they return as the warmest memories?
Doing nothing feels like floating on warm water to me. Delightful, perfect. –Ava Gardner
We’re so caught up with “finishing this” and “getting that done” that we no longer take time off to reflect. A recent study found that the risk of a stroke is 33% higher in those who work a 55-hour week compared to those working 35-40 hours a week. Another study proves that a ten-hour or more workday raises the risk of coronary heart disease by 80%.
Simply put, if you spend most of your day at work or commuting to it or thinking about it, work on making the time to rest, without feeling guilty about it.
We need time off away from our mailboxes and our other devices, shut off that background noise and get away from the information overload that threatens us all the time. We need time to think. Let’s move off from the assumption that doing nothing is being irresponsible, lazy or wasting time.
We have to disconnect to reconnect, both with ourselves and with others.
If you’re still thinking I am crazy to suggest doing nothing, consider some of my favorite do nothing activities and come up with some of your own:
- Just go sit on a park bench/ stand at the bus stop and watch people go by. Observe passively. I like to imagine stories around them. I especially enjoy watching children in conversation.
- Sit with family and friends. Talk, or don’t talk. Let the silence hug me. If there’s music, great. So refreshing.
- Take naps. They make you more productive. Just try it. Doze off in the middle of the day and tell me how it feels like.
- Take a break. You feel good when you take a break. Do a crossword puzzle. Read a thriller. Color a page. Read and share jokes
- Switch off your phone. Your thoughts are more fun than mindless scrolling through social media and feeling bad about wasting time.
- Spend time with family. Watch a soap and laugh together
- Binge-watch your favorite TV series.
- Curl up on your sofa with your feet up, favorite beverage in hand and be lazy.
- Doing nothing is good for your health. Being mindful makes your life better, happier.
Nothing really matters!
In this media-drenched, data-rich, channel-surfing, computer-gaming age, we have lost the art of doing nothing, of shutting out the background noise and distractions, of slowing down and simply being alone with our thoughts.
Will you spend some time doing nothing every day? ♥ | <urn:uuid:aac0de75-b849-4160-9049-46941b139370> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://vidyasury.com/2016/04/nothing-really-matters.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00211-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96921 | 1,577 | 1.742188 | 2 |
BY John D'Emilio ON November 30, 2016
Our life stories are the core content of LGBT history. Yes, our organizations and businesses produce records that detail important work. And mainstream institutions and social structures affect us deeply. But the texture and the challenges of what it means to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender at different times and in different places will only fully emerge if we make an effort to collect a broad range of our life stories. Reading – or hearing – the life story of an individual is not only compelling and absorbing in its own right. It can also open doors of understanding and offer revealing insights into what it was like to be . . . well, whatever combination of identities the individual brings to the interview. Each of our life stories will have something to tell us beyond the L,G,B, or T. We are also the products of regional culture, of racial and ethnic identity, of religious upbringing, of our particular family life, of class background, of work environments, and other matters as well.
The truth of this was brought home to me when I stumbled upon the small box of papers at the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives labeled “Robinn Dupree.” In November 1996, a professor in folk studies at Western Kentucky University took his class of graduate students to Nashville to see a performance of female impersonators at a bar, The Connection. One of those students, Erin Roth, was so impressed by the event and by the lead performer, Robinn Dupree, that she asked for permission not to do her seminar paper on the assigned project – interviews/studies of “riverboat captains and old-time musicians” – but instead be allowed to interview Dupree and write about the art of female impersonation. The professor said yes, and so Roth conducted two interviews with Dupree, in March and April 1997. Fortunately for everyone else, she donated the tapes, a typed transcript, and her seminar paper to Gerber/Hart, so that Dupree’s account of her life is now available for study and inclusion in our collective history.
To summarize her story briefly: Dupree was born in 1952 in Chicago, her mother of Sicilian background and her father a Puerto Rican of African heritage. When she was in the 8th grade, she told her mother she was gay. As a teenager, she discovered the Baton Show Lounge, run by Jim Flint and already well-known for its performances by female impersonators. Soon she was sneaking out of the house to go there regularly. “It’s like I found what I wanted to do,” she told Roth, and soon Flint was coaching her and she began performing regularly.
Dupree performed at the Baton for almost a decade, and then moved on to another club, La Cage. In 1982, her boyfriend of ten years, who had connections to the Mafia, was killed in a car bombing outside their apartment building. Dupree realized it would be best to leave Chicago quickly, and she resettled in Louisville, Kentucky, where she rapidly made her way into the local female impersonator scene. Over the next decades, she performed for long stretches in Louisville, Nashville, and Indianapolis. According to online sources, her last show before retiring as a performer was just a few months ago, on February 13, 2016.
Reading the transcript of the interviews as well as Roth’s paper, I was struck by certain themes, some of which likely have broad applicability and some of which might be particular to Dupree. One involves economics. For those like Dupree who take the work of impersonation seriously as an art form and devote themselves to it, the economic realities can be harsh. On one hand, costs are high: the dresses, the jewelry, and everything else associated with the glamor of their performance are expensive, and new apparel has to be bought regularly for new shows. On the other hand, wages are low. Performers depend on tips, but these are unpredictable and often will not support them sufficiently. Thus, most impersonators need to have a day job, but that brings them up against the gender boundaries of the culture.
Another theme is family. As Dupree became a well-known, successful, and seasoned performer, younger impersonators-to-be came to her for advice, tutoring, and support, just as she had received from Jim Flint when she was starting and barely out of her teens. To many, she was their “mother,” and to Dupree, they were her “daughters.” The terms conjure up images of a warm and intimate family of choice, which it is. But behind the pull to use those terms is a harsh reality. After Dupree started performing, her biological mother broke off contact with her, and they remained separated for ten years. “Most people who do drag or want to become women, their family totally disowns them,” Dupree told Roth in their interview. Although Dupree acknowledged that much had changed in the 25-plus years since she had started performing, the loss of connection to families of origin remains true for many. Thus the relationships that were established had significant emotional and practical meaning. Dupree’s daughters often lived with her for long stretches as they worked to establish a life for themselves. Yes, it was a chosen family, but it was also a deeply needed family.
A third issue emerged in reading the interview with Dupree: the complexities and shadings of identity. At the time of the interview, in 1997, transgender had just recently established itself as a term of preference in the LGBT movement and in activist circles. Dupree described herself as “a pre-operative transsexual . . . I live every day of my life as a woman.” She had had surgeries done on her face to accentuate a kind of feminine beauty. She had also done hormone treatments in order to increase her believability as a performer in the world of female impersonation. “That’s why I actually ended up taking hormones and becoming a pre-op,” she told Roth. “Not to become a woman, but to look as much like a woman on stage as possible.” And within this world of stage performance, at least in the decades in which Dupree was an important presence, a range of self-understandings existed. “I have some daughters who want to be just entertainers. Then I have other daughters who want to go all the way through and become a woman.”
The Dupree oral history at Gerber/Hart is a treasure. We need more of them. Go out and interview someone – now!
BY John D'Emilio ON November 16, 2016
On more than a few occasions in the last three or four years, as I’ve read the New York Times or the Chicago Tribune in the morning, I have had the sensation that I was reading an LGBT community newspaper. The range and number of stories have sometimes been staggering. There have been stories on the fight for marriage equality, of course, but I was also encountering news about changes in federal policies, tech industry initiatives, sports figures coming out, arts and culture profiles, young people organizing in their schools, op-ed pieces, and much, much more. In addition to the quantity of material, the positive perspective embedded in the reporting has also been noteworthy. The underlying point of view in the coverage and reporting has been one that affirms and validates LGBT communities and our fight for acceptance and justice.
Needless to say, it was not always so. In the pre-Stonewall years, before the rise of a militant movement, more typical coverage about our community was the alternation between a deep silence – no mention or recognition at all – and lurid stories that emphasized crime, danger, and moral corruption. This didn’t all magically change after Stonewall and the rise of a gay liberation movement. Part of what contributed to the rapid spread of AIDS in the 1980s was the tendency of the media either to ignore the story, thus perpetuating ignorance and an inability to act effectively against its spread, or to sensationalize the epidemic and thus perpetuate the deep cultural and institutional bias against men who have sex with men.
I received a powerful reminder of how slow the media was to change when I explored the GLAAD-Chicago collection at the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives. The seven boxes of material, which span the first half of the 1990s, were donated by Randy Snyder, who served as the chapter’s executive director. GLAAD, which stands for Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, was a media watchdog organization formed in New York City in 1985 by Vito Russo and Darrell Yates Rist, both writers, as well as others. They acted in response to some of the horrifying coverage of AIDS coming from papers like the New York Post, owned by Rupert Murdoch. By the early 1990s, GLAAD had spawned perhaps a dozen local chapters, of which Chicago was one.
One of the major emphases in the work of GLAAD was its monitoring of the newly powerful “Religious Right.” For those interested in learning about and exploring the Religious Right more deeply in these years, the collection is a rich source of material. GLAAD kept track of and collected publications produced by organizations like the Traditional Values Coalition, the Family Research Institute, Focus on the Family and, locally, the Illinois Family Institute that, even today in 2016, is out there rousing opposition to initiatives to protect the safety and well being of transgender youth. The work of Paul Cameron especially drew GLAAD’s attention. A psychologist who was expelled from the American Psychological Association in 1983, Cameron produced reports with titles like “Criminality, Social Disruption, and Homosexuality”; “Child Molestation and Homosexuality”; and “Murder, Violence, and Homosexuality.” The GLAAD-Chicago papers also provide insight into the organizing being done to contain and discredit the Religious Right. Materials produced in the 1990s by organizations like the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and People for the American Way can be found here.
Interestingly, the work of a media watchdog group like GLAAD in these years was not confined to exposing extremists. Mainstream media outlets, including those that might be defined as liberal, needed to be targeted as well. A case in point was the Chicago Sun-Times, the city’s liberal daily paper. In the space of two months in 1994, the paper published two editorials that, shockingly, sounded as if the editorial board had lifted passages out of a Religious Right report. In response to the suburb of Oak Park extending medical benefits to the same-sex partners of town employees, the Sun-Times editorialized about “the importance of more traditional families” and “the central role in society traditional families must still assume.” Then, in an editorial coinciding with the 25th anniversary celebrations of the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969, the Sun-Times declared: “we oppose extending favored status to gays . . . the heterosexual majority is justifiably concerned that its values not be marginalized . . . and that a new set of rights not be extended to a privileged class.” GLAAD’s response was uncensored: “you have bought into the Religious Right’s lies and myths,” it wrote to the editorial page editor. Your claims, it said, were “vague and fallacious.”
As with so many collections, there are also the jaw-dropping surprises. The GLAAD-Chicago papers include a “Mike Royko” folder. The Pulitzer Prize winning columnist was a fixture of Chicago journalism for decades. He had a take-no-prisoners style of writing that called out politicians and other public figures. His biography of Mayor Daley, Boss, was a best seller. In the folder is an unsigned typed memo, dated May 22, 1995, and with it a copy of a police report, dated December 17, 1994, documenting Royko’s arrest on DUI and resisting arrest charges in conjunction with a car crash. The memo called attention to comments of Royko’s documented in the report. Among other things, he screamed at the responding officer “you cocksucker” and “get your hands off me, you fucking fag.” Later he yelled, “Get away from me. What are you, fags?” and “Jag off, queer,” and finally, “What’s your ethnicity, you fag?” Because of Royko’s stature, the memo and report, which was sent to several LGBT organizations, created a media moment in Chicago
All this and more are to be found in the collection. GLAAD’s work helps explain why the tone and content of media coverage of LGBT issues is different today than it was even two decades ago. It didn’t happen by magic, by some mysterious process of evolution that brings progress. It took activist commitment and energy, and some of that commitment and energy are documented in the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives.
BY John D'Emilio ON October 31, 2016
One of the pleasant surprises that comes from snooping through the collections at the Gerber/Hart Library and Archives is seeing how rich with information even small collections can be. The papers of Melissa Ann Merry are a perfect illustration of that.
Merry was a Chicago-based bisexual activist and performer. Born in Canton, Ohio, in 1963, she went to college at Eastern Michigan University and then moved to Chicago soon after graduating in 1986. It was in Chicago that she came out as bisexual, and she soon plunged into a world of bisexual activism that was coming together in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Locally, she got involved in the Bisexual Political Action Coalition (BIPAC) and was also a Midwest representative to the national organization BiNet (Bisexual Network of the USA), which grew out of the first national bisexual conference, held in San Francisco in June 1990. The papers she donated to Gerber/Hart consist of three boxes of material, almost all from between 1990 and 1995.
The first thing that emerged very clearly from surveying Merry’s papers is how important both the 1993 March on Washington and the 1994 Stonewall ’25 commemoration in NYC proved to be for bisexual activism and mobilization. Merry has several folders of material on each of them. First there was the organizing that needed to happen in order to have “Bi” be included in the official name of the 1993 March. Once that was achieved, planning for the March provided a great spur to local organizing across the U.S. to make sure that bisexuals participated in and were targeted by the efforts to guarantee a vast turnout in Washington in April 1993. Thus, the March proved to be not a single event, but a tool that had consequences afterward in the heightened level of local organization that it produced. The same can be said of the buildup for and aftermath of Stonewall ’25, which brought massive numbers of people to New York and achieved extraordinary media visibility. Not only did more local organizing emerge from both of them, but they also led to higher levels of national networking.
The increasing breadth and depth of bisexual organizing also emerges from another feature of Melissa Ann Merry’s papers. The collection contains a substantial number of bisexual publications from the early to mid-1990s. Among them are Anything That Moves, from the San Francisco Bay Area; Bi-Lines, from Madison, Wisconsin; Bi-Monthly from Champaign-Urbana, Illinois; the Boston Bisexual Women’s Network Newsletter; North Bi Northwest, out of Seattle; Bi-Atlanta; Bi-Centrist, from Washington, DC; Bi-Lines, from Chicago; and Bi-Focus from Philadelphia.
These newsletters and community magazines suggest that bisexuals were organizing on a far more extensive scale than is commonly recognized. In rare instances, an individual might prove capable of writing, producing, and distributing such a publication. But, typically, it requires a group to do the work of gathering the information, writing it up, and building an audience to read the material and sustain the newsletter or magazine. The existence of publications like these also suggests that there were sufficient groups and issues and campaigns to write about, thereby confirming that this was a period of intense and productive bisexual activism.
Finally, working my way through these three boxes of Merry’s papers also brought many smiles to my face. Besides documents, her collection also includes physical objects – tee-shirts, buttons, and political stickers. Many of them display a sense of humor that will easily produce chortles of laughter for the knowing but may also perhaps produce a moment of shock that successfully grabs the attention of those who may never have thought of bisexuality before. To mention just a few: there is a tee-shirt that read “Caution: Ice-pick wielding bisexual fag-dyke. Do not agitate!” Another portrays a line of women, some back-to-back and others face-to-face, with looks of ecstasy on their faces and the words “Primal Clit: Lesbians and Bi-Womyn in Radical Action.” There were stickers, meant to be placed on poles and walls and cars, one of which read “Bisexuals Don’t Sit on Fences. We Build Bridges!!!” And, finally, many buttons, among them the following: “I’m Bisexual – You’re Confused”; “Bi-Sexuals Are Equal Opportunity Lovers”; and “Two Roads Diverged in a Yellow Wood . . . and I Took Both.”
As I said at the beginning of this post, the Melissa Ann Merry Papers might be seen as a relatively small collection of three boxes, but they are packed with material that, cumulatively, provides rich insight into key years of bisexual activism in the United States. | <urn:uuid:5eaf7f1c-bd7e-47af-89f8-3431bad9bd92> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://outhistory.org/blog/tag/archives/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279189.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00062-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975347 | 3,760 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Biotechnology Courses & Institutes in India
Biotechnology is a multi – disciplinary area in the educational scene and programs have been developed to meet the growing demand for trained manpower for any meaningful biotechnology activity in the country.
The programs are designed to expose the students to the most recent and exciting developments in the area of genetic engineering and biotechnology and their exploitation in industry, agriculture and medicine.
Jawaharlal Nehru University conducted Combined Entrance Examination (JNU CBEE) for Biotechnology Programs.
Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi – 110 067.
On behalf of the participating Universities, holds JNU Combined Biotechnology Entrance Examination, During May, for JNU admission to:
- M.Sc. in Biotechnology
- M.Sc. Agriculture / MV.Sc. Biotechnology
- M.Tech Biotechnology
JNU Entrance Examination Centres:
|Lucknow||Madurai||Mumbai||Nagpur||Pant Nagar, Patna||Vishakhapatnam|
(These centres are subject to change by JNU University Centre for Biotechnology Delhi, from Year to Year).
Eligibility for MSc Biotechnology:
- Candidates with Bachelor’s degree under 10+2+3 pattern of education in Physical, Biological, Agricultural, Veterinary & Fishery Sciences, Pharmacy, Engineering Technology, 4 – Year BSc., (Physician Assistant Course). (or)
- Medicine (MBBS) (or) BDS with at least 55% marks.
Eligible Candidate to apply for M.Sc in Biotechnology program being JNU Courses offered at:
- University of Allahabad, Allahabad
- Annamalai University, Tamilnadu
- Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi
- Calicut University, Kerela
- Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya, Indore
- Goa University Goa
- Gujrat University Ahmedabad
- Gulbarga University, Gulbarga
- Guru Jambheswar University, Hisar
- Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar
- Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla
- University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Hyderabad
- University of Jammu, Jammu
- Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
- Kumaun University, Nainital
- University of Lucknow, Lucknow
- M.S. University of Baroda, Baroda
- Madurai Kamaraj University, Madurai
- University of Mysore, Mysore
- Nagpur University Nagpur
- University of North Bengal, Siliguri
- Punjab University, Chandigarh
- Pondicherry University, Pondicherry
- University of Pune, Pune
- Punjabi University, Patiala
- Sardar Patel University, Gujarat
- Tezpur University, Tezpur, assam
- Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala
- Utkal University, Bhubaneshwar
MSc Agri Veterinary / M.V.Sc. / M.S.sc Biotechnology:
MSc. (Agri) Biotechnology Program being JNU Courses offered by:
- Ch.Sarwan Kumar HP Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Palampur
- Indira Gandhi Agricultural University Raipur
- Marathwada Agricultural University Parbhani (Maharashtra)
- Orissa University of Agriculture & Technology Bhubaneshwar
- Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Coimbatore
- G.B. University of Agriculture & Technology Pant Nagar
M.Sc Agriculture and M.V.Sc. Biotechnology program at G.B. Pant University of Agri & Technology, Pant Nagar.
Eligibility for M.Sc Agriculture:
- Ch. Sarwan Kumar HP Krishi Vishwavidyalaya Palampur: Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture / Horticulture / Forestry with a minimum OGPA of 2.70 / 4.00 or 6.00 / 10.00 or its equivalent from a recognized University. (or)
- A degree from a foreign University recognized as equivalent for the purpose (with at least ‘B’ grade or its equivalent).
- G.B. Pant University of Agriculture & Technology Pant Nagar: Bachelor’s degree under 10+2+4 / 5 pattern of education in Agriculture, Veterinary Sciences, Horticulture of Forestry with at least 55% marks from a recognized University.
- Indira Gandhi Agricultural University Raipur: Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture, Veterinary, Dairy Technology, Horticulture, Forestry, with at least 55% marks or equivalent grade from a recognized University.
- Marathwada Agricultural University Parbhani: Bachelor’s degree under 10+2+4 pattern of education in Agriculture, Horticulture, or Forestry with at least 55% marks or its equivalent grade from a recognized University.
- Orissa University of Agriculture & Technology Bhubaneshwar: Bachelor’s degree under 10+2+4 pattern of education in Agriculture, Horticulture, (or) Agriculture Engineering with at least 55% marks or an equivalent grade from a recognized University.
- Tamil Nadu Agricultural University Coimbatore: Bachelor’s degree under 10+2+4 pattern of education in Agriculture, Horticulture, Forestry (or) Agricultural Engineering, with at least 70% marks or equivalent grade from a recognized University.
MTech in Biotechnology in India
JNU MTech Biotechnology Courses offered at Anna University, Chennai (T.N.) & West Bengal University of Technology, Kolkata.
Eligibility for M.V.Sc. Biotechnology:
- Minimum 60% marks or equivalent grade in any one: B.Tech / B.E. in Chemical / Biochemical Engineering, Industrial Biotechnology, Leather Technology, Bioengineering, Biotechnology, Biomedical Engineering. (or)
- M.Sc. in Life Science, Biotechnology, Botany, Zoology, Biochemistry, Microbiology, Genetics, Chemistry, Biophysics, of B.Pharma.
Reservation for JNU CBEE
- 15%, 7 ½ % and 3% of seats are reserved for SC, ST and Physically Handicapped (PH) candidates respectively.
- SC / ST and PH candidates who have passed the qualifying examination are eligible to apply irrespective of their percentage of marks in the qualifying degree examination.
Application form can be had from the following address:
Jawaharlal Nehru University,
New Delhi – 110 067.
- Issue of forms: February.
- Last Date: April.
- Entrance Exam: May.
Biotechnology Courses & Institutes in India – Entrance Examination – Centers – Eligibility Details – Annamalai University – Gujrat University – MSc Agri Biotechnology – JNU CBEE – Last date.
Posted In career course : Leave a response for biotechnology courses & institutes in india by | <urn:uuid:cdaad8e6-b592-406e-8968-79110938dc20> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://winentrance.com/career_courses/biotechnology_Institutes_and_courses.html | 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 | 0.816475 | 1,498 | 1.96875 | 2 |
Personal Development section covers a significant area of self-awareness, self-assessment and effective communication.
Through this section, educators will have the opportunity to focus on themselves and be aware of different but complementary parts of themselves.
This section will help them to accept the ambiguity of their human nature and be more prepared not only to use the available (internal and external) resources but also to save them in order to use them and re-use them when they are in need. The roles each individual choose or/and is called to take, influence the way people perceive their everyday problems and the way they act to deal with them.
Educators may face stressful situations that challenge their personal resources and they might “learn” to shed light on the negative aspects. So, adapting a positive attitude toward oneself and others by being empathetic, considerate and compassionate may facilitate a person to engage in more peaceful and functional way of communication.
Main idea for this section is to give educators the opportunity to understand themselves, their inner potential and at the end, to realize the importance of this capacity in their everyday interaction with children and their parents as well as with colleagues and superiors.
Working towards Personal Development will not only assist educators to build, develop and sustain authentic relationships but also it will ensure professional success, stability of personal life and personal happiness.
Related training contents
- Reinforcement of knowledge about different styles of Communication and training on assertiveness.
- Encouragement of an effective and peaceful communication.
- Orientation towards an empathetic and considerate form of communication.
- Suggestion of methods for successfully managing feelings and symptoms of stress.
*When anxious I try to focus on breathing calmly
I do not take anxiolytics to deal with stressful situations without talking to a medical practitioner in advance.
*I respect the other people and their right to be assertive and I expect the same courtesy in return.
I am not hoping that the other will observe what it is that I want.
*When communicating with someone I am present and attend to human needs.
I try not to automatically respond and not to use retributive and judging language.
* I listen to people with all my senses taking into account every piece of information coming from them and the environment that surrounds us.
When listening to someone, I do not analyze what they are saying or try to resolve the situation or solve their problem.
- Rosenberg, M. B. (2003). Nonviolent communication: A language of life. Encinitas, CA: PuddleDancer Press.
- Whitworth, L., & Kimsey-House, K., & Kimsey-House,H., & Sandahl, P., (2009). CO-ACTIVE COACHING New skills for Coaching People towards Success in Work and life (2nd ed.). Boston-London: Davies-Black an imprint of Nicholas Brealey.
- Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) worksheets, handouts, and self-help resources. (n.d.). Retrieved November 14, 2016, from http://psychology.tools/download-therapy-worksheets.html
- Centre for Clinical Interventions (CCI) – Psychotherapy, Research, Training. (n.d.). Retrieved November 14, 2016, from
- Dzenovska, I., (2016). KA1 Erasmus + Training Course “Peace Way for Youth” [Powerpoint slides], inspired by Mary Mackenzie & Rodger Sorrow Workshop on Relationship Visioning.
- Burns, D. D. (1999). The feeling good handbook. New York, N.Y., U.S.A: Plume.
- Beck, A. T. (1979). Cognitive therapy of depression. New York: Guilford Press. | <urn:uuid:8a307a11-c798-42fc-bd5c-9a034e132d44> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://thrive.fvaweb.eu/en/personal-development/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571745.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812170436-20220812200436-00467.warc.gz | en | 0.913948 | 824 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Health Check’s Claudia Hammond reports from Ethiopia where she finds out about the government’s programme to train local women all over the country, but most particularly in the rural areas, to deliver health to all.
Started in 2003, Ethiopia’s Health Extension programme aims to deliver health services to the whole country where 85 per cent of the population live in rural areas.
So far the government has trained and mobilised more than 30,000 women to give advice on immunisation, contraception, nutrition, child birth at health posts all over the country.
Claudia meets the health worker who explains what her job involves day to day and why, one day, she hopes to become a family doctor.
How is the Health Extension Programme improving the health of the people and in what other countries has it worked?
Claudia is joined by studio guest Dr Manuel Dayrit – ex-Health Minister of the Philippines and now Director of the Human Resources for Health Department at the World Health Organisation – to discuss Ethiopia's innovative model for health and how community health workers can improve the health of a nation.
The HEAT programme
HEAT (Health Education and Training) is an innovative, scaleable programme for frontline health workers. Currently piloting in Ethiopia, where it is supporting the Ethiopian Government’s strategy to upgrade the country’s 31,000 Health Extension Workers, HEAT’s intention is to help transform the way healthcare education is delivered across Africa and beyond.
Based on the OU’s successful model of distance learning, African health experts (supported by OU academics) have developed distance-learning training materials specifically for community health workers. Over 13 modules of healthcare learning resources have been created, addressing critical issues such as child and maternal health, family planning, nutrition, and communicable diseases. All of the materials are Open Educational Resources (OERs), and can be freely accessed, adapted and used by anyone in the world. They are designed to be studied by students in their workplace or home, thus minimising disruption to health service delivery in communities. Materials can easily be downloaded from the website and distributed as print-based modules, or used online.
HEAT is a practical, tangible solution to the challenges of providing high quality health education at scale. Working collaboratively with Governments, UNICEF, the World Health Organisation, AMREF and others, HEAT has the potential to make a huge contribution to the health of populations. | <urn:uuid:5e802016-fa76-421f-8e11-bc2390182f42> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.open.edu/openlearn/body-mind/health-education-and-training-ethiopia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280310.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00188-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944409 | 501 | 2.875 | 3 |
Introduction to Essential Oils
with Christine Martin
Sick of taking off work because someone is sick, again?
Want to learn more about using essential oils to benefit your families’ wellness?
Our bodies love to heal themselves and we can keep our bodies in shape by healthy eating, reducing stress, watching our toxic load, getting some exercise and supporting our immune system with Essential Oils.
Essential Oils are often used for immune support, relaxation and sleep, stress relief, emotional balance, skin care, respiratory health, green cleaning, and even muscle tension and pain.
This workshop will give you information about essential oils, how to use them and amazing recipes that you can begin blending right away.
Friday, October 21
$5-10 suggested donation
See the Facebook event here. | <urn:uuid:bbb5e0a7-173c-4601-90ca-6ba5da029402> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.kalayoga.ca/events/intro-to-essential-oils | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571150.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810070501-20220810100501-00672.warc.gz | en | 0.941195 | 181 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Are you aware how a BMO home loan calculator operates? You could have viewed or used a home loan calculator previously but do you really know how it operates? Just in case you didn’t know, a Bank of America mortgage loan calculator can be a tool that banks use to aid determine the monthly installments on the mortgage loan. These power tools can be found online for anyone who is interested in finding out how they can make their home loan repayments cheaper. What follows is a much closer examine tips on how to use one of these simple calculators and whatever they are capable of doing for you.
How exactly does a Bank of America mortgage calculator work? How much money could you potentially reduce a home loan with this particular resource? The reverse mortgage ontario canada can help you figure out how much cash you save with your monthly obligations or how you can potentially save with a specific home loan option. The Mortgage Payment Calculator enables you to work out how very much monthly payment you could make with a variety of alternatives, including bank loan interest, personal loan term, details, and also the difference in your credit rating between a “prime” and “subprime” bank loan. Using next to each other reviews allows you to examine a variety of choices without needing to compose one thing straight down, and keep in mind to help you for making a precise determination.
So how exactly does a Banking institution of America house loan calculator job? A Financial institution of America calculator can be used to determine your month to month home loan payments with interest and service fees integrated. After entering in the info, the calculator will explain what your monthly instalment options are and just how a lot they costs monthly. The calculator presumes all costs are paid out which a 3Per cent down payment is made about the mortgage loan application.
Amortization or. Primary amortization – Another factor that may affect your Financial institution of America home loan payments is your amortization period or how much time it requires you pay your stability off of. Your amortization time period is the time from when you commence spending your financial situation until your debt quantity is utterly repaid. Most mortgage calculators may use your amortization time to assist you to determine how much time it should take you to get rid of the loan. Should your amortization time period is smaller than most, your payments will be greater than those available from other companies.
Current house loan insurance premiums – These are typically costs that happen to be employed during the entire land however, they usually are reduced for consumers in Canada. Mortgage loan insurance premiums are dependant upon many elements together with a borrower’s credit history and the stability of your financial market place. Banking institution of America mortgage calculators can be utilized on the internet to get the most current home loan rates. You can even get crucial mortgage details about Lender of America’s diverse loans, mortgage loans, and property collateral ideas. Each of the information is presented in clear to understand vocabulary.
A lot of people worry about the impact of interest prices on his or her home loan payments, but Banking institution of America house loan calculators may help you prevent these potential issues. When using this device, you are able to key in the amount of money you wish to pay out on your house loan monthly, along with the Banking institution of America mortgage payment calculator will let you know should your interest or the time until your adjustable rate can become fixed rate. When your interest gets to be set, your month to month house payment will lessen. However, should your interest fluctuates, your mortgage payment can improve. Using Financial institution of America home loan calculators can make your whole home loan making decisions process easier and a lot more correct. | <urn:uuid:04cc8753-249f-4a4e-9776-0e9b8dea88d7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://hdlfuneralhomes.com/using-financial-institution-of-america-house-loan-calculators-to-help-make-smart-home-loan-choices/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571989.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813232744-20220814022744-00476.warc.gz | en | 0.955273 | 757 | 1.742188 | 2 |
You may have noticed that not all apples are red. Some are yellow, pink, or green. Red apples get their color from anthocyanins. These are pigments, or natural colorings, that develop as the apple grows.
But did you know that there is a new variety of apple in the market that just peaked in popularity recently? Like other apples, they are rich in minerals and microorganisms, but much crispier and tastier.
Black diamond apples are a breed of Hua Niu apples. It is a native to New Zealand and later introduced to China, where it is planted at Nyingchi, Tibet and was further developed by the special environment and the grafting technology of the farmers.
Black diamond apples are purple, gleaming, and have a nice texture. From the outside, the apples almost look like candle wax and are as beautiful as a diamond. That is how they got their name.
Impressively, black diamond apples do not need fertilization and have a resistant to cold and natural defense against parasites and insects. However, they are considered rare because they are planted in the highlands at an altitude of 3,500 meters above sea level.
They must be exposed to much sunlight and ultraviolet light. These unique geographical features make one apple orchard in Nyingchi the perfect natural environment for growing black diamond apples.
From 2011, they have created an orchard of around 50 hectares (500 mu) with their partners. In 2012, they planted apple trees and in the next three years, they have worked hard to grow them. Black diamond apples annually enter the market at the end of October and are sold for about two months.
Because the Chinese production is limited and distribution costs are rather high, the highly priced black diamond apples belong to the high-end segment of the market. They are mostly sold in gift packages of 6 or 8 apples. Small quantities of apples were sold to high-end supermarkets in first-tier cities in China where they were received very well.
On the other hand, due to its exclusivity and high price, locals farmers would rather prefer to grow the ones with much higher demand among the general public. | <urn:uuid:d9085edd-e440-4b5e-a05c-1ed51f59365c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://ptama.net/this-rare-black-apples-sell-for-20-each-in-the-market-but-locals-farmers-refuse-to-plant-it/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571719.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812140019-20220812170019-00273.warc.gz | en | 0.975963 | 447 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Did Mesopotamian clay-writers complain to each other about the untrained upstarts using this new papyrus stuff? Maybe they wanted it regulated. Perhaps they sniffed about these new citizen scribes who wrote things down even though they had no qualifications, and belonged to no elite tribe or sect.
When the printing press appeared, did pen-and-ink scriveners get all of a tizzy at the thought of dilettantes publishing their views in the new medium? Did they worry that any Thom, Dicke or Harrie could print something, uncontrolled by the guilds of the quill? Did they call for regulation? Did they consider themselves to be the anointed custodians of clear thought and good writing?
When radio first sparked into life, I wonder how many traditional hot-metal pressmen signalled the end of civilisation as we know it, and domination from unlettered clods whose only skill would be to talk nonsense on the wireless. I wonder if they felt the new medium should be regulated. I wonder if they resented untrained, unqualified upstarts having the temerity to put their opinions out in the ether without the approval of owner or sub-editor?
Nothing changes. Today on RTÉ, I heard a debate among the brightest and the best of Irish journalists about something they called New Media, and the same sense of ownership and defensivess revealed itself. I heard people talking sanctimonious tosh about responsible professional journalists with proper standards, as opposed to the anarchy of the internet. The point they made was this: traditional journalists check their facts, whereas we lunatics on the internet write whatever half-digested nonsense comes into our heads.
This lecture comes at a time when traditional media hasn’t exactly been covering itself in glory. Last week the traditional, mainstream Independent published a disgraceful mistranslation of a Polish article, in a cynical rabble-rousing effort to stir up hatred against immigrants. This week the Examiner published a piece of pseudo-scientific nonsense by a pop-psychologist that set back the cause of autism by 30 years.
What did these two articles have in common? First, the facts were wrong, and second, the professional journalists involved in running the papers lacked the skills or the will to detect the errors.
Not too long ago, Rupert Murdoch was forced to shut down the News of the World for tapping the phone of a murdered girl. Three or four years ago, the entire mainstream media united to destroy the lives of the McCann family, having decided that parents had murdered their child, even though they had no facts whatever to support the conjecture.
Today, the Irish Times carries a report of five senior Sun journalists arrested on allegations of bribing police and public officials.
I know we all make mistakes, but this is the mainstream media, some of whose members feel entitled to lecture people for thinking, and for publishing those thoughts in an accessible medium.
I’m not sure if journalism, like many other groups, is a mutually-reinforcing clique believing in US and Them, but it would be surprising if it were not. This happens with police, doctors, criminals, artists, prostitutes, footballers, soldiers, chefs, priests and assassins. However, I don’t believe any of these groups, apart from priests, has managed to build up such a self-regarding sense of its own infallibility while at the same time having no facts to support that belief.
This is not an attempt to damn journalists — just a reaction to the patronising tone I heard today on the radio. There are certainly many fine journalists, and I know several of them personally.
Some journalists, such as Robert Fisk and Jon Pilger, changed the way I saw the world. Hunter S Thompson defined much of my youth. Con Houlihan showed me how it’s done properly. We lost a wonderful example of the craft in the last few weeks: Mary Raftery, who exposed much that is rotten in our little country. But for every good one, there are five illiterate hacks who never read a book in their lives, and it irks me to hear people like John Waters and Kevin Myers telling the public to be quiet. If you want an opinion, I’ll give you an opinion.
We should never accept this. People were writing long before there was ever a school of journalism in this country, and I would never accept a lecture from someone just because they chose to go working on a newspaper after leaving school. Indeed, it’s a pity that more of them didn’t seek careers in the real world for a while. It might also be no harm for some of them to read the papers occasionally.
Closed shops and restrictive practices give rise to bad work. Smug, self-satisfied journalists are bad for democracy, as we saw in the lead-up to the bank bailout. While traditional journalism slept, the only people reminding us what was going on were well-informed bloggers who did it, not for money, but from a sense of public duty.
Therefore, as an avid reader of newspapers and a ravenous consumer of broadcast news, I must say that I admire a good reporter, but that doesn’t mean that he’s in any sense superior to me or that I should stop what I’m doing simply because he doesn’t like it. I was disappointed to hear genuine old-fogeyness coming from relatively young people on today’s radio show. Maybe that’s what happens when people have too much stake in what they do, and come to believe that everything is a threat. I couldn’t help feeling that some of the participants weren’t really criticising electronic media but simply protecting their patch.
Eamonn Mallie stood out as a beacon of integrity among all this nonsense and of course, when I went to look at his site after the show, I found it bears a remarkable resemblance to this one! The only thing that puzzles me is his statement that it cost him a fortune to set up.
That’s a pity. It shouldn’t have. Talk to me, Eamonn. | <urn:uuid:9b7a918e-5679-4108-aca6-f2cad1a9f34f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://bocktherobber.com/2012/02/mainstream-journalists-discussing-new-media/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281574.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00026-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968677 | 1,282 | 1.617188 | 2 |
10 things you should know about Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 discontinuation
In an attempt to curb black money and corruption, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an unscheduled meeting announced demonetisation of of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes with effect from midnight of November 8th 2016. In March 2016, around 88% of the total currency consisted of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 notes. Naturally, this move has created a lot of panic among the people of India.
Here’s where and when you can exchange/deposit your money...
|Exchange||Rs. 4,000||Bank and Post Office||10th Nov to 24th Nov, 2016|
|Exchange||More than Rs. 4,000||Any Personal Bank or any Post Office||25th Nov to 30th Dec, 2016|
|Deposit||No Limit||Banks and Post-Office||10th Nov to 30th Dec, 2016|
|Deposit||No Limit||RBI specified offices||31st Dec to 31st March, 2017|
Here are 10 things you should know about the discontinuation of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 currency notes:
All the residents of India who are holding currency notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 have the option to deposit their cash in bank accounts or post office by 30th December 2016.
One can exchange old notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 1,000 at any bank, post office, by showing a valid ID proof. However, the limit for this is Rs. 4,000 upto 24th November, 2016.
There would be no restrictions on online transactions, cheque, debit/credit card or any other plastic money transactions.
New notes of Rs. 500 and Rs. 2,000 would be brought into circulation from November 10, 2016.
People who are unable to deposit the old currency notes by 30th December, 2016 for some reason, have the option to change them by 31st March, 2017 by presenting a valid ID proof.
The old currency notes will be valid for transactions related to railway booking, air ticket booking, bus ticket counters and government hospitals till the midnight of November 11 and 12, 2016.
ATMs to remain shut on November 9 and 10, 2016.
The withdrawal limit for cash against cheque has been set to Rs. 10,000 per day and Rs. 20,000 per week upto 24th November. The limits shall be reviewed post this.
After the ATMs are functional, one can withdraw upto a maximum of Rs. 2,000 per card per day upto 18th November, 2016. The limit will be raised to Rs. 4,000 per day per card from 19th November, 2016.
People who do not have a bank account can open an account by approaching the bank with necessary documents needed for fulfilling the KYC formalities.
Please Note: You can refer to www.rbi.org.in for further information and the website of the Government of India (www.finmin.nic.in). You may also approach the control room of RBI by email or contact them on 022 22602201/022 22602944.
Start Investing Now!
Open Free Demat Account in 5 mins | <urn:uuid:4b705a9a-f5fe-436b-8ba4-eed0edfd44bc> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.5paisa.com/blog/10-things-you-should-know-about-rs-500-and-rs-1000-discontinuation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573197.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818124424-20220818154424-00674.warc.gz | en | 0.929976 | 717 | 1.835938 | 2 |
The Huns by Hyun Jin Kim
Dec 31, 2016
The study of Inner (Central) Asia has long been the preserve of historians from those regions. As a result, much of the information they have gleaned from their (admittedly meagre) sources has remained unread by many in the West, especially those, like myself, who can struggle with reading works not written in English. Thankfully, historians are now emerging who are bringing this research to the eyes of the English-speaking world.
One of these is Hyun Jin Kim, Lecturer in Classics at the University of Melbourne, Australia, who has previously published The Huns, Rome and the Birth of Europe (Cambridge, 2013). In his new book, Kim has attempted to outline the history of the Huns from their origins as part of the Xiongnu Empire (c. 200BC – AD 200) based in the northern regions inside and outside modern China, to their evolution into the Huns and similar entities…
…continue with the review of The Huns by Hyun Jin Kim | <urn:uuid:e8161c55-5b6f-4884-9647-e0e42ddb82a9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.unrv.com/?p=1909 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279933.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00128-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971394 | 218 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Bond notes and coins will continue being used as legal tender in Zimbabwe for a limited period of time alongside the new notes and coins which are being put into circulation this month, a senior government official has said.
Last week, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) announced the introduction of new bank notes by mid-November as it moves to end long running cash shortages in the economy.
Zimbabwe has endured biting cash shortages for years now, leading to the birth of a thriving parallel market where cash is sold at premiums as high as 50 percent in exchange for electronic money.
In addition, the cash shortages have also led to the creation of a multi-tier pricing system in the economy, depending on the mode of payment, pushing up the cost of goods and services, and ultimately inflation in the country.
The cash shortages became more pronounced early this year when the country scrapped the use of the multi-currency system which had been in place for 10 years in favour of the Zimbabwe dollar which is now the sole legal tender.
However, government did not immediately introduce new replacement local notes, opting instead to retain use of the bond notes and coins which had been introduced as a surrogate to the USD for local transaction purposes.
Finance and Economic Development permanent secretary George Guvamatanga dismissed assertions that bond notes would be immediately decommissioned once the new notes were introduced.
“The bond notes will still work though, so I am not saying come rush and change the bond note (for the new notes), initially the bond notes will work alongside the new notes and coins and they will have the same value,” he said.
“At some point we will cut off, if you continue holding them we will not tell you when we will cut off, but at some point we will cut off and only remain with the new notes and coins.”
Guvamatanga said the main motivation behind the introduction of the new notes was to alleviate the current cash shortages.
“The new currency when we introduced it (in June this year), was not supported by its own notes and coins and we adopted the bond notes and coins as a form of the physical cash to support the new currency. We are now saying the time is now right for us to bring in new notes and coins which support the currency which is already there,” he said.
The new $2 and $5 Zimbabwe dollar bank notes amounting up to ZWL$1 billion will be gradually injected into the market to avoid fuelling inflation.
The new ZWL$2 and ZWL$5 notes will be green and purple in colour respectively while some of their features include the RBZ logo and three balancing rocks on the front.
The two Zimbabwe dollar note, will have the Parliament of Zimbabwe building and the eternal flame as main features on the back side while the five Zimbabwean dollar will have an impression of three giraffes and three palm trees on the back side.
Guvamatanga said the introduction of the new notes was part of bold reforms that government was pursuing.
The reforms, he said, would yield positive results in the long-run.
“For anyone to believe that let us go on our own (with the reforms) without financial support from anyone, that actually requires boldness and true reformists. For you to make that call you need people who are dedicated to reforms, who are dedicated to making this country right.
“(To say) we will look at our fuel, it is not the right price, we know it will hurt our people but this is the right thing to do. You look at energy, we know it will hurt our people because incomes have not moved in line with the changes but it is the right thing to do if we are going to create the right platform, the right environment for this economy to grow and for our people to have prosperity in the future we have to take this bitter medicine,” he said.
The government has removed subsidies on fuel allowing market forces to determine its retail price, resulting in fuel price hikes almost every week.
On the other hand, government also granted power utility Zesa a 300 percent tariff hike.
– New Ziana | <urn:uuid:7396028c-b7bc-4979-bdd9-34936078d34f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://hararelive.com/2019/11/05/just-in-bond-notes-coins-to-be-phased-out/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572127.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815024523-20220815054523-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.967116 | 865 | 1.703125 | 2 |
And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, – Colossians 1:21-22
As I am travelling to the Mississippi gulf coast, I was surprised to see that almost all of the houses here are elevated 10-20 feet above the ground using sturdy concrete or wooden piers. It seems overboard to have them elevated that high because the houses can be as far as a mile away from the beach, and it doesn’t seem that high tide will ever get to them. Apparently, these were built based on Base Flood Elevation set by FEMA in the wake of hurricane Katrina in 2005. Even if the water ever reaches that level, this standard will keep the houses above the water level and safe from the flood.
Christianity has made the impossible possible. It has transformed the society where it was acceptable to watch slaves kill each other or mauled by lions. Christianity has elevated women’s honor and the dignity of people with physical disabilities. It has elevated the standard of human rights across the globe. However, as those problems become a thing of the past, the world has forgotten about them and introduces new sets of problems that were trivial in the past. It seems the standard to be above reproach continues to rise just like the water level at the gulf coast during severe hurricane season.
How can we continue to live above reproach when the world’s standard has been elevated by Christianity throughout history? Paul gave us these prescription in Colossians 3 which I summarized as follow:
- Set your minds on things that are above (Colossians 3:1-4)
- Put to death what is earthly in you. E.g. sexual immorality, impurity, evil desire. (Colossians 3:5-11)
- Put on the New Self. e.g. compassionate heart, humility, meekness, patience. (Colossians 3:12-17)
God has enabled us to do this because we are a new creation in Him and we can do all things in Him.
And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. – Colossians 3:17 | <urn:uuid:b89a08b6-d488-4d9b-b19a-4ef7a518f0ef> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://lsfcdallas.org/heart-to-heart/above-reproach/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570767.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808061828-20220808091828-00469.warc.gz | en | 0.976036 | 502 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Living wills serve as legal and medical guidance documents: they outline specific conditions under which people may or may not choose to remain alive, including the type and extent of medical treatments individualsdesire for life-threatening situations. Living wills are also calledadvanced directives. People may complete these wills at any age; older adults frequently complete living wills, but younger adults benefit from completing them, too, as unforeseen medical situations may arise at any time.Continue Reading
Living wills outline personal preferences for medical care following sudden illnesses, severe injuries and other maladies. These wills traditionally exist in writing. Onceactivated,family members and relatives may not override the decisions set forth by individuals in their living wills should specified medical emergencies arise. Living wills essentially guard the wishes of those completing them. They commonly cover topics such as resuscitation, dialysis, feeding,breathing tubes, palliative care and lifesaving medications.
While some people complete living wills themselves, some individualscreate wills authorizing others to make medical decisions on their behalf. These wills, called power of attorney, grant legal and medical experts decision-making power following unforeseen medical situations. They might also appoint a healthcare agent, such as spouse or family member, to make medical decisions for the individual in emergency situations.Learn more about Financial Planning | <urn:uuid:53c68400-70c3-41f1-99d8-2dda347b724a> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.reference.com/business-finance/living-wills-1aa03fe3caf786fc | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718866.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00003-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941603 | 260 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Different Versus Disorder
Listen to Today's Edition
Scientists at the University of Cambridge, in Britain reviewed past research in psychology and neuroscience about the condition, which has been labeled a developmental disorder.
They observed that instead of a disorder, there were fundamental differences in how dyslexic and non-dyslexic brains were wired.
Specifically, how the brain organizes its neurons and pathways varies depending on whether the mind is better at global “big picture” thinking or local ‘detail-oriented’ thinking.
In the case of dyslexic people, their brains have more long-range connections and fewer local ones.
The team explained that people with dyslexia are adept at exploring the unknown and seeing the bigger picture. Still, they added that dyslexic individuals are less efficient at procedural learning, such as reading, writing or playing the piano. This became problematic for the dyslexic mind as humanity moved towards writing, reading and exploiting information.
Researchers posited that before writing became ingrained in our species both dyslexic and non-dyslexic people collaborated with each other to help humanity thrive.
The evolution of this brain wiring proved advantageous for humans as they adapted to their changing environment.
The authors suggested that if dyslexia is reframed as a difference, society as a collective can benefit from its innovative solutions.
“It is important to emphasize people with dyslexia do still face a lot of difficulties but the difficulties exist because of the environment and an emphasis on rote learning and reading and writing,” said co-author Helen Taylor “[Instead, we could] nurture ‘explorative learning’ – learning through discovery, invention, creativity, etc. which would work more to their strengths.” | <urn:uuid:c057a36c-2d9b-47a1-8e5d-1b75e17ce515> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.dailychatter.com/stories/different-versus-disorder/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571234.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811042804-20220811072804-00069.warc.gz | en | 0.963664 | 367 | 3.421875 | 3 |
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The revolutions that toppled the tsar and led to a Bolshevik regime played a decisive role in shaping world history in the twentieth century. This compact and comprehensive book puts the events of that fateful year into historical perspective. As background to the tensions that produced the revolutions, Russia's major unsolved problems -- from the Emancipation of 1861 down to 1905 -- are sketched with special attention to the Duma period and Russia's role in World War I. The selected readings vividly portray the protagonists and illustrate the attitudes and actions of the Russian people as a whole.
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ISBN-10/ISBN-13: 1519296916 / 978-1519296917 / The Place We Call Home / Sheila Streeter, R. Patrick Brown, Mallory Burke, Mary Clare Burke, Renee Crowley, Edith Jones Ivie, Cora Nawracaj, Laurie Rene Peterson, Dawn E. Plestina, James Pressler, Jolee L. Price, Eric J. Stiltner, Paula Morris Thomas, Ed Treffry, Emilia Weindorfer 1502792419 / 978-1502792419 / The New Lenox Writers' Group Presents: Writers, We / Sheila Streeter, Kim Forrester, Edith Jones Ivie, Mary Krueger, Cora Nawracaj, Dawn E. Plestina, James Pressler, Jolee L. Price, Eric J. Stiltner, Paula Morris Thomas, Ed Treffry, Emilia Weindorfer, Stephanie White, Norman S. Bull 0442000162 / 978-0442000165 / The Russian Revolutions of 1917 / John Shelton Curtiss 9630568640 / 978-9630568647 / Ottoman Melodies Hebrew Hymns: A 16th Century Cross-Cultural Adventure (Bibliotheca Orientalis Hungarica, Vol 43) / Andreas Tietze, Joseph Yahalom 9630568764 / 978-9630568760 / Rumanian-Hungarian Pocket Dictionary / F. Bakos, Gy Dorogman 9630568918 / 978-9630568913 / English-Hungarian Dictionary / Tamas Magay 9630569566 / 978-9630569569 / Phytogeography and Vegetation Ecology of Cuba / Attila Borhidi 9630569574 / 978-9630569576 / The Development and Prevention of Drug Use / Jozsef Gerevich, Erika Bacskai 9630574543 / 978-9630574549 / Presseschau / Szilvia Domok 9630574748 / 978-9630574747 / Theories and Contexts: On the Intepretation of Scientific Theories / Margitay Timaher 9630575159 / 978-9630575157 / Magyar Angol Nagyszotar/Hungarian-English Dictionary (The Classical Comprehensive Dictionaries Series) / Orszagh Laszlo, Futasz Dezso, Kovecses Soltan 963056498X / 978-9630564984 / Finnish-Hungarian Bilingual Dictionary / I. Papp 9630565897 / 978-9630565899 / Oxygen Free Radicals and Scavengers in the Natural Sciences / Gyula Mozsik, Janos Feher, Ingrid Emerit 9630568357 / 978-9630568357 / Das Awarenzeitliche Graberfeld Von Tiszafured (Cemeteries of the Avar period) / Eva Garam 9630568446 / 978-9630568449 / Trends in Haemostasis 1995 / Hungarian Society of Thrombosis and Haemostasis. Meeting (2nd) 9630568713 / 978-9630568715 / A Buddhist Terminological Dictionary: The Mongolian Mahavyutpatti (Bibliotheca Orientalis Hungarica, Vol 42) / 963056940X / 978-9630569408 / Singing Tradition of Lapp Shamans = Lapp Samanok Enekes Hagyomanya / Gyorgy Szomjas-Schiffert 9630569647 / 978-9630569644 / Shamanism in Siberia (Bibliotheca shamanistica) / Vilmos Dioszegi, Mihaly Hoppal 9630574896 / 978-9630574891 / Studies On Shamanism : Ethnological Uralica Vol. 2 / Anna-Leena Siikala, Mihaly Hoppal 9630575132 / 978-9630575133 / Dic Hungarian-German (The Classical Comprehensive Dictionaries Series) / Elod Halasz 9630575167 / 978-9630575164 / Dic Hungarian-French (The Classical Comprehensive Dictionaries Series) / Sandor Eckhardt 963056260X / 978-9630562607 / Hungarian-Italian I-II Bilingual Dictionary / J. Koltay-Kastner 9630562650 / 978-9630562652 / Hungarian-Slovak Bilingual Dictionary / E. Chrenkova, L. Tanko, A. Stelczer 9630563983 / 978-9630563987 / Northern Religions and Shamanism (Ethnologica Uralica, Vol 3) / Mihaly Hoppal 9630564432 / 978-9630564434 / Neurobiology of Invertebrates / J. Salanki, K.S. Rozsa, K. Elekes 9630566303 / 978-9630566308 / The Discovery of California: a Cal-Ugrian Comparative Study (ISTOR books) / Otto J. Von Sadovszky 9630566575 / 978-9630566575 / Oxygen Stress and Tissue Damage / J. Feher, Hiroe Nakazawa, Pronai Laszlo 9630566605 / 978-9630566605 / Oxford-Duden Hungarian-English Pictorial Dictionary / L. Anyos 9630567938 / 978-9630567930 / Latin-Hungarian Bilingual Dictionary / A. Gyorkosy 9630568462 / 978-9630568463 / Etymologisches Worterbuch Des Ungarischen: 6 - Lieferung /
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Lessons learned from Puerto Rico?
Op-ed originally published in the Journal News.
By Garrett Ballengee
At first glance, the similarities between Puerto Rico and West Virginia are few and far between.
The former is an ever-warm tropical island that is home to the pina colada as well as to some of the world’s most beautiful beaches. The latter is a landlocked state famous for its pepperoni rolls, rugged terrain and abundant natural resources.
However, further investigation reveals some striking – and unfortunate – similarities.
Declining populations? Check. Large public sectors? Check. Intense “brain drains” that see many young, bright people leave? Check. Graying populations with no sign of reversal? Check. Economies in a state of arrested development? Check. Recent debt downgrades due to the aforementioned weak economies? Check.
Thankfully, West Virginia is doing much better than Puerto Rico on many fronts, but there are still some lessons to be gleaned from the Puerto Rican predicament.
First off, what is the primary problem of “The Isle of Enchantment?”
Debt – and lots of it.
On May 1, the U.S. territory of approximately 3.5 million people defaulted on a bond obligation payment of $400 million. On July 1, Puerto Rico will owe $2 billion, and it is highly unlikely, if not unimaginable, that it will be able to pay it. In total, Puerto Rico has accumulated $70 billion in debt, which the government has warned that it simply cannot pay.
So why should people in the Mountain State be paying attention? First, West Virginia’s taxpayers might be on the hook. Because Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, no one is really sure how to solve the problem. Can it file bankruptcy? Maybe, but, again, no one can say for sure.
Another possibility is a bailout. In other words, American taxpayers from fiscally responsible states could be forced to pay to clean up the mess of a government that has routinely spent more than it could bring in through taxes.
This option, like any bailout, presents a host of problems that make it economically inadvisable. Not the least of these is that it may set a precedent that encourages other fiscally irresponsible governments (e.g., Illinois, New Jersey, or New York) to expect a bailout when the bill for their profligate spending comes due.
North Dakota’s taxpayers are unlikely to be thrilled to have their money sent to New Jersey’s state government through a federal bailout.
While a bailout should be worrisome to American taxpayers, it is how Puerto Rico arrived at this point that is especially instructive. As Veronique de Rugy, a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, put it, “Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A government, run by a succession of politicians, spent frivolously for decades and repeatedly ignored all the warning signs of looming fiscal disaster.”
Put simply, the Puerto Rican economy is in shambles. The poverty rate is over 45 percent – three times the U.S. average – and an average of nearly 50,000 people left Puerto Rico for the mainland United States each year from 2010 to 2013.
The island unemployment rate is, at nearly 12 percent, more than double that of the United States. Among those fortunate to have jobs, one-third work for the government, accounting for two-thirds of the government’s budget.
In light of these sobering facts, it’s easy to see why Puerto Rico is in such dire fiscal straits.
Readers are likely aware that West Virginia is in a similar, though less severe, fiscal mess. Many of the solutions being offered involve tax increases, which take money out of the productive sector – that is, the private sector – and place it in the hands of bureaucrats in Charleston. This is a short-term solution – and a short-sighted one.
As the Puerto Rican experience demonstrates, the taxpayers won’t always be there. Suffering under punitive taxation or for lack of economic opportunity, they leave for the greener pastures. If they are Puerto Ricans, that may mean the mainland United States; if they are West Virginians, that may mean North Carolina. Eventually, the golden goose grows weary and takes his productive energy elsewhere.
Sound fiscal policy begins and ends with a productive economy and productive people. This is an inescapable fact for Charleston just as it is for San Juan. If West Virginia is to avoid going south, it should look south to Puerto Rico for lessons on what not to do.
Garrett Ballengee is the executive director of the Cardinal Institute for WV Policy. He can be reached at [email protected]. | <urn:uuid:4c95292d-d058-4713-8f3a-ec551fa1af54> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.cardinalinstitute.com/update/lessons-learned-from-puerto-rico/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572212.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815205848-20220815235848-00475.warc.gz | en | 0.949425 | 1,002 | 1.882813 | 2 |
BPH In Environmental Health & Safety (Hons) In Bangladesh University Of Health Science (BUHS)
Objectives of the Program:
- This program will able to assist the students in gaining knowledge and skill for the environment and environmental systems, the impact of humans on the environment and environmental impacts on humans, the importance of environmental safety when making technical, economic, political and other policy choices.
- In the foundation courses of this program the students will be focused to human health and natural sciences, and human behavior with an understanding of the environment and environmental health.
- In this program the students will have an interdisciplinary introduction to ecology and environment, environmental degradation and depletion, environmental effects and impacts, safety and sustainability, and policies and issues;
- The student will develop capability of connecting science and society and balancing the needs of humans and other inhabitants with the needs to conserve the earth’s precious resources while formulating strategies, policies and approaches to management and solve environmental issues and reduce environmental impact.
Courses to be covered:
Introductory Public Health, Human Body: Structure and Function, Biochemistry for Public Health, Chemistry for Public Health, Basics of Environment, English Foundation Course, Basics of computer hardware and software, Public Health Microbiology and Immunology, Parasitology and Entomology for Public Health, Basics of Community Nutrition, Basic Ecology, Fundamentals of Environmental Health, Fundamentals of Occupational Health, Environmental Pollution, Air quality, Water supply, Waste Management, Sanitation, Heat, Light, Sound and Radiation Pollution, Housing and Indoor pollution, Urbanization and Health, Environmental Geology , Environmental Geography and GIS, Biodiversity and Conservation, Forest resources and Deforestation, Soil Degradation, Basic Toxicology, Behavioural Science in Public Health, Social Environmental Issues, Agricultural Safety and Health, Environmental Safety and Management, Industrial, Pollution and Management, Arsenic contamination & other contamination problem, Climate Change, Disaster Management and Response, Basics of Health Economics, Basics of Health Informatics, Basics of Biostatistics, Basics of Epidemiology, Global Environmental Health, Food Safety and Food Security, Environmental Planning, Policies, Laws and Conventions Comprehensive Field Visit, Introductory Demography and Population Dynamics, Basic of Research Methodology, Bioethics, Environmental Sustainability, Development and Green Environment, Data analysis using Relevant Software, Burden of disease and Risk factor, Residential Field Practice, Environmental Hazards, Exposure and Risk, Environmental Impact Assessment, Environmental Toxin and Xenobiotics, Environmental Health Effects and illness, Dissertation/ Project work.
Credits & Duration:
This Program will be conducted on a Course & Credit based structure with 55 number of Courses to be dispensed in 160 Credits in total, completed in a minimum time span of 4 years.
Commencement of the Program:
Each new Program will commence Fall and Spring every year (02 intakes per year)
- A Candidate with SSC (Science Group) and HSC (Science Group) or their equivalents is eligible to apply with a minimum CGPA of 2.5 in either one and a combined CGPA of 6.
- Foreign students with equivalent qualification are eligible.
- Equivalence will be decided by a Committee called ‘Equivalence Committee’ formed by the Academic Council of BUHS.
Teaching posts in government and private medical colleges, Research position in the field of public health in government and non government organization, Opportunity in Higher education (PhD),Various key positions in different projects and organization, Position in policy making level.
- Number of Semesters:08
- Number of total credits:160
- Number of total courses:55
- Admission Fee:BDT 20,000
- Fee per credit:BDT 1,687.5
- Exam fee per course:BDT 2,000
- Total Course Fee:BDT 400,000
Further More Information about Bangladesh University of Health Science (BUHS)
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The following letter was submitted by MT BHA in regards to the Bureau of Land Management's (BLM) Miles City Resource Management Plan (RMP).
Miles City Field Office
111 Garryowen Road
Miles City, Montana 59301
The following are Montana Chapter Backcountry Hunters and Anglers (MT BHA) comments regarding the Miles City Resource Management Plan (RMP) Revision.
Montana Chapter Backcountry Hunters and Anglers are Montana sportsmen across the state that depend on management of public lands in Montana for management of habitat to support both fish and wildlife, as well as traditional non-motorized hunting and fishing opportunities. The Miles City Resource Management Plan (RMP) Revision is critical to both the wildlife habitat and hunting opportunities.
Of the insufficient range of Alternatives presented, our organization supports Alternative B for the following reasons:
-Recognizes the importance of sage grouse habitat on 1.1 million acres and proposes to restore habitat on 260,000 acres.
-Does not allow oil and gas leasing on 39% of these lands.
-Recognizes 22 areas as ACECs on 1,350,000 acres
-Recognizes Devils Creek protection of 5236 acres
-Does not allow grazing on 210,000 acres
Why did the range of alternatives not include one Alternative that protected all sagebrush habitats, while minimizing adverse effects of surface occupancy on wildlife habitat? We believe even Alternative B fails to meet the needs of wildlife habitat and Montana sportsmen and we request a wider range of alternatives. None of the Alternatives developed provide sufficient prioritization of wildlife habitat, or the recognition of impacts proposed and continuing resource uses have on that wildlife habitat.
We question the decision to not provide sage grouse prioritization on all potential sage grouse habitat in light of evidence that the species is a candidate for listing as threatened. We request an assessment of all sage grouse habitat in the Resource area. We also believe the BLM has a federal land management responsibility to protect and restore all potential sage grouse habitat given that adjacent private lands do not have the same habitat responsibilities that do the BLM lands. How is the RMP is addressing National and Regional sage grouse planning guidelines, and what assurances are in the RMP to assure on-the-ground positive actions are completed?
Vegetation and Plant Communities:
Vegetative health is key to maintenance or restoration of wildlife habitat. How does the Preferred Alternative assure that vegetative communities are managed for plant diversity and health? The EIS must provide quantified evidence that documents that vegetative communities within the RMP are within natural range of variability at both the micro and macro scale. We believe the BLM has legal mandates and custodial land management responsibility to insure all components and structure of all vegetative communities are maintained on all landscapes in the Resource Area. On this Resource area, those at-risk plant communities include assessing the extent and health of woody draws , riparian areas and sagebrush communities in context of their historical presence and condition . The plant community assessment must also address invasion of noxious weeds and address containment of mechanisms that accelerate noxious weed invasions such as grazing, off road vehicle use and surface disturbance by oil and gas development. We request the final RMP specify grazing system modifications to assure all vegetative components are measured for condition and trend , not just grass. We request the RMP insist all grazing allotment management plans assure health and vigor of both sagebrush and woody draws and riparian areas, and forbs and other native plants. What assurances are to be incorporated in both the RMP and subsequent allotment management plans to insure grazing usage does not exceed specified use levels regardless of budget shortfalls, drought, wildfire, or other perturbations? This RMP must be an action document that places resource condition and health before utilization and extractive industry activities.
What do the Alternatives contain to assure valuable habitats and plant communities such as riparian areas are protected or restored? Special management and emphasis must be placed on riparian areas health. These relatively rare habitats in the Resource Area have disproportionate importance to both native plant and animal communities, both aquatic and terrestrial. At present riparian communities in this Resource Area are among the most abused by livestock grazing. Without exclusionary fencing, these areas will continue to be the most intensively grazed in any allotment. The final RMP must specify immediate actions on all allotment management plans to assure grazing use is allowed only when riparian areas have been individually assessed and documented as in excellent condition. Key riparian species, including woody plants, must be restored where they historically occurred. Exclusion fencing, beaver restoration, other techniques and suspension of grazing permits must be evaluated and promoted in the final RMP. Simple rest rotation grazing has not proven to be successful in restoring many of the riparian vegetative and structural components of this plant community. The RMP must mandate specific procedures to assure significant riparian health improvement before any new allotment management plans are approved where riparian areas occur.
How will plant communities be protected and restored where surface disturbing activities are permitted? We request safeguards for protection or restoration of healthy vegetative communities be mandated on all surface activities to minimize surface disturbance, noxious weed invasions, topsoil protection, and plant utilization standards. Adequate safeguards using the best science and techniques must be mandated as requirements for all future surface disturbing activities in the final RMP.
Wildlife and Wildlife Habitat
How will the RMP assure the health and potential productivity of wildlife habitat is maintained or enhanced? The health of the wildlife community is dependent on how the BLM manages its surface activities and uses. We request documentation of the current health of all components of native wildlife communities. While big game are often the primary species evaluated and documented, we know that many other species may be more vulnerable to surface activities. We request documentation and quantified assessment of how the Alternatives affect all components of the native wildlife community. This would certainly include candidate listed or listed species including Greater Sage Grouse, Black Footed Ferret, Interior Least Tern, Pallid Sturgeon, Whooping Crane and Sprague’s Pipit. But it would also include Bald and Golden eagles. We request specific actions be identified for implementation in the revised RMP.
How will the RMP protect or restore woody draws and other vulnerable habitat types? No less important to our members is assuring the health of sharptail grouse habitat. Sharptail grouse populations and other wildlife species are likely limited by the past mismanagement of woody draws that are very susceptible to damage or elimination by domestic livestock grazing. In addition, short grass prairie health, including nesting cover and insect populations are essential to healthy sharptail populations. We request documentation of the historic distribution of woody draws in the RMP and condition and distribution of these habitats where they historically occurred. Where less than full potential, we request specific actions or standards in grazing plans to restore health and distribution of woody draws. We also request an assessment of wildlife species obligate to woody draws.
How will the RMP protect all existing and potential sagebrush communities and their obligate species? Sagebrush communities are vulnerable to grazing systems that are designed to focus and foster grass health at the expense of other vegetative components. In addition, sagebrush is vulnerable to noxious weed invasions, and other surface disturbing activities including oil and gas development. We request specific required actions be identified in the final RMP to assure grazing systems in sagebrush habitat types foster health and recruitment of younger sagebrush in such communities. In addition, minimal surface disturbance to sagebrush communities must be required in all surface disturbing activities, including road construction, drilling pads, pipeline installation and other such activities. Topsoil retention must be required, and immediate native plant community restoration completed once a site has been disturbed. All construction permitted must assure disturbed sites are restored as quickly as possible and noxious weed control measures be implemented throughout the project life. Native plant species must be mandated in all restoration efforts.
How will permitted infrastructure and grazing systems be modified to assure needs of sage grouse are protected or enhanced? Specific to sage grouse, overhead power lines must be minimized or prohibited or relocated outside sage grouse habitats. Fences should be designed to be sage grouse friendly. Residual ground cover must be assured in all grazing plans during nesting and rearing time periods.
How will the RMP insure habitat for big game species is managed to it biological potential? Habitat for big game species, including deer, bighorn sheep, elk and antelope, must be provided throughout the Resource Area where historically present. This includes all the plant communities used must be managed for viability and distribution where historically present. All fences must be wildlife friendly both for location and construction standards. Migration corridors must be identified in the RMP, and science based habitat modifications and human occupancy restrictions be required for any project within the RMP.
Travel Management and Recreation
How will motorized travel be managed to insure resources are protected, off road travel is prohibited and non-motorized recreation opportunities are enhanced and protected from motorized intrusions? All motorized travel must be restricted to designated routes, and enforcement mechanisms increased to assure compliance. Off road travel leaves tracks others may follow which often becomes another road. Game is displaced. Noxious weeds are spread.
We strongly object to any provisions for game retrieval off designated routes. Provisions are unnecessary as hunters must consider how they are to retrieve game before they shoot an animal. Any such provisions are ripe for abuse and cannot be administered effectively by existing BLM personnel and law enforcement. Such activities ruin the experience for nonmotorized hunters and others wanting to escape from sights and sounds of motorized vehicles. Big Game they may be seeking are displaced by game retrieval activities and therefore, the non-motorized hunter’s hunt is ruined. Motorized tracks encourage others to follow, and noxious weeds are spread into important habitats. Allowing game retrieval is unnecessary, expensive to administer, and ripe for abuse.
Has each motorized route been assessed as to its effect on wildlife and non-motorized recreation opportunities? We request an assessment of each and all motorized routes in the RMP, and their cumulative effect on wildlife displacement, noxious weed spread, and other resource damage.
How much of the Resource Area is designated and managed for non-motorized recreation, including hunting? We request designation of at least 25% of the area as no closer than one mile from a designated motorized route to provide a recreation opportunity spectrum that included opportunities for non-motorized recreation. We request such non-motorized areas be formally delineated
On a RMP map and surface disturbing activities be strongly discouraged from such lands. As part of such delineation, MT BHA supports retention of roadless and wilderness qualities and management of the seven WSA’s contained within the RMP. These areas, in addition to providing for non-motorized recreation opportunities, also provide additional security for many wildlife species.
How does the RMP address public hunting access to isolated BLM parcels? How does permitted outfitting on BLM lands affect public hunting access? We request the RMP balance the impacts of the outfitting industry and its adverse effects on non-guided Montana hunters. We believe the outfitter industry contributes to landlocking out non-guided hunters, particularly on isolated BLM parcels without public access. Options which must be evaluated in the final RMP are 1) obtain legal public access to all presently isolated BLM parcels, 2) prohibit outfitting on all BLM lands within the Resource Area to discourage locking out public hunters, and 3) restricting permitted outfitting to only those BLM lands which are landlocked, retaining the other accessible BLM lands for Montana non-guided hunters.
We request our comments be individually assessed and specific comments or response provided to each comment. We request being notified of any additional public comment opportunity on this RMP.
s/greg l munther
Greg L Munther, Chairman, Montana Chapter Backcountry Hunters and Anglers
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Patients with liver disease often undergo surgery. With the increasing prevalence of liver disease and improved survival due to newer medications and treatments, a growing number of patients with liver disease will require preoperative assessment. Because of the multiple physiological roles of the liver, hepatic dysfunction places these patients at an increased risk of perioperative morbidity and mortality. The precise risks associated with specific liver dis- eases are poorly understood but are greater with increased impairment of hepatic function. Identifying preexisting problems that could be optimally and appropriately managed before surgery (eg, coagulation status, intravascular volume, renal function, electrolytes, cardiovascular status, and nutrition) may reduce these risks and decrease mortality in patients with liver disease undergoing surgery.
Patients with liver disease often undergo elective surgery, and up to 10% of patients with end-stage liver disease may have surgery during their last 2 years of life.
Patients with unsuspected liver disease may also undergo surgical procedures. Indeed, patients with advanced liver disease may be asymptomatic despite alterations in hepatic function. In 1 study, abnormal results on liver-related tests were noted in 11 of 7620 otherwise-healthy surgical candidates, all of whom were subsequently shown to have underlying liver disease.
With the increasing prevalence of liver disease and improved survival due to newer medications and treatments, a growing number of patients with liver disease will require preoperative assessment. These patients are at an increased risk of perioperative mortality due to the effects of surgery and anesthesia on the liver and alterations in the unique metabolic and synthetic functions of the liver. Identifying preexisting problems that could be managed before surgery may reduce these risks. The purposes of this review are to (1) describe the effects of liver disease on surgery; (2) discuss the risks associated with anesthesia and surgery in the patient with liver disease; (3) outline an approach to perioperative risk assessment, evaluation, and management of the patient with known or suspected liver disease who is a surgical candidate; and (4) delineate an approach to patients with postoperative liver dysfunction.
Effects Of Liver Disease On Anesthesia And Surgery
Several pathophysiological factors contribute to increased peri operative mortality in patients with liver disease. Because multiple hepatic functions are important during surgery and administration of anesthesia, understanding derangements of hepatic function in disease will help in the preoperative evaluation. Major functions of the liver include metabolism, detoxification, and excretion of endogenous compounds, drugs, and toxins as well as synthesis of plasma proteins, glucose, and blood coagulation factors. Because of its reserve and regenerative ability, the liver can sustain considerable damage before hepatic dysfunction becomes clinically manifest, and therein lies the challenge to preoperative assessment.
As the liver is a major site of drug metabolism, alterations in hepatic function may result in a prolonged duration of action of agents that are predominantly metabolized by this organ. For example, agents such as methoxyflurane and halothane should be avoided in patients with known hepatic dysfunction. Drugs such as sedatives or narcotic analgesics that affect the central nervous system may cause a prolonged depression of consciousness and may even precipitate hepatic encephalopathy if administered to patients with severe liver disease and marked impairment of hepatic function. Because hepatic biotransformation has a minor role in the elimination of the halogenated agents (except halothane), these agents are well tolerated in patients with liver disease. The metabolism of drugs dependent on enterohepatic circulation will also be altered during cholestasis. Moreover, the liver is susceptible to injury from a wide range of xenobiotics, and postoperative hepatic dysfunction may result from an effect of the anesthetic agents used. Anesthetic agents with known direct hepatotoxicity, such as chloroform or halothane, should be avoided in patients with known hepatic dysfunction.
Advanced hepatic disease often results in hemodynamic abnormalities. Patients with advanced hepatic disease may have an increased cardiac output and decreased systemic vascular resistance.
Despite the large cardiac output, tissue perfusion may be decreased because of shunting. Most inhalational anesthetic agents reduce hepatic blood flow, and the result is decreased oxygen uptake by the liver and splanchnic organs.
Although these effects seldom result in overt liver hypoxia, this outcome is more likely in the patient with preexisting liver disease. Postoperative hepatic ischemia often occurs in situations in which other factors such as hypotension, hypoxemia, hemorrhage, and use of vasoactive drugs have further reduced hepatic oxygenation. Stresses due to surgery, with concomitant catecholamine release and neurohormonal responses, may also induce changes in liver hemodynamics that lead to hepatic dysfunction.
Pulmonary dysfunction may be present in patients with liver disease.
In patients with the hepatopulmonary syndrome, intrapulmonary arteriovenous shunting may result in hypoxemia. Some patients with portal hypertension also have coexistent pulmonary hypertension, which can contribute greatly to increased morbidity and mortality. The presence of ascites and pleural effusions results in atelectasis and restrictive pulmonary disorders. In addition, ventilation-perfusion mismatch or interstitial or restrictive disease may be present in patients with liver disease.
The most common causes of perioperative mortality include hemorrhage, sepsis, liver failure, and the hepatorenal syndrome. Specific complications of liver disease such as coagulopathy, malnutrition, or ascites may influence outcomes after surgery, and their specific management is outlined later in this review. Coagulopathy may be present due to vitamin K deficiency associated with cholestasis or impaired hepatic synthesis of vitamin K–dependent factors. During portal hypertension, splenic sequestration may result in thrombocytopenia. Thus, it is not surprising that hemorrhage is a common cause of mortality. Patients with cholestatic jaundice are at an increased risk of postoperative renal failure. The pathophysiological processes leading to this outcome are unknown, but a high degree of renal afferent arteriolar vasoconstriction may contribute to renal insufficiency. Increased bilirubin (>3 mg/dL) and creatinine levels and a decreased albumin level are associated with greater mortality.
Risks Associated With Surgery In Patients With Liver Disease
The effect of liver disease on perioperative risk may lead to unnecessary concern and testing in patients at low risk of perioperative mortality. Furthermore, inappropriate surgery may be performed in those at high risk of perioperative mortality. Thus, appreciation of the risks of surgery is essential for optimal preoperative evaluation. The risk of perioperative mortality and morbidity in patients with liver disease depends on the type of surgery, nature and severity of the underlying hepatic disease, and extent of hepatic dysfunction. Unfortunately, assessment of perioperative risk remains' an inexact science due to the paucity of large prospective studies of the operative risk in patients with liver disease. The available data are primarily derived from retrospective studies of cirrhotic patients undergoing abdominal studies or from case series. Nevertheless, surgical risk may be estimated on the basis of the available data.
The perioperative mortality associated with cholecystectomy in patients with liver disease was examined in a large retrospective study. After the investigators had corrected for comorbidity that is known to be associated with increased perioperative mortality, the odds ratio for perioperative mortality for patients with liver disease vs that for patients without liver disease was 8.47 (95% confidence interval, 6.34–11.33).
Patients with acute hepatitis are believed to have increased operative risk and perioperative mortality. Although the cause may vary (viral, toxic, alcohol, ischemia, thrombosis, or drugs), the mainstay of management is supportive care for most patients, and improvement in their overall condition will diminish the perioperative risk. Thus, elective surgical procedures should be postponed in the presence of acute hepatitis.
Acute viral hepatitis is historically associated with a high mortality rate. Harville and Summerskill
reported a 10% mortality rate in patients with acute viral hepatitis undergoing laparotomy and major postoperative complications in another 11% of patients. Other subsequent studies have confirmed this high mortality.
Distinguishing between medical jaundice (acute hepatitis with intrahepatic cholestasis) and surgical jaundice (extrahepatic cholestasis) was a major clinical challenge before advanced imaging techniques became available. Laparotomy was often performed for jaundice but was associated with high mortality attributed to unrecognized hepatic parenchymal disease. Because of advances in imaging capabilities, laparotomies for this purpose are seldom performed. In addition, advances in nonoperative management of extrahepatic biliary obstruction have further reduced the need for surgery. The perioperative mortality associated with acute liver disease may be lower than that in the conventional, somewhat dated literature because of advances in surgical and therapeutic techniques, better understanding of drug actions, and improvements in perioperative nutrition. Nevertheless, delaying elective surgery until the problem has resolved would be prudent.
The risk associated with drug-induced acute hepatitis has not been evaluated, but the risk due to acute alcoholic hepatitis is believed to be worse than that for acute viral hepatitis. In 1 series, mortality was increased 5-fold in patients in whom the diagnosis of alcoholic hepatitis was made by open biopsy compared with those made by closed biopsy.
Thus, patients with acute alcoholic hepatitis should not undergo surgery until their hepatitis has diminished and their clinical condition improved. Fulminant hepatic failure is a medical catastrophe, with marked destruction of hepatocytes and impairment of hepatic function. Patients are encephalopathic and have severe metabolic derangements. Treatment involves intensive supportive care and transplantation.
Chronic liver disease can result from a wide range of diseases with multiple causes. Data are scant regarding the surgical risk in patients with chronic liver disease. The major predictor of mortality is likely to be the extent of hepatic dysfunction. Patients with mild chronic hepatitis and well-preserved hepatic function tolerate surgery well, whereas those with decompensated disease are at a much higher risk.
The nature of the liver disease may also pose specific, unique risks that increase operative morbidity, such as malnutrition in patients with alcoholic liver disease or chronic cholestasis.
The published data for operative risk in patients with cirrhosis are more extensive than for other liver diseases. However, the published studies are small, retrospective, and heterogeneous with regard to cause and have usually examined a limited range of risk parameters. Nevertheless, the risk of surgery is clearly increased in patients with cirrhosis, being greater for emergency surgery or abdominal procedures. Patients with cirrhosis may be asymptomatic or have clinically overt hepatocellular dysfunction or portal hypertension. In the presence of coagulopathy, cholecystectomy in patients with cirrhosis was associated with a greater than 80% mortality rate.
Perioperative mortality correlates with the degree of hepatic dysfunction or severity of cirrhosis.
Assessment Of Perioperative Risk
Few efforts have been made to quantify the risk of perioperative mortality in patients with liver disease. Most reported studies have been retrospective, have involved small numbers of patients, and have included groups that were heterogeneous with regard to cause of liver disease and type or urgency of surgery. Furthermore, comorbid conditions were often not considered.
The risk of perioperative mortality or morbidity is related to the extent of hepatic dysfunction. However, conventional biochemical markers of hepatobiliary disease correlate poorly with the degree of hepatic dysfunction because of the lack of individual specificity (except for the prothrombin time). Nevertheless, these markers may be helpful in combination or in monitoring hepatic abnormalities. Hepatic synthetic function may be better evaluated by albumin, prothrombin time, or pseudocholinesterase determinations, whereas hepatic excretory function can be evaluated by the bilirubin level. Tests of global liver function such as the indocyanine green test, galactose elimination capacity, and the aminopyrine breath test may have a role in predicting the outcome of surgery but are not routinely used and are not universally available.
to predict mortality after portocaval shunt surgery. However, this system has never been prospectively validated in patients undergoing other types of surgery. Furthermore, it involved subjective assessments of nutrition and encephalopathy and thus could not be reliably used for retrospective studies. A modification proposed by Pugh and associates
(Table 1) replaced nutritional status with the prothrombin time (an independent predictor of mortality) in the assessment of patients undergoing esophageal transection. The Child-Pugh score has been shown to correlate with perioperative mortality in patients undergoing nonshunt surgery and in cirrhotic patients undergoing abdominal procedures. In a retrospective analysis of risk variables of survival after abdominal surgery in cirrhotic patients, Garrison and colleagues
reported that the serum albumin level, leukocytosis, and an increased prothrombin time were the most sensitive indicators of perioperative mortality independent of the Child-Pugh score. In their study, patients with Child class A, B, and C cirrhosis had mortality rates of 10%,31%, and 76%, respectively.
For cholestatic diseases (eg, primary biliary cirrhosis), the bilirubin level is disproportionate to the impairment of hepatic function, and an allowance should be made. For these conditions, assign 1 point for bilirubin level <4 mg/dL, 2 points for bilirubin 4-10 mg/dL, and 3 points for bilirubin >10 mg/dL.
* Class A = 5-6 points, B = 7-9 points, and C = 10-15 points.
† For cholestatic diseases (eg, primary biliary cirrhosis), the bilirubin level is disproportionate to the impairment of hepatic function, and an allowance should be made. For these conditions, assign 1 point for bilirubin level <4 mg/dL, 2 points for bilirubin 4-10 mg/dL, and 3 points for bilirubin >10 mg/dL.
Preoperative Evaluation Of The Patient With Suspected Liver Disease
A suggested algorithm for the preoperative approach to the patient with known or suspected liver disease is outlined in Figure 1. The initial step in all preoperative evaluations should be a thorough history and physical examination. Inquiry should be made about risk factors for chronic liver disease and the presence of symptoms attributable to liver disease. Specific helpful information includes a family history of jaundice, anemia, or liver disease; travel history, occupational history, or exposure to hepatotoxins; alcohol or other drug exposure; and the use of prescription or overthe-counter medications. Physical examination should seek to ascertain evidence of chronic liver disease. Routine liver-related tests are not recommended unless underlying liver disease is clinically suspected. If, however, abnormalities are noted on liver-related test results, elective procedures should be deferred until an evaluation has been done for the presence, nature, and severity of liver disease.
Patients with acute, symptomatic liver disease should have elective surgery postponed, if possible, until they have recovered. However, if surgery is necessary because of life-threatening illness, it may be performed with close intraoperative monitoring to avoid hemodynamic instability and the use of known hepatotoxins. If chronic liver disease is evident, elective surgery should be deferred until the cause and severity of the liver disease are established. In the absence of cirrhosis, proceeding with surgery is reasonable. If, however, cirrhosis is present, an assessment of hepatic function and perioperative risk is necessary. The Child-Pugh score may help stratify risk in cirrhotic patients.
Patients with decompensated liver disease have a high risk of perioperative mortality. With the exception of procedures aimed at correcting the liver disease or its consequences (eg, transplantation or shunt), surgery should be deferred, if at all possible, until the patient's condition is stabilized. Nonoperative or less invasive management should be considered in these circumstances. The patient's candidacy for liver transplantation should be assessed before any elective abdominal surgery.
Some surgical procedures, such as hepatic resection, shunt procedures for portal hypertension, and liver transplantation, are performed in patients with liver disease. Most patients undergo elective hepatic resection because of a primary or metastatic tumor; hepatic function is usually normal. However, liver function may be impaired postoperatively because of surgical trauma, ischemia, or loss of hepatocyte mass. Avascular vascular planes do not exist for dissection, and thus more extensive procedures such as lobectomy may result in considerable blood loss. Furthermore, intraoperative clamping of the suprahepatic inferior vena cava or hilar vessels may result in warm ischemia of the liver. Liver transplantation is a unique and complex surgery, with its own risks and complications. Thus, pretransplantion evaluation and assessment of perioperative risk will not be covered in this brief, general review.
Preoperative Management Of Complications Of Liver Disease
Before surgery, particular attention should be paid to the management of coagulation status, renal function, fluid and electrolyte changes, specific complications of end-stage disease such as encephalopathy and ascites, and nutrition.
Preoperative correction of coagulopathy is essential, even in urgent surgical situations. Coagulopathy in patients with chronic liver disease may be due to vitamin K deficiency secondary to poor nutrition or malabsorption due to cholestasis. This can be adequately corrected by a single dose of vitamin K
, 10 mg intramuscularly. Coagulopathy may also be due to impaired hepatic synthetic function, which will not be corrected by vitamin K administration, and may require the use of fresh frozen plasma, given as needed. Because determination of the precise cause of coagulopathy may be difficult in some patients with advanced liver disease, both vitamin K and fresh frozen plasma may be given together. Some patients may not respond, and if the prothrombin time does not correct, additional measures such as cryoprecipitate (10 U intravenously, administered preoperatively) may be used. Cryoprecipitate contains large amounts of fibrinogen and von Willebrand factor. 1-Deamino-8-d-arginine vasopressin (DDAVP), 0.3 μg/kg intravenously, also causes the release of large amounts of endogenous von Willebrand factor. Plasma exchange has been used for refractory coagulopathy. Prophylactic platelet transfusions may be considered for thrombocytopenia (platelet count, <20 × 10
Prevention of renal dysfunction is particularly important in the presence of jaundice. Anemia should be corrected preoperatively. Careful attention to volume status is criticaL Nephrotoxic agents such as aminoglycosides or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs should be avoided. Urine output can be maintained by using a mannitol infusion for 1 to 2 hours preoperatively, then continued postoperatively (5% solution) to maintain a urine output of 60 mL/min. The use of lactulose to reduce endotoxemia has been advocated and may be useful in preserving renal function. Low-dose dopamine has been used to improve renal perfusion and dilate the splanchnic bed. Patients with cirrhosis often have hypokalemia and alkalosis, and these conditions should be corrected preoperatively to minimize the risk of cardiac arrhythmias and to diminish encephalopathy.
The presence of ascites may influence respiratory mechanics and increase the risk of abdominal wound dehiscence. Thus, ascites should be controlled preoperatively. Large-volume paracentesis can be performed safely. Paracentesis fluid should be evaluated for the presence of spontaneous bacterial peritonitis by an analysis of the neutrophil count. If spontaneous bacterial peritonitis is present, appropriate therapy should be initiated. Dietary sodium restriction is necessary. Reaccumulation of ascites is common with administration of intravenous fluids. Careful attention is essential to avoid excessive use of intravenous saline solutions and medications containing sodium, and the use of albumin or blood products, fresh frozen plasma, or albumin for volume replacement should be considered to minimize reaccumulation of ascites. Diuretic therapy is the mainstay for the management of ascites, but electrolyte levels and renal function should be closely monitored. If hyponatremia occurs, fluid restriction may be necessary.
Patients with decompensated liver disease have a high risk of perioperative mortality, and surgery should be deferred, if possible, until the patient's condition is stabilized. Nonoperative or less invasive management should be considered in such circumstances. Encephalopathy can be treated with lactulose, 30 mL orally every 6 hours, titrated to 2 or 3 soft bowel movements daily. Protein restriction has also been recommended for patients who respond poorly, but excessive restriction of protein can actually contribute to malnutrition and may be undesirable preoperatively. Encephalopathy may be worsened or precipitated by the use of sedatives, and thus premedication should be avoided.
Malnutrition is common in patients with chronic liver disease, and it may increase the risk of perioperative complications.
Patients with alcoholic hepatitis have poor nutritional intake, and the short-term outcome may be improved with the use of supplemental enteral nutrition. Enteral nutrition may be helpful in improving the patient's Child class and in reducing mortality in those with cirrhosis and malnutrition. Enteral feeding is preferable to total parenteral nutrition if oral feeding can be tolerated. Because patients are often malnourished, protein restriction is not advised unless encephalopathy is present.
Postoperative Hepatic Dysfunction
Close postoperative monitoring is essential for the patient with liver disease, particularly the maintenance of fluid balance and nutrition, as well as the identification and correction of electrolyte abnormalities, coagulopathy, encephalopathy, and infection. Medications often used postoperatively, such as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and narcotic analgesics, should be used with caution in the patient with preexisting liver disease. The patient with alcoholic liver disease who may be more prone to acetaminophen-induced toxicity should be monitored closely. Liver dysfunction is common after surgery and anesthesia and can range from mild enzyme elevations to fulminant hepatic failure. Indeed, abnormalities of liver test results are frequently noted postoperatively and may reflect changes related to the surgery itself or the anesthetic agents used.
Although preexisting liver disease predisposes to postoperative morbidity, postoperative liver dysfunction may occur for various reasons in the patient with no known preexisting liver disease (Table 2). On the basis of the pattern of liver enzyme abnormalities, postoperative hepatic dysfunction may be separated into 3 groups: hepatocellular, cholestatic, and mixed. Hepatocellular dysfunction may be due to drugs, including anesthetic agents, ischemia, shock, iatrogenic injury, or viral hepatitis. Known causes of predominantly cholestatic dysfunction include sepsis, drugs, prolonged blood transfusions, biliary tract injury, total parenteral nutrition, choledocholithiasis, or cholelithiasis. In the presence of a cholestatic pattern, an evaluation for extrahepatic biliary obstruction is warranted. Cholangiography may be necessary if there is a strong clinical suspicion of biliary obstruction, even if abnormalities are not noted on computed tomography or ultrasonography. However, postoperative jaundice is often multifactorial (Table 3), and identifying a precise cause is often difficult. Furthermore, postoperative liver disease may be a manifestation of unrecognized preoperative disease. Nevertheless, most cases of postoperative jaundice for which no obvious cause is identified (so-called benign postoperative jaundice) eventually resolve spontaneously, and thus only supportive management is needed. A predominantly unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia may reflect hemolysis (due to multiple transfusions or resolving hematomas); thus, the presence of reticulocytosis, decreased haptoglobin, or anemia should be sought.
Table 2Postoperative Liver Dysfunction in Patients With No Known Preexisting Liver Disease
Optimal perioperative care of the patient with liver disease necessitates an understanding of basic hepatic pathophysiological perturbations. Multiple factors contribute to the increased mortality observed in patients with liver disease. The risks are greater with increased impairment of hepatic function. Clearly, a need exists for a more rigorous, current analysis and evaluation of risk factors in various liver conditions. Reduction of mortality in patients with liver disease undergoing surgery will depend on close attention to coagulation, intravascular volume, renal function, electrolyte levels, cardiovascular status, and nutrition.
I greatly appreciate the expert secretarial assistance of Yvonne M. Ruhoff.
Prcoperalive management of patients wiih liver disease. | <urn:uuid:224fedc9-0a7f-4212-8bd3-1990a5df9b06> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(11)64136-0/fulltext | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571536.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811224716-20220812014716-00270.warc.gz | en | 0.916457 | 5,403 | 2.171875 | 2 |
A real style icon and queen of pop, Madonna adopted a boy from Malawi 14 years ago and named him David.
The singer also has an older daughter, Lola Lyon, born in 1996, and a son, Rocco, and adopted Chifundo Mercy, Stella, and Esther Ciccone. She loves all her children equally, not dividing them into “her own” and “not her own”.
At the moment, David lives in Portugal, and in order not to part with her son, Madonna bought a house in this country and moved in with the boy.
David grows up to be a very smart and bright young man, he loves to play football and is a member of the local team. Also, the son of the artist is fond of music and is a very creative person.
Now David lives with his mother and has a great relationship with his brothers and sisters.
Did you know, dear readers, that Madonna is raising foster children? | <urn:uuid:f0f754fb-0d34-4a29-a926-731a41b62d9b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://wonderworld.info/2022/07/22/what-does-the-boy-who-was-adopted-by-madonna-14-years-ago-look-like-now/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573118.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817213446-20220818003446-00668.warc.gz | en | 0.978977 | 201 | 1.53125 | 2 |
1. To subjoin, annex, or add at the close or end; to append to; to fix to any part of; as, to affix a syllable to a word; to affix a seal to an instrument; to affix one's name to a writing.
2. To fix or fasten in any way; to attach physically. Should they [caterpillars] affix them to the leaves of a plant improper for their food. (Ray)
3. To attach, unite, or connect with; as, names affixed to ideas, or ideas affixed to things; to affix a stigma to a person; to affix ridicule or blame to any one.
4. To fix or fasten figuratively; with on or upon; as, eyes affixed upon the ground.
Synonym: to attach, subjoin, connect, annex, unite.
Origin: LL. Affixare, L. Affixus, p. P. Of affigere to fasten to; ad _ figere to fasten: cf. Oe. Affichen, f. Afficher, ultimately fr. L. Affigere. See fix. | <urn:uuid:ecf08cf7-a7b5-4c01-9c91-73a72bc8bf83> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.biology-online.org/dictionary/Affix | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280221.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00229-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.757991 | 249 | 3.203125 | 3 |
In September, Waterloo UMC in Sussex County continued the United Methodists Church’s long tradition of raising concern for social justice by hosting a Solitary Confinement Awareness Conference. Pastor Tim Nicinski, who had previously worked in law enforcement, was inspired to organize the event after attending the Criminal Justice Reform Forum which was hosted Senator Cory Booker and included the participation of Bishop John Schol last year. At that meeting, he learned about how incarceration and solitary confinement disproportionately impact low income people and people of color. He has continued to learn about the traumatic effects of solitary confinement and mass incarceration, an often ineffective deterrent to crime.
At the historic Waterloo Village state park, where the church is located, visitors were able to step inside and experience a life-size replica of a solitary confinement cell. The cell was complete with a soundtrack of screams, banging, and noise recorded in an actual prison. The contrast between the loud, confining, windowless cell and the wide open space, fresh air, and peace of the canal village was striking.
The conference was co-sponsored by the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, American Friends Service Committee, and the Campaign to End the New Jim Crow. These organizations seek to share the many devastating stories, like that of Anthony Graves. Anthony was arrested at 26 years old and spent 18 ½ years in prison, including 16 years in solitary confinement for a crime he did not commit. The United Nations’ top experts on the human rights of people in detention define solitary confinement exceeding 15 days as torture. Anthony was pardoned and released in 2010, as the 138th exonerated death row inmate in America.
Participants watched the documentary “Breaking Down the Box” and heard from Susan MacDonnell, a volunteer with the Campaign to End the New Jim Crow. They learned about the mental health effects of isolation as a result of solitary confinement including insomnia, paranoia, uncontrolled feelings of rage and fear, an increased risk of suicide, and post-traumatic stress disorder Extended isolation and minimal social interaction can actually alter space and depth perception and directional positioning. .
In the United States, the criminal justice system is currently based on retribution for crime. The United Methodist Church’s Social Principles support restorative justice.
MacDonnell, who has her M.Div. from Drew University, became passionate about prison reform while taking a “Beloved Community” class held at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility. She shared information about the current status of New Jersey legislation and how to contact state representatives in support of system reform and limiting the use of solitary confinement. To learn more, MacDonnell recommends reading ‘The New Jim Crow’ by Michelle Alexander. You can take action by contacting elected officials and visiting the website for the National Religious Campaign against torture at www.nrcat.org. | <urn:uuid:d4ad0e02-afa1-47fa-a1d8-87a3ee3b65a1> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.gnjumc.org/news/solitary-confinement-awareness-at-waterloo-umc/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571472.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811133823-20220811163823-00667.warc.gz | en | 0.95463 | 571 | 2.265625 | 2 |
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- adj. Having or designating united leaves or leaflike parts.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- adj. Composed of leaves united by their edges
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Composed of leaves united by their edges (coalescent).
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- In botany, having a single perianth-whorl of united leaves; symphyllous: opposed to apophyllous. Sachs.
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Sorry, no example sentences found. | <urn:uuid:f4e68b40-9062-426a-a656-7dacd5769701> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.wordnik.com/words/gamophyllous | 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 | 0.824974 | 147 | 2.375 | 2 |
Picture yourself in a late-successional Maine forest, walking through a cool, park-like understory of mottled light and shadow among tall, tapering tree trunks supporting dense evergreen growth. The giant hemlock trees that create these unique Maine forests may soon be a thing of the past. In southern New England, including southern Maine, hemlock populations have dropped precipitously owing to the northward march of a non-native insect, the hemlock woolly adelgid. Once infested by this invasive aphid-like insect, nearly all hemlock trees die within 10 years.
Unity College faculty, with funding through Maine’s Sustainability Solutions Initiative, are conducting the multi-year Hemlock Ecosystem Management Study (HEMS) to determine how the loss of eastern hemlocks will affect the ecology, economy, and people of Maine. Unity students will work with faculty to map the distribution of hemlock-dominant stands in Maine and measure the effects of pre-emptive logging of hemlock, as well as of the trees dying slowly. The results will help land managers understand what kind of forest to expect after hemlock tree disturbances.
The HEMS team is using a collaborative Sustainability Science process to see how stakeholders representing ecological, social, economic, recreational, and land-management interests can work together to produce scientific and policy responses to complex problems. Their work will attempt to provide an array of possible management solutions for landowners, and discover how our use of resources can remain sustainable within changing ecosystems. | <urn:uuid:8c9606d6-ed96-4af9-a98a-adbbb8eca596> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.unity.edu/unity-focus/adapting-changing-ecosystem | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00470-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914459 | 322 | 3.4375 | 3 |
Pam Strayer, NursingLink
Does massage turn you on? Mind-body medicine? Stress reduction techniques? If your idea of self-care is another latte, and you’d like to trade in your high-stress work life for a soothing nurturing atmosphere, then consider holistic nursing, a specialty now for 4,000 nurses. Holistic nurses provide both conventional and complementary medicine, often training in alternative, high-touch modalities in addition to their traditional nursing skills.
Sample job description: “Work in a unique, upscale, soothing clinic 4 days a week…”
Next Exciting Career: #2 – Nursing Informatics
Take the Dream Jobs Quiz | <urn:uuid:492212e8-069f-4eff-a1eb-044e470dfc4a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://nursinglink.monster.com/education/articles/3307-holistic-nursing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280065.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00548-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905246 | 142 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Masterprogram i global hälsa, Sahlgrenska akademin
Strategies and tools are needed in the work to reorient health services. Personal International Classification on Functioning Disability and Health (ICF) - UN Sustainable Development Goals - Universal Declaration of Human Rights - strategies av MC Umwiza · 2014 — Summary The aim of this study is to investigate how to enhance the strategies of diet, physical activity and health to be effective for the Finnish population. By offering easy access through virtual solutions and minimising the obstacles brought about by travel restrictions, we bring you the virtual edition of Global Professor at Department of Epidemiology and Global Health. Location. 5B, Målpunkt P, Försörjningsvägen 7 B, Norrlands universitetssjukhus Epidemiologi och Helena Wallin, Leg läk, MSc Global hälsa Institutionen för Fysiologi & Farmkakologi, KI. ncd and mental health - world health global strategy for the. jämför kundbetyg, se skärmavbilder och läs mer om Global Health Exhibition.
Because of COVID-19, many of these events have gone virtual and become accessible to a global audience. for 2016–2021.5 It is also aligned with other relevant global health strategies and plans, including those for sexually transmitted infections, tuberculosis, viral hepatitis, sexual and reproductive health, maternal and child health, blood safety, mental health, noncommunicable diseases and integrated people-centred health services. It has been De senaste tweetarna från @GHS Global Health Strategies March 28 at 5:16 AM · To know more about India's contribution as the pharmacy of the world, join Global Health Strategies and Ananta Aspen Centre for the exclusive launch of a white paper on the global impact of India's innovations in the field of pharma, vaccines & diagnostics. Global Health Strategy of the German Federal Government3 Foreword: Germany’s role in Global Health The topic of global health has risen sharply up the political agenda over recent years, both in Germany and at international level. Global health and the mechanisms to protect it are elements of the global order.
Medverkande - Global Health, Svenska Läkaresällskapet
Recognizing the unique opportunity that exists to formulate and implement an effective strategy for substantially reduce deaths and disease burden worldwide by improving diet and promoting physical activity, WHO has adopted, in May 2004, the "Global Strategy on Diet, Physical David Gold and Victor Zonana created Global Health Strategies in 2002. In founding GHS, they drew upon their individual experiences in HIV activism, media, industry and government. The result was a company that leveraged communications and advocacy to help organizations bring comprehensive change to international health and development. Global Health Strategies, New York, New York.
Corpus Constellations en/sv
drug pricing strategies to balance patient access and the funding of innovation. av Ed Schoonveld (Bok) 2011, Engelska, För vuxna. This contributed volume motivates and educates across fields about the major challenges in global health and the interdisciplinary strategies for solving them. Jämför och hitta det billigaste priset på Introduction To Global Health innan du determinants of health * Information about global health strategies, financing, 2016 (Engelska)Ingår i: International Journal of Circumpolar Health, ISSN 1239-9736, E-ISSN 2242-3982, Vol. 75, artikel-id 33200 Artikel i tidskrift, Meeting Session 'Improving Awareness: National and Global Strategies' from the 2nd Sepsis, Pandemics, and Antimicrobial Resistance – Global Health Threats of.
This is the Global Health Strategies company profile. All content is posted anonymously by employees working at Global Health Strategies. Global Health Strategies, Inc. Global Health Strategies, Inc. Global Health Strategies, Inc. Overview.
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Now, we share our passion by helping others. We will assist you to develop best health strategies designed to 30 Nov 2020 Making the case for UHC amid a pandemic. By David Gold, CEO, Global Health Strategies. In the early days of AIDS, at every ACT UP action I Description.
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Köp billigt - Radiology in global health - strategies, implementation
5. Global Health Strategy: 2014 to 2019 8 In recognition of this, the framework agreement between PHE and the Department of Health,7 describes working internationally (through a wide-ranging global health programme) as a way to protect and improve the public’s health.
Global health strategies
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How much does Global Health Global Health Strategies is an international organization that raises awareness and provides high-level support to address public health challenges facing emerging economies. We combine expertise in policy research, advocacy and communications with a deep knowledge of, and commitment to, the issues we work on. Global Health Strategy 3 Foreword Since the creation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in 1946, the agency’s global health activities have expanded in scale, scope, and depth to address evolving health challenges and emerging threats around the world.
Registration figures worldwide – from top thirty to endangered
In founding GHS, they drew upon their individual experiences in HIV activism, media, industry and government.
This global health strategy links to the PHE business plan and knowledge strategy, and will connect with PHE ’s emerging research and academic strategy, commercial strategy and infectious The overall goal of the strategy is to promote and protect health through healthy eating and physical activity. Recognizing the unique opportunity that exists to formulate and implement an effective strategy for substantially reduce deaths and disease burden worldwide by improving diet and promoting physical activity, WHO has adopted, in May 2004, the "Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Global Health Strategies | 20,188 followers on LinkedIn. | <urn:uuid:441b5953-9055-495f-a56a-73b03ccf3bf8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://valutavbfh.netlify.app/94067/52637.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571719.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812140019-20220812170019-00275.warc.gz | en | 0.766813 | 1,404 | 2.65625 | 3 |
The EPUB 3 Implementation Project is being developed in a partnership with retailers, digital content distributors, device makers, reading systems providers, assistive technology experts and standards organizations, with the support and engagement of leading advocates for people with disabilities.
The initiative’s goal is to accelerate the across-the-board adoption of the EPUB 3 format in the consumer market by identifying and implementing what stakeholders consider to be the core set of baseline features critical to the format’s acceptance. Among these features are greater interactivity for users, multimedia-enhanced content and expanded accessibility for people who are blind or have other print disabilities.
That sounds great and all, but there's an interesting corollary to this announcement that is less obvious but much more interesting. This kind of project would not be needed if Epub3 had already been widely implemented.
So it seems that I was completely correct when I wrote back in May that Epub3 was not ready. It has not yet been widely adopted by publishers, it's not yet widely available in the marketplace (other than in walled gardens like Inkling, iBooks, and Coursesmart), and it's still not easy to make.
I am not surprised.
But that's not the only story here. Go read the quoted section again, note that it says this project will:
accelerate the across-the-board adoption of the EPUB 3 format in the consumer market by identifying and implementing what stakeholders consider to be the core set of baseline features critical to the format’s acceptance
Basically that is an admission that the current Epub3 spec is so unbelievably complicated that it's simply impossible to get it widely implemented. Instead the AAP/IDPF are going to create an Epub3 Lite format (or Epub2.9 if you prefer) and use that as the new standard.
I have been saying since February that Epub3 is DOA, and I've had people telling me for months now that the Epub3 was unworkable because of its complexity.
And now the AAP/IDPF has more or less admitted that this is true.
It's a shame that the IDPF couldn't have figured that out back in October 2011; maybe they could have avoided 21 months of stalled adoption. | <urn:uuid:36444e5e-98bd-47da-93ef-8121e11c1341> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://the-digital-reader.com/2013/07/24/aap-announces-new-epub2-9-implementation-project-in-hopes-of-jumpstarting-stalled-epub3-adoption/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280242.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00076-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971629 | 471 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Learn from Nature. Design for People and Planet: The programme for Biomimicry and Entrepreneurship in schools
Climate change, geopolitical crises and the pandemic – the last few years have been rich in challenges for Germany, Europe and the world. But challenges are always also opportunities; opportunities to create a future that works sustainably better than current systems. It is our task to prepare tomorrow’s movers and shakers to take on these challenges. Because as Albert Einstein said, “You can never solve problems with the same mindset that created them.” A new EU project is promoting a new way of thinking by bringing together STEM, business and the highly required “future skills“.
We know that tomorrow will be different from today. In the future we will need new skills, new knowledge and new ways. But also very old wisdom. Because there are solutions that show us how to live, produce and consume sustainably; how to master crises and resolve conflicts without wars and genocide; how to create healthy coexistence within the framework of local possibilities. Nature has been the only truly sustainable system for 3.8 billion years. At first glance, it appears complex. But behind this complexity are simple principles that allow life to adapt and thrive.
Nature has its own operating system. the interaction of these principles tested and optimized by evolution. We can understand, decode and apply these principles. The way to do this is called biomimicry. “Bios” for life and “mimesis” for imitation. If we can imagine a different future, we can create it. Nature is showing us how. Dr. Fabian Feutlinske, founder of the Biomimicry Academy and its operator COBIOM says, “Circular economy, sustainability, regenerative design – all this means that the things we humans make become a force that restores air, water and soil instead of destroying them. Nature uses structures to change functions and also uses passive forms of energy, while our inventions usually rely on brute force, such as mining old carbon and a variety of harmful chemicals. We can create conditions that are conducive to life, just as nature does.”
Biomimicry is the study of these principles, of nature’s operating system. Applying these principles to human design can have a transformative effect – on technology, on society, and on each individual. Until the Wright Brothers observed how vultures fly in crosswinds, they could not solve the challenge of how to keep airplanes upright on a windy day. Without vultures, there might be no airplanes and no easy international travel. We can learn from nature, be part of the natural environment, and do our part to preserve it. These are the pillars of Biomimicry. You don’t have to be a biologist, scientist, engineer, or expert to follow these principles. In fact, we can and should start learning and practicing this ancient new way of thinking at an early age.
Natural Entrepreneurs is an EU-funded project that aims to encourage more students to take the future of our society and economy into their own hands. It uses Biomimicry as a fundamental research and design tool. It provides an opportunity to learn how we can address the challenges of sustainability and collaboration that Europe faces today. Guided by UNDP’s Sustainable Development Goals, the program gives students and teachers a process to create Biomimicry designs as desirable, achievable solutions themselves. Formats can be self-selected, from 3 days alongside or in class, to 3 weeks as a cross-curricular project work, to a full 3-month course. Teachers are supported by the Natent platform. It maps the process and provides materials and support.
Natural Entrepreneurs encourages students to work together across Europe and provides a stronger sense that Europe can make the transition to a sustainable future together. There are five partner countries participating in the pilot project starting in October 2021. Natural Entrepreneurs is applicable across a range of STEM and business subjects. The challenges that student teams work on can be chosen from the platform or created by the students themselves. They offer real-world application of the process to science, design, invention, and even policy issues. Ultimately, it’s about actually turning the ideas into entrepreneurial reality.
Students learn how to think and collaborate across subjects. They learn how to identify the key challenges that impact their lives, how nature provides a model for sustainability, and how to turn their ideas into business plans and connect with entrepreneurs. Support for teachers includes teaching tools to promote interdisciplinary learning between STEM, design, and entrepreneurship. All of this is provided and organized through an online learning environment to support teachers and students. It offers a selection of learning resources tailored to the needs of learners. Natural Entrepreneurs is co-developed with experts and teachers. The pedagogical framework highlights conceptual understanding and key competencies and enables teachers to apply Natural Entrepreneurs in a variety of educational settings.
The project is an initiative of Wild Awake UK together together with the Biomimicry Academy ran by COBIOM, Biomimicry Netherlands, Focus Ecocenter in Romania and Vides Skola in Latvia. COBIOM is a pioneer in bringing biomimicry to business and society. The field is growing, with companies large and small using it to optimize services, improve design, and reduce the environmental impact of their products. The potential of biomimicry as a foundation for shaping our future offers opportunities for businesses, society, and everyone. Natural Entrepreneurs is already enabling high school students to engage with this process and learn how they can actively participate in the development of a green economy.
The ERASMUS program will start in the summer semester of 2022. It can be applied without any further prior knowledge, but there will be training offers from the project partners in the initial phase. | <urn:uuid:960b0d42-35fe-48f5-a77f-b5c510caa471> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://cobiom.com/natent/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573399.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818185216-20220818215216-00074.warc.gz | en | 0.944457 | 1,212 | 2.875 | 3 |
Define Accession and ratification
Another area/aspect that needs to be highlighted with regards to a Treaty is the difference between signing and ratifying a particular treaty. The effect of signature depends on whether a treaty is subject to ratification and approval, meaning thereby, the state signing the treaty has referred it to their government and waiting for their approval or ratification. It is an obligation on the states that have signed a treaty, to refrain from any state practice which is inconsistent with the treaty. It is important to note that the mere signing of a treaty only shows the intention of a state to take into consideration the formal adoption of that treaty at a later/subsequent stage. On the other hand, ratification means the approval by the head of State or government of the signature to the treaty. It is after the ratification that the treaty is actually formed and comes into existence. If a state has signed a treaty before it has been enforced then that state has simply signed it, whereas, if a state has ratified a treaty before it has been enforced then that state has merely ratified it. If a treaty has been enforced and then a state ratifies it then it would amount to as accession. are distinguishable as accession indicates that a state is to become a party to the whole treaty. A treaty however, can not come into force until a specified number of states have ratified it. | <urn:uuid:fba88cef-0ce6-469d-ba3e-b9c0e9f1a007> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.expertsmind.com/questions/define-accession-and-ratification-30172882.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280900.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00005-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979998 | 277 | 3.109375 | 3 |
The first large-scale water purification plant was created in 1804 in Scotland by John Gibb, a bleachery owner in Paisley. This water filter was the first documented example to have used sand filters as a water purification method.Continue Reading
Water purification and filtering trace their history back to ancient India and Egypt. Images depicting water treatment are visible in Egyptian tombs dating back to between the 15th and 13th centuries B.C.
In 1903, water treatment devices began using sodium ions that function as water softeners. The water softeners worked by means of a system of ion exchange, in which harmful ions are replaced by harmless ions.Learn more about Inventions | <urn:uuid:9fcbffa3-c22e-4a44-ad96-bf7e5a0e9376> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.reference.com/history/invented-water-purification-device-d4e16c8e6a7feef1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280310.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00191-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967184 | 141 | 3.484375 | 3 |
I've spent half a century writing for radio and print (mostly print). I hope to still be tapping the keys as I take my last breath.
“Gentleman Johnny” was a Scottish crook who earned respect as a war hero. A child of poor Lithuanian immigrants, he was raised in one of the most miserable and toughest neighbourhoods in Europe.
Early Life in the Gorbals
Johnny Ramensky was born in 1905 in the Lanarkshire town of Glenboig. He lost his father at an early age and moved with his mother into the notoriously tough Gorbals neighbourhood of Glasgow.
Grim-looking housing blocks had been thrown up in the 1840s to accommodate Glasgow’s growing army of industrial workers. The refinements of modern living were entirely absent.
The Mail Online comments that “Conditions were appalling, overcrowding was standard and sewage and water facilities inadequate. Residents would often live four, six or even eight to a room, 30 to a toilet or 40 to a tap.”
Forty thousand people shared their living space with rats, mice, and other vermin. The accommodation was deemed acceptable for the labouring classes by the shipyard and factory owners who lived in large houses well away from the squalor.
Of course, along with the filth and poverty went social dysfunction and crime.
Entering a Life of Crime
The Gorbals was a place where the toughest and meanest survived.
Writing in the Airdrie & Coatbridge AdvertiserMaurice Coyne notes that Ramensky “soon fell into a life of crime and it wasn’t long before he found himself imprisoned—something he would get rather used to—when he was sent to Borstal (a prison for young offenders) at the age of 18.”
Being incarcerated gives the aspiring criminal a university-quality education in the dark arts of law-breaking. Ramensky was a quick learner.
A small man with great strength and a gymnastic ability, the young Ramensky began to hone his skills as a break-and-enter expert and a safe-cracker.
Criminal Code of Morality
In a BBC profile of Ramensky, Eilidh McLaughlin writes that “He had a strong code of ethics and when caught, would freely confess to his wrong-doings, and even alerted authorities to possible unexploded gelignite in order that it be disposed of safely.”
Because he never offered violent resistance when caught, he earned a certain respect from police who called him “Gentleman (or Gentle) Johnny.”
Read More From Owlcation
He made it a point of honour to only steal from businesses and banks, never from people’s homes.
“Like most policemen who have come in contact with Ramensky, I find him an engaging character, the kind of man who, applying his brain to another, more acceptable, type of occupation, could probably have made good.”
— Detective Superintendent Robert Colquhoun
Johnny Ramensky Goes to War
According to The Daily Record, Ramensky “was once regarded as the best safe-cracker in the world.” It was this skill that, in 1941, brought him to the attention of Britain’s War Office, where it was thought he might be of greater use to the war effort than sitting in a cell at Peterhead Prison.
The BBC reports that, “He joined the commandos and promised to stay on the straight and narrow whilst in uniform. He had a successful and diverse career in the army which even involved parachuting behind enemy lines.”
In one escapade in Rome he is said to have opened 12 safes (some accounts say 14) in foreign embassies in a single afternoon. According to The Times he “saved the lives of thousands of Allied soldiers by stealing secrets from top Nazi officials . . . ”
For his war service, Johnny Ramensky was awarded the high honour of the Military Medal.
Return to Crime
With peacetime, Ramensky went back to his old craft. By 1947, he was serving a five-year sentence for safe-blowing. Over the next 25 years he was in and out of prison—more in than out—and always for blowing open safes and taking the money he found inside.
Many newspapers wanted him to tell them his story and he turned them all down. In rejecting one offer he wrote that, “I am a crook, always have been, and there is no turning back.
“My heart is in the game and I would not have it otherwise …
“I know from experience that money, even big money, makes no difference to my mode of life.
“The game is what matters.”
He went on with the game until 1970 when he was badly injured in falling from the roof of a business he was trying to break into. While in prison, for that crime he died of a stroke in 1972.
- Johnny Ramensky followed his father into the mining trade. It was while he was underground that he learned how to use explosives, a skill that served him well in his later profession as a safe-cracker.
- Ramensky was an expert at escaping from prison, doing so five times, but he was always caught. In one escapade, he scaled up a wall in a prison exercise yard and onto a roof. He sat there demanding to see the Head of Prisons. He stayed on his perch for five hours and only came down after it started to get cold.
- Despite his promise to behave himself while in uniform, Ramensky took every opportunity that came his way to loot. He claimed to have stolen and stashed away some Nazi portraits along with gold and jewelry.
- It cannot be said that Johnny Ramensky was a successful crook because he spent more of his life behind bars that in front of them.
- “Life in the Gorbals.” Sophie Inge, Mail Online, January 11, 2018.
- “The Life and Crimes of ‘Gentleman’ Johnny Ramensky.” Maurice Coyne, Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser, February 16, 2011.
- “Scotland’s Safecracker: Johnny Ramensky.” Eilidh McLaughlin, BBC Scotland, March 29, 2011.
- “The Amazing Life of Notorious Scots Criminal ‘Gentle’ Johnny Ramensky.” Tom Hamilton, The Daily Record, November 13, 2010.
- “Famous Scots: Johnny Ramensky. (1905-1972).” Ramparts Scotland, undated.
- “Johnny Ramensky: Cracking Criminal.” The Scotsman, November 14, 2010.
This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.
© 2018 Rupert Taylor
Paul Joseph from India on September 11, 2018:
Interesting. Johnny Ramensky was indeed a professional.
thanks for the write up
Rupert Taylor (author) from Waterloo, Ontario, Canada on September 11, 2018:
There's a book
Gentle Johnny Ramensky: The Extraordinary True Story of the Safe Blower Who Became a War Hero Paperback – Apr 1 2011
It's available on Amazon.
Louise Powles from Norfolk, England on September 11, 2018:
He certainly led a very colourful life! I wouldn't mind finding out more about him, thanks for the article. | <urn:uuid:b2b6693f-7b9d-4804-be24-e9ccf4397f93> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://owlcation.com/humanities/Johnny-Ramensky-Scottish-Hero-and-Villain | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571758.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812200804-20220812230804-00674.warc.gz | en | 0.973834 | 1,619 | 2.5 | 2 |
Churches Of Christ/About justification through faith
Hallo Bro Joe,
As the bible says we are not under the law which God has given to Israelites.
But the sins listed in the law are still sins.
What if I do a sin as per the law.
Since I am justified by faith and not by works, what if I continue to do the sin and remain faithful in Christ?
Hi brother Praywin,
I appreciate the question you present to me. My hope is my answer will be understood and be biblically accurate.
Yes we are justified by faith and not works of the Law of Moses. Not all the sins listed in the Law of Moses are still sins under the New Covenant. We are no longer required to have all males be circumcised and anything regarding animal sacrifice no longer applies, etc. But murder is and always has been a sin. Adultery is and always has been a sin. Lying, stealing, fornication, homosexuality etc...all sins. If you commit a sin that was a sin under the Law of Moses and is still a sin under the New Covenant, you simply need to repent of your sin. If your sin was committed in public, you should go before your local church and confess and repent and ask for the prayers of your local church family. If the sin was committed in private, you can just go to God in prayer privately and repent. Repentance is a change of mind that leads to a change of action and it looks forward. What I mean by that is that when you repent of a sin, you are making a commitment to God that from that moment forward, you will do your very best to avoid committing that specific sin again. You don't look to what's been done and try to rectify it by making restitution or offering acts of penance. There is no evidence of any command, example or necessary inference supporting such things as acts of penance and restitution.
To really understand what you are asking, I encourage you to carefully study both the book of Hebrews and the book of Romans. Well for the book of Romans, I suggest you just study chapter 6 closely because that clearly explains that we are not to sin so that God's grace will abound. It also speaks on justification. Just because we are justified by faith and not by works, this does not mean we can sin willfully and continue in a sin. It is impossible to continue in sin and remain faithful in Christ Jesus. The book of James also explains that we are not saved by faith alone. Our faith is one that is active...it is more than just believing. It is acting on what we believe to be true.
I apologize if this answer seems not detailed enough. There are people who have written large books on the things you asked about and normally I would write more with more scripture, but I felt it might be good for me to just point you to books in the New Testament that have much to say on the topics you asked about so you can learn the answers directly from God's Word. Also, I am going out of town tomorrow morning to visit my dad. He's not doing well and I fear he is near his time to leave this world and go to God. I will not be home until Sunday night.
If you have follow up questions, I will not be able to get them and respond until Monday. I might suggest that you also send your question to some of the other men who are listed as experts under the church of Christ. I would recommend Marvin Howard and Ernie...there are others I believe can answer you well but right now my brain is not giving me their names.
In Christian Love, Joe Norman | <urn:uuid:d8eddaca-43e7-4dbd-ad82-aa23d978ccec> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://en.allexperts.com/q/Churches-Christ-2323/2015/2/justification-faith-1.htm | 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 | 0.975693 | 755 | 1.601563 | 2 |
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/04/23/georgia.powerful.patriarch.ilia/?hpt=SbinPatriarch Ilia II: 'Most trusted man in Georgia'
By Ivan Watson, CNN Correspondent
Editor's note: CNN's new series i-List takes you to a different country each month. In April, we visit the Republic of Georgia focusing on changes shaping the country's economy, culture and its social fabric.
- Patriarch Ilia II has led one of the world's oldest Christian societies for more than 30 years
- According to a recent poll, 94 percent of Georgians rank Ilia II the most trusted man in the country
- The Patriarch has helped raise Georgia's birthrate by promising to baptize all newborns
- He says helping unify Georgia after collapse of Soviet Union is his greatest accomplishment
Tbilisi, Georgia (CNN) -- At the end of a Sunday church that lasts more then three hours, the frail spiritual leader of Georgia's Orthodox Christians emerges through the doors of Holy Trinity Cathedral's ornate wall of icons, and steps towards the waiting congregation.
The crowd surges forward. Hundreds of men, women and adolescents, reach for Patriarch Ilia II. Guided by bodyguards, the bearded cleric works his way through the sea of arms, touching and blessing his admirers' hands as he slowly walks out the cathedral to an armored limousine. Teenagers chase after the vehicle, as the patriarch drives away.
Mariam Turbanidze and her seven-year old son Nikolos stood watching the car disappear, oblivious to the pouring rain. Her family traveled hours from the Black Sea port city of Batumi to attend Sunday's service.
"The patriarch is Nikolos' godfather," Turbanidze explained. She proudly held up a framed church document as proof.
Ilia II has led one of the world's oldest Christian communities for more than 30 years. In a country that has suffered four wars in the past two decades, and experienced harrowing political and economic transformation, the patriarch is seen by many as a respected source of stability.
According to a 2008 poll published by the Tbilisi-based International Centre on Conflicts and Negotiation, 94.2 percent of Georgians surveyed ranked Ilia II the most trusted man in the country.
Born Irakli Shiolashvili, Ilia II was crowned "His Holiness and Beatitude Ilia II Catholicos Patriarch of All Georgia" in 1977, when Georgia was part of the Soviet Union.
He assumed leadership of a church that Soviet authorities had targeted and repressed for decades.
"Many spiritual figures were persecuted and shot. Many churches were closed and some were destroyed," Ilia II said.
He spoke to CNN at the patriarchate's residence in downtown Tbilisi, a three-story building full of icons and church artifacts that had been seized and used as a police headquarters during Soviet times.
"After the liberation of Georgia from the Soviet Union, of course conditions improved. The people go to church, especially the youth," Ilia II explained.
In the last 20 years, the church in Georgia - and its leader - have become some of the most powerful institutions in the country.
In December of 2007, the patriarch announced he would personally baptize newborns in an effort to battle Georgia's declining birthrate. Thousands of people turned up to mass baptisms, during which smiling parents watched as robed priests plunged screaming babies into ornate vats full of holy water.
Irma Amirejibi and her husband Giorgi were among those to answer the patriarch's call. They already had four daughters and decided to have a fifth. Last year, their youngest daughter Nino was baptized by the patriarch.
"We think that with this baptism the patriarch's kindness will bless our family and protect my family in the future," Amirejibi said, as she balanced wriggling Nino on her lap.
Official statistics show that in 2008, Georgia had its highest number of births in nine years. Ilia II claims partial credit for the surge in births.
"I have already baptized about 5,000 children," he said. "Parents decided to give birth to these children because they had a chance to be the patriarch's godchildren."
In person, Ilia II is visibly frail. His voice is at times barely audible and he keeps his eyes averted from bright lights. But the patriarch speaks unapologetically about his position of authority in a country where 84 percent of the population identifies itself as Orthodox Christian.
"The patriarch is not a person who needs a government office," Ilia II said. "That is why the most objective ideas can be expressed by the patriarch and the church."
In his sermons and speeches, Ilia II periodically veers from spiritual advice to outspoken commentary about political events.
Addressing thousands of worshippers at a Sunday service last month, Ilia II denounced a hoax news report on Georgian TV about a fake Russian military invasion. He called the controversial program, which spread panic throughout the population, a "crime against humanity."
After Georgia lost a brief-but-bloody 2008 war with Russia, Ilia II was the highest ranking Georgian dignitary to meet face-to-face with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev in Moscow.
In a recent interview with CNN, the cleric accused Medvedev of failing to follow through on a pledge to allow some of the 30,000 ethnic Georgians displaced by the fighting to return to their homes in Russian-controlled territory.
"First of all he said that refugees must return to their homes. This was very happy news," Ilia II said. "But it is a fact that these words remained just words. And they were not fulfilled. He [Medvedev] is soft-spoken and clever."
In March 2008, Ilia II helped negotiate an end to a hunger strike led by opposition parties against the Georgian government.
"It is tradition that the church has to moderate. The church has to calm down everything," said Alexander Rondeli, a political analyst with the Georgian Foundation for Strategic Studies. "He [Ilia II] is playing this role quite well."
Throughout his career, the patriarch has made political missteps. Three years ago, he called for restoring the monarchy in Georgia, which was dissolved in 1801 when Russia annexed the Georgian kingdom.
Georgia's political elite offered a tepid response to the proposal. Then in 2009, with the patriarch's blessing, two descendants of the Georgian royal family were married in Holy Trinity Cathedral. Less than two months later, the couple were reported to have separated.
Ilia II says his greatest accomplishment has been to help unify Georgia after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"Society was divided into separate pieces," he said. "My aim was to unify the people, to make them one nation. And I knew that would happen."
At 77, the patriarch is not a young man. Many Georgians now worry about the health of the elderly priest who has helped guide his country through 19 stormy years of independence. Succession to the patriarch could pose a significant challenge, said political analyst Alexander Rondeli.
"Someone else has to be better or at least of the same caliber [as Ilia II]. This is the problem," Rondeli said.
Ilia II is not only a national symbol. He is a leader whose interests extend far beyond faith and politics. During Sunday prayer services, the choir in Holy Trinity Cathedral performs a choral piece called "Kyrie Eleison."
It features a female soloist, backed by an all-male choir. Their full-throated harmonies echo off the stone walls of the huge church, triggering goose bumps among listeners.
The composer of this hauntingly beautiful hymn is the man standing at the front of the cathedral in front of thousands of worshippers: Patriarch Ilia II. | <urn:uuid:471e4634-bd89-450d-8d45-cddaa0197b47> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php?topic=27201.0;prev_next=next | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283301.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00511-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973455 | 1,646 | 1.640625 | 2 |
(Hindemith: Mathis der Maler). Cardinal-Archbishop of Mainz. Art-loving and a supporter of Mathis. However, the archbishopric has no money and the Cardinal's assistant tries to persuade him that he should renounce his oath of celibacy and marry Ursula, wealthy daughter of the Lutheran Reidinger. Impressed by her willingness to marry him for the sake of her religion, although she admits to being in love with Mathis, the Cardinal blesses her and makes the decision to withdraw from the world. Created (1938) by Peter Baxevanos. | <urn:uuid:ddb72867-f362-4ef3-9a23-b9a2f7c2b975> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095524452 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00493-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972643 | 126 | 1.648438 | 2 |
布鞋 and шаахайтнууд
6 July 2012
Recently I bought myself a pair of Chinese cloth shoes, known as 布鞋 bùxié in Mandarin. In its most typical form, the traditional Chinese cloth shoe is black with a white sole, as shown in the photo below. These are commonly known in English as ‘kung fu shoes’. In Chinese, any kind of shoe that is made of some kind of cloth is automatically a ‘cloth shoe’, and there are plenty of styles and colours other than plain black. (For a quick look at what is available under the rubric of ‘cloth shoe’, check out the page at Taobao.)
My Chinese cloth shoes (布鞋）
Cloth shoes are common in the streets of Chinese cities, mostly on the feet of the poorer, less cultivated segments of society, perhaps because they are cheap (mine cost 15 RMB) and functional. Many cloth shoes look quite grubby since they hold the dust and grime and appear to be seldom washed. However, quite luxurious styles also exist, especially for indoor use, costing many times the price of their plebeian cousins.
There is surprisingly little information about cloth shoes on the English-language Internet. Most sites are commercial sites (often selling ‘kung fu shoes’) and Wikipedia doesn’t have a page at all. The Chinese-language Internet is better served. Chinese Wikipedia has only a few lines, but Baidu and Hudong both have very long articles proudly devoted to cloth shoes.
Despite being very comfortable to wear, my cloth shoes fit somewhat less comfortably with my notional status as an inhabitant of the outskirts of the Mongol city of Khanbaliq. The reason is that the nomads of Mongolia quite look down upon this type of footwear. The Mongolian word for ‘shoe’ (including cloth shoes, slippers and sandals) is шаахай shaakhai. Indeed, one of the pejorative names the Mongolians have for the Chinese features this very word: шаахайтнууд shaakhaitnuud, or ‘shoe-wearers’.
(Later correction: Inner Mongolian uses шаахай shaakhai for shoes in general. When speaking specifically of leather shoes, however, Mongolians of Mongolia use the Russian term ботинк botink.)
The proud Mongol wears proper boots; only the lowly Chinese wear cloth shoes.
My Buryat boots (Буриад гутал）
I suspect that this name dates back at least to the Qing dynasty, when Chinese were allowed into Mongolia for part of the year for the purpose of agriculture and trading. (For some background on trading during the Qing, see the Wikipedia article Mongolia during Qing rule). They were not, however, allowed to settle permanently. At the end of the dynasty, the Qing court decided that it needed to consolidate its control of Mongolia by settling it with large numbers of these ‘shoe wearers’, a policy which provoked strong opposition from the Mongols. This led the Mongols to rebel and finally expel the Manchus in 1911, very shortly before the Manchus themselves were overthrown in China (see Wikipedia). A wariness at the possibility of large populations of Chinese becoming established in Mongolia continues to this day, and is one reason behind the strong anti-Chinese stance of most Mongolians.
So I will be wearing my cloth shoes on occasion (except when it rains), although the naïve pleasure of adopting small elements of the local culture will be spoiled a little by my consciousness of what the ancestors of the founders of Khanbaliq think of them. If worst comes to worst, I can make self-deprecating little jokes about having joined the ‘shaakhaitnuud‘. And I still have my Mongolian boots.
leoboiko said on 20 July 2012 (2:03 am)
In Brazil many call them “kung-fu shoes” (…well, at least “many” in my circles). They’re popular with martial arts aficionados. I’ve also seen them described as “Chinese sapatilhas”, a word used for ballet shoes and such.
Bathrobe said on 20 July 2012 (12:50 pm)
In Japanese they also appear to be known as kanfū-shūzu (カンフーシューズ). This is possibly more common than nuno-gutsu (布靴). In fact, kanfū-shūzu is probably a better term for the black-and-white variety since nuno-gutsu, like bùxié (布鞋), covers any kind of cloth shoes, including elaborately embroidered ones. (You have to watch the characters here. 布靴 is bùxuē in Chinese and refers to cloth boots, not shoes, as a Google image search will reveal.)
I’ve edited the post a little to include ‘kung fu shoes’ as the English term, since this appears to be a widespread usage. | <urn:uuid:1b3e122b-271a-41b7-be1e-cb38a0b0debf> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://cjvlang.com/Spicks/shaakhaitnuud.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281151.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00111-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958744 | 1,137 | 2.109375 | 2 |
The Seven Wonders of the World/The Statue of Zeus< The Seven Wonders of the World
The statue of Zeus from the temple at Olympia was a gigantic statue constructed by Phidias in the fifth century BCE. It was constructed of a wooden frame covered in carved ivory with gold accents.
In the sculpture, he was seated on a magnificent throne of cedarwood, inlaid with ivory, gold, ebony, and precious stones. In Zeus' right hand there was a small statue of Nike, the goddess of victory, and in his left hand, a shining sceptre on which an eagle perched. Plutarch, in his Life of the Roman general Aemilius Paulus, records that the victor over Macedon "was moved to his soul, as if he had beheld the god in person," while the Greek orator Dio Chrysostom wrote that a single glimpse of the statue would make a man forget his earthly troubles.
The temple of Zeus, where the statue stood, was destroyed by fire in the fourth century BCE, although some scholars believe that the statue had been moved to Constantinople before the fire, and was later destroyed there. | <urn:uuid:85ffcdf7-f9d5-4baa-a05b-42b1b4a71b8f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://en.m.wikibooks.org/wiki/The_Seven_Wonders_of_the_World/The_Statue_of_Zeus | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280410.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00454-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985699 | 238 | 3.25 | 3 |
Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. (AP) -- Supervalu Inc. said on Monday it was recalling some ground beef sold in its Albertsons and Save-A-Lot stores because it is believed to be contaminated with E. coli.
Most of the products were sold under the Moran's label at Albertsons stores in California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming and Save-A-Lot stores in Arizona, California, and Nevada.
The recalled products had sell-by dates from April 20 through May 7. It included Moran's brand meat sold in 1- to 5-pound varieties under UPC numbers 34779 60501, 34779 60000, 34779 96000, 34779 91000, 34779 60010, 34779 96194, 34779 21117. Also recalled was Albertsons 90/10 Sirloin fresh hamburger patties.
Customers can return recalled products to the store for a full refund or exchange. Customers with questions about the recall can call United Food Group's hotline at 1-800-325-4164.
The Supervalu recall stems from a recall announced Sunday by meat supplier United Food Group LLC of 75,000 pounds of contaminated ground beef. In addition to the Supervalu stores, the United Food recall included meat sold at Grocery Outlet, Fry's, Save-Mart, Smart and Final, Smith's, and Stater Bros. stores.
Symptoms of E. coli include stomach cramps that may be severe and diarrhea that may turn bloody within one to three days. E. coli sometimes can lead to complications including kidney failure.
On the Net: USDA food safety site: http://www.fsis.usda.gov
(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) | <urn:uuid:55066954-aafe-4d59-af51-7ec382611b39> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.ksl.com/article/1305848 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573540.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819005802-20220819035802-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.920092 | 394 | 1.703125 | 2 |
It has been a little over a month since Hurricane Michael unleashed his fury on the Atlantic and Gulf Coast. Thousands of people left with widespread shock, mass destruction and fatality.
Since 1986, a Kanawha City native, Hugh “Bruddy” Cravens’ made Panama City Beach, Florida his home, raising three children along the beach. As of Wednesday, October 10th, 2018, his little piece of paradise completely washed away.
For the last few weeks, Cravens living in a tent he bought from Target and solely relying on the American Red Cross for food and water.
From the years 1982-2014, Cravens served in the Air Force, and upon retiring, found comfort in a neighborhood along the beach with other veterans.
The morning of October 10th was calm ocean waters according to Cravens and by that afternoon, the unthinkable.
After a few weeks of fending to the best of his ability, Cravens decided to come home and start rebuilding his life. He was greeted at Yeager Airport by long-time friends Jennifer O’Keefe and Jim Smallridge.
For Jennifer, she hadn’t seen him in over 30 years, anxious to see him for the first time in a while.
“I hope I can maintain my emotions, I don’t know what his emotion will be but he has told me he’s absolutely exhausted, he’s coming to rest, coming to be surrounded by loved ones,” said O’Keefe.
Because this is the only way Cravens said he can find normalcy again, by being around friends and family.
Cravens has two sisters, one who lives in Charleston and one who lives in the Teays Valley area.
13 News will continue to follow his progress as he slowly gets back on his feet, which he says will take time, but he is more concerned with the work that still needs to be done to help those still struggling.
“It will be okay, but right now, it’s not. It’s a time where everyone needs to come together and I’ve seen the best and worst in people right now,” said Cravens.
A GoFundMe page has been started to help Cravens rebuild his life here in the Mountain state. He plans to use the money not only buy himself necessities, but to help his coastal friends as well start a new.
Follow the GoFundMe here if you’d like to support “Bruddy” Cravens and others greatly affected by Hurricane Michael. | <urn:uuid:37d78fd9-ed1a-4f52-95d2-bce53da08849> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.wowktv.com/news/local/local-hurricane-michael-survivor-back-home-in-the-hills/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571950.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813111851-20220813141851-00671.warc.gz | en | 0.9781 | 542 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Photo: Callie Schmid addresses a rally at College Park Baptist Church in Greensboro.
by Jordan Green
Gov. Pat McCrory has been spoiling for this fight for several months. And he clearly calculated that in attacking the rights of transgender people to use the bathroom of their preference, he had found a social issue to use as a wedge to distract rural, conservative, working-class voters from the anti-poor agenda he and the General Assembly have enacted since he took office four years ago.
McCrory signed on to an amicus brief with the states of South Carolina, West Virginia, Arizona and Mississippi in support of a rural Virginia school board seeking to prevent a transgender male high school student from using the men’s restroom in December, and tellingly, challenged his eventual Democratic opponent, Attorney General Roy Cooper, to join the legal intervention. Notably, McCrory weighed in by adding his name to the amicus brief — labeling the high school student’s efforts to uphold his dignity as “radical” — on Nov. 30, 2015, almost three months before the city council in his hometown of Charlotte passed an ordinance providing civil rights protections to trans people.
The political calculation is pretty obvious here: Cooper would either join the amicus brief, and alienate much of his Democratic base, or refuse and open himself up to charges from the right of bowing to political correctness run amok, or some such foolishness. Thankfully, the attorney general resisted the invitation to pander to bigotry.
Like the Southern segregationist politicians of the 1960s who tried to outdo one another with racial demagoguery to rack up white votes as the federal government and courts gradually upended Jim Crow, McCrory and his political cronies are playing the short game against the inevitable tide of progress. The Republican governor and leadership of the General Assembly are banking that their appeal to unfounded fears about phantom sexual predators posing as women to prey on girls in public restrooms will whip up enough votes to allow them to maintain political control as the state’s electorate slowly but surely diversifies and urbanizes. But they know that laws that single out transgender people for discrimination will be struck down as unconstitutional, just like previous laws against same sex-marriage, just like laws against marriage between people of different races, and just like laws maintaining different bathrooms and water fountains for people of different races.
The lawsuit filed by the ACLU of North Carolina on behalf of two transgender citizens, including a UNCG student, points out that HB 2 creates “conflicts between state law and various federal laws.” Notably, the US Department of Education issued guidelines in 2014 asserting that Title IX prohibitions against sex-based discrimination apply to transgender students. Accordingly, the US Justice Department has weighed in to support the Virginia transgender high school student, landing on the side opposite of McCrory.
Similarly, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission interprets the prohibition against sex discrimination “as forbidding any employment discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation,” according to a recent guidance. As examples of discrimination the EEOC cites, “failing to hire an applicant because she is a transgender woman,” “firing an employee because he is planning or has made a gender transition” and — wait for it — “denying an employee equal access to a common restroom corresponding to the employee’s gender identity.”
As a legal basis for its protection of the civil rights of transgender persons, the EEOC primarily cites a 2011 decision by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals finding that a transgender female was entitled to protections against workplace discrimination when she was fired by the Georgia General Assembly.
The writing is on the wall for HB 2, but we can’t wait two years or however long it takes for the courts to right this wrong.
As Callie Schmid, a transgender woman told roughly a thousand people packed into College Park Baptist Church in Greensboro on Sunday afternoon: “I’m worried about that fifth grader that’s now exposed to more bullying. And I’m worried about that trans teenager that’s trying to navigate the minefield that is high school. And I’m worried about that female-to-male college student who’s told they have to go back to using the women’s bathroom because it is in a public college school. I’m worried about the young professional who is transitioning on the job and gets fired because they’re trans.”
Schmid talked about losing one of her closest friends, a medical doctor with a bright future ahead of her, to suicide last year.
“She lost her struggle to being trans and all the sh-tuff that comes with it,” Schmid said. “And so I want to say to Mr. McCrory and the haters in the General Assembly: The next time a trans kid walks into oncoming traffic to end his or her life, I want you to look the parents and the family in the eye and tell them that HB 2 was a good idea.”
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Faith factors at play in two European elections at the weekend
Two general elections on Sunday made it an interesting weekend on the religion&politics beat in Europe. Put simply, a pro-Catholic party lost in Poland and an anti-minaret party won in Switzerland. There was no link between the two votes and religion was not the main issue in either. But the faith factor was in the air and it highlighted two trends at the crossroads of church and state in Europe.
Poland’s Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski lost his election despite strong support from the powerful media empire of right-wing Father Tadeusz Rydzyk, whose outlets include the controversial Radio Maryja that critics call xenophobic and anti-Semitic. Kaczynski and his twin brother Lech , Poland’s president, have enjoyed support from older Poles and many clerics because of their fervent Catholicism. But Jaroslaw’s government got mired down in infighting and picked fights with the European Union, Germany and Russia. The Polish bishops, sensing the Church was being used for political purposes, told priests not to use the pulpit to endorse any candidates.
The Polish Catholic Church played a major political role before 1989, standing as an alternative to the Soviet-backed communist government in Warsaw. Since then, however, democracy, economic growth and European Union membership have changed the country profoundly. The close ties between some conservative political parties and the Catholic Church faded in most of Europe years ago and are fading now in Poland, even while a majority of Poles still attends church regularly.
A different trend was at play in Switzerland, where a party that campaigned against minarets on mosques and pledged to kick out “black sheep” (immigrants who commit serious crimes) became the biggest group in the Swiss parliament. The Swiss People’s Party (SVP) will not take over the government because the Alpine republic has a consensus- based system that ensures no one party exerts too much influence. But its populist leader Christoph Blocher can be expected to continue the campaigns against minarets (and mosque building in general) and against immigrants. This time, the religion concerned — Islam — is perceived to be on the rise.
The tougher line on building mosques has emerged recently in several countries, especially — but by no means exclusively — in the German-speaking ones. A dispute over a planned mosque in Cologne goes on (here local media reports in German) and the head of the Evangelical Church in Germany, the main Protestant body there, recently asked whether a series of mosques planned around Germany amounted to a concealed “claim to power” (Machtanspruch) by Muslim communities. | <urn:uuid:485b1d40-e97d-4b6a-af7b-aec94d54900e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://blogs.reuters.com/faithworld/2007/10/22/faith-factors-at-play-in-two-european-elections-at-the-weekend/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00243-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966599 | 552 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Delahoyde & Hughes
Euripides' play Hecabe, produced in 425 b.c.e., begins with an introduction from the ghost of Polydorus -- Priam and Hecabe's youngest son who was sent away with treasures to stay with a family friend, Polymestor, in Thrace for safekeeping. Troy has fallen now, and when news reached Polymestor, he killed Polydorus and flung his corpse into the sea. It's due to float ashore today. Meanwhile, the ghost of Achilles has appeared to the Greeks and demanded sacrifice: Polyxena, another daughter of the former Trojan royal couple. Priam is dead. His widow has much to bear soon.
Hecabe has dreamt of these two children and bad omens. A Chorus of Trojan women, now slaves of Agamemnon, reports of the demands of the dead Achilles and the recent Greek debate. A woeful Hecabe informs Polyxena but the girl seems more sorry for her mother's grief than for the loss of her own life.
Odysseus arrives and Hecabe appeals to his sense of honor: she reminds him that she alone recognized him in his disguise when he sneaked into Troy once but did not rat him out. So take her, Hecabe, instead of the girl. Odysseus employs some sophistry to weasel out of such a deal. He and Polyxena exit.
The Chorus speculates on where it will end up now. Thessaly? Athens? A Greek herald, Talthybius, wonders, "is all our belief in gods a myth, a lie / Foolishly cherished, while blind hazard rules the world" (77). He has the lamentable duty to inform Hecabe of Polyxena's noble death, who "even as she died, took care to fall / Becomingly, hiding what should be hidden from men's view" (79). Now Hecabe must prepare the body for funeral rites. She sends an old attendant to fetch a jar of sea-water. Polydorus' corpse is discovered, and Hecabe requests from Agamemnon the right to have vengeance against Polymestor. Agamemnon thinks that "women -- can't do anything" (89), but whatever.
Polymestor is sent for and brings his two young sons. He puts on a hypocritical yet cursory display of sympathy. "The gods dispose our fortunes / This way and that in sheer confusion, so that we / May reverence them through fear of the unknown" (92). He pretends Polydorus is still alive. Hecabe tells him there's more treasure and tricks him into a tent where she and the other women kill his sons and put out his eyes. He emerges, blind and crawling after Hecabe.
Agamemnon must judge the events. Polymestor claims now that he feared that Polydorus might raise an army to avenge the sacking of Troy. He says the women gouged out his eyes with their brooches (whereas Ovid says Hecabe scraped them out with her fingernails and kept digging at the empty sockets -- see Metamorphoses, Book 13). Polymestor ends with a slur against women (99).
Hecabe explains what bull he is full of and convinces Agamemnon that Polymestor is ruled by greed. Agamemnon agrees that Hecabe has suffered adequately and the Polymestor got what he had coming to him. Polymestor says that a prophet in Thrace revealed that Hecabe will turn into a dog and throw herself from the masthead of the ship into the sea. "Cynossema, the Dog's Grave, / A sign for sailors" (102) will be the place bearing her name and memory. Cassandra and Agamemnon will be murdered by Clytemnestra. Agamemnon has had enough. He orders that Polymestor be gagged and thrown onto a desert island. Hecabe must attend the corpses of two children; Agamemnon looks forward to the trip home; and the Chorus resigns itself to slavery.
Euripides. Hecabe. Trans. Philip Vellacott. Medea and Other Plays. Baltimore: Penguin Classics, 1963. 63-103, 201.
Powell, Barry. Classical Myth. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 2001.
Euripides Orpheus: Greek Plays | <urn:uuid:eee537b7-8e2c-474a-a6ed-87c68b8e2ddb> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/mythology/hecabe.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284352.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00197-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9576 | 956 | 3.03125 | 3 |
- freely available
Nutrients 2014, 6(5), 2088-2103; doi:10.3390/nu6052088
Abstract: Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are the principle source of added sugar in diets. Cardiometabolic disturbances can occur from early childhood to adulthood. The aim of this cross-sectional study was to examine the gender-specific association of SSB intake with metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its components among adolescents in Taiwan. A total of 2727 adolescents aged 12 to 16 years randomly selected from three diverse economic areas in Southern Taiwan by using a multistage-sampling strategy participated in this study. Demographic, dietary, physical and anthropometric parameters were measured, and serum lipid profiles and glucose levels were determined. The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) specifies that MetS requires abdominal obesity and ≥2 abnormal components, and Cook criteria for MetS require ≥3 abnormal components. We applied survey-data modules to data analyses, and used multiple regression and logistic models to adjust for covariates. An increased SSB intake was linked to a greater waist circumference in both sexes and to systolic blood pressure in boys (P for trend: ≤0.043). Male moderate and high consuming SSB drinkers exhibited triglyceride levels that were 8.0 and 8.2 mg/dL significantly higher, respectively, than those of nondrinkers. Compared with nondrinkers, boys who consumed >500 mL/day (high quantity) of SSBs exhibited 10.3-fold (95% confidence intervals (CIs): 1.2-90.2) and 5.1-fold (95% CIs: 1.01-25.5) risks of contracting MetS, as defined by the IDF and Cook criteria for MetS, respectively. In girls, the risk estimates for the same comparison were not significant by the IDF criteria (6.5-fold risk, 95% CIs: 0.9-∞) or Cook criteria (5.9-fold risk, 95% CIs: 0.8-43.8) for MetS. High SSB consumption was also linked to 1.9-fold (95% CIs: 1.1-3.1) and 2.7-fold (95% CIs: 1.3-5.7) higher risks of being at a greater overall metabolic risk in girls and boys, respectively. In conclusion, a high SSB intake is associated with adolescent MetS among boys but not girls in Taiwan.
Epidemiological evidence has indicated that cardiometabolic disturbances can occur from early childhood to adulthood [1,2,3]. Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a clustering of three or more cardiometabolic risk factors, including abdominal obesity, elevated blood pressure, elevated fasting plasma glucose (FPG), high serum triglycerides (TG) and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels . In adults, this metabolic disorder has been determined to induce an approximately 2-fold risk for cardiovascular death, a 3-fold risk for cardiovascular complications and a 5-fold risk for type 2 diabetes [5,6,7,8]. In children, obesity has been associated with the development of MetS [9,10], and in prospective studies, pediatric MetS has been identified as a crucial predictor for adult MetS, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease [11,12]. Adolescents are one of the major groups who consume a high amount of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) ; however, limited data are available regarding the effects of SSB consumption among adolescents on pediatric MetS.
SSBs, a liquid form of carbonated or noncarbonated energy, are the principle source of added sugar in diets . In adults, the intake of SSBs has been associated with an enhanced risk of weight gain and of developing obesity and obesity-related disorders, such as MetS, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and stroke [15,16,17]. Recent investigations have indicated that, compared with isoenergetic solid carbohydrates, liquid carbohydrates, especially SSBs, generate less satiety and overall energy intake is increased because of incomplete dietary compensation [18,19,20].
The prevalence of obesity among adolescents in Taiwan has increased by 27.7% in girls and 25.8% in boys in recent decades , and has become a critical concern in pediatric health nationwide. One study conducted in Taiwan reported that the consumption of SSBs was associated with a 3.2- to 4.9-fold risk of obesity . The purpose of this study was to investigate the gender-specific association of SSB consumption with MetS and its components among adolescents in the same large-scale cross-sectional survey in Taiwan .
2. Materials and Methods
2.1. Participants and Study Design
This study was conducted in three areas characterized by various economic backgrounds and urbanization levels in Southern Taiwan—Kaohsiung City (urban region), Pingtung County (suburban region) and Taitung County (rural region)—and involved monitoring the Multilevel Risk Profiles for Adolescent Metabolic Syndrome (mRP-aMS). Adolescents aged 12 to 16 years who were included in the entry lists of junior high schools in these areas were the target population. The mRP-aMS protocol was approved by the ethics committee of Kaohsiung Medical University, and all data collection was conducted in accordance with the guidelines for ethical conduct in human research. Informed written consent was obtained from the adolescents and their parents or guardians.
The mRP-aMS, performed between 2007 and 2009, was a cross-sectional survey of a representative sample of adolescents in Grades 7-9 in Southern Taiwan. The study consisted of a school visit at which questionnaire surveys were administered, anthropometric measurements were obtained and blood samples were subsequently collected. The details of the research method were reported elsewhere . Briefly, a multistage, geographically stratified cluster sampling design was used to recruit study participants. A total of 3784 students randomly selected from 36 schools agreed to participate in the questionnaire and anthropometric surveys (97.5% response rate). Among these students, 2727 adolescents (72.1%) participated in the clinical blood examinations.
2.2. Data Collection
A structured questionnaire was used to collect research data. Information obtained included demographic factors, personal disease history, lifestyle behaviors, dietary intake and physical activity, as well as cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption status. We used a semiquantitative food-frequency questionnaire containing 23 food groups to assess daily dietary patterns exhibited during the previous month. The intake of various SSBs, including soft drinks, fruit drinks and sweetened teas, was obtained from the responses provided in the completed food-frequency questionnaire. SSB drinkers were defined as adolescents who had consumed at least one serving of any type of SSB per week over the prior month. We calculated the total SSB consumption per day for each participant, and for data analysis, classified SSB consumption as non-intake, 1-500 mL and intake >500 mL according to the standard serving size in Taiwan. The Taiwanese Food and Nutrients Databank was employed to estimate the total calories consumed based on individual food consumption data . Furthermore, weekday and weekend patterns of physical activity, including physical education classes in schools, after-school physical activity, extracurricular activities or training, physical activities in the evenings, spare time and weekend activities and static activities for each participant in a regular week were measured using nine group questions. We transformed the activity data into metabolic equivalent task (MET) measurements and calculated the overall MET-minutes per week . The adolescents were categorized into three groups according to the tertiles of total physical activity.
2.3. Anthropometric and Clinical Measurements
Qualified examiners performed anthropometric measurements using a standardized process after collecting the questionnaire data. Anthropometric indicators comprised height, weight, hip circumference (HC) and waist circumference (WC), body fat, systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP). Body fat percentage was determined using a body impedance system (BF-800, Tanita Corp, Tokyo, Japan), and body adiposity index (BAI, %), another indicator for human body fat, was calculated as [(hip in cm)/(height in m)1.5] - 18 . The formula (weight in kg)/(height in m)2 was used to compute body mass index (BMI) .
We collected blood samples from the participants after 3 weeks of data collection. Clinical specimens were obtained in the morning by conducting venipuncture after the participants underwent a 10-h overnight fast at the health center of each school. The lipid profiles, including HDL-C, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), TGs and total cholesterol levels, as well as FPG levels, were enzymatically quantified by employing a chemistry autoanalyzer using commercially available reagents (TBA-c16000 automatic analyzer, Toshiba, Tokyo, Japan) .
2.4. Definitions of Metabolic Syndrome
Because metabolic and anthropometric parameters change with age and pubertal growth, applying the adult MetS definition to adolescents is problematic . In this study, we measured adolescent MetS by using the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) consensus criteria and the Cook et al. criteria for MetS, which involves considering age, sex and height for several MetS components . In the IDF criteria, a diagnosis of pediatric MetS requires abdominal obesity (WC ≥ 90th percentile or adult cutoff if lower) and the presence of two or more of the following clinical features: low HDL-C (<40 mg/dL), elevated TGs (≥150 mg/dL), increased FPG (≥100 mg/dL or known type 2 diabetes) and high blood pressure (SBP ≥ 130 mmHg or DBP ≥ 85 mmHg). According to Cook et al. criteria for MetS , a diagnosis of adolescent MetS requires at least three of the following risk components: abdominal obesity (WC ≥ 90th age- and sex-specific percentile), low HDL-C (≤40 mg/dL), elevated TGs (≥110 mg/dL), increased FPG (≥110 mg/dL) and high blood pressure (blood pressure ≥90th age-, sex- and height-specific percentile).
2.5. Statistical Analysis
The data were first arranged based on computed complex sampling weights. Stata v13 survey-data statistical modules (StataCorp., College Station, TX, USA) were applied to accommodate the complex sampling design. We used multivariate linear regression models to assess the association between SSB intake and cardiometabolic risk factors. Multivariate-adjusted mean and regression coefficients were employed to determine the effect of diverse levels of SSB intake on continuous outcomes. A fundamental regression model including age, sex and study area was used to assess potential confounders. Factors that altered the effect of interest by >10% or that had been determined as confounders in prior studies were considered confounding factors [27,28]. Covariates, including study area, age, physical activity, total calories, the intake of meat, fruit, fried food, food with jelly/honey, alcohol consumption and cigarette smoking, were evaluated as confounders.
Because the IDF diagnostic definition for pediatric MetS is an interim set of criteria, a range of cutoff values principally based on the Adult Treatment Panel III adult criteria for classifying MetS components have been used in previous studies . To assist in the evaluation of IDF and Cook et al. criteria for MetS [7,26], a two-step cluster analysis was conducted to identify adolescents at low, median and high metabolic risk; this analysis method has been applied in previous studies [3,29]. This statistical method was used to determine the nature clusters of subjects, in which the subjects in the same cluster are more similar to each other than they are to subjects in other clusters. Because MetS is a cluster of risk factors that occur jointly, cluster analysis is an appropriate technique for identifying high-risk clusters . In the first cluster step, we employed an agglomerative hierarchical clustering procedure, in which each observation was first considered as a separate group, the closest two groups were then combined, and this process was continued until all observations merged with progress up the hierarchy. The k-means partition cluster method was employed as the second cluster step. Subclusters and seed values generated from the first cluster step were used as inputs, and an iterative process, in which each observation was assigned to subclusters whose mean was closest, was performed. These steps continued until no changes were observed in subclusters. Standardized components of MetS, including WC, HDL-C, TG, FPG, SBP and DBP levels, were used to identify low, median and high overall metabolic risk clusters for girls and boys, respectively. Furthermore, to evaluate the effect of SSB intake on binary outcomes for the MetS components and trinary outcomes for the BMI and metabolic risk clusters, we employed the adjusted odds ratio (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), which were respectively derived from binary and polytomous logistic regression models, to estimate the associated risks .
Table 1 shows the distribution of demographic factors, physical activity and energy intake associated with the intake of SSBs among adolescents. After adjusting for the complex sampling design, we determined that a higher proportion of boys than girls consumed a high amount of SSBs (>500 mL; 32.1% vs. 18.5%). Adolescents who ingested a high amount of SSBs typically exhibited an increased total calorie intake (Ptrend < 0.001 for both sexes). Among the girls, discrepancies in the SSB intake pattern were noted across various economic areas.
Table 2 shows the multivariate-adjusted means and regression coefficients of the cardiometabolic risk factors associated with SSB intake. An increased consumption of SSBs was linked to a greater WC, with a significantly increased WC observed in girls who exhibited a >500 mL/day intake and in boys who exhibited SSB intake. Compared with nondrinkers, male median (1-500 mL/day) and high (>500 mL/day) SSB drinkers had an 8.0 and 8.2 mg/dL greater concentration of TGs (78.4 and 78.6 vs. 70.4 mg/dL), respectively. A higher level of SSB consumption was related to a higher level of SBP in boys (adjusted β = 0.6 mmHg, Ptrend = 0.043). In both girls and boys, a notable dose-dependent effect of SSB intake on HC, body fat, BAI and BMI was observed.
Table 3 shows the prevalence rate and risks of developing MetS and its components among adolescents according to the IDF and Cook et al. criteria for MetS. The prevalence rate of IDF MetS was 1.1% and 2.1% for girls with a median and high amount of SSB consumption, and 3.5% and 5.4% for boys, respectively, with a large WC being the major contributor of MetS (prevalence rates were 13.4% and 22.7% for median and high intake in girls, and 12.1% and 18.7% in boys, respectively). Compared with nondrinkers, boys who consumed >500 mL of SSBs per day exhibited a 10.3-fold risk (95% CIs: 1.2-90.2) of developing IDF MetS, and girls had a non-significant 6.5-fold risk (95% CIs: 0.9-∞) of developing MetS. Alternatively, the prevalence rate of MetS according to Cook criteria was 1.9% and 3.4% for median and high SSB intake in girls, and 4.1% and 5.1% in boys, respectively, with raised blood pressure being the main contributor of MetS (prevalence rates were 16.2% and 23.0% for median and high intake in girls, and 17.3% and 22.0% in boys, respectively). Compared with nondrinkers, boys who consumed >500 mL/day of SSBs exhibited a 5.1-fold (95% CIs: 1.01-25.5) risk of being diagnosed with Cook criteria for MetS, and girls who ingested >500 mL of SSBs per day had a non-significant 5.9-fold risk (95% CIs: 0.8-43.8) of developing MetS.
As shown in Figure 1, boys at a high metabolic risk exhibited greater WC and TG, FPG, SBP and DBP levels than did those at a low metabolic risk. Similarly, a higher level of these four MetS components and a lower concentration of HDL-C were observed in girls at a high metabolic risk compared with those at a low metabolic risk. These results indicated that the data-driven risk clusters were suitable for determining the risk of developing adolescent MetS.
Table 4 shows the effect of SSB intake on metabolic risk clusters among adolescents. Increased SSB consumption was determined to be associated with a high metabolic risk cluster in both sexes (Ptrend < 0.038). Adolescents who drank >500 mL of SSBs per day exhibited a 1.9-fold (95% CIs: 1.1-3.1) and a 2.7-fold (95% CIs: 1.3-5.7) risk of being classified as having a high overall metabolic risk in girls and boys, respectively.
|Nonintake||1–500||>500||p 3||Nonintake||1-500||>500||p 3|
|Study subjects (no.) 1||196||961||242||120||802||406|
|Population distribution 2|
|Consumer pattern (%)||15.6||65.9||18.5||8.8||59.1||32.1|
|Age, years (Mean ± SE)||13.6 ± 0.1||13.5 ± 0.1||13.7 ± 0.1||0.574||13.6 ± 0.1||13.5 ± 0.1||13.7 ± 0.1||0.058|
|Physical activity, MET-min/week (%)|
|Total calories, kcal/day (Mean ± SE)||1835.3 ± 61.3||1903.4 ± 29.9||2044.8 ± 45.3||<0.001||2083.7 ± 60.8||2151.5 ± 39.9||2448.2 ± 67.2||<0.001|
1 Raw number of study samples (the number that is not adjusted for sample survey design); 2 Data was presented adjusted for sample weight and complex sample design; 3p for associations between sugar-sweetened beverage consumption and the factors investigated.
|aMean||SE||aMean||SE||aMean||SE||adj. β||SE||ptrend||aMean||SE||aMean||SE||aMean||SE||adj. β||SE||ptrend|
|Waist circumference, cm||68.0||0.9||69.4||0.7||71.1 *||0.8||1.5||0.6||0.011||72.6||0.9||75.0 *||0.6||76.3 *||0.9||1.6||0.7||0.039|
|HDL cholesterol, mg/dL||58.8||1.3||59.0||1.2||57.6||1.6||−0.6||0.9||0.528||56.0||1.3||56.3||0.7||54.9||1.6||−0.9||1.0||0.401|
|Triglyceride, mg/dL||74.4||2.3||76.0||1.9||79.3||3.2||2.5||1.7||0.160||70.4||3.2||78.4 *||1.6||78.6 *||2.8||2.6||2.4||0.278|
|Plasma glucose, mg/dL||89.1||0.9||89.6||0.7||90.6||0.9||0.7||0.5||0.119||92.1||1.0||93.1||0.6||91.4||1.0||−0.9||0.6||0.167|
|Total cholesterol, mg/dL||161.1||3.9||164.2||2.4||166.1||3.7||2.5||2.2||0.274||154.2||2.4||158.1||1.5||156.5||4.4||0.1||2.8||0.984|
|Hip circumference, cm||89.8||0.6||90.1||0.4||92.3 *||0.7||1.3||0.4||0.007||90.2||0.8||91.7||0.5||93.8 *||0.7||2.0||0.6||0.002|
|Body fat, %||26.1||0.5||26.7||0.3||28.5 *||0.5||1.2||0.4||0.005||17.7||1.0||19.8 *||0.5||20.8 *||0.6||1.3||0.6||0.030|
|Body adiposity index, %||27.6||0.3||27.9||0.2||29.1 *||0.3||0.8||0.2||0.001||24.9||0.4||26.2 *||0.2||26.7 *||0.3||0.8||0.3||0.005|
|Body mass index, kg/m2||20.3||0.3||20.7||0.2||21.5 *||0.3||0.6||0.2||0.007||21.0||0.4||22.0 *||0.2||22.7 *||0.3||0.8||0.3||0.009|
Abbreviations: * p < 0.05; HDL, high-density lipoprotein; SBP, systolic blood pressure; DBP, diastolic blood pressure; adj., adjusted. 1 Models were adjusted for study area, age, physical activity, total calories, the intake of meat, fruit, fried food, food with jelly/honey, alcohol drinking and cigarette smoking; 2 Adjusted mean displays the estimated prediction when the covariates were set as mean values; 3 Adjused regression coefficients were estimated for a linear dose-response effect of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption.
|Prevalence, %||1–500 vs. NI||>500 vs. NI||Prevalence, %||1–500 vs. NI||>500 vs. NI|
|NI||1–500||>500||aOR||(95% CI)||aOR||(95% CI)||ptrend||NI||1–500||>500||aOR||(95% CI)||aOR||(95% CI)||ptrend|
|Component (c) no.|
|MetS (WC + ≥2c)||0.0||1.1||2.1||3.8 2||(0.6–∞)||6.5 2||(0.9–∞)||0.049 2||0.6||3.5||5.4||6.9||(0.7–63.2)||10.3||(1.2–90.2)||0.007|
|High FPG||1.4||1.9||1.8||1.9||(0.7–4.9)||1.6||(0.2–10.8)||0.690||0.0||1.9||1.5||3.6 2||(0.6–-∞)||2.0 2||(0.3–∞)||1.000 2|
|Component (c) no.|
Abbreviations: NI, nonintake; IDF, International Diabetes Federation; WC, waist circumference; HDL-C, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol; TG, triglyceride; FPG, fasting plasma glucose; BP, blood pressure; 1 ORs were adjusted for study area, age, physical activity, total calories, the intake of meat, fruit, fried food, food with jelly/honey, alcohol drinking and cigarette smoking; 2 ORs were calculated using the median unbiased estimates with the aid of exact logistic regression.
|Prevalence, %||1–500 vs. NI||>500 vs. NI||Prevalence, %||1–500 vs. NI||>500 vs. NI|
|NI||1–500||>500||aOR||(95% CI)||aOR||(95% CI)||ptrend||NI||1–500||>500||aOR||(95% CI)||aOR||(95% CI)||ptrend|
|Metabolic risk cluster 2|
Abbreviations: NI, nonintake; 1 ORs were adjusted for study area, age, physical activity, total calories, the intake of meat, fruit, fried food, food with jelly/honey, alcohol drinking and cigarette smoking; risk cluster groups were derived from a two-step cluster analysis.
This study presents data indicating that increased SSB intake is associated with an increased WC, HC, total cholesterol, body fat, BAI and BMI among schoolchildren. In boys, the consumption of a high amount of SSBs exhibited a significant effect on development of MetS; adolescents who ingested >500 mL of SSBs per day were likely to exhibit a high overall metabolic risk.
Several mechanisms explaining the link between SSB consumption and weight gain have been suggested [18,19,20]. Although satiety responses vary according to race, sex and body weight, liquid carbohydrates generally provide a lower level of satiety than do solid carbohydrates [18,19]. Energy obtained from liquid sources that provide low levels of satiety has been observed to result in poor compensation by subsequent energy intake, thereby inducing an increase in total energy intake [19,20]. In addition, adult diets containing SSBs have been linked to an increase in self-selected daily energy intake . Recently, a systematic review and meta-analysis reported that the intake of SSBs is clearly associated with increased energy intake and body weight . The results obtained in this investigation support this argument.
The association between SSB intake and adiposity has been extensively assessed in observational studies, experimental trials and meta-analyses [20,32,33]. The majority of well-designed observational studies have reported that the consumption of several types of SSB has detrimental effects on adiposity and obesity [20,33]. Numerous findings of studies that were designed to reduce and increase SSB consumption have supported a causal relationship between SSB intake and weight gain [32,33]. Taking all concerns regarding risk evaluation into account, a meta-analysis study identified a significant 0.08-unit change in BMI associated with each 355 mL of SSB intake . In this study, we observed that the BMI values increased as SSB consumption increased in both girls and boys. The phenotypes of weight gain were observed in WC, HC and body fat. Among these, a large WC was the criterion required for an IDF MetS diagnosis . Compared with nondrinkers, the results indicated that boys and girls who drank a high amount of SSBs exhibited 4.6% and 5.1% significantly higher WC, respectively (68.0 cm boosted to 71.1 cm in girls and 72.6 cm boosted to 76.3 cm in boys). A recent prospective investigation reported compatible results; specifically, compared to the lowest tertile, a 2.3%-4.2% notably higher WC occurred among teens aged 14-17 years who were in the highest tertile for amount of SSBs consumed . In two U.S. National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey studies conducted in 1999-2004, in which data obtained from young children (3-11 years) and adolescents (12-19 years) were examined, a significant association between SSB consumption and WC was identified among the 9-11- and 12-19-year-old subgroups [34,35]. These findings emphasized that WC is a central MetS component among adolescents.
The present study indicated that boys who ingested 1-500 and >500 mL of SSBs per day exhibited TG levels that were 8.0 and 8.2 mg/dL higher than those of nondrinkers, respectively. Comparable findings have been observed among female teenagers aged 12-19 years (each additional intake of 250 g/day of SSBs was related to a 2.3 mg/dL increase in TG levels) according to a nationwide survey conducted in the United States, although a nonsignificant increase in TG was observed among male teenagers . In an adolescent cohort study conducted in Australia, a BMI-independent link between high quantities of SSB intake and TG concentrations was recognized among both girls and boys, indicating that the effect of high SSB consumption on lipid accumulation may occur through various mechanisms, excluding excess weight . Alternatively, elevated serum TG levels have been associated with a high intake of fructose-rich SSBs in adolescents .
Research findings concerning the effects of SSB consumption on adolescent blood pressure have been inconclusive, although an adverse effect on SBP has been suggested [3,35,37]. A large-scale cross-sectional study demonstrated that adolescents aged 12-18 years who had consumed a high amount of SSBs exhibited a 2-mmHg (95% CIs: 1 to 2 mmHg) higher SBP compared with nondrinkers . A 0.16-mmHg elevated SBP associated with consuming one serving of SSB was also observed among nationally representative teenagers aged 12-19 years in the U.S. . In a prospective study of adolescents, a 1.7% higher SBP was observed in girls who exhibited high SSB consumption; however, the effect was not significant in boys . The present findings support the detrimental effect on SBP, because a positive dose-response relationship between SSB intake and SBP was identified among boys. In assessing study findings obtained from five electronic databases, a comprehensive systemic review indicated that SSB consumption is linked to increased BP and an increased incidence of hypertension .
Although the IDF criteria and Cook et al. criteria for diagnosing adolescent MetS are slightly different [7,26], this study revealed that the prevalence of MetS increases as the intake of SSBs increases in both girls and boys. Because MetS prevalence is relatively lower in adolescents than in adults, risk assessments of pediatric MetS related to SSB intake that have been conducted in prior studies have focused on MetS components [34,35,37]. The present results indicated that boys who consumed a high amount of SSB exhibited a 5.1- to 10.3-fold risk of developing MetS, even if the prevalence of this metabolic disorder was low. In the two-step cluster analysis, which was used to determine the nature clusters of adolescents with similar levels of metabolic risk, adolescents who drank a high amount of SSBs were determined to have a 1.9- to 2.7-fold risk of being included in a high metabolic risk cluster. Recently, a longitudinal study provided comparable results; specifically, a high SSB intake was dose-dependently linked to a high prospective metabolic risk in girls . Because the development of MetS in childhood is a significantly predictor of adult MetS, type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease 25 to 30 years later [11,12], public health advocates must become aware of the problems associated with SSB intake and the likelihood of developing MetS in adolescents.
The major strength of this study is that several crucial confounding variables were adjusted for all of the assessments. A high metabolic risk group derived from the two-step cluster analysis was used to facilitate the risk evaluation of SSB intake in an adolescent population with a low prevalence of MetS. Alternatively, the results of this investigation must be interpreted carefully because SSB consumption, anthropometric parameters and biochemical outcomes were measured only once. We were unable to provide causal explanations because of the cross-sectional nature of the findings.
In conclusion, a high SSB intake is associated with adolescent MetS among boys but not girls in Taiwan.
This work was supported by the Taiwan National Science Council (NSC), project number: 96-2314-B-037-041-MY3, NSC 99-2314-B-037-057-MY3, NSC99-2314-B-037-046-MY3 and NSC 102-2314-B-037-060, and was partially supported by grants from the Kaohsiung Medical University Research foundation, project number: KMUH99-9R29, KMUH 100-0R26, KMUH101-1R28 and KMHK-102-035.
Conceived and designed the experiments: Lee CH and Lin CL. Performed the experiments: Chan TF, Huang HL, Lee CY, Wu PW, Chiu YW, Huang CC, Tsai S. Analyzed the data: Lin WT and Lee CH. Wrote the paper: Chan TF and Lee CH.
adjusted odds ratio
body adiposity index
body mass index
diastolic blood pressure
fasting plasma glucose
high-density lipoprotein cholesterol
International Diabetes Federation
low-density lipoprotein cholesterol
metabolic equivalent task
systolic blood pressure
Conflicts of interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
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History The ancient healing art of Reflexology has been known to humans for 1,000's of years. It was first practiced by the early Indian, Chinese, and Egyptian peoples.
In 1913 Dr. William Fitzgerald, an American ear, nose and throat surgeon, introduced this therapy to the West. He noted that pressure on specific parts of the body could have an anaesthetizing effect on a related area. Developing this theory, he divided the body into ten equal and vertical zones, ending in the fingers and toes. He concluded that pressure on one part of a zone could affect everything else within that zone. Thus, reflex areas on the feet and hands are linked to other areas and organs of the body within the same zone.
In the 1930's, Eunice Ingham, a therapist, further developed and refined the zone therapy into what is now known as foot Reflexology. She observed that congestion or tension in any part of the foot mirrors congestion or tension in a corresponding part of the body. Thus, when you treat the big toes there is a related effect in the brain, and treating the whole foot can have a relaxing and healing effect on the whole body.
Benefits of Reflexology Personally, I have always found that after a particularly hard work day , a a foot massage was the best relaxant I knew. When I first met my mentor and friend, Dr. Ruza Bogdanovich showed me how foot reflexology was not only relaxing, but a powerful diagnostic tool. She found a sore spot in my thyroid reflex point, which corresponded perfectly with my eye pictures that showed a degenerative sign in the thyroid area of my irises (iridology). I told her a western doctor had diagnosed me a few years back with a thyroid disorder.
A few weeks later, my fiancee came back from work with one of his recurring sinus infections. He had difficulty breathing and a massive sinus headache. After working on him for half an hour, he said his sinuses were popping, he could breathe again and he was able to get some sleep. What an exciting discovery-self healing- right at our fingertips!
I believe in the body's ability to heal itself. As a certified
Reflexologist, I assist nature and the body by channeling that healing energy.
Your body is held together by the same energy forces that hold the stars, the moon, and the sun in their places. It is controlled by what is the equivalent of an electrical system with many "on" and "off" switches. There are "main circuits" to every organ, gland, and nerve, and these circuits have endings, or pressure points, in your hands, and feet. By massaging, or working, these pressure points, you not only stop pain, but you also send a healing force to all parts of the body by opening up closed "electrical lines" that have shut off the universal life force. When these life lines are closed or clogged, malfunctioning glands and organs make you ill." -Mildred Carter, Body Reflexology, Healing At Your Fingertips. | <urn:uuid:28eea036-7944-473e-9b73-b3de11bfb316> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.loloville.com/reflexology.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00499-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965545 | 635 | 1.96875 | 2 |
Chief Justice David Maraga has set the balling rolling in a matter that could entirely transform the criminal justice environment for the Kenyan boy child.
Speaking during a seminar to sensitize people on gender-based violence, Maraga noted that the boychild was being unfairly targeted in the current arrangement in the law that criminalizes teenage sex.
Currently, the law prohibits sexual encounters among teenagers and sexual offenders; mainly boys are often imprisoned upon conviction.
“There’s an obvious injustice of filling up the jails with teenage offenders who get intimate with fellow teenagers as they experiment in their adolescence,” Maraga cried.
Two years ago, the Federation of Women Leaders proposed a raft of issues that Parliament refused to ratify.
“The proposal’s intention was to elaborate principles of law and to integrate values and principals as enshrined in the Constitution of Kenya 2010. Fida had noted the problematic Section Eight of the Sexual Offences Act, which criminalises sex among teenagers and had proposed that the section be amended along the Romeo and Juliet right so as to reduce the number of teenage boys going to jail,” he argued.
“This needs to be seriously considered. I have no problem when the perpetrator is aged, but my problem arises when it comes to boys and girls between 17-20 years,” the CJ added.
Maraga would later praise the courts for having remained steadfast on their quest for a just ruling.
“Luckily, our courts are responding well, for example when the Court of Appeal held that it is unconstitutional to criminalise sexual acts among teenagers,” he noted. | <urn:uuid:9448652f-e459-49e4-8b74-694bdec25f20> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.dailyactive.info/2019/05/17/let-teenagers-enjoy-maraga-sets-the-ball-rolling/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570977.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809124724-20220809154724-00472.warc.gz | en | 0.964504 | 331 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Couscous is crazy quick to make and full of flavor with tomatoes, herbs and feta!
Serve this as a side or a main dish or use it as a base for couscous salad!
What is Couscous?
Couscous is made from steaming small balls of crushed durum wheat. It’s basically tiny pieces of pasta.
The great thing about this pasta is that it cooks in 5 minutes. So fast and easy!
It’s often prepared with lamb or other meats and vegetables in middle eastern cuisine. Moroccan dishes often rely on couscous for a base.
Ingredients & Variations
COUSCOUS This is the perfect base for this side dish. This recipe uses regular couscous which is very tiny, but there is also a pearl-sized version (also known as pearl couscous or Israeli couscous).
If using Israeli couscous the ratios will be different as will the cook times.
Boiling the couscous in broth instead of water adds flavor (use chicken or veggie broth)! Herbs are added to the broth and of course a sprinkle of cheese and fresh basil are the perfect additons..
TOMATOES I add the cherry tomatoes as the dish finishes cooking so they warm slightly but don’t get too soft. If you prefer them cooked, add them to the broth.
You can easily turn this tasty side dish into a main course. Try topping with cooked chicken, leftover beef, or sliced pork strips for a hearty and delicious meal!
How to Make Couscous
It’s so easy to make:
- Saute onion and garlic in oil until tender.
- Add broth, basil, and salt and bring to a boil. Stir in couscous, cover and remove from heat. Let sit 5 minutes while you chop the tomatoes.
- Add tomatoes, lemon juice, and feta cheese. Garnish with fresh basil and parsley.
Serve hot or cold. For a cold dish, refrigerate and garnish with the basil and parsley before serving.
How to Store
The best way to store couscous is in an airtight container in the refrigerator where it will last about 5 days.
To serve: Serve cold or reheat on the stovetop, in the oven, or in the microwave. Refresh the flavors by adding a fresh squeeze of lemon juice and a dash of salt, or mix in some extra fresh tomato and feta cheese.
To freeze: Just scoop it into a zippered bag or an airtight container and label it. Couscous will keep in the freezer for about 2 months. Thaw, refresh the flavors, reheat or serve cold!
Easy Side Dish Recipes
- Cauliflower Fried Rice – low carb alternative
- Tomato Basil Rice – so easy to make
- Greek Quinoa Salad – perfect make-ahead salad
- Easy Mushroom Rice – pantry staple recipe
- Easy Quinoa Recipe – ready in under 20 mins
- Cilantro Lime Rice – fresh and zesty side
Did you enjoy this Couscous? Be sure to leave a rating and a comment below!
Couscous with Tomatoes and Feta
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ¼ cup onion finely diced
- 1 clove garlic minced
- 1 cup chicken broth
- ¼ teaspoon basil dried
- 1 cup couscous
- 2 cups cherry tomatoes halved
- ¼ cup feta cheese
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 tablespoon fresh parsley
- 1 tablespoon fresh basil
- Cook onion and garlic in oil over medium heat until tender, about 5-6 minutes.
- Add chicken broth, basil and a pinch of salt, bring to a boil. Stir in couscous, cover, remove from heat and let stand 5 minutes.
- Lift lid, stir in tomatoes, lemon juice and feta cheese. Garnish with fresh basil and parsley and serve.
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
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New website presented
Public Information Coordinator Denise Dorn Lindberg gave School Board members a tour of the district’s new website that was launched this summer. She said a new website was in order for the district after operating the previous one for nearly nine years. Pressing the decision to update the website was a need for better security, functionality and web presence.
Created as a responsive website, information displays correctly regardless of users’ web browser and whether they are on a computer, tablet or smartphone. Information is organized so that visitors can easily navigate the site and find information they need.
Importantly, the new site better reflects the nature and quality of the school district by using many photos of students and staff engaged in learning. Lindberg said the goal was to create a site that was unique to Hamilton – one that was like no other.
Among the highlights of the site are:
- lunch menus that feature a special diets filter and a carbohydrate count page;
- staff directory that filters by various categories;
- Find it Fast section on each school page with links to most commonly requested information;
- icons on the top of each page that link to search, Facebook, Infinite Campus, resources and lunch; and
- greater emphasis on news content and images.
Board hears about 2016-17 district strategic tactics
Human Resources and Organizational Development Director John Roubik reported on the strategic priorities and tactical planning areas that will be addressed in the coming year. Tactics include:
- implementing personalized learning and differentiated instructional practices to promote engaged, persevering, responsible learners;
- using universal screeners and specific progress monitoring tools to assess students’ response to selected and intensive interventions and close achievement gaps;
- analyzing district enrollment and housing growth trends in relation to existing building capacity and developing a plan for addressing future space needs; and
- investigating and analyzing student access to technology and developing a plan to enhance student learning by using technology to support the instructional practice of the district.
Use of federal funds detailed
The district expects to receive approximately $195,315 in federal funds through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act Initiative for 2016-17. This is an increase from $185,696 in 2015-16. The funds will be used for paraprofessional support in reading and mathematics at Lannon, Maple Avenue and Templeton; literacy software, translation services for families, English Learner teacher training; professional development in technology and reading and writing for high school staff members; training for teachers to integrate technology into instruction; and afterschool tutorials and coordination of services for minority and limited English proficient students.
Balfany reports on summer school, Lannon site plan
In his first appearance before the School Board as Lannon Elementary School principal, Brian Balfany presented two reports – one for the Summer Opportunities Program and the other was Lannon’s site plan.
A total of 2,066 students in grades 4K to 11 enrolled in classes, an increase of 73 over 2015. Combined, 137 teachers were employed and 57 of them were Hamilton School District staff. In all, 267 employees were employed including four administrative assistants, 37 paraprofessionals, 83 student teaching assistants, one coordinator and five assistant coordinators.
Recommendations for the 2017 program are to:
- be in session June 19 – July 14 with Monday and Tuesday, July 3 and 4, off for the holiday;
- continue to enhance course offerings for enrichment and academic support;
- continue to train invitational math instructors in Everyday Math strategies and Soar to Reading Success teachers in Reader’s Workshop strategies;
- further explore recovery credit make-up and credit acquisition opportunities;
- increase enrollment numbers for students invited to take math and reading; and
- balance revenue and expenditures to make the program self-sustainable through class size and staffing adjustments.
School Board President Gabe Kolesari encouraged Balfany to continue the good work of the program.
“It’s a beautiful program and it’s a good thing that we can do that for so many kids,” Kolesari said.
In Lannon’s Site Plan report, Balfany gave an overview of data from standardized tests and other assessments. Although Lannon students perform well on all testing measures in reading and mathematics, site planners determined that the school should continue its literacy goal.
Lannon tactics for 2016-17 follow:
- Lannon students will meet or exceed their projected growth targets in literacy based on the 2015 NWEA normative standards as measured from fall to spring using 2016-17 MAP.
- Lannon staff and learners will maintain a highly supportive and respectful environment as measured by the 2016-17 Lannon fall and spring culture and climate surveys.
Willow Springs’ site plan covered
Willow Springs Learning Center Principal Erin Steiner gave a report on progress of the program for 4-year-old kindergartners. Steiner reported that the Willow Springs’ team thoroughly examined past practices, strategies and initiatives. She noted that in the past year the school investigated new curricula, created activities to foster social-emotional development, utilized iPad technology and analyzed PALS and other pre-academic data to influence teaching decisions.
She also stated that to her dismay, many people in the community are not aware that Willow Springs is part of the Hamilton School District and offers a 4-year-old kindergarten program.
The tactics for 2016-17 state that students completing Willow Springs 4-year-old kindergarten program will continue to:
- develop social-emotional skills and an understanding of their individual role as a learner in the Willow Springs community; and
- develop pre-academic skills in literacy and mathematics.
Board takes personnel action
In personnel matters, the School Board:
- accepted the resignation of Templeton associate kitchen employee Mary Johnson; and
- appointed Jodi Zillmer and Marie Shoemaker as Templeton associate kitchen employees, Jenny Galbavy as Templeton paraprofessional and Sarah DeCraene as Lannon special services paraprofessional. | <urn:uuid:ed8a5614-6eed-43e5-8856-adb12c0577a9> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.hamilton.k12.wi.us/board-meeting-highlights/2016/09/september-19-2016/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.939674 | 1,244 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Grading non-melanoma skin cancer
To find out the grade of non-melanoma skin cancer, the pathologist looks at a tissue sample from the skin under a microscope. The pathologist may give non-melanoma skin cancer a grade from 1 to 4. The lower the number, the lower the grade.
The grade is a description of how the cancer cells look and act compared to normal cells. How different the cancer cells are is described as differentiation.
Low grade means that the cancer cells are well differentiated. They look almost like normal cells. Lower grade cancer cells tend to be slow growing and are less likely to spread.
High grade means that the cancer cells are poorly differentiated or undifferentiated. They look less normal, or more abnormal. Higher grade cancer cells tend to grow more quickly and are more likely to spread than low-grade cancer cells.
Knowing the grade gives your healthcare team an idea of how quickly the cancer may be growing and how likely it is to spread. This helps them plan your treatment. The grade can also help the healthcare team predict your prognosis and how the cancer might respond to treatment.
For non-melanoma skin cancer, the grade is included as a part of staging. Staging describes the size of the cancer and where it is in the body. High-grade non-melanoma skin cancers are usually given a higher stage.
We all need our own personal support system, but no matter how good your own personal support system is, it’s not the same as connecting with other survivors.
Celebrating cancer survivors at Relay For Life
For cancer survivors, the Canadian Cancer Society provides a unique opportunity to celebrate their courage in the fight against cancer. During hundreds of Relay For Life events across the country, thousands of survivors join together for the Survivors’ Victory Lap. | <urn:uuid:7fe1bb1a-2576-4604-af58-2eb2a92f5dcb> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.cancer.ca/en/cancer-information/cancer-type/skin-non-melanoma/grading/?region=on | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280718.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00406-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950547 | 381 | 2.78125 | 3 |
All Aboard! A Visit to the Fairplex Garden Railroad
The LA County Fair is back! Yup, that SoCal tradition is currently running through the end of the month. And before you start thinking of rides and games and exhibits I want to tell you about a hidden feature of the fair. It’s a tradition that’s been around since 1924 and truly is something special – the Fairplex Garden Railroad.
This miniature railroad has been chugging along for almost 90 years. It’s cared for by a group of loving volunteers who trim the grass and trees, repair the buildings and trains, build the dioramas and run the whole shebang. Just looking at the many intricacies of the layout shows one the care that has been put into this special exhibit all these years.
The official them of the railway is California Discovered: The Role the Railroads Played. As a result you’ll find California history depicted throughout. From missions to Mid Century Modern, from teepees to towns, from oil wells to Art Deco you’ll see it all here.
Plus there’s a circus!
The Fairplex Garden Railroad is truly a Southern California treasure so if you’re going to fair stop on by! And if you’re not you can visit it on the second Sunday of the month from November thru July. So no excuse! Go see it. | <urn:uuid:2ddd9eff-a1dd-424c-83c2-531bcd493a2e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://la-explorer.com/all-aboard-visit-to-fairplex-garden/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571234.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811042804-20220811072804-00073.warc.gz | en | 0.946864 | 291 | 1.5 | 2 |
About the artist:
Robert Kushner (born 1949, Pasadena, CA) is an American contemporary painter who is known especially for his involvement in Pattern and Decoration. Since participating in the early years of the Pattern and Decoration Movement in the 1970s, Robert Kushner has continued to address controversial issues involving decoration. Kushner draws from a unique range of influences, including Islamic and European textiles, Henri Matisse, Georgia O’Keeffe, Charles Demuth, Pierre Bonnard, Tawaraya Sotatsu, Ito Jakuchu, Qi Baishi, and Wu Changshuo. Kushner’s work combines organic representational elements with abstracted geometric forms in a way that is both decorative and modernist. He has said, “I never get tired of pursuing new ideas in the realm of ornamentation. Decoration, an abjectly pejorative dismissal for many, is a very big, somewhat defiant declaration for me. … The eye can wander, the mind think unencumbered through visual realms that are expansively and emotionally rich. Decoration has always had its own agenda, the sincere and unabashed offering of pleasure and solace.” Kushner’s most recent installation, Scriptorium: Devout Exercises of the Heart, is a group of over one thousand drawings of flowers and plants on book pages that date from 1500 to 1920. The pages have been removed from vintage books of all types from around the world. In 2010, Scriptorium was exhibited in Desire at The Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin. It then traveled to the Kunsthallen Brandts in Odense, Denmark before returning to the U.S. for the inaugural exhibition at DC Moore Gallery’s new Chelsea location in 2011. In 2012, it was exhibited at the La Jolla Athenaeum in California. Kushner has also created large-scale murals for public and private spaces. In 2004, he installed two monumental mosaic murals, 4 Seasons Seasoned, at the 77th Street and Lexington Avenue subway station. He has also completed commissions at Gramercy Tavern and Maialino restaurants in New York City, Union Square in Tokyo, The Ritz Carlton Highlands in Lake Tahoe, CA, and Federal Reserve System in Washington, DC. Recently, an eighty-foot-long marble mosaic, Welcome, was installed at the new Raleigh Durham International Airport in North Carolina. Kushner's work has been exhibited extensively in the United States, Europe, and Japan and has been included in the Whitney Biennial three times and twice at the Biennale in Venice. He was the subject of solo exhibitions at both the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Brooklyn Museum. A mid-career retrospective of his work was organized by the Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art. A monograph on Kushner's three decades of artistic work, Gardens of Earthly Delight, was published by Hudson Hills Press in 1997. Wild Gardens, a selection of Kushner's recent paintings with an essay by Michael Duncan, was published by Pomegranate in 2006. Kushner also edited the publication Amy Goldin: Art in a Hairshirt (Hudson Hills, 2012) to much critical acclaim. Kushner's works are included in many prominent public collections including The Museum of Modern Art, NY; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The National Gallery of Art, DC; The Corcoran Gallery of Art, DC; Tate Gallery, London; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu; The Denver Art Museum; Galleria degli Ufizzi, Florence; J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles; Museum Ludwig, St. Petersburg; and The Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Robert Kushner (born 1949, Pasadena, CA) is an American contemporary painter who is known especially for his involvement in Pattern and Decoration. Since participating in the early years of the Pattern and Decoration Movement in the 1970s, Robert | <urn:uuid:d2e95c77-b974-48e1-ab1c-77b03a5f1959> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://rogallery.com/artists/robert-kushner/?page=0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572043.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814143522-20220814173522-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.952976 | 852 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Deepotsava, also known as the festival of lights, is celebrated in the month of Kartika (October – November) every year. It is a month-long festival commemorating Damodara-lila, the sweet pastime of baby Krishna stealing butter and consequently being tied to a mortar by His dear mother Yashoda. In Sanskrit, “dama” means rope and “udara” means belly. Damodara refers to Krishna who was bound with a rope by His mother Yashoda.
It is not possible to describe the glories of Kartika month. In this month devotees observe strict vows (Damodara Vrata) and worship Lord Damodara by offering a ghee lamp every day. It is said that by offering a lamp to Lord Hari in the month of Kartika one gets unlimited prosperity, beauty and wealth. All the sins committed in thousands and millions of births perish; and one attains the eternal spiritual world where there is no suffering.
In this month, every day the temple is decorated with thousands of lamps. Light from hundreds of lamps placed before the altar spread transcendental radiance across the main temple hall, elevating the spirit of devotion. The grandeur with which the festivities are carried out captivates everyone’s realm of devotion.
At 7:30 p.m., the altar is closed briefly followed by an announcement on Deepotsava Festival. The assembled devotees are informed about the significance of this festival. Following the announcement, the devotees start singing melodious kirtans and the altar opens. The glorious sight of Their Lordships Sri Radha Krishnachandra in the midst of smoke enthralls everyone. A grand arati is performed as the devotees sing the Damodarashtaka song. After the arati all the assembled devotees get an opportunity to offer ghee lamps to Their Lordships. This is followed by Shayana Pallakki Utsava.
Please note that on the occasion of Govardhana Puja, Bali Padyami and Deepavali, there will be special fireworks display during the Shayana Pallakki Utsava. | <urn:uuid:3ae16cd0-5db6-429c-b7a3-1cf90df45d42> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.iskconbangalore.org/deepotsava/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00329-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929746 | 449 | 1.96875 | 2 |
Investing in today’s world is vastly different from decades ago when brokers and advisors were viewed as the guardians of financial data. Now, investors have access to free online brokerage accounts at their fingertips and are able to create portfolios without feeling a desire for assistance.
While this form of accessibility may be at investors’ disposal, the value and guidance financial advisors provide in creating successful long-term investments solutions continues to prove successful. Research conducted by the Financial Planning Standards Council found that 51% of surveyors with an advisor felt prepared for retirement against 18% of those not receiving advice.*
Receiving informative financial advice not only helps build wealth and confidence, but it also helps you achieve the returns necessary to arrive at your financial destination. With the guidance of a professional:
- Improve decision-making processes
- Increase current and future financial security
- Create a structured financial plan
*Investment Funds Institute of Canada, “Value of Advice Report” (2012). Financial Planning Standards Council. | <urn:uuid:d21aa817-50a5-4282-9160-f037a1e1515a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://dwealth.news/2022/04/whitepaper-behavioral-alpha-an-advisors-greatest-value/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570793.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808092125-20220808122125-00666.warc.gz | en | 0.938508 | 203 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Druidry recognised as religion in Britain
Britain has recognised druidry as an official religion for the first time, thousands of years after the Celtic pagan faith emerged in Europe, the country's charity commission said Saturday.
The Druid Network, an organisation representing the religion in Britain, was granted charitable status in a decision that not only gives it tax breaks but also lets the religion take its place alongside more mainstream beliefs.
"This has been a long hard struggle, taking over five years to complete," the Druid Network said in a statement after its application to be registered as a charity had been accepted by the Charity Commission.
In its ruling on the group's application, the commission said it accepted that druidry was an "ancient pagan religion" in its own right involving the worship of nature, particularly the sun and the earth.
Druid rituals involve "commonality of practice" across the faith including solar and fire festivals, ceremonies at various phases of the moon, seasonal festivals and rites of passage in life.
There had also been some official recognition already, it added, including a provision by Britain's Prison Service for the practice of druidry and the attendance of a pagan chaplain at services.
"The board members concluded that The Druid Network is established for exclusively charitable purposes for the advancement of religion for the public benefit," the Charity Commission said.
Druidry emerged in ancient Ireland and Britain and spread further afield during the Iron Age, especially into France, but became largely supplanted as Christianity took hold across Europe.
It has gained recent popularity because of its pantheistic nature and concern with ecology.
© 2010 AFP | <urn:uuid:6d4b664c-82b9-40b3-bbe4-a63f9c84d56f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.expatica.com/uk/news/Druidry-recognised-as-religion-in-Britain_210777.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281151.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00114-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971031 | 337 | 2.65625 | 3 |
New Referral Role For Ambulances
Ambulance crews in Swindon will be able to refer patients to other health workers instead of going to hospital. The NHS initiative means that Great Western Ambulance crews could directly refer patients to staff at Swindon Primary Care Trust and social services. The scheme aims to avoid unnecessary trips to hospital.
Project leader Ian Main said: “Our crews have the training to assess patients to enable them to make a clinical decision as to whether a hospital admission is needed. If they consider it is not, but that some sort of health or social care is needed, they will be able to ring a central number to organise appropriate care.”
Chief executive of Great Western ambulance service Tim Lynch said: “At last we are realising the untapped potential of the ambulance service.
“This is the beginning of a new era when ambulance services will be playing a far wider role in the NHS and taking healthcare to the patient.” | <urn:uuid:b0894716-2882-4e15-959b-f7a35407bd4f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://careappointments.com/care-news/england/78869/new-referral-role-for-ambulances/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809003642-20220809033642-00670.warc.gz | en | 0.939391 | 202 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Local Clinicians Battle Alzheimers
Written by Lou Ortiz on August 23, 2012
By Lou Ortiz
After 10 years of clinical trials, there are more trials and more tests to run in the battle against Alzheimer’s disease.
"We’ve done well over 50 clinical trials over 10 years" that have involved "several hundred people," said Dr. Marc Agronin, medical director for Mental Health and Clinical Research at Miami Jewish Health Systems.
A most recent development is a "new type of eye test for identifying Alzheimer’s," Dr. Agronin said. "We will be looking for patients for it. It’s still in development."
Alzheimer’s is a progressive brain disease that afflicts individuals in the middle and later stages of life — usually age 65 and older — that impairs not only memory but eventually all cognitive skills over a eight- to 12-year period.
"The risk increases with age," Dr. Agronin said of Alzheimer’s. "It’s a disease of old age. People are living longer lives, and this explains why we are seeing more patients. There’s an epidemic of this now. There are more than 5 million Americans with the disease. It is the costliest after heart disease and cancer."
"People become debilitated, they can’t walk, they can’t speak, they can’t swallow, and then they get infections and injuries" and eventually die, he said.
"We believe it [Alzheimer’s] is caused by the buildup of toxic proteins in the brain," said Dr. Agronin, referring to the beta amyloid and tau proteins. "Our clinical research is getting at the source of the disease, which is believed to be these toxic proteins."
According to the Maryland-based American Health Assistance Foundation, "One of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease is the accumulation of amyloid plaques between nerve cells (neurons) in the brain."
"Amyloid is a general term for protein fragments that the body produces normally," the foundation says. "Beta amyloid is a protein fragment snipped from an amyloid precursor protein. In a healthy brain, these protein fragments are broken down and eliminated. In Alzheimer’s disease, the fragments accumulate to form hard, insoluble plaques."
The other protein is just as involved. "Neurofibrillary tangles are insoluble twisted fibers found inside the brain’s cells," the foundation says. "These tangles consist primarily of a protein called tau, which forms part of a structure called a microtubule."
"The microtubule helps transport nutrients and other important substances from one part of the nerve cell to another," the foundation says. "In Alzheimer’s disease, however, the tau protein is abnormal and the microtubule structures collapse."
Dr. Agronin started the clinical research program here in 2000.
"We’ve taken two steps forward," he said, "and one step back. We have a much deeper understanding of the disease process. We’ve been studying ways to prime the immune system to break up these toxic proteins in the brain. That has been a huge development over the last 10 years."
The second step forward is "we’ve been able to identify the disease in its course, because the earlier you do the better chance of slowing it down," he said. "We use a new type of brain scan. We were one of the first in the country to test this scan — the amyolid-based PET Scan."
"You can scan the brain and see the proteins that we believe cause the disease," he said. "Prior to this, we had to do a brain biopsy."
The step back involves treatment. "Today, none of the treatments have slowed down the disease," Dr. Agronin said. "Many of the newer research studies are looking for people at the earliest stages of the disease. Now with the brain scan, we can identify those who are at a greater risk of the disease."
Despite the fact there is no cure, Dr. Agronin said there is hope. His research includes testing vaccines, stimulating memory receptors in the brain, and the eye test, among other things.
"So far the vaccine appears to be safe. It is too early to know if it slows the disease," he said, adding that "if you can’t breakup the proteins, we can stimulate areas of the brain that deal with memory and learning."
Dr. Agronin, a Harvard University and Yale University School of Medicine graduate, is an expert in psychiatric illnesses affecting the elderly. He has authored several books and serves as an affiliate associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
"Our lives are dedicated to helping them," he said of Alzheimer patients. "This is our mission."To read the entire issue of Miami Today online, subscribe to e -Miami Today, an exact digital replica of the printed edition. | <urn:uuid:92829abe-8bc4-4562-9b9f-f9bbfa5f6744> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.miamitodaynews.com/news/120823/story5.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280761.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00100-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958843 | 1,058 | 2.5 | 2 |
The fact that we need oxygen to survive is basic human knowledge, but you would be lucky if you could find a random person on the street who can actually explain why constant oxygen intake is important to the human body. In the most simplistic of terms, oxygen rebuilds the cells in the body and helps to maintain the body’s immune system. In the event that the body is deprived of oxygen for more than a four minutes, permanent brain damage or death can occur.
For those who are unfamiliar with hyperbaric oxygen therapy, it may seem like something out of a Aldous Huxley or Philip K. Dick novel. However, research shows the the principles behind oxygen therapy is scientifically sound, and that hyperbaric centers can offer treatments for a multitude of conditions for which there are no known cures.
The benefits of being treated at a leading hyperbaric center are directly related to the basic scientific principles of oxygen, specifically how oxygen rejuvenates and rebuilds the cells within the human body, and how it strengthens the immune system. Although the jury is still out how effectively hyperbaric therapy treats various medical conditions, oxygen therapy for cancer, mulitiple sclerosis, and brain injuries is becoming more common among people for whom traditional treatment methods have proven futile.
The way that hyperbaric chambers operate is rather simple. When a patient goes to a hyperbaric center to receive treatment, session usually last between four and five hours. In order to avoid oxygen toxicity, patients must take “air breaks” at 20 minute intervals. While inside the hyperbaric treatments, patients will breath air that is composed of 95% oxygen. Given the healing benefits of breathing oxygen, the objective of increasing oxygen density is to speed up and intensify the body’s natural healing capabilities.
While oxygen therapy is still considered experimental, its applications have expanded over the year. If there is any hope that hyperbaric treatment will eventually become a “go to” treatment method for currently incurable diseases, the basic science supporting it is indisputable. | <urn:uuid:4b5e2320-ade4-4e04-883d-647fc6b5a79d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://healthybalanceddiet.net/what-are-the-benefits-of-hyperbaric-therapy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571090.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809215803-20220810005803-00070.warc.gz | en | 0.943144 | 416 | 3.234375 | 3 |
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Join the online book club: every weekday morning, members of the online book club will receive an e-mail with a portion from a popular book.
Search our library catalog for all of our books, CDs, DVDs and more. | <urn:uuid:8f1582dd-0f9b-4976-86d3-f9426d82ee59> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://fairfieldpubliclibrary.org/digital-resources/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00215-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907149 | 474 | 1.773438 | 2 |
A letter of May 5 proves an old adage, ``Tell a lie often enough, it becomes believable.'' The writer charges Israel with ``terrorism, causing 3 million people to leave their homes.'' In fact less than 600,000 Arabs left their homes in 1948 at the request of invading Arab armies, to get them out of the way while the combined forces of at least five Arab armies destroyed the new Jewish state. They left in spite of radio appeals to them by the new Israeli leader, David Ben Gurion, to remain and share in the building of the new state. They left jubilantly with full expectation of a victorious return to a land ``free of Jews.''
The Irgun and Stern groups were responsible for armed action against the British occupying forces when the British imprisoned and hanged Jews guilty only of defending themselves against Arab raiders. If one includes the 91 British soldiers, Arabs and Jews killed when a wing of the King David Hotel, which was being used as British Army Headquarters, was destroyed, the toll of Israeli ``terrorism'' was, while not an insignificant number, hardly the ``thousands'' the writer charges.
The ``ghettos'' into which Arabs in Gaza and throughout the Mideast were placed were built by their Egyptian, Syrian, Lebanese and Jordanian brothers, as part of their ongoing policy of refusing to integrate the very people their invasion produced.
In addition, not only is the writer incorrect about Arabs not being permitted to build, public records available to anyone interested in the truth, prove that Arab building far outstrips Jewish building. | <urn:uuid:665e1641-9a12-4c58-a351-dab5fb9736c7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1998-05-15/news/9805140242_1_arabs-armies-jews | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00217-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97168 | 317 | 2.203125 | 2 |
“Hanoi Jane” Fonda is claiming that ever since Vietnam, U.S. troops have been trained to commit atrocities against innocent civilians as a matter of military policy.
“Starting with the Vietnam War we began training soldiers differently,” the anti-American actress says in an email to the Washington Post.
Fonda claims she learned of the policy switch in “secret meetings” she had with military psychologists “who were really worried about what was happening to our combat personnel.”
One doctor, she insists, told her U.S. troops had been deliberately trained to be “killing machines.”
“This began,” Fonda maintained, “because the military discovered that in World War II and Korea, [U.S.] soldiers weren’t killing enough.”
“So they changed training procedures” to teach troops how to commit atrocities.
Still, the anti-war gadfly cautions, it’s important not to blame the soldiers themselves for carrying out war crimes.
Recalling the “Winter Soldier” hearings that she and John Kerry staged in 1971, Fonda lamented: “When you put young people into an atrocity-producing situation where enemy and civilian are commingled, where the ‘other side’ is dehumanized, we cannot be surprised.”
Anti-war vets now returning from Iraq, Fonda cautioned, should be listened to instead of being dismissed as “unpatriotic.”
“We have not learned the lessons of Vietnam,” she declared.
If you look at the trackbacks to Malkin’s post about Fonda, a lot of bloggers are pretty enraged at her Winter-Soldier-redux remarks. And rightly so; I count myself among them. But it’s no surprise that Fonda is singing the same old song, and trying to tie Iraq into Vietnam. I’ve already given my opinion on Fonda, here; so she’s not really the subject of this post. The subject of this post is the substance of her remarks.
Because, strange as it may seem, Fonda is actually correct–at least, about part of what she’s claiming. But a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially in the hands of Jane Fonda, and she draws the entirely wrong conclusions from that element of truth in her remarks.
What is she correct about? Well, she’s got this portion right: U.S. troops have been deliberately trained to be more automatic and focused about killing.
And, just as Fonda claims, “this began, because the military discovered that in World War II and Korea, [U.S.] soldiers weren’t killing enough.”
And indeed, they “changed training procedures” to correct that flaw.
But that’s where Jane parts company with the truth. She believes that this change is what led to atrocities in Vietnam. In fact, she’s got the thing quite backwards.
It’s certainly true that the phrase “killing machines” is a chilling one. But training members of the military to be more efficient and automatic at what they do is actually designed to make them more effective in a combat situation, to reduce psychological stress, and therefore to make atrocities less frequent, rather than more.
To understand this one must study the psychology of killing in war, a subject that until recently has been somewhat taboo (it’s certainly not anything I, as a psych major back in the 60s, heard anything about).
But, just as Fonda states, it was discovered during WWII that:
…according to the military historian S.L.A. Marshall, as many as 80 percent of the American infantrymen he interviewed failed to fire their weapons in combat. Marshall attributed the low ”fire ratio” to a mixture of poor training and a natural reluctance to kill. Even though his methodology has come under attack — critics say his numbers are exaggerated — his premise is generally accepted, and his book, ”Men Against Fire,” is read throughout the military establishment. After it was published in 1947, the military revamped its training to make G.I.’s more comfortable firing at humans; soldiers shot at targets shaped like people rather than at bull’s-eyes, for example. Today, Special Forces units make their training as realistic as possible, using pop-up targets with human faces, and setting off smoke bombs and small explosions to simulate the battlefield experience.
Dave Grossman, who spoke to me about ”the bulletproof mind,” has written about the hidden logic behind military training. In his controversial book ”On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society,” he writes: ”It is entirely possible that no one intentionally sat down to use operant conditioning or behavior modification techniques to train soldiers in this area. But from the standpoint of a psychologist who is also a historian and a career soldier, it has become increasingly obvious to me that this is exactly what has been achieved.” …
Indeed, Special Forces officers openly discuss the use of ”stress inoculation” — in which they are exposed to heartbeat-racing drills that raise their threshold for staying calm. It doesn’t mean Special Forces soldiers are immune to stress or the mistakes that stress causes, but it takes a lot more to rattle one of them than an old-time draftee….
Special Forces soldiers may develop cold-blooded reflexes, but they are also trained to know when not to kill. Targets that pop up during shooting drills include women and children who are not supposed to be shot. Being able to remain steady in combat doesn’t just mean you will be a quick draw; it also means that you will do a better job of deciding when to hold your fire. As Grossman writes of the calibration of aggression: ”This is a delicate and dangerous process. Too much, and you end up with a My Lai. . . . Too little, and your soldiers will be defeated and killed by someone who is more aggressively disposed.” Colonel King put it like this: ”Our guys have got to be confident in their ability to use lethal force. But they’ve got to be principled enough to know when not to use it. We’re not training pirates.”
Exactly how does one train soldiers to be effective and yet principled killers? Operant conditioning is part of it. The goal of this process of accustoming military members to killing in wartime is to reduce their psychological and physical stress/fear, in order to avoid panic. And why is this so important? Because it’s this stress/panic reaction (as well as a number of other factors, to be discussed in a moment) that can lead to the commission of atrocities in war.
The training, as described by the aforementioned Colonel Dave Grossman (an expert in the field), is as follows:
Many people think killing is a natural act, but Col. Grossman argues that it isn’t. He discusses how new and innovative pop up targets, video-based firearms training simulators, and Simunition®-based training are used to facilitate overcoming this innate resistance. These devices are then combined with high repetition to condition a correct response even in the face of fear….
Sometimes, a deadly force encounter explodes without warning, or a fight can be so fast and furious that there is no time to think about which technique to use and how best to employ it. To survive, you must do what needs to be done – now. In order to react reflexively, yet responsibly, and continue to fight no matter how impaired, you must have a set of conditioned responses ingrained into your mind.
Range training must be repetitive. When a pop up target of a bad guy appears (stimulus), you shoot (response). Stimulus-response, stimulus-response, and then a pop up target of a man holding a cell phone appears, you don’t shoot. The more realistic the target is, the better….
Realistic settings and situations, combined with live fire training using Simunition rounds will dramatically elevate your adrenaline to replicate how a real situation feels. The more you engage in this kind of training, the lower your heart rate gets as you become “inoculated” against combat, just as a vaccination will inoculate against a disease.
Stress is part of battle, and can never be eliminated. But too much stress leads to combat fatigue and ineffectiveness, and can also lead to atrocities. Therefore anything that reduces it is likely to reduce atrocities, not encourage them.
In this article there is a very lengthy discussion of the ways in which stress can lead to both casualties and to violations of the rules of war–that is, atrocities and war crimes. Here’s a very brief summary:
Examples of misconduct stress behaviors range from minor breaches of unit orders or regulations to serious violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and perhaps the Law of Land Warfare. As misconduct stress behaviors, they are most likely to occur in poorly trained, undisciplined soldiers. However, they can also be committed by good, even heroic, soldiers under extreme combat stress.
The most famous example of combat stress being a contributing factor in the commission of atrocities was, of course, My Lai in Vietnam. My Lai was an occurrence with many elements that came together on one terrible day to cause a true war crime (in the following, I’ve taken the information mostly from this article, which is part of a military training course. Also, by the way, nothing in the rest of this post should be construed as an excuse for atrocities in general nor of Mai Lai in particular; it’s offered as an explanation only).
Some of the non-stress factors leading to My Lai were part of the Vietnam War itself: the emphasis on body counts, for example; confusing, complex, and poorly understood rules of engagement; the one-year rotation making for lack of cohesive and experienced units.
Enemy tactics were another factor implicated in the mindset that led to My Lai (some of this may sound familiar to those who’ve followed the current “war on terror”):
The Viet Cong conducted a guerrilla war that can best be described as “clutching the people to their breast.” They disguised themselves as civilians, hid amongst civilians, often fortified villages (with noncombatants being the vast majority of the population), and even used civilians of all ages and both sexes (little children, women, and old men, included) for logistical support, intelligence, and to plant mines and booby traps. There was widespread belief among American soldiers that the Viet Cong would use the type of civilians mentioned above to throw grenades. An expert on the Vietnamese army remarked that “the Vietnamese communists erased entirely the line between military and civilian by ruling out the notion of noncombatant.”
One could say that these strategies on the part of the Viet Cong seemed almost designed to call forth atrocities on the part of the Americans, if possible–and if one said that, one would probably be correct:
A member of the Viet Cong would later confirm that: “Children were trained to throw grenades, not only for the terror factor, but so the government or American soldiers would have to shoot them. Then the Americans feel very ashamed. And they blame themselves and call their soldiers war criminals.” It was not rare for small children to wave an American patrol into a booby trap or minefield. Additionally, the Viet Cong would use women and children as lethal ploys or ruses to lead Americans into deadly ambushes. Female Viet Congs were just as effective as their male counterparts, especially in sniper fire. In other words, the civilians were not exactly sitting out the war. American servicemen soon grew wary and suspicious of all Vietnamese.
Yet another huge factor was the terrible stress that C Company in particular, the unit involved in My Lai, had been under:
C Co. was fully deployed in Vietnam by the second week of December 1967. Task Force Barker was activated on 1 January 1968 to take over military operations in the Quang Ngai Province (a province that is overwhelmingly sympathetic to the Viet Cong). C Co.’s first casualty comes from a booby trap on 28 January 1968. The following month, on 25 February 1968, C Co. walked into a minefield. CPT Medina kept his head and, after three died and twelve suffered serious injuries, managed to lead his soldiers out. The soldiers of C Co. blamed the Vietnamese villagers nearby who failed to warn them of the minefield and booby traps.
1LT Calley, who had just returned from leave, saw the helicopters transporting the dead and wounded. 1LT Calley also noticed that, from that point on, the attitude of his soldiers toward Vietnamese children had changed — they no longer gave them candy, and kicked them away. According to one account, 1LT Calley could hardly restrain his satisfaction when he said “Well, I told you so.” Prior to the minefield incident, Task Force Barker had failed on two separate attempts to trap the 48th LF Bn in the Quang Ngai Province. During the second attempt, A Co. came under heavy automatic and mortar fire coming from My Lai 4., the second time in a month that Task Force Barker had encountered resistance from around the hamlet of My Lai. Its company commander is among the fifteen wounded, five other soldiers died.
After the minefield incident, C Co.’s esprit de cops and morale sagged and eventually vanished. They went down to 105 soldiers. To make matters even worse, on 14 March 1968, SGT George Cox, an NCO well liked and respected by the soldiers of C Co., an NCO with a reputation for looking after his soldiers, was killed by a booby trap while on patrol. Since arriving in Vietnam three months earlier, C Co. had suffered twenty-eight casualties, including five killed. All the casualties were caused by mines, booby traps, and snipers.
It takes little imagination to see that C Co. had been undergoing terrible psychological and physical stress–being blown up by mines and booby traps without ever getting a chance to fight back and engage the unseen and mysterious enemy, or to defend themselves. And, since in their minds they had reason to suspect the villagers were cooperative–or even instrumental–in the setting of those booby traps and mines, the stage was set for the massacre, which represented not a disciplined and cohesive force of trained fighting men, but an explosion of frustration and rage by a group that was highly stressed and poorly prepared for what they faced, as well as subject to weak and inadequate leadership.
The idea that training the military to be more automatic in its responses and less stressed in combat is hard to accept; it seems so cold and brutal. But, once understood, I think it’s clear that courses working towards that end, such as Grossman’s, actually lead away from more My Lais, not towards them. | <urn:uuid:1423fed8-fe6c-47f0-b90e-4395b0eb0dbf> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://neoneocon.com/2005/12/15/jane-fonda-and-those-killing-machines/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280761.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00098-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973325 | 3,163 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) pathway antagonists induce deep medical responses in advanced cutaneous melanoma, but total remissions are discouraged by the development of received resistance. conclude that melanoma inflammatory niches adapt to and confer drug threshold toward BRAF and MEK inhibitors early during treatment. Intro Melanoma cells rely greatly on extracellular signalCregulated kinase (ERK)/MAPK signaling as indicated by hyperactivation of this pathway in up to 90% of melanomas. The MAPKKK BRAF is definitely a prominent oncogene in melanoma (Davies et al., 2002), and Apatinib inhibitors that target BRAFV600E, the most generally mutated form, are extremely potent, eliciting high response rates (Flaherty et al., 2010; Chapman et al., 2011; Sosman et al., 2012). Despite this, durable reactions are rare, and most individuals relapse within a 12 months after beginning of treatment (Salama and Flaherty, 2013). Significantly longer reactions can become accomplished by combining BRAF inhibitors (BRAFis) and MEK (MAPK/ERK kinase) inhibitors (MEKis), yet the development of drug resistance is definitely still the most common end result (Very long et al., 2016). Buy of mutations influencing a variety of parts of the RTK-RAS-RAF-MEK-ERK pathway, but also parallel pathways including the PI3K-AKT Apatinib pathway, enable melanoma cells to resist MAPK signaling inhibition. Moreover, subclones of transformed cells from tumors at unique anatomical sites, but also within a given tumor, possess different resistance-conferring mutations (Shi et al., 2014; Vehicle Allen et al., 2014; Kemper et al., 2015), and this inter- and intratumoral heterogeneity positions a solid barrier to the development of any salvage therapy. As a result, focus offers recently moved to determining modifications in intracellular signaling, rate of metabolism, chromatin structure, and gene manifestation that comprise early (hours to weeks) adaptive reactions of cells to MAPK pathway inhibitors, which are reversible (that is definitely self-employed of acquired mutations) and contribute to the ability of transformed cells to tolerate these restorative providers before acquired resistance requires hold (Smith and Wellbrock, 2016). Such adaptive reactions can happen in a malignancy cellCautonomous fashion (Johannessen et al., 2010; Nazarian et al., 2010; Villanueva et al., 2010; Poulikakos et al., 2011; Smith et al., 2013; Long et al., 2014). However, it also appears that factors elaborated by stromal and innate immune system cells in the tumor microenvironment also enable melanoma cells to tolerate MAPK inhibition (Straussman et al., 2012; Smith et al., 2014; Hirata et al., 2015; Wang et al., 2015). Potentially, compared with mutation-driven events, tumors adaptive reactions to medicines may become more stereotypical; simultaneously focusing on adaptive reactions and MAPK signaling might greatly diminish the Klf6 burden of residual transformed cells, which could normally proceed on to develop mutations conferring drug resistance (Smith and Wellbrock, 2016). Importantly, in melanoma individuals undergoing MAPK inhibitor treatment, we have demonstrated previously that there is definitely a higher macrophage great quantity within the tumors compared with pretreatment (Smith et al., 2014). Macrophages are the major suppliers of the proinflammatory cytokine TNF, and we and others have demonstrated that TNF not only is definitely important for melanoma growth and attack, but also contributes to threshold to MAPK inhibition (Katerinaki et al., 2003; Gray-Schopfer et al., 2007; Smith et al., 2014). However, TNF is definitely not the only proinflammatory cytokine produced by macrophages, and the improved quantity of macrophages during treatment with MAPK inhibitors might effect drug effectiveness through additional factors. One such Apatinib element that is definitely closely linked to TNF and produced by macrophages in great quantity is definitely IL-1. IL-1 is present as two isoforms, and , which both transmission via the IL-1 receptor Apatinib (IL-1L) and the transcription element NF-B. However, whereas IL-1 is definitely widely and constitutively indicated and initiates swelling when passively released from necrotic cells, IL-1 manifestation is definitely more restricted. Furthermore, unlike IL-1, the pro-form of IL-1 requires cleavage by caspase 1, which is definitely, in change, triggered by the NLRP3-comprising inflammasome, to become active (Garlanda et al., 2013). Studies on IL-1 manifestation in founded human being melanoma cell lines are inconsistent, ranging from constitutive IL-1 manifestation and secretion only in metastases-derived cells (Okamoto et al., 2010) to constitutive IL-1 and IL-1 manifestation in Apatinib the majority of melanoma cell lines individually of disease stage (Qin et al., 2011) and to no IL-1 secretion at all because of lack of manifestation of one or more inflammasome parts (Gehrke et al., 2014). Although these findings do not provide a obvious part for IL-1 in separated melanoma cells in vitro, immunohistochemistry studies indicate that IL-1 is definitely uniformly indicated in naevi, main tumors, and metastases (Qin et al., 2011; Khalili et al., 2012) and, therefore, is definitely unrelated to disease progression. In contrast, IL-1 is definitely undetectable in naevi and hardly ever recognized in main tumors (<10%) but is definitely elevated in metastases (Okamoto et al., 2010; Qin et al., 2011; Khalili et al., 2012; Gehrke et al., 2014).. | <urn:uuid:75be9d92-15e0-40c0-8670-ac3027b28496> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://extremebiology.net/tag/klf6/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573399.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818185216-20220818215216-00074.warc.gz | en | 0.915087 | 1,221 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Presentation on theme: "Consequences of school bullying and violence Christina Salmivalli University of Turku, Finland."— Presentation transcript:
Consequences of school bullying and violence Christina Salmivalli University of Turku, Finland
It is evident that children exposed to systematic victimization by their peers suffer from adjustment problems –Victimization is concurrently associated with depression, anxiety, low global and social self-concept, suicidal ideation, school avoidance (Card, 2003; Hawker & Boulton, 2000)… –Strongest effect sizes for internalizing problems, BUT victimization is also associated with externalizing problems –Victimization is even related to health problems (Rigby, 2001) –Several interpersonal correlates such as rejection, low number of friends and low friendship quality The bullies, and especially bully-victims, suffer from adjustment problems as well
Are the associations between victimization and maladjustment only concurrent, or does victimization longitudinally predict adjustment problems?
OVERALL: Studies investigating the consequences of victimization while controlling for intitial levels in the variables of interest are still surprisingly rare
Many of the concurrent correlates of victimization seem to be both antecedents and consequences of it –A vicious cycle by which children get trapped in the role of continued victimization HOWEVER: –Internalizing problems, such as depression, seem to increase as a result of victimization rather than precede it –Low self-esteem, on the other hand, is clearly an antecedent of victimization, whereas evidence of longitudinal changes in (global) self-esteem resulting from victimization is more mixed (e.g., Card, 2003)
Prospective relations between victimization, rejection, friendlessness and childrens self- and peer-perceptions Christina Salmivalli University of Turku, Finland (unpublished data)
In the short term, victimization seems to influence childrens generalized perception of peers, rather than their view of themselves A negative self-perception is clearly a risk factor for victimization (but also for other peer relationship adversities, such as rejection and friendlessness)
What about the long run? Follow-up studies examining the long-term consequences of victimization are, to date, almost nonexistent –As an exception, Olweus (1994) followed up 87 men who had been assessed in grade 9 (and, most of them, also in grade 6) up to 23 years of age. –The former victims were relatively well-adjusted in many respects. However, they had a lower self-esteem and they suffered from depression more often than their non-victimized age-mates.
Long-term influences of victimization: a follow-up from adolescence to young adulthood Christina Salmivalli University of Turku, Finland (unpublished data)
Participants of the study 274 young adults (145 male and 129 female), who had been involved in a research on school bullying in grade 8 (1996), were approached by mailed questionnaires eight years later (2004) –measures of: depression, self-perception, perception of other people, and interpersonal goals 52.4% of men and 78.3% of women responded –overall response rate = 64.6%
depression self others Victimization in grade 8 (1996) assessed with - two self-report items: my classmates make fun of me; people pick on me -peer-nominations from same-sex and opposite-sex classmates Depression: BDI, α =.91 Self-perception: Rosenberg SE items, with the instruction to report the way you feel about yourself when interacting with people of your own age, α =.86 Perception of other people: 13 items describing positive and negative qualities of other people (age-mates), such as "they can really be relied on", "they are hostile", or "they really care about what happens to me" α=.88 vic same-sex noms self-rep opp-sex noms
depression self others opp-sex noms same-sex noms vic happiness and satisfaction Happiness and satisfaction scale: I am a happy person; I like being the way I am; I wish I were different; I am unhappy; I am cheerful; I am a lucky person, α=.72 self-rep.16
depression self others opp-sex noms same-sex noms vic happiness and satisfaction perceived popularity self-rep.44 perceived family support Perceived family support: 6 items (e.g., Nobody cares for me at home; my parents like me) χ2(5)=9.09, p=.11, CFI=.97, RMSEA=.07 Perceived popularity: 11 items (e.g., I am not very popular; I have many friends).
Victimization in adolescence (grade 8, age 14-15) was predictive of young adults (age 22-23) depression and their perception of other people These influences were significant even controlling for scores on happiness and satisfaction measure in grade 8 Unlike victimization, perceived popularity and/or perceived family support did not predict variance in any of the outcome variables eight years later
Consequences for the group? Bukowski and Sippola (2001): "victimization not only damages the individual, but damages the group itself as well as the individuals who constitute the group How does victimization damage the group?
Experienced and observed victimization and school satisfaction With multilevel modeling, it is possible to disentangle the variance in school satisfaction between individual students, from variance between different school classes operationalization of school satisfaction: MARK THE FACE THAT BEST DESCRIBES YOU WHEN AT SCHOOL. ____ ____ _____ _____ _____ _____ _____x
A study with 48 classrooms (grades 4 to 6) - some initial findings: Classrooms differ from each other in the overall degree of victimization –differences in experienced victimization are between individual children, rather than between classrooms: significant differences in observed victimization can be detected between classrooms, however –there are also significant differences between classrooms in school satisfaction At the individual level, experienced victimization is related to lowered level of school satisfaction At the classroom level, the overall degree of victimization in the classroom is related to lowered level of school satisfaction
shool enjoyment / satisfaction experienced victimization experienced victimization observed victimization BETWEEN-LEVEL: (explaining variation between classrooms) WITHIN-LEVEL: (explaining variation between students) observed victimization degree of victimization in the classroom experienced victimization observed victimization gender (n.s.)
Research on consequences of victimization: some future challenges More prospective studies controlling for adjustment variables at time 1 are needed, to avoid confounding antecedents of victimization from their consequences Need to identify mechanisms of influence Need to identify moderators –protective factors ? Group-level consequences (as well as antecedents) of victimization/aggression are not yet well-known And what about group-level protective factors? | <urn:uuid:5949b295-6f44-4575-89a4-557d3b62c083> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://slideplayer.com/slide/95400/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281226.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00384-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9447 | 1,440 | 2.6875 | 3 |
What is it?
This lantern and flashlight by Ivation is a multi-use light and power source that is rainproof and collapsible (see full description here). It is light, portable, and cost effective. It can be brought along on all of your outdoor activities such as camping, hiking or fishing and since it is collapsible, it fits perfectly in your bug out bag. You can also keep it in your home or car in case of power outage or other emergency.
How do I use it?
The flashlight can be used when the lantern is collapsed and it is helpful to light your way or spotlight objects for you. To switch to the lantern, simply pull apart the two end pieces. The light will now be dispersed through the translucent plastic material and light up a larger area. There is both a low and high setting for the lantern and flashlight. The lowlight setting produces 15 lumens and the high setting produces 65 lumens. One lumen can be compared to the amount of light given off by one candle. At 65 lumens, the lantern can easily light a small area such as the interior of a tent.
Emergency power can be generated using a crank on the bottom of the lantern. The crank can power the lantern itself, or can be used to charge other devices such as MP3 players and cell phones. After only 1 minute of cranking, it is possible to charge the lantern enough to give off 11 minutes of low-level light, and 4 minutes of high-level light.
Having an emergency light source is important when you are in the outdoors and can also be extremely useful to have at home in an emergency situation. You should always plan on carrying a light source with you while camping or traveling outdoors and an emergency light is essential to every survival kit.
- LED flashlight and lantern
- Outputs 15 lumens at low-level and 65 lumens at high-level
- Built-in handle that allows the lantern to be hung almost anywhere
- 300mAh 3.7v Lithium battery that can be charged with the hand crank or via a DC to USB cable
- Rainproof rubber finishing to increase durability
- 5 hours of low light and 40 minutes of high-level light with a full charge
- Includes DC to USB cable and DC to female USB cable
- Available in orange and yellow
- 5 x 3.5 x 2 inches
- 8 ounces
The pros outweigh the cons on this little lantern, but lets take a short look at what could have been done better:
- The handle lacks a clip
- The lantern is not 100% waterproof
- It has a short battery life when set to high
- Charging devices with the hand crank is difficult and slow
Ivation’s collapsible rainproof lantern offers a lot of features for a great price. It is lightweight, easy to use, portable, and water-resistant. This lantern is best for short overnight trips or for as an item in your emergency bug out bag. On an overnight hiking or camping trip, you can use it to light your cooking area or the inside of your tent as the handle makes it easy to hang above you. The flashlight is a great additional tool that will help light your way if you need to walk in the dark.
Everyone should have some sort of emergency lighting option. Whether at home or in the outdoors, lighting is essential for your safety. The Ivation Rainproof Collapsible Hand crank LED Lantern & Flashlight is a simple and cost effective solution. | <urn:uuid:71d6b343-0c01-4134-95f7-1bdd8150066e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://realsurvivalist.com/ivation-rainproof-lantern-flashlight-review/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00228-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92606 | 718 | 1.601563 | 2 |
January 1 marked three years since the implementation of the cleverly named federal law on Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing, better known as CAN-SPAM. But according to companies that combat unwanted email, electronic spam has an even longer shelf life than the luncheon meat.
The act “has had no impact on lowering the volumes of spam,” maintains Scott Chasin, chief technology officer of MX Logic, an email security company that has observed a steady drop in compliance with the act.
Among its provisions, CAN-SPAM requires that commercial email messages must not contain deceptive information in the “from” or “subject” lines; must offer a functioning email address that allows recipients to “opt out” of receiving future messages from the sender; must contain clear and conspicuous notice that the email is, indeed, an advertisement or solicitation; and must include a valid postal address for the sender.
Regarding these seemingly straightforward measures, maintains MX Logic, only 7 percent of commercial emails were in compliance as of the end of 2004. In 2005, compliance ranged between 2 and 5 percent, and in 2006, it never reached 1 percent, according to the company. Chasin adds that during the last two months of 2006, spam traffic on the Internet doubled, and during spike periods, quadrupled.
Email security company Postini noted the same spike; by its reckoning, spam accounted for more than 93 percent of all email messages last December. That month alone, Postini asserts, it blocked more than 25 billion unwanted commercial messages, 144 percent more than in December 2005. The rising tide of spam “is threatening the viability of email for businesses that are not properly protected and is sapping the productivity of hundreds of millions of workers around the world,” maintains Postini executive vice president of marketing Daniel Druker.
Part of the problem, explains MX Logic’s Chasin, is simply due to the evolution of email from a narrowcast medium — friend to friend, family member to family member — into a broadcast medium in which nine out of ten messages carry a marketing pitch. Trust in email continues to fall, he adds, and as the level of “pollution” increases, the value of email as a means of communication continues to fall as well.
Chasin acknowledges that legislation is no “silver bullet” for the problem but insists that the United States could do much better. Most other countries that have adopted anti-spam legislation, he observes, follow an opt-in model — which, in its simplest form, requires individuals to sign up before commercial email messages can be sent their way. CAN-SPAM follows an opt-out model, in which recipients must unsubscribe to stop the junk from coming; that’s “backward,” insists Chasin.
John Reid, of the nonprofit Spamhaus Project, puts it less kindly. The act “said people in the United States are allowed to spam if they follow certain criteria,” maintains Reid. “It’s a joke law.”
Who’s spamming, and how, has also changed dramatically in the past three years. When the law was adopted, says Postini’s Druker, most of the troublemakers were unethical marketers, operating solo; they used their own computers and their own Internet connections to distribute spam, so they were relatively easy to track down. Once criminals saw the profit potential, he adds, organized spammers began sending junk email though “zombie networks” of millions of PCs that were electronically hijacked, generally without the knowledge of the owners. The character of the messages has changed, too; today they often facilitate criminal activity such as identity theft, fraud, or pump-and-dump stock schemes, Druker observes.
For spammers, the economic model has become much more attractive. “Because they’re stealing other people’s computers to do this, their cost to send out spam is zero,” notes Druker. And the payoff? The ROI for stock fraud schemes can be 6 percent in a single day, he maintains.
While most companies invested in countermeasures long ago — by implementing email security systems available from MX Logic, Postini, and dozens of other providers — many companies also allow their employees to communicate through other channels, such as instant messaging, wireless devices, and other personal technology used for business purposes. That newer electronic territory is relatively clutter-free today, but where there’s a dollar to be made, you can be sure that spammers will follow. | <urn:uuid:1f11e3b5-872a-4c29-9118-51282559f649> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://ww2.cfo.com/technology/2007/02/junk-the-junk-email-law/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719416.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00364-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956761 | 948 | 1.835938 | 2 |
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