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History, culture and natural beauty are what have made Germany famous. Thanks to the great historical cities and small towns, the abundance of forests and mountains, visitors have many options to choose from. Those who want to visit or discover art and architecture can go to metropolitan areas, and those who want to spend their free time in recreational activities and leisure can visit places like the Bavarian Alps, the Black Forest or the Rhine Valley. Below, we have listed six perfect weekend trips in Germany.
- Leipzig – The largest city in the region of Saxony, Leipzig is known for art and culture, famous composers of music such as Bach, Richard Wagner, and Felix Mendelssohn. The city is a perfect destination for weekend trips in Germany. Tourists can enjoy concerts to discover Bach’s works at St. Thomas Church, where Bach served as choirmaster and is buried. Apart from historical sites such as the old town hall, the city has quite a few iconic structures, such as the Napoleonic monument and “Reichsgericht”, the former high court of the Reich. Leipzig also has a massive city square, the Augustusplatz.
- The Rhine Valley – Sneaking between the cities of Bingen and Bonn, the Rhine flows through a spectacular geological formation called the Rhine Gorge. This region offers a spectacular landscape and is a popular destination for weekend trips in Germany. There are several medieval castles and picturesque villages with vineyards. The most famous natural attraction of the region is the Lorelei, the deepest and narrowest section of the Rhine Gorge, where there is a large, treacherous rock that caused many boating accidents before the 19th century. The best way to discover the Rhine is by taking a river cruise.
- Schwerin – The capital of Mecklenburg is a town more than a thousand years old, famous for its castle on an island in Lake Schwerin. The picturesque palace now houses the State Parliament. The State Art Museum has an outstanding collection of works by Dutch painters from the 16th century as well as works by German artists from medieval times to the present day. The city is surrounded by seven lakes that have turned it into a picturesque paradise.
- Cologne – Located on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Cologne is one of the most popular places to visit in Germany. The city offers a dynamic array of attractions, nightlife, art, and culture. But the symbol of this city is its Gothic cathedral which is beautiful. In addition, the city has twelve Romanesque churches that are magnificent examples of medieval architecture.
- Munich – Known for the world-famous Oktoberfest, Munich is one of the most beautiful cities to enjoy weekend trips in Germany. Munich is home to several houses and sophisticated opera theaters such as the National Theater. The city center is an attractive blend of classical and modern architecture, teeming with historic churches, medieval walls, and royal palaces, as well as lively shopping malls and nightclubs. The Munich Oktoberfest started in 1810 on the occasion of the celebration of a royal wedding. Today, this famous beer festival attracts millions of visitors each year to take part in the debauchery, in several gigantic beer tents where you can discover the delicious Bavarian cuisine and where millions of liters of beer are consumed.
- Berlin – Capital of Germany, Berlin is largely known for its history, from World War II to the division of East and West by the Berlin Wall during the Cold War. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, Berlin has been present as a large, unified and diverse city. The city is today rich in the tourist attraction, cultural and nocturnal. Tourists are often attracted by Berlin’s famous historic structures including the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag. Although the majority of the Berlin Wall has been demolished, some parts are still standing near Checkpoint Charlie and the Reichstag. | <urn:uuid:ab8c27e0-74a5-4298-9e31-7675b2b466a0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.wowrange.com/6-perfect-weekend-trips-in-germany/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572212.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815205848-20220815235848-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.95952 | 830 | 2 | 2 |
Scientists at Aarhus University have described the structure of an IgE antibody for the very first time.
Image Credit: Dragon Images/Shutterstock.com
In a paper published in the scientific journal Allergy, the team describes how they revealed the structure of this antibody that is responsible for allergic reactions, as well as detailing the mode of action of an anti-allergy therapeutic antibody. These breakthrough findings will likely influence the development of future medicines.
The increasing prevalence of allergic diseases
The immune system relies greatly on the use of antibodies to protect the human body from invading organisms such as pathogenic bacteria and viruses. They are an important line of defense that works to prevent the establishment of illness and disease.
While there are several distinct antibodies, in general, they work by binding to an antigen that is viewed as potentially threatening, as well as by triggering appropriate immune responses. Research has shown that antibodies have a high degree of flexibility to give them maximum efficacy.
Across the globe, allergic diseases impact over a billion people, a figure that is expected to quadruple over the next 30 years. Regions that are rapidly urbanizing are those at particular risk of the increasing prevalence of allergic diseases along with their detrimental socio-economic effects, such as high costs to healthcare systems.
Currently, not all allergies can be treated by available medicines. Scientists at Aarhus University aimed to address this with their research which aimed to open up avenues for new kinds of allergy medicines.
Using EM microscopy to uncover the structure of IgE
IgE antibodies are generated when a person has an allergic reaction to allergens that enter the body. The blood transports these IgE antibodies which are added onto the immune system’s effector cells. These effector cells that are combined with IgE antibodies are triggered when an allergic person is exposed to certain allergens. This initiates the release of high levels of mediators and histamine which results in the body producing an immediate allergic reaction.
The researchers investigated these antibodies using electron microscopy (EM) alongside the method of small-angle x-ray scattering. The results of their findings revealed the three-dimensional structure of IgE antibodies for the first time. They demonstrated that the general rule of flexibility in antibodies does not apply with IgE antibodies.
EM microscopy showed that the structure of the allergen-binding moieties of these antibodies is rigid and well-defined, rather than being flexible, as has been demonstrated in many other well-studied antibody isotypes.
In addition, the findings of the study uncovered the effect of a therapeutic antibody, in terms of structure and function, on the IgE antibody. The therapeutic antibody was found to bind to the IgE antibody, having the impact of preventing allergic reactions.
The team was also able to uncover the structural changes that incur following neutralization of the IgE antibody by the therapeutic antibody. These findings are important in enabling scientists to gain essential insights into how the IgE antibody recognizes allergens as well as how they identify the two kinds of IgE receptors that are located on the cell surface of our body’s immune cells.
Until now, researchers had failed to understand why IgE antibodies seemed to differ from other antibodies. This research has clarified why these differences occur, which should open the door to the development of new therapeutic approaches to allergies.
Developing new allergy treatments
The team was successful in defining the IgE antibody’s structure, which is vital to gaining a deeper understanding of how the body develops allergic responses. Shortly, we could see new and more effective strategies in treating allergies develop from this advancement in knowledge.
First, more studies will need to be conducted to further explore the nature of the IgE molecule, however, it already provides an interesting starting point for the development of future medicines.
- Broide, D., Finkelman, F., Bochner, B. and Rothenberg, M. (2011). Advances in mechanisms of asthma, allergy, and immunology in 2010. Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, 127(3), pp.689-695. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21377038
- Gould, H. and Sutton, B. (2008). IgE in allergy and asthma today. Nature Reviews Immunology, 8(3), pp.205-217. https://www.nature.com/articles/nri2273?proof=trueIn
- Jensen, R., Jabs, F., Miehe, M., Mølgaard, B., Pfützner, W., Möbs, C., Spillner, E. and Andersen, G. (2020). Structure of intact IgE and the mechanism of ligelizumab revealed by electron microscopy. Allergy. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/all.14222 | <urn:uuid:426c7468-6a1e-486a-bf44-c219517869da> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.azolifesciences.com/news/20200309/Structure-of-intact-IgE-revealed-by-electron-microscopy.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570913.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809064307-20220809094307-00079.warc.gz | en | 0.943043 | 1,016 | 3.65625 | 4 |
Cite this asGrover K, Dworkin-Valenti PJ, Jadusingh W, Samba BSR (2018) Accuracy of non-ultrasound guided thyroid gland fine needle aspiration with biopsy. Arch Otolaryngol Rhinol 4(1): 011-014. DOI: 10.17352/2455-1759.000066
Objectives: The aim of this study was to examine the accuracy of fine needle aspiration with cytology (FNAC) for thyroid gland masses without (US) ultrasound guidance by comparing results with final Histopathological Examination (HPE) findings.
Study Design: Retrospective chart review
Setting: Tertiary Care Medical Center in Montego Bay, Jamaica.
Subjects and Methods: Patient charts were retrospectively reviewed at Cornwall Regional Hospital in Montego Bay, Jamaica. Individuals with thyroid nodules less than 3 cm were excluded. Non-ultrasound guided FNA was performed by the attending otolaryngologist and cytology was analyzed by the attending pathologist. FNAC results were compared to final HPE results. A total of 412 patients were sampled.
Results: The rate of agreement between the results of FNAC and HPE was very high (90%), especially for all benign lesions. Multi-nodular goiter was the most common presentation.
Conclusion: Head and neck disease is difficult to identify in developing nations. Results of non-US guided FNAC for thyroid lesions 3 cm and larger proved to be accurate 90% of the time when compared to final HPE results. These data demonstrate the relative reliability of FNAC without US guidance for the vast majority of thyroid gland masses that were evaluated. The findings also support the active role of the otolaryngologist in the diagnostic process; participation that can be efficiently accomplished in a routine ENT out-patient clinic setting.
Thyroid lesions, salivary gland tumors, and head and neck masses are commonly evaluated and treated by endocrinologists and otolaryngologists. Within this context, palpable thyroid nodules are amongst the most frequently presenting pathologies; an occurrence of 5% in women and 1% in men . In the United States, it is estimated that 600,000 nodules are sent for fine-needle aspiration (FNA) alone . The primary concern with these lesions is that they may harbor a thyroid malignancy. In approximately 15% of patients who exhibit palpable thyroid nodules, particularly those with family histories of thyroid disease or radiation exposure, malignant pathology is identified upon further work up .
In general, timely diagnosis and treatment of thyroid disease can be challenging to both primary care providers and otolaryngologists. With respect to thyroid nodules, FNA has been shown to result in high degrees of diagnostic accuracy. Moreover, throughout developing countries this evaluation technique is considered not only reliable, but also a very cost-effective method of differential evaluation and diagnosis. Reports of FNA of thyroid abnormalities date back to the 11th century, with numerous scientific publications on this topic since then .
Since the 1980’s, FNA has been coupled to ultrasound (US) guidance for appraising the cytology (FNAC) of suspicious thyroid gland lesions . Notwithstanding the inherent value of such technology, in some underdeveloped or underprivileged countries the availability of this imaging equipment is either inadequate or absent owing to prohibitive cost and limited professional diagnostician expertise [5,6].
Ordinarily and ideally, US guided FNAC requires the collaborative efforts of a radiologist, pathologist, and otolaryngologist or endocrinologist. Conversely, palpation guided FNA of large thyroid lesions (>2 cm) can often be achieved in an outpatient setting by a single practitioner with the assistance of an attending pathologist . The comparative reliability of these two methods (i.e., USFNAC vs. FNAC) for thyroid lesion diagnoses has not been extensively studied . It has been our professional experience that otolaryngologists may be uniquely positioned to not only evaluate but also conduct thyroid diagnostic procedures on an outpatient basis in the clinic setting. To our knowledge no investigation of non-US guided FNAC for palpable thyroid nodules has been conducted in a select large adult cohort population.
The purpose of this investigation is to compare results of thyroid gland FNAC without US guidance with final histopathological examination (HPE) findings. The study population was drawn from patients of African origin living in west Jamaica. The following null hypothesis was employed for analysis: Non-US guided FNAC of thyroid gland masses 3 cm or larger is not a reliable diagnostic methodology.
In accordance with well documented requirements to conduct retrospective human participant research at our medical center, this investigation was deemed exempt from having to undergo a formal IRB review. A retrospective chart review of patients who presented with thyroid masses to the Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Surgery clinic at Cornwall Regional Hospital (CRH) in Montego Bay, Jamaica between 1999 and 2009 was conducted by two independent judges. Chart extractions focused on several variables, as described below. Patients with thyroid nodules measuring less than 3 cm were excluded. Medical co-morbidity was not considered as an inclusion or exclusion criterion. All charts were independently reviewed by 2 attending otolaryngologists for inter-rater reliability and internal validity purposes.
Each thyroid lesion was clinically evaluated by one of four attending otolaryngologists according to the following rating format: a) overall size b) right or left mass, b) bilateral mass, c) nodular goiter (NG), or d) multi-nodular goiter (MNG). Patients were then sent to the radiology department where ultrasound was done to further evaluate the nodule. Size measurement was appreciated in the longest dimension. Ultrasound interpretation was done by one of two radiologists in the entire Cornwall County/West Jamaica region. Of note, per the hospital's registrar, CRH provides service to a population greater than 500,000 citizens in west Jamaica. These individuals are mainly of low socio-economic status. Ideally, as done in developed nations, patients would have FNA completed at the same time as US evaluation. However, due to the shortage of certified radiologists, associated personnel (i.e. sonographer), and a limited number of US machines, it is common practice to perform palpation guided FNA. This procedure was conducted next by the examining otolaryngologist using a standard palpation technique without US guidance. When patients were evaluated in the otolaryngology clinic they underwent same day FNAC. Cytopathology was immediately determined in the clinic setting by the only certified pathologist in the hospital at the completion of each FNA.
Specifically, the FNAC procedure was conducted by physical palpation of the thyroid mass. Once the mass was adequately appraised following the aforementioned rating format the procedure began by administering local anesthesia into the subcutaneous tissue layer with 0.5 ml of 1% lidocaine with 1: 100,000 epinephrine. Once adequate blanching was established, a 25-gauge needle was used to aspirate material from the suspicious lesion. This procedure was performed at least three times with each mass to ensure satisfactory sampling for cytological analysis. The pathologist confirmed the adequacy of drawn samples prior to microscopic evaluation.
Results of the FNAC were discussed with each subject individually, followed by type-specific treatment recommendations. Current American Thyroid Association (ATA) guidelines preclude surgical intervention for thyroid nodules that are 3 cm or above with benign characteristics (e.g. spongiform appearance/cystic nature). Additionally, the ATA advocates evaluating nodules on their sonographic features for pre-biopsy risk stratification. Because our study was conducted in Jamaica prior to the publication of these existing guidelines we did not adhere to these recommendations. Consequently, many of our patients with benign FNAC results were treated surgically, largely due to obstructive and/or compressive airway symptoms. These individuals underwent one of the following indicated surgical procedures, usually within one month following the FNAC results: hemi-thyroidectomy, subtotal thyroidectomy, total thyroidectomy, or isthmectomy. These procedures were performed by the otolaryngologists who respectively conducted the associated biopsies. Final post-operative HPE was conducted in each case by the hospital's only pathologist. These data were subjected to comparative analyses with the original FNAC findings.
Statistical analysis was accomplished using SPS software. Descriptive statistics including frequency distributions and demographics were conducted. Cohen’s kappa analysis was performed to evaluate percentage of agreement between FNAC and HPE results.
Inter-rater agreement was achieved by ensuring zero discrepancies between the two reviewers in all chart extractions. Intra-rater agreement of 100% was also achieved via a second round of chart reviews, wherein 100 charts were re-reviewed by each judge to ensure complete accuracy of all original data extractions. These findings suggest very strong levels of reviewer reliability relative to the contents of all patient charts. A total of 412 patients met the eligibility criteria for participation. Of those, 95.6% were female. Mean patient age was 47.2 years (range: 11-83 years; SD: 14.3 years). The clinical diagnoses frequency and FNAC findings are illustrated in table 1. Clinical presentations included the following: right thyroid mass, left thyroid mass, bilateral thyroid mass, MNG, NG, and other. MNG was the most common diagnosis at 36.7% of the total study population. Findings of right thyroid mass and left thyroid mass were nearly equally frequent at 24.3% and 27.0%, respectively. NG was detected in 6.6%, and bilateral thyroid mass was observed in 4.4% of all patients studied.
As mentioned in the Methods, patients underwent one of the following procedures: right hemi-thyroidectomy, left hemi-thyroidectomy, subtotal thyroidectomy, total thyroidectomy, or isthmectomy; only 2 patients received the latter procedure, as shown in table 1. FNAC and HPE comparative outcomes frequencies revealed that the most common diagnosis for both procedures was nodular hypoplasia (46.0% and 53.2%, respectively). NG was seen on FNAC 39.1% of the time and reported on HPE at 32.4%. The least common finding on FNAC was normal thyroid/benign tissue at 0.3%, with 0.2% found on HPE.
Of the total sample of 412 patients, 350 individuals underwent both non-US guided FNAC and postoperative HPE analyses. The overall percentage of agreement between these two cytologic diagnostic procedures was 90%, as shown in table 2. To examine the statistical power of such agreements between these two categorical variables, Cohen’s Kappa was computed from the observed diagnostic frequencies. Results revealed the proportion of agreement between the non-US guided FNAC findings and the post-operative HPE results was 0.84 (p < .001), which represents very strong statistical significance.
The vast majority of US-FNAC procedures in the United States are performed by radiologists, with or without the assistance of the referring endocrinologist or otolaryngologist. Following this procedure the patient is typically sent back to the original referring physician for discussion of pathological results and treatment options [8,9]. This procedural algorithm is slow moving, inconvenient, costly, and inherently disadvantageous to timely diagnosis . It has been long acknowledged by endocrinologists and otolaryngologists alike that the most appropriate and effective method of evaluating a thyroid mass is via the FNAC technique, because it is quick, safe, cheap, and usually accurately yields the cytological characteristics of the tissue samples .
The results of this investigation have enabled us to reject the proposed null hypothesis. That is, from our relatively large data base we demonstrated that non-US guided FNAC of thyroid masses 3 cm or larger in size yielded accurate pathologic diagnosis in 90% of patients studied. These findings lend support to the practice of performing in-clinic FNAC without US in select patients with easily palpable thyroid masses. The benefits associated with this strategy include: 1) prompt and accurate diagnoses in most cases, 2) timely initiation of appropriate treatments, and 3) increased healthcare efficiency. Additionally, the anticipated surgeon remains fully engaged in the care of the patient from the initial examination through the postoperative period without the likelihood of sacrificing quality of care or treatment results. Consistent with this latter suggestion are the results reported by Patel and his associates . They discovered that when the surgeon him or herself performed the thyroid FNAC with US there was a notable decrease in the time to diagnosis and treatment in over 100 cases, which in the final analysis translated into significantly fewer office visits and more efficient patient care. Although these clinical researches used US guidance during their FNAC procedures, they demonstrated that the surgeons’ participation led to more expeditious diagnostic and treatment outcomes than they normally experienced when they referred their patients outside their practices for such testing. Our results add another dimension to this approach: The ability to proceed in the office setting without the need for US guidance.
On a much smaller data base, Guo et-al found that the sensitivity and accuracy of palpation guided FNA were not lower than those of US FNAC . These findings also corroborate the results of the current investigation. In that earlier study a small percentage of thyroid nodules to be evaluated via FNAC were achieved without US guidance using palpation only. These researchers concluded that relatively large thyroid nodules can be accurately evaluated via FNAC without US guidance in select individuals. They also pointed out the important efficiency and cost saving factors of this alternative examination approach, akin to our own previously mentioned advantages of this procedure modification. Other researchers have similarly supported the cost-effective approach to palpable thyroid mass appraisal, suggesting that even in the presence of US guidance sampling errors do occur with false negative outcomes [13,14]. In the current investigation, the diagnostic accuracy of FNAC without US guidance exceeded 90%, as confirmed by HPE, postoperatively. Whether or not these results could be duplicated with smaller thyroid masses remains unclear and is certainly a limitation of the findings reported. We offer the proposition however, that any adequately palpable thyroid gland mass can be successfully evaluated via FNAC without US guidance. Future investigation of this hypothesis will be required to remove the doubt and support this examination approach. Naturally, non-palpable thyroid nodules, for example, will require US guidance for FNAC accuracy.
Although Voit et al., examined FNAC of lymph nodes for detection of Melanoma, their data provide support for use of FNAC with palpable lesions. In their investigation, the specificity of palpation-guided FNAC’s (100%) was similar to that of US guided FNAC’s (99.8%); the negative predictive value was 95.2% vs. 96.4% for the both categories . These investigators concluded in their review that palpation guided FNAC is as specific and sensitive as US FNAC in cases of melanoma lymphadenopathy. These findings offer support for the current study design and results.
To our knowledge, this is the only investigation of a large patient cohort whose thyroid gland lesions were evaluated via non-US guided FNAC and then compared for cytological accuracy with postoperative HPE results. Technology and financial limitations in the developing nation where all data were collected serendipitously enabled this analysis, which otherwise might not have been possible for medical-legal or medical-ethical reasons in the United States. To strengthen the results of this investigation a duplicative prospective research design is under consideration, wherein several endocrinologists, otolaryngologists, and pathologists will be independently employed to conduct non-US guided FNAC and US guided FNAC in patients with thyroid gland masses of variable sizes for detailed HPE outcomes comparisons. If blinded results are clinically and statistically equivalent between and within these hopefully more equally gender distributed study groups, and among the examining physicians, additional support would be mounted for in-office non-US guided FNAC of many thyroid gland masses.
The importance of accurate and timely diagnosis of thyroid gland masses is self-evident. The vast majority of patients with such conditions undergo US guided FNAC for such purposes. This is especially true in virtually all developed nations around the world; and in most cases the otolaryngologist (or endocrinologist) defers to the interventional radiologist for the tissue examination and diagnosis. The results of this investigation provide strong preliminary evidence that for palpable thyroid lesions, FNAC without US guidance is a highly reliable alternative evaluation approach, which enables the otolaryngologist to participate in the differential diagnosis and medical-surgical management of the patient from the outset of care to completion. We anticipate that similar investigations of smaller masses may corroborate and extend the results of this study by demonstrating that for most palpable thyroid gland lesions, regardless of suspected size, it may be diagnostically superfluous to include routinely US technology during the FNAC biopsy procedure.
Special thanks to Lisa Chiodo, Ph.D, University of Massachusetts, for her invaluable contributions to the statistical analyses of the data collected in this investigation.
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It is imperative that mining operators ensure the safety and compliance of all types of tailings storage facilities, be it ponds, dams, paste tailings, dry stacking or underground storage. Throughout history, the failure of tailings storage facilities have caused significant disasters, with severe human and environmental casualties. One of the recent disasters was at the Vale SA iron ore mine in Brumadinho Brazil, in 2019, which killed 259 people and released about 12 million cubic meters of tailings with long term ecological impact on over 300kms of the São Francisco River.
In the last decade there have been 37 major tailings dam failures1, and the World Mine Tailings Failures (WMTF) states that these events are becoming more frequent and are predicted to have more devastating impacts as the cumulative tailings depositions continue to grow exponentially.
Tailings storage facilities play an important role in mine waste management, storing sludge and toxic metals and minerals. As the world continues to mine massive amounts of metals and minerals, the volume of the waste increases, this is further amplified as lower grades are mined which contain a larger volume of waste. It is essential that this waste isn’t released into the atmosphere or waterways as it will have a long-term ecological impact.
Dam’s containing tailings have historically failed more than 100 times the rate of water-holding dams.2 In particular, upstream dams which are constructed during the life of the mine are at greater risk of failure from an increased weight being added to the original starter dam.
Increased safety and compliance measures are being enforced to help the mining industry construct, monitor and maintain tailing storage facilities with multiple sources of data. The accurate analysis of this data in real time can help engineers significantly in their important role of ensuring the structural integrity, safety and reliability of these facilities while ensuring and demonstrating compliance to regulations.
VROC’s AI platform can provide mine operators with the live monitoring and predictive analysis in real time which would allow the early identification of anomalies. By analysing all available data, including weather data, the AI can provide future predictions on critical elements such as liquefied tailings, water levels, drainage, overflow, water discharge, structural integrity and stability, dust and seismic activity.
Advanced notification of deviations and future faults allows mining operators and engineers the critical time to intervene and prevent disasters.
VROC is pleased to be able to provide mining operators with critical insights to ensure the safety of these facilities, and help prevent future failures which put both the environment and our communities at risk.
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Scenic Byways - The Bold Coast & Black Woods
The Maine Scenic Byways Program
The Maine Scenic Byways program is a community-based consensus and partnership program administered by the Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT). The Byway program promotes economic development along roadways that offer the traveler an opportunity to experience exceptional scenic, cultural, recreational, archeological, and historical qualities. The ultimate goal of the Program is to preserve, maintain, protect and enhance Maine’s unique intrinsic resources.
The Maine Scenic Byways Program will preserve, maintain, protect and enhance the intrinsic resources of scenic corridors through a sustainable balance of conservation and land use. Through community-based consensus and partnerships, the program will promote economic prosperity and broaden the traveler’s overall recreational and educational experience.
Scenic Byway designation promotes economic development by:
- Introducing visitors to the beauty, solitude, and rejuvenating qualities of the landscape;
- Providing access to the numerous recreational opportunities;
- Sparking curiosity about the people, culture, and history of the region; and
- Enticing patrons to local businesses and community events and celebrations.
The Maine Department of Transportation and the Maine Office of Tourism (MOT) are important partners in promotion and program development. State designation of the Byway places the region on the State’s Scenic Byways map, the MaineDOT Explore Maine webpage, and on the Maine Office of Tourism (MOT) webpages and brochures.
The Black Woods Scenic Byway
The Blackwoods Scenic Byway, designated in 2004, is located on State Road 182 between the towns of Hancock (in Hancock County) and Cherryfield (in Washington County). Route 182, locally known as the Blackwoods Road, is a remarkable journey. Traversing the twelve and a half miles that connect two historical New England villages, visitors experience forests, ponds, lakes, streams, rocky hills, blueberry barrens, small farms and cottage businesses.
Backwoods recreation opportunities abound along the Blackwoods Byway. Public access to Fox Pond, Tunk Lake, Long Pond and Spring River Lake provides summer and ice fishing, swimming, and boating. Just off of the byway a network of trails crisscrosses public lands in an area known by some as "Little Switzerland." Hiking, camping, fishing, bird-watching and hunting are there for the adventurous.
Local historians still tell tales of mysterious visions from the crest of Catherine's Hill, or 19th century gold and silver mining boondoggles and of the brave few who made their homes in this wilderness during long Maine winters. Cherryfield, the wild blueberry capital of the world, is a living document of the impact of timber, boat building and blueberries. Franklin and Cherryfield, the village anchors at each end of the byway, are home to dozens of historic homes, some over 200 years old. Several historic sites have appeared in Yankee and Downeast magazines.
The scenery is northern New England spectacular. Amidst dense forests, breath-taking views emerge from ridge-lines and open expanses of water. The land here is hard; a mix of rock, pine needles, serpentine tree roots and icy streams. Summers are delightfully cool, autumns present a brilliant display of color and winters are pronounced with snow, thick lake ice and a quiet that is seldom experienced elsewhere. Rocky fields of wild blueberries, the region’s primary agricultural export, are visible on some portions of the byway. The state’s largest blueberry producing region is just minutes away. These blueberry barrens create a carpet of green in the spring, blue in the late summer and fiery red in the autumn.
The Bold Coast Scenic Byway
The Bold Coast Scenic Byway is a 125-mile driving route that invites visitors to explore the culture, history, wildlife, and rugged, unspoiled beauty of coastal “Downeast” Maine. The byway route is strung with active fishing harbors and downtowns composed of historic structures that exemplify the wealth of 19th Century ship captains and lumber barons; as well as the industrial history of the shipping, lumbering, fishing, boatbuilding, and canning trades. The byway route winds its way along the coast, passing through wild blueberry barrens; abundant farmland; coastal forests; tidal marshes and bays; and clear-flowing rivers, streams, and lakes.
The Byway route extends from the fishing community of Milbridge northeasterly through coastal and riverine villages to Lubec, the easternmost point of land in the United States and gateway to Canada’s Campobello Island; and skirts the coastline of Cobscook Bay, through the Pleasant Point Indian Reservation to Eastport, an historic fishing port overlooking international waters and the Fundy Isles of New Brunswick, Canada.
The Bold Coast Scenic Byway was officially designated as a Maine Scenic Byway on June 8, 2011. It is the longest scenic byway in Maine.
The Eligibility Application that led to the the designation of the Bold Coast Scenic Byway in June of 2011 can be downloaded here: (Full application, PDF 14 MB).
For more information, please contact Crystal Hitchings at (207) 546-3600 or (207) 214-0588.
Maine’s Bold Coast: Chronicle New England Main Streets: WCVB TV Boston
Four 5-minute video clips produced in July, 2013 as a 1/2 hour television program. Each clip highlights some of the many very special people and places in the Bold Coast Region.
To DOWNLOAD the entire 20-minute video, click here.
Bangor Metro “Talk of the Town” (August 2013) – Talk-of-the-town/Bold-Coast-Scenic-Byway
Bangor Daily News “Washington County orchestrates Bold Coast Scenic Byway project” (April 2013) – down-east/washington-county-orchestrates-bold-coast-scenic-byway-project | <urn:uuid:b89179a3-f35f-4a0a-b9e7-6ab93a139e20> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.wccog.net/scenic-byways.htm | 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 | 0.91228 | 1,264 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Reports from a recent study conducted by Symantec indicate that with one exception, browser vulnerabilities have increased across the board. The most surprising finding in the study was the number of vulnerabilities detected in Mozilla’s Firefox browser. 47 vulnerabilities were discovered in a six month study from January through June of this year. Up from a total of 17 vulnerabilities in a similar study conducted in July through December of 2005. By comparison Microsoft’s Internet Explorer reported 38 vulnerabilities in this year’s study, up from 25 vulnerabilities last year. Despite a disappointing result in the sheer number of vulnerabilities discovered in their browser, Mozilla led the pack with the fastest turn around time for patches. Firefox’s turn around for patches showed a one-day window of vulnerability compared to Internet Explorer with a nine-day window.
Of the four browsers studied (IE, Firefox, Safari, and Opera) Opera was the only browser that showed a decline in the number of vulnerabilities.
There are two important notes concerning these findings. First and foremost is that your choice of browser does not necessarily guarantee that you’re safe from attack. IE certainly gets more attacks than any other browser, but 85 percent of the market is using Microsoft’s product. It makes economic sense for malware writers to single out their product. Secondly, it is as important as ever that users practic skeptical computing, and be wary of suspicious content or pages while browsing the Internet. Regardless of browser platform, nobody is 100% safe. | <urn:uuid:4558e503-be74-475d-be76-5a544deec43f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://sadasystems.com/blog/uncategorized/bloguncategorizedhow-vulnerable-is-your-browser/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285001.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00303-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958647 | 301 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Canadian Space Agency
The Astronautics Vocabulary is a glossary of terms that pertain to the science and technology of spaceflight. This alphabetical list can be navigated by clicking on the letters A-Z displayed on this page.
Translation: temps moyen de Greenwich (TMG)
Definition: Astronomical unit based on the Sun's passage over Greenwich (noon). Not to be confused with the hour at which an event occurs in the UT system.
Other Definition: None | <urn:uuid:dd00d882-d6bf-4a27-85cf-e93a42c845ad> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/resources/vocabulary_view.asp?id=501 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280242.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00070-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.818601 | 102 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Just last night my daughter decided that I needed a brushing up on Roman Numerals. I had told her previously that 'yeah, I knew them'.
Although when I had told her, I wasn't exactly sure if I really did know them.
I remember learning them, but how much did I really remember?
It turns out that I remembered quite a bit. But, I hope she didn't catch on. For her sake, I forgot quite a lot.
As it turns out they are useful beyond figuring out how many Superbowls have been played. And I found a great resource that has everything you ever needed to learn about roman numerals.
I also found this one that has a nice little graph that is a bit more detailed than the one my daughter used on me.
On one of the sites there was a comment from a mom saying that she did not want her kid learning Arabic numbers. That one made me giggle a little.
And after all of this you are still not sure how to use them, you can convert numbers here.
And of course, there is an app for that.
Now if only I could remember where I left my keys as well as I could remember that today is April XXVII, MMXI
One little disclaimer. Don't pay too much attention to my picture; it has some mistakes. After all, it's from a 9 year old who just saw them for the very first time. | <urn:uuid:8105c78b-dbda-48e8-ada0-36cc5294b850> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://azucar-y-especias.blogspot.com/2011/04/roman-numerals.html | 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 | 0.989326 | 306 | 1.835938 | 2 |
How to Get a Work Study or Part-Time Job in College
If you’re looking to get a part-time job in college, it’s important to find the right one. Having extra money to spend is always a plus, and there are typically many work opportunities available. However, your time “on the clock” shouldn’t come at the cost of your grades or negatively affect your college experience.
Wondering how to find the right position for you? Here are four helpful tips, as well as advice for making the most of your working hours.
1. Search for Work-Study Opportunities
If you qualify for the Federal Work Study program—which is a need-based government program granted to students through filling out the FAFSA—your school will make every effort to hire you for a position that suits you. Even if you don’t qualify for the program, you can still find on-campus gigs that fit into your schedule.
There are multiple benefits of working on campus. Not only will you be working with fellow students, but you will be serving your classmates and professors, and you’ll typically have an easier time balancing your work schedule with your school demands.
2. Check With Your School’s Job Center
Your university might have a separate place where you can look for jobs and internships available in your community. Many local businesses and alumni will post jobs with nearby colleges because they want to attract students who are interested in becoming part-time employees.
Azusa Pacific University students and grads can find postings through the APU Career Network. If your school does not offer a platform like this, see if another local university or community college provides a similar service that’s open to the public.
3. Network in Your Community
Another way to find local opportunities is to get out and about in your city. Start with the restaurants and shops you visit often and ask if they are hiring. Don’t be afraid to make friendly conversation with the cashier and manager—let them know you would love to work there. If they are not currently hiring, ask when a good time would be to come back later in the year to check again.
Don’t end your search there! Approach several businesses, getting to know the employees and owners as you go. So many students rely on online applications to get them a job, but a friendly face and solid networking can go a lot further when it comes to finding a part-time job in college.
4. Keep Your Future Career in Mind
When searching for opportunities and networking with different people, don’t forget to ask yourself, “Where do I want to work after graduation?” It’s a good idea to target businesses that relate to your chosen career path, as this can help you gain experience and make yourself known before you have your diploma in hand.
If you are pursuing a teaching degree, why not ask local schools about entry-level positions, internships, and volunteer opportunities? Similarly, health care majors can find employment, internship, or volunteer opportunities at nearby hospitals, doctor offices, or schools. No matter what degree you are working toward, you can find a matching opportunity in your area.
With an internship, you will receive valuable experience in your field—and you could get your foot in the door. Upon graduation, interns are more likely to get a full-time job offer than their non-interning competition, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Employers would rather promote someone who has already proven their worth than hire a completely new worker.
When it comes to finding a part-time job in college, you need to be proactive, not passive. While many great opportunities will be posted online or through your college job center, don’t let that be your only means of searching. Asking local businesses, friends, and family members if they know of potential job opportunities can lead you to positions that haven’t been advertised yet. Not to mention, you’ll polish your networking skills.
Posted: May 17, 2018 | <urn:uuid:9b9ff8d2-d722-4a78-bc5f-f0616be0b1ff> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.apu.edu/articles/how-to-get-a-work-study-or-part-time-job-in-college/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.959992 | 847 | 1.71875 | 2 |
By Glen C. Strathy
If you want to write a play, Dramatica theory can help you overcome one of the most common problems new playwrights face.
I was speaking recently with Charles Robertson, a playwright and artistic director of Bottletree Productions in Kingston, Ontario. Every year, Bottletree holds a playwriting competition, which Charles and his associates judge. (You can find out how to enter this writing contest by clicking here.) The contest is open only to plays that have not been produced professionally (that is, with actors hired under an Actor's Equity union contract). Many of the contestants are therefore young writers or people who are just learning how to write a play.
Charles told me that the biggest problem he sees with new playscripts is the lack of a cohesive plot – or indeed any semblance of a plot at all.
In case you're wondering how a person can write a play of 50-100 pages without the benefit of a plot, let's remember that plays are primarily composed of dialogue. Many people it seems can easily write page after page of people talking. But when it comes to a plot with a proper beginning, middle, and resolution, they are stymied.
Our conversation reminded me of a study conducted nearly two decades ago by Larry O'Farrell, one of my former drama education professors. Larry had sent out a survey to a large number of professional Canadian playwrights, asking them what procedure they generally use to write a play. (Teaching playwriting was part of the high school drama curriculum in Ontario at the time.)
What he learned was that roughly 20% of playwrights begin by inventing a cast of characters. They then experiment with putting those characters into situations and envisioning how they would interact with each other at different points in their lives. Eventually, they find a plot emerges out of these interactions. This strikes me as similar to the Pantster approach of novel writing (with perhaps a little more planning).
However, Larry discovered that 80% of professional playwrights will create an outline before they write a play. Some outlines may be only a paragraph long. Others may be ten pages or more. But the point is that the majority of successful playwrights find that creating some sort of plot outline is an essential first step.
As someone with a fondness for structure, this makes perfect sense to me. It's much easier to write a scene – whether for a novel or a script – if you know how it will fit into your overall story arc. Without an outline, there is a danger your dialogue could head off into totally unproductive directions. (Yes, sometimes meandering can lead to valuable discoveries, but it can also take you into a lot of dead ends.)
Of course, there are always exceptions. George Bernard Shaw, for example, claimed he never knew how one of his plays would end in advance. If you read his works, you'll see he kept his plots together by structuring them like debates – with arguments and counterarguments evolving in a dialectical process until they reach a conclusion. Watching a Shaw play, is like watching Shaw's process of deciding what he thinks about a topic.
For most of us, it is better to decide what we want to say before we start to say it. If you want to write a play, I suggest you start with the article, Create a Plot Outline in 8 Easy Steps. It will help you write a one-paragraph plot outline which you then expand. It's the simplest and one of the most useful ways to apply Dramatica theory.
For that matter, most of the articles on the How to Write a Novel page can also be used to develop an outline for a play.
A few other things you should keep in mind:
Even if your play is mostly dialogue, every bit of that dialogue should advance the drama. A good play will have a plot that revolves around a Story Goal. Every scene or beat should be an integral part of the whole. Sometimes, the goal will be directly stated, as when Shakespeare's Macbeth is first told by the witches that he is destined to become King. In other plays, the story goal and the aims of the individual characters are subtextual; that is, they are never stated openly but they are the motivation behind the characters' actions and words.
While many contemporary plays consist mainly of dialogue, action can be just as important. Maybe your local theatre company can't afford to stage an epic battle scene, complete with horses and cannons, but that never stopped Shakespeare. He knew how to use small skirmishes to represent the entire event.
For instance, let's say you want write a play with a car chase. Try having one car (or maybe just two chairs that represent a car) with some sound effects. Let the characters' reactions to things they can see, but the audience can't, convey the reality of the story.
Along the same lines, remember that most theatres don't have the budget of a Hollywood movie. The less it costs to produce your play, the more likely a theatre will produce it. Try to use as few locations as possible to save on sets. If you want a realistic set, consider having your entire play take place in one location. If you must have multiple settings, consider using a minimal amount of scenery (ala Our Town) or a set that can easily transform into different locations. Remember that lighting effects can sometimes substitute for scenery. (Shakespeare, for example, had no scenery to work with but was able to convey his settings using dialogue alone.)
"I've read more than fifty books on writing, writing novels, etc., but your website has the most useful and practical guidance. Now that I understand how a novel is structured, I will rewrite mine, confident that it will be a more interesting novel." - Lloyd Edwards
"Thanks to your "Create a Plot Outline in 8 Easy Steps," I was able to take a story that I simply just fooled around with and went willy nilly all over, into a clearly defined, intriguing battle where two characters fight to keep their relationship intact, and try to find a balance in control of themselves and their lives. Thanks to you, I'm not ashamed of the poor organization of my writing." - Nommanic Ragus
"I am so glad I found your site. It has helped me in so many ways, and has given me more confidence about myself and my work. Thank you for making this valuable resource, for me and my fellow writers. Perhaps you'll hear about me someday...I'll owe it to you." - Ruth, Milton, U.S.A.
"I never knew what to do with all the characters in my head, but since discovering Dramatica I am writing again in my spare time. Thank you for making this available. Yes, it is a bit complex, and it does take time, but I love it because it works." - Colin Shoeman
"I came across your website by chance. It is a plethora of
knowledge, written in a simplistic way to help aspiring writers. I
truly appreciate all of the information you have provided to help me
successfully (relative term) write my novel. Thank you very much!" - Leo T. Rollins
"I can honestly say that this is the first website that is really helpful. You manage to answer complex questions in relatively short articles and with really intelligent answers. Thank you for taking the time to write these articles and sharing them so generously." - Chrystelle Nash
"...had no idea that a simple click would give me such a wealth of valuable information. The site not only offered extremely clear and helpful instructions but was a very enjoyable read as well. The education from your wonderful site has made me a better writer and your words have inspired me to get back to work on my novel. I wish to give you a heartfelt thanks for How to Write a Book Now, sir." -- Mike Chiero | <urn:uuid:f43e3673-4084-4efb-8342-923abf232a15> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.how-to-write-a-book-now.com/write-a-play.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00490-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973277 | 1,634 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Look over Luke 1:5-25; 57-66.
We all know the story, don’t we? Zacharias (an “official” “ordained-type” priest) goes in his proper time to offer incense within the Temple. The Angel Gabriel appears to him there, announcing the upcoming birth of John the Baptist, along with his role as forerunner and preparer of the way of the Lord.
Zacharias responds, objecting, “How will I know this for certain? For I am an old man and my wife is advanced in years.” [v. 18] Gabriel then identifies himself by name, and declares that Zacharias will be mute until his words were fulfilled.
Time passes and so things come about. Zacharias regains his voice finally upon naming his son “John” at his circumcision, in response to community objections because this is not family name of their line.
We all know the story.
Now, please look over Luke 1:26-56.
We all know this story, too, don’t we? We see this played out in Christmas pageants almost annually, no? The Angel Gabriel appears to Mary, declares her favored, calms her confusion, and announces that she will conceive the Son of the Most High and name Him Jesus.
Mary seems to respond much as did Zacharias, pointing out a physical incongruity as she says, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” [v. 34]
But far from punishing her, as it could seem Gabriel did to Zacharias, the angel answers graciously with not only the answer to her question (that the power of the Most High would overshadow her), but he gives her an additional sign declaring that Elizabeth (her kinswoman) is six months along expecting the birth of John. Their exchange ends with “’nothing will be impossible with God.’ And Mary said, ‘Behold the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her” [vv. 37-38]
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
So, like, am I the only one who ever wondered, “what’s the difference here?”
Zacharias clearly ticked Gabriel off, while Mary didn’t. It’s one thing to point to the “rank order” difference between them. There’s certainly a difference of “graciousness” between them. Lots of flavorful differences, but I always sensed there was more here than that.
And… why should we care? What difference does, or should, it make to us… to you and me… here and now… why these two encounters went the way they did?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I think the answer to both questions is the same one… “Faith”.
The difference between the two encounters is “Faith”. And the reason we should care, is also “Faith”.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
It never dawned on me, until very recently, that Zacharias… even faced as he was with the terrifying countenance of an Angel of God Almighty… doubted the truth of his words. Even INSIDE the Temple, standing next to the Altar of Incense as he offered up incense to God!
All of Gabriel’s words spoke to FUTURE events, not present events. Zacharias was going to have to go from that place, be with his wife in the proper time, conceive John, and watch nature take its course for the next nine months.
But that wasn’t good enough for Zacharias. He says, “how will I know this for certain?” (We know italicized words are inserted by editors.) So he wants to know, right here, right now, why he should believe Gabriel. Waiting apparently isn’t good enough. (We know for certain that the issue is doubt, because Gabriel tells us that.) Zacharias is rendered mute until all was fulfilled “because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper time.” [v. 20]
Zacharias needed to know these things were true before he was willing to do his part. Clearly, his part in this miracle would be of crucial importance. It was he and Elizabeth who needed to conceive this child. But before he would go to that trouble, before he would dare go communicate this to Elizabeth, before he would risk Elizabeth’s heartbreak, disappointment, or disgrace… he had to have a sign. He had to KNOW this was true, before he could obey.
Gabriel gives him an unmistakable sign of his authority and power, using his words alone to stop all words for Zacharias until the truth was borne out.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
So what is different about Mary? She, too, asks a “how” question.
The difference is that her question is one of “means”, not “verification”. She was perplexed at the appearance of Gabriel, not terrified. Gabriel declares the upcoming conception, birth, and kingship of Jesus, and Mary does not express doubt at the announcement. Rather, she asks how this is to come about, what is she to do? She knows she is virgin. Is that to change for this miracle? How should she obey the will of God?
Gabriel responds to the “how” of the question… that “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God.” [v. 34-35] (By the way, that word “overshadow” only appears 5 times in the New Testament. Once here; then three times referring to the Cloud around Jesus, Moses, and Elijah in the time of the Transfiguration that came upon (and terrified) Peter, James and John, from which came the Voice saying “This is My Son, My Chosen One; listen to Him!”[Luke 9:34-35]; and third when Peter’s shadow heals the sick [Acts 5:15].)
Unsolicited, Gabriel offers Mary the sign of Elizabeth’s pregnancy. Mary yields unconditionally to God’s will and embraces Gabriel’s words, the hurries off to aid Elizabeth in her first pregnancy. Isn’t it interesting that Elizabeth had only “come out”, publicly acknowledging her pregnancy in the month before Mary’s arrival? No way was Elizabeth going to endure the risk of disappointment had she miscarried, or been merely deluded into thinking she was pregnant. She would not face either the jibes or the condescending looks of other village women as her face began to round and her figure became more full. She was an elder of her town, disgraced by the curse of barrenness perhaps, but nonetheless righteous and dignified of demeanor. She would not be mocked.
But by the time Mary arrives, Elizabeth KNOWS. She knows for sure that she carries life within her. The baby has quickened, and for the first time she has the glorious sensation of life moving inside her as he responds to her motions or sounds around them. No words describe the joy of hugging new life with your very self, as a woman can in this time.
Mary comes, calls out in greeting, and the Holy Spirit already filling John [v. 15] now fills Elizabeth as well, and her joyful encounter with Mary as they attend to one another’s needs for the next three months (Elizabeth’s third trimester, Mary’s first), offers blessing to them both. Even as I type those words, I can only pause and wonder in awe at what those months must have been like. What would evenings have been like in such a home? Zacharias silent (no choice there), Elizabeth growing ever more excited even as getting around gets more difficult and stilted, and Mary finding her appetite less predictable, perhaps napping now and again, and sensing the changes in her body as the Christ waxes in form…
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
What does all this mean to us, Gentle Reader?
Well, God does the impossible all the time. For those who are ready and seek Him, miracles are all around.
When they come, sometimes they are hard to believe in. That’s just the truth. But! When one is willing to yield to them, God grants. When one is willing if and only if there is a sign attesting to the truth… well, God accommodates and a sign will be given. We see this over and over again throughout the Scriptures (Gideon, etc.) However, as we see from this text, while faith that may be, it is a flawed sort of faith. (I, for one, have engaged in such flawed faith countless times, so no judgment here!)
But there’s another kind of faith. There’s a faith that takes a truth on the authority of the speaker, and simply says “Yes!” before it asks “How?”
There, I think is both the difference between the two Gabriel missions, and the significance to us today.
Zacharias wanted proof before he would act. Mary was willing to act before any proof was offered.
Both were engaged in astonishing blessing and miracle. Zacharias just had to go about it with a bit more inconvenience. That and, frankly, their lingering doubts certainly would have robbed him and Elizabeth of months of joy and consolation.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The Holy Spirit, the overshadowing Power of the Lord Most High, certainly wins out in every miracle. Let us simply say “Yes!” first, ask “How?” afterwards, and watch events unfold!
Grace to you, Gentle Reader! | <urn:uuid:032fad60-48cf-4322-85ef-ff4837689735> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://sharethecoffee.wordpress.com/tag/angel/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572581.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816211628-20220817001628-00070.warc.gz | en | 0.974885 | 2,113 | 1.703125 | 2 |
Parashat Lech L’cha tells us the story of the very beginning of Jewish history, when God says to Abraham and Sarah that they are to “go forth” and begin the story of Jewish commitment.
Parashat Vayeira starts with a cliffhanger. We’re told that God appeared before Abraham, but that’s it—we never find out where God appears or what God says. Instead, we get three desert wanderers, who have important news for Abraham. So, where is God in this story?
Translated, Chayei Sarah means “the life of Sarah.” It’s an odd title for a parashah that opens with Sarah’s death, but even though this parashah doesn’t detail Sarah’s life, it does teach us about the kind of life she lived.
In this episode of On The Other Hand, Rabbi Jacobs is joined by April Baskin, URJ Vice President of Audacious Hospitality, to discuss the provocative text in Parashat B’haalot’cha when Miriam and Aaron talk behind Moses’s back about Moses marrying Tziporah, a Kushite woman.
Parashat Naso features a very famous blessing – but what does it mean for one person to bless another? Is it a power reserved for the ancient priests, or is it something that we are all capable of?
Judaism has a deep and rich tradition of storytelling, of passing down stories from one generation to the next. To carry on that tradition, Stories We Tell, from ReformJudaism.org, will share a new story with you every Thursday.
What does it mean to be on the fringes of Judaism? Does Judaism allow for creativity, allowing those on the fringe who want, to be brought toward the center? Is Judaism open to different forms of expression? | <urn:uuid:7dca5895-69c6-400e-a740-73e5a6050997> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://blogs.rj.org/site-search?search_api_fulltext=&f%5B0%5D=posted_on%3A2015-11&f%5B1%5D=posted_on%3A2016-11&f%5B2%5D=posted_on%3A2017-06&f%5B3%5D=posted_on%3A2018-04&f%5B4%5D=type%3Apodcast&f%5B5%5D=type%3Arecip | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572063.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814173832-20220814203832-00676.warc.gz | en | 0.937113 | 400 | 2.796875 | 3 |
How do I know how much Stamp Duty I will have to pay?
When you buy Victorian land, which may include buildings, you are liable to pay land transfer duty (otherwise known as stamp duty). The duty payable is based on the market value of the property or the purchase price, whichever is greater.
You can use this calculator for a basic guide of the stamp duty you can expect.
Keep in mind, if you are a first home owner, you may be eligible for a discount. Make sure you contact Tick Box before you purchase to ensure you do not have any nasty surprises.
How do I know how much Land Tax I will have to pay?
If you own property, you may have to pay land tax. However if you live in your own home, it is generally exempt.
You can use this calculator for a basic guide.
If you are in any doubt about your land tax, or if you are not even sure if you should be paying land tax on property you own, please ensure you contact Tick Box Conveyancing for a quote.
What is VOI? Why do I need it?
VOI stands for Verification of Identity.
Most of the documents you need to sign through the conveyancing process will need VOI. This is to ensure the people signing the documents are who they say they are.
At Tick Box, we make the process as easy as possible. We can arrange for VOI to occur at your place of work through our ZipID service.
What is PEXA?
PEXA is Australia’s biggest online property exchange network. It effectively allows conveyancers the ability to lodge documents with Land Registries and complete financial settlements electronically.
This has revolutionised the way conveyances are conducted in Victoria.
Tick Box Conveyancing is one of over 3,000 members of PEXA, allowing us to conduct seamless and efficient electronic conveyancing with fellow members.
Do you hold a Statutory Trust Account?
Yes. Only licensed conveyancers are entitled to hold such an account.
What is a caveat?
A caveat protects your interest in a property. Simply put, it is a way of telling anyone who wants to deal with the property to be aware of that someone else’s interest already has priority. That means that anyone who checks the Certificate of Title of the property will be alerted of the interest of the “caveator” in the property.
Have you recently purchased? Speak to us about registering a caveat today.
Why do I need title insurance?
Title insurance is available to home owners, commercial property owners, residential mortgage lenders and commercial mortgage lenders. At Tick Box Conveyancing, we will always work diligently to identify any restrictions or risks that may affect the use of the property you have purchased in the future.
Title insurance is a good option to protect you from “unknown risks”. “Unkown risks” are risks that are not identified during the Conveyancing transaction and cause financial loss to the owner. “Known risks” are any defects in title that are disclosed by the vendor or otherwise discovered by the purchaser prior to settlement.
Insurance can protect you against many of these risks.
To learn more, contact Tick Box Conveyancing.
What is my “cooling-off period”?
A “cooling-off period” is a defined period of time in which you are able to walk away from a contract.
Where residential real estate is concerned, this period is usually three business days from when the contract was signed. However, a number of exceptions apply to this rule.
For instance, properties purchased at auction are not subject to a “cooling-off period”. Similarly, a property purchased by a company is not subject to a “cooling-off period”.
If you are interested in purchasing a property and would like to know more, contact Tick Box Conveyancing.
Leave us your details for an obligation-free, complimentary 10-min chat with one of our consultants | <urn:uuid:2a7ae9f6-3e50-4e0d-a6c4-83540f132de0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.tickboxconveyancing.com.au/faqs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571745.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812170436-20220812200436-00471.warc.gz | en | 0.949383 | 852 | 1.65625 | 2 |
The link between education providers and employers must be improved to tackle the UK’s skills gap, business leaders urged last week.
Speaking at the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) annual conference, Bill Midgley, president of the BCC, said employers needed more effective collaboration with the further education (FE) sector. “Equipping businesses with the skills they need is one of the biggest challenges we face,” he said.
Mary Chapman, chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute, said that educators should think of local employers as their main customer base. “More needs to be done to ensure young people get a better understanding of the world of work and what it involves.”
But Janet Rogers, head of employee engagement at Preston College, said it was difficult to get small businesses to work with local colleges, and that there was an “information gap” between educators and employers.
Christopher Banks, chairman of the Learning and Skills Council, which has invested 10.4bn in learning programmes in recent years, said the FE sector was beginning to listen to businesses.
To this end, a new body to help improve the quality of further education was launched last week by education secretary Ruth Kelly.
The Quality Improvement Agency for Lifelong Learning will provide advice and support services to help colleges and providers offer high quality education and training programmes. It will also work with a range of organisations to develop a new national quality improvement strategy for FE. | <urn:uuid:ff1804e8-237c-4bba-9011-b576b0b66022> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/working-in-partnership-is-the-only-way-to-close-skills-gap-in-the-uk/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571097.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810010059-20220810040059-00276.warc.gz | en | 0.971829 | 298 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Six police were injured and 17 others were treated for the effects of capsicum spray
Airman 1st Class Thomas Hearton, 75th Security Forces Squadron, washes off Oleoresin Capsicum spray
from his face at Hill, Air Force Base, Utah.
In 2008, police used capsicum spray
on a group of rowdy Greek supporters and on Wednesday, two people were evicted after scuffling at a bar following a match between Croatia's Marin Cilic and Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia.
With police, water cannon, capsicum spray
, tear gas, dogs, rubber bullets, real bullets, missiles, tank fire, artillery--or with something new that will immobilise the Palestinians, perhaps a 'pain ray', as a writer in the Jerusalem Post recently suggested?
Crowd violence rocked the Australian Open yesterday for a second successive year with police forced to use capsicum spray
to quell ugly scenes at Melbourne Park.
Law enforcement officials also resort to Oleoresin Capsicum spray
, also called pepper spray, to incapacitate suspects.
With carefully considered policies, thorough initial training, and regular refresher training, law enforcement agencies confidently can add oleoresin capsicum spray
to the range of force options available to their officers.
Melbourne, Jan 30 (ANI): Police used capsicum spray
and Tasers to break up a brawl that happened outside a wedding reception in southwest Sydney.
The baby was already in the car and the scumbag just sprayed her (Ciancio) with capsicum spray
, belted her in the face and held her down on the ground while the woman took the baby out of the car,' Barbaro said.
During its introduction, capsicum spray
was likewise promoted by police as `a life-saving option'.
It also claimed that before July 2009, "there was far too great an emphasis placed on firearms and other defensive tactics," but by 2009, police training had a "disproportionate focus" on the use of guns, batons and capsicum spray
instead of conflict resolution and better communication. | <urn:uuid:d2f59cda-4c02-4bac-8a00-c183765e6708> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.freethesaurus.com/Capsicum+spray | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280128.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00383-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956881 | 434 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Ask an economist what they’d do first to kickstart a green recovery and they’ll probably say ‘retrofit’.
That’s because greening our homes is essential if we are to reduce the UK’s carbon emissions (residential emissions currently account for 19 per cent of the annual total) – and it’s also a massive job creation opportunity.
The UK has about 26 million homes that will need upgrading with energy efficiency measures and low-carbon heating systems if the UK is to reach its net-zero carbon emissions target by 2050. Economists at Oxford University rank energy efficiency retrofits as one of the most effective policies for climate-positive economic recovery, noting one model that shows for every $1 million spent, more than seven full-time jobs are created.
‘Rapidly growing a green heating industry will require a revolution in both supply and demand’
In its 10-Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution, released in November, the government stated its intention to help wean the UK’s householders off fossil fuel-burning gas boilers in favour of low-carbon, energy-efficient heating systems. As part of this process, ministers want to see heat pump installations rise from around 25,000 per year currently to 600,000 per year by 2028. However, as yet there’s not much indication of how the government intends to reach this target.
Rapidly growing a green heating industry – from what is currently a very low base – will require a revolution both in supply and demand. And for that, we need a lot of new ideas. There’s huge scope for innovation in policies, incentives, products and business models that would make retrofits and low-carbon heating more attractive to consumers – and similarly in training, development and job design to quickly expand the green heating supply sector. As part of our new strategy, to be launched in the coming year, we want to put Nesta’s innovation capabilities to work to try and solve some of these problems. Here are some of the ideas we’re discussing:
The green heating supply chain needs a kickstart
Encouraging home retrofits on to a steep upward trajectory isn’t primarily a technological challenge. Effective green heating technologies – such as ground- and air-source heat pumps, and solar thermal – are already on the market. But progress is being hampered by low supply as well as low demand.
For a start, there aren’t enough skilled installers: it’s been reported that people applying for Green Homes Grants to insulate their homes or install low-carbon heating have struggled to find engineers to carry out the work. This isn’t surprising: there are only just over 900 companies certified to install air-source heat pumps in the UK, compared with more than 130,000 registered gas boiler engineers.
Heating engineers, for their part, perceive significant barriers to accessing training – including not knowing where to find the right resources, the cost of the different courses required for each technology and the administrative burden of paperwork needed to become accredited. Many of these difficulties are compounded by the fact that the industry overwhelmingly consists of sole traders.
A longer-term government funding commitment would signal to installers that investing in training is worthwhile. At the same time, training providers, accreditation bodies and other organisations working with tradespeople need to explore how they can provide training and accreditation at a larger scale that is easier and cheaper to access – while ensuring it leaves installers competent and confident to work with green heating technologies.
Consumers need to feel confident, too
On the demand side, while Green Homes Grants have so far been relatively popular with homeowners (it’s been reported that some 36,000 people have already applied), public awareness of green heating technologies is generally pretty low. In fact, a large proportion of people don’t even know that home heating is a source of carbon emissions. Given that home retrofits are not only expensive but disruptive, there’s a lot of thinking to be done about how to make this more appealing to people – especially those who aren’t strongly motivated by environmental concerns.
So far, most initiatives to boost uptake have focused on finance, either by tackling upfront costs (such as the Green Homes Grants) or by helping to pay back a homeowner’s investment more quickly (e.g. the Renewable Heat Incentive). But while further innovation in financing options is certainly needed, the cost of installation is not the only financial barrier. As green heating systems rely on electricity, which is more expensive than gas, they can be pricier to run even though they are more energy efficient. Here there is scope for policy innovation to change the relative costs of electricity and gas, and for innovation in energy tariffs to make green heating more affordable – while ensuring such changes don’t further penalise low-income households and those in fuel poverty.
‘We need more ‘pull factors’ if we want to get a lot of people to take the retrofit plunge’
However, even reducing the costs of both installation and operation still may not be sufficient incentive to bring about the level of change that is required. While a common approach to marketing energy efficiency measures is to show how they’ll save money over time (for example, an Energy Performance Certificate details how much you could save each year by installing measures such as insulation), in reality the ‘payback periods’ are often much longer than people intend to stay in a home.
So we need more ‘pull factors’ if we want to get a lot of people to take the retrofit plunge. These might include other forms of incentive, such as council tax cuts for energy-efficient homes or penalties for draughty ones. They could also include initiatives to change attitudes and perceptions: for example, making the technology more desirable and aspirational (as Tesla has done with electric vehicles) or increasing the sense that urgent change is needed (as Blue Planet did for plastic in the oceans).
Take the hassle out of home retrofits
And then there’s the challenge of making the whole process much easier. For a start, most boiler replacements are done when an old system breaks down – at which point, most people just want a replacement as quickly as possible. Given that boiler lifespans are pretty predictable, exploring ways to prompt people to think about their options before their old system breaks down would be a good start.
There’s also huge scope to make it easier to find information and manage the retrofit process. Even for those interested in green heating, working out which technologies will be viable in their home can be confusing and time-consuming – although there have been some steps forward here, such as the government’s Simple Energy Advice website.
Taking the hassle out of home retrofits could pay dividends in terms of take-up. Energiesprong, a system for home retrofits that started in the Netherlands, is a good example of a model that reduces the hassle factor. Homes can be upgraded in just 10 days – and they can look nicer, too.
Retrofit might not seem as sexy to invest in as renewable energy, electric vehicles or zero-carbon flight – but as an innovation challenge, it’s at least as thorny. And to drive an economic recovery that delivers for people and the planet, it’s vitally important.
December 01, 2020 | <urn:uuid:8f8efe89-042d-4cc1-acb9-b8259013c3ec> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.onlynaturalenergy.com/greening-our-homes-could-kickstart-an-economic-recovery-but-we-need-new-ideas/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570977.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809124724-20220809154724-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.954289 | 1,541 | 2.546875 | 3 |
May have been a member of the Hungarian royal family. Missionary bishop on the isle of May in the Firth of Forth off the western coast of Britain. Martyred with fellow missionaries by Danish invaders. May have evangelized in Ireland. May have been bishop of Saint Andrews; records are unclear. Leader of a group of martyrs killed by pagan Dane.
- at Pannonia, Hungary
- “Saint Adrian of May“. CatholicSaints.Info. 3 March 2009. Web. 24 October 2016. <> | <urn:uuid:771aa722-0ee1-475f-953d-f6be8bd424c1> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://catholicsaints.info/saint-adrian-of-may/ | 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 | 0.978258 | 110 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Though it's now been delayed nearly a year, we're pleased to say the last critical component for Frostytech's 200W Intel LGA2011 thermal test platform has finally materialized! What this means is you'll shortly see a flood of self-contained liquid cooling systems reviewed at a heat load which makes them sweat!
Given recent claims of "300W heat capacity" by some heatsink manufacturers I'll admit we were tempted to increase our test capacity to challenge those assertions... However, seeing as flagship CPUs from Intel and AMD have typical Thermal Design Power (TDP) capped off in the 130W-150W range, there's hardly a need, even with overclocking.
Although Frostytech's latest synthetic platform is designed around the 80x80mm Intel LGA2011 mounting system, the 38x38mm Integrated Heat Spreader (IHS) of this class of processor almost exactly matches the IHS dimensions of AMDs chips. In other words, AMD users will also get a sense of how CPU coolers for AMD FX processors handle at elevated heat loads. :-) | <urn:uuid:ff443051-d2aa-4a59-90f2-45bc9f236c77> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.frostytech.com/permalink.cfm?NewsID=102181 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285001.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00303-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960984 | 219 | 1.59375 | 2 |
View other events for the week of 3/ 9/2013
From the Open-Publishing Calendar
From the Open-Publishing Newswire
|In Celebration of International Women’s Day, protest to Stop Violence Against Women!|
|Date||Saturday March 09|
|Time||12:00 PM - 1:00 PM|
|Import this event into your personal calendar.|
566 Dolores Street (between 18th and 20th Streets)
San Francisco, CA
In Celebration of International Women’s Day, protest to
Stop Violence Against Women Everywhere!
SF March and Rally: Saturday, March 9, 2013 at 12 noon, Dolores Park
On March 8th and 9th, in celebration of International Women's Day, women across the United States and around the world will take the streets to demand an end to violence against women. From India to Ohio, people are rising up to demand equality and an end to the violent oppression of women.
In the United States and elsewhere, violence against women is tolerated and often condoned. 1.3 million women are raped every year and one in four experiences violence at the hands of a current or former intimate partner. Many acts of rape and violence go unreported. When women do report rape, only 37% of cases are prosecuted, and just 18% of those cases end in conviction.
The violence, objectification and inequality women are subjected to at home, at work, at school and wherever we go is often dismissed as "just the way it is." We know better. Rampant sexual violence is not the natural state of things. Women's oppression and the violence and discrimination we face are the result of a system that relies on patriarchy, institutionalized sexism, and the objectification of women's bodies for profit.
Violence against women is not normal; It is not acceptable. Women and our allies in the struggle for justice will no longer tolerate it. The time is now to rise up and demand an end to violence against women in all forms. There will be demonstrations and protests throughout the United States on March 8th and 9th to say: Stop Violence Against Women Everywhere – The Status Quo Must Go!
Let's build a women's spring!
WORD: Women Organized to Resist and Defend
http://www.defendwomensrights.org / sf [at] defendwomensrights.org / 415-375-9502 | <urn:uuid:60854019-ab92-4ae2-84f1-c43e1fdd752c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2013/02/25/18732788.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571056.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809155137-20220809185137-00670.warc.gz | en | 0.934135 | 546 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Instead, check out either of three great options:
1) SSLMate issues single-domain certificates for $16/year. While it's more than $0, it's more than worth it to be able to run
sslmate buy mywebsite.comand have it Just Work.
If you use SSLMate, this guide will still help you -- pick it up from Installing the certificates and Setup with other common hosts.
2) Let's Encrypt is here! They issue certificates entirely for free. Revocation is free, multi-domain certificates are free, and they are a bona fide non-profit. The downside is that currently their instructions and official command line client are a little rough, and certs need to be renewed every 90 days.
3) If you're using AWS, maybe AWS Certificate Manager (ACM). These certificates are free and issued directly by Amazon and last a little over a year. However, they currently require manual issuance through email validation, and do not support Certificate Transparency. Here's a good ACM guide for Jekyll.
I'm keeping the rest of the article intact below for historical purposes, but again: you should really go check out SSLMate and Let's Encrypt (or maybe AWS Certificate Manager) instead. I can't guarantee that the below steps will continue to work.
From now on, you should see a delightful lock next to https://konklone.com in your browser's URL bar, because I've switched this site to use HTTPS. I paid $0 for the trouble.
Why you should bother doing the same:
- SSL's not perfect, but we need to make surveillance as expensive as possible
- For privacy not to be suspicious, privacy should be on by default
- And hey, bonus: more complete referrer information for people visiting from sites already using HTTPS (like Hacker News)
This post shows how to do your part in building a surveillance-resistant Internet by switching your site to HTTPS. Though it takes a bunch of steps, each one is very simple, and you should be able to finish this in under an hour.
A quick overview: to use HTTPS on the web today, you need to obtain a certificate file that's signed by a company that browsers trust. Once you have it, you tell your web server where it is, where your associated private key is, and open up port 443 for business. You don't necessarily have to be a professional software developer to do this, but you do need to be okay with the command line, and comfortable configuring a web server you control.
There are two things that could cost you money. One is that if your site is commercial in nature, they'll ask you to pay for a higher level certificate.
More importantly, if your certificate needs to be revoked someday, StartCom will charge you a $30 fee. While revocation has generally been rare, the Heartbleed exploit is an example where a huge portion of the Internet had to revoke their keys. For some people who had issued a large number of free certificates, this turned out to be expensive.
Still, StartCom makes getting started with SSL simple and inexpensive. Their website is difficult to use at first — especially if you're new to the concepts and terminology behind SSL certificates (like I was). Fortunately, it's not actually that hard; it's just a lot of small steps.
Below, we'll go step by step through signing up with StartSSL and creating your certificate. We'll also cover installing it via nginx, but you can use the certificate with whatever web server you want.
Register with StartSSL
To get started, visit their signup page and enter your information.
They'll email you a verification code. They tell you to not close the tab or navigate away from it, so just keep it open until you get the code, and can paste it in.
You'll need to wait for certification, but it should only take a few minutes. Once you're approved, they'll email you a special link and a verification code to type in.
That'll bring you to a screen to generate a private key. They're generating you this private key inside your browser, using the "keygen" tag. However, this isn't the key you use to make your SSL certificate. They're using it to create a separate "authentication certificate" that you will use to log in to StartSSL's control panel going forward. You'll make a separate certificate for your website later.
Finally, they'll ask you to "Install" the certificate:
Which installs your authentication certificate directly into your browser.
If you're in Chrome, you should see this at the top of your browser window:
Again, this is just the certificate that identifies you by your email address and lets you log in to StartSSL going forward.
Now, we need to persuade StartSSL that we own the domain name we want to generate a new certificate for. From the control panel, click the "Validations Wizard" tab, and select "Domain Name Validation" from the dropdown.
Enter your domain name.
Next, you'll select an email address that StartSSL will use to verify you own the domain name.
As you can see, StartSSL will believe you own the domain if you control webmaster@, postmaster@, or hostmaster@ with the domain name, OR if you own the email address listed as part of the domain's registrant information (in my case, that's currently
email@example.com). Choose an email address where you can receive mail.
They'll email you a validation code, which you can enter into the field to validate the domain.
Generating the certificate
Now that StartSSL knows who you are, and knows you own a domain, you can generate your certificate using a private key.
While StartSSL can generate a private key for you — and their FAQ assures you they use only the highest quality random numbers and don't hold onto the key afterwards — it's better to create your own, as StartSSL never sees your private key.
To create a new 2048-bit RSA key, open up your terminal and run:openssl genrsa -aes256 -out my-private-encrypted.key 2048
You'll be asked to choose a pass phrase. Pick a good one, and remember it. This will generate an encrypted private key. If you ever need to transfer your key, via the network or anything else, use the encrypted version.
The next step is to decrypt it so that you can generate a "certificate signing request" with it. To decrypt your private key:openssl rsa -in my-private-encrypted.key -out my-private-decrypted.key
Now, generate a certificate signing request. Don't worry about the details - all StartSSL cares about is the public key associated with the CSR.openssl req -new -sha256 -key my-private-decrypted.key -out mydomain.com.csr
Go back to StartSSL's control panel and click the "Certificates Wizard" tab, and select "Web Server SSL/TLS Certificate" from the dropdown.
Since we generated our own private key, you can hit "Skip" here.
Then, paste in the contents of the .csr file we generated earlier.
If all goes well, it should say it received your certificate signing request.
Now, choose the domain you validated earlier which you plan to use with the certificate.
It requires you to add a subdomain. I added "www" for mine.
It will ask you to confirm. If it looks right, hit "Continue".
That should do it — your certificate will appear in a text field for you to copy and paste into a file. Call it whatever you want, but the rest of the guide will refer to it as
Creating the full certificate chain
Next, we're going to create the "certificate chain" that your web server will use. It contains your certificate, and StartSSL's intermediary certificate. (Including StartSSL's root cert is not necessary, because browsers ship with it already.) Download the intermediate certificate from StartSSL:wget https://www.startssl.com/certs/class1/sha2/pem/sub.class1.server.sha2.ca.pem
Then concatenate your certificate with theirs:cat mydomain.com.crt sub.class1.server.sha2.ca.pem > unified.crt
Installing the certificates
First, make sure port 443 is open on your web server. Many web hosts automatically keep this port open for you. If you're using Amazon Web Services, you'll need to make sure your instance's security group has port 443 open.
Finally, tell your web server about your unified certificate, and your decrypted private key. I use nginx — below is the bare minimum nginx configuration you need. It redirects all HTTP requests to HTTPS requests using a 301 permanent redirect, and points the server to the certificate and key.
Qualys' SSL Labs offers an excellent SSL testing tool you can use to see how you're doing.
Now, ensure your nginx configuration is okay (this also verifies that the key and certificate are in working order):sudo nginx -t
Then restart nginx:sudo service nginx restart
Cross your fingers and try it out in your browser! If all goes well, the will be yours.
Setup with other common hosts
Many common hosts don't give you direct access to install a certificate yourself. In that case, you'll probably have to pay $$ for HTTPS, if it's possible at all.
If you use:
- Heroku, you'll need to pay $20/month for their SSL add-on, and then use it to set up an SSL endpoint. Check out Moncef Belyamani's SSLMate + Heroku tutorial for some straightforward assistance.
- Amazon S3, as of March 2014 they support free SSL for custom domains via CloudFront. Bear in mind this requires SNI, which won't work for users running Internet Explorer on Windows XP or Android 2.x's default browser. It's also unsupported by Python 2.x. If that's a dealbreaker, then you'll have to pay an insane $600/month for a dedicated IP.
- Apache, check out kang's blog post on making an Apache config that gets the A rating from Qualys.
- Bytemark and other servers using Symbiosis for Debian support simple SSL hosting as standard. Use the key generation guide above and name it
ssl.key, following the Symbiosis documentation. Likewise, the certificate when generated should be
ssl.crt. You'll also need StartSSL intermediate certificate that's mentioned above:
sub.class1.server.sha2.ca.pem. Rename this to
- Github Pages, they offer undocumented HTTPS support for
*.github.iodomains. However, they offer no HTTPS support at all for custom domains, so for that you'll have to look elsewhere (see below).
- Webfaction, they provide HTTPS support at no extra charge. Go Webfaction!
If you need to look elsewhere because your host makes it too expensive or impossible to set up HTTPS, another option is to sign up for CloudFlare. You don't need to leave your current host to use them — they sit "in front" of your website and can speed it up in various ways.
CloudFlare offers HTTPS to anyone for free, but there are two big catches:
- The free plan doesn't support clients using Windows XP or Python 2. To support older clients, you need a paid plan (which start at $20/month).
- All CloudFlare plans can only encrypt between the visitor and CloudFlare. To ensure that the connection is encrypted all the way from the visitor to your website, you'll need to install your own certificate on your own web server anyway and tell CloudFlare to use and validate that certificate.
The tradeoffs are yours to choose, and yours alone!
Mixed Content Warnings
Fortunately, pretty much every major service with an embed code has an HTTPS version, and most (including Google Analytics and Typekit) handle it automatically. For others, you'll need to figure it out on a case by case basis.
Back up your keys and certificates
Don't forget to back up your SSL certificate, and its encrypted private key. I put them in a private git repository, and included a brief text file describing every other file, and the process or command that created it. Make sure to record when your certificate expires, and set a calendar alarm for that date!
You should also back up your authentication certificate that you use to log in to StartSSL. StartSSL's FAQ has instructions — it's a .p12 file containing a cert + key that you export from your browser. | <urn:uuid:78c3f03a-7a0b-41f6-9c87-0d34437b1cc1> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://konklone.com/post/switch-to-https-now-for-free/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.926531 | 2,759 | 1.671875 | 2 |
CONDOR will be presented during the IX Ciamician Photochemistry School, 6th – 9th June 2022
On 6th – 9th June 2022, the implementation of the CONDOR technology will be presented during the “IX Ciamician Photochemistry School, From Fundamentals to Applications”, organised by the Photochemical Nanosciences Laboratory of the University of Bologna.
CONDOR project is developing the next generation of renewable energy technologies supporting innovative solutions in the area of storable renewable energy. The project targets a modular device for the production of fuels by using water and carbon dioxide as feedstock and sunlight as the sole energy source.
During the event, the consortium partners will illustrate the fundamentals of photoinduced electron transfer processes, photoelectrochemistry and photophysics of semiconductors, as well as the implementation of the CONDOR technology within the framework of solar energy exploitation and mitigation of CO2 emission. Details of the event are available HERE. | <urn:uuid:be081b4d-f0c2-4964-a23d-5f96ebeaac28> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://amires.eu/condor-will-be-presented-during-the-ix-ciamician-photochemistry-school-6th-9th-june-2022/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572215.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815235954-20220816025954-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.92131 | 203 | 1.585938 | 2 |
ships that pass in the night definition
Often said of people who meet for a brief but intense moment and then part, never to see each other again. These people are like two ships that greet each other with flashing lights and then sail off into the night. From a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
ships that pass in the night
Individuals who are rarely in the same place at the same time. For example, Jan works the early shift and Paula the late shift—they’re two ships that pass in the night. This metaphoric expression comes from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “The Theologian’s Tale” (published in Tales of a Wayside Inn, 1873).
noun 1. the structure that supports a ship being built. 2. a ship canal. noun 1. the structure on which a vessel is built, then launched 2. a canal used by ships
noun 1. any of various wormlike marine bivalve mollusks that burrow into the timbers of ship, wharves, etc. noun 1. any wormlike marine bivalve mollusc of the genus Teredo and related genera and family Teredinidae. They bore into wooden piers, ships, etc, by means of drill-like shell valves See also piddock
noun 1. the destruction or loss of a ship, as by sinking. 2. the remains of a wrecked ship. 3. destruction or ruin: the shipwreck of one’s hopes. verb (used with object) 4. to cause to suffer shipwreck. 5. to destroy; ruin. verb (used without object) 6. to suffer shipwreck. noun 1. the partial or […] | <urn:uuid:c5e2d304-2b4d-4c5c-9112-fe6862abc91c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://definithing.com/define-dictionary/ships-that-pass-in-the-night/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283301.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00506-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941436 | 365 | 3.265625 | 3 |
The identity of the Street artist John Robertson AKA King Robbo has been revealed for the first time, by a coroner’s court. It was kept a highly guarded secret from the public for nearly three decades. The artist had been in a vegetative state suffering from head injuries since he was found at the bottom of stairs, at his flat in Kings Cross in April 2011. An inquest by St Pancras Coroners’ Court is now scheduled.
Robbo made international headlines in 2009 when Banksy defaced one of his works on a wall in Camden on Regent’s Canal. This started a graffiti war between the two rivals. Tit-for-tat retaliation involving the two artists occurred over the following year.
His crew member the artist Doze, 48, recently said: “He’s probably the most prolific and respected British graffiti artist ever. “The feud will go down as one of the most important times in modern art. Graffiti is now recognised and talked about in the art world whereas previously it was criminalised.” The Banksy feud put King Robbo into the limelight which led to a Channel 4 documentary filmed shortly before his accident.
Robbo was involved for over 30 years in the art of graffiti and became a part of Street Art legend. In 1985 Robbo painted his first train in London, a landmark in London’s graffiti history. Other trains followed, but the ‘Merry Christmas’ train of 1988, a joint piece created with Drax WD entered the national consciousness, when it appeared on ITV news and in the Independent.
In the end Robbo was busy creating indoor works which were commercially available. Prior to the opening of the Team Robbo show at the Signal Gallery in London in 2011, he had a few days off and had the perfect opportunity to paint over another piece by his famous rival Banksy , but was certain that it would just be perceived as a PR exercise rather than the pure pleasure that it gave him. “Perhaps the war is finally over, or maybe Robbo is moving on? We don’t know, but this time around you can have your very own ‘Robbo’ above your living room sofa,” the Robbo website states. | <urn:uuid:cab105b8-c320-4dbc-8e3b-15fbd9890dbd> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.artlyst.com/news/king-robbo-unmasked-by-st-pancras-coroners-court/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280730.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00252-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983429 | 465 | 1.59375 | 2 |
After four years of stable MainNet operation, Neo is undergoing its biggest evolution as it migrates to N3 - The most powerful and feature rich version of the Neo blockchain to date.
All in One
Neo Name Service
All in One
Blockchain technology has evolved tremendously over the past few years. Public blockchains in particular have remained the most important domain, with fierce competition between different platforms across multiple fronts, including Layer 1 performance, developer experience, infrastructure, and ecosystem—among others.
Building a world-class protocol and all the required infrastructure for developers is a daunting task, especially without substantial community backing. It's only natural then that the majority of competing smart contract platforms today are predominantly forks of Ethereum, the most dominant player in the space. By borrowing the Ethereum codebase or even just the EVM, projects can bootstrap their ecosystems and applications with existing Ethereum-based tooling, avoiding the need to construct original solutions.
As more and more platforms have discovered, this shortcut does not come without drawbacks. Inheriting from Ethereum also means inheriting its existing flaws, and places them in direct competition with it for developer mindshare. Although the inherent weakness of Ethereum’s PoW - based Layer 1 has opened the door to its would - be successors, Ethereum’s own pursuit of perfection in its upcoming 2.0 iteration and the maturity of scalability solutions means that the window of opportunity for copycats is rapidly closing.
Since it was first founded, Neo has opted for the path less travelled. Not content with the compromises found in other platforms, and the resulting poor developer or user experiences, Neo has sought to provide only the best-in-class across every possible category. With its pioneering consensus mechanism, original codebase, and multi-language developer-friendly infrastructure, Neo accepted no compromise.
Program the future
Scripting functionality opens a lot of doors to blockchain developers. This has been clear ever since smart contract platforms first started to gain in popularity. However, what has also become clear is that a far wider range of functionality than simple Turing-completeness is required for the next generation of distributed applications.
Some applications depend heavily on data retrieved from the physical world, introducing the need for data oracles. Others, out of concern for regulatory compliance or Sybil defense, require methods for user authentication or attribute verification.
Many applications depend heavily on interoperability, allowing them to transact and interact across multiple blockchains. A variety of use cases also express a desire for decentralized storage, but without the prohibitive cost of on-chain persistence.
Solutions to each of these problems exist, typically encapsulated in one project or another. But this dependency on multiple projects to meet basic blockchain developer requirements ends in yet another significant barrier to entry.
This barrier means mainstream adoption is inevitably hindered. It appears that smart contract platforms are simply not that smart yet.
Neo is the ONE
Enter N3, the most significant upgrade to the Neo blockchain to date. At the protocol level, all users and applications will naturally benefit from its vastly improved architecture—meaning better performance, simplicity and ease-of-use, improved economics, and the introduction of on-chain governance to ensure the platform's longevity in a decentralized manner.
Despite the lofty achievements of Neo's core developers in optimizing its base layer, the real beauty of N3 lies in its diverse set of essential components for applications. Decentralized storage, identity tools, data oracles, interoperability, and a domain name service; all natively integrated for a seamless UX/DX that will stand the test of time.
As blockchain-based applications become increasingly sophisticated, the need for these critical functions will only continue to increase. With its out-of-the-box functionality, available to all developers regardless of their language preferences, Neo provides value to developers that simply cannot be matched by other platforms today. Yet at the same time, Neo developers are never boxed in, always able to choose the right tools for their needs.
Neo N3 is a wakeup call to blockchain developers who demand a better platform for their applications. But perhaps most importantly, it substantially lowers the barrier to entry for blockchain development.
Rather than simply compete over existing developers in a niche industry, it opens the floodgates to the millions of traditional developers who are ready to take their first step into this brave new world. And once you've tried Neo, you'll never settle for less.
Neo strives to be the most developer-friendly blockchain. It achieves this with full-stack development tools for multiple programming languages. Neo believes in bringing blockchain technology to developers, rather than forcing developers to learn new languages or tools.
Your language, your way
Courtesy of its global development communities, Neo’s tooling and infrastructure already supports numerous languages. Developers can write, compile, and deploy contracts written in C#, Python, Go, TypeScript, and Java.
After compilation to the standard NEF (Neo Execution Format), contracts can be executed within NeoVM, Neo’s lightweight virtual machine. Newly upgraded for the N3 network, NeoVM delivers substantial performance improvements over the previous generation, with some instruction set runtimes improved by as much as 16x. NeoVM uses a modular architecture, allowing for easy integration into other applications or off-chain scenarios.
The N3 smart contract system introduces a wide range of new functionality to improve the contract development experience for developers. Examples include a new dual-level permission setting, defined at the Manifest and Call levels, and the new NEP-17 token standard to simplify token transfers and enable contracts to add custom logic to trigger when receiving tokens.
Benefits also extend to off-chain applications. Improvements such as the new contract upgrade mechanism eliminates the issue of a contract hash changes and ensures data is retained.
The price is right
Developers will also note a dramatic reduction in the costs of deploying and executing smart contracts. With fees lowered by an average of approximately 100 times, N3 provides a far more competitively priced platform to developers, allowing the free 10 GAS crutch to be removed. Combined with the GAS inflation mechanism and the burning of system fees, a sustainable economic model has been established.
All fees related to the contract system are now adjustable through the on-chain governance mechanism, providing the additional benefit of resistance to market volatility on the Neo system as the price of GAS changes.
NeoFS is a distributed, decentralized object storage network. Used to its fullest potential, NeoFS can act as the host infrastructure for an entirely new class of truly decentralized applications.
The network also provides benefits for traditional web applications. It is designed to function as a drop-in replacement for expensive centralized data silos, granting developers full control over where and how their application data is stored and accessed. Stored data is always encrypted, and can be set to be decryptable by all or locked down with secure, granular access lists. NeoFS users always remain in complete control of their data.
Malicious nodes that do not correctly store data are mitigated through zero-knowledge data validation techniques, and replication mechanisms provide a reliable service even in the event of a storage node failure. Even in a naturally chaotic decentralized environment, NeoFS provides a reliable service.
An open market
NeoFS operates on free market principles; anyone can join the network as a storage node or become elected to the inner ring to participate in network management and upkeep, earning rewards as a result.
The service is also uniquely customizable; those renting capacity from the network can select their desired geographic placement locations to minimize content delivery time to their users, define specific disk type requirements, or scale up to any desired level of redundancy.
It’s all native
The network’s deep integration with the Neo blockchain introduces another revolutionary innovation. For the first time, smart contracts running on a public blockchain will be able to access and manipulate data stored in the decentralized cloud.
Enabled through Neo’s native oracle, developers can tap into the NeoFS network at the code level, manipulating data from within NeoVM without the cost of persisting the data on-chain.
NeoFS also makes the ideal host for application frontends, replacing the need for centralized web hosts. With the integrated CDN services, applications can even customize edge cache locations, ensuring the fastest possible delivery of data to their core users.
With these pioneering tools, the new era of truly decentralized applications can be achieved with zero compromise on usability.
Decentralized identity tools provide much-needed solutions for user authentication in blockchain-based applications. Although many services may be accessed freely by any user, other specific use cases may depend on verification of specific attributes to function properly.
For example, a DAO application not reliant on stakes for vote weighting may opt to substitute some form of ID verification, or another appropriate mechanism for proof of personhood. This would be vital to prevent a Sybil attack from seizing control of the organization.
NeoID provides the identity framework required to support these application scenarios. It allows users to create and manage decentralized identifiers, issue claims as a data verifier, or integrate attribute verification into their own applications as required.
Users can tap into these verified credentials to gain access to applications without ever needing to share their private data, retaining full sovereignty and preventing its possible misuse.
Smart contracts represent a revolutionary breakthrough for the way that we do business online, but adoption of the technology remains slow. There are many barriers to overcome before decentralized applications are ready for the mainstream, but one of the most notable is the inherent limitation for contracts by the data they have access to. Most existing blockchain applications must rely purely on transactions as a source of input data.
This is adequate for simple applications where a contract already stores the data that it requires to authenticate a particular transaction—a user’s token balance for instance. But if a service wants to use dynamic, real-world data, a trusted source of obtaining that information is required.
Open your world with native oracles
The Internet plays host to an unimaginable wealth of data, ready to be put to use to generate new forms and flows of value. With the native oracle service introduced in N3, it becomes trivial for any developer to tap into any external resources over HTTPS.
Contracts deployed on Neo can invoke the native oracle contract to trigger a data request, specifying a target URL and a filter. Oracle nodes, elected through the Neo Council, will work together to guarantee the truthfulness and reliability of the results.
Many “decentralized” applications leverage the name for its appearance of trust, but in reality only deliver a partially decentralized experience. Some application logic may be contained within a smart contract, but a service’s dependency on cloud providers for frontend hosting or database provisioning introduces new centralized points of failure.
With the power of Neo's native oracle and NeoFS, blockchain-based applications can take the next step forward into true decentralization. Any extra data required by an application can simply be stored off-chain with NeoFS then retrieved in a decentralized manner through the oracle service.
Smart contracts can fetch and manipulate data off-chain in an uncensorable, reliable, and tamper-proof manner.
Neo Name Service
Neo Name Service (NNS) is a decentralized name service built as a native service on the Neo blockchain. It is used to map human-readable domain names to different types of data, such as IP addresses, aliases, or other strings.
One of the most prominent barriers to entry in the blockchain space is the user experience of public key cryptography. Even after conversion to more readable address formats, interaction with blockchain protocols remains tedious and error prone.
To successfully onboard the next generation of users, the blockchain UX must enter the realm of the familiar. Through simple TXT records, both user wallet and smart contract addresses can be given easily typed and identifiable representations.
Aliases also prove useful in various other situations. In NeoFS, they can be used as aliases for stored containers, or used to configure GeoDNS for the NeoFS CDN for improved data retrieval speeds. Applied in this manner, applications can ensure their users encounter minimal latency and fast download speeds while retaining all the benefits of true decentralized storage.
NNS employs an innovative NFT-based approach. Each domain is represented as an NFT, enabling NNS users to freely transfer the ownership of domain names. All necessary functionality for a complete domain life cycle is provided, including registry, renewal, resolution, expiration, and permission control.
When Satoshi Nakamoto introduced Bitcoin and the eponymous Nakamoto consensus mechanism to the world, the value of trustless and borderless transaction settlement was realized for the first time.
Bitcoin and the many blockchains that followed typically achieve consensus with probabilistic finality. In other words, the transaction settlement is not necessarily guaranteed. In most cases, settlement becomes more difficult to overturn as the transaction becomes more deeply embedded in the blockchain.
This is adequate for the needs of some applications, such as low-priority transfers or the simple storage of value. But for most user-facing or highly liquid applications, more reliable assurances are required regarding transaction settlement.
One block finality, maximum confidence
Since its inception, Neo has championed a BFT-powered, safety-first approach that has been rapidly gaining in popularity in the blockchain industry—and for good reason.
Neo’s consensus mechanism, delegated Byzantine Fault Tolerance, represents a new evolution of the groundbreaking PBFT. Similar to its predecessor, dBFT requires a ⅔ majority agreement between validators called consensus nodes before new blocks can be committed to the blockchain.
This means the blockchain will never fork, and every transaction is permanently settled as soon as it is included in a confirmed block. In other words, Neo’s consensus mechanism immediately eliminates the possibility of transaction reversal. All applications based on Neo’s Layer 1 inherit this safety property.
With Neo, users can always enjoy fast, low-cost transactions that are fully finalized within a single block.
Like other Proof of Stake-based blockchains, Neo combines cryptographic tools and game theory to establish a robust and sustainable network. Governance voting by NEO stakeholders ensure all participants are economically aligned in a shared interest to safeguard the blockchain and its growing ecosystem. This democratic mechanism provides the Neo blockchain with all the tools required to fully decentralize control over the network.
Neo strives to be the best platform for building decentralized applications. It achieves this with an unmatched feature set for blockchain that is accessible to developers of all backgrounds. But Neo alone cannot play host to the entire next-generation Internet, and some applications may want to take advantage of unique benefits from other ecosystems.
So easy, it feels native
As a founding member of the interoperability protocol alliance Poly Network, Neo makes cross-chain interaction as easy as a native transaction. Users and applications on the Neo blockchain can easily send assets or tap services from all other participating networks through Poly Network’s bridges.
Most importantly, Poly Network provides an interoperability solution without an extra token. This design ensures the blockchain complements each protocol it integrates with, providing new use cases and opportunities to all.
Poly Network has already transferred more than US $3 billion in equivalent value to Neo Legacy from participating networks. More than 8 networks are already supported, including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Smart Chain, Elrond, Zilliqa, Huobi Eco Chain, Ontology, Switcheo and other Cosmos-based blockchains.
Supporting multiple languages is only one small part of what Neo offers to developers. It caters to varying end user needs with both traditional and web-based IDE integrations. One-stop shop smart contract and dApp development frameworks are also provided to quickly bootstrap developers and get them up and running as architects for the next-generation Internet.
Thanks to the contributions of Neo's independent developer community, users can begin creating applications for the Neo blockchain without ever needing to install any software. Tools such as NEO-ONE, NeoCompiler Eco, and Neo Playground, built by teams from the US, Brazil, and Switzerland respectively, are all accessible directly from within a browser.
To take the platform's developer friendliness to the next level, Neo teamed up with ex-Microsoft veterans to establish NGD Enterprise, a Seattle-based office focused purely on developer experience.
As its flagship project, NGD Enterprise created the Neo Blockchain Toolkit for VS Code, allowing developers to easily deploy private Neo networks then create, deploy, and interact with smart contracts coded in any language. Over the last few years VS Code has emerged as a top choice for developers, cornering over half of the current market share for code editors. This made it a natural choice for integration with Neo tooling, helping the platform meet developers where they already are.
From MVP to production-ready
Put your contract through its paces with automated contract testing tools. As advocates of a test-driven development approach, NGD Enterprise provides an expandable testing framework. Set up a private blockchain, deploy a contract, then analyze it for issues with your own custom unit test suite—all in a single click.
Sometimes errors happen, even in a carefully tested application, and in a decentralized environment they can be very difficult to replicate. Thanks to execution trace capture, you can grab and investigate any transaction on a Neo network and replay it through the Neo Debugger.
The debugger provides a disassembled bytecode view, source code mapping, and revolutionary time-travel debugging tools. Armed with these powerful resources, you can skip the tedious hours spent tracking down bugs by directly stepping forward or backward through both the source code and bytecode, inspecting carefully for any unexpected state changes. | <urn:uuid:8129dbb3-eb0a-4086-8a6a-61f317918315> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://neo.org/technology | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573623.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819035957-20220819065957-00669.warc.gz | en | 0.916846 | 3,711 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Failure Of Fitness Wearables
Why 2014 Wasn't The Year For Fitness Wearables -- But 2015 Could Be
The wearables market is saturated for a reason. The potential for profit is obvious. But the current market must evolve beyond short term motivation and marketing and into something integrative, frictionless, and functional. Design matters too. Who wants to wear a clunky fitness tracker around all the time? I am curious to see what Nike and Apple come up with. Fitbit is arguably the best company right now in terms of creating useful fitness wearables. Basis is also doing some really interesting things with sleep monitoring (an example of a very important habit that many people need to improve upon).
Several of the world’s largest companies are betting big on wearables, from Apple to Microsoft to Google to Samsung. Not only do fitness trackers have the potential to create and change habits for the good, but they also will allow companies to establish much stronger and smarter relationships with consumers. But we aren’t there yet. | <urn:uuid:02ed0fc6-45f7-4f9c-b973-08cbc50ff633> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.askmen.com/entertainment/guy_gear/failure-of-fitness-wearables-2.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571150.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810070501-20220810100501-00677.warc.gz | en | 0.941725 | 210 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Hurry Slow: The PNG Redistribution Challenge
Populations vary widely among open electorates in Papua New Guinea (PNG) – a problem called misallocation. Poor distribution is a concern because it violates a basic democratic principle, according to which everyone should be represented equally in parliament. In PNG, the misallocation poses other practical problems, such as preventing an equitable distribution of certain per capita expenses – for example, the District Services Improvement Program (DSIP), which is allocated equally to open MPs. In this article, I describe the extent of the misallocation among open electorates and discuss how redistribution can be carried out and the associated risks.
In a country like PNG, where voter lists are inaccurate, the best way to measure poor distribution is to use census data. However, PNG’s next census has been delayed until 2024. That leaves us with the 2011 census, which was not well conducted, but its data is sufficient to get a sense of the misallocation in PNG.
The table below uses data from the 2011 census and compares the population shares with the number of open electorates, by region. It shows that the regional distribution of electorates is roughly representative of the regional distribution of the population.
However, when we look at individual open electorates, problems become apparent. In 2011, the largest electorate was Anglimp-South Waghi (Highlands), which was 5.4 times more populous than Goilala (South), the smaller electorate. A big difference, and when I compared the 2011 data to the 2000 census data, I found that the misallocation had worsened over time.
The Organic Law on National and Local Elections (OLNLLGE) provides for the population quota for each open electorate, which corresponds to the average population of all open electorates. The OLNLLGE allows voters to vary 20% from the quota. In 2011, the authorized population range was 65,468 to 98,202. Passing through the OLNLLGE boundary, 21 electorates were larger and 32 electorates were smaller than the boundary.
The poor distribution must be corrected by redistribution, where the boundaries are redrawn so that the populations are more equitably distributed among the electorates. As the table below shows, much of the redistribution is to take place in the Highland and Southern regions. While in theory the redistribution could potentially involve the merger of smaller electorates, the most likely approach for PNG would be to divide the larger ones.
The OLNLLGE specifies that the number of open electorates in PNG can range from 110 to 120, and allows a maximum of 31 new electorates in addition to the 89 existing electorates.
As other countries, such as the United States, have shown, one risk in a redistribution is the possibility of gerrymandering (the redistribution of electoral districts to favor certain politicians or parties). According to the OLNLLGE, the Electoral Boundaries Commission (EBC) should consist of six members, half of whom are ex officio: the electoral commissioner (president), the head of the Office of the Surveyor General, the head of the National Statistics Office, and three members appointed by the Governor General. National deputies, members of provincial or local government assemblies, or officials of registered parties cannot be nominated. These restrictions appear to protect against gerrymandering. However, a risk remains that gerrymandering could occur through government influence over EBC members, both ex officio and appointed.
No redistribution has taken place since independence. The EBC conducted reviews in 1981, 1985-86, 1991, 2005-06 and 2011, but its recommendations to parliament were rejected (OLNLLGE does not allow parliament to change EBC recommendations). In 2005, the EBC recommended 26 new open electorates, reflecting 8, 6, 6 and 6 new electorates respectively in the Highlands, Islands, Momase and Southern regions. All the provinces were then recommended for a new electorate, with the exception of Madang (2), Morobe (2), West New Britain (2) and Southern Highlands (4).
It is by no means known whether the recommendations of 2005 (and those of other years) would have succeeded in combating the misallocation. Although the new voters have been distributed almost evenly among the provinces, the misallocation is not distributed in this way. Perhaps the EBC sought what it thought was the most politically acceptable – to distribute the new seats more or less evenly. (Its 2005 report indicated that additional seats were recommended in provinces such as Manus, Western, Chimbu, and Gulf for reasons other than population.)
Recently, the EBC announced its latest redistribution attempt, which involves creating 22 new open electorates by dividing open electorates in 18 provinces (excluding Bougainville, Chimbu, Eastern Highlands and the National Capital District). These recommendations will not successfully resolve the misallocation, as a number of electorates that were too small in 2011 are recommended for fractionation. The recommendations have not yet been presented to parliament.
Efficiency requires that correcting the misallocation is first and foremost in guiding the EBC. The action requires parliament to actually accept the recommendations.
There is no easy solution. Members of Parliament have various reasons for opposing the redistribution. First, more open electorates mean more resources for provinces that win new electorates, and MPs from provinces that will not oppose them. Second, more electorates mean more political rivals for existing deputies in provincial assemblies. Third, existing MPs will be skeptical that the redistribution will favor them, given that open electorate politics is dominated by local issues and the winners on average only garner a small portion of the total vote.
Nevertheless, we must act. Poor distribution is getting worse in PNG. Both accuracy and feasibility can be improved if the redistribution exercise is delayed until 2024, when new census data becomes available.
This research was undertaken with the support of the ANU-UPNG Partnership, an initiative of the PNG-Australia Partnership, funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Opinions are those of the author only. The author thanks Dr Terence Wood for comments on earlier versions. Demographics are from PNG Website of the National Statistical Office. | <urn:uuid:9b2df9bd-bdbf-4a31-935a-3b8e0fd90d01> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://caravaningparkelcros.com/hurry-slow-the-png-redistribution-challenge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571210.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810191850-20220810221850-00467.warc.gz | en | 0.94882 | 1,263 | 2.953125 | 3 |
Actually, we have several guineas on several nests. I know where three of the nests are, but you can bet there are more out in the tall grass and weeds.
There is a trio of guineas nesting out in the llamas pen. They usually have a couple of hens sitting on the nest, and another guinea that sort of stands guard. There are about 3 dozen eggs in this nest.
They didn’t like me up close, so for a while, they left the nest.
There are also a couple of nests in the flower bed that encircles a big oak tree in the front yard. I see one on a nest hidden in tall plants. . .
While there are two sitting on another nest…
There is usually another guinea fowl or two wandering around close.
No telling how many will actually hatch out eggs. They are prone to sit a long time, then leave before they actually hatch out keets. But enough of them DO stay on the nest that we usually have a population explosion…
We shall see! | <urn:uuid:820806f0-c9fa-4301-8263-6f89cac6b797> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.ruralramblings.com/guinea-nest/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00474-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955443 | 222 | 1.617188 | 2 |
The Bible is inerrant, so we can be confident that there are no true contradictions in the original manuscripts. Yet some have tried to state that the Bible erroneously records 20 commandments instead of 10. The claim is that God wrote the Ten Commandments, and Moses wrote ten more. In this case, however, there is not even a contradiction between Exodus 20 and 34, nor are there two sets of ten commandments which are different in content. Here are the key verses from Exodus 34.
God says He will write on the tablets of stone the Ten Commandments again:
And the Lord said to Moses, "Cut two tablets of stone like the first ones, and I will write on these tablets the words that were on the first tablets which you broke. So be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning to Mount Sinai, and present yourself to Me there on the top of the mountain. And no man shall come up with you, and let no man be seen throughout all the mountain; let neither flocks nor herds feed before that mountain." So he cut two tablets of stone like the first ones. Then Moses rose early in the morning and went up Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him; and he took in his hand the two tablets of stone. (Exodus 34:1–4)
God commands Moses to write down a list of rules:
Then the Lord said to Moses, "Write these words, for according to the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel." So he was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights; he neither ate bread nor drank water. And He wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments. Now it was so, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai (and the two tablets of the Testimony were in Moses’ hand when he came down from the mountain), that Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone while he talked with Him. (Exodus 34:27–29)
In Exodus 34:5–26, God gave Moses commandments that he was to write down verbatim. These commandments were to not make treaties with the inhabitants of Canaan, and to destroy their idols and groves. God also commands Moses to tell the people to keep the sacred feasts that He established. These commandments are not, nor were they supposed to be the same as the "ten words" or Decalogue. This is evident by the use of the phrase “these words” in verse 27, which refers back to the instructions in the previous verses. The Ten Commandments were then written by God on the tablets for the second time (Exodus 34:28; Deuteronomy 10:2-4).
There is no contradiction here. The only problem is that the antecedent to the pronoun he is ambiguous in the second half of verse 28. Therefore, some have tried to force a contradiction here by claiming that it was Moses and not God who wrote the second set of ten commandments. Remember that it was God who wrote the first set, and Moses broke them in anger (Exodus 31:18, 32:15–16, 32:19). Although in Exodus 34:28 the antecedent is unclear, other passages make it clear that God also who wrote the second set of tablets containing ten commandments.
When dealing with Scripture, it is a hermeneutical principle that the unclear passages should be interpreted by the clear passages, and when this procedure is followed it should erase any supposed contradiction in these verses. In Exodus 34:1 states, God told Moses, “
Cut for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke.” So God stated that He would be the One to write on the tablets that Moses was supposed to cut.
In Deuteronomy, Moses recounts these details to the assembly. He mentioned that God gave him the first set of tablets (Deuteronomy 5:22, 9:10–11; cf. Exodus 31:17–18), which he subsequently broke when he came down from the mountain (Deuteronomy 9:15–17). After talking about his period of fasting and pleading with God not to destroy the people, Moses told the people about the second set of tablets.
At that time the Lord said to me, “Hew for yourself two tablets of stone like the first, and come up to Me on the mountain and make yourself an ark of wood. And I will write on the tablets the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke; and you shall put them in the ark.”
So I made an ark of acacia wood, hewed two tablets of stone like the first, and went up the mountain, having the two tablets in my hand. And He wrote on the tablets according to the first writing, the Ten Commandments, which the Lord had spoken to you in the mountain from the midst of the fire in the day of the assembly; and the Lord gave them to me. Then I turned and came down from the mountain, and put the tablets in the ark which I had made; and there they are, just as the Lord commanded me. (Deuteronomy 10:1–5)
It is clear then from these passages that it was God who wrote the Ten Commandments or “ten words” on the tablets of stone, and that these Ten Commandments were the same which God had written previously. Therefore, the unclear antecedent (“he”) in Exodus 34:28 is made clear, and that clarity shows that God is the author of the Ten Commandments, written on tablets of stone by His own finger. The phrase “these words” in Exodus 34:27 refer back to the words which God spoke unto Moses in Exodus 34:6–26 and which Moses wrote down per God’s command. | <urn:uuid:1e0e6cb6-e129-4464-b3ef-40622354b717> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://answersingenesis.org/bible-questions/are-there-20-commandments/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570871.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808183040-20220808213040-00270.warc.gz | en | 0.982923 | 1,230 | 2.890625 | 3 |
SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater
Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater allows for early action before the disease spreads, and the detection of the virus in wastewater should be seen as a warning sign for the (re)emergence of the pandemic or resurgence of new outbreaks, reducing its impact on the community.
On March 17th 2021, the EU published the Commission Recommendation (EU)2021/472 on the common strategy to be adopted for systematic surveillance of the SARS-CoV-2 virus presence in the population through its monitoring in wastewater.
A person infected with COVID-19 eliminates SARS-CoV-2 virus in the stool from the 2nd day after infection. Symptoms manifest on average from the 5th day, which then leads to the individual RT-PCR test. Only on the 7th day after the infection a test result is obtained, with a consequent focus alert.
Clinical testing does not allow the prediction of outbreaks or detection of asymptomatic individuals in useful time. Detection of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater anticipates by 2 to 7 days an outbreak detection.
Systematic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater and analysis of outcome trends is thus helpful in evaluating the effectiveness of measures taken in mitigate virus transmission.
The locations and sampling frequency should be defined in accordance to the local epidemiological situation and risk (ex: main systems for capturing hospitals, schools, university campus, airports, transport platforms, nursing homes, prisons, tourist accommodation establishments, among others).
Advantages of detecting SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater
- Regularly monitor the community.
- Detect the presence of asymptomatic individuals.
- Anticipate outbreaks of COVID-19 within 2 to 7 days.
- In defined locations, isolate individuals from the sector that resulted in a positive wastewater.
- Test only individuals in isolation and reduce testing costs.
- Quickly activate contingency plans and save lives. | <urn:uuid:cf06c052-a0b0-40ed-9ebd-4559ea161194> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://alsmolecular.com/sars-cov-2-in-wastewater/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571584.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812045352-20220812075352-00674.warc.gz | en | 0.903773 | 418 | 2.59375 | 3 |
On Sunday, November 3rd, in the Military cemetery of Prosecco-Prosek (Trieste) took place the ceremony in memory of the fallen and fighters of Austria-Hungary. It’s been a moving ceremony, a day to remember. Only one week before the event, the cemetery was abandoned: Free Trieste’s volunteers cleaned it and embellished it.
The same day, others were celebrating the anniversary of the first entrance of Italian armed forces in Trieste, at the end of WWI. As always, the official Italian celebrations took place in the main square, Piazza Unità d’Italia (formerly Piazza Grande), with the usual parade of armed troops and representatives of the State. But the people were not with them.
Bersaglieri, arms in hand, stood in front of a small group of authorities, solemnly remembering what Italian historians praise as the completion of Italian national unity.
But it all happened in a big, empty square. This is how the majority of the people of Trieste feel about Italian parades and self-celebrations.
A few curious people, some nostalgic, this is all in a Big square made a symbol of a national Unity paid with the blood of other folks. However, under the falling rain, in the wind, in a small forgotten valley on the Karst, there were hundreds of people. People saluting their fallen, those who protected the Imperial port-city of Trieste by the nationalistic-risorgimental assault of the “young Italy”.
Fallen who represent the 13 folks of one multiethnic and multi-religious State. In a way, an anticipator and better version of the current, weak United Europe, which is tied together by trade and markets. 13 folks who, together, in the Imperial and Royal Army (K.u.K.) defended Trieste on the Isonzo and on Karst stone for four long years and with huge sacrifices.
In the cemetery were celebrated the rites of all six faiths of the fallen. The only religious authority was the Koper Imam, for the muslims. He remembered the many Bosniaken who fought in the 2nd and 4th Jager regiments who found glory on this battlefield. It was Paolo G. Parovel to pray for the Catholics, Evangelicals, Ortodox Serbs, Ortodox Greeks, and Jews.
On Sunday, in the Prosek Austrian-Hungarian military cemetery, we have seen the awakening of our pride of people among people, rediscovering our cancelled identity.
In this land made holy by the sacrifice of our ancestors, we find a way back to our future. | <urn:uuid:e8dd6bda-51f5-4cd1-8443-b5a3cf7a70d7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.movimentotriestelibera.net/wp/archives/5692 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573744.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819161440-20220819191440-00478.warc.gz | en | 0.957232 | 560 | 2.375 | 2 |
Soma in Vedas
sgadkari2001 at YAHOO.COM
Thu Sep 5 15:40:12 CDT 2002
On Thu, 5 Sep 2002 13:20:26 -0700, Srikrishna Ghadiyaram
<srikrishna_ghadiyaram at YAHOO.COM> wrote:
'Ananda' or 'Bliss' is turIya, then how
>can 'Ananda' reveal turIya ?
Strictly speaking turIya is a state of Being. That state
of Being wherein universe is seen as (or resolves into)
bliss is turIya. So it is not incorrect to say that Ananda
reveals the state if Siva - turIya.
More information about the Advaita-l mailing list | <urn:uuid:75df702c-6df3-4055-a4fa-95d46efa8654> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.advaita-vedanta.org/archives/advaita-l/2002-September/003671.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00164-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.811619 | 174 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Follow these steps to create a compound or reaction structure and to search
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example, the following seach queries return the same number of results as
Gly AND asp OR ser NOT val.
- (Gly AND asp OR ser NOT val)
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- (Gly AND asp OR (ser NOT val)) | <urn:uuid:6e54441e-0959-42ca-b33b-0a65a77dd7c0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://images.webofknowledge.com/WOKRS535R83/help/WOS/hs_structure_drawing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572221.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816060335-20220816090335-00065.warc.gz | en | 0.806337 | 672 | 2.8125 | 3 |
The Preschool Development Grant (PDG) continues New Hampshire's efforts to better understand the current early childhood system and use those data to strengthen the system, better address the needs of vulnerable young children and their families, and help build a solid foundation to improve outcomes for NH's children, families, schools, and communities. The grant seeks to support New Hampshire's vision that all families are afforded comprehensive and responsive supports, so they are healthy, learning, and thriving, now and in the future. A key goal of the PDG is to enhance collaboration and coherence within early childhood systems through the sharing of best practices, including play-based learning.
The UNH Early Learning Coaching Team established the New Hampshire Play-based Learning Task Force in January of 2021 to support the PDG's goal of enhancing collaboration and coherence across early childhood systems. Play-based learning task force representatives are key stakeholders from organizations statewide that are committed to implementing, engaging in, and supporting projects related to play-based learning and improving childhood outcomes.
- Bring together early childhood stakeholders across the state who are committed to best practices to support young children’s development. Build a collaborative infrastructure among early childhood professionals and organizations around the sharing of best practices and play-based learning.
- Learn about complementary play-based learning projects in the state. Support related projects and make connections across schools, homes, and communities.
- Identify potential concepts for replication or future expansion. | <urn:uuid:d99dda1f-6e49-457e-b6e1-1b7144344ea0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://chhs.unh.edu/early-childhood/play-based-learning-coaching-teaching/play-based-learning-task-force | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571150.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810070501-20220810100501-00671.warc.gz | en | 0.949978 | 294 | 2.25 | 2 |
Argyll Colony was the first colony of Highland Scots to settle in the Upper Cape Fear. Settled in 1739, the colony was named for the shire in western Scotland from which its members came. They were the vanguard of what began as a trickle and grew into a flood of Highland immigrants to Bladen County (later divided into Cumberland, Moore, Robeson, Harnett, and Hoke Counties). By the 1770s Highland Scots comprised one-third of the population of that region, earning for it the sobriquet "Valley of the Scots."
The Argyll Colony sailed from Scotland in June 1739, arriving in North Carolina during September. They probably spent most of their first winter in or near Newton (soon to be renamed Wilmington) because they had not yet decided on a specific location for settlement. On 10 Nov. 1739 James Murray, a local merchant, wrote Henry McCulloh that four of the party had traveled upriver to inspect vacant land near his (McCulloh's) land, presumably a 100,000-acre tract in present-day Guilford and Alamance Counties. The Murray letter also implies that the Argyll colonists had previously negotiated with McCulloh, a London merchant and large-scale land speculator in North Carolina, about purchasing some of his land.
By February 1740 the colony's five leaders-Duncan Campbell, Daniel McNeill, Dugald McNeill, Neill McNeill, and Coll McAlister-had petitioned the colonial Assembly for an exemption from all taxes for ten years and a grant of £1,000 to be distributed among them. This indicates that by that date they probably had decided on which land to settle and had made entries for the property that was granted them the following June. In return for the favors requested, they had pledged to encourage their friends and neighbors to immigrate to the province. Exemption from taxes was granted but the award of £1,000 was not.
There is a persistent tradition that Governor Gabriel Johnston, himself a Lowland Scot, played a leading role in bringing the Argyll Colony to Cape Fear, but there is no evidence of this. Another popularly held but untenable tradition claims that other Highland Scots had preceded the Argyll Colony and that the colony on its arrival was greeted by kinsmen and former neighbors. Without doubt, the first Argyll colonists could not have envisioned the number of Scots who would follow them, although they certainly encouraged their peers to emigrate. The place they chose to settle became a Mecca for succeeding generations of Scottish immigrants; indeed, the Valley of the Scots became home to the largest aggregation of that nationality in the continental United States.
Duane Meyer, The Highland Scots of North Carolina, 1752-1776 (1957).
Jennie M. Patten, The Argyle Patent and Accompanying Documents (1979).
The Journal of the North Carolina Scottish Heritage Society, The Argyll Colony Plus: http://www.theargyllcolonyplus.org/Home/tabid/139/Default.aspx
Campbelton, NC Historical Marker I-54, North Carolina Office of Archives & History.
The story of Fayetteville and the upper Cape Fear by John Alexander Oates.
Wrightsville Beach Magazine, Historically Speaking: First Presbyterian Church Celebrates its 250th Anniversary by Dr. Walter H. Conser Jr. January 2010: http://www.wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com/article.asp?aid=589&iid=75&sud=27
The Argyll Colonist were the first to bring the Presbyterian religion to the Cape Fear Region. First Presbyterian Church, Wilmington, NC, 1902. Image courtesy of UNC Libraries. Available from https://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/uptodate/ill9.html (accessed August 15, 2012).
1 January 2006 | Fields, William C. | <urn:uuid:f4760306-e6ea-4984-bb5d-d4499c58969c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://dev.ncpedia.org/argyll-colony | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00276.warc.gz | en | 0.962233 | 830 | 3.578125 | 4 |
Niagara, meaning ‘thunder water’, was the name the native Americans gave to the mighty waterfall that today forms a spectacular boundary between the USA and Canada. From Lake Erie, the Niagara River flows placidity for almost 35 miles (56km), but near Lake Ontario runs into rapids that surge towards the contract in a mist of spray and rainbows. Then a dramatic drop of about 180ft (55m) sends a torrent of water roaring down into a fury of foam as if into a bottomless chasm.
Goat Island, on the brink of the cascade, separates the river into two. The American Falls on the eastern side form a straight line about 1000ft (300m) long; the Canadian Horseshoe Falls are twice as long and, as their name indicates, form a horseshoe shape.
The falls look magnificent from both sides, but the Canadian shore offers the best overall view of both. For a really close look, the Horseshoe Falls can be braved in a small boat, the Maid of the Mist, which sails into the swirling spray.
Niagara falls were born about 12,500 years ago at the end of the last Ice Age. With the melting of a massive glacier, water split out of Lake Erie and rushed northwards to form what is now Lake Ontario in a basin about 320ft (100m) lower. Originally, the ridge over which the waterfalls was some 7 miles (11km) farther north – where Queenston now stands – but over the centuries it has been cut back by the action of around 7000 tons of water a second crashing over it. At a rate of retreat of about 4ft (1.2m) a year, it will take 25,000 years for the ridge to be cut back to Lake Erie.
Queenston Heights rang to the roar of battle when Britain and the USA clashed in the war of 1812. Later in the 1800s, voices roaring around the falls were those of onlookers watching one of the many daredevil stunts that became a feature of the falls, such as leaping into the maelstrom below!
The first to take this death-defying risk was Sam Patch of Passaic Falls, New Jersey, who jumped from Goat Island in October 1829 and survived. In 1901, 43-year-old Mrs Annie Edson Tylor, a schoolteacher from Bay City, Michigan, and a non-swimmer were the first to go over the falls in a barrel and live. The fall took three seconds. She made a lecture tour as ‘Queen of the mist’, hoping to make her fortune, but died a pauper 20 years later.
Of those who tried to emulate her feat in the next 60 years, three succeeded and three died. They included George Stathakis of Buffalo, New York, in 1930. He survived the plunge but suffocated when the barrel was caught behind the falls for 22 hours – he had only carried enough oxygen for three hours. | <urn:uuid:86611b72-12c4-4fc7-a6cc-bf2e54708031> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.tourtravelhotels.com/niagara-falls-location-overview-lake-erie/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571150.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810070501-20220810100501-00667.warc.gz | en | 0.973476 | 617 | 3.171875 | 3 |
Lawyer explains why some workplaces can make COVID-19 vaccination a condition of employment
An insurance-focused law firm says SPC’s controversial plan to make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for anybody who wants to work there is reasonable and within the law.
Qantas is another company who has since confirmed it will require COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of employment, except in “very rare” cases.
Joel Zyngier, Gilchrist-Connell Principal, said there were two key factors to consider.
“It has to be a lawful and reasonable direction,” he said on 3AW Drive.
“The fact it’s available now, the vaccine, makes it a reasonably practicable step for employers.
“They need to take it into consideration when assessing how they discharge their occupational health and safety duties to provide a safe workplace, but it doesn’t mean it’s going to lawful and reasonable in every work place.”
Press PLAY below to hear Joel’s legal advice
Picture by Getty iStock | <urn:uuid:b870584e-382e-46c1-a6ca-17e6ae2e616c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.3aw.com.au/lawyer-explains-why-some-workplaces-can-make-covid-19-vaccination-a-condition-of-employment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571097.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810010059-20220810040059-00276.warc.gz | en | 0.957868 | 225 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Many people have the mistaken notion that there is only one option when it comes to getting a secure internet connection – a free Windows VPN. In fact, a free VPN can provide you with the same level of security as a paid VPN service, but for a much smaller one-time fee. So what are the pros and cons of having both a free and a paid VPN? Here’s a look at how both services compare.
The big difference between the two free VPNs is the price. With a free VPN, you don’t get any software that allows you to connect to the outside world. You are merely connecting through a local area network. You will not have any access to the internet whatsoever, and won’t be able to watch streaming video or use antivirus software or anything else that normally would be available. You won’t even be able to talk on the phone if you were abroad.
With a paid Windows VPN, however, everything is ready for you. You get software on your computer that allows you to connect to a remote network. You also have access to the internet, and can install whatever programs you want on your PC. You can then browse the web, download music and videos, and chat with friends.
And there’s more. A free VPN will have a limited number of allowed connections. With a paid version, however, this is not true. You can create as many connections as you like, and can assign different permissions (such as read / write). You can also configure port forwarding, so that other computers on your network are able to connect to the server as well.
Of course, both of these options have their own limitations. A free VPN service typically provides fewer features and fewer options. They are basic services, which limit your freedom. On the other hand, a paid Windows VPN offers more flexibility, more security, and unlimited features… for a price.
A few things to remember when comparing the two are privacy protection and cost. A free service limits your ability to use it as a privacy shield. As far as cost goes, you can usually find a Windows VPN that’s cheaper than paying for a dedicated server (costing several hundred dollars or more). However, you might have to settle for less functionality.
Which one to choose really comes down to how much you plan on using your connection. If you just need to test out a blog, or surf the internet for an hour or so each day, a free option may be all you need. If you want advanced features, however, a paid option is your best bet. The choice really comes down to what you value most. Do you want more advanced features, but don’t want to pay for them? Will a free VPN offer what a paid one will?
It’s a trade off you have to make. A free Windows VPN can be secure, reliable, and free… but it’s not without some expense. Paid Windows VPNs can offer all of these same features in their free packages, and often at a lower price. While a free option might seem like a gamble at first, it’s important to know that there are both good and bad Windows VPNs out there, and a paid option is often the best choice for those who need it the most.
A free Windows VPN service will allow you to connect to the Internet and do what you want to do without worrying about being blocked or limited. It can be a great way to keep in touch, access your favorite social networking sites, or simply be able to browse the web without waiting on a friend or trying to stream a video on a slow Internet connection. A paid service on the other hand can do so much more. Here’s a list of some of the more advanced features available:
One important thing to note about a free Windows VPN service is that you will not be able to completely bypass any security measures your computer may have set up. For example, when browsing the net or downloading files you may be concerned about viruses or other hackers taking advantage of you. With a free service, this is not a risk because there aren’t any programs installed that will actually block or hurt your PC. However, if you’re someone who frequently uses the Internet and would like to make sure you’re always safe from any attacks, you’ll want to seriously consider signing up for a paid service instead of a free option.
One last big difference between these two types of connections is the cost. A lot of people feel that they are equal in terms of price, but the truth is that a paid service will most definitely cost you much less. This is especially true if you sign up with a company that offers a monthly plan with unlimited use for a specific amount of money. Even if you only need to use it a few times a month or so, it’s still much cheaper than paying for an entire year at a time. Even if you just pay once for a year, you’ll still be saving money and getting a faster connection, among other features. | <urn:uuid:b16e3e42-b875-4491-bada-0c78d9747589> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.todaytechmedia.com/paid-vs-free-windows-vpn-which-one-to-choose/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573533.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818215509-20220819005509-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.958881 | 1,044 | 1.65625 | 2 |
"Bhishma said, 'After he had quartered there, on third day, O king, Jamadagni's son of high vows, sent a message to me, saying, 'I have come here, do what is agreeable to me.' Hearing that Rama, of great might, had come to the confines of our kingdom, I speedily went with a joyous heart to that master who was an ocean of energy. And I went to him, O king, with a cow placed in the van of my train, and accompanied by many Brahmanas, and (ordinary) priests (of our family), and by others, resembling the very gods in splendour, employed by us on special occasions. And beholding me arrived at his presence, Jamadagni's son, of great prowess, accepted the worship I offered unto him and said these words unto me.'
"Rama said, 'Thyself, divested of desire, with what mood of mind, O 'Bhishma, didst thou abduct, on the occasion of her self-choice, his daughter of the king of Kasi and again dismiss her subsequently? By thee hath this famous lady been dissociated from virtue! Contaminated by the touch of thy hands before, who can marry her now? Rejected she hath been by Salwa, because thou, O Bharata, hadst abducted her. Take her therefore, to thyself, O Bharata, at my command. Let this daughter of a king, O tiger among men, be charged with the duties of her sex! O king, O sinless one, it is not proper that this humiliation should be hers!
'Seeing him plunged into sorrow (on account of the maiden) I said unto him,--O Brahmana, I cannot, by any means, bestow this girl on my brother. O thou of Bhrigu's race, it was to myself that she said, I am Salwa's! And it was by me that she was permitted to go to Salwa's city. As regards myself, even this is my firm vow that I cannot abandon
[paragraph continues] Kshatriya practices from fear or pity, or avarice of wealth, or lust!--Hearing these words of mine, Rama addressed me, with eyes rolling in anger, saying, 'If, O bull among, men, thou dost not act according to my words, I will slay thee this very day along with all thy counsellors!' Indeed, with eyes rolling in anger, Rama in great wrath told me these words repeatedly. I, however, O chastiser of foes, then beseeched him in sweet words. But though beseeched by me, he did not cool down. Bowing down with my head unto that best of Brahmanas I then enquired of him the reason for which he sought battle with me. I also said,--O thou of mighty arms, while I was a child it was thou who instructed me in the four kinds of arms. 1 I am, therefore, O thou of Bhrigu's race, thy disciple! Then Rama answered me with eyes red in anger, 'Thou knowest me, O Bhishma, to be thy preceptor, and yet, O Kauravya, thou acceptest not, for pleasing me, this daughter of the ruler of Kasi! O delighter of the Kurus, I cannot be gratified unless thou actest in this way! O mighty-armed one, take this maiden and preserve thy race! Having been abducted by thee, she obtaineth not a husband. Unto Rama that subjugator of hostile cities, I replied, saying.--This cannot be, O regenerate Rishi! All thy labour is vain, O son of Jamadagni, remembering thy old preceptorship, I am striving, O holy one, to gratify thee! As regards this maiden, she hath been refused by me before knowing what the faults, productive of great evils, of the female sex are, who is there that would admit into his abode a woman whose heart is another's and who (on that account) is even like a snake of virulent poison? O thou of high vows, I would not, even from fear of Vasava, forsake duty! Be gracious unto me, or do me without delay that which thou hast thought proper. This sloka also, O thou of pure soul, is heard in the Puranas, O lord, sung by the high-souled Marutta, O thou of great intelligence! The renunciation is sanctioned by the ordinance of a preceptor who is filled with vanity, who is destitute of the knowledge of right and wrong, and who is treading in a devious path.--Thou art my preceptor and it is for this that I have from love reverenced thee greatly. Thou, however, knowest not the duty of a preceptor, and it is for this that I will fight with thee. I would not slay any preceptor in battle, especially again a Brahmana, and more specially one endued with ascetic merit. It was for this that I forgive thee. It is well-known truth, gatherable from the scriptures, that he is not guilty of slaying a Brahmana who killeth in battle a person of that order that taketh up weapons like Kshatriya and fighteth wrathfully without seeking to fly. I am a Kshatriya stationed in the practice of Kshatriya duties. One doth not
incur sin, nor doth one incur any harm by behaving towards a person exactly as that person deserveth. When a person acquainted with the proprieties of time and place and well-versed in matters affecting both profit and virtue, feels doubtful, as regards anything, he should without scruples of any kind, devote himself to the acquisition of virtue which would confer the highest benefit on him. And since thou, O Rama, in a matter connected with profit of doubtful propriety, actest unrighteously, I would certainly fight with thee in a great battle. Behold the strength of my arms and my prowess that is superhuman! In view of such circumstances, I shall certainly do, O son of Bhrigu, what I can. I shall fight with thee, O regenerate one, on the field of Kurukshetra! O Rama of great effulgence, equip thyself as thou listest for single combat! Come and station thyself on the field of Kurukshetra where, afflicted with my shafts in great battle, and sanctified by my weapons, thou mayest obtain those regions that have been won by thee (thought for thy austerities). O thou of mighty arms and wealth of asceticism, there I will approach thee for battle,--thee that art so fond of battle! There, O Rama, where in days of yore thou hadst propitiated thy (deceased) fathers (with oblations of Kshatriya blood), slaying thee there, O son of Bhrigu, I will propitiate the Kshatriya slain by thee! Come there, O Rama, without delay! There, O thou that art difficult of being vanquished, I will curb thy old pride about which the Brahmanas speak! For many long years, O Rama, thou hast boasted, saying,--I have, single-handed, vanquished all the Kshatriyas of the Earth!--Listen now to what enabled thee to indulge in that boast! In those days no Bhishma was born, or no Kshatriyas like unto Bhishma! Kshatriyas really endued with valour have taken their births later on! As regards thyself, thou hast consumed only heaps of straw! The person that would easily quell thy pride of battle hath since been born! He, O mighty-armed one, is no other than myself, even Bhishma, that subjugator of hostile cities! Without doubt, O Rama, I shall just quell thy pride of battle!'
"Bhishma continued, 'Hearing these words of mine. Rama addressed me, laughingly saying, 'By good luck it is, O Bhishma, that thou desirest to fight with me in battle! O thou of Kuru's race, even now I go with thee to Kurukshetra! I will do what thou hast said! Come thither, O chastiser of foes! Let thy mother, Jahnavi, O Bhishma, behold thee dead on that plain, pierced with my shafts, and become the food of vultures, crows, and other carnivorous birds! Let that goddess worshipped by Siddhas and Charanas, that blessed daughter of Bhagiratha, in the form of a river, who begat thy wicked self, weep today, O king, beholding thee slain by me and lying miserable on that plain, however undeserving she may be of seeing such a sight! Come, O Bhishma, and follow me, O proud wight, always longing for battle! O thou of Kuru's race, take with thee, O bull of Bharatas' line, thy cars and all other equipments of battle!' Hearing these words of Rama that subjugator of hostile
towns, I worshipped him with a bend of my head and answered him, saying,--So be it! Having said all this, Rama then went to Kurukshetra from desire of combat, and I also, entering our city, represented everything unto Satyavati. Then causing propitiatory ceremonies to be performed (for my victory), and being blessed also by my mother, and making the Brahmanas utter benedictions on me, I mounted on a handsome car made of silver and unto which, O thou of great glory, were yoked steeds white in hue. And every part of that car was well-built, and it was exceedingly commodious and covered on all sides with tiger-skin. And it was equipped with many great weapons and furnished with all necessaries. And it was ridden by charioteer who was well-born and brave, who was versed in horse-lore, careful in battle, and well-trained in his art, and who had seen many encounters. And I was accoutred in a coat of mail, white in hue, and had my bow in hand. And the bow I took was also white in hue. And thus equipped, I set out, O best of Bharata's race! And an umbrella, white in hue, was held over my head. And, O king, I was fanned with fans that also were white in colour. And clad in white, with also a white head-gear, all my adornments were white. And eulogised (with laudatory hymns) by Brahmanas wishing me victory. I issued out of the city named after the elephant, and proceeded to Kurukshetra, which, O bull of Bharata's race, was to be the field of battle! And those steeds, fleet as the mind or the wind, urged by my charioteer, soon bore me, O king, to that great encounter. And arrived in the field of Kurukshetra, both myself and Rama, eager for battle, became desirous of showing each other our prowess. And arrived within view of the great ascetic Rama, I took up my excellent conch and blew a loud blast. And many Brahmanas, O king, and many ascetics having their abodes in the forest, as also the gods with Indra at their head, were stationed there for beholding the great encounter. And many celestial garlands and diverse kinds of celestial music and many cloudy canopies could be noticed there. And all those ascetics who had come with Rama, desiring to become spectators of the fight, stood all around the field. Just at this juncture, O king, my divine mother devoted to the good of all creatures, appeared before me in her own form and said, 'What is this that thou seekest to do? Repairing to Jamadagni's son, O son of Kuru's race, I will repeatedly solicit him saying,--Do not fight Bhishma who is thy disciple!--O son, being a Kshatriya do not obstinately set thy heart on an encounter in battle with Jamadagni's son who is a Brahmana!' Indeed, it was thus that she reproved me. And she also said, 'O son, Rama, equal in prowess unto Mahadeva himself, is the exterminator of the Kshatriya order! It is not known to thee, that thou desirest an encounter with him.' Thus addressed by her, I saluted the goddess reverentially and replied unto her with joined hands, giving her, O chief of the Bharatas, an account of all that had transpired in that self-choice (of the daughter of Kasi). I also told her every thing, O king of kings, about how I had urged
[paragraph continues] Rama (to desist from the combat). I also gave her a history of all the past acts of the (eldest) daughter of Kasi. My mother then, the great River, wending to Rama, began, for my sake, to beseech the Rishi of Bhrigu's race. And she said unto him these words, viz.,--Do not fight Bhishma who is thy disciple!--Rama, however, said unto her while she was beseeching him thus, 'Go and make Bhishma desist! He doth not execute out my wish! It is for this that I have challenged him!'
"Vaisampayana continued, 'Thus addressed by Rama, Ganga, from affection for her son, came back to Bhishma. But Bhishma, with eyes rolling in anger, refused to do her bidding. Just at this time, the mighty ascetic Rama, that foremost one of Bhrigu's race, appeared in Bhishma's sight. An then that best of the twice-born ones challenged him to the encounter.'"
346:1 The science of arms (Dhanurved) classes arms under four heads, viz., Mukta, Amukta, Muktamukta, and Yantramukta. A Mukta weapon is one that is hurled from the hand, as a discus. An Amukta is not hurled from the hand, as a sword. A Muktamukta is one that is sometimes hurled and sometimes not, as a mace. A Yantramukta is one shot from a machine, as an arrow or a ball. All Mukta weapons are Astras, while all Amukta ones are called sastras. | <urn:uuid:8cab8e08-bf41-4a48-b19e-43ffb8c8b865> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://sacred-texts.com/hin/m05/m05181.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280310.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00180-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974474 | 3,112 | 1.828125 | 2 |
In what will likely be recorded in the World data as another Covid-19 death, a 1-year-old boy in Saudi Arabia has died following a Covid-19 PCR test that went tragically wrong.
The child’s uncle and legal guardian, Mosaed al-Joufan, told Al Arabiya: “He did not suffer from any chronic or dangerous diseases. He complained Friday evening of a fever and we took him to Shaqra General Hospital with his mother.”
If you’ve ever seen the PCR tests performed, you’ll fully understand how this can happen, the swabs are pushed up your nose until it can go no further without resistance.
A tragic death, which was entirely unnecessary.
Tears – This is so sad. A one and a half year old Saudi child died due to a #coronavirus swab breaking inside his nasal cavity after medical staff at a hospital performed a #Covid19 test as he had a fever. https://t.co/8Nuut7FjG3— Amy Chew (@1AmyChew) July 15, 2020 | <urn:uuid:e55b6bde-85cd-4b9d-9bee-550d7702f21c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://oye.news/news/world-news/one-year-old-dies-after-covid-19-test-swab-breaks-in-his-nose/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572215.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815235954-20220816025954-00674.warc.gz | en | 0.980158 | 237 | 1.679688 | 2 |
A defensive midfielder is traditionally the #6 in soccer and has the position just in front of the defensive line. Teams usually play with one or two defensive midfielders (which is called a “double six”). The #6 can be positioned as a “holding midfielder” to cover the opposition’s attacking midfielder.
Who is the best number 6 in football?
Top NFL players with number 6 jerseys include Jay Cutler and Mark Sanchez, all Hall of Fame-level players whose career highlights are among the.
The Best Athletes Who Wore #6
- Julius Erving. Photo: Metaweb / CC-BY. …
- Bill Russell. Photo: Wikimedia Commons. …
- Stan Musial. …
- LeBron James. …
- Ryan Howard. …
- Xavi. …
- Al Kaline. …
- John Hekker.
What position is a number 6 in soccer?
In a 4-3-3, for instance (as portrayed in the post graphic), the right outside back is called a “2” and the defensive midfielder is referred to a “6” and, a soccer number most people have heard of, the playmaking attacker is called a “10”, versus the more target attacker which is a “9”.
What is a number 8 in soccer?
8 – Central Midfielder – The unsung hero of the team, central midfielders are integral in practically every play on the field, from offense to defense.
Who is a number 4 in football?
The 4 is generally the holding midfielder, as through the formation evolution it was often used for the sweeper or libero position. This position defended behind the central defenders, but attacked in front – feeding the midfield.
Who wore #6?
Athletes who wore #6 Quiz Stats
|Primary Team||Player||% Correct|
|USA basketball||Lebron James||63.2%|
|Denver Broncos||Jay Cutler||56.6%|
|Boston Celtics||Bill Russell||55.7%|
|New York Jets||Mark Sanchez||51.9%|
Who wears the number 6 in soccer?
The number 6 in soccer is the defensive midfielder on a team. They play just in front of the defenders, and their role is to protect the defense, link up the play between the defense and midfield, and tackle and intercept the ball as necessary to disrupt any attacks from the opposition.
What position is a number 6?
Simply put, the numbering system relates position on the field to numbers. In a 4-3-3, pictured in this post, the right outside back is called a “2” and the defensive midfielder is referred to a “6”.
What is No 10 football?
The attacking playmakers are sometimes called the “number 10” of the team, as they often wear the number 10 jersey. The attacking midfield playmaker will sit in a free role between the midfield and the forwards, either in the centre of the pitch or on either flank.
What is a 10 in football?
Number 10 shirt
10 shirt is given to the team’s playmaker or star attacking midfielder. It is a number not to be worn lightly, and one of the shirt numbers that a player must earn.
What is a 7 in soccer?
Number 7 shirt
The No. 7 shirt is reserved for wingers and second strikers, though there are some examples of legendary central strikers who have worn the shirt, thus giving the number classic status. Cristiano Ronaldo was given the No. … He is also famously known as ‘CR7’.
What is number 8 role in football?
8 – Central Midfielder (CM): Often considered the most hardworking role, this player has to be ready for action and can play both defensively and offensively, depending on where the ball is. … 10 – Attacking Midfielder (AM): The attacking midfielder sits between the midfield and the offensive line.
What is a false 9?
A false nine is a centre-forward who repeatedly moves towards the ball in deeper positions from a high starting position, often dropping to receive centrally. The main intention is to get on the ball away from the opposition centre-backs – and, in doing so, to draw players out of position and disrupt the defence.
What position is 8 in football?
What Position Does The Number 8 Play? The traditional number 8 plays in the position of central midfield and is also known as a box-to-box midfielder. This position carries the responsibilities of both defending and attacking for their team. | <urn:uuid:5b0566b0-35f5-491b-adc6-89a9d1b163b4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://getsoccernow.com/players/quick-answer-who-is-a-number-6-in-football.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572304.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816120802-20220816150802-00476.warc.gz | en | 0.955534 | 972 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Time to Sign
Overview Featuring X-Table Station
What If? Spinner
Micro Experiences: Rubbing Station
Time to Sign
Micro Experiences: Draw a Sound
What If? Gallery
Phase One: What If You Can't Hear?
Children's Museum in Oak Lawn
Oak Lawn, IL
Scope of Work:
Exhibit Design, Conceptual Design, Design, Graphic Design, Fabrication Management
The Children’s Museum in Oak Lawn wanted to establish an exhibit gallery to help visitors develop empathy and understanding for those who find different ways to hear, see, and walk. MindSplash met this need with Phase one of the “What If?” exhibit area, focused on hearing. CMOL and MindSplash collectively identified What If’s two key goals: give visitors an understanding of what it's like to be deaf or hard of hearing and allow visitors to explore how those who are deaf and hard of hearing can “hear” and communicate with others.
MindSplash’s solution included a variety of interactive stations where visitors can practice signing, try to hear their partner talk, spin a sign language sentence, rub their name in sign language letters, learn about cochlear implants, play Dangerous Decibels games about protecting hearing, draw a sound and more.
MindSplash was also thrilled to partner with nationally known Two Little Hands Productions, originators of “Signing Time” videos for babies and older children, to produce “Time to Sign,” an interactive media kiosk with small segments of their videos that visitors can select to “sign along.”
Visitors of all ages and abilities have found What If? to be inspiring, informative, and, most of all, fun! | <urn:uuid:804ff64b-1fef-4964-ad49-652c3d67fc07> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.mindsplash.net/what-if | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572215.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815235954-20220816025954-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.903993 | 409 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Incremental Learning Overview
What Is Incremental Learning?
Incremental learning, or online learning, is a branch of machine learning that involves processing incoming data from a data stream—continuously and in real time—possibly given little to no knowledge of the distribution of the predictor variables, sample size, aspects of the prediction or objective function (including adequate tuning parameter values), and whether the observations have labels.
Incremental learning algorithms are flexible, efficient, and adaptive. The following characteristics distinguish incremental learning from traditional machine learning:
An incremental model is fit to data quickly and efficiently, which means it can adapt, in real time, to changes (or drifts) in the data distribution.
Because observation labels can be missing when corresponding predictor data is available, the algorithm must be able to generate predictions from the latest version of the model quickly, and defer training the model.
Little information might be known about the population before incremental learning starts. Therefore, the algorithm can be run with a cold start. For example, for classification problems, the class names might not be known until after the model processes observations. When enough information is known before learning begins (for example, you have good estimates of linear model coefficients), you can specify such information to provide the model with a warm start.
Because observations can arrive in a stream, the sample size is likely unknown and possibly large, which makes data storage inefficient or impossible. Therefore, the algorithm must process observations when they are available and before the system discards them. This incremental learning characteristic makes hyperparameter tuning difficult or impossible.
In traditional machine learning, a batch of labeled data is available to perform cross-validation to estimate the generalization error and tune hyperparameters, infer the predictor variable distribution, and fit the model. However, the resulting model must be retrained from the beginning if underlying distributions drift or the model degrades. Although performing cross-validation to tune hyperparameters is difficult in an incremental learning environment, incremental learning methods are flexible because they can adapt to distribution drift in real time, with predictive accuracy approaching that of a traditionally trained model as the model trains more data.
Suppose an incremental model is prepared to generate predictions and have its predictive performance measured. Given incoming chunks of observations, an incremental learning scheme processes data in real time and in any of the following ways, but usually in the specified order:
Evaluate model: Track the predictive performance of the model when true labels are available, either on the incoming data only, over a sliding window of observations, or over the entire history of the model used for incremental learning.
Detect drift: Check for structural breaks or distribution drift. For example, determine whether the distribution of any predictor variable has sufficiently changed.
Train model: Update the model by training it on the incoming observations, when true labels are available or when the current model has sufficiently degraded.
Generate predictions: Predict labels from the latest model.
This procedure is a special case of incremental learning, in which all incoming chunks are treated as test (holdout) sets. The procedure is called interleaved test-then-train or prequential evaluation .
If insufficient information exists for an incremental model to generate predictions, or you do not want to track the predictive performance of the model because it has not been trained enough, you can include an optional initial step to find adequate values for hyperparameters, for models that support one (estimation period), or an initial training period before model evaluation (metrics warm-up period).
As an example of an incremental learning problem, consider a smart thermostat that automatically sets a temperature given the ambient temperature, relative humidity, time of day, and other measurements, and can learn the user's indoor temperature preferences. Suppose the manufacturer prepared the device by embedding a known model that describes the average person's preferences given the measurements. After installation, the device collects data every minute, and adjusts the temperature to its presets. The thermostat adjusts the embedded model, or retrains itself, based on the user's actions or inactions with the device. This cycle can continue indefinitely. If the thermostat has limited disk space to store historical data, it needs to retrain itself in real time. If the manufacturer did not prepare the device with a known model, the device retrains itself more often.
Incremental Learning with MATLAB
Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox™ functionalities enable you to implement incremental learning for classification or regression. Like other Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox machine learning functionalities, the entry point into incremental learning is an incremental learning object, which you pass to functions with data to implement incremental learning. Unlike other machine learning functions, data is not required to create an incremental learning object. However, the incremental learning object specifies how to process incoming data, such as when to fit the model, measure performance metrics, or perform both actions, in addition to the parametric form of the model and problem-specific options.
Incremental Learning Model Objects
This table contains the available entry-point model objects for incremental learning with their supported machine learning objective, model type, and information required to create the model object.
|Model Object||Objective||Model Type||Required Information|
|Multiclass classification||Error-correcting output codes (ECOC) model with binary learners||Maximum number of classes expected in the data during incremental learning or the names of all expected classes|
|Binary classification||Linear support vector machine (SVM) and logistic regression with Gaussian kernels||None|
|Binary classification||Linear SVM and logistic regression||None|
|Multiclass classification||Naive Bayes with normal, multinomial, or multivariate multinomial predictor conditional distributions||Maximum number of classes expected in the data during incremental learning or the names of all expected classes|
|Regression||Least-squares and linear SVM regression with Gaussian kernels||None|
|Regression||Least-squares and linear SVM regression||None|
Properties of an incremental learning model object specify:
Data characteristics, such as the number of predictor variables
NumPredictorsand their first and second moments
Model characteristics, such as, for linear models, the learner type
Learner, linear coefficients
Beta, and intercept
Training options, such as, for linear models, the objective solver
Solverand solver-specific hyperparameters such as the ridge penalty
Lambdafor standard and average stochastic gradient descent (SGD and ASGD)
Model performance evaluation characteristics and options, such as whether the model is warm
IsWarm, which performance metrics to track
Metrics, and the latest values of the performance metrics
Unlike when working with other machine learning model objects, you can create an incremental learning model by directly calling the object and specifying property values of options using name-value arguments; you do not need to fit a model to data to create one. This feature is convenient when you have little information about the data or model before training it. Depending on your specifications, the software can enforce estimation and metrics warm-up periods, during which incremental fitting functions infer data characteristics and then train the model for performance evaluation. By default, for linear models, the software solves the objective function using the adaptive scale-invariant solver, which does not require tuning and is insensitive to the predictor variable scales .
Alternatively, you can convert a traditionally trained model to a model for
incremental learning by using the
incrementalLearner function. For
incrementalLearner converts a trained linear classification model of type
ClassificationLinear to an
object. This table lists the convertible models and their conversion
By default, the software considers converted models to be prepared for all aspects of
incremental learning (converted models are warm).
carries over data characteristics (such as class names), fitted parameters, and options
available for incremental learning from the traditionally trained model being converted.
For naive Bayes classification,
incrementalLearnercarries over all class names in the data expected during incremental learning, and the fitted moments of the conditional predictor distributions (
For linear models, if the objective solver of the traditionally trained model is SGD,
incrementalLearnersets the incremental learning solver to SGD.
For more details, see the output argument description of each
incrementalLearner function page.
Incremental Learning Functions
The incremental learning model object specifies all aspects of the incremental learning algorithm, from training and model evaluation preparation through training and model evaluation. To implement incremental learning, you pass the configured incremental learning model to an incremental fitting function or model evaluation function. You can find the list of supported incremental learning functions in the Object Functions section of each incremental learning model object page.
Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox incremental learning functions offer two workflows that are well suited for prequential learning. For simplicity, the following workflow descriptions assume that the model is prepared to evaluate the model performance (in other words, the model is warm).
Flexible workflow — When a data chunk is available:
Compute cumulative and window model performance metrics by passing the data and current model to the
updateMetricsfunction. The data is treated as test (holdout) data because the model has not been trained on it yet.
updateMetricsoverwrites the model performance stored in the model with the new values.
Optionally detect distribution drift or whether the model has degraded.
Train the model by passing the incoming data chunk and current model to the
fitfunction uses the specified solver to fit the model to the incoming data chunk, and overwrites the current coefficients and bias with the new estimates.
The flexible workflow enables you to perform custom model and data quality assessments before deciding whether to train the model. All steps are optional, but call
fitwhen you plan to call both functions.
Succinct workflow — When a data chunk is available, supply the incoming chunk and a configured incremental model to the
updateMetricsimmediately followed by
fit. The succinct workflow enables you to implement incremental learning with prequential evaluation easily when you plan to track the model performance and train the model on all incoming data chunks.
Once you create an incremental model object and choose a workflow to use, write a loop that implements incremental learning:
Read a chunk of observations from a data stream, when the chunk is available.
Implement the flexible or succinct workflow. To perform incremental learning properly, overwrite the input model with the output model. For example:
Mdl = updateMetrics(Mdl,X,Y); % % Insert optional code % Mdl = fit(Mdl,X,Y);
Mdl = updateMetricsAndFit(Mdl,X,Y);
The model tracks its performance on incoming data incrementally using metrics measured since the beginning of training (cumulative) and over a specified window of consecutive observations (window). However, you can optionally compute the model loss on the incoming chunk, and then pass the incoming chunk and current model to the
lossreturns the scalar loss; it does not adjust the model.
Model configurations determine whether incremental learning functions train or evaluate model performance during each iteration. Configurations can change as the functions process data. For more details, see Incremental Learning Periods.
Generate predictions by passing the chunk and latest model to
If the model was fit to data, compute the resubstitution loss by passing the chunk and latest model to
For naive Bayes classification models, the
logpfunction enables you to detect outliers in real-time. The function returns the log unconditional probability density of the predictor variables at each observation in the chunk.
Incremental Learning Periods
Given incoming chunks of data, the actions performed by incremental learning functions depend on the current configuration or state of the model. This figure shows the periods (consecutive groups of observations) during which incremental learning functions perform particular actions.
This table describes the actions performed by incremental learning functions during each period.
|Period||Associated Model Properties||Size (Number of Observations)||Actions|
When required, fitting functions choose values for hyperparameters based on estimation period observations. Actions can include the following:
For more details, see the Algorithm section of each object and
n2 – n1
When the property
|Performance Evaluation j||m|| | <urn:uuid:a0c2a4f8-94bb-4f7c-890f-1b4bf0b1b3c7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.mathworks.com/help/stats/incremental-learning-overview.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570767.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808061828-20220808091828-00473.warc.gz | en | 0.833455 | 2,660 | 3.546875 | 4 |
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Annuloplasty Techniques in Aortic Root Repair
Pouya Youssefi is a UK trained cardiac surgeon and winner of the SCTS Ethicon Scholarship, with which he is currently working with Emmanuel Lansac at Institut Mutualiste Montsouris (Paris) in aortic valve and root repair. He discusses annuloplasty techniques in aortic root repair. Emphasizing the benefit of aortic valve repair for nonelderly patients, he presents his team's standardized approach of romodelling plus subvalvular annuloplasty, discussing both technical details and patient outcomes.
This presentation was originally given during the SCTS Ionescu University program at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society for Cardiothoracic Surgery in Great Britain and Ireland. This content is published with the permission of SCTS. Please click here for more information on SCTS educational programs. | <urn:uuid:334c487c-b3d4-4324-b879-b2ca0828ba6b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.ctsnet.org/article/annuloplasty-techniques-aortic-root-repair | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571246.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811073058-20220811103058-00268.warc.gz | en | 0.906687 | 228 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Clinical trials continue. Data presented to oral medicine conference
Researchers from the U.S. have developed a simple saliva test that may improve oral cancer diagnostics significantly. Once the device has been approved by the FDA, they hope that the low-cost product will form part of annual routine dental exams and benefit patients with limited access to health care in particular.
We all know about the importance of sleep, and we know we should be getting more of it. When we wake up exhausted, drag ourselves to work or hit that afternoon slump, we blame ourselves: "Should have gotten more sleep last night.
Taking a regular low dose of aspirin could prevent head and neck cancers by almost a quarter, according to new research. The results of the study1 concluded that people were almost a quarter (22 per cent) more likely to avoid developing head and neck cancers if they took aspirin on a weekly and monthly basis. Throat cancers had the most benefit from regular aspirin use.
SEATTLE, Wash., USA: A new cross-sectional study of almost 800 U.S. adults has found that one in eight patients suffer from dentine hypersensitivity. The prevalence was especially high among patients younger than 65 and women in particular.
If you sometimes get a jolt of pain in your mouth when you drink or eat something hot or cold, you're not alone: A new survey of U.S. dental offices finds that one in eight people has over-sensitive teeth.
Designed to improving flossing habits and compliance with home care recommendations for patients with orthodontic appliances, bridges or dental implants, EasyThread Floss is threader floss packaged in a traditional floss dispenser.
Nicki Rowland, Practice Manager at Perfect 32 Dental Practice in Beverley, was invited to be a consultant for the Mouth Cancer Foundation in light of her work to raise public awareness of mouth cancer and the mouth cancer screening service offered at the practice.
Palm Beach Gardens, FL – (February 3, 2013) – The University of Miami recently honored BIOMET 3i and a host of other organizations with the Heroes For Hope award for helping to support the university’s numerous medical clinics.
According to a recent report, the majority of the States throughout the US still need to increase their efforts against tooth decay. The report was presented by the Pew Center on the States. It says that due to the current situation, the cost of healthcare in the country continues to increase. The report assessed the current status based on polices that were activated staring from July 2012. | <urn:uuid:0af854fd-d47f-4758-af38-ea0a6e37ab21> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.incedental.com/tag/Oral-Medicine.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00556-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958417 | 522 | 1.992188 | 2 |
Important lessons arising from Massachusetts’ bold experiment with health care reform hold significant implications for community-based family planning health centers. Access problems presenting themselves in the state indicate that even after health care reform, these centers will continue to be needed as a critical source of high-quality, low-cost primary and preventive reproductive health care. At the same time, the Massachusetts example suggests that national health care reform opens the possibility for family planning providers to formalize and be compensated for another vital but under-recognized function they have long played—acting as an entry point to care for clients who may have had little or no other interaction with the health care system. The centers’ ability to successfully play either of these important roles, however, likely will depend on the extent to which they are fully integrated into the emerging health care marketplace—a potentially daunting challenge.
The Massachusetts Experiment
In April 2006, a sweeping health care reform measure was signed into law by then-Governor Mitt Romney. The new law required all state residents to purchase insurance coverage by July 2007 and all employers with 11 or more employees to either provide and help pay for coverage for their employees or else pay a penalty to the state. The legislation also established the Connector, an exchange through which individuals and small businesses may access coverage and that subsidizes coverage for individuals whose family income is below 300% of the federal poverty level ($32,490 for a single person and $54,930 for a family of three).
Two years into the experiment, insurance coverage has increased significantly. In 2008, 2.6% of Massachusetts residents were uninsured, compared with 6.4% in 2006. Moreover, the Urban Institute reports that more Massachusetts residents now than before the law’s implementation say that they have a usual source of medical care and that they made a medical visit in the last year.
Nonetheless, significant access problems remain. About one in five adults in the state reported that they did not get care they thought they needed in 2008. Notably, this proportion rose to nearly one in three among residents with an income under 300% of poverty. Similarly, one in five adults in the state said problems arose because physicians were either not accepting any new patients or not accepting patients with their type of insurance; rejection rates for low-income adults and those with public insurance were double the rates for higher-income residents and those with private coverage. These troubling findings underscore the continuing need for safety-net providers, even in the presence of universal or near-universal insurance coverage in Massachusetts or nationally. These providers can ease the impact of shortages and access problems caused in other parts of the system by the surging demand for care due to health care reform.
A critical question is whether community health centers (CHCs), the nation’s recognized primary care safety-net providers, can alone provide adequate access to family planning for low-income and disadvantaged communities. There are strong reasons to believe that they cannot.
CHCs are mandated by federal law to provide family planning, and nearly all report doing so, making them an important piece of the family planning provision puzzle. But nationally, their role is comparatively small. CHCs comprise 27% of all publicly funded family planning providers nationwide, but serve only 12% of the clients. In other words, a large number of CHCs serve a comparatively small number of family planning clients. According to Guttmacher data, the average CHC identifying itself as a family planning provider serves 400 contraceptive clients a year, whereas the average Planned Parenthood center serves about 3,000 clients annually.
Even in states with significant numbers of CHCs, this pattern remains. In the 26 states with at least 100 CHCs in 2006, CHCs reported seeing only 13% of the clients served by the entire network of family planning centers. In none of these states did CHCs serve even as many as one in four of these clients. In Massachusetts, which has 306 CHCs, the fourth largest number of any state, CHCs accounted for 21% of the entire network’s clients in 2006.
Moreover, anecdotal evidence emerging from Massachusetts indicates that health care reform does not reduce the need for dedicated family planning centers (i. e., those that primarily serve contraceptive clients): At least two large family planning providers have reported that their client numbers have either stayed level or increased. The total number of visits to providers at Tapestry Health Systems, a Title X grantee in western Massachusetts, remained essentially level from 2006 to 2009. At Health Quarters, a Title X grantee in the northeastern part of the state, visits fell initially and then rebounded; by 2009, total client visits were 15% above their 2007 level.
The difference since health care reform, however, is that both agencies have seen a large and growing proportion of clients covered by the newly established publicly subsidized health plans. Tapestry Health was billing roughly 125 clients per month in 2009, 8% of the agency’s clients, most of whom were previously uninsured. At Health Quarters, these plans accounted for 16% of client visits in 2009, the large majority of the agency’s privately insured clients.
A third large Title X grantee, Health Care of Southeastern Massachusetts, reports that it is losing family planning clients in some locations to nearby CHCs that do not receive large-Title X funds. However, Jenny Sheehan, director of reproductive health services at the agency, says that some of these CHC clients eventually return, either because they say they are more comfortable with the family planning staff they have known often for years, or because they want to obtain specific services. (For example, CHCs may not provide as wide a range of contraceptive methods, particularly long-acting reversible contraceptives, as do dedicated family planning centers.) Moreover, Sheehan makes the point that the CHCs in her area do not appear to be actively promoting their family planning services within the community, focusing instead on providing contraceptive services to their primary care clients. This reluctance to give their family planning efforts too high a public profile may essentially create a cap on CHCs’ reach as family planning providers.
All indications are, then, that although health care reform may bring coverage to more individuals, dedicated family planning centers will remain a critical component of the health care provider network. These centers can promote themselves as a source of the confidential care so critical to teens. They can also serve as a consistent source of services to young adults whose insurance coverage can be inconsistent but who are—by virtue of their age and lifestyle—at especially high risk of unintended pregnancy. At the same time, these community-based providers can reach out to low-income and disadvantaged women who may otherwise be reluctant to come in for contraceptive services and can serve those likely to be left out of even the best-intentioned health care reform efforts, including many immigrants (see box, page 4).
An Emerging Role
As dedicated family planning centers are likely to continue to be looked to by their communities as trusted health care providers, they are also likely to serve yet another critical, longstanding function: as an entry point to the health care system. For young women especially, this makes perfect sense, because it is their reproductive health care needs that typically bring them to reenter the system, post-pediatrics. Health care reform offers the opportunity for centers to formalize, and be compensated for, this role.
Because family planning centers serve a population often not yet connected to the health care system, they have long acted—largely unheralded—as a health care portal. The burgeoning Medicaid family planning expansions of recent years have allowed family planning providers to move into this role in a more formal way. Three states allow point-of-service enrollment into these expansion programs, meaning that enrollment actually occurs during a client’s visit. Other states allow family planning center staff to assist clients in preparing their applications, and some even compensate the centers for the application assistance they provide.
Health care reform offers an opportunity to build on this foundation, by allowing family planning centers to not only connect clients to coverage for family planning, but to help them enroll in a comprehensive insurance plan as well. Tapestry Health has already taken an important step in this direction. Even before Massachusetts launched its health care reform effort,Tapestry Health received a small grant from the nonprofit Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation in the state to assist clients in enrolling in Medicaid. This early funding enabled Tapestry Health to train its staff on how to use the state’s new Internet-based enrollment system. Once health care reform arrived, the state reached out to community-based agencies to assist with outreach and enrollment, and Tapestry Health’s prior experience positioned it to receive an outreach grant from the state.
This access enables Tapestry Health staff to assist clients in completing their application, submit applications for processing by the state and check the status of pending applications. Once clients are enrolled, says Suzanne Smith, director of health services at Tapestry Health, staff can help them compare insurance plan options, choose a health plan that meets their needs, change plans if necessary, help them select a primary care physician, and locate providers and labs that take their coverage. Tapestry Health staff can even help clients in an ongoing way, by assisting them to navigate plans’ Web sites to access information about their coverage or claims and understand the information and notices they receive from either the state or their plans. They help them understand the out-of-pocket costs that will be required and what they need to do to remain continuously enrolled. Since 2006, Tapestry Health staff has either enrolled or assisted almost 1,400 clients.
Beyond being the interface between clients and their broader health insurance coverage, family planning centers’ role as a health care portal allows them to be the interface between clients and their broader health care needs. As clients come in, they present with a range of needs. Family planning centers can directly address their reproductive health needs. For the broader range of care and services clients need, family planning centers can facilitate access by developing referral arrangements with other providers in the community. The difference after health care reform is that there is now a source of payment for these broader services.
To serve this important role as a health care portal, family planning providers will need to be an integral part of health plans’ provider networks. Being part of plan networks will allow them to be reimbursed for the contraceptive and closely related preventive care for which clients come to them. Moreover, it will facilitate and provide compensation for handing off clients for services beyond what family planning providers are able to offer directly.
According to data for 2003, this critical integration of family planning centers into health plans was uneven, at best, and there is no reason to believe that the situation has changed appreciably since then. Although 58% of family planning agencies nationwide had a contract with a plan to serve Medicaid enrollees in 2003, only 28% had a contract with a private plan. About half of private, nonprofit providers, such as those operated by Planned Parenthood affiliates or CHCs, had a contract with a private plan, but only 5% of health department providers indicated they had a private contract.
Given these currently low levels of contracting, moving the network of family planning centers into the future will be a daunting challenge. Clearly, some agencies have considerable experience with health plans and the intricacies of third-party reimbursement systems. Tapestry Health in Massachusetts, for example, has contracts with three of the four insurance plans created to serve low- and moderate-income individuals. But many have little to no experience. Only about half of the Title X–funded service sites in Arizona have any type of third-party payment arrangement, according to Karen Ford Manza of the Arizona Family Planning Council. “It’s the little agencies that were developed in direct response to community needs,” said Manza. “They’re the ones that don’t have outside payer arrangements, but they’re also the ones critical to getting people the care they need where no one else is available.”
The health care reform legislation winding its way through Congress provides an important opportunity to facilitate this transition. Of primary importance would be to include family planning centers among the types of “essential community providers” that health plans are required to include in their provider networks. This would preclude the unfortunate situation that has arisen in Massachusetts, where one of the four newly created subsidized health plans has declined to contract with family planning centers, limiting enrollees’ access to these trusted providers. In addition, it is critical that the legislation ensure that family planning centers are eligible for any assistance being targeted to aid community-based providers in modernizing their health information capability and putting in place the staffing configurations needed to become adept at third-party billing.
Once health care reform legislation is enacted, moreover, important implementation challenges will remain. One of the most critical will be to ensure that providers continue to be able to provide confidential care to those for whom the guarantee of confidentiality is essential to their willingness to seek services. Unfortunately, the typical mechanics of insurance plan operation— notably the practice of sending an explanation-of-benefits form to the primary policyholder— can preclude dependents from receiving confidential care. It is crucial that plans and providers work together to recalibrate plan processes to best balance plan transparency with confidentiality for those who need it and who may be unwilling to seek services in its absence.
The mechanics of plan operation may also need to be adjusted so that enrollees are able to obtain services in a timely fashion—avoiding delays or roadblocks if providers refuse to offer services related to contraception or decline to guarantee confidentiality (related article, page 6). To address this concern, many plans give enrollees the ability to obtain direct access to a reproductive health provider without first having to secure permission from a primary care provider. Most states, in fact, have laws requiring plans to provide at least some direct access. However, these policies and laws can provide only limited protection. For example, they often limit direct access to one visit per year. Although that enables a woman to get her annual visit, it does little to meet the need for contraceptive or STI services, which do not neatly correspond to an annual schedule.
Finally, family planning centers themselves may need to examine their operations, to maximize their role as an entry point to care for many of their clients. This might include implementing programs to assist clients in enrolling and accessing care, such as Tapestry Health’s efforts as an enrollment facilitator. It might also lead providers to consider expanding the breadth of the health assessments and screenings they provide at that point of first contact, to enable them to effectively refer clients for a broader range of followup care.
Without doubt, these challenges are significant. Overcoming them will require government support as well as a new level of cooperation between payers and community-based providers. But the payoff could be substantial. Health care reform, if properly structured and implemented, could open the door to a sustainable model for meeting clients’ reproductive health care needs, while leveraging the unique ability of community-based family planning centers to connect clients with both the coverage and the care they need. That would certainly appear to be a potential that more than justifies the effort.
Uninsured, Despite Health Care Reform
Health care reform may hold the promise of greatly reducing the number of Americans who lack insurance coverage, but even at its best, it is unlikely to eliminate the problem altogether. Even though reform in Massachusetts has halved the state’s level of uninsured residents, 2.6% remained uninsured as of 2008.
Nonetheless, more than twice that proportion, 5.9% of residents, were uninsured for at least part of 2008. Young adults, immigrants and low-income residents—groups who are disproportionately at risk for unintended pregnancy—were disproportionately likely to lack coverage at some point. Thirteen percent of residents who were low-income or who were aged 19–25 were uninsured for at least part of 2008—more than twice the level of state residents overall. Officially, 17% of non-citizens lacked coverage at some point, a level that almost certainly fails to capture the needs of those who are in the country illegally.
These data highlight the critical and ongoing role of community-based family planning providers committed to serving those who need care, regardless of whether they have coverage. For example, the number of visits from clients with no source of third-party coverage at Health Quarters in northeastern Massachusetts fell between 2007 and 2008, but then rose again in 2009, a trend mirroring the one seen for family planning visits overall. By June 2009, even as the agency was seeing more insured family planning clients, it was also serving more uninsured family planning clients than it had in 2007, highlighting the critical ongoing need for a source of care for those who continue to be left out, despite policy-makers best efforts to secure universal coverage. | <urn:uuid:91c21620-3acf-442e-a1c3-1ace3bc8f23f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2009/08/family-planning-centers-meet-health-care-reform-lessons-massachusetts | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571090.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809215803-20220810005803-00078.warc.gz | en | 0.968363 | 3,454 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Should We Aim to Defeat the Flu?
The campaign against coronavirus has had the side effect of reducing the spread of contagious disease more generally. The standard long-term plan for containing coronavirus involves a massive increase in testing so that we can identify and isolate those who have the virus. When disease rates become low enough, massive testing regimes, taking advantage of techniques such as test pooling, can be used to identify cases and prevent spread. If we are undertaking such testing for COVID-19, should we simultaneously be testing for flu? And if we do so, should we maintain such testing even after COVID-19 is defeated?
Globally, flu kills between 290,000 and 650,000 people per year. Placed in perspective, this is less than one-hundredth of one percent of the population. There is a strong argument that the costs of maintaining a test, trace, and isolate policy would not be worth that level of risk. The costs include the maintenance of testing equipment, the operation of such equipment, the hassle of periodic testing (more frequent when outbreaks are observed), any loss in privacy associated with the need to maintain records, and the loss of freedom inherent in quarantine policies (especially "smart quarantine" policies). Some of these will be offset by reduced treatment costs (roughly $10 billion per year in the U.S.) and reduced death and suffering as a result of containing the outbreak.
Yet perhaps the strongest argument for aiming to defeat the flu is that the annual exercise might leave us much better prepared to address a future pandemic, including one that could be worse than COVID-19, such as one that is the result of bioengineering, including bioterrorism. The COVID-19 pandemic has illustrated the proverb "for want of a nail." For want of hand sanitizer, masks, ventilators and the like, we have suffered massive consequences in both economics and health as we have sought to "flatten the curve." Even without any of those items, if massive testing capability had been deployable early in the year, we could have identified and contained small outbreaks.
In principle, we can increase our ability to fight the next pandemic without going after the flu each year. Increasing funding for the National Stockpile is a simple solution and need not be terribly expensive. If N95 respirators sell for 50 cents each, then a mere $1 billion a year would be enough to stock up on billions of masks over a few years, for example. But this solution requires constant vigilance. We can't change course in tough economic times when few are thinking about pandemics anymore. Moreover, merely having the relevant supplies is not enough. We need to make sure that we know how to deploy them at scale. For testing, this means not just having a much larger number of RT-PCR machines and supplies than currently exist, but also labs and personnel capable of using them.
A policy of attacking the flu could serve as a fire drill to prevent a more serious pandemic later on. If we can contain outbreaks of flu, then we will be in better position to contain some future virus early on. Of course, there is no guarantee. Flu is less contagious than COVID-19. If we rely on national testing capacity that can handle only a few local outbreaks simultaneously, then that provides no guarantee that we will be able to handle a greater challenge. The goal must be to be able to contain outbreaks locally, without the need to break in the CDC or even a state agency. In a regime in which flu outbreaks are used as drills for other more serious outbreaks, failure to achieve local containment ideally would be seen as a failure leading to a policy response. Local officials could learn from their own failures and from the failures of others.
Flu would not just serve as a drill to ensure that we have sufficient equipment and well-trained personnel. It would also serve as a drill for the legal system. In the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been many questions about the permissible and appropriate use of legal power, and more such questions await a "test, trace, and isolate" regime. When should we start a policy of social distancing? What should social distancing entail? Should workplaces have mandatory testing? What sick leave should those who test positive receive? Should we reduce privacy protections when an outbreak is suspected and if so, in what ways? How should we test new vaccines, and should we mandate or subsidize them? An annual flu outbreak would give an opportunity to address these questions, leaving both our medical and our legal apparatus better situated to handle more serious challenges.
I am not at all sure that an annual battle against the flu would be justified. The battle may not be winnable, given the high number of flu cases. Another concern is that if we start preventing the flu annually but then stop, our natural defenses might be considerably weaker. There is also a danger that we might focus our energies too much on potential dangers that look a lot like the flu, ignoring other dangers. But in looking at our past response to the pandemic danger, the problem has not been that we only considered the most obvious scenario; the problem has been that we ignored the most obvious scenario. The cost-benefit analysis must take into account costs and benefits beyond those focused specifically on the fight against flu. The real value of an annual battle to defeat the flu would be in better preparing ourselves for the next COVID-19 or worse.
Still, there is a danger of sacrificing too much to defeat the flu and to gain practice in defeating the next pandemic. While we're at it, should we attack the common cold? How about bacterial infections such as strep throat? There is some danger that in attacking small medical risks, we might adopt the principle that no amount is too much to spend to save a life. We do face trade-offs, and the conventional wisdom right now is that COVID-19 is worth containing, but the flu is not. My point here is merely that learning to contain lesser threats may help us learn to contain greater threats. | <urn:uuid:70001fff-0611-485a-b4af-05ea5061c69f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://reason.com/volokh/2020/04/10/should-we-aim-to-defeat-the-flu/printer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572127.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815024523-20220815054523-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.967265 | 1,247 | 2.796875 | 3 |
There is no inherent benefit in choosing a steel bicycle over an aluminium bicycle other than weight. A steel bicycle equipped with similar parts and with a frame designed for similar use will likely outweigh an aluminium bicycle, says noted bicycle expert Sheldon Brown. The International Bicycle Fund (IBF) states that frame choice is mostly a matter of personal preference.
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Steel as a Frame Material
Steel bicycle tubing comes in various wall thicknesses and relatively small tube diameters. Steel is an incredibly hard compound and appropriate bicycle steel tube size has largely remained unchanged. Steel welds are exceptionally strong. Steel compounds vary from manufacturer to manufacturer. A common steel tubeset used in bicycle frame manufacture is double-butted 4130 cromoly alloy steel.
Aluminium as a Frame Material
Aluminium is frequently alloyed in various combinations for use as a bicycle frame. Aluminium tubes use larger diameters and multiple shapes--ovoid, triangular, box, etc.--to increase strength ratios. Aluminium is more corrosion-resistant than steel. A common aluminium alloy used in bicycle production is 6001 series aluminium.
Bicycle ride quality is more dependent on tire size, seat and post selection and proper rider fit than frame material, according to Brown. Larger tires are more comfortable than thin tires. Saddles that fit an individual rider's physique are best. Carbon fibre seat posts are more comfortable than metal posts. Proper frame fit is one of the most important aspects of enjoyable cycling. A trusted local bicycle shop is the best place to ask about fit issues.
Aluminium and steel are both durable bicycle frame materials that may provide lifelong bicycle frames when manufactured properly, reports IBF. These materials are both damaged when exposed to the elements, but aluminium decays at a slower speed than steel. Both frames retain stiffness with age when welded properly, but steel is easier to weld than aluminium.
There are many exotic or super-lightweight steel and aluminium alloys that have come and gone in the last century of the cycling industry. Some of these are too new to report on ageing properties and some have aged well. Vanadium steel alloys and Scandium aluminium alloy tube sets have seen use for more than a decade in cycling and both have done well. The expense of some exotic alloys renders them unfeasible for mass production and instead these alloys are the preferred choice of many boutique frame manufacturers.
- 20 of the funniest online reviews ever
- 14 Biggest lies people tell in online dating sites
- Hilarious things Google thinks you're trying to search for | <urn:uuid:a11ad084-9fe9-4591-85b2-2f77259a2a2f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.ehow.co.uk/about_6720870_aluminum-chromoly-bmx-bike-frames.html | 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 | 0.934606 | 520 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Github is more than a version control service, it's place where developer contributes to the Community. Github is the ultimate place where you'll find some amazing free and ultimate resources for everything, from eBook to tutorials to lectures to projects and more. I have gathered list of some of the amazing Github Repository you can't miss to bookmark.
When learning CS, there are some useful sites you must know to get always informed to do your technologies even better and learn new things. Here is a non-exhaustive list of some sites you should visit. Contains: Articles, tutorials, jobs, eBooks, english improvement, podcasts and more.
gProfiler combines multiple sampling profilers to produce unified visualization of what your CPU is spending time on, displaying stack traces of your processes across native programs1 (includes Golang), Java and Python runtimes, and kernel routines.
gProfiler can upload its results to the Granulate Performance Studio, which aggregates the results from different instances over different periods of time and can give you a holistic view of what is happening on your entire cluster. To upload results, you will have to register and generate a token on the website.
gProfiler runs on Linux.
The Big List of Naughty Strings is an evolving list of strings which have a high probability of causing issues when used as user-input data. This is intended for use in helping both automated and manual QA testing; useful for whenever your QA engineer walks into a bar.
Visit -> Big list of naughty strings
A curated list of screencasts, recordings of user group gatherings and conference talks available online.
Visit -> Awesome talks
DesignStripe - Illustration Maker
Good web design aims to create an expression, have fluid communication, and achieve personalization. If you want to work on all three, then DesignStripe can do just that.
With whatever style or mood you intend to have for your illustrations, website or graphic, DesignStripe is sure to have something for your taste. Versatility is its gift to its users with a vast amount of different themes that it could cater to any field of work out there. If you want to do some customization, it is not a problem with DesignStripe. It has a capable set of tools that allow you to be as creative as you wish to be with your designs.
DesignStripe has a free version with unlimited access to its theme and customization.
The full version starts at $20 per month with unlimited access to all styles, entire scene customization, and downloads in SVG, PNG, and JPG format.
This repository is a collection of various materials and tools that many people use every day in my work. It contains a lot of useful information gathered in one piece.
Visit -> the-book-of-secret-knowledge
This is my multi-month study plan for going from web developer (self-taught, no CS degree) to software engineer for a large company.
Visit -> coding-interview-university
This is technically awesome. Front software development to hardware contains everything.
Visit -> Awesome
- this repository is a summary and curation of the top-ranked content on Node.js best practices, as well as content written here by collaborators.
Visit -> NodeJS Best practice
Visit -> WTFjs
Visit -> Real World
Developers and Open Source authors now have a massive amount of services offering free tiers, but it can be hard to find them all to make informed decisions.
This is a list of software (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc.) and other offerings that have free tiers for developers.
Visit -> Free For DEV
Visit -> The Algorithms/Python
A curated list of awesome Python frameworks, libraries, software, and resources.
Visit -> Awesome Python
Visit -> awesome-learning-resources
Carefully curated content to help you ace your next technical interview, with a focus on algorithms. System design questions are in-progress. Besides the usual algorithm questions, other awesome stuffs.
Visit -> Tech Interview Handbook
The Front-End Checklist is an exhaustive list of all elements you need to have / to test before launching your website / HTML page to production.
Visit -> Front-End-Checklist
Visit -> Project guidelines
Visit -> 30 Seconds of Code
Security engineering is the discipline of building secure systems.
Its lessons are not just applicable to computer security. In fact, in this repo, I aim to document a process for securing anything, whether it's a medieval castle, an art museum, or a computer network.
Visit -> How to secure anything
Visit -> CSS ProTips
Visit -> Public APIs
DrawKit can assure high-quality vector illustrations and visuals wherever and however you may need it. With vector capabilities, unique design sets, a vast library filled with different icons and symbols, and templates that can suit any mood you want.
It is one of the few tools that can integrate both 3d and 2d illustrations, so as we said, DrawKit can deliver on many different leagues of demand from the imagination of creatives.
The illustrations come at varying prices; while some are free, prices can range from $15 to $90, depending on bundle size.
Removal.ai is another background remover that can accurately erase backgrounds to your demand, and with AI integration, it is deserving of every bit of your trust to handle your graphics.
Whether you want transparent, white, or customized backgrounds, Removal.ai has got your back because it will automatically trace and detect the elements of your photo and remove the background impeccably. Moreover, you can do some customization yourself, editing the subject or foreground with available text and symbols. It is also available for free, so this is definitely a steal in the creative automation department.
Thank you for Reading. | <urn:uuid:426f31b0-f08b-4b9c-a51b-1a66758b1534> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://dev.to/devwriteups/25-github-repos-you-can-t-miss-to-bookmark-1ek1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572212.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815205848-20220815235848-00468.warc.gz | en | 0.91989 | 1,379 | 1.632813 | 2 |
A unique system that currently provides 18 custom-milled solutions for dental restorations in a variety of high-quality material choices.
The cornerstone to the NobelProcera system is the new conoscopic scanner, a unique and patented proprietary technology used for ultra precise and efficient data capture. Conoscopic holography is superior to other optical scanner techniques, such as triangulation, because the projected and reflected beams travel the same linear pathway to and from the scanned object. Steep slopes up to 85˚ can be measured with its co-linear scanning, as opposed to the limited capability of triangulation scanners, which ranges from 42˚ to 60˚.
The NobelProcera Scanner can digitalize convex (positive) and concave (negative) geometries that the laser beam is capable of “seeing” with coverage of up to 240˚ (180˚ + 60˚). This means complete and accurate scanning of everyday model work in the laboratory can be accomplished efficiently. In addition, this technology enables technicians to scan a very wide range of materials without the use of a contrast spray.
The laser beam is capable of “seeing” with coverage of up to 240˚ (180˚ + 60˚ undercuts).
The NobelProcera system has the accuracy to meet the laboratory’s needs for all of its CAD/CAM cases. These NobelProcera solutions range from tooth-born crowns in IPS e.max lithium disilicate; copings and bridge frameworks in high-strength ceramics (alumina or shaded zirconia), titanium, or cobalt chrome; to implant-born restorations, such as abutments in shaded zirconia or titanium; and milled titanium overdenture bars and superstructures to Telio CAD provisional crowns and bridges. With this system, precision-milled titanium implant bars that are compatible with more than 175 implant platforms can become routine offerings in the laboratory.
Each restoration that is produced in the Mahwah, New Jersey production center is manufactured under strict adherence to the medical devise ISO 13485 standard and independently checked to ensure it meets precise specifications before it is sent to the laboratory. This Precision Milled Restoration (PMR) process ensures that the CAD/CAM cases in the laboratory flow smoothly through the production process every day.
NobelProcera’s open-air design does not require a cowling to limit ambient light, which greatly improves the scanner’s user-friendliness for inserting or manipulating models and dies. This feature is possible because Nobel Biocare’s conoscopic technology has more measurement stability and is less susceptible to external light than other dental scanners.
The NobelProcera system is a comprehensive package that includes the scanner, the CAD software, the connection to the unique NobelProcera manufacturing process, and in-depth customer training and support. Together, they encompass the safety, science, and service for which Nobel Biocare is known. Incorporating this package in the laboratory allows dental technicians to do what they do best—design and finish dental restorations, without worrying about the costs or concerns of in-house milling.
The preceding material was provided by the manufacturer. The statements and opinions contained therein are solely those of the manufacturer and not of the editors, publisher, or the Editorial Board of Inside Dental Technology. The preceding is not a warranty, endorsement, or approval for the aforementioned products or services or their effectiveness, quality, or safety on the part of Inside Dental Technology or AEGIS Communications. The publisher disclaims responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any ideas or products referred to in the preceding material.
For more information, contact: | <urn:uuid:4de08a15-58b6-41b5-9d83-e9efff8e0d5a> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.dentalaegis.com/idt/2011/01/nobelprocera-scanner | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721174.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00282-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.902231 | 780 | 1.984375 | 2 |
The conference will be hosted on the historical site of the “Colégio dos Jesuítas”, Founded and granted by royal charter from D. Sebastião in 1569, the Jesuits' College of Funchal held its first lessons the following year on the 6th of May, feast of St. John the Evangelist, who became the patron of the institution. At the end of the sixteenth century, the college was transferred to its current location, quickly becoming one of the most important buildings on the Island of Madeira. It was built out of the island's stone and the first plan of the building was sent to Rome in 1575, to be reviewed and authorized by the authorities of the Society of Jesus.
The present decoration of the College is directly linked with the history of the University of Madeira (UMa). It was intended, during its foundation, to install the rectory in Quinta do Monte, leaving the College for ground of classes and research. Thus, the furniture that once served the Austrian Imperial Family, during its exile in Funchal, was brought to the College for its decoration. Pieces from the Institute of Arts and Design of Madeira and the Superior School of Education of Madeira, institutions that merged with the UMa, were added to its estate, as well as assets acquired for their patrimonial value. Located in the city centre you can easily access the sea front, historical centre and most of the hotels.
More info about Colégio dos Jesuítas. | <urn:uuid:f17de850-7e6a-488f-a3a7-d59102f5bdd5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://senses2017.unidcom-iade.pt/venue/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571198.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810161541-20220810191541-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.978658 | 321 | 1.8125 | 2 |
A primary message of the Acton Institute has been the essential complementarity of freedom and virtue, each depending on the other and each reinforcing the other. It was thrilling to see these themes at the core of the new encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, by Pope Benedict XVI.
After many months of rumors about how this document would amount to a devastating attack on “neoliberal economics,” the socialist left ended up less than thrilled by its contents. It is not a political document. There is a school of thought that believes the answer to all moral problems is institutional change. In some ways, this is the core belief of liberation theology: collectivizing ownership will lead to the perfection of humans. Caritas specifically rejects this view. The pope’s answer to the modern moral crisis is not the overthrow of the market in favor of socialism. The answer is in spiritual conversion which puts the Gospel and the concern for the common good at the center of the culture.
The pope makes it clear that the market is not something against which society must protect itself. On the contrary, the free market has lifted billions of people out of poverty, and continued economic development is essential for promoting an ethic of life.
“The pope speaks eloquently about the world and responsibilities of business, and underscores the immense challenges facing business in a globalizing world. “Business activity,” he writes, “has a human significance, prior to its professional one.”
He writes that the market “is shaped by the cultural configurations which define it and give it direction. It is not the instrument that must be called to account, but individuals, their moral conscience and their personal and social responsibility.”
This document will bear fruit both in scholarship and in cultural and economic development. Stay tuned to our work in this area, and please continue your support of our vital work. | <urn:uuid:cedf9927-da4b-4e47-a45b-cb4252d5cfbd> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://acton.org/pub/acton-notes/volume-19-number-7/presidents-message | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281151.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00116-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961855 | 385 | 2.125 | 2 |
Care: Troubleshooting 2
Troubleshooting 2：Looks tired and out of shape
In addition to carrying heavy luggage, bags often deform due to the effects of the climate such as dryness and humidity. Just pulling it by hand and adjusting the appearance of the outline will change the overall impression considerably. After that, it is more effective to stuff it and leave it for a couple of days.
Mr. Ozeki says that the key to pulling leather is to "do it in a warm place such as in front of a heater." The leather becomes easier to stretch, and leather craftsmen do this even in midsummer. Also, since leather hardens when it dries, it will be easier to work if you apply oil in advance.
Pack the repaired bag with a towel, etc., and hang it in a well-ventilated place for storage.This will prevent further damage.
A bag that has been totally distorted after many years of use. Unnatural dents, wrinkles, and line deviations are seen everywhere, giving the impression of being tired and worn.
Step 1. Soften the leather with oil
First, use a brush to remove dirt and dust, and then use a sponge to apply oil (Lanapar). The oil softens the leather, making it easier to stretch the leather from Step 2 and on.
Step 2. Correct the outline deformation
Pull on the deformed parts, such as distortion of the lines on both sides and bottom, and crushed gussets, to return to the original shape. If the leather is stiff, pull harder!
Step 3. Push out the corner from the inside
The dents in the corners can be pushed out from the inside with your fingers to reshape them. Instead of your fingers, you can use a stick with a rounded tip, such as the handle of a toothbrush. Push out firmly so that the corners come out.
Step 4. Rub and loosen the hard parts
If the leather is hard and difficult to pull, you can rub it with your fingers to warm it up with frictional heat and soften it. Instead of trying to do a wide area at once, it is better to stretch it while rubbing a small area at a time.
Step 5. Repair small deformations
Places where the same force is constantly applied, such as near the handle, are easily deformed. If there are any distortions or wrinkles that you want to get rid of, pull it with your finger and correct it so that it stretches.
Step 6. Make stuffing with newspaper
Fold newspaper and make some stuffing that is slightly larger than the outline of the bag. It is recommended to wrap the newspaper in white paper at the end to prevent color transfer to the bag.
Step 7. Stuff the bag and maintain the shape
Fill the bag with stuffing to maintain the restored shape. When putting stuffing, the key is to stuff it without gaps with the image of pushing out the wrinkles and distortions.
Step 8. Hang for 1-2 days
After adding the stuffing and shaping it, hang it in a well-ventilated shade and leave it for 1-2 days. By hanging it, it prevents it from losing its shape, and the newspaper packed inside absorbs moisture, making it easier to return to its shape.
Step 9. Finished!
The dented corner has been revived and the distortion of the line near the handle has been straightened. It also has a glossy appearance and a luxurious appearance!
Care goods to correct shape loss
1. A sponge for applying oil.
2. Lanapar recommended by Mr. Ozeki (250g / ¥ 3,150). A leather treatment containing beeswax and jojoba oil as the main ingredients, which has moisturizing, water-repellent, and antifungal effects.
3. Before starting work, brush it to remove dirt and dust.
4. Newspapers used as stuffing. The newspapers absorb moisture as well.
5. Before packing the newspaper in the bag, cover it with white paper to prevent color transfer.
Use an iron for stubborn deformations!
Ironing is effective for distortions and deep wrinkles that cannot be returned by just pulling by hand. Set to a low temperature, use a thin cloth, and iron to stretch. However, be aware that some leather may be damaged. | <urn:uuid:4494e1b8-ad9a-4fd4-9aba-04d91dd4dcc8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://japan-leather-guide.com/en/care/troubleshooting2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572908.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817122626-20220817152626-00068.warc.gz | en | 0.950811 | 899 | 1.539063 | 2 |
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Groups of travelers are returning to the United States after defying the federal government's ban on most travel to Cuba.
Members of the Venceremos (ven-ser-REM'-us) Brigade have been organizing visits to Cuba to protest the ban since 1969.
About 150 travelers are walking into the United States from Canada across the Peace Bridge in Buffalo Monday morning. They are being cleared through U.S. Customs without any immediate problems. They could be fined later. Other protesters planned to return via Mexico at a crossing in McAllen, Texas.
Since taking office, President Barack Obama has sought to reach out to Cuba by easing travel and financial restrictions on Americans with family in Cuba. But he has said he wants to see political or economic reforms before going further.
|< Prev||Next >| | <urn:uuid:f91cee43-4fcd-4885-bf1c-1959bf5a67b2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.myssnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6286:travelers-challenging-cuba-ban-return-to-us&catid=114:travel&Itemid=363 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280587.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00557-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961235 | 177 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Above Ground works to ensure that companies based in Canada or supported by the Canadian state respect human rights wherever they operate. We shed light on how Canadian business activities abroad are contributing to some of the biggest human rights crises of our times, from threats to Indigenous peoples’ survival to the global climate emergency. We advance solutions to hold Canadian companies to account for their impacts abroad, and to secure access to justice for victims of abuse.
What we do
Research and analysis
We produce in-depth research and analysis of the human rights impacts of multinationals based in or supported by Canada, the legal context in which they operate, and the Canadian government’s legal duty to protect against human rights abuse by the private sector. We build broader awareness and understanding of these issues through our publications and engagement with civil society, media and decision-makers.
See our latest news and publications
Collaboration and convening
We work in close collaboration with other human rights advocates in Canada and internationally to lay the groundwork for increased corporate accountability on human rights. We contribute subject matter expertise on legal and policy issues to several civil society coalitions, and convene key players to facilitate informed dialogue, analysis and action.
- We’re working with international colleagues in the ECA Watch network to draw attention to export credit agencies’ significant investments in fossil fuels and encourage a rapid shift of public finance into low-carbon solutions.
- In 2017, in partnership with the International Corporate Accountability Roundtable, we brought together over 100 participants from government, business, academia, the legal profession and civil society to explore international developments in corporate accountability and opportunities for Canada to become a leader in this field.
We advocate for legal and policy solutions, developing and promoting detailed recommendations to increase corporate accountability and access to justice. For instance:
- We’re convening legal experts to identify legislative amendments that would make Canadian companies liable for the harms caused by their subsidiaries and suppliers overseas.
- As a member of the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability we’re helping shape policy proposals to improve access to remedy for people harmed by Canadian companies abroad.
With this work, we’re building momentum towards the adoption of policy and legal frameworks that compel companies to respect human rights in their operations worldwide.
About the issues we’re working on
About our staff, advisory group and partners | <urn:uuid:ccc54e82-75b5-4fb2-bda4-cd024f4462eb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://aboveground.ngo/about-us-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572163.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815085006-20220815115006-00665.warc.gz | en | 0.927521 | 489 | 1.8125 | 2 |
DFS automatically adds volume entries to the VLDB when the DFS management context is initially created, when you create a new NSS volume, and during a VLDB repair process. Entries are not automatically added when you add a server with existing volumes to a container in a DFS management context or when you create an NCP volume. To add them, you must run the vldb repair command, which walks the tree and discovers the new volumes.
For OES 11 SP3 replica sites, you can optionally add an entry for a volume by using the vldb add command instead. This might be faster than running the vldb repair command, particularly when you have a large tree but only a few entries that need to be modified. If the volume’s eDirectory Volume object already contains a DFS GUID attribute, this GUID is added to the VLDB. Otherwise, this command generates a DFS GUID for the volume and stores it in the Volume object and in the VLDB.
To issue the Add command:
The VLDB service must be running on the replica site.
You must be logged in as the root user or equivalent in the terminal console on the Linux replica site.
The specified volume must already have a Volume object in the eDirectory tree, and be in the management context.
The action results and errors are displayed on the console from which the operation is done, and are written to the /var/log/messages file.
On the OES 11 SP3 replica site, open a terminal console, then log in as the root user.
At the terminal console prompt, view the current list of VLDB volume entries by entering
For each volume entry, the server name, volume name, and DFS GUID are displayed.
Visually verify that the volume does not already have an entry in the VLDB.
Add an entry for the volume to the in-memory VLDB by entering
For OES 2 SP2 or later, enter
vldb add VolumeFDN
For example, enter
vldb add .server2_VOL1.mycompany.TREENAME.
This command adds an entry for VOL1 on server2.mycompany.TREENAME to the VLDB database.
For OES 2 SP1, enter
vldb add svrname volname
Replace svrname with the fully distinguished server name. Replace volname with the name of the volume.
After successful authentication, the operation is performed on the in-memory VLDB, then is synchronized to the VLDB on the disk.
If you have a second VLDB replica site, the changes you make to the VLDB database on the disk are automatically synchronized to the second site. The second replica can be on a Linux or NetWare server. | <urn:uuid:33f1f817-baa7-40f9-877c-12de5e4d6e8c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.novell.com/documentation/oes11/stor_dfs_lx/data/bbklpa0.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 | 0.809395 | 599 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Established by INASP in 2007. Managed by Tribhuvan University Central Library.
Nepal Journals Online (NepJOL) is a service to provide online publication of Nepalese journals. For more information about NepJOL and how to join the service, see the About page.
Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences (EJMS) is an open-access, peer-reviewed, international medical Journal and published biannually with pISSN (2717-4646), eISSN (2717-4654), and doi (10.46405/ejms). The EJMS is an official publication of Nirvana Psychosocial Care Center & Research Institute, which was established in 2016 AD with the sole motive of encouraging researchers for research and publication, and providing mental health services. The EJMS has started in 2019 with a primary objective to promote innovative research and disseminate quality publications in the field of multidisciplinary domains of medicine and other specialties of allied health sciences. We are committed to meeting and upholding standards of ethical behavior of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and World Association of Medical Editors (WAME), that set standards and provide guidelines for best practices in order to meet these requirements at all stages of the publication process.
ABSTRACTING AND INDEXING: Currently, the Europasian Journal of Medical Sciences is registered with the following abstracting/indexing partners:
Google Scholar, CrossRef, Nepal Medline (NepMed), Nepal Journal Online (NepJol), JournalTocs, Schematic Scholar, Publons, and Index Copernicus.
For more information, please visit the website of the Journal. You can also check for the Home Page and Author Guideline for related information. The journal's full text is available online at:https://www.europasianjournals.org/ | <urn:uuid:99751ade-2b11-44b7-93b9-d7308f708b42> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.nepjol.info/index.php/ejms | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572870.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817062258-20220817092258-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.882455 | 399 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Significant Impact post Brexit
Seat v Incorporation – UK companies operating in the EU
The laws of different member states follow two varying approaches to determining a company’s domicile:
- the “incorporation regime”, which applies in the UK, where companies are regarded as subject to the company law of the jurisdiction in which they were incorporated, irrespective of where the company’s business is conducted; and
- the “seat regime”, which applies in states such as Germany and Austria, where companies are bound by the legal regime of the jurisdiction from which they are actually directed (their “seat”).
Currently, freedom of establishment applies to EU companies irrespective of the regime applied in their country of incorporation or the location of their seat. However, following Brexit, UK companies will become “third country companies” for the purposes of EU law, meaning that they can only establish themselves within the framework of the national regime of each member state.
Under EU law, third country companies:
- may be subject to access conditions;
- do not enjoy the protections provided by the EU legislation, exposing them to additional obligations and, theoretically at least, discriminatory treatment; and
- may expose their shareholders to unlimited liability where they develop their activities in a “seat” jurisdiction host state and fail to “requalify”. In these circumstances shareholders may become personally liable for all liabilities of the company.
The likelihood of the above measures being applied to UK companies post-Brexit varies between member states. However, the possible repercussions, in particular in cases where limited liability is not recognised, are sufficiently extreme that all UK companies and limited liability partnerships with their central administration or principal place of business in an EU member state should urgently seek advice to whether they need to take steps to restructure prior to Brexit.
Potential Significant Impact post Brexit
Termination, force majeure and frustration
Parties may wish to consider whether to make specific provision for Brexit when drafting corporate transaction documents and commercial agreements. Such provisions may include:
- Termination - If Brexit is likely to significantly impact on a transaction’s subject matter, the parties may consider including express suspension, termination or renegotiation rights in relevant contracts, to be triggered by the anticipated post-Brexit changes.
- Force majeure - The definition of force majeure could also be drafted to encompass certain Brexit-related events relevant to the subject matter of the contract. Alternatively, if a party is looking to ensure that a transaction is not effected by Brexit, and to prevent the other party from seeking to claim Brexit as grounds for any change in position, an express statement could be included to confirm that the force and effect of the contract (or select clauses of the contract) shall not be prejudiced or diminished by the UK leaving the EU.
The recent case of Canary Wharf v European Medicines Agency saw the contention that Brexit had frustrated a high value commercial lease dismissed by the High Court. It seems likely that this case will be followed in the event of any similar claims in the future and demonstrates that the courts continue to set a high bar in relation to the frustration of contracts.
For further information on the potential impact of Brexit on commercial contracts, please refer to Brexit: Implications for Commercial Contracts.
Jurisdiction and dispute resolution
Brexit could introduce complications to any disputes arising between parties where one remains in the EU and the other does not. Currently, the UK is subject to the Brussels Regime’s rules on determining jurisdiction for disputes which bridge more than one country from the EU Member States and/or the European Free Trade Association states (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland), but the Brussels Regime will cease to apply to the UK once it leaves the EU.
The UK’s accession to the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements will come into effect on 1 April 2019 and will give force to exclusive jurisdiction agreements entered into from that date onwards.
For more information on this topic and what steps may be taken in relation to current disputes or upcoming contracts please refer to Brexit: Implications for Commercial Contracts.
Lower Impact post Brexit
From exit day mergers involving UK entities will not benefit from the EU cross-border mergers regime, since this only applies to companies which are governed by the laws of EU member states.
EU companies’ ability to use English schemes of arrangement for re-organisations may also be impacted, although the extent of this impact remains unclear. Certain member states, including the Netherlands, are currently promoting rival procedures in efforts to secure this work.
Seat v Incorporation – EU Companies operating in the UK
No issues should arise post-Brexit for EU companies operating in the UK as a result of their originating in seat jurisdictions. As an incorporation regime jurisdiction, the UK will continue to respect these companies’ adherence to the regimes of their state of incorporation.
EU Companies with branches in the UK will become subject to the same filing requirements as any other third country’s companies. For example, an EU company, with a UK branch, that is required to prepare, have audited and disclose accounts in its home country will be required post-Brexit to file documentation in the UK which includes its accounts, any annual report and/or auditor’s report.
Certain Companies House forms will also be updated as a result of Brexit. Those currently envisaged as being impacted in this way are the forms IN01, LLIN01, AP02, LLAP02, AP04, CH02, LLCH02 and CH04.
UK citizens may face restrictions on their ability to be an owner/senior manager/director of EU Companies. Any restrictions will be member state-specific.
Societas Europaea will cease to be a valid form of UK-incorporated entity. Pre-existing Societas Europaea will have the option to convert to a UK public company subject to their having:
- been registered as Societas Europaea for at least 2 years; or
- had two sets of annual accounts approved. | <urn:uuid:aaa4051f-7899-4abc-bdca-2e3020ba6a92> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.charlesrussellspeechlys.com/en/news-and-insights/blogs/brexit-implications-for-you-and-your-business/corporate/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572192.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815145459-20220815175459-00072.warc.gz | en | 0.951841 | 1,280 | 1.609375 | 2 |
The Riviera Maya is a special place. That’s why Hacienda Tres Rios developed an eco friendly resort surrounded by lush jungles, tropical plants and exotic animals on a white sand beach along the Caribbean Sea. Near Cancun, the Riviera Maya is located in a safe and peaceful area in the southern region of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula that contains many natural activities and cultural attractions: nature reserves, eco parks, white beaches, the Caribbean Sea, tropical rainforests, underground rivers, cenotes, caves, and archaeological sites of ancient Mayan ruins.
Five must-see places in this tropical paradise are:
With a Playa del Carmen address, Hacienda Tres Ríos Resort lies on the outskirts of town, only a five-minute drive from La Quinta Avenida (5th Avenue), the famous promenade with trendy cafes, popular bars, hot nightclubs, outdoor restaurants, arts and crafts shops, and boutiques. The town’s European influence offers an eclectic variety of restaurants, cafes, and shops, in addition to its customary scuba diving, fishing, sky diving, and kiteboarding activities. Only 68 kilometers (42 miles) from Cancun, Playa del Carmen includes the ferry port for transportation to Cozumel island.
Famous marine explorer and diver, Jacques Cousteau, introduced the world to Cozumel island, a diving paradise with spectacular coral reefs and sea life along the great Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System. This part of the Caribbean Sea contains many tropical fish, exotic sea life, and colorful coral reef formations that make it ideal for snorkeling, deep-sea fishing, submarine tours, sailing, kayaking, glass bottom boat rides, and for swimming with dolphins. Only 60 kilometers (36 miles) south of Cancun, Cozumel is a 45-minute ferry ride from Playa del Carmen’s port.
Built on a cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea, Tulum is the only ancient Mayan city with fortress-like walls serving both to protect the seaside trading port from invaders and to separate the upper and lower classes. The Tulum Mayan ruins are recognized for their distinctive temples and pyramids, primarily El Castillo (the castle or lighthouse), the tallest and most famous structure at this Mayan archaeological site, which is located 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of Playa del Carmen and 130 kilometers (81 miles) south of Cancun.
The ecological and archaeological park of Xcaret features natural activities and cultural attractions, such as white sand beaches; inlet, rivers, cenotes; a botanical garden, aquarium, aviary, butterfly farm, exotic wildlife, turtle conservation programs, and even on-site Mayan ruins. One of the many vacation activities at Xcaret eco park includes a night show with authentic cultural, historical, and traditional Mexican performances. A great day trip, the park is 24 miles (38.5 kilometers) from Playa del Carmen and 37 miles (59.5 kilometers) from Cancun International Airport.
An authentic fishing village nicknamed the ‘Jewel of the Caribbean,’ Puerto Morelos has pristine beaches along the Caribbean Sea containing a portion of Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System; abundant fish make it an ideal spot for snorkeling and fishing. Local fishermen catch fresh fish daily, distributing to the town’s best seafood restaurants. Nearby attractions are The Cenotes Route, Croco Cun Zoo, and Yaax Che botanical garden. Centrally located, Puerto Morelos is only 22 miles (36 kilometers) from Cancun and 20 miles (32 kilometers) from Playa del Carmen. | <urn:uuid:cacfdc24-7d46-41a6-af3c-32cc0f3e5508> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.haciendatresrios.com/area-guide/discover-mexico-5-must-see-places-in-the-riviera-maya/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280504.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00142-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.885134 | 769 | 1.578125 | 2 |
CART Problem Solving Series
Superscript and Subscript
Communicating Sans Steno
Speech Recognition, Part I
Speech Recognition, Part II
Speech Recognition, Part III
Speech Recognition, Part IV
CART PROBLEM: People don't understand why accurate automated speech recognition is incredibly hard for a computer to do.
I hear it all the time: "Hey, where can I buy that software you're using? It's so cool! I want it for my cocktail parties!" or "Wow, is your computer the one writing down what I'm saying? How much did that cost?" or "Oh, so you're the caption operator? Hey, what's that weird-looking machine for? Does it hook into the speech recognition software somehow?"
So many people think that completely automated speaker-independent speech recognition is already here. They think it's been here for years. Why? Well, people have had personal computers for several decades now, and even before computers were affordable, they could see people on television -- on Star Trek, most prominently, but in nearly every other science fiction show as well -- telling their computers to do things, asking them questions, and getting cogent, grammatical answers back. Why was this such a common trope in popular culture? Because typing is boring. It's bad television. Much better to turn exposition into a conversation than to force the viewers to read it off a screen. So in fiction, people have made themselves understood to computers by talking for a long, long time. In real life, they never have, and I think it's pretty plausible that they never will.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not denying the utility of voice recognition software for the purposes of dictation. It's very useful stuff, and it's improved the world -- especially the worlds of people with fine motor disabilities -- immeasurably. But the following statement, while true, turns out to be incredibly counter-intuitive to most people:
There is a huge qualitative difference between the voice of someone speaking to a computer and the voice of someone speaking to other humans.
People who have used voice recognition software with any success know that they need to make sure of several things if they want a clean transcript:
1. They need to speak directly into the microphone.
2. They need to articulate each word clearly.
3. They need to be on their guard for errors, so they can stop and correct them as they occur.
4. They need to eliminate any background interference.
5. The software needs to be trained specifically to their voice.
Even so, not everyone can produce speech that can be recognized by voice recognition software no matter how much training they do (see Speech Recognition Part I for more potential stumbling blocks), and they'll also find that if they try to record themselves speaking normally in typical conversation with other people and then feed that recording through the speech engine, their otherwise tolerable accuracy will drop alarmingly. People don't speak to computers the way they speak to other people. If they did, the computers would never have a chance.
Why is this? The answer is so obvious that many people have never thought about it before: Ordinary human speech is an incredibly lossy format, and we only understand each other as well as we do by making use of semantic, contextual, and gestural clues. But because so much of this takes place subconsciously, we never notice that we're filling in any of those gaps. Like the eye's blind spot, our brain smooths over any drops or jagged edges in our hearing by interpolating auxiliary information from our pattern-matching and language centers, and doesn't even tell us that it's done it.
What does it mean to say that human speech is lossy? People don't tend to talk in reverberant sound stages with crisp, clear diction and an agreed-upon common vocabulary. They mumble. They stutter. They trail off at the ends of sentences. They use unfamiliar words or make up neologisms. They turn their heads from one side to the other, greatly altering the pattern of sound that reaches your ears. A fire truck will zoom by beneath the window, drowning out half a sentence. But most of the time, unless it's really bad, you don't even notice. You're paying attention to the content of the speech, not just the sounds. An interesting demonstration of this is to try to listen to a few minutes of people speaking in a language you don't know and to try to pick out a particular word from the otherwise indiscernible flow. If it's several syllables long, or if it's pronounced in an accent similar to your own, you'll probably be able to do it. But if it's just one or two syllables, you'll have a very difficult time, much harder than if you were listening to the same conversation in your own language -- even if the audio quality was much worse than the other conversation, with tons of static interference and distortion -- and you were trying to latch on to a familiar word instead.
Humans can ignore an awful lot of random fluff and noise if they're able to utilize meaning in speech to compensate for errors in the sound of it. Without meaning, they're in the same state as computers: Reduced to approximations and probabilistic guessing.
No computers can use these semantic clues to steer by, and they won't be able to until they've achieved real, actual artificial intelligence; independent consciousness. It's an open question whether that will ever happen (though I'm putting my money on nope), but it's certainly true that in 50 years of trying to achieve it, computer scientists have made little to no progress. What they have been able to do is to mimic certain abilities that humans have in a way that makes them look as if they're understanding meaning. If you say a word or phrase to a speech recognition engine, it'll be able to sort through vast networks of data, in which connections between sound patterns or words are linked by how common or prominent they are compared to the rest of the network. For example, if you said something that sounded like "wenyu dottanai", it would compare thousands of short speech snippets until it found several matches for sounds that were very close (though never completely identical) to what "wenyu" sounded like in your own individual voice, in your own individual accent. It would probably come up with "when you". "Dottanai", likewise, would go through the same treatment, and the vast majority of similar matches would come up "dot an i"; it's a very common phrase. In most circumstances, it would probably be a pretty good bet.
If you were using this engine to transcribe the optometry interview I transcribed this evening, though, the answer it came up with would be completely wrong. Because this optometrist wasn't talking about dotting an i or crossing a t. He was talking about measuring the optical centers of a patient's vision, which he does by marking dots on a lens over each pupil. It wouldn't be the computer's fault for not getting that; it wouldn't have been paying attention to the conversation. Computers just figure out probabilities for each new chunk of sound. On Google, "dot an eye" gets 11,500 results, compared to 340,000 for "dot an i". Mathematically, it was a pretty safe bet. Semantically, it was completely nonsensical.
It can be hard to convince people of this principle, because a lot of times they still want to believe in the Star Trek model of speech recognition rather than the actual real-life one. So I've come up with a few brief anecdotes and illustrations to help get the message across. It's awfully late, though, so I think I'll have to leave those for Speech Recognition Part III. Here's a teaser, if you're interested:
* Belize, the passport, and the pixelated photo.
* Why hasn't microphone technology improved more in 100 years?
* Why do OCR errors still exist in paper-to-digital text conversion?
* Your physics professor decided to do her lecture in Hungarian today, but don't worry; you'll get a printed translation in two days.
* Trusting big screen open captioning to an automated system is a mistake event organizers only make once.
* Determinism versus the black box.
* The Beatboxer model of voice writing. | <urn:uuid:f3f5a734-a1de-406e-af85-95bb79c62889> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://blog.stenoknight.com/2012/05/cart-problem-solving-speech-recognition.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281424.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00332-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973748 | 1,747 | 2.59375 | 3 |
One thing that is interesting about Product Cost Management is that people have different thoughts as to what is included in the product cost. Is the product cost the raw material, labor, and direct labor? What about the capital tooling? What about logistics and shipping? Oh, and what about warranty cost or end of life disposal fees for which your firm is responsible?
The short answer is E. All of the above.
In a product and manufacturing firm, everything on the income statement is included in the product cost. However, the income statement does not easily present a direct association between a particular cost with a certain product. Hence, accounting came up the concept of “indirect,” “period,” or “burden” costs. This is accounting speak for, “We’re not really sure how to reliably split this bucket of cost and assign it to an individual product.” Later, academics and consultants made a lot of money, and caused great pain and suffering, with Activity Based Costing. This method was invented to try to reasonably amortize indirect costs in a logical way, so that people could call them direct costs. ABC was a good idea, but in most companies, it was badly implemented in an impractical way that made everyone lose interest in it.
So, what IS in Product Cost? That’s a tricky question that we may be talking about for a long time. However, I would like to address one particular cost that is a perennial burr in my bell bottoms.
Grand Theft Auto — Yes Virginia, Capital is a Real Cost
Imagine you were selling your car and put a “For Sale” sign on it in the parking lot of your company. Over lunch one day, one of the engineers in your firm walks up to your desk and says he’d like to buy your car. You might say, “Great! I’ll make you a deal. It’s $5,000.” But the engineer looks at you in a confused manner and said, “Oh no, you see, I’m only responsible for the ‘variable’ costs of the car such as gas, insurance, those little pine tree air fresheners, etc. The capital cost of the car is not my problem. It comes out of ‘another budget,’ for which I am not responsible. Can I have the keys now?” You would not give him your car and might actually ask his supervisor to have the guy checked out for behaving in such an irrational way.
That’s a bizarre story, and no engineer that I know would say something like that… unless they are talking about Product Cost. I wish I had a dollar for every time an engineer or his manager told me that capital tooling “didn’t matter because that comes out of a different budget.” Capital Investment and Capital Tooling are real things that cost real money. However, most organizations treat them as if they are totally different than the variable product costs (e.g. raw material, labor, direct overhead, etc.). No, capital is not different, in the sense that the design team’s decisions will determine how much capital is needed, just as their decisions affect variable costs. However, at best, engineering teams will only consider capital as completely separate from the “Piece Part Price.” Many engineering departments do not consider capital in any serious manner at all.
This leads to perverse decision making. Why? Typically, investment in capital will reduce the variable cost of a part, and there are often multiple ways to make a part. For example, let’s say that you are Joey Bag O’Donuts design engineer, who has been given challenging cost targets for Piece Part Cost. You design a part and your purchasing guy comes back with quotes from 3 suppliers:
|Supplier||Piece Part Cost||Capital Tooling Cost|
|Louie’s Laser Library||$15.10||$1,000|
|Pete’s Press Emporium||$12.50||$15,000|
|Chuck’s Casting Shack||$10.50*||$13,000|
* Redesign will be required to use Chuck as a supplier
Of course, capital is “considered” by Joey’s engineering team, but it’s hard to comprehend because it is considered separately from variable costs. Joey would likely choose Pete as a supplier because Pete is cheaper on Piece Part Cost. Joey won’t have to redesign as he would if Chuck was Joey’s supplier. Joey’s Cost Target is based on Piece Part Cost. Sure, his supervisor tells him to “watch the capital,” but the capital budget is this big amorphous pot of money that everyone shares, so Joey is not personally penalized for using it.
However, using a bit of eighth-grade math, we can graph the real cost to the company, including the capital amortized over the life the tool. We see that the right decision for maximum product profit depends on the volume of products we will sell before more capital needs to be spent to refurbish or replace the tool.
Capital is Different… It’s MORE Important Than Piece Part Cost
The attitue of most product development teams towards capital shows that they implicitly believe capital is LESS important than the Piece Part Cost. However, I would argue that the opposite is true for at least 3 reasons:
- Time Value of Money — You have to buy capital up front, spending the dollars earlier. Using sophomore math and a proper cost of capital for the organization, you can calculate how much more expensive capital is than variable costs.
- Risk of Change — Capital Tooling is often called “hard tooling” because it is made for a specific part. Often out of hardened steels that are expensive to manufacture and machine. But, the tooling is ‘hard’ in another way: it’s hard to change. Let’s say that Joey’s part failed in the field and needed to be modified. It’s likely that the tooling will need to be to be modified, and tooling modifications are expensive. So, how do we account for the risk of changes in calculations of tooling cost? I will have to look into that, or perhaps, one of our readers can suggest a method. One method would be to ask the following questions: What percentage of parts are modified after tooling is created and what is the average cost of tool modification as a percentage of the original tooling cost? Using these two numbers, we could create a reasonable risk multiplier for capital.
- Return on Assets — Since the 1980’s, Wall Street has been obsessed with “asset light” companies. Some of this is just Wall Street codifying reasons 1 & 2 in the stock price. However, a lot of this has to do with leveraged buyouts and other financial “engineering” voodoo. Regardless of whether assets light strategy really adds or subtracts value from the firm, Wall Street thinks it does.
These are just three reasons why capital is an expensive cost that should be considered as part of product cost and considered together with piece part cost. There may be others, too, but at the end of the day remember:
Cars are not free and neither is the capital tooling for your product.
This advice may help keep you out of jail and/or the world of unprofitable products. | <urn:uuid:2a397eec-82fe-40c6-bc59-a29776725e95> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.hillerassociates.com/whats-in-a-product-cost-part-1-grand-theft-auto-capital/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570793.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808092125-20220808122125-00669.warc.gz | en | 0.962931 | 1,575 | 2.25 | 2 |
The pandemic has raised a spotlight on wellness in the travel industry which is why, despite being a relatively new segment, wellness tourism is now growing at a 50% faster rate than conventional tourism. And there are no signs of it slowing down. By 2030, it is projected to be a USD 1.6 billion industry.
Here is how tours, activities, and attraction businesses can make the most of wellness travel in their strategy.
What is Wellness Travel?
Wellness Travel is defined as a form of tourism that integrates activities that benefit your well-being. And more people recognise its importance, with 79% of travellers citing that travel helps with their mental and emotional well-being.
Wellness tourism can come in various forms, but what sets this apart from traditional travel is the conscious decision to travel for one’s health. That said, wellness is subjective and relies on the traveller to determine what is good for their physical or mental health. While there is no cookie-cutter approach, there are some things that tours, activities and attractions businesses can do to attract wellness tourists.
Turning The Journey Into The Experience
According to a recent survey, 75% of people said that travelling is more enjoyable when the journey feels like the trip itself. After all, travellers in 2022 want to make the most out of every moment, including the journey.
How can you make this happen? Through pocket experiences that add value to the whole trip like:
- Hiring private chauffeurs who know the area's ins and outs can provide tours on-route to the destination as an experience opportunity. Gone are the days of tiresome airport transfers.
- Guides for foreign transportation allow tourists to enjoy everything a destination offers and explore the way local people do without the risk of getting lost. In fact, 58% of travellers said they enjoyed foreign transportation in a new city, despite the uncertainty.
- Private travel like helicopters or light aircraft can make things extra special and be an experience, especially if the trip includes a tour or viewing the destination from the skies.
When the journey itself becomes a positive experience, travellers are put in the right mindset needed to take a break and thoroughly enjoy their trip.
Wellness Travel Experiences
Through wellness experiences, travellers can truly unplug and recharge. However, there is not a one-size fits all approach. Wellness can take on different meanings to different people. For example, some travellers would benefit from regular travel updates to heighten the sense of excitement and reduce the stress surrounding travel. While for others, it is more about the types of activities included in the experience.
Make the most of the natural
People have been soaking in natural geothermal baths for years due to their benefits, but some operators have elevated this experience. For example, Gray Line Iceland has created a ‘Golden Circle Classic and Sky Lagoon Bathing Experience’, which combines a walking tour among the geological marvels of Þingvellir National Park with a seven-step ritual in the Sky Lagoon outdoor spa.
Native exercise classes
Exercise is vital to mental and physical health; enjoying yoga or traditional fitness classes from the destination can profoundly impact and create a unique experience. Moana Adventure Tours, for example, offers a private Bora Bora Island yoga and lagoon experience that allows you to take in the island paradise while being genuinely present!
Healthy catering options
Food is nourishment, and for many, their wellness trip is an opportunity to reset and get back to focusing on the basics. But it can be challenging to find healthy catering options, healthy food tours, or understand what is beneficial in foreign cuisine. Tours, activities and attractions operators focusing on wellness should include more than a traditional salad on the menu and consider appealing to the 'foodies' with healthy tasting menus or food tours and experiences.
Ultimately, wellness travel is growing in popularity, which means it presents a unique opportunity for tours, activities and attractions businesses to encourage more travellers and stand out among the crowd. | <urn:uuid:b0138bce-c669-4a9d-99c2-92cc824cdb63> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://livn.world/news-views/wellness-travel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572221.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816060335-20220816090335-00077.warc.gz | en | 0.942495 | 817 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Natural Dyeing and the Plants to Dye For groups on Ravelry.
Black walnuts (Note on amounts: I have found that a rich brown dye can be achieved using about 1 dozen black walnuts for every 100 gm skein of wool yarn.)
Yarn (I have mainly used 100% wool so far, other protein fibers should work as well.)
Cooking pot, strainer, and tongs, all designated for dyeing only
Gloves, to keep hands from being stained as well
Scrap cotton yarn, for tyeing skeins
Alum, and cream of tartar, for mordanting (optional)
Preparing the Yarn:
1. Start with yarn in skeins. Use scrap yarn to tie skeins in at least 4 places. The scrap yarn should be tied firmly enough to prevent your skein from coming loose and tangling in the dye pot, but not so tight that dye will not reach the fiber evenly.
|A swift comes in handy if your yarn is not already in skeins.|
|A figure 8 tie keeps yarn in place.|
2. Soak skeins of yarn in lukewarm water for 20 minutes. Wet yarn will absorb the dye (and mordant) evenly.
3. Optional step - Mordanting your yarn:
(Note: Mordanting is a process of using chemicals to ensure that dyed yarn will be colorfast, and/or to affect color results. I have read that it is unnecessary to use mordant when dying with black walnuts. But when I have done other natural dyeing, alum has enhanced gold colors. My first black walnut dyed yarn had been mordanted with alum, and I liked the resulting color, so I have continued to use alum. Adding 2 teaspoons of cream of tartar will help ensure even distribution of color. I like a little variegation so I just used the alum.)
Dissolve alum in a pot of lukewarm water. I used 2 tablespoons of alum for every 100gm skein. Add wet yarn to pot. Place pot over heat and bring to a simmer (180-190 deg. F) for 1 hour. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
|Without stirring or agitating wool, gently turn yarn over |
and move it around so that it will be evenly mordanted.
Preparing the Dyebath:
1. Using gloves, place whole walnuts (with outer husks intact) in a cooking pot. Fill the pot the rest of the way with water, and allow walnuts to soak overnight.
|I got very nice caramel color using fresh green husks.|
2. Preferably outside, place walnut dyebath over heat, and bring to a simmer. Cover with a lid and continue to simmer the walnuts for 2 hours. I say "preferably outside" because, although the dyebath is not toxic, there will be a strong odor!
|This outdoor cooker, is my designated dyepot.|
3. Pour the dyebath through a strainer, and discard the walnuts. At this point you can use the dyebath immediately, or store it for future use. I have kept walnut dyebath, with a tight lid, and in a cool place, for weeks with no discernible change in quality.
Dyeing the Yarn:
(Note: Yarn that has been soaked and/or mordanted, is ready for the dyepot. Remember that although wool can be safely heated to just below the boiling point, it just does not like sudden temperature changes. So, you should have both your wet yarn and your previously made dyebath cooled off, OR it is okay to move your newly mordanted yarn, still hot, to a similarly heated dyebath.)
1. Place wet yarn into dyebath. Place dyepot back over heat, and bring back to 180-190 deg. F.
2. Maintain yarn at a low simmer for at least 40 minutes, longer for a darker color. With tongs, gently move yarn around occasionally for even saturation. Do not stir or agitate wool in the heat or it may begin to felt.
3. Remove pot from heat. At this point, you can allow the yarn to cool in the dyebath, or gently move it to a separate container. Either way, allow it to cool gradually. Discard your dyebath if is exhausted. If it is not exhausted you may reuse it if you would like to dye more yarn in an “afterbath” for a lighter color.
|Exhausted dyebath is the container on the left.|
Unused dyebath is in the container on the right.
4. Once the yarn is cooled off, you are ready to wash it. I usually fill a plastic tub with room temperature water and allow yarn to soak for a few minutes as a first rinse, and then repeat with a wool wash. Repeat rinses until water runs clear. I then blot the skein dry with a towel and hang it outdoors to dry.
Step 5. Stand back and admire your hard work!
The final color will depend on a variety of factors, including which base yarn you start with. Tomorrow I will show some before and after pictures of different types of yarn, and on Finished Object Friday, I will post my first FO with my hand-dyed yarn! | <urn:uuid:c7999ee8-27d4-40a9-ad99-60addf08f9f8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.affiknitty.com/2010/09/black-walnut-dyeing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280504.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00142-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91784 | 1,139 | 2.140625 | 2 |
2030 targets require tripling of climate protection investments
A study commissioned by Agora Energiewende and Forum New Economy shows that achieving a 65 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 compared to 1990 would require climate protection investments to be up to three times higher than currently estimated.
PUBLISHED8. SEPTEMBER 2021
READING TIME3 MIN.
In order to achieve a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 65 percent compared to 1990 in 2030, almost 30 billion euros of federal funding will have to flow into climate protection each year – almost twice as much as previously estimated. Together with further financial requirements at the municipal level, this means that climate protection investments will need to be up to three times as high overall, as a study commissioned by Agora Energiewende and the Forum New Economy shows.
Berlin, September 07, 2021 – The German federal, state and local governments must provide noticeably more public funding for climate protection than previously planned in order to achieve the 2030 target of 65 percent greenhouse gas reduction compared to 1990. Public spending of around 80 billion euros is planned for the period from 2021 to 2025 as part of climate protection and economic stimulus programs and the emergency climate protection program. This corresponds to just over a third of the investment sum required for climate protection over the next five years, according to a joint analysis commissioned by Forum New Economy and Agora Energiewende. According to the study, the public financial requirement for modernization investments in this area over the next ten years (2021-2030) as a sum of federal and municipal investments amounts to around 46 billion euros per year, of which just under 30 billion euros per year is accounted for by the federal government. “Regardless of who provides the new government, a public investment offensive must be launched for the climate protection measures that are needed now, otherwise there is a risk of missing the climate targets,” says Dr. Patrick Graichen, director of Agora Energiewende. The calculation of the financing gap took into account planned expenditures until 2025 in federal and European programs, but not funds provided by municipalities, which are expected to account for only a fraction. In addition, a constant investment path over time was assumed. This results in a general government financing gap of up to 150 billion euros, assuming a need of 230 billion euros over the next five years.
The public investment requirements for climate protection of around 46 billion euros per year by 2030 calculated by the authors are thus significantly higher than previously assumed. Existing studies assume an overall economic investment requirement in this area of around 70 billion euros per year. However, a highly regarded study by the German Economic Institute (IW) and the Macroeconomic Policy Institute (IMK) estimates the public sector’s share of this at just 15 percent.
The annual financial requirement of around 46 billion euros quantified in this study corresponds to only around 6.3 percent of gross economic investment and 1.3 percent of gross domestic product in 2019.
By way of comparison, the federal and state governments made 30 billion euros available this summer just to support the reconstruction of regions in western and southern Germany that were particularly hard hit by floods and heavy rain. “The famous Swabian housewife is now investing in climate protection instead of always having to clean up climate damage for a lot of money,” Graichen said.
The study’s total investment requirement of 460 billion euros breaks down as follows: Direct federal investments amount to around 90 billion euros, including 50 billion euros for investments in the expansion and digitization of the rail network. In addition, there is a public funding requirement to promote private investment, for example for energy-efficient building refurbishment, of around 200 billion euros, if the current values of ongoing subsidy programs are taken as the subsidy rates. Assuming that the promotion of private investments is essentially a federal task, the financial requirement for climate investments from a federal perspective thus amounts to around 290 billion euros. Added to this is the financial requirement for municipal climate investments of around 170 billion euros, the majority of which is for the expansion of local public transport (100 billion euros).
The public financing requirements for climate investments were determined using a bottom-up approach based on existing studies. The analysis is based on the technological transformation path KN2045 of the study “Climate Neutral Germany 2045” by Prognos, Öko-Institut and Wuppertal Institute. Since quantifying the requirements is associated with macroeconomic and political uncertainties, the results of this analysis are to be understood as approximate values.
The study “Public Financing Requirements for Climate Investments 2021-2030” has been published in cooperation with the Forum New Economy. Lead author is Prof. Tom Krebs from the University of Mannheim.
The 37-page publication is available for free download HERE. | <urn:uuid:cb20c40d-3bdc-45aa-8c91-aab9de20ee6b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://newforum.org/en/2030-targets-require-tripling-of-climate-protection-investments/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573699.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819131019-20220819161019-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.941318 | 994 | 2.390625 | 2 |
For those who love the look of granite or marble but are concerned about its maintenance, quartz may be the stone of choice.
Quartz is the most common mineral on earth and is present in nearly every geological environment and is a component of nearly every rock type and exists in an impressive range of varieties and colors. Quartz ranks 7.0 on Moh’s Hardness Scale, which is used to measure the scratch resistance of a material. Only the diamond (at 10), topaz and sapphire (at 9) are harder than quartz.
Engineered stone surfaces combine the hardness and durability of quartz with the exceptional low maintenance qualities of man-made materials. Quartz slabs are formed by a vibro-compacting process which combines 93% quartz crystal with 7% resin and pigments. Slabs are free of fissures and cracks and are impervious to hazards such stains from cooking oils and grease, or etching from acids in common household products such as hairspray and other toiletries. Quartz does not have to be sealed and cleaning it is simple. Most quartz slabs are uniform in pattern and color and are available in the thickness 2cm or 3cm, though we recommend the latter. The fabrication process of engineered stone is identical to that of natural stone.
Most manufacturers of quartz offer a 10 or 15 year residential and commercial warranty.
View colors of each brand by clicking on logos.
Granite is a 100% natural stone.
It is the most common rock and is millions of years old. It is formed by volcanic activity and the extremely high temperatures yield a very hard, resistant stone made of crystalized minerals.
Granite and marble is quarried all over the world – Brazil, India, Italy, Norway, Egypt and Africa, to name a few, but this information has no effect on the price or quality of the stone.
Granite boasts hardness second only to diamonds, therefore it is extremely scratch, stain, and heat resistant. It is virtually scratch proof – utensils, keys, even cutting directly on the countertop won’t scratch the granite. It is also fire proof and will not burn. Inclusions and fissures are normal and will not affect the function of the granite. Since it is a natural material it is subject to variation in color and pattern. No two granite pieces are alike, making each piece one of a kind.
Most granite used for countertops is polished to a high gloss finish but a honed (matte-like), leathered, brushed, and flamed finish is also available. Finger prints, metal marks, and other signs of daily living are more apparent on honed material, especially the darker colors. Granite is also suitable for use on fireplace surrounds and outdoor applications.
Granite is available in hundreds of colors and patterns from simple whites and greys to wild multi-color mixtures. Its beauty cannot be duplicated.
Read our natural stone care tips for information about granite care
Marble (limestone, travertine, onyx) is a much softer and more porous rock than granite. It begins as sediment, which solidifies into stone over millions of years. It has less resistance to stains and scratches, and because its main component is calcium, it is highly reactive to acids, which will etch the stone and leave dull markings.
Marble is a softer stone than granite but not as soft as soapstone. It is a favorite for bath vanities and because of the cool-to-the-touch, nonstick surface marble also makes a great preparation area for baking centers in the kitchen. Marble may also be used as a kitchen countertop but it requires special maintenance and care.
The most common surface finishes for marble are a polished or honed (matte-like) finish. A polished surface will protect the surface by sealing open pores and making it less porous than a honed finish. A honed finish, however, will not show etching as much as a polished surface.
Marble is an elegant stone available in a variety of colors from pure whites to earth tones to blacks with unique veining in each.
Read our natural stone care tips to learn about marble maintenance.
Soapstone (also known as steatite) is a metamorphic rock. The material is used for countertops, sinks, masonry heaters, flooring, and other architectural applications. Soapstone is composed of several minerals, the main component being talc. Although soapstone is softer than most other natural minerals, it is very dense (non-porous); more so than marble, slate, limestone and even granite. Since soapstone is impenetrable, it will not stain - no liquid will penetrate its surface. It is unaffected by acids in foods and chemicals.
Soapstone in its initial state only comes in shades of grey, but after oiling the colors range from dark green to charcoal black. Soapstone has a rustic, yet rich look, which makes it versatile enough to fit a traditional or contemporary home.
Learn about oiling and maintenance by reading our soapstone care tips. | <urn:uuid:35e380f9-d430-42f5-89a5-090f9c14e32b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.stoneartdesign.com/countertops | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573667.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819100644-20220819130644-00065.warc.gz | en | 0.951836 | 1,070 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Wayne farmers see bumper corn crop
By Staff and Wire
Published in News on July 15, 2004 1:59 PM
Harold Overman of Grantham is cautiously optimistic about his corn crop.
"I hate to brag, because it's not in the bin yet," he said. "A storm could blow it down."
But Overman says this crop is probably going to be his best ever.
He and other corn growers in Wayne County expect to be harvesting in the next couple of weeks.
The rain has been a little heavy. But the crop was far enough along to not be adversely affected. Even with the high temperatures this past couple of weeks, which would normally burn a crop, there were some showers to cool it down, he said.
Wayne Cooperative Extension Director Bob Pleasants said the corn in the central part of the county hasn't dried enough to start shucking yet, but the corn in some other sections is about ready. Some corn in sandy spots has lost a some nitrogen from too much water. Some didn't pollinate at the tip of the ear.
But overall, he said, the corn looks good.
"It depends on where you are," he said. "Some needs more water. Most is maturing rapidly. What I've seen has been good. There's a lot of potential there."
Wayne County is not alone in seeing a potential bumper crop.
The U.S. Agriculture Department is predicting that farmers could produce a record corn harvest this year of 10.6 billion bushels.
The department forecast is up 210 million bushels from last month and 521 million bushels from last year. Weather has been mostly good for production of the nation's most abundant crop, the department said. The previous record, in 2003, was 10.1 billion bushels.
However, exports of the current crop are expected to drop 90 million bushels, the department said. It said Argentina has been giving the United States increased competition, and some U.S. sales had been canceled.
Prices for the crop will range from $2.30 to $2.70 a bushel, a 25-cent drop from its forecast a month ago, the department said.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
Other Local News
- Care in the sky: Members of the aeromedical evacuation crew fight to get injured troops back to their families | <urn:uuid:4adf7180-a978-44e9-890f-e4814935018a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.newsargus.com/news/archives/2004/07/15/wayne_farmers_see_bumper_corn_crop/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279224.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00475-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979666 | 501 | 1.90625 | 2 |
How to Make Phone Numbers Callable in Google Sheets?
When you click on an email link on the webpage, it opens your default mail program. Similarly, you can make a phone number on your website “Callable”, which means that when someone clicks a phone number, it will launch the dialer on its mobile phone and start dialing the specified phone number.
It is recommended that you make phone numbers clickable because more and more people will be able to access your site on their mobile devices.
How to Include Clickable Phone Numbers in Web Pages
We use simple tail protocols to convert a plain text phone number to a clickable telephone link on a web page.
For example, if you click this link on a mobile phone, it will open the prefilled phone dialer with the specified number. Copy-paste numbers are not required.
How to type phone numbers in GOOGLE Sheets
Typing a phone number inside Google Spreadsheets is a bit difficult. Why here?
Phone numbers are mostly made up of digits before the plus (+) symbol. As soon as the problem is to add a plus sign to the spreadsheet cell, it assumes that you enter the math formula and try to calculate the value.
There are two simple functions for this problem. You can attach the phone number inside the double quotes (“) and you can already add it with equal (=) sign.
Using a single coat (‘) before the phone number is an easy choice. Google Sheets will consider the value of a cell as text and phone number formatting will be preserved.
How to click phone numbers in GOOGLE Sheets
For the main problem, how do you make phone numbers inside a Google Sheet clickable? The obvious answer is to use the = HYPERLINK () method with the protocol, unfortunately, Google Sheets does not support it.
So a formula such as = HYPERLINK (“tel: 12345”, “call me”) will not work because bed sheets will only allow regular http and mailto hyperlinks. Although there is a simple functioning.
You can create a regular hyperlink in the indicated cell on a website which in turn redirects to the actual telephone link. To view it in action, add https://ctrlq.org/call/ before any phone number in Google Sheets and it will be converted to a clickable telephone link.
Suppose you have a phone number in cell A1. Add this simple form to any other cell and it will create a telephone link just like a regular webpage.
= HYPERLINK (“https://ctrlq.org/call/” and A1; “Call our support team”)
To get a better idea, open this phone number Google Sheet inside your Android or Sheet app of iPhone and try clicking on any phone link. | <urn:uuid:6b160033-5a28-4a46-82f6-fb03ff5d22bb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://techvilas.com/how-to-make-phone-numbers-callable-in-google-sheets/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572163.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815085006-20220815115006-00670.warc.gz | en | 0.853266 | 599 | 2.375 | 2 |
The Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV), born at Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management in 2007, has added a fifth partner to its national consortium. The Krannert School of Management at Purdue University officially joins Whitman, UCLA Anderson School of Management, Mays Business School at Texas A&M and Florida State University’s College of Business as part of a groundbreaking free program designed to assist veterans with disabilities and offer training in small business start-up and management to servicemen and women injured in the line of duty since 2001.
“By offering veterans with disabilities the tools to create and grow their own businesses, we are helping them fight yet another battle ”“ the battle for their own economic freedom,” says Mike Haynie, assistant professor of entrepreneurship at the Whitman School, creator of the EBV, and a former U.S. Air Force major. “There is, perhaps, no better way to thank them for their extraordinary service than to demonstrate our confidence in their bright futures.”
The EBV integrates world-class faculty, entrepreneurs, disability experts and business professionals in an educational program focused on training veterans in the competencies associated with small business ownership. Entrepreneurship is a way for veterans to make a way for themselves and their families, and to re-engage the economic engine of their communities and ultimately the nation.
The Whitman School of Management says business ownership offers veterans the opportunity to “own their futures” while also offering the flexibility to accommodate the unique challenges associated with a service-connected disability. Participating schools say this consortium represents one of the first, significant partnerships of its type since World War II.
Applications for the EBV are accepted on a rolling admissions basis and are on a first-come, first-served basis.”The Krannert School is honored to be part of the EBV consortium,” says Rick Cosier, Krannert School dean and Leeds professor of management. “Helping the veterans with disabilities of this millennium understand how to start their own businesses and become entrepreneurs is a noble calling for any business school. The faculty and staff at the Krannert School eagerly look forward to our first EBV class.” | <urn:uuid:144009a4-dddc-4bc5-8fee-31fa1416683b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.stacyblackman.com/2008/12/23/entrepreneurship-bootcamp-for-vets-with-disabilities-adds-purdue-to-national-consortium/ | 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 | 0.95762 | 461 | 1.75 | 2 |
Which Joe gave his name to ‘sloppy joes’? We look at five interesting sandwiches and their lexical origins.
1Arousing intense distaste or disgust:‘a repulsive smell’
revolting, disgusting, abhorrent, repellent, repugnant, offensive, objectionable, vile, foul, nasty, loathsome, sickening, nauseating, stomach-churning, stomach-turning, hateful, detestable, execrable, abominable, monstrous, appalling, reprehensible, deplorable, insufferable, intolerable, despicable, contemptible, beyond the pale, unspeakable, noxious, horrendous, heinous, atrocious, awful, terrible, dreadful, frightful, obnoxious, unsavoury, unpleasant, disagreeable, distasteful, dislikeable, off-putting, uninviting, displeasingugly, as ugly as sin, hideous, grotesque, gruesome, unsightly, reptilianvomitousghastly, horrible, horrid, god-awful, gross, putrid, sick-making, sick, yucky, icky, fuglybeastlyboggingskankyhuckerynoisomedisgustful, scurvy, loathlyrebarbativeView synonyms
- ‘It is perhaps the most disgusting, grotesque and repulsive thing ever shown on television.’
- ‘One of the final panels proffers Der Führer's personal opinion of his adversary: ‘He is an utterly amoral, repulsive creature.’’
- ‘Both these views of what Karl Marx called ‘the ugly revolution, the repulsive revolution’ were subsequently published as engravings in the periodical L' Illustration.’
- ‘he knows this is repulsive and that's why he comes out with it).’
- ‘As Power points out, this was a morally repulsive and even ‘maddening’ conception, although it accurately reflected political realities.’
- ‘There are lots of these scriptwriting guides around - all repulsive and attractive at the same time.’
- ‘A long sequence set in a park, in which Walter loses his willpower and sparks a somewhat risqué dialogue with a young girl, becomes increasingly nauseating and repulsive as it continues.’
- ‘After overcoming the natural reluctance to confront those in power, students began to comment, telling their presenters just how repulsive, immoral, and disgusting the idea was.’
- ‘However, by the time he arrives it's becoming clear to Preston and the audience alike exactly how repulsive a mindset the Clerics? one is.’
- ‘Others felt that the portrait was rather repulsive.’
- ‘They've all done things that are repulsive and disgusting, and each one is probably haunted by that.’
- ‘It i s mildly repulsive in its crude vulgarity, but strangely and inexplicably alluring.’
- ‘Story wise, it's Mr. Bean, perhaps a little gentler and less repulsive than Rowan Atkinson in the flesh, but very very funny.’
- ‘It's jarring and offensive and leaves one with nothing but repulsive images that linger on afterwards.’
- ‘The ads for the new acid blockers like Tagamet, I think, are quite repulsive.’
- ‘Whilst we gained a sense of Caliban's non-humanness, we lost much sense of him as a gross, repulsive creature.’
- ‘Killing a human being is always a repulsive act, but at times it is unavoidable, as in self-defense, or in war.’
- ‘Cronenberg fashions a remake of the cheesy 1958 original that is by turns funny, poignant, repulsive, and intense.’
- ‘She is always slightly repulsive, and that is why I wanted those puppies to look miserable.’
2Relating to repulsion between physical objects.
3archaic Lacking friendliness or sympathy.
We take a look at several popular, though confusing, punctuation marks.
From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, discover surprising and intriguing language facts from around the globe.
The definitions of ‘buddy’ and ‘bro’ in the OED have recently been revised. We explore their history and increase in popularity. | <urn:uuid:9d7410a3-378a-4bd8-bd16-a8cf719f63f3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/repulsive | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00164-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94764 | 958 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Reconstruction Word Wall. If you've ever wanted your students to have a visual representation of Reconstruction to help them understand the terminology better, then you're in the right place! This Reconstruction Word Wall resource has a combination of 100 terms, events, and names of famous individuals from this time period.
Here's What's Included:
1 page - "RECONSTRUCTION" title
50 pages with the following terms (2 per page):
Reconstruction, Benjamin Wade, Horatio Seymour, Abraham Lincoln, Civil Rights Act of 1866, Ku Klux Klan, Edwin Stanton, Mary Edwards Walker, 13th Amendment, 14th Amendment, 15th Amendment, Indian Appropriation Act, Great Chicago Fire, Mississippi Plan, Purchase of Alaska, Reconstruction Acts of 1867, Minor vs. Happersett, Louisiana Constitution of 1868, Plessy vs. Ferguson, Juneteenth, Jim Crow Laws, National Woman Suffrage Association, Salary Grab Act, Radical Republicans, Compromise of 1877, Horace Greeley, Redeemers, Hiram Revels, Panic of 1873, Home Rule, Exodusters, Hampton Roads Peace Conference, Suffragists, Sharecropping, Tennessee Readmission, Scalawag, Ten Percent Plan, Black Codes, Charles Sumner, Buffalo Soldiers, Copperheads, Freedman’s Bureau, Presidential Reconstruction, Impeach, Depression of 1873, Samuel J. Tilden, African-American Exodus to Kansas, Radical Reconstruction, Knights of the White Camelia, Lincoln’s Funeral Train, Carpetbaggers, Moderate Republicans, Grant Re-elected, Freedmen, Restoration, State-Suicide Theory, Conservative Republicans, 39th Congress, Alexander Stephens, Black Schools, Joint Committee on Reconstruction, Amnesty Proclamation, “Swing Around the Circle”, 40th Congress, First Reconstruction Act, Second Reconstruction Act, Third Reconstruction Acts, Civil Rights Act of 1875, Nathan Bedford Forrest, Lincoln Assassination, White Brotherhood, Schuyler Colfax, William “Boss” Tweed, Electoral Count Act of 1877, Slaveocracy, William Seward, The Conspirators, Blanche K. Bruce, Rutherford B. Hayes, Ulysses S. Grant, Andrew Johnson, Ex parte Milligan, Command of the Army Act, Robert Smalls, Tennessee Amendment Abolishing Slavery, Tenure of Office Act, Congressional Control Over Reconstruction, Union League, Compensation of Black Veterans, Southern Rebellion Declared Over, New Maryland Constitution, Troops Withdrawn from the South, Solid South, “Waving the Bloody Shirt”, Crédit Mobilier, “Treason, Bribery, or Other High Crimes and Misdemeanors”, Resumption Act of 1875, Southern Unionists, Wade-Davis Bill
CHECK OUT MY OTHER WORD WALLS
U.S. History Word Walls
FOR YOUR STUDENTS WHO LOVE ART AND HISTORY:
Recreating Historic Paintings Series
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Copyright ©Surviving Social Studies. All rights reserved by author. This product is to be used by the original downloader only. Copying for more than one teacher, classroom, department, school, or school system is prohibited. This product may not be distributed or displayed digitally for public view. Failure to comply is a copyright infringement and a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Clipart and elements found in this PDF are copyrighted and cannot be extracted and used outside of this file without permission or license. Intended for classroom and personal use ONLY. | <urn:uuid:59dbf8dc-0b75-4772-95ea-e4b820f77ab8> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Reconstruction-Word-Wall-100-Terms-Definitions-Images-Two-per-Sheet-2642253 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719677.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00559-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.837385 | 794 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Brooks/Cole Empowerment Series: Psychopathology: A Competency-Based Assessment Model for Social Workers free ebook by Susan W,Gray,
>>> kindle >>> >>> View : 521
Publication Date: April 24, 2012 | ISBN-10: 0840029152 | ISBN-13: 978-0840029157 | Edition: 3 Written by social workers, PSYCHOPATHOLOGY views mental disorders through the strengths-perspective. It is unique in its ability to summarize the current state of knowledge about mental disorders and applies a competency-based assessment model for understanding psychopathology. Complete with detailed and realistic vignettes that are unavailable in other texts for the course, PSYCHOPATHOLOGY presents strategies for building on clients' strengths and resilience and offers insights to social workers regarding their role in working with the mentally ill. | <urn:uuid:7a787d5e-e6b3-4746-a013-a919ae7527c0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://pdfbooksfree.us/brooks-cole-empowerment-series-psychopathology-a-competency-based-assessment-model-for-social-workers.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281746.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00286-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.87305 | 177 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Maple syrup and almond extract are good substitutes for vanilla in a recipe. Both ingredients have a similar flavor and consistency to vanilla, and the difference is hardly noticeable.Continue Reading
Ingredients that give a strong vanilla flavor are vanilla milk, vanilla beans and vanilla paste. Rum or brandy can be good vanilla substitutes if the cook doesn't mind adding alcohol to the recipe. Some cooks use Fiori di Sicilia as an alcohol-free vanilla substitute.
Each vanilla substitute has a slightly different flavor. If more than one substitute is available, the cook can sample each one and see which flavor she prefers.Learn more about Substitutions | <urn:uuid:a9ce0778-a7f7-41c9-bd4c-19388441d0ca> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.reference.com/food/can-use-substitute-vanilla-recipe-e0867e6c86182be4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720737.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00221-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.854013 | 127 | 1.625 | 2 |
Thursday, December 21, 2006
HAPPY MIDWINTER SOLSTICE:
Midwinter Solstice ("solstice"- the sun stands still) occurred yesterday, Dec 21st at 7:22 EST (6:22 CST here in Winnipeg). The solstice is defined as the EXACT moment in the year when the Sun reaches its greatest northerly (the Summer Solstice) or southerly (the Winter Solstice) point in its annual movements. The effect is due to the annual tilt of 23.5 inclination of the Earth as it revolves around the sun. This is separate from the "wobble" of the Earth that is responsible for "precession", the reason why astrology is so at variance with astronomy in terms of the positions of the constellations. As the Earth revolves around the Sun first one and then the other hemisphere is presented towards the sun. The hemisphere tilted away from the Sun experiences winter, and the other experiences summer. The definition of "solstice" is the minimal noontime height of the Sun. This means that "somewhere" on the Earth at the times mentioned above the Sun is EXACTLY in its lowest position at noon in the sky. Counting backwards from Manitoba this would place the event somewhere over the mid to Eastern Pacific.
Throughout human history people have seen the Winter Solstice as a cause for celebration, a promise that the lean days of winter will end, even if the "hungry moons" are yet in front of them. The Chinese have traditionally celebrated the DongZhi Festival around Dec. 21st. One of the traditional activities in South China that occurs during the family get-togethers around this Festival is the making and eating of Tangyuan, balls of glutinous rice, that symbolize reunion. In North China people typically eat dumplings on DongZhi. This relates to a "Good King Wencelas"ort of story from Chinese tradition. According to this Zhang Zhongjing of the Han Dynasty saw the poor suffering from chilblains on their ears on a cold winter day. He ordered that dumplings shaped like ears should be distributed amongst the poor to keep them warm. Zhang named the concoction "qu han jiao er tang" or "dumpling soup that expels the cold".
The first monotheistic religion to institute a midwinter festival were the Zorastrians of ancient Iran/Persia. This festival, called Yalda, is still celebrated in modern Iran under an Islamic guise. It is traditionally celebrated on December 21st to hail the victory of light over darkness, of Ahura Mazda over Ahriman. Throughout the night fires would be burnt to help in the struggle of light over darkness. The next day the festival of Daygan was celebrated to mark the victory of Ahura Mazda. There would be acts of charity (Christmas gifts ?) and payers to Mithra (the equivalent of the Son in the orthodox Christian trinity). During this festival there was a temporary suspension of the hierarchy of Iranian society. Masters and servants would exchange roles. A "mock king " was crowned just as in some medieval festivals.
The Persian custom merged with and influenced the Roman celebration of Saturnalia. In Rome they followed the custom of inverting the social order. Children became the heads of the families. Businesses and courts were closed. Masters served slaves. Cross dressing and masquerades were common. The Romans accepted the proto-Christ figure of Mithra under the heading of 'Sol-Invictus' (the "invincible sun"). Mithra contained a good portion of the Christian mythology, from a proto-trinitarian aspect down to the nitty gritty of a virgin birth. The popularity of Mithraism paved the way for the ability of Christianity to spread amongst the Roman population. The general outlines of the myths were well known. It should be noted that the festivals of Saturnalia and Sol Invictus were totally separate events.
In Iran today the religious significance of 'Shab e Cheleh' has been lost under the influence of Islam. It is still, however, a time when family and friends get together to feast and play.
Then we come to the traditional Yule celebrations of Northern Europe. These go under various names in various languages; Geol, Jol, Jul, Julfest, Mitwinternacht. These are the festivals of Nordic and Germanic people from which many of our Christmas traditions are derived. Yule logs were lit to honour Thor, God of Thunder. Feasting would continue until the Yule Log burned out which could take as much as twelve days. A sacrifice of a pig to the God Freyr became the origin of the Christmas ham, first a Scandinavian custom but later to spread across the world. In Norway the expression "jul" is still the most common way to express Christmas.
Linguists have debated the origin of the various terms that signify "Yule" in English. It may relate to the idea of "wheel" as in the "wheel of the year". It may be connected to the adjective "yellow" as in the colour of the Sun. In may even be a borrowing from Finnish. The actual details of northern pagan yuletide festivals are rather obscure beyond the fact that it was a time for feasting. This has led to a divergence amongst modern neo-pagans. "Germanic neo-pagans" attempt to reconstruct the actual historical festivals insofar as there is evidence. Others, best descibed as Wiccan or 'New Age', pay little or no attention to what is actually known about pagan religion, Germanic or Celtic and attempt to create new solstice festivals with more than a little "poetic licence".
The existence of neo-pagans has added a little spice to an annual Christmas ritual amongst Christian believers in North America. This ritual would, of course, appear to be utterly insane to the vast majority of Christians living outside of North America-as it is to me as an ex-Roman Catholic sharing the prejudices of the vast majority of Christians who see the American evangelicals as "primitive". It, however, plays out every year without fail, though not with the vehemence surrounding Halloween. Almost all Christian festivals are "take-offs" on previous pagan festivals. It is a matter of "1/10th education" amongst certain fundamentalist sects to know about the pagan origins of Christmas traditions, whether they be Saturnalia or Germanic/Scandinavian traditions. The nine-tenths of the matter that they DON'T know is the origin of Christian theology in Roman mystery religions, the way that the accepted Bible came to be, and the destruction of alternative forms of Christianity.
So...each Christmas they denounce the traditional forms of celebration from a position of pseudo-erudition. One can also see a great contrast between the early missionaries to Northern Europe and the pseudo-missionaries of modern evangelism. In those ancient times missionaries struggled to adapt the ideas of Christianity to the customs of the people that they preached to with a full and EDUCATED knowledge of the difference between "form" and reality. The truth of what they did, usually without the military support that modern evangelicals enjoy courtesy of their close relations to the American Empire and its neo-fascist clients (see Guatamala), is plain and evident in the present, where the symbols that they expropriated are in the minds of 98% of the population NOTHING but Christian symbols.
The Roman festival of Saturnalia is one of the "origins of Christmas" that fundamentalists denounce. One really wonders whether it is because of the pagan connection (they hardly denounce the Trinitarian concepts inherited from paganism whereby polytheism can be said to be monotheism) or because of the social "loosening" that accompanied Saturnalia. This loosening of social hierarchy later got transferred to 'Carnivale' celebrations in Christian cultures while the Christmas season retained only its festival and gift-giving aspects. Saturnalia was originally only a day long festival but it later became a week long occasion for celebration despite the efforts of more than one Emperor to restrict its duration.
There are two different explanations as to why Dec. 25th was chosen by Christians in the 4th century as the birthday of Christ. One is that it is (was) the winter solstice on the Julian calender in use at that time. The second, however, is that it was an extrapolation of a Jewish idea of the "integral age" of the prophets ie that they died on the same day as their conception or birth, combined with a miscalculation of the date of Jesus' death. All these complications,however, are alien to the tiny view of the world held by "kindergarten Christians" who attempt to denounce the season each and every year.
Meanwhile there are many other midwinter celebrations across the world. The pre-christian Slavs celebrated 'Korochun' (Karachun, Krachun) in a manner similar to Halloween in Western European tradition. The Slavs burned fires at cemetaries to keep their dead warm on this most evil night of the year, lit wooden logs at crossroads and organized feasts in honour of the dead. On Dec. 23rd the old Sun Hors was resurrected as the new Sun Koleda. There are also numerous midwinter festivals documented amongst North American natives.
In summary midwinter has always been an important event for humanity. It transcends our own time and place. So...
Happy Midwinter Solstice From Mollymew | <urn:uuid:13bf60a7-e204-4e15-82ad-1290beb3a2c8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://mollymew.blogspot.com/2006/12/happy-midwinter-solstice-midwinter.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572908.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817122626-20220817152626-00077.warc.gz | en | 0.956256 | 1,968 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Having viewed the movie, consider the following questions:
- Do you think of the British Library as a repository of ideas and knowledge?
- Are ideas fixed in the storage systems, and rolled out on conveyor belts, ready to be consumed like burgers?
- Is the value of any given book contained within that book, and immediately accessible to the reader? If so each book should be easily categorisable. Or, can any given book be applied to a multitude of categories?
Take a look at the set of drawers below.
On the following page you will find a gallery of images . Print out some of the images, and see if you can categorise them by putting them into the storage system above.Now move on the next page to explore the King's Library | <urn:uuid:5d98e282-f6ac-4208-b3d9-a8cb787296c5> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.bl.uk/learning/cult/ideas/repository/thestorageofknowledge.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281424.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00339-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912186 | 158 | 1.984375 | 2 |
3700 Turtle Run Blvd., Coral Springs, FL 33067
Phone: 954-357-8109 • Email: NaturalAreas@Broward.org
Last remaining stands of basin swamp and pine flatwoods.
Tall Cypress contains a dense, continuous canopy of cypress trees that transitions to slash pines. Interspersed within this canopy are shallow willow and pond apple depressions, sabal palm heads, red maples, and strangler fig trees. The understory of sword and leather ferns, saw palmetto, swamp lily, soft-leaved wild coffee, beautyberry, and other basin swamp plants is so thick that it is extremely difficult to traverse this urban forest by foot.
This natural area is home to wildlife. In terms of animal species, the site is one of the most diverse purchased through the 1989 Environmentally Sensitive Lands (ESL) Bond program. Due to the density of vegetation and the lack of disturbance, the site is ideal habitat for heavily forested woodland species. Mammals, birds, and reptiles are particularly numerous. Tall Cypress also presents an ideal habitat for resident and migratory birds, including the great horned owl, pileated woodpecker, great egret, little blue heron, cardinal, bluejay, and many species of warbler. Among the plentiful reptiles are land turtles, snakes, and lizards. The site is also home to many species of butterflies, including white peacock, malachite, gulf fritillary, and Julia.
If you have questions regarding wildlife or wish additional information, please call the park number above. The following safety tips are recommended for our guests: 1. Be aware of your surroundings and avoid the water's edge. 2. Alligators, snakes, and other animals live in this area. 3. Do not approach, feed, or taunt alligators, snakes, or other wildlife. 4. Pets, where permitted, must be on a leash no longer than six feet. 5. No swimming or wading except in designated areas. 6. Use common sense while in this natural area.
2,090-foot elevated boardwalk with two covered overlooks, concrete trail, restrooms, interpretive signage, seating areas, an amphitheater, and parking. Wildlife observation is encouraged, although bicycles, inline skates, skateboards, and motorized vehicles are prohibited on the trails. As with all natural area sites, pets are not allowed.
Tall Cypress Natural Area was the first natural area site to feature the eNaturalist Program - a technology-based, self-guided tour of the habitat found at the facility.
Bird Walks (September through June)
These naturalist-led bird walks occur on the first Sunday of the month, September through June. Walks begin at 8 a.m. in the Tall Cypress parking lot. The first portion of the walk consists of an approximately half of a mile walk on the boardwalk of the nature center, and the second portion of the walk consists of a walk of approximately 1.5 miles (terrain in this portion of the walk is uneven and may not be suitable for young children). Preregistration is required. For more information or to preregister, call Quiet Waters Park at 954-357-5100.
Nature at Night Hikes (October through May)
These naturalist-led hikes awaken and explore your senses to reveal the site's distinctive night life. Offered on Saturday evenings. Sturdy shoes are recommended. For all ages. The fee is $5 per person. Preregistration and prepayment are required by calling Quiet Waters Park at 954-357-5100, or .
Environmental and Scouting Programs
Getting people of all ages involved in the appreciation of nature is the focus of many of the programs at Tall Cypress Natural Area. Opportunities include activities for boy and girl scouts, children's programs, school field trips, private group tours, and more. Call 954-357-5113 for more details and to make reservations.
EcoAction Days (October through May)
Volunteer workdays help keep our natural areas clear of garbage and invasive plants. They're held on the fourth Saturday of the month from 9 a.m. to noon. Closed-toe shoes are required, and long pants and long sleeves are suggested. Volunteers are encouraged to bring their own gloves, hats, sunscreen, insect repellent, and drinking water. Ages 13 to 17 must have a parent or guardian's signature on the registration form prior to participating. Volunteers under the ages of 13 may participate, but only if accompanied by a parent or guardian. High school students can use the hours from these workdays toward their required community service hours. Check the volunteer Web page for the latest workday registration form. Preregister by calling Quiet Waters Park at 954-357-5100.
Tall Cypress abounds with learning opportunities for students of all ages. From outdoor laboratory experiments to group-learning exercises, we can ensure students receive the information they need while having a fun experience.
A Little History
This 66-acre natural area has long been known for its richly forested resources. Owned jointly by Broward County and the City of Coral Springs, the site was once slated for development. It has been preserved through the efforts of local and county government, along with the Coral Springs High School environmental group Save What’s Left.
Aerial image of Tall Cypress Natural Area
The natural area is accessible from Broward County Transit Route #34. | <urn:uuid:2603608f-cc28-427b-b643-87d6a6d949b3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.broward.org/Parks/TallCypressNaturalArea/Pages/Default.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00455-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930552 | 1,143 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Cot death of an infant occurs when the infant has abnormalities like heart rate and blood control problems, finds new study.
For the study, researchers studied deaths of 71 infants who died from cot death, also called sudden infant death syndrome, and compared the cause of death with babies who died in dangerous sleeping conditions.
AdvertisementLead author of the study, Dr. Hannah Kinney, said that even infants dying in unsafe sleep environments had an underlying brainstem abnormality that likely made them vulnerable to sudden death if there was any degree of asphyxia, the Daily Express reported.
Kinney asserted that the abnormality prevents the brainstem from responding to the asphyxial challenge and waking.
The study was published in medical journal Pediatrics.
P Formula to Better Calculate 'Bad' Cholesterol in Patients Developed Free X-Ray Services at Government Hospitals in Uttar Pradesh M
You May Also Like | <urn:uuid:830398db-21a1-4b94-b70d-03b83e96ec93> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.medindia.net/news/study-shows-why-cot-deaths-occur-in-babies-127939-1.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721355.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00013-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942439 | 185 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Teaching & Learning Goes Beyond the 45th Day
October Professional Development Opportunities in the MCC CTL
Register Now Registration Instructions
Go for Quality Course Design:
Outcome-Based Learning & Informative Assessment – FPG Approved
Participants will be able to connect the three main functions of formative assessment (including Classroom Assessment Techniques) with instruction. You will be provided the opportunity to identify and/or create formative assessments, that are clearly aligned to lesson objectives, to check for understanding, adjust or refine instruction and give appropriate feedback to students. This process is student-centered and will promote the development of metacognitive skills for learners. Pre-requisites: None
Session Dates: (Select from one of the following)
Friday, October 10, 9:30am – 12:30pm
COURSE #001762, Session #0009 Register through HRMS
Tuesday, October 14, 3:30pm – 6:30pm
COURSE #001762, Session #0008 Register through HRMS
Go Flipping Wild with Screencast-O-Matic
Screen recording, also known as screencasting, is a valuable tool in teaching and learning. An essential element of the Flipped Model of learning, screencast videos provide both a dynamic and personalized learning experience for students, freeing up classroom time for valuable problem-based collaboration. This hands-on session will introduce participants to the PRO VERSION recording and editing features of Screencast-O-Matic, a web-based screen capture software that makes it easy to create engaging content lecture, demonstrations, tutorials and more. Come to this session to get the basics and beyond! Bonus learning: storyboarding, scripting and captioning advice!
Monday, October 13, 2:30pm – 4:30pm
COURSE #002073, Session #0005 Register through HRMS
Go Far with Nearpod Interactive Presentations
Trade-in your presentation program, lose the clickers and the polling software! Nearpod, the all-in-one presentation solution is all you need! In this session you will learn how to easily create multimedia presentations that allow you to collect student/participant feedback and assess learner understanding using mobile devices in real-time right inside the presentation itself!
Tuesday, October 14, 9:00am – 11:00am
COURSE #002002, Session #0004 Register through HRMS
‘Go-To’ Tools for Cool C.A.T.s (Classroom Assessment Techniques)
Transform your Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) with cool, interactive and relevant tools that assist in checking for understanding as your students engage in the lessons. In this session we will review the classic Classroom Assessment Techniques (Muddiest Point, Fish Bowl, Minute Paper, etc.) and re-imagine them with digital tools (Google Forms, Tricider, Padlet, etc.) making it easier to review and adjust lessons to meet learner needs in the Hybrid, Online or F2F format.
Thursday, October 16, 11:00am – 12:30pm
COURSE #002004, Session #0002 Register through HRMS
*Note: 6 participants are required for these sessions to run. Participants will be notified 24 hours prior to a session (via email) if a session is to be canceled.
Questions? Call the CTL (480) 461-7331.
Visit the CTL Calendar, ctl.mesacc.edu/events/calendar for all upcoming learning sessions and activities.
Other Opportunities in October
Mark your calendar for the 3rd Annual Tech & Teach Fest!
The Mesa Community College Center for Teaching & Learning will be holding its 3rd Annual Fall Tech & Teach Fest Monday, October 20 through Friday, October 24 on the MCC Southern and Dobson Campus.
What is the Fest?
The Fall Tech & Teach Fest is a week of activities to support teaching & learning at MCC. The week will consist of sessions, discussions, hands-on demonstrations and other events that address excellence in education pedagogy and technology.
Visit the CTL Calendar for the latest news about the fest event.
Look and ‘C’ Sessions in the CTL
Stop by the CTL for a Look and ‘C’ Session this October. Dive Deeper into MCC 4C’s and learn how you can apply them to your course(s).
Visit the CTL web site to find a ‘C’ session. | <urn:uuid:41eed892-f476-4c91-9206-306eff1959cd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://ctl.mesacc.edu/october-learning-opportunities-in-the-ctl/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00472.warc.gz | en | 0.896096 | 957 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Dancing during pregnancy is a fun way of staying fit. According to the founder and director of Dancing Thru Pregnancy (DTP), Ann Cowlin, a well-being program under the guidance of trained professionals can offer numerous benefits to the mom and baby.
Dancing, walking and yoga are good for pregnant women. Some of the benefits of dancing during pregnancy include:
Pregnant women must choose exercises according to their comfort level. You must make sure that your trainer is certified to work with post-natal population for a certified trainer is who will understand physiology of pregnancy and instruct you in the desired manner.
Women who were habitual dancers before pregnancy can safely continue doing so throughout their first trimester. but must try to avoid movements that require jumping. Make sure that you warm up before exercising to prepare your body and joints for exercise. By skipping warm up sessions, you may strain your joints and muscles.
You may keep the intensity of your workout low by keeping one leg on the floor all the time. The intensity of your dancing session must be comfortable. You must be aware of your body’s limitations and listen to the cues.
By the second trimester, your center of gravity will shift. So, you need to be extremely cautious while dancing or exercising. Tracey Mallett, a certified personal trainer in California suggests that irrespective of the kind of dance you are doing, it is essential to eliminate jerky movements, jumping, backbends and quick rotations. Doing such movements can put unwanted stress on your ligaments and even lead to injury.
Read more articles on Pregnancy Exercises.
Aerobics is a great way to look great and stay fit.read more
Just 20 minutes of moderate exercise three times per week during pregnancy enhances the newborn child's brain development, scientists have found.read more | <urn:uuid:27d41023-0d23-49d0-be5c-b5f58dcc79b1> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.onlymyhealth.com/dance-exercise-in-pregnancy-1308562286 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280065.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00542-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948737 | 375 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Take Action Page
NOTE: If you are a student using this letter in a class project/assignment, please cite using the following:
National Nursing Network Organization. (2015, November 5). Sample letter. Retrieved from http://nationalnurse.org/takeAction.shtml
Dear Representative or Senator _______,
Thank you for your concern for our nation's health. I am writing today to urge you to sign on as a co-sponsor to HR 379 and S. 1205 The National Nurse Act of 2015. This legislation designates the same individual serving as the Chief Nurse Officer (CNO) of the U.S. Public Health Service to be the National Nurse for Public Health.
The primary purpose of this new expanded CNO role would be to focus and provide symbolic leadership for a much-needed cultural and philosophical shift to prevention. The CNO/National Nurse for Public Health would provide a highly visible nurse leader to advocate for enhanced prevention efforts in all communities.
Obesity, diabetes, cancer, and heart disease are primary culprits for our nation's declining health and many of these conditions can be prevented. We in the United States are fortunate to have many choices in the foods we eat, in our means of transportation, and in recreational options. While these choices have contributed positively to the economy of our country, the less obvious yet equally important outcome has been disastrous, mainly the demise of our nation's health. People with preventable disease conditions suffer horribly but also become a liability to employers when they are unable to work and to our government which is currently overwhelmed by the costs of health care largely due to preventable conditions.
The CNO/National Nurse for Public Health would partner with the Office of the Surgeon General to promote health, improve health literacy and decrease health disparities. This nurse leader would encourage nurses in every community to join networks of volunteers to educate the public, promote prevention activities with health agencies and organizations, and participate in replicating successful prevention efforts.
Preventable epidemics are destroying our nation’s health; education and support through a National Nurse for Public Health is a means by which to address this problem.
We urge you to show your support for this important piece of legislation.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sample Phone Script
Hello, my name is __________________.
The CNO/National Nurse for Public Health would provide a highly visible identified nurse leader to advocate for enhanced prevention efforts in all communities.
The CNO/National Nurse for Public Health, with nurses in each community, will provide Americans with the tools to prevent disease and manage chronic illnesses. Studies show that when nurses are involved early on in patient's care, they require fewer emergency room visits and hospitalizations.
Our nation needs health care, not sick care. I believe every American needs a nurse and I urge Representative ______ to co-sponsor the National Nurse Act of 2015.
Thank you for taking my call.
Grassroots Lobbying Efforts—What Works
- Personal contact (visit or phone call) from a constituent who volunteered or contributed to their campaign.
- Personal contact (visit or phone call) from anyone who contributed or volunteered to their campaign.
- Appearing at a local constituent meeting in a group to raise the issue.
- Personal visit from a constituent or public testimony from a constituent.
- Public testimony from an expert who is not a constituent.
- Guest opinion in their local paper or a news event drawing attention to the issue in the local media.
- Letter-to-the-editor in their local newspaper.
- Personal phone call with a constituent.
- Personal letter from a constituent.
- Phone message or voice mail from a constituent.
- Personal phone call with a non-constituent.
- Personal letter from a non-constituent.
Better Than Nothing:
- Mail a form letter.
- Phone message or voice mail from a non-constituent.
The ideal grassroots plan involves realistically identifying resources and targeting their activities as high up the scale of effectiveness as possible.
It is not always possible to have the most effective impact. The whole concept of grassroots organizing is that you are growing from the ground up. Work with what people resources you do have and find ways to grow for the future.
Ten Commandments of Lobbying
- Do Your Homework—Learn as much as you can about the problem. Be able to explain how it affects you. Know the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents arguments. Anticipate questions and have answers ready.
- Start Early—You have to be ready when the time comes and everything always takes longer than you think it will.
- Tell the Truth—Legislators rely on you for good information. You will never regain your credibility once you lose it. If you don’t know the answer to a question, say so. If you promise to find an answer, do it.
- Keep it Simple—Work from the KISS principle—Keep it simple and short. Think about what you want and why you want it. Legislators are busy people and appreciate a concise summary of what you want.
- Take Your Friends Where You Find Them—Find your friends and work with them. In politics, a friend is someone who helps you when you need help, whether a Democrat or Republican, liberal or conservative. Never cut anyone off from contact—your opponent today may be your ally tomorrow.
- Know Your Opponents—Don’t waste time trying to convince those who are publicly committed to their position. Put your energy into swaying undecided votes. But keep lines of communication with your opponents open for possible compromises.
- Think Big, But Always Know Your Bottom Line—Always ask for more than you think you can get. The legislative process is one of compromise-legislators try to give everyone something. Have something you can give up to your opponents without hurting you. This means you must prioritize. Decide what is most important and be willing to compromise on everything else.
- Build Coalitions—Work from a united front. Find groups and individuals who agree with you on an issue and work with them. Don’t expect them to agree with you on every issue or expect the coalition to last forever. It does’t matter who gets the credit as long as it gets done. Grabbing credit is divisive and gives your opponents something to exploit. Don’t air your dirty laundry.
- Work at the Local Level—Legislators pay most attention to their constituents. Sometimes you can affect the key-decision-makers directly, but more often it is best done through local contacts with legislators, media, and allies.
- Thank People That Help—Everybody likes a pat on the back.
Lobbying Your Legislator: Preventing a brush off
"I don’t have time for this right now."
“You must be very busy but we would like an indication of where you stand. We will contact you later to set up a time for a more in depth discussion of this.”
"I need more information."
“I would be glad to get it for you. What in particular would you like to know more about? Here is our fact sheet/research report on the matter.”
The non-commitment ploy, such as "Let me think about it."
“Great! I will call back on ______. I would be glad to answer any questions you have now or then.”
“Of course. As you know the ____ and ____ have also endorsed this bill along with ____ and _____. It’s important to all of us because ______.”
The change the subject ploy, such as "I was thinking the other day about how the environment affects health care."
“Yes. That is important to us to. But I’m most concerned about having a visible and prominent nurse leader to engage nurses to participate in successful health promotion activities in their communities...”
The who else likes this ploy, such as "Well who else have you gotten to support this?"
“Current supporters include ______. But I am a voter in your district. We have lots of voters in your district and we really want your support on this issue. We know we can’t always get what we want, but we believe your support will help constituents in your district.”
The labeling ploy, "This is part of the liberal agenda."
“I am sorry that we can’t talk about this issue as it pertains to helping your constituents. Let me remind you that supporting our position will aid ____ in your district.”
The talk to my staff ploy.
“I’d be happy to. Who exactly should I talk to and how can I reach them?”
- Always try to get a clear commitment or stand. If need be say, "I am unclear as to your position. Are you supporting this legislation or not?"
- Always be conscious of time constraints. If you have two minutes, go immediately to getting a commitment. If you have 30 minutes, fully explain the issue.
- Take notes and write a thank you letter.
Lobbying Your Legislator:
Lobbying by Personal Visit:
One of the most effective ways to lobby legislators is in face-to-face visits with them. It’s difficult to predict a legislator’s availability when the Legislature is in session. But if legislators know that their constituents have traveled from a distance, they will generally try to see them. It is always best to call first and make an appointment. Contact both your Representative and Senator. Here are some suggestions for your visit.
- Be on time for your appointment. But don’t expect legislators to be on time; they often have hearings or meetings they cannot anticipate and cannot leave.
- Before the appointment, practice a three-minute statement with the information you want to present. This will help you to be concise about what you want and why you want it.
- It is usually best to visit your legislators in a small group, three people is optimum. Never plan on staying more than 10–15 minutes. Going alone may be unsatisfactory because legislators may try to out-talk you or you may reach an impasse too quickly.
- If you are a constituent, begin by telling the legislator that. Let your legislator know if you are working with others on the issue, if you are active in the community, or if you are representing members of an organization.
- Present the legislator with a Fact Sheet and a copy of the bill. Include amendments if any are being proposed. Remember that your issue is probably one of dozens she/he is having to deal with. The information you provide to the Legislator will go into a bill file and will be available for reference at a later time.
- Talk to legislative staff, preferably, the Legislative Assistant, and present the same information and materials. Establishing a relationship with key staff is very important. They typically have the ear and the confidence of the legislator and are most likely going to be doing most of the leg work on the issue. They are also more accessible to you on an on-going basis.
- Be clear about what your position is and what you would like your legislators to do. Identify your bill by name and number whenever possible. Give the legislators some key words: "This is about having a National Nurse for Public Health teach Americans ways to live healthy."
- Be firm but courteous as you express your position. Do not try to force your legislators into changing their minds or committing themselves when they don’t want to, but it’s fair to ask them how they stand on the issue.
- Follow up your visit with a thank-you letter. Use it to restate your position.
Lobbying by Telephone:
You can find the telephone numbers of your elected Representatives and Senators by visiting Contacting Congress or by calling these toll free numbers:
1-877-762-8762, 1-888-723-5246, 1-800-426-8073
Here are recommendations for making calls to your legislators.
- Identify yourself by name and address.
- Identify the bill you want to talk about by name and number.
- Briefly state your position and how you would like your legislator to vote.
- Ask for your legislator’s view on the bill or issue; then ask for a commitment to vote for your position. Don’t argue if the legislator takes a position against you or is unwilling to take a stand.
- Supply requested information as quickly as possible. The legislature moves rapidly during the session.
- If you cannot speak to your legislator directly, talk to a secretary or legislative aide, identify yourself, the bill you want to talk about by name and number, and state how you would like your legislator to vote. Legislator’s staff are very reliable and will tell the legislator that you called and what you said.
- Follow up the call with a note thanking them for their time. Use the note as an opportunity to briefly restate your position.
Lobbying by letter:
Letters are important, even critical to influence legislation. Letters to the writer’s own Senator or Representative are especially important.
Here are some guidelines to follow in writing effective letters.
- Address the letter correctly.
(Note: because of security related to 9/11, it is best to email your letters—you can find the email address of your U.S. Senator or Representative at Contacting Congress)
- Always put the Honorable Senator ____ or the Honorable Representative ____ in your introduction.
- Clearly identify the issue about which you are writing and your position, in support or in opposition at the beginning of the letter. Be sure to include the bill number, if there is one.
- Write in your own words and include thoughts of your own. Tell how the problem and the proposed legislation affects you.
- If you are a member of an organization which is pursuing the issue, include the organization’s name. "I’am a member of the National Nursing Network Organization."
- Show as much knowledge as you can, but avoid sending a postcard or form letter. Handwritten letters are fine if they are legible. Include your name and return address so legislators can respond.
- Write briefly, on only one subject at a time.
- If you live in the legislator’s district, be sure to say so.
- Ask for a response and the legislator’s position on the issue.
- If you don’t get a reply to your letter, follow it up with another letter asking for a response.
- When a legislator votes as you asked, send a thank-you note. A thank-you is a refreshing change that is likely to be remembered.
Using the Media to Lobby:
Keeping your issue or bill in the local or statewide news demonstrates public concern and support. Media coverage can mean the difference between victory and defeat for a bill. Remember you are speaking to the public and to legislators when you’re dealing with the media. Several kinds of media coverage should be considered.
- Letters to the editor can accomplish four objectives: alert the community that the issue is before the legislature; persuade readers to your position; demonstrate that there are responsible and articulate people who agree with your position; enlist others to engage in lobbying.
- Submit an article to your newspaper’s opinion and editorial page.
- Local radio and television talk shows. Make sure that your position is well represented in all call-in radio programs. Cajole the stations into scheduling a program on the issue and then provide an articulate spokesperson.
- If a radio or television station takes an editorial position with which you disagree, ask for equal time—a requirement by law that all opposing viewpoints be aired through editorial replies.
- Try to influence the editorial position of media outlets by writing to editors and columnists of local press and managers of local stations. You can also request, as part of a larger group, a meeting with your local paper’s editorial board. Legislators are particularly sensitive to the editorial comments of their local media.
Adapted from the Oregon Human Services Coalition Legislative Advocacy Packet by:The Oregon Health Action Campaign 3886 Beverly NE Bulldog I, Suite 21 Salem, OR 97305 503-581-6830; 1-800-789-1599 | <urn:uuid:f5889d2f-ff76-4d61-b4a1-489431cb3d90> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.nationalnurse.org/takeAction.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719843.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00291-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947331 | 3,433 | 2.125 | 2 |
“For God is the King of all the earth: sing ye praises with understanding.” (Psalms 47:7 KJV)
“For God is my King of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.” (Psalms 74:12 KJV)
“Thou, O king, art a king of kings: for the God of heaven hath given thee a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory.” (Daniel 2:37 KJV)
1. The chief or sovereign of a nation; a man invested with supreme authority over a nation, tribe or country; a monarch. Kings are absolute monarchs, when they possess the powers of government without control, or the entire sovereignty over a nation;…
2. A sovereign; a prince; a ruler. Christ is called the king of his church. Psa 2
The Gray Kingbird or Grey Kingbird, also known as pitirre, petchary, or White-breasted Kingbird (Tyrannus dominicensis) is a passerine bird. It breeds from the extreme southeast of the United States, mainly in Florida, through Central America, from Cuba to Puerto Rico as well as eastward towards all across the Lesser West Indies, south to Venezuela, Trinidad, Tobago, the Guiana, and Colombia. Northern populations are migratory, wintering on the Caribbean coast of Central America and northern South America. Several vagrant populations are known to exist in the American Northeast.
This tyrant flycatcher is found in tall trees and shrubs, including the edges of savanna and marshes. It makes a flimsy cup nest in a tree. The female incubates the typical clutch of two cream eggs, which are marked with reddish brown. Tyrannidae – Tyrant Flycatchers Family
[Definitions from Webster’s Dictionary of American English (1828), unless noted. Bird info from Wikipedia plus.] | <urn:uuid:16281125-09cf-46f4-bf84-563a4eb924dc> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://leesbird.com/tag/god-is-the-king/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571719.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812140019-20220812170019-00267.warc.gz | en | 0.920858 | 417 | 2.625 | 3 |
NEW YORK (May. 10)
Fifty Israel commercial firms and manufacturers, as well as the government’s Tourist Office will exhibit this year at the New York International Trade Fair which opens Monday and runs for one week. Dr. E. Justice-Dayan, director of the Israel Commission for Fairs and Exhibitions, who came here to supervise the exhibit, said today that there is reason to believe Israel exports to the United States may be increased materially as a result of participation in the fair.
Included among the products to be exhibited will be yarns, woolens and knitwear, foods, wine and beer, costume jewelry, phonograph records, arts and crafts, fashions and raincoats. Exhibited for the first time in this country in one of the Israel booths will be a sewing machine manufactured in Israel. Only articles that are likely to have a market in the United States have been included in the exhibit. After the fair here the exhibit will be shown in other cities. | <urn:uuid:515c6651-9b87-478e-aef0-301f5d1c12fd> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.jta.org/1955/05/11/archive/israel-firms-participate-in-new-york-international-trade-fair | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281746.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00284-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970623 | 207 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Google Desktop is my desktop search application of choice for Windows. There's also a MacOS version that provides all of the advanced search features of its Windows counterpart. Yesterday, Google released a version of Google Desktop for Linux. The Linux version brings all of Google's powerful search tools to Linux desktops, including e-mail and Web history indexing. Now that Google Desktop is available for the three big OSes, you'd think that Google would be in a position to rule desktop search, however, there are still a few drawbacks.
First off, Google Desktop for Linux is a lot like Google Desktop for the Macintosh, and that's not a good thing. Windows users get all of the useful Google Gadgets that allow you to read RSS feeds, make personal notes, and even third-party gadgets that allow you to blog or manage your music collection, straight from Google desktop. Mac and Linux users only get the comprehensive desktop search. Google has yet to announce plans for widget support in either version.
At its core Google Desktop is a desktop search application, and it's gathered positive reviews on all platforms for its ability to root out old and long forgotten documents and files. The Linux version can search OpenOffice.org files, HTML files, PDF documents, even MAN and INFO docs, to name a few. It can also keep track of your Web browsing history, if you use Firefox, and index your e-mail if you're using Thunderbird and Gmail. The Web history and e-mail archive functions are useful, and make Google Desktop stand out from other desktop search apps already available for Linux.
In Windows, Google Desktop made a splash because of its range of functions and because it was one of the first tools to really make desktop search easy to use and powerful. On MacOS, Google Desktop had Apple's own built-in Spotlight to compete with. In Linux, the open source community has had a long time to come up with comprehensive desktop search apps that mimic Google Desktop. Google has some competition for the hearts of Linux users, and while integration with Google search, Firefox, Thunderbird, and Gmail are definite advantages, it remains to be seen whether Linux users will flock to Google Desktop.
Google Desktop is free, of course, and supports any Linux distribution that have glibc 2.3.2 or higher and gtk+ 2.2.0 or higher. This means most up-to-date and new distributions will support Google Desktop, including Ubuntu 6.10, Red Hat 5 and Fedora Core 6, among others.
Post by Alan Henry | <urn:uuid:ef5367f5-36c4-45fe-bc67-f35dd61b9d44> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://appscout.pcmag.com/utilities/276938-google-desktop-for-linux-available | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00454-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926585 | 520 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The Philippine dwarf kingfisher (Ceyx melanurus) is a tiny, shy, forest-dwelling kingfisher which is endemic to the Philippines (2) (3).
The plumage of the Philippine dwarf kingfisher is primarily rusty reddish-brown with a lilac wash on the crown, ear-coverts, breast and rump. A blue and white stripe adorns the neck, the wings are glossy bluish-black, and the back is decorated with a black ‘V’ marking. The throat and belly are white (2) (3).
This colourful forest-dwelling bird also has a striking bright red bill and bright red legs (2) (3).
Three subspecies of the Philippine dwarf kingfisher are recognised, each of which differs in its range and appearance. Ceyx melanurus samarensis differs from Ceyx melanurus melanurus by having a darker back, a more lilac-washed head, and a slightly larger bill and wings. Ceyx melanurus platenae lacks any blue on the neck, and the wings have lilac spots and chestnut edges (3).
The voice of the Philippine dwarf kingfisher is a thin, high-pitched squeak (2) (3).
- Also known as
- Philippine dwarf-kingfisher, Philippine kingfisher.
- Alcedo melanura.
- Length: 12 cm (2) (3)
Despite its name, the Philippine dwarf kingfisher is not known to feed on fish. Instead, small insects and their larvae are its main prey, although it has also been known to eat small crabs (4).
This secretive species leads a solitary life except for during the breeding season, when pairs form (4). The breeding season of the Philippine dwarf kingfisher appears to take place in April and May (4).
Philippine dwarf kingfisher range
As its common name suggests, the Philippine dwarf kingfisher is endemic to the Philippines (3).
Each of the three subspecies occurs on different islands. C. m. melanurus occurs on Luzon, Polillo and Catanduanes, C. m. samarensis is found on Samar and Leyte, and C. m. platenae occurs on Mindanao and Basilan (3) (4).
The Philippine dwarf kingfisher inhabits the understory of dry forest, typically at elevations up to 750 metres (4).
It is frequently found along watercourses, such as small streams, but has also been recorded deep in the forest, far from any water source (2) (4).
Philippine dwarf kingfisher status
The Philippine dwarf kingfisher is classified as Vulnerable (VU) on the IUCN Red List (1).
As it resides specifically in lowland forest, deforestation is the biggest threat to the Philippine dwarf kingfisher (2). Throughout its range, forest is being affected by logging, mining, or is being cleared to make way for exotic tree plantations for paper production. On Mindanao, the deliberate burning of forests by insurgents is also a problem (4). There is a potential risk that the Philippine dwarf kingfisher’s habitat could be destroyed throughout its entire range (4).
Typhoons are also a threat to the Philippine dwarf kingfisher. In 1987 and 1996, typhoons hit the island of Catanduanes, wiping out large areas of forest, causing floods and silting many waterways where the Philippine dwarf kingfisher forages (2) (4).
It is predicted that the Philippines may experience an increase in the frequency and severity of typhoons due to global climate change (5), which could have a significant impact on the already threatened Philippine dwarf kingfisher.
The Philippine dwarf kingfisher has been recorded in several protected areas, including the Northern Sierra Madre, Bicol and Quezon National Parks on Luzon, and Polillo Watershed Forest Reserve on Polillo. These areas hopefully provide habitat protection and therefore aid in the Philippine dwarf kingfisher’s conservation (2).
Proposed conservation measures for this threatened species include identifying and subsequently protecting important patches of lowland forest that it inhabits (2). More broadly, action is required to prevent further loss of the Philippines’ natural habitats. A total ban on all logging and conversion to plantations in all remaining forest in the country would help not only the Philippine dwarf kingfisher, but also numerous other threatened endemic species (6).
Find out more
Find out more about the Philippine dwarf kingfisher and its conservation:
Discover more about conservation in the Philippines:
This information is awaiting authentication by a species expert, and will be updated as soon as possible. If you are able to help please contact:
- The circle of small feathers covering the ear opening of a bird. Also called auriculars.
- A species or taxonomic group that is only found in one particular country or geographic area.
- Stage in an animal’s lifecycle after it hatches from the egg. Larvae are typically very different in appearance to adults; they are able to feed and move around but usually are unable to reproduce.
- A population usually restricted to a geographical area that differs from other populations of the same species, but not to the extent of being classified as a separate species.
IUCN Red List (November, 2010)
BirdLife International - Philippine dwarf kingfisher:
Fry, C.H., Fry, K. and Harris, A. (1992) Kingfishers, Bee-eaters and Rollers. Christopher Helm Publishers, London.
BirdLife International (2001) Threatened Birds of Asia: the BirdLife International Red Data Book. BirdLife International, Cambridge, UK.
Allen, K.M. (2006) Community-based disaster preparedness and climate adaptation: local capacity-building in the Philippines. Disasters, 30(1): 81-101.
BirdLife International (2003) Saving Asia's Threatened Birds: a Guide for Government and Civil Society. BirdLife International, Cambridge, UK. Available at: | <urn:uuid:b9e4c7dd-cac0-442e-bef5-eaaa70cb1857> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.arkive.org/philippine-dwarf-kingfisher/ceyx-melanurus/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280587.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00567-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.910386 | 1,274 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Rights and Resources for LGBTQ Youth and their Parents, Families, and Allies
LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning) foster care youth face serious risks and challenges. Just like other young people, they need acceptance, understanding, support, and resources. It is also important for foster parents, families, and allies to have the resources needed to support LGBTQ youth in foster care.
The information below provides local and national support and resources for LGBTQ youth and those who care about them. LGBTQ Resources in Maine
Out! as I Want to Be offers LGBTQ weekly drop-in meetings on Wednesdays and Fridays in Rockland.
Outright L/A located in Lewiston offers a weekly drop-in space for LGBTQ youth under the age of twenty-two.
MaineTransNet offers trans, ally, and questioning youth a voice in Portland and Bangor.
Youth Guardian Services is a youth resource and offers support services to LGBTQ youth on the Internet.
Maryville University Online: College guide; The guide explains some basic terminology used by the LGBTQ community and provides tips for choosing a college that has adequate LGBTQ support. It also covers college application information and lists scholarships that are available to LGBTQ students.
Advocates for Youth Advocates for Youth works alongside thousands of young people here in the U.S. and around the globe as they fight for sexual health, rights, and justice.
Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) – Nationally, GLSEN works to ensure safe schools for ALL students, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. Also, visit the Southern Maine chapter webpage or the Downeast chapter webpage for more information.
Supporting Your LGBTQ Youth: A Guide for Foster Parents – In May of 2013, the Child Welfare Information Gateway published this factsheet. This factsheet discusses the unique risks and challenges LGBTQ youth face and how foster parents can reduce those risks and create a welcoming home.
Parents, Families, and Friends, of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) – Offers support, education, and advocacy resources for parents, families, friends, and straight allies.
Trans Youth Equality Foundation – Portland, Maine based foundation that provides education, advocacy, and support groups for transgender youth, their families, and allies.
Addressing the Needs of LGBTQ Youth in Foster Care – This article focuses on the difficulties LGBTQ youth face while in the foster care system and how adult allies, CASA volunteers, in particular, can advocate for youth and support them during their time in care. (CASA’s The Connection, 2009)
GLBT National Help Center: 1-888-843-4564 (Hotline)
1-800-246-7743 (Youth talk-line)
GLBT online peer support
Trevor Helpline Crisis Intervention for LGBT Youth: 1-866-488-7386
In the Life: Foster Care’s Invisible Youth (film)
Published by In the Life Media, this film shares the stories of LGBTQ foster care youth
Trans Youth Equality Foundation Podcast
Visit the Transwave Pod Cast to hear and learn from interviews with trans youth, providers, families, allies, and activists. | <urn:uuid:15c87700-c9a8-47f4-accf-f18056e00c52> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.ylat.org/lgbtq | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817032054-20220817062054-00472.warc.gz | en | 0.908361 | 699 | 3.125 | 3 |
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke
Helmuth James Graf von Moltke studied law and political sciences in Berlin from 1925 on. He was deeply involved in running a voluntary work camp in Silesia for students, farmers and industrial workers. Moltke had close sympathies with the democratic forces of the day and expressed open criticism as he watched the rise of Hitler. Consequently, in 1933 he refused to accept appointment as a judge; in 1935 he set up an attorney’s office in Berlin. Between 1935 and 1938 he completed a training course as a British barrister and made plans to take over an attorney’s office in London, but was prevented by the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939. In the same month Moltke was drafted as a war administration councilor in the Office for Foreign Affairs/Counterintelligence in the Armed Forces High Command in Berlin. As an expert adviser on international law and the laws of war he tried to combat injustice and arbitrariness. He was particularly active in advocating humane treatment of prisoners of war and the observance of international law. In 1939 Moltke already wrote the first memoranda on the establishment of a new political order in Germany. At the beginning of 1940, Peter Graf Yorck von Wartenburg joined a group of regime opponents gathered around Moltke. Moltke and Yorck became the leading figures in the group that subsequently emerged, the Kreisau Circle, and took part in most of its discussions in Berlin and Kreisau. Moltke systematically tried to extend his contacts to Protestant and Catholic Church leaders and to the leaders of the social democratic political opposition. Moltke was arrested on January 19, 1944 after it was discovered that he had warned members of the Solf Circle that they were under Gestapo surveillance. But his involvement in the plans for a coup against Hitler was not exposed until after the failure of the coup attempt of July 20, 1944. Helmuth James Graf von Moltke was sentenced to death by the People’s Court on January 11, 1945 and murdered on January 23, 1945 in Berlin-Plötzensee. | <urn:uuid:10e69207-531a-4d4b-8da6-78fb86589a66> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.gdw-berlin.de/en/recess/biographies/index_of_persons/biographie/view-bio/helmuth-james-graf-von-moltke/?no_cache=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573029.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817153027-20220817183027-00278.warc.gz | en | 0.977636 | 440 | 2.96875 | 3 |
Summer is the perfect time to introduce a healthy regime in your diet! Read what can happen if you stop eating bread.
-- You will lose excess weight caused by accumulated water in the body
In this case it is a waste of water accumulated in your body. Bread is rich in carbohydrates, and therefore by disposing it from your diet you will almost instantly notice results.
In the form of glycogen, our body collects carbohydrates, one kind of lactic acid which collects water. Each gram of carbohydrates reserved in the body absorbs 3 to 4 times more water than their weight.
-- You will forget all about the feeling of hunger
There are processed carbohydrates in large quantities in white bread. These carbohydrates cause growth and a jump in blood sugar, which afterwards sharply declines.
These abnormal phenomena sent conflicting messages to the brain that increase hunger and because of which people gain weight.
Therefore, replace the empty calories of white bread with those made from full grain wheat that regulate and balance blood sugar.
-- You will have an additional source of energy and will improve digestion
White bread does not contain fiber required for normal operation of intestines and digestion. Precisely because of this, white bread caused constipation and problems with digestion.
Once you take out white bread from your diet and replace it with full-grain products, the work of your digestive system will start working normally. | <urn:uuid:b58512f8-2e3c-4661-89d9-8d0ccdf9727d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.healthyfoodstar.com/because-of-this-you-should-immediately-start-avoiding-bread/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281151.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00116-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932382 | 279 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Reflection by Vijaya Bodach
Today's Gospel: John 13:16-20
Although we’re well into Eastertide, we return to the night of Holy Thursday after Jesus washes the feet of His disciples. He has chosen them and reminds them how they are to serve, like Him. He prepares them for His Passion so that they will not forget His Divinity. But we know they don’t fully grasp what Christ has done -- instituted both the priesthood and the Eucharist -- until the Holy Spirit descends upon them at Pentecost.
Indeed, our priests are chosen, their hands specially anointed so that they can bring Jesus to us. We remember that though Jesus suffered unimaginable agony and died an ignoble death, deserted by all His friends, save John, He made a way to stay with us until the end of time. We sing, “Lord, accept the gifts we offer / at this Eucharistic Feast.
/ Bread and wine to be transformed now, / through the action of Thy priest.” Even now, when many of us can't receive Him, how blessed we are to have our holy priests still fulfilling their mission of consecrating the Eucharist each day. Let us commit to memory this beautiful prayer of St. Thérèse, the Little Flower.
O Jesus, eternal Priest,
keep Thy priests within the shelter of Thy Sacred Heart,
where none may harm them.
Keep unstained their anointed hands,
which daily touch Thy Sacred Body.
Keep unsullied their lips,
purpled with Thy Precious Blood.
Keep pure and unearthly their hearts,
sealed with the sublime mark of Thy glorious priesthood.
Let Thy holy love surround them and
shield them from the world's contagion.
Bless their labors with abundant fruit and
may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here and in heaven their beautiful and everlasting crown. Amen.
[Tweet "O Jesus, eternal Priest, keep Thy priests within the shelter of Thy Sacred Heart. #dailygospel"]
Do you remember to pray for your parish priest every day?
My dear Jesus, thank You for giving us Your priests and Yourself through them. Teach us to love one another and serve as You do.
Copyright 2020 Vijaya Bodach
Vijaya Bodach is a scientist-turned-children’s writer and an atheist-turned-Catholic. She is also wife, mother of two grown children, pet-wrangler, teacher, speaker, Latin Mass lover, and chorister. She is the author of 60+ books for children. BOUND is her first novel. She writes about faith, family, books, and writing at her blog.
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* indicates required | <urn:uuid:63f91d0d-996c-4279-b880-a4a355922e9f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.catholicmom.com/daily-gospel/2020/05/07/daily-gospel-reflection-for-may-7-2020/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00473.warc.gz | en | 0.944397 | 604 | 1.570313 | 2 |
There were a couple of strange things about the Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 that taxied out along one of London Heathrow's two main runways and took off into the bright sky late Sunday morning. First, there were only five people on board, while more than 100 watched intently from a nearby hangar. Second, the plane was the first commercial jet ever to fly on biofuel, a fuel produced from plant matter instead of petroleum or other fossil fuels. "This is the first stage on a journey towards renewable fuel," Virgin founder Richard Branson told reporters in the hangar shortly before takeoff, his voice drowned out every now and then by the roar of overhead planes. "It's the equivalent of those exciting first few steps of a baby."
As it happens, Virgin's eco-plane ran only one engine on the experimental fuel; the other three burned standard jet fuel. And the biofuel-powered engine was using a blend of conventional jet fuel and biofuel: 80/20 in favor of the regular stuff. In total, then, just 5% of the 49,000-lb (22,000 kg) fuel load consisted of the novelty: a special mix of coconut oil and oil from the Brazilian babassu plant, prepared by Seattle-based Imperium Renewables over the last 18 months and tested by General Electric Aviation in Ohio.
Even as environmental groups roundly pooh-poohed the flight as a publicity stunt, Virgin and its partners stressed that percentages weren't the point. The event was, the businesses claim, meant merely as a demonstration. "What we're proving today is that biofuel can be used for a plane," Branson told reporters. "Two years ago, people said it was absolutely impossible." Among the fears: that biofuel would freeze before a plane reached cruising altitude, or that it would require massive and costly changes to the aircraft or fueling systems to work at all. Those prognosticators were proved wrong. The fuel Virgin used Sunday required no equipment modifications at all; the plane flew to 25,000 feet (7,600 m) without incident; and the environmental benefits seem clear, at least once the fuel is loaded onto the plane. Internal company testing suggests the biofuel, when burned, releases just half the emissions of conventional jet fuel.
Still, there are no plans to make commercial air fleets run on coconuts. In fact, biofuel producers in general have had a tough couple of years. As food prices soar worldwide, people are growing ever more worried that biofuel production can drive up the prices of staple foods. Tens of thousands of Mexicans marched in January 2006, for example, to protest the rising price of corn, used in the U.S. to make ethanol. Virgin and partners claim that their airplane fuel is, as Branson says, "completely environmentally and socially sustainable." It's not made from staple-food crops or from crops that required deforestation. But even coconuts and babassu have their problems: the oil yield is just not that high. If a 747 could run on coconut oil alone, it would still take more than a dozen acres of crop to fill one plane.
Down the line, say Branson and Imperium Renewables CEO John Plaza, biofuel producers are more interested in jatropha, a thorny plant that grows well on non-agricultural land in Latin America and Africa. They're also interested in farming algae, which Branson calls "the jet fuel of the future." Development of those feedstocks does look promising, but commercial mass production is still years off. And getting regulatory approval for the new jet fuel could take several years as well. So if biofuel ever takes off in aviation, it will likely be a decade before it has any noticeable impact on industry emissions.
Is it worth the effort? Some critics like Greenpeace activists who breached Heathrow security Monday to protest the airport's proposed third runway argue it makes more sense simply to fly less. Others argue there are bigger, more realistic environmental gains to be made by building more efficient airplanes. Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, once it's finally shipped out to its buyers, is expected to burn 20% less fuel than similar-sized planes and that plane will be in commercial use in just a few months. As priorities go in aviation sustainability, "Right now [biofuel] will be very low," Virgin Atlantic CEO Steve Ridgway tells TIME. But with fears that the days of oil are numbered, it only makes sense that a business would try to diversify its raw materials in the long term. And cutting overall industry emissions will be no easy task if demand for flights continues to grow. "We cannot be Luddites and turn the clock back," Ridgway says.
Just before 12:30 at Heathrow, Virgin Atlantic's 747 touched down in Amsterdam, finishing off the event without a hiccup which is more than could be said for Branson himself. For kicks, the mogul had drunk a sample of his firm's coconut oil and babassu oil jet-fuel blend. "My God that was horrible," he told reporters afterward. "I've been burping ever since." Now that, without a doubt, is a publicity stunt. | <urn:uuid:a94ec90e-cad0-4fe4-8be0-076a7bb6b251> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1717009,00.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721355.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00014-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970416 | 1,060 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Question;Chapter 13 -- Practice ExamMatching QuestionsMatch the following terms with their definitions:A. Additional terms B. Strict liability C. Merchantability D. Different terms 1. An implied warranty that goods are fit for their ordinary purpose.2. Generally become part of a contract between merchants.3. The reasonableness of defendant?s conduct is irrelevant.4. Generally cancel each other out.True/False QuestionsCircle true or false:1. T F In a contract for the sale of goods, the offer may include any terms the offeror wishes, the offeree must accept on exactly those terms or reject the deal. 2. T F Sellers can be bound by written warranties but not by oral statements. 3. T F Under strict liability, an injured consumer could potentially recover damages from the product?s manufacturer and the retailer who sold the goods. 4. T F A contract for the sale of $300 worth of decorative stone must be in writing to be enforceable. Multiple-Choice Questions1. Which one of the following transactions is not governed by Article 2 of the UCC?(a) Purchasing an automobile for $35,000(b) Leasing an automobile worth $35,000(c) Purchasing a stereo worth $501(d) Purchasing a stereo worth $499;2. Marion orally agrees to sell Ashley her condominium in Philadelphia for $700,000. The parties have known each other for 20 years and do not bother to put anything in writing. Based on the agreement, Marion hires a moving company to pack up all her goods and move them to a storage warehouse. Ashley shows up with a cashier?s check, and Marion says, ?You?re going to love it here.? But at the last minute, Marion declines to take the check and refuses to sell. Ashley sues and wins (a) Nothing(b) The condominium(c) $700,000(d) The difference between $700,000 and the condominium?s market value(e) Damages for fraud;3. Seller?s sales contract states that ?The model 8J flagpole will withstand winds up to 150 mph, for a minimum of 35 years.? The same contract includes this: ?This contract makes no warranties, and any implied warranties are hereby disclaimed.? School buys the flagpole, which blows down six months later, in a 105-mph wind. (a) Seller is not liable because it never made any express warranties.(b) Seller is not liable because it disclaimed any warranties.(c) Seller is liable because the disclaimer was invalid. (d) Seller is liable because implied warranties may not be disclaimed.;4. Manufacturer sells a brand-new, solar-powered refrigerator. Because the technology is new, Manufacturer sells the product ?as is.? Plaintiff later sues Manufacturer for breach of warranty and wins. Plaintiff is probably (a) A distributor with no understanding of legal terminology(b) A retailer who had previously relied on Manufacturer(c) A retailer who had never done business before with Manufacturer(d) A retailer who failed to notice the ?as is? label(e) A consumer;5. CPA QUESTION: To establish a cause of action based on strict liability in tort for personal injuries resulting from using a defective product, one of the elements the plaintiff must prove is that the seller (defendant)(a) Failed to exercise due care(b) Was in privity of contract with the plaintiff(c) Defectively designed the product(d) Was engaged in the business of selling the product;Chapter 14 -- Practice ExamMatching QuestionsMatch the following terms with their definitions:A. DrawerB. DraweeC. IssuerD..MakerE. Holder 1. Someone who issues a promissory note2. The person who issues a draft3. The person who pays a draft4. Anyone in possession of an instrument if it is indorsed to her5. The maker of a promissory note or the drawer of a draft.;True/False QuestionsCircle true or false:1. T F The possessor of a piece of commercial paper always has an unconditional right to be paid.2. T F Three parties are involved in a draft.3. T F To be negotiable, bearer paper must be indorsed and delivered to the transferee.4. T F Negotiation means that an instrument has been transferred to the holder by the issuer.5. T F A promissory note may be valid even if it does not have a specific due date.;Multiple-Choice Questions1. CPA QUESTION: In order to negotiate bearer paper, one must:(a) Indorse the paper(b) Indorse and deliver the paper with consideration(c) Deliver the paper(d) Deliver and indorse the paper2. The possessor of a piece of order paper does not have an unconditional right to be paid if:(a) The paper is negotiable.(b) The possessor is the payee.(c) The paper has been indorsed to the possessor.(d) The possessor is a holder in due course.(e) The issuer changed his mind after signing the instrument.3. An instrument is negotiable unless:(a) It is in writing.(b) It is signed only by the drawee.(c) It contains an order to pay.(d) It is payable on demand.(e) It is payable only to bearer.4. Chloe buys a motorcycle on eBay from Junior. In payment she gives him a promissory note for $7,000. He immediately negotiates the note to Terry. After the motorcycle arrives, Chloe discovers that it is not as advertised. One week later, she notifies Junior. She still has to pay Terry because:(a) On eBay, the rule is ?buyer beware.?(b) Terry?s rights are not affected by Junior?s misdeeds.(c) Terry indorsed the note.(d) Chloe is the drawee.(e) Chloe waited too long to complain.5. Donna gives a promissory note to C. J. Which of the following errors would make the note invalid?(a) The instrument was written on a dirty sock.(b) The instrument promised to pay 15,000 euros.(c) The note stated that Donna owed C. J. ?$1,500: One thousand and five dollars.?(d) Donna signed the note without reading it.(e) The due date was specified as ?three months after Donna graduates from college.?;Chapter 15 --Practice ExamMatching QuestionsMatch the following terms with their definitions:A. Attachment.B. BIOC.C. Perfection.D. PMSI.E. Priority.1. Someone who buys goods in good faith from a seller who deals in such goods.2. Steps necessary to make a security interest valid against the whole world.3. A security interest taken by the person who sells the collateral or advances money so the debtor can buy it.4. The order in which creditors will be permitted to seize the property of a bankrupt debtor.5. Steps necessary to make a security interest valid against the debtor, but not against third parties.;True/False QuestionsCircle true or false:1. T F A party with a perfected security interest takes priority over a party with an unperfected interest.2. T F A buyer in ordinary course of business takes goods free of an unperfected security interest, but does not take them free of a perfected security interest.3. T F When a debtor defaults, a secured party may seize the collateral and hold it, using reasonable care, but may not sell or lease it.4. T F A party may take a security interest in tangible things, such as goods, but not in intangible things, such as bank accounts.5. T F Without an agreement of the parties there can be no security interest.;Multiple-Choice Questions1. CPA QUESTION: Under the UCC Secured Transactions Article, perfection of a security interest by a creditor provides added protection against other parties in the event the debtor does not pay its debts. Which of the following parties is not affected by perfection of a security interest?(a) Other prospective creditors of the debtor.(b) The trustee in a bankruptcy case.(c) A buyer in the ordinary course of business.(d) A subsequent personal injury judgment creditor.2. CPA QUESTION: Mars, Inc., manufactures and sells Blu Ray players on credit directly to wholesalers, retailers, and consumers. Mars can perfect its security interest in the goods it sells without having to file a financing statement or take possession of the Blu Ray players if the sale is made to which of the following:(a) Retailers.(b) Wholesalers that sell to distributors for resale.(c) Consumers.(d) Wholesalers that sell to buyers in ordinary course of business.;3. Bank has loaned unsecured money to Retailer, which still owes $700,000. Bank becomes nervous that Retailer is on the verge of bankruptcy, and sends a ?notice of security interest? to Retailer, claiming a security interest in all inventory and real estate of Retailer. Retailer does not respond. Bank files its notice in the state?s central filing office. When Retailer goes bankrupt, Bank(a) Has a perfected security interest in the inventory but not the real estate.(b) Has a perfected security interest in the real estate but not the inventory.(c) Has a perfected security interest in both the real estate and the inventory.(d) Has no security interest in either the real estate or the inventory.(e) Has an unperfected security interest in both the real estate and the inventory.;4. Which case does not represent a purchase money security interest?(a) Auto dealer sells consumer a car on credit.(b) Wholesaler sells retailer 5,000 pounds of candy on credit.(c) Bank lends money to Retailer, using Retailer?s existing inventory as collateral.(d) Bank lends money to auto dealer to purchase 150 new cars, which are the collateral.(e) Consumer applies to credit agency for loan with which to buy a yacht.;5. Millie lends Arthur, her next-door neighbor, $25,000. He gives her his diamond ring as collateral for the loan. Which statement is true?(a) Millie has no valid security interest in the ring because the parties did not enter into a security agreement. (b) Millie has no valid security interest in the ring because she has not filed appropriate papers.(c) Millie has an attached, unperfected security interest in the ring.(d) Millie has an attached, unperfected security interest in the ring but can perfect her interest by filing.(e) Millie has an attached, perfected security interest in the ring.
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Ground game determines the political winners
As John McCain and Barack Obama bellow at each other across the national presidential campaign, a much more subtle war is being waged.
Heavy television buys, the mailers and the rallies all are aimed at voters during a presidential campaign, but this year candidates are discovering the value of grass-roots stumping.
The so-called boots-on-the-ground sort of politics is what Hawaii Democrats have practiced for years to remain in the winner's circle.
But it was a mainland political consultant, Paul Tewes, who helped reinvigorate it in Hawaii during the 2006 Democratic U.S. Senate primary race between Sen. Dan Akaka and former Rep. Ed Case.
It was Case with the early flash, but it was Akaka with the steadily spreading network of identified contacts that won his race.
Andy Winer, state coordinator for the Obama campaign, also ran Akaka's campaign. Tewes came out several times to help design the grass-roots operation.
"It was a very intense ground game. I would say it was more intense than most people have seen in a long time. We had literally hundreds of people knocking on doors and dragging people out to vote," says Winer.
The secret of grass-roots campaigning is to find out who is likely to vote for your candidate, identify them by name and make sure each and every one of them votes.
"We used demographic, phone identification programs," Winer said about the 2006 race.
The Akaka campaign focused on native Hawaiian voters, union families and families with a strong Democratic history.
"Then we made phone calls, we went door to door, it is the nitty-gritty organization that hadn't been done on a statewide basis for many years," Winer says.
It worked, and Tewes and his political consulting firm Hildebrand Tewes have been using it with dramatic success across the nation.
After clinching the presidential nomination, Obama sent Tewes to the Democratic National Committee, and while Howard Dean remains the DNC chairman, it is expected that Tewes will run fundraising and revamping of the organization.
National campaign consultants like Tewes might be flying at 35,000 feet with their campaign strategy, but they are all learning that it is at ground level where presidents, senators and city council members either win or lose. | <urn:uuid:560a9696-5756-4442-9f7f-c4c5deb41a26> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://archives.starbulletin.com/2008/06/15/editorial/borreca.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280929.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00421-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975863 | 491 | 1.539063 | 2 |
FACTORS AFFECTING INDUCED EMF
By experiment, the following factors may be noted:• The faster the magnet (or coil) is moved, the greater is the deflection obtained on the meter. This shows that the magnitude of the emf is proportional to the rate of relative movement.• Repeating the experiment using a stronger magnet results in greater meter deflection for the same rates of movement. Hence the magnitude of the emf is proportional to the flux density.• Reversal of the direction of motion produces meter deflecting in the opposite sense. The direction of the induced emf therefore depends on the direction of motion.• Using the south pole of the magnet instead of the north results in meter deflections in the opposite sense, showing that the direction of the induced emf depends upon the direction of the magnetic field.• If more turns are used on the coil, meter deflection is greater and is proportional to the number of turns (N). | <urn:uuid:1439ec59-f98d-4c76-8377-0f0c7a05f34b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.expertsmind.com/questions/factors-affecting-induced-emf-30111928.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283301.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00501-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.884647 | 199 | 3.375 | 3 |
Note: The New Republic fired Stephen Glass several months after this article appeared, charging the author with fabricating part or all of dozens of articles, including this one.
by Stephen Glass
On January 28, 1991, at 4 p.m., 10-year-old Darrin Davis, of Douglasville, Georgia, returned from school to his suburban home. Both of Darrin's parents were at work, and he let himself in. He immediately went to his parents' bedroom to call his mother, who wouldn't be home for another two hours. After talking to her on the phone, Darrin began searching the bedroom for candy; his parents often hid sweets there. He found none. Instead, after climbing on top of a chair, Darrin saw a white powder on a small makeup mirror. At that point, Darrin would later say, he thought of something he had recently been taught in school. Darrin's fourth-grade class had been visited by a police officer under the auspices of the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, or DARE, as it is known. One of the things the DARE officer had told Darrin and his classmates was that they should inform the police if they ever saw anyone - including their parents - use drugs. The kids were shown a video that reinforced the point.
Although Darrin had never seen either of his parents use drugs, he decided, based on what he had learned in DARE, that the substance on the mirror was powdered cocaine. So he did what the DARE officer had told him to do: he called 911 and turned in his parents. Two hours later, when the Davises returned home, they were handcuffed and arrested while Darrin watched. A police officer put his hand on Darrin's shoulder, and told the boy he had done "the right thing." Darrin's father spent the next three months in jail, much to Darrin's surprise and dismay. "I thought the police would come get the drugs and tell them that drugs are wrong," the boy told a local reporter. "They never said they would arrest them. It didn't say that in the video." When the sheriff's office told the boy he was too young to visit his dad in jail, Darrin set the neighbors' house on fire, causing $14,000 in damages. "I asked him why he did it," Darrin's mother said. "He said he wanted to be put in jail with his daddy."
As it turned out, the substance on the mirror was not cocaine. The Davises' lawyer says it was a small amount of speed. Both the Davises were charged with simple possession. Ultimately, the Georgia Supreme Court ordered the charges dropped, primarily on the grounds that the police had improperly searched the Davis home. The damage, though, was done. Darrin's telephone call destroyed his family. Heavy media coverage of the 10-year-old who had turned in his own parents ruined the Davises' reputation. Legal fees nearly bankrupted them, and they came close to losing their home. They filed for divorce shortly after the criminal charges were dropped.
In January 1994, James Bovard, a freelance writer, wrote an account of the Davis case for The Washington Post's prestigious Sunday Outlook section. Bovard used the case to criticize DARE for "turning children into informants" in the war on drugs. Although Bovard had called DARE to get the organization's comment, DARE officials had declined to talk more than briefly. Jefferson Morley, an assistant editor at Outlook who handled Bovard's column, edited the piece and faxed the edited copy to Bovard. The piece remained extremely critical of DARE. On the fax, Morley scribbled a note: "Jim: ok?" Bovard called Morley and approved the piece as edited.
On Sunday morning, January 30, Bovard picked up the Post and read his story. He was astonished to read, inserted into the piece and under his byline, six paragraphs that he had not written - that, indeed, he had never seen. The paragraphs ran counter to the thrust of the column, calling the case against DARE "murky." Far worse, the new paragraphs said "there was evidence" Darrin's parents were not only drug users, but "were also involved in drug trafficking, thus putting their child at risk." Not only had the possession charges been dropped against the Davises, but there had never been any evidence presented to show that the Davises were drug dealers. They had never been charged with trafficking, only with possession.
"I was stunned. I didn't know what to say," Bovard explains. "Nothing like this had ever happened before." Bovard investigated, and what he found out stunned him even more: the incorrect information in the added paragraphs had been directly supplied by DARE.
How did this happen? J.W. Bouldin, the Davises' lawyer, says the Post's lawyers told him that DARE had lobbied the newspaper to add the paragraphs. The Post's lawyers told Bouldin that DARE supplied Morley with the information for the six paragraphs and Morley typed it in. Bovard also says that DARE put pressure on the Post. "When they learned more about my story, DARE put on the full-court press," Bovard says. "They wanted to kill this story. It makes sense why."
Morley says it happened slightly differently. He says that after he edited the column he became concerned that DARE's point of view was not represented. He consulted with the Post's lawyers, who agreed with him that he should call DARE and get their side of the story. He telephoned DARE's Los Angeles headquarters and talked to a spokeswoman for the organization. Morley says that he wrote the six paragraphs based on his conversation with the spokeswoman. He admits that the information came directly from DARE and that he never told Bovard he had added it to the column. But he says neither he nor anyone at the Post "kowtowed" to DARE. "This was my f *-up. It was not the Post caving in to DARE," Morley says. "The whole story doesn't make me look very good. I regret, I really regret, any role in spreading the false information.... This was my least finest hour."
Bouldin knew as soon as he read the column that he had a dandy libel case. He called the Post's lawyers and informed them that he was going to sue on behalf of the Davises. "They soon saw they had one very, very big problem on their hands," Bouldin says. Shortly before the Davises' libel suit was to be filed, the Post settled. The settlement included a large cash payment to the Davises. The paper also printed a correction, which cleared the Davises of the drug trafficking accusation and admitted that no evidence connecting them with drug trafficking had ever existed. Bouldin says that the terms of the settlement prohibit him from disclosing just how much the misinformation provided by DARE cost the Post, but he makes it clear that the price was high. "Let's just say this was a very expensive mistake for The Washington Post," he says, the tone of satisfaction clear in his Southern drawl.
DARE spokesman Ralph Lochridge doesn't deny his organization gave the Post false information, and he doesn't apologize, either. "Just because [the Davises] weren't convicted in court doesn't mean they're not guilty of it," Lochridge told me.
The anti-drug and anti-alcohol program called DARE is popular, well-financed and widespread. Started in 1983 by the Los Angeles Police Department and the L.A. School District, DARE has quickly become the nation's standard anti-drug curriculum. The DARE logo is everywhere: on bumper stickers, duffel bags, Frisbees, even fast-food containers. DARE is the only drug education program specifically sanctioned for funding under the federal Drug-Free Schools and Communities Act. This year, the program will receive $750 million, of which some $600 million, according to outside analysts, comes from federal, state and local governments. At the core of the DARE curriculum are seventeen weekly lessons taught in the fifth or sixth grade. The teachers are all uniformed cops trained by DARE. The officers lecture and assign homework on the dangers of drugs, alcohol and gangs. Many schools, like Darrin Davis's, offer a shorter curriculum in every grade before the fifth. Some school districts also participate in supplementary junior high school and high school programs. The Los Angeles-based DARE America, the nonprofit company that develops and sells the DARE curriculum, boasts that cops working with DARE now lecture in 70 percent of the nation's school districts. In 1996, two of the last holdouts, the New York City and Washington, D.C., school districts, signed up for the program.
Most parents know about DARE, and most of them approve of it. So do most politicians, most police officers, most teachers and most journalists. President Clinton has been a fan ever since Chelsea graduated from the Arkansas DARE. "We ought to continue to expand the ... program so that in every grade school in this country there's a DARE officer," he said to cheers at an Orange County campaign rally last October. How many people, after all, are opposed to warning children about the dangers of drugs?
But what most people don't know is that, in the past five years, study after study has shown that DARE does not seem to work. The studies have found that students who go through the program are just as likely to use drugs as those who don't. In fact, the results in one study even show the dreaded boomerang effect: DARE graduates are more likely to use marijuana. Behavioral scientists have begun to question, with increasing vigor, whether DARE is little more than a feel-good scheme of enormous proportions. As one researcher put it: "DARE is the world's biggest pet rock. If it makes us feel good to spend the money on nothing, that's okay, but everyone should know DARE does nothing." None of this is a secret among drug policy experts and reporters who cover drug policy; some of the studies have been available for years. Reason, Kansas City Magazine and USA Today have published substantial stories criticizing the program's effectiveness. But these stories have done nothing to impede DARE's progress, and most parents and educators still believe it works. Why isn't the case against DARE better known? Why, at a time when federal funds are scarce, is it not a public issue that a program which costs the government more than half a billion dollars a year may be a waste of the taxpayers' money?
What happened to James Bovard and to The Washington Post is an illustration of the answer. For the past five years, DARE has used tactics ranging from bullying journalists to manipulating the facts to mounting campaigns in order to intimidate government officials and stop news organizations, researchers and parents from criticizing the program. DARE supporters have been accused of slashing tires, jamming television transmissions and spray-painting reporters' homes to quiet critics. "What you have to understand is that DARE is almost a billion-dollar industry. If you found out that a food company's foods were rotten, they'd be out of business," says Mount Holyoke sociology and criminology professor Richard Moran. "What's now been found out is that DARE is running the biggest fraud in America. That's why they've gone nuts." DARE has become so well-known for the hardball tactics it employs to shut down its critics that drug researchers and journalists have a word for those hushed - they say they've been "Dared."
Glenn Levant, the executive director of DARE, did not respond to repeated requests for an interview about DARE's effectiveness and its tactics in squelching bad publicity. Provided, at his request, with written questions, Levant did not reply. DARE spokesman Ralph Lochridge says his organization does not silence researchers. "We don't go after anyone, and DARE doesn't stop critical stories," he says. "It does try to help journalists write balanced pieces." Lochridge says his organization tries to "work" with journalists. "We don't mind criticism, but we want balance. Is your story going to be balanced?"
The story of DARE and its critics starts in Kokomo, Indiana. Fifty-three miles north of Indianapolis, Kokomo is an auto factory town of 45,000 people in the heart of the state's rural and Republican midsection. The city hall operator boasts that Kokomo was the birthplace of stainless steel. In 1987, it also became the first Indiana city to sign up for the DARE program. That year, school officials invited two sociology professors at the local branch of Indiana University to run an experiment to see how well the program worked. Everyone expected glowing results, and hoped the positive study would accelerate DARE's implementation elsewhere. The research team studied 1987's fifth-grade class in Kokomo through 1994, its last year in high school. They also studied the high school class of 1991, which had made its way through the school system prior to DARE's implementation, and had never been exposed to the program. Sociology professors Earl Wysong and Richard Aniskiewicz measured drug use among the students in both the 1994 graduating class and the 1991 class. They also measured DARE's secondary objectives: boosting self-esteem and reducing susceptibility to peer pressure. Wysong and Aniskiewicz were careful to measure the students' drug use with a multi-part questionnaire, which included DARE's own test as well as tests commonly used by psychologists. They found that the level of drug use among kids who had gone through DARE was virtually identical to the level among kids who had not. This means that in every category of drug use tested - lifetime usage, how recently the students had used drugs, how often they had used drugs and the grade in which they started using drugs - the results were "very similar" for both the DARE alumni and the non-DARE students. So similar, in fact, that the differences were within the margin of error. Moreover, students in both groups rated the availability of drugs nearly identically. In fact, the only statistical difference between the groups was that more DARE graduates said they had used marijuana in the past thirty days and the past year than non-DARE alumni. Wysong and Aniskiewicz concluded that "DARE exposure does not produce any long-term prevention efforts on adolescent drug use rates."
What about the more touchy-feely results? Again, the sociologists found no statistical differences. Using questionnaires to examine self-esteem and "locus of control," a common psychology test that measures susceptibility to peer pressure, they found numbers so similar for the two groups that any differences were again within the margin of error. They wrote that self-esteem and peer pressure are "two more areas where we can see no long-term effects resulting from DARE exposure." "That's all, that's it," says Wysong. "It's simple. There was no difference."
But Wysong and Aniskiewicz also found out what other critics of DARE would discover: no one - not parents, not educators and certainly not DARE officials - wanted to hear the bad news. Kokomo's parents, teachers and school board latched on to the study, but Wysong says they missed the point. "I told them the study shows DARE doesn't work," he says, but no one listened. "So what they did was implement drug testing." Since last April, the high school has required every student who leaves the building at lunch, participates in extracurricular activities or drives to school to sign a waiver. The waiver allows the school to pull them out of class at any time and force them to take a drug test. On average, forty-five students are tested each week. "That wasn't what our study recommended," Wysong says. "After our study it became very clear they kept DARE for public relations reasons." The school board has not renewed any studies on the local DARE program.
Even after Wysong and Aniskiewicz published their results, DARE continued to boast that an earlier California study - in fact, the first study ever done on DARE - showed that kids who went through the program accepted drugs less often than kids who had not gone through the program. The data also showed that DARE alumni reported using drugs less often. This study, however, did not ring true to many researchers because it had no pre-test. In other words, students were only surveyed after graduating from DARE. Without measuring drug use before DARE, it's difficult to know whether or not the students' behavior had changed. What is more, the study last examined its subjects as seventh-graders, meaning it never measured DARE's long-term impact. "If you don't know where your base is you really don't know anything," laughs an Ivy League biologist who examined the methodology of the California study. "My kid's science fair project with plants and swinging lights was more rigid than this."
Another drug policy expert who has questioned DARE is Dick Clayton, a widely respected drug abuse researcher at the University of Kentucky. In 1996, Clayton published, in the journal Preventive Medicine, the most rigorous long-term study ever performed on DARE. Starting in September 1987, Clayton surveyed schoolchildren in all of the thirty-one elementary schools in Lexington, Kentucky. The schools were randomly assigned to receive the DARE curriculum or to receive "no treatment." Students were tested before going through the DARE program, immediately afterward and again each year through the spring of 1992. Clayton's team found that any results from DARE were extremely short-lived. "Here it is in layman's terms: DARE is supposed to reduce drug use. In the long term, it does not," Clayton says. Just before and after Clayton's release of the two-year data, more studies quietly began popping up with similar results. In total, Clayton wrote in the 1996 book Intervening with Drug-Involved Youth, at least fifteen studies were conducted. "Although the results from various studies differ somewhat, all studies are consistent in finding that DARE does not have long-term effects on drug use," he wrote. Among those studies was a 1990 Canadian government report showing DARE was less effective than anyone imagined. The program, the Canadians reported, had no effect on cutting abuse of any drug from aspirin to heroin. (The Canadians were studying DARE because the program was becoming more popular abroad. Today, Lochridge says, DARE is used in forty-nine foreign countries.)
As the number of debunking studies grew, something else also grew: the number of researchers getting Dared. Take the case of Daniel, a young professor at an Illinois college. He asked that his last name not be used, since he is up for tenure within the next two years and nervous about adverse publicity. Daniel says he wants to study behavioral programs that have political impact. While he suspects that to improve his chances for tenure he should study the behavior of lab animals, he's fascinated by "real world" problems. "That's why Clayton's study appealed to me," he says. "I thought here was a chance where people like me can make a difference." Daniel designed and performed a study of college freshmen. All of the freshmen were in-state students, but only some had attended DARE. Once again, Daniel's study found no meaningful difference in drug use between students who had gone through DARE and students who hadn't. He did find, however, that DARE graduates were slightly more likely to drink alcohol regularly for the purpose of getting drunk. Over lunch one day, Daniel, proud of what he thought was an "important finding for the Illinois school system," showed the data to a colleague in a different department. "That was the biggest mistake of my career," Daniel says. "That's right - even bigger than sleeping through an oral exam in graduate school." Daniel says that, within a week, a local DARE official called him at home and asked to see the data. Daniel says he freely showed the information to him. That, he says, resulted in a "big argument with lots of yelling." Two weeks later Daniel says he received a call from his department chairman. The chairman told him that the local DARE official had complained that Daniel was offering kids marijuana as part of his study. Daniel says the allegations are false, but that he immediately stopped work on the DARE study, and returned to lab animals. "That could have been, and still might be, a career killer," Daniel says. "DARE has made it so I will never venture out of the lab again."
While it's not possible to say exactly how many researchers have been Dared, it is clear from talking to academics in the relevant fields that there are a number of them. It's common knowledge among researchers that doing DARE studies can ruin a promising career. Wysong and David W. Wright, a Wichita State University professor, wrote in Sociological Focus that the DARE researchers they had interviewed "asked to remain anonymous out of fear of political reprisals and to protect their careers." Interviews with drug researchers support this statement. An author of one prominent paper says he no longer studies DARE. "I needed my life back. I'm in research. My wife and I couldn't take endless personal attacks," he told me. "You want to know why I stopped researching DARE? Write your article and you'll see." Another researcher who was critical of DARE says he became so unpopular among fellow professors he went into the private sector. "If you fight DARE, they make you out to look like you want kids to smoke pot. I thought it was my duty to say the emperor is not wearing any clothes," he says. "It was stupid of me to think I could fight them. Everyone told me I couldn't, but I tried. Here [in the private sector] I can start over." The researcher says after he published his study, someone etched the words "kid killer" and "drug pusher" into the paint of his car.
The extent of DARE's ability to muzzle critical studies can be seen in the treatment of the most definitive test of the DARE program ever conducted. In 1991, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) - the research wing of the Justice Department - hired the prestigious Research Triangle Institute (RTI) to analyze the studies on DARE and determine the bottom line. Initially, DARE supported the "meta-analysis." In a 1992 letter, it urged state groups to work with RTI, saying it "will give us ammunition to respond to critics who charge that DARE has not proven its effectiveness."
"Everything was going along just fine," explains a researcher who worked on the RTI analysis and who asked that his name not be used so he wouldn't get "any more nasty, screeching phone calls" in the middle of the night. "That is, until we started finding DARE just simply didn't work. Then all hell broke loose."
In 1993, RTI presented its preliminary results at a San Diego drug education conference. According to Sociological Focus, a DARE supporter immediately responded by urging RTI to call off the research, saying: "If [DARE] fails, it will be making a statement about all prevention programs." After the conference, DARE launched an all-out war to sink the study. An internal memo from the July 5, 1993, meeting of DARE's advisory board offers evidence that Levant tried to squelch the study. The memo contains the minutes of Levant's speech. Levant criticized an advance copy of the RTI study. The minutes summarize Levant: "The results of this project are potentially damaging to DARE. DARE America has spent $41,000 in trying to prevent widespread distribution of what is considered to be faulty research." The minutes also noted that "DARE America has instituted legal action," aimed at squelching the RTI study. "The action has had some positive results," the minutes reported. "It has resulted in prevention of a second presentation by RTI. Legal action is intended to prevent further public comment until completion of academic review." Lochridge did not return a phone message asking for comment on the memo, and asking whether government funds had been used to stop the government from distributing a government-funded study questioning the efficacy of a government-funded program.
In the past, DARE had been unable to effectively refute its critics on scientific grounds, and its claims rang correspondingly weak. "They must not know how to measure things," maintained an Indiana DARE official about the Kokomo research at a local community agency. "If they could just see the kids' faces, they'd know how much good it's doing." Herbert Kleber, a Columbia University professor who heads DARE's scientific advisory board, says the RTI study was flawed. "It used the old DARE curriculum, which had already been substantially revised," Kleber says. "No, the new curriculum has never been examined."
So this time Levant turned to grass-roots pressure. According to one Justice Department official, Levant arranged for DARE supporters to flood the Justice Department with phone calls. Nationwide, many teachers, principals, DARE officers and parents believe in the program with almost religious devotion. In local debates, they have always been more than willing to make phone calls, write letters and hold forums to support DARE. This time, the callers stayed "on message," the official says, speaking almost as if from a script. "They'd call and tell us if we published the study, DARE would be sunk and millions of kids would get hooked," says the official. "Whenever we'd say the research looked mathematically good, they'd say, `there's more at stake here than good statistics. Can you live with that?'"
In September 1994, RTI finished the lengthy report. It concluded that, while DARE was loved by teachers and participants, it had no effect on drug use. It also went one step further, a step that DARE feared most of all. "What got [RTI] in the most hot water is that they said other programs work better," says Moran, the Mount Holyoke sociologist. In other words, RTI found that DARE is not merely a failure in itself, but crowds out money for programs that actually keep kids off drugs. RTI published a lengthy bibliography of some of the other programs. Kleber says the alternatives RTI looked at, which he calls "boutique programs," were only examined in highly controlled environments.
Levant upped the ante. Congressmen and mayors began calling the National Institute of Justice. The politicians stressed two messages: the curriculum had changed since the study, making it irrelevant; and the public did not want to hear criticism of an anti-drug program widely regarded as successful. The Justice Department official says the "phone rang off the hook."
One month later, for the first time in memory, the Justice Department refused to publish a study it had funded and successfully peer-reviewed. "We're not trying to hide the study," Ann Voit, an NIJ spokeswoman, told USA Today. "We just do not agree with one of the major findings." A puzzling statement, since NIJ hired RTI in the first place because it trusted them to evaluate DARE impartially. Still more puzzling is that even as late as six months after the San Diego conference, NIJ sent RTI memos praising the study. One note from Laurie Bright, NIJ's program manager, said the "methodology appears to be sound and DARE representatives did not offer any specific flaws ... [it] presented findings in a very fair and impartial light." Eventually, Jeremy Travis, who heads the NIJ, stepped in. He publicly reiterated that Justice had not caved under DARE's pressure, explaining that NIJ's independent reviewers unanimously recommended against publishing the report. Not so, according to one reviewer. William DeJong, a Harvard lecturer, told USA Today: "They must be misremembering what I said." Two of the independent reviewers who examined the report in March 1994 recommended that more analysis be done. But both urged the publication and wide dissemination of the executive summary of the report, and one praised the crucial section that analyzed DARE's efficacy as "well done." NIJ still has not approved the study, but will sell it upon request.
The same day Justice refused the study, The American Journal of Public Health - a highly respected academic journal - accepted it. It had conducted its own peer review and found the paper to be worthy. The Justice Department official says this infuriated Levant and that DARE tried to prevent the journal from publishing the study. While no one at Public Health would comment on Levant and DARE, two editors at the journal said that it stands by editor Sabine Beisler's comment of October 1994: "DARE has tried to interfere with the publication of this. They tried to intimidate us." When NIJ learned the journal was going to publish the study, it issued its own two-page summary. The summary oddly heralded DARE's popularity, but virtually ignored the thrust and bulk of the study, which showed DARE doesn't curtail drug use.
Today, the researchers who worked on parts of the RTI study remain thoroughly spooked by their experience. Two researchers at RTI, four at universities and two now in the private sector refused to talk more than briefly about the study. All but one said they were scared of losing their jobs. Three told me that their superiors had been contacted by politicians. "A state representative called my boss and asked if my research was really in the best interest of the community," said one state university professor. "Thank God my boss said `yes.' I don't know if even tenure would stand up to that."
Dare's hardball approach is as well-known among journalists who have attempted stories on the organization as it is among academic researchers. James, a television news producer who does not want his last name used for this story, says that ever since he was Dared he doesn't have any doubts about retaliation. Several months ago, James, who works for a small Missouri station, produced and aired a short editorial criticizing DARE. In more than a decade of local news, it is the only item he has ever regretted running. After that show aired, so many kids called James so often at home to read him lessons from the DARE workbook that he was forced to unlist his telephone number. "You bet I was Dared," James says. "The calls came and on and on. I had to hear about so-and-so is offered a joint, but she says `no.' I couldn't take it." Two callers told James that their DARE officer encouraged them to call his house at strange hours. After that, James's house was attacked with graffiti messages like "crack user inside" so many times, he moved to an apartment building. The local police, who run the local DARE program, spent no time looking for the vandals, James says. After a math teacher asked his son how "the pot-head dad" was doing, he transferred his kid to a boarding school. And, when the owner of a local diner asked him to stop coming to lunch, since other customers were leaving when he walked in, his wife took to calling him "Small-town Salman," after Satanic Verses author-in-hiding Salman Rushdie. James says he phoned Levant and asked him to "please call them off," but Levant never returned the message. "This may sound as if I'm being extreme, but I'm not. I went to Vietnam and that was less stressful," James says with a shaking voice. "There, the people I love weren't always being attacked. And this time, I know I'm on the right side."
In the past year, NBC's newsmagazine "Dateline" has become the most prominent news organization to be Dared. Starting in September 1995, "Dateline" producers began initial research on a hard-hitting story about how DARE doesn't work. They interviewed researchers who had concluded that DARE was a failure and students who couldn't remember the lessons. A "Dateline" camera crew also flew to Indianapolis, where an affluent, mostly Republican suburb was debating whether to keep DARE. For the past year, the school district had monitored a small pilot program. More than 100 parents showed up to the meeting and, according to those who were there, the majority vocally opposed DARE. According to a longtime NBC News employee, the show was scheduled to run on April 9, 1996 - the day before National DARE Day. The following account of what then transpired has been corroborated by two additional NBC sources; essential details of it have also been confirmed by a DARE source and a Justice Department source.
Last March, Levant heard about the planned "Dateline" show. According to the NBC News employee - who does not work on "Dateline" but has read a series of letters between Levant and NBC officials - Levant wrote an "attack letter" to Jack Welch. Welch is the chief executive officer of General Electric, NBC's parent company. The letter called the segment a "journalistic fraud." Levant accused "Dateline" of "staging" the Indiana meeting. Still under the shadow of an infamous episode in which "Dateline" was accused of rigging trucks to explode, the NBC employee says Levant's accusations sent "Dateline"'s staff into a "whirlwind of activity." But Levant's accusation was a "flat-out lie - no ifs, no buts about it, a lie as low as it goes," says Betsy Paul, then the Parent Teacher Organization president of the Indiana school district. "I don't know how to say this strongly enough. I will tell you on any witness stand with God as my judge.... We had scheduled the meeting for at least a week before `Dateline' said they were coming out here." Paul says David McCormick, NBC's senior producer for broadcast standards, called her. McCormick asked her if she had brought in "ringers" to stack the meeting against DARE. "And that was the biggest bunch of bologna I've ever heard," Paul says. "DARE just doesn't like that parents here figured out they didn't work." As further proof, Paul points out that this year DARE was eliminated in her school district and replaced with a locally developed program. "[Levant is] a big liar because if we stacked that meeting, if it didn't accurately reflect how this community thinks, then why did the school board eliminate DARE this year?" she says. "I'll say it again, he lied, and once more he lied."
Levant's letter to Welch contained other untruths, claims the NBC News employee. In the letter, Levant alleges "Dateline" producers would only interview him on the day his wife was receiving a bone marrow treatment for leukemia. Not true, according to the NBC News employee: "Dateline" offered Levant "several" date options. Levant also alleged "Dateline" staffers were interrogating kids in dark rooms like "old war movies." In truth, "Dateline" cameramen had turned off the overhead lights when they interviewed DARE participants because they were using their own lighting, which is standard practice. While the NBC employee says McCormick defended "Dateline" in a response to Levant, the story was put on hold. "DARE scared NBC's upper brass," the NBC employee says. "The story was, and is, solid. The people on it are some of the best in the business, but we did not want to look like we were going after a program that keeps kids off drugs. You can imagine that's a very unpopular position with G.E. So it was put on hold." David Corvo, the NBC vice president that clears "Dateline" episodes before they air, says, "There is no controversy about the program at NBC." He says all delays occurred because he felt the segment needed more reporting. "No way," the NBC News employee says. "That piece was solid in every way. Sure, you can always get another interview, and they did, but even before that it was better than much of what we air."
Then, in a September 1996 issue of TV Guide, NBC placed the following announcement: "`Dateline NBC': A Len Cannon report on the DARE program in schools. Its effects are `statistically insignificant,' says segment producer Debbie Schooley. `Research overwhelmingly shows no long-term effect on drug use.' The report visits schools in suburban Indianapolis."
According to the NBC employee, the TV Guide announcement killed the episode again. Dozens of DARE supporters, including Levant, called NBC. According to the employee, this time he made veiled threats of suing "Dateline." Despite the listing, the show didn't air. Corvo maintains that NBC "did not kill" the story and says if any lawsuit threats were made, they were not taken seriously. He maintains that NBC sent TV Guide the listing several weeks in advance, but when the date arrived, the piece still wasn't ready.
Next, the biggest gun in the drug wars tried to sink the segment once and for all. In mid-September, the White House's drug czar General Barry McCaffrey stepped in. "Dateline" had already interviewed McCaffrey for the segment. During the interview, McCaffrey ridiculed the research against DARE, but a Justice staffer says he did a "very poor" job refuting the mounds of evidence. Corvo won't comment on McCaffrey's interview, beyond saying the drug czar disputed the evidence against DARE.
On September 20, 1996, Donald Maple, a spokesperson for McCaffrey's office, wrote to "Dateline"'s executive producer. The letter asked "Dateline" not to use the taped interview with McCaffrey. Maple wrote that he feared the interview would serve "`Dateline''s purpose of painting DARE in a bad light." The NBC employee says pulling the McCaffrey interview might have dealt a "death blow" to the show. NBC's McCormick responded to Maple that the show's producer had written McCaffrey a letter before the interview telling him the purpose of the interview was to discuss research on DARE's effectiveness. While the network did not promise to cut McCaffrey's interview, the NBC employee explains, "at some point this story is much more trouble than it's worth." Maple says writing this kind of letter to a news organization is "uncommon," and he had never done it for McCaffrey before. But he says "Dateline" treated McCaffrey unfairly.
The show was rescheduled one more time, for Tuesday, February 4. That time slot - right after the president's State of the Union address - is commonly considered to be a "death slot." Clinton's speeches are renowned for running long, killing whatever television segment is planned to run next. And, that night, the segment did not run. As expected, Clinton's speech ran longer than scheduled and "Dateline" ran a show focusing on the O.J. Simpson verdict. "This system has worked. This show has not been killed. Whoever says that is out of the loop," Corvo says, adding that he has now cleared it to air. As of February 10, though, the segment had not been rescheduled. Corvo says it will be rescheduled when the executive producer of "Dateline"returns from vacation.
And researchers and reporters are not the only ones getting Dared. Some parents who question the program also say they've been strong-armed. In the San Juan Islands northwest of Seattle is a small town called Friday Harbor. There, dozens of parents have joined together in a group called San Juan Parents Against DARE. According to Andrew Seltser, the group's founder, nearly all of the members want drug education in the schools; they just don't believe the DARE program works. In August, Seltser's group collected more than 100 signatures on a petition asking the local school board to review the effectiveness of DARE. The debate about DARE overtook the small community, and became a matter of intense passion, with local DARE supporters raging against the parents who were challenging the program. In September, the local school board announced it would review concerns about DARE.
Then an odd thing happened. On October 7, 1996, the "CBS Evening News" aired a short segment that presented information critical of DARE. No one in Friday Harbor saw that segment, though. Thirty seconds into the story, Friday Harbor's screens went black. Randy Lindsey, the station manager for the local cable station, says when he watched a videotape of that night's news "it looks like someone pulled the plug." Lindsey can't explain the blackout. Friday Harbor, he says, often has problems receiving television signals due to sun spots. But sun spot interference, he says, normally distorts the screen differently. Seltser's group says they believe the program was jammed by DARE supporters since it came in the heat of the debate. And some Friday Harbor DARE supporters aren't denying it. One prominent local DARE supporter says it's "not important" whether or not the show was jammed. "Look, I'm not going to answer the question as to whether or not I know who jammed it. Hell, it might have been me," he says, asking that his name not be used. "What I am going to tell you is that TV program may have stopped DARE in Friday Harbor, which means more kids here would be on drugs."
Dare's public response to studies critical of the program has been to dismiss the studies as irrelevant. DARE says the studies are based on an old curriculum that may not have worked, but that the program now uses a redesigned curriculum that does work. The problem with the old curriculum, DARE officials say, was that DARE classes were not interactive enough; under the new curriculum, the classes are much more so. But this seems debatable, judging from a recent DARE class conducted by Detective Rick Myers at Barcroft Elementary School in Arlington, Virginia. Myers, a big man who looks very much like a cop, visits Barcroft's fifth-graders every Thursday to lead them in the DARE way. One week's lesson was about resisting peer pressure. Myers's lesson lasted about forty-five minutes. All but six minutes were spent on a lecture by Myers. To be sure, Myers used interactive role play during those six minutes, but researchers question the value of such role-playing as set out by the DARE curriculum.
For the first scene, Myers chose two kids: a brown-haired boy who was so nervous that he wobbled when he stood, and a tall girl who was so self-confident that she bowed when she got to the front of the room. Myers whispered the script to the two children and told them to face each other.
"There is a party on Saturday night at some person's house," the girl said matter-of-factly.
The boy said nothing.
"The people there, they will be drinking things that have [now louder and more slowly] al-co-hol."
The boy looked at the ground.
"I said, `The people will be drinking [very loudly and very slowly] al-co-hol.'"
"No," peeped the boy.
Kindly, but firmly, Myers lectured the boy. "Posture. Eye contact. Posture. Eye contact," Myers told him. "You need to be confident. You're doing the right thing."
Take two. The girl said her first line. The boy said: "Oh." Myers shouted: "Posture. Eye contact." The girl said her second line. The boy stood straighter, looked the girl briefly in the eye, and said very quickly: "No thank you, I don't take alcohol. I prefer juice and milk." Myers led everyone in a round of applause. At one of the back tables, a thuggish-looking kid sat regarding this little scene with frank scorn. "He's supposed to say that? That won't work. He'd get the shit beat out of him."
For another scene, Myers chose a small girl with wide eyes and scraggly brown hair. She seemed a little nervous, but excited to have been chosen. Myers whispered the instructions into her ear. They faced off, standing about ten feet from each other. Myers walked up to the girl. "Hey, do you want to buy a joint?" he said. She replied, almost inaudibly, "No." Myers put his face close to hers. "Come on, wanna buy it?"
"No, thank you," she whispered.
Now, waving his finger in her face, Myers shouted: "Why not? Come on, buy it!"
The little girl, backed against the windows, said, again, "No." Myers led the class in a round of applause.
Drug researchers interviewed about Myers's scenes are dismissive. "That role play is absurd. If the kids learn anything at all from it, they learn not to buy drugs from police officers," one researcher says. "Making it more interactive means making it more like real life. This is not useful. Fun, maybe. Useful? Nope."
And Myers's class is typical. When I asked him if other DARE instructors did it differently, he was adamant in response. "No. The great thing about this program is that everyone in the country is trained the same way," Myers told me. "We are told to go exactly by the book. There is no room for modifying the program. No way. It's the same everywhere."
The claim that DARE's curriculum is changing and maturing seems to be more a matter of tactics than anything else. A longtime California instructor who recently retired, and who told me that the curriculum has not in fact changed much at all, conceded that saying the curriculum was in constant flux did have an obvious strategic benefit. Experts agree. Wysong and Wright wrote in Sociological Focus that if DARE is portrayed as a constantly evolving program it can't ever be studied and therefore can't ever fail. "Thus DARE is protected from criticism and remains `forever young,'" they wrote. "In fact, in the view of DARE stakeholders, this is as it should be, because the program cannot be allowed to fail: the stakes are simply too high."
In fact, the most controversial part of the program - the DARE box - has remained unchanged despite years of criticism about this systematic attempt to encourage children to rat out the grown-ups around them, including their own parents. After the first class, the students, following DARE instructions, fashion a shoe box into a colorful mailbox, often decorated with DARE stickers. Each week from then on, for the entire seventeen weeks, students are encouraged to write anonymous notes asking any question they want. They are also allowed to accuse people of using or selling drugs or committing sexual abuse. These accusatory notes may also be anonymous. At the end of every DARE class, the officer reads the questions out loud. The officer does not read the accusatory notes to the class, but those notes are referred to the appropriate school and police investigative units for action. As James Bovard pointed out, Darrin Davis is not an isolated case. DARE students have fingered their parents in Maryland, Oklahoma and Wisconsin. In 1991, a 10-year-old told a Colorado 911 operator, "I'm a DARE kid," and urged the police to arrest his parents for marijuana possession. After his parents were arrested, the cop assigned to his school publicly praised him.
Parents and scientists in dozens of states have attacked the DARE box, saying that it reminds them of Stalinists rewarding kids for ratting on their parents. Lochridge, DARE's spokesman, dismisses their fears, saying it's mostly "urban myths." "Officers, as part of their training," he adds, "are taught not to elicit information about the [students'] personal lives." Lochridge says students are not encouraged to make accusations. But, according to one University of Illinois study, an accusation is made in 59 percent of all DARE classes. And while that number may be high, three Washington, D.C., area DARE cops interviewed said a DARE box note accused someone of using or selling drugs in at least one-third of their classes. All three cops said they "didn't discourage" their students from making accusations. Lochridge maintains the cops are just doing their job. "I don't know of any state which doesn't have laws requiring us to investigate any accusations of sexual abuse or drugs," he says.
In the end, DARE has an answer that trumps all. Even if there is some truth to charges that DARE doesn't work, what this means is that we need ... more DARE. "Well, if you teach people fractions or a foreign language, it's going to erode unless you reinforce it," Lochridge explains. "So the answer is more DARE. Kids need to get it more." And doubtless they will, whether it does them any good or not.
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Unit12 单元综合测试题 一.用所给词的正确时态填空. 1．Chen Daoming 2．By the end of last month he 3．They visit there. 4． She said that she 5．Tom's father well. 6．When I was a child, I often 7．I (play) football
in the street. (not hear from) him since he left Shanghai. (work) there since 20 years ago, so he knew the place (leave) before we arrived there. (design) ten bridges.
(get) two free tickets for Canada, otherwise they couldn't afford to
(hear) nothing from him up to now. (met) once before.
8．That was the toughest problem that I 二.选择题.
1.My grandmother is forgetful. She always ________ her keys at home when she goes out. A．leaves B．will leave C．forget D．will forget
2.Those toys keep the children ________. A．happy B．happily C．more happy D．happiness
3.We'll meet at eight o'clock. Don't keep me ________ a long time. A．waiting B．waiting for C．wait for D．wait
4.This glass is mine, which ________ with water. A．is full B．is fill C．is filled D．fills
5.We should look after________. A．the youngs B．young C．the young D．youngs
6.Look! The woman ________ in line. People waiting in line are annoyed with her. A．are cutting B．is cutting C．is standing D．is waiting
7.—Did you meet Kate in the school? —No, she ________ by the time I ________ there. A．has left; got B．had left; arrived C．left; arrived D．left; had got
8.—Why didn't your teacher attend the meeting yesterday? —He ________ Beijing.
A．has gone to
B．had gone to
D．had been to
9.—I have bought you the books you want. —Oh, good, I was afraid you ________. A．had forgotten B．forget C．has forgotten D．forgot
10.Wearing sunglasses ________ him ________ cool. A．makes; look B．make; looks C．make; look D．make; to look
11.The workers were made ________ 12 hours a day. A．to work B．work C．working D．worked
12.The girl ________ a lawyer two years ago. A．got married to B. got married for C．married to D．married with
13.—________ good time we had at the party last night! —Yes. It was ________ exciting party that I would never forget it. A.What; so B.How; such C.What a; such an 14.The earthquake happened ________ . A.on Monday B.on Wednesday C.on Friday C.a whole afternoon 15.The earthquake lasted for________. A.several minutes B.over one minute 16.From the news, we know ________. A．no villagers were killed in the storm B．the earthquake made over 200 people homeless C．two houses were badly destroyed by the earthquake 17.About the farmer, we know that________. A.some parts of his house fell down C.one of his children was missing 18.When the earthquake happened, the woman ________. A．tried to take some things out C．asked her husband not to leave 19.I think I have ________ my key in the car. A．forget B．left C．forgotten D．leave B．rushed out with her children B.his wife was killed D.How a; so an
20.By the time he got up, he found his father ________ to work. A．went B．have gone C．gone D．had gone
21.—What happened ________ Cindy yesterday?
—She was hit in a car accident. A．on B．to C．in D．For
22.When I got to the bus stop, the bus ________ already ________ for 5 minutes. A．has; left B．had; left C．has; been away D．had; been away
23.________， he got an “A” in the final exam. A．Luck B．Lucky C．Luckily D．To lucky
24.I was nearly late for class yesterday morning, but I only ________ my class. A．made B．made to C．made it to D．made it
25.It is ________ good exhibition that I have seen it several times. A．so B．such C．so a D．such a
26.My sister ________ a teacher two years ago. A．got married to B．got married of C．married to D．married with
27.________ your sweater.It's cold outside. A．Put on B．Dress C．Wear D．To put on
28.Please write down ________ you can in your exercisebooks. A.as much as words A．be sold out B.as much words as C.as many words as D.as many as words C．been sold out D．sell out 29.When I got to the shop, the fresh vegetables had ________. B．sold out
30.We felt ________ when we heard the ________ news. A．embarrassed; embarrassed C．embarrassed; embarrassing B．embarrassing; embarrassed D．embarrassing; embarrassing
31.He is a very unfriendly man, so few people ________ at his party last Sunday. A．showed up B．showed off C．showed in D．on show
32.Tom has lost lots of ________ in the past few months. A．weigh B．weighs C．weight D．weighed
33.I like to play jokes ________ my classmates. A．on B．into C．in D．to
34.Be sure to keep the classroom ________ after class. A．cleaned B．clean C．to clean D．cleaning
35.There is a boy ________ soccer on the street. A．played B．to play C．playing
36.The ________ of Columbus was quite an event in the world.
三、完形填空(本大题有 10 小题，每小题 1 分，共 10 分) I think April Fool's Day is a very unusual holiday.On April Fool's Day, you have to watch out for practical __46__.You also can not trust everything you __47__ on April 1st.Even some main newspapers will put fake (假的)articles into their papers to fool people.I heard a story about how __48__ April Fool's Day, a London newspaper printed an article about how aliens landed in England.This __49__ many people to panic and the local police were not very __50__ the newspaper. It can be __51__ sometimes to play tricks, but you have to be careful not to go too far.On April Fool's Day, I called my mother from the university I attended.I told her that I was failing all of my classes and because of this, I wasn't able to __52__.She was so upset that she started to cry.I felt really bad about making her sad and tried to tell her it was just a joke.__53__ I told her it was only an April Fool's Day's joke, she got __54__ angry with me that she hung up the phone.I had to call her back and apologize before she would talk to me again. April Fool's Day's jokes can be funny but you should be careful not to hurt people's feelings by embarrassing them __55__.Before you act, you should always make sure to put yourself in someone else's shoes and think about how they might feel. ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( ( )46.A.joke )47.A.hear )48.A.on )49.A.caused B．jokes B．listen B．in B．helped C．a joke C．listen to C．for C．asked C．afraid of D．to joke D．listened D．of D．guided D．pleased with
)50.A.interested in B．fond of )51.A.information )52.A.read )53.A.After )54.A.so B.fun
C．healthy D．stupid C．graduate D．dance
B．Return B．Because B．such
C．Since D．If C．such a D．so a D．too much
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2004 Toyota Tacoma Trailer Wiring Diagram – A wiring diagram is a simple standard pictorial depiction of the electric circuit, using its cords and relationships represented as dots. It shows the power circuits factors as simple shapes, with all the actual power and terrain connections between the two as shaded circles. In electric powered design, a 2004 Toyota Tacoma Trailer Wiring Diagram is frequently employed as being an analogy to spell out the electric circuits to individuals not familiar with electric powered engineering.
2004 Toyota Tacoma Trailer Wiring Diagram makes use of digital wiring to symbolize actual physical connections in the program. Virtual Wiring Diagrams (VWD) is a type of pictorial show that enables individuals to produce a wiring diagram in their system and never have to make actual models or drawings. It is then simpler to imagine the wiring diagrams on paper or another area since there are no actual physical links between your aspects of a VWD. Because of this, diagrams made making use of VWD tend to be simpler and simpler to comprehend than their real-daily life equivalents.
How to Use 2004 Toyota Tacoma Trailer Wiring Diagram
There are lots of strategies to attract Wiring Diagrams. To begin with, the basic form applied can be a package. Two boxes can be utilized as being the strategy, whilst about three boxes can signify all of the cables. Each and every pair of bins has distinct icons symbolizing the various power relationships in between each kind of cords.
The next step to attract 2004 Toyota Tacoma Trailer Wiring Diagram is to generate a virtual copy of the power emblems from the guide or any other graphic file. Next, these symbols are connected to a Wiring Diagram Author software to convert those to an actual reflection. When this is achieved, you can actually realize that the Wiring Diagram is simply a line attracting with electrical signs put across the pipeline. If necessary, one could even change the hue of each and every wire, although most facial lines will remain the same.
You can actually make improvements in the home building after a circuit is tripped, but correcting an electrical issue can be challenging. Most property building rules do not let significantly space for producing maintenance unless the catch is incredibly exclusive. Alternatively, it is recommended to contact a qualified electrical contractor ahead and ensure the problem is set. Many times, it could be found quite easily by getting in touch with about for the different businesses that offer Wiring Diagrams. Since the price ranges for a wiring diagram are pretty cheap, it is advisable to utilize wiring diagrams when you make repairs.
By using a 2004 Toyota Tacoma Trailer Wiring Diagram enables easy and speedy identification of electric powered factors. This will make repairing parts easier, especially when several parts should be exchanged concurrently. When producing maintenance, it is essential to remember that any modifications to parts like terminals has to be correctly labeled so that it is crystal clear who produced what change. Because so many factors make contacts by means of multiple cable, it is additionally vital that you know which components talk about contacts. Following a wiring diagram, it is very easy to recognize and repair any electrical aspect. | <urn:uuid:a4f78fef-3e5c-4a30-911a-11db198f8d39> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.autowiringdiagram.net/2004-toyota-tacoma-trailer-wiring-diagram/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570767.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808061828-20220808091828-00470.warc.gz | en | 0.915072 | 630 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Transcript of October 11, 2001 interview of Gordon Mitchell by Tom Sussi, reporter for Fox 53 News (Pittsburgh affiliate) Selected portions of interview scheduled to air December 13, 2001 on Fox Television Network.
Tom Sussi (TS): Talk to me about the strategy behind releasing this videotape to the public.
Gordon Mitchell (GM): One thing I'm curious about is going back to October, when Condoleezza Rice pressured television networks nationwide to not show bin Laden videotapes. Two days ago, we get a statement from Ari Fleischer, spokesperson for the president, saying "We want to share all the information we can" with the American public. I'm a little puzzled by that. It appears to be somewhat of a double standard.
TS: What's the motivation behind that? What do you think is the motivation to allow the public to see this tape?
GM: I think the motivation is that the United States government is trying to convince, primarily the Muslim world, about the complicity of Osama bin Laden in the September 11 attacks. What is interesting is that there seems to be a double standard in terms of releasing bin Laden videotapes that speak conclusively to the question of guilt, yet holding back and trying to pressure American news outlets from releasing similar videotapes that speak to the question of cause of the attacks, or consequences of U.S. military reprisals.
TS: Do you think the public has a right to see this videotape? Was that taken into consideration, that we as a public have the right to see this?
GM: It's difficult to say. One thing that I'll be curious to see in coming days is explication of the context of what this videotape is, who made the videotape and how was it acquired by the U.S. government. Answers to those questions are pertinent to the larger question of whether the public has a right to know.
TS: You've seen the transcript. Does it say anything to you? What do you get out of it?
GM: Looking at the transcript, there are definitely some chilling statements that appear to support the U.S. government's position that Osama bin Laden knew about the attacks. One thing that is remarkable about the transcript is the frequent appearance of the word "inaudible." I was just reading new reports explaining that that is because the translators could not agree on a consensus interpretation of the audio, either because the English translation of Arabic was ambiguous, or because audio quality was not sufficient to arrive at a consensus interpretation. At this point it is probably wise to take Secretary Rumsfeld's advice and not "leap to judgment" about exactly what this videotape says, to give different interpretations time to settle.
TS: It's not a public relations ploy on behalf of the government to rally the country together, and basically keep our motivation in going after him and burn him at the cross?
GM: I think it's important to consider the different and shifting strategies. The United States government was not interested in releasing bin Laden videotapes before this point. In fact, Condoleezza Rice, the National Security Advisor, was pressuring American television networks to not show bin Laden videos. Now we have a turnabout in policy. It is important to ask the question: What does that mean in terms of United States information policy?
TS: What does that say to you, if anything?
GM: It says to me that the United States government may have a double standard in terms of information policy, using one standard for information that speaks to the question of guilt or complicity of Osama bin Laden, and then another standard that seems to cover information that deals with cause of the attack and consequences of U.S. military reprisals. | <urn:uuid:e84c70cd-1b22-4901-832a-2c4f869ecf58> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.pitt.edu/~gordonm/Pubapp/Fox.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720000.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00023-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966519 | 767 | 1.640625 | 2 |
The chemical industries Seta, CHIETA, is tackling the skills gap and mismatch in the sector, which includes a focus on SMMEs and start-ups. CHIETA CEO Yershen Pillay has warned that the mismatch between skills in demand and those being developed was negatively impacting the employability of locally trained artisans and urgent action was needed.
He cited an example of welding skills. “South African companies are faced with importing skills from Europe and Asia because specific and high-quality welding skills are in scarce supply,” he said in a press statement. “In South Africa, we do not lack general welding skills, we have a sufficient supply of welders to meet the demand, what we lack are specific types of welding skills such as underwater welding and aluminium coded welding where demand far outstrips the supply.”
With regards to start-ups and SMMEs, Pillay said a recent CHIETA study had revealed a skills gap in management coaching, management and entrepreneurial skills, and mentorship. This incorporated agility, governance, innovation, leadership, performance management, research and development leadership, numerical, packaging, problem-solving, programming, project management, communication, negotiating, and marketing.
And the top 10 professional skills in demand according to CHIETA’s workplace skills plan included chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, environmental scientists, chemists, retail pharmacists, industrial engineers and industrial pharmacists. Pillay said CHIETA’s skills development initiatives were increasingly being designed to address specific skills mismatches, and a focus area for CHIETA was digital skills development. “The more our wider skills development shifts from traditional to digital skills training, the more likely it will be to see an increased absorption of trainees and artisans by industry.”
This included its Smart Skills Centre programme, which bridged the digital skills divide by taking training directly to rural communities. “We remain committed to maintaining a stakeholder-centric approach to our evolving skills development initiatives, and to strengthening our capacity to adapt to the rapid pace of change in skills needs within our industry,” said Pillay.
“At the same time, we strongly encourage wider engagement between all stakeholders, government, other SETAs, and training institutions across the board to ensure that closing scarce skills gaps is contributing to job creation in SA.” CHIETA’s first Smart Skills Centre, which will open in Saldanha Bay in the Western Cape this year, is aimed at providing access to basic digital skills in 4IR-related occupations to local communities. It is investing a further R50 million in Smart Skills Centres across the country by 2025. | <urn:uuid:4c559e36-56f5-4ecc-bb19-f62c2c5c1262> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.vutivibusiness.co.za/home-page/chieta-goes-digital-to-tackle-skills-divide/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573193.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818094131-20220818124131-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.954647 | 550 | 2.109375 | 2 |
From Toronto, Canada:
I am diabetic, and I understand the negative effects of having high blood sugar, but what sort of complications can arise from having continually low blood sugar? For example, I frequently wake up in the middle of the night because of a reaction to low blood sugar, and immediately run to the fridge. This happens quite often. So my question is: what is the danger in being hypoglycemic on a regular basis?
There are no specific dangers of hypoglycemia in an adult besides the various neuroglycopenic symptoms such as the loss of consciousness as the extreme.
Over the last decade it has been better understood how intensified metabolic control and treatment of patients with diabetes can sometime lead towards one most important dangers of chronic hypoglycemia, i.e., to develop hypoglycemia unawareness.
Original posting 20 Jun 2000
Posted to Hypoglycemia
Last Updated: Tuesday April 06, 2010 15:09:10
This Internet site provides information of a general nature and is designed for educational purposes only. If you have any concerns about your own health or the health of your child, you should always consult with a physician or other health care professional.
This site is published by T-1 Today, Inc. (d/b/a Children with Diabetes), a 501c3 not-for-profit organization, which is responsible for its contents. Our mission is to provide education and support to families living with type 1 diabetes.
© Children with Diabetes, Inc. 1995-2016. Comments and Feedback. | <urn:uuid:b38654f3-606f-46ab-b15e-87b8911a2b8e> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.childrenwithdiabetes.com/dteam/2000-06/d_0d_4yn.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720026.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00457-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.920214 | 317 | 2.84375 | 3 |
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In this ESL house and garden word worksheet, students examine a picture of a house that contains 18 labels. They write the names of the labeled items on the numbered blank lines.
7 Views 20 Downloads | <urn:uuid:5f7933e6-9330-44e5-a9f8-bef6e492ab11> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.lessonplanet.com/teachers/esl-house-and-garden-words | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283689.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00352-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.84088 | 100 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Spy-watchers are sounding the alarm about a growing temptation for the nation's intelligence agents to covertly "disrupt" suspected terrorists while sidestepping open processes in Canadian courts.
The Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) urges that Public Safety Minister Vic Toews take a more hands-on role in regulating and monitoring such spy operations, to ensure that the government has "full knowledge" of what the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) gets up to.
"Disrupting" suspected terrorists is a legal grey area that can involve everything from aggressive interviews by state agents, to overt surveillance of terrorism suspects, to techniques of more questionable legality. These processes are, by nature, designed to thwart plots in nascent stages, when federal agents feel there is not sufficient evidence to take to court.
The conclusions of SIRC, a watchdog body created to keep tabs on Canada's spy service, come from its annual report released this week. In 1984, the CSIS-watched-by-SIRC model replaced the more freewheeling RCMP security service, after that agency was discredited for a host of illegal disruption campaigns.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the Mounties were exposed perpetrating dirty tricks in the name of fighting terrorism. Most glaringly, the RCMP burned down a Quebec barn to prevent a planned meeting there between FLQ separatists and Black Panther radicals. Dozens of other lesser disruptions, including unauthorized police break-ins and fake-letter campaigns, were also unveiled.
Now SIRC wants Canada's spies to be more mindful of past excesses, especially as CSIS's appetite for risk and global counterterrorism grows. The spy service's budget has tripled in the past decade. Its agents are targeting everyone from Taliban bomb-makers in Afghanistan to undocumented Tamil migrants setting sail for Canada from Southeast Asia.
The fear is that more aggressive disruption campaigns will certainly follow. "The service's statutory mandate resulted from a series of illegal acts and practices carried out by the RCMP," cautions the SIRC report. Any disruption campaigns go "to the heart of ministerial accountability for the service and therefore should be conducted with the ministers' full knowledge," the report says.
There is no allegation that CSIS has done anything illegal, and CSIS insiders counter that Mr. Toews is by law kept in the loop on CSIS's most invasive spying techniques.
"There isn't a triggering event," Susan Pollack, executive director for SIRC, said in a conversation on Tuesday, adding that the concerns the watchdog agency is expressing are, at this point, mostly hypothetical.
But SIRC says there is clear pressure on CSIS to step up disruptions, given the inherently shadowy battle against global terrorism on one hand and CSIS's long-standing aversion to transparency on the other.
"CSIS does not discuss any specific operational issues or methodologies," Isabelle Scott, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mailed response to Globe questions about disruption.
When pressed, however, she did say that spies "may consider asking a family member or community leader" close to a terrorist suspect to assist in dissuading extremism. Such interventions and other, unspecified techniques "may be sufficient in foiling planned acts which threaten the safety and the security of Canadians," she said.
RCMP detectives, and not CSIS operatives, may be the state agents better situated to disrupt terrorists, according to SIRC. In fact, the Mounties claimed in a recent report to have disrupted 14 terrorist groups in 2007 - but provided no details as to who, when or how.
Paul Kennedy, formerly a top security bureaucrat, said there is nothing inherently wrong with disruption. "I don't think the word by itself is bad," he said, pointing out that it is a time-honoured technique used by state agents when all else is likely to fail. Counterterrorism court cases are notoriously hard to prosecute.
Still, Mr. Kennedy, who has been given the task of watching both the RCMP and CSIS in his career, says there is a clear public interest in reining in any excesses by state agents. "If you don't circumscribe disruptive activities," he said, "one may cross the line and we may find ourselves back where we were."
Some past examples of 'overt surveillance' and disruption by Canadian spies
Known examples of "disruption" campaigns by Canadian agents are rare, but some acknowledged and apparent ones do exist.
1972: The RCMP Security Service burns down a barn in rural Quebec to prevent a meeting between suspected FLQ separatists and Black Panthers.
This is the most glaring of hundreds of other questionable - arguably illegal - police anti-subversion activities of that era. They lead to a judicial inquiry to urge the creation of a more constrained civilian spy service.
1984: The Canadian Security Intelligence Service is created as a domestic agency. Over time it grows less passive and domestic, and more aggressively operational and outward-looking.
2001: RCMP and CSIS state that agents engage in "overt surveillance" of certain Canadian Arabs suspected of links to al-Qaeda - yet who have committed no crimes. Teams of cars follow certain individuals.
Closed-circuit cameras are conspicuously installed outside residences. The surveillance prompts individuals to leave the country - some of whom are subsequently arrested and tortured overseas.
2005: CSIS agents meet the parents of young radicals in Toronto to tell them their children risk becoming terrorists. One teenager takes offence and hatches a plot to bomb Toronto's CSIS headquarters. Zakaria Amara is now serving a life sentence.
2008: An RCMP fiscal report claims that the Mountie counterterrorism detectives "disrupted 14 groups and/or individuals" in that year, but gives no details.
2009: CSIS agents approach security staff at the Ottawa Hospital, asking them to keep an eye on an X-ray technician there. Mounties later charge Misbahuddin Ahmed in connection with the RCMP's "Project Samossa" operation.
2010: CSIS director Richard Fadden tells Parliament his spies "have saved Canadian lives" in Afghanistan without specifying how. CSIS is believed to have a clandestine role in disabling Taliban bomb-making cells.
2010: A Toronto judge faults CSIS "threats and intimidation" for leading a Muslim preacher to hand over incriminating evidence to authorities. Judge Jane Kelly tosses out the case.Report Typo/Error | <urn:uuid:e76c28dd-713a-496a-bf7e-a34fb57d7937> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/spy-watchers-urge-a-shorter-leash-for-csis/article1381179/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719273.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00065-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952164 | 1,301 | 1.695313 | 2 |
The companies are constantly looking for agencies that employ candidates on their behalf. So, there can be job openings in organizations for the right applicants who are watching out for prospects in their desired arena of interest. The positions in the companies could be the full-time, part-time, agreement of hiring or jobs, or hiring directly and permanently.
Recruitment agencies help in dividing the load of companies that hire them. This helps the companies to focus on the development of their professional areas, take more lucrative projects without increasing their headcount. It enables them to increase or decrease staff whenever the need arises. Take a look at the several benefits that Staffing agencies in brazil have.
The Overhead costs are reduced greatly
The permanent employees are not only paid salaries. So many other costs are taken care of in organizations for their staff. Health, levies, retreats, retirement plans, many more are several expenditures that are looked into for the permanent employees.
No supplementary costs are associated with the provisional employees. The workers are remunerated for the effort they put into the job. No other costs are taken care by the employer.
Overtime costs are reduced and that saves money
If the employers put the burden on permanent workers during busy times, they have to be given salaries for working overtime. The workers are usually already burnt with the excess load. The efficiency levels are not very high. On the contrary, if new people are hired from the staffing agencies just for the new projects for short durations, the amount of money paid to them is less. The new employees bring new energy levels. You are provided people by these agencies who are willing to work for a few hours as well.
To cover up needs for a quick appointment of staff
There are various reasons for the permanent workers to take breaks from the office. There are many reasons like maternity, some emergencies, some health treatment or leave without pay.
The recruitment agencies are very flexible and sort out these issues. They can provide employees who are prepared to toil on short spans. These make handling the problems related to the staff very easy.
Saves from risks and training associated with hiring
It is very difficult to train people for the job that the managers need. Large amounts of money and time are invested into it. Hiring the right people is not easy either. The candidate starts working and then the employers realize how they benefit the organization.
The agencies are of great help to cover the needs of short-term employment for small projects. Employers do not have to spend huge amounts for training them and they get the right people to work for small durations.
When the work agreement and the task get over, the employer does not have to be concerned about, insurance for unemployment, or searching for replacements. The advantage of these agencies is that when you part with agency workers it is very even and hassle-free.
The specialists at recruitment save time and increase the rate of Interest
At times there is a requirement for a professional or someone who has the expertise. The employers know that hiring someone permanently for temporary jobs is not a sensible decision at all.
The staffing agencies are very helpful in such cases as the employers do not have to spend hours over resumes, call people for references, or interview applicants who might or might not qualify for the job at all.
The agency people are experts at providing the right people for such jobs. It saves money, time for the proprietors which is a huge advantage as that time could be used for other productive things.
Payroll and on-boarding are handled by the agencies
One of the benefits of the agencies for hiring employees is that everything related to getting them on board is done by the agencies.
The taxes, compensation, paperwork related to getting them on board. All benefits related to unemployment are handled by the agencies.
Great network to access the talent
The agencies that help the employers to find the right candidates have got a great network. They have years of experience in the arena, they have contacts, networks, and they are in constant touch with the applicants. Employers are way too busy to engage with talent continuously.
The agents are capable of providing the right candidates for the work in a couple of days. This really benefits the owners.
It is quick to Hire
The network of the agents is so strong that providing the right candidate becomes really easy and quick. Many times, situations occur where people quit immediately or some urgent necessity arises. These agencies are capable of reacting in a lesser duration than twenty-four hours. That is how strong their network is.
This can help the employer try out candidates for a permanent offer
Most of the time it happens that people are hired by the organizations. They realize after a few days that the person is not fit for the job. They are given other roles where they work better or in worst cases, they quit as well.
The employer gets an opportunity to check the capability of people when they are hired through recruitment agencies. If the manager is very happy with the effort of the employee, they may be offered full-time work in the organization.
There are numerous reasons to take the help of the agency for finding the right staff for the job. Several offshore employment agencies in brazil can help you discover the right people. Go ahead and use their services without a doubt. You will never go wrong with them. They not only make your task easier but help you deal with all the issues you ever face with the candidates. They are with you as a support system you can always bank on. Go for it and hire the right people. | <urn:uuid:558b7d01-4537-4ba7-aea5-c0dac5b100ea> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://abhype.com/are-you-looking-to-hire-staff-but-do-not-have-the-time-to-hunt-for-the-right-candidates-do-not-worry-taking-the-help-of-staffing-agencies-have-immense-benefits/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571982.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813172349-20220813202349-00074.warc.gz | en | 0.973339 | 1,140 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Currency Blocs in the 21st Century
57 Pages Posted: 16 Oct 2012
Date Written: October 12, 2012
Based on a classification of countries and territories according to their regime and anchor currency choice, the study considers the two major currency blocs of the present world. A nested logit regression suggests that long-term structural economic variables determine a given country’s currency bloc affiliation. The dollar bloc differs from the euro bloc in that there exists a group of countries that peg temporarily to the US dollar without having close economic affinities with the bloc. The estimated parameters are consistent with an additive random utility model interpretation. A currency bloc equilibrium in the spirit of Alesina and Barro (2002) is derived empirically.
Keywords: anchor currency choice, nested logit, exchange rate regime classification, additive random utility model, currency bloc equilibrium
JEL Classification: F02, F31, F33, E42, C25
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation | <urn:uuid:da5939d6-1617-4395-b3a7-b12d453f7261> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2161915 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572163.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815085006-20220815115006-00677.warc.gz | en | 0.829529 | 205 | 2.015625 | 2 |
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