text stringlengths 181 608k | id stringlengths 47 47 | dump stringclasses 3 values | url stringlengths 13 2.97k | file_path stringlengths 125 140 | language stringclasses 1 value | language_score float64 0.65 1 | token_count int64 50 138k | score float64 1.5 5 | int_score int64 2 5 |
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A screenshot of Anonym.OS Beta 4
|Source model||Open source|
|Latest release||Beta 4 / January 14, 2006|
Anonym.OS was a Live CD operating system based on OpenBSD 3.8 with strong encryption and anonymization tools. The goal of the project was to provide secure, anonymous web browsing access to everyday users. The operating system was OpenBSD 3.8, although many packages have been added to facilitate its goal. It used Fluxbox as its window manager.
The project was discontinued after the release of Beta 4 (2006). | <urn:uuid:9897c6f8-344f-4d17-b170-ccd2a494e53a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonym.OS | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00044-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900918 | 119 | 1.632813 | 2 |
This is absolutely not true.
The Quran still exists today just as it did at the time of the prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. You see, he never did learn how to read or write, so he memorized the entire Quran from the angel Gabriel (Jibril in Arabic) and then he passed on this recitation (Quran) to his companions and they in turn passed it on to the next generation and this practice continues even today, reciting by memory and then passing it on to the next generations. And by the way, it is exactly the same from anywhere it is recited in the world.
We know the Quran orders believers to fight in combat against those who are the oppressors, aggressors and terrorists and those who are assaulting and killing the innocent men, women and children. But it gives out clear orders – NOT TO Fight against those who are not fighting against you…
“And what is [the matter] with you that you fight not in the cause of Allah and [for] the oppressed among men, women, and children who say, “Our Lord, take us out of this city of oppressive people and appoint for us from Yourself a protector and appoint for us from Yourself a helper?” [The Quran 4:75 ]
“Would you not fight a people who broke their oaths and determined to expel the Messenger, and they had begun [the attack upon] you the first time? Do you fear them? But Allah has more right that you should fear Him, if you are [truly] believers.†[The Quran 9:13 ]
It is our duty and privilege to present the truth and proof about Islam and what it represents. We desire to clear up misconceptions and misunderstandings about Islam to help others see the true message that came with all of the prophets from Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, peace be upon them all.
“The message is: La ilaha illa Allah (none has the right to be worshipped except Allah).”
There is not such a meaning in the Quran, ordering or even permitting the Muslims to ever attack innocent people whether they are Christians, Jews, or any other faith for that matter.
Combat is only ordered against those who are attacking or killing the innocent Muslims or fighting against the established Muslim state.
The word used most often in Quran, that is so often mistranslated as kill; slay; or slaughter is not jihad, it is Qital and if you look to the Arabic, you will quickly understand this word in today’s usage would clearly be combat.
Scholars of Quran tell us the verses dealing with this topic are specific and not intended to imply a general meaning for just anyone to decide to go around combating non-Muslims. The early Muslims had been driven out of their homes and turned out into the desert to starve. After finally, relocating in Medina, verses came in Quran instructing them to make hajj (pilgrimage) back to Makkah. Finding their way blocked and after several years of making agreements and treaties that the others continually broke, the Muslims were at last, told they could now fight in combat against the tyrants who had so horribly mistreated and abused them in the past. However, this would only be acceptable to Allah if they remained within very specific limitations. The word “Qital” in Arabic in this instance refers to “combat” rather than what some have used “kill” because the word “kill” is far to general, while the word “combat” appropriately describes what is intended by the usage in this passage. Allah Knows Best.
It should also be noted the usage of the word “Fitnah” in the same verse denotes a horrible condition, not unlike what we find today when there is terrorism and tyranny against the moral and just society at large. It would be easy to properly understand the meaning as, “Engage them in combat, even killing them, until the state of “Fitnah” (terrorism) no longer exists in the society and people are free to worship Allah by their choice.”
We can see these verse are not designed to promote terrorism, but rather these are very orders from Above to the Muslims to be the first of those who stand out aggressively against all forms of terrorism and oppression.
Allah ordered believers in the Quran to wage combat against terrorism – 14 centuries ago. And the “struggle against oppression, terrorism and tyranny” in the Arabic language, it is called, “Jihad.”
“Allah does not forbid you from those who do not fight you because of religion and do not expel you from your homes – from being righteous toward them and acting justly toward them. Indeed, Allah loves those who act justly. Allah only forbids you from those who fight you because of religion and expel you from your homes and aid in your expulsion – [forbids] that you make allies of them. And whoever makes allies of them, then it is those who are the wrongdoers.†[The Quran 60:8-9 ]
“Islam declared the WAR ON TERRORISM – over 1,400 years ago!” | <urn:uuid:e32bdc17-4e7b-41cf-88a8-910946620cd7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://aboutislam.chat/en/islam-say-kill-infidels/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573744.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819161440-20220819191440-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.966428 | 1,087 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Random articlesArea of a Sphere Perpendicular Bisector, Altitude, Median Measuring Area Multiplying and Dividing Radical Terms Dividing Numbers Intro Adding/Subtracting Mixed Fractions Roman Numerals
Working out the area of shapes in solid 3D form, isn’t entirely different to working out the area of flat 2D shapes.
There’s just usually a bit more work to do, to get the whole surface area of a solid shape, as opposed to a flat shape. Although the notation is still the same, for example cm² or m², for squared centimeters and meters.
When dealing with the surface area of 3D shapes. It’s important not to confuse area with volume. As surface area is concerned with measuring over the outside of a shape, where as volume is measuring what can go inside a shape.
It would be like if you had a
box with a gift inside, to give to a friend or relative.
The surface area is how much wrapping
paper you would need to cover the outside surface of the box.
Where as the volume is how much you can fit inside the box.
So for the area of 3D shapes, the key fact to remember is that area is a measure of the outside,
volume is a measure of the inside.
Below are a list of pages featuring examples and explanations on how to establish the surface area of some of the most common shapes seen not just in Math, but in everyday life in general. | <urn:uuid:36f029ff-c290-477d-b842-90645bb8ac96> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.mathlearnit.com/area-of-3d-shapes.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571911.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813081639-20220813111639-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.945311 | 313 | 4.4375 | 4 |
Paneer and Methi Paratha Recipe
A very simple solution of making a vegetarian diet tasty is adding variation in the common recipes.
This variation can be in cooking method or combinations of different food groups or bringing some twists in the recipe.
Below mentioned recipe can be included as a whole meal itself. Addition of curds as a dip will further enhance the nutritional quality of your meal.
Paneer is considered to be one of the best sources of Proteins in vegetarian diet. Use of Paneer and Methi in the parathas is a healthy combination. The other variations can include use of Spinach and Green pea in the recipe.
Paneer and Methi Paratha (Serves 8)
Explore our recipes – Broccoli Paratha
Cal Carbs Fat Protein | <urn:uuid:34554733-268c-469a-838e-3b3ffe75760d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.mydietist.com/blog/paneer-methi-paratha-nutritional-recipe-for-vegetarian-diet/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570921.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809094531-20220809124531-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.927832 | 179 | 1.84375 | 2 |
The choice of becoming a stay at home mum and reducing the family income to one wage is a big adjustment. A few things that I needed to learn quickly was:
- How much income was coming in
- How much to anticipate our bills were each month
- The cost of raising our newborn twins, nappies, formula, clothes etc
- Be more budget conscious with the groceries
My hubby Scott is an accountant (runs his own virtual accounting firm) he helped me to understand the changes that going to one income meant. And the biggest lesson I learnt was to budget. Every 6 months we sit down and work on our family budget to help ensure that we are not overspending and that we save money to put towards a big ticket item such as a holiday or new car. When I first started comparing our budget to actual expenses I realised I spent a lot of money each month on magazines and hiring DVD’s, it was good to see, I didn’t stop myself from buying them, but instead I limited it.
I really recommend you find the time to sit with your partner, prepare your budget and work on a future plan together. It really helps to relieve the stress of only having one wage when you know exactly how much you can spend and if you can splurge when there is a sale on clothes! Read further on my tips for budgeting.
Couple the budget with the Bill Organiser and you are on the road to organised finances!
We have created a Household Budget which is very simple to use and I am so pleased to have it available in my shop
What you need to use this budget
- This budget is an excel spreadsheet that you input all your data into, it comes with easy to understand instructions.
- Very easy to use by simply inputting the numbers. All formulas and graphs are programmed in.
- You can personalise each sheet by adding in your own descriptions.
If you don’t have a lot of time you can use the ‘basic budget’ sheet to create a quick and easy budget. With the option to select the frequency that you receive the income or pay the expense and the amount for that period in the amount column. This sheet also includes a graph that will automatically show you your average monthly summary and a yearly summary for your income and spending.
Budget By Month
This ‘budget by month’ is still very easy to use, but helps you to create a more detailed 12 month budget as there maybe months that some expenses are higher than others. Eg, I find that winter months our electricity bill is a little higher as we use the heater more often. Add in the amounts you expect to receive or spend under the relevant month. A graph will then show you your budget summary and spending summary for a particular month or the entire year.
The amounts entered into this sheet are automatically added to the ‘Budget versus Actuals’ tab which will then easily allow you to compare your actual income and expenditure to your original budget.
Actuals By Month
This is where you type in all your actual actual income and expenditure on a monthly basis. It’s great to keep track of even the littlest of things, eg how much you spend on takeaway coffee each week, as the littlest of things always add up. The graph will then show you the actual summary and spending summary for a particular month or the entire year.
Budget Versus Actuals
All the data for this sheet is automatically added from previous data you have added from the Budget by Month and Actuals by Month tabs. Use this sheet to see how your income and expenditure is tracking compared to your budget for a particular month or the entire year. The graphs will show you whether you have any cost savings or are overspending and in which areas this is.
- Set aside some uninterrupted time to start your budget
- Be honest with the figures when budgeting, even remembering the little of things you spend money on, as it’s always these that add up
- Have on hand all your bills, rent receipts/mortgage statements and payslips so you can easily add in these details
- Don’t forget to include items such as haircuts, manicures, play gym entrance fees etc to your budget
- When starting to budget it’s a good idea to keep receipts for everything, this is so you can get a really good idea of the actual money you are spending
- For little items paid for with cash where a receipt is not received, keep a notebook and pen in your handbag to keep track of these expenditures
- When the actual amounts have been put into the budget don’t be too hard on yourself, it’s now time to look at where you are overspending and work on these areas. | <urn:uuid:3a1bda3f-495d-4c20-a708-a32ee06422a3> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://theorganisedhousewife.com.au/printables/the-stay-at-home-mum-sanity-guide-family-household-budget/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570977.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809124724-20220809154724-00474.warc.gz | en | 0.948501 | 1,002 | 1.546875 | 2 |
hERG Ion Channel and Drug-induced Cardiac Arrhythmia
The K+ ion channel coded by hERG plays a major role during the late repolarization phase of the human cardiac action potential. Blockade of the rapid delayed rectifier current IKr, the current mediated by the hERG ion channel,[4,8] can lead to prolongation of the cardiac action potential; however, the extent to which (and if at all) cardiac repolarization is prolonged, and the actual proarrhythmic effect of this, depends on many factors; in particular, the effects of a compound on other cardiac ion channels. Under certain conditions, action potential prolongation can trigger life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias of the torsades de pointes (TdP) type. Cases of sudden cardiac death following drug-induced TdP have been described, and several drug discovery companies were obliged to withdraw, or voluntarily withdrew, drugs from the market that induced this side effect. Among the drugs withdrawn have been blockbuster drugs. hERG channel inhibition became the single most frequent cause for drug withdrawal in the late 1990s. Prolongation of the QT interval measured in the surface ECG has been used as a surrogate marker for prolonged repolarization and torsadogenic liability of a compound.
It has been recognized that risk factors increasing the likelihood for TdP arrhythmias and, thus, potentiating the QT prolonging effects of drugs, include (subclinical) congenital (long QT [LQT]) syndrome, female gender, hypokalemia, use of sympathomimetics, bradycardia, recent conversion from atrial fibrilliation, congestive heart failure, particular cardiac ion channel polymorphisms and severe hypomagnesia.[9,10]
Many drugs from different classes and diverse chemical structures have the potential to inhibit the hERG-coded ion channel. Besides antiarrhythmics, antihistamines and psychiatric medications appear particularly prone to interactions with the hERG channel,[11,12] but other examples of drugs interacting with hERG currents include antimicrobial, antimalarial, gastrointestinal and antitussive drugs.[13–17] Less publicly noticed, a large number of projects in pharmaceutical drug discovery and development have been significantly (thus expesively) delayed, or even stopped owing to hERG-related safety concerns of lead compounds. Consequently, current regulatory guidelines consider hERG assays a major component of an integrated cardiac risk assessment, with the final integrated risk assessment taking into account results from different studies, as well as other relevant information, such as chemical class of the compound, assay sensitivity and specificity, potency of test compound in repolarization assays in comparison to reference compounds and in comparison to proposed therapeutic concentrations, and contribution of metabolites.
Despite a propensity to block hERG channel function, as determined by electrophysiology, for a limited number of compounds no cardiac arrhythmias have been detected so far. Among others, these drugs include the examples verapamil and pentobarbital. Both compounds have been shown to simultaneously block other cardiac ion channels, thus counteracting the torsadogenic effect of hERG channel blockade. Verapamil has been shown to block hERG and slow repolarization; however, owing to its effect on Ca2+ channels, it actually shortens the action potential. The slowed repolarization with shortened action potential duration, however, is not likely to produce TdP.
On the contrary, LQT syndrome (and TdP) can also develop without the hERG ion channel being affected, which was first described for genetic mutations causing LQT1 or LQT3. These dominantly inherited genetic disorders stem from mutations in the genes coding for KCNQ1/KCNE1 (LQT1) and NaV1.5 (LQT3) and lead to subclinical or clinical prolongation of the QT interval. A potential cause for the prolongation of the QT interval and the proarrhythmic risk induced by alfuzosin has recently been ascribed to the observation that the drug slows the inactivation of the cardiac NaV1.5 ion channel. One would, thus, also expect a potent, selective inhibitor of the KCNQ1/KCNE1 ion channel to potentially cause a prolonged QT interval, similar to the LQT1 syndrome.
Besides compounds directly acting on cardiac ion channels, new mechanisms for cardiac arrhythmias are being unraveled. One such mechanism is the inhibition of hERG trafficking to the cell membrane. This has been observed for arsenic trioxide, pentamidine, fluoxetine, and recently digoxin – a cardiac glycoside clinically used for the treatment of congestive heart failure – and is being discussed as a probable cause for the potential of these compounds to induce cardiac arrhythmia. As trafficking defects can take many hours to develop, they require a long exposure to the drug, and are, thus, easily missed in assays with short exposure times.
The structural and molecular features leading to the promiscuity of the hERG ion channel and its susceptibility to blockade by small molecules are becoming increasingly understood.[25–27] The large, hydrophobic cavity of the hERG channel pore allows binding of pharmacophores common to many drugs. The hERG electrophysiological patch clamp assay has an established role for the early assessment of the torsadogenic liability of a compound and scientific rationale for this approach is good, as hERG channel inhibition is indeed the major mechanism underlying most forms of drug-induced TdP. While the hERG channel assay still proves a relatively simple and predictive method for determining the torsadogenic potential of a compound, it needs to be kept in mind that it constitutes an in vitro assay, not capable of mirroring the full physiological response of a cardiac cell, let alone the heart, or the body. As previously outlined, the hERG channel is not the only ion channel that shapes the cardiac action potential, and that plays an important role in drug-induced cardiac arrhythmias. Thus, the predictive power of the hERG assay for the torsadogenicity of a specific compound is far from ideal, and data from other test systems need to be taken into account. Consequently, the quest for more predictive novel test systems is ongoing, and novel cardiac test systems are continuously being developed.
Expert Rev Clin Pharmacol. 2010;3(3):321-329. © 2010 Expert Reviews Ltd.
Cite this: Keeping the Rhythm: hERG and Beyond in Cardiovascular Safety Pharmacology - Medscape - May 01, 2010. | <urn:uuid:8cb4100b-1d24-4b4e-a781-f3a03710ed65> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/722090_3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571538.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812014923-20220812044923-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.921659 | 1,402 | 2.265625 | 2 |
MIT introduces Oracle for Object-Oriented Programmers
In a recent news article the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has introduced a technology for automatically remembering connections between objects. The provided system determines
how objects in a large software project interact, so it can inform latecomers which objects they will need to design certain types of functions.
According to Larry Hardesty from the MIT News Office, the major innovation in software engineering in the last four decades has been the development of object-oriented programming languages where objects might be considered as
repositories for the computational details of a program, which let the programmer concentrate on the big picture.
Developers often face the challenge that with increasing system size the number of objects as well as their interactions might be overwhelming. In order to understand the whole system, they need to spend a lot of time. This is where the idea of the new approach by MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory comes in. The system called MatchMaker learns in an automatic way about the interaction of objects within the system under development.
This is particularly helpful when functionality needs to be added to open source software as Solar-Lezama and his students Zhilei Ku and Kuat Yessenov have demonstrated using the Eclipse Framework.
In Matchmaker developers may specify the names of objects into a query field. In return, MatchMaker lists all objects that link the specified objects as well as all modifications required to any existing methods.
However, the system might also produce wrong inferences but as Solar-Sezama claims, even if this happens, the developer would at least obtain some guidance. They tried to prove this claim empirically with a user study of eight developers new to Eclipse. The developers were split up into two groups with four persons in each group. While the first group had to solve a problem without leveraging MatchMaker, the second group did use it, but retrieved incomplete information from MatchMaker. Nonetheless, all developers in the second group outperformed those in the first group. However, it needs to be mentioned in this context that a study with eight persons is not representative.
Future will show whether MatchMaker really can live up to its expectations. If you are interested in more details you might want to read the accepted paper which the researchers have submitted to this year’s SPLASH respectively OOPSLA conference. | <urn:uuid:93d79e0d-f774-4177-9f94-e23f5a6c216d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.infoq.com/news/2011/10/MIT-matchmaker | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280410.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00457-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942754 | 478 | 2.625 | 3 |
Pisa, Italy is best known for its leaning tower, but there is so much more to see in this Tuscan town. Piazza dei Miracoli, the area around the cathedral and the tower, is beautiful, and a visit can easily occupy several hours. Pisa was one of the four great maritime republics in the Middle Ages, and it retains a good selection of monuments from that era. There’s also the Arno River, a university, and several interesting museums.
How to get to Pisa
Air - Aeroporto Gallei
Pisa has a small airport, Aeroporto Gallei, with flights to other Italian airports as well as some European cities and Great Britain. Take Bus #3 to get from the airport into Pisa. Airport car rentals include Avis and Europcar. Take the A11 or A12 autostrada to get here by car.
Pisa is easily reached by train or bus from Florence, Rome and the coast of Tuscany. Local buses serve nearby towns. Wandering Italy offers a video about how to get from the Pisa train station to Piazza dei Miracoli to see the leaning tower and cathedral.
Getting around in Pisa
If you can, get a taxi from an official taxi rank. It lowers the chance that you’ll wind up in unregistered taxis, which are notorious for not playing by the rules. Try to have small change on you. Don’t get in a cab with just a €50 bill, and the more coins you have on you, the better. Cab drivers should, but don’t always, have lots of bills and coins to create change with. And sometimes, they use the “I have no change” routine as a way to pocket the extra.
Naturally, those who want to explore Pisa – both the city and the province – at their own pace should opt for a car, either for their personal vehicle or for a rented car. Cars for rent are available at the International Galileo Galilei Airport of Pisa, were more than 10 car rental companies operate. Either way, one aspect all tourists getting around by car should keep in mind is that most of the historic center of Pisa is out of reach if opting for a car, given the center is under the ZTL (Limited Traffic Zone) restrictions, only public transportation means and resident and authorized vehicles being able to gain access to this area. However, if they still opt for a car despite such limitations, they should rest assured: there are plenty of free parking spaces in Pisa, as well as paid parking lots – depending on the location of these spaces.
Buses are said to be the most convenient means of transport within Pisa, shuttling their passengers both to the historic center and to virtually all around the city of Pisa. Most useful seem to be the so called LAM Rossa, linking the airport and the central station to the historic center. Acquiring bus tickets is extremely simple, all busses being fitted with ticket machines.
Some hotels lend bikes to their guests. Otherwise pedal around town on a silver bicycle courtesy of Pisan bike-sharing scheme Cicopli, with an info point on Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II. Pick-up/drop-off at 14 stations dotted around the city, including at Pisa Centrale and Pisa San Rossore train stations, Pisa airport and Piazza Manin (adjoining Piazza dei Mracoli).
Toscana In Tour rents decent bicycles (€16 to €20 per day), scooters and stylish vespas. Touristy stands at the northern end of Via Santa Maria and other streets off Piazza dei Miracoli rent touristy four-wheel rickshaws for up to three/six people (€10/15 per hour) and regular bicycles (€3.50 to €5 per hour).
Construction on the Leaning Tower of Pisa took 176 years!
It was begun in 1174 but wasn’t completed until around 1350. The reason for such a lengthy delay may not come as a surprise: several costly wars in which the city-state of Pisa was involved. The delays were probably a blessing in disguise, because the soil compressed over the years of construction, likely keeping the Tower from falling!
The Tower used to lean in a different direction!
The seven bells at the top have not rung since last century. Each of these large bells (the largest weighs nearly 8,000 pounds) represents a musical note from the major scale. Though you can still see them if you climb to the top of the tower, they haven’t tolled since the 20th century – By now you can probably guess why. Restorers and engineers worried that their movements would make the tower lean even more.
Practical tips – Need to know
Currency: EUR Euro
Time zone: GMT +1
Country code: + 39
Voltage: 230 V
Electrical socket: Plug type C, F
+39 050 42291
General emergency number: 112
Explore city centre
One of the most iconic landmarks in the entire Italy, this tower stands to prove that sometimes, even the impossible can be made to happen. Works on this seven-floors-high tower started in 1173. Soon after, in 1178, it became evident that the tower had started to tilt due to the unstable ground underneath. This led to momentarily giving up on the effort. The tower generally opens between 8:30 – 10 am and closes between 5 – 9 pm. Admission: €18. Address: Piazza del Duomo, 56126 Pisa, Italy, 43°43’22.715″ N 10°23’47.846″ E.
Piazza dei Miracoli
This is the ground that connects several of probably the most famous landmarks in Italy. Housing the Pisa Cathedral, the Pisa Baptistry, the Campanile, the Camposanto Monumentale, and – of course – the leaning tower of Pisa, this square offers you a day-long experience in such a condensed space without the need to transport yourself over long distances. Address. Piazza del Duomo, 56126 Pisa PI, Italy, 43°43’23.593″ N 10°23’45.931″ E.
With its height of 55 metres, this building is the largest baptistery in Italy. Thanks to its shape, it has extraordinary acoustics, which is demonstrated every 30 minutes by a person on duty, who sings a few notes. Address: Piazza del Duomo, Pisa PI, Italy, 43°43’24.077″ N 10°23’38.901″ E. Opening hours: Nov – Feb: Daily: 10 am – 6 pm, Dec: Daily: 10 am – 5 pm, Mar: Daily: 9 am – 6 pm, Apr – Sep: Daily: 8 am – 8 pm, Oct: Daily: 9 am – 7 pm. Admission: One: €5, Two: €7, Three: €8.
Literally “Holy Field”, this peaceful cemetery holds the sacred soil from Golgotha. Built in the 13th century, it served as a burial place for wealthy Pisans. It is enveloped by beautiful arcades with many frescoes. Enjoy a tranquil stroll and marvel at imposing funerary monuments, historical sarcophagi, and majestic sculptures. Address: Piazza del Duomo 56126 Pisa PI Italy, 43°43’26.436″ N 10°23’44.338″ E. Opening hours: Opening hours depend on the season and day of the week, please, check the official website. Admission: One: €5, Two: €7, Three: €8.
This cathedral, built in 1118, is one of Italy’s most elegant buildings and cannot be missed when visiting the city. This building is a true architectural gem, in and out. The Arab influence is visible on the outside facade, which is covered by white marble. The interior will leave you speechless, everything is decorated with a great attention to detail, and there are a few priceless art pieces adorning the cathedral. Address: Piazza del Duomo 56126 Pisa PI Italy, 43°43’23.88″ N 10°23’44.16″ E. Opening hours: Opening hours depend on the season and day of the week, please, check the official website. Admission: One: €5, Two: €7, Three: €8.
Santa Maria della Spina
Situated on the riverbank, this charming church dating to the 13th century will catch your eye immediately. Despite being relatively small, it is often considered to be one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in the country. Be sure to stop by and marvel at the exquisite facade, arches, and sculpture decorations. Address: Lungarno Gambacorti 56100 Pisa, Italy, 43°42’54.877″ N 10°23’48.229″ E. Opening hours: Weekdays: 10 am – 2 pm, 3 pm – 6 pm, Sat, Sun: 10 am – 6:45 pm. Admission: 2€ per person.
Museo Nazionale di San Matteo
The National Museum of San Matteo in Pisa displays works from historic ecclesiastical buildings in the city and Province of Pisa. Address: Piazza San Matteo, 56100 Pisa, Italy, 43°42’52.691″ N 10°24’26.699″ E. Opening hours: Tue – Fri: 8:30 am – 7 pm, Sat, Sun: 8:30 am – 1:30 pm. Admission: Full: € 5, Reduced: € 2.50, EU citizens under 18 and above 65: free.
Palazzo Blu is a center for temporary exhibitions and cultural activities located in 9 Lungarno Gambacorti, in the heart of the historic center of Pisa, Italy. This museum is managed by the Fondazione Palazzo Blu, and is located in the Palazzo Giuli Rosselmini Gualandi, ancient palace restored by the Fondazione Pisa. Its name comes from the blue color uncovered during an architectural recent restoration, and attributable to the taste of Russian owners who acquired the Palazzo in the eighteenth century. Address: Lungarno Gambacorti 9, 56125 Pisa, Italy, 43°42’55.59″ N 10°23’59.506″ E. Opening hours: Weekdays: 10 am – 7 pm, Sat, Sun: 10 am – 8 pm. Admission: free.
Next Deadline for Erasmus+ KA1 Staff mobility will be 1st of February 2018 | <urn:uuid:c8c0bb55-93d3-48c3-af53-f2f8cc290a07> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://dorea.org/project/pisa-italy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00470.warc.gz | en | 0.93847 | 2,425 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Cellphones and wiretapping
I was recently interviewed by a radio station on the applicability of the Anti-Wiretapping Law on a cellphone video showing a Metro Manila Development Authority traffic enforcer attempting to fleece money —“tongpats”—from a female driver. This is the second time I was asked for my opinion on the applicability of the law. The first was when then-Justice Secretary Gonzales threatened media outfits with criminal prosecution for violation of the said law should they air the so-called Hello Garci tape.
My answer remains the same: since criminal laws are construed strictly, the law must be applied literally. Since the 1965 law’s coverage is limited to “dictaphone or dictagraph or dectaphone or walkie-talkie or tape recorder,” a cellular video, not being among those enumerated in the law, should be excluded from its coverage.
This is not a personal opinion but based on jurisprudence. In Gaanan vs. IAC and People of the Philippines, the issue was whether the law covered the recording of a telephone conversation through a telephone extension. The Supreme Court ruled that it was not:
“An extension telephone cannot be placed in the same category as a dictaphone, dictagraph or the other devices enumerated in Section 1 of RA No. 4200 as the use thereof cannot be considered as “tapping” the wire or cable of a telephone line. The telephone extension in this case was not installed for that purpose. It just happened to be there for ordinary office use. It is a rule in statutory construction that in order to determine the true intent of the legislature, the particular clauses and phrases of the statute should not be taken as detached and isolated expressions, but the whole and every part thereof must be considered in fixing the meaning of any of its parts.”
Moreover, the strict interpretation given by the court the phrase “device or arrangement” is pursuant to the rule that criminal statutes shall be construed in favor of the accused. Said the Court: Furthermore, it is a general rule that penal statutes must be construed strictly in favor of the accused. Thus, in case of doubt as in the case at bar, on whether or not an extension telephone is included in the phrase “device or arrangement,” the penal statute must be construed as not including an extension telephone. In the case of People v. Purisima, 86 SCRA 542, 562, we explained the rationale behind the rule:
The rationale for this, according to the Court quoting from American jurisprudence, is “to establish a certain rule by conformity to which mankind would be safe, and the discretion of the court limited.” “The purpose is not to enable a guilty person to escape punishment through a technicality but to provide a precise definition of forbidden acts.”
In any case, rather than chilling the people from exercising their inherent right to freedom of expression, government should be encouraging the citizenry to use new technology to run after corrupt officials. This is now an ongoing project of the American Bar Association in encouraging the use of social media as evidence. They have in fact developed an application where cellular data, photos and videos, could be utilized as evidence in court. We should replicate this initiative given that we have the highest penetration for Facebook and among the highest penetration for Twitter.
Under our existing rules on electronic evidence, such videos may be used provided the person who took the video authenticates it. Ergo, even without the application developed by the ABA, the female driver who took the video of the MMDA traffic enforcer can already use her video as evidence for extortion.
The problem again is not the availability of rules, but the lack of political will to implement our existing laws. In fact, the problem in this particular instance is the fact that the MMDA chief, instead of investigating his men, is instead, shielding his men from investigation and prosecution. On second thought, what can we expect from the same man who treated women as sex objects and as commodities to be given by way of political patronage in Laguna? Given the resolve of this administration to control both Houses of Congress in the upcoming elections, we surely have a preview of what kind of Congress we will have soon.
* * *
After 15 years of being a law professor at the UP College of Law, I will be delivering my final lecture as a full-time academic this coming Monday, Oct. 12 from 9 a.m. to 12 noon at the Malcolm Theater, Malcolm Hall, UP College of Law.
The lecture will be on “Criminal Jurisdiction under the Expanded Defense Cooperation Agreement: Customary International Law or under the VFA?” My last lecture will be delivered as the holder of the Manuel and Luz Chan Professorial Chair.
I have invited all my students for the last 15 years, my colleagues in the academe and in the parliament of the streets, and the general public. It will be my last lecture as a full-time academic because the Omnibus Election Code provides that I will automatically be resigned from my post in UP when I file my nomination as first nominee of KABAYAN party-list.
My column next week will also be my last in this newspaper. It will be my final column for the time being. I will bid farewell next week. | <urn:uuid:98f046fc-a845-4233-a050-fe3de7cfe02d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.thestandard.com.ph/opinion/columns/view-from-malcolm-by-harry-roque-jr-/188894/cellphones-and-wiretapping.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281649.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00442-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954961 | 1,112 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Following Thursday’s announcement that a complete L train shutdown, slated to begin in April, may be averted due to a new Canarsie Tunnel design, questions linger. If approved by the MTA board, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s 11th-hour plans to change course on repairs four years in the making will affect not only the L train, but also multimodal transportation improvements designed to both accommodate displaced riders in the near future and strengthen the city’s long-term transit options.
Will the new bike lanes, expanded bike share programs, and pedestrian safety improvements survive? Uncertainty abounds. But if New York City’s transit planners and politicians are smart, they’ll push forward just as aggressively as if the shutdown was still on.
To accommodate an estimated 275,000 of the 400,000 daily L train riders that would have been affected by a full shutdown of the Canarsie Tunnel, the MTA and DOT have been aggressively planning physical changes to the city, many of which were developed in consultation with community groups: renovating subway stations expected to receive additional riders; expanding the bike lane network; redesigning streets to calm traffic, be safer for pedestrians, and accommodate additional bus service; adding more pedestrian space around Union Square; and installing more Citi Bike docks.
These mitigation measures would have made getting around the city easier and safer for all New Yorkers, and should have been done regardless of the shutdown to meet Vision Zero goals. The city’s mobility crisis has reached a tipping point and it needs more alternative transportation systems to alleviate pressure on the overtaxed subways and to reduce traffic congestion. However, the future of many of these initiatives is now unclear.
An MTA spokesperson told Curbed that because of the new plan’s dramatically reduced impact, an entirely new alternative service plan is needed. It’s reconsidering, along with the DOT, plans for a busway on 14th street and bus-only lanes on the Williamsburg bridge. The agency doesn’t know when the alternative service plan for the interruptions—now falling only on nights and weekends—will be released, but says it will come as soon as possible.
When asked about how Cuomo’s new plan will impact pedestrian safety improvements, bike lane network expansion, and traffic calming interventions under construction, a DOT spokesperson told Curbed the agency will review the new proposal; the agency didn’t have anything else to offer about in-progress construction at this early stage.
Some officials and advocates are still interested in keeping the mitigation measures, even if the full shutdown never happens.
At a press conference, Mayor Bill de Blasio said: “[W]e’re not undoing anything we’ve done in the short term. We’re going to keep all of our current approach in place until everything is settled.”
Citing emerging ridership, Andy Byford, president of New York City Transit, indicated he’s still interested in increasing the frequency and length of G trains and investing in station improvements. He said additional ferry service will “almost certainly not” happen.
In a written statement, council member Antonio Reynoso—who represents parts of Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Ridgewood—vowed to fight for the continued implementation of street redesigns and transportation upgrades already put in place or planned for the L train shutdown. “Many of the strategies proposed in the mitigation plan, particularly those that facilitate the use of alternative and public modes of transportation have applications beyond the L train shutdown and still warrant implementation,” he said.
Council member Rafael Espinal Jr.—who represents parts of Bushwick, East New York, and Brownsville—voiced support for multimodal improvements. “The city should go ahead with its plans to ease that pressure even if the L Train won’t be completely shut down,” he said in a statement. “Things like expanding the network of bus and bike lanes and extending Citibike further into Brooklyn are good proposals and still necessary so the city should push ahead with them.”
Curbed reached out to Citi Bike about its plans for more docks and to increase its fleet of pedal-assist bikes and will update this post when we learn more. The DOT indicated that it will move forward with the new docks planned for north Brooklyn. As agencies review the new plan and await MTA Board approval, we’ll continue to develop this story.
When the L train shutdown was announced, the MTA and DOT were forced into figure out how New Yorkers would get around without a major train line, and plan around it. This is an exercise they should do for every single train line and bus route. Real transit accessibility means losing service on one system won’t cripple mobility since other systems can pick up the slack with minimal interruption for riders. | <urn:uuid:44d01239-3cfe-4529-a8c6-92f4688063c4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://ny.curbed.com/2019/1/4/18168726/l-train-shutdown-pedestrian-cycling-infrastructure | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571987.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813202507-20220813232507-00276.warc.gz | en | 0.954839 | 1,003 | 1.742188 | 2 |
AILA makes recommendations to restore due process for Central American children, families, and adults seeking asylum and legal protection at our border. Read Report Today
AILA Doc. No. 05020465 | Dated February 3, 2005 | File Size: 48 KDownload the Document
During the State of the Union Address, President Bush reiterated his support for reforming immigration. AILA welcomes the President’s attention to this important issue and strongly agrees with him.
[[To print the PDF on this page please use the print function in the PDF reader.]]
Cite as AILA Doc. No. 05020465.Open the Document | <urn:uuid:82b8ecf0-786a-479c-9ba4-85505c99ee04> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.aila.org/infonet/aila-it-is-time-to-reform-our-immigration-system | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281649.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00444-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.893805 | 131 | 1.554688 | 2 |
1) Rest when you have nothing to do. When Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn is fighting Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace, a transparent door closes, dividing them. Darth Maul paces back and forth ready to continue their battle while Qui-Gon simply sits and rests, seemingly doing nothing. In modern society we all feel like we have to be like Darth Maul. Pacing, finding a “purpose,” being anxious, stressed, waiting for doors to open. But it is great to just rest and be happy and not move when you don’t have to. I will tell you those doors will open, and it’s great.
2) Rid yourself of everything you don’t need. Obi-Wan lives a simple life in exile for 40 years when he’s on Tatooine. Yoda, Jedi Master, lives in a simple swamp hut after he loses his battle with the Emperor. They were still capable of laughing, of living, of staying healthy, and were able to train the next generation. They didn’t need anything to keep them entertained. It’s a story. But this is the way I would like to live: with my friend and my health intact, and not a material care in the world.
3) Practice being “good.” Being a good, compassionate person is a quality we develop over years and thousands of hours of practice. Most people are not good people. In business, in art, in almost every “world” I’ve been in, most people I meet are pretty gray to black. It takes practice to be the person who is a source of compassion and honesty. Supposedly it takes 10,000 hours to master something. Unfortunately, most people spend 10,000 hours trying to be a jerk to others. If all you do is put in your 10,000 with small kindnesses, then the universe will return that many times over.
4) Prioritize your health. In all of the movies I never saw an out of shape Jedi. Although there seems to be a deep spiritual component to being a Jedi, but clearly there is a physical aspect as well. They are jumping out of spaceships, fighting with light sabers, and they can probably run a four-minute mile. Heck, even Yoda at the age of 800 is jumping all over the place. Health is not important. But sickness is. If you are sick, then your thoughts will be stapled to that sickness. You can’t get rid of it. You’re in pain and pain takes up the mind and precludes you from doing the things you’d like to do. This is why yoga is not about looking good in a yoga studio. It’s about staying physically and emotionally healthy so you can focus on your spiritual life.
5) Be around other Jedis. Once Anakin Skywalker starts hanging out with Darth Sidious he becomes a bad guy (see above). Here are some things that are hard in life: being honest, being kind, and trying to add value to others. These things take time and energy. When you are around people who steal your energy then those things become even harder. As a wise man once said, “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”
6) Be open-minded. This is a difference between Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in the original Star Wars. Luke is willing to believe. There’s a lot of issues people get “stapled to” almost as if they were sicknesses. When you find yourself thinking, “This side is DEFINITELY right,” be willing to open your mind and look at why the other side thinks the way they do. It’s never for the reasons you think. Issues are just ways for the mind to practice being open-minded.
7) Trust that life is cyclical. Luke has to watch Obi-Wan die. Han has to be captured by bounty hunters. Anakin has to be recruited as a little kid. Qui-Gon has to die. Yoda has to go into exile. Bad things happen. But if you follow steps one through six, bad things happen in cycles. Good things also. Trusting that the kindness you are putting out there is compounding in a secret bank account for you means waiting for that bank account to deliver its returns. It will.
May the force be with you on this fine day. | <urn:uuid:4356e314-d356-4a05-9f0b-ac519254314b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.deepaklodhia.com/post/wisdom-of-a-jedi-leads-to | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00473.warc.gz | en | 0.965416 | 942 | 1.742188 | 2 |
On January 25, 2018, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) division of the U.S. Department of Commerce released a draft report of Blockchain technology (Overview). Recognizing the growing public awareness of the most well-known application of Blockchain technology – Bitcoin, the Overview draft report provides a high-level discussion of the technical components of Blockchain technology, addressing how data is encrypted, and how the data is verified and then distributed among the participating Blockchain parties. NIST is seeking comments on the scope and completeness of the draft Overview, which are due by February 23, 2018.
The Overview begins with a fairly detailed, yet accessible, overview of the architecture of Blockchain technology, covering both how data that is to be recorded and encrypted in the blocks, and how the individual blocks are then incorporated into the corresponding Blockchain. Discussions of hashing, nonces, forking and Merkle Trees are included, along with helpful charts for those with a preference for visuals.
Next, the draft report discusses the various methods in use to verify the accuracy of a transaction before it is permanently written into the Blockchain. This process of agreement, called consensus, can take different forms depending on the intended purpose of the Blockchain. For example, where there is a limited number of participants, and the Blockchain is privately-maintained, each party has a vested interest in the accuracy of the Blockchain, and the consensus process can be expedited. On the other hand, for the public Blockchains that are used for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ether, there is an assumed lack of trust among the parties, and the Blockchain requires highly-intensive demonstrations of “proof of work” to gain consensus before a block can be permanently affixed to the Blockchain.
The Overview helpfully provides examples of how Blockchain technology may be used in the future by discussing different use cases. For example, the Overview briefly touches on efforts in Banking, Supply Chain, Insurance and Health Care industries, all of which are presumed to involve some limitation of the number of parties that are involved, and hence, a higher trust level. The Overview also briefly discusses several cryptocurrencies, as well as effects such as Hyperledger and MultiChain, which are working to create open-source Blockchain platforms for use by private parties. The Overview concludes with a discussion seeking to address certain misconceptions about Blockchains, and an overall suggestion for further review and education before companies adopt the technologies.
One significant missing aspect of the draft reportis the absence of any discussion about the regulatory pushback by the United States and other counties, such as China and South Korea, with respect to the creation and trading of cryptocurrencies. While the main purpose of the Overview was a discussion of the underlying Blockchain technology utilized for cryptocurrencies, recent efforts by the SEC, IRS, and the CFTC to address legal and regulatory issues that arise from the explosion of cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings would have been a helpful addition in this highly complex area.
For example, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) filed suit to obtain customer records from a major cryptocurrency trading desk. The IRS has treated cryptocurrencies as property, and will require that taxes be paid on any gains earned by the seller. In addition, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is taking a close look at ICOs to determine if the sale of tokens should be regulated as a security, and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has indicated that cryptocurrencies could be treated as commodities. In December 2017, the first Bitcoin future market was started by CBOE Global Markets, and the SEC is considering rules to permit new ETFs by the Chicago Board Options Exchange.
Thus, while the NIST draft Overview provides a useful summary for those that seek an introduction to the subject, it might have been beneficial to have include a brief discussion on the ongoing governmental efforts to regulate the various applications of Blockchains. It is likely that some of these issues will be addressed in the comments that are due by February 23, and be incorporated into the final report. | <urn:uuid:f4502b59-a7dd-425e-a6b2-161a49d56e23> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=70c20e86-722c-4daf-96dc-5c98eee57607 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573876.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20220820012448-20220820042448-00077.warc.gz | en | 0.953296 | 816 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Comparison of Pupillometry With Surgical Pleth Index Monitoring on Perioperative Opioid Consumption and Nociception During Propofol-Remifentanil Anesthesia: A Prospective Randomized Controlled Trial
- Comparison of Pupillometry With Surgical Pleth Index Monitoring on Perioperative Opioid Consumption and Nociception During Propofol-Remifentanil Anesthesia: A Prospective Randomized Controlled Trial
- HEART-RATE-VARIABILITY; GENERAL-ANESTHESIA; STANDARD PRACTICE; STRESS INDEX; PUPILLARY; PREDICTION; ANALGESIA; HYPERALGESIA; STIMULATION; MECHANISM
- Issue Date
- LIPPINCOTT WILLIAMS & WILKINS
- ANESTHESIA AND ANALGESIA, v. 131, no. 5, page. 1589-1598
Intraoperative monitoring with pupillometry has shown promising results for nociception/antinociception balance monitoring. However, its benefits in clinical practice remain unproven. The aim of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of intraoperative pupillometry monitoring on intraoperative opioid consumption and postoperative pain compared to surgical pleth index (SPI), another widely investigated monitoring.
American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) I–II patients scheduled for elective laparoscopic cholecystectomy were included. This prospective, parallel-arm, single-center study was conducted in 2 steps. First, we evaluated the feasibility of using pupillometry and SPI monitoring compared with conventional hemodynamic monitoring. Next, a parallel-arm, double-blind randomized study compared the peak postoperative pain measured with numerical rating scale (NRS) from 0 (no pain) to 10 (extreme pain) as a primary outcome between pupillometry (pupillometry group, n = 43) and SPI monitoring (SPI group, n = 43) using Mann-Whitney U test. Secondary outcomes included intraoperative remifentanil consumption, postoperative opioid responsiveness (a decrease in NRS by ≥1 after fentanyl administrations), number of analgesic administrations, and opioid-related complications.
In the preliminary study (n = 50), remifentanil consumption was less under pupillometry monitoring compared to SPI monitoring, and peak postoperative pain was lower under pupillometry compared to conventional monitoring. In the main study (n = 86), peak postoperative pain and intraoperative remifentanil consumption were lower in the pupillometry group (median [first to third quartile], 5 [4–6]; mean ± standard deviation [SD], 0.078 ± 0.019 μg·kg−1·minute−1) compared to the SPI group (7 [5–8] and 0.0130 ± 0.051 μg·kg−1·minute−1; P < .001), with the median difference in peak postoperative pain of −1 and its 95% confidence interval between −2 and −0.5. The pupillometry group had better responsiveness to fentanyl (84.6% vs 61.0%; P = .005) and lower number of analgesic administrations (2 [1–2] vs 2 [1–3]; P = .048) compared to the SPI group.
Intraoperative pupillometry monitoring reduced intraoperative remifentanil consumption and postoperative pain. It may be an alternative option for intraoperative opioid control under general anesthesia in adult patients.
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- XLS (Excel) | <urn:uuid:bd3d501c-1590-4f45-b590-4452e6ed683e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://repository.hanyang.ac.kr/handle/20.500.11754/172182 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570793.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808092125-20220808122125-00674.warc.gz | en | 0.851863 | 983 | 1.523438 | 2 |
German composer and conductor Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809–47) was, with his sister Fanny, one of the greatest musical prodigies of his time. He later became a pre-eminent figure in German cultural life. His music has been frequently adapted for ballet, most popularly his incidental music for A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1826).
Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg to a prominent Jewish family and was baptized into the Protestant faith in 1816. He studied piano, violin and music theory in Berlin, making his first public appearance in 1818. The premiere of his first Singspiel, Die Soldatenliebschaft, was given on his 12th birthday. Thereafter he developed rapidly as a composer across a remarkable breadth of genres, while also becoming an accomplished Classicist and painter. He made his first visit to Britain in 1829, where he was inspired to write pieces such as Die Hebriden (1830) and forged links that would lead to major commissions throughout his career, including the oratorio Elijah (1846) for the Birmingham Festival. In Germany he was briefly music director in Düsseldorf 1833–4 before becoming music director in Leipzig 1834–46. In 1841 he was granted positions in the Prussian court in Berlin, and split his time between Berlin and Leipzig while continuing to work prolifically in Paris and around Britain. Fanny’s death in May 1847 preceded his own death in November that year after a series of strokes.
Mendelssohn’s extraordinary musical facility is evident in all his music. His greatest works exhibit a unique synthesis between Classicism and the developments of Romanticism.
News and features
With artworks hostage to fashion and cultural sentiment, why a little digging might unearth a new classic.
A quick guide to The Royal Ballet's new mixed programme, featuring classic works by Ashton and Robbins as well as a world premiere from Alastair Marriott. | <urn:uuid:fc6e3439-a0cb-4f1a-9ee7-11e03a86e13e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.roh.org.uk/people/felix-mendelssohn | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280483.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00291-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982612 | 423 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Kinesthetic awareness is important to successfully navigate the environment. When we interact with our daily surroundings, some aspects of movement are deliberately planned, while others spontaneously occur below conscious awareness. The deliberate component of this dichotomy has been studied extensively in several contexts, while the spontaneous component remains largely under-explored. Moreover, how perceptual processes modulate these movement classes is still unclear. In particular, a currently debated issue is whether the visuomotor system is governed by the spatial percept produced by a visual illusion or whether it is not affected by the illusion and is governed instead by the veridical percept. Bistable percepts such as 3D depth inversion illusions (DIIs) provide an excellent context to study such interactions and balance, particularly when used in combination with reach-to-grasp movements. In this study, a methodology is developed that uses a DII to clarify the role of top-down processes on motor action, particularly exploring how reaches toward a target on a DII are affected in both deliberate and spontaneous movement domains.
26 Related JoVE Articles!
Development of an Audio-based Virtual Gaming Environment to Assist with Navigation Skills in the Blind
Institutions: Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Harvard Medical School, University of Chile .
Audio-based Environment Simulator (AbES) is virtual environment software designed to improve real world navigation skills in the blind. Using only audio based cues and set within the context of a video game metaphor, users gather relevant spatial information regarding a building's layout. This allows the user to develop an accurate spatial cognitive map of a large-scale three-dimensional space that can be manipulated for the purposes of a real indoor navigation task. After game play, participants are then assessed on their ability to navigate within the target physical building represented in the game. Preliminary results suggest that early blind users were able to acquire relevant information regarding the spatial layout of a previously unfamiliar building as indexed by their performance on a series of navigation tasks. These tasks included path finding through the virtual and physical building, as well as a series of drop off tasks. We find that the immersive and highly interactive nature of the AbES software appears to greatly engage the blind user to actively explore the virtual environment. Applications of this approach may extend to larger populations of visually impaired individuals.
Medicine, Issue 73, Behavior, Neuroscience, Anatomy, Physiology, Neurobiology, Ophthalmology, Psychology, Behavior and Behavior Mechanisms, Technology, Industry, virtual environments, action video games, blind, audio, rehabilitation, indoor navigation, spatial cognitive map, Audio-based Environment Simulator, virtual reality, cognitive psychology, clinical techniques
Intra-Operative Behavioral Tasks in Awake Humans Undergoing Deep Brain Stimulation Surgery
Institutions: Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital.
Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a surgical procedure that directs chronic, high frequency electrical stimulation to specific targets in the brain through implanted electrodes. Deep brain stimulation was first implemented as a therapeutic modality by Benabid et al.
in the late 1980s, when he used this technique to stimulate the ventral intermediate nucleus of the thalamus for the treatment of tremor 1
. Currently, the procedure is used to treat patients who fail to respond adequately to medical management for diseases such as Parkinson's, dystonia, and essential tremor. The efficacy of this procedure for the treatment of Parkinson's disease has been demonstrated in well-powered, randomized controlled trials 2
. Presently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved DBS as a treatment for patients with medically refractory essential tremor, Parkinson's disease, and dystonia. Additionally, DBS is currently being evaluated for the treatment of other psychiatric and neurological disorders, such as obsessive compulsive disorder, major depressive disorder, and epilepsy.
DBS has not only been shown to help people by improving their quality of life, it also provides researchers with the unique opportunity to study and understand the human brain. Microelectrode recordings are routinely performed during DBS surgery in order to enhance the precision of anatomical targeting. Firing patterns of individual neurons can therefore be recorded while the subject performs a behavioral task. Early studies using these data focused on descriptive aspects, including firing and burst rates, and frequency modulation 3
. More recent studies have focused on cognitive aspects of behavior in relation to neuronal activity 4,5
. This article will provide a description of the intra-operative methods used to perform behavioral tasks and record neuronal data with awake patients during DBS cases. Our exposition of the process of acquiring electrophysiological data will illuminate the current scope and limitations of intra-operative human experiments.
Medicine, Issue 47, Intra-Operative Physiology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Behavioral Neuroscience, Subthalamic Nucleus, Single-Unit Activity, Parkinson Disease, Deep Brain Stimulation
Ultrasonic Assessment of Myocardial Microstructure
Institutions: Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School.
Echocardiography is a widely accessible imaging modality that is commonly used to noninvasively characterize and quantify changes in cardiac structure and function. Ultrasonic assessments of cardiac tissue can include analyses of backscatter signal intensity within a given region of interest. Previously established techniques have relied predominantly on the integrated or mean value of backscatter signal intensities, which may be susceptible to variability from aliased data from low frame rates and time delays for algorithms based on cyclic variation. Herein, we describe an ultrasound-based imaging algorithm that extends from previous methods, can be applied to a single image frame and accounts for the full distribution of signal intensity values derived from a given myocardial sample. When applied to representative mouse and human imaging data, the algorithm distinguishes between subjects with and without exposure to chronic afterload resistance. The algorithm offers an enhanced surrogate measure of myocardial microstructure and can be performed using open-access image analysis software.
Medicine, Issue 83, echocardiography, image analysis, myocardial fibrosis, hypertension, cardiac cycle, open-access image analysis software
Three Dimensional Vestibular Ocular Reflex Testing Using a Six Degrees of Freedom Motion Platform
Institutions: Erasmus MC, TNO Human Factors.
The vestibular organ is a sensor that measures angular and linear accelerations with six degrees of freedom (6DF). Complete or partial defects in the vestibular organ results in mild to severe equilibrium problems, such as vertigo, dizziness, oscillopsia, gait unsteadiness nausea and/or vomiting. A good and frequently used measure to quantify gaze stabilization is the gain, which is defined as the magnitude of compensatory eye movements with respect to imposed head movements. To test vestibular function more fully one has to realize that 3D VOR ideally generates compensatory ocular rotations not only with a magnitude (gain) equal and opposite to the head rotation but also about an axis that is co-linear with the head rotation axis (alignment). Abnormal vestibular function thus results in changes in gain and changes in alignment of the 3D VOR response.
Here we describe a method to measure 3D VOR using whole body rotation on a 6DF motion platform. Although the method also allows testing translation VOR responses 1
, we limit ourselves to a discussion of the method to measure 3D angular VOR. In addition, we restrict ourselves here to description of data collected in healthy subjects in response to angular sinusoidal and impulse stimulation.
Subjects are sitting upright and receive whole-body small amplitude sinusoidal and constant acceleration impulses. Sinusoidal stimuli (f = 1 Hz, A = 4°) were delivered about the vertical axis and about axes in the horizontal plane varying between roll and pitch at increments of 22.5° in azimuth. Impulses were delivered in yaw, roll and pitch and in the vertical canal planes. Eye movements were measured using the scleral search coil technique 2
. Search coil signals were sampled at a frequency of 1 kHz.
The input-output ratio (gain) and misalignment (co-linearity) of the 3D VOR were calculated from the eye coil signals 3
Gain and co-linearity of 3D VOR depended on the orientation of the stimulus axis. Systematic deviations were found in particular during horizontal axis stimulation. In the light the eye rotation axis was properly aligned with the stimulus axis at orientations 0° and 90° azimuth, but gradually deviated more and more towards 45° azimuth.
The systematic deviations in misalignment for intermediate axes can be explained by a low gain for torsion (X-axis or roll-axis rotation) and a high gain for vertical eye movements (Y-axis or pitch-axis rotation (see Figure 2
). Because intermediate axis stimulation leads a compensatory response based on vector summation of the individual eye rotation components, the net response axis will deviate because the gain for X- and Y-axis are different.
In darkness the gain of all eye rotation components had lower values. The result was that the misalignment in darkness and for impulses had different peaks and troughs than in the light: its minimum value was reached for pitch axis stimulation and its maximum for roll axis stimulation.
Nine subjects participated in the experiment. All subjects gave their informed consent. The experimental procedure was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of Erasmus University Medical Center and adhered to the Declaration of Helsinki for research involving human subjects.
Six subjects served as controls. Three subjects had a unilateral vestibular impairment due to a vestibular schwannoma. The age of control subjects (six males and three females) ranged from 22 to 55 years. None of the controls had visual or vestibular complaints due to neurological, cardio vascular and ophthalmic disorders.
The age of the patients with schwannoma varied between 44 and 64 years (two males and one female). All schwannoma subjects were under medical surveillance and/or had received treatment by a multidisciplinary team consisting of an othorhinolaryngologist and a neurosurgeon of the Erasmus University Medical Center. Tested patients all had a right side vestibular schwannoma and underwent a wait and watch policy (Table 1
; subjects N1-N3) after being diagnosed with vestibular schwannoma. Their tumors had been stabile for over 8-10 years on magnetic resonance imaging.
Neurobiology, Issue 75, Neuroscience, Medicine, Anatomy, Physiology, Biomedical Engineering, Ophthalmology, vestibulo ocular reflex, eye movements, torsion, balance disorders, rotation translation, equilibrium, eye rotation, motion, body rotation, vestibular organ, clinical techniques
Behavioral Assessment of the Aging Mouse Vestibular System
Institutions: University of Sydney, University of Sydney.
Age related decline in balance performance is associated with deteriorating muscle strength, motor coordination and vestibular function. While a number of studies show changes in balance phenotype with age in rodents, very few isolate the vestibular contribution to balance under either normal conditions or during senescence. We use two standard behavioral tests to characterize the balance performance of mice at defined age points over the lifespan: the rotarod test and the inclined balance beam test. Importantly though, a custom built rotator is also used to stimulate the vestibular system of mice (without inducing overt signs of motion sickness). These two tests have been used to show that changes in vestibular mediated-balance performance are present over the murine lifespan. Preliminary results show that both the rotarod test and the modified balance beam test can be used to identify changes in balance performance during aging as an alternative to more difficult and invasive techniques such as vestibulo-ocular (VOR) measurements.
Behavior, Issue 89, vestibular, behavior, balance, rotarod, balance beam, aging
Video-oculography in Mice
Institutions: Erasmus MC, Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Royal Dutch Academy of Arts & Sciences (KNAW).
Eye movements are very important in order to track an object or to stabilize an image on the retina during movement. Animals without a fovea, such as the mouse, have a limited capacity to lock their eyes onto a target. In contrast to these target directed eye movements, compensatory ocular eye movements are easily elicited in afoveate animals1,2,3,4
. Compensatory ocular movements are generated by processing vestibular and optokinetic information into a command signal that will drive the eye muscles. The processing of the vestibular and optokinetic information can be investigated separately and together, allowing the specification of a deficit in the oculomotor system. The oculomotor system can be tested by evoking an optokinetic reflex (OKR), vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) or a visually-enhanced vestibulo-ocular reflex (VVOR). The OKR is a reflex movement that compensates for "full-field" image movements on the retina, whereas the VOR is a reflex eye movement that compensates head movements. The VVOR is a reflex eye movement that uses both vestibular as well as optokinetic information to make the appropriate compensation. The cerebellum monitors and is able to adjust these compensatory eye movements. Therefore, oculography is a very powerful tool to investigate brain-behavior relationship under normal as well as under pathological conditions (f.e. of vestibular, ocular and/or cerebellar origin).
Testing the oculomotor system, as a behavioral paradigm, is interesting for several reasons. First, the oculomotor system is a well understood neural system5
. Second, the oculomotor system is relative simple6
; the amount of possible eye movement is limited by its ball-in-socket architecture ("single joint") and the three pairs of extra-ocular muscles7
. Third, the behavioral output and sensory input can easily be measured, which makes this a highly accessible system for quantitative analysis8
. Many behavioral tests lack this high level of quantitative power. And finally, both performance as well as plasticity of the oculomotor system can be tested, allowing research on learning and memory processes9
Genetically modified mice are nowadays widely available and they form an important source for the exploration of brain functions at various levels10
. In addition, they can be used as models to mimic human diseases. Applying oculography on normal, pharmacologically-treated or genetically modified mice is a powerful research tool to explore the underlying physiology of motor behaviors under normal and pathological conditions. Here, we describe how to measure video-oculography in mice8
Neuroscience, Issue 65, Physiology, Medicine, mouse mutants, pupil tracking, motor learning, motor performance, cerebellum, olivocerebellar system, vestibulo-ocular reflex, optokinetic reflex, ophthalmology, oculography
The Swimmeret System of Crayfish: A Practical Guide for the Dissection of the Nerve Cord and Extracellular Recordings of the Motor Pattern
Institutions: University of Cologne.
Here we demonstrate the dissection of the crayfish abdominal nerve cord. The preparation comprises the last two thoracic ganglia (T4, T5) and the chain of abdominal ganglia (A1 to A6). This chain of ganglia includes the part of the central nervous system (CNS) that drives coordinated locomotion of the pleopods (swimmerets): the swimmeret system. It is known for over five decades that in crayfish each swimmeret is driven by its own independent pattern generating kernel that generates rhythmic alternating activity 1-3
. The motor neurons innervating the musculature of each swimmeret comprise two anatomically and functionally distinct populations 4
. One is responsible for the retraction (power stroke, PS) of the swimmeret. The other drives the protraction (return stroke, RS) of the swimmeret. Motor neurons of the swimmeret system are able to produce spontaneously a fictive motor pattern, which is identical to the pattern recorded in vivo 1
The aim of this report is to introduce an interesting and convenient model system for studying rhythm generating networks and coordination of independent microcircuits for students’ practical laboratory courses. The protocol provided includes step-by-step instructions for the dissection of the crayfish’s abdominal nerve cord, pinning of the isolated chain of ganglia, desheathing the ganglia and recording the swimmerets fictive motor pattern extracellularly from the isolated nervous system.
Additionally, we can monitor the activity of swimmeret neurons recorded intracellularly from dendrites. Here we also describe briefly these techniques and provide some examples. Furthermore, the morphology of swimmeret neurons can be assessed using various staining techniques. Here we provide examples of intracellular (by iontophoresis) dye filled neurons and backfills of pools of swimmeret motor neurons. In our lab we use this preparation to study basic functions of fictive locomotion, the effect of sensory feedback on the activity of the CNS, and coordination between microcircuits on a cellular level.
Neurobiology, Issue 93, crustacean, dissection, extracellular recording, fictive locomotion, motor neurons, locomotion
The Optokinetic Response as a Quantitative Measure of Visual Acuity in Zebrafish
Institutions: Western University of Health Sciences, Western University of Health Sciences, Western University of Health Sciences.
Zebrafish are a proven model for vision research, however many of the earlier methods generally focused on larval fish or demonstrated a simple response. More recently adult visual behavior in zebrafish has become of interest, but methods to measure specific responses are new coming. To address this gap, we set out to develop a methodology to repeatedly and accurately utilize the optokinetic response (OKR) to measure visual acuity in adult zebrafish. Here we show that the adult zebrafish's visual acuity can be measured, including both binocular and monocular acuities. Because the fish is not harmed during the procedure, the visual acuity can be measured and compared over short or long periods of time. The visual acuity measurements described here can also be done quickly allowing for high throughput and for additional visual procedures if desired. This type of analysis is conducive to drug intervention studies or investigations of disease progression.
Neuroscience, Issue 80, Zebrafish, Eye Movements, Visual Acuity, optokinetic, behavior, adult
Method to Measure Tone of Axial and Proximal Muscle
Institutions: Oregon Health and Science University, Queen Square, Oregon Health and Science University.
The control of tonic muscular activity remains poorly understood. While abnormal tone is commonly assessed clinically by measuring the passive resistance of relaxed limbs1
, no systems are available to study tonic muscle control in a natural, active state of antigravity support. We have developed a device (Twister) to study tonic regulation of axial and proximal muscles during active postural maintenance (i.e. postural tone). Twister rotates axial body regions relative to each other about the vertical axis during stance, so as to twist the neck, trunk or hip regions. This twisting imposes length changes on axial muscles without changing the body's relationship to gravity. Because Twister does not provide postural support, tone must be regulated to counteract gravitational torques. We quantify this tonic regulation by the restive torque to twisting, which reflects the state of all muscles undergoing length changes, as well as by electromyography of relevant muscles. Because tone is characterized by long-lasting low-level muscle activity, tonic control is studied with slow movements that produce "tonic" changes in muscle length, without evoking fast "phasic" responses. Twister can be reconfigured to study various aspects of muscle tone, such as co-contraction, tonic modulation to postural changes, tonic interactions across body segments, as well as perceptual thresholds to slow axial rotation. Twister can also be used to provide a quantitative measurement of the effects of disease on axial and proximal postural tone and assess the efficacy of intervention.
Medicine, Issue 58, Muscle Tone, Posture, Stiffness, Motor Control
Dynamic Visual Tests to Identify and Quantify Visual Damage and Repair Following Demyelination in Optic Neuritis Patients
Institutions: Hadassah Hebrew-University Medical Center.
In order to follow optic neuritis patients and evaluate the effectiveness of their treatment, a handy, accurate and quantifiable tool is required to assess changes in myelination at the central nervous system (CNS). However, standard measurements, including routine visual tests and MRI scans, are not sensitive enough for this purpose. We present two visual tests addressing dynamic monocular and binocular functions which may closely associate with the extent of myelination along visual pathways. These include Object From Motion (OFM) extraction and Time-constrained stereo protocols. In the OFM test, an array of dots compose an object, by moving the dots within the image rightward while moving the dots outside the image leftward or vice versa. The dot pattern generates a camouflaged object that cannot be detected when the dots are stationary or moving as a whole. Importantly, object recognition is critically dependent on motion perception. In the Time-constrained Stereo protocol, spatially disparate images are presented for a limited length of time, challenging binocular 3-dimensional integration in time. Both tests are appropriate for clinical usage and provide a simple, yet powerful, way to identify and quantify processes of demyelination and remyelination along visual pathways. These protocols may be efficient to diagnose and follow optic neuritis and multiple sclerosis patients.
In the diagnostic process, these protocols may reveal visual deficits that cannot be identified via current standard visual measurements. Moreover, these protocols sensitively identify the basis of the currently unexplained continued visual complaints of patients following recovery of visual acuity. In the longitudinal follow up course, the protocols can be used as a sensitive marker of demyelinating and remyelinating processes along time. These protocols may therefore be used to evaluate the efficacy of current and evolving therapeutic strategies, targeting myelination of the CNS.
Medicine, Issue 86, Optic neuritis, visual impairment, dynamic visual functions, motion perception, stereopsis, demyelination, remyelination
Assessing Functional Performance in the Mdx Mouse Model
Institutions: Leiden University Medical Center.
Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a severe and progressive muscle wasting disorder for which no cure is available. Nevertheless, several potential pharmaceutical compounds and gene therapy approaches have progressed into clinical trials. With improvement in muscle function being the most important end point in these trials, a lot of emphasis has been placed on setting up reliable, reproducible, and easy to perform functional tests to pre clinically assess muscle function, strength, condition, and coordination in the mdx
mouse model for DMD. Both invasive and noninvasive tests are available. Tests that do not exacerbate the disease can be used to determine the natural history of the disease and the effects of therapeutic interventions (e.g
. forelimb grip strength test, two different hanging tests using either a wire or a grid and rotarod running). Alternatively, forced treadmill running can be used to enhance disease progression and/or assess protective effects of therapeutic interventions on disease pathology. We here describe how to perform these most commonly used functional tests in a reliable and reproducible manner. Using these protocols based on standard operating procedures enables comparison of data between different laboratories.
Behavior, Issue 85, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, neuromuscular disorders, outcome measures, functional testing, mouse model, grip strength, hanging test wire, hanging test grid, rotarod running, treadmill running
Irrelevant Stimuli and Action Control: Analyzing the Influence of Ignored Stimuli via the Distractor-Response Binding Paradigm
Institutions: Trier University, Trier University.
Selection tasks in which simple stimuli (e.g.
letters) are presented and a target stimulus has to be selected against one or more distractor stimuli are frequently used in the research on human action control. One important question in these settings is how distractor stimuli, competing with the target stimulus for a response, influence actions. The distractor-response binding paradigm can be used to investigate this influence. It is particular useful to separately analyze response retrieval and distractor inhibition effects. Computer-based experiments are used to collect the data (reaction times and error rates). In a number of sequentially presented pairs of stimulus arrays (prime-probe design), participants respond to targets while ignoring distractor stimuli. Importantly, the factors response relation in the arrays of each pair (repetition vs. change) and distractor relation (repetition vs. change) are varied orthogonally. The repetition of the same distractor then has a different effect depending on response relation (repetition vs. change) between arrays. This result pattern can be explained by response retrieval due to distractor repetition. In addition, distractor inhibition effects are indicated by a general advantage due to distractor repetition. The described paradigm has proven useful to determine relevant parameters for response retrieval effects on human action.
Behavior, Issue 87, stimulus-response binding, distractor-response binding, response retrieval, distractor inhibition, event file, action control, selection task
Measuring Sensitivity to Viewpoint Change with and without Stereoscopic Cues
Institutions: Australian National University, University of Western Australia, McGill University.
The speed and accuracy of object recognition is compromised by a change in viewpoint; demonstrating that human observers are sensitive to this transformation. Here we discuss a novel method for simulating the appearance of an object that has undergone a rotation-in-depth, and include an exposition of the differences between perspective and orthographic projections. Next we describe a method by which human sensitivity to rotation-in-depth can be measured. Finally we discuss an apparatus for creating a vivid percept of a 3-dimensional rotation-in-depth; the Wheatstone Eight Mirror Stereoscope. By doing so, we reveal a means by which to evaluate the role of stereoscopic cues in the discrimination of viewpoint rotated shapes and objects.
Behavior, Issue 82, stereo, curvature, shape, viewpoint, 3D, object recognition, rotation-in-depth (RID)
MPI CyberMotion Simulator: Implementation of a Novel Motion Simulator to Investigate Multisensory Path Integration in Three Dimensions
Institutions: Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Collège de France - CNRS, Korea University.
Path integration is a process in which self-motion is integrated over time to obtain an estimate of one's current position relative to a starting point 1
. Humans can do path integration based exclusively on visual 2-3
, auditory 4
, or inertial cues 5
. However, with multiple cues present, inertial cues - particularly kinaesthetic - seem to dominate 6-7
. In the absence of vision, humans tend to overestimate short distances (<5 m) and turning angles (<30°), but underestimate longer ones 5
. Movement through physical space therefore does not seem to be accurately represented by the brain.
Extensive work has been done on evaluating path integration in the horizontal plane, but little is known about vertical movement (see 3
for virtual movement from vision alone). One reason for this is that traditional motion simulators have a small range of motion restricted mainly to the horizontal plane. Here we take advantage of a motion simulator 8-9
with a large range of motion to assess whether path integration is similar between horizontal and vertical planes. The relative contributions of inertial and visual cues for path navigation were also assessed.
16 observers sat upright in a seat mounted to the flange of a modified KUKA anthropomorphic robot arm. Sensory information was manipulated by providing visual (optic flow, limited lifetime star field), vestibular-kinaesthetic (passive self motion with eyes closed), or visual and vestibular-kinaesthetic motion cues. Movement trajectories in the horizontal, sagittal and frontal planes consisted of two segment lengths (1st: 0.4 m, 2nd: 1 m; ±0.24 m/s2
peak acceleration). The angle of the two segments was either 45° or 90°. Observers pointed back to their origin by moving an arrow that was superimposed on an avatar presented on the screen.
Observers were more likely to underestimate angle size for movement in the horizontal plane compared to the vertical planes. In the frontal plane observers were more likely to overestimate angle size while there was no such bias in the sagittal plane. Finally, observers responded slower when answering based on vestibular-kinaesthetic information alone. Human path integration based on vestibular-kinaesthetic information alone thus takes longer than when visual information is present. That pointing is consistent with underestimating and overestimating the angle one has moved through in the horizontal and vertical planes respectively, suggests that the neural representation of self-motion through space is non-symmetrical which may relate to the fact that humans experience movement mostly within the horizontal plane.
Neuroscience, Issue 63, Motion simulator, multisensory integration, path integration, space perception, vestibular, vision, robotics, cybernetics
Corticospinal Excitability Modulation During Action Observation
Institutions: Universita degli Studi di Padova.
This study used the transcranial magnetic stimulation/motor evoked potential (TMS/MEP) technique to pinpoint when the automatic tendency to mirror someone else's action becomes anticipatory simulation of a complementary act. TMS was delivered to the left primary motor cortex corresponding to the hand to induce the highest level of MEP activity from the abductor digiti minimi (ADM; the muscle serving little finger abduction) as well as the first dorsal interosseus (FDI; the muscle serving index finger flexion/extension) muscles. A neuronavigation system was used to maintain the position of the TMS coil, and electromyographic (EMG) activity was recorded from the right ADM and FDI muscles. Producing original data with regard to motor resonance, the combined TMS/MEP technique has taken research on the perception-action coupling mechanism a step further. Specifically, it has answered the questions of how and when observing another person's actions produces motor facilitation in an onlooker's corresponding muscles and in what way corticospinal excitability is modulated in social contexts.
Behavior, Issue 82, action observation, transcranial magnetic stimulation, motor evoked potentials, corticospinal excitability
Perceptual and Category Processing of the Uncanny Valley Hypothesis' Dimension of Human Likeness: Some Methodological Issues
Institutions: University of Zurich.
Mori's Uncanny Valley Hypothesis1,2
proposes that the perception of humanlike characters such as robots and, by extension, avatars (computer-generated characters) can evoke negative or positive affect (valence) depending on the object's degree of visual and behavioral realism along a dimension of human likeness
) (Figure 1
). But studies of affective valence of subjective responses to variously realistic non-human characters have produced inconsistent findings 3, 4, 5, 6
. One of a number of reasons for this is that human likeness is not perceived as the hypothesis assumes. While the DHL can be defined following Mori's description as a smooth linear change in the degree of physical humanlike similarity, subjective perception of objects along the DHL can be understood in terms of the psychological effects of categorical perception (CP) 7
. Further behavioral and neuroimaging investigations of category processing and CP along the DHL and of the potential influence of the dimension's underlying category structure on affective experience are needed. This protocol therefore focuses on the DHL and allows examination of CP. Based on the protocol presented in the video as an example, issues surrounding the methodology in the protocol and the use in "uncanny" research of stimuli drawn from morph continua to represent the DHL are discussed in the article that accompanies the video. The use of neuroimaging and morph stimuli to represent the DHL in order to disentangle brain regions neurally responsive to physical human-like similarity from those responsive to category change and category processing is briefly illustrated.
Behavior, Issue 76, Neuroscience, Neurobiology, Molecular Biology, Psychology, Neuropsychology, uncanny valley, functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI, categorical perception, virtual reality, avatar, human likeness, Mori, uncanny valley hypothesis, perception, magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, imaging, clinical techniques
Cortical Source Analysis of High-Density EEG Recordings in Children
Institutions: UCL Institute of Child Health, University College London.
EEG is traditionally described as a neuroimaging technique with high temporal and low spatial resolution. Recent advances in biophysical modelling and signal processing make it possible to exploit information from other imaging modalities like structural MRI that provide high spatial resolution to overcome this constraint1
. This is especially useful for investigations that require high resolution in the temporal as well as spatial domain. In addition, due to the easy application and low cost of EEG recordings, EEG is often the method of choice when working with populations, such as young children, that do not tolerate functional MRI scans well. However, in order to investigate which neural substrates are involved, anatomical information from structural MRI is still needed. Most EEG analysis packages work with standard head models that are based on adult anatomy. The accuracy of these models when used for children is limited2
, because the composition and spatial configuration of head tissues changes dramatically over development3
In the present paper, we provide an overview of our recent work in utilizing head models based on individual structural MRI scans or age specific head models to reconstruct the cortical generators of high density EEG. This article describes how EEG recordings are acquired, processed, and analyzed with pediatric populations at the London Baby Lab, including laboratory setup, task design, EEG preprocessing, MRI processing, and EEG channel level and source analysis.
Behavior, Issue 88, EEG, electroencephalogram, development, source analysis, pediatric, minimum-norm estimation, cognitive neuroscience, event-related potentials
Test Samples for Optimizing STORM Super-Resolution Microscopy
Institutions: National Physical Laboratory.
STORM is a recently developed super-resolution microscopy technique with up to 10 times better resolution than standard fluorescence microscopy techniques. However, as the image is acquired in a very different way than normal, by building up an image molecule-by-molecule, there are some significant challenges for users in trying to optimize their image acquisition. In order to aid this process and gain more insight into how STORM works we present the preparation of 3 test samples and the methodology of acquiring and processing STORM super-resolution images with typical resolutions of between 30-50 nm. By combining the test samples with the use of the freely available rainSTORM processing software it is possible to obtain a great deal of information about image quality and resolution. Using these metrics it is then possible to optimize the imaging procedure from the optics, to sample preparation, dye choice, buffer conditions, and image acquisition settings. We also show examples of some common problems that result in poor image quality, such as lateral drift, where the sample moves during image acquisition and density related problems resulting in the 'mislocalization' phenomenon.
Molecular Biology, Issue 79, Genetics, Bioengineering, Biomedical Engineering, Biophysics, Basic Protocols, HeLa Cells, Actin Cytoskeleton, Coated Vesicles, Receptor, Epidermal Growth Factor, Actins, Fluorescence, Endocytosis, Microscopy, STORM, super-resolution microscopy, nanoscopy, cell biology, fluorescence microscopy, test samples, resolution, actin filaments, fiducial markers, epidermal growth factor, cell, imaging
Automated, Quantitative Cognitive/Behavioral Screening of Mice: For Genetics, Pharmacology, Animal Cognition and Undergraduate Instruction
Institutions: Rutgers University, Koç University, New York University, Fairfield University.
We describe a high-throughput, high-volume, fully automated, live-in 24/7 behavioral testing system for assessing the effects of genetic and pharmacological manipulations on basic mechanisms of cognition and learning in mice. A standard polypropylene mouse housing tub is connected through an acrylic tube to a standard commercial mouse test box. The test box has 3 hoppers, 2 of which are connected to pellet feeders. All are internally illuminable with an LED and monitored for head entries by infrared (IR) beams. Mice live in the environment, which eliminates handling during screening. They obtain their food during two or more daily feeding periods by performing in operant (instrumental) and Pavlovian (classical) protocols, for which we have written protocol-control software and quasi-real-time data analysis and graphing software. The data analysis and graphing routines are written in a MATLAB-based language created to simplify greatly the analysis of large time-stamped behavioral and physiological event records and to preserve a full data trail from raw data through all intermediate analyses to the published graphs and statistics within a single data structure. The data-analysis code harvests the data several times a day and subjects it to statistical and graphical analyses, which are automatically stored in the "cloud" and on in-lab computers. Thus, the progress of individual mice is visualized and quantified daily. The data-analysis code talks to the protocol-control code, permitting the automated advance from protocol to protocol of individual subjects. The behavioral protocols implemented are matching, autoshaping, timed hopper-switching, risk assessment in timed hopper-switching, impulsivity measurement, and the circadian anticipation of food availability. Open-source protocol-control and data-analysis code makes the addition of new protocols simple. Eight test environments fit in a 48 in x 24 in x 78 in cabinet; two such cabinets (16 environments) may be controlled by one computer.
Behavior, Issue 84, genetics, cognitive mechanisms, behavioral screening, learning, memory, timing
Simultaneous Multicolor Imaging of Biological Structures with Fluorescence Photoactivation Localization Microscopy
Institutions: University of Maine.
Localization-based super resolution microscopy can be applied to obtain a spatial map (image) of the distribution of individual fluorescently labeled single molecules within a sample with a spatial resolution of tens of nanometers. Using either photoactivatable (PAFP) or photoswitchable (PSFP) fluorescent proteins fused to proteins of interest, or organic dyes conjugated to antibodies or other molecules of interest, fluorescence photoactivation localization microscopy (FPALM) can simultaneously image multiple species of molecules within single cells. By using the following approach, populations of large numbers (thousands to hundreds of thousands) of individual molecules are imaged in single cells and localized with a precision of ~10-30 nm. Data obtained can be applied to understanding the nanoscale spatial distributions of multiple protein types within a cell. One primary advantage of this technique is the dramatic increase in spatial resolution: while diffraction limits resolution to ~200-250 nm in conventional light microscopy, FPALM can image length scales more than an order of magnitude smaller. As many biological hypotheses concern the spatial relationships among different biomolecules, the improved resolution of FPALM can provide insight into questions of cellular organization which have previously been inaccessible to conventional fluorescence microscopy. In addition to detailing the methods for sample preparation and data acquisition, we here describe the optical setup for FPALM. One additional consideration for researchers wishing to do super-resolution microscopy is cost: in-house setups are significantly cheaper than most commercially available imaging machines. Limitations of this technique include the need for optimizing the labeling of molecules of interest within cell samples, and the need for post-processing software to visualize results. We here describe the use of PAFP and PSFP expression to image two protein species in fixed cells. Extension of the technique to living cells is also described.
Basic Protocol, Issue 82, Microscopy, Super-resolution imaging, Multicolor, single molecule, FPALM, Localization microscopy, fluorescent proteins
Automated Visual Cognitive Tasks for Recording Neural Activity Using a Floor Projection Maze
Institutions: Brown University, Brown University.
Neuropsychological tasks used in primates to investigate mechanisms of learning and memory are typically visually guided cognitive tasks. We have developed visual cognitive tasks for rats using the Floor Projection Maze1,2
that are optimized for visual abilities of rats permitting stronger comparisons of experimental findings with other species.
In order to investigate neural correlates of learning and memory, we have integrated electrophysiological recordings into fully automated cognitive tasks on the Floor Projection Maze1,2
. Behavioral software interfaced with an animal tracking system allows monitoring of the animal's behavior with precise control of image presentation and reward contingencies for better trained animals. Integration with an in vivo
electrophysiological recording system enables examination of behavioral correlates of neural activity at selected epochs of a given cognitive task.
We describe protocols for a model system that combines automated visual presentation of information to rodents and intracranial reward with electrophysiological approaches. Our model system offers a sophisticated set of tools as a framework for other cognitive tasks to better isolate and identify specific mechanisms contributing to particular cognitive processes.
Neurobiology, Issue 84, Rat behavioral tasks, visual discrimination, chronic electrophysiological recordings, Floor Projection Maze, neuropsychology, learning, memory
Flat-floored Air-lifted Platform: A New Method for Combining Behavior with Microscopy or Electrophysiology on Awake Freely Moving Rodents
Institutions: University of Helsinki, Neurotar LTD, University of Eastern Finland, University of Helsinki.
It is widely acknowledged that the use of general anesthetics can undermine the relevance of electrophysiological or microscopical data obtained from a living animal’s brain. Moreover, the lengthy recovery from anesthesia limits the frequency of repeated recording/imaging episodes in longitudinal studies. Hence, new methods that would allow stable recordings from non-anesthetized behaving mice are expected to advance the fields of cellular and cognitive neurosciences. Existing solutions range from mere physical restraint to more sophisticated approaches, such as linear and spherical treadmills used in combination with computer-generated virtual reality. Here, a novel method is described where a head-fixed mouse can move around an air-lifted mobile homecage and explore its environment under stress-free conditions. This method allows researchers to perform behavioral tests (e.g.
, learning, habituation or novel object recognition) simultaneously with two-photon microscopic imaging and/or patch-clamp recordings, all combined in a single experiment. This video-article describes the use of the awake animal head fixation device (mobile homecage), demonstrates the procedures of animal habituation, and exemplifies a number of possible applications of the method.
Empty Value, Issue 88, awake, in vivo two-photon microscopy, blood vessels, dendrites, dendritic spines, Ca2+ imaging, intrinsic optical imaging, patch-clamp
Analysis of Tubular Membrane Networks in Cardiac Myocytes from Atria and Ventricles
Institutions: Heart Research Center Goettingen, University Medical Center Goettingen, German Center for Cardiovascular Research (DZHK) partner site Goettingen, University of Maryland School of Medicine.
In cardiac myocytes a complex network of membrane tubules - the transverse-axial tubule system (TATS) - controls deep intracellular signaling functions. While the outer surface membrane and associated TATS membrane components appear to be continuous, there are substantial differences in lipid and protein content. In ventricular myocytes (VMs), certain TATS components are highly abundant contributing to rectilinear tubule networks and regular branching 3D architectures. It is thought that peripheral TATS components propagate action potentials from the cell surface to thousands of remote intracellular sarcoendoplasmic reticulum (SER) membrane contact domains, thereby activating intracellular Ca2+
release units (CRUs). In contrast to VMs, the organization and functional role of TATS membranes in atrial myocytes (AMs) is significantly different and much less understood. Taken together, quantitative structural characterization of TATS membrane networks in healthy and diseased myocytes is an essential prerequisite towards better understanding of functional plasticity and pathophysiological reorganization. Here, we present a strategic combination of protocols for direct quantitative analysis of TATS membrane networks in living VMs and AMs. For this, we accompany primary cell isolations of mouse VMs and/or AMs with critical quality control steps and direct membrane staining protocols for fluorescence imaging of TATS membranes. Using an optimized workflow for confocal or superresolution TATS image processing, binarized and skeletonized data are generated for quantitative analysis of the TATS network and its components. Unlike previously published indirect regional aggregate image analysis strategies, our protocols enable direct characterization of specific components and derive complex physiological properties of TATS membrane networks in living myocytes with high throughput and open access software tools. In summary, the combined protocol strategy can be readily applied for quantitative TATS network studies during physiological myocyte adaptation or disease changes, comparison of different cardiac or skeletal muscle cell types, phenotyping of transgenic models, and pharmacological or therapeutic interventions.
Bioengineering, Issue 92, cardiac myocyte, atria, ventricle, heart, primary cell isolation, fluorescence microscopy, membrane tubule, transverse-axial tubule system, image analysis, image processing, T-tubule, collagenase
VisioTracker, an Innovative Automated Approach to Oculomotor Analysis
Institutions: University of Zurich, TSE Systems GmbH.
Investigations into the visual system development and function necessitate quantifiable behavioral models of visual performance that are easy to elicit, robust, and simple to manipulate. A suitable model has been found in the optokinetic response (OKR), a reflexive behavior present in all vertebrates due to its high selection value. The OKR involves slow stimulus-following movements of eyes alternated with rapid resetting saccades. The measurement of this behavior is easily carried out in zebrafish larvae, due to its early and stable onset (fully developed after 96 hours post fertilization (hpf)), and benefitting from the thorough knowledge about zebrafish genetics, for decades one of the favored model organisms in this field. Meanwhile the analysis of similar mechanisms in adult fish has gained importance, particularly for pharmacological and toxicological applications.
Here we describe VisioTracker, a fully automated, high-throughput system for quantitative analysis of visual performance. The system is based on research carried out in the group of Prof. Stephan Neuhauss and was re-designed by TSE Systems. It consists of an immobilizing device for small fish monitored by a high-quality video camera equipped with a high-resolution zoom lens. The fish container is surrounded by a drum screen, upon which computer-generated stimulus patterns can be projected. Eye movements are recorded and automatically analyzed by the VisioTracker software package in real time.
Data analysis enables immediate recognition of parameters such as slow and fast phase duration, movement cycle frequency, slow-phase gain, visual acuity, and contrast sensitivity.
Typical results allow for example the rapid identification of visual system mutants that show no apparent alteration in wild type morphology, or the determination of quantitative effects of pharmacological or toxic and mutagenic agents on visual system performance.
Neuroscience, Issue 56, zebrafish, fish larvae, visual system, optokinetic response, developmental genetics, pharmacology, mutants, Danio rerio, adult fish
Correlating Behavioral Responses to fMRI Signals from Human Prefrontal Cortex: Examining Cognitive Processes Using Task Analysis
Institutions: Centre for Vision Research, York University, Centre for Vision Research, York University.
The aim of this methods paper is to describe how to implement a neuroimaging technique to examine complementary brain processes engaged by two similar tasks. Participants' behavior during task performance in an fMRI scanner can then be correlated to the brain activity using the blood-oxygen-level-dependent signal. We measure behavior to be able to sort correct trials, where the subject performed the task correctly and then be able to examine the brain signals related to correct performance. Conversely, if subjects do not perform the task correctly, and these trials are included in the same analysis with the correct trials we would introduce trials that were not only for correct performance. Thus, in many cases these errors can be used themselves to then correlate brain activity to them. We describe two complementary tasks that are used in our lab to examine the brain during suppression of an automatic responses: the stroop1
and anti-saccade tasks. The emotional stroop paradigm instructs participants to either report the superimposed emotional 'word' across the affective faces or the facial 'expressions' of the face stimuli1,2
. When the word and the facial expression refer to different emotions, a conflict between what must be said and what is automatically read occurs. The participant has to resolve the conflict between two simultaneously competing processes of word reading and facial expression. Our urge to read out a word leads to strong 'stimulus-response (SR)' associations; hence inhibiting these strong SR's is difficult and participants are prone to making errors. Overcoming this conflict and directing attention away from the face or the word requires the subject to inhibit bottom up processes which typically directs attention to the more salient stimulus. Similarly, in the anti-saccade task3,4,5,6
, where an instruction cue is used to direct only attention to a peripheral stimulus location but then the eye movement is made to the mirror opposite position. Yet again we measure behavior by recording the eye movements of participants which allows for the sorting of the behavioral responses into correct and error trials7
which then can be correlated to brain activity. Neuroimaging now allows researchers to measure different behaviors of correct and error trials that are indicative of different cognitive processes and pinpoint the different neural networks involved.
Neuroscience, Issue 64, fMRI, eyetracking, BOLD, attention, inhibition, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, MRI
Peering into the Dynamics of Social Interactions: Measuring Play Fighting in Rats
Institutions: University of Lethbridge.
Play fighting in the rat involves attack and defense of the nape of the neck, which if contacted, is gently nuzzled with the snout. Because the movements of one animal are countered by the actions of its partner, play fighting is a complex, dynamic interaction. This dynamic complexity raises methodological problems about what to score for experimental studies. We present a scoring schema that is sensitive to the correlated nature of the actions performed. The frequency of play fighting can be measured by counting the number of playful nape attacks occurring per unit time. However, playful defense, as it can only occur in response to attack, is necessarily a contingent measure that is best measured as a percentage (#attacks defended/total # attacks X 100%). How a particular attack is defended against can involve one of several tactics, and these are contingent on defense having taken place; consequently, the type of defense is also best expressed contingently as a percentage. Two experiments illustrate how these measurements can be used to detect the effect of brain damage on play fighting even when there is no effect on overall playfulness. That is, the schema presented here is designed to detect and evaluate changes in the content
of play following an experimental treatment.
Neuroscience, Issue 71, Neurobiology, Behavior, Psychology, Anatomy, Physiology, Medicine, Play behavior, play, fighting, wrestling, grooming, allogrooming, social interaction, rat, behavioral analysis, animal model | <urn:uuid:46fccfef-145b-4633-a1c9-b0c264cfa419> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.jove.com/visualize/abstract/19753120/eye-hand-coordination-during-dynamic-visuomotor-rotations | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988717783.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183837-00076-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906381 | 10,884 | 2.78125 | 3 |
It would be a sad day for Santa Barbara County dogs and cats if the mandatory spay/neuter ordinance proposal before the Board of Supervisors on November 3 and 10 were passed.
Mandatory spay/neuter ordinances cause more shelter killing, not less. The City of Lompoc passed a mandatory spay/neuter ordinance in 2006. From 2006 to 2009, killing of dogs in the Lompoc shelter is up 44 percent. The same is true in other areas that have tried it. In Los Angeles, shelter killing went up 30 percent in one year after mandatory spay/neuter was enacted. No city or county has ever seen less shelter killing than its neighboring cities or counties after passing mandatory spay/neuter. Voluntary spay/neuter education and assistance to low-income pet owners works. Mandatory spay/neuter, especially in difficult economic times like the present, forces poor families to choose between rent, food, and other basic necessities of life, and paying for expensive veterinary surgery. This always leads to more shelter surrenders, which always leads to more shelter killing.
Please urge your county supervisor to oppose this mandatory spay/neuter bill for the sake of the animals. – Janet Vining Mitchell | <urn:uuid:f62d1465-1ebb-40e6-bc5a-5cb4e3dd7c8b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.independent.com/2009/11/05/dont-force-neutering/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817032054-20220817062054-00468.warc.gz | en | 0.93532 | 255 | 1.945313 | 2 |
From the Daily Stat at HBR: Inexpensive messages urging Kenyan minibus passengers to heckle and criticize their drivers for being reckless caused a 60% reduction in insurance claims involving injury or death, say James Habyarimana and William Jack of Georgetown University. Stickers carrying messages such as “Don’t just sit there as he drives dangerously! Stand up. Speak up. Now!” and showing graphic illustrations of severed feet and legs were placed inside the buses. Drivers were given incentives to leave the stickers in place.
- Constitution Day
- The King’s Birthday
- Eight Years Ago: Airport Seized
- 7 years ago: Thaksin to receive $425 per month as Hun Sen advisor
- New requirements for long stay visa
- The real reason people are poor
- The U.S. supports IS
- Thaksin still not dead
- Handouts to rural people end up helping who?
- Death by Facebook
- Thailand’s censorship | <urn:uuid:32741986-e73c-41e7-aa8b-b0a4b33973f5> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://2bangkok.com/why-kenyan-bus-passengers-have-started-yelling-at-their-drivers.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281450.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00182-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94401 | 206 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Shadi Hamid, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, has surveyed the state of the 2020 election and drawn an unusual conclusion from it. “As someone who has argued against catastrophism—I don’t believe Donald Trump is a fascist or a dictator in the making, and I don’t believe America is a failed state—I find myself truly worried about only one scenario: that Trump will win reelection and Democrats and others on the left will be unwilling, even unable, to accept the result,” he wrote on Saturday in The Atlantic.
I envy Hamid’s peace of mind. I am personally worried about a great many scenarios that could arise between now and Inauguration Day, especially if the results after Election Day are close or contested. I worry about protracted legal battles, spasms of political violence, foreign meddling, constitutional crises, and would-be authoritarians who salivate at the chance to suppress their purported enemies. I hope that the United States will maintain its two-century record of peaceful transitions of presidential power, but I can’t guarantee it.
Still, it’s worth wrestling with the underlying premise of this question. If Trump is sworn in for a second term by Chief Justice John Roberts on January 20, 2021, how would his critics on the left handle another four years? Hamid fears mass disillusionment with electoral politics. “A loss by Joe Biden under these circumstances is the worst case not because Trump will destroy America (he can’t), but because it is the outcome most likely to undermine faith in democracy,” he warned, suggesting that it would lead to more riots and protests like those in Portland and Seattle in recent months.
I take issue with two premises laid out here: that liberals’ disillusionment with the democratic process wouldn’t be justified, and that it would also be the worst possible result in November. Hamid’s question flows from a number of conclusions he’s drawn about the past few years. He correctly notes that many of Trump’s critics have struggled with the 2016 results, while suggesting that their concerns about Russian interference or voter suppression were misguided or misplaced. Hamid argues that since Trump is a far more well-known quantity now than he was four years ago, and Biden is a less polarizing candidate than Hillary Clinton was, the psychic shock of a second Trump victory would be even greater than the first.
But what does it mean for a political party—or any person, for that matter—to “not accept the result?” Does it mean Joe Biden won’t admit defeat if he receives fewer votes in key states? Calling (or not calling) an opponent to concede is a pure formality that doesn’t actually carry any legal weight. Biden could vent and complain and denounce the results from November until the sun burns out, and it wouldn’t change the vote totals or affect the state-by-state Electoral College count. Any legal challenges would be resolved by the Supreme Court; perhaps with the benefit of hindsight after Bush v. Gore, or perhaps not.
There is no question that Trump is the lawful president of the United States right now. But whether he carries a democratic mandate is an entirely different matter. A majority of Americans rejected him at the ballot box in 2016, and he only assumed power through a flaw in the Constitution that occasionally hands the presidency to someone who doesn’t receive the most votes. Trump has never enjoyed a majority of public support in polling averages since that fateful November night. His efforts to pass major legislation through Congress on immigration or health care largely failed because lawmakers from both parties realized how deeply unpopular they would be if implemented, and he’s largely given up on trying to enact sweeping policy changes through anything but executive order.
If Trump somehow wins in November, it will also matter how he reaches that victory. (I’ll assume for this column that he didn’t use federal agents or the military to seize ballot boxes in key states or engage in any other extra-legal skullduggery, since that would raise a host of other issues.) It’s almost axiomatic among observers, even on Trump’s side, that he won’t win the popular vote. As Hamid acknowledges, the president’s path to victory runs once again through a narrow gauntlet of states that might provide him with an Electoral College majority. “That will fuel disillusion not just with the election outcome but with the electoral system,” Hamid wrote. “The popular-vote numbers will be used to argue that Trump won without winning—again.” He continues:
Liberals have convinced themselves that Republicans are, in one way or another, cheating. In addition to all of Trump’s norm-breaking, the GOP is gerrymandering, purging voter rolls, and shutting down polling places in Black neighborhoods. Yet Republicans wouldn’t have been able to do these things if they hadn’t won enough statewide and local offices in the first place. They have put themselves in a position to enact their favored redistricting and election procedures by finding candidates and pursuing policies that made them competitive in formerly Democratic states, demanding a level of party discipline that Democrats can seldom muster, and getting their supporters to turn out for down-ballot races. Republican manipulation is what the democratic process itself has produced, however unfair, and it can be undone only through that same process, however flawed. To some degree, this is just how the game is played, and Democrats need to play it better if they want to win the Electoral College. Having won the presidency twice in the recent past, Democrats are surely capable of prevailing via normal means, but promising voters a slightly improved version of the present may not necessarily be the best way to do it.
Here is where Hamid’s argument starts to fall apart. His fear is not that Republicans will reengineer the electoral system so Democrats can’t win, but that Democrats won’t accept the legitimacy of such a system. Closed polling places in Black neighborhoods and lawmakers who immunize themselves from ordinary electoral consequences are taken as a valid outcome of the democratic process instead of a fundamental corruption of it. The long right-wing campaign to suppress voters to secure power is chalked up to “party discipline” and “how the game is played.” Hamid claims that Obama’s 2008 and 2012 victories show how Democrats can win the presidency “via normal means,” without considering that many Republicans are fighting tooth and nail precisely to prevent that from ever happening again.
Liberals would almost certainly accept a second Trump term as a matter of law. There will always be some despondent folks on social media willing to indulge in some loose talk, but I doubt that they would refuse to pay taxes or swear allegiance to some sort of Biden administration-in-exile if the former vice president loses. Hamid’s wish for liberals to treat an Electoral College–only outcome as democratically legitimate, on the other hand, is a bridge too far. I turned 31 years old in August. If Trump wins in November solely through the Electoral College, I will have spent slightly less than half my life living under presidencies that began in defiance of the American people’s wishes by the next election in 2024. Given Trump’s efforts to corrupt the census and tilt the reapportionment process in his favor, things will likely get worse before they get better.
If anything, I am far more afraid of what Trump would do with another four years in power without a democratic mandate. In an interview on Infowars over the weekend, longtime ally Roger Stone said Trump should declare martial law if he loses the election in November and rule by extralegal force. He also called for Trump to use government resources to suppress votes in states where he might not win. “The ballots in Nevada on election night should be seized by federal marshals and taken from the state,” he demanded, citing false allegations of mass voter fraud. “They are completely corrupted. No votes should be counted from the state of Nevada if that turns out to be the provable case. Send federal marshals to the Clark County board of elections, Mr. President!”
Stone’s antipathy toward democracy is hardly new. The longtime GOP operative and Richard Nixon fanboy was convicted of lying to Congress about Russian interference efforts last year and then granted clemency by Trump in July. But he also isn’t alone in ratcheting up his rhetoric as Election Day nears. Mark Levin, a popular right-wing radio host, encouraged Trump last week to invoke the Insurrection Act to “put down the enemy” if he wins reelection. “The enemy is Antifa, the enemy is Black Lives Matter, and the enemy is anybody that is going to use rioting, arson, looting, violence against our country to try to overthrow our country,” he claimed. “Those are traitors. That’s treasonous.”
And then there’s Michael Caputo, a Stone acolyte who now serves as the top communications official at the Department of Health and Human Services. According to The New York Times, Caputo recently claimed on Facebook that government scientists were committing “sedition” and that there was a “resistance unit” in the Center for Disease Control and Prevention that sought to undermine the president. Ironically, Caputo himself has reportedly tried to edit the CDC’s benchmark Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports to align with the president’s upbeat predictions about Covid-19. But his discussion turned even darker on the subject of the upcoming election.
“I don’t like being alone in Washington,” he said, describing “shadows on the ceiling in my apartment, there alone, shadows are so long.” He then ran through a series of conspiracy theories, culminating in a prediction that Mr. Trump will win re-election but his Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., will refuse to concede.
“And when Donald Trump refuses to stand down at the inauguration, the shooting will begin,” he said. “The drills that you’ve seen are nothing.” He added: “If you carry guns, buy ammunition, ladies and gentlemen, because it’s going to be hard to get.”
This rhetoric mirrors Trump’s own troubling remarks about the election, as well as his predilection for endorsing violence. There are some signs that Trump’s comments about the election may be mostly bluster, of course. As I noted in July, he and his family have signaled what they might do after he leaves the White House, suggesting at minimum that they don’t expect him to declare himself president for life on November 4. Federal law also requires that incumbent administrations provide resources and briefings to major-party candidates for a potential transition of power after the election, regardless of their chances. So far, there are no indications that the Trump administration has hindered or undermined that ongoing process.
But I am still worried that even if things go relatively smoothly in November, some of Trump’s followers will take up arms after the election, either to punish his defeated opponents or to retaliate against them for winning. I fear that even if the overwhelming majority of his supporters don’t carry out acts of political violence, his words may nonetheless inspire another Cesar Sayoc or Christopher Hasson to plot a campaign against his perceived enemies. And if Americans take to the streets to express their opposition to the Trump administration’s policies, I worry that more armed gunmen like the one in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last month will insert themselves into situations with potentially lethal consequences.
The most curious thing about Hamid’s piece is that after all his hand-wringing, he never really gets around to providing a convincing or comprehensive game plan about what liberals should do—though his specific admonition for them to get better at “how the game is played” could be taken as gerrymandering districts and suppressing the vote with equal vigor. It’s puzzling that someone so gravely concerned about the decline of faith in our democracy would prescribe a second dose of it; it’s also hard to see what might provoke his suggested “mass movement to change” the Electoral College other than this loss of faith. But these are mere puzzlements. It’s understandable that Hamid is worried that Democrats might become disillusioned by electoral politics if Biden loses in November. But it matters less whether liberals lose faith in democracy than whether that faith is no longer justified. | <urn:uuid:f5332a81-285d-4dc5-a080-d67b1d9ef45e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://newrepublic.com/article/159363/worst-case-election-day-2020-biden-defeat | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571758.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812200804-20220812230804-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.962383 | 2,636 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Information and Preparation Instructions
This exam is for the identification of single or multiple adenomas, or the localization of primary or secondary parathyroid cancer. Please arrive in the Radiology department for the admissions process. A nuclear medicine technologist will greet you for the appointment. A small intravenous (I.V.) line will be started by the technologist for the exam. The technologist will inject a radioactive tracer through the I.V. and images will begin 15 to 20 minutes later. The radiotracer will not cause any allergic reaction or discomfort. A series of images will be taken for approximately 1 hour. You will then be asked to return 3 hours later. During this time, you may eat or drink as normal. When you return, the second series of images will take approximately 45 minutes.
Before Your Parathyroid Scan
- No special preparation is required
- Drink plenty of fluid after the exam is completed | <urn:uuid:512f81da-a63f-438b-b957-dd58810c4fd3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://swedishhospital.com/service/nuclear-medicine-pet-ct-parathyroid-scan | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281450.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00181-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916273 | 191 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Analysis: Obama’s Promises for Education Reform
Image credit: Sakeeb Sabakka/Flickr
“A higher education is the single best investment you can make in your future,” proclaimed US President Barack Obama on 22 August in Buffalo, NY.
Standing on stage in front of hundreds of students at the State University of New York, Buffalo, Obama addressed the dire situation many prospective, current, and past students in the United States face: paying back student loans. Obama made this statement as student loans have become an albatross around the necks of many who are struggling to pay back their debt while searching for employment in an economy with few offerings. Many young college graduates find themselves working low-income jobs in unrelated fields, at best.
Student loans have already proved to be a hot topic during the summer lull, as the US Congress failed to come to a compromise on student loan interest rates by 1 July. Failure to reach an agreement doubled the interest rate on undergraduate subsidized loans from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent. Before the academic school year was set to begin, a compromise was finally reached in the senate, which was voted on and passed to a congress that approved the deal on 31 July. This year’s interest rate is roughly 3.86 percent for undergraduates and 5.42 for graduates.
However, a compromise in the government on interest rates does not solve the stagnant problem of increased student debt (which averages $26,000 per student). In a heavily critical article on student debt in America, Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi pushes aside the controversy of interest rates to get to the core of the real problem:
No doubt, seeing rates double permanently would genuinely have sucked for many students, so it was nice to avoid that. And yes, it was theoretically beneficial when Obama took banks and middlemen out of the federal student-loan game. But the dirty secret of American higher education is that student-loan interest rates are almost irrelevant. It’s not the cost of the loan that’s the problem, it’s the principal – the appallingly high tuition costs that have been soaring at two to three times the rate of inflation, an irrational upward trajectory eerily reminiscent of skyrocketing housing prices in the years before 2008.
- Tie financial aid to college performance, starting with publishing new college ratings before the 2015 school year.
- Challenge states to fund public colleges based on performance.
- Hold students and colleges receiving student aid responsible for making progress toward a degree.
- Challenge colleges to offer students a greater range of affordable, high-quality options than they do today.
- Give consumers clear, transparent information on college performance to help them make the decisions that work best for them.
- Encourage innovation by stripping away unnecessary regulations.
- Help ensure borrowers can afford their federal student loan debt by allowing all borrowers to cap their payments at ten percent of their monthly income.
- Reach out to struggling borrowers to ensure that they are aware of the flexible options available to help them to repay their debt.
Part of this new plan would be the development of a ratings system that would compare similar colleges so that students can choose their best option for higher education. Obama also proposes that colleges and universities delve deeper into providing students with cost-efficient learning options by incorporating a greater use of technology, going as far as to endorse MOOCs (read Tadween’s blog post on MOOCs). On the side of state politics, Obama encouraged states to reevaluate their funding systems. “Right now, most states fund colleges based on how many students they enroll,” he said, “not based on how well those students do or even if they graduate.” He gave the example of Tennessee, Indiana, and Ohio who offer “more funding to colleges that do a better job of preparing students for graduation and a job” and Michigan who “is rewarding schools that keep tuition increases low.”
While Obama’s reform proposals have high hopes for current and prospective students, there are already millions of Americans who have graduated and remain plagued by their student debt. For The Atlantic, Garance Franke-Ruta writes, “There are, according to the White House, thirty-seven million people with outstanding federal student loans. A little more than 2.5 million of them are using one of the three income-dependent payment plans the federal government makes available to borrowers: the Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan, the Income Based Repayment Plan (IBR), and the Income-Contingent Repayment Plan.” Students who borrowed loans before 2008 or have not borrowed since 2011 are not allowed to take advantage of the Pay As You Earn Repayment Plan, causing hardship for many. Obama proposes that all borrowers of student loans be allowed to cap their federal student loan payments at ten percent of their monthly income.
Obama’s proposals have already received criticism from private colleges, and it should be expected that there will be many roadblocks ahead as some of the reforms will require legislation in a divided congress. It will take some time before any benefit or progress in Obama’s proposals will come to fruition. | <urn:uuid:74965f02-40e1-40d8-b407-e87cea6ca313> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://tadweenpublishing.com/blogs/news/8809413-analysis-obama-s-promises-for-education-reform | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00330-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96435 | 1,074 | 2.25 | 2 |
Doctors have not declared cupcakes all-you-can-eat health foods.
But these cupcakes from the Oregon Raspberry & Blackberry Council contain protein (peanut butter) and antioxidants (berry jam), making them a better choice for bake sales.
Peanut Butter & Blackberry Jam Cupcakes
Makes 16 cupcakes
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1 1/2 cups milk
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 cups sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line 16 muffin cups with cupcake liners. Mix the vinegar with the milk and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl, stir the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In another mixing bowl, whisk the milk mixture, canola oil, vanilla and almond extract. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and beat until smooth.
Fill each muffin cup with 1/4 cup of batter. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes, until toothpicks come out clean. Remove from the oven. Cool completely.
Peanut Butter Frosting:
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 (8 ounce) package of cream cheese, at room temperature
4 cups of confectioner’s sugar
1 tablespoon cream
Beat the butter, peanut butter and cream cheese with a hand or standing mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Slowly add the confectioner’s sugar and continue to mix until the frosting is smooth, mix in the cream and continue to mix until it reaches a good spreading consistency.
1 cup marionberry or blackberry jam
With a sharp paring knife, cut a cone-shaped hole into the top of each cupcake. Cut the cone portion off, leaving only a top cap. Spoon approximately one tablespoon of jam into each cupcake. Replace top.
Frost with peanut butter frosting, using a large (5/8” opening) star tip and a pastry bag. Swirl tops. Place one fresh blackberry on each cupcake.
Article & Recipe from East Texas Review. | <urn:uuid:6983ed8b-33bc-4cbf-956a-553d3e9d4bd2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.allthingscupcake.com/2008/08/27/better-cupcakes-for-bakesales/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280483.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00295-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.838956 | 486 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Du*bois"ine (?), n. Med.
An alkaloid obtained from the leaves of an Australian tree (Duboisia myoporoides), and regarded as identical with hyoscyamine. It produces dilation of the pupil of the eye.
© Webster 1913.
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Need help? email@example.com | <urn:uuid:df7d56db-f221-4641-8fd2-eefd516621ab> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://everything2.com/title/Duboisine | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00465-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.813496 | 85 | 1.960938 | 2 |
This book is intended to serve as quick reference handbook on so-called designer drugs. These new, mainly synthetic compounds are also often referred to as analogues of controlled substances. This new work provides a unique directory of 104 designer drugs. This class of drugs is rapidly growing in variety and number of compounds. Although identification, toxicology and other properties have been thoroughly investigated, their analogues and derivatives remain poorly documented. This book fills the gap. Data which is available is often contradictory and confused. This directory provides a critical treatment of the subject which is thoroughly indexed including both the subject index and an index listing more that 230 street names of the described designer drugs. Divided into two parts; the first section describes aspects of designer drug manufacture, new abuse trends, sources of information and terminology. The second, descriptive part, classifies the drugs into ten main categories according to their chemical structure and prevalent pharmacological action. A separate chapter is devoted to each category, followed by a set of corresponding data sheets, street names and eventual synonyms, Toxicological data, short notes on the history of drugs as well as the most pertinent bibliographic references are included. | <urn:uuid:cda75350-9ef9-42a1-8f4f-c2b38f7b85e1> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/designer-drugs-directory/9780080530321-item.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718285.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00107-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952494 | 233 | 2.390625 | 2 |
In a normal year, Star Valley wells pump out 15 percent less water than rainfall puts in, according to a consultant’s draft of a sustainable yield study.
But during long-term or short-term droughts, well levels can drop sharply as demand far outstrips natural recharge, according to a just-completed study.
During a severe drought, when the amount of water that can be extracted falls dramatically, Payson’s Tower Well, running at full capacity, could suck the aquifer dry, the study says. Payson’s purchase of the Tower Well was a key factor in the grassroots campaign that ended in Star Valley’s incorporation, in large measure, to protect its water supply.
Because the shallow, layers of crushed granite beneath the town cannot store much water, drought could easily have a pronounced effect, concluded the report.
“The only water stored in the aquifer is in cracks and wedges,” said Senior Associate Hydrogeologist Vit Kuhnel with LFR. “And there is not that much of it. When there is nothing going in, that would have severe results.”
The report appears to challenge results of some previous studies funded by Payson that concluded the Tower Well had little or no effect on the water table or on most other groundwater wells. Even at the height of the long-term drought that was interrupted by two wet winters, Star Valley’s water table remained high enough that Brooke Utilities pumped water from its Star Valley wells and trucked it to drought-stricken Pine and Strawberry.
However, Star Valley has long worried about the potential effect of the Tower Well and the long-term capacity of its water system. Payson has operated the Tower Well at only a fraction of its full pumping capacity in recent years. Moreover, Payson recently locked up rights to some 3,000 acre-feet of water from the Blue Ridge Reservoir, which will secure a long-term water supply, even without running the Tower Well at full capacity.
Nonetheless, the most recent study concluded that the Tower Well alone could pump out more water than rainfall puts into the system in a drought year.
In June, Star Valley asked Phoenix-based LFR Inc. to conduct a study of its underground water resources to determine how much water can be safely pumped from the fractured granite aquifer and to determine the long-term and drought-based limits of the water supply.
The study also provided more information about previous studies from LFR Inc. and Clear Creek Associates, which gave the town conflicting numbers on the impact of the Payson’s Tower Well on Star Valley’s groundwater supply.
The study could have long-term impacts on Star Valley’s general plan. In July, town members voted to halt general plan discussions in hopes the water study could determine how big the town could grow, given the amount of water available.
The study provided background about two, highly contentious studies completed several years ago.
An October 2005 study by LFR concluded that many of Star Valley’s wells tap into the same water table as the Tower Well, which feeds Payson’s municipal water system.
A developer drilled the well and sold it to Payson several years ago, just before Star Valley’s incorporation. Payson told residents the well would not affect Star Valley’s wells, but LFR concluded that overpumping from one or more wells would eventually lower water levels in all wells.
In Arizona, the amount of water extracted from a well is unregulated. In Star Valley, water use is regulated by a 1980 doctrine that assumes groundwater is a common resource that can be used by all, as long as it is used for beneficial purposes in the area.
“Groundwater depletion is often a consequence where the common resource is exploited in the absence of regulation or sustainable practices,” the LFR report states.
A follow-up study by Clear Creek Associates, which Payson paid for, concluded that natural water recharge significantly exceeds water demand. The study did not address the negative impacts of the Tower Well.
The recent LFR study concluded that all current wells owned by residents, Payson and Brooke Utilities, use 807 acre-feet per year, which is below the sub-basin’s safe yield of 954 acre-feet per year.
Safe yield is not the total amount of water that flows into the aquifer, but the amount that can be used, without affecting the ability of the underground water table to store water.
The balance between rainfall and use changes dramatically in drought years, the report concluded.
Sustainable yield for six-year drought
During a long-term, six-year drought, the sustainable yield would drop to just 196 acre-feet per year, which is less than half of the current groundwater demand.
During a short-term drought, generally lasting eight months, the amount of water available drops even more sharply, due to the reservoir response time.
Kuhnel explained that during a long-term drought, generally a few storms will replenish the aquifer, but during a short-term drought, there is no replenishment.
“As long as the aquifer gets one or two storms a year, you will replenish it,” he said. “In a short-term drought, there is nothing going in.”
In a short-term drought, the amount of water that can be safely extracted is 126 acre-feet.
The Tower Well alone extracted 136 acre-feet over an eight-month period in 2007, the report concluded.
The report does not explain why the town didn’t run out of water in previous droughts, even when the Tower Well was operating.
Kuhnel said several wells were impacted by the recent drought, which peaked in 2005, and had to be deepened.
LFR explains that the sharp drops during droughts occur because Star Valley’s groundwater is located in a fractured granite aquifer, which has limited storage.
“Its yield and outflow are therefore strongly dependent on precipitation as recharge,” the study states.
Kuhnel said the last two wet winters have recharged the aquifer enough that it should sustain itself for the next three years at the current rate of consumption.
During the wet winter of 2007, water levels fluctuated more than 28 feet daily in some wells. On the other hand, levels fell very little in others.
“Therefore, this study focused on the source water in a specific area within the basin where the businesses and most individual production wells and pumping clusters are located.”
LFR focused its analysis on a 15-square-mile stretch of town, where most businesses are located on Highway 260 and where approximately 1,700 people live. The area is where the majority of groundwater pumping occurs. However, the entire Star Valley basin covers close to 33 square miles, most of which is remote. LFR assumed that an average person would use 100 gallons per day — around 190 acre-feet per year.
To get a clear view of the water situation, researchers studied the amount of water removed, groundwater level changes over two years and precipitation records.
According to the study, researchers did not differentiate between natural outflows, such as how much plants suck up, and man-made uses, such as wells.
Fifteen wells were monitored on an hourly basis, and eight rain gauges located inside and outside town limits. Star Valley also placed three rain gauges near wells in 2006, which would have provided the best basis to compare water level fluctuations. However, these gauges were not used because their record is not long enough.
Besides monitoring rain gauges, well levels were tracked because, “water level in a well is a direct indication of storage of that system,” the report states. The higher the water level in a well, the more water can be removed, regardless of the well’s depth.
For example, the Lamplighter Well is 180 feet deep, but has a reservoir storage coefficient of 400 days, while the Bradley Well is 160 feet deep but only has a 190-day storage coefficient.
The wells used in the study vary in depth from just under 100 feet to 560 feet.
Star Valley’s Water and Sewer Commission Chairman Vern Leis said since the study only looks at a 15-mile section of town, results could be different in a wider area with growth factored in.
The Water and Sewer Commission is still discussing the water study, and plans to make several changes before submitting it to council.
A draft of the general plan calls for expanded growth along a business corridor east of town. The impact of additional homes and businesses on water supply is unknown, but it would likely increase usage.
“Groundwater is currently the only water source available to the Town of Star Valley, and over-exploitation through high-yield wells and export of water outside the basin threaten the resource and should be avoided,” the LFR study concluded. | <urn:uuid:67ecc522-7aae-4610-9055-41f29d838691> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.paysonroundup.com/news/2009/mar/24/water_study_says_sv_would_suffer_drought/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280872.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00320-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963389 | 1,871 | 2.8125 | 3 |
Last month, Congress responded to the harsh economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in efforts to keep financially disadvantaged Americans afloat by passing a $2 trillion stimulus package, known as the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act. The components of the stimulus package include payments to individuals, expanded unemployment coverage, student loan changes, different retirement account rules, and more. As several million people are left struggling economically due to the coronavirus, the CARES Act will serve as financial relief.
The CARES Act also will add to existing unemployment benefits, giving jobless Americans an extra $600 a week through July 31, 2020. This new law expands the list of workers eligible to receive benefits to those Americans who usually don’t qualify for unemployment benefits if their employment was affected by COVD-19. As part of the federal CARES Act, the new Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program helps unemployed Americans who are business owners, self-employed, independent contractors, have a limited work history. Others not usually eligible for regular state UI benefits, which are out of business or services, are significantly reduced as a direct result of the pandemic. The provisions of the program once operational include up to 39 weeks of benefits starting with weeks of unemployment beginning February 2, 2020, through the week ending December 31, 2020, depending on when you became directly impacted by the pandemic. Also, there will be an additional $600 given to each PUA weekly benefit amount you may be eligible to receive, as part of the separate CARES Act Pandemic Additional Compensation program. If you are one of the million employees affected by this outbreak, you might be eligible to collect unemployment benefits to assist you during this severe economic crisis. Learn more about this stimulus law that could be helpful to you, below.
Three things job seekers and furloughed employees need to know about stimulus payments.
1. The CARES Act stimulus recipients receive an extra $600 a week.
Unemployed employees receive an extra $600 a week. Americans who are approved for unemployment insurance will earn the extra money on top of the benefits they usually get from their state. If you are unemployed and have been approved for unemployment benefits from your state’s labor department, you don’t have to do anything to receive the extra $600 per week. If you are already approved for unemployment insurance from your state’s labor department, you won’t have to do anything to receive the extra $600 per week. If you are not already enrolled and approved for benefits in your state, you must do so to be eligible under the new provisions. This benefit began on March 27, 2020, and will last until July 31, 2020. Contact your state’s labor department for state-specific information.
2. The CARES Act greatly expands existing unemployment benefits in several ways.
Additionally, under the CARES Act, more U.S. employers will be eligible for benefits through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program. The following Americans could now be eligible to receive state unemployment benefits as well as the extra $600 per week:
- You have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or are experiencing symptoms of COVID-19 and are seeking a medical diagnosis.
- You are unable to work because a health care provider advised you to self-quarantine due to concerns related to COVID-19.
- A member of your household has been diagnosed with COVID-19.
- You are providing care for a family member or a member of your household who has been diagnosed with COVID-19.
- A child or other person in the household for whom you have primary caregiving responsibility is unable to attend a school, or another facility that is closed as a direct result of the COVID-19 and the school or facility care is required for you to work.
- You became the breadwinner or significant support for a household because the head of the household has died as a direct result of COVID-19.
- You have to quit your job as a direct result of COVID-19.
- Your place of employment is closed as a direct result of COVID-19.
- You were scheduled to start a job that is now unavailable as a direct result of the COVID-19 public health emergency.
- You are unable to reach the place of employment as a direct result of the COVID-19 public health emergency.
If you work as an independent contractor with reportable income, you may also qualify for PUA benefits if you are unemployed, partially employed, or unable or unavailable to work because the COVID-19 public health emergency has severely limited your ability to continue performing your usual work activities, and has thereby forcing you to stop working.
3. Unemployment benefits will be extended.
Under the CARES Act, unemployment benefits will be extended 13 weeks after benefits are exhausted in addition to the $600 provided by the federal stimulus. This extension will give Americans more time to land on their feet as they may have difficulties finding employment in the current economic climate. | <urn:uuid:e7726706-657f-43c9-9bc1-218a3ef5b42c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://resources.ehscareers.com/directory/three-facts-job-seekers-need-to-know-about-the-cares-act-article-1224.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571536.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811224716-20220812014716-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.969148 | 1,044 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Summer is high above us and before the scorching rays of the sun reach your windows in full blast mode, now is the time to make those changes in your window treatments that you swore you would do last August. Don’t forget that your bedroom is also angry at those streetlights at night that disturb peaceful sleep. I know our promises are so easily broken and forgotten, but I have a quick refresher course to help you through the maze. So many of you ask me what is the difference between all those terms relating to openness and opacity and room darkening and light filtering….jeez. Yes, there are a lot of factors to consider when light control is at the top of your list when choosing window coverings. Even though I love the sun streaming in the windows, brightening my home and energizing my spirit, but particular windows do have special needs, so here is a simple way to break down these terms.
First, let’s get a major confusion out of the way. The term “openness” only refers to solar screen fabric; hence, solar screen window treatments. If your home is severely sunstruck (large windows, patio doors, skylights, un-shaded windows), and you need to cool down your room, cut glare and protect your furniture and floors, solar screens are an obvious choice. You can select different “openness” levels, depending on how much view, therefore light, you desire. Openness refers to how much light is allowed through the fabric. A smaller openness percentage, 3%- 5%, means less light comes in which equals a darker room, which equals less view. A higher percentage of openness, 5%-20%, will give your room more light, more view, I usually recommend a 5% openness for those who want to see out but screen out some sun and glare. To obtain even more sun with light screening, choose a 10-14% openness factor. Also, note that a plain weave fabric in a darker color will give you a better view than busy patterns which create more obstruction. Lighter colors in a plain weave will reflect the light and add some brightness to the room as darker, plain weave fabrics will absorb some light, creating a slightly darker room. Remember that there is no perfect solution as there is a give and take with view/light and coolness/protection. You need to decide which balance works for you. Caution: solar screens DO NOT provide privacy at night, so you will need an additional window treatment if you don’t like nosey neighbors.
Opacity refers to levels of light filtering for fabrics on Romans, pleated, cellular and roller shades and draperies. Opacity qualities run from very open and light-sheer to semi sheer to light filtering-semi-opaque to opaque (room darkening) to blackout. Let’s review these categories.
These window treatments allow the most light to filter in, but do reduce some glare-little privacy with sheer window treatments. However, the view is maintained and sheers are popular for their softness, grace and casual appeal. Sheer panels or sheer draperies can make your room float, or sheer shades with soft fabric vanes come in different light filtering options to create brightness.
Semi-sheer window treatments diffuse light but still provide little privacy. Semi-sheers are our least popular window treatment and really provide no benefit. You should really clarify your pressing need: view or privacy and go sheer, semi-opaque, or solar to add beauty to function to this in-between need to get the best of both worlds.
Choose a semi-opaque window covering if you know you want privacy and require some bit of light to stream through the window. Your view will be very restricted but your room will not be dark. For the most privacy, choose a double cell, light filtering shade. Pleated, Roman shades and drapery with liners are also good choices here. Semi-opaque window treatments are very popular and versatile with many light filtering choices.
4. Opaque or Room Darkening
Opaque and room darkening are used interchangeably and if you see the description, “room darkening,” be aware that room darkening fabric does not block out ALL light, as light seeps around the gaps, about 1/2″ on each side. For inside mounts, the amount of the gap depends on the type of window treatment you select. Rollers have the most gaps. Romans, pleated and cellulars are more minimal with a 1/4″ gap on each side. To overcome some of the light seepage, go for an outside mount with lots of fabric overlap to “override” the window. Too many of you become disappointed, especially in the bedroom, when you choose room darkening, and the streetlights and car lights annoy you at night. I cannot stress enough that room darkening is NOT a true blackout shade but will considerably darken your room. There, have I stressed that enough?
I am adding blackout as a category for a true blackout shade must have “something” really blocking all light – a mylar interior lining, an acrylic backing with a blackout liner or a 3 ply vinyl material or an extra layer of an additional window darkening treatment. All of these extra blocking materials make these window treatments a real blackout shade that has a thick layer to create a dark and somber room. My favorite is the “Slumber Shade” for you light averse sleepers and vampires who cringe from any brightness.
Many other blackout shades really fail the true blackout test but can still appeal to you.
I know that is a lot to think about now as the sun, heat, light and dark are our friend and enemy. I want you to be able to capture the best qualities so you can harness the light and make it shine or disappear as you choose for your living style. With so many styles and options, our design experts can guide you to your best and most beautiful window coverings. Follow these steps to windows you will love! Night or Day! | <urn:uuid:32ed81d9-31e6-437a-850b-271214749f1a> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.blindsgalore.com/blog/index.php/blinds-basics/hello-sunshine-goodbye-glare/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721174.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00283-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930637 | 1,259 | 1.59375 | 2 |
30 Google Map Images That Show Just How Much Danbury Has Changed
Named after a city in the United Kingdom, Danbury, Connecticut was settled by colonists in 1685 when eight families moved from Norwalk and Stamford.
During the American Revolution, Danbury was an important military supply depot for the Continental Army. On April 26, 1777, under Major General William Tryon, the British burned and looted the city.
Danbury is known for the Great Danbury State Fair, held from 1869 until 1981, but it's also known as the Hat City because, in the 1920s, Danbury, Connecticut, was producing the most hats in the world.
The personal finance website Wallethub named Danbury the 10th most diverse city in the United States, and the real estate website, Movoto named Danbury the third best place to live in Connecticut. But, again, let me remind you that Danbury is only a 75 minute drive into New York City. | <urn:uuid:ddb7395d-7a55-4618-a2a1-5d9b50917058> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://i95rock.com/flash-back-with-these-30-then-and-now-google-images-of-danbury/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572192.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815145459-20220815175459-00066.warc.gz | en | 0.964115 | 201 | 3 | 3 |
German TV To Air Interviews With Nazi Death Squad Soldiers
BERLIN (JTA) — A German television channel is broadcasting interviews with two alleged members of World War II Nazi death squads located with help from an Israeli hunter of Nazis.
Efraim Zuroff, Jerusalem-based Nazi hunter for the Simon Wiesenthal Center, went public with the names after German state investigators appeared to be dragging their feet, he said in an interview.
The program by the ARB broadcaster featuring comments from Kurt Gosdek and Herbert Wahler was to air Thursday in ARD’s Kontakt magazine. They are alleged to be members of Einsatzgruppen, or mobile death squads, which historians say were responsible for about two million murders in the Soviet lands under German occupation.
According to Zuroff, who in 2014 had supplied German investigators with a list of 80 names of Einsatzgruppen members born in 1920 or later, said he became frustrated with the lack of response from the Central Office for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes in Ludwigsburg. He decided to work with a reputable German broadcaster in the meantime.
The prosecution of such perpetrators became easier after the 2011 conviction of John Demjanjuk in Munich, which set a precedent enabling accessories to Nazi genocide to be tried for murder. | <urn:uuid:adb64c25-c489-42b9-989e-1a885acd7161> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://forward.com/fast-forward/383891/german-tv-to-air-interviews-with-nazi-death-squad-soldiers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573667.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819100644-20220819130644-00075.warc.gz | en | 0.969455 | 272 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Unmanned-Aircraft Sensor Could Detect Cave Dwellers
A sensor suite designed for unmanned aircraft promises sensitivity and resolution high enough to detect human activity in caves. The proposed Airborne Infrared Surveillance sensor would consist of three acquisition and three tracking cameras, along with their associated optics and processors.
Officials from Aeromet Inc. in Tulsa, Okla., plan to mount the 1455-lb package on a high-altitude Global Hawk aircraft, where it can provide flexible response to a variety of threats. Besides its ground surveillance, the sensor could be used to image orbiting satellites, providing configuration details and information about surveillance satellite pointing. Aeromet officials are also touting the sensor's ability to detect boost phase missiles, particularly as a replacement for the troubled Space-Based Infrared System-Low program.
The proposed system has a $300 million price tag, with three aircraft deliverable in three years.
MORE FROM PHOTONICS MEDIA | <urn:uuid:4144a5a2-fab0-47ee-bf39-c7dd93fb982a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.photonics.com/Article.aspx?AID=12382 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284352.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00188-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.894074 | 191 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Newspaper on News of the World / size: tabloid
This is an addition to the last issue of Rupert Murdoch's shut-down newspaper The News of the World. As the many phone hacking scandals and the bribery of police officers led to the closure of the paper, the eyes of the public were all pointed towards Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, rather than listening to what the employees had to say about it. In this newspaper I collected quotes of the employees and used them to tell the story. At first there is a lot of background noise covering the story. Slowely, those walls are broken down to reveal the quote by Rebekah Brooks: 'We have a belief in journalism'. Later that quote is broken down to reveal the anger that the employees feel towards Rebekah Brooks. More and more information is revealed, including images of inside the building. The advertisements expand in size as the newspaper progresses, advertising the ridiculously out of context jobs overseas that News of the World offered its employees. In my newspaper I played with the idea of only presenting a selection of the truth.
vandenbosch.charlotte at gmail
Based in NYC | <urn:uuid:560cfcfe-b3cf-4c40-b84e-b8aa6713d3aa> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://charlottevandenbosch.com/editorial-design/news-of-the-world/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571987.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813202507-20220813232507-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.961652 | 248 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The Connecticut Hydrogen-Fuel Cell Coalition, administered by the Connecticut Center for Advanced Technology, is comprised of representatives from Connecticut’s fuel cell and hydrogen industry, labor, academia, government, and other stakeholders. CCAT and the Connecticut Hydrogen-Fuel Cell Coalition works to enhance economic growth in Connecticut through the development, manufacture, and deployment of fuel cell and hydrogen technologies and associated fueling systems.
The Connecticut Hydrogen-Fuel Cell Coalition is made up of companies and organizations that do business with each other and/or have common needs for talent, technology, and infrastructure. Connecticut companies now lead the world in the development of molten carbonate and phosphoric acid fuel cells and are among the leaders in proton exchange membrane (PEM) and solid oxide fuel cell development. Connecticut companies in hydrogen generation are leaders in both proton exchange membrane electrolysis systems and in converting natural gas or petroleum products to hydrogen through reforming processes.
Connecticut companies pioneered the development and application of fuel cells and hydrogen generation, and continue to lead the world with a broad infrastructure of original equipment manufacturers, suppliers, academic support, state government support, and regional activity. The Connecticut Hydrogen-Fuel Cell Coalition is supported by the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development and its members. | <urn:uuid:71aec9af-95da-4c8c-90f4-0cc75998d674> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://chfcc.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720972.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00252-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927996 | 253 | 1.8125 | 2 |
The Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) Curriculum
The curriculum consists of everything that the child experiences in school.
It is designed to meet the school’s aims by fostering the physical, social, emotional, spiritual and cognitive development of each child. Our aim is to create a child-centred learning environment that is not only secure and inviting but also stimulating and challenging.
The children are learning mainly through play, and we plan and teach around the seven areas of Learning and Development of the new Early Years Foundation Stage Framework (2021).
There are three prime areas:
- Personal, Social and Emotional Development
- Communication and Language
- Physical development
There are four specific areas:
- Understanding the World
- Expressive Arts and Design
Please log onto the links below to view the booklet, and read about the guided support that will help you as a parent to know what to expect during these vital important years
What to expect, when?
In addition the new guidance outlines the Characteristics of Effective Learning which are particularly important to us in the nursery school.
These characteristics are:
- Playing and Exploring-engagement: Finding out and exploring; playing with what they know; and being willing to “have a go”.
- Active Learning-motivation: Being involved and concentrating; keeping trying and enjoying achieving what they set out to do.
- Creating and thinking critically-thinking: Having their own ideas; making links and choosing ways to do things. | <urn:uuid:32c26a44-e9d7-4122-bfb3-90e3e0f1454d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://featherstonenurseryschool.org.uk/early-years-curriculum/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572286.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816090541-20220816120541-00269.warc.gz | en | 0.944743 | 316 | 3.5625 | 4 |
|Topic Review (Newest First)|
|03-25-2010 04:33 PM|
|sailingdog||Good luck Degreeoff... have fun and may the weather goddess smile favorably on you.|
|03-25-2010 04:03 PM|
Well to get back on topic......I bought the whole shibang from our lovely hard to reach hosts and will install very soon! I do hope I am not struck by lightning my first run out in the lil ole Catalina 30......
|03-25-2010 02:33 PM|
Yes, but when the voltage potential is 10,000,000-120,000,000 volts, and the distance is less than 4 meters... chances are pretty good that it'll fry the portable electronics, don't you think?? Especially, when most IC chips will fry when the voltage rises from 3.3 volts to just 5-6 volts.
I'd point out that with a radius of 4 meters, that covers pretty much almost all of any boat up to about 36-40' long or so... since you generally won't be in the cockpit during a lightning storm and the most likely point of impact is the mast... On a 40' boat, the mast is about 16-20' from the bow... and the boat is 13-14' wide...
So, if your boat is struck by lightning, there isn't much chance that handheld electronics are going to survive, unless stowed in a faraday cage of some sort.
Originally Posted by nickmerc View Post
|03-25-2010 10:59 AM|
Originally Posted by sailingdog View Post
This is like the old joke:
If you have a man and a woman standing face to face and the man took a step towrds the woman that was always half the remaining distance would he ever get to her.
The scientist says no. It would take an infinite amount of steps to reach her. The engineer (or realistic person) says you would get close enough for practical purposes.
|03-25-2010 08:39 AM|
The handheld wouldn't have to actually be hit. The large voltage differences created by the lightning bolt passing nearby is often enough to fry the electronics.... Very few electronics on a boat are damaged by the lightning actually hitting them or passing through them. Most modern ICs are easily damaged by transient voltages only a few volts higher than what they are designed to use....and a lightning bolt creates differentials of hundreds of thousands of volts.
By putting the handheld into a faraday cage (oven, pressure cooker), it is effectively shielded from the EMF created by the lightning bolt and the ICs don't get fried by the induced voltages.
Originally Posted by nickmerc View Post
|03-25-2010 02:24 AM|
|dougshipl||We have been using a raymarine chart plotter (C) for over 10 years and have 2 E80s, a raydome radar unit, DSM depth, ST 60s and SR 100 Serius weather that we've been using for about 4 years with no problems at all. And it's idiot proof to install and operate once you get the hang of it. Their R&D use to be second to none but I do not like the fact that simple extension caples and etc.. are way too $$$. We looked at the Garman touch screens before selecting the E80s and in hind-sight, after everything is installed, Garmen would have been more reasonable. Like I noted, it was the little things like networking the Seatalk cabling, extension cables yadda that added up fast. Their list prices are crazy on their units (even with boat show prices or rebates) so we never paid full retail and purchsed on line. In summary, we've been very pleased with the product and their customer support that spends time on the phone with you..vs email.|
|03-23-2010 10:50 PM|
I would think the chances of a handheld that is not connected to the boats wiring being hit by lightning are pretty low. It is true that a faraday cage is the only way to garantee that it will not be hit. How bad is your luck for that to happen? How often will lightning deviate from the path of least resistance and seek out a handheld?
Medical marijuana dispensaries empire.co
|03-23-2010 07:57 PM|
|TheThrill||I agree they can get fried in a hit, but I was thinking about the boats that get a side-shock from a nearby strike at the dock and loose everything that's wired in, leaving only their hand held undamaged.|
|03-23-2010 11:26 AM|
Handhelds are just as prone to lightning damage UNLESS you happen to store it in a closed oven or pressure cooker during the lightning storm. Just cause it isn't connected to the 12 VDC electrical system doesn't mean that lightning can't fry it.
Originally Posted by TheThrill View Post
|03-23-2010 12:09 AM|
|TheThrill||I think hand held chart plotters are the way to go. No chance of lightning damage, and the garmins have held up well for me.|
|This thread has more than 10 replies. Click here to review the whole thread.| | <urn:uuid:4c9416ac-7750-4931-a39a-e7064c81d187> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.sailnet.com/forums/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=554087 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281069.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00272-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956576 | 1,120 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Judea and Jerusalem 3: From Mark 11:12 on Jesus is on bad terms with all groups.
with all groups: his own followers (irritation, 11:14), the high priests, 11:18, the elders, 11:28, all Jews, 12:1ss, Pharisees and Herodians, 12:13, the Sadducees, 12:18, the scribes, 12:28-40, the rich, 12:41.
In the end, only the poor widow remains – at the bottom of the social hierarchy – with whom Jesus has not yet broken. Jesus becomes a public non-person. End of part 1. | <urn:uuid:4be50ced-8059-4e69-a7b0-06672ea62baa> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://bibleblog-en.com/2022/07/25/378/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571150.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810070501-20220810100501-00676.warc.gz | en | 0.906721 | 140 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Rising to the challenges of climate change and developing varieties that require lower use of intrants: those are the stakes of varietal development, which is led in France by the National Institute of Agronomical Research, in partnership with private companies.
An interview with Rémy Cailliatte, Deputy Head of the Varietal Innovation and Diversification Department, and director of the Plant2Pro Carnot Institute.
What is the purpose of varietal development research?
“The research we are carrying out in plant biology and genetics aims to understand how plants work in order to rise to the challenges posed by two major issues: adapting to climate change and to agro-ecological and food transitions. In fact, the goal is to obtain modes of production that require fewer synthetic intrants and are capable of adapting to tomorrow’s conditions (more heat waves, hydric stress, etc.).
Where does France stand in that field?
“France is unquestionably a leader in the field of varietal development research. Our state-supported research is undeniably among the leaders in genomic approaches and developing renowned ground-breaking studies of genetic struggle (varieties’ resistance) against bio-aggressors of crops.
France’s investment in varietal development research is funded by both public and private funds (one-third/two-thirds). Unlike the image of ivory-tower researchers who are disconnected from concrete reality, INRAE works in partnership with industrials, especially seed companies, and with the sector overall.”
What is INRAE’s role?
“We are above all a research institution dedicated to acquiring new knowledge. However, if we notice that private firms are not following certain leads due to the high cost of research and the uncertainty of results, we can go all the way to varietal innovation, i.e. to developing new varieties. Concretely, INRAE creates some two dozen varieties a year, which are developed by our subsidiary, Agri Obtentions.”
Can you give us an example of varietal creation?
“Since the mid-1970s, INRAE has been working on grapevines in order to create varieties that are resistant to both downy and powdery mildew, the two diseases that are responsible for 80% of the use of plant-protection agents on grapevines in France. After having identified the genes that grant resistance to these diseases in wild American and Asian grapevines, our
researchers used hybridization followed by selection to incorporate resistance factors to those two diseases into domesticated European vines. The first resistant vines were registered in 2018, and we have observed a 90 to 95% drop in the use of those agents, as compared to national averages. We have achieved a veritable revolution with grapevines – no other country has made as much progress with this kind of approach. Similar work has been carried out on a wide range of other crops, such as common wheat, legumes or pulses, and fruit trees.”
More information about agri-food industry in our news! | <urn:uuid:a185815d-1f55-4948-a82b-ee0bfbb3f1a7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://tastefranceforbusiness.com/france-a-leader-in-varietal-development-research/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572063.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814173832-20220814203832-00670.warc.gz | en | 0.953674 | 639 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Simalar to "real talk" or "word is bond" Real Speech just means "that's real" or "that's my word." Made popular by midwest rapper, 3rd Degree.
That dude real lame, real speech.
作者 2 Deep 2007年3月31日
The Urban Dictionary Mug
One side has the word, one side has the definition. Microwave and dishwasher safe. Lotsa space for your liquids.Buy the mug
Can you define these popular missing words? | <urn:uuid:9d32d7ff-b012-4a17-9c34-f72ef7a63fa2> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://zh.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Real%20Speech | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719136.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00466-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.812911 | 109 | 1.726563 | 2 |
In some rare cases, a home with a high level of iron or manganese in the soil and/or groundwater will allow the growth of a microorganism known as iron bacteria.
As this bacteria thrives in groundwater, it creates a thick, gelatinous substance known as iron ochre. While this is not known to be a health hazard, it can quickly clog a French drain system. It also emits a foul odor and leaves rust-colored stains on everything it contacts.
Our WaterGuard® IOS (Iron Ochre System) Perimeter Drain Channel is ideal for managing this difficult problem. The wide-open design of the drain helps it resist clogs, while a removable lid allows for easy access and maintenance.
Don't let iron ochre clog your perimeter drain system and ruin your basement! Our drain system is custom-designed to protect your basement and help keep it dry all the time!
To schedule a free iron ochre perimeter drain quote, contact us by phone or e-mail today! We proudly serve the Georgia and South Carolina area, including Savannah, Macon, Charleston and many surrounding areas.
Iron ochre is typically rust-colored, but can also be yellow, brown, or gray. This slimy material is a menace to typical perimeter drain systems and can clog them in a few months' time.
Iron bacteria is a microorganism that lives by oxidizing minerals dissolved in water -- especially ferrous iron and sometimes manganese as well.As it does so, it creates a thick slime or ooze that's usually reddish-brown in coloration.
This ooze will stain anything it contacts. It has a swampy, musty smell, and it makes drinking water taste terrible. These stains can also show up in laundry if the line contains iron-tainted water.
Iron bacteria attaches itself to the inside of pipes, forming layers of iron ochre as it goes.
Eventually, these layers result in the complete blockage of pipes -- and can even lead to deteriorating pipes, as iron bacteria uses the iron from the pipes as a food source. The sludge is not easily flushed out -- it must be manually scooped out.
No matter how challenging your basement problem is, Lowcountry Foundation Repair has the solution you're looking for! Our Our iron ochre perimeter drain system is customized to handle any kind of iron bacteria issues that may arise -- and is the ONLY cleanable, flushable iron ochre system of its kind!
To schedule a free basement waterproofing quote to solve this or any other wet basement problem, contact us today! We'll send a specialist to your home to inspect and measure the space, answer any questions you may have, and provide you with a customized cost quote.
Our experts proudly serve the Georgia and South Carolina area, including Savannah, Macon, Charleston, surrounding areas such as Mount Pleasant, North Charleston, Summerville, Warner Robins, Hilton Head Island, Fayetteville, Goose Creek, and nearby towns in Georgia and South Carolina. | <urn:uuid:80d75192-b7de-42b2-b3de-92d5255f68b5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.lowcountryfoundationrepair.com/basement-waterproofing/french-drain/perimeter-drain.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00278.warc.gz | en | 0.922585 | 632 | 2.171875 | 2 |
Ofsted inspected the school in February 2020. This was a routine inspection and was carried out to see if the school was still “Good” according to the Ofsted criteria.
The inspection saw three inspectors visit the school. They went to 30 lessons across five departments: English, Geography, History, Modern Foreign Languages and Science. They spoke to a large number of students, to teachers and members of the school’s leadership team as well as to Governors. It was an intensive two days.
I am very pleased that the inspection team agreed with our own assessment that Severn Vale remains a Good school. I was particularly pleased that they said:
- The school provides a calm, orderly environment in which pupils can learn
- Teachers have high expectations of what pupils can achieve
- Positive relationships between staff and pupils support pupils’ learning
- Teachers make learning interesting, and pupils are keen to take part
- Behaviour is good
- Pupils’ personal development is fundamental to the work of the school
- Pupils are happy at the school.
A full copy of the letter produced is available below and can be found on the Ofsted website. | <urn:uuid:375501cf-1a2f-48c7-a915-8fb734e08435> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.severnvaleschool.com/page/?title=Ofsted&pid=13 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571745.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812170436-20220812200436-00479.warc.gz | en | 0.979876 | 245 | 1.828125 | 2 |
The coming of your skin is important. Great seeking skin gives we confidence. Not so good seeking skin can have we feel self confident. Having acne is not something that we would instruct upon anyone. I’m certain we can agree. There have been many studies upon diet as well as acne over a years. Studies have been right away display that 90% of acne sufferers have been immoderate dishes that means breakouts since 10% of sufferers have been due to hormones. So as we can see a immeasurable infancy of people who get acne can forestall it. Here have been 6 elementary tips that many acne sufferers do not know:
1. Drink during slightest 8 eyeglasses of H2O each day.
2. Eat a full of health diet.
3. Have a tablespoon of cold pulpy seed oil daily.
4. Eat greasy fish 3 times a week.
5. Eat copiousness of total grain.
6. Avoid ethanol as well as caffeine.
When we eat food that is tough to ready it causes skin problems. Water helps a skin get absolved of toxins as well as ride nutrients to a skin. A full of health diet helps a physique say full of health skin. It additionally helps a body’s defence complement that will definitely start acne treatment.
What is a full of health diet comprised of? It is a diet that is abounding in fiber, salads, total wheat bread, bran, or multigrain foods. Eating opposite kinds of fruits will give a physique antioxidants that absolved a physique of acne. Cold pulpy seed oil as well as fish have been really critical in assisting your skin be healthy. Many acne sufferers have a inapplicable designation of not removing sufficient of these foods. When we put these stairs in to movement we will notice your skin recovering itself. Good food is disinfectant for a body. | <urn:uuid:c9d41ff4-9bd7-45a7-b135-7d1e02315565> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://anakkomik.blogspot.com/2009/08/tips-that-most-acne-sufferers-do-not.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280364.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00037-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958507 | 391 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Harvard's Class of 2022 is made up of over 36% legacy students, according to The Harvard Crimson. The year before, the share of the freshman class was just over 29%. (CNBC Make It has reached out to both The Crimson and Harvard's admissions office to confirm these figures.)
As of 2015, legacies were five times more likely to get into the world-famous university than applicants without relatives who went to Harvard.
Stanford University gives legacies a significant advantage as well. "It used to be that every application would be read twice. Now, only one reading is guaranteed, although — thanks, Mom and Dad — every legacy application still gets two sets of eyes," a 2013 Stanford Magazine article about the school's admissions process reported.
Across the top 30 schools in the U.S., one review from 2011 discussed in the Washington Post found that children of alumni "had a 45 percent greater chance of admission" than other applicants.
The issue of legacy admissions is especially pertinent in light of recent news: Federal prosecutors have brought charges against 50 people in a sweeping college cheating scandal in which wealthy parents allegedly paid a collective $25 million to help their children get into top colleges and universities, including Yale, Stanford and USC.
As prosecutors acknowledged, and as critics have pointed out, there are already several legal ways for wealthy parents to work the system. Legacy admissions, especially at elite institutions, for example, is one such way a lucky few gain a distinct advantage.
The concept has been controversial since its beginning. In the early 20th century, universities introduced a preference for legacies to exclude less desirable applicants, such as immigrants, and to keep their campuses homogeneous, Think Progress reports.
For instance, Princeton adopted a comprehensive admissions process in 1922 similar to the one Dartmouth created in 1919, which stated that "all properly qualified sons of Dartmouth alumni and Dartmouth college officers" would be admitted. After the new policy led to a drop in Princeton's Jewish student population, the chairman of Princeton's Board of Admissions acknowledged that he had wanted to solve the school's "Jewish problem."
Today, one argument in support of legacy admissions is that alumni will be more inclined to donate if their kids attend their alma mater. But that claim has been proven false.
When seven colleges stopped accounting for legacy status during the admissions process between 1998 and 2008, there was "no short-term measurable reduction in alumni giving," Chad Coffman wrote in his book, "Affirmative Action for the Rich," as the Washington Post reports.
Prioritizing legacies crowds out applicants from lower-income backgrounds who arguably have a greater need for what elite schools offer: a great education, connections and resources, such as tuition scholarships and grants for unpaid internships.
Low-income students are already vastly underrepresented at these institutions. At Ivy League schools, an average of just 16 percent of undergraduates receive federal aid in the form of a Pell Grant, which is specifically designated for low-income families, the Boston Globe reports. However, nationally, a full 40 percent of undergraduate students receive Pell grants.
Legacy students tend to be wealthy and white, two demographics that are already disproportionately represented at many colleges, especially the most selective ones. Yet those schools can afford to admit more lower-income students, a study from the Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce points out.
When high achievers from the working class to go to an elite school, it gives them a better chance of graduating and joining the middle or upper class, the study says. Allowing more of them that opportunity would "go a long way toward advancing equity in this country — by giving students in poor financial circumstances a far greater chance of succeeding."
Elite institutions such as Harvard and Yale have increased their share of low-income students in recent years. In 2016, 30 institutions, including all the Ivy League schools, signed the American Talent Initiative, which "aims to attract, enroll and graduate an additional 50,000 lower-income students" by 2025.
That's heartening, given that America's current outdated system of giving preference to the relatives of former students is essentially cheating, says Richard V. Reeves, author of the book "Dream Hoarders" and a senior fellow in Economic Studies and director of the Future of the Middle Class Initiative at the Brookings Institute.
"To operate a hereditary principle in college admissions," he tells CNBC Make It, is unfair. Especially for a country that tells itself it is a meritocracy.
Reeves went to Oxford but, he says, that didn't ensure his son's admission.
When his son applied, "he didn't get in, and it would have been seen as preposterously unfair" if his son had been admitted simply because his father is an alum, Reeves says. "So we might have a hereditary monarchy [in the U.K.], but, by the way, [the members of that monarchy] don't get to go to Oxford and Cambridge anymore, either, because they don't get good enough grades."
That kind of preference for legacy admissions in the U.K. "disappeared in the twentieth century," he says.
By contrast, "the way we organize our education system" in the U.S., he says, "excludes many of those in the bottom 80%." The system is "destroying the American Dream, rather than living it."
This is an updated version of a previously published article.
Like this story? Subscribe to CNBC Make It on YouTube! | <urn:uuid:62dd0492-6c83-43f0-b863-0ba1393daf66> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/07/harvards-freshman-class-is-more-than-one-third-legacy.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572127.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815024523-20220815054523-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.972285 | 1,130 | 1.8125 | 2 |
A to Z Guide to Select the Best Cloud Solutions for Web App Development
Audio : Listen to This Blog.
Cloud is a revolutionary service with millions of users getting their hands onto its branches. According to the survey, about 83% of people have adopted cloud solutions until 2020. In this guide, you will understand everything about cloud solutions that will make your web app development awesome.
Table of Contents
Choosing the correct cloud platform for web app development
If you are setting a cloud platform for the first time, you might find it to bed a little complicated. In such a case, you can always take help from other developers or business houses that have a cloud-based experience. This way, you do not have to start from everything from scratch, and you already have the expertise of managing clouds. You can also go for a cloud computing Services Company as they will help you choose the most appropriate cloud platform for you.
Let’s discuss these platforms or cloud computing services in detail
Infrastructure as a service:
If you are making use of this particular platform, you will have access to things such as networking systems, cloud servers for operating systems and programs, and the most important of all data storage. This platform can be very beneficial for those people who do not want to have an infrastructure of their own. These people will get infrastructure for themselves online with the cloud. Other than this, the user can also customize the infrastructure in the desired way, and they have full control over it.
Platform as a service:
It gives you an environment where you can build your apps. For making the best use of the environment, there are specific tools that a web app development company should use same such as hardware, databases, operating system, tools for testing, developing tools, and middleware.
Advantages of using a platform as a service for cloud developers:
1. Less amount of coding for your app as you get an already developed environment.
2. Customize things as wishing them to be.
3. The mechanism that makes the development of the app secure.
Although, if you go for a platform as a service, it is advisable to take the help of professional developers or a cloud computing company to build an app.
Software as a service:
As the name suggests, software as a service is a service provided on the internet that you need to subscribe to. This particular platform is useful if a business house does not enough time to build an infrastructure to deploy its app.
This platform is appreciated for short term projects or for software that has been fulfilling the demands of only a particular section of the audience or specific audience.
Read More : “Top 10 Web App Development Frameworks in 2020“
You can also make use of the internet of things available in the cloud platforms for your software to make it more flexible and up to date.
Things you need to consider if you are choosing a cloud platform:
The things mentioned below are essential, no matter whichever cloud platform you use.
- Make sure you have the desired and quality and stability for your app. If this doesn’t happen, then there is a chance that when a lot of people use the app, then it might break down or slow down.
- Look for the tech support level as it would provide you assistance with the maintenance of the app, in case anything goes wrong.
- Look at the number of customers that are currently using the service which you are planning to use. More the number of customers, more you can trust the service (in most cases).
- Go through the updated policy. This is important to provide consistently excellent customer experience and the smooth running of the application.
- Also, see the terms of data security to make sure that the data of your users is always safe, and they are no chances of breach and fraud.
- Pricing is also an essential factor. Make use of all the discounts and special offers judiciously so that you get the best result at a low cost.
Another piece of advice is that they do not run when things come to cloud computing. Evaluate things properly and try that you can work on the terms and conditions that are set up you.
Be sure that your business is ready for a cloud-based system
It does not mean that if your competitor is going for a cloud-based system, you have to follow him or her. Instead, you need to access the requirements of your business and analyze all the present technology. Go to cloud computing only if you see that the current problems you are facing can be solved by using it. Moreover, shifting to cloud computing should not create any new business problem.
Some Final Words
One can go for hybrid cloud computing companies to avail of the cloud computing benefits to the maximum. The cloud computing technology companies will also provide you the correct advice on the choice of platforms and services you need to avail. They would also help you make better use of existing technologies with the cloud. Also, before implementing cloud computing, make sure that your employees are ready to work with it.
For the purpose mentioned above, one should always go for PaaS. The full form of PaaS is a platform as a service. It is a specialized cloud computing platform that gives liberty to the users to develop, manage, and deliver applications in the cloud environment.
The cloud computing companies provide three main services of cloud computing, namely software as a service, infrastructure as a service and platform as a service. These three together make the cloud computing stack. You can take the help of a cloud computing service Provider Company to utilize these platforms in a better way.
The answer to this question can be much personalized. Some people find it very simple, while others may find it difficult. Overall a general view is that cloud computing is effortless and not at all complicated. The data on the cloud is stored on the remote machines from where you can retrieve the data only through the internet. | <urn:uuid:09c20670-e422-4aba-9673-3ca62bc81dcb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.mobinius.com/blogs/a-to-z-guide-to-select-the-best-cloud-solutions-for-web-app-development/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571989.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813232744-20220814022744-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.95152 | 1,222 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Pot Smoking Levels Off Among High Schoolers, Study Finds
Marijuana use among U.S. high school seniors is leveling off, ending four years of increases in annual prevalence, according to a government-funded survey.
Thirty-six percent of high school seniors surveyed in 2012 said they smoked marijuana at least once in the previous year, the National Institute on Drug Abuse said today. The share of seniors using pot daily rose to 6.5 percent, from 5.1 percent a year ago, the study, called Monitoring the Future, shows.
Pot remained the most-popular illicit drug, followed by synthetic marijuana, plant material that’s laced with chemicals purported to mimic the active ingredient in marijuana. The study found that 11 percent of 12th graders having tried synthetic pot in the last year. That was level with the previous survey done in 2011, the first year of measurement. Most illegal drugs showed no change in use this year, with 17 percent of seniors having tried a non-marijuana illegal drug.
“There isn’t much evidence for increasing use this year,” Lloyd Johnston, a research professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who led the study, said in a telephone interview. “Use of a great many drugs are holding steady.”
While marijuana use remained level, perceptions about the drug’s risk dropped. The survey showed 21 percent of high school seniors see occasional marijuana use as harmful, the lowest view of risk since 1983.
The study also looked at alcohol drinking, showing that 24 percent of high school seniors engaged in binge drinking two weeks before the survey, an increase of 2 percentage points over last year’s answers. Binge drinking was defined as having five or more drinks in a row. Overall alcohol use remained steady.
More than 45,000 students from almost 400 public schools completed the Monitoring the Future survey. The study began in 1975 by asking questions of high school seniors; in 1991, it included younger students as well.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Reg Gale at email@example.com | <urn:uuid:42f387ec-b3ca-407c-91e6-07d998046b2d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-12-19/pot-smoking-levels-off-among-high-schoolers-study-finds.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283301.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00508-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954391 | 431 | 2.34375 | 2 |
5 security tips for online payments that will save you money
Sometimes making payments online can cause you financial loss, if you are not careful. Therefore, in order to avoid such situations, here are 5 security tips for online payments that you should always follow.
Doing online transactions has now become one of the most preferable options for making payments. Now, instead of keeping cash, people make payments through several payment apps linked to Unified Payment Interface (UPI) such as Google Pay (GPay), Paytm, PhonePe, among others. You can simply make payments online by using the recipient’s contact number registered on the UPI app or by simply scanning the QR code. However, while making payments through these apps, you must know all the best UPI payment security tips and tricks and thus you can avoid loss of money. You also need to be vigilant and stay protected against online fraud or cyber fraud. Even a single click on the wrong link can land you in trouble by revealing all your crucial details to the scammer.
Read also : HIDE WhatsApp online status soon! Here’s what you’ll get
The online payment process is very simple and easy. All you need is a smartphone with one of the online payment apps downloaded and a bank account linked to your mobile number. You will need to register on the app to start using it. If you are using any of the apps like Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm, etc., there are some things you need to pay attention to to avoid fraud and loss of money. Here are some security tips to consider when making UPI payments
5 security tips to keep in mind when making UPI payments
Screen lock: It is very important to maintain a strong screen lock, password or PIN not only for your phone but also for any payment or financial transaction applications. This not only saves your phone from landing in the wrong hands, but also helps to prevent personal and crucial details from leaking out. However, you should avoid keeping simple passwords like your name, date of birth, mobile number, etc.
Do not share your PIN: You should never share your PIN with anyone. Sharing your PIN makes you vulnerable to fraud as anyone can access your phone and transfer the amount. If you think your PIN has been exposed, you should change it immediately.
Do not click on unverified links or attend fake calls: many fake messages containing links from some unverified ones keep appearing in your inbox. You must avoid clicking on such links as it can cause you huge financial loss. You should also avoid receiving fake calls. The caller pretends to be calling from your bank or other organization and may ask for your details such as PIN, OTP, etc. Hackers usually share links or make calls and ask users to download third-party app for verification. It can be noted that banks never ask for PIN, OTP or any other personal information.
Keep updating the UPI app regularly: Every app needs an update, and every update brings better features and benefits. You should always keep updating the UPI payment application to the latest version.
Avoid using multiple payment apps: You should avoid keeping multiple payment apps on your phone and only install trusted and verified payment apps from PlayStore or App Store. | <urn:uuid:620f9053-c23b-442a-b21f-cd3107fafbc7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://runescape2goldsale.com/5-security-tips-for-online-payments-that-will-save-you-money/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573908.30/warc/CC-MAIN-20220820043108-20220820073108-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.947389 | 662 | 1.921875 | 2 |
The long-awaited trial of a former Khmer Rouge prison chief has opened in Cambodia. The trial has been welcomed by Cambodians as a step towards justice.
After 30 years and nearly two million people killed, Cambodians are finally seeing the Khmer Rouge brought to trial.
The first of five former Khmer Rouge leaders has been taken to a U.N.-backed war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh.
Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Duch, is being charged with crimes against humanity from his time as head of the S-21 detention center.
More than 12,000 Cambodians were tortured and killed at the center under Duch's supervision.
Cambodians lined up early to get into the courtroom where hundreds packed in to witness the proceedings.
Theary Seng is a survivor of the Khmer Rouge period and, along with dozens of other Cambodians, has filed a civil suit against Duch.
"It is incredible that after many years of waiting, after the politics, after the accumulated emotions, and vacillating emotions to actually be here, standing here, and witnessing the first day of the trial for Duch and this day will set the momentum," Seng said. "It will start the wheel of justice turning."
Tuesday's hearing is the procedural part of the trial and is expected to last only a couple days. The presentation of evidence and witnesses are not expected until March.
If found guilty, Duch could face up to life in prison.
At age 66, Duch is the youngest and lowest ranking of the former Khmer Rouge leaders now facing trial, and the only one to have confessed his crimes.
Nature may allow the higher-ranking and older Khmer Rouge leaders to escape justice if they are not brought to trial soon.
Political interference is also a concern. A Cambodian prosecutor at the tribunal objected to any further prosecutions, a view that mirrored that of Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Mr. Hun Sen and many other Cambodian officials are themselves former Khmer Rouge members and some may fear being connected too closely to prosecutions.
The Communist Khmer Rouge ruled over Cambodia from 1975 to 1979. Under their fanatical leader, Pol Pot, they tortured and killed anyone accused of disloyalty. Many more were worked and starved to death.
The Khmer Rouge era ended when Vietnam invaded and scattered them to the Thai border. Remnants of the Khmer Rouge fought from the jungle for more than a decade before they disbanded and some disappeared.
A foreign journalist found Duch in 1999 working in a refugee camp under a false name. He was later arrested. | <urn:uuid:bf8fa4fe-97aa-4954-b4bd-755487ebeff9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2009-02-17-voa14-68769262/410793.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280410.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00448-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975168 | 542 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Ethiopia’s new dam on Nile, so far called “Grand Millennium Nile Dam Project’”, is renamed “Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Project” by the decision of the Council of Ministers. The Council approved the new name on Friday when it issued a regulation for the establishment of ‘a National Council in charge of coordinating public participation for construction’ of the new dam, according to the news from Ethiopian News Agency.
The new Council is will be entrusted with coordinating Ethiopians at home and abroad. It is also mandated to promote the “Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam Project”, in neighboring countries particularly Egypt and Sudan.
It appears the Council will be a large consultative forum in the style of the ‘Ethiopian Millennium Festivity Council’. As it is to consist personalities to be drawn from ‘federal and regional government institutions as well as different public organizations, among others,’ while an Executive Committee and a Secretariat will be responsible for its operational activities.
The Council will be directly responsible to the Prime Minister who will assign its Presidency and executive members.
In a related development, the Ministry of Water and Energy (MWE) launched on Friday ‘a Multi-stakeholders Forum’ on Benefits and Costs of Cooperation’.
The forum was addressed by State Minister of MWE, Kebede Gerba, who said ‘the key objectives of the forum are update stockholders on the current programs of NBD, Nile River Basin cooperation process, the International strengthening Program (ISP) and developments in Easter Nile Subsidiary Action Program (ENSAP).’
The news doesn’t indicate the specific composition of the participants, nor the length of the forum. However, it states that ‘dialogue on the actual and potential positive impact of the Sub-Regional Power Interconnection and Watershed Management Projects on local communities’ is among the objectives of the forum. | <urn:uuid:a5b020ac-b848-4d9f-936c-898e41446e27> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://hornaffairs.com/2011/04/17/ethiopia-millennium-dam-gets-a-council-and-new-name/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571210.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810191850-20220810221850-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.924633 | 403 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Worthington Hall, located in the town of Rockport, was a private school whose headmaster, Gregory Trask had a fine reputation. Trask was assisted by his wife, Minerva and daughter, Charity (725) and also had a devoted follower, the teacher Dorcas Trilling.
In 1897, Edward Collins arranged to have his children, Jamison and Nora, sent to Worthington Hall. Gregory Trask himself arrived at Collinwood to meet the children and take them away, but a family crisis delayed him from taking the children. With the help of Quentin Collins and Barnabas Collins, Jamison eluded Gregory Trask for a time until he was able to get a promise from his father to rethink his decision (727-728).
The family governess, Rachel Drummond was a former resident of Worthington Hall. According to Rachel, the Trask family separated the children, afraid they would rise up against them. The children at Worthington Hall were all children whose parents did not want to raise them. Many were orphans, such as herself, forced upon uncaring relatives. Because of this, Worthington Hall received great praise from their clients and no one ever believed what the children said about the institution (728). Strict punishments were given for any unlearned lessons. She was forced to teach there to pay off her tuition and board, for which she was overcharged, and then her salary was withheld until she was forced to steal it and run away (728).
Worthington Hall was later burned down by Laura Collins in an attempt for her to get Nora Collins.
In Big Finish's The Poisoned Soul, it is revealed that Charity Trask rebuilt the school, as a girls' school in Collinsport, where she was headmistress by 1941. | <urn:uuid:6909b592-1ed0-423c-a6b9-222aa163d005> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://darkshadows.wikia.com/wiki/Worthington_Hall | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280242.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00073-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.993011 | 370 | 1.960938 | 2 |
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) was at the center of a brief firestorm this week after a newsletter endorsing the “Meatless Monday” semi-vegetarian campaign appeared on the agency’s website. Agricultural-state Senators were not amused, and the USDA quickly backtracked.
We could use this as an opportunity to defend agriculture against debunked charges that modern practices harm the environment. Maybe we could draw attention to everyone’s least favorite animal-killing vegans, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, for taking informal bets on when Iowa Senator Charles Grassley will die. (Good taste has never been PETA’s strong suit.) Instead, we’ll just examine the origins of the “Meatless Monday” campaign.
The campaign was endowed by the foundation of upper-crust New York socialite Helaine Lerner, who has funded numerous animal-rights and environmentalist campaigns. In addition to financing the Meatless Monday project, Lerner also provided the cash that fueled the “GRACE Factory Farm Project,” dedicated to ending modern livestock practices that have made agriculture more efficient. The so-called Johns Hopkins “Center for a Livable Future” backed the Meatless Monday campaign. Of course, that might have had something to do with Lerner’s foundation seeding the Center.
Even with the USDA’s retraction, the Center for a Livable Future isn’t the only group trying to give “Miserable Monday” a new meaning. Everyone’s least favorite vegan group that doesn’t run a single pet shelter, the Humane Society of the United States, which partnered with Lerner on an anti-medical research campaign, also promotes Meatless Monday as a waypoint to meatless every-days. And the intellectual engine behind the territorial expansion of New York’s soda ban to Massachusetts called the campaign “a great thing to do.”
We’ll also warn New Yorkers that Johns Hopkins is home to the Bloomberg School of Public Health—with Prohibition the new “New York state of mind,” perhaps New Yorkers should start stockpiling pastrami alongside cola before their mayor gets any ideas. The last thing anybody needs is a new cause for a “case of the Mondays.” | <urn:uuid:8afb5d40-37e3-4b18-83a8-7f490cd73832> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.consumerfreedom.com/2012/07/agriculture-department-gags-on-anti-ag-campaign/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571210.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810191850-20220810221850-00472.warc.gz | en | 0.931316 | 480 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Newtonville is the most easterly community in Clarington (and in Durham Region) and was in the southeastern part of the old Clarke Township until 1973.
Post office history
Newtonville's first Post office opened in 1835 when the village was known as both "Clarke" (named after Clarke Township, which it was part of) and "Newton". It was located at the corner of Kingston Rd. (Highway 2) and the 8th Sideroad. The first Postmaster was Thomas Hymers, and the 1st mail carrier was John Carscadden, who carried mail from here to Kendal in 1857. The village had 8 Postmasters since the inception of the Post office. The last Postmistress was Joyce Carroll in 1991. At this time Canada Post's mandate was to close many of the smaller rural Post offices. Since then the village has been placed on a Rural Route delivery sorted in Port Hope. A retail postal outlet exists today at the store in the centre of Newtonville. The store was damaged by fire in 2008 and has since been rebuilt.
The present station has one active side platform next to the southern track (Turnpike side); The far track could theoretically be boarded by standing on the near track on a wooden crossing. A second platform, now abandoned, sits aside the northern track.
TORONTO, /CNW/ - CherieLucas of Newtonville is one step closer to claiming a lottery win of $25,000 with INSTANT BLING (Game #2098). As Cherie is an employee at an authorized OLG retailer, this prize falls within OLG's definition of an InsiderWin. Cherie did not purchase or validate the ticket at her place of employment ... SOURCE OLG Winners ... .
The Newtonville station on the FraminghamWorcester line is closed until further notice because the stairs to and from the platform are not safe for passengers ...There are two entrances to the Newtonville commuter rail station.
Found in an old church in Massachusetts, NewtonvilleBooks is run by Mary Cotton, a former employee of the store, and her husband, a former customer. Here Mary shares what they’d do with infinite space and why she loves their fiction section. Facebook. Twitter. Pinterest ... But the real answer is Fiction ... What are Newtonville Books’ booksellers reading? ... .
This established Newtonville neighborhood, set off MaxwellRoad, is charming, with a mix of cozy split ranches, raised ranches and Colonial-style houses set on tree-lined streets ... The neighborhood is sprawling, with the majority of its streets balling into cul-de-sacs ... Several small shopping malls can be found on Route 9 and there's a U.S ... Schools ... .
An overwhelming majority of village residents say they are receptive to the AustinStreet lot being developed, but want the project scaled back significantly from what is being considered, according to a survey conducted by the NewtonvilleAreaCouncil.The survey of 738 ...
Newtonville's Village Day and Jazz Festival are this Sunday, and there are plenty of activities to choose from.<img width='1' height='1' src='http.//feeds.boston.com/c/35022/f/647066/s/31c8ffe0/sc/38/mf.gif' border='0'/><br clear='all'/><div ...
NEWTON, Mass -- Police are asking for the public’s help finding a baby that was possibly abandoned in Newtonville. This alert comes after police found a note in a recycling bin Friday night. Investigators are now reaching out for help in this case. Newton Police and State Police are dealing with a case with a lot of unknowns ... Advertise ... AdChoices ... .
... your fertility treatment options and are looking to explore adoption? Are your weighing the pros and cons of domestic and international adoption? The AdoptionDecision MakingSeminar this Saturday, June 12, 2010 in Newtonville might just be the best place to find your answers. | <urn:uuid:0d21cf2e-0983-4ed4-881c-fb57e1b89bc4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://newtonville.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00269.warc.gz | en | 0.963125 | 842 | 1.976563 | 2 |
said, he trusted he might be allowed to say a few words on, a subject which concerned the peace and good order of a large portion of the empire. The House had heard within the last few days that one regiment in Her Majesty's service had been in conflict with three others in the open field; they had seen that a town of some importance in Ireland had been in the possession of mutinous troops; they had been informed that four of those soldiers had been shot in action, while twelve or thirteen on each side were said to be wounded, yet no notice whatever had been taken of the subject in that House. An Irishman might perhaps be pardoned, then, for calling attention to so fearful a state of things. He had taken the liberty several times of calling the attention of the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for War—who was not now in his place, though he (Colonel Dunne) had given him notice that he should bring the question forward—to the mode of disembodying the militia. He had been in communication with the colonels of Irish militia on the subject, and they had together pressed upon the Minister for War the hardship suffered by men who were discharged from their regiments without money and with no clothes, except a light undress uniform. The noble Lord at the head of the Government, than whom no man in the country better understood military details, took the subject into consideration, and stated in that House that the men should have a gratuity of 14s. on being disbanded. That was a most satisfactory answer. All those who had made representations on the subject were averse from granting the men, on leaving 683 their regiments, more money than was absolutely necessary, so that they might not be led into dissipation; but they also knew very well that they had recruited from a class of men whose ordinary clothes were destroyed, and who would go from their regiments without a halfpenny in their pockets. That had actually been the result. In England there had been a great deal of bungling about the militia regiments, and almost all the colonels of those regiments had received different orders on the subject of the gratuities. Instead of giving the men the promised 14s., orders were sent round to give them a portion of the bounty, which was issued at the rate of 5s. a quarter, and in some regiments the men got 4s., with a part of the bounty. Now, the payment of the bounty was spread over that period, in order, no doubt, to induce the men to return to their standards, while the gratuity was to be given, because without it the men would have starved. That, as he had stated, was the course pursued in England, and he knew that in many instances the colonels of militia had given the men money out of their own pockets to carry them home and support them. Orders were sent to disembody the Irish militia, and he would beg to read an extract from a letter he had received from the officer left in command of his own regiment, which would show how the men were treated:—We are only authorised to give the men the proportion of bounty up to the day they leave, which is very hard, as many of them have left with only a few pence in their pockets, and unless they get immediate employment they must go without food.The Tipperary Militia were treated in the same way; they were ordered to give in their clothing, and, though he knew too well what military discipline required to defend such a breach of it as had been committed in this instance, he thought it was very natural on the part of men, who had very little other clothing, to object to such an order. The regiment then became so mutinous that General Chatterton, an experienced and humane officer, had to bring up other regiments against it, and the House knew what had followed. Now he looked upon the War Department as responsible for all that had taken place. Had they sent over the proper order that the men should purchase clothes, and should be fed until they got into work, or if the declaration of the noble Lord 684 (Viscount Palmerston) had been carried out, this lamentable affair would not have occurred. There were many other regiments to be disbanded, and the peace of the country would be disturbed in many other parts of Ireland if the Government did not do justice to the soldiers. He admitted that in this case severe punishment must be inflicted on the offenders, but would it not be much better to exercise a little more common sense and humanity before such scenes were allowed to take place?
§ COLONEL FRENCH
said, there was a general feeling in Ireland that the men had not been fairly treated. They bad been given to understand at the outset that the £6 bounty would be paid at once, instead of which it had only been paid by instalments of £1 a year or 5s. a quarter, and then the payment of the miserable instalment of the bounty was substituted for the promised gratuity. There was a rumour that the War Minister intended altogether to override the assurance given by the noble Lord at the head of the Government; but he hoped that the noble Lord would not allow it, for the conduct of the men had been most admirable.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ House at its rising to adjourn till Monday. | <urn:uuid:7ffa2465-bb43-4c3b-a710-f8e0e73b06eb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1856/jul/11/mutiny-of-the-tipperary-militia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571056.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809155137-20220809185137-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.993608 | 1,108 | 1.75 | 2 |
Planning is carried out after finalizing the demand forecasting. This planning is mainly a strategic function which deals with the future course of action based on the demand forecasting and current planning. Main types of planning are discussed below
The objective of the capacity planning is to ensure the future production capacity matches with the forecast demand. This also includes shorter term adjustments to reduce the variations in demand or any mismatches with the current capacity
Capacity Planning follows the following approaches
Location planning takes care of the planning of the manufacturing plant locations which plays in important role in effective supply chain management. Proper plant location is important to distribute the end products to all the customers through distribution network. The main points Location Planning looks at
Aggregate production planning
Aggregate production planning is mainly done for a medium range time horizon. The aggregate plan takes into consideration the production rate, employment, inventory, and economic cycle to devise the long term plan for an organization.
The Aggregate production plan lays the foundation for long term growth story and all the capacity planning and locational planning are short term planning on top of the same to achieve short term growth objectives. | <urn:uuid:15268f35-7b4b-41a7-b345-8c7f62654257> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://crackmba.com/planning-systems/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284405.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00042-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927496 | 226 | 2.875 | 3 |
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After the Major's inspiring speech, the more intelligent animals, especially the pigs, realize that they should prepare for the Rebellion. Then, after Mr. Jones, who has fallen into drink, passes out and forgets to feed the animals one evening and "they could stand it no longer." One of the cows breaks through the store-shed and the animals help themselves to the feed. This activity wakes Mr. Jones, who comes out with his four hired hands; they lash out at the animals with whips, but the animals turn upon thei men, causing their tormentors to flee in fright.
After the humans run down the road the animals have effectively revolted:
the Rebellion had been successfully carried through: Jones was expelled, and the Manor Farm was theirs.
With the removal of the humans, the animals destroy the ribbons, trappings of human clothing, that Molly wears, as well as the others that hang in the barn. In the morning, the animals revel in their freedom; in their excitement they "gambolled round and round, they hurled themselves into the air." However, when they return at night, the animals expect to partake of some of the milk taken from the swollen udders of the untended cows but they are not given any by the pigs, indications are that all animals are not equal, after all.
This early chapter points to Orwell's disappointment in socialist governments. As a Socialist himself Orwell grew disturbed by such dictatorships as that of Stalin; in short, he became disappointed that Socialist governements did not remain truly socialist.
We’ve answered 319,200 questions. We can answer yours, too.Ask a question | <urn:uuid:16cbf8bf-1496-42ba-9d36-38a9f5d91904> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/after-majors-death-what-happenes-idea-rebelling-296945 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281574.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00019-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970915 | 348 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Ingeniously example sentences. University students, word game players, and readers may enjoy the contents of this post. The lines of text below use ingeniously in a sentence, and provide visitors a sentence for ingeniously.
- And the dreadful sequel to the story the Countess could not tell: preferring ingeniously to throw a tragic veil over it. (10)
- Simeon ingeniously interwove his analogy. (10)
- To the world, Lord Mountfalcon was the thoroughly wicked man; his parasite simply ingeniously dissipated. (10)
Glad you visited this page with a sentence for ingeniously. Perhaps also see a sentence for implication and ways to use inward in a sentence. Now that you’ve seen how to use ingeniously in a sentence hope you might explore the rest of this educational reference site Sentencefor.com to see many other example sentences which provide word usage information. | <urn:uuid:4b14b706-b542-4288-bc16-2da2e89f45d6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://sentencefor.com/ingeniously/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280587.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00556-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951 | 190 | 2.328125 | 2 |
Yellow and blue flags flew in cities across Canada on Thursday as Ukrainian Canadians organized demonstrations to denounce Russia’s attack on Ukraine and urged Ottawa to act swiftly to defend their homeland.
In Montreal, several dozen protesters gathered in front of McGill University, waving signs with messages ranging from “I want to see my grandmother alive,” to the more militaristic “Arm Ukraine.”
Larysa Grynko, who came to Canada from Ukraine in 2011, was one of several who helped unfurl a large banner in Ukrainian blue and yellow. Her voice catching, she said she was “devastated” by the events.
“Words cannot describe the terror that we feel for families that stay in Ukraine,” she said. Grynko said she had spoken to her family, and they were safe for now and had confidence in the Ukrainian army.
She switched briefly to Ukrainian to deliver a tearful message that she said meant, “Be safe and be strong.” In English, she urged Canada not to discount the risk posed by Russian aggression.
“If Russia is not stopped in Ukraine, it will not stop in Ukraine,” she said. “It will go further, aggressing other countries.”
Several Canadian cities, including Calgary and Montreal, said they would fly the Ukrainian flag over municipal buildings. Demonstrations were also planned in Toronto, Vancouver and Edmonton to denounce the Russian military strike.
Olga Gogoleva, who’s from the Siberian region of Russia, carried a sign at the Vancouver protest that read, “I am Russian and I am against the war.”
“I’m here to support Ukrainian people,” Gogoleva said where a crowd of about 200 demonstrators were rallying at the city’s art gallery.
Natalie Jatskevich, the head of the B.C. branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, said she’s disappointed in the international response to the conflict.
“I think the world is a little bit slow in reacting,” she said. “Ukrainians are strong. We are not asking anybody to fight for us, but we need means to fight. We need defensive weapons and we need [them] now.”
Protester Sofiya Pylypenko moved to Canada 12 years ago but still has family in Kharkiv, Ukraine, just 40 kilometres from a Russian border.
She said following Putin’s address Thursday, she began getting calls from family telling her tanks were coming in and explosions had started. She said it’s encouraging to see Ukraine step up to defend itself but hopes more support from other nations is coming.
“We shouldn’t be fighting this alone,” she said.
Yaroslav Broda, vice-president of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress’s Edmonton branch, said the rally in front of the Alberta legislature Thursday would be an opportunity for people from the community to come together and raise awareness about Russian aggression happening in Ukraine for years.
“This is about solidarity, because there is not much we can do being where we are,” he said.
Broda said he has aunts, uncles and cousins living outside the capital city of Kyiv. The 28-year-old said his cousins, who are about his age with children, have fled the area, but family members of his parents’ generation have decided to stay.
He said the tensions with Russian had been intensifying and cooling off over the last decade and people on the ground were becoming desensitized to the conflict. “I’m sure there was a lot of head-shaking this morning,” Broda said. “They went to bed thinking it was just another day living next door to Russia, but now they have realized it has gone off.”
Michael Shwec, the head of the Quebec branch of the Ukrainian Canadian Congress, said the whole world has a duty to rally behind Ukraine.
He said a failure to act strongly in response to Russian aggression would send a signal to other authoritarian countries and could spell trouble for democracies across the world.
“There is no capitulation. There is no appeasement. It doesn’t work,” he said in a phone interview. “Because if we don’t do something now, there are other countries in this world that have very similar ambitions that (Russian President Vladimir Putin) has.
“Today, the free world must rally to the Ukrainians’ cause. Today, anyone who values human rights, democracy and liberty is a Ukrainian.”
Shwec called on Canada to respond with the strongest possible sanctions, as well as providing materiel support such as anti-aircraft weapons and naval defence systems. He said his organization will also be meeting with officials at the federal, provincial and municipal levels to discuss plans to resettle Ukrainian refugees who will be looking for a safe place to live.
Dinara, a 24-year-old student from Russia, stood at the Montreal rally holding a small sign reading “Russians against war in Ukraine.” She said she wanted to show her support for her Ukrainian friends but also to protest the war on behalf of other Russians who don’t dare to under Putin’s regime.
“They are not able to protest or do anything in Russia, so I’m standing here for them to protest the government action,” she said.
Dinara, who did not want to give her last name because she worries about repercussions against family in Russia, said she believes most Russians oppose war. “We’re not supporting a war, we’re against the regime and that’s the general sentiment I promise,” she said. “It’s just that we can’t express it back home.”
— With files from Brieanna Charlebois in Vancouver and Daniela Germano in Edmonton
Our Morning Update and Evening Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today. | <urn:uuid:d2434df9-4e2f-4935-a35a-92ac911d8380> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-the-free-world-must-rally-ukrainian-canadians-denounce-russian-attacks-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571745.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812170436-20220812200436-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.973519 | 1,294 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Baby wearing is one of the oldest traditions of parenting around the world. For centuries baby wearing has given parents a way to meet the diverse needs of Child, Self, Family and Community. By providing the best we can for our children, we offer them a chance to reach their full potential. Strong human bonds and lots of physical contact help form the secure "world" where the infant learns best.
When a parent wears their baby in a sling or carrier, both the parent and the baby quickly learn to read each other's cues. Dads get a new role that's more fun than just diapering: baby slings and carriers provide a way to comfort your baby or help her drift off to sleep. Wearing your baby helps harmonize your infant's systems, because they mirror the caregivers movement, breathing, and heartbeat. These rhythms reflect the womb experience, easing the transition into the outside world. Wearing baby in a sling or carrier is the best way to nurse on the go. Busy mothers can give their child the best nutrition possible, anywhere. You have the freedom to do virtually anything while you give your child what they need: You!
Babies really take to slings and carriers because of the closeness, security and comfort they provide. Within a few days, you and your baby will work together to discover how baby wearing works best for the two of you. As you can imagine, each caregiver/child pair finds a different comfort. One thing is common too all: a deeper bond between caregiver and child.
Some of the benefits of slinging your baby are:
1. A continuous daily relationship with one primary caregiver (usually the mother) results in the most intelligent nurture of a young child. Extended family members also provide a constant and assuring presence.
2. A baby held in-arms, or worn in a sling or carrier, moves as a unit with the parent. The adult's hands are free to care for older children and perform other tasks. Baby can calmly indicate when to be put down instead of crying to be picked up.
3. A baby whose cries are responded to promptly learns to trust. When children are accustomed to being comforted by people, not things, family relationships tend to remain simple.
4. Children integrated into the daily life of family and community have a tremendous educational advantage. Babies in-arms are mostly in a quiet alert state of consciousness, observing their surroundings from a secure perch. Older children learn lessons that are relevant and essential to their well-being.
5. Both parents and babies get their needs met by unhurried communication and humane interactions. The respect shown to small children by parents will reflect back on them in later years.
[Adapted from literature provided by Rosado Sling and Rebozo Way] | <urn:uuid:3ae5d8cb-050c-4701-8580-a52a48547eee> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.metrominis.com/metrominis/2015/1/21/advantages-of-babywearing | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00466-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947125 | 572 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Putin Says He Would Accept Premiership
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
MOSCOW, Dec. 17 -- President Vladimir Putin said Monday that he would accept the post of prime minister next year if, as is almost certain, his protege is elected president in March.
"If Russian citizens express their confidence in Dmitry Medvedev and elect him as the country's president, I will be ready to head the government," said Putin, speaking to a congress of the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, which formally nominated Medvedev as its presidential candidate Monday.
Putin, 55, also said that he would not support changing the Russian constitution to bolster the office of the prime minister, which is theoretically weaker than the presidency. He said he had complete confidence in Medvedev as Russia's new leader and would be ready to work with him "without changing the distribution of powers between the presidency and government."
We "shouldn't be ashamed or afraid of transferring the key powers of the country, the destiny of Russia, to the hands of such a man," Putin said in a short address to a packed gathering at a conference center near the Kremlin.
The announcement was foreshadowed last week when Medvedev, after Putin endorsed him for the presidency, announced that he would like his boss and mentor to take the position of prime minister.
Neither Putin nor Medvedev, who walked into the congress together, said how they would share power. The prime minister, who serves at the president's pleasure, is a great deal less powerful under the constitution than the man who sits in the Kremlin. And Russian prime ministers have long been tasked with both faithfully implementing the president's policies and loyally taking the fall when they fail.
Analysts said it was hard to imagine the extremely powerful and popular Putin acting as subordinate to his untested 42-year-old protege. Speculation over Putin's future, which has raged for months, is likely to continue into a new administration.
"Personality may be more important than the constitution in this case," Georgy Bovt, editor in chief of Profil magazine, said in an interview. "Formal law is not always very important in Russia. The speculation will just continue. It's what makes Russian politics so interesting."
Bovt said Putin may be carving out a new model of governance whose form will only become apparent next year. Or, he said, Putin's stint as prime minister may be a short-term measure while Medvedev establishes his own power base within the fractious confines of the political elite.
"When he backed Medvedev, he made a very definite choice among the Kremlin factions," Bovt said, "and it will be very difficult for him to control any coming struggles without a formal role."
The mild-mannered Medvedev, who is first deputy prime minister and also chairman of Gazprom, the natural gas behemoth, is regarded as a relative liberal in a system that is dominated by former members of the KGB and its successor agencies. A lawyer by training, Medvedev has worked with Putin since they both served in city government in St. Petersburg in the early 1990s. He has no background in the security services.
Vladimir Pribylovsky, head of the Panorama think tank in Moscow, said the creation of two power centers is a risky move for Putin if his intention is to remain the dominant political figure in Russia.
"I think after a year there is great uncertainty," he said in an interview. "If Medvedev is to become a real power, he will have to remove Putin. And I don't see Putin wanting to fade away." | <urn:uuid:9bd84a5a-34e2-4242-8b65-07975774fb94> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/17/AR2007121700553.html?nav=emailpage | 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 | 0.98013 | 754 | 1.507813 | 2 |
The first successful Curtiss tractor, the Model J of early 1914, was designed by B. Douglas Thomas, an experienced designer imported by Curtiss for that particular purpose.
639 x 274 pixels
14 June 2013 @ 07:37 UTC
The author of this work is anonymous and this work is more than 50 years old. According to the Berne convention 7, and the laws of many countries, this work is in the public domain.
Images have been resized to suit the website without any damage or loss of quality. Fast Aviation data does not endorse the authors or the linked website on the displayed image on this website. Fast Aviation data can not authorize the use of any images contained in linked websites. Users have the responsibility to assess licenses and the requirements of the author and the linked website. We strongly recommend that you review the policies of any outside links you visit in relation to these images. | <urn:uuid:bc768d94-03a2-4e84-8e63-261ff15ab9c0> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.fastaviationdata.com/aircraft/curtiss-jn-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720380.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00055-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925476 | 182 | 3 | 3 |
People involved in grappling are always looking for the best companion activity to make them better at Jiu-Jitsu. Is it good old weight lifting, running, doing gymnastics or stretching? Well, it depends on who you ask. Ask someone with a wrestling background and you’ll probably get high volume calisthenics as an answer. Ask a 10th Planet grappler and you might end up with break dancing as a suggestion. The truth is that all of the above athletic disciplines work for Jiu-Jitsu. However, the one activity everyone agrees is helpful is Yoga for BJJ. It is a great way fo gaining strength that relates to grappling, along with some much needed functional flexibility. Now, for all of you that are particularly stiff and brittle, there’s a brand new DVD out that’ll change your life. It is the Sebastian Brosche Yoga For Rocks DVD instructional.
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Sebastian Brosche – Yoga for Rocks
Where do I start with the benefits of Yoga for grapplers? Yoga is the perfect activity to help you get a workout in, while still not sacrificing your body in the process. On the contrary, Yoga helps you mend your body while you train, whereas other more common activities like weightlifting or sprinting further put stress on it. Let’s be real, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu is more than enough stress on anybody, and particularly those that are on the “wrong” side of 30.
If there’s one movement based system out there that is tailor-made for BJJ than it has to be Yoga. Yoga for BJJ is the same as a brioche bun for a burger. It almost seems as if Jiu-Jitsu and Yoga were designed to complement each other. The Yoga For Rocks DVD by Sebastian Brosche is a great example of this. There are just so many similarities between the two of them. It’s not surprising that they both have roots that are deeply entwined with Buddhism and ancient India.
Yoga is a commonly used generic term for a collection of physical, mental, and spiritual disciplines which originated in India. It is an extremely complex and diverse system that embraces many different aspects of the human experience. This aspect of yoga is largely concerned with asanas, which refer to the body positions and physical postures that are held during practice, and vinyasa – a specific sequence of breath-synchronized movements used to transition between sustained asanas.
Besides having been proven to alleviate depression, high blood pressure and a host of other physical ailments, Yoga for BJJ are beneficial in a number of grappling specific ways, several of which we outline below. There are countless different types of yoga classes available, but the main ones you’ll encounter are:
This style focuses on the physical alignment of the body in the various asanas. It often uses various supports or ‘props’ to facilitate the poses for beginners and the less flexible. It has very little vinyasa between postures. This type of yoga mainly benefits those with muscular and /or postural imbalances as well as less athletic individuals.
Vinyasa yoga, in which movement synchronizes with the breath, is a term that covers a broad range of yoga classes. This style is also called flow yoga, because of the smooth way that the poses run together.
Vinyasa classes are some of the most challenging. Each class is usually quite different, and that the pace and intensity closely approximate jiu-jitsu. If you’re looking for muscular endurance and dynamic flexibility this is the class for you.
This is a form of Vinyasa in which the sequence of asanas and vinyasas is much more regimented and strict. In fact, it so structured that every class you do will be almost exactly the same. It’s very effective but some people become bored by the lack of variety.
It uses a very specific form of yogic breathing called ‘ujjayi’ which has a great carryover application to BJJ. It offers supreme breath control and is really beneficial for developing coordination.
Bikram / ‘Hot’ Yoga
The main differentiating factor of Bikram is that you practice it in a heated room. This (and other styles of ‘hot yoga’) has become very popular as of late. Due to the heat and humidity, Bikram can be a little extreme, and it’s not a good fit for anyone in poor shape.
Although I feel that most other Hatha styles are superior, I think that the discomfort caused by the humidity might be good for developing mental strength that could transfer well to grappling martial arts. It is perfect for losing fat.
Benefits Of Yoga For BJJ
Yoga for BJJ is something we’ve all done at one point or another. Or at least, what we thought was Yoga for BJJ. Most of us did have been to a regular Yoga class or tried to follow a YouTube workout along. While that’s all good and beneficial, it is not grappling specific. The “real” Yoga for BJJ is actually a somewhat new creation. The man behind it BJJ black belt Sebastian Brosche. Hw is the first one to merge the two, by creating a Yoga system that is specific for grapplers. Moreover, he has several programs that address different aspects of strength flexibility. The Yoga For Rocks DVD, though, has to be his most impressive work so far!
One of the most commonly ‘imposed demands’ of Jiu-Jitsu is a contraction. When you’re in guard, attacking from the side or back control and many of the other positions, your body is constantly in a contracted state. The upper back is often rounded as you are holding onto an opponent. The hip flexors and psoas muscles are usually tightened because the knees are tucked up towards the chest. As for the neck and shoulders – well if you’ve been training for any length of time you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. This excessive contraction is even more pronounced in the primary defensive postures, like the turtle position.
Yoga for BJJ results in twofold effect – it lengthens and opens the body. As an added bonus, many of your submissions will also improve. Consider that many of the finishes in grappling martial arts require an exaggerated expansion out from the center. For example, during an armbar, you arch your back and drive your hips forwards to apply leverage. Addressing imbalances with Yoga for BJJ will allow you to improve greatly.
Inevitable Flexibility Gains
We all know that guy who can wrap his legs around your waist from the bottom of the mount and reverse the position. There’s one of those in every academy.
Although you can get away without being flexible in Jiu-Jitsu, it’s an attribute that’s unquestionably beneficial. The greater the range of motion in your joints, the more options you will have in each position. In fact, some parts of Jiu-Jitsu will be completely inaccessible to you unless you develop the required suppleness. The rubber guard is the most obvious example of such a position. And, the Yoga For Rocks DVD is the ultimate tool to turn even the stiffest grapplers into proficient rubber guard players. Or develop an impassable guard like Sebastian Brosche.
Strength Through Stability
The kind of strength developed through Yoga for BJJ is unlike anything else you’ve ever experienced. Over the past couple of decades the phrase ‘core strength’ has become very popular in sports training. Well, Yoga goes far beyond that.
Correct practice develops so-called ‘”intelligent strength”. Not only does it train the central nervous system to fire muscles in the correct sequence, but it also teaches you which muscles to engage. The ultimate goal is to maintain postural alignment and efficiently move your anatomy through space. And we all know that good posture and movement are hallmarks of superior Jiu-Jitsu skills. Both of these qualities are included in the Yoga For Rocks DVD classes.
Furthermore, holding the asanas develops muscular endurance which is perfectly suited to the isometric contractions required for finishing submissions. And although it tones and strengthens, yoga does not produce excessive muscle hypertrophy. Too much muscle mass is never good for Jiu-Jitsu. It is inefficient because it burns oxygen quickly and inhibits movement. Consistent practice (will reset your body to its optimum tissue composition.
Yoga is exceptional for developing balance. Many of the standing asanas are done unilaterally (on one leg), which not only improves stability but sport-specific strength as well.
Your body is the tool with which you create your Jiu-Jitsu, and the more you know about it and more effectively you can operate it the better you’ll be on the mat. The increase in body awareness from yoga practice is a major benefit.
One of the most valuable ways to achieve this is through breath control. Not only will the vinyasas teach you to coordinate your movement and breathing, but yogic techniques such as pranayama will enable you to engage your diaphragm and utilize your lungs to their full capacity. This will greatly improve your stamina during rolling.
Sebastian Brosche – The Most Flexible Grappler Alive
Sebastian Brosche is a Swedish BJJ black belt under Eduardo Rios. He received his black belt recently, in December of 2016.he is also a second-degree Judo black belt. Apart from grappling martial arts, Sebastian is also a huge Yoga enthusiast. So much so, in fact, that he even turned full vegan in an attempt to weed out bad habits. The thing is, Sebastian was once just like the rest of us – an injury-ridden, stiff grappler that was constantly in some sort of pain. Until he met Stine Hegre.
Hegre, now Brosche’s wife, is a Yoga expert. She influenced Sebastian to give Yoga a try in addition to his constant BJJ training. Form 2007 onwards, Brosche was all about submission wrestling and Judo. He started training BJJ in Checkmat Sweden and then moved to Oslo where he met up with Eduardo Rios. Just like every other grappler, Brosche suffered from injuries and little nags. With the help of Hegre, though, he managed to turn things around completely.
Regular Yoga training, paired with BJJ, increased his flexibility, dexterity, range of motion and reduced pretty much every injury he had. After only a year of Yoga and BJJ, Sebastian actually came up with the Yoga FOR BJJ concept. Since then, his idea has grown into a full-blown online training program. And now, his first-ever multi-part DVD is out as well.
Should you get Sebastian’s Yoga For Rocks DVD to become stronger, yet more flexible and limber? Certainly! Should you also go vegan in the process? That’s up to you but is far from mandatory. Me, I’m going to be sticking to steak and potatoes, but I’m making this yoga program a daily thing!
Sebastian Brosche And The Yoga For BJJ Brand
Yoga for BJJ, in particular, has been around for several years. It is an online-based program created by Sebastian Brosche that anyone can sing up for. The best part about it is that similarly to BJJ it is far from complete. As Brosche himself learns the secrets of Yoga further, he always updates his programs or comes up with entirely new ones. Given that he is not just a black belt, but also a highly competitive grappler, his inside knowledge of what is needed to actually make BJJ people move better is priceless. The Yoga For Rocks DVD is his latest issue.
Borsche was actually considered one of the top brown belts in 2015. He has a World champion title (purple belt), European (purple & blue) and more to his name. He also has notable appearances in invite-only professional tournaments like Polaris. His experience means that he knows exactly what to target with each of his programs.
His first DVD though is a real godsend to most grapplers. The Yoga For Rocks DVD is actually a complete program, focusing on all the areas that are essential to grappling. Moreover, you do not need to be flexible like Eddie Bravo to start practicing it. On the contrary, this is instructional to take the stiff and achy grappler and turn him into, well, a not so calm Yogi.
A Review Of The Yoga For Rocks DVD by Sebastian Brosche
The Yoga For Rocks DVD is, first and foremost, one of the best-named DVDs in the history of BJJ instructionals. Sebastian Brosche speaks perfect English and is very easy to listen to. He likes to demonstrate all the moves himself while explaining in detail why he is doing what he is doing. Moreover, he draws BJJ parallels to make everything crystal clear. The program is very easy to follow, as it does not include crazy Yoga positions that will have you suspended in the air. On the contrary, you’ll increase your range of motion and specific strength by using seemingly straightforward exercises that are staples of Yoga. Which brings us to the progressions.
This Sebastian Brosche DVD is a three-part instructional that goes through all the Yoga progressions that people who have never stretched a day in their life need. The first part covers an introduction and contains two main classes – neck and shoulders and an upper back class. Part two goes into what is, arguably, the most important part of the body for BJJ – the hips. The third and final part is all about the hamstrings, ankles, and wrists. All in all, Brosche covers every body part, with special emphasis on those that are integral for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. What I can’t stress enough is, that despite the Yoga For Rocks DVD title, this instructional is far from a beginners-only one. I’ve been doing Yoga (on and off) for th past decade, and this DVD is not easy to get through, believe me!
In the first portion of the Sebastian Brosche Yoga For Rocks DVD, he starts off with an introduction. This is where he quickly goes over his own BJJ and Yoga journey, before going deeper into the benefits. Moreover, he includes a practical manual of how you should use the videos inside. As you’ll see, the content is divided into classes, with each class targeting specific body parts. The ways you can use this is as a weekly program, a daily practice, or a highly specific way of focusing on only one lagging body part.
The second portion of part one contains two classes. The first one is all about every bodybuilder’s favorite part – chest, albeit in a much different fashion. Here, you get a complete rundown of how to strengthen your chest and triceps, while taking them to extreme ranges of motion at the same time. The one key component of class 1 is the inclusion of the neck. As far as BJJ goes, this is one of the body parts that get lots of damage. In class One, you’ll learn how to make it a lot tougher, while resolving any ongoing issues.
Class two is also extremely important. For instance, I am a guy who has lots of trouble with the traps. This upper back class by Brosche is insanely good for anyone sharing my ailment. It is the one class I tried first from this DVD, and one I plan on doing daily from now on.
Part two is something most people in BJJ will probably focus the most on. This is where you get to learn all the exercises and sequences that’ll help you immensely with guard work and retention. This is where Sebastian Brosche covers hip flexibility and strengthening. The first class of this part, or third in total, is all about the front of the hips and the lower back. In other words, the two areas of the body which do not get much rest during Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training.
The inner thighs and outer hips are the focus of the next, fourth class. This is where you learn how to work on those muscles most of us never recognize as important. Not just that, but you also get a full explanation of why they’re important and how to use the Yoga For Rocks DVD to make your BJJ better by training them correctly.
Finally, after covering the most important aspects of guard playing, Sebastian Brosche switches his attention to the muscles that guard passers use the most. While the hips and lower back get a shift in her too, there’s more. Class five of the Yoga For Rocks DVD covers the hamstrings and calves which are the muscles on the back of your legs. They are responsible for lots of the motions during passing, as well as balance and base. Moreover, much of the power that the hips have comes courtesy of the hamstrings. That is why deadlifts are such a powerful tool for grapplers. Well, this class is the way to take things to a whole new different level.
Wrapping up the classes in this Sebastian Brosche DVD is the 6th and final class. This is where Brosche covers some of the less trained parts of our bodies. The attention here is on the ankles, wrists, and forearms. If you think these have no role to play in BJJ, just think about grips and movement, and you’ll see how much you actually rely upon them. Well, now you can make them stronger and be even more efficient.
Training Yoga for BJJ is always a good idea, period. However, training Yoga that has actually been developed for grapplers, buy a high-level grappler, is a whole different ball game. Furthermore, in the Yoga For Rocks DVD, you get a Sebastian Brosche instructional that’ll turn even the stiffest grappler into a full-blown Yogi in just weeks. And this is all before we even touch on the present class organization inside the instructional. If there are one strength and conditioning instructional you need in your life, it is this one. Namaste!
ON SALE HERE:
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A former teacher is launching a new career as a children’s author after publishing her first book. The new venture for Sarah Griffiths follows the official launch of Douglas’s Trousers at Wenlock Books. The story follows a young boy who helps to save his school from closure when his magic trousers come to life! The inspiration for Sarah’s new book came from her former teaching days at Morville Primary near Bridgnorth.
Sarah said, “I’ve been writing as a hobby for a number of years and I wrote this particular story a few years ago when I was still teaching. In 2008 the school was facing the threat of closure. I remember it being a really difficult time for everyone. One day I heard a colleague shouting ‘Douglas, pick up those trousers!’ and in an instant the idea for a story about Douglas and his magic trousers saving the school came to me. I’m now really looking forward to sharing my story with children across Shropshire and I cannot wait to visit schools and inspire a new generation of writers.” | <urn:uuid:1123ae46-e9d2-4189-b516-9f79d2837c42> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.whatswhatmagazine.co.uk/2017/10/26/morville-inspires-book/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570793.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808092125-20220808122125-00668.warc.gz | en | 0.984665 | 226 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The flow of content:
|How to calculate Finished Goods|
|Why is it important to calculate Finished Goods|
Those goods that are completed by the manufacturing process and are ready to be sold to the retailers or end customers are called ‘Finished Goods’.
However, once the finished goods are sold they are called merchandise.
‘Finished goods’ or ‘Finished product’ is a term specifically used by manufacturers.
A retailer houses all the finished goods in his store, therefore, he doesn’t have the need to classify his inventory into raw materials, work in process or finished goods. Hence, the products sold by a retailer are called merchandise. Whereas the manufacturers have to produce and manage inventory of all the goods, no matter which stage of production they are – raw materials, WIP, or finished goods.
Wikipedia defines Finished Goods as below:
When the good is completed as to manufacturing but not yet sold or distributed to the end-user, it is called a “finished good”.
This is the last stage for the processing of goods. The goods are ready to be consumed or distributed. There is no processing required in terms of the goods after this stage by the seller.
However, in the supply chain management flow the finished goods of one supplier can be a raw material for another manufacturer and hence, finished goods is a relative term.
How to calculate Finished Goods?
Calculating Finished Goods can be a daunting task. However, here’s a simple formula that will make it easy for you.
Finished goods at the beginning of year + Finished goods produced − Finished goods sold
= Finished goods at the end of a year
For example, Diamond Manufacturers are into manufacturing swimming products like swimsuits.
Now, to calculate how much worth of Finished Goods is lying in your warehouse or manufacturing unit, you need to refer to the last balance sheet from there you will get the worth of beginning stock.
Let us say for instance, you have $10000 worth of unsold swimsuits in your warehouse at the start of the year. Due to the extended summer season, the swimsuits were in great demand and therefore, the retailers bought them in great numbers. So, you produced swimsuits worth $40000. Now you managed to sell $45000 worth of swimsuits this year.
Now as per the formula:
$10000 + $40000 – $45000 = $5000
Therefore, you have worth $5000 finished goods lying in your warehouse this year.
Why is it important to calculate Finished Goods
- One of the main reasons why calculating the ending finished goods is because to make the production strategies for the upcoming year or month.
- If the finished goods are not counted at the end of a fixed time period then, the manufacturer will have no clue on how much is to be produced and therefore, might end up overproducing the products. Over producing or overstocking can prove to be detrimental for any business.
- In the absence of ending finished goods count, the manufacturer might go slow in producing the next batch thinking he has produced more than enough last month. This thought can lead to the underproduction of items and again prove detrimental to the business.
Hence, It is crucial for any manufacturer to calculate the finished goods inventory on a regular basis to avoid overstocking or understocking. | <urn:uuid:e45840ea-dddf-4e68-a0ce-217fc9d81c12> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.cin7.com/industry-terms/finished-goods-inventory | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571950.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813111851-20220813141851-00667.warc.gz | en | 0.962152 | 703 | 3.0625 | 3 |
Guild Wars 2 advances the story of Tyria 300 years beyond the first game, and in doing so substantially alters the status quo. The first game starred humans only: now, five races divide the world between them. The Charr - Guild Wars' orc equivalent, a rampaging horde that players worked together to subdue in the original - are now allies. Many of Guild Wars' major locations have been destroyed or reconfigured following a series of environmental disasters. During a recent trip to ArenaNet, I sat down with lore and continuity designers Jeff Grubb and Ree Soesbee to talk about the work that goes into building - and then rebuilding - a setting that has to hold the attention of players for years at a time.
The relative youth of the Guild Wars universe belies the enthusiasm that the community has for the vast amount of lore and backstory that ArenaNet have accrued over the years. Many players have invested heavily, mining out every scrap of detail they can find in the game's incidental environmental details. Subsequent tie-in novels and supplemental online information have been picked over for clues and dissected on fan-run discussion forums and wikis.
For the developers, staying in control of all that information is an ongoing and iterative process. "We're growing the world," explains Jeff Grubb. "We started out in 2007 with the end of [GW1 expansion] Eye of the North. We had a few hooks that we had set in the ground, we showed you the dragon Primordus and the Sylvari tree in the last cinematic.” Those hooks, however, were speculative: while players often assume that developers hold all the cards, the direction of a game can change dramatically as it's made. “We didn't know what the Sylvari were going to look like” Grubb continues, “we didn't know if we were even going to have Sylvari. We didn't know they were going to be a player race - but if we did, we had the hook."
In Guild Wars 2, Tyria is under attack by Elder Dragons - primaeval ancients with the power to lay waste to whole continents. At launch, one of these colossal dragons will form the final challenge for top level players. Others lie in wait, ready for whatever expansions may be coming down the line. ArenaNet have been teasing this narrative for years: the first bits of dragon evidence were planted in Guild Wars' Eye of the North expansion: frozen monsters in lakes, a distant ridge that could be the spine of a massive, buried creature. The developers have enjoyed watching players discover Tyria's secrets.
"The best argument I heard is that [the dragon in the frozen lake] is his head. That figure you see, that entire figure is just his head" Grubb says, recalling the way players rationalised the size of the easter egg against the supposedly vast Elder Dragon they were expecting. Later, ArenaNet clarified that the frozen dragon was 'just' a lieutenant. A fragment of the actual Elder Ice Dragon - a tooth the size of a bus - is visible in the Norn capital in Guild Wars 2.
Fans were digging for secrets long before ArenaNet started hiding dragons in the game. One player wrote an essay explaining the probable size and location of a landmark seen in the backdrop of one of Guild Wars: Nightfall's zones. "It's been a very long time so I can't give kudos to the guy who did it” says Ree Soesbee, “but he measured where the statue was in Elona, how far you could see it and where the shadow went and figured out how far across the ocean it was. It was amazing, I was looking at these mathematics thinking 'oh my god, you're awesome.'”
Creating a sense of mystery around a world is a kind of storytelling that MMOs excel at. Players have a bottomless capacity to not just uncover information but to invent it: to latch on to things and assign them importance even when the developers haven't. The expanse of an MMO and the long-term time investment they encourage make them an ideal breeding ground for fan attachment. I asked Jeff and Ree if Guild Wars 2's buried dragons were a deliberate attempt to provoke this feeling.
"Yes," Grubb says. "I'll do a call out here to when [Ree] did The Movement of the World which was article on the history of the world way back when - almost all of it is still applicable. There was a mention in passing of another dragon, another Elder Dragon, and we have not made any mention of it ever since."
"We know its name" Ree teases. "We know what we're planning with it. If you play Guild Wars 2 you'll see the influences of that dragon that are pretty clear. You can call them out, but most of that information is going to be saved."
"It's saved because my goodness we have a lot of Elder Dragons to be getting on with, and to provide freedom for the other creatives" Grubb explains. "From a design standpoint, we're iterative. We go back and we change and we evolve and we examine, we improve. The same thing applies to our story. As we build the story we go back and say 'okay does this work? How does this fit in? Here's a new piece of art. Here's a prop. Here's a new concept. How does that fold back into our basic themes of what we're doing?'"
The idea of grounding the story in Tyria's buried past has guided the game since its inception. "It's one of the things that we talked about really early on in the game when we'd just decided to do Guild Wars 2" Soesbee says. "We shut ourselves in a room and said 'what's it going to be about?' and started talking about dragons. We wanted to call back to the history of Tyria that we don't know anything about. I mean, what was here before the humans came? We wanted to make this a story of Tyria. Not of something coming into Tyria. Not of something absolutely new that you've never heard of that didn't make any sense."
"A lot of our history comes out of the first line of our timeline" Grubb explains. "When I came on board, it said 'last of the Giganticus Lupicus, the Great Giants, disappear from the Tyrian continent." I was asking people, 'What does this mean?' No one knew. Then we started evolving the story, taking hooks from the very first thing you encounter in the timeline. It gives a sense of continuity. It gives the sense that it's all one unified world. As Ree says, it's not like they got invaded by another dimension through space or something."
Making these ideas work requires clear communication, and the writing team maintain an internal wiki which is accessible to everyone working on Guild Wars 2. As the fiction expands, ArenaNet have become more and more responsible for living up to fan expectations, while still providing room for change later on.
"I think we are absolutely accountable to what we have said" Soesbee says. "If we said that [a character] wore a tricorner hat then he needs to be wearing a tricorner hat - but if we are careful and we just say he wears a hat then we can go back when we need it to be a tricorner hat and decide whether it is or not. We try to give as much detail as we can but we also try to leave some holes."
"I tend to not confirm or deny" Jeff says "and only say, 'what's in the world is what you see in the world'." Despite ArenaNet's willingness to write blog posts about their process and talk to the community, maintaining that community means telling as much of the story through the game as possible. “We also make use of the unreliable narrator” Grubb explains. “If someone says something in the world, he knows what he knows. But there may be other opinions.”
The more ArenaNet write and build, the less freedom they have to make changes. If you've ever wondered why evil wizards and desperate kings keep blowing up their own cities in the Guild Wars lore, this partly explains it. “We have these major occurrences that happen, and as a result it gives a chance for the artist to start anew” Grubb says. “You can still find the old Lion's Arch, it's underneath the water of the bay. But you also have the new Lion's Arch that's very different.”
In this case, the practical necessities of redesigning the world support the themes that the writing team are keen to express. "In the case where the vizier blew up Arah, or in the case where the fire was released in Ascalon - neither of those started out with a guy saying 'I think I'll blow up my city.' Both of them are a case of the cost of great power, 'what I'm willing to sacrifice'. And both of those individuals were willing to sacrifice everything and didn't really understand what 'everything' meant. I mean, when he unleashed the Foefire he wasn't thinking 'haha, I'll kill all my people' - he was thinking 'I'll do what it takes to kill all of theirs ."
"Going too far is a danger that pops up again and again" Jeff says. "Moderation in all things." I asked the pair of they were happy for that to be Guild Wars 2's after-credits message. "The after credits message is everything's better when your friends are with you." Ree says. "In moderation." | <urn:uuid:31d3168b-cfa2-4535-8261-43e92d17772b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.pcgamer.com/guild-wars-2-lore-designers-on-rebuilding-the-world-and-why-they-keep-blowing-up-cities/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281649.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00448-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.973238 | 2,004 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Yaakov BenDavid’s New York Times crossword, “Passing Grade”
The failing F is advanced to a D in this theme:
- 23a. [One who turned Cinderella’s pumpkin into pumpkin cheesecake?], DAIRY GODMOTHER.
- 49a. [Snorkeling bargain?], TWO DIVES FOR A TEN. *ahem* There is an unchanged F in this theme answer.
- 77a. [Transportation company that skimps on safety?], NO-DRILLS AIRLINE.
- 105a. [Stephen Hawking’s computer-generated voice?], SCIENCE DICTION. This clue feels off-base to me. Why not something to do with the actual diction of a scientist, such as Bill Nye or Neil DeGrasse Tyson (both on TV often) or Einstein? A computer-generated voice is not, in and of itself, diction.
- 15d. [Two things seen beside James Bond at a casino?], DISH AND CHIPS. I hate the word “dish” in this sense.
- 58d. [“Oh yeah? Let’s see you hold your breath for TWO minutes!,” e.g.?], DARE INCREASE.
Did not know: 5d. [Former 6’9″ N.B.A.’er Hayes, to fans], BIG E. Elvin, my husband says. Although NBAER shows up in the occasional crossword, good gravy! This “N.B.A.’er” monstrosity is ugly with all that punctuation.
While I do like MACHETE, MOLESKIN, COMO ESTA, BLONDE ALE, TWIX, LOVE NEST, BED OF ROSES, ORANGE OIL, RED ARMY, and JOB SEARCH, I felt like the Scowl-o-Meter got too much of a workout. One can argue that 1a: ADES isn’t really a stand-alone word, and it’s parked on top of the awkwardly plural LEFT SIDES and crosses the plural surname ALDAS. We have 6d: I DO TO (a partial) as well as 94d: SO DO I and nearby 96d: AS I AM (another partial). Crosswordese ANIL, STYE, PATEN; OTSEGO; partials A TEE and A LIE; nautical UNRIG and LATEEN; ILENE and SYD; roll-your-own JILTERS … all sorts of words with affixes (BALD+ER, AGITAT+ING, VILE+LY, NERF+S, and the abovementioned JILT+ER+S). With only six theme answers, I had hoped for more lovable fill. A few more black squares, a slightly higher word count, fewer blah bits.
Trip Payne’s Washington Post crossword, “The Post Puzzler No. 202”- Sam Donaldson’s review
The ACPT is just a couple of weeks away now, and based on today’s performance it looks like the top 200 are under no threat from me. This was a solve of fits and starts. Momentary breakthroughs with rapid, confident keystrokes followed by long lulls of open staring. At one gap I looked at the timer: 8:46. Not bad, not bad. But I was stuck, so I started looking around for other toeholds. When I came up empty I glanced again at the timer: 13:13. What?!? That was a four-and-a-half minute rabbit hole?!? No way. Uh oh. I can’t believe I haven’t been able to find anything in all this time. It’s not like I get distracted easily, like that guy I was sitting next to on the plane the other day who couldn’t seem to engage in any single activity for more than maybe five minutes. I’ve never seen anyone enter one number in an unsolved Sudoku grid only to set it down and dig into the Sky Mall catalog. I wonder how many people really buy anything from a Sky Mall catalog anyway. Is there a sizable segment of the population really craving a pillow with a built-in iPhone charger? Better yet, does anyone subscribe to Sky Mall magazine? That reminds me, I need to get my subscription to Will Shortz Presents WordPlay so I can get the first issue. Hey, I think Trip will have some puzzles in it. I really like Trip’s puzzles. Good thing I’ve already purchased his upcoming extravaganza–those are always so good. I should plug it in my write-up. Now, where was I? Oh yeah. What’s the time? CRAP!!
This 66/32 freestyle’s distinctive look comes from the cascading 11s running down the grid’s center, intersected by three 9s and a pair of 10s (a full house, in certain circles). The wide-open middle is set off by two really open corners–triple 7s feeding a 6-7-8 triple stack. The other two corners have limited access, and it was that northwest corner that proved to be my Waterloo. I hope I’m not the only one that had JEAN ARP as the [“Shirt Front and Fork” artist]. That was all kinds of wrong, and deep down I felt it. I mean, I knew AMOEBAE was the answer to the clever clue, [They multiply with division], so if JEAN ARP was right then the answer to [Store key of yore] must start with AO-. It also meant the answer to [Provide sanctuary to] would start with JA-, and that wasn’t ringing any bells. I took a flyer on ALOE as the [Word on some shampoo bottles], thinking maybe it was an attempt to give a new, hard clue to a common crossword answer. So yeah, that corner was a disaster. I finally scrapped JEAN ARP, thinking maybe Jean wasn’t his first name after all, and the freedom that came with deletion–coupled with taking a flyer on BLAB as the answer to [Be indiscreet, in a way]–eventually led me to figure out the corner. So the artist is HANS ARP and ye olde “store key” is NO SALE (say, that could be my favorite clue).
Luckily the open section fell a little more easily, though I struggled with terms unfamiliar to me, like FOREIGN FIRM and SAFARI SUIT, because they seemed awkward and kinda made up to me. I’m slightly ashamed to admit that I had PENALTY CARD instead of LOYALTY CARD as the [Comparison-shopping discourager], largely because I had -ALTY CARD in place and figured the first word just had to be PENALTY even though it didn’t seem to mesh with the clue at all. At. All. And yet there sat PENALTY CARD in my grid for quite a while. Again, fellow ACPT contestants, you have nothing to worry about from me this year.
Stuff better suited to bullet points than full-on paragraphs:
- [Sandwich with three pieces of bread] is a great clue for BIG MAC. Notice the misdirection: I think only McDonald’s would call the Big Mac a “sandwich.” And I think most of us would call the “three pieces of bread” a “thick bun that’s been cut twice.” Though [Burger with a thick bun that’s been cut twice] would be more descriptive, I prefer the harder clue here.
- Another tough nugget in that damn northwest corner: [Reserve] as the clue for SET BY. That’s tough. But I loved the intersecting clue for RESTART, [Freezing solution]. And here I thought I was clever in thinking the solution would be some kind of coat or blanket.
- Was the clue for INE, [Saturn follower], a pain in your anus too?
- I loved how BEBE Neuwirth, Frasier’s ex-wife on Frasier, sits next to JANE Leeves, Niles’s wife on Frasier. A happy coincidence in the construction, I’m sure, but I’m not so sure every constructor and editor team would have seen it come time for cluing. But of course we’re in good hands with Trip and Peter.
Favorite entry = JAWBREAKERS, the [Hard candies] I so enjoyed as a kid. But a close second goes to ENERGY BAR, the [Luna product] I’m more apt to consume nowadays. Favorite clue = [Far from the front, maybe] for ON LEAVE.
Lynn Lempel’s CrosSynergy crossword, “Sunday Challenge” – Dave Sullivan’s review
Very smooth 68-word themeless from the reigning queen of early-week themed puzzles. Is there anything that this constructor can’t do well?
I had a few false starts with this one:
- [Springtime dupe] led me to APRIL THAW before APRIL FOOL – I’m not too happy about the non-possessive form of this, what about you?
- I was thinking of cities not ROCK BANDS with the clue [Chicago and Boston] – nice misdirection there. In fact, let’s take a listen to my hometown band and a staple of my adolescence.
- I actually spent some time wondering who “Guy Craig” or “Craig Guy” might be and why he’s leaning from the answer CRAIG to the clue [Guy with a list]. Umm, it’s this.
- [Like those who missed the group photo shoot] was NOT SHOWN, not NOT THERE.
- RANCH HAND before HIRED HAND for [Farmworker].
- Are YEA SAYERS a common name for “yes men”? I do like its gender non-specificity.
Nothing CRAPPY about this one! Probably my FAVE of the lot was [“At least that’s a start”] for ONE DOWN. Nice crossword-y meta reference as well. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!
Merl Reagle’s syndicated Sunday crossword, “IQ Test”
First up: SPAHI?!? What? I don’t recall ever seeing this 105a. [Algerian soldier] in a crossword before. The word doesn’t even look particularly Arabic or Berber to me. You’d better know your French phrases or that P is hard to come by; 99d. [La Belle ___] clues EPOQUE, French for “epoch.” Tough zone.
The theme answers all contain the letter sequence IQ:
- 22a. [Bod examples?], PHYSIQUES.
- 24a. [Flow slowers], TOURNIQUETS.
- 46a. [Bar order], BANANA DAIQUIRI.
- 68a. [Groundbreaking book of 1963], THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE, by Betty Friedan. Great center to a puzzle.
- 90a. [Brief note?], DEMISEMIQUAVER. Lots of question-marked theme clues. Well, two, anyway.
- 116a. [Snits], FITS OF PIQUE.
- 120a. [Convert into cash], LIQUIDATE.
- 23d. [Angioplasties and such], SURGERY TECHNIQUES. I don’t like this at all. “Surgical techniques” is much smoother.
- 25d. [Specially suited], UNIQUELY QUALIFIED.
Five more things:
- 13d. [Higher number on a tag], PRICE HIKE. Wait: When does a price increase ever show up on a tag that still has a lower price on it? The clue suggests “the higher of two numbers,” no? And the price hike is the increase, it’s not a “number.”
- 48d. [Turkish statesman Ismet (anagram of UNION)], INONU. Ouch. See also: 119d. [Burmese leader, 1907-95], U NU.
- 61d. [Sherlock Holmes portrayer Jeremy ___], BRETT. Was his show also aired on PBS in the US, or was it strictly a British TV series? Football’s Brett Favre, actress/comedian Brett Butler—these are my go-to BRETTs. Didn’t know Jeremy.
- 66d. [Finger-painter], SMEARER. Have you ever once used this word outside of a crossword?
- 69d. [Baseball advice, “___ where they ain’t”], HIT ‘EM. Hit them (the balls) where they (the other team’s players) ain’t.
There are lots of nice 7s in the grid, including SOMEHOW, FROZE UP, ARMOIRE, NATASHA, and even a long but poetic partial, 93d. [“The woods are lovely, dark ___” (Frost)], AND DEEP. The oddness of INONU and SPAHI were a little more prominent in this solver’s head than the good stuff was, unfortunately.
Mike Peluso’s syndicated Los Angeles Times Sunday crossword, “Kidding Pool”
Turn “kiddy (or kiddie) pool” into “Kidding Pool,” and turn other final -Y syllables into -ING for this theme:
- 22a. [Taking inventory at the Tropicana plant?], ORANGE COUNTING.
- 39a. [Miniature golf with clowns and windmills?], SILLY PUTTING.
- 57a. [Boxer catching flies?], SHAGGING DOG. Baseball “flies,” not bugs.
- 81a. [Making bad wagers?], UGLY BETTING.
- 98a. [Part of a supermarket uniform?], BAGGING PANTS.
- 119a. [Nocturnal animal in a hammock?], ROCKING RACCOON.
- 30d. [Putting Tonka Trucks in the attic?], TOY STORING. The base here is Toy Story, not toy store.
- 53d. [Gently tossing rifles?], GUN LOBBING.
This theme plays out quite well. It’s a fresh concept, the base phrases are really a lively batch (Orange County, Silly Putty, shaggy dog, Ugly Betty, baggy pants, “Rocky Raccoon,” Toy Story, and gun lobby), and the -ING phrases are all clued plausibly.
A couple things caught my eye in a bad way:
- 9d. [Rocker __ Jovi], BON. No. “Rocker” connotes an individual, and Bon Jovi is the name of the band. Jon Bon Jovi is the rocker in question.
- 43d. [Lean], LIST right near 68a. [Listing], ATILT. Why not [Leaning] for the latter?
Favorite entry: 65d. [Converses, e.g., slangily], TENNIES. In Chicago, they’re called gym shoes; this is one of those terms that marks people very specifically by the place they grew up.
Lots of fill felt blah to me. Right in the 1-Across corner, DLR, ERN, and old-reference RIGBY crossing GLORIA clued as part of a Latin hymn title. OGEE, OSA, GOA, Italian ANGELI, YOST crossing ASSAI, MGBS, EHLE crossing EBRO, SADR crossing TWO-A, EN-LAI crossing ALAI? It gave me a 1990s-puzzle vibe rather than a 2010s one.
3.5 stars despite the fill, though. Two thumbs up for the well-executed theme.
Henry Hook’s CRooked crossword, “Don’t Knock It” — pannonica’s write-up
It’s a quote theme. In six segments, which is not uncommon. What is uncommon is the arrangement: a down pair, an across pair, and finally another down pair. Impressively, the two vertical pairs are stacked—though perhaps not-so coincidentally I had some difficulty solving those sections (more on this later).
The quote’s author appears vertically in the center, at 39-down: RENATA ADLER.
The quote? IF YOU’RE GOING | TO BE A CRITIC IT | ISN’T REALLY FAIR | NOT TO HAVE TRIED | THE THING YOU’RE | WRITING ABOUT. (2d, 3d, 42a, 92a, 55d, 62d)
What am I to make of this? As you may know, I haven’t constructed any crosswords yet week after week I write about them here at Amy’s blog. This is a fact not lost on some, and for which some of those some have given me heat. Make of that what you will. Also, Renata Adler is described by Wikipedia as “an American author, journalist, and film critic,” but of course in her long and distinguished professional time she hasn’t made any films, and somehow I doubt she’s tried.
I thought the quote might be part of her famously excoriating review of film critic Pauline Kael’s 1980 collection When the Lights Go Down, but it appears to have come from an interview she did last year on Kurt Andersen’s Studio 360 radio program, on the occasion of the reissuing of her two acclaimed 1970s novels, Speedboat and Pitch Dark (which I’ve been meaning to read, so I’m glad of the reminder). Not finding a transcript of the interview, so I can’t provide additional context for the quote without listening to it—perhaps later.
So, now that I’ve discussed basic context, it’s time to critically pan the puzzle. No, I’m not being glib and facetious, I really found too many parts of it to be sloggish and unfair.
As mentioned before, the vicinities of the stacked themers, the upper left and lower right margins, were fairly knotty—especially with the proviso that until the theme was completed a string of two letters were blank in each crossing entry. On the right side, we get such gems as 105a [Garnet used in laser technology] YAG, 91a [2009 Super Bowl number] XLIII, suffix -ENNE (96a), the interesting but arcane 116a [Fractional] ALIQUOT, the poorly-clued 120a [“It’s gaining on us!”] for LET’S RUN (I suppose the implication is that we were already walking, but that wasn’t so clear); I was so flustered by the persisting white squares that 85a [Two-by-fours?] took much longer than it should have to reveal EIGHTS.
Swinging over to the left, we get another Roman numeral with the vague 56a [Evening hour, in a way] VII, 31a [1970s Chinese premier] HUA Guofeng, 26a [Walk like a pigeon] for TOE IN (which strikes me as more commonly a hyphenated noun or adjective than a verb describing walking—not to mention toenailing in carpentry, in which one can TOE IN a nail), another interesting but rather obscure entry in DYBBUKS at 23a [Disembodied souls, in Judaism], the vexing-with-missing-letters mini three-worder 19a I FOR ONE [“Personally …”] (which incidentally crosses the similarly vexing 4d [Treat, Biblically] DO UNTO); even the unassuming 49a [Gambling games] LOTTOS and 72a [Gut reaction?] AGITAS ended up being recondite under the circumstances. Confession: it didn’t help that I’d mindlessly filled in MAYA for 64a [Subject of Atahualpa] despite the later revelation in the cross-referencing 71a [Home of 64-Across] PERU, which incidentally is located back in that troublesome right side area.
Elsewhere in the grid, there are desultory nasty crossings such as 43d [DHS division] TSA and 47a [Fe, in Frankfurt] EISEN (that’s iron)—it’s a lapse to have thought DHS was something like ‘Department of Human Services’ but in truth I encounter it almost exclusively as the full Department of Homeland Security (and in truth I try to forget about it as much as possible). Then the unnecessarily toughly clued 7d BESET with [Hem in] and the rare-even-in-crosswords 13d [Danube feeder] ENNS both crossing 24a [Ranks] which looked like this with those missing letters: –TATIO–S … sure, it looks like it should be STATIONS but the clue isn’t as helpful as it could be—that’s Stumper-level frustration, except that ENNS probably wouldn’t pass muster there.
- Oh, the puzzle’s title is meant to evoke the saying, “Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it.”
- 75a [Re deportment] BEHAVIORAL. Great fill, but why use re like that?
- 99a [“__ libre”] VERS. This
LatinFrench version of “free verse” wouldn’t have been quite so tough had I recalled that clues in quotes are often renderings of italicized ones in the print edition of this puzzle. Also, I couldn’t help but think of cuba libre, especially after 36a [Options for Cokes] RC COLAS. Incidentally, in my world there are no “options” for Cokes. Just like the very specific recipe for the cuba libre, for me Coke means Coca-Cola (which is how I’m always sure to request it on those rare occasions when I have soda) and cola means all colas including Coke.
- Nifty triple-eight stacks top and bottom center: BREATHED, EARPHONE, STATIONS and the super SOUR MASH, SYBARITE, RATLINE.
- Also liked the symmetrical pair of 6d [Optimal] BEST-CASE and 90d [Gravity-operated trap] DEADFALL.
- Good trivia that I already knew: 51a [Literally, “empty orchestra”] KARAOKE. It breaks down as kara- (empty, as in kara-te, empty hand) and –ōke (which is a shortened form of the Japanized ōkesutora).
- 8d [“Phooey!”] RATS, 12d [Nonsense] HOOEY.
- Happy that 109d [Dashiell Hammett’s “The __ Curse”] DAIN was a gimme, even though it would have been easy via the crossings.
- Fitting, for this solver, that the very last clue was 106d [“(I Can’t) __ Satisfaction”] GET NO. Here’s Cat Power’s subversive interpretation. | <urn:uuid:3f8b89b0-9cb9-4169-bde8-38fa8271953b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://crosswordfiend.com/2014/02/15/sunday-february-16-2014/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571758.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812200804-20220812230804-00674.warc.gz | en | 0.927329 | 5,216 | 1.742188 | 2 |
History & Mission Statement
For the glory of God and to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary is a seminary in the Presbyterian-Reformed tradition whose mission is to educate and equip individuals for the ordained Christian ministry and other forms of Christian service and leadership; to employ its resources in the service of the church; to promote and engage in critical theological thought and research; and to be a winsome and exemplary community of God's people.
At the end of the nineteenth century, two Presbyterian pastors - Dr. Robert Lewis Dabney and the Rev. Richmond Kelley Smoot - looked to the dusty expanses of the American frontier and dreamed a dream. Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, founded in 1902, was the result of their vision and labor. Established under the auspices of the Synod of Texas in the Presbyterian Church in the United States, Austin Seminary began its mission of educating and equipping ministers for the Southwestern United States. It wasn't long, however, before the institution blossomed and grew beyond the wildest visions of its forebears. Soon, Austin Seminary was training women and men for a variety of ministries throughout the nation and world.
At the dawning of a new century, Austin Seminary stands poised on the cutting edge of church and culture. Today, our frontiers are technological, demographic, and philosophical. The Seminary seeks to blaze innovative and imaginative paths through each of these frontiers, without forsaking its responsibility to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Reformed theological tradition. A superb faculty of scholars and teachers serve as pioneers and mentors in the faith to each new class of prospective pastors, lighting the way for the church of the twenty-first century. | <urn:uuid:33286358-c7af-40c2-b161-e068f3dd43f6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.austinseminary.edu/page.cfm?p=1423 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283689.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00356-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.938776 | 355 | 1.921875 | 2 |
The Scale2D command changes the size of selected objects uniformly in two directions.
|2.||Pick an origin.|
|3.||Type the scale factor, or pick two reference points.|
|4.||The objects are expanded or contracted uniformly in the two directions of the axes of the active viewport construction plane where you specify the scale factor.|
Note: When scaling by dragging, the scale factor becomes the default next time the Scale2D command is used.
The Copy option specifies whether or not the objects are copied. A plus sign appears at the cursor when copy mode is on.
Note: The RememberCopyOptions command determines whether the selected option is used as the default.
Displays the gumball widget on a selected object facilitating move, scale, and rotate transformations around the gumball origin.
Store the connection between a command's input geometry and the result, so that when the input geometry changes, the result updates accordingly.
Specify whether Copy option on transform commands is stored.
Change the size of objects uniformly in the x-, y-, and z-directions.
Change the size of objects in one direction.
Change the size of objects in two directions non-uniformly.
Change the size of objects non-uniformly in three directions.
Rhinoceros 5 © 2010-2015 Robert McNeel & Associates. 17-Sep-2015
Open topic with navigation | <urn:uuid:69ed82ba-e131-4b52-8fec-95e8846796be> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://docs.mcneel.com/rhino/5/help/en-us/commands/scale2d.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571719.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812140019-20220812170019-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.754037 | 346 | 2.203125 | 2 |
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Grade Q235B Q345b Ss400 Standard AISI, JIS, ASTM, BS, GB Certification IS0 Product Name High Quality Hot Price Tangshan H Beam Section Material Q235B Q345b Ss400 Size 250*125*6*9mm. China Professional Supplier Hot Rolled Wide Flange Steel H q235b carbon gb standard wide flangeH Beam, Q235B H Beam, Hot Rolled H Beam manufacturer / supplier in gb t q235b h type steel mechanical propertiesQ235B carbon steel have certain elongation and strength,good toughness and casting properties.Q235B steel is easy to punch and weld.For those features,GB/T700 Q235B carbon steel plates mild steel sheets are used for welding structures with high quality requirements in building and bridge engineering.GB/T700 Q235B carbon steel plates mild | <urn:uuid:a7b6ec17-480c-4383-97c5-ee0ce63efa1c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.enervitczech.cz/Q235B-plate/d240e3d38a958.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00270.warc.gz | en | 0.757468 | 1,415 | 1.507813 | 2 |
- Word Parts
|part of speech:
||valorized, valorizes, valorizing
||to fix or maintain the price of (a commodity), esp. by a government, as by buying up a commodity at a fixed price or by making special loans to the producers. | <urn:uuid:a191f1d2-aa3b-4401-9c70-155a83bc4221> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.wordsmyth.net/?rid=45429 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00240-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.781291 | 60 | 2.59375 | 3 |
||Taxi is a major transportation in urban area, offering great benefits and convenience to our daily life. But one of the major business frauds in taxi is the charging fraud, specifically, charging more fees than the actual service distance. In practice, it is hard for us to always monitor taxis and detect such fraud. Thanks to the Global Position System (GPS) embedded in taxis, we can collect the GPS reports from the taxis, having the location, time, and driving information. Intuitively, we can utilize such data to compute the actual service distance of taxis in the city map. But due to the extremely limited report, notable location errors, complex city map and road networks, our task to detect the taxi fraud faces great challenges and the naive method does not work well. In this thesis, we have a basic observation that fraudulent taxi always changes the taximeter in a much larger scale, and as a result it not only makes the service distance larger, but also the reported taxi speed much larger. Fortunately, the speed information collected from the GPS report is accurate. Hence, we utilize the speed information to design a novel speed-based clustering model to detect the taxi fraud, which is robust to the location errors, and independent of the map and road networks. The experiments on the real life data sets confirm the better accuracy, scalability and more efficient computation of our method, comparing to the current map-matching methods. Keywords— speed, clustering, taxi fraud detection. | <urn:uuid:c2e556d7-2ef6-411d-9f34-995c5d0acec6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://repository.ust.hk/ir/Record/1783.1-7052 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280128.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00384-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.916147 | 301 | 1.921875 | 2 |
Nuclear Science and Engineering / Volume 142 / Number 2 / October 2002 / Pages 158-164
Photon leakage spectra from thick spherical samples of various materials with a central 14-MeV neutron source were measured. Significant disagreement was revealed between the experiments and calculations as well as between calculations using the data libraries ENDF/B5, ENDF/B6, and ENDL-85. In this paper the experimental and calculated data for samples of Al, Ti, Fe, Zr, and Pb are given. The analysis of experimental errors and reasons for the disagreement is carried out. Corrections of some widespread gamma-production data for fast neutrons are proposed. | <urn:uuid:673f02e5-808b-45e4-b023-359c15bad5ee> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.ans.org/pubs/journals/nse/a_2296 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282926.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00395-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943076 | 135 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Myanmar has a long coastline of nearly 3 000 km. It can be divided into three coastal regions: the Rakhine Coastal Region (from the mouth of the Naaf River to Mawtin Point, about 740 km in length), the Ayeyarwaddy Delta and the Gulf of Moattama (Martaban) Coastal Region (from the Mawtin Point to the Gulf of Moattama, about 460 km in length) and the Thanintharyi Coastal Region (from the Gulf of Moattama to the mouth of the Pakchan River, about 1 200 km in length) in the Bay of Bengal and in the Andaman Sea.
Myanmar has many brackish water rivers and fresh water rivers, several large estuaries, delta system and numerous off shore islands. Myanmar has considerable diversity of costal habitats, including enormous coral reefs mangroves, sandy beach and mudflat. In Myanmar, there has capture and culture based aquaculture production. The marine capture fishery comprises coastal or inshore fisheries, and offshore fisheries or deep- sea fisheries. Various type of fishing gears are used exploit in large diversity of marine species found in Myanmar water. Inland fisheries in Myanmar are mostly associated riverine and estuarine system. Inland water bodies, such as nature lakes, reservoirs, river system and ponds, cover about 8.1 million hectares, of which 1.3 millions are permanent and the others are seasonally inundated floodplains. Aquatic resource area of the river systems within Myanmar encompasses 8.2 million ha (FAO, 1996) of permanent and seasonal water bodies and there were 29 000 ha of freshwater fishponds and a further 40 716 ha of shrimp ponds in 2001, and 115687 ha of reservoirs. The Department of Fisheries (DOF) in Yangon estimates a figure of six million ha of floodplains, which likely excludes river area and floodplain lakes. In costal area, so-called unused lands can be used for aquaculture. Shrimp culture ponds can develop in this area. In the year 2004-2005 shrimps ponds area was about 63 000 hectares in the coastal region. Plenty of verging lands and sea, brackish and fresh water are support to aqua cultures productions in country.
Traditional shrimp farms of about 10 000 acres (3 620 ha) have been in operation since 1978 along the banks of Naaf River in Rakhine State, bordering with Bangladesh. People in the northern Raphine States started with "trap and hold" farming practices in areas with large inter tidal zones with abundant shrimp juveniles. Such extensive shrimp farming practices, producing 100 kg shrimp/ha/year still dominate the shrimp culture sector, due to investment constraints, although intensive practices are gradually being adopted in some coastal areas. Research Team of Fisheries Corporation Ministry of Livestock Breeding & Fisheries was succeed P. monodon hatching in 1986-1987 in Myanmar, Systematic and intensive culture of Tiger prawn (P.monodon) started in Chaung tha, Ngwe Saung shrimp zone of Ayeyawady Division and Kyauk Tan and Zewbar zone of Yangon Division in 1988. The shrimp producers were produced successfully in these years with supporting of Department of Fisheries and Nation.
The shrimp farming are a in 2002 is estimated as 193 265 acres (over 70,000 ha) of which over 85 percent (around 60 000 ha) is under extensive culture techniques. An estimated 5 180 acres is under more intensive culture and another 22 768 acres under improved extensive (extensive plus). Under the government's shrimp culture expansion three-year plan from 2000-2002, traditional shrimp farms were being upgraded to improved extensive culture system. Penaeus monodon is the main species produced, but other species of wild shrimp are collected from extensive and traditional "trap and hold" ponds The Penaeus vannamei has been introduced to Ayeyarwaddy division shrimp farm in 2004 - 2005 on a trial basis and now Kyauktan Shrimp zone also cultured this species. Most of fresh water prawn and fish farmers were interested cultured in fresh water farms.
The largest area of shrimp farming is found in Rakhine State (155 533 acres), followed by Ayeyarwaddy (33 373 acres), Yangon (7 394 acres), with smaller areas in Bago, Kayin, Mon and Thanintharyi.
Aquaculture production (from DoF and Win Lat, 2003)
Shrimp hatcheries and shrimp seed supply
Shrimp seed for stocking of ponds come from the wild and from hatchery-reared post-larvae. Fry collection from the wild is particularly common in Rakhine State, where there are widespread "trap and hold" traditional farming systems relying on wild seed (stocked, or naturally entering ponds). There are probably several thousand people, including poor landless coastal people, who participate in catching of these wild shrimp fry. DOF has recently taken steps to ban collection of wild fry.
The second source of fry is hatchery-reared post-larvae (PLs), and
the number of hatcheries has been increasing since 1997. Currently,
there are around 31 shrimp (and prawn) hatcheries that have a capacity
to produce around 650 million PLs. However, DOF reports that in 2002
demand was not sufficient, and that the only around 300 million PLs were
produced. The demand from grow-out shrimp farming is also seasonal. DOF
estimate a total demand of 600 million PL/year. Some hatcheries produce
nauplii that are then transported elsewhere for nursing to post-larvae.Shrimp
price was decrease in 2004, Myanmar tiger prawn culture situations was
turns to fail. In the other hands Myanmar tried to substitute, white
shrimp in place of tiger prawn in 2004. Nowadays, white shrimp was
cultured in both marine and fresh water in the world. Myanmar has more
changes than others because of her plenty of verging land and fresh and
brackish water area.
Research Team of People’s Pearl and Fisheries Corporation Ministry of Livestock Breeding & Fisheries successfully hatched fresh water prawn (M.rosenbregii) since 1980 in Myanmar. The fresh water prawn culture was not developed in within 1980 – 1990 because of any supporting and interesting from the nation. In 1990, some farmers tested the Polly culture with fish and they found more benefit than fish culture, after that the giant fresh water prawn ( M. rosebergii) culture was developed in Myanmar. Now, Myanmar has 15 backyard fresh water prawn hatcheries in country and they can produce billions of fresh water prawn seeds. Most of the fresh water prawn farms in Yangon division and some were Bago and Ayeyawady Division. Myanmar fresh water prawn culture was nearly so-call organic culture. The shrimp farmers were culture low density in wide ponds (approximately they used 15 to 25 hectares ponds) and low feeding thus while prawn may grew depend on the natural foods. In this year 2011, fresh water seeds would be produced nearly 750millons and its shown Myanmar's fresh water prawn production will be nearly 0.9 million metric tons. | <urn:uuid:03729ce0-fb8e-4b25-add5-2ff9388d7b69> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.myanmarshrimpassociation.com/shrimpandprawn.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00172-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940427 | 1,495 | 3.4375 | 3 |
One of the most common jokes about men is that many of them are clueless when it comes to understanding female anatomy. But, according to the results of a new U.K. study, many of them are totally ignorant about their own.
In fact, nine out of 10 men surveyed by Lloyds Pharmacy Online Doctor service said they could locate their car's oil dipstick, but only half of them could name and identify their own sex organs.
The survey asked 1,500 men to locate key parts of their anatomy and gave them questions relating to male sexual health. One in 12 guys thought some of their sexy parts were in their ears, while only six percent could name the common causes for erectile dysfunction.
Considering how much guys touch—and talk about—their members, we were a bit surprised to hear that they don't really know all that much about them. Though, if we were given an unmarked diagram of the female sexual anatomy, we can't say with 100 percent certainty that we'd be able to correctly label each and every part. (It has been quite a while since sex ed class, after all.) | <urn:uuid:99eab1df-6655-4144-91f6-088f15138785> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/news/a11008/men-dont-know-their-anatomy/?click=cos_new | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719027.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00303-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990058 | 230 | 1.710938 | 2 |
My Dearest Friend
I wrote you this morning inclosing a Post note for 600 and went to Senate with full Expectation of receiving a Letter from you. The Door Keeper had the Letters for others but none for me -- What a Disappointment? I went mourning and moaping about for some time, grumbling at my Stars and almost blaming my best Friend: but it was not long before the Letter of the 15 was brought me from the President to whom the Post Office had sent it by Mistake.
I am glad the Clover is covered and that French is paid extravagant as he is. The Anti Treaty People are not supported by the People generally nor by their Legislatures. North Carolina has left them in the Lurch and it is supposed S. Carolina will not be up to their Pitch. In short all the opposition to the Treaty is likely to vanish in Vapour and foul Smoke.
The Assembly of Virginia, however, have passed a Number of hair brain'd Resolutions for amending the Constitution, in which I believe they will not be Seconded, unless by Kentucky, After the Experience of our own Government and that of France, when all Sensible Men are convinced that our Constitution, if defective in any Part, wants more Strength in the Senate and Executive, to propose to make the Senate dependent on Annual Elections and the House of Representatives to participate more in Executive Power is
nor can it be accounted for but by that Spirit of Irritation and Fervor which is inspired by Conscious Debts.
The Senate is as firm as a Rock and has received I believe an Accession of Strength in the new Member from Georgia.
The Newspapers begin to throw out hints about Titles and Checks and Ballances with a distant View to the approaching Election of Electors of P. and V.P. But this at present will counteract their own hopes: for Checks and Ballances having been adopted in Part at least in France, begin to grow more popular all over Europe and America. I dined with The P. Yesterday, and shall again to day.
I wish to read your Observations upon Randolphs what shall I call it? -- I sent it by last Post. I think it is too evident that the Creature meditated a total defeat of the Treaty; and he had too much Influence in proceeding several Steps in the Business. The Plan Seems to have been to delay the Ratification till the People should have time to set up such a Clamour as to make it impossible to sign it at all. This was a very friendly Attachment to the Honour and Faith of the P. to be sure, to say nothing of The Senate or Mr. Jay. Such a Character in the Cabinet and in the P.s bosom was a Serpent that might have stung if his Invention, Cunning and Courage had been adequate. The P. is more than commonly incensed as I hear against this Man and he certainly has great Reason. His Pamphlet has not blunted the Edge, nor diminished the force of Fauchets Letter in the least. It must totally destroy the Confidence in both Characters for what I see. -There are Letters to the Offices from Mr. Adams dated in September. Dont be uneasy. We shall hear in due time.
[Endorsement -- see page image] | <urn:uuid:02c11f55-25d9-4017-988f-1ee3e278d1fd> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.masshist.org/digitaladams/archive/doc?id=L17951224jasecond&rec=sheet&archive=&hi=&numRecs=&query=&queryid=&start=&tag=&num=10&bc= | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283301.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00504-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979417 | 678 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Sooner or later, you are bound to start experiencing technical problems, i.e. slow shutdown, frequent reboots, blue screen errors and boot failure amongst others with your PC. These are often as a result of incomplete software installation and uninstall virus infection, improper PC shut down and software crash amongst others. These are not unique and are experienced by millions of users worldwide. Nonetheless, having the right troubleshooting skills will save you money and time. Having recognized the need to format and reinstall Windows, the article explains into detail how to format a hard disk from Windows installation disc. This can be applied when installing a new copy of Windows onto a PC. Here is particularly vital to backup all the data stored in your PC since formatting a hard drive causes everything that is stored therein to get lost. This comprises of all installed application programs and device drivers. Instructions
1Insert the Windows installation disc, i.e. Home or Professional edition into the CD-ROM and restart the PC.
3Thereafter, you will see a blue screen with series of messages. This might take a while as it gathers the files it requires. Upon finishing the process, a list of options will appear on your screen, using the arrow keys scroll and select “Press Enter to set up Windows”.
4A new page appears with a list of options on where to install Windows. At this point you can delete the current partitions and format the hard disk. A section at the bottom of the screen will list all the partition that exists in the system. Use the arrow keys to scroll and select the partitions. To delete a partition, press ‘D’ and in the new screen that appears press ‘L’.
5Upon completion, the process will take you back to the initial screen of where to install Windows. Given that all the partitions were deleted, you need to create a new primary partition to install Windows in. Use the arrow keys to select the “Unpartitioned space…” and press ‘C’ to create a new partition on the hard disk. A new page appears prompting you to select the size to use on the partition, enter the maximum figure shown therein and presses enter.
6Choose the new partition as the primary partition to install Windows in. When prompted for the file system to use on the disk, select NTFS. Unlike other file systems displayed therein, NTFS is fast and secure.
7Thereafter, Windows will format the hard disk and proceed with the installation process. The procedure may take approximately two hours to complete, so you have to be patient.
- When backing-up data, ensure that you have backed them into an external storage device and not in a partition on the hard disk. Furthermore, make certain that you have gathered all the necessary installation discs, i.e. Office, antivirus and recovery discs. These are vital in restoring the default factory settings.
- Remember to save all your data.
In other languages:
Español: formatear y reinstalar Windows, Italiano: Formattare il Computer e Reinstallare Windows, Português: Formatar e Reinstalar o Windows, Русский: отформатировать диск и переустановить Windows, Deutsch: Formatieren und Windows neu installieren, Français: formater et réinstaller Windows
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 188,124 times. | <urn:uuid:145f74a2-bfb8-4d70-b19d-ccf6e64c250a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.wikihow.com/Format-and-Reinstall-Windows | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281353.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00062-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.836873 | 747 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Not many surfers or swimmers use earplugs in the water when they surf or swim, but you also hear about people battling with having water in their ears and constantly having to clean it out. This doesn’t happen to everyone – just the unlucky ones. Although, you never know when your fatal day is going to come along.
I remember one day I went for a surf at my local beach as usual. I came back, woke up the next morning, ready for another day in front on the stove as a chef – my job at the time. I could seriously feel water swirling around in my ear as I shook it back and forth.
I tried to shake my head around, but nothing happened. Not even the trusty ear buds were able to do the trick, so I went off to work.
People started talking to me, but I really could not hear a thing. It was the strangest feeling. However, a trip to the family doctor sorted that out. Who would have thought how much water could get stuck in your ear like that. It was all blocked up with wax, so it was no surprise that all the head banging didn't help me out that morning.
So I guess this would want to make you want to wear ear plugs. If this is going to happen every time, then it can get slightly irritating. On top of that, it can actually be incredibly damaging, especially for a surfer who gets tossed about in the waves.
If you have ever watched divers, heading down towards deep waters, you will realize the impact this has on your ears. If you watch closely, you would probably have seen Olympic divers geared up with their ear plugs, just before climbing onto the board. Of course, professional swimmers do this as well. If you have ever been in a very deep diving pool, and start to swim to the bottom, you may not have been able to take the impact that the water has on your ears. You can probably understand how important ear plugs are in a case like this.
A condition known as surfer’s ear, or swimmer's ear can eventually cause deafness, so it’s nothing to be taken lightly. This develops in the ear canal, and eventually starts to grow lumps that can sometimes form a blockage of the actual canal.
When the canal narrows like this, then one is more prone to infections, and this is where deafness can creep in. Once this develops you can have an operation, which many people go through, but this is another set back and puts your surfing or swimming on hold. In addition to that, it is not an instant cure and a lot of people have to go through multiple surgeries to rectify the situation.
If you are in colder waters on a frequent basis, you are even more likely develop swimmer's or surfer's ear, and if you stay in the water for long periods, then you are also a likely candidate.
I’m sure you have heard it all before, but you have to agree that prevention is better than cure, especially when you hear of people who have been for two operations and are still paying off medical bills.
All it really takes is a couple of dollars with a good set of ear plugs like Doc’s Proplugs and you are set. For extra protection wear hoodies in the winter months, because cold air is another factor which is going to seep into your ears and do some damage to the canal.
Doc's Propulgs - My choice
I have looked into a couple of different earplugs and have found that these are the ones that come out tops. They are designed especially for people who are in the water for longer periods, like surfers and professional swimmers.
They help to keep the canal warm and dry. Some earplugs you find on the market will be alright until you discover that you are not hearing as well with them. Your balance may be slightly impaired.
For a surfer or swimmer this is a no no, because obviously balance is everything for you. There are 8 different sizing options here, and these are as durable as you like.
For anyone who has tried things like putty or even surfer’s wax as a method to keep the water out, you will find this is far superior and you are definitely getting your money’s worth.
Probably the most unique thing you can say about Doc’s Proplugs is that you won’t find another type of earplug out there that doesn’t obstruct the canal or the ear wax.
Ear Plugs for Musicians
Let's not forget about ear plugs for musicians. There are some that are designed especially for this purpose. If you belong to a band or a orchaestra and this is something that you are involved in on a daily basis, then you would be crazy not to invest in a good set of ear plugs.
You may be asking, how you are supposed to hear what is going on with the rest of the band. However, these ear plugs have been designed so that you can hear incoming noises as well - just enough to allow you to perform to the best of your ability. Spending a couple of dollars on something good, is a wise choice, especially if it is going to save you from a lot of illnesses relating to your ear drums.
What is Tinnitus?
Many musicians suffer from tinnitus or even deafness if they decide to go without ear plugs. Losing some of your hearing is one thing, but tinnitus can be something that you have to live with for the rest of your life. You will hear constant ringing and swishing noises in your ears and in your head. Living with this on a day to day basis is definitley not fun. This is just one of the reasons why it is essential to look after your ear drums. | <urn:uuid:148eb9d6-afaf-437d-b527-70d00da2c6ef> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.infobarrel.com/Do_You_Use_Ear_Plugs_When_You_Swim_or_Surf | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280791.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00361-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983391 | 1,215 | 2.09375 | 2 |
The men arrive an hour late because of a fire drill on Floor 6. The correctional officer on duty says it’s not a real fire drill, but “something fishy.” I visited that floor during my training. A sergeant told me it was not the place to go husband shopping.
As the students trickle in, I put my hand up to say hello. I stay seated. I’m not comfortable standing. I feel so tall in the building, in my civilian clothes, in my bones. I don’t like the feeling.
I’m thankful that my co-teacher takes the reigns. It gives me a chance to look at each of our new students and acclimate to our circle of chairs. As they introduce themselves, I write down notes for memory. I make a seating chart for later. For now, I know them only by the way they look back at me and from which direction.
They write for different reasons.
“It’s easier than talking.”
“It makes no sense at all but it makes perfect sense.”
“It’s a spiritual release.”
“It’s an avenue to express myself.”
I say writing helps me understand the things that happen to me and around me. I have to think about my answer, because most days it seems like every other reason. Money, recognition, opportunity, relevance. That pending MFA.
We open our textbooks to a poem, “Allegheny Ford Trucks,” by ex-inmate Stephon Hayes. The speaker describes the view from his cell window—a river, the business district, and the constant Allegheny Ford Trucks sign, a single, cold totem on the outside. It makes him crazy. He sees it everywhere. He writes, Help me. I am lonely. I am lonely.
I ask two different men to read the poem aloud for us. Someone says Damn and there are nodding heads. A few guys lock their eyes on me. I say, “Reactions?”
They feel the poem. I feel the poem, too, but not in the same way. How can that be? Empathy, maybe. We write to say: I am here and I am lonely and I am going through this thing you either can’t imagine, or maybe you can. But I need you to know. I need you to feel me.
After a beat, a young man says, “I didn’t think I would, but I’m gonna like this class.” It feels good and I am caught off guard. This is a volunteer social-justice-type instructor’s wet dream. Right now, it only means I have said something true. I try to forget it.
For the last hour, everyone writes at a computer. I am called from my desk again and again.
“Miss Shannon, read my poem.”
“Miss Shannon, I am stuck on this ending.”
“Miss Shannon, does this sound right?”
I cringe at my new title. A quiet student calls me over to read his poem, “The Door.” The speaker meditates on his cell door, which is both an entrance and an exit. It ends with, “What door do you look at?”
While they work, we are YouTube DJs. We play a list of songs compiled by the group. When a guard walks by, we turn the volume down.
“The Boxer” by Simon and Garfunkel plays, and I try to find the man in the room who requested it. There he is, sitting alone in our circle of chairs. His eyes are closed.
The group shuffles in promptly today. They pass around a song list and chat about the jail trays served at lunch.
“Dog food,” Michael says.
Joe is an unfamiliar face, so I greet him with a handshake, a folder, and a fresh notebook.
We have four new students on the roster, and several pods of men have been cut from our class for mysterious reasons. I am learning that flexibility is king in a county jail. Things change quickly, here—some get out, some go upstate, some get lost in a file.
The thrill of the first class has dissipated. I try to remember my pedagogy training. All that feigned poise. But in here, I feel tentative.
I don’t want to be another authority. I don’t want to talk about the industry. I don’t want to interrupt or rephrase these men. I try to make a lot of eye contact. I feel paralyzed sometimes. I do a lot of nodding. Then, I wonder if I am nodding too much.
I am the same age as some of them. But in John’s and Tim’s and Jay’s face, I see my father. That boyish sadness. I picture him on the other end of the telephone. I picture him inside. “You have to push 5,” Tim tells me. “To make a call.”
Tonight, I’ve brought in “Cloudy Day,” by Jimmy Santiago Baca. He writes:
“The third day of spring,
and four years later, I can tell you,
how a man can endure, how a man
can become so cruel, how he can die
or become so cold. I can tell you this,
I have seen it every day, every day,
and still I am strong enough to love you,
love myself and feel good;
even as the earth shakes and trembles,
and I have not a thing to my name,
I feel as if I have everything, everything.”
More than what to say or how to say it, I worry about my body—where to put it and how to move it. It seems important not to pace or hover. It seems important to keep my posture open. I don’t approach a computer unless I am summoned over. And one by one, I am. Each man calls me to his new poem. Again, I read it, and I find one thing to praise. But there are dozens of things to praise. Even the act of writing is a kind of miracle in captivity.
“Is this hard for you to write?” I ask Carl. He has a tattoo of a teardrop on his cheekbone. His gait is slow and labored. Beside him, I feel more tired. He’s written a prose poem. The speaker wishes he had drowned in a creek as a child. He regrets the rescue.
“Not really,” he says. He smiles with a chipped tooth. “It feels good to say. It’s all true.”
I think about all of the things I don’t write. I think about all of the people I protect in my poems. Sometimes myself, sometimes everyone else.
“Miss Shannon, where are your poems?” Michael asks, holding up the Baca poem. “I want to read yours.”
“I will bring something in,” I say, suddenly aware of the distorted equilibrium in the room. They share and I nod at them. I walk around, free to leave the room and keep my secrets. Why not? My world is big and loud and I can avoid the things in my head most days.
Sam asks me to read his poem about how to make Jailhouse Java. You mix commissary chicory with cocoa powder. Then, you smash a fireball candy off the ground and add the cinnamon pieces to the drink.
“Not so hard that it busts,” he writes.
He stands up so I can read it closer. He searches my face for a reaction.
“I’m going to try this,” I say.
“You’ll think you’re drinking Starbucks.”
When I leave the jail, the rain has passed and the air is clean. It is like crossing a border. It surprises me—how sad the exodus, every time.
Yesterday, a black man named Alton Sterling was shot straight in the chest by an officer who had him pinned to the ground in Baton Rouge. This is news and it is not news. His name trended briefly on Facebook amid the wash of Independence Day posts. He was an ex-felon. His rap sheet is not dissimilar to the young black men in my classroom.
Tomorrow I will go back inside the jail. I will offer the same and sincere wow and yes as I read poems at computer after computer. I will fold my body again and again, leveling myself to the screen to look harder. I will try to find traction in the technical, but I will be mostly inarticulate. A month in, I am still floored that every man comes back to class, that he writes and shares and returns to his truths, despite everything.
“Keep your eyes open,” my first writing professor said. “Look into things. Writers pay attention.”
In college, I began mining my childhood for poem-material. I tried to witness myself. I wrote about my father’s alcohol problem. My mother’s chronic illnesses. The bills and biker gangs. The times my body became not my body. The things that get left behind. I turned over every glowing coal in my hands. I found every small tear in my soft parts. I tried to connect dots, tie up ends, make some sense.
One night, I parked outside of my evening class and unraveled in my car with a bag of fast food in my lap. I heaved liked an animal. I rocked in pain. I shouted, you should have protected me repeatedly, a swarm of moths gone wild in my headlights. I shouted I needed you to no one. Then, I dried up and drove away.
There are safe places to unravel. There are places you can drive to and away from, whenever you need to. And then, there is Paul’s cell, which shares a wall with Jim’s cell. And in that wall, there is a hole through which Paul and Jim share their poems. “We sit by the wall and read to each other,” Jim tells me during our third class.
In college, I would get high before poetry readings so that I could focus on the words. I can sit in the presence of a poem any time I wish. In the city, there are dozens of events and workshops and classes each week. I dodge a lot of them.
“What’s it like?” I ask Michael. “Walking out of here.”
“Like nothing you can imagine,” he says. “I’ve spent my twenties in and out of jail. I’m sick of wasting my time. I’m getting out in thirty days and I’m staying out.”
Michael is a young black man with 83 pages of a story in his bunk, and counting.
“People are going to be shitty to you,” I tell him. But I feel stupid. He knows this.
“People are going to help me, too,” he says.
*Names and some identifying details have been changed to protect the identity of inmates. | <urn:uuid:56a904e7-7e1f-4811-9dbb-84cbc15be9f8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.theweeklings.com/ssankey/2016/07/14/how-sad-the-exodus-teaching-mens-creative-writing-in-a-county-jail/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280825.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00205-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967418 | 2,438 | 1.632813 | 2 |
MADRID (AP) — Spain’s top court has acted to block an attempt by pro-independence parties in Catalonia to move ahead with their secession plans in defiance of a previous ruling.
The Constitutional Court announced Monday it has suspended a Catalan Parliament resolution, passed last week, which set out a road map to independence. The five-month suspension is the first step toward possible fines and legal proceedings against members of the Barcelona-based parliament.
The resolution was approved by the “Together for Yes” group and its anti-capitalist governing coalition partner CUP, despite protests from opposition parties that it was illegal.
The regional government’s strategy for independence by 2017 was approved last year but ruled unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court.
Catalonia accounts for nearly a fifth of Spain’s economic output. | <urn:uuid:7d42aea2-585f-4d3a-8ae4-acce5b80fa60> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://urbanacitizen.com/wire/national-wire/25393/spains-top-court-once-again-blocks-catalan-breakaway-moves | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00498-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955415 | 168 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Mobile applications crash twice as often on the iPhone 5S than they do on both the iPhone 5 and iPhone 5C, according to tests by Crittercism, a mobile application performance management company.
See also: See Apple's iPhone 5S From the Inside
But even with the doubled rate, crash frequency is still relatively low across all versions of the iPhone 5. The 5S has a crash rate of about 2%, compared to the original 5 and 5C's rates of just around 1%, Kalyan Ramanathan, Crittercism's chief marketing officer, told Mashable.
In some cases, crashes are just annoying, such as when your app fails while you're reading headlines on a news site. But for some apps, a crash can actually harm business. For example, a customer trying to purchase something through an app may give up and not buy the product if it crashes, Ramanathan explained.
The 5S might be seeing more crashes than the 5C because of its new hardware, which wasn't available to developers before its launch, Ramanathan said. The iPhone 5S includes a dual-core, 64-bit A7 chip that's nearly twice as fast as the A6 CPU, the chip that both the 5 and 5C have.
He added that he expects the crash rate on the 5S to improve as developers have time to test their apps on the new hardware.
"When you change a lot of hardware, you're going to have cases where issues crop up," Ramanathan said. "Give it a few months. You'll see the crash rate render down to the norm."
To study crash rates, Crittercism looked at hundreds of millions of app launches since the release of the new iPhones.
Have you experienced increased app crashes on your iPhone 5S? Tell us in the comments, below. | <urn:uuid:641b01df-e4a3-47b5-8acc-9d023104624f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://mashable.com/2013/10/12/iphone-5s-apps-crash/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280872.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00315-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961505 | 381 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Amid a surge in refugees at the southern border, the Biden administration is planning to double the refugee cap from 62,500 to 125,000.
Since taking office, Biden has already approved one increase of the refugee cap from 15,000 to 62,500 in May. At the time, a statement released by the White House suggested that the limit “did not reflect America’s values as a nation that welcomes and supports refugees.” Continuing, Biden said, “The new admissions cap will also reinforce efforts that are already underway to expand the United States’ capacity to admit refugees, so that we can reach the goal of 125,000 refugee admissions that I intend to set for the coming fiscal year.”
The administration aimed to “remove any lingering doubt” that potential refugees may have about entering the states. In contrast, the Trump administration closely monitored and limited the acceptance of refugees. In December of 2019, FBA reported, “[The Trump Administration] plans to decrease the amount of refugees the U.S. accepts in 2020 to 18,000, 12,000 less than 2019’s 30,000 refugee cap.”
Initially, the Biden administration suggested it would maintain former President Trump’s 15,000 refugee admission cap. However, in less than 10 months the number increased by fourfold. Since the beginning of the year, refugees have arrived in unprecedented numbers from a number of crisis-stricken countries, including Guatemala, Cuba, and Haiti.
Many refugees arrive with the belief that President Biden will be more welcoming than the previous administration, especially after the reversal of Trump-era border policies. Refugees arriving from Afghanistan will also contribute to the surge in numbers. Tens of thousands of Afghan refugees will be arriving and settling in nearly all 50 states after the US helped them flee the Taliban.
ARTICLE: ANTOINETTE AHO
MANAGING EDITOR: CARSON CHOATE
PHOTO CREDITS: GALLUP
Latest posts by Antoinette Aho (see all)
- Arizona legislative staffer issued $2.75 million verdict after being allegedly discriminatorily fired - November 15, 2021
- Ohio Republican lawmakers pushing an even more restrictive abortion law than Texas - November 15, 2021
- Sen. Manchin notes inflation is ‘getting worse’ as House posies to vote on social spending package - November 15, 2021 | <urn:uuid:5e78808c-c896-498a-a59c-760cd5498bf6> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://fbanews.org/2021/09/25/amid-surge-at-border-biden-administration-doubles-refugee-cap-from-62500-to-125000/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572408.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816151008-20220816181008-00679.warc.gz | en | 0.941501 | 493 | 1.890625 | 2 |
Disability Rights Advocates in South Korea have been demonstrating for improved accessibility and protection from discrimination by blocking access to key subway stations in Seoul. April 15th marked the 91st day of these protests and demonstrations (beginning on World Disability Day). Public transit access has been difficult for people living with disabilities to say the least. A paraplegic couple intending on visiting their son on the Lunar New Year used a wheelchair lift at a subway station and fell 23 feet, with the wife dying and the husband severely injured. A blind English teacher, who got off at a station he did not know the layout of, fell onto train tracks because no safety doors had been installed.
While a law passed in December to increase wheelchair access on rural and city buses, it excluded intercity buses and it allowed local governments to opt out of other measures like procuring taxis, on budgetary grounds. The laws the advocacy group SADD (Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination) would have pushed for President-Elect Yun Seok-yul to defend and expand anti-discrimination as while the South Korean Constitution requires that all citizens are equal before the law, discrimination remains effectively legal to minority groups.
SADD had used the extremely close Presidential race to pressure both candidates into supporting their goals, but with what many are calling “Korea’s Trump” coming into power getting these into law seem less likely. Yun rode a wave of male resentment to power in the country with his People’s Power Party, where his main supporters were concerned that recent enfranchisement of minorities would lead to “Reverse Discrimination”. The messaging should be very familiar. Lee Jun-seok, head of the PPP and the President’s confidante wrote the following on Facebook
“The underdog framing that minorities are always in the right no longer convinces the people. They are relying on a long-obsolete politics of gaslighting, stereotyping the majority as the evil and the minority as the untouchably holy.”
Expectations were not high for Yun’s administration, he called for abolishing the Ministry of Women and Family, stating that women do not suffer systemic discrimination. It would seem that advocates at SADD are at the center of a much larger fight for recognition and protection. But many of the activists at the head of SADD have been active, and effective, for decades. Park Kyeong-sok, co-director of the organization, led a similar demonstration in the 90s that led to the then-Mayor of Seoul and one day President Lee Myung-Bak to install elevators at all stations within the city by 2004. More than 90% have elevators as of today, compared to 30% in New York City.
With any luck, they will be able to fight for their right to live and work with respect and dignity. | <urn:uuid:c021d52b-94c4-49a3-be20-e3fe99c2b0bf> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://the-avocado.org/2022/04/21/the-thursday-politics-thread-blocks-the-subway/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570767.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808061828-20220808091828-00471.warc.gz | en | 0.967368 | 598 | 2.578125 | 3 |
GWS took a lesson every day and was stunned by the improvement and ensuing tan that followed.
And between 2008 and 2010, Oakland has outpaced the rest of California in improvement at the elementary- and middle-school levels.
And while I liked Jim Webb, Tim Kaine is probably an improvement there.
Thanks, Dave, for reaching out to me and bringing this improvement into my life.
Obama called it “an improvement over current law and is a welcome step toward closing the facility,”
Recent reports of grand juries note some improvement in their conduct.
It is not a matter of decency, of alteration or improvement in manners.
Can you imagine that I have any other end in view than the improvement of your health?
Really, he needn't have explained what the improvement was for.
Fear of her fathers threat to send her away to a convent school if she did not show rapid signs of improvement made her pause.
mid-15c., enprowment "management of something for profit," from Anglo-French emprowement, from emprouwer "turn to profit" (see improve). Meaning "betterment; amelioration" is from 1640s. Meaning "buildings, etc. on a piece of property" is from 1773. Related: Improvements. | <urn:uuid:02e17ae7-24a0-4c19-8e45-ea7648bdcda0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.dictionary.com/browse/improvement?qsrc=2446 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00330-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965699 | 272 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Bulgaria's 'Chilly Welcome' to Syrian Refugees
By Rayna Stamboliyska
As the civil war in Syria continues, refugees are desperately seeking refuge. It seems that Bulgaria has consistently preferred to engage in exacerbating the situation. Bulgarians have built a wall and are allowing far-right xenophobic rhetoric to prevail.
Over two million people have fled the havoc in Syria and sought refuge in bordering countries; at least one million of them are children, estimated the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) back in August 2013. Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq are the top five countries where most have resettled. Over the past several months, however, the exodus has shifted to Europe. For the majority of Syrians searching for a safe EU haven, the journey starts in Turkey where refugee smuggling blossoms. Today, Bulgaria counts over 10,000 refugees, an atypical surge this European border country was unprepared for.
Despite financial help from the EU, the Bulgarian government has consistently preferred to engage in exacerbating the situation. Intensifying influx of refugees in the country prompted the opening of more camps to host the newcomers. These hellholes are in incredibly squalid conditions, but this is where the Bulgarian government welcomes asylum seekers. In October 2013, Interior Minister Tsvetlin Yovchev played the tough guy and sacked the head of Bulgaria's Refugee Agency for "failing to handle the influx." Yet, reception centres continue to be overcrowded, Syrians undergo an administrative hassle for weeks, and food, clothing and medicine are largely funded by donations from ordinary citizens.
The official excuse for not providing humane and dignified conditions for the refugees was "tight finances." Bulgaria is indeed the EU's poorest member, and media outlets have asked whether the country should shelter even more people in need. Yet, Bulgaria has recently received 6.4 million euros (8.8 million USD) from the EU's Refugee Fund and 2 million euros (2.7 million USD) in aid from the Czech Republic and Slovakia; funds specifically dedicated to managing the Syrian refugees influx. Thus, the "tight finances" should not be a barrier any more.
In a recent interview with Bulgarian daily "Capital", Vincent Cochetel, Director of the Bureau for Europe of UNHCR, highlighted the government's mismanagement. Although UNHCR has offered to supply food and clothing for the harsh winter season, the organization faces a solid mess orchestrated and nurtured by the government. The millions of EU aid are managed by Bulgaria's Ministry of Interior prior to reaching the State Agency for Refugees. The latter, however, is unable to wisely use them as it is still in the process of hiring people who will in turn decide upon the use of this money - decisions which will then transform into public tenders. All this takes time, and EU aid is to be used before the end of April 2014. It is likely that Doctors Without Borders efforts also face bureaucracy and sluggishness. While the Bulgarian government continues its white-collar exercise in futility, life conditions for Syrian refugees just worsen.
Wall(s) of shame
This description of the government's efforts hardly does justice to other bolder moves. In order to curtail the migrant influx, the government is building a 33-km long, 3-meter tall fence in the mountainous region of Elhovo (close to the border with Turkey where about 85% of people are crossing). Referred to as a "temporary engineering installation," the wall is said to cost 3 million euros (4 million USD) and would serve to redirect refugees to official border checkpoints. UNHCR thinks the wall is counterproductive as it will only push people to engage in more dangerous practices to enter the country. These barriers have proven effective; thus for instance, since Greece completed a heavily-guarded 10.5-km barbed-wire fence in 2012, smugglers have focused their activities on Bulgaria.
As these families and children in a desperate search for shelter seem to represent a serious threat to national security, the Ministers of Defense and of Interior have engaged in mobilizing significant numbers of police and army personnel both along the border with Turkey and within the country. In a press conference end of November 2013, the Minister of Defense praised the decision to deploy the army and police: "At the moment, with the current heightened police and army presence on the territory, the amount of people crossing through the Bulgarian border without permission has diminished significantly." As with the wall of shame, it appears that funds are not too tight here: sending police to the border and sustaining their activities there actually cost double the budget of Bulgaria's State Agency for Refugees.
The government's latest bright idea was to build closed camps, that is detention centres, to receive incoming refugees. Such measures are illegal according to EU legislation; detention without criminal charges can only last for a short time and after a judge has issued a precisely worded warrant. The Interior Minister appears to have a selective memory and wildly varying ethical principles: while he is perfectly fine welcoming people fleeing war by putting them in a prison, he has appealed to the EU to remove Schengen restrictions on Bulgaria. In his bargain for visa-free travel for Bulgarians. Here, the Interior Minister claimed that the country's role – "guarding the [EU] border ... and neutralizing the risks for Europe" – should be rewarded as "[i]t will be unjust to keep those who guard the gate outside the house."
The Defense Minister estimated that each asylum seeker costs the country 1,084 leva (558 euros, 758 USD) per month, mostly in administration and facility costs. When reported by media, the number was interpreted as money asylum seekers received directly. Registered refugees actually receive only 65 leva (33 euros, 45 USD) per month to cover expenses.
The clarification, however, did little to quench the nationalist party, Ataka's obnoxious declarations. Ataka, VMRO and other far-right factions have used refugees to ignite xenophobia, and at least three racially motivated attacks have been reported. Ataka has been noisily protesting against incoming refugees, threatening "civil war" and happily alleging openly on the media how migrants are actually criminals sent from "Black Africa" to disrupt Bulgaria's national union and alter its ethnic homogeneity. After an Ataka MP warned the country that Syrian refugees were "cannibals" and that their presence was designed to disguise an "Islamic wave" supported by American and Turkish interests, a group of Syrian refugees have filed a complaint before the State Commission for Discrimination.
Such delirious and dangerous rhetoric has unfortunately turned out to be rather fruitful: on November 9, a new nationalist party was founded promising to "cleanse the country of foreign immigrant scum." Additionally, according to a poll by Alpha Research, 83% of Bulgarians see the influx of refugees as a risk to national security. Support for Ataka (23 seats in Parliament) has doubled in October-November. Ultra-nationalist factions have seized the opportunity and formed 'citizen patrols' to check whether migrants "comply with the law of the State". Some of these claimed to have official authorization by the authorities. The government 's best effort so far has been to "urge calm."
Despite pervasive hate speech and a governmental program riddled with weaknesses, but supposed to deal with the influx, Syrian refugees and citizens who help them were granted the Human of the Year award. The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, a human rights NGO, organizing the awards, honored these people for "their strength, faith and courage [needed to] leave home and country, and risking death, inhumane and humiliating treatment, to attempt to live in dignity. [The reward also honors] Syrian refugees' resistance to injustice and their determination to not be victims, but human beings."
- » NY Times: As Support for EU Flags Elsewhere, Bulgaria Sees Its Benefits
- » DW: German Businesses Prefer Trade with Bulgaria over Investment
- » The Economist: Bulgaria, Moldova Presidents 'Less Pro-Russian Than Advertised'
- » AFP: Bulgaria's Radev 'Struck a Chord by Attacking the Status Quo'
- » Politico: Bulgaria May Veer Shaprly Back into Moscow Orbit after Presidential Vote
- » Bulgaria's Radev 'Benefited from Popular Resentment against Coalition' - FT
The only thing we need to provide for our Syrian "guests" is a lift in a cattle-truck back to the Turkish border and a push back over it. These people are NOT in peril by the time they pay their people-smuggling "tourist agents" to bring them to the nearest part of the EU: let them return to somewhere near their own country, ready to return home and rebuild their lives rather than seeking hand-outs from countries which didn't invite them, doesn't want them and can't afford them.....
This was a good and accurate report of the conditions and treatment of the Syrians by the Bulgarian authorities. The help we must give them is not based on some bleeding heart ideas but rather a humane effort to save the lives and families in peril and especially their children. This government has to learn how to "cut the red tape" and get the EU money into the pipeline immediately to help these people. The Bulgarians have always cared for others even when it wasn't popular or safe to do so. The saving of thousands of Jews by the Bulgarian people in WWII is an undeniable tribute to a giving and caring people. The Syrians are here and we must do our best to provide for them until they can provide for themselves.
More Leftie rubbish from the Bleeding Hearts who want to feel good about getting other people to fund their airy-fairy Champagne Socialist policies. This bunch of free-loaders are NOT "refugees" - they're just a bunch of economic migrants looking to sneak into the EU to get a nice Benefits Lifestyle at someone else's expense.... | <urn:uuid:fd17fbef-4f07-4b56-983f-9ebae6c1616d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=157888 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280761.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00097-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96111 | 2,029 | 1.914063 | 2 |
Viral methods, in particular attenuated rabies virus (RV), have become a widely used part of the toolbox for mapping mammalian neural circuits. It is often assumed, despite surprisingly little evidence, that RV spreads strictly across synapses. Here I show that, for barrel cortex circuits, circuits mapped using neurophysiology and one-step (‘monosynaptically restricted’) RV mapping show little quantitative correspondence. For example, certain types of GABAergic interneurons that are known to receive little functional input from thalamus show relatively strong ‘input’ from thalamus by RV mapping, suggesting non-synaptic spread, or efficient spread through weak synapses. To gain an understanding of the functional organization of neural circuits, RV mapping studies need to be combined with quantitative methods that actually map synaptic connections. Moreover, to advance viral methods for mapping circuits, a better understanding of the mechanisms of trans-cellular viral spread and the resultant biases is needed.
Below I outline issues with interpreting one-step RV experiments that are well-known to some (‘you are preaching to the choir!’), but not known to many others in the field (‘holy guacamole, are you serious?’). Many investigators are not aware how little is known about the mechanisms underlying viral tracing for mapping synaptic circuits (‘I assumed enough was known about the virology that the issue of transsynaptic spread was settled’). I have two main motivations for writing this piece: i) Dampen enthusiasm for one-step RV tracing as a silver bullet for the classic hard problem in brain research, namely to map synaptically coupled neurons over all spatial scales. ii) Stimulate work to characterize the mechanisms of trans-cellular viral spread and to improve the efficiency and specificity of these promising tools. Note that this is an opinion piece, not a research paper, nor a review of the field, so coverage is idiosyncratic and referencing is sparse.
The flow of information in neural networks is determined in large part by synaptic connections. Synapses require overlap of axonal and dendritic arbors (or dendrites, for dendrodendritic synapses). The shapes of axonal and dendritic arbors therefore provide an important source of specificity in neural networks. A classic view is that the overlap of axons and dendrites defines synaptic circuits (i.e. ‘Peters rule’): where axons and dendrites are sufficiently close, synaptic connections occur. Quantitative versions of this principle have long been used to produce approximate circuit diagrams in the cortex (e.g. (Binzegger et al., 2004)). The data underlying this structural view of connectivity is based on a rich toolbox of anterograde and retrograde tracers, as well as intracellular labeling. Over the last decade various engineered viruses have become widely used for anterograde and retrograde tracing.
The structural view of connectivity is an over-simplification. First, connectivity is cell type-specific: one cell type preferentially connects to a subset of specific cell types and less with other cell types, despite similar overlap of axonal and dendritic arbors. For example, thalamocortical axons from VPM target L4 of the barrel cortex. VPM axons make strong and numerous synapses with parvalbumin (PV) expressing fast-spiking (FS) interneurons and excitatory stellate cells, but make only weak functional connections with somatostatin (Sst) interneurons (Cruikshank et al., 2010). Similarly, in cortical local circuits the major classes of interneurons interact in a cell type-specific manner (Pfeffer et al., 2013).
Second, beyond specificity at the level of cell types, cortical circuits show so-called fine-scale specificity. This specificity manifests in various ways. Nearby pyramidal neurons have low connection probability (on the order of 0.1). However, pairs of pyramidal neurons that are connected in one direction are also highly likely to be connected in the reciprocal directions (Song et al., 2005). The receptive fields of neighboring pyramidal neurons can have very different properties, suggesting specific inputs to individual neurons. For example, in the mouse visual cortex, nearby neurons have nearly uncorrelated tuning to the orientation and direction of moving stimuli. Fine-scale specificity in synaptic connectivity underlies selectivity in these neuronal responses and likely is critical to explain the computational power of the brain (Ko et al., 2011).
There is great interest in methods that map connections between individual neurons, or between groups of genetically defined neurons. In particular, methods that produce transgene expression in synaptically-coupled circuits would be very powerful. Expression of fluorescent proteins then enables brain-wide anatomy. Imaging activity using protein-based probes for calcium and other sensors would help delineate how activity in input neurons shape activity in their targets, a major goal of neuroscience. Expression of optogenetic reagents would allow testing of hypotheses about how neurons influence each other and how activity in defined neurons influences behavior.
Viral methods have been used for more than 20 years for transneuronal labeling. In the absence of evidence, I use the term ‘transneuronal’ rather than ‘transsynaptic’ (more below). Retrogradely transported rabies virus (RV) and pseudo-rabies virus (PRV) spreads from starter cells to nearby neurons. These viruses have been workhorses in neuroanatomy (Card and Enquist, 2001; Ugolini, 1995). They have been used to discover new macro-scale circuits (Dum and Strick, 2013). However, viral spread across chains of multiple neurons can complicate interpretation.
An exciting and conceptually clever development was the invention of schemes that limit the spread of RV to one-step of transmission. To restrict viral spread, the gene encoding the glycoprotein (G), which forms the viral capsid, was deleted from the RV genome (RVdG) (Callaway and Luo, 2015; Wickersham et al., 2007). Expression of G and RVdG infection defines “starter cells” which can produce infectious virus. The virus then exits cells (presumably dendrites) and spreads to putative “input cells”. However, these input cells do not produce G and spread from the input cells does not occur. The number and spatial distribution of different types of infected ‘input cells’ is the primary measurement in the experiment. The somata of input cells can be anywhere in the brain, facilitating brain-wide analysis of putative connectivity. I refer to this scheme ‘one-step RV’ (often referred to as ‘monosynaptically restricted RV’). Hundred of studies have been published using one-step RV to trace neural circuits.
Despite this profusion of activity, it is unknown how RV spreads from cell to cell. Direct evidence for synapse-specific spread is sparse and circumstantial. This was the case in 2008, when I had the privilege to coauthor a review on circuit cracking methods, including viral methods, with Ed Callaway and Liqun Luo (Luo et al., 2008). A decade later Ed, Liqun and I wrote an update on the same topic (Luo et al., 2018). In the intervening decade one-step RV has gained great popularity, but little had changed in terms of our understanding of what the collection of ‘input cells’ actually represents in terms of neural circuits.
The barrel cortex is one of the best understood central neural circuit in terms of cell types and their functional connections. Cell type-specific connections have been mapped by multiple laboratories using quantitative neurophysiological methods, producing a consensus view of major features of the circuit. One-step RV mapping experiments have produced results that are in dissonance with the field’s understanding of the organization of barrel cortex circuits. Below I briefly compare barrel cortex circuits mapped with one-step RV. I focus on the state-of-the-art work from Ed’s and Liqun’s labs, because these studies have been done with sufficient care that quantitative comparisons with neurophysiological studies are possible (in particular, the number and distributions of starter cells were quantified). These comparisons reveal that one-step RV-based tracing fails to capture key information about functional connectivity at the level of defined cell types. I focus on barrel cortex simply because a lot of detailed circuit mapping has been done using different experimental modes, but the issues that emerge are general.
Specificity of viral transfer
The basic idea of RV-based circuit mapping is that RV spreads strictly across synapses, and more so through strongly connected pathways, so that the patterns of labeled input cells would provide quantitative information about the synaptic input to the starter cells. In fact, the moniker ‘monosynaptic RV’ has taken hold for one-step RV. It’s useful to ask what synapse-specificity might mean for the analysis of neural circuits? Let us qualitatively distinguish four levels of synapse-specificity.
- Strong synapse-specificity (SSS). The number of synapses and/or synaptic strength are the primary determinants of viral spread. Cell type-specific viral tropism and cell biology play no role in viral spread. In other words, given a starter cell, the number of ‘input cells’ is proportional to the number of synapses made with the input cells and the strength of the synapses. Note that this definition of ‘strong synapse-specificity’ does not require efficient transfer to input cells. Rather the spread to different types of input cells should be proportional to overall synaptic strength, and independent of the identity of the input cell.
- Medium synapse-specificity (MSS). Same as above, but allowing for biases, such as moderate tropism for specific cell types. The proportion of different types of input cells would still reflect the rank order of overall synaptic connectivity with different types of input cells.
- Weak synapse-specificity (WSS). Same as above, but allowing for strong biases, such as pronounced tropism for one input cell type over another. The rank order of synaptic strengths is not reflected in the number of input cells. The key requirement is that RV spread is limited to cells that are synaptically coupled with the input cells.
- No synapse-specificity (NSS). The virus spreads across non-synaptic junctions by ‘proximity’, perhaps in addition to synaptic junctions. It is unlikely that RV can spread far in the extracellular space, given its large size. Therefore proximity here refers to distances on the order of 1 micrometers. However, on length scales of 1 micrometer the substrates for spread by proximity are abundant. For example, in cortical tissue appositions (i.e. apposed membranes) of axon and dendrite are mostly non-synaptic (Figure 1). In addition, exocytosis happens along the dendrite in non-synaptic membranes (Patterson et al., 2010). For these reasons a viral particle leaving a starter cell might well first encounter an axon or presynaptic terminal that is not actually connected to the starter cell.
So, why does the community refer to ‘one-step RV’ as ‘monosynaptic RV’? A classic RV study mapping the circuits underlying facial motor control is often cited in support for synapse-specificity for RV virus (Ugolini, 1995). RV was injected into the hypoglossal nerve. Early after infection labeling was limited to the hypoglossal nucleus. Labeling then spread to premotor neurons in the medulla and later still to the mesencephalon and the cortex. The paper shows that RV infection is ‘specific’ in the sense that i) the virus does not spread promiscuously to all neighboring neurons and glia from infected neurons and ii) the locations of infected input cells are roughly in line with expectations (e.g. motor cortex but not somatosensory cortex). These results are entirely consistent with spread by proximity.
The original one-step RV paper contained some paired electrophysiological recordings of starter cells and input cells in slice cultures (Wickersham et al., 2007). These experiments were suggestive of preference for synaptic spread. But this study was not sufficiently comprehensive to be conclusive and the slice culture preparation is not representative for the situation in the intact brain.
Additional evidence comes from a couple of heroic studies, in which the receptive field of a mouse visual cortex starter cell was characterized (Wertz et al., 2015) (Rossi et al, doi.org/10.1101/556795). Input cells were transduced with RV expressing GCaMP, a calcium indicator, so that the receptive fields of the input cells could also be assessed. In some cases, the input cells shared orientation selectivity with the starter cell (especially in the Rossi et al study). This shows that input cells with specific receptive fields can be preferentially labeled, providing some evidence for preference for connected neurons within a class. However, it is still possible, even likely, that the axons of the labeled input cells are locally more intertwined with the dendrites of the starter cells, which would make synapses as well as viral spread more probable, independent of the RV route. In other words, this experiment still tells us relatively little about specificity in RV spread.
I note again that substrates for spread by proximity (rather than synapses) are abundant. Dendritic exocytosis occurs at non-synaptic sites (Patterson et al., 2010). Axons often touch dendrites without making synapses. In fact, in cortical circuits non-synaptic touches outnumber synaptic touches by several-fold (Mishchenko et al., 2010). This point is sometimes hard to convey. For a clear explanation and demonstration see the gorgeous EM study on mouse cortex from the Lichtman lab (Kasthuri et al., 2015). A rabies particle released by a starter cell therefore likely first encounters an axon from a cell that is not synaptically connected.
Figure 1. Schematic showing possible mechanisms for non-synaptic spread and cell type-specific biases in the efficiency of spread. Left, the process of transcellular spread from starter cell (magenta) to input cell (green). The viral production (1), retrograde transport (2), exocytosis (3), endocytosis (4), and axonal transport (5) etc all could have rates that differ across different cell types. Right, blow-up shows how an exocytosed viral particle likely encounters axons that are not connected to the starter cell (the green axon), at least in neocortex and hippocampus where the relevant ultrastructural analysis has been done. This provides a pathway for non-synaptic spread by proximity. Proximity refers here to distances on the order of 1 micrometers. It is unlikely that RV can spread far in the extracellular space, given its large size.
In addition, potential mechanisms for strong cell type-specific biases, independent of synaptic connectivity, are also abundant (Figure 1). Viral production likely proceeds at different rates in different types of starter cells. Starter cells might also differ in mechanisms and efficiency of dendritic transport and exocytosis. Viruses naturally tend to display tropism for one cell type over another, as a rule rather than the exception. For example, investigators report different results with different strains of RV (e.g. N2c vs SADB19). Tropism is especially acute at very low titers, such as those produced by sparse starter cells. These considerations alone make SSS and MSS unlikely, and suggest WSS or NSS for RV tracing.
Barrel cortex circuits
Indeed, comparisons of barrel cortex circuits mapped with one-step RV and neurophysiological methods indicate that one-step RV-based tracing does not show SSS or MSS, instead demonstrating WSS or NSS.
Barrel cortex circuits have been studied for decades with quantitative neurophysiological methods that have synaptic resolution. Paired recordings in brain slices have measured connection probabilities and unitary synaptic potentials (uEPSP, a measure of synaptic strength) between nearby neurons. Many synaptic connections have been probed in multiple studies in mouse and rat, with largely consistent results (Lefort et al., 2009; Ma et al., 2012). In local circuits the results from paired recordings generally agree with ultrastructural analysis at the level of synapses (e.g. stronger uEPSP between cells implies larger numbers of synapses; e.g. (Markram et al., 1997)). Brain slice neurophysiological studies have to be interpreted with some caution, because longer pathways are more likely to be reduced by the brain slicing procedure. I therefore restrict the analysis of brain slice studies to circuits that span short distances and comparisons over similar spatial scales (i.e. L2 → L3 & L2 → L2).
A widely used method for measuring long-range synaptic connectivity is ChR-assisted circuit mapping (CRACM). CRACM measures connections between presynaptic ChR-positive neurons and postsynaptic neurons that are targeted by whole-cell recordings (Petreanu et al., 2007). Because ChR-positive axons can be photostimulated even if they are severed from their parent somata, CRACM can be used to quantify connections that are not preserved in brain slices. CRACM provides quantitative comparisons of inputs from the same stimulated presynaptic input across different postsynaptic neuronal populations, which can be compared to one-step RV tracing.
In addition, a great deal is known about the propagation of sensory stimuli through barrel cortex circuits (Figure 2). For example, in response to touch, neurons in the ventral posterior medial nucleus of the thalamus (VPM) produce a single spike with high probability, short latency (3 ms), and low latency jitter (< 1 ms) (Figure 2D). Similarly, short-latency spikes and EPSPs are detected in L4 & 5 excitatory and PV neurons. In contrast, in Sst neurons touch evokes spikes and EPSPS with a substantial delay, or even shows hyperpolarization after touch (Biorxiv 554949) (Gentet et al., 2012). Similarly, VIP interneurons are not excited by touch (Biorxiv 554949) . This suggests that L4 & 5 excitatory and PV neurons receive strong driving input from VPM, but Sst and VIP neurons do not. Below I compare RV tracing and ephys for three cases.
1. RV mapping of inputs to GABAergic neurons
Multiple studies have reported one-step RV tracing in the barrel cortex. Most use EnVA pseudotyped RVdG, which can only infect mammalian cells expressing the avian receptor TVA. Wall et al (2016) analyze the long-range inputs to GABAergic interneurons (Wall et al., 2016). They use PV, Sst or VIP neurons as starter cells. The paper represents an impressive amount of work. The analysis involves careful quantification of starter cells (expressing protein G and also mCherry encoded in the RVdG genome) and input cells (expressing mCherry).
Figure 2. Comparison of connections measured by one-step RV and electrophysiology. A, Inputs per starter cell for Sst, FS interneurons (PV) and VIP interneurons (Wall et al., 2016). NOTE: Color scheme is different in panels A vs B-D. B, Circuit based on one-step RV, which reports powerful input from VPM to fast-spiking (FS) parvalbumin-positive interneurons, as well as Sst- and VIP-expressing interneurons. C, Circuit based on in vivo and in vitro electrophysiology, which shows powerful VPM input to FS interneurons, but not to Sst or VIP interneurons. D, Touch-evoked responses in VPM, barrel cortex (L4 FS and Sst, excitatory (E) neurons are shown, but other layers are similar) and VIP interneurons across layers (cyan) (Biorxiv 554949). Note that Sst neurons are excited long after FS and E neurons, reflecting input from E neurons but not VPM neurons (for consistent data from brain slices see for example (Cruikshank et al., 2010)).
Wall et al find that VPM input to PV and Sst neurons is similar (0.8 vs 0.6 inputs per starter cell; statistically indistinguishable). This finding is difficult to square with neurophysiological experiments. First, CRACM experiments have shown that input from VPM is 20-fold stronger to PV neurons than for Sst neurons (Cruikshank et al., 2010). Second, PV neurons and stellate cells show short-latency PSPs and bursts of action potentials after touch (Biorxiv 554949). Some Sst neurons show PSPs and bursts of action potentials after touch; but these responses are delayed, caused by excitatory drive from L4 stellate cells, but not VPM cells (Figure 2) (see also whole cell recordings in Biorxiv 554949).
Furthermore, Wall et al report even stronger input from VPM to VIP neurons (1.7 inputs per starter cell). However, VIP do not show short-latency touch responses in vivo. Many are inhibited by touch (Biorxiv 554949) (Figure 2D). The electrophysiological and one-step RV data are therefore difficult to reconcile (cf Figure 2B, C).
A few other features of the one-step RV tracing of long-range inputs to barrel cortex interneurons are cause for concern. First, efficiency of spread is low on average (on the order of 1 neuron labeled per input cell). In contrast, individual L4 PV neurons likely receive input from nearly 200 VPM neurons (Bruno and Sakmann, 2006). Second, the efficiency of spread (input cells per starter cell) varies greatly across individual experiments (by a factor of nearly 10). The mechanisms underlying this variability are not understood and these factors could skew RV spread in the context of circuit mapping. Third, across all inputs and interneuron classes, VIP neurons receive the strongest input. This is indicative of cell-autonomous mechanisms related to the starter cell determining the efficiency of viral spread, rather than synaptic connectivity (e.g. more efficient overall production and release of RV particles from VIP neurons compared to other GABAergic interneurons).
2. RV mapping of interlaminar connections
Let’s consider local inputs (i.e. within < 200 micrometers or so) to excitatory starter cells in defined barrel cortex layers (DeNardo et al., 2015). This paper contains many interesting experiments that are not relevant to the discussion here. I focus on local excitatory circuits within a layer, or across neighboring layers. For these local circuits, RV mapping can be directly compared with results from neurophysiological circuit mapping in brain slices. In short, in these studies RV does not recapitulate the rank order of strength of input based on synaptic connectivity. Below is an illustration of the kind of calculation one needs to do to compare RV tracing and ephys. Skip to the next section (Inputs from GABAergic neurons), unless you are really interested in the details.
In one experiment, L2 & 3 pyramidal neurons were used as starter cells and produced labeling of L2 & 3 pyramidal neurons (neurons in other layers were also labeled, but I will not treat these because of limitations of the neurophysiological methods in brain slices over longer distances). Based on classical anatomy, axons of L2 and L3 pyramidal neurons both overlap with the dendrites of L2 and L3 pyramidal neurons and connections are expected (I am not aware of exceptions for excitatory neurons). The question is if RV can predict the rank order of connectivity strength between these cell groups.
In all cases the overall proportion of neurons that were either starter cells or input cells was low. Confusion of real starter cells with neurons that express G but were later labeled via other starter cells is therefore not likely to be a concern.
Based on the proportions of starter cells across L2 & L3, neurophysiology measurements allow us to predict the strength of input to L2 vs L3. This is a prediction of the distribution of input across L2 & L3 produced by this configuration of starter cells. The calculation can be done using measured connection probability, or can in addition take the strength of unitary input into account (since the unitary EPSPS across the neuronal populations is similar, these estimates are nearly identical) (data from (Lefort et al., 2009)) (Figure 3). The predicted ratios of input cells are L2: 0.56 & L3: 0.44 . The measured numbers based on one-step RV are L2: 0.19 & L3: 0.81. RV does not recapitulate the rank order of strength of input based on synaptic connectivity.
|Input strength from one-step RV||Proportions of starter cells||Proportion of input cells of all layers||Proportion of input to Layer (from L2 & 3)|
Connection data from LeFort et al 2009:
L2–>L2: Connection probability, p_22 = 0.09; uEPSP, u_22 = 0.5
L3–>L2: Connection probability, p_32 = 0.12; uEPSP, u_32 = 0.6
L2–>L3: Connection probability, p_23 = 0.05; uEPSP, u_23 = 0.4
L3–>L3: Connection probability, p_33 = 0.19; uEPSP, u_33 = 0.5
|Projection strength from ephys||Proportions of starter cells||Input predicted by paired recordings (LeFort et al 2009)||Proportion of input to Layer (from L2 & 3)|
|Layer 2||Prop. of L2 starter cells [L2]=0.75||[L2]*p_22*u_22+[L3]*p_32*u_32=0.75*0.09*0.5+0.23*0.12*0.6=0.05||0.56|
|Layer 3||Prop. of L3 starter cells [L3]=0.23||[L2]*p_23*u_23+[L3]*p_33*u_33=0.75*0.05*0.4+0.23*0.19*0.5=0.04||0.44|
Figure 3. Comparison of intracortical connections measured by one-step RV and electrophysiology in brain slices. Top, figure panel from DeNardo et al 2015, showing starter cells across layers (left) and input cells across layers (right). Orange bars show predicted inputs based on electrophysiology overlaid on the corresponding measurements. Bottom, tables show input strengths from one-step RV (blue) and predicted based on electrophysiology (red) (data based on paired recordings from LeFort et al 2009). If RV measures strength of inputs then the relative strengths of inputs calculated from ephys (red) and RV (blue) should correspond.
In a separate set of experiments, L6 neurons were used as starter cells. RV mapping revealed numerous input cells in L3, suggesting strong input from L3 (Fig 1d, (DeNardo et al., 2015)). However, this connection is known to be almost undetectable weak (Fig 1g, (DeNardo et al., 2015)) (Hooks et al., 2011; Lefort et al., 2009).
3. Inputs from GABAergic neurons to pyramidal neurons
Finally, studies in the barrel cortex have revealed a qualitative mismatch between one-step RV and electrophysiology at the level of entire cell populations. L1 neurons consist of up to four distinct GABAergic types. These neurons powerfully inhibit L23 pyramidal neurons. This is one of the strongest measured connections in the barrel cortex (Schuman et al., 2019) (high connection probability and IPSP amplitude from two distinct cell classes). Yet RV tracing with L23 pyramidal neuron starter cells labels no input cells in L1 (Fig. 2; Supp Fig. 1 in (Yetman et al., 2019); see also (DeNardo et al., 2015)). This implies a false negative problem at the level of entire cell classes.
Conclusions from RV tracing in BC
RV by itself does not provide a rank order of the strengths of inputs from different neuronal populations and fails to spread to entire cell classes. These comparisons imply that RV has at best WSS.
The barrel cortex results are consistent with biased non-synaptic spread (i.e. proximity). But it is difficult to be sure. Specificity between cell types is not absolute, but quantitative. For example, Sst neurons in L4 still receive some input from VPM, but it’s functionally 20-fold weaker than for PV neurons (Cruikshank et al., 2010). It is possible that RV spreads across Sst ← VPM synapses much more efficiently than across PV ← VPM synapses. In my view the assumption should be that, unless proven otherwise, RV spreads by proximity and possibly also via synapses (‘assume the worst, hope for the best’).
It is not straightforward to relate electrophysiological measurements to one-step RV. For example, electrophysiological measurements are less sensitive to electrotonically distant connections; or synapses might be functionally silent due to presynaptic modulation. For example, It is theoretically possible that Sst neurons make many ‘effectively silent’ synapses with VPM axons. An alternative analysis would compare one-step RV to anatomy, to analyze the neuropil in the vicinity of a single starter cell with high (synapse-level) resolution (i.e. a detailed and realistic view of the blow-up in Figure 1). This would require electron microscopy or super-resolution optical microscopy. Expansion microscopy is particularly interesting, since it can be performed in thick tissues and with standard, high-throughput fluorescence microscopy (Chen et al., 2015). Currently the anatomical data simply do not exist.
What is clear is that too little is known about what the population of ‘input cells’ represents in one-step RV experiments.
Clearly, one-step RV has been used to make interesting discoveries, especially in studies that combine viral tracing with other methods. For example (and there are many others), Beier et al have screened for cocaine-induced changes in transcellular spread from dopaminergic VTA neurons (Beier et al., 2017). They found enhanced labeling of GPe → VTA projections and tracked this down to a cocaine-dependent increase in GPe activity. Here the authors exploited modulation of transneuronal spread by neural activity. Of course, this same modulation is expected to confound studies of connectivity.
Why is one-step RV so widely used? The potential for mapping brain-wide connectivity is alluring. It’s a very clever idea and has a ‘modern’ feel. The patterns of input cells kinda-sorta look right. As noted above, it is not easy to refute a one-step RV pattern because in the vast majority of cases quantitative data on synaptic connectivity (functional or structural) are simply not available. But the truthiness of the input patterns does not imply that they represent a map of synaptic connectivity and they probably should not be reported as such.
What to do?
As we stated in our recent review: ‘Results of rabies tracing should therefore be treated as a roadmap for further studies’ (Luo et al., 2018). One-step RV tracing studies have to be followed up by methods with synaptic sensitivity. This could be electrophysiology or microscopy with synaptic resolution.
But why start with one-step RV tracing in the first place? Some studies would better start with standard retrograde tracing experiments using attenuated RV (Chatterjee et al., 2018), AAV retro (Tervo et al., 2016), CAV2 (Junyent and Kremer, 2015), or some of the excellent synthetic retrograde labels (Tsuriel et al., 2015) (ideally combinations thereof, to deal with the aforementioned tropism issues). These tools are cheaper, easier to use and likely provide less biased data and starting hypotheses about connectivity (i.e. in Figure 1, only processes 4 & 5 would produce cell type-specific biases; processes 1 – 3 are not involved). In some cases it may make sense to use one-step RV as a tool to simply restrict expression of a retrograde tracer to a spatially restricted group of starter cells.
Importantly, more effort has to go into understanding circuit mapping tools such as one-step RV. Combining one-step RV with electrophysiological methods or super-resolution imaging is key to learn about biased in a more comprehensive manner. The cell biology of the RV life cycle needs more attention. How is RV transported into dendrites and exocytosed, what is its residence time in the extracellular space, and what are the mechanisms of endocytosis into axons and retrograde axonal transport? With better cell biological understanding, synapse specificity could possibly be engineered into viral reagents. Finally, it may be possible to develop high-throughput screens for viruses showing synapse-specificity in dendritic exocytosis and axonal endocytosis.
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At one point, Johann Petursson was the tallest man alive. He was officially dethroned during his lifetime by the colossal Robert Wadlow but he is arguably the better remembered giant due to his showmanship, personality and longevity.
Johann was born in Dalvik, Iceland on February 9, 1913. He began life as Johann Svarfaelingur, the third child of nine and the only one of extraordinary size. By the time he was twenty-years-old, Johann stood a purported eight feet, eight inches tall and wore a size 24 shoe. He was a gentle man, a man of soft words and warmth. Despite towering over them, children loved Johann and he was more than happy to hoist them onto his shoulder.
During his adolescence Johann was a popular young man, due more to his outgoing personality than his height. In fact, he wasn’t treated as a ‘big deal’ in his town and the locals barely raised an eyebrow when the giant walked by. Petursson was just another one of the lads, well liked by all. Unfortunately, due to his height, he was unemployable in his hometown. Johann could not squeeze into the tiny local shops.
In 1934, Johann left for Denmark and it was there that he realized he could earn a living simply by exhibiting himself. He had a fine suit made to fit his mammoth frame, his measurements were taken by a team of three men, and he then set off in search of fame and fortune.
Johann Petursson proved to be quite successful throughout Europe. He performed in music halls in an act with two dwarfs. His tiny partners would play miniature accordions while Petursson stood between them and played instruments of enormous proportion. The act continued for several years until World War II. During the conflict Petursson found himself stranded in Copenhagen where he took a job in the shipyards and waited out the war.
Unlike many giants, who are actually quite physically frail, by all reports Johann was in good health and incredibly strong. His time at the shipyard went quickly and effortlessly. At the end of the war Petursson resumed touring Europe until he was discovered by John Ringling, of the Ringling Bros., and was contracted to appear in the United States.
Johann Petursson began touring with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey show during their 1948 season. Dressed in his Edwardian top hat and tails he began to command a salary of $200 a week. He also began selling giant-sized rings as souvenirs. While these rings fit his finger, one could also pass a silver dollar through them.
Petursson’s time with Ringling Bros. was brief. He soon joined a sideshow managed by Glen Porter and it was under the management of Porter that Johann would develop his most famous trademark. Porter, aware of Johann’s Icelandic and Nordic roots had his wife craft a costume consisting of Viking regalia and a giant helmet. Johann became known as The Viking Giant and his marketability instantly soared.
Eventually, Johann proved so popular and such a shrewd businessman that he broke away from management and went into business for himself. Petursson created a ‘Single-O’ show, a travelling show in which he was the only attraction. He saved over $50,000 in just five years which was a sizeable amount considering the era. Johan then decided to exhibit his enormous dimensions on the movie screen. In 1950 he starred opposite Jayne Mansfield as the prehistoric giant Guadi in Prehistoric Women. Thirty years later, he was featured in Carny, opposite Jodie Foster and Gary Busey. In 1981, he was featured in the astounding documentary Being Different with fellow marvel Robert Melvin.
At the age of 69, an incredible age for a giant, Johann initially retired to Gibsonton, Florida. His health, however, proved to falter quickly and soon he joined his brother in his beloved hometown of Dalvik. Johann Petursson died there on November 26, 1984. A museum now sits not far from his grave. His possessions still draw curious crowds and a stir sense of wonder. | <urn:uuid:476dbf7d-7ec6-4810-9e47-c6ab2a26aaea> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.thehumanmarvels.com/johann-petursson-the-viking-giant/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283689.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00350-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990062 | 860 | 2.578125 | 3 |
In Response: Plan for 'just transition' includes replacing Line 3
If we’re going to talk about a just energy transition, as Winona LaDuke discussed in her Aug. 9 commentary in the News Tribune (Native View: “ Urge Enbridge to make 'just transition' away from Line 3 ”), let’s agree that we need to keep energy affordable, safe, and reliable for everyone. Legitimate concerns about climate change lead many to believe we can move immediately to a 100% renewable world.
But all the scenarios in the World Energy Outlook, published by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2019, demonstrate we simply do not have the luxury of shutting down conventional energy any time soon. The world will need it for a long time to come.
The IEA forecasts a nearly 25% increase in global energy use between 2018 and 2040 due to population growth, urbanization, and increased access to energy by the developing world. “Energy is essential for humanity to develop and thrive,” the agency stated.
While the COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on our society, on our economies, and on the global energy industry, Enbridge performed stronger than expected during the first half of 2020. The volume of liquids we are moving per day is at or near the maximum capacities of our pipelines. Pipelines are the safest and most energy efficient method of transport for liquids like crude oil.
Renewables are a critical component of the energy mix and of Enbridge’s business, but the world is going to need all sources of energy to meet future consumption projections. If you don’t believe me, read the IEA’s World Energy Outlook for yourself.
Enbridge continues to reduce emissions on our oil and gas transportation and invest in renewables — more than $8 billion to date in projects like onshore and offshore wind generation. Our conservation programs have resulted in emissions reductions equivalent to taking more than 9 million cars off the road.
We are doing things that may surprise you, including renewable natural gas, which is the capturing of methane from garbage dumps and using it to fuel vehicles, and P2G, or power-to-gas, which turns water into hydrogen and uses existing infrastructure as an energy storage solution. The hydrogen then reduces emission intensity of natural gas.
In addition, replacing the existing Line 3 with new, thicker, technologically advanced pipe promises to better protect our environment and communities while transporting the energy that fuels our lives in the safest and most efficient way.
The old Line 3 is to be taken out of service following the installation of the new Line 3. We’ve come to agreements with the Fond du Lac and Leech Lake Bands on the decommissioning and removal of the old Line 3. We have already reached out to hundreds of landowners regarding our Landowner Choice program for Line 3. They will decide if they want Line 3 removed or cleaned and decommissioned in place.
From the beginning of this process, we’ve valued and respected the views and concerns of communities, including tribal nations. For Line 3, Fond du Lac led the longest and most extensive Tribal Cultural Resources Properties Survey ever performed on an energy infrastructure project in Minnesota. More than 30 tribes consulted in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ process.
Even before construction has begun, Enbridge has spent $110 million of a promised $100 million on contracting, training, and employment with Native businesses and individuals, including tribal monitors who are trained and ready to protect cultural resources once construction begins.
It is also worth noting that the Line 3 Replacement Project is the most studied pipeline project in Minnesota history with six years of regulatory and permitting review. This has included 70 public-comment meetings, appellate review and reaffirmation of a 13,500-page Environmental Impact Statement, 320 route modifications in response to stakeholder input, and multiple reviews and approvals by the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission for the project’s certificate of need and route permit. Now a contested case hearing for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency’s 401 Water Quality Certification is being overseen by a fourth administrative law judge assigned to review this project.
Transportation companies like Enbridge have a responsibility to safely deliver the energy that supports our quality of life, enhances our social well-being, and drives the economy. We take this responsibility seriously, and we’ll continue to work to deliver real solutions.
If Winona LaDuke and Honor the Earth would like to work together on solutions including renewable development, energy efficiency, or energy transition, our door is open.
Paul Eberth of Duluth is director of tribal engagement for Enbridge. | <urn:uuid:8cf61e3c-ed4e-458a-b6f3-4aa47f4c8367> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/opinion/columns/in-response-plan-for-just-transition-includes-replacing-line-3 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571869.23/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813021048-20220813051048-00075.warc.gz | en | 0.934596 | 965 | 2.265625 | 2 |
What is the perfect way to get the seam allowance you need for your current quilting project? Many quilt patterns call for a scant quarter inch seam allowance but what is the easiest way to actually get that? Learn how to determine whether your quilt seam allowance is that perfect “scant quarter inch” or something else – changing your quilt pattern and making it more frustrating to quilt! As many quilters know, a quarter inch quilt seam is crucial to making your quilt pattern with ease and beauty. This quilting video will help you to easily identify whether your quilt pieces have that perfect allowance without pulling out the measuring tape every time.
About the Scant Quarter Inch
In this quilt video, you will learn how to get a quarter inch seam allowance on your patchwork. This is crucial to making sure your quilting comes out exactly like the pattern – if that’s what you desire. If you’re looking for another quilting video tutorial on a particular technique, check out our Sew Easy lessons to find it there. | <urn:uuid:4e34c825-9fcf-4233-8a52-f9dab7e67a8b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.fonsandporter.com/articles/Checking_Quilt_Seam_Allowances_Video_Lesson?bc=c | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285315.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00569-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918262 | 223 | 1.820313 | 2 |
It is no exaggeration to say that columns for luxurious Garden Design have been used in design and landscaping for thousands of years, since the ancient Greeks and Romans, and even before! Columns can give a classy, luxury look to your landscaping whether that’s your garden or elsewhere around your home.
It can be all-too-easy to assume that columns are too difficult to install within your own yard, but this isn’t necessarily true. In this article, we’re looking at columns and how they can help to create an amazing custom design that will make people take notice in your garden.
Why Use Columns?
There are many reasons to use columns as part of your design. Some may be obvious, but others, you may not have thought of!
Columns can be a brilliant way to mark off areas of your garden. For instance, if you have an area such as a patio, surrounding it with columns can neatly round off the edges and make clear where one part of your garden starts and another ends.
The obvious benefit of a column is the fact that they look great. There is a very classy look to a column which makes it look rustic, and like it has been in place for decades or even longer!
Columns can be used in conjunction with other design features such as pergolas to allow you to hold up shaded areas. This way, columns can be put to use, too. They can also create a ‘gate’ area, showing you where walkthroughs are within a garden design. A column either side of a pathway, with shrubbery around it, can look wonderful.
Another benefit is the fact that columns provide a focal point in the garden and another area for things to grow. Vines and shrubs can grow up the column and create a more interesting setting for the greenery growing in your garden.
What Style of Columns to Use
There are numerous types of columns, and though they have historic names the terminology around columns is still used in the modern era.
A Tuscan column is a smooth shafted column which has become popular in modern homes as they’re very simple. Whereas other designs such as Greek Doric columns have carvings and ridges on the shaft, the Tuscan design is easy to make fit in with modern home designs.
For more of an ancient wow-factor, you could go for Corinthian columns. These are thick and designed to be lavish in their design. They have ornaments at the top with things like flowers carved into the design. Many government buildings and historically designed buildings in New York, Washington and elsewhere use these amazingly detailed columns. They may be more expensive, but they are a real statement piece.
Ionic columns are another option with an amazing history, but they’re still made today. They’re a little more slim and dainty than Doric or Ionic options and for this reason, are a little simpler to put in garden designs.
There are many wooden columns out there, too, and these might be a good option if you are looking for something cheaper and easier to install.
Plants to Choose
For plants and shrubs which will be suitable in the area of a column, you may want to opt for something that has a climbing design and will nicely compliment the height of a column. Climbing rose can give a classic look, a beautifully flowering climbing hydrangea may also be a good option. Wisteria and Honeysuckle can also look incredible if you can get them to grow up the column effectively.
Be careful, some plants such as Ivy can actually damage columns as their spikes can actually get into the structure. Avoid Trumpet Vine for exactly this reason, and make sure whatever you opt for is likely to compliment your column design rather than damage it over time.
Columns can give a really lavish look to your garden or backyard and create a focal point, as well as somewhere to grow any climbing plants that you may want. Your yard can look like an ancient Greek garden fit for the gods in no time at all if you make the right choices when installing columns. | <urn:uuid:e5a12f1b-8d4b-40fb-85fc-b9017c01c584> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://realmofdesign.com/columns-for-luxurious-garden-design/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571911.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813081639-20220813111639-00466.warc.gz | en | 0.955209 | 858 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Burgers’ Smokehouse was honored on the U.S. Senate floor Wednesday, May 8, 2019, as the Small Business of the Day during 2019 National Small Business Week. National Small Business Week is set aside by the President to honor America’s entrepreneurs and small business owners. As part of the celebration, their recognition was recorded on the Official Congressional record and an American flag was flown over the capitol in their honor.
“We are honored by the recognition and are appreciative of the opportunity to have a thriving small business in this country and the state of Missouri,” said Steven Burger, President of Burgers’ Smokehouse. “When our family business began in 1927, I don’t think my grandfather knew the potential for economic growth for both our family and the community we live in,” expanded Burger.
Today, Daniel Hartman, State Director for the Office of Senator Josh Hawley, and Ray Bozarth, Deputy State Director for the Office of Senator Josh Hawley, presented the team at Burgers’ Smokehouse with the official minutes from the Congressional record, and Morgan Corder, Staff Assistant for the Office of Senator Roy Blunt, presented the flag flown over the U.S. Capitol. | <urn:uuid:7ef9dbaa-59c1-4b72-83fc-f8c3f997e7d5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://a4gb.wordpress.com/2019/06/13/burgers-smokehouse-honored-as-senate-small-business-of-the-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.961161 | 258 | 1.523438 | 2 |
What is Intellectual Property 'theft' and how to avoid it?
Intellectual Property rights (IPRs) are generally known as "negative rights" because the owner enforces them by stopping third parties from exploiting the rights' subjects. An IPR is typically infringed when a third party performs an act that is legally restricted to either the owner of the IPR or a person who has the owner's permission to exploit the right (a licensee). It is essential for general counsels, business owners or shareholders to understand IP infringement's precise nature in various circumstances and how it can be combated.
In general terms, patents protect inventions, entitling owners to bar the unauthorized exploitation of them. Trademarks protect distinctive signs and names, and copyrights protect original works of art and literature. In all cases, holders of these rights are likewise entitled to prevent unauthorized use of the protected invention, confusingly similar marks or stop the reproduction or adaptation of one or more protected artworks, as the case may be. The exact nature of an IPR is such that an owner of an IPR has the power and monopoly to prevent others from exploiting the subject of the right without the owner's permission.
What is 'IP theft', and is this the proper term?
Before we go any further, we need to establish an essential aspect: IP cannot be the subject of theft in any literal or legal sense. The term "theft" concerning IP is often incorrectly used by the general public and media. Since IP is a negative right that grants monopoly control over original creations, it is incorporeal and cannot be seen or touched.
At the same time, IP infringement can, in some instances, be accompanied by the theft of actual physical property or in conjunction with other civil wrongdoings and crimes. This simultaneous overlapping of several distinct types of unlawful conduct can engender incorrect assumptions among many that IP can be "stolen." For example, suppose research and development papers are physically stolen. In that case, we are talking about an act of theft (or robbery, if taken by force) that affects an iteration of the victim's IP, but not the IP itself. Similarly, when digital files containing product blueprints or technical drawings are accessed without authorization to "steal" the subject matter, various cybercrime laws and other types of civil wrongdoing such as unlawful competition can occur in conjunction with IP infringement.
Even so, "IP theft" has recently emerged in popular parlance due to factors including the issue's politicization vis-a-vis the U.S.-China trade war, with President Donald Trump and his administration being proponents of the term. Nevertheless, "infringement" is the most accurate term for IP rights violations and should not be confused with "theft," no matter how prevalent it might be.
Numerous misconceptions may result from the use of "IP theft" in the wrong context. Early in my career, I recall a matter in South Africa where an order for costs was obtained to "attach" a portfolio of patents and trademarks to found jurisdiction and as security for costs. A local Sheriff of the Court tried to execute the order by visiting the defendant and expecting to collect the IP in question from the premises. Imagine someone knocking on the door and saying they are arriving to collect patents, trademarks and copyrights? Of course, this is not possible. IP rights can be attached by entering a caveat against the register of patents or trademarks, preventing their transfer to a third party until a specific condition has been met.
In the same way that an IP right cannot be loaded onto the back of a truck to execute a Court order to attach the IP, it is impossible to "steal" IP, which should be made more evident to business owners. After all, without a general understanding of IP, it will be nearly impossible to develop any strategy, even a basic one, to identify, protect and enforce the IP. Below, we have made a few comments as guidelines.
How is IP 'stolen?'
If someone says "IP theft," it is essential to understand that they probably mean infringement of a trademark, patent, copyright or other IP rights. This occurs in a variety of iterations:
- Patent infringement: In general, patent infringement ensues when a patent that has been approved by a government agency like the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) or European Patent Office (EPO) is used or applied in the industry by another person without the permission of the patent owner.
- Trademark infringement: Trademark infringement occurs when a third party makes unauthorized use, in the course of trade, usually concerning similar or competing goods, of a mark that is identical to the registered trademark (or so similar to the registered trademark that consumers are likely to be confused or deceived as to the origin of the goods).
- Copyright infringement: Generally, copyright infringement happens when a novel, film or musical work (but also potentially something like a technical manual) is reproduced (in whole or in part) relating to the original work or has numerous major elements copied in a derivative work.
- Trade secret violation: Although not often protected directly by legislation, trade secrets are typically covered by non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) when shared between two parties. Therefore, if one party that has seen another party's trade secrets decides to publicize them contrary to an agreement or apply the secrets commercially without the information holder's permission, they have violated their NDA. The essence of an NDA is the definition of "confidential information." Unlawful conduct, when considering trade secret violation, is the disclosure of the confidential information.
- Counterfeit: In some jurisdictions, such as in the EU, there is no distinction between "infringement of goods" and "counterfeit goods," while other regions have a precise legal delineation between the two. Where such a difference exists, the definition of "counterfeit goods" is narrower than the requirements for trademark infringement since "counterfeit goods" must constitute an infringement of an IP right while also being "colorable imitations" of the genuine goods. In other words, to the consumer, the actual counterfeit product must look like a fake. For those who are interested, we dealt with this topic extensively in another blog post from 2018.
As previously noted, literal theft does sometimes occur in conjunction with IP infringement. A hacker stealing a computer to access the copyrighted source code of a software development firm's flagship program would be a fitting example of multiple overlapping unlawful acts, as would an individual's physical theft of blueprints for a roughly sketched device or a prototype with pending patents.
How is IP infringement proven?
The first step in proving that an IP right has been infringed is to confirm that the IP owner is, in fact, the owner of the IP right in question. Having documentary evidence available represents a significant part of the battle. Where an IP right is registered, this step often is straightforward. Proving that an IP right has been validly registered is the beginning of setting out the evidence. Where IP is not registered, as is usually the case of copyrighted works, the evidence needs to be meticulously set out. The plaintiff needs to prove all the requirements of copyright subsistence and ownership. Usually, this involves producing documentary evidence proving who the author of the work was and that the protected work was "original" when it was created. It also needs to show that the plaintiff is the copyright owner despite not being the author if the copyright has been sold or transferred.
The second step is for the plaintiff to prove that each requirement for the infringement of a specific IP right, as set out in the applicable legislation, has been met. There must be concrete proof of infringing conduct. For example, in the case of trademark infringement, it must generally be proven that the defendant has made unauthorized use of a trademark that is identical or similar to the registered mark and done so with several caveats:
- In the course of trade for commercial purposes
- The infringer has traded in goods or services that are identical or similar enough to those goods covered by the registered trademark that members of the public are likely (as in more than 50% chance) to be confused or deceived by using the infringing trademark.
An IP lawyer with considerable local experience must advise in these circumstances. The specific laws of each jurisdiction vary considerably.
Many of the same criteria for proving IP infringement translate to counterfeit goods. In some jurisdictions, there are separate civil or criminal remedies, making the burden of proof. In criminal proceedings, the burden often is "beyond a reasonable doubt" versus the civil burden of a balance of probabilities. In this aspect, the law of evidence relating to IP rights is no different from the general distinction.
If we are to compare IP infringement to "theft," we must add that "theft" is almost always a crime, whereas IP infringement may be of either a civil or criminal nature (although most IP infringement types are defined as civil wrongdoings only).
What are the legal consequences of 'IP theft'?
Financial penalties (and an award for damages) for civil infringement of IP rights are determined based on local laws' factors. In many common law jurisdictions and the EU, punitive damages are generally not awarded, with few notable exceptions: Typically, a plaintiff must prove the actual or likely financial loss due to the infringement to be considered eligible for punitive or exemplary damages. As substantial financial loss can be challenging to prove, in many jurisdictions, a reasonable royalty (that would have been payable by a hypothetical licensee) instead of damages may be awarded by a judge after an inquiry into the applicable royalty rate. There may also be statutory judgments with lump-sum fines imposed on defendants, as is the case in Chinese IP law.
Depending on the jurisdiction, relevant factors in considering the scope and appropriateness of damages may be:
- The willfulness of the infringer;
- The amount they profited as a result of the infringement;
- The sum of the licensing fees the rights holder could have (and did not) amass due to the violation, or
- The presence or absence of competition for non-infringing products on the market.
For many IP owners, stopping IP infringement is more important than obtaining an award for damages. To this end, the injunction seeking relief to prevent unlawful infringement without a plea for damages, or without following through with a claim for damages, is a popular course of action.
How can an IP owner prevent 'IP theft' abroad?
Obtaining protective designations for IP outside of the owner's country is the best way to limit the chances of its infringement. In this regard, most countries are signatories to various treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) that make it possible to extend domestic IP rights to additional jurisdictions through simplified procedures. For example, a patent can be extended through the Patent Cooperation Treaty to several jurisdictions in simplified procedural steps, provided that specific requirements are met. A trademark can be extended through the Madrid System by following similar processes. In some instances, it is more suitable to extend rights through the national or regional filing routes, such as through the European Patent Office (EPO). The exact best course of action depends on many subjective factors such as budgetary considerations, the type of industry and the relevance of a particular market to actual or potential sales.
As can be seen, "IP theft" does not exist technically, and a company should first identify and then protect its various IP rights before it can be in a position to enforce them. Partnering with the Dennemeyer Group affords you a broad spectrum of services to help identify, protect and enforce IP rights, ranging from patent prosecution and litigation to patent search, anti-counterfeiting aid and much more.
Megatrends can become a bit boring over time. Until they are not, of course. | <urn:uuid:37d6f953-2a0e-45d1-9208-9e66630728ca> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.dennemeyer.com/de/ip-blog/news/what-is-intellectual-property-theft-and-how-to-avoid-it/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573533.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818215509-20220819005509-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.948968 | 2,423 | 3.109375 | 3 |
“The Marketers” are causing Nick Blosser considerable distress. He’s turning to escapist TV and “green bull– blogs” in his search for truth in advertising.
Nick includes some interesting stats from a study by the Natural Marketing Institute. Interesting, yet disconcerting for The Marketers. The study says that 70 percent of us agree that “when companies call a product ‘green’ (meaning better for the environment), it is usually just a marketing tactic.”
In other words, green claims that are not credible are destroying the market value of actually doing the right thing. Companies might not do the right thing if they can’t get a decent return on their investment. Meanwhile, we can’t tell what color is under that thick, new coat of green marketing.
Will the FTC step in, or will Wal-Mart stop them?
My take: Greenwashing works due to a simple psychological principle: All consumers perceive themselves as being environmentally responsible. Ad agencies work for their clients, not for consumers. They can set aside their ethics and exploit the fact that many consumers want their buying decisions to reflect that green self-image to others.
False green claims will continue. The FTC might revise Part 260, but the enforcement burden will be enormous. The secret to successfully promoting greenness is to avoid the appearance of greenwashing. The plain truth goes a long way.
“If you work at a company that’s making a significant effort, you should get involved in the FTC process and make sure your voice is heard alongside the Consumers Union. This is the best chance you may have in a while to make green claims meaningful and to enable companies with truly differentiated green products to keep their rapidly eroding advantages, while at the same time being true to meeting the consumers’ intent in purchasing green products.”
Read Nick’s op-ed, “Seeing through the Greenwashing Whiteout,” in the August 2008 Sustainable Industries Journal. | <urn:uuid:c306cff3-3982-49b0-bab4-75d8e96edba3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://blog.seattlepi.com/energy/2008/08/13/seeing-through-the-greenwashing-whiteout-sij/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285315.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00570-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940192 | 416 | 2 | 2 |
Until the 1890s, the US had little interest in Latin America, but had business interests in Mexican mines and railroads. In the 1890s the US adopted a more outward looking foreign policy and enacted the Monroe doctrine of opposing European colonialism in the region. The US resolved a diplomatic crisis in a dispute between Great Britain and Venezuela over Guyana and supported Cuba in the Spanish-American war of 1898. After victory, they acquired the Spanish colony of Puerto Rico and Cuba became a US protectorate. In 1903 they intervened in Panama, taking over the construction of the Panama Canal, controlling it until 1977. By 1970, the US had continued to intervene in Latin America by overthrowing, or attempting to overthrow, left wing regimes and by providing aid. They also became a member of the OAS (Organization of American States) in 1948, which was founded to create regional solidarity and cooperation.
— OR —
Call 0113 4577 990 | <urn:uuid:b5eedc7c-b787-468c-97ac-fdefa949d28b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.themaparchive.com/product/us-influence-in-latin-america-18981970/?add-to-cart=7062 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571210.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810191850-20220810221850-00472.warc.gz | en | 0.964264 | 209 | 3.40625 | 3 |
Bolden ran his hands through the clean-smelling fur and the touch warmed his fingers.
Bolden supposed this was for easy recovery in case the shot missed.
Noticing that Bolden was shivering, he took his hands and examined them.
Bolden got in and started the motors while the animal climbed into the seat beside him.
The movement with the bow might have been menacing, but Bolden ignored that gesture.
In the morning, Bolden was awake long before the doctor came in.
Bolden made a few corrections and the doctor took the map away and removed the viewer.
Bolden smiled at the doctor's omission and ran his hand through the fur.
And then Bolden saw the native who had given him the animal.
Bolden had observed this before—no native was ever without that one somber-looking arrow. | <urn:uuid:4e1cf390-d3fa-475b-aa1c-0e15da0a5966> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.dictionary.com/browse/bolden | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280718.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00403-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991032 | 183 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Types of Teacher Co-operation and Perception of Demands at All-Day Schools
The central objective of this research project is to compare the demands and workload placed on all-day and half-day school teachers. A quantitative assessment is conducted with two points in time for measurement. Guided interviews are carried out at selected schools in a qualitative study.
The central objective of this research project, which is carried out at Bergische Universität Wuppertal in co-operation with the DIPF, is to compare the demands and workload placed on teachers at all-day schools with half-day school teachers. We apply a theoretical model that has been empirically validated in previous studies. In particular, we will assess the role of teacher co-operation with colleagues as well as with other professional staff and other groups of persons with regard to demands and workload.
A quantitative assessment is conducted as a longitudinal study with two points in time for measurement, including a standardised panel survey of teachers and other pedagogical staff with respect to selected criteria of school-related demands and workloads as well as different types and conditions of co-operation. This questionnaire-based survey is conducted in fully compulsory all-day schools that existed prior to 2002 as well as in half-day schools in the federal state of North-Rhine Westphalia. Guided interviews are carried out at selected schools in a qualitative study. Hence, the statements on demands/workload and teacher co-operation generated from contextual analyses and aggregation are rendered more concrete and validated (communicative validation). Moreover, the interviews serve as preliminary studies for the development of assessment instruments regarding the contents and qualities of co-operation across professions.
|Project type:||Interdepartmental projects|
01/2008 - 12/2009
|Department:||Department of Educational Governance| | <urn:uuid:f73f5a76-7512-45a0-88e8-3b4a824d25e7> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.dipf.de/en/research/projects/types-of-teacher-co-operation-and-perception-of-demands-at-all-day-schools | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721141.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00416-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950679 | 374 | 2.078125 | 2 |
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Tube walking strengthens and stabilizes your core and pelvic region.
Tube walking is a core-strengthening exercise that works as a corrective strategy in a therapeutic setting, or as part of a personal strengthening and toning fitness routine. The primary challenge of tube walking is keeping your core muscles engaged to maintain tension on an elastic tube or resistance band throughout the exercise. Before beginning a tube-walking routine, consult a physician to ensure the exercise is suitable for you. If you are pregnant, recovering from an injury or new to exercise, tube walking may not be appropriate for you.
Tube Walking & Equipment Needed
Lateral tube walking is performed in an upright position or in a slight squat position using a light- to medium-resistance band or tube with or without handles. Set up the exercise by stepping into a closed elastic tube, or hold a resistance band as if you were preparing to jump rope. You can attach band cuffs to your ankles, if that's easier.
Basic Tube Walking Move
Position your feet hip-width apart, bend slightly at the hips with a neutral spin and engaged core. To engage the core, pull your stomach in by contracting the core muscles. Hinge forward from the hips, and keep your shoulders, hips, knees and feet pointing forward. Maintain a slight bend in the knees. Keep the spine neutral. Keep working to perfect this form so you isolate the gluteal muscles to work them more efficiently. The basic move involves taking 20 slow and controlled steps to the right, then to the left, as you maintain tension on the band.
Tube-walking exercises work the entire gluteal muscle region, the abs and the outer thighs. As a result, they help stabilize the hip, knee and ankle joints. Strengthening this region with tubing-walking exercises improves strength in the pelvis area, according to Princeton University Health Services. Second City Fitness notes this exercise can help prevent and correct faulty body mechanics and muscle imbalances.
Tube Walking Benefits
According to Second City Fitness, tube walking is a corrective strategy for abnormalities of the foot and ankle, which can lead to overpronation, flat feet or feet that turn out. Tube walking can help improve knee problems as well. A strong core and stabilized pelvic region promote proper body alignment, which is integral to all muscles of the body working in harmony, according to Princeton University Health Services. Tube-walking exercises encourage proper body alignment.
Tube Walking Tips
To encourage proper body alignment, use proper foot placement. When you step to the right, shift your weight to the outer right edge of the right foot. Bending the right knee slightly helps shift your weight evenly through the step. When stepping to the left, bend your knee and shift your weight to the outer left edge of the foot. | <urn:uuid:79dce968-9de5-418f-a4fe-1b94b190aaad> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://au.quelebris.com/5061-what-is-tube-walking.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573667.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819100644-20220819130644-00074.warc.gz | en | 0.899744 | 603 | 2.796875 | 3 |
Reebok Launches The Checklight, A Head Monitoring Skullcap
With sports concussions constantly in the news and youth concussion clinics opening across the county, Canton-based Reebok is launching the Checklight ($149), a head impact indicator. It’s a skullcap that you wear with or without a helmet during sports or fitness activities while built-in sensors monitor the impacts experienced during those activities. Using a red (bad), yellow (medium), and green (good-to-go), LED-system, the Checklight gives parents and coaches a visual display of physical impact during sports.
Reebok tested the product for three years both in the lab and on the fields, courts, and rinks. Using football, hockey, and other high-impact sports, they created a system of advanced algorithms that give real time data on what’s happening during the game. In an ad for Reebok, Indianapolis Colts quarterback Matt Hasselback explains, “It’s not a diagnostic tool but it makes the game safer because is measures the force of impact to the head and counts the number of hits. It’s a real time teaching tool.”
The Checklight also has another Massachusetts connection. Reebok tapped Cambridge-based electronics company MC10 to transform the technology into an ultra-thin system that stretches, bends, and flexes with the body, making the skullcap comfortable and not distracting during the action. A spokeswoman for MC10 tells the Globe:
“In the heat of a game, you might not respond to a hit if you’re in the zone and the crowd is cheering,” said Elyse Kabinoff, a spokeswoman for MC10. “But now with the light coming on, it gives you the opportunity to say you’re experiencing symptoms, or at least signals to others that you need to get checked.”
This could really change sports as we know it (especially youth sports) and prevent some injuries from getting worse. If every kid playing Pop Warner had this under their helmet, there wouldn’t be any questioning “can he go or not” after a big hit. An easy to read red light would simply tell the coach, “no”. It would take kids out of the game that swear they are fine, and help coaches make ethical decisions about whether or not a player has to leave the game. Every sports movie has that scene in it and after the coach sends him back out, the player leaves the game on a stretcher.
“At Reebok, we are dedicated to helping people be fit for life, no matter which sport or activity they participate in,” says Paul Litchfield, Reebok’s head of advanced concepts in a press release. “The more we learn about head injuries, the more we understand the long term ramifications and we want to do our part to help ensure people can participate, compete and enjoy life. There is still much to be learned in this area, but we believe technology can play a significant role in improving the athletic experience .” | <urn:uuid:1b0f6d7c-6ab4-45f3-b388-b7f15f50a99e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.bostonmagazine.com/health/2013/07/26/reebok-launches-head-monitoring-skullcap/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570692.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807181008-20220807211008-00676.warc.gz | en | 0.954964 | 647 | 1.773438 | 2 |
Guest Author - Emily Wilska
Lauri Ward begins her book Home Therapy: Fast, Easy, Affordable Makeovers with an observation that explains why many of us embark on the adventure of getting organized in the first place. She says, "Our homes reflect who we are. When we invite someone into our living space, we're revealing ourselves, and if we're not happy with what we show, or if we feel it isn’t a true reflection of who we are, we're uncomfortable." How many of us can relate to that?
Home Therapy profiles 25 of Ward’s clients, all of whom hired her to help them create more comfortable, functional, enjoyable living spaces. The clients in Home Therapy range from young people to seniors, from working class to wealthy. While some of them choose to make significant changes and purchase new furniture, accessories, and decorative accents, most of them adhere to Ward's Use What You Have program, which, as the name suggests, involves finding better uses for the things the clients already own.
Ward begins the book with a chapter on the importance of a comfortable, customized home, followed by a detailed look at what she calls the ten most common decorating mistakes--from #1: Not defining your priorities to #10: Using lighting incorrectly. The subsequent chapters profile each client's situation, beginning with The Client and the Complaint, in which Ward introduces the client and describes what he or she disliked about their home. Next up is The Diagnosis, with Ward offering an overview in words and pictures of the client's "Before" living spaces, including notes on which of the ten decorating mistakes the client has made. Finally, Ward gives us The Remedy, a words-and-pictures look at what the client's "After" spaces look like.
As an organizer, I saw some familiar scenes in these chapters: rooms crowded with clutter, insufficient storage space for the items clients really loved and wanted to keep, and the sense of unease and chaos that can come from trying to use too many different kinds of décor in a single room. In every single chapter, I was impressed by the solutions Ward came up with, many of which involved helping clients get rid of things they didn't want, need, or use, and all of which made the clients' spaces more livable.
Though Home Therapy isn't exactly a how-to guide, I found that I was able to pick up several tips and ideas over the course of reading the book. For example, I discovered that using Ward's trick of pulling all of my books to the front of my bookshelves made the shelves seem much less cluttered and much easier on the eyes. I also found that adding a simple, inexpensive throw rug under the coffee table in my living room gave me an instant "conversation area," pulling together the sofa, chair, and ottoman that were there.
Home Therapy is a useful crash course in the essentials of spatial organizing--that is, arranging furniture, decorative pieces, and storage containers in ways that feel good, look good, and function well. It's full of Before and After photos, and is written in a straightforward, friendly, and nonjudgmental way.
The book also features some great tidbits of advice, such as what Ward tells a couple who have been literally tiptoeing around a carpet they've placed right in the middle of their living room: "[W]hile your possessions are important, they should never be so important that they possess you." For an interesting peek at how others have solved their organizing and decorating challenges--often with little more than ingenuity and some furniture rearrangements--Home Therapy is a great resource. | <urn:uuid:df66b4bd-2a69-4974-a7e3-21041859b351> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art42376.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280763.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00522-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96346 | 757 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Nurses’ Health Study – The Nurses’ Health Study, established in 1976 by Dr. Frank Speizer and the Nurses’ Health Study II, established in 1989 by Dr. Walter Willett, are among the largest prospective investigations into the risk factors for major chronic diseases in women. The studies have grown to include a team of clinicians, epidemiologists and statisticians at the Channing Laboratory along with collaborating investigators and consultants in the surrounding medical community of the Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston Children’s Hospital and Beth Israel Hospital.
Health Professionals Follow-Up Study – The Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS) began in 1986. The purpose of the study is to evaluate a series of hypotheses about men’s health relating nutritional factors to the incidence of serious illnesses, such as cancer, heart disease, and other vascular diseases. This all-male study is designed to complement the all-female Nurses’ Health Study, which examines similar hypotheses. The HPFS is sponsored by the Harvard School of Public Health and is funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and National Cancer Institute. | <urn:uuid:fd672583-07e6-4c42-ac78-f13c875d965f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/meir-stampfer/sites-of-note/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571198.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810161541-20220810191541-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.942312 | 251 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Units of Study Outlines
INGS3601 - Current Global Issues
Semester 1, 2012 | Credit Points: 6
Coordinator: John Brookfield
This 'capstone' unit in International and Global Studies focuses on case studies of contemporary problems (e.g. wars, natural disasters, economic and diplomatic crises). Groups of students will track particular cases to analyse interactions between social, cultural, political and economic institutions (including governments, aid agencies, the United Nations and others) and informal networks at the domestic, regional and international levels. In doing so, they will acquire high-level competency in theories, ethics, and methodologies informing interdisciplinary, team-based assessments of global issues.
1x1500wd essay (25%) and 1x1500wd group assignment (25%) and 1x3000wd essay based on contribution to group assignment (50%)
1x1-hr lecture/week, 1x2-hr tutorial/week commencing week 2
INGS1001 and INGS1002 and INGS2601
may be completed concurrently with INGS2601 with approval of Director
not available to students outside BIGS
A timetable is not available for this session.
Please refer to the list of Units of Study on the left-hand menu to view the units on offer for the relevant academic year.
The information displayed above is indicative only as online information is subject to change without notice. The Faculty Handbook and the University of Sydney Calendar are the official legal source of information relating to study at the University of Sydney | <urn:uuid:3ff45cac-786c-4794-8557-52cc18f1df90> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://sydney.edu.au/arts/political_economy/undergraduate/units_of_study.shtml?u=INGS_3601_2012_1 | 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 | 0.881376 | 314 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Waverly To Iowa City Distance
Distance between Waverly and Iowa City is 1123 KM
(kilometers) and 174.15 meters. Waverly is 697.9 miles away from Iowa City.
Waverly and Iowa City Location
Waverly is located in the USA state of Alabama at the longitude of -85.6 and latitude of 32.7. Iowa City is located in the USA state of Iowa at the longitude of -91.5 and latitude of 41.7.
Waverly direction from Iowa City
Waverly is located nearly south
side to Iowa City. Waverly To Iowa City road map direction from google will be integrated.
Time difference between Waverly and Iowa City
Time difference between Waverly and Iowa City is 0.39733333333334 decimal hours (0 : 23 : 50.400000000009
). Waverly universal time is 17.705333333333 UTC and Iowa City universal time is 18.102666666667 UTC. Waverly is behind Iowa City 0 hours and 23 Minutes and 50.400000000009 seconds.
Travel distance from Waverly
Traveling distance are available for the following cities Waverly to Iowa City distance
, Wavre to Brussels distance
Waverly To Iowa City Travel Time
Travel time from Waverly To Iowa City will take 28 hours and 4.76 minutes if the vehicle keep an average speed of sixty kilometer per hour. Travel time by walk may take around 140.4 hours if you continuously walk at the speed of 6KM.
Waverly Iowa City information Note:
All information in this page about Waverly and Iowa City are approximate details. It is crow flies distance so the above travel information may be differ from motor road distance.
Dear Travellers / Visitors you are kindly welcome write more about Waverly and Iowa City.
- Previous traveling experience from Waverly to Iowa City.
- Various travel routes from Iowa City.
- Tourist spots between Waverly and Iowa City road.
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Reference:Distance between Waverly and Iowa City | <urn:uuid:7e458a03-9ddb-4e02-be50-85134d653ce5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://distance4.com/distance/Waverly/Iowa_City | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572870.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817062258-20220817092258-00677.warc.gz | en | 0.850907 | 509 | 1.554688 | 2 |
The legislative watchdog Citizen Congress Watch (CCW) honored lawmakers in a ceremony yesterday for helping push for online access to the legislature’s video-on-demand (VOD) system.
“This is one small step for the legislature, but one giant leap in Taiwan’s democracy,” CCW chairman Ku Chung-hwa (顧忠華) said at the ceremony at the legislature to give a “special contribution to legislative transparency” award to lawmakers who supported the project.
Legislative meetings have long been broadcast live and recorded through the VOD system, but they could only be viewed from within the Legislative Yuan. Since the CCW was created two years ago, pushing for public access to the system was one of the group’s major tasks.
The legislature also created its own special task force to evaluate the idea last July.
The decision to open the VOD to the public was made last month.
“It wasn’t an easy task, because some legislators wanted to allow public access as soon as possible, while others were more reserved about it,” said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Daniel Hwang (黃義交), who headed the special task force, after accepting the award from Ku. “We had to convince those who were opposed to the idea one by one.”
He said that some legislators who think they are not good speakers or those who stay in their constituencies to interact with supporters rather than attending legislative meetings worried that live broadcasts of meetings could damage their images.
KMT Legislator Ting Shou-chung (丁守中), also a member of the commission, said that allowing the public to directly monitor what lawmakers do was a good thing.
“I know that some of our colleagues work really hard to come up with a good [legislative] proposal, but the media are not always interested,” Ting said. “So the public may only see a short report, and sometimes they don’t even know who made the proposal.”
Another commission member, Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wong Chin-chu (翁金珠), said the broadcast would help fairness between political parties.
“Some 500 DPP legislative proposals were blocked [in the last legislative session], but the people don’t know which bills were blocked, why they were blocked or who blocked them because TV news don’t always show the whole story,” she said.
All award recipients agreed that the next step toward transparency would be a TV channel that broadcasts legislative meetings.
The VOD system ran smoothly with only minor problems on its first day of allowing public access, legislative information engineer Chuang Kun-ta (莊昆達) said.
The highest number of viewers on the VOD system came at 11am when around 880 people viewed it at the same time, he said. | <urn:uuid:26b37ef3-6fde-4559-85a3-60f1f9a33982> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2009/02/21/2003436639 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282140.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00136-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971062 | 627 | 1.515625 | 2 |
|image from etsy|
Happy Year of the Snake!
To continue a yearly tradition, here is a list of books featuring snakes:
1. The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
Kaa is a character in Kipling's Mowgli stories. Unlike in the Disney films, in the book Kaa is "an exceptionally long, yellowish Python molurus." Also unlike the film, in the original book Kaa is one of Mowgli's mentors and friends. He is a powerful snake, more than a hundred years old and still in his prime.
2. The Greedy Python by Eric Carle
This story follows a familiar folktale pattern; in The Greedy Python a snake eats every creature he comes across in the jungle, until he is enormous. All the animals inside befriend one another and kick at the python from the inside until he disgorges them all. Still hungry, he espies his own tail, gobbles it down -- and disappears.
3. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Who can forget the boa constrictor who has swallowed an elephant! Or is it a hat?....
Snakes also play a role in the end of this story but that part is a little sadder so I'll stick with the hat mistake for the snaky bit of this story.
4. The Speckled Band by Arthur Conan Doyle
And now for something a little more adult!
One of the great Sherlock Holmes short stories, this one features a mysterious death, a trained snake who comes to a whistle (odd since snakes are deaf, but oh well, suspension of disbelief!) and Holmes' trademark sleuthing. A thrilling read! | <urn:uuid:1fb6f41a-44b5-4e61-a04a-0f214a0fbe48> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://indextrious.blogspot.com/2013/02/happy-chinese-new-year.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280891.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00163-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922129 | 355 | 2.109375 | 2 |
The Son of God and the New Creation
The Short Studies in Biblical Theology series is a new resource designed to help readers see the whole Bible as a unified story culminating in Jesus. Written by a host of trusted biblical scholars, the volumes in this unique series each trace an...+
- EAN: 9781433545351
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The Short Studies in Biblical Theology series is a new resource designed to help readers see the whole Bible as a unified story culminating in Jesus. Written by a host of trusted biblical scholars, the volumes in this unique series each trace an important topic throughout God's Word, from Genesis to Revelation, and explore its relevance to the Christian life. Brief, accessible, and practical, these books are perfect for laypeople looking for a bite-sized introductions to major subjects in biblical theology. Furthermore, pastors and professors will find this series to be an invaluable resource for brushing up on their grasp of the field as a whole.
In this inaugural volume, renowned biblical scholar Graeme Goldsworthy traces the theme of divine sonship from Adam, through the nation of Israel and King David, and ultimately to Jesus Christ--the "Son of God" par excellence. He then turns to examine how the Bible's sonship motif informs our understanding of the final resurrection and new creation.
|Publisher||GOOD NEWS PUBLISHING|
|Editor||Ortlund, Dane C.|
Click the google preview icon below for a limited preview of this title.
(If no icon is shown, preview is not available for this title.) | <urn:uuid:9bde46f5-14b5-41e3-9b4b-6479750ae2e6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://parable.com/product/688542/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279933.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00126-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.847059 | 359 | 1.804688 | 2 |
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