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Fermilab’s NOνA experiment is helping scientists determine the role that ghostly particles called neutrinos played in the evolution of the cosmos.
“Why is there matter?” asks a modern-day-Hamlet-cum-Fermilab-researcher-extraordinaire, Jeffrey Nelson.
This foundational cosmological question has baffled scientists and philosophers alike, since the ancient times, when humans first became baffled by things.
Thanks be to modern science, to help us understand.
The experiment involved shooting a neutrino beam across a 500-mile distance, from the Illinois-based Fermilab to the 14,000-ton NOvA detector in Ash River, Minnesota. Because neutrinos rarely interact with other matter, they travel straight through the Earth without a tunnel. The particles completed the 500-mile interstate trip in less than three milliseconds.
As predicted, particle detectors in Minnesota were able to confirm that neutrinos do oscillate – meaning that they morph from one type of neutrino into another (there are three different types, or “flavors,” total – muon, electron, and tau).
One of the primary goals of the NOvA experiment is to study this tendency of neutrinos to oscillate. In order to study such behavior, scientists needed to create an intense neutrino beam and send them continuously through a large detector for long periods of time.
The physicists in Minnesota measured how many muon-type neutrinos had changed into electron-types over the 500-mile journey, and how many simply disappeared.
“People are ecstatic to see our first observation of neutrino oscillations,” said NOvA co-spokesperson Peter Shanahan of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. “For all the people who worked of the course of a decade …[on] this experiment, its beyond gratifying.”
Many more insights into the origins of matter can be expected from the NOvA project in the months and years to come. | <urn:uuid:cef441d4-4498-423b-a243-58c772855818> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.babwnews.com/2015/08/fermilabs-14000-ton-nova-detector-successfully-captures-neutrino-oscillation/ | 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 | 0.929165 | 444 | 3.84375 | 4 |
MSNBC Quotes LETU Professor on Prosthetics Need in Haiti
Thu, Jan 28 2010
LeTourneau University biomedical engineering professor Dr. Roger
Gonzalez was quoted today in a national media story by MSNBC health writer JoNel Aleccia about the
university’s LEGS program that provides low-cost, durable prosthetics to amputees in developing
countries. Aleccia’s story focused on Haiti earthquake victims and their need for prosthetics,
which matches the humanitarian purpose of LEGS. See the story
The Jan. 12 earthquake registered 7.0 on the Richter scale and has
left an estimated 200,000 dead and thousands homeless.
The LEGS program began five years ago when undergraduate
engineering students developed a low-cost, maintenance-free knee design that could be manufactured
for about $15 with simple tools such as a band saw and drill press. LEGS, which stands for
LeTourneau Empowering Global Solutions, is part of an ongoing senior engineering design curriculum
at the interdenominational Christian university. The LEGS program has been implemented in Kenya,
Bangladesh and Sierra Leone. | <urn:uuid:55059624-26b8-4129-900c-34b9148107f7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.letu.edu/opencms/opencms/news/2010/MSNBC_Quotes_LETU_Professor_on_Prosthetics_Need_in_Haiti.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280791.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00360-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914815 | 243 | 2.015625 | 2 |
The term demonstration of learning refers to a wide variety of potential educational projects, presentations, or products through which students “demonstrate” what they have learned, usually as a way of determining whether and to what degree they have achieved expected learning standards or learning objectives for a course or learning experience. A demonstration of learning is typically both a learning experience in itself and a means of evaluating academic progress and achievement.
Defining demonstration of learning is complicated by the fact that educators use many different terms when referring to the general concept, and the terms may or may not be used synonymously from place to place. For example, the terms capstone exhibition, culminating exhibition, learning exhibition, exhibition of learning, performance exhibition, senior exhibition, or student exhibition may be used, in addition to capstone, capstone experience, capstone project, learning demonstration, performance demonstration, and many others. Educators may also create any number of homegrown terms for demonstrations of learning—far too many to catalog here.
In contrast to worksheets, quizzes, tests, and other more traditional approaches to assessment, a demonstration of learning may take a wide variety of forms in schools:
- Oral presentations, speeches, or spoken-word poems
- Video documentaries, multimedia presentations, audio recordings, or podcasts
- Works of art, illustration, music, drama, dance, or performance
- Print or online publications, including websites or blogs
- Essays, poems, short stories, or plays
- Galleries of print or digital photography
- Scientific experiments, studies, and reports
- Physical products such as a models, sculptures, dioramas, musical instruments, or robots
- Portfolios of work samples and academic accomplishments that students collect over time
- Presentations or slideshows that provide a summary of the skills and knowledge students have learned
Generally speaking, there are two primary forms of learning demonstrations:
- A project, presentation, product, or portfolio that teachers use as a form of summative assessment—i.e., an evaluation of student learning, skill acquisition, and academic achievement at the conclusion of a defined instructional period, such as a unit, project, course, semester, program, or school year.
- A multifaceted assignment that serves as a culminating academic and intellectual experience for students, typically during their final year of high school or middle school, or at the end of an academic program or learning-pathway experience (Note: A culminating demonstration of learning may also be used as a form of “summative” assessment). See capstone project for a more detailed discussion.
Schools and educators may use demonstrations of learning as a component of a wide variety of educational and instructional strategies, such as authentic learning, community-based learning, project-based learning, or proficiency-based learning, to name just a few. While demonstrations of learning are diverse in design, purpose, content, and execution, they are typically evaluated against a common set of criteria or standards, using a rubric or set of scoring guidelines, to ensure consistency during the evaluation process from student to student or demonstration to demonstration, or to determine whether and to what extent students have achieved expected learning standards for a particular assignment, lesson, project, or course. Demonstrations of learning may be evaluated by a teacher or group of teachers, but in some cases review teams or panels of peers, community members, and outside experts—such as local business leaders or scientists—contribute to the evaluation process or provide students with constructive feedback. Some demonstrations of learning are even public events open to anyone in a school community. Students may also be asked to provide a formal reflection on what they have learned and created that describes how well they did in meeting either required or self-imposed learning goals.
Demonstrations of learning are typically designed to encourage students to think critically, solve challenging problems, and develop important skills and work habits such as written and oral communication, public speaking, research, teamwork, planning, self-sufficiency, goal setting, or technological and online literacy—i.e., skills that will help better prepare them for college, modern careers, and adult life. Demonstrations of learning may be “interdisciplinary” in the sense that they require students to apply skills or investigate issues across many different subject areas or domains of knowledge. Demonstrations of learning may also encourage students to connect their projects to community issues or problems (also see relevance), or to integrate outside-of-school learning experiences, including activities such interviews, scientific observations, or internships (also see learning pathway).
It is important to note that demonstrations of learning are typically purposeful teaching strategies designed to achieve specific educational outcomes—i.e., they are not merely “show and tell” opportunities. For example, demonstrations of learning can help teachers determine whether students have acquired skills that cannot be easily evaluated by traditional tests or papers, including the ability to apply skills and knowledge learned in one subject area—such as English language arts, math, or history—to problems in other subject areas or domains. For example: Can students write articulately and persuasively about a complex scientific theory or topic? Can students apply mathematical formulas in a spreadsheet to compile and analyze data and results from a laboratory experiment? Can students research the history of a scientific concept and explain how understanding of the concept changed over time as research findings provided new insights and information? In addition, demonstrations of learning also allow students to show what they have learned in multiple or multifaceted ways. For example, teachers may give students the choice to write a paper, produce a multimedia presentation, or deliver a lecture on a concept. Students may also create a slideshow that describes all the work products they created and the knowledge and skills they learned over the course of a semester or school year.
Although demonstrations of learning can vary widely in structure, purpose, evaluation criteria, and learning objectives from school to school, they commonly require students to present, explain, or defend their project design, theory or action, or results (as in the case of a scientific experiment, for example). Whether students solve a complicated math problem, write a position paper on a social issue, design a working robot, or produce a work of art, drama, or engineering, demonstrations of learning require them to articulate their ideas and respond to questions and inquiries from teachers or other reviewers. A few examples will help to illustrate these general instructional intentions:
- Writing, directing, and filming a public-service announcement that will be aired on public-access television.
- Designing and building a product, computer program, app, or robot to address a specific need, such as assisting the disabled.
- Interning at a nonprofit organization or a legislator’s office to learn more about strategies and policies intended to address social problems, such as poverty, hunger, or homelessness.
- Conducting a scientific study over several months or a year to determine the ecological or environmental impact of changes to a local habitat.
- Researching an industry or market, and creating a viable business plan for a proposed company that is then “pitched” to a panel of local business leaders.
While some critics may be skeptical of the educational value or benefits of demonstrations of learning (and related strategies), most criticism of or debate about demonstrations of learning is not focused on the strategy itself, or its intrinsic or potential educational value, but rather on the quality of its execution—i.e., demonstrations of learning tend to be criticized when they are poorly designed, when reflect low academic standards, or when students are allowed to complete relatively superficial projects of low educational value. In addition, if teachers and students consider demonstrations of learning to be a formality, rather than an important educational strategy, students may produce lower-quality products as a result. And if the projects, presentations, and products students produce reflect consistently low standards and quality year after year, educators, students, parents, and other may come to view demonstrations of learning as a waste of time or resources.
The Glossary of Education Reform by Great Schools Partnership is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. | <urn:uuid:e73b4ad5-ef54-4f0f-b601-b641b7c48de7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://edglossary.org/demonstration-of-learning/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280891.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00160-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946055 | 1,661 | 3.96875 | 4 |
Humber College students once again voted on a budget proposal lacking in detail at this year’s Annual General Meeting.
IGNITE, Humber’s student association, draws up an operating budget each spring with a colourful infographic to explain how the revenue the organization receives from student fees will be used in the upcoming year.
And every March, the operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year is proposed to students at the organization’s AGM after IGNITE consults with those who were present can question student government officials about the budget and vote on it.
IGNITE’s operating budget is more than $11.13 million, based on a projected student population of about 32,000.
“The IGNITE revenue comes primarily from student fees, so we take the responsibility very seriously and ensure that these revenues are invested back into student lives while we’re making this budget,” said Tara DeFrancesco, IGNITE Financial Director, at this year’s AGM.
IGNITE’s budget once again provided a broad overview of expenses that can be found on the organization’s website alongside yearly financial statements and auditor’s reports, and minutes from IGNITE board meetings that provide more detail about the organization’s fiscal performance.
But the operating budget breaking down the organization’s expenses consistently lacks the detail of budgets publicized by other Ontario universities and colleges.
The difference between Ontario post-secondary school operating budgets can be seen in the specificity of its budget lines. IGNITE presents broad categories such as $1.68 million for IGNITE full-time and part-time staffing, $617,000 going towards promotions and events or $45,000 going towards student advocacy.
Student associations like the University of Toronto Students’ Union, York Federation of Students and George Brown College Student Association publicize operating budgets to their students that are longer than IGNITE’s single-page infographic, but include more detailed budget lines to explain why they need student fees and how that money is used.
Compared to IGNITE having a single budget line for staffing, the York Federation of Students provides totals for each individual elected executive member’s stipend.
Where IGNITE has a single budget line for advocacy, George Brown’s student association provides budget lines within its advocacy efforts for marketing, travel, staff training and more.
IGNITE’s outgoing President Maja Jocson said information about how IGNITE arrives at the figures or where the money within these budget lines goes to, is available to students if they speak with IGNITE executive and staff, or attend the public Board of Directors meetings.
“The biggest thing is the AGM, but we don’t stop there. What we do is on our budget, you are able to access it. It’s not a secret” Jocson said.
“I think sometimes the question for some students is under that specific budget, let’s say communications, what are you actually spending on? I think that’s the question some students might have, which is very normal,” she said.
“But again, only a certain number of students do that and if we put those lines here, (the budget) is going to be way too long,” Jocson said.
Students can comb financial statements from past years online, but a more thorough budget is not available on IGNITE’s website.
IGNITE’s largest expenditures outlined in next year’s budget include $6.69 million for services, which includes the flexible health and dental insurance plan, bursaries, financial relief and staffing, and $1.94 million for its administration costs, which mostly covers full-time and part-time staff.
Jocson said most of the high-level discussion surrounding formulating an operating budget happens at the Board of Director level.
She said the more concise and general infographic approach to an operating budget is for the sake of engaging all students, regardless of their academic field of study.
“People who are very interested in specific budget lines, then they want that type of visual where it’s a spreadsheet with pages on pages and numbers on numbers,” Jocson said. “There’s only a couple of students with a business or financial background.
“The majority of students might not understand this,” she said. “Our Annual General Meeting only comes once a year, so when you see (a budget) like that, it might deter students from coming.” | <urn:uuid:ac34b431-ca5f-4ae8-8b26-a641be11053d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://humberetc.ca/ignites-upcoming-budget-leaves-more-questions-than-answers/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571190.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810131127-20220810161127-00076.warc.gz | en | 0.942288 | 954 | 1.523438 | 2 |
What is the problem between Portia and the Prince of Morocco?
Answers 1Add Yours
The Prince, one of Portia's suitor, wants to marry her, but she has no choice in who she marries. He meets with Portia and tells her that he is often considered very handsome on account of his black skin. She tells him that unfortunately she does not have the right to choose the man who will marry her. Instead, her father created three caskets from among which each suitor must choose. Portia warns the Prince that if he chooses the wrong casket, he must swear to never propose marriage to a woman afterwards. The Prince of Morocco agrees to this condition and joins Portia for dinner before attempting to choose. | <urn:uuid:0edcbca3-b8ec-489d-bc2d-9cc7f2de5bf1> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.gradesaver.com/merchant-of-venice/q-and-a/what-is-the-problem-between-portia-and-the-prince-of-morocco-272428 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281151.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00111-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977282 | 153 | 1.65625 | 2 |
In my last session, I pit my party against a demilich. The demilich has a movement speed like so: “Speed 0 ft., fly 30 ft. (hover)”
During this combat, the party's druid summoned pixies and used one of them to cast Entangle on it. Entangle reads like this:
Grasping weeds and vines sprout from the ground in a 20-foot square starting from a point within range. For the duration, these plants turn the ground in the area into difficult terrain.
A creature in the area when you cast the spell must succeed on a Strength saving throw or be restrained by the entangling plants until the spell ends. A creature restrained by the plants can use its action to make a Strength check against your spell save DC. On a success, it frees itself.
When the spell ends, the conjured plants wilt away.
Can a hovering creature actually be affected by Entangle?
I personally wasn't sold on the idea that a flying/hovering creature could be effected by Entangle's restraining effects. It seems to me that if the plants were capable of growing enough to reach a flying/hovering creature, there wouldn't be much chance to succeed the STR saving throw, as the plants could easily be above the creature's head on all sides.
I let my player have his moment as it didn't much effect many of the demilich's abilities, but I was curious if anyone had some info on this. | <urn:uuid:1479b7ba-4907-4d27-bfff-36ed0e5a7882> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/147981/can-hovering-creatures-be-entangled | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571234.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811042804-20220811072804-00076.warc.gz | en | 0.966051 | 312 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Naran and Kaghan are the two beautiful towns located near the district of Mansehra in KPK. The Naran Kaghan valley is almost 240 kilometres away from Islamabad. The valley is enveloped with a belt of the Himalayan Mountain Range and the Kunhar river is flowing alongside. The crystal clear blue water goes further into lakes and streams. On your way to the highest peak, you might witness some waterfalls too. In winters, the mountains are capped with snow while in summer, the snow and gigantic glaciers melt flowing into the river. There are so many attractions of Naran Kaghan you must visit to make your trip complete and memorable. Some of them are listed in our article ‘Travelling To Naran? Roaming Pakistan Explores The Best Places To Visit‘.
Proper roads to Naran make it easy for the thousands of tourists that travel by road every year as they get to see outstanding landscape throughout their journey. Pleasant and mildly cold weather even in summers is the main reason for travelling towards the Northern areas of Pakistan.
Naran Kaghan Tour
In terms of landscape, as mentioned above, Naran and Kaghan Valley have magnificent scenery, lush green lands, snowcapped mountains, and blue lakes. You can find hundreds of travel groups offering tour packages at amazing prices, a complete tour guide, and a fun trip! We are listing down a few landmarks that shouldn’t be missed if you visit Naran Kaghan Valley.
Shogran, 34 kilometres away from Balakot, is located on the plateau of Kaghan Valley. The beauty of this place is in the rich and lush green grasslands where people enjoy relaxing in front of the scenic beauty.
Visiting between June to August is the ideal time as the weather is pretty much pleasant. Shogran is accessible in summer and winters too but you must do your research before leaving as the hotels might not be functional in extreme weather. Temperature varies between the maximum of 28 and a minimum of 3 degrees at night. December and January often experience heavy snowfall so if you wish to see live snowfall then this is the time. However, travelling might be risky at this time due to the blockage of roads due to land sliding.
Residents of Shogran are very peaceful. They welcome visitors every year with an open heart. Locals are great travel guides too as they know the area well. In Shogran, mobile network service is also available by Telenor and Zong so communication won’t be a problem.
Balakot was destroyed by an earthquake and was later rebuilt in 2011. Residents were recommended to leave the town but they insisted on staying and building their homes again. The city was then named New Balakot City. The original Balakot is still considered a national heritage. The lower Balakot area is known as Nainkush Valley and the temperature here so cold that the whole area is frozen in winters while upper Balakot doesn’t get enough rain. The town is humid in summer and cool in winter.
Because it is a small town, visitors make a quick stop here for snacks and sightseeing. There are fewer options for hotels in Balakot so tourists mostly stay in neighbouring towns. Hotel Deminchi Balakot attracts tourists to stay here before going ahead. They offer luxurious rooms with a panoramic view from the hilltop. They offer very reasonable rates, start room starts from Rs 5000 per night including complimentary breakfast. So, if you plan to visit Balakot, Hotel Deminchi can be your resting stop.
Kunhar River originally knowns as NainSukh is an almost 166 kilometres long river in KPK. It originates from Dharamsar Lake. The emerald green waters run throughout the Kaghan valley. Glaciers of Nanga Parbat, Lake Saif ul Malook and Lake Dupidat are the feeders of Kunhar Rivers.
The jewel of Kaghan Valley, the Kunhar river is famous for trout. People come here for fishing so if you want to enjoy trouting, come with full gear and be adventurous and try your luck at catching delicious trout. Don’t forget to try rafting and other water sports. Make sure you have warm clothes because cool winds will make you feel quite chilly!
There are hotels on the bank of Kunhar River where you can stay for 2 or more days and explore the marvellous areas nearby including Jheel Saif ul Malook, Babusar Top, and Lulusar Lake. Another beautiful spot is Lulusar Lake which is surrounded by colourful wildflowers. 50 kilometres away from here is Chilas which is a gateway to Gilgit, Hunza, Skardu.
Lalazar is another beautiful tourist spot in Naran Kaghan Valley located at an elevation of 3123 meters above sea level. The road could be a challenge for most of the drivers. The deadliest Lalazar road is 4.2 kilometres long with a breathtaking landscape. Kunhar river flows along on one side. The road is built on a hilly mountain that is covered in pine forests and has amazingly pleasant weather even in Summers.
The tale of Lalazar’s beauty is heard around the globe but we as responsible tourists and citizens should take extra care of not polluting the area. Throwing garbage can totally eradicate the serenity of breathing fresh air. The government should be taking responsibility to keep the area clean and green.
A preserved thick green forest, Sharan is the most non-commercial area of Naran Kaghan Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. You can experience this place that is rich in vegetation, very less populated with travellers, and extremely peaceful. The Sharan forest has been saved from exploitation. Many flora and fauna species can be found here.
There are not many hotels and places to eat here so before planning to pay a visit here, make sure you have enough food and water supply. You can either take a bus or a private car to reach Naran Valley. Faisal Movers and Daewoo provide transportation service to Naran. Roads are a lot better on these routes now. One of the most adventurous things you can do here is camping in camping pods that are available at an amazing price ranging from Rs 3000 to Rs 5000. To book your night stay at a camping pod, you can visit the website of Tourism Corporation KP. Since these sights are not commercialized, the flux of visitors is very less and bookings are available easily.
The temperature ranges from 15 to 25 degrees. Few other attractions nearby are Manshi Top, Manor Valley, and Kaghan Valley. You can do trekking, fishing, and horse riding too.
From Islamabad, at a distance of 200 kilometres on the Naran road comes a scenic peak known as Makra Peak. It is a track from Kiwai to Shogran, climbs to Siri Lake, and ends at Paye. Taking the trek of 9 hours, you reach the top of Makra Peak. Tourists come here mainly for hiking and trekking but as it is a dangerous and steep track many casualties occur. Because of snow and the gradient of these mountains, the climbing gets very difficult.
Despite the difficulty, tourists still want to reach the top to see the tremendous Hazara view. Makra peak is named after the shape it takes due to snow in winters.
Activities in Naran
There are many adventurous things you can do on a trip to Naran.
Hiking and Trekking in Naran Kaghan Valley
Hiking can be the best way to endure our mother nature. It can be the closest encounter to the beauty of the world. In Naran, you will find many opportunities to do so. There are a number of tracks in almost every town worth visiting.
Lalazar has one of the most beautiful hiking tracks followed by blooming flowers and greenery throughout. It is sitting at an altitude of about 10,499 feet above sea level. The early and mid-summer season is the best time to take this track. Don’t forget to take warm clothes and a water bottle with you. To reach Lalazar, there are two tracks, one is for jeeps and the other is for walking. This could be a 6-7 hours long trail so keep yourself hydrated. While walking on this track, you’ll be in the vicinity of Jheel Saif ul Malook.
Another hiking track is reaching to Babusar top which is at an altitude of 13,900 feet. Make sure you have sticks to support you in walking as the track is rough, steep and stones are on way. Do keep clothes that can keep you warm because the cold breeze can be harsh sometimes.
There are two trekking routes to reach Ansoo Lake situated at an altitude of 13927 feet and is convenient in summers only. The first one is a steep track of about 6 hours from Saif ul Malook. The other route is from Mhandri which is 40 kilometres from Naran.
You can reach Saral Lake, known as the princess of mountains, by tacking the track to reach Noori Top. The lake is surrounded by the highest mountains. You need to take the trekking route to reach Sharda first and then take the jeep ahead.
Fishing at Lakes
One of the most favourite activities of tourists is fishing trout in lake Saif ul Malook. It is known for its delicious brown and rainbow trout. Crystal clear blue water makes it more interesting and beautiful to look at. You can take your own fishing gear or rent them from a nearby Bazar.
Please note that some of the fishing nets, explosives, and gears are not allowed to use for catching fish as they are dangerous for the breeding of trout. Make sure you don’t do anything that is harmful to the sustainable growth of any wildlife.
Camping Sites in Naran
While visiting Naran Kaghan Valley, you might want to do camping as it is a soul-enriching experience. Trekkers love to stop on their way and build their own tents to sleep under the sky. There are many camping pods setup organized by the government to promote tourist spots. They have enough space to cater to the need in peak times. You can enjoy these camping sites at Lulusar Lake, Saif ul Malook, Dudipatsar Lake, Balakot, Babusar Top. The magnificent view of clear sky and starry nights could be breathtaking.
Before you intend to go camping anywhere in Naran Kaghan valley, make sure you are prepared well for the trip, keep all the essentials with you. Your luggage must include tents, sleeping bag, food, water, medicines, toilet kit, emergency light, and everything that you think could be useful.
Rafting in Kunhar River
In summers, rafting is an emerging yet breathtaking experience. At Kunhar river, rafting services are provided by many groups. Their experienced and trained staff make Kunhar river rafting adventure safe and fun for the tourists. They have permanent guides who love river rafting and also provide training programs. With every trip, there are trainers who come along to ensure the safety of the customer.
Is Naran Kaghan open?
Yes, Naran Kaghan is open. However, due to heavy snowfall till the end of March, the road situation could be risky as road sliding is very normal due to melting glaciers. Most of the hotels are closed at this time of year. Conveyance will be difficult to find so walking would be the last option. The best time to travel in these areas is from May till October.
What is the route to Kaghan Valley from Islamabad?
You can reach Kaghan Valley by road from Abottabad to Mansehra via Balakot when travelling from Islamabad. The distance from Islamabad to Kaghan Valley is almost 131 kilometres. In Balakot, tourists can travel by taking public buses or by their own conveyance. Kaghan Valley is a highly populated tourist attraction.
What should I bring to Naran Kaghan?
Before starting your trip to Naran Kaghan, you must have essentials including warm clothes, a sleeping bag, tent, snacks, water, sunscreen, sunglasses, hat, pocket knife, emergency light, and first aid kit. Pack your luggage according to the weather forecast. Winters can be extremely cold whereas nights in summer are slightly cold as well.
Is Naran Kaghan safe?
Yes, Naran Kaghan is an absolutely safe place to plan your trip. The people of Naran are very welcoming, friendly, and peaceful. The valley has many sights that are beautiful and serene. One can make a trip to the northern areas of Pakistan every year to break the monotony of our hectic routines | <urn:uuid:f58d9ceb-caa4-4809-9093-33e3df3e1b20> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://roamingpakistan.com/attractions-of-naran-kaghan-all-you-need-to-know/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571993.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814022847-20220814052847-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.957952 | 2,671 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Hua-Yen Sūtra was premiered as a multimedia performance in 2007. Now in 2022, Zuni’s new work Hua-Yen Buddhaverse draws on the latest in Arts Tech using immersive projection to create an immersive experience of the Hua-yen Avatamsaka realm at the Studio Theatre of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Seen as an Arts Tech presentation of a spiritual assembly, the multilayered Hua-Yen Buddhaverse is also a journey where audiences take a sensory trip to the Hua-yen Avatamsaka world via the media of sounds and images.
‘The digital world is made up of the digits ‘0’ and ‘1’ upon which an infinite digital world is thus created. The inspiration for the multimedia design of the performance Hua-yen Sutra originates from the concept of ‘One’ and ‘Many’, or ‘Unity’ and ‘Diversity’, in the World of Hua-yen.” Mathias Woo, the Director’s note, Hua-yen Sūtra (2007)
At the Grand Theatre of the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, a live concert, Hua-Yen reveals Insights of Interbeing through Sounds. Mind and Light, the key words of Buddhist philosophy, are brought to life by Naamyam – the Cantonese narrative singing performance – reinterpreting the signature theme songs from the theatre series Hua-yen Sūtra: Minds as Skillful Painter, The Ten Directions Are But One Thought, Song of Meditation, etc. Hua-yen offers multiple interpretations of the ancient Siddhaṃ script through a live performance that includes the art forms of singing, chanting, Cantonese Naamyam, and a live band playing Chinese and Western music, giving shape to the Hua-yen Avatamsaka world with a diversity of sounds.
Original Text by Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh Extracted from The Book “Cultivating the Mind of Love” Parallax Press, 2004
New Vision Arts Festival 2022 Programme
The programme is offered by the Zuni Icosahedron in support of the “New to the Theatre: School Culture Day Scheme 2022/23” presented by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department | <urn:uuid:9dd3bcd1-23fa-4993-b92b-50c87e12cf06> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://zuniseason.org.hk/en/programme/hua-yen-buddhaverse-hua-yen-concert/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572127.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815024523-20220815054523-00273.warc.gz | en | 0.87931 | 482 | 1.507813 | 2 |
There are many reasons why we consume news. From access and deadlines to the effect and efficacy of news gathering, this article will explore how news is created and chosen. Here are the three most important aspects of news. And what’s the biggest factor affecting its effectiveness? Let’s look at some of the most prominent sources of news today. Let’s also look at how journalists choose stories for their publications. We’ll also discuss the role of the press and journalists’ values.
Values of news
News is a form of information, which has different values according to different societies. The First World values news based on personal characteristics, while the Second World values it based on political party concerns and social responsibility. In both worlds, news is a representation of the way of life through ideological lenses. In the Third World, news has a very different value structure, but the values of news remain essentially the same. In the First World, news is a kind of curiosity that needs to be read and looked into by many people.
The selection process and the distortion of news stories happens at every stage of the chain, from the event itself to the reader. While this process is largely successful, there are some limitations. Despite being a guiding principle, the list does not account for the broader pragmatic reasons for not reporting certain stories. For example, in 1988, a mass Burmese demonstration received hardly any media attention. Overseas journalists were not allowed to enter the hostile regime of General Ne Win.
Sources of news
Press conferences and speeches from government officials are the major sources of news in India. Senior government officials hold press conferences or issue handouts to announce their decisions. The media also pays attention to important court judgements or cases. Speeches from legislatures, conferences, seminars and public meetings are also important sources of news. Oftentimes, media outlets get information about breaking news from the news sources informally. But in some cases, journalists must attend a formal press conference to gain access to key people.
In addition to print publications, television is a primary source of news. Film reports often provide a more visual view of an event. Newspapers and television stations generally enter into reciprocal agreements in order to obtain film reports and distribute them to their readers. The newspapers also benefit from this practice because they have enough material for their reporting. In addition, news sources may also be free, including free online articles. In general, newspapers and magazines offer the most complete information.
Impact of news
Overwhelming news sources and platforms are a major cause of overexposure to information. As more platforms and channels for news consumption emerge, the line between news creation and consumption blurs. This information overload creates conditions that contribute to stress, boredom, excessive redundancy, and distraction. This condition was named information fatigue syndrome. Researchers are trying to understand how news overload affects the curation of information. In the meantime, we should be aware of the impact that news can have on our mental health.
Overloaded news channels decrease news’ ability to reach people, which causes them to avoid the publishing organization or online portal, or to block it altogether. As a result, news content may be inaccurate or uninformed, which is a major reason why news consumption is becoming so dismal. To avoid this, news agencies must consider how relevant their news is to the general public. This means considering the quality of news, as well as the relevance of stories.
Efficacy of news gathering
The effectiveness of newsgathering media is related to the way people perceive the credibility of news sources. Traditional media are still considered the most trustworthy, but social and technology-based media should also be included. This research examines the antecedents and consequences of various behavior patterns. It shows that newspaper browsing is associated with a wide range of news topics and predicts self-efficacy in social and political arenas.
As journalists, we must be transparent about our sources and methods of news gathering. This transparency is crucial for allowing audiences to judge the credibility of the information we provide. Truth is the foundation of all journalism, interpretation, commentary, and debate. When we get it right, the larger truth will emerge. Today’s citizens are exposed to an ever-increasing volume of data and require more information to understand the world. | <urn:uuid:0e0d7130-41ee-49da-a0c4-961a0d918b66> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://nokonabaseball.org/index.php/2022/05/11/sources-of-news/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572063.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814173832-20220814203832-00669.warc.gz | en | 0.950933 | 873 | 3.296875 | 3 |
Researchers have classified a brand-new organ inside our bodies, one that’s been hiding in plain sight in our digestive system this whole time.
Our hard-wired stress response is designed to gives us the quick burst of heightened alertness and energy needed to perform our best. But stress isn’t all good. When activated too long or too often, stress can damage virtually every part of our body. Sharon Horesh Bergquist gives us a look at what goes on inside our body when we are chronically stressed.
Lesson by Sharon Horesh Bergquist, animation by Adriatic Animation.
A single traumatic experience can cause changes to the amygdala in rats, resulting in behavior similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.
AsianScientist (Jan. 11, 2017) – A single stressful incident can lead to increased electrical activity in the amygdala, a region of the brain is known to play key roles in emotional reactions, memory and making decisions. These findings, published in Physiological Reports, shed light on how traumatic events can have long-term psychological repercussions.
Newswise — Brussels, 9 January 2017 – A study published today shows that low levels of exposure to the weed killer Roundup over a long period of time can cause liver disease in rats. The findings are likely to bring further public attention to the Roundup’s controversial active ingredient, glyphosate.
A novel immunotherapy drug is credited for successfully treating former President Jimmy Carter’s advanced melanoma. Instead of killing cancer cells, these drugs boost the patient’s immune system, which does the job instead.
Now you can HEAR chemistry: Health Ranger translates molecules into music in stunning video demonstration that will blow your mind (and your ears)
(NaturalNews) What you are about to witness is something I first performed live in Dallas at The Truth About Cancer symposium in 2016, in front of an audience of tens of thousands of people (live + online streaming).
It was so astonishing to the audience — truly jaw-dropping — that people couldn’t stop talking to me about it for days. They wanted to hear more about this extraordinary harmonic code found in the Table of Elements and the laws of physics and chemistry.
An exceptional nine-minute Navy video of a UFO displaying highly unusual behavior, studied by Chilean authorities for the last two years, is now being released to the public. The CEFAA – the Chilean government agency which investigates UFOs, or UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena), has been in charge of the investigation. Located within the DGAC, the equivalent of our FAA but under the jurisdiction of the Chilean Air Force, CEFAA has committees of military experts, technicians and academics from many disciplines. None of them have been able to explain the strange flying object captured by two experienced Navy officers from a helicopter. | <urn:uuid:a4bb0791-8f09-42ee-bc0a-ff767ca76cbc> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://wemustknow.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00221-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94199 | 574 | 2.625 | 3 |
USA Today talks to some Marines in Haiti who believe they are doing the right thing, but I suggest that they're misreading their history lessons - and that's abnormal for Marine officers.
Ado, 63, was among dozens of Haitians who watched the massive hovercraft Friday on a beachhead established by U.S. Marines who arrived off the coast last week. Since arriving, The Marines have moved tons of food and water ashore for aid groups to carry away in trucks to survivors of the Haiti earthquake Jan. 12.
It's not the Marines' first time in Haiti. Troops were here in 2004 to prevent massacres in the wake of the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Haiti is a major part of Marine Corps lore for other reasons.
The Corps governed Haiti from 1915 to 1934 after an invasion force was sent to prevent an anti-American dictator from assuming power. Young, non-commissioned officers governed Haiti with little supervision.
The Marines were reminded of that history as they prepared for the Haiti mission, said Lt. Col. Gary Keim, who commands a logistics battalion.
"We were required to reread it," he said. "We've been here before. We've been successful before."
Okay, slow down there. The Marines were controlling Haiti for two decades to shape its government, and still we have a long history there of dictators leading up to "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Then we have the 1994 and 2004 interventions - which did include just a few Army troops, USA Today - and still there was no stable government in place, no corrective actions, no long-term guidance or aid to fix Haiti's inherent problems. Exactly how have we been "successful" here before? We're applying band-aids to a nation with a compound fracture.
I don't point this out to malign the military's disaster relief operations - certainly Haiti would be much worse off without this American aid. But here's the thing - if we haven't figured out that the DOD is not a uniform cure for every foreign policy problem by now, well, then we really have a problem here. We really need to examine how the State Department, USAID, and other non-defense agencies organize and equip to address issues such as this incident. We really need them to be in charge and to establish strong programs that actually promote long-term support for those governments looking for assistance. The military may be part of the solution, but it doesn't need to lead nation-building efforts. We've let that practice go on too long, and it's not working. | <urn:uuid:cda0a547-9f5b-4849-b0c1-e904af100657> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://crooksandliars.com/jason-sigger/us-military-not-solution-haiti | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280891.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00158-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977894 | 535 | 1.960938 | 2 |
In order to successfully obtain a Masters qualification, you will need to obtain a number of credits by passing individual modules. Most taught Masters will have a number of core modules which you must take and pass in order to obtain the qualification. The assessment of research Masters is almost always entirely by a single dissertation module or project.
A course of study in international finance focuses on educating financial professionals to work at a global level of monetary institution analysis and management. Programs in international finance may take into account the scheduling needs of working students.
France is currently among the 20 best performing countries in terms of the economy due to their excellent results-oriented higher education learning. Most of the courses at universities are offered in the French language. France has 60 public and 100 private universities.
With a population of more than 100,000 people, Clermont-Ferrand city-commune is bordered by a major industrial area in France. The city is home to the d'Auvergne University and Blaise Pascal University.
Request Information Master's Degrees in International Finance in Clermont-Ferrand in France 2016/2017
The MSc. in Control, Audit & Corporate Finance is a 2-year Master degree Programme (100% English Programme, fast-track of 13-months) that provides both recent graduates and experienced professionals with the knowledge and tools necessary to optimize the various sides of the functions of Auditing, Finance and Control. [+] | <urn:uuid:e299ba8c-a3f6-490f-9ba7-7a63fb59ad18> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.masterstudies.com/Masters-Degree/Finance/International-Finance/France/Auvergne/Puy-de-Dôme/Clermont-Ferrand/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720153.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00324-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925692 | 295 | 1.640625 | 2 |
UNITED NATIONS: Less than three months after Prime Minister Narendra Modi
proposed the idea, the UN general assembly
on Thursday adopted an India-led resolution declaring June 21 as 'International Day of Yoga
', recognizing that "Yoga provides a holistic approach to health and well-being."
The resolution on 'International Day of Yoga' was introduced by India's ambassador to UN Asoke Mukerji
and had 175 nations joining as co-sponsors, the highest number ever for any general assembly resolution.
It is also for the first time that such an initiative has been proposed and implemented by any country in the UN body in less than 90 days.
Through the resolution, adopted under the agenda of 'Global Health and Foreign Policy,' the 193-member general assembly decided to proclaim June 21 every year as the 'International Day of Yoga'.
It recognised that Yoga "provides a holistic approach to health and well-being" and that wider the dissemination of information about benefits of practising Yoga would be beneficial for the health of the world population.
In introducing the resolution, Mukerji quoted Modi's UNGA address in which he had asked world leaders to adopt an international Yoga day, saying that by changing lifestyle and creating consciousness, it can help us deal with climate change.
"Yoga embodies unity of mind and body; thought and action; restraint and fulfilment; harmony between man and nature; a holistic approach to health and well being," Modi had said.
In suggesting June 21 as the International Day of Yoga, Modi had said that the date, one of the two solstices, is the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere and has special significance in many parts of the world.
Mukerji said the vision articulated by the Prime Minister was warmly welcomed initially by a small yet committed corpus of nations.
"The very fact that today in the UN general assembly, this draft resolution has garnered a record number of 175 co-sponsors, including the vast majority of member states of all the regional and sub-regional groups of the general assembly, as well as all the five permanent members of the UN security council, is a testimony to the enthusiastic cross cultural and universal appeal that Yoga enjoys amongst members of the United Nations," Mukerji said. | <urn:uuid:1af8d74d-9222-4ba4-8b8e-c6f3e0db303d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/un-declares-june-21-as-international-day-of-yoga/articleshow/45480636.cms | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573197.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818124424-20220818154424-00677.warc.gz | en | 0.971091 | 465 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Property values have dropped about 40 per cent since the market there peaked in September 2005.
For example, a four-bedroom house with pool in Cape Coral (on the Gulf coast) that sold for $495,000 in 2005 is now listed at $339,000.
The property actually sold for $290,000 last month, says listing agent Carolyn Simoneau. But the buyer had to back out and wants just enough to cover his realty commissions.
Let's make a deal?
Not so fast.
Buying real estate in the distressed U.S. market is trickier than buying in Canada and can be full of traps for the unwary.
You need to know what you're doing when buying from foreclosures – the legal process a lender uses when a homeowner defaults on mortgage payments.
In the first stage of foreclosure, the bank starts legal proceedings after several months of missed payments.
The owners can try to sell the home themselves.
And if the mortgage is worth more than the property value, they can make a deal with the bank to pay back less than the total owing to clear the debt.
This stage, called pre-foreclosure or a "short sale," is a good time to buy in Florida.
But if you make an offer, remember that the seller has to take your offer to the bank for approval. This can take up to six months.
Andrew Vitch recently bought his first Florida property, which was in a short sale.
He owns seven rental properties with 31 units in St. Catharines. He also owns a Muskoka cottage resort, Sunny Point.
Last December, he bid on a two-bedroom, 1,300-square-foot condo in a gated community in Fort Myers on Florida's southwest coast.
"The property was listed at $189,000, down from $389,000 three years earlier," he says.
"We offered $170,000 and paid $177,000," he says.
He picked the community because there were only three foreclosures among the 1,400 homes there.
Decide on the community, not the individual property, he advises.
Some new developments are selling very little and some existing ones have significant foreclosures. This will result in higher condo fees for everyone, including you.
Understand the reality of taxes and insurance. Vitch's property was assessed for 2009 at $177,700. His tax bill is about 2 per cent of assessed value, or $3,554.
Buying in a condo community means that part of your monthly fees go to insurance. Vitch pays $360 a year to cover the inside of his condo and $150 for flood insurance.
And think about going into a gated community for security and peace of mind when you're not there.
Cameron Roach, a former Toronto mortgage broker, has written a guide for Canadians titled Buy Florida ($19.99, Rosseau Publishing).
The easiest and cheapest way to finance your place in the sun is to borrow the money in Canada, he says.
"You can't get a Canadian mortgage for a property in another country, but if you already own a home in Canada with enough equity, you can refinance your home here and use the money for a home in Florida," he says.
Find good real estate agents and sign them up as a buyer's agent working on your behalf. They will know the local area and what a good price on a place really is.
Be aware that any money you get renting out your property will be subject to a 30 per cent withholding tax. Also, many condos and homeowner associations have rules about renting.
When you have to transfer money down to Florida, use a foreign exchange company to save on conversion and transfer costs. You can even lock in a favourable exchange rate months in advance.
Watch out for Chinese drywall, which was imported to the U.S. during the housing boom. Some class-action lawsuits have been filed against makers of the defective drywall, which can emit sulphur fumes, leading to "rotten egg" smells and corrosion in metals (such as air conditioning coils). | <urn:uuid:a1d6c7b8-cf16-4d95-a089-e2159eb4246f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.thestar.com/life/homes/2009/08/26/how_to_buy_florida_real_estate.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00326-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967612 | 856 | 1.671875 | 2 |
2014 International Conservation Budget
April 15, 2014
This publication relates to:
The International Conservation Budget describes the major U.S. government programs supporting international conservation and includes information about annual funding levels appropriated by Congress. It is published by WWF, The Nature Conservancy, Conservation International, and the Wildlife Conservation Society. | <urn:uuid:f8de0024-e581-4e7a-90c4-12a0140dd25d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.worldwildlife.org/publications/2014-international-conservation-budget | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280872.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00317-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.878028 | 63 | 1.773438 | 2 |
What Temperature To Roast Vegetables Celsius?
- Vincent Santos
When it comes to roasting vegetables, there is no one-size-fits-all answer in terms of temperature. Different vegetables will roast best at different temperatures, so it’s important to know what temperature to roast vegetables at for each type. For example, root vegetables like potatoes and carrots can be roasted at a higher temperature than delicate vegetables like tomatoes and zucchini. In general, though, most vegetables can be roasted at a moderate temperature between 200 and 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Experiment to find the best temperature for your particular vegetables, and you’ll be rewarded with perfectly roasted veggies every time.
- 1 4 cooking tips to make Perfect Roasted Vegetables
- 2 You’re Doing It All Wrong – How to Roast Vegetables
- 3 What level do you roast vegetables in the oven?
- 4 Do you cover roast vegetables in the oven?
- 5 What temperature should vegetables be?
- 6 Can I roast veggies at 225 degrees?
- 7 How long and at what temperature do you roast vegetables?
- 8 What temperature do you roast vegetables in convection oven?
- 9 Do you need oil to roast vegetables?
4 cooking tips to make Perfect Roasted Vegetables
You’re Doing It All Wrong – How to Roast Vegetables
What temperature is best for roasting vegetables?
The best temperature for roasting vegetables depends on the type of vegetable you are cooking. For example, harder vegetables like carrots and potatoes will take longer to cook at a lower temperature, while softer vegetables like tomatoes and peppers can be cooked at a higher temperature. In general, a good rule of thumb is to roast vegetables at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. This will ensure that they are cooked through and have a nice, crispy exterior.
What level do you roast vegetables in the oven?
There are a few factors to consider when roasting vegetables in the oven, such as the type of vegetable, the size of the vegetable, and the desired outcome. For example, root vegetables like potatoes and carrots can be roasted at a higher temperature than delicate vegetables like tomatoes and zucchini. The size of the vegetable also matters – larger vegetables will need to be roasted at a higher temperature for longer, while smaller vegetables can be roasted at a lower temperature for a shorter period of time. Ultimately, it’s up to the cook to decide what level to roast vegetables at based on their preferences.
How long does vegetables take to roast?
Roasting vegetables is a great way to bring out their natural flavors. The cooking time will vary depending on the type and size of the vegetables. For example, small diced potatoes will roast faster than large whole potatoes. Generally speaking, vegetables will take 20-30 minutes to roast at 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Keep an eye on them and give them a stir every now and then to ensure even cooking. When they’re finished, they should be tender and slightly browned. Enjoy!
Do you cover roast vegetables in the oven?
- There’s no need to cover roast vegetables while they’re in the oven.
- In fact, uncovered vegetables will roast more evenly and develop a nice, brown exterior.
- If you’re worried about vegetables drying out, simply add a little bit of water to the bottom of the pan.
- This will create steam and help keep the vegetables moist.
What temperature should vegetables be?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the ideal temperature for vegetables depends on the specific type of vegetable in question. For example, leafy greens like spinach and lettuce should be kept at a cool temperature, around 40°F, while root vegetables like potatoes and carrots can be stored at a slightly warmer temperature, around 50°F. In general, it is best to err on the side of cooler temperatures, as warmer temperatures can cause vegetables to spoil more quickly.
How do restaurants roast vegetables?
There are a few different ways that restaurants roast vegetables. One popular method is to toss the vegetables in a bit of olive oil and then roast them in a hot oven. This method results in crisp, flavorful vegetables. Another common method is to first steam the vegetables and then roast them. This method results in softer, more tender vegetables. Whichever method is used, roasting vegetables is a quick and easy way to add a delicious side dish to any meal.
Can I roast veggies at 225 degrees?
- If you’re looking to roast vegetables at a low temperature, 225 degrees is a good starting point.
- This temperature will gently cook the vegetables, allowing them to retain their natural flavors and colors.
- Roasting time will vary depending on the type and size of the vegetables, so be sure to keep an eye on them as they cook.
- When done, the vegetables should be tender and lightly browned.
- Enjoy your roasted veggies as is, or use them as a delicious addition to a variety of dishes.
How long and at what temperature do you roast vegetables?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the cooking time and temperature for roasted vegetables will vary depending on the type and size of the vegetables being roasted. For example, small, delicate vegetables like cherry tomatoes or baby carrots will cook more quickly than large, thick vegetables like potatoes or winter squash.In general, however, most vegetables can be roasted at a temperature of 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 20-30 minutes. This will result in tender, flavorful vegetables that are slightly browned and caramelized on the outside. If you are looking for a more deeply browned and crispy result, you can roast your vegetables at a higher temperature (450-500 degrees Fahrenheit) for a shorter period of time (15-20 minutes).
Why do my roast vegetables go soggy?
There are a few reasons why your roast vegetables might be going soggy. One possibility is that you’re not roasting them at a high enough temperature. Roast vegetables should be cooked at a temperature of 400 degrees Fahrenheit or higher in order to get that crispy, roasted texture. Another possibility is that you’re not using enough oil. Make sure to coat your vegetables in a generous amount of oil before roasting, as this will help to create a crispy exterior. Finally, it’s also possible that you’re overcooking your vegetables. Roast them for the minimum amount of time necessary to achieve the desired texture.
What temperature do you roast vegetables in convection oven?
- If you’re using a convection oven to roast vegetables, the general rule of thumb is to roast at a temperature that’s about 25 degrees lower than what you would use for a traditional oven.
- So, if you would normally roast vegetables at 400 degrees in a traditional oven, you would roast them at 375 degrees in a convection oven.
- This lower roasting temperature will help to prevent the vegetables from drying out.
Is it OK to roast vegetables with olive oil?
When it comes to roasting vegetables, there are a lot of different oils that you can use. But is olive oil the best option?Olive oil is a great option for roasting vegetables because it has a high smoke point. This means that it can withstand high heat without burning. And it also has a lot of healthy fats that can help to keep your vegetables moist and flavorful.Another great thing about olive oil is that it can help to create a crispy exterior on your vegetables. So if you’re looking for roasted vegetables that have a little bit of crunch, then olive oil is a great option.Of course, you can always experiment with other oils to see what you like best. But if you’re looking for a healthy and flavorful option, then olive oil is a great choice.
Do you need oil to roast vegetables?
No, you do not need oil to roast vegetables. You can roast vegetables without oil by using other methods, such as baking them in the oven. There are many benefits to roasting vegetables without oil, such as reducing the fat and calorie content of your meal. Additionally, roasting vegetables without oil can help to preserve their nutrient content.
Which vegetables take the longest to cook?
There are a few factors to consider when determining which vegetables take the longest to cook. First, the vegetable’s density will impact how long it takes to cook through. A denser vegetable like a potato will take longer to cook than a less dense vegetable like a zucchini. Second, the size of the vegetable will also impact cooking time. A larger vegetable will take longer to cook than a smaller one. Finally, the cooking method can also affect the amount of time it takes to cook a vegetable. For example, boiling will take longer than steaming.In general, denser vegetables like potatoes, carrots, and beets will take the longest to cook. These vegetables can take upwards of 45 minutes to cook through when using methods like boiling or roasting. Less dense vegetables like zucchini, tomatoes, and cabbage will take less time to cook, typically only 20-30 minutes. The size of the vegetable also matters – a larger carrot will take longer to cook than a smaller one, for example. And finally, the cooking method can also affect the cook time. Boiling will take longer than steaming, and roasting will take longer than stir-frying.
How long do you roast veggies at 400?
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the cooking time for roasted vegetables will vary depending on the type and size of the veg you are using. For smaller, thinner veg like diced carrots or sliced mushrooms, you will likely only need to roast for 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees. Heartier veg like diced potatoes or roasted cauliflower may take a bit longer, closer to 25-30 minutes. Ultimately, you’ll want to keep an eye on your veg and pull them out of the oven once they are tender and lightly browned.
Can you roast veggies at 350 degrees?
Yes, you can roast veggies at 350 degrees. This temperature will allow the veggies to cook evenly and brown slightly. Some people prefer to roast their veggies at a higher temperature to get more of a caramelized flavor, but 350 degrees is a good middle ground. Just make sure to keep an eye on your veggies so they don’t overcook. | <urn:uuid:e1f6a518-57e5-4718-b3bc-6ffbc661ce3a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://confessionsofaglutton.com/recipes/what-temperature-to-roast-vegetables-celsius.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570977.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809124724-20220809154724-00473.warc.gz | en | 0.911575 | 2,173 | 2.875 | 3 |
Residual stress caused by welding processes affects characteristics of strength and fracture of equipment and piping in power plants. Numerical thermal elastic-plastic analysis is a powerful tool to evaluate weld residual stress in actual plants. However, the conventional three-dimensional precise analysis for a welding process such as multi-pass welding, machining and thermal treatment requires enormous computation time though it can provide accurate results. In this paper, the finite element analysis code based on the iterative substructure method that was developed to carry out thermal elastic-plastic analysis efficiently, with both high computational speed and accuracy, was proposed to simulate the welding process of plant equipment and piping. Furthermore, optimization of the proposed analysis code was examined and the computational efficiency and accuracy were also evaluated.
Fast Simulation for Multi-Pass Welding Process Using Iterative Substructure Method: Investigation of Optimization and Efficient Computation
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Maekawa, A, Kawahara, A, Serizawa, H, & Murakawa, H. "Fast Simulation for Multi-Pass Welding Process Using Iterative Substructure Method: Investigation of Optimization and Efficient Computation." Proceedings of the ASME 2014 Pressure Vessels and Piping Conference. Volume 6B: Materials and Fabrication. Anaheim, California, USA. July 20–24, 2014. V06BT06A055. ASME. https://doi.org/10.1115/PVP2014-28185
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A minor phospholipid in eukaryotes that has a very important role in the response of cells to external ligands. The derivatives phosphatidyl inositol-phosphate PIP and phosphatidyl inositol- bisphosphate PIP2 are formed and broken down in cell membranes, and the trisphosphate inositol moiety InsP.O is important as a secondary messenger within the cytoplasm.
What is PHOSPHATIDYL INOSITOL?
Edited and fact checked by Pam: Google +
The Science Dictionary is the most comprehensive source of science definitions online with over 38K science terms written and created by our global team of scientists and academic professionals. ...more | <urn:uuid:aa40b95b-54fc-49ff-8857-d6561f8949e8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://thesciencedictionary.org/phosphatidyl-inositol/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283008.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00081-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922163 | 154 | 2.6875 | 3 |
President Barack Obama Oval Office listens to Valerie Jarrett during a meeting with senior staff in the Oval Office on Aug. 13, 2009. From left; White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Jarrett, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and Assistant to the President Mona Sutphen. Seated at far right is Alyssa Mastromonaco, Director of Scheduling. Photo by Pete Souza
Kathleen O’Brien: Obamacare In NJ: Four Out Of Five Enrollees Have Paid Their Premiums
At least three-quarters of the New Jerseyans who have selected health insurance through the federal marketplace website have followed through by paying their first month’s premium, according to the three companies selling the policies. The state’s rate of paying customers is in line with figures reported across the nation. The figures are seen by some as an important barometer of success in the opening months of coverage.
In New Jersey, an early reading shows the percentage of those who have paid ranges from 75 percent to 90 percent.m”To date, more than 80 percent of enrollees from the federal marketplace have paid their first month’s premiums, said Thomas Vincz, spokesman for Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey. “We expect that number to increase in coming weeks.”
Of all the myths and falsehoods that Republicans have spread about President Obama, the most pernicious and long-lasting is that the $832 billion stimulus package did not work. Since 2009, Republican lawmakers have inextricably linked the words “failed” and “stimulus,” and last week, five years after passage of the Recovery Act, they dusted off their old playbook again. it prevented a second recession that could have turned into a depression.
It created or saved an average of 1.6 million jobs a year for four years. (There are the jobs, Mr. Boehner.) It raised the nation’s economic output by 2 to 3 percent from 2009 to 2011. It prevented a significant increase in poverty — without it, 5.3 million additional people would have become poor in 2010. Government spending worked, helping millions of people who never realized it. And it can work again, whenever lawmakers agree that putting people to work is more important than winning ideological fights.
“You can get killed just for living in your American skin.” — Bruce Springsteen. On Aug. 7, 1930, two young black men were lynched in Marion, Ind. A photographer named Lawrence Beitler had a studio across the street from the lynching tree. He came out and snapped what became an iconic photo, which he made into a postcard and sold. It shows Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith hanging dead and their executioners, faces clearly visible, milling about as if at a picnic. Though authorities possessed this damning photographic evidence, they never arrested anyone for the crime. It was officially attributed to “persons unknown.”
This was not a unique thing. To the contrary, it happened thousands of times. And African-Americans carry this knowledge deep, carry it in blood and sinew, the understanding that the justice system has betrayed us often, smashed our hopes often, denied the value of our lives, often. This knowledge lent a certain tension and poignancy to the wait for a verdict in the Jordan Davis trial last week. Mr. Davis was the black kid shot dead by a white man, Michael Dunn. A guilty verdict would seem to have been a foregone conclusion. It wasn’t. Indeed, the verdict was mystifying.
Mr. Dunn was found guilty on three counts of attempted murder — meaning the three other young men in the SUV with Mr. Davis — but the jury deadlocked on the murder charge. It makes no sense: If Mr. Dunn is guilty of the three charges, how can he not be guilty of the fourth? The jury’s inability to hold him accountable for Mr. Davis’ death only validates African-Americans’ grimmest misgivings about the “just us” system. Brittney Cooper, an assistant professor at Rutgers University, put it as follows on Twitter: “This is not just about jail time. This is about whether white fear legally means more than black life.”
A federal court ruled against the University of Notre Dame on Friday in a lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act’s birth control mandate, the Associated Press reported. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld a federal judge’s previous ruling that denied Notre Dame’s request for an injunction to prevent it from complying with the birth control mandate. The court noted in its decision that Notre Dame already notified the administrator of its employee plan as well as the insurer for students that the university would not pay for contraception coverage.
Chicago will be the site of a digital manufacturing institute backed by $70 million in government money and another $250 million of private funding, giving the city, once a factory town, a better chance to re-establish its credentials as a modern maker of things. The decision, to be announced officially Tuesday by President Barack Obama, was hotly anticipated by city and state officials who recognized the opportunity to jump start high-tech manufacturing as a core component of Chicago’s economic vision. The city today, while still home to some manufacturing, is better known for its financial markets and convention business. The idea behind the institute is that manufacturing is being transformed by digital design, which replaces the draftsman’s table with the capacity to work and create in a virtual environment.
BREAKING: President Obama to announce that Chicago will be home to a new research and development institute sun-tim.es/MjKoEu
The city envisions the institute would focus on such projects as the faster and cheaper production of a next-generation aircraft engine; drastically reducing the amount of scrap material associated with small manufacturing runs; and speeding the design process among spread-out suppliers. “This is clearly, without a doubt, one of the most significant things to secure Chicago’s long-term economic future,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a Saturday interview. “It is the best insurance policy you can buy, which is major research capacity.” The $70 million grant will come from the Defense Department. Obama will officially announce the Chicago hub on Tuesday at the White House. The manufacturing initiative follows Obama’s new playbook for dealing with an oppositional Congress unlikely to enact any part of his economic vision. The announcement also delivers on the President’s pledge in his 2013 State of the Union address to set up three new manufacturing institutes from existing government programs.
In the spring of last year, the administration launched the competition. In addition to Chicago’s “Digital Manufacturing and Design Institute,” Obama will announce that Detroit has won an institute of its own focused on lightweight and modern metals manufacturing. The administration set up a pilot site in Youngstown, Ohio, in 2012, and a few weeks ago announced a new institute in Raleigh, N.C. Obama has also pledged to launch four more competitions for new institutes in the coming year in hopes of setting eight institutes in motion without any action by Congress. But Obama’s broader plan is to spur Congress to support the concept. His blueprint calls for a full national network of up to 45 institutes funded in part with new resources approved by lawmakers.
Adam Searing: How NC (Surprisingly) Became A Leader In ACA Enrollment
While North Carolina has refused to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act and many politicians continue to complain about the federal health exchange, the roll-out of Obamacare in N.C. tells a far more positive story. North Carolina is enrolling uninsured people at a rate at least twice that of any other state that has refused to set up its own health exchange and refused to expand Medicaid. In short, among states that are dragging their feet on the Affordable Care Act – no advertising campaigns, no speeches by the governor on how important it is for everyone to have access to health care, no Medicaid expansion that guarantees the lowest income workers coverage – North Carolina is by far leading the pack in private plan enrollment. Even with the federal health exchange’s shaky start, N.C. has already enrolled 107,778 uninsured people in private health plans. So what’s going on?
There are several answers. Our success starts with North Carolina’s excellent Medicaid managed-care program, Community Care of North Carolina. Even though Gov. Pat McCrory and legislative leaders declined the federal opportunity to expand Medicaid, N.C. Community Care has provided a natural framework to enroll uninsured people in private health plans. Under Community Care, local doctors, hospitals, health centers, health departments, social service offices, legal service providers and other community leaders have been quietly working together every day, every month and every year for a decade to help people access and use health care. Because of this, North Carolina’s Medicaid program is already a huge success both in delivering great care and containing costs. So, when the Affordable Care Act’s health exchange opened for business, there were already networks with proven records of success in helping people get health care. These organizations jumped right in to the enrollment effort because they work with uninsured families every day and know what a huge benefit this is.
Vladimir Putin has a dream – and for the past two weeks, the world has been helping him to live it. In this dream, Russia is rich again, a place where the reported $51-billion cost of the Winter Olympics in Sochi is no object. It’s a nation of impressive architecture and smiling volunteers who speak English but think like Russians. “Russia – Great, New, Open!” brag the billboards around the Olympic city. (“Open”? Sochi has high fences, surveillance balloons and warships off the coast; every phone call and e-mail is monitored.) Mr. Putin sees a Russia that is once more a global centre of gravity, indispensable on the world stage. Soon, if his plans come to fruition, Moscow will stand as the leader of a new bloc of nations – the Eurasian Union – with borders that look a lot like those of the Soviet empire, whose fall he has openly mourned.
Vladimir Putin also has a nightmare. And this week, it looked a lot like the burning heart of Kiev, the Ukrainian capital where tens of thousands of protesters battled police to bring down their Kremlin-backed, authoritarian government. Dozens died before a tentative truce Friday interrupted the hostilities, but anger remains so high that there is no guarantee it will hold. It’s not just that Mr. Putin fears the fall of President Viktor Yanukovych and the rise of a pro-Western government in Kiev, although that would be a heavy geopolitical blow. He needs Ukraine to take part if his Eurasian Union – currently set to launch next year with only Russia, Kazakhstan, Armenia and Belarus as members – is to look like anything more than a tiny dictators’ club.
AP: Venezuelan Government Cuts Internet Access, Blocks Websites In War Against Student Protesters
The battle for Venezuela is being fought as vigorously online as in the streets, with authorities cutting off the Internet to a clash-torn university city and blocking selected websites and a “walkie-talkie” service widely used by protesters. A local TV reporter in San Cristobal, capital of the western border state of Tachira, said Thursday night that she could hear gunshots as teargas-firing police broke up protests just as they had the night before when Internet service was cut. “We’re still without Internet. And some people don’t have water or electricity either,” said the reporter, Beatriz Font. San Cristobal, home to one private and three public universities, is where the current wave of anti-government demonstrations began on Feb. 2, the fiercest unrest since President Hugo Chavez died last March began.
Later Thursday, the U.S. company Zello told The Associated Press that Venezuela’s state-run telecoms company, CANTV, had just blocked access to the push-to-talk “walkie-talkie” app for smart phones and computers that has been a hugely popular organizing tool for protesters from Egypt to Ukraine. Zello supports up to 600 users on a single channel, and company CEO Bill Moore said it became the No. 1 app in Ukraine on Thursday for both the iOS and Android operating systems. In one day this week, Zello reported more than 150,000 downloads in Venezuela. Some believe Venezuela’s information war, which escalated last week as the government blocked images on Twitter after violence in Caracas claimed three lives, is only just beginning. The protesters are fed up with a catalogue of woes that include rampant inflation, food shortages and one of the world’s highest murder rates.
If a week is a long time in British politics, 24 hours has proven to be a long time in this Ukrainian political crisis. The priority must be to prevent further killing, and all sides must play their part in achieving this. The Ukrainian government has in recent months routinely ignored the democratic aspirations of the Ukrainian people. So it will take time for trust to be rebuilt across Ukrainian society and it will be hard for that progress to be made even after this crisis ends. That is why it is so important that the EU should continue to support Ukraine as the turmoil in Kiev continues. We must remember that this crisis began in November, when President Yanukovych walked away from an agreement with Europe that would have granted Ukraine access to the EU’s single market.
Yanukovich-allied oligarch, billionaire Rinat Akhmetov issued a statement stressing the need to keep Ukraine “united” nytimes.com/2014/02/23/wor…
The UK government has had a noticeably low profile as the crisis unfolded. But we must recognise that the number of people killed in Ukraine last week is a tragic expression of the gravity of the crisis. The streets of Kiev have revealed a geopolitical fault line between Russia and the West. President Obama was right to say that Ukraine can no longer be seen as part of a “Cold War chess board”. More than 20 years after the Berlin Wall fell we should not see a new era of 20th-century satellite states take hold on the 21st-century European continent. President Putin is known for his zero-sum approach to foreign affairs – but what happens in Ukraine cannot just be about judging what makes sense for Russia. It must be about what works for the people of Ukraine.
Like many of you, our friends, my wife and I have been literally rooted to our chairs as we watched events in our beloved Ukraine roll out, ever since those terrible days in Kyiv last November when Ukrainians began to die because of the brutality of Yanukovych’s Berkut. Since then, many, many more innocents have sacrificed themselves to protest injustice, tryanny and corruption. Ukrainians have been incredibly brave throughout all this. They have withstood freezing cold, Militia attacks, titushki beatings, kidnappings, torture, murder, Berkut Molotov cocktails and finally, an ultimate horror, the cold-blooded, merciless snipers of their own government’s security forces
One little known fact most Americans are not aware of is that Ukraine’s 40 million citizens legally possess more than 2 million private firearms: 400,000 of them are in Kyiv alone. And yet, even in the face of murderous provocation and killings by the police and Berkut, very few of those privately owned firearms were ever raised in anger, even against their tormentors: the ratio of citizens killed to police casualties was over 10 to 1. It tells us that Ukrainians are a people possessing extraordinary restraint and respect for life, because if every private gun in Ukraine had been fired in anger, the dead would be in the many thousands by now.
President Obama meets with actor George Clooney in the Oval Office, Feb. 23, 2009 (Photo by Pete Souza)
President Obama listens to staff during a meeting in the Oval Office, Feb. 23, 2010 (Photo by Pete Souza)
First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden discuss the Military Families Campaign with spouses of U.S. military leadership in the Map Room of the White House, Feb. 23, 2011 (Photo by Samantha Appleton)
President Obama poses for a photograph with Ambassador Jacinth Lorna Henry-Martin of St. Kitts and Nevis during an ambassador credentialing ceremony in the Oval Office, Feb. 23, 2011. Chief of Protocol Capricia Marshall and members of Henry-Martin’s family watch from the edge of the room (Photo by Pete Souza)
First Lady Michelle Obama views the Slave Pen exhibit while touring the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, Feb. 23, 2012. Pictured, from left, are: Dina Bailey, Associate Curator of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center; Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory; Verna Williams; and Allison Singleton (Photo by Sonya N. Hebert)
Chicago Tribune: During a trip to her hometown today, first lady Michelle Obama applauded the work of a South Loop non-profit group that is helping high school students get job experience and advice about attending college.
Obama joined Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his wife, Amy Rule, for a visit this morning to Urban Alliance Chicago, the career training program.
… “To you all students, for having the courage to step outside your comfort zone and do something that was probably initially pretty scary,” Obama told about 50 teens gathered to see her. “I know that feeling. I was you guys. I say that all the time. Living on the South Side, looking at these buildings, wondering what goes on in those offices.”
10:05: President Obama honors 2012 National Teacher of the Year and finalists at the W.H.
10:35: Departs the W.H. for Andrews Joint Air Force Base.
10:50: Departs Andrews Air Force Base for Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
11:50: Arrives in North Carolina.
1:00: Michelle Obama delivers the keynote address at Girls Inc. of Omaha’s 12th annual lunch.
1:15: PBO delivers remarks on student loans at the University of North Carolina.
2:20: PBO is interviewed for “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.”
2:45: Michelle Obama delivers remarks at a campaign event in Omaha covered by a print pooler.
3:40: PBO departs North Carolina for Colorado.
6:00: Michelle Obama meets with Obama campaign volunteers from the Des Moines area.
7:10: PBO arrives in Colorado.
8:45: Delivers remarks at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
If anyone has a link to the full interview could you leave it in the comments?
Charles Pierce: Has The New York Times taken to hiring its “Public Editors” from the people waiting on hold for Mark Levin?
Readers deserve to know: Who is the real Barack Obama?
No kidding, that appeared in an actual column in the actual New York Times.
…. Barack Obama has been on the national scene for eight years. He was a candidate for the better part of two years and has been the president of the United States for the better part of three. We know about things his preacher said. We know about his uncle’s unfortunate driving history and his aunt’s time on the dole. A good portion of the Republican base — the portion that Mr. Brisbane here is begging not to write him anything hurtful anymore — believes that it knows the president is a Kenyan-born Muslim Indonesian socialist who is just waiting until his second term to round them all up, take away their guns, and give them all retroactive late-term abortions, and only Brisbanish “vetting” can stand in the way of all that.
ThinkProgress: Former State Treasurer Sarah Steelman, a Republican now hoping to unseat Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), said recently that she was unfamiliar with the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), the landmark anti-domestic violence legislation whose re-authorization is now stalled in the Senate.
Senate Republicans are objecting to re-upping the 1994 law, which has already been extended several times, because of amendments that would extend protections for Native American women, gay victims, and others.
A video released today by the Missouri Democratic Party shows a man asking Steelman about VAWA at a campaign event. Steelman replies, “I’m not sure what that is because I’m not serving right now.” He asks again, “you haven’t really heard about it?” And she confirms, “no, not really.”
Caitlin Legacki, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Democratic Party, told Inside Missouri Politics that the exchange “underscores how ill-equipped she is to serve in public office.”
OFA: Yesterday, four Republicans in the New Hampshire State House allowed a hearing requested by Orly Taitz, the notorious dentist-lawyer-birther who wants President Obama officially removed from the state’s primary ballot.
So in honor of conspiracy theorists everywhere, we’re re-releasing the campaign’s limited-edition “Made in the USA” mugs.
There’s clearly nothing we can do to satisfy this crowd – or anyone else who insists on wasting time and energy on nonsense like this.
But when it starts to make your head hurt, I’ve found the best remedy is to have some tea in my “Made in the USA” mug.
**** Thanks to ChristiMtl for the link to Emilia’s post on Chris Matthews (here) – she says it all. ****
Tommy Christopher (Mediaite): Michael Moore Goes The Full Wingnut On President Obama Over Occupy ‘Crackdown’
This week began with a series of raids on Occupy movement encampments across the country … Filmmaker Michael Moore responded by accusing President Obama, via Twitter, of giving the “green light” for the raids. It’s just the latest in a series of unhinged attacks, on the President, by Moore….
…. At the time he made the accusation, there was absolutely no evidence to support it … The whole thing is so tin-foil ridiculous….What’s truly mystifying, though, is Michael Moore’s desperation to attack President Obama …. it’s rare that a liberal outpaces the most rabid of right-wing fabricators to do so.
…. this is just the culmination of a series of unhinged anti-Obama attacks by Moore … Perhaps most tellingly, though, he appeared on The View in September to express his “disappointment” with President Obama by saying, “Bill Maher had a good answer when he said that Obama was half white and half black. He said I went to the polls and I voted for the black guy and what we got was the white guy.”
…. A blogger at AngryBlackLady.com notes Moore’s curious obsession with “the white vote” in a talk he gave earlier this month. He told the crowd, “The only reason Obama won was because of 18 to 29 year olds,” and went on to explain that this was the only age group in which a majority of whites voted for Barack Obama….
….. It’s time that Michael Moore, and some of the others who are disillusioned with President Obama, think about what role his race plays in the ways in which they criticize him.
First lady Michelle Obama holds up a worm from a compost pile as she visits Iron Street Urban Farm
First Lady Michelle Obama and Mayor Rahm Emanuel greet Newt Gingrich in Chicago
Denver Post: A new statewide poll released today to coincide with President Obama’s trip to Colorado shows the first-term Democrat is more popular than any of his major GOP presidential challengers, particularly among unaffiliated voters and Hispanics, two crucial groups.
…. “At this point in the presidential race, President Obama is running against himself,” Project New West president Jill Hanauer said today. “At the same time, the Republican field is not reaching a majority of Coloradans due to their extreme views in very centrist state where voters vote for the person not the party and the policy vision, not a political ideology.”
…. PNW’s poll showed that 49% of likely Colorado voters view the President in a positive light, compared with 45% who have a negative opinion of him. Comparatively, Mitt Romney has a 40/38 favorable/unfavorable rating, and Rick Perry is underwater with a 29/38 rating.
Importantly, the President is even more popular with unaffiliated voters, who constitute a crucial 29% of the Colorado electorate. 54 percent of unaffiliated voters have positive feelings about the president, compared with 37% who view him negatively. Romney (38/37) and Perry (24/33) have similar ratings among Unaffiliateds as they do with the broader electorate.
The President also remains popular with Hispanic voters, who made up roughly 12% of the Colorado electorate in 2010. Obama has a 59/36 approval/disapproval rating among Colorado Hispanics, compared to 31/35 for Romney and 28/39 for Perry.
Go to Political Correction to see an enlarged version of the graphic – ‘A Timeline Of GOP Economic Sabotage’. Thank you BWD.
OMG! Ex-pat GG briefly left Brazil to visit America for an appearance on Maddow to promote his shiny new book! Awesome! It was a complete love-in – Rachel even wrote the huggy blurb on the back of the book! And she nodded knowingly when he went on about the elites who rule America (but she ran out of time before she could ask him about the Koch brothers and GG’s work for their CATO Institute).
11:15 The President meets with King Abdullah II of Jordan
12:05 The President and King Abdullah deliver statements to the press
2:50 The President hosts a White House reception in honor of Jewish American Heritage Month
Photo from Florida, 2008
Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whom President Obama has picked to lead the Democratic National Committee, introduced the president at the first of two DNC events in Washington last night.
“How about my new DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz,” Obama said, to applause. “She is tireless, tireless. And she’s got the most adorable kids, and I don’t know how she keeps up with everything.”
“But as Michelle said, if you want something done, put a woman in charge. So, all right, everybody got….women, you got a little too excited on that.” | <urn:uuid:e2423a91-97f1-4bbd-8eb6-942742069c33> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://theobamadiary.com/tag/rahm/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720941.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00518-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957449 | 5,617 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Have you ever walked into a crowded room and smelled something gross and thought, "Man, someone forgot to shower this morning, huh." But then you realize that you forgot to wash the shirt you're wearing and you're actually what smells?
This is like that, but for copyright law.
Scanning through the takedown notices posted to ChillingEffects.org, reporters at The Next Web noticed something strange and frankly sort of embarrassing. In a piracy takedown notice sent to Google last week, Universal Pictures France listed a local address (127.0.0.1:4001) as the illegal source for a copy of Jurassic World — ratting out their own computer for piracy and demanding Google delist it from public search rankings. Basically, they found their own movie on their own system and ran screaming to Google about film piracy.
It turns out, this happens all the time. TNW dug up more than a hundred other cases dating back years, using a simple "localhost" search. It's a sign of how haphazard the reporting process is and how little effort studios make to double-check their takedown requests. But mostly, it's just embarrassing. Sure, you probably had that torrent client open for scanning rather than leaking, but when monitoring is that lax, is it any wonder screeners keep slipping out? | <urn:uuid:25bcaf66-d488-4e4b-beaa-820f00465933> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.theverge.com/2015/7/23/9025841/studio-piracy-scan-chililng-effects | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570871.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808183040-20220808213040-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.951808 | 268 | 1.59375 | 2 |
As a kid, I was a big admirer of Israel.* I kept a scrapbook on the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Back then, Israel was America’s plucky ally, David against Goliath, helping to keep the Soviet bear at bay, or so it seemed to me.
Through a kid’s eyes, Israel in 1973 was an island seemingly surrounded by a sea of well-armed enemies: Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia. Outnumbered and outgunned. And now look at today’s reality: Egypt and Iraq have been neutralized. Syria is devastated. Jordan is wisely (sort of) neutral. The Saudis are a quasi-ally. Outside of the more-or-less manageable threat of terrorism (Hamas and Hezbollah), Israel’s chief enemy today appears to be itself.
What I mean by that is this: Israel, which over the last 70 years has fought several wars for its survival, is now a regional superpower. Yet the mindset of David versus Goliath persists, even though Goliath is hobbled and defeated. Meanwhile, as Israel combats terrorism and the legacies of West Bank occupation and isolation of the Gaza Strip, the government prosecutes policies that are considered illiberal and dangerous by many Jewish critics within Israel itself.
A similar David-Goliath mindset exists in the USA, but with far less cause. Bizarrely, the world’s military superpower envisions itself as being surrounded by enemies. Its response is something like Israel’s, as if the USA is Israel writ large. Both countries seek total military dominance over their perceived enemies and rivals; both are led by strong men dogged by claims of corruption; both glorify their militaries; both appear to be spoiling for war with Iran.
Interestingly, both are also obsessed with demographic “enemies within”: many Israelis fear growing Arab/Muslim influence within; many Americans fear minorities will soon constitute the majority (estimates say non-whites will outnumber whites in the year 2045, but some Americans – like Laura Ingraham on Fox News – feel it’s already happened). The result: the ruling administrations of both countries have doubled down on security and identity politics. Israel has made Arabs second-class citizens, a form of apartheid; Trump & Co. has vilified immigrants (especially Mexicans) as rapists and murderers. Both are building walls to keep the “enemy” without. Both see massive military spending (and nuclear weapons) as the ultimate guarantors of peace.
Israel is little Prussia; the USA is big Prussia. And like Prussia (and Germany) of the past, they pose as the aggrieved party, surrounded by enemies, hemmed in and oppressed. It’s never wrong to be strong – that’s their guiding motto. And by strength they mean hardness: military strength, police strength, the strength of superior weapons technology, embraced by leaders willing to kill or torture or imprison others in the name of preserving a “democratic” way of life.
It’s a mindset conducive to authoritarianism, to militarism, to nationalism, even to kleptocracy disguised as essential spending on national security. At its root is fear, which generates a “no compromise” attitude toward the Other (whether Palestinian “terrorists” or immigrant “killers” and “animals”). As the Palestinian activist Bassam Aramin put it in an interview in The Sun (October 2016):
“I think our main enemy is the Israelis’ fear. It’s part of their consciousness. When they talk about security, the Holocaust is always in the background. If I throw a stone at an armored tank, they interpret it as the beginning of a new Holocaust.”
Fear is the mind-killer. It enables perpetual warfare and a police state – and lots of profit and power to those who facilitate the same.
The original Prussia became consumed by militarism and nationalism and collapsed after two devastating world wars. What will happen to today’s Big and Little Prussia? Perhaps a war against Iran, timed to coincide with the 2020 presidential campaign season in the USA? Such an unnecessary and likely disastrous war can’t be ruled out.
Consider the dynamic between the current leaders of the USA and Israel, each egging the other one on to be tougher, less compromising, more Prussian. A pacific future is not in the cards for these military “superpowers.” Not when they’re so busy emulating Prussia.
*Why are Americans, generally speaking, supporters and admirers of Israel? So much so that politicians ostentatiously wear co-joined US/Israel flag lapel pins? For several reasons:
1. The US media is generally pro-Israel. Meanwhile, the Arab world is often synonymous with terrorism in our media.
2. Israelis seem more like Americans. What I mean is this: Israeli spokespeople wear western dress and speak English with a faint accent. Until recently, Arab spokespeople on TV looked and dressed “foreign” and spoke English with a heavier accent.
3. The power of pro-Israeli political lobbies such as AIPAC and fear among politicians that criticism of Israel will be construed (and demonized) as anti-Semitism.
4. The Holocaust.
5. The Evangelical Context: I remember listening to a talk show on the radio, soon after the Yom Kippur War, in the mid-1970s. The speaker predicted the Second Coming was near. That got my attention! Why was that? Because, this person said, Israel had gained control over Jerusalem in apparent fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. Fast forward forty years to today and you hear basically the same evangelical predictions about the Second Coming of Christ being imminent as Israel expands its hegemony over the “holy land” in Palestine.
One cannot underrate the importance of (selective) Biblical prophecy as advanced by fundamentalist Christians nestled within today’s Republican Party. These evangelicals couldn’t care less about Trump’s sins and transgressions. Their eyes are on the prize: Armageddon and Christ’s return, which they link to Israel’s domination of the region – which will lead to more wars, a brutal future seen as inevitable, even desirable. | <urn:uuid:f78e5b91-5416-4c35-b3ac-f7ea5db88c44> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://bracingviews.com/tag/jerusalem/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573533.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818215509-20220819005509-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.943311 | 1,326 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Rather is an adverb of degree. Its meaning is similar to quite or fairly.
- It is rather cold here.
- You are rather late.
With adjectives and adverbs
When rather is used with adjectives and adverbs it often suggests ideas such as ‘more than is usual’ or ‘more than was expected’.
- ‘How was the program?’ ‘Rather good.’ (I was surprised.)
- She speaks English rather well – people often think that she is a native speaker.
Rather can modify nouns or noun phrases, with or without adjectives. When there is no adjective, rather comes before articles.
- He is rather an idiot. (NOT He is a rather idiot.)
When there is an adjective, rather can come either before or after the articles.
- It was rather a pleasant experience. OR It was a rather pleasant experience.
Rather can modify verbs.
- I rather think she is committing a mistake.
- He rather enjoys doing nothing.
Rather with comparatives and too
Rather can modify comparatives and too.
- You eat rather too much.
- It is rather later than I thought.
This expression shows preference. It is normally used in parallel structures. For example, with two adjectives, two adverbs, two nouns etc.
- I would prefer to have tea rather than coffee.
- We ought to invest in education rather than buildings. | <urn:uuid:fe50e96e-ef5f-42cf-a617-0b2394ae1447> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.englishgrammar.org/rather/?article2pdf=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280730.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00246-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976553 | 306 | 3 | 3 |
Whārangi 1: Biography
Hetherington, Jessie Isabel
Headmistress, lecturer, school inspector
I tuhia tēnei haurongo e Beryl Hughes, ā, i tāngia tuatahitia ki Ngā Tāngata Taumata Rau i te 1996.
Jessie Isabel Hetherington, the first woman to be an inspector of secondary schools in New Zealand, was born at Thames on 2 January 1882 to Rebecca Brown and her husband, Samuel Hetherington, both of whom had been born in northern Ireland. Samuel, a draper, was moderately prosperous and Jessie grew up in an educated family with books and music. She attended Thames High School for two years, transferring to Prince Albert College, Auckland, after her mother's death in 1896. She continued to board at this Methodist school when she attended Auckland University College. In 1902 she gained a BA and then studied law. She was active in the Korero Club, where women students practised debating.
Jessie Hetherington sailed for England in 1904 and attended Girton College, University of Cambridge, where she continued her studies in law. During her first year, as the only woman law student she had to be chaperoned at lectures and was left out of informal tutorials. Like other women at Cambridge she was not granted the degree which she had earned but received an MA from Trinity College, University of Dublin, on the strength of her work at Cambridge. In spite of this, she was grateful for the rest of her life for the experience of studying at Cambridge.
In 1906 Jessie Hetherington was appointed an assistant mistress at Blackburn High School for girls in Lancashire. During her time in Blackburn she was involved in the campaign for women's suffrage. In 1909 she was made headmistress of Burwood Ladies' College in Sydney, Australia. She found the position difficult because she had no access to the board of governors and had to contend with opposition from some older members of staff who resented the changes she made to the established system. After three years Hetherington went back to England and gained a diploma in education at St Mary's College, London. In 1913 she took up an assistant lectureship for the 1913–14 academic year at the Cambridge Secondary Training College for Women.
After returning to New Zealand in 1914, Jessie Hetherington was appointed tutor and librarian at Wellington Teachers' Training College. She began working at the college in 1915. From the beginning she was required to lecture in English, history and teaching methods, and eventually achieved a full lectureship. Between 1919 and 1923 she also lectured at Victoria University College on the history of education. She had a particular responsibility for women students at the training college, and they often resented what one called 'her terrifying rectitude'. Hetherington personally measured their skirts to ensure that they were no more than 10 inches from the ground, while her attempts to give them sex education confused and embarrassed both the students and herself.
Jessie Hetherington applied for the vice principalship of Wellington Teachers' Training College in 1923. She was very well qualified for the position and had previously spoken out for the appointment of a senior woman to the staff. However, on hearing that it had been decided that applications from women would not be considered, she resigned from the college staff. For the next 2½ years she survived on her savings, on money from insurance, and editing, but chiefly through the financial support of a sister. After historical research in libraries in New Zealand and Australia, she published in 1926 and 1927 a two-volume work, New Zealand: its political connection with Great Britain.
In 1926 Jessie Hetherington became the first woman to be appointed a full inspector of secondary schools. For about two-thirds of the school year she travelled widely, visiting every girls' school and half the co-educational schools in the country. She supported the move to relax the constraints of the university matriculation examination, and advocated the use of phonetics in the teaching of French. She also worked through the inspectorate to build links between primary and secondary schools.
Jessie Hetherington was an enthusiastic traveller who regarded travel as a means of gaining new and useful knowledge. During a trip in 1937 she visited India, Europe and Britain and reported to the Department of Education on the schools she had seen. To her great joy she had a seat in Westminster Abbey for the coronation of King George VI.
After her retirement to Auckland in 1942, Hetherington continued her strong involvement in education and in women's interests. She lectured to the Workers' Educational Association for two years and was active in the New Zealand Federation of University Women and on the National Council of Adult Education. She was also a member of the Auckland Grammar School Board from 1945 to 1953, showing a particular concern for Auckland Girls' Grammar School. This work, she said, gave her a view of schools 'from the other side of the curtain'. Hetherington's unpublished autobiography reveals a woman of determination and high moral principles who devoted her life to education. Jessie Hetherington died in Auckland on 28 February 1971 in her 90th year. She had never married. | <urn:uuid:91bd1b75-caf2-41f9-bcc7-a28fd017fc50> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://teara.govt.nz/mi/biographies/3h20/hetherington-jessie-isabel | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570765.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808031623-20220808061623-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.983609 | 1,068 | 2.25 | 2 |
Special Education Day - 2021-12-02
What is Special Education Day?
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is often referred to simply “Equal Educational Opportunities For All Children With Disabilities" and it ensures equal rights for all children from any economic background or geographic location so they can have access to an appropriate level 1-16 curriculum based upon their needs. When the IDEA was signed into law, it became a critical and necessary step on our path to making education equitable for all children. Today we celebrate these milestones that have been achieved with special needs so far while reminding ourselves of continued progress yet still ahead - there are many more ways to reach this goal!
When is Special Education Day?
National Special Education Day is celebrated every year on December 2!
History of Special Education Day
This day marks a major moment in history as we commemorate the anniversary of our country’s first federal special education law, which was signed by President Ford on December 2nd 1975.
We would gladly assist you in any of your endeavors. Provide the following information please. | <urn:uuid:71612461-e4dd-4e74-bde4-bc2920a1c936> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://nationaldaydirectory.com/nationaldays/special-education-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573399.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818185216-20220818215216-00073.warc.gz | en | 0.964482 | 223 | 3.859375 | 4 |
This week’s episode of Conceptually Speaking features educational researcher and school leader Brad Kershner. This was a special episode for me, as a few weeks prior to recording, I’d purchased his book Understanding Educational Complexity, and was absolutely blown away by its depth and clarity. I was thrilled when he agreed to join us. There are few people in the field who can parallel Brad’s ability to tend to both the micro and macro of education with his level of discernment and nuance. His book, and our dialogue, range from cultivating individual meditative practices to analyzing the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of school communities, to conceptualizing the ways modernity’s values and frames shape how we view the process of education. It is a sobering reminder that everyone, not just students, will need to embrace a journey of lifelong learning if we’re to develop the cognitive and cultural tools for our complex times. Despite the complexity involved and the ways we have to go, Brad’s message is one of hope. We were only able to scratch the surface of the ideas explored in his book, so we encourage you to check it out for yourself. A link, as well as information on his weekly meditation sessions, are in the show notes. Enjoy! | <urn:uuid:c01e2b00-9fc8-4982-9c37-aac1038ec3fd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://conceptuallyspeaking.buzzsprout.com/1073776/8229291 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573399.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818185216-20220818215216-00078.warc.gz | en | 0.979977 | 261 | 2 | 2 |
Significant cultural icons are often associated with places—the cities where they grew up, the homes they live in, and the venues they frequent. When you think of Elvis Presley, you not only think of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll’s raw musical talent but of his Graceland estate, Las Vegas’s former International Hotel, and Memphis’s Club Handy (hardcore fans may have even heard of his potentially haunted old apartment). So for Baz Luhrmann's new biopic Elvis—in theaters now—it was crucial for Catherine Martin and her production team to bring the spaces that shaped the musician (and vice versa) to life.
Shooting the film completely in Queensland, Australia, called for meticulous recreations, especially when building Graceland. The production team did a huge analysis by visiting the real Memphis estate multiple times, accessing original plans through the Graceland archives, and pouring over photographs for hours on end. “Baz wanted Elvis's kind of meteoric rise to fame and his rags to riches story to be echoed in the evolution of both the interior and the exterior,” explains Martin, co-production designer as well as costume designer and producer on the film.
The recreation was built on what was once a horse paddock, near a flower farm, an area had the right topography to match the real location, which is set on an incline. When the estate first appears in the film, it’s shown as a working cattle farm similar to when Elvis originally moved in during the ‘50s. The interior features blue walls and red carpeting. “We were lucky enough to be taken around [Graceland] by the head archivist, Angie, and she took us into the hall closet,” Martin says. “There's actually a bit of that blue paint extant in the closet, so we were able to take paint chips and match the color.”
Another major element? The landscaping. Devoid of much at first, the land eventually includes planted gardens, stone lions, and a curb as Elvis becomes richer. The interior also jumps to how we see Graceland today—with a more neutral palette, pops of color, metallic accents, and stained glass with peacock motifs. “It was really important to have a touchstone for the audience where they felt familiar with the interior,” Martin explains.
Many of the furnishings were custom made in Australia, like an enormously long sofa. (Martin wonders how a sofa that big ever fit through the door of the actual house!) Other pieces were sourced or altered to replicate the look. There are some slight differences, though, including a vintage wallpaper in Elvis’s mother’s closet. It appears during a scene when Elvis (played by Austin Butler) mourns his mother’s death. It was a last-minute decision not only to do the scene in that closet but to cover the true-to-reality white walls with a wallpaper they had on hand. It was swiftly put up in 20 minutes to make the scene feel more claustrophobic and enveloping, so you can powerfully feel Elvis’s connection to his mother (played by Helen Thomson).
Throughout the film, we see plenty of other defining locations. Shake Rag—the historically Black community in Tupelo, Mississippi where Elvis grew up—was shot on a barren, dried-out shrimp farm that was shut down by the Australian government due to a viral infection. Elvis’s International Hotel suite set, a favorite of Martin’s, was designed to look like a golden cage and sarcophagus with a very specific view of Las Vegas. It's drenched in deep jewel-toned colors, velvet upholstery, metallic details, and patterned drapery. “There was just something quintessentially Elvis about it, even though it was a fictionalized interior,” Martin says.
The longest-standing set was Club Handy on Beale Street, which stood for a year because it was meant to be shot early on, and then COVID-19 shut down the production. “We had a little birthday party when it turned one,” Martin share.
Whether you're a longtime Elvis fan or are eager to see if Australia can pass for America, the incredible film is certainly worth a watch. I, for one, already want to see it again!
Love looking at incredible set designs? Us, too. Let’s obsess over them together.
Follow House Beautiful on Instagram.
You Might Also Like | <urn:uuid:7ad2723e-7be2-4a4b-8f88-eb75c75f6312> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/heres-graceland-completely-recreated-elvis-122800113.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572127.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815024523-20220815054523-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.970765 | 946 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Tihar (Nepali: तिहार), also known as Deepawali and Yamapanchak, is a regional variant of Diwali celebrated in Nepal and by the Nepali-speaking population living elsewhere in Darjeeling, the Indian states of Assam and Sikkim, etc. It is a five-day-long festival that comes soon after Dashain. It is popularly known as Swanti among the Newars. Set in the Vikram Samvatcalendar system, the festival begins with Kaag Tihar in Trayodashi of Kartik Krishna Paksha and ends with Bhai Tika in Dwitiya of Kartik Sukla Paksha every year. Tihar, in general, signifies the festival of lights, where diyas are lit inside and outside the houses to make it illuminate at night.
Tihar is the second biggest Nepalese festival following Dashain. It is considered to be of great importance as it shows reverence to not just the humans and the gods, but also to the animals like crows, cows and dogs that maintain an intimate relationship with humans. People make patterns on the floor of living rooms or courtyards using materials such as colored rice, dry flour, colored sand or flower petals outside of their house, called Rangoli, which is meant to be a sacred welcoming area for the gods and Goddesses of Hinduism mainly Goddess Laxmi. (from Wikipedia) | <urn:uuid:333e62ee-5bc0-42c6-ae8e-240beb2a57f5> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://zhushman.wordpress.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280310.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00187-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957189 | 301 | 2.59375 | 3 |
ESAT News (October 18, 2018)
The UN refugee agency said Ethiopia is host to the second largest refugee population in Africa, sheltering 905,831 registered refugees and asylum seekers as of 31 August 2018.
The UNHCR said between January and August 2018, 36,185 refugees arrived in Ethiopia, mostly from South Sudan and Eritrea.
The agency said it requested a funding of $327.8M of which only $68.3M has been obtained so far.
The UNHCR said it is also actively actively participating in the humanitarian response to the IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) situation in Ethiopia and has deployed two Emergency Response Teams to Gedeo and West Guji.
Last month the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) said 1.4 million new internal displacements have been recorded in Ethiopia, surpassing both Syria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The IDMC said ethnic conflict in Gedeo and West Guji zones in the south of the country earlier this year has triggered more than a million new displacements. | <urn:uuid:749456ed-1602-4f50-80d9-58d87055e738> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://ethsat.com/2018/10/ethiopia-hosts-second-largest-refugee-population-in-africa-says-unhcr/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571584.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812045352-20220812075352-00668.warc.gz | en | 0.955734 | 219 | 2.03125 | 2 |
var sidebar_align = 'right';
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var sidebar_width = parseInt('270px');
Unanswered: Matching data
I have an appointment table which holds the fields CLASS NAME and CLASS TIME. My question is how do I prevent writing in the wrong time for the class.
For example - Maths class starts at 9:00.
Class Name: Maths
Class Time 9:00
If the user types 10:00, I want an error message to be displayed.
Thanks in advance
Where is this occuring?
What does your user NEED to be able to do?
Is this a form?
What's your table structure?
Who chooses the times?
This is occuring in the Appointments table.
The user will have to look at what class in running at what time and
make sure the exact same data is stored when filling out members
The receptionist will choose the times.
I have tried setting up a look up wizard for class time but can not get time to be entered in the time field. It keeps putting in class name.
I'm confused here..
There is only one possible time for a class, but you want the user to enter the time twice? And you want to make sure they enter it the same way twice?
I'm MOST curious as to your table schema...
Teddy, you were right to be confused. I would have to describe my whole project to you to explain why I put class time and name in the appointment table. I have removed them now. Thanks for making me aware of the problem....
That would have cost me marks in my project viva! Thanks Teddy. | <urn:uuid:e19ac1f6-7af8-4bbd-a67e-76c31794ab19> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.dbforums.com/showthread.php?992778-Matching-data | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00209-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918965 | 361 | 1.859375 | 2 |
Listen Online: Martin Luther King's Talk at Bowdoin, May 6, 1964
Story posted January 11, 2010
During the 1963-1964 academic year, Bowdoin's Political Forum, a non-partisan student organization, invited black leaders involved in the civil rights movement to come to campus to speak about the movement and the importance of ending segregation.
Both Dr. Martin Luther King and Bayard Rustin, the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington, accepted the Political Forum's invitation. Rustin spoke in Pickard Theater on May 5, 1964, and Dr. King spoke the next evening to an overflowing crowd of 1,100 at First Parish Church.
Audio of Martin Luther King Jr. at Bowdoin
As part of Bowdoin's observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and upcoming Black History Month, a recording of the speech can be heard on the Bowdoin Web site. Listen to King's speech here
Dr. King's hour-long address was recorded by the Bowdoin radio station WBOR. While the King Center in Atlanta, Georgia, holds the copyright to the speech, Bowdoin has permission to make the audio available online in conjunction with occasions such as the observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Black History Month. (Listen at right.)
At other times, individuals are welcome to listen to the recording and read the transcript at the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives, third floor, Hawthorne-Longfellow Library. The Department is open Monday through Friday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. For more information call (207) 725-3288.
Read more about Dr. King's Bowdoin visit.
Read more about the significance of Dr. King's visit and about Bowdoin's legacy of inclusion.
The Bowdoin College Library's January 18, 2010, "Children's Celebration of Martin Luther King."
« Back | Campus News | Academic Spotlight | | Subscribe to Bowdoin News by Email | <urn:uuid:d938c48d-868f-410a-8734-3568e72ca42a> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.bowdoin.edu/news/archives/1bowdoincampus/006994.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719566.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00261-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91812 | 414 | 2.828125 | 3 |
Our software solution is a flat decision-making system, which learns and improves based on the daily data flow. We start to adapt our processes and models to any chronic disease, indication or monitoring process beginning from the first data entry.
If you have some ideas about supporting your patients outside of the clinic through continuous monitoring, guidance, and education for a particular indication, but you lack expertise in planning, technical and administrative implementation, do not hesitate to contact us. We are always glad to support you with our experience in evaluating the feasibility of your concept, designing a study, finding financial sources for the implementation of the proof of concept, and developing cases for the project scale-up.
In December 2019, following the WHO recommendations and urgent need of health care system modernization, the German government introduced a new law: The Digital Supply Act (DSG). It intends to create a favourable scientific and financial environment to catch up with the eHealth deficits in Germany and achieve an important milestone on the sustainability of the healthcare system.
DSG entitles around 73 million people in Germany to digital health applications (DiGA), which doctors can prescribe, and health insurance companies reimburse. The DIGA are software applications or automated “digital assistants”, designed to help patients understand and treat disease, injuries and achieve better health-related quality of life.
DSG and DiGA are expected to have a significant impact on the quality of medical outcomes. In March 2021, the German health insurance companies accepted four DiGA, with a further seven granted temporary status. Over 100 members under the umbrella association for digital healthcare have conducted studies to prove their effectiveness as a DiGA, aiming to be included in the official national DiGA list.
Below are some useful links to the growing service of DiGA.
|meQ Breast Cancer||The study is running at the women’s clinic at the Technical University Munich, Department of Gynecology (Director: Prof. Dr. med. Marion Kiechle). The aim of the project is to ensure long-term positive medical results after surgical interventions in breast cancer.|
|meQ Diabetes||The project was started in cooperation with the ministry of health and the national center of disease control to handle the complications of diabetes relapses. The study arrangement includes five endocrinological clinics. The project is in the last phase of negotiations.|
|meQ Heli||HEALTH LIFE STYLE INITIATIVE project was started in 2019 in one of the central asia countries.|
ORGANISATIONS & GOVERNMENTS
Worldwide, governments committed themselves to the continuous development of the health care system to enhance the transition toward Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Sustainability of health care services, inclusiveness of access, and affordability have been recognised as guiding principles in the national healthcare development strategies. During the last decade, different governments have enacted a series of reforms that have led to substantial improvements, especially in the increased range and modernisation of medical services.
Despite remarkable achievements, there are still many issues to be resolved to improve the management of non-communicable diseases. In general, NCDs remain the leading cause of mortality worldwide. The problem is especially relevant for low and middle-income countries (LMIC), where different approaches are needed to tackle NCDs and the growing financial need for complications in medical care demand. First, the development of prevention and primary care services should be intensified. Second, the costs of cardiovascular, diabetic, and chronic respiratory disease management should be minimised through targeted essential evidence-based interventions.
Considering the alarming trend of NCDs, LMIC governments developed different activities and programs to defuse the current NCD situation. However, these measures are just the beginning of the complex process required to improve NCD-Management. This is also reflected in the World Health Organization’s recent recommendations, which emphasise the urgent need of governmental actions for the improvement of NCD-Management regarding quality control of medical services, financial protection, monitoring, prevention and health literacy.
We are cooperating with several governmental structures developing systems targeting the improvement of medical outcomes via the implementation of patient adherence support and continuous measurement of medical outcomes in daily practice. We are compliant with national NCDC action plans targets, such as reducing the risk of premature mortality from NCDs, halting the increase and spread of NCDs.
Our goals comply with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) defined by the United Nations General Assembly in 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development
Goal 3. Healthy lives and well-being
Secondary SDG Goals
Goal 9. Resilient infrastructure
Goal 12. Sustainable consumption and production patterns
Goal 16. Peaceful and inclusive societies
Source: United Nations – Sustainable Development knowledge platform. 2015. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. New York
Outputs of our projects are fully aligned with objectives of WHO Global Action Plan for the prevention and control of NCD.
Objectives and operational priorities:
Source: WHO. 2013, Global action plan for the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases 2013-2020. Geneva
Compliance with operational priorities of ADB Strategy 2030
38. Achieving better health for all.
24. Promoting innovative technology.
65. Promoting regional public goods.
73. Expanding infrastructure sector coverage and diversifying into other sectors. (iii and last)
94. Strengthening ADB’s role as knowledge provider.
96. Strengthening the institutional capacity of developing member countries.
Source: ADB. 2018. Strategy 2030: Achieving a Prosperous, Inclusive, Resilient, and Sustainable Asia and the Pacific. Manila
INFORMATION FOR INVESTORS
In December 2019, the German government introduced The Digital Supply Act (DSG). DSG entitles around 73 million people in Germany to digital health applications (DiGA). Around 2000 hospitals and 73,000 practices in the German healthcare system treat approximately 20 million cases annually. About 50% of them are the target group of the DiGA. The German Ministry of Health expects yearly cost savings of € 40 billion through developments caused by DSG implementation. The potential annual turnover of the DiGA segment is estimated at €5 billion.
We always have new DiGA-Projects in the pipeline. These projects run at different university clinics targeting various chronic diseases. Below you can see some of currently running projects in which can be invested to accelerate the development. We offer attractive business solutions with customisable exit options to participate and support on new DIGA Projects.
|meQ Breast Cancer||The study is running at the women’s clinic at the University Clinic in Munich. The aim of the project is to ensure long-term positive medical results after surgical interventions in breast cancer.|
|meQ Diabetes||The study is in the final stage of the arrangements with 5 endocrinological hospitals, Ministry of Health and National Centre for Disease Control.|
|meQ HELI||HELI Life Style Study in the final stage of negotiations with the ministry of health of one of the Central Asia countries. The goals of this project are to increase the awareness of population for behavioural health risks and create an AI supported national patient education environment with targetable knowledge for overweight related diseases, cardiovascular diseases and chronic respiratory diseases.| | <urn:uuid:4ee300ee-a377-4c5b-8d14-6348aa9ebe6f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.meq-ai.care/our-services/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572212.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815205848-20220815235848-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.926001 | 1,559 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Special Economic Zones in Africa (SEZs): Impact, efforts, and recommendations
A brief history of SEZ development in the world
Special economic zones (SEZs) have been gradually gaining traction in the developing world over the last two decades. While modern SEZ development started decades ago in Europe and Asia, an increasing number of African countries have been developing SEZ policies and building SEZs in collaboration with internal and external players.
Special economic zones (SEZs) are generally defined as demarcated geographic areas within a country where the rules of business are different from those used elsewhere in the country. The main differences are usually related to investment conditions, trade and customs, and the regulatory environment.
The history of SEZs can be traced to the island of Delos in the Cyclades archipelago. Around 167 BC, Rome gave it “free harbor status” thereby turning it into a toll-free harbor which turned it into a center for Romans operating in Asia Minor. At the beginning of the 20th century, free trade zones were generally established near ports and by 1900, there were 7 free trade zones in Europe and 4 in Asia. In this period, SEZs started incorporating manufacturing plants such as the Cadiz SEZ in Spain which accommodated one of the first Ford Motors plants in Europe.
China has been a leading country in terms of SEZ development and has leveraged its comprehensive SEZ policies to promote development.
SEZ development in Africa
SEZs were first introduced in Africa in 1970 in Mauritius and enacted its EPZ Act in the same year. Other countries including Ghana and Senegal started developing SEZ later in the 1970s. Accelerated development however started in the 1990s as more African governments sought to mimic the development of East Asian countries. [UNCTAD]
There are currently over 230 SEZs in Africa and 200 single-enterprise zones. SEZs are present in 38 of the 54 countries in Africa with Kenya having the highest number at 61. Other notable countries are Nigeria with 38 SEZs and Ethiopia with 18 zones. [UNCTAD]
African countries mostly focus on manufacturing and exports of low-skill, labor-intensive industries such as garments and textile. Nonetheless, certain countries are focusing on the inclusion of diverse sectors with higher value addition. Morocco for instance aims to integrate high-tech activities and the automotive industry within its SEZs, notably in Tangier’s Automotive City and Kenitra’s Atlantic Free Zone.
In 2013, Rwanda opened its Kigali Special Economic Zone to host several domestic and foreign firms in various sectors. Within three years, the zone was employing 2% of the entire country’s workforce. Unlike most SEZs, the Kigali SEZ does not provide tax incentives for firms operating in the zone. Instead, companies benefit from a strong and streamlined regulatory environment as well as improved infrastructure and trade facilitation.
African SEZs have consistently ranked among the top SEZs in the Financial Times’ FDI Intelligence. In 2020, SEZs from Morocco, Mauritius, and Nigeria were included in the list of Global Free Zones of the Year
Lessons from China’s experience: What can African countries learn
China started developing SEZs in 1978 and currently has over 2,500 zones. Early development was focused on coastal cities (e.g. Shenzhen, Zhuhai, etc.) while later development was focused on the west of the country to promote regional development.
China developed a wide range of SEZs including industrial development zones, free trade zones, and export processing zones. The development of SEZs played a significant role in China’s economic rise and are estimated to have accounted for 22% of national GDP, 46% of FDI, 60% of exports, and created over 30 million jobs
With its focus set on improving livelihoods and providing job opportunities, China developed tailored SEZ programs for different regions depending on its specificities. For instance, one of China’s key success factors was its early focus on manufacturing and retail industries which absorbed a large unskilled labor force.
African countries can benefit from China’s success story. First, by setting SEZ models adjusted to local circumstances instead of replicating existing models. For instance, China developed tailored SEZs that fully benefit from the local workforce, proximity to other manufacturing centers, and access to local markets.
Another lesson from China is the long-term planning of SEZs based on quantified data and objectives and ensuring its fit within the country’s long-term development goals. China leveraged SEZs to grow local industries in a constraining environment thus overcoming local constraints such as its labor force’s qualification level, market demand, and other hurdles in its development model. As such, Africa countries need to ensure that SEZs fit within their respective development plans using careful and skilled planning.
Throughout the development of its SEZs, China invested immense efforts in building sound infrastructure. The role of adequate and stable power, transportation links, and other infrastructural elements cannot be understated. In a study conducted by the World Bank of six African countries with another four non-African countries, it was found that downtime due to power outages was significantly higher in Africa. While financial hurdles can significantly impede infrastructure development, African nations can benefit from a PPP model to attract more private investors and thus over its hurdles.
SEZs need access to a local labor force that is sufficiently skilled for its focus activities. By integrating “smart” incentives linked to the employment and training of its local labor force, Africa can benefit from SEZs to improve livelihoods and provide better outcomes for its working-age population. Another key element is the linkages to local universities and research centers. Through the successful partnership of the local research workforce with foreign investors, African researchers and scientists can benefit from the shared experience and the technology transfer that consequently occurs through the partnership.
Morocco’s SEZ experience and lessons learned
Morocco’s SEZs have consistently ranked in the top zones in Africa and the World. In 2020, the Tangier Med Zone ranked 2nd world economic zone after Dubai’s Multi Commodities Center in the Financial Times’ “FDI Global Free Zones of the Year 2020”. In order to understand Morocco’s success, we need to look at the history behind the developments of SEZs in the North African country.
Morocco first enacted its SEZ law in 1995 which provided various incentives to foreign investors and started and established Tangier Med Special Agency (TMSA), its first dedicated SEZ authority in 2002. The zone was primarily focused on the automotive industry and engage the Moroccan Industry Association for Automotive Producers (AMICA) to focus on training and vocational development.
By 2018, the six SEZs in the Tangiers area (which are all managed by TMSA) were hosting over 470 firms, having created 70,000 jobs with a total private industrial investment of USD 3.5bn. In addition, Morocco and China are currently planning a USD 10bn new industry-focused zone called Mohammed VI Tangiers Tech City which is set to create 100,000 jobs.
Morocco has shown unwavering commitment towards the creation of high-quality zones instead of a high number of zones. By focusing its efforts on a limited number of SEZs, the Kingdom sought to create a suitable environment to attract full industry ecosystems by targeting large players in key sectors such as PSA and Renault in the automotive sector and Boeing and Bombardier in the aerospace industry.
In 2016, Morocco amended the previous 1995 legislation and committed to creating new SEZs in all 12 regions. This new legislation aimed to create sector-oriented zones that interconnectedness between different firms operating the same zone. The new law is part of Morocco’s strategy to strengthen its manufacturing capabilities and is part of the Industrial Acceleration Plan launched in 2014.
The impact of SEZs on Morocco’s industrial sector is noticeable as the sector has contributed 25% of its GDP by 2017, compared to an average of 19% between 1985 and 2016. Morocco further aims to increase the share of industry to 30% by 2022 and create an additional 500,000 jobs by 2020.
However, SEZ development in Morocco is still in need of further improvement to ensure backward linkages with the local economy which suffers from similar issues found in other African nations. A lack of qualified workforce, limited provisions for local partner companies operating outside the SEZs, and limited options for local imports of finished goods. Another key aspect that needs to be examined is the tax system which may limit interactions between different companies within Morocco’s SEZs.
SEZs have shown considerable potential in African nations, and while many challenges lay ahead, these zones can play a tremendous role in the development of the African continent. Countries in Africa need to overcome many hurdles for their SEZ development and need strong and long-term strategies to unlock the potential of SEZs in their respective economies. It has already been demonstrated that SEZs can be a key part of industrial development in many nations, and Africa needs to harness the full potential of its SEZs as part of a successful transition to an industrialized and self-reliant continent.
Anass Rifaoui – Research Analyst | <urn:uuid:f53c34b8-c225-4295-ac54-d7b4a8e5d6fb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://infomineo.com/special-economic-zones-in-africa-impact-efforts-and-recommendations/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571090.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809215803-20220810005803-00065.warc.gz | en | 0.948324 | 2,025 | 3.109375 | 3 |
Three-dimensional printers are rapidly becoming everyday appliances, much like color printers a couple of decades ago. Increasingly, the technology is being used in medicine for printing bone replacements. And now, researchers in South Carolina are working on printing living tissue replacements.
Researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina have been working on fabricating living tissue, or biofabrication, since 2003.
Researcher Sarah Grace Dennis says new technology, such as the Palmetto bioprinter, advanced the process considerably.
“When I got here a year ago, we were printing just a-cellular bio-inks to see if patterns could be printed," she said. "Now we are printing skeletal muscle replica implants that we have been implanting into rats.”
Researchers prepare complex nutritious solutions, called bio-inks, made of glucose, proteins and living cells taken from the animal that will be the recipient of the new, printed tissue.
“So this would typically have at least 1.5 million cells in it,” Dennis said
The bio-inks are placed in three interchangeable dispensers of the printer’s head. Position of the printing surface and dispensing tip-ends is controlled by lasers.
Associate Chairman of Surgery for Research, Dr. Michael Yost, says the printing process is fully automated.
“And with our 3-D bio-printer, we have been able to create new microvascular networks that we can then grow new tissues in very key areas such as pancreas, liver and kidney,” he said.
Researchers point out the technique is in its early stages, but they hope in a few years they may be able to print replacement tissue for damaged human organs.
“Tissue biofabrication is a reality, and it is a reality now, and if you get to come here you get to see it," Yost said. "You will get to see it. You can not touch it, but you will see it and think this is real. And this is really human.”
But scientists warn they have to overcome large obstacles, such as how to supply the replacement tissue with the blood vessels essential for its survival. | <urn:uuid:932bcadf-1976-4cfb-89b0-6010313ab687> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.voahausa.com/a/three-d-printing-living-tissue/2460150.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721174.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00281-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965269 | 454 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Michael Hall’s latest children’s picture book, Red, A Crayon’s Story, is about a sweet red crayon who is, in his heart, blue. Everyone tries to make him conform to his “Red” label, but his true talent is drawing blue jeans, skies, and dolphins. He’s really blue! The Minneapolis-based graphic designer and author of five other children’s books, including My Heart is a Zoo and the upcoming (very meta) Frankencrayon, out in January, sat down to answer our questions.
Your latest book sends a pretty powerful message about identity and expectations. What inspired it?
I try not to start with some sort of message or subject or theme, any of that stuff. I start with something that’s either visually interesting to me or interesting in some other way, and then I see what I think it might want to be about. When I started doing children’s books, I knew I wanted to do crayons, because I love crayons ... And as I wrote it, I started to notice that it was sort of about me. Because I’m dyslexic, and a lot of the things that I said in the story, like he’s got a depressed heart or whatever, is stuff that I had a lot of when I was a kid, and I don’t think people recognized that I was not going to be the great reader that my father was. He’s one of those people who would just swallow a book in five minutes. So it was hard being me and sort of struggling with reading.
Have your daughters’ experiences informed your stories at all?
My book Perfect Square is about a square that gets torn apart and cut into pieces and all sorts of things happen to it, and it always manages to make itself into something beautiful. I wrote that for my daughter Hannah, long before I thought I was going to do any of this stuff, just as a gift. She was 13 years old and had been diagnosed with type I diabetes. But I wasn’t thinking about that, I wanted to make a little book for her for Christmas. She had given me this poem about a frog trying to catch a fly, so I thought I would make a story for her about a frog and a fly, and the frog was just like a square with two holes and little legs, and it kept changing itself to entice the fly. Then I got rid of the fly because it didn’t work, and then I got rid of the frog, so then I just had a square ... I realized it really was about her, it was about her diabetes, because she just handled it in a way that made it easier for everybody. It didn’t occur to me until the end of the process that it was as much a tribute to her as a gift. It’s about accepting chaos and accepting craziness and making beautiful things out of it.
What led you to start writing children’s books?
I had been thinking about it for a long time, and as a designer I would take a logo and find different variations of it, and then I’d write a story in which the variations were the pictures in the story ... I started thinking I should do these for myself, and that sort of started the process. But even before that I was making little books for my daughters. I did one for my daughter Alice, and she knew three words: cat, gap, and bus. So I made this book that was different variations of those three words with pictures that made them make sense, so she could read her first book.
What advice would you give to aspiring children’s book authors or illustrators?
Don’t lose track of the work itself. You need to do something that’s your own; you need to find what you need to say or show. For 30 years I’ve been developing a visual approach to things as a designer, so I had a strong sense of what I think I have to offer.
Have you gotten much feedback about your books?
I have, and my first two books wound up being good for crafts ... Today, all of a sudden, somebody tweeted me and said, “Did you realize that your book [Red] was selling out on Amazon?” And I was delighted. And then someone else later today sent the Momastery post, and I thought: That’s so nice! ... Right off the bat, we thought the transgender angle was an aspect to the book, but we wanted it to be broader. I don’t think that kids, unless they have a transgender issue, would think of that, but they would find something else that they were familiar with [to identify with]. | <urn:uuid:2660bf40-6ebb-44f3-b503-3e0ca92c5d05> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://mspmag.com/kids-and-family/the-fam/5-questions-for-crayon-happy-michael-hall/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280872.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00316-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985919 | 1,000 | 1.757813 | 2 |
In 2022 Montpellier SupAgro becomes l'Institut Agro Montpellier
Within Montpellier SupAgro, Florac Institute for Innovative Education in Agro-Environment is responsible for supporting technical agricultural education in the school’s fields of expertise.
Fields of expertise
Florac Institute for Innovative Education in Agro-Environment specializes in:
Within these fields, the Institute conducts training (initial and continuing), research and consulting activities at the interface between agricultural technical education and advanced agricultural science studies.
As part of Montpellier SupAgro’s mission to support agricultural education, Florac Institute assists educational establishments and teaching staff through training, research-action, and the development of digital resources.
In particular, it regularly organizes events (seminars, conferences, etc.) involving teacher-researchers, students, professionals and partners. The Institute’s combined skills are placed at the service of several priority themes for public agricultural education: teaching to produce differently, living together and promoting the values of the Republic, innovating teaching approaches and digital education, developing a European and international outlook.
Florac Institute for Innovative Education in Agro-Environment partners primarily with:
Teams and resources
Florac Institute has 45 staff members. A management team and four departments ensure the Institute’s operations. The Institute’s board, composed of 20 members, is responsible for consultation, information and proposals.
Institut d'éducation à l'agro-environnement
9 rue Célestin Freinet | <urn:uuid:1feceb19-e22d-429f-949a-4caa119da469> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://en.institut-agro-montpellier.fr/school/study-research-themes/florac-institute-innovative-education-agro-environment | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571719.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812140019-20220812170019-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.869321 | 354 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Here is a map on how US state capitals are ranked by population in each state.
Check this Wikipedia entry for the source of data.
States with most populous city as state capital:
Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa, Mississippi, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Rhode Island.
States with 2nd most populous city as state capital:
Oregon, North Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, Delaware.
States with 3rd most populous city as state capital:
Alaska, New Hampshire.
States with 4th most populous city as state capital:
New Mexico, Texas, Kansas, Virginia, Rhode Island.
States with capitals not among the top four cities by population:
Washington, Nevada, California, Montana, South Dakota, Missouri, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, Florida, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New York, New Jersey, Vermont, Maine. | <urn:uuid:ee1bff2c-5cb3-462c-99bc-2f03a8c06eab> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://zoom-maps.com/page/us-state-capital-pop-rank | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00220-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.821629 | 205 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Monday, October 03, 2016
Questions we should be asking about "Future Ready" schools.
This is a follow up to my prior post regarding the danger of “learning eco-systems.”
How far are we from the day we’ll be forced to rely on online education modules to inspire and excite the minds of young people; where badge collections replace diplomas; and virtual reality games substitute for Friday night dances, track meets, spelling bees, and school plays? How much time do we have before certified human teachers are replaced by “Task Rabbit” pathway designers and AI personal “tutors?” Before we lose all expectations for privacy surrounding how and when we access our educations? Before the entirety of our educational lives becomes consolidated under a unique ID number and its associated digital shadow?
Online learning is claiming ever-larger blocks of instructional time in bricks and mortar schools. Budgets prioritize technology purchases over investments in human staff and facilities. Increasingly responsibility for assessment is being taken away from teachers and placed under the purview of data dashboards and black boxes that monitor in minute detail our children’s academic and social-emotional “progress” towards standards we had no part in setting.
For all of these reasons, we need to take a critical look at school redesign programs that are showing up in communities across the nation. Our government is rolling these initiatives out right now in coordination with think tanks, philanthropies, and the education technology sector. If thousands of superintendents nationwide are signing on to “Future Ready Schools” it is imperative that as citizens we start considering the far reaching consequences a data-driven, technology-mediated system of public education will have for the health and wellbeing of our children and our democracy.
As we move into the era of the quantified self. I find myself worrying. I worry a lot. I worry that we should be asking questions, a lot of questions, and that our window for questioning is shrinking by the day.
Many who spend their days in our nation’s schools have been put into positions where they are almost compelled to welcome the concept of “school redesign.” They have been living for years in the test-and-punish nightmare that No Child Left Behind created. They’ve been coping with austerity budgets, toxic buildings, staff shortages, lack of respect, frozen wages, and the ongoing challenge of meeting the needs of students living in poverty with far too few resources at their disposal.
Current conditions in many of our nation’s schools are appalling, and that is by design. It is through this dissatisfaction with our current situation that they hope to accomplish a shift away from a “standardized” education based on a single high-stakes test given at the end of the year to a “personalized” digital education that employs ongoing online data collection as children progress through the curriculum year round.
So with that in mind, I invite you to consider the questions below. Hopefully they will give you some ideas you can use to start your own conversations with parents, teachers, and school board members in your own community. In my heart I believe the 21st century schools parents and human teachers desire for their children are very different from the version being pushed, behind closed doors, by the educational technology sector.
Questions we should be asking about school redesign and “Future Ready Schools:”
at 10:19 AM | <urn:uuid:3bad4c0d-28ac-467c-9cf4-7bad337a24c9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.schoolsmatter.info/2016/10/questions-we-should-be-asking-about.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00320-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959398 | 709 | 2 | 2 |
The Carolingian Canon Law project is producing a searchable, electronic rendition of major works of Carolingian canon law, in a presentation that shows their relation to other works of canon law used by Carolingian jurists. This project maps the extent of variation in "standard" legal texts known to Carolingian jurists, and identifies particular points of variation. In addition to clarifying the textual history of medieval canon law, the project will provide historical and bibliographic annotation of several hundred canons used by jurists before, during, and after the Carolingian period.The same press release notes that another member of Kentucky's department, Gretchen Starr-LeBeau, has won "a Philosophical Society Fellowship to continue her comparative study of early modern courts of the Inquisition in Spain, Italy, Portugal and Mexico." Professor Starr-LeBeau says of her research:
I really became interested in how those convicted in the Inquisition defended themselves and the strategies they used. . . . For my latest project, I'll be comparing court records throughout Spain, Venice, Lisbon and Mexico City. | <urn:uuid:560c6357-9fed-4210-803d-6efa6b8849ee> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://legalhistoryblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/carolingian-canon-law-inqusitions.html | 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 | 0.93404 | 223 | 2.28125 | 2 |
- For fighter info, see Pokémon Trainer (SSBB).
Official artwork of the male Pokemon Trainer from Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen Versions.
|Alternate names||Allenatore di Pokémon |
Dresseur de Pokémon
|Debut||Pokémon Red and Green Version (1996)|
|Console of origin||Game Boy|
|English voice actor||Michele Knotz|
|Japanese voice actor||Tomoe Hanba|
A Pokémon Trainer (ポケモントレーナー, Pokemon Torēnā) is any human in the fictional world of Pokémon whose hobby, pastime, or profession is the collecting, caretaking, and competitive battling of any of the eponymous Pokémon creatures. The humans being the commanders of their custom-trained Pokémon in battles is as important as the abilities of the Pokémon themselves in all forms of Pokémon media.
From the very outset of the Pokémon franchise, the world of Pokémon had been established as an Earth-like world populated by humans and, notably, an infinitely diverse biomass of magical creatures called Pokémon (short for Pocket Monsters). In this world, humans are referred to as Pokémon Trainers if they collect, take care of, and train Pokémon for use in competitive matches with those of other trainers called Pokémon battles, officially sponsored and otherwise. Other Pokémon-related hobbies and professions exist in the world, such as Pokémon breeding, and a wholly different activity is undertaken by Pokémon coordinators who groom their Pokémon for use in Pokémon contests more closely resembling dog shows, but by far the path of the Pokémon Trainer is the "primary" sporting activity in the franchise. This is the main activity/quest that the "main" Pokémon RPGs feature; as such, players of Pokémon RPG are considered Pokémon Trainers themselves.
Any Pokémon RPG casts the player as a young Pokémon Trainer ready to set out on a Pokémon journey across that game's region of the Pokémon world, on a quest to capture many species of Pokémon and, from them, train a team of Pokémon proficient enough in the sport of Pokémon battling that they may carry the trainer to victory against that region's Pokémon League. The trainer's traditional tool for capturing Pokémon is the Poké Ball, which is sold at Poké Marts in the game's various cities and comes in many distinctive varieties, and a trainer by tradition receives a piece of high-tech equipment called the Pokédex, which functions as an encyclopedia for the Pokémon in that region which the trainer must fill up, among other adventuring gear.
Throughout each journey, the trainer will battle hundreds of other trainers as well as encounter countless Pokémon in the wild, and the trainer will be involved in subplots involving thwarting the schemes of criminal organizations of trainers whose name traditionally starts with "Team", such as the first and second generation's Team Rocket, the third generation's Team Magma and Team Aqua (among other Teams in GameCube Pokémon installments), the fourth generation's Team Galactic, and the fifth generation's Team Plasma. While the Pokémon Trainers have been depicted as a boys in every installment, from the Crystal version of Pokémon GS onwards, the player has had the option to choose the gender of the trainer; from then on, each new set of installment has introduced a new pair of standard Pokémon Trainer designs, such as a pair each for Pokémon Advance, the GBA remake of the original (featuring a new redesign of the playable trainer from the original Red and Blue versions often called "Trainer Red"), and Pokémon (Diamond/Pearl). A small concession made by the franchise to the changing times is the gradual change from the "rivals to the death" image of the first series (Yellow, Red and Blue), to the now very casual friendly talk between the protagonist and their neighbor of Pearl/Diamond. In the Generation 3 games; Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald, the rival took the gender opposite to the one chosen by the player.
The profession of the Poké Ball-throwing Pokémon Trainer is easily as iconically significant to the overall Pokémon franchise as the Poké Ball itself, and is often the image that the Pokémon franchise in general conjures. Perhaps that is why Super Smash Bros. Brawl, in addition to featuring individual Pokémon such as Pikachu as playable fighters, has now been revealed to feature the generic Pokémon Trainer as a playable entity all the same. However, the trainer is not the one that does the fighting; he stays away a safe distance as he "directs" his Pokémon, played by the player, to do the battling, just like the trainer would in normal Pokémon battles.
As a playable character
The Pokémon Trainer makes an official appearance as a playable entity in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, modeled after the male trainer design seen in the FireRed and LeafGreen versions. However, it would be inaccurate to call him a playable "fighter", as selecting him is like selecting a Zelda/Sheik-style character with three switchable forms, which are the three Pokémon the Pokémon Trainer has in his collection: Squirtle, Ivysaur, and Charizard. The trainer visually issues commands in the background of the stage to the Pokémon in the foreground, corresponding with the actions input by the player to the current Pokémon as the real fighter. One, however, might say the player controls the Trainer, who commands the Pokémon.
- Pokémon Trainer
- A person who raises Pokémon and trains them as partners in battle. In battle, a Trainer gives orders to the Pokémon and uses items. It's not an exaggeration to say battles can be won or lost on a Trainer's single strategic move. Trainers pour their hearts into their Pokémon and share anger, sadness, and joy as they adventure in hopes of becoming Pokémon Masters.
- (GBA) Pokémon FireRed/LeafGreen
As Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U no longer supports mid-match character changes, the Pokémon Trainer does not return as a playable character. While Charizard became a standalone playable character, Squirtle and Ivysaur were both cut from the roster as well. However, the Pokémon Trainer does make a cameo as a collectible trophy alongside both Squirtle and Ivysaur. The 3DS version also features Calem and Serena, the playable trainers from Pokémon X and Y, as a singular trophy under the name "Pokémon Trainer (Pokémon X & Y)".
- Pokémon Trainer
- Pop quiz! What do Misty, Brock, Cynthia, Iris, and Ash all have in common? That's right-- they're all Pokémon Trainers! This Pokémon Master in the making is the same. Back in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, he fought to be the very best-- like no one ever was. To smash them was his real test-- to launch them was his cause!
- (GB) Pokémon Red and Pokémon Blue (09/1998)
- (GBA) Pokémon FireRed and Pokémon LeafGreen (09/2004)
- Oddly, in the sequels, Gold, Silver, and Crystal and their remakes HeartGold and SoulSilver, once the player has access to Mt. Silver, he is stated as "Pokémon Trainer Red", making it the first time his official name is announced, and yet his trophy in Brawl gives the description of a Pokémon Trainer in general. This may mean that although the trainer is based on Red, he could just to be a random Pokémon Trainer, though this has not been confirmed.
- This makes him the only protagonist with a custom name that isn't given an actual name in Brawl, although he is given a name outside the Super Smash Bros. franchise, as mentioned above.
- The Pokémon Trainer's trophy description in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U reference the first theme song from the Pokémon animated series and it mentions Ash, the protagonist of the anime. | <urn:uuid:03403337-93c2-4047-b983-ec9a3e9331da> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://supersmashbros.wikia.com/wiki/Pok%C3%A9mon_Trainer | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720000.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00025-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943318 | 1,588 | 1.65625 | 2 |
Q. Am I correct in saying that there are two scriptures that mention the time of the gentiles and they are.
a) That Israel is blinded until their full number is complete
b) Jerusalem will be trodden underfoot by the gentiles until their time is completed.
Is it not possible that the full number of gentiles to occur at the same time as the Jewish feast of trumpets??
He is Almighty and all things are in his hand so could the Lord not have these events occur at the same time?
A. Yes it is possible that the full number of Gentiles could be reached on The Feast of Trumpets, but no more so than on any other day, and that’s what’s important. It means that there is no day that any man can point to and say, “That will be the day of the Rapture.” Knowing neither the current number of believers, the target number, nor the growth rate it’s impossible for anyone other than God Himself to know the Rapture’s day or hour in advance. | <urn:uuid:ad5f912c-7230-4d75-b2fd-9d14915093c4> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://gracethrufaith.com/ask-a-bible-teacher/the-rapture-and-the-feast-of-trumpets-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719027.25/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00302-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958272 | 224 | 1.71875 | 2 |
One of the leading tourism destinations in the world, Turkey is a land of contradictions and diversity and effortlessly combines the old and the new. Offering warm and gracious local hospitality and world class cuisine, vibrant cities and important ancient sites, beautiful beaches and stunning landscapes, it’s no wonder the country’s tourism industry is growing rapidly year on year. Straddling two continents Turkey is a meeting of East and West as well as the ancient and the modern. Seen as a bridging nation between Asia and Europe, it also touches Africa and holds a unique position as the historical capital of the Ottoman, Roman, Latin and Byzantine Empires.
An exotic melting pot of different cultures and people, the thriving city of Istanbul boasts a dazzling array of attractions. From beautiful historic palaces and mosques to bustling, vibrant and world famous bazaars, there is something for everyone in this enchanting city. The 2010 European Capital of Culture boasts some of the most famous landmarks in the world, including the world famous Blue Mosque with its wonderfully intricate blue tiling and proud minarets. There are countless mosques and palaces to explore but the 14th century Topkapi Palace with its lush gardens and courtyards is another must-see. The exciting bars and nightlife of the city combine with a renowned restaurant scene, offering all manners of top quality global and traditional cuisine, to offer any visitor a multitude of stimulating nights out. If shopping is your thing you could not be better placed – Istanbul is widely regarded as one of the top shopping cities in the world, whether you are seeking intricately crafted souvenirs, rugs, carpets and jewellery or designer label clothes. Do visit the thriving bazaars, don’t forget the world famous intoxicating spice markets and don’t be afraid to haggle, it’s all part of the fun!
Often initially overlooked due to Turkey’s incredible cities and cultural sites, the beaches and resorts are stunning. If you are looking for a relaxing holiday on a beautiful beach lapped with turquoise waters, Turkey couldn’t be better. The southern areas boast nearly 6 months of summertime and the sandy beaches along the Mediterranean and Aegean coastlines with their sparkling turquoise waters are a must-see for any sun, sand and sea worshippers. From large beaches with countless water sports to secluded coves with turtles and sparkling waters, there is a great variety of beautiful resorts for you to choose from and Bodrum and Antalya are especially popular.
Turkey has a wealth of rich history and culture and the country boasts more archaeological sites than anywhere else in the world. From the WWII sites at Gallipoli (ANZAC Day is a particularly poignant time to visit) to the ancient city of Troy, Turkey has probably more key historical and cultural sites that anywhere in the world. The ancient city of Troy lay undiscovered until the mid 19th century and the Roman site of Ephesus is regarded as one of the best preserved ancient cities in the Mediterranean. The beautiful landscape of Cappadocia is a must see for any visitor, a fairytale setting of underground villages and incredible rock formations that capture the imagination like nowhere else.
In short, Turkey is an intoxicating country full of natural splendours, wonderful people, beautiful scenery and incredible food. We highly recommend it for a truly memorable experience. | <urn:uuid:f0389ca9-33ff-4e95-a809-e36727716659> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.encounterstravel.com/blog/2014/07/10/turkey/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281151.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00107-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928108 | 692 | 1.640625 | 2 |
But talking like a pirate (yarrr, matey) isn’t just putting on a swarthy accent and attempting to drink rum at every turn. No, there’s a lingo to be sure. Things that if we heard them now we’d be a bit put off. Ever heard the word bung hole? Sure it might conjure up images of Beavis and Butthead talking about their posteriors, but in reality bung hole refers to the barrels that stored food on long voyages. The bung was actually a cork that was placed in the hole to keep the food from spoiling, and the hole, naturally, was called the bung hole (’cause, that’s where the bung fit). So a common phrase in pirate lingo heard around dinner time might be “let’s see what the bung hole spat out!”.
While most consider piracy a man’s job, there were a large number of pirates throughout history. Including women. One of the earliest known female pirates (though, there is argument she could be a myth) was the Chinese pirate Ch’iao K’uo Füü Jëën. She lived around 600 BC. Even Vikings had a great number of female pirates, with a good number from Norway. But two of the most famous female pirates were Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Both attempted to disguise their gender, both sailed on the same ship, and it’s believed that both were more than just close friends.
Piracy has it’s legends and a lot of those have lived on in song. One such minstrel was Canada’s Stan Rogers who wrote the song Barrett’s Privateers, all about a crew that went off in search of American Gold.
That’s all for now. Have a happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day!
- A tale or two about piracy (cubicgarden.com)
- To err is human, but to arrrrr is pirate (oisebristol.me)
- Grammar Hammer: AR! A Pirate Argues About Presume vs. Assume (prnewswire.com)
- Ask Th’ Readers: What’s Yer favorite Pirate RPG? (stargazersworld.com)
- Talk Like a Pirate and Get Free Doughnuts (neatorama.com)
- 5 Great Pirate Bars In Honor Of International Talk Like A Pirate Day (gadling.com)
- Arr pirate writin’ story challenge for you! (anmm.wordpress.com) | <urn:uuid:90b81c21-6f0b-4321-9ca2-878dd6033e5b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://taholtorf.wordpress.com/2012/09/19/yarrrr-it-be-international-talk-like-a-pirate-day/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00501-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945159 | 546 | 2.65625 | 3 |
Almost everyone has heard of the annual International Women’s Day, but have you heard of the Arab Women’s Day? Despite having grown up in Syria, I have not heard of it. When I mentioned this Day to my family and friends living throughout the MENA region, most them responded with a confused: “You mean Mother’s Day?”
Arab Women’s Day, which takes place every February 1, is not only designated to celebrate the achievements of Arab women, but also to advocate for their rights and enhance their ability to participate in the economy. This year several sessions and meetings surrounding this day were held throughout the MENA region in countries such as Egypt and Sudan. Under the supervision of the Arab Women’s Organization, these events promoted discussion on women in the Middle East. Countries such as Bahrain vowed to initiate legal reforms that would guarantee women all rights and empower them to contribute to the economy.
Despite the slow rate of imposing reforms towards gender parity, the few recently enacted legal changes and the meetings to discuss legal instruments are positive steps towards gender equality. Since 2009, the World Bank Group’s Women, Business and the Law has tracked three legal reforms in the MENA region towards gender parity. Even in the face of revolution, war, and instability, MENA countries such as Tunisia and Egypt have empowered women by adding non-discrimination clauses to their newly enacted constitutions.
Reforming the law is an important first step to ensuring women’s rights. The next steps are to implement these laws on the ground and complement them with trainings and workshops that raise the awareness of women’s rights. Highlighting the profile of Arab Women’s Day will provide a rallying point for the events, media attention and public awareness necessary to make the legislation a reality. | <urn:uuid:134c838c-9412-4595-af87-569330b5ebb7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://blogs.worldbank.org/arabvoices/print/arab-women-s-day-what-needs-be-done-middle-east-and-north-africa | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280791.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00366-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96748 | 376 | 2.9375 | 3 |
A new tool announced to help soldiers find jobs when they're transitioning back into civilian life.
First Lady Michelle Obama making the announcement of the Veterans Employment Center at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.
The tool is being launched as part of the White House's Joining Forces Initiative.
Nearly 9-percent of men and 10-percent of women who served in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are currently out of work.
You can also find jobs for veterans at iheartradio.com/showyourstripes | <urn:uuid:92042544-c84d-4e64-ba6c-acdf9b5a273a> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://wiod.iheart.com/articles/wiodam-local-news-122821/new-tool-launched-to-help-veterans-12289808/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719468.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00530-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945668 | 101 | 1.539063 | 2 |
There's a connection between two themes I've been hitting hard recently: the surprising extension of "stop and frisk" inspections into the general-aviation world, and Barack Obama's announcement that the time had come formally to end the "war on terror."
The connection is that events in the first category -- overreach of the security state, at home and abroad -- are reflections of the second development: the 11-plus years of "permanent emergency" in America's rhetoric and laws about terrorist threats. In this war like many previous ones, "normal" Constitutional constraints and checks-and-balances were suspended. But all previous wars ended. Until this week, no president or serious presidential contender had argued that, for the health of America's democracy, it was time to end this one too.
In his speech this week, Obama quoted James Madison to the same effect: "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." Seven years ago, in the issue shown below, I tried to imagine what a future speech like Obama's would sound like. This was its [imagined] peroration:
"My fellow Americans, we have achieved something almost no one thought possible five years ago. The nation did not suffer the quick follow-up attacks so many people feared and expected. Our troops found the people who were responsible for the worst attack ever on our soil. We killed many, we captured more, and we placed their leaders in a position where they could not direct the next despicable attack on our people--and where the conscience of the world's people, of whatever faith, has turned against them for their barbarism. They have been a shame to their own great faith, and to all other historic standards of decency.
"Achieving this victory does not mean the end of threats. Life is never free of dangers. I wish I could tell you that no American will ever again be killed or wounded by a terrorist--and that no other person on this earth will be either. But I cannot say that, and you could not believe me if I did. Life brings risk--especially life in an open society, like the one that people of this land have sacrificed for centuries to create.
"We have achieved a great victory, and for that we can give thanks--above all to our troops. We will be at our best if we do not let fear paralyze or obsess us. We will be at our best if we instead optimistically and enthusiastically begin the next chapter in our nation's growth. We will deal with the struggles of our time. These include coping with terrorism, but also recognizing the huge shifts in power and resulting possibilities in Asia, in Latin America, in many other parts of the world. We will recognize the challenges of including the people left behind in the process of global development--people in the Middle East, in Africa, even in developed countries like our own. The world's scientists have never before had so much to offer, so fast--and humanity has never needed their discoveries more than we do now, to preserve the world's environment, to develop new sources of energy, to improve the quality of people's lives in every corner of the globe, to contain the threats that modern weaponry can put into the hands of individuals or small groups.
"The great organizing challenge of our time includes coping with the threat of bombings and with the political extremism that lies behind it. That is one part of this era's duty. But it is not the entirety. History will judge us on our ability to deal with the full range of this era's challenges--and opportunities. With quiet pride, we recognize the victory we have won. And with the determination that has marked us through our nation's history, we continue the pursuit of our American mission, undeterred by the perils that we will face." [End of imagined speech. Note: no 'God Bless America' ending.]
Different leaders will choose different words. But the message--of realism, of courage, and of optimism despite life's difficulties--is one we need to hear.
The different leader of 2013 did indeed choose different words. But the essence of his message was one I have been waiting for a long time to hear.
In-house note: That September 2006 issue, with its cover story rashly announcing "We Win," was the first one fully under James Bennet's control after he arrived as editor. By the time he got here I had already begun work on this "declare victory" article.
It was a very gutsy choice for him to stick with that story, and that claim, as the cover of one of his early issues. What if some big bomb went off somewhere just before or after the issue appeared? By the strict logic of the story, that "shouldn't" matter. In the story I took great pains to explain, quoting many historians and experts in the long arc of terrorism, that attacks probably would continue, as other disasters and misfortunes do. Nonetheless (I said) we shouldn't let that blind us to the damage done by an open-ended state of war. That's fine as far as logic goes -- but in the real, trans-logical world of emotion and buzz, we unavoidably would have looked bad, "Dewey Beats Truman"-style. The risk was all the greater with a new editor's first issue, and even more so when the writer (me) had moved to China as soon as the article was done but before it had appeared. I have always been grateful for the guts of James Bennet's choice to go ahead. | <urn:uuid:907a1d6e-96f8-47ab-9455-a0b2d5065490> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/05/for-memorial-day-another-end-the-war-on-terror-speech/276251/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00236-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97535 | 1,143 | 1.851563 | 2 |
Pink Army is an effective and enjoyable way to spread the word throughout our community about the importance of prevention, screening and early detection of breast cancer.
Tampa, FL (PRWEB) September 20, 2013
Florida Hospital Carrollwood is helping to organize the Tampa area’s first Pink Army troops who will go to the front lines in the fight against breast cancer, a formidable foe. Florida Hospital Carrollwood’s Pink Army is the first offense against breast cancer and the hospital wants to enlist you in the battle.
All breast cancer survivors, patients, friends, family and the community are encouraged to become a soldier in Florida Hospital Carrollwood’s Pink Army. The Pink Army Campaign runs through November 30, 2013. Soldiers can enlist at http://www.jointhepinkarmy.com. Upon enlisting in the Pink Army, members receive army dog tags that will be used to secure rewards and benefits. Soldiers have the opportunity to move up in the ranks through different missions, such as enlisting additional soldiers, volunteering, and by hosting and attending Pink Army events.
To date, Florida Hospital Carrollwood’s Pink Army soldiers can use their dog tags for discounts and/or promotions at: Carmel Café & Wine Bar(Carrollwood Village), A Clinical Massage and Therapy Center, Gwen Hanner Counseling and Hypnotherapy, Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza (November), Forever Beautiful Salon, Jai Dee Yoga, Bari Ruck, LMT. Supporting vendors are being added on a daily basis.
In addition, Pink Army Parties are taking place at Whole Foods Carrollwood on October 29 from 5-7pm and Rasa Lila Fest on October 5 from 9a-4p. Local restaurants and businesses are hosting Pink Army Parties throughout the end of November. More information is available at
This year, it is estimated that 232,340 new cases of invasive breast cancer will be diagnosed among women in the United States according to the American Cancer Society. Approximately, one in eight women have a chance of developing invasive breast cancer during her lifetime and it’s the second leading cause of cancer death in women.
“Pink Army is an effective and enjoyable way to spread the word throughout our community about the importance of prevention, screening and early detection of breast cancer,” says noted Breast , General and Vascular Surgeon Sharad Patel, MD. “Early diagnoses of breast cancer can mean the difference between life and death. Early and accurate diagnoses can mean faster time to treatment and cure.”
Florida Hospital Carrollwood offers comprehensive breast imaging services, including mammography. The Hospital’s board-certified radiologists are trained in breast imaging and provide the fastest, most accurate diagnoses possible so appropriate treatment can begin if and when needed.
To enlist in the Florida Hospital Carrollwood Pink Army, go to http://www.jointhepinkarmy.com. To become a supporting vendor and/or to host a Pink Army Party, contact annapinkarmy(at)aol(dot)com.
About Florida Hospital Carrollwood
Florida Hospital Carrollwood is a member of the Adventist Health System. Florida Hospital Carrollwood is a 120-bed community hospital specializing in Spine and Orthopedic Surgery, General Surgery, Cardiac Services, Neurological Services, General Medicine, Wound Healing, ENT, Diabetes Management, Bariatric Weight Loss Surgery, as well as other services that meet our mission of healing the mind, body and spirit. It’s Knee and Bariatric Weight Loss Surgeons are known for their revision work, correcting procedures done elsewhere. Spine Surgeons at Florida Hospital Carrollwood perform specialized procedures not available elsewhere in the world. In addition, Florida Hospital Carrollwood is the only hospital in the nine-county Tampa Bay area to utilize the Mazor Renaissance™ Spine Robot. The Radiation Department provides the only nuclear camera with low dose in the state of Florida and utilizes the first KineGraph VMA™ available in the world for Spine. Florida Hospital Carrollwood is a HIMSS Level 7-designated hospital, one of only 2% in the United States. It holds the Surgical Review Corporation Center of Excellence designation for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. The Hospital collaborates with its physicians and clinicians to provide wellness education for a healthier community. Visit http://www.floridahospital/carrollwood. | <urn:uuid:ce60f08a-7a00-4abd-bb18-f26ec6bc1553> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/9/prweb11140906.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720153.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00324-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919952 | 906 | 1.8125 | 2 |
About 30 million children, or one-third of America's kids, get their health care from Medicaid, a program that serves the poor. Under plans to dramatically cut federal funding backed by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), that number would have to shrink.
Romney and Ryan both support transforming Medicaid from an entitlement with an open-ended budget and a guarantee of coverage into a "block grant" program that would provide states a set amount of money to spend on health care services for the needy each year. But it's not just about giving states more flexibility: It's about slashing $810 billion in federal spending on a vital component of the safety net -- without a plan for making up the difference.
Children's advocates worry kids are in particular danger of losing their benefits if the plan is adopted. With cuts of the magnitude Ryan proposed in a budget adopted by House Republicans in March, all children covered today simply wouldn't be able to keep their health benefits.
Children make up about half Medicaid's 62 million beneficiaries. The rest is a mix of the parents of some of those kids, pregnant women, people with disabilities, and the elderly. Predicting the exact number of children who would be dropped from Medicaid under a block grant scheme isn't possible, but taking away that much money means some would, said Robert Block, a pediatrician from Tulsa, Okla., who is president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
"The simple math is: You subtract that from the total Medicaid available and there's a lot less for kids," Block said.
But block grant proposals seek to address a real issue: Medicaid funding is a big and growing program. The federal and state governments spent $404.1 billion on Medicaid in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2010. Enrollment is up, too: At least 10 million people have joined Medicaid since June 2007, just before the recession began. But spending and enrollment grew because more people needed assistance not because the program isn't controlling costs.
While Romney hasn't issued a detailed proposal, he does support converting Medicaid into a block-grant program, according to his campaign's website. The administration of former President George W. Bush promoted a similar approach.
One version of Ryan's proposal would cause between 14 million and 27 million people to lose their Medicaid benefits, according to an Urban Institute and Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation analysis of his 2011 plan, which would have cut Medicaid by $60 billion less than his 2012 proposal. Romney and Ryan also want to repeal the health care reform law, which will add 11 million people to Medicaid starting in 2014.
The notion of kicking children off Medicaid isn't just a nightmare scenario imagined by children's advocates. It actually happens when states seek to cut spending. For instance, Pennsylvania has removed 90,000 children from its Medicaid program, called Medical Assistance, since last August.
States already have leeway about whom to enroll and what benefits to cover within federal guidelines, but governors from both parties have long complained that getting federal approval to make changes is onerous. Block grant proposals would give them more flexibility to shrink Medicaid.
The Republican Governors Association endorsed the block grant program in Ryan's budgets, saying it "will give states the freedom to innovate, share best practices, and create cost-effective ways to deliver quality health care to our most vulnerable populations."
That includes the freedom to purge people from the Medicaid rolls, to offer more meager benefits, to institute new cost-sharing requirements, and to create waiting lists and caps on enrollment. States could cut what they pay medical providers, too, although Medicaid already tends to offer lower rates than Medicare or private health insurance.
Losing health coverage would translate into poorer health for children that can cause problems throughout their lives, according to Block. "This is the time when we're laying down the foundation for lifelong health," he said.
Kathy Rigby, 40, knows what having health care for her son is worth. Her son, now 13, needed a procedure to remove a painful cyst from his leg in 2007, which New York's Medicaid program covered at no cost to his uninsured mother. "It's such a relief to know there's help out there," said Rigby, who now lives in Tampa, Fla. Without Medicaid, getting her son treated would've ruined her finances, she said.
Children's advocates may be focused on kids, but the elderly and disabled also are vulnerable to some cuts, said Edwin Park, vice president for health policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. "No one's going to be spared or largely shielded. There's going to be pretty sizable cuts of all sorts," he said.
Older people and those with disabilities are only about one-quarter of Medicaid recipients, but their intensive medical care uses some two-thirds of the program's total costs, according the Urban Institute and Kaiser Family Foundation.
But the elderly people and those with disabilities can't be cast aside as easily as healthy kids, said Bruce Lesley, the president of First Focus, a Washington-based children's advocacy organization. People in nursing homes, for example, can't just be tossed into the streets.
Moreover, poor senior citizens and people with disabilities enjoy more political protection than healthy children, Block said. "There's a health care industry, if you will, built around their care," he said, such as nursing home companies that rely on Medicaid payments.
"These different groups that are Medicaid recipients are pitted against each other to try and fight for what's in the pot," said Melanie Hall, the executive director of the Kids Healthcare Foundation in Tampa, who arranged for Rigby's interview with The Huffington Post. "It's very distressing to think about what could happen." | <urn:uuid:c1a68604-5f9e-4807-9496-9b3ac2c87e18> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.huffpost.com/entry/romney-ryan-medicaid-plan-children_n_1822052?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003&ir=Politics | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573699.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819131019-20220819161019-00270.warc.gz | en | 0.974137 | 1,177 | 1.976563 | 2 |
The Population Council’s USAID-funded Frontiers in Reproductive Health (FRONTIERS) Program, in collaboration with the National Department of Health and the North West Provincial Department of Health and with support from PEPFAR, initiated a two-phased operations research study to test the acceptability, feasibility, and cost of two different models of integration of counseling and testing for HIV into family planning services in South Africa and to evaluate their effectiveness against standard practice. Based on the studies findings, the report concludes that the integration of HIV prevention activities, including education about prevention, dual protection, and counseling and testing within FP services in public facilities in South Africa is feasible and acceptable to both FP providers and clients. Use of the Balanced Counseling Strategy Plus tool is effective in improving the overall quality of care. Both the testing and referral models were acceptable and effective and so can be used interchangeably depending on client needs and preferences and the skills of the providers. Considering the policy context and the evidence from this study, a number of specific recommendations are proposed.
Mullick, Saiqa, Mantshi Menziwa, Nzwakie Mosery, Doctor Khoza, and Edwin Maroga. 2008. "Feasibility, acceptability, effectiveness and cost of models of integrating HIV prevention and counseling and testing for HIV within family planning services in North West Province, South Africa," FRONTIERS Final Report. Washington, DC: Population Council.
Frontiers in Reproductive Health | <urn:uuid:217efa05-176b-4664-9198-bb4f29b01876> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://knowledgecommons.popcouncil.org/departments_sbsr-rh/467/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573876.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20220820012448-20220820042448-00071.warc.gz | en | 0.924941 | 342 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Left-handed keyboards are a rarity, even for left-handed people… and that’s a shame. Beyond just being better-suited for southpaws, left-handed keyboards actually have a whole host of benefits for right-handers as well. Today, we’re looking at one such Left-handed Keyboard, which has arrived recently at KeyboardCo.
Left-handed keyboards aren’t completely reversed of course — they just have their number pads on the left-hand side. You can see what this looks like above, and it’s basically what you would expect. You type normally with both hands, and use your left hand to enter numbers or press keys like Print Screen.
So why left-handed? Well, it’s great for entering numbers and using a mouse at the same time, like when you’re entering data into a table or spreadsheet. You also have easy access to the tab key, which is normally far away from the number pad.
Having the numberpad on the left also provides the same comfortable ergonomics that a tenkeyless (no number pad) keyboard provides. You can keep your mouse directly ahead of you, instead of off to the right hand side, which is a much more comfortable position.
This particular keyboard has other ergonomic benefits too. Its keys become slightly raised in the centre, and each is slightly angled. The idea is that you place your elbows slightly wider, with your fingers angled towards the centre. This posture feels more comfortable, and the difference is slight enough that learning the new positioning is a matter of minutes instead of hours or days. It looks a bit odd, but it makes a lot of sense ergonomically.
There are other handy features here too. For example, there are a selection of shortcut keys that run across the top of the keyboard, letting you access your internet browser, perform a search or adjust your volume without using the mouse. This keeps your hands on your keyboard, minimising distraction.
The right hand side of the keyboard is also a bit thinner than you’d expect, with home and end near the top, and page up, page down and delete all in a line above the full-size cursor keys. You’ll also note the handy LED indicators for Caps, Scroll and Num lock on the right hand side.
The Black Left-Handed Keypad Keyboard is a pretty comfortable keyboard to use, and I hope we see more keyboards in future that use it for design inspiration. If you’re interested in picking one up for yourself, click the link below. | <urn:uuid:2e9f94cf-a18f-43e3-9310-012cfc9e3b6b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.keyboardco.com/blog/index.php/2016/12/left-handed-keypad-keyboard-review/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00238-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940943 | 534 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Holy Saturday (02:51)
Citizens of Ayacucho, located in the Andes Mountains, run with the Easter Bulls and march in a parade. Jesus Nazareno District Mayor Amilcar Huancahuari discusses his plans for children. During the Maoist insurgency, almost 70,000 people die.
Peru: Lack of Child Development (03:41)
Half of Peru's rural children have growth problems by the age of 18 months. Wawa Wasi is a state-run early childhood development center without trained teachers. Investment in health, education, and nutrition is needed.
Kenya: Stimulation (02:48)
The Gusii people who live in the Kisii District rarely speak or look at their children; the babies' language abilities seem unaffected. Traditional child rearing needs to adapt to schooling.
Turkey: Education (04:36)
Achen organizes a training center where mothers learn how to stimulate and interact with their children. Low education parents provide warmth and care but little verbal interaction. Researchers compare those who attend preschool and read with their parents to those who do not.
Boston: Interaction (04:47)
Researchers study biological evidence of baby stimulation. Newborns imitate their mother's smiles within 40 minutes; primates bond with rocking mothers and ignore other machines. Fearful faces fascinate babies.
Boston: Enrichment (03:01)
Evidence reveals there is no critical period to master school subjects. Academics are different than social development. Researchers debate whether additional funding should be diverted for early education studies.
Peru: New Path (04:30)
Children share what they want to be when they grow up. Huancahuari locates funds for a new preschool. The ability to learn improves with proper nutrition and interaction.
Credits: The Mayor's Dream: Early Life (00:30)
Credits: The Mayor's Dream: Early Life
For additional digital leasing and purchase options contact a media consultant at 800-257-5126
(press option 3) or firstname.lastname@example.org. | <urn:uuid:9bc13992-db4e-49e4-8e44-9e60d2c7293d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://films.com/title/215187 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572033.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814113403-20220814143403-00270.warc.gz | en | 0.917415 | 434 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Prisons are generally seen as hotbeds of intolerance, with inmates effectively self-segregating along racial lines in a move that also helps to proliferate gang culture which has problematic implications both during and after incarceration.
This is a state of affairs which administrators are aware of, and in many cases are taking proactive steps to tackle so that the fallout can be minimized and conditions improved for inmates and prison employees alike.
Here is a look at the strategies being adopted in prisons in Michigan as a means of fighting back against racism and gang culture to have a positive long term impact.
Education & training
The most important tool in dismantling hate is education, as by developing an understanding of others it is easier for the inbuilt and learnt prejudices of inmates to be tackled head on rather than allowed to fester unquestioned.
From smaller facilities like Midland County Jail to larger prisons across the state, the rehabilitation of inmates is being realigned to ensure that they are adequately educated on the issues of race which impact modern society.
This goes hand in hand with providing prisoners with vocational training while they are behind bars, so that their time is not just wasted or spent on menial tasks that will be of little use once they re-enter society at the end of their sentence.
Such schemes are needed to instill inmates with the values that will set them up for a place in the multicultural world of today, as well as giving them a framework within which they can overcome the disadvantages of their situation and better themselves through gainful employment without falling back into the gang culture which may have been responsible for their incarceration in the first place.
Even with all of the education and training in the world, it is ultimately impossible to rely on these strategies alone to deal with racism in general and gang culture in particular in a prison setting.
For this reason, a number of institutions have developed policies which address the ways in which prisoners are allowed to congregate so as to limit the opportunities for gang-like infrastructures to develop.
While this is clearly a steep challenge from an administrative perspective, it is still necessary for gatherings to be monitored, managed and to have limits on attendance imposed.
Prisons in Michigan are having to adapt to the changing pressures they face, as well as to the efforts of external organizations, influential individuals and legislators, as they move forward.
The broader trends for mass incarceration, over which the prisons themselves have no direct control, throw up the ongoing complications relating to racism and gang culture in these facilities, which are therefore tackled as part of multifaceted campaigns.
While it is impossible to eliminate either element completely, it is hoped that prisons are moving in the right direction and that through adaptations and ameliorations over time, things will get better. | <urn:uuid:ef2791c8-ac8f-432a-ab1d-7ee1831ad1b3> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.theunionjournal.com/how-prisons-michigan-combating-racism-gang-culture/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571719.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812140019-20220812170019-00273.warc.gz | en | 0.968576 | 572 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Summer Live '09 Tour
The Summer Live 09 tour was Paul McCartney’s fourth North American concert tour of the 21st Century. The tour is best remembered perhaps for Paul’s three nights at the new Citi Field in New York City on July 17th, 18th and 21st, due to the special significance of the venue. When The Beatles played Shea Stadium (as it was then) on August 15th, 1965, it was the first rock concert in a major stadium, with a sold-out crowd of 55,600. The Beatles at Shea pioneered the stadium concert business, not to mention mega-festivals like Woodstock, but, more importantly, that concert established rock music as the pre-eminent popular art form of the 20th century and The Beatles as its reigning royalty. It was Paul's first tour in four years, and The Beatles were in the air once again, thanks to the hoopla over the reissue of their catalogue, concurrent with the release of the Beatles edition of video game Rock Band. Over the three nights at Citi Field, 109,397 people watched Paul run through a string of classics (36 to be precise) from his varied musical career. On this occasion, McCartney wielded a mammoth sound system and video screens several stories high, making sure everyone present could join in the fun. | <urn:uuid:6a03367d-d178-4645-a5c8-563f34599b49> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.paulmccartney.com/live/tour-archives/summer-live-09-tour | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280730.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00252-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968892 | 272 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Region: Rheingau / Rheinhessen
The beautiful region of Rheingau in Germany is home to many of the country's most characterful and delicious wines. With a wine history which extends back several centuries, the wineries of this region have generations of experience and expertise when it comes to dealing with their distinctive and flavorful grape varietals, and consistently produce wines which remain popular with global audiences. With Riesling making up for the majority of grapes growing in the region, Rheingau vintners make the most of the cooler climate and high levels of moisture on the valley sides to bring out the best flavors of this grape, as well as allowing it to express the finest features of the terroir. However, plenty of other Germanic and imported grape varietals flourish there, and today the region produces a relatively large range of excellent white wines which are steadily becoming more recognized internationally.
Despite being known primarily for sweet and semi-sweet white wines, Germany actually produces a surprisingly large and varied range of wines, with many reaching an extremely high standard and being very well received on the world stage. The terrain across much of the southern parts of the country is extremely fertile, with mineral rich soils adding a wonderful edge to already excellent grapes, and thus resulting in delicious and highly elegant white and rosé wines. The climate in many parts of Germany also allows for some more unusual wine-making practices, with certain regions specializing in the highly aromatic and distinctive 'ice-wines' which are gaining popularity by those looking for something a little more intense and unusual. With these wines, the producers allow the grapes to freeze through the early frosts, resulting in a higher sugar content and a fantastic set of flavors and aromas in the finished product. Germany has long since favored quality over quantity, and a new enthusiasm for fine wine within the country is producing truly exciting results, using a blending of traditional and contemporary techniques. | <urn:uuid:3626112e-5670-4fb2-9e06-44cd4eff5eaa> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.saratogawine.com/Hans-Pfeiffer-Liebfraumilch-2013-750ml.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719843.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00292-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948198 | 396 | 1.5 | 2 |
positive again, palagay ko. now na nalalaman ko nang unti-unti nang tinatadyakan ng tadhana ang mga lumalapastangan sa aking puri, nagpapasalamat ako sa kalawakan sa pagbabalot sa akin ng magandang karma bilang balabal sa masasamang elemento sa tabi-tabi.
curious? eto ang sinasabi ng stars na magaganap:
Year of the Ox Prediction
Jan. 26, 2009 - Feb. 13, 2010
The Year of the Earth Ox evokes stability and dependability. The Ox is a practical work animal, while the Earth element is steady and firm. Together, they create a kind of plodding energy that can be exasperating. Still, progress will be made in 2009; it will occur in slow, barely perceptible increments. If you stay patient and keep your nose to the grindstone, you will make the most of this ponderous energy.
Oxen place great emphasis on authority and tradition. Therefore, 2009 will lay an especially heavy burden on world leaders. Government officials, CEOs and community organizers will be expected to correct society's ills. If they slack off, they'll be thrown by the wayside. Substance is always favored over style in the Year of the Ox.
Money in the Year of the Ox
2009 promises to be a time of financial restraint, too. The Earth element places great emphasis on the material plane. Saving will be more important than spending. Everyone will be tightening their belts -- even those who are flush with cash. Businesses that work to keep their clients, present materials in a timely manner and provide excellent customer service will survive, while companies that take an indifferent approach to their clientele will fall to ruin. There's no room for slackers in an Ox year, especially as far as commerce is concerned.
Practical tradesmen like plumbers, electricians, carpenters and mechanics may do especially well this year, because the Earth Ox prizes foundations. Anyone involved in strengthening and improving foundations is sure to profit in 2009. Teachers, engineers, farmers, nurses, dentists, doctors, politicians and technicians are also in for a good year, as the Earth Ox favors long-term investments in people and structures. Creative professionals may have a lean year in 2009. Actors, journalists, writers, models and dancers will have to work extra hard to find jobs, as such work seems superfluous to the ultra-practical Earth Ox.
Home improvement projects are highly favored this year. If you don't have the funds to hire a professional, try tackling jobs yourself. You can accomplish miracles with the help of how-to books. Earth Ox years are wonderful for acquiring hands-on skills.
Love in the Year of the Ox
With regard to romance, the Year of the Earth Ox is time to get serious. The Ox doesn't favor careless flings -- remember, this animal favors work over play. In fact, playing fast and loose with somebody's heart could get in you in deep trouble. This is a fabulous year to get engaged or married, provided you're with someone you love. If you're not ready to make a commitment to a casual love interest, you're better off breaking up. Hold out for real thing -- a relationship that will withstand poverty, illness and any other challenges that lie ahead.
Fashions will be more subdued this year; darker colors, durable fabrics and sturdy shoes will be the norm. This will be in keeping with the somber, serious energy of the Earth Ox. As far as travel is concerned, opt for beautiful nature spots as opposed to crowded urban areas. Being in the presence of trees, mountains and lakes can be tremendously relaxing in 2009. Remember, the Ox is a grazing animal, and fares best in wide, open spaces.----------------------
winner ba? click on the link to find out your own sign's readings.
the last time we had an ox year was 1997, and that was indeed an unforgettable year for me. i was 24, working in showbiz, and about to make two huge transitions in my life -- leaving showbiz for the literary world, and leaving heterosexuality.
a scriptwriter friend clipped this news item in a newspaper about some call for manuscripts for a UP National Writers Workshop thingie. i had no idea what that meant, but seeing that that entailed staying in baguio for two whole weeks for free with a stipend attracted me to it. so since the workshop didn't accept screenplays -- and i was that, a scriptwriter -- i thought of collecting some poetry i wrote over the years, since poetry was accepted.
to ensure that i had higher chances of getting in, i also submitted two short stories in filipino. the first one was easy -- i just turned to my short script vault and transformed my original undergraduate thesis script into a short story. that was SI TOTOY SA GUBAT NG DIWATA, an environmental film about and for children. for the second story, i had a hard time. but one night, as i was about to sleep, an idea came to me, and i grabbed my pen and paper and immediately scribbled it down. it was about a woman who committed suicide, and was talking to her best friend about her habilins as a ghost na. but on second reading, i decided to make it postmodern--even before learning what the heck postmodernism meant--by making it sound as if the woman was talking to someone but in reality, she was talking to herself. the image i had in my head was that of someone playing chess with herself, while all along, she is watching the chess game between herself and herself. get it? this visual was somehow inspired by the music video of alanis morissette for IRONIC where she is the driver and the three other passengers in the car are also her. parang ganun. youtube it if you don't know what i'm talking about.
so anyway, that short story became SI JOE COOL KASI, and my second entry to the workshop in baguio. needless to say, yes, i got in. they loved the stories, and i met really good writer friends in the workshop which i still treat as friends to this very day. that was march to april, i think. 1997.
and later that year, september to be exact, those two stories won for me my two palanca awards. both third place. and that gave me the courage to continue on with creative writing. the following year, i resigned from my office and applied for a masters degree in creative writing.
and yeah, about heterosexuality. i came into that baguio workshop a heterosexual, and came out a homosexual. and, like the indigo girls said, that was the beginning of the rest of my life! chos.
so now, here we are.
totoo for me ang sinabi ni jeanette winterson: what you risk reveals what you value. and those two things i risked in my life to attain -- creative writing and lesbianism -- are now the two things i value the most in my life. so happy ito.
sabi nga sa taas, tiyaga, slow and steady, building strong foundations, and reaping the rewards later on. bet lang. patience is a virtue kumbaga. at eto na nga yun.
let's see what happens this year.
ox na ox! | <urn:uuid:d1c020b5-8bcc-4443-b178-d257cc157170> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://leaflens.blogspot.com/2009/01/kung-hei-fat-choy-and-other-ox-musings.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280763.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00520-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9606 | 1,565 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Two young children will have to make do with only one parent this year. The reason? Their parents will each have to spend six months in jail for having a leaky septic tank. For details, contact Chad Cowan at (202) 507-6398.
Kent and Glenda Duell of Essex County, New York, parents of two young children, will be spending a good deal of 1997 behind bars. The reason? Their septic tank leaked.
The Duells were prosecuted on 102 counts of "intending to pollute" the waters of the state of New York, although there was no evidence that raw sewage had spilled out of their septic system, which was designed and approved by HUD. Nor was there any evidence that sewage had seeped into state waters. Amazingly, the prosecution's expert witness admitted he had never even visited the site.
Yet the Duells were sentenced to six months in jail, five years probation, and both fined $68,000. In what the judge characterized as a humane gesture, he staggered their sentences so that the children would not be forced to go into foster care.
The judge forced the Duells to choose publicly which one would go to jail first. Glenda, in tears, begged that she go first so her husband could keep his job, their income and health insurance for another six months. To quote Glenda Duell's father, "At issue here is... whether small, individual property owners... should face literally millions of dollars in fines and hundreds of years in jail for an alleged minor environmental infraction."
Source: Liberty Matters
Posthaste Facts on the Environment #21, published October 28, 1997 by The National Center for Public Policy Research, 20 F Street NW, Suite 700 , Washington, D.C. 20001, (202) 507-6398, Fax (301) 498-1301, E-Mail [email protected] | <urn:uuid:8c24bcf6-d77f-450a-92bd-766c7e6347f4> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://nationalcenter.org/ph21.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00221-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972975 | 399 | 1.640625 | 2 |
Located in the tiny hamlet of Saligrama on the Edapally-Panvel highway, Guru Narasimha Temple is about 22 km from Udupi. The monolithic idol of Lord Narasimha which is about 3 feet in height is said to have been installed by king Lokaditya, the son of Mayura Varma of the Kadamba dynasty. The deity is seen in yogic position and is considered both as god and guru of the Brahmins of the 14 villages surrounding the temple. It is therefore known as ‘Yogananda Guru Narasimha’. People belonging to this region worship Lord Narasimha as their sole Guru. The west facing deity is highly revered and is considered as the ensurer of law in the area. It has a shankha (conch) in one hand and a chakra (disc) in the other.
The temple has been regularly renovated from the 1970s and though the presiding deity is Lord Narasimha, the rituals conducted at the temple are according to Shaiva traditions with Lord Ganapati occupying a prominent place in all the rituals. | <urn:uuid:560623ab-12de-4a0a-be8b-aadf77dbbf25> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/travel/karnataka/guru-narasimha-temple/ps50622598.cms | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573163.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818033705-20220818063705-00071.warc.gz | en | 0.975691 | 234 | 2.015625 | 2 |
It took many years, and it's still not "there" yet as much as I would like, but the idea of bringing the mind on the cushion into the rest of the world and life is the only way to do these Zen practices. It's not quite as dramatic as a Tolstoy short story, perhaps, but by carrying this practice into one's work and home life one can:
- Avoid pissing off people who are better in relation to you as team mates, allies, and loved ones.
- Put the important things and tasks in important places and times and the less important things and tasks in their suitable places.
- Actually appreciate the actual life you're living in the same way as you might appreciate a great meal or work of art.
- Actually take part in the actual life you're living instead of just showing up (or not even that).
I used to regret being this busy, because "practice would suffer" or other things would suffer, and perhaps this was fed by the feedback, instantiated by those who perhaps should have known better, that the "either/or" choice of "work" or "extended sitting practice" should have favored the latter more. (I'm not referring to my current teacher by the way.)
I realize now that "advanced busyness" is actually an opportunity to advance my practice.
Now if only I don't catch my son's cold... | <urn:uuid:37719377-331e-4344-ac07-5634901dd6bb> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://mumonno.blogspot.com/2010/02/practice-in-everyday-busyness-of.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280761.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00094-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983471 | 291 | 1.898438 | 2 |
- K.F International Limited
- Issue Time
Capacitors are the backbone of a board power distribution network, or PDN. However, just as important as having the capacitors connected to the PDN is how they are connected.
How to connect a capacitor?
Capacitors are the backbone of a board power distribution network, or PDN. However, just as important as having the capacitors connected to the PDN is how they are connected. If you think that connecting them with inch-long 5-mil traces is a good idea, you might want to reconsider (or maybe you are still living in the ’70s?). Obviously that is an extreme example, but there are a number of nuances to connecting capacitors to the board to maximize their effectiveness as part of the PDN.
Among the variables explored are the connections to the planes, and that doesn’t just mean the connections themselves, but the plane configuration. This can have a huge effect on the mounted inductance of the capacitor. The separation between the power and ground planes is probably the most important. Planes which are very close together are actually much more effective in minimizing the mounted inductance of the capacitor than planes which are further apart but closer to the capacitor (like in layers closer to the top). In fact, that is one of the many tradeoffs you can analyze in the PDN editor in HyperLynx LineSim when trying to plan your PDN design.
Maybe it’s helpful to you: | <urn:uuid:73168b76-7279-439c-814f-21c72d9056f9> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://m.pcbquick.com/n1792289/How-to-connect-a-capacitor.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572192.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815145459-20220815175459-00078.warc.gz | en | 0.970143 | 333 | 2.765625 | 3 |
Shame led me onto a very enjoyable herb course recently, run by Judith Hann of Hann’s Herbs Gloucestershire. Shame that I didn’t know what Lovage looked like and also the fact that I had no idea how to use it even if I did get hold of a bunch or two. Although proficient at growing many of the better known herbs such as mint, marjoram, sage and thyme, Judith’s course offered an introduction into some unknown (to me) herbs, with plenty of cookery ideas as part of the day too.
After a warming Lemon verbena tea (much-needed after driving 3 hours in a never-ending downpour!), we started the course by tasting, and discussing, the uses of various herbs and salad leaves. Here’s a quick ID of the perennial herbs above for those of you who may be in the same boat as myself.
Top left is the beautifully airy Sweet Cicely (Myrrhis oderata). I was wondering why there was a fern nestling amongst the other herbs until I tasted its gentle aniseed flavour. Leaves are delicious in salads, but we were informed that the stems are also a great natural sweetener. The next day I cooked up some Rhubarb with the Sweet Cicely stems, with no added sugar, and it certainly took the tartness out of the rhubarb. I did add sugar to the crumble top, but with half the amount of sugar for the whole dish, calorie-wise, this can only be a good thing!
Top right is Buckler leaf Sorrel (Rumex scatatus, AKA French Sorrel). Smaller and shaplier than it’s larger Sorrel relative, but with the same tart lemon taste and an almost succulent crunch to the leaf. Great for sauces and cooking with fish, as well as citrusy leaves for salads. I have a rather decorative red-veined Sorrel happily growing away in my front garden, but wasn’t sure if this indeed was a Sorrel as it has no distinguishing taste to it at all. Judith confirmed its tasteless credentials, thus clearing up one of my many herby misconceptions.
Bottom left is Salad Burnet (Sanguisorba minor). Leaves do grow a little bigger and they add a refreshing hint of cucumber to the salad bowl. Slightly metalic aftertaste, but very pleasing non-the-less and a very decorative plant for the garden too, growing in a bushy habit to about 60cm with pinky-red small pompom like flowers in summer.
And finally, bottom right. The Lovage itself. Eaten raw, it has an intense celery flavour and can be used in salads, sauces, soups and to flavour cheese. Judith gave us an intriguing recipe for roasted guinea fowl with lime, vermouth and cream, which I cooked soon afterwards. Very easy to make and truly delicious. A recipe I’ll be using again and again -that is if I can get hold of a few handfuls of lovage.
As we chomped and chatted, Judith imparted many useful bits of herb knowledge, including the fact that Sorrel, Mint and Chervil will grow better in a shadier spot in the garden and that in Marks and Spencer’s trials, ‘Miss Jessop’s Upright’ was found to be the tastiest Rosemary out of 30 different varieties! Lovely upright plant, as the name suggests, growing to about 1m high.
As we moved onto salad leaves and started nibbling at Good King Henry (Chenopodium bonus-henricus), above left, armed with a Jekka’s Herb Farm catalogue, the anorak in me couldn’t help realising that Fat Hen (C. album), above , bottom right, is a near relative. Fat Hen is now seen as a weed, but on a foraging course last year, I learnt that it was the European precursor to spinach and is a highly edible leaf. Top right is Tree Spinach (C. giganteum), a delighfully decorative form of the genus, with amazing bright pink powdery colouring at the bottom of the leaves. It’s a whopper of a plant too, growing up to 2 metres and a prolific self-seeder, so once bought, you’ll never have to buy a pack of seeds again!
Sorry, I digress. Back to the course, and next on the agenda was the serious and highly enjoyable business of tasting various pestos made from different herbs and having a go ourselves at preparing our own herby starters in the kitchen. At this point, during sunnier summers, we would have started to wander around the gardens, but the rain during the whole day was relentless, so we happily settled down to lunch, an enjoyable feast of fresh produce from the garden.
Finally, it was time to brave the elements. Wellies and waterproofs were donned and we were expertly guided around the herb garden.
It is so useful to see the herbs growing in situ to gather an understanding of the growing conditions each herb will need and to see how big they can grow too. Judith has been growing Lovage in the same spot for 18 years and as it’s a tall herb (can grow up to 2m), uses it to create shade on one side of her greenhouse.
Many of the herbs, such as Sweet Cicely above, and Sorrel, are just going to seed now, and will be cut down to encourage fresh new growth for the rest of the summer.
Seeds of annual herbs, such as Coriander (above) and Chervil, are sown in July and August, providing flavours for autumn and happily overwintering outside in the garden. Something I plan to do now, along with sowing mustard leaves in late summer for winter salads too.
Sages were abundant in a number of forms, from grey green sage (S. officinalis) to purple sage (Salvia officinalis ‘Purpurescens’),
a delicate small-leaved white-flowered sage (S.x sylvestris ‘Schneehugel’?)
and an impressively huge clump of a large-leaved sage (sorry, variety unknown), which would happily fill up most of my front garden!
Edging paths with Winter Savory was discussed as it’s a semi evergreen herb (with an intense Thyme flavour) and I loved seeing wild strawberries (above) edging the beds too.
Judith encouraged us to take away cuttings of all of the herbs in her garden, along with handfuls of seeds, and I left brimming with enthusiasm for both growing and cooking with a larger palette of herbs than I was aware of before the day had started.
Lovage, Sweet Cicely and Sorrel are top on my list, and I can’t wait to get planting, as all 3 herbs are nigh on impossible to find in most local green grocers or supermarkets, but make a great addition even when cooking the simplest of dishes. A day certainly well spent and now planning future trips to expand my herbal horizons. | <urn:uuid:10cac3ec-d1ff-4643-9e32-354a63081422> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://outofmyshed.co.uk/2012/06/18/name-that-herb/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280504.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00139-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958022 | 1,517 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 300mm f/4 IS PRO is a new lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras which provides a 35mm focal length equivalent of 600mm.
The instruction manual for the telephoto prime lens is now available for download as pdf file.
These manufacturer guides are designed to help you get the most out of your new product, know what to do if something goes wrong, and keep it in good running order for it’s full intended lifecycle.
Olympus 300mm F/4 IS PRO User’s Manual Available Online
The Olympus 300mm f/4 IS PRO $2,499.95 – Amazon | B&H | Adorama is a new lens for Micro Four Thirds cameras which provides a 600mm equivalent field of view into a 1.27kg (2.8 pound), complete with image stabilization, weatherproofing and an impressive close focusing distance.
This is the new supertelephoto lens with a built-in image stabilization mechanism. When paired with the OM-D E-M1 (firmware version 4.0) or E-M5 Mark II (firmware version 2.0), the 300mm’s in-body and in-lens image stabilization work together to produce image stabilization performance that Olympus claims is equivalent to up to six stops of compensation.
Olympus 300mm f/4 IS PRO is packed with specialized elements that helps produce sharp, aberration free images. Supported by three Super ED lenses that eliminate peripheral chromatic aberration along with three High Refractive index lenses and one Extra-High Refractive index lens, grants maximum sharpness. | <urn:uuid:664660f7-4632-4c21-809d-b7a1e3def70b> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.dailycameranews.com/2016/03/olympus-300mm-f4-pro-users-manual-available-online/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719136.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00467-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.873079 | 343 | 1.585938 | 2 |
July 18, 2022
by Xunyao Fu, PhD., regulatory specialist, UL's Supply Chain team
The Malaysian Department of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) published the proposed amendments to the Occupational Safety and Health (Classification, Labelling and Safety Data Sheet of Hazardous Chemicals) Regulations (CLASS) 2013 on June 13, 2022.
The CLASS Regulations 2013 were enacted to align with GHS Revision 3. With the 2022 amendments, Malaysia is moving to adopt GHS Revision 8.
The proposed amendments are focused on the following items:
- Revising the GHS classifications of Flammable gases, Aerosols and Chemicals under pressure to align with GHS Revision 8.
- Adopting new GHS categories for hazard classes of Skin corrosion or irritation, Serious eye damage or eye irritation, Respiratory sensitization and Skin sensitization.
- Stipulating pictogram dimensions on labels and revising measurements for labels.
- Changing the cut-off value for Aspiration hazard from >=10.0% to >=1.0%.
- Revising the small container size from 125 mL to 250 mL.
- Changing the update of label when there is any change in classification from within 3 months to 6 months.
The draft was published only in Malay, but once the official amendments are issued on the gazette, there will also be an English version available.
The proposed amendments are open to public comments from June 13, 2022 to August 15, 2022.
Recommended action items
- Submit any comments or concerns you might have to the DOSH.
- Keep an eye out for the publication of the official amendments. | <urn:uuid:2e0240aa-47a6-41ff-b509-8b4691251b94> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.ul.com/news/malaysia-moves-adopt-ghs-revision-8 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572304.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816120802-20220816150802-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.904812 | 346 | 1.5625 | 2 |
This collection of Nadine Gordimer's short stories, which was released along with a companion volume of her essays called Telling Times, spans six decades. Gordimer's particular powers of observation are there from the beginning. The first story, "The Soft Voice of the Serpent", written in 1952, features a young man who is recuperating after the loss of a leg. While resting in the garden he becomes briefly fixated with a locust that has been swatted by his wife and similarly injured. This level of careful scrutiny, this steady, detailed gaze, has been a constant in her writing throughout the years.
Many of the stories are concerned with South Africa and the lines that divide it. There's economy and elegance in the way Gordimer sketches the complex social and racial hierarchies of life under apartheid, and its appalling contrasts. Sometimes the political is explicit, sometimes it sits below the surface of things, and while the stories are very much a product of the social and historical context in which they were written, the majority remain incredibly fresh; they glitter with life. "A Chip of Glass Ruby", from her 1960s collection Not for Publication, exemplifies this in its depiction of the Bamjee family. A Muslim woman's activism is viewed through the eyes of her slightly bewildered but accepting husband. The domestic and political are dexterously intertwined. Each detail is telling.
Gordimer's anger is frequently palpable, and her frustration at injustice burns brightly. "The Ultimate Safari" uses a child's point of view to potent effect: "We wanted to go away from where our mother wasn't and where we were hungry. We wanted to go where there were no bandits and there was food." "The Moment Before the Gun Went Off", in which a young farm labourer is killed, is permeated by a sense of inevitability that the truth of the event will never be known and understood, and will only be bent and manipulated out of recognition by outside eyes. Some of the later stories are striking in their experimentation, such as "Tape Measure", which is written from the perspective of a tapeworm coiled within someone's gut.
Despite the subtitle, the volume contains two new stories written after 2007 including the final piece, "Second Coming", in which a denim-clad Jesus arrives in a barren, desolate world. It's a bleak coda to a rich and often extraordinary collection. | <urn:uuid:cd99a376-e52e-4e5d-ba88-ad0c6ca17de1> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/nov/20/nadine-gordimer-life-times-review | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280483.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00302-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980519 | 487 | 1.867188 | 2 |
America’s states and cities are finally seizing on record-low interest rates to finance needed work on roads, bridges and schools.
After borrowing costs tumbled worldwide as central banks sought to jump-start their economies, agencies from New York to California have sold about $272 billion of bonds this year and are funneling more into construction projects, instead of just paying off higher-cost debt. That’s put the municipal market on track to approach the record level of sales reached in 2010, when the federal government was seeking to hasten the nation’s recovery by footing some of the bills on debt issued for public works.
"That’s going to the story for the year-- rebuilding infrastructure," said Mikhail Foux, head of municipal strategy in New York for underwriter Barclays Plc, which forecasts that issuance may reach $400 billion this year.
The spree shows how local U.S. agencies are benefiting from turbulence in global financial markets that’s kept the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates since its initial increase in December -- a move that at the time spurred speculation states and cities were missing an opportunity. The need for such spending has been injected into the U.S. presidential campaign, with both Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican rival Donald Trump promising hundreds of billions of dollars for the country’s fraying infrastructure.
While localities for years pocketed savings by refinancing, this year they’ve stepped up borrowing for planned public works -- many of which were put on hold as officials struggled with budget shortfalls that persisted long after the recession ended in 2009. So-called new-money deals -- which fund projects instead of paying off old debt -- accounted for 40 percent of the sales through early August, compared with 35 percent for the same period last year, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
The new issues this year included those for a terminal at New York’s LaGuardia Airport, improvements at Chicago’s schools and work on Texas’s roads. Next month, Alabama plans to offer $550 million of debt backed by highway funding it’s set to receive from the federal government, allowing it to begin work without waiting on Washington.
Irvine Ranch Water District, an agency serving 380,000 customers in California’s Orange County, this month issued its first new-money bonds since December 2010. The timing of its $117 million deal, some of which retired older securities, was driven partly by the market, said Rob Jacobson, the district’s treasurer. The proceeds are being used for a facility to treat waste-water remnants called biosolids, which are currently processed elsewhere.
"It turned out to be an excellent time," Jacobson said. "The market is fantastic."
The longest-maturing securities, which come due in March 2046, yielded 2.23 percent, 0.74 percentage point above benchmark munis. The 10-year securities yielded 1.29 percent, 0.64 percentage point less than top-rated bonds, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
The pace of new bond deals is expected to stay brisk. There were $16 billion scheduled over the next month, an increase from the $6.9 billion that were planned for 30 days out at the start of July, data compiled by Bloomberg show. As Fed Chair Janet Yellen is set to speak at a conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Friday, speculation has increased that the central bank will tighten monetary policy: the futures market predicts a 55 percent chance that rates will be increased in December, compared with the 15 percent odds given two months ago.
The increased supply hasn’t diminished the municipal market’s rally, which has driven yields -- which move in the opposite direction as prices -- to record lows. With negative rates in Japan and Germany, even the diminished payouts have been a draw to investors looking. U.S. state and local-government debt funds have taken in cash for 46 straight weeks, according to Lipper US Fund Flows data.
Barclay’s Foux said more bonds may be on the way if either Trump or Clinton follow through on their promises to fix crumbling roads and bridges.
"It’s going to be a massive boost," he said.
© Copyright 2022 Bloomberg News. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:f092bc4a-bb17-409b-8c8f-0d5e4bd175df> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://cloudflarepoc.newsmax.com/finance/economy/muni-bond-infrastructure-spending/2016/08/26/id/745309/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572908.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817122626-20220817152626-00066.warc.gz | en | 0.959697 | 885 | 1.875 | 2 |
While climate change mitigation largely focuses on energy, climate change adaptation has strong links with water, both at national and regional (transboundary) level. Energy generation and agriculture are important GHG emitters and major water users. Insights about Nexus interactions can be useful in defining broader synergetic actions that serve mitigation and adaptation goals, while preventing negative impacts. Renewable energy (RE) is required for the sustainable energy transition. But its deployment needs to be sustainable to manage climate risks. RE technologies contribute to sustainable water and food production processes, but also compete with other needs or may bring impacts across other sectors, e.g. changes in the water resources system. Their deployment will be affected by future water availability and related risks. Therefore, considering intersectoral impacts and synergies, such as water-risks in the RE planning and development is crucial. Cross-border frameworks provide additional value through complementarity, coordination and common objectives. This session focuses on water-energy-links, highlighting approaches and tools for waterrelated risks and opportunities for the energy sector. After an introductory keynote from the International Energy Agency and presentations from Deltares, UNECE and GIZ, the discussion will identify concrete actions and suggestions to overcome challenges and capitalise on the benefits of synergies.
- Introduction (International Energy Agency)
- Linking energy scenarios to water management (Deltares)
- Sustainable renewable energy considering water and environment (UNECE)
- The value-added of WEF Nexus for inter-sectoral planning (GIZ)
More online events in the frame of the Water Week on Development 2020 can be found here | <urn:uuid:6d725865-0db1-4c97-982d-5ccf3ad421e9> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.water-energy-food.org/ru/resources/online-event-water-energy-strategic-planning-opportunities-for-climate-action | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573197.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818124424-20220818154424-00668.warc.gz | en | 0.884094 | 356 | 2.703125 | 3 |
Founding Director of the Foodservice Network
Fire has been essential for cooking since before the dawn of civilisation. In many places across the world, traditional methods – cooking on an open fire or stove – have been replaced by gas or electricity, yet continued use of solid biomass fuels in traditional stoves across the developing world is seriously affecting the health of people who are already vulnerable.
Rising competition for many of the world’s important crops is sending increasing amounts toward uses other than directly feeding people. These competing uses include making biofuels; converting crops into processing ingredients, such as livestock meal, hydrogenated oils and starches; and selling them on global markets to countries that can afford to pay for them.
Over the past decade, food businesses have created detailed maps of the terrain they wish to 'conquer' and developed operational guides and strategic briefs on how to achieve this. With COVID-19, the maps are really no longer accurate and many of the accompanying operational guides, no longer instructive.
Planning failures and financial cuts are being exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. In the world of food, too, planning is needed both to deal with short-term emergencies and to address longer-term risks.
The coronavirus pandemic has revealed just how much we depend on easy access to food. The beginning of the UK’s lockdown saw the closure of restaurants and pubs, and empty supermarket shelves. The number of people who are struggling to access food because of financial difficulties has dramatically swelled.
The arrival of online food delivery platforms, bringing greater choice and convenience, has revolutionized the way we purchase and consume food. The capability of ordering food for delivery with a single tap of your mobile phone, whether it be your weekly supply, a meal box or a hot and ready to eat meal is the result of a series of technological and digital innovations that have as yet to run their full course.
There has been a lot of noise on cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin of late. While some suggest cryptocurrencies are a fraud, others believe them to be the next biggest economic revolution the world has seen since the internet. Bitcoin has brought to light blockchain technology, which offers great potential for food safety and verification in the agrifood sector. Yet it is far from being the panacea for a range of issues affecting the industry — at least for now.
The exponential growth in home food delivery is changing not only the way we purchase and consume food, it is also changing the way Restaurants and Food Retailers design and build their restaurants and shops.
Amazon, without doubt, has been broadening the reach of the world's most advanced logistics platform and is now sharpening its focus on food. Food management (production, packaging, service, delivery, etc) is however a very complex business and Amazon's recent closure of its restaurant delivery service in the UK is very likely to be a full acknowledgement of this. | <urn:uuid:ab3d489c-7293-493c-9195-a87fd1b1b9ff> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.foodsystems.network/component/k2/itemlist/user/42-markmcglinn | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571538.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812014923-20220812044923-00478.warc.gz | en | 0.963727 | 595 | 2.640625 | 3 |
Orange County for Darfur seeks to:
- increase awareness among local residents of the suffering in Darfur and the surrounding region
- get our elected officials and others in positions of influence to take more action in order to stop the genocide
Orange County for Darfur is a Living Ubuntu project and an all-volunteer effort that began in June 2007. In addition to raising awareness and persuading our elected officials and others in positions of influence to take more action in order to stop the genocide, a secondary goal is to help facilitate and increase coordinated efforts related to Darfur among individuals and groups in Orange County.
OCFD was formed primarily in response to the recognition of two things. First, three years had passed since genocide in Darfur was declared by the U. S. government. Second, despite that passage of time, consistent, well-organized grassroots efforts in Orange County remained virtually non-existent. We have formed a group whose core consists of dedicated volunteers committed to staying for the long term in working toward ending the atrocities in Darfur. Additionally, we are determined to not be complicit in genocide by remaining silent.
For more information, please visit us at ocfordarfur.org. | <urn:uuid:569d08f2-5a76-43e9-bb08-328d54fe4f70> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://ocfordarfur.wordpress.com/about/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280825.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00204-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9555 | 243 | 1.976563 | 2 |
Clamping cauls have probably been around as long as woodworking, but they seem to come in and out of favor. New woodworking tools, attachments, jigs, and techniques come along on old ways are often forgotten. But not everyone has the latest tools, jigs, and techniques, in fact many, especially in woodworking, like doing things the traditional way and what could be more traditional than Clamping Cauls ....
Watch it on Youtube: https://youtu.be/OZ53CF7Gb1s
At one time, much earlier in my woodworking career, I used nothing but clamping cauls for all sorts of assembly and glue-up jobs. They worked great then and they still work great, I just don't use them much anymore, have fallen to another technique that I like, and that works well for me, the Dowelmax systems ... but that doesn't mean I have abandoned clamping cauls, they are still invaluable for certain jobs ...
There are many different kinds of clamping cauls from the very basic, which is simply a couple of straight, even boards that can be clamped together to help align boards, cabinets or whatever project is being constructed, to versions that are tapered to the ends, so that when pressure is applied to the ends, if focuses more clamping pressure on the middle. I also have a pair of "I" Beam cauls that I use for, among other things, heavy-duty clamping because they are so constructed that when pressure is applied to the ends, they are so rigid, that same pressure is applied evenly along the whole clamp length. I use these more for clamping cabinetry that I am making where sometimes my joints are a bit tighter than they need to be.
Making cauls is easy, and in fact, the easiest way of making cauls is to go to the lumber store and look for construction grade lumber that already has a significant bow in it. If you are lucky, they may even give a discount to take away their bent wood.
Making your own cauls is nearly as easy, but you also have more control in size and shape. I like the ones that have a tapered end and are a bit thicker in the middle. They are easy to use and work well. I have found the thickness that works best for me is about 3/4 inch deep and about 1.5 inches wide. In the video I show who to bend some thin wood to get the slop on the ends, then rough cut on a bandsaw and finally clean up the cut using a hand plane.
These slopped cauls can be used together or with opposing flat cauls ... it all depends what you need and what works best for your situation.
The only other thing to be careful of is that when gluing and using cauls, there is always a risk that they can adhere to your glue-up. There are many different ways of preventing this from using wax paper to various different sheet plastics to prevent the glue from touching the cauls. In the past, I have also used paraffin wax to coat my cauls, but I'm sure a good past wax would work well too. Even painting the cauls with varnish is good ways of preserving them, and helping to ensure they stay glue free.
If you have never used cauls during glue ups and you are challenged like I was, give these a try, they saved me time and effort for many, many years ....
Woodworkweb Amazon Affiliate Store - https://www.amazon.com/shop/woodworkweb
Copyright Colin Knecht | <urn:uuid:7f08a76c-a6a1-4eca-956c-e9a37f42183d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.woodworkweb.com/woodworking-videos-1/wood-joinery-videos/741-better-blue-ups-with-clamping-cauls.html?tmpl=component&print=1&layout=default | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571719.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812140019-20220812170019-00268.warc.gz | en | 0.970176 | 750 | 1.742188 | 2 |
Webinar on Danish Caribbean / Women Labor Leaders
Fireburn was an important event in the history of St. Croix, today one of the US Virgin Islands and, in 1878, one of the Danish territories in the Caribbean. It was a revolt by laborers (previously slaves) that were pursuing better working conditions and among whose leaders three women stood up. These women have been known as the “Queens of Fireburn”.
For information on the event please click here. | <urn:uuid:10251a4a-317e-488a-907d-197119198eb6> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.caribheritage.org/events-opportunities/events/online-course-or-webinar-fiyahbun1878-reflections-2020 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570913.16/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809064307-20220809094307-00075.warc.gz | en | 0.981421 | 101 | 2.953125 | 3 |
This series of web resources introduces a range of philosophical perspectives that inform different approaches to research and scholarship in the social sciences, business and humanities. These perspectives debate the nature of social and cultural phenomena, how we can come to know about them, and the grounds upon which we can claim to have produced 'valid' knowledge. The resources on this site aim to assist candidates to clarify the philosophical assumptions that underpin their own and others' approaches to human and social research, and to understand the areas of overlap and critical distinctions among them.
Your feedback about the resources on this site are welcome. Please forward any questions or suggestions to firstname.lastname@example.org | <urn:uuid:300b8f6d-9d87-4c3d-b8ef-9168609e9df1> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://lo.unisa.edu.au/course/view.php?id=6745 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571987.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813202507-20220813232507-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.933414 | 139 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Side Effects: Nicotine Gum Addiction
Many people, knowing that smoking can lead to such dreaded diseases as lung cancer and heart disease, begin chewing nicotine gum in an effort to quit. And in many cases, these people are successful in giving up tobacco. Unfortunately, sometimes there is the issue of giving up one addiction for another, as up to 9% of nicotine gum users report still chewing more than six months after starting.
By contrast, makers of the name brand nicotine gum Nicorette, GlaxoKlineSmith, urge users to stop chewing after twelve weeks.
What is Nicotine Gum?
Nicotine gum is a form of smoking cessation aid, which means it is intended to help people stop smoking. It generally works by replacing the nicotine that smokers usually get through tobacco products. Users normally gradually reduce their nicotine dosage until they no longer have cravings for it, or at least until the most bothersome nicotine withdrawal symptoms subside or lessen in severity.
Addiction to Nicotine Gum
Although less than 10% of nicotine gum users report still using the product after six months according to WebMD, that is still a lot of people when you consider than up to 2 million people will try nicotine gum annually.
While there are few long-term studies regarding nicotine gum addiction, those which have been done have shown few ill effects. This is because most of the health problems associated with tobacco products are due to the burning of the tobacco, as well as the chemical additives put in cigarettes. With the gum, there’s no smoke to enter the lungs and no carcinogens to develop into cancer, according to WebMD.
According to the Wall Street Journal, health officials are even backing off when it comes to warning consumers against long-term gum use. Although there are few studies showing its safety, it is still considered to be much safer than using tobacco products. Many doctors advise their patients to continue using the gum as long as it helps them avoid tobacco products.
Side Effects to Nicotine Gum
Just because there are few, if any, serious health consequences to using nicotine laced gum over the long haul, that doesn’t mean it is without side effects. Nicotine gum releases the nicotine much more slowly than cigarettes, and usually contains lower amounts of the substance, as well. Even so, those who are sensitive to nicotine may experience nausea, jitters, and other symptoms common to those who are sensitive to stimulants. Some have also reported experiencing withdrawal symptoms when discontinuing the gum, such as irritability, fatigue, and cravings.
Additionally, many people do report experiencing severe jaw pain from the nearly continuous chewing. This condition isn’t life threatening, but it may make eating and drinking painful.
The cost of gum can also be prohibitive to some people, especially those who chew several pieces a day.
Those who wish to stop the gum habit may consider going cold turkey, or they may replace the gum with other cessation aids that aren’t as addictive, or as expensive. | <urn:uuid:533084ae-1243-4cf2-ac13-6ed597cde178> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://quitday.org/nicotine-replacement/nicotine-gum-addiction/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00491-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965451 | 610 | 2.671875 | 3 |
The mobile exhibition “Anguish and Salvation. The Remembrance of Jewish communities – a guarantee against hatred in society” tells stories about the local Jewish communities in Northern Bulgaria. It consists of 22 posters with texts and images, excerpts from 30 video interviews with representatives of Jewish communities, audio illustrations.
The exhibition results of field ethnological study, realized by EU Spaces 21 Association and their partners from the Regional History Museums in Rousse, Shumen and Varna.
The mobile exhibition can travel upon request after February 2016. Technical parameters: 22 posters 100 cm x 200 cm, self-standing; 2 television monitors; 2 audio frames; 1 exhibit – radio with sound. Exhibition hall needed: around 100 sq. m. Transport needed: microbus. Contact: email@example.com
Click the poster to explore the exhibition. | <urn:uuid:f44cd791-5875-4e6f-b3b7-89e380a662e8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://pametta.com/en/mobile-exhibition/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573197.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818124424-20220818154424-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.894899 | 173 | 1.695313 | 2 |
Putin Proposes Greater Pipeline Cooperation With Ukraine
By Roman Kupchinsky
Russian Vladimir Putin speaking at the press conference on February 1
February 2, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- During his February 1 press conference
, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russian officials had discussed the "unification" of the Ukrainian-Russian gas-transportation system with Ukrainian officials.
According to Putin, the Ukrainian government has not only suggested unifying the two countries' gas-pipeline networks, but it has also expressed interest in drilling for oil and gas in Russia.
Putin said he approves of these initiatives and added that it was in the interests of both countries to seek closer cooperation.
"Russia has always wanted to gain control over the Ukrainian gas-transport system, so I do not see anything new in what Russian President Putin said," one analyst said.
In the past, Ukrainian leaders, including Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, have said the Ukrainian gas pipeline would not be turned over to Russian control.
But that stance could be changing. Yanukovych has reportedly authorized officials from the Fuels and Energy Ministry, headed by Yuriy Boyko, to conduct preliminary talks, which, if successful, could "unite" the gas-pipeline networks of the two countries.
If Ukraine turned over a part of its gas pipeline and compressor stations to Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom, the country would be even more dependent upon Russian energy supplies -- and have less bargaining power. And the European Union would have to deal only with Moscow when it came to gas deliveries transiting through Ukraine.
A gas-compressor station in Ukraine (TASS file photo)
For some time now, Russia has been making moves to acquire parts of its neighbors' gas-transit networks.
On December 31, 2006, Belarus and Russia's state-controlled gas monopoly, Gazprom, signed a deal securing Russian gas supplies to Belarus and Russian gas transit across Belarus for 2007-11.
As part of the deal Gazprom is purchasing a 50 percent stake in Beltranshaz, Belarus's gas-pipeline operator. Gazprom agreed to pay $2.5 billion for half ownership of Beltranshaz over five years.
Access To Gas Fields
For Russia -- eager to have control over gas-supply networks in Europe -- integration with Ukraine makes sense. But what about for Ukraine?
Ukraine's state-owned oil and gas monopoly, Naftohaz Ukrayiny, would gain much-needed access to Russian gas fields. Naftohaz is not a major oil or gas producer and is heavily in debt to Gazprom and RosUkrEnergo, the Swiss-based gas trader.
In 2006, Naftohaz entered into a joint venture with RosUkrEnergo to create UkrHazEnergo, a company with the right to sell gas to Ukrainian industrial consumers. By doing so, Naftohaz ceded to UkrHazEnergo millions of dollars in profits.
Serhiy Yermilov, Ukraine's former fuel and energy minister, told Interfax on February 1 that he was skeptical of Putin's proposal.
"Russia has always wanted to gain control over the Ukrainian gas-transport system, so I do not see anything new in what Russian President Putin said," Yermilov said. "If Putin's proposals are transparent, and if the Ukrainian parliament abides by them, then we can discuss the matter, otherwise it is only another attempt to cheat Ukraine."
Yermilov reminded policymakers that Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov has said that foreign companies operating on Russian soil will not be allowed to control the majority of shares in oil and gas production. At best, Naftohaz could only be a minority shareholder of any joint venture.
Foreign Minister's Resignation
President Putin's comments come on the heels of the resignation of Ukraine's pro-Western Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk.
Tarasyuk had been an ardent opponent of turning over control of the gas-pipeline network to Gazprom. But after Yanukovych managed to push Tarasyuk out, some observers have said Gazprom's path is now clear.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko has not yet commented on Putin's statement, although in the past he has strongly opposed turning over control of the gas-pipeline network to Russia.
Yushchenko is scheduled to visit Moscow in late February for talks with Putin where energy questions are expected to play a major role.
An EU Invasion Waiting To Happen
By Ryan Kennedy
Moldovans lining up at the Romanian Embassy in Chisinau for visas last month
February 1, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Hundreds of thousands of Moldovan citizens have sent letters of application for Romanian citizenship, raising concerns that a flood of Moldovan workers will use Romanian passports to enter the workforce of the European Union.
With Romania's entry into the EU, the potential for people from Europe's poorest country to gain a backdoor entrance into Western labor markets has become a major concern for EU policymakers.
Newspapers in Britain were the first to warn of a "Moldovan invasion" caused by Romania's citizenship policies, which allow many Moldovans to claim Romanian passports.
For many Moldovans, travel to Romania is a regular part of life. They attend school, work, and regularly travel to Romania for vacation or to visit family.
At least four major British dailies featured articles warning that hundreds of thousands of Moldovans, "without money or prospects," may be headed toward the European Union.
530,000 New Romanians?
The British headlines were sparked by a BBC report in October 2006 citing a statement from Romania's vice-consul in Chisinau, Lucian Stanica.
Stanica said that during the months of August and September, the Romanian consulate received 300,000 citizenship requests from Moldova.
Since Romania's accession into the EU on January 1, 2007, this number has climbed even higher.
In a speech in Chisinau on January 16, Romanian President Traian Basescu said there were nearly twice as many applications pending for citizenship from Moldova.
"There are still 530,000 people waiting to hand in their citizenship requests. And out of those which have already been handed in to the Romanian Embassy in Chisinau, the majority concern at least two people -- if not three or even four," Basescu said. "By our evaluation, this means that there are, realistically speaking, around 700,000 or 800,000 requests for Romanian citizenship."
Concerns about mass Moldovan migration into the EU have been further inflamed by the large number of Moldovans already working abroad.
The International Monetary Fund estimates that a quarter of Moldova's economically active population works outside of the country.
For some Moldovans, a Romanian passport is a logical method for legally gaining access to Western labor markets.
Indeed, a survey conducted in 2006 by the IMAS-INC Chisinau polling agency revealed that 48 percent of Moldovans would get a Romanian passport if they could, and 85 percent of those people said they would use the passport to work in the EU.
Red Tape, Long Lines
Romanian citizenship laws have also fueled concern.
Romania defines citizenship based on nationality rather than residence. Citizens of Moldova who can demonstrate that either they, their parents, or their grandparents lived in Moldova when it was a part of Romania before the end of World War II are eligible for dual citizenship.
The process for acquiring citizenship, however, was substantially changed in 2003.
The new laws require that Moldovans undergo a long bureaucratic process before dual citizenship is granted.
The letters of request, which the British reports cited, are only the first step in the process. Of all the letters received since 2003, only 30,000 went to the second step of submitting a file. Of these, only 3,000 people were granted citizenship.
Monica Macovei, of the Romanian Ministry of Justice, told the BBC in an October interview that, since citizenship laws have not been relaxed since 2003, it is highly unlikely that the number of requests granted will increase significantly.
Closing the Border
At the same time as countries in the EU are concerned about potential immigration from Moldova, regular Moldovans are having to cope with the sudden closing of their western border.
711 kilometers of the Prut River divide Moldova from new EU member Romania
For many Moldovans, travel to Romania is a regular part of life. They attend school, work, and regularly travel to Romania for vacation or to visit family.
For example, an important part of the central market in the Romanian city of Botosani, has traditionally been made up of Moldovans selling various goods, particularly food, for less than the price of department stores.
For them, and for the Romanians who do business with them, the new visa restrictions are a significant hardship.
In addition, both the extent of the visa restrictions and Romania's lack of preparation for the new policy have caught many Moldovans by surprise.
Despite assurances by Basescu that Romania's entrance into the EU would not inhibit the free flow of Moldovans across the border, the consulate in Chisinau has been overwhelmed by visa requests.
Operating At Capacity
Romania has added new staff and facilities in an effort to help ease the procedure. In addition to expanding its operations in Chisinau, Romania is opening new consulates in the Moldovan cities of Cahul and Balti. More than 40 staff from Romania's foreign and interior ministries are currently employed in the business of handling Moldova's citizenship and visa requests.
But even with the addition of new staff, including workers for night and weekend shifts, the number of Moldovans visiting Romania dropped threefold in early 2007 compared to the same time in 2006.
Prior to January 1, there was confusion, both in the media and the Romanian consulate, about how border regulations would be implemented.
In one anecdote, a security shift supervisor from Chisinau reportedly found himself in a very difficult situation while returning to Moldova through Romania. He drove to Bucharest with his wife and child, in order to fly to Italy for the New Year. They, like many other Moldovans, prefer flying from Romania, because discount carriers make it less expensive than flying from Chisinau.
Before leaving, the Romanian consulate assured him that he could return to Moldova via Bucharest without a visa. When he and his family returned to Bucharest, however, they were told that a new law, passed on January 2, required that they have a Romanian visa.
They were told to return to Italy and apply for a visa -- a process which would have required a four-day stay and would have cost them at least $1,000 in airline tickets and hotels. Only the last-minute intervention of the Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs prevented them from being forcefully put on a plane back to Italy.
While some in the EU worry about immigration from Moldova, others raise concerns that restricting the border may produce even more economic migrants. Recognizing this dilemma, international donors have pledged $1.2 billion in aid for Moldova over the next three years.
This is not just an issue for the EU. The outflow of Moldova's workforce is one of the main obstacles to the country's social and economic development.
Not only does emigration drain Moldova's workforce, but between 150,000 to 270,000 of Moldova's children are being raised without a mother or father, and around 40,000 are separated from both. Until citizens are able to earn a living wage in Moldova, however, the attraction of emigration is unlikely to abate.
(Ryan Kennedy is a Ph.D candidate and a Fulbright researcher from Ohio State University, currently in Moldova.)
Whose Friend Now?
By Jan Maksymiuk
President Lukashenka is looking at his options (file photo)
January 30, 2007 (RFE/RL) -- Following Russia's more than twofold increase of gas prices and imposition of a sizable duty on crude-oil supplies to Belarus in 2007, President Alyaksandr Lukashenka seems utterly confused and at a loss to decide what course he should take.
Lukashenka has recently made a number of politically incoherent statements, thus reinforcing the general feeling that without Russia's political and economic support, his autocratic regime is vulnerable and insecure. According to his own estimate, because of the new energy prices, Belarus will have to pay $3.5 billion more in 2007 than last year. Some Russian estimates say Russia's energy and trade subsidies and benefits for Belarus in 2006 amounted to as much as $7 billion. Belarus's gross domestic product is roughly $35 billion.
In the January 25 issue of "Die Welt," Lukashenka pledged to open the Belarusian economy to Western investors and expressed a desire to cooperate with Europe. He also publicized his idea to "consolidate" energy-transit countries such as Belarus, Ukraine, Poland, and the three Baltic states into a sort of formal alliance, presumably to counteract what he sees as Russia's increasing assertiveness in using gas-and-oil deliveries as a political weapon.
While firmly rejecting the adoption of the Russian ruble in Belarus, Lukashenka did not rule out that his country might join the euro zone in the future. He called in "Die Welt" on European leaders for an "open dialogue" and urged them to lift a travel ban on Belarusian officials, which he compared to "medieval savagery."
On the day following the publication of his interview in "Die Welt," Lukashenka said in a speech to recipients of doctoral diplomas and professorial chairs in Minsk that there will be no "radical change" in Belarus's foreign policy, adding that he will not "rush toward the United States or wherever."
This week Belarusian media reported that Lukashenka had sent an invitation to Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and that the invitation had been promptly accepted.
The Phantom Union
His statements and moves regarding Russia were no less disjointed. While paying lip service to his unwavering desire to build an "equal" Belarus-Russia Union State, which was conceived as a bureaucratic phantom by himself and former Russian President Boris Yeltsin in 1996, Lukashenka simultaneously announced two steps that appear to be in stark contrast with his integration rhetoric.
Last week the Belarusian president instructed his government to consider charging Russia rent for the use of land under its gas-and-oil pipeline crossing Belarusian territory. And he announced that Russian oil companies will have to pay new, higher duties on oil transit across Belarus if they continue to demand prices "higher than those on world markets" for their oil deliveries to Belarusian refineries.
Belarus has profited from refining Russian crude oil (bymedia.net)
These steps, if actually taken, might escalate the current energy-price row between Belarus and Russia into a full-scale trade war and lead to the reestablishment of a full-fledged customs border between both countries. For many unreformed Belarusian industries, this would probably mean the loss of the only market on which they can still be competitive and, as a result, their unavoidable collapse.
Therefore, Lukashenka's threats regarding Russia seem to be more of a propaganda exercise than a real intention.
Power Base Shaken
But these threats, as well as Lukashenka's overtures to the West, clearly testify that the Belarusian president has understood something: Not only his self-styled "market socialism" in Belarus but the very foundations of his regime may be eroded by the Russian termination of discount gas and oil supplies.
Most Russian political analysts openly admit that the Kremlin has finally become fed up with Lukashenka's lip service to integration with Russia and decided to goad him into action. And the recent tone of the Russian media commenting on Belarus indicates that the Kremlin's new approach toward Lukashenka is a calculated and well-coordinated campaign.
The Gazprom-controlled Russian daily "Izvestiya" wrote on January 18 that Russia needs "an ally, not an arrogant parasite" in Belarus. This assessment was obliquely echoed by Putin during his meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel a few days later, when the Russian leader noted that in its relations with energy-transit countries, Moscow says "'yes' to cooperation and 'no' to parasitism."
Sergei Karaganov, head of the Moscow-based Council on Foreign and Defense Policy think tank, wrote last week that the Russian policy with regard to Lukashenka -- which he labeled with the well-known political aphorism, "He's a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch" -- has suffered a total failure.
According to Karaganov, Russia's unequivocal political and economic support to Lukashenka allowed him to consolidate his regime and reduce Russia's influence in Belarus almost to nil. Karaganov say that by taking advantage of "gigantic preferences" provided by Moscow, Lukashenka has managed to form a political class that does not want any rapprochement with Russia.
Integration With Russia
Like other Russian analysts, Karaganov does not disclose what could be the ultimate goal of such rapprochement. But it should be recalled that the only coherent and realistic scenario for Belarus's integration with Russia voiced by the Kremlin was President Putin's suggestion in August 2002 that Belarus give up its sovereignty and join the Russian Federation as a single federation subject or as six separate oblasts.
A recent edition of Russia's 'Ekspert' magazine: 'Not Our Son Of A Bitch,' the cover says
Stopping short of an outright call to oust Lukashenka, Karaganov urges the Kremlin not to stop "halfway" and "to swiftly finish the business" of increasing the energy prices for Belarus to European levels.
At the same time, Karaganov proposes that the Kremlin starts developing a truly pro-Russian political elite in Belarus. He even goes so far as to suggest that official Moscow should "take notice" of the human rights situation in Belarus, something it has not done even one time during Lukashenka's more than 12-year-long rule.
For a number of reasons, the West -- in particular Europe -- might decide to give a helping hand to Lukashenka if Moscow attempts to politically absorb Belarus.
First, the disappearance of Belarus -- an independent state and a UN member -- from the political map of the world would set a dangerous precedent for any other attempts at such "integration" in the future.
Second, Europe needs secure and uninterrupted gas and oil supplies from Russia. Belarus as a transit country is an essential link in this supply chain. And Lukashenka, in his attempts to oppose the political incorporation by Russia, may disrupt these supplies more than once.
Therefore, it might well be in Europe's interest to enter a dialogue with the erratic Belarusian leader and try to persuade him that Belarus could remain a sovereign country without playing the role of a bandit on the road.
It is doubtful that Lukashenka could accept Western rules of the game in politics. But he may listen to some economic arguments. He might be persuaded that the best way to counteract Russia's recent "integration" push is to launch market reforms and build his country's independence on a sound economy, which cannot be affected by Russia's malevolence or benevolence to such a degree as now.
The political system built by Lukashenka in Belarus, unshakable as it appears at first glimpse, is very precarious. The machinery works solely due to the absolute loyalty of government officials to the "father of the nation." And this "father" has behaved so far as if he were to rule Belarus forever.
The West might be able to convince the Belarusian president and his compatriots that there is life after Lukashenka and that "afterlife" may not be so costly to them -- and Belarus -- after all. | <urn:uuid:4ea4b88a-89fc-4a82-89dd-a625fd11c7eb> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.rferl.org/a/1347493.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281151.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00108-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965361 | 4,181 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Reading the pathologist's obituary lifted my spirits
Having ended my last blog with the words “What sad times we live in”, I feel I should qualify it. Having just read the obituary of a chap called Derek Barrowcliff who has died aged 92, in the Telegraph for Wednesday, I would add: “But the example of heroic individual lives is always among us.”
Apparently Barrowcliff was a well-known Home Office pathologist who solved the mystery of “Who killed the chauffeur’s wife?” at Stoneleigh Abbey (it turned out to have been the chauffeur). But it is not for his professional standing that I want to applaud him; it is for all the other details we are given. For instance, we learn that as a “midlife convert to Roman Catholicism, Barrowcliff had an unswerving commitment to the rights of the unborn child, a cause he championed with characteristic moral courage”.
For anyone in public life to champion such a cause takes much courage, especially in the medical profession. I once blogged about Jack Scarisbrick, formerly professor of history at Warwick University, who started the Life organisation to help unmarried mothers keep their babies; for a prominent academic to be pro-life it will also require courage to face the scepticism of the senior common room.
We then read: “Active in his faith and as a member of the St Vincent de Paul Society, [Barrowcliff] was still, until he was nearly 90, visiting the elderly in his parish.” What a wonderful picture this gives of a very elderly pensioner still realising there is work to be done in the community, long before David Cameron fashioned the idea of the “Big Society”.
The next paragraph tells us that “when he was invited to be an expert witness in connection with the Shroud of Turin [Barrowcliff] was delighted to be able to combine his religious principles with his scientific practice”. Of course Catholics do not have to believe in the authenticity of the Turin Shroud though I, for one, do so. I think the medical evidence for the crucifixion, shown up on modern MRI scanning and other tests, is overwhelming – so naturally I was glad to learn that this expert pathologist demonstrated that “cuts on the back of the head of a corpse (comparable to the wounds made by the Crown of Thorns) would ‘bleed freely, continuously’.” This was in response to the assertion that “corpses do not bleed”.
Barrowcliff could also enjoy the finer things in life, being a member of the Claret Club for nearly 50 years, as well as being a passionate walker. Indeed, he was walking in the woods near Valbonne in France when he died. But the last detail of his life was for me the most touching; we are told that, married with six children, “for the past 10 years he had devoted himself to looking after his wife … for whom he was the sole carer through her progressive dementia. He was determined to continue caring for her until, as he so disarmingly put it, he himself ‘joined the majority’.”
It is lives like his that continue to give me faith in human beings, whatever the times we live in. | <urn:uuid:02c4b903-ac5a-4976-af7f-bb065485e90a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2011/11/18/heroes-like-derek-barrowcliff-light-up-our-dark-times/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280872.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00311-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9839 | 705 | 1.53125 | 2 |
When I first learned of my son's peanut allergy, the first thing I did was go to the library and take out Cybele Pascal's The Whole Foods Allergy Cookbook. I had visions of peanut traces being everywhere and was worried about most foods--other than fruits and vegetables--sold at the supermarket. I renewed the book several times and afterward I felt much more confident about cooking for his peanut allergy--I'd just make most food from scratch. No more processed food for us.
Now, Cybele has a lovely new book, entitled The Allergen-Free Baker's Handbook. Baked goods are among the more risky types of food to buy for those living with food allergies. There are so many chances for cross-contamination--eggs, milk, wheat, nuts are present in most bakeries. While there are wonderful food allergy friendly bakeries springing up around the country, they're often not as convenient to get to as the local supermarket. So, life with food allergies encourages many of us to learn to bake, and bake in creative new ways.
I haven't even had an opportunity to try the recipes yet but I can't wait. First, the photos in the book are gorgeous! They make you want to reach into the book and take a bite. Then, I notice that all of the recipes are broken into easy to follow steps. I like this aspect. Most recipes only have 7 or 8 steps--I can do that! It makes baking seem much less daunting. In the past, I've looked at some baking recipes and upon seeing a recipe that's too involved, have opted for something simpler or decided to just skip it all together. That will not happen with this cookbook. Another handy feature is the chapter entitled "Stocking Your Allergen-Free Pantry". This is a fantastic chapter, especially for those new to life with food allergies. All of the hard work and research has already been done for you! The range of recipes is great as well. I think this one book will take care of all allergen-free baking needs for the average person--you won't need another baking book. It's well-written, actually fun to read, mouthwatering, and easy to follow. Check it out!
A great allergy friendly Valentine's Day present this year would be a recipe from The Allergen-Free Baker's Handbook. I'm a cookie gal, so I'm thinking the Linzer Hearts on pages 73-74 would be a perfect place to begin! | <urn:uuid:295be7d2-4edc-4787-96d7-ee5639b0dadb> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.foodallergybuzz.com/2010/02/allergen-free-bakers-handbook.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719677.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00561-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972616 | 516 | 1.585938 | 2 |
WASHINGTON – The federal government on Tuesday rejected a request from an Arcadia-area homeowners association to classify the neighborhood’s black sphinx date palm trees as endangered.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that there was not sufficient scientific evidence to classify the trees as endangered, according to the notice published in Tuesday’s Federal Register.
Jeff Humphrey, a spokesman for the agency, said that because the trees are cultivars, they cannot be protected by the Endangered Species Act. A cultivar is a plant, bred for specific qualities, that cannot reproduce on its own, he said.
“If man went away today, this tree would be able to survive this generation, but that’s it,” Humphrey said. “It needs man to survive.”
Mountgrove Property Owners Association President Richard Malone had sought the protection in July 2011, when the association was feuding with the Salt River Project over the utility’s plan to remove or relocate 55 trees to protect power lines.
Residents had challenged the SRP plan because the trees are such an important part of the neighborhood’s culture, Malone said. The roughly 450 towering trees were part of a grove planted in the area before homes were built there.
But Malone said he was actually happy his application was turned down by the Fish and Wildlife Service because of the restrictions it could have brought. Humphrey said protection could have led to limits on residents’ use of the trees, including the current practice of buying and selling their fruit.
“I was not aware of that at first,” Malone said. “I didn’t know the stipulations that were going to be put on the homeowners and the trees.”
The application became moot recently when the homeowners association reached what Malone called a “satisfactory” agreement with SRP. The utility company agreed to remove a handful of the trees, move some and trim others periodically.
Malone said at least one resident makes a living by harvesting dates from the trees, under agreements with his neighbors to share some of the fruit or some of the profits from their sale. That would be prohibited if the trees were listed under the Endangered Species Act, so Malone said he was “happy with that outcome.”
Not everyone makes a lot of money off the trees’ fruit, but Malone said many of the roughly 60 households in the community do sell the fruit that he described as “very delicate, very large and very sweet.”
“It’s the premier gourmet date,” he said. | <urn:uuid:57e9f37e-f3f3-415b-be51-073b6b57392f> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://cronkitenewsonline.com/2012/12/feds-turn-down-request-to-classify-phoenix-palm-trees-as-threatened/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718278.43/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00241-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982001 | 543 | 2.484375 | 2 |
With the rollout of Ontario’s full-day Kindergarten program about to hit a critical point this September, licenced child care providers are facing new challenges they say could put local services and programs in jeopardy.
This fall it is expected that half of all four- and five-year-olds in the province will be enrolled in Kindergarten. The program will be fully up and running by 2014.
As those kids leave their child care centres for school, more spaces become available for the many infants and toddlers whose names sit on a waiting list for one of the 985 spaces available throughout Stratford and Perth County.
But the transition to caring for younger kids comes at a cost to daycare and nursery operators. Younger children require more staffing, which means higher operating costs for child care providers, who will be forced to increase fees to cover their expenses unless the province agrees to significantly increase its funding.
According to groups like the Ontario Coalition for Better Child Care, the province’s child care system is severely underfunded, and requires immediate funding of $287 million.
The cost for child care is around $15,000 a year in Ontario, and the group warns that without a major cash injection, fees will increase by an additional 15 to 30 per cent. It also says child care spaces will close since not all families will be able to afford the fees, leading to longer waiting lists and staff being laid off.
Jean Ann Goll, executive director for Perth Care for Kids, which operates child care centres in Mitchell and Milverton, as well as three nurseries, suggests without additional funding her organization will likely have no choice but to raise fees.
She says the province’s funding model is outdated and does not reflect how full-day Kindergarten will affect the child care system.
She adds the province, which in many cases already subsidizes child care staff wages, must increase that amount to ensure not only fees remain affordable for parents, but that child care providers can offer a competitive wage to prevent early childhood educators (ECE) from leaving the system for schools.
Currently, an ECE in a non-profit child care centre will earn on average $13/hour, whereas a school board will offer anywhere up to $25/hour.
“Our biggest concern right now is sustaining staff,” says Goll. “In rural communities historically it’s difficult to recruit qualified staff to begin with, but now with the additional vacancies for ECEs in the school boards, it is going to be that much more difficult.”
For some child care providers like the Stratford-Perth YMCA, the impact of full-day Kindergarten will be weakened, at least in the beginning, by expanding its before-and-after school programs to four- and five-year-olds.
The YMCA already runs the program for school-aged children in most public schools in Stratford.
“We’re lucky to have had those school-aged programs to help supplement us for a very long time,” says Lori Darling, director of child care for the local YMCA. “We’re able to balance (our budget) because we do have those programs. But I don’t know how long that is going to balance.”
Once the rollout of full-day Kindergarten is complete, Darling says the YMCA, which operates child care centres in Stratford and Shakespeare, will have to consider raising fees.
With ECEs being in such high demand, Darling suggests now would be a good time for the province to consider allowing individuals with different – but equal – qualifications to work with older kids.
“Sometimes when change happens it is a good thing because it makes us aware of what we’ve been living with,” she says. “These regulations haven’t been forced into updates for a long time.”
But without any change, either in provincial policy or to the child care funding model, services might have to be cut.
Darling says the centre the YMCA runs in Shakespeare operates almost entirely with Kindergarten-aged children, and could be forced to close unless a new group of infants and toddlers sign up.
Goll, meanwhile, says Perth Care for Kids might have to restructure its centre in Milverton if it loses any staff.
“That may mean closing down classrooms or program rooms,” she adds. | <urn:uuid:63e36272-f670-4be2-a1db-811830c2bdba> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.ourperth.ca/news-story/6021234-daycares-face-challenges-with-full-day-kindergarten/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279915.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00276-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957233 | 928 | 1.640625 | 2 |
TORONTO – Canadians are now spending more time online with their mobile devices than with their computers, says digital measurement firm comScore.
According to recently released figures, 51 per cent of the Canadian Internet traffic that comScore tracked was linked to a phone or tablet, while 49 per cent was tied to a computer.
Mobile web usage is expected to grow more in 2015 than the time spent online with computers, a trend that has already been seen in other countries, says comScore Canada president Brent Bernie.
“The U.S. is at 61 per cent mobile and I expect Canada will continue to move (in that direction),” Bernie says.
“My guess — and I’m not great at crystal-balling things — my call would be we’ll get to two-thirds of usage being mobile. How long that takes? A year, a year-and-a-half maybe?”
When comScore expanded its Canadian tracking methods last year to include mobile traffic it found the time Canadians spent online had pretty much doubled compared to previous estimates.
The average amount of time Canadians spent online shot up to nearly 75 hours a month, or about 2.5 hours a day.
Canadians in the 25-to-34 demographic were seen to be spending the most time online, averaging around 110 hours a month across various devices.
Many Canadians would be shocked to learn how much time they actually spend online, Bernie says. Mobile users who habitually take a quick peek at their smartphone may not realize those short interactions are adding up to hours.
“Because these devices add so much convenience to people’s lives and they can go on them and off them (easily) they’re filling time they normally would’ve been doing other things,” says Bernie.
“People are filling what might’ve been spare time before (thinking), ‘Oh, I’m going to check this out’ or ‘Oh, let me check out that thing I saw last night and see if I can find that website.'”
About five per cent of Canadian Internet users are now mobile-only consumers, comScore says, meaning they almost never use a desktop or laptop computer to go online anymore and strictly access the Internet with smartphones and tablets.
On mobile devices, comScore says over 80 per cent of the time Canadians spend online is with an app versus using a web browser.
“Apps are the dominant portion of people’s time on mobile and we see the same thing in the U.S.,” Bernie says.
He expects time spent online will only increase as more and more devices add online connectivity.
“As we go forward — gaming consoles, wearables, cars, all those things — it just expands exponentially the places people can consume (the Internet).” | <urn:uuid:a31c2d0f-8d4e-4fe9-badc-49fa4bd2be3f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://archive.canadianbusiness.com/business-news/mobile-web-usage-has-surpassed-computer-based-in-canada-says-comscore/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571989.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813232744-20220814022744-00472.warc.gz | en | 0.942772 | 593 | 1.726563 | 2 |
People Panic...God Provides
The tragic story of King Saul is that he never, ever fully repented of his sin. Saul's greatest concern was his image, how he looked before the people. Even after Samuel gave him a break, Saul took advantage of it and continued in that same vein until the day he took his own life. How sad is that?
Samuel has reached the end of his rope. The people elected Saul king, but he's no longer qualified. What are they to do? Israel is surrounded by enemies, and they need someone to carry the scepter. But who? Samuel didn't know and couldn't imagine. The people didn't know and had no suggestions. No one knew . . . except God.
What Samuel didn't realize—what we often don't realize—is that behind the scenes, before He ever flung the stars into space, God had today in mind. He had this very week in mind. In fact, He had you in mind. And He knew exactly what He was going to do. God is never at a loss to know what He's going to do in our situations. He knows perfectly well what is best for us. Our problem is, we don't know. And we say to Him, "Lord, if You just tell me, then I'll be in great shape. Just reveal it to me. Explain Your plan to me, and I'll count on You." But that's not faith. Faith is counting on Him when we do not know what tomorrow holds.
When a man or a woman of God fails, nothing of God fails. When a man or woman of God changes, nothing of God changes. When someone dies, nothing of God dies. When our lives are altered by the unexpected, nothing of God is altered or unexpected. It was the prophet Isaiah who wrote: "Before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear" Isaiah 65:24.
"Before you even utter a word," God promises, "I'm involved in answering. In fact, while you're speaking, I'm involved in bringing to pass the very thing I have planned from the get go."
God knows exactly what He's going to do, and nothing can restrain His bringing it to pass.
God is never unsure of what He's going to do. Our problem is, we’re unsure.— Charles R. Swindoll Tweet This
Excerpted from Charles R. Swindoll, Great Days with the Great Lives (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2005). Copyright © 2005 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
Used with permission. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:a2015f27-5c48-4050-9976-e00be3746a5c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.christianity.com/devotionals/todays-insight-chuck-swindoll/today-s-insight-aug-23-2016.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281353.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00067-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986573 | 558 | 1.734375 | 2 |
Climate change responses in small English lakes...by Blaine Hancock
Hi, I am Blaine Hancock and I began a NERC funded PhD at the University of York in October 2017 working in partnership with the British Geological Survey and Environment Agency. My main research aims are to understand how the biogeochemistry and productivity of small English lakes have responded to anthropogenic climate change and using this to predict how they may change in the future.
The impacts of climate change on lake biogeochemistry is largely understudied with the majority of research investigating impacts at a hydrological level. Biogeochemical changes in small lakes are particularly understudied despite 90% of England’s estimated 6,000 lakes falling within this classification (<10 ha in size). Small lakes tend to support more unique and threatened species compared to larger lakes with many of them in England being granted Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) status and/or are designated conservation sites. Evidence suggests that these refuges for threatened species show an enhanced response to climate change, which is characterised by a faster rate of water temperature rise than in larger and deeper lakes. In general, climate change is expected to produce conditions which will become increasingly unfavourable to submerged plants. Increases in the cycling of carbon and nitrogen through a lake catchment has the potential to increase algal growth in surface waters and reduce light penetration. A loss of submerged plants will have a significant impact on the organisms that depend on them and degrade the lake ecosystem as a whole. It is therefore essential that we understand how lake biogeochemistry responds to changes in climate and how this impacts lake systems at an ecological level. Through this we can make predictions as to how these lakes will change in the future.
Lake coring on Blea Tarn, Cumbria
My study sites (Lake Gormire, North York Moors; Sunbiggin tarn, Yorkshire Dales; Blea tarn, Lake District) are all SSSI’s with Lake Gormire containing sparse but rare species of macrophyte and Sunbiggin Tarn a recognised conservation site for three species of very rare snail. Sediment cores were taken from each lake using a gravity corer over the summer of 2018 and subsampled on the shoreline. The cores will be dated using radiometric techniques to establish a chronology and will most likely reach back to around 1850AD. The cores will also be analysed for carbon and nitrogen isotopes at the BGS Stable Isotope Facility to assess how changes in the sources of organic matter to the lakes have developed over time. Sedimentary pigments (chlorophyll and carotenoids) will also be used to assess how the lakes productivity has changed and uncover the wider impacts to algal communities. Together these data will be compared with historical instrumental weather records to provide a robust understanding of how climate change experienced in the UK over much of the 20th and 21st centuries has affected lake biogeochemistry and productivity. This information will be used to project future lake conditions and help understand the direction and magnitude of biogeochemical change in English lakes.
Blaine is a NERC-funded PhD student at the University of York, supervised by Dr Katherine Selby (University of York), Dr Glenn Watts (Environment Agency), and Dr Jack Lacey (British Geological Survey). | <urn:uuid:58ad6a94-9e18-48ca-b785-e5acac06c619> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://britgeopeople.blogspot.com/2018/10/climate-change-responses-in-small.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.922268 | 691 | 2.875 | 3 |
On July 23, 2015, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW Committee) adopted a general recommendation on women’s access to justice, noting that the right of access to justice for women is essential to the realization of all the rights in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). See Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, General Recommendation No. 33 on Women’s Access to Justice, UN Doc. CEDAW/C/GC/33, 23 July 2015.
The CEDAW Committee makes general recommendations to provide authoritative guidance to States Parties on measures to adopt to ensure compliance with their obligations to protect and ensure women’s human rights.
Background to the General Recommendation
During its 48th session in 2011, the Committee decided to begin drafting a general recommendation on women’s access to justice, particularly with respect to articles 2(c) (establishing legal protection of the rights of women on an equal basis with men), 3 (guarantee of basic human rights and fundamental freedoms), 5(a) (eliminating gender stereotypes and prejudice), and 15 (law) of the Convention. This general recommendation was drafted in light of information gained through the Committee’s review of States’ reports, inquiries under the Optional Protocol to the Convention, as well as through the adoption of general comments on related issues, such as General Recommendation 28 (core obligations of States parties under article 2 (policy measures) of CEDAW). The purpose of the new general comment is to guide States in adopting measures that will enable them to fully comply with their obligations under CEDAW. See General Recommendation No. 33 on Women’s Access to Justice, 23 July 2015, paras. 2, 6, 11-12.
During the process of drafting the general recommendation, the CEDAW Committee adopted a note identifying possible issues to be addressed. The discussion on the development of the general recommendation, which took place during the 54th session, included oral interventions by stakeholders; presentations by keynote speakers; and the review of 57 written submissions from national human rights institutions (NHRIs), civil society organizations, and members of academia. These contributors included: immigrants’ rights groups (e.g., Immigrant Council of Ireland and the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants); international organizations (e.g., Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch); legal advocacy groups (e.g., Women’s Legal Services NSW and the Women’s Legal and Human Rights Bureau); regional human rights commissions (e.g., the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the European Network of National Human Rights Institutions); United Nations bodies (e.g., United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)); and women’s rights groups (e.g., Women Enabled International and International Women’s’ Rights Action Watch Asia Pacific).
Purpose of the General Recommendation
The Committee noted that while the right of access to justice for women is essential to the realization of all the rights in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), this right was not being realized for a number of reasons including the lack of independent, impartial judicial systems; gender stereotyping; discrimination against women, including gender-based violence; illiteracy; armed conflict; and internal displacement. The Committee concluded that the failure to ensure that judicial mechanisms are physically, economically, socially, and culturally accessible to all women often resulted in women failing to report violations of their rights, and in authorities failing to investigate and punish perpetrators. See id. at paras. 1, 3, 7-10.
General Issues and Recommendations on Women’s Access to Justice
The Committee highlighted six key components that are necessary to ensure access to justice: justiciability, availability, accessibility, good quality justice systems, effective remedies, and accountability. See id. at para. 14.
Regarding justiciability, the Committee made a number of recommendations, including that States should take measures to: improve women´s unhindered access to justice systems; ensure the independence, impartiality, and integrity of the judiciary; combat corruption; remove barriers to women’s professional participation in judicial and quasi-judicial systems; revise rules concerning burden of proof; encourage NGOs and civil society actors to take part in litigating women´s rights; and protect female human rights defenders from harassment, threats, and violence. See id. at para. 15.
With respect to availability, the Committee suggested, among other things, that States ensure the creation and development of courts and tribunals, including mobile courts, which guarantee women’s right of access to justice in a non-discriminatory manner; provide women who are victims of violence with access to monetary aid, crisis centers, shelters, and counseling; and grant civil society organizations standing to file petitions. See id. at para. 16.
Concerning accessibility, the Committee recommended that States: provide legal aid and interpretation services; reduce filing fees for women with low incomes and waive fees for women living in poverty; ensure access to the Internet and other communication technologies; create gender units; establish justice centers, which should be accessible to women living in poverty and remote areas; and address the needs of women with disabilities concerning access to justice. See id. at para. 17.
With respect to good quality justice systems, the Committee recommended that States: ensure that justice systems are efficient, independent, and impartial; provide effective remedies that are gender-sensitive; and protect women’s privacy, safety, and other rights, in a way that is consistent with due process. See id. at para. 18.
Regarding remedies, the Committee provided a number of suggestions, including: providing and enforcing adequate and effective remedies in a timely manner; considering the activities for which women do not receive compensation when assessing damages; creating women specific funds for reparations; and adopting legislation to combat sexual violence, particularly in conflict and post-conflict situations. See id. at para. 19.
Concerning accountability, the Committee made several recommendations, including developing independent monitoring mechanisms; ensuring that discriminatory practices by justice professionals are addressed; and establishing policies that are gender sensitive, user friendly, and accountable. See id. at para. 20.
Discriminatory Laws, Procedures, and Practices
To address discriminatory laws, the Committee made recommendations including ensuring equality before the law; providing safe, accessible, and child-friendly complaint and reporting mechanisms in accordance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and General Comment 14 of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (girls’ best interests should be a primary consideration); and abolishing parental or spousal authorization requirements for access to education, healthcare, and legal services. See id. at paras. 21-25.
Stereotyping and Gender Bias in the Justice System and the Importance of Capacity Building
The Committee made several suggestions concerning stereotyping, gender bias, and capacity building, including: raising awareness about stereotyping, particularly in gender-based violence cases; engaging health professionals and social workers in capacity building programs; and providing capacity building to judges, prosecutors, lawyers, and law enforcement officials regarding CEDAW, the CEDAW Committee’s jurisprudence, and the application of legislation prohibiting discrimination against women. See id. at paras. 26-29.
Education and Awareness-raising on the Impact of Stereotypes
With respect to education, the Committee suggests that States develop gender expertise; provide materials to inform women about their human rights, legal aid, and social services; and integrate educational programs on women’s rights and gender equality into curricula at all levels, including discussions about the role of men and boys as advocates. See id. at paras. 32-33.
Concerning awareness-raising through civil society, media, and information and communication technologies , the Committee made several recommendations including: emphasizing the role of the media with respect to dismantling stereotypes about women, particularly with respect to gender-based discrimination and violence; raising awareness among the media about women’s right to access to justice; and promoting an environment in which it is considered “legitimate and appropriate” for women to seek justice. See id. at paras. 34-35.
Legal Aid and Public Defense
The Committee made several recommendations concerning legal aid and public defense, including: institutionalizing systems that are accessible and responsive to women’s needs; ensuring that those who provide legal aid re competent, gender-sensitive, and respect confidentiality; and conducting information and awareness-raising programs for women about the existence of legal aid and public defense schemes. See id. at paras. 36-37.
The Committee suggested that States allocate financial and human resources to the justice system, including specialized judicial, quasi-judicial, and administrative bodies; alternative dispute resolution mechanisms; and national human rights institutions. Additionally, the Committee recommended that States should seek assistance from UN agencies, the international community, and civil society when national resources are limited. See id. at paras. 38-39.
Recommendations for Specific Areas of Law
With respect to constitutional law, the Committee recommended that States: provide explicit constitutional protection for equality and non-discrimination in the public and private spheres, incorporate international human rights law in their constitutional and legislative frameworks, and effectively use judicial review and other mechanisms to monitor the implementation of all fundamental rights. See id. at paras. 41-42.
Regarding civil law, the Committee recommended that States: eliminate all gender-based barriers to access to civil law, ensure that all contracts and private instruments are declared null and void if they restrict the legal capacity of women, and adopt measures to ensure that women’s freedom to enter into contracts and other private law agreements is enforced. See id. at paras. 43-44.
The general recommendation suggests that States adopt written family codes or personal status laws that provide for equal access to justice between spouses or partners regardless of their religious or ethnic identity or community; consider creating gender-sensitive judicial or quasi-judicial mechanisms for issues concerning property, land rights, inheritance, dissolution of marriage, and child custody; and ensure that personal status laws allow individuals to choose the applicable family law where multiple family law systems exist, and that courts can review these decisions. See id. at paras.45-46.
With respect to criminal law, the Committee made many recommendations, including that States: exercise due diligence to prevent, investigate, punish, and provide reparation for all crimes committed against women; protect women against secondary victimization, including by creating gender units in law enforcement departments; refrain from conditioning support to women on their assistance with human trafficking and organized crime cases; guarantee that women are not subjected to undue delays in applications for protection orders; monitor places of detention, particularly with respect to female prisoners; use preventative detention as a last resort and for the shortest time possible; and avoid detention for petty offenses, or the inability to pay bail for petty offenses. See id. at paras. 47-51.
Administrative, Social, and Labor Law
The general recommendation suggests that States ensure the availability of an independent review process in accordance with international standards for all decisions by administrative bodies; permit claimants to appeal a decision to a competent body, especially with respect to asylum and migration law; use administrative detention only in exceptional circumstances, as a last resort, for a limited time, and when it is necessary and reasonable, proportionate to a legitimate purpose, and in accordance with national law and international standards; and guarantee that women can challenge the legality of their detention. See id. at paras. 52-53.
Recommendations for Specific Mechanisms
Specialized Judicial and Quasi-judicial Systems and International and Regional Justice Systems
According to the Committee, specialized judicial and quasi-judicial mechanisms, including electoral and military courts, must comply with international standards concerning independence, impartiality, and efficiency, as well as the Convention. In discussing judicial systems, the CEDAW Committee includes a reference to its 2013 General Recommendation 30 which addresses the challenges women face in transitional and post-conflict situations.
Alternative Dispute Resolution Processes
The Committee notes that some States have adopted both formal and informal alternative dispute resolution systems to resolve disputes, which may violate women’s rights because these mechanisms are often governed by patriarchal values. Therefore, the Committee recommends that States inform women of their rights to use methods such as mediation, conciliation, and arbitration; guarantee that women engaging in alternative dispute settlement procedures have access to judicial and other legal remedies; and ensure that cases concerning violence against women, including domestic violence, are not referred to alternative dispute resolution procedures. See id. at paras. 57-58.
National Human Rights Institutions and Ombudsman Offices
The general recommendation suggests that States parties provide adequate resources to establish independent national human rights institutions (NHRIs) in accordance with the Paris Principles. These NHRIs should also be gender sensitive in their composition and activities; have a broad mandate to consider complaints concerning women’s human rights; and facilitate women’s access to individual petition processes, particularly those alleging multiple forms of discrimination. See id. at paras. 59-60.
Plural Justice Systems
To ensure women’s access to justice in plural legal systems, in which State laws exist simultaneously with religious, customary, indigenous, or community laws and practices, the Committee made several recommendations including: adopting legislation that clearly defines the relationship between plural justice systems; establishing State mechanisms to review the activities of plural justice systems, particularly village and traditional courts; formally recognizing and codifying religious, customary, indigenous, community, and other systems; ensuring that women have a real and informed choice about the judicial forum they prefer and the applicable law; and providing legal aid. See id. at paras. 61-64.
Withdrawal of Reservations to the Convention
The Committee recommends that State parties withdraw their reservations to the Convention, particularly with respect to articles 2 (policy measures), 15 (law), and 16 (marriage and family life). See id. at para. 68.
Ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention
The Committee also recommends that States parties that have not yet ratified the Optional Protocol do so. Additionally, the Committee urges States to establish outreach and educational programs in various languages to inform women, civil society organizations, and institutions about how the Optional Protocol furthers women’s access to justice, including with respect to violence against women, women in detention, health, and employment. See id. at paras. 67-68.
Outcome and Next Steps
The general recommendation was adopted by the Committee on July 23, 2015, and will provide authoritative guidance to States Parties on measures to adopt to ensure compliance with their obligations to protect and ensure women’s human rights. See id. at para. 2.
Additionally, the general recommendation will be used by UN Women at the country-level to increase women’s access to justice, support UN Women’s efforts to implement the conclusions of the 2012 Progress of the World’s Women Report – In Pursuit of Justice, and address the concerns raised at the 2015 Global Thematic Consultation on Addressing Inequalities. [UN Women Press Release]
The UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination is one of ten committees of experts established to assess States’ implementation of specific UN human rights treaties. To learn more about the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination and the other human rights treaty bodies, visit IJRC’s Online Resource Hub. | <urn:uuid:6743b0cb-69b9-4067-acc3-734ca9071c0a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://ijrcenter.org/2015/09/10/cedaw-committee-issues-key-general-recommendation-on-womens-access-to-justice/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.921894 | 3,242 | 2.140625 | 2 |
AnyChart API Reference is a place where you can find detailed description of each namespace, class, method or property, along with ready-to-try the samples.
API Reference Features
We are trying to reduce the amount of code necessary for charts creation as much as possible. In order to achieve this, each method may accept different set of parameters which change its functionality, and this is called method overloading. You can find list of overloads each method has, with all its parameters in the head section of each method description. We provide at least one Live Sample for each overload, this sample can be launched it in the AnyChart Playground and you will instantly see what it does.
AnyChart has thousands of methods, namespaces, enums and properties. To ease the process of understanding and give you a clear perception them, we provide at least one Live Sample for each function, method or property in AnyChart Playground. Yes, creating so many samples takes a lot of time and requires thoroughness, but we strive to be the best and make your learning curve less steep, and we believe that the ability to try everything with your own hands is one of the most potent ways of learning.
AnyChart API Search helps you to find everything you need as fast as possible. The search results are grouped in categories, functions and methods come first, then enums, typedefs and then classes follow. Some names are really common ('fill' is a good example of that), we added a number of repetitions in a search result, click on this number to see the full list of methods matching your query.
How to contribute
We hope API Reference helps you in your development process. If you want to help us back: please report errors, typos and suggest better samples, to do so either fork and create a pull request or create an issue in AnyChart API repository on GitHub. We will be very happy to hear out everything you have to say and consider your suggestions. | <urn:uuid:7128baf4-e60a-4edd-bc85-b10bbf022e65> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://api.anychart.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573623.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819035957-20220819065957-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.92115 | 415 | 1.507813 | 2 |
WITHOUT EXPECTING ANYTHING IN RETURN
Jesus is at table, invited by one of the principal Pharisees of the region. Luke tells us that the Pharisees don’t let up spying on Jesus. Jesus, however, feels free to criticize those who are invited and who seek the places of honor, and he even suggests to the one who invited him whom he should invite next time.
It is this exchange with the host that leaves us dismayed. With clear and straight-forward words, Jesus lets him know how he should act: «Don’t invite your friends or your brothers or your relations or rich neighbors». But is there anything more legitimate or natural than spending time with the people who like us well? Hasn’t Jesus done this very thing with Lazarus, Martha and Mary, his friends in Bethany?
At the same time, Jesus points out to him in whom he should be thinking: «Invite the poor, the cripple, the lame, the blind». The poor have no way to return the invitation. There’s nothing to be expected from the crippled, the lame and the blind. That’s why no one ever invites them. Isn’t this something normal and inevitable?
Jesus doesn’t reject family love or friendship. What he doesn’t accept is that these relationships are always the first ones on the list, privileged, exclusive. For people who get into the dynamic of God’s Reign, seeking a more human and fraternal world, Jesus reminds that the welcoming of the poor and the needy must be before our interested relationships or our social conventions.
Is it possible to live in such a disinterested manner? Can we love without expecting anything in return? We are often so far from Jesus’ Spirit that even our friendships and our family love are influenced by self-interest. We mustn’t be deceived. The path of gratuity is almost always difficultly hard. We need to learn things like this: give without expecting much, forgive without demanding anything, be more patient with people hard to get along with, help someone just thinking in their good.
We can always cut back a little on our self-interest, renounce once in awhile our small advantage, put joy in the life of someone who’s in need, give up some of our time without being resentful, collaborate in small acts of kindness.
Jesus dares to say to the Pharisee who invited him: «You will be blessed, for they have no means to repay you». This beatitude has gone so unnoticed that many Christians haven’t ever heard of it. However it contains a message that’s very near and dear to Jesus’ heart:
«Happy those who live for others without receiving anything in return.
Your Father in heaven will repay you».
José Antonio Pagola
Translator: Fr. Jay VonHandorf | <urn:uuid:e6c79bcc-d1bb-47fa-bf86-3dee259cbdae> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.gruposdejesus.com/22-ordinary-c-luke-141-7-14/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572286.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816090541-20220816120541-00269.warc.gz | en | 0.938109 | 612 | 2.21875 | 2 |
It’s often thought that science and art are polar opposites. At school, the methodical way scientific subjects are taught couldn’t be more different from the teaching of creative subjects. In fact, it was back in school that I remember trying to work out if I was a “scientifically-minded” or “creatively-minded” person, convinced that I couldn’t be both. At A-level, I just couldn’t choose between artistic subjects and scientific subjects, and ended up doing a combination – Art, English and Physics – and I distinctly remember thinking I was probably damaging my career prospects in either area by not just choosing one. However, as I progressed through a 4-year in degree in Physics whilst maintaining a number of creative hobbies, it became more and more clear to me that science and art are intrinsically linked.
Throughout the duration of my Physics degree, I began to realise that having a creative background could actually work in my favour. Away from the structured teaching of physics from school, I found myself presented with challenging open-ended problems, experiment planning and attempting to understand complex physics phenomena, all requiring an ability to think imaginatively and laterally. I was both shocked and relieved to find that typically “creative” traits were equally valuable in a scientific field. And I’m certainly not the first to have found this! Many of the most successful physicists in history were also keen artists. Richard Feynman, most famous for his work on the Manhattan Project and Quantum Electrodynamics, was an enthusiastic amateur artist. He would trade physics lessons in return for art lessons with a professional artist friend, and would often sketch portraits and figures on top of his mathematical workings. Feynman held the strong view that both science and art could be used to understand the beauty of the natural world.
Similarly, art is an important medium when it comes to visualising and understand difficult physics concepts. In recent years, a number of laboratories carrying out cutting-edge science research have invited artists in to help explain their work to the general public. Back in 2015, artistic duo Semiconductor spent 3 months at CERN, learning as much as they could about the particle physics research being undertaken there. Now, the duo have created a huge cylindrical art installation, visually representing the result of a number of proton collisions. The installation, called Halo, shows a projection of the collisions slowed down by a factor of a billion. The hope is that the project is to make pioneering physics research appealing and accessible to the general public.
Personally, I feel lucky to have been able to combine my love of physics with art. In my career as a technical consultant, I get to use creative problem-solving skills and imaginative thinking on a daily basis. My part-time freelance illustration allows me to explore the artistic side of science – illustrating typographic physics equations and trying to convey what I consider to be the real beauty of physics. Physicists are artists both just trying to understand the world in their own way. Despite the obvious differences between the two disciplines, the end goal is the same. This inevitably leads to a number of cross-overs and interconnections between the two, and the opportunity for much more collaboration in the future.
This is a guest post by Lily Clarke, who has recently completed an Masters in Physics at York University and also sells her artwork on etsy. She can be contacted on Twitter here. | <urn:uuid:f898b226-2f24-44fc-a1df-cb7f5d85553a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://sciencegrrl.co.uk/the-unbreakable-bonds-between-physics-and-the-arts/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572286.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816090541-20220816120541-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.974371 | 708 | 2.578125 | 3 |
This week Senators Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz have posed a challenge for would-be presidents and all Americans: if the United Nations criminalizes Israel’s exercise of the right of self-defense it will pay a heavy price. The organization has no right to expect billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to be doled out every year when they are spent undercutting our deepest values and our national security.
Graham and Cruz’s comments come after learning that UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is now weighing whether to sign off on a report emanating from an Algerian U.N. “human rights expert” that analogizes Israel to ISIS, Boko Haram and Al Qaeda. Leila Zerrougui’s rights expertise includes eight years (2000-2008) as legal advisor to Algeria’s President-for-life Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
Moreover, in the coming weeks, the U.N. will issue another report on Israel’s “criminal” response to Hamas genocidaires in Gaza, commissioned by UN Human Rights Council authorities like Russia, China and Saudi Arabia.
These attacks on Israel are part of a concerted effort by the vast U.N. machinery to rewrite international law to the advantage of terrorists who use civilians as human shields – thereby encouraging the use of more civilians as human shields. What begins as the demonization of Israel, affects every democratic society forced to defend itself against Hamas or Hezbollah or ISIS or Boko Haram or al-Qaeda.
In the summer of 2014, Israelis were under fire from Palestinian terrorists in Gaza who are openly committed to genocide against the Jewish people and the destruction of the Jewish state. More than 70% of Israelis were within target range of Hamas’ Gaza rockets. Once fired, half a million people had less than 60 seconds to find shelter. Underground tunnels were discovered that opened into Israeli territory, with terrorists emerging on their way to cause mass casualties among Israeli civilians.
In response, the United Nations launched a full scale assault on…Israel.
This year marks the 80th anniversary of the Third Reich’s adoption of the Nuremberg laws. Now is the time to remember that the Holocaust was preceded by the subversion of law, the corruption of the judiciary, and the perfidy of lawyers. The Nuremberg laws – rules for Jews only – were interpreted, applied and enforced by masses of seemingly upstanding lawyers and judges.
Today, the United Nations is concocting another set of Nuremberg-like laws – rules for Israel only – which smug international lawyers and judges will elucidate and administer. Flying under the banner of “accountability,” the travesty has the appearance of propriety. But make no mistake. The distance between so-called law and morality at the UN today is as great as it was 80 years ago in Nazi Germany.
Actual international humanitarian law requires that “the anticipated loss of life and damage to property incidental to attacks must not be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage expected to be gained.”
In other words, civilian loss of life is legally anticipated in war. The legally recognized aim is to gain military advantage, that is, to win. The legal test is proportionality between the loss of civilian life anticipated and the military advantage gained.
The exception for the U.N.? Israel. In Israel’s case, none is too many. We know that because when Israel killed Hamas leader Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi, there were zero civilian casualties and then U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan still said Israel had violated international law.
International law does not demand tallying Palestinian civilian casualties and comparing them to Israeli civilian casualties, a test that would promote mothballing Israel’s Iron Dome or giving it to Hamas (as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay once suggested).
Nor does international law give Hamas – or ISIS or Al Qaeda – the power to block an otherwise lawful attack against military objectives by deliberately placing civilians in harm's way. When civilian casualties result from an illegal attempt to shield a military objective, their blood is on the party that abused them as human shields.
Watching ISIS increasingly seek to blend in among Iraqi civilians is the predictable result of ignoring this principle, intended to save civilian lives overall. Perverting the law in the case of Israel, therefore, has clear ramifications for America’s defenses.
To date, painstaking casualty analyses by Israeli sources – Hamas is refusing to produce a full list of its fatalities – indicate approximately 1,100 civilian casualties in Gaza. This was accompanied at the time by an astounding 107 condemnatory U.N. resolutions, reports, statements, press releases, press conferences and emergency meetings – denouncing the aggressor’s Israeli victims. Despite Israel taking extraordinary precautions to minimize civilian casualties, and Hamas rejecting or violating 11 ceasefires that would have saved the majority. UN focus on civilian deaths in Yemen, Libya, Egypt, Sri Lanka, Iran, Nigeria, etcetera, is a fraction of this legal onslaught.
The U.N.’s Gaza reports present a challenge to all law-abiding citizens. When the law becomes an instrument of Jew-hatred, people of good will are called upon to discredit it, to reject its application, and to shield its Jewish targets from the legal artifice – lest we become the anti-Semites’ willing executioners. The senators’ challenge should resonate across the land.
Anne Bayefsky is director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust. Follow her on Twitter @AnneBayefsky. | <urn:uuid:7db605b3-6bd2-4e31-a29d-bb7ebc6ffca7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/06/05/un-secretary-general-weighs-lumping-israel-in-with-isis-and-al-qaeda.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00486-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942238 | 1,155 | 1.742188 | 2 |
In West Palm Beach Florida on June 1, 2004, John Kerry explained why his highest priority as President will be leading the world to lock up and safeguard nuclear weapons material so terrorists can never acquire nuclear weapons.
Thank you and thank you all for being here.
This weekend, thousands of men and women and children lined the streets in Florida to watch the Memorial Day Parades. They waved flags. Sons and daughters sat on their fathers’ shoulders and cheered as high school marching bands and bands of brothers-and sisters-marched passed them with their heads held high.
It is a great time in America-a common scene to honor uncommon valor. Every year we gather in our cities and towns to remember. We praise our fathers and mothers. We mourn lost brothers and sisters. We miss best friends. And we thank God that we live in a country that is good as well as great.
In America, we are blessed to have World War II veterans like Debra Stern to lead us in the “Pledge of Allegiance.” We are blessed that hundreds gathered at Royal Palm Memorial Gardens to dedicate a memorial to our most recent veterans from Afghanistan and Iraq. We are blessed that so many in Florida could stop and pause to remember their neighbors and friends and the 35 who have fallen Iraq.
In America, we are blessed. When you stop and think about what it takes for people to risk their lives, say good-bye to their families, and go so far away to serve their country – it is a profound gesture of honor.
It symbolizes the spirit of America – that there are men and women who are ready to do what it takes to live and lead by our values. I met so many of them when I fought in Vietnam and I have met them since from Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Their love of country is special. And we will never tire of waving a flag, saying a prayer, or laying a wreath for those who fell to lift the cause of freedom.
Their sacrifice calls us to a higher standard. In these dangerous times and in our determination to win the war on terror, we need to be clear about our purposes and our principles. When war and peace, when life and death, when democracy and terror are in the balance, we owe it to our soldiers and our country to shape and follow a coherent policy that will make America safer, stronger, and truer to our ideals.
Last week, I proposed a new national security policy guided by four imperatives: First, we must lead strong alliances for the post 9-11 world. Second, we must modernize the world’s most powerful military to meet new threats. Third, in addition to our military might, we must deploy all that is in America’s arsenal — our diplomacy, our intelligence system, our economic power, and the appeal of our values and ideas. Fourth, to secure our full independence and freedom, we must free America from its dangerous dependence on Middle East oil.
These four imperatives are a response to an inescapable reality: the world has changed and war has changed; the enemy is different – and we must think and act anew.
These imperatives must guide us as we deal with the greatest threat we face today-the possibility of al Qaeda or other terrorists getting their hands on a nuclear weapon. We know what al Qaeda and terrorists long to do. Osama bin Laden has called obtaining a weapon of mass destruction a sacred duty.
Take away politics, strip away the labels, the honest questions have to be asked. Since that dark day in September have we done everything we could to secure these dangerous weapons and bomb making materials? Have we taken every step we should to stop North Korea and Iran’s nuclear programs? Have we reached out to our allies and forged an urgent global effort to ensure that nuclear weapons and materials are secured?
The honest answer, in each of these areas, is that we have done too little, often too late, and even cut back our efforts or turned away from the single greatest threat we face in the world today, a terrorist armed with nuclear weapons.
There was a time not so long ago when dealing with the possibility of nuclear war was the most important responsibility entrusted to every American President. The phrase “having your finger on the nuclear button” meant something very real to Americans, and to all the world. The Cold War may be over, the nuclear arms race between the Soviet Union and the United States may have ended, but the possibility of terrorists using nuclear weapons is very real indeed. The question before us now is what shadowy figures may someday have their finger on a nuclear button if we don’t act. It is time again that we have leadership at the highest levels that treats this threat with the sense of seriousness, urgency, and purpose it demands.
I can think of no single step that will do more to head off this catastrophe than the proposal I am laying out today. And that is why I am here today to ask that America launch a new mission, that America restore and renew the leadership we once demonstrated for all the world, to prevent the world’s deadliest weapons from falling into the world’s most dangerous hands. If we secure all bomb making materials, ensure that no new materials are produced for nuclear weapons, and end nuclear weapons programs in hostile states like North Korea and Iran, we can and will dramatically reduce the possibility of nuclear terrorism.
We can’t eliminate this threat on our own. We must fight this enemy in the same way we fought in World War I, World War II, and the Cold War, by building and leading strong alliances. Our enemy has changed and is not based within one country or one totalitarian empire. But our path to victory is still the same. We must use the might of our alliances.
When I am president, America will lead the world in a mission to lock up and safeguard nuclear weapons material so terrorists can never acquire it. To achieve this goal, we need the active support of our friends and allies around the world. We might all share the same goal: to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, but we can’t achieve it when our alliances have been shredded.
It will take new leadership-the kind of leadership that brings others to us. We can’t protect ourselves from these nuclear dangers without the world by our side.
Earlier this year, my colleague Senator Joe Biden announced the results of a challenge he issued. He asked the directors of our national laboratories whether terrorists could make a nuclear bomb. The bad news is they said “yes” – and when challenged to prove it, they constructed a nuclear bomb made entirely from commercial parts that can be bought without breaking any laws, except for obtaining the nuclear material itself. The good news is the materials-the highly enriched uranium and plutonium needed to detonate a bomb-do not occur in nature and are difficult for terrorists to produce on their own-no material, no bomb.
The weapons are only in a few countries, but the material to make a bomb exists in dozens of states around the world. Securing this material is a great challenge. But as President Truman said, “America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.”
We know how to reduce this threat. We have the technology to achieve this goal – and with the right leadership, we can achieve it quickly.
As president, my number one security goal will be to prevent the terrorists from gaining weapons of mass murder, and ensure that hostile states disarm. It is a daunting goal, but an indisputable one-and we can achieve it.
I think of other great challenges this nation has set for itself. In 1960, President Kennedy challenged us to go to the moon. Our imagination and sense of discovery took us there. In 1963, just months after the Cuban Missile Crisis nearly brought the world to nuclear disaster President Kennedy called for a nuclear test ban treaty. At the height of the Cold War, he challenged America and the Soviet Union to pursue a strategy “not toward .annihilation, but toward a strategy of peace.” We answered that challenge. And in time, a hotline between Moscow and Washington was established. The nuclear tests stopped. The air cleared and hope emerged on the horizon.
When America sees a great problem or great potential, it is in our collective character to set our sights on that horizon and not stop working until we reach it. In our mission to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism, we should never feel helpless. We should feel empowered that the successes in our past will guide us toward a safer, more secure world.
Vulnerable nuclear material anywhere is a threat to everyone, everywhere.
We need to employ a layered strategy to keep the worst weapons from falling into the worst hands. A strategy that invokes our non-military strength early enough and effectively enough so military force doesn’t become our only option. America must lead and build an international consensus for early preventive action.
Here’s what we must do. The first step is to safeguard all bomb making material worldwide. That means making sure we know where they are, and then locking them up and securing them wherever they are. Our approach should treat all nuclear materials needed for bombs as if they were bombs.
More than a decade has passed since the Berlin Wall came down. But Russia still has nearly 20,000 nuclear weapons, and enough nuclear material to produce 50,000 more Hiroshima-sized bombs.
For most of these weapons and materials, cooperative security upgrades have not been completed – the world is relying on whatever measures Russia has taken on its own. And at the current pace, it will take 13 years to secure potential bomb material in the former Soviet Union. We cannot wait that long. I will ensure that we remove this material entirely from sites that can’t be adequately secured during my first term.
It is hard to believe that we actually secured less bomb making material in the two years after 9/11 than we had in the two years before.
At my first summit with the Russian President, I will seek an agreement to sweep aside the key obstacles slowing our efforts to secure Russia’s nuclear stockpiles. But this threat is not limited to the former Soviet Union.
Because terror at home can begin far away, we have to make sure that in every nation the stockpiles are safeguarded. If I am president, the United States will lead an alliance to establish and enforce an international standard for the safe custody of nuclear weapons and materials.
We will help states meet such standards by expanding the scope of the Nunn-Lugar program passed over a decade ago to deal with the unsecured weapons and materials in the former Soviet Union. For years, the administration has underfunded this vital program. For a fraction of what we have already spent in Iraq, we can ensure that every nuclear weapon, and every pound of potential bomb material will be secured and accounted for.
This is not just a question of resources. As president, I will make it a priority and overcome the bureaucratic walls that have caused delay and inaction in Russia so we can finish the important work of securing weapons material there and around the world.
The Administration just announced plans to remove potential bomb material from vulnerable sites outside the former Soviet Union over the next ten years. We simply can’t afford another decade of this danger. My plan will safeguard this bomb making material in four years. We can’t wait-and I won’t wait when I am president.
The second step is to prevent the creation of new materials that are being produced for nuclear weapons. America must lead an international coalition to halt, and then verifiably ban, all production of highly enriched uranium and plutonium for use in nuclear weapons — permanently capping the world’s nuclear weapons stockpiles.
Despite strong international support for such a ban, this Administration is stalling, and endlessly reviewing the need for such a policy.
In addition, we must strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to close the loophole that lets countries develop nuclear weapons capabilities under the guise of a peaceful, civilian nuclear power program.
The third step is to reduce excess stocks of materials and weapons. If America is asking the world to join our country in a shared mission to reduce this nuclear threat, then why would the world listen to us if our own words do not match our deeds?
As President, I will stop this Administration’s program to develop a whole new generation of bunker-busting nuclear bombs. This is a weapon we don’t need. And it undermines our credibility in persuading other nations. What kind of message does it send when we’re asking other countries not to develop nuclear weapons, but developing new ones ourselves?
We must work with the Russians to accelerate the “blending down” of highly enriched uranium and the disposition of Russian plutonium stocks so they can never be used in a nuclear weapon.
We don’t need a world with more usable nuclear weapons. We need a world where terrorists can’t ever use one. That should be our focus in the post 9/11 world.
Our fourth step is to end the nuclear weapons programs in states like North Korea and Iran.
This Administration has been fixated on Iraq while the nuclear dangers from North Korea have multiplied. We know that North Korea has sold ballistic missiles and technology in the past. And according to recent reports, North Korean uranium ended up in Libyan hands. The North Koreans have made it clear to the world – and to the terrorists – that they are open for business and will sell to the highest bidder.
We should have no illusions about Kim Jong II, so any agreement must have rigorous verification and lead to complete and irreversible elimination of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. For eighteen months, we’ve essentially negotiated over the shape of the table while the North Koreans allegedly have made enough new fuel to make six to nine nuclear bombs.
We should maintain the six party talks, but we must also be prepared to talk directly with North Korea. This problem is too urgent to allow China, or others at the table, to speak for us. And we must be prepared to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that addresses the full range of issues of concern to us and our allies.
We must also meet the mounting danger on the other side of Asia. While we have been preoccupied in Iraq, next door in Iran, a nuclear program has been reportedly moving ahead. Let me say it plainly: a nuclear armed Iran is unacceptable. An America, whose interest and allies could be on the target list, must no longer sit on the sidelines. It is critical that we work with our allies to resolve those issues.
This is why strengthening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is so critical. The Iranians claim they’re simply trying to meet domestic energy needs. We should call their bluff, and organize a group of states that will offer the nuclear fuel they need for peaceful purposes and take back the spent fuel so they can’t divert it to build a weapon. If Iran does not accept this, their true motivations will be clear. The same goes for other countries possibly seeking nuclear weapons. We will oppose the construction in any new countries of any new facilities to make nuclear materials, and lead a global effort to prevent the export of the necessary technology to Iran.
We also need to strengthen enforcement and verification. We must make rigorous inspection protocols mandatory, and refocus the mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency to stop the spread of nuclear weapons material.
Next, we must work with every country to tighten export controls, stiffen penalties, and beef up law enforcement and intelligence sharing, to make absolutely sure that a disaster like the AQ Khan black market network, which grew out of Pakistan’s nuclear program, can never happen again. We must also take steps to reduce tension between India and Pakistan and guard against the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands there.
So let it be clear: finally and fundamentally, preventing nuclear terrorism is our most urgent priority to provide for America’s long term security. That is why I will appoint a National Coordinator for Nuclear Terrorism and Counterproliferation who will work with me in the White House to marshal every effort and every ally, to combat an incalculable danger.
We have to do everything we can to stop a nuclear weapon from ever reaching our shore-and that mission begins far away. We have to secure nuclear weapons and materials at the source so that searching the containers here at the Port of Palm Beach isn’t our only line of defense-it is our last line of defense.
This is not an easy topic: it can be frightening. At this hour, stockpiles go unguarded, bomb making materials sit in forgotten facilities, and terrorists plot away. They sit in unassuming rooms all across the globe. They have their technology. They have their scientists. All they need is that material. But we can stop them. Remember. No material. No bomb. No nuclear terrorism.
We are living through days of great and unprecedented risks. But Americans have never surrendered to fear. Today, we must not avert our eyes, or pretend it’s not there-or think that we can simply wait it out. That is not our history-or our hope.
Last Saturday, I attended the dedication of the World War II memorial. I had the honor to sit next to a brave man, Joe Lesniewski who was one of the original “Band of Brothers” from the ‘Easy Company” of the 101st Airborne Division. He’s part of the Greatest Generation and jumped into enemy territory during the invasion of Normandy. Like so many other young men that day, he looked fear in the face and conquered it. June 6th-this coming Saturday-marks the anniversary of that day which saved the free world.
Sixty years ago, more than 43,000 young men were ready to storm Omaha Beach. Their landing crafts were heading for an open beach, where they averted a wall of concrete and bullets. They knew there was an overwhelming chance that they might die before their boots hit the sand.
But they jumped into the shallow waters and fought their way ashore. Because at the end of the beach, beyond the cliff was the hope of a safer world. That is what Americans do. We face a challenge-no matter how ominous-because we know that on the other side of hardship resides hope.
As president, I will not wait or waver in the face of the new threats of this new era. I will build and lead strong alliances. I will deploy every tool at our disposal. I know it will not be easy, but the greatest victories for peace and freedom never are. There are no cake-walks in the contest with terrorists and lawless states.
We have to climb this cliff together so that we, too, can reach the other side of hardship and live in a world that no longer fears the unknowable enemy and the looming mushroom cloud on the horizon.
We must lead this effort not just for our own safety, but for the good of the world. As President Truman said, “Our goal is collective security.If we can work in a spirit of understanding and mutual respect, we can fulfill this solemn obligation that rests upon us.”
Just as he led America to face the threat of communism, so too, we must now face the twin threats of nuclear proliferation and terrorism. This is a great challenge for our generation-and the stakes are as high as they were on D-Day and in President Truman’s time. For the sake of all the generations to come, we will meet this test and we will succeed. | <urn:uuid:ffb21043-b4b7-47f5-8f8e-6e45077dde74> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.wagingpeace.org/new-strategies-to-meet-new-threats-remarks-of-senator-john-kerry/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572581.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816211628-20220817001628-00072.warc.gz | en | 0.948815 | 4,068 | 1.679688 | 2 |
The biggest surge in benefit claims for a century sparked warnings on Tuesday that the UK’s unemployment crisis was “only just beginning” as the Covid-19 lockdown battered the jobs market.
Office for National Statistics figures showed a record 2.8m claims – more than doubling since March – as a further 1.6m people sought state support.
The ONS’s more timely jobs data, based on Pay As You Earn data from HMRC, also showed employers cutting 612,000 jobs from payrolls across April and May.
The Institute for Employment Studies warned that the annual growth in claims – up 1.8m on May 2019 – far outstripped the 1m rise seen in the first year of the Great Depression.
Tony Wilson, director of the IES, warned: “If the public health crisis is just starting to ease, today’s figures show that the unemployment crisis is only just beginning. There can be no doubt now that we are on course for claimant unemployment of three million by next month, and it may well reach the highest ever recorded.”
Although the ONS cautioned that not all claimants were unemployed due to expanded eligibility, the figures showed a further 529,000 people applying for benefits in May, on top of an upwardly revised 1.03m in April.
Benefit claims among workers aged 18 to 24 - more commonly employed in sectors hardest hit by the lockdown such as retail or hospitality - jumped the most, up 128,000 or 32pc to 522,000.
The headline unemployment rate for the quarter to April stood unchanged at 3.9pc, but the jobs market has been propped up by the furlough scheme after some 6m workers were classed as temporarily away from work.
More recent early estimates from HMRC based on PAYE data for May signalled the number of payroll employees fell by 2.1pc or 612,000 compared to March.
However, the gloomy figures only hint at the jobs pain ahead after the announcement of tens of thousands of job cuts in the past week alone from the likes of BP, Rolls-Royce, Centrica and Travis Perkins, as well as the winding down of the furlough scheme in the autumn.
Liz Martins, senior economist at HSBC, said “the worry is what happens from here”. She warned: “Unless the policy changes, companies will have to start contributing towards the job retention scheme from August. And if they are unable to do that - or take people back on - then they will have to let them go. That could mean a delayed response in the UK unemployment rate.”
Vacancies also collapsed to just 476,000 in the three months to May – down 342,000 over the quarter – as UK plc puts an abrupt brake on hiring to focus on shedding staff. Single-month figures for May suggest a 60pc fall in job vacancies to just 318,000.
The number of hours worked also collapsed by a record 8.7pc in the three months to April compared to the previous quarter, with accommodation and food services hardest hit as average hours per worker sank by a quarter, down 6.9 hours to 21.2 hours per week.
UK workers are also losing out in real terms as pay falls behind inflation for the first time in two years. This reflected the widespread use by more than 1m employers of the furlough scheme, which only covers 80pc of wages.
The latest figures heap more pressure on Prime Minister Boris Johnson to relax two metre social distancing restrictions that lobby groups such as the CBI warn make many businesses unviable, threatening to throw millions more on the dole queue.
The Bank of England, which has previously warned unemployment could hit 9pc, is set to pour more stimulus on the economy this week with at least £100bn in bond buying following its latest policy meeting. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development is even more pessimistic, with forecasts suggesting unemployment could peak at close to 12pc.
James Smith, UK economist at ING Bank, said: “Social distancing rules, while essential to avoid a second wave, will make it harder for many businesses to operate profitably. Consumer caution, as well as Brexit, pose further challenges for the recovery phase. All of that means the pressure is on the Bank of England to continue maintaining a high level of stimulus.”
The jobs crisis threatens to deepen even further in the autumn when the Government's furlough scheme – currently supporting the wages of almost nine million jobs – is wound up alongside support for self-employed workers. | <urn:uuid:211cce7f-2fbd-4943-960f-978a6a6e6135> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/06/16/benefit-claims-hit-28m-uk-faces-jobs-nightmare/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572581.94/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816211628-20220817001628-00076.warc.gz | en | 0.964745 | 951 | 1.671875 | 2 |
LOMPOC, Calif. - A Lompoc project to make walking to school safer for kids will be finished on Friday.
Construction for the project started on Monday, June 22. The sidewalk improvement project was funded almost entirely by grant money from the North County Measure "A" Safe Routes to School Program.
Part of the project takes place near Lompoc Valley Middle School, where 280 feet of new sidewalk with curb ramps is being added on Hickory Avenue between L and K streets.
“We are looking forward to completing this project, which will enable students of Lompoc Valley Middle School to have a safer and more convenient commute walking to and from school," said Joshua Leard, the Lompoc city resident engineer on the project. | <urn:uuid:d3361741-01f5-43b1-8c1f-01d46e424249> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://keyt.com/news/safety/2020/06/30/construction-begins-in-lompoc-for-safe-routes-to-school-project/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571745.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812170436-20220812200436-00474.warc.gz | en | 0.958754 | 155 | 1.804688 | 2 |
Renate Zimmer, Editor Download (pdf, 27kb)
Volume 1 – 2008, First Issue
Psychomotor Training (PT) in preschoolers focuses mainly on handling problematic cases and their perceptualmotor development. The aim of the current research is the study of Psychomotor Training (PT) effectiveness on motor proficiency of preschool aged children in Greece. A PT approach, based on basic principles of Psychomotor Education, was applied on a group of preschoolers (n=233) aged 59.75±6.45 months, while a control group (n=212) of similar aged children followed the typical education programme of the public Kindergarten but not the PT programme. Motor proficiency in both groups was evaluated by the MOT (Motoriktest für vier-bis sechsjährige Kinder) 4-6 test battery (6 criterion measurements) at the beginning and in the end of the PT programme. The results indicated that there was a significant interaction between the PT programme and the group factor (F1,419=573.8, p<.001, η2=.991), while post-hoc comparisons revealed that both the experimental (p<.001) and the control group (p<.05) were significantly improved at the end of the training intervention. A significant interaction was noticed between the group and the age factor (F3,419=124.3, p<.001, η2=.586) while post-hoc comparisons revealed that motor proficiency improvement in the experimental group was significantly greater (p<.001) than that noticed in the control group independent of age. It was also found that four-yrs-old children demonstrated the most significant motor proficiency improvement after the implementation of PT compared to other three age groups in the experimental group. Conversely, there was no age effect in the control group concerning motor proficiency improvement. Finally, a significant interaction was found between measurements and age. Post-hoc comparisons revealed a significant improvement in all measurements of motor proficiency with the exception the the comparison between second and third and between forth and fifth. The results of the present study indicate the significance of PT programs in improving Motor Proficiency in preschoolers.
The purpose of the present study was a preliminary investigation of the prevalence of probable developmental movement difficulties among children with learning disabilities within Greek school environment. Participants were 107 students from eight elementary schools in North-Western Greece. Fifty four of the participants had been recently diagnosed as children with learning disabilities. Fifty three classmates of the same age and sex but with no learning disabilities formed the control group. The Movement Assessment Battery for Children (Henderson & Sugden, 1992), which was used for motor assessment, includes three motor domains: manual dexterity, ball skills and balance. According to the results, 35 children (64.8%) of the experimental group exhibited severe movement problems while the respective number for the control group was eight (15.1%). Further statistical analysis revealed significant differences between the two groups regarding all motor domains as well as the total motor score. Within its limitations, the current study seems to be in agreement with the concurrent relative bibliography which states that, quite frequently, children with learning disabilities face motor coordination disorders as well. Despite the preliminary nature of the present study, it seems that motor assessment should be an integral part of the more general procedures of the assessment of learning disabilities.
This study examined the relationship between actual and perceived motor competence in adolescents with psychiatric disorders. The participants were 37 (18 male, 19 female) Flemish adolescents, M age=13 years and 10 months (SD=9 months) remaining in a child and adolescent psychiatric hospital. The actual motor competence was measured by the Body Coordination test for Children and the perceived motor competence was measured by means of the Physical Self-description No significant differences were found in actual motor competence between boys and girls, whereas significant differences were found in perceived motor competence, in favor of boys. A Kendall correlation indicated no significant relationship between actual and perceived motor competence either in boys or in girls with psychiatric disorders.
Maintaining a good physical self esteem is a protective factor in children’s development, while negative scores of it indicate different kinds of problems (e.g. depression, eating disorders). In this review several properties of the questionnaires that measure the above notion and its components are discussed. The search of this kind of assessment tools for children’s physical self was limited to the last 15 years. From the literature 15 results were found to adhere to the criteria set in the first place, with 11 of them to measure the different aspects of physical self separately (mainly body image) and 4 of them to evaluate the concept more totally. The paper focuses on a short description and categorization of the tests detected and a narrowing to the instruments that approach physical self in a more integrative way.
The present study evaluated the influence of age and sex on the level of health-related fitness components in secondary school students. The participants were 330 secondary schoolchildren (158 boys and 172 girls) 12-16 years old. For the evaluation of health-related fitness (aerobic capacity, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility and body composition), the Fitnessgram test battery was used. Results revealed significant differences for age and sex for the one mile run-walk test, for the curl up test and for VO2max. Also, there was significant main effect of age on body mass index and the trunk lift test. Moreover, there was a significant main effect of sex on back saver sit and reach test, while no significant differences were found between age and sex in the push-up test. The students succeed in achieving the criteria, which were in the “Healthy Fitness Zone”, as these indicated by the Fitnessgram test battery, in a percentage more than 97% for the curl up test, 88% for the trunk lift test, 78% for the back saver sit and reach test, 72% for the 90o push-up test . In contrary, the students were in the zone “Need Improvement” in a percentage of 39% for the one mile run-walk test, 20% for the VO2max and 25% for the Body Mass Index. A better understanding of the individual differences that exist in different ages and between boys and girls, could have strong implication for planning and teaching physical education in schools aiming to increase students’ fitness level.
The purpose of the study was to examine: a) the graphomotor skills of students with high, average and low motor performance and b) the relationship between motor and graphomotor skills. The total sample consisted of 275 kindergarten and elementary school students in Athens, Greece (138 boys and 137 girls), who were examined in the BOTMP-SF and the five graphomotor items of BOTMP-LF. The ANOVA revealed significant differences among the three groups (F = 19.726, p < .001, η2 = .150) and the Least Significant Difference-LSD post hoc method revealed that the „high‟ group (Mz = 1.02, SDz = .82) scored significantly higher than the „average‟ group (Mz = .60, SDz = .87) which, in turn, scored significantly higher than the low motor performance group (Mz= -.70, SDz = 1.51). Finally, the graphomotor performance was significantly predicted, through stepwise multiple regression, from five gross motor skills (running speed and agility, standing on preferred leg-static balance, walking on balance beam-dynamic balance, tapping feet alternative while making circles with fingers and standing broad jump). Overall, physical educators and teachers may consider that the motor and graphomotor skills of their students constitute interrelated academic elements.
The purpose of this study was the description of injuries sustained by campers at summer camps, aged 7-15 years. A sample of 8 camps from the Creek camp population participated in this injury surveillance study. Doctors and camp directors completed reports detailing the number of events sustained and provided specific information about each event. During the period of the study, 726 injury reports completed. A total of 427 (58.8%) males and 299 (41.2%) females reported having an injury. The leading causes of injury in children’s were: falls, slips, crushed by object, hit/bitten and fall of stable extent. The parts of body most often affected were the knee, head, ankle and wrist/hand. The most frequent activities of injuries were sports, free play and walking in camp yard. Data collected via such systems can be used to calculate injury rates, to describe patterns of injury and to identify risk factors for camper – related injury. All this provide the data needed to develop prevention interventions to decrease the number of youth whose camp experiences are negatively affected by injury.
Many young children spent a major part of their day in formal preschool type-setting. The purpose of this study was to determine if gross motor development of preschool children is affected by preschool-type setting (public vs private). The sample consisted of 300 preschool children of both sexes (136 boys and 164 girls) aged 4-6 years who were enrolled at the two different types of preschool centers of Northern Greece. Half of the children (n=150) attended private preschool centers which had plenty of open space for playing, gymnasia, courts and playgrounds and included daily exercise physical activity programs. The rest (n=150) participated in formal public preschool centers that had limited spaces for sports and free play and did not include any physical education lessons into their schedule. The gross motor development of the children was assessed using the locomotor scale of the Griffiths test No II (Griffiths, 1984). The analysis of variance showed that children who attended the private preschool typesetting displayed higher quotients and could execute at a younger age every item of the locomotor scale. The results of the present study suggest that gross motor development of preschool aged children is affected by the stimulation level of school environment. | <urn:uuid:163994db-a08d-4601-835f-6a39aa20b38d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://psychomotor.gr/category/volume-1-2008-first-issue/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572033.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814113403-20220814143403-00277.warc.gz | en | 0.958339 | 2,054 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Teeth in a day is a revolutionary procedure to give you a great set of fixed teeth with dental implants all within one day. This could be ideal for you if:
- -> you wear dentures and are tired of them moving when you eat or talk
- -> you are missing quite a few teeth and want to improve your smile
- -> your teeth are loose and you suffer from advanced gum disease
The teeth in a day procedure describes the placement of dental implants in your jaw together with placing a set of fixed teeth on the dental implants at the same visit.
What is the Teeth In A Day process?
There is quite a lot of planning required before this can be done and of course the replacement teeth need to be constructed before hand. Usually we will take x-rays of your jaw and some times we will take a 3-dimensional image of your jaw to acurately assess the thickness of your jaw bone.The actual placement of the implants and of the fixed teeth can usually be done on the same day. We will aim to place between 4 to 6 dental implants per jaw as this will ensure that there is enough support to hold the fixed teeth in place. The minimum number of dental implants we like to place is 4 as research shows that this is the minimum number of dental implants required to give a predictable long term result. This procedure is commonly known as the All on 4 dental implants technique and was pioneered by Dr Paul Malo. Our dental implant surgeon, Dr. Omar Iqbal, has trained with Paulo Malo in the Malo clinic in Lisbon where he learned the best ways to carry out the all on 4 technique dental implants technique.
You can visit our All on 4 Dental Implants page for more information on how the procedure works and of course if you would like to arrange a consultation then please contact us at our Glasgow based clinic on 0141 641 2107. | <urn:uuid:568890b5-aa44-4ee4-b4b3-03ad61a93e72> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.glasgowdentalcare.co.uk/teeth-in-a-day-glasgow/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570692.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807181008-20220807211008-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.944026 | 386 | 1.84375 | 2 |
INSIGHTS INTO INTERNATIONAL BEST PRACTICES IN INTEGRATED CLUSTER MANAGEMENT
Keywords:cluster partnerships, intercluster partnerships, consortium, cluster alliances, cluster initiative development programs
The article seeks to explore best practices of integrated cluster management in the EU countries. It is noted that modern business realia and business process internationalization have significantly raised the importance of cluster partnerships across the European Union member states. Given the factor of global competitiveness, the European Commission has begun to pay greater attention to the development of innovation capacity, primarily through closer interaction between industry clusters within the European Union. In this context, a number of projects and initiatives for the European intercluster partnerships development have been launched, along with implementing the European cluster programs that will promote the development of sectoral clusters and facilitate their entry into European markets by increasing the degree of their interaction. The purpose of this article is to provide insights into the European experience as to managing programs, initiatives and development trends in the area of integrated clusters. The study employs general scientific research methods, in particular, the method of logical generalization, methods of statistical analysis of EU initiatives and programs that foster cluster partnership building processes. The research findings on cluster partnership development programs in the EU have revealed the following key characteristics of successful cluster initiatives: harmonization of interests and specific needs of partnership participants, providing information support and lobbying; significance at both the regional and the national level; awareness of national executive authorities about cluster initiatives in the region or identification of promising areas for building cluster partnerships; participation in government targeted projects; active positioning at the regional, national and international levels; building a management team within a cluster framework, launching cluster development centres, etc. Based on the study results, it is observed that the modern settings of national industrial economy development have spurred the interest to cluster partnerships which are established to implement a common strategy. It is argued that the application of an international model of cluster partnership management, however successful it is, in the domestic realia will not necessarily lead to the desired outcomes, whereas the implementation of particular elements of best international practices in the context of shaping national cluster development patterns will allow using them as effective national economy drivers. | <urn:uuid:8844229f-edbc-4826-8ab0-04a20f1babb5> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://jrnl.knutd.edu.ua/index.php/bknutde/article/view/876 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572021.17/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814083156-20220814113156-00074.warc.gz | en | 0.911965 | 468 | 1.75 | 2 |
In an innovative survey of both millennials and boomer parents, a poll asked two generations their thoughts about their economic future and the policies affecting it. Both young people in the workforce and their parents expressed deep unease about a future of precarious, low-benefit work.
The poll, conducted by Abacus Data for the Broadbent Institute, shows only a minority in both groups believe the economic opportunities of young people will be better than the boomer generation. And a majority of millennials and boomers don’t trust corporations to create good jobs in Canada, even as governments enact policies businesses want.
Publisher: Broadbent Institute | <urn:uuid:b6056e7f-3779-446a-a23e-56a6aaf40170> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://contactpoint.ca/listing/time-for-a-new-deal-for-young-people/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00328-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905369 | 126 | 1.53125 | 2 |
At a youth media literacy conference I organized recently, I was fortunate enough to experience the performance of an extremely gifted youth band whose co-lead singer is an Asian American female guitarist. At one point during the concert she tentatively introduced a song she had written about sexism by saying that it “kind of does still exist today.” I was struck by her qualified intro to the song. She is one of the few young women of color musicians fronting a rock band in a hyper-masculine industry in which rampant sexual harassment, gender-based wage discrimination and racism ensure that women of color are only visible as sex objects, hangers-on and so-called video hos. Nonetheless, she was uneasy about embracing the term sexism.
Women’s reluctance to name their experiences is symptomatic of the insidiousness of post-feminism, which has been normalized and relentlessly propagandized by mainstream media. It fits neatly into the exceptionalist narrative that the U.S. and the West are bastions of equal opportunity and enlightenment. Because people of color and white women have seemingly unlimited access to public space and public institutions the U.S. has evolved far beyond the “dark age” of the pre-civil rights era. Because women and girls now have the “option” to be just as video ho “nasty as they wanna be” the West is the universal standard for gender equity. This kind of totalizing thinking underscores a lack of critical consciousness about how institutional sexism, heterosexism, and racism—as the basis for individual acts of prejudice and discrimination—actually work. It is especially acute when it comes to the selective “West and the rest of us” mentality that some in the New Atheist movement exhibit about sexism, imperialism and women’s rights.
An example of this was recently on display in the Rebecca Watson-Richard Dawkins blogosphere throw down. Watson is the founder of the popular blog Skepchick, and frequently writes about gender politics. As has been widely discussed, Dawkins blasted Watson after she criticized a clueless slobbery male for propositioning her at 4 a.m. when she was alone in an elevator after a conference talk on sexism. Dismissing Watson as a whiny American feminist, Dawkins trotted out the victim Olympics plight of an oppressed Muslim female genital mutilation recipient from central casting. After a firestorm of criticism from feminist bloggers like Jen McCreight, Dawkins attempted to revise his position. Still, the phenomenon of white Westerners trotting out the cultural other as the ultimate barometer of oppression is a standard rite of passage. When powerful Western white men opportunistically evoke the lived experiences of Muslim women as a space of projection for what they deem to be “authentic” sexist oppression, they deflect from their own privilege and entitlement. It’s akin to white elites descending on Africa in search of the most hardcore safari experience. The exoticism and abject primitivism of the Other ultimately confirms the rationalism and universal subject status of “me” and “my” culture. Small wonder then that it is often far easier for a celebrated intellectual of the rationalist first world to see the authoritarian misogyny of Islam than the institutional sexism, heterosexism, and racism that he and other privileged males have benefited from at every step of the way; in the academy, in the publishing world, in the Western media, and in garden variety elevators. Predictably, Dawkins did not say that Middle Eastern and African Muslim women have an abysmally low standard of living because of the imperialist invasions and geopolitical exploitation of “secular” Western powers like Britain and the U.S., or that they are more likely to be dispossessed from their homes due to these incursions or to be sexually assaulted by occupying armies. These realities are far too inconvenient when it comes to parsing the global complexities of institutional sexism in the predominantly Muslim, Western-occupied nations of the Middle East.
This episode is more than just an example of individual prejudice/ignorance. First, it highlights the arrogance of Western paternalism, disguised as liberal humanism. Second, it speaks to the delusion of pretending atheist discourse automatically translates into a liberatory politics. Lacking a social justice compass steeped in the legacies of global liberation struggle (both within and outside the West), atheism or a Eurocentric humanism are a political dead-end for radical freethought communities. As I’ve argued many times before, the New Atheist focus on science and separation of church and state, without insight into the racial and gendered histories of these traditions, is especially bankrupt for people of color. For those unclear about the concept of institutional sexism here are a few guidelines:
I. What Sexism Does:
a. Gives visibility and worth to maleness and “male issues” as the invisible universal norm
b. Devalues the lives of women and normalizes or naturalizes violence against women
c. Constructs all women and girls as objects, property and territory for male control
d. Sexualizes women and girls
e. Dehumanizes women of color
f. Reinforces a hierarchy of men and women based on white supremacy, racism and heterosexism
II. How and Where is Sexism Manifested?
• Social, Political, Cultural, Economic and Religious Institutions
• Everyday Life | <urn:uuid:da84722c-ad28-4d08-87a4-7e40a8f16cf5> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://the-orbit.net/blackskeptics/category/elevatorgate/?wpmp_switcher=mobile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280791.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00356-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943974 | 1,114 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Peter Mead reminds preachers to speak to the whole listener:
Some preachers preach merely to inform. Perhaps they are under the impression that the mind is the control center of the human being. Perhaps they think that their task is merely educative. Perhaps they are in a tradition that reveres the intellect, but pulls away from other aspects of human complexity. Perhaps they’ve never known any other approach.
As preachers we must inform, we must explain, we must educate, we must teach. But our goal is not knowledge. We do not aim to transfer information. Rather the goal is transformation. Consequently we have to consider how God’s Word transforms lives and preach accordingly.
(HT: Milton Stanley) | <urn:uuid:507d6989-bcee-4c15-a71d-740059aa8708> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://pjcockrell.wordpress.com/2009/04/18/more-than-knowledge/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571090.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809215803-20220810005803-00074.warc.gz | en | 0.960324 | 148 | 1.796875 | 2 |
Despite conventional wisdom, a new study shows that small banks aren't always the best option when looking for a small business loan.
Researchers at Harvard and Yale universities found that local banks, which are thought to be best for small businesses because their decentralized lending structure gives branch managers autonomy over lending decisions, only are the best option for financing small businesses if they face local competition.
"We show that it is true that decentralized banks create better lending outcomes for small firms than centralized banks, precisely because of the discretion granted to local branch managers," said researcher Rodrigo Canales of the Yale School of Management. "The huge caveat is that this is only true when there’s competition."
According to the study, without competition, the same discretion that branch managers have shaping lending decisions to the local environment also allows them to exploit their power by cherry-picking the best firms, approving smaller loans and charging higher interest rates.
"If the decentralized bank is the only game in town, the manager will give firms worse conditions because he or she knows the firms don’t have other options," Canales said. "If there is competition, the manager can react to that and operate in ways that centralized competitors cannot."
The study's authors said the results help explain why entrepreneurship increased following the U.S. banking deregulation that decreased the number of small banks.
"You would expect that lending to small firms would have dropped when banks were able to become centralized and nationalized," Canales said. "The increase in lending to small businesses may have occurred because small banks no longer had local monopolies, and the addition of market competition benefited entrepreneurs."
The research has implications for how to help small businesses, according to Canales.
"If you want to help small firms, then you want to foster competition, and you want to foster a variety of lending models instead of just focusing on centralized or decentralized lending for small business," he said.
The study, which was co-authored by Ramana Nanda of Harvard Business School, was published in the August issue of the Journal of Financial Economics. | <urn:uuid:58202578-1748-4276-96f4-8aebee036e78> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/3049-best-banks-for-small-business-pams.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280825.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00199-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968097 | 422 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Huiming Tea Workshop
- DnA Design and Architecture
Jingning County, part of Lishui City, Zhejiang Province, is the only She ethnic minority autonomous county in China. The She ethnic minority moved to Jingning, Zhejiang Province from Luoyuan, Fujian Province in the second year of the Tang Dynasty (766 AD). It was originally part of the Southern Chinese nomads.
Chimu Mountain & Huiming Tea
Chimu Mountain, located 10 miles southeast of Jingning County urban center. The northeast half of Chimu Mountain, warm in winter and cool in summer and steaming with clouds and fog, is favorable for tea plantations. Monk Huiming of the Tang Dynasty had built a temple here, who cleared the land around the temple with the She people to plant tea. Named after the monk, Huiming tea has had thousands of years of history and deep cultural heritage. In the mid to late 1970s, several villages near the Huiming Temple were re-integrated, together with their tea plantations to set up a standard and consolidated Huming tea production.
Huiming Tea Workshop
The Huiming Tea Workshop, led by the Chimu Mountain Scenic District Management Committee, serves as a facility for visitors to the scenic area and a place for the daily activities of the surrounding villagers, showcasing the traditional Huiming tea production process, integrating the local She culture with Buddhist culture, and is intended to become a space for Zen tea workshop for the nearby Huiming Temple in the future.
The project site is located in the mid-level tea plantation on the north side of Huiming Temple. The site is flat and runs in north-south directions. It faces a cluster of pine trees on the north hill and the temple gate to the south. Most of the surrounding area has been reclaimed for tea plantation, including leveled terrain to the west, a large drop to the east, and an overview of the county at the foot of the hill to the northeast.
The site's unique topography and the surrounding natural and human environment provide this project with more possibilities.
The building volume is designed as a one-story horizontal block, echoing the gradation of the surrounding tea plantation terraces. As indicators of the site’s direction and scale, it consists of three parallel spaces running north-south: a traditional Huiming tea-making workshop facing the tea plantation, a tea-tasting space facing the distant mountains to the east, and an open corridor in the middle as visitor lounge for observing the tea-making process. Tea making and tea tasting form a complete cycle in experiencing tea culture. The middles visitor lounge is open to the public and a place for rest for both villagers and visitors. The traditional picking and processing of Huiming tea in its harvest season best showcases and demonstrate this craft and will be the most intuitive “agricultural production exhibition” on display.
The east wall of both the workshop and the tearoom is made of perforated block walls, which can protect the workshop as sunshades and separate the tearoom from the visitor lounge. The prefabricated patterns of the blocks are composed of She pictograms. Historically, the She people has a functional oral language without a writing system. Some symbolic graphics formulated over their long-term production and labor to convey simple meanings. The She pictograph blocks on the wall are arranged vertically according to the meaning of the symbols, from the land at the bottom to the sun at the top, re-configuring the She mountain farming and hunting scene, which is the second layer of cultural display of the space.
The natural lighting for the visiting corridor, which runs for nearly fifty meters, has eight light tubes in addition to the entrance and exit at both ends. The choreography of the direct sunlight passing through these tubes indicates the basic rhythm of nature and agriculture.
In ancient China, a year is divided into the 24 Chinese solar terms as the agricultural calender to indicate the alternation of seasons and climate changes. A day is divided into 12 two-hour periods according to each zodiac animal’s activity pattern.
With the most prolonged sunlight hours and the highest solar angle, the summer solstice is also the first of the twenty-four solar terms to be discovered in Chinese history.
The angles and orientations of the eight light tubes are based on the sunlight slopes of the seven Chinese zodiac hours of the summer solstice from sunrise at dawn to sunset at dusk.
The three light tubes of the morning sunlight hours are at rabbit house 5-7am, dragon hour 7-9am, and snake hour 9-11am, intersect from the east tearoom into the visitor lounge, dividing the tea tasting space into four areas, from the public tea space to the small individual tearooms.
At horse hour 11am-1pm, the two parallel light tubes located at the northern end of the visitor lounge indicate the transition of paths.
The three light tubes of the afternoon sunlight hours: at goat hour 1-3 pm, monkey hour 3-5pm and rooster hour 5-7pm, intersect into the tea workshop in the west, dividing the workshop into four processing zones based on traditional tea production procedure.
Around the summer solstice, the direct sunlight of each zodiac hour can only enter the visitor lounge space through the corresponding light tubes. From sunrise to sunset, the natural light passing through different forms of light tubes flows into the space through the various tracks, serving as a sundial to outline the trajectory of time.
In agricultural era, the daily life circle of Chinese tradition “Working from sunrise, Resting when the sun sets”, together with the circles of all lives, animal or plants, are all based on the natural pattern of sun and light.
The space of tea is not only to integrate production and activity, but also to reveal the basic law of nature and the spirit of Zen Buddhism, implying the third layer of exhibition content.
The rooftop is covered with a thin layer of water to dissipate summer heat. A linear walkway in the middle forms a loop with the indoor visitor path leads to the Huming temple atop of the mountain. The eight tubes protrude from the roof, angled at various inclinations and heights to represent the sun's altitude at various times of the summer solstice. Looking from the hills, the water surface reflects the sky and its surrounding. The building transforms into a monumental platform with eight sunlight tubes in dialogue with nature. | <urn:uuid:8aeb21bd-f043-483c-8b3c-2c92c45fa123> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.chinese-architects.com/nl/projects/view/huiming-tea-workshop | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.940484 | 1,363 | 2.75 | 3 |
(Washington, D.C., August 6, 2020) American Bird Conservancy (ABC) is delighted to join the BirdLife International partnership, becoming the second BirdLife Partner in the United States alongside the National Audubon Society.
“It's exciting to join this excellent global network of conservation groups devoted to one cause — saving birds,” said Mike Parr, ABC President. “Connecting with like-minded groups from across the Americas and the rest of the world, we can achieve more to advance our joint mission of bird conservation at this critical time: We've lost nearly 3 billion birds from North America alone in the past 50 years. We need to turn these declines around.”
“The challenges are so huge that we need to collectively bring all the energy we can muster to this fight to save the places birds need,” said Audubon CEO and President David Yarnold.
“We are delighted to welcome the newest member of the BirdLife International family. ABC is a collaborative and passionate organization which becomes our second Partner in the United States. Nature and birds need us now, more than ever, and only by working together with effective and ambitious partnerships will we be able to make it happen,” said BirdLife International CEO Patricia Zurita.
The BirdLife International partnership is a growing network of national conservation NGOs working for the conservation of birds.
In addition to contributing to BirdLife's Americas-wide bird conservation strategy to surmount the challenges confronting birds, ABC plans to work with other BirdLife partners on programs including:
“ABC and BirdLife International have long collaborated on promoting the conservation of Alliance for Zero Extinction sites and Key Biodiversity Areas,” says Daniel Lebbin, ABC's Vice President of Threatened Species. “Together, we can help support a robust and vibrant community supporting bird conservation across the Americas. We are excited to strengthen our partnership with BirdLife and accomplish more for birds together.”
American Bird Conservancy is a nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving birds and their habitats throughout the Americas. With an emphasis on achieving results and working in partnership, we take on the greatest problems facing birds today, innovating and building on rapid advancements in science to halt extinctions, protect habitats, eliminate threats, and build capacity for bird conservation. Find us on abcbirds.org, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter (@ABCbirds).
BirdLife International is the world's largest nature conservation Partnership. Together we are 117 BirdLife Partners worldwide — one per country or territory — and growing with 13 million members and supporters, over 7,000 local conservation groups and 7,400 staff.
BirdLife's vision is a world rich in biodiversity, where people and nature live in harmony. We are driven by our belief that local people, working for nature in their own places but connected nationally and internationally through our global Partnership, are the key to sustaining all life on this planet. This unique local-to-global approach delivers high impact and long-term conservation for the benefit of nature and people.
The National Audubon Society protects birds and the places they need, today and tomorrow. Audubon works throughout the Americas using science, advocacy, education, and on-the-ground conservation. State programs, nature centers, chapters, and partners give Audubon an unparalleled wingspan that reaches millions of people each year to inform, inspire, and unite diverse communities in conservation action. A nonprofit conservation organization since 1905, Audubon believes in a world in which people and wildlife thrive. Learn more at www.audubon.org and on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @audubonsociety.
*You must make at least one selection from any one of the following fields. Results will appear below the form. | <urn:uuid:14029b02-c264-4682-a83b-30f31c94e13b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://abcbirds.org/article/american-bird-conservancy-joins-the-birdlife-international-global-partnership | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573399.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818185216-20220818215216-00078.warc.gz | en | 0.908686 | 776 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Artificial photosynthesis, mimicking nature in its efforts to store solar energy, has received considerable attention from the research community. Most of these attempts target the production of H2 as a fuel and our group recently demonstrated solar-to-hydrogen conversion at 12.3% efficiency. Here, in an effort to take this approach closer to real photosynthesis, which is based on the conversion of CO2, we demonstrate the efficient reduction of CO2 to carbon monoxide driven solely by simulated sunlight using water as the electron source. Employing series-connected perovskite photovoltaics and high-performance catalyst electrodes, we reach a solar-to-CO efficiency exceeding 6.5%, which represents a new benchmark in sunlight-driven CO2 conversion. Considering hydrogen as a secondary product, an efficiency exceeding 7% is observed. Furthermore, this study represents one of the first demonstrations of extended, stable operation of perovskite photovoltaics, whose large open-circuit voltage is shown to be particularly suited for this process.
Using sunlight towards the generation of value-added chemicals entails capturing its energy in chemical bonds, a form of energy that can be readily stored and transported, thereby solving these two key challenges of solar light exploitation. This approach, called ‘artificial photosynthesis’1, has been mainly directed towards sunlight-driven splitting of water to generate H2 and O2, and solar-to-hydrogen energy-conversion efficiencies exceeding 10% have been demonstrated2,3,4. Although H2 is an important fuel and chemical feedstock, a desirable alternative is to target the direct production of carbon-based fuels, which allows for better integration into the existing energy infrastructure. These fuels can be accessed by the electrochemical reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2), in a process that comes a step closer to natural photosynthesis and simultaneously holds the promise of closing the anthropogenic carbon cycle5,6. Compared with water splitting, electrochemical CO2 reduction presents considerably greater challenges, including product selectivity, electrolyte constraints and large voltage requirements. The combination of these effects makes sunlight-driven CO2 reduction difficult to achieve a desirable product with high efficiency7.
The emergence of metal halide perovskites has attracted great attention in the photovoltaic community due to a combination of advantages, such as low-cost synthesis, abundant materials, and rapidly climbing efficiencies, presently certified at 20.1%, competing with the commercially available silicon solar cells8,9,10. Our group was recently able to demonstrate a simple system, achieving a striking 12.3% solar-to-hydrogen efficiency by the use of perovskite photovoltaics, thereby showing a promising path towards the realization of high-efficiency solar-to-fuel conversion devices3.
Here, extending our previous work in an attempt to get closer to carbon-based photosynthesis and taking advantage of the high open-circuit voltage of perovskite photovoltaics, we demonstrate the efficient reduction of CO2 to carbon monoxide (CO) driven solely by simulated sunlight using water as the electron source. Using series-connected perovskite photovoltaics and high-performance catalyst electrodes, we achieve a solar-to-CO efficiency exceeding 6.5%, setting a new benchmark in sunlight-driven CO2 conversion. Considering also hydrogen, which is generated as a secondary product, a total solar-to-fuel efficiency exceeding 7% is achieved. It has to be noted that in addition to the aforementioned results, this study represents one of the first demonstrations of extended, stable operation of perovskite photovoltaics under a real load.
Carbon monoxide as a photosynthetic target
Among all the products obtained by the reduction of CO2 (ref. 11), CO stores the largest amount of energy per molecule and is an important bulk chemical in manufacturing12. Importantly, through the established gas to methanol and Fischer–Tropsch processes, as well as novel electrochemical methods, CO can be converted into a large number of carbon fuels and other commodity chemicals13,14,15. Recently, researchers have proposed a two-step process towards the solar-driven synthesis of hydrocarbon fuels using CO as an intermediate16,17,18. Therefore, CO is one of the most attractive targets of artificial photosynthesis.
A complete process for the light-driven synthesis of carbon monoxide must be based on a sustainable and balanced reaction, consuming only CO2. To match the reduction of CO2 at the cathode, an oxidation reaction must occur at the anode, which supplies the electrons consumed in the reduction and regenerates the protons used to accept oxygen from CO2. This is a seldom-considered requirement that plays an important role in overall device performance19. Many studies are presently concerned solely with the cathode process, employing sacrificial and therefore unsustainable reactions on the anode side. Here, an aqueous system is employed where water oxidation continuously provides a proton source to accept oxygen from CO2, leading to the reactions defined in Table 1.
The production of CO from CO2 requires 259 kJ mol−1 of free energy (22 kJ mol−1 greater than water electrolysis), corresponding to a voltage of 1.34 V. However, both the cathodic and anodic half reactions suffer significant kinetic overpotentials (η), which must be overcome to drive the reaction at meaningful rates. These overpotentials depend largely on the nature of the electrodes and on the constraint that electrochemical CO2 reduction must be performed at near-neutral pH, as discussed below. Gold (Au) is known to be the best catalyst in terms of overpotential for selective cathodic CO evolution12,20. However, a number of different products can be generated by reduction processes on Au, including several carbon products as well as hydrogen from aqueous proton reduction. This creates a potential-dependent product selectivity, which must be accounted for when defining the cathode operating potential. On the anode side, iridium oxide (IrO2) is known to be a top performer for the oxygen evolution reaction21, but suffers an overpotential increase in near-neutral conditions. As represented schematically in Fig. 1 and as described below, considering the thermodynamic voltage and the overpotentials for both electrodes, a voltage of at least 2 V is demanded to drive efficient and selective CO evolution from CO2.
Preparation and characterization of catalyst electrodes
To enhance the catalytic performance of Au, oxidized cathodes were prepared by electrochemical anodization as previously described22. After exposure to reaction conditions, these electrodes exhibit a highly porous structure of metallic Au with an increased surface area (Supplementary Fig. 1). The electrocatalytic performance of this material was assessed at various potentials in a three-electrode configuration in CO2-saturated 0.5 M NaHCO3 aqueous electrolyte (pH 7.2) and gas chromatography analysis was performed in situ to monitor the product. In Fig. 2a, the cathodic current density and Faradaic efficiency (FE) of CO production are reported as a function of electrode potential versus the reversible hydrogen electrode (RHE). Carbon monoxide production starts to be observed at 90 mV overpotential (−0.20 V versus RHE), confirming the impressive activity of gold towards this reaction. The CO selectivity peaks at around −0.4 V versus RHE, exceeding 90% FE towards CO, then decreases again at more negative potentials. The remaining balance of current primarily goes to the reduction of aqueous protons to generate hydrogen. Owing to this potential-dependent product selectivity, an effective overpotential for optimal CO yield is around 300 mV on this cathode.
As mentioned above, aqueous carbon dioxide reduction processes are constrained to near-neutral environments. This is because in acid most known CO2 reduction catalysts favour H2 evolution over reducing carbon dioxide, whereas in base dissolved CO2 spontaneously converts to carbonate, which is unreactive as a substrate in electrochemical CO evolution12. In a complete system, the anode and cathode must be operated in the same solution to avoid introducing chemical bias based on concentration gradients, masking the true operating voltage. Commonly, CO2 reduction is carried out in aqueous bicarbonate electrolytes, which, on saturation with CO2, results in a solution buffered at pH 7.2. This presents a challenge for the anodic reaction, as although many electro-catalysts have demonstrated high catalytic activity towards the oxygen evolution reaction21, they are typically most efficient in either strongly alkaline or acidic solutions. Oxygen evolution from near-neutral solutions has received less attention23,24, but nonetheless plays an important role in complete CO2 reduction cells. As we observed that materials based on nickel led to poisoning of the Au cathode, IrO2 was selected as anode material here because of its great stability and excellent performance towards the oxygen evolution reaction21. Current–voltage curves of IrO2 electrodes, prepared by thermal decomposition of H2IrCl6 on Ti foil, are shown in Fig. 2b. In alkaline solution (1 M NaOH), these electrodes show comparable performance to what has been reported previously25. In 0.5 M NaHCO3, the onset is shifted to slightly more positive values and it was found that the catalyst showed better performance in a CO2-saturated electrolyte than under Ar. This effect might be attributed to the increased buffer strength of carbonate in the presence of CO2. Under CO2 photolysis conditions, the anode reaches 5 mA cm−2 at an overpotential of 400 mV.
Integrated device characterization
Considering the performance of both electrodes, an overall overpotential of about 700 mV is expected for selective production of CO, therefore necessitating a driving force of 2 V or more. This is visualized in their current–voltage response in a two-electrode configuration (Fig. 3a), where additional ohmic losses are taken into account (see Methods). Driving this reaction with sunlight requires a device producing voltages considerably higher than conventional photovoltaics (PVs). In this study, three perovskite cells connected in series were employed (see Methods), producing an open-circuit voltage of 3.1 V and a short-circuit current density of 6.15 mA cm−2 (Fig. 3a, red). The operating point of the complete device can be predicted by the intersection of the electrode and photovoltaic curves3,26, which, in this case, falls on the outer end of the plateau current of the photovoltaic—not far from the maximum power point for solar-to-electric energy conversion. Intersecting in this relatively flat region of the perovskite J–V characteristic enables a stable system with respect to small perturbations such as fluctuations in the light intensity and performance fluctuations of the catalysts. The data predict a device current density of ∼5.93 mA cm−2 (normalized to the total illuminated area of the photovoltaics), which is close to the value observed on the complete assembled device.
For long-term testing of the complete device, a CO2-saturated solution of 0.5 M NaHCO3 was used as electrolyte and the PV cells were kept in a transparent chamber under a constant flow of argon. On exposure to simulated sunlight, the series-connected perovskite tandem cell produced an absolute current of 1.65 mA (for a total illuminated area 0.285 cm2). To establish the cathode-operating potential at −0.4 V versus RHE, at which CO yield on Au is maximal, the cathode area was adjusted to 1.0 cm2 to achieve the desired current density as defined by the catalyst behaviour shown in Fig. 2a. After initial equilibration of both the catalyst and the PV cells, the system was allowed to run without any external bias under constant illumination for more than 18 h (Fig. 3b). The current density remained constant at about 5.8 mA cm−2 and the minimal change in observed photocurrent verifies the excellent stability of not only the anode and cathode, but also of the three perovskite photovoltaics that are transferring power to the catalyst load. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study of extended testing of CH3NH3PbI3 perovskite photovoltaics under actual load conditions, confirming that stable operation of these devices can be achieved.
Evolved gases were periodically analysed by gas chromatography and the CO signal was related to the measured currents to determine the FE of sunlight-driven CO2 reduction to CO. As shown in Fig. 3b, during the 18-h period of operation, the FE varies between 80% and 90%. The energy-conversion efficiency for a given species (solar-to-CO in this example) is defined by equation (1):
where is the thermodynamic energy stored in the CO2/CO couple, J is the observed current density, FECO is the faradaic efficiency towards CO formation and Isolar is the solar power density. The measured current density and FE combine to yield a CO2 reduction efficiency >6.5%, a new benchmark exceeding greatly the efficiencies previously reported on systems driven by Si photovoltaics27,28. In addition, considering hydrogen that is formed as a secondary product at an average faradaic yield of 10.5% over the whole experiment, a solar-to-fuel efficiency exceeding 7% was achieved using this system. Although our study focuses on gas-phase products, we note that anodized gold catalysts have been reported to also produce liquid-phase products, albeit in very small amounts22.
To understand the behaviour of each component, the potentials of the anode, cathode and each photovoltaic cell were monitored over time, as plotted in Supplementary Fig. 2a. It can be seen that a distinct equilibrium takes place between the three series-connected photovoltaic cells, whereas the potentials at the anode and cathode remain fairly constant during the course of the experiment. J−V curves of the series-connected PV before and after testing are shown in Supplementary Fig. 2b. As the perovskite photovoltaics are tested over an extended amount of time and the efficiency is defined by the actual current density during operation (equation (1)), hysteretic behaviour does not affect the determination of the CO2 reduction efficiency29. In this configuration, the performance of the device is largely dictated by the interplay between the Au cathode and photovoltaic current–voltage behavior, as the anode shows a very steep J–V behaviour compared with the other system components and thus only negligibly influences the operating voltage.
In this work, we demonstrated a highly efficient and unassisted photolytic system for the reduction of carbon dioxide to carbon monoxide using water as electron source, reaching benchmark solar-to-CO efficiencies over 6.5%. This system, driven by three perovskite photovoltaics, was shown to be stable over 18 h. Remarkably, the extended operation under load demonstrated the ability of the photovoltaics to maintain the necessary voltage for selective photolytic synthesis of CO from CO2 in the long term, encouraging further work on perovskite stability. Their large open-circuit voltage constitutes a major strength of perovskite photovoltaics. As a consequence of this, three of these in series-connected cells were more than sufficient for CO production to be driven with high efficiency, whereas conventional photovoltaics such as Si, on the other hand, require at least four cells to achieve voltages sufficient to drive water splitting and CO2 reduction efficiently4.
Despite the remarkable efficiencies that were observed here, there is still room for improvement. The use of more abundant electrode materials will benefit the applicability of this catalytic approach to industrial implementation. For instance, transition metal or mixed metal cathodes have shown promise towards CO evolution, although their performances are still less desirable than for gold30. In addition, alternative anode materials for the oxygen evolution reaction in near-neutral pH, such as Co-Pi and Ni-Bi23,24, should be examined, keeping in mind that metal contaminants in solution present the risk of poisoning the activity of the CO2-reducing cathode12. As this photovoltaic system produces a slight excess photovoltage, this design could accommodate the use of higher-overpotential but cheaper electrode materials and provide great potential for the selective synthesis of other products.
Side reactions due to cross-over of dissolved products (for instance, re-oxidation of CO at the anode) constitute a loss channel in this single-compartment system (Supplementary Fig. 3). Further efficiency improvements can be expected on incorporating a separator to prevent product diffusion between electrode compartments. The use of a membrane can, however, impart a significant overpotential because of the buildup of a pH gradient, as has been previously reported31,32. Such a gradient and overpotential buildup would be detrimental to the operation of a CO2 reduction cathode, which exhibits a pH- and potential-dependent product distribution. The development of an effective membrane for neutral electrolysis could enable even higher efficiencies in such a system and may represent a promising avenue for continued research. Nevertheless, the solar-to-CO efficiency reported here is unaffected from cross-over, as it is derived from real-time measurements of the evolved gases.
The concept presented here shows that record performance can be reached through simple device design. It therefore carries a strong encouragement towards simplifying systems for solar fuel generation and opens up a new path toward the efficient storage of solar energy in carbon based fuels, which has the potential to solve numerous challenges currently faced by the field of renewable energy utilization.
Electrode preparation and characterization
Oxidized gold cathodes were prepared with a modified method as described in ref. 22. Gold foil (99.97%, Chempur, Germany) was cleaned in aqua regia mixed with deionized water (18.2 MΩ) and subsequently oxidized in 0.5 M H2SO4 (96%, ‘extra pure’, Acros Organics) by applying square pulses between 1.183 and 3.183 V versus Ag/AgCl (KCl sat.) at 500 Hz using a potentiostat (Interface 1000, Gamry USA). IrO2 anodes were prepared as follows: titanium foil (99.7%, 0.25 mm, Sigma Aldrich) was etched for 60 min in boiling 1 M oxalic acid (⩾97%, anhydrous, Fluka). Subsequently, 30 μl of 0.2 M H2IrCl6 (99.9%, hydrate, ABCR) in isopropanol (ACS Reagent, Merck) were drop cast on the foil. This was followed by drying at 70 °C for 10 min and calcination at 500 °C for 10 min in air. The step was repeated three times on each side of the Ti foil. IrO2 (6.3 mg) was deposited on each side. Both electrodes were characterized before and after photolysis experiments by scanning electron microscopy (SEM; Supplementary Fig. 1) and X-ray diffraction (Supplementary Figs 4, 5). SEM micrographs were recorded using a Zeiss Merlin high-resolution SEM. X-ray diffraction measurements were performed on a Bruker D8 Discover X-ray diffractometer in the Bragg-Brentano Geometry using a CuKα source (1.540598 Å) and a Ni β filter. A linear silicon strip detector was used (Lynx Eye). Scans were acquired from 2θ=15°–110° with a step width of 0.03° and scan rates between 2 and 10 s per step. The diffraction patterns were matched to the PDF-4+ database (ICDD) and to literature reports33.
Photovoltaic cell preparation
Perovskite photovoltaic cells were prepared using a similar procedure as described in the literature34. Different from the previous method, the perovskite precursor solution was prepared by dissolving 1.1 M of lead iodide and methyl ammonium iodide in dimethylsulfoxide. The perovskite film was deposited by spin coating, using chlorobenzyl as antisolvent to control the crystallization. 2,2′,7,7′-tetrakis-(N,N-di-p-methoxyphenylamine)-9,9′-spirobifluorene (spiro-OMeTAD) was used as hole-transporting layer and it was doped with bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide lithium salt and tris(2-(1H-pyrazol-1-yl)-4-tert-butylpyridine)- cobalt(III) tris(bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide)35,36.
Electrochemical device testing
Electrocatalytic testing was performed in CO2-saturated 0.5 M NaHCO3 (99.7%, Sigma Aldrich) at pH 7.2. Anode J-V curves were recorded in 1 M NaOH (Reactolab, Switzerland) and in 0.5 M NaHCO3 under Ar (Carbagas, Switzerland) and CO2 (Carbagas Switzerland) using a potentiostat (Interface 1000, Gamry USA). A Luggin capillary was used to minimize the iR-drop between the working and reference electrodes, therefore eliminating the need for applying iR correction, which is a common source of performance overestimation. The gold cathode performance was assessed by testing at different potentials in CO2-saturated 0.5 M NaHCO3 aqueous electrolyte (pH 7.2), each point for 2 h and the product was monitored at the same time by gas chromatography. These tests were performed in a 25-ml three-neck flask with an Ag/AgCl (KCl sat.) reference electrode (Metrohm, Switzerland) and sealed by septa (Suba Seal, Sigma Aldrich). A flamed Pt wire was used as counter electrode. CO2 was sparged into the electrolyte at 20.00 ml min−1 using a mass flow controller (Bronkhorst EL-Flow, The Netherlands) and the product gas was analysed in a gas chromatography apparatus (Trace ULTRA, Thermo USA) equipped with a ShinCarbon Column (Restek, USA) and a PDD detector (Vici, USA), which was calibrated with respect to certified gas standards (Carbagas, Switzerland). Combined J–V characteristic of the anode and cathode were derived from the data obtained on both electrodes, considering the series resistance of the cell and 4.5 cm2 as the surface area of the anode and adjusting the surface area of the cathode to match the PV current at 2 V at −0.4 V versus RHE as described below. During testing, perovskite cells were kept in a custom-made chamber, which was constantly flushed with argon gas (90 ml min−1). This chamber was illuminated using a 450 W Xe arc lamp (Lot Oriel) with a KG3 filter (Edmund Optics, USA). The total illuminated area of the perovskite cells was 0.285 cm2. The intensity of the light source was adjusted to match standard AM 1.5G sunlight at 100 mW cm−2 intensity. J–V curves of the cells were recorded from 3.1 to 0 V at a scan rate of 10 mV s−1. Electrocatalysis was performed as described above but with the Pt anode replaced by IrO2/Ti. Before the test, the cathode was activated at −0.4 V versus RHE until reaching a steady current. Similarly, the series-connected PV cells were activated at 2 V. No external bias was applied for the whole duration of the stability test. For the Au cathode to yield a maximum selectivity for CO, its surface area was adjusted to 1.0 cm2, which binds it to operate at −0.4 V versus RHE at the current supplied by the photovoltaics (as described above and seen in the catalyst J–V curve in Fig. 2a). The surface area of the anode was left constant at 4.5 cm2. The stable device current density of 5.8 mA cm−2 (normalized by illuminated area) corresponded to a net current of 1.65 mA and therefore electrode current densities of 1.65 and 0.37 mA cm−2 on the cathode and anode, respectively. The FE data were smoothed to correct for variations due to bubble formation and bubble breaking. Chopped illumination experiments were conducted to confirm the light dependence of current and electrode potentials (Supplementary Fig. 6). During testing, the current and voltage on each cell and on each electrode, as well as on the Ag/AgCl (KCl sat.) electrode were monitored using a Keithley 197 multimeter connected to an A/D converter (USB 6211, National Instruments, USA) and the data recorded using LabView (National Instruments, USA). The series resistance between the anode and cathode was evaluated by potentiostatic AC-impedance measurements between 1 MHz and 0.2 Hz at 2 V cell voltage and 10 mV perturbation (Supplementary Fig. 7), using the same potentiostat as above, and determined to be 22 Ω.
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This project was funded by Siemens AG. M.S. and L.C. thank Siemens AG for funding. M.T.M. and L.S. acknowledge support from the European FP7 FET project PHOCS (number 309223). We thank Dr Peljo Pekka Eero and Professor Hubert Girault for helpful comments and support, and to Jeon Hyeok Im for invaluable help with preparing perovskite solar cells in the initial phase of the project. We thank Frédéric Gumy, Manuel Tschumi and Dr Paul Liska for assistance with running perovskite cells under load. M.G. acknowledges financial support by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the European Research Council through the Advanced Research Grant (ARG number 247404) funded under the ‘MESOLIGHT’ project.
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
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Schreier, M., Curvat, L., Giordano, F. et al. Efficient photosynthesis of carbon monoxide from CO2 using perovskite photovoltaics. Nat Commun 6, 7326 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8326
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Nature Materials (2020) | <urn:uuid:bdda5f96-ec8e-4909-b135-dae9410c019f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8326?error=cookies_not_supported&code=dd5e33ef-0b33-4a00-a4fa-6dfc529769f5 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572043.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814143522-20220814173522-00474.warc.gz | en | 0.905685 | 7,914 | 3.265625 | 3 |
The property which a woman brings to her husband In marriage; now more commonly called a “portion.”By dowry is meant the effects which the wife brings to the husband to support the expenses of marriage. Civil Code La. art. 2337.This word expresses the proper meaning of the “dos” of the Roman, the “dot” of theFrench, and the “dote” of the Spanish law, but is a very different thing from “dower,”with which it has sometimes been confounded.By dowry, in the Louisiana Civil Code, is meant the effects which the wife brings to the husband to support the expenses of marriage. It is given to the husband, to be enjoyed by him so long as the marriage shall last, and the income of it belongs to him.He alone has the administration of it during marriage, and his wife cannot deprive him of it. The real estate settled as dowry is inalienable during marriage, unless the marriage contract contains a stipulation to the contrary. De Young v. De Young, 6 La.Ann. 786. | <urn:uuid:2f60443b-c681-4354-9993-9871ff248144> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://thelawdictionary.org/dowry/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718285.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00105-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985346 | 233 | 2.453125 | 2 |
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"Over the past 25-30 years, you’ve seen people come over here from around the world and they know the game and they start influencing Americans," Forget said. "This generation has the proper training, a lot more have played at a high level. They understand the game. It’s not boring to them."
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Update Mar 2014: Whilst this post is 4 years old now, it is still relevant, and still gets a lot of hits. However, I found a great site with really detailed explanations of many types of Selenium Locators – see How to use Locators in Selenium IDE.
I was writing this in an email to a client to I decided to make a post of it. When using Selenium for web testing (see my previous post on Selenium), these are the some tips I have found when creating Selenium Element Locators.
In a perfect world every HTML element on the page we are testing with Selenium will have a unique name or ID that we can always reference. Unfortunately, we are usually doing black box testing and have no access to the developer and need to work around the absence of unique names to find the correct elements. Also, some web coding systems like ExtJS recreate the element ID’s each time the application is run – which makes it difficult (see my previous post on working around this).
Below are my tips for the way to use Element Locators from the simplest to the most complex way. The simpler the element locator the less likely the test is to fail in future, and it is easy to read when coming back to the test later. Complex XPath elements may be required, but they may also be very fragile and one small change on the website may break the test in future. Note: This does not cover speed of locating the elements, there are many other blog posts about that – XPath may be slower, but sometimes it is the only way.
1. Direct Reference
Using one of the direct references to the HTML element via the Name or, the ID. This is the most straightforward way of finding the correct element.
Id=MyButton (note in this case, “Id =” is not even required)
2. DOM or CSS
This is still very straightforward but can be a little bit harder to read next time you come back to it, and requires some knowledge of HTML and CSS. See the Selenium documentation for locating by DOM or locating by CSS for more information.
dom=document.images (the first image in the page)
css=H1.topic (the first heading with the class name of topic) or css=h1.topic[value=”Topic Index”] (the heading with the specific text)
3. XPath References
I would even divide this into 2 sections – simple and complex XPath References. My favourite XPath resources are the W3Schools reference and the Zvon Tutorials. There is also the great content and links in the Selenium Wiki
3a. Simple XPath
Relatively straightforward to compose and read later down the track.
//td[text()=’My Cell Contents’] (the first table cell with the specified text) or even the very useful //td[normalize-space(text())=’My Cell Contents’] (for finding text that is surrounded by spaces).
//p[contains(text(), ‘My Para Contents’)]
3b. Complex XPath
These may be necessary if there are no unique ID’s or names in elements nearby the element you need to click on. Try not to use the raw XPath that Selenium records with (See the great post by Browser Mob on this topic), but refine the XPath to be a bit more robust and readable in future.
Remember, when dealing with Xpath’s Firebug is your friend – and for advanced users, try the Xpath $X command in the Console in Firebug (as detailed in the Browser Mob post or here) . There is also XPather to help you find XPath queries.
/html/body/div/div/div/table/tbody/tr/td/p/a (An example bad XPath – it will break as soon as the page layout changes a bit)
//td[contains(text()),’My Label’]/following-sibling::td/input (an un-named input box that has a known label 2 table cells away from it).
There are many more commands I could put here but they will not mean much except to the person who knows the website under test. I have used very complex Xpath expressions for finding even the most obscure of elements that do not have a unique name. Eg a text box on a Pop Up dialog that was actually just a series of Div’s. I found the Pop Up box’s Title, traversed up the DOM using the ../ command to find the Div containing the whole Pop Up box, then use // to search within that div for the specific text box (even using the search for the label trick above). It was the only way as even the label was not unique on the page.
4. Click and Mouse Events
Some of the useful commands are:
- Click and ClickAt
- MouseDown and MouseDownAt
- MouseUp and MouseUpAt
- MouseMove and MouseMoveAt
You usually need to use these in combination with each other.
5. Keyboard and Coordinates
If all else fails (and believe me, sometimes it will), you may actually have to resort to using key press events on locators to get the right action (or even just to fill text into a stubborn text field).
In the absolute worst case scenario you could use a ClickAt event with X,Y coordinates from the top left hand corner of the page. Fortunately, in all the extremely complex Selenium testing I have done, I have not had to resort to this method. I have found that even if it takes a while, there is usually a way to find the locator and work with it using one of the tricks listed above. | <urn:uuid:21746cad-5449-449e-9c7a-3703d17cdcec> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://jodiem.com.au/2010/03/22/selenium-locator-tips/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571758.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812200804-20220812230804-00675.warc.gz | en | 0.911969 | 1,639 | 2.6875 | 3 |
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