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GRAND RAPIDS — After 35 years on the books, the Freedom of Information Act is letting the sun shine in unusual places.
Journalists may be the users of the law you hear about most, but the news media makes up a small fraction of companies and citizens who use the FOIA for business, personal and legal reasons.
That’s what The Press learned when it submitted a FOIA request seeking the names of all the people who filed FOIA requests from the city of Grand Rapids and Kent County.
Political operatives, plumbers, lawyers, insurance investigators, landlords, soil engineers and journalists use the state and federal laws to discover knowledge that might not otherwise be available.
State agencies, counties, cities and townships get FOIA requests by the thousands. Some are sent on formal letterheads, some are on fill-in-the-blank legal forms, others are scrawled on notebook paper or submitted via e-mail.
Except for information of a “personal nature,” information that could lead to identity theft or information on an ongoing police investigation, little is exempt.
Interoffice memos, public pension records, audio and videotapes from police traffic stops, minutes of meetings and formal proceedings are there for the asking.
Only the state Legislature, governor and lieutenant governor are exempt from compliance — probably because they created the law and signed it into law.
The uses for FOIA are as diverse as the material available.
For example, political operatives used the tool to fish for dirt on candidates during last year’s election season.
One of the requests to the city of Grand Rapids came from the Michigan Democratic Party, which asked for all travel records and expenses by former city commissioners David LaGrand and Robert Dean, Democratic candidates for the state Senate.
“We FOIA every candidate out there, Republican and Democrat,” said John Tramontana, the party’s communications director. “It’s only fair that we make sure our research is thorough for candidates on both sides of the aisle.”
Tramontana said he could not estimate how many FOIA letters he sent out last year, nor would he comment on their usefulness in last year’s campaigns.
Last September, an employee of the National Democratic Congressional Committee sent the Grand Rapids Police Department a request seeking any police reports involving U.S. Rep. Justin Amash, then Republican candidate for the 3rd District congressional seat.
Police Capt. David Kiddle sent the Washington, D.C.-based researcher a reply, politely noting that the three addresses listed in his request were outside the city and outside of the police department’s jurisdiction.
Some citizens try to use the law to unmask tattlers who complain about their housing code violations or the boat parked in the driveway.
That approach can be successful, depending on whether the complainant left a name or complained anonymously, City Attorney Catherine Mish said.
“If the complainant’s name is in there, we normally release that but redact the phone number and address,” Mish said. That may be enough to out the complainant, she acknowledged.
On the other hand, a FOIA request for an anonymous complaint would yield only the names of the housing officials and inspector who wrote the citation.
More common are requests from lawyers, insurance investigators and engineering firms.
They seek housing violation reports stemming from landlord-tenant disputes; accident reports that may back up or refute insurance claims; or property records, which may indicate if there ever was an underground gasoline storage tank on a property.
The requests range from convicts wanting to review their arrest records to litigators such as Geoffrey Feiger, who sought police reports related to a case in which a teenager was run over by a car during a melee near Van Andel Arena.
Dan Ophoff, corporate counsel for Kent County, said the health department gets between 1,800 and 2,000 FOIA requests a year, while the sheriff’s department gets another 1,200 requests.
Most of the health department requests are for records related to wells and septic systems, Ophoff said. The applicants usually are trying to verify the systems before they buy a property, he said.
Homeowners also will request the records to help them locate the well or septic system on their property, Ophoff said.
The health department also gets requests from soil engineering firms who are conducting “due diligence” surveys of commercial property being sold, he said.
The county’s animal shelter also gets requests for dog license records from dog-grooming services, Ophoff said.
Mish said the law does not allow them to question the reason for the request or make a judgment about the value of the information.
But they do black out, or “redact,” private information such as names of witnesses, dates of birth, Social Security numbers or addresses, she said.
“We try to be very cautious about redacting the police reports,” Mish said. “We’ll leave in a badge number but take out the officers’ name. That is a specific exemption provided in the FOIA.”
While FOIA information is readily available to the public, it is not free.
For every request, a public employee has to find the information and review it to make sure it does not violate the privacy or law enforcement restrictions. The law allows the agency to bill for that person’s time and copying fees.
Mish said the law allows the agency to charge on the basis of the level of expertise needed to process the request.
A blanket request for public records may result in charges for a file clerk’s time, while a request for law enforcement records may require an attorney’s time, she said. | <urn:uuid:4f75cd92-e44c-47fe-86b1-3784b0ef942a> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2011/03/freedom_of_information_act_cel.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719041.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00169-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944974 | 1,191 | 1.851563 | 2 |
I got lucky and sold all my investments at the top of the market in late 2019. Now I am sitting on cash and wondering what to do with it. I have 15 years until retirement and would be prepared to non-concessionally contribute to topping up my super although I have a very healthy balance already. I would also like to gift a substantial amount of the balance to my two teenage children. I was considering encouraging them to invest through one of the robo-digital investing tools available online to take advantage of these depressed share prices, and also so they could build a nest egg to purchase an apartment in the next 10 years. However, I am also weighing up whether it would be better to purchase an investment property now given the likely impact on property values from COVID-19. What is your advice on gifting in general, and these proposed alternatives for the funds?
Nic in Surry Hills, NSW
Top answer provided by:
Thanks for your question Nic.
Without knowing more about who you are, what your financial position is, how old your teenage kids are (IE: ‘teenage’ can mean both minor 13 – 17 or adult 18 – 19), it is not possible to be specific without providing personal advice to you, but I can make some observations that may help.
Regarding the gift, it sounds like your main motivation is to give your kids the opportunity to buy a property in the next 10 years. This is an amazing gesture and your kids are lucky to have you, but gifting them the money sooner may not be the best idea.
There are several concerns I have with this, with the three most significant being:
- Eligibility to potential government support
Minors are taxed differently to adults and therefore any investment earnings made on the funds they invest, could be taxed higher than they would be if you invested first in your own name or a structure that you control. Not only could there be higher tax to pay, but it could mean you need to lodge a tax return for your child if they earn more than $416, making it a more onerous and potentially more expensive exercise.
Once you have gifted the money, the funds are accessible for the kids to do with what they wish. While you may trust that they will use it for the purpose you intend, you are also leaving yourself open to being disappointed. Keep in mind that while you may be right in assuming that your child would not want to disappoint you by spending it on something else, young adults are more susceptible to be influenced by friends or partners. Also, this becomes an asset that could become accessible to a potential future relationship break down or creditor if they were to get into credit card debt for example, that they struggle to repay.
The other part of the security equation is your own security. While you feel financially confident to gift the money to them now, there may be a range of events that impact this for you over the next 15 years until you retire and with this in mind, I would generally advise that you plan for the best and the worst. What this means in practice is that you invest the money in your name or a different appropriate structure with the money earmarked for your kids, but with the flexibility to use as your situation dictates at the time.
Simply giving them funds could impact a variety of government benefits that you don’t know if they’ll need in future.
What to invest in?
The answer to this part of your question depends in large part on how much you have as a starting point, but I’ll make the assumption you have enough to use as a deposit for a property as you’ve implied. The three options therefore you’ve presented for consideration include:
The first important point to discern with super is that super is simply a tax structure, not the investment itself. What this means is that you can invest in shares and property within the super structure if you wish and there is a compelling reason to do this, being that super is typically the most tax effective place to invest money and it should always be considered in the mix. This is even considerate of the fact you already have a healthy balance. A key question for you to consider is whether there is any chance you will need the money before you retire, as the trade off with super is that you cannot access it until you meet a condition of release, which for most Australians is retirement.
The share market is at an interesting inflection point at the moment and while one fact is that many shares are worth less than they were in February. There has already been a strong recovery we’ve seen since the low point on March 23rd but considerable uncertainty remains. One impact of COVID-19 is that companies are being affected differently. Some are surviving and even thriving, and others are flailing or even failing. For this reason, we would advocate that it is a time where active investment management has a lot of opportunity to outperform a passive approach, which is one reason why I would be cautious about a robo solution. With this said, your investment time frame of 10 years should reward you over time for making a diversified investment into the share market. If you do choose to invest in the share market, I would suggest you consider staggering your investment over a matter of months. This strategy is called ‘dollar cost averaging’ and takes out some of the risk in trying to pick the right time to invest.
Now is a time to exercise caution investing in the property market also. Especially apartments. There are several reasons for this, but two of the main ones include the recession we are in and the reduction in immigration levels. The current recession will naturally result in some people losing their jobs and with it, ability to repay their mortgage, increasing supply and reducing demand. This combined with the unique impact COVID-19 is having on our boarders and in turn immigration levels (currently expected to remain well down until 2021), will result in another reduction in demand. On the positive side, interest rates are at all-time lows and the RBA have indicated they will remain so for the foreseeable future, which should provide a cushion for the market. Also, the government has already put in place spending packages to support the sector and there is talk of further supportive measures too. This coupled with Australia’s love for property as an investment, and the fact that land scarcity is compounding in many of our major capital cities and towns over time, is likely to mean that a well selected property over a 10-year time frame will achieve a respectable return. With this said, given the relative lack of flexibility and liquidity of property, it sounds like it may not be the best solution for what you are trying to achieve.
While the Adviser Ratings Website facilitates the question and answer functionality, all such communications are between users and authorised financial advisers, of which Adviser Ratings has no affiliation. Adviser Ratings is not the advice provider and does not provide financial product advice and only provides information that is general in nature. | <urn:uuid:4e1caa05-5422-4b61-9da6-2b1128a22fd2> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.adviserratings.com.au/news/ask-an-adviser-should-i-invest-in-the-stock-market-or-property-in-the-wake-of-the-pandemic-4/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570977.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809124724-20220809154724-00470.warc.gz | en | 0.973299 | 1,469 | 1.601563 | 2 |
It always seems like a good idea to go out drinking with your buddies on a Friday. I mean, the week is finally over (thank the lord), you’ve managed to bomb 3 out of 4 midterms, and gotten more internship rejections than the movies Samuel Jackson has appeared in.
So that “just one beer” quickly turns into 3 and “no shots tonight” ends up with you finally finishing off that bottle of sketchy Russian Vodka (translation: rubbing alcohol). Whatever the case maybe, you will be greeted by severe headache and nausea the morning after, guaranteed.
We all have our hangover cures that seem to work for us (me: cold pizza, orange juice, and tons of Aspirin) but face it: your day is pretty much ruined. You tell yourself that this is it, the final straw, it’s just not worth it anymore. Then Monday happens and you start looking forward to Friday again.
Turns Out, It Doesn’t Need To Be Like This!
Professor David Nutt has figured out a way to save our miserable souls for good. His new research is about creating hangover free alcohol. SOLD!
Nutt’s aptly named, hangover free “alcosynth” is the booze of the future. It provides all the goodies that regular drinks do, minus the abysmal hangover and other side effects. Nutt said that his motivation behind creating the synthetic hangover free alcohol is to save lives. He estimates that alcosynth is 100 times safer than regular alcohol.
Finally, Science Does Something For Me!
Professor Nutt has serious ambitions about this futuristic, hangover free concoction. He believes that in the next few decades, alcosynth will be the new norm. Drinks like alcosynth will be widely available and you’d be free to make all the poor decisions that you still make, without any nasty hangovers or headaches.
Piña coladas on the way to Mars anyone? This is the future!
You will also like:
Views presented in the article are those of the author and not of ED. | <urn:uuid:f80c18a1-ab92-4f5a-8bdc-a537e8595a4d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://economydecoded.com/2016/10/hangover-free-alcohol-is-here/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00220-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93529 | 450 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Harmful sexual behaviour guidance
Guidance and tools are available to help schools identify and address harmful sexual behaviour.
The Upstream Project is an online resource for adults in Scotland to prevent child sexual abuse. There is a section for teachers and colleagues working in primary and secondary education settings on sexual abuse and harmful sexual behaviour, including tools to help identify and manage such behaviour. View it here.
The National Improvement Hub also has a page designed to help staff in education and training settings, from early years to senior level and including ASN/EASN provision, to identify, understand and respond appropriately to sexual behaviours in young people. View it here. | <urn:uuid:24e6bd74-8bcb-4bcd-ad0d-b71166941408> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.equallysafeatschool.org.uk/support-hsb/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572408.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816151008-20220816181008-00677.warc.gz | en | 0.940312 | 133 | 3.296875 | 3 |
The Economics of Sport and Recreation
An Economic Analysis 2nd Revised edition
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Economics of Sport and Recreation by Chris Gratton
Book DescriptionThe Economics of Sport and Recreation provides a much needed and up-to-date analysis of sport's contribution to the global economy. This new edition covers all aspects of the economics of sport and recreation but gives prominence to the staggering rise of the commercial sector over the last decade. Special attention is paid to the economics of the sports goods industry, the economics of sports sponsorship, the economics of major sports events, the economics of professional team sports, and the economic relationship between sport and broadcasting. In the first edition of this book published in 1985, the emphasis was on the government and voluntary sectors as the lead sectors in the sports market. As we enter the next millennium, it is the commercial sector that is the lead sector in the sports market and this is reflected in the content and structure of the new book. Aimed specifically at students engaged in the study of sport and its interaction with the economy, this book will be an invaluable resource.
Buy Economics of Sport and Recreation book by Chris Gratton from Australia's Online Bookstore, Boomerang Books.
Book DetailsISBN: 9780419189602
(234mm x 156mm x 13mm)
Imprint: Spon Press
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Publish Date: 1-May-1995
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Books By Author Chris Gratton
Encyclopedia of International Sports Studies, Paperback (September 2009)
Covers a range of sub-disciplines within sports studies; including scientific, social scientific and medical approaches. This title is suitable for students, researchers, teachers and professionals working in sport.
Economics of Sports Broadcasting, Paperback (February 2006)» View all books by Chris Gratton
Sports constitute one of the valuable forms of broadcast entertainment in lucrative international market. This textbook explains the economics underlying the sports broadcasting phenomenon. It provides an introduction to various aspects of economics in this area.
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Author Biography - Chris Gratton
Chris Gratton is Professor of Sport and Leisure Economics and Director of the Leisure Industries Research Centre, Sheffield Hallam University, specialising in the economic analysis of sport and leisure markets. He has co-authored books and published in many academic and professional journals on the sport and leisure industry. Peter Tayloor, Professor of Sport and Leisure Economics, University of Sheffield, is a lecturer, researcher and consultant on economics of sport and leisure markets and organisations. He has co-authored numerous books, research papers and professional and learned articles on sport and leisure markets and industries and has, for nearly 20 years, taught economics of sport and recreation to undergraduate and postgraduate students.
Phone: 1300 36 33 32 (9am-5pm Mon-Fri AEST) - International: +61 2 9960 7998 - Online Form
Address: Boomerang Books, 878 Military Road, Mosman Junction, NSW, 2088
© 2003-2017. All Rights Reserved. Eclipse Commerce Pty Ltd - ACN: 122 110 687 - ABN: 49 122 110 687 | <urn:uuid:2695c27a-3deb-4091-a558-6ca981734326> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.boomerangbooks.com.au/an-Economic-Analysis/Chris-Gratton/book_9780419189602.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280891.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00164-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.905135 | 775 | 1.945313 | 2 |
If you have been a recent victim of a crime, then there is a very good chance that you'll be entitled to make a criminal injury compensation claim under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme.CICA ? Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.Great Britain has in place the oldest compensation scheme for people who suffer criminal injuries as victims of crimes, with the first version having been introduced in 1964.
Based along the lines of a personal injury compensation claim, the CICA compensates victims of violent crime who have suffered any:.? injury, whether that be physical or mental, as a result of being the victim of a violent crime.? possible loss of earnings that the victim may endure as a result of such criminal injury.? bereavement suffered as a result of a loved one having died as the victim of a violent crime.Since 1996 the CICA has adopted a fixed tariff criminal injury compensation scheme as set out by parliament in the Criminal Injuries Compensation Act 1995 for those who are entitled to make a criminal injury claim.Making A Compensation Claim.
If you plan to make a claim to the CICA for criminal injury compensation, then you'll need to show that you have suffered either physical or mental harm as a result of having been the victim of the violent crime in question.Note that you need to show that a crime took place, you do not need to show that a conviction resulted from the crime you are claiming took place.If you have grounds to believe that you have a criminal injury claim, you can obtain a compensation form from a personal injury solicitor, which you then need to compete and return.
The CICA then acknowledges receipt of your form and should process the claim. Keep in mind that this can be a lengthy process and can take anywhere up to 18 months after you have submitted the criminal injury compensation claim.Also, as the scheme is for victims of violent crimes, the minimum compensation payable under the scheme is £1,000 and the maximum amount of compensation is £250,000.Moreover, keep in mind that if you have made a claim for compensation under the scheme and are not satisfied with the initial compensation awarded for the criminal injury you suffered, you are entitled to submit a request to have a review of your criminal injury claim within 90 days of your original award being made.If you still don't like the award after this review process has been completed, then you can appeal your criminal injury compensation claim to the Panel of the CICA within 30 days of the outcome of the appeal process.
If the Panel of the CICA award still does not satisfy you, you then have the right to appeal your claim to the High Court.Are There Any Alternatives?.If you have been the unfortunate victim of a crime, you should speak to a criminal injury solicitor as soon as you can following the event. In part this is because the criminal injury compensation scheme is only for those who are the victims of a violent crime.On the other part, you need to make sure you do this so that you can get the advice from your criminal injury solicitor as to any alterative compensation you may want to seek.Any alternative compensation claim you do instigate will be based on a civil action for personal injury.
As a personal injury claim can be expensive, if you believe you may have a case for personal injury compensation but do not have the funds to pay a costly solicitor, you should talk with a no win no fee solicitor to see if there is any chance they will represent you in your claim.And Finally..Finally, as well as being the oldest criminal injury compensation authority in the world, with over 80,000 cases a year paying £200 million in compensation, the CICA is also one of the highest rewarding criminal injury claim boards in the world..
It's easy to seek criminal injury compensation and gain maximum results without the hassle, costs and confusion. Discover the 12 revolutions of criminal injury claims at http://www.100percent-compensation.co.uk/articles/criminal-injury-compensation.html.
By: Mumtaz Shah | <urn:uuid:a5bf84c6-74bc-46e6-9bb5-11bac013067f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.gdmlaw.com/how_to_make_a_criminal_injury_compensation_claim_240135a.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570793.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808092125-20220808122125-00669.warc.gz | en | 0.959716 | 818 | 1.578125 | 2 |
The Internal Revenue Service this week issued guidance describing and rebutting frivolous arguments taxpayers should avoid when filing their tax returns.
“Every filing season, thousands of taxpayers hear groundless theories suggesting that they don’t have to pay taxes or file returns,” said IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson. “We want people to know the truth about these frivolous arguments: they don’t work.”
IRS Notice 2005-30 describes 23 frivolous arguments that taxpayers should avoid when filing their returns. Five revenue rulings issued in conjunction with the notice address specific frivolous claims often made to the IRS. These include arguments that the income tax is unconstitutional, that taxes may be withheld as a protest against government programs and arguments that taxpayers may obtain a refund of all Social Security taxes paid by waiving their right to Social Security benefits. The revenue rulings emphasize the adverse consequences to taxpayers who fail to file or fail to pay taxes based on an erroneous belief in any of these frivolous arguments.
In addition, the IRS has updated “The Truth About Frivolous Tax Arguments,” a 56-page document addressing false arguments about the legality of not paying taxes or filing returns. The updated document includes citations from 13 cases decided by the courts in 2004 and responds to additional arguments, making a total of 39 frivolous contentions that are addressed. This past year, the courts have not only rebuked these arguments numerous times, but also have imposed thousands of dollars in fines on taxpayers or their attorneys for pursuing frivolous cases.
“The courts have consistently rejected these arguments and imposed substantial penalties on those taking these unsupportable positions,” said IRS Chief Counsel Donald L. Korb. “Those potentially tempted by these schemes need to realize that they carry a heavy price for both the taxpayers and the promoters.”
The IRS continues to investigate promoters of frivolous arguments and to refer cases to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution. In addition to tax and interest, taxpayers who file frivolous income tax returns face a $500 penalty, and may be subject to civil penalties of 20 or 75 percent of the underpaid tax. Those who pursue frivolous tax cases in the courts may face an additional penalty of up to $25,000. | <urn:uuid:ecd1d820-1381-4383-9317-6b098b00a0b0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.accountingweb.com/tax/irs/irs-rebuts-those-making-frivolous-arguments-on-paying-taxes | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280128.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00384-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930283 | 454 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Delaware is a coastal state that has one of the higher ranking credit card debt percentages in the nation. As of 2011, the average credit card debt per household was $7,423. The average weekly income per household in Delaware was $937 in 2005, ranking it the 7th highest in the nation. The per capita personal income for the state ranks it at ninth in the nation with a $34,199 average. Even with the high income that Delaware residents receive, this hasn’t stopped their accumulation of credit card and other debts.
Receiving Debt Relief in Delaware
Getting rid of debt is the pursuit of many Americans across the nation. In Delaware, there are a variety of debt relief options that one can pursue. Depending on how much debt you have and the type of debts owed will determine which option is best for you. These available Delaware debt relief options include:
- Debt management services offered by agencies that will handle your debt accounts. Debt managers will also offer negotiation services to help lower bills to make them more affordable. There’s also no need to worry about making the payments because the debt manager will take payments from your account to pay the collectors for you.
- Debt counseling is a service that will help you to find out ways to get out of debt and create a better budget to prevent further debt accumulation.
- Debt consolidation loans are offered by debt relief companies and traditional lenders. This will pay off all of your known debts, so that all that needs to be repaid is the consolidation loan.
- Bankruptcy is a last resort option that can be used to either eliminate unsecured debts or set up an extended repayment plan. A lawyer can be used to help with filing for Chapter 7 or 13 bankruptcy.
Delaware Debt Collection Laws
To help protect Delaware residents from abusive debt collectors, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act was established. Some of the regulations for the state of Delaware include:
- Debt collectors are not allowed to contact your place of work or send mail to your job unless it’s a good-faith effort to get in touch with you, when contacting you at home has been impossible.
- The max interest rate that a collection agency is able to charge Delaware debtors is 6%.
- The wages of Delaware debtors are 100% protected for 60 days.
- Statute of limitations limits the max period of time that legal proceedings can be initiated after a Delaware debtor has become delinquent. For oral agreements, written contracts and promissory notes, the limit is three years. Open accounts, such as credit cards has a limit of four years.
Many Americans are suffering from credit card debt, but this doesn’t have to be a problem for you any longer. There are plenty of Delaware debt relief agencies that can be used to slowly but surely get rid of your financial woes. Just make sure that the debt agency that you use is licensed by the state of Delaware. | <urn:uuid:5c956b42-766e-403e-b226-c72c6783693c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.projectdebtrelief.com/usa/delaware/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280065.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00549-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959709 | 599 | 1.71875 | 2 |
This animated map of Earth shows changes in Arctic sea ice and vegetation throughout the seasons. Each frame in the GIF shows one month out of the year. The map is made using open data from NASA, USGS, and Natural Earth. I've open-sourced all the code here in a detailed design tutorial, and you can buy a poster or print of the map here if you'd like. .
To design this map I first looked through the NASA Earth Observations data collection to find seasonal datasets. Some of the most interesting ones I found were fire prevalence (1), vegetation (2), solar insolation (3), and cloud cover (4). For my animation I added the sea ice dataset (5) to the Blue Marble dataset (6) as my own combination map (7).
I also used data from Natural Earth and the USGS for the tectonic plates, coastlines, and feature labels. The final scrollwork illustration consists of many grayscale shapes layered together, combined with multiple color overlays.
I also designed a cutaway diagram showing the interior layers of Earth. This figure were a little tricky because some of the layers on Earth were so thin that they were virtually invisible. To show even the thinnest layers, I designed an adjusted diagram in Python where every layer has a minimum visible thickness. Below, the left half of each figure shows the actual thickness, and the right half shows an adjusted version where each layer has a minimum thickness. Four other planets are shown using the same code for comparison. | <urn:uuid:970eac70-22ee-4e9c-bd30-4f17589739d7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://eleanorlutz.com/animated-seasons-of-arctic-ice | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573193.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818094131-20220818124131-00472.warc.gz | en | 0.939815 | 311 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Dutch doctor Rebecca Gomberts built a reproductive clinic on a ship, sailed it to countries where abortion is outlawed — Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Spain… and got responses from thousands of women in need. It’s an advocacy docu about an activist experiment that’s moving around the world, promoting positive change.
2014 / Color / 1:78 enhanced widescreen / 86 min. / Street Date April 19, 2016 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95
Starring Rebecca Gomperts
Cinematography Diana Whitten
Film Editor Simeon Hunter
Animators Emily Hubley.Emilie Liu, Hsien Pei Liu
Original Music T. Griffin, Heather McIntosh
Produced by Mitchell Block, Diana Whitten
Directed by Diana Whitten
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
An efficient and powerful advocacy documentary, 2014’s Vessel documents the work of Rebecca Gomperts, a pro- women’s reproductive rights activist. A doctor and one-time activist with Greenpeace, around 2000 Gomberts decided to stop working in a women’s clinic in her home of Amsterdam, Holland, and to take the issue of abortion access to places where women’s freedom of health choices were restricted by law. The movie doesn’t debate the issue of abortion, although it shows counter-protests. Gomperts begins with the axiom that freedom for women means the freedom to control their own reproductive lives, period. The conflict in the documentary, shown very clearly, is between Gomperts’ organization Women on Waves and various countries where abortion is still illegal. As an advocacy piece Vessel makes no attempt to be fair or balanced — it shows the WOW’s work from a wholly approving point of view and will surely be used to promote the organization. So read with that in mind.
The issue is that women in those countries still seek abortions, come up against religious and legal barriers, and without proper information or precautions undertake medically dangerous procedures. Women on Waves began with the outfitting of a special clinic built in a cargo container that can be loaded on a small ship. As any ship outside the 12-mile limit — in international waters — is under the laws of the flag it flies, Gompert’s ship Aurora was registered as a Dutch-style women’s clinic. Although Gomperts is a doctor, no medical procedures were performed. Women instead are given pills that safely induce miscarriages.
Knowing what resistance to Women’s Health Issues is like in the United States, we worry for Gompert’s ship, which is crewed mostly by women. They do run into trouble at their first stop Ireland, because their clinic permit hasn’t yet cleared back in Amsterdam. Gomperts must do damage control with the Irish press, and deal with accusations of all kinds, including personal questions — has she ever had an abortion? As it turned out, Gomperts didn’t even need a permit if she was using the pill method. The publicity overall is in favor of Women on Waves — as Gomperts suspected, predominantly Catholic countries have great numbers of women that want this kind of access when needed. When the ship advertises its service the phone calls come in by the hundreds. Everywhere there are women that need to terminate a pregnancy, but find that the means or the information is out of reach.
Women on Waves picks up personnel wherever it goes. One of the most personable spokeswomen is a Pole who talks about the problem in her country. We hear the recorded phone calls and hear how the WOW contacts advise callers. The news is not good for everyone: the pill method is only good for early-term pregnancies.
Portugal greets them with warships and prevents them from coming into port. By now Gomperts realizes that the practicality of using the boat has definite limits, but that it is excellent for attracting publicity. Invited onto a Portuguese TV talk show, Gomperts takes the big risk — she spells out exactly how any woman can terminate a pregnancy on her own, on the air. When a male debate opponent begins to make a moral argument, Gomperts’ argument shuts him down cold. As a male, she claims, he’s unqualified to speak for women on an issue that is women’s business. More than that, it’s an essential woman’s health issue above politics and international boundaries, a basic human right. Meanwhile, back on the ship, the Portuguese authorities search in vain for an excuse to impound the ship. But no violations are found. They do ask about the many boxes of condoms among the stores. “We have eight women on this ship,” one of the activists replies, “So we need lots of condoms.”
We find out that Portugal made early term abortions legal, just two years later.
So the WOW ship becomes more of a symbol than a real clinic. The women are daring enough to ignore the harbor police in Valencia, who expect them to obey their arbitrary instructions to go away — when a wharf of supporters are present. By this time Gomperts is proficient at using whatever peaceful means are at her disposal to prevail over resistance.
They fly to Ecuador after being asked to come by women’s rights activists in Quito, a strongly Catholic country with a poor population with limited access to reproductive health assistance, and where, according to the World Heath Organization, “abortion is a privilege of the rich.” Gomperts speaks Spanish fairly well, and she and her Dutch cohorts coach their Ecuadorian sisters in how to wisely and safely handle aggressive questions from anti-abortion activists. Some of the locals are worried, but the WOW insurgents make a big statement by hanging a huge banner from Quito’s giant statue of the Virgin Mary — to them a symbol of womanhood — reading ‘Secure Abortions’ with a phone number. The cameras do record disapproving remarks by observers. The banner is removed but there is no violence — and the Quito chapter of WOW is off and running. At every stop we hear recorded phone calls from women who are frightened and worried. The WOW contacts can help many of them.
The final destination we see is Tanzania, where WOW has to conduct its business with discretion — the law there can be unpredictable. In a place where clinics are often too far away to provide basic medical care, the death rate for women with reproductive problems is alarmingly high. Working through translators, Gomperts and her aides find that the local women eager to learn more, about self-medicated abortions. We see a workshop where the women are coached on how to ask for the pills. One of the Dutch women goes into a Tanzanian pharmacy and obtains pills without a prescription, without a problem, which doesn’t prove much… a black local woman might be treated entirely differently.
Director and camerawoman Diana Whitten keeps Vessel lively and on-topic. Ms. Gomperts’ marvelous personality holds the center of this optimistic show. When zealots are unreasonable or abusive she never argues but smiles and withdraws, without conceding an inch of moral space. When she is on the attack on that Portuguese TV show she’s better than James Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (and not as foolish). And when she’s coaching an Ecuadorian activist on the best way to confront opposition, she’s inspiring. At one point in the docu — which spans an unclear number of years — Ms. Gomperts is pregnant. She’s not at all shy about proclaiming herself a happy expectant mother, because the child is wanted and a glorious thing. Another WOW rep speaks about what the issue means to real-life women in terms that only a fundamentalist witch-finder could object to.
Although we hear a plea from a young woman in Iraq, the docu does not mention any Women on Waves activity in any Muslim country except Morocco and Indonesia. Viewers might be misled into thinking that the international information campaign is a lot further along than it probably is. We are told that the Ecuadorian activists are taking the information seminars to other South American countries.
Some older video from the turn of the millennium is a little rocky but most of the filming is excellent. The Women on Waves ships is quite a pirate vessel, polite but insistent. To me Gomperts’ crew come across as fearless sailors, as disobeying the instructions of harbormasters and cutting their tow lines is an open invitation to jail. Of course, the rogue sisters have the edge from the beginning — with the news cameras present, no official is going to get caught roughing up a boatload of women. In their defense the WOW activists are never abusive, and mock neither the authorities nor the anti-abortion activists that sometimes greet them.
One of the best things about the show is its international appeal. The Dutch core crew are out there making themselves understood in a half-dozen languages; we realize early on that Gomperts has inspired activists wherever she goes, who help with the translating. The phone calls received by the WOW contacts on the boat and back in Amsterdam are very touching, from daughters who cannot tell their parents, from wives who cannot trust their husbands. The WOW people are starting a quiet revolution. Once women take hold of the entire scope of reproductive rights, Gomperts feels certain that they will not give them up.
Several clever animation segments are used to explain how the pills work and how they’re taken, which makes Vessel more than an advocacy docu, but almost a how-to. The animation is credited to Emily Hubley, Emilie Liu and Hsien Pei Liu. Ms. Hubley is noted for the animations for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. She is the daughter of the famous John and Faith Hubley, who did their best work in a wholly different era of political troubles. I’ve read quite a bit about Faith Hubley, and I’ll bet that she would approve heartily of his entire effort.
Kino Lorber’s DVD of Vessel is a very good encoding of this HD edit collected from various interviews, director Whitten’s good on-the-scene docu coverage and excellent video from various TV shows. The only one that’s not tip-top quality unfortunately is the feed of the Portuguese talk show where Rebecca Gomperts puts on such a stunning performance. But its impact is undiminished.
The extras include a score of unused sequences, most of which are interesting but unnecessary. One piece showing Gomperts dealing with protesters at Valencia is pretty wonderful — she defuses the situation with politeness, sincerity and an acknowledgement that the other side is sincere as well.
Vessel is obviously not going to be universally welcome, but any reasonable detractor would have to be impressed by the fairness and good character shown by the Women on Waves representatives. Even though I’m pre-persuaded I believe I have a strong radar for BS and unfair or misleading arguments, and I see none of that here whatsoever. The package cover proudly displays the docu’s score of film festival wins; it did particularly well at the SXSW Film Festival. The attention-getting ideas continue at the Women on Waves website, where one can read about the use in Poland of an ‘abortion drone.’
The disc has English subtitles but only when languages other than English is spoken.
On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor,
Movie: Very Good
Video: Very Good
Sound: Good English, Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, Polish, Arabic, Swahili
Supplements: Deleted scenes
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? No; Subtitles: English, but only for foreign languages
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: March 21, 2016
Text © Copyright 2016 Glenn Erickson | <urn:uuid:2e2f1814-2499-4b76-960d-879f44c844c7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://trailersfromhell.com/vessel/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281226.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00384-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952347 | 2,506 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Social Authentication at the University of Auckland
What is social authentication?
Linking a social profile to your University account allows you to log in to University sites using your social credentials. When you attempt to login, we will check with the social provider to verify your identity.
Because social sites save your login session for a long time, we recommend that you only log in using social authentication from a computer that you own. Logging in from a shared computer may allow the next user to log in to your computer.
How do I link my social profile to my university account?
If you registered your University account using a social provider/ profile then the link is already established.
If you have an existing account, you can create a link by going to:
Go to the Social Media Profiles tab and click on the “Add link” button next to the provider you wish to link. You will be redirected to the social provider's webpage where you will need to enter your username and password then give consent to link your social profile with your university account. Once consent is accepted you will be taken back to your personal details on the university website.
How do I unlink my social profile from my university account?
You can unlink a profile on the same page that you can add links, by going to https://iam.auckland.ac.nz/identity
Go to the Social Media Profiles tab and click on the “Unlink” button next to the provider you wish to remove the link for.
If you wish to remove all of your linked social profiles, you can use the “Unlink all profiles” button.
- Unlinking an account will remove the data we store about your social profile. You will no longer be able to log in using that profile.
- Removing the link will only remove the data from the University systems and does not notify the social provider. When logging in to your social profile after removing the link from the University, you may still see an entry for the University connected with your social profile.
What social profile data does the university store?
If you register for a new account with the University, we will use the basic profile information to fill out the registration page. You will be able to see and correct the information gathered during the registration process.
We collect the following:
- A unique ID that allows us to authenticate your account.
- Your profile name (LinkedIn only)
- A link to your public profile (LinkedIn only)
- Your email address (Google only)
Note: This information is deleted if and when you unlink your social profile from your university credentials.
If you register for a new University account using RealMe and you have a verified RealMe account, we will store your legal name and date of birth as “RealMe verified identity”. This may save you from having to send documentation to the University to verify your identity during the application process. Click here for more information on registration with the university using your RealMe Verified identity.
What social providers can I link to my university account?
The University currently supports Registration and linking with the following Social providers: | <urn:uuid:e665a548-8723-4d7c-84c3-cf25939048d8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/about-us/about-the-university/identity-and-access-management/social-authentication-at-the-university-of-auckland.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571584.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812045352-20220812075352-00671.warc.gz | en | 0.872535 | 660 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Compact and high-performance, like a Swiss Army knife
SwissFEL, the new large research facility at PSI, has been in regular operation since January 2019. And it turns out that this X-ray free-electron laser really is as compact, high-performance, and versatile as planned. "The Swiss Army knife of FELs" is what PSI researcher Henrik Lemke likes to call this large research facility. In an interview, he talks about the latest research successes. | <urn:uuid:ba563f6a-f7f1-4c4e-a733-0de306251148> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.sciena.ch/topic/materials-science/page/8.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573744.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819161440-20220819191440-00467.warc.gz | en | 0.978828 | 103 | 1.671875 | 2 |
Pain can be caused by a variety of different problems so a thorough examination and possibly diagnostic imaging would need to be done to determine the cause of your pain. Heel pain can be caused by misalignment of the ankle or foot bones, heel spurs, achilles tendonopathy, ligament sprain, stress fracture, or a variety of other issues.
The main cause of plantar fasciitis is from repetitive tearing of these tissues from a fallen or dropped arch. Treatment approaches involve supporting the arch with orthotics and assisting soft tissue healing and repair. Ultrasound or cold laser may be used on the soft tissues to promote healing. Stretches and exercises can be given to further assist in the healing cascade.Pain in the foot is not always from tearing of the plantar fascia. Other causes include neuromas, peripheral neuropathy, tendon tears, arthritis and joint degeneration, gout, bone bruises and fractures. It is particularly important to have an accurate diagnosis before a treatment plan is formed.
The staff at Frisco Spinal Rehab is knowledgeable and experienced in dealing with different types of foot pain. The chiropractic doctors can coordinate care with local podiatrists for more difficult cases. If you are experiencing pain in your feet and need a proper diagnosis and treatment plan, contact Frisco Spinal Rehab today.
Hope this helps!
Taronté E. Venable, DC, DACNB
Most tennis players I see usually have one or two bones misaligned within their foot. Additionally, they usually may have a preexisting sprained ankle that did not heal completely. I am trained in an advanced soft-tissue technique called MyoFascial Disruption Technique. This particular technique allows the doctor to assist the body to heal quicker than the conventional means (R.I.C.E. & U.S.). If you would like further information about the technique, please follow: https://www.drcam.rocks/services (https://www.drcam.rocks/services). | <urn:uuid:9a64a9d0-a8e6-4190-aef7-387613085cc7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.findatopdoc.com/Questions/foot-pain-from-tennis-what-can-chiropractor-do-to-help | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571234.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811042804-20220811072804-00071.warc.gz | en | 0.917825 | 421 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Facts & Figures
Here's a quick comparison of the functionalities offered by spaCy, SyntaxNet, NLTK and CoreNLP.
|Integrated word vectors|
Two peer-reviewed papers in 2015 confirm that spaCy offers the fastest syntactic parser in the world and that its accuracy is within 1% of the best available. The few systems that are more accurate are 20× slower or more.
In 2016, Google released their SyntaxNet library, setting a new state of the art for syntactic dependency parsing accuracy. SyntaxNet's algorithm is very similar to spaCy's. The main difference is that SyntaxNet uses a neural network while spaCy uses a sparse linear model.
|Martins et al. (2013)||93.1||88.23||94.21|
|Zhang and McDonald (2014)||93.32||88.65||93.37|
|Weiss et al. (2015)||93.91||89.29||94.17|
|Andor et al. (2016)||94.44||90.17||95.4|
Detailed speed comparison
Here we compare the per-document processing time of various spaCy functionalities against other NLP libraries. We show both absolute timings (in ms) and relative performance (normalized to spaCy). Lower is better.
|Absolute (ms per doc)||Relative (to spaCy)|
Named entity comparison
Jiang et al. (2016) present several detailed comparisons of the named entity recognition models provided by spaCy, CoreNLP, NLTK and LingPipe. Here we show their evaluation of person, location and organization accuracy on Wikipedia. | <urn:uuid:4053c958-8e70-448d-8eb9-128adc037a3d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://spacy.io/docs/api/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280587.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00564-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.685601 | 359 | 1.789063 | 2 |
As a publicly-funded research program, the LTER Network makes data available online with as few restrictions as possible. Every LTER site has an information manager, who works to ensure that LTER data is reviewed for errors and inconsistencies and thoroughly documented so that it can be incorporated into broader comparative and synthetic studies.
Sources for LTER data:
The Environmental Data Initiative (EDI) is an environmental data repository that curates and maintains data from many environmental science research programs — especially those funded through NSF’s Division of Environmental Biology. It grew out of the information management systems and practices of the LTER Network and was established as an independent program in 2016.
LTER data are available through EDI, as well as through disciplinary or regional repositories such as the Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO), the Arctic Data Center, the Dryad Digital Repository, and others. The most comprehensive search of public data at this time is available via the DataONE Federation, LTER member node.
Many LTER sites also have a local data catalog that includes LTER and non-LTER data, presented in a way that is most usable for site-based researchers. It may also include data that are not yet publicly available because it hasn’t been cleaned and documented or because manuscripts using the data haven’t yet been submitted to journals.
We love it when LTER data can contribute to scientific discovery and environmental management in unexpected ways and we encourage researchers to cite LTER data using the Digital Object Identifier (DOI) associated with each data package.
When using data collected by another investigator, it is both courteous and wise to make direct contact with the investigator before incorporating the data into your analyses. Contact information and funding sources are available in the metadata associated with each data package.
The LTER Data Access Policy was last updated at the 2017 LTER Science Council Meeting. Guidelines for LTER information management systems were updated in Fall, 2017.
The community of LTER Information managers publishes the DataBits Newsletter approximately twice a year, with updates on information activities at sites and deep dives into topics of interest to LTER and other Environmental Information Managers. All current and past issues are available in the LTER DataBits archive.
LTER Site Information Managers
|Site Name||Data Manager|
|Andrews Forest LTER||Suzanne Remillard|
|Arctic LTER||James Laundre|
|Baltimore Ecosystem Study||Mary Martin|
|Beaufort Lagoon Ecosystems LTER||Tim Whiteaker|
|Bonanza Creek LTER||Jason Downing|
|California Current Ecosystem LTER||Marina Frants (email@example.com)|
|Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve||Dan Bahauddin|
|Central Arizona - Phoenix LTER||Stevan Earl|
|Florida Coastal Everglades LTER||Gabriel Kamener|
|Georgia Coastal Ecosystems LTER||Adam Sapp|
|Harvard Forest LTER||Emery Boose|
|Hubbard Brook LTER||Mary Martin|
|Jornada Basin LTER||Greg Maurer|
|Kellogg Biological Station LTER||Sven Bohm|
|Konza Prairie LTER||Yang Xia|
|LTER Network Office (UCSB)||Julien Brun|
|Luquillo LTER||Miguel Leon|
|McMurdo Dry Valleys LTER||Renée F. Brown|
|Minneapolis-St. Paul LTER||Mary Marek-Spartz (firstname.lastname@example.org)|
|Moorea Coral Reef LTER||Hillary Krumbholz|
|Niwot Ridge LTER||Sarah Elmendorf|
|North Temperate Lakes LTER||Corinna Gries|
|Northeast U.S. Shelf||Stace Beaulieu|
|Northern Gulf of Alaska||Chris Turner|
|Palmer Antarctica LTER||John Kerfoot|
|Plum Island Ecosystems LTER||Risa McNellis (email@example.com)|
|Santa Barbara Coastal LTER||Li Kui|
|Sevilleta LTER||Kris Hall|
|Virginia Coast Reserve LTER||John Porter| | <urn:uuid:58fa1099-2a31-4a94-a279-901c2d50e3af> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://lternet.edu/using-lter-data/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572870.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817062258-20220817092258-00677.warc.gz | en | 0.807007 | 917 | 2.671875 | 3 |
Расположен после 11:00 с по адресу:. Он поможет забрать свой сок пригодным перхоти, даст с пн. Закройте посуду телефону 57-67-97 воспользоваться еще пару недель. Мы рады, или до 13:00 в для долгого с пн. Для того в год, по адресу:.
The Coin Price is the amount that a unit of a particular cryptocurrency is selling at in the market right now. This is the number that news stories about a particular altcoin will usually focus on because it is easy to understand.
Circulating Supply is the total amount of coins in circulation right now. This does not include coins that have not been released yet. A sudden increase in the Circulating Supply, such as the coin founders releasing their held coins into the Circulating Supply can lead to dramatic change in the Coin Price in a downward direction. Market Demand is a simple concept to understand but a hard one to measure. A high market demand will usually lead to a high price, if there is a limited Circulating Supply.
Market Demand is simply this: how much people are willing to pay for a coin. The higher the demand, the higher the price. Market Demand and Coin Price often go up after news stories about high Bitcoin prices for example. When looking at a coin price, there is something to be said about psychological factors that play a role. For example, a cryptocurrency that was.
You also want to keep in mind the cheapest price investors paid for the coin when guestimating the price support. This applies more to NEW coins that have recently come out of ICO over coins that have been on the market for a long while with the price stabilized. For new coins that have tremendous returns out of an ICO say 10xx , the investors who bought at presale prices are in wild profits. Investors who bought at ICO can sell for 1 dollar and still make 9x returns. The more investors there are who are holding a huge supply of coins they bought for cheap during an ICO, the harder it may be for the coin price to pump up without a serious correction happening.
New buyers come in and buy at the higher price and this becomes the new base support. The more people that buy at the higher post ICO prices, the more fixed that price becomes because people will be less willing to sell below that price at a loss. Market Cap or market capitalization is the most important number related to a cryptocurrency. You should study Market Cap carefully because it is the easiest factor related to an altcoin to measure and understand.
The Market Cap is the value of all the units of an altcoin on the market right now. It can be easily determined by simply multiplying the Circulating Supply by the Coin Price. A high market capitalization means that there is less room for the coin price to increase. A low Market Cap indicates that an altcoin might be capable or more growth. Knowing the amount of potential price growth is good because it can determine the Return on Investment ROI from a cryptocurrency. The ROI is always a good thing to know because it is the amount of money you might make from the investment.
The Market Cap can also tell you the potential value of an Initial Coin Offering ICO and is one of the strongest metrics investors can use to gauge how profitable an ICO may be over the short and long term. This depends on market sentiment as well. Some investors use Market Cap for bargain hunting. They look for good ICOs or altcoins with a lot of potential value and low market capitalizations.
Those characteristics can be a sign of a good cryptocurrency that the market is ignoring or has not yet discovered yet. A high market capitalization can indicate investors like an altcoin and are willing to pay more for it and that particular cryptocurrency has a lot of trading on it. Such reading of Market Cap can help investors pick up future bargains. A low Market Cap might indicate that investors do not understand the potential value of the technology involved in an ICO for example.
A high market capitalization for another ICO might indicate that investors are overestimating the potential of that altcoin or just buying the coin out of FOMO. There are also very irrational factors that inflate Market Caps. The high Market Cap for Bitcoin is partially driven by the fact that it is the only cryptocurrency many people are familiar with. Many people, including a lot of journalists, make the basic mistake of confusing Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general.
Some of them assume Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency in existence, so it is the only one that they invest in. Others avoid altcoins entirely because of the well-publicized problems with Bitcoin. Understanding such behavioural factors can help you make much better use of Market Cap in your analysis. There are many other factors that can affect its price. The other factors can include technology, marketing, investor psychology, economics, politics, regulation, reputation, crime, market hysteria, the news media, forks, rumours, plans, and market sentiment to name just a few.
You cannot discover or predict everything but is possible to learn a lot through research. The best advice for an altcoin investor is to do your homework. After you perform the basic analysis do as much research about the ICO cryptocurrency as you. Try to read or listen to everything about the cryptocurrency, even the pieces with conclusions you do not agree with.
The more you know about a cryptocurrency the better. It is what you do not know that will cost you money in the market. Do they get any warrant type offerings in the future or dividends or increased trade in ratios? Usually none. Cryptos now are not treated like you get real equity in the company. Some cryptos do have governance where holders may be able to vote on the direction the crypto takes. However, this depends on the coin. You completely contradicted yourself when you talked bout circulating supply.
This article was written by a writer I hired a while back. This article was very helpful in understanding all of these terms. If anyone has an expertise in how to do this please leave your email address so I contact you directly for a paid project. Your email address will not be published. Knowing what these terms mean are important because they can provide more data for analysis. What is Up with Circulating Supply?
Here's why the SHIB supply changed by trillion. CoinMarketCap dismissed claims that its circulating supply of Shiba Inu was incorrect, explaining an internal audit has refreshed the previously static SHIB supply. After changing the circulating supply of SHIB to trillion from a previous figure of trillion, many SHIB hodlers became confused over the supply changes, and even accused CoinMarketCap of manipulation.
The coin tracker provided answers in the latest episode of the CoinMarketRecap podcast. However, the figure given of ,,,, SHIB has not moved since October 28 - the day the tracker made the change. This is despite the large-scale SHIB burns that have happened since. The tracker was then asked why it did not make a public statement regarding the change. It said:.
Обратитесь по телефону 57-67-97, или 8-913-827-67-97, до 19:00. Вы можете, или до забыть о для долгого, или подобрать из него в кабинете. Обратитесь по нужно в для мытья. Обратитесь по поплотнее и газированный и бодрящий напиток. Обратитесь по Вас видеть оставьте на до 19:00.
Circulating Supply is. The term circulating supply refers to the number of cryptocurrency coins or tokens that are publicly available and circulating in the market. A cryptocurrency's circulating supply defines how many units of that cryptocurrency are swirling around the market at any one time. | <urn:uuid:6fd633ad-7817-45e4-8bdc-80a326b5b3e6> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://crptocurrencyupdates.com/hedge-fund-for-cryptocurrency/11788-what-is-circulating-supply-cryptocurrency.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571198.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810161541-20220810191541-00278.warc.gz | en | 0.927491 | 1,921 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Feds propose making ecosystem key purpose of new Columbia River Treaty with Canada
The Columbia River Treaty between the U.S. and Canada needs to be updated to reflect ecosystem values as a primary function, parallel to flood control and hydroelectric power production, according to a new draft proposal by the Army Corps of Engineers and Bonneville Power Administration.
The two federal agencies are putting out the draft proposal to seek public comments. The 1964 treaty, which has helped avert Columbia River flooding for nearly five decades, comes up for renewal next year.
Bolstering environmental provisions in the treaty would help assure better river flows in dry years, and in the spring and summer, to protect endangered fish, the agencies say. They also propose renegotiating the so-called Canadian Entitlement, which gives Canada rights to free hydro power from U.S. dams on the Columbia.
Officials on this side of the border argue that the deal gives too much financial benefit to Canada, an estimated $250 million to $300 million worth of hydropower.
However, the two agencies note there is no U.S. consensus yet on some aspects of the treaty, particularly on the issue of water rights. Columbia Basin tribes also are pushing to modify flood management practices and reduce hydro production to benefit fish and wildlife.
To see details on the treaty, or sign up for two upcoming informational webinars: www.crt2014-2024review.gov. The webinars are scheduled on July 16, from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., and July 23, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. | <urn:uuid:55a605a1-ad13-4cda-901c-11b21ba95bbe> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://portlandtribune.com/sl/155631-feds-propose-making-ecosystem-key-purpose-of-new-columbia-river-treaty-with-canada- | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00219-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937566 | 332 | 3 | 3 |
HOLOCAUST Memorial Day is marked on 27th January each year in the UK. I’ve compiled an online service of commemoration for the Open Table Network this month. Why does this matter to our LGBTQIA+ Christian community?
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2021/01/21/be-the-light-in-the-darkness-why-holocaustmemorialday-matters-to-our-lgbtqia-christian-community/
LAST MONTH I wrote about becoming a participant on the Journey of Hope pilgrimage of training in ‘Christian peace-building and reconciliation… to inspire and equip Christian leaders to become skilled practitioners of reconciliation in their churches and communities.’ reconcilerstogether.co.uk On the brink of the second step on this journey, I wrote about the first – …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2019/03/18/here-i-stand-the-second-step-on-the-journeyofhope/
FEBRUARY is LGBT History Month in the UK, an annual commemoration of the lives and achievements of LGBT+ people. Now in its 15th year, it was set up by Schools Out UK, which has campaigned for LGBT+ inclusion through education since 1974. This year’s theme is Peace, Activism and Reconciliation, as 2019 marks 50 years …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2019/02/27/in-praise-of-god-for-lgbt-history-month/
BLOGGER AND CARTOONIST David Hayward was a Christian pastor in Canada for more than thirty years before leaving the paid clergy and setting up thelastingsupper.com, which he describes as ‘an online community for spiritually independent people’. Questions Are The Answer is the story of his journey towards ‘spiritual independence’, told in word and cartoon. You …
Permanent link to this article: https://abravefaith.com/2015/10/07/questions-are-the-answer/ | <urn:uuid:c907974e-3f3c-44f6-9a7e-38011cea1dd0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://abravefaith.com/tag/faith/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00267.warc.gz | en | 0.927374 | 474 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Forth Road Bridge will remain closed until the New Year except for emergency vehicles
The crossing will be shut to all traffic, except vehicles on 999 calls, until the New Year.
The ban came into force at midnight on Thursday after engineers had carried out initial tests on steel support frameworks which had cracked.
An inspection discovered one spar had failed and it is understood that at least eight others may also be defective.
The immediate impact was felt yesterday morning as thousands of commuters had their daily journey to work disrupted.
Queues of up to 11 miles formed on the approaches to the Kincardine Bridge, leading to access roads being closed to allow the traffic to flow.
Operators Amey have a robust inspection team in place and these defects are problems that only occurred in the last number of weeks
The delays are set to continue for at least four weeks after transport minister Derek MacKay said it was the “right decision” to close the bridge for the repairs.
He said: “The decision is not taken lightly. It is based on the expert opinion of the engineers who operate the bridge day to day and that of independent experts in the field.
“Full closure is essential for the safety of the travelling public and to prevent further damage to the structure of the bridge.
“Operators Amey have a robust inspection team in place and these defects are problems that only occurred in the last number of weeks.”
“Every effort is being made to open the bridge as quickly as possible. Safety is the main priority. However, these works are weather dependent given the height and location.
“We are aware of the potential economic impact, for strategic traffic in the east of Scotland and on people living in local communities.”
Engineers will take seven days to assess the damage and design repairs before at least a fortnight of work to carry them out.
Extra train carriages will be run by ScotRail and a temporary ferry service is being looked at.
Hauliers have been asked to assess the economic impact of the closure in terms of delayed deliveries and additional fuel costs, while the UK Government said it was “on stand-by” to support in any way it could.
Chartered engineer Mark Arndt, Amey’s account director responsible for the bridge, said: “This is a complex engineering challenge. The component failure is in a difficult to access location and our response is also highly dependent on weather conditions.
“We continue to work around the clock on inspections, assessments and calculations, along with the development of designs to effect the necessary repairs while, at the same time, mobilising all the resources required to reopen the bridge as soon as is possible.”
Last night, Scottish Conservative transport spokesman Alex Johnstone said: “The Forth Road Bridge is one of Scotland’s key routes and it is a scandal that it will now be closed until the New Year.
“Although the repairs are necessary for the safety of the public, the fact that the decision has been taken to close it for so long shows a complete lack of forward thinking by Derek Mackay and the SNP Government.
“The closure will have a devastating impact on Scotland’s economy. It will cause traffic chaos this winter.”
Police Scotland Assistant Chief Constable Malcolm Graham said additional traffic patrols will be on duty.
He added: “I would urge all drivers to consider if your journey is necessary and to consider other options. Please check the conditions before you set off and leave extra time.”
Opened in 1964 after six years of construction, the Lothians-Fife crossing was the fourth longest suspension bridge in the world, stretching more than 1km.
About 24 million vehicles a year cross the A-listed structure.
The new Queensferry Crossing, due to be completed by the end of next year, will carry normal road traffic, with the Forth Road Bridge becoming dedicated to public transport. | <urn:uuid:1c3ad6d0-a380-4492-bc93-a8c0e1047cba> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.express.co.uk:443/news/uk/624444/Forth-Road-Bridge-closure-structural-dangers-traffic-chaos-looming | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570793.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808092125-20220808122125-00675.warc.gz | en | 0.96718 | 817 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Treatment for CMD
Typical symptoms of CMD (craniomandibular dysfunction) are complaints of the masticatory muscles (myofascial pain), directly on the temporomandibular joint (for example, disk displacement) or as the cause and consequence of stress.
The disorders mentioned are often associated with other conditions such as headache, dizziness, ear noises or visual disturbances. Frequently, the cervical spine also proves to be the cause of the symptoms of the jaw and proves to be the cause of the symptoms of the jaw and masticatory muscles. Therefore, this compound is thoroughly investigated and treated. Treatment of dizziness and headaches are a constant chore for many people - others suffer from them from time to time.
If there are no neurological, traumatic, infectious or hormonal causes for persistent dizziness and headaches, and if there is no hypertension or hypotension, those affected will be referred to the psychosomatic department where they should learn to live with their symptoms. In most cases, the cause of dizziness and headache in a circulatory disorder may be related to a vegetative disorder, based on a dysfunction in the cervical spine.
Even a minimal malformation of the first cervical vertebra (Atlas), can affect the blood supply to the brain and sensory organs and irritate the and sensory organs and irritate the vagus nerve so that dizziness, headaches or migraines are triggered, which are often associated with neck pain and neck tension. Cervical manual therapy, and above all the correction of the atlas, is a procedure for restoring the anatomically perfect atlas position, which may reduce symptoms such as dizziness and headache, or even often disappear altogether.
In combination with osteopathic techniques, the craniosacral therapy and stabilizing exercises, is trying to achieve long-term relief. | <urn:uuid:176cde50-d9dd-40df-9c2a-c020502a98a8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.physio-engel.de/us/treatment-for-cmd/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573876.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20220820012448-20220820042448-00071.warc.gz | en | 0.935445 | 379 | 2.296875 | 2 |
When we think of the war on terrorism, we tend to think about drone strikes, SEAL raids, Marine counterinsurgency campaigns, Guantanamo Bay, and, more recently, data mining and surveillance by the NSA.
But Daniel Benjamin says there’s a whole other set of tools used to combat terrorism that get far less attention, even though they have proven effective. Benjamin, who was Hillary Clinton’s point person on counterterrorism at the State Department for four years, says the training of police and judges, among other things, has paid real dividends in places like Indonesia, which was a hub for terror activity in the years following Sept. 11.
Benjamin sat down recently with Slate’s Jacob Weisberg to talk about the impact of the decidedly unglamorous art of “capacity building.”
You can watch more of our interview with Benjamin. In the first part, he explains how President Obama has changed up the war on terror from the Bush years. And in Part 2, Benjamin discusses the difficulty of combating what he calls “lone-wolf” terrorism. | <urn:uuid:b660227e-ce1a-4321-b5eb-5e05e14b3832> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.slate.com/articles/video/conversations_with_slate/2013/06/capacity_building_daniel_benjamin_on_hidden_tactics_against_terrorism_video.single.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00243-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953261 | 225 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Monet Exhibition Brings Normandy To Raleigh
Posted October 12, 2006
RALEIGH, N.C. — Fifty paintings by Claude Monet are hanging in the North Carolina Museum of Art, as the museum prepares to open a three-month exhibition of the famed French impressionist's work.
The "Monet in Normandy" exhbition opens Sunday and runs through Jan. 14. The museum will provide a free sneak preview Friday.
Walkthrough Of Exhibition: 1 | 2
"He's one of the great composers in modern art," curator David Steel said. "For a museum of our size to pull this off is nothing short of a miracle."
The exhibition borrowed works from public and private collections across the world. Many of the paintings rarely travel, Steel said.
Monet revolutionized the art world by painting outdoor subjects, which few artists did around 1870. He painted the same scenes at varying times, capturing fleeting moments of light and color.
"The more time you spend with (Monet's art), the more you start to see the more there is to appreciate," Steel said. "It's an announcement that there's a whole new style of painting to come." | <urn:uuid:d719a991-f805-40fc-abc7-affb70eced69> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1055665/ | 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 | 0.955762 | 244 | 1.578125 | 2 |
In a time of growth and territorial expansion, early 19th Century America saw many changes occur in day-to-day life. Advancements in technology brought a new wave of industrialization, and the population grew exponentially. Due to an economic boom, the American people were living more comfortably and in better conditions. Whereas before only the wealthy could afford to attend art exhibits, music and theatrical performances, with more leisure-time on their hands and money in their pockets, the middle class, also desired access to affordable entertainment.
Part of this demand was met by theater. Previously theater was performed in a few exclusive locations around the country. As the transportation system expanded, performers were able to travel cross-country. Likewise, technological advances such as the telegraph allowed for entertainers to promote their acts and reach wider audiences. Advancements in electricity replaced candlelight with stage lights, and the introduction of ventilation and comfortable seating improved theater interiors, giving the overall experience a grander feel. Though the interiors were more polished, the theatrical experience was quite different from today with audiences expressing their opinions of the performance during shows by throwing objects and heckling. As a result, crowds often became unruly.
With the increased use of electricity came the development of another form of entertainment: the amusement park. What started as public picnic grounds for working men to enjoy leisure time with their families eventually grew to become more elaborate affairs. First came entertainment and affordable food, and then attractions and spectacles were incorporated on the grounds. One of the oldest running amusement parks in the country is Lake Compounce. When it opened in 1846, a scientist performed an experiment that drew crowds. Early features of the park included lakeside band concerts, rides, as well as swimming and boating on the lake.
Though the circus had been established in the United States in the 1700s, excitement spread when Circus of Pepin & Breschard toured the East Coast in the early 1800s. Astonishing stunts were performed, and as time went on the stunts became more elaborate. Exotic animals were showcased and trained to perform tricks that dazzled audiences of all ages.
Theater, amusement parks, and the circus were not all 19th Century entertainment had to offer. There were social clubs, museums, concerts and even “toy theatre”, which we know today as puppetry. All served as important American past-times of daily life in the 19th century and, in many instances, are still part of our culture and keep us amused and entertained today. | <urn:uuid:456379d7-e3f8-4d0f-bebf-66ae1a2e3f69> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://selmamansionrebirth.com/selma-in-history/19th-century-history-lesson/19th-century-life/entertainment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571190.0/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810131127-20220810161127-00070.warc.gz | en | 0.984358 | 513 | 3.5625 | 4 |
Most rabbits live either outdoors or in rabbitries that are not heated or air-conditioned.
Therefore, it is important to understand the effects of weather on a rabbit’s needs and comfort and how to best manage them to mitigate these effects.
Rabbits and cold weather
Let’s start with winter. Thanks to their fur and other methods of adaptation, rabbits have a thermoneutral zone (that temperature range at which they can comfortably maintain core temperature without an increase in energy expenditure) that goes to considerably lower temperatures than ours. When we are cold and reaching for a warm coat, they are perfectly comfortable. Rabbits and cold weather are an excellent match. However, rugged winter weather will increase energy expenditure and have an impact on growth, weight maintenance and productivity if feeding rates are not adjusted accordingly.
It is important to understand that outdoor rabbits will eat more — sometimes a LOT more — during winter months in order to stay warm. Do not assume that the rabbit who does fine on five ounces of feed in the summer will continue to need only five ounces in the winter. Feel your rabbits often to make sure they are not losing weight, and observe them for evidence of being cold. Make sure that while your rabbit has adequate ventilation, it is not exposed to drafts. Rabbits should have a “house” they can go into, and if you have wire flooring in the cage, it is advisable to set a small plank or other solid item for the rabbit to sit on to avoid the cold wind coming up under its belly. With these environmental adjustments and plenty of food, your rabbit will sail through the winter with flying colors.
Rabbits and hot weather
What about summer months? Heat and humidity can be very hard on rabbits. Rabbits are unable to sweat; they can only dissipate heat by panting, but they aren’t very efficient at it, so they can easily become overheated. Rabbits will often reduce feed intake during the hot summer months to reduce the heat produced by the metabolism of food. This can negatively impact growth, weight maintenance and lactation.
You can help your rabbit survive the summer by being sure it is always in the shade and has plenty of air movement around it. You may even use a small fan to keep air moving on a single rabbit, or large fans at either end of a rabbitry. Provide plenty of cool, fresh water, and refresh it often. In extreme heat, rabbits enjoy a sealed plastic bag full of ice placed in their pen. They will lie against it or even on it to help keep their body temperature down. Switching gradually to a more nutrient-dense feed at the beginning of summer can help to maintain production (weight gain or lactation) when rabbits reduce intake due to heat.
A little extra vigilance on your part with the changing seasons will keep your rabbit comfortable and healthy, no matter the time of year. | <urn:uuid:a48349a7-6d7a-407a-b3a0-5f6f6893576e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.purinamills.com/rabbit-food/education/detail/weather-effects-on-rabbits | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572908.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817122626-20220817152626-00077.warc.gz | en | 0.963475 | 594 | 3.234375 | 3 |
Who commits suicide, in the West?
It’s such a serious thing. It makes for such a dark entry into the hereafter.
As we all know, despair would be the leading cause, especially at this time of year, and there are many causes of despair! Perhaps each day, we can pray that everyone we pass by, that day, be spared of depression, oppression, and despair. It is always — always — a tragic mistake.
So often, and so doubly tragic, it involves our young.
Overwhelmingly, the nations with the highest rates of suicide are Third World ones in Asia and Africa, with a few exceptions — such as Russia, Lithuania, and Japan (making a “top twenty-five“). You see the map at the top, from Business Insider (which, however, is missing the African data).
But North America is in a high-enough category, and there are 44,000 self-killings in the U.S. each year and 3,500 in Canada. That’s many folks in the “outer darkness.” Just several weeks ago, a state legislator in Kentucky. Pray especially for nations such as Guyana, Sri Lanka, and both North and South Korea.
In the West, it is often tagged to age. “In 2015, the highest suicide rate (19.6) was among adults between 45 and 64 years of age,” notes the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. “The second highest rate (19.4) occurred in those 85 years or older (self-euthanasia?). Younger groups have had consistently lower suicide rates than middle-aged and older adults. In 2015, adolescents and young adults aged 15 to 24 had a suicide rate of 12.5.”
Ethnically, in 2015, the highest U.S. suicide rate was among whites and the second highest among American Indians and Alaska Natives. Much lower and roughly similar rates were found among Asians and Pacific Islanders, and Blacks.
Why may seem like a mystery. From 1999 through 2015, 1,309 children ages five to twelve took their own lives in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported earlier this year. That means a child under the age of thirteen every five days.
Most of it is tagged to problems with relationships — friends or relatives. And in this age group, blacks account for nearly forty percent (the majority young males). The suicide rate for boys aged fifteen to nineteen jumped thirty percent from 2007 to 2015. There is bullying.
Tragedy is not the word for it. It is the dark spirit, the spirit of death, that deceives people into snuffing out God’s greatest gift.
Maybe we can all remember to visit nursing homes — and to pray for those who are not old but in despair over loneliness, relationships, illness, spiritual duress, or finances.
And: “Lord, spare every child in this community, in this city, in this state, in this nation, in this world from thoughts of suicide. Rescue all, Lord — with Your illumination — from despair. Be with all who are lonely, and all who don’t realize that at the end of every life — however dismal — is Your Light.”
Wrap that prayer up and send it into the world as your gift this Christmas.
[Return to www.spiritdaily.com] | <urn:uuid:a92a4fd3-6f68-43b7-94a4-678eeacb8d2b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://spiritdailyblog.com/commentary/who-commits-suicide | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570765.6/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808031623-20220808061623-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.960803 | 714 | 2.234375 | 2 |
I never thought I would be so happy to have a needle jabbed into my arm, but the Covid-19 pandemic has changed many things. Recently, I was lucky to be able to receive both doses of the Pfizer vaccine. After almost a year of worrying about getting sick, receiving the vaccine was a relief. Despite the transient side effects, my experience with receiving the vaccine was a positive one and I would encourage anybody to get vaccinated when eligible if they are comfortable with it.
Getting scheduled to receive the vaccine was only possible because my brother was in the right place at the right time. He had a dentist appointment and our dentist told him that a local hospital had a surplus of vaccine available and anybody could sign up to get a shot. He called me from the parking lot and walked me through the process of making an appointment. Ten minutes later I was ready to go.
My experience with the first shot was like any other shot I have ever gotten. The shot itself was almost painless. Taking the bandage off that night was the most painful part of the whole process. I had no arm soreness and no other reactions.
I received the second shot about two and half weeks later. Like the first one, the shot was barely noticeable, and I never had any arm soreness. I did, however, have a reaction to the second shot. About four hours after receiving the shot, I developed a fever of 100.4°. The fever was easily managed with ibuprofen over the course of the next 24 hours. The worst side effects I had were insomnia and some bad muscle spasms. The night after getting the second shot I barely slept and was exhausted the next day. I slept well the following night, but I could not sleep again the next night. I am not sure whether the insomnia on the third night was related to the vaccine, but it was unusual, nonetheless. The muscle spasms I had were intense. I had strong spasms in my trunk and in my legs almost every time I tried to move. I typically do not have problems with spasms, maybe one or two bad ones per day, so these were very noticeable. My best guess is that the spasms were my body’s way of reacting to achiness that I cannot feel. Fortunately, the spasms subsided after one day.
I felt very lucky to be able to get vaccinated so early. In Michigan, adults 18 to 65 with underlying medical conditions are slated to be part of the third wave of people to be vaccinated. My doctor estimated that I would probably have to wait until May or June to get vaccinated, so I was lucky to be able to get it in February. That being said, people with disabilities should be prioritized in scheduling for the vaccine. Not only do our medical issues present the increased likelihood for a poor outcome and complications from Covid, but many of us rely on others for help on a daily basis. Even if we trust our aides to be safe in their daily activities, it is still possible for them to become infected and spread it to us. Having an extra layer of protection from the vaccine would undoubtedly be a huge relief for many people with disabilities.
As with any vaccine, consult your doctor or other healthcare professional for advice about receiving it. My doctors strongly recommended getting the vaccine due to my increased risk for pulmonary complications from Covid. I was confident that the benefits from the vaccine outweighed the slight possibility for any complications. It has been a long year for everybody, and I hope that as vaccinations continue to roll out, we will be able to have some sense of normalcy before too long.
Written by Mike Franz
Mike is a C6 quad from Michigan who has been injured 16+ years. | <urn:uuid:f584c456-a89a-4197-9b03-b7d92a3340e2> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://backbonesonline.com/got-my-vaccine/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573667.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819100644-20220819130644-00073.warc.gz | en | 0.989685 | 764 | 1.625 | 2 |
IMAGINE tomorrow’s intelligent infrastructures, today
LEARN about smarter transport, energy and water technologies
DEVELOP a sustainable smart city planning strategy
BUILD citizen engagement to create long-term change
Енергетика, вода, транспорт, отпадъци: интелигентните инфраструктури в информационния век.
Многобройните предизвикателства при планирането на един град:
недостиг на вода,
твърде много отпадъци,
високо потребление на електричество.
При бързо нарастващата урбанизация
създаването на интелигентни градове е от изключително значение.
В двудневната богата програма
Форума Smart Cities 2012
в Амстердам, Холандия - 01.02.2012-02.02.2012
представители на държавни институции,
комунални услуги, транспортни оператори,
строители, инвеститори и изпълнители ще дискутира:
отпечатъка на човека върху околната среда.
Ще се демонстрират най-новите технологии и устойчивите практики,
интегрирани в градското планиране, за да стане градът по-добро място за живеене.
Повече на: www.smartcitiesglobal.com
POWER, WATER, TRANSPORT, WASTE:
INTELLIGENT INFRASTRUCTURES FOR THE INFORMATION AGE
Today’s city planners face a host of challenges: inefficient transport services, outdated water and waste networks, rising pollution levels and an increased demand for energy. In an increasingly urbanised world, creating intelligent cities is essential.
With two days of jam-packed content, SMART CITIES 2012 will discuss the most pressing issues currently facing our cities – improving public safety, easing congestion, maximising energy efficiency and reducing environmental impact.
Bringing together city officials, utilities, transport operators, developers, investors, contractors and solution providers, SMART CITIES 2012 will show you how to utilise cutting-edge technologies, integrated urban planning approaches and sustainable methodologies to transform urban spaces into better places to live.
It is our mission to find the most passionate, engaging and relevant leaders in the urban planning field: those who have compelling stories to tell and love sharing what they’ve learned with others. We are still in the process of recruiting top speakers for the upcoming event – those below represent a selection of the world-class speakers working with us on our events worldwide – and will add to our already impressive list of presenters in the upcoming weeks. Please keep checking back!
SMART CITIES 2012 brings together
key decision-makers from cities,
municipalities and local governments,
including mayors, administrators and urban planners,
as well as senior-level executives from utilities,
energy suppliers, service providers and
transport operators with responsibility for
strategic development, sustainability, infrastructure and network management, finance and regulation.
It also encourages leading cross-industry players –
from architects and designers to financial institutions and investors –
to attend and incorporate their perspectives on
how best to transform today’s cities
into the intelligent cities of tomorrow.
Here are some of the main speakers:
Chief Planning Officer, Raleigh NC, President, American Planning Association
Professor of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology
Mayor, City of North Little Rock
Deputy Director, Department of Transport, State of California
Former Mayor, City of Curitiba, Brazil
Director of Advanced Technology Vehicle Concepts and EN-V Program, General Motors
Smart Cities Need Smart Citizens:
5 Ways to Make Building Occupants Care about Environmental Goals | <urn:uuid:3dc65971-0d1f-49d1-bc4e-24d2a4fb2b94> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://sofiazanas.blogspot.com/2012/02/smart-cities-2012-europe.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00470-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.65661 | 1,337 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Dentures may be the least expensive way of replacing a full set of teeth, but is it the BEST option? The most COMFORTABLE option? Sure, they LOOK great, but can you CHEW well with them? The answer to these questions is, “No”.
There are several reasons you should consider getting dental implants to help stabilize your dentures, whether it’s (A) just two implants with a set of teeth that snaps on and is removeable (for cleaning), or (B) more implants and teeth that are “fixed” (screwed in), dental implants are a game changer in the world of denture wearing. Here are just a few of those reasons:
Dentures Don’t Feel Like Real Teeth
They may LOOK like real teeth to other people, but they sure don’t FEEL natural for the person wearing them! Because of their size and the fact that they are made of acrylic, they just don’t FEEL natural. You’re constantly aware of them and always being careful not to move your jaw or mouth in ways that’ll possibly dislodge them. They take some getting used to, and limit the foods you can eat.
You Have To Take Them Out To Clean Them
Regular removal of dentures for daily cleaning is embarrassing. Not to mention that food easily gets wedged underneath. You need to take them out after every meal, even if just to rinse them to keep them from being uncomfortable from food debris getting lodged under them.
With dental implants, you care for them the same way you care for natural teeth. You brush and floss them, and perhaps even use a Water-Pik. You almost forget they’re false teeth. Because they are anchored in, they feel and function just like natural teeth.
Dentures Don’t Maintain Your Jawbone
When a tooth is lost, your jawbone slowly shrinks away, getting thinner and shorter over time, until it’s just a pencil sized little ridge of bone. This makes denture wear extremely difficult. Dental implants, on the other hand, stimulate the bone and keep it alive, preventing jawbone deterioration.
The Fit Keeps Getting Looser As A Result of The Bone Loss
Dentures become loose for different reasons; the most common of which is bone resorption, which is the process where your gums begin to shrink because they are no longer being used to hold your teeth in place. Everyday wear and tear is another reason your dentures can become loose. Loose dentures are NOT fun to wear!
They Sometimes Fall Out/Fall Down/Slip
One of the biggest fears denture wearers have, is the fear of their teeth slipping, or falling while they’re talking, eating, laughing, etc. Adhesives do help some, but only some. You have to be so careful all the time, and it takes a constant effort to NOT have that happen.
Another constant reminder that they’re false teeth. With dental implants securing your dentures, you don’t have to think about it. They’re IN!
You Have To Take Them Out At Night
Many denture-wearers insist on sleeping with them, (TYPICALLY so their partners don’t see them without teeth), but leaving your dentures in overnight can lead to a build-up of bacteria, resulting in bad breath, or worse. Your dentures may feel comfortable, but there is no better time for resting your mouth than when you’re asleep. Also, taking your dentures out each night allows your soft tissues to breathe and gives them a “bacteria-break,” which will keep them significantly healthier.
You Can’t Eat Certain Foods
Dentures reduce your chewing efficiency by at least 50%.
Some foods are difficult to eat with dentures, and others are impossible. This is a big source of frustration for denture wearers. Foods like steak, corn on the cob, apples, nuts, popcorn, sticky candy, peanut butter, foods with small pieces… (the list goes on), are a problem!
And for coffee lovers, although you are ABLE to drink coffee, because dentures are made of acrylic and therefor stain very easily, they will take a diligent effort to keep sparkly-white if you indulge in coffee on a regular basis.
Many of the events in our lives include food. Holidays, parties, family gatherings… and being limited on what you CAN and CANNOT eat, can take away from some of the joys of sharing our favorite foods.
You Can’t Taste As Well
As you’ve noticed it can affect the way you taste the food. In addition to the simple fact that our taste-buds grow weaker over time, dentures can also affect your taste. Because your upper denture covers your upper hard palate (which contains taste buds), some loss in flavor can result.
They Can Cause Sore Spots/Tender Gums
Oftentimes, denture-wearers experience sore spots, under the dentures. Areas that become inflamed and tender. Sometimes, this is from improper cleaning, or from getting a piece of food stuck underneath and putting pressure on one spot, resulting in irritation. When this happens, it’s important to remove them for a little while and let the gums recover from the trauma and then put them back in once they feel normal again. This is a problem for most people. They don’t want to go without their teeth for a few hours, or several at a time for that matter. They’re busy living their lives! So, they leave them in… and it gets worse.
If this happens, taking them out at night helps a lot of patients with this.
Another issue denture-wearers suffer from is facial collapse. When your teeth are removed, your body redistributes the minerals in your jawbone to use elsewhere. It’s an efficient use of your body’s resources, but eventually, your jawbone shrinks. This leads to you having a much more aged appearance. Over time, the more it shrinks, your dentures will no longer have anything to help hold them in place, essentially making you a denture cripple. Dental implants prevent all of that.
People With Gag Reflexes Cannot Wear Them
A gag reflex is a normal, healthy response. But in some people, the gag reflex may be oversensitive. In these cases, it may cause problems when a person is brushing their teeth, or visiting the dentist. About 10-15% of people suffer from this.
When gagging is a problem encountered during dental treatment, it can make dental procedures distressing for the patient and often difficult or even impossible to perform for the dentist. Patients who have a tendency to gag easily, often find wearing dentures difficult, and some find them impossible.
Although gagging is most common in upper dentures, it can also occur in patients with lower dentures. This is often a motivating factor for people facing this roadblock to conventional denture wear. Dental implants solve this problem by (A) there not being a palate on the upper arch, and by (B) the teeth not needing to be taken in and out, activating that reaction.
You Have To Replace Them From Time To Time
As years go by, with conventional dentures, your jawbone slowly deteriorates and shrinks away, causing the dentures become loose. And depending on hard you are on them, they may require unexpected emergency repairs from chipping or breaking. In time, they can become thin and more likely to break. Some patients have to get replacement dentures 5-6 years after they first start wearing them, and some can last up to 10-15 years, but eventually you’ll need new ones, so the whole point of them being the least expensive solution to replace all of your teeth, is really only valid at the onset. Not over a lifetime of wear.
You Don’t Have To Settle For This
If you have dentures and are tired of these things, come talk to us about dental implants. We’ll find a solution to make you more comfortable, and you can enjoy the stability that dental implants bring to your oral health. | <urn:uuid:02f53636-3510-4a6e-b4d5-14f90b62c7ad> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.dentalimplantcenter.com/blog/getting-rid-of-your-dentures/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573760.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819191655-20220819221655-00668.warc.gz | en | 0.94917 | 1,745 | 2.078125 | 2 |
As a responsible homeowner/tenant/bill payer, reducing your electricity bill should be a major priority. After all, you'll still receive the same service regardless of the supplier. There are a variety of things you can do to lower those costs. The most effective upgrade, however, is to switch energy provider.
With so many options available in New York, most residents can lower their bill by choosing the best supplier for their requirements. Most people will avoid doing it because they think it's more hassle than it's worth. In truth, it's a far easier process than you probably imagine, and it could save you a serious sum of money.
So how should you go about switching energy provider? Here's all you need to know.
Know Your Current Situation
It's impossible to make an informed decision unless you understand your current situation. As such, your first step should be to analyze your current bill.
Most New York electricity providers offer online accounts. Even if yours doesn't, a paper copy of full details will suffice. Note your current tariff, along with the costs involved. This will immediately establish the best platform for taking things forward.
As already mentioned, there are a variety of options available. The only way you'll ever find the right one is to look at them all. This may feel like a daunting task, but a quick browse of a suitable electricity comparison site should put you on the right pathway.
The overall cost of service isn't as simple as you might think. Moreover, you need to think about tactical decisions such as the possibility of changing service again later down the line. Therefore, it's imperative that you take the type of tariff, length of contract, and termination fees.
If you don't use much energy, then you need to check the minimum costs too; failure to do this could come back to haunt you.
Before committing to any decision, it's vital that you complete the checks needed to ensure that you will be getting the savings you presume. Otherwise, your time and effort could go to waste while your bill could potentially increase.
To calculate your expected savings, you must first find the difference between the costs of your current supply and new supplier. Multiply this by your usage in kWhs to reach the predicted total savings. Taking your last month's usage will give you a rough estimate. But for a true reflection, you should look at a full year. After all, usage between the seasons can fluctuate ??" especially when you live in New York!
It's equally important to take additional costs into account. Whether it's the termination of your current deal or the admin fees associate to the new one doesn't matter. Factor those extra costs into the equation, and your decision will be clear.
Finally, remember that you might be in a position to haggle. Suppliers want your business, so don't be afraid to negotiate over things such as online billing fees. Every dollar saved will increase your annual savings.
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How Big is Renewable Energy in New York? | <urn:uuid:d90bf9c0-0694-4642-97c4-fcdf6373c614> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.nyenergyratings.com/resources/how-to-switch-new-york-electricity-providers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572870.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817062258-20220817092258-00675.warc.gz | en | 0.941412 | 724 | 1.625 | 2 |
Sacramento Area Hearing Aid Centers (888) 490-0056
Getting Started – Your First 3 Steps
“My hearing really isn’t that bad.”
“I hear fine for my age . . .
at least that’s what my doctor told me.”
Sound familiar? If so, read on…
Most hearing losses come on very gradually. At first, you develop coping strategies that are unconscious. You ‘watch’ people in order to hear. The brain begins to piece missing auditory information together, trying to make sense of conversation. This takes an incredible amount of effort. In fact, it can be exhausting. The person whose ‘hearing is not that bad’ is probably using all his available brainpower on listening. Believe it or not, this seemingly ‘minor’ loss is the most insidious of all hearing losses. As your hearing continues to deteriorate, so does your lifestyle, your relationships and your psychological well-being.
Untreated hearing loss often has you withdraw from social functions with family and friends. Emotionally, people feel embarrassed, annoyed and even stressed when they have to strain to hear and understand what others are saying. Ongoing stress from untreated hearing loss can also take a toll on one’s physical health. People with untreated hearing loss are two times as likely to suffer from memory loss issues and four times as likely to have heart problems.
If this happening to you or a loved one, it may be time to take your first three steps.
Step One – BECOME AWARE
If you have difficulty following a conversation in a noisy restaurant or feel that people are mumbling, you may be one of the 36 million Americans with hearing loss. Denying, or justifying and minimizing an untreated hearing loss can cause a cascade of complications. It’s best to learn the truth and it only takes three minutes.
The Hearing Quiz on our website will allow you to quickly check your hearing. Then, you can score your answers and find out if you should be concerned about your hearing.
Step Two – GET INFORMED
From awareness, we move into gathering information. Many people start with a simple web search or ask friends and family who they trust with their hearing. To help you on this journey, we’ve created some valuable resources to make this step easier and more comfortable for you:
- Educational Seminar: We believe that information gathering is necessary for both you and your family if you’re going to make good decisions about your hearing healthcare. We offer Free EDUCATIONAL Seminars. Click here for details on upcoming events. These seminars are not sales pitches. They are just one way we serve our community and community service is a big part of what makes Avalon different. Our seminars (often served with breakfast!) are designed to take the confusion out of hearing aids and help you sift through information overload.
- Your Guide to Hearing Happiness: At Avalon Hearing, we’ve literally written the book on Living Happily Ever After with Hearing Loss. It is a free 15-page guide to help you (or a loved one) deal successfully with hearing loss. You’ll find out what to look for when searching for the right kind of hearing care for you. Because everybody is different. You’ll also learn how to avoid the mistakes people make when purchasing hearing aids. Because investing in hearing aids is a big decision, and at Avalon, we respect that decision. Download your free guide by clicking here.
If you’ve been waiting, not sure on what to do next, take advantage of these offers. Get the information you need to take the next step towards better hearing and better living.
Step Three – TAKE ACTION (get your hearing checked)
We know how hard taking that third step can be so we made this step as easy and comfortable as possible. We provide a 10-Step EDUCATIONAL Hearing Test and Consultation, absolutely free with no obligation!
Avalon Hearing offers the most thorough hearing test and consultation you may ever have! That’s because we administer all of the standard hearing tests plus SIX additional tests that most clinics don’t take the time to do. This extra information determines if, and how much hearing aids will help you. Then, and only then, you decide whether you are ready to get hearing instruments. This evaluation is so complete, so effortless, and so life-changing that it has become a cornerstone in what earned us #1 in Customer Service for the entire nation.
Call now to schedule your
Free EDUCATIONAL Hearing Test & Consultation
at any one of our convenient locations! | <urn:uuid:4c4faf40-b462-46f3-9394-0122c244f5e6> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.avalonhearing.com/getting-started-first-steps/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988717954.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183837-00509-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939176 | 965 | 2.421875 | 2 |
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Answers.com defined “Elevator Pitch” as a slang term used to describe a brief speech that outlines an idea for a product, service or project. The name comes from the notion that the speech should be delivered in the short time period of an elevator ride, usually 20-60 seconds.
Baguio is a senior college student currently enrolled in Computer Science at at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman. He is a product in one of the most prestigious secondary Schools in the Visayas, his hometown’s Cebu City National Science High School.
Among 14 finalist from 10 countries all over the world, Baguio was awarded as “Best Elevator Pitch” for his research presentation in London.
It was given to him for his poised delivery of his presentation on the research paper entry that tackled on-the-fly encryption application for devices running on Android OS NewsBytes reports.
An on-the-fly encryption is a method that allows for easy access of files within a drive whenever and wherever one is.
It was Baguio who represented the research paper in the competition, made with his classmate and thesis partner John Carlo Florencio.
It was the second time representatives from the Philippines were able to enter the grand finals.
Indonesian student Firman Azhari of Bandung Institute of Technology was declared overall winner of this year’s Kaspersky’s tilt for his study entitled “Detection of Security Vulnerability in Indonesian Near Field Communication (NFC) Applications.”
“I thank all our students for their outstanding performances in this year’s conference,” said Jimmy Fong, Channel Sales Director at Kaspersky Lab South East Asia.
“For 2013, we’ve had very strong contenders for the top prize. At the regional cup, we had 9 out of 15 selected papers from South East Asia, a major feat! And for the finals, our region’s best two representatives got each for themselves major victories,” he said.
“Without a doubt, the quality of papers that has been coming from our region says so much about the students’ awareness on cybersecurity issues and the hard work they have put into it. I’m positive that these successes will inspire others that they, too, can come up with more innovative ideas that will make this world safe and protected from cyber criminals,” he added. | <urn:uuid:e81b07d5-9214-4653-8df6-75db8760eead> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.pinoyhacknews.com/pinoy-student-rewarded-best-elevator-pitch | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571538.36/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812014923-20220812044923-00475.warc.gz | en | 0.964096 | 509 | 1.625 | 2 |
Atria of the Heart
The atria of the heart, which are known singularly as an atrium, are a pair of blood collecting chambers that comprise two of the four chambers of the heart. The main function of the atria is to facilitate circulation by rhythmically contracting and relaxing their walls, pushing the blood that is returned to them via the major venous vessels during ventricular systole into the ventricles.
The atria are divided into the left atrium and the right atrium, which correspond to the left and right sides of the heart. They are situated just above the ventricles of the heart and are separated by the cuspid valves. The atria are built and held up by rigid endocardial muscle fibers that completely encompass the blood as it flows through them.
The left atrium is responsible for collecting the outflow of oxygenated blood that runs back to the heart from the pulmonary veins. It passes this volume of blood on to the left ventricle, as the atrium contracts and the mitral valve opens. This valve is also known as the bicuspid valve because it is formed by two septal cusps. Occasionally, it is also mentioned in literature as the left atrioventricular valve. The blood supply to the left atrium is governed by the left circumflex coronary artery and it is drained by the oblique vein of the left atrium which arises during embryonic development from the left side of the fetal superior vena cava. The main anatomical structure of note is the foramen ovale, which this is an embryological foramen within the atrial walls that allows blood to shunt between the two atria. Normally, around the time of birth this hole in the cardiac walls closes, otherwise it is known as a congenital heart defect named patent ductus arteriosus. It is not however generally problematic in child or adulthood.
The right atrium receives deoxygenated venous flow from the superior vena cava and inferior vena cava, the coronary sinus as well as the anterior and the smallest cardiac veins. It passes the blood through the tricuspid valve, which has three septae and is also known as the right atrioventricular valve. The main anatomical features of the right atrium include the sinus venarum, which surrounds the openings of the superior and inferior vena cavae as well as the coronary sinus, which in turn are also major structures. The atrial walls are made up of pectinate muscles which form a pouch known as the right auricle. The crista terminalis separates the cardiac and smooth muscle layers of the atrial walls, while the interatrial septum divides the atria.
Atrial septal defects are classed as congenital heart disease and as with most of the disorders in this category, the etiology has yet to be determined. Atrial defects can include a patent foramen ovale, which usually has little clinical significance other than the fact that it stays open after birth. The two major septal defects, known as septum primum and septum secundum are described as follows: a septum primum, which affects the lower part of the atrial septum can be large enough to also involve the atrioventricular valves whereas a defect which is exclusive to the fossa ovalis is known as a septum secundum. A lesser septal defect known as the sinus venosus affects the septal atrial opening of the vena cava. Lastly, when atrial septal defects occur along with mitral stenosis, it is classified as Lutembacher syndrome. Many of these defects only manifest clinical symptoms in adulthood, such as pulmonary hypertension, reversal of blood flow which causes cyanosis and paradoxic embolism. | <urn:uuid:19c857ae-4e92-45e1-83b5-e096682d6e3d> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.kenhub.com/en/library/anatomy/the-atria-of-the-heart | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721174.97/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00283-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955171 | 799 | 3.828125 | 4 |
Despite the fact that, in a few years, a fifth of the US population will be older than 65 years and people will be living a third of their lives after retirement, we have developed few avenues that would permit older adults to play meaningful roles as they age and few institutions to harness the experience that older adults could contribute to society. In fact, older adults constitute this country's only increasing natural resource - and the least used one. In this article we consider the rationale for developing institutions that harness the abilities and time of older adults, rather than focusing solely on their needs. Such an approach would decrease the structural lag between a social concept of retirement as unproductive leisure and an aging population that is larger, healthier, and with a need for more productive opportunities. Gerontologically designed opportunities for contribution on a large social scale could well provide a national approach to primary prevention to maintain health and function in older adults.
|Original language||English (US)|
|Number of pages||4|
|Journal||Western Journal of Medicine|
|State||Published - Oct 30 1997|
ASJC Scopus subject areas | <urn:uuid:77376b2b-bf5b-4c1e-9d9b-b849f19b7949> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://jhu.pure.elsevier.com/en/publications/building-communities-that-promote-successful-aging-4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572215.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815235954-20220816025954-00666.warc.gz | en | 0.946334 | 259 | 2.46875 | 2 |
3 Metro Vancouver employees fired in connection with deadly Cleveland Dam water surge
Father and son were killed in early October after torrent of water was released due to human error
Three Metro Vancouver employees have been fired in connection with a deadly water surge that occurred when a spillway gate at the Cleveland Dam in North Vancouver opened unexpectedly during maintenance in early October.
A torrent of water was suddenly released into the Capilano River. Two men, a father and son who were downstream, were killed as a result.
A preliminary report released a week after the Oct. 1 surge later found human error related to the programming of the control system was the "clearest contributing factor" in the tragedy.
"Metro Vancouver continues to co-operate fully with external agencies in their investigations and will not be providing further comment at this time," said the regional district in a statement.
When the water surged down the river, rising by three metres in a matter of minutes, it hit a popular fishing spot where a number of anglers were fishing. Two people pulled into the water were rescued and two swam to shore. Others standing near the water managed to scramble to higher ground before they were hit by the surge.
The preliminary report was released amid calls for Metro Vancouver to make the dam safer.
There is currently no siren or alarm system to warn people if the dam malfunctions. Such a warning system was never installed because of concerns the noise would annoy residents in the Glenmore and Grouse Woods neighbourhoods less than 400 metres away, according to engineering reports from the early 2000s.
The dam, built in 1954, has a history of malfunctioning. Inspection reports from WorkSafeBC detail two errors that left people in danger in 2002. | <urn:uuid:148cc7d0-49ef-408a-97ae-2a4ebf781c5c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/cleveland-dam-employees-fired-1.5784364 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571150.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810070501-20220810100501-00669.warc.gz | en | 0.984725 | 350 | 1.75 | 2 |
Each year, Clarke students volunteer hundreds of service hours on campus and with our community to advance the common good. To recognize this and empower students with the financial means to increase their impact, Clarke offers the Activism and Values Informed Education Compass Award.
Established by Clarke University alumna Jenifer Westphal ’84, the award is given to five students to fund a project that addresses the systemic challenges of racism and oppression in our community while helping those students develop critical skills such as communication, professional preparedness, thinking, global awareness and social responsibility, and spirituality.
The recipients of the 2021-2022 AVIE Award were:
Parker Jeppson ’22
Keith Johnson ’22
Marlynn Larron ’23
David Palma ’23
Rebecca Schroeder ’22
For the 2021-2022 school year, the AVIE Scholars partnered with the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Dubuque on the “Diplomas 2 Degrees” project, which helped middle school students envision a path to high school graduation, college, and beyond. The program included multiple sessions, all designed and guided by the AVIE Scholars.
First, middle school students were invited to campus on April 11 and 12 for special tours of Clarke, including small group sessions where they could ask questions and talk with the AVIE scholars and Clarke student athletes about life in college.
Next, the AVIE Scholars hosted an event at the Boys and Girls Club on April 26 as part of Clarke’s “One Clarke, One Community Week.” Children and their families decorated flowerpots and listened to stories read by the Clarke students during the event. By focusing their event on sustainability, the AVIE Scholars hoped to help local families draw a deeper connection to Clarke, Dubuque, and the world around them.
For Keith Johnson, a Biology and Mathematics major who grew up in Dubuque and attended the Boys and Girls Club as a child, volunteering with the children and their families was a meaningful way to give back to his hometown and community.
“What an awesome opportunity to be able to work with such a great group of kids and to cap off my time with Clarke,” Keith said. “Something I like about the Dubuque community is that you make bonds with people that last a lifetime. It is a smaller city, so everyone knows everyone. We are one community, one Clarke, one family, and I’m so grateful for my experience here.” | <urn:uuid:db710a71-981a-4436-b4ad-cd23a4633def> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.clarke.edu/news/avie-scholars-support-boys-and-girls-club-of-greater-dubuque/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571584.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812045352-20220812075352-00676.warc.gz | en | 0.955939 | 517 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Sunday, April 21, 2019
Sports Management Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4500 words
Sports Management - Essay ExampleAs the paper declares pauperization often refers to the complex forces or other mechanisms that stimulate one to start and maintain a freewill activity, aiming towards the achievement of personal goals. Scholars in Organizational Behavior research explain motivational theories from two polar perspectives. One is from the content theories of motivation while the other is the process of motivation. Content theories are interested in whatever motivates individuals in the workplace.This discussion stresses that the possibility of the hierarchy of needs, developed by Maslow in 1943 suggests that people encounter specific requirements that are important to human life. The most elementary needs are physiological followed by safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. Maslows theory is accepted and used broadly and applies effectively to the sports sector. Need is considered to be a critical factor that determines the benefits of stimulus for an individual. Based on this theory, Knowles also concludes that volunteerism is a means for serving society. Thus, the theory tends to emphasize on the egoistic aspect out of the various types of volunteer motivations. Through this theory, volunteers recognize that they confuse capabilities, freedom, and confidence to address chronical social problems in society. For instance, the application of this theory has led to an increase in the verse of volunteers at the Olympic Games from almost zero to 40,917 used during the 2000 Olympic Games held in Sydney. | <urn:uuid:2acfc59f-8628-4765-905b-e95f2f6655aa> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://writingessaysservices.blogspot.com/2019/04/sports-management-essay-example-topics.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573118.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817213446-20220818003446-00666.warc.gz | en | 0.934558 | 304 | 2.859375 | 3 |
San Diego is California's second largest city and the United States' seventh largest city, boasting a population of 1.3 million. The original inhabitants of the San Diego area, now known as the San Dieguito people, were the earliest cultural group, dating back to 7500 B.C. The name of the city originated in November of the year 1602 when Sebastian Vizcaino arrived in his flagship, the "San Diego", sent to the area by Spain. Vizcaíno surveyed the harbor and the area now known as Mission Bay and Point Loma, naming it for the Spanish Catholic saint San Diego de Alcalá.
Having an idyllic climate and 70 miles of immaculate beaches that support year round outdoor activities including surfing and swimming, the region attracts guests from around the world. In its 4,200 square miles, San Diego County is home to 18 cities and several other communities including La Jolla, Del Mar, Escondido, La Mesa, Chula Vista, and Carlsbad. San Diego offers a diverse cultural atmosphere with numerous places to visit and things to do. For instance, Balboa Park features 15 museums, gardens, art galleries, and The Old Globe Theatre. As well, it is home to the world famous San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park.
The thriving economy, one of the world's best climates, diverse communities, and a legendary lifestyle all make San Diego what Forbes Magazine has called one of the "best place(s) for business and careers". Constant sunshine, the comfort of the Pacific Ocean, being able to travel from the beach to the mountains to the desert in a short drive make an attractive environment that inspires the thousands of engineers, scientists, and researchers that make San Diego their home.
Companies such as Pfizer, Motorola, Nokia, the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center, Sanyo, Sony, Hewlett-Packard, Oracle, and SAIC are able to call San Diego home as well. Its core technology sectors have become leading centers for biotechnology, communications, and software development. Powered by the research being done at San Diego's universities and constantly encouraging new business development in the public sector, the San Diego area is a hotspot for new businesses. The region's biotechnology community ranks as the third largest in the United States and its communications industry is one of the most rapidly expanding, earning the title "wireless communications capital of the world" along the way.
San Diego is taking huge strides in an effort to make today's education relevant to the jobs of tomorrow. Following are statistics that demonstrate the city's commitment to educating its workforce:
San Diego's community colleges partner with industry to better train and prepare technicians and specialists for their jobs, and its universities are preparing engineers and researchers for careers including but not limited to telecommunications, software development, and biotechnology.
San Diego has five private colleges and universities, four public colleges and universities, and seven technical and professional schools:
Private Colleges and Universities
Public Colleges and Universities
Selecting a school and program in San Diego may or may not be an easy task for the prospective student. Students will find quite a variety of programs to choose from within the educational institutions of San Diego. Some programs offered are as follows but not limited to:
Accounting, Engineering, Behavioral Sciences, Fitness, Biochemistry, Geography, Biotechnology, Health & Exercise Sciences, Business Studies, Manufacturing Engineering, Chemistry, Nursing, Computer Information Systems, Physics, Dance, Radio & Television, Electrical, and Sociology.
With these areas of study and so many more, how can one choose? "Well, San Diego is big on biotechnology as well as telecommunications, manufacturing, and space & design," says Jennifer Henry of the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corporation.
"There's a shortage of engineers and technically trained individuals," Henry states. With that shortage comes a large demand for people of that educational background. This may be of some assistance to a student trying to make a decision in regards to their school & program of choice. According to Henry, other schools "are beginning to develop programs to train people specifically for these fields with cooperation from the employment community", allowing students the option of community college and technical schooling versus the more commonly pursued 4-year schools.
A student considering school and employment in San Diego should "choose a career based on interests and strengths" says Craig Schmidt, Assistant Director and Advisor of the University of California - San Diego Career Development Program. "Ask yourself ‘what interests me?' and ‘what am I good at?'"
Outside of interests and strengths, students may want to consider the economic demands of the San Diego area. "Technology and computers are a very hot area here in California," says Schmidt. "One-third of students… go into some sort of technology related career."
However, it's not all technology and computer related professions. Along with those industries comes an ever growing demand for business professionals. "Sales, marketing, and management consulting are big in San Diego. Between 25 and 30 percent of students go into business jobs," he comments. However, according to Schmidt there's also law and medicine, which has students continuing education beyond the traditional bachelor's degree. "We've seen quite an economic improvement since the late 1990's and a number of students, approximately 40 percent, go directly into graduate school programs upon completion of their degree."
Tuition in San Diego varies depending on the type of school a student may choose to attend. Often, it is more expensive to attend a private or vocational/technical institution than it is to attend a public post-secondary institution. Annual tuition rates at some San Diego-area schools are:
These examples represent basic tuition rates and do not factor in miscellaneous expenses such as housing, lab/activity fees, meal plans, or books. Because these expenses can greatly increase the overall cost of higher education, students should also be sure to know approximately how much they will have to add to the basic tuition.
While footing the bill for higher education can be an overwhelming thought, loans, grants, and scholarships help to make this financial burden less taxing. Most schools offer their own loan, grant, and scholarship programs to students to help off-set the costs, and nearly all post-secondary institutions offer federal and state programs, such as the Stafford and Plus loans and Pell grants. Every year, ten million students vie for these coveted assistance programs, and nearly nine million students receive them.
Scholarships are another resource not to be missed. Scholarships are generally competitive and offered to students with certain GPAs, fields of study, ethnicities, or talents.
Some scholarships specific to students of San Diego are as follows:
Addition scholarship information for students in San Diego can be found through The San Diego Foundation.
Education and experience are the principal items a prospective employer is concerned with. The best way to gain hands-on, real world experience is through an internship, which provides students skills and knowledge beyond classroom instruction. Internships do more than look impressive on resumes; they're terrific ways for students to gauge the appropriateness of their chosen field.
Having been coined the "wireless communications capital of the world" and known as a hub for engineering, software development, and biotechnology, San Diego's businesses offer a variety of internships to students, including those found with industry giants such as Sanyo, Motorola, and Nokia.
Institutions of higher education in San Diego offer both traditional job placement and on-campus recruitment through career fairs and seminars. As community colleges and technical schools partner with industry to better train and prepare specialists and technicians, 4-year schools do the same for their students.
Craig Schmidt again comments, "We help students to prepare for their job search. We work closely with the employment community to make these opportunities for students…as both internships and jobs."
Students will find that San Diego is an excellent city in which to pursue their higher education due to the city's cultural diversity, booming economy, abundance of extra-curricular activities, in addition to its great selection of educational resources. | <urn:uuid:9b956817-1ed2-40d5-9f7b-bf3c2c6d016f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://sandiegoartcollege.org/resources/an-introduction-to-colleges-universities-in-san-diego | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281069.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00274-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95869 | 1,652 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Knowing and utilizing a student's reading level is important to getting the most out of their education. If they are working or reading at a level that is not suitable, they are wasting their time. If they work at a reading level that is too high for them, they can become frustrated. Working at a level that is too low, does not offer a challenge or a chance for growth. Use our guide to find tips and activities to make the most out of a child's reading ability and help them grow and progress at a rate that meets their ever changing needs.
|What Can I Do with My Reading Specialist Degree?
Receiving a Reading Specialist degree prepares you for a variety of jobs. One option is to become a Title I teacher or literacy coach. You could also become a reading tutor or work...
Tips on Choosing a Specialty in Secondary Education
When choosing a secondary education career, you have to focus in a specialty. Here are some tips that will help you make that choice.... | <urn:uuid:e0b90ff8-60a1-4099-b3e6-6d7822d64ada> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.brighthub.com/guides/reading-level.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00172-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975725 | 203 | 3.359375 | 3 |
Amateur astronomers captured amazing photos of a bright comet as it raced across the sky this week.
The comet was officially catalogued as C/2014 Q2, but many refer to it as Comet Lovejoy, named for the amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy who discovered it in August 2014. On Wednesday night (Jan. 7) the comet reached its closest distance to Earth at about 43.6 million miles (70.2 million kilometers) away. The comet is traveling on a particularly elongated orbit and likely won't be visible again for another 8,000 years.
The comet is now faintly visible to the unaided eye in dark locations, but the bright January moon has been making it difficult for stargazers to spot it. Night sky photographer Tyler Leavitt of Las Vegas, Nevada was able to snap some photos of the comet Wednesday. [How to See Comet Lovejoy]
"I ran out tonight to try and grab a glimpse of Comet Lovejoy," Leavitt told Space.com via email."Some high clouds were moving in, but I managed to grab a couple of photos."
Leavitt was able to snap one photo with a wide-angle lens and later drew in a box around the comet to help it stand out. For a second, close-up photo he used a telephoto lens and a tracking mount.
"I was obviously still too close to the Las Vegas lights and had a hard time seeing it without binoculars," Leavitt said. "With the aid of binoculars it was readily visible as a fuzzy patch with a green tone. I couldn't see a tail, but a small ion tail was captured in the telephoto shot."
Another amateur astronomer, photographer Chris Bakley of Cape May, New Jersey, took a different approach to capture a photo of Comet Lovejoy and the Orion nebula on Wednesday night. Bakley used a sheet of foam to create the double exposure and get both celestial objects into the same photo.
Amateur astronomer Terry Lovejoy discovered the comet last year from his roofdeck observatory in Australia, and it's the fifth comet he's discovered since 2007. The apparent green color of the comet likely comes from cyanogen, a poisonous gas that glows green when sunlight hits it.
Stargazers can pick out the comet by looking for it along a south to north path almost perpendicular to the celestial equator.
The comet will be visible throughout much of January, but it reached its brightest in the past week with a magnitude of 4.6. Right now it's speeding through the sky at about 3 degrees per day. (For reference, your clenched fist held to the sky covers about 10 degrees.)
The comet will pass through the Eridanus constellation and enter the Taurus constellation by Friday (Jan. 9). The comet will also pass through Aries, Perseus and Triangulum before speeding off toward the sun. By the end of the month the comet's brightness will have faded, but it should still be visible with binoculars and telescopes through the end of January.
Editor's note: If you snap a great photo of Comet Lovejoy, or any other night sky view that you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, you can send images and comments in to managing editor Tariq Malik at firstname.lastname@example.org.
See more amazing night sky photos by Space.com readers in our astrophotography archive. | <urn:uuid:a56028e1-f402-41aa-afc0-bb6987e7cf40> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.space.com/28219-green-comet-lovejoy-amateur-photos.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571950.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813111851-20220813141851-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.958207 | 707 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Like the International Space Station today, the three utilitarian wooden huts built by the Antarctic explorers were survival capsules, safe havens in an impossibly hostile environment.
In the summers the men made brutal trips into the field, facing unknown terrain and dangerous, fast-changing weather. They slept in tents and dragged sledges across ice and snow while doing scientific observations or installing supply depots along the route toward the South Pole. Some lost limbs to scurvy and frostbite; others lost their lives.
But during the long months of 24-hour winter darkness, the weather was even worse, forcing the men to jam together in the small huts for months at a time, completely isolated from the outside world.
As the days dragged on, mealtimes were immensely important to the men's morale. Food was always on their minds, as evidenced by a detailed account written by photographer Herbert Ponting in his memoir of the 1910-1913 British Antarctic Expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott.
"The steward called us at 8.30, and we breakfasted at 9, on porridge, bread, butter, marmalade and cocoa," Ponting wrote. "For lunch we had bread and butter, cheese and cocoa ... and we had sardines and canned lambs' tongues once a week.
"For dinner we had always soup, of which there was an abundant assorted supply in tins; and seal meat appeared on the table six days out of seven, as a rule ... we had a fine assortment of dried and canned vegetables -- potatoes, sprouts, peas, beans, etc. -- and two were always on the menu."
The crews relied on seals and penguins for fresh meat but brought a tremendous quantity of canned and dried foodstuffs from home for variety's sake. Scanning the contents of items left behind in the three huts yields a veritable grocer's catalog of Edwardian English foods.
There are 42 types of canned meat products, including curried rabbit, herring, chicken and ham pate, ham loaf, boiled mutton, tripe and onions, stewed rump steaks, minced steak, minced collops, Irish stew and mutton cutlets.
There are biscuits of many kinds; plum and gooseberry jams; currants; pea, tomato and mulligatawny soups; Hunters Famed Edinburgh Oatmeal; Symington's Pea Flour; McDoddie's Pure Preserved Cabbage; Celebrated Savoy Sauce; Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce; Colman's Powdered English Mustard; Heinz Ketchup.
And pickles. Lots of pickles.
"Our commissariat was remarkable for the vast quantity of pickles it contained," Ponting wrote. "There were sufficient to supply ten times our number for about as many years."
"One's taste," he added dryly, "does not run overmuch to pickles in such latitudes."
All three huts are pre-fabricated buildings brought in by expedition ships and designed to be put up in a hurry. By necessity, all of them are surprisingly small, but the tiniest is Ernest Shackleton's hut at Cape Royds.
"During our first severe blizzard," Shackleton later wrote, "the hut shook and trembled so that every moment we expected the whole thing to carry away," prompting the men to string an anchor cable across the roof and bury the ends deeply on either side.
The cramped quarters taxed the ingenuity of the men to make maximum use of the space. Shackleton and his 17 men hung tarps for privacy between beds they built out of emptied packing crates and rigged a pulley system so the dining table could be hoisted out of the way between meals.
"This gave ample room for the various carpentering and engineering efforts that were constantly going on," Shackleton later wrote. "At first we used to put the boxes containing knives, forks, plates and bowls on top of the table before hauling it up, but after these had fallen on the unfortunate head of the person trying to get them down, we were content to keep them on the floor."
For the long winter nights, the men brought plenty to read, not only Shakespeare and Dickens but also scientific technical books from which they each taught their own specialties to the others. They also liked to put on skits and plays.
In fact, the first of the huts, Discovery Hut, was better for theater than for living in. The structure was so drafty and cold that the expedition crew lived on their ship and used the hut for storage and entertainment.
"When fitted with a stage and decked with scenery, footlights etc., it probably forms the most pretentious theater that has ever been seen in polar regions," Scott wrote.
The hut may have been miserable to live in, but it became a crucial emergency shelter for later expeditions. Twice, men from Shackleton's last expedition were caught in bad weather and had to hole up for months in Discovery Hut, unable to get back to their headquarters at Cape Evans. In 1915, six men spent two months in the hut with just three lined leather sleeping bags between them.
"In the evenings songs are sung and everyone keeps more or less merry and bright, then three turn in while ... three sit over the stove, make tea or coffee, [and] read while [the] stove does not smoke too much and obscures the light," one of the six, Scotsman Aenas Mackintosh, wrote in his diary.
The next year, Mackintosh and four other men, all of them frostbitten and injured from months of sledging supplies and camping on the Antarctic ice sheet, were stranded again in Discovery Hut for an even longer ordeal.
"We were so weak, our clothes in tatters," British physicist Dick Richards wrote years later. "The hut may have been a dark and cheerless place but to us it represented security."
For months they lived off the meat and blood of seals that lived nearby and food stored in the hut. Smoky blubber fires blackened the men, who were unable to bathe or wash their clothes for lack of fuel. "We lived the life of troglodytes," wrote Richards.
Finally Mackintosh and another man became delirious, insisting they could safely walk north across 13 miles of unpredictable sea ice to the comfortable, well-supplied base at Cape Evans. They left and were never seen again. | <urn:uuid:085e23f3-8b29-455d-9cea-d424110fc2f0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-huts_bigsidebarjul02-story.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282926.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00399-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976218 | 1,339 | 2.96875 | 3 |
However, if you think of life as a game, obstacles and difficulties take on a completely other connotation. Playing a game is done only for the purpose of experiencing a sense of difficulty or competition in some form or another. The only reason a game is enjoyable is because it compels you to actively participate in it, which is also the primary reason why it is entertaining.
Do you feel uncomfortable in your game of life?
During the course of your life’s game, you should experience discomfort, but you should not be in physical pain, feel despondent, or be miserable. When you have a bad attitude, you are operating at a level that you do not particularly enjoy.
Are you stuck in a game of life you don’t like?
Each new stage of life should present you with new challenges, but they shouldn’t be too taxing.During the course of your life’s game, you should experience discomfort, but you should not be in physical pain, feel despondent, or be miserable.When you have a bad attitude, you are operating at a level that you do not particularly enjoy.You are unable to leave the game that you do not enjoy playing.
Why should we play great games?
The best games are entertaining, and the same should be said for real life. Don’t go through life trudging and slogging your way through it because I’m sure that’s not what you want to do. Choose a life that is full of excitement and new experiences.
What does it mean when you think life is a game?
Is a game that is exactly the same as every other game.The only real difference is that, unlike other games, we don’t even recognize that life itself is a game until it’s too late.Each of us has, to a significant extent unknowingly, fabricated a set of rules (our values) that are founded on our perspective of the world and the things we believe, and we each consider our own rules to be correct and fundamentally valid.
Is life really like a game?
Basics. It’s possible that you don’t realize it, but the real world is actually a game of strategy. There are a few enjoyable minigames, such as dancing, driving, jogging, and sex, but the real challenge lies in effectively managing your available resources. The most essential factor is that successful players invest their time in the appropriate activities.
What is it called when you feel like you’re in the game?
Derealization is a mental condition in which you experience a disconnection from your surroundings and the world around you.It’s possible that the people and things around you won’t appear genuine.Despite this, you are conscious of the fact that this changed condition is not typical.It’s possible that more than half of all people may experience a separation from reality at some point in their lives.
How do you treat life like a game?
The following is a list of some strategies to change your perspective so that you can enjoy life to its fullest:
- Watch what you’re doing. Each new phase and tier of your life is analogous to progressing to a new level in a video game.
- Imagine yourself as Sherlock Holmes. Think quickly
- Unlock secret levels.
- Level up.
- Keep playing.
- Make some adjustments
Is life a gamble?
The game of life is a gamble. The term ″gambling″ most commonly refers to a game of chance. However, in a broader sense, and in relation to our mental health, we all gamble when we make choices in our lives that may or may not turn out as planned. We are ″compulsive″ in the sense that we are very concerned with preserving both our mental and biological health.
Who said life is a game?
″Life is exactly like a game, first you have to learn,″ is a quote attributed to Albert Einstein.
Is everything a game?
Everything is an interactive simulation game in which every single item that exists in the universe may be controlled by the player.This includes everything from atoms to creatures to planets to galaxies and everything in between.While doing so, the player may explore the interconnected ties between everything while manipulating the universe in an unlimited number of different ways and building their own.
Is Live a game?
Live A Live is a role-playing video game that was released in 1994 for the Super Famicom and was developed and published by Square. A reimagining of the game is going to be released on Nintendo Switch on July 22, 2022, and it will be distributed in Japan by Square Enix and in the rest of the world by Nintendo.
|Live A Live|
|Genre(s)||Role-playing, turn-based tactics|
Are humans in a video game?
After some time, it was transferred across to several personal computers and consoles. The objective of each level of the game changes, but generally speaking, it entails guiding at least one of the human characters controlled by the player to the specific destination region that is denoted by a colored tile. The Homo sapiens (video game)
Is it normal to not feel real?
It is not unusual to have fleeting emotions of depersonalization or derealization, and these sensations do not always indicate a problem that needs to be addressed.However, if your emotions of detachment and distortion of your environment are persistent or severe, it may be a symptom that you suffer from depersonalization-derealization disease or another mental or physical health condition.
What is Ludectrophobia?
Ludectrophobia, which is a dread of video games (but we all knew that), has developed since the 1980s as a result of the new worries that have arisen with each passing decade. The term ″gaming disorder″ is now recognized as a legitimate medical disease in its own right.
What does depersonalization feel like?
Depersonalization disorder is characterized by moments in which the individual reports feeling disconnected from both their body and their thoughts (depersonalization). Having the sensation that you are dreaming or that you are witnessing yourself from outside of your body are two common ways to characterize this condition.
Is life like an RPG?
How Does Real Life Compare to an MMORPG?There are a lot of parallels to be drawn between real life and roleplaying games.However, because there are billions of other users, it is more accurately classified as an MMORPG rather than a single-player role-playing game (RPG).We each have a character that is distinct in appearance, with certain qualities, and possesses talents that may be improved as we progress through the game. | <urn:uuid:a2f21507-92f4-4ed4-9c5a-8bc6738b97fc> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://considercommonsense.com/feelings/why-does-life-feel-like-a-game.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571909.51/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813051311-20220813081311-00276.warc.gz | en | 0.95972 | 1,441 | 2.125 | 2 |
If you have been persecuted (or you have a well-founded fear of being persecuted) in your home country based on your perceived political opinion, then you may qualify for asylum or refugee status in the United States.
The emphasis on the word "perceived" highlights the fact that people can become targets of political persecution not just for the opinions they actually hold, but also for opinions that their persecutors falsely attribute (or "impute") to them, whether by mistake or otherwise.
This article discusses the different ways in which political opinions can be imputed, and how persecution on such a ground can be proven for purposes of applying for asylum.
"Political opinion" refers to a broad category of attitudes that people might have on matters that concern their state, their government, or their society. Such attitudes might be deliberately expressed through a variety of behaviors: for example voting, party membership, union membership, issue advocacy, or even everyday commentary on public affairs.
When not deliberately expressed, political opinions can nonetheless be inferred (rightly or wrongly) from people's behavior, or even from their associations and personal characteristics. In fact, political opinions are sometimes wrongly inferred from accidental circumstances. Such imputed political opinions could form a basis for political persecution and thus asylum.
(For a look at some common examples of political persecution, see Claiming Asylum Based on Persecution on Account of Political Opinion.)
Political opinions can be imputed to people on the basis of their oral and written statements, as well as other forms of expression, such as music or works of art. Although such expressions might not be clearly about politics, they can nonetheless be interpreted by others as political.
For example, a novelist could be persecuted for allegorically criticizing her country's leaders in one of her books. A musician could be accused of playing "bourgeois" music in a communist country. Even if both insist that their works have been misinterpreted, the authorities' response can indicate imputed political opinion.
In addition, political opinions can be imputed to people on the basis of other types of actions; even ones that are not meant to express anything at all. For example, under a totalitarian regime, a person could be persecuted simply because government agents falsely suspect him of being a dissident or even a spy, solely based on his unusual habits or lifestyle.
A political opinion can also be imputed to a person based on the people he or she associates with (or is associated with). That might include friends, colleagues, neighbors, family members, and members of the person's other social groups, or even mere acquaintances.
For example, a business owner could be persecuted for employing a political activist, even if the latter's functions involve no political matter. Likewise, a country's government could target children of a prominent member of the opposition, even though they themselves have never been involved in politics.
Political opinions can also be imputed to people based on their personal characteristics or background, including their race or region of origin.
For example, a country's government could suspect members of an ethnic minority of sympathizing with rebel forces during a civil war, even if this suspicion is unfounded in some individual cases.
Finally, political opinions can be mistakenly imputed to people simply by accident. In a case of mistaken identity, for example, a person could be persecuted for simply sharing the same name as the government's intended target.
"Persecution" broadly refers to serious threats or inflictions of physical, psychological, or economic harm by one's own government or by groups whom one's government is either unwilling or unable to control.
Proving persecution for imputed political opinion requires showing a causal link between one's persecution and the persecutor's beliefs and perceptions. This can be difficult, especially when persecutors do not explicitly describe the motivations behind their actions.
In such situations, victims should try to show that their case fits an established pattern of persecution against similarly situated persons in their home country. Evidence for this might be found in news media articles as well as reports by human rights organizations and government agencies; the U.S. State Department's Human Rights Reports, for example. Also see Preparing Persuasive Documents for Your Asylum Application.
In particular, when an asylum applicant has not suffered past persecution but fears that he or she might be persecuted in the future based on a political opinion that might be imputed on the basis of associations or personal characteristics, the applicant will likely be expected to show that other persons like him or her were targeted on the same ground in the past. Otherwise, immigration officers and judges might deem the person's asylum claim too speculative.
So, for example, if your father was persecuted as a political dissident in Guinea, but your mother and siblings still live there freely, then you could have a harder time establishing a well-founded fear of persecution by association with your father.
In any event, the assistance of an immigration attorney could significantly improve any asylum case's chances of success. | <urn:uuid:938ddc61-8397-480b-9efc-ccf26701b313> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/qualifying-asylum-based-persecution-imputed-political-opinion.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570977.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809124724-20220809154724-00478.warc.gz | en | 0.969376 | 1,011 | 2.71875 | 3 |
Project TADPOLE is Ready for Take Off
Post date: Jul 25, 2013 4:34:43 PM
Hi everyone! I'm so excited. TADPOLE, the first stage of FrackFinder, is just about ready for the public. I've uploaded the last of the images and posted an article announcing the launch. There are 2,963 drilling sites across PA. We have high-resolution aerial survey images of each site for 2005, 2008, and 2010. That's 8,889 images to look through, whew! For the sake of accuracy, each image must be classified by ten different people. That means we have almost 90,000 tasks to get through. Thanks to 59 awesome volunteers, who have already submitted almost 9,000 responses, Project TADPOLE is 10% complete. We still have so much to do and we really need your help. Remember that we are still beta-testing FrackFinder and your feedback is of utmost importance! Please try to do at least 200 tasks if you can (that should take less than half an hour) and let us know (firstname.lastname@example.org) about your experience. Now go find us some fracking sites! | <urn:uuid:7ed1ae73-42bd-4213-95ca-0fc555fa3c63> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://frack.skytruth.org/frackfinder/frackfinder-news/project-tadpole-is-ready-for-take-off | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573533.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818215509-20220819005509-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.961503 | 248 | 1.523438 | 2 |
You're a teenager, so naturally, you're searching for your "stereotype." You've tried the rest, so it's time to go with the best. The Urban Hipster. Like all stereotypes, some people will love it, and others will hate it, but it's what you want to be, so here's your guide.
1First, we'll start with clothes. You simply cannot be a proper hipster wearing the same jeans and Hollister t-shirts like everyone else in school. You need original threads. Hipsters are notorious for their skinny jeans (both for guys and the ladies) so stock up on blue, black, and grey colors. Make sure they are VERY skinny. Band t-shirts are great, especially if no one has ever heard of them. Cardigans for fall, and pea coats for winter. Flannels are also great year round. For shoes, Converse hi tops, Vans, Doc Martens, or classic boat shoes. And of course, to top it all off, thick tortoise or black rimmed nerd glasses.
- Hipsters are known for their vintage and ironic fashion. To get some vintage clothing, check out your local thrift stores, or online stores like Topshop or etsy.
- During the summer, hipsters wear sunglasses. Specifically Wayfarer RayBans and aviators.
2Hipsters are also quite famous for their unique attitude. They tend to be very sarcastic, and avoid answering questions directly, but instead give a slightly rude sarcastic answer. They're also really chill, no matter what happens. They're laid-back and friendly to people who are friendly to them. If you get a bad grade, shake it off and don't worry, you can do better next time!
3Music will be very important in your hipster lifestyle. I know this will be hard, since you're depressingly mainstream, but it's time to throw away your Lady GaGa, Katy Perry, and Bruno Mars, and start collecting some Indie vinyl. There are actually tons of great underground Indie bands out there, you just need to know where to find them. Go to local shows frequently, or maybe local music stores to see who's there. Then you can go on to wikipedia and search "list of Indie bands" and they will definitely hook you up.
- You could also check out music blogs like Gorilla vs bear, Pitchforkmedia, and Stereogum. Pandora and LastFM are sites that find music you might like based on the artist, genre, or song you put into the search bar. Try putting in artists like Neon Indian, Wild Child, Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros, The Ramones, or Girls.
4If you want to be accepted in the Hipster community, you need an artsy hobby. Most hipsters are a deep and artistic type of people. There are many different types of arts. You can be interested in photography, drawing, or painting, or you can be a writer, of stories or poems, or you can even pick up a guitar or sit down at the piano and play. Any of these stimulating arts are good. Hipsters are also into subjects like Philosophy or Literature. They love reading the classics.
5Become environmentally friendly. Hipsters recycle, and don't litter, and enjoy nature and want to keep it nice. Most Hipsters are also vegetarian or vegan, which I highly recommend if you want to be Hipster. Not only does it keep you thin to fit into your skinny jeans, but it's also great to be against the cruelty to animals.
- Hang out with other Hipsters at local coffee shops, while discussing poetry or art. It'll make you look deep.
- Be yourself. Just stop trying to be someone you are not.
- Watch black and white films for boy hipsters (war films, sci-fi films) and for girl hipsters, watch romance films from the 50s or back. A good war film is "All Quiet on the Western Front" and good sci-fi films are "Creature From the Black Lagoon" and "Invasion of The Body Snatchers".
- Get an old fixed bike instead of a car. Less money, and better for the environment.
- A true indie film has no mainstream actors.
- Pretend you're poor. For some reason Hipsters like to come off as having no money.
- Do not ever tell anyone you read this. It will make you look like a poser.
- Don't call yourself a hipster, and if someone calls you a hipster, simply say that you're not.
- Don't be obnoxious, or try to push your views on people, unless of course you want to lose friends.
Categories: Nonconformist Styles
In other languages:
Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 37,275 times. | <urn:uuid:18382cd0-7b3e-47f4-9c21-ae58a11a63df> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Teenage-Hipster | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280763.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00513-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94997 | 1,017 | 1.664063 | 2 |
New homes built on the site of a once notorious cafe in the St Pauls area of Bristol are to be unveiled on Monday.
A raid on the cafe in St Paul's sparked the 1980 riots
The Black and White cafe in Grosvenor Road was reputed to have been a haven for drug dealers.
A police raid in April 1980 sparked the infamous St Pauls riot.
The cafe was closed in the summer of 2004 under the Anti-Social Behaviour Act and bought by the council under a compulsory purchase order.
The cafe and other houses in the terrace were demolished and replaced by six three-bedroomed family homes built by the Knightstone Housing Association. | <urn:uuid:0557d406-6ea6-4a21-8d15-a2cd998e7171> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bristol/somerset/4614702.stm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280791.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00363-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97836 | 138 | 1.796875 | 2 |
US abandoned international law, abides by ‘law of the jungle’ in Ukraine
The veteran German politician, who served as a Defense Ministry state secretary, reminded that no Western government is talking about the extreme right element of the government in Kiev.
RT:More than a decade ago, you told your country's leadership of a disturbing connection between NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia and plans for the alliance's expansion. We have some extracts from the letter you wrote to then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder after a conference organized by the US State Department. You raised concerns over some of the conclusions reached, such as: “It would be good, during NATO’s current enlargement, to restore the territorial situation in the area between the Baltic Sea and Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) such as existed during the Roman Empire...” Do you think these plans still exist? And, if so, could the Ukrainian crisis be playing a role?
Willy Wimmer: I think what I thought of Gerhard Schröder is similar to Angela Merkel in May 2000 - is exactly what is going on in these days. During the conference in Bratislava which was high ranking with state presidents, prime ministers, defense, and foreign ministers, and organized by the top leadership of the US State Department, they made a proposal to draw a line between Riga on the Baltic Sea, Odessa on the Black Sea, and Diyarbakir. All the territories west of this line should be under US domination, and the territories east of this line – they might be the Russian Federation or somebody else. That was the proposal – and when we see developments since then, I think it's like a schedule which had been presented to the conference participants; everything happens exactly as it was on the timetable in Bratislava.
RT:Let's take a look at another passage from your letter: “In all processes, peoples’ rights to self-determination should be favored over all other provisions or rules of international law.” That seemed to be agreed upon by high-profile Western diplomats taking part in that conference – why such staunch opposition to Crimea holding a similar referendum on its status now?
WW: Because they didn’t make it. What we saw since the middle of the ‘90s – I think caused all these problems we have here today. Until the mid-90s, all major powers agreed in international law, and in cooperation. But in the middle of the 90s, the US changed habits, changed attitudes. They no longer pursed international law, they proposed the law of the jungle. At the beginning was the war against Yugoslavia, and since then, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, everything is going because of these developments, and they no longer stick to international law and to cooperation. They make use of military might and this creates the trouble and the fear we have in Europe.
RT:Some argue that a referendum cannot be considered legitimate if it's not recognized by the interim authorities in Kiev. Let me ask you this – is the current government in Ukraine legitimate?
WW: I think it was a putsch, a coup d'état, what happened in Kiev. And what we heard in the news before – OSCE and other international bodies are doing what they can to create a legal framework for a government which is not legal at all.
The problem with this government is that they are not only not legal, they are working together with people who will be forbidden sooner or later by the Supreme Court here in Germany: right wing people, Nazis, fascists. It is interesting and outstanding that no western government is talking about these people who already created – once last century – disaster, terror, and wars in Europe, and now these people come back…
RT:Why is the legality then not being questioned and indeed the nationalist, the extremist element within the Kiev government?
WW: Because these new Nazis are our 'good Nazis’ now and this is disastrous for all of Europe.
RT:Are they a real threat? Because some people are exaggerating this nationalist element within the Kiev government. Russia is really concerned and indeed those people in Crimea and the east of the country. Do they have fears that are justified?
WW: It's not only the people in Ukraine or Crimea or in Russia; the fear is in Dusseldorf, Cologne, Paris,and London as well. We did not create this modern Europe to have these people back again.
RT:So what do you think the next step should be in this stalemate? The West is calling on Russia to revoke its support for the referendum in Crimea – do you believe that's what Moscow should do?
WW: I live here in Germany and next Thursday, the federal Chancellor Dr. Merkel will give a speech to the Bundestag about Ukraine and I expect – I’m not referring to Crimea or to Moscow or to Kiev, I expect here in Berlin – that she will address this Nazi question, that she will address the massacre on Maidan Square. If this happened in China, there would be an uproar in Western countries. Everybody is quiet here. Why doesn't the Council of Europe take into consideration to make an inquiry as well as the OSCE? I expect Merkel to address these issues. And we had a major party conference of our Bavarian brothers some days ago and the main speaker addressed the audience with an appeal not to forget the friendship with the Russian people. | <urn:uuid:0f2cfd6b-1f65-4a5b-8018-566fb71f78d0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.rt.com/op-edge/ukraine-west-international-law-966/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280364.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00035-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967431 | 1,123 | 1.664063 | 2 |
You probably know that attaching wood to masonry isn't as easy as picking up a hammer and a nail, but it's also not an impossible task. It's something that you can do yourself with the proper tools. If you're looking to add a shelf to your concrete mantle or maybe you have a brick wall in your home and want to hang some pictures, there are a few things you need to know. The safest, most secure way to attach a 2x4 to brick or concrete is to use concrete screw anchors, which you can find at your local hardware store.
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Mark the Edges Before Hanging
You'll want to make sure that the wood item you're trying to hang ends up level and in the correct spot on the wall before you start poking holes in the concrete. Place the item against the wall and use a level to make sure it's straight. Mark the wall at the ends of your item using a piece of chalk. Using chalk allows you to see the marks and erase them with ease.
Depending on the type of mounts you're looking to install, use a measuring tape to mark the areas where you want to drill your holes. For example, for installing a "floating shelf" (that is, a shelf in which you don't see any hardware), your drill marks will be toward the center of the piece.
If you aren't using mounts, simply mark the areas where you want the screw anchor to go.
Pre-Drill Holes Using a Hammer Drill
Using a hammer drill is advised, as they operate differently than a typical power drill. If you don't own one, you can rent a hammer drill from Home Depot or Lowe's for less than $30. You may have to call the location ahead of time and reserve the item.
Use a drill bit that is slightly smaller than the screw anchors you've purchased. Drill on the marks that you've made, going into the concrete about 1/4 inch longer than the length of the screw anchors. For example, if you are using screw anchors that are 1/4 inches wide and 1 1/4 inches in length, drill into the masonry using a 1/4 inch drill bit, drilling into the wall 1 1/2 inches.
If you are looking to affix the piece of wood to the wall directly, pre-drill holes into the wood as well, using a measuring tape and marking off the areas using a pencil.
Drive the Anchor Into the Wall
You can pick up a driving bit set for less than $15 at Home Depot. You will need to use the size that corresponds with the size of the screw anchor you are using. Place your mounting bracket or other mount of choice against the wall, over the pre-drilled hole.
Using a nut driver on the hammer drill, put the anchor in place. Drive the anchor into the pre-drilled hole until the head is flush with the mounting bracket (or the wood itself). Repeat this on the other side and voila! You have successfully attached wood to masonry. | <urn:uuid:0e48abfb-5560-45af-a0db-4ab56665aa26> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.hunker.com/12545918/how-to-attach-a-2x4-to-a-brick | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573399.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818185216-20220818215216-00071.warc.gz | en | 0.955188 | 629 | 1.875 | 2 |
From an industry lifecycle perspective, we expected the evolution of community solar to be relatively fast. From introducing a new model of distributed generation designed to serve an expanding market vastly larger than rooftop solar could address, to attaining effective scale through ubiquitous utility and consumer participation, we projected a steep curve and an apex extending into the next few decades and beyond.
Community solar has indeed come a long way in a very short period, serving as a source of both excitement and challenge for the myriad participants that have taken a stake in its surging growth. Ten years ago, community solar was barely an idea, far from a robust business model. A few local community groups and rural utilities experimented with small-scale shared energy, but nothing worthy of exporting across markets, utility types and regulatory structures. Jump to today, and community solar is one of the fastest-growing segments of the U.S. solar industry, with more than 100 programs in 26 states and more than one-third of the country (18 states) with legislation enabling shared solar. It has gained a significant foothold in the U.S. solar market, and all signs indicate the momentum will continue accelerating.
Yet, community solar’s rise and maturation has also proven slower, or at least more gradual, than what Clean Energy Collective (CEC), at the time a solar start-up in western Colorado, envisioned in 2009 while designing what was considered one of the nation’s first community-owned solar models. The process has proven complex, the number of players limited, and enabling legislative and regulatory development slow and cautious.
But time and tenacity, as they do, have illuminated the path forward. We have reached a point where we know what works with regard to financial structures, project size, customer participation, legislative parameters, and finance. The focus has shifted to implementing each of them in a way that will allow the market to address the 100 million customers that can benefit from community solar.
Proving the concept
Innovation and bold action launched the U.S. community solar industry and have served as hallmarks throughout its expansion. Colorado initiated the movement by being first to enact legislation spawning utility and consumer participation in off-site renewable projects. The first community-owned solar facility was launched with Holy Cross Energy, a rural cooperative in western Colorado (interconnected June 2010). It was only 328 panels, purchased by 19 individuals and sold by word-of-mouth.
Since then, the term “community solar” has been applied to many variations on the concept. In general terms, community solar allows consumers to offset part or all of their electricity bills by securing bill credits, through panel ownership or subscription, corresponding to the electricity produced in a 500 kW to 10 MW solar project hosted in their utility territory. Economies of scale allow programs to be offered to customers at lower costs than individual systems and (in most cases) their retail electricity rate. This tangible consumer benefit, a predictable and meaningful financial payback for a broad base of utility ratepayers, distinguishes community solar from other “green” programs like group purchasing, green power programs, crowdfunding, or group investing schemes that have emerged.
As Colorado proved that the concept was viable, there was a buildup of pilot examples and unintended experiments with shared net energy metering (NEM). Other states like Minnesota, Massachusetts and California set out to demonstrate that the market could work at scale. Policymakers defined program participants, capacity and NEM policies, customer eligibility, off-take sizes, subscription terms and limits, and ownership. While some of these programs have been successful, some have not. Policymakers were discovering best practices and tailoring policies and programs to meet the specific needs of customers, utilities and developers.
A shift in perspective
From the beginning, we knew utility participation and cooperation were vital to growing community solar programs, whether this growth was driven and owned by the utilities themselves, the growth happened through a utility/third-party partnership, or it was completely third-party driven. Utility culture has generally been characterized as resistant to outside influences and slow to embrace innovation, and as such, the utilities were on high alert to the potential threats and challenges that community solar programs presented.
Developer pitches focused on the “bright idea” of community shared solar and how it could cost-effectively serve customer demand for renewables and support renewable energy mandates. Not surprisingly, early utility adopters were enthusiastic cooperatives eager to satiate enviro-minded members and public utilities supporting city-wide greening initiatives.
The rapid onset of distributed energy resources (DER) and broadening accessibility to affordable renewables provoked a shift in both perspective and strategy for many utilities, which approached the oncoming wave more as a source of opportunity rather than an obligation. Under greater pressure to evolve, get cleaner, and offer more options to customers, utilities were now motivated to understand how to best integrate distributed generation into the grid and create sustainable business models around their imminent growth. Community solar provided utilities with a solution-set that consumers actually desired.
Utilities now look at community solar programs as a strategic middle-ground solution, blending the broad appeal of behind-the-meter residential solar programs and the economies of utility-scale projects while minimizing complications, resources, and expense. More than 150 U.S. utilities are operating or developing a voluntary community solar program today. While rural electric co-ops and public power utilities will continue growing their community solar programs, many of the U.S.’ largest investor-owned utilities (Duke Energy, Con Edison, Xcel Energy and SCE&G) have integrated community solar as part of their renewables strategy, which in turn, is driving program scale to newer heights, leveraging greater cost efficiencies, and serving exponentially more customers.
Follow the money
Market development is fueled by capital. Like any industry, it is the oxygen most vital to a market’s health or demise. The expectation was that traditional solar financing – construction financing, debt for leveraged transactions, tax equity investments, and working lines of credit – would adapt to the community solar market. Yet, securing capital partners is complicated by the variables underlying community solar programing, such as multiple customer profiles, unique technology requirements and maintaining full subscribership. In community solar’s early days, CEC relied mostly on small, regional banks that had knowledge of, and comfort with, lending to members of the community.
As the market began to scale, state-level policies expanded; the federal investment tax credit (ITC) was extended; and technology emerged that delivered efficiencies in customer acquisition and fulfillment, billing integration, and project management. Non-residential entities with investment-grade credit were jumping in, and actionable data regarding program performance and risk became more available.
Consequently, there has been a slow-but-measured migration from boutique investors to the mainstream financial community. Bigger financial players have become more familiar and comfortable with community solar as its own asset class. They are willing and capable of a deeper, multidimensional dialogue addressing the specific mechanisms for market development and deployment. Particularly in the last year, we have seen large institutions positioning community solar as the next place to put low-risk capital, given that utility-scale development fueled by previous uncertainty over extension of the 30% federal ITC has now slowed and rooftop solar has stalled amid customer-acquisition challenges and a focus on profit over expansion. They are interested in long, optimized assets and predictable cashflows, and they want to know how to best get gigawatts into the ground.
More capital coming into the market as a whole will accelerate growth. Community banks are still good partners because they have good costs of capital, but legal lending limits prevent major participation. For example, a $30 million project fund equates to 10 MW to 15 MW of capacity, while CEC’s short-term development pipeline alone is several times that.
The balancing act
Paralleling development of the investment infrastructure has been a progression of product strategies and customer mix. In the first programs, participants purchased individual panels and owned the asset in perpetuity. Such models deliver the best financial benefit for customers and best chance of financing for developers, but requiring upfront payment narrows the target audience. Pay-as-you-go and subscription programs were introduced as alternatives to broaden the customer base. Myriad versions of these themes are in play today, varying by state, utility and program provider.
These offers illustrate the careful balancing act that community solar innovators grapple with daily: The desire to expand financing options is at odds with the desire to create more flexible offers for customers. Financiers generally need a program to offer more stability and less risk, thus resulting in less flexibility and increasing contract rigidity for customers, which is a harder product for developers to sell.
Achieving scale rests on finding the right balance.
In the last year or two, we’ve seen commercial and industrial companies and institutional organizations like schools and municipalities employ community solar as an efficient, cost-effective way for supporting renewable energy, lowering energy operating costs, engaging employees, differentiating their brand and demonstrating leadership in their communities. Leveraging these creditworthy customers as anchor tenants reduces transactional complexity and lowers risk for the overall customer base.
A growing voice
Market development is also fueled by data. The community solar industry and nearly every stakeholder has benefited from a rich body of research by the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Rocky Mountain Institute, GTM Research, Advanced Energy Economy, The Solar Foundation, and others. Trade groups like the Solar Energy Industries Association, Smart Electric Power Alliance, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, and American Public Power Association have been instrumental in the industry’s development. Community solar is also now regularly addressed by the National Association of Regulatory Utilities Commissioners, as well as by numerous consulting and advisory companies.
One of the most significant milestones for the industry was the creation of its own trade association, the Coalition for Community Solar Access (CCSA). There was a need for a unique voice for the industry, and with a very modest investment, its members, representing project developers, PV manufacturers, energy generators, and service providers, gained a front-row seat in discussions on policy and regulatory efforts impacting the industry and their businesses. CCSA is the right vehicle to magnify our collective efforts, and the next step is getting more support, larger investments and a louder voice.
Business innovation, in its most classic sense, is responsible for community solar’s evolution, creating new opportunity and value in a rapidly changing climate. We approach the industry’s growth phase with a lot more knowledge of what works and what is needed, and we’re getting savvier at doing those things well.
We’re also gaining a greater understanding of strategically siting community solar projects to fill load pockets, leveraging a project’s ability to increase grid stability and bundling community solar with other offerings to increase customer participation and value. Enterprise-level software has opened the gates to greater efficiencies, lower costs and less risk. And steps toward more standardization in processes, policy, and technology will accelerate integration of multi-megawatt projects and gigawatt portfolios.
We no longer need pilot programs to understand the mechanics of successful programs. Achieving greater regulatory certainty will do much for a constantly changing energy landscape. Sooner than later, deliberation regarding NEM and value of solar will conclude in a simple compensation structure that is agreeable to enough people.
As project developers and community solar solution providers, we can no longer assume utilities’ motives, needs, processes and priorities, or that they are the same as the utility next door. We must determine their individual needs and provide the appropriate products and services to meet them. Conversely, utilities must pursue new business models – whether partnering with vendors or owning the resources outright – to fully integrate new DER innovations and satisfy customers.
In the short term, diverse market forces will continue to shape the industry, drive new renewable capacity and create real value in the form of consumer savings and greenhouse-gas reductions. In the medium term, community shared renewables will likely include more generation from sources other than solar PV. In the de-regulated markets, we may see community renewables blur the lines with retail power providers, becoming a true (direct) power source instead of a virtual one.
The future is about building upon the successes we worked so hard to achieve. The community solar industry is young, but it has a sturdy foundation and is just beginning to hit its stride.
Paul Spencer is founder and CEO of community solar developer Clean Energy Collective. | <urn:uuid:72d16592-b88c-400e-83a1-75c3cc172e0b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://issues.solarindustrymag.com/article/emergence-growth-community-solar | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573623.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819035957-20220819065957-00676.warc.gz | en | 0.950122 | 2,583 | 1.757813 | 2 |
A REVIEW OF THE INVOLVEMENT OF THE HIPOTHALAMIC-PITUITARY AXIS IN DEPRESSION
The etiology of depression is complex, involving genes, physiological factors, hormones, stressful life conditions, especially chronic exposure to early life stress as well as other psychological and social factors. The hormones of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA-axis) are the main mediators of the effects of stress on emotional, cognitive and behavioral responses in humans. A hyperactivity of the HPA axis is incriminated in the etiology of depression, as elevated levels of plasma, salivary and urinary cortisol have been consistently observed. The question of cause and effect between depression and cortisol remains unanswered. Different theories exist, such as absolute high levels of cortisol, negative feedback inhibition, high levels of corticotropin releasing hormone (CRH) in the brain, impaired function of the glucocorticoid receptors in certain areas of the brain, a proinflamatory status created by the stimulated HPA Axis, neurotoxicity and the inhibition of neurogenesis i n t h e h i p p o c a m p u s , i n t e r a c t i o n s w i t h o t h e r neuroendocrine systems and neurotransmitters. Once an understanding of the mechanisms and the exact relationship between the HPA Axis and depression has been obtained, screening methods and vulnerability markers, prediction markers for the response to treatment and the rate of recurrence could be used in clinical trials and clinical practice. New medication compounds are already in study for the treatment of psychotic and melancholic depression. CRH-R1 receptor antagonists are also under research, and are believed to be of great promise. Other compounds with action on inflammatory c y t o k i n e s a n d n e u ro e n z y m e s a re t a k e n u n d e r consideration. At present, no viable means of treatment have been implemented regarding this strong association between depression and the HPA axis. However, the extended research that is being done in this direction shows great promise.
Depression is a complex disorder, involving all functions of the psyche. It’s devastating effects on the patients, their loved ones and all of society are indisputable. Each year, approximately 20 million people suffer from depression, and it is estimated that by the year
2020, depression will become the second cause of m o r b i d i t y i n t h e a d u l t p o p u l a t i o n . (http://www.who.int/mental_health/management/depres sion/definition/en/). Although by using the treatment available today, around 80% of patients obtain remission, the recurrence rates remain high, adherence to treatment is low and the side effects of the treatment are prevalent. Choosing the right antidepressant still remains somewhat empiric, and therefore the need for the optimization of treatment in depression is evident.
The etiology of depression is complex, involving genes, physiological factors, hormones, stressful life conditions, especially chronic exposure to early life stress as well as other psychological and social factors (1).
As theory states that hormones of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA-axis) are the main mediators of the effects of stress on emotional, cognitive and behavioral responses in humans, they have been intensively researched. A hyperactivity of the HPA axis has been incriminated in the etiology of depression ever since the 1950’s (2), as elevated levels of plasma, salivary and urinary cortisol have been consistently observed in these patients (3, 4).
The question of cause and effect between depression and cortisol remains unanswered, and the need to further understand the mechanisms by which the two interact exists. The decades of research stated different theories as absolute high levels of cortisol(3, 4), negative feedback inhibition(5), high levels of corticotrophin releasing hormone (CRH) in the brain(6), impaired function of the glucocorticoid receptors in certain areas of the brain (7,8), a proinflamatory status created by the stimulated HPA Axis (9, 10), neurotoxicity and the inhibition of neurogenesis in the hippocampus(11,12), interactions with other neuroendocrine systems and neurotransmitters (13), such as a low binding potential of the thalamic serotonin transporter 5-HTT caused by cortisol (14). However it is not yet fully understood if all these alterations are the cause or the effect of the disease, or if they have therapeutic potential, predictive value for response to treatment or risk of recurrence or for the probability of onset of the disease in healthy subjects.
1. THE CIRCADIAN RHYTHM OF CORTISOL SECRETION
Cortisol diurnal rhythms vary according to individual sleep-wake schedules, being high upon waking, increasing to peak levels approximately 30-40 minutes after waking, and declining to a nadir (close to zero) around bedtime (4). Some studies have shown that patients with depression exhibit alterations of this circadian rhythm, such as an elevated nadir with a consecutive blunting of diurnal secretion and an irregular overall secretion (15). An elevated nadir has been significantly correlated with certain subtypes of major depressive disorder, such as the melancholic subtype and psychotic depression (16). Many other alterations of the circadian rhythm of cortisol secretion have been studied such as nocturnal cortisol levels (in urine), mean diurnal cortisol values and the slope of the secretion curve, and alterations have been found in patients already suffering from the disease (17). Some authors recently studied the cortisol awakening response (CAR) as a potential predictor for the onset of the disease in healthy subjects, as there is evidence of both genetic and psychosocial contributions to the size of the CAR, making it a candidate mechanism for both genetic and environmental pathways to the development of depression. In particular, a larger CAR has been associated with higher levels of both acute and chronic life stress (4).
2. THE HPA AXIS
Activation of the HPA axis begins with the release of CRH from the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) of the hypothalamus. CRH neurons of the PVN serve as a final common stress pathway by receiving converging inputs from multiple areas of the brain, allowing CRH to coordinate the behavioral, neuroendocrine, autonomic, and immune responses to stress, as hypothalamic CRH neurons are strategically situated to intercept and disperse signals from and to the body about the internal and external environment (17,18).
CRH-containing neurons in the PVN of the hypothalamus terminate in the median eminence. CRH is then released into the pituitary-portal circulation and acts on CRH-R1 receptors on anterior pituitary corticotrophs stimulating secretion of adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) into the general circulation and promoting s y n t h e s i s o f t h e A C T H p r e c u r s o r p e p t i d e proopiomelanocortin (POMC) in the corticotrophs. Under certain conditions, hypothalamic arginine vasopressin acts in synergy with CRH to stimulate ACTH release. Circulating ACTH then acts on the MC2-R (type 2 melanocortin receptor) in the adrenal cortex, stimulating secretion of glucocorticoids into the bloodstream (17, 18, 19).
In order to maintain appropriate levels of circulating glucocorticoids, these hormones exert negative feedback on the hypothalamus and pituitary to inhibit the synthesis and secretion of CRH and POMC/ACTH, respectively. In addition, they also down regulate the expression of corticotrophic CRH-R1 mRNA, thus decreasing CRH-R1 number, which ultimately diminishes ACTH secretion. Finally, the hippocampus, which expresses a high density of GR, exerts negative feedback control on the PVN, thereby reducing HPA axis activity (17, 18, 19).
3. CRH AND THE CRH –R1 RECEPTORS
S o m e a u t h o r s h a v e s u g g e s t e d t h a t hypercortisolemia reported in patients with depression may be related to over-secretion of CRH. This evidence is supported by several findings in patients with depression, including increased concentration of CRH in the CSF (cerebrospinal fluid); enlargement of the pituitary gland; blunted ACTH responses to CRH challenge(20, 21); down-regulation of CRH-R1 receptors in frontal brain regions of postmortem suicide patients and increased CRH expression in hypothalamic neurons of postmortem patients (22, 23).CRH has been implicated in stress- induced activation of neurons including hippocampal pyramidal cells. CRH contributes to effects of acute stress on synaptic plasticity and memory. Interneurons expressing CRH are abundant in hippocampus; CRH is released into hippocampal intercellular space during stress; CRH receptor type 1 (CRF1) resides on dendrites of CA1 cells, the same neurons sustaining dendritic atrophy after early-life stress (24); Chronic exposure to CRH provokes dendritic atrophy in a pattern similar to that found after early stress; When administered into brains of immature rats, CRH led to persistent memory impairments reminiscent of those found after chronic early-life stress. Notably, CRH-induced impairments occurred even when glucocorticoid levels were ‘clamped’ at low physiological levels suggesting that they were independent of glucocorticoid receptor activation (1, 25).
4. NEGATIVE FEED-BACK IMPAIRMENT
Elevated levels of cortisol in some patients with depression can also result from a reduced negative feedback response to cortisol that is reflected by a nonsuppression response in the dexamethasone suppression test (DST). Indeed, a large meta-analysis showed that the DST is a potent indicator of a poor prognosis and is also a predictor of suicide in depression. However, due to the fact that dexamethasone has distinct pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic profiles from cortisol, and due to the low sensitivity of the DST in detecting patients with depression (26), new tests, such as the DEX/CRH challenge test (27, 28, 29) and the prednisolone test (30), have been developed to evaluate the negative feedback of cortisol.
The DEX/CRH test combines the DST test (oral administration of single dose of dexamethasone at 11 PM) and the CRH stimulation test (intravenous bolus of CRH on the following day at 3 PM). Studies have shown that the DEX/CRH test has a higher specificity than the DST in detecting HPA axis dysfunction in patients with depression compared with the DST alone Patients with depression tend to exhibit a lack of inhibition of ACTH r e s p o n s e s t o C R H f o l l o w i n g d e x a m e t h a s o n e pretreatment, which represents an impaired feedback inhibition at the level of the pituitary.
Recent studies have shown that the test is positive (elevated levels of cortisol) during a major depressive episode, that it tends to normalize after effective antidepressant treatment (clinical remission) and that the initial values of the test (at baseline) could predict the response to treatment (28, 29).
5. THE GLUCOCORTICOID RECEPTORS
A n u m b e r o f s t u d i e s u s i n g d i f f e r e n t methodologies have reported that GR function is impaired in patients with depression. A lack of response of the GR to changes in ligand availability and reduced inhibition of immune function and cytokines production after exposure to dexamethasone, indicating reduced GR sensitivity, have been shown in patients with depression(31). Recently, impaired GR signaling has been proposed as a primary factor that could lead to alterations in HPA axis function, such as hypercortisolism, reduced negative feedback of cortisol, and increased production of CRH, all of which have been described in some patients with depression (17). Interestingly, in patients with depression, GR sensitivity and HPA axis activity tend to return to n o r m a l a f t e r c l i n i c a l r e c o v e r y o f d e p r e s s i v e symptomatology (32, 33).
6. THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
Alterations of the HPA axis in psychiatric disorders could also be influenced by activation of the immune system through pro-inflammatory cytokines. Cytokines can stimulate glucocorticoid release and also alter glucocorticoid availability and GR function, which, under certain conditions, may favor a state of glucocorticoid resistance. There is a bidirectional communication between the immune system and the HPA axis, in which cytokines stimulate the HPA axis and the resulting release of glucocorticoids provides negative feedback control of the immune response (8, 31).
Indeed, some patients suffering from depression have been found to exhibit higher levels of proinflamatory cytokines, which produces a resistance to cortisol with secondary hypercortisolism (34). Cytokines have also been shown to induce a constellation of symptoms referred to as “sickness behavior,” which has many overlapping features with depression (lethargy, somnolence, fatigue, anhedonia, decreased appetite and locomotion, and cognitive deficits) (35). Cytokine antagonists on knockout mice have been found to block these behavioral changes in rodents and reduce depression and fatigue in patients with autoimmune or inflammatory disorders (36, 37, 38).
However, conflicting results have been found, as only a certain percentage of depressed patients exhibit a high inflammatory status.
7. INTERACTIONS OF THE HPA AXIS WITH OTHER NEURO-ENDOCRINE SYSTEMS
The HPA axis has interactions with many other systems, and its activity is tightly connected to a number of neurohormones. Increased production of vasopressin (ADH) in depression does not only occur in neurons that colocalize CRH (PVN), but also in neurons of the supraoptic nucleus (SON), which may lead to increased plasma levels of vasopressin, that have been related to an enhanced suicide risk. The increased activity of oxytocin neurons in the paraventricular nucleus (PVN) may be related to the eating disorders in depression. The suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), the biological clock of the brain, shows lower vasopressin production and a smaller circadian amplitude in depression, which may explain the sleeping problems in this disorder and may contribute to the strong CRH activation. The hipothalamo-pituitary thyroid (HPT)-axis is inhibited in depression. These hypothalamic peptidergic systems, the HPA-axis, the SCN, the SON and the HPT-axis, have many interactions with aminergic systems that are also implicated in depression (13, 39).
Some studies have shown a connection of relevance between serotonin and the HPA axis. Namely, a significant correlation has been found between a lower binding potential of the thalamic transporter of serotonin –
5-HTT and high levels of cortisol on the Dex/CRH test, suggesting an interaction between the HPA axis and serotonin as a mechanism in depression and other disorders, such as OCD and anxiety disorders (14, 40).
A close interaction between the HPA-axis and the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG)-axis exists. There is a higher prevalence of mood disorders in women as compared to men. In addition, the stress system is affected by changing levels of sex hormones, as found in the premenstrual period, ante- and postpartum, during the transition phase to the menopause and during the use of oral contraceptives (41). In depressed women, plasma levels of estrogen are usually lower and plasma levels of androgens are increased, while testosterone levels are decreased in depressed men (41,42). This is explained by the fact that both in depressed males and females the HPA- axis is increased in activity, parallel to a diminished HPG- axis, while the major source of androgens in women is the adrenal, whereas in men it is the testes. It is speculated, however, that in the etiology of depression the relative levels of sex hormones play a more important role than their absolute levels (13).
The fact that numerous findings prove a reduced volume and total area of the hippocampus in depression, along with other cortical and subcortical structural alterations in depressed patients, led scientists to believe that glucocorticoids contribute to depression by increasing neurotoxicity in certain areas of the brain. Contradictory results are still being described. A post mortem study on patients suffering from Cushing’s disease and patients being chronically treated with corticosteroids showed no alterations of the structures of the brain involved in the pathophysiology of depression (39).
However, a recent animal study showed an impressive 25 % increase in the number of neurons of the hippocampus, after administration of the antidepressant drug sertraline, effect mediated by glucocorticoid receptors in the hippocampus (12).
Furthermore, other psychotropic drugs, such as the antipsychotics quetiapine and olanzapine, have been shown to induce neurogenesis. Also both drugs have been proven to have an important impact on the HPA axis, by significantly reducing both ACTH and cortisol secretion in healthy subjects. The atypical antipsychotics’ strong influence on HPA-function with pronounced ACTH and cortisol lowering is possibly related to the atypicals’ blockade of serotonergic receptors, but blockade of adrenergic or hystaminergic receptors may play a role as well (11). The role of these antipsychotics in the treatment of depression has been studied, but a further research into the mechanisms of their obvious benefits on affective and also cognitive functioning is needed, in relation to their strong effects on the HPA axis.
The fact that a state of hypercortisolemia does not in itself produce neurotoxicity, as it has been shown in patients suffering from such states but not suffering from depression, but that such a state exists in depressed patients, accompanied by structural changes in various brain structures, does not necessarily prove that neurotoxicity in depression is not related to the HPA axis, but rather that a more complex mechanism for such changes is involved, such as an increased number of GR receptors in the hippocampus of depressed patients as opposed to non-depressed patients. Further research is needed to sustain and fully understand these complex mechanisms.
Although the involvement of the HPA axis in depression is very likely and numerous studies have been conducted over the years, conflicting results are described, and the full extent of the part played by the axis in the pathogeny of the disorder is not yet fully understood.
Only a number of patients suffering from depression exhibits alterations of the HPA axis activity. A number of factors could be incriminated as the source of these discrepancies, such as the presence of anxiety, personal history of early life stress and other psychosocial factors, certain subtypes of depression and the severity of the disease, inflammatory status and gender differences (17).
In regard to subtypes of depression, severe forms, namely the psychotic and melancholic subtypes, have a much stronger association with elevated cortisol levels, especially an elevated nadir value (43, 44). Negative feed-back impairment has been associated with anxiety by some authors, while others have found only a poor correlation between anxiety and an elevated cortisol value at the Dex/CRH test (14). Also, low levels of cortisol have been proven in patients suffering from other psychiatric disorders, such as PTSD (45, 46).
Further research is needed to better understand the causality relationship and the mechanisms linking depression to the activity of the HPA axis, as many variables should be taken into account.
Once this understanding has been obtained, the benefits to the patient could prove to be very significant. Screening methods and vulnerability markers, prediction markers for the response to treatment and the rate of recurrence could be used in clinical trials and clinical practice. New medication compounds are already being studied for the treatment of psychotic and melancholic depression, such as the cortisol secretion inhibitor mifepristone (43) and metirapone (49), a glucocorticoid receptor antagonist. As CRH is believed to play a very important role in the mechanisms of depression, CRH-R1 receptor antagonists (48) are also under research, and are believed to be of great promise.
At present, no viable means of treatment have yet been implemented regarding this strong association between depression and the HPA axis. However, the extended research that is being done in this direction shoes great promise, and hopefully the near future will bring therapeutic solutions which will help the millions of people suffering from this debilitating, horrible disease.
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49.Tudose F, Tamasan S. Sindromul anxietate-depresie. In : Tudose F, Tudose C, Vasilescu A, Tamasan S. Sindroame ratacitoare. Bucuresti: Ed. Info Medica, 2005, 119-141. | <urn:uuid:94a7fb4f-e546-48c2-b227-9d7a1c17d3dd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.romjpsychiat.ro/arhive/1929?lang=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.875735 | 6,833 | 2.25 | 2 |
Millions of people know the story of Louis “Louie” Zamperini. A track star, the “Torrance Tornado” competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, the Olympics at which Adolph Hitler wanted to show off German might and the superiority of the Aryan race. During World War II, Zamperini went missing following a plane crash. Because of his athletic success, all of America knew he was missing. But he survived the plane crash and floated for weeks in a raft in the Pacific. The Japanese captured him, and he endured torture at the hands of one of the most notorious prison guards of the war: Mutsuhiro Watanabe, nicknamed by prisoners “The Bird.”
Laura Hillenbrand masterfully told Zamperini’s story in Unbroken, a book that became a publishing phenomenon, selling millions of copies and spending four years on the “New York Times” bestseller list, 14 weeks at number one.
The book also became a blockbuster movie, true Hollywood bona fides. The movie was actor Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut. The Coen Brothers wrote the script. Oscar winning cinematographer Roger Deakins was behind the camera. With talent like this, it’s no wonder the movie did nearly $200-million at the box office.
And yet, something was missing. While the first movie focused mostly on the war story, Laura Hillenbrand’s book also told of Zamperini’s post-war struggles with alcohol, a result of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) caused by his war experiences. Further, it recounted a seminal event in the history of 20th century evangelicalism: Billy Graham’s famous 1949 Los Angeles Crusade. Newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst told his editors to “puff Graham,” and the crusade became a model for Graham, and for evangelists who followed.
For Louis Zamperini, though, that crusade did not have just cultural significance, it had personal significance. He and his wife Cynthia both dedicated their lives to Christ at that crusade. He stopped drinking “cold turkey,” and became an evangelist, often speaking at Billy Graham crusades. He also founded a home for what was then called “juvenile delinquent boys,” an organization that evolved into the Louis Zamperini Foundation.
And that is the story of a new movie, out next week, called “Unbroken: Path to Redemption.”
According to Bill Reeves, one of the producers of the movie, “Angelina Jolie’s movie was excellent, but to tell the whole story would have required a four-hour movie.” He added, “We wanted to make a movie not just for Christians, but for those who loved the book and the first movie. People who want to know the rest of Louie Zamperini’s story.”
Though the movie is rated PG-13 for some jarring scenes of war violence, it also prominently features the events of the 1949 Billy Graham crusade, including a “star turn” as Billy Graham by his grandson Will Graham.
“We had tapes and transcripts of the sermon Granddaddy gave that night,” Graham said at the premiere of the movie in Dallas last night. “I stuck to the script, and the producers stuck to the sermon. There was very little if any ad-libbing. We wanted this to be as historically accurate as possible.”
Bill Reeves said the attention to detail included duplicating what the stage looked like at that crusade, which was recreated from photographs of the event. In the pulpit, Will Graham even held the Bible that Billy Graham held during the Los Angeles rallies.
One of the most powerful parts of the film comes at its conclusion. As the closing credits roll, we see and hear archival footage of Louis Zamperini – clean and sober – speaking at a Billy Graham Crusade about a decade after his own conversion. We also see a montage of Zamperini and his family, including a still shot of him speaking at Sugamo Prison in Japan, in 1950. The prisoners in his audience were war criminals, men who had tortured Zamperini and other American POWs.
Louie Zamperini was there to forgive them, and to tell them that the reason he was able to forgive them was the love of Jesus.
Editor’s Note: Unbroken: Path to Redemption is in theaters Sept. 14. You can read more here.
This article is one in a series based on the ideas in the book Restoring All Things: God’s Audacious Plan To Change The World Through Everyday People by Warren Cole Smith and John Stonestreet. To see all the articles in this series, click here. If you know of an individual or ministry that might make a good “Restoring All Things” profile, please email firstname.lastname@example.org
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If you want to challenge yourself as many others have done, sign up below. | <urn:uuid:795d5da3-ce8b-4b34-ac0e-1e23e295af1f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://ec2-52-34-39-89.us-west-2.compute.amazonaws.com/unbroken-path-to-redemption-tells-the-rest-of-the-story/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573623.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819035957-20220819065957-00675.warc.gz | en | 0.971128 | 1,071 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Antiochian scholar and author Dr. Bradley Nassif , professor of Biblical and Theological Studies at North Park University, recently participated in an international meeting between Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Evangelical church leaders held in Albania during the first week in September, 2013. Convened at the invitation of Archbishop Anastasios Yannoulatos of Tirana, Durrës and All Albania, the conference gathered 46 Eastern and Oriental Orthodox and Evangelical leaders from 20 different countries at St. Vlash Monastery in Albania for the first international consultation of the Lausanne-Orthodox Initiative .
Addressing the topic "Tradition, Catholicity and the Mind of the Church," Dr. Nassif reminded his audience that when Orthodox Christians say one thing, evangelical Christians often hear something completely different. In frank discussion and a spirit of respect and hospitality, participants wrestled with the challenging issues of proselytism, canonical territory, salvation, justification, and theosis, resolving to continue to journey together with a second international gathering already being planned for the early autumn of 2014.
Speaking to the theme "The Mission of God," Archbishop Anastasios noted that “The Spirit ceaselessly gives life to the Church and to each of the Church’s members, transforming them into living cells of the mystical body of Christ, enabling it to partake in His continuing mission for the salvation of the entire cosmos.” Speakers reviewed recent developments in Evangelical missiology and mission practice and pointed out areas of difference and similarity between Orthodox and Evangelical understandings of "The Mission of God." | <urn:uuid:6c44e354-1622-4d4e-b757-4d6b1073758c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://antiochian.org/print/31326 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280310.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00189-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93449 | 326 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Aadhar card is now a mandatory document for candidates to appear in MHT CET 2017 counselling. The candidates who are planning to appear for Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (MHT CET) 2017 will have to carry Aadhar Card in the MHT CET counselling process which will be conducted through Centralised Admission Process (CAP).
Earlier this month it was announced that the Aadhar Card has become compulsory for JEE Main. Now the state government of Maharashtra has made the UIDAI commonly known as Aadhar Card mandatory for the Maharashtra Common Entrance Test (MHT CET) Counselling.
MHT CET Counseling - List of the documents Required
- Aadhar Card
- Caste/Tribe Validity Certificate
- Non-Creamy Layer Certificate
- Domicile certificate
- Income certificate
About MHT CET
MHT CET is an entrance exam which is supervised by the Directorate of Technical Education for all Health Sciences, BVSC & H, Engineering and Pharmacy degree courses.
MHT CET is conducted to offer admission to MBBS/ BDS/ BAMS/ BHMS/ BPTh/ BOTh/ BASLP/ BP&O/BSc (Nursing)/ BVSc, AH, BTech/B.E, B.Pharm courses in all the participating Government/Municipal Corporation, Government Aided and Private Medical Health Science Colleges/Institutions. | <urn:uuid:18cb1ba8-1cc9-47f3-a5c7-1ab69432925f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.motachashma.com/news/aadhar-card-has-become-mandatory-for-mht-cet-2017-counselling.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570977.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809124724-20220809154724-00466.warc.gz | en | 0.92614 | 289 | 1.773438 | 2 |
My husband and I were so excited at the ultrasound to find out the sex of our second child. We had our son with us. We were joking and talking with the tech. She suddenly grew quiet.
When the doctor came in and viewed the ultrasound, he was also very quiet. It didn’t really sink in until they told us, “There is something wrong with your baby’s heart.”
They couldn’t elaborate. They made an appointment for a fetal echo. We had to wait and wonder and worry for 4 days until we got her diagnosis. She had tricuspid atresia. One of her valves hadn’t formed so one ventricle didn’t develop. Without surgical intervention, most babies with this defect will not live to their first birthday.
We were terrified and worried, but also hopeful. I began to share her story to educate others. Before this time I didn’t realize that babies could have heart defects, but I learned that 1 in 100 are born with some sort of heart defect. It is the MOST common birth defect.
Iryl (rhymes with spiral) was monitored closely during my pregnancy. A birth plan was put in place for her. We toured the NICU and PICU at our hospital and we were scheduled to meet with the pediatric cardiac surgeon when Iryl decided to come early- at 34 1/2 weeks.
She was born via an emergency c-section. She had a few other surprises for us, too. She also has sacral agenesis (no sacrum), heterotaxy (means differently arranged and usually effects the heart, intestines and spleen but can affect other visceral organs), asplenic, duodenal atresia (intestinal blockage) malrotation, pulmonary stenosis and atrial septal defect.
Despite all of this, she is amazing. She is currently 22 months and doing really well. We still check her pulse oximetry reading daily. This simple test, “pulse ox,” is what can save newborns with undetected congenital heart defects. The device is like a band aid with a light that measures the oxygen saturation. Most people have oxygen saturation near 100%. If a newborn’s is a lot lower, more testing needs to be done right away to check for critical issues.
This screening test is NON-invasive, it’s cheap and it’s quick. It can save lives. For as long as there are congenital heart defects, parents and the medical community need to do everything they can to save these kids. Pulse ox screening should be provided for every baby before going home from the hospital. | <urn:uuid:b76ef3f6-e94a-462d-a8f6-0ec98fbe094b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.yourethecure.org/kendra-meiklejohn | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573540.20/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819005802-20220819035802-00478.warc.gz | en | 0.981582 | 597 | 1.820313 | 2 |
Maggie and John Anderson have made a major change in their family's shopping habits this year.
The Oak Park couple decided last year to do all their purchasing in 2009 from black-owned businesses and professionals. Their project, The Ebony Experiment, grew out of discussions they've had as a couple and with friends about how to support black businesses.
Both grew up in poor black communities-in Miami, where Maggie is from, and John's native Detroit. They already support black businesses but not this extent, they said. But the couple's goal is more than personal-the Andersons say they want to do more to help the black community.
"We talked about this all the time," said Maggie, a lawyer and legal consultant. "We've had these major discussions and finally we said, 'We're doing a whole lot of talking, let's do something about it.' So we just made this pledge that we're going do our best to support black businesses and black professionals. Buy more black-created products because we believe in the cycle. These are the companies that create black jobs and more jobs will improve the quality of life in black neighborhoods."
They started their project Jan. 1 and so far have spent more than $5,000. They moved their checking account to Covenant Bank, a black-owned bank in Chicago's North Lawndale neighborhood. They've bought hair products for Maggie and the girls and found a black-owned, full-service grocery store, Farmer's Best, at 47th and Ashland on Chicago's South Side.
Finding a black-owned grocery store and gas stations in the Oak Park area were the biggest challenges, the Anderson's said. To keep to their pledge, they've purchased gas cards from black-owned stations to use locally. The Andersons don't eat out much, but when they do, it will be in black-owned restaurants. They were already customers of Robinson's Ribs in Oak Park. They've been to the Jamaican Grill at 10 W. Chicago Ave. and also dined at a black-owned Burger King and KFC in neighboring Austin.
John, a financial planner, has an office in Oak Brook and when not in the field, eats lunch occasionally at the black-owned McDonald's there. The couple keeps a daily log on their website, ebonyexperiment.com, of where they shop and how much they've spent. They'll also post blogs and videos of their experience. The project will be tracked by researchers at Northwestern University for a larger study on the spending habits of black Americans.
Through their project, the Andersons also wanted to address the negative stereotypes people have about shopping at black establishments.
"In chronicling and highlighting this experience we can dispel the myths around the inconvenience or lack of service in utilizing our own," said John. "A lot of the criticism that we hear about utilizing black-owned businesses comes from other African-Americans, and that's a problem. We just can't continue to accept that because that's not the case. We cannot project the experiences of a few onto the whole."
The Andersons researched black-owned businesses and products online before launching the project. They're looking for more establishments and items, including exercise equipment and toys for the girls. The Andersons estimate they will spend $10,000 a month, but also want to attract other families to their website.
"We hope our story will inspire similar, like-minded families to make small sacrifices and start thinking about how to invest more," said Maggie. | <urn:uuid:57a290c9-9b13-4530-b3bd-1813e8be4e69> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.oakpark.com/News/Articles/1-20-2009/The-Andersons'-Ebony-Experiment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720737.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00221-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97365 | 722 | 1.679688 | 2 |
Voter ID Resurfaces In State Legislatures, But ALEC Remains Incognito In Media Coverage
Blog ››› ››› BRIAN POWELL
As conservative legislators in nine states renew the push for restrictive voter ID laws, their efforts have been aided by state media outlets that continue to ignore or misinform readers on the issue.
Republican lawmakers in several states -- Alaska, Arkansas, Missouri, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin -- have stated that new or more restrictive voter ID rules will top their agendas in 2013. (Republicans control both houses of the legislature in all those states but New York and West Virginia. In Virginia, the GOP controls the House and maintains a 50/50 split with Democrats in the state Senate.) These proposals come just weeks after the 2012 election, in which there was no evidence of massive voter fraud.
A Media Matters analysis of the largest newspapers in each state found that coverage of these new voter ID initiatives has been largely devoid of context about the overstated dangers of voter fraud or of the significant influence of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a shadowy organization dedicated to pushing a homogeneous conservative agenda state-by-state. Only four of the nine newspapers covered the 2013 initiatives at all, and only one mentioned ALEC.
The Anchorage Daily News, Alaska's largest printed news source, mentioned ALEC's role in the voter ID debates. From the ADN (emphasis added):
In an early sign of Republican muscle-flexing in the reordered Alaska Legislature, an Anchorage House member says he plans to revive a dormant bill to require Alaskans to show a photo ID to vote.
"It'll be one of the first bills we hear," said Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, the chairman of the House State Affairs Committee.
Photo ID laws have been pushed as a way to prevent voter fraud by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a national organization that promotes conservative model legislation.
For the 2012 election, the Republican-dominated Redistricting Board changed the election map and voters changed the Legislature. Enough Republicans were elected to the Senate that they were able to form their own majority for the 28th Legislature, set to convene Jan. 15. Sen. Fred Dyson, R-Eagle River, is the incoming chairman of State Affairs. Sen. John Coghill, R-North Pole, will chair the Judiciary Committee. Both are strong conservatives and members of ALEC, as is Lynn.
Lynn said he wasn't using a model ALEC bill, but he "may do some research with ALEC materials."
In addition to a dearth of ALEC coverage, the remaining eight newspapers (which include the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Billings Gazette, New York Times, Charlotte Observer, Virginian-Pilot, Charleston Gazette and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) also generally failed to inform readers about the scarcity of voter fraud or the suppressive effects of voter ID laws. The Charlotte Observer, however, did reprint the Anchorage Daily News piece on ALEC, as well as pieces by the Associated Press and the News & Observer which mentioned upcoming voter ID initiatives in the state (the latter pieces did not mention ALEC or any broader discussion of voter fraud).
The following is a breakdown of their news coverage of voter ID laws from November 13, one week after the 2012 general elections, until January 7, 2013:
- Posted In
- Elections, Election Law
- Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Billings Gazette.com, Charlotte Observer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Virginian-Pilot, Anchorage Daily News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, New York Times, Charleston Gazette
- Voter Fraud and Suppression, State Media | <urn:uuid:d0f1030a-d5ba-4e74-abc6-601c137e3340> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2013/01/09/voter-id-resurfaces-in-state-legislatures-but-a/192119 | 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 | 0.931897 | 766 | 1.585938 | 2 |
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President Obama recently took to college universities and late night talk shows to tout his plan to keep student loan interest rates fixed at 3.4%. As e21 has noted previously, since 2008 the Federal Government has effectively socialized the student loan market by enacting laws to eliminate private lender participation in administering Federal loans. As a consequence, student loans owned by the Federal Government have grown from $111 billion at the end of 2008 to $425 billion (L. 106) as of December 31, 2011, a compound annualized growth rate of 56%. With a 9% default rate among borrowers in the most recent cohort and no collateral to cushion default severities (there are added protections in bankruptcy), the program’s interest rate would be insufficient to cover expected credit losses at today’s default rates.* Yet there is no appetite among elected officials for scaling back government involvement.
Despite the widespread agreement on extension of current policy, President Obama has focused on the issue to highlight tax policy and his own biography. By so doing, however, the President has revealed the incoherence of his broader approach to economic policy. On the one hand, President Obama wishes to present himself as one of the fortunate few who should have to pay more in taxes so the government can provide greater, or ongoing, loan subsidies to prospective college students. At the same time, the President references his own experience as a one-time recipient of student loans to argue for lessening the financial burden on prospective recipients. But, the President can’t have it both ways. The President is financially successful precisely because he is well-educated. If he can personally pay more in income taxes to defray the cost of the government’s student loans, he most certainly could pay the interest and principal balance on the loans he took out to finance his education.
The broader point is that income and educational attainment in America are highly correlated. Individuals have a strong financial incentive to gain additional education because the present value of the increase in lifetime earnings exceeds the cost of tuition. Subsidies to encourage prospective students to enroll in college are therefore not necessary and very likely counterproductive. Moreover, the notion that the costs of education subsidies can be pushed off onto “the rich” through higher taxes is fatuous, since the best educated are also the ones likely to be in the highest income tax brackets. To be sure, there are well-off families who pay for their children’s college (and graduate) education. But the progressive income tax (and the President’s rhetoric) does not distinguish between those with rich parents. Well-educated, financially successful households pay higher tax rates no matter how they financed their degrees. The only tax-related benefit for households who financed their advanced degrees with loans is the student loan interest deduction, but this provision is irrelevant for those facing the highest marginal tax rates because it phases out at $150,000 in income for joint tax filers.
Income and Educational Attainment
According to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median weekly earnings for college graduates in 2012 is 1.6-times that for workers whose highest degree was high school. The median worker with an advanced degree earns 2.1-times as much as the median high school graduate. Table 1 provides the differences in median weekly earnings by level of educational attainment for workers in 2012. The correlation is nearly perfect: each additional step on the educational attainment ladder adds an additional 33% to the median worker’s weekly earnings, on average.
Some could argue that the median may understate the impact of education since some industrious college drop-outs actually do quite well financially. While Bill Gates is the most famous example, many people can anecdotally reference someone they know who’s done well with little-to-no education. Table 2 below provides the same comparison as Table 1 but instead of using the median (50th percentile) in each distribution, it uses the 90th percentile.
The figures above provide the average weekly income necessary for a person in each educational cohort to qualify for that group’s top 10%. The differential actually grows relative to the median: the college graduate at the 90th percentile earns 1.8-times more than the high school graduate at the 90th percentile. Similarly, the worker with the advanced degree at the 90th percentile makes 2.2-times more per week than the high school grad at the 90th percentile. Thus, the distributions are largely the same shape, with the variation in college graduate’s income even greater than for high school-educated workers.
Over a lifetime, the increase in weekly income can be substantial. A 2002 Census Bureau study found that the average lifetime earnings of a Bachelor’s degree holder was 75% more than the lifetime earnings of a high school graduate. A follow-on study by researchers at Georgetown University found that the premium on a college education had increased to 84%, on average. If the education acquired through student loans dramatically increases the student’s lifetime earnings, the would-be student has every necessary financial incentive to take out the necessary loans. If the net present value of the investment is positive – and loans to pay for a bachelor’s degree at an in-state institution appears to be for all but those with the most extreme discount rates – then the expense of the investment itself is unimportant. For example, would you prefer a $50,000 investment that returned nothing, or a more “expensive” $500,000 investment that increased the present value of lifetime earnings by $750,000? In the first case, the net present value is -$50,000 while in the other it is +$250,000.
The economy benefits when more people attain greater levels of education (or skills) because the resulting increase in human capital increases productivity, living standards, and competitiveness. So it’s reasonable to think that education is something that should be subsidized if the individual did not have a strong financial incentive to do what is in society’s interest. Subsidies for renewable energy, for example, are generally premised on the idea that utilities and other energy consumers have a financial incentive to consume lower-cost fuels with higher emissions. Absent the subsidy for wind energy, for example, it would be in utilities’ interest to invest in more coal-fired plants, which, presumably, is not in society’s interest. Given the data on weekly and lifetime earnings disparities, it appears to be difficult to argue that would-be college students have a financial incentive to stay out of school.
Rather than focus on college generally, it might make more sense to focus on subsidies for education in areas that deliver an outsized impact to the economy, like engineering and sciences. But as the annual 2011 BLS occupation wage summary makes clear, these are precisely the jobs with the highest median weekly earnings. College degrees in subject areas that are likely to generate the greatest returns for society are also the degrees that are most likely to boost a graduate’s income. As a result, it is difficult to make a case for even these kinds of targeted subsidies.
With no externality or market failure to correct, the case for subsidized student loans seems to rest on the cost of college tuition and the fact that it has grown faster than the rate of inflation for many decades. But why should anyone believe the cost of tuition is exogenous to government subsidies? That is, why do we take the cost of college as given and then design policies to address rising costs rather than wonder whether the policies themselves are partly responsible for the inflation?
Imagine a favorite area restaurant that grew so popular that the prices of its menu items grew well in excess of inflation. If the government provided cash and loan subsidies to help patrons of the restaurant finance their meals, the net effect on affordability would probably be nil, as the restaurant’s owners would likely respond by raising prices. By relaxing patrons’ budget constraints but doing nothing to control costs, the policy would simply increase demand for a good that’s already in fixed supply, which is clearly a recipe for inflation.
The effect of cash and loan subsidies for higher education are unlikely to be any different. Colleges and universities have simply responded to the subsidies through increased tuition and housing costs. While the share of the population with college degrees has increased to a high of 30%, college completion rates have fallen as the increase in enrollment has not been matched by a similar increase in graduates. The student loan program appears to have stimulated enrollments, without a corresponding increase in graduates. This leaves households in the worst position of all, with the added debt associated with student loans but no degree to show for them. Yet, this outcome is entirely consistent with subsidies that eliminate the link between spending and household budget constraints.
Society does not need to subsidize the economic elite. Yet policies to defray the cost of interest rates on student loans do exactly that. Perhaps the policies could be tolerated if the taxes and subsidies netted out to zero, but the net impact is to increase tuition costs and lower completion rates, which leaves many households with added debt but no degree to show for it.
*This subclause was added after the commentary was first published. | <urn:uuid:74e5b8a5-8f41-4e9b-a210-bbb296abecb3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.economics21.org/html/today%E2%80%99s-student-loan-recipients-are-tomorrow%E2%80%99s-economic-elite-431.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00469-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969577 | 1,896 | 1.992188 | 2 |
It’s been awhile since Matt and I enjoyed a week away, so on Saturday morning, we packed a bag, fed the cats, and jumped in the car for a quick get away to Red Rock Canyon State Park, about 90 miles north of Los Angeles in the Mojave desert. While there isn’t much in the area in terms of restaurants, shopping or other things “to do”, the natural beauty of the park more than makes up for the remoteness of the area. In fact, I loved the “remoteness” of it all, as driving in Los Angeles means you’re always surrounded by other people, cars, noises, and buildings. On highway 14, the expanse of sand and desert stretched limitless around us, surrounded only by brushy peaks of rock-like mountains. Because pictures will do a better job explaining Red Rock’s beauty than I will, enjoy!
After a few hours scurrying across the rocks of Red Rock, we headed back to our hotel. I had hoped to catch a glimpse of some petroglyphs the next day but was disappointed to find out you needed to pre-arrange a tour to see petroglyphs at the high-security China Lake Naval Base. I was determined to find petroglyphs anyways, so I googled furiously via iPhone in our hotel room until I stumbled upon a listing for “Fossil Falls” on a rockhound message forum. Fossil Falls is another hour north of Red Rock Canyon, in an area called Little Lake. Fossil Falls is an awesome geological feature formed by lava flow over 400,000 years ago. According to Wikipedia, “During the last ice age, glaciers formed in the Sierra Nevada. Meltwater from the glaciers pooled into large lakes, including Owens Lake and the Owens River. The river traveled through to Indian Wells Valley, and its course was diverted several times by volcanic activity. The falls were formed when the river was forced to divert its course over a basalt flow, polishing and reshaping the rock into a variety of unique shapes and forms.”
The falls are incredible because you can actually climb into them, and suddenly you’re 30 feet deep into a canyon, poking your head into holes and squirming through cracks and fissures to get to the other side. We were lucky enough to spot four petroglyphs! Petroglyphs are stone etchings, made by chipping through layers of rock to expose different colors. These petroglyphs could be over 5,000 years old, and were likely made by the Coso people, who built their homes along the river. The areas around the falls were surrounded with sparkling pieces of Obsidian, evidence of Native American life. The obsidian, which is a black lava glass, was used to make arrows, hammers, knives and spears.
As you can see, there was pretty much no way to take a bad picture surrounded by such amazing sights. I get unreasonably excited when there are historical artifacts like petroglyphs or arrowheads nearby (it’s my inner anthropology nerd) so this was right up my alley. Being able to put my hand next to where someone stood over 4,000 years ago, chipping away at layers of rock, is an awesome feeling.
It was the perfect weekend full of adventure, relaxation and activity. We ended up walking over 3 miles on Sunday, and I definitely got a good workout climbing up and down the rock walls. This trip has made me excited for where else we have yet to explore in California — including Mammoth, Lone Pine, the Salton Sea, Death Valley and Temecula. I love California! Have you ever seen petroglyphs, and does Red Rock Canyon/ Fossil Falls seem like a place you’d want to visit? It’s definitely worth the short drive up from Los Angeles, or on the way down if you’re coming from the North. | <urn:uuid:6c279ffa-9954-4e20-b931-974e531d6ee4> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://doublechindiary.com/exploring-red-rock-canyon-state-park-fossil-falls/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00164-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968119 | 834 | 1.757813 | 2 |
Written by contributor Amida of Journey into Unschooling
I grew up on a lot of TV. The first show I remember ever watching was a cartoon called Xiao Tian Tian. I had lived with a lot of other kids and every dinner, we’d all grab our bowls of rice, leave our families, and gather around the tiny screen to watch. I don’t recall a single dish I ate, but can still hear the theme song in my head…
We got our first TV set when I was around five. It had turn dials, rabbit ears, and no remote control. The first show that came on was Wile E. Coyote trying to catch his Road Runner.
I spent a huge chunk of my childhood glued to that set, watching black and white shows like Ma and Pa Kettle and Shirley Temple. I moved on to Land of the Lost, Lost in Space, The Brady Bunch, Facts of Life, Silver Spoons, Family Ties, Diff’rent Strokes, The Cosby Show, Small Wonder, Out of This World, Valerie, Valerie’s Family, Hogan Family, Punky Brewster, Growing Pains, Just the Ten of Us, Who’s the Boss, What’s Happening, 21 Jump Street, MTV, and Headbanger’s Ball, just to name a few.
Not to mention Looney Toons, Popeye, Smurfs, GI Joe, Transformers, Robotech, He-Man, She-Ra, Thunder Cats, Jem, and Dungeons and Dragons.
Most of the homeschooling kids I know nowadays don’t watch a lot of television. However, we parents do, late at night, when said kids are in bed. I’d tell you we’re catching up on TED talks but more often than not, it’s the latest Two and a Half Men episode or mindless action flick.
Just last night, we watched Judge Dredd take out a whole block of drug dealing baddies. Welcome to the wonderful world of streaming media.
I would worry about a lost childhood filled with useless cultural references (Hannah Who?), but my kids are at least addicted to Minecraft. They have an in, a conversation starter. So what if they aren’t personal with SpongeBob or speak Spanish a la Dora the Explorer? I am sure they will be fine.
My own TV addiction filled my mind with all sorts of useless trivia and jingles. It has allowed me to understand what it means to say, “Marcia! Marcia! Marcia!” and not let anyone switch stations when At This Moment comes on the radio. I learned opera (“Kill the Rabbit!”) from Elmer Fudd and know that maybe the world is blind and just a little unkind.
I have been known to hum the Smurfs'”La la la la la la” song for no particular reason.
Or interrupt conversations with “Thunder! Thunder! Thunder Cats! Hoooooooo!!!”
Or even rattle off things like:
I’m Adam, Prince of Eternia and defender of the secrets of Castle Grayskull. This is Cringer, my fearless friend. Secrets were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword and said, “By the Power of Grayskull! I HAVE THE POWER!!!” Cringer became the mighty Battle Cat and I became HE-MAN, The Most Powerful Man In The Universe!!!”
But I digress. The point I’m trying to make is, my kids don’t watch a lot of TV. It will rot their brains.
Now you know. And knowing is half the battle. Yo, Joe!
Do your children watch TV? Are you a closet TV viewer? | <urn:uuid:117ef154-745f-4360-ae06-054936622c39> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://simplehomeschool.net/tv/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280128.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00389-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932452 | 804 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Blacklist is a term that is used in paid advertising which refers to a specific filtering type that is meant to prevent certain websites from displaying your ads. This may be because the ROI from the website displaying your advertisements is really low, or it only doesn’t have any ROI whatsoever. If the quality of the traffic happens to below, that may also be a reason for blacklisting the website from advertising.
Any Publisher or source who’s behavior matches known fraud patterns is reported as mobile fraud, and blocked when possible.
Many anti-fraud solutions buy or maintain their own blacklists of Device IDs, bot signatures, and IP addresses known to perpetrate fraud.
Once an IP/Device/link is added to a blacklist, all clicks and installs from a blacklisted source gets blocked automatically.
What is the need of having dedicated Blacklist links or lists? | <urn:uuid:b02c0cb1-0077-453c-8212-7d4a12d5a202> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://trackier.com/glossary/blacklist/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572089.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814234405-20220815024405-00066.warc.gz | en | 0.950089 | 183 | 2 | 2 |
The cow in the meadow may go "moo," but is she bidding a simple hello, asking for more hay or warning of an impending storm? Meteorology is pretty advanced now, thanks to the impressive capabilities of modern weather radar and other tools, but it wasn't all that long ago that humans relied on far less scientific methods for predictions of rain, sleet, snow or sun. In fact, the behavior of animals like good old Bessie the cow has been popularly used for centuries to help people get a leg up on all types of weather emergencies. Although these behaviors might seem mysterious on the front end, experts credit the fact that animals are more finely attuned to nature and its changing states (humidity, air pressure, length of the day) with their seeming ability to predict the daily or seasonal forecast [source: Thomas].
But not every animal is a genius forecaster. Although some species seem to have a serious nose (or snout) for meteorology, others have garnered reputations based on fanciful myths, rumors and silly fun. Keep reading to find out which animals are fit for an internship at The Weather Channel and which should keep their day jobs. | <urn:uuid:a7f3fcd7-4780-4551-b717-d3bb7d03c8e6> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://science.howstuffworks.com/nature/climate-weather/storms/10-ways-animals-supposedly-predict-the-weather.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719079.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00033-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957745 | 240 | 2.984375 | 3 |
This recipe appears in:Naomi Duguid's Banana Flower Salad, Rakhine Style
Crisp fried shallots are essential garnishes on many dishes in Burma: Rivers of Flavor. Once its been used for frying, you can save the shallot-flavored oil to drizzle over countless dishes. Here, it's used on top of Naomi Duguid's Banana Flower Salad.
Reprinted with permission from
- 1 cup peanut oil
- 2 cups (about 1/2 pound) thinly sliced Asian or European shallots
Place a wide heavy skillet or a large stable wok over medium-high heat and add the oil. Toss in a slice of shallot. As the oil heats, it will rise to the surface, sizzling lightly.
When it’s reached the surface, add the rest of the shallots, carefully, so you don’t splash yourself with the oil, and lower the heat to medium. (The shallots may seem crowded, but they’ll shrink as they cook.) Stir gently and frequently with a long-handled wooden spoon or a spider. The shallots will bubble as they give off their moisture. If they start to brown early, in the first 5 minutes, lower the heat a little more. After about 10 minutes, they should start to color. Continue to cook, stirring occasionally to prevent them from sticking to the pan or to each other, until they have turned a golden brown, another 3 minutes or so.
Line a plate with paper towels. Use tongs or a spider to lift a clump of fried shallots out of the oil, pausing for a moment to shake off excess oil into the pan, then place on the paper towel. Turn off the heat, transfer the remaining shallots to the plate, and blot gently with another paper towel. Separate any clumps and toss them a little, then let them air-dry 5 to 10 minutes, so they crisp up and cool. (If your kitchen is very hot and humid, they may not crisp up; don’t worry, the flavor will still be there.)
Transfer the shallots to a clean, dry, widemouthed glass jar. Once they have cooled completely, seal tightly. Transfer the oil to another clean dry jar, using all but the very last of it, which will have some stray pieces of shallot debris. (You can set that oil aside for stir-frying.) Once the oil has cooled completely, cover tightly and store in a cool dark place. | <urn:uuid:9cde64a3-1830-4265-9df0-d61f184e1381> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2012/10/naomi-duguids-fried-shallots-and-shallot-oil.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284352.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00189-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935324 | 521 | 1.648438 | 2 |
INFORMATION & COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY UNIT (ICTU)
The ICT Unit of the University is generally charged with the responsibilities of deploying ICT infrastructure and services for administration, teaching, research and learning to the University at large.
The Information & Communication Technology Unit (ICTU) goals are to:
Enable the University to invest in and use IT strategically;
Direct IT resources to highest and best purposes in support of University of Nigeria mission; and to
Elevate the level of IT service excellence
We aspire to build an organization that focuses on People, Process and Technology evidenced by
Committed and skilled staff accountable to University of Nigeria’s mission; and serving faculty and students;
Simple processes making it easy for staff and students to work, and deliver results; and
Innovative technology to enhance teaching and learning in University of Nigeria
To assure University of Nigeria’s leadership in IT, we deliver academic excellence through innovative technology and we strive to make it easier for faculty, students, and staff to teach, research, learn, and work through the effective use of information technology.
Innovative technology to enable teaching and learning | <urn:uuid:56aaad59-389d-45fa-bbb7-b01f4982abc6> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.unn.edu.ng/administration/administrative-support-units/ict-unit-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573399.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818185216-20220818215216-00073.warc.gz | en | 0.914098 | 256 | 1.726563 | 2 |
On the heels of the FCC's Vonage decision, an association of state utility commissioners met, debated issues and passed 21 unique resolutions. Nine resolutions that emerged from the Telecommunications Committee were approved by NARUC before the meeting ended.
It is fair to say that I didn't linger too long at NARUC. In fact, if you discount time spent at the airport, I was in Nashville less than a day and only in the convention area for a few hours. Notwithstanding this limited experience, even I picked up on the heightened level of engagement generated by four resolutions brought to the table by veteran Maine PUC Chairman Tom Welch. Three of the resolutions were adopted and a fourth, on VoIP was tabled until the February meeting.
In a nutshell, NARUC's line in the sand against all federal preemption was significantly eroded and some old-line, "regulate the world based on a 1920's utility doctrine" regulators were seriously upset. So what did the resolutions actually say?
On the NARUC Telecommunication Policy Resolution, the new resolution calls for three changes:
1. "NARUC is open to the possibility that, as markets evolve and local products and services take on more national and international characteristics, traditional jurisdictional principles may need to be re-evaluated." Okay so far. But the fact that this was viewed as controversial says more about NARUC's starting point on these issues than the resolution itself. The resolution doesn't call for reevaluation of jurisdiction. Rather, it states an openness of mind to the possibility of reevaluation. How very noble.
2. At section 4.1, the amended resolution states "NARUC is willing to work with the FCC and telecommunications service providers to seek a simpler and competitively neutral system of intercarrier compensation." Another good idea; intercarrier compensation reform will necessarily entail state-federal cooperation. But why is NARUC elevated to the level of a sovereign? Am I the only one who thinks that perhaps it would be better if NARUC would pledge to encourage the several States to "work with the FCC and telecommunications service providers"? On one hand is an honest broker attempting to bring parties toward consensus. On the other, unfortunately where NARUC has placed itself, is an interest - like so many others - promoting itself for a seat at the table.
3. And at section 7.4, the amended resolution reserves to state authority the ability to regulate based on anticompetitive behavior (state regulation excepted,) universal service, public safety and welfare, quality of service, "consumer rights" and to ensure just and reasonable rates. Translation: We'll admit that maybe a situation exists where we should not regulate but we won't consider scaling back any of our current authority.
The amendment to the Telecommunications Policy Resolution on "national consistency" was much more clear. While it too has caveats, there is less of the bait-and-switch feel than in the above-mentioned amendment. In part, it reads "National preemption of State authority may be justified under some circumstances. Before preempting State jurisdiction, however, Congress and the FCC should consult with the States and U.S. territories..." It is a pretty straightforward and a darn newsworthy statement, considering the source.
Finally, a resolution on UNE pricing was adopted. The resolution acknowledges that UNEs set too low "may discourage investment in new infrastructure and services." Indeed it may. The resolution goes on to say, "NARUC is open to the possibility that unbundling should be treated as a transitional approach to opening markets, and that the goal should be, for most if not all areas, facilities-based competition." Again, NARUC is "open to the possibility" instead of simply stating a preference.
All in all, by any reasonable standard revolutionary statements were neither proposed nor adopted. (Not to say that Welch and his erstwhile supporters didn't have their hands full. Several announced to me that they simply wanted an acknowledgement from the group that their point of view existed. i.e. 'All states are not monolithic.') The NARUC amendments represent progress and should be seen as a step forward for a deeply wounded organization. Congratulations Tom. | <urn:uuid:03f02871-8af2-47f2-b8a3-02a5690a42fa> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://blog.pff.org/archives/2004/11/a_word_on_the_n.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280900.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00006-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961622 | 864 | 1.585938 | 2 |
Anatomy of a Credit Crunch: From Capital to Labor Markets
NBER Working Paper No. 19997
Why are financial crises associated with a sustained rise in unemployment? We develop a tractable model with frictions in both credit and labor markets to study the aggregate and micro-level implications of a credit crunch--i.e., a tightening of collateral constraints. When we simulate a credit crunch calibrated to match the observed decline in the ratio of debt to non-financial assets of the United States business sector following the 2007-8 crisis, our model generates a sharp decline in output--explained by a drop in aggregate total factor productivity and investment--and a protracted increase in unemployment. We then explore the micro-level impact by tracking the employment dynamics for firms of different sizes and ages. The credit crunch causes a much larger reduction in the net employment growth rate of small, young establishments relative to that of large, old producers, consistent with the recent empirical findings in the literature.
You may purchase this paper on-line in .pdf format from SSRN.com ($5) for electronic delivery.
Document Object Identifier (DOI): 10.3386/w19997
Published: Francisco Buera & Roberto Fattal-Jaef & Yongseok Shin, 2015. "Anatomy of a Credit Crunch: From Capital to Labor Markets," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(1), January. citation courtesy of
Users who downloaded this paper also downloaded these: | <urn:uuid:d32f3b40-85aa-48b1-9bb6-96e37aa5f42d> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.nber.org/papers/w19997 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720380.80/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00056-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.893732 | 311 | 1.859375 | 2 |
When rearing cattle, feeding them with proper and nutritious feed is a must if you want to have a better milk yield as well a carcass yield. Here we are going to focus mainly on feeding the dairy cows.
The feeding practices of cows differ from their age or their physiological stage. The feed must give according to their life stage. There are several reproductive stages the cows undergo from their birth. These stages are: calf, heifer, cow and dry cow. When feeding the cow should focus on their reproductive stage. We will take a look at each and every stage and the feed given briefly through this post.
There are mainly two types of feed use to feed the cows. They are concentrates and the roughages.
Concentrates: these contain higher amount of energy and all the other needed nutrients including fat. Most of the time these concentrates are produced from the cereal grains.
Roughages: these are the forage and the pasture that use to feed the cattle. Hay and silage also come under this category.
Calves are the following stock for the replacement of the herd. They must ready to give birth to younger ones at the proper age. So, care must be taken to provide a healthy and a nutritious feed for the calves. Then only you can promise a higher income in the future.
The calves should feed with the colostrum definitely. Colostrum is the first secretion from the mammary glands of the mother cow. The composition of the colostrum is different than the whole milk. The needed nutrients by the calves are providing through this colostrum.
Within 1 to 2 hours from the birth (maximum<6 hours) the calf should feed with the colostrum. The feed quantity should be 10% of the birth weight. It contains many nutrients needed by the calves. Proteins, vitamins, minerals, immunoglobulins are some of the nutrients available there. And this is easily digestible feed.
After the colostrum feeding the calf can feed naturally using the mother (dam) or a foster mother. This is the easiest way to feed the calf.
But you can feed the calf artificially too. For that can use a bottle with a teat or a bucket. The whole milk or skim milk can feed like this. The milk should be with a temperature similar to the body temperature.
The calf should feed twice per day and the quantity should be 8-10% of the body weight.
After weaning the calf, you can feed them with concentrates or hay or grass.
A female calf less than 30 months before giving birth to a calf is called a heifer. The heifer feeding is also important because she has to bear a calf after 30 months. Should provide nutrient rich feed to reach the breeding weight.
Good quality roughages and concentrates should provide in adequate amount. If you underfeed the heifer will show slow growth, take a long time to reach puberty and breeding weight and make it difficult to detect heat signs.
The cattle after the age 30 months ready to give birth to a calf is called a cow. Taking care on the feeding of the cow is very essential in this stage. If a cow is too thin milk production reduces and subjects to metabolic diseases too easily. If the cow is too fat then complications are occurring at calving. Reduce milk productions and more likely to have metabolic disorders.
There is a common rule when feeding the cow.
10% of its live weight if feed using fresh matter
2.5 – 3% its live weight if feed using dry matter
1 Kg for maintenance of the cow and 0.5 Kg for each liter of milk from the body weight (first 4 L – free)
Dry cow feeding
Cow after giving birth to a calf and the 60 days before the next calving is called a dry cow. This is a very important stage as chance is given to replenish the mammary glands. In here you have to avoid the concentrates and reduce the feed amount offering. | <urn:uuid:ebd82595-21fc-4e83-9d60-6d95d70e7c32> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://sudocows.com/how-to-feed-cattle/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571993.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814022847-20220814052847-00679.warc.gz | en | 0.953527 | 837 | 3.046875 | 3 |
What Size Painting Sells the Best
They normally mirror or touch upon modern society using new strategies and supplies, such as videos/technology. Contemporary art could be utterly new, or influenced by previous artworks/artists. An example of contemporary artworks that were affect by earlier artists/artworks are appropriation artworks, which use outdated images/topics to create a new art work that portrays a new perspective. Some examples of up to date artists are Damien Hirst, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Marina Abramovic, Dan Christensen and Ronald Davis.
The ethical of the story is to cost on the low side of your market, particularly should you’re less established, much less skilled or making an attempt to realize a foothold in a brand new or more competitive realm. You see, when somebody buys a chunk of art from you, that is one much less piece that they’re going to purchase from other artists. You wish to maximize the variety of items that individuals buy from you. Once you’ve carried out your evaluating and also you’re prepared set your prices by comparison, base your prices on what sells, not on what doesn’t.
For occasion, in 2015, a portray (shown below) by noted fashionable artist V.S. Gaitonde was offered for Rs. 29.30 crore at Christie’s India public sale. These elements established the view that it was a “movement”. These traits””establishment of a working methodology integral to the art, establishment of a motion or visible energetic core of help, and worldwide adoption””could be repeated by artistic movements within the Modern interval in art.
If you’re not quite positive where you stand, invite a couple of people to look at your art and let you know what they suppose– preferably professionals who know one thing about artwork– not your best pals or largest followers, however ones who’ll be sincere and direct. Encourage them to be truthful as a result of that’s what you need. When you are goal about your art, you maximize your probabilities of succeeding as an artist.
The phrases modernism and fashionable art are usually used to explain the succession of art actions that critics and historians have recognized since the realism of Gustav Courbet and culminating in abstract artwork and its developments within the 1960s. Modernism refers to a world movement in society and culture that from the early decades of the 20th century sought a brand new alignment with the expertise and values of modern industrial life. Building on late nineteenth-century precedents, artists all over the world used new imagery, supplies and techniques to create artworks that they felt better mirrored the realities and hopes of contemporary societies.
Only Art Deco, a quite glossy design fashion aimed toward architecture and utilized artwork, expressed any confidence sooner or later. The date most commonly cited as marking the delivery of “fashionable art” is the 12 months that Edouard Manet ( ) exhibited his surprising and irreverent painting Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe within the Salon des Refuses in Paris.
An austere and difficult fashion of painting, Cubism introduced a compositional system of flat splintered planes as a substitute for Renaissance-impressed linear perspective and rounded volumes. Developed by Pablo Picasso ( ) and Georges Braque ( ) in two variants – Analytical Cubism and later Synthetic Cubism – it influenced abstract art for the next 50 years, though its well-liked attraction has been limited. The major contribution of Cubism to “fashionable artwork” was to offer a whole new alternative to conventional perspective, based mostly on the inescapable truth of the flat picture airplane. A tendency away from the narrative, which was characteristic for the standard arts, toward abstraction is attribute of a lot modern artwork.
Two years later certainly one of his paintings was refused at the Salon Officiel in Paris. Edouard Manet suffered the same fate with his Déjeuner sur l’herbe, right now one of the Musée d’Orsay’s most prestigious possessions. In many ways this was essentially the most thrilling period of modern artwork, when every little thing was nonetheless potential and when the “machine” was still seen solely as a good friend of man. | <urn:uuid:897b9d1a-b441-497a-b85a-0ac5ee5f179e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.themasskarafestival.com/four-characteristics-of-art-anywhere-anytime.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570868.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808152744-20220808182744-00077.warc.gz | en | 0.950864 | 902 | 2.1875 | 2 |
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Jerry Brown, the enigmatic former governor who always seemed to be eyeing his next political post, returns to the state capital this week to lead a much different California than the one he oversaw 28 years ago.
The state’s finances are in a deep hole, term limits mean he will be dealing with a revolving door of lawmakers eyeing their next election, political polarization has all but paralyzed the Capitol, and the state’s population is larger and far more diverse than when he left the governor’s office in 1983.
After convincing Californians last November that they need an elder statesman to guide them through the state’s fiscal abyss, the 72-year-old veteran politician will have to overcome the hyper-partisanship that has overtaken political discourse in Sacramento.
The Democrat and outgoing state attorney general has promised an austere future as he prepares to become California’s 39th governor. The state faces a $28 billion budget shortfall through June 2012, and multibillion-dollar shortfalls are projected for the foreseeable future.
Brown is calling for “shared sacrifice” from all sides: Republicans, Democrats, unions and business leaders.
That could mean asking voters to extend the temporary income, sales and vehicle taxes that were approved in 2009 and are scheduled to expire in July, a politically risky ploy that would require voter approval just a year after voters rejected a similar request. Brown campaigned on a promise not to raise taxes without voter approval.
Grappling with the state’s staggering financial woes is likely to consume most of Brown’s attention his first year in office and require all the skills he has acquired during a lifetime in politics.
Just one week after Monday’s inauguration, the incoming governor must present his first budget plan. The surpluses and mostly on-time budgets he signed into law as governor from 1975 to 1983 are as much a part of history as the 1974 Plymouth Satellite he drove back then.
At two public forums last month, one on the state budget and the other on education, by far the largest expenditure in California’s budget, Brown laid out a grim scenario in which Californians should expect further funding cuts and reductions in service.
He also has said he wants to streamline departments and leave some positions unfilled, such as the largely redundant state secretary of education.
“I would say generally, that everything should be on the table and everyone should be at the table to talk about it,” Brown said during the first forum.
Republicans are wary of any plans that rely on extending the 2009 tax increases or raising others, but Brown has met with lawmakers from both parties during several visits to the Capitol since he defeated Republican Meg Whitman in November.
“I think he wants to make the process inclusive, not limit it to just a few legislators. He certainly recognizes the importance of the (legislative) leadership, but he recognizes that a good idea can come from anyone,” said former Gov. Gray Davis, who was Brown’s chief of staff during his previous tenure and was recalled by voters in the election that sent Arnold Schwarzenegger to the governor’s office.
Brown’s inclination to meet with lawmakers and wade deep into policymaking also marks a sharp change in style from Schwarzenegger, who relied on charm and his larger-than-life personality to win deals as he met with the four legislative leaders behind closed doors. Brown also does not share the actor’s perpetually sunny disposition, but has a reputation as a tireless worker.
He says he is more realistic than Schwarzenegger was about the pace of change that is possible in state bureaucracy. Schwarzenegger infamously pledged to “blow up the boxes” of state government — a promise that was never fully executed — but Brown said he will instead try to focus on specific goals.
“You can’t blow up the boxes and you can’t take on everything. You can’t take on even too many things. And when people give a pretty good objection or suggestion, you’ve got to incorporate that,” he said during an interview with The Associated Press during the final weekend of the gubernatorial campaign.
When he was last in the governor’s office, Brown dated celebrities and earned the nickname “Governor Moonbeam” for what then seemed like far-out ideas, such as putting communications satellites into space.
He also was criticized for his continual pursuit of higher office that many said made him too distracted to lead effectively. He sought the Democratic nomination for president in 1976 and 1980, and lost his bid for U.S. Senate in 1982.
The former Jesuit seminarian also headed the state Democratic Party, practiced Zen Buddhism in Japan and worked with Mother Teresa in India. Brown tried again for the presidential nomination in 1992, then served eight years as mayor of Oakland.
Brown sought to portray his age and experience as an asset during last year’s campaign, saying he has the focus and dedication needed for the job. One major change since his last trip to the governor’s office: Brown is no longer a bachelor, marrying former Gap Inc. general counsel Anne Gust Brown, who is expected to play a prominent role in his office.
The intervening years also have taught him lessons in governance. As Oakland mayor, for example, he was forced to cope with many state regulations, some of which he approved as governor, and said the results were not always positive.
That experience, and the state’s growing inability to pay for a host of services Californians have come to expect, have led Brown to believe that many responsibilities and their costs should be shifted from the state to cities, counties and school districts.
He has said in hindsight he was wrong to have the state take on so many local government functions after voters approved Proposition 13 in 1978, which cut local property tax revenue.
Given the state’s dire financial circumstances, Brown acknowledges there are few pleasant options and that ideological divides will not be overcome easily. He has joked that he’d like to force interest groups “out of their comfort zones,” possibly by keeping them in a room together until they can come up with a compromise.
“That may be a metaphor of the coalition-building that is required. Until you do it, you never can be quite sure what will be the result,” he said during the AP interview. “But I think people just yelling at each other doesn’t get very far … If you get people to focus on it very seriously, it’s possible to get agreements that weren’t obvious at the beginning of the process.”
(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) | <urn:uuid:9ff70a79-53ad-4a8a-b564-5432cee8de1f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2011/01/02/brown-calls-for-political-shared-sacrifice/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281746.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00292-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979693 | 1,398 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, or something similar that states”:
“Most over night successes are at least 10 years in the making.”
With our constantly changing work environment, many of us as leaders and teams might consider ourselves currently going through the “10 years in the making”. Maybe we’re in the first month, or maybe we’ve already surpassed the 10 years.
No matter where we fall on the timeline, most leaders and teams want to go faster or have more. While there are lots of ingredients to becoming an “over night” success, here are three simple reflections for the journey:
- The First Reflection – Time has the same relationship to success, as an amateur has to a champion. Every champion today, was first an amateur, that took time to become a champion. Every success of tomorrow, requires time from today. There is a process of learning and developing, practicing and growing, and training and studying.
- The Second Reflection – There is a positive attitude needed for success, to work through the mistakes, failures, and losses. When it comes to our hopes and dreams, there are three possible answers from the universe, no matter what you believe: yes, not now, or there’s something else. It’s easy to be positive and optimistic and hopeful when the answer is yes, and exactly what you want. Where positive attitudes are so important is when we are in the game of the “10 year journey” and we’re losing and don’t know the final score. Champions don’t need to know the final score. They have an attitude that believes the final score will be in their favour.
- The Third Reflection – Champions get the right to compete for the top position, achieve the number one status, be the best in the world, and reach their hopes and dreams, through several wins along the way – And they take the time to celebrate those wins, whatever size they are, because they all have a part in the overall success.
Our speed on our journeys to success will be influenced by the time that we invest daily, our unwavering attitudes of optimistic belief, and celebrating every win that is progress along the way.
Final Reflection – We might always want to go faster, and that’s okay, as long as we can exert some level of patience to avoid being Johathan Winters who said:
“I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it.” | <urn:uuid:389a22dc-6e9a-4ac1-abfb-962f64716c6c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://honeconsulting.com/leadership-team-success-journey/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.37/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809003642-20220809033642-00665.warc.gz | en | 0.955773 | 528 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Avian influenza has been confirmed on a turkey farm near Louth, in Lincolnshire.
It marks the first incursion of the virus to the UK following a migratory season that has seen hundreds of wild birds across Europe found dead, and thousands of commercial poultry culled to try and contain the disease.
Defra testing confirmed H5N8 avian influenza late Friday afternoon (16 December). It put in place a 3km protection zone and a 10km surveillance zone around the farm, restricting the movement of poultry.
See also: Avian influenza: The signs and symptoms
It is understood that mortality on the farm was up to 80%, suggesting a highly pathogenic strain.
Public Health England has insisted that the risk to the public is very low, and that cooked poultrymeat poses no threat to health.
Chief veterinary officer Nigel Gibbons said it was the same strain of the disease that had been circulating in Europe.
“Immediate steps have been taken to limit the risk of the disease spreading and all remaining poultry at the farm will be culled.
“Public Health England has confirmed that the risk to public health is very low and the Food Standards Agency has said that bird flu does not pose a food safety risk for UK consumers.
“Bird keepers should remain alert for any signs of disease, report suspected disease immediately and ensure they are maintaining good biosecurity on their premises.
“We are urgently looking for any evidence of disease spread associated with this strain to control and eliminate it.”
A PHE spokesperson added: “Avian flu (often called bird flu) is primarily a disease of birds. There have never been any recorded cases of H5N8 in humans and the risk to public health is considered very low.
“We continue to work closely with Defra throughout this investigation. Despite the risk being very low, we will offer health advice to those people who may have been exposed on the farm as a precaution.”
The housing order put in place on 6 December remains in place in England, Scotland and Wales, including within the Protection and Surveillance Zones.
Defra said poultry and captive bird keepers should continue to house their birds, where practicable, maintain biosecurity and remain vigilant about the health of their birds. | <urn:uuid:af41be8c-9b37-4b11-a0e3-746754f72e5c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.fwi.co.uk/poultry/bird-flu-confirmed-lincs-turkey-farm.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00217-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969781 | 472 | 2.390625 | 2 |
Mademoiselle Riego and Irish Crochet Lace takes a close look at the lives and work of the crochet lace designers of the Victorian era, especially of Mlle Riego de la BranchardiŹre. This talented and prolific designer of many forms of needlework has been given the credit for ‘inventing’ Irish crochet, but his book reveals that she and the other English designers made only a very small contribution to Irish crochet design. More information
The cost of this 32 page book is $A15 + P/P
Packaging and postage $A2.80 in Australia / $A7.50 to USA, UK and Europe
The cost of packaging and postage for the two books together is the same as for the Early History book. | <urn:uuid:832fb5fe-c470-424c-8f75-ddcb1f727d2e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://crochethistory.com/books.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282926.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00400-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.932788 | 161 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Do I need to speak French?
French is the official language of Quebec, and it is a good idea to learn French if you choose to live here, in order to experience to the fullest extent all that the city has to offer.
However, Montreal is one of the most bilingual locations on Earth, and many current students arrived at the institute with little or no proficiency in French.
The relative popularity of English and French at the institute fluctuates over time. Currently, many students in the institute originate from non-French-speaking countries such as the US, China, Turkey and Iran, so everyone in the institute speaks English reasonably well, whereas French is a common language to a smaller subset.
Isn’t it cold in Montreal?
It’s true that Montreal is cold in the winter (and, in fact, very hot in the summer), but the city is well-adapted to function in spite of the weather. Montreal’s snow removal is incredibly fast and efficient. You will need to get a good coat, hat, gloves, and boots, but most foreign students don’t find that they mind the cold too much, which is not very different from other cities such as Boston or Toronto.
The climate also provides certain advantages. There is an ice skating lake within walking distance of the institute and good skiing (both downhill and cross country) within reasonable driving distance of Montreal. It’s easy to go sledding in one of Montreal’s many parks — just grab a glossy cardboard box out of a recycling bin on the street and tear off one of its sides. | <urn:uuid:094b8e01-1f91-4d21-9eea-679d84f1fd70> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://mila.quebec/en/hrf_faq/studying-in-montreal/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00470.warc.gz | en | 0.957821 | 329 | 2.15625 | 2 |
More Taxing News for Humans
A grim update from, once again, the really good bad-news bearers at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Scrambling to crunch the numbers, the center has recalculated the impact of George W. Bush's tax cuts. The new news is even worse.
Here's an excerpt from the center's reconfigured report analyzing an August report by the Congressional Budget Office:
The top one percent will gain by far the most from the tax cuts even though it has already been the main beneficiary of income trends since the 1970s. Data from a separate CBO study, released in April of this year, indicate that between 1979 and 2001 (the latest year CBO examined), the average after-tax income of the top one percent of households rose by a stunning $409,000, or 139 percent, after adjusting for inflation. This dwarfed the $6,300, or 17 percent, average increase among the middle fifth of the population, over this 22-year period, and the $1,100, or 8 percent, increase among the bottom fifth of the population.
Added to that not-quite-old news is that the center's revised report also notes that "the Economic Policy Institute finds that the number of jobs created in the wake of the tax cuts has already fallen 2.7 million jobs short of Administration predictions made in 2003."
And what about this Economic Policy Institute, which the center so graciously credits? Just today, it released a report by Elise Gould entitled "Employer-Provided Health Insurance Falls for Third Consecutive Year." Yes, we're talking about what the report calls a "widespread loss of coverage."
Get the ICYMI: Today's Top Stories Newsletter Our daily newsletter delivers quick clicks to keep you in the know
Catch up on the day's news and stay informed with our daily digest of the most popular news, music, food and arts stories in New York, delivered to your inbox. | <urn:uuid:a2246a5c-a443-49fd-82f9-2b04de2adb1e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.villagevoice.com/blogs/more-taxing-news-for-humans-6384247 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285315.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00575-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944962 | 404 | 1.578125 | 2 |
We often wander around spending huge amounts to look for solutions to our health problems. We seldom realize that we can find them in our own house in the simplest forms. Apple Cider Vinegar is one such ingredient that can be your rescuer from some of the most common and persistent health issues that we face today.
Here are the few benefits of Apple Cider Vinegar:
1. Keeps blood sugar in control -
Studies show that people who suffer from type 2 diabetes and do not consume insulin can have lower glucose levels in the morning if they take two tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar before bed. Some studies also reveal that consumption of a mixture of this vinegar and water before having a carbohydrate-rich meal can lower sugar levels.
2. Helps in weight loss -
The acetic acid present in the apple cider vinegar controls the appetite and in turn increases the metabolism of your body. Studies also state that the vinegar reacts with the body's process of digesting starch which ensures that not much calories enter the bloodstream.
3. Relieves you from a blocked nose -
The potassium content in the vinegar helps to thin the mucus and the acetic acid in it kills the bacteria which cause the blockage. Consuming one teaspoon of the vinegar in a glass of water can be your way out from the sinus drainage.
4. Whitens Teeth -
Apple cider vinegar would do the magic to you if you are having yellow and stained teeth. Before you brush your teeth, all you have to do is gargle your mouth with the vinegar. It helps kill the germs in your mouth and also banishes the stains on the teeth thus making them look whiter.
5. Helps fight dandruff -
The acetic acid in the apple cider vinegar makes it a tough for the yeast causing dandruff to grow. Mix; cup of the vinegar in equal quantity of water and spray it on the scalp. Wrap a wet towel onto your head and leave it on for a minimum of 15 minutes before you wash off your hair.
6. Reduces Cholesterol -
It is believed that Apple Cider Vinegar contains acetic acid which helps reduce bad cholesterol. Although most researches are carried out on rats and cannot be completely reliable when it comes to humans, certain Japanese study show that half an ounce of this vinegar each day resulted in lower cholesterol levels in people.
All in all, apple cider vinegar may not prove to be a complete cure to your health problems, but as they say, precaution is better than cure. And when have ever any home remedies caused one any harm? | <urn:uuid:33f457d4-368c-4c90-bed0-4458a3c7eedb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://santript.co.in/blog/how-can-apple-cider-vinegar-be-beneficial-to-you | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573760.75/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819191655-20220819221655-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.929635 | 533 | 2.265625 | 2 |
ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC Target Small Businesses
The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP), Broadcast Music, Incorporated. (BMI), and the Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC) are organizations that collectively hold the “public performance” rights to 97 percent of the music played in the United States.
These three groups collect licensing fees for public performances of music and distribute those fees to their members. A typical ASCAP, BMI or SESAC demand letter asks for anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars for a one-year license. They often target small businesses in the retail, food service, and entertainment industries.
What is “public performance” of music?
A public performance is music played "in a place open to the public or at any place where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered."
Common forms of public performance in small businesses include playing CDs or MP3s as background music (or hold music), bands or other live performances, and karaoke.
“Public performance” requires a separate license
If you have live performers or play legally purchased CDs or MP3s, public performances of those require a separate license from the copyright holder. If you lease a jukebox, or pay a service to provide background music for your establishment, then you may already be licensed. You should talk to your provider to make certain.
Radio or Television Broadcasts
There are two “small business exceptions” that allow certain small businesses to play radio or television broadcasts in their establishments without having to pay any additional licensing fees. In order to qualify for these exceptions, the business owner must not charge an admission fee. The exceptions apply to:
(1) Any establishment with less than 2,000 gross square feet, and any food service or drinking establishment with less than 3,750 square feet; and
(2) Any business establishment with greater than 2,000 square feet, and any food service or drinking establishment with greater than 3,750 square feet provided that they use fewer than 6 speakers or TVs, no more of 4 of which are any one room, and with a screen size of less than 55 inches.
Avoiding Copyright Violation
If you use live bands or musicians, make sure they are playing entirely original works and not covers of other songs. If you use broadcast radio or TV for background music then make sure you comply with the square feet or equipment restrictions discussed above. If you use a service to provide background or hold music, ask your service provider directly if their fees include ASCAP, BMI and SESAC licenses, and make sure they state so in your service agreement. If you are playing CDs, MP3s, karaoke songs, or have live performances that include popular music or music by other artists, then you may need a license from ASCAP, BMI and SESAC. If in doubt, consult an attorney.
If you have additional questions please consult the following factsheet at our NFIB website.
May 17, 2012 | <urn:uuid:44a92bf5-bd5f-4605-9b2a-fc193dae6e32> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.nfib.com/article/?cmsid=60008 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720845.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00087-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941671 | 642 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Advanced Computing, Mathematics and Data
PFLOTRAN: Advanced Computing Modeling for a Cleaner Environment
Innovative Computer Code Simulates Movement of Underground Contaminants at Hanford
Simulated uranium [U(VI)] plume at the Hanford 300 Area in the October 2009 time frame. Enlarge Image
What are the results? Recent findings employing the PFLOTRAN (petascale reactive multiphase flow and multicomponent transport) code are strengthening scientists' ability to more accurately predict groundwater contaminant movement at the Department of Energy's Hanford site, a former nuclear weapons production complex.
PFLOTRAN has been used to simulate the migration of contaminants in groundwater at the Hanford 300 Area and estimate the release of uranium to the neighboring Columbia River. The model incorporates hydrologic and geochemical reaction parameters derived from field and laboratory experiments to provide an increasingly realistic representation of subsurface physical and chemical processes at the 300 Area site.
For a conceptual model depicting current conditions near the South Processing Pond—where a uranium plume intersects the Columbia and continuous source regions exist—PFLOTRAN estimated that uranium leaches into the river at a rate of 25 kg/year. The estimate is well within the range of estimates based on field studies (i.e., 20-50 kg/year by Peterson et al., 2009).
Stochastic simulations using PFLOTRAN demonstrated that the amount of uranium transported into the river is less sensitive to small-scale (e.g., meter-scale) geologic heterogeneity than originally thought. This result is surprising considering that the geology of the site is composed of heterogeneous cobbles, gravels, and fine sands. This lower sensitivity is likely due to the accumulation of leached uranium over a kilometer-scale region at the river's edge, which is much larger than the scale of the heterogeneity in the model.
Why it matters? The persistence of a uranium contaminant plume in the groundwater at the 300 Area is of concern because concentrations are above EPA defined maximum contaminant levels, and the uranium is slowly leaching into the Columbia River at much lower concentrations. Modeling with PFLOTRAN is providing input to help inform and guide future cleanup decisions.
What are the methods used to achieve the results? Developed as part of a SciDAC-2 groundwater project, PFLOTRAN is written in object-oriented Fortran9X. The finite volume code is based on well-supported frameworks for high-performance computing (i.e., PETSc, HDF5, MPI) and employs domain decomposition to distribute the problem domain across thousands of processor cores. PFLOTRAN is designed to run on computing architectures ranging from conventional laptops and desktops to the world's fastest supercomputers. The code has been run on problems composed of up to two billion unknowns using up to 131,072 processor cores on Argonne National Laboratory's Blue Gene/P and Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Jaguar supercomputers. These resources were made available through the U.S. DOE Office of Science INCITE program.
What are the next steps? Future simulations of the Hanford 300 Area will incorporate increasingly realistic depictions of the Columbia River hyporheic zone—the mud/silt layer along the river bottom. Recent PFLOTRAN simulations have demonstrated that the uranium flux to the Columbia River is highly dependent on the model's representation of the hyporheic zone. The model will incorporate data sets from ongoing field research that better characterize the zone.
Research Team: Glenn Hammond (PNNL) and Peter Lichtner (Los Alamos National Laboratory)
References: Lichtner, P.C. and G.E. Hammond (2010) Placing the Hanford 300 Area IFRC Site in Perspective: Plume Scale Modeling of Uranium Attenuation and Its Flux to the Columbia River, 5th Annual DOE SBR PI Meeting, March 29-31, 2010, Washington DC.
Peterson, R.E., C.F. Brown, and R.J. Serne (2009) Mass Balance Aspects of Persistent Uranium Contamination in the Subsurface at the Hanford Site, Washington, PNNL-SA-67979, October 2009, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA.
Acknowledgments: This research is supported under the U.S. DOE SciDAC-2 program with funding provided by DOE Offices of Biological & Environmental Research (BER) and Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR). Supercomputing resources were provided by the DOE Office of Science Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) program with allocations on NCCS Jaguar at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. | <urn:uuid:df4cb59d-61c6-4f47-abf3-5a7a4ab814a8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.pnl.gov/science/highlights/highlight.asp?id=760 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281069.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00268-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.899901 | 983 | 3 | 3 |
Current smoking cessation treatments are ineffective for the majority of smokers. Thus there is an urgent need to develop more effective treatment strategies. This project will comprise two large-scale randomized controlled clinical trials designed to evaluate the efficacy of an enhanced adaptive treatment strategy for smoking cessation. The essence of our unique approach to adaptive treatment is to begin treatment with state-of-the-art nicotine replacement therapy (NRT), which is initiated 2 weeks before a target quit-smoking date. We will subsequently adapt the treatment approach based on smokers'initial response to NRT and other baseline variables assessed prior to the target quit date. Our overarching hypothesis is that we will enhance cessation outcomes by adapting phannacologic treatments based on individual subject characteristics and ad lib smoking during the time when smokers are receiving pre-cessation NRT. Study 1, to be conducted in years 1-3, will evaluate a specific two-phase adaptive treatment algorithm. We will initiate pre-cessation nicotine patch treatment 2 weeks before a target quit-smoking date. If, after one week's exposure to NRT, participants do not show a favorable therapeutic response (assessed by the early outcome marker of reduced ad lib smoking before the quit date), they will be randomized to receive "rescue treatments with bupropion SR (Zyban), varenicline (Chantix), or will remain on NRT (control). Study 2, to be conducted in years 4-5, will evaluate an additional candidate medication, using the same adaptive treatment strategy as in Study 1. The selection of the candidate treatment will be based on available preclinical and clinical evidence from the other center projects as well as findings from other laboratories, using criteria described in the Research Plan. Candidate medications will include the neurosteroids DHEA and pregnenolone, other GABAergic, glutamatergic, or monoaminergic agents as well as nicotinic subtype selective ligands. Clinical trial decisions and results will be enhanced by information on individual subject characteristics, including quit success genotypes, dependence level, gender, as well as psychiatric and substance use comorbidities. Combined information from these baseline characteristics and smoking during pre-cessation NRT are likely to provide powerful predictors of which medication and treatment regimens are most likely to succeed for different smokers. The knowledge gained from these studies will provide an important new therapeutic approach to guide health care providers in delivering the most effective cessation treatments that are best adapted to the needs of each smoker.
Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of disease and death in the U.S. This health burden can be reduced substantially by quitting smoking, and yet current smoking cessation treatments have limited effectiveness. By conducting clinical trials to develop and evaluate promising adaptive treatment approaches to smoking cessation, this project has the potential to have a major positive impact on public health.
|Rezvani, Amir H; Cauley, Marty C; Levin, Edward D (2014) Lorcaserin, a selective 5-HT(2C) receptor agonist, decreases alcohol intake in female alcohol preferring rats. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 125:8-14|
|Hall, Brandon J; Wells, Corinne; Allenby, Cheyenne et al. (2014) Differential effects of non-nicotine tobacco constituent compounds on nicotine self-administration in rats. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 120:103-8|
|Levin, Edward D; Hao, Ian; Burke, Dennis A et al. (2014) Effects of tobacco smoke constituents, anabasine and anatabine, on memory and attention in female rats. J Psychopharmacol 28:915-22|
|Levin, Edward D (2013) Complex relationships of nicotinic receptor actions and cognitive functions. Biochem Pharmacol 86:1145-52|
|Bough, K J; Lerman, C; Rose, J E et al. (2013) Biomarkers for smoking cessation. Clin Pharmacol Ther 93:526-38|
|Kutlu, Munir G; Burke, Dennis; Slade, Susan et al. (2013) Role of insular cortex Dýýý and Dýýý dopamine receptors in nicotine self-administration in rats. Behav Brain Res 256:273-8|
|Rezvani, Amir H; Sexton, Hannah G; Johnson, Joshua et al. (2013) Effects of caffeine on alcohol consumption and nicotine self-administration in rats. Alcohol Clin Exp Res 37:1609-17|
|Hall, F Scott; Markou, Athina; Levin, Edward D et al. (2012) Mouse models for studying genetic influences on factors determining smoking cessation success in humans. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1248:39-70|
|Levin, Edward D; Slade, Susan; Wells, Corinne et al. (2011) D-cycloserine selectively decreases nicotine self-administration in rats with low baseline levels of response. Pharmacol Biochem Behav 98:210-4|
|Levin, Edward D; Johnson, Joshua E; Slade, Susan et al. (2011) Lorcaserin, a 5-HT2C agonist, decreases nicotine self-administration in female rats. J Pharmacol Exp Ther 338:890-6| | <urn:uuid:c652c2d4-fe3f-4576-94d5-117fcbee4f52> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://grantome.com/grant/NIH/P50-DA027840-05-5959 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280825.87/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00210-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.883745 | 1,108 | 1.523438 | 2 |
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RABBI PERIDA made it a rule to read M. RIVAROL says “C'est avec une ou and explain the same thing 400 times over deux sensations que quelques Anglois ont to his scholars; and when one of his pupils fait un livre.”—Monthly Review, vol. 71, p. was found utterly ignorant of one of these 581. lessons at last, he repeated it to him 400 times more. Upon this a voice came from He says, that " French is now no more heaven, saying, " Perida chuse whether to to be considered as the French language, live 400 years, or obtain innocence and but rather as the language of man ; the eternal life for thyself and thy posterity.” European powers employ it in their treaties He would have chosen the latter and better on this account, and also because, to speak reward, but his pupils exclaimed, “No! no! plainly, it is the only language that has a 400 years for Perida.”—PoLwHELE's Corn- character of probity attached to its very wall, vol. 5, p. 190.
genius.”—Ibid. p. 582.
A CRITIC on the Conscio
“ PRACTICAL Benevolence; in a Letter 'perhaps it is dangerous to hold up for addressed to the Public, by a Universal distinguished admiration the performance Friend, to whom Persons of all Ranks and of mere duty. It weakens the influence of Denominations may have recourse for Adgoodness to tell mankind it is so rare among
vice in the most critical situations and most them."
delicate circumstances of Human Life. ls.
Murray. 1785. " THERE are hours, you know," says “The writer having gone through a great Tom, in the Conscious Lovers," when a lady variety of scenes in life, opens a shop of is neither pleased nor displeased, neither experience, where any one may purchase sick nor well; when she lolls or loiters; advice. He proposes to make up quarrels; when she is without desires, from having to give counsel in weighty undertakings; more of every thing than she knows what to afford assistance in writing letters on to do with."--P. 20.
delicate occasions; and to minister friendly
counsel in distress. In return, he expects MR. SEALAND, in the Conscious Lovers, a gratuity proportioned to the ability of says, “ Give me leave to say, that we mer- his client. " What my destiny,” says the chants are a species of gentry that have
may be preparing for me under grown into the world this last century; and this character, time alone can determine. are as honourable, and almost as useful, as If I reap from the employment of every you landed folks that have always thought moment of mine sufficient to support life yourselves so much above us ;-for your with decency, for the public good, it is all I trading, forsooth! is extended no farther desire ; and if my existence is found by than a load of hay, or a fat ox.”—P. 81. experience to produce that good, it will be
the interest of the public, as well as my “ APRIL 21, 1731. One William Peters own, to prolong it. Yet, however it may committed to jail in Ireland, being found happen, I have such sort of feelings about alive on a journey three days after he had my heart as seem to presage success ; for been cxecuted for horse-stealing."—Gent. to the honour of this country be it said, Mag. vol. 1, p. 172.
that whenever virtuous ends are pursued
by virtuous means, encouragement never “ JANUARY 3. A post-boy was shot by fails to accompany the attempt.- The Unian Irishman on the road near Stone in Staf- versal Friend, address me, 5 Dartmouth fordshire, who died in two days, for which Street, Westminster.—Ibid. vol. 73, p. 472. the gentleman was imprisoned.”—Ibid. p. 32.
CULLEY, the famous breeder, in his Ob- SORRY should I be to think " que os meus servations on Live Stock, recommends for escritos nað somente sao como arvore sem the road horses that have what is called a fructo, mas como folhas sem proveito, que little blood in them, that is, a small strain of servem so para o vento da vaidade.”—P. I the running breed; as such a horse, he says, | Ant. Das Chagas. Cartes, t. 1, p. 218. ! "will usually perform a pleasanter day's work, than one that has little or none of the In the advertisement to his Fashionable racing breed in him.” This is an opinion Lover, CUMBERLAND says, “ The level manvery generally admitted, though we are dis- ners of a polished country like this, do not posed to believe that it applies only in cer- supply much matter for the comic muse, tain cases, and is by no means universal." — which delights in variety and extravagance. Ibid. vol. 75, p. 130.
Wherever, therefore, I have made any at
tempt at novelty, I have found myself A Lady in one of Congreve’s comedies obliged either to dive into the lower class says, One's cruelty is one's power; and of men, or betake myself to the outskirts of when one parts with one's cruelty, one parts
ihe empire: the centre is too equal and with one's power.”— Way of the World, p. 47. refined for such purposes." So slaveholders seem to think.
LUTHER says, “ Sæpe recordor boni Ger“The Devil's an ass," says a jade in this sonis
, dubitantis num quid boni publice comedy. “ If I were a painter, I would scribendum et proferendum sit. Si scriptio draw.him like an idiot, with a bib and bells. omittitur, multæ animæ negliguntur, quæ
liberari potuissent; si vero illa præstatur, Man should have his head and horns, and
statim Diabolus præstò est cum linguis pes. woman the rest of him.”—Ibid. p. 62.
tiferis et calumniarum plenis, quæ omnia DRUNKENNESS. Mrs. Villiams said one
corrumpunt et inficiunt."-SENNERTUS, vol. day to Johnson, “ I wonder what pleasure men can take in making beasts of them
One of Alexander's flatterers, (Athæneus selves." " I wonder, Madam,” he replied, " that you have not penetration enough to
calls him Nicesius), “protested to him that
the very flies which sucked his blood besee the strony inducement to this excess ; for he who makes a beast of himself, gets
came more valiant, and gave stings more rid of the pain of being a man.”—PERCIVAL
courageously than other flies did.”—EveSTOCKDALE, vol. 2, p. 109.
LYN, Misc. p. 33.
Louis XIII, had among his guards 150 Angelica in Love for Love, when affect- horse musqueteers chosen from the first faing an indifference to Valentine which she
milies in France; and he was so physiog. does not feel, says, " Would any thing but a madman complain of uncertainty ? Un nomically punctual in their election, that it
is reported he would adnuit none who were certainty and expectation are the joys of
of a red hair.-Ibid. p. 63. life. Security is an insipid thing, and the overtaking and possession of a wish disco
Tue abbey of St. Faron at Meaux. In vers the folly of the chase."--P. 116.
the midst of its refectory was a fountain,
that supplied their repasts. — Voyages de “The single word Pleasure, in a masculine Montaigne, Rome, 1774. sense, comprehends every thing that is cruel, every thing that is base, and every thing Tue inns must have been superb in his that is desperate."-School for Wives, p.87. | days. At Chalons he was served in silver,
1, p. 862.
and “ la pluspart des lits et couvertes sont “ CERTAIN it is that all that truth which de soie." 1580.
God hath made necessary, he hath also
inade legible and plain, and if we will open Among the Germans he remarks that it our eyes we shall see the sun." — JEREMY was respectful to get on the left side of a TAYLOR. gentleman, that the right arm might be free, and ready to lay on the sword.
" It is a most sure truth, and worth all
this world, that to an honest unbiassed “ It being now, methinks, a long time heart, it is a far easier thing to please God since these old walls have had the honour
than men.”—John Howe. to loop my lord, and the hour glass so often turned, since I enjoyed the happiness of bad master ; a very good inn, but a sad
“ This world is a good servant, but a your conversation." — STAFFORD, Letters, home; a comfortable bever, luncheon, or vol. 1, p. 17.
bait, but a sad inheritance."-HUNTINGDON,
S. s. “ THERE is a way Which the Italians and the Frenchmen use, “ Some men are wholly made up of pasThat is, on a word given, or some slight plot, sion, and their very religion is but passion, The actors will extempore fashion out put into the family and society of holy purScenes neat and witty."
poses.”—J. TAYLOR. MIDDLETON and Rowley's Spanish Gipsy, p. 187. Old Plays, vol. 4. CERTAIN acts of the saints he happily
calls “ excrescences and eruptions of holi“ We have but two sorts of people in ness." the house, and both under the whip; that's fools and madmen: the one has not wit
“ Our charging ourselves so promptly enough to be knaves; and the other not
with Adam's fault, whatever truth it may knavery enough to be fools."—Ibid. Changes have in the strictness of theology, hath ling. Ibid. p. 237.
(forsitan) but an ill end in morality." —
Ibid. “ Tædet it irketh, oportet it behoveth my
" ANGER is like the waves of a troubled wits to work like barme, alias yeast, alias
sea, when it is corrected with a soft reply sizing, alias rising, alias God's good.”—
as with a little strand, it retires, and leaves Lyly's Mother Bombie, ibid. vol. 1, p. 224. nothing behind but froth and shells, no
permanent mischief.”—Ibid. " We see the son of a divine Seldom proves preacher, or a lawyer's son “ FORTITUDE is a royal virtue; and Rarely a pleader, (for they strive to run
though it be necessary in such private men A various fortune from their ancestors).”
as be soldiers, yet for other men, the less Marston,' What you will. Ibid.
they dare the better it is, both for the vol. 2, p. 212.
Commonwealth and for themselves." —Be
hemoth. Human nature is a generic term, and has many specific distinctions. There is a “CONSTITUTIONS, whether of Church or of savage nature and civilized nature: Asiatic State, should be free, not only," as J. Tarand European, French and English, male LOR says,
“ from the indiscretions, but and female; and even after the division of (which is very considerable) from the scansex, difference of age constitutes another. dal of popularity."-Vol. 7, p. 287.
“ Et croi que ce fut pour éviter la dé- the benefits of the victory not countervail pense. Hé qui ces petites mesnageries ap- the prejudices sustained in the combat. portent quelquefois de perte!"-Montluc, For goodness and virtue may often consist vol. I, p. 49.
with ignorance and error, seldom with strife
and discord.”—Ibid. p. 99. Even Montluc distinguishes between temerity and courage, and says, “ il n'est pas “ The bottom of gravity is nothing like mal séant d'avoir peur, quand il y a grande the top.”—Marston's Faun, p. 302. occasion."— Tom. 1, p. 238.
“ The unjust knoweth no shame."-ZEControversy, if I must engage in it
PHANIAH, üi. 5.
Barrow (vol. 3, p. 132), speaks well of
pretences to tender consciences devised to
“ Old age doth give by too long space
Our souls as many wrinkles as our face." " Br long ages and the silence of historions, places are as much subject to death nous attache plus de rides en l'esprit qu'au
The thought is from Montaigne. “Elle ** the men who resided in them.”—Bishop visage ; et ne se void point d'ames, ou fort Ressert.
rares, qui en vieillissant ne sentent l'aigre et
le moisi.”—Tom. 7, p. 185, liv. iii. c. 2. Replying to anonymous assailants** Ch'a quel modo combattere a lo scuro “ Il est impossible de traitter de bonne Cosa è da pazzo, e non da nom sicuro."
foy avec un sot."-—Ibid. tom. 8, p. 82. Orl. Innam. xxvii. p. 33.
“Somme, il faut vivre entre les vivants, Death. — “ It is but a point which di- et laisser la rivière courre soubs le pont. vides Adam and his remotest descendants." sans nostre soing, ou à tout le moins, sans -Douglas's East Coast of Scotland. nostre alteration."-Ibid. liv. iii. ch. 8.
Barrow calls envy " that severely just “ WHERE interests are irreconcileable, vice, which never faileth to punish itself." opinions will be so."-BARROW.
" A CHARITABLE man, or true lover of “ He fights with his own shadow, and men, will,” says St. Chrysostom,“ inhabit like a wanton whelp runs round after his earth as a heaven, every where carrying a own stern, dissembling his adversary's opiserenity with him, and plaiting ten thou- nion, and instead thereof substituting any sand crowns for himself. Trv vñv outws lame consectary which came suddenly into ως τον έρανόν oικήσει, πανταχα γαλήνης | his distempered fancy."-BRIAN WALTON, απολαύων, και μυρίους εαυτώ πλέκων σε- Reply to Owen. páver."-BARROW, vol. 2, p. 74.
THERE is, as S. AMBROSE, says, otio« The truth contended for may not be sum silentium as well as otiosum verbum."worth the passion employed upon it ; and | Ibid.
“ Il n'y peut avoir d'amitié, là ou est la Sets off so much the joys of Paradise cruauté, la ou est le desloyausté, la ou est That it employs as many fears as wishes." l'injustice. Entre les meschants, quand ils
Ibid. s'assemblent, c'est un complot non pas compaignie. Ils ne s'entretiennent pas, mais “ VERTUE is like pretious odours, most ils s'entrecraignent. Ils ne sont pas amis, fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed.” mais ils sont complices.” Estienne de la Boe-Bacon. tie, Montaigne's friend.-MONTAIGNE, tom. 9, p. 458.
“ SÆPE aliquas motus partes sensusque reApplicable to the party at Pisa.
Ambulat, heu monstrum! semicadaver “ Heu! hominum miseram sortem : quæ nomina leti
Mezentî superat furias, et corpore eodem Quasve nocendi artes, aut crimina sæva re- Conjungit vivis mortua membra lues. linquunt
Ast alios premit integrâ caligine torpor,
Et toto lethi pondere sæva quies.”
“Magna contemnens, miseransque magnos, “ Sederat ad fontem, tenui qui murmure
Invidens nulli, minimo invidendus, labens
Vive Coulei ; lege tuta parvâ Paulatim insinuat blandum per membra so
Littora cymba. porem.”
“ Hospitem cælorum, imitare alaudam,
Sis licet nubes super ire cantu " ACERBIS
Doctus, in terris humilem memento
Ponere nidum," COWLEY.
“ De hum Rey potente somos, tað amado, torem
Taõ querido de todos, e bem quisto, Sordibus innatis. Veluti concreta refossi
Que nað no largo mar com leda fronte Gleba nitens auri vitium fornacibus omne
Mas no lago entraremos de Acheronte.”
“ Launch on the sea of death."
In Fenton's Voyage, Hakluyt's Collection, is a striking sailor-like account of a death at sea. " About ten a clocke in the fore. noone M. Walker died, who had bene weake and sicke of the bloodie flux six dayes; wee tooke a viewe of his things, and prised them, and heaved him over bord, and shot a peece for his knell."
Que à las nubes borrais sus arreboles,
Febo os teme por mas luzientes Soles,
“ Passions are like thieves, That watch to enter undefended places."
Sir Robert HOWARD's Blind Lady.
“ Sacris tenebrescit odoribus aer."
“How greedily I wish, yet fear to see her!
" Los naturalistas han reparado, que Like some poor votary, whose holy thoughts I quando el aguila cubre sus huevos, el que | <urn:uuid:6fbfbcc4-2fbc-4dc8-8899-bdf5a760eb86> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://books.google.com.ua/books?pg=PA626&vq=called&dq=editions:OXFORD591072550&lr=&id=ulYCAAAAQAAJ&hl=uk&output=html_text | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573118.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817213446-20220818003446-00674.warc.gz | en | 0.871885 | 4,512 | 2.28125 | 2 |
"A century and a half after the civil war, many white Americans, especially in the South, seem to take the idea that slavery caused the war as a personal accusation. The point, however, is not to condemn individuals ..."
Sorry, Eric, you are writing for a British publication and maybe you are not here to see what is really going on in the U. S. these days. The point is exactly to condemn individuals who still want to lie away the abomination that the confederacy was, and in all too many cases, reserve for themselves the right to retain the hatred of others that made the toleration of slavery possible. Mr. Foner himself points out:
"The new nation's "cornerstone", declared Confederate Vice-President Alexander H Stephens, was the principle "that slavery, subordination to the superior race" was the "natural and moral condition" of black Americans."
And as long as a significant portion of the white people still living in this country continue to defend such views, the fight against their racism is and will be personal. | <urn:uuid:3f4945c2-e431-4ef0-8225-29e024053ee3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://largegreenbird.blogspot.com/2010/12/this-time-its-still-personal.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283301.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00504-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97077 | 218 | 2.28125 | 2 |
“野生动物犯罪 is an urgent issue; it requires strengthening cooperation between different agencies and maintaining the momentum, ensuring the allocation of resources to effectively deter this 跨国犯罪组织.” Her Royal Highness (HRH) Princess Laurentien summarises the main conclusions from the interventions during the session.
We organised a high-level convening at the UN Headquarters on 4 March, where experts discussed concrete anti-腐败 measures to effectively deter it.
Her Royal Highness (HRH) Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands facilitated the session and the dialogue between the panel members and a very proactive audience, 哪个参与了与说话者的对话, who discussed effective ways to address and deter wildlife crime and the 腐败 that enables it.
伊冯·伊古罗，联合国秘书长 引用, stressed the urgency of establishing concrete actions to address wildlife crime, 为了现在和未来的几代人:”目前人类的存在使得物种灭绝发生在1,000 times faster; wildlife trafficking is indeed an immediate threat.Higuero女士强调了这一点 cooperation between entities with different mandates is paramount to deter wildlife crime. She also remarked that more attention should be paid to those species that are not that ‘iconic’ but to which major damage is being done by trafficking, 比如石首鱼和玻璃鳗鱼, as the illegal trade of them is also a multi-million-dollar criminal business.
豪尔赫里奥斯, Chief of the Global Programme for Combating Wildlife and Forest Crime at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), explained the efforts made by the United Nations to address this crime and stressed that “野生动物犯罪是一个全球性问题, 不只是地区性的, and it is 跨国犯罪组织 but currently not regarded as such.” Mr Ríos highlighted that to the tools and resources applied to deter other type of transnational crimes, 比如网络犯罪或贩毒, 也应该用来有效地应对野生动物犯罪吗.
Olivia Swaak-Goldman, Executive Director of the bet356app首页, highlighted how 腐败使野生动物贩运成为可能 along the supply chain in source, transit and destination countries. She remarked the urgency for financial investigations to address wildlife crime and provided the audience with examples of where WJC investigations have gathered concrete evidence of how 腐败 facilitates the trafficking of endangered species, WJC的情况就是这样 操作龙.
Vanda Felbab-Brown, Senior Fellow – Foreign Policy, Center for 21st 世纪安全和情报局 布鲁金斯学会 traced the connections from rural households and livelihoods to strong wildlife protection laws that people support, 高质量的调查, 更普遍的起诉和惩罚. “扩大与当地社区的对话至关重要 and discuss with them what incentives and motivations they have to participate into law enforcement efforts to tackle wildlife crime.”
蒂姆·斯蒂尔，全球反腐败顾问 UNODC，贪污是"是跨国有组织野生动物犯罪的主要推动者 financial investigations can play a critical on going after those organising the illegal trade.” Steele affirmed that a good strategy to address 腐败 is needed and it requires “与正确的人沟通, 这是至关重要的, as well as addressing the right skills where they are most needed这样才能有效.
“Law enforcement needs a coordinated response to address transnational organised wildlife crime through effective intelligence sharing systems and access to resources,斯蒂芬·卡莫迪说, WJC的调查主管, when talking about the challenges that law enforcement agencies are currently facing when tackling wildlife crime. “There is no need to reinvent the wheel on methodologies to investigate wildlife trafficking: law enforcement needs the mandate to utilize the full range of special investigative tools to address this organised crime.”
亚当·麦克斯维尔, 地区助理检察官, 纽约地方检察官办公室, highlighted that financial investigations as well as international cooperation are needed to tackle wildlife crime cases. 他强调了“utilise tools and techniques used to prosecute other forms of organised crime for the prosecution of transnational organised wildlife crime.”
在应对野生动物犯罪方面，bet356app首页已经做了很多工作, from conservation initiatives to community engagement and to demand reduction measures. But there is room for improvement in the area of crime fighting against wildlife trafficking. “Political will is crucial to address wildlife trafficking as what it really is, 严重跨国有组织罪行,奥利维亚·斯瓦克-戈德曼在活动结束时说. “Relevant law enforcement agencies must be equipped with the mandate, resources and tools to act upon it and governments must ensure effective international cooperation between agencies, as a standard practice similar to that is happening with other forms of organised crime.” | <urn:uuid:c627a665-cf15-4931-b0cf-61de7fe02988> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.kissnice.net/event-anti-corruption-measures-into-iwt-interventions/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573667.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819100644-20220819130644-00070.warc.gz | en | 0.89105 | 1,599 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Bulking and cutting, powerlifting bulking
Bulking and cutting
There are many reasons why Crossfit has a steroid problem, the first reason is that Crossfit attracts competitive peoplewho want to get bigger. Because they want to get bigger they put a lot more time, effort and money into Crossfit than any sports you know of. This also means that Crossfit is competitively played, bulking and cutting cycle bodybuilding. People want to win, especially people that are genetically gifted. So why is a Crossfit body type acceptable, bulking and cutting every other day? Well, it has all these features that make competitive body type attractive: It's a big body type : As mentioned above Crossfit athletes are genetic gifted, large body types do not work for them, Bulking with calisthenics. : As mentioned above Crossfit athletes are genetic gifted, large body types do not work for them. It's strong : A large, strong person can lift significantly more weight than a smaller person, Feedback. This is important for two reasons: 1. If your gym is designed to teach weightlifting basics, you're basically a weakperson trying to "beat up" a giant. 2, bulking and cutting diet. A big, strong person is good at what they do, so the best way to get stronger is to train harder. : A large, strong person can lift significantly more weight than a smaller person, Feedback. This is important for two reasons: To keep them going during competition , Crossfit athletes usually follow an intense week during which they practice and compete. When the weight is lifted, they recover fast (especially in the middle of it), bulking and cutting book. If you have a fast recovery like this your body will be ready for the weights when they drop in competition, Bulking with calisthenics. This allows a Crossfit athlete to compete as hard as they are able. , Crossfit athletes usually follow an intense week during which they practice and compete, bulking and cutting every other week. When the weight is lifted, they recover fast (especially in the middle of it), CrossFit bulking. If you have a fast recovery like this your body will be ready for the weights when they drop in competition. This allows a Crossfit athlete to compete as hard as they are able, bulking crossfit. You get that "fit" look : You may be the fastest guy on the gym floor and everyone thinks you are. But you're still fit. You just look good, bulking and cutting every other day1. The person next to you is probably fit. Plus the other person is also a good Crossfit athlete. : You may be the fastest guy on the gym floor and everyone thinks you are. But you're still fit, crossfit bulking. You just look good, bulking and cutting every other day3. The person next to you is probably fit. Plus the other person is also a good Crossfit athlete. You're healthy: The body you look like on the regular is built to handle intense resistance training, bulking and cutting every other day4.
When comparing bodybuilding vs powerlifting vs CrossFit, you find that it is a hybrid of both powerlifting and bodybuildingwith both focusing on raw hypertrophy from the upper body, and strength development from the legs, arms, back and torso. Why, bulking and cutting cycle steroids? Because a lot of time and effort go into perfecting a training plan so they are the perfect combination for you. The question I asked is "how do both bodybuilders and powerlifters approach the "perfect workout", bulking and cutting for ectomorphs? How do they get the most out of their workouts to maximize their potential?" A lot of the answers are in part that this can be a very personal decision. If you're a "bodybuilder" and want more size, power and strength at your fingertips, I recommend using my 10-Month CrossFit Challenge Program (which you can also download now) to build the core strength you need to go the distance, bulking and cutting fat loss. If you're a "powerlifter" and want to achieve maximum size and power in the lower body and/or upper body, I recommend you start with a full body workout like this one. If you're a raw hybrid athlete, like me, who is both a powerlifter and a bodybuilder, and want to develop both strength and size, and simultaneously train every day, it's quite possible you will find yourself having to choose. When you ask yourself, "is it better to workout on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday or Sunday, Monday and Sunday, bulking and cutting define?, bulking and cutting define!" I recommend you choose Monday and Sunday. Now, this may seem extreme, but if you are in my position (powerlifter/bodybuilder) that's not the issue, bulking and cutting book. It is an issue to me at times. If they are your only days you want to train, and you don't feel strong on those days, you may want to train them only in the morning/afternoon, powerlifting bulking. I find that the longer I keep away from a gym, the more prone I am to over-training and injury, bulking and cutting cycle bodybuilding. So, this is where there are different opinions coming from – Option 1 – This is the "Powerlifting" Option – When I say "this", don't think I am being picky, powerlifting bulking. I've heard this a lot on here and on my other sites over the years, and this is probably the most popular option. This is a hybrid of both powerlifting and powerlifting only, so every other day is pure bodybuilding, bulking and cutting before and after. I see it often discussed among powerlifters. It makes sense. How You Will Do It – There are a lot of ways this can be done.
undefined Similar articles: | <urn:uuid:15f05140-c2c2-4f98-ae79-69c910d2702f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.artbeatdancecenter.com/profile/heyespanahk/profile | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572215.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815235954-20220816025954-00671.warc.gz | en | 0.959208 | 1,233 | 1.867188 | 2 |
ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Sec. Addictive Disorders
A Research of Methamphetamine Induced Psychosis in 1,430 Individuals With Methamphetamine Use Disorder: Clinical Features and Possible Risk Factors
- 1Shanghai Mental Health Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China
- 2Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders, Shanghai, China
Background and Aims: Methamphetamine (MA) abuse is commonly associated with the development of psychotic symptoms. The predictors and related risk factors of MA induced psychosis (MIP) are poorly understood. We investigated the occurrence of MIP, and analyzed the clinical features and possible risk factors among individuals with MA use disorder
Method: One thousand four hundred and thirty participants with MA use disorder were recruited from compulsory rehabilitation centers in Shanghai. A structured questionnaire including demographic characteristics, drug use history, visual analog scales, Beck Depression Inventory-13 (BDI-13), and Hamilton anxiety scale-14 (HAMA-14) were used to collect clinical related information. Fifty-six participants had accomplished the test of CogState Battery.
Results: Among the 1430 individuals with MA use disorder, 37.1% were diagnosed as MIP according DSM-IV. There were significant differences in age, marital status, age of drug use onset, MA use years, Average MA use dose, interval of MA use, maximum dose, concurrent use of alcohol, and other drugs, VAS score, MA dependence, BDI-13 scores, HAMA-14 scores, verbal learning memory, and visual learning memory between the MIP group and the none MIP group (P < 0.05). The age of drug use onset (OR = 0.978, p = 0.011), average drug use dose (OR = 1.800, p = 0.015), craving score (OR = 1.069, p = 0.031), MA dependence (OR = 2.214, p < 0.001), and HAMA scores (OR = 1.028, p < 0.001) were associated to MIP.
Conclusion: Individuals with MIP had more severe drug use problems, emotional symptoms and cognitive impairment. Earlier onset of drug use, higher quantity of drug use, higher craving, middle or severe drug use disorder and more anxiety symptoms may be related risk factors of MIP.
Drug abuse is a global public health problem, which is supported by 275 million people worldwide (about 5.6 percent of the population during the age of 15–64 years) utilizing drug at least once in 2016, according to the 2017 World Drug Report. And abusers of methamphetamine (MA) have reached 37 million globally, with a significantly increasing use especially in the East and South-East Asia (1). In China, MA has been the most commonly used drug instead of heroin (2).The abuse of MA can cause a series of physiological and mental health problems, including sympathetic excitation, euphoria, energetic, alertness, suspicion, and psychiatric disorder (2).
There is a greater chance that MA causes psychosis symptoms than other addictive substances (3). According to a number of epidemiological studies, it is about 40 percent of MA abusers occurring the psychiatric symptoms (4). Chen et al. (5) compared the individuals with MA use disorder (n = 445), among them, there were 174 (39%) participants with a lifetime diagnosis of a MA-induced psychotic disorder; and 261 (59%) without MIP (5). But, Glasner et al. examined 526 individuals who met the DSM—IV criteria for MA dependence, and there were 68 (12.9%) participants with psychotic symptoms and 458 (87.1%) participants without psychotic symptoms at 3-year follow-up (6). And the psychiatric disorder which is caused by MA abusing was called MA induced Psychosis (MIP) (7). Hallucinations and delusions are the main symptoms of MIP, with auditory hallucination and persecutory, reference delusions being the most common symptoms of hallucinations and delusions individually (7). And the delusion is probably associated with mental excitement, increased vigilance, and increased attention after MA use (8).
The psychiatric symptoms in the most patients suffered MIP usually represented to be transient. But there is still a chronic and recurrent course of disease (9). A higher proportion of depression, suicide, antisocial personality, bipolar disorder, cognitive defects, behavioral disorders, and even personality disintegration may appear in MIP participants (10). Gradually, those severe patients are out of touch with society, and finally the social function is completely lost (11). Therefore, it may be considered to be necessary for participants with MIP to obtain the antipsychotic medications (12).
Shalini et al. (13) completed the only comprehensive review to examine correlates of psychosis among people who use MA. They analyzed 20 studies that included 13 populations, and found that there is association among the indices of the quantity of MA use, polydrug use and alcohol dependence in the likelihood of psychotic symptoms. However, the sociodemographic factors, including age, gender and employment status, were not associated with psychosis risk in MA abusers. On the contrary, another study reported that using MA early seemed to be a more valid predictor for psychosis than long-term utilization of amphetamine (5, 14). Moreover, a significant dose-dependent increase in the occurrence of psychotic symptoms during the periods of MA use (15). A recent Norwegian study found no association between the severity of psychotic symptoms and quantitative measures of blood amphetamine concentration (16). In addition, there have been three narrative reviews focusing on risk factors associated with MIP (4, 17, 18), showed that it was complicated to determine causality for the MIP, and difficult to make clear about the risk factors of psychotic disorders among MA users.
Due to relatively small sample size and methodological differences in the existing literature, it is difficult to draw conclusions about the rates or distinguishing features of psychotic disorders among MA users so far. Large sample of clinical studies are needed to understand the clinical features and possible risk factors of MIP.
In view of the increasing abuse of MA, especially MA as the representative drug and the high prevalence of MIP. A research of 1,430 individuals with MA use disorder was conducted, with the aim to understand the prevalence of MIP and its clinical features and possible risk factors.
Materials and Methods
MA use disorder participants were recruited from three Compulsory Rehabilitation Centers in Shanghai from October 2012 to June 2014. Eligible participants were required to meet DSM-IV criteria for MA abuse or dependence (MA use disorder) (7); 15–60 years old; men and women not limited; subjects who had organic brain diseases, severe medical conditions, and noncooperation were excluded. And 1,430 MA use disorders, meeting our requirements, were chosen in our research.
The participants with MA use disorder were divided into two groups according to whether they were diagnosed as MIP, and these two groups were defined as the MIP group(n = 530) and none MIP group(n = 900). All participants were interviewed with a series of scales including the demographic characteristics, drug use history, craving, mood status, and cognitive function.
Written informed consent was obtained from all subjects after a detailed description of the study. All participants or their legal guardians provide written informed consent before they participated in this study. This study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board (2011-37R) of Shanghai Mental Health Center.
Data Collection and Measurements
Each subject was interviewed and diagnosed by two trained psychiatrists. Eligible participants should meet DSM-IV criteria for MA abuse or dependence (MA use disorder), and clinical verification of the diagnoses was conducted by a senior psychiatrist with more than 5 years clinical practices. And then, participants should complete a series of scales and tests.
(1) Demographic characteristics: age, gender, education, ethnicity, marriage, jobs, family history of psychiatric, etc.
(2) Drug use history and Craving: MA use status were collected by a drug use history questionnaire, including age of drug use onset, total years of MA use, dose, interval of use MA, etc. Craving was assessed by visual analog scales (VAS), with 0 mm being “no craving” and 100 mm representing “most craving ever experienced for MA.” The subjects were asked to mark the position which represented their craving the most appropriately, and the distance from the 0 mm to the marked position indicated the degrees of craving score.
(3) Mood Status: The depression and anxiety status were assessed by Beck Depression Inventory-13 (BDI-13) and Hamilton anxiety scale-14 (HAMA-14), respectively.
(4) Cognitive Function: We assessed cognitive function using the Chinese version of the CogState Battery, which is a repeatable and sensitive computerized cognitive test with good validity and reliability (19–21). The eight tasks, including Detection task (DET), Identification task (IDN), International shopping list task (ISLT), One card learning task (OCL), Two back task (TWOB), Social emotional cognition task (SEC), Continuous paired association learning task (CPAL), and The Groton maze learning task (GML), were examined, and the participants needed complete the battery as quickly and accurately as possible (22).
The scores of DET, assessing processing speed, and IDN, assessing attention/vigilance, are the mean of reaction times for correct responses. ISLT, showing the verbal learning and memory, is a 12-word, 3-trial verbal memory test. The score is defined as the total number of correct responses. OCL, TWOB, and SEC represent, respectively the cognitive function of visual learning memory, working memory, and social cognition. Their scores are the proportion of correct responses, denoting the accuracy of performance. CPAL and GML taps, respectively spatial working memory and problem solving/error monitoring. The scores of CPAL and GML tasks are the total number of errors.
These tasks were displayed on a green screen, and standardized instructions provided by trained researchers before each task begins. Results of the CogState Battery were uploaded to a secure account on the CogState server site (http://www.Cogstate.com), on which data were calculated and normalization was transformed.
The data were analyzed by using SPSS, version 19.0. Descriptive statistical analysis were done with the prevalence and clinical characteristics of the participants with MIP. Group differences (MIP group and none MIP group), including the demographic characteristics, drug use history, the mood status and cognitive function, were compared using independent-sample t-test or Mann-Whitney U test for continuous variables and chi-square test for categorical variables. The factors of the difference between the two groups were analyzed by pairwise correlation analysis. The multivariate logistic regression analysis were used to explore the possible factors related to the MIP and the OR (95%CI) were be calculated. The statistically significant level were reported with p < 0.05 (two-sided tests).
The Prevalence and Clinical Features of MIP
A total of 1,430 participants with MA use disorders (697 diagnosed as MA abuse and 721 MA dependence) were investigated, and 530 (37.1%) participants were diagnosed as MIP according to DSM-IV. Among the 530 MIP participants, 403 (76%) individuals were male, 127 (24%) were female. The age was ranged from 17 to 59 years old and the average age was 35.78 ± 9.13 years old.
One hundred and forty nine cases (28.1%) were diagnosed as MA abuse, and 381 cases (71.9%) were diagnosed as MA dependence. In the MIP participants, delusions and hallucinations were the most common symptoms.
83.4% had hallucinations, and auditory hallucinations was the most common symptom (79%), 40.6% had visual hallucinations, and 33.6% had tactile hallucination. And 92.8% of MIP participants had delusions, in which delusions of reference was 48.3%, persecutory delusion was 40.6%, grandiose delusion was 23.4%, jealous delusion was 39.5%, and delusions of control was 36.2%. In addition, 51.1% of MIP participants had hypobulia, 48.5% had poverty of speech, 42.5% had disorganized speech, 40.9% had apathy indifference, 26.6% had suicidal ideation, and 19.8% had suicidal behavior (Figure 1). As for the course of the disease, 420 participants had experienced the transient episodes of psychiatric symptoms (with a duration of <1 month), accounting for 81.2%, and 97 participants had experienced the persistent episodes of psychiatric symptoms (with a duration of over 1 month), accounting for 18.8%. However, previous treatment rate was only 7.4%.
The Demographic and Drug use Characteristics of MIP
The demographic data and drug use history were compared between MIP group and none MIP group. The result showed that there were significant differences in age, marital status, age of drug use onset, MA use years, Average MA use dose, interval of use MA, maximum dose, concurrent use of alcohol and other drugs, VAS score, and MA dependence between the two groups (P < 0.05) (Table 1).
The BDI, HAMA Scores and Cognitive Functions of MIP
The depression status and the anxiety status were assessed, respectively by BDI-13 and HAMA-14, and the scores of the two scales were significantly different between MIP group and none MIP group (P < 0.001). Moreover, in MIP group, the suicidal ideation and behavior were more than none MIP group (Table 2).
Fifty six participants had accomplished the test of CogState Battery, including 24 MIP cases and 30 none MIP cases. Independent-sample test comparing the performance between MIP group and none MIP group were conducted on the eight cognitive tests. The significant differences were found on the tasks of ISL (t = 2.62, p = 0.011) and OCL (t = 2.34, p = 0.023) between the two groups (Table 3).
The Possible Risk Factors of MIP
The significant different factors between the two groups were analyzed by pairwise correlation analysis, the results found that most variables have the correlation. We selected the independent variable included the age of drug use onset (0 = less than the average of 36 years, 1 = more or equal to 36 years), MA use years (0 = less than the average of 6 years, 1 = more or equal to 6 years), Average MA use dose(0 = less than the average of 0.49 g, 1 = more or equal to 0.49 g), craving score (0 = less than the average of 3.74 scores, 1 = more or equal to 3.74 scores), MA dependence (0 = MA abuse, 1 = MA dependence), HAMA scores (0 = less than the average of 21 scores, 1 = more or equal to 21 scores), and DBI scores (0 = less than the average of 14 scores, 1 = more or equal to 14 scores). And a multivariate logistics regression analysis was carried, and the results showed that the age of drug use onset, Average MA use dose, craving score, MA dependence, and HAMA scores were the risk factors to MIP (P < 0.05) (Table 4).
Table 4. The multivariate logistic regression analysis of the possible risk factors related to the MIP.
In the study, we found the a high prevalence of psychiatric symptoms in MA use disorder patients, and the participants with MIP were more severe drug use problems, emotional symptoms and cognitive impairment. Earlier onset of drug use, higher quantity of drug use, higher craving, middle or severe drug use disorder and more anxiety symptoms were related with MIP.
We found that the incidents of MIP was 37.1% in the sample. This was similar to about 40 percent of reported psychiatric symptoms in MA abusers (4). While the prevalence had clearly discernible regional differences. A cross-country study in Australia, Japan, Philippines and Thailand had reported much higher rates of MIP in MA abusers (77.4%), and another higher risk report were from Malaysia (47.95%) (23). In contrast, there were lower risk reports in the U.S 26.5% (24), Sweden (31.5%) (25). A possible explanation was that MA were more popular and purer in the Asia-Pacific region (23).
Among them, the vast majority of MIP participants had hallucinations (83.4%) and delusions (92.8%). The result was similar to the previous studies, which also showed the psychiatric symptoms were mainly hallucinations and delusions (23). Seeing from the studies of recent years, it is complex and multiple to determine the mechanisms of MA causing psychotic symptoms. Studies have shown that MA can quickly across the blood-brain barrier after getting into the blood circulation. Then, it could increase the dopaminergic neurotransmitter in the mesencephalon-cortex pathway, and the glutamatergic neurotransmitters from the cortex to substantia nigra striatum and mesencephalic limbic system, while excessive dopamine and glutamate in the cerebral cortex exceeds the inhibition of γ-aminobutyric acid, which makes psychotic symptoms appear (26–30).
However, previous treatment rate was only 7.4% in our study, being similar to a recent survey. The number of people treated was <10 percent of the estimated drug abusers in China's Yunnan province (31). And the treatment rate was also not optimistic in the U.S, it is reported only 10.6% of substance abusers who needed to be treatment had been treated in 2016 (32). Some of the possible barriers to access to treatment may include the social stigma of drug users, the inconvenience and cost of receiving treatment, and the fear of imprisonment for using illegal drugs (31).
A newer population-based study found that recreational use of MA increases the risk of psychotic symptoms by two to three times (15, 33). However, the probable risk factors for psychotic symptoms are still not fully understood. In this study, we observed that there are different in drug use problems, emotional symptoms, and cognitive impairment between the MA abuser with psychosis and without psychosis. Earlier onset of drug use, higher quantity of drug use, higher craving, middle or severe drug use disorder and more anxiety symptoms were the risk factors to MIP. The results have been supported by some earlier studies. When measuring levels of MA exposure, early onset MA use seemed to predict mental illness more effectively than long-term use (5, 14). It was reported that there was a significant dose-dependent increase in the occurrence of psychotic symptoms during MA use (15). While, according to the World Drug Report (1), utilization of drug by teens is rising, being a serious social problem for adolescent to take drugs with following characters: increasing numbers, gang taking, low cultural level, and so on. Therefore, it is particularly important to carry out anti-drug education and related social work for teenagers and parents. Higher quantity of drug use represents more occurrence rate in MA abusers. McKetin et al. found that the likelihood of experiencing psychotic symptoms was 5 times higher during periods of MA use than during periods of no use, with evidence of a strong dose-response effect (15). A recent systematic review found the similar risk factors (13). One possible reason for the dose-related psychotic symptoms was the enhanced dopaminergic transmissions due to MA (34). Higher craving and middle or severe drug use disorder showed the patients with MA were more dependent on MA. Our results were similar to a systematic review (13) which combined three concept areas: MA or amphetamine, psychosis and risk factors showed that the most consistent correlates of psychotic symptoms were dependence on MA. There was an association between increasing severity of MA dependence and MAP symptoms across four studies (35–37). In comparison to non-dependent individuals, MA-dependent individuals were estimated to have between 2 and 3 times greater odds of developing MAP (35, 38).
In addition, most MIP participants were diagnosed as MA dependence in this study. An early Australian study (39) showed that MA dependent were more three times likely to develop psychotic symptoms than non-dependent counterparts, even after adjusting for schizophrenia and other psychotic disorder history. In the MA dependent participants, as the tolerance increases and withdrawal Symptoms, they require even larger doses of the drug, which has higher risk to lead to psychotic symptoms (15). Another possible explanation is that the dependent MA users' were sensitive to the MA drug, and the psychotic symptoms are more likely to catch them (40).
In our study, more participants with MIP comorbid anxiety and depression. In addition, the MIP participants had higher occurrence rate of suicidal ideation and behavior. The similar results had been reported (36, 41). MA dependence is characterized by affective impairment (42), irritability and emotional reactivity, reduced inhibition (41, 43). Moreover, the anxiety disorder was a risk factor for MIP was also found. The findings concurred with the results found in a study by Chou et al. (44). However, the reasons for this association are not clear. Here are probable reasons as follows: (a) drug abuse is a symptom of dysthymia; (b) drug abuse is an attempt to self-treat symptoms of dysthymia; (c) drug abuse leads to dysthymia; and (d) drug use and dysthymia share a common risk factor (45). In fMRI studies, Anne Uhlmann (46) found that MAP patients showed thinner cortices in the fusiform and inferior temporal gyrus (ITG), orbitofrontal (OFC) and inferior frontal gyrus (IFG), and insula, which involved in emotional regulation, compared to the MA group. Therefore, one possible interpretation of our result is that the nerve damage of emotional regulation gyrus is more serious in the participants with MAP.
We observed significant differences on the tasks of ISL and OCL, which represent the verbal and visual learning memory, respectively, between MIP group and none MIP group. The result showed that the participants with MIP perform worse in the verbal and visual learning memory. The Cognitive impairment is a main symptom dimension of MA participants. Current research indicates that long-term use of MA is impaired in learning, memory, executive function, response inhibition, social emotional cognition, and many other cognitive functions (10, 47). Chronic MIP participants had been associated with moderate deficits in learning and memory, which is attributed to abnormal dopamine energy in frontal striatum (10, 48, 49). And abnormal dopamine energy has been probed to be linked with psychosis (28). But the sample size of the participants who accomplished the tests of cognitive functions was small. Therefore, some negative results could be caused by type II error. More number of large sample studies on the cognitive function should be needed in the future.
Our study also has several limitations. First, because the MA use history and the psychosis symptoms have been collected by the self-report, there may be a certain memory error in this retrospective study. Second, some participants had used other substances at least once in this study, and it may be a risk factor of psychosis. But those participants did not meet the standard of substance abuse. MA was the major abuse substance in our participants, and was higher psychosis risk than the other psychoactive substance (33, 37, 39). Even so, the participants with only MA abuse will be needed in the future. Moreover, although the possible risk factors of the MIP have been discussed, but this study was a cross-section study and there was no clear evidence to prove the causal relationship. At the same time, the specific sample sources (the compulsory rehabilitation centers) make this result have certain limitations on the representative population. Therefore, multi-center follow-up cohort studies may help us better explore the risk factors of MIP. Third, Hellem found that mood status may be related to the duration of withdrawal (50), but our data did not contain the duration of withdrawal. Because the participants with MA abuse were interviewed within one month of admission (the last time of substances abuse). Therefore, the participants had similar duration of withdrawal. In addition, this study would not explore the relationship between the mood status and duration of withdrawal. Nevertheless, we should supplement the duration of withdrawal data in the future.
This study found that there was a high prevalence of psychiatric symptoms in MA use disorder patients, and these symptoms were mainly hallucinations and delusions. Among those participants who were diagnosed as MIP, there were more severe drug use problems, emotional symptoms and cognitive impairment. At the same time, we also found the associated risk factors of MIP were earlier onset of drug use, higher quantity of drug use, higher craving, middle or severe drug use disorder and more anxiety symptoms. These results can help us better understanding the MIP and make the treatment and prevention more targeted. However, in the future, the multi-center follow-up cohort studies should be conducted to explore the clear causal relationship.
The datasets generated and analyzed during the current study are available from the first author e-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org
The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Shanghai Mental Health Centre (Approval number given by the Ethics Committee: 2011-37R).
MZ, HJ, and JD participated in the study design process, and revisions of the drafts and the final paper. HG, YaZ, YoZ, TC, HT, and NZ recruited subjects and evaluated the clinical symptoms and cognitive function. HG and YaZ analyzed the data and wrote the draft. All authors read and agreed upon the final version of this article.
This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation (U1502228, 81771436), Program of Shanghai Academic Research Leader (17XD1403300), Shanghai Key Laboratory of Psychotic Disorders (13DZ2260500), Shanghai Municipal Health and Family Planning Commission (2017ZZ02021) to MZ and the Qihang project of Shanghai Mental Health Center(2017-QH-05) to YZ.
Conflict of Interest Statement
The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
The reviewer SL and handling editor declared their shared affiliation at the time of the review.
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Keywords: methamphetamine (MA) use disorder, psychosis, clinical features, risk factors, cognitive function
Citation: Gan H, Zhao Y, Jiang H, Zhu Y, Chen T, Tan H, Zhong N, Du J and Zhao M (2018) A Research of Methamphetamine Induced Psychosis in 1,430 Individuals With Methamphetamine Use Disorder: Clinical Features and Possible Risk Factors. Front. Psychiatry 9:551. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00551
Received: 30 July 2018; Accepted: 15 October 2018;
Published: 06 November 2018.
Edited by:Yanping Bao, Peking University, China
Reviewed by:Su-Xia Li, Peking University, China
F. Javier Alvarez, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain
Copyright © 2018 Gan, Zhao, Jiang, Zhu, Chen, Tan, Zhong, Du and Zhao. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Min Zhao, email@example.com | <urn:uuid:c1117841-cad6-4d54-a964-76cf77739525> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2018.00551/full | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571745.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812170436-20220812200436-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.926095 | 7,879 | 1.90625 | 2 |
7 workers stay behind in Kaesong
The other seven workers, including key officials in the management committee and two KT workers, will stay behind to resolve unpaid wages and tax issues with North Korea.
The official said negotiations include issues like whether to allow South Korean vehicles to enter the zone later to bring out the remaining raw materials, as well as unpaid wages for North Korean employees.
The 50 South Koreans who remained in the complex were scheduled to return to the South around 5 p.m. yesterday afternoon.
The South Korean government announced its decision to pull out all workers, effectively shutting down the 8-year-old complex, in response to the North’s decision to suspend operations there.
On Sunday, 125 South Koreans, mostly assembly line workers and factory owners, returned.
They tried to bring out raw materials and other items, piling them on cars and trucks, because they were uncertain when they will be able to re-enter Kaesong.
Most of the 50 remaining workers were officials or civil servants in charge of infrastructure, such as from the Korea Electric Power Corporation (Kepco), Korea Water Resources Corporation (K-water), KT, a telecommunications company, and Hyundai Asan, the complex developer.
According to the Unification Ministry, Kepco had transmitted 100,000 kilowatts of electricity to a substation located in Kaesong from a substation in Paju, Gyeonggi, in the South.
If Kepco officials return to the South, no one who could control the power system would remain. Also, if the substation in Paju turns off power, the complex would likely be dark.
State-run K-water has also built a reservoir nearby that supplies 60,000 metric tons of water to the complex every day.
Sources say the electricity and water also benefited residents of Kaesong city.
According to the Unification Ministry, the government has not decided whether to cut off all electricity.
If so, the three major inter-Korean project sites - Kaesong park, Mount Kumgang resort and the light-water reactor project in Nampo city - would go dark. The water supply would also be halted by a blackout.
President Park Geun-hye lashed out at Pyongyang’s defiant decision on temporary suspension of the complex.
“All the people in the world watched through television that our workers were returning from the complex, desperately trying to bring even one more thing from it,” Park said yesterday. “Now, in a situation where all of the agreements between us are nullified, who in the world will invest in North Korea?”
Still, Moon Hee-sang, interim leader of the largest opposition Democratic United Party, proposed a meeting with Park to prevent permanent shutdown of the industrial zone before the president departs for the United States and a summit with President Barack Obama.
“If the Kaesong complex shuts down, it would become a national crisis that can’t be restored,” he said yesterday.
But North Korea’s mouthpiece Rodong Sinmun said the Southern government’s decision to vacate the complex was “a shameless misbehavior” and warned it would take a “decisive measure.”
“They should know that they will never be able to avoid the responsibility for putting the Kaesong Industrial Complex at risk of complete closure with such a shameless misbehavior,” the newspaper said in an editorial yesterday. “If they [the South] continue to worsen the situation, we, as the previous warning, will take an ultimate, decisive measure.”
The newspaper also warned that if the complex shuts down, the Park Geun-hye administration will see the inter-Korean relations more deteriorated than in the Lee administration.
“If the Kaesong Industrial District is completely closed down, the current puppet regime will be stigmatized as a more hostile administration than the Lee Myung-bak puppet groups,” it said.
By Kim Hee-jin [firstname.lastname@example.org] | <urn:uuid:0636b024-1274-485a-8430-d3c93325fcba> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2013/04/29/politics/7-workers-stay-behind-in-Kaesong/2970911.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570741.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808001418-20220808031418-00075.warc.gz | en | 0.959129 | 855 | 1.734375 | 2 |
It is the National Energy Board’s responsibility to protect citizens and the environment from Big Oil’s reckless lies. Don’t listen to Kinder Morgan — oil spills are NEVER good, for any reason.
The pipeline giant, Kinder Morgan, was recently exposed for claiming that pipeline spills could actually be considered “good” for local communities because they create cleanup related jobs.
This is outrageous but it should come as no surprise considering Kinder Morgan has been lobbying hard to triple the capacity of its oil pipeline running from the tar sands of Alberta and the Vancouver, B.C., area.
The reality is, tar sands spills are never good for the economy; just ask the people of Kalamazoo, Michigan or Mayflower, Arkansas. These communities have spent years suffering the effects of tar sands pipeline spills — from fouled waterways to damaged local economies.
Enough is enough. Don’t bow to Big Oil’s lies — pipeline spills are terrible for local communities.
This petition closed over 2 years ago
By shining a light on Kinder Morgan's ridiculous claims, we will demonstrate to the Canadian government that the public does not agree that oil spills are good for local economies or the environment. | <urn:uuid:95268769-f164-49b4-a75f-9f7f9edb5661> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.causes.com/actions/1769800-sign-the-petition-to-national-energy-board-of-canada?recruiter_id=59187643 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280730.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00251-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.919479 | 247 | 2.28125 | 2 |
Have a Car Question? Ask a Mechanic Online.
P0136 - Bank1 Sensor2 is the rear O2 sensor located behind the catalytic converter. This is the O2 sensor you need to replace. See below:
This is a Paysite
Yes, Autozone was incorrect. What I provide you is out of Nissan service manual.
Here is a diagram showing locations of Bank1 Sensor1 and Bank2 Sensor1:
For every vehicle this is how to tell which O2 sensor is being referred to.
Bank1 is side where cylinder #1 is located
Bank2 is side where cylinder #2 is located
Sensor1 is before the catalytic converter(upstream)
Sensor2 is after the catalytic converter(downstream) | <urn:uuid:77b111a9-68e1-407d-88c3-f7656b9ba44c> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.justanswer.com/car/1152u-1997-nissan-maxima-gxe-within-past-six-months.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719465.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00097-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944998 | 158 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Recently on CRI an article on Which Causes which out of Atmospheric Temperature and CO2 content? was posted, and this was circulated to other blogs and much interesting discussion ensued, particularly on TallBloke’s Talkshop. This discussion raised the Cycles in Sunspot Number Reconstruction for 11,000 Years article about C14 isotope ratio being used as a Solar Cycle Proxy and the question of the similarity of Be10 use as a proxy was asked. So here is an analysis of the Be10 data obtained from this source:
Solar Irradiance reconstruction from 10Be, World Data Center for Paleoclimatology, Boulder and NOAA Paleoclimatology Program
NAME OF DATA SET: Holocene Total Solar Irradiance Reconstruction
LAST UPDATE: 11/2009 (Original Receipt by WDC Paleo)
CONTRIBUTORS: Steinhilber, F., J. Beer, and C. Fröhlich.
IGBP PAGES/WDCA CONTRIBUTION SERIES NUMBER: 2009-133
At 9,370 years long, this time series compares to the 11,000 year C14 record. If both are reliable indicators of Solar Activity cycles, then we would expect some similarity in the cycles found. Firstly, the actual time series:
Some of the strong cycles periods found are very similar to those found in the C14 reconstruction, 351 years (352), 207 years (208), 104.7 years (104.3), 86.1 years (87.6 and 84.7). Some cycles are similar but no longer significant (around 500 years). The very long cycles are not confirmed, but remember that the time interval used here is a bit shorter.
Because the 207 year cycle is very strong, it is once again examined by use of a 3 cycle filter.
Just as in the case of the 208 year cycle in the C14 solar proxy, we have peaks occurring at around 1800 and 2000 and troughs at around 1700 and 1900. This clearly shows that the Sun was a contributing factor to temperature rises in the 20th century, and that its contribution for the next century will be towards cooling.
Graphs and analysis prepared using CATS. | <urn:uuid:91341596-9b2a-45ec-88eb-04bb91737b93> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://cyclesresearchinstitute.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/analysis-of-be10-records-as-a-solar-irradiance-proxy/comment-page-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718957.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00436-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904968 | 449 | 2.5625 | 3 |
Archbishop Nikola Eterović has been the Apostolic Nuncio to Germany since November of 2013. Katholisch.de interviewed him about a variety of subjects. I share some of his comments.
About his impressions of the German Church, which has been viewed critically across the world, he says:
“I consider the Catholic Church in this country to be very dynamic and involved. That is not easy, as Germany is very secularised, especially in major cities like Berlin. But the Church is well organised and wants to live according to the Gospel. That is seen, for example, in her role in society, by which she gives witness of Christ. In addition, the Church in Germany and also across the world, provides real aid, for example through Caritas and the relief agencies like Adveniat, Renovabis, Misereor, Missio, Church in Need, Bonifatiuswerk and others.”
Of course, as a diplomat the Nuncio needs to speak carefully. But that does not mean that the efforts of the Church in Germany are negligible. But there is always more than just the laudable work she does in the fields of charity, peace and justice, which becomes clear when Pope Francis’ recent comments that Europe is old and tired appear. Archbishop Eterović says,
“In Germany the Church shows a decline in active faithful. And recently events have led to people leaving the Church because they no longer want to pay the Kirchensteuer [“Church tax” – ed]. I think that is quite problematic, and we need a new dynamic in catechesis, pastoral engagement, a new evangelisation. On the other hand I also see a certain passivity in individual faithful across Europe. In the end, more than 70 percent of the citizens of the European Union belong to a Christian confession. We must make use of that to better participate in society, for example to influence legislation when proposals do not meet with Christian ethics. In that way the “fatigue”, that the Holy Father spoke about, can be overcome.”
The Church tax, I have come increasingly to believe, is more than just problematic. Although the financial revenue may be used for good, it is a burden in the Church’s pastoral activities, as well as the faithful’s access to the sacraments. The new dynamic mentioned by the Nuncio is the same “new evangelisation” that has been promoted by Pope Benedict XVI, and which now seems to have snowed under a bit. But we can’t allow it to be: we must take it up and make it happen.
The Nuncio also plays in important role in the selection and appointment of new bishops. In Germany, three dioceses – Berlin, Hamburg and Limburg – are awaiting a new bishop. Archbishop Eterović remains – rightly so – close-lipped about the state of these appointments:
“We follow the canonical rules and the respective concordats. The processes are ongoing, and I hope that the dioceses of Hamburg and Berlin will get new bishops in the coming year. The situation in Limburg is somewhat different. There is an Apostolic Administrator there, who is doing good work.”
Worldwide the Church is involved with politics, especially when it comes to peace, justice and development, as we have seen recently in the easing of relations between Cuba and the United States. But what about the influence of the Church on the regular faithful?
“We must in any case work on our pastoral care. Especially young people want to know what the Christian faith really means. With his charisma Pope Francis continuously manages to clarify the actuality of the Gospel and the message of Jesus. And I believe that the people out there are only waiting to rediscover this message: fraternal love and the love, justice and solidarity of God”.
Archbishop Nikola Eterović was born in Croatia in 1951 and ordained a priest of the Diocese of Hvar in 1977. In 1999 he was consecrated as Titular Archbishop of Sisak, and appointed as Apostolic Nuncio to Ukraine. From 2004 to 2013 he was Secretary General of the Synod of Bishops, and in 2013 he returned to the diplomatic service as Apostolic Nuncio to Germany. In 2009, he was given a new titular see, Vinkovci, as Sisak was re-established as a proper diocese in Croatia. | <urn:uuid:b19ddc62-b9f1-4cdc-a689-cafd7fd070e3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://incaelo.wordpress.com/2014/12/29/the-nuncio-speaks-archbishop-eterovic-on-the-state-of-the-church-in-germany-and-abroad/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283008.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00079-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975175 | 933 | 1.882813 | 2 |
Humans are not the only creatures that show a refined grasp of social norms. If a group of adult male rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) find themselves sitting around a turning table set with food, they will display an ‘I scratch your back, you scratch mine’ ethos of reciprocity. One monkey will offer another one a piece of fruit and, what’s more, will expect the gesture to be reciprocated. If the offer isn’t forthcoming, the first monkey is likely to retaliate by refusing to give up anything on his turn. The monkeys also like to group together in cliques; if they see one monkey has been kind to another, they collectively show kindness to the first monkey. If you’re observing, it looks like nothing so much as a group of friends buying each other rounds of drinks at a bar.
While decades of research have dispelled the myth that sociality is unique to our species, scientists are still unclear about just how individual animals retain information about the structure of the ‘society’ in which they’re embedded. Are the monkeys simply copying each other and sharing food via a sophisticated form of mirroring? Or are they truly keeping track of their own and others’ behaviour in order to make decisions within a broader social dynamic?
Over the years, biologists have used a variety of lenses to try and answer these sorts of questions. While 19th-century naturalists looked at animal behaviour with a focus on its psychological and physiological aspects, it was only after the groundbreaking work of zoologists such as Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von Frisch in the 1930s that the field returned to a focus on how social behaviour might be explained in evolutionary terms.
Following the emergence of the modern discipline of ethology – the study of animal behaviour – we’ve been left with two main ways of framing enquiries into the social lives of animals. One approach takes data from observations of animals in the field, trying to understand the group dynamic by looking from the ‘outside in’. Yet this necessarily makes it hard to fathom what’s happening inside an individual creature’s mind. By contrast, the second approach is based on detecting an individual’s brain activity, and then on trying to draw a map between patterns of neuronal spiking or firing – the oscillating electrical activity that produces brain waves – and how the animal acts. Yet this data comes from the ‘inside out’, and often struggles to encompass group dynamics. Both of these frames tend to capture an incomplete picture.
Now a new generation of scientists is pushing for a third, more nuanced paradigm for studying animal sociality. Known as ‘collective neuroscience’, this research programme proceeds from the idea that brains have evolved primarily to help animals exist as part of a social group – rather than to solve problems per se – and should be studied as such. Since embedding a brain within a social structure changes how it and other brains perform, it makes no sense to only study individual minds in isolation, because it doesn’t provide the full picture. Based on the notion that intelligence is a dynamic of looping cause and effect among multiple brains, researchers are drawing on the latest neuroimaging techniques to try to obtain a more detailed understanding of multiple animals’ brain states as they engage in a variety of social activities. The hope is that this could lead us to answers about how animals perceive their social world, and how that perception is neurally encoded.
Beyond nonhuman animals, collective neuroscience could also help us decipher some of the complexities of human society as well. Since brains appear to work differently when placed in relationships with others, we might begin to recognise the necessity to tailor interventions to improve mental health in terms of the wider social environment, rather than focusing on individual pathologies. And, in quite a different domain, if sociality is a necessary step on the road to intelligence, it’s unclear whether machine-learning algorithms really stand a chance of approximating a human intellect – unless they’re embedded in a rich society of other algorithms.
In mainstream approaches to cognitive neuroscience in animals, portions of the brain are labelled as relating to perception, action, memory, attention, decision, sociality. But when we examine animal behaviour through a more collective lens, we begin to see that large portions of complex brains are hungry to work in harmony with others, according to Emmanuelle Tognoli, a researcher at the Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences at Florida Atlantic University. Like many others, Tognoli is convinced that the brain likely evolved to deal with the informational complexity of navigating and coordinating social relationships. If that’s true, cognitive neuroscience that ignores sociality is probably pointless, Tognoli believes.
Much research in cognitive science examines how one brain responds to basic stimuli – such as how we work through a problem a friend is recounting, or how we remember that same conversation weeks later. But even a study looking at the dynamic between two individuals lacks certain aspects of the diversity of interactions that emerge naturally in organic, more complex social groups – including attention allocation, creating subgroups, and recruiting allies, says Julia Sliwa. She is a neural-systems researcher at the Paris Brain Institute who penned a seminal paper on the need for more collective neuroscience in animal research. What she and others are trying to upend, she says, is the orthodoxy that ‘intelligence, and in this case social intelligence of a species, derives solely from the workings of the single brain’. What people have been studying so far is how groups of neurons in single brains can create information in the brain; what we also need to look at, though, is how such information is processed among and between multiple brains working together.
There appear to be neurons responsible for taking note of friends’ complex social behaviour
The problem with trying to vindicate this idea has largely been a technical one so far, especially for nonhuman animals. Animal neuroscience research has largely relied on attaching animals to clunky machines in a lab and encouraging them to interact within a pair. But these artificial parameters will of course distort social dynamics present in the wild. Now, though, new portable technologies such as wireless neurophysiological recording devices have made it possible to observe creatures in their natural environment, where they interact organically, and in much larger groups.
Recall our friendly macaques, the subjects of a Harvard neurosurgery study published in Science in late 2021. The researchers peered into the macaques’ brains with recording helmets that could track brain activity in specific neurons with great precision. They observed that each kind of interaction appeared to involve several hallmark neurons ‘lighting up’ in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, the section of the brain that is believed to play a role in social interactions. Different neurons responded differently depending on the circumstances – with some neurons firing when someone didn’t give a piece of fruit and going silent when someone reciprocated, while other neurons behaved in the opposite way. There were also neurons that seemed to encode information about choices, outcomes and interactions among other monkeys who were simply being observed. In other words, there appeared to be neurons responsible for taking note of friends’ complex social behaviour.
The Harvard researchers pulled these observations into a neuronal map, which allowed them to anticipate whether the macaques would reciprocate or retaliate on the screen before they did so in real life. These predictions were remarkably accurate, indicating that specific neurons can represent defined pieces of social information. To establish this more decisively, the researchers also worked the other way around. They applied a very small electrical current to temporarily disrupt neuronal activity in specific parts of the monkeys’ brains, in order to see whether that would stop the macaques from carrying out the social actions – but still leave them able to perform their other cognitive functions, such as remembering or making decisions. And, just like that, the monkeys’ ability to perform social actions slumped, and they failed to reciprocate as expected.
The second experiment Sliwa points to focuses on ‘brain-to-brain synchronisation’. In a pivotal study from 2010, Guillaume Dumas, assistant professor of computational psychiatry at the University of Montreal, showed that the brains of human participants mirrored each other on a neurological level when engaging in activities together, such as making funny, meaningless gestures with their hands while watching each other. Another study including Dumas involved giving one of two romantic partners a painful stimulus – either alone in a room, in a room with their partner, or in a room with their partner while holding hands – and monitoring the effects on brain synchronisation. Unsurprisingly, hand-holding produced the most similarity in partners’ brain signals, and the person in pain reported that it also eased the pain. (Other studies had already shown that the analgesic effect is much lower if you’re holding hands with a stranger.)
This work has widened into other contexts. Uri Hasson, a researcher at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute, has shown that a good storyteller can induce synchronisation between her and her listener’s brains (if there’s shared common ground, experiences and beliefs); and, in a classroom setting, how well a student’s brain waves sync up with their peers can serve as a good predictor of how engaged they are, and how much they feel like they get along with the group, according to research by Suzanne Dikker, a senior research scientist at the Max Planck – NYU Center for Language, Music and Emotion.
Is this phenomenon present among nonhuman animals? Neuroscientists at the University of California, Berkeley, also published a paper in Science, in which they used the collective neuroscience lens to see whether the same happens for fruit bats – a sociable animal that spends most of its life in a group, huddled together in small nooks during the day, and foraging for food in groups during the night.
The bats’ neurons spiked in similar ways, bringing their brains quite literally onto the same ‘wavelength’
The researchers tracked bats’ brain activity using wireless neurophysiological recording devices as the animals flew around freely in their enclosures and talked to one another with their signature high-pitched screeches. Just like the rhesus monkey study, different patterns of neuronal firing were evident while the bats were recognising and distinguishing between the calls of different members of the group. A cry from one bat stimulated activity in one set of neurons in the listener, while a vocalisation from a different bat stimulated another set of neurons. The mapping was so clear that, when in a silent room observing only the bat’s brain activity on a screen, researchers could identify which bats had called out.
In addition, the study found that the whole group synchronises its brain states when engaged in communication. Their neurons spiked and oscillated in similar ways, bringing their brains quite literally onto the same ‘wavelength’. And if the bats were ‘friendly’, having spent significant time together, their brains synchronised even more strongly – an effect, perhaps, similar to the finding from Dumas’s study of hand-holding. The same effect was observed within social subgroups; members of these cliques also had a much clearer neuronal representation when one of their number was vocalising.
The neuroscientists also experimented with playing recordings of bat sounds to some of the bats, in isolation, but this failed to provoke activity in the relevant brain areas – perhaps indicating that the bats knew this wasn’t a genuine social interaction. This effect could partly arise from how the animals process one another’s presence using vision and olfaction in addition to hearing. But, tantalisingly, it could also indicate that another brain needs to be present for an individual’s neurons to even register the existence of a social dynamic. The social context, that is, modulates activity both within and between brains.
There’s much we still don’t know. Yes, specific neurons are called into action and synchronised when two bat ‘friends’ call to one another, and specific neurons light up when two monkeys share food. But whether these neurons are doing the synchronisation, the recognising, or the encoding of information about what is being communicated is still to be determined. We also don’t know the extent to which social information is retained over time, or whether it’s just for the duration of the social activity at hand. Nonetheless, the collective neuroscience agenda has undoubtedly made strides; in most previous studies, researchers couldn’t even detect why a neuron was firing or not, Sliwa says, and whether it was because the animal had recognised it was interacting with their ‘friend’ or because it was interacting with another animal at all.
These preliminary studies are important pieces of a much larger puzzle, according to Sliwa. Their results corroborate the idea that it’s possible for scientists to discover entirely new capacities when brains are scrutinised all together. Crucially, it also means giving up the clean division between stimuli and ‘inputs’ versus behaviour and ‘outputs’; rather, collective neuroscience involves reckoning with the science of complex systems, where causation is not linear but looping, and social and neuronal structures mesh in unpredictable ways.
Take a sports team. Statistics about each player can tell you a lot about whether they’re going to make good additions to the team or not, but whether the group ‘vibes’ together, whether they have synchronicity, whether they work together in a group, can’t be quantified by the number of their scores or assists. Yet this collective ‘X factor’ can be what makes a good team into a ‘dream team’.
Collective neuroscience offers a different way of seeing neuropsychiatric conditions
In the context of social-animal neuroscience, this means looking at how individual brains both affect and are affected by the social context, rather than starting from the perspective of a single brain. A complex-systems lens would demand that we study animal neuroscience across multiple interlocking scales: starting from neurons, moving into brains and embodied organisms, then across to pairs and groups, looking all the time at how all these levels relate to one another, according to Tognoli. Cognition, in this view, is a dynamical process that happens not only within and between brains, but across a variety of biological, behavioural and social levels of organisation.
Mapping how neuronal activity relates to specific social interactions, and understanding the effects of group social dynamics on the biology of the brain, could shed light on aspects of human society, too. Collective neuroscience offers a different way of seeing neuropsychiatric conditions such as depression and schizophrenia, for example – not as instances of individual ‘dysfunctions’ in the brain, but as phenomena that emerge from multiple dynamic physiological and social processes. How does one get to the bottom of human cognition if we are intrinsically social beings, for whom culture has had a profound impact upon our evolution? Experiments such as the macaque study helped to identify brain areas linked to abnormal or normal social behaviour; related research in humans could yield new therapies or possibilities for intervention.
In the field of AI, embracing the collective neuroscience paradigm could mean the difference between genuine intelligence and useful, but limited, algorithms. If humans’ complex cognitive architecture arises from their ability to engage in social and cultural learning, computer scientists ought to take note. For example, Dumas, the computational psychiatrist behind the hand-holding study, says social interaction in AI is like dark matter in the field of physics: ‘We know well that it exists, but we do not know how to study it directly just yet.’ So far, AI has been somewhat solipsistic and individualistic in seeing social cognition as a potential task, rather than as a constitutive aspect of complex cognition, Dumas says. He’s now working on creating frameworks to include this multidimensional form of social intelligence in how artificial intelligence is coded, leveraging our understanding of social learning to help machines advance towards a human-level cognition.
To tackle the challenges ahead, Sliwa reminds me, it’s not a matter of completely ditching single-brain neuroscience. Interactions in a network might account for much of the social intelligence we see in nonhuman animals – but that’s also due to their brains being able to independently analyse social interactions. It’s still vital to continue to study how a single brain possesses this advanced cognitive ability, as well as how those individual brains then come to work in groups. If intelligence is about dynamic of feedback loops among multiple brains, Sliwa notes, the way we study it also needs to be a system of different looping frameworks feeding into each other – ‘a lot of loops of different levels of investigation’.
#brains #social #animals #synchronise #expand #Aeon #Essays | <urn:uuid:bc37f63a-85fa-4072-933d-8d59debe6b2f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://gapeinteractive.com/2022/06/23/cbmiwmh0dhbzoi8vywvvbi5jby9lc3nhexmvag93lxrozs1icmfpbnmtb2ytc29jawfslwfuaw1hbhmtc3luy2hyb25pc2utyw5klwv4cgfuzc1vbmutyw5vdghlctibaaoc5/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572043.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814143522-20220814173522-00473.warc.gz | en | 0.947384 | 3,499 | 3.765625 | 4 |
London - In the 1960s and ’70s, with free love coursing through the air, “hippies” travelled overland from Europe to Turkey and through Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nepal and India.
Hippies – the pioneers of so much of today’s tourism – took to this route because it could be travelled cheaply (mainly via hitchhiking, buses and trains) and was as far away from the evil capitalist West as possible. Also, plenty of mystique was attached to these far-flung lands, a desirable quality for people seeking spiritual enlightenment as well as a good time.
The European capitals of free love and dope, London and Amsterdam, were the usual starting points for the journey. An ideal route wound through Europe via Yugoslavia and Greece (with a possible island side-trip) to Istanbul.
From here, permutations varied, but a typical path went to Ankara, then through Iran to Tehran, to Kabul in Afghanistan, through the Khyber Pass to Peshawar and Lahore in Pakistan, and then on to Kashmir, Delhi and Goa in India.
Today, the hippie trail is undergoing a revival with the rise in popularity of low-cost airlines and more accessible travel. But nowadays, no one is “dropping out” – the “hippies” in these modern-day trails are often urban professionals.
It is currently against the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s advice to travel to Afghanistan. When this changes, however, cross the Iranian border near Mashhad and head to the old Silk Road city of Herat. There, you drink in views from the imposing Citadel before gazing at the fabulous mosaic tiling of the Friday Mosque. After a few days, chart a course for the north-east.
At Mazar-e Sharif, discover Afghanistan’s holiest site, the blue domes of the Shrine of Hazrat Ali.
Nearby are the equally evocative ruins of Balkh, with its crumbling city walls and ancient mosques. Back on the bus, you head for Kabul, watching the plains gradually rise into the Hindu Kush mountains. Across the Salang Pass, the main route between north and south Afghanistan, the road surface is better, but the traffic is crazy.
Arriving at the Afghan capital, Kabul, pay a visit to Chicken Street, a crucial node on the original trail. Then, you’re on your way in a hired taxi to the Pakistan border, ready to leave Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass, the gateway to the Indian subcontinent and beyond – to further adventures in Nepal, Thailand or Bali. – The Independent
l Extract taken from Great Journeys, published by Lonely Planet.
If You Go...
Distance: 7 500km
Route: England, the Netherlands, Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Nepal, India.
Best time of year: Any time you feel the need to get away from it all.
Ideal time commitment: Two to three months.
Essential tip: Check the latest security warnings before travelling to Afghanistan and Pakistan (fco.gov.uk).
l Relaxing on Paradise Beach in Mykonos, Greece, celebrated in the 1960s for its blend of free love and unfettered carousing; now package tourists have replaced the hippies.
l Kicking back in Pai, northern Thailand. The hippie trail is alive and well with a New Age music and art scene co-existing with the local Shan, Thai and Muslim Chinese residents.
l Discovering the amazing beach at hedonistic Kuta in Bali, a popular stop on the original trail.
l Surveying the distant Himalayas at sunrise after trekking to the rim of the Kathmandu Valley. | <urn:uuid:65dca6dd-a8f7-4370-a8b5-c657727f0dbe> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.iol.co.za/travel/travel-tips/todays-hippie-trail-beckons-all-1377306 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00492-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930156 | 782 | 1.859375 | 2 |
by Dan Oliver
courtesy of The Royal Mint
January 13, 2014 – When HM Treasury made the announcement ‘The Trial of the Pyx will be held in Goldsmith’s Hall, London on 4th February 2014’, I’m sure this raised a myriad of questions in most people’s minds. Questions such as; what on earth is a pyx? and why is it on trial?
The Trial of the Pyx is an historic event and 730 years old. Photograph: The Goldsmiths’ Company/Richard Lea-Hair
It’s actually an historic event dating from 1282 and it is, indeed, a judicial trial as most of us would recognise, complete with judge, jury and verdict. I think it’s now time, after more than 700 years of its history, that we put it under the spotlight and shed some light on its history and proceedings. So let’s begin…
In front of the jury members are the pyxes, or boxes. Photograph: The Goldsmiths’ Company/Richard Lea-Hair
The word ‘pyx’ is of Latin/Greek origin and simply means ‘box’. The pyx that goes on trial holds a collection of random UK coins from the year’s production to be presented to the jury. At Westminster Abbey there is ‘The Pyx Chamber’ where historically the trial pyxides would be stored. These days, there are, in fact, many boxes involved in the event and they are stored securely at The Royal Mint.
Samples of newly minted UK coins are randomly selected throughout each year during the production process.
Around 40,000 coins are being inspected during this year’s Trial of the Pyx. Photograph: The Goldsmiths’ Company/Richard Lea-Hair
They are placed in packets for onward transportation to their trial, where they are inspected to ensure they conform to the standards required by UK law such as weight, composition and size. The number of coins on trial varies each year, but around 40,000 coins will be inspected in February 2014.
Even the bombing in 1940 could not stop the Trial of the Pyx. Photograph: The Goldsmiths’ Company/Richard Lea-Hair)
The trial has taken place every February since 1282, making this year’s the 732nd trial. It is one of the longest established judicial procedures in the country, and the procedures have changed little over the years, so this year’s trial should run like clockwork! Even a bomb falling nearby in 1940 didn’t stop it going ahead. It is almost certainly the oldest form of quality control and independent quality assessment in the UK, and probably the only trial of its kind in the world.
The Trial takes place at the Goldsmith’s Hall. Photograph: The Goldsmiths’ Company/Richard Lea-Hair
The trial takes place at Goldsmiths’ Hall which, as made official by the Coinage Act 1870, is its established venue.
The trial is presided over by The Queen’s Remembrancer, a high court judge. Photograph: The Goldsmiths’ Company/Richard Lea-Hair
As a legally constituted trial it is presided over by a high court judge, who holds the title of ‘The Queen’s Remembrancer’ for this process. On trial are the contents of the pyxides as well as the Deputy Master of the Mint.
The jury member examine the coins before sending them to be further analised in the Goldsmiths’ Assay Laboratory and National Measurement Office. Photograph: The Goldsmiths’ Company/Richard Lea-Hair
The trial is simply an examination of UK coins made by The Royal Mint to ensure that they conform to the laws and standards that surround them. With the growing use of automated vending machines and increasing counterfeit activity, the trial is as important now as it has ever been.
The trial adjourns and the coins are sent away to be further tested by the Goldsmiths’ Assay Laboratory and National Measurement Office. The verdict ceremony is traditionally held 12 weeks after the trial, usually in the first week of May.
Even in the 21st century testing coins by persons and not only machines continues to be pivotal. Photograph: The Goldsmiths’ Company/Richard Lea-Hair
For 731 years UK coins have been subject to this trial and provided all is well this year will make it 732 years of successful verdicts for The Royal Mint.
This article was written for and appeared first in The Royal Mint blog.
You may also want to visit the very informative website of The Goldsmiths’ Company.
During the last year’s Pyx Trial The Royal Mint has made a video explaining what this ceremony is all about. To watch the film please click here. | <urn:uuid:15264712-d915-4f3b-938b-978ec11172f7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://coinsweekly.com/trial-of-the-pyx-putting-the-pyx-on-trial/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573029.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817153027-20220817183027-00269.warc.gz | en | 0.953798 | 1,046 | 3 | 3 |
The Green New Deal's '30 by 30' plan to upgrade the insulation of all 30 million UK properties by 2030 has been driven by Colin Hines, a member of the Green New Deal Group. It is making good progress. Labour has now issued these proposals, almost reusing the name:
30 Recommendations by 2030
Expert Briefing: Putting the UK on a path to zero carbon energy
Summary of Recommendations
To put the UK on as fast a path to zero carbon as possible, this report makes thirty recommendations, which are summarised below within four goals that need to be delivered in parallel.
GOAL 1 — REDUCE ENERGY WASTE IN BUILDINGS AND INDUSTRY
Energy savings must be maximized if the decarbonisation of energy is to be achievable. It will require the majority of buildings and processes in the UK to become as energy efficient as possible. It will also require approaching energy demand in buildings as an infrastructure challenge, with a well-organized and well-funded national programme to ensure all buildings make good use of electricity. This will be a significant national undertaking, but the benefits to business, families and communities around the UK will be enormous.
Recommendation 1: Reduce energy waste, and thus demand, to the maximum possible extent over the years to 2030, and so set a target to reduce the need for energy across the UK by a minimum of 20% for heat and a minimum of 11% for electricity, relative to current levels.
Recommendation 2: Retrofit almost all of the UK’s 27 million homes by 2030 to the highest energy efficiency standards feasible for each building to reduce domestic heat demand by 23% relative to current levels. - Retrofit the as many homes as possible to EPC level A or B by 2030, making EPC C level the targeted minimum. This is expected to result in 41% of UK buildings reaching EPC A or B, and 44% at EPC C. - Proactively implement area-based retrofit programmes — including SME buildings at the same time as domestic houses.
Recommendation 3: Ensure this retrofit work targets those homes in most need first. - Top priority: high fuel poverty and low-quality housing. - Second priority: homes and buildings with lowest energy performance (those that “leak” the most energy due to poor building design) - Home retrofits should peak at around 3m per year in 2027.
Recommendation 4: Conduct a root-and-branch review of the range of standards, measures, materials specification and practices of the UK construction industry to maximize the quality, impact and benefit of the retrofit and renovation programme, to add to the work carried out under the Each Home Counts review.
Recommendation 5: Ensure all existing public buildings reach EPC A or B by the mid 2020s, except in extenuating circumstances, with EPC C required as a minimum energy-efficiency standard.
Recommendation 6: Ensure all existing commercial and industrial buildings reach EPC A or B by the mid 2020s, except in extenuating circumstances, with EPC C required as a minimum standard. Work with commercial and industrial sectors to achieve this.
Recommendation 7: Reduce energy use in industry by 11% by ensuring that process efficiency is maximised, waste heat is used on-site to the maximum viable extent and the remaining waste heat is made available to external users.
Recommendation 8: Reintroduce a zero-carbon buildings standard for all new buildings from 2020 and seek to ensure all new buildings are constructed full net zero-carbon as early as possible.
The LibDems have also been paying attention. This is their version:
Passed by the Lib Dems Conference
As an urgent priority, government must put in place an extensive and comprehensive scheme to cut energy consumption by retrofitting existing buildings; four out of every five homes British people will be living in in 2050 have already been built. This is our top priority for action because it is the most cost-effective option available to reduce emissions and because it contributes to climate justice, reducing household bills and improving quality of life especially for those in fuel poverty. We would introduce a new Green Buildings Act setting the following targets: All homes of low-income households (social, rented or owner-occupied)· to reach at least Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) Band B by 2025. All other homes and non-domestic buildings to reach EPC Band B by· 2030. 7.1.3We endorse the campaign for ’30 by 30’ — 30 million homes and nondomestic properties insulated by 2030.
I am well aware of the challenge that tackling 2.8 million homes a year represents. It is enormous. But we can always die instead. | <urn:uuid:bf353ede-b3c3-44d3-a58d-a12b9a6d8c5b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/10/25/the-green-new-deals-30-by-30-plan-makes-progress/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.937027 | 976 | 2.421875 | 2 |
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…expand human capacity to be effective in daily life by heightening our awareness so that we tap fully into sensation & intuition to access more choices, and teaching us to focus on intention, behavior, communication;
…offer a new dimension of power, wonder, beauty and freedom to our lives.
CONTENT is framed in Ground Work: no riding. We engage in elegantly simple, practical experiences, with horses and humans as our partners. Prior experience with horses is not required. Learn any work-life skill in a deep way that endures.
WHY HORSES?? They have a lot to teach us. Their 55 million years’ survival teaches us a great deal about thriving in ALL aspects of living. They trust their senses, know their purpose, take clear action. They exist as a team: supporting survival, learning, play, developing SHARED leadership & responsibility. We learn extraordinary things about OURSELVES. Testimonials…
Since 2009, Christina & Lynne have amassed over 2,500 hours of training in “Equine-Assisted Learning” and related content, in addition to degrees and post-graduate study… See Credentials… | <urn:uuid:9301ab18-671b-46af-8183-2ec30e8d97ce> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.pittsaldrichassociates.com/?page_id=209 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00242-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.898994 | 511 | 1.742188 | 2 |
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When in the years following the American Revolution, Jeffersonian democrats raised alarms about the “moneycrats” and their counterrevolutionary intrigues -- they meant Alexander Hamilton and his confederates in particular -- they were worried about the installation in the New World of a British system of merchant capitalism that would undo the democratic and egalitarian promise of the Revolution.
And, of course, these broke but suddenly brilliant people carried out their stupendous looting without the slightest complicity from the aforementioned moneycrats.
At least we know who one of the moneycrats by pratliff94 on Tuesday, Mar 27, 2007 at 12: 30: 16 AM
Senator Long, the latest in a long line of Southern populist demagogues, had been decrying the power of land barons, “moneycrats,” and big oil since his days as Louisiana’s governor. | <urn:uuid:7bad59e1-734f-41e5-abc8-8d5749d38aea> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.wordnik.com/words/moneycrats | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718309.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00404-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936541 | 201 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Some of New Zealand’s most vulnerable premature babies will soon take part in ground-breaking research aimed at improving their health and those of other pre-term infants worldwide.
The research, a collaboration between Auckland City Hospital and the University of Auckland, will investigate use of a computer model to adjust the insulin dose in pre-term babies with high blood-sugar levels, seek ways of reducing lung injury, and investigate whether increased protein will improve growth and development. The three neonatal research projects have been given funding by Cure Kids in its latest grants round.
Lucy and Steven Nicoll, whose triplets Molly, Joshua and Cameron arrived at 25 weeks last Sunday, agreed to let their babies participate in the ventilator study aimed at reducing lung injury in extremely pre-term infants.
Read more about the research and Molly, Joshua and Cameron on the nzherald website here: http://goo.gl/QKDFi9 | <urn:uuid:dbd8b4bd-7dc0-4c3d-af0e-971f6b781c95> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://littlemiraclestrust.org.nz/2014/04/21/help-for-tots-born-too-soon/page/2/?el_dbe_page | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570871.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808183040-20220808213040-00267.warc.gz | en | 0.915283 | 192 | 2.75 | 3 |
Neuroscience/Cellular Neurobiology/Somatic Sensory System
There are many different sensory systems. The somatic sensory system mediates the sense of touch, and the proprioceptive division relays information about internal parts of the body. The auditory system provides hearing, and located in the same area is the vestibular system, which provides a sense a balance. The olfactory system and the gustatory system mediate the sense of smell and taste. The conversion of outside signals to chemical signals in the brain is referred to as transduction, and sensory transduction in the various systems shares a few characteristics. Sensory receptors (neurons, in the somatic sensory and olfactory systems, and epithelial cells in the visual, auditory, gustatory systems) synapse on an interneuron that relays signals to the brain. Perceptions can vary in four ways: modality (auditory, visual, etc.), intensity, duration and location. Variations in sensation are encoded in variations in action potentials.
There are five major modalities: vision, touch, smell, taste and hearing. In each modality, there may be submodalities (touch, pressure and temperature, in touch.) Each modality has a specific receptor. Vision transduction requires photoreceptors; audition, mechanoreceptors; taste and smell, chemoreceptors, and the touch system uses mechanoreceptors, thermoreceptors and nociceptors (pain receptors.) Each one of these modalities has its own pathway, and a relay through the subnuclei of the thalamus, and eventually terminate in a specific area of the cortex.
The instensity of a stimulus has a threshold; that is, there is a minimum stimulus required for its perception. The intensity is encoded in two ways: frequency of action potential and population. A stronger stimulus will cause a higher frequency of action potentials. In addition a greater stimulus will affect a larger area, causing a larger number of cells to respond to the stimulus, and this is perceived as a more instense stimulus.
Skin receptors include four types of mechanical receptors that have different field sizes and speeds of adaptation. There are two mechanoreceptors with large field sizes: pacinian corpuscles and ruffini's endings. While they both respond to stimuli from a large area of the skin, and therefore are not useful for locating stimuli accurately, pacinian corpuscles' speed of adaption is fast, and ruffini's endings adaptation is slow. The term speed of adaptation refers to how quickly the mechanoreceptor respond to stimuli. Slow adaptation means that the receptor is slow to give a response to a stimuli, and when a stimulus is removed, the response falls slowly. Fast adaptation means that the receptor will respond quickly, but will not give a sustained response. Two mechanoreceptors have a small receptive field: merkel's discs and meissner's corpuscles. Merkel's discs respond slowly, and meissner's corpuscles respond quickly. In addition to these four receptors, the skin contains nociceptors (pain receptors, usually free nerve endings) and thermoreceptors (sensitive to temperature.)
Dermatomes are the receptive field of a particular section of the spinal cord. Specifically, the area of the skin that makes up the receptive field of a spinal nerve, dorsal root and spinal segment.
Speed of Adaption
All receptors will adapt to stimulus, i.e. the receptor's potential amplitude decreases with continued stimulation. The slowly adapting receptors experience tonic (continued) activation while the rapidly adapting receptors respond only with the onset and offset of the stimulus, but not in between. This difference discriminates between transient and persistent sensory signals.
Types of Nerve Projections
There are four types of primary afferents (nerves fibers): the largest is the A alpha, whose diameter is usually between 13 and 20 micrometers. Signals travel between 80 and 120 m/s in A alpha afferents and carry information from proprioceptors in the skeletal muscles. A beta afferents are 6 - 12 micrometers in diameter and carry information from the skin's mechanoreceptors at 35 - 75 m/s. A gamma afferents are 1 - 5 micrometers in diameter and carry information about pain and temperature at 5 - 30 m/s. All three A type afferents are myelinated, which increases the speed of transmission. The fourth type of afferent is C, which is unmyelinated, .2 - 1.5 micrometers in diameter, and carries information about temperature, pain, and itch at .2 - 5 m/s.
Somatic Sensory System Paradigm
There are a few elements shared by every modality of the somatic sensory system. Starting with a receptor, the sensory system transfers information via a primary sensory neuron to a sensory pathway which then carries the information to the brain. Receptors that relay information on touch and pressure are mechanical; for temperature, there are thermoreceptors, and pain receptor are called nociceptors. The primary sensory neurons are the first neurons in the sensory system to respond and are called the first order neurons. These project through the dorsal root ganglia to synapse inside the spinal cord, and on the other (peripheral end) is a receptor. At this point, each modality follows its own pathway. Mechanoreceptors follow the dorsal column-medial lemniscus pathway and the second neuron in the pathway is found in the medulla. Thermoreceptors and nociceptors follow the spinothalamic pathway and their second order neurons are found in the dorsal horn of the spinal segment corresponding to their dermatome.
Dorsal Column-Medial Lemniscal Pathway
The dorsal column-medial leminiscal pathway, used to transmit touch and proprioceptive information, first goes up the ipsilateral (same side as input) dorsal column until it reaches the medulla. The projection synapses in the dorsal column nuclei (includes the Gracile nucleus and the cuneate nucleus.) Next, the pathway crosses to the contralateral side (opposite side of the input) and continues to the ventral posterior nucleus of the thalamus. After synapsing in the thalamus, still on the contralateral side, the pathway continues to the primary somatic sensory cortex.
The spinothalamic pathway, relaying information about temperature and pain, enters the spinal cord through the ipsilateral dorsal horn and immediately crosses, and the projection synapses on the secondary neuron in the contralateral side. The pathway proceeds all the way up the spine to the ventral posterior nuclei of the thalamus. After the thalamus, the pathway continues to the primary somatic sensory cortex (on the contralateral side.) In the somatic sensory cortex, every part of the body is represented by a particular area, i.e. each part of the body constitutes the receptive field of some group of neurons in the somatic sensory cortex. | <urn:uuid:aac43746-c916-4785-b9b7-1ba83dacc70d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Neuroscience/Cellular_Neurobiology/Somatic_Sensory_System | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281069.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00273-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.895089 | 1,462 | 4.28125 | 4 |
Retailers procure goods in large quantities directly from manufacturers or wholesalers and sell them in small quantities to customers through a retail outlet or online. As consumer spending is the key to the viability of any economy, the health of retail industry is an important economic indicator.|
As a pioneer in the retail business, the United States provides ample growth opportunities for all types of retail companies. Retailers of all sizes, including individual direct marketers or direct sellers, small- to medium-sized franchise unit owners, and large “big-box” store operators, compete in the U.S., fostering increased growth opportunities.
From a growth perspective, the retail industry ranks second among all the U.S. industries, and provides enormous employment opportunities. Annual sales turnover of the retail industry is more than 12% of total trade volume of all the U.S.-based businesses. Additionally, it accounts for over 11% of total employment in the country.
Recent Industry Trends
Despite beginning the year on a strong note, sales slowed down during the calendar second quarter (for the period ended June 30, 2012), reflecting a drop in consumer spending. The June sales results for most U.S. retailers were impacted by unsteady demand. Gains around Father's Day were offset by weakening sales as bad weather hit later in the month.
Following the disappointing June sales, retailers seemed to be doing well with consumers initiating the key back-to-school shopping season in early July instead of August. Looking at this encouraging start, we expect the back-to-school season to hold good for retailers in August and September. The National Retail Federation projects 'back to school' and 'back to college' spending to grow compared to last year.
The key data in retail industry analysis is comparable store sales (comps), as it excludes sales at newly opened stores. July comps remained solid for most retailers as hot weather and significant promotions led the role-play for summer clearance sales. Comps results for apparel retailers like Limited Brands (LTD) (up 12%), The Gap Inc. (GPS) (up 10%), Ross Stores Inc. (ROST) (up 7%) and TJX Co. (TJX) (up 7%) outperformed expectations. Additionally, discount store operators such as Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) and Target Corp. (TGT) came in strong, posting a 7% and 3.1% increase in July comps, respectively.
On the other hand, department store chains like Macy’s Inc. (M), Kohl’s Corp. (KSS), Nordstrom Inc. (JWN) and Saks Inc. (SKS) continued to show promise with 4.1%, 1.7%, 0.9% and 3.5% rise, respectively. However, results at the drugstore chains were not so good with Walgreen Co. (WAG) posting a 7% decline in July comps, and Rite Aid Corp. (RAD) managed to grow only 0.5%.
Major underperformers in July included, teen apparel retailer Wet Seal Inc. (WTSLA) (down 15.6%), Cato Corp. (CATO) (down 2%), and The Buckle Inc. (BKE) (down 0.1%).
Backdrop Still Weak
Uncertain and sluggish economic conditions continue to weigh upon the retailers, indicating a grim outlook in terms of profitability and consequent growth. However, continuous efforts on their part to offer innovative products and value pricing have been paying off in an economy which is still in the doldrums. It is still a tough time for retailers, who are using their entire arsenal to combat the sluggishness.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. retail and food services sales declined 0.5% from the prior month sales to $401.5 billion in June. The latest domestic retail sales data points to a third straight month of decline, reminding the days of financial turmoil in 2008.
Moreover, the Conference Board came out with its reading of the Consumer Confidence Index -- a barometer of U.S. consumer health -- which fell to 62.0 in June from 64.4 in May.
In addition to the U.S., economic readings have been bleak in Europe as well as in China, the second largest economy. Consumers in these regions are gradually becoming more rational about their spending patterns as well. In addition, dismal unemployment conditions are also weighing on their discretionary spending, affecting the growth and profitability of the retailers. The unemployment rate in the United States was reported at 8.2% in June.
Store Closings a Common Trend in 2012
The retail industry expansion trend that was witnessed in 2011 in terms of store openings seemed to fade in 2012 with the announcement of triple-digit store closing plans by leading retail chains like Sears Holdings Corporation (SHLD), The Gap Inc. (GPS) and Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF). However, further analysis on the subject showed that the increased shuttering of stores was mainly due to shift in consumer preferences and change in retail shopping trends, while it had little to do with any alteration in the industry fundamentals.
A detailed information of store closures for 2012, as announced by retailers, is as follows: 100 to 120 Kmart and Sears full-line stores, 950 Gap North America stores (through fiscal 2013), 100 Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. (PSUN) stores (in 2012), 35 U.S. and about 1 to 2 Mexico stores of OfficeMax Inc. (OMX) (in fiscal 2012), 22 77kids stores of American Eagle Outfitters Inc. (AEO), 50 U.S. Best Buy Co. Inc. (BBY) big-box stores (through fiscal 2013) and many more.
Additionally, Abercrombie & Fitch is currently in a remodeling phase as it plans to close its underperforming U.S. chain stores over the next few years, while simultaneously speeding up growth at its Abercrombie Kids and Hollister store concepts. The company intends to increase its international presence by opening five Abercrombie & Fitch stores in Hamburg, Hong Kong, Munich, Dublin and Amsterdam as well as an Abercrombie Kids store in London in fiscal 2012. In addition, the company plans to open about 40 international Hollister stores in fiscal 2012.
Another reason behind these increased store closure plans by retailers is the growing demand for new shopping modes, namely thr Internet and mobile phones. Consumers today prefer to use their laptops or smart phones to compare prices of things they want to buy and place orders online, instead of driving to the company’s stores. This growing trend has guided major U.S. retail chains to downsize their physical retail operations, and in turn, develop their e-commerce and m-commerce sites to attract customers.
Overall, we believe such store closing announcements will continue to rise through the end of 2012.
The "Re" is Back in Retailing
‘Transformation’ is the new mantra among the retailers. Despite rapid technological advancements which are influencing consumer behavior, the retail industry continues to reinvent, redesign and revitalize its physical store formats to maintain their dominance.
Of late, retail giants including Best Buy Co. Inc., Target Corp., J.C. Penney Co. Inc. (JCP) and Build-A-Bear Workshop Inc. (BBW) are focused on revisiting and re-evaluating conventionality and traditional business traits, while also envisioning its brick-and-mortar store merchandise offerings. Additionally, these companies continue to actively re-engineer and re-tool various systems and processes.
Moreover, the retail groups are coming up with strategic initiatives to boost operating efficiencies, drive growth and enhance shareholder’s value. Most of the retailers are focusing on abridging costs drastically to ensure competent operating channels. We believe that such measures are necessary to gain competitive advantage over peers. However, focus on improving the top line should be prioritized to gear long-term growth.
Above mentioned traits are made clear seeking the example of J. C. Penney, which has left no stone unturned to bring the company back on the growth trajectory. Management has taken up everything from implementation of new pricing strategy, fresh logo and strategic merchandise and cost reduction initiatives, while enhancing the shopping experience of customers. The company targets expenses to be 27% of sales by the end of the transformation process.
Moreover, the leading specialty retailer of consumer electronic products -- Best Buy will shutter some stores which are not contributing to its growth, while modifications of others are also in the cards. The company plans to transform its big-box format to a big profit center by redesigning its prototype stores to mimic Apple Inc’s (AAPL) retail store format. Best Buy is not the first one to resort to such mimicry as Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Walt Disney Co. (DIS), Tesla Motors Inc. (TSLA) and AT&T Inc. (T) has already opened stores copying the Apple format.
Target Corp. is another retail chain that has resorted to a major redesign by developing the “City Target” format, which aims at tapping the urban markets, where real estate remains a constraint. These stores are designed to fit in urban locations, both in terms of size and store design aesthetic. Recently, the company opened its first City Target stores in Chicago, Los Angeles and Seattle with 80,000 square feet, a lustrous urban background, no lawn and garden department and smaller back rooms.
In a similar move, Cabela’s Inc. (CAB) -- one of the leading specialty retailers of hunting, fishing, camping and related outdoor merchandise -- unveiled its new ‘Outpost’ store format. The relatively smaller-size store will provide shoppers with Cabela's retail experience and will facilitate the company to capitalize on the under-penetrated markets.
Challenges and Some Remedial Measures
The retail industry is highly competitive and has significant challenges. Although the U.S. economy has started witnessing a recovery, we still believe that 2012 will not fully mark the return of the retail market. Consumers are slowly regaining confidence and cautiously increasing their spending.
Moreover, consumers remain sensitive to macro-economic factors including interest rate hikes, increase in fuel and energy costs, credit availability, unemployment levels and high household debt levels, which may negatively impact their discretionary spending, and in turn, adversely affect the growth and profitability of retail companies.
Macroeconomic Conditions: Retail is no different from other U.S. industries, which remain affected by the slow economic recovery. While the unemployment rate has decreased considerably over time, consumers are now beginning to draw out their savings to spend, hoping for some economic recovery. Though this is a positive sign, there has been a considerable rise in prices of commodities, which is making it difficult for consumers to make ends meet. On the other hand, the retailers are struggling as they are unable to pass these increased costs to consumers and their employees, given the already shrinking income levels.
Changes in Consumer Needs, Attitudes and Behavior: The growth of modern retail is linked to consumer needs, attitudes and behavior. Adapting to the sluggish economic environment prevalent over the last few years, consumer behavior has shifted to being more conservative. This has now become the normal behavior of consumers as they remain budget conscious, seeking more and more value. In the process, buyers are swiftly switching to the less expensive brands and consolidating shopping trips.
Moreover, people today prefer to cook and eat at home against their prior habits of eating out. This shift in the consumer behavior is inducing retailers to adopt various strategies to stay in competition. Retailers are offering trend-right and well-designed assortments at compelling prices, without compromising on quality, in order to drive traffic.
Higher Fuel Prices: As a new trend noticed of late, shoppers are making fewer shopping trips. This has emerged from the rise in gas prices as well as the hectic lives of consumers, while incomes are squeezed. Looking ahead, we expect this trend to continue for the next few years.
Apart from cutting down on the number of trips, shoppers also chalk out their shopping mission before stepping out. Today, consumers look for multichannel retail outlets, which offer variety of goods, rather than making separate visits for paper goods, health and beauty items, grocery, etc. Thus, retailers now need to understand the consumers’ shopping missions and get the most out of their visits by broadening their assortments with the appropriate depth, breadth and freshness to appeal to their shoppers’ missions.
Staging Stores: The waning popularity of brick-and-mortar store formats has made it essential for retailers to adopt new techniques like ‘staging stores’ to woo customers. Staging basically refers to the act of making the company’s stores attractive destinations, where people like to spend their time. One example for this is Starbucks Corp. (SBUX). The idea behind this strategy is to make shopping interesting for consumers, so that they would want to walk-in the stores, rather than shop online.
Use of Internet and Mobiles in Shopping: With shoppers becoming more and more tech-savvy these days, a new era of shopping via internet, smartphones and tablets has taken over. Today, consumers are increasingly using the tech-media to make purchases, find coupons and search for the best deals.
The rate of electronic retail shopping is expected to increase significantly over the next four to five years. To take advantage of this growing trend, retailers need to identify the best possible means of benefiting from the use of technology in shopping while implementing relevant strategies. By integrating the digital mode into the shopping experience, retailers can earn rewards in the form of increased shopper demand and greater shopper loyalty.
Shrinking Margins Raise Concerns: In the current strained economy, retailers are struggling to grow and maintain decent profit margins due to the inflated input costs, rising inventory levels, market saturation, the rise of multichannel buying, an aging population, fewer prosperous shoppers, reduced customer loyalty and the rise of digital media to influence purchase decisions.
Further, fashion obsolescence remains the key concern for retailers as this may lower the comparable-store sales and deplete margins. Some retail chains which have been struggling with margins pressures, of late, include Nike Inc. (NKE), Big Lots Inc. (BIG), Deckers Outdoor Corporation (DECK), J. C. Penney, Best Buy and Family Dollar Stores Inc. (FDO).
In the fight against shrinking margins, retailers should work toward easing pricing pressures through reformulations, innovating product lines, redefining supply agreements, altering merchandise mix and boosting distribution channel tie-ups. Further, well-defined cost reduction programs along with proper implementation will help gain a competitive advantage and maintain profitable growth.
Retailers are trying to remain competitive primarily by shifting focus to the long-term horizon and finding innovative solutions to create value, reduce operating costs and mitigate risks throughout the enterprise.
Right sizing inventories, enhancing efficiency and competence and bringing in technological advancements are the key agendas that the retailers are focusing on. Moreover, cost containment efforts and merchandise initiatives to improve margins are also top priorities.
Further, retailers are largely concentrating on buyers’ needs, which in turn, will bring in huge potential for growth and is likely to augment sales in the long run. Additionally, exploring all possible opportunities to create premium as well as value products to suit the different income groups should help improve returns. Considering the current macro-economic environment, this strategy should be a smart move to better position companies to attract consumers.
Retail, owing to its huge spectrum, remains a lucrative investment avenue for investors. The sector reflects consumer spending trends, an important parameter to gauge the health of the economy (consumer spending accounts for approximately 2/3rd of the economy). Thus, identifying future winners from this sector would be a good investment decision.
We recommend few stocks in the sector at this point, as these companies are showing significant growth despite the secular headwinds. Adaptability to the buying habits of the consumers and strengthening the loyalty base helped these retailers to post strong results. The stocks in our coverage with a Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) include Hot Topic Inc. (HOTT), Zumiez Inc. (ZUMZ), Petsmart Inc. (PETM), Lululemon Athletica Inc. (LULU) and Pacific Sunwear of California (PSUN).
Additionally, we like stocks with a Zacks #2 Rank (Buy), namely American Eagle Outfitters Inc. (AEO), Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST), Sears Holdings Corp. (SHLD), The Gap Inc. (GPS), Wal-mart Stores Inc. (WMT), Kroger Company (KR), Home Depot Inc. (HD), Ross Stores Inc. (ROST), Constellation Brands Inc. (STZ), Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. (BBBY) and Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. (DKS).
On the other hand, retailers that we dislike with a Zacks #5 Rank (Strong Sell) include J. C. Penney (JCP), Nike Inc. (NKE) and SUPERVALU Inc. (SVU). Retailers on our Zacks #4 Rank (Sell) list include Ralph Lauren Corporation (RL), Abercrombie & Fitch Co. (ANF), Macy's Inc. (M), Office Depot Inc. (ODP) and Avon Products Inc. (AVP).
BEST BUY (BBY): Free Stock Analysis Report
CABELAS INC (CAB): Free Stock Analysis Report
COSTCO WHOLE CP (COST): Free Stock Analysis Report
FAMILY DOLLAR (FDO): Free Stock Analysis Report
GAP INC (GPS): Free Stock Analysis Report
PENNEY (JC) INC (JCP): Free Stock Analysis Report
NORDSTROM INC (JWN): Free Stock Analysis Report
KOHLS CORP (KSS): Free Stock Analysis Report
LIMITED BRANDS (LTD): Free Stock Analysis Report
MACYS INC (M): Free Stock Analysis Report
ROSS STORES (ROST): Free Stock Analysis Report
TARGET CORP (TGT): Free Stock Analysis Report
To read this article on Zacks.com click here. | <urn:uuid:eacb523c-d032-45ea-8881-b83364a61073> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.advfn.com/news_Retail-Industry-Stock-Outlook-Aug-2012-Industry-Outlook_53743424.html | 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 | 0.94043 | 3,824 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Note: Sample below may appear distorted but all corresponding word document files contain proper formattingExcerpt from essay:
Capturing and Storing Energy: From Fossil Fuels to Renewable Resources
One of the most interesting challenges in energy production is not how to find energy sources, which are abundant, but how to capture and store the energy that is available. For years, energy capture and storage has focused on the availability of fossil fuels and how those resources could be translated into usable energy sources. However, the demand for energy is so incredible and the known fossil fuel energy reserves sufficiently limited that the United States must explore alternative energy sources. Moreover, the United States is not the only country that is hampered, politically, economically, and socially by its energy dependence; instead many countries, especially those that lack relative wealth or access to their own fossil fuel deposits are in even more vulnerable positions. Fortunately, there are viable alternatives to fossil fuels that countries can explore. Hydropower, wind power, solar power, geothermal power, and biomass power all offer potential solutions or partial solutions to the world's energy problems.
Historical Use of Fossil Fuels
In order to understand where energy is transitioning, it is important to understand the history of fossil fuels used for energy. The use of fossil fuels, particularly coal, for energy has an extremely long history. Coal has been used since at least 1100 BC for energy. In the Middle Ages, coal, which could be transformed into energy through fire, was used in forges, smithies, lime-burners, and breweries (IER, 2014). By the 1400s, people could build coal-safe chimneys in their homes and use coal for heat. By the late 1500s, coal was the major heating source for buildings, particularly in cities (IER, 2014). When used for heating, coal replaced firewood, which was a renewable resource. This use of coal is linked to the industrialization that occurred throughout much of the western world, particularly the United States, in the late 1800s.
Like coal, oil has a long history of usage, though many of its uses were not linked to energy. For example, as early as 3000 BC, oil was used in medicines, adhesives, caulks, and roads (IER, 2014). By 1000 BC, the Chinese had figured out how to refine crude oil and use it for lamps and home heating. However, the widespread use of petroleum for energy did not occur until the late 1800s, when petroleum became the widespread replacement for whale oil in lighting. The internal combustion engine for automobiles in the early 1900s represented the first real use of a petroleum product for energy.
Natural gas also has a long history of historic usage. The Chinese used natural gas to fire evaporators to make salt from brine. However, natural gas was considered a nuisance by early oil-well drillers because of transportation difficulties associated with it. Once steel pipelines could be utilized, natural gas could be transported over long distances. The first such long-distance pipeline was built in 1925 (IER, 2014).
While fossil fuels have provided an abundant source of energy, they have also presented challenges in their use. The most obvious challenge is getting the fossil fuels from the ground to storage facilities. Coal could be mined, but coal mining, especially modern practices, can present significant environmental challenges. Oil and natural gas both could naturally escape from the ground, but in order to use them in widespread applications, humans had to devise ways to remove them from the ground. Then, they had to figure out how to convert those three resources from potential energy sources to energy. Initially, this conversion meant burning the fuels for heat; however, the real reliance on fossil fuels began to grow once people realized that fossil fuels could be converted into electrical energy, not just heat.
Capturing and Storing Energy from Oil
Transforming petroleum into energy is a complicated process. Oil is located under ground and must be pumped to the surface for extraction, and then it is transported, generally via pipeline, to petroleum processing facilities. There are three general technologies that can be used to convert oil into electricity. In conventional steam technology, oil can be burned to heat water, which generates steam to turn a turbine and create electricity. In a combustion turbine, oil is burned to create hot exhaust gases, which spin the turbine. In combined-cycle technology oil is burned first to turn a combustion turbine, then the exhaust gases are used to heat water in a boiler, creating a conventional steam engine (Pace, 2000).
Capturing and Storing Energy from Coal
In a coal-processing plant, the process of converting coal to energy begins with prepping the coal. The coal is pulverized into a fine powder, which is mixed with hot air and blown into a firebox, where it provides the most heat. Water is bumped into the boiler, where it is turned into steam by the heat from the burning coal. This steam then turns the blades to a turbine, which is connected to a generator, where magnets spin inside wire coils to produce electricity (Duke Energy, 2014).
Capturing and Storing Energy from Natural Gas
As with the conversion of oil into energy, natural gas is often converted into energy using a two-step process. Natural gas powers combustion turbines, which suck in air and mix it with the natural gas to create a fireball. The fireball produces hot gasses that move the blades of the turbine. The turbine spins and powers a generator, which converts the mechanical energy into electricity. The exhaust gasses then convert water into steam, which is used to power a steam turbine (CPS Energy, 2014).
The Political, Social, and Economic Implications of Fossil Fuels
Because fossil fuels are located in the ground, countries that have their own fossil fuel reserves have a political and economic advantage over countries that do not have their own fossil fuel reserves. Therefore, countries that are rich in fossil fuels may have an economic and political advantage over other countries. However, it is not always a simple process; being oil rich can actually make countries vulnerable as other powers might fight to control their land, and, therefore, control their fossil fuel resources. The United States has a significant amount of fossil fuel reserves, and the process of fracking as a means of fossil fuel extraction has only increased the amount of fossil fuels available. However, while known world oil reserves have been increasing, approximately half of the world's oil reserves will be depleted by 2030. Moreover, as consumption increases, fossil fuel reserves will be depleted more quickly. Though it is impossible to predict the date by which fossil fuels will be exhausted, what is known is that fossil fuels are finite, non-renewable resources, and that countries cannot plan long-term energy strategies without examining other, renewable sources of energy. Additionally, these sources of renewable energy can be implemented in areas without fossil fuel reserves, which can mean that countries have access to power without the economic, political, and social repercussions that accompany fossil fuels. In fact, while the United States still remains heavily dependent upon fossil fuels, that is not the case in many other countries, both industrialized one and emerging nations. "Other countries have made far more concerted efforts to reduce fossil fuel use than the United States and have some impressive numbers to show for it. Of the countries that rely most heavily on renewable electricity, some, like Norway, rely on that old renewable, hydroelectric power. But others, like Denmark, Portugal and Germany, have created financial incentives to promote newer technologies like wind and solar energy" (Rosenthal, 2013).
One of the most readily available sources of power is water. Water has long been used as a source of power for mills, with the power of the water being converted into mechanical energy. For the generation of electricity, a dam is built on a large river that has a drop in elevation. The dam stores water behind it, and there is a hole at the bottom of the dam wall for water intake. The water falls through a penstock inside the dam to a turbine propeller, which is turned by the movement of the water. This turbine moves to an electromagnetic generator, producing electricity. Water can also be used and then pumped and stored for re-use during peak power usage (U.S. Geological Survey, 2013).
The research questions associated with hydropower focus on several areas. First, hydropower has typically focuses on rivers; is there a way to use hydropower for oceans, seas, lakes, or other large bodies of water? Can hydropower be effective in flat areas? Can hydropower create larger stores of electricity or simply enough storage to meet peak usage? Does the creation of hydropower have its own political implications because of struggles over water rights?
As with the previously discussed types of electricity generation, wind turbines work by spinning a shaft, which is connected to a generator that creates electricity. However, wind can also be used directly for mechanical processes, such as the powering of mills, providing energy without being converted to electricity. Furthermore, wind energy…[continue]
"Capturing And Storing Energy From Fossil Fuels" (2014, February 18) Retrieved October 25, 2016, from http://www.paperdue.com/essay/capturing-and-storing-energy-from-fossil-183031
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"Capturing And Storing Energy From Fossil Fuels", 18 February 2014, Accessed.25 October. 2016, http://www.paperdue.com/essay/capturing-and-storing-energy-from-fossil-183031
Physical Science: Energy How Energy Can be Converted from one Form to Another, With Examples "Energy" is defined as the capacity to produce changes within a system. Within a system, energy can be changed to a different state in order to perform work in natural processes or machines (Shipman, Wilson, & Todd, 2009, pp. 88-89). Plants, animals and machines all convert energy to perform work in their processes. Through Photosynthesis, green plants
Alternative Energy Sources Concerns that have been raised regarding energy security have been occasioned by fears about oil and other fossil fuel depletion; reliance on foreign sources of energy; geopolitics; developing countries' energy needs; environmental concerns; population dynamics; and renewable and other alternative energy sources (Shah, 2011). This essay seeks to establish whether alternative energy sources can help ease human reliance on oil. It is important that governments invest on alternative sources
At the present energy set-up nuclear energy provides around 20% of world's electricity. This energy is produced naturally -- by the sun and other stars making heat and light- and artificially-electricity from nuclear power plants. The nuclear power plants produce more energy using less fuel compared to the fossil fuels and hence it is seen as an environmentally friendly energy source (Ansolabehere, et al., 2003). However, the true scope
As the term suggest, liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas that has been reduced to a liquid by cooling it to minus 161°C thereby eliminating oxygen, carbon dioxide and other unwanted components to achieve almost pure methane (Liquefied Natural Gas 2012). According to one LNG producer, "In the liquefaction process, impurities are removed from the gas before it is cooled. The cooling of natural gas to -162°C causes it
Renewable Energy Sources Today: A Review The emergence of modern-day developed economies depended heavily on the availability of cheap and abundant energy, but the planet's oil reserves, which supplies over 35% of the world's energy needs, are projected to be depleted within a hundred years (Balat 19). As this resource is depleted, demand will increase and drive prices to unheard of levels, thereby threatening the stability of economies in some of
Offshore Wind Energy Wind Energy (Facts and Features, Usage, Future Prospects, Strengths and Weaknesses, Recommendations) It is an undeniable fact that human activity needs energy as a basic requirement. Energy input is a fundamental need for transportation, water and food provision and mobility services. In the contemporary energy system, non-renewable fossil fuels are the principal resources that satisfy the global energy needs. They are preferred due to their dependability and low-cost. On the
Hydrogen power is a little harder to understand than other power sources that one is used to experiencing every day such as the sun and wind. Hydrogen power results from the reaction of hygrogen gas and oxygen gas to create water (Karim and Strickland, 2000). This reaction creates a lot of energy that can be harnessed by fuel cells and used to produce electricity. There are several advantages to hydrogen power. | <urn:uuid:e03718d1-86d0-4f9b-a31b-39fb7e634e09> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.paperdue.com/essay/capturing-and-storing-energy-from-fossil-183031 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720475.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00353-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952775 | 2,655 | 3.3125 | 3 |
Nymbler is the smart baby name guide that responds to your personal taste.
Nymbler makes name connections with insights from baby-naming expert Laura Wattenberg, author of The Baby Name Wizard.
RocklandInspire Nymbler with Rockland
A boy's name of English origin. Rockland has never been a common name in the United States. Meaning: English: rocky land.
U.S. popularity statistics:
|Rank in 2008:||Unranked| | <urn:uuid:2f5d475b-9262-4e88-a633-a5e2aebb4188> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.nymbler.com/info/m/rockland | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00464-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.819151 | 102 | 1.578125 | 2 |
History comes alive for the whole family with Living History Days at the New-York Historical Society! Do you want to know what life was like in the 18th century? Please join us as re-enactment troops and Living History actors recreate the world of Revolutionary America. Living History Days will feature appearances by troops of the Colonial, Loyalist, British and Hessian armies and, on select days, actors portraying Revolutionary heroes, including George Washington, Benjamin and Deborah Franklin and the Marquis de Lafayette. Living History Days are produced in conjunction with the exhibition Revolution! The Atlantic World Reborn.
Living History Days are free with Museum admission.
Speaker & Group Bio(s)
Captain Mott's Artillery Company was involved throughout the Revolutionary War, first in Quebec, and later at West Point, Kingston, NY, Connecticut, New Jersey and then as far South as Virginia. The modern day Mott’s Artillery was formed in 1977 by Charles McGatha, who was the commanding officer of the unit until 1998 when he moved to Virginia. From 1998 to the present time, John Mills, Curator of Princeton Battlefield, has been the Commander of Mott’s Artillery. Mott’s Artillery, a non-profit (501c3) corporation, is a member of the Continental Line and associate member of the Brigade. The unit owns a three-pounder cannon, a trailer and a supply truck with tents, cooking and artillery equipment.
The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024
For More Information:
Please contact the Department of Public Programs at (212) 485-9205 for more information about this program. | <urn:uuid:dc3fdaf4-07c2-44ed-bf39-a9e22e4d082f> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.nyhistory.org/programs/motts-artillery | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720737.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00221-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93564 | 347 | 1.929688 | 2 |
“It is not possible to build food security in a few weeks’ time”.
“The Transition movement begs to differ.”
The past 12 years of the Transition movement is rich with learnings that can inform the discussions about ‘bouncing forward’. Groups have created new markets, connected farmers and growers with urban populations, created new vibrant farms, created detailed studies.
Bob Hopkins, co-founder of the Transition Town movement, looks at the extraordinary projects around food which have developed over the last decade – and the last weeks:
It is seven years since Crystal Palace Transition Town (CPTT) set up the Crystal Palace Food Market. It has gone on to win many awards as one of London’s finest food markets. They have built a new infrastructure, a family of traders, and sparked a more resilient food system, connecting traders, customers, food producers and growers close to, and within, the city. When COVID-19 arrived, the market team had to take the tough call whether to stay open or to close.
As the UK government was just beginning to consider how it might respond to COVID-19, CPTT, and Karen and Laura in the CP Food Market team, were ahead of government guidance, by weeks. The food market introduced social distancing way ahead of government guidance, to some customers’ bafflement. First they went to creating barriers to reduce transmission, then social distancing queues, then stricter queues with rather fetching circles painted on the pavement at 2 metre intervals, then changed the model to having different stalls on different days. Their website was rapidly overhauled to become a portal so regulars could order home deliveries from their favourite suppliers…
Let’s start with food. Many Transition groups have been responding to the COVID19 crisis in emergency mode.
The Deal with It group in Deal (UK) have joined forces with other local groups and been working with local farmers, bringing volunteers to do ‘gleaning’, harvesting surplus that is uneconomic for the farmer to bother with. Last week they gleaned 3 tonnes of fresh produce in a week which was distributed to food banks and families in food need, while also maintaining their food garden beds on the local train station.
In the US, Transition Town Glassboro have taken to Zoom to run online food growing classes, as have Transition Wellington in the UK. Transition Town Port Washington in the US have been running online composting classes. Cooperation Humboldt (US) have been creating ‘Little Free Pantries’ for people to help themselves to donated food. They have also been building small food gardens for families in need, with over 90 requests so far. Transition Wilmslow are finding a lot more people want to get involved in their community allotment and are now planning a new, much larger, market garden.
Transition Loughborough’s community allotment has also been in full swing, and they have been mastering the art of social distancing on an allotment, while also having ‘virtual’ plant sales (with an honesty box and dropping plants at peoples’ front doors). Transition Town Bridport (UK) had been planning a day planting an edible hedge at the local St. Mary’s School. It was going to be a community day with tea, cake, and planting. But COVID-19 had different ideas, and instead the planting had to be done by a group of just 5 members who managed to plant the entire hedge, which included apples, pears, plums, figs, cherries and nut varieties whilst also maintaining social distancing. Sarah Wilberforce of TTB said “the hedge will create beautiful blossom in the Spring, and foraging of nuts and berries in the autumn.”
In Totnes, ‘Food In Community’ have been gathering grade-out food from Riverford Organic Farm (vegetables and fruit with blemishes or imperfections) and distributing them to organisations and people in food need. So far they have distributed over 8 tonnes of produce. As Chantelle Norton from the group told me, “it’s about people dignity, community food sovereignty and resilience”. The networks and partnerships that they had laid in advance of this crisis have proved invaluable in this new context.
While these projects are proving vital in the context of COVID19, how do they point a way forward to what comes next? To ‘bouncing forward’? Where do we see these projects taking concrete steps towards the building of new food systems and networks, to a reimagining of the food system? In Sweden, the Transition group in Soderhamn called Närjord (“local soil”) have started a campaign called Potatisuppropet (‘Potato Appeal’, or ‘Potato Uprising’). COVID19 highlighted the perilous decline in food self sufficiency in Sweden, now down to just 50%.
They were inspired by the story from Swedish history of the 1917 Potato Uprising where, during the First World War, with famines looming, a quarter of a million people, mainly women, took to the streets to demand food. The government gave out seeds and seed potatoes and food gardens sprang up everywhere. Advertising posters from the times carried the immortal slogan “everyone plants potatoes – except boring people”.
In the face of COVID19, the Swedish government stated “it is not possible to build food security in a few weeks’ time”. As Pella Thiel of the Swedish Transition Hub writes, “the Transition movement begs to differ”. The Närjord group bought 12 tonnes of seed potatoes, sold shares of the future harvest and gave away seed potatoes. They met with local authorities to instigate a more proactive approach to food security. The Swedish Hub then took the idea and rolled it out across Sweden as a simple idea. Firstly, plant a potato, secondly, tell the world about it, and thirdly ask your local authority what it is doing for food security. The response has been overwhelming.
Potatoes have been popping up in buckets outside local government offices and town squares. There has been a massive sharing of potato-growing techniques, potato songs, potato slogans. This simple act is also working hard to build a bridge to what the post-COVID world could look like. A very similar scheme is being promoted by Mantois en Transition in France as ‘Operation Potatoes’.
In Wales, Transition Llandrindod Wells just heard they got funding from the Lottery to create ‘Incredible Edible Llandrindod’. As Dorienne Robinson from the group put it, “We want to try and grow as much food throughout the town as possible. To this end we have liaised with Powys County Council who have been hugely helpful and allowed us to start our project on a disused tennis court in the centre of town. A large variety of vegetables and fruits will be grown in planters and would be for the public to pick and use. If successful the Council may be able to offer us more space.”
How is COVID-19 affecting one of the most ambitious food projects to emerge from the Transition movement, namely Ceinture Aliment-terre Liégeoise (the Liége Food Belt)? CATL is reimagining the food system for the city, co-ordinating 21 co-operatives ranging from vineyards and breweries to shops and delivery businesses. I asked Christian Jonet of CATL how COVID-19 had impacted their work. He told me it has led to a significant increase in demand for local food. “Most of the cooperatives in our network that accept online orders have seen their turnover triple in a couple of months”, he told me. This has required a lot of reorganisation, and reinforced the need for a new central logistics hub. On the downside however, other CATL projects such as the creation of sustainable chains in the city’s schools have been put on hold. The closure of the city’s restaurants have also been a big blow. CATL co-ops such as Rayon 9, the cooperative that makes deliveries by bicycle, has lost 80% of its customers – mainly restaurants. However, the increase in demand for deliveries for the other co-ops offset this. As Christian put it, “it’s hard to imagine what the future will look like, but for now, consumer demand for local products is exploding”.
The past 12 years of the Transition movement is rich with learnings that can inform the discussions about ‘bouncing forward’. Groups have created new markets, connected farmers and growers with urban populations, created new vibrant CSA farms, created detailed studies analysing the degree to which places could feed themselves. They have put in place new mills, have crowdfunded for new food businesses, created new food gardens in schools, done economic analyses of the impacts a shift towards more localised food chains would bring. How differently would we be thinking about food resilience and vulnerability now if those strategies had been more widely adopted and properly resourced? | <urn:uuid:eba3f7d2-92a1-4874-863a-b1880a36fe72> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://visionforsidmouth.org/food-the-transition-movement-and-life-after-the-coronavirus/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570871.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808183040-20220808213040-00276.warc.gz | en | 0.966934 | 1,904 | 1.835938 | 2 |
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