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The city of Washington will continue to explore saving a pier on the south end of the bridge adjacent to the riverfront trail.
Members of the Missouri Highway 47 Bridge Committee and the Washington Historic Preservation Commission (WHPC) met Tuesday morning to discuss possibilities for reusing the span or pieces of the current bridge that is scheduled to be replaced.
The idea, which also included benches and landscaping, was brought up by an engineer during the design phase for the new bridge.
Steve Strubberg of Horn Architect, who also is on the WHPC, presented a sketch of what the pier could look like if it were preserved. Strubberg, who told the committee that Horn Architect did gratis work for the firm that presented the original sketch, said the pier is north of the railroad tracks and south of the trail.
He was unsure if there would be anything that might prevent the pier from being saved.
The pier is an estimated half-mile down the trail, committee members said.
Positives to Saving
Strubberg said the pier would be an economical solution to maintenance, because it wouldn’t require the maintenance that a steel structure would.
Though some of the trail foliage has grown up blocking the view, Strubberg said the view is great and the pier is a “unique” art deco design.
The fact that the pier is already in place also was noted as a plus, as well as that could reduce demolition costs.
Strubberg also suggested using the pier as part of the “trail education process,” with the history of the bridge.
Nancy Wood, WHPC member, expressed concern about access to the pier.
Others said that while accessibility would be an issue, the pier could be a destination on senior trail day for those unable to walk to the pier.
Discussion centered on saving the pier, but other ideas also were raised.
Tim Jones, a member of the historic preservation commission, brought up the possibility of putting a piece of the bridge over St. John’s Creek to St. John’s Island, which is in close proximity to the parks system and to downtown.
“When we lost that bridge, we lost a lot of potential for things that could be developed on that island if the city was able to acquire some of that land and maybe add it to the parks system,” Jones said.
Rick Hopp, who also is on the commission, said he didn’t think the property owners would be in favor of the proposal and that the owners farm that land.
Hopp asked if the bridge had to be removed.
Zick said the maintenance would be too much for the city and would be a liability.
Others suggested keeping the entrance of the bridge for reuse, but didn’t have ideas for reuse because of the size of the bridge.
Zick said that the beauty of the bridge is in its overall shape.
Others agreed that saving a single piece wouldn’t preserve the beauty of the bridge.
“No piece will look like anything without the rest (of the bridge),” said Bryan Bogue, WHPC member.
Members of the parks department will begin clearing brush and study the feasibility of saving the south pier before the January bridge committee meeting.
Darren Lamb, city economic development director, said the cost of saving any piece of the bridge would fall on the city or county and that MoDOT would not pay for movement or reconstruction.
The city must tell MoDOT its plans on saving any piece of the bridge by June 2014. | <urn:uuid:4c5c527b-19cc-43c0-aa14-13958fd329a5> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.emissourian.com/local_news/washington/article_b27bf08d-5c62-5e02-9bb2-a8599891a465.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280900.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00002-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974596 | 740 | 1.625 | 2 |
The Autobiography of Dacajeweiah [Splitting the Sky] John Boncore Hill: From Attica to Gustafsen Lake — Unmasking the Secrets of the Psycho-sexual Energy and the Struggle for Original People’s Title
By Dacajeweiah (Splitting the Sky) aka John Boncore Hill with She Keeps the Door (Sandra Bruderer)
Paperback: 653 pages
(Published by John Pasquale Boncore, 2001)
Dacajeweiah (Splitting the Sky), or John Boncore Hill, is a Kanien’keha:ka (Mohawk) warrior who has experienced extraordinarily much in his lifetime of struggle for justice. He was a central figure in two of the major standoffs in the twentieth century. Therefore, it is not surprising that his autobiography, From Attica Lake to Gustafsen Lake — Unmasking the Secrets of the Psycho-sexual Energy and the Struggle for Original People’s Title, written with his wife Sandra (She Keeps The Door) Bruderer, is a hefty book at 653 pages.
Splitting the Sky takes readers colloquially through his amazing life events, making the book an easy and informative, but necessarily long, read. Throughout his autobiography, he exposes the racist and imperialist agenda of colonialist governments in Turtle Island (North America). As a bookend, he tells of the struggle for Indigenous dignity and rights by a group of Sundancers at Ts’peten, aka Gustafsen Lake, in British Columbia (BC) and the so-called justice meted out afterwards. An early eerie ordeal was Splitting the Sky’s incarceration in New York’s notorious Attica State Prison.
Splitting the Sky was the only person sentenced to do prison time following the hostage-taking of prison guards that precipitated the state’s lethal storming of Attica on 13 September 1971, on the order of then New York governor Nelson Rockefeller. State police officers were implicated in the killing of, at least, 39 people, including 10 hostages at Attica prison. Splitting the Sky related how outlawed CN-4 gas was dropped into the jail before troops burst in and “were systematically killing in a blood rage like a thirst that could not be quenched.” A commission led by New York law professor Robert McKay described the assault as the “bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans, except for the massacres against Indians of the 19th Century.” Rockefeller called his decision to retake the prison “a matter of principle.” Splitting the Sky considered that Rockefeller had “sanctioned the death of 43 human beings” that day.
The major focus of the book, however, is on Gustafsen Lake, a lightly populated wilderness area in south-central BC, near the town of 100 Mile House. In 1995, a group of Original Peoples gathered there to celebrate the Sundance ceremony, previously forbidden by Canadian authorities. Splitting the Sky was honored as the chief of the ceremony.
Trouble arose when some ranch hands of the purported land owner, Lyle James, rode in, disturbed the sacred ceremonial site, and made derogatory remarks about “red niggers.” This incited a confrontation and the so-called occupation of the Gustafsen Lake ranch.
James, who never adduced his claim to the ranchland, was vexed by the upstart natives; he held that his cattle ranching operation took precedence over indigenous cultural activities. Like Gustafsen Lake, the province of BC is, for the greatest part, unceded First Nations territory. The Ts’peten Defenders, as the camp occupants became known, maintained that the Lyle ranch is on unceded Canoe Creek First Nation land. The Royal Proclamation of 1763 decreed that “several Nations or Tribes of Indians … should not be molested or disturbed in the possession of … Territories … not ceded or purchased by Us.” Colonists were strictly forbidden “from making any Purchases or Settlements whatever” with the Indigenous Peoples because of “great Frauds and Abuses” inflicted on Original Peoples in the past. The Royal Proclamation was an attempt to convince Indigenous Peoples of “our Justice.” [italics added]
During the Gustafsen Lake trial, prominent Ts’peten Defender, Wolverine (William Jones Ignace), cited the Royal Proclamation in his defence. The BC Court of Appeal held: “The Royal Proclamation has never applied to this Province, the appellants cannot rely upon the Royal Proclamation as support for their position.” Contrarily, Patricia Margaret Hutchings in her law thesis argued that BC is within the geographic scope of the proclamation.
Ignoring the legal history, then New Democratic Party attorney general of BC, Ujjal Dosanjh, gave the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) sweeping powers to remove the Ts’peten Defenders from the land. In an overtly racist move, Indigenous police officers were exempted from participation in what was dubbed Operation Wallaby.
Canadian authorities rejected disinterested, independent, outside mediation to settle the dispute at Gustafsen Lake. Dosanjh railed against the possibility of outside observers: “There shall be no alien intervention into the affairs of this state.” Of course, once the matter was in the open, it would have been most difficult to quash the legal arguments of the Original Peoples.
Corporate and State Media Complicity
Operation Wallaby, as it was code named, launched a tightly controlled media disinformation campaign against the Ts’peten Defenders from the RCMP to high political officials. Then BC premier Mike Harcourt asserted deep knowledge into the sentiments of the indigenous community: “The people who are involved at Gustafsen Lake are not representative of the aboriginal people in the Cariboo [region of BC, which includes Gustafsen Lake].”
The RCMP manipulated the media; consequently, Ts’peten Defenders were demonized as “terrorists” and “criminals.”
Much of the media acted as a mouthpiece for government. A few braver types spoke out. Journalist William Johnson sensed an “ambush” story and wrote a skeptical commentary: “Perhaps it is the old newsman in me, but I’m uneasy over the reporting. Journalists have been kept away from the scene of the action by the RCMP and the native occupants could not tell their side of the story because the Mounties have cut off their means of communication.”
In what may well have been a life-saving move, Splitting the Sky was sent out from the camp to organize an information blitz on the Gustafsen Lake standoff. It helped raise an international outcry against a looming bloodbath.
RCMP: “Smear campaigns are our specialty”
Prior to the mobilization of the RCMP at Gustafsen Lake, the attorney for the Ts’peten Defenders, Dr. Bruce Clark, a legal expert on indigenous rights, informed the RCMP that action against the Defenders would be illegal according to international and constitutional law. On 8 August 1995, Clark wrote to RCMP staff sgt. Martin Sarich: “The domestic courts from the Supreme Court of Canada on down are just refusing to address the law because it finds them personally guilty of complicity in treason, fraud and genocide. Those courts have assumed a jurisdiction that clearly and plainly they do not lawfully enjoy, and have exercised the usurped jurisdiction to implement domestic laws which are in fact not laws but crimes.” In an ironic twist, Clark appealed to the RCMP “for protection against a legal establishment that in willful blindness has set its face against the rule of law.”
The Ts’peten Defenders sought to challenge their dispossession in a legal forum through the brilliant attorney Clark. Legally they were given the run-around. The Ts’peten Defenders’ case required submission to the queen in Great Britain. A British embassy official stated, however, that there would be no British response because First Nations are an internal Canadian government affair. The Ts’peten Defenders received the RCMP’s agreement to submit their request to the federal attorney general, but duplicitously the RCMP chief negotiator sgt. Dennis Ryan submitted the request to Dosanjh, who declared, “We shall not bargain in the course of the serious criminal investigation that is ongoing and we shall not approach the queen or anyone else.” Third party adjudication of the dispute was blocked.
Clark’s constitutional case was to be blocked from going anywhere. The RCMP was party to this. A RCMP management team video showed Ryan relating orders from supt. Len Olfert: “Kill this Clark and smear the prick and everyone with him.” Olfert’s dislike of Clark was palpable. Said he on another occasion: “Clark is a goddamned snake.”
But Clark was also a victim of the “the judiciary and psychiatric establishment [that] willfully conspired to declare a completely sane human being psychologically disturbed, and have them [sic] committed.”
Former US attorney general Ramsey Clark (no relation to Bruce Clark) was appalled and wrote scathingly to BC judge Nicholas Friesen: “The appearance of injustice in your conduct was atrocious. … Your own words expose both animus and imperious abuse of judicial power. … You give the appearance of an arrogant and hateful tyrant determined to humiliate Indians and destroy the professional and personal reputation of their lawyer.”
Splitting the Sky wrote, “Notice how the press is utilized to reinforce the systematic disposal of extremely intelligent and genuinely concerned lawyers acting upon client instructions. …When the law obstructs the interests of the corporate elite and politicians … they conspire to bend the rule of law, to legitimize the theft of Indian land and resources.”
In the video Above the Law II, Ryan is heard asking: “Is there anyone who can help us with our smear and disinformation campaign?”
Sgt. Peter Montague, chief media relations officer for BC foolishly boasted, “Smear campaigns are our specialty.” Later he claimed this was “said in jest.”
These detestable comments were among those not censored. One-and-a-half hours of 50 hours of recording on the RCMP training tape was never released.
At trial, Montague admitted, “Information was released to the public that was not correct.” He further testified that “media will develop a story if we don’t give one to them. It was important to ensure that the public perceived a continued threat from people in the camp.”
Defense lawyer George Wool pressed Montague: “You were conditioning the Canadian public — including perspective jurors — that the people at Gustafsen lake were terrorists.”
“That was the way it started off. That was the message, yes,” agreed Montague.
Splitting the Sky concluded, “It was a concerted effort to manufacture a smear and disinformation campaign. This would assist in gaining the publics [sic] consent, to justify an all out kill. … This is fascism in Canada.”
In July 2004, the participants at the Halifax Symposium on Media and Disinformation unanimously found disinformation to be a “crime against humanity and a crime against peace.”
Murder as Military Tactic
The exorbitant Operation Wallaby saw the state mobilize up to 400 police, active Canadian military involvement with the “elite” black-ops JTF2 (the troops deployed to Afghanistan who handed prisoners directly over to the Americans) rumored on site, armored personnel carriers, airplanes, helicopters, M16 and C7 assault rifles, and the firing of 77,000 rounds of ammunition at 18 people holed up inside a camp. Miraculously no one was killed.
In a September 1995 standoff to recuperate the theft of Stony Point First Nation territory at Ipperwash Provincial Park in Ontario, an Ontario Provincial Police officer shot and killed Stoney Point activist Dudley George.
Tapes obtained through an access to information request by the CBC’s The Fifth Estate recorded a conversation among RCMP officers — first broadcast in 2004 — that exposes a blatant racism:
“Is there still a lot of press down there?” one officer says.
“No, there’s no one down there. Just a great big fat fuck Indian,” replies another.
“The camera’s rolling, eh?”
“We had this plan, you know. We thought if we could get five or six cases of Labatt’s 50 [beer], we could bait them.”
“Then we’d have this big net at a pit.”
“Works in the (U.S.) South with watermelon.”
In 2007, the Canadian military establishment in a draft counter-insurgency manual had identified targeted Original Peoples as a potential threat.
That no Ts’peten Defenders were killed at Gustafsen Lake was not because of RCMP restraint. An RCMP communication from 20 August 1995 stated, “The CO commented and I agree that we need to clean them out entirely.” Splitting the Sky interpreted this as intent to “murder.”
In one instance, on 11 September 1995, RCMP observed an unarmed native male across the lake. Inspector Roger Kembel authorized use of a sniper rifle with laser-range finder against the “target of opportunity” in an agreed-to no-shoot zone.
Canada, which touts itself as a world leader in fighting the scourge of landmines, was hypocritically caught deploying landmines at Gustafsen Lake. A red truck with Ts’peten Defenders inside was blown up. In the authorities’ doublespeak this landmine was referred to as an early warning device. The vehicle’s (apparently unarmed) occupants were fired upon and their dog killed.
Eventually, the Ts’peten Defenders agreed to leave the camp only to be all arrested and charged with attempted murder and life-endangering mischief.
Through intimidation and selective deal-making with defendants, the government sought to isolate so-considered hardliners among the Ts’peten Defenders and deny them access to their controversial attorney Clark, a violation of an internationally recognized legal right.
Splitting the Sky concluded, “The crown was willing to throw the case as long as it appeared they had the right to try the Indian defendants in their domestic courts.”
Clark argued, “It is a fact that while judge-made law can be constitutive of a previously unaddressed principle of natural law, international law and constitutional law, judge-made law can not without negating the rule of law supersede previously constituted natural law, international law and constitutional law.”
The hereditary rights of the Original Peoples pre-date the Canadian confederation; therefore, by what right law established by European colonialists — in this case, Canadian government law — can usurp indigenous law and rights is legally questionable.
Clark realized though: “Because we are a racist society, because racism is a reality, you will get the racist position.”
BC judge Bruce Josephson refused the “Colour of Right” defense (if you believe you were in the right then you cannot be found guilty) and self-defense arguments of the accused for consideration by the jury. In fact, the judge went so far as to threaten jury members that if any of them made a statement prejudicial to the court then that member could face contempt of court charges.
The Ts’peten Defenders were forced to endure what has been called the longest criminal trial in Canadian history. After over a year of astonishing testimony by police, 13 of the 18 Ts’peten Defenders received jail sentences. Three of the Defenders appealed the verdicts on the grounds that settler courts have no jurisdiction on First Nation land. Wolverine was acquitted of non-capital murder, but he was found guilty of mischief endangering life, weapons possession, discharging a firearm to resist arrest, and using a firearm in the commission of an indictable offense. His son Joseph Ignace sadly wound up a “permanent resident of an insane asylum.”
Ramsey Clark urged immediate release of the defendants and an accommodation based on mutual respect.
Any review would be remiss if it ignored Splitting the Sky’s primary inspiration for writing his autobiography. While in prison he chanced upon the Kundalini: psycho-sexual powers that, Splitting the Sky explained, lie within all of us. The powers of the Kundalini run up the vertebral column passing through sensitive nerve centers to the neocortex.
The importance of the Kundalini is such that Splitting the Sky believes it to be crucial in the prevention of future annihilation through war.
Splitting the Sky’s autobiography is a no-holds barred account. The high points and low points, the shameful episodes and prideful accounts are presented: from spitting in the face of a despised lawyer to his stated desire to receive an honorary law degree and Nobel Peace Prize.
The book is extremely well documented, making it an indispensable reference source for anyone curious as to what really happened at Gustafsen Lake or wishing an insider perspective of the Attica uprising.
The Autobiography of Splitting the Sky: From Attica Lake to Gustafsen Lake — Unmasking the Secrets of the Psycho-sexual Energy and the Struggle for Original People’s Title is available direct from John Pasquale Boncore: moc.oohaynull@yks_eht_gnittilps.
For further reading: Ts’peten Archives. | <urn:uuid:ad800551-b9ef-43ac-bca0-b3f91b034225> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://dissidentvoice.org/2008/04/the-struggle-for-original-peoples-title/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00475-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955153 | 3,729 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Purpose: This study explored the meaning of quality of life (QOL) for Sardinian caregivers of people affected with Alzheimer's disease and factors improving and worsening their QOL.
Design: The phenomenological method was used to study 41 Alzheimer's disease caregivers living on the western coast of Sardinia, Italy. Interviews were conducted and analyzed using Cohen, Kahn, and Steeves's approach.
Findings: Extracted themes were the following: unity and cooperation in the family; freedom/independence; having time for themselves; serenity/tranquility; and well-being and health. Caregivers identified factors that they believed worsened or improved their QOL. Family was particularly important for these caregivers.
Discussion: This study reinforces previous research about cultural influence on QOL and emphasizes the importance of nurses being culturally sensitive. Since Sardinia is a rural region, these findings may be useful for nurses working with caregivers in other rural settings. | <urn:uuid:3f11c68d-8daa-49de-922c-47a6faec16e7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21807960/?dopt=Abstract | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571246.56/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811073058-20220811103058-00265.warc.gz | en | 0.956068 | 193 | 2.09375 | 2 |
In early June, in Bucha, a resident of a house on Yablonska Street, which is known as "the alley of corpses," found someone else's cell phone, which could have been left by the Russian military. They lived in her [resident's] house during the occupation.
As IStories has found out, this phone belonged to the only survivor of the mass shooting that occurred on March 4 — 43-year-old construction worker Ivan Skiba. On the day the Russian military killed at least eight residents of Bucha, the soldiers called their families using Skiba's phone.
We spoke with Skiba about what the Russian occupiers were doing in Bucha and how he managed to survive. And we also found eight Pskov paratroopers, who most likely used his phone to make calls.
"Kill motherfuckers, just take them somewhere so they don't lie about here"
The Russian military made the first attempt to enter Bucha on February 27, but they were rebuffed and suffered significant losses, and retreated. The Russians continued the offensive on March 3 "On that day I was in territorial defense at the checkpoint in Bucha, helping to organize the evacuation of civilians," Ivan Skiba recounts the events of those days in a conversation with Important Stories. "We heard over the radio that Russian vehicles had entered the city and shot up the house in front of the roadblock." The men who were at the roadblock with Skiba — they were mainly from the territorial defense — hid in house №31 on Yablonska Street. There were nine men in the building, including the owner of the house.
They spent the night in the house, and the next day, on March 4, around 11 a.m., three Russian soldiers broke down the door and took everyone outside. "We were all stripped, they were looking for tattoos," says Ivan. "They yelled, 'You're Banderites!" That's when the military took away everyone's phones.
The men were forced to line up one by one and grab the jacket of the one in front of them. Then they were led at gunpoint to 144 Yablonska Street, a four-story office building where the Russian occupiers have set up their headquarters.
There the men were forced to take off their boots and jackets. They were put on their knees, some of them had their hands tied. One of the detainees, 28-year-old Vitaliy Karpenko, was shot immediately — Ivan Skiba saw it. Skiba and another man, Andrei Verbovoy, were taken into the building, a bucket was put over Ivan's head, and the Russian soldiers started pounding on it with a gun-butt and a brick. What became of Verbov, Skiba can guess: he never heard his voice again; most likely, he was killed.
"After that, they took me out again, put me on my knees," recalls Skiba, who was returned to other detainees. "The soldiers were deciding amongst themselves what to do with us, one said: "Kill motherfuckers, just take them somewhere so they don't lie about here." One of the captives was released because, according to Skiba, he lost heart and confessed to being in the territorial defense. Now he is under investigation, the Ukrainian authorities accuse him of treason.
The other men were led around the corner of the house; Skiba recalls that there were two soldiers, and they looked very young. Then the men were put against the wall and the shooting began. Skiba remembers the words of a soldier: "That's it, you fucking Banderites!" The bullet grazed Ivan's side, and he collapsed to the ground. "They shot, finished off those who showed any signs of life." Skiba fell next to a dead man, who had already been lying on the ground before they arrived: "I tried not to breathe, only steam was coming out of my mouth."
When everything calmed down and the soldiers left, Ivan was able to free his arms tied with duct tape. "I was without shoes, so I took the shoes off the dead guy who was lying there before us." There are seven bodies depicted in the gruesome photo that journalists took after the Russians had left Bucha.
Skiba ran from the scene of the shooting — he climbed over three fences and found himself in a private house, which had already been visited by the occupants. Everything in the house had been turned upside down. He found a jacket, a hat, and alcohol. He was able to treat the wounds.
For 10-20 minutes Ivan lay down on the couch, trying to get warm, but this was interrupted by the military, who burst into the house again. "I said I was the owner of the house, the family evacuated. My face was covered in blood, I said something got in my face."
The military took Ivan back to the headquarters in house 144, where he was given medical treatment, and then they brought him to a bunker where some 200 civilians were hiding from the shelling.
On March 7, the Russian military took everyone outside. First, the women and children were released. Then the men. "We were told, 'We've come to set you free!' Something like: we're cool guys, don't take up arms, we're letting you go. I think they needed the bunker for themselves, to hide from shelling," says Skiba.
Ivan went to the house where his wife and children were hiding in the basement. The whole family managed to evacuate first to Kyiv and then to Lviv. In Lviv, Ivan was given a paper stating that he was unfit for military service and was advised to undergo rehabilitation. That's how he was allowed to go abroad.
Ivan Skiba is now in Poland: he, like other Ukrainian refugees, was sheltered in his home by a Polish pensioner of Ukrainian origin, Wojciech Okoyinski. "I'm in a rehabilitation right now," Skiba says. "I'm getting dental work done, they kicked me in the teeth, knocked some of them out."
On March 4, the occupants called three dozen Russian numbers using the confiscated or, rather, stolen phone of Ivan Skiba. The list of calls was published by the Bucha Live Telegram channel.
We managed to find out that Pskov paratroopers called Russia using Skiba's phone, some of them dialed several numbers. This is not the first evidence that servicemen from Pskov military units 32 515 and 74 268, i.e. from the 104th and 234th Airborne Assault Regiments, may be involved in the crimes in Bucha. The New York Times wrote about this, citing data provided by the Security Service of Ukraine. Reuters also published evidence of the presence of Pskov paratroopers in Bucha.
Important Stories found eight servicemen from Pskov who most likely used the stolen phone to call home. At least three of them are dead.
On June 9, the Bucha Live telegram channel published seven photos of the phone screen found by a resident of Bucha. The Telegram channel reported that the phone belonged to "our man, who was held captive and tortured by orcs."
Through the administrators of the Telegram channel, we asked the owner of the telephone for an interview. On June 16 Ivan Skiba contacted the editorial office and confirmed that the phone found at 138 Yablonska Street (not far from 144, where the Russian military headquarters was) belonged to him. He told how his daughter was contacted through social media, where he was logged in with his smartphone and was informed that the phone had been found.
We studied three dozen outgoing calls from Vodafone UA SIM card to Russian numbers. We checked each number using open data: through various search engines and social networks, as well as through apps that show how each contact is saved by different users. We verified the results through databases of published leaks that allow us to identify where the people in question were working or serving. At the last stage, we called the same Russian numbers that were contacted by the occupants who used Ivan Skiba's phone, as well as the servicemen who were in Bucha, to find out from them the details of what had happened.
In some cases, we received direct confirmation that it was this person who called, in some cases, it is the most plausible assumption, which explains all the existing evidence.
On March 4 at 4:41 p.m., a text message was sent from Ivan Skiba's phone: "Kolyan [short for Nikolay], this is Lyokha [short for Alexey]. Alive and well, let Alina know." [Here and hereafter we retain the peculiarities of speech — Ed.] The recipient of the message was Nikolay Olesov, a sergeant, and deputy platoon commander from Pskov (judging from the way his contact is saved on other people's phones). Apparently, Lyokha couldn't reach Alina directly.
Among the calls, we found an outgoing one to a number of Alina Vishnevskaya, a manicurist from Pskov. It is clear from her accounts on social networks that she is married to "Lyokha" — 26-year-old Alexey Vishnevsky. In Alina's profile pictures and in one of Alexey's (in that account he calls himself Arkady Korneev), the young people are kissing.
The place of work of Vishnevsky is the 234 Air Assault Regiment (military unit 74 268). Alexey has been serving since at least 2016; he has been an anti-tank gunner, deputy platoon commander, and reconnaissance officer.
On the phone, Alina Vishnevskaya told the Important Stories correspondent that Alexey could not be reached at the moment: "He is not back yet." He sometimes gets in touch, but there is no information on when he will be able to return home.
Twenty-year-old Ilya Saburov called his mother, Anna Saburova, on the phone. On Saburov's VKontakte page, under one of the photos posted in November 2021 for the first time in a long time, friends ask him, "Have you completed your service?" and "Where the fuck are you?" Ilya answers that he has to serve "one more year".
Judging by his YouTube channel, Ilya likes to film reviews of the computer game GTA, his channel has more than four thousand subscribers. A year ago in the channel's community section, he wrote: "Tomorrow I'll start streaming via phone maybe. Guys I'm in the army)". The last video was published on June 4, 2021. Judging by the comments, Ilya posted it during his two-week leave. Five months ago Ivan again wrote in the community: "Sometimes I want to go back to film normal videos and not as before, but I can't because of the army. Forgive me for abandoning the channel and letting everyone down. I'll be back on YouTube in half a year in a new format."
Ilya's mother responded to a WhatsApp message from an Important Stories correspondent as follows.
"It seems to me that everyone and his brother wrote about this bucha ))))
Everybody has already figured it out.
And it depends on what version you are interested in, Zelensky has already made up everything on this subject, what happened there and how it happened.
And if a person has a head on their shoulders and common sense it is unlikely that they can believe this crap about Russian soldiers, they do not even abuse prisoners, not to mention civilians )))
You'd better find out who is cutting the throats of our prisoners on the road and shoot them. And you'd better report this information to the Red Cross and also how they keep those who have not been killed by Ukrofascists there )))
You, as a journalist, would have done a good deed."
Maksim Grushevsky also called his mother, Natalya. Maksim took the oath in December 2021 — his mother posted a photo of her son in his paratrooper uniform on social media. In the comments, Natalya's friend asks where her "grown-up son" is serving, Natalya replies that he is in Pskov.
While her son is fighting in Ukraine, his mother is photographing her youngest daughter, Maksim's sister, in front of a toy car with the letter Z on it.
Natalya did not answer the call from a correspondent of Important Stories.
Radiy Zaburin called his wife, Daria Zaburina, an eyebrow specialist from Pskov. Radiy's path to the military world was not an easy one. In 2013, Zaburin, 17, was under investigation — he was arrested with 96 grams of marijuana. Then he joined the army. Judging by the photos of a fellow soldier on VKontakte, Radiy started serving in the airborne forces no later than 2015. In 2016, he was already a senior spotter in the 234th Airborne Assault Regiment with a salary of 25,000 rubles.
Perhaps Radiy was having money problems: since 2019, he had been trying to sell "a webbed gear in good condition" for almost 11 months. Radiy and his wife Darya got married a year ago: in photos from his wife's VKontakte page, he poses in a blue suit and red tie together with his bride.
We called Darya Zaburina using the number on Skiba's outgoing calls list. Darya chose to deny everything: "no one called, you're wrong, I never received a call from Ukraine," her husband has never been in the military, he works "as a civilian," he is a construction worker, he never went to Ukraine, he is "always around." After our call, Darya closed her VKontakte page.
Mikhail Guryanov called his uncle, Vasily Shevchenko. On the uncle's social media page, there is a picture of Mikhail in his paratrooper uniform with the caption "Nephew, Misha [short for Mikhail]!!!". In August 2020, Mikhail's mother, Olga, posted a family photo on her VKontakte page, showing relatives hugging Misha, with the caption "Son in the Army." Until 2020, he worked as a handyman and forwarding agent.
Mikhail's VKontakte account is private, and his profile picture is an image of a muscular bear with a Russian tricolor in the background. Not long ago, he changed his real last name to "Shevchenko" on the social network. However, on "Odnoklassniki" social network Mikhail continues to actively use his real name, the last time he visited the page was on June 16.
Guryanov's uncle, Vasily, responded to a call from Important Stories saying that he "couldn't be of any help, a military secret."
Danil Konovalov (deceased)
Danil Konovalov called his parents, Sergei and Nadezhda Konovalov, on March 4.
The photos on his father's "Odnoklassniki" page in September 2021 show a cheerful Danil posing with a parachute, his chevrons are visible, indicating that he served in the paratroopers.
Under the more recent photos, commenters offer Danil's father condolences. На своей странице во «ВКонтакте» его младшая сестра София 30 мая выложила фотографию видеосозвона с братом с подписью «Мой. On her VKontakte page, his younger sister Sofia posted a photo of a video call with her brother on May 30 with the caption "My [brother]. The only one, my dearest," and she also received condolences in the comments.
Danil's friend Dmitry Marchenko also had Danil's picture as a profile picture on May 29.
On June 14, the official announcement was made about Danil's death: on the "the 76th Guards Air Assault Division VDV Pskov ZOV" public page it was written that the young man "died as a hero" "on May 21, 2022, in a special military operation on a former ukrainian territory during an assault on neo-Nazi groups' positions near the village of Lipove." "A native of Altai Territory, Guard Private Danil Sergeevich Konovalov has taken part in a special military operation to demilitarize and denazify ukraine since February 24. A true Friend and companion who always came to the rescue in a difficult moment. He was 20 years old." This message was reposted by Valeria Nikulina, who was close to Danil, who also received a call from Ivan Skiba's phone which was used by Konovalov on March 4.
We reached Danil's parents. "He told us himself that he was in Bucha when they came out of there on March 30," answered Danil's mother, Nadezhda. According to his parents, Danil's brigade was first taken to Belarus and then sent to the Belgorod region, where they spent two weeks. Immediately after that, Danil was sent to fight in the Donetsk region, where he died. "At first he said: "I'm not going," and then, "No, I'm going, I can't feel like a quitter, I want to avenge my commander and all my friends," Nadezhda recounts a conversation with her son. "They were all tired there after all that time," says his father, Sergei. Representatives of the military commissariat and the local administration came to Danil's parents to inform them of their son's death. The Konovalovs received help — the authorities paid for the funeral. "Since childhood, he dreamed of serving in the Airborne Forces," says Sergei Konovalov. “We didn't know all this was going to happen when he signed the contract.”
Alexander Popov (deceased)
On March 4, 20-year-old Alexander Popov called his mother, Irina Kiriyenko who lives in Krasnoyarsk.
On November 25, 2021, Irina posted a photo of her eldest son on Three Railway Station Square in Moscow, and in the comments, she wrote: "He has already arrived in Pskov, he is on his way to his unit." At the very beginning of the war, the woman liked a post from March 3, when her son most likely entered Bucha: "Let's support our guys who are now making history, protecting the civilians of Donbass and Ukraine from the Nazis."
And on May 31 of this year, Irina again published several photos of her son with the caption "It's so easy to imagine you alive that it's impossible to believe in your death." In response to condolences from her friends, Irina said: "I'm hanging in there, I still have my youngest. We can handle it." The younger son Ilya, judging by the photos, is a naval cadet.
According to the media, Alexander Popov died on May 19. He served in Pskov as a contractor. "He was a parachute company gunner and operator." "He dreamed of becoming a paratrooper, conquering the skies, and jumping with a parachute," the journalists relay the words of Alexander's younger brother, Ilya.
When Sasha's [short for Alexander] corpse was brought home, the attendant of the body said that the Russian soldiers were chased "like rabbits through forests."
IStories correspondent reached Alexander's mother and aunt. They said that Sasha had contacted them on March 7 and 31, saying that he had borrowed a telephone from a local woman in a store — he had lost his phone "in the first battle, it drowned in the tank." “Yes, of course, he understood where he was being sent,” said Sasha's aunt. "He sent me text messages, videos, and he told me, 'Mom, we're going to die!' — these were his second-to-last or last messages, but such texts started at the beginning of April," Alexander's mother shared. "He must have had a premonition." Sasha told his mother that "the Nazis take civilians out of populated areas, use them as a shield". "I asked: "Sasha, will your finger pull the trigger to shoot?", he said, "Yes".
The women recall that Alexander's brigade stopped near Donetsk, in the village of Tripillya. From there they had literally failed to make it two kilometers to their base when they were attacked. Both women do not want to know anything about the war in Ukraine after Sasha's death and "to this day" do not watch TV: "I buried my son, I don't want to see or hear anything else." But the sisters agree: "Wipe this fucking Ukraine off the face of the earth! The same way they could drop a bomb as they did on our boys". They say that Sasha and the other boys were left "as cannon fodder for the Nazis". Less than six months have passed since Alexander's training: "They don't know how to shoot and fight properly yet." When Sasha's corpse was brought home, the attendant of the body said that the Russian soldiers were chased "like rabbits through forests." "They could have sent out elite troops instead, we have such good weapons in Russia! Their transport was all broken, they waited and waited for the spare parts to arrive, but they didn't get them, so they went through the woods...". When asked to whom the complaint was addressed, Sasha's mother said: the president.
Dmitry Antonnikov (deceased)
After getting the phone of the captured Ukrainian, Dmitry Antonnikov called his wife, Valeria Maksimova. We found out that Antonnikov was a serviceman in military unit 74 268 with a salary of RUB 35,000 as of the beginning of 2017.
Now on the page of his young wife Valeria in VKontakte, there is a sad post in memory of her deceased husband: "You are gone from life, but not from my heart." My darling, I love you very much." Date of publication — June 8. In the comments, friends support her and write that "Dima [short for Dmitry] is a hero!"
We couldn't reach Valeria.
On Yablonska Street
On March 4, when the Russian military called home from Ivan Skiba's phone, eight residents of Bucha were shot: Anatoly Prikhodko, Andrei Matviychuk, Andrei Verbovoy, Denis Rudenko, Andrei Dvornikov, Sviatoslav Turovsky, Valery Kotenko, and Vitaly Karpenko. They were all civilians before the war and joined the volunteer units when the war began.
We cannot say what role the Pskov paratroopers we found played during the occupation of Bucha. Ivan Skiba, to whom we showed photos of the soldiers we found, finds it difficult to say who exactly took his phone and tortured him: the soldiers were wearing balaclavas, and he had lost his glasses. Bear in mind that the most brutal murders took place on Yablonska Street in Bucha.
We have already written about the presence of Pskov paratroopers at the site of the shooting of the residents of Bucha. Then we managed to identify one of those who took part in the purge of the settlement, Chingiz Atantaev, who also served in one of the airborne assault regiments of Pskov.
IStories continues to investigate and will soon cover other Russian military personnel who were in the Kyiv region during the occupation as well as their possible involvement in war crimes.
If you know something and want to tell us about the Russian soldiers who took part in the war in Ukraine, please contact us by mail email@example.com or via the bot in Telegram @mail_to_istories_bot | <urn:uuid:4322c590-aa30-41f8-819d-9dbb9d0cde7e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://istories.media/en/investigations/2022/06/27/eight-pskov-paratroopers-in-bucha/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573667.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819100644-20220819130644-00076.warc.gz | en | 0.985602 | 5,162 | 1.695313 | 2 |
44 CFR 300.1 - Definitions.
As used in this part:
(a) The Act means the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act, 42 U.S.C. 5121 et seq.
(b) Disaster assistance plans means those plans which identify tasks needed to deliver disaster assistance and to avoid, reduce, or mitigate natural hazards; make assignments to execute those tasks; reflect State authorities for executing disaster assignments; and provide for adequate training of personnel in their disaster or mitigation assignments.
(c) Mitigation means the process of systematically evaluating the nature and extent of vulnerability to the effects of natural hazards present in society and planning and carrying out actions to minimize future vulnerability to those hazards to the greatest extent practicable.
(d) State means any State of the United States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, or the Republic of the Marshall Islands. | <urn:uuid:afe29e14-34e9-42fb-bb6d-9f0e77373c67> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/44/300.1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719465.22/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00096-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.893741 | 213 | 2.421875 | 2 |
A HEREFORD woman is taking on the disease that killed her dad by raising money for the charity looking for a cure.
Jade Marsh's dad Dylan Toney died in December, aged just 51, 10 days short of an 11-month battle with motor neurone disease (MND).
Jade has been raising funds for the Motor Neurone Disease Association since her dad was diagnosed with the illness and has no intention of stopping any time soon.
Jade said: "He had a really aggressive form, but it took him away much quicker than I ever expected, or let myself believe.
"I'm still just as eager to raise money and awareness for MND, because I hate to think of other people going through this. I live in hope of a cure for so many other people suffering with this awful illness."
She is taking on the London Marathon on April 13 and has so far raised £5,719.
"This is an event that was booked long before dad died, and I had hoped that he would be there to support me on the day, but the sad reality is, I will now be doing it in his memory," Jade said.
MND is a fatal neurological disease that leaves people locked in a failing body, unable to move, walk, talk and eventually breathe.
There is currently no cure.
To support Jade's MND fundraising efforts visit justgiving.com/Jade-Marsh1
She is also raising money for St Michael's Hospice which supported her dad throughout his illness.
"Dad was admitted on December 13 and received the most outstanding care we could have wished for. All staff involved in his care worked endlessly to make him as comfortable as possible and I truly believe that because of their efforts, my dad had the most dignified death possible," Jade said.
"Myself, my mum, and dad's brother were also very well looked after by everyone there, making a terrible time much more bearable.
"When dad was alive he always spoke very highly of the hospice, and had the utmost respect for his consultant there."
To say thank you, Jade and her mum are taking part in a sponsored wing-walk on June 22 and are hoping to raise around £1,000.
They have personally funded the event so 100 per cent of money raised will go directly to the hospice.
It costs £12,000 per day to run the hospice and only approximately 10 per cent comes from statutory resources.
To sponsor their efforts, visit justgiving.com/Jade-Marsh2 | <urn:uuid:e3287da8-f9e4-4707-804b-9e09be75f5f7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.ledburyreporter.co.uk/news/11063101.Hereford_woman_raising_funds_in_memory_of_her_dad/?ref=rss | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281069.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00263-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.990892 | 528 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Coronavirus: Experts' dire warning about duration and death rate of pandemic
A panel of three experts agree the government was neither acting quickly nor resolutely enough to sufficiently contain the crisis.
The participants of the panel include doctor and professor Kerryn Phelps, infectious disease researcher Professor Raina MacIntyre, and journalist Janine Perrett, who spoke via video chat to discuss the broad, ongoing effects of the coronavirus outbreak.
The predicted what it will mean for the country both in terms of health and the economy.
"The government needs to act, I think, much more resolutely than they have been," Dr Kerryn Phelps told A Current Affair.
"If you look at the rational arguments, we haven't done nearly enough."
Ms Parrett similarly described Australia's currently position as "half in, half out."
Health – vaccination and death rate estimates
The coronavirus pandemic will last about a year, with cases peaking sometime in 2020, followed by a tail of cases as precautionary measures relax, according to Professor MacIntyre.
While she said there is certainly a realistic hope of both a cure and vaccination, these are both still a while away.
Promising trials are already underway for treating the virus, she said, but vaccines have long safety procedures before they can be released to populations.
A realistic timeframe for a widely available vaccine, she said, is 12 to 18 months, at a minimum.
Australia's Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly has said the best case scenario in Australia is to expect about 50,000 deaths as a result of coronavirus, with the worst case scenario sitting about 150,000.
When probed, Dr Phelps said she did not think the figures were simply an exaggeration to prompt Australians to act more cautiously, and that these predictions may indeed come to pass.
How Australians can ensure a best case scenario is for "everyone to play their part, to realise this is not just a cold or flu, it's not just a regular winter virus. COVID-19, coronavirus, is a very different virus," Dr Phelps said.
With the hopes of a cure and vaccination far away, all of the experts agreed that strict preventative measures are Australia's best hopes of minimising the impacts.
"All we've got at our disposal are the social distancing measures, the travel bans, identifying cases quickly and isolating them, and contact tracing and quarantine," Professor MacIntyre said.
Part of these measures, she said, include closing schools, which is effective as a preventative measure only if it is done early. Once the epidemic reaches a peak, the measure has little impact, she said.
"We need to be making those tough decision now."
Professor MacIntyre also pointed to children as key points of transmission.
"Children, even though they may not get as sick as adults, they are going to be the agents of transmission to older adults."
"Closing school certainly poses a big problem for a lot of business as employees would have to stay home but there is going to be a massive economic disruption anyway, so I think there is now a view that the sooner we start to get a move on, the better," Ms Perrett commented.
The severity of the fallout in terms of the economy and job losses, Ms Perrett said, depends entirely on how much the government wants to pay.
Part of that, she said, is government paying small businesses to keep their staff.
"We're quite a rich country, we're in a reasonably good position," she said.
"We can afford quite a lot."
Property News: Music promoter Michael Coppel sells Toorak home for more than $30 million - domain.com.au | <urn:uuid:be9c9929-8308-4cf0-983f-e81abf453b40> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://9now.nine.com.au/a-current-affair/coronavirus-dr-phelps-professor-macintyre-and-perrett-pandemic-warnings/e685dbad-c0f8-4593-9a49-6423fd4d5ae7 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573623.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819035957-20220819065957-00666.warc.gz | en | 0.969414 | 782 | 2.46875 | 2 |
As COVID-19 nips at the heels of New Zealand, a primary concern for many parents is protecting their children through this pandemic. Worry is a natural response when faced with the unknown. During this pandemic, worry may seem like a legitimate response to a fast-changing threat. However, we are able to safeguard our children from worry dominating everyday existence or morphing into anxiety. There is a barrage of advice available on the internet and it can be hard to determine what information is effective. Information overload can overwhelm, and cause confusion and anxiety. I wanted to create a simple model, based on evidence, that would help steer parents through crises- a model that is not only focused on “getting through” but also actively fosters their children’s psychological resilience and wellbeing.
The CARE © model is underpinned by psychological science, is designed for use with children of all ages, and is a guideline rather than a set of rules. Parents know their children best. Trust in your knowledge and apply aspects of the CARE model that fit best with your family.
Children are observant and absorb what it is going on in their surrounding environment. Regardless of age, it is likely your child will be aware that life’s normal has currently shifted, or can sense that the adults around them are at unease. Older children who are exposed to classroom chatter, news and social media may also be experiencing anxiety.
Talking with your children in a calm, simple and factual way enables you to control the narrative, providing essential information without promoting distress. It also helps contain anxiety, as lack of information can lead children to imagine worse case scenarios. Be particularly mindful to dispel rumours circulating in the community, which can lead to heightened distress. Placing boundaries on media exposure is a good preventative action.
Determine what you want to say
It is a good idea to map out how you want to discuss COVID-19 with your family. Make sure to include age appropriate information on:
- What COVID-19 is
- How COVID-19 is spread and managed
- Steps that are being taken to protect New Zealanders
- Preventative steps everyone can take
If you would like helpful tips on how to discuss the science, Dr Michelle Dickinsons Nanogirl’s website provides useful videos. If you don’t have the answers to some of your children’s questions, be truthful about that too.
Make yourself available and take their lead
Be prepared for your children to have questions about COVID-19. It is a good idea to let children initiate these conversations, as we don’t want to create or heighten distress by continually raising the topic. Making space communicates to your child that you are available to listen, and reaffirms they are an important priority.
Some children may find it difficult to raise their concerns. Hovering around you may be an indicator that they wish to talk. For young children they may ask some questions, go away to play, and then return to ask more.
Validation involves letting your child share their thoughts and feelings without judgment or criticism. This allows your child to feel heard and conveys the message that you love and accept them no matter their thoughts and feelings. Validation is a critical component of emotion regulation, and therefore is important in reducing and containing anxiety.
Example: “I can hear you are feeling really worried and are scared Nanny and Granddad will get sick”
Not: “Don’t be silly, we’ll be fine. There is no point dwelling on it”.
Consistency of emotional validation in your communication promotes a sense of security for your child, again supporting the reduction of anxiety and protecting their wellbeing
Be Age Appropriate
Children are able to determine when life’s normal has shifted, yet how this is displayed can differ depending on their developmental age. In response, communication to children needs to mirror accordingly.
Whilst young children may not be able to comprehend what or why things are different, parents may still observe changes in their child. For preschool aged children, a primary worry is the safety and health of significant adults and friends. Common responses can include increased tantrums, whining or clinging, altered appetite and regression in toilet training, language and sleep. Reassurance that adults are working hard to keep healthy is important. Lots of extra hugs are also helpful.
|Primary Aged |
Children in this age group may have concerns about their own health or the financial health of their family. Common reactions include physical symptoms (headaches and tummy aches), emotional reactivity, withdrawing from friends, increased forgetfulness or agitation. This is a good age group for calm clear conversations, as well as focusing on preventive behaviours (hand washing, social distancing, sneezing into your elbow etc). Innovative ways to retain engagement, such as using songs to gauge hand-washing length can be helpful. As a parent maintaining your patience and calm will be important.
In addition to the above, teens’ responses can be variable. Like adults, some may use humour as a defence coping mechanism for their worry. Others may seem indifferent, even apathetic. Whilst this may be a true reflection of their perspective, it can be overshadowing genuine concern. Regular check-ins on your teen’s wellbeing (How are you feeling?) continually provides your teen with an opportunity to talk should they want to. This cohort is more likely to be focused on the economic, political and public health landscape of COVID-19. If so, engage with them in meaningful discussion and as a family reply on only reputable sources for updates. A note of caution – it can be easy with adolescents to slip into adult conversations; voicing your own beliefs, emotions and concerns. It is important to avoid transferring your personal fear onto your teen, as this can heighten distress and may induce a parentification paradigm (with potential subsequent risks to their mental health and wellbeing). Maintaining your own support network is thus important.
Human agency is the capacity for people to make choices and to impose those choices on the world. Psychological theory demonstrates that when we are able to focus on what is controllable in our life and influence change; this fosters resilience by lessening stress and activating coping strategies.
What is within your circle of control?
We all have an ability to minimise the spread of COVID-19 by following hygiene and social distancing guidelines. Talking with your children about how their actions can support their own health and the health of their community provides a sense of empowerment. This targeted focus also distracts from an overemphasis on the uncontrollable, for example the fact there is currently no COVID-19 vaccine.
Establish your own family culture
How does your family want to operate during the foreseeable future? Make a time to sit with your children and plan your family response, brainstorming ways you can continue to live meaningful lives. This will be especially important if your family is in self-isolation, or if school closures occur. For example, we know that maintaining positive emotions is beneficial for wellbeing and culture. You might decide to schedule game nights, facetime calls with grandparents, cooking challenges using only pantry items etc.
Be community heroes
Altruistic attitudes, volunteering, and informal helping behaviours make unique contributions to the maintenance of life satisfaction, positive affect and general wellbeing. Purposefully focus on how your family unit can support your community. For example, creating a street directory of everyone’s contact details or offering to shop for the elderly/those in isolation. If your family is in self-isolation, emphasise that compliance will help protect others (your children’s friends, teachers, grandparents etc)
Children of all ages often look to their parents as a barometer during crises. Assessing parental reactions and coping skills has an influence on a child’s own ability to cope through a crises. As Social Learning Theory denotes “we do what we see”. So, remember your actions can be particularly protective during this time.
Remain calm and practice self-care
Utilise calming strategies that are most effective for you. Thinking about how you have managed previous setbacks is a useful way to generate ideas. Evidence-based methods to manage stress and anxiety include:
- Remember to breathe from your belly
- Daily exercise
- Relaxation activities
- Keeping a gratitude journal
- Time off screens
- Regular journaling
- Connect with friends and colleagues
- Accessing support if needed
Follow recommended guidelines
If you expect your children to follow hygiene and social distancing guidelines, they need to see this modelled consistently.
Disrupt stereotypes and unhelpful commentary
If appropriate, have a discussion on how COVID-19 has sparked discriminatory commentary and behavior in some communities; and that stigma and exclusion can have significant negative impacts on mental health. We have a collective responsibility to disrupt xenophobia.
Consistency and routine provide a sense of calm and security during times of stress. Children, especially preschool and primary aged, or those who are anxious, will benefit from knowing what’s going to happen and when. Bedtime, meals and exercise are particularly important.
If your work requires you to spend large amounts of time away from your children, work with your support networks to establish as much consistency in child-minding as possible.
Making an extra effort to engage in positive activities that promote fun is also a proactive wellbeing tool. Play games, watch movies, create crafts, bake, and participate in online community gatherings.
Children have a wonderful ability to adapt when their foundation is secure. Calm, consistent and reassuring conversations, focusing on the controllable and demonstrating desirable coping behaviours alongside familiar routines, will support the care of our children as we continue into the unknown. I have no doubt our Kiwi families can come through COVID-19. | <urn:uuid:47319ef0-b237-4616-a93b-291432a70c71> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://thriveglobal.com/stories/care-for-children-during-covid-19/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573172.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818063910-20220818093910-00268.warc.gz | en | 0.949822 | 2,083 | 3.28125 | 3 |
1 Answer | Add Yours
Your question is quite broad, so I will try to give you some background from which to build your own analysis of Touchstone. First, he is either referred to as a "clown" or a "fool." These terms may seem interchangeable to us, but to theatre-going audiences of Shakespeare's day, they were very different beasts.
A Clown was simply an actor who possessed physical skills such as tumbling and juggling and was in the play to provide moments of comedy, often physical in nature. The servants in Shakespeare's early plays -- The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Comedy of Errors, and The Taming of th Shrew -- all serve as Clown characters. The problem for a playwright with the Clown was that he didn't really pay close attention to following the text word for word, since much of his comedy came from pratfalls and improvising lines while in performance.
Enter the Fool. Touchstone can definitely be considered to serve as a "fool" in As You Like It rather than a "clown," and it is an important distinction. Though fools existed in Shakespeare's day as jesters who served in noble households (and Touchstone is described as such in the play), in theatre the existence of the Fool as a character type was invented by Shakespeare. To keep the comic actor in line and dependent on his words (rather than ad libbing for comic effect), Shakespeare invented the witty character who accompanies the action of the play, commenting on the behaviour of others rather than getting overly involved in the dilemmas of the plot.
With the advent of this witty, language dependent player, Shakespeare also recruited different actors to play his Fools than had played the Clowns. The most famous of these Fool-players (and the one some believe that Touchstone was written for) was Robert Armin.
In As You Like It, Touchstone does accompany Rosiland and Celia to the forest, and he actually gains a love interest, Audrey. However, his relationship with Audrey, his conversations with Jaques and the other characters he meets, are all there to provide verbal humor and to illuminate the qualities and dilemmas of those upon whom the events of plot hang. Touchstone stands a bit outside the action, providing comic observance through his words of wit. This is his dramatic function as the comic Fool in the play.
We’ve answered 319,207 questions. We can answer yours, too.Ask a question | <urn:uuid:69043417-d412-4385-b25f-2de553cc80fa> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/charactersketch-touchstone-375-words-you-likeit-191873 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00459-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983786 | 509 | 3.21875 | 3 |
Defining happiness is difficult, as happiness is actually a state of mind. What brings on happiness is therefore unique to the individual person; what makes you happy may be quite different from what makes your neighbor or your officemate happy. Still, despite being hard to define, there’s something about happiness that has universal appeal. Virtually everyone strives for it, but not everyone will reach it. One recent Harris Poll found that, despite an ostensibly recovering economy, only one in three Americans said they’re very happy,1 which means, of course, that two out of three are not. Yet, as abstract, and at times as elusive, as happiness may be, there are proven ways to make yourself happier, and you can do many of these things starting today.
Exercise More Often
Exercise is one of the best strategies for overcoming depression. Indeed, it can have a dramatic impact on your mental health. For example, a Duke University team studied three groups that tried exercise only, exercise plus drugs, and drugs only, to see what treatment best treated depression. They found that 10 months later, it was the exercise-only group that was most successful in maintaining wellness and avoiding a depression relapse! Yet, exercise may still make you happier even if you’re not depressed. It can help you to feel better about your body,2 for starters, while also boosting levels of health-promoting brain chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, which may help buffer some of the effects of stress. Rather than viewing exercise as a medical tool to lose weight, prevent disease, and live longer – all benefits that occur in the future – try viewing exercise as a daily tool to immediately enhance your frame of mind, reduce stress and feel happier.
Get Proper Sleep
A lack of sleep makes it more difficult to recall pleasant memories (but gloomy memories are recalled just fine).3 Lack of sleep may also make you more susceptible to negative emotions like fear and anger, while taking a nap in the afternoon may enhance positive emotions. Not to mention, sleep deprivation is linked to psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and bipolar depression, while getting the right amount of sleep has been linked to positive personality characteristics such as optimism and greater self-esteem, as well as a greater ability to solve difficult problems.4
Shorten Your Commute
If you can move closer to where you work, or work closer to where you live, do it. A long commute is stressful and draining, even if it allows you to buy a bigger house or have a better job. Such factors do not make up for the unhappiness created by a longer commute, according to research by two Swiss economists. Generally speaking, it would take a 40 percent increase in pay to make up for a job with a longer commute.5
Nourish Your Relationships
Friends and family mean everything in life, and research shows spending social time with your friends and loved ones generally makes people much happier. One study even found that relationships are worth more than $100,000 in terms of life satisfaction, while actual changes in income buy very little happiness.6
Spend Time Outdoors
Simply going outside to get some fresh air and sunshine boosts mood, broadens thinking and improves working memory. One study found that it takes just 20 minutes outdoors to make most people happier, while other research showed that happiness is maximized when it’s 57 degrees F outside7 – so keep an eye on the thermometer!
Volunteering can lower your risk of depression and anxiety,8 and significantly boost your psychological well-being.9 Not only does it keep you active and on your feet, but there’s a definite social aspect as well, both of which contribute to happiness. Volunteering to help others also gives you a greater sense of purpose and can even lead to a so-called “helper’s high,” which may occur because doing good things releases feel-good hormones like oxytocin in your body while lowering levels of stress hormones like cortisol.
Putting on a fake smile can worsen your mood, but thinking positive thoughts and then smiling as a result can make you happier.10 When you smile at others, they’re also more likely to smile back in return, creating an ongoing feedback loop that may lead to more positivity in your life and the lives of others.
Plan a Vacation
It might be that the simple act of planning a vacation can make you happier, even if you don’t actually go on one. Research showed that people were happiest during the planning stage of their vacation, when their sense of anticipation was peaked.11 After the vacation was over, levels of happiness quickly returned to baseline.
Meditation helps you keep your mind focused, calms your nerves and supports inner peace. Research shows it can even lead to physical changes in your brain that make you happier, including an increase in areas associated with compassion and self-awareness and a shrinking in areas associated with stress.
People who are thankful for what they have are better able to cope with stress, have more positive emotions, and are better able to reach their goals. The best way to harness the positive power of gratitude is to keep a gratitude journal or list, where you actively write down exactly what you’re grateful for each day. Doing so has been linked to happier moods, greater optimism and even better physical health. If there is one common thread to the tips above, it is that the factors that increase happiness tend to do so from the inside, as lasting happiness is not something that can be achieved from external sources. It may be helpful to remember that happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think. This is part of the power of affirmations, which can also help you to boost your happiness. For example, starting each day by thinking of all the things you have to be thankful for is one way to put your mind on the right track. Also remember that your future depends largely on the thoughts you think today. So each moment of every day is an opportunity to turn your thinking around, thereby helping or hindering your ability to think and feel more positively in the very next moment. Most experts agree that there are no shortcuts to happiness. Even generally happy people do not experience joy 24 hours a day. But a happy person can have a bad day and still find pleasure in the small things in life. Postponing your happiness until you reach a certain goal, like getting a promotion or pay raise to go on vacation, is a sure-fire way to stay stuck in misery. Instead, consciously spend a few minutes every day thinking about the good things in your life, such as eating a balanced meal or getting enough rest. Practice this every day and each day try to extend the time you spend on positive thoughts. Additionally, while there is no rule or special formula that can make a person constantly happy, happiness tends to come more easily when you focus on developing positive social relationships and enjoyable work, and have a sense that life has meaning. Overall, having a spiritual dimension tends to be an essential component of happiness for most people as well. © By Dr. Mercola – www.mercola.com | <urn:uuid:bf057aec-acf7-4772-a76d-d424cdb33fb7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.5election.com/2013/10/27/ten-proven-ways-to-be-a-happy-person/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572161.46/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815054743-20220815084743-00472.warc.gz | en | 0.963736 | 1,491 | 2.859375 | 3 |
For many years, HIV activists and researchers have criticised the stigmatising way that HIV criminalisation cases are covered in the mainstream press. However, an ethnographic study recently published in the Canadian Review of Sociology argues that the working conditions in which journalists now operate makes it extremely challenging for them to improve their reporting on HIV criminalisation.
With the shift to online news creating revenue challenges, newsrooms are under pressure to produce more content with fewer staff. This has resulted in journalists relying on police press releases as sources of news for crime stories, including HIV criminalisation. The author of the study argues that, without targeted efforts to disrupt the mainstream narrative on HIV criminalisation, “this type of newswork makes it likely that longstanding patterns of sensational, stigmatising news will persist.”
Previous studies highlight how reporting on HIV criminalisation often makes people living with HIV seem dangerous to society and exaggerates the risks of HIV transmission. Such messaging frequently relies on harmful gender and racial stereotypes and serves to increase stigma towards people living with HIV and other marginalised communities. It also has serious negative repercussions for those individuals involved in cases, making them ‘eternally googleable’ which can prevent them from gaining employment or housing.
HIV criminalisation laws in Canada are especially severe, with people living with HIV at risk of conviction for non-disclosure of their HIV status to sexual partners – even when transmission has not occurred.
Dr Colin Hastings of Concordia University in Canada wanted to understand how journalists go about writing stories on HIV criminalisation, with the hope that this might reveal opportunities for HIV activists and advocates to improve reporting on this topic. He therefore undertook ethnographic interviews with 20 journalists and one police communications representative. The interviews generally started with a question asking the participants to describe a typical workday and explored the conditions which influence their everyday activities.
The interviews revealed that the pressure on journalists to produce a constant flow of content across multiple platforms hinders their ability to conduct fact-checking or more in-depth investigation. A reporter described how he considers:
“Every hour as a deadline... so sometimes I’m like, ugh, this story could have been so much better had I had time to go through everything.”
In this context, repurposing ready-made text from other sources represents a quick and efficient strategy for producing content. When writing crime stories, this usually means relying on press releases issued by the police – whose communications departments are adept at ensuring that their texts flow easily into newsrooms.
An online web editor described how her work consisted of “copy and pasting it pretty much” while a reporter said:
“With the police, I just usually do the stuff they send out, they send a daily update of what’s happening on their side, the police side, and usually I take a look at that and re-write those.”
Many of the interviewees felt this was an unfortunate but inevitable fact of contemporary journalism, as they struggle to keep pace with the unrelenting online news cycle. Yet the interviews demonstrated how the reliance on police press releases means that it is not only information provided by the police but also the police’s perspective on an event that is repackaged as ‘news’.
A police communications representative mentioned in their interview that a key factor in the police’s decision to publish a press release about a case is whether they believe there is a threat to public safety. This threat is made clear by combining an individual’s name, photo, and personal information with descriptions of criminal charges they face and language emphasising the danger they pose – for example, “police are concerned there may be more victims”.
In the context of HIV criminalisation, this means equating non-disclosure of HIV with dangerous criminality. Journalists covering crime stories often do not have the experience, time, or resources to question this, as outlined by a veteran reporter:
“HIV non-disclosure was always covered as a crime if the police think it’s a crime... the cops say this is a crime, and you say oh god this is a crime, crime is bad, this person is a bad person.”
The language of public safety also serves as a signal to journalists that a case may be particularly newsworthy. A breaking news reporter said:
“They [the police] might say very clearly that there is a huge public safety element... Language like that is a really good indicator [of newsworthiness] for us.”
What determines newsworthiness is also directed by what is likely to be read and shared widely. ‘Good’ headlines are those that draw the highest volume of readers to the story. An experienced reporter named Lisa explained how this creates pressure to choose more salacious wording for headlines about HIV criminalisation:
“You can write two headlines for your story, and the [software] system will push them out there and then you can see which headline is attracting more clicks so that at a certain point you can just bail on the more boring headline and go to the salacious headline that’s working better.”
As well as the police press releases serving to provide journalists with ready-made sources of content, the police communications representative recognised the work of journalists as a cost-effective and time-efficient part of policing work:
“We now see regularly criminals surrendering shortly after we put their pictures up. And if you think about, our main account we reach thousands of people, but if a news organization with 1.75 million retweets, it means everyone in the city is going to get it... Out of all the stuff that we do, that’s the most satisfying because no one expects us to be able to get a homicide investigation to surrender, and these things are very expensive and very time consuming.”
Given that the police often reinforce social, racial, and economic inequities in society, this extension of their influence is likely to be perceived by many as a worrying development.
This study exposes how the pressure on journalists to produce a constant flow of online news content has reduced many to copying and pasting police press releases, since they have little time to investigate and provide further context. This results in journalists reproducing the perspective of the police in news coverage, which constructs people living with HIV as a threat to public safety.
Hastings notes that not all of the journalists interviewed felt comfortable with the reliance on police press releases as sources of news. Yet their working conditions have made it increasingly difficult for them to disrupt problematic news coverage.
While acknowledging the significant contributions already made by HIV activists to improving media coverage of HIV criminalisation stories, Hastings makes the following suggestions for activists’ efforts:
- Producing texts (such as press releases) that can compete with those published by the police
- Campaigning to update and reform journalistic style guides which reporters follow when crafting a story
- Producing specialised guides for reporting on social justice issues
- Supporting and investing in news organizations and alternative presses that practice slower, long-form journalism
- Expanding the efforts of community-based organizations to produce their own messaging through independent publishing, social media campaigns, or in-person community forums
Hastings C. Writing for digital news about HIV criminalization in Canada. Canadian Review of Sociology, online ahead of print, 7 February 2022. | <urn:uuid:a24c6ce9-4ccf-4f87-9995-b890deac7956> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.aidsmap.com/news/mar-2022/journalists-working-conditions-foster-stigmatising-coverage-hiv-criminalisation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571745.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812170436-20220812200436-00467.warc.gz | en | 0.957588 | 1,533 | 2.078125 | 2 |
Three years of violence are hurting Israel in many ways, including immigration. For the first six months of 2003, there was a 39 percent drop in immigrants. The drop from two years ago was 59 percent. In all of 2001, there were 44,000 immigrants to Israel, and 10-15,000 people leaving. The number of people leaving has not changed, but it appears that the number coming to Israel in 2003 will be closer to 5,000. This net population loss plays well in the Palestinian community, as it is seen as evidence that the terror campaign and that the Jews are being driven out of Israel. There are currently 6.7 million Israelis (not all of them Jewish), with about 200,000 Jews living in the "settlements" in Palestinian territory. The settler population is growing nearly six percent a year, triple the rate of the rest of Israel. | <urn:uuid:8375ae40-2eff-49c2-bf99-6668b0390905> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://strategypage.com/qnd/israel/articles/20030730.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573876.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20220820012448-20220820042448-00078.warc.gz | en | 0.980592 | 177 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Rule of the Week: Batter Abandonment – When A Batter Is Called Out For Desertion
Your favorite player swings and misses. “Strike three,” signals the umpire. While the disgusted batter drops his head and walks dejectedly back towards his dugout, a fan yells, “Run! He dropped the ball!” The batter now takes off in a half sprint to first base. Too late, the home plate umpire has already signaled out. Although you won’t find this word in the rulebook, umpires and fans refer to this circumstance as desertion.
But when exactly is he declared out?
Under Official Baseball Rules (and NCAA 7-11u), a batter (batter-runner) who shows no effort to advance to first base on a third strike not caught shall be declared out when he leaves the dirt circle around home plate. The same call is made on a batter who “lingers” at home plate, removing batting gloves or protective shin guard. The rules recognize the variation in size and shape of the dirt circles surrounding home in different ball parks (many amateur fields do not have these circles marked) and allow the home plate umpire to make a judgement call as to whether the batter-runner abandons his effort to advance to first base.
An unusual play might occur if the batter is out on strike three and the ball goes to the screen. The runner on third base runs towards home and the batter-runner (let’s say he is right handed) backs up several steps and ends up on the grass outside the dirt circle. The batter-runner then runs to first base where he beats the throw and is called safe. The defensive manager might argue that the batter-runner should be called out for abandoning his efforts to advance to first by stepping outside the dirt circle. The umpire would have to decide whether the batter-runner was abandoning his effort to advance to first or was he trying to clear out of the home plate area to allow the play at home to happen. NOTE: If the batter does not clear the area for a play at the plate, he could be called out for offensive interference.
High School (NFHS) rules, gives more leeway to the batter-runner. The batter has until he enters the dugout to run to first base. Once the batter steps into the bench or dugout area he is declared out (NFHS 8-4-1i). The NFHS rules also address when this rule happens with two outs. In this case, the batter-runner has until all defensive players leave fair territory to try for first base. | <urn:uuid:b4b24f08-5383-49cd-b083-5e30ad115ebb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://baseballrulesacademy.com/rule-week-batter-abandonment/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573699.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819131019-20220819161019-00270.warc.gz | en | 0.966995 | 543 | 2.421875 | 2 |
Chinese railway carried a record of 196 million passengers during the Spring Festival travel season, an increase of 11.8 percent over the same period a year ago, said the Ministry of Railway here on Sunday.
Spring Festival is a traditional occasion for family reunion, particularly for millions of China's migrant workers, who take up the dirtiest and cheapest jobs in cities and leave their families behind in the countryside.
The travel season, or Chunyun during the Chinese Lunar New Year, is an annual test to China's transportation system. This year, Chunyun lasted 45 days and the traffic peak hit more than five million passengers.
During the Chunyun, the Chinese railway network was challenged by unprecedented snow havoc, said the ministry.
For example, the ministry transported some 3.5 million stayed passengers in ten days in Guangzhou, capital of China's southern Guangdong province.
China was hit by the worst snow and sleet havoc in 50 years during the Chunyun, which cut off traffic and caused millions to stay in the railway stations. | <urn:uuid:91831baa-260b-4b42-9269-6e44faa41096> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://en.people.cn/90001/90776/90882/6364436.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570921.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809094531-20220809124531-00271.warc.gz | en | 0.95317 | 224 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Oliver Latham and Celine Kart discuss guidance given on the use of participation directions in family proceedings from the recent cases of Re S and Re M Park Square Barristers
Participation Directions and Lessons from the Higher Courts: Re S (Vulnerable Party: Fairness of Proceedings) and Re M (A Child)
The High Court (Family Division) and Court of Appeal (Civil Division) have ruled on two important decisions regarding the use of participation directions (special measures) in family proceedings. Oliver Latham, barrister, and Celine Kart, pupil barrister, discuss.
S (Vulnerable Party: Fairness Of Proceedings) EWCA Civ 8
(18 January 2022)
The Court determined that a failure to identify A’s cognitive difficulties and to make appropriate participation directions to ensure that ‘the quality of her evidence had not been diminished as a result of vulnerability amounted to a serious procedural irregularity’ [§44] and that, as a result, the outcome of the hearing had been unjust.
The Appeal arose from a fact-finding hearing in care proceedings involving S, a girl aged 6-and-a-half. The case concerned injuries sustained by another child, J, aged 5-and-a-half, who was not a subject to the proceedings. At the conclusion of the hearing, HHJ Nisa found that most of J’s injuries had been sustained accidentally but some had been inflicted by J’s mother, A, who had been joined as an intervenor to the proceedings concerning S. A appealed against the findings made against her.
A appealed on six grounds, including that her cognitive issues had not been considered by the Judge and adjustments had not been made to ensure her fair participation in the trial.
A’s solicitors then filed an application for permission to amend the Grounds of Appeal by adding a new ground based on procedural irregularity/unfairness:
“The appellant has cognitive difficulties which were unidentified. Dr Josling [a forensic psychologist] has assessed that the appellant may be assisted by an intermediary and an appointment with Communicourt for assessment is due to take place on 18 November 2021. The court made findings against the appellant in proceedings where the appellant’s cognitive issues were not considered or adjustments made to ensure her fair participation. The findings are therefore unsafe.” [§22]
Permission was sought to file a redacted cognitive and psychological assessment of A and an intermediary assessment from Communicourt once that became available, together with an amended skeleton argument. These various applications were listed for determination at the hearing of the Appeal.
A attended an assessment meeting with an intermediary employed by Communicourt the day before the Appeal. An email was received by A’s solicitors from Communicourt recommending an intermediary for A, noting her difficulties with:
- processing long sentences
- understanding court specific terminology
- understanding and responding to complex grammatical structures
- understanding complex vocabulary
- processing simple verbal information
- remembering key dates, and often gets the detailed confused. [§25]
The Court granted permission to the Appellant to amend her Grounds of Appeal and to adduce evidence relating to her cognitive difficulties, and allowed the Appeal without considering the remaining Grounds of Appeal for which permission had already been granted. The case was remitted to the Family Division to decide whether there should be a rehearing of the fact-finding hearing as to the cause of the appellant’s son’s injuries and, if so, to allocate the proceedings and the hearings as the Judge saw fit.
The Court allowed the Appeal. Baker LJ explicitly stated how the ‘courts and tribunals across the English and Welsh legal system have recognised the need to make due provision for vulnerable persons to participate in proceedings.’ [§30]
In considering its decision, the court gave consideration to Part 3A of the Family Procedure Rules, ‘Vulnerable Persons: Participation in Proceedings and Giving Evidence’, introduced in 2017 and supplemented by Practice Direction 3AA (PD3AA). And in particular noted that ‘These comprehensive provisions are of fundamental importance to the administration of family justice.’ [§38] The significance of fair and proper participation in proceedings was further emphasised at [§39].
At [§41], referencing King LJ in Re N (A Child) EWCA Civ 1997, the Court considered in its judgment the weight to be placed on the FPR and PDs:
“Part 3A and its accompanying Practice Direction provide a specific structure designed to give effective access to the court, and to ensure a fair trial for those people who fall into the category of vulnerable witness. A wholesale failure to apply the Part 3 procedure to a vulnerable witness must, in my mind, make it highly likely that the resulting trial will be judged to have been unfair.” [§53]
The Court warned that ‘It does not follow, however, that a failure to comply with these provisions, whether through oversight or inadvertence, will invariably lead to a successful appeal.’ [§42]. The Court specifically noted that, had A’s vulnerability been identified, a Ground Rules Hearing would have occurred. The question on Appeal would be: 1) whether there had been a serious procedural or other irregularity and, 2) if so, whether as a result the decision was unjust [§42].
The Court held, allowing the Appeal, that the failure to identify A’s cognitive difficulties and to make appropriate participation directions to ensure that ‘the quality of her evidence had not been diminished as a result of vulnerability amounted to a serious procedural irregularity’ [§44] and that, as a result, the outcome of the hearing had been unjust. The case was remitted to the Family Division to decide whether there should be a rehearing of the fact-finding hearing.
M (A Child) EWHC 3225 (Fam)
(01 December 2021)
This case represents the first opportunity for the Family Court to consider the implications of the new vulnerability provisions for victims (and notably also alleged victims) of domestic abuse, now given a statutory footing by virtue of section 63 of Domestic Abuse Act 2021 (as reflected in Practice Direction 3A.2A). The duty to consider this provision applies to all advocates, regardless of who they are representing, and a failure to do so is likely to be good grounds for a successful appeal. The Court reiterates the need to list a separate Ground Rules hearing before any trial, to allow submissions to be made on relevant special measures.
Background to the case
The case concerned allegations of rape and domestic abuse in the context of private law proceedings. The parents met during the course of the mother’s employment as a “cam girl”, providing sexual services via the internet. There was a large amount of video footage relied on which showed intimate and explicit aspects of the parent’s sexual relationship. The issue of vulnerability was not raised, nor was the need for a Ground Rules Hearing raised by counsel. The requirement for parents to attend Court on different days was due to Covid-19 rather than being a special measure arising from vulnerabilities .
Grounds of appeal
These were twofold: firstly, that the court had failed to properly consider and apply the provisions of Practice Direction 3AA (vulnerability) and Rule 3A. This was, in effect, a procedural irregularity argument. The second ground was more substantive: that the judge had not properly weighed matters, taking into account the identified vulnerability of the complainant mother. For the appellant mother therefore, vulnerability carried both a procedural and substantive significance.
The appeal was successful on both grounds.
Beginning with the procedural argument, the most pertinent point here was that the vulnerability provisions are mandatory provisions, which “must” be adhered to, and the obligation to adhere to them ultimately rests with the court. The court is not excused from considering them simply because the matter is not raised by advocates, as was the case in M [§62].
The second point to note, and it is one that is echoed by the Court of Appeal in Re S that is considered above, is that the higher courts will expect a Ground Rules Hearing to be properly convened so that all parties turn their minds properly to any appropriate special measures in light of any expert or other evidence regarding an individual parties’ vulnerabilities. In considering what participation directions are required, the test in Re M was whether the quality of the evidence would be diminished [§66]. This is slightly different to the need to ensure a fair trial which was integral to the successful appeal in Re S.
The Court finished its determination on Ground 1 with a “stark reminder” that it is the obligation of all before the Court to raise vulnerability issues without delay to ensure that the need for a Ground Rules Hearing can be considered and timetabled if necessary
It is noteworthy that the decision in relation to the substantive aspect of the appeal apparently flowed from similar considerations to Ground 1: the mother’s vulnerability was not properly considered in the High Court’s view when the evidence was balanced. In particular, the possibility that the mother’s vulnerability had led to her being overdependent in her relationship with the father was not adequately analysed [§80, 81]. The fixation on issues of capacity and consent in analysing the rape charge that was also criticised [at §82] echoes in many ways the observations in the now well-known and oft cited case of Re HN EWCA Civ 448 that criminal concepts are not to be allowed to constrain or infect the more holistic enquiry into domestic abuse that is called for in children act proceedings (“abusive behaviour in the wider sense”).
This decision calls not only for a re-conceptualisation of abusive behaviour in its widest sense, a point that has already been made in Re HN, but an appreciation of vulnerability in a wider sense as well. The case signals the need for a culture shift away from a narrow conceptualisation of vulnerability, which ignores the adverse impact that litigating allegations of domestic abuse and rape has on complainants. These are not new issues and they are ones that will already be very familiar to practitioners in the Criminal Courts: the Family Court needs to keep pace. It is well documented that the stress of being cross examined on intimate aspects of one’s personal life has a potential chilling effect on the willingness of complainants of abuse to come forward, as well as the quality of their evidence as M itself acknowledges.
An interesting point to note is the submission made by counsel for the father that the High Court came close to applying a test of strict liability. The important point here is that vulnerability takes many forms and the reactions of those who are abused (or allege abuse) cannot be fitted into a straitjacket in which their reactions to the court process are used to judge whether or not the process has been unfair to them or not. That is of course not how procedural fairness works.
Postscript: Practice Direction PD3A.2A
This article finishes with a few words regarding the new procedural rules now in place. Whilst Practice Direction 3AA that was applied by the court in Re M is mandatory in nature, the terms of the new PD3A.2A are slightly different, reflecting as they do the language of section 63 of the 2021 Act.
The new provisions establish a starting point, or “assumption” that those who are at risk of, or who have suffered, domestic abuse from a party, a relative of a party or a witness in the proceedings require participation directions in order to ensure the quality of their evidence and/or their participation is not diminished. That assumption can effectively be waived by the victim, which must be right as otherwise the court would be invited to make assumptions about the victims own vulnerability without them having the opportunity to explain their own personal impact.
What do these cases mean for the future use of participation directions within the Family Division?
The decision in Re M signals a need for a cultural shift at the family bar towards greater recognition of the relationship between domestic abuse allegations and vulnerability, which has now been given statutory prominence as a result of section 63 of the 2021 Act. There is no longer, if there ever was, a place for narrow conceptions of vulnerability within the family justice system.
Re S has reiterated a strong message to advocates and the judiciary: that the use of intermediaries should be freely accommodated and prioritised as a matter of fairness to both procedure and participation of parties. One can therefore infer that the increased use of intermediaries will be seen within proceedings, as a safeguard against unfairness; if nothing else. | <urn:uuid:75c754c6-0cbe-423b-868d-09e6fe8a7eec> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.parksquarebarristers.co.uk/news/oliver-latham-and-celine-kart-discuss-guidance-given-on-the-use-of-participation-directions-in-family-proceedings-from-the-recent-cases-of-re-s-2022-and-re-m-2021/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572221.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816060335-20220816090335-00078.warc.gz | en | 0.963465 | 2,661 | 1.84375 | 2 |
Federal Board, FBISE Biology 9 MCQs Tests of 2015 Past Papers are available on this page. There are two Biology papers conducted in 2015, the one is taken within Pakistan and the second paper is an overseas paper. MCQs Tests for both papers are given below. Chapter-wise MCQs Tests of Biology 9 are available HERE.
Past Paper 2015 (Local) | <urn:uuid:b295d562-ccda-4913-9649-c10eae7e2d30> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://fbisesolvedpastpapers.com/biology-9-past-papers-2015-mcqs-tests/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572212.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815205848-20220815235848-00470.warc.gz | en | 0.917887 | 82 | 1.648438 | 2 |
It was a fluke of fate that on the day best known for young trick-or-treaters toting overflowing bags of candy, more than 30 regional leaders from the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) attended a special training on how healthier food choices, increased physical activity, and reduced screen time can help children in their communities maintain a healthy weight.
This Halloween, October 31, NCNW leaders gathered at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to learn how to both present and train others on two health-education programs adapted from the We Can! curricula.
Leaders learned the ins and outs of “Energize Our NCNW Families: Parent Program” (adapted from the We Can!™ Parent Program) and “Media-Smart Youth: The Essentials,” which teaches young people ages 11 to 13 years how to analyze and understand media messages about nutrition and physical activity so that they can make healthy choices for themselves.
They also heard from NCNW Chair and President Emerita Dorothy Height, Ph.D., and NICHD Deputy Director Yvonne T. Maddox, Ph.D. about the importance of the new partnership.
“The NIH and NCNW are working together to make sure that children get the information they need to avoid overweight and its attendant risks,” said Dr. Maddox. “The NICHD has developed science-based health education programs tailored to meet NCNW’s needs, and NCNW members will deliver these programs to families who can benefit from them.”
“One in five African-American children is overweight. This has long-term health implications for these children,” said Dr. Height. “Now is the time to act. Today’s training enables our members to go back to their communities and not only deliver these programs but train others to deliver them to parents and young people to put them on the path to better health.”
The most recent National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (2003-2006), or NHANES, not only reveals that one out of five non-Hispanic black children is considered overweight—it shows that one out of three is at risk of becoming overweight.
The NCNW leaders have since dispersed across the U.S., taking their knowledge and guides with them so that they can implement We Can! programming in their communities.
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Read past issues of We Can! In Action. | <urn:uuid:4533adc2-d0e6-4b83-860d-a292d60956ac> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/educational/wecan/news/news13.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281746.82/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00280-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956306 | 627 | 2.4375 | 2 |
Farallon started off normally enough. It plunged beneath
the North American Plate at a forty-five degree angle. This process sprouted
volcanoes to form the Sierra Nevada in what is now California. Next, mantle
motions pulled North America westward over Farallon, and the plate scraped
along the bottom of the continent - for fifteen hundred kilometers. As North
America continued its westward trek, Farallon settled to the bottom of the
mantle. Crust that had accumulated above the sinking plate then bobbed up
like a cork to form the Rocky Mountains.
the Rockies are fifteen hundred kilometers, or one
thousand miles, to the east. The cause must be the tectonic plate that built
these mountains. Its name is Farallon. Farallon was one of several oceanic
plates that plunged beneath western North America and then sank into the
mantle. This sinking dramatically affected the surface geology.
GCMD keywords can be found on the Internet with the following citation:
Olsen, L.M., G. Major, K. Shein, J. Scialdone, S. Ritz, T. Stevens, M. Morahan, A. Aleman, R. Vogel, S. Leicester, H. Weir, M. Meaux, S. Grebas, C.Solomon, M. Holland, T. Northcutt, R. A. Restrepo, R. Bilodeau, 2013. NASA/Global Change Master Directory (GCMD) Earth Science Keywords. Version 184.108.40.206.0 | <urn:uuid:44df417f-33d9-4f58-a36e-bee521f7003d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a001300/a001322/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572033.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814113403-20220814143403-00275.warc.gz | en | 0.859365 | 336 | 4.21875 | 4 |
5.3 - Hess' law
5.3.1: Determine the enthalpy change of a reaction that is the sum of two or three reactions with known enthalpy changes. Students should be able to construct simple enthalpy cycles and enthalpy level diagrams and to manipulate equations. Students will not be required to state Hess' law.
This topic is best addressed using examples
Monoclinic sulphur is formed in volcanic regions by reaction between sulphur dioxide and hydrogen sulphide according to the equation:
SO2 + 2H2S --> 2H2O + 3S
Draw an enthalpy diagram or cycle and calculate the standard enthalpy change for this reaction.
Here are some values.
Standard enthalpy of formation (all in kJ)
- H2O(l) -286
- H2S(g) - 20.2
Standard enthalpy of combustion of S (monoclinic) = -297.2kJ
equation 2: H2 + S --> H2S -20.2
equation 3: S + O2 --> SO2 -297.2
multiply E2 by 2
2H2 + 22 --> 2H2S -40.4
equation 4: 2H2 + 3S + O2 --> SO2 + 2H2S -337.6
multiply E1 by 2
equation 5: 2H2 + O2 --> 2H2O -572 kJ
subtract 4 from 5
- 3S ---> 2H2O - SO2 - 2H2S -234.4 kJ
SO2 + 2H2S --> 2H2O + 3S -234.4 kJ
Calculate the enthalpy change in the reaction:
2KHCO3 (s) --------> K2CO3 (s) + CO2 (g) + H2O (l)
Hess' law by manipulation of the equations...
2KHCO3 --> K2CO3 + CO2 + H2O
2K + H2 + 2C + 3O2 --> 2KHCO3 ΔH = 2(-959) = -1918
2K + C + 3/2O2 --> K2CO3 ΔH = -1146
H2 + C + 3/2O2 --> 2KHCO3 - K2CO3 ΔH = -772
H2 + 1/2O2 ---> H2O ΔH = -286
C + O2 --> 2KHCO3 - K2CO3 - H20 ΔH = -486
C + O2 --> CO2 ΔH = -394
ZERO ---> 2KHCO3 - K2CO3 - H20 -CO2 ΔH = -92
K2CO3 + H20 + CO2 --> 2KHCO3 ΔH = -92
2KHCO3 --> K2CO3 + H20 + CO2 ΔH = +92
This makes the enthalpy change
ΔH = sum ΔHf (Products) - sumΔHf (Reactants)
note that we use the actual values of the sum ΔHf (Products) and the negative of the sumΔHf (Reactants)
does that make it clearer?
you can think of any reactant as having to be broken down into its elements which then must be reformed as the products...
Hence sum of the ΔHf of the left hand side (reactants) but with the opposite sign (because they're being broken up)
Then they are reformed into the products --> hence sum of the ΔHf of the products but with the correct sign this time
Simply add up the two sets of enthalpy sums to give you the reaction enthalpy
- sum ΔHf (Reactants) + sum ΔHf (Products) = Reaction enthalpy
of course the books usually just state the rearranged form
Reaction enthalpy = sum ΔHf (Products) - sum ΔHf (Reactants)
Which does not particularly help in the understanding of WHY this is the case...
Don't worry about the exam just remember that you have to break the reactants down to the elements in the first stage (sum the enthalpies of formation and change sign)and then build them back up to the products in the second stage (sum the enthalpies of formation)
Then add it all up!
Bond breaking = endothermic as you would expect
I made a mistake when I did the original calculation and got an exothermic value. I knew that it could not be the answer as simple inspection tells me that it is a decomposition and is overwhelmingly likely to be endothermic.
Always useful to consider the likelihood of ANY answer. | <urn:uuid:d3483b72-e6a4-48fe-ab13-1b21a162eff0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.ibchem.com/IB/ibnotes/full/ene_htm/5.3.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284405.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00041-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.833448 | 1,039 | 4.03125 | 4 |
BEIJING, Dec. 8 (Xinhua) -- China's central authorities on Sunday published a regulation that explicitly ruled out dishes containing shark fins, bird nests and wild animal products in official reception dinners.
The document, jointly issued by the general offices of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the State Council, is to regulate the use of public funding on receptions by local authorities to receive visiting Party or governmental officials.
Shark fins, bird nests and products of rare wild animals are popular materials in luxury dinners in China.
The regulation said cigarettes and up-market liquors are not allowed to be served at official dinners.
Moreover, officials below provincial level should not live in suite rooms on their business trips, it said.
Local hosts are also banned from giving cash, negotiable securities, souvenirs or local products as gifts for the officials.
According to the document, the new rules are to promote frugality, oppose extravagance and enhance the anti-corruption efforts among Party and governmental authorities.
China barks down on illegal dog breeding
BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhuanet) -- China is mulling a ban of sales of illegally-bred dogs to tighten regulations on the dog market, according to insiders.
Only certificated dog centers will be allowed to breed puppies, said Wang Wu, deputy director of China Animal Agriculture Association National Kennel Club, an official organization for dog aficionados. Full story | <urn:uuid:8d3d077b-3b9c-4e7a-9c1f-08a1beef42f9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-12/08/c_132951276.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279933.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00124-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926199 | 301 | 1.632813 | 2 |
There is an ongoing search for alternative animal models in research of respiratory medicine. Depending on the goal of the research, large animals as models of pulmonary disease often resemble the situation of the human lung much better than mice do. Working with large animals also offers the opportunity to sample the same animal repeatedly over a certain course of time, which allows long-term studies without sacrificing the animals.
The aim was to establish in vivo sampling methods for the use in a bovine model of a respiratory Chlamydia psittaci infection. Sampling should be performed at various time points in each animal during the study, and the samples should be suitable to study the host response, as well as the pathogen under experimental conditions.
Bronchoscopy is a valuable diagnostic tool in human and veterinary medicine. It is a safe and minimally invasive procedure. This article describes the intrabronchial inoculation of calves as well as sampling methods for the lower respiratory tract. Videoendoscopic, intrabronchial inoculation leads to very consistent clinical and pathological findings in all inoculated animals and is, therefore, well-suited for use in models of infectious lung disease. The sampling methods described are bronchoalveolar lavage, bronchial brushing and transbronchial lung biopsy. All of these are valuable diagnostic tools in human medicine and could be adapted for experimental purposes to calves aged 6-8 weeks. The samples obtained were suitable for both pathogen detection and characterization of the severity of lung inflammation in the host.
23 Related JoVE Articles!
Analysis of Pulmonary Dendritic Cell Maturation and Migration during Allergic Airway Inflammation
Institutions: McMaster University, Hamilton, University of Toronto.
Dendritic cells (DCs) are the key players involved in initiation of adaptive immune response by activating antigen-specific T cells. DCs are present in peripheral tissues in steady state; however in response to antigen stimulation, DCs take up the antigen and rapidly migrate to the draining lymph nodes where they initiate T cell response against the antigen1,2
. Additionally, DCs also play a key role in initiating autoimmune as well as allergic immune response3
DCs play an essential role in both initiation of immune response and induction of tolerance in the setting of lung environment4
. Lung environment is largely tolerogenic, owing to the exposure to vast array of environmental antigens5
. However, in some individuals there is a break in tolerance, which leads to induction of allergy and asthma. In this study, we describe a strategy, which can be used to monitor airway DC maturation and migration in response to the antigen used for sensitization. The measurement of airway DC maturation and migration allows for assessment of the kinetics of immune response during airway allergic inflammation and also assists in understanding the magnitude of the subsequent immune response along with the underlying mechanisms.
Our strategy is based on the use of ovalbumin as a sensitizing agent. Ovalbumin-induced allergic asthma is a widely used model to reproduce the airway eosinophilia, pulmonary inflammation and elevated IgE levels found during asthma6,7
. After sensitization, mice are challenged by intranasal delivery of FITC labeled ovalbumin, which allows for specific labeling of airway DCs which uptake ovalbumin. Next, using several DC specific markers, we can assess the maturation of these DCs and can also assess their migration to the draining lymph nodes by employing flow cytometry.
Immunology, Issue 65, Medicine, Physiology, Dendritic Cells, allergic airway inflammation, ovalbumin, lymph nodes, lungs, dendritic cell maturation, dendritic cell migration, mediastinal lymph nodes
Murine Model of Allergen Induced Asthma
Institutions: Emory University and Atlanta VA Medical Center.
Asthma is a major cause of morbidity and mortality, affecting some 300 million people throughout the world.1
More than 8% of the US population has asthma, with the prevalence increasing.2
As with other diseases, animal models of allergic airway disease greatly facilitate understanding of the underlying pathophysiology, help identify potential therapeutic targets, and allow preclinical testing of possible new therapies. Models of allergic airway disease have been developed in several animal species, but murine models are particularly attractive due to the low cost, ready availability, and well-characterized immune systems of these animals.3
Availability of a variety of transgenic strains further increases the attractiveness of these models.4
Here we describe two murine models of allergic airway disease, both employing ovalbumin as the antigen. Following initial sensitization by intraperitoneal injection, one model delivers the antigen challenge by nebulization, the other by intratracheal delivery. These two models offer complementary advantages, with each mimicking the major features of human asthma.5
The major features of acute asthma include an exaggerated airway response to stimuli such as methacholine (airway hyperresponsiveness; AHR) and eosinophil-rich airway inflammation. These are also prominent effects of allergen challenge in our murine models,5,6
and we describe techniques for measuring them and thus evaluating the effects of experimental manipulation. Specifically, we describe both invasive7
techniques for measuring airway hyperresponsiveness as well as methods for assessing infiltration of inflammatory cells into the airways and the lung. Airway inflammatory cells are collected by bronchoalveolar lavage while lung histopathology is used to assess markers of inflammation throughout the organ. These techniques provide powerful tools for studying asthma in ways that would not be possible in humans.
Immunology, Issue 63, Allergy, airway hyperresponsiveness, pulmonary function, eosinophil, ovalbumin, methacholine, airway resistance, plethysmography, flexiVent, bronchoalveolar lavage, physiology
Bronchial Thermoplasty: A Novel Therapeutic Approach to Severe Asthma
Institutions: Virginia Hospital Center, Virginia Hospital Center.
Bronchial thermoplasty is a non-drug procedure for severe persistent asthma that delivers thermal energy to the airway wall in a precisely controlled manner to reduce excessive airway smooth muscle. Reducing airway smooth muscle decreases the ability of the airways to constrict, thereby reducing the frequency of asthma attacks. Bronchial thermoplasty is delivered by the Alair System and is performed in three outpatient procedure visits, each scheduled approximately three weeks apart. The first procedure treats the airways of the right lower lobe, the second treats the airways of the left lower lobe and the third and final procedure treats the airways in both upper lobes. After all three procedures are performed the bronchial thermoplasty treatment is complete.
Bronchial thermoplasty is performed during bronchoscopy with the patient under moderate sedation. All accessible airways distal to the mainstem bronchi between 3 and 10 mm in diameter, with the exception of the right middle lobe, are treated under bronchoscopic visualization. Contiguous and non-overlapping activations of the device are used, moving from distal to proximal along the length of the airway, and systematically from airway to airway as described previously. Although conceptually straightforward, the actual execution of bronchial thermoplasty is quite intricate and procedural duration for the treatment of a single lobe is often substantially longer than encountered during routine bronchoscopy. As such, bronchial thermoplasty should be considered a complex interventional bronchoscopy and is intended for the experienced bronchoscopist. Optimal patient management is critical in any such complex and longer duration bronchoscopic procedure. This article discusses the importance of careful patient selection, patient preparation, patient management, procedure duration, postoperative care and follow-up to ensure that bronchial thermoplasty is performed safely.
Bronchial thermoplasty is expected to complement asthma maintenance medications by providing long-lasting asthma control and improving asthma-related quality of life of patients with severe asthma. In addition, bronchial thermoplasty has been demonstrated to reduce severe exacerbations (asthma attacks) emergency rooms visits for respiratory symptoms, and time lost from work, school and other daily activities due to asthma.
Medicine, Issue 45, bronchial thermoplasty, severe asthma, airway smooth muscle, bronchoscopy, radiofrequency energy, patient management, moderate sedation
Bronchoalveolar Lavage (BAL) for Research; Obtaining Adequate Sample Yield
Institutions: National Institute for Health Research, Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital Trust, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, University of Liverpool, Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital Trust, University Hospital Aintree.
We describe a research technique for fiberoptic bronchoscopy with bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) using manual hand held suction in order to remove nonadherent cells and lung lining fluid from the mucosal surface. In research environments, BAL allows sampling of innate (lung macrophage), cellular (B- and T- cells), and humoral (immunoglobulin) responses within the lung.
BAL is internationally accepted for research purposes and since 1999 the technique has been performed in > 1,000 subjects in the UK and Malawi by our group.
Our technique uses gentle hand-held suction of instilled fluid; this is designed to maximize BAL volume returned and apply minimum shear force on ciliated epithelia in order to preserve the structure and function of cells within the BAL fluid and to preserve viability to facilitate the growth of cells in ex vivo
culture. The research technique therefore uses a larger volume instillate (typically in the order of 200 ml) and employs manual suction to reduce cell damage.
Patients are given local anesthetic, offered conscious sedation (midazolam), and tolerate the procedure well with minimal side effects. Verbal and written subject information improves tolerance and written informed consent is mandatory. Safety of the subject is paramount. Subjects are carefully selected using clear inclusion and exclusion criteria.
This protocol includes a description of the potential risks, and the steps taken to mitigate them, a list of contraindications, pre- and post-procedure checks, as well as precise bronchoscopy and laboratory techniques.
Medicine, Issue 85, Research bronchoscopy, bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL), fiberoptic bronchoscopy, lymphocyte, macrophage
Culturing of Human Nasal Epithelial Cells at the Air Liquid Interface
Institutions: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
models using human primary epithelial cells are essential in understanding key functions of the respiratory epithelium in the context of microbial infections or inhaled agents. Direct comparisons of cells obtained from diseased populations allow us to characterize different phenotypes and dissect the underlying mechanisms mediating changes in epithelial cell function. Culturing epithelial cells from the human tracheobronchial region has been well documented, but is limited by the availability of human lung tissue or invasiveness associated with obtaining the bronchial brushes biopsies. Nasal epithelial cells are obtained through much less invasive superficial nasal scrape biopsies and subjects can be biopsied multiple times with no significant side effects. Additionally, the nose is the entry point to the respiratory system and therefore one of the first sites to be exposed to any kind of air-borne stressor, such as microbial agents, pollutants, or allergens.
Briefly, nasal epithelial cells obtained from human volunteers are expanded on coated tissue culture plates, and then transferred onto cell culture inserts. Upon reaching confluency, cells continue to be cultured at the air-liquid interface (ALI), for several weeks, which creates more physiologically relevant conditions. The ALI culture condition uses defined media leading to a differentiated epithelium that exhibits morphological and functional characteristics similar to the human nasal epithelium, with both ciliated and mucus producing cells. Tissue culture inserts with differentiated nasal epithelial cells can be manipulated in a variety of ways depending on the research questions (treatment with pharmacological agents, transduction with lentiviral vectors, exposure to gases, or infection with microbial agents) and analyzed for numerous different endpoints ranging from cellular and molecular pathways, functional changes, morphology, etc.
models of differentiated human nasal epithelial cells will enable investigators to address novel and important research questions by using organotypic experimental models that largely mimic the nasal epithelium in vivo
Cellular Biology, Issue 80, Epithelium, Cell culture models, ciliated, air pollution, co-culture models, nasal epithelium
Assessing Anti-fungal Activity of Isolated Alveolar Macrophages by Confocal Microscopy
Institutions: Roswell Park Cancer Institute, University of Buffalo.
The lung is an interface where host cells are routinely exposed to microbes and microbial products. Alveolar macrophages are the first-line phagocytic cells that encounter inhaled fungi and other microbes. Macrophages and other immune cells recognize Aspergillus
motifs by pathogen recognition receptors and initiate downstream inflammatory responses. The phagocyte NADPH oxidase generates reactive oxygen intermediates (ROIs) and is critical for host defense. Although NADPH oxidase is critical for neutrophil-mediated host defense1-3
, the importance of NADPH oxidase in macrophages is not well defined. The goal of this study was to delineate the specific role of NADPH oxidase in macrophages in mediating host defense against A. fumigatus
. We found that NADPH oxidase in alveolar macrophages controls the growth of phagocytosed A. fumigatus
. Here, we describe a method for assessing the ability of mouse alveolar macrophages (AMs) to control the growth of phagocytosed Aspergillus
spores (conidia). Alveolar macrophages are stained in vivo
and ten days later isolated from mice by bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL). Macrophages are plated onto glass coverslips, then seeded with green fluorescent protein (GFP)-expressing A. fumigatus
spores. At specified times, cells are fixed and the number of intact macrophages with phagocytosed spores is assessed by confocal microscopy.
Immunology, Issue 89, macrophage, bronchoalveolar lavage, Aspergillus, confocal microscopy, phagocytosis, anti-fungal activity, NADPH oxidase
Diagnosing Pulmonary Tuberculosis with the Xpert MTB/RIF Test
Institutions: University of Bern, MCL Laboratories Inc..
Tuberculosis (TB) due to Mycobacterium tuberculosis
(MTB) remains a major public health issue: the infection affects up to one third of the world population1
, and almost two million people are killed by TB each year.2
Universal access to high-quality, patient-centered treatment for all TB patients is emphasized by WHO's Stop TB Strategy.3
The rapid detection of MTB in respiratory specimens and drug therapy based on reliable drug resistance testing results are a prerequisite for the successful implementation of this strategy. However, in many areas of the world, TB diagnosis still relies on insensitive, poorly standardized sputum microscopy methods. Ineffective TB detection and the emergence and transmission of drug-resistant MTB strains increasingly jeopardize global TB control activities.2
Effective diagnosis of pulmonary TB requires the availability - on a global scale - of standardized, easy-to-use, and robust diagnostic tools that would allow the direct detection of both the MTB complex and resistance to key antibiotics, such as rifampicin (RIF). The latter result can serve as marker for multidrug-resistant MTB (MDR TB) and has been reported in > 95% of the MDR-TB isolates.4, 5
The rapid availability of reliable test results is likely to directly translate into sound patient management decisions that, ultimately, will cure the individual patient and break the chain of TB transmission in the community.2
Cepheid's (Sunnyvale, CA, U.S.A.) Xpert MTB/RIF assay6, 7
meets the demands outlined above in a remarkable manner. It is a nucleic-acids amplification test for 1) the detection of MTB complex DNA in sputum or concentrated sputum sediments; and 2) the detection of RIF resistance-associated mutations of the rpoB
It is designed for use with Cepheid's GeneXpert Dx System that integrates and automates sample processing, nucleic acid amplification, and detection of the target sequences using real-time PCR and reverse transcriptase PCR. The system consists of an instrument, personal computer, barcode scanner, and preloaded software for running tests and viewing the results.9
It employs single-use disposable Xpert MTB/RIF cartridges that hold PCR reagents and host the PCR process. Because the cartridges are self-contained, cross-contamination between samples is eliminated.6
Current nucleic acid amplification methods used to detect MTB are complex, labor-intensive, and technically demanding. The Xpert MTB/RIF assay has the potential to bring standardized, sensitive and very specific diagnostic testing for both TB and drug resistance to universal-access point-of-care settings3
, provided that they will be able to afford it. In order to facilitate access, the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) has negotiated significant price reductions. Current FIND-negotiated prices, along with the list of countries eligible for the discounts, are available on the web.10
Immunology, Issue 62, tuberculosis, drug resistance, rifampicin, rapid diagnosis, Xpert MTB/RIF test
Collection, Isolation, and Flow Cytometric Analysis of Human Endocervical Samples
Institutions: University of Manitoba, University of Manitoba.
Despite the public health importance of mucosal pathogens (including HIV), relatively little is known about mucosal immunity, particularly at the female genital tract (FGT). Because heterosexual transmission now represents the dominant mechanism of HIV transmission, and given the continual spread of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), it is critical to understand the interplay between host and pathogen at the genital mucosa. The substantial gaps in knowledge around FGT immunity are partially due to the difficulty in successfully collecting and processing mucosal samples. In order to facilitate studies with sufficient sample size, collection techniques must be minimally invasive and efficient. To this end, a protocol for the collection of cervical cytobrush samples and subsequent isolation of cervical mononuclear cells (CMC) has been optimized. Using ex vivo
flow cytometry-based immunophenotyping, it is possible to accurately and reliably quantify CMC lymphocyte/monocyte population frequencies and phenotypes. This technique can be coupled with the collection of cervical-vaginal lavage (CVL), which contains soluble immune mediators including cytokines, chemokines and anti-proteases, all of which can be used to determine the anti- or pro-inflammatory environment in the vagina.
Medicine, Issue 89, mucosal, immunology, FGT, lavage, cervical, CMC
Primary Human Bronchial Epithelial Cells Grown from Explants
Institutions: McMaster University.
Human bronchial epithelial cells are needed for cell models of disease and to investigate the effect of excipients and pharmacologic agents on the function and structure of human epithelial cells. Here we describe in detail the method of growing bronchial epithelial cells from bronchial airway tissue that is harvested by the surgeon at the times of lung surgery (e.g. lung cancer or lung volume reduction surgery). With ethics approval and informed consent, the surgeon takes what is needed for pathology and provides us with a bronchial portion that is remote from the diseased areas. The tissue is then used as a source of explants that can be used for growing primary bronchial epithelial cells in culture. Bronchial segments about 0.5-1cm long and ≤1cm in diameter are rinsed with cold EBSS and excess parenchymal tissue is removed. Segments are cut open and minced into 2-3mm3
pieces of tissue. The pieces are used as a source of primary cells. After coating 100mm culture plates for 1-2 hr with a combination of collagen (30 μg/ml), fibronectin (10 μg/ml), and BSA (10 μg/ml), the plates are scratched in 4-5 areas and tissue pieces are placed in the scratched areas, then culture medium (DMEM/Ham F-12 with additives) suitable for epithelial cell growth is added and plates are placed in an incubator at 37°C in 5% CO2
humidified air. The culture medium is changed every 3-4 days. The epithelial cells grow from the pieces forming about 1.5 cm diameter rings in 3-4 weeks. Explants can be re-used up to 6 times by moving them into new pre-coated plates. Cells are lifted using trypsin/EDTA, pooled, counted, and re-plated in T75 Cell Bind flasks to increase their numbers. T75 flasks seeded with 2-3 million cells grow to 80% confluence in 4 weeks. Expanded primary human epithelial cells can be cultured and allowed to differentiate on air-liquid interface. Methods described here provide an abundant source of human bronchial epithelial cells from freshly isolated tissues and allow for studying these cells as models of disease and for pharmacology and toxicology screening.
Medicine, Issue 37, Human bronchus, epithelium, primary culture, permeable support, cilia
Protein Transfection of Mouse Lung
Institutions: St. Luke's Roosevelt Medical Center.
Increasing protein expression enables researchers to better understand the functional role of that protein in regulating key biological processes1
. In the lung, this has been achieved typically through genetic approaches that utilize transgenic mice2,3
or viral or non-viral vectors that elevate protein levels via increased gene expression4
. Transgenic mice are costly and time-consuming to generate and the random insertion of a transgene or chronic gene expression can alter normal lung development and thus limit the utility of the model5
. While conditional transgenics avert problems associated with chronic gene expression6
, the reverse tetracycline-controlled transactivator (rtTA) mice, which are used to generate conditional expression, develop spontaneous air space enlargement7
. As with transgenics, the use of viral and non-viral vectors is expensive8
and can provoke dose-dependent inflammatory responses that confound results9
and hinder expression10
. Moreover, the efficacy of repeated doses are limited by enhanced immune responses to the vector11,12
. Researchers are developing adeno-associated viral (AAV) vectors that provoke less inflammation and have longer expression within the lung13
Using β-galactosidase, we present a method for rapidly and effectively increasing protein expression within the lung using a direct protein transfection technique. This protocol mixes a fixed amount of purified protein with 20 μl of a lipid-based transfection reagent (Pro-Ject, Pierce Bio) to allow penetration into the lung tissue itself. The liposomal protein mixture is then injected into the lungs of the mice via the trachea using a microsprayer (Penn Century, Philadelphia, PA). The microsprayer generates a fine plume of liquid aerosol throughout the lungs. Using the technique we have demonstrated uniform deposition of the injected protein throughout the airways and the alveoli of mice14
. The lipid transfection technique allows the use of a small amount of protein to achieve effect. This limits the inflammatory response that otherwise would be provoked by high protein administration. Indeed, using this technique we published that we were able to significantly increase PP2A activity in the lung without affecting lung lavage cellularity15
. Lung lavage cellularity taken 24 hr after challenge was comparable to controls (27±4 control vs. 31±5 albumin transfected; N=6 per group). Moreover, it increases protein levels without inducing lung developmental changes or architectural changes that can occur in transgenic models. However, the need for repeated administrations may make this technique less favorable for studies examining the effects of long-term increases in protein expression. This would be particularly true for proteins with short half-lives.
Molecular Biology, Issue 75, Medicine, Biomedical Engineering, Bioengineering, Biochemistry, Genetics, Cellular Biology, Anatomy, Physiology, Proteins, Torso, Tissues, Cells, Animal Structures, Respiratory System, Eukaryota, Immune System Diseases, Respiratory Tract Diseases, Natural Science Disciplines, Life Sciences (General), transfection, lung, protein, mice, inflammation, animal model
Isolation of Mouse Respiratory Epithelial Cells and Exposure to Experimental Cigarette Smoke at Air Liquid Interface
Institutions: Harvard Medical School, University of Pittsburgh.
Pulmonary epithelial cells can be isolated from the respiratory tract of mice and cultured at air-liquid interface (ALI) as a model of differentiated respiratory epithelium. A protocol is described for isolating and exposing these cells to mainstream cigarette smoke (CS), in order to study epithelial cell responses to CS exposure. The protocol consists of three parts: the isolation of airway epithelial cells from mouse trachea, the culturing of these cells at air-liquid interface (ALI) as fully differentiated epithelial cells, and the delivery of calibrated mainstream CS to these cells in culture. The ALI culture system allows the culture of respiratory epithelia under conditions that more closely resemble their physiological setting than ordinary liquid culture systems. The study of molecular and lung cellular responses to CS exposure is a critical component of understanding the impact of environmental air pollution on human health. Research findings in this area may ultimately contribute towards understanding the etiology of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and other tobacco-related diseases, which represent major global health problems.
Medicine, Issue 48, Air-Liquid Interface, Cell isolation, Cigarette smoke, Epithelial cells
Using Continuous Data Tracking Technology to Study Exercise Adherence in Pulmonary Rehabilitation
Institutions: Concordia University, Concordia University, Hôpital du Sacré-Coeur de Montréal.
Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) is an important component in the management of respiratory diseases. The effectiveness of PR is dependent upon adherence to exercise training recommendations. The study of exercise adherence is thus a key step towards the optimization of PR programs. To date, mostly indirect measures, such as rates of participation, completion, and attendance, have been used to determine adherence to PR. The purpose of the present protocol is to describe how continuous data tracking technology can be used to measure adherence to a prescribed aerobic training intensity on a second-by-second basis.
In our investigations, adherence has been defined as the percent time spent within a specified target heart rate range. As such, using a combination of hardware and software, heart rate is measured, tracked, and recorded during cycling second-by-second for each participant, for each exercise session. Using statistical software, the data is subsequently extracted and analyzed. The same protocol can be applied to determine adherence to other measures of exercise intensity, such as time spent at a specified wattage, level, or speed on the cycle ergometer. Furthermore, the hardware and software is also available to measure adherence to other modes of training, such as the treadmill, elliptical, stepper, and arm ergometer. The present protocol, therefore, has a vast applicability to directly measure adherence to aerobic exercise.
Medicine, Issue 81, Data tracking, exercise, rehabilitation, adherence, patient compliance, health behavior, user-computer interface.
The Utilization of Oropharyngeal Intratracheal PAMP Administration and Bronchoalveolar Lavage to Evaluate the Host Immune Response in Mice
Institutions: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
The host immune response to pathogens is a complex biological process. The majority of in vivo
studies classically employed to characterize host-pathogen interactions take advantage of intraperitoneal injections of select bacteria or pathogen associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) in mice. While these techniques have yielded tremendous data associated with infectious disease pathobiology, intraperitoneal injection models are not always appropriate for host-pathogen interaction studies in the lung. Utilizing an acute lung inflammation model in mice, it is possible to conduct a high resolution analysis of the host innate immune response utilizing lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Here, we describe the methods to administer LPS using nonsurgical oropharyngeal intratracheal administration, monitor clinical parameters associated with disease pathogenesis, and utilize bronchoalveolar lavage fluid to evaluate the host immune response. The techniques that are described are widely applicable for studying the host innate immune response to a diverse range of PAMPs and pathogens. Likewise, with minor modifications, these techniques can also be applied in studies evaluating allergic airway inflammation and in pharmacological applications.
Infection, Issue 86, LPS, Lipopolysaccharide, mouse, pneumonia, gram negative bacteria, inflammation, acute lung inflammation, innate immunity, host pathogen interaction, lung, respiratory disease
Detection of Invasive Pulmonary Aspergillosis in Haematological Malignancy Patients by using Lateral-flow Technology
Institutions: University of Exeter, Queen Mary University of London, St. Bartholomew's Hospital and The London NHS Trust.
Invasive pulmonary aspergillosis (IPA) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in haematological malignancy patients and hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients1
. Detection of IPA represents a formidable diagnostic challenge and, in the absence of a 'gold standard', relies on a combination of clinical data and microbiology and histopathology where feasible. Diagnosis of IPA must conform to the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Mycology Study Group (EORTC/MSG) consensus defining "proven", "probable", and "possible" invasive fungal diseases2
. Currently, no nucleic acid-based tests have been externally validated for IPA detection and so polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is not included in current EORTC/MSG diagnostic criteria.
Identification of Aspergillus
in histological sections is problematic because of similarities in hyphal morphologies with other invasive fungal pathogens3
, and proven identification requires isolation of the etiologic agent in pure culture. Culture-based approaches rely on the availability of biopsy samples, but these are not always accessible in sick patients, and do not always yield viable propagules for culture when obtained.
An important feature in the pathogenesis of Aspergillus
is angio-invasion, a trait that provides opportunities to track the fungus immunologically using tests that detect characteristic antigenic signatures molecules in serum and bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluids. This has led to the development of the Platelia enzyme immunoassay (GM-EIA) that detects Aspergillus
galactomannan and a 'pan-fungal' assay (Fungitell test) that detects the conserved fungal cell wall component (1 →3)-β-D-glucan, but not in the mucorales that lack this component in their cell walls1,4
. Issues surrounding the accuracy of these tests1,4-6
has led to the recent development of next-generation monoclonal antibody (MAb)-based assays that detect surrogate markers of infection1,5
recently described the generation of an Aspergillus
-specific MAb (JF5) using hybridoma technology and its use to develop an immuno-chromatographic lateral-flow device (LFD) for the point-of-care (POC) diagnosis of IPA. A major advantage of the LFD is its ability to detect activity since MAb JF5 binds to an extracellular glycoprotein antigen that is secreted during active growth of the fungus only5
. This is an important consideration when using fluids such as lung BAL for diagnosing IPA since Aspergillus
spores are a common component of inhaled air. The utility of the device in diagnosing IPA has been demonstrated using an animal model of infection, where the LFD displayed improved sensitivity and specificity compared to the Platelia GM and Fungitell (1 → 3)-β-D-glucan assays7
Here, we present a simple LFD procedure to detect Aspergillus
antigen in human serum and BAL fluids. Its speed and accuracy provides a novel adjunct point-of-care test for diagnosis of IPA in haematological malignancy patients.
Immunology, Issue 61, Invasive pulmonary aspergillosis, acute myeloid leukemia, bone marrow transplant, diagnosis, monoclonal antibody, lateral-flow technology
In vitro Coculture Assay to Assess Pathogen Induced Neutrophil Trans-epithelial Migration
Institutions: Harvard Medical School, MGH for Children, Massachusetts General Hospital.
Mucosal surfaces serve as protective barriers against pathogenic organisms. Innate immune responses are activated upon sensing pathogen leading to the infiltration of tissues with migrating inflammatory cells, primarily neutrophils. This process has the potential to be destructive to tissues if excessive or held in an unresolved state. Cocultured in vitro
models can be utilized to study the unique molecular mechanisms involved in pathogen induced neutrophil trans-epithelial migration. This type of model provides versatility in experimental design with opportunity for controlled manipulation of the pathogen, epithelial barrier, or neutrophil. Pathogenic infection of the apical surface of polarized epithelial monolayers grown on permeable transwell filters instigates physiologically relevant basolateral to apical trans-epithelial migration of neutrophils applied to the basolateral surface. The in vitro
model described herein demonstrates the multiple steps necessary for demonstrating neutrophil migration across a polarized lung epithelial monolayer that has been infected with pathogenic P. aeruginosa
(PAO1). Seeding and culturing of permeable transwells with human derived lung epithelial cells is described, along with isolation of neutrophils from whole human blood and culturing of PAO1 and nonpathogenic K12 E. coli
(MC1000). The emigrational process and quantitative analysis of successfully migrated neutrophils that have been mobilized in response to pathogenic infection is shown with representative data, including positive and negative controls. This in vitro
model system can be manipulated and applied to other mucosal surfaces. Inflammatory responses that involve excessive neutrophil infiltration can be destructive to host tissues and can occur in the absence of pathogenic infections. A better understanding of the molecular mechanisms that promote neutrophil trans-epithelial migration through experimental manipulation of the in vitro
coculture assay system described herein has significant potential to identify novel therapeutic targets for a range of mucosal infectious as well as inflammatory diseases.
Infection, Issue 83, Cellular Biology, Epithelium, Neutrophils, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Respiratory Tract Diseases, Neutrophils, epithelial barriers, pathogens, transmigration
Setting-up an In Vitro Model of Rat Blood-brain Barrier (BBB): A Focus on BBB Impermeability and Receptor-mediated Transport
Institutions: VECT-HORUS SAS, CNRS, NICN UMR 7259.
The blood brain barrier (BBB) specifically regulates molecular and cellular flux between the blood and the nervous tissue. Our aim was to develop and characterize a highly reproducible rat syngeneic in vitro
model of the BBB using co-cultures of primary rat brain endothelial cells (RBEC) and astrocytes to study receptors involved in transcytosis across the endothelial cell monolayer. Astrocytes were isolated by mechanical dissection following trypsin digestion and were frozen for later co-culture. RBEC were isolated from 5-week-old rat cortices. The brains were cleaned of meninges and white matter, and mechanically dissociated following enzymatic digestion. Thereafter, the tissue homogenate was centrifuged in bovine serum albumin to separate vessel fragments from nervous tissue. The vessel fragments underwent a second enzymatic digestion to free endothelial cells from their extracellular matrix. The remaining contaminating cells such as pericytes were further eliminated by plating the microvessel fragments in puromycin-containing medium. They were then passaged onto filters for co-culture with astrocytes grown on the bottom of the wells. RBEC expressed high levels of tight junction (TJ) proteins such as occludin, claudin-5 and ZO-1 with a typical localization at the cell borders. The transendothelial electrical resistance (TEER) of brain endothelial monolayers, indicating the tightness of TJs reached 300 ohm·cm2
on average. The endothelial permeability coefficients (Pe) for lucifer yellow (LY) was highly reproducible with an average of 0.26 ± 0.11 x 10-3
cm/min. Brain endothelial cells organized in monolayers expressed the efflux transporter P-glycoprotein (P-gp), showed a polarized transport of rhodamine 123, a ligand for P-gp, and showed specific transport of transferrin-Cy3 and DiILDL across the endothelial cell monolayer. In conclusion, we provide a protocol for setting up an in vitro
BBB model that is highly reproducible due to the quality assurance methods, and that is suitable for research on BBB transporters and receptors.
Medicine, Issue 88, rat brain endothelial cells (RBEC), mouse, spinal cord, tight junction (TJ), receptor-mediated transport (RMT), low density lipoprotein (LDL), LDLR, transferrin, TfR, P-glycoprotein (P-gp), transendothelial electrical resistance (TEER),
Diffusion Tensor Magnetic Resonance Imaging in the Analysis of Neurodegenerative Diseases
Institutions: University of Ulm.
Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) techniques provide information on the microstructural processes of the cerebral white matter (WM) in vivo
. The present applications are designed to investigate differences of WM involvement patterns in different brain diseases, especially neurodegenerative disorders, by use of different DTI analyses in comparison with matched controls.
DTI data analysis is performed in a variate fashion, i.e.
voxelwise comparison of regional diffusion direction-based metrics such as fractional anisotropy (FA), together with fiber tracking (FT) accompanied by tractwise fractional anisotropy statistics (TFAS) at the group level in order to identify differences in FA along WM structures, aiming at the definition of regional patterns of WM alterations at the group level. Transformation into a stereotaxic standard space is a prerequisite for group studies and requires thorough data processing to preserve directional inter-dependencies. The present applications show optimized technical approaches for this preservation of quantitative and directional information during spatial normalization in data analyses at the group level. On this basis, FT techniques can be applied to group averaged data in order to quantify metrics information as defined by FT. Additionally, application of DTI methods, i.e.
differences in FA-maps after stereotaxic alignment, in a longitudinal analysis at an individual subject basis reveal information about the progression of neurological disorders. Further quality improvement of DTI based results can be obtained during preprocessing by application of a controlled elimination of gradient directions with high noise levels.
In summary, DTI is used to define a distinct WM pathoanatomy of different brain diseases by the combination of whole brain-based and tract-based DTI analysis.
Medicine, Issue 77, Neuroscience, Neurobiology, Molecular Biology, Biomedical Engineering, Anatomy, Physiology, Neurodegenerative Diseases, nuclear magnetic resonance, NMR, MR, MRI, diffusion tensor imaging, fiber tracking, group level comparison, neurodegenerative diseases, brain, imaging, clinical techniques
Long Term Chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa Airway Infection in Mice
Institutions: San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Italian Cystic Fibrosis Research Foundation.
A mouse model of chronic airway infection is a key asset in cystic fibrosis (CF) research, although there are a number of concerns regarding the model itself. Early phases of inflammation and infection have been widely studied by using the Pseudomonas aeruginosa
agar-beads mouse model, while only few reports have focused on the long-term chronic infection in vivo
. The main challenge for long term chronic infection remains the low bacterial burden by P. aeruginosa
and the low percentage of infected mice weeks after challenge, indicating that bacterial cells are progressively cleared by the host.
This paper presents a method for obtaining efficient long-term chronic infection in mice. This method is based on the embedding of the P. aeruginosa
clinical strains in the agar-beads in vitro
, followed by intratracheal instillation in C57Bl/6NCrl mice. Bilateral lung infection is associated with several measurable read-outs including weight loss, mortality, chronic infection, and inflammatory response. The P. aeruginosa
RP73 clinical strain was preferred over the PAO1 reference laboratory strain since it resulted in a comparatively lower mortality, more severe lesions, and higher chronic infection. P. aeruginosa
colonization may persist in the lung for over three months. Murine lung pathology resembles that of CF patients with advanced chronic pulmonary disease.
This murine model most closely mimics the course of the human disease and can be used both for studies on the pathogenesis and for the evaluation of novel therapies.
Infection, Issue 85, Opportunistic Infections, Respiratory Tract Infections, Inflammation, Lung Diseases, Cystic Fibrosis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Analysis of Nephron Composition and Function in the Adult Zebrafish Kidney
Institutions: University of Notre Dame.
The zebrafish model has emerged as a relevant system to study kidney development, regeneration and disease. Both the embryonic and adult zebrafish kidneys are composed of functional units known as nephrons, which are highly conserved with other vertebrates, including mammals. Research in zebrafish has recently demonstrated that two distinctive phenomena transpire after adult nephrons incur damage: first, there is robust regeneration within existing nephrons that replaces the destroyed tubule epithelial cells; second, entirely new nephrons are produced from renal progenitors in a process known as neonephrogenesis. In contrast, humans and other mammals seem to have only a limited ability for nephron epithelial regeneration. To date, the mechanisms responsible for these kidney regeneration phenomena remain poorly understood. Since adult zebrafish kidneys undergo both nephron epithelial regeneration and neonephrogenesis, they provide an outstanding experimental paradigm to study these events. Further, there is a wide range of genetic and pharmacological tools available in the zebrafish model that can be used to delineate the cellular and molecular mechanisms that regulate renal regeneration. One essential aspect of such research is the evaluation of nephron structure and function. This protocol describes a set of labeling techniques that can be used to gauge renal composition and test nephron functionality in the adult zebrafish kidney. Thus, these methods are widely applicable to the future phenotypic characterization of adult zebrafish kidney injury paradigms, which include but are not limited to, nephrotoxicant exposure regimes or genetic methods of targeted cell death such as the nitroreductase mediated cell ablation technique. Further, these methods could be used to study genetic perturbations in adult kidney formation and could also be applied to assess renal status during chronic disease modeling.
Cellular Biology, Issue 90,
zebrafish; kidney; nephron; nephrology; renal; regeneration; proximal tubule; distal tubule; segment; mesonephros; physiology; acute kidney injury (AKI)
Systemic Injection of Neural Stem/Progenitor Cells in Mice with Chronic EAE
Institutions: University of Cambridge, UK, University of Cambridge, UK.
Neural stem/precursor cells (NPCs) are a promising stem cell source for transplantation approaches aiming at brain repair or restoration in regenerative neurology. This directive has arisen from the extensive evidence that brain repair is achieved after focal or systemic NPC transplantation in several preclinical models of neurological diseases.
These experimental data have identified the cell delivery route as one of the main hurdles of restorative stem cell therapies for brain diseases that requires urgent assessment. Intraparenchymal stem cell grafting represents a logical approach to those pathologies characterized by isolated and accessible brain lesions such as spinal cord injuries and Parkinson's disease. Unfortunately, this principle is poorly applicable to conditions characterized by a multifocal, inflammatory and disseminated (both in time and space) nature, including multiple sclerosis (MS). As such, brain targeting by systemic NPC delivery has become a low invasive and therapeutically efficacious protocol to deliver cells to the brain and spinal cord of rodents and nonhuman primates affected by experimental chronic inflammatory damage of the central nervous system (CNS).
This alternative method of cell delivery relies on the NPC pathotropism, specifically their innate capacity to (i) sense the environment via
functional cell adhesion molecules and inflammatory cytokine and chemokine receptors; (ii) cross the leaking anatomical barriers after intravenous (i.v
.) or intracerebroventricular (i.c.v.
) injection; (iii) accumulate at the level of multiple perivascular site(s) of inflammatory brain and spinal cord damage; and (i.v.
) exert remarkable tissue trophic and immune regulatory effects onto different host target cells in vivo
Here we describe the methods that we have developed for the i.v
. and i.c.v.
delivery of syngeneic NPCs in mice with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), as model of chronic CNS inflammatory demyelination, and envisage the systemic stem cell delivery as a valuable technique for the selective targeting of the inflamed brain in regenerative neurology.
Immunology, Issue 86, Somatic neural stem/precursor cells, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, multiple sclerosis, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, systemic delivery, intravenous, intracerebroventricular
Fundus Photography as a Convenient Tool to Study Microvascular Responses to Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors in Epidemiological Studies
Institutions: Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), Hasselt University, Hasselt University, Leuven University.
The microcirculation consists of blood vessels with diameters less than 150 µm. It makes up a large part of the circulatory system and plays an important role in maintaining cardiovascular health. The retina is a tissue that lines the interior of the eye and it is the only tissue that allows for a non-invasive analysis of the microvasculature. Nowadays, high-quality fundus images can be acquired using digital cameras. Retinal images can be collected in 5 min or less, even without dilatation of the pupils. This unobtrusive and fast procedure for visualizing the microcirculation is attractive to apply in epidemiological studies and to monitor cardiovascular health from early age up to old age.
Systemic diseases that affect the circulation can result in progressive morphological changes in the retinal vasculature. For example, changes in the vessel calibers of retinal arteries and veins have been associated with hypertension, atherosclerosis, and increased risk of stroke and myocardial infarction. The vessel widths are derived using image analysis software and the width of the six largest arteries and veins are summarized in the Central Retinal Arteriolar Equivalent (CRAE) and the Central Retinal Venular Equivalent (CRVE). The latter features have been shown useful to study the impact of modifiable lifestyle and environmental cardiovascular disease risk factors.
The procedures to acquire fundus images and the analysis steps to obtain CRAE and CRVE are described. Coefficients of variation of repeated measures of CRAE and CRVE are less than 2% and within-rater reliability is very high. Using a panel study, the rapid response of the retinal vessel calibers to short-term changes in particulate air pollution, a known risk factor for cardiovascular mortality and morbidity, is reported. In conclusion, retinal imaging is proposed as a convenient and instrumental tool for epidemiological studies to study microvascular responses to cardiovascular disease risk factors.
Medicine, Issue 92, retina, microvasculature, image analysis, Central Retinal Arteriolar Equivalent, Central Retinal Venular Equivalent, air pollution, particulate matter, black carbon
Multi-step Preparation Technique to Recover Multiple Metabolite Compound Classes for In-depth and Informative Metabolomic Analysis
Institutions: National Jewish Health, University of Colorado Denver.
Metabolomics is an emerging field which enables profiling of samples from living organisms in order to obtain insight into biological processes. A vital aspect of metabolomics is sample preparation whereby inconsistent techniques generate unreliable results. This technique encompasses protein precipitation, liquid-liquid extraction, and solid-phase extraction as a means of fractionating metabolites into four distinct classes. Improved enrichment of low abundance molecules with a resulting increase in sensitivity is obtained, and ultimately results in more confident identification of molecules. This technique has been applied to plasma, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, and cerebrospinal fluid samples with volumes as low as 50 µl. Samples can be used for multiple downstream applications; for example, the pellet resulting from protein precipitation can be stored for later analysis. The supernatant from that step undergoes liquid-liquid extraction using water and strong organic solvent to separate the hydrophilic and hydrophobic compounds. Once fractionated, the hydrophilic layer can be processed for later analysis or discarded if not needed. The hydrophobic fraction is further treated with a series of solvents during three solid-phase extraction steps to separate it into fatty acids, neutral lipids, and phospholipids. This allows the technician the flexibility to choose which class of compounds is preferred for analysis. It also aids in more reliable metabolite identification since some knowledge of chemical class exists.
Bioengineering, Issue 89, plasma, chemistry techniques, analytical, solid phase extraction, mass spectrometry, metabolomics, fluids and secretions, profiling, small molecules, lipids, liquid chromatography, liquid-liquid extraction, cerebrospinal fluid, bronchoalveolar lavage fluid
Collecting And Measuring Wound Exudate Biochemical Mediators In Surgical Wounds
Institutions: Stanford University School of Medicine .
We describe a methodology by which we are able to collect and measure biochemical inflammatory and nociceptive mediators at the surgical wound site. Collecting site-specific biochemical markers is important to understand the relationship between levels in serum and surgical wound, determine any associations between mediator release, pain, analgesic use and other outcomes of interest, and evaluate the effect of systemic and peripheral drug administration on surgical wound biochemistry. This methodology has been applied to healthy women undergoing elective cesarean delivery with spinal anesthesia. We have measured wound exudate and serum mediators at the same time intervals as patient's pain scores and analgesics consumption for up to 48 hours post-cesarean delivery. Using this methodology we have been able to detect various biochemical mediators including nerve growth factor (NGF), prostaglandin E2 (PG-E2) substance P, IL-1β, IL-2, IL-4, IL-6, IL-7, IL-8, IL-10, IL-12, IL-13, IL-17, TNFα, INFγ, G-CSF, GM-CSF, MCP-1 and MIP-1β. Studies applying this human surgical wound bioassay have found no correlations between wound and serum cytokine concentrations or their time-release profile (J Pain. 2008; 9(7):650-7).1
We also documented the utility of the technique to identify drug-mediated changes in wound cytokine content (Anesth Analg 2010; 111:1452-9).2
Medicine, Issue 68, Biochemistry, Anatomy, Physiology, Cytokines, Cesarean Section, Wound Healing, Wounds and Injuries, Surgical Procedures, Operative, Surgical wound, Exudate, cytokines, Substance P, Interleukin 10, Interleukin 6, Nerve growth factor, Prostaglandin E2, Cesarean, Analgesia | <urn:uuid:a51bacd9-cbfa-40b4-a3e3-103fa22ed2ae> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.jove.com/visualize/abstract/23056262/repeatability-relationship-between-potential-copd-biomarkers | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280891.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00154-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900078 | 11,274 | 2.734375 | 3 |
Q. I clear my throat a lot. Almost every day by 1 p.m., I'm slightly hoarse. It feels as if there is phlegm there, but it doesn't come up when I try to cough it out. Is there something I need to be aware of?
A. Your medical history is not detailed enough to pinpoint a cause of your problem. A physical exam could provide valuable clues, but your description and the timing of your hoarseness make me think sinusitis may be a possibility.
Sinuses are hollow, air-filled cavities in the facial bones behind the nose, eyes, cheeks and forehead. They are lined with mucus-secreting membranes and are connected to the nasal cavity by narrow channels.
Sinusitis is an inflammation of the lining of the sinuses and often occurs without the person being aware of it. For many, the symptoms are mild and are there only part of the year, but some people have symptoms that are debilitating and last much longer.
Symptoms of sinusitis may include pain and pressure in different areas of the face, depending on which sinuses are affected. Nasal discharge also is common but not always present. And so is the drip of mucus along the back of the throat, which, over time, can cause irritation and hoarseness.
Sinusitis usually causes swelling and blockage of the ducts draining the sinuses. This results in a buildup of sinus secretions. This accumulation increases pressure in the sinus cavities, which causes the pain and tenderness around the eyes and nose. The secretions also can become infected.
The two forms of sinusitis, acute (each episode lasting less than three months) and chronic (lasting three months or more), have different origins.
An allergic reaction or a bacterial infection causes most acute sinusitis. Treatment of acute sinusitis involves improving sinus drainage and stopping the infection. Reducing swelling of the mucous membranes can open the sinuses. Steam inhalation and decongestants, taken orally or in a nasal spray, also are effective.
Antibiotics are recommended for the bacterial infection. If antibiotics aren't effective, surgical drainage may be required to remove the infected material from the sinus cavities.
Recent research suggests that a fungal infection maybe the underlying cause of many cases of chronic sinusitis. The symptoms a person experiences are due to an allergic response to the fungus. As long as the fungus remains, so will the irritation and blockage.
Unfortunately, finding fungus in the mucus of the sinuses doesn't always mean the fungus is the cause of the problem. And treating fungal infections of the sinuses may require strong anti-fungal drugs or surgery.
I suggest that you seek a doctor's advice. An ear, nose and throat physician is the most appropriate specialist. However, GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disease) can cause coughing and hoarseness even when heartburn is not noticeable. The most appropriate specialist for that would be a gastroenterologist.
The benefits of surgery for macular degeneration have been increasing over the last few years. And for those with the "wet" form of the disease, a leading cause of blindness in North America, there is hope of slowing, if not stopping, the progression to blindness.
A new approach has been shown to help 75 percent of those treated for macular degeneration, and it may have fewer side effects. The procedure, called "transpupillary thermotherapy," simply heats up the blood vessels of the eye instead of burning them with a laser. For more information you may call 800-255-7188.
Write to Allen Douma in care of Tribune Media Services, 435 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 1400, Chicago, IL 60611; or contact him at DRFamily@aol.com. This column is not intended to take the place of consultation with a health-care provider. | <urn:uuid:3eda2530-734a-4b53-ab03-3b01643b28e9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2003-02-16/features/0302160451_1_sinusitis-air-filled-cavities-sinus-cavities | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00547-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941812 | 822 | 2.59375 | 3 |
‘Come One, Come all! See the Ship of the Desert,’ screamed the banner in the market. The banner showed the image of a ship and then the usual camel and date palms.
Little Abdul looked at the poster and was completely hooked. He had never seen the sea or the ocean. Seeing a ship anywhere close to home was out of the question. But it cost 50 Rupees.
Ammi will not agree to let him go. She will say, ‘It’s a waste of money.’ They had just about enough to live without going hungry. Everything else was an extravagance.
Abdul waited for Abba to come home on Friday. He ran to fetch water for Abba to drink and to wash. He queried Abba about his journey.
‘Abdul, tell me what it is?’ asked Abba. Abdul was not surprised that Abba understood. He always did. Maybe older people can read young minds. Abdul told him about the Ship of the Desert banner and the cost.
At this Abba laughed and told him, ‘There is no need to go all the way to see the Ship of the Desert. You see it every day. It’s a stupid camel which they have decorated for the tourists.’
Abdul’s hopes sunk in the desert.
This post is written for Flash Friday Fiction Vol3 – 12 for the picture prompt above. And had to include a conflict – man v/s nature. | <urn:uuid:02f9b001-ecd9-49f8-a61c-97c2c6837c0e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://kaapitimes.com/2015/03/ship-of-the-desert-flashfridayfic-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281574.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00018-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980185 | 318 | 2.0625 | 2 |
An architect crafts an off-the-grid cabin as a gift to his father.
The father of architect Greg Dutton wished to build a cabin on the family farm, located within Appalachian Ohio and home to 400 heads of cattle. Dutton, of Pittsburgh and Columbus, Ohio-based Midland Architecture, presented this design as his father’s birthday present in 2012. Finished in 2014, the 900-square-foot cabin overlooks a valley and a 13-acre lake. It serves as a weekend house and guest residence. During the cabin’s construction it became clear that connecting it to the water and electrical grid would be prohibitively expensive. As a result, the cabin operates entirely off-the-grid, and its sustainable features became an exciting aspect of the design process for the architect and his parents. The cabin’s earthy and rustic exterior belies a number of strategies that lets the residence operate entirely off-the-grid. | <urn:uuid:3a76006b-31de-4733-b5a4-4854b800c7aa> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.dwell.com/collection/rustic-retreat-on-an-appalachian-farm-operates-entirely-off-the-grid-f142a71f | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279410.32/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00165-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977887 | 196 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Canadian rescue crews are helping to search for a small plane off of the B.C. coast after United States officials received a mayday distress call.
The U.S. Coast Guard says in a tweet that crews are searching the waters between Victoria and Port Angeles, Wash., for a downed Cessna 170.
It says one man was reported aboard the aircraft.
The coast guard says the flight originated from Ketchikan, Ala.
Lt.-Cmdr. Tony Wright of the Canadian Forces Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre in Victoria says the pilot described his location during the mayday call Tuesday afternoon.
Wright says Canada is supporting the search with the Canadian Coast Guard’s Sir Wilfrid Laurier vessel and a CC-115 Buffalo aircraft out of Comox, B.C.
He says they are searching along with an American helicopter and vessels.
“We’re supporting the U.S. Coast Guard,” Wright said, adding he had no other information immediately available. | <urn:uuid:00af5562-1b1a-4a53-b613-06e4431c43ce> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://globalnews.ca/news/7601958/downed-plane-bc/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572043.2/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814143522-20220814173522-00471.warc.gz | en | 0.955726 | 210 | 1.539063 | 2 |
no ,wide ball is not counted as a ball faced by the batsman in Cricket.but no ball is counted as a ball faced by the batsman in Cricket.
No, a batsman can not be stumped out off a no-ball. But he can b stumped on a wide ball.
Yeah, no ball is counted as a batsman faced it.
the ball is given a no ball
No, a batsman cannot be out hit-wicket off a no-ball.
What does the umpire do when a batsman hits the ball to the boundary
Not out. Only way to get batsman out when a no ball is thrown is run out.
it is the striking batsman who ran
A batsman is the person who has to hit the ball bowled at him by the bowler.
Ball is not counted
If the bowler does a no ball and that is counted as 1 run. The if the batsman hits that no ball for a four, the that is 5 runs from 1 ball | <urn:uuid:fc8e6359-4b7f-4077-ae7c-2d52c485990f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://sports.answers.com/Q/Can_the_batsman_see_the_ball | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571284.54/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811103305-20220811133305-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.971724 | 218 | 1.859375 | 2 |
This distinctive memento of Bingara’s war time history – a piece of signed cloth, is to be presented back to Bingara and District Historical Society this Australia Day, Monday January 26th 2015.
The cloth was a community fund raising effort for the soldiers comfort fund. A section of the cloth was purchased by families who had someone on active war service overseas.
The Australian Comforts Fund was established in August 1916 to co-ordinate the activities of the state based patriotic funds, which were established earlier in World War I. Mainly run by women, they provided and distributed free comforts to the Australian ‘fit’ fighting men in all the battle zones. They became divisions of the Australian Comforts Fund.
The Council of the Fund comprised two delegates from New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland and one from the states of Western Australia, South Australia and Tasmania. The Executive headquarters was located in Sydney.
It ceased operation on 10 April 1920 and was reconstituted in World War II in June 1940 and ceased operation again on 27 June 1946.
Discussion between Bingara community member Nancy MacInnes and Bingara and District Historical Society Member Jean Robinson brought the Bingara cloth, which had been in the Society’s procession, to the attention of Gwydir Shire Council, who has undertaken the framing of the cloth.
The framing will preserve the integrity of this unique historical item of Bingara and District war effort. | <urn:uuid:f0e1a029-d76b-44ea-bd38-825a4f06b295> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.bingara.com.au/a-unique-portion-of-bingaras-war-time-memorabilia-to-be-part-of-australia-day-celebrations/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573399.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818185216-20220818215216-00065.warc.gz | en | 0.975962 | 295 | 2.1875 | 2 |
Night Hiking in the Smoky Mountains Made Simple
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Night hiking in the Smoky Mountains is an extraordinary experience. Not only do guests have a greater chance of seeing wildlife, but they also give you a whole new perspective on the Great Smoky Mountains.
Please keep in mind that if you do decide to go night hiking in the Smoky Mountains, it is very important that you remember to make safety your number one priority. There are no lights or reflectors along the trail ways, so you need to be mindful of where you step and always hike with a friend.
What You Need to Bring to Go Night Hiking in the Smoky Mountains
As we mentioned, safety when night hiking in the Smoky Mountains is extremely important. You always want to make sure you are prepared for anything that you may encounter.
To help you plan your trek, be sure to bring these essential Smoky Mountain hiking items with you when you go:
Extra Layers and Jacket
Remember, the temperatures will drop when the sun goes down, so you will want to remember to bring a couple of extra layers and a jacket to stay warm when you are night hiking in the Smoky Mountains.
As we mentioned, there are no lights that line the trails. So, if you do plan on hiking at night, you will want to remember to bring a headlamp, flashlight, and extra batteries for both. The headlamp is so you can have light where ever you look, and the flashlight will help if you need to see further off into the distance.
With minimal light available, you never know what you may accidentally step in. Be prepared for any unexpected puddles or patches of water by including an extra pair of socks or two to keep your feet warm and dry.
Just as if you were hiking during the day, you want to make sure that you have enough water and snacks to keep you fueled and energized so you can complete your hike.
Boots are always smart to go hiking in. However, they are especially useful at night in the event you run into a snake or another creepy crawler that comes out at night in the Smoky Mountains. Boots are typically thicker and they can help protect you against a snake bike. They can also help you trek through those unforeseen puddles we mentioned earlier.
Our Favorite Night Hikes in the Smoky Mountains
Cades Cove is beautiful to visit, no matter what time of day it is. However, it is remarkable to see this area lit up by moonlight right after the sun goes down or just before sunrise.
Please keep in mind, the main entrance to the Cades Cove Loop Road closes at sundown every night. If you do want to experience this area at night, you will have to access this part of the park through the secondary entrance. This road is also what you would use if you find yourself in Cades Cove after the gate is closed.
Clingman’s Dome is a moderately difficult paved trail that takes guests up to an observation tower that overlooks the Smoky Mountains. Although this trail is paved, you still want to be careful as you climb to the top due to the steep incline of the trail.
Now, you may be thinking that there won’t be much to see from the observation tower. However, the light from the moon will help your eyes adjust to take in the magnificent view of the Great Smoky Mountains from atop the tower.
Also, please keep in mind that the road leading to Clingman’s Dome is closed from December 1 to March 31, so, if you plan on traveling during this time, you need to remember you will have a little longer to hike.
Upcoming Smoky Mountains Night Hikes
Following the open-aired loop road that surrounds the Cades Cove area of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the full moon hike in Cades Cove is an easy hike that is perfect for guests of all ages. Led by a park ranger, this hike also includes various stories and historical anecdotes that visitors will enjoy.
This hike begins at the entrance of the loop road around 7 p.m., passes the Myers overlook, and concludes back at the entrance.
Night Hike in Cades Cove
A little longer than the full moon hike, the Night Hike in Cades Cove is a unique opportunity for visitors to ‘listen to the spirits’ of Cades Cove. This hike is also lead by a park ranger, and it follows Sparks Lane to the water and back.
Recent guests to this hike recommend that guests bring their own flashlight. Pieces of red plastic and rubber bands will be provided to cover the bright light.
Dates and times for the two night hikes in Cades Cove have not yet been released. Be sure to follow our blog for more details on these two exciting outdoor adventures as they develop. These hikes are weather permitted.
If you would like to learn more about the fun and exciting things to do in the Smoky Mountains, be sure to visit the Great Smoky Mountains National Park page on our website. There you will find a ton of information about hiking trails, fishing spots, auto tours, and more! | <urn:uuid:9d9eeb5b-f1d6-46e0-87ef-849679c60d59> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.visitmysmokies.com/blog/smoky-mountains/night-hiking-in-the-smoky-mountains/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573876.92/warc/CC-MAIN-20220820012448-20220820042448-00076.warc.gz | en | 0.951146 | 1,093 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The coronavirus pandemic has left 850,000 unemployed or on unpaid leave in Israel, most hailing from the country's weakest sectors, while vocational training has practically ground to a halt due to a lack of funding.
The Knesset Labor, Welfare and Health Committee was told Monday that the first four months of the crisis were effectively wasted by the government in terms of vocational training.
And with the way things are progressing, the committee heard, there is grave concern that the next few months will be no different.
The director of the Vocational Training Division at the Labor and Welfare Ministry, Dr. Rinat Cohen, presented data to the committee showing that the coronavirus hit as Israel was in the worst possible situation for professional training.
Israel's first pandemic relief plan was announced on March 31 and included NIS 200 million earmarked for professional training, which was intended to help those affected by the coronavirus to find new jobs. To date, none of that sum has been transferred to the Labor Ministry.
Furthermore, only NIS 12 million out of the country's NIS 64 million annual budget for vocational training has been transferred to the ministry.
Israel suffers from both a large number of workers with low professional skills and a very weak vocational training system, contributing to its low ranking for worker skill levels among OECD countries - placing 28th out of 34 countries. Moreover, Israel is ranked 24th out of 29 for workers' computer skills.
Israel's investment in vocational training for adults is among the lowest among OECD countries and stands at less than 0.4% of public expenditure on education, placing it in the bottom five places out of 19 countries surveyed.
In 2019, the division had NIS 30 million for vocational training, and another NIS 36 to fund vocational training with private entities.
The division's 2020 budget stood at NIS 4 million, since no state budget was approved due to the 18-month political impasse that only ended with the formation of the coalition in April. Another NIS 8 million was recently transferred, bringing the total for the year to one third of the 2019 budget.
"That is all we have," Cohen told the Knesset committee.
The most effective training courses are those done in collaboration with employers, as training meets the needs of the companies, who also pledge to hire people who have completed the courses.
However, in June 2019, the collaboration between employers and the training division was suspended for budgetary reasons, and has not been renewed. This means that vocational training, which was already weak, has deteriorated further in the past year and in particular during the coronavirus crisis.
Aviad Schwartz of the Finance Ministry's budgetary division told the committee that NIS 50 million will be released in the coming days for vocational training. Half of the budget will be allocated to the Labor and Welfare Ministry and half to the Israel Employment Service.
This budget, however, is only sufficient to train approximately 6,000-7,000 people - less than 1% of all the unemployed in Israel.
Another issue raised by the committee is the 30% reduction in unemployment benefit when a recipient is placed in vocational training, despite the fact that unemployment benefits are significantly lower than the average monthly salary.
Blue & White MK Hila Shay Vazan called this reduction "punishment for vocational training" and demanded that it be abolished.
Labor and Social Affairs Minister Itzik Shmuli said that not only should unemployed people in vocational training be exempt from deductions in their unemployment benefits, but should even receive a 15% increase as an incentive.
According to Shmuli, those unemployed who participate in vocational training should have proper financial support "that will encourage them to participate."
Joint List MK Jaber Asakla also expressed concern that some 30% of Arab students will be unable to complete their education either because of financial hardship or because they cannot return to their studies abroad. He said there was an urgent need for professional training that would allow such cases to make a living.
The head of Israel's National Union of Students, Sapir Bluzer said there are currently 150,000 students out of work in the country.
"The state has never dealt with massive youth unemployment," she said. "We stand at the precipice of an unprecedented crisis. We need to act to prevent seeing a generation that will suffer from high unemployment rates for years to come. Young people need a different kind of professional training - more skills and less knowledge." | <urn:uuid:2eee2a17-b602-4980-92f8-cdaae1b94edd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.ynetnews.com/business/article/B1bgoRqkP | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00469.warc.gz | en | 0.975838 | 914 | 1.578125 | 2 |
I inserted a gene of interest into a pET32a vector downstream of the T7 promoter. However, while doing this I also removed the RBS unintentionally. I plan to express the construct in BL21 E. coli to purify the protein of interest. My question is... will there be expression of the protein despite the lack of the RBS? Will the ribosomes be able to translate the mRNA without it? I am doubtful it can, but I am certainly trying to prevent having to make a new construct.
Edited by HOYAJM, 09 February 2012 - 10:46 AM. | <urn:uuid:6e78da2b-81b4-41a6-ac15-6c48be7f8628> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.protocol-online.org/forums/topic/24358-rbs-site-removed-in-construct-will-there-be-expression/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279650.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00439-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950213 | 123 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Islam (/ˈɪslɑːm/; Arabic: الإسلام, [alʔisˈlaːm]) is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion which professes that there is only one and incomparable God (Allah) and that Muhammad is the last messenger of God. It is the world's second-largest religion and the fastest-growing major religion in the world, with over 1.7 billion followers or 23% of the global population, known as Muslims. Islam teaches that God is merciful, all-powerful, and unique; and He has guided mankind through revealed scriptures, natural signs, and a line of prophets sealed by Muhammad. The primary scriptures of Islam are the Quran, viewed by Muslims as the verbatim word of God, and the teachings and normative example (called the sunnah, composed of accounts called hadith) of Muhammad (c. 570–8 June 632 CE).
- Etymology and meaning
- Articles of faith
- Concept of God
- Prophets and sunnah
- Resurrection and judgment
- Divine will
- Acts of worship
- Recitation and memorization of the Quran
- Family life
- Etiquette and diet
- Social responsibilities
- Moral behavior
- Law and jurisprudence
- Schools of jurisprudence
- Muhammad 610632
- Caliphate and civil strife 632750
- Classical era 7501258
- Pre Modern era 125820th century
- Modern times 20th centurypresent
- Other denominations
- Non denominational Muslims
Muslims believe that Islam is the original, complete and universal version of a primordial faith that was revealed many times before through prophets including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Jesus. As for the Quran, Muslims consider it to be the unaltered and final revelation of God. Religious concepts and practices include the five pillars of Islam, which are obligatory acts of worship, and following Islamic law, which touches on virtually every aspect of life and society, from banking and welfare to women and the environment. Certain religious rites and customs are observed by the Muslims in their family and social life, while social responsibilities to parents, relatives, and neighbors have also been defined. Besides, the Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, and religious life.
Islam began in the early 7th century. Originating in Mecca, it quickly spread in the Arabian Peninsula and by the 8th century the Islamic empire was extended from Iberia in the west to the Indus River in the east. The Islamic Golden Age refers to the period traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 13th century when much of the historically Islamic world was experiencing a scientific, economic and cultural flourishing. The expansion of the Muslim world involved various caliphates and empires, traders and conversion to Islam by missionary activities.
Most Muslims are of one of two denominations: Sunni (75–90%) or Shia (10–20%). Islam is the dominant religion in the Middle East, North Africa, the Sahel, Central Asia and some other parts of Asia. About 13% of Muslims live in Indonesia, the largest Muslim-majority country, 31% in South Asia, the largest population of Muslims in the world, 23% in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA), and 15% in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sizable Muslim communities are also found in Horn of Africa, Europe, China, Russia, and the Americas. Converts and immigrant communities are found in almost every part of the world.
Etymology and meaning
Islam is a verbal noun originating from the triliteral root s-l-m which forms a large class of words mostly relating to concepts of wholeness, submission, safeness and peace. In a religious context it means "voluntary submission to God". Islām is the verbal noun of Form IV of the root, and means "submission" or "surrender". Muslim, the word for an adherent of Islam, is the active participle of the same verb form, and means "one who submits" or "one who surrenders". The word sometimes has distinct connotations in its various occurrences in the Quran. In some verses, there is stress on the quality of Islam as an internal state: "Whomsoever God desires to guide, He opens his heart to Islam." Other verses connect Islām and dīn (usually translated as "religion"): "Today, I have perfected your religion (dīn) for you; I have completed My blessing upon you; I have approved Islam for your religion." Still others describe Islam as an action of returning to God—more than just a verbal affirmation of faith. In the Hadith of Gabriel, islām is presented as one part of a triad that also includes imān (faith), and ihsān (excellence).
Islam was historically called Muhammadanism in Anglophone societies. This term has fallen out of use and is sometimes said to be offensive because it suggests that a human being rather than God is central to Muslims' religion, parallel to Jesus Christ in Christianity. Some authors, however, continue to use the term Muhammadanism as a technical term for the religious system as opposed to the theological concept of Islam that exists within that system.
Articles of faith
Faith (Iman) in the Islamic creed (Aqidah) is often represented as the six articles of faith, notably spelled out in the Hadith of Gabriel.
Concept of God
Islam is often seen as having the simplest doctrines of the major religions. Its most fundamental concept is a rigorous monotheism, called tawḥīd (Arabic: توحيد). God is described in chapter 112 of the Quran as: "Say, He is God, the One and Only; God, the Eternal, Absolute; He begetteth not, nor is He begotten; And there is none like unto Him" (112:1-4). Muslims repudiate polytheism and idolatry, called Shirk, and reject the Christian doctrine of the Trinity and divinity of Jesus. In Islam, God is beyond all comprehension and Muslims are not expected to visualize God. God is described and referred to by certain names or attributes, the most common being Al-Rahmān, meaning "The Compassionate" and Al-Rahīm, meaning "The Merciful" (See Names of God in Islam).
Muslims believe that the creation of everything in the universe was brought into being by God's sheer command, "'Be' and so it is," and that the purpose of existence is to worship God. He is viewed as a personal god who responds whenever a person in need or distress calls him. There are no intermediaries, such as clergy, to contact God who states, "I am nearer to him than (his) jugular vein." God consciousness is referred to as Taqwa.
Allāh is the term with no plural or gender used by Muslims and Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews to reference God, while ʾilāh (Arabic: إله) is the term used for a deity or a god in general. Other non-Arab Muslims might use different names as much as Allah, for instance "Tanrı" in Turkish, "Khodā" in Persian or Ḵẖudā in Urdu.
Belief in angels is fundamental to the faith of Islam. The Arabic word for angel (Arabic: ملك malak) means "messenger", like its counterparts in Hebrew (malʾákh) and Greek (angelos). According to the Quran, angels do not possess free will, and therefore worship and obey God in total obedience. Angels' duties include communicating revelations from God, glorifying God, recording every person's actions, and taking a person's soul at the time of death. Muslims believe that angels are made of light. They are described as "messengers with wings—two, or three, or four (pairs): He [God] adds to Creation as He pleases..." Some scholars have emphasized a metaphorical reinterpretation of the concept of angels. Pictorial depictions of angels are generally avoided in Islamic Art, as the idea of giving form to anything immaterial is not accepted. Muslims therefore do not generally share the perceptions of angelic pictorial depictions, such as those found in Western Art.
Additionally, another kind of being that is sapient in Islam is called Jinn, who are believed to be invisible to humans, including the Satans.
The Islamic holy books are the records which most Muslims believe were dictated by God to various prophets. Muslims believe that parts of the previously revealed scriptures, the Tawrat (Torah) and the Injil (Gospels), had become distorted—either in interpretation, in text, or both. The Quran (literally, "Reading" or "Recitation") is viewed by Muslims as the final revelation and literal word of God and is widely regarded as the finest literary work in the Arabic language.
Muslims believe that the verses of the Quran were revealed to Muhammad by God through the archangel Gabriel (Jibrīl) on many occasions between 610 CE until his death on June 8, 632. While Muhammad was alive, all of these revelations were written down by his companions (sahabah), although the prime method of transmission was orally through memorization.
The Quran is divided into 114 suras, or chapters, which combined, contain 6,236 āyāt, or verses. The chronologically earlier suras, revealed at Mecca, are primarily concerned with ethical and spiritual topics. The later Medinan suras mostly discuss social and moral issues relevant to the Muslim community.
The Quran is more concerned with moral guidance than legal instruction, and is considered the "sourcebook of Islamic principles and values". Muslim jurists consult the hadith ("reports"), or the written record of Prophet Muhammad's life, to both supplement the Quran and assist with its interpretation. The science of Quranic commentary and exegesis is known as tafsir. The set of rules governing proper pronunciation is called tajwid.
Muslims usually view "the Quran" as the original scripture as revealed in Arabic and that any translations are necessarily deficient, which are regarded only as commentaries on the Quran.
Prophets and sunnah
Muslims identify the prophets of Islam (Arabic: أنۢبياء anbiyāʾ ) as those humans chosen by God to be his messengers. According to the Quran, the prophets were instructed by God to bring the "will of God" to the peoples of the nations. Muslims believe that prophets are human and not divine, though some are able to perform miracles to prove their claim. Islamic theology says that all of God's messengers preached the message of Islam—submission to the will of God. The Quran mentions the names of numerous figures considered prophets in Islam, including Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus, among others.
Muslims believe that God finally sent Muhammad as the last law bearing prophet (Seal of the Prophets) to convey the divine message to the whole world (to sum up and to finalize the word of God). In Islam, the "normative" example of Muhammad's life is called the Sunnah (literally "trodden path"). Muslims are encouraged to emulate Muhammad's actions in their daily lives and the Sunnah is seen as crucial to guiding interpretation of the Quran. This example is preserved in traditions known as hadith, which recount his words, his actions, and his personal characteristics. Hadith Qudsi is a sub-category of hadith, regarded as verbatim words of God quoted by Muhammad but is not part of the Quran.
A hadith involves two elements- a chain of narrators, called sanad, and the actual wording, called matn. Hadiths can be classified, by studying the narration, as "authentic" or "correct", called Sahih (Arabic: صَحِيْح), "good", called Ḥasan (Arabic: حَسَن) or "weak", called Ḍaʻīf (Arabic: ضَعِيْف) among others. Muhammad al-Bukhari collected over 300,000 hadith, but only included 2,602 distinct hadith that passed the tests that codified them as authentic into his book Sahih al-Bukhari, which is considered by many to be the most authentic source after the Quran.
Resurrection and judgment
Belief in the "Day of Resurrection", Yawm al-Qiyāmah (Arabic: يوم القيامة) is also crucial for Muslims. They believe the time of Qiyāmah is preordained by God but unknown to man. The trials and tribulations preceding and during the Qiyāmah are described in the Quran and the hadith, and also in the commentaries of scholars. The Quran emphasizes bodily resurrection, a break from the pre-Islamic Arabian understanding of death.
On Yawm al-Qiyāmah, Muslims believe all mankind will be judged on their good and bad deeds and consigned to Jannah (paradise) or Jahannam (hell). The Qurʼan in Surat al-Zalzalah describes this as, "So whoever does an atom's weight of good will see it (99:7) and whoever does an atom's weight of evil will see it (99:8)." The Qurʼan lists several sins that can condemn a person to hell, such as disbelief in God (Arabic: كفر kufr), and dishonesty; however, the Qurʼan makes it clear God will forgive the sins of those who repent if he so wills. Good deeds, such as charity, prayer and compassion towards animals, will be rewarded with entry to heaven. Muslims view heaven as a place of joy and bliss, with Qurʼanic references describing its features and the physical pleasures to come. Mystical traditions in Islam place these heavenly delights in the context of an ecstatic awareness of God.
Yawm al-Qiyāmah is also identified in the Quran as Yawm ad-Dīn (Arabic: يوم الدين), "Day of Religion"; as-sāʿah (Arabic: الساعة), "the Last Hour"; and al-Qāriʿah (Arabic: القارعة), "The Clatterer".
The concept of divine will is referred to as al-qadā wa'l-qadar (Arabic: قدر), which literally derives from a root that means to measure. Everything, good and bad, is believed to have been decreed.
Acts of worship
There are five basic religious acts in Islam, collectively known as 'The Pillars of Islam' (arkan al-Islam; also arkan ad-din, "pillars of religion"), which are considered obligatory for all believers. The Quran presents them as a framework for worship and a sign of commitment to the faith. They are (1) the creed (shahadah), (2) daily prayers (salat), (3) almsgiving (zakah), (4) fasting during Ramadan, and (5) the pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj) at least once in a lifetime. Both Shia and Sunni sects agree on the essential details for the performance of these acts. Apart from these, Muslims also perform other religious acts. Notable among them are charity (Sadaqah) and recitation of the Quran.
The Shahadah, which is the basic creed of Islam that must be recited under oath with the specific statement: "'ašhadu 'al-lā ilāha illā-llāhu wa 'ašhadu 'anna muħammadan rasūlu-llāh", or "I testify that there is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God." This testament is a foundation for all other beliefs and practices in Islam. Muslims must repeat the shahadah in prayer, and non-Muslims wishing to convert to Islam are required to recite the creed.
Ritual prayers are called Ṣalāh or Ṣalāt (Arabic: صلاة). Salat is intended to focus the mind on God, and is seen as a personal communication with him that expresses gratitude and worship. Performing prayers five times a day is compulsory but flexibility in the specifics is allowed depending on circumstances. The prayers are recited in the Arabic language, and consist of verses from the Quran. The prayers are done with the chest in direction of the kaaba though in the early days of Islam, they were done in direction of Jerusalem. The act of supplicating is referred to as dua.
A mosque is a place of worship for Muslims, who often refer to it by its Arabic name masjid. A large mosque for gathering for Friday prayers or Eid prayers are called masjid jāmi. Although the primary purpose of the mosque is to serve as a place of prayer, it is also important to the Muslim community as a place to meet and study. In Medina, Al-Masjid al-Nabawi, or the Prophet's Mosque, was also a place of refuge for the poor. Modern mosques have evolved greatly from the early designs of the 7th century, and contain a variety of architectural elements such as minarets.
"Zakāt" (Arabic: زكاة zakāh "alms") is giving a fixed portion of accumulated wealth by those who can afford it to help the poor or needy and for those employed to collect Zakat; also, for bringing hearts together, freeing captives, for those in debt (or bonded labour) and for the (stranded) traveller. It is considered a religious obligation (as opposed to voluntary charity) that the well-off owe to the needy because their wealth is seen as a "trust from God's bounty". Conservative estimates of annual zakat is estimated to be 15 times global humanitarian aid contributions. The amount of zakat to be paid on capital assets (e.g. money) is 2.5% (1/40) per year, for people who are not poor.
Sadaqah means optional charity which is practiced as religious duty and out of generosity. Both the Quran and the hadith have put much emphasis on spending money for the welfare of needy people, and have urged the Muslims to give more as an act of optional charity. The Quran says: Spend something (in charity) out of the substance which We have bestowed on you, before Death should come to any of you (63:10). One of the early teachings of Muhammad was that God expects men to be generous with their wealth and not to be miserly (Quran :1 107 :1–7). Accumulating wealth without spending them to address the needs of the poor is generally prohibited and admonished. Another kind of charity in Islam is waqf which means perpetual religious endowment.
Fasting (Arabic: صوم ṣawm) from food and drink, among other things, must be performed from dawn to dusk during the month of Ramadan. The fast is to encourage a feeling of nearness to God, and during it Muslims should express their gratitude for and dependence on him, atone for their past sins, and think of the needy. Sawm is not obligatory for several groups for whom it would constitute an undue burden. For others, flexibility is allowed depending on circumstances, but missed fasts usually must be made up quickly.
The obligatory Islamic pilgrimage, called the ḥajj (Arabic: حج), has to be performed during the Islamic month of Dhu al-Hijjah in the city of Mecca. Every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it must make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in his or her lifetime. Rituals of the Hajj include: spending a day and a night in the tents in the desert plain of Mina, then a day in the desert plain of Arafat praying and worshiping God, following the foot steps of Abraham; then spending a night out in the open, sleeping on the desert sand in the desert plain of Muzdalifah; then moving to Jamarat, symbolically stoning the Devil recounting Abraham's actions; then going to Mecca and walking seven times around the Kaaba which Muslims believe was built as a place of worship by Abraham; then walking seven times between Mount Safa and Mount Marwah recounting the steps of Abraham's wife, while she was looking for water for her son Ismael in the desert before Mecca developed into a settlement. Another form of pilgrimage, Umrah, can be undertaken at any time of the year.
Recitation and memorization of the Quran
Muslims recite and memorize the whole or the part of the Quran as acts of virtue. Reciting the Quran in the correct manner has been described as an excellent act of worship. Pious Muslims recite the whole Quran at the month of Ramadan. In Islamic societies, any social program generally begins with the recitation of the Quran. Those who memorize the whole Quran is called hafiz who, it is said, will be able to intercede for ten people on the Last Judgment Day. Apart from this, almost every Muslim memorizes some portion of the Quran because they need to recite it during regular prayer.
For Muslim communities, family is the basic component of society, and is responsible for the wellbeing of its members. In a Muslim family, the birth of a child is attended with some religious ceremonies. Immediately after the birth, the words of Adhan is pronounced in the right ear of the child. In the seventh day, the aquiqa ceremony is performed in which an animal is sacrificed and its meat is distributed among the poor. The head of the child is also shaved, and an amount of money equaling the weight of the child's hair is donated to the poor. Apart from fulfilling the basic needs of food, shelter, and education, the parents or the elderly members of family also undertake the task of teaching moral qualities, religious knowledge, and religious practices to the children. Marriage, which serves as the foundation of a Muslim family, is a civil contract which consists of an offer and acceptance between two qualified parties in the presence of two witnesses. The groom is required to pay a bridal gift (mahr) to the bride, as stipulated in the contract. Most families in the Islamic world are monogamous. Polyandry, a form of polygamy, where a woman takes on two or more husbands is prohibited in Islam. With Muslims coming from diverse backgrounds including 49 Muslim-majority countries, plus a strong presence as large minorities throughout the world there are many variations on Muslim Weddings. Generally in a Muslim family, a woman's sphere of operation is the home and a man's corresponding sphere is the outside world. However, in practice, this separation is not as rigid as it appears.
Certain religious rites are performed during and after the death of a Muslim. Those near a dying man encourage him to pronounce the Shahada as Muslims want their last word to be their profession of faith. After the death, the body is bathed properly by the members of the same gender and then enshrouded in a threefold white garment called kafan. Placing the body on a bier, it is first taken to a mosque where funeral prayer is offered for the dead person, and then to the graveyard for burial.
Etiquette and diet
Many practices fall in the category of adab, or Islamic etiquette. This includes greeting others with "as-salamu `alaykum" ("peace be unto you"), saying bismillah ("in the name of God") before meals, and using only the right hand for eating and drinking. Islamic hygienic practices mainly fall into the category of personal cleanliness and health. Circumcision of male offspring is also practiced in Islam. Islamic burial rituals include saying the Salat al-Janazah ("funeral prayer") over the bathed and enshrouded dead body, and burying it in a grave. Muslims are restricted in their diet. Prohibited foods include pork products, blood, carrion, and alcohol. All meat must come from a herbivorous animal slaughtered in the name of God by a Muslim, Jew, or Christian, with the exception of game that one has hunted or fished for oneself. Food permissible for Muslims is known as halal food.
In a Muslim society, various social service activities are performed by the members of the community. As these activities are instructed by Islamic canonical texts, a Muslim's religious life is seen incomplete if not attended by service to humanity. In fact, In Islamic tradition, the idea of social welfare has been presented as one of its principal values. The 2:177 verse of the Quran is often cited to encapsulate the Islamic idea of social welfare. Similarly, duties to parents, neighbors, relatives, sick people, the old, and the minority have been defined in Islam. Respecting and obeying one's parents, and taking care of them especially in their old age have been made a religious obligation. A two-fold approach is generally prescribed with regard to the duties to the relatives: keeping rood relation with them, and offering financial help if necessary. Severing ties with them has been admonished. Regardless of a neighbor's religious identity, Islam tells the Muslims to treat their neighboring people in the best possible manners and not to cause any difficulty to them. About the orphaned children, the Quran forbids harsh and oppressive treatment to them while urging kindness and justice towards them. It also rebukes those who do not honor and feed the orphaned children (Quran 89:17-18).
The Quran and the sunnah of Muhammad prescribe a comprehensive body of moral guidelines for Muslims to be followed in their personal, social, political, and religious life. Proper moral conduct, good deeds, righteousness, and good character come within the sphere of the moral guidelines. In Islam, the observance of moral virtues is always associated with religious significance because it elevates the religious status of a believer and is often seen as a supererogatory act of worshipping. One typical Islamic teaching on morality is that imposing a penalty on an offender in proportion to their offense is permissible and just; but forgiving the offender is better. To go one step further by offering a favor to the offender is regarded the highest excellence. The Quran says: 'Repel (evil) with what is best' (41:34). Thus, a Muslim is expected to act only in good manners as bad manners and deeds earn vices. The fundamental moral qualities in Islam are justice, forgiveness, righteousness, kindness, honesty, and piety. Other mostly insisted moral virtues include but not limited to charitable activities, tolerance, fulfillment of promise, modesty and humility, decency in speech, trustworthiness, patience, truthfulness, anger management, and sincerity of intention.
As a religion, Islam emphasizes the idea of having a good character as Muhammad said: 'The best among you are those who have the best manners and character' (Sahih al-Bukhari, 8:73:56). In Islam, justice is not only a moral virtue but also an obligation to be fulfilled under all circumstances. The Quran and the hadith describe God as being kind and merciful to His creatures, and tell people to be kind likewise. As a virtue, forgiveness is much celebrated in Islam, and is regarded as an important Muslim practice. About modesty, Muhammad is reported as saying: ' Every religion has its characteristic, and the characteristic of Islam is modesty'.
Mainstream Islamic law does not distinguish between "matters of church" and "matters of state"; the scholars function as both jurists and theologians. Currently no government conforms to Islamic economic jurisprudence, but steps have been taken to implement some of its tenets.
Law and jurisprudence
The Shariʻah (literally "the path leading to the watering place") is Islamic law and constitutes a system of duties that are incumbent upon a Muslim by virtue of his or her religious belief. The study of Islamic law is called Fiqh, or "Islamic jurisprudence". The methods of jurisprudence used are known as usul al-fiqh ("legal theory", or "principles of jurisprudence"). Much of it has evolved with the objective to prevent innovation or alteration in the original religion, known as bid‘ah. Four fundamental evidence, codified by ash-Shafi'i, used are, in order of precedence: the Quran, the Hadith (the practice of Muhammad), the consensus of the Muslim jurists (ijma), and analogical reasoning (qiyas). Rulings over actions can be categorized as those that are obligatory (fardh) recommendanded (mustahabb), permissible (mubah), not recommended (makrooh) and prohibited (haraam).
The Quran set the rights, the responsibilities and the rules for people and for societies to adhere to. Muhammad provided an example, which is recorded in the hadith books, showing how he practically implemented those rules in a society.
Many of the Sharia laws that differ are devised through Ijtihad where there is no such ruling in the Quran or the Hadiths of Islamic prophet Muhammad regarding a similar case. As Muhammad's companions went to new areas, they were pragmatic and in some cases continued to use the same ruling as was given in that area during pre-Islamic times. If the population felt comfortable with it, it was just and they used Ijtihad to deduce that it did not conflict with the Quran or the Hadith. This made it easier for the different communities to integrate into the Islamic State and that assisted in the quick expansion of the Islamic State.
Islamic law covers all aspects of life, from matters of state, like governance and foreign relations, to issues of daily living. The Quran defines hudud as the punishments for five specific crimes: unlawful intercourse, false accusation of unlawful intercourse, consumption of alcohol, theft, and highway robbery. The Quran and Sunnah also contain laws of inheritance, marriage, and restitution for injuries and murder, as well as rules for fasting, charity, and prayer. For example, the division of inheritance is specified in the Quran, which states that most of it is to pass to the immediate family, while a portion is set aside for the payment of debts and the making of bequests. The woman's share of inheritance is generally half of that of a man with the same rights of succession.
Islam, like Judaism, has no clergy in the sacerdotal sense, such as priests who mediate between God and people. However, there are many terms in Islam to refer to religiously sanctioned positions of Islam. In the broadest sense, the term ulema (Arabic: علماء) is used to describe the body of Muslim scholars who have completed several years of training and study of Islamic sciences. A jurist who interprets Islamic law is called a mufti (Arabic: مفتي) and often issues judicial opinions, called fatwas. A scholar of jurisprudence is called a faqih (Arabic: فقيه). Someone who studies the science of hadith is called a muhaddith. A qadi is a judge in an Islamic court. Honorific titles given to scholars include shiekh, mullah and maulvi. Imam (Arabic: إمام) is a leadership position, often used in the context of conducting Islamic worship services.
Schools of jurisprudence
A school of jurisprudence is referred to as a madhab (Arabic: مذهب). The four major Sunni schools are the Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i, Hanbali and sometimes Ẓāhirī while the two major Shia schools are Ja'fari and Zaidi. Each differ in their methodology, called Usul al-fiqh. The following of decisions by a religious expert without necessarily examining the decision's reasoning is called taqlid. The term ghair muqallid literally refers to those who do not use taqlid and by extension do not have a madhab. The practice of an individual interpretating law with independent reasoning is called ijtihad.
To reduce the gap between the rich and the poor, Islamic economic jurisprudence encourages trade, discourages the hoarding of wealth and outlaws interest-bearing loans (usury; the term is riba in Arabic). Therefore, wealth is taxed through Zakat, but trade is not taxed. Usury, which allows the rich to get richer without sharing in the risk, is forbidden in Islam. Profit sharing and venture capital where the lender is also exposed to risk is acceptable. Hoarding of food for speculation is also discouraged.
Grabbing other people's land is also prohibited. The prohibition of usury has resulted in the development of Islamic banking. During the time of Muhammad, any money that went to the state, was immediately used to help the poor. Then in 634, Umar formally established the welfare state Bayt al-mal. The Bayt al-mal or the welfare state was for the Muslim and Non-Muslim poor, needy, elderly, orphans, widows, and the disabled. The Bayt al-mal ran for hundreds of years under the Rashidun Caliphate in the 7th century and continued through the Umayyad period and well into the Abbasid era. Umar also introduced Child Benefit and Pensions for the children and the elderly.
Jihad means "to strive or struggle" (in the way of God). Jihad, in its broadest sense, is "exerting one's utmost power, efforts, endeavors, or ability in contending with an object of disapprobation". Depending on the object being a visible enemy, the Devil, and aspects of one's own self (such as sinful desires), different categories of jihad are defined. Jihad, when used without any qualifier, is understood in its military aspect. Jihad also refers to one's striving to attain religious and moral perfection. Some Muslim authorities, especially among the Shi'a and Sufis, distinguish between the "greater jihad", which pertains to spiritual self-perfection, and the "lesser jihad", defined as warfare.
Within Islamic jurisprudence, jihad is usually taken to mean military exertion against non-believer/non-Muslim/Muslim combatants. The ultimate purpose of military jihad is debated, both within the Islamic community and without. Jihad is the only form of warfare permissible in Islamic law and may be declared against illegal works, terrorists, criminal groups, rebels, apostates, and leaders or states who oppress Muslims. Most Muslims today interpret Jihad as only a defensive form of warfare. Jihad only becomes an individual duty for those vested with authority. For the rest of the populace, this happens only in the case of a general mobilization. For most Twelver Shias, offensive jihad can only be declared by a divinely appointed leader of the Muslim community, and as such is suspended since Muhammad al-Mahdi's occultation in 868 AD.
Muslim tradition views Muhammad (c. 570 – June 8, 632) as the seal of the prophets. During the last 22 years of his life, beginning at age 40 in 610 CE, according to the earliest surviving biographies, Muhammad reported revelations that he believed to be from God, conveyed to him through the archangel Gabriel (Jibril). Muhammad's companions memorized and recorded the content of these revelations, known as the Quran.
During this time, Muhammad in Mecca preached to the people, imploring them to abandon polytheism and to worship one God. Although some converted to Islam, the leading Meccan authorities persecuted Muhammad and his followers. This resulted in the Migration to Abyssinia of some Muslims (to the Aksumite Empire). Many early converts to Islam were the poor and former slaves like Bilal ibn Rabah al-Habashi. The Meccan élite felt that Muhammad was destabilising their social order by preaching about one God and about racial equality, and that in the process he gave ideas to the poor and to their slaves.
After 12 years of the persecution of Muslims by the Meccans and the Meccan boycott of the Hashemites, Muhammad's relatives, Muhammad and the Muslims performed the Hijra ("emigration") to the city of Medina (formerly known as Yathrib) in 622. There, with the Medinan converts (Ansar) and the Meccan migrants (Muhajirun), Muhammad in Medina established his political and religious authority. A state was established in accordance with Islamic economic jurisprudence. The Constitution of Medina was formulated, instituting a number of rights and responsibilities for the Muslim, Jewish, Christian and pagan communities of Medina, bringing them within the fold of one community—the Ummah.
The Constitution established:
All the tribes signed the agreement to defend Medina from all external threats and to live in harmony amongst themselves. Within a few years, two battles took place against the Meccan forces: first, the Battle of Badr in 624 - a Muslim victory, and then a year later, when the Meccans returned to Medina, the Battle of Uhud, which ended inconclusively.
The Arab tribes in the rest of Arabia then formed a confederation and during the Battle of the Trench (March–April 627) besieged Medina, intent on finishing off Islam. In 628, the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah was signed between Mecca and the Muslims and was broken by Mecca two years later. After the signing of the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah many more people converted to Islam. At the same time, Meccan trade routes were cut off as Muhammad brought surrounding desert tribes under his control. By 629 Muhammad was victorious in the nearly bloodless conquest of Mecca, and by the time of his death in 632 (at the age of 62) he had united the tribes of Arabia into a single religious polity.
The earliest three generations of Muslims are known as the Salaf, with the companions of Muhammad being known as the Sahaba. Many of them, such as the largest narrator of hadith Abu Hureyrah, recorded and compiled what would constitute the sunnah.
Caliphate and civil strife (632–750)
With Muhammad's death in 632, disagreement broke out over who would succeed him as leader of the Muslim community. Abu Bakr, a companion and close friend of Muhammad, was made the first caliph. Under Abu Bakr, Muslims put down a rebellion by Arab tribes in an episode known as the Ridda wars, or "Wars of Apostasy". The Quran was compiled into a single volume at this time.
Abu Bakr's death in 634 resulted in the succession of Umar ibn al-Khattab as the caliph, followed by Uthman ibn al-Affan, Ali ibn Abi Talib and Hasan ibn Ali. The first four caliphs are known in Sunni Islam as al-khulafā' ar-rāshidūn ("Rightly Guided Caliphs"). Under them, the territory under Muslim rule expanded deeply into the parts of the Persian and Byzantine territories.
When Umar was assassinated by Persians in 644, the election of Uthman as successor was met with increasing opposition. The standard copies of the Quran were also distributed throughout the Islamic State. In 656, Uthman was also killed, and Ali assumed the position of caliph. This led to the first civil war (the "First Fitna") over who should be caliph. Ali was assassinated by Kharijites in 661. To avoid further fighting, the new caliph Hasan ibn Ali signed a peace treaty, abdicating to Mu'awiyah, beginning the Umayyad dynasty, in return that he not name his own successor. These disputes over religious and political leadership would give rise to schism in the Muslim community. The majority accepted the legitimacy of the first four leaders, and became known as Sunnis. A minority disagreed, and believed that only Ali and some of his descendants should rule; they became known as the Shia. Mu'awiyah appointed his son, Yazid I, as successor and after Mu'awiyah's death in 680, the "Second Fitna" broke out, where Husayn ibn Ali was killed at the Battle of Karbala, a significant event in Shia Islam.
The Umayyad dynasty conquered the Maghreb, the Iberian Peninsula, Narbonnese Gaul and Sindh. Local populations of Jews and indigenous Christians, persecuted as religious minorities and taxed heavily to finance the Byzantine–Sassanid Wars, often aided Muslims to take over their lands from the Byzantines and Persians, resulting in exceptionally speedy conquests.
The generation after the death of Muhammad but contemporaries of his companions are known as the Tabi‘un, followed by the Tabi‘ al-Tabi‘in. The Caliph Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz set up the influential committee, "The Seven Fuqaha of Medina", headed by Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abu Bakr. Malik ibn Anas wrote one of the earliest books on Islamic jurisprudence, the Muwatta, as a consensus of the opinion of those jurists.
The descendants of Muhammad's uncle Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib rallied discontented non-Arab converts (mawali), poor Arabs, and some Shi'a against the Umayyads and overthrew them, inaugurating the Abbasid dynasty in 750.
Classical era (750–1258)
During this time, the Delhi Sultanate took over northern parts of Indian subcontinent. Religious missions converted Volga Bulgaria to Islam. Many Muslims also went to China to trade, virtually dominating the import and export industry of the Song Dynasty.
This era is sometimes called the "Islamic Golden Age". Public hospitals established during this time (called Bimaristan hospitals), are considered "the first hospitals" in the modern sense of the word, and issued the first medical diplomas to license doctors. The Guinness World Records recognizes the University of Al Karaouine, founded in 859, as the world's oldest degree-granting university. The doctorate is argued to date back to the licenses to teach in Muslim law schools. Standards of experimental and quantification techniques, as well as the tradition of citation, were introduced. An important pioneer in this, Ibn al-Haytham is regarded as the father of the modern scientific method and often referred to as the "world's first true scientist". The government paid scientists the equivalent salary of professional athletes today. It is argued that the data used by Copernicus for his heliocentric conclusions was gathered and that Al-Jahiz proposed a theory of natural selection. Rumi wrote some of the finest Persian poetry and is still one of the best selling poets in America. Legal institutions introduced include the trust and charitable trust (Waqf).
Al-Shafi'i codified a method to determine the reliability of hadith. During the early Abbasid era, the major Sunni hadith collections were compiled by scholars such as Bukhari and Muslim while major Shia hadith collections by scholars such as Al-Kulayni and Ibn Babawayh were also compiled. The Ja'fari jurisprudence was formed from the teachings of Ja'far al-Sadiq while the four Sunni Madh'habs, the Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki and Shafi'i, were established around the teachings of Abū Ḥanīfa, Ahmad bin Hanbal, Malik ibn Anas and al-Shafi'i respectively. In the 9th century, al-Shafi'i provided a theoretical basis for Islamic law by codifying the principles of jurisprudence in his book ar-Risālah. Al-Tabari and Ibn Kathir completed the most commonly cited commentaries on the Quran, the Tafsir al-Tabari in the 9th century and the Tafsir ibn Kathir in the 14th century, respectively. Philosophers Al-Farabi and Avicenna sought to incorporate Greek principles into Islamic theology, while others like Al-Ghazali argued against them and ultimately prevailed.
Caliphs such as Mamun al Rashid and Al-Mu'tasim made the mutazilite philosophy an official creed and imposed it upon Muslims to follow. Mu'tazila was a Greek influenced school of speculative theology called kalam, which refers to dialectic. Many orthodox Muslims rejected mutazilite doctrines and condemned their idea of the creation of the Quran. In inquisitions, Imam Hanbal refused to conform and was tortured and sent to an unlit Baghdad prison cell for nearly thirty months. The other branch of kalam was the Ash'ari school founded by Al-Ash'ari.
Some Muslims began to question the piety of indulgence in a worldly life and emphasized poverty, humility and avoidance of sin based on renunciation of bodily desires. Ascetics such as Hasan al-Basri would inspire a movement that would evolve into Tasawwuf (Sufism). Beginning in the 13th century, Sufism underwent a transformation, largely because of efforts to legitimize and reorganize the movement by Al-Ghazali, who developed the model of the Sufi order—a community of spiritual teachers and students.
The first Muslims states independent of a unified Muslim state emerged from the Berber Revolt (739/740-743). In 930, the Ismaili group known as the Qarmatians unsuccessfully rebelled against the Abbassids, sacked Mecca and stole the Black Stone, which was eventually retrieved. The Mongol Empire put an end to the Abbassid dynasty in 1258.
Pre-Modern era (1258–20th century)
Islam spread with Muslim trade networks and Sufi orders activity that extended into Sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Malay archipelago. Under the Ottoman Empire, Islam spread to Southeast Europe. The Muslims in China who were descended from earlier immigration began to assimilate by adopting Chinese names and culture while Nanjing became an important center of Islamic study.
The Muslim world was generally in political decline starting the 1800s, especially relative to the non-Muslim European powers. This decline was evident culturally; while Taqi al-Din founded an observatory in Istanbul and the Jai Singh Observatory was built in the 18th century, there was not a single Muslim country with a major observatory by the twentieth century. The Reconquista, launched against Muslim principalities in Iberia, succeeded in 1492. By the 19th century the British Empire had formally ended the Mughal dynasty in India. The Ottoman Empire disintegrated after World War I and the Caliphate was abolished in 1924.
The majority and oldest group among Shia at that time, the Zaydis, named after the great grandson of Ali, the scholar Zayd ibn Ali, used the Hanafi jurisprudence, as did most Sunnis. The Shia Safavid dynasty rose to power in 1501 and later conquered all of Iran. The ensuing mandatory conversion of Iran to Twelver Shia Islam for the largely Sunni population also ensured the final dominance of the Twelver sect within Shiism over the Zaidi and Ismaili sects. Nader Shah, who overthrew the Safavids, attempted to improve relations with Sunnis by propagating the integration of Shiism by calling it the Jaafari Madh'hab.
A revival movement during this period was an 18th-century Salafi movement led by Ibn Abd al-Wahhab in today's Saudi Arabia. Referred to as Wahhabi, their self designation is Muwahiddun (unitarians). Building upon earlier efforts such as those by Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim, the movement allegedly seeks to uphold monotheism and purify Islam of what they see as later innovations. Their zeal against idolatrous shrines led to the desecration of shrines around the world, including that of Muhammad and his companions in Mecca and Medina. In the 19th century, the Deobandi and Barelwi movements were initiated.
Modern times (20th century–present)
Contact with industrialized nations brought Muslim populations to new areas through economic migration. Many Muslims migrated as indentured servants, from mostly India and Indonesia, to the Caribbean, forming the largest Muslim populations by percentage in the Americas. The resulting urbanization and increase in trade in sub-Saharan Africa brought Muslims to settle in new areas and spread their faith, likely doubling its Muslim population between 1869 and 1914. Muslim immigrants began arriving, many as guest workers and largely from former colonies, in several Western European nations since the 1960s.
There are more and more new Muslim intellectuals who increasingly separate perennial Islamic beliefs from archaic cultural traditions. Liberal Islam is a movement that attempts to reconcile religious tradition with modern norms of secular governance and human rights. Its supporters say that there are multiple ways to read Islam's sacred texts, and they stress the need to leave room for "independent thought on religious matters". Women's issues receive significant weight in the modern discourse on Islam.
Secular powers such as the Chinese Red Guards closed many mosques and destroyed Qurans, and Communist Albania became the first country to ban the practice of every religion. About half a million Muslims were killed in Cambodia by communists who, it is argued, viewed them as their primary enemy and wished to exterminate them since they stood out and worshipped their own god. In Turkey, the military carried out coups to oust Islamist governments, and headscarves were banned in official buildings, as also happened in Tunisia.
Jamal-al-Din al-Afghani, along with his acolyte Muhammad Abduh, have been credited as forerunners of the Islamic revival. Abul A'la Maududi helped influence modern political Islam. Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood advocate Islam as a comprehensive political solution, often in spite of being banned. In Iran, revolution replaced a secular regime with an Islamic state. In Turkey, the Islamist AK Party has democratically been in power for about a decade, while Islamist parties did well in elections following the Arab Spring. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), consisting of Muslim countries, was established in 1969 after the burning of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.
Piety appears to be deepening worldwide. In many places, the prevalence of the hijab is growing increasingly common and the percentage of Muslims favoring Sharia laws has increased. With religious guidance increasingly available electronically, Muslims are able to access views that are strict enough for them rather than rely on state clerics who are often seen as stooges.
It is estimated that, by 2050, the number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world, "driven primarily by differences in fertility rates and the size of youth populations among the world's major religions, as well as by people switching faiths." Perhaps as a sign of these changes, most experts agree that Islam is growing faster than any other faith in East and West Africa.
The largest denomination in Islam is Sunni Islam, which makes up 75%–90% of all Muslims and is arguably the world's largest religious denomination. Sunni Muslims also go by the name Ahl as-Sunnah which means "people of the tradition [of Muhammad]". These hadiths, recounting Muhammad's words, actions, and personal characteristics, are preserved in traditions known as Al-Kutub Al-Sittah (six major books).
Sunnis believe that the first four caliphs were the rightful successors to Muhammad; since God did not specify any particular leaders to succeed him and those leaders were elected. Sunnis believe that anyone who is righteous and just could be a caliph but they have to act according to the Quran and the Hadith, the example of Muhammad and give the people their rights.
The Sunnis follow the Quran, then the Hadith. Then for legal matters not found in the Quran or the Hadith, they follow four madh'habs (schools of thought): Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki and Shafi'i, established around the teachings of Abū Ḥanīfa, Ahmad bin Hanbal, Malik ibn Anas and al-Shafi'i respectively. All four accept the validity of the others and a Muslim may choose any one that he or she finds agreeable. Ahl al-Hadith is a movement that deemphasized sources of jurisprudence outside the quran and sunnah, such as informed opinion (ra'y).
The Salafi movement claim to take the first three generations of Muslims, known as the salaf, as exemplary models. In the 18th century, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab led a salafi movement, referred by outsiders as Wahhabism, in modern-day Saudi Arabia.
The Barelvi movement, a revivalist movement of Sunni Islam with over 200 million followers, emerged as part of debate of how to redeem India from the British. The movement emphasizes primacy of Islamic law in all matters with adherence to Sufi practices and personal devotion to Muhammad and has addressed leading issues for Muslims since partition. The Deobandi movement is an Indo-Pakistani reformist movement that is much influenced by the Wahhabi movement. The Barelvi and Deobandi movements of Sunni Islam accept the validity of all four Sunni madh'habs.
The Shia constitute 10–20% of Islam and are its second-largest branch.
While the Sunnis believe that a Caliph should be elected by the community, Shia's believe that Muhammad appointed his son-in-law, Ali ibn Abi Talib, as his successor and only certain descendants of Ali could be Imams. As a result, they believe that Ali ibn Abi Talib was the first Imam (leader), rejecting the legitimacy of the previous Muslim caliphs Abu Bakr, Uthman ibn al-Affan and Umar ibn al-Khattab. Another point of contention is the cursing of figures revered by Sunnis. However, Jafar al-Sadiq himself disapproved of people who disapproved of his great grand father Abu Bakr and Zayd ibn Ali revered Abu Bakr and Umar. More recently, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani condemned the practice.
Shia Islam has several branches, the most prominent being the Twelvers (the largest branch), Zaidis and Ismailis. Different branches accept different descendants of Ali as Imams. After the death of Imam Jafar al-Sadiq who is considered the sixth Imam by the Twelvers and the Ismaili's, the Ismailis recognized his son Isma'il ibn Jafar as his successor whereas the Twelver Shia's (Ithna Asheri) followed his other son Musa al-Kadhim as the seventh Imam. The Zaydis consider Zayd ibn Ali, the uncle of Imam Jafar al-Sadiq, as their fifth Imam, and follow a different line of succession after him.
Other smaller groups include the Bohra as well as the Alawites and Alevi. Some Shia branches label other Shia branches that do not agree with their doctrine as Ghulat.
Sufism, or tasawwuf (Arabic: تصوف), is a mystical-ascetic approach to Islam that seeks to find a direct personal experience of God. It is not a sect of Islam and its adherents belong to the various Muslim denominations. Classical Sufi scholars have focused on the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God by making use of "intuitive and emotional faculties" that one must be trained to use. Hasan al-Basri was inspired by the ideas of piety and condemnation of worldliness preached by Muhammad and these ideas were later further developed by Al-Ghazali. Traditional Sufis, such as Bayazid Bastami, Jalaluddin Rumi, Haji Bektash Veli, Junaid Baghdadi, and Al-Ghazali, argued for Sufism being based upon the tenets of Islam and the teachings of Muhammad.
Sufism enjoyed a strong revival in central Asia and South Asia. Central Asia is considered to be a center of Sufism. Sufism has played a significant role in fighting against Tsars of Russia and Soviet colonization. Here, Sufis and their different orders are the main religious sources. Sufism is also strong in African countries such as Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Senegal, Chad and Niger.
Sufi practices such as veneration of saints have faced stiff opposition from followers of Salafism and Wahhabism, who have sometimes physically attacked Sufi places of worship, leading to deterioration in Sufi–Salafi relations.
Non-denominational Muslims is an umbrella term that has been used for and by Muslims who do not belong to or do not self-identify with a specific Islamic denomination. Prominent figures who refused to identify with a particular Islamic denomination have included Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Iqbal and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Recent surveys report that large proportions of Muslims in some parts of the world self-identify as "just Muslim", although there is little published analysis available regarding the motivations underlying this response. The Pew Research Center reports that respondents self-identifying as "just Muslim" make up a majority of Muslims in seven countries (and a plurality in three others), with the highest proportion in Kazakhstan at 74%. At least one in five Muslims in at least 22 countries self-identify in this way.
A comprehensive 2009 demographic study of 232 countries and territories reported that 23% of the global population, or 1.57 billion people, are Muslims. Of those, it is estimated that over 75–90% are Sunni and 10–20% are Shia with a small minority belonging to other sects. Approximately 57 countries are Muslim-majority, and Arabs account for around 20% of all Muslims worldwide. The number of Muslims worldwide increased from 200 million in 1900 to 551 million in 1970, and tripled to 1.6 billion by 2010.
The majority of Muslims live in Asia and Africa. Approximately 62% of the world's Muslims live in Asia, with over 683 million adherents in Indonesia, Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh. In the Middle East, non-Arab countries such as Turkey and Iran are the largest Muslim-majority countries; in Africa, Egypt and Nigeria have the most populous Muslim communities.
Most estimates indicate that the People's Republic of China has approximately 20 to 30 million Muslims (1.5% to 2% of the population). However, data provided by the San Diego State University's International Population Center to U.S. News & World Report suggests that China has 65.3 million Muslims. Islam is the second largest religion after Christianity in many European countries, and is slowly catching up to that status in the Americas, with between 2,454,000, according to Pew Forum, and approximately 7 million Muslims, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), in the United States.
According to the Pew Research Center, Islam is set to equal Christianity in number of adherents by the year 2050. Islam is set to grow faster than any other major world religion, reaching a total number of 2.76 billion (an increase of 73%). High fertility rates play a factor, with Islam having a rate of 3.1 compared to the world average of 2.5, and the minimum replacement level for a population at 2.1. Age also plays a role in these numbers due to the fact that Islam has the highest number of adherents under the age of 15 (34% of the total religion) of any major religion (Christianity's is 27%). Sixty percent of Muslims are between the ages of 16 and 59, while only 7% are aged 60+ (the smallest percentage of any major religion). Countries such as Nigeria and the Republic of Macedonia are expected to have Muslim majorities by 2050. In India, the Muslim population will be larger than any other country. Europe's domestic population is set to shrink as opposed to their Islamic population which is set to grow to 10% of Europe's total. According to BBC News, the rates of growth of Islam in Europe reveal that the growing number of Muslims is due primarily to immigration and higher birth rates.
The term "Islamic culture" could be used to mean aspects of culture that pertain to the religion, such as festivals and dress code. It is also controversially used to denote the cultural aspects of traditionally Muslim people. Finally, "Islamic civilization" may also refer to the aspects of the synthesized culture of the early Caliphates, including that of non-Muslims, sometimes referred to as "Islamicate".
Perhaps the most important expression of Islamic architecture is that of the mosque. Varying cultures have an effect on mosque architecture. For example, North African and Spanish Islamic architecture such as the Great Mosque of Kairouan contain marble and porphyry columns from Roman and Byzantine buildings, while mosques in Indonesia often have multi-tiered roofs from local Javan styles.
Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people (not necessarily Muslim) who lived within the territory that was inhabited by Muslim populations. It includes fields as varied as architecture, calligraphy, painting, and ceramics, among others.
While not condemned in the Quran, making images of human beings and animals is frowned on in many Islamic cultures and connected with laws against idolatry common to all Abrahamic religions, as 'Abdullaah ibn Mas'ood reported that Muhammad said, "Those who will be most severely punished by Allah on the Day of Resurrection will be the image-makers" (reported by al-Bukhaari, see al-Fath, 10/382). However this rule has been interpreted in different ways by different scholars and in different historical periods, and there are examples of paintings of both animals and humans in Mughal, Persian and Turkish art. The existence of this aversion to creating images of animate beings has been used to explain the prevalence of calligraphy, tessellation and pattern as key aspects of Islamic artistic culture.
The formal beginning of the Muslim era was chosen, reportedly by Caliph Umar, to be the Hijra in 622 CE, which was an important turning point in Muhammad's fortunes. It is a lunar calendar with days lasting from sunset to sunset. Islamic holy days fall on fixed dates of the lunar calendar, which means that they occur in different seasons in different years in the Gregorian calendar. The most important Islamic festivals are Eid al-Fitr (Arabic: عيد الفطر) on the 1st of Shawwal, marking the end of the fasting month Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha (عيد الأضحى) on the 10th of Dhu al-Hijjah, coinciding with the end of the Hajj pilgrimage.
Criticism of Islam has existed since Islam's formative stages. Early criticism came from Christian authors, many of whom viewed Islam as a Christian heresy or a form of idolatry and often explained it in apocalyptic terms. Later there appeared criticism from the Muslim world itself, and also from Jewish writers and from ecclesiastical Christians.
Objects of criticism include the morality of the life of Muhammad, the last law bearing prophet of Islam, both in his public and personal life, as seen in medieval Christian views on Muhammad. Issues relating to the authenticity and morality of the Quran, the Islamic holy book, are also discussed by critics. Other criticisms focus on the question of human rights in modern Islamic nations, and the treatment of women in Islamic law and practice. In wake of the recent multiculturalism trend, Islam's influence on the ability of Muslim immigrants in the West to assimilate has been criticized. | <urn:uuid:1f980446-2383-4a53-b599-9a90e264b7a8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://alchetron.com/Islam | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570977.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20220809124724-20220809154724-00468.warc.gz | en | 0.96116 | 13,587 | 3.4375 | 3 |
The telecommunication industry: Challenges & opportunities
A report by Deloitte Technology, Media, Telecom Center of Excellence: Issue 1, 2013
Telecom operators are facing increasing challenges in the digital era. Communication tools based on the Internet, such as Weixin, Weibo and Twitter, have dramatically reduced the traditional profits of telecom operators for SMS and voice calls, and they are trying hard to avoid becoming just simple data channels in the digital era.
From the past experiences of some off the world's well-known telecom operators, the best strategy, they say, is to build up an open platform that can attract participation from hardware providers, end device suppliers, content developers and end users. Telecom operators should also lead the healthy development of this ecosystem, and the gene combination of Internet and telecom companies will become the core competitiveness.
For the three telecom operators in China, the upcoming 4G battle is crucial. Standard choosing and the timing of market entry are key strategies. Obviously, China Mobile will take the first move advantage of 4G, China Telecom and China Unicom could also consider giving up their 3G sunk costs by entering into the 4G realm to seize the future market.
Mobile Internet and big data will create tremendous opportunities for telecom operators. Mobile internet is expected to be booming in the following three years. Telecom operators control the last mile for all mobile devices to access the Internet, and therefore will share the future profit from the mobile internet market. Currently, telecom operators are advised to enhance customer loyalty and increase the migration cost for changing the mobile numbers and switching service providers. A large user base is the key to winning market share in the mobile internet arena, and telecom operators are able to secure a huge number of low-end users through subsidizing low-cost Android-based devices. | <urn:uuid:28d8c85e-4e6e-484c-9b60-e291ae10abb9> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www2.deloitte.com/cn/en/pages/technology-media-and-telecommunications/articles/telecommunication-industry-challenges-opportunities.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573193.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818094131-20220818124131-00475.warc.gz | en | 0.919801 | 364 | 1.882813 | 2 |
The government of Karnataka will give No Objection Certificate (NoC) for conducting field trials of any technology developed by the organizations, if the technology helps the farmers, who are producing perishable commodities such as onion and potato.
Speaking at Bangalore India Bio 2013, Mr Shankarlinge Gowda, principal secretary, Horticulture Department, Government of Karnataka, who is holding additional charge of Agriculture Department said, "India is the second largest country producing onion in the world followed by China. In India maximum onion production takes place in Maharashtra followed by Karnataka, Gujarat, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh. Onion is an extremely important vegetable crop not only for internal consumption but also as highest foreign exchange earner among the fruits and vegetables. However, as onion is a perishable commodity, 30 percent of the produce is lost before it reaches the consumers."
Considering the seriousness of the issues, Mr Gowda said, "Any organizations both public and private keen on developing a technology, which supports the farming community in overcoming the issue of perishability, government of Karnataka will give them the necessary support for conducting the field trials in the state by giving NOC in no time."
He also said, "India has had successful green revolution since independence, and we have improved tremendously from food deficient to self sufficient in terms of food grains, though we are still deficient in pulses and oils. About 216 million tonnes of food grains is produced in India annually and we are the major producers of fruits and vegetables with an annual productivity of 215 million tones."
Mr Gowda further said, "By 2030, we will be requiring around 400 million tonnes of food grains. We have to improve agriculture by the implementation of new processes and technologies to meet the needs of the public in future. Though experiments in genetically modified (GM) crops like basmati rice, BT cotton and chick peas is going on, we still have rough and tough situations for field trials. India has to witness at least 2 or 3 green revolutions for increased GDP and productivity. The future perspective of biotechnology and agriculture should be the production of transgenic crops and minimal usage of fertilizers and pesticides. "
"We always feel that the consumer is the ultimate goal but it is the farmers, who are very important and we should take all necessary steps to uplift them by providing latest technologies and facilities, so as to achieve better productivity," concluded Mr Gowda. | <urn:uuid:950c13b8-3d03-4a1d-b8d8-2e2b51beb870> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.biospectrumindia.com/biospecindia/news/174310/karnataka-govt-aid-farming-community | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721008.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00118-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.950207 | 484 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Salamis : The Greatest Naval Battle of the Ancient World, 480 BC Paperback
"Salamis" tells the story of possibly the greatest naval battle of the ancient world.
Involving hundreds of thousands of combatants and well over a thousand triremes - the ranking naval war engine of the time - it was the culminating battle in a twenty-year struggle between the Persian Empire and the Greeks.
Against all odds - and with the help of a little treachery, a brilliant strategy and a lucky wind - the Greeks defeated the Persians, and with it began the roll-back of the Persian Empire, and the beginning of the Hellenic imperium.
This epic tale is told through the individual stories of twelve characters, six form each side, each of which played a major role in the battle and its aftermath.
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 400 pages, Illustrations
- Publisher: Cornerstone
- Publication Date: 03/03/2005
- Category: European history
- ISBN: 9780099451921 | <urn:uuid:4ab6bea2-2d69-453b-9923-d96480d2f46f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.speedyhen.com/Product/Barry-S-Strauss/Salamis--The-Greatest-Naval-Battle-of-the-Ancient-World-480-BC/144266 | 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 | 0.883573 | 216 | 2.484375 | 2 |
NAATBatt International is a vehicle for making contacts in and getting current market intelligence about the advanced battery industry and the advanced battery supply chain in North America. NAATBatt meetings, events and conferences are where senior executives go to learn about what is new in battery technology and how those developments can benefit their bottom lines.
Battery technology is arguably the most important technology of the 21st Century. Properly understood, battery technology is about providing electric power to a wide range of devices and technologies that will shape human society over the next hundred years without the need for an electric cord. Vehicle technology, renewable energy, aviation, maritime propulsion systems, robotics, telecommunications infrastructure, high energy weapons, medical devices, consumer electronics and the “Internet of Things” will all depend on disconnected access to electric power.
More importantly, advances in those other technologies depend on, and will be paced by, advances in battery technology. Making better vehicles, power grids, aircraft, medical systems, high energy weapons, consumer devices and the like all depend upon increasing the ability of batteries to store more and more energy in less and less mass. Developing and manufacturing better batteries will be key technology challenges of the 21st Century.
NAATBatt is where you will learn what is going on in batteries and who is making the progress happen. Please do your part to help support the development of new battery technologies and grow the critically important advanced battery industry in North America.
Do you just work in the battery industry, or will you be part of it? | <urn:uuid:573bd90f-c081-44a8-a663-c447a4f1301c> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://naatbatt.org/membership/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571536.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811224716-20220812014716-00277.warc.gz | en | 0.932722 | 310 | 1.71875 | 2 |
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Celebrating the ethnic diversity of America, President Barack Obama said more than two dozen foreign-born service members who became U.S. citizens at a White House ceremony on the Fourth of July are vivid reminders that the country is, and always has been, a nation of immigrants.
He said the vast range of backgrounds and experiences that made America a melting pot for more than 200 years also makes it stronger, but that the immigration system has to be retooled for the U.S. to keep its place as the greatest nation on earth.
“If we want to keep attracting the best and the brightest from beyond our shores, we’re going to have to fix our immigration system, which is broken,” Obama said after 25 service members from 15 countries collectively raised their right hands and pledged allegiance to the United States. “Pass common-sense immigration reform. We shouldn’t be making it harder for the best and the brightest to come here, create jobs here, grow our economy here. We should make it easier.”
The hot-button issue of immigration is earning renewed attention after the influx to the U.S. of tens of thousands of unaccompanied children from Central America. Under U.S. law, they must be sent back across the border with Mexico to their home countries, which has upset immigration advocates who already take issue with Obama’s strict enforcement of deportation policy. They want Obama to allow the children to stay; he says he must follow the law.
At the same time, Obama blames House Republicans for delaying action on immigration legislation. A comprehensive measure the Senate passed last summer has been blocked by House leaders who also have done little to advance their own immigration proposals.
Obama announced earlier this week that, as a result of inaction on Capitol Hill, he will pursue non-legislative ways that he can adjust U.S. immigration policy without waiting for Congress to send him a bill.
“I’m going to keep doing everything I can to make our immigration system smarter and more efficient,” Obama said.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:42a9cc2e-6f14-4d5f-8694-8707b79e6a79> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://ksnt.com/2014/07/04/obama-us-always-has-been-a-nation-of-immigrants/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280266.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00498-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.963039 | 456 | 1.796875 | 2 |
The use of the Christian symbolism of crucifixion is hardly exceptional to post-Trianon Hungarian irredentist imagery, for it is common to self-pitying nationalist imagery in much of the Christian world. However, Hungary's unique historical development made the crucifixion of a male figure less evocative to Hungarian irredentist image makers. Though tradition called for gender-neutral or female representations of Hungary, Hungarian nationalists still felt compelled to evoke the Passion of Christ while simultaneously stressing the Mary-like nature of the country. They created a powerful, if heretical set of imagery placing the motherland in the role of Christ. This imagery continues to be evoked in Hungarian nationalist discourse today.
Financed by the National Centre for Research and Development under grant No. SP/I/1/77065/10 by the strategic scientific research and experimental development program:
SYNAT - “Interdisciplinary System for Interactive Scientific and Scientific-Technical Information”. | <urn:uuid:a95f19b7-ee54-44bf-b408-bbc3ca293746> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.infona.pl/resource/bwmeta1.element.39249bed-eb86-3164-be21-1d9986ddb2a0 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285289.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00152-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9006 | 196 | 2.515625 | 3 |
John F Perkins
The Montpelier Examiner, Thursday, October 1, 1909
JOHN F PERKINS GOES TO FINAL REST
John F Perkins died at his home in this city (Montpelier) Friday morning, Sep 24 after an illness of three weeks with pneumonia, followed with paralysis and blood poison. While at no time after the first few days of his illness was there much hope entertained for his recovery, yet during his rational moments Mr. Perkins was cheerful and repeatedly expressed the belief that he would get well.
Soon after is right side became paralyzed, evidence of gangrene began to show itself in the right foot and as the only possible hope of saving his life his right leg was amputated on Tuesday of last week.
Not withstanding his weakened condition, he rallied from the effects of the operation and made a heroic fight against death, but the grim reaper had set his mark upon him and Friday morning the spirit of John Perkins took flight to its eternal home. | <urn:uuid:5493a44f-f6d3-4d12-886d-5171b688c380> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~idbearla/johnperkins.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00319-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.99167 | 199 | 1.625 | 2 |
Age discrimination is quickly becoming the most common form of discrimination, despite new laws being implemented less than a year ago to prevent it, new research has found.
A survey of just under 2,000 people, commissioned by business information provider Croner, found that 11% of respondents believe they had been discriminated against because of their age.
Gillian Dowling, technical consultant at Croner, says: “Despite the massive efforts to ensure all employers were aware of how to comply with age discrimination legislation, this form of prejudice has quickly become one of the more prominent forms of workplace discrimination defined by employment law.
“We’re advising employers to ensure that ‘too young’ or ‘too old’ is no longer a factor in any employment decision-making, such as hiring and firing, and they should also be aware of any unfair treatment of their employees,” Dowling concluded.
Other findings include:
- Age discrimination is experienced by almost equal numbers of men and women (11% compared with 10%)
- 73% of respondents have never been the victim of discrimination on the grounds of age, sex, race, religion or belief, sexual orientation or disability
- Only 3% of respondents felt they have been discriminated against because of their race or disability
- Only 2% of employees felt they were discriminated against because of their sexual orientation or religion or belief. | <urn:uuid:6629317a-b73e-4df8-a932-7ee99de49b74> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.personneltoday.com/hr/age-discrimination-set-to-become-most-common-form-of-discrimination/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571950.76/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813111851-20220813141851-00669.warc.gz | en | 0.97909 | 284 | 3.015625 | 3 |
Situated in Polichrono Mavrobara is a place or rare beauty and with major ecological importance. Situated 300m height and 3km from the main road.Monument of nature since 1998, by the Prefecture of central Macedonia.
A sweet water lake with total epanse of 2.200 sq metres. It’s age goes throught the centuries. The lake was created by geological subsidence on land reclaimed from the sea. One myth connects Mavrobara with an underground stream. The calm waters give refuge to two rare species of water turtle that belong to the families “emydidae” “emys orbicularis” and “mauremys caspica”. the number of these species, have increased over the recent years and it is very encouraging for their evolution.
We can find the turtles in areas with some altitude. They are mostly active in day time and feed on small fishes, wich they find in the lake. They give birth to 3-16 white eggs (emys ordicularis) and 4-6 (mauremys caspica).
They hide them in the ground in shiny (warm) places to a depth of between 30-90cm. The incubation takes place during the summer. They live 10-15 years and the sex of the new borne is defined by the temperature of the environment.
Plants and Animals of surrounding area
Mavrobara is situated in the forest of Polihrono, in a beautiful location where there are many trees, plants, frogs, blackbirds, woodcocks, salamanders, watersnakes, etc.
Distances from Polichrono is about 2.7km and from Kassandrino is about 4km | <urn:uuid:08c3df49-5f5b-4c5d-a746-5934050a9603> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://gohalkidiki.com/mavrobara-polihrono/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280292.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00336-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927918 | 364 | 2.546875 | 3 |
South Africa's Sesame Street Gets HIV+ Muppet
of Associated Press
Kami, a mustard-colored furry Muppet, likes nature, telling stories and collecting stuff. She also happens to be HIV-positive.
To plaudits from education officials and AIDS activists, the producers of South Africa's version of Sesame Street on Tuesday unveiled the first Muppet infected with the virus that causes AIDS.
"We are living in a society that is very stigmatizing and discriminatory," said Musa Njoko, an AIDS activist. The introduction of Kami "is going to create a culture of acceptance."
That is exactly what the show's creators hope.
Some 4.7 million South Africans one in nine are HIV-positive, more people than in any other country in the world.
"There is a critical need here," said Karen Gruenberg, executive vice president of Sesame Workshop, the show's New York-based production company.
South Africa's "Takalani Sesame" is one of several locally produced versions of the children's program. Egypt, Russia, Germany, Mexico and Spain, among other countries, all have shows modeled after the American "Sesame Street" that premiered in 1969.
The HIV-infected character was created at the urging of the South African government, which helps sponsor the show, to reduce stigma about the disease.
"Education is vital to ensure that people understand what HIV/AIDS is," Education Minister Kader Asmal said.
At the unveiling, Kami, who has a mop of brown hair and wears a vest, wanders onto Sesame Street and wonders nervously if residents will want to play with her.
She needn't have worried. The other Muppets enthusiastically welcome Kami.
According to the show's creators, Kami is a healthy, affectionate 5-year-old orphan who is a little shy but quickly joins in when approached in a friendly way. She also knows a lot about HIV.
Kami, whose name means acceptance in the Tswana language, will teach viewers about coping with illness and loss. The character will be introduced to South African audiences when the second season of "Takalani Sesame" begins Sept. 30. | <urn:uuid:7817fa59-471f-4f06-ad44-4173e6eec6b6> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.muppetcentral.com/news/2002/091702.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282202.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00554-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961046 | 461 | 2.328125 | 2 |
VPN provider TunnelBear has released a study, uncovering global perspectives on online censorship experiences of citizens in the United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, Australia, Russia, Norway and Sweden. The survey showed large segments of people in each country do not trust the integrity of information they find online, with a significant 48% of UK respondents feeling this way, and many suspect censorship is at play.
Due to pandemic-induced stay-at-home orders and increasing political activism, online activity across the globe has reached an all-time high in 2020, with Akamai revealing a 30% increase in global internet traffic and Ofcom reporting that British adults now spend an average of four hours a day online. As more connections take place digitally, many people are cautious of the ways censorship may be impacting their ability to gather accurate, real-time information.
TunnelBear’s recent survey found that nearly half (45%) of respondents in the seven countries surveyed do not trust the integrity of information they find online. In fact, two in five (44%) people globally report that they, or someone they know, have experienced internet censorship, with 58% of Brits claiming to have experienced, or heard of someone who has experienced, online censorship in the UK.
Globally, two-thirds (69%) of respondents believe online information accessed in their country might be censored, with over one-third (35%) reporting they believe a significant amount of news is censored in their country. Conversely, 32% of UK respondents admit to never having considered whether this could be the case.
Consumers are suspicious of political censorship
Censorship can take many different forms, impacting users in targeted ways. Consumers are divided in their opinions on the most prominent form experienced today.
According to the survey, over one-third (39%) of respondents believe they face political censorship, as governments and political parties suppress content to avoid upheaval or embarrassment. This number jumps to nearly half (44%) in the USA.
Solutions to effectively combat censorship
As respondents become more cautious of potential censorship, three in ten UK adults (28%) confirmed they would begin using a VPN if there was hard evidence of regulators censoring the internet. In fact, a further 11% of UK respondents claim to always use a VPN today. However, over one in four UK consumers (27%) are not familiar with the technology – and therefore, would be unlikely to use one.
“While consumers are increasingly aware of and wary about internet censorship in the UK and globally, they also need to understand how to combat such intrusions on their freedom,” said Justin Watts, head of engineering at TunnelBear. “At TunnelBear, we are passionate advocates for a free and open internet. Through our latest technology and recent anti-censorship initiatives in countries like Iran and Venezuela, we intend to help everyone access the most accurate and updated information available.”
In countries such as Iran, where this type of censorship is known to be particularly prevalent, TunnelBear has launched an anti-censorship initiative that provides users with enough data to browse the web and view blocked content at no cost to them. TunnelBear also partners with NGOs and other open-internet activist groups to continue expanding its offerings to consumers who need these resources the most.
TunnelBear worked with 3Gem Global Research to conduct a survey in September of 2020. The survey polled 5,500 people between the ages of 18-65 in the United Kingdom, United States of America, Canada, Australia, Russia, Norway and Sweden on the topic of internet censorship.
Read the latest edition of PCR’s monthly magazine below: | <urn:uuid:6046cdc1-9b50-4179-9a71-31c740bdfaac> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.pcr-online.biz/2020/09/29/nearly-half-of-uk-adults-do-not-trust-integrity-of-online-information-tunnelbear-survey-reveals/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572089.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814234405-20220815024405-00067.warc.gz | en | 0.952576 | 751 | 2.265625 | 2 |
STUDENT DROP-OFF / PICK-UP PROCEDURES
Our priority remains student safety. We need your help and cooperation for a safe and smooth drop-off or pick-up. Please be familiar with our procedures.
Please remember that the car drop-off line is a cell phone free zone. For the safety of your child as well as other children and teachers, please refrain from talking on your cell phone while you are in the line.
ARRIVAL / DROP-OFF
Children should not be dropped off at school before 7:30 a.m. Prior to this time, there is no supervision.
Students should be dropped off at the designated drop off zone located at the rear of the building near the gymnasium.
Please loop around the circle and pull your vehicle to the end of the drop off circle.
Students may go directly to their homeroom or to the cafeteria to pick up breakfast.
Before 7:30 a.m. continue to use the right lane to allow for teachers and staff to arrive in a timely manner so that teachers can get in the building and prepare for greeting your child.
At 7:30 a.m. traffic may use 2 lanes. This is to allow for traffic to move off of Berkeley Dr. and for closure of the gate.
Please stay in the car line and do not pass other vehicles.
Please stay in your car and allow your child to enter the building under the supervision of the administrators and safety patrols on duty.
Front gate closes at 8:00 a.m., after which the tardy bell will ring. If you arrive after the gate is closed, please park and escort your children to the front office. All students arriving at this time must be signed in. For their safety, children should never be unsupervised in the parking area.
Remember that the handicap spaces are reserved for cars with a handicap tag.
Parking in a designated fire lane may result in a fine. Please avoid the red curb!
For safety purposes, parents should have a visitor's pass when entering the building.
If you have items to deliver to the classroom, leave them in the office. We will be happy to deliver them for you.
DISMISSAL / PICK-UP
If you wish to pick up your child before 2:15 p.m. dismissal, you should sign your child out before 2:00 p.m.
If there is a change of dismissal plans for your child/children, please notify the school in writing prior to 1:30 p.m. the day of the change. This ensures that we are able to deliver the proper information to your child/children before dismissal.
Please inform the office and teacher if there are persons who are not allowed to pick up your child. Pertinent custody documents will be kept on file in the child's school record.
The school-provided hangtag, with the number assigned to your child/children should be displayed in the front window, prior to entering the school campus and remain displayed until your child/children enter(s) the car.
Dismissal for K-2nd grade only car rider students begins at 2:15 p.m. in rear of the building.
Dismissal for 3rd-5th grade car rider students and their younger K-2nd siblings begins at 2:25 p.m.
Dismissal for walkers begins at 2:20 p.m.
Drivers should only use the right (outside) lane when arriving on campus to pick up students.
The staff member running the Driveline will be in the left lane. You could be redirected by this staff member to enter the middle of the parking lot if you are early for 3rd-5th grade dismissal.
Please remain in the right lane for exiting after student pick-up, unless directed by staff, then proceed cautiously to the left lane.
Staff members will be on duty to assist students who are being picked up and will supervise each child to his/her car.
Parents who are picking-up should remain in their vehicles at all times. | <urn:uuid:5a8a666c-dfc0-46b4-9405-c5ffb37b87a6> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://cle.pickens.k12.sc.us/page/transportation | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572198.93/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815175725-20220815205725-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.948835 | 860 | 1.507813 | 2 |
When Canada, the United States and Mexico signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, it established one of the largest free trade
areas in the world. By law, NAFTA requires that each country treats the goods and services of the other two partners as if they were domestically
produced. These rules ensure that preferential tariff benefits are only available for goods substantially produced or transformed in North America.
So, is NAFTA old news? Not according to the level of audit activity taking place in both Canada and the United States. Do you understand the risk associated with NAFTA certificates? Do you know the implications that a NAFTA audit can have on your bottom line? What will be the cost to your business if your goods are stopped at the US border? The seminar is
designed to help you understand your role and responsibility as Importer of Record as well as the risks associated with poorly documented or completed NAFTA Certificates.
The Ontario Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation and ventureLAB in Markham are pleased to present this half-day, morning seminar. The seminar will provide you with information on government programs and services to assist you in exporting. As well, the seminar will cover the following topics:
· An Overview of NAFTA, Key NAFTA Chapters and NAFTA Terms
· HS Classification
· NAFTA Rules of Origin and Preference Criteria
· NAFTA Provisions
· NAFTA Certificate of Origin
· NAFTA Importer / Exporter Obligations
· Developing a NAFTA Action Plan
Canadian Consulate, Buffalo
Jennifer Deans, C.C.S.
Russell A. Farrow
Ministry of Economic
Development & Innovation
Registration is Required. | <urn:uuid:e05b98e8-8aab-41a1-a59b-ff0e5ae78089> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/exporting-to-the-united-states-a-north-american-free-trade-nafta-tickets-3815014812 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719155.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00332-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917097 | 339 | 1.992188 | 2 |
- Ted Carpenter: It's no surprise that a new report says the global war on drugs is failing
- Carpenter: Drug prohibition leads to corruption, violence and a host of societal problems
- He says the folly of alcohol prohibition offers us lessons in anti-drug strategies
- Carpenter: Change of policy should begin with legalization of marijuana
A report released this week tells us that the international war on drugs is failing. That comes as no surprise as a growing number of policy experts, pundits and politicians have reached that conclusion, including former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Mexican President Vicente Fox, and former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso.
Among other findings, the report documents that inflation-adjusted and purity-adjusted prices of marijuana, cocaine and heroin have all decreased dramatically since 1990 in as geographically diverse areas as Europe, the United States and Australia. In other words, illegal drugs are plentiful and cheap around the world.
So now what?
The report's policy recommendations are relatively tepid. It emphasizes the need to shift from a strategy of eradication and interdiction of drugs to one focused more on drug abuse prevention and treatment. Although that shift away from law enforcement to a "harm reduction" approach would be an improvement on the current futile, counterproductive strategy, it is not nearly sufficient.
Moreover, the report too readily accepts the conventional wisdom that drug use is largely responsible for a host of social pathologies. The reality is that the strategy of drug prohibition, not drug use itself, is responsible for many of those pathologies.
Drug abuse is certainly a major public health problem, and its societal costs are considerable. But banning the drug trade creates ugly social and economic distortions.
Because certain drugs are illegal, there is an enormous black-market premium (by most estimates, up to 90% of the retail price) associated with them. Moreover, people who are willing to traffic in an illegal product often do not have many qualms about violating other laws. Prohibition enables the most unsavory, violence-prone individuals and organizations to dominate the commerce.
Drug prohibition leads inevitably to corruption and violence -- to a disturbing extent in the United States and even more so in drug-source or drug-transiting countries. The problems caused by the war on drugs are even more damaging to societies than those caused by drug use per se.
In Mexico, for example, about 60,000 people have perished in armed conflicts among the various drug cartels and between the cartels and the Mexican authorities over the past 6½ years. Another 20,000 people have gone missing. That turmoil has found even more fertile soil in the smaller, weaker countries of Central America. Today, Mexican-based drug cartels control major swaths of territory in both Honduras and Guatemala, and they pose a growing threat to the authority of governments throughout the region.
As the report notes, the international drug trade is a $350 billion-a-year industry. There is no realistic way to suppress such an economic juggernaut. We can only determine whether the trade will be in the hands of honest businesses or ruthless criminals.
The quixotic U.S. crusade against alcohol in the 1920s and early 1930s demonstrated that a prohibition strategy empowers and enriches odious criminals. When alcohol was outlawed, the commerce fell into the hands of gangsters like Al Capone and Dutch Shultz. Bootleggers bribed and corrupted elected officials and police personnel throughout the country. There were shootouts on the streets of Chicago, New York and other American cities—just as we have gunbattles between drug gangs in large cities today.
Once Prohibition ended, legitimate business provided consumers with the beverages they sought, and the carnage and corruption subsided. Today, suppliers such as Gallo Wines, Coors Brewery, and Jack Daniels Distillery dominate the trade.
Ending drug prohibition is not a panacea. Under a legalized system for alcoholic beverages, we still have to deal with drunk driving, alcoholism and other social problems. Yet no rational person would advocate returning to Prohibition with all its ugly consequences.
The folly of alcohol prohibition was confined to the United States. Thanks largely to Washington's pressure -- drug prohibition is a global folly. We should learn from history and do more than make modest shifts in anti-drug strategies. We need to bite the bullet, accepting the reality that our second fling with prohibition hasn't worked any better than the first.
Change should begin with the comprehensive legalization of marijuana, not just incremental, partial legalization as voters in Colorado and Washington approved last year. We also need to begin a serious discussion about how to deal with harder drugs within a framework of legalization. Whatever the specifics of a new policy, there needs to be recognition both in the United States and around the world that prohibition is an unsustainable approach.
Follow us on Twitter @CNNOpinion.
Join us on Facebook/CNNOpinion. | <urn:uuid:95b9af8d-16f0-4227-b5f7-07957dbcba63> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/04/opinion/carpenter-drug-war/index.html?iid=article_sidebar | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282926.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00396-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951364 | 1,001 | 1.898438 | 2 |
What Is Ss3svc32.exe
You should have a basic knowledge of ss3svc32.exe before you start to fix the issue. Ss3svc32.exe is developed by Asus ROG, which is a part of Sonic Studio 3 and is usually a built-in computer with Asus motherboard or other parts.
Sonic Studio 3 is a software product of the Asus Republic of Gamers, which provides sound settings, noise reduction, and voice volume stability. It can be used with speakers and headphones.
Ss3svc32.exe can be installed together with other driver packages, such as Realtech HD audio driver, for implementing audio functions. Although SS3svc32.exe from Asus Sonic Studio is not a virus, there are still some reports that the file has been tampered with. Therefore, it is recommended to use antivirus programs such as Windows Defender to scan files.
It does not affect your PC in any way, but you may feel annoyed when you find the ?ss3svc32.exe on startup? pop-up. This pop-up is caused by the patches for Windows 10 (KB4522738 and KB4517211). Now, let?s see how to fix the ss3svc32.exe issue.
How to Fix the ?Ss3svc32.exe on startup? Issue
Method 1: Uninstall Sonic Studio 3
The first method for you to fix the ?ss3svc32.exe on startup? pop-up is uninstalling Sonic Studio 3. The following are the detailed steps:
Step 1: Right-click the Start button. Then select Apps and Features.
Step 2: Find the Sonic Studio 3 software and click it to choose Uninstall. Then, you can check to see if the ?ss3svc32.exe on startup? pop-up has gone.
Also see: How to Uninstall Programs on Windows 10? Here Are Methods
Method 2: Run Sonic Studio 3 as Administrator
If the last method is not working, you can try to run Sonic Studio 3 as an administrator to fix the ss3svc32.exe issue. This method might be suitable for you. Now, let?s see how to do that.
Step 1: Open Internet Explorer. Then, go to C:Program FilesASUSTeKcomputer.IncSonic Suite 3Foundation.
Step 2: Find the Ss3svc32.exe file in the folder. Right-click the file and choose Properties.
Step 3: Select the Compatibility tab. Click the Change settings for all users option.
Step 4: Select Run this program as administrator. Click Apply and then OK.
Now, you can check to see if the ?ss3svc32.exe on startup? pop-up has been fixed. If not, try the next method.
Method 3: Change the File Name
You can also change the file name manually to fix the Ss3svc32.exe error. If you don?t know how to do that, you can follow the steps below:
Step 1: Open Internet Explorer, and go to C:Program FilesASUSTeKcomputer.IncSonic Suite 3Foundation again.
Step 2: Find the Ss3svc32.exe file in the folder. Right-click it and choose Rename. Then, you can rename it and press Enter.
Are you encountering the ?ss3svc32.exe on startup? pop-up on Windows 10? After trying these methods above, you should know what it is and you should get rid of this error.
Originally published at https://www.minitool.com on May 27, 2020. | <urn:uuid:0e23e268-d036-43c6-aa6f-4bbb81021ffe> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://911weknow.com/what-is-ss3svc32-exe-and-how-to-fix-ss3svc32-exe-on-startup-issue | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570871.10/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808183040-20220808213040-00264.warc.gz | en | 0.877162 | 781 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Patients with low-grade gliomas more likely to experience mental health disorders
Patients with low-grade glioma (LGG) tumors are more likely to experience mental health distress and possibly be treated for a mental health disorder (MHD), according to Penn State College of Medicine and Penn State Cancer Institute researchers. Approximately 61% of patients with LGG developed an MHD, which is well above the national average of 21%. The researchers recommend providers integrate mental health screenings throughout the course of LGG treatment to improve patient’s quality of life and overall treatment efficacy.
Dr. Alireza Mansouri, assistant professor of neurosurgery, and his colleagues, including Debarati Bhanja, a medical student at the College of Medicine and key researcher of the study, knew patients with LGGs were living longer with advanced treatment, but their mental health status was largely undetermined.
“Though causation remains unknown, we’ve been able to delay the progression of gliomas and therefore extend life expectancy,” Mansouri said. “As we attempt to transition LGG diagnosis into a chronic disease rather than an acutely deteriorating one, it’s important to look at the impact of diagnosis and medical interventions on a patient’s quality of life.”
Generally, grade I gliomas are more contained and may be treated with curative surgery. Grade II gliomas are often more infiltrative and typically grow beyond what the human eye or microscope can see. Surgery is not considered a curative treatment for grade 2 gliomas which have a higher likelihood of becoming malignant. Grade II gliomas make up 13% to 16% of all glial tumors. Grade II gliomas were the focus of this study.
Previous research indicates a strong correlation between a cancer diagnosis and MHDs. Patients with cancerous brain tumors, however, report emotional distress significantly greater than patients with a systemic cancer diagnosis and almost double that of the general population. However, research on the connection between MHDs and gliomas has been limited to high-grade gliomas, with only depression and anxiety measured.
Using data from an insurance claims database, Mansouri and his team examined data from more than 20,000 patients with LGGs to determine the incidence of MHDs before and after diagnosis. Patient data came from private, employer-funded health insurance plans that assign diagnostic codes to tumor diagnoses and MHDs, along with codes associated with any interventions and medications provided.
The MHDs analyzed in this study included episodic mood disorders such as depression, anxiety, non-alcohol drug dependence, adjustment reaction and depressive disorder not otherwise specified.
To account for patients who may not have received a formal mental health diagnosis, researchers tracked medication dispensing records for patients using psychotropic medications, including antidepressants, antipsychotics and monoamine oxidase inhibitors.
“As researchers, we recognize the possibility that a doctor might not have entered a specific mental health diagnosis in the database, yet the patient still struggled with mental health symptoms,” Mansouri said. “We tried to capture relevant information based on the medications those patients were prescribed.”
The prevalence of MHDs among patients with LGGs was measured by quantifying the number of patients with concurrent LGG codes and MHD/psychotropic drug fill codes. The new onset of MHDs in LGG patients was determined by measuring the number of patients with their first recorded MHD or psychotropic drug fill after the diagnosis of an LGG. They found that 60.9% of patients with LGG developed an MHD, which is well above the national average of 21%.
Based on their initial findings, Mansouri and his colleagues recommend providers integrate mental health screenings throughout the course of LGG treatment to improve patient’s quality of life and overall treatment efficacy.
“For providers, it’s important to consider these results proactively,” Mansouri said. “At the onset of diagnosis, LGG patients should be screened for mental health symptoms at every stage of treatment, and programs need to effectively incorporate those strategies into patient management.”
A prospective study that looks at patients with LGG who are directly screened for MHDs is the next step.
“We’re undertaking that right now, a prospective assessment of mental health disorders incidence and prevalence in patients with LGG,” Mansouri said.
Until then, the association between LGG diagnosis and the presence of MHDs seems clear.
“Now that we have effective tools to better manage LGGs, providers should focus on quality of life,” Mansouri said. “We should not lose track of how these diagnoses impact our patients’ quality of life and ultimately, the effectiveness of the care we provide.”
If you're having trouble accessing this content, or would like it in another format, please email Penn State Health Marketing & Communications. | <urn:uuid:2ac0228b-da38-487a-9206-0ab16c3e41bf> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://pennstatehealthnews.org/2022/06/lgg-mhd-mansouri/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572304.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816120802-20220816150802-00478.warc.gz | en | 0.949396 | 1,024 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Differentiated Spelling booklets, for individual year groups; with fewer spellings, using the Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check method. The spellings are based on those suggested in the new Primary National Curriculum for English. The booklets contain blank spaces for student's personal spellings. They are available in a choice of font styles: print, joined cursive or continuous cursive with a lead-in stroke. See here for more information about handwriting expectations as set out in the National Curriculum for English. | <urn:uuid:18b0d080-123a-4b72-b43a-6d76d6152cb4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.spellzoo.co.uk/product/differentiated-spelling-booklets-set-b/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571198.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810161541-20220810191541-00272.warc.gz | en | 0.914212 | 110 | 2.984375 | 3 |
I'm trying to construct a SELECT query within the Report Writer 2005 Data Tab as follows- ="SELECT blah..." & SomeFunctionToConstructWhereClause() " ORDER BY 1"
When the length exceeds 128 characters, I get the following error (works otherwise)- Microsoft Report Designer Incorrect syntax near '='. <QUERY TEXT> The identifier that starts with is too long. Maximum length is 128.
Say it isn't so or that there is a reasonable workaround for this. 128 characters isn't that much when you're talking about complex query strings. Thanks in advance.
View Complete Post | <urn:uuid:1261d6d0-6ab8-4bd9-b1d8-e9514d5c4eab> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.dotnetspark.com/links/45090-ssrs-2005-report-writer-limitation--128.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00328-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.921761 | 122 | 1.507813 | 2 |
About the Author: Madelyn Spirnak is Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs (NEA). Ms. Spirnak is responsible for overseeing the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), the Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) initiative, and the NEA Press and Public Diplomacy Office.
On June 4, many of you heard President Obama’s call for a “New Beginning” between the United States and Muslim communities worldwide. As part of this plan, the President offered several critical areas where we can build partnerships: women’s empowerment, education, technology, and health, to name a few. I want to highlight an especially important topic that I was excited to hear the President address in Cairo: The vital role that entrepreneurship plays in supporting economic development and opportunity in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
Many of you may not be aware that the State Department supports the efforts of entrepreneurs from the MENA region through the Middle East Entrepreneur Training (MEET) program. Funded by the Office of the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) and run by the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego, MEET provides training to business and civil society leaders in the MENA region to help them fulfill their visions to create positive economic and social changes in their societies. Through the efforts of these individuals, jobs and opportunities are opening up to more and more people in the region. Specifically, over the last five years, MEET program participants have created more than 700 new businesses.
I recently had the pleasure of meeting many MEET alumni at a conference in Istanbul August 4-5, 2009. Over 200 MEET alumni gathered to discuss opportunities for collaboration and strategies for moving their businesses and organizations forward in a tough economy. These entrepreneurs and leaders are making a positive impact in their communities in the MENA region. For example, in Egypt, a colleague is using skills gained through MEET to energize a training program offered by a national association to enhance potential employees’ private sector business skills. In Lebanon, Morocco and Yemen, MEET alumni have founded coalitions to advocate for human rights, expand media freedom, and support environmental awareness and responsibility throughout the region.
These inspiring leaders returned to their home countries with a new understanding of the United States and of our desire to build constructive partnerships. As President Obama mentioned in his address in Cairo, he will host a summit on entrepreneurship to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world, and I look forward to interacting with these talented individuals in the months and years to come.
Thank you, and I welcome your comments. | <urn:uuid:09993f16-5844-42f7-8c77-9aeb5d7d820f> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://blogs.state.gov/stories/2009/09/01/middle-east-entrepreneur-training-inspires-next-generation-business-leaders?page=0%2C1633 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720475.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00354-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952978 | 558 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Freedman: Weather Almanacs Grapple with Warming
As the field of meteorology becomes more sophisticated, with technologies like phased-array radar and petascale computers, there are still some stalwarts who prefer to rely instead on offbeat techniques to predict the weather far in advance. Although most scientists deride those old-school people as rather silly, since the weather is impossible to reliably predict more than a week in advance, the purveyors of weather almanacs have had some serious staying power, tracing back more than two hundred years in some cases.
But what happens now that their methods, which were built upon the premise that weather is cyclical, runs into global climate change, which scientists say may already be messing with weather patterns worldwide?
That's the question addressed in an interesting article in The Washington Post last week, which found that some weather almanacs are incorporating climate change into their forecasting methods, while others are pretending it doesn't exist.
As the journalist, David A. Fahrenthold, aptly put it in his story, "... for prognosticators, climate change is a problem on a much bigger scale. It threatens the very bedrock of their craft -- the prognosticator's assurance that nature is repeating itself."
I'd go a step further and say that even modern weather forecasters, who actually do employ Doppler radar and computer models, must deal with the same quandary; the nagging doubt that "normal" weather isn't so normal anymore. Integrating weather and climate information, and cross-pollinating between the related worlds of meteorology and climatology, is a key challenge for the coming years.
Fahrenthold reported that the new edition of The Old Farmer's Almanac of Dublin, N.H., which can be found next to the cash register at nearly every country store in Vermont and New Hampshire, predicts two decades of cooling instead of continued global warming. The publication uses a super double secret formula that invokes solar sunspot cycles to predict the weather far in advance.
Janice Stillman, the Almanac's editor (no relation to CWG's Dan Stillman... or maybe that's just what we want you to think...) said, "We just simply don't predict what kind of effect greenhouse gases...may have on that."
"We're looking forward to cooler than normal conditions for quite some time."
Factoring out greenhouse gas concentrations is a rather convenient way of simplifying long-range weather forecasting, don't you think?
In contrast to the Old Farmer's Almanac, Fahrenthold found that other similar publications are including climate change in their forecasts, such as "J. Gruber's Hagers-Town Town and Country Almanack," which began in the late 18th century and apparently has been spelled that way ever since. The editor of that publication told the Post that he now forecasts less snow, and pushes back the date of the first snowfall to later in the year. Such adjustments are in line with the findings of some climate studies that have shown seasonal shifts have already occurred in parts of the United States, with spring arriving earlier than it used to, for example.
Even though I'm knocking some of them here because of their anemic response to climate change, almanacs are still fun, and sometimes even useful. My father, a man of medical science, continues to credit the Old Farmer's Almanac for calling Boston's infamous "Blizzard of '78" - during which my Dad lost his car for several days - accurately months in advance. Occasionally they get lucky I guess.
Sometimes even old weather wives tales ring true as well ("red sky in the morning" etc.). But so does Judge Judy's favorite saying (and title of her book), "Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining." I'd modify that in this case to "Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's not warming."
Perhaps we should at CWG should do an almanac and then test how correct it is. Any suggestions?
| September 15, 2008; 11:00 AM ET
Categories: Climate Change, Freedman, Media, News & Notes
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The comments to this entry are closed. | <urn:uuid:cf56bdb9-bc0a-4320-9103-176a6c7c8e8f> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://voices.washingtonpost.com/capitalweathergang/2008/09/freedman_weather_almanacs_grap.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719273.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00066-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.957001 | 1,140 | 2.703125 | 3 |
In the Sunday sermon on Ecclesiastes 12:9-14, I stressed that Solomon includes the final epilogue section to prevent people from misunderstanding his book. But perhaps you found it ironic, as I do, that many modern interpreters use the epilogue of Ecclesiastes itself to argue for distorted views of his work! Because of only minor changes in subject, style, and vocabulary in the epilogue, some Bible scholars regard Ecclesiastes 12:9-14 as part of the proof that Ecclesiastes, in fact, was not carefully written by one author (cf. Eccl 12:9-10), does not have a consistent message (cf. Eccl 12:11-12), and was not written to lead readers to lives of holiness and joy before God (cf. Eccl 12:13-14).
Yet Ecclesiastes is not unique in this ironic phenomenon; so called “higher criticism” similarly seeks to turn other parts of the Bible meant to establish credibility on their heads. Another example is the book of Daniel. Daniel is an absolutely astonishing book due to its detailed prophetic visions of the future. And these visions have been historically verified: not only the general succession of Middle East-dominating empires revealed in Daniel 2 and 7 but also specifically Alexander the Great’s Greek empire and the successor states that came after him (especially the Ptolemaic and Seleucid Greek kingdoms) in Daniel 8 and 11. Surely all this confirmed prophecy should make us pay attention to the words of Daniel and to the totally sovereign God who reveals mysteries (Daniel 2:20-23)! Not so, say many Bible scholars. Rather, Daniel’s incredible accuracy is just part of the proof that the book was written much later than it claims. In other words, the author of Daniel must have written all his words of “prophecy” after the fact in order to achieve his great accuracy.
Or take still another common target of higher biblical scholarship: the Gospels. You would think that the fact that four different authors writing with different styles and different purposes yet all recording a consistent message about the person and ministry of Jesus would be highly significant—we can trust their united record! After all, does not the Torah say that two or three witnesses are needed to establish a matter in court (Dt 17:6, 19:15)? The New Testament has four Gospel witnesses! Yet somehow modern biblical scholarship inverts this evidence and asserts that the great similarities in the Gospels, especially the synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), is proof that the biblical writers copied one another. We don’t really have four independent witnesses, they say, but maybe two. Paradoxically, these same scholars will also assert that the differences in the Gospels represent outright contradictions about the life of Jesus. So then, from the supposedly sage vantage-points of many of these interpreters, we’ll never know for certain what to believe about Jesus since the records about him are so unreliable.
What to make of all this? Clearly, here, we see how important is the worldview or set of assumptions someone brings to assess the data of life, whether that data is in the world or in the Bible. Depending on one’s assumptions, the same evidence might confirm or contradict what God says in his word. Yet not all assumptions or worldviews are made equal. As many presuppositional apologists will tell you, reality simply does not make consistent sense without biblical assumptions: there is a God and he is our Creator, this God will one day perfectly judge the world in righteousness, and this God has revealed himself to us in the Bible.
The Bible tells us why people refuse to interpret according to biblical assumptions: because in pride they do not want to acknowledge God but instead live their own ways (Isa 53:6). They therefore suppress the truth in unrighteousness and live with insanity in their hearts all their days (Rom 1:18; Eccl 9:3). Yet the Bible, even Solomon, outlines a better way to understand the world and operate in it: the fear of the Lord (Eccl 12:13). In interpreting the Bible or in living our lives in general, we have the choice of whether we will exalt ourselves like gods or humble ourselves as creations designed to adore the one true God. The outcome of either path is already clear from the Bible:
Matthew 23:12 (NASB95), “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted.”
Questions to Consider:
1. Many people will point to life experiences that “prove” certain truths about God: even God’s cruelty or non-existence. How should we respond?
2. Bible interpreters often get into trouble when they speculate without enough evidence or assume what they are trying to prove. How can we get into similar trouble when it comes to interpreting people?
3. Do you live with a humble fear of God? What are the fruit of such fear in your life? | <urn:uuid:8142e94c-f348-49ad-9aae-220a879301db> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.calvaryem.org/irony-of-ironies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571993.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814022847-20220814052847-00674.warc.gz | en | 0.951131 | 1,051 | 2.484375 | 2 |
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The types of ham radio transmitters are generally categorized by the range of their transmission capabilities. The low-bandwidth types generally transmit between 30 and 60 megahertz (MHz), while the mid-bandwidth types transmit between 60 and 80 MHz. Other types include FM, which transmits from 88 to 108 MHz; air bandwidth with transmissions from 118 to 136 MHz; VHF, which transmits between 136 and 174 MHz; and UHF with a bandwidth of 400 to 512 MHz. Generally speaking, the most expensive top-of-the-line models within a bandwidth category are the VHF transmitters. Transmitters can come in several models, including desk-top and portable units, and they typically transmit as well as receive signals.
Different types of ham radio transmitters are available for a variety of uses. For example, if the equipment is to be operated primarily at a home or office, a desktop device is typically used. Some types of transmitters are also designed to be used while traveling to and from different locations. Some of these dual-purpose options include that are compatible with a car or truck; medium-sized portable models; and smaller hand-held ham radio transmitters similar in size to a standard walkie-talkie. The wattage of ham radio transmitters is usually commensurate with their size. Hand-held devices range from half a watt to five watts; portable transmitters fall into the five to 25-watt range; and desktop devices can run on as much as 100 watts of power.
The art of ham radio is all about having two-way conversations. To accomplish this, the transmitters also typically function as receivers. These are known as transceivers, and almost all ham radio transmitters sold today have this two-way capability.
Because many desktop and almost all portable ham radio transmitters run off atypical 13.8 volt power, they generally require a power converter when plugged into a normal household AC/DC outlet. Smaller, more modern, switching power supplies are also available and are specifically designed to handle 100-watts communications work. With regard to portable ham radio transmitters, there can be a choice of up to four different types of radio batteries: nickel-cadmium, lead gel cell, nickel metal-hydride or lithium-ion. The last category has the highest life capacity.
Within each bandwidth category, transmitters may or may not cover all modes of transmission. Most, however, cover the major types, including AM; FM; Morse Code (CW); Single Side Band (SSB); Upper Side Band (USB); and Radio Teletype (RTTY). A number of ham radio transmitters are also capable of so-called "All Mode" operation.
One of our editors will review your suggestion and make changes if warranted. Note that depending on the number of suggestions we receive, this can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Thank you for helping to improve wiseGEEK! | <urn:uuid:6efcf37c-3814-4e9e-a0d0-79defdc62f19> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-different-types-of-ham-radio-transmitters.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283301.73/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00506-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940424 | 621 | 3.078125 | 3 |
[rfc-i] Does the canonical RFC format need to be "readable" by developers and others?
ynir at checkpoint.com
Thu Jun 21 14:11:31 PDT 2012
On Jun 21, 2012, at 11:51 PM, Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 08:34:04PM -0000, John Levine wrote:
>>> But the above depends on an extra premise, which is, "IETF-naïve readers will
>>> be able to read that canonical form without difficulty." Why do you
>>> think that premise is true? I am sceptical.
>> Because these are RFCs, not (other than on the occasional April 1st)
>> poetry or literary criticism.
> Right, which is why I was sceptical of (ISTR Joel's?) claim that
> people who couldn't read XML needed to be able to read these. Sorry
> if that wasn't clear.
RFC 5585 (DKIM overview) is not poetry or literary criticism, but it is meant to be read by the kind of people who would not be able to read raw XML.
I don't know if this kind of document is starting a trend or whether it's a one-off, but there may be cases in the future where some RFCs will be meant for reading by less technical people.
I don't usually read the XML either. I read rendered HTML, PDF or text regardless of whether or not it is the canonical form. The important thing for a canonical form is that it has all the data, not so much that it is readable in itself.
More information about the rfc-interest | <urn:uuid:507a719d-876f-486a-8a92-743ed38119ed> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.rfc-editor.org/pipermail/rfc-interest/2012-June/004399.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988717963.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183837-00374-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953429 | 347 | 1.5 | 2 |
Category: History & Archaeology|
The author of the book: Jr. William F. Buckley
Format files: PDF, EPUB, TXT, DOCX
The size of the: 3.49 MB
Edition: John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Date of issue: 5 October 2009
Description of the book "The Fall of the Berlin Wall":Eloquent . . . immensely readable . . . the saga of the victory of capitalism over the brutal and irrational fraud that was state socialism. --"The Baltimore Sun"""Buckley's lucid account celebrates the tenacity of the human spirit and the will to achieve freedom."" --"Publishers Weekly"""This is a small masterpiece of the narrative tradition. The Fall of the Berlin Wall keep[s] readers turning the page."" --"National Review"""[A] great narrative of democratic survival and democratic victory."" --"The Washington Times"The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was the turning point in the struggle against Communism in Eastern Europe. In "The PDF Fall of the Berlin Wall," renowned author and conservative pioneer William F. Buckley Jr. explains why the wall was built, reveals its devastating impact on the lives of people on both sides, and provides a riveting account of the events that led to the wall's destruction and the end of the Cold War.
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Twitter is reportedly excluding images and URLs from its 140-character limit, making it easier for users to post longer
Posting a photo or URL, even when Twitter shortens the link, currently takes up 23 characters, meaning users only have 117 characters to play with. Combined with emoji or hashtags, this doesn’t leave much room for words.
Observers say the tweak is a minor one, but also indicative of how the internet has swiftly evolved from a primarily text-based medium to one where swiftly creating a GIF or video on mobile is completely normal.
As welcome as the greater leeway is, the company also faces greater questions over its future as Facebook and YouTube make inroads with live content — something that’s traditionally been Twitter’s wheelhouse. Or is changing the character count, as one agency CEO put it, "rearranging characters on the Titanic"?
There's more to the internet than words
"It’s not a major update. It’s the realization that there’s more to Twitter than just words," says Hannah Beasley, the social director at Iris. "They are constantly telling us as brands that richer content does better and that people communicate in Gifs now. One hundred forty characters in words is quite limiting, based on how people use the internet now. It’s almost a hygiene thing, and a smart move."
"It’s great for us as brands," Beasley adds. "It gives us more freedom. We know power of an image, but you need that copy to get message across, and this means you don’t need to be splitting it out over two tweets.
"It’s great to keep 140 characters and still good to be made to be concise, but there’s now more leeway."
This means fewer "ugly" tweets
Including links within the character limit always felt pretty arbitrary and restrictive," says Tom Dunn, head of futures at Maxus. "And resulted in some pretty ugly and confusing tweets — copy in a couple of people, add a link and a hashtag, and there’s not much room for content."
Dunn adds: "This is a minor but welcome change — hardly going to kick up the same fuss as last year’s proposed 10,000-character limit. Technically, including images within this relaxation of the rules gives users 140 characters and 1,000 words to play with, so what’s not to like?"
Twitter's making a tactical change
"The last news on the character limit on Twitter is a very tactical change that I highly doubt will change anything from a content-strategy perspective," says Florence Lujani, the social team lead and head of influencer relations at JWT London.
"The company is in a very complicated situation at the moment, they are struggling with growing their user base, which has remained steady in 320 million active users for the past two quarters, and their shares have reached an all-time low earlier this month."
Lujani adds: "At the moment it seems that the company is introducing small changes like this one to create a more engaged user-base, but I’m not sure how big the impact will be."
This means greater flexibility for marketers
"The news that Twitter has extended the 140-character limit by excluding images and links is, in principle, a good one," says Mark Varley, managing partner, Havas Media Manchester. "It will give marketers the flexibility to engage more fully with their audiences and give brands a richer canvas in which to exchange information with their customers."
But Varley warns there's a danger of "missing the point."
"The joy of Twitter is that you are restricted and limited in what you can say or show, and good marketers have made clever, punchy comms an art form," he says. "All social channels have a different purpose and should be approached and used differently — Twitter works best with concise content, not waffle."
Twitter has bigger problems to solve
"Anything that makes Twitter more flexible and useful for users is good news and more visual content is always a good thing," says Antony Mayfield, founding partner and CEO, Brilliant Noise. "It’s not a fundamental change, though — and a less charitable view would be that it’s rearranging the characters on the Titanic.
"There’s no evidence of a correlation between character count and share price."
This article first appeared on campaignlive.co.uk. | <urn:uuid:5f362060-c264-4e46-95fd-22edd7f284e3> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.campaignlive.com/article/twitters-evolved-character-count-means-brands-agencies/1395207 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721405.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00314-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953328 | 939 | 1.75 | 2 |
Steel abrasives comes in round (shot) or angular (grit) form. It is produced by the atomization of molten steel, followed by a series of thermal and mechanical treatments in order to give the product final characteristics.
Our steel shot is manufactured from steel scrap. Our furnace is electric furnace. Steel scrap is melted in the furnace then being atomized into shot by water jet.
Steel shot manufacturing process:
1. Melting (steel scrap + alloy)
2. Atomizing (by high pressure water jet)
4. Screening (separate the SAE shot sizes from the oversized shot particles used for grit production)
5. Spiraling (remove irregular shaped shot)
6. Quenching (produces superior particle integrity with minimal stress cracks)
9. Packaging (25 KGS per one small pp bag, 40 small bag per one big PP bag)
Abrasives, metal abrasives, steel abrasives, blasting medias, steel grit, steel shot.
1) Steel shot: SAE S930, S780, S660, S550, S460, S390, S330, S280, S230, S170, S110, S70.
2) Steel grit: SAE G10, G12,
G14, G16, G18, G20, G25, G40, G50, G80, G120. | <urn:uuid:0974c87c-451c-443d-8450-80c98ba2fda8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.sinoabrasives.com/steel-shot-production.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280900.71/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00004-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.813769 | 293 | 1.710938 | 2 |
One Final Thought; Spring Wrestling Match
As the spring snows melted away, the herd instinct grew stale and the bison
herds of Theodore Roosevelt National Park were restless. Huge shaggy heads bobbed
up and down as they strolled toward an unknown destination, occasionally dropping
their heads to push the snow away searching for green grass. The scene was pastoral
until a small faction broke away from the main herd in a mad stampede. The energy
of youngsters could not be completely dissipated in a short run across the prairie.
They dropped their heads and butted one another, head to head, in a playful
duel that was very different from the aggressive fighting that goes on between
mature bulls in the breeding season. This image reminds me of the energetic
enthusiasm of the young that is especially common in the early spring and how
patterned behavior of the older generations is often reflected in the young.
Please Read This:
The premise of "One Final Thought" is that every picture has a story. We invite you to send quality prints (only) and a short narrative on why you took the picture or how, in retrospect, it brings up thoughts and feelings about the subject.
We do not return submissions. By sending us an image and text you grant us permission to publish it in this magazine and on our website. If you have any questions, please e-mail us at: firstname.lastname@example.org.
Send submissions to:
One Final Thought, Shutterbug
1419 Chaffee Dr., Suite #1
Titusville, FL 32780.
- Travel Photo Tips: It’s Not What You See, but What You Feel That Makes for Better Pictures
- These Gorgeous Images Show Why It’s Important to Pay Attention to Obscure Photo Contests
- Here’s How to Separate Your Model from the Background for More Dynamic Portraits (VIDEO)
- Wildlife Photography with a Twist: The Unique Zoo Portraiture of Frenchman Eric Pillot
- Our Favorite Reader Photos from "The Great Outdoors" Assignment | <urn:uuid:542700a1-b52e-4bc9-a49e-b30ec989a071> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.shutterbug.com/content/talking-picturesbrone-final-thought-spring-wrestling-match | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283008.19/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00080-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.9112 | 436 | 1.648438 | 2 |
The Tax Man Takes Aim at the World’s Wealthy : The Two-Way : NPR
Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images
As 2013 begins with wealthy Americans in line for bigger tax bills, they’re not alone. Tax fairness takes the spotlight worldwide this year, as cash-strapped governments look to impose more of the burden on well-heeled companies, individuals and institutions, and to catch and punish tax cheaters.
This week, as the U.S. Congress averted a plunge off the fiscal precipice, British Prime Minister David Cameron sent a letter to leaders of the Group of Eight countries that make up about half of the world’s economic output.
“I do believe we all have a common interest in being able to tell our taxpayers who work hard and pay their fair share of taxes that we will make sure others do the same,” he wrote in an open letter to the G-8, promoting a coordinated approach to discourage tax evaders.
Multinational corporations have defended themselves by pointing out that they’re only taking advantage of international laws that allow them to look for “optimal” tax structures.
Google, for example, avoided about $2 billion in worldwide income taxes in 2011 by shifting $9.8 billion in revenue into a Bermuda shell company, Bloomberg recently reported. | <urn:uuid:885511af-0d2d-47d1-90a5-ae9565c3643e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/292357_The_Tax_Man_Takes_Aim_at_the_W | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281331.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00216-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942704 | 278 | 1.664063 | 2 |
- slide 1 of 5
Revenue is the measurable amount charged to customers for goods delivered or services provided to them.
The revenue recognition principle is the accounting rule under the generally accepted accounting practices (GAAP). The revenue recognition principle in GAAP holds that revenue be recorded only under specific conditions such as when the amount of revenue is measurable, when a specific critical event in the revenue generation process has occurred and the process substantially completed, or an exchange has taken place.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons
- slide 2 of 5
Types of Revenue Transactions
The principle of revenue recognition recognizes four types of revenue transactions as revenue. They are:
- Revenue from selling products on the date of sale or date of delivery.
- Revenue from services at the completion of services and when billable.
- Revenue from the use of an enterprise’s assets by others at the end of the stipulated time, or when the asset is used up.
- Revenue from disposal of assets other than inventory at the point of sale as a gain or loss.
- slide 3 of 5
Recognizing Cash Inflows as Revenue
The revenue recognition principle recognizes cash inflows arising from revenue transactions as revenue only in three scenarios. These three revenue recognition methods are:
- Revenue earned following the substantial completion of a process undertaken to earn cash. Revenue recognition principles consider cash inflows as revenue not on executing a sales agreement, but only when the title to the completed goods or services passes to the customer, and the customer gets the legal right of ownership to the goods or services. An exception is long-term contracts that take time to complete. In such cases, payment at various intervals during a large project finds inclusion as revenue.
- The revenue is realized by the exchange of goods and services for cash or claims to cash. In normal situations, delivery of the product is enough to recognize the payment received as revenue, but if the business has a very high rate of product returns, the business can recognize the cash inflow as revenue only after the return period expires.
- The revenue is realizable when the assets received are convertible into a known amount of cash. A notable exception is for agricultural products and minerals where there is a ready market with reasonably assured prices, where the units are interchangeable, and selling and distributing does not involve significant costs. In such scenarios, the time of harvest or time of taking possession of the mineral becomes the critical point to count the asset as revenues.
Cash received but which does not fall under the above three conditions is recorded not as a revenue but as a liability, and shifts to earnings only after any of the three scenarios apply.
Examples of unearned revenue following such principles include advance rent received, security deposits received, customer down payments, advance payment for cost of labor or supplies, and the like.
- slide 4 of 5
Revenue recognition is an important principle in accrual accounting, and helps determine the accounting period to record the earnings.
Failure to adhere to the revenue recognition principle creates distortion in the company balance sheets. For instance, a company having a bad year in sales can mask this fact by including as revenue cash inflows that may be a refundable upfront security deposit for the possible execution of the work at a future date. The principle of revenue recognition places this cash inflow on the liability side instead of earnings, and allows considering it as revenue not on the execution of agreement, but on completion of the stipulated work.
Failure to follow such standards also creates situations such as having recorded revenue when the transaction fails to complete and the amount received must be refunded or adjusted in the accounting books.
- slide 5 of 5
- Kieso, Weygandt, and Warfield. "Intermediate Accounting 11th ed. Chapter 18: Revenue Recognition." Retrieved from www.cbe.uidaho.edu on 5 November 2010. [PPT]
- Revsine, Lawrence. (2002). "Financial Reporting & Analysis." Prentice Hall, ISBN 9780130323514 | <urn:uuid:fc942270-d237-48b7-ab10-3f43490fa333> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.brighthub.com/office/finance/articles/94947.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719136.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00466-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95128 | 820 | 2.984375 | 3 |
This is how education and training influence your intelligence
There is still someone who says that intelligence is a trait that you are born with and is completely impervious to change . As if it were the color of your eyes, the height or shape of your hair.
If this really were the case, there would be no differences between people who have received education and people who have never been to school, or people who have grown up in stimulating environments and people who have grown up in poverty.
We know that intelligence is lodged in the most malleable and changing organ of all. It is expected, then, that the intellect has the same properties and is capable of being trained and empowered in various aspects.
One intelligence or several?
The models that theorize the composition of intelligence or intelligences are so many that we will not stop to examine them. But it is important to keep in mind that there is no single unifying theory, although all speak more or less of the same and refer to the same psychological phenomenon.
When we talk about intelligence, we talk about the ability of our mind to face and adapt with the greatest speed and efficiency to the demands of the environment. These demands can be of all kinds, mathematics, linguistics, kinetics, music, and so on. Maybe there is a single intelligence that manifests through these skills to a greater or lesser extent depending on the person, or maybe it is separate intelligence that can be used to successfully face different types of tasks. For the purpose of this article let's stay with the general definition of intelligence as ability .
- You may be interested in this article by psychologist Bertrand Regader: "Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences"
The inherited intelligence
Through studies of twins, we know that there is a strong correlation between IQs of monozygotic twins separated at birth, while the correlation of IQs of blood siblings not genetically identical is not as strong. Also, when we take families with adopted children, we see that the IQ of adopted children correlates more with biological parents than with current ones .
Thus, we know that intelligence, or at least the IQ that we obtain by measuring it, is largely determined by DNA. Some here would shelve the development of intelligence and be content with this explanation. Fortunately the question is more complex.
The trained intelligence
That one is born with a certain capacity does not mean that he will keep it forever for free . One can be born with a genetics that allows you to develop athlete's legs and end up atrophy after spending hours and hours sitting. Something similar happens with intelligence: the one who does not train ends up staking it.
Environments rich in stimulation such as books or interactive games promote the intellectual development of children. We know this through adoption studies, where children who come from very impoverished environments, by receiving stimulation in adoptive families with a higher purchasing power and more stimulation, manage to achieve IQ levels well above average. Not only families play a fundamental role in intellectual development, schooling, the type of methodology that teachers use influence decisively on the intelligence of children.
At this point someone will ask: if the environment is such a powerful force, Can not we optimize the didactic methodology of schools to improve student intelligence? The truth is that it is possible and a multitude of projects have been developed over the last 30 years under this same premise.
The Intelligence Project
An example is found in the Intelligence Project of Venezuela . It is a program of the 80s aimed at improving the thinking skills of students and detect how the way of teaching could be optimized as well as the didactic material itself. The units of this program include lessons on reasoning, language comprehension, verbal reasoning, problem solving, decision making and inventive thinking.
The innovativeness of the program is not only its content, but the way in which students are taught. Moving away from the traditional approach that considers that learning is only the transmission of knowledge, the program is groundbreaking because it sees learning as a process of preparation and incentive to manage one's personal development.
The results after the implementation of this program were positive. Teachers pointed to changes in academic performance, especially those that apply the knowledge learned about other subjects.In addition, due to the more affective relationship that is generated between the students and the teaching staff, behavioral and affective changes occur on the students. This closer relationship between teacher and student has a facilitating impact on learning.
The North Carolina Alphabet Project
This project developed by the University of North Carolina in the 70s it aims to produce long-term positive effects on the intellectual development of children through high-quality education, with an emphasis on early interventions that cushion the disadvantages of children from poor backgrounds.
It is a project that is applied from birth to the age of five years. In this program children go five days a week to a center where they receive high quality educational attention that addresses the intellectual needs of children through language and conversation activities, close care and educational games.
Not all children participate in the same games, the allocation of games is personalized. These interactive games between children and adults include some traditional ones, such as the "cucutrás" or "peek-a-boo" in English, and as their development progresses, others are added that are more focused on specific concepts and skills.
Children who pass through this program have greater proficiency in reading, math, and a slight increase in IQ. Likewise, these children have a better school setting, such as longer school time, lower school dropout rate, higher percentage of children who complete the university period and less probability of being adolescent parents.
Although the results should be interpreted with caution, in general it seems that it is a beneficial program for children's intelligence that translates into greater academic competence and a better perspective of work in adult life.
These programs shed light on the relationship between training, both early and throughout schooling, and greater intellectual competencies. The old vision of intelligence as an immovable monolith is discarded, because now we know that it is malleable and susceptible to change according to how we educate it. | <urn:uuid:33fdcce1-9249-4ae7-9dcd-9fea9b28ce31> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://en.yestherapyhelps.com/this-is-how-education-and-training-influence-your-intelligence-12971 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573118.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817213446-20220818003446-00672.warc.gz | en | 0.96636 | 1,239 | 2.78125 | 3 |
Core Systems are the most important IT systems of the insurance company, since they are vital for sustaining processes which are crucial for its proper functioning.
There are many off-the-shelf products available on the market, which are able to sustain the core processes and functionalities of the insurance companies. Such systems are evaluated by independent analysts and the best solutions are implemented in dozens of insurance companies in several countries.
This enables an insurance company to take advantage of best practices in this area.
Many successful implementations mean that the risk associated with introducing the system in the insurance company is relatively low.
Core systems implementation projects
Implementation of a core system is a complex, long-term project and to ensure its success it should be supported by its stakeholders at all levels within the organization. Usually the risk associated with the implementation is very high.
There are however several success factors which mitigate the risk, including: | <urn:uuid:0f1400b0-40b2-41cc-b1ce-f024de771073> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://sollers.eu/services-and-products/insurance-core-systems/ | 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 | 0.964637 | 183 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Translation Challenges: Roof Repair
04 Mar 2014
I recently spotted this sign on the stairs leading to the roof of the AllSet Learning office building:
Here’s the Chinese text:
> rooftop / examine and repair / in the middle of,
temporarily stop / use; usage,
The translation offered:
> The roof is during maintenance. Stop using temporarily. Thank you!
The translation, while not great, is understandable. What stood out to me, though, were two issues frequently encountered in Chinese signs which can give translators a hard time:
1. Use of 中 after a verb
2. Signage etiquette
First let’s look at the first part: 屋顶检修中. The translator was on the right track with “during” for 中, and in adding “to be” into the English (its absence in Chinese is key to the difficulty of the translation), and also in converting the Chinese 检修 verb to a noun form for the English. But it still came out weird, because the translation demands a certain amount of linguistic flexibility with the concept behind 中. It’s hard to come up with a stock translation for this 中 that’s going to work in most cases. “During,” “in the middle of,” “in progress,” “underway,” “undergoing,” “in the midst of,” “currently” are all possibilities, but they’re certainly not easy for a non-native speaker to choose between, and not all are prepositions or prepositional phrases, either.
For the second part, 暂停使用, although the English is correct, it doesn’t contain the necessary degree of politeness we expect and demand from our signage in the English-speaking world. Chinese signs, while formal, just don’t feel as polite, and everyone is cool with that.
I have to give the translator props for converting the Chinese commas into periods in English, though. The Chinese “legal run-on” sentence being translated into an (unacceptable) run-on sentence in English is one of the most common mistakes made by beginner Chinese-English translators.
Anyway, a better translation would be something like:
> The rooftop is currently undergoing repairs. Please do not use it at this time. Thank you!
Obviously, that can be polished more.
It’s easy to laugh at bad Engrish, but in this case there’s nothing funny, and difficulties translating from Chinese to English (that go beyond simple word choice) can be indicative of difficulties that learners of Chinese will face with Chinese. | <urn:uuid:aab05985-113a-43a0-8908-f33ebcbfca4d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2014/03/04/translation-challenges-roof-repair | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280761.39/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00096-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934465 | 585 | 1.617188 | 2 |
ASTANA, Kazakhstan, NOV. 30, 2010 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI’s secretary of state is in Kazakhstan delivering relics of the Apostle St. Andrew to both the Catholic and Orthodox Churches there.
Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone is on a six-day trip to the nation, coinciding with the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) summit.
The journey also coincides with today’s feast of St. Andrew, making the delivery of the relics particularly timely.
In a homily at the Orthodox Cathedral of the Assumption in Astana, the cardinal spoke of Kazakhstan as “a country in which there are ample possibilities for a peaceful and profitable religious coexistence. In this context, for us Christians the duty of reciprocal love is all the more urgent: We are called, in fact, to give witness to all, with words and works, that God is Love. […] Propitious occasions are not lacking, dear friends, of mutual support and of deepening of friendship.”
The Catholic Church is a tiny minority in Kazakhstan, which is some 47% Muslim and 44% Russian Orthodox.
Cardinal Bertone noted how he was fulfilling a “lofty task” given him by Benedict XVI “of handing you a fragment of the distinguished relics of the Apostle St. Andrew, which are venerated in Italy, in the city of Amalfi.”
He explained: “This assignment, which I am honored to effect in the hands of His Eminence Metropolitan Alexander, comes in response to the devout request that his predecessor, Metropolitan Mefodji, and Archbishop Tomasz Peta, Catholic Metropolitan, jointly addressed to Pope Benedict XVI. The Pontiff, gladly desiring to meet the ardent request, decided to send to the two respective Churches two fragments of the precious relics. This choice has a profound significance, in as much as is underlines the common veneration of the apostles.”
The Holy Father’s secretary of state went on to reflect about the figure of St. Andrew, “the first of the apostles to be called to follow Jesus.”
“Precisely on the basis of this fact,” he recalled, “the Byzantine liturgy honors him with the name of Protoklitos, which means precisely, the first called.”
Cardinal Bertone noted how the apostles spread the “‘good news’ of salvation” and that faith comes from hearing the “Word of Christ, which still today the Church spreads to the ends of the earth.”
Referring to the Pope’s new postsynodal apostolic exhortation on sacred Scripture, the cardinal continued: “This Word is the indispensable food of the soul. It is said in the book of the prophet Amos that God will put hunger in the world, not hunger for bread, but to hear his word. This is a healthy hunger, because it makes us seek constantly and receive the Word of God, knowing that it must nourish us for the whole of life.
“Nothing in life can have consistency, nothing can really satisfy us if it is not nourished, penetrated, illumined, guided by the Word of the Lord. Moreover, an ever more profound commitment of radical adherence to this Word, together with the support of the Holy Spirit, constitute the strength to realize the aspiration of every Christian community and of every individual faithful to unity.”
Forward in hope
Cardinal Bertone further reflected on an icon donated in 1964 to Pope Paul VI by Patriarch Athenagoras I, in which “the two Holy Apostles, Peter the Coryphaeus and Andrew the Protoklitos, embrace, in an eloquent language of love, beneath the glorious Christ.”
“Andrew,” he said, “was the first to follow the Lord, Peter was called to confirm his brothers in the faith. Their embrace under the gaze of Christ is an invitation to continue the path undertaken, toward that goal of unity that we intend to reach together. Nothing must discourage us, but we must go forward with hope, supported by the intercession of the Apostles Peter and Andrew, as well as by the maternal protection of Mary Most Holy, Mother of Christ and our Mother.
“Let us ask God with particular intensity for the precious gift of unity among all Christians, making our own the invocation that Jesus raised to the Father for his disciples.”
— — —
On ZENIT’s Web page:
Full text: www.zenit.org/article-31116?l=english | <urn:uuid:ecd447ca-7d7a-4c05-886d-0ef8c4f645cb> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://zenit.org/articles/pope-fulfills-request-from-orthodox/ | 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 | 0.948169 | 961 | 1.53125 | 2 |
10.38 pm: Time for Verse 'The Poet's Christmas,' selections of poems for Christmas, including new poems specially written by Siegfried Sassoon, Henry Reed, George Barker.
(I can't seem to get the relevant snippet to appear.) A quick glance at the radio schedule in the Times for that weekend confirms a "Poetry reading" that evening. "Time for Verse" was a popular and long-running feature produced by Patric Dickinson.
This broadcast would seem to be a revisit to a program from the year before. On Christmas Eve, 1944, Reed read his poem "The Return" as part "A Poet's Christmas," which featured
verse especially written by Cecil Day Lewis, Louis MacNeice, Edith Sitwell, V. Sackville West, Laurie Lee, John Heath-Stubbs, Frances Cornford, Ann Ridler, Henry Reed, and [music composed by Benjamin] Britten (Chorale and The Shepherd's Carolboth by W.H. Auden), Lennox Berkeley (Francis Cornford's There was neither grass nor corn), and Michael Tippet (Edith Sitwell's The Weeping Babe)
The 1945 program sounds like a less celebrated affair, but I'm intrigued by the suggestion of poems commissioned from the likes of Sassoon and Barker. Would anyone care to suggest which poems they might have chosen for Christmas, 1945? Sassoon wrote both "Litany of the Lost" and "Sanctuary" in November of that year.
If I had to venture a guess, I would think Reed would have simply fallen back on his poem from the previous year, "The Return" (previously mentioned) He did compose a sonnet, however, with a winter theme: "The Forest." It appears in A Map of Verona so it must have been written prior to May, 1946, though it appears again, oddly, in the Listener on October 17, 1946.
Most unfortunately, I don't have easy access to the Listener from 1945 or 1946. I'll try the New Statesman. | <urn:uuid:200c3195-26c9-4264-ac24-3271a08acd29> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.solearabiantree.net/reedinglessons/2/2012 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281226.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00383-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.975229 | 427 | 1.921875 | 2 |
On the final day of Cambodia's festival to honor the dead, Pchum Ben, many laymen traveled to temples to offer gifts to monks and the spirits of their ancestors, whom they believe seek the temples this time of year.
Of all the Cambodian festivals, Pchum Ben brings the most people in contact with monks, as they bring offerings to the pagodas to honor the dead.
This year has been a hard year for monks, for Cambodia and its Buddhist neighbor, Burma. At least one monk has been murdered in Cambodia, and Tim Sakhorn was defrocked and imprisoned in Vietnam for allegedly stirring foment between the two countries and for crossing between them illegally.
Venerable Hok Savann, a leading monk in Canada, said laymen can make prayers for the monks of Burma. Whether an evil spirit will receive merit depends on the compassion of those who pray.
Hok Savann encouraged Cambodians to respect Buddhist traditions and reminded them to stay involved in a deeper spiritual life.
Buddhism can be practiced even by the young, he said, as a guest on "Hello VOA."
Pchum Ben developed between 897 AD to 910 AD. During the festival, monks chant, warning against the destructors of the spirit: gambling, adultery, sloth, disrespect of elders, coveting.
Hok Savann did not speak of Tim Sakhorn specifically, but said in Buddhism human rights are very clear. Buddha said don't kill, don't hate, don't be angry. These are fundamental, he said. | <urn:uuid:f3ce8bc9-54b2-4fb4-9f85-af9df91bc47e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.voacambodia.com/a/a-40-2007-10-11-voa2-90148277/1355964.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280718.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00404-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962851 | 325 | 2.625 | 3 |
I have sufficient savings to go two months before I get another job.
I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.
Philippians 1:20 (NIV)
But even human sympathies were not sufficient to satisfy his eager mind.
Mary Shelley -- Frankenstein
Our army was but little indeed; and what was our greatest misfortune, we had not arms sufficient for them.
Daniel Defoe -- Robinson Crusoe
These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned.
Edgar Allan Poe -- The Cask of Amontillado
Is the security sufficient?
Arthur Conan Doyle -- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The yacht moved rapidly on, though there did not appear to be sufficient wind to ruffle the curls on the head of a young girl.
Alexandre Dumas -- The Count of Monte Cristo
One reading was sufficient to stamp every detail of the story upon my memory forever.
Helen Keller -- Story of My Life
Show more again
as soon as I could collect myself sufficiently I told her the things I had seen.
H.G. Wells -- The War of the Worlds
In such cases he made use of English, broken and imperfect, but sufficiently intelligible,
James Fenimore Cooper -- The Last of the Mohicans
the kennels of the females are larger, sufficient to hold two or three cubs.
Jonathan Swift -- Gulliver’s Travels
Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?
C.S. Lewis -- Prince Caspian: The Return to Narnia
If there is sufficient oxygen to maintain a flame, the action of the flame increases air circulation, which then brings in more oxygen.
Johann Wyss -- The Swiss Family Robinson
Misfortune gives sufficient excuse.
Voltaire -- Candide
Philanthropy is almost the only virtue which is sufficiently appreciated by mankind.
Henry David Thoreau -- Walden
I have observed that, although the outlines of the figures upon the walls were sufficiently distinct, yet the colors seemed blurred and indefinite.
Edgar Allan Poe -- The Pit and the Pendulum
...wishing to establish whether it was sufficiently cooked or whether it should be sent back to the kitchen.
Franz Kafka -- Metamorphosis
...an agitation sufficient to bring about the disaster.
Jack London -- To Build a Fire
He looked sufficiently like a king, but he was ill able to feel like one.
Mark Twain -- The Prince and The Pauper
A wager ensu’d between the two captains, to be decided when there should be sufficient wind.
Benjamin Franklin -- The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
He had stolen several times, but the gains had not been sufficient to offset his dread of being locked up;
Thornton Wilder -- The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The fact that it had been thrust up the chimney would sufficiently account for these appearances.
Edgar Allan Poe -- The Murders in the Rue Morgue
the furniture was decent and sufficient
Charles Dickens -- Hard Times
they have no other attraction or reason for keeping the field than a trifle of stipend, which is not sufficient to make them willing to die for you.
Nicolo Machiavelli -- The Prince
And the money was just sufficient.
D.H. Lawrence -- Sons and Lovers
I am not sufficiently acquainted with such subjects to know whether it is at all remarkable
Charles Dickens -- Bleak House
But neither his wife nor his daughter was sufficiently interested to ask an explanation.
Edith Wharton -- The House of Mirth
A few months were sufficient to give him a distaste for this kind of life.
Thomas Hardy -- Far from the Madding Crowd
But I should like to have it proved; and of course you don’t care to tell the steps of the process sufficiently for me to do that, without my paying ye well for’t first.
Thomas Hardy -- The Mayor of Casterbridge
Her income was only sufficient for the family support, and she needed the lodging money for...
Mark Twain -- Pudd’nhead Wilson
The fact is, the business is very simple indeed, and I make no doubt that we can manage it sufficiently well ourselves; but then I thought Dupin would like to hear the details of it, because it is so excessively odd.
Edgar Allan Poe -- The Purloined Letter
"I have already, I think, told you a sufficient objection," answered Sophia.
Henry Fielding -- Tom Jones
George was sufficiently alert to avoid the trap.
Arthur C. Clarke -- Childhood’s End
...finally he had gathered sufficient courage to tell her what was in his heart.
Theodore Dreiser -- An American Tragedy
We lack sufficient quantities of the drugs we need.
Mark Helprin -- A Soldier of the Great War
"The last reason, sir," said Plornish, "would be quite sufficient."
Charles Dickens -- Little Dorrit
We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
Martin Luther King, Jr. -- I Have a Dream
there was no can opener, and he finally extracted sufficient coffee for two cups by hammering a hole in the top of the can with a nail.
Margaret Craven -- I Heard the Owl Call My Name
Many times I’d help Sandra with her housework, as I learned other ways to become self-sufficient.
Dave Pelzer -- The Lost Boy
Are you stone? I tell you true, woman, had I no other proof of your unnatural life, your dry eyes now would be sufficient evidence that you delivered up your soul to Hell! A very ape would weep at such calamity! Have the Devil dried up any tear of pity in you?
Arthur Miller -- The Crucible
There is moderate machine-gun fire. It sweeps across from all directions, not very heavy, but always sufficient to make one keep down.
Erich Maria Remarque -- All Quiet on the Western Front
Winston had recovered himself sufficiently to speak.
George Orwell -- 1984
His two slogans, ’I will work harder’ and ’Napoleon is always right,’ seemed to him a sufficient answer to all problems.
George Orwell -- Animal Farm
All the warm salt water of the bathing pool and the shouting and splashing and laughing were only just sufficient to bring them together again.
William Golding -- Lord of the Flies
I thought I had made things sufficiently clear.
Harper Lee -- To Kill a Mockingbird
The scene of a day-dream is sufficient for a pilgrimage at nineteen.
Thomas Hardy -- The Return of the Native
It had been a sufficiently rash act to buy the book in the beginning, and he had sworn never to come near the place again.
George Orwell -- 1984
The place was self-sufficient: modest in comparison with the empires around it, the Landing nevertheless produced everything required to sustain life except ice, wheat flour, and articles of clothing, supplied by river-boats from Mobile. | <urn:uuid:807c995c-8e30-4a50-a222-ba30bc32df27> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.verbalworkout.com/up/up4352.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279933.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00129-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945676 | 1,526 | 1.617188 | 2 |
Questions and answers
On 10 February 2014, Dynavax International B.V. officially notified the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) that it wishes to withdraw its application for a marketing authorisation for Heplisav, for the prevention of hepatitis B infection.
- What is Heplisav?
Heplisav is a vaccine which contains hepatitis B surface antigen, a protein from the outer coat of the hepatitis B virus. It was to be available as a solution for injection.
- What was Heplisav expected to be used for?
Heplisav was expected to be used to protect against hepatitis B infection in adults.
- How is Heplisav expected to work?
Vaccines work by ‘teaching’ the immune system (the body’s natural defences) how to defend itself against a disease. Heplisav contains hepatitis B surface antigen (a protein from the outer coat of the hepatitis B virus). When a person is given the vaccine, the immune system recognises the viral protein as ‘foreign’ and makes antibodies against it. The immune system will then be able to produce antibodies more quickly when it is exposed to the virus again. This may help to protect against disease caused by the hepatitis B virus.
The hepatitis B surface antigen is produced by a method known as ‘recombinant DNA technology’: it is made by yeast cells into which a gene (DNA) has been introduced that makes them able to produce the protein. The vaccine contains an ‘adjuvant’ to enhance the immune response.
- What did the company present to support its application?
The company presented the results of three main studies involving over 4,000 subjects who had never had hepatitis B or been vaccinated against it; two studies involved healthy subjects and one involved patients with long-term kidney disease. In all three studies, Heplisav was compared with another hepatitis B vaccine, Engerix-B. The main measure of effectiveness was the percentage of patients who produced protective levels of antibodies against the hepatitis B virus after a course of vaccinations.
- How far into the evaluation was the application when it was withdrawn?
The application was withdrawn after that the CHMP had evaluated the documentation provided by the company and formulated lists of questions. The company had not yet responded to the last round of questions at the time of the withdrawal.
- What was the recommendation of the CHMP at that time?
Based on the review of the data, at the time of the withdrawal, the CHMP had had some concerns and was of the provisional opinion that Heplisav could not have been approved for the prevention of hepatitis B.
The Committee considered that the way in which the study in patients with kidney disease had been carried out and documented was not satisfactory. This followed an inspection of some of the sites involved in the study, to ensure proper standards for medicines studies (Good Clinical Practice) had been followed. The nature of the findings from the inspection also raised questions about the other main studies. Therefore, there were serious uncertainties at that point about the reliability of the data submitted in support of the application. Furthermore, the number of patients in whom the safety of the medicine had been tested was insufficient to rule out an unacceptable level of risk for less common but serious side effects.
Therefore, at the time of the withdrawal, the CHMP was of the opinion that the medicine could not have been approved based on the data presented by the company.
- What were the reasons given by the company for withdrawing the application?
In its letter notifying the Agency of the withdrawal of the application, the company stated that it was withdrawing the application since it would not be possible to provide the additional safety data needed within the timetable required by the procedure.
The letter from the company notifying the Agency of the withdrawal of the application is available under the ‘All documents’ tab.
- What consequences does this withdrawal have for patients in clinical trials or compassionate use programmes?
The company informed the CHMP that there are no ongoing clinical trials or compassionate use programmes with Heplisav in the EU.
|Date of issue of marketing authorisation valid throughout the European Union (if applicable)|
|International non-proprietary name or common name|
hepatitis B surface antigen
|Active substance||hepatitis B surface antigen|
|Date of withdrawal||10/02/2014|
|Company making the application|
Dynavax International B.V.
|Withdrawal type||Initial authorisation|
Related information on withdrawals
The question-and-answer (Q&A) document provides a summary of the CHMP's evaluation of the medicine at the time of the withdrawal of the application, and includes a link to the company's formal withdrawal letter.
An assessment report is published when the application is withdrawn after the first stage of the CHMP's evaluation is completed ('day 120'). | <urn:uuid:e7eda350-4d4b-4884-bc3d-703e0accd8e5> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?curl=pages/medicines/human/medicines/002603/wapp/Initial_authorisation/human_wapp_000174.jsp&mid=WC0b01ac058001d128 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719453.9/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00231-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.965418 | 1,022 | 2.578125 | 3 |
Computer/Internet Security Workshops set for Tulsa and Oklahoma City
Small and mid-size businesses that network with social media are rapidly becoming the main target of hackers and cyber thieves. To address this concern the SBA, the FBI, the National Institute of Standards & Technology, InfraGard and SCORE are co-hosting Computer and Cyber Security Workshops in Tulsa and Oklahoma City.
The workshops are designed to help small business owners recognize the threat of computer crime and take steps to avoid becoming a victim.
Small business owners, employees, or IT professionals who support small and mid-size businesses, should not miss this opportunity to learn from national experts. This interactive workshop provides practical tools and techniques to help small business owners assess, enhance, and maintain the security of their systems.
Speakers include Jayson Street, a prominent internet ‘hacker’ and information security expert with the banking industry and Jason Nestelroad, Special Agent, FBI Cyber Squad at the Oklahoma City workshop. Speaking at both locations will be Richard Kissel, senior information security analyst with the National Institute of Standards and Technology. | <urn:uuid:06ea7d1b-a880-4c66-a4a2-220d1a3e175f> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://content.govdelivery.com/bulletins/gd/USSBA-38f368 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719041.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00167-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923723 | 225 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Bitcoin Abstract Language, analyZer and Compiler
Balzac is an high-level language for writing transactions, verifying their correctness, and compiling them into actual Bitcoin transactions. It is based on the formal model proposed in [AB+18FC]. You can also use Balzac to design Bitcoin smart contracts [AB+18POST]. Some examples are given at the end of this tutorial.
Balzac is intended for research purposes only. Do not use it to create mainnet transactions, or do it at your own risk.
- Editor syntax
Atzei, M. Bartoletti, S. Lande, R. Zunino. A formal model of Bitcoin transactions. In Financial Cryptography and Data Security, 2018. Preprint: https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/1124.pdf
Atzei, M. Bartoletti, T. Cimoli, S. Lande, R. Zunino. SoK: unraveling Bitcoin smart contracts. In Principles of Security and Trust (POST), 2018. Preprint: https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/192.pdf | <urn:uuid:60b6e97a-44a6-4dc8-86d5-c16a95402977> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://docs.balzac-lang.xyz/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571584.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812045352-20220812075352-00667.warc.gz | en | 0.730724 | 274 | 2.3125 | 2 |
Failure is not something you will consider when starting a new business. But research also suggests, the failure rate for new startups within five years of their business is near to 50 percent. Most of the entrepreneurs follow all the golden rules of becoming successful. Nevertheless, there are a lot of reasons and causes behind an entrepreneur's failure, and today we will talk about the top 10 factors forcing entrepreneurs to fail in 2018.
Lack of Vision
It is an assumption that loving something or having so much passionate about a thing is enough reason to make it a business. But people don't understand the broader picture, the most necessary thing when starting a business is the vision. You have to realize that it is the starting point and where you would like to see yourself after 2, 5 or 10 years. A clear vision will help you to focus and can stop you from moving in a wrong direction.
Selection of a Business
Selection of business is eventually one of the top reasons why most entrepreneurs fail. One of the tricky moments in an entrepreneur's life comes when he or she decides which business to adapt. Yes, every business has a potential of millions in it, but you have to understand that not every business is appropriate for you. Doing proper research before selecting a business is essential. Write down pros and cons of every business idea that comes to your mind and then go with the most suitable one.
Lack of Proper Planning
Improper planning is another common reason why entrepreneurs fail and go out of the market. A lot of first-time entrepreneurs often neglect that having a business plan is a very vital part of starting a new business. The planning should include a long-term and a short-term strategy. Your business vision will help you to set a goal but to achieve that goal a master plan is a key.
Not Having Enough Capital
Starting a business without sufficient capital is almost certainly a suicide. New entrepreneurs often don't realize the importance of cash flow or underestimate the value of money they will need to run their startup smoothly. You may also take services of a financial advisory firm; they will help you to predict how much money you'll need to launch your business.
Poor Implementation of the Plan
A master plan is worth nothing without proper execution. There are many reasons behind the failure of implementation, but the most critical reason is ineffective leadership. Implementation of new strategies comes with enormous challenges; leaders must have the courage and determination to overcome them with patience.
The Hiring of Wrong People
Hiring the right people is vital to the success of any entrepreneur. Hiring a wrong person is not only a waste of resources, but it also creates a negative work environment which is not a good sign for your company. Instead of regretting a lousy hire, take a wise move to replace it with a right one.
Failure in Marketing
Marketing plays the vital role in the success of every business, and it is also among the most significant factors in the failure of entrepreneurs in 2018. You can get many potential buyers for the services or products you are offering with the marketing; it is a reliable process that can significantly contribute to your business success.
Expanding Very Early
The expansion and growth are the primary goals of every entrepreneur, but an early evolution can lead your business to death. You must decide about growth only after carefully reviewing and analyzing all the aspects. Just keep in mind, after the expansion it will be much harder to manage your business, and you must do it at an exact time.
An important reason to mention for why entrepreneurs go out of business is underestimating the competition. To take a valuable share of a market, you must understand your competitors and think them as a severe threat. To increase your odds of success, keep a keen eye on your competitor's strengths and weaknesses.
Giving Up Very Early
The cause which is very common in the failure of every entrepreneur is that they give up and shut down all the projects. It’s tough to encourage and pick you up in massive frustration, but there is no magic pill to turn failure into success. It's time to face the truth; the path of becoming a successful entrepreneur is full of hurdles and roadblocks. Instead of giving up, learn from your mistakes and try not to repeat them.
There are many other reasons behind the failure of entrepreneurs in 2018, but these ten are most common and obvious. You’ve just got to deal with all of them to become successful.
Guest post courtesy of Jessica Watson. Jessica has been writing for websites and blogs for four years now, currently, she is associated with Aurion International who is providing ISO 9001 certification in Dubai and UAE. | <urn:uuid:949222fa-fdec-4d8a-816a-ded92558b38a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://rescue.ceoblognation.com/2018/03/21/top-10-reasons-for-entrepreneurs-failure-in-2018/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00275.warc.gz | en | 0.964266 | 951 | 2.03125 | 2 |
This essay has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the work written by our professional essay writers.
As a Modern Foreign languages (MFL) teacher, I have chosen a research which looks into the proportion of target language (TL) used by teachers and learners in MFL classes since this topic is close to my heart. The investigation will focus on language immersion and the impact that this approach can have on pupils' Second Language Acquisition and motivation.
Using the research findings, I will attempt to uncover whether teachers find it difficult to employ languages as a teaching tool, and suggest some possible new strategies for facilitating pupils learning. Both policy makers and MFL teachers believe that the TL should be used as the vehicle for teaching and learning, but in practice its occurrence varies greatly from class to class and from teacher to teacher.
Commentaries and guidance on this topic have been presented, with varying degrees of authority, in a whole range of contexts: initial teacher training, in-service training, NC documentation, OFSTED reports, publications on MFL teaching practice, etc. The fact remains that despite all this guidance, or even perhaps because of it, TL use remains one of those matters on which many educators remain uncertain.
Commonsense tells us that to learn a foreign language one must be exposed to it and that although it is possible to learn a foreign language through the medium of the mother tongue (as did most contemporary British teachers of Modern Languages), such teaching does not generally prepare the learner for face-to face communication.
In my teaching experiences it has become commonplace that the use of TL in a lesson tends to be punctured by English interjections as a means to manage behaviour. This point is confirmed by Clark (1981:153s) who says, "when the teacher resorts to speaking the shared native language the message that is being given to the pupils is: use English when you have something real to say. Use the foreign language when we are doing exercises, question-and-answers work, and other unreal (non-communicative) things".
This project explores the relevance that second language research has for the secondary foreign language classroom. It analyses the concept of teaching and learning exclusively through the TL. The aim of this study is to find out about pupils' thoughts and experiences when it comes to speaking French as a Second Language Acquisition (SLA).
I will situate this analysis within the context of a Catholic secondary school situated in London where the catchment area is mainly deprived. The school in question which we will call School G for anonymous purposes is a large oversubscribed comprehensive school, which holds a Language College Status. It is a mixed gender establishment which counts for approximately 650 pupils between the ages of 11 -16.
School G is currently experiencing a period of exciting and innovative changes and has been chosen to become a Pathfinder School, as part of the BSF (Building Schools for the Future) project. The Languages Department comprises 5 members of staff and 3 language assistants. The team was reborn at the beginning of this school year, under a new leadership and the induction of new staff. Since then the department has become a pioneer in TL immersion.
Over the years, our department has acquired a range of characteristics apparent to most observers: focus on the language of real use, all four skills being developed, grammar in the service of communication rather than an absolute, routines for pupil interaction, use of authentic materials, activity-based lessons, etc. Much of this is fine. On their own, however, there is evidence to suggest that that these features are unlikely to secure effective and permanent learning by all pupils; as an example, pupils may carry out a whole string of activities in a lesson and still not know what exactly their lesson was about in linguistic terms or what they were supposed to learn from it. Some pupils may crack the code of learning, but many will not: instead they end up with some chunks of language and topic boxes but generally unable to re-apply and manipulate the language outside these contexts.
I have been teaching French in School G for more than four years and as I have became more experienced in language teaching, it would be safe to infer that frequent use of the TL in the language classroom offers value add to learners. Nevertheless most Languages Teachers I have questioned are now realising that they have to make judgements about its use all the time: not only on whether and when (not) to use it, but more importantly how.
As a native speaker of French it should be relatively easy for me to use the foreign language 100% of the time. However language immersion is something that I often find challenging since I have to remember to make the language simple enough for my pupils to understand, especially when explaining grammar points or referring to the board to give written and pictorial examples whilst speaking. In addition to this, incorporating the use of gestures and visuals plays an integral role in engaging pupil learning. The reality is that exclusive use of French in class is not always enough on its own to secure quality students learning, hence it is not enough to constitute effective teaching. I became conscious that what matters most is what I say and do via the use of the language studied.
A slightly harder skill to achieve is for my students to use the TL 100% of the time. Therefore, I considered undertaking some primary research as a starting point in order to gain knowledge about learners' attitudes towards the foreign language, hoping this will enable our department to design best classroom practices to meet our students' needs.
Prior to the implementation of the study some informal departmental meeting took place where a general consensus about the study was gathered. Views were aired regarding the purpose and the likely outcomes of such a study. Two of my colleagues were keen to co-operate and their ringing endorsement was backed up by their willingness to take part in lessons observations.
Ideas that were suggested included using French background music in lessons in order to create a friendly atmosphere. Planning more trips abroad to French speaking countries will also be great for pupils to immerse themselves in the foreign language. From this point of view, other features (some not so obvious) emerge as much more important in terms of making our teaching effective. In fact, our current work is focused on how to make teaching more explicit in the MFL curriculum, ensuring that learning is accessible to pupils, while implementing as much TL as possible.
During lunchtime I set up an extra-curricular club which facilitated this learning objective. Pupils created posters with common French expressions which helped as useful reminders to the students, should they be tempted to lapse into English. I felt that if language immersion was to be introduced from the very outset, my students may accept this as the norm and reap the benefits of being immersed in a supportive language learning environment. It will be, so to speak, no big deal since pupils might accept it unselfconsciously, responding as best they can, and receive all the benefits of exposure to the model of the foreign language expertly used.
In the first couple of weeks of conducting the study, we, as a department planned our lessons meticulously ensuring that the curriculum was transparent to and understood by pupils. All pupils were observed twice a week over a period of nine weeks, the language content was simple as well as repetitive and the approach was largely communicative. The emphasis was on fun and enjoyment, in a non-threatening environment where the pupils were praised for their efforts. Visuals and props played a large part in enabling the learners to understand meanings, avoiding 'translation' into English. The language was also embedded around the school in the form of multi-lingual signs and displays.
According to Stephen Krashen "Acquisition requires meaningful interaction in the target language - natural communication - in which speakers is concerned not with the form of their utterances but with the messages they are conveying and understanding".
Using the Natural Approach, we spoke only French and class time were committed to providing input for acquisition. Students were encouraged to use the language being taught and errors in speech were not corrected; however homework included grammar exercises that were corrected. Goals for the class emphasised the students being able use the language "to talk about ideas, perform tasks, and solve problems." This approach aimed to fulfil the requirements for learning and acquisition, and did a great job in doing it. Its main weakness was that all classroom teaching was to some degree limited in its ability to be interesting and relevant to all students.
During lesson observations I remarked that KS3 pupils were usually able to understand the teacher speaking in the foreign language at normal speed for routine classroom business and to follow the recorded speech of native speakers on familiar topics. However it was noticeable that their comprehension was less secure when they encountered new material or unfamiliar contexts.
Furthermore, I noted that after a good start as beginners in Year 7, School G pupils made less progress in Years 8 and 9 in their use of the TL, so I felt that progress over KS3 as a whole was disappointing. During oral conversations, pupils could answer simple questions on matters concerning personal information or personal interests, even in Year 7, but they lacked the confidence to take the initiative in speaking. It was unusual to hear them seeking clarification, asking simple questions in the target language such as:
"Comment dit-on ... en français ?" ("How do we say ... in French?")
Pouvez-vous répéter la question s'il vous plait? ("Could you repeat the question please?")
"Qu'est ce que ça veut dire?" ("What does this mean?")
It is also fair to mention that during oral conversations, pupils spoke with acceptable accuracy in routine situations. When required to speak at greater length or in new situations, their accuracy and fluency deteriorated, partly because their grasp of structure was usually less secure than their retention of vocabulary. In KS4, whilst pupils widen their range of vocabulary, many were still insecure in their grasp of tenses, idiom and other points of grammar, for example, when required to recount past experiences in areas previously covered in the present tense.
The research took place in School G where data collection spanned over a two weeks period. The methods used for collecting information types were qualitative data and for added dimension, quantitative data was also used in order to provide quick, fact-finding information.
I drafted an anonymous Internet-based questionnaire study on TL that was carried out in December 2009. A sample of 120 students from Year 7 to Year 11 responded to the survey. For the interviews ten more pupils were selected from a pool of volunteers who indicated that they were interested in participating in this study. With respect to their foreign language experience, most of the participants were native English speakers, but had the opportunity to learn French, Spanish or Italian since primary school.
The first group of questions was open-ended and designed to elicit information about each pupil. The objective of the survey was to ascertain the learners' motivational and confidence level, involvement in a language class, their second language anxiety level in the TL environment, their perception about the language teacher, and finally the curriculum.
The second part of the questionnaire focused on the pupils perceptions of Effective Foreign Language Teachers. The types of responses pupils were presented with were a set of multiple-choice options. An example one such question was as follows: Do you Strongly Agree* Agree* Disagree* Strongly Disagree that an effective foreign language teachers should be as knowledgeable about the culture(s) of those who speak the language as the language itself?
Through observations and interviews we were also able to assess their level of involvement and enthusiasm about language immersion. In addition, their oral proficiency in the SLA was also monitored for their progress. The students were asked for their opinions regarding various aspects of their views on the use of a Foreign Language. Their comments and opinions were then recorded in a notebook.
The findings indicate that most boys do not like to talk in the foreign language because they are subject to peer pressures and fear of negative feedback from teachers; they suffer from lack of self-confidence and they regard speaking as not being real work, preferring instead to engage in activities which they see as having a concrete and practical outcome, such as writing.
As Jones (2002) put it "speaking in the target language is often defined, both by students and teachers, as the principal objective of learning MFL". However this aim is hindered by the socio-affective factors outlined above, resulting in most boys being reticent and unforthcoming when asked to speak in the TL due, mostly, to lack of motivation and self-confidence. All of the above socio-affective factors conspire to strengthen boys' reluctance to speak in their own language, never mind a foreign language in which, not only do they have to say something of consequence on the spot in front of their teacher and fellow students, but in addition they have to pronounce all those strange sounds while ensuring that they get the grammar right.
Recent research has shown that ICT has been used successfully to motivate boys into speaking by making the process more engaging, offering them a greater degree of independence, and by appealing to every boy's interest in high-tech. Computers are certainly cool as far as boys are concerned. It has also been noted by Walker, Davies and Hewer (2008) that ICT motivates by "removing the fear of making errors".
Since the use of ICT has been demonstrated to engage the learner and "to provide pupils with the autonomy that is required to improve motivation and instil greater self-confidence" (Leach 2002), I set out to determine in the study whether using ICT, could help my pupils to improve their ability to speak French more often in class, as well as increasing their willingness to communicate. I began by examining the application of a new software program put in place in our department that was designed to teach a second language to young children with an emphasis on oral production. The software in question was located in the language laboratory. It allowed pupils to record their coursework so that their words appeared in French on the software. The native narrator on the software could also correct pupils' pronunciation.
Unfortunately, the program froze several times in the middle of a lesson and the computer had to be restarted. As a consequence, pupils had to start their recordings again from the beginning. Not having the right kind of microphones in the beginning took away some of the initial enthusiasm that the students had shown for being involved in the study. However, as soon as the problem was solved microphones became the most important feature of the oral activities. Moreover, noise became an issue when students were working close to each other as they were working at different levels. Furthermore, some students became less willing to repeat phrases when older students were present in the computer lab. They felt more self-conscious and apprehensive.
The results indicated that the participants were generally quite enthusiastic about oral activities and had very positive attitudes toward learning foreign languages in general. They all indicated that learning a foreign language is valuable and allows them to better understand others. A few pupils emphasised that learning a foreign language will enable them to secure better jobs in the future. One girl noted: "the most exciting part of the study was when I had the opportunity to record my own voice". One of the girls who was of Portuguese origin, mentioned that her grandmother was particularly happy that she was now learning French. This undoubtedly increased her motivation to learn this language. Some of these children have unquestionably learned these attitudes from their parents or other significant adults in their lives.
Based on interviews and remarks, it became apparent that the participants displayed enthusiasm about learning a foreign language. They were eager to learn as they avidly attended some of the sessions that took place after school. It must also be noted that the children's participation in this study was completely voluntary and they were free to discontinue their participation at any time. Yet, one male student who was not enthusiastic about the Language Immersion Program participated in every activity and provided valuable feedback. He felt that a point system should be given to students as they finish each lesson.
Furthermore, our participants were quite keen about comparing the accuracy of their pronunciation with that of the native speaker narrator of the program. Furthermore, students were quite accurate in diagnosing their own pronunciation of the target language. One girl stated that the program was "very entertaining and made me want to work on it for a long time". The children indicated that the most exciting part of the program was when they had the opportunity to record their own voices.
"I liked hearing myself on it, I would listen to it and if it didn't sound anything like it at all, I would do it again and try to make it (the pronunciation) better. At the end of each lesson they give you a test which I think is good because you can review how you are pronouncing the words and it's fun" was the comment of one of the children.
Another female participant who was relatively enthusiastic about learning French stated that she liked the "sound" of French and thought that "French people were nice".
The recent rise of technology in the classroom has been a very useful one, now that most pupils have access to fast computers connected to the internet. I have found that most pupils learned a lot, particularly about grammar, less about meaning, from good interactive exercises. Hence, Mobile phones, Podcasting and MP3 players could offer good opportunities for listening as well as speaking. I found it fascinating that through comments and non verbal behaviour the students expressed their satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) in accurately producing phrases required.
In sum, students indicated that using the new Language Lab software was worthwhile and even requested to be involved in future projects. The scope of this project was merely observational and was meant to identity various aspects of the software program that were particularly interesting to students. A more detailed study must be designed and implemented in order to measure the extent to which students learn the TL. It is clear that children should be able to use the program on a regular basis in order to take full advantage of its potential.
I suppose that if the program is made available to students every day, (possibly at their homes) they would have ample time to learn, as well as to practice what they have previously learned. This point is especially important since "ample time for language learning is an important factor in successfully acquiring a second language" (e.g., Cook, 1996). Finally, the extent to which adult supervision is needed to provide guidance and motivation is another topic in need of study.
I was very pleased with the participants as they held positive attitudes towards computers. This is partly due to the fact that they all had computers at home and had access to computers at school. Let's not forget the computer is no panacea to learning a new language. Language learning is a social activity and I know that my pupils enjoy interacting with other humans, including, for the most part, their teachers.
In fact, when pupils are assessing their teachers, they appreciate imaginative planning and a lively approach, but above all they wish to work and enjoy the company of their teacher. And this is of course the crux of the matter: teaching methodologies are very important. More important is the personality of the teacher and the way they are able to control, interact with and motivate their pupils. There is no one way of doing this and it is very difficult to teach such subtle skills.
Pupils also appreciate being clearly instructed and led in their activities, knowing that the teacher is clearly in control. To some extent, this sets us apart from other subject areas where more independent learning styles are often encouraged. We can only begin to let students free once they have reached a more advanced level. Unfortunately we do not have the time or money to let them work at length on personal projects since we have to work through a structured programme, carefully selected and graded.
What about grammar? My experience tells me that pupils like it when grammar is carefully explained in English at some point. Students are low in tolerance for ambiguity and appreciate clarity. Clarity also means understanding instructions. I believe it is more pragmatic and efficient to explain the rules for an activity or game in English, perhaps after an explanation in the foreign language. This saves time and then I do not waste time subsequently explaining to pupils what they are meant to be doing. So I use a little English to achieve a gain of greater practice time, understanding and enjoyment.
I still prefer on the whole to practise a point before the stage of explanation. This means pupil can infer rules for themselves. Even so, on some occasions, for example during an afternoon lessons when a class may become restless and need tight control, I am happy to beginning with an old fashioned grammar explanation in English form board or OHT, followed by oral drilling and a written exercise. "Learning grammar" is, of course, far more about internalising rules through practice than knowing how to explain the rule, in itself a not particularly important skill. Grammar is the heart of everything for the learner who wishes to make serious progress and become fluent, but it may be much less important to the child who is going to stop learning after just three years. Perhaps the focus should be more on vocabulary knowledge, cultural input and survival language for such learners.
The two examples given relate to "discussing a grammar point" and "comparing English and the target language": in other words, specifically linguistic matters. I noted few reasons given by my colleagues regarding their lack of TL use: the pupils won't listen, they wouldn't understand, if I try it the behaviour deteriorates, they tell me their last teacher never did. It is also vexing to know that pupils can get reasonable and sometimes good GCSE grades whether or not they have received consistent TL provision over the years: so where is the advantage? In this context the real long-term value and impact of hearing the TL used intensively and consistently can easily get lost in the understandable search for short-term "solutions".
Students who are gifted and talented in MFL may have differing strengths and language skills and should therefore be expected to make rapid progress acquiring conversational skills, and become high achievers. Nonetheless I realised that the high-achieving group of learners who (usually have excellent grammatical understanding and superb reading comprehension skills) are not necessarily the ones who grasp new language quickly and re-use it spontaneously in oral interaction.
One thing the behaviourists taught us is that repetition, drilling and controlled practice are useful weapons in a teacher's armoury. So I have found it useful over the years, especially with beginners and low-ability pupils to do frequent group repetition and drilling, rapid question and answer and simple oral drills (e.g. I say a masculine word, they give back a positive one).
I have always rather liked the imperfect analogy that learning a language is like learning a musical instrument so drills are often effective starters to lessons when I want to get the full attention of the class.
No matter what the underlying motivation to study a second language, what cannot be disputed is the fact that motivation is an important variable when examining successful second language acquisition. Amongst the many factors that influence second language acquisition is the attitude of the learner toward the TL and the people who speak it. Krashen (1981) affirms that "it is the attitude of the learner that is fundamental to the learning of a second language and is a much better predictor of success than aptitude". He suggests that self-confidence is a desirable quality in pupils because it will encourage learning.
I strongly believe that fostering a positive attitude toward the TL among young learners is particularly important. Its presentation must be done in a way that maintains and/or enhances the motivation of the child to learn that language. In other words, the child must be convinced that the process of learning a second language is worth the effort and the energy it requires. This cannot be accomplished solely by the efforts of a few teachers and highly motivating language programs. Parents, educators, business leaders and other influential leaders must be convinced of the value of early learning of a foreign language and direct children to such learning opportunities.
Based on my experiences and findings, there are some important issues that need to be mentioned before concluding. These have to do with the acceptance, by teachers and students, of SLA as primary, and comprehensible input as the means of encouraging language acquisition. These problems are caused by the fact that acquisition differs from learning in two major ways: acquisition is slow and subtle, while learning is fast and, for some people evident.
Hence I am convinced that motivation is vital in language learning since it makes language learners positive about their own learning. It also creates the drive in them to acquire the TL, enjoy the learning process, and experience real communication. Moreover, experience of success and satisfaction has a strong connection with motivation. By realising their improvement and achievement, students always gain the feeling of success.
People in general have acquired second languages while they were focused on something else, while they were gaining interesting or needed information, or interacting with people they liked to be with. In order for language students to become satisfied with a lesson, it is required to produce a stress-free classroom and develop integrated-tasks lesson. It is also necessary that there is a trust between a teacher and the students so that much communication in a targeted language is developed.
In conclusion, these three factors: self-confidence, experiencing success and satisfaction, and good teacher-learner relationships as well as relationships between learners, play an essential role in developing language learners' motivation. | <urn:uuid:ee898b7d-8989-4105-97d3-4f5dd2452517> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.ukessays.com/essays/education/the-proportion-of-target-language-used-by-teachers-education-essay.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280292.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00343-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979077 | 5,227 | 2.6875 | 3 |
After undergraduate studies (degree in Biology and Mathematical Statistics) at the University of Exeter, I was interested in any and every type of ecology. As luck would have it, there was a research assistant position at Queen Mary College, University of London to work on wood decay processes, and this turned out to be the subject of my PhD. This started my almost 40 year interest in the subject. Since fungi are the major agents of decomposition, it was inevitable that they would feature foremost in my subsequent research, beginning with the structure and development of fungal communities in attached branches, when a post-doc at Bath. Then with a permanent position at Cardiff I was able to branch out (pun intended!) to investigate some of those burning (appropriate for wood) questions that already had arisen in my mind. Most aspects of my research overlap, but could perhaps be divided into categories such as: antagonistic interactions (why are they important and how do they operate?); mycelia and foraging strategies (how does the mycelial architecture of fungi fit with their ecology and life style? how do they search for food, and what happens when they find it?); fungal communities (how are they structured, how do they alter and how does they affect processes?); interactions with other organisms such as invertebrates and bacteria (how are fungi affected, how do fungi affect the other organisms, and do these interactions affect ecosystem processes?); nutrient cycling and movement (when do fungi release nutrients back to the surrounding environment, and where and when do they move them around their mycelia?); climate change (how are fungi affected, and what effects will this have on the functioning of the ecosystems of which they are a crucial part?).
This is an exciting world of fungal battles, and life and death struggles, sometimes operating on a microscopic scale and sometimes over very many square metres. As well as scientifically challenging and environmentally of massive consequence (without them the terrestrial ecosystems of planet Earth would not work), mycelia and their interactions have a huge aesthetic appeal. It is these questions and many more that I, along with over the years around 40 PhD students, post-docs and other co-workers, have striven and are striving to answer.
The importance of fungi to the world we inhabit cannot be overstated – on land they are essential for releasing nutrients locked up in dead plant material, and in directly feeding nutrients to plants. Further, so far as man is directly concerned, they produce many life-saving pharmaceuticals, foods and beverages, novel compounds, bio-control agents and much more besides. It is a joy to communicate this both to student audiences and to the public at large. | <urn:uuid:96b3bfad-9515-4927-b558-019df9ac88bb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://fungalecologycardiff.com/the-team/professor-lynne-boddy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571692.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812105810-20220812135810-00070.warc.gz | en | 0.967791 | 544 | 1.75 | 2 |
Facebook back in 2019 restructured their whole layout, putting groups at the centre of community experience. Three years later group posts are still prioritised on our feeds on the basis that the content is more relevant and specific to the individual’s registered interests. If this is where people are consuming their information, your business content needs to be in these groups right?
Running a group
Running a group can be hard work to start off with, however once they lift off can essentially run themselves. The main purpose of a group is to facilitate a place where like minded people with similar interests can all communicate, engage in discussions and gain valuable insight – whether it be in the form of entertainment, education or even support;
This in turn generates a place for people to contribute with their opinions and experiences which are of huge value for business’ after market research or user generated content!
If your business touches on topics your customers can actively discuss with each other (and your target audience is on Facebook) a group could be fantastic for your business. Key things to bare in mind are:
- Do you already have a decent following? You can invite these people to join the group and they can invite their connections to grow the community, a group is fairly useless without members who will use it – it is for them.
- A group is not a place to force your products on people and sell.
- A group needs to be of value and have purpose to its members for them to want to join & stay.
An example of a business utilising groups successfully
VShred – a fitness company offering training and nutritional plans.
Vshred has a closed group exclusive for people who have subscribed to their plan, this is controlled by a series of admins who vet the member requests to ensure only their customers are let in. In this particular case, it is an all women’s group.
What Vshred has done here is facilitated a safe space for its subscribers to communicate with each other and support each other through their fitness journey (all over the world!!🌎). For example, people share weight loss transitions from sticking to their plans (fantastic testament to the service/product), words of encouragement for support and advice – people feel comfortable enough to post their questions and welcome everyone’s opinion from their own personal experiences to help.
This is an awesome use of a group for business community and support 💪
Being a member of a group
As people are using groups for sources of information, being an active contributor in a relevant group can be excellent exposure.
For example if you provide a product/service to a local town or county, we would put money on it that there is a Facebook group for that local community.
By being an active member in this local group you can indirectly and subtly network, people may be directly asking ‘Can anyone recommend a decent plumber?’ for instance in which you could then offer to give them a call and post your number or even send them a private message.
There are also groups that allow you to post your deals and offers as a local business community – do just bear in mind who you’re targeting as this will mostly be seen by other businesses.
Hands down the best way to leverage a Facebook group is to add value to the other members in the group and listen. Share your advice on the relevant topic, help people asking questions where you can, be friendly and approachable! People will recognise you and start to see you as a trustworthy source which could later down the line translate into a new customer if they end up requiring your product/service. | <urn:uuid:18210488-bec5-4825-9e33-7654f6725f3d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://furthermoremarketing.co.uk/facebook-groups-business-guide/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571758.42/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812200804-20220812230804-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.961294 | 746 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Simple Postflop is software for calculation of Nash-equlibrium on postflop, which builds GTO strategies in postflop situations according to bet-sizing and ranges of two players.
Simple PostFlop main advantages:
- Very accurate results of calculations;
- Incredibly fast and free calculations of Turn and River;
- Calculations could be processed in the Cloud;
- Affordable prices;
- All of you ideas taking into count and used for improvement of Simple Postflop.
Simple Postflop Functionality:
- Cloud version for weak computers and Standalone version for powerfull computers;
- River calculation - instantly, Turn calculation - few seconds;
- Optimal strategy, EV and Equity of every hand in the range for the whole tree of strategies;
- Possible to use Simple Postflop as a calculator for hand EV on postflop using lock-strategy function;
- Simple generation of strategy tree according to the players bet-sizings;
- Supporting of two bet-sizings from the one node of tree strategy;
- Full calculation of GTO strategies without usage of any abstractions.
To complete the calculation you should follow next steps:
1. Set the cards on the board. You should click on cards and choose which one you need in the drop-down menu.
2. Choose the phase of the game: Flop, Turn, River.
3. Set effective stack and pot of the phase.
4. Set bet-sizings to players. You need to enter Sizing Edition Menu clicking on the button near the label Player bet sizing.
You can set Sizing Strategy for every phase of the game in the 'Sizing of bets' area. In the 'Main config' area you can set tha maximum amount of raises on each phase of the hand or set first/last move to All-in. It is possible to save sizing strategy and use it later.
5. Click on the Apply Situation button and according to bet-sizing strategies of players program will build strategies tree. It is possible to edit bets right-clicking on the tree node and choosing Edit Node option.
6. Set players ranges for the action points click on the buttons near Range Player label.
All cards are presented at 13x13 matrix and each element containes several pair of cards depending on the selected suites. Left clicking on the matrix element you'll set % which is defined under the Full button.If you right clicking in the element than it will set up to 0% of playing. You can also Copy/Paste ranges and they are fully competable with CREV.
7. The last step is to click on the Calculate button. By the end of calculation the program will show equlibrium ranges in the strategy tree. Choosing the node you'll se the result in the 13x13 matrix. There are available three views of the result: % of played cards, EV, % of played actions.
When you choose any element of the matrix you'll see it's detailed description in tha top right table. In the Abs column showed the % of hand player reached the situation. In the column Played shown the probability with which player have to play according to the equlibrium strategy. In the EV column shown the EV for the action minus EV of Fold. In the right middle table shown all possible actions for the hand selected in the top table. | <urn:uuid:717ec02f-8719-4065-80dd-f2f0cb03f487> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://grinders.org/resources/simple-postflop.140/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280763.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00522-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.886308 | 712 | 1.609375 | 2 |
Question Matt Business & Management
Incorporating A Business - Advantages And Disadvantages
What are the advantages and disadvantages of Incorporating a business?
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Answer Internal Staff
For a business owner the decision to incorporate a business can be one of the most important they will make. Incorporating a business means that it will take on its own legal identity. An incorporated business can own assets and liabilities in its own right, it can also face legal action.
The advantage of this to the owner(s) is that these responsibilities are removed from themselves. For example, if the business accrues large debts, the owner won’t be held personally liable, so creditors can’t send bailiffs to repossess their car or house. This provides a protective barrier that removes some of the risk for the owner.
The downside is that there is additional paperwork to be completed, the business must register with Companies House, produce governing documents – the memorandum of association, articles of association and statement of capital – and owners will lose the direct ownership of assets. To elaborate the last point, the company owns all assets and revenue, this can only be distributed to owners according to the terms of the companies governing documents, and with the agreement of the majority of shareholders. | <urn:uuid:d26a882e-3f15-49f2-9a8d-e9be52f15e46> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.ukessays.com/ask/advantages-and-disadvantages-incorporating-business-1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285001.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00305-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949588 | 296 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Religious vows are the public vows made by the members of religious communities pertaining to their conduct, practices, and views.
In the Buddhist tradition, in particular within the Mahayana and Vajrayana tradition, many different kinds of religious vows are taken by the lay community as well as by the monastic community, as they progress along the path of practice. In the monastic tradition of all schools of Buddhism the Vinaya expounds the vows of the fully ordained Nuns and Monks.
In the Christian tradition, such public vows are made by the religious life – cenobitic and eremitic – of the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox Churches, whereby they confirm their public profession of the Evangelical Counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience or Benedictine equivalent. They are regarded as the individual's free response to a call by God to follow Jesus Christ more closely under the action of the Holy Spirit in a particular form of religious living. A person who lives a religious life according to vows they have made is called a votary or a votarist. The religious vow, being a public vow, is binding in Church law. One of its effects is that the person making it ceases to be free to marry. In the Roman Catholic Church, by making a religious vow one does not become a member of the hierarchy but becomes a member of a unique state of life which is neither clerical nor lay, the consecrated state. Nevertheless, many male members of the Consecrated life are members of the hierarchy, because they are in Holy Orders.
In the western church
Since the 6th century, monks and nuns following the Rule of Saint Benedict have been making the so-called Benedictine vow at their public profession of obedience (placing oneself under the direction of the abbot/abbess or prior/prioress), stability (committing oneself to a particular monastery), and "conversion of manners" (which includes forgoing private ownership and celibate chastity).
During the 12th and 13th centuries mendicant orders emerged, such as the Franciscans and Dominicans, whose vocation emphasizing mobility and flexibility required them to drop the concept of "stability". They therefore profess chastity, poverty and obedience, like the members of many other orders and religious congregations founded subsequently. The public profession of these so-called Evangelical counsels (or counsels of perfection), confirmed by vow or other sacred bond, are now a requirement according to modern Church Law.
The "clerks regular" of the 16th century and after, such as the Jesuits and Redemptorists, followed this same general format, though some added a "fourth vow", indicating some special apostolate or attitude within the order. Fully professed Jesuits (known as "the professed of the fourth vow" within the order), take a vow of particular obedience to the Pope to undertake any mission laid out in their Formula of the Institute. The Missionaries of Charity, founded by Mother Teresa centuries later (1940s), are another example of this, in that her sisters take a fourth vow of special service to "the poorest of the poor".
In the Roman Catholic Church
In the Roman Catholic Church, the vows of members of religious orders and congregations are regulated by canons 654-658 of the Code of Canon Law. These are public vows, meaning vows accepted by a superior in the name of the Church, and are usually of two durations: temporary, and, after a few years, final vows (permanent or "perpetual"). Depending on the order, temporary vows may be renewed a number of times before permission to take final vows is given. There are exceptions: the Jesuits' first vows are perpetual, for instance, and the Sisters of Charity take only temporary but renewable vows.
Religious vows are of two varieties: simple vows and solemn vows. The highest level of commitment is exemplified by those who have taken their solemn, perpetual vows. There once were significant technical differences between them in canon law; but these differences were suppressed by the current Code of Canon Law in 1983, although the nominal distinction is maintained. Only a limited number of religious congregations may invite their members to solemn vows; most religious congregations are only authorized to take simple vows. Even in congregations with solemn vows, some members with perpetual vows may have taken them simply rather than solemnly.
A perpetual vow can be superseded by the Pope, when he decides that a man under perpetual vows should become a Bishop of the Church. In these cases, the ties to the order the new Bishop had, are dissolved as if the Bishop had never been a member; hence, such a person as, e.g., Pope Francis has had no formal ties to his old order for years. However, if the Bishop was a member in good standing, he will be regarded, informally, as "one of us", and he will always be welcome in any of the order's houses.
There are other forms of consecrated life in the Catholic Church for men and women. They make a public profession of the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty, and obedience, confirmed by a vow or other sacred bond, regulated by canon law but live consecrated lives in the world (i.e. not as members of a religious institute). Such are the secular institutes, the hermits and the consecrated virgins (canon 604) These make a public profession of the evangelical counsels by a vow or other sacred bond. Also similar are the societies of apostolic life.
In the Eastern Orthodox Church
Although the taking of vows was not a part of the earliest monastic foundations (the wearing of a particular monastic habit is the earliest recorded manifestation of those who had left the world), vows did come to be accepted as a normal part of the Tonsure service in the Christian East. Previously, one would simply find a spiritual father and live under his direction. Once one put on the monastic habit, it was understood that one had made a lifetime commitment to God and would remain steadfast in it to the end. Over time, however, the formal Tonsure and taking of vows was adopted to impress upon the monastic the seriousness of the commitment to the ascetic life he or she was adopting.
The vows taken by Orthodox monks are: Chastity, poverty, obedience, and stability. The vows are administered by the Abbot or Hieromonk who performs the service. Following a period of instruction and testing as a novice, a monk or nun may be tonsured with the permission of the candidate's spiritual father. There are three degrees of monasticism in the Orthodox Church: The Ryassaphore (one who wears the Ryassa – however, there are no vows at this level – the Stavrophore (one who wears the cross), and the Schema-monk (one who wears the Great Schema; i.e., the full monastic habit). The one administering the tonsure must be an ordained priest, and must be a monk of at least the rank he is tonsuring the candidate into. However a Bishop (who, in the Orthodox Church, must always be a monk) may tonsure a monk or nun into any degree regardless of his own monastic rank.
- 1983 Code of Canon Law, Canon 588
- Chart showing the place of those making religious vows among the People of God
- Rule of St Benedict, ch. 58:17.
- In the Roman Catholic Church, see canons 573, 603 and 654 of the Code of Canon Law 1983; only the Benedictines continue to make the equivalent Benedictine vow.
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Models of biological phenomena often include complicated networks of chemical reactions. I have made some comments on this in a previous post. From a mathematical point of view this leads to large systems of ordinary differential equations (or possibly reaction diffusion equations) depending on a large number of parameters, whose precise values are often not known. At first sight it seems hopelessly complicated to prove general theorems about the dynamics of solutions of these systems. Surprisingly something can be done and it is interesting to enquire why. These ideas are associated with the name ‘chemical reaction network theory’. What are the special features of these systems which allow something to be done? The first property is that they are sparse. This means that the right hand side of the evolution equation for a given quantity only depends on a few of the other unknowns. The second is that with the choice of mass action or Michaelis-Menten kinetics, which are the simplest and most common ways of modelling the reactions, the problem of finding stationary solutions reduces to finding real solutions of systems of polynomial equations. This opens up the possibility of applying tools from (real) algebraic geometry. It is also the case that there is quite a lot of linear structure in the coefficients which allows the application of sophisticated techniques of linear algebra. In practise the first question which people would like to answer is whether there are biologically reasonable stationary solutions and if so how many. In particular, is there more than one (multistability)? The dynamics of these systems do often turn out to be relatively simple. It is also often the case that the qualitative behaviour depends only weakly (if at all) on the choice of parameters. I do not know to what extent this is a selection effect, i.e. that the examples which get into the literature are preferentially those which have these simple properties.
This theory started with a 1972 paper by the chemical engineers Fritz Horn and Roy Jackson (Arch. Rat. Mech. Anal. 47, 81). It seems that in later years the one who contributed most to the development of the subject was Martin Feinberg. For these systems it is possible to introduce a non-negative integer called the deficiency and the case where is zero is the simplest one. The fact that something can be said about the dynamics of solutions in this case which goes beyond statements about the existence of stationary solutions is due to the existence of a Lyapunov function. The source of this function is explained in the paper of Horn and Jackson. In certain cases it is closely related to the Helmholtz free energy which is required to decrease by thermodynamic arguments. The deficiency zero theorem says that the dynamical behaviour is determined by a property called weak reversibility. To explain this property I need some basic concepts. The unknowns in the dynamical system corresponding to a chemical reaction network are the concentrations of the chemical species involved, i.e. the different chemical substances. A complex is a formal linear combination of species with positive integer coefficients. Each reaction in the network corresponds to an ordered pair of complexes, which are the left hand side and right hand side of the reaction. A network is called weakly reversible if whenever there is a concatenation of reactions leading from a complex to a complex there is also one from to . When if a network is not weakly reversible then the corresponding dynamical system with mass action kinetics has no stationary solutions where all concentrations are positive. It also has no periodic solutions. If it is weakly reversible there is exactly one such stationary solution which is a global attractor for the system. More precisely, there are invariant manifolds called stoichiometric compatibility classes and the statements about uniqueness and stability refer to a given class of this type. Note that, in particular, a deficiency zero system can never have more than one relevant stationary solution (within a stoichiometric compatibility class).
There is a generalization of the deficiency zero theorem called the deficiency one theorem. To explain this it is necessary to introduce the notion of linkage classes. Given a network a graph can be defined whose nodes are complexes and where there there are edges joining these nodes corresponding to reactions. The connected components of the resulting graph are the linkage classes. Each component defines a network of its own and so has a natural definition of deficiency. It can be shown that the sum of the deficiencies of the linkage classes is no greater that the deficiency of the whole network. I will not describe all the hypotheses of the deficiency one theorem here. I will just mention that they include the conditions that no linkage class has a deficiency greater than one and that the sum of the deficiencies of the linkage classes is equal to the deficiency of the whole network. | <urn:uuid:c893e29f-a8a3-458e-8b76-885ffe98b3a4> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://alanrendall.wordpress.com/2010/10/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719468.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00528-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949486 | 949 | 2.40625 | 2 |
Are rawhide treats safe for dogs? Are rawhides bad for dogs? What are rawhide chews made from, anyway? Rawhide treats are something your dog can chew on (often for days). Some brands say rawhide chews are safe for dogs and even beneficial for canine teeth. You might want to hold off serving up another rawhide bone to your pet until you know the facts on this treat.
BarxBuddy’s veterinarian consultant Dr. Sara Ochoa says while rawhides aren’t the worst things you can give a dog, they aren’t the best either.
“There are much better and safe choices for dog chews than rawhides,” Dr. Ochoa said.
What Are Rawhide Dog Bones Made Of?
The “healthy” food craze in the human diet has spilled into the pet industry, with dog food manufacturers labeling their products as all-natural and full of healthy ingredients. And, to be fair, there are some good dog food makers out there. Our guide to reading dog food labels can help you understand what to look for and ingredients to avoid in pet foods.
What about rawhide bones? What are they made of? Rawhide bones are not bones. They are made from dried animal skins leftover from the leather industry. Although some rawhide bones are made in the United States, many are produced in China. The typical process requires the hides to soak in high-salt brines, slowing decay until the skins are manufactured into leather goods. Upon arriving at a tannery, which can take weeks or months, lime is applied to the hide to separate it from the fat. Hair is then removed from the skin, which also requires manual effort and chemicals.
Is Rawhide Bad For Dogs? Is It Safe?
While the notion of your pet eating dried animal skin seems natural, there are risks and safety guidelines you should be aware of. Rawhide chews can be exposed to toxic chemicals during manufacturing and may contain trace amounts. It is also possible for rawhide bones to harbor bacteria, including E. coli and salmonella, which can pose a risk to humans if they come into contact with a contaminated rawhide bone.
Some dogs may have sensitivities or allergies to the rawhide itself or the chemicals used, which can cause gastrointestinal issues like diarrhea. And, even though the skins are rinsed during the process, no step entirely prevents decay of the hide. For this reason, you should always rinse your dog’s rawhide treat before giving it to your pet.
Rawhide bones are meant to be long-lasting chews that soften and break down into small pieces over time. How your dog chews can significantly impact the breakdown and the safety of rawhide. Throw away unconsumed rawhides after seven days, to avoid contamination from bacteria build-up.
Why Are Rawhide Chews Bad?
Some rawhides are very hard and break or damage your dog’s teeth, Dr. Ochoa said. If your dog breaks off large pieces and swallows them without chewing, they could get stuck on the way through their gastrointestinal system.
Strong chewers can break off large pieces that can become a choking hazard or cause an intestinal blockage—both of which are life-threatening. Dr. Ochoa said she has had to surgically remove a whole large rawhide from a Labrador retriever’s intestines because the dog swallowed the whole rawhide without chewing it.
“Many rawhides can also cause dogs to have an upset stomach,” Dr. Ochoa said. “Some of these are coated with peanut butter or bacon flavor to help entice your dog to want to eat them. These flavor additives, I find, can cause diarrhea in dogs with sensitive stomachs.”
Rawhide Bones Alternatives
Plain and simple, dogs need to chew. If they don’t have something to chew on regularly, they will take to gnawing away your furniture, shoes, and other belongings. What can you give them instead of rawhide?
Dr. Ochoa uses a fingernail rule when she buys treats for her own dogs.
“Before I give my dog any treats, I make sure that I can make an indention into the treat with my fingernail,” she said. “This would mean that my dog’s teeth can also chew them up.”
When you give your dogs chew toys, Dr. Ochoa says to watch them for 15 to 20 minutes while they chew and play with the new treat, to make sure they don’t swallow it whole. She also reminds dog owners to get treats that are suited for your dogs’ sizes.
“Small dogs should have a treat for small dogs, where large dogs need a large-dog treat,” she said. She likes to give dental sticks and Greenies, which help decrease tartar and plaque build-up, and these come in various sizes.
If You Must Give Your Dog Rawhide Treats …
Today, several rawhide alternatives exist. You can opt for one of the no-rawhide, easier-to-digest bones or offer your pet a food-grade rubber chew toy that is designed to withstand heavy chewers and keep your pet entertained. Your veterinarian can recommend chew treats that suit your dog’s size and breed, as well.
Here are a few more tips:
- Follow the 10% rule: Only offer rawhide alternatives intermittently, as they are not intended to be any more than 10% of your pet’s overall diet.
- Treat sizes matter: Buy rawhide treats that are slightly larger than your dog’s mouth.
- Practice food safety: Reseal in the original container or store treats in an airtight glass or BPA-free plastic container in a cool place to preserve freshness and prevent your dog or pests from getting into them. If you don’t store treats in their original packaging, always retain (tape to the outside of the container so it’s handy) product information including brand, manufacturer, UPC, lot number, and best by date as a reminder of when to change them out and in case your pet has adverse reactions to the treats or product recalls.
- Give lots of water: Always ensure your dog has access to fresh water.
- Watch for these signs: Contact your vet immediately if you observe any of the following as they can indicate bacterial contamination, gastric irritation or intestinal blockage.
- Repeated swallowing
- Diarrhea (with or without blood)
- Lack of energy
- Signs of pain
- Refusal to eat or weight loss
- Straining when pooping, or inability to poop
The choice to offer your dog rawhide treats is yours to make, however, offering a variety of treats and toys may prove best at satisfying your pet’s chewing needs. | <urn:uuid:14d6409c-7859-4013-8b33-4f8aedc90e38> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.barxbuddy.com/blog/why-are-rawhides-bad-for-dogs-is-rawhide-safe-for-dogs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573667.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819100644-20220819130644-00075.warc.gz | en | 0.948667 | 1,462 | 2.203125 | 2 |
People enter psychotherapy with the desire to feel better, but they are often unsure how therapy will help them accomplish this goal. A common refrain from people hesitant to enter therapy is, “How is talking going to help?” People are used to talking to other people to get practical solutions to problems, and while problem-solving does have a place in therapy, change also occurs on a much deeper and unconscious level. This process has to do with the way the human brain is programmed and cannot easily be mimicked outside of a relationship with a psychotherapist.
Our brains are always evolving unconsciously through our relationships. People who experienced painful relationships growing up have been trained to expect hurtful experiences with others. It takes a new type of relationship—in particular, a therapeutic relationship—to retrain the brain to expect more positive experiences, which is a big part of ultimately feeling better.
Why Can’t a Therapist Just Tell Me What to Do?
To understand why the therapeutic relationship can be so valuable and cannot be mimicked by, for example, advice in a self-help book, it is instructive to look at how the human brain has evolved. Broadly, there are three parts of the human brain that represent different phases of evolution: There is the reptilian brain, which evolved first and is responsible for the automatic control of vital bodily functions such as breathing; the limbic brain, which evolved second and is responsible for the regulation of emotion and behavior; and the neocortex, which evolved last and is responsible for higher-order functions such as symbolic thought, language, and reasoning.
When a person asks their therapist or a friend what they should do about something, they are essentially asking for a neocorticol solution—something that is rational and can be consciously implemented. Often, however, their problems are a result of hurtful experiences in their earlier relationships that have caused changes in their limbic brain, and only a new type of relationship can alter their limbic brain to produce fewer negative emotions and more positive ones.
Brain Wiring in Our Youth: How Emotional Issues Begin
Our emotions are meant to help us survive in a world in which we need the help of others. Over time, our limbic brains evolved to automatically create emotions, such as anger and sadness, that are meant to help us navigate the social world. When someone mistreats us, evolution has programmed us to become angry to try and change their behavior. When someone rejects us, we feel sad so we can mourn the loss of what we wanted with them and move forward with our lives.
However, when we are young and particularly dependent on others for survival, whether our emotions actually help us navigate the world has a lot to do with how other people—our parents in particular—respond to them. A child who responds to unfair or disappointing experiences with anger and is further punished for doing so may, over time, come to unconsciously pair the expression of anger with pain. As this occurs, rather than directly experiencing anger at times of unfair treatment or disappointment, they may instead experience anxiety about having anger because their brain has been trained by their social environment to expect that anger will hurt rather than help. Their limbic system is in effect attempting to prevent further emotional pain in the form of being punished, but the cost is another type of emotional pain in the form of persistent anxiety. This can be particularly problematic when people enter into new relationships (friendships, romantic relationships) where there would not be the same costs associated with the open expression of an emotion like anger, but earlier experiences still create anxiety and inhibit its expression.
Retraining the Brain with Psychotherapy
A psychotherapy relationship allows a person to essentially retrain their limbic system to no longer expect negative reactions to the expression of certain emotional experiences, and in doing so can alleviate the anxiety and unconscious emotional suppression their earlier experiences programmed into them. The therapeutic relationship does this in part because the parameters of psychotherapy recreate the type of relationship in which a person was first forced to suppress their emotions: one where they are dependent on another person to meet their needs.
A successful course of therapy helps restore a person’s emotional flexibility and empowerment so they can have greater agency in their relationships.
Just as a parent has a daunting task in meeting all of a child’s needs, so too does a psychotherapist, especially since many people arrive to therapy wanting a conscious, rational solution to their problems when such a solution often does not exist. Therapy presents a unique opportunity to heal and feel better by the way the therapist solicits and responds to feelings such as disappointment, anger, and sadness that emerge over the course of treatment. Rather than punishing a person for having these emotional experiences in the same way that may have occurred when they were younger, a therapist can actively solicit, explore, and normalize their feelings. This helps to retrain a person’s limbic system to no longer pair the expression of those emotions with punishment. As this de-coupling unconsciously occurs, the person becomes more easily able to tolerate the experience and expression of emotions.
Thriving in Adulthood
This shift in tolerance for emotions naturally causes a person’s anxiety level to diminish because their mind is no longer fighting to ward off their innate emotional impulses. In addition to symptom relief, the beautiful part of this process is it restores a person’s ability to constructively access their emotions for their original purpose—as a way of helping to navigate the social world. It is hard to thrive in relationships when we have been programmed to believe we must accept the mistreatment of others or that we cannot show others when we are hurting and in need of care. As adults, this is often no longer the case, but our early experiences may make such underlying beliefs unconsciously feel true.
A successful course of therapy helps restore a person’s emotional flexibility and empowerment so they can have greater agency in their relationships. The result can be genuinely transformative, and studies suggest people who have been through therapy show less activity in the areas of the brain responsible for creating negative emotions. Talking, it turns out, can help quite a bit when the person you are talking to is a skilled and compassionate therapist.
If you’re struggling, reach out to a therapist in your area for help.
- Bowlby, J. (2005). A secure base: Clinical applications of attachment theory (Vol. 393). UK: Taylor & Francis.
- Cozolino, L. (2010). The neuroscience of psychotherapy: Healing the social brain. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company.
- Damasio, A. R. (2006). Descartes’ error. New York, NY: Random House.
- Grecucci, A., Theuninck, A., Frederickson, J., & Job, R. (2015). Mechanisms of social emotion regulation: From neuroscience to psychotherapy. In Emotion regulation: Processes, cognitive effects and social consequences, pp.57-84.
- Karlsson, H. (2011). How psychotherapy changes the brain: Understanding the mechanisms. Psychiatric Times, 21.
- Lewis, T., Amini, F., & Lannon, R. (2007). A general theory of love. New York, NY: Vintage.
- MacLean, P. D. (1990). The triune brain in evolution: Role in paleocerebral functions. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media.
© Copyright 2017 GoodTherapy.org. All rights reserved. Permission to publish granted by Alex Afram, PhD, GoodTherapy.org Topic Expert
The preceding article was solely written by the author named above. Any views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the preceding article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment below. | <urn:uuid:caa9af80-7189-4309-bd0f-3fc0177e0e71> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/how-psychotherapy-retrains-brain-to-expect-feel-better-0605175?fbclid=IwAR14HPoUqAMLkGQsItojwB3sYf8iIW9f57aysK2NvzBDa9L3Gorriq6p7Ic | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572163.61/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815085006-20220815115006-00667.warc.gz | en | 0.947049 | 1,619 | 3.15625 | 3 |
A campaign group has pleaded with the mayor of Lewisham to reverse a planned £250,000 cut to children’s mental health services.
Save Lewisham Hospital says the cut is “short-sighted”, and that vulnerable young people will go on to “incur far greater costs through potential hospitalisation, school exclusion and family breakdown”.
Lewisham’s Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS), largely funded by the NHS but also the council, supports children and young people who are experiencing significant mental health issues such as depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicidality.
It includes those who have diagnoses such as autistic spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD, chronic health conditions, those with learning difficulties, looked after children, and young people involved in the criminal justice system.
The service has suffered years of cuts and, as it stands, the NHS has a national target for treating young people with a diagnosable mental health condition of only 35 per cent.
The proposed cut, going before full council on March 3, is part of £40 million planned over the next three years.
The council says its hands are tied because of years of Government austerity – Lewisham’s budget has been slashed by 40 per cent in the past decade, equating to about £500 per resident.
It has also says it will be investing in early help and support in schools in a bid to prevent mental health issues becoming so severe that children need CAMHS.
But despite general backing and acceptance of the rest of the cuts, all 11 members of Lewisham’s children and young people select committee voted against the CAMHS one, with the chair Cllr Luke Sorba pushing for reserves to be used instead.
One member of the public accounts committee, Cllr Tauseef Anwar, also opposes and spoke against the cut.
The council responded by pledging to keep the quarter of a million as a “contingency fund”, to be released if the need arises.
If it is drawn, the council will use reserves to balance the budget until it can find another cut elsewhere.
Director for children and young people Pinaki Ghoshal recently set out what it would take for the funds to be released, such as a 15 or 20 per cent increase in wait times.
But campaigners say the need is already there and highlight numerous emerging statistics that show a spike in demand as a result of the pandemic.
They say reserves should be used and no cut should be made.
A Save Lewisham Hospital spokesperson said: “We do this on the grounds that the budget reduction has been proposed on the basis of inaccurate information and has not been fully risk assessed to take into account the impact of the latest lockdown on child and adolescent mental health.
“We reiterate that due to historic underfunding, unless children are deemed exceptionally high risk then it is estimated that there are over 200 children and young people waiting for over six months for first assessments and a further 300 waiting up to a further 18 months for specialist assessments or treatment in CAMHS.”
Campaigners cited statistics such as an increase in referrals and the Centre for Mental Health reporting that 1.5 million children under 18 will either need new or additional mental health support as a result of the pandemic, with one third being new cases.
My daughter had to wait a year to get seen by CAMHS, which at the time felt intolerable, but when she was the seen the difference it made to her mental health was fantastic
The campaign quoted a “horrified” parent whose child used CAMHS in the past.
They said: “I was horrified to hear that Lewisham Council is considering make cuts in the CAMHS grant.
“CAMHS is such a valuable resource and at a time when our children are facing and experiencing extraordinary pressures – this is so short sighted.
“My daughter had to wait a year to get seen by CAMHS, which at the time felt intolerable, but when she was the seen the difference it made to her mental health was fantastic.
“She’s now at university and the help and tools she received from CAMHS has stood in good stead and has been used in more than one occasion during the various lockdowns and daily restrictions on her life.”
Anne Longfield, the children’s commissioner for England, warned earlier this year that mental health services do not have the capacity to cope with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on children.
The campaign cited her latest annual report which found that clinically significant mental health problems among children had risen by 50 per cent compared to three years earlier and one in six children now have a probable mental health condition.
“A Barnados report clearly identified that Covid-19 had a disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable and marginalised children in our society and that they were having to reach crisis point before they accessed support,” the spokesperson said.
They added that Lewisham children have a higher number of mental health risk factors, including poverty and incidents of domestic violence, compared to the national average.
Chris Barnham, Lewisham’s cabinet member for children’s services and school performance, told the local democracy service that the NHS needs to do more for young people’s mental health.
He said: “CAMHS is an NHS service, run by the South London and Maudsley Hospital.
“The NHS needs to do more for young people’s mental health and I’m pleased that since 2018, our partnership with the local NHS has improved funding and waiting times.
“Lewisham Council’s budget has been cut in real terms from over £400 million to £240 million.
“Given the scale of the funding crisis we face, using the councils very limited reserves to top up NHS funding for an NHS service would be shortsighted.
“Our young people need a range of local services that offer support early, to avoid problems escalating.
“We have committed to a £250,000 contingency, in response to concerns about the impact the pandemic might have on children’s mental health.
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Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters.
~ Albert Einstein
Today is a great day for my family - it’s my son Jack’s birthday. For me personally, it will be a special day to reflect, as this culminates the anniversary of the week in 2007 when I left the hallowed halls of titles and resume builders, put on my new shoes, and left Wall Street.
Clearly this was not a financially inspired decision (I haven’t been paid in a year!). It was one based on principle – and I thank God every day for allowing me to see that money means a whole heck of a lot less in life when you can “Trade” up for the “Trend” of spending time with the people you love. If that’s too “soft” for an investment note, that’s cool with me – I am the Editor here.
We have built a firm on the principles of transparency, accountability, and trust. This moral compass is not unlike that which Marcus Goldman must have used when he relocated his wife and 5 kids to New York City in 1869. If you have not read “Goldman Sachs -The Culture Of Success” by Lisa Endlich, I highly recommend it. One of the most inspiring chapters I have ever read, in any book, is chapter 11 (my hockey jersey number!), titled “The Family Firm.” Mr. Goldman built his firm and reputation on a “promissory note” business model – nothing was more golden in the eyes of this American Goldman than the integrity of his handshake.
Einstein’s aforementioned quote speaks to the simple structural fix that Wall Street needs most. Like my son Jack, the Captains of ‘Investment Banking Inc.’ love storytelling. The problem, of course, is that there is a small matter that is being revealed to the American public this year – the truth. Fiction is not just a sell side phenomena - storytellers are everywhere in this business. After a -39% down move in the US Consumer Discretionary stocks from early September’s high (when we were suggesting you be in 96% cash), the charlatans of certain “buy side” firms were firing off emails and IMs to the Street yesterday that the US Consumer is in trouble. Gee, thanks for the “Early Look”…
As these markets gyrate, the story telling finds what Nasim Taleb appropriately alludes to as “narrative fallacies”. It’s good for “The New Reality” as those new American capitalists who are liquid long cash can take advantage of it. It’s bad for the levered long investors obviously, because the manifestation of fibbing equates to higher volatility. When you slap volatility on top of leverage, things blow up.
The Volatility Index (VIX) busted out through our immediate term momentum indicator again yesterday, closing up almost +17% on the day. This made sense in our macro models as it coincided with the S&P 500 failing to close above it’s “shark line” resistance level. The result, after a +18.5% six day meltup rally, was an expedited two day -10.3% swan dive. Since the most fanciful story telling on Wall Street finds itself after the fact, you are waking up again this morning to a down -8% pre-market move in stocks like Disney because oooh, ahhh, consumer spending demand is slowing! Mickey must find this investor insight the stuff of genius.
As our Research Edge Macro clients witnessed, rather than giving lip service to “our best ideas” at some “idea” dinner, we made sales in the ‘Hedgeye Portfolio’ from opening bell to close. We weren’t saying one thing and doing another – we we’re hedging ourselves after getting too long into a bear market trap. This morning, ahead of the employment report, where the 2008 conflicted version of Goldman Sachs is warning of the apocalypse all of a sudden, my ‘Hedgeye Portfolio Allocation’ is much more prudent. We want to start buying weakness at the S&P500 line of 857, and be very respectful of making appropriate sales up at the 967 line. Yes, this is called trading. My name is Keith McCullough, I put my money where my mouth is, and I support this message.
As clearly as my macro models were flashing “getting hedged” yesterday, they are reminding me that there is every reason, in the immediate term, for the US and global stock markets to bottom this time at a higher low. That, on the margin, is bullish. If this US employment report is Armageddon, could the VIX retest 80, and the S&P500 take a gander at 848 (the prior closing low)? Definitely. But it’s where prices close in my models that matters most, not where the intraday storytelling is told. Over time, closing prices don’t lie, people do.
Asia traded very positively overnight (ex-Japan, which we re-shorted yesterday via the EWJ, that closed down -3.6%). China led gainers, and that’s what I like to see. The Chinese are the most liquid long investor in the world today. With $2 trillion in cash reserves, they have the opportunity to take advantage of “The New Reality”. Asia was really only down for a day this week, and European stock markets didn’t confirm the bearish storytelling you are currently hearing of humans abandoning their pets in back alley garbage cans in order to save their discretionary spending euros. My models like 3s – if the US and Europe can put in positive sessions today, neither are confirming the pervasive bearishness in global market rhetoric.
From a performance perspective, this week hasn’t been a good one for me. While we were down less than 100 basis points in the ‘Hedgeye Allocation Portfolio’ yesterday, my objective is not to outperform on a relative basis. My 3 objectives are: 1) to not lose my or your family’s hard earned capital, 2) tell you the truth, and 3) rinse and repeat objectives 1 and 2. A year after leaving Carlyle and my seat on the trading desk in New York City, I am thankful to report that I have accomplished all three.
Have a great weekend,
JO – iPath Coffee –Coffee shipments from Brazil increased 6.7 % y-o-y in October with Arabica exports up 12%.
EWL –iShares Switzerland- October unemployment increased slightly, but not enough to increase the national unemployment rate which remained unchanged at 2.6%.
EWA –iShares Australia- The Australian dollar is on its way to the second consecutive w-o-w increase against the USD.
EWG – iShares Germany –Industrial production in Germany declined the most in almost 14 years in September, declining 3.6% for the month and 2.1% y-o-y.
FXI – iShares China – -- Rizhao Steel Holding Group, the Chinese steelmaker set to be taken over by Shandong Iron & Steel Group Co., may layoff as many as a third of its 10,000 line workers because of slowing demand. Lenovo Group, announced quarterly earnings that were lower by 78% y-o-y, said slowing demand from corporate customers poses an “unprecedented challenge”.
VYM – Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF – Detroit auto makers reportedly seek a $50 billion federal loan package. Media reports indicate that individual investor exposure to GMAC bonds has been estimated at $15 billion.
UUP – U.S. Dollar Index – Former Treasury official Eisuke Sakakibara gave an interview where he predicted that in the current environment the Yen may reach 80 USD.
EWU – iShares United Kingdom –UK Individual bankruptcies rose 8.8 % from the second quarter to 27,087, according to the government Insolvency Service , while Corporate filings increased 105%.
IFN – The India Fund – The rupee completed its largest one week rise versus the dollar.
Keith R. McCullough
CEO / Chief Investment Officer
Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with the important matters.
Management stated, however, that if the sale of the support center does not happen in Q4 and same-store sales remain down 15% for the balance of the quarter that remaining below the 3.5x covenant “will be tight.” Management even reiterated this point later in the call in response to a question regarding its debt covenant, “Well, David, first, in terms of Q4, I didn't say safe. I said tight and we think we can get over the top but I don't want to suggest that it's a layup, if you will.”
The company’s only flicker of hope, outside of completing the sale, relies on strong gift card sales in Q4, which added $12-$13M of revenues to 4Q07. Management is expecting about the same level of gift card sales in this year’s fourth quarter as a result of RUTH’s increased units and the addition of Mitchell’s (so a decline in gift card sales/unit).
When asked about bank relations, management stated they have a good relationship with their bank lenders and although premature to speculate, that if a default did occur, the strong relationship they have (combined with the strong relationship their largest shareholder, Madison Dearborn, has with the bank lenders) would help to provide a favorable outcome…if it came to that.
So as I highlighted last week, these are clearly desperate times for RUTH.
The Australian markets received a bullish surprise in October’s employment numbers which saw a 34,000 increase while official Unemployment registered unchanged at 4.3%.
With a cooling global market for metals and energy commodities, no one seriously expects that unemployment levels won’t rise in the coming months. In a statement today Deputy Prime Minister Julia Gillard acknowledged the positive job data but cautioned that "while we are better placed than most other countries, Australia is not immune from the global financial crisis. The global crisis will impact on growth and employment here, and the government does expect to see unemployment rise."
We are long Australia via the EWA ETF. Despite the reality of slowing demand for commodities and a volatile currency environment we continue to think that the market there is among the strongest in the developed world.
If you have been reading our work since we started, you know that we have been fans of central bank chief, Glenn Stevens, for a long time now. Under Steven’s management the Reserve Bank held rates high while the Australian economy experienced the biggest market boom in decades. Now, with metal and energy prices slashed back to 2007 price levels, Stevens has room to maneuver that poorly prepared market students like Ben Bernanke do not. So far, his recent rate cuts appear to be providing a soft landing down under.
Keith McCullough & Andrew Barber
Research Edge LLC
daily macro intelligence
Relied upon by big institutional and individual investors across the world, this granular morning newsletter distills the latest and most vital market developments and insures that you are always in the know.
The BOE’s 150 basis point cut today, took the benchmark rate to its lowest level since Winston Churchill’s second term as Prime Minister. We attached a long-term chart of Rates and GDP growth below to put the present situation in context.
Mervyn King is not the only central banker pumping liquidity into the system today – both Switzerland (which we are long via EWL) and the EU cut rates today by 50 basis points each, but he does appear to be the most desperate. The British economy has been reeling under the weight of worsening data: HBOS housing numbers declined by almost -15% year over year, the worst performance since 1983, while yesterday’s industrial production numbers confirmed that manufacturing contracted in August, adding to the longest losing streak since 1992.
In a theme which is echoed in other markets where lawmakers have rushed to bail out failing banks, Gordon Brown’s administration is exerting increasing pressure on banks who participated in the government recapitalization program to begin actively lending again and pass lower rates through to borrowers rather than hoarding capital.
We continue to be short the UK via the EWU ETF. As one of the more levered and poorly managed economies in Europe we anticipate relative weakness there for the seeable future.
just spoke to a few friends of mine in the commodity contract shipping business in the south pacific/australia region.
most of them allow 90 days for payment for shipping services rendered
- and tomorrow's the day that a significant number of accounts on the "shippee" side are due. according to them, something like half of their clients have already said they won't have the cash to pay up on product that has already been shipped, and are thinking that bankruptcy is their only option.
guess they're sitting on inventory they bought 90 days ago - often on revolving credit lines - and can't recoup their costs thanks to a huge dip in both demand and prices.
they're actually calling tomorrow "black friday".
so heads up.
-Friend of the Research Edge Network
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By joining our email marketing list you agree to receive marketing emails from Hedgeye. You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in one of the emails. | <urn:uuid:a2a2d862-13ec-4e85-b2d1-9da754b528e8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://app.hedgeye.com/insights/80 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285001.96/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00304-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95008 | 2,902 | 1.5 | 2 |
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Blogging and the Future of Democracy in the Arab World!
The following is a summary of a talk I recently gave at a State Department conference on Blogging and Democracy. I thought it would e of some interest here.
Many people across the world are still dubious of the possible avenues and channels for communications and expression that blogging can pave. But that is not surprising really. People have given a similar lukewarm response to the Internet itself at one point, not too long ago. But who can dispute the power and impact of the internet now?
In reality, and as the various talks and presentations made at the Conference on Blogging and Democracy have amply demonstrated, people just need time to get used to the possibilities that can be are afforded them by blogging. No one is the wiser in this regard than the current generation of teens and 20-somethings, with many of whom already getting hooked on such blogging varieties as MySpace, YouTube, Flickr and many such similar sites that have already been integrated into teen and youth cultures. Now, these may not be “hardcore” blogs, that is, they may not necessarily tackle significant political and social issues in a journalistic or analytical manner. Still, it is only natural to expect that those who will get used to these media as means for self-expression, communicating and networking are more likely, in due course of time, to develop a greater affinity and respect for the more socially and politically pertinent blogs.
As such, and for all the aura that seems to surround the medium today, we are, in fact, only witnessing the birth of blogging. Its real impact on our lives is something that we will not really see or appreciate for a few more years to come.
And if blogging is still in its infancy on the international arena, it is indeed still in the embryonic phase in the Arab World, where bloggers number in the thousands only in comparison to the few hundred thousands of bloggers in Iran, for instance. Still, Arab bloggers have already generated some noise and news.
In Egypt, they took active part in organizing the Kefaya movement and its various anti-regime activities and protests. In Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the Gulf, they already managed to break certain religious taboos and have managed to empower a number of female voices, enough of them, in fact, to show that many women have indeed established their own socially dissident subculture in that conservative part of the Middle East. Some bloggers, especially in Bahrain and Egypt, have already been imprisoned for the views they expressed on their blogs, with some still waiting to be released.
All this shows that the internet and blogging in particular is destined to play an important role in the social and political transformations currently taking place in the region. The democratic forces are bound to continue on using it for intercommunicating and for organization, but so will the radical forces a well including the Islamists and the ultranationalists.
By itself, then, blogging is merely a tool, and unless a consistent effort is applied to transform it into a too of democratization, other actors on the scene are liable to use it for exactly the opposite purpose, namely to advance a more militant and reactionary agenda. Regime ideologues might also be able to use it as another medium for propaganda, but unless the regimes set on reinventing their worn-out political discourse and stratagems, the medium is unlikely to be of any help. By its nature, blogging is a dynamic medium, creatures of a stultified culture are not exactly the kind that can make adequate use of it. The real competition, therefore, is likely to take place, and is indeed taking place, between independent individuals and groups of various political and social stripes. | <urn:uuid:5572aba5-6920-4d1d-bba6-a6741fe49d65> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://amarji.blogspot.com/2006/07/blogging-and-future-of-democracy-in.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280730.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00248-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968044 | 765 | 1.585938 | 2 |
corruption in Belarus
21 December 2016
Belarus aims to expand its cooperation with Malaysia and hosts another high-level visit from Poland. The Belarusian delegation visits the US to discuss economic cooperation and investment with state agencies and corporations.
The authorities arrest three Belarus-based journalists from the Russian media on charges of propagating extremism. The KGB discloses large-scale corruption schemes...
19 February 2016
Last month, Alexander Lukashenka pardoned six top officials charged with corruption. Not only that – he appointed them to manage unprofitable state-owned enterprises.
The decision reflects a haphazard approach to fighting corruption. Belarus ranked 107 out of 168 countries in a recent report by Transparency International, a non-governmental organisation that monitors corporate and...
12 February 2016
Over the last weeks analysts covered a range of issues from corporate social responsibility to human rights. Belarus and Russia now undergo the period of cooling, the economy is deteriorating and the authorities are trying to implement reforms.
Belarus scores relatively well on corruption perception compared to Russia and Ukraine but still remains a not free country according to...
02 December 2015
Do many Belarusian women participate in politics? – was discussed at a conference Women in Political Life in Belarus.
Belarusian students organised ‘Love and Solidarity March’ in Minsk. They protested against introduction of fees for retaking of exams.
Young Belarusians against corruption - the platform Talaka.by together with UNDP launched a...
04 November 2015
An NGO in Belarus launches a website to help the citizens to analyse information on public procurement and identify possible corruption schemes. 700 projects submitted for contest of local initiatives implemented by EU/UNDP.
Living Library celebrates one year of existence. During this time, the team of "librarians" visited different Belarusian cities and gathered 200 people at...
19 November 2014
As of 17 November, the Ministry of Housing and Communal Services has a new head - Aliaksandr Cierachaŭ. However, this new appointment will unlikely fix the serious problems which the sector is facing.
Housing and communal services swallows up 8% of the Belarusian budget and remains a hotbed of corruption. Over the past half year, the police have identified more than 100 crimes in this...
24 April 2014
On 22 April President Lukashenka delivered his annual address to the nation and parliament. The “phantom” of Ukraine stood behind almost every part of his speech. During his annual address, Lukashenka made some impressive, even revolutionary, statements.
He called on Belarusians to unite in the face of external threats and demanded the punishment of those who speculate on...
15 April 2014
20 years ago, Alexander Lukashenka won the presidential elections in Belarus thanks to his anti-corruption slogans. Today he returns the issue into an item of public discourse - last month Lukashenka proclaimed that Ukraine had a revolution because of corruption.
Over the last months the Belarusian authorities committed a dozen of high-profile arrests including the...
02 April 2014
Recently state TV widely covered Alexander Lukashenka’s official statements regarding events in Ukraine.
Journalists also reminded the harm to the state and society which corruption could pose. However, in their opinion Belarus, unlike Ukraine, is successfully combating the problem.
The Belarusian opposition commemorated Freedom Day, organising a rally through Minsk. On...
17 March 2014
Belarus State TV reporters are preoccupied with the removal of communist-era monuments throughout Ukraine - over 50 Lenins have been recently been torn down.
Alexander Lukashenka has named the reasons for the upheavals taking place throughout Ukraine: the nation's economic collapse and the corrupt conduct of its authorities. Recently, Belarusian state TV reported on...
21 October 2013
State TV Channel 1 widely covered the presidential elections which recently took place in Azerbaijan. A visit of Ukrainian Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov to Minsk resulted in the signing of a package of agreements. Alexander Lukashenka also made it clear that he would not oppose the Western ambitions of Kiev.
The IMF mission will be monitoring the economic situation of Belarus, but...
15 August 2013
This week Belarusian TV reported that Ukraine will lose rather than win if it signs the Association Agreement with Brussels. It also covered the falsification of reports in the Belarusian state-run agricultural sector and a contest for the best crop gatherer in Belarus.
State TV argued that the Transparency International report on corruption is unreliable and underestimates CIS... | <urn:uuid:8b4b5556-3f96-4dbf-b240-3e47fd6c3e80> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://belarusdigest.com/category/free-tags/corruption-belarus | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280065.57/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00545-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941631 | 933 | 1.726563 | 2 |
This notebook covers the period November 1880-January 1881. Most of the entries are by Francis Jehl. A few entries appear to be by Francis Upton. Included are notes and calculations relating to tests of A-lamps. There is also a note and drawing by Edison regarding a method for preventing the carrying of carbon by electricity. At the end of the book is a list of the number of sons and daughters of Edison and others. The label on the front cover is marked "Reg Lamp A" and "Francis Jehl." The label also indicates that this notebook is, in part, a continuation of Book No 138 at p 39." The book contains 284 numbered pages.
Blank pages: 22-29, 130-269, 272-277. Courtesy of Thomas Edison National Historical Park. | <urn:uuid:9c7cc933-b428-4788-aec9-915e23e03691> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://edison.rutgers.edu/NamesSearch/glocpage.php3?gloc=N152 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279169.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00211-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933879 | 162 | 2.46875 | 2 |
AWARENESS AND ATTITUDE REGARDING BIRTH PREPAREDNESS AND COMPLICATION READINESS AMONG PREGNANT WOMENJournal: International Journal of Advanced Research (Vol.7, No. 12)
Publication Date: 2019-12-17
Authors : Shobha Tiwari;
Page : 567-580
Keywords : Pregnancy Birth Preparedness Complication Readiness Awareness;
This study examines the different aspects of awareness and attitude regarding birth preparedness and complication readiness among the pregnant women attending PHCs of Kathmandu. A descriptive cross-sectional research design was used for the study. The total sample of 115 respondents were used by using non?probability purposive sampling technique. Semi-structured interview schedule and Likert\'s scale tool was used for collection of information. Data were analyzed by using IBM SPSS Version 20.0 and Descriptive statistics, Chi- square and Pearson?s correlation coefficient (r) test was applied.The study revealed that, the mean age of pregnant women was 26.22 year and 80% of respondents were employed. More than half of the respondents were aware about the needs of the BP/CR. Ninety three percent of the respondents were aware by radio. Cent percent of the respondents believed on necessity of arrangement of transportation to go health facility, arrangement of money, identify the health facility for childbirth and identifying skill birth attendant respectively. More than three quarter (83.5%) of respondents have the good level of awareness and 68% of the respondents have the positive attitude level of regarding BP/CR. There was significant association between level of awareness with age (p=0.006) and religion (p=0.047), positive level of attitude and level of education (p=0.056), religion (p=0.031) and employment status (p=0.025). There was positive correlation (r=0.186) between awareness and attitude regarding BP/CR.
Other Latest Articles
Last modified: 2020-01-16 16:11:17 | <urn:uuid:0367d181-f018-45bd-b17c-87f420e35032> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://paper.researchbib.com/view/paper/234237 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570868.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808152744-20220808182744-00066.warc.gz | en | 0.913748 | 433 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Whether an organisation is small or large, public or private, it is likely to hold information that if compromised could cause harm to staff, customers and the organisation’s reputation.
Weaknesses in internet facing networks and applications can occur due to poorly patched, configured or unsupported systems. Where these vulnerabilities occur, it increases the possibility that they may be exploited by malicious attackers to compromise or steal data. Therefore, it is essential to identify these weaknesses and understand how they can be remediated to defend against damaging attacks.
Regular penetration testing, particularly after the introduction of new functionality or infrastructure is an essential facet of security best practice. Periodic penetration tests improve security and minimise the chance of cyber attacks. | <urn:uuid:5231f873-7889-4111-9a13-f9577d06a05e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://bhconsulting.ie/cybersecurity/penetration-testing/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572192.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815145459-20220815175459-00072.warc.gz | en | 0.922987 | 141 | 2.703125 | 3 |
21 May 2018 | Herpreet Kaur Grewal
Redrow, one of the UK's biggest housebuilders, says employers in other sectors are failing to take advantage of the pool of untapped young talent.
The latest apprenticeship starts data published by the Department for Education has revealed a 40 per cent drop in apprenticeships starts in February compared with the same period in 2017.
The data shows that there were just 21,800 apprenticeship starts in February 2018 compared with 36,000 in February 2017.
Karen Jones, group HR director at housebuilder Redrow, said: "The government's effort to boost apprenticeship uptake via the Apprenticeship Levy is commendable and whilst we need some time to understand its full impact, it appears that employers aren't fully capitalising on the opportunity to take on apprentices.
"It is important for employers and Parliament to iron out their differences if the levy it is to work effectively across all sectors. Construction is, however, bucking the trend, with apprenticeship starts rising by 49 per cent between 2012 and 2017 according to figures released recently by the Construction Industry Training Board."
Jones added that apprenticeship uptake, particularly among lower-income, disadvantaged backgrounds where there is a pool of untapped talent "could be boosted if the first-year starting wage for an apprentice is raised in line with the National Minimum Wage".
She said: "We must also remain mindful that the UK needs a highly skilled workforce so ensuring that we are getting the right kinds of people into the right kinds of jobs where need is most critical is of paramount importance. The government recently explained that despite a drop in apprenticeship starts, more high-quality apprenticeships are now in place and that it 'won't sacrifice that quality just to meet the target that was set'".
Jones said a way to develop "high-calibre talent is to review how apprenticeships are taught and the grades they need to pass the qualification. Our recent apprenticeships research discovered that many apprentices struggle to secure at least an equivalent C grade at GCSE maths and English, which has to be achieved as part of an apprenticeship programme. This is leading to a high number of apprentices who fail to complete their qualification and is often down to the restrictive way in which these two academic subjects have to be delivered. Equipping individuals with applied skills rather than theoretical ones will help to ensure that the UK workforce is highly skilled to support long-term growth". | <urn:uuid:d3fe41c7-d457-4906-87ba-66ace4272a88> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.facilitatemagazine.com/news/2018/05/21/employers-are-failing-capitalise-apprentice-recruitment-says-redrow | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573163.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818033705-20220818063705-00075.warc.gz | en | 0.968473 | 497 | 1.789063 | 2 |
A San Francisco school district is planning to rename nearly one-third of its 125 schools named after allegedly controversial figures including Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, and Senator Dianne Feinstein.
The committee’s rationale for scrapping “Abraham Lincoln High School” in favor of more politically correct nomenclature is because the former president did not demonstrate that “black lives mattered to him”:
Lincoln, like the presidents before him and most after, did not show through policy or rhetoric that black lives ever mattered to them outside of human capital and as casualties of wealth building.
Lincoln’s policies also “proved to be detrimental to Native Americans.”
Herbert Hoover Middle School is set to be renamed over Hoover’s role in redlining while serving as Secretary of Commerce.
Roosevelt Middle School similarly faces a rebranding over its namesake’s “opposition to civil rights and black suffrage for black people.”
But even Democrats and apolitical figures were targetted by the committee.
Senator Feinstein, a former San Francisco Mayor, will have her name removed from Dianne Feinstein Elementary because she allowed the Confederate flag to fly in front of San Francisco City Hall and oversaw the eviction of the Filipino neighborhood Manilatown, ‘allow[ing] police dogs to attack Filipino veteran elders,”
Thomas Edison will be removed from Thomas Edison Charter Academy due to his “fondness for electrocuting animals.”
The replacement names have not yet been revealed, and any decision will have to be voted upon by school boards which are set to meet in early January. | <urn:uuid:1300cc1b-4b5c-4cd5-91ce-588b8533d70f> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://thenationalpulse.com/2020/12/15/san-fran-schools-renamed/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573667.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819100644-20220819130644-00068.warc.gz | en | 0.960471 | 338 | 2.328125 | 2 |
1. How American politics went batshit crazy
There are numerous reasons American politics went off the rails, but there are at least six seminal events in the past 24 years that steered us here.
Sound smart: Politics is growing more personal, polarized and pugnacious. This dynamic is particularly acute on the right. This will likely get worse before it gets better as the trends outlined below continue unabated.
- Newt Gingrich weaponized warfare politics in a methodical and sustained way.
- The creation of Fox News in 1996 televised and monetized this hard-edged combat politics.
- Facebook, and later Twitter, socialized rage and argument.
- John McCain picking Sarah Palin as his running mate in 2008 celebritized rage politics.
- Facebook algorithm-ized rage. The more emotion you felt and sought, the more the news-feed machine pumped at you.
- Twitter + Trump habitualized and radicalized the moment-by-moment rage and reaction of politicians, voters and the media. | <urn:uuid:18cdbbbc-9e60-4f16-bbb9-50425af1ca81> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.axios.com/2017/12/16/1-how-american-politics-went-batshit-crazy-1513388335 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573399.40/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818185216-20220818215216-00067.warc.gz | en | 0.911026 | 207 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Tuberculosis (TB) Facts (cont.)
Charles Patrick Davis, MD, PhD
Dr. Charles "Pat" Davis, MD, PhD, is a board certified Emergency Medicine doctor who currently practices as a consultant and staff member for hospitals. He has a PhD in Microbiology (UT at Austin), and the MD (Univ. Texas Medical Branch, Galveston). He is a Clinical Professor (retired) in the Division of Emergency Medicine, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, and has been the Chief of Emergency Medicine at UT Medical Branch and at UTHSCSA with over 250 publications.
Jerry R. Balentine, DO, FACEP
Dr. Balentine received his undergraduate degree from McDaniel College in Westminster, Maryland. He attended medical school at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine graduating in1983. He completed his internship at St. Joseph's Hospital in Philadelphia and his Emergency Medicine residency at Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center in the Bronx, where he served as chief resident.
In this Article
- Tuberculosis (TB) facts
- What is tuberculosis?
- Are there different types of tuberculosis (TB)?
- What causes tuberculosis?
- What are risk factors for tuberculosis?
- What are tuberculosis symptoms and signs?
- Is TB contagious, and how long is the incubation period and contagious period?
- How do physicians diagnose tuberculosis?
- What is the treatment for tuberculosis?
- What types of doctors treat TB?
- What are complications of tuberculosis?
- What is the prognosis of tuberculosis?
- How can people prevent tuberculosis?
What causes tuberculosis?
The cause of TB is infection of human tissue(s) by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis (mycobacteria). These bacteria are slow growing, aerobic, and can grow within body cells (an intracellular parasitic bacterium). Its unique cell wall helps protect it from the body's defenses and gives mycobacteria the ability to retain certain dyes like fuschsin (a reddish dye) after an acid rinse that rarely happens with other bacterial, fungal, or parasitic genera.
Mycobacteria that escape destruction by body defenses may be spread by blood or lymphatic pathways to most organs, with preference to those that oxygenate well (lungs, kidneys, and bones, for example). Typical TB lesions, termed granulomas, usually consist of a central necrotic area, then a zone with macrophages, giant Langerhans cells and lymphocytes that become surrounded by immature macrophages, plasma cells, and more lymphocytes. These granulomas also contain mycobacteria. In latent infections, a fibrous capsule usually surrounds the granulomas, and in some people, the granulomas calcify, but if the immune defenses fail initially or at a later time (reactivate), the bacteria continue to spread and disrupt organ functions.
Find out what women really need. | <urn:uuid:7e5c818c-cde3-448a-9762-533b678aff85> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.rxlist.com/tuberculosis_tb_facts/page4.htm | 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 | 0.925204 | 613 | 2.859375 | 3 |
STEPANAKERT, 4 March 1998 (RFE/RL) -- The president of the unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, Arkady Ghukasian, says he is ready to return Azerbaijani towns currently occupied by the Nagorno-Karabakh army in exchange for the return of Azerbaijani-occupied Armenian towns in Nagorno-Karabakh itself.
Ghukasian, who was elected president last September at the age of 39, was interviewed two days ago (March 2) by RFE/RL in his office in Stepanakert.
He noted that the republic was formed in 1991. But its current effective borders go along front lines set by the 1994 ceasefire and include the Azeri towns of Agdam, Fizuli, and Dzhebrail. These towns, having suffered heavy destruction during the hostilities, are currently uninhabited and off-limits to visitors.
Some 850,000 Azeris, or 12 percent of Azerbaijan's population, fled districts currently administered or occupied by Nagorno-Karabakh. Baku claims this constitutes 20 percent of its territory. Azerbaijan is making virtually no effort to integrate the refugees, in the apparent hope that they will eventually be able to return to their homes.
Ghukasian says the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh's borders is subject to negotiations.
"Hardly anyone today could consider that the current front lines could become the borders of Nagorno-Karabakh," Ghukasian says, adding that he is convinced that agreement can be reached on all issues, provided a normal dialogue and process of negotiations are conducted with Azerbaijan.
"Nagorno-Karabakh's leaders have never declared their intention to hold on to these cities forever -- these are Azerbaijani towns which sooner or later should be returned to Azerbaijan and the population should be able to return there," Ghukasian says.
However, he added that several Armenian towns in Nagorno-Karabakh in the Shaumian district and parts of the Magdakert and Martuni districts are currently occupied by Azerbaijani forces.
"All occupied territories must be the subject of negotiations -- an exchange of territories is possible," Ghukasian says.
He said he was not optimistic that significant progress could be made this year in OSCE-sponsored negotiations of the Minsk Group (U.S., Russia, France, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh), owing in large part to presidential elections in Armenia on March 16 and in Azerbaijan in early October.
"I don't exclude the possibility that negotiations could resume soon, but considering that they are in such a deep rut, it is difficult to agree on resolving broad issues," Ghukasian says, adding that work should start on resolving small problems through confidence building measures, thus establishing a basis for resolving the big issues. He says such measures could include, for example, ending the snipers' war on the front-lines through separate meetings of the commanders and representatives of individual ministries.
As for the presidential elections in Armenia, Ghukasian says: "The presidential elections (in Armenia) should change a great deal in Armenia's plans and calculations on the Karabakh question," adding that if his predecessor, Armenia's current Prime Minister and acting President Robert Kocharian, wins the presidential contest the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh's independence will certainly be left unaffected.
"The further along the regulation of the conflict proceeds, the greater the degree of de facto unification of Armenia with Nagorno-Karabakh, beginning with the economy," Ghukasian says, also noting that Karabakh citizens traveling abroad use Armenian passports since Nagorno Karabakh lacks international recognition.
Ghukasian says Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia constitute two parts of a single nation and Nagorno-Karabakh should clearly become a part of Armenia. But he concedes the world is not ready to accept that.
"We also have to take into consideration Azerbaijan's position when we talk of compromise, we of course have to be ready to make necessary concessions, and thus putting off unification with Armenia could also play a positive role in the negotiating process," Ghukasian says.
Ghukasian said that Nagorno-Karabakh could gain international recognition in relatively near future. He claimed that several countries have already given their de facto recognition, mentioning the OSCE's Minsk Group members as well as Switzerland and Germany. Ghukasian was quick to add, however, that recognition is not the main goal. In his words, "the most important thing is to ensure peace, eliminate the possibility of a renewal opportunity to live normal lives."
"One thing is already clear today, Nagorno-Karabakh cannot be subordinated to Azerbaijan since that is not the road to peace but to war," Ghukasian says, adding that the international community should understand this and recognize what he terms the "existing realities." He said that the international community should help both sides find a compromise in the course of the negotiating process without any preconditions, and should reject Baku's claim that Nagorno-Karabakh is a constituent part of Azerbaijan.
"The lack of diplomatic recognition is not significantly affecting life in Nagorno-Karabakh," Ghukasian says, claiming that the republic is developing democracy, building up market relations and resolving socio-economic problems.
But he also added that the Karabakh military occupation of the Lachin district of Azerbaijan means that the republic is physically linked with Armenia. As a result, he says, "Karabakh constitutes a single economic area with Armenia. The goal now he says is to raise the standard of living, maximize economic effectiveness, develop small and medium sized businesses and, most importantly, build up a democratic state."
"Today it is difficult to imagine any region in the Transcaucasus with a completely developed democracy but I think we are closer to that goal today than for example Azerbaijan," Ghukasian says.
Asked if seceding from Azerbaijan and fighting a protracted war was worth the heavy loss of life and property, Ghukasian responded that ten years ago Nagorno-Karabakh's leadership had appealed to the supreme soviets of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Soviet Union to examine autonomous region's status as a part of Azerbaijan. But, he said that Azerbaijan had subsequently unleashed aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh, first through a blockade, then by artillery shelling and finally by war. In his words, "we were not the ones who chose the path to war -- we were forced to defend ourselves."
Ghukasian said that when the Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991 it became clear that "the only way to save Nagorno-Karabakh as an Armenian nation state was to declare independence from Azerbaijan." He said that the war was an attempt by Azerbaijan to reclaim Nagorno-Karabakh militarily.
"War is always terrible, it is always blood, it is always hatred, of course it is a pity that this all happened but now is not the time to think of the past but about the future about how to ensure there will not be more wars." He added that there was no alternative -- not to fight would have meant "either white genocide or black genocide," that is either mass deportation or mass murder of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh.
He insisted that there was no other way out. "Had Azerbaijan been a democratic state with normal, thinking politicians, war would not have broken out and everyone would have been spared a tragedy," he said. | <urn:uuid:4a72b65a-4c3c-4294-b44d-bc9a0399216f> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.rferl.org/a/1088084.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280730.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00256-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97398 | 1,565 | 1.8125 | 2 |
More than 300 people from Chinese or east Asian backgrounds have reported being racially abused, assaulted or harassed in public in Australia as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
People have been spat at and called "dirty" and blamed for the spread of COVID-19, according to research by an alliance of Asian-Australian groups.
Melbourne City councillor Philip Le Liu is one of many Australians with an Asian background who have experienced racist abuse since the pandemic started.
This included being yelled at last month while carrying boxes of donated face masks into Town Hall.
"A lady literally said, 'Who did you steal those off?' Followed by, 'That’d be right, stealing and sending it back to China.' " he said.
Cr Le Liu was born in Shanghai but has lived in Australia for 30 years. The masks had been donated by Chinese businesses for distribution to city charities.
Groups including the Asian Australian Alliance and Being Asian Australian, along with the writer Erin Chew and other individuals, have been tracking racial attacks.
They have set up an online system to record abuse, which has received more than 300 reports during the pandemic, about one-third of which involved physical assaults.
It is probably only a small fraction of the abuse Asian people in Australia have experienced since the start of the year, researchers say.
"My elderly mother took a walk and her walking path was blocked by a white man," wrote one respondent. "He started to yell hateful and racist stuff to her (my Mum's English isn’t very good) and he also blamed her for the virus.
"My mum told me she was scared as he wouldn't let her pass for quite a while, and only stopped when some passersby intervened."
Other respondents separately described being abused on buses, being told to "go back to China", or "go back to where you came from, you’re bringing the virus here".
Another person reported how an elderly woman shouted that Chinese people are "f---ing filthy animals who eat bats".
Per Capita research fellow Osmond Chiu, who is collaborating on the research on a personal basis, said the abuse was overwhelmingly in public and perpetrated by strangers.
Thirty per cent of cases reported involved physical intimidation, including being spat at, coughed on, shoved, pushed or tripped.
Mr Chiu said the abuse was confronting for many younger Chinese Australians because it was their first experience of overt racism. "It’s really come into the open in a way that it hasn’t before."
He said contributing to this was the heated debate in recent years around foreign interference and the role of China, and white Australian fears of the Chinese stretching back to the 19th century and the Gold Rush. "Historic fears and anxieties have laid the groundwork," he said.
Mr Chiu wants institutions and governments to take the issue more seriously and said there was a need for public education campaigns on what racism is.
He said media needed to report responsibly, while social media needed to inform users when material they had shared was false, such as claims on hoarding that were disproved.
A group of 16 prominent Chinese Australians recently signed an open letter calling for national unity and said they were deeply concerned by the rise in anti-Chinese racism.
Among signatories to the letter were businessman Jason Yat-sen Li, paediatrician and former Australian of the Year John Yu, chef Adam Liaw and writer Benjamin Law.
Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Victoria president Alex Lim last week separately wrote to Prime Minister Scott Morrison to warn of the rise in racism.
"While we may be Chinese, we are also proudly Australian and have played our part in contributing to this great country," he wrote. "Which makes the mockery and racism that some of us have had to face in recent times all the more unjust and hurtful."
Mr Lim said people of Chinese background were "easy targets of the frustration" at the spread of the virus. "Even if you look at the number of cases highlighted, so far there's nothing really much being done. This is why I wrote this letter."
Cr Le Liu said he initially wore a face mask when the pandemic began. "But I stopped because there seemed to be something triggering for people when I did that."
The councillor, a Liberal Party member, said while it was good the Andrews government had introduced severe fines for disobeying social distancing measures, he was disappointed it had not increased fines for hate crimes.
Erin Chew, who initiated the survey, said there was often a cultural reluctance among people with a Chinese background to report incidents to authorities.
"It is seen as troublesome to report it to police," she said. "It can be quite an exposing experience. In a lot of our Asian cultures we tend to internalise these types of things." | <urn:uuid:e5c827f0-2cf4-4b92-a7e8-b6d1ddaa672d> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/asian-australian-groups-report-surge-in-racist-abuse-assaults-during-pandemic-20200512-p54s6f.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571210.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810191850-20220810221850-00469.warc.gz | en | 0.98435 | 1,002 | 1.890625 | 2 |
How low can they go?
Mortgage rates managed to reach yet another low this week, with the 30-year fixed rate now costing borrowers less than 4.4% for the first time in history.
Freddie Mac (OTCQB:FMCC) said on Thursday that the average rate for traditional 30-year fixed mortgages fell to an average of 4.36%, the ninth decline over the past 10 weeks.
Fixed mortgages with a 15-year duration also fell to a historic low of 3.86% and adjustable-rate mortgages, which have shorter terms of one or five years continue hovering near 3.5%.
The sharp decline is a reflection of three factors: Ongoing stress in the housing market, regulatory policies aimed at spurring demand and an increasing belief on Wall Street that deflation (and inflation) is basically non-existent.
"...long-term bond yields fell to the lowest levels since January 2009, allowing fixed mortgage rates to ease to new record lows this week," said Amy Crew Cutts, Freddie's deputy chief economist.
In response to the low rate that Mortgage Bankers Association reported on Wednesday that in its Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending August 20, 2010 the Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 4.9% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier.
"The volume of refi applications last week was up 26% over their level four weeks ago. Mortgage rates dropped to their lowest level in the survey, going back to 1990," said Michael Fratantoni, MBA’s Vice President of Research and Economics. "We are at a new 15 month high for the Refinance index. With rates this low, many borrowers who refinanced in the past two years may well have an incentive to refinance again, and this is likely increasing refi application activity." | <urn:uuid:9fdc93da-72b7-4689-b7c4-953b0ee736ad> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://seekingalpha.com/article/222518-30-year-fixed-mortgage-now-below-4_4-percent-time-to-refinance-again | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281069.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00264-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96091 | 379 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Employee (Number) - (10 distinct records)
Employee Number (Char) - (3 records matching with TableA)
Requirement:- Select the list of all employee numbers,Employee Name. For normal employees, employee name can be blanks while for managers select the correct name from Manager table.
I wrote the following query to achieve the same using a Left Outer Join.
Select A.EmpNo,ifnull(B.EmpName,' ') from Employee A Left Outer Join
Manager B On A.EmpNo = B.EmpNo Where B.IsManager = 'Y'
This query should ideally return 10 records since a Left Outer Join is done. But here
the query would return only 8 records i.e. it would function like an Inner Join.
Why:- Here the where condition is applied on the Joined table. Since for the mis- matching rows the value is null, the where condition would fail hence that row would be omitted. Here is an alternate solution
Select A.EmpNo,ifnull(B.EmpName,' ') from Employee A Left Outer Join(Select * From Manager Where IsManager = 'Y') B On A.EmpNo = B.EmpNo
This would work as there is no where condition applied on the null columns.
Thanks Lynne Roll and all other System i Network users for this piece of learning.
Click here to go to the System i Network thread. ; Forum Post | <urn:uuid:96701ac3-4273-4732-90e9-b1e3e1980de9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://anilsownblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/left-outer-join-issue.html | 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 | 0.862397 | 309 | 2.34375 | 2 |
No one goes through life without difficulties, tests, and trials – we all have our share of troubles. The best way to emotionally respond to those troubles, the Baha'i teachings say, is with patience:
Know ye that trials and tribulations have, from time immemorial, been the lot of the chosen Ones of God and His beloved … Such is God's method carried into effect of old, and such will it remain in the future. Blessed are the steadfastly enduring, they that are patient under ills and hardships, who lament not over anything that befalleth them, and who tread the path of resignation.
That spiritual counsel from the writings of Baha’u’llah advises us to respond to our tests and trials with patient endurance, because those with spiritual forbearance are promised an eternal reward.
Patience means waiting. Being patient is about being calm, enduring delays, and trusting that a better time will come. The inner quality of patience makes us peaceful and accepting – without it we will not achieve much in life.
Many things need to be done day by day and little by little to bear fruit. Achieving our goals in our friendships, in our families, and in our efforts to grow spiritually requires us to exercise patience.
We practice patience when things do not go as we like, when we have no control over what other people do, or in circumstances beyond our control. In her book, The Family Virtues Guide Linda Popov explains that we practice patience by having self-control when we have no control over the way someone else behaves.
For instance, even if we feel impatient, we can still act calmly and accept the situation when having to wait for someone who is delayed. Later, we can always consult to come up with a solution so we don’t have to wait until next time. When we’re patient, we know some things can take time, like planting a seed and waiting for a beautiful flower to grow. Being patient means bearing and enduring the necessary things to achieve our goal. Patience is about “seeing the end in the beginning,” the Baha'i teachings assert. Abdu’l-Baha wrote:
Look ye not upon the present, fix your gaze upon the times to come. In the beginning, how small is the seed, yet in the end it is a mighty tree. Look ye not upon the seed, look ye upon the tree, and its blossoms, and its leaves and its fruits.
When we’re patient, we don’t complain or criticize – instead we forgive other people and ourselves for mistakes. When things take longer than we think they should, we endure delays patiently. We make the world a kinder place, and others feel safe around us.
Without patience, we won’t learn to stand and wait for anyone or anything. Thus, we make people around us upset. Impatient people act irritably when someone makes a mistake or things do not go the way they want. By practicing patience, we learn to control how we react to uncomfortable situations. We take a deep breath and try to understand how to consult. If someone makes a mistake or does not behave well, then we calmly and respectfully talk about the problem. Practicing patience helps us learn to tolerate the tests of everyday life.
Practicing patience is a very important characteristic in learning other virtues – in community building, in service to others, in studying and learning new skills. For instance, when we learn a new exercise, we should also practice patience to achieve our goal. Or if others make mistakes, patience helps us understand that everyone is learning and growing, and that we all come from different backgrounds.
In our own spiritual journeys, we also need to be patient and ask God to help us. When we practice possessing good qualities like patience little by little each day, every day becomes better than the day before. Baha’u’llah assures us that God will also help us when we patiently put in the long-term effort to achieve our goals:
He, verily, shall increase the reward of them that endure with patience.
This Virtues Basket video on patience helps parents and children become familiar with the definition of patience, and offers tips on how to practice it daily.
Setareh Samandari Zargarpour has always been an artist at heart, after a 20-year career in Banking as Branch Manager for Wells Fargo and Chase she transitioned to working in Film. She had finished her Master of Arts in Political Science from CSUN and utilized it...READ MORE | <urn:uuid:10edd024-ddfb-4e20-85dd-7aa82f1a68a0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://bahaiteachings.org/virtues-how-to-be-more-patient/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572063.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814173832-20220814203832-00666.warc.gz | en | 0.948604 | 945 | 2.6875 | 3 |
|Budget Amount *help
¥2,200,000 (Direct Cost : ¥2,200,000)
Fiscal Year 1996 : ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost : ¥1,100,000)
Fiscal Year 1995 : ¥1,100,000 (Direct Cost : ¥1,100,000)
To realize in situ environments in laboratory, a specific aquarium (limorium) was developed. Requirements for the aim were (1) to be taken intact sediments in the aquarium, (2) to be able to observe from outside of aquarium by an enlarging video camera, (3) to be able to control water temperature and water flow velocity, and monitor them, etc. These requirements have not been satisfied in aquaria as known as far. Thus, new special aquaria was developed.
To measure food intake rate of suspension feeders, a micro-sensored thermo-flow meter for measurement of fine distribution of water flow velocity and a micro-hi-scope system for fine observation of betnos movements were constructed. A observation system available for more than 24 hours to watch and for controlling food concentrations and flow velocity was also constructed, because of suspension feeding would be affected not only by food concentration and but also water flow velocity. The observation of a suspension-feding bivalve, Tapes phillippinarum, which were taken more than 160 hours, made possible to estimate feeding rate from mesurements of point flow velocities.
On a deposit-feeder and a tube-dweller, Maldane sp., defecation rate could be estimated by the system with long time observation more than 50 hours of defecation and fecal pellets. As known that feeding and defecation rates in non-selective deposit feeders are almost similar, it was appeared that the feeding rate of Maldane sp.was positively correlated to body weight. Mean defecation rate per capita was estimated as 360 mm^3 day^<-1>. If existence of 100 worms in a m^2 sea bottom were assumed, that sublayr sediments of 0.036 mm^2 day^<-1> was reworked by this species and resedimentated on the surface of sea bottom, was estimated. | <urn:uuid:8d347399-4b02-4e0a-9854-72948307bea4> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://kaken.nii.ac.jp/grant/KAKENHI-PROJECT-07836001/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284352.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00200-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959656 | 469 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Minimum Alternative Tax concept was introduced by the government just to make companies fall under tax bracket which are making high profits and declare dividends to their shareholders but not paying tax because of various reason whether it may be deductions, exemptions and so on. So, we can say that this applies to ZERO TAX Companies.
The main purpose behind it was not to evade tax but to use the flexibility of the tax structure prevailing in our country under the various government policies. This has happened in the past as companies were paying good dividends to the shareholders but they were not paying any tax to the government. So, the government took the initiative and introduced MAT( ie. MINIMUM ALTERNATIVE CONCEPT) so that so tax payer can avoid tax if it has substantial income.
As we all know, company makes its books of accounts considering the Companies Act and tax is paid on the computation of income as per Income Tax Act. There are various kinds of deductions and expenses which may be allowed as per companies act but they are disallowed as per Income tax and vice versa.
So, for this company has to calculate BOOK PROFIT for the calculation of tax. The calculation of Book Profit is framed under the guidance of CBDT and IND AS committee. They have provided certain list of items to be added back and deducted so as to calculate the book profit. And the companies have to pay minimum tax. As per the section 115JB of the Income Tax Act, 1961, “ when the income tax calculated as per income tax act is less than the 18.5% of the book profit, then such book profit shall be deemed to be the total income of the assessee and tax payable by the assessee shall be the 18.5% of the book profits.” In a nutshell, we can say that the company has to pay tax
• Income tax as per Income Tax act, or
• 18.5% of book profit
Whichever is HIGHER.
Salient Characteristics of MAT
• Advance Tax: As per the Income Tax Act, 1961, every assessee has to pay advance tax if the total tax liability is Rs. 10000 or more for the particular financial year. And the same applies to the companies liable to pay tax as per the provisions of the 115JB of the Act.
• MAT Reporting: The companies which are liable to pay tax under section 115JB of the Act and then the report is also being filed in form 29B along with income tax return.
• MAT Credit: Company pays MAT if it is higher than the regular tax. And, the excess amount in between the regular tax and Mat is considered as Credit. This credit is to be carried forward and can be set off in the financial year in which company will pay tax under the general provisions of the Income Tax Act. This MAT credit can be carried forward for 8 consecutive assessment years.
Tags-what is mat,minimum alternate tax,all about minimum alternate tax,minimum alternate tax rate,minimum alternate tax applicability,minimum alternate tax rate fy 2015-16,minimum alternate tax fy 2016-17,minimum alternate tax ay 2016-17,minimum alternate tax in india,minimum alternate tax section 115jb,minimum alternate tax meaning | <urn:uuid:60f1cc81-6c88-4259-8e0f-802b0a29dfca> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.taxalertindia.com/2016/07/points-to-know-about-minimum-alternate.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279224.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00482-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969421 | 660 | 2.875 | 3 |
Welcome to the publications directory for the Climate Impacts Group and the Climate Dynamics Group. Please contact the web administrator for assistance with any of these publications.
Steelhead vulnerability to climate change in the Pacific Northwest
Wade, A.A., T.J. Beechie, E. Fleishman, N.J. Mantua, H. Wu, J.S. Kimball, D.M. Stroms, and J.A. Stanford. 2013. Steelhead vulnerability to climate change in the Pacific Northwest. Journal of Applied Ecology 50(5): 1093-1104, doi: 10.1111/1365-2664.12137.
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- Steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and other Pacific salmon are threatened by unsustainable levels of harvest, genetic introgression from hatchery stocks and degradation or loss of freshwater habitat. Projected climate change is expected to further stress salmon through increases in stream temperatures and altered stream flows.
- We demonstrate a spatially explicit method for assessing salmon vulnerability to projected climatic changes (scenario for the years 2030-2059), applied here to steelhead salmon across the entire Pacific Northwest (PNW). We considered steelhead exposure to increased temperatures and more extreme high and low flows during four of their primary freshwater life stages: adult migration, spawning, incubation and rearing. Steelhead sensitivity to climate change was estimated on the basis of their regulatory status and the condition of their habitat. We assessed combinations of exposure and sensitivity to suggest actions that may be most effective for reducing steelhead vulnerability to climate change.
- Our relative ranking of locations suggested that steelhead exposure to increases in temperature will be most widespread in the southern Pacific Northwest, whereas exposure to substantial flow changes will be most widespread in the interior and northern Pacific Northwest. There were few locations where we projected that steelhead had both relatively low exposure and sensitivity to climate change.
- Synthesis and applications. There are few areas where habitat protection alone is likely to be sufficient to conserve steelhead under the scenario of climate change considered here. Instead, our results suggest the need for coordinated, landscape-scale actions that both increase salmon resilience and ameliorate climate change impacts, such as restoring connectivity of floodplains and high-elevation habitats. | <urn:uuid:c223c9c8-38f8-4f5e-a056-57d51f608cd7> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.cses.washington.edu/db/pubs/abstract809.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720000.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00024-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908999 | 473 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Newspapers’ Obituary?As publishers continue to lose readers and advertisers to other media, revenue is expected to decline, making the newspaper publishing industry risky business.
By IBISWorld Lead Industry Analyst Agata Kaczanowska
As Seen in American Banker
Newspaper publishers’ traditional papers are biting the dust because consumers favor the real-time reporting capabilities of online news outlets, including social networking platforms like Twitter. The most direct competition for the industry is from internet-only periodicals, which have lower production and distribution costs. Other competition comes from websites, magazines and books because these media contain the most similar content and also present advertising opportunities. As publishers continue to lose readers and advertisers to other media, revenue is expected to decline 2.6% in 2012 to $33.8 billion. During the five years since 2007, IBISWorld estimates that revenue has declined at an 8.1% annualized rate.
Newspaper publishers are moving most of their content to digital platforms to maximize value, publish news in real-time and retain tech-savvy readers. To slow the exodus of advertisers, newspaper publishers are incorporating online subscriptions and bundles into readership statistics that advertisers use to judge a newspaper’s demographic.
Gannett, which generates about 10.6% of the Newspaper Publishing industry’s revenue, has made numerous investments in digital technologies over the past few years. In 2008, Gannett made a number of investments, including the purchase of ShopLocal, which provides online and in-store marketing to national and local retailers; and the acquisition of ownership stakes in Tribune Company and The McClatchy Company. Also in 2008, Gannett increased its stake in CareerBuilder, which is in the online recruitment and career development business, to 50.8%. Gannett operated at a $5.1-billion loss in 2008 as a result of these significant acquisitions. All of these investments have centered on the internet and the company’s expansion online. In 2009, the company purchased a minority interest in HomeFinder, an online marketplace that eases communication between real estate buyers, sellers and professionals. Gannett is also a participant in QuadrantONE, a joint venture with other major newspaper publishers that allows advertisers access to multiple newspapers at once, facilitating their spending on advertising across markets using complex targeting and analytics.
Also, publishers are establishing themselves on mobile platforms to make newspapers more accessible to readers. While newspapers are becoming more accessible, they will be unable to retain the same amount of advertising revenue as the number of online news sources grows.
Newspapers’ risky business
Overall risk in the Newspaper Publishing industry is forecast to be medium-high in 2012, with a score of 5.35 on a 9 point scale. Growth risk in particular is expected to be very high during the next five years. Competition with other websites will prevent publishers from charging print-level prices for online platforms, which newspaper publishers are investing in to counteract print declines. From $33.8 billion in 2012, IBISWorld estimates that industry revenue will decline 4.2% annually on average to $27.4 billion in 2017. The primary negative factors affecting this industry are the world price of wood pulp and the industry’s declining life cycle stage, as well as a projected 2.2% annualized decline in print advertising spending in the five years to 2017.
Steep revenue declines and easy data-sharing methods have caused many newspaper publishers to syndicate a larger part of their content. Syndication has allowed companies to restructure, resulting in significant layoffs over the past five years. During this time, staff numbers decreased at an average annual rate of 8.8% to an estimated 227,469 employees in 2012.
Nonetheless, cost-cutting measures like syndication did not fully counteract shrinking revenue, resulting in tightly squeezed profit margins. Profit, or earnings before interest and taxes, is anticipated to decline from 10.9% of industry revenue in 2007 to just 7.5% in 2012, a staggering annualized decline of 7.2% over the period. Profit is projected to stagnate in dollar terms and increase to 8.6% of revenue during the five years to 2017 as high corporate profit helps sustain the number of professional subscriptions to newspapers.
Given the industry’s trying times, there have been a number of prominent mergers and acquisitions over the past five years. Investment mogul Warren Buffett has made several major acquisitions. In November 2011, Buffett acquired the Omaha World-Herald for $200 million. He bought 63 local US newspapers for $142 million in one week in May 2012. Two months prior to this, he disclosed that he owned about $2.1 million worth of Lee Enterprises, a local news company with 48 daily newspapers and nearly 300 specialty publications in 23 states.
Meanwhile, small community newspapers across the United States are consolidating, hoping to achieve economies of scale by cutting overhead costs. Companies are increasingly concentrating businesses in specific niche markets to maximize synergies between publications, saving money and attracting larger advertising clients. Steps in this strategy often include shutting down inefficient printing presses and operating a single editorial team across several newspapers. In late 2011, for example, Advance Publications’ Michigan-based newspaper unit stated it would shutter a plant by consolidating the operations of several regional newspapers and eliminate home delivery of four newspapers to cut costs in 2012.
Other recent examples of regional consolidation occurred in Texas. In one instance, the owners of Texas’ second-oldest daily newspaper, the Victoria Advocate, acquired two daily and 12 weekly newspapers in Texas in May 2012. Also, AIM Media Texas LLC bought seven local newspapers from Freedom Communications, a larger conglomerate of about 100 publications. Freedom Communications has sold two other newspapers to local companies in 2012, further increasing the convergence of regional ownership of local papers.
Newspaper publishing will become increasingly concentrated during the next five years, especially because of the risk associated with this industry. As newspapers continue to fold, the remaining publishers will experience an influx of readers and advertisers; this influx will enable companies to make more acquisitions. Consequently, the number of businesses in the industry is projected to decline at an annualized rate of 4.5% to 2,800 in the five years to 2017.
To download full research reports for the industries discussed in this article, click on the report titles below. | <urn:uuid:2cd9362c-f205-4269-bf57-7e399ef2ba6c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://news.cision.com/ibisworld/r/newspapers--obituary-,c9305052 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279489.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00011-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954579 | 1,298 | 1.5625 | 2 |
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