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NIAS-Education for the Gifted and Talented works closely with parents of identified students to provide them support at home. These workshops intend to involve parents in their child’s mentoring, review the NIAS-EGT programme and provide suggestions to improve the programme. In general, parents have expressed satisfaction and have been happy with the NIAS-EGT programmes.
Schooling for Gifted Children
To be updated
Parenting a Gifted Child
1) My child is different. How can I find out whether s/he is gifted?
A child can appear to be different from the "norm" in many ways. Some gifted behaviours overlap with behaviours demonstrated by children with special needs. Read this article on twice-exceptional children to find out more. Comprehensive identification of a gift or a special-need or the coexistence of both relies on behavioral observations, psychometric testing, portfolio analysis (review of the child’s productive work, including work undertaken independently outside class), and checklists rated by parents/teachers/peers. There is no single measure or method that can be used to identify giftedness.
To know about the NIAS identification process, refer to the FAQ Section. Sample profiles of gifted children can be found here. To provide us with more information about a child who you think might be gifted, please click here for the nomination form.
2) If my child is gifted, will s/he always achieve at a high level?
Giftedness, or high ability, is correlated with achievement or performance to some extent. High ability is only one of the numerous factors that affect performance. Other factors include interest, the environment at home, education, parental and socioeconomic variables, and personality variables (including persistence and resilience). A child’s ability level and his/her performance do not correlate perfectly. Further, identification as gifted today is by no means a guarantee of high performance in any later stage of life.
3) If my child is gifted, what should s/he study? Will s/he be a good doctor/engineer/scientist etc.?
Recognising a child as gifted does not mean s/he “can” or “should” pursue any particular line of study. As with any child, the best course of study for a gifted child depends on the combination of ability in a given area, interest, and opportunity. While different abilities (e.g., verbal, mathematical, musical) are quite highly correlated with each other, a child can show different abilities and interest across area/s.
4) How can I make sure my child develops his/her abilities properly?
To make sure the child develops his/her abilities, parents need to first recognise the areas in which the child is interested and with the optimal parental support, these abilities can further be nurtured and developed. Parents want their children to succeed despite the ability level of their children. However, “succeeding” and “not wasting their ability” often means pursuing and excelling in a career chosen by the parents. Parents, teachers, and society as a whole categorises some occupations as “successful”, and other occupations as suitable only for individuals with lower-ability. These categories are completely arbitrary and do not reflect the scope for challenge and excellence offered by a vast range of occupations.
5) I think my child already knows that s/he is different. Teachers, relatives, and his/her friends also seem to know. Should I discuss giftedness with the child, or will the label negatively affect his/her development?
It is a common belief that labelling a child has adverse consequences. Part of the potential dangers of labelling comes from the fact that our understanding of giftedness is vague. In the short-term, the child’s adjustment and family dynamics may indeed change because of the labelling. However, research suggests that in the long run, gifted children adjust to the label.
6) My child has no friends. What should I do?
Many gifted children get along better with older children, adults, or other bright children of their age. The child will benefit from interactions with a mentor – an adult (or older child) with expertise in the child’s areas of interest. The mentor may be a teacher, a family friend, or a relative; frequently the child will locate the mentor on his/her own. Alternatively, a parent, friend or relative can identify a mentor for the child. Mentors are important not only for intellectual development, but also for the socioemotional development – so encourage the child to get along well with the mentor.
It is common to see gifted children with peer adjustment difficulties. A neighbourhood group of children that meets every weekend can fulfill some of the socioemotional and intellectual needs of gifted children. | <urn:uuid:307510e1-23b4-4c3f-9a2b-51773d314c6b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://prodigy.net.in/for_parents | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00468.warc.gz | en | 0.946542 | 999 | 2.9375 | 3 |
Anthony was diagnosed after showing some poems to his psychiatrist about his mental conditions and how they made him feel. Some of these poems will appear in the FROSTED GLASS, and others appear in his book called The Mindset of a Mental Patient (published by Chipmunka Publishing*), which can be bought in paperback, ebook, CD and MP3 form (please click the desired ‘form’ to be taken to links for purchase or further information)
Here are a few of Anthony’s poems to wet your appetite..!
Am I an Alien?
I could be an alien,
Who’s come from outer space,
At least that’s they way I feel,
Living among the human race.
I feel like an outsider,
With brain programming gone wrong,
Misfiring and jumping from its groove
Into a different song.
Somehow I feel different,
And not one of the crowd,
But my alien race will not tell me for certain.
They will not lift the shroud.
I don’t know if I’m one of us,
Or if I’m one of them.
I wish I could go back to my home planet,
And start my life again.
Am I here to tell this other race
Of what life on earth is like?
Surely they’ve seen enough by now
To let me take a hike
Back to the space from which I’ve come,
To start my life once more,
Before the life I live on earth
Brings me mentally to the floor.
I’m a tin in the corner shop of life,
You’ll find me on a shelf,
For people always pass me by,
Despite their material wealth.
They pick me up and look at me,
And read my label now and then,
But then they pull a disgusted face,
And put me down again.
For so long they had done this,
And I really didn’t know why.
I knew soon I’d pass my sell-by date,
And then the end would be nigh.
So one day I gave my plight some thought,
And wondered “How am I labelled?”
Then a man picked me up and said to his mate,
“Look, this tin says disabled.”
So he put me down,
And they hurried away,
And at last the truth was clear.
It was the way I was labelled
That had sealed by fate,
Day after month after year.
So if you see me in life’s corner shop,
Pick me up for I won’t hurt you.
I might say disabled on my outside,
But on the inside I have virtue.
So I’ll end by telling you all right now,
As I sit next to life’s Black Treacle,
Please keep an open mind,
And do not be unkind,
For labels are for cans not people.
*About Chipmunka Publishing
Chipmunka Publishing raise awareness of mental health and the stigma surrounding mental health problems by encouraging society to listen. They are documenting mental health literature as a genre so history does not forget the survivors and carers of people with mental illness and disabilities. For more information click here. | <urn:uuid:0f4fa10f-d39f-4fa8-8331-bc30d4f197f4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://frostedglassfilmsitedotcodotuk.wordpress.com/poems/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572127.33/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815024523-20220815054523-00278.warc.gz | en | 0.93816 | 714 | 1.578125 | 2 |
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© 2016 Autodesk, Inc. | <urn:uuid:173d254d-2101-4df9-9ad7-8b5f76754f56> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.instructables.com/member/hoodsmom/?show=INSTRUCTABLES&limit=15&sort=RECENT | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280221.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00235-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.753619 | 202 | 1.804688 | 2 |
If you’ve been on Twitter over this past weekend, you might’ve come across a couple of questionable-looking 3D models, or renders, of Pokemon.
Like this Tangela, for example:
Haven’t seen any? Don’t worry. If you’ve missed out, we’re here to fill you in.
Artists have been Tweeting out their terribly, hastily modelled 3D Pokemon under the Japanese hashtag #ポケモン5分モデリング , which basically means “5 Minute Pokemon Renders”.
Originating from Japan, the hashtag was originally used by (CG) artists to poke fun at one particular Twitter user, who was under the assumption that it takes only 5 minutes to create a 3D Pokemon model from start to finish. Here’s the Tweet that’s being made fun of in question, as quoted by a translator:
Though it may not entirely be accurate, if you’re curious, here’s a rough translation of what the original tweet says:
“Gamefreak’s incompetency makes me disappointed. Can’t you finish creating the graphics for one Pokemon in 5 minutes? 5 minutes x 800 species of Pokemon makes up about 60 hours of work. Something like this, they can’t even do! Pokemon is over.”
Yikes. Regardless, the hashtag has since become a challenge for artists to render models of their favourite Pokemon in 5 minutes.
As expected, some turned out hilarious – especially when they’re put next to the Pokemon’s original artwork:
Here’s my personal favourite: someone 3D-rendered the word “Gyarados” in Japanese, instead of attempting to render the actual Pokemon.
Not all of these 5-minute renders were almost-comedically bad, though. Some were cute, in a simple way.
Even as deformed blobs with barely any details, it’s amazing how people are still able to recognise and correctly identify Pokemon by name. That’s genius, especially since there are about 800 Pokemon in existence now. Hats off to Pokemon’s designers, animators and modellers, really! | <urn:uuid:10f80141-c9b7-46f5-a7e2-951d742cae1e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://thetechnovore.com/2019/06/17/people-are-making-terrible-renders-of-pokemon-and-theyre-hilarious/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571584.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812045352-20220812075352-00665.warc.gz | en | 0.925908 | 477 | 1.765625 | 2 |
I'm well into my journey into the field of conservation now, after volunteering and freelancing for a couple of different organisations over the past two years, and am looking to establish more connections and acquire more work. I'm currently working with the RSPB and the Arribada Initiative, on projects ranging from camera traps for birds to sensor enclosures for manta rays.
I am able to offer CAD/3D Design services, as well as software programming services for microcontrollers and limited machine learning model building via Edge Impulse. If there's anyone looking for help with their conservation project out there and want to discuss if we might be able to work together, please don't hesitate to message me/reply on here, Twitter or Linked in. Below are development images of some of the projects I've worked on. If you'd like to know more about the projects just let me know!
You can find me on Twitter and Linked in here:
The first set of images is for an enclosure designed to attach to a manta ray via a vacuum cup, the project is still in development. This device contains a Horizon GPS board developed by the Arribada Initiative, as well as an accelerometer sensor and a battery. It's designed to have removable "wings" that allow the client to attach different sensors to the main body. All components in the centre case are encapsulated in resin, which is why a separate box is included in the design.
The next set of images shows an enclosure that contains a Horizon GPS tracking module that attaches on to the back of a Gharial, between its tail scutes, so that they can be tracked throughout their habitat. The components are again encapsulated in resin, and two scaffolds have been created to hold the components in place whilst the resin sets.
This final set of imagery shows the use of an off the shelf Evatron enclosure used to create a machine learning based camera trap for the RSPB. There was a specific requirement for a high IP rating for the enclosure, so something that was already manufactured to a high standard was necessary. There was CAD work involved in creating a custom mounting point for the internal hardware, as well as Raspberry Pi and Edge Impulse ML work in setting up a web interface and the image capture and object detection. | <urn:uuid:194bcc27-fb16-4f07-a1c3-7ca6dea17192> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.wildlabs.net/discussion/lookout-cadmicrocontroller-work | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572286.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816090541-20220816120541-00264.warc.gz | en | 0.964628 | 472 | 1.8125 | 2 |
Youtube Black Screen : Many people uses the fastest browser that is Google Chrome and its many users are facing youtube black screen on chrome error which s quite annoying !! Due to this youtube black screen error when you play a video on YouTube you see nothing but a black video screen but you can listen to the audio in the background. When you try to reload the page again the error remains same which is quite annoying !!. I tried restarting my computer but it does gives me permanent solution. So, I searched about this error and come to know about that this error is related with HTML player or flash player. You might be thinking about how to fix youtube black screen on chrome ? So, here is found the working way to fix youtube black screen !!
One of most common other error of Youtube is “This Video Is Not Available In Your Country” which is quite annoying. You might get this message on Youtube when you to watch some video of other country. There are billions of videos available on youtube.
How To Fix Youtube Black Screen 2017
Follow below step by step guide to fix youtube black screen on chrome :
Step 1 : First of all open the google Chrome web browser.
Step 2 : Now just open the new tab and type Chrome://Flags in the address bar and hit enter button.
Step 3 : After this just hit Ctrl+F to open the search bar and type disable hardware-accelerated video decode in the search bar.
Step 4 : Now after this click the Enable button to disable the hardware-accelerated video decode option.
Step 5 : Now hit the Relaunch Now button at the end to apply the setting and restart the chrome browser.
That’s it you have successfully fix youtube black screen error !!
Fix YouTube Black Screen Using HTML5 Player
The above guide wat to fix the black screen error on chrome. But if you are facing this problem on any browsers then you can easily fix this by requesting for HTML5 player on youtube. You can easily request the HTML5 player by from the link : www.youtube.com/html5. This will enable the HTML5 player and your problem will be fixed easily !!
So, above are the best methods to fix youtube black scrren problem. I hope now you can easily watch country restricted videos on youtube with above methods easily. If you are facing any problem or know some other way to get rid of this problem then just comment it below. Don’t forget to share this trick with your friends !! | <urn:uuid:a547270d-b126-4529-b588-75fe5cccf957> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://techarena.org/youtube-black-screen | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280891.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00157-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.841917 | 510 | 1.59375 | 2 |
Gender is one of the primary fault lines running through contemporary American politics. The political agenda has become deeply polarized by such issues as affirmative action, abortion rights, and welfare reform. In short, gender politics, once regarded as marginal, has emerged as one of thecore dividing lines in identifying politicians, parties, issues, and voters in America. Not surprising, the way media covers gender politics has long been a matter of contention. The issue at the heart of this book is whether, as critics suggest, media coverage of women in America reinforces rather than challenges the dominant culture, thereby contributing towards women'smarginalization in public life. This collection of original essays by twenty-one top academics and journalists is the first book to systematically examine the impact of the media on women's power in America. It focuses on how the role of American women as citizens, political leaders, and feminist activists has been influenced bythe media, for better or worse, in recent decades. Using multimethod approaches involving surveys, content analysis, focus groups, interviews, and personal experience, the authors analyze the role of women as journalists, the impact of campaign coverage, images of women in power, and coverage ofwomen's movement and feminist policy issues. Women, Media, and Politics will be an important resource for students interested in contemporary political and social debate. | <urn:uuid:caec3945-9b6e-4e38-b047-4a5b05db95e1> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/women-media-and-politics/9780195105674-item.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280410.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00449-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953264 | 266 | 2.421875 | 2 |
W/S Finishing Corp., Dallas, Texas, established in 1959, is capable of meeting most Anodizing needs. Aluminum Anodizing is the electrochemical process used to increase the thickness of the natural oxide layer on the surface of metal parts. Anodizing increases corrosion resistance, wear resistance, and provides better adhesion for paint primers and glues than does bare metal. Anodic films can also be used for a number of cosmetic effects, either with thick porous coatings that can absorb dyes or with thin transparent coatings that add interference effects to reflected light. Click button to Request Quote or Additional Information. | <urn:uuid:2f6edb0e-1f9a-407a-b77a-2db907d07331> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://wsfinishing.com/WS_Website/ | 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 | 0.888239 | 126 | 2.03125 | 2 |
The WinGeol Lamination Tool: New software for rapid, semi-automated analysis of laminated climate archives. Geological and biological archives showing an annually laminated internal structure are currently top priority in palaeoclimate research, as they are recognized as very high-resolution archives of environmental change. Also, the annual origin of laminations can be validated by absolute age dating or by using instrumental data for the most recent period. Microscopic laminae may span several hundreds to thousands of years and frequently reveal a high degree of internal growth variability. Quantitative examination of laminations using transmitted-light or epifluorescence microscopy is thus a tedious task and may be partly automated. We developed a software (WinGeol Lamination Tool) using C + + capable of semi-automatically detecting and measuring individual lamina thicknesses in archives showing large internal growth variability. The Lamination Tool enables the operator to efficiently and quantitatively examine laminae down to the micron scale and it was successfully tested on a variety of annually banded samples.
Keywords for this software
References in zbMATH (referenced in 1 article )
Showing result 1 of 1. | <urn:uuid:1ae3bd6f-883c-4154-bdeb-ed1270685ad8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://swmath.org/software/13507 | 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 | 0.908509 | 246 | 2.25 | 2 |
Here’s a simple, easy to understand, overview of what a step motor is, how a step motor controller works, and how the step motor and step motor controller work together to provide maximum efficiency for your project.
Step Motor Basics
A generator is designed to convert mechanical energy into electricity. A stepper motor does the opposite, converting electrical pulses into rotating mechanical energy. These pulses are directed by a step motor controller. The rotor rotates according to discrete increments, measured in degrees and called steps. This is where the name “step motor” comes from. The speed and direction in which the rotor rotates in the step motor is dependent upon the action of the step motor controller on the motor’s windings. The direction of the motor’s rotation is dependent on how the controller sequences the electrical pulses. The motor’s speed is dependent on the frequency of the controller pulses. And the length of the rotation is dependent on how long the controller keeps sending electrical pulses to the motor.
Benefits of a Step Motor
The benefits of a step motor are many. For one, these motors work well with open loop control. Open loop control means that there is no feedback from the step motor to the step motor controller. Most step motors are used with a consistent, low to moderate load at a constant speed; therefore, motor controller feedback is not necessary, as no major adjustments need to be made based on what is happening with the motor. Since systems with feedback, called closed loop systems, tend to be rather expensive, many people find this to be a big benefit of the step motor.
Another advantage of a step motor with a step motor controller is its accuracy. There is a direct relationship between the rotation angle and the input pulse, so you can “stop on a dime.” In other words, you can get the motor to stop almost exactly where you want at any time, or you can get it to reverse direction at exactly where you want. For applications that require great precision, step motors are therefore ideal.
Yet another very big advantage to the step motor is the fact that it is brushless. Other types of motors often have a physical commutator and electrical contacts called brushes that work to spin the rotor. These brushes tend to wear out and require replacement, in addition to the fact that they cause sparks and noise. Since stepper motors are electronically commutated, there are no brushes.
Types of Step Motors
There has been some evolution in step motors over the years, and there are three basic types of step motors, each a little superior to the last, although all are currently still in use.
The Variable Reluctance Motor
In a VR motor, the rotor has soft iron “teeth” that are magnetically attractive. When the stator windings are energized with electricity via the step motor controller, the poles become magnetized and attract the teeth, moving the rotor.
The PM motor has rendered the VR motor almost obsolete. These motors use permanent magnets, powerful rare earth magnets, to move the rotor so that no teeth are required. The result is improved torque characteristics versus the variable resistance motor. This fact has made PM motors some of the most popular step motors on the market.
Slightly more expensive, but also more effective in many ways, is the hybrid step motor. This type of step motor provides the best of both worlds, combining the teeth of the variable reluctance motor with the magnet action of the permanent magnet motor. The result is a motor that offers better torque, speed and step resolution than either the permanent magnet motor or the variable reluctance motor.
Using Step Motors
Step motors are useful for a wide range of jobs, from computer applications like DVD players and CD-ROM drives to hobbies like turntable building and robot construction. Step motors offer great accuracy, especially for low and medium power and speed operations, and can be quite affordable. Whether you opt for the permanent magnet motor or upgrade to the hybrid motor, there’s a good chance that a step motor will provide exactly what you need. | <urn:uuid:d8990b10-5a9a-4915-9bac-5b5a2d6920e1> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.nmbtc.com/step-motors/step-motor-controller/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279224.13/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00486-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923686 | 834 | 3.484375 | 3 |
25 Apr Fabled Honey Forest
The photographic series of Sarah Pannell introduces us to the beekeeping traditions of Hemshin people, an ethnic minority originating from Armenia who sustain a distinctive tradition: black hive beekeeping.
© Sarah Pannell
Since their arrival in Rize hundreds of years ago, the Hemshin people have settled in various places throughout the province near Camlihemsin, and in smaller villages farther up the Kaçkar Mountains, where there are over 150 endemic plant species, meaning that after bees draw pollen, they make exquisitely thick and complex organic honey. Turkey’s Black Sea region was also for a long time a major centre for the production of hemp, which the bees enjoyed and which added depth and complexity to the local honey.
Made of sections of hollowed-out logs, the black hives are placed on small platforms that have been secured to the trunk and limbs of the tree. Unlike the hives used in modern migratory beekeeping, these hives will remain here all year long. They will be cleaned at the beginning of summer, and the honey produced by the Caucasian honey bees — Apis mellifera caucasia — will be collected toward the end of the season.
Özlem Erol © Sarah Pannell
Traditionally, these hives were managed by the men of the community, with each man being responsible for around five hives. But that custom is evolving. Hemshin women are now being taught these age-old beekeeping practices, hoping they will play a crucial role in preserving the traditions of their people. Özlem Erol is one of this woman, and also she represents the work of Moyy Atölye, where their aim is to strengthen the leadership of women in local development and support the local economy. Under the roof of Moyy Atölye they produce notably Feretiko (hemp cloth, hand knitted wool products, hand made porcelains and woodworks created working with local crafters which can be legated for years to come for the following generations.
Product from Moyy Atölye website | <urn:uuid:90aea761-9c37-438b-a315-0a8099038e2e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://honeybodycare.com/fabled-honey-forest/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571719.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812140019-20220812170019-00277.warc.gz | en | 0.955893 | 439 | 2.703125 | 3 |
The World Youth Alliance is a global coalition of over 20,000 young people from nearly 200 countries from the developed and developing world. Our mission is to promote the dignity of the person in policy and culture and to build solidarity among youth from every nation.
Recognition of human dignity requires treating those affected by HIV/AIDS as persons, with physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional needs, not simply carriers of a disease. Human beings who suffer from HIV/AIDS are mothers, fathers, brothers, aunts, friends, sisters, daughters, uncles, and sons. They feel the effects of the pandemic in diverse situations and in different ways. Any response to the HIV/AIDS situation, therefore, must recognize the real and underlying needs of the human person, in relationship with others, for integral development. We hope the international community will join us in affirming the dignity of the person in its response to HIV/AIDS.
The World Youth Alliance also affirms that family is the fundamental unit of society, wherein dignity, rights, and duties are first communicated. We believe that the family is the primary structure within which HIV/AIDS prevention begins, and care and support is provided. It is thus incumbent upon the international community to foster those conditions that support and nurture the family.
Download the pdf here. | <urn:uuid:6fae637c-7dec-4e2f-9ae4-d1f01ffac056> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.wya.net/press-release/on-the-occasion-of-world-aids-day-december-1-2009/ | 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 | 0.954124 | 265 | 2.484375 | 2 |
Major fashion designer Chanel has announced it will stop using exotic animal skins.
These include fur, crocodile, lizard, snake, and stingray. While some products still exist in Chanel creations, they will no longer be used in upcoming collections.
According to Bruno Pavlovsky, President of Chanel fashion and Chanel SAS, it has become increasingly difficult to source skins that met the company’s standards in terms of ethics and quality, and the brand will turn its R&D towards fabrics created by ‘agri-food industries’.
He added: “We did it because it’s in the air, but it’s not an air people imposed to us. It’s a free choice.”
“The champagne corks are popping at PETA, thanks to Chanel’s announcement that it’s kicking fur and exotic skins – including crocodile, lizard, and snake skin – to the kerb,” PETA Director of International Programmes, Mimi Bekhechi, said in a statement sent to Plant Based News.
“For decades, PETA and its affiliates have called on the brand to opt for luxury, cruelty-free fashion that no animal had to suffer and die for, and now it’s time for other companies, like Louis Vuitton, to follow the lead of the iconic double ‘C’s and do the same.” | <urn:uuid:b7451a42-764a-4ffc-8f60-e1e080722a74> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/chanel-ditches-fur-exotic-animal-skins-ethical-issues/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.95/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817032054-20220817062054-00472.warc.gz | en | 0.948046 | 306 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Alcohol abuse is a problem that spans all occupations. However, it can be particularly dangerous when it involves doctors, nurses and other medical professionals.
The long hours and extreme stress involved in working in many medical settings are just two of the things that can lead health care providers to turn to alcohol and/or drugs. It’s been estimated that at least 10% of all doctors and 20% of nurses have a substance abuse problem at some point in their careers.
When medical professionals are drinking or using drugs on the job, they can make serious and even fatal errors involving patients. However, even if a person isn’t under the influence at work, excessive and long-term alcohol and drug abuse can have a substantial effect on their decision-making skills.
Texas doctor’s license suspended after an incident on duty
Just this week the Texas Medical Board (TMB) suspended the medical license of a doctor in Spring, which is just outside of Houston. The action comes after the doctor’s resignation “following an incident involving her drinking while on shift at her clinic.” The nature of that incident wasn’t disclosed. However, a disciplinary panel of the TMB determined that “her continuation in the practice of medicine poses a continuing threat to public welfare.”
The TMB’s suspension is temporary, pending a hearing (unless she waives her right to one). The Board will then decide what action to take regarding her license.
Sometimes malpractice is what finally prompts action
As patients, we hope that hospitals and other medical facilities have protocols in place to spot employees who have substance abuse problems and remove them from positions where they can endanger patients. We also hope that licensing boards like the TMB will take action to prevent them from practicing anywhere else – at least until they’ve gotten the treatment they need.
Unfortunately, these substance abuse issues too often aren’t dealt with until a doctor or nurse has harmed a patient. If you or a loved one is in this position, it’s essential that you find out what options you have for seeking justice and compensation. | <urn:uuid:b1708bb7-6de0-48a3-bc2d-c86f3d7fce8e> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.kelsolegal.com/blog/2022/06/the-dangers-of-medical-professionals-with-substance-abuse-issues/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571982.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813172349-20220813202349-00073.warc.gz | en | 0.954223 | 437 | 2.0625 | 2 |
A Beloved Arab American Poet Passes: Celebrating the Life of Dr. Hamode “Sam” Hamod
By: David Hamod / Arab America Contributing Writer
On June 20, my dad, son, and I celebrated our last Father’s Day together. Two days later, my father – Dr. Hamode “Sam” Hamod – died of congestive heart failure. His life reflected the quintessential American ethnic experience, yet so much more.
Nominated twice for the Nobel Prize – once in Literature and once in Poetry – Dad was one of America’s most respected poets of Arab descent. He wrote many powerful poems about the Arab-American experience, such as “Lines to My Father,” “After the Funeral of Hamad Assam,” and “Dying With the Wrong Name.” His book of the same name (Dying With the Wrong Name) won the Ethnic Heritage Award in 1980 and was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
A recipient of numerous awards for his poetry, my father was a fearless commentator and prolific writer, with hundreds of articles and more than a dozen books of poetry to his name. He never stopped. Even in his last hours, as he lay on his death bed, Dad dictated his final poems to me.
“Sito” Promotes Higher Education
In recent days, accolades and condolences for my father have poured in from around the world. Considering Dad’s remarkable achievements, it is difficult to imagine the challenges that my father overcame to achieve his high station in life.
Dad was the first in his nuclear family to get a formal education. His father, my Jido, arrived in the United States as a penniless immigrant at the turn of the 20th century. Jido regarded commerce as the way to advance in American society, not education. Even when my father entered the University of Chicago Law School, Jido was not impressed.
Thankfully, my grandmother had the last word. Sito encouraged my dad to leave hardscrabble Gary, Indiana to pursue his education. She knew the value of education as few others did: Sito achieved only a sixth-grade education because she dropped out of school to raise eight brothers and sisters when her mother died while giving birth. So, when she saw an opportunity for her son to go to college, she let nothing stand in his way.
Her support for Dad’s college education was fateful: As a poet and professor of creative writing, my father taught at such universities as Princeton, Northwestern, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Valparaiso, and Howard. Throughout his academic career, my father was dedicated to his students. In his seven years at Howard University, for example, he played an instrumental role in creating or strengthening creative writing programs and literary magazines that helped to build bridges among ethnic communities.
Dad also organized poetry workshops for elementary school students, including those in Native American communities in Arizona, thereby encouraging young people to be expressive and view the world creatively.
Formative Years in Gary, Indiana
In the 1950s, Gary, Indiana lived and breathed for Bethlehem Steel, and my father – like so many other young men, especially immigrants – spent time in the steel mills. A Muslim who was not a drinker, Dad also ran a tavern in a tough part of town. That was the only time in his life that my father packed a pistol at work every day.
It is said that every dark cloud has a silver lining, and Dad’s work in the tavern turned out to be a blessing in disguise. He came to know such music legends as Muddy Waters, Sarah Vaughn, and B.B. King, who performed periodically at Dad’s bar, The Broadway Lounge.
This was a formative experience for Dad, shaping his views of hard-working immigrants and Blacks, who made up most of the clientele. Beginning with this experience in Gary, my father came to form a special kinship with the African-American community.
Because of Dad’s reputation as a dedicated Muslim and no-nonsense guy, he became a bridge between America’s Black Muslims of that era and mainstream Muslims in the United States and across the Arab world. For example, Dad worked with Elijah Muhammad, leader of The Nation of Islam, which had many adherents in those years in major Midwestern cities like Detroit, Chicago, and Gary.
It was also in this context that my father came to know such Muslim leaders as Muhammad Ali, the boxer, and Malcolm X, the political activist. Over time, each gravitated toward mainstream Islam, and I understand that my father and Jido played a role in this transition.
My family built the Al-Ameen Mosque in Gary, Indiana, which was inaugurated in 1960. One of the Muslim dignitaries who drove from Chicago to Gary to attend that inauguration was Ahmad Jamal, the acclaimed Jazz pianist. Ahmad and my father built a lifelong friendship, one that lasted 60 years, until Dad passed away. In recent months, the two of them spoke every night – the 90-year-old pianist and the 85-year-old poet – and no day would be complete until that telephone call took place.
Community Leadership in Washington DC
In the 1980s, my father was well known as an Arab-American community leader, based in Washington DC. More than any other community leader in the nation’s capital, he helped to bring together Muslims and peoples of other faiths in remarkable ways, drawing upon his years of experience and knowledge as a Muslim born in the United States.
During that period, he founded and served as Editor-in-Chief of Third World News, the first international weekly of its kind to bring a developing world perspective to policymakers in the nation’s capital.
But not everyone appreciated the hard-hitting stories of Third World News and Dad’s ability to showcase success stories across the developing world.
Throughout his life, Dad received threats from those who did not share his thoughtful, inclusive views, but the word “fear” was not part of his vocabulary. He knew firsthand what these threats might mean: His father was assassinated, and Dad thwarted numerous assassination attempts, especially during his time as Director of the Islamic Center of Washington, DC in the mid-1980s.
That was a fraught era in Washington DC, and my father literally did battle with Muslim extremists and Jewish extremists alike. For example, Rabbi Meir Kahane, head of Israel’s extremist Kach Party, brought activists to the Islamic Center to rabble-rouse. In the end, the two men met face-to-face, and violence was averted.
More complicated was the relationship with Ayatollah Khomeini’s adherents, who took over the Islamic Center and refused to let other Muslims pray there. With encouragement from the Arab Ambassadors Council, my father – backed by a SWAT team and the Washington DC Police – took back the Islamic Center so that Muslims from all walks of life could once again pray peaceably in that center of worship.
Throughout his life, Dad fought against narrow-mindedness and racism in all its forms. He faced discrimination in his personal and professional lives, but it never slowed him down. For every “hater” he encountered, there was always someone willing to open a door because they saw Dad’s great potential.
Poetry: Finding His Calling
Dad studied business and law before yielding to his passion, devoting himself to creative writing. He received his M.A. and B.S. degrees from Northwestern University in rhetorical theory and mass communications, respectively. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, where he was part of the renowned Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
Other award-winning figures in the program during that period included such literary notables as Kurt Vonnegut, James Alan McPherson, Galway Kinnell, Ted Berrigan, and others. The stature of the program, unrivalled in the United States, enjoyed the support of such luminaries as Robert Frost, Robert Penn Warren, John Berryman, Dylan Thomas, and Robert Lowell.
Dad’s poetry was not limited to the Arab-American experience. He was renowned for his love poems, which were well received by the literary community. Ishmael Reed, a celebrated poet, put it this way: “Sam Hamod is a brilliant poet in the ancient sense of the word. He can write as though his pen were a sword, as well as write as though his pen were the stem of a rose.”
Dad’s poetry circled the globe. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature by the acclaimed Mexican novelist, Carlos Fuentes, who said: “Sam Hamod is a great poet, a man who has a unique voice, understanding and vision, a poet who speaks for his people, for himself and for others — something that a great poet must do.”
Pablo Neruda once noted, “There are few poets who combine emotion, rhythm, clarity, and language in the way of the American poet, Sam Hamod.” And Jorge Luis Borges, himself a recipient of the Nobel Prize, said simply, “Sam Hamod is one of us, a man of the South.”
Sam Hamod Memorial Scholarship
The time that Dad spent in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop represented some of the most transformative years of his life. For this reason, my father’s writings will become part of Special Collections at the University of Iowa Libraries, where they will be available to scholars and researchers in the years to come.
In addition, the University of Iowa Center for Advancement has established a new scholarship to honor my father, the Hamode Samuel Hamod Memorial Scholarship. The purpose of this annual award will be to provide a “second chance” to those who have taken unconventional paths to poetry – as Dad did – especially individuals who have overcome challenges and disadvantages along the way.
The first recipient of Dad’s scholarship has just been named: Ryan “Red” Danielson, a construction worker who was recently accepted into the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He sent a note to my father, which I shared with Dad in his final hours:
“I bought a copy of Spring Will Come Soon and I have been reading it over and over the last few days. You’ve touched me deeply with these poems . . . . It’s such an amazing thing to get a gift/funding from someone to help to free up time to write, but to also find a profound connection to a poet’s work is deeper than human life . . . . Bless you, you wonderful human being, for your giving and for channeling the deep poetry into the poem.”
Lines to My Father
Like any son, I did not always agree with my father, of course. But he had the courage of his convictions, and I have always admired the fact that Dad spoke out fearlessly and tirelessly in the face of those who would silence him. People in power tried to co-opt my father over the years, but he would have none of it; he was an apologist for no one. In life, as in his poetry, Dad spoke from the heart.
He wrote “Lines to My Father” after his father was assassinated while tending the grounds of his mosque. That poem, excerpted below, has more meaning for me now than ever:
My Father is watching over his mosque, silently
he hovers now, praying
My Father is planting maples beside his mosque
digging each hole
carefully, patiently, knowing the trees will grow
Now my Father covers the grass with
Dad was laid to rest in the Muslim National Cemetery in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, but his spirit will live on through his scholarship, stories, and poetry. | <urn:uuid:bf9412aa-bd00-472a-a04b-8ff16f226b09> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.arabamerica.com/a-beloved-arab-american-poet-passes-celebrating-the-life-of-dr-hamode-sam-hamod/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572192.79/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815145459-20220815175459-00066.warc.gz | en | 0.983607 | 2,476 | 2.34375 | 2 |
From many people’s perspectives, the Budget may have left a feeling that nothing much had changed in the world of personal financial planning, as there were no major changes announced to Income Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Inheritance Tax or pensions. However, the key consideration is how outside factors such as higher inflation could affect your finances and what steps you should take before the end of the tax year to make the most of any allowances and exemptions.
Inheritance Tax (IHT)
Official figures from HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) for April to September 2021 show that IHT receipts totalled 3.1bn, 0.7bn higher than the same period in 2020. With the nil rate band and residence nil rate band now frozen until April 2026 at £325,000 and £175,000 respectively, the importance of effective estate planning shouldn’t be overlooked.
Individual Savings Accounts (ISAs)
The annual ISA limit has now been frozen at £20,000 for five years. If the allowance had increased with inflation each year since 2017, it would stand at £21,440 today, sheltering an additional £1,440 from the taxman. JISAs celebrated their tenth birthday in November – the allowance remains at £9,000.
The government revealed in September that it would increase Dividend Tax by 1.25 percentage points from 6 April 2022 to help fund health and social care. This means investors will have to pay more on any income from shares held outside ISAs and above the £2,000 Dividend Allowance.
The Lifetime Allowance remains at £1,073,100 and the Annual Allowance remains at £40,000. As these allowances haven’t increased with inflation, it effectively means those saving to the maximum extent possible with tax concessions can save less in real terms each year.
Variables at play
It’s important to be aware of all the variables at play; inflation, interest rates, taxation and frozen allowances all affect your finances. Talk to us for help with your individual circumstances.
a key consideration is how outside factors such as higher inflation could affect your finances and what steps you should take before the end of the tax year… | <urn:uuid:646856e6-70b3-4951-b7a2-961c3b24659b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://bonumwealth.co.uk/consider-all-the-variables/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570741.21/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808001418-20220808031418-00069.warc.gz | en | 0.961287 | 466 | 1.632813 | 2 |
★ Sahih Muslim is one of the Six major collections of the hadith, oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad. It is the second most authentic hadith collection after Sahih Al-Bukhari, and is highly acclaimed by Muslims. It was collected by Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, also known as Imam Muslim. Sahih translates as authentic or correct.
★ Imam Muslim (Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj) was born in 202 AH in Naysabur, Iran into a Persian family (817/818CE) and died in 261AH (874/875CE) also in Nishapur. He traveled widely to gather his collection of ahadith (plural of hadith), including to Iraq, the Arabian Peninsula, Syria and Egypt. Out of 300,000 hadith which he evaluated, approximately 4,000 were extracted for inclusion into his collection based on stringent acceptance criteria. Each report in his collection was checked and the veracity of the chain of reporters was painstakingly established. Sunni Muslims consider it the second most authentic hadith collection, after Sahih Bukhari.
★ App Features:
✓ Complete Book
✓ The book includes Hadeeth on different topics
✓ Hadiths are are sorted and index for easy selection and reading
✓ Customize option for Font size and text color
✓ Back Ground color change option
✓ Full Screen Mode option
✓ Auto bookmark option
Tags: Allah, Islam, Islamic, Azkar, Sunnah, Muslim, Hadith, Dhikr, Prayer, Ruquiya, Ruqya, Ruqyah, Saalah, Muhammad, Mohammad, Dua, Madina, Madinah, Salah, Rabbana, Namaz, Ramadaan, Ramadan, Galaxy, HTC, Android, Motorola, Fasting, Saalah, Masjid, Mosque, Qibla, Religion, Duaa, mobile, phone, tablet, battery, picture, youtube, Prophet, Hijri, Kaaba, Eid, Salat, Prayer, Sajda, Saudia, Saudi, Arab, Widget, Online, Arabic, eBook, Download, Qalam, App, Sound, Move2SD, SMS, Ringtone, World, Qur'an, Koran, Coran, Market, Qari, Launcher, Telawah, Surah, Complete, Samsung, Full, Ayah, audio, video, Nexus, Ramadhan, adan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bhasha, adhan, Azan, athan, mp3, free, best, top, Google, halal, compass, Bahasa, mekka, Imam, mecca, Corán, Kuran, Tafseer, Tafsir, Hadeeth, Hadith, Sahih, Bukhari, Book, Text, Colour, Color, Live, Wallpaper, Hajj, Haji, hadees
Content rating: Everyone | <urn:uuid:659b99e1-8ade-4afd-88bb-f0c90433b8f7> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.freenew.net/android/sahih-muslim-indonesian-lite-10/98962.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560283689.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095123-00351-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.878836 | 619 | 2.046875 | 2 |
We often get in situations when we take decisions without a second thought and this is the right moment to find out what they mean.
Think about what you will do first, then second and so on.
Scroll down to see the explanation.
Each action reflects the priorities that you have set in your life.
For example if the first thing that you did was to answer the phone then your biggest priority in life would be your career and job. Similarly if the fourth thing that you did was to attend to the baby then your fourth priority would be your family.
Take a look at the following table to see which priority corresponds to which action.
|How accurate were your results? Join in the discussion below.| | <urn:uuid:6c46a93f-6119-4cdd-b28f-f06374436450> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://themindsjournal.com/6144-2/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279368.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00325-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977023 | 146 | 1.90625 | 2 |
Professor Robert W. Wood - Photo Link & Bio
Greenhouse gas theory of global warming is refuted in momentous Mexican lab experiment. Results mean epic fail for doomsaying cult and climate taxes.
Professor Nahle of Monterrey, Mexico backed by a team of international scientists has faithfully recreated a famous experiment from 1909 to confirm that the greenhouse effect cannot cause global warming.
Astonishingly, the 1909 greenhouse gas experiment first performed by Professor Robert W. Wood at John Hopkins University hadn’t been replicated for a century. This despite over $100 billion spent by the man-made global warming industry trying to prove its case that carbon dioxide is a dangerous atmospheric pollutant.
The analogy had been that greenhouse gases (e.g. CO2) act like the glass in a greenhouse trapping heat in Earth’s atmosphere and if they build up (due to human industrial emissions) the planet would dangerously overheat.
Nahle Nails Shut Climate Scare Coffin
At the Biology Cabinet laboratories Professor Nahle was able to confirm the astounding findings: Wood was right all along. After peer-review the results confirm that the so-called ‘greenhouse effect’ is solely due to the blockage of convective heat transfer within the environment in which it is contained i.e. as in this case, a lab flask.
Updated below with comments by Nasif S. Nahle
Indeed, it is the glass of the lab flask (or ‘greenhouse’) that caused the “trapped” radiation all along. The flask (or greenhouse) being what scientists refer to as a ‘closed system’; while Earth’s atmosphere isn’t closed at all but rather open to space allowing heat energy to freely escape.
shoot holes in claims of Professor Pratt of Stanford University whose own replication of Wood’s experiment was touted as the first official reconstruction of Wood’s test for a century. Pratt claimed he had disproved Wood’s findings.
“This is the reason that I decided to repeat the experiment of Professor Pratt to either falsify or verify his results and those of Professor Wood,“ says the Mexican professor at the Biology Cabinet.
The Monterrey science research institute also recreated Wood’s test into the effect of longwave infrared radiation trapped inside a greenhouse. Unlike Pratt it found that Wood’s findings were correct, absolutely valid and systematically repeatable. The Bio Cab man affirms, “ the greenhouse effect does not exist as it is described in many didactic books and articles.”
Put simply, one of the aforementioned professors has their reputation perilously on the line and Nahle is gunning for an explanation from his U.S. Rival. A clue to the outcome: Pratt isn't even qualified in science - he's a (warmist) mathematician specializing in computers.
Satellite Records Back Up Mexican Findings
Professor Nahle’s findings will come as no surprise to anyone who is up to speed with the other big climate story that has raised huge doubts over any so-called greenhouse effect. NASA
now admits global warming just isn’t happening despite ever-rising levels of CO2.
Laughably, the once illustrious U.S. space agency is blaming no warming this century on China. The rapidly industrializing nation is emitting so much sulfur dioxide that it is “cooling” our planet, they say.
Back Story of Greenhouse Gas Mythology
Professor Wood’s science held sway until the mid 1930's after he proved that on average, the blockage of convective heat transfer with the surroundings causes an increase of temperature inside the greenhouses of 10.03 °C with respect to the surroundings temperature.
After World War Two interest in the GHE was briefly resurrected again. But the American Meteorological Society shot this down in 1951 after it reviewed all the available data and produced the "Compendium of Meteorology" appearing to kill off the cultist claims.
However, fearmongers were finally able to resurrect the notion of a GHE in the mid 1980's when a certain ‘science adviser’ to Margaret Thatcher, Christopher Monckton (not then a Lord), helped promote the idea so as to aid the defeat of Britain’s striking coal miners.
Three Sides in the Climate Argument and Two are Wrong
has fastidiously stood by his position that there is GHE despite prominently publishing his own findings that it just isn’t there. He finds himself on one of three sides at war in the great global warming debate and only one can be right.
Monckton along with other skeptics such as Richard Lindzen and Roy Spencer have been labeled ‘lukewarmists’ for their stubborn adherence that there must be ‘some’ warming, however small caused by CO2. They are unlikely climate bedfellows with the likes of Professor Pratt and are opposed to the ‘Slayers’ group of GHE skeptics of which Professor Nahle has become increasingly prominent.
Another rising star of the Slayers group of scientists, Joe Postma concurs with Nahle’s results and says, “I will never be convinced of a radiative greenhouse effect without experimental proof. As it is, I have proven how the standard application of the Stefan-Boltzmann equation which ostensibly explains the greenhouse effect is a complete fiction and tautology.”
Strident Slayers Begin Global Science Association
Postma and Nahle join long-standing GHE skeptics, Alan Siddons and Hans Schreuder as they prepare to formally launch a new global research association, Principia Scientific International (PSI) recruiting untold numbers of conscientious scientists sickened by endemic corruption within science.
Nahle’s new paper buttresses Siddons’ arguments and is earmarked to set the tone of the ‘no holds barred’ style of PSI, which will be set up as an independent (non-governmental) organization eschewing political interference. With a mission to uphold the scientific method with objectivity and transparency Nahle and his PSI compatriots insist empirical experimental research as the only means to prevail over dogmatic (government financed) junk science.
The new organization will be looking for other challenges once the mainstream finally accepts that it has slayed the climate fraud. But Siddons insists, “greenhouse theory and its associated alarmism only persist because of a stubborn refusal to question the following two assumptions below.
Gases that absorb infrared light thereby block infrared light.
Such gases radiate, i.e., “scatter” or spread out the light they absorb, thus releasing light in all directions rather than blocking it.
Blocking the exit of light while allowing free entry will increase the temperature of an irradiated object.”
The light an object emits is a function of its temperature; its temperature is not a function of the light it emits. Accordingly, if incoming light raises an object to a certain temperature, the object will remain at that temperature whether it emits light to its surroundings or not. Any temperature increase in a confined condition is only due to reduced convective cooling.”
Such clear cut and plain-speaking objectivity, plus a wholesale return to the traditional scientific method, is the only acceptable paradigm for this emerging intellectual and scientific force. | <urn:uuid:650e19dc-e579-4635-a1a8-51d167397342> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://climaterealists.com/index.php?id=8073 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279489.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00018-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936378 | 1,520 | 3.015625 | 3 |
She had all the makings of a one-hit-wonder. Exotic flare, dance club style, and a larger-than-life ego have launched her into stardom. In record speed, she solidified her identity as the leading lady of pop culture by attracting millions of fans who memorize her lyrics, emulate her style, and imbibe her passion.
Lady Gaga is not just a stage name; it's an alter ego, a tool the 25-year-old uses as she masters the art of fame. While she claims music is her first passion and eccentric style her vehicle for expression, consistency in playing the part enables her to continuously shock the world.
The loyalty of her fan base makes Lady Gaga's reign unlike any other. She refers to them as “Little Monsters.” In return they call her “Mother Monster.” It's a mutually beneficial relationship because millions of people—who vary in age, gender, nationality, socio-economic standing, and sexual orientation—cling to her words and yearn for her presence, as she responds by praising them for their individuality and exhorts them to unleash the superstar within.
“Tonight I want you to let go of all of your insecurities,” says Lady Gaga, offering redemption to her devotees from middle school heartbreaks, confusion about self-identity, and mid-life crises. “I want you to reject anyone or anything that ever made you feel that you don't belong. Free yourself of these things tonight!” As she imparts these words and soothes her Little Monsters with song, they claim freedom from angst and awkwardness. Like a nursing mother, she promises them solace.
Such a close relationship with fans has never been seen before. Even Madonna's followers lacked the identification with their pop-star hero that Lady Gaga has secured in a fraction of the time.
The Art of Fame
How did this modern-day heroine reach this place? Like many celebrities, it began with a childhood dream and dedicated parents. Stefani Germanotta grew up in an affluent area of New York, attended Catholic schools, and began studying music and dance when she was 4.
Today, she is a classically trained pianist with a powerful voice. But, according to Lady Gaga, this isn't the only art form she has studied. In an interview with Anderson Cooper she offered this insight: “One of my greatest artworks is the art of fame. I'm a master of the art of fame.”
This is evident in her similarity to pop-icon Madonna, whose notoriety was largely due to her ability to reinvent herself. However, Madonna did this with different fashion trends every few years or so; Lady Gaga changes her appearance on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, Madonna pushed the envelope in many regards, especially in terms of sex, helping make it “acceptable” and even normal for young women to engage in premarital intercourse. Lady Gaga takes this one step further; she not only flaunts her own bedroom activity, but one of her public platforms is homosexuality.
In a recent number-one hit, “Born this Way,” Lady Gaga sings, “It doesn't matter if you love him, or capital H.I.M.” The song emphasizes the need to love oneself at all cost. She promotes self-love despite nationality and disability, but most of all, with reference to sexual orientation.
The basic argument runs this way: “I'm beautiful, 'Cause God makes no mistakes, I'm on the right track, I was born this way.” The song has a catchy beat that masks its ideological edge, but the real shock value is in the music video. The pop diva splits her physical appearance in two; half of her is dressed like a woman, the other half, a man.
This is the Lady Gaga the world has come to expect. This, apparently, is how she has mastered the art of fame.
Who Are Her Fans?
It's also why her fans adore her. One of Lady Gaga's reasons for her behavior is “vicarious eccentricity”: if she is weird, it takes pressure off of others who are seen as weird. She attracts the alienated. This is why social outsiders, in-the-closet college students, and underappreciated housewives all gravitate to her.
It's also fascinating to see how Lady Gaga appeals to society at large. She sold 1.1 million records in the first week of album sales in May. Such an accomplishment bears testimony to the sweeping scope of this “fame-monster.” She speaks to virtually everyone with her message of love and understanding. “We are all born superstars,” she exclaims. But if her fans truly believed and adopted this doctrine as their own, would one of her young fans recently commit suicide because of cyber bullying?
Jamey Rodemeyer, a 14-year-old from Buffalo, New York, took his own life this September. His last words were sent in a tweet to his idol. He wrote, “Goodbye, Mother Monster. Thank you for all you've done. Paws up forever.” Jamey had been mercilessly taunted on account of his homosexuality. Unfortunately, his heroine and her promise of deliverance couldn't save the sorrow that plagued the young boy. He thanked her anyway.
Will the Real Deity Please Stand?
Can someone like Jamey Rodemeyer, whose life is ridden with rejection, be redeemed from self-hatred? Why didn't Jamey's inner-superstar emerge to save him as Lady Gaga had promised? Jamey needed a Savior who loved him to the point of death, even death on a cross.
A parody of so great a salvation took place at MTV's 2009 Video Music Awards. Lady Gaga ended her performance by being raised above the stage, drenched in blood. Her body hung there like an icon who had been murdered, dying in the midst of those who both loved her and scorned her. When asked about this she explained, “Everyone wants to see the decay of a superstar.”
This is where Lady Gaga's philosophy gets seriously twisted, even damning. In proclaiming the message of redemption by inner illumination, she also promotes death as a spectacle. In this vein, she exploits Christian themes of redemption, only to mock and denigrate them as meaningless. For those who have eyes to see, this messiah complex is a common thread to much of her work. Its expression is profuse and explicit, including her recent song “Judas,” in which Gaga sings about her ongoing love for Jesus' betrayer.
Lady Gaga, a mother to her fans, claims that she loves her Little Monsters. While exhorting them to break the shackles of self-imposed weakness, she performs in the foreground of the cross. When viewers try to peek around her theatrics to behold the man with outstretched arms wearing thorns upon his head, she reclaims their attention with provocative display of eroticism. “Keep your eyes on me all you who are rejected, ridiculed, and out of place in society,” she cries. “I am your Mother.”
But that Man will not be silenced. His love is too broad to be concealed. His redemption isn't a performance. It was a real cross, with real nails, in real time. Truly God and truly man, he died a physical death for actual sin resulting in genuine redemption. This one Savior, truly rose from the grave and really lives. Therefore, his promise is unyielding: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt 11:28). He is the Savior of the world; his name is Jesus. | <urn:uuid:9b4a3d96-77ce-49c1-85b7-9489f32ad052> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/the-passion-of-gaga/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279650.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00435-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972793 | 1,634 | 1.898438 | 2 |
Microsoft has backtracked on a plan to stop sending email-based notifications about security bulletins starting this month.
The company informed its customers Friday that beginning Tuesday it would no longer send security-related notifications via email because of "changing governmental policies concerning the issuance of automated electronic messaging."
The decision would have affected notifications about upcoming security bulletins, security bulletin summaries, new security advisories, and revisions to security bulletins and advisories.
"In lieu of email notifications, you can subscribe to one or more of the RSS feeds described on the Security TechCenter website," Microsoft said at the time.
Even though the company didn't reveal what specific governmental policies led to its decision, there was speculation that the reason might be a new Canadian antispam law that goes into effect today and carries penalties as high as $1 million for individuals and $10 million for businesses.
Regardless of the cause, Microsoft seems to have sorted out the problem and has decided to restore the notification service.
The company reviewed its processes after announcing the change and will keep sending the email notices, it said Monday. | <urn:uuid:e02c88ee-b95a-4d43-afdc-6b71bfa3cb1e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/548969/microsoft_resume_email-based_security_notifications/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279933.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00128-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962362 | 224 | 1.5625 | 2 |
Author:Cyprian Arthur George Bridge
|←Author Index: Br||Cyprian Arthur George Bridge
Kt; British Royal Navy officer towards the end of the era of Pax Britannica
This author wrote articles for the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
Articles attributed to this author are designated in EB1911 by the initials "C. A. G. B."
- History of the Russian fleet during the reign of Peter the Great (1899)
- The mutiny of the Bounty
- “A Glimpse of the Korea,” in Littell's Living Age, 129 (1662) (1876)
- “Early Autumn on the Lower Yang-Tze,” in Littell's Living Age, 130 (1673) (1876)
- “The Revival of the Warlike Power of China,” in Littell's Living Age, 142 (1830) (1879)
Articles in Popular Science Monthly
- “Sea, Command of the,” in Encyclopædia Britannica, (11th ed.), 1911
- “Sea-Power,” in Encyclopædia Britannica, (11th ed.), 1911
- “Signal,” in Encyclopædia Britannica, (11th ed.), 1911 (Marine Signalling (in part)) | <urn:uuid:755e457e-223b-42c6-b11d-5926f15b8c36> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Cyprian_Arthur_George_Bridge | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280763.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00514-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.796802 | 297 | 1.742188 | 2 |
The Herbal Research and Development Institute (HRDI), a nodal agency of Uttarakhand Medicinal Plant Board, has been established at Gopeshwar in 1989 for conservation, development and sustainable utilization of the valuable Medicinal and Aromatic Plant resources of Uttarakhand. It is an autonomous institute of the Uttarakhand Government registered under the Registration of Societies Act, 1860.
The main objective of HRDI is to co-ordinate medicinal and aromatic plants activities carried out by various Govt agencies, farmers, research institutes, NGOs, etc. The main field activities of the institute cover the following areas:-
- Cultivation of valuable Medicinal and Aromatic Plants of Uttarakhand, primarily to improve livelihood opportunities.
- Survey, inventorisation and conservation of biodiversity of medicinal and aromatic plants.
- Research on agro-technique, bio-diversity, biotechnology and genetic improvement of Medicinal and Medicinal Plants.
- Development of cultivation techniques for Medicinal and Aromatic Plants and transfer of technology to the farmers and growers.
- Revitalization of traditional knowledge and the ancients' Indian medicine system, Ayurveda.
- Quality control assessment and research on active ingredients and substances of medicinal and aromatic plants.
- Human resource development, extension and dissemination of information relating to medicinal and aromatic plants.
- Co-ordination of activities of institutions/ departments engaged in development of medicinal and aromatic plants in Uttarakhand. | <urn:uuid:9b725328-36d6-4909-a594-b8034cdf1919> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://hrdiuk.org/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282140.72/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00131-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.848337 | 301 | 2.375 | 2 |
Building codes for new home construction can be as thick as a dictionary. Getting a loan for a home is a painful experience.
Solution? Bypass both like Derek Diedricksen by going small. FairCompanies.com, a website community that provides access to tools about sustainable culture, calls Diedricksen a micro builder. Diedricksen calls himself "bizarre-chitect or lark-chitect." FairCompanies reports:
"There's almost this whole outlaw aspect of it. I've kind of been a little anti-authoritarian most of my life playing in punk bands and what-not and a lot of the housing codes and rules to me, while some of them make good sense, a lot of them are just ridiculous and very antiquated.”
Diedricksen boasts five micro-buildings on his property, to which many building codes don't apply, that he constructed on a "micro-budget":
His Gottagiddaway a.k.a. “$100 homeless hut” was built for about that (or perhaps as high as $110). His 32-square-foot micro-office [...] was built for $80 from barn sale/ barn demo materials.
His materials are salvaged from old buildings, lumber mills, recycyling and the dump. His windows are made from old office water coolers, soda bottles, pickle jars and even a washing machine window (a side from the same machine has become one if his drop-down tables).
One discarded cedar lounge chair inspired an entire cabin. The Hickshaw- a “rickshaw for hicks”- has the same dimensions as the chair (2 1/2 feet wide by 6 1/2 feet deep) and can be rolled by one person.
None of Diedricksen’s backyard creations are lived in full-time though he has camped in at least a few of them, uses them for a bit of shedworking for writing his blog and reserves the right to send unwanted guests in that direction.
Watch Diedricksen's story:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/v/Ugx7cK_tHUw?version=3&hl=en_US expand=1]
Diedricksen said he grew up in a modest-sized home and hopes that his mini-homes will hope show people that extreme downsizing is doable:
“Why waste most of your life paying for a house you're never going to be in because you're out working 80 hours a week to afford it, but you're working so many extra hours for this huge house that you need to heat, you need to furnish, you need to maintain, you need to clean. The bigger the house, the more of your short and finite life you're using up to make those ends meet when you don't really need a house like that.”
This 16-year-old did the same thing, building a small mobile home -- no mortgage attached:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/v/HXDu2U-CmkI?version=3&hl=en_US expand=1]
Diedricken not only builds small spaces for clients but he self-published a book Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts, which has sold 3,000 copies and is anticipating a second edition next year. He is apart of the Small Home Movement. | <urn:uuid:8c368148-6578-4570-aa29-c4d995a76854> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.theblaze.com/news/2011/10/04/extreme-home-downsizing-avoid-building-codes-and-loans | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00473.warc.gz | en | 0.969164 | 728 | 2.015625 | 2 |
Integrating the study of both music and art into an exploration of the early poetry of Eugenio Montale (1896-1982), this book situates Italy's premier poet of the twentieth century within the Modernist movement. Gian-Paolo Biasin finds in Montale's poetry broad resonances, reverberations, and comparisons that involve it in the European culture of its time and that invite the reading of poetry, music, and painting as texts in a cultural system. This interdisciplinary approach expands our appreciation of Montale's work in a way not possible with literary analysis alone.
Biasin's study first shows the structural homology between some of Debussy's preludes for piano and certain poems in Montale's Ossi di seppia, emphasizing the rhythmic qualities of the compositions. This formal analysis leads to an understanding of the respective texts' thematic, symbolic, and cultural meaning--specifically, antiheroism as a choice of life. Similar methodology is then used to reveal the relationship between the poetry of Montale and Giorgio Morandi's etchings and between Montale's poetic persona, Arsenio, and the novelistic characters of Svevo and Pirandello. Each of these comparisons brings to light a shared image, that of the clown (or antihero) as a mocking self-portrait of the modern artist.
Originally published in 1989.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Another Princeton book authored or coauthored by Gian-Paolo Biasin: | <urn:uuid:e1ed77de-7440-4555-9639-b63ba0ed37d2> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://press.princeton.edu/titles/4483.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279650.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00433-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914778 | 394 | 2.359375 | 2 |
This odd-looking, kite-shaped fish is also called a ray. The names are used interchangeably, though in some quarters the term skate' is applied to the members of this species that are used for eating, while ray generally refers to those (like the electric ray and giant manta ray) that are fished for sport. Skates have winglike pectoral fins that undulate as the fish meanders along the ocean floor (there are also freshwater rays). The fins are the edible part of a skate. Their delicious flesh is firm, white and sweet-not unlike that of the scallop. Depending on the region, skate is available year-round. Like shark meat, skate must be soaked in Acidulated Water to remove its natural ammonia odor. Skate can be prepared in a variety of ways including poaching, baking and frying. | <urn:uuid:fb5de5ff-b59e-4448-8f40-e44c15a9b97d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://recipes.wikia.com/wiki/Skate | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280292.50/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00346-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962524 | 174 | 2.71875 | 3 |
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Yukihiro Matsumoto, the creator of the Ruby programming language, talks with Bill Venners about two kinds of nameless functions in Ruby, blocks and closures.
Yukihiro Matsumoto, or "Matz," as he is known online, is the creator of the Ruby programming language. Ruby is an object-oriented language suitable for writing day to day scripts as well as full-scale applications. Matz began work on Ruby back in 1993, because he wanted a language that made him productive while being fun to use. Initially popular in Japan, Ruby has been finding its way into the hearts of programmers all over the world.
On September 24, 2003, Bill Venners met with Yukihiro Matsumoto at the JAOO conference in Aarhus, Denmark. In this interview, which is being published in multiple installments on Artima.com, Yukihiro Matsumoto discusses Ruby's design philosopy, the features of the Ruby language, and becoming a better programmer.
Bill Venners: Ruby supports blocks and closures. What are blocks and closures, and how are they used?
Yukihiro Matsumoto: Blocks are basically nameless functions. You
may be familiar with the lambda from other languages like Lisp or Python.
Basically, you can pass a nameless function to another function, and then that function
can invoke the passed-in nameless function. For example, a function could perform
iteration by passing one item at a time to the nameless function. This is a common style,
called higher order function style, among languages that can handle functions as first
class objects. Lisp does it. Python does it .Even C does it with function pointers. Many
other languages do this style of programming. In Ruby, the difference is mainly
a different kind of syntax for higher order functions. In other languages, you have to
specify explicitly that a function can accept another function as an argument. But in
Ruby, any method can be called with a block as an implicit argument. Inside the method,
you can call the block using the
yield keyword with a value.
Bill Venners: What is the benefit of blocks?
Yukihiro Matsumoto: Basically, blocks are designed for loop abstraction. The most basic usage of blocks is to let you define your own way for iterating over the items.
For example, if you have a list, sequence, vector, or array, you can iterate forward by
using the method provided by the standard library. But what if you want to iterate
backwards from the end to the beginning? In C, you have to set up four things: an index, a
start value, an end comparison, and an increment. This is not good, because it reveals
internal details of the list. We want to hide that logic. By using blocks, we can hide the
loop logic inside the method or function. So for example by calling
list.reverse_each , you can do a reverse iteration over the list without knowing
how the list is implemented on the inside.
Bill Venners: I just pass in a block that's going to do whatever I want to do with each element, and it's up to the list to know how to go backwards. In other words, I pass as a block whatever code I would have put inside the for loop in C.
Yukihiro Matsumoto: Yes, and that also means you can define many ways to iterate. You could provide a forward way to iterate, a backward way, and so on. It's up to you. C# has an iterator, but it has just one iterator per class. In Ruby you can have an arbitrary number of iterators if you want. If you have a tree class, for example, which you think people will want to traverse depth first and breadth first, you can provide both kinds of traversal by providing two different methods.
Bill Venners: Let me see if I understand this. In Java, they
abstract iteration with
Iterators. A client can ask a
Collection for an
Iterator, for example. But the client must
use a for loop that runs through and processes the items returned by the
Iterator. Inside the for loop, I have "the code" that I want to perform on
each item, so that for loop always shows up in the client code. With blocks, I don't call a
method to get an
Iterator back, I call a method and pass as a block "the
code" I want to process each item of the iteration. Is the benefit of the block
approach that it takes a little bit of code, the for loop, out of each client?
Yukihiro Matsumoto: The details of how to iterate should belong to the service provider class. The client should know as little as possible. That was the original purpose of blocks. In fact, in early versions of Ruby, the methods called with blocks were referred to as iterators, because they were designed to iterate. But in the history of Ruby, the role of blocks was later enhanced from loop abstraction to anything.
Bill Venners: For example...
Yukihiro Matsumoto: For example, we can create a closure out of a block. A closure is a nameless function the way it is done in Lisp. You can pass around a nameless function object, the closure, to another method to customize the behavior of the method. As another example, if you have a sort method to sort an array or list, you can pass a block to define how to compare the elements. This is not iteration. This is not a loop. But it is using blocks. | <urn:uuid:95e9e956-6976-4541-8484-dfde44f62ed0> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.artima.com/intv/closures.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280791.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00363-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.939908 | 1,201 | 3.34375 | 3 |
Baby carrots and carrots are both essentially normal carrots, just processed in different ways. Both regular carrots and baby carrots are the perfect vegetable, packed full of vitamins and minerals. Carrots are great as a stand-alone snack, used in a stew, or added to a sweet dessert like cake..
While both carrots and baby carrots are made from the same root vegetable, there are some stark differences between the two. Carrots are traditionally the whole root vegetable, unaltered.
Comparatively, baby carrots have been cut and processed from ugly carrots that could not be sold as an entire carrot. Both healthy and nutritious, carrots and baby carrots are perfect for snacking, stews, soups, or desserts.
Although baby carrots and carrots may taste identical, there are some stark differences between the two. Not only are these carrots different in appearance, but they can be used in different cuisines and different applications. Below, let’s take a closer look at the differences between traditional carrots and baby carrots and learn the pros and cons of both.
Related: Types of Carrots | What Goes with Cumin | Substitute for Turnip | Types of Garnish | Types of Condiments | Types of Food | How to Keep Carrots Fresh | Types of Carrot | What Goes with Carrots | How to Clean Carrots
Baby Carrots vs. Carrots
They’re both orange, both taste great, and are both healthy and largely beneficial. So what is the big difference between baby carrots and carrots? Below, let’s take a look at some of the main differences between these two seemingly similar vegetables.
Regular carrots are grown naturally in the soil and offer a range of health benefits. These larger carrots must be cut and cleaned before eating to remove any soil residue. Compared to other carrots, like baby carrots, regular carrots have higher levels of Vitamin C and beta-carotene. These are very important vitamins and minerals that help to make this carrot so healthy.
Compared to a baby carrot, though, regular carrots must be prepared before eating. The carrot should be washed and peeled. Of course, it is possible to eat a whole peeled carrot, but most people prefer to cut the carrot down into bite-sized pieces to make it easier to eat.
Compared to their bigger brother, baby carrots are much smaller in size. These carrots are not naturally grown this way but are rather the result of taking a wild carrot with an odd shape or size and putting the carrot through a machine. Ugly carrots then get new life as baby carrots that can be sold in the grocery store.
The regular carrot is then cut down to a smaller size to have the look and appearance of baby-cut carrots. These smaller carrots are often more desirable because they are cut and peeled and cut into easy-to-eat pieces.
Although these are also whole carrots, they do not have the same health benefits as regular full-size carrots. While they lack some Vitamin C and beta-carotene found in regular carrots, they have several other benefits and have a different nutrient count. These baby carrots have more selenium and lutein.
One cautionary tale about baby carrots is the high amount of chlorine that is used in the processing. This chlorine is used to help give the regular carrot brighter orange color. Before eating baby carrots, it is good to give the carrot a proper wash to remove any residual chlorine used in the processing and manufacturing.
How Can I Eat Carrots?
The carrot vegetable is a really practical, functional, and versatile food option that can be used in several different meals and cuisines. Eaten alone, normal carrots are the perfect healthy snack. Both regular carrots and baby carrots are perfect for snacking and taste wonderful when eaten with any type of dip or dressing. A carrot can be eaten raw and used in many salads or vegetable trays.
Or, carrots are wonderful cooked as well. Try eating carrots steamed or sautéed. Carrots can make a wonderful addition to many stews and soups and help give meals a sweat yet healthy taste. Due to their sweet flavor, carrots are also a popular additive into desserts. The many types of carrot variety available make it possible to find just the right carrot to add to a cake or muffin. Enjoy a dessert with a healthy and beneficial vitamin and mineral addition.
Where Is the Best Place to Buy Carrots?
Carrots are a common staple food that many people rely on to get the right balance of healthy vitamins and minerals in their diet. It is possible to find both regular carrots and baby carrots at the local grocery store. These carrots are regularly available as organic carrots, eliminating many of the chemicals and pesticides that can be dangerous for people to eat. Be prepared to pay slightly more for the organic variety of carrots.
It is also possible to buy this root vegetable from a local carrot farmer. Many farmers will grow carrots for food sales because they are relatively easy to grow. These carrots can then be purchased from a local farmer’s market. Carrots from a farmer’s market are usually safe, tasty, and local. Be sure to ask your local carrot farmer about how the carrots were grown. It may be possible to find local, organic carrots at a farmer’s market.
Choosing to buy carrots to add to your daily meal routine is a wonderful idea to stay healthy and get much-needed vitamins and minerals. Carrots can be used in any application, ranging from simply snacking to making elaborate desserts. Below, let’s look at some commonly asked questions surrounding carrots and baby carrots to learn which is the best for you.
What is the difference between carrots and baby carrots?
The biggest difference between carrots and baby carrots is the size. Carrots are usually at least 6 inches long, while baby carrots are rarely over two inches. While both of these carrots are extremely healthy, the baby carrot lacks much of the Vitamin C and beta-carotene found in a regular carrot.
How do you eat baby carrots?
Baby carrots can be eaten exactly like regular, full-size carrots. They can be eaten alone as a snack, raw and just dipped in some salad dressing, or they can be cut and cooked in meals like you would eat a regular carrot. Baby carrots are exactly the same as a regular carrot, only cut down and packaged into smaller, easier-to-eat sizes.
How are baby carrots grown?
Baby carrots start out as regular carrots and are grown just like a regular carrot. When carrots grow to be small or ugly, they often are not sold in the grocery store. Instead, these carrots are put into a machine that cuts and processes the regular carrot into a smaller carrot size.
What is bad about baby carrots?
Although baby carrots are just the same as regular carrots, they are often labeled as bad for you. This opinion is largely linked to the way baby carrots are prepared. After the larger, ugly carrots are cut down into the baby carrot size and shape, manufacturers often add chlorine to the carrots.
The added chlorine helps to make the carrots brighter in color, giving them a more appealing orange color. This added chlorine can be dangerous to eat if the carrots are not properly washed and prepared ahead of time. Other than chlorine, baby carrots contain much of the same vitamins and minerals as regular carrots have. | <urn:uuid:c6c71b67-775d-4537-bbef-79b5294b2562> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.homestratosphere.com/baby-carrots-vs-carrots/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571472.69/warc/CC-MAIN-20220811133823-20220811163823-00665.warc.gz | en | 0.954256 | 1,517 | 2.84375 | 3 |
Influencers are increasingly playing a big role in the minds of the next generation of shoppers, with the potential for this to lead to the internet stars becoming retailers in their own right, according to research from Wunderman Thompson Commerce.
The survey of 4,003 UK and US children aged between six and 16 found that 55 per cent of kids are influenced by their favourite YouTube or Instagram stars using or wearing a product. And a further 14 per cent would like to see influencers operate their own retail outlets in the future.
“The increasing power of influencers is well-recognised and continues to pick up pace,” said Neil Stewart, global CEO at Wunderman Thompson Commerce. “While some brands and retailers are already making the most of the strong connection between influencers and consumers, it will be crucial for businesses to watch the evolution of the influencer trend. If younger consumers' wishes are granted and influencers become retailers themselves, this will only mean more competition for existing brands and retailers.”
Influencers still don’t quite have as much pull as friends do when it comes to children wanting to buy something, however. 28 per cent of children still view their friends as having the biggest impact on what they want to buy, compared to 25 per cent for social media influencers. At the same time, 57 per cent of children are influenced by product ads on Instagram.
The type of content children are viewing also has an impact on how influenced they are. Online videos (24 per cent) are the most impactful, followed by social media post and TV ads (both 19 per cent).
Interestingly, the research also found that Amazon is already very prominent in the minds of Generation Alpha – being one of their most recognised and well-liked brands. 90 per cent of 13 to 16-year olds, 88 per cent of 10 to 12-year olds, and 74 per cent of six to nine-year olds have heard of the eCommerce giant. Furthermore, 70 per cent of children know what Amazon Prime is, 63 per cent know what it does, and 46 per cent have access to an account.
The awareness of Amazon goes further in that 26 per cent of respondents said they buy most of their products from shopping behemoth – second only to the supermarket. But there is still room for brands and retailers to reverse Amazon’s conditioning, with 66 per cent of kids saying they like to buy from companies that are doing good in the world.
“Today's younger generation wants it all and have been conditioned by Amazon to expect it all, too,” said Stewart. “Retailers and brands need to not just think about the next one or two years, but also the next five to ten. This future will be one where they must work with Amazon to ensure that customers can purchase their goods and services via the Seattle behemoth, whilst also ensuring that their own direct to consumer platforms encourage customers to come directly to them. The only way they can answer that is to look at what services, products and experiences will capture Generation Alpha's future spending power.” | <urn:uuid:65d79ed5-7200-4f36-a624-7e80435d0bd8> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://mobilemarketingmagazine.com/generation-alpha-social-media-influencers-instagram-youtube-amazon-retail-ecommerce-wunderman-thompson-commerce | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572215.27/warc/CC-MAIN-20220815235954-20220816025954-00669.warc.gz | en | 0.967838 | 636 | 1.820313 | 2 |
The Bloomberg School laboratory has just highlighted a potentially dangerous effect of the e-cigarette. This study shows that the aerosols emitted by vaping devices contain high concentrations of heavy metals, including lead.
The study, carried about by Ana Maria Rule, sought to quantify the level of toxic substances present in e-cigarette vapour. The concentration levels that were measured either reached or exceeded levels that are considered safe. An acceptable levels of toxins were established by the US Environmental Protection Agency, an organization that is independent of the United States government. The observed rates of toxicity are almost 25 times higher in aerosols, compared to the amount of toxins found in e-liquids before heating.
Will these findings challenge the supposed benefits of e-cigarettes when compared to traditional cigarettes? Not necessarily. Indeed, the study’s results, published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, should be considered with caution.
The e-cigarette remains a very good alternative to tobacco
First of all, the relevant question is to know where the heavy metals that are inhaled actually come from. The nicotine present in e-liquids is extracted from tobacco leaves. To grow, the plant draws its nutritive resources from the earth. However, the earth is polluted by toxic substances such as lead, arsenic, cadmium, and nickel. Throughout the plant’s existence, it will store these metals in its roots and leaves. Consequently, the dangerous products found in the soil can not only end up in regular tobacco, but also in e-liquids.
However, the study’s results should not alarm vapers. Indeed, the experiment conducted by Dr. Rule is incomplete. In order to come to a clear and unambiguous conclusion, the researcher would have had to perform a comparative study of the amount of metal generated by vaping pens compared to traditional cigarettes.
Farsalinos counter attacks
Additionally, Dr. Konstantinos Farsalinos, known for his research on the impact of e-cigarettes, is very reassuring. After carrying out his own research in 2015, the level of metallic content present in aerosols only has a minor impact on the health of vapers. He took to Facebook to explain:
“For those asking questions about the latest study on metal emissions from e-cigarettes, here is my comment: The « significant amount » of metals the authors reported they found were measured in ug/kg. In fact they are so low that for some cases (chromium and lead) I calculated that you need to vape more than 100 ml per day in order to exceed the FDA limits for daily intake from inhalational medications.”
And according to David Eaton of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Washington, the e-cigarette remains, for the time being, the best option to quit smoking tobacco. | <urn:uuid:4c6de1d5-15d5-4b12-b6f5-6d784f3652c0> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://blog-vape.com/2018/03/29/controversial-us-study-revives-the-debate-over-vaping-benefits/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572870.85/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817062258-20220817092258-00673.warc.gz | en | 0.955338 | 579 | 3.15625 | 3 |
Calling Silicon Valley. If President Obama isn’t doing this already, he should be.
The clunky start for the federal health care exchange’s online system has done more to discredit Obama’s signature accomplishment than the tea party, death panels and all. It’s the worst product launch since Microsoft Vista in 2007 — and as to which tech nightmare was worse, next time the president chats with Bill Gates, he has bragging rights. It’s not even close.
Almost all tech rollouts are a roller coaster ride, although some edge closer to disaster than others. The more complex the website, the greater the chance of a crash. And this may be the most complex Web rollout ever, given the level of security that Healthcare.gov requires.
Obama says he’s getting his top IT people on it. Where were they for the past two years?
It’s not helping that the president and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are being cagey about the magnitude of the problem. More frank communication would build people’s trust in Obama and inspire faith that he can deliver on his reforms and on the exchange.
Obama said Monday that 19 million people have tried to access the federal health care website, but he’s not saying how many managed to enroll. The success of the entire system hinges on sufficient numbers signing up for insurance — a projected 7 million needed during the first six months.
The president said that “there is no excuse for the problems, and they are being fixed,” promising “24-hour work from some of the best IT talent in the country.” OK, but how about a forthright assessment of how bad things are and how long it could take to sort them out?
If it’s going to take two weeks, the program can recover. If it’s going to be more than a couple of months, the president may need to delay the individual mandate, which requires the uninsured to sign up by March 31 or suffer penalties. He probably can’t decide that yet, but it would be reassuring to let Americans know he understands the impending deadline and will move it if needed.
The question, with this and other technology-based start-ups, is whether the product is sufficiently worthwhile that users will be patient while the bugs are worked out. If they’re not, then it won’t matter if quality, efficient, cost-effective health care was available. | <urn:uuid:dc153abe-9da0-4081-89e5-4a31fd1a671a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/opinion/20131023/obama-should-call-silicon-valley-for-it-help-with-web-rollout-editorial | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280891.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00163-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962331 | 513 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Editor’s Note: This is Kayla Yazzie’s guest essay about a trip to the Grand Canyon East Rim in western Navajo Nation in May. The trip was to the area high above the rim of the Little Colorado and Colorado River called the Confluence. Yazzie is a Grand Canyon Trust intern, and her work ends Aug. 5.
By Kayla Yazzie
Since joining the Grand Canyon Trust, I have been learning about uranium mining, a hydroelectric dam proposal and how these projects affect the tribal communities. These tribes have traditional emergence stories from the confluence of the Colorado and Little Colorado River.
Growing up on the Navajo Nation inspired me to address and take part in environmental solutions, conservation and sustainability efforts, climate change, and helping all the different tribal communities that are affected by these issues. With these goals for my future career, a Fort Lewis College professor introduced me to Grand Canyon Trust because of the passion I have to help tribal communities.
The work that the Grand Canyon Trust does has changed my perspective of the Canyon and the importance it has for the local tribal communities. I used to visit the Grand Canyon for
recreational purposes or just to admire the views because there wasn’t a lot of information for the public on tribes in the region. I am now glad to be more part of these movements that work
towards the benefits for the 11 tribal communities along the Grand Canyon and Little Colorado River.
This means that the river and canyon have sacred sites that the tribal communities want to keep safe. Before the Trust, I didn’t hear much news about these proposed development
projects that were affecting the tribal communities.
Thanks to Delores Wilson Aguirre, who works with Save the Confluence, we were able to visit the Confluence area and some of the local community members.
More awareness needs to be spread about these community members because they still live with no running water or electricity. Most of them have been living in these conditions their
whole lives. This needs to change for them.
Nobody wants to leave the region because there is a traditional and spiritual connection to the land.
I plan to continue helping all tribal communities that are dealing with environmental injustice issues on their land. I also want to keep supporting projects and programs that are working towards the protection of environmental issues among tribal communities.
My goal at the Trust is to recruit and spread awareness to the Native youth about the work that the Grand Canyon Trust has to offer and how people can get involved to help.
I am recruiting Native youth to attend an overnight flyover event that will focus on these sites, along with guest speakers to express their concerns and traditional values of the Grand Canyon and Little Colorado River. The purpose is help others learn about how these projects will affect the tribes that have lived in the area for millennia. We hope that this event will encourage others become passionate in the work to stop these developments.
I hope this event encourages others to become passionate in the work to stop these developments.
I plan to share this event through blogs and video interviews on the Save the Confluence websites and Facebook page and on the Grand Canyon Trust website. | <urn:uuid:458d4796-fd9a-4243-a811-69dfa4b3c667> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://savetheconfluence.com/news/gct-intern-learns-about-how-development-impacts-sacred-sites/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572833.78/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817001643-20220817031643-00273.warc.gz | en | 0.957806 | 647 | 2.109375 | 2 |
The Voyage of Máel Dúin (Immram Maele Dúin) is a medieval Irish mythological romance from around the late 10th century or older. The original consists of both prose and verse parts. The name of the hero may also be spelled as Maelduin, Maeldune, Maildun, or Mailduin.The warrior Ailill Ochair Aghra, a noble of the clan Eóganacht of Ninus, partakes in a raid on another clan's territory. On this raid, he rapes a young prioress. Not long after, Ailill is killed by a band of pirates. The prioress gives birth to a boy. As it is not appropriate for a nun to raise a child, the boy is adopted by the local king and queen, who raise him as one of their own sons.When the boy, Máel Dúin, is a teenager, he learns that the king and the queen are not his real parents. He leaves to meet his father's family, who joyfully receive him. Before long it occurs to Máel Dúin that it is his duty to avenge his father.With a ship and crew, Máel Dúin goes after the pirates and tracks down their island base. Revenge seems close at hand, when a storm arises, casting the seafarers far off into the unknown Western Ocean. A most extraordinary odyssey awaits Máel Dúin and his companions.The Voyage of Máel Dúin is an immram or sea-voyage, a religiously toned genre specific to Irish mythology which tells of sailing expeditions into the otherworldly reaches that supposedly lie west of Ireland. Immrama involve adventures with enchanted islands and encounters with bizarre creatures, phenomena that defy the laws of nature, supernatural people, wise hermits, and much much more.Various translations and adaptions of The Voyage of Máel Dúin exist, although several of them have omitted the detail that Máel Dúin is born of a rape, thereby creating plotholes and obscuring the philosophical themes of the tale.You can read this work online as a non-bowdlerized prose translation, a bowdlerized translation with verses, or retold for children by Joseph Jacobs. Alfred, Lord Tennyson's "The Voyage of Maeldune" is a loose adaptation of the romance.Compare The Voyage of St. Brendan.
- Bowdlerize: The translation by P. W. Joyce and the retelling by Joseph Jacobs omit that Máel Dúin is the product of a rape. This loses the finer points of the original, namely, that Ailill was no better than the pirates that killed him, and that Máel Dúin's perceived duty to avenge his father to restore the family honor is rather questionable to begin with.
- Child by Rape: Máel Dúin owes his existence to a wartime rape.
- Exact Eavesdropping: Each of the two times the seafarers make land at the island of the pirates, they can hear the pirates talk about exactly what they need to know: The first time, the pirates just happen to mention the time when they killed Ailill Ochair Aghra; the second time, they are just discussing how they would react if Máel Dúin happened to turn up right now ...
- Forgiveness: When Máel Dúin finally finds his way back to Ireland and returns to the pirate fort, he forgives the men who killed his father.
- Giant Flyer: At the island of the magical lake, the voyagers see a bird so large they initially think it's a cloud, and which carries in its beak a twig as large as an oak tree.
- Fountain of Youth: The giant bird they meet on the island of the magical lake rejuvenates itself by bathing in the lake. Diuran the Rhymer tries it too and is permanently rejuvenated.
- Killer Rabbit: The Palace of the Kitten is only inhabited by a playful kitten. But when one of Máel Dúin's companions tries to steal a necklace from the treasure piled up in the palace, the kitten jumps at him and burns him into a heap of ashes in a matter of seconds. Then it goes right back to his play.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: On their voyage, Máel Dúin and his crew meet giant ants, a monstrous dog-horse hybrid, and herds of carnivorous horses and burning pigs; but none of the creatures they encounter is more bizarre than the Twisting Beast of island #9—a huge monster "with a hide like an elephant" that spends his time alternately running in circles and engaging in some really strange exercises:He turned round and round in his leathery skin;
His bones and his flesh and his sinews he rolled—
He was resting outside while he twisted within!
Then, changing his practice with marvellous skill,
His carcase stood rigid and round went his hide;
It whirled round his bones like the wheel of a mill—
He was resting within while he twisted outside!
Next, standing quite near on a green little hill,
After galloping round in the very same track,
While the skin of his belly stood perfectly still,
Like a millstone he twisted the skin of his back!
- Revenge: Máel Dúin sets out to sea to avenge his father. Things do not go as smoothly as planned. | <urn:uuid:6dd1f15f-3074-42d4-bce5-78be20836988> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/TheVoyageOfMaelDuin | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284405.58/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00039-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966349 | 1,153 | 2.828125 | 3 |
|12 August 2013
Project to protect Indian megalithic sites
The India State Archaeology Department will soon launch a mega project to identify and explore megalithic monuments lying scattered across the Country. The initiative is a run-up to a mission to identify and protect megalithic sites and artifacts of historical importance that go unnoticed and unprotected on private lands.
Experts and researchers will conduct the statewide exploration to identify the sites. The initiative comes in the backdrop of the limitations the department faces to protect monuments in areas under private ownership. "Numerous megalithic monuments like rock-cut caves, muniyaras (dolmens), Jain pillars and umbrella rocks are laying unidentified and unprotected in different parts of the state," said Dr Premkumar, director of the Archaeological Department.
"A survey on archaeological remains in two panchayats (local self-governments) in Idukki district has already been completed. Many interesting findings have emerged out of the study and we will publish a record of the sites and findings soon. Similar surveys would be conducted in all districts and each district will have a book on the sites of archaeological importance, especially megalithic sites," Dr Premkumar added. "I have also submitted a proposal with detailed plan to buy and protect megalithic sites that fall under private ownership."
A detailed study was also planned to understand the archaeological history of Madayippara in Kannur. "A rock-cut cave was found on a private land near the Jagannath Temple in Thalassery recently. Another site was found in Kozhikode," Dr Premkumar said. An archaeologist had visited the site near the Jagannath Temple to assess the period.
Edited from The New Indian Express (12 August 2013)
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The following is an excerpt from Judith Orloff’s book The Ecstasy of Surrender: 12 Surprising Ways Letting Go Can Empower Your Life.
Emotions are a stunning expression of our energy, the “vibe” we give off. We register these with intuition. Some people feel good to be around; they improve your mood and vitality. Others are draining; you instinctively want to get away. This “subtle energy” can be felt inches or feet from the body, though it‘s invisible. Indigenous cultures honor this energy as life force. In Chinese medicine it‘s called chi, a vitality that‘s essential to health. Though the molecular structure of subtle energy isn’t fully defined, scientists have measured increased photon emissions and electromagnetic readings about healers who emit it during their work.
Emotional energy is contagious. It can make the difference between a toxic and healthy relationship. It’s crucial to get a clear read on this aspect of anyone you plan to regularly interact with. Then, you can decide whether a relationship is feasible based on your energetic compatibility. In my medical practice and life this chemistry is a deal breaker. Experience has taught me that it’s pointless to work with a patient or form a friendship if such basic rapport isn’t there. You don’t have to force a fit when the energy feels right. Forcing anything is simply the mind’s attempt to interfere with flow. Of course, we all have quirks, anxieties, and fears, but energy cements your bond with others and motivates you to work through the rough spots. Nevertheless, healthy relationships have a momentum that carries them, a surrender that feels more natural when you‘re both in sync.
When reading emotions, realize that what others say or how they appear frequently don‘t match their energy. You must let go of the notion that what you see is what you always get. As a psychiatrist, I’ve observed how people go to great lengths, purposely or not, to appear in certain ways—either to impress, say the right thing, or sell you on something—but this “self” isn’t aligned with their true emotions. Consider these examples: your spouse apologizes for blowing up but her hostility still lingers. A man you just met tries to charm you, but you don’t feel much heart there. A friend seems cheerful but you sense that she’s hurting inside. Realize: just because people smile doesn’t mean they’re happy. Or just because people are reserved, doesn’t mean they’re not ecstatic. Ultimately, the energy transmitted by someone’s smile and presence tells the truth about where they’re at. So, be smart enough to correlate a person’s energy with their emotions. Most people aren’t being intentionally misleading—often they don‘t know what they feel or project. They might tell you one thing—and believe it—but you’ll learn to decode their emotions.
Here, the surrender to focus on is saying “yes” to the messages your body sends. Your mind may want to talk you out of your body’s wisdom. Don’t allow it to. Reading energy lets you attune to how you relate to people, who you feel comfortable around and who you don’t. To avoid bad relationships and regrets, you must let go of trying to convince yourself of anything the body’s intuition doesn’t affirm. To help with this surrender, here’s what to do. When identifying how you energetically respond to others always ask, How does my body feel? Does my energy go up or down? Then follow your body’s lead rather than resisting it. In practical terms this means: you want to marry someone who increases your energy not drains it, regardless of how perfect he or she looks on paper. You want to sit beside a coworker who’s positive, not negative. You want to choose friends you resonate with so that you can nurture each other. Then notice the positive difference in your life. To experience the pleasure of compatible relationships, use the following tips.
Strategies to read emotional energy
Sense people’s presence – This is the overall energy we emit, not necessarily congruent with words or behavior. It‘s the emotional atmosphere surrounding us like a rain cloud or the sun. For instance, they may give off an aura of mystery, joy, or sadness. To compare extremes, think of the Dalai Lama‘s light, compassionate presence versus Charles Manson’s deranged darkness. Presence is also associated with charisma, a personal magnetism that you‘re drawn to. Warning: charisma doesn’t always contain heart, something to beware of. Charisma without heart can’t be trusted. It’s a dangerous combination present in many con artists and seducers.
As you read people notice: does their overall energy feel warm? Calming? Uplifting? Invigorating like a breath of fresh air? Or is it draining? Cold? Detached? Angry? Jarring? Depressed? Do they have a friendly presence that attracts you? Or are you getting the willies, making you back off. Also see if people look anchored in their bodies, indicating their feet are firmly planted on the ground. Or are they floating outside themselves, which may indicate flakiness and distractibility?
Watch people’s eyes – We can make love or hate with our eyes. Our eyes transmit powerful energies, what the Sufi poet Rumi calls “the glance.” Just as the brain has an electromagnetic signal extending beyond the body, studies indicate that the eyes project this too. In fact, research reveals that people can sense when they‘re being stared at, even when no one is in sight—an experience reported by police officers, soldiers and hunters. Indigenous cultures respect the energy of the eyes. Some believe that the “evil eye” is a gaze that inflicts injury or bad luck on its target. Also, science has documented “the look of love.” Joining eyes with a loved one (or dog!) triggers a biochemical response, releasing oxytocin, the warm and fuzzy “love hormone.” The more oxytocin your brain has, the more trusting and peaceful you’ll feel.
Take time to observe people’s eyes. Are they caring? Sexy? Tranquil? Mean? Angry? The way others look at you can make you feel adored or afraid. Also determine: is there someone at home in their eyes, indicating a capacity for intimacy? Or do they seem to be guarded or hiding? Certain people’s eyes can be hypnotic. Avoid looking deeply into eyes you distrust or sense may be dangerous. The less you engage negative people, the less they’ll zone in on you. On the other hand, feel free to fall into people’s eyes who you cherish. Enjoy all that beautiful energy!
Notice the feel of a handshake, hug and touch – We share emotional energy through physical contact much like an electrical current. Ask yourself: Does a handshake or hug feel warm, comfortable, confident? Or is it off-putting so you want to withdraw? Are people’s hands clammy, signaling anxiety. Or limp, suggesting being non-committal and timid? Is their grip too strong, even crushing your fingers, indicating aggression or over control? Along with physical cues, the energy of touch reveals people’s emotions. Some hugs and handshakes impart kindness, joy, and calm whereas others feel clingy, draining, even hostile. Therefore, spend time with people whose energy you like. Be wary of those you don’t so you‘re not depleted. Avoid physical contact (including making love) with anyone whose energy doesn’t feel good.
Listen for people’s tone of voice and laugh – The tone and volume of our voice can tell much about our emotions. Sound frequencies create vibrations. Some frequencies we hear. Below an audible range, sound can be felt (think of a bass vibration.) When reading people, notice how their tone of voice affects you. Words ride the energy of tone, its warmth and coldness. Ask yourself: Does their tone feel soothing? Or is it abrasive, snippy, or whiny? Are they a soft-talker or mumbler whom you can barely hear, signs of meekness or low self-esteem? Or do they talk too loud or too much, signs of anxiety, narcissism, or insensitivity. Are they fast-talkers, trying to sell you something? Or boring you to death with a slow monotone, suggesting depression and no spontaneity? Be aware of sighing which relays sadness or frustration. Also, a pinched voice suggests emotional repression, over control, or a thyroid disorder. Always observe how much people laugh, a sign of lightheartedness. Does their laugh sound genuine? Fake? Child-like? Joyous? Or are they overly serious, rarely laughing? In addition, FBI profilers interpret a quivering voice and sudden change in pitch as potential signs of deception.
Sense people’s heart energy – The most important aspect to read about energy is whether people exude a sense of heart. This is the loving-kindness in us, our capacity for empathy, giving and connection. When heart is present you‘ll feel the warmth of unconditional love emanating from others which makes you feel safe and at ease. It‘s the unspoken sense of being accepted, not judged. No one can fake this. Our heart presence builds through our good intentions, deeds and emotional work to overcome fear and negativity. The heart is the most positive quality anyone can have. It‘s healthy to be drawn to it.
Reading energy is a game-changer where intense emotions blur your clarity. It enables you to see past fantasies or desires to pinpoint someone‘s motivations by sensing invisible messages they give off. I was once attracted to a man, a successful financial manager who knew exactly what to say to melt my heart. Todd was from the country club set and much too conservative for my taste—I often fall for wild, creative men. Yet he was smart, boyishly playful, seemed to “see” me and respect my sensitivities. We could discuss anything from politics to the nature of the universe and he’d speak to me in an appreciative low tone of voice I melted around (I’m very responsive to sound). Still, from the start, when I looked into Todd’s eyes, I had the oddest feeling—there was no “there” there. His eyes seemed cold, vacant, even a touch mean. However, for better or worse, I was drawn to him, which doesn’t happen to me every day. I really wanted to surrender to my romantic feelings for Todd, to explain away the niggling truth his eyes conveyed, though I knew I ignored this red flag at my own peril. But, as the desiring mind can do when it wants something, it downplayed intuition. I rationalized, “You‘re just too picky. Todd is wonderful. It‘s crazy to let his eyes stop me.” My friends also told me this, and I agreed. So, for a year, I stayed in the relationship. But in the end, this man‘s eyes revealed his true colors.
The problem was that Todd was a super-smooth operator and my raging hormones were blinding me. Also, I was naive. I confused his seductive energy with heartfelt caring and was horribly susceptible to the charisma he wielded so well. It was a perfect storm of forces I didn’t have a handle on. I needed to sort them through before I could read him from a neutral place which at that time was light years away. A policy of mine is to study what makes me weak or strong, so I can learn from it. If something knocks me off my center I want to know why and not repeat the situation. To break Todd’s spell, I had to grasp that what excited him most was not to love me but to have power over me. I just couldn’t grasp how he or anyone could feel that way. He‘d reel me in with gorgeous intimacy, then be unavailable. Or he‘d be incredibly sensitive, then incredibly cold. I kept wracking my brains, “What could he possibly be getting from this.” Slowly, I came to understand that he got off on the rush of being in control. For him, it was an aphrodisiac. I didn’t operate like this, nor had that been a dynamic in my past relationships. But, thanks to Todd, I can recognize it now. In retrospect, I‘m grateful to have learned this lesson about power versus love from a perfect teacher. Also, I realized that once again, I’d talked myself out of intuition in favor of passion. I’d surrendered to the wrong thing, to what I wanted, rather than what I “saw.” However, being human, sometimes I have to keep making the same mistakes until I finally learn. Today, I value the energy of the eyes more than ever. It communicates an essence in someone if we can trust this.
In your life, get used to reading people’s emotions. Factor what you sense into your total assessment. Maybe just a single red flag will appear so you‘re not sure what to do. Then, take your time. Watch how people treat you. Notice if their words back up their behavior. The purpose of reading energy is to become more empathic by sensing the nuances of different personalities. Stay alert to the signals energy sends so that you can see the whole person.
Be sure to check out Judith Orloff’s book The Ecstasy of Surrender: 12 Surprising Ways Letting Go Can Empower Your Life.
Related BodyMindSoulSpirit Articles:
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Scotland (Scots: Scotland, Scottish Gaelic: Alba [ˈal̪ˠapə] (listen)) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a 96-mile (154-kilometre) border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, the North Sea to the northeast and the Irish Sea to the south. It also contains more than 790 islands, principally in the archipelagos of the Hebrides and the Northern Isles. Most of the population, including the capital Edinburgh, is concentrated in the Central Belt—the plain between the Scottish Highlands and the Southern Uplands—in the Scottish Lowlands.
Alba (Scottish Gaelic)
|Motto: "In My Defens God Me Defend" (Scots)|
"In my defence God me defend"
|Ethnic groups |
—32.4% Church of Scotland
—15.9% Roman Catholic
—5.5% Other Christian
36.7% No religion
|Government||Devolved parliamentary legislature within a constitutional monarchy|
|Parliament of the United Kingdom|
|• Secretary of State||Alister Jack|
|• House of Commons||59 MPs (of 650)|
|9th century (traditionally 843)|
|17 March 1328|
|3 October 1357|
|1 May 1707|
|19 November 1998|
|77,933 km2 (30,090 sq mi)|
• Water (%)
• 2019 estimate
• 2011 census
|67.5/km2 (174.8/sq mi)|
|GDP (nominal)||2019 estimate|
|£166 billion |
• Per capita
|Currency||Pound sterling (GBP; £)|
|Time zone||UTC (Greenwich Mean Time)|
• Summer (DST)
|UTC+1 (British Summer Time)|
|Date format||dd/mm/yyyy (AD)|
|ISO 3166 code||GB-SCT|
Scotland is divided into 32 administrative subdivisions or local authorities, known as council areas. Glasgow City is the largest council area in terms of population, with Highland being the largest in terms of area. Limited self-governing power, covering matters such as education, social services and roads and transportation, is devolved from the Scottish Government to each subdivision. Scotland is the second-largest country in the United Kingdom, and accounted for 8.3% of the population in 2012.
The Kingdom of Scotland emerged as an independent sovereign state in the 9th century and continued to exist until 1707. By inheritance in 1603, James VI of Scotland became king of England and Ireland, thus forming a personal union of the three kingdoms. Scotland subsequently entered into a political union with the Kingdom of England on 1 May 1707 to create the new Kingdom of Great Britain. The union also created the Parliament of Great Britain, which succeeded both the Parliament of Scotland and the Parliament of England. In 1801, the Kingdom of Great Britain entered into a political union with the Kingdom of Ireland to create the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (in 1922, the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being officially renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in 1927).
Within Scotland, the monarchy of the United Kingdom has continued to use a variety of styles, titles and other royal symbols of statehood specific to the pre-union Kingdom of Scotland. The legal system within Scotland has also remained separate from those of England and Wales and Northern Ireland; Scotland constitutes a distinct jurisdiction in both public and private law. The continued existence of legal, educational, religious and other institutions distinct from those in the remainder of the UK have all contributed to the continuation of Scottish culture and national identity since the 1707 incorporating union with England.
In 1999, a Scottish Parliament was re-established, in the form of a devolved unicameral legislature comprising 129 members, having authority over many areas of domestic policy. The head of the Scottish Government is the first minister of Scotland, who is supported by the deputy first minister of Scotland. Scotland is represented in the United Kingdom Parliament by 59 MPs. It is also a member of the British–Irish Council, sending five members of the Scottish Parliament to the British–Irish Parliamentary Assembly, as well as being part of the Joint Ministerial Committee, represented by the first minister. | <urn:uuid:841ede60-60de-4a64-ad00-6758bfea35cd> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.worddisk.com/wiki/Scotland/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573193.35/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818094131-20220818124131-00478.warc.gz | en | 0.913833 | 1,193 | 2.6875 | 3 |
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) – The massive Naval Station Norfolk says its employees should not leave their vehicles parked at the base because of the possibility of flooding from the approaching Hurricane Florence. The station, the largest naval complex in the world, said in a Facebook post that much of the base is prone to heavy flooding, especially the parking lots adjacent to the waterfront. It posted photos showing heavy flooding from previous storms. Florence turned into a hurricane Sunday morning and was swirling toward the U.S. for what forecasters said could be a direct hit on the Southeast toward the end of the week. The National Hurricane Center said it was still too early to predict the hurricane’s exact path. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency Saturday, saying it was becoming increasingly likely that the state could see significant impacts. | <urn:uuid:48d1f785-eb8f-4ebd-94d3-922fd5fa4c88> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://wlni.com/ahead-of-florence-norfolk-navy-base-says-flooding-likely/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573623.4/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819035957-20220819065957-00675.warc.gz | en | 0.970878 | 169 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Cuba Travel Guidefrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Republic of Cuba (Spanish: República de Cuba, IPA: [re’pußlika ðe ’kußa]) is a country consisting of the island of Cuba (the largest of the Greater Antilles), the Isle of Youth and adjacent small islands. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean at the confluence of the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Cuba is south of the eastern United States, and the Bahamas, west of the Turks and Caicos Islands and Haiti, and east of Mexico. The Cayman Islands and Jamaica are south of eastern Cuba.
Cuba is a socialist republic, in which the Communist Party of Cuba is the sole legal political party. Cuba is the only state in the western hemisphere that is not a democracy.
Geographic Coordinates: 23°8’N 82°23’W
The recorded history of Cuba began on 28 October 1492, when Christopher Columbus sighted the island during his first voyage of discovery and claimed it for Spain. The island had been inhabited for at least several thousand years by Amerindian peoples known as the Taíno and Ciboney. The Taíno were farmers and the Ciboney were hunter-gatherers. The name Cuba is derived from the Taíno word cubanacán, meaning "a central place."
The coast of Cuba was fully mapped by Sebastian de Ocampo in 1511, and in that year Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar founded the first Spanish settlement at Baracoa. Others towns, including Havana (founded in 1515), soon followed. The Spanish, as they did everywhere in the Americas, oppressed and enslaved the indigenous population, who soon died out as a result of the combined effects of disease and mistreatment. The settlers then introduced African slaves, who soon made up a significant proportion of the population.
Cuba was a Spanish possession for 388 years, ruled by a governor in Havana, with an economy based on plantation agriculture and the export of sugar, coffee and tobacco to Europe, and later to North America. It was seized by the British in 1762 but restored to Spain the following year. The Spanish population was boosted by settlers leaving Haiti when that territory was ceded to France. As in other parts of the Spanish Empire, a small land-owning elite of Spanish-descended settlers held social and economic power, served by a mixed-race population of small farmers, labourers and slaves.
In the 1820s, when the other parts of Spain’s empire in Latin America rebelled and formed independent states, Cuba remained loyal, although there was some agitation for independence. This was partly because the prosperity of the Cuban settlers depended on their export trade to Europe, partly through fears of a slave rebellion (as had happened in Haiti) if the Spanish withdrew, and partly because the Cubans feared the rising power of the United States more than they disliked Spanish colonial rule.
Cuba’s proximity to the U.S. has been a powerful influence on its history. Southern politicians in the U.S. plotted the island’s annexation as a means of strengthening the pro-slavery forces in the U.S. throughout the 19th century, and there was usually a party in Cuba which supported such a policy. In 1848 a pro-annexationist rebellion was defeated, and there were several attempts by annexationist forces to invade the island from Florida. There were also regular proposals in the U.S. to buy Cuba from Spain, but Spain always refused to consider ceding its last possession in the Americas.
After the American Civil War apparently ended the threat of pro-slavery annexationism, agitation for independence revived, leading to a rebellion in 1868. This led to a prolonged conflict known as the Ten Years War between pro-independence forces and the Spanish and their local allies. There was much sympathy in the U.S. for the independence cause, and some unofficial aid was sent, but the U.S. declined to intervene militarily. In 1878 the Peace of Zanjon ended the conflict, with Spanish promises of greater autonomy.
The island was exhausted after this long conflict and pro-independence agitation temporarily died down. There was also a prevalent fear that if the Spanish withdrew or if there was further civil strife, the increasingly expansionist U.S. would step in and annex the island. Partly in response to U.S. pressure, slavery was abolished in 1886, although the African-descended minority remained socially and economically oppressed, despite formal civic equality granted in 1893. During this period, rural poverty in Spain led to a substantial Spanish emigration to Cuba – among those arriving were the parents of Fidel Castro.
During the 1890s pro-independence agitation revived, fuelled by resentment of the restrictions imposed on Cuban trade by Spain and hostility to Spain’s increasingly oppressive and incompetent administration of Cuba. On 15 July 1895 rebellion broke out, and the independence party, led by Tomás Estrada Palma and the poet José Martí, proclaimed Cuba an independent republic – Martí was killed shortly after and has become Cuba’s undisputed national hero. The Spanish retaliated with a campaign of ruthless suppression, herding the rural population into concentration camps where hundreds died. In Europe and the U.S., there were fierce protests against Spain’s behaviour.
In 1897, fearing U.S. intervention, Spain moved to a more conciliatory policy, promising home rule with an elected legislature. The rebels rejected this offer and the war for independence continued. Shortly after, on 15 February 1898, the U.S. battleship Maine was mysteriously blown up in Havana harbour, killing 266 men. Forces in the U.S. favouring intervention in Cuba seized on this incident to accuse Spain of blowing up the ship (although Spain had no motive for doing so, and there was no evidence of Spanish culpability). Swept along on a wave of nationalist sentiment, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution calling for intervention, and President William McKinley was quick to comply.
The result was the Spanish-American War, in which U.S. forces landed in Cuba in June 1898 and quickly overcame Spanish resistance. In August a peace treaty was signed under which Spain agreed to withdraw from Cuba. Some advocates in the U.S. supported Cuban independence, while others argued for outright annexation. As a compromise, the McKinley administration placed Cuba under a 20-year U.S. trusteeship. The Cuban independence movement bitterly opposed this arrangement, but unlike in the Philippines, where events had followed a similar course, there was no outbreak of armed resistance.
Theodore Roosevelt, who had fought in the Spanish-American War in Cuba and had some sympathies with the independence movement, succeeded McKinley as President in 1901 and abandoned the 20-year trusteeship proposal. Instead, the Republic of Cuba gained formal independence on 20 May 1902, with the independence leader Tomás Estrada Palma becoming the country’s first president. Under the new Cuban constitution, however, the U.S. retained the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and to supervise its finances and foreign relations. Under the Platt Amendment, Cuba also agreed to lease to the U.S. the naval base at Guantánamo Bay.
Independent Cuba soon ran into difficulties, as a result of factional disputes and corruption among the small educated elite and the failure of the government to deal with the deep social problems left behind by the Spanish. In 1906, following disputed elections to choose Estrada Palma’s successor, an armed revolt broke out, and the U.S. exercised its right of intervention. The country was placed under U.S. occupation and a U.S. governor took charge for two years. In 1908 self-government was restored when José Miguel Gómez was elected President, but the U.S. retained its supervision of Cuban affairs. Despite frequent outbreaks of disorder, however, constitutional government was maintained until 1925, when Gerardo Machado y Morales, having been elected President, suspended the constitution and made himself Cuba’s first dictator.
Machado was a Cuban nationalist, and his regime had considerable local support despite its violent suppression of critics. During his tenure Cubans gained greater control over their own economy and some important national development projects were undertaken. His hold on power was weakened by the Great Depression, which drove down the price of Cuba’s agricultural exports and caused widespread poverty. In August 1933 elements of the Cuban army staged a coup which deposed Machado and installed Carlos Manuel de Céspedes as President. In September, however, a second coup led by Sergeant Fulgencio Batista overthrew Céspedes and replaced him with Carlos Mendieta y Montefur.
One of the objectives of the "sergeants’ revolt" was to restore Cuban sovereignty, and in 1934 the new administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt agreed to end the formal U.S. role in Cuban affairs as part of its Good Neighbor Policy towards Latin America. Batista and the army became the real centre of power in Cuba, behind a series of transient presidents. In 1940 Batista decided to run for President himself. The leader of the constitutional liberals, Ramón Grau San Martín, refused to support him, so he turned instead to the Communist Party of Cuba, which had grown in size and influence during the 1930s.
With the support of the Communist-controlled labour unions, Batista was elected President, and his administration carried out major social reforms and introduced a new progressive constitution. Several members of the Communist Party held office under his administration. At the end of his term in 1944, in accordance with the constitution, Batista stood down and Ramón Grau was elected to succeed him. Grau’s administration took Cuba into World War II as a U.S. ally, and he used his wartime powers to increase government spending on health, education and housing. But Grau’s liberals were bitter enemies of the Communists, and Batista opposed most of Grau’s programme.
In 1948 Grau was succeeded by another liberal, Carlos Prío Socarrás, who had been Grau’s minister of labour and was particularly hated by the Communists. Prío was a less principled liberal than Grau, and under his administration corruption increased. This was partly a result of the postwar revival of U.S. wealth and the consequent influx of gambling money into Havana, which became a centre of mafia operations. Nevertheless Prío carried out major reforms such as founding a National Bank and stabilising the Cuban currency. The influx of North American money fuelled a boom which did much to raise living standards, although the gap between rich and poor became wider and more obvious.
From Batista to Castro
The 1952 election was contested between Roberto Agramonte of the liberals and Batista, who was seeking a return to office. When it became apparent that Batista had no chance of winning, he staged a coup on 10 March 1952, and held power with the backing of a nationalist section of the army, and of the Communists, as a "provisional president" for the next two years. In 1954, under pressure from the U.S., he agreed to elections. The liberals put forward ex-President Grau as their candidate, but he withdrew amid allegations that Batista was rigging the elections in advance. Batista could now claim to be an elected President, and his regime tolerated a considerable amount of dissent. By Latin American standards, Batista was a very mild dictator.
This changed in 1956, when a party of rebels, mostly idealistic young nationalists, and including Fidel Castro, landed in a boat from Mexico and tried to start a resistance movement in the Sierra Maestra mountains. (Castro had gone to Mexico after being released from prison, where he was serving a sentence for his part in a 1953 rebel attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba.) Batista’s forces killed most of the rebels, but enough survived to maintain a low-level insurgency in the mountains. In response, Batista made the mistake of launching a campaign of repression against the opposition, which only served to increase support for the insurgency.
Through 1957 and 1958 opposition to Batista grew, among the middle class and the students, in the Catholic Church and in the rural areas. The United States government imposed an arms embargo on the Cuban government on March 14, 1958. The urban trade unions, however, were under the control of either Communists or the mafia, both strong supporters (for different reasons) of Batista’s regime, and attempts to organise general strikes against Batista always failed. By late 1958 the rebels had succeeded in breaking out of the Sierra Maestra and launched a general insurrection, joined by hundreds of students and others fleeing Batista’s crackdown on dissent in the cities. When the rebels captured Santa Clara, east of Havana, Batista decided the struggle was futile and fled the country to exile in Portugal and Spain. Castro’s rebel forces entered the capital on 1 January 1959.
Castro and Communism
Fidel Castro became Prime Minister of Cuba in February 1959, and has held effective power in the country ever since. (By 2006 he was the world’s longest-ruling head of government.) So far as was known, he was a constitutional liberal and nationalist, even if a radical one, and his victory was generally welcomed both in Cuba and in the U.S., although the summary execution of about 500 police officers and other agents of the Batista regime aroused immediate disquiet. During 1959 Castro’s government carried out popular measures such as land reform, the nationalization of public utilities, the ruthless suppression of corruption, including closing down the gambling industry and evicting the American mafiosi.
Unbeknown to most outsiders, however, was the powerful influence within Castro’s government of Ernesto "Che" Guevara, an Argentinian Communist and one of Castro’s closest advisers. Guevara formed an alliance with Castro’s ambitious brother, Raúl Castro, to persuade Fidel Castro to align himself with the Communists and thus with the Soviet Union. Guevara also played the key role in persuading the Cuban Communist leader, Blas Roca Calderío, to abandon his hostility to Castro and work instead to gain control of the revolutionary government from within. Roca was persuaded, and he informed the Soviet leadership of the possibility of winning Castro over. The Soviets at once seized the chance of gaining a political foothold in the Americas and promised unlimited aid and support if Castro declared himself for Communism.
Meanwhile, attitudes towards the Cuban revolution in the U.S. were changing rapidly. While the Eisenhower administration had initially welcomed Batista’s fall, the nationalization of U.S. owned companies (to an estimated value of US$1 billion) and the expulsion of many political conservatives with influential friends in the U.S. aroused immediate hostility, and the Cuban exiles soon became the powerful lobby group in the U.S. that they have been ever since. Although Castro himself was not believed to be a Communist, the U.S. was well informed about the role of Guevara and the rapid warming of relations between Castro and the Cuban Communists. Thus the U.S. became increasingly hostile to Castro during 1959. This in turn served to drive Castro away from the liberal elements of his revolutionary movement and into the arms of the Communists.
In October 1959 Castro declared himself to be friendly towards communism, though not yet a Communist himself, and the liberal and other anti-Communist elements of the government were purged, with many who had initially supported the revolution fleeing the country to join the growing exile community in Miami. In March 1960 the first aid agreements were signed with the Soviet Union. In the context of the Cold War, the U.S. saw the establishment of a Soviet base of influence in the Americas as intolerable, and plans were approved to remove Castro from power (see The Cuban Project). In late 1960 a trade embargo was imposed, which naturally drove Castro further towards the Soviet alliance. At the same time the administration authorized plans for an invasion of Cuba by Florida-based exiles, timed to coincide with an anti-Castro rising. The result was the Bay of Pigs Invasion of April 1961 – the rising did not take place and the invasion force was routed. This gave Castro all the excuse he needed to establish a full-blown Communist state, which he did in May 1961.
The immediate result of the Cuban-Soviet alliance was the Soviet decision to place intermediate range ballistic missiles in Cuba, which precipitated the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, during which President John F. Kennedy threatened the Soviet Union with nuclear war unless the missiles were withdrawn. Eventually the Soviets backed down. In the aftermath of this there was a resumption of contacts between the U.S. and Castro, resulting in the release of the anti-Castro fighters captured at the Bay of Pigs in exchange for a package of aid. But during 1963 relations deteriorated again as Castro moved Cuba towards a fully-fledged Communist system modelled on the Soviet Union. The U.S. imposed a complete diplomatic and commercial embargo on Cuba. At this time U.S. influence in Latin America was strong enough to make the embargo very effective, and Cuba was forced to direct virtually all its trade to the Soviet Union and its allies.
In 1965 Castro merged his revolutionary organisations with the Communist Party, of which he became First Secretary, with Blas Roca as Second Secretary – later to be succeeded by Raúl Castro, who as Defence Minister and Fidel’s closest confidante became and has remained the second most powerful figure in the government. Raúl Castro’s position was strengthened by the departure of Che Guevara to launch an unsuccessful attempt at an insurrectionary movement in Bolivia, where he was killed in 1967. Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado, President of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, was always regarded by many outside observers as a figurehead of little importance. Castro introduced a new constitution in 1976 under which he became President himself, while remaining chairman of the Council of Ministers.
During the 1970s Castro moved onto the world stage as a leading spokesperson for Third World "anti-imperialist" governments and anti-Americanism generally. On a more concrete level, he provided invaluable military assistance to pro-Soviet forces in Angola, Ethiopia, Yemen and other African and Middle East trouble spots. Cuban forces were decisive in helping the MPLA forces win the Angolan civil war in 1975. Although the bills for these expeditionary forces were paid by the Soviets, they placed a considerable strain on Cuba’s economy and manpower resources. Cuba was also hampered by its continuing dependency on sugar exports. The Soviets were forced to buy the entire Cuban sugar crop to provide further economic assistance to Cuba, even though the Soviet Union grew enough sugar beet to meet its own needs. In exchange the Soviets had to supply Cuba with all its oil, since it could not import oil from any other source.
Cuba’s economic dependence on the Soviet Union was deepened by Castro’s determination to build his vision of a socialist society in Cuba. This entailed the provision of free health care and education for the entire population. Through the 1970s and ‘80s the Soviets were prepared to subsidise all this in exchange for the rather dubious strategic asset of an ally under the noses of the United States and the undoubted propaganda value of Castro’s considerable prestige in the developing world.
By the 1970s the ability of the U.S. to keep Cuba isolated was declining. Cuba had been expelled from the Organization of American States in 1962, and the OAS had co-operated with the U.S. trade boycott for the next decade, but in 1975 the OAS lifted all sanctions against Cuba, and both Mexico and Canada defied the U.S. by developing closer relations with Cuba. Both countries said that they hoped to foster liberalization in Cuba by allowing trade, cultural and diplomatic contacts to resume – in this they were disappointed, since there was no appreciable easing of repression against domestic opposition. Castro did stop openly supporting insurrectionary movements against Latin American governments, although pro-Castro groups continued to fight the military dictatorships which then controlled most Latin American countries.
In the five years after 1959 around one million (about 10% of the population) Cubans migrated to the U.S., and there was a further surge of emigration in 1980 when Castro temporarily lifted restrictions on emigration (see Mariel Boatlift). Altogether about 2 million Cubans have emigrated since 1959. The Cuban exile community in the U.S. grew in size, wealth and power, and became a potent force preventing any liberalization of U.S. policy towards Cuba, particularly when the Republican Party is in office. But the efforts of the exiles to foment an anti-Castro movement inside Cuba, let alone a revolution there, were consistently unsuccessful. Although many Cubans depended on money sent home by exile relatives in the U.S., Cubans in Cuba appeared to have little liking for the anti-Castro exiles, even if they also opposed Castro. The powerful personality of the Cuban leader, his successful exploitation of anti-American sentiment, and the material benefits which the Cuban version of socialism brought to the Cuban people, particularly the poor, maintained his personal popularity.
After two decades of government without elections, repetitive failures of economic experiments, lack of freedom and respect for basic human rights made discontent among Cuban population to grow. In April 1980 over 10,000 Cubans stormed the Peruvian embassy in Havana seeking political asylum. In response to this, Castro allowed anyone who desired to leave the country to do so through the port of Mariel. Under the Mariel boatlift, over 125,000 Cubans migrated to the United States. Eventually the United States stopped the flow of vessels and Cuba ended the uncontrolled exodus.
The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 dealt Cuba a giant economic blow. This led to another unregulated exodus of asylum seekers to the United States in 1994, which was slowed to a trickle of a few thousand a year by the U.S.-Cuban accords. Now it is increasing again although at a far slower rate than before Castro’s popularity was severely tested by the aftermath of the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. This led to a cutoff in aid, the loss of a guaranteed export market for Cuban sugar, and the loss of a source of cheap imported oil. It also caused, as in all Communist countries, a crisis in confidence for those who believed that the Soviet Union was successfully "building socialism" and provided a model that other countries should follow. In Cuba, however, this crisis was not sufficient to persuade Cuban Communists that they should voluntarily give up power, nor was the economic crisis grave enough to bring about the fall of the revolutionary government.
This was a grave disappointment for the anti-Castro exiles, who in the early 1990s believed that their return to Cuba, and (as they hoped) to power, was imminent. By the later 1990s the situation in Cuba had stabilised. By then Cuba had more or less normal economic relations with most Latin American countries and had improved relations with the European Union, which began providing aid and loans to the island. China also emerged as a new source of aid and support, even though Cuba had sided with the Soviets during the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s. Cuba also found a new ally in President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, a major oil exporter. Nevertheless, the economic situation remained precarious, and Cuba’s ability to go on maintaining its elaborate system of state-provided health care and education from its own resources was doubted by many economists.
In other ways Castro was more isolated than ever. In the 1960s and ‘70s defenders of his government had been able to claim that although Cuba might not be a parliamentary democracy, nor were most other countries in Latin America, and the Cuban model at least combined authoritarianism with social justice. On this argument, Castro compared well with such figures as Augusto Pinochet of Chile or the military rulers of Brazil and Argentina. By the turn of the century, however, critics say that this argument had lost its force, since every other country in Latin America had become a democracy (the only partial exception being Haiti), and many were electing moderate left-wingers such as Ricardo Lagos, Nestor Kirchner and Luis Inácio da Silva, who were promising social reform without the need for political repression. With the disappearance of the right-wing dictator as a feature of Latin American politics, Castro seemed to some as an increasingly anachronistic figure.
Government and politics
Cuba has a one-party political system where the Communist Party of Cuba holds the monopoly of political power, under the aegis of First Secretary, Fidel Castro. Under the current political system, Castro, concurrently is President of the country, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba (CPC), Head of the Council of Ministers and Head of the Council of State. Thus, Castro simultaneously is Head of State and Head of Government.
The Cuban constitution states that, "the Communist Party of Cuba... is the superior guiding force of society and the state." No other political parties are permitted. The Party leadership profess that Cuba is a centralized democracy, meaning that decision-making and popular participation occurs within mass organizations, institutionalized by the state. The Constitution and the Penal Code allow for severe sanctions against activities deemed "counter-revolutionary" and a "threat to national security". Political dissidents are pursued by the authorities.
Cuba elects a national legislature, the National Assembly of People’s Power (Asamblea Nacional de Poder Popular), which has 609 members, every five years in elections. Municipal assemblies are elected every two and a half years. No political party, including the Communist Party of Cuba, is permitted to nominate or campaign for any candidate. Candidates are nominated at local levels by the local population at small "Town Hall" type meetings. Suffrage is afforded to Cuban citizens resident for two years on the island who are aged over sixteen years and who have not been found guilty of a criminal offence. In later years independent candidates have been nominally allowed to participate. Involvement in decision-making and implementation through non-political actors has been institutionalised through national organisations, linked to the Communist Party, representing farmers, youth groups, students, women, industrial workers, etc.
There is much speculation in Cuba and abroad over what will happen to the revolution when Castro dies. Officially, there is a line of succession in place, and the Cuban government repeatedly proclaims that the transition will be smooth. Cuban dissidents in Cuba and Florida warn that there will be tremendous unrest and bloodshed. The Bush administration has appointed Caleb McCarry "transition coordinator" for Cuba, and given him a budget of $59 million, with the task of overthrowing the Communist regime after Castro’s death. Official Cuban news service Granma alleges that these transition plans were created at the behest of the Miami Mafia, and that McCarry is responsible for engineering the overthrow of the Aristide government in Haiti.
Cuban culture is much influenced by the fact that it is a melting pot of cultures, mostly from Spain and Africa. It has produced more than its fair share of literature, including the output of non-Cubans Stephen Crane, and Ernest Hemingway.
Present State of Cuban Literature
Cuban authors continue to produce large amounts of government-supported printed and electronic work inside the island. However, according to the US State Department’s website, the present Cuban constitution states that all print and electronic media are inalienably state property". The Cuban government also funds a large number of booths at book fairs in Latin America. A good number of university presses in the United States continually present scholarly volumes on various Cuban topics. Authors both for and against the present Cuban government present their views in the U.S. Cuba/Printed sources.
Compendia of Cuban Literature
Cuban music is very rich and is the most commonly known expression of culture. The "central form" of this music is Son, which has been the basis of many other musical styles like salsa and mambo and a slower derivation of mambo, the cha-cha-cha. The Tres was also invented in Cuba, but other traditional Cuban instruments are of African and/or Neo-Taíno nations, multination indigenous origins such as the maracas, güiro, marímba and various wooden drums such as the mayohuacan (’Zayas y Alfonso, 1914) Alfredo Zayas. Popular Cuban music of all styles has been enjoyed and praised widely across the world. Cuban classical music, which includes music with strong African and European influences, and features symphonic works as well as music for soloists, has also won international thanks to composers like Ernesto Lecuona.
Cuba has a multitude of faiths reflecting the island’s diverse cultural elements. Catholicism, which was brought to the island by Spanish colonialists at the beginning of the 16th century, is the most prevalent professed faith. The Roman Catholic Church is made up of the Cuban Catholic Bishops’ Conference (COCC), led by Jaime Cardinal Ortega, Archbishop of Havana. It has eleven dioceses, 56 orders of nuns and 24 orders of priests. In January 1998, Pope John Paul II paid an historic visit to the island, invited by the Cuban government and Catholic Church.
The religious landscape of Cuba is also strongly marked by syncretisms of various kinds. This diversity derives from West and Central Africans who were transported to Cuba, and in effect reinvented their African religions. They did so by combining them with elements of the Catholic belief system. Catholicism is often practised in tandem with Santería, a mixture of Catholicism and other, mainly African, faiths that include a number of cult religions. Cuba’s patron saint, La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre (the Virgin of Cobre, Cuba’s patron saint) is a syncretism with the Santería goddess Ochún. The important religious festival "Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre" (the Virgin of Cobre, Cuba’s patron saint) is celebrated by Cubans annually on 8 September. Other religions practised are Palo Monte, and Abakuá, which have large parts of their liturgy in African languages.
Protestantism, introduced from the United States in the mid 18th century, has seen a steady increase in popularity. 300,000 Cubans belong to the nation’s 54 Protestant denominations. Pentecostalism has grown rapidly in recent years, and the Assemblies of God alone claims a membership of over 100,000 people. Cuba has small Jewish, Muslim and Bahá’í populations. Havana has three active synagogues and one mosque. Most Cuban Jews are descendants of Polish and Russian Jews who fled pogroms at the turn of the century. In the 1960s approximately 8,000 Jews left for Miami. During the 1990’s around 400 Cuban emigrated to Israel in a complex exodus with visas provided by countries sympathetic to their desire to move to Israel: France, Canada and Spain.
School attendance is compulsory from ages 6 to 16 and all students regardless of age and gender wear school uniforms with the color denoting grade level. The curriculum in primary and secondary schools is based upon principles of hard work, self-discipline and love of country. Students are required to work in agriculture three times a week. At the end of basic secondary education, pupils can choose between pre-university education and technical and professional education.
All higher education and university education is public and available free of charge. The University of Havana, Cuba’s oldest university, was founded in 1721; prior to 1959 there were other official universities including: Universidad de Oriente (founded in 1947) and Universidad Central de Las Villas (founded in 1857); private universities included: Universidad Católica de Santo Tomás de Villanueva (founded in 1946); Universidad Masónica, and the Universidad de la Salle in Nuevo Vedado. In 1961 private schools and universities were nationalized (without reimbursement).
Historically, Cuba has had some of the highest rates of education and literacy in Latin America, both before and after the revolution. Before the revolution its literary rate of 76% ranked fourth in the region (50 percent in rural areas). By 1995, and after a literacy campaign coordinated by the Cuban government, rates had risen to 96%. Alongside Argentina, this was the highest of the thirteen Latin American countries surveyed. A 1998 study by UNESCO reported that Cuban students showed a high level of educational achievement. Cuban third and fourth graders scored 350 points, 100 points above the regional average in tests of basic language and mathematics skills. The report indicated that the test achievement of the lower half of students in Cuba was significantly higher than the test achievement of the upper half of students in other Central and South American countries in the study group.
Fidel Castro has long made the promise of free, universal health care an important part of the case for his government. Cuba’s healthcare system is widely regarded as one of the best in the world; however WHO data cited here comes directly from national health authorities of each country. Thus, there are some who do not trust this data.
Cuban traditional medicine has existed since before the Spanish conquest, these high status practitioners were called Bohiques (e.g. Zayas, 1914). Chinese medicine was practiced in Cuba, the most famous was a 19th century doctor Cham Bom Biam "El Medico Chino". Then it was said of those who were hopelessly terminal "no le salve ni el medico chino." In Cuba, the Spanish tradition of medicine, was inherited from the Moors who had access to ancient Greek and Roman traditions rescued duringthe destruction of the ancient Egyptian Library of Alexandria. Dr Chanca of Seville was Columbus’s own doctor. This tradition continued in Cuba. Modern Western Medicine has been practiced in Cuba by formally trained doctors since at least the beginning of the 19th Century Cuba has had world class doctors for centuries such as Carlos Finlay, who determined how yellow fever was spread. Under the direction of Walter Reed, James Carroll, and Aristides Agramonte during the 1898-1902 US presence in Cuba with much heroic sacrifice such as that of Clara Louise Maas and surgeon Jesse W. Lazear yellow fever was essentially eliminated. The massive Havana hospital, "Calixto Garcia" as well as 72 others were operating well before 1959. However, like the rest of the Cuban economy, Cuban medical care has suffered from severe material shortages following the end of Soviet subsidies. Support from the Venezuelan government of Hugo Chávez has alleviated some of those problems.
Today, according to Cuban government statistics, Cuba has over 71,000 doctors, with 20,000 health workers in Venezuela, and 5,000 more spread around the world in over 60 additional countries, as it views such missions an important part of its foreign policy. They offer medical services to 85,154,748 people; 34,700,000 in Latin America and the Caribbean and 50,400,000 in Africa and Asia.
Cuba has sent doctors to underdeveloped nations and educated foreign doctors since the early 1960s. It dispatched physicians to help Nicaragua and Peru, then hostile to Cuba, recover from earthquakes.
Cuban doctors played a vital role in the health-care system of Sri Lanka in the 1980s, particularly in the war-torn North-east province, when a crisis in that country’s education system limited the number of doctors coming out of universities.
Cuba has also given treatment on the island to more than 14,000 children and 4,000 adults damaged by radiation in Chernobyl, which is actually more than the rest of the world combined has done for the victims during that catastrophe.
During the UN’s general assembly in 2000, Fidel Castro offered the United Nations 6,000 doctors for service in the third world.
"But one of Castro’s most respected achievements is the establishment of a comprehensive health system producing one doctor for every 170 people, compared to 188 in the US and 250 in the UK. Teams of Cuban doctors assess applicants for eye surgery before sending patients to Havana on special flights from ten Caribbean countries and more than 15 Latin American nations. On August 20, Cuba achieved what is almost certainly a world record - performing 1,648 eye operations at 20 hospitals in a single day."
"Since July 25, more than 3,000 people from ten Caribbean countries have had eye operations in Cuba funded by oil-rich Venezuela. Other patients from Central and South America bring the total to 100,000 free eye operations this year."
Like a number of countries, Cuba has developed a hospital system for health tourists, taking advantage of a combination of low labor costs, an educated work force, and the ability of such tourists to pay in much desired hard currency for their care.
The country is now able to operate and provide services in all branches of ophthalmology to hundreds of thousands of patients. As part of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA, an alternative to the Free Trade Area of the Americas), Cuba promises that one hundred thousand Venezuelans will receive these services this year, and until July 2005, 25,024 patients from said country, and a similar number of Cubans will have been operated on. 15,000 citizens of the Caribbean community will receive this form of medical care between the second half of June 2005 and June 2006. Venezuela and Cuba have offered to provide another 100,000 Latin Americans with this service within the same period. Cuba has been able to reduce reported infant mortality to zero in certain remote rural areas.
The Cuban American National Foundation claims that Cuba masks the truth behind the Cuban health care system. They argue that real Cuban healthcare is abysmal and that what is shown to non-Cuban foreigners is a healthcare system unavailable to the average Cuban.
According to the CIA’s World Factbook, Cuba is 51% mulatto (mixed white and black), 37% white, 11% black, and 1% Chinese. Although this is not commonly accepted in the western areas of Cuba, DNA studies suggest that the contribution of indigenous neo-Taíno Nations to the general population is more significant than formally believed.
The Chinese population in Cuba derives mostly from laborers who arrived in the 19th century to build railroads and work in mines. Most stayed in Cuba, as they could not afford a return passage to China. Historical papers show that, while considered inferior to Cubans of European descent, they were considered superior to blacks due to their paler skin, and were considered more docil until their stubbon resistance in the Wars of Independence erased that notion e.g. (e.g. Jimenez Pastrana 1983 in Cuba/Printed sources).
In Cuba there is relatively little racial tension. Nevertheless, the sizeable Jamaican population in Santiago de Cuba is frequently stereotyped as lazy. Also, lighter skinned people often have more prestigious jobs (although in socialist Cuba this does not translate to a high difference in income). The melting pot is expressed not only in a racial sense, but also in religion (see below) and the music of Cuba. There is internal illegal immigration to Havana seeking greater opportunities, these internal illegals are known as "palestinos." Cuba also shelters a population of non-Cubans of unknown size. This population includes political refugees from the US e.g. Phillip Agee and foreign activists of various radical causes.In addition there are a several thousand number of North African teen and pre-teen refugees undergoing military training.
Cuba has a low birth rate. The fertility rate of 1.66 children per woman is the lowest of any country in the western hemisphere (tied with Canada and Barbados). A contributing cause is Cuba’s policy of abortion on demand. Cuba has a high abortion rate of 77.7 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44 in 1996, 3rd highest in the world among 55 countries whose abortion rate was available to be compiled in a 1999 UN study. Selective termination of high-risk pregnancies is one factor contributing to the low official infant mortality rate in Cuba of 5.8 per thousand births. (State of the World’s Children 2005) However, this high abortion rate and very low birth rate, reminiscent of former Communist Eastern Europe and Russia, threatens to cause the population to shrink significantly in the coming decades, although this has not happened yet due to relatively small numbers of elderly.
Immigration and emigration have had noticeable changes in the demographic profile of Cuba during the 20th century. Between 1900 and 1930 close to a million Spaniards arrived from Spain. Cuba has historically been more heavily European than other Caribbean islands, and in 1950 was said to have a 75% white majority. Since 1959, over a million Cubans have left the island, primarily to Miami, Florida where a vocal, well educated and economically very successful anti-Castro community exists (Cuban-American lobby). The emigration that occurred immediately after the Cuban Revolution was primarily of the upper and middle classes that were predominantly white, thus contributing to a demographic shift along with changes in birth rates among the various ethnic groups. After the chaos that accompanied the Mariel boatlift, Cuba and the United States (commonly called the 1994 Clinton-Castro accords) have agreed to limit emigration to the United States. Under this, the United States grants a specific number of visas to those wishing to emigrate (20,000 since 1994) while those Cubans picked up at sea trying to emigrate without a visa are returned to Cuba. However, U.S. law grants U.S. residency to any Cuban who arrives on U.S. soil without a visa, thus there is still an unofficial exodus; these escapes are often daring and most ingenious. The number of Cubans who leave by sea is still about 2,000 a year but the trend is upward at present. In 2005 an additional 7,610 Cuban emigrants from Cuba entered through the "southern border in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30" "Unlike most countries, Cuba requires its citizens to obtain exit permits when leaving the country;" there are 533 Cubans with valid US visas not allowed to leave. Escapes from Cuba are once again enforced by lethal gunfire.
Fourteen provinces and one special municipality (the Isla de la Juventud) now comprise Cuba. These in turn were formerly part of six larger historical provinces: Pinar del Río, Habana, Matanzas, Las Villas, Camagüey and Oriente. The present subdivisions closely resemble those of Spanish military provinces during the Cuban Wars of Independence, when the most troublesome areas were subdivided.
Geologically Cuba was once in the Pacific, and crossing between North and South America before they were joined, "crashed" into what is now Florida. Cuba, 65 million years ago, also received part of the impact of Chicxulub Crater with tsunami kilometers high reaching at least 500 kilometres (300 mi) away to the middle provinces and beyond.
The Cayman Islands south of Cuba and not part of the country is built up by coral growing over a submerged western extension of the Sierra Maestra is north on the Cuban side of the Deep of Bartlett Cayman Trough and Jamaica an independent state is on the Caribbean plate is on the other side of this great "trench" south of seismically active eastern Cuba.
The elongated island (aprox. 760 miles or 1,220 km long) of Cuba is the largest island in the Caribbean and is bounded to the north by the Straits of Florida and the greater North Atlantic Ocean, to the northwest by the Gulf of Mexico, to the west by the Yucatan Channel, to the south by the Caribbean Sea, and to the east by the Windward Passage. The Republic comprises the entire island, including many outlying islands such as the Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth), previously known as the Isla de los Pinos (Isle of Pines). The Cayman Islands mainly coral reefs covering submerged ice age peaks of the Sierra Maestra range) and Jamaica which is geologically related to Central America are south of eastern Cuba. Guantánamo Bay, is a naval base that has been leased by the United States since 1903, a lease that has been contested since 1960 by Castro.
The main island is the world’s 16th largest. The island consists mostly of flat to rolling plains, with more rugged hills and mountains primarily in the southeast and the highest point is the Pico Real del Turquino at 2,005 metres (6,578 ft). The local climate is tropical, though moderated by trade winds. In general (with local variations), there is a drier season from November to April, and a rainier season from May to October.
Havana is the largest city and capital; other major cities include Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey. Some of the well-known smaller towns are Baracoa which was the first Spanish settlement on Cuba, as well as Trinidad and Bayamo.
Cuba’s socialist economy is primarily based on state ownership — exceptions to this include microscale private enterprises. Economic activity is thereby maintained largely by government spending. Such federal spending in 2005 budgeted 68% towards education, healthcare, social security, cultural programs, sports, and scientific research. According to Cuban statistics, during the first half of the year the Cuban economy grew by 7.3%, with 9% growth expected by the end of the year.
According to the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal, the Cuban government consumes nearly 35% of the GDP, employs 73% of the labor force, and investment of capital has large restrictions including required apporval by the government. The Cuban government sets most prices and rations goods to citizens, has decreased inflation by restraining its monetary policy, but "State salaries average $15 to $20 per month in Cuban pesos... Cuba is chronically dependent on credit accounts that rotate from country to country. Typical imports are food, fuel, clothing, and machinery. Exports include nickel, cigars, and state-sponsored labor, for which the government charges many times what it pays in state salaries. Lacking investment, Cuba’s sugar industry is no longer viable"
Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, the Ministerio de Recuperación de Bienes Malversados (Ministry of recovery of stolen goods), much of Cuban art and libraries formerly held by more prosperous Cubans now in exile has been confiscated by the state. This art work which has increased greatly in value can now be sold abroad to raise hard currency for the needs of the Cuban government.
Since the fall of Cuba’s many trading partners, the island has focused on urban communal farms. "Last year alone we produced 27 kilograms of vegetables per square metre. When we first started this farm three years ago it stood at 18 kilograms. And we expect this year’s harvest to yield no less than 30 kilograms. That’s an increase of around 30% year on year.", says Senora Hernandes, in charge of one of hundreds of small urban farms dotted around Havana. "A recent report by the American agency for sustainable farming, Food First, said annual production of fruit and vegetables is growing at 250% a year.". While "Locally grown fruit and vegetables can significantly augment a country’s commercial production and imports, but will not, however, provide long-run food and agricultural solutions." (Kost, 2004) Cuba/Printed sources. The reason for this is that the first limiting factor for production is nitrogen. While green "manures" (Ramos, et al. 2001), endophytic, microrhizzal and other associated organisms (Loiret et al. 2004; Tejera et al, 2006), and animal manures (Travieso, 2006) Cuba/Printed sources can supplement this to some extent this circumstance will require wider plantings of the type required before inorganic fertilizers became widely available (Ortiz, 1995)
Historically, sugar, tobacco and (later) nickel were the main sources of foreign trade income for Cuba. In the 19th Century, until the richer ores of Chile were found, it was common to export some of Cuba’s long mined copper ore to Wales History of Swansea and England. But in the 1990s tourism saw an explosive growth.
Until recently Cubans also receive an estimated $850 million annually from Cubans in the U.S. who send money to relatives or friends. However, State Security is reportedly able to confiscate this money from individuals when it deems that appropriate. In 1993 the U.S. dollar was made legal tender (the country operated under a dual-currency system); this arrangement was, however, revoked on 25 October 2004. At that time, use of the dollar in business was officially banned, and a 10% surcharge was introduced for the conversion of dollars (in cash) to convertible pesos, the island’s new official currency. Other currencies, including the euro, were not affected. See details at the Ludwig Van Mises Institute.
The Cuban economy was hit hard in the early 1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Comecon economic bloc, with which it had traded predominantly. For several decades, Cuba received what was effectively a Soviet subsidy, whereby Cuba provided the Soviet Union with sugar and the Soviets provided Cuba with petroleum at below market prices. In response, Cuba opened up to tourism, which is now a major source of income. Since 2003, both tourism levels and nickel prices increased. One other factor in the proclaimed recovery of the Cuban economy were the remittances from Cuban-Americans, now much diminished, which for a while constituted a large part of the external inputs into the Cuban Economy.
Cuba currently trades with almost every nation in the world, albeit with restrictions from the U.S. embargo. Trade with the United States is restricted to cash-only transactions for food and medicine. Any company that deals with Cuba risks problems dealing with the United States, so internationally operating companies may be forced to choose between Cuba and the United States, which is a far larger market. This extraterritorial U.S. legislation is considered highly controversial, and the U.S. embargo was condemned for the 13th time in 2004 by the General Assembly of the United Nations, by 179 countries (out of 183 voting). The main current trading partners of Cuba are: Venezuela, China, Spain, Canada and, the Netherlands.
Cuba owes approximately $5.4 billion in foreign debt to Paris Club nations such as France, Japan and Germany. Cuba also has other sources of debt including approximately $25 billion in debt disputed with Russia dating from the era of the Soviet Union. The lack of domestic sources of capital financing, an inherent by-product of its socialist economic system, makes Cuba’s debt extremely vulnerable to disruptions in trade.
Although U.S. citizens are not officially banned from travelling to Cuba, they are generally prohibited from spending money there (exceptions are made for students studying in Cuba, diplomats, certain business people, and people with family members in Cuba), which amounts to a de facto travel ban, as Cuba requires that foreign visitors spend a minimum of three nights in a hotel and require the payment of an airport tax; moreover, the only direct flights from the United States are strictly for those with family members in Cuba, or others with licences from OFAC. Nevertheless, U.S. citizens can visit Cuba by travelling through other countries (like Mexico, Canada or the Bahamas) because Cuban immigration does not stamp the passports (the visum is a separate leaflet). However, U.S. citizens are liable to fines for violating the embargo, and potentially imprisonment for perjury, if discovered and prosecuted by the U.S. government. Several Americans have been caught by US pre-clearance agents when getting off flights in Toronto, Montreal and Nassau, so Cuban travel agents advise Americans to avoid these routes.
Although struggling with its economy since the fall of the Soviet Union, Cuba has seen substantial improvements since the early 1990s. The economy has been helped in recent years by strong tourism, international investment in nickel production and oil exploration as well as beneficial oil purchases from Venezuela, in exchange for medical services.
A major problem is damage from hurricanes. All Caribbean islands suffer from hurricanes and the Cuban government uses this as an argument to urge the islands to cooperate, promoting an agreement of mutual self-insurance, so that if one island gets hit, the other islands will help it out. He says that if the United States get hit, the economy of the rest of the country will take the blow, but if a Caribbean island gets hit, that may devastate the entire economy.
Over 7,300 homes have been completed in 2005, thus it is expected (estimating five people per residence) that in about three hundred years all housing destroyed in the hurricanes will be replaced. Plans to repair the majority of homes partially affected by Hurricane Dennis and others are said underway. The Cuban government predicts that no less than 10,000 of the homes destroyed will be built again as new and the plans to finish and construct new homes to cover the most urgent requirements will continue, up to at least 30,000 additional housing.
Cuba is notable for its national organic agriculture initiative. In the early 1990s, post-Soviet Union, Cuba lost over 70% of agricultural chemical imports, over 50% of food imports, and an equally significant amount of oil. Its agricultural sector, built on a large-scale, mechanized, chemical-based model, was instantly crippled. By restructuring its agricultural industry, and focusing scientific efforts on organic solutions, Cuba managed to rapidly and successfully convert the country to entirely organic production. Currently, only organic agriculture is permitted by law, which while having the effect of reducing the need for imports, has also led to lower yields. Combined with the removal of marginal land from sugar farming, this led to a reduction in total sugar production of over 70% from around 7 millions tons anually in the late 1980s to around 3 million tons annually in the late 1990s to 1.6 million tons in 2004. Today, Cuba is a leading nation in biotechnology, and Cuban expertise is exported to Iran however some claim that this relates to biowar potential. More than 100 million USD are currently being invested in the pharmaceutical industry.
On a total population of 11 million, Cuba’s government states that it has 250,000 educators, 67,500 medical doctors, and 34,000 physical education and sports professionals and technicians.
Cuban infrastructure has suffered greatly after almost five decades of communism regime. Before 1959, sugar production averaged some 7.5 million tons of sugar per year, produced in roughly 150 sugar cane mills. In 2005, more than 80 of those sugar mills had been dismantled by the regime. The rest of industrial facilities have suffered a similar fate. Oil refinerieshave shut down. Power plants are in total dissaray and at the bringe of collapse. So critical is the situation, that the regime has resourced to the idea of installing portable generators to supply the very minimum electrical power to critical tourism, military, and hospital facilities. Cuban infrastructure is significant and includes: massive Spanish fortifications built in principal ports (e.g. El Morro castles in Havana (1589) and Santiago; Castillo San Salvador de la Punta (finished by 1630); La Fuerza (finished 1577); San Carlos de La Cabaña the largest in the Americas; El Principe; Atares around Havana Bay).
Railroads were first built in the late colonial period and finished in the first part of the 20th Century. Vital sanitation facilities were constructed in the US period. The Presidential Palace was built between 1913 and 1919 under presidents Gómez y de Menocal, and designed by a group that included architect Rodolfo Maruri.
The Cuban Capitol was built on older foundations in 1926 during Gerardo Machado’s presidency, the building contains the third largest indoor statue in the world; this is the statue= of the Cuban Republic, which represents La Patria the motherland, which in the Latin American tradition is female. This statue was sculpted Angelo Zanelli, and the model was "habanera" Lily Válty.
The central highway, which starts in Pinar del Rio and ends in the former province of Oriente, was also constructed during the Gerardo Machado administration. There are tunnels in Havana under the bay and under the Almendares River, and some highways in the old Oriente Province, Via Azul and Via Mulata, and Havana-Matanzas Via Blanca, all of which were completed in the second Fulgencio Batista period. The main road into Baracoa was completed in the 1960s, whilst in the since the late 1980s, causeways have been built out to neighbouring cays in order to open them up for tourist development. However, these causeways do not allow seawater to circulate freely and in consequence this has causud significant ecological damage. A complex network of massive dams and complex semi-secret underground fortifications were built in the present Fidel Castro period.
In addition there are significant numbers of historic buildings and reinforced concrete high rises built in the Republican period. Statues and other monuments dot the Island. Each construction has its own particular story that often relate to important events in the history of the island. For instance, some of the cobblestones that surround the Havana docks were brought in from Sweden, on the return trips of ships smuggling sugar into Britain during WWI.
英国业务 :: Audrey :: +44 20 7498 8555 或 0800 298 9555
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哈瓦那旅游中心 :: Idelsis :: +53 7 863 9555 | <urn:uuid:06e2178c-9f29-4057-b1bd-84594236266e> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://cubahotelbookings.com/zh/guides/cuba | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285289.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00148-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968954 | 12,091 | 3.203125 | 3 |
It can be burdensome to awake to another day of indebtedness. You promised yourself that you’d never have such obligations, yet here you are. And you may be wondering how you’re going to get yourself out from under them.
Now, you do have options to help with your debt. And sometimes debts like yours are forgiven. But there is no free lunch, as they say. There are usually costs that accompany debt forgiveness.
So, what is debt forgiveness and what are its costs? Read on.
What is Debt Forgiveness?
There are several forms of debt forgiveness. For example, your home may be foreclosed upon, or you may have to participate in a “short sale” in which the remaining mortgage isn’t covered by the sales price. Here, the remaining debt may be forgiven by the lender, all or in part.
Regarding federal student loans, say you’ve kept up with your payments over the term of your agreement. Usually, the period is between 10 and 30 years. Once that period is over, any loan balance may be forgiven.
There’s also debt settlement, a financial strategy that’s also called debt relief. The process involves hiring a firm such as Freedom Debt Relief to go to each of your creditors, usually credit card issuers, to see if they would accept a portion of what you owe as a lump sum payment in full. The payment derives from savings you’re asked to accumulate in lieu of paying your creditors directly. Creditors are usually amenable since they know that if your file bankruptcy – your next available option – they stand a good chance of getting nothing.
For example, if you owe $15,000 on your cards, and you ultimately agree to settle the obligation for $7,500, the remaining $7,500 is essentially forgiven. You can get such help at FreedomDebtRelief.
Really, any debt can be forgiven in whole or in part – but that’s wholly up to the lender. To be sure, though, lenders are not Santa Claus. For them to forgive your obligation, there must be something in it for them. If you’re able to satisfy your liability, there’s little chance it’ll be forgiven. The situation is a little different for student loans, since those balances may be forgiven under certain circumstances – your school was negligent about something related to your loan, for instance, or if you’ve declared bankruptcy. But outside of those kinds of circumstances, you are still responsible for loan repayment.
The Cost of Debt Forgiveness
When it comes to debt forgiveness, there are two chief costs involved. Those include the cost of the settlement – the part of the obligation you do pay – as well as the tax you shell out on forgiven debt. In the case of debt relief, you also must pay for the service, but not until a settlement is reached. Those fees usually run between 15-25% of either the original debt amount or the amount you’ve agreed to pay.
Keep in mind, too, that forgiven debt is usually deemed taxable income. In fact, any time more than $600 is forgiven, the creditor must send you a 1099 form stating the forgiven debt amount (this is because the creditor will be claiming your forgiven debt as lost income). You are required to subsequently add the amount forgiven to the “other income” portion of your taxable return for that year. Note that if your forgiven debt totals less than $600, you still must claim it on your taxes. You just won’t get a form from the creditor.
Having said that, your forgiven debt may not be taxable if:
- The debt is due to personal bankruptcy
- Your debts outweigh your assets
- You made all required payments on a career-specific student loan repayment plan
If you’re unsure about the impact of the forgiven debt on your tax return or income bracket, it’s best to contact a tax professional.
Ultimately, there are usually costs associated with debt forgiveness, in some form or fashion. And while that is true for strategies such as debt settlement, you may find that the benefits of a fresh start may be worth the cost. Run the numbers and do what’s best for you. | <urn:uuid:70006d77-fdf4-489b-90f5-8eda184a7719> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.cluttertimes.com/what-is-debt-forgiveness-and-what-are-its-costs/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570793.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808092125-20220808122125-00678.warc.gz | en | 0.957265 | 889 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Mer Hajrenikh (hy. Մեր Հայրենիք / Мер Һајрениқ, pron. [mɛɾ hɑjɾɛˈnikʰ] "mair hahy-reh-NEEK"; lit. 'Our Fatherland') is the national anthem of Armenia, composed by Barsegh Kanachyan and written by Mikael Nalbandian in 1861. It was first adopted in 1918 as the anthem of the First Republic of Armenia, but when the country became part of the Soviet Union, this song became banned and was instead replaced by the Armenian SSR anthem. In 1991, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mer Hajrenikh was successfully restored with minor changes to the lyrics.
|English: Our Fatherland|
|National anthem of||Armenia|
|Lyrics||Mikael Nalbandian, 1861|
|Adopted||1918 (re-adopted in 1991)|
Մեր Հայրենիք, ազատ անկախ,
Mer Hajrenikh, azat ankax,
[mɛɹ hɑjɾɛnikʰ ǀ ɑzɑt ɑnkɑχ ǀ]
Poetic English translationEdit
- Our Fatherland, free, independent,
- That has fo' centuries liv'd,
- Now summoneth its descendents
- To free, independent Armenia.
- Here a flag for thee, my br'er,
- That I have sewn by my hand
- O'er the nights which felt fore'er,
- Bath'd in my tears now so grand.
- O, look at it, tricolour'd,
- Fo' us 'tis a symbol priz'd.
- Letteth it shine forth 'gainst thy foe.
- Mayeth Armenia with grace glow.
- Death is no different anywhere
- He who dieth but even once,
- Bless'd is he who sacrificeth
- Fo' the freedom o' his land.
This is the original version of Mer Hayrenik, based on the first, third, fourth, and sixth stanzas of the poem The Song of an Italian Girl.
|Poem text in Armenian||Armeno-Roman alphabet||English translation|
Մեր հայրենիք, թշուառ, անտէր,
Mer Hajrenikh, thæšuař, anter,
Our Fatherland, miserable, abandon'd,
- https://www.mfa.am/hy/state-symbols/ Հայաստանի Հանրապետության պետական խորհրդանիշերը: mfa.am.
- Alexandre Siranossian, «Mer Hairénik, cet inconnu», Nouvelles d'Arménie Magazine, N. 143, Paris, France.
- https://books.google.com/books?id=BCNNAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA16&lpg=RA1-PA16&dq=Kʻnar+haykakan+By+Mikhail+Misropovich+Miansarov&source=bl&ots=OZbRSJoHBH&sig=ACfU3U0ZQrAe2ygxv8N9rWGO8QCpjVEPhA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwia6YW1oZbqAhVMgnIEHdkIA10Q6AEwA3oECAkQAQ#v=onepage&q=Kʻnar%20haykakan%20By%20Mikhail%20Misropovich%20Miansarov&f=false Kʻnar haykakan.
Mikhail Misropovich Miansarov. 1868 | <urn:uuid:4be95641-b30a-4c1b-9d75-e656effbe43a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mer_Hayrenik | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570767.11/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808061828-20220808091828-00466.warc.gz | en | 0.679769 | 1,087 | 2.1875 | 2 |
This one-day, in-person event encourages discussion of the various ways that mental health can affect a workplace. Participants will learn strategies for improving and maintaining their own mental health and for supporting their colleagues in doing the same, contributing to workplace well-being across the public service.
This event has the following objectives:
This learning activity is designed for all public servants and is offered at no cost to learners.
Dates, Times and Languages:
January 30, 2017 | 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (AST) | French
January 31, 2017 | 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (AST) | English —FULL
10 Weldon Street, Multipurpose Room, Shediac, New Brunswick
To register, please ensure that you have your MyAccount login name and password. If you do not have an account, please contact the Client Contact Centre.
Registration deadline: January 27, 2017
January 30, 2017
Improve your language skills
No endorsement of any products or services is expressed or implied. | <urn:uuid:aa66740e-63e9-43ce-845e-c487da618cbc> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.csps-efpc.gc.ca/events/mhwld/index-eng.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281649.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00441-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.904449 | 226 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Plants add nature and oxygen to an indoor space. However, not all kinds of plants receive enough sunlight to be indoor plants and those plants that can be indoors usually need to be near a window. That is, unless the indoor gardener uses the right combination of lights or purchases a specialized plant sun lamp.
Plants that are indoors usually need to be near a window in order to receive the sunlight they need in order to engage in photosynthesis. Sometimes, artificial light bulbs can generate enough light to allow the plant to live, but these lights do not always generate enough light. However, luckily, light fixtures don't generate so much light that they harm indoor plants. Therefore, plants can be exposed to artificial light for longer periods of time without harm, as long as the plant is not placed too close to the artificial light.
Plants need light in order to make the majority of their food. While sunlight is ideal, plants can engage in enough photosynthesis if they receive red and blue parts of the light spectrum for at least 16 hours a day, according to the University of Vermont. A light timer should be used to ensure that the lights are turned off and on at the right times.
Plants get most of their energy from the red and blue parts of the light spectrum. They do not get energy from the yellow and green rays. The types of light bulbs that homes mostly have are not helpful for plants, since they do not produce enough blue light and are also often too hot for plants, according to the University of Hawaii. Fluorescent tubes are usually some of the better artificial light sources and plants can be placed closer to fluorescent tubes, according to the University of Vermont.
Combining fluorescent tubes and incandescent light bulbs can give plants enough of the red and blue color that they need in order to engage in photosynthesis. According to the University of Vermont, the ideal ratio of incandescent to fluorescent light bulbs is 3 to 10. Those who want to save money can also use reflective surfaces in order to reduce the number of lights that need to be used.
Plants always need some form of light, but some plants do not need anything more than the normal lights that are in the house and the sunlight that comes in through the windows. This is especially true for plants who survive in semi-shade like Chinese evergreens, according to the University of Hawaii. | <urn:uuid:7f4cba46-538a-46e3-ab7a-122bc7127148> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.gardenguides.com/129561-artificial-light-indoor-plants.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285315.77/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00574-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948645 | 483 | 3.859375 | 4 |
This work starts from a simple observation reported in the article “Where are Europe’s last primary forests*”: primary forests no longer exist in mainland France. It is the untouched forests that survive: a natural place that has not been strongly influenced by us in recent decades. Accompanied by foresters and conservators, Léa Habourdin has spent… View Article
515 photographs / artist book, 24 copies published In 2014, the Latvian fund of nature and the Estonian ornithological society joined forces to set up the Eagles cross border project. At the border of the two countries (Estonia and Latvia) the researchers installed a webcam which observes an osprey nest 24 hours a day. The… View Article
Research journal documenting the dialogue between the scientists from the INSA, a writer and myself. This artist publication has integrated the BnF collections in 2017
“Collapsology, end of the world, sixth mass extinction, there is no longer a medium that does not tell us that we are running to our loss, that the world as we know it is at its twilight. We’ve seen starving polar bears on a drifting piece of ice floe, dead bees by the thousands, sea… View Article
11 photographs / 41 drawings and collages With Les Chiens de fusil, Léa Habourdin establishes, through photographs and documents, an analogy between the forces that underlie human relationships and those that are at work in the animal kingdom. Inspired by ethology, the artist fragments the bodies to keep only the gestures and attitudes. Moving in… View Article
Photography & Text: Léa Habourdin. Design: Jorge Fernández Puebla Edition: Léa Habourdin, Gustavo Alemán Publisher: Fuego Books Size: 12,4 x 18,7 cm Pages: 108 Print run: 500 copies Printed by: Artes Gráficas Palermo
1h15 performance at the Centre Culturel Tchèque, for Photo Saint Germain, followed by an artist’s publication sent by post to the public that was present that evening.
45 photographs / project produced with Thibault Brunet as part of Carte blanche PMU – Le Bal 2014 Léa Habourdin and Thibault Brunet spent two months immersed in small towns in Pas-de-Calais, going every day to the Rallye, the Café du Rond-point, the Alhambra, La Cravache d’or, the Gallia. One day, a racing pigeon breeder… View Article
artist edition / 24 copies / 1000 pages / hand-bound BORDER CROSSER Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) – rare bird of prey with unique morphology, only member of the Pandionidae sub-order; genus name refers to the mythical Greek king Pandion, whose daughters and son-in- law were transformed into fowl (Ovid, Metamorphoses). We are all animals, they became… View Article
It was in the spring of 2015 that Léa Habourdin first set foot in the offices of MATEIS (INSA, National Institute of Applied Sciences). Over the next eighteen months, a multitude of researchers welcomed her, showed her, explained to her, her novice questions being directed towards what fascinated her: the notion of material fatigue. The… View Article
Photobook published with the MAD award, by le Bec en l’air editions.
Photobook published with the Carte Blanche PMU 2014 award, by Filigranes editions. This series was made with Thibault Brunet.
Carte Blanche PMU #5, Thibault Brunet, Léa Habourdin le BAL, Paris January 2015 Installation : Photographs Videos Curators : Diane Dufour. (The jury that awarded us the grant featured : Paula Aisemberg, Maison Rouge headmaster, Jacqueline d’Amécourt, International Association of Corporate Collections of Contemporary Art president, Valérie Belin, artist, Clément Chéroux, Centre Pompidou – head of cabinet… View Article
Award La Photographie Marseille #4 MAD gallery, Marseille January 2014 Installation : Photographs Collages reproduction Curating : Christophe Asso
Installation : Photographs Collages, drawings Commissariat : EXP12 gallery soloshow
Installation : Photographs Drawings Curating : Duan Yuting for the Lianzhou foto festival solo show
Installation : Collages Drawings Curating : Nicolas Havette
Installations : Photographs Collages Curating : Jean di Sciullo (publisher), Pierre Hivernat (galerist), Vanessa Chambard (photographer), David Richard (photographer) Christian Maccotta (Boutographies festival’s artistic director).
Installation : Photograph Display table Notebook, collages, drawings Curators : Elina Brotherus, Charles Fréger, Alain Fleischer, Éric Baudelaire, Mat Jacob. Featuring : Anaïs Boudot, Anne Claire Broc’h, Bastien Roustant, David Favrod, Élise Guillod, Léa Habourdin, Lola Hakimian, Lucas Hoffman, Marie Quéau, Maya Rochat, Nelli Palomäki, Rebecca Digne, Thomas Rousset, Xavier Antoinet.
Installations : Photographs Collages Curating : François Hébel Featuring : Lucile Chombart de lauwe, Olivia Pierrugues, Maria do mar Rêgo, Léa Habourdin | <urn:uuid:95997b56-72e4-45ab-a361-0bcbc95dedc2> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.leahabourdin.com/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573699.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819131019-20220819161019-00278.warc.gz | en | 0.82189 | 1,181 | 1.601563 | 2 |
WILLIAMSBURG, December 2, 1776.
Lost, on Tuesday the 26th of November, between Jamestown and Mrs. Starke's of this Place, a Pair of BLACK SADDLE BAGS with a small Brass Padlock, containing ruffled and plain Shirts, Cambrick Stocks, a Pair of Worsted Stockings, and a dark Ground spotted Handkerchief marked AM. Whoever will give Intelligence of these or deliver the same to Mrs. Starke, shall have FORTY SHILLINGS Reward. ALEXANDER MOSELEY.
Virginia Gazette (Dixon & Hunter) December 13, 1776
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IN DIGITAL LIBRARY
About this entry:
Alexander Moseley was a merchant, patriot, and government official from Norfolk who lost these items on his way to Williamsburg possibly for the interment of Peyton Randolph on November 26th at Wren Chapel.
Sources: Virginia Calendar, Va Gaz Dixon and Hunter, Nov 29, 1776 | <urn:uuid:85f4c007-fb08-4c1f-b05c-57e95aaa8d09> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.history.org/History/todayin1770s/index.cfm?SelectedMonth=12&SelectedDay=02 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282926.64/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00397-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.897224 | 215 | 2.0625 | 2 |
The Federation of American Hospitals has urged the cause of nearly 47 million people who are without health insurance, underlining the imperativeness of basic health coverage.
The proposal, put forth by the hospital might instigate a federal legislation mandating employees to avail health coverage through employers, either when it is offered or buy it of their own accord or accept it through government programs that are available for eligible individuals.
AdvertisementThe present proposal would cost an additional $115.2 billion a year from the present $900 billion being spent on healthcare costs. Many groups have raised eyebrows about how the funds will be generated, that has cast aspersions about the feasibility of such a move.
As per the proposal the present Medicaid eligibility criteria will go in for an expansion which will also include the state children's health insurance programs for the lower income group. Financial assistance based on the income would be available to uninsured workers who could now avail of the employer plan. | <urn:uuid:6b8696aa-7feb-44a0-87cc-be67b73a37fc> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.medindia.net/news/view_news_main.asp?x=18588 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279489.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00016-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961758 | 191 | 1.828125 | 2 |
Yes you found it! Thanks! That saves me from doing expensive (and again: very anti-entrepreneur-spirited (from now on abbreviated simply as VANTEN-spirited or VANTENS) calls to oversea!
In fact I found now also in addition that Dr. Dlugokencky has a ftp server where the Mauna Loa files naming conventions seem to be explained:
. In that file it is written that:
>[parameter]_[site]_[project]_[lab ID number]_[measurement group]_[optional qualifiers].txt
and since I had also found this page:
I was able to learn that the site abbreviation "MLO" seems to mean Mauna Loa, so the file you linked to:
seems to provide
-if we assume that this naming convention applies also to this file- indeed a measurement of CH4 at the site Mauna Loa by the measurement strategy "surface insitu" (which I guess is some surface measurement?) by lab nr. 1 by the measurement group ccgg and the data displays the "Computed monthly mean values"
Then in the explanation file one finds the fields explained:
and field 6 is
>Dry air mole fraction. Missing values are denoted by -999.99.
So I guess one should assume that the numbers in the file you linked to are some mole fractions which are probably
the number of molecules of CH4 divided by the number of molecules of dry air found in one fixed volume.
Do you see this similarily?
>By the way - it’s interesting to see that the concentration of methane in the air depends a lot on the latitude!
click for details ?
it looks as if the graphics doesn't show the southern hemisphere - I could imagine that it is somewhat symmetric with respect
to north and south (i.e. that it would ascend again, where the word "global methane" is.)
The rise per latitude seems to be at least partially due to circulations. ?
>What do you want to compare about methane and CO2, Nad?
I actually wanted to compare the methane and the CO2 and the temperatures and eventually look if I can find anything
which can be remotely be called a time lag but I fear there is not enough data for that. The methane measurements are there only
since about 20 years. | <urn:uuid:5d1c3fa8-ede3-4add-b697-fdf886affb79> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://forum.azimuthproject.org/plugin/viewcomment/8866 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573163.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818033705-20220818063705-00066.warc.gz | en | 0.943288 | 588 | 2.1875 | 2 |
I am a huge fan of transparency about platform content moderation. I’ve considered it a top policy priority for years, and written about it in detail (with Paddy Leerssen, who also wrote this great piece about recommendation algorithms and transparency). I sincerely believe that without it, we are unlikely to correctly diagnose current problems or arrive at wise legal solutions.
So it pains me to admit that I don’t really know what “transparency” I’m asking for. I don’t think many other people do, either. Researchers and public interest advocates around the world can agree that more transparency is better. But, aside from people with very particular areas of interest (like political advertising), almost no one has a clear wish list. What information is really important? What information is merely nice to have? What are the trade-offs involved?
That imprecision is about to become a problem, though it’s a good kind of problem to have. A moment of real political opportunity is at hand. Lawmakers in the US, Europe, and elsewhere are ready to make some form of transparency mandatory. Whatever specific legal requirements they create will have huge consequences. The data, content, or explanations they require platforms to produce will shape our future understanding of platform operations, and our ability to respond – as consumers, as advocates, or as democracies. Whatever disclosures the laws don’t require, may never happen.
It’s easy to respond to this by saying “platforms should track all the possible data, we’ll see what’s useful later!” Some version of this approach might be justified for the very biggest “gatekeeper” or “systemically important” platforms. Of course, making Facebook or Google save all that data would be somewhat ironic, given the trouble they’ve landed in by storing similar not-clearly-needed data about their users in the past. (And the more detailed data we store about particular takedowns, the likelier it is to be personally identifiable.)
For any platform, though, we should recognize that the new practices required for transparency reporting comes at a cost. That cost might include driving platforms to adopt simpler, blunter content rules in their Terms of Service. That would reduce their expenses in classifying or explaining decisions, but presumably lead to overly broad or narrow content prohibitions. It might raise the cost of adding “social features” like user comments enough that some online businesses, like retailers or news sites, just give up on them. That would reduce some forms of innovation, and eliminate useful information for Internet users. For small and midsized platforms, transparency obligations (like other expenses related to content moderation) might add yet another reason to give up on competing with today’s giants, and accept an acquisition offer from an incumbent that already has moderation and transparency tools. Highly prescriptive transparency obligations might also drive de facto standardization and homogeneity in platform rules, moderation practices, and features.
None of these costs provides a reason to give up on transparency – or even to greatly reduce our expectations. But all of them are reasons to be thoughtful about what we ask for. It would be helpful if we could better quantify these costs, or get a handle on what transparency reporting is easier and harder to do in practice.
I’ve made a (very in the weeds) list of operational questions about transparency reporting, to illustrate some issues that are likely to arise in practice. I think detailed examples like these are helpful in thinking through both which kinds of data matter most, and how much precision we need within particular categories. For example, I personally want to know with great precision how many government orders a platform received, how it responded, and whether any orders led to later judicial review. But to me it seems OK to allow some margin of error for platforms that don’t have standardized tracking and queuing tools, and that as a result might modestly mis-count TOS takedowns (either by absolute numbers or percent).
I’ll list that and some other recommendations below. But these “recommendations” are very tentative. I don’t know enough to have a really clear set of preferences yet. There are things I wish I could learn from technologists, activists, and researchers first. The venues where those conversations would ordinarily happen — and, importantly, where observers from very different backgrounds and perspectives could have compared the issues they see, and the data they most want — have been sadly reduced for the past year.
So here is my very preliminary list:
- Transparency mandates should be flexible enough to accommodate widely varying platform practices and policies. Any de facto push toward standardization should be limited to the very most essential data.
- The most important categories of data are probably the main ones listed in the DSA: number of takedowns, number of appeals, number of successful appeals. But as my list demonstrates, those all can become complicated in practice.
- It’s worth taking the time to get legal transparency mandates right. That may mean delegating exact transparency rules to regulatory agencies in some countries, or conducting studies prior to lawmaking in others.
- Once rules are set, lawmakers should be very reluctant to move the goalposts. If a platform (especially a smaller one) invests in rebuilding its content moderation tools to track certain categories of data, it should not have to overhaul those tools soon because of changed legal requirements.
- We should insist on precise data in some cases, and tolerate more imprecision in others (based on the importance of the issue, platform capacity, etc.). And we should take the time to figure out which is which.
- Numbers aren’t everything. Aggregate data in transparency reports ultimately just tell us what platforms themselves think is going on. To understand what mistakes they make, or what biases they may exhibit, independent researchers need to see the actual content involved in takedown decisions. (This in turn raises a slough of issues about storing potentially unlawful content, user privacy and data protection, and more.)
It’s time to prioritize. Researchers and civil society should assume we are operating with a limited transparency “budget,” which we must spend wisely – asking for the information we can best put to use, and factoring in the cost. We need better understanding of both research needs and platform capabilities to do this cost-benefit analysis well. I hope that the window of political opportunity does not close before we manage to do that.
This post originally appeared on The Center for Internet and Society website and is reproduced with permission and thanks. | <urn:uuid:c853bd5a-5014-49c1-8c7a-fd1caae0b9a2> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://inforrm.org/2021/03/31/platform-contention-moderation-some-humility-about-transparency-daphne-keller/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570651.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20220807150925-20220807180925-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.945837 | 1,361 | 2.03125 | 2 |
Rae The Accidental Artistwww.ArtPal.com/miamiagray
Rae refers to herself as an "accidental artist". It all started
in September 2011 when someone left his sketchbook with her and
unable to return it back, she started filling it up. When the owner finally got back his sketchbook, he was impressed by her skill. This is how she started drawing and continued it for three months.
One of her "accidental” incidents happened again when two resident
artists of a nearby gallery saw her sketches. They were impressed too and invited her to join the group.
At the group, she felt "at home" and she decided
to join it. At one point of time, the artists stretched a canvass for her and
so she started painting.
In Rae’s own words "After staring at the blank canvass for a while I
picked up my brush and just go with the flow- the rest is
Rae is a self-taught artist whose works are mostly on
abstract painting but never shies away from other art
styles. She considers herself as an emotional painter. Her
emotion inspires her to decide for the elements and colors of
her paintings. Unlike most artists, she discovered her talent
late because of which she is still developing her style. Her
craft, most importantly, gives her more fulfillment not only as an artist, but also as a person.
MEDIUM:Oil, acrylic, charcoal, pencil,
ART STYLE: Abstract, Realism, Surrealism | <urn:uuid:8b4ea28e-1c0c-414b-a3fa-15a1b1cd7ea0> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.artpal.com/miamiagray?i=24524-3 | 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 | 0.977967 | 328 | 1.539063 | 2 |
OSHA's Guide to Industrial Hygiene - OSHA 521
Course Description: Industrial hygiene practices and related OSHA regulations and procedures. Topics include permissible exposure limits, OSHA health standards, respiratory protection, engineering controls, hazard communication, OSHA sampling procedures and strategy, workplace health program elements and other industrial
hygiene topics. The course features hands-on practice in health hazard recognition and OSHA health standards requirements .
Continuing Education Units:
BCSP COC Points - 3.0
ABIH CM Points - 4.34 IH
OTC CEUs - 3.0
1. Register online and pay by credit card, check or purchase order.
2. Register by mail - Download class registration form.
3. Groups of 6 or more? Call 1-866-936-6742 for a group discount.
4. This class can be taught at your facility. Request an on-site quote. | <urn:uuid:9cd9f467-68fd-4004-b776-4beb0606dc17> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://osha4you.com/courses/osha-safety-standards/osha-guide-to-industrial-hygiene-osha-521 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280242.65/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00079-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.801085 | 193 | 1.945313 | 2 |
What is the secretariat of the Convention?
The UNFCCC secretariat provides organizational support and technical expertise to the UNFCCC
negotiations and institutions and facilitates the flow of authoritative information on the implementation
of the Convention and its Kyoto Protocol. This includes the development and effective implementation of
innovative approaches to mitigate climate change and drive sustainable development.
Specific tasks include:
- the preparation of official documents for the COP and subsidiary bodies
- the coordination of In-Depth Reviews of Annex I Party national
- the compilation of greenhouse gas inventory data.
More information on the secretariat | <urn:uuid:b73346cd-6258-4596-939c-a985acbdc916> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://unfccc.int/bodies/body/6441txt.php?minus=j | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279650.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00434-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.849203 | 123 | 2.234375 | 2 |
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Spatial and Temporal Variability of Nutrient Limitation in 6 North Shore Tributaries to Lake Superior
Andrew P. Wold and Anne E. Hershey
Journal of the North American Benthological Society
Vol. 18, No. 1 (Mar., 1999), pp. 2-14
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1468005
Page Count: 13
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Nutrient availability varies both spatially and temporally in temperate systems because of timing of seasonal and hydrological events (e.g., spring snowmelt). Most studies have found either N or P to be primarily limiting. A nutrient-diffusing bioassay was used to determine if N, P, neither nutrient, or both nutrients were limiting to periphyton growth (measured by chlorophyll a) in 6 tributaries to Lake Superior during the ice-free season of 1994. Molar ratios of dissolved inorganic nitrogen to soluble reactive phosphorus (DIN:SRP) were also calculated to predict potential limitation conditions and determine agreement with bioassay results. Co-limitation predominated (N + P > all other treatments). No limitation was also common during the late portion of the ice-free season. DIN: SRP ratios were not useful in predicting nutrient-limitation conditions. Results showed that nutrient limitation of periphyton biomass varied over space and time on a relatively small regional scale. This result is significant because many studies extrapolate results from a single stream or time period to a much larger spatial or temporal scale.
Journal of the North American Benthological Society © 1999 The University of Chicago Press | <urn:uuid:9418f443-6795-4920-ade8-03908357d90d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.jstor.org/stable/1468005 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279489.14/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00007-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908997 | 460 | 2.265625 | 2 |
Spotlight: Therese Estacion
BACK TO ACTIVE LIFE
For Therese Estacion, coaching the West Park team in the Tournament of Stars celebrity basketball event was an important milestone in her journey back after a devastating illness cost her both legs and some of her fingers.
Therese fell ill while traveling in B.C., contracting a rare bacterial infection that landed her in a seven-day coma fighting for her life. She survived, but the medication that doctors gave her to save her life caused necrosis in her extremities. Despite hoping that the necrotic tissues would heal with time, it became more and more apparent that amputations were necessary.
Looking for the best care possible, Therese came to West Park in October 2016 to work with the hospital’s amputee rehabilitation program. She spent a total of four months at West Park, during which she returned to acute care twice, first to have her legs amputated below the knee and then later to have parts of her hands amputated.
"The camaraderie really kept me going," says Therese. "I had no confidence. I'm so different now that I didn't know how people would react to me, but I felt that I was with friends. I felt I could belong."
Therese credits West Park with providing her with a complete rehabilitation – body, mind and spirit.
“The camaraderie really kept me going,” says Therese. “I had no confidence. I’m so different now that I didn’t know how people would react to me, but I felt that I was with friends. I felt I could belong.”
Therese says that the spiritual help she received played a huge part in her healing process. “It helped me grieve the things I can’t do again, but it also helped me find my centre and remember who I am.”
She also says that recreation therapy at West Park is “awesome.”
“Pub night, bingo night, coffee night – it’s what happens after most people have gone home. I invited my friends to go to these things with me. I felt I was entertaining, and not just having people visit to talk about my amputations.”
She is planning to resume her teaching career, moving from grade six teacher to guidance counselor, but in the meantime, is busy traveling, working on a poetry manuscript and advocating for greater accessibility for people with disabilities. | <urn:uuid:2c5b4de5-4527-42e4-b2e6-30969754af34> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://westparkfoundation.ca/spotlight/patient-stories/spotlight-therese-estacion/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571982.99/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813172349-20220813202349-00065.warc.gz | en | 0.986791 | 516 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Pregnancy is a life-changing event for most women. It is also one of the most beautiful experiences you will ever have. There is a whole new existence growing inside you. Isn’t the mere thought of it awe-inspiring? But just making a life is not enough. You need to nurture it.
Every single step you take during your pregnancy will be under scrutiny. Be ready for suggestions galore, pouring in from all sides. It is okay to overlook many of these unwanted advices. But do listen to your body!
The food you eat while pregnant is something that needs careful consideration. There are some foods that can harm your health, as well as the development of your unborn baby. If you are considering adding yam for pregnancy diet but worried about its impact on your body, worry no more! We have the entire scoop on yam – the good, the bad, and ugly – right here for you!
Benefits Of Eating Yam During Pregnancy:
If you are fond of eating yam, there is no reason you for you to stop now. Here
1. Cures Morning Sickness:
Morning sickness is one of the most common symptoms women experience during pregnancy. Adequate amount of vitamin B6 can provide relief from the nausea and vomiting (1). Yam contains a good amount of vitamin B6 and can help treat morning sickness.
2. Prevents Low Birth Weight:
Yam contains vitamin B6, which prevents low birth weight in babies (2).
3. Regulates Blood Pressure (BP):
Yam is a storehouse of potassium. You need this mineral to keep your blood pressure levels under control (3). High BP during pregnancy can cause serious complications.
4. Rich In Antioxidants:
Yam contains antioxidants like beta-carotene and vitamin C. They help you fight common illness, prevent oxidative stress and protect you from cancer (4).
5. Aids Digestion:
Raging hormones, growing uterus, etc. can all take a toll on your digestive system. Yam contains healthy starches, which are easy to digest (5). Yam also contains dietary fiber, which treats constipation (6).
6. Prevents Anemia:
Anemia is a common problem during pregnancy. Yam contains minerals like zinc, copper, and iron, all of which play an important role in preventing and treating anemia (7).
7. Storehouse Of Folate:
It is common knowledge that you need folate or folic acid during pregnancy. But why do you need it? Folic acid can protect your baby from neural tube defect (8).Yam contains a large amount of folate and is a must have during pregnancy.
8. Good Source Of Vitamin A:
Yam provides around 166IU of vitamin A per cup of serving. You need this vitamin to ensure that your baby’s immune system stays healthy and strong (9). So, just include yam in your diet and ensure your baby’s good health.
9. Prevents Premature Birth:
Iron deficiency is a leading cause of premature birth. Adding iron-rich yam to your diet can help prevent premature birth, as well as low birth weight of your baby (10).
10. Keeps Bones Strong:
You need to have strong bones especially during pregnancy. Your growing baby too needs calcium to build her bones (11). For that, you need a healthy dose of calcium. So, it makes sense to add yam to your diet as it contains 19mg of calcium, per serving.
You never thought that the not so pretty yam could provide such immense benefits, did you? Well, now that you know how good yam can be for your health, let’s look at some of its side effects.
Side Effects Of Yam:
Fortunately, yam is not an allergen. But you still need to exercise caution. Here are some things you should keep in mind:
1. Kidney Stones:
If you suffer from kidney stones, talk to your doctor before consuming yam. The tuber vegetable contains small amounts of oxalate and can cause kidney damage (12).
2. Digestive Issues:
If you have a sensitive digestive system, refrain from consuming yam. It can lead to issues like nausea, vomiting, headache, and diarrhea.
3. Wild Yam:
We still don’t know much about the impact of wild yam on pregnancy outcomes. So avoid consuming wild yam during pregnancy.
Yam, like all other vegetables, can help you stay healthy. You can safely add it to your pregnancy diet. But don’t forget to cook it well first!
Do you like yam? Do you have a special yam recipe? Share with us!
- 5 Health Benefits Of Sweet Potato During Pregnancy
- 11 Health Benefits Of Barley During Pregnancy
- What Are The Benefits Of Eating Amla During Pregnancy?
- 7 Health Benefits Of Eating Kidney Beans During Pregnancy | <urn:uuid:4eae4040-095c-436c-9915-1a51017c34d9> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://coolmom.info/en/pages/607235 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280483.83/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00302-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93925 | 1,040 | 2.203125 | 2 |
Los Angeles, CA. Learn how the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) managed to spend over a half a Billion dollars building the still incomplete (2007) Belmont Learning Center, renamed Vista Hermosa. Now available in a Documentary Collectors Series of 23 DVDs. Watch 7 min preview here.
From start to finish, find out how the L.A. Unified School District got into this mess and hear the participants offer their opinions regarding who was responsible.
- Planning & Development
- Legal & Financing
- Toxic hazards
- Investigation of fraud.
- Purchase of land
- Failure to prosecute crimes
Each DVD contains two-part interviews with the major players involved, and the series includes two summary programs: “The Best of Belmont” and “The Black Hole of School Construction” and include exclusive footage of the December 2004 demolition of 60 percent of the brand new, never occupied buildings. Click here for a downloadable flyer listing all those interviewed is available here.
Produced by Emmy Award winning Host Leslie Dutton and Producer T. J. Johnston, the series was videotaped originally for cable television and aired on 45 cable systems in California.
The DVDs are available individually or as a set with special prices for institutional organizations. For individual or institutional savings contact Full Disclosure Network® Executive offices at (310) 822-4449 or http://www.fulldisclosure.net/ | <urn:uuid:272aca43-d656-4f59-98fd-374065ceace4> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://blog.fulldisclosure.net/2007/11/how-did-belmont-cost-l-unified-school.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280891.90/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00162-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.912987 | 290 | 1.992188 | 2 |
Egypt crisis: Fresh Alexandria clashes ahead of voting
- 21 December 2012
- From the section Middle East
Clashes have broken out in the Egyptian city of Alexandria on the eve of the second leg of voting in the country's constitutional referendum.
Police fired tear gas as thousands of Islamists were met by a smaller group of protesters near a large mosque.
The Islamists back President Mohammed Morsi and his draft constitution. Opponents say the document has been rushed and does not protect minorities.
Alexandria voted in the first leg of a referendum that has split the nation.
The capital, Cairo, has also voted. Seventeen of the 27 provinces will cast ballots on Saturday.
Islamists in favour of the draft had called for a large rally outside the Qaed Ibrahim mosque in the centre of Alexandria.
They chanted "God is Great" and "With blood and soul, we redeem Islam".
A smaller group of opponents chanted anti-constitution slogans and the two sides threw stones at each other.
Police formed lines to keep the groups apart and fired tear gas, with the unrest subsiding after about 90 minutes.
The state news agency Mena quoted the health ministry as saying that 32 people had been injured.
Last week an ultraconservative cleric was trapped in a mosque in Alexandria for 12 hours as his supporters battled opponents outside.
Some 250,000 security personnel have been deployed nationwide to try to keep order during the referendum.
Turnout for the first round of voting was reported to be low - just above 30%. Unofficial counts suggested some 56% of those who cast ballots voted "yes" to the draft.
The opposition has complained of a number of cases of fraud.
Analysts believe Saturday's leg will favour a "yes" vote as the areas to vote are considered in general to be more conservative.
Egypt's latest crisis began on 22 November, when Mr Morsi adopted sweeping new powers in a decree, stripping the judiciary of any power to challenge his decisions.
The decree spurred protests and clashes between Mr Morsi's supporters and opponents.
Under pressure, the president revoked much of the decree but only after a constituent assembly had voted through the draft constitution and it had been put to the referendum.
The opposition had demanded the referendum be postponed, saying the assembly had approved the draft despite a boycott by liberals, secularists and Christians, who believe it does not adequately protect women, freedom of expression or religion.
The opposition did not, however, call a boycott, instead urging its members to vote "no".
If the constitution passes, elections must take place within three months. In the meantime, legislative powers would remain with Mr Morsi. | <urn:uuid:aa5dba26-84a3-4883-88a1-8ded85004699> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-20814346 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280929.91/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00420-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972232 | 542 | 1.703125 | 2 |
AppInventor Awarded Funding To Democratize Computing
Written by Sue Gee
Sunday, 07 April 2013
David Wolber and the University of San Francisco have been awarded a grant to launch the Democratize Computing Lab, an initiative to radically broaden and diversify the pool of software creators using App Inventor for Android.
App Inventor is a visual programming language designed specifically for beginners. It allows you to create mobile apps for phones and tablets using visual blocks:
If you've been following the story of AppInventor you'll know that it started as a Google project when its creator Hal Abelson took a two-year sabbatical from MIT to create a mobile programming language together with five Googlers. When Google decided to drop App Inventor as part of its closure of Google Labs, the project was open sourced and handed over to MIT with some funding for the MIT Center for Mobile Learning, part of the MIT Media Lab.
David Wolber is a professor of Computer Science at USF (the University of San Francisco) who began teaching App Inventor as part of Google's 2009 pilot program and is the lead author of App Inventor: Create Your Own Android App.
The Lab's mission is to to break down the "programmer divide", and radically broaden and diversify the pool of software creators [by introducing programming] to designers, artists, women, people of color, scientists, health professionals, humanities majors, entrepreneurs-- anyone who desires to add software to their creative problem solving arsenal.
The lab focuses on three activities all related to App Inventor:
Teaching Programming In addition to Wolber's book and its accompanying on-line course, a key focus of the lab is the further development of these teaching materials, in pa\rticular Course-in-a-box to help educators launch their own courses.
Community Outreach Working with youth groups in the community to help facilitate after-school initiatives involving mobile programming.
App Inventor deserves to be better known and appreciated, both in education and within the developer community where it has a role for rapid prototyping. It's fun and by providing quick results it provides an introduction to computer science that avoids the steep learning curve of traditional approaches.
If you want to see proof of how much can be achieved with App Inventor see the winning submissions from the recent App Inventor Contest, organized at the end of last year by David Wolber, which are now on show in the App Inventor Gallery.
One problem that App Inventor faces, however, is fragmentation. The MIT App Inventor site is still in beta and hands you over to the App inventor Community Gallery and there seem to be no links between these MIT sites and David Wolber's AppInventor.org, which is where you'll find loads of tutorials and Course-In-A-Box. Here's the introductory video for the site which as you can see is in many ways the site for David Wolber's book:
And now we have the USF's Democratize Computing Lab - a site which may be an umbrella for all the App Inventor resources but doesn't even have "App Inventor" in its url!
eCommerce, in particular Shopify and Bigcommerce, is the focus of this week's trawl through the web to bring you items of interest that we've not had chance to cover in our daily attempts to cove [ ... ]
No misprint - it really does say caret and not carrot - but it doesn't help explain what a multi-caret is, although multi-carrot would be even stranger. Yes, NetBeans 8.2 is here with some new feature [ ... ] | <urn:uuid:3f03450d-5f87-4cdb-bbb9-27f3b5de7023> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.i-programmer.info/news/150-training-a-education/5730-appinventor-awarded-funding-to-democratize-computing.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988719566.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183839-00261-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.955665 | 766 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Those who work with immigrants in New Brunswick say creating more jobs is what's needed to attract more immigrants to the province.
The New Brunswick government released a paper this month asking the public for suggestions on how to bring more immigrants to the province and retain young people.
Daniel Perez came to Fredericton from Venezuela to work as a software developer and didn't have difficulty finding work. But it has been difficult for his wife to find a job, a situation that is not uncommon for immigrant couples.
"If you don't have a specialty … it could be difficult to find a job," said Perez.
Perez's wife Carolina used to work as a secretary at a university, but still hasn't found permanent work in her field.
"For my profession, it is difficult looking for a job because [of] my English," she said.
The New Brunswick Multicultural Council says about 2,000 immigrants move to the province every year. About 20 per cent of them return to their homeland, or move to other provinces where there are more jobs and better pay.
Immigrants account for 3.9 per cent of New Brunswick's population according to Statistics Canada, far below the national average of 20 per cent.
Rowland Moreno works with New Brunswick's Filipino community and says many of them are seasonal workers who would like to make New Brunswick their home.
"What we would like to see from the government is to put a lot of investment on not only attracting people to work with us, but to create more jobs in New Brunswick."
Leentje Deleuil, managing director of the New Brunswick Multicultural Council, agrees.
"The most difficult part for us is to keep the immigrants, the newcomers in New Brunswick," said Deleuil. "It has been extremely difficult, mostly due economic situations."
The government will take the input it receives from its discussion paper and incorporate it into a five-year plan to attract more people to the province. | <urn:uuid:a28590b1-c2ec-488b-bb5d-ab9f510e4157> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/job-creation-called-key-to-boost-immigration-1.2251265 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988717954.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183837-00508-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.977053 | 401 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Small Killough Platform built with Lego
Please see the disclaimer for more information.
The first time I saw this sort of design for a mobile robot platform was on
Leo's Lego Page.
Unfortunately I did not have the wheels he proposed in his design, therefore I built my own.
I think this is one of the smallest designs for a
Killough Platform (search for Stephen Killough)
or Omnidirectional Holonomic Platform
possible to build with Lego without modifying any Lego parts.
Two other designs can also be found: A
Doug's LEGO Robotics Page
Sorry to call them monsters, but they really are!
As I have not used the original spherical wheels, but cylindrical wheels instead, the movement of the platform is
not very smooth as the distance to the floor of the axels change, when they rotate! But this platform is able to move
all the fancy ways like the big ones can! It can drive into any direction without having to turn and
can rotate in place (compare this to
a tank, which can drive into two directions and rotate in place).
I programmed the RCX using Not Quite C
Markus Matern, October 2002 | <urn:uuid:6a01cfb6-14d3-4538-88fa-90f987981bba> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://home.arcor.de/markus.matern/Robotics/SmallKilloughPlatform/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281419.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00484-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941717 | 249 | 1.578125 | 2 |
Richard very often came to see us while we remained in London (though he soon failed in his letter-writing), and with his quick abilities, his good spirits, his good temper, his gaiety and freshness, was always delightful. But though I liked him more and more the better I knew him, I still felt more and more how much it was to be regretted that he had been educated in no habits of application and concentration. The system which had addressed him in exactly the same manner as it had addressed hundreds of other boys, all varying in character and capacity, had enabled him to dash through his tasks, always with fair credit and often with distinction, but in a fitful, dazzling way that had confirmed his reliance on those very qualities in himself which it had been most desirable to direct and train. They were good qualities, without which no high place can be meritoriously won, but like fire and water, though excellent servants, they were very bad masters. If they had been under Richard’s direction, they would have been his friends; but Richard being under their direction, they became his enemies.
I write down these opinions not because I believe that this or any other thing was so because I thought so, but only because I did think so and I want to be quite candid about all I thought and did. These were my thoughts about Richard. I thought I often observed besides how right my guardian was in what he had said, and that the uncertainties and delays of the Chancery suit had imparted to his nature something of the careless spirit of a gamester who felt that he was part of a great gaming system.
Mr. and Mrs. Bayham Badger coming one afternoon when my guardian was not at home, in the course of conversation I naturally inquired after Richard.
“Why, Mr. Carstone,” said Mrs. Badger, “is very well and is, I assure you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say of me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn to the midshipmen’s mess when the purser’s junk had become as tough as the fore-topsel weather earings. It was his naval way of mentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any society. I may render the same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. Carstone. But I— you won’t think me premature if I mention it?”
I said no, as Mrs. Badger’s insinuating tone seemed to require such an answer.
“Nor Miss Clare?” said Mrs. Bayham Badger sweetly.
Ada said no, too, and looked uneasy.
“Why, you see, my dears,” said Mrs. Badger, “ — you’ll excuse me calling you my dears?”
We entreated Mrs. Badger not to mention it.
“Because you really are, if I may take the liberty of saying so,” pursued Mrs. Badger, “so perfectly charming. You see, my dears, that although I am still young — or Mr. Bayham Badger pays me the compliment of saying so — ”
“No,” Mr. Badger called out like some one contradicting at a public meeting. “Not at all!”
“Very well,” smiled Mrs. Badger, “we will say still young.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Mr. Badger.
“My dears, though still young, I have had many opportunities of observing young men. There were many such on board the dear old Crippler, I assure you. After that, when I was with Captain Swosser in the Mediterranean, I embraced every opportunity of knowing and befriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser’s command. YOU never heard them called the young gentlemen, my dears, and probably wonld not understand allusions to their pipe-claying their weekly accounts, but it is otherwise with me, for blue water has been a second home to me, and I have been quite a sailor. Again, with Professor Dingo.”
“A man of European reputation,” murmured Mr. Badger.
“When I lost my dear first and became the wife of my dear second,” said Mrs. Badger, speaking of her former husbands as if they were parts of a charade, “I still enjoyed opportunities of observing youth. The class attendant on Professor Dingo’s lectures was a large one, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent scientific man seeking herself in science the utmost consolation it could impart, to throw our house open to the students as a kind of Scientific Exchange. Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and a mixed biscuit for all who chose to partake of those refreshments. And there was science to an unlimited extent.”
“Remarkable assemblies those, Miss Summerson,” said Mr. Badger reverentially. “There must have been great intellectual friction going on there under the auspices of such a man!”
“And now,” pursued Mrs. Badger, “now that I am the wife of my dear third, Mr. Badger, I still pursue those habits of observation which were formed during the lifetime of Captain Swosser and adapted to new and unexpected purposes during the lifetime of Professor Dingo. I therefore have not come to the consideration of Mr. Carstone as a neophyte. And yet I am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he has not chosen his profession advisedly.”
Ada looked so very anxious now that I asked Mrs. Badger on what she founded her supposition.
“My dear Miss Summerson,” she replied, “on Mr. Carstone’s character and conduct. He is of such a very easy disposition that probably he would never think it worthwhile to mention how he really feels, but he feels languid about the profession. He has not that positive interest in it which makes it his vocation. If he has any decided impression in reference to it, I should say it was that it is a tiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men like Mr. Allan Woodcourt who take it from a strong interest in all that it can do will find some reward in it through a great deal of work for a very little money and through years of considerable endurance and disappointment. But I am quite convinced that this would never be the case with Mr. Carstone.”
“Does Mr. Badger think so too?” asked Ada timidly.
“Why,” said Mr. Badger, “to tell the truth, Miss Clare, this view of the matter had not occurred to me until Mrs. Badger mentioned it. But when Mrs. Badger put it in that light, I naturally gave great consideration to it, knowing that Mrs. Badger’s mind, in addition to its natural advantages, has had the rare advantage of being formed by two such very distinguished (I will even say illustrious) public men as Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy and Professor Dingo. The conclusion at which I have arrived is — in short, is Mrs. Badger’s conclusion.”
“It was a maxim of Captain Swosser’s,” said Mrs. Badger, “speaking in his figurative naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you cannot make it too hot; and that if you only have to swab a plank, you should swab it as if Davy Jones were after you. It appears to me that this maxim is applicable to the medical as well as to the nautical profession.
“To all professions,” observed Mr. Badger. “It was admirably said by Captain Swosser. Beautifully said.”
“People objected to Professor Dingo when we were staying in the north of Devon after our marriage,” said Mrs. Badger, “that he disfigured some of the houses and other buildings by chipping off fragments of those edifices with his little geological hammer. But the professor replied that he knew of no building save the Temple of Science. The principle is the same, I think?”
“Precisely the same,” said Mr. Badger. “Finely expressed! The professor made the same remark, Miss Summerson, in his last illness, when (his mind wandering) he insisted on keeping his little hammer under the pillow and chipping at the countenances of the attendants. The ruling passion!”
Although we could have dispensed with the length at which Mr. and Mrs. Badger pursued the conversation, we both felt that it was disinterested in them to express the opinion they had communicated to us and that there was a great probability of its being sound. We agreed to say nothing to Mr. Jarndyce until we had spoken to Richard; and as he was coming next evening, we resolved to have a very serious talk with him.
So after he had been a little while with Ada, I went in and found my darling (as I knew she would be) prepared to consider him thoroughly right in whatever he said.
“And how do you get on, Richard?” said I. I always sat down on the other side of him. He made quite a sister of me.
“Oh! Well enough!” said Richard.
“He can’t say better than that, Esther, can he?” cried my pet triumphantly.
I tried to look at my pet in the wisest manner, but of course I couldn’t.
“Well enough?” I repeated.
“Yes,” said Richard, “well enough. It’s rather jog-trotty and humdrum. But it’ll do as well as anything else!”
“Oh! My dear Richard!” I remonstrated.
“What’s the matter?” said Richard.
“Do as well as anything else!”
“I don’t think there’s any harm in that, Dame Durden,” said Ada, looking so confidingly at me across him; “because if it will do as well as anything else, it will do very well, I hope.”
“Oh, yes, I hope so,” returned Richard, carelessly tossing his hair from his forehead. “After all, it may be only a kind of probation till our suit is — I forgot though. I am not to mention the suit. Forbidden ground! Oh, yes, it’s all right enough. Let us talk about something else.”
Ada would have done so willingly, and with a full persuasion that we had brought the question to a most satisfactory state. But I thought it would be useless to stop there, so I began again.
“No, but Richard,” said I, “and my dear Ada! Consider how important it is to you both, and what a point of honour it is towards your cousin, that you, Richard, should be quite in earnest without any reservation. I think we had better talk about this, really, Ada. It will be too late very soon.”
“Oh, yes! We must talk about it!” said Ada. “But I think Richard is right.”
What was the use of my trying to look wise when she was so pretty, and so engaging, and so fond of him!
“Mr. and Mrs. Badger were here yesterday, Richard,” said I, “and they seemed disposed to think that you had no great liking for the profession.”
“Did they though?” said Richard. “Oh! Well, that rather alters the case, because I had no idea that they thought so, and I should not have liked to disappoint or inconvenience them. The fact is, I don’t care much about it. But, oh, it don’t matter! It’ll do as well as anything else!”
“You hear him, Ada!” said I.
“The fact is,” Richard proceeded, half thoughtfully and half jocosely, “it is not quite in my way. I don’t take to it. And I get too much of Mrs. Bayham Badger’s first and second.”
“I am sure THAT’S very natural!” cried Ada, quite delighted. “The very thing we both said yesterday, Esther!”
“Then,” pursued Richard, “it’s monotonous, and to-day is too like yesterday, and to-morrow is too like to-day.”
“But I am afraid,” said I, “this is an objection to all kinds of application — to life itself, except under some very uncommon circumstances.”
“Do you think so?” returned Richard, still considering. “Perhaps! Ha! Why, then, you know,” he added, suddenly becoming gay again, “we travel outside a circle to what I said just now. It’ll do as well as anything else. Oh, it’s all right enough! Let us talk about something else.”
But even Ada, with her loving face — and if it had seemed innocent and trusting when I first saw it in that memorable November fog, how much more did it seem now when I knew her innocent and trusting heart — even Ada shook her head at this and looked serious. So I thought it a good opportunity to hint to Richard that if he were sometimes a little careless of himself, I was very sure he never meant to be careless of Ada, and that it was a part of his affectionate consideration for her not to slight the importance of a step that might influence both their lives. This made him almost grave.
“My dear Mother Hubbard,” he said, “that’s the very thing! I have thought of that several times and have been quite angry with myself for meaning to be so much in earnest and — somehow — not exactly being so. I don’t know how it is; I seem to want something or other to stand by. Even you have no idea how fond I am of Ada (my darling cousin, I love you, so much!), but I don’t settle down to constancy in other things. It’s such uphill work, and it takes such a time!” said Richard with an air of vexation.
“That may be,” I suggested, “because you don’t like what you have chosen.”
“Poor fellow!” said Ada. “I am sure I don’t wonder at it!”
No. It was not of the least use my trying to look wise. I tried again, but how could I do it, or how could it have any effect if I could, while Ada rested her clasped hands upon his shoulder and while he looked at her tender blue eyes, and while they looked at him!
“You see, my precious girl,” said Richard, passing her golden curls through and through his hand, “I was a little hasty perhaps; or I misunderstood my own inclinations perhaps. They don’t seem to lie in that direction. I couldn’t tell till I tried. Now the question is whether it’s worth-while to undo all that has been done. It seems like making a great disturbance about nothing particular.”
“My dear Richard,” said I, “how CAN you say about nothing particular?”
“I don’t mean absolutely that,” he returned. “I mean that it MAY be nothing particular because I may never want it.”
Both Ada and I urged, in reply, not only that it was decidedly worth-while to undo what had been done, but that it must be undone. I then asked Richard whether he had thought of any more congenial pursuit.
“There, my dear Mrs. Shipton,” said Richard, “you touch me home. Yes, I have. I have been thinking that the law is the boy for me.”
“The law!” repeated Ada as if she were afraid of the name.
“If I went into Kenge’s office,” said Richard, “and if I were placed under articles to Kenge, I should have my eye on the — hum! — the forbidden ground — and should be able to study it, and master it, and to satisfy myself that it was not neglected and was being properly conducted. I should be able to look after Ada’s interests and my own interests (the same thing!); and I should peg away at Blackstone and all those fellows with the most tremendous ardour.”
I was not by any means so sure of that, and I saw how his hankering after the vague things yet to come of those long-deferred hopes cast a shade on Ada’s face. But I thought it best to encourage him in any project of continuous exertion, and only advised him to be quite sure that his mind was made up now.
“My dear Minerva,” said Richard, “I am as steady as you are. I made a mistake; we are all liable to mistakes; I won’t do so any more, and I’ll become such a lawyer as is not often seen. That is, you know,” said Richard, relapsing into doubt, “if it really is worth-while, after all, to make such a disturbance about nothing particular!”
This led to our saying again, with a great deal of gravity, all that we had said already and to our coming to much the same conclusion afterwards. But we so strongly advised Richard to be frank and open with Mr. Jarndyce, without a moment’s delay, and his disposition was naturally so opposed to concealment that he sought him out at once (taking us with him) and made a full avowal. “Rick,” said my guardian, after hearing him attentively, “we can retreat with honour, and we will. But we must he careful — for our cousin s sake, Rick, for our cousin’s sake — that we make no more such mistakes. Therefore, in the matter of the law, we will have a good trial before we decide. We will look before we leap, and take plenty of time about it.”
Richard’s energy was of such an impatient and fitful kind that he would have liked nothing better than to have gone to Mr. Kenge’s office in that hour and to have entered into articles with him on the spot. Submitting, however, with a good grace to the caution that we had shown to be so necessary, he contented himself with sitting down among us in his lightest spirits and talking as if his one unvarying purpose in life from childhood had been that one which now held possession of him. My guardian was very kind and cordial with him, but rather grave, enough so to cause Ada, when he had departed and we were going upstairs to bed, to say, “Cousin John, I hope you don’t think the worse of Richard?”
“No, my love,” said he.
“Because it was very natural that Richard should be mistaken in such a difficult case. It is not uncommon.”
“No, no, my love,” said he. “Don’t look unhappy.”
“Oh, I am not unhappy, cousin John!” said Ada, smiling cheerfully, with her hand upon his shoulder, where she had put it in bidding him good night. “But I should be a little so if you thought at all the worse of Richard.”
“My dear,” said Mr. Jarndyce, “I should think the worse of him only if you were ever in the least unhappy through his means. I should be more disposed to quarrel with myself even then, than with poor Rick, for I brought you together. But, tut, all this is nothing! He has time before him, and the race to run. I think the worse of him? Not I, my loving cousin! And not you, I swear!”
“No, indeed, cousin John,” said Ada, “I am sure I could not — I am sure I would not — think any ill of Richard if the whole world did. I could, and I would, think better of him then than at any other time!”
So quietly and honestly she said it, with her hands upon his shoulders — both hands now — and looking up into his face, like the picture of truth!
“I think,” said my guardian, thoughtfully regarding her, “I think it must be somewhere written that the virtues of the mothers shall occasionally be visited on the children, as well as the sins of the father. Good night, my rosebud. Good night, little woman. Pleasant slumbers! Happy dreams!”
This was the first time I ever saw him follow Ada with his eyes with something of a shadow on their benevolent expression. I well remembered the look with which he had contemplated her and Richard when she was singing in the firelight; it was but a very little while since he had watched them passing down the room in which the sun was shining, and away into the shade; but his glance was changed, and even the silent look of confidence in me which now followed it once more was not quite so hopeful and untroubled as it had originally been.
Ada praised Richard more to me that night than ever she had praised him yet. She went to sleep with a little bracelet he had given her clasped upon her arm. I fancied she was dreaming of him when I kissed her cheek after she had slept an hour and saw how tranquil and happy she looked.
For I was so little inclined to sleep myself that night that I sat up working. It would not be worth mentioning for its own sake, but I was wakeful and rather low-spirited. I don’t know why. At least I don’t think I know why. At least, perhaps I do, but I don’t think it matters.
At any rate, I made up my mind to be so dreadfully industrious that I would leave myself not a moment’s leisure to be low-spirited. For I naturally said, “Esther! You to be low-spirited. YOU!” And it really was time to say so, for I— yes, I really did see myself in the glass, almost crying. “As if you had anything to make you unhappy, instead of everything to make you happy, you ungrateful heart!” said I.
If I could have made myself go to sleep, I would have done it directly, but not being able to do that, I took out of my basket some ornamental work for our house (I mean Bleak House) that I was busy with at that time and sat down to it with great determination. It was necessary to count all the stitches in that work, and I resolved to go on with it until I couldn’t keep my eyes open, and then to go to bed.
I soon found myself very busy. But I had left some silk downstairs in a work-table drawer in the temporary growlery, and coming to a stop for want of it, I took my candle and went softly down to get it. To my great surprise, on going in I found my guardian still there, and sitting looking at the ashes. He was lost in thought, his book lay unheeded by his side, his silvered iron-grey hair was scattered confusedly upon his forehead as though his hand had been wandering among it while his thoughts were elsewhere, and his face looked worn. Almost frightened by coming upon him so unexpectedly, I stood still for a moment and should have retired without speaking had he not, in again passing his hand abstractedly through his hair, seen me and started.
I told him what I had come for.
“At work so late, my dear?”
“I am working late to-night,” said I, “because I couldn’t sleep and wished to tire myself. But, dear guardian, you are late too, and look weary. You have no trouble, I hope, to keep you waking?”
“None, little woman, that YOU would readily understand,” said he.
He spoke in a regretful tone so new to me that I inwardly repeated, as if that would help me to his meaning, “That I could readily understand!”
“Remain a moment, Esther,” said he, “You were in my thoughts.”
“I hope I was not the trouble, guardian?”
He slightly waved his hand and fell into his usual manner. The change was so remarkable, and he appeared to make it by dint of so much self-command, that I found myself again inwardly repeating, “None that I could understand!”
“Little woman,” said my guardian, “I was thinking — that is, I have been thinking since I have been sitting here — that you ought to know of your own history all I know. It is very little. Next to nothing.”
“Dear guardian,” I replied, “when you spoke to me before on that subject — ”
“But since then,” he gravely interposed, anticipating what I meant to say, “I have reflected that your having anything to ask me, and my having anything to tell you, are different considerations, Esther. It is perhaps my duty to impart to you the little I know.”
“If you think so, guardian, it is right.”
“I think so,” he returned very gently, and kindly, and very distinctly. “My dear, I think so now. If any real disadvantage can attach to your position in the mind of any man or woman worth a thought, it is right that you at least of all the world should not magnify it to yourself by having vague impressions of its nature.”
I sat down and said after a little effort to be as calm as I ought to be, “One of my earliest remembrances, guardian, is of these words: ‘Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time will come, and soon enough, when you will understand this better, and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can.’” I had covered my face with my hands in repeating the words, but I took them away now with a better kind of shame, I hope, and told him that to him I owed the blessing that I had from my childhood to that hour never, never, never felt it. He put up his hand as if to stop me. I well knew that he was never to be thanked, and said no more.
“Nine years, my dear,” he said after thinking for a little while, “have passed since I received a letter from a lady living in seclusion, written with a stern passion and power that rendered it unlike all other letters I have ever read. It was written to me (as it told me in so many words), perhaps because it was the writer’s idiosyncrasy to put that trust in me, perhaps because it was mine to justify it. It told me of a child, an orphan girl then twelve years old, in some such cruel words as those which live in your remembrance. It told me that the writer had bred her in secrecy from her birth, had blotted out all trace of her existence, and that if the writer were to die before the child became a woman, she would be left entirely friendless, nameless, and unknown. It asked me to consider if I would, in that case, finish what the writer had begun.”
I listened in silence and looked attentively at him.
“Your early recollection, my dear, will supply the gloomy medium through which all this was seen and expressed by the writer, and the distorted religion which clouded her mind with impressions of the need there was for the child to expiate an offence of which she was quite innocent. I felt concerned for the little creature, in her darkened life, and replied to the letter.”
I took his hand and kissed it.
“It laid the injunction on me that I should never propose to see the writer, who had long been estranged from all intercourse with the world, but who would see a confidential agent if I would appoint one. I accredited Mr. Kenge. The lady said, of her own accord and not of his seeking, that her name was an assumed one. That she was, if there were any ties of blood in such a case, the child’s aunt. That more than this she would never (and he was well persuaded of the steadfastness of her resolution) for any human consideration disclose. My dear, I have told you all.”
I held his hand for a little while in mine.
“I saw my ward oftener than she saw me,” he added, cheerily making light of it, “and I always knew she was beloved, useful, and happy. She repays me twenty-thousandfold, and twenty more to that, every hour in every day!”
“And oftener still,” said I, ‘“she blesses the guardian who is a father to her!”
At the word father, I saw his former trouble come into his face. He subdued it as before, and it was gone in an instant; but it had been there and it had come so swiftly upon my words that I felt as if they had given him a shock. I again inwardly repeated, wondering, “That I could readily understand. None that I could readily understand!” No, it was true. I did not understand it. Not for many and many a day.
“Take a fatherly good night, my dear,” said he, kissing me on the forehead, “and so to rest. These are late hours for working and thinking. You do that for all of us, all day long, little housekeeper!”
I neither worked nor thought any more that night. I opened my grateful heart to heaven in thankfulness for its providence to me and its care of me, and fell asleep.
We had a visitor next day. Mr. Allan Woodcourt came. He came to take leave of us; he had settled to do so beforehand. He was going to China and to India as a surgeon on board ship. He was to be away a long, long time.
I believe — at least I know — that he was not rich. All his widowed mother could spare had been spent in qualifying him for his profession. It was not lucrative to a young practitioner, with very little influence in London; and although he was, night and day, at the service of numbers of poor people and did wonders of gentleness and skill for them, he gained very little by it in money. He was seven years older than I. Not that I need mention it, for it hardly seems to belong to anything.
I think — I mean, he told us — that he had been in practice three or four years and that if he could have hoped to contend through three or four more, he would not have made the voyage on which he was bound. But he had no fortune or private means, and so he was going away. He had been to see us several times altogether. We thought it a pity he should go away. Because he was distinguished in his art among those who knew it best, and some of the greatest men belonging to it had a high opinion of him.
When he came to bid us good-bye, he brought his mother with him for the first time. She was a pretty old lady, with bright black eyes, but she seemed proud. She came from Wales and had had, a long time ago, an eminent person for an ancestor, of the name of Morgan ap–Kerrig — of some place that sounded like Gimlet — who was the most illustrious person that ever was known and all of whose relations were a sort of royal family. He appeared to have passed his life in always getting up into mountains and fighting somebody; and a bard whose name sounded like Crumlinwallinwer had sung his praises in a piece which was called, as nearly as I could catch it, Mewlinnwillinwodd.
Mrs. Woodcourt, after expatiating to us on the fame of her great kinsman, said that no doubt wherever her son Allan went he would remember his pedigree and would on no account form an alliance below it. She told him that there were many handsome English ladies in India who went out on speculation, and that there were some to be picked up with property, but that neither charms nor wealth would suffice for the descendant from such a line without birth, which must ever be the first consideration. She talked so much about birth that for a moment I half fancied, and with pain — But what an idle fancy to suppose that she could think or care what MINE was!
Mr. Woodcourt seemed a little distressed by her prolixity, but he was too considerate to let her see it and contrived delicately to bring the conversation round to making his acknowledgments to my guardian for his hospitality and for the very happy hours — he called them the very happy hours — he had passed with us. The recollection of them, he said, would go with him wherever he went and would be always treasured. And so we gave him our hands, one after another — at least, they did — and I did; and so he put his lips to Ada’s hand — and to mine; and so he went away upon his long, long voyage!
I was very busy indeed all day and wrote directions home to the servants, and wrote notes for my guardian, and dusted his books and papers, and jingled my housekeeping keys a good deal, one way and another. I was still busy between the lights, singing and working by the window, when who should come in but Caddy, whom I had no expectation of seeing!
“Why, Caddy, my dear,” said I, “what beautiful flowers!”
She had such an exquisite little nosegay in her hand.
“Indeed, I think so, Esther,” replied Caddy. “They are the loveliest I ever saw.”
“Prince, my dear?” said I in a whisper.
“No,” answered Caddy, shaking her head and holding them to me to smell. “Not Prince.”
“Well, to be sure, Caddy!” said I. “You must have two lovers!”
“What? Do they look like that sort of thing?” said Caddy.
“Do they look like that sort of thing?” I repeated, pinching her cheek.
Caddy only laughed in return, and telling me that she had come for half an hour, at the expiration of which time Prince would be waiting for her at the corner, sat chatting with me and Ada in the window, every now and then handing me the flowers again or trying how they looked against my hair. At last, when she was going, she took me into my room and put them in my dress.
“For me?” said I, surprised.
“For you,” said Caddy with a kiss. “They were left behind by somebody.”
“At poor Miss Flite’s,” said Caddy. “Somebody who has been very good to her was hurrying away an hour ago to join a ship and left these flowers behind. No, no! Don’t take them out. Let the pretty little things lie here,” said Caddy, adjusting them with a careful hand, “because I was present myself, and I shouldn’t wonder if somebody left them on purpose!”
“Do they look like that sort of thing?” said Ada, coming laughingly behind me and clasping me merrily round the waist. “Oh, yes, indeed they do, Dame Durden! They look very, very like that sort of thing. Oh, very like it indeed, my dear!”
Last updated Sunday, March 27, 2016 at 11:53 | <urn:uuid:0a4f52db-dc1f-4ca8-9174-82f2e570318d> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/d/dickens/charles/d54bh/chapter17.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281162.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00537-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.991211 | 7,903 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Mars was once similar to Earth, but today there are no rivers, no lakes, no oceans. Coated in red dust, the terrain is bewilderingly empty. And yet multiple spacecraft are circling Mars, sweeping over Terra Sabaea, Syrtis Major, the dunes of Elysium, and Mare Sirenum — on the brink, perhaps, of a staggering find, one that would inspire humankind as much as any discovery in the history of modern science.
In this beautifully observed, deeply personal book, Sarah Stewart Johnson, AB ’01, tells the story of how she and other researchers have scoured Mars for signs of life, transforming the planet from a distant point of light into a world of its own.
Johnson earned a bachelor’s degree at Washington University in St. Louis. She is an assistant professor of planetary science at Georgetown University. A former Rhodes Scholar and White House Fellow, she received her PhD from MIT and has worked on NASA’s Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity rovers. She is also a visiting scientist with the Planetary Environments Lab at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. | <urn:uuid:7b02861f-3687-4402-830d-7fb0e7141a75> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://source.wustl.edu/bookshelf/the-sirens-of-mars/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571993.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814022847-20220814052847-00668.warc.gz | en | 0.95376 | 230 | 2.953125 | 3 |
New platform business models can feel threatening to your executive team and organization. In this article, we detail how Nokia’s board of directors helped the top management team overcome their fears and initiate a radical strategic change—divesting the phone business and focusing on networks instead.
AI has many benefits for your organization. However, under some conditions, the use of AI can actually make you more biased. In this article, we describe when and how AI can cause strategic bias and how you can avoid it.
Creating a successful platform often requires active collaboration with key actors. The success of collaboration partly depends on a shared vision. This article shows how shared vision can exist at two levels: rational-analytical thinking and emotional-intuitive feelings. While it’s easy to align the rational visions, finding a shared emotional vision takes more time and often causes the problems.
This article compares the influencing practices among several competing players in the emerging electric car ecosystem in Finland. It shows how successful actors used various emotional influencing tactics, whereas failed actors attempted to gain influence only via rational argumentation.
Organizational structures—whether within a firm or in an ecosystem—influence what people pay attention to. Their attention, in turn, influences their emotions and these emotions drive their actions. This article details how attention structures create emotions and suggest how you can design an emotionally effective structure for your platform.
Emotions can determine the success of inter-organizational collaboration, which is highly relevant for platform businesses. This article shows how attempts to brush emotions under the rug can lead to a disaster, and suggests how you could proactively manage emotions.
• When you lead a transformation to become a platform company, you are bound to face fears and emotional resistance. This article summarizes in a practical way the key actions Nokia’s board took for managing top managers’ emotions when they were dealing with major external threats.
Sign up to our newsletter and get a free copy of our “Simple guide on how to start your business transformation” -manual! | <urn:uuid:02fe6718-a5cb-4beb-bb09-3087ef85f654> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://intelligentplatforms.ai/research/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571993.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20220814022847-20220814052847-00674.warc.gz | en | 0.931648 | 412 | 1.515625 | 2 |
Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.
Fast food relies on the speedy part.
It also relies on the food part.
Things can go wrong.
As I recently mentioned, McDonald's claims it has a real health problem with some of its restaurants and can't guarantee the food is safe.
Now KFC has made an even more troubling admission.
It's run out of chicken.
The majority of KFC's restaurants in the UK were closed on Monday because, well, the chain appears to have cluckolded by its supply systems.
Last year, the company partnered with logistics provider DHL and previous partner Quick Service Logistics to, it hoped, improve supplies of, well, chicken. (And, one imagines, improve costs.)
It seems that the delivery systems have suffered, in KFC's words, "a couple of teething problems."
The problem is that customers can't get their teeth into any chicken.
And DHL has resorted to one of the favored excuses of airlines. Operational issues.
"Due to operational issues a number of deliveries in recent days have been incomplete or delayed," said the company.
To give some sense of scale it appears that out of around 900 KFCs in the UK and Ireland, a mere 170 are blessed with, well, chicken.
The rest would only be able to serve Kentucky Fried Thin Air.
The chickenless heads of KFC, owned by Yum Brands, tried to make light of its problems.
The Colonel is working on it. pic.twitter.com/VvvnDLvlyq-- KFC UK & Ireland (@KFC_UKI) February 17, 2018
Sometimes, those who work to ensure systems work can be ignored.
There's an assumption that everything will work.
In this case, however, KFC has a significant issue.
This being the UK, some tried to make light of the heavy burden.
'Nationalise KFC!'-- Bristol Post (@BristolPost) February 18, 2018
'It was like a scene out of 28 Days Later'
'Fried chicken for the masses, not just for the ruling classes!'
The hilarious and bizarre responses to Bristol's Kentucky catastrophe #KFC https://t.co/B9pNhorsPC
Some, though, were clearly struggling.
At the time of writing, it was unclear when KF would again become KFC.
Some customers have even resorted to calling, oh, the police to complain.
I wonder if those who are learning to live without will ever go back.
Oh, what am I saying, of course they will.
Meanwhile, KFC is still laughing. Publicly, that is.
But spare a thought for some of the employees who, it seems, may not get paid for these lost days at all. | <urn:uuid:d709d0b8-1a4f-4e32-a1fe-920767ee41f3> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.inc.com/chris-matyszczyk/in-a-stunning-announcement-kfc-just-admitted-that-its-run-out-of-chicken.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571745.28/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812170436-20220812200436-00465.warc.gz | en | 0.967956 | 605 | 1.632813 | 2 |
Interdependence and human health
The principle of interdependence states that all phenomena arise based on causal links in time and place to other phenomena. That is, all phenomena causally depend on causes-and-conditions determined by other phenomena in a time-and-place context. Rarely do phenomena arise spontaneously and independent of specific causes and conditions linked to other phenomena. The idea of interdependence also applies to causes and consequences of lifestyle –determined poor health.We are now entering a new era where the global threat of malnutrition, in its different forms, threatens the health of our planet and at least half of its inhabitants. Conceptually, malnutrition represents an abnormal physiological condition caused by either undernutrition (famine and starvation) or unbalanced and excessive consumption of macronutrients/micronutrients (obesity). These two forms of malnutrition link causally to planetary health that includes factors responsible for food and agriculture misuse, urban design and land use, and other environmental factors that precipitate climate crises. Indeed, a reading of the worldwide literature on health risks clearly point to these three interdependent factors now reaching pandemic proportions.
The global syndemic
The original concept of a syndemic was applied to diseases at the individual level — two or more diseases linking causally in time and place, interacting with each other and having common societal bases. The main applications of the syndemic concept referred to the HIV/AIDS clustering with substance abuse and violence, hepatitis C, alcohol abuse, and hepatocellular cancer, poverty, depression, and diabetes among low-income populations.
The three pandemics — obesity, undernutrition, and the climate crisis can now be viewed as a new global syndemic.
Individually and considered in isolation, each of these pandemics has not been viewed as urgent enough to generate significant demand or political will to act. We have failed to address these conditions internationally and now for the first time having to acknowledge that children will have reduced healthy-longevity and greater risk of development of chronic diseases than their predecessors.
A 2005 article in The New England Journal of Medicine predicted life-expectancy would decline in the U.S. by mid-century due singly to the obesity epidemic. But in 2016 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published preliminary evidence that healthy-life expectancy for children was decreasing at an alarming rate. Age-adjusted death rates for the first nine months of 2015 increased significantly compared to the same time period in 2014, most notably due to obesity-related conditions like heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and Alzheimer’s disease. The downward trend in longevity is likely to accelerate as this generation of children — heavier from earlier in life than ever before — reaches adulthood. It’s one thing for someone to develop obesity at age 45, diabetes at 55, and heart disease at 65, but what if the clock starts ticking at age 10? All indicators suggest a downward spiral in children’s healthy longevity that does not appear to be abating.
Perhaps, linking obesity with undernutrition and climate change into the framework of a single global syndemic will focus attention on the scale and urgency these combined challenges pose to global public health.
Shared societal determinants for undernutrition, obesity, and climate change are well known. They are driven by the high consumption of cheap energy sources (foods and fossil fuels), auto-oriented transportation systems, and economic systems that promote excessive and unsustainable consumption patterns that damage the health of people, the environment, and the planet.
The undernutrition pandemic and its links
Historically, the most widespread form of malnutrition has been undernutrition, including wasting, stunting (low height for age), and micronutrient deficiencies. Undernutrition and its many physical and emotional consequences often are considered epidemic in various regions of the world. While the Global Hunger Index (1992–2017) showed substantial declines in child mortality for those 5 years and younger in all regions of the world, there was less decline in the prevalence of wasting (starvation) and stunting among children due to nutritional deficiencies. However, the rates of decline in worldwide undernutrition for children and adults are still epidemic in most regions of the world.
While not so obvious, undernutrition causally links to obesity. Data on the origins of health and disease reveal fetal and infant undernutrition are risk factors for obesity and its adverse consequences throughout life. Low-income and middle-income countries carry the greatest burdens of malnutrition. In these countries, the prevalence of overweight children less than 5 years of age is rising alongside an already high prevalence of stunting, wasting, and underweight. And not surprisingly, it is these geographic regions most affected by changes in planetary health.
The obesity pandemic and its links
To date, little progress had been made regarding the worldwide obesity pandemic beyond acknowledging it as a problem that requires action. Unfortunately, obesity is still regarded as an individual responsibility resulting from wrong choices and motivations. This view is not helpful from a public-health perspective. Obesity is often a chronic, progressive disorder leading to poor health, unwarranted stigma, and increased mortality. In the 2017 Global Burden of Disease analysis, overweightness and obesity increased by 36·7 percent between 2007 -17 and by 127 percent between 1990-2017, and accounted for 4·7 million deaths and 148 million disability-adjusted life years globally in 2017. With an increase of prevalence in almost all countries, obesity has far-reaching consequences for population health and wellbeing.That hunger and obesity exist side-by-side throughout the industrialized world remains counterintuitive, but research shows both conditions coexist within the same person and even within the same household. This phenomenon is termed the “hunger-obesity paradox.” Because obesity connotes excessive energy intake, and hunger reflects an inadequate food supply, the increased prevalence of obesity and hunger in the same population seems paradoxical. One explanation posits that obesity might represent an adaptive response to episodic food insufficiency with a number of studies showing a link between obesity and hunger. One study showed the prevalence of overweightness among women progressively increased as food insecurity increased, moving from 34 percent for those who were food secure to 41 percent for those mildly food insecure, to 52 percent for those moderately food insecure. The researchers concluded that food insecurity represents a significant predictor of overweight status in women.
The climate crisis pandemic and its links
That we are in the middle of a full-blown climate crisis is no longer debatable. Climate change represents a pandemic because of its dynamic nature, its rapid rise, and its predicted catastrophic impact on worldwide human health. The interactions between climate change and under- and overnutrition occur at both the individual and population level. Recent estimates suggest the health gains achieved in the past 50 years of global economic development will be reversed by 2050 due to consequences of the climate crisis. Estimates of future costs of the climate crisis are 5-10 percent of the world’s gross national product (GDP), with costs in low-income countries in excess of 10 percent of their GDP. Low-income countries that produce the fewest greenhouse-gas emissions are paradoxically more affected by the climate crisis than countries that produce the highest greenhouse-gas emissions. Furthermore, the climate crisis has a disproportionate effect on agricultural production and consequently human health in low-income countries most affected by increased global disruption.
How to change the global syndemic
The sheer scale of the problems presented by the global syndemic is daunting and we must, in my opinion, focus on prevention rather than our current emphasis on treatment. In the long run, prevention is more cost-effective and equitable. Sustainable efforts to affect the global syndemic must include a collective set of determined actions taken at different societal levels to influence the drivers of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change.
We must all begin to think in global terms and commit to a vibrant and collective effort to ensure the public health of all living beings. This includes the rights of all living beings to sustainable wellness, access to proper and affordable health care, and maintenance of a healthy environment by working collectively to positively reduce effects of climate change. It also includes the need for sustainable food production, and a commitment to protect the rights of the poor, the impoverished, and the socially disadvantaged populations of children and women who are likely to be more severely affected by the global syndemic.
- Costello, A., et al. “Managing the health effects of climate change: Lancet and University College London Institute for Global Health Commission.” Lancet. 2009; 373:1693–733.
- Foreman, K.J., et al. “Forecasting life expectancy, years of life lost, and all-cause and cause-specific mortality for 250 causes of death: Reference and alternative scenarios for 2016–40 for 195 countries and territories.” Lancet. 2018; 392:2052-2090.
- GBD 2017 Risk Factor Collaborators. “Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 84 behavioral, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks for 195 countries and territories, 1990-2017: A systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017.” Lancet. 2018; 392:1923-1994.
- Myers, S.S., et al. “Climate change and global food systems: Potential impacts on food security and undernutrition.” Annual Review of Public Health. 2017; 38:259–77.
- Swinburn,B.A., et al. “Strengthening of accountability systems to create healthy food environments and reduce global obesity.” Lancet. 2015; 385: 2534-2545.
- Swinburn, B.A., et al. “The global syndemic of obesity, undernutrition, and climate change: The Lancet Commission report.” www.thelancet.com Published online Jan. 27, 2019
- “Syndemics: Health in context.” Lancet. 2017; 389:881.
- Watts, N., et al. “The 2018 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: Shaping the health of nations for centuries to come.” Lancet. 2018; 392:2479-2514.
- World Resources Institute. World Resources Report: “Creating a sustainable food future: A menu of solutions to feed nearly 10 billion people by 2050.” 2018. https://www.wri.org/publication/creating-sustainable-food-future | <urn:uuid:49877a0f-a5c3-4fa1-94ea-a08af8b541cb> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://michigantoday.umich.edu/2019/12/19/we-are-in-a-crisis-of-connections/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573029.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817153027-20220817183027-00266.warc.gz | en | 0.931543 | 2,163 | 2.953125 | 3 |
A German poet, philosopher, historian, and playwright. During the last seventeen years of his life (1788–1805), Schiller struck up a productive, if complicated, friendship with already famous and influential Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. They frequently discussed issues concerning aesthetics, and Schiller encouraged Goethe to finish works he left as sketches. This relationship and these discussions led to a period now referred to as Weimar Classicism. They also worked together on Xenien, a collection of short satirical poems in which both Schiller and Goethe challenge opponents to their philosophical vision.
He never lived in St Louis, but according to various websites, his son Johann Wilhelm Engau, who also never lived in St Louis, "started the line of descendants who now live in St Louis, MO." The statue was donated by Colonel Charles Stifel, a local brewer (everyone was a brewer), and apparently there was a huge parade and party the day the statue was dedicated in 1898. | <urn:uuid:0a1f4fcf-7ecf-4967-b35a-a9d2d0e5018a> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/friedrich-schiller-10-november-1759-9-may-1805/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281162.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00528-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974008 | 199 | 3.171875 | 3 |
For the past few years, as businesses focused on survival in the midst of economic uncertainty, human capital development was pushed aside. As many companies cut employees, the workers who remained had more to do and little time to dream about that corner-office promotion.
Now, with many economies somewhat improved but still wobbly, talent management is emerging as a more prominent issue for many businesses worldwide.
A new CGMA report shows that 43% of chief executives, CFOs and human resources directors believe poor human capital management has kept their companies from reaching key financial targets in the previous 18 months. Forty per cent of executives said subpar talent management hinders their ability to innovate, and the respondents also linked inadequate talent management to issues including the inability to expand into new markets and complete major projects, difficulties forecasting growth and a slide in their company’s competitiveness.
In the financial sector, the correlation was felt strongly: 58% of executives said their firm was unable to start a major project or achieve key financial goals in the previous 18 months because of poor human capital management.
The report, Talent pipeline draining growth: Connecting human capital to the growth agenda, came from results of a global survey of 313 chief executives, CFOs and HR directors. The report was conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit for the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) and the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA).
Overlooking succession planning
For companies to address the issue of ineffective talent management, establishing succession plans for top-level executive positions is one positive step, but it’s not the solution.
“It takes more than a succession plan,” said Dow Scott, a professor of human resources at Loyola University Chicago’s Quinlan School of Business. “You have to provide development opportunities, not just training programmes, but meaningful assignments. You have to create an internal culture that values development, and you have to have people willing to take on assignments, further their capabilities, so you get the best person from within.”
Most companies focus little attention on succession planning, according to the report. More than half (51%) of executives say that their firms do not have formal succession planning processes in place for top-level roles, and 38% believe their companies will look externally to fill C-level jobs in the next 12 months.
If companies lose key people and do not have a plan to replace them, time is spent making a hire, then more time is spent letting the new hire get acclimated to the company’s culture. No matter how well a new hire fits, there is still a transition period when the company is not moving forward, said David Kvendru, CPA, CGMA, who is the CFO of the San Diego Association of Realtors.
“Without having a clear succession plan and knowing who’s going to take over, the dynamics of the situation, the economy – you can’t just pull somebody off the street and expect them to run the company,” Kvendru said. “It can be much better for a company to have something created for a move-up instead of an external move-in.
“A person hired from outside – maybe they understand the industry, but not the dynamics of the company, and there are politics at every company.”
Who’s in charge?
Global executives say they are aware of the importance of human capital and talent management, but there is a lack of confidence in the measurement of their human capital performance and few agree on who has the mandate and responsibility to do so, according to the report.
Sixty-five per cent of chief executives and CFOs believe the CFO has the mandate to measure the effectiveness of human capital, but 83% of human resources directors say the responsibility is theirs.
Clearly, there’s a further disconnect at the top level: 77% of chief executives plan to cut spending on workforce skills, training and qualifications over the next 18 months, but just 18% of HR directors believe their companies will cut those programmes.
“Ideas are the currency of the knowledge economy, so human capital must be managed as rigourously as financial capital,” said Arleen Thomas, CPA, CGMA, senior vice president for management accounting at the AICPA. “It is clear from our research that many companies are falling short of their potential because they lack thorough, relevant information about their people to support effective strategy, hiring and training decisions.”
Scott, the Loyola University professor, says economic uncertainty and a leaner workforce contribute to less emphasis on training.
“In defence of companies, they’ve come through a huge, huge financial crisis, and they had to thin down, and they probably are not thinking about development,” Scott said. “And employees’ commitment to go the extra mile is pretty well shaken. They can’t keep running faster and faster and faster.”
Studies recently have shown that retention of talent is a global concern, as is declining employee engagement. In a competitive economy, human capital is becoming just as important as a company’s products and services, and many companies have a difficult time measuring the cost of that talent.
Other key findings in the CGMA report:
North American firms report more talent-management difficulties than counterparts in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Just 16% of North American companies have personal development programmes in place, compared with 45% of European firms and 35% of Asia-Pacific firms.
One-third of HR directors believe their company has a good understanding of the cost of human capital but not the value of an employee’s skill and experience. In those organisations that struggle to understand the full cost and value, nearly nine in ten CEOs (87%) and five in six CFOs (83%) believe measures of the value of losing and replacing talent are too difficult to obtain.
No matter who is supplying the information, chief executives doubt its accuracy—just 12% are confident about the quality of metrics they receive on human capital. Nearly two-fifths (38%) of HR directors said their company struggled to get accurate data and metrics on “human capital costs, productivity, value and ROI.”
In the report, the AICPA and CIMA recommend strategies to combat subpar talent management:
Get the right information: The data on human capital must be credible, but it also needs to be analysed correctly to aid in decision-making.
Set better performance measures: Companies should develop human capital metrics aligned with overall business goals.
Establish accountability: Organisations should be clear on ownership of human capital management performance.
Encourage partnering: Structure the organisation to ensure alignment of human capital to business strategy between finance and HR.
Additional CGMA resources:
“The Fast Track to Leadership”: In many organisations, finance is supporting the business to meet its strategic objectives and building a sustainable business model to take it beyond its more traditional role of financial stewardship and operational responsibilities. In these forward-looking organisations, finance is evolving from a focus on the transactional and cost-efficiency areas through an analytical and decision support stage to a real strategic focus where it can make a real impact.
“The Invisible Elephant and the Pyramid Treasure”: There has been an unprecedented change in the demands of leadership over the past decade – change that has highlighted a need for leaders who prioritise the true stakeholders of their organisations – customers, employees, suppliers, the community, the planet and the shareholders – rather than putting personal reward first.
“Rebooting Business: Valuing the Human Dimension”: The human dimensions of business – for example, customer and supplier relationships, talent development as well as intellectual capital – will be the focus in the months ahead.
“Execs Battle Skills Gap in Hiring Despite High Unemployment”: Executives report difficulty finding qualified workers despite high jobless rates. Recruiting workers for positions as varied as engineers, accountants and tugboat workers is a problem. Hire-and-train employee development and new educational initiatives may provide solutions.
—Neil Amato (firstname.lastname@example.org) is a CGMA Magazine senior editor. | <urn:uuid:bec736ab-d258-455e-9445-c15c6c0ce935> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.cgma.org/magazine/news/pages/20126410.aspx?TestCookiesEnabled=redirect | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281162.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00531-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952032 | 1,715 | 1.78125 | 2 |
The performance of the MySilverShield shielding was measured by Emitech (www.emitech.fr), a COFRAC accredited laboratory.
These tests (carried out with an iPhone 11) made it possible to assess the level of protection offered by the MySilverShield case and show an attenuation of the SAR * level of:
- 80.7% in the LTE800 frequency band
- 85.2% in the GSM900 frequency band
- 83.6% in the WCDMA2100 frequency band
- 92.4% in the LTE2600 frequency band
* The SAR or Specific Absorption Rate is an index indicating the amount of energy carried by the waves received by the user from a device when it is operating at full power and under the worst conditions of use. | <urn:uuid:4a875546-42d4-4301-acd0-f5daced2c3a9> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://mysilvershield.com/en/content/14-test-results | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571147.84/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810040253-20220810070253-00467.warc.gz | en | 0.934845 | 165 | 1.726563 | 2 |
As frogs around the world continue to disappear — many killed by a rapidly spreading disease called chytridiomycosis, which attacks the skin cells of amphibians — one critically endangered species has received an encouraging boost. Although the La Loma tree frog, Hyloscirtus colymba, is notoriously difficult to care for in captivity, the Panamá Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project is the first to successfully breed this species.
“We are some of the first researchers to attempt to breed these animals into captivity and we have very little information about how to care for them,” said Brian Gratwicke, international coordinator for the project and a research biologist at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, one of nine project partners. “We were warned that we might not be able to keep these frogs alive, but through a little bit of guesswork, attention to detail and collaboration with other husbandry experts, we’ve managed to breed them. The lessons we’re learning have put us on target to save this incredible species and our other priority species in Panamá.”
The rescue project currently has 28 adult La Loma tree frogs and four tadpoles at the Summit Municipal Park outside of Panama City, Panamá.
In addition to the La Loma tree frog, the project also has successfully bred the endangered Limosa harlequin frog, Atelopus limosus. Keepers will continue to carefully monitor the tadpoles of both species.
Nearly one-third of the world’s amphibian species are at risk of extinction. The rescue project aims to save more than 20 species of frogs in Panamá, one of the world’s last
strongholds for amphibian biodiversity. While the global amphibian crisis is the result of habitat loss, climate change and pollution, chytridiomycosis is likely at least partly responsible for the disappearances of 94 of the 120 frog species thought to have gone extinct since 1980.
“Although the outlook for amphibians is grim, the rescue project’s recent developments give us hope for these unique Panamanian species,” said Roberto Ibáñez, local director of the project and a scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, one of the project’s partners. “We are creating what amounts to an ark for these animals so that their species may survive this deadly disease. We’re also looking for a cure so that someday we can safely release the frogs back into the wild.”
Of Panama’s six harlequin frog species, five are in collections at the Summit Zoological Park and the El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center in El Valle, Panamá. One species, the Chiriqui harlequin frog, A. chiriquiensis, from western Panamá, is likely extinct. The other species range from being extinct in the wild — the Panamanian golden frog, A. zeteki, — to being endangered.
The mission of the Panamá Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project is to rescue amphibian species that are in extreme danger of extinction throughout Panamá. The project’s efforts and expertise are focused on establishing assurance colonies and developing methodologies to reduce the impact of the amphibian chytrid fungus so that one day captive amphibians may be reintroduced to the wild. Project participants include Africam Safari, Panama’s Autoridad Nacional del Ambiente, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Defenders of Wildlife, El Valle Amphibian Conservation Center, Houston Zoo, Smithsonian’s National Zoological Park, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Summit Municipal Park and Zoo New England. | <urn:uuid:2eed7c99-2f05-41c1-a327-0b6d06339ca5> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://amcostaricaarchives.com/2010/11/endangered-frog-successfully-bred-in-panama-captivity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560285289.45/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095125-00146-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.898124 | 774 | 3.65625 | 4 |
|Justice G.S. Singhvi|
Supreme Court of India
The Supreme Court in Arun Kumar Aggarwal Vs. State of Madhya Pradesh has examined the concept of 'obiter dicta' and the binding nature of statements / observations by Judges. We have already covered a judgment on the 'Precedentiary Value of Judgments : The Law', wherein Justice Anil Kumar of the Delhi High Court had observed that the precedentiary value of a judgment is to be judged in the background of the facts of a particular place. The relevant extracts from the judgment are reproduced hereinbelow;
10. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties before us. The short point in issue before us is based on the nature of the Order passed by the learned Special Judge whether it amounts to a direction issued by the Court to the concerned authority or mere observation of the Court.
11. We will first discuss the nature and scope of the expression `direction' issued by the Court. This Court in Rameshwar Bhartia v. The State of Assam, 1953 SCR 126 whilst distinguishing the expression `Sanction' from the `Direction', for the purpose of initiating the prosecution has held:
"15. But where a prosecution is directed, it means that the authority who gives the direction is satisfied in his own mind that the case must be initiated. Sanction is in the nature of a permission, while a direction is in the nature of a command."
12. In Income Tax Officer, A-Ward, Sitapur v. Murlidhar Bhagwan Das, Lakhimpur Kheri, (1964) 6 SCR 411, this Court has observed that the expression "direction" cannot be construed in vacuum, but must be collated to the directions which the Assistant Appellate Commissioner can give under Section 31 of the Indian Income Tax Act, 1922.
13. This Court in Rajinder Nath v. CIT, (1979) 4 SCC 282, while considering the meaning of expression `finding' and `direction', occurring in Section 153(3)(ii) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, has held:
"11. ... As regards the expression "direction" in Section 153(3)(ii) of the Act, it is now well settled that it must be an express direction necessary for the disposal of the case before the authority or court. It must also be a direction which the authority or court is empowered to give while deciding the case before it. The expressions "finding" and "direction" in Section 153(3)(ii) of the Act must be accordingly confined."
14. In Kanhiya Lal Omar v. R.K. Trivedi & Ors., (1985) 4 SCC 628, this Court has observed that "A direction may mean an order issued to a particular individual or a precept which many may have to follow. It may be a specific or a general order."
15. In Giani Devender Singh v. Union of India, (1995) 1 SCC 391, this Court, whilst considering the direction issued by the High Court in a Public Interest Litigation, has observed that the directions should not be vague, sweeping or affected by sarcasm which are not capable of being implemented. It should be specific, just and proper in the facts and circumstances of the case. This Court further held:
"10. It appears to us that when the High Court was not in a position to precisely discern what was the complaint alleged by the petitioner and when the High Court was of the view that the prayer made by the petitioner was absurd and it also held that the officers who were alleged to have been carrying on nefarious activities were more imaginary than real, the direction in general and sweeping terms to sack erring officers (whomsoever they may be) and overhaul the administration by recruiting only conscientious and devoted people like the petitioner in order to satisfy the vanity of the petitioner, should not have been made. If the High Court intends to pass an order on an application presented before it by treating it as a public interest litigation, the High Court must precisely indicate the allegations or the statements contained in such petition relating to public interest litigation and should indicate how public interest was involved and only after ascertaining the correctness of the allegation, should give specific direction as may deem just and proper in the facts of the case.
11. It appears to us that the application was disposed of by the Division Bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court in a lighter vein and the order dated 27-2-1992 is couched in veiled sarcasm. Such course of action, to say the least, is not desirable and the High Court should not have issued mandate in general and sweeping terms which were not intended to be implemented and were not capable of being implemented because of utter vagueness of the mandate and of its inherent absurdity."
16. The Blacks Law Dictionary (9th ed. 2009) defines the term `Direction' as an order; an instruction on how to proceed.
17. The meaning of expression "Direction" has been discussed in Corpus Juris Secundum, Vol. 26A, at pg. 955-956 as thus:
"The word "direction" is of common usage, and is defined as meaning the act of governing, ordering, or ruling; the act of directing, authority to direct as circumstances may require; guidance; management; superintendence; "prescription;" also a command, an instruction, an order, an order prescribed, either verbally or written, or indicated by acts; that which is imposed by directing, a guiding or authoritative instruction; information as to method."
18. According to P. Ramanatha Aiyar, Advanced Law Lexicon (3rd ed. 2005) the word `Direction' means: address of letter, order or instruction as to what one has to do. A direction may serve to direct to places as well as to persons. Direction contains most of instruction in it and should be followed. It is necessary to direct those who are unable to act for themselves. Directions given to servants must be clear, simple and precise.
19. According to the Words and Phrases, Permanent Edition, Vol. 12A, the term `Direction' means a guiding or authoritative instruction, prescription, order, command.
20. To sum up, the direction issued by the Court is in the nature of a command or authoritative instruction which contemplates the performance of certain duty or act by a person upon whom it has been issued. The direction should be specific, simple, clear and just and proper depending upon the facts and circumstances of the case but it should not be vague or sweeping.
21. At this stage, it is pertinent to consider the nature and scope of a mere observation or obiter dictum in the Order of the Court. The expression obiter dicta or dicta has been discussed in American Jurisprudence 2d, Vol. 20, at pg. 437 as thus:
"74. -Dicta Ordinarily, a court will decide only the questions necessary for determining the particular case presented. But once a court acquires jurisdiction, all material questions are open for its decision; it may properly decided all questions so involved, even though it is not absolutely essential to the result that all should be decided. It may, for instance, determine the question of the constitutionality of a statute, although it is not absolutely necessary to the disposition of the case, if the issue of constitutionality is involved in the suit and its settlement is of public importance. An expression in an opinion which is not necessary to support the decision reached by the court is dictum or obiter dictum. "Dictum" or "obiter dictum: is distinguished from the "holding of the court in that the so- called "law of the case" does not extend to mere dicta, and mere dicta are not binding under the doctrine of stare decisis, As applied to a particular opinion, the question of whether or not a certain part thereof is or is not a mere dictum is sometimes a matter of argument. And while the terms "dictum" and "obiter dictum" are generally used synonymously with regard to expressions in an opinion which are not necessary to support the decision, in connection with the doctrine of stare decisis, a distinction has been drawn between mere obiter and "judicial dicta," the latter being an expression of opinion on a point deliberately passed upon by the court."
Further at pg. 525 and 526, the effect of dictum has been discussed:
"190. Decision on legal point; effect of dictum... In applying the doctrine of stare decisis, a distinction is made between a holding and a dictum. Generally stare decisis does not attach to such parts of an opinion of a court which are mere dicta. The reason for distinguishing a dictum from a holding has been said to be that a question actually before the court and decided by it is investigated with care and considered in its full extent, whereas other principles, although considered in their relation to the case decided, are seldom completely investigated as to their possible bearing on other cases. Nevertheless courts have sometimes given dicta the same effect as holdings, particularly where "judicial dicta" as distinguished from "obiter dicta" are involved."
22. According to P. Ramanatha Aiyar, Advanced Law Lexicon (3rd ed. 2005), the expression "observation" means a view, reflection; remark; statement; observed truth or facts; remarks in speech or writing in reference to something observed.
23. The Wharton's Law Lexicon (14th Ed. 1993) defines term `obiter dictum' as an opinion not necessary to a judgment; an observation as to the law made by a judge in the course of a case, but not necessary to its decision, and therefore of no binding effect; often called as obiter dictum, ; a remark by the way.
24. The Blacks Law Dictionary, (9th ed, 2009) defines term `obiter dictum' as a judicial comment made while delivering a judicial opinion, but one that is unnecessary to the decision in the case and therefore not precedential (although it may be considered persuasive). -- Often shortened to dictum or, less commonly, obiter.
"Strictly speaking an `obiter dictum' is a remark made or opinion expressed by a judge, in his decision upon a cause, `by the way' -- that is, incidentally or collaterally, and not directly upon the question before the court; or it is any statement of law enunciated by the judge or court merely by way of illustration, argument, analogy, or suggestion.... In the common speech of lawyers, all such extrajudicial expressions of legal opinion are referred to as `dicta,' or `obiter dicta,' these two terms being used interchangeably."
25 The Word and Phrases, Permanent Edition, Vol. 29 defines the expression `obiter dicta' or `dicta' thus:
"Dicta are opinions of a judge which do not embody the resolution or determination of the court, and made without argument or full consideration of the point, are not the professed deliberate determinations of the judge himself; obiter dicta are opinions uttered by the way, not upon the point or question pending, as if turning aside for the time from the main topic of the case to collateral subjects; It is mere observation by a judge on a legal question suggested by the case before him, but not arising in such a manner as to require decision by him; "Obiter dictum" is made as argument or illustration, as pertinent to other cases as to the one on hand, and which may enlighten or convince, but which in no sense are a part of the judgment in the particular issue, not binding as a precedent, but entitled to receive the respect due to the opinion of the judge who utters them; Discussion in an opinion of principles of law which are not pertinent, relevant, or essential to determination of issues before court is "obiter dictum"
26. The concept of "Dicta" has also been considered in Corpus Juris Secundum, Vol. 21, at pg. 309-12 as thus:
"190. Dicta a. In General A Dictum is an opinion expressed by a court, but which, not being necessarily involved in the case, lacks the force of an adjudication; an opinion expressed by a judge on a point not necessarily arising in the case; a statement or holding in an opinion not responsive to any issue and noty necessary to the decision of the case; an opinion expressed on a point in which the judicial mind is not directed to the precise question necessary to be determined to fix the rights of the parties; or an opinion of a judge which does not embody the resolution or determination of the court, and made without argument, or full consideration of the point, not the professed deliberate determination of the judge himself. The term "dictum" is generally used as an abbreviation of "obiter dictum" which means a remark or opinion uttered by the way. Such an expression or opinion, as a general rule, is not binding as authority or precedent within the stare decisis rule, even on courts inferior to the court from which such expression emanated, no matter how often it may be repeated. This general rule is particularly applicable where there are prior decisions to the contrary of the statement regarded as dictum; where the statement is declared, on rehearing, to be dictum; where the dictum is on a question which the court expressly states that it does not decide; or where it is contrary to statute and would produce an inequitable result. It has also been held that a dictum is not the "law of the case," nor res-udicata."
27. The concept of "Dicta" has been discussed in Halsbury's Laws of England, Fourth Edition (Reissue), Vol. 26, para. 574 as thus:
"574. Dicta. Statements which are not necessary to the decision, which go beyond the occasion and lay down a rule that it is unnecessary for the purpose in hand are generally termed "dicta". They have no binding authority on another court, although they may have some persuasive efficacy. Mere passing remarks of a judge are known as "obiter dicta", whilst considered enunciations of the judge's opinion on a point not arising for decision, and so not part of the ratio decidendi, have been termed "judicial dicta". A third type of dictum may consist in a statement by a judge as to what has been done in other cases which have not been reported. ... Practice notes, being directions given without argument, do not have binding judicial effect. Interlocutory observations by members of a court during argument, while of persuasive weight, are not judicial pronouncements and do not decide anything."
28. In Municipal Corporation of Delhi v. Gurnam Kaur, (1989) 1 SCC 101 and Divisional Controller, KSRTC v. Mahadeva Shetty, (2003) 7 SCC 197, this Court has observed that "Mere casual expressions carry no weight at all. Not every passing expression of a judge, however eminent, can be treated as an ex cathedra statement, having the weight of authority."
29. In State of Haryana v. Ranbir, (2006) 5 SCC 167, this Court has discussed the concept of the obiter dictum thus:
"A decision, it is well settled, is an authority for what it decides and not what can logically be deduced therefrom. The distinction between a dicta and obiter is well known. Obiter dicta is more or less presumably unnecessary to the decision. It may be an expression of a viewpoint or sentiments which has no binding effect. See ADM, Jabalpur v. Shivakant Shukla. It is also well settled that the statements which are not part of the ratio decidendi constitute obiter dicta and are not authoritative. (See Divisional Controller, KSRTC v. Mahadeva Shetty)"
30. In Girnar Traders v. State of Maharashtra, (2007) 7 SCC 555, this Court has held:
"Thus, observations of the Court did not relate to any of the legal questions arising in the case and, accordingly, cannot be considered as the part of ratio decidendi. Hence, in light of the aforementioned judicial pronouncements, which have well settled the proposition that only the ratio decidendi can act as the binding or authoritative precedent, it is clear that the reliance placed on mere general observations or casual expressions of the Court, is not of much avail to the respondents."
31. In view of above, it is well settled that obiter dictum is a mere observation or remark made by the court by way of aside while deciding the actual issue before it. The mere casual statement or observation which is not relevant, pertinent or essential to decide the issue in hand does not form the part of the judgment of the Court and have no authoritative value. The expression of the personal view or opinion of the Judge is just a casual remark made whilst deviating from answering the actual issues pending before the Court. These casual remarks are considered or treated as beyond the ambit of the authoritative or operative part of the judgment. | <urn:uuid:93a20c8c-4a1e-49ca-92ca-8a8658f101d1> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.legalblog.in/2011/09/concept-of-obiter-dicta-law.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281649.59/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00444-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.95411 | 3,607 | 2.125 | 2 |
A marketplace at scale is one of the most beautiful businesses to see in action. There are so many options to scale your marketplace. You can use the marketplace’s virality for growth, leverage the marketplace network effects to improve your service (which btw are NOT the same), and convince investors with your proven business model to raise funding to scale even faster. However, reaching that scale is difficult; founders must tackle different challenges along the road depending on state of maturity, market, and more.
One of the first challenges most marketplace founders face is the chicken and egg problem. (If not obvious from the name alone) The problem is related to the infamous question, “what comes first: the chicken or the egg?” This question is infamous for its perplexity – it is a paradox without an escape, wherein cause and effect are indistinguishable. But, let’s leave that to the philosophers…
Marketplace founders encounter the chicken-and-egg problem when launching their marketplace. To provide your service you need a sufficient amount of supply and demand. But how can you reach this amount while you don’t have either supply or demand? Why would buyers come to a marketplace where there is nothing to buy, and why would suppliers join a marketplace with no one to buy from them? …What comes first?
Spoiler alert: It’s all about committing to one side of your marketplace first. But, that is easier said than done…
Luckily many founders succeeded in solving the chicken and egg problem. There are plenty of articles written on how to kickstart, hack, and, hustle your way through the first barrier; the best of which provides high-level theories backed by practical examples of building successful marketplaces such as Airbnb, Uber, or Etsy (two of my favorites: How to Kickstart and Scale a Marketplace Business and The Hierarchy of Marketplaces).
These stories made me wonder: how did our marketplace founders solve the chicken and egg problem – and, what can we learn from them? So I sat down with several of our marketplace founders and decided to share the learnings in a series of blog posts.
First up in the series: Creative Fabrica
Creative Fabrica – Pitching to designers, an inclusive business model, and experimenting with freebies.
The company: Creative Fabrica is a marketplace for crafters to find digital fonts, graphics, and art to create digital or physical products. The community of crafters, both hobbyists and professionals alike, can buy these as one-offs or through an all-access subscription. On the supply side, Creative Fabrica enables high quality designers to distribute their digital designs to the creative community at large.
Before Creative Fabrica, digital designs were either expensive, difficult to find, or of poor quality. While there were (and are) many designers creating quality content, the ability to reach their audience was limited. Hence, Creative Fabrica started offering a solution to designers to sell to a large audience while lowering the prices for quality content to consumers. A clear win-win.
🐣Their challenge: How to convince designers to list their items on their website when there is no traffic?
👞#1 Kickstarting supply by pitching directly to top designers
Creative Fabrica started by personally convincing designers to list their content on Creative Fabrica’s website. While this strategy is not scalable in the long run, it is super effective to get the first supply. The founders, Roemie and Anca had a previous company in the same industry before. By leveraging their existing network, they were able to get the first enthusiastic designers in a specific vertical on their platform. They’ve set a target of x listed items and x active designers before going live.
💸#2 An inclusive business model based on contribution to supply
While the first designers could be convinced purely on the belief in Creative Fabrica’s mission, convincing the next wave of designers was not so easy. With no prior relationship, belief in the mission alone was insufficient to lock-in the next wave of supply.
So, Creative Fabrica introduced a new business model to prove to designers that they can make money on the platform: an inclusive revenue model. Instead of being paid for the amount of designs that you sell (the traditional marketplace model), Creative Fabrica paid designers for every contribution in content to the platform. Meaning that although no one downloaded your design you still got paid a portion of the revenue because you uploaded a design. The inclusive revenue model created a recurring income for designers and incentivized them to upload their content on the platform.
🎉#3 Creating demand by giving away free content – introducing freebies
Since Creative Fabrica is a marketplace for digital assets, the marginal cost to distribute these assets (once they have been uploaded) is close to zero. This allowed Creative Fabrica to experiment with large discounts or even giving the content away for free. The free content attracted many non-paying customers of which a portion could be converted to paid recurring users. Obviously this is particular advantage that applies only to marketplaces (or other businesses) with zero-to-low marginal costs per item (e.g. have a look at Udemy, not a day goes by without discounts). However, the idea of generating a lot of value for your customers for free which drives top-level growth can be applied to many industries.
💎#4 Using data to create relevant content for their audience
(Although this strategy came about after the chicken and egg phase, we considered it to be too interesting not to mention). Once a marketplace reaches scale, data becomes more and more relevant. Creative Fabrica is in a unique position to know what their audience wants. By researching consumer demand, Creative Fabrica is able to guide designers to create specific content for their audience. This enables designers to match their creativity with topics that resonate with their audience. Thereby improving content quality and lowers production cost. A strong network effect!
Our main takeaways:
1. Do non-scalable things to kickstart your marketplace’s supply.
An effective non-scalable approach is better than a non-effective scalable approach – obviously. So don’t be scared to do non-scalable, time-consuming things that don’t scale to acquire your first customers. It is often required for the first steps. You’ll figure out how to scale your operations at a later stage.
2. Focus on quality and engagement before scale.
Creative Fabrica focused on high-quality designers that engaged with the platform. That way both designers and users had a good experience which made them recurring users. We often see companies focus on scaling too early without ensuring the quality and engagement of their first users.
3. Your business model has to match with the value that you create.
Creative Fabrica did a great job by thinking out of the box with its business model. Rather than choosing a standard commission-based model on the transaction price, they thought about the optimal model for their users.
4. Free content can be a great growth driver if your marketplace has a high rate of repeat buys.
Marketplaces with low marginal cost and a high rate of repeat buys (or a subscription model) can benefit a lot by bringing customers a lot of value without expecting a return right away. Freebies can help grow the top of your funnel. Compare it to free-trails or freemium model strategies that are known and loved by SaaS companies.
Enjoyed the article about Creative Fabrica? They are growing quickly and continuously looking for people to join them on their crafting journey. Have a look here!
Next up in the series will be Studocu! | <urn:uuid:1f7adf8b-f5c6-469e-b372-46d19040ed55> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://peak.capital/tips-from-marketplace-founders-how-to-solve-the-chicken-and-egg-problem-pt-1/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571210.98/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810191850-20220810221850-00471.warc.gz | en | 0.955686 | 1,590 | 1.515625 | 2 |
|First appearance||"A Pharaoh to Remember" (3ACV17)|
Osiris 4 is a desert planet orbiting a binary system. It has a culture similar to that of ancient Egypt, because the two races were apparently in brief contact when the Egyptians visited Osirians thousands of years ago. The upper classes and High Priest live lazily while numerous slaves work building numerous large monuments and other structures. The planet was briefly ruled by Bender following the death of Pharaoh Hamenthotep. Most who visit the planet never want to leave, though that is because they have no choice as they are enslaved the moment their ship touches down.
Locations of Interest
- Bender's tomb, built at the feet of a billion cubit tall statue of Bender, and destroyed during the Planet Express crew's escape from Osiris 4.
- Hamenthotep's tomb.
- Anopsis's tomb.
- Pleotut's tomb.
- Whatshisname's tomb.
- The Nile river.
- Slave Quarter.
- The Wall of Prophecy.
- Osiris 4 is clearly based on Ancient Egypt as Fry points out in the episode.
- The resemblance between Egypt and Osiris 4 is explained by one of the aliens stating they learned much from the Egyptians, among which space traveling. This is a reference to the many theories stating that Egyptians and other ancient cultures might have learned from aliens.
- It vaguely resembles Sebek from Fury³. The planet resembles Ancient Egypt due to the pyramids, rivers and wide open desert.
- It also vaguely resembles Abydos, the planet from the 1994 film Stargate. | <urn:uuid:6ee605be-8eac-4b1d-afa6-ce797f0af951> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://theinfosphere.org/Osiris_4 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988718957.31/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183838-00435-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91261 | 333 | 2.5 | 2 |
Middle East caught in vicious circle
The current violence in Israel and the Gaza Strip is just the latest in a long line of attacks and counterattacks that started so long ago that no one can really remember who started it and what they did. It’s a bloody spiral of attack and retaliation, which triggers more attacks, and more retaliation.
The latest violence started several weeks ago when three Israeli teens were kidnapped and killed, most likely by Palestinian terrorists. Then, in retaliation, a Palestinian teen was kidnapped and burned to death by outraged Israelis. Palestinians were outraged in turn, and Hamas, the terror group that supposedly governs Palestinians in Gaza, started firing rockets into Israel, targeting no one in particular, populated areas and non populated areas, not caring who they hit.
Israeli forces, set on defending their country, retaliated with air strikes against Hamas targets, which Hamas calculatingly located near civilian targets – hospitals, schools, residential areas. The unavoidable death and injury of innocent civilians sparks more Hamas rockets, which sparks an Israeli ground invasion.
When will this end? When will enough have died?
In the past, neighboring Middle East states like Egypt, or Israeli allies like the U.S., have tried to negotiate for a truce, for peace agreements, for arrangements that would allow both sides to co-exist.
But as long as Hamas holds the destruction of Israel as its goal, and is willing to sacrifice Palestinians, this spiral will continue. | <urn:uuid:c09f9bd7-fcfd-441a-a3be-56b27d3eaf13> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://content.nujournal.com/?p=551236/Middle-East-caught-in-vicious-circle.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00460-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971853 | 293 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Binary Coded Decimal or BCD as it is more commonly called, is another process for converting decimal numbers into their binary equivalents.
As we have seen in this Binary Numbers section of tutorials, there are many different binary codes used in digital and electronic circuits, each with its own specific use.
As we naturally live in a decimal (base-10) world we need some way of converting these decimal numbers into a binary (base-2) environment that computers and digital electronic devices understand, and binary coded decimal code allows us to do that.
We have seen previously that an n-bit binary code is a group of “n” bits that assume up to 2n distinct combinations of 1’s and 0’s. The advantage of the Binary Coded Decimal system is that each decimal digit is represented by a group of 4 binary digits or bits in much the same way as Hexadecimal. So for the 10 decimal digits (0-to-9) we need a 4-bit binary code.
But do not get confused, binary coded decimal is not the same as hexadecimal. Whereas a 4-bit hexadecimal number is valid up to F16 representing binary 11112, (decimal 15), binary coded decimal numbers stop at 9 binary 10012. This means that although 16 numbers (24) can be represented using four binary digits, in the BCD numbering system the six binary code combinations of: 1010 (decimal 10), 1011 (decimal 11), 1100 (decimal 12), 1101 (decimal 13), 1110 (decimal 14), and 1111 (decimal 15) are classed as forbidden numbers and can not be used.
The main advantage of binary coded decimal is that it allows easy conversion between decimal (base-10) and binary (base-2) form. However, the disadvantage is that BCD code is wasteful as the states between 1010 (decimal 10), and 1111 (decimal 15) are not used. Nevertheless, binary coded decimal has many important applications especially using digital displays.
In the BCD numbering system, a decimal number is separated into four bits for each decimal digit within the number. Each decimal digit is represented by its weighted binary value performing a direct translation of the number. So a 4-bit group represents each displayed decimal digit from 0000 for a zero to 1001 for a nine.
So for example, 35710 (Three Hundred and Fifty Seven) in decimal would be presented in Binary Coded Decimal as:
35710 = 0011 0101 0111 (BCD)
Then we can see that BCD uses weighted codification, because the binary bit of each 4-bit group represents a given weight of the final value. In other words, the BCD is a weighted code and the weights used in binary coded decimal code are 8, 4, 2, 1, commonly called the 8421 code as it forms the 4-bit binary representation of the relevant decimal digit.
The decimal weight of each decimal digit to the left increases by a factor of 10. In the BCD number system, the binary weight of each digit increases by a factor of 2 as shown. Then the first digit has a weight of 1 ( 20 ), the second digit has a weight of 2 ( 21 ), the third a weight of 4 ( 22 ), the fourth a weight of 8 ( 23 ).
Then the relationship between decimal (denary) numbers and weighted binary coded decimal digits is given below.
|Decimal Number||BCD 8421 Code|
|10 (1+0)||0001 0000|
|11 (1+1)||0001 0001|
|12 (1+2)||0001 0010|
|20 (2+0)||0010 0000|
|21 (2+1)||0010 0001|
|22 (2+2)||0010 0010|
|etc, continuing upwards in groups of four|
Then we can see that 8421 BCD code is nothing more than the weights of each binary digit, with each decimal (denary) number expressed as its four-bit pure binary equivalent.
As we have seen above, the conversion of decimal to binary coded decimal is very similar to the conversion of hexadecimal to binary. Firstly, separate the decimal number into its weighted digits and then write down the equivalent 4-bit 8421 BCD code representing each decimal digit as shown.
Using the above table, convert the following decimal (denary) numbers: 8510, 57210 and 857910 into their 8421 BCD equivalents.
8510 = 1000 0101 (BCD)
57210 = 0101 0111 0010 (BCD)
857910 = 1000 0101 0111 1001 (BCD)
Note that the resulting binary number after the conversion will be a true binary translation of decimal digits. This is because the binary code translates as a true binary count.
The conversion from binary coded decimal to decimal is the exact opposite of the above. Simply divide the binary number into groups of four digits, starting with the least significant digit and then write the decimal digit represented by each 4-bit group. Add additional zero’s at the end if required to produce a complete 4-bit grouping. So for example, 1101012 would become: 0011 01012 or 3510 in decimal.
Convert the following binary numbers: 10012, 10102, 10001112 and 10100111000.1012 into their decimal equivalents.
10012 = 1001BCD = 910
10102 = this will produce an error as it is decimal 1010 and not a valid BCD number
10001112 = 0100 0111BCD = 4710
10100111000.1012 = 0101 0011 0001.1010BCD = 538.62510
The conversion of BCD-to-decimal or decimal-to-BCD is a relatively straight forward task but we need to remember that BCD numbers are decimal numbers and not binary numbers, even though they are represented using bits. The BCD representation of a decimal number is important to understand, because microprocessor based systems used by most people needs to be in the decimal system.
However, while BCD is easy to code and decode, it is not an efficient way to store numbers. In the standard 8421 BCD encoding of decimal numbers, the number of individual data bits needed to represent a given decimal number will always be greater than the number of bits required for an equivalent binary encoding.
For example, in binary a three digit decimal number from 0-to-999 requires only 10-bits (11111001112), whereas in binary coded decimal, the same number requires a minimum of 12-bits (0011 1110 0111BCD) for the same representation.
Also, performing arithmetic tasks using binary coded decimal numbers can be a bit awkward since each digit can not exceed 9. The addition of two decimal digits in BCD, will create a possible carry bit of 1 which needs to be added to the next group of 4-bits.
If the binary sum with the added carry bit is equal to or less than 9 (1001), the corresponding BCD digit is correct. But when the binary sum is greater than 9 the result is an invalid BCD digit. Therefore it is better to convert BCD numbers into pure binary, perform the required addition, and then convert the back to BCD before displaying the results.
Nevertheless, the use of a BCD coding system in both microelectronics and computer systems is particularly useful in situations where the binary coded decimal is intended to be displayed on one or more 7-segment LED or LCD displays and there are many popular integrated circuits available that are configured to give a BCD output or outputs.
One common IC is the 74LS90 asynchronous counter/divider that contains independent divide-by-2 and divide-by-5 counters that can be used together to produce a divide-by-10 decade counter with BCD outputs. Another is the 74LS390 which is a dual version of the basic 74LS90, and can also be configured to produce a BCD output.
But the most commonly used BCD encoded IC’s are the 74LS47 and the 74LS48 BCD to 7-segment decoder/driver, which converts a 4-bit BCD code of a counter, etc. and converts it into the required display code to drive the individual segments of a 7-segment LED display. While both IC’s are functionally the same, the 74LS47 has active-low outputs for driving common-anode displays, while the 74LS48 has active-high outputs for driving common-cathode displays.
We have seen here that Binary Coded Decimal or BCD is simply the 4-bit binary code representation of a decimal digit with each decimal digit replaced in the integer and fractional parts with its binary equivalent. BCD Code uses four bits to represent the 10 decimal digits of 0 to 9.
So for example, if we wanted to display decimal numbers in the range of 0-to-9, (one digit) we would need 4 data bits (a nibble), decimal numbers in the range of 0-to-99, (two digits) we would need 8 bits (one byte), decimal numbers in the range of 0-to-999, (three digits) we would need 12 bits, and so on. The use of a single byte (8-bits) to store or display two BCD digits, allowing a byte to hold a BCD number in the range of 00 – 99, is known as packed BCD.
Standard binary coded decimal code is commonly known as a weighted 8421 BCD code, with 8, 4, 2 and 1 representing the weights of the different bits starting from the most significant bit (MSB) and proceeding towards the least significant bit (LSB). The weights of the individual positions of the bits of a BCD code are: 23 = 8, 22 = 4, 21 = 2, 20 = 1.
The main advantage of the Binary Coded Decimal system is that it is a fast and efficient system to convert the decimal numbers into binary numbers as compared to the pure binary system. But the BCD code is wasteful as many of the 4-bit states (10-to-16) are not used but decimal displays have important applications. | <urn:uuid:1cffcd2d-b80b-4c47-b860-36c302b82e0b> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/binary/binary-coded-decimal.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00246-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.877846 | 2,166 | 4.34375 | 4 |
We started with a presentation from Cecile Tshcirhart, Chris O’Reilly, about the E – Packs developed by London Metropolitan University for Language Learners. These provide students with an interactive self-study mode. Unfortunately, the demonstration was marred by the fact that the technology wasn’t able to cope with demonstrating what they could do, which was a pity, as what we did see looked very interesting.One point that the presenters made that we might want to think about if we go down this road, was that they had planned for students working alone, so they had designed in interactivity, but didn’t allow for students communicating with each other. This turned out to be a mistake in hindsight as communicating with each other was precisely what their students wanted to do. Their reasons for adopting this technology ought to give us pause for thought as well.
There are 3 times more mobiles than PCs in existence and they have achieved 75-100% penetration among young people. Also of course, you don’t need wires and their appears to be a consensus among practitioners that the future is wireless. So, there’s no real reason why we should not be getting involved. Some of the other benefits of m-learning that they identified are that it is available, anywhere anytime, portability and space saving, connectivity (no wires, but you do need a network), it can be context sensitive (again, more below) and it’s cheap. Students provide their own technology for a start, and even where they don’t, a mobile device is usually cheaper than a fully-fledged PC. It is also consistent with socio-constructivist theories, supports problem solving and exploratory learning, contextualised independent and collaborative learning, can provide scaffolding and it offers a form of personalised learning which has been found to enhance learner motivation
It’s not a panacea of course. A big problem is the small size of the screen. It really mandates many more pages than a conventional RLO and also needs a fairly linear structure. Navigation is also a big issue. They tried to keep everything controlled by the phone’s navigation button. No arrows on screen for example because there isn’t space. Also the question of whether you’re doing the same kind of activity when you are mobile that you are doing when you are on a PC was raised. (Actually, I think that depends on the configuration of the device – I’m sitting on the train writing this on my PDA/Bluetooth keyboard combination which isn’t that different from a PC – but you can bet I wouldn’t be texting it!)
They then talked about some of the M-learning applications they had developed. These included mobile phone quizzes, collaborative learning involving camera phones and multimedia messaging, using iPods to access audiobooks and lectures, developing personalised guided tours using hand-held augmented reality guides (about which, much more later!) They also described how they were using what they called MILOs – Mobile interactive learning objects using graphics, animation, text, video and audio clips. The presenters attempted to demonstrate an interactive language for the mobile phone course that they had developed, but they struggled a bit here with the technology which didn’t inspire a great deal of confidence.
Nevertheless they were able to show us some screenshots from their mobile learning objects. One was what we would call a “hot spot” question in Blackboard. But the image has to be movable if it is a bigger than the screen which seemed a little clunky to me. Another feature was a grammar lecture, which was to all intents and purposes a mini-PowerPoint although with the addition of a 3-4 minute audio to the slides. Finally they have designed what they called a game, which students could play (It was a sort of a French “Who wants to be a millionaire?” and I couldn’t help thinking – “So, a multiple choice quiz, then?”)
When it came to evaluation the found that students were positive about m-learning, and about the e-packs, (and interestingly they did the evaluation through the mobiles, although they were only able to involve 8 students in the study.) it appeared that the students preferred the more academic type of object rather than the games. The French lecturer thought that they rather liked to have a little lecture rather than having to think, which they did need to do with the games. So, of course the idea is to offer both lectures and interactive objectives. (Another game they designed was a wordsearch with audio to help pronunciation) Students seemed quite happy to use their own mobiles. They found it handy to have them available when they were in down time (on the bus, for example) Students also saw them as time saving and allowed them to learn wherever they were, and that they always had access. Mobile learners do not need convincing, unlike online learners. But there is a need to keep up with the technologies.
They stressed again the importance of bearing in mind the screen size – London Met had developed their objects for the Nokia N95 which has screen dimensions of 320 x 40 pixels and it would need revisiting for other devices. In fact designing for the Phone is a bit of an issue. Apart from the software they had used (Flash lite, J2ME, C++) there is the question of what phones to design for. But technology is changing a great deal. Flash lite may disappear – some of the newer phones may have better browsers. They ended by warning us not to spend too much time developing stuff. It did cross my mind that this kind of technology was a bit restrictive in that very few lecturers would be able to use this kind of technology though. Or have the time. The London Met team had started by transferring existing on-line learning objects. Which was easier for them.
Carl Smith – Potential of M-learning – Latest developments
This turned out to be one of those presentations that revealed some quite eye-opening potential of the technology, (although that might be a side effect of living in Lincolnshire! For all I know these things are ten a penny in the civilized world.) and made the whole day worth the money. Carl, who is an e-learning developer at London Met started quite conventionally by reiterating the benefits that the earlier presenters had outlined. Students are familiar with them. It’s a preferred learning device. It allows communication and group work. It’s part of the blend for most students. He then gave us a fairly restrained view of what is being done at present, while pointing out some of the drawbacks. It is quite hard work to transfer material to the mobile medium but becoming easier. It’s only suitable for certain subjects. There are inevitable questions about accessibility. But there are fascinating developments. The implications of the iPhone style touch screen haven’t been fully explored. Adobe Air will replace flash lite as the development medium and will be interoperable with different phones – The software will be able to identify the device it is working on and adjust itself accordingly.
He also found that students liked the mobile for reinforcing what they learnt on the web, rather than as a first contact tool, and noted the phenomenon that mobile learning creates a learning bubble – you can’t have 15 windows open on a phone – forces concentration
But then he got onto the software that might be beneficial for mobiles. Sea Dragon gets rid of the idea that screen real estate is limited. Just look at this. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/blaise_aguera_y_arcas_demos_photosynth.html
The next step is what Carl referred to as mixed reality. This means that learners are augmenting their reality by participating in different media, and are reshaping it. Yes, I know “Oh, come on, now” is pretty much what I thought too. But, consider. With GPS we can automatically provide context to a mobile phone. It knows where it is. There are also things called QR codes – tags attached to real world objects – take a picture of the object with your camera phone and get multimedia info about it. Essentially you’re barcoding the real world by sticking one of these on it. But, here’s the thing. Because the phone knows where it is, and can use pattern recognition to recognize the subject of a picture is, taking a picture, can also automatically give you information about it. Or, to superimpose a reconstruction of a ruined building over your photo of the buildings (and you are standing in it!) We’re moving to the idea that everything in the real world will be clickable.
Which should give the Data protection Registrar something to think about.
All links will be made available
He also told us about Google Android – an Open Source mobile operating system that will run on many phones. Because it’s OS people can write their own applications and Google are running competitions for developers – here are their top 50 applications – http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2008/05/top-50-applications.html It’s also completely free has rich Graphical powers, can use touch sensitive screens, and we even got a short demo of it’s 3-D capabilities using quake (A computer game I believe.) There was also a demonstration of how you could touch maps to pan around the city and go straight to “street view” (i.e. photographs of what was shown on the map) And zoom in considerable detail
Returning to the second half of the video mentioned again the spatial arrangement of images on screen can be meaningful. The second half of the video was about photosynth technology, which when you think about is even more astonishing than the potential of the QR codes. They reconstructed Notre Dame Cathedral from a set of images in Flickr. But because we can take data from everyone, and link them together there is a huge volume of public metadata. They were able to take a detail of the cathedral from one window, in one photograph and reconstruct the entire building from that.
After that we came back down to earth with a group discussion about the extent to which mobile learning could be blended effectively in the teaching and learning environment. A couple of very useful suggestions were made. I like the idea of using it for induction. It is possible to text news students with userids so they can log into VLEs prior to arrival. Another suggestion was to have a glossary that can be interrogated by text message. This uses a simple rule based system “if this word is received then reply with this definition”. This was all offered by a company called EDUTXT who seemed to be very well thought of by delegates. London Met had just had their symposium and had used it for their evaluation of their teaching and learning conference.
One case reported of a student declaring a disability via this method, as he had not felt comfortable doing this in class. The data can be exported to Excel which one delegate claimed took it close to an audience response system. I doubt it actually, because you don’t get the instant response.
In the afternoon we had a presentation about an FE project called MoLeNET
This was a collaborative approach to promoting and supporting mobile learning – FE colleges had been funded to buy mobile devices to be used in any way they see fit. The Learning and Skills Network provided training, ideas on how to use the devices and are producing a full report on the project. It involved 32 colleges, some in partnerships with colleges, or to put it another way 1200 teachers, and 10,000 learners.
It wasn’t limited by subject area, and a wide range of equipment – smartphones, PDAs, MP3 players, handheld gaming devices, ASUS laptops had been bought although there had been some supply problems.
In practice it seemed that the devices had been used as a substitute teacher. EEPC laptops had been used to show videos of how to do a hairstyle for hairdressing students when teachers were unavailable. We also saw a video of students using ASUS laptops for portfolio building in an engineering workshop. Students very much liked them on the grounds that they were small and went into their bags very easily. Also they could type things up as they were doing those things
Keith Tellum from Joseph Priestley College (JPC) in Leeds remarked that MoLeNET seems to have provoked considerable interest in mobile learning across the whole college, and also noted that central IT staff tend to be very concerned about (i.e. resistant to) new technology (Actually, on reflection this was a recurrent theme throughout the day) About three quarters of mobile learners felt it had helped them to learn – further research was planned into the 25% although they already had evidence that some were worried about the loss of the social aspect in the class.
Examples and tools can be downloaded from above. All of which are freely available.
But we got to play with one, such tool. We all did a little quiz using our mobile phones. Which worked very well, although my neighbour didn’t get a response to his text.
He noted that M-learning had really taken off at JPC. They even market the college through texting and 40% of enquiries came through texting
He then started to tell us about a couple of other projects, the Learning for Living and Work Project for learners with disabilities, and the QIA digitisation project. Which was about using learners own devices a very attractive way of moving towards sustainability. He was explaining about how the college can be taken to learners, and conventional phoning in doesn’t really work, because it was hard to get through and how the texting system had improved things when the speakers exploded! (No, really – they did. )
We then got to play with some “old” PDAs which had some very interesting software albeit a bit FE oriented loaded on them from a company called Tribal Education. A lot of it was “matching” and “snap” type games but there were some nice drag and drop applications There was also some very good quality video running on them.
The day finished off with a traditional plenary session. Some of the issues discussed:
Nintendo Wii – disabled students using it to make an e-portfolio – possible to make a jigsaw out of photographs, and these can be put into portfolios
A new version of the Wii is to be released which will be “mind-controlled”. The panel were a bit hazy about this, but suggested that users would be able to control virtual avatars with their minds
I asked about using the QR codes will and was reassured that this will be very practical – we’ll be able to do this for ourselves quite easily. Carl promised to send me a link to a download for all the tools.
Question asked about evaluation. We didn’t really talk about how effective these tools, exciting as they were, might be in improving learning.
Quite a lot of debate about the methods of evaluation. One issue from one of the FE colleges was that TXT language might appear in assignments, but in reality there doesn’t appear to be much evidence that this Is happening.
MoLeNET are doing a research project that would generate much further data. They’re doing quite a lot of qualitative data collection at the moment. They expect to put quite a lot of this information on their web site, along with their research questions.
No HEIs had been involved in MoLeNET, although there was some possibility that Universities could act as a partner in a consortium.
And that was it. Except for filling in the evaluation form, which required a pen and paper. How very Twentieth Century! | <urn:uuid:5449e219-e152-4469-ba9a-62d65ca7f5a7> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://julian.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk/tag/phones/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571911.5/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813081639-20220813111639-00467.warc.gz | en | 0.978594 | 3,270 | 2.828125 | 3 |
The goal of the voter outreach and education department is to provide opportunities for the public to learn about the election process, voter registration and voter’s rights and responsibilities. Below is a list of services sponsored by the Supervisor of Elections office to help achieve our goal of Community Outreach and Education.
Contact us at (850) 627-9910 if you would like to request any of the following services:
Invite The Elections Office To Your Event - A representative from the Supervisor of Elections office will set up a registration/information booth at your next event.
Tour the Elections Office – Arrange for yourself or a group to take a guided tour of the Supervisor of Elections office in Gadsden.
Community Partnerships – We need your help getting nonpartisan election related information out to Gadsden County Citizens. Contact the elections office to find out about volunteer opportunities.
The overall goal of the school education program is to introduce and familiarize students with voter registration and voting procedures. Students are encouraged to exercise their right to vote once they become eligible. Below is a list of services sponsored by the Supervisor of Elections office to help achieve our school education goal. Contact us at (850) 627-9910 if you would like to request any of the following services:
Student Elections – Participating schools vote on the school candidates of their choice using actual election tabulation equipment.
Scholarship Hours – Students can earn scholarship hours by volunteering with the Supervisor of elections office. | <urn:uuid:789717dc-f234-4b85-bf85-08029572cd1b> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.gadsdensoe.com/Schools-Communities/Voter-Outreach-Education | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571692.3/warc/CC-MAIN-20220812105810-20220812135810-00075.warc.gz | en | 0.943875 | 309 | 1.53125 | 2 |
2 INTRODUCTIONIn order to attract workers and to retain the best performers, employers need to have a compensation system that will achieve their objectives.Furthermore, employers need to comply with the relevant laws which relate to payment systems and hours of work.
3 WAGE AND PAYMENT SYSTEMS THE REMUNERATION PACKAGEBasic WagesBenefitsIncentives
4 GOALS OF A WAGE SYSTEM Attract employees to work in the organization Retain efficient employeesMotivate employees to perform effectivelyEstablish a simple system that is easy to administer
5 WAGE SYSTEMS There are 2 major systems of payment: Time-related systemsPiece-rated systems
6 1) Time-related systems Wages are paid for a set period of work on an hourly, weekly or monthly basis.The pay varies with the number of hours worked and not with the output.
7 ADVANTAGES They are easy to understand and administer The worker is assured of a steady income
8 DISADVANTAGESNo relationship between effort and reward
9 Examples:Plantations and manufacturing workers are being paid based on a daily rate.Office workers receive monthly-rated pay.
10 2) Piece-rated/ Piece-work systems or payment by result Workers are paid according to the number of units produced in given time.To encourage workers to produce at maximum levels, progressively higher rates may be paid for higher levels of output.
11 ADVANTAGES Workers will be self-motivated Workers put in their best effort in order to increase their pay packet
12 DISADVANTAGESWorkers do not necessarily attempt to maximize their earningsThe quality of output may be affected
13 FACTORS AFFECTING LEVELS OF PAY Legislation and government policyUnionsSelection policyEmployment conditionsCompany profitability
14 FACTORS AFFECTING INDIVIDUAL LEVEL OF PAY SeniorityIncrease in the cost of livingPerformanceDegree of skill
15 LEGISLATION RELATING TO PAYMENT OF WAGES The Employment ActThe Sabah Labor OrdinanceThe Sarawak Labour OrdinanceThe Wages Councils Act
16 CHOOSING A WORKING HOURS SYSTEM Factors:The legal constraintThe effect on the efficiency of the workers of a particular systemThe effect on the motivation of the workersThe type of system being used by a majority of employers in comparable organizations and in the same locality
17 CHOOSING A WORKING HOURS SYSTEM Non-traditional working hours can provide benefits to both employers and employees.In a tight labor market, work sharing, flexitime systems, part-time shifts and the compressed work week are examples of systems which can help to recruit employees
18 OVERTIME WORKINGThe Employment Act stipulates that no worker can be required by his employer to work more tan 8 hours per day or 48 hour per week.
19 OVERTIME WORKING Except for: Accident, actual or threatened, in or with respect to the employee’s place of workWork, the performance of which is essential to the life of the communityWork essential for the defense or security of MalaysiaUrgent work to be done to machinery or plantAn interruption of work which it was impossible to foreseeWork to be performed by emplyees in an industrial undertaking essential to the economy
20 OVERTIME RATESOvertime worked on an Ordinary Working Day = 1 ½ times the normal hourly rateOvertime worked on a Rest Day = 2 times the normal hourly ratesOvertime worked on a Public Holiday = 3 times the normal hourly rate
21 REASONS FOR OVERTIME A temporary shortage of manpower A temporary increase in workloadLow productivity of the workersDifficulty in recruiting additional workers
22 PROBLEMS CAUSED BY EXCESSIVE OVERTIME Increased costEffect on morale effect on productivityEffect on productivity
23 STEPS TO REDUCE OVERTIME WORK Keeps recordsRecruiting new staffImproving supervision and trainingInvestment in new technologyChanging the mode of payment
24 SHIFT WORK SYSTEMS Shift work involves: Hours of work, which include hours outside the ‘normal’ or traditional 8 to 4, or 9 to 5 pattern2 or more groups of workers who take turns to man the workstations
25 SHIFT WORK PATTERNS Double-day shifts: Shift I – 7.00am – 3.00pm Shift II – 3.00pm – 11.00pm
26 SHIFT WORK PATTERNS Three-shifts day: Shift I – 7.00am – 3.00pm Shift II – 3.00pm – 11.00pmShift III – 11.00pm-7.00pm
27 SHIFT WORK PATTERNS The split shift: Involves working several hours early in the morning, having time off and then continuing the same shift later in the day
28 SHIFT WORK PATTERNS Rotating and permanent shift: System whereby an individual worker, if he is on a double-day system, alternates between the first and second shift on regular basis.
29 JUSTIFICATION FOR SHIFT WORK 4 common situations in which shift work is found:Service-oriented industriesProduction technologies is that the machinery needs to be run continuously without a break.Maximize the productive use of plant and machineryConsumer service
30 THE PROBLEMS CAUSED BY SHIFT WORK Women and night workIncrease in costWorkers’ healthStress and psychological problems | <urn:uuid:1a7b9122-f471-4977-9c43-ebd350ac8e93> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://slideplayer.com/slide/8918393/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573197.34/warc/CC-MAIN-20220818124424-20220818154424-00674.warc.gz | en | 0.904859 | 1,109 | 2.609375 | 3 |
Is it permissible to abort the foetus after medical tests have shown that it is physically deformed?
Praise be to Allaah.
There are many causes of deformity of the foetus, many of which could be avoided; one could protect oneself from them or reduce their effects. Islam and medicine both urge people to avoid the causes of disease and to protect themselves against it as much as possible. The teachings of Islam urge us to protect our health and to protect the foetus from many diseases which are caused by ignoring the teachings of Islam and falling into sin such as zinaa (unlawful sexual relationships), drinking alcohol, smoking, and taking drugs. Modern medicine also warns mothers of the imminent danger of taking some medications, or being exposed to x-rays or gamma rays, especially in the early days of pregnancy.
If it is proven in a definitive fashion, beyond any doubt, by a trustworthy medical committee, that the foetus is deformed, and that this deformity cannot be treated by the specialists, then in my view it is permissible to abort it, in view of the difficulties it would face in life and the hardship this would present to the parents, and the burdens and responsibilities of care it would place on the society. These considerations and others prompted the Islamic Fiqh Committee of the Muslim World League in its 12th conference held in Makkah on 15 Rajab 1410 AH (10/2/1990 CE), to issue the statement that “it is permissible to abort a foetus which is deformed in the manner mentioned above, with the consent of the parents and within the first 120 days from the beginning of the pregnancy.”
The decision of the committee was in accordance with the fatwa of the Standing Committee for Academic Research and Issuing Fatwas in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, no. 2484, issued on 16/7/1399 AH.
But if the soul has been breathed into the foetus and it has completed 120 days, then it is not permissible to abort it, no matter what the deformity, unless continuation of the pregnancy would put the mother’s life in danger. This is because after the soul has been breathed into the foetus, it is considered to be a person who must be protected, regardless of whether it is free of disease or not, and regardless of whether there is hope of recovery or not. That is because Allaah has a reason for everything that He creates, which many people do not know, and He knows best what is right for His creation, as Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):
“Should not He Who has created know? And He is the Most Kind and Courteous (to His slaves), All Aware (of everything).
In the birth of these deformed children there is a lesson for those who are of sound health, and it teaches us of the power of Allaah Who shows His creation the manifestations of His might and the wonders that He has created. Killing and aborting them is a purely materialistic view which pays no attention to matters of religion and morals. Perhaps the existence of these deformities will make people more humble and submissive towards their Lord, and make them bear them with patience, seeking a great reward from Him.
Physical deformity is something that Allaah has decreed for some of His slaves. Whoever bears that with patience will attain victory. This is something that happens and has always happened throughout history, but unfortunately studies indicate that the rate of physical deformity is increasing, as the result of pollution of the environment and the increase of harmful rays in the atmosphere, which was previously unknown.
It is by the mercy of Allaah that many deformed foetuses are miscarried or die before they are born.
The Muslim woman and the Muslim family must bear with patience whatever happens to them, and seek the reward for that with Allaah. And Allaah knows best. | <urn:uuid:5398322f-6a58-480e-8d25-9438d2d115a8> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://islamqa.info/en/12118 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284352.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00192-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972643 | 793 | 2.21875 | 2 |
Translating training content is a huge undertaking. We are only able to do this with the help of a high-quality machine translation tool, DeepL. The translation will not be as good as if we manually translated every page with human translators, but feedback we got from a team of beta testers told us that the translated courses were effective and that it is much better to learn in your preferred language even with the limitations of the machine translation.
About the Translations
- While we have translated our courses, we have NOT translated our Learning Management System, EspritLMS.
- The course material is mostly translated. However, any graphics with text in them are not translated. Once we make all courses “translation-ready,” which will take until the end of 2022, we will go back and start working on updating key graphics with text in them. We have tens of thousands of graphics and don’t expect that we will ever have them all translated but we do hope to translate key graphics in each course.
- We are using a high-quality machine translator called DeepL. It is far superior to Google Translate or other commonly known translators. The translation is being done “on-the-fly.” As you come to each page, it gets translated and we store that translation in a database so that the next time that page, in that language is visited, it will load more quickly with the translated text.
- The narration is done with a synthesized voice which can be turned off. The narration content is at the bottom of each screen and it can be read instead of listened to if you don’t like the sound of the voice. | <urn:uuid:3f19bbb3-3170-41b0-aa10-4bd5f19408c4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://qualitytrainingportal.com/course-translations/how-translations-work/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573699.52/warc/CC-MAIN-20220819131019-20220819161019-00274.warc.gz | en | 0.951412 | 346 | 1.570313 | 2 |
NATIONAL LUTHERAN SCHOOL ACCREDITATION
- the physical safety and well-being of students
- the quality of academic instruction
- the ongoing education and retraining of its faculty and staff
- its acknowledgement of the civil and human rights of both its students and employees.
Evidence of this compliance is documented by a thorough self-study, collection of artifacts, and interviews and examinations by a peer review committee. In short, St. James Ev. Lutheran School has fulfilled the expectations the public has for educational systems in our nation. Beyond the educational expectations, St. James has demonstrated a commitment to and a consistent implementation of a quality, doctrinally sound Christian Education.
What is NLSA?
National Lutheran School Accreditation (NLSA) serves as the accrediting body for Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod schools across the United States and the world. NLSA has been accrediting schools in the LCMS since 1978, and accreditation decisions have always been based upon a school’s compliance with national standards for Lutheran schools that reflect the essential qualities that are expected of Lutheran schools.
The purpose of an NLSA self-study is to evaluate the actual conditions in place that are related to essential indicators of school quality. These are evaluated and measured in seven specific standard areas. In order to become accredited in good standing with NLSA, a school must comply fully with 30 required indicators of success. Additionally, the school must evaluate itself using a variety of general indicators that quantify how it complies with standards in each accreditation area.
National Lutheran School Accreditation encourages, assists, and recognizes schools that provide quality Christian education and engage in continuous improvement. The Evidence Based Accreditation (EBA) process allows for the fulfillment this mission effectively thereby providing a valuable service to Lutheran schools. | <urn:uuid:4aea4325-32ef-4d18-97af-1118e72c5080> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://sjlnorthrop.com/nls-accreditation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572286.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816090541-20220816120541-00278.warc.gz | en | 0.954549 | 365 | 2.375 | 2 |
We rarely ever visit that city.
If you think so, don't blame him - turn on the dictionary compilers:
"Nothing ever seemed to ruffle her."
"Nothing ever happens here in the evenings." (Cambridge Dictionary)
As for his nephew: perhaps, 'keep one's facts straight'...but 'keep one's language straight' strikes my ear as odd.
Interested in Language | <urn:uuid:d8bb44b6-103d-4812-8a7f-5b28bbe7b77b> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | https://www.usingenglish.com/forum/threads/100401-Straight-language | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721027.15/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00550-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961568 | 84 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Francis Joseph or Franz Joseph, 1830–1916, emperor of Austria (1848–1916), king of Hungary (1867–1916), nephew of Ferdinand, who abdicated in his favor. His long reign began in the stormy days of the revolutions of 1848 and ended in the midst of World War I. In that troubled period of growing nationalism, he held the many peoples of his empire together. He subdued Hungary (1849) and in the same year defeated Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia. In the Italian War of 1859, in which he faced Napoleon III and Victor Emmanuel, he lost Lombardy to Sardinia by the Treaty of Villafranca di Verona. In the Austro-Prussian War (1866) his only territorial loss was that of Venetia to Italy, but his crushing defeat resulted in the loss of Austrian influence over German affairs and in the ascendancy of Prussia. Constant pressure from Hungary led to the reorganization (1867) of the empire as a dual monarchy—the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. In 1879, Francis Joseph joined Germany in an alliance that later also included Italy (see Triple Alliance and Triple Entente). His reign, although it brought material prosperity, was disturbed by the discontent of the national minorities, notably the Slavs. When Russian Pan-Slavism backed Serbia, particularly after the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (1908), a situation was created that helped bring on World War I. Francis Joseph's private life was beset by the tragedies falling on his wife, Empress Elizabeth, his brother, Maximilian of Mexico, and his son, Archduke Rudolf. In 1914 his nephew, the heir apparent, Francis Ferdinand, was assassinated, and his death was the spark that set off World War I. Francis Joseph died before the empire actually fell apart under the impact of military defeat, as it did under his successor, Charles I.
See biographies by J. Redlich (1928; tr. 1929, repr. 1965), K. Tschuppik (1928, tr. 1930), A. Murad (1968), and A. Palmer (1995); C. W. Clark, Franz Joseph and Bismarck (1934, repr. 1968); E. Crankshaw, Fall of the House of Habsburg (1963, repr. 1971); G. B. Marek, The Eagles Die (1974).
The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. | <urn:uuid:01834d76-1644-4243-b6e1-f7a90bfca288> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.factmonster.com/encyclopedia/people/francis-joseph.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280310.48/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00184-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.961691 | 526 | 3.28125 | 3 |
Read this tip to make your life smarter, better, faster and wiser. LifeTips is the place to go when you need to know about Flat Panel TVs and other TV topics.
There are two main technologies being used for flat screen televisions: plasma and LCD. Which one is right for you? It's a matter of taste, largely. When you compare flat screen TVs in a store, it's hard to tell which ones are plasma and which are LCD, if you don't already know. That being said, here are some of the considerations to keep in mind:
Plasma TVs are somewhat better at displaying motion and may be available in a wider range of large sizes. They are fragile and expensive to ship, and some do not work well at high altitudes.
LCD TVs are more durable, lighter in weight, and easier to install. They are also slightly thinner than plasma TVs.
In real-world situations, both kinds of flat panel TVs are likely to produce pictures that satisfy viewers, and will last for many years. It may be a matter of discovering which TV looks best to you and has the best price.
|Jennifer Mathes, Ph.D.| | <urn:uuid:c2cf500b-ec22-4f83-ae66-4aa0d91f8a02> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://tv.lifetips.com/tip/130933/flat-panel-tvs/flat-panel-tvs/plasma-or-lcd.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280718.7/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00410-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970343 | 242 | 1.953125 | 2 |
Remember when you were a little kid and you got your first savings account passbook? Your mom took you to the bank with the contents of your piggybank, or money you'd saved from your allowance, and you walked out with a little green or blue book with a stamp in it that read "Deposit....$5.00". Periodcally you'd go back to the bank to put more money in and watch the balance go up, and every now and then you'd see a stamp that read something like "Interest: $0.75."
In 1964, when you were eight or nine or ten, $0.75 was a nice little piece of change. It was free money, and you saw how it made your savings grow faster. My first savings account paid 5% a year interest, which was pretty much a standard rate for passbook savings in those days.
When was the last time YOU had a five percent return on ANYTHING?
Even if you've done everything right, and foregone the apocryphal lattes and vacations and you darn your sucks and your kitchen DOESN'T have hand-scraped hardwood floors and granite countertops and an Aga stove, you could find yourself pushed out of your job for being too old, and with your savings earning 0.05%/year instead of 5%/year.
, 0.1% if you have a relationship with the bank. Want to stay away from a big bank like Chase? Hudson City Savings, one of the BETTER banks here in New Jersey, is paying a whopping 0.639%. OK, what about a credit union? Affinity Federal Credit Union is paying 0.25%. For CDs it isn't much better. Affinity's CD rates are abysmal, but Hudson City will pay you the princely rate of 2.50% if you tie up your money with them for five years. Got $100,000 to save? Discover Bank will give you 2.90% if you tie up that $100K for five years.
I posted earlier in the summer about the kinds of returns that stocks have been yielding over the last decade (about the same as bank CDs), and bond yields are down as frantic savers rush in to try to get the only remaining investment that provides any return at all.
So at the same time as Barack Obama's Catfood Commission and the Republicans prepare to pull the plug on Social Security for everyone who doesn't alredy get it, those who ARE able to save after paying for housing, food, clothing, and their kids' college education, are being rewarded by the privilege of housing their money in other people's pockets and letting it sit there
Nonfinancial corporations were holding about $1.8 trillion in liquid assets in the first quarter of this year, according to the Federal Reserve, a level that has been steadily rising and compares with $1.5 trillion at the start of 2009.
“They don’t need the cash,” said Bernard Baumohl, an economist at the Economic Outlook Group, but they are borrowing anyway because it is so cheap at the moment.
As long as rates stay this low, the plight of the saver will be especially disquieting for those who rely on their savings for a large slice, if not all, of their income. That is a particularly unnerving prospect for pensioners or for people approaching retirement age — who now want to draw on the interest from their savings to support them when they are no longer working.
“You have spent your life being prudent, building a nest egg for your retirement, and now the returns are terrible,” said Todd E. Petzel, chief investment adviser at Offit Capital Advisors, a wealth advisory company in New York. “I am 58 years old. I know lots of my peers who are thinking of retiring, and they are scared to death.”
Labels: economic death watch | <urn:uuid:b06d0362-aa34-4a1f-bf9c-be56e080a054> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://brilliantatbreakfast.blogspot.com/2010/09/punishing-savers.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280128.70/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00387-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969812 | 813 | 1.9375 | 2 |
How Do We Know Someone Is Credible Within Seconds Of Meeting Them?
We are hard-wired to pick up on credibility. The first impression in the basic survival instinct asks, "Can I trust this person? Can I feel safe in his or her presence? Is he or she going to pull a knife out? No, I can believe what I'm seeing as the real thing." Credibility is vital and primary.
The people who come into our lives influence us and we influence every person that comes into our life negatively or positively. If you think you have the power and motivation to change your life, create a more positive impression and make a positive difference in others, you must know that part of the process of your growth is realizing how every person you come in contact with be it stranger, or friend can teach you.
Take a moment to think of a time in your life when you willingly followed the direction and or advice of someone you admired and trusted. Someone you felt was honest and credible. Think of the situation, the activity, the problem or task you were dealing with. Was it at work or outside work or even something you were involved with when you were younger? What was your challenge? What did you need to know how to do? What three or four words would you use to describe how you felt when you were talking to or working with this person? How did this person make you feel about yourself? How would you describe how YOU felt when you were with him or her?
What actions, behaviors, and nonverbal signals did this person have that may have made you feel this way? Are there things he or she did with their hands or their body that made you tell yourself ’This person has integrity." What did he or she do or say that made you feel that he or she was an honest person? What did he or she do that made you know you could believe him or her? Describe what you remember about your first time meeting him or her.
Think about this person you just described as your "True North." A person of Credibility. If you have a" True North" in your life, it is easier to recognize what it's like to be in the presence of someone who truly demonstrates credibility.
If you have a "True North," you have a gut feeling when you meet a stranger or when you are with someone. You know what credibility FEELS like. "True North" is a benchmark. Once you know it, you should be able to calibrate within split seconds that "this feels good" or "something is just not right."
The Definition of Credibility is Universal
The key aspect of credibility is Integrity. "What you see is what you get." When somebody is their authentic self, exactly who they are with no façade, you have a visceral feeling in their presence. This is who they are. You believe them from their facial expressions to their actions. If somebody is truly credible, they're often credible to others.
When I first started speaking about first impressions, I would ask my audiences, "What is the first thing you notice when you meet somebody?" Remarkably, class after class and year after year, they would share the same answers: trustworthy, credible, authentic, honest, integrity. All of these traits make up credibility. These were the first things they noticed.Excerpt from Patti's book, "Snap- Making the Most of First Impressions." | <urn:uuid:ed485166-003f-43d5-bdcb-5d565b998bf4> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://www.pattiwood.net/article.asp?PageID=10452 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882570879.1/warc/CC-MAIN-20220808213349-20220809003349-00475.warc.gz | en | 0.984366 | 706 | 2.15625 | 2 |
THURSDAY, August 4, 2022 (American Heart Association News) — The effects of heart disease often don’t show up until adulthood. Why should busy parents think about this with their kids?
“Because it’s probably a lot easier to prevent cardiac risk factors from developing than trying to get rid of them once they’ve developed,” said Dr. Sarah de Ferranti, a pediatric cardiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital. “Prevention is really the key.”
Most people don’t think about risk factors during childhood, said de Ferranti, who is also an associate professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. “But I think it’s actually important that we all start with it.”
According to a recent study published in the American Heart Association’s journal Circulation, only 2.2% of 2- to 19-year-olds had “optimal” scores on a rating system that included diet, physical activity, and body mass index. And while almost 57% of 2- to 5-year-olds scored high, only 14% of 11- to 19-year-olds did.
Protecting a child’s heart health can begin with a focus on a mother’s health during or even before pregnancy, said Dr. Amanda Marma Perak, senior author of the Circulation study and pediatric cardiologist at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. But if you have a child and you haven’t thought about their heart health, “now is the time to start,” she said.
Perak and de Ferranti offered this advice.
It starts with the food
Healthy eating habits are critical to heart health. They can also be difficult to figure out.
“I think first you have to understand what healthy eating is?” said Perak, who is also an assistant professor of pediatrics and preventive medicine at Northwestern University. She recently contributed to an update to the heart health rating system now known as Life’s Essential 8. It weighs eight factors that contribute to heart health in children and adults: diet, physical activity, nicotine exposure, sleep health, body weight, blood lipids (cholesterol). and other fats), blood sugar and blood pressure.
To help families understand what constitutes a healthy diet, Perak uses the Department of Agriculture’s MyPlate methodology. It proposes a diet in which half the diet consists of vegetables and fruits, one quarter lean protein and one quarter whole grains with a side of dairy products.
For picky eaters, a light touch can pay off, de Ferranti said. She’s found that serving fruits and vegetables first, when kids are hungriest, “as opposed to a big fight” to eat a certain amount is effective.
It’s a long game that may require exposing children to healthy foods many times, de Ferranti said. “Try, try, try. Try again. Be persistent.”
Keep them moving
Exercise can start young, Perak said. “Even with a baby, you can think about making it active when lying on its stomach and not confining it to the carrier and high chair for long periods of time.”
Whether it’s through a formal class or just playing in a park, physical activity should be built into a family’s schedule, de Ferranti said. But the activity should be age appropriate and match the child’s interests.
Perak has patients who enjoy dancing or just doing simple exercises at home. Organized sports can be “super helpful,” Perak said. But if they are put under too much stress, they can also cause stress and decrease sleep time.
Sleep on it
A sleepy child may be less physically active or craving unhealthy foods in search of an energy boost. For example, poor sleep has been linked to childhood obesity.
According to the AHA, the daily amount of sleep a child needs to promote healing, improve brain function, and reduce risk of chronic disease varies by age: 12 to 16 hours (including naps) at ages 4 to 12 months ; 11 to 14 hours for 1 to 2 years; 10 to 13 hours for 3 to 5 year olds; 9 to 12 hours for 6 to 12 year olds; and 8 to 10 hours for 13 to 18 year olds.
Establish a bedtime routine that leaves time for calming activities. “There is definitely research showing that consistent bedtime is associated with adequate sleep in children,” Perak said.
Children can also have high blood pressure
It’s important to know your child’s blood pressure readings, but measuring them in children is difficult, de Ferranti said. Hypertension figures vary by age, height, and gender.
“Your pediatrician should be your go-to person for this,” she said.
Understand the importance of mental health
Mental health is important to heart health, de Ferranti said. Stressful events in childhood have been linked to unhealthy behavior and cardiovascular problems later in life.
In the last two years of the pandemic, de Ferranti has seen the effects of stress in real time. “I have seen many young people with high blood pressure or other symptomatic complaints such as chest pain, palpitations or dizziness in my pediatric cardiology practice.”
Parents should monitor their children for these and other signs of stress and seek help if needed, according to a 2021 report by the Surgeon General on Adolescent Mental Health, which offers advice for young people, parents, professionals and educators.
Be ready for change
As with anything parenting-related, parents need to remain vigilant, de Ferranti said.
A decade ago, for example, the health hazards of vaping were unknown. Now, scientific evidence suggests that e-cigarette use can be harmful to cardiovascular health.
“We need to be agile,” she said, “because the world is always changing.”
Don’t be too hard on yourself
“Think of it as a long game,” stressed de Ferranti. “There’s always another day to try to eat healthier or get more sleep or get out and get physically active.”
She said, “Overall, it’s about being pretty good in general — not perfect.”
American Heart Association News reports on heart and brain health. Not all views expressed in this story reflect the official position of the American Heart Association. Copyright is owned by the American Heart Association, Inc. and all rights are reserved. If you have any questions or comments about this story, please email [email protected]
By Michael Merschel, News of the American Heart Association | <urn:uuid:afae0129-de4d-48eb-be9e-9167407a2786> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.isobelcoleman.com/aha-news-what-parents-can-do-to-protect-kids-from-heart-disease-health/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573029.81/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817153027-20220817183027-00277.warc.gz | en | 0.945296 | 1,437 | 3.1875 | 3 |
ARCHITECTURE AND URBANISM - PORTFOLIO
CLEYTON SANTOS DE MEDEIROS BSMP - BRAZIL SCIENTIFIC MOBILITY PROGRAM - SCIENCE WITHOUT BORDERS FEDERAL UNIVERSITY OF RIO GRANDE DO NORTE
OPEN THE WINDOW...
Cleyton Santos de Medeiros 186 Lago Piratuba Natal, Rio Grande do Norte 59114-560 +55 84 96530703 email@example.com
EDUCATION Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte Grande, Natal/RN 2009.2 – Present Majoring in Architecture and Urbanism Ágora Institute 2013.1 - Present Intermediate English Course Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte 2008-2009.2 Technician in building construction
RESEARCH EXPERIENCE Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte Grande, Natal/RN 2013.2 – Present Research: Network Energy Efficiency in Buildings Advisor: PhD Aldomar Pedrini Technical assistance in the implementation of an Accredited Inspection Agency (OIA) linked to R3E and UFRN (Laboratory of Environmental Comfort). The work focuses on the content of Energy Efficiency in Buildings and actions of labeling. Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte Grande, Natal/RN 2011.2 – 2012.1 Research: Structuring of architectural heritage in Natal/RN in a geographic information system. Advisor: PhD Edja Trigueiro Research and Collection of architectural heritage in some districts of Natal/RN in order to build a geoprocessed database. Federal Institute of Rio Grande do Norte 2009.1-2009.2 Research: Composite of gypsum waste. Advisor: Msc. Manoel Leonel de O. Neto The research proposes the reuse of gypsum waste and analysis of physical properties in order to harness it to produce a composite recycled to buildings.
WORK EXPERIENCE Regional Meeting of Students of Architecture, Natal/RN 2012 – 2013 Director of Activities One week meeting that involved more than 600 students of Architecture. It had the financial support of CAU / BR - Council for Architecture and Urbanism of Brazil - with about 15 thousand dollars. Internship at Ludmila&Mariana Architecture and Interiors, Natal/RN 2012.2 Trainee Drawing of projects in architecture and interiors in Autocad and Sketchup. Internship at Secretaria of Urban Mobility – SEMOB, Natal/RN 2006 - 2007.2 Educator of Transit. Approach with the population for good conduct while transiting the city, using ludic activities and techniques of art education.
CONTENTS Pajuรงara Park
Dwelling and Landscape design
Ribeira - Historic Downtown
Pajuçara Park The urban project discussed in this paper is part of a larger exercise sedimented in Workshop Equinox 2012 that held proposals of urban creation to three districts in São Luís-MA , among which is the neighborhood of Liberdade, the object of study into the Workshop. Once launched the first stage of intervention in the territory of the district by groups , the second step explored exposes proposals developed by the author in partnership with Marília Carvalho of design in urban design and landscaped who took the main intervention regions exposed on the map: Plan of Interventions. Thus the urban park proposes a landscaped contemplation relations with living space that promotes also a approximation of the population with actions in environmental preservation using educational and conservatives methods. Thus, the design uses elements of reference to format the design of the park wich is organized and summarize in the program below: Ÿ The bike path - with sporty character, was designed to provide an attractive to the park. Ÿ The deck over the river – encourage the walking and discovery. Ÿ The street furniture - inserted into the open spaces to support the walkers and people who stay longer, as in the case of children in playground and sports court. Ÿ The Theatre - was designed in order to emphasize the contemplative aspect of landscape mangrove and river's sights.
macro scale of the area into the Liberdade’s neighbohoord
Liberdade - Plan of Interventions Restructuring of brook's stream focusing in requalification of dwellings Redevelopment of an integrator axis of economic activities taking advantage of urban nodal points of the neighborhood.
Creating an urban and environmental park in the stream of Street 24th August between the river and mangrove.
Requalification of the Public Market nodal point of the neighborhood.
Deck overlooking the river and the gazebo
View playground and sports court
View of the park plaza
Region of the park over the marsh with visual to the mangrove
View the stream between the rides
Dwelling and Landscape design This project was part of an exercise made in two subjects. First, in the 2nd year of architecture, the student of this portfolio designed this following house into the Project Studio 01. The dwelling was projected to a typical bourgeois family, is a compact home in order to be a economic build and provide free spaces around the sites. In the second step into the discipline of Landscape project, the proposal was designed one residential garden with natives vegetations.
View fron the House - 1st stage Wide view of the proposed landscaping
View fron the House - 1st stage
Arbor and terrace
Technical School The architectural dimension in this project is part of an Integrated Work performed in the 5th semester of the student of this portfolio in partnership with Ma铆sa Cortez. The architectural program proposes the design of a Technical School, where throughout the exercise of design conception approached the understanding of the formulation of the architecture through a constructive and structural system aimed at rationalization; optimization and economy of construction. But also think of all equipment within the other constraints of a project in architecture. The group adopted the solution to dispose the blocks separated, where each block has a function and thereby generating a sectorization. From this sectorization the group opted to detail at a higher level the classroom's block that was designed since the beginning of the exercises according to the design rationalized and modulated.
Bloco de Salas de Aula
Audit贸rio e Biblioteca
of w e vi
Location of the blocks into the site Quadra Poliesportiva
Classroom’s block The disposition's solution of these classrooms trying to escape from conventional, so this block demanded a larger study related to construction methods and structural study to make it executable. Thus, we developed a framework system with precast beams and joists tracks, and also there are precast pillars. The longitudinal modulation of the pillars is 7.40m to allow the conjugation with the spatial modulation.
sketchs of conceptions 2nd stage
The general concept of the party. - Internal / external interaction; - Creating more surface areas for natural ventilation; - Reinforce learning beyond the classroom; - Enable use of coexistence and social exchange. Mockups of conception 1st stage The classroom’s block
The classroom’s blocks into the Techinical School The classroom’s block - floorplan
Classroom’s block Structural Scheme
South facade showing good shading.
Scheme adopted for party building.
Studies of ventilation in the building from the diagrams of pressure.
View - Library and Auditorium
Walking among the teaching blocks
View of the sports court
Grandstand view and space of coexistence
Regional Ambulatory The project of an ambulatory for a neighborhood predominantly residential in Natal (Rio Grande do Norte) conceived in 2013.1 mainly by Maxwell Osvaldo and in a second time with the student of this portfolio, was designed to attend the demands of the local population, so the architectural building program contains many specialties. The project followed the rules in force in Brazil through the manual called SOMASUS which guides the designers regarding the architectural program and the dimensions of ambients.
The ambulatory at night
The project concept was based on the horizontality of the site with the proposition of having the ambients of the building just downstairs, thus, the volume of the building is presented with a rectangular prism with the aim to demonstrate aesthetic truth to materials. The main facade was developed with pivoting wooden panels for better use of natural ventilation.
View of Entrance
View of Reception and Room wait View form the intern garden
Intermodal Station AV .E
Continuação da via do bonde para o Terminal T3 Norte B como sugestão de integração com o município.
HE IR O SUPERMERCADO RO NORDESTÃO BE RT O
AV .E SUPERMERCADO HIPER BOMPREÇO
GALERIA DA TRILHOVIA
AV. AYTON SENNA
PRAÇA DAS BIKES
AV. AYTON SENNA
This project consists of a process of intervention, matured throughout the semester of 2013.2 within the discipline of Integrated Atelier where students have to think about urban and architectural proposals having an axis of Avenue with more than 5 km as local of intervention. The track in question is called Ayrton Senna and our physical-territorial intervention (perfomed by Cleyton Santos, Michel Lardin and Ana Pristo) is guided by two themes: mobility and environmental. Mobility includes the road system and public transport with insertioo of a tramway in the whole track. The environmental theme is present in order to recover the ponds so that these natural resources are no longer harmful and start to benefit residents. In order to assert the identity of Ayrton Senna's Avenue as establishing a collector avenue clear priority for public transport and freeing space for recreation : hiking pedestrians or cyclists , spaces for kiosks and bar. Thus, the group aims to use the tram as integrator of urban renewal. The implementation of the Intermodal Station, exposed in this portfolio into the urban master plan to meet the objectives of the establishment of the tram line in the road axis of Ayrton Senna. The project was published in the website with more details in http://miclardin.wix.com/architectureanddesign#!architecture where you will can view all the master plan and others proposals to the Avenue and the neighborhood around it.
Area of focus - Indications of integrated intervention and the implementation of the Intermodal Station roads.
TERMINAL T2 NORTE A - Integra as modalidades de transporte público no Eixo Ayrton Senna Natal >Parnamirim
AV. AYTON SENNA
PRAÇA DA REVISTARIA
SHOPPING CIDADE JARDIM
Legend: Important conection with a Expressway The track of study - Ayton Senna’s road Area of implantion - Intermodal Station
VISTA ESQUEMÁTICA LESTE ESCALA ................... 1/200
CORTE A A’ ESCALA .......1/200
View of the plaza of the bikes - bike rack
View from the corner between the two roads in study
View of gallery
Transition between the built blocks and the public space
View from the Intermodal Station
Ribeira - Historic downtown This following map was produced into a research about the historical buildings in the Ribeira neighborhood (Natal/RN). Into a fraction of the district the proposal was get the situatuion about the conservation of the built heritage.
Visual designs This following images represents the visual project developed by Cleyton Santos in partnerships or with a team of students to the Regional Seminar DOCOMOMO North/Northeast ocurred in 2012.1
Art for the notebook of abstracts and informations developed for me and Italo Maia
Samples of the other visual material produced in team Banner for Launch proced by me and Igor Santos
First visual art produced by me in order to develop samples.
Visual designs This following images represents the visual project developed by Cleyton Santos for the Green City Hostel wich will open this year in Natal/RN.
Aplication of the banner on facede
Studies to the brand
Interior’s design to the terrace
Banner for the facade
18 Interior’s design to the terrace
Ham Koolhaas, 1994 | <urn:uuid:ebef6f66-cf52-4726-b80d-6d6de692321c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://issuu.com/cleytonsantos2/docs/bsmp_portfolio_cleyton_santos_de_me | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560281069.89/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095121-00274-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.891283 | 2,620 | 1.625 | 2 |
I’m a believer
| Wednesday, December 9, 2009
In response to Mark Easley’s article, (“Global warming skeptic,” Dec. 7), I find several points that he makes alarming. The effects of climate change are having a direct effect on human and ecological well-being. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), sea levels rose six inches during the 20th century. The summer thickness of artic sea ice is half of what it was in 1950. Glaciers and permafrost are melting, flooding some areas and drying up ecosystems in others. These changes impact species on all continents. Seawater is more acidic because of increased carbon dioxide absorbed by water, affecting coral reefs and marine life. Human health is negatively impacted by outbreaks of infectious diseases. Seawater temperatures are warming, contributing to changing weather patterns that bring stronger storm systems to some areas, while causing droughts in others.
Yes, the world has gone through periods of warming and cooling. There are naturally occurring phenomena like volancanic eruptions. But also yes, I believe humans have a responsibility to protect the earth in ways we can control. MIT scientists estimated in 2008 the average American emitted 20 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, compared to a world average of four metric tons. It is crucial that the U.S. reduce carbon emissions. Easley asks how developed nations could ask developing countries to pay higher costs for energy. In reality, developing nations are already paying the price for climate change because their people, economies, governments, and health systems are more vulnerable to the fluctuations caused by climate change.
Spending the financial resources to “green” America’s economy is not wasteful: it’s innovative. The benefit of international cooperation fosters global interdependence. A U.S. policy that creates incentives for environmental protection is an investment in our future economy. America has the technology and skills to create jobs making solar panels, wind turbines, fuel cells, light rail transit and electric cars. Investing in sustainable energy will decrease reliance on foreign energy. Instead of sending money overseas, Americans would be investing in our economy and our environment. To me, that is very important at this point in history. | <urn:uuid:02eeb0cd-b327-410f-bef8-df510d627a11> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://ndsmcobserver.com/2009/12/im-a-believer/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280504.74/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00146-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.937574 | 461 | 2.046875 | 2 |
Crucifixes are crosses which have the corpus (body) of Jesus on them to represent the historical crucifixion of Our Lord. The cross alone, with no body, has been a symbol of Christianity since antiquity. The very instrument of capital punishment and horrible torture by the pagan Roman Empire became a symbol of the loving and forgiving crucified Savior.
Catholics are not the only Christians to use the crucifix in church for public worship or in their homes for personal piety. Eastern Orthodox, Anglican (Episcopalian) and Lutheran Christians also use the crucifix, whereas most Reformed Protestant Christians will only have a cross and never with a corpus. Those who oppose the crucifix consider it a morbid denial of the Resurrection (and some extremists even consider it idolatry), whereas the true intention of those Christian religions which do use it is to remind their followers that Jesus really and actually did die a horrible death to save us from our sins. The Resurrection is not denied, merely the Passion and Death are emphasized, especially near the altar where in Catholic theology, the Mass is considered the unbloody reenactment of Calvary.
The main goal of the crucifix is not to shock or frighten believers, but to remind them of the ultimate price paid for their salvation. Redemption was expensive. Jesus sacrificed His very life and He endured a painful and horrible deaLthatjiunstCsroowsse could go to heaven. The crBucyizfaixntbinriengCsrhoossme the reality that sin caused us to be lost and only the death of the Savior could save us. Celebrating Christian worship on Sunday (rather than on the Sabbath day, Saturday) and calling it the day oCfrutchiefixLord is how Christians honor the Resurrection.
Crosses began to appear in Christian art and worship as soon as the religion was legalized by the Roman Emperor Constantine in 313 AD with his Edict of Milan. The crucifix, however, did not become common and popular until the fifth century AD, when the Roman Empire fell (476 AD). The so-called Dark Ages ushered in by the Barbarian invasions and the Black Death (Bubonic Plague) of the mid-fourteenth century left many in the Middle Ages longing to leave this earth and all its pain and misery. Looking at and meditating on the crucifix, however, helped many in time of trial and tribulation to persevere. The command of Christ in Mark 8:34 to take up our cross and follow Him is poignantly reminded wherever the crucifix is displayed. As Saint Paul says in the sixth chapter of his epistle to the Romans, “Our old self was crucified with Him” and “If we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him.” The crucifix reminds us not only that Christ died, but that we, too, must “die to self”; our ego must perish so that in its place Christ can reign. “I have been crucified with Christ yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me” (Galatians 2:19–20).
When taken in context with what Saint John the Baptist said in the Gospel, “He must increase; I must decrease” (John 3:30), the dying to self is seen by Catholic Christians as a death of the ego—the surrendering of one’s own will in order to replace it with God’s will. The Crucifix reminds believers of the value of sacrificial love.
Most crucifixes have a sign above the corpus of Christ which reads INRI. That is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDAEORVM (there was no “U” in ancient Latin, so the “V” is used instead) which translates: JESUS OF NAZARETH KING OF THE JEWS (see John 19:19). Pontius Pilate had ordered this sign posted in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek.
Byzantine Catholic and Eastern Orthodox crucifixes have an extra distinction to them—one short horizontal bar (representing the INRI sign) above the main intersecting one and a lower diagonal one (representing the footrest) below it. | <urn:uuid:d7ceedb1-e826-4381-8b2f-1ad26cdb3895> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://superbeefy.com/why-do-catholic-churches-have-crucifixes-while-protestant-churches-have-crosses/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560282935.68/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095122-00236-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953615 | 883 | 3.421875 | 3 |
The blessed days of Hajj are approaching, and Muslim pilgrims have already started traveling to the holy sites. Fortunately, hajj has a message for the benefit and well-being of all people, be they Muslim or not.
Hajj is obligatory (fard) only with financial and physical ability. Thus, this physiological well being include perfect health care precautions, medical assurances and personal hygiene.
Hajj is undertaken by millions of Muslims every year. Hence, staying healthy and strong during the physically demanding journey is crucial.
Maintaining energy and bodily strength during hajj necessitates that certain safety precautions be taken.
After all, the pilgrim would most likely not want to have discomfort thoughts and stay away from his/her primary focus of worship.
Additionally, we present below some health tips for a healthy hajj of the dear pilgrims: | <urn:uuid:8c0bded9-890d-4692-b3e2-bffabf85d957> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://aboutislam.net/science/special-coverage-science/healthy-hajj/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572221.38/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816060335-20220816090335-00068.warc.gz | en | 0.956935 | 179 | 2.578125 | 3 |
By Angela Doland, Associated Press
PARIS Eric Creuly's bedroom is a khaki tent on the banks of a Paris canal. His kitchen is a barbecue made from a metal barrel, and his living room is a set of mismatched chairs where he and friends smoke and watch the pleasure boats pass.
Tent camps have become a familiar sight in Paris since the aid group Doctors of the World, or Medecins du Monde, first distributed tents in December to shelter the homeless and make their plight less invisible.
But complaints about the tents have been pouring into City Hall, and four tents were burned this weekend in circumstances that are still unclear. With Paris sweltering in a heat wave, authorities say the tents are unsanitary and dangerous.
Socialist City Hall wants many of them moved, and the conservative government wants them just plain gone. Last week, the government named a mediator to find a solution.
About 300 tents with the aid group's insignia still dot Paris — and they are even harder to overlook in July, when tourists fill the streets and Parisians live outdoors. Now, some homeless are even saving money to buy tents themselves.
Doctors of the World says it will take down one tent for every permanent housing option provided by the government. It acknowledges the risks of tents — that heat-struck homeless could die hidden from view, for example — but adds that street life is dangerous, no matter what.
"We never said that tents were the solution," said Graciela Robert, who heads the homeless mission for the aid group. "But a tent is better than the sidewalk."
The tents have popped up under bridges on the Seine River, near the stretch of quay where City Hall sets up a sandy beach every summer. They appeared on chic avenues and on the Canal Saint-Martin, a trendy area for nightlife.
Creuly, a 48-year-old construction worker who became homeless after losing his job a year ago, has spent a few weeks living in his girlfriend's Doctors of the World tent. It's better than going to a shelter, he says: He isn't kicked out during the day and doesn't have to worry about his belongings being stolen.
He and his friends — some of whom go by nicknames like "Momo the Cat" and "The Indian" — watch out for each other and take turns guarding their row of tents. Tuesday morning, they drank cold coffee and shared croissants under a parasol from an abandoned ice cream cart.
"We're at home here, we do as we like," Creuly said. He added, however, that he doesn't believe the tents will push the government to help the homeless.
France, with a population of nearly 63 million, has about 86,500 homeless people, according to a landmark 2001 study by the INSEE statistics agency. The Abbe Pierre Foundation, which works with the homeless, said this year that the figure is closer to 150,000.
The government fears the tents give people a reason to stay on the streets, expose them to sanitation problems and encourage them to live in groups — a problem because it is harder to persuade them to get help.
"The government's objective in this affair is simple: no more tents," said Benoist Apparu, communications official for the Ministry of Social Cohesion. "Not because we don't like tents, but because the problem with them is that we have enough trouble as it is getting people off the street, persuading them to move to a shelter or a rehabilitation center."
The Abbe Pierre Foundation shares some of those concerns. Patrick Doutreligne, an official with the Roman Catholic-affiliated charity, said there are as many negative effects as positive ones.
City officials say they don't disapprove of the tent initiative but want mediators to persuade homeless to move their tents away from apartment buildings, for example.
On Monday, Mayor Bertrand Delanoe sent a letter to the government pressing for 5,000 more homeless lodgings in the Paris region — not just overnight shelters.
Creuly and his friends have dreams of their own. Perched on the edge of the canal, talking about life, they have fantasies about being granted an abandoned building to fix up themselves.
"I realize they can't just come up with 1,000 new lodgings, just like that," Creuly said. "But are we supposed to believe anyone is really trying? I'm tired of all this talk."
Contributing: Associated Press Writer Nick Vinocur in Paris.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:a7b77083-2f83-4988-8dad-49db434c2675> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2006-07-25-paris-tents_x.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279915.8/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00274-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970991 | 960 | 1.984375 | 2 |
Shockwave therapy (SWT) is a non-invasive, non-surgical treatment that accelerates the healing process through an acoustic (sound) pressure waves to injured muscles, tendons, and ligaments.
SWT accelerates the healing process in the body by stimulating the metabolism and enhancing blood circulation to regenerate damaged tissue. Shockwave technology delivers strong energy pulses that are applied to the affected area for short periods of time via an applicator. This stimulates cells in the body that are responsible for bone and connective tissue healing.
SWT can treat a wide variety of conditions including: (75-95% success rate):
Frozen shoulder and rotator cuff tendinosis Achilles tendon pain
Plantar fasciitis Heel Spurs
Stress fractures Calcification
Golfers elbow Tennis elbow
What are the biological effects of SWT?
Increased blood flow, Stimulation of cellular metabolism, tissue repair/regeneration, increased tissue healing, pain management, breaks down scar tissue, increased mobility, and increased recovery time.
There are a few instances when shockwave should not be used:
Pregnancy or trying to conceive Over metal plates/pins
Someone with a pacemaker Infection
Nerve or circulation disorders Malignant tumours
Application over open growth plates – not suitable for under 18 years
Patients on anticoagulants/blood thinners
To book your shockwave appointment: https://northviewhealth.janeapp.com/#/shockwave-therapy
Chiropractic care is a healing discipline firmly grounded in science. Chiropractors are trained to assess, diagnosis and treat conditions of the spine, muscles, nerves and associated injuries.
The focus of Chiropractic care is to help get you moving. Dr. Jabeen, your female North Vancouver Chiropractor, will help you move better by utilizing various musculoskeletal techniques intended to reduce your pain and enhance your mobility.
A Chiropractic adjustment or joint manipulation (manual therapy) is a safe, hands on treatment where your Chiropractor places his/her hands or uses an instrument on areas of your spine or other joints of the body. A quick, safe pressure is applied to the joint to restore mechanical function of the joints and muscles as well as enhance motion and function.
As your North Vancouver Chiropractor, Dr. Jabeen will discuss several treatment options which may include manual therapy (traditional Diversified Chiropractic joint manipulation), Active Release Technique or Activator technique (instrument adjusting tool). She may also recommended other health care services such as massage therapy, physiotherapy, acupuncture or others as needed. Her treatment recommendations is based on YOUR goals and comfort level.
Chiropractic Care can provide long term relief with the following conditions or symptoms:
- Jaw pain/TMJ
- Neck Pain
- Hip Pain
- Sports Injuries
- Pregnancy Care
- Numbness and tingling down the arms or legs
- Low back Pain
- Shoulder pain
- Postural strain due to computer work
- Plantar Fascitis
- Knee Pain
- Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
- Back pain due to pregnancy
- Difficulty breathing
Dr. Jabeen utilizes various techniques catered to each patient. She will customize a treatment plan with recommendations to help you reach your health goals. Dr. Jabeen works alongside the massage therapists at Northview Health and Wellness Centre.
Active Release Technique
A.R.T. is a technique designed at restoring function and movement of muscles and joints. It involves treatment of OVERUSED muscles, tendons, ligaments and nerves. Daily activities such as sitting at a computer for 8 hours a day, baking, playing on our IPADs, lifting weights or playing golf…. all these activities can lead to overused muscles and eventually scar tissue. Once scar tissue forms, it can trap nerves, limit mobility, cause muscle pain and reduce our function whether it’s time to use our body for work or for recreation.
Active Release Technique is a treatment where the practitioner examines and assesses the movement and tightness of nerves, muscles, tendons and ligaments and then applies tension with a specific movement. This is intended at reducing and eliminating scar tissue hence reducing pain and increasing movement.
The following are some conditions that benefit from A.R.T:
- Plantar fasciitis
- Knee pain
- Hip pain
- ITB tightness
- Shin splints
- Knee pain
- Frozen Shoulder
- Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
- Golfer’s Elbow
- Tennis Elbow
- Postural Stress to the upper back/neck/shoulders due to prolonged computer work
Dr. Jussa is certified in Active Release Technique. For further information, please visit: http://www.activerelease.com/
Custom Made Orthotics
Our feet are our foundation. The average person walks approximately 4 miles per day which is equivalent to approximately 8,000 -10,000 steps per day! Your feet support the weight of everything above them. Research shows that approximately 75% of the population will experience foot pain during their life time. Dependant on the cause of foot pain (plantar fasciitis, pronation syndrome, arthritis, in-correct joint mechanics), various forms of treatment are available: stretching, strengthening, ice/heat therapy, anti-inflammatory and custom made orthotics.
Ideally, our feet should not roll in or outward when walking/running. When our feet move in way it was not designed to, the wrong muscles work too hard and the right muscles are not working enough. For example, some feet roll too far inside, a condition called Over – Pronation. When this occurs, the arch collapses resulting in the foot, knee and hip to roll inward. Thus causing knee, hip and low back pain. Unless we correct this, cumulative years of stress on these joints can lead to chronic pain, arthritis and compromised quality of life.
Custom Made Orthotics are designed to prevent incorrect foot motion (i.e. prevent foot from rolling in wards or outwards) and support foot arches. Dr. Jabeen will assess your feet; watch your gait and biomechanics to determine the best suited orthotic for you. Call or book online for an assessment at your local North Vancouver Chiropractic Clinic.
The Activator Adjusting Instrument is a tool utilized by some Chiropractors to facilitate spinal and joint movement. It produces a gentle thrust on all bones and joints. The tool can be utilized on patients of all ages and may be beneficial to patients with osteoarthritis or osteoporosis and young children.
The Webster Technique was founded by Dr. Larry Webster in the treatment of pregnant women. The goal is to stabilize lumbar and pelvic mechanical joint pain. Dr. Jabeen is trained in the Webster Technique and treats many pregnant women.
Dr. Jabeen practices alongside with the Registered Massage Therapists of Northview Massage Therapy (www.northviewhealth.com) | <urn:uuid:f8eaf188-2aa5-4e0f-bac9-2bc95e464f37> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://vancouverchiropractic.com/services | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571150.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20220810070501-20220810100501-00676.warc.gz | en | 0.901856 | 1,485 | 1.8125 | 2 |
The Football Association of Indonesia or PSSI (Indonesian language: Persatuan Sepak bola Seluruh Indonesia; sometimes translated as All Indonesia's Football Association) is the governing body of football in Indonesia. It was founded on April 19, 1930, 15 years before the Indonesian independence day. PSSI joined the Asian Football Confederation in 1954 and FIFA in 1952 and on the current international football list, Indonesian football is listed at 139th place.
PSSI was established by a civil engineer named Soeratin Sosrosoegondo, who graduated in Germany and came back to Indonesia in 1928. In Indonesia, he worked at a Dutch company in Yogyakarta and became the first Indonesian to work at that company. However, later he resigned from the company and became more active in the revolutionary movement. As a man who loved football (soccer), he realised that football could be one of Indonesia's "weapons" to gather Indonesian men and forced the Dutch colonies to leave Indonesia.
To accomplish his mission, Soeratin held many meetings with Indonesian football professional players at that time, mostly through personal contact since they wanted to avoid the Dutch police. Later, at a meeting that was held in Jakarta with Soeri, the head of Vetbalbond Indonesische Jakarta (VIJ), and other players, they decided to establish a national football organization. On April 19, 1930, almost all non-national organizations, such as Persija Jakarta (Jakarta), Bandoengsche Indonesische Voetbal Bond (Bandung), Persatuan Sepakbola Mataram (Yogyakarta (city)), Madioensche Voetbal Bond (Madiun), Indonesische Voetbal Bond Magelang (Magelang), Soerabajashe Indonesische Voetbal Bond (Surabaya), and Vortenlandsche Voetbal Bond (Surakarta) gathered at the final meeting and established Persatoean Sepakbola Seloeroeh Indonesia (Football Association of Indonesia or PSSI) with Soeratin as the first leader.
In PSSI's earlier years, they mainly used football as a method to resist the Dutch control of the colonies by gathering all the footballers which mostly were men. Later, because PSSI became stronger. In 1936, NIVB was changed to NIVU (Nederlandsh Indische Voetbal Unie) and cooperation with the Dutch began. In 1938, with "Dutch East Indies" as a name, NIVU sent their team to the 1938 FIFA World Cup. However, most the players came from NIVU, instead of PSSI, although there were 9 Tionghoa/"pribumi" players. As a result, Soeratin expressed his protest since he wanted a match between NIVU and PSSI before the world cup. In addition, he was also disgraced because the flag that was used at the world cup was the NIVU's (Netherlands)'s flag. Soeratin then cancelled the agreement with NIVU and Muhammad Rizki at the PSSI congress in 1939 in Solo.
When the Japanese armies came to Indonesia, PSSI became inactive because Japan classified PSSI as a Tai Iku Kais organization, or a Japanese sport association.
Currently, Indonesia has three football teams, which are Team-A, U-23 Team, and Junior Team.
PSSI has five active main leagues. The premier league of PSSI is the Liga Indonesia,with 18 teams in each table. The second-class league is the "First Division Indonesian League", divided into four groups with nine teams each. On the other hand, the third-class league, which is called "Second Division Indonesian League" has four groups but only four teams in each group. However, each group only plays in one particular area or city; the first group is in Tambilahan, second is in Rembang, Pontianak for the third and the last group is in Palu. The other two groups are "Youth League" (KU-15) and "Women's League".
In 2008, the premier league will be changed into Super league which consists 18 teams from the top 9 teams in "Liga Djarum Indonesia 2007". Super league teams play 34 times in a double round-robin system with home and away matches. Premier league will be the second division league which consists 34 teams which are divided into 2 regional leagues. The regional leagues are "Wilayah Timur" (East Region) and "Wilayah Barat" (West Region) with 17 teams in each table.
Principals of PSSI
- Soeratin (1930-1940)
- Artono Martosoewignyo (1941-1949)
- Maladi (1950-1959)
- Abdul Wahab Djojohadikusumo (1960-1964)
- Maulwi Saelan (1964-1967)
- Kosasih Poerwanegara (1967-1974)
- Bardosono (1975-1977)
- Moehono (1977)
- Ali Sadikin (1978-1981)
- Syarnoebi Said (1982 - 1983)
- Kardono (1983-1991)
- Azwar Anas (1991-2000)
- Agum Gumelar (2000-2004)
- Nurdin Halid (2004-present) | <urn:uuid:1a4bb75d-86a9-4b59-b570-e831781ce55c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://rarfianto.blogspot.com/2010/11/indonesia-football-association-of.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560279933.49/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095119-00125-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934588 | 1,143 | 2.234375 | 2 |
College Advising at Geneva School of Boerne starts with the understanding that every student is made in imago dei – created in the image of God. The purpose of the College Advising office is to partner with students and their families to help identify the students’ God-given giftings and aspirations and to help match the students to the colleges that best fit their academic, career and spiritual goals.
Our process is guided by scripture, with an emphasis on Psalm 139. Through scripture, we know the following truths about God and His role over our process:
God knit you together – Psalm 139:13
God ordains all your days – Psalm 139:16
God has prepared you to do good works – Ephesians 2:10
God knows your heart – Psalm 139:23
God’s peace guards your heart and mind – Philippians 4:7
Not to you but to God’s name be the glory – Psalm 115:1
You have been made for the good of others and to reflect God’s glory. Your life is in His gracious and capable hands. Knowing this means you can approach the college admission process with the peace that passes all understanding and the joy of discovery because living for His purposes is deeply satisfying. Having confidence that God individually cares for you means resting in knowing He is perfectly leading and guiding you and has a place for you in your next stage of life. This should change how you handle the fear, pressure and anxiety normally associated with this process. | <urn:uuid:4912a86b-a89e-466b-aee1-3c0735bdd691> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://www.genevaschooltx.org/college-philosophy/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882572286.44/warc/CC-MAIN-20220816090541-20220816120541-00270.warc.gz | en | 0.944565 | 338 | 1.679688 | 2 |
There was a Jean-Baptiste St. Gemme Bauvais who immigrated from Canada to Kaskaskia in 1725 & became the wealthiest man in the Illinois Country.Sons were Jean-Bte and Vital St. Gemme B.They married in Kaskaskia and moved to Ste. Genevieve ca 1787. Vital married dtr of Nich. Janis.Jne. Bte. (fils) dtr. Marie Louise married Louis Bolduc (fils) in 1797.Vital's son, Vital (fils) married Therese Pratte, dtr of Jne. Bte. Pratte at Ste. G. in 1798.Any connection to your J. B. St. G. Bauvais? | <urn:uuid:37c0a5d0-09e1-49a5-a7a3-d44f0b0dccd3> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/beauvais/32/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560284411.66/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095124-00458-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.92678 | 165 | 1.765625 | 2 |
Atmospheric Drag on Venus
As the solar wind flows around Venus, it creates similar space weather effects as it does near Earth. Credit: ESA/C. Carreau
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Pillows for Neck Pain
November 27, 2012 • By
Waking up with a sore or stiff neck? This is very common and is usually related to sleeping with your neck in the wrong position. If your neck is bent at an unnatural angle and you sleep that way for several hours, it is quite likely you will feel it in the morning. Understanding your sleeping position and using pillows for neck pain can help eliminate the discomfort you may be experiencing, as well as increase the quality of your sleep.
Pillows Exist for a Reason
For thousands of years, people have used night pillows for head support while sleeping. Some of the earliest pillows were made out of completely solid materials like porcelain, wood or stone. Softer materials certainly existed, so why where these pillows so hard? While the thought of a solid pillow may sound uncomfortable to you, you may be surprised to discover that a rock-hard pillow is more comfortable than no pillow at all.
Have you ever tried to sleep without a pillow? Most people find this incredibly uncomfortable. In fact, sleeping without a pillow on a nice bed can be more uncomfortable than sleeping on a hard floor with the proper pillow. The difference is proper support of your neck and head.
Support Your Head for a Straight Spine
There are three primary positions in which people sleep: On one’s side, back, or stomach. Most people sleep on their side or back, while a few sleep on their stomach. Sleep experts agree that sleeping on one’s stomach is not good for your back and is a common cause of back pain and neck pain.
Regardless of which position you sleep in, the key to eliminating neck pain is to ensure that your head is supported in a neutral position. When sleeping on your back or side, the key to a neutral position is to support your head above the surface of the bed. If you do not have a pillow or if your pillow is too thin or soft, your neck will bend downward and strain your neck and back muscles along your spine. If your pillow is too thick, it will bend your head unnaturally upward, also causing strain. It is important to consider one of the various types of pillows for neck pain to achieve the most comfortable and restful sleep.
If your head is supported at the correct level, your spine will maintain it’s natural position. This allows the muscles in your neck and back to completely relax resulting in more restful sleep and usually will eliminate neck pain you may have been experiencing. It is important to note that many soft pillows will collapse over time, and will not support your head throughout the night. In fact, many people find themselves using two pillows or folding their pillow in half in an attempt to support their head at the proper level.
Pillows for Neck Pain Support the Space Beneath Your Neck
In addition to supporting your head at the proper level using a firm pillow of the correct thickness, support of your neck is also very important. The natural curve of your neck creates space beneath your neck, which most pillows do not properly support. Many doctors recommend rolling up a towel to fit in this space beneath your neck, while allowing a pillow to support your head. Shaped orthopedic pillows for neck pain are often made of memory foam or latex. These shaped pillows feature a bulge along one edge designed to support by filling in the space beneath your neck.
Buckwheat Pillows for Neck Pain
We feel that buckwheat pillows provide the ultimate in ergonomics by giving you complete control over the shape and thickness of your pillow. Regardless of which pillow you choose, support of your spine is the key to eliminating neck pain. When you go to sleep tonight, make an effort to ensure that your head is properly supported. Sleep better and wake up feeling refreshed and pain-free thanks to the completely relaxed muscles in your neck and back. | <urn:uuid:03f565b5-ad3b-4a40-a7aa-b9468120ab45> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | https://hullopillow.com/pillows-for-neck-pain/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280221.47/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00237-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951824 | 805 | 2.234375 | 2 |
Newspaper Your Weeds Away
Start putting in your plants; work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers and put layers around the plants overlapping as you go cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic, they will not get through wet newspapers.
By Kate from Vermont
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. If you have any problems or suggestions feel free to Contact Us | <urn:uuid:1c08d2bd-00cd-4171-a688-696b6d863866> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.thriftyfun.com/Newspaper-Your-Weeds-Away-1.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988721278.88/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183841-00148-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927386 | 175 | 2.15625 | 2 |
Armed robbery is one of the most serious and potentially dangerous crimes committed in the U.S. today. A robber commits a hold-up because he or she believes the profit will be worth the risk. By decreasing the possible profit and increasing the risk of arrest, workers can reduce their chances of becoming a victim. Personal safety is most important when planning how to react to an armed robbery. This document provides basic information that can and will reduce the chance of becoming a victim. | <urn:uuid:20dcec54-d73c-4781-b3cf-ae4e97f8f95a> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | http://taylorfestival.com/486/Armed-Robbery-Procedures | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882571989.67/warc/CC-MAIN-20220813232744-20220814022744-00477.warc.gz | en | 0.951168 | 96 | 2.4375 | 2 |
|Theme:||Choosing to follow Jesus - Proper 18 (23) Year C|
|Object:||A soccer ball and a book of piano music.|
|Scripture:||"And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:27 (NIV)|
A soccer ball and a music book -- two very different things that play an important part in a story about Katy, a girl about the age of some of you. Katy faced a very difficult decision. Many of her friends had signed up to play soccer. Katy liked to play soccer too, and she wanted to be with her friends, but she also liked to play the piano and had been taking piano lessons for a couple of years. Soccer practice was at the same time as her piano lesson and playing soccer would take away from the time she needed to practice the piano. There was no way she could do both.
What should she do? Should she quit piano and play soccer with her friends, or should she finish what she had started and continue with her piano lessons? Finally, Katy came up with an idea. She sat down with a sheet of paper and drew a line down the center of the page. At the top of the page on one side of the line she wrote, "Piano." On the other side of the line she wrote, "Soccer." Below the word soccer, she wrote all of the advantages of playing soccer with her friends. Below the word piano, she wrote all of the advantages of being able to play the piano. After she had considered all of the advantages and disadvantages of each choice, Katy made her decision. She decided to continue her piano lessons. After all, she could still see her friends at school, and playing the piano was something that she would enjoy for the rest of her life.
We all face important decisions in life. The most important decision we face is whether we will follow Jesus or not. Perhaps you might say, "Oh, that is an easy decision. Of course I will follow Jesus," but Jesus warned that it isn't always easy to follow him. He said that we should sit down and count the cost. Will we choose to follow him if it means giving up friends who are making bad choices? Will we choose to follow him if it means moving to a far away place and leaving our family behind? Will we choose to follow him if it means we will never live in a big house or drive a fancy car?
Jesus said, "Anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple." Where did Jesus carry his cross? He carried it to Calvary. It was on that cross that Jesus gave his life so that you and I could have everlasting life. When we choose to carry our cross, it means that we are willing to give up everything to follow Jesus. It is a choice we have to make.
Dear Jesus, we thank you for being willing to carry your cross to Calvary. Help us to make the choice to take our cross and follow you. Amen.
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Some graphics © Dream Maker Software - www.CoolClipArt.com - Used by Permission. | <urn:uuid:4a3b20da-af0f-458d-98eb-c1a13d40e366> | CC-MAIN-2016-44 | http://www.sermons4kids.com/making_choices.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2016-44/segments/1476988720962.53/warc/CC-MAIN-20161020183840-00385-ip-10-171-6-4.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.985656 | 659 | 2.515625 | 3 |
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
What is wrong?
"24 million Texans can't be wrong" Really? I think to myself as I drive by that billboard for the 40 hundredth time on my way home from work. It's a billboard advertising Lone Star Beer and I disagree, I think 24 million Texans can be wrong. It baffles me sometimes when I remember how much alcoholic drinking goes on in the world.
But as I am driving by it, the slogan got me thinking about several current affairs and shifts in our nation's thinking. People are wanting laws passed to legalize same sex marriage and to keep abortions legal and to use embryonic stem cells and many other things that our tolerant way of thinking leads us these days. If we can just get enough people to say it's right then it's right. If the law says we can do it then I am justified in taking those actions.
How many people do we need to agree with something to make it right?
And as I am driving God says to me "Lindsey, no matter how many come against me and my ways I am still truth". God stands alone above any man and whether the stances we take for things are with Him or opposite of Him, He will always be right. The whole world can stand up for a woman's right to choose, but if God says it is wrong, then that will never change.
Woe to the multitude of many people
Who make a noise like the roar of the seas,
And to the rushing of nations
That make a rushing like the rushing of mighty waters!
The nations will rush like the rushing of many waters;
But God will rebuke them and they will flee far away,
And be chased like the chaff of the mountains before the wind,
Like a rolling thing before the whirlwind. | <urn:uuid:a85b4d2e-4021-478f-9913-4956f8a4877c> | CC-MAIN-2017-04 | http://sunflowerlins.blogspot.com/2009/06/what-is-wrong.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2017-04/segments/1484560280835.60/warc/CC-MAIN-20170116095120-00467-ip-10-171-10-70.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959198 | 371 | 1.601563 | 2 |
Faculty & Research 400 million voting records show profound racial and geographic disparities in voter turnout in the United States Jun 21, 2022 By John HolbeinMichael Barber 400 million voting records show profound racial and geographic disparities in voter turnout in the United States One of the core tenets of a well-functioning representative democracy is that the people who vote to elect government officials are representative of the public. Here we reinforce the idea that reality is far from this lofty ideal. We document the extent and nature of inequities in voter participation in the United States with a level of granularity and precision that previous research has not afforded. To do so, we use a unique nationwide dataset of approximately 400 million validated voting records across multiple election cycles. With this novel dataset, we document large and persistent gaps in voter turnout by race, age, and political affiliation. Minority citizens, young people, and those who support the Democratic Party are much less likely to vote than whites, older citizens, and Republican Party supporters. Minorities, youth, and democrats are also much more likely to live in local communities where fewer individuals vote—areas that we term turnout deserts. Turnout deserts are especially pernicious given that they are self-reinforcing—bolstered by the social dynamics that fundamentally shape citizens’ voting patterns. Our results show just how glaring inequities in political participation are in the US. These patterns threaten the very fabric of our democracy and fundamentally shift the balance of political power in the halls of government towards the interests of whites, older citizens, and republicans. They illustrate that participation in the United States is strikingly unequal—far from the ideals that this country has long aspired to. Link to Paper Areas of focus Political Science Domestic Policy & Politics John Holbein John Holbein is an assistant professor of public policy and education at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy. Holbein studies political participation, political inequality, democratic accountability, political representation, and education policy. Read full bio Michael Barber Related Content John Holbein Civilian national service programs can powerfully increase youth voter turnout Research Enrolling young people to participate as Teach For America (TFA) teachers has a large positive effect on rates of voter turnout among those young people who participate. This effect is considerably larger than many previous efforts to increase youth voter turnout. After their 2 years of service, these young adults vote at a rate 5.7 to 8.6 percentage points higher than that of similar nonparticipant counterparts. These results suggest that civilian national service programs targeted at young people show great promise in narrowing the enduring participation gap between younger and older citizens in the United States. Are Americans less likely to reply to emails from Black people relative to White people? Research Although previous attempts have been made to measure everyday discrimination against African Americans, these approaches have been constrained by distinct methodological challenges. We present the results from an audit or correspondence study of a large-scale, nationally representative pool of the American public. We provide evidence that in simple day-to-day interactions, such as sending and responding to emails, the public discriminates against Black people. Batten Faculty Recognized for Excellence in Teaching, Service, Research and Engagement News This academic year, Batten School professors won a slew of internal and external recognitions for excellence in teaching, service, research and engagement. African Americans Are Less Likely to Receive Responses to Emails, Study Finds News New evidence from a team of researchers, including Batten professor John Holbein, suggests that everyday racial discrimination is far more widespread than previous studies have indicated. | <urn:uuid:d82d26d5-fda5-4088-a9ae-f446481875af> | CC-MAIN-2022-33 | https://batten.virginia.edu/faculty-research/400-million-voting-records-show-profound-racial-and-geographic-disparities-voter | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2022-33/segments/1659882573118.26/warc/CC-MAIN-20220817213446-20220818003446-00673.warc.gz | en | 0.943036 | 722 | 2.84375 | 3 |
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