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| By Stephanie Small |
A refreshing beverage or snack straight from a vending machine is a simple treat that almost everyone enjoys. Whether at work or school, allowing yourself to indulge in a soda or a cookie brings pleasure to even the most ordinary day.
Get our unique weekly Newsletter with tips and techniques, how to's and critical updates on Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Google, etc. Join our 460,000 subscribers!
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Just imagine having the vending machine in this video at your school or workplace! Giving away everything from flowers to food — as well as cold, refreshing Coca-Colas — this treat dispenser produces more delighted responses than any vending machine you’ve ever dropped a coin into. You never know what it will dispense next! Play the video
This vending machine gives and gives and gives
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All Windows Secrets articles posted on 2010-01-21:
- Top Story Patch arrives for IE hole targeted by Chinese
- Wacky Web Week This vending machine gives and gives and gives
- LangaList Plus Extend the life of your laptop’s battery
- Insider Tricks Five productivity-enhancing Registry tweaks
- Perimeter Scan Browser forensic tools find malware entry points
- Show all articles on a single page
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One of the blogs I’ve been monitoring lately has the intriguing subtitle “Organizations Get the IT They Deserve” – a one-liner I’ve used from time to time (and something I truly believe!) The latest post “Starting a High Tech Business: You Need a CTO” is, per its title, oriented towards high-tech start-ups. However, it’s a good discussion of the CTO vs. CIO role – with the caveat that these terms are far from standardized, and I’ve seen many variations on this theme.
I point the post out here because:
- It’s a good description of the CTO vs. CIO roles.
- In many ways, all companies are going to become “high tech” in the next 10 years (the time-frame this blog focuses on).
- For many of these companies, the switch from Enterprise 1.0 to Enterprise 2.0 (Next Generation Enterprise) will have many of the qualities of a start-up.
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"Fracking" is So Bad It Sets Tapwater on Fire, Just See the Documentary "Gasland"
THOM HARTMANN'S "INDEPENDENT THINKER" REVIEW OF THE MONTH FOR TRUTHOUT/BUZZFLASH
Each month or so, BuzzFlash is privileged to have nationally syndicated progressive talk show host, television newscaster and author Thom Hartmann review a progressive book or DVD exclusively for BuzzFlash/Truthout.
Directed and Narrated by Josh Fox
Both aesthetically and practically, there are several things that make Josh Fox's documentary "Gasland" extraordinary and unique - and, frankly, the sort of view that will make you want to share it with everybody you know (particularly if they are politically active or an elected official!).
The first is that Josh Fox - the guy who made the movie - is also the guy who lived the story. Rarely do we find this combination in a documentary, and when we do it's often because somebody who was already an accomplished documentarian went out in search of a story to jump into and make a movie from. In this case, the story started with Josh being offered what are really big bucks - $100,000 - for poor people in rural Pennsylvania, if only he'd let his land be used to drill for natural gas.
This started Fox on his odyssey, which led him from the hills of Pennsylvania, across the American Midwest and West, and ultimately to discoveries about mind-bogglingly corrupt deals made by the Bush Administration and Dick Cheney which - literally - have and continue to poison American citizens.
The main focus of "Gasland" is "fracking" or hydraulic fracturing, a way of busting up underground seams of shale so distributed bubbles of gas can form into large, and tappable, pools of natural gas. Think of breaking up the inside of a sponge, for example.
The technique involves a witches' brew (no slur intended on our noble Wiccan friends - just don't have a better term) of toxic chemicals, waste water, and whatever else may be at hand pumped into the ground under incredible pressure to crack or fracture these underground formations. In a perfect world -- with water tables always totally separate from the places where God put them -- it actually has a certain engineering geek elegance to it.
But this isn't that fantasy world. Instead of just recovering gas, the chemicals often seep into water tables - usually with some of the natural gas - leading to some of the most dramatic scenes in the movie where residents of gas country are able to light their tapwater on fire as it's coming out of the tap.
It's a testimony to Fox's brilliant filmmaking that "fracking" has become part of our lexicon, Halliburton's and Cheney's crimes are becoming more widely known, and citizens are organizing across the nation to fight back. Another backhand testimony can be seen in all the very clean/beautiful/elegant TV ads - costing the industry millions - to try to make America's natural gas industry so pure, friendly, job-creating, and and all-American. If Fox hadn't made this movie, they wouldn't have to be spending all this money to greenwash their dirty work.
This movie is at once folksy/friendly and to-the-gut-hard-hitting. It shows the essential goodness and, frankly, vulnerability of most middle Americans - while bringing into stark relief the horrors of the behavior of the few sociopathic predators among us who have used their lack of a conscience to elevate themselves to positions of great power and wealth.
And it implicitly is a call to action that will inspire you for a long, long time.
Be sure to invite a dozen friends and neighbors over when you watch it - and consider it as the perfect birthday or other gift for any friends who need a good awakening.
This is one of the finest pieces of filmmaking to come along in quite a while.
You can obtain a copy of the "Gasland" DVD with a minimum contribution to Truthout/BuzzFlash.
Thom Hartmann is a New York Times bestselling author and host of the top nationally syndicated progressive radio talk show. You can learn more about Thom Hartmann at his website and find out what stations broadcast his program. He also now has a daily television program at RT Network. You can also listen to Thom over the Internet.
You can also read Thom's seminal book on corporate personhood, "Unequal Protection," exclusively on Truthout. Or receive the book with a minimum donation to Truthout.
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Old-Time Marriage Customs in New England
Marriage celebrations and marriage customs followed in the New World many of the customs of the Old World. Sack-posset, the drink of Shakespeare’s time, a rich, thick concoction of boiled ale, eggs, and spices, was drunk at New England weddings, as we learn from the pages of Judge Sewall’s diary; but it did not furnish a very gay wassail, for the Puritan posset-drinking was preceded and followed by the singing of a psalm—and such a psalm! a long, tedious, drawling performance from the Bay Psalm Book.
The bride and groom and bridal party walked in a little procession to the meeting-house on the Sabbath following the marriage. We read in the Sewall diary of a Sewall bride thus “coming out,” or “walking-out bride,” as it was called in Newburyport. Cotton Mather thought it expedient to thus make public with due dignity the marriage. In some communities the attention of the interested public was further drawn to the new-married couple in what seems to us a very comic fashion. On the Sabbath following the wedding, the gayly dressed bride and groom occupied a prominent seat in the gallery of the meeting-house, and in the middle of the sermon they rose and slowly turned around to display complacently on every side their wedding finery.
In Larned’s “History of Windham County, Conn.,” we read a description of such a scene in Brooklyn, Conn. Further attention was paid to the bride by allowing her to choose the text for the sermon preached on the first Sunday of the coming-out of the newly married couple. Much ingenuity was exercised in finding appropriate and unusual Bible texts for these wedding sermons. The instances are well known of the marriage of Parson Smith’s two daughters, one of whom selected the text, “Mary hath chosen that good part;” while the daughter Abby, who married John Adams, decided upon the text, “John came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say he hath a devil.” This latter ingenious and curious choice has given rise to an incorrect notion that the marriage of Abigail Smith with John Adams was distasteful to her father and her family. Mr. Charles Francis Adams tells me that this supposition is entirely unfounded, and that old President Adams would fairly rise in his grave to denounce any such slander, should it become current.
Perhaps the most curious wedding customs obtained among the Scotch-Irish settlers; for instance, the Presbyterian planters of Londonderry, New Hampshire, as told in Parker’s history of that town, page 74 et seq. The ancient wedding sport known in various parts of the British Isles as “riding for the kail,” or “for the broose,”—a pot of spiced broth,—and also called “riding for the ribbon,” took the form in America of riding a dare-devil race over break-neck, half-cleared roads to the house of the bride to secure a beribboned bottle of whiskey. The privileged Protestants had been in Ireland the only subjects permitted to carry or discharge firearms, and they ostentatiously paraded, at every celebration or festivity, their franchised condition by frequent volleys of blank cartridges. Their descendants kept up the same noisy custom in the new land, and the firing of guns formed a large part of a wedding celebration.
A Scotch-Irish marriage in Londonderry was prefaced by widespread formal invitations at least three days previous to the wedding day. An invitation of a single day’s warning was almost an insult. The wedding festivities began by a gathering of the groom’s friends at his home as an escort; the groom and his party proceeded with frequent discharges of musketry at every house they passed, until they met about half way a party of the male friends of the bride. Each group of wedding guests then appointed a champion, who “ran for the bottle” to the bride’s home, and the victorious one returned with it to the advancing party. Upon reaching the scene of the wedding, the bridegroom and his party of friends entered a room, and sat there till the best man brought the bride into the room, and stationed her before the parson by the side of the groom. The best man and the bridesmaid stationed themselves behind the bridal couple, and at a certain point in the ceremony bride and groom each thrust the right hand behind the back and the attendant couple withdrew the gloves, taking care to have the two gloves removed at precisely the same moment. At the end of the ceremony all kissed the bride, and the beribboned bottle of whiskey was not the only one that regaled the company. The bride and groom started on their journey with many parting volleys of musketry. In some neighborhoods, as a further pleasing attention, hidden groups of men discharged blank cartridges from ambush at the bridal pair as they rode through the woods.
Occasionally the wedding bells did not ring smoothly. One Scotch-Irish lassie seized the convenient opportunity, when the rollicking company of her male friends had set out to meet the bridegroom, to mount a pillion behind a young New Hampshire Lochinvar and ride boldly off to a neighboring parson and marry the man of her choice. Such an unpublished marriage was known in New Hampshire as a “Flagg marriage,” from one Parson Flagg, of widespread notoriety, of Chester, Vermont, whose house was a sort of Yankee Gretna Green. The government of New Hampshire, previous to the Revolution, as a means of increasing its income, issued marriage licenses at the price of two guineas each. Sometimes easy going parsons kept a stock of these licenses on hand, ready for issue, at a slightly advanced price, to eloping couples. Such a marriage, without proper public publishing in meeting, was not, however, deemed very reputable.
In some communities still rougher horse-play than unexpected volleys of musketry was shown to the bridal party or to wedding guests. Great trees were felled across bridle-paths, or grapevines were stretched across to obstruct the way, and thus delay the bridal festivities.
A custom prevailed in many New England towns that was doubtless an ameliorated and semi-civilized survival of the customs of savage peoples, when young girls were carried off and made wives by force. A group of those young men who had not been invited to the wedding would invade the house when the marriage ceremony had been performed, and drag away the bride to an inn or some other house, when the groom and his party would follow and rescue her by paying a forfeit of a dinner to the bride-stealers. In western Massachusetts this custom lingered until Revolutionary times; on page 245 of Judd’s “History of Hadley” the names of stolen brides are given. Mrs. Job Marsh, married in 1783, is said to have been the last bride thus stolen. A very rough variation of this custom is reported to be still in vogue in some localities. In the town of Charlestown, Rhode Island, last summer, a very respectable young married woman, a native of the town and wife of a farmer, was asked whether she had ever ridden on the cars. She answered that she had once done so, when she went to Stonington to be married. When asked why she had not been married at home, she said that she knew better than to do that, that the young men of the neighborhood went at dead of night to the house sheltering the newly married couple, pulled them out of bed, and carried the bride downstairs. If the rough invaders found the door locked, they beat it down with an axe.
Madam Sarah Kemble Knights, in her journal of a horseback ride from Boston to New York in 1704, tells of a curious variation of this marriage custom in Connecticut. She writes thus:
They generally marry very young; the males oftener, as I am told, under twenty than above: they generally make public Weddings, and have a way something Singular (as they say) in some of them, viz., just before joining hands the Bridegroom quits the place, who is soon followed by the Brides-men, and, as it were, dragged back to duty—being the reverse to the former practice among us to steal Mistress Bride.
I think this is the most despicable, ungallant bridal custom that I ever heard of, and Connecticut maids must have been poor-spirited, down-trodden jades to endure meekly any such sneaking desertion, an it were merely an empty following of a local fashion. The most eccentric marriage custom that I have noted in America is what has been termed a “smock marriage,” or “marriage in a shift.” It was believed in this country, and in Old England (and I have heard that the notion still prevails in parts of England to this day), that if a widow should wear no garment but a shift at the celebration of her second marriage, her new husband would escape liability for any debt previously contracted by her or by her former husband. Mr. William C. Prime, in his delightful book, “Along New England Roads,” page 25 et seq., gives an account of such a marriage in Newfane, Vermont. In February, 1789, Major Moses Joy married widow Hannah Ward; the bride stood with no clothing on within a closet, and held out her hand to the major through a diamond-shaped hole in the door, and the ceremony was thus performed. She then appeared resplendent in brave wedding attire, which the gallant major had previously deposited in the closet for her assumption. Mr. Prime tells also of a marriage in which the bride, entirely unclad, left her room by a window by night, and, standing on the top round of a high ladder, donned her wedding garments, and thus put off the obligations of the old life.
In some cases the marriage was performed on the public highway. In Hall’s “History of Eastern Vermont,” page 587, we read of a marriage in Westminster, Vermont, in which the widow Lovejoy, while nude and hidden in a chimney recess behind a curtain, wedded Asa Averill. “Smock marriages” are recorded in York, Maine, in 1774, as shown on page 419 et seq. of “History of Wells and Kennebunkport.” It is said that in one case the pitying minister threw his coat over the shivering bride, one widow Mary Bradley, who in February, clad only in a shift, met the bridegroom on the highway, half way from her home to his.
The traveller Kalm, writing in 1748, says that one Pennsylvania bridegroom saved appearances by meeting the scantily-clad widow-bride half way from her house to his, and announcing formally, in the presence of witnesses, that the wedding clothes which he then put on her were only lent to her for the occasion. This is curiously suggestive of the marriage investiture of eastern Hindostan.
In Westerly, Rhode Island, other smock marriages are recorded, showing that the belief in this vulgar error was universal. The most curious variation of this custom is given on page 224, vol. ii. of the “Life of Gustavus Vassa,” wherein that traveller records that he saw a shift marriage take place on a gallows in New York in 1784. A malefactor, condemned to death and about to undergo his execution, was reprieved and liberated through his marriage to a woman thus scantily clad. This traveller’s yarn deserves not, of course, the credence accorded to the previously stated authentic records. In the early days of the colonies a marriage “contraction” or betrothal sometimes took place,—so states Cotton Mather; this custom was abandoned after a few years of life in the New World. It could never have been of any use or much significance, nor, indeed, productive of high moral results.
In a new land, with rude manners of living, many rough courtships are recorded, and some rude methods of wooing. The custom of “bundling” has been for years a standing taunt against New England morality; as a full account of its prevalence, influence, and extent has been given by Dr. Stiles in his book, and more recently and with more fairness by Charles Francis Adams in his paper entitled “Some Phases of Sexual Morality and Church Discipline in Colonial New England,” which was delivered before the Massachusetts Historical Society in June, 1891, I will dwell no further on it here.
A more formal method of courtship is suggested by what is termed a “courting-stick;” one is preserved in Longmeadow, Massachusetts. It is a hollow tube eight feet in length, through which lovers, in the presence of an assembled family, could whisper tender nothings to each other.
Judging from the pages of the Sewall diary of the length of time elapsing between a proposal or agreement of marriage and its consummation, it is evident that short engagements were the mode, and that wedding arrangements were begun as soon as the engagement was announced. I find no indication of the use of betrothal rings, though Judith Sewall’s lover sent her, after her acceptance of his offer, a “stone-ring with a noble letter.” Neither were wedding rings in common use.
Wedding gloves were sent by the bridal couple as gifts to friends, as were mourning gloves at funerals. Judge Sewall records many gifts of gloves from newly-married friends. I have seen old wedding-gloves, gold-laced and fringed, with rich gauntlets, far from an inexpensive gift. I do not learn that it was customary to give presents to the bride, though Judge Sewall tells of his presentation of a psalm-book at a wedding. Bride-cake was made in early days, and was served with cheese at the wedding. A rich wedding feast was frequently given, and the bride was kissed by all present, though I must state that in some parts of New England bride-kissing was discountenanced. So, also, was dancing at weddings, especially at taverns, as “abuses and disorders” arose. This was specially in early days, when marriage was held to be merely a civil contract and was performed by magistrates, not by ministers.
In a community that opened every function—a training, bridge-planning, christening, house-raising, or journeying—with prayer and psalm-singing, it was plain that the benediction of religion would not long be withheld at weddings, and by the close of the seventeenth century the Puritan ministers solemnized marriages.
Curiously enough, the Quakers, professedly simple in living, made a vast deal of celebration of weddings, though the wedding ceremony itself was simply “passing the meeting.” Much feasting took place, and the bride seems to have had to pass through a most trying ordeal of promiscuous and unlimited kissing from every male Quaker for miles around. Visiting the bride was a favorite fashion. We read of one Boston bride, Mrs. Jervis, who received her guests, in 1774, “dressed in a white sattan night gound.”
Other old-time English wedding customs are reported to have been in vogue in New England, such as throwing the stocking of the bride, to be scrambled for as a luck-bearing trophy. Along the coast from Marblehead to Castine, the bridesmaids and unmarried girls strove to steal the bride’s garter by dexterity or craft. At a Pennsylvania Dutch wedding the bride’s shoe was sought for, and the groomsmen protected the bride from the theft, and if ineffectual in their protection were obliged to redeem the shoe with a bottle of wine. I find no record of our modern fashions of throwing slippers and rice after the departing bride.
It is said that along the New Hampshire and upper Massachusetts coast the groom was led to the bridal chamber clad in a brocaded night-gown. This may have occasionally taken place among the gentry, but I fancy brocaded satin night-gowns were not common wear among New England settlers. I have also seen it stated that the bridal chamber was invaded, and healths there were drunk and prayers offered. The only proof of this custom which I have is the negative one which elderly Judge Sewall gives when he states of his own wedding that “none came to us” after he and his bride had retired. There is no reason to suppose, when the wedding of an English nobleman of that period was attended by most indecorous observances, that provincial and colonial weddings were entirely free from similar rude practices, but the greater simplicity of life in the New World naturally crowded out many roystering customs.
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Hemorrhoids are also known as piles or varicose veins of the anus and rectum. They occur as a result of increased pressure on the walls of the rectum, which weakens the muscles supporting the hemorrhoidal vessels. The increased pressure causes the veins to bulge making them extremely painful.
People at Risk of Hemorrhoids
These conditions increase a person’s susceptibility to developing hemorrhoids:
Pregnancy: A lot of pregnant women are prone to hemorrhoids. As their size gets bigger, the rectal area is put under excessive pressure, which gives rise to hemorrhoids. During pregnancy, the increase in hormone production and release results in increased blood flow to the anal and the rectal region. Besides, during childbirth, the necessary pushing increases the pressure in the rectal area, creating the perfect conditions for hemorrhoids to develop.
Overweight: People who are overweight have a high chance of developing hemorrhoids because of their excess weight. The excess weight increases the pressure on their body, mainly in the pelvic and the rectal region, causing hemorrhoids.
Decreased fiber intake: Less fiber intake can result in the stools becoming harder, which may require one to push harder, thus increasing the pressure in the rectal area and causing hemorrhoids.
Lifting heavy weights: People who lift excessive heavy weights or hold their breath for long while lifting weights have a high risk of developing hemorrhoids, as it increases the pressure in the rectal and anal area. Weight lifters should, therefore, take proper training to avoid the development of this condition.
Improper bowel movements: Improper bowel movements are the main cause of hemorrhoids development in most cases. Chronic constipation, resulting from hard stools and chronic diarrhea, and excessive straining increase the pressure in the anal area, resulting in the formation of hemorrhoids. Similarly, holding back bowel movements when one feels the urge to evacuate also causes hemorrhoids.
High alcohol and caffeine intake: Alcohol and caffeine in drinks like coffee, tea and soft drinks act as diuretics, which cause the body to lose water very quickly. Loss of water again leads to the formation of dry and hard stools and causes difficulty in bowel movements.
How to Prevent Hemorrhoids
Hemorrhoids can be easily prevented by making a few changes in your lifestyle. Some of these changes include:
Increasing fiber content: Eating food with high fiber content, such as raw vegetables, whole grain breads, beans and dried fruits, tends to soften the stools and hence prevents constipation. Cutting down on low fiber and processed foods, such as cheese, white bread, red meat and ice cream, also helps as they result in the formation of dry and hard stools leading to constipation and straining during bowel movements.
- Increasing fluid intake: Regularly drinking water prevents constipation by softening stools. One should drink about 8 to 10 glasses of water daily. Alcohol and caffeinated drinks should be avoided as they tend to dehydrate the body and lead to constipation
- .Using stool softeners: Psyllium and bran can be helpful in softening stools. Avoid laxatives, since they might induce diarrhea, which may irritate the hemorrhoids.
- Practicing healthy bowel habits: Healthy bowel habits go a long way in preventing the occurrence of hemorrhoids. You should avoid straining while passing stools and go to the toilet whenever you feel the urge. Also, one should avoid reading in the toilet or spending more time sitting on the toilet, as it creates a lot of pressure on the anal and rectal region.
- Exercising: Moderate exercises, such as short walks, tend to help in preventing the occurrence of this condition. Also, avoid prolonged standing or sitting in one position.
- Avoid lifting heavy objects: You should avoid lifting heavy objects repeatedly, as this increases the pressure on the lower pelvic and anal regions, resulting in the development of hemorrhoids. You should always exhale while lifting heavy objects.
Being properly informed about the risk factors and the causes of hemorrhoids can help in early prevention
and development of this rather painful condition.
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Today’s post may be considered controversial, but I feel the need to talk about wine. Specifically, all the women who are being lead to believe by the wine industry that they deserve “Mommie’s little helper,” after a long day taking care of children, home, work, etc.
Every day there are memes that show up on my Facebook feed designed to encourage women to drink alcohol – all of them are shared by women… It’s been a very long time since I have liked, laughed at, or shared any of them. Here’s why.
So many women that I know bought into the whole idea that a little alcohol is good for your health, or that your mental health needs a glass of wine or two, or a bottle. Most of these women either now participate in AA or are suffering the effects of alcoholism but not seeking help yet. Some of them have battled throat and/or breast cancer. This is sad and unacceptable. To me, it’s the exact same thing as when the tobacco industry did not share the information that cigarettes cause cancer, emphysema, and other lung diseases for so many years. Yes, you heard that right, THE SAME THING.
At last some physicians are now speaking out and sharing the information that alcohol CAUSES seven types of cancer.
“Epidemiologic evidence supports a causal association of alcohol consumption and cancers of the oropharynx, larynx, esophagus, liver, colon, rectum, and female breast, says Jennie Connor, MB, ChB, MPH, from the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine, University of Otago, in Dunegin, New Zealand. In short, alcohol causes cancer.”
Dr. Connor goes on to say that this is not news. Many cancer treatment/research facilities have long known and listed these as alcohol related cancers. The alcohol industry uses words like related, linked to, risk of, instead of stating the truth, which is that alcohol causes these cancers. According to the research that she studied, greater than 50 grams (1.609 ounces) of alcohol daily raises your risk for mouth, pharynx and esophageal cancer 4-7 times. Less than that for the rest of the above cancers. That amount is a little over a shot of alcohol and according to the National Consumers League, “one 12-oz. beer has as much alcohol as a 1.5-oz. shot of whiskey, or a 5-oz. glass of wine.”
Another report from the American Public Health Association back in 2013 concluded that 3.5% of cancer deaths in the US are caused by alcohol. This report talks about more than two drinks a day.
So, my point here is, not only can you become addicted to alcohol and join the millions of others in AA, you are also taking a risk for developing certain types of cancer. Having witnessed my brother’s radiation/chemo treatment for his throat cancer a few years back, and the permanent damage that the followup surgery caused, believe me when I say you don’t wish that on your worst enemy. AND, I will add that at that time, the Dana Faber Cancer Center listed alcohol as one of the causes of throat cancer.
You are probably wondering if I drink? Well, as these studies and more information has come out in recent years, I have been reducing the amount of wine I drink. Having been a lightweight in that department who couldn’t handle anything stronger than wine all of my life, I now limit myself to drinking a glass of red wine with the special dinners that Ned and I cook together on weekends, or holiday parties. Perhaps some day I will not have any at all, but for now, that feels right for me.
What I ask is that you begin to think about whether you truly want that glass of wine (or other alcoholic beverage) or not. Think about the risk you are taking, think about your family and friends. Simply think before you drink. Then you will discover what feels right for you, and not what the media is pushing. Take care of you!
And if you are wondering about the news stories you have seen touting the benefits of drinking a small amount of alcohol daily, I can find no reliable scientific evidence supporting that. In fact, the Mayo Clinic states “The evidence about the possible health benefits of alcohol isn’t certain, and alcohol may not benefit everyone who drinks.” In short, the few possible benefits do not outweigh the risks.
Best of Health,
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New Age and holistic beliefs and practices – sometimes called the "new spirituality" – are widely distributed across modern global society. The fluid and popular nature of new age makes these movements a very challenging field to understand using traditional models of religious analysis. Rather than treating new age as an exotic specimen on the margins of ‘proper’ religion, "New Age Spirituality" examines these movements as a form of everyday or lived religion. The book brings together an international range of scholars to explore the key issues: insight, healing, divination, meditation, gnosis, extraordinary experiences, and interactions with gods, spirits and superhuman powers.
Kimberly B. Stratton investigates the cultural and ideological motivations behind early imaginings of the magician, the sorceress, and the witch in the ancient world. Accusations of magic could carry the death penalty or, at the very least, marginalize the person or group they targeted. But Stratton moves beyond the popular view of these accusations as mere slander. In her view, representations and accusations of sorcery mirror the complex struggle of ancient societies to define authority, legitimacy, and Otherness.
Bede (c. 673-735) was Anglo-Saxon England’s most prominent scholar, and his body of work is among the most important intellectual achievements of the entire Middle Ages. Bede and the Future brings together an international group of Bede scholars to examine a number of questions about Bede’s attitude towards, and ideas about, the time to come. This encompasses the short-term future (Bede’s own lifetime and the time soon after his death) and the end of time. Whilst recognising that these temporal perspectives may not be completely distinct, the volume shows how Bede’s understanding of their relationship undoubtedly changed over the course of his life.
Max Weber and The Protestant Ethic: Twin Histories presents an entirely new portrait of Max Weber, one of the most prestigious social theorists in recent history, using his most famous work, The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism, as its central point of reference. It offers an intellectual biography of Weber framed along historical lines – something which has never been done before. It re-evaluates The Protestant Ethic – a text surprisingly neglected by scholars – supplying a missing intellectual and chronological centre to Weber’s life and work.P
While, historically, most attention has focused on Catholic-Protestant relations in Ireland, there continue to be important dialogues between Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans and Anglicans, and Presbyterians and Baptists. With increased globalization, doctrinal shifts and expansion, migration, evangelism, and declining membership, the relations between and among Christian denominations have become increasingly dynamic and important. New forms of dialogue as well as reinvigoration of the old patterns of sharing and communication are vital to renewing and updating ecumenical and interfaith movements.
This new study argues that the religious attitude of the Roman army was a crucial factor in the Christianization of the Roman world. Specifically, by the end of the third century, there was a significant Christian presence within the army which was ready to act in the interests of the faith. Conditions at this time were thus ripe for the coming to power of a Christian emperor: when Constantine converted to Christianity he could rely upon the enthusiastic support of his Christian soldiers. Constantine strengthened his Christian base by initiating policies which accelerated the Christianization of the army.
Five twelfth- and thirteenth-century polemicists from southern France and northern Spain are the first known Jewish polemicists from western Christendom, who identified major Christian challenges, as well as appropriate responses for fellow Jews under ever-increasing religious pressure. This analysis suggests that the Jewish polemicists ultimately attempted to offer their followers a significantly contrasting portrait of Christian and Jewish society: the former as powerful but irrational and morally debased; the latter as weak, but profoundly rational and morally elevated.
This book makes an illuminating contribution to one of Christianity’s central problems: the understanding and interpretation of scripture, and more specifically, the relationship between the Old Testament and the New. John David Dawson analyzes the practice and theory of "figural" reading in the Christian tradition of Biblical interpretation by looking at writings of Jewish and Christian thinkers, both ancient and modern, who have reflected on that form of traditional Christian Biblical interpretation.
In turn-of-the-century Vienna, Karl Kraus created a bold new style of media criticism, penning incisive satires that elicited both admiration and outrage. Kraus’s spectacularly hostile critiques often focused on his fellow Jewish journalists, which brought him a reputation as the quintessential self-hating Jew. The Anti-Journalist overturns this view with unprecedented force and sophistication, showing how Kraus’s criticisms form the center of a radical model of German-Jewish self-fashioning, and how that model developed in concert with Kraus’s modernist journalistic style.P
Hugh of Amiens (c. 1085-1164) was an important intellectual figure in the twelfth century. During a long life he served as a cleric, Cluniac monk, abbot, and archbishop of Rouen. He wrote a number of works including poems, biblical exegesis, anti-heretical polemics, and most importantly one of the earliest collections of systematic theology, his Dialogues. This book examines all of Hugh’s writings to uncover a better understanding not only of this individual, but also of the twelfth-century as a whole, especially the theological preoccupations of the period, including the development of systematic theology and views on the differences of the monastic and clerical ways of life.
Exploring the philosophical concerns of the nature of self, this book draws from two of the most influential Indian masters, Śaṅkara and Śāntideva. Todd demonstrates that an ethics of altruism is still possible within a metaphysics which assumes there to be no independent self. A new ethical model based on the notions of ’flickering consciousness’ and ’constructive altruism’ is proposed. By comparing the metaphysics and ethics of Śaṅkara and Śāntideva, Todd shows that the methodologies and aims of these Buddhist and Hindu masters trace remarkably similar cross-cutting paths.
In this work T. Scott Manor provides a new perspective on a common view, known as the Johannine Controversy, which maintains that the early church once tried to jettison the Gospel and Apocalypse of John as heretical forgeries. Primary evidence comes from Epiphanius of Salamis, who mentions a heretical group with such views, the "Alogi." This along with with other evidence from sources including Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Origen, Eusebius, Photius, Dionysius bar Salibi, Ebed-Jesu and others has led to the conclusion that a certain Gaius of Rome led the "Alogi" in this anti-Johannine campaign.
The studies collected in "Preaching after Easter" examine the festal history and homiletics of Mid-Pentecost, Ascension, and Pentecost in the late antique Mediterranean world. Articles on individual sermons or the work of individual preachers such as John Chrysostom, Augustine of Hippo, Peter Chrysologus, Leo the Great, and Severus of Antioch exhibit the richness of late antique festal preaching. Questions of authenticity, heresiology, and theological, exegetical, or liturgical history are addressed with methodological rigor.
In Union Made, Heath W. Carter advances a bold new interpretation of the origins of American Social Christianity. While historians have often attributed the rise of the Social Gospel to middle-class ministers, seminary professors, and social reformers, this book places working people at the very center of the story. The major characters–blacksmiths, glove makers, teamsters, printers, and the like–have been mostly forgotten, but as Carter convincingly argues, their collective contribution to American Social Christianity was no less significant than that of Walter Rauschenbusch or Jane Addams.L
Buddhism in China gathers together for the first time the most central and influential papers of the great scholar of Chinese Buddhism, Erik Zürcher, presenting the results of his career-long profound studies following on the 1959 publication of his landmark The Buddhist Conquest of China. The translation and language of Buddhist scriptures in China, Buddhist interactions with Daoist traditions, the activities of Buddhists below elite social levels, continued interactions with Central Asia and lands to the west, and typological comparisons with Christianity are only some of the themes explored here.
"The Apostles in Early Christian Art and Poetry" presents the first in-depth analysis of the origins of the representation of the apostles (the twelve disciples and Paul) in verse and image in the late antique Greco-Roman world (250-400). Especially in the West, the apostles are omnipresent, in particular on sarcophagi and in Biblical and martyr poetry. They primarily function as witnesses of Christ s stay on earth, but Peter and Paul are also popular saints of their own. Occasionally, the other apostles come to the fore as individual figures.
Alexander Murray has long had an intellectual interest in the history of religion – struggling between his inbuilt anti-clericism and his pronounced monastic leanings. The five essays in Conscience and Authority in the Medieval Church take on this dialectic, addressing the difficult relationship between private conscience and public authority in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In any organization, political, military, commercial, or religious, the relationship of conscience and authority is always potentially fraught, and can create dilemmas both for those in authority and those without.
The first new translation of Kierkegaard’s masterwork in a generation brings to vivid life this essential work of modern philosophy.Brilliantly synthesizing human insights with Christian dogma, Soren Kierkegaard presented, in 1844, The Concept of Anxiety as a landmark "psychological deliberation," suggesting that our only hope in overcoming anxiety was not through "powder and pills" but by embracing it with open arms. While Kierkegaard’s Danish prose is surprisingly rich, previous translations—the most recent in 1980—have marginalized the work with alternately florid or slavishly wooden language.
Nagasaki, on the west coast of the Japanese island of Kyushu, is known in the West for having been the target of an atomic bomb attack on August 9, 1945. Less well known is that the city was founded by Europeans, Jesuit missionaries who arrived in the area in the second half of the 16th century. The Jesuits came with an evangelizing mission and converted to Christianity several Japanese lords or daimyo, who soon profited from trade with the Portuguese. To harbor Portuguese ships, the port of Nagasaki was established in 1571, a joint venture of the traders, the Jesuits and the daimyo.
The concept of heresy is deeply rooted in Christian European culture. The palpable increase in incidences of heresy in the Middle Ages may be said to directly relate to the Christianity’s attempts to define orthodoxy and establish conformity at its centre, resulting in the sometimes forceful elimination of Christian sects. In the transition from medieval to early modern times, however, the perception of heresy underwent a profound transformation, ultimately leading to its decriminalization and the emergence of a pluralistic religious outlook.
A resource ideal for students as well as general readers, this two-volume encyclopedia examines the diversity of the Asian American and Pacific Islander spiritual experience.• Covers both common motifs in Asian American religious culture, such as Chinese New Year festivals and mortuary rituals, as well as many newly established faith traditions• Contains entries on rarely addressed topics within Asian American religion, such as Hezhen Shamanism
Historians typically single out the hundred-year period from about 1050 to 1150 as the pivotal moment in the history of the Latin Church, for it was then that the Gregorian Reform movement established the ecclesiastical structure that would ensure Rome’s dominance throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. In Before the Gregorian Reform John Howe challenges this familiar narrative by examining earlier, "pre-Gregorian" reform efforts within the Church. He finds that they were more extensive and widespread than previously thought and that they actually established a foundation for the subsequent Gregorian Reform movement.T
Jewish esotericism is the oldest and most influential continuous occult tradition in the West. Presenting lore that can spiritually enrich your life, this one-of-a-kind encyclopedia is devoted to the esoteric in Judaism―the miraculous and the mysterious. In this second edition, Rabbi Geoffrey W. Dennis has added over thirty new entries and significantly expanded over one hundred other entries, incorporating more knowledge and passages from primary sources.This comprehensive treasury of Jewish teachings, drawn from sources spanning Jewish scripture, the Talmud, the Midrash, the Kabbalah, and other esoteric branches of Judaism, is exhaustively researched yet easy to use.
Richard Finn OP examines the significance of almsgiving in Churches of the later empire for the identity and status of the bishops, ascetics, and lay people who undertook practices which differed in kind and context from the almsgiving practiced by pagans. It reveals how the almsgiving crucial in constructing the bishop’s standing was a co-operative task where honor was shared but which exposed the bishop to criticism and rivalry. Finn details how practices gained meaning from a discourse which recast traditional virtues of generosity and justice to render almsgiving a benefaction and source of honor, and how this pattern of thought and conduct interacted with classical patterns to generate controversy.
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Feds set plan to make data easier to find
- By Jason Miller
- Sep 10, 2004
Agencies have long set their own practices for presenting information to the public, but now the Office of Management and Budget wants everyone to get on the same page.
The OMB-led Interagency Committee on Government Information is developing guidelines on how to organize, classify and present data to the public, either on the Web or through other electronic libraries.
Once agencies agree on a single set of practices, citizens will be able to use new technologies more easily to find what they are looking for, said Eliot Christian, data and information systems manager for the Geological Survey and chairman of the committee's Categorization of Government Information Working Group.
The group sees this task carried out in two steps. First, agencies must adopt common search engine standards. Then, agencies would need to apply a unified tagging system to identify government information by unique URL addresses.
The E-Government Act of 2002 mandated that OMB draft a policy to help agencies do a better job of managing government information, from consolidating Web sites to improving records management.
With that mandate in mind, OMB created the Interagency Committee on Government Information to implement Section 207 of the E-Government Act, which calls for standards to electronically categorize, publish and archive government information in a consistent format.
The Categorization of Government Information Working Group is one of three committee groups developing guidelines related to E-Gov Act requirements.
The committee's Electronic Records Policy Working Group and the Web Content Management Working Group also are creating data management recommendations.
The categorization group opted to break its task into front- and back-end portions. On the front end, the group is calling for a set of standards agencies should use in implementing electronic searches. The goal is to let users do a single search across different systems, including library catalogs and disparate databases.
On the back end, the group wants to bring uniformity to how the government indexes information. Led by James Erwin of the Defense Department's Defense Technical Information Center, this team is creating a set of proposed guidelines for tagging all government information with unique identifiers.
Much like each Web page has a unique address or each book has an International Standard Book Number, so too should each piece of government information have its own globally unique identifier, said Erwin, who spoke recently at a conference held by the Federal Library and Information Center Committee.
Christian added: 'At some level, every piece of government information has to be citable, in the same way there is a format for footnotes. That is what we're trying to do.'
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In an explosive-action sport, you may be tempted to refuel with a product that delivers an energy spike, something that jacks up the adrenaline. Sack that quarterback! Nail that deadlift! Your inclination might be to use products in liquid or capsule form that feature ma huang and guarana seed extracts, for example, both of which are powerful herbal stimulants. Go down this path cautiously: Make sure you use them in training first or you might face performance problems during the competition. Don’t use them at all if the NCAA sanctions your competition or if your goal is Olympic lifting. The IOC considers ma huang an illegal substance.
First, consider the health risks exacerbated by competition. In a sport that requires a one-repetition maximum or the rough equivalent (for example, an allout push to down the ball carrier), you are driving your heart as hard as it will go. In the heat of competition, you might extend yourself well beyond anything you’ve done in practice. Add to that the extra adrenaline you’re pumping because this is “the real thing” rather than practice, and your body may not be able to handle the same amount or type of stimulant you use in training.
For some of the same reasons, you could actually lose a competitive edge by using the product, or by using too much of it. You need to feel powerful for a single moment in time, not hyperactive, like the human equivalent of a beehive that’s been poked with a broomstick. There’s a mental aspect to this, too, that is very important. I know from personal experience in power lifting that a big part of success in the lift is the ability to focus the mind—to visualize the weight moving and direct mental power to the muscles. If you are jittery from your sports drink or capsule, that feeling could ruin your concentration.
Because you will have to deliver explosive bursts of energy—you will be working in the anaerobic zone during part of your competition—think about what you can do before the day of the event to help you. As indicated in earlier chapters, some top athletes use creatine supplementation (or perhaps creatine loading) in the weeks before the competition. They believe that, at the moment they need an explosion of energy, the added creatine helps them pull through.
Drink water during your breaks, regardless of the ambient temperature, but stay away from anything that could bloat you, like a carbonated beverage. If you get hungry or feel your energy fading, eat light. Try a sports gel with your water. The 100 calories will cut your hunger a little and give you an energy boost. During a competition, even if you are only competing for short periods throughout the day, you are better off hungry than having your body expend the effort it takes to digest a meal.
Swimmer Dara Torres took a somewhat unusual approach to fueling before her events in the Sydney Olympics, where she won gold in the 4 X 100 meter freestyle and individual medley relays and individual bronzes in the 100 meter butterfly, 100 meter freestyle, and 50 meter freestyle. Equipped with a newly developed formula from GU called Hard Rock, which contains more amino acids than the standard GU, she relied on an energy-gel loading program:
I’d take one packet an hour and a half before I’d swim in a race, one packet 45 minutes before, and one packet 10 to 15 minutes before. I’d also take one immediately after for recovery.
Seek out gels without simple sugars if you want to try a program like this. Also keep in mind that Bill Vaughan at GU actually developed the Hard Rock product with elite athletes in mind; it differs in several ways from commercially available GU.
There are also tips that you don’t want to try. Some athletes—football players, in particular—have superstitiously turned to pickle juice as a substitute for water or an electrolyte replacement drink. Pickle juice became a “secret weapon” after the Philadelphia Eagles admitted swigging it during a game in October 2000, when they brought down the Dallas Cowboys. Each two-ounce shot, roughly the size they drank, contains about 700 milligrams of sodium, which is about the same amount that 1.5 liters of Gatorade provides. If you’re a well-hydrated player approaching 300 pounds, then maybe you could try the pickle juice—after you talk to your coach. If you don’t meet that description, stay with water. Too much sodium in your system can cause problems. An excess of sodium will upset your electrolyte balance by drawing water and potassium out of your cells. Another effect, which you may have experienced after eating salty food, is that too much sodium will cause water to collect in and around your body tissues, and you’ll feel sluggish.
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Seeking to shift the vitriolic and partisan tenor of the debate over healthcare reform to one of pragmatism and compromise, President Barack Obama addressed a joint session of Congress Wednesday night to urge both Republicans and Democrats to deliver legislation that will provide access to affordable health insurance coverage for all.
In recent weeks, Obama has been accused of losing control of the message to opponents of reform who by most accounts did a masterful job during the August recess of working up voters into a fury over some of the proposals that are up for consideration, such as a public insurance option, and complete fabrications, such as death panels.
Much of what he said as he outlined his expectations he’s been saying for weeks. All individuals should be required to have a basic insurance package; the government should provide subsidies to those who cannot afford insurance; businesses will be required to provide coverage or chip in to help cover the cost; and there should be an exchange where individuals and small businesses can shop for competitively priced (affordable) plans. The president also expressed his support for a public option, stating that it would force private insurers to be competitive and “treat their customers better.” He did stress, however that a public option is only one part of his plan and warned lawmakers that it should not be used as a deal breaker.
“I will not back down on the basic principle that if Americans can’t find affordable coverage, we will provide you with a choice. And I will make sure that no government bureaucrat or insurance company bureaucrat gets between you and the care that you need,” Obama said.
This will keep the left wing of his party in check for a while, predicts Cato Institute senior fellow Michael Tanner. “He made the best case for the public option but signaled that he would be willing to give it up. He’s trying to have it both ways on that one, which is kind of where he has to be. He’s got to try to keep both [parties] at the table as long as possible and doesn’t want any side digging in their heels,” said Tanner.
Texas Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, one of several Congressional Black Caucus members who are insisting on “a robust public plan,” didn’t lose hope.
“I’m going to look at the cup as being half full instead of half empty. The president has now put on public record that he’s supportive of the public option, he sees the value of it and obviously he’s leaving the details to us,” she said. “This is going to be a fight in the [Democratic] caucus. I think we should pass the strongest possible public option in the house. I don’t think we should yield on a strong public option from the beginning.”
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Target training is a fabulous tool, and it's easy to teach. The concept is very simple: the bird touches a "target", usually with it's beak, and it gets a reward. Target training can lead to improved owner-bird communication, can be used to shape other behaviours, and is extremely helpful for aggression, phobias, and may other issues. Even birds who cannot be handled can be successfully target trained. One trained, most birds would do anything- including climbing or flying over anything in their path- to get to the target. This way, you are in control of where your bird goes without directly handling them. There are dozens of ways this can come in handy during the lifetime of your bird.
The requirements for target training are very simple. You need somewhere for the bird to perch; in or out of it's cage, it doesn't really matter as long as both you and your bird are comfortable. You will also need a target; a thin dowel perch held in the hand works well. You can put red food dye on the tip to designate the "target zone", but this isn't strictly necessary. You will also need some way to reward the right behaviour; what reward depends on your bird. A good reward is anything your bird will be eager to work for, and may include small pieces of food or treats, scratches, toys, etc. Food or treat rewards should be tiny, so your bird doesn't get full too quickly, and eaten quickly, so your bird doesn't forget why they got the treat in the first place. Experiment with different rewards, and find out which your bird prefers. Some birds become bored if the same reward is offered again and again, so if you can find a couple things your bird will work for, all the better.
Target training is taught through approximation and variable rewards. This means that your bird gets a small reward for every step or action they take that gets them closer to the behaviour you want, and big steps forward get bigger rewards. the big rewards are referred to as "jackpots". In the first stages of training, simply looking at the target may get them a reward if they are a shyer bird. In more gregarious birds, they may only need to be reward when they actually move towards it. If at any time your bird seems uninterested or doesn't volunteer the next step, step back, wait a moment, then go back one step and try again. If they still don't offer the behaviour you want, you may want to consider asking for a smaller approximation or with a more desirable reward. Do not move forward until your bird is consistently and reliably completing the previous step. Remember to remove the target after every try, whether your bird completes the step or not. You want to train your bird to touch the target on cue (the presentation of the target), not to touch the target whenever they want a reward!
If you are working with a bird that may bite, remember to keep yourself safe. In these cases, petting is probably not going to be a good reinforcer. Food and toys are best offered on the very tip of your fingers, far enough away that the bird has to stretch to get them. If you bird is already stretched to get the treat or toy, it is unlikely they will lunge to bite.
Many birds take to the target right away, but some require encouragement. Keep sessions short and gauge them by your bird. Is your bird still interested and engaged? If not, it may be time to stop. Short training sessions every day are preferable and yield quicker results than longer sessions only a few times a week. With a bit of patience, the right rewards and some time, your bird will quickly be scrambling to get their beak on that target. Have fun, and good training.
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Q. Why don’t they use the ice-control structure next to the Champlain Bridge as a reserved bus route while a southbound lane is closed for emergency repairs?
A. Officially known as the ice-control structure, the so-called ice bridge runs parallel to the Champlain, connecting Nuns’ Island and the St. Lawrence Seaway dike.
It was used by drivers during the 1990 Oka crisis when the Mercier Bridge was closed.
In 2011, when the Mercier was partially closed for emergency repairs, Quebec announced it would be used for empty buses returning to the South Shore.
But during the 2011 Mercier troubles, few buses ended up using the ice bridge, said Jean-Vincent Lacroix, a spokesman for the agency that operates federal bridges in Montreal.
That’s because it would have been a long detour for buses and Seaway locks would have caused delays.
After a southbound Champlain lane was closed suddenly on Nov. 12, Quebec Transport Minister Sylvain Gaudreault brought up the possibility of using the ice bridge as a traffic-relief measure.
But after analysis, it was decided that the lane would not have sped up buses, Lacroix said. Instead bus riders would have ended up taking long detours and got stuck at locks.
To deal with continuing Champlain lane closings, some South Shore buses are avoiding the bridge, instead transporting passengers to and from the Longueuil métro station.
The ice bridge is used by construction crews working on the Champlain Bridge. For much of the year, cyclists and pedestrians also count on it.
New Turcot structures are going up years early
Q. For years now I have been driving past the construction site at the old CN rail yards and Pullman St. near Angrignon Blvd. Construction has been going on there for some time and I suspect it is not private. My belief is they are constructing new roads and off-ramps for the new MUHC superhospital, but nowhere is this advertised. With public money being spent, wouldn’t it be appropriate for the government to display a sign or placard that shows what is being done? It could show the concept/what it will look like when it is completed, who is paying for it, how much it costs and when they plan to complete the work. After all, this is our money being spent, but it feels as though its all being done in secret.
Q. What is the new building that has gone up just east of the Turcot Interchange? It’s big and has many garage doors?
A. That construction around Angrignon Blvd. has nothing to do with the MUHC superhospital. It’s related to the new Turcot Interchange project, which will include new interchanges at Angrignon and at Montreal West.
Transport Quebec is getting a head start on the work by building overpasses that will only be used when the Turcot work is completed, some time around 2020.
One of them, near Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue Blvd., will be used by cars going over CN train tracks that are to be moved. Two other overpasses, closer to Angrignon, will eventually go over Highway 20 when it is moved farther north.
As for the building just east of the Turcot Interchange, Transport Quebec built it this year as a new service centre for employees working on the Turcot, as well as for their vehicles, a spokesperson said.
The building is on Pullman St., which will become Pullman Blvd. once the Turcot project is completed. Transport Quebec is working on four structures along Pullman that will eventually go over Highway 20 and CN train tracks.
The next big Turcot-related project will be the rebuilding of St-Jacques St. over the Décarie Expressway.
Transport Quebec will be demolishing it and rebuilding it, beginning in April.
Though Transport Quebec has not posted signs about its work in the area, the ministry does allow the public to follow the progress of the $3.7-billion Turcot project.
Check out turcot.gouv.qc.ca, where Transport Quebec posts work updates, photos, videos and maps related to the new Turcot. The website is in French only. The ministry has also set up a Turcot hotline for questions and comments: 514-873-1372.
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Phyllis M. Gervais was working as a student nurse when World War II began. “There were rumblings on the horizon, but I don’t think many people in America absorbed that least of all me,” Gervais said. She remembered just coming off a 12-hour shift when she heard the news.
“I was just numb, I don’t even remember having a reaction maybe because I was so tired,” she said. She decided to enlist in the Army in 1943.
Gervais went overseas in July 1943, where she served the 51st Evacuation Unit and Mobile Army Surgical Hospital Unit.
“Sometimes I’d be an operating nurse, sometimes I’d be in a surgical unit, sometimes I’d be assistant chief nurse,” Gervais said, explaining her different jobs while in the service. “But I had experience in all of them.”
By November 1943, Gervais’ unit went to North Africa, where they served in cities including Casablanca. During her service, Gervais said she learned that “when you jump into the thick of it, you better know how to do something. It seems like that in the service, you’re pushed into things you’re not prepare for and it’s almost like within days you’ve always done it.”
Gervais recalled traveling to Paris after the city was liberated in 1944 and dancing the night away with her friends. She came home to the United States in July 1945 but was soon sent to South Korea for the Korean War. While stationed there, she recalled meeting President Syngman Rhee the day before his inauguration in 1948. After leaving the service in 1955, Gervais kept correspondence with her friends from the service and attended several reunions in the 1960s.
We honor her service.
Nominate a Veteran for #VeteranOfTheDay
Do you want to light up the face of a special Veteran? Have you been wondering how to tell your Veteran they are special to you? VA’s #VeteranOfTheDay social media feature is an opportunity to highlight your Veteran and his/her service.
It’s easy to nominate a Veteran. All it takes is an email to firstname.lastname@example.org with as much information as you can put together, along with some good photos. Visit our blog post about nominating to learn how to create the best submission.
Veterans History Project
This #VeteranOfTheDay profile was created with interviews submitted to the Veterans History Project. The project collects, preserves, and makes accessible the personal accounts of American war Veterans so that future generations may hear directly from Veterans and better understand the realities of war. Find out more at http://www.loc.gov/vets/.
Editor: Michelle Cannon
Fact checker: Crystal Moore
Graphic artist: Nikki Lumbre
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RESPONDS TO WALL STREET JOURNAL
JUNE 25 "FOOD FIGHT" ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
CA - July 5, 2004
Executive Director Carl Rebstock responded to a news feature in
the June 25 issue of the Wall
Street Journal called "Food Fight" by reporter Eileen
Daspin. His letter to the editor, reprinted below, was sent today.
but astutely, journalist Eileen Daspin (see “Food Fight,” 25 June
2004) has drawn attention to a clash of titans—the environmental
and the seafood industries—and to those trapped in the crossfire
of conflicting rhetoric and scientific assertions, namely, home
shoppers. Both titans want abundant fish; both believe they know
best how to guarantee bountifulness.
crave simple, definitive guidance. But fisheries biology is an imprecise
science. Whatever unwavering advice this young discipline might
offer is difficult to distill. Moreover, the problem of dwindling
wild fish populations is as much economic and societal as environmental.
It is difficult to untangle sound science from political spin. Informed
and involved citizens will always be vital to nudging bureaucrats
forward. But, avoiding whimsical policy-making comes at the cost
of a cumbersome political process. The backlash by baffled consumers
is understandable. The burden of moving markets away from “bad”
fish and toward “good” fish cannot be borne principally by the public.
simpler consumer advice is warranted: buy what you please
but please learn about what you buy. This is not so much heresy
as a concession to our human nature: we want what we can't
have. Negativism will not entice disinterested consumers to consider
the impact of their purchases. Boycotts and bans may elevate public
awareness but generally do greater harm than good by disregarding
critical nuances. Activist efforts that marshal the public against
industry are divisive and less fruitful than market-based incentives.
Passionfish, a nonpartisan educational nonprofit, is creating enduring
change through education and corporate collaborations—moving commerce
and conservation together through armistice and into alliance.
one of the world's largest buyers of fish, and World Wildlife Fund,
one of the world's largest conservation organizations, partnered
to create a business-environmental partnership which would address
the crisis in the world's fisheries. That partnership resulted in
the Marine Stewardship Council,
an independent certifier of well-managed fisheries. It is a shining
example of what we believe offers the greatest promise of progress.
The MSC, after a rigorous scientific evaluation, awards an eco-label
to products meeting its sustainability criteria, thereby rewarding
fisheries in the marketplace and giving consumers confidence that
the products they purchase are not harming the environment.
Brad Warren, Passionfish board member and editor-in-chief of Pacific
Fishing magazine has written in a Perspective
on our website, “the real engine of change is opportunity, not
issues are more fractious or more urgent. The conflict over our
ocean's sustainability is being fought at sea, in scientific and
policy journals, and, as Wall Street Journal reporter Eileen Daspin
described, on the public stage through restaurants and the media.
Like the MSC, Passionfish is crossing these battle lines. We bring
together diverse stakeholders to discuss and pursue lasting solutions.
Not just prized species are in peril. Communities dependent
upon fishing are also threatened. Similarly, the health of habitats
is being compromised.
the fringes of our society will always be those who would gleefully
devour the last gasping Caspian Sea sturgeon, eggs and all. Thankfully,
most of us comprise a vast market that the seafood industry knows
it can only continue to tap if the supply of wild and farmed seafood
is sustainable. Safeguarding the future of fish and fishing is in
everyone's interest and is everyone's responsibility—but our greatest
allies can be those for whom it is most financially rewarding.
F. Rebstock, Executive Director
About us: Passionfish is for people passionate about the ocean,
fishing, and seafood! We are a nonprofit public education project
actively promoting sustainable wild fisheries and aquaculture. Founded
in 2000, Passionfish has developed an innovative approach for addressing
seafood and fisheries sustainability: forums that reveal common
ground amid contention, celebrations of seafood, broadcasts that
build awareness, and a unique book series aimed at inspiring adults
and children about ocean and seafood sustainability.
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This simple beginners guide will help you become a better meditator. We want you to love
meditation and develop rich rewards in the form of inner peace, a focused mind, and a centered
So we’ve collected some of the best of About Meditation’s how-to articles and practice tips into a simple guide to help you hone and deepen your meditation.
You’ll find inspiration for your daily practice, solutions to your struggles, and in-depth answers to your questions about meditation.
You’ll get answers to questions like:
- When should I meditate?
- How do I start?
- What are some different techniques?
- What happens if I fall asleep?
- What are the rewards and benefits of meditation?
- What is moving meditation?
- How do I know if I’m making progress?
- How do I stop my thoughts?
Meditation Made Easy
➤ Meditation for Beginners: A 3-Step Guide for Daily Meditation
How do you start your meditation practice? Here we focus on the three building blocks of your practice: intention, attention, and relaxation. Practice these basic principles of meditation, and you’ll be on your way in no time.
➤ How To Breathe in Meditation: Finding the Approach That’s Best for You
Do you struggle with knowing how to breathe in meditation? Here’s a simple approach that will help you clear up any confusion.
➤ What is the Best Time of Day for You to Meditate?
It’s not always clear what time is best for you to meditate. Of course NOW is always the best time, but that aside, let’s explore the optimal time of day for your practice.
➤ Is It Too Late for You to Start Meditating?
Is there a cost to procrastinating? It’s never too late to start your meditation practice, but let’s get clear. If you haven’t started yet, here are some of the benefits you’re missing out on.
➤ One Meditation Mistake You Should Never Make
Is there a “fatal error” in meditation? Learn about this one mistake that many new meditators make and how it can quickly kill your practice.
➤ How to Meditate for Beginners: The 3 Ingredients You Need to Succeed
If you want to learn to meditate, there is an endless variety of practices, paths, and techniques to choose from. But in the end, all you really need to begin practicing meditation are three basic ingredients: Intention, Attention, Relaxation
➤ This is One Approach to Meditation You Can’t Mess Up
This counting meditation technique will help you focus your mind and fall into a state of deep relaxation. A handy little trick that you can practice anytime and anywhere, this meditation harnesses your mind’s natural inclination towards rhythmic and punctuated counting.
➤ How to Practice the Soundscape Meditation Technique
This simple technique will teach you how to access expanded states of awareness through the subtle practice of careful listening.
➤ 5 Reasons to Try Mindful Exercise
Do you struggle with sitting meditation? Maybe mindful exercise is a better option for you. Here are 5 reasons to give it a try.
➤ How to Be Still in Meditation and Why it Will Change Your World
What is stillness and how do you achieve it in your practice? What is the relationship between inner and outer stillness? You’ll find answer here.
➤ How to Beta Test Your Meditation Practice in 6 Simple Steps
Here is a simple 6-step plan to kick-start your meditation practice.
➤ 10 Steps to Becoming A Better Meditator
How do you know if you are making progress in meditation? What does that even look like? Here are 10 tips that can help you improve your practice.
➤ Why Is Meditation So Damn Hard (Part 2)
Who ever said meditation was easy? Have you ever wondered why you can’t quiet your mind? Are you frustrated that it churns out non-sense, stress, and anxiety faster than snowflakes in a blizzard? In this 2-part series, we explore in-depth 6 reasons why you might find meditation challenging.
➤ Why You Are Struggling in Meditation & 10 Tips to Turn It Around
Are you struggling in meditation? If so, you are not alone. Here are 10 reasons why you may be
struggling in meditation and what you can do to get back on track.
How To Use This Guide
If there’s one thing I’ve learned after meditating for twenty years, it’s this. You can’t rush meditation. Take your time with these articles and peruse them at your leisure. Let them sink in.
And if you’re newer to meditation, it’s important to remember: be easy on yourself. You may have wonderful relaxing experiences right away when your mind goes quiet, or it may take weeks or months. Either way, it’s completely fine.
The point of meditation is to learn how to be easy and relaxed if your mind is a tempest or a placid pool. Meditation in itself is neither of those experiences. It’s the practice of being easy and ok with the full spectrum of our human experience.
And that requires patience, compassion, and acceptance of yourself just as you are in every moment.
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Did you know that the witch's mark on her arm - is a main sign, on which you can find a witch?At the words "witch" or "witch" often we are reminded of the famous witch trials that took place in medieval Europe.In our minds immediately arises old hag with a crutch, whose main goal - to make small and large mischief his neighbors.It was believed that by ordinary women witch witch distinguishes a special badge located on the body or on the palms.Few people today know that the original witches called wise women, healers, traditional healers and sorcerers, and formed the name from the ancient word "Veda" - knowledge.
Witch considered an intermediary between our world and the spirit world.Its main purpose was to heal people and to give wise counsel.In ancient times these women certainly had its patron goddess.In Russia, after the Russian people took the Greek belief, witches were treated with caution, however, by means of the wise Sage still refuses.Quite different things were in Europe XVI-XVII centuries.It has survived judicial records since the witch hunts and amaze with their cruelty and bloodlust.As a result of the persecution of innocent women book appeared, a kind of instruction in which the founding fathers of the Inquisition describe how to distinguish a witch from the God-fearing woman.
According to this book, the witch's mark on her arm - is not the only distinguishing feature of the witch.That sign is any unusual markings on the body.The professional witch hunters thought that this is what the devil condemns his accomplice.A special hallmark is considered the largest wart.The holy fathers thought that this - the nipple, through which the devil witch feeds.In the same book he was described by the order of the trial, and torture, which should expose the defendants.
women accused of witchcraft were stripped, bound, carefully removed from her body hair and examined it.It was believed that witches are not the sign may be in sight, so it is looking at the most intimate parts of the body.Every suspicious birthmark shaped pricked special needles - if the woman did not feel pain, so she was a witch.As a rule, the skin on these areas loses its sensitivity, so the witch is practically every unhappy, fell into the hands of the Holy Inquisition.If the body of the accused did not have any signs of torture does not end.They lasted until the needle inquisitor did not find the area of skin with low sensitivity.Even a perfect body did not save the unfortunate, because this perfection it could award the devil.When the wine was considered a woman's proven, it burned at the stake.These autos were bloody all over Europe for two centuries.We burned at the stake best the fairer sex that era.
Some superstitions from the darkness of the Middle Ages came to our days, but the attitude towards women, endowed with the gift of healing, changed for the better.Witch sign on your hand for a long time does not scare anybody.Palmists argue that this is a sign of fine lines that form a pattern in the form of the eye.His so-called - "The Eye of the Witch."Find this sign can be at the base of the palm, near the Moon Hills.It is believed that the sign of "Eye of the Witch," says a man endowed with a special talent.Among those marked with this symbol, most often found healers, fortune tellers, and oracles, that is, people who have a connection with the other world.Such people, endowed with a very strong energy and the gift of premonition, born either at the beginning or at the end of the millennium.As a rule, the witch and the sign on the hand and accompanying talents are inherited, often through the female line, and in a generation.That is why this sign can be distinguished from a sorcerer or sorceress charlatan and impostor.
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Summary: Serine dehydrogenase proteinase
This tab holds the annotation information that is stored in the Pfam database. As we move to using Wikipedia as our main source of annotation, the contents of this tab will be gradually replaced by the Wikipedia tab.
Serine dehydrogenase proteinase Provide feedback
This family of archaebacterial proteins, formerly known as DUF114, has been found to be a serine dehydrogenase proteinase distantly related to ClpP proteinases that belong to the serine proteinase superfamily. The family has a catalytic triad of Ser, Asp, His residues, which shows an altered residue ordering compared with the ClpP proteinases but similar to that of the carboxypeptidase clan .
External database links
This tab holds annotation information from the InterPro database.
InterPro entry IPR002825
This family of archaebacterial proteins, formerly known as DUF114, has been found to be a serine dehydrogenase proteinase distantly related to ClpP proteinases that belong to the serine proteinase superfamily. The family belong to MEROPS peptidase family S49; they are mostly unassigned peptidases but include the archaean signal peptide peptidase 1 [PUBMED:18421152].
The family has a catalytic triad of Ser, Asp, His residues, which shows an altered residue ordering compared with the ClpP proteinases but similar to that of the carboxypeptidase clan [PUBMED:15752073].
The mapping between Pfam and Gene Ontology is provided by InterPro. If you use this data please cite InterPro.
|Cellular component||integral to membrane (GO:0016021)|
- the number of sequences which exhibit this architecture
a textual description of the architecture, e.g. Gla, EGF x 2, Trypsin.
This example describes an architecture with one
Gladomain, followed by two consecutive
EGFdomains, and finally a single
- the UniProt description of the protein sequence
- the number of residues in the sequence
- the Pfam graphic itself.
Loading domain graphics...
This family includes several peptidases of peptidase clan SK as well as crotonase like proteins.
The clan contains the following 10 members:ACCA Carboxyl_trans CLP_protease ECH ECH_C MdcE Peptidase_S41 Peptidase_S49 Peptidase_S49_N SDH_sah
We make a range of alignments for each Pfam-A family:
- the curated alignment from which the HMM for the family is built
- the alignment generated by searching the sequence database using the HMM
- Representative Proteomes (RPs) at 15%, 35%, 55% and 75% co-membership thresholds
- alignment generated by searching the NCBI sequence database using the family HMM
- alignment generated by searching the metagenomics sequence database using the family HMM
You can see the alignments as HTML or in three different sequence viewers:
- Pfam viewer
- an HTML-based viewer that uses DAS to retrieve alignment fragments on request
1Cannot generate PP/Heatmap alignments for seeds; no PP data available
Key: available, not generated, — not available.
Format an alignment
If you find these logos useful in your own work, please consider citing the following article:
Note: You can also download the data file for the tree.
Curation and family details
|Seed source:||Enright A|
|Author:||Enright A, Ouzounis C, Bateman A|
|Number in seed:||4|
|Number in full:||404|
|Average length of the domain:||193.70 aa|
|Average identity of full alignment:||28 %|
|Average coverage of the sequence by the domain:||59.54 %|
|HMM build commands:||
build method: hmmbuild -o /dev/null HMM SEED
search method: hmmsearch -Z 23193494 -E 1000 --cpu 4 HMM pfamseq
|Family (HMM) version:||11|
|Download:||download the raw HMM for this family|
Weight segments by...
Change the size of the sunburst
selected sequences to HMM
a FASTA-format file
- 0 sequences
- 0 species
How the sunburst is generated
Colouring and labels
Anomalies in the taxonomy tree
Missing taxonomic levels
Unmapped species names
Too many species/sequences
The tree shows the occurrence of this domain across different species. More...
You can use the tree controls to manipulate how the interactive tree is displayed:
- show/hide the summary boxes
- highlight species that are represented in the seed alignment
- expand/collapse the tree or expand it to a given depth
- select a sub-tree or a set of species within the tree and view them graphically or as an alignment
- save a plain text representation of the tree
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| ||Format||Pages||Price|| |
|6||$45.00|| ADD TO CART|
|Hardcopy (shipping and handling)||6||$45.00|| ADD TO CART|
1.1 This specification establishes the criteria for acceptance, prior to installation, of drain tile and perforated drain tile to be used for underdrainage, filter fields, leaching fields, and similar subdrainage installations.
1.2 The values stated in inch-pound units are to be regarded as standard. The values given in parentheses are mathematical conversions to SI units that are provided for information only and are not considered standard.
1.3 The following safety hazards caveat pertains only to the Test Methods portion of this specification: This standard does not purport to address all of the safety concerns, if any, associated with its use. It is the responsibility of the user of this standard to establish appropriate safety and health practices and determine the applicability of regulatory limitations prior to use.
Note 1: Attention is called to Test Methods and Terminology .
2. Referenced Documents (purchase separately) The documents listed below are referenced within the subject standard but are not provided as part of the standard.
C301 Test Methods for Vitrified Clay Pipe
C896 Terminology Relating to Clay Products
ICS Number Code 91.100.15 (Mineral materials and products)
|Link to Active (This link will always route to the current Active version of the standard.)|
ASTM C4-04(2014), Standard Specification for Clay Drain Tile and Perforated Clay Drain Tile, ASTM International, West Conshohocken, PA, 2014, www.astm.orgBack to Top
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- Your ‘Ethereum’ could be at risk of getting stolen by hackers, depending on where it’s stored.
- The attackers could exploit a vulnerability in non-audited and unverified smart contracts.
- Already, researchers have discovered 3,779 active smart contracts that are vulnerable to attacks.
Researchers from the CyberNews team have discovered 13 different vulnerabilities affecting 3,779 ‘Ethereum’ contracts, holding 2,088 ETH ($973,000). “Smart contracts” are programs that run on the Ethereum blockchain, residing at a specific address on it.
They can be considered a type of accounts, so they have a balance and can engage in transactions. The discovery of security flaws in smart contracts means that a hacker could potentially steal the balance or intercept the transactions, both being extremely problematic presumptions.
The researchers scanned the Ethereum blockchain for vulnerable contracts for six months, and among the 13 vulnerabilities they’ve found, four are high-severity. These are the following:
- Integer underflow: when an attacker has zero balance and sends one token, the contract circles around and gives the attacker the maximum value of tokens.
- Integer overflow: when the balance reaches its maximum value and an attacker receives one token, it circles and starts from zero.
- Unprotected Ether withdrawal: due to inadequate access control, an attacker can withdraw Ether funds from the contract.
- Unprotected self-destruct: any attacker can kill the contract and send the balance to any specified address.
If you are holding Ethereum, you should be worried but not panicking right now. To lose your crypto to hackers, you will need to have your deposit stored on a site or online service of some kind, and that platform will have to fall victim to a malicious smart contract attack.
So first, check if the service that holds your crypto uses smart contracts that are vulnerable to any of the 13 vulnerabilities, especially the four first. If the smart contracts have been audited and/or verified, they should be safe.
Developers can redo the smart contracts after fixing the code, which should remove the vulnerabilities and the associated hacking risk. CyberNews warns that this is actually something that has happened before, so the risk is not theoretical.
In 2016, hackers exploited smart contract code flaws to initiate multiple transfers without submitting them, eventually stealing $50 million from the venture capital fund of DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization).
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Clio Muse – Greek Mythology
Athens 2004 Olympic Games Pin
The Nine Muses in Greek mythology are the goddesses of the inspiration of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, song-lyrics, and myths that were related orally for centuries in these ancient cultures. They were later adopted by the Romans as a part of their pantheon.
Their names are: Clio, Erato, Urania, Calliope, Euterpe, Melpomene, Thalia, Terpsichore, Polyhymnia.
Clio Muse, also spelled Kleio, is the muse of history, or in a few mythological accounts, the muse of lyre playing. Clio, sometimes referred to as “the Proclaimer”, is often represented with an open scroll of parchment scroll or a set of tablets.
The pin depicts Clio Muse
Product: Olympic Pin
Pin code: PN0710005
Official Licensed Product
Licensed Manufacturer: Efsimon Collection
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- The mystery of how dust on the moon travels through an airless environment. Researchers discovered UV radiation and the sun's plasma can cause the particles to spring above the surface creating the "horizon glow."
- Researchers noticed the same phenomena was also occurring on the rings of Saturn and the craters of Eros, which could help us learn more about how matter behaves in other airless environments.
How dust particles on the Moon’s surface levitate and transport themselves across vast distances have baffled scientists for more than 50 years now — and has been used to explain the Moon’s ‘horizon glow.’ But, it seems that a team of scientists from NASA solved the mystery.
“This new ‘patched charge model’ resolved a fundamental mechanism of dust charging and transport, which has been puzzling scientists for decades,” explained researcher Xu Wang, from NASA’s Ames Research Centre in California. The journal Geophysical Research Letters published the study.
The team wanted to figure out if these dust particles are suspended by an electrostatic force. Wang, together with Mihaly Horanyi at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and their team of researchers conducted lab experiments to see how micron-sized dust particles would behave when exposed to ultraviolet (UV) radiation or electrically-charged gasses (or plasmas).
The team discovered, in both cases, the dust would actually leap by a few centimeters above the surface. On the Moon, the strange properties of its dust combined with UV radiation or plasma from the Sun can loft single particles and, sometimes, even large dust clusters up above the surface.
Dusting Your Boulders Off
On the Moon, these dust particles would scatter light reflected from the Sun, creating that famous ‘horizon glow’ that was first captured in the 1960s by the Apollo astronauts and NASA’s Surveyor probes.
“[T]hese dust particles would have been lofted more than ten centimeters (four inches) above the lunar surface, leading researchers to conclude that the moon’s “horizon glow” — seen in images taken by Surveyor 5, 6, and 7 five decades ago — may have been caused in part by sunlight scattering in a cloud of electrostatically lofted dust particles,” according to NASA.
The same phenomenon was observed later over Saturn’s rings and in the craters of the asteroid Eros — where dust is also transported across vast regions devoid of winds or flowing water. “We expect dust particles to mobilize and transport electrostatically over the entire lunar surface, as well as the surface of any other airless planetary body,” said Wang.
Unfortunately, the dust particles on the Moon actually create a rather harsh environment on its surface. The particles can be sharp and therefore dangerous to anything on the surface. These dusts are partly formed by meteorite impacts that pounded the Moon’s surface rocks into fine particles, which are actually sharp due to being covered by a glassy shell. The glassy shell comes from lunar dirt that’s melted into vapor, thanks to the energy from the meteorite impacts, which cooled and condensed on the dust particles.
“The dust was so abrasive that it actually wore through three layers of Kevlar-like material on [Harrison Schmitt’s] boot,” explained Larry Taylor, director at the Planetary Geosciences Institute at the University of Tennessee, speaking of the Apollo 17 crewmember’s 1972 moon walk.
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14th IEEE International Symposium on Asynchronous Circuits and Systems
The International Symposium on Asynchronous Circuits and Systems provides a high quality forum for scientists and engineers to present their latest research findings. Authors are invited to submit full papers on all aspects of asynchronous design.
Conference Schedule and Campus Map
Call For Papers
View in PDF format
- Abstract registration: 8th October 2007
- Full paper submission: 15th October 2007
- Notification of acceptance: 12th December 2007
- Final version due: 18th January 2008
- Early registration deadline: 7th March 2008
- Late registration deadline: 21st March 2008
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Mixed synchronous/asynchronous architectures, interfaces, and circuits.
- Design, synthesis and Verification techniques for GALS systems.
- Synchronous-asynchronous interaction at different levels.
- High-speed/low-power asynchronous logic, memories, and interconnects.
- High-level design and synthesis of self-timed circuits.
- Physical design of unclocked logic and pipelines.
- Formal methods for correctness and performance analysis of asynchronous designs.
- Test, reliability, security, and radiation tolerance.
- CAD for asynchronous design and validation.
- Asynchronous System-on-Chip (SoC), System-in-Package (SiP).
- Novel asynchronous architectures.
- Asynchrony and latency tolerance in system-level design.
- Motivating case studies, comparisons, and applications.
- Embedded System Design with asynchronous architectures/implementations.
- Asynchronous design for manufacturing.
Papers must be submitted via the conference web site. Papers will be evaluated by the program committee and reviews will be based on scientific merit, innovation, relevance, and presentation. New idea papers are encouraged, and the program committee recognizes that such papers may contain less evaluation than papers in established areas. Accepted papers will be published in an IEEE proceedings and distributed at the symposium.
The authors of the papers accepted for ASYNC'08 will be particularly encouraged to submit the extended versions of their papers to the IEEE Transactions on VLSI Systems Special Section on Asynchronous Circuits and Systems.
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Palmistry We all wonder what awaits us in the future. We wonder about our health, our careers and of course, our love life. Well the answer to all of these questions may lie quite literally in the palm of your hand. Palmistry, or palm reading, is the practice of predicting the future outcomes through the study of the palm. This study dates back to 3000 BC in ancient Egypt and still being practiced today worldwide. Today we will discuss how our palm lines can tell us about our future and ourselves, as well as learn the basics on how to read a palm.
Which will include the four major lines: the heart, head, life and fate line. First of all, how is that our future can be determined through mere palm lines? We all know that our physical health can be affected by stress and psychological negativity. Our mental outlook and attitudes also form our reactions to life’s events. According to the journal, “English Literature in Transition” by Joan Navarre, the brain, through the high concentration of nerves in the hands, can influence the condition of the palms and the patterns of the lines in them.
It’s Also important to know that our palm lines are not fixed and we are not doomed to a future already set in stone. In fact, our palm lines change throughout our lifetime, some more frequently than others. As we mature and change our ways, our palm lines will modify accordingly. They may get deeper, straighter, form new lines, or some may even disappear. In addition to changing lines, as you have probably noticed already, the lines on your left and right hand differ. Your weaker hand, whether it be right or left, represents what we are born with and our private self.
Order custom essay Palm Reading with free plagiarism report
The stronger hand represents what we do with our lives, the actions we take and our public self. According to the article, “A Modern Palmist”, by Ania Blomberg, in the Feb 2011 issue of the “Torquay Herald Express” Your current palm lines are indicators of the likelihood something will happen, as well as a window into your past. Our Next step is learning our major palm lines. The first of the major lines we will discuss is the heart line. It begins on the side of the hand, ps across the palm and ends in various places.
If it ends under the first finger it signifies an introspective and possibly self-centered person. If under the second finger, you are a giver and always put the needs of others before your own. Ideally, the heart line should end between the first two fingers, signifying a balance between giving and receiving. A straight heart line suggests your head gets involved in matters of the heart. In other words, You don’t let your emotions make your decisions for you. A curved heart line indicates you are a romantic and always wear your heart on your sleeve.
For most people the heart line is the deepest and darkest line on the palm. The second line is the head line. It begins on the side of your hand under your first finger pning across the palm ending at various lengths. If your head line is straight you are logical, detail oriented and organized. If your line is curved, you are more creative and artistic. According to the book “The Hand from A-Z: The essentials of Palmistry” by Judith Hipskind, The length of the head line symbolizes your attention p and ability to concentrate. The longer the head line the more focused you are.
Additionally, If there is a fork at the end of the head line, it means you can see both sides of an issue and will love debating. This is sometimes called a lawyers fork. The third of the major lines is the life line. According to humanhand. com, in modern palmistry the life line does not tell you how long you will live but how you will live. It does however represent a timeline of events. The area where it begins, between the thumb and first finger, represents the beginning of your life, then curving down around your thumb and ending at your wrist, which would represent old age.
Lines crossing the life line signify important events, and where they are located indicates when the events are likely to happen. If your life line sweeps out toward the center of your hand, you will most likely seek independence and travel often. By contrast, If it hugs close to your thumb you are more likely to stay close to home and family. If caught in between, you may struggle between security and the need for independence. Breaks in the life line can indicate times of major illness or stress.
If you notice smaller, fainter lines that connect the life and heart line, they indicate strong romantic relationships. Where they are located on the life line represents at what point in life the relationship is likely to happen. In addition, the number of these lines suggests how many of these relationships you are likely to have. Finally we come to the Fate line. This line begins near the heel of the hand and runs through the center towards the middle finger. According to palmistryfree. com, this line is volatile and only found in about 50% of the population.
It is tied to your personal life path, including school, career choices, successes and obstacles. If this line is absent, you are unsure of the direction of your life. If your fate line is strong, you have specific goals and direction. If only lightly etched you could easily waver between the two. The beginning and ending of the line also plays a role. When the fate line begins on the wrist, you have always done things your own way and may be a bit of an oddball. If it begins more toward the center of your hand, it took a while for you to figure out who you are and what to want to be.
Now that you know how our palm lines come to be and how to examine your own heart, head, life and fate lines, you can predict what sort of future to expect for yourself if you continue down your current path. However, it is ultimately our will that shapes our lives, not our palm. The practice of reading palm lines is not to predict doom, or even happiness. They are instead a guide. The purpose of palmistry is to help you see the way ahead so you can actively plan a successful and prosperous future.
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The stock market is fluctuating between positive and negative territory today in the face of mixed economic signals that raise the specter of ebbing U.S growth.
The Dow Jones industrial average is keeping a fragile hold on 13,000, declining 27.48 points, or 0.2%, to 13,005.27. The Standard & Poor’s 500 is down 0.2%, while the Nasdaq composite index is down fractionally.
Stocks have been hurt by discouraging reports on the job and housing markets, and by more worrisome news on the European debt crisis.
But investors are also seeing strong corporate earnings and a generally upbeat report on leading economic indicators.
The jobs report, which showed a higher-than-expected number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment claims, raised the prospect that the U.S. economy is cooling off after a period of stronger growth in the last six months.
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The Standing Committee on Transportation and Public Health (AME70) is concerned with the relationship between transportation and public health. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to: active transportation; transportation’s role in the delivery of health care; effects of transportation-generated air, water, and noise pollution on health; and health impacts and interactions of federal, state, regional and local transportation policies, procedures and actions (as approved June 2020).
Guiding Mission, Scope, & Objectives
To identify, advance and publish research and information to expand and improve current understanding and evaluation of the health impacts of federal, state, regional and local transportation policies, procedures and actions.
AME70's scope covers diverse impacts and issues related to health, with attention to vulnerable populations. Topics include, but are not limited to: sustainable and active transportation modes (e.g., walking, biking, transit), mobility, accessibility, safety, freight and aviation impacts to health, transportation-related air pollution and noise impacts, social cohesion, other social, physical and mental health impacts, the distribution of those health impacts in the population (based on factors including income, race and ethnicity, sex, age and English proficiency), and the use of health impact assessments (HIAs) and other metrics and indicators to advance the consideration of health impacts in transportation decision-making. The committee also considers approaches to maximizing health benefits while addressing potential adverse impacts of transportation planning and policy decisions through engineering and design solutions.
Serve as a focal point for transportation issues and their health impacts, both positive and negative.
Review and publish research, sponsor paper calls, develop research proposals and contribute to the knowledge base of health and transportation.
Use current and evolving communication media and methods.
Serve as a convener for a variety of disciplines (e.g., engineers, public health professionals, planners, epidemiologists, economists, advocates, elected officials, academics) to advance the mission and scope of the field.
Editorial Manager Topics
Health in all policies
Health and transportation metrics
Social determinants of health
Health impact assessment
Data and statistical health analysis
Total worker health
Healthy transportation choices
Health impact modeling
Public transportation and paratransit
Infectious and communicable disease
Public and population health
Health care access
Health and well being
Transportation in cancer risk and prevention
Institutional partnerships involving health stakeholders
Defining livability as a social determinant of health
History of the Committee
In January 2020, TRB approved a new committee structure that created AME70, a new standing committee on health. This was welcome news for the joint Subcommittee on Health and Transportation, which formed in March 2012.
Since its inception in 2012, the Health and Transportation Subcommittee was highly productive. Actually, it functioned more like a standing committee and sponsored paper calls, submitted research proposals, reviewed papers, organized and conducted sessions and workshops, and took on special initiatives.
To understand what makes a health committee in TRB unique, consider the situation in which the subcommittee was formed. Starting around 2005, TRB staff began to see annual meeting paper submissions with health-related topics but without a corresponding committee capable of leading the reviews. Behind the scenes, TRB staff established a group of three committee chairs to lead a team of reviewers that served as an ad-hoc review team. This is an example of how the the transportation community recognized that health was emerging as topic that should be considered within the framework of TRB.
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Manitoba's First Aviatrix
by George Siamandas
In mid November 1928, Eileen Magill, Manitoba's first woman aviatrix was taking to Manitoba skies with the first pilot's license ever granted to a woman. She was born in Nova Scotia April 18, 1906. Her parents came to Winnipeg where she graduated from the University of Manitoba in May 1928 as an honours student in French and Philosophy. Eileen Magill was a different kind of lady for her times. She smoked, she wore slacks, she drove a fast car and she dreamed of becoming an aviatrix.
LEARNING TO FLY IN 1928
Magill applied to the newly opened Winnipeg Flying Club and learned on a DeHavilland Moth a plane with open sides. Her teacher was Michael de Blicguy, and it all took place at newly named Stevenson Airport (now Winnipeg International Airport.) Back then it cost $9-$17 dollars per hour of instruction, and $180 to $240 for a private pilot's license.
Eileen Magill was awarded her license on October 28, 1928 and became the second woman in Canada to become an aviatrix. Another Eileen, an Eileen Volcock from Ontario had been the first just nine months earlier. Under the terms of her Manitoba license Magill faced several restrictions. She was not permitted to fly commercially or take passengers until she had put on 10 flying hours.
FIRST MANITOBA WOMAN ON AN INTERNATIONAL FLIGHT
Eileen became a member of the new flying club and soon joined three men pilots for a good will flight to Minneapolis. They were seen off by the premier, and other civic dignitaries. Magill's group of flyers stopped to meet mayors from Grand Forks, Fargo, Crookston. But on their last leg on the way to Minneapolis, she encountered fog forcing the group to land in a field. They walked to a highway, and flagged down the bus to Minneapolis to the relief of the authorities waiting their arrival and thinking the worst.
A NATURAL FOR THE AVIATION BUSINESS
She tried to get a job with the Dept of Civil Aviation. She came highly recommended had a pleasing personality but at a time few women worked outside the home, was turned down for the job. Within her first year she had logged 57 hours and 33 minutes of flying time. And then she quit. Just like that. She married Rene Cera and moved to Woddbridge Ontario where they had one son. She lived to age 58 and died at Lennox Massachusets in 1964.
Winnipeg's airport was named in honour of Captain F J Stevenson who died in January of 1928 after having received the Harmon trophy for commercial aviation in 1927. Stevenson had been born in Parry Sound Ontario but grew up in Winnipeg. He had destroyed 18 enemy aircraft and 3 observation balloons while with the RFC. Stevenson flew the first commercial shipment: 23 tons from The Pas to Sherrit Gordon mines in 1927.
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EAL - Support and Provision
“ I am happy now that I can speak and understand English. I think this year I worked hard to improve my speaking and reading. I want my writing to be better in the future.”
E. K. Y8 EAL Student
“When I first came here I could only say “Hi, hello.” It was hard. I can speak English now but I still need to work to improve my writing. I like to help other students who are new to school.”
T. M. Y9 EAL student
Following the language assessments, students are offered differentiated support:
EAL classes for students who are “new to English” or “beginners”
These focus on grammar, vocabulary, reading of fiction and non-fiction texts and writing frames. Some of the resources used are: ‘Racing to English’; ‘Fresh Start’; British Council; a selection of fiction and non-fiction literary texts; bilingual translations of key vocabulary and bespoke resources that support language acquisition.
Key Stage 3 students who are “new to English” are able to access visual, kinesthetic and auditory strategies to support their English language acquisition.
Additional English Classes
These are for students who have improved their English proficiency but require additional support with writing and reading comprehension.
Functional Skills English Qualifications
The qualifications are from Entry level to Level 1 and Level 2 and are available to KS4 students for whom English is an additional language. This is in preparation for Further Education.
First Language GCSE
This GCSE is an amazing opportunity for EAL students who are literate in their first language. Some of the languages currently offered by the exam board are Arabic, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Urdu, Gujarati and Persian.
KS4 students are also invited to attend the Language Café. This intervention focuses on key exam vocabulary and GCSE exam questions.
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The science of sex
When Harry met Sally.
Scientists have discovered what they believe is the formula for
creating sexual chemistry on the big screen.
Their study has come up with some surprising results - for instance that the Oscar-winning movie Titanic contained no sexual chemistry.
The academic experts boiled down sexual chemistry into its essential elements after watching a selection of romantic films.
Romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally topped their list, with a top rating of 10 out of 10 on the scale of movies with sexual chemistry.
Casablanca came second - scoring 9.5 - for the electric relationship between the characters played by Ingrid Bergman and Humphrey Bogart.
Films like Breakfast at Tiffany's (9) and Pretty Woman (7) also scored well, but the likes of Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock's Two Weeks Notice received just two out of 10.
The newest film in the study, Lost in Translation, scored nine for ``the subtle relationship'' portrayed by Scarlett Johansson and Bill Murray.
Despite Titanic winning several Oscars, Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio were given a dismal zero, while Ghost, starring Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze, scored seven.
Psychiatrist Stephanie Charters, at King's College London, found that voice, eye contact, body language and excitement, which she termed VIBE, should be used to measure sexual chemistry.
For voice, the researchers, who were asked to carry out the task for Sky Movies, looked out for tone and flutter, saying ``it takes more than a well-delivered line'' to add to the sense of romance.
Charters said: ``In Titanic, the way they speak to each other isn't natural. It just doesn't come across as genuine.
``In Ghost, Patrick Swayze's desperate and sad lines as he tries to communicate to his wife shows perfect use of voice.''
The researchers looked at how actors use their eyes to convey sexual attraction.
She said: ``When Meg Ryan's character Sally shows that it's easy to fake an orgasm by giving a demonstration in a restaurant, you can see Billy Crystal's character Harry look at her in a different way.
``For the first time, he looks at her with different eyes and the floodgates open.''
Experts say Dirty Dancing contains the perfect example of body language, with the sexual tension between Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey hotting up on the dancefloor, while the sex scene in a steamed-up car on the boat in Titanic lacks excitement.
Experts also looked for the sense of excitement and anticipation conveyed while falling in love.
``When Harry finally confesses to Sally he is in love with her no-one can help but feel a slight butterfly in their tummy,'' Charters said.
``In Titanic, there isn't any of that, they confess their love for each other pretty quickly.''
The research was carried out to mark Sky Movies Romantic Long Weekend.
Here is the list of movies ranked according to sexual chemistry:
10 When Harry Met Sally (1989) (Meg Ryan/Billy Crystal)
9.5 Casablanca (1942) (Ingrid Bergman/Humphrey Bogart)
9 Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) (Audrey Hepburn/George Peppard)
9 Lost in Translation (2003) (Scarlett Johansson/Bill Murray)
7 Pretty Woman (1990) (Julia Roberts/Richard Gere)
7 Ghost (1990) (Demi Moore/Patrick Swayze)
5 Dirty Dancing (1987) (Jennifer Grey/Patrick Swayze)
3 My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) (Nia Vardalos/John Corbett)
2 Two Weeks Notice (2002) (Sandra Bullock/Hugh Grant)
0 Titanic (1997) (Kate Winslet/Leonardo DiCaprio)
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The simple act of writing a business plan is the first step toward turning your entrepreneurship dream into a reality. It helps you think through your idea and ensures you aren’t just winging it when starting up your business. A quick Google search will show you endless results on what needs to go in a business plan, but just having the components doesn’t necessarily mean your job is done.
Here are some coveted business plan tips that will allow you to create a plan that will bring your business's vision to life and also serve as an easy reference document for the years ahead.
10 Expert Tips on Creating a Business Plan
Looking to create a bulletproof business plan? Use our 10 business plan tips that will elevate your plan and make it a cut above the rest.
1. Learn from Other Entrepreneurs
There are many templates and tools for writing business plans, but the best way to improve your plan and create one that goes beyond the surface level is to read business plans written by other entrepreneurs.
Get your hands on as many business plans as you can from online sources or networking, and identify areas that can apply to your business. You can definitely benefit from their expertise and experience.
Here’s what you should look for:
Level of detail
Graphs, charts and exhibits — can anything similar be used in your plan?
Build your business plan by identifying the best practices from all the plans you’ve read and referenced. Also, you don’t need to do it all alone — you might not have all the answers and that’s absolutely okay!
Business Plan Tip: Did you know SCORE provides free mentors, as well as templates for you to get started? Incfile’s Business Plan Worksheetcan also help create a sizzling foundation that can be used to target investors, banks or other partnerships.
2. Don’t Skimp on the Four Essential Sections
A business plan has several components to it and you might feel some parts aren’t necessary. While there is no hard-and-fast rule of what should and shouldn’t go in the plan, don’t skip over the four essential sections.
So what are the four essential parts to creating a business plan? The four must-have sections are executive summary or background information, marketing plan, management overview and financial projections.
3. Have a Brand Plan
One of the four essential parts of creating a business plan is a marketing section, but just stating how you’ll go to market and having a SWOT chart isn’t enough. Go beyond and include a brand plan in your business plan.
A brand plan will detail how you’ll set the messaging of your brand across the website, social media channels and other outlets. It will also aid in creating a robust content marketing strategy that will support your business’s growth.
4. Highlight Data References
It’s one thing to make a claim that the landscaping industry will grow in the next five years versus providing a document that actually shows the figures. Having hard-core data for your claims on market size, growth prospects, competitors and costs will not only impress potential investors and funders, but it will give you credibility and provide you with a very accurate understanding of your business.
5. Include Supporting Documents
Don’t be afraid to include resumes of potential team members, detailed customer personas, product prototype images or even marketing software snapshots in your business plan. All these extra details will again paint a very realistic picture of how your business will operate and allow you to iron out any kinks.
6. Don’t Make Amature Financial Predictions
Many newbie business owners think the financial component of the business plan should just have any numbers and unfortunately, the majority of numbers entered into the template are quite lofty or overly optimistic.
Here’s what we recommend, even if you’re drafting a micro business plan. Spend some money and work with an accountant to get realistic or as close as possible numbers for your cash flow and financial projections.
Also, provide context to the numbers. If you have included interest rates or product costs, explain why you are mentioning them and their relevance to your success.
7. Write for Your Audience
Go a step further and create several versions of your business plan for each specific audience group. A venture capitalist might be seeking something completely different from what a potential vendor or banker will be analyzing.
The entire document doesn't need to be redone, but some tweaks and adjustments for each tailored group will increase your chances of achieving your goal, whether that’s securing funding or finding a partner.
Business Plan Tip:Anticipate the questions a partner or franchisee might ask and address those specifically in the business plan for them.
8. Build a Strong Executive Summary
Yes, the executive summary might be the first thing and perhaps the only thing many will read in your business plan, but it’s the last thing you should write. This can be an opportunity and a challenge.
Some ways to boost your executive summary are:
Write the summary last so you can quickly summarize the other details.
Be as concise as possible — this is not the place to give long, drawn-out explanations. The executive summary should capture the audience’s attention so it can persuade them to read the specifics detailed in the rest of the plan.
Highlight the business's USPs — "unique selling points."
9. Avoid the Jargon, Keep the Language Simple
You might think using industry jargon will build your case, but chances are it might just do the opposite. Avoid using industry-specific jargon unless it’s unavoidable so your business plan can be as accessible as possible for all potential stakeholders.
Also, use a clean layout and simple language.
Business Plan Tip: Use graphs, tables and charts to make the information easy to digest and bring your concept to life. Just numbers and words can get overwhelming.
10. Allow the Document to Evolve with Business
Remember, your business plan doesn’t have to be set in stone. The document should be allowed to evolve and get updated as your business grows and changes. Feel free to rework and revisit the business plan as necessary to reflect the current status. Having a plan in place, even if it changes a bit, is always better than no plan.
What to Do After Creating a Business Plan
Hurray! You’ve created a roadmap upon which your business can thrive — but what next? It can get confusing. For most entrepreneurs, the next logical step is to acquire the required funding.
Incfile’s Business Plan Worksheet can help you get the necessary funding required to launch your dreams. The worksheet not only highlights the must-have details but allows people to know and invest in the person behind the business — you!
Swara Ahluwalia is a freelance content writer with experience in the technical, B2B and SaaS domain. She also has curated content for various lifestyle brands. In her downtime, you will most likely find Swara training for her next marathon or spending time with her two daughters.
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A norovirus outbreak in two Exeter schools has sent 45 students home with the severe vomiting bug.
Westclyst and Broadclyst Primary School saw the bug spread through its students, with parents claiming kids leaving the school with sick-shots.
One parent said it was "like a horror movie" when she wanted to pick up her four-year-old son at the end of the day.
Westclyst and Broadclyst schools are working with Public Health England to manage the Devon outbreak.
It is clear that more schools in the region are affected.
Were you affected by this story? Contact email@example.com
Another parent added, "My son literally started at school and it's only his second week.
"Yesterday afternoon, the parents estimated that about 70 were ill.
"The school has asked children to wash their hands, but the NHS website says it does not kill the virus.
"My son does not have it, but I keep him away from school because I have diabetes and a little baby at home and we can not risk having norovirus."
Director of the two schools Jonathan Bishop said: "In terms of numbers, Westclyst has five out of 15 children.
"In Broadclyst it's probably 40. Especially the one-year group is affected, we have nearly 600 children in both schools."
The outbreak started on Monday morning at school. Some students reportedly got sick at home over the weekend.
Head Mr. Bishop added, "Monday morning we did not have one or two at school because they were sick.
"Yesterday we came to school and we had a lot of people getting sick and we sent them home."
Norovirus, also known as the winter vomiting bug, is the most common stomach bug in the UK, affecting people of all ages.
The virus, which is highly contagious, causes vomiting and diarrhea, but usually not more than two days.
It can spread quickly through schools and workplaces and leads to hospital closures.
Norovirus can happen anytime, but outbreaks are more common in colder weather.
In winter, germs live longer outside the body, so they spread more easily.
Devon Council and Public Health England were asked for comment.
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FSF eases Microsoft schema patent fears
"We will have to patent our schema," advised Bill Gates in an internal email in June 1998, "and some of our key objects like people / schedules".
Whether an XML schema can be a patentable invention is an interesting question, but only fairly recently the Microsoft chairman was attracted the idea that he not only could, but should pursue the option. So the release of the first of Microsoft's XML schemas for Office 2003 - files that describe the format for office documents saved as XML - caused some anxiety in the community yesterday.
Microsoft issued the schemas under a royalty-free license that had some wondering if they could work with GPL software. "Microsoft may have patents and/or patent applications that are necessary for you to license in order to make, sell, or distribute software programs that read or write files that comply with the Microsoft specifications for the Office Schemas," according to the accompany patent license agreement. Given that GPL software developers have refused to work with patent-encumbered code, the anxiety was familiar.
"I don't think the alarm is justified," the FSF's pro bono counsel Eben Moglen told us last night. "This is not a license that I would like to accept; Microsoft is saying we might have some patents. But it's not a problem if Microsoft is making it available to everyone to make use and sell.
Moglen says that Microsoft's schema license conforms to the compromise that he worked out with community leader Bruce Perens when revising the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) proposed RAND license. Two years ago the W3C proposed to allow, in parallel to the web's tradition of royalty-free licenses which saw a developers revolt.
"A patent-encumbered web threatens the very freedom of intellectual debate, allowing only large companies and big media houses to present information in certain ways," wrote Linux kernel developer Alan Cox at the time.
Iyer Venkatesan, product manager for StarOffice at Sun Microsystems, generally welcomed Microsoft's move to publish the schema but sounded a note of caution. "We're probably going to see how the lawyers look at it," he told us. "It's possible a GPL program would not be able to read Office 2003 files but BSD would be able to read it. But we have to figure that out."
The OpenOffice.org project, the fruits of which Sun markets as StarOffice, has had some marked success in interoperating with Microsoft Office, in some cases even being able to read and write to files that Microsoft's software balked at. Sun has submitted its OpenOffice.org schema to a standards body. "We have invited them to participate in OASIS but they have declined for good reasons of their own," said Venkatesan.
The schema isn't a panacea. Microsoft Office still natively saves to undocumented binary files, and as we noted here, there's plenty of room in the specification for binary data or what Microsoft calls "arbitary schema". People forget that the X in XML is for extensible.
As Mike Champion asked here, "What is the point of storing data in XML if the schema is so hideous and proprietary than no one can use it without proprietary API support? What advantages does WordML have over the HTML-like stuff that current versions of Word generate on request? At least you can tidy.exe the HTML-like stuff into standard XML, but what can you do with WordML except load it into Word...unless of course you are an XSLT uber-geek?"
"It doesn't make me sleep any easier," said programmer and free software systems consultant, Karsten Self. "I see a noose. I'm trying to see what's in it, and when it's going to be sprung."
"There is no mention in the license of what specific patents are licensed. For the license to have any specific application, either the schema or its interpretation would seem to need specific patent coverage, although a cursory search of the USPTO patent database shows no patents assigned to Microsoft specifically detailing an XML schema."
"The terms of the Microsoft license while being royalty-free, prevent modification or creating derived works based on the schema. This effectively rules out any software license meeting the OSI Open Source Definition from being used with an implementation based on a program using the schema."
Moglen says that this doesn't prevent a free software programmer creating derivative works, because the schema is being licensed from Microsoft.
"Section 7 of the GPL says if you're restricted by a judgement or a license you've accepted, and they're incompatible, then you can't distribute your software under GPL. But it's not the case that this license violates Section 7."
"I want to reassure people that it's not an issue". ®
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Project development ideas
1.Add sensors, for example: carbon dioxide sensor.
2.Design a new framework
3.Develop an algorithm for automatically creating a virtual map of the area
4.Adapt the robot to environmental conditions
5.Develop a program for processing data from a robot
6.Develop a pest recognition program
7.Develop a plant disease recognition system
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Microsoft has given its next version of Windows, so far known as “Windows 8,” a radical makeover that could give Apple’s iPad a serious run for its money.
The upcoming operating system (Microsoft has yet to announce any release timing, though it is expected in 2012) draws from the “Metro” design it baked into Windows Phone 7, the company’s new mobile platform. That means instead of the Windows interface you’re used to using – Start menu, taskbar, file folders, application lists – are replaced by so-called “tiles” that are more finger-friendly for touch-screen devices.
Windows 8 will include true multitasking, not just the ability to quickly switch between recent applications, like on the iPhone or Android smart phones. In a video (see below), Microsoft showed how a Windows 8 user can have two applications open at the same time, with the ability to choose which application is displayed bigger, through a feature called “snap.”
The OS will include Internet Explorer 10 with a touch-based interface, including tabbed browsing. IE10 will support the newest Web standard, HTML5, but Microsoft omitted any mention of Adobe Flash. The company also said it will push for Windows 8 apps to be created in HTML5. (Microsoft is starting a new conference called Build for Windows 8 touch-based app developers.)
In Windows 8, the on-screen touch keyboard can switch from a full-size keyboard to one that’s squished half-and-half to the sides, for easier typing with two thumbs. The OS also can switch to the traditional Windows layout for applications such as Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more). Therefore, it also has the file system we’re all used to using – files within folders within folders. Users will be able to quickly switch back to the tablet-optimized interface and run tablet apps next to traditional desktop software.
“Although the new user interface is designed and optimized for touch, it works equally well with a mouse and keyboard,” Julie Larson-Green, corporate vice president for Windows Experience, wrote in a Microsoft news release. “Our approach means no compromises – you get to use whatever kind of device you prefer, with peripherals you choose, to run the apps you love. This is sure to inspire a new generation of hardware and software development, improving the experience for PC users around the world.”
Indeed, Windows 8 will work not only on tablet PCs, but also on laptops and desktops. It also will support any applications that can run on Windows 7, Microsoft’s current operating system.
“It’s not that radical,” Windows division President Steven Sinofsky said at All Things Digital’s D9 conference, where Microsoft first showed off Windows 8. “The compatibility is still there.”
However, the last time Microsoft introduced a “radical” new interface with Windows Vista, the operating system flopped. The tablet interface of Windows 8 is a far more radical change in design and usability. Will people be ready?
Check out Microsoft’s first demonstration video, embedded below. The Windows 8 tablet interface is pretty wild. Can it take on the iPad?
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In the banking business, green is a good color. It's the color of money, of course, and having a lot of green is usually associated with being in the black--which is a lot better than that other color, red. Green reportedly has a calming effect and it represents tranquility, good luck, health and jealousy. It is also a symbol of fertility, which is why people love green M&Ms. Researchers have even found that the color green can improve reading ability and stimulate inventiveness and creativity.
Green is also a soothing color when it comes to the environment. Being philosophically green suggests a world view in harmony with Mother Nature. To the tree huggers of the world, being green is golden.
In the banking world, green practices, or its cousin, sustainability, can win a banker brownie points in a community. But bankers need to recognize that green loans are not like plain vanilla loans. They can be complicated and demand specialized knowledge, living in a sort of gray area of finance.
As the country seems to grow ever greener, it can be worthwhile for community bankers to consider or enhance green and sustainable initiatives. Although successful green lending may not make a big difference to the bottom line today, it could become a growing part of your business over time. It could also engender goodwill that translates into more business.
To get a better understanding of the merits of green banking in general and green lending specifically, it's helpful to examine the record of some of the few green banking purists that have sprung up in the last few years. These community banks provide a test lab for green lending.
One ominous example is GreenChoice Bank of Chicago, which went under in 2014. GreenChoice promoted its sustainable bias (its chief operating officer was certified in green building practices) both internally and in its lending and banking practices. The government audit that resulted in the bank's takeover made no mention of green practices specifically. Instead, the audit by the OCC found that poor board and management oversight, excessive concentration in construction and commercial real estate loans and weak risk management processes led to insolvency. If nothing else, the report suggests that going green does not relieve a bank of the basic requirement for sound risk controls and management practices.
Still, other green banks seem to be quite successful. One example is New Resource Bank in San Francisco, which relies on its expertise in sustainability to run a loan portfolio that is nearly three-quarters sustainable. In a recent report, New Resource Bank is not only profitable, but also has non-performing assets to total assets of only 0.10%. This compares to a more typical peer bank of around 1.50% or so.
What the New Resource Bank results perhaps demonstrate, and which green banking advocates stress, is that well-managed green loans can also be less risky and therefore less volatile. They can also get the bank into new customers, so that can help as well.
Green-oriented banks show that if carefully managed and monitored, green loans can be profitable. The challenge in trying to do so is to be sure to gain enough expertise to properly evaluate and monitor such a green strategy.
Banking remains challenging, but bankers who focus on green lending and do it well may be onto something that will grow both customers and profits over time.
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Globally, Luxembourg ranks on place 18, out of 141 countries, climbing up one place compared to 2018. Within Europe, Luxembourg ranks 8th.
Luxembourg’s strengths and weaknesses
The strongest point is it’s macroeconomic stability (1st place), followed by its institutions (rank 9), the financial system (rank 10), and the markets for products (rank 11) and labour (rank 12).
According to the report a weakness of Luxembourg is it’s small market size (rank 77) and the business dynamism (rank 42).
About the Global Competitiveness Report
The 2019 edition of Global Competitiveness Report evaluates 141 countries. The report is made up of 103 indicators. These indicators are split up into twelve pillars with the most important including: institutions; infrastructure; ICT adoption; macroeconomic stability; health; skills; product market; labour market; financial system; market size; business dynamism; and innovation capability. The score ranks between 1 and 100, higher average score means higher degree of competitiveness.
Want to join the community in Luxembourg?
We have several jobs for graduates & experienced finance professionals.
See you soon on www.financejobs.lu
*Source: The Global Competitiveness Report 2019 (World Economic Forum)
You are looking for a new job in Luxembourg? You have a finance profile and don’t want to scroll other categories? Don’t waste your time!
On financejobs.lu you will find many finance jobs in diverse categories such as Accounting, Advisory, Asset management, Audit, Banking, Business Development, Compliance, Consulting, Controlling, Custody, Financial Crime, Fraud & Forensic, Funds Administration, Internal Controls, IT Audit, Legal, Investment Funds, Liquidity Management, Payment Solutions, Portfolio Management, Private Banking, Private Equity, Real Estate, Risk Controlling, Tax, Treasury…just to name a few examples 🙂
We also have a Linkedin account with news about Luxembourg. Click on “follow” us to stay up to date
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SCHOOLCRAFT -- After losing nearly 90 percent of his honeybees two years ago, commercial beekeeper Scott Barnes says he's back in business, "bigger and better than ever.''
But, he cautions quickly, that's "for now.''
He's taking nothing for granted these days.
Even now, after a flurry of research into the mysterious colony collapse disorder that has wiped out beehives worldwide, "no one has a clue what it is,'' Barnes said.
A specific virus has been found in many stricken colonies, and microbes and parasitic mites, chemicals, toxins and a whole slew of other factors have been identified by researchers as possible contributors to the problem.
But still eluding scientists is the cause, and therefore the way to prevent the problem that makes healthy bees suddenly disappear by the thousands.
"Most beekeepers talk like it was a perfect storm, a lot of little things. It will probably (turn out to) be a combination of several things,'' Barnes said. "The only thing is, we have absolutely no idea what we have to do'' right now to make sure the colonies remain healthy.
Barnes owns St. Joe Valley Apiaries and is this area's representative member of the Michigan Beekeepers Association. Terry Klein, of St. Charles, is vice president of the group. He has dead and dying bees again this year.
He said that despite his best efforts, hives in two of his 50 yards of bees are showing early signs of collapse.
Beekeepers have known for years that their bees are plagued by the same stresses that have all but wiped out wild honeybees. Mites and parasites clog their airways, suck their blood, disrupt their digestive systems and weaken their immune defenses. Careless or cumulative exposure to pesticides also can weaken and kill bees.
Diseases and infestations of pests quickly spread as bees are trucked around the country by tractor-semitrailers to pollinate farm crops. Also, because the bee populations are stretched thin to pollinate those huge expanses of single crops, they don't get the nutritional variety that pollen from wild fields and orchards once afforded.
Beekeepers have battled these individual bee stressors through an array of medicines, management strategies and nutritional supplements.
Human intervention on behalf of commercial bee colonies has kept them alive but apparently not strong and healthy.
"Now myself and other beekeepers are paying attention to a lot more of the little side problems,'' Barnes said. "All these little things start adding up to the bee.''
Unraveling that puzzle is the goal of research being undertaken on a shoestring budget by scientists in several states who have divided the work among their labs under the direction of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
In addition to $4 million available in fiscal year 2008 to research ways to improve the health and protection of honeybees, the proposed Senate version of the next farm-policy bill authorizes $20 million per year for research on colony collapse disorder and the health of pollinators other than honeybees. Those insects, too, seem to be dwindling in numbers.
Michigan's state apiarist, Mike Hansen, said the federal research money is vital.
"States and private citizens have been using whatever funds they can grab,'' Hansen said. "Doing a serious look at this will get us closer to a solution.''
"I think authorization is one thing and appropriating money is another,'' said Troy Fore, executive director of American Beekeeping Federation Inc. "It sounds good, and it's good to know some senators are interested in your industry enough to make the authorization.''
But he'll get excited about it "when I see the money,'' he said. "Show me the money.''
Barnes agreed. "It's an election year and everybody's going to talk about it, but we're the ugly stepchild of agriculture.
"It seems like we're treading water, and the water is right at our noses all the time. There needs to be research, because there's only so much I as a commercial beekeeper can do.
"All I'm worried about,'' Barnes said, "is the two thousand colonies I have control over, to assure they are healthy.''
Email Rosemary Parker or call her at (269) 388-2734.
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Geisha returning through the park in the snowfall of a winter storm (with Umbrella)--from Meiji-era Japan
Meiji era uchikake - Museum of Fine Art, Boston
GEISHA'S HAIRSTYLE FROM THE BACK -- An Early Meiji-era Style
Kagawa Katsuhiro Late Meiji – Taishō era, circa 1900 – 1917.
Tea bowl, copy of "Kaga Koetsu," unknown Raku ware workshop. 19th century. Hon'ami Koetsu , (Japanese, 1558-1637). Edo period or Meiji era. Raku-type earthenware with red slip under clear glaze. H: 8.5 W: 12.4 D: 12.4 cm. Kyoto, Japan.
Wish list at Meiji Shrine, Tokyo, Japan: photo by TommyOshima, via Flickr
Japanese Shinto bride (Hayanome) : Meiji Jingu, Tokyo, Japan / Japón by Lost in Japan, by Miguel Michán, via Flickr
Japanese Shinto bride (Hayanome) : Meiji Jingu, Tokyo, Japan / Japón by Lost in Japan, by Miguel Michán
Takahashi Ryoun, active Late Meiji - Taishō - Early Shōwa Era, early 20th century. Taishō - Early Shōwa Era, circa 1915 - 1935.
Sashiko stitched, indigo dyed bag, most likely used to carry a sake bottle. Meiji Era (1868-1912).
Gourd shaped ikebana basket from Japan. | Made of split bamboo, with an artfully tied bamboo rope, Late Meiji Period.
Elegant moon or crescent shaped ikebana basket is from Japan. | Made of split bamboo, Late Meiji Period.
Postcard. New Herbs (Wakana) II from the series The Tale of Genji. Japanese, late Meiji era, 1905 By Kajita Hanko, Japanese, 1870–1917
Ainu Robe Period: Meiji period (1868–1912) Culture: Japan Medium: Cotton and wool with applique (kiri-fuse) Classification: Textiles-Costumes
Japanese clay vessel made in Jyomon era (BC 145~3000), Japan
Taisho-era maiko group, featuring Momotaro and Fumiryu. About 1920, Japan. Image via Rosarote of Flickr
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2011-2012 Hopes and Dreams Narrative
One of my hopes and dreams this year was to read 45 novels. I accomplished this goal and got past it by 30 by reading a lot on car trips, school breaks, during math and on weekends. This goal was also accomplished because I got to go to the library and pick out lots of books that interested me. If I liked the book I was reading and found it hard to put down I found more time to read.
Another one of my hopes and dreams was to expand my vocabulary. I have accomplished this by finding words I don’t know in my books and writing them down, then using them for Word Work. I also looked through the dictionary and using them for Word Work also. Then I would try to use those words more often. I found out that dictionaries have a lot of interesting words and other people can benefit from hearing other people use complicated words and learning what they mean. Also, complicated words make me feel powerful. That’s a good thing.
The last of my goals I’m going to talk about is that I wanted to be a better soccer player. This year I have really practiced hard and tried my best to get better. Last summer I would practice soccer every day in my backyard for 30 minutes and have practices four times a week. I think this had really helped me get better. This summer I plan to work extra hard to get better so I can have a good tryout and feel more confident.
I have just shared three of my hopes and dreams/ goals for this year and how I have accomplished them and/or are going to keep working on them. Hopefully I will accomplish some of my other goals too.
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Currently, GFCI’s are required in exposed locations and in locations where power and water are likely to be used side by side. Some examples are kitchens, bathrooms, outdoor locations, unfinished basements and garages. With so many rooms and locations in your home being protected by ground fault circuits, it is not uncommon to have a device trip from time to time resulting in a loss of power to the device and any surrounding areas served by the device. Often times, these are “nuisance trips” that are not associated with an actual problem in the circuit. Due to the sensitivity of the GFCI, surges from the utility company or fluctuations that occur during normal operation of motors can cause these types of events.
Depressing the “reset” button on the face of the GFCI can restore power to the effected areas. If power is not restored when the reset button is pressed, a ground fault likely exists and it’s time to call in the electrician.
The GFCI has done a fantastic job of making our homes safe and allowing us to use electrical devices safely without fear of shock or injury. Advancements in electrical safety for the home are constantly being developed. The newest safety requirement is the AFCI, or Arc Fault Circuit Interrupter. For the most part, rooms not protected with GFCI receptacles, will require AFCI protection. We’ll talk about AFCI’s in a future post. Sign up for our email list to be notified when we publish our next post.
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Narasimha, Roddam and Diwan, Sourabh Suhas and Duvvuri, Subrahmanyam and Sreenivas, KR and Bhat, GS (2011) Laboratory simulations show diabatic heating drives cumulus-cloud evolution and entrainment. In: PNAS, 108 (39). pp. 16164-16169.
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Clouds are the largest source of uncertainty in climate science, and remain a weak link in modeling tropical circulation. A major challenge is to establish connections between particulate microphysics and macroscale turbulent dynamics in cumulus clouds. Here we address the issue from the latter standpoint. First we show how to create bench-scale flows that reproduce a variety of cumulus-cloud forms (including two genera and three species), and track complete cloud life cycles-e.g., from a ``cauliflower'' congestus to a dissipating fractus. The flow model used is a transient plume with volumetric diabatic heating scaled dynamically to simulate latent-heat release from phase changes in clouds. Laser-based diagnostics of steady plumes reveal Riehl-Malkus type protected cores. They also show that, unlike the constancy implied by early self-similar plume models, the diabatic heating raises the Taylor entrainment coefficient just above cloud base, depressing it at higher levels. This behavior is consistent with cloud-dilution rates found in recent numerical simulations of steady deep convection, and with aircraft-based observations of homogeneous mixing in clouds. In-cloud diabatic heating thus emerges as the key driver in cloud development, and could well provide a major link between microphysics and cloud- scale dynamics.
|Item Type:||Journal Article|
|Additional Information:||Copyright of this article belongs to National Academy of Sciences.|
|Keywords:||cloud fluid dynamics;off-source heating;anomalous entrainment;turbulent mixing|
|Department/Centre:||Division of Mechanical Sciences > Centre for Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences|
|Date Deposited:||25 Oct 2011 10:20|
|Last Modified:||25 Oct 2011 10:23|
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In Parliamentary elections in 2012, the Dutch Green Party GroenLinks lost six of their ten seats. Dick Pels and Pepijn Vloemans, who work for Bureau De Helling, the research foundation of GroenLinks, comment on the result.
It is clear where the blame for GroenLinks’ dramatic electoral loss lies: the party is adrift ideologically. It lacks a common world view and is bogged down in hazily defined ideals. There is no firm foundation of values that motivates its political standpoints.
But this explanation is facile and shortsighted. For over twenty years now, GroenLinks has represented a uniquely green, left-wing, progressive outlook. As such it forms part of the European Green movement, which is united as the European Green Party – this continent’s first transnational party.
The world view of GroenLinks rests on three deeply-held convictions. The first is that of greenness, the attribute that sets us apart from the “beefsteak socialism” of other Dutch left-wing parties such as SP and PvDA. These parties stand for a narrow, materialistic interpretation of progress. GroenLinks stands for a much broader, more inclusive definition of welfare, one in which health, education and the environment – all aspects that are hard to couch in monetary terms – carry more weight than economic growth. Welfare means much more than what is financially measurable; the ostensible security of pensions and mortgages will not help us if the biological diversity of our planet and the stability of its atmosphere are threatened. Other parts of the world and future generations will have to foot the bill for our cheap flights and low-priced meat. GroenLinks aims to alert voters to the true cost of factors like these. That is why the “polluter pays” principle had such a prominent part in the recent campaign, with policies ranging from abolishing multi-billion euro subsidies on fossil fuels to promoting tap water recycling in bars and restaurants. Never before has GroenLinks dedicated itself so unambiguously to the need for a sustainable, circular economy as in the recent campaign. That’s what makes us green.
GroenLinks has been arguing for years that hard working Dutch citizens with full-time jobs are no better than their compatriots who do voluntary or part-time work; that women cannot flourish professionally until out-of-school child care and community schools are improved and made less expensive; that bankers should serve society, not vice-versa; that fair opportunities for all implies investment in accessible schools with excellent teaching – regardless of whether you are born in affluent Wassenaar or disadvantaged Slotervaart; and that, in the present crisis, we must absolutely not cut back on, but must invest in, sustainable projects such as domestic insulation which will directly generate real jobs and will lead to a less polluted country. These convictions put us on the Left.
Consistently, too, GroenLinks has stood for the emancipation of the individual and has sought to protect people who are different and not part of the mainstream – even though it wins us few votes. GroenLinks has fought for years for the emancipation of the disadvantaged through personal budgets, against discrimination against gays and lesbians, and against the expulsion of child asylum seekers. It is these convictions that make us progressive.
GroenLinks is thus a green, left-wing, progressive party. This is a world view with solid foundations which is broadly shared by our members and politicians. But, in these times of crisis, GroenLinks may be insufficiently aware that each of these values necessitates a tougher critique of capitalism and of the neoliberal culture. This relates to the green critique of the addiction to growth and consumption. It is presently unclear whether GroenLinks favours green growth or wishes to set limits for growth. But the leftist critique of income disparities and of the bizarre adulation of greed could also have more prominence in our ideals. GroenLinks should state its case more emphatically on the social protection of economic losers. The transition to a green economy and the individualisation of the labour market must be adopted wholeheartedly and accompanied by a new package of social certainties with a clearer emphasis on fair sharing. GroenLinks must in other words make its green and leftist ideals more explicit, so that they recover their former resonance among the public.
The progressive-democratic values of GroenLinks similarly impose a duty to sharpen up our critique of the neoliberal “me culture” and the rightist meritocratic credo of “nobody to blame but yourself”. As with sustainability (green) and equal opportunities (left), it is a matter of setting bounds to overinflated liberties. GroenLinks wants people to take control of their own lives; but this is not at all the same as the absolute self-sovereignty touted by neoliberal road warriors and clamouring populists. The important thing is to take control over our collective lives and to foster solidarity. The implication is that GroenLinks must pair its belief in the emancipation of the individual with a morality of self-restraint and moderation.
To sum up, our values and our outlook are in broad respects already in place. But they have proved hard to sell in a period of economic duress when people vote mainly with their wallets. GroenLinks must blame itself for failing to win the public over to its “Green New Deal” concept, that of directly creating sustainable jobs by investing in renewable energy and home insulation, combined with reining in the banks at a Europe-wide level. The party was partly responsible for not getting its message across due to internal squabbling and complaining. But the ideals of GroenLinks are still vital and relevant today – elsewhere in Europe too – and they deserve to be reflected in a lasting double-figure representation in the Lower House.
This article was originally published by Bureau De Helling and is also is a redacted version of an opinion piece published in De Volkskrant on Wednesday 19 September 2012.
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Coordination of Work on International Trade Law
Which organizations does UNCITRAL work with?
To implement its mandate, UNCITRAL maintains close links with international and regional organizations, both inter-governmental and non-governmental, that are active participants in the work programme of UNCITRAL and in the field of international trade law to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information. It is represented, through its secretariat, at meetings of those organizations and actively follows and participates in their work where it relates to topics on UNCITRAL's work programme.
These organizations include:
- the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD);
- the Hague Conference on Private International Law;
- the Organization of American States (OAS);
- the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD);
- the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (Unidroit);
- the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO);
- the World Bank;
- the World Trade Organization (WTO);
- the Comité Maritime International (CMI);
- the Commercial Finance Association (CFA);
- the International Bar Association (IBA);
- the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)
- and INSOL International (the International Association of Restructuring, Insolvency and Bankruptcy Professionals).
Survey of activities
To assist the Commission in monitoring activities and developments in international trade law, the secretariat prepares a general survey of the activities of other organizations related to international trade law (including technical assistance to international trade law reform), as well as in-depth reports on the activities of organizations on particular international trade law topics.
To facilitate the preparation of this paper, UNCITRAL welcomes information on projects and activities from organizations active in the international trade law field.
International organizations active in the field of international trade law have the opportunity, at annual sessions of UNCITRAL, to present reports (formal or informal) on their activities.
As a further part of this coordination function, UNCITRAL undertakes work, such as studies and seminars, in conjunction with other international organizations. Examples include a project with Committee D of the International Bar Association to monitor the implementation, in national laws, of the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York, 1958); and a series of multinational judicial colloquia on cross-border insolvency law in conjunction with INSOL International.
Texts recommended by UNCITRAL
For example, UNCITRAL has encouraged ratification of the European Convention on International Commercial Arbitration (Geneva, 1961) and recommended the use of a number of texts prepared by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) including:
- the Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits
- the Rules on International Standby Practices (ISP98)
- the Uniform Rules for Demand Guarantees
UNCITRAL Texts endorsed by other organizations
A number of other organizations have recommended and endorsed the adoption of UNCITRAL texts.
- 2004 - UNCITRAL Legislative Guide on Insolvency Law
Endorsement by International Bar Association (IBA)
- 1995 - United Nations Convention on Independent Guarantees and Stand-by Letters of Credit
Endorsement by International Chamber of Commerce (ICC)
- 1978 - United Nations Convention on the Carriage of Goods by Sea - the "Hamburg Rules"
Endorsed by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD)
Endorsed by Asian-African Legal Consultative Committee
Endorsed by the Organization of American States
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Pro-abortion money, especially from out of state, is targeting the Ohio Constitution
By: John M. Grondelski of The New Oxford Review
Pro-abortionists in Ohio are pulling all stops to pass a state constitutional amendment by ballot referendum this November to ensconce abortion in the Buckeye State. The amendment is particularly aggressive because, in addition to wiping out all prenatal protections through birth (notwithstanding window-dressing language about “viability” that is promptly eviscerated with “health” exceptions), it also protects artificial methods of reproduction (in vitro, surrogacy) and would almost certainly require state subvention of all of them.
Pro-lifers have launched a two-prong effort: to engage the amendment on its direct terms in November, but to use a technical change by an August 8 referendum to nullify its effect.
Ohio voters go to the polls August 8 (yep, in the dog days of summer) to vote on a Constitutional amendment that would require a 60% approval margin for any referendum-initiated Constitutional amendment to take effect. Right now, the Ohio Constitution can be amended by referendum as long as it gets one more “yes” than “no” vote in the ballot box.
Abortionists are complaining this effort “undermines democracy” and certain Catholics are joining the fight on that side [see here]. It’s a strange “democracy” that considers “democracy” more important than life or that any majority can take away human rights. But, quite apart from that, Ohio’s system is also an outlier. Constitutions, as Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes said, are “made for people of fundamentally differing views,” which is why they are — and should be — notoriously difficult to amend. Because they settle the basic trajectory of law in a jurisdiction, they should not be changeable “for light or transitory reasons,” and should reflect something more than a momentary consensus. That is why most states require Constitutional amendments to go through two votes in the Legislature — often with an intervening election — before being put on the ballot. Simple majoritarianism is not the usual way Constitutions are changed.
Ohio’s Issue 1 also raises the geographical bar from where signatures for initiative-driven Constitutional amendments must come: all Ohio counties, as opposed to today’s rule (44, i.e., half of them). Why is this important (and not just another barrier)? Because Ohio is a microcosm of America (which is why it’s often a bellwether state): urban, suburban, and rural. The current simple majority of counties rule turns much of Ohio into “flyover country”; groups can run up signatures in big cities (especially those with political machines, like Cleveland and its Cuyahoga County) to amass them, give lip service to some neighboring counties, and ignore the rest of the state. That is not representative of all Ohioans, as Rachel Citak of Cincinnati Right to Life has noted [see here].
Going back to the main idea of Issue 1, an enhanced majority to adopt amendments: The question of a simple, one vote majority in a referendum becomes even more acute when issues arise about the integrity and accuracy of ballot tallies. Changing constitutions on such narrow grounds also makes the process prone to abuse by special interests, and if there was ever a special interest — with out-of-state money to pursue its agenda — it’s the abortion industry. 2023 is an off-year for elections, meaning they’ll throw the kitchen sink into both the Ohio referendum and taking control of the Virginia legislature. If there was ever a time for Catholics to follow the Master’s advice about being “cunning as serpents and harmless as doves” (Mt 10:16) on matters political, it’s in voting “yes” on Issue 1 on August 8.
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Plants come under supply pressure as numbers tighten
Published 22/03/2011 | 12:03
I hope you backed one or more of the Irish winners at Cheltenham because Colonel Gadaffi's stubbornness in Libya pales into insignificance when compared to the Irish beef processors' reluctance to increase beef prices.
If some positive movement doesn't occur soon, beef finishers will be hoping that President Barack Obama brings a four-leaf clover back to them in May in return for his bowl of shamrock.
I spoke to one beef finisher at the weekend who, I'd say, was nearly falling for the factory propaganda about beef prices not being able to increase as households would not be willing to pay accordingly at the other end.
Yesterday morning I was talking to another farmer who, in the past fortnight, had done his own exercise on a 300kg carcass R3 heifer -- estimating a €3.50/kg price, it left her at €1,050. Slaughtered, boned out, trimmed and cut up, and working conservatively on the figures, this heifer's retail value was a minimum of €2,100 -- double what the farmer would have received for her after two years of looking after her. So, the room and the need is there for our processors to start treating our finishers with a tiny bit of respect and fairness.
It is extremely disappointing to see plants continue to quote as low as 330c/kg base for steers. Yes, more is being paid to those who bargain but there are lots of growers out there who take what they are offered and, as such, are doing both themselves and the industry a disservice, and helping the processors to keep the prices at ridiculously low levels.
The good news is that there definitely seems to be a tightening of supplies, especially over the weekend and yesterday. This may help the situation.
Last week's estimated kill was 29,130. Agents are admitting that numbers are proving more difficult to come on this week, with prices of 6c/kg above the quote frequently required to secure stock. The base quote for steers was 330-336c/kg, with the quality assured bonus of 6c/kg on top of this.
Heifer base quotes are in the 336-342c/kg bracket. Kepak Athleague is at the higher end and has quoted up to 348c/kg for quality, suitable, underage heifers. Donegal is paying 348c/kg and 356c/kg for the in-spec R and U-grade steers, with an extra 3c/kg for the heifers in both grades.
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~ en español ~
Gender-based street harassment limits people’s access to public spaces and lowers their comfort level there. It can cause people to “choose” less convenient routes and alter their routines; give up hobbies and change habits; and even quit jobs or move neighborhoods or simply stay home because they can’t face the thought of one more day of harassment. This page addresses street harassment all female-identified individuals face, then harassment members of the LGBQTI community experience.
All Women/Female-Identified Individuals:
Unlike the harassment based on other factors (e.g. racial harassment, homophobic harassment, disability harassment), the street harassment of girls/women because of their gender is usually not taken seriously and few other groups address it. It’s seen as a joke, compliment, or their fault. It is none of these things.
In reality, street harassment limits women’s peace of mind and mobility, making it a gender equality and human rights issue. No country has achieved gender equality and no country ever will until street harassment ends. Additionally, for most women, street harassment begins around puberty and being the recipient of it signifies to many of them the transition from girlhood to womanhood. That is a sad, sad statement about how girls/women are treated – and expect to be treated – in our society.
In 2013, the United Nations recognized the reality that street harassment prevents equality during the annual Commission on the Status of Women meeting, a convening of the highest global normative body on women’s rights. For the first time ever, the commission included several clauses about the safety of women and girls in public spaces in its Agreed Conclusions document. The conclusions expressed “deep concern about violence against women and girls in public spaces, including sexual harassment, especially when it is being used to intimidate women and girls who are exercising any of their human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
The U.N. called on its member states “to increase measures to protect women and girls from violence and harassment, including sexual harassment and bullying, in both public and private spaces, to address security and safety, through awareness-raising, involvement of local communities, crime prevention laws, policies, and programs.”
A Tool to Intimidate
Harassment can be used as a tool to intimidate people, to make them leave and give up. As women strive to gain equal rights worldwide, some men harass them to try to keep them from advancing, to prevent their equality, and to try to force them to retreat to their homes. In countries like Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, for instance, groups of men have harassed and stripped young women wearing clothes that the men deemed inappropriate. “Public strippings represent the front lines of a cultural war against women’s advancements in traditionally conservative but rapidly urbanizing societies. They aren’t really about what women are wearing. They are much more about where women are going,” wrote Sisonke Msimang, a South African columnist, in a January 2015 op-ed for The New York Times. After describing the advances African women have made in education, employment, and political leadership in a short amount of time, she said, “Street harassment is often a sign of deep-seated resentment of women’s changing status in society. For men who were raised to believe that they are entitled to be breadwinners and receive sexual gratification and domestic subservience from women, the shift hasn’t been easy.”
Girls who attend school sometimes face backlash for doing so. A famous example is when the Taliban shot 15-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai on her way to school in 2012 because she was an outspoken advocate for girls’ education. She survived the attack and continued her advocacy, particularly for girls’ education in Pakistan, which has the world’s second-highest number of children out of school.
Spectrum of Violence
Street harassment is also a harmful and serious social ill because it falls along a spectrum of violence. It can start as verbal harassment and escalate to sexual assault and rape—and even murder. In the U.S. national street harassment survey conducted by GfK and commissioned by SSH, for instance, 23 percent of women and 8 percent of men said they had been sexually touched by a stranger in a public space, and 9 percent of women and 2 percent of men had been forced by a stranger to do something sexual. Overall, more than two-thirds of harassed women (68 percent) and 48 percent of harassed men said they were concerned their experiences of harassment would escalate. This fear of escalation also encompasses a not uncommon concern that a harasser may pull out a knife or gun and then might use it, in large part because this occasionally does happen. In a 1991 article, scholar Elizabeth Arveda Kissling called street harassment a form of sexual terrorism because one never knows when it may happen—or how far it may escalate.
Street harassment also relates to violence because it can cause re-triggering and be especially upsetting for rape survivors. Researchers at the University of Mary Washington found that sexual harassment is traumatizing for women, especially for those who have experienced sexual abuse. “Women who experienced frequent sexual harassment displayed signs of trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Those who had a history with sexual abuse endured a greater degree of trauma, regardless of how often they were harassed.”
The impact of street harassment on women is the focus of Chapter 6 of the Stop Street Harassment book.
The 811 women who took the 2008 Stop Street Harassment survey said they do the following because of actual of feared harassment.
Behavior that could be categorized as staying “on guard” was the most common. At least monthly women:
Constantly assess their surroundings – 80% (62% said always)
Avoid making eye contact – 69% (32% said they always do this)
Purposely wear clothes to attract less attention – 37% (10% always)
Talk or pretend to talk on a cell phone – 42% (10% always)
Next, behavior that limits access to public spaces was most common. At least monthly women:
Cross street/take other route – 50% (16% said always)
Avoid being out at night/after dark – 45% (11% always)
Avoid being out alone – 40% (8% always)
Pay to exercise at a gym instead of outside – 24% (11% always)
Most alarming was how street harassment prompted some women to make a significant life decision:
Moved neighborhoods (at least once) because of harassers in the area – 19%
Changed jobs (at least once) because of harassers along the commute – 9%
(Read SSH Founder’s Forbes.com article about why employers should care about street harassment and what they can do about it)
From anecdotes and women’s stories, it’s clear that street harassment also impacts women’s:
Hobbies and career choices;
Decision to go to evening networking events, night classes, political forums, and go on business trips;
Ability to go to restaurants or movie theaters alone;
Finances when women “choose” to pay for taxis rather than walk or take public transportation, drive their car short distances, pay to exercise at a gym rather than outside, pay for a more expensive hotel in a city center while traveling, pay for room service rather than go out to eat when on a business trip;
Ability to go places without a male escort who often can help keep harassers at bay by showing a woman is “owned” or “spoken for”;
Desire to be nice to strangers because they never know which one will turn into a harasser.
Individually, any one of these strategies and restrictions may not seem like a big deal. Collectively, however, the long list of ways women tend to change their lives is extensive.
The ways most women are told to and “choose” to restrict their lives are myriad and often so ingrained that we may not even realize why we do them anymore. Instead of universal outrage about this as a human rights issue, most men live in ignorance and most women try to adapt and usually live more restricted lives.
This must end.
* Christian Science Monitor, “Street harassment of women: It’s a bigger problem than you think”
* The Guardian, “Feeling harassed? Do something about it”
* Ms. Magazine Blog, “A High Schooler Speaks Out on Street Harassment”
* Rookie Magazine, “It Happens All the Time”
* Medium.com, “Five Reasons Why Street Harassment is Serious” (en español)
Because there is still a lot of discrimination and prejudice against LGBQT individuals, especially transgender individuals, harassment, assault and even murder is a regular fear and experience for them when they are in public spaces and visibly “out.” Each year those who have been murdered are remembered during the November 20 Transgender Day of Remembrance.
There is a small body of information about the effects of street harassment on these individuals and why stopping street harassment against them matters.
* In a survey of 93,000 LGBQT individuals in the EU, one-half of all respondents said they avoid public places, two-thirds avoid holding hands when in public, and four-fifths frequently overhear jokes being made at the expense of LGBT individuals.
When they were asked, “Where do you avoid being open about yourself as L, G, B or T for fear of being assaulted, threatened or harassed by others?” respondents reported the highest levels of fear in public spaces (restaurants, public transportation, streets, parking lots, parks, and other public premises) and lower (though still significant) levels at home, work, and school. Similarly, respondents overwhelmingly identified the “street, square, car parking lot / public place” when asked where their most recent incident of physical/sexual attack or threat of violence occurred.
* When Patrick Ryne McNeil surveyed 331 gay and bisexual men around the world about their experience with street harassment for his master’s thesis, about 90 percent said they are sometimes, often, or always harassed or made to feel unwelcome in public spaces because of their perceived sexual orientation.
* 71 percent reported constantly assessing their surroundings when navigating public spaces.
* 69 percent said they avoid specific neighborhoods or areas
* 67 percent reported not making eye contact with others
* 59 percent said they cross streets or take alternate routes
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"I felt that since I could imagine the perpetrators of the crime more personally...just by way of ethnicity," she says, "I had this personal feeling of wanting to sit them right down, and sit their colleagues down, and anybody else who might be dreaming something up, and just have a chat with them. An angry, furious chat."
The letter urges that "it will be peace, not violence, that fixes things." But it's brimming with more personal information too, about her father and his love of figs, her Lebanese grocer and her mother's choir group. Nye believes that the personal is the political, and to get at both she explores the minutiae of daily life.
Nye's latest collection of poems, 19 Varieties of Gazelle, gathers the works she's written over the years about the Middle East, peace and being an Arab-American. One of them, "The Small Vases from Hebron," about the Arab-Israeli conflict, asks, "And what do the headlines say? / Nothing of the smaller petal / perfectly arranged inside the larger petal / or the way tinted glass filters light."
"We don't live in an abstract reality," says Nye. "We live with coffee and buttons." But people in war-torn areas lack that kind of normalcy. "Daily life at this moment would be the greatest luxury that people in Gaza can imagine...The political horrors affect their personal lives. They're murdered, bulldozed, tortured, terrorized. Israelis walking to the market might have the same feeling. How have they come to this horrible impasse?"
As a Palestinian-American, the poet hopes to help disparate groups understand each other. "Long ago, what I saw as part of my dedication and devotion to writing," she says, "was to find ways to bridge cultures and diverse opinions."
Hence her enthusiastic participation in the State Department-sponsored collection of essays, Writers on America. The book is being distributed at U.S. embassies but won't be available within the States because of an old antipropaganda law. Since its publication, many of the contributing writers have distanced themselves from the collection, worrying that their inclusion will make them look pro-Bush or pro-war. Not Nye.
"I'm not ashamed to have a simple personal essay appear in that book," she says of her work on free speech. "I want people overseas to read it, somebody who might have negative feelings towards the U.S."
Nye also has agreed to take a government-sponsored international tour to promote Writers. That way the self-described "documentarian of the miniature and forgotten" can tell the world in person about "the secret hide-away between pine trees, the cedar scent of my grandmother's closet, the sad, forgotten alleyways...the blossoming redbud trees..." And, between the lines, politics.
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In March of 1916, the still slightly infamous revolutionary general and politico Francisco “Pancho” Villa, angry at the United States for supporting his rival for the Mexican presidency, led an assault on Columbus, New Mexico, killing 23 Americans, including soldiers of the 13th US Calvary. Properly outraged, President Woodrow Wilson ordered General John J. Pershing to Mexico to capture or kill Villa, but he never did. Jessica Cooperman’s fine new book about World War I and American Jewry begins with Pershing’s unsuccessful Mexican campaign because it set the stage for the larger story she has to tell. Among the ten thousand Regular Army troops and the hundred thousand National Guardsmen who participated in the “Punitive Expedition,” there were approximately 3,500 Jews. The American Jewish community’s efforts to look after them established a precedent for the much larger project of supporting American Jewish soldiers during World War I.
Encouraged by the War Department, the Young Men’s Christian Association had stepped in to protect Pershing’s men from what many perceived to be a greater menace than Pancho Villa: red-light districts in the border towns. The Knights of Columbus promptly sent men to the scene to provide Catholic soldiers with more congenial assistance than they were likely to receive from a Protestant organization. So did the Young Men’s Hebrew Association, which established a branch near the Mexican border where Jewish soldiers could seek “recreation without temptation.” Jewish leaders (like the Catholics) were almost as fearful of young recruits being lured to join the Protestant majority as they were of them succumbing to the bad influence of bars and bordellos. But more planning would be needed to provide Jews with the same level of services as the Young Men’s Christian Association was already making available for Protestants.
The (Reform) Central Conference of American Rabbis took responsibility for High Holiday services (attended, on occasion, by more curious or idle Gentiles than Jews), but the YMHA had only “limited success in instituting morally uplifting programs for Jewish soldiers on the Mexican border.” The Gentiles, in the opinion of the War Department, didn’t in the end do much better, but this didn’t lead to the conclusion that pastoral work wasn’t worthwhile. The lesson learned from the Mexican experience was that a greater effort would have to be made during World War I to surround soldiers with “clean and wholesome influences.” In 1917, this became the task of a new government agency: the Commission on Training Camp Activities (CTCA).
American Jews were eager to do their part for the troops, but they had to work hard to persuade the authorities that they could or should. “[W]ithin days of the United States’ declaration of war, the War Department recognized the YMCA as a partner to the CTCA,” assuming that it “would be the only civilian agency necessary to the CTCA’s program for building military morals and morale.” In effect, Protestant Christianity was to be the de facto religion of the American serviceman. Both Catholics and Jews were outraged, but Catholics, who constituted 17 percent of the American population and were expected to furnish as much as a third of the American Expeditionary Forces, had demographics on their side. Their demands for a representative on the commission could “not be ignored without jeopardizing their support for the draft and the war.” American Jews didn’t have that kind of leverage.
Shortly after the United States entered the war, a small group of prominent Jews led by Cyrus Adler, the acting president of the Jewish Theological Seminary, formed a broad-based organization to unify “Jewish efforts in connection with welfare work among military personnel” called the Jewish Welfare Board (JWB). They were largely ignored by the commission until they were able to call attention to the emergence of a socialist rival, the People’s League for Jewish Soldiers of America. This seems to have convinced the government that the JWB was its necessary partner (but not, however, to give it a seat on the CTCA). Including “the JWB alongside the YMCA and the Knights of Columbus in the War Department’s program for soldiers’ welfare work” and thereby “granting nonsectarian status to Jews and Catholics represented,” in Cooperman’s opinion, “a significant shift in the structure of American definitions of religion.”
But that did not necessarily mean a shift toward defining religion the same way the Jews did. Consider the question of kashrut, which was a major issue at a time when considerable numbers of Orthodox Jews were being conscripted. Should the JWB be lobbying for the supply of kosher food at army bases? The Orthodox representatives on the JWB thought so. At a JWB Executive Committee meeting a few weeks into the war, Rabbi Bernard Drachman argued that the government should “supply kosher food to Jewish soldiers, as is being done in Austria.” Dr. Adler was, of course, more moderate, suggesting “that if the government could not do so, this Board could undertake the matter of supplying kosher food wherever it was requested at its own expense, provided that a specific fund was raised for this purpose.” Reform members of the board objected to the idea of catering to mainly Orthodox concerns “‘and goluth [diaspora] sentiments,’ rather than the actual needs of American Jewish servicemen.”
Knowing that kosher food was a lot to ask for, the board raised the issue with the government gingerly, prefacing its request with the statement that Jewish legal authorities had long ago made it clear that “religious laws may be set aside in the defense of one’s country.” This was too meek for many in the Orthodox community, but too much for soldiers like a certain Captain Horowitz, who argued, among other things, that “[t]he prescribed ration is wholesome as well as sufficient; the prescribed components have been determined with scientific accuracy to balance the whole; we cannot in reason insist on the ‘kashrith.’” This was also the opinion of the higher-ups in the War Department, who had the decisive say in the matter.
Even if the JWB couldn’t help Jewish soldiers keep kosher, it could provide the kind of activities that the YMCA provided: lectures, movies, and dances (with the right sort of women). And it could reinforce the patriotic message by stressing “that through engaged adherence to the tenets of Judaism, Jews could become better citizens and better Americans.” One of the most important actions it took to foster such adherence was to lobby successfully for the appointment (for the first time since the Civil War) of Jewish military chaplains to serve in the US Army.
Once the necessary legislation had been passed, the JWB assumed responsibility for selecting the men who would fill the limited number of positions that had been created. The board made reasonable efforts to select a denominationally diverse crew of rabbis, but the criteria imposed by the government and endorsed by the board itself effectively ruled out anyone who lacked a good secular education, and thereby excluded practically all of the available Orthodox rabbis. The vast majority of the 25 candidates who were eventually approved were graduates of the Reform Hebrew Union College.
Since a couple of dozen chaplains obviously couldn’t handle the job of providing religious services for tens of thousands of soldiers, the board hired an additional 30 or so “camp rabbis”—usually rabbis from communities near military bases—as well as hundreds of more- or less-qualified field workers, who became known as “Star of David men.” Together, they “led the majority of religious and social services provided by the JWB.”
As part of its effort to direct the work of its cadres, the board produced a magazine, the Welfare Board Sentinel, for distribution in military camps. Its very first issue contained a “Decalogue for Jewish Soldiers,” written by Rabbi William Rosenau. The first commandment read “I am America, thy country, which brought thee out of bondage to liberty”; its fourth prohibited taking the name of America in vain; and its fifth was to honor “thy Superior Officers.” Cooperman may go too far when she maintains that this strange piece of overzealous rhetoric actually displaced “God and sacred texts,” in Rabbi Rosenau’s eyes, “as the ultimate source of freedom and righteous behavior,” but it certainly placed patriotism on a dangerously high pedestal. She doesn’t go too far, though, when she observes that the “first commandments surely spoke to concerns about the 18 percent of all American soldiers—and possibly as many as one-third of all Jewish soldiers—born in other countries.”
One man who took this sort of thing very seriously without substituting America for God was a young Reform rabbi named Elkan Voorsanger. The son of a prominent San Francisco rabbi, Voorsanger was serving as an assistant rabbi in St. Louis when the United States entered the war. He immediately gave up his clergy deferment to fight in a war that he didn’t support and went to France as an enlisted man. Voorsanger did so out of solidarity with his peers, and because he had “a country and that country is the United States,” which was engaged, he could at least hope, in a struggle “for democracy and against autocracy” that would end all war. After Congress authorized the appointment of Jewish chaplains, he became the first to receive a commission, but that didn’t take him away from the front lines. The man who became known as the “Fighting Rabbi” was described in an article published after the war as
a figure of powerful physique, forceful personality, military bearing and yet, in his intercourse with the men, one of a dominant spirituality, calling forth an evident response wherever a kindred feeling was innermost hidden—that was the figure, in the sand-colored Ford, which rode up the lines where shells whizzed most often and made its owner known and loved by every doughboy in the vicinity.
Voorsanger won a French Croix de Guerre and a Purple Heart and became the JWB’s poster boy, but he wasn’t by any means typical.
What was the impact of the JWB’s work on more ordinary Jewish soldiers? Cooperman gives us a chapter full of complaints. Orthodox soldiers, their parents, and their rabbis grumbled “that JWB workers lacked the experience to lead even Reform services and had ‘insufficient knowledge of Hebrew to conduct orthodox service.’” Reform Jews, including a young recruit named Jacob Rader Marcus, who ultimately became the leading American Jewish historian of his day, complained that the prayer book patched together by the JWB was incoherent, and that the JWB’s attempt to “legislate Judaism” left everyone dissatisfied. Zionists complained that the assimilationist JWB “cancelled everything that was genuinely Jewish from its program,” and the socialist-leaning Forverts complained that the soldiers had “no Yiddish books to read . . . no Yiddish entertainments, theatrical performances, concerts and the like.” Eastern European Jews, in general, as Cooperman puts it, “feared that the JWB was working against the real interests and needs of Jewish soldiers, which they understood as based on cultural distinctiveness rather than shared American identity.”
Nothing would substantiate their fears as much as the JWB’s position with regard to the “welfare huts,” which were supposed to serve as the headquarters for its workers’ activities, as well as their homes. Partly for the sake of convenience, but more for ideological reasons, the JWB preferred sharing space with the YMCA to having huts of its own. Religious distinctiveness was fine, but “the prospect of separate Jewish soldiers’ welfare huts threatened to cross the line from drawing strength and pride from one’s tradition to outright advocacy of segregation.”The JWB was strenuously opposed to what some of its leaders decried as “Yiddishisation” and a return to the “ghetto.”
However, sharing space with the YMCA had its problems. There were many complaints that “the YMCA used its huts not in the interest of religious pluralism but in order to pursue its evangelical work.” And this may have been the least of it. Here’s the not untypical complaint of a soldier at Camp Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts:
At one of the large YMCA hall[s] there are seated about 100 Jewish soldiers with prayer books in their hands. Along the sides of the room, Gentile soldiers are writing letters, smoking, chewing and conversing among themselves. Behind the Jews there are seated or standing several hundred other Gentile soldiers who are either exchanging stories, smoking or staring in wild-eyed wonder at the strange sight of a Jew leading the prayer as he stands with a shawl thrown over his shoulders. Many snicker and grin, as they hear a Hebrew word, or as they see the Jews rise and sit again and again. In this environment a Jewish soldier is expected to say Kaddish!!! And to crown all of this, a moving picture show is always scheduled to take place in the same hall just as soon as the Jewish services are ended.
Young Jacob Marcus, who knew the overall situation quite well, proclaimed in print, “You must build Jewish shacks because the men in the ranks want them.”
The JWB leadership eventually bowed to this pressure. It sought and received government permission to erect 51 buildings in training camps across the country. Happily, the government agreed to pay for light and heat in these structures, just as it did for the YMCA. To advertise its success to the Jewish public, the JWB produced a poster displaying a “homey JWB building filled with soldiers in uniform,” some listening to a piano played by a young woman and others studying a text. The poster “announced in Yiddish, ‘Mir haben fur ze a heim geboit’ (We have built them a home).” This was clearly a deviation from the board’s previous policy, but it wasn’t really self-ghettoization. It just added a splash of ethnicity to the religious pluralism that the JWB had sought to foster from the beginning. The idea of a “tri-faith” America did not become part of the American civic consensus until after World War II, when it was popularized by the Jewish thinker Will Herberg, but, as Cooperman shows, it began much earlier. The “battle for American religious pluralism was waged by the Jewish Welfare Board during World War I,” she writes, “and against unlikely odds, the JWB won.”
Derek Penslar's new book returns to aim Jewish soldiers of the diaspora to their rightful place in Jewish history.
The facts of Hans Kohn’s life are so extraordinary that it almost seems as if the first half of one remarkable figure’s biography had been spliced together with another’s in the second part.
Our appreciation for stories of Jewish bravery during World War II sometimes obscures the fact that as a group Jews were powerless, reduced to begging others for a chance to bear arms.
Tim Grady makes a careful but controversial case about the way Jews contributed to or supported Germany's worst excesses in World War I.
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The therapy planning is done for you with this game. This resource is easy to prep, provides gross motor breaks, and is a simple, engaging way to get a ton of articulation trials. Hide the 10 spies around the room and have your students find them. Each spy corresponds to one target language concept- a “clue” your student must “decode.” Your student must practice their concept in order to “decode” the clue! They will seriously have a blast with this resource!
○ 10 spies- each in both color and black & white
○ Every target page is in black & white for easy printing
○ Blank target page
○ attributes target page: colors
○ attributes target page: shapes
○ attributes target page: sizes
○ categories target page
○ synonyms target page
○ antonyms target page
○ 2 same/different target pages (level 1 & level 2)
○ associations target page
○ 2 what questions target pages (level 1 & level 2)
○ where questions target page
○ who questions target page
○ why questions target page
○ pronouns target page (easily adapted for any form- page of boys & girls)
○ verbs page target page (use for regular past tense, present, or future)
○ irregular past tense verbs target page
○ regular plurals target page
○ irregular plurals target page
○ Print and cut out the 10 spies (laminating optional).
○ Hide the spies around the room.
○ Bonus: Give each student a flash light and turn out the lights!
○ Print the target page that corresponds to your student’s goals (or pull it up on your iPad).
○ Your students must find each spy. When they find one, they match it to their target page. They must practice their target language concept in order to to “decode their clue.”
○ The game is over when every spy has been found and every clue decoded.
This resource is copyrighted by Lindsey Hockel, MS, CCC-SLP, owner of ©Speechy Things™ . Purchase of this item is intended for use by a single customer and is not to be shared with other professionals. If someone is interested in this resource, please direct them to my store. You are, however, welcome and encouraged to send pages home with students as needed. Thank you for your support and understanding!
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- Measuring the amniotic fluid volume around the baby, also called an 'amniotic fluid index' (or AFI). However, this is regarded as a controversial practice by some caregivers. Fluid measures can vary, depending on the ultrasonographer and the method used to measure. Also, amniotic fluid volume decreases normally from 37 weeks onwards anyway and factors such as the hydration of the woman can also affect amniotic fluid volume. If the mother is dehydrated then the volume can be lower (so drink plenty of water during the 24 hours before the test!)
- A 'biophysical profile' (or BPP). This is a combination of the CTG as well as the ultrasound to measure the amount of amniotic fluid around the baby and assessing the blood flow through the baby's cord and perhaps blood flow between the uterus and placenta (called 'Doppler ultrasound'). All three aspects are considered when assessing the health of the baby.
- Some hospitals look at the baby's breathing pattern and the tone of the baby's posture and movements. However, there is little evidence of the effectiveness of these measures.
- Another technique called 'placental grading', which looks at the texture of the placenta using ultrasound. Early research shows this may be a more accurate tool, but it is not conclusive.
NOTE: All the above tests act as a guide only and do not guarantee the health of your baby. There are some women, who have a good AFI or Biophysical Profile (BPP), and yet their baby is not well, and others who have a low AFI or poor BPP and their baby is actually fine. At present we have no accurate, reliable tests available that are able to definitely tell us how the baby is actually coping in the uterus. You may wish to read overdue baby.
Last revised: Monday, 12 November 2012
This article contains general information only and is not intended to replace advice from a qualified health professional.
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Now it's time to move on to the seven modes of the major scale. Below is a C major scale. All the scale degrees have been numbered.
|C D E F G A B C
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Here are the names that are used for each degree of the major scale.
C = Ionian, D = Dorian, E = Phrygian, F = Lydian, G = Mixolydian, A = Aeolian, B = Locrian, C = Ionian.
The C major scale usually starts and ends on the C note, as shown above. If the C major scale started and ended on the D note, it would be called D dorian.
D dorian: D E F G A B C D
The D dorian is not a D major scale. (The key of D major has two sharps.) It is actually a C major scale, only this time it starts and ends on the scale's second degree.
Now let's say we we started and ended on the E note, it would then be called E phrygian.
E phrygian: E F G A B C D E
E phrygian is not an E major scale. (The key of E has four sharps.) It is a C major scale, starting and ending on the scale's third degree. Each mode starts and ends on the scale degree that corresponds with it's modal name. The C major scale in it's common form, starting and ending on the C note, is also called the C ionian mode.
Now let's see how we can use these things when it comes time to improvise. A major scale can be used to improvise over any of the chords within it's key. If a major scale is played over it's sixth chord, that major scale would then become aeolian. If we played a major scale over it's fifth chord, then all of a sudden were playing in mixolydian, and so on and so forth. The same major scale will produce a different sound over each chord. So what we have within the major scale are seven different sounding scales that we can use for improvising.
Just as an example, a G major scale, F major scale, or a C major scale can be used to improvise over an A minor triad or A power chord. Each one of these scales will sound different over the A minor chord. If the G major scale is used, it would be called A dorian, because A minor is the second chord from the key of G. If the F major scale is used, it would be then called A phrygian, because A minor is the III chord in the key of F major. If the C major scale is used, we would call it A aoelian, because A minor is the sixth chord in the key of C major. Once you get familiar with the sound of each mode, you'll then choose the one that has the sound your looking for. The dorian, phrygian and aeolian are used most often in rock and metal.
All scale examples on this site, are all in the key of A for the sake of simplicity, it's up to you to move them around in different keys. If you look carefully at the fingering patterns for each scale , you will see that a pentatonic scale fits inside each pattern. The major pentatonic fits inside the Ionian (major scale) , and the minor pentatonic fits inside the Aeolian (relative minor scale). Please note that the same five patterns are used for each mode, only the roots have been changed.
Forward To Ionian Mode From Modes
Copyright © 2009 Guitarchops101.com. All Rights Reserved.
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5 Tips about landscape designers in melbourne You Can Use TodayAn RMIT venture that remodeled vacant land into vivid fields of sunflowers has expanded to 16 websites through the Latrobe Valley in Victoria's south-east.
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Quickly forward to past summer season 2012, we witnessed the transformation of our neighbor’s garden. Tropic Greenery was executing a magic spell and we had been truly captivated. That’s after we satisfied you, Joe. We met your son and crew, and even fulfilled your Puppy…all so wonderful!
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I haven’t read the book, so I can’t comment on it in detail, but I can definitely tell I want to read it. The basic premise is that the art can be explained in evolutionary terms as the emergent result of a series of adaptations supported partly by natural selection, and partly by sexual selection.
Since the borders of art are often fuzzy, he begins by establishing a working ‘cluster definition’ consisting of 12 characteristics, where anything that matches all characteristics is definitely art and anything that has none is definitely not.
Works of art:
The rest of the book applies the two elements of Darwin’s theories, natural selection and sexual selection, to art. Natural selection is what we most commonly understand as evolution, and has to do with adaptations that make us more likely to pass on our genes; an art related example is the ability to construct imaginary situations and communicate them that assists in both planning and survival. One example cited is an art experiment in which people from a wide variety of countries were polled as to their tastes in calendar pictures. These were then painted and compared, with interesting similarities – see the book Painting by numbers for an account of this.
Sexual selection, on the other hand, is poorly understood by most people, if known at all. Where natural selection deals with adaptations that help individuals survive within their environment, sexual selection deals with adaptations that help individuals compete with others of their species for mates, even at the cost of reducing their survivability. It explains peacocks tails, the antlers of reindeer and the combative mating rituals that go with them, and behaviours such as infanticide among lions. In the context of art, sexual selection ties directly into, for example, displays of skill and virtuosity.
I’m fairly certain that this will be contentious with some; it builds on evolutionary psychology, itself controversial, and undermines relativist theories of art. As I’ve mentioned above, I’ve not actually read the book, so I can’t argue it in more detail, but I find this sort of explanation a lot more accessible and plausible than relativist theories, though I’m open to these being a contributing factor layered on top. Of course, I’m an engineer, so I guess the relativist argument would be that I have a pro-science bias and relativism still holds.
Stepping back, though, we humans share a whole range of common physical attributes, all explained by evolutionary processes, and it’s absurd to think that these don’t play some role in our appreciation of art. Furthermore, neurological pathologies reveal that slight variations or damage to the physical structure of our brains results in perceptual and behavioural differences far in excess of those that exist between cultures, which suggests to me that evolutionary processes not only play some role, but play a major role in explaining art and its appreciation.
Either way, this book sounds like a fascinating read and a great starting point for discussion.
Why do I blog this?
Recently, I’ve written about music appreciation and explained taste as a set of priorities for the various attributes by which we judge a given performance. Assuming the book’s arguments hold, music, being just another form of art, can be explained in evolutionary terms. Is it reasonable to expect that music appreciation is also explainable through evolutionary principles? To what extent are our tastes defined by our genes, as opposed to our environments or simple variation?
It’s kinda awesome to see and hear people from Canterbury being interviewed like this – it’s nice to be reminded that despite New Zealand being way down at the bottom of the world, we’ve still got some great minds in our universities.
Edit: I was going to point at this article by Dutton “Aesthetics and Evolutionary Psychology” from a few years back that fleshes some of these arguments out a bit..
I’ve been using the chat client Digsby for a while now, and it’s pretty awesome. It’s comparatively new (less than a year), but quite stable, feature complete, and adds a bunch of new features that simplify things substantially.
Given the proliferation of social networks and messaging networks, it’s quite nice to have one tool that bridges them. I don’t have to deal with the fact that not everyone uses the same tools – Digsby gives me a list of everyone, and when I want to talk with them, it just works.
I love tools that hide complexity without being simplistic.
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Books are a powerful way to increase our understanding and generate new perspectives. Good books are immersive and profound: they can change the way we live our lives.
In teaching us new lessons, stripping away fallacies and inspiring independent thought, the following books on lucid dreaming are bestsellers for a reason - they are groundbreaking and thought-provoking reads to expand your awareness and develop your lucid dreaming skills.
This book goes far beyond the confines of pop dream psychology, establishing a scientific framework for lucid dreaming to consciously influence the outcome of your dreams. It is based on Dr Stephen LaBerge's extensive laboratory work at Stanford University mapping mind/body relationships during the dream state.
Extensive in its depth and breadth of reach, it also encompasses the teachings of Tibetan dream yogis and the work of other scientists including German psychologist Paul Tholey. This practical workbook will show you how to use your dreams to solve problems, gain confidence, improve creativity and more.
In this deeply comprehensive and modern guide to lucid dreaming, expert lucid dreamer and oneirologist, Daniel Love, will aid you on your unique journey through the fascinating exploration of your mind. This book brings the subject of conscious dreaming fully up to date, including the latest discoveries, research, techniques and much more. It is the perfect guide to help you unlock the hidden potential of your dreams, catering for both beginners and advanced lucid dreamers alike. This book is a no-nonsense approach to the enthralling phenomenon of lucid dreaming and is simply one of the most thorough, accessible and in-depth contemporary guides available.
This is the account of a talented lucid dreamer who stumbles upon a new dimension of conscious awareness: the ability to interact consciously with the dream observer; the apparent Inner Self. Waggoner discovered that while aware in the dream state, one has both a psychological tool and a platform from which to understand dreaming and the larger picture of man's psyche as well. Armed with this discovery, he proposes five stages of lucid dreaming and guides readers through them, offering advice for those who have never experienced the lucid dream state and suggestions for how experienced lucid dreamers can advance to a new level. This book offers exciting insights and vivid illustrations that will intrigue not only avid dreamworkers but anyone who is interested in consciousness, identity, and the definition of reality.
Some of the greatest of life's adventures can happen while you're sound asleep. That’s the promise of this book - revealing the steps to altering your dream reality any way you like. As you'd expect, Wallace offers a range of techniques anyone can learn to become a lucid dreamer. But he also shows how to take the experience of lucid dreaming beyond entertainment to use it to heighten creativity, to solve problems, and to increase self knowledge. He then goes a step further: moving on to the methods of Tibetan Buddhist dream yoga for using your lucid dreams to attain the profoundest kind of insight.
With its evocative retro illustrations, A Field Guide to Lucid Dreaming is written by three avid, experienced lucid dreamers. It's a manual for the dream world that takes the reader from step one - learning how to reconnect with his or her dreams - through the myriad possibilities of what can happen once you're lucid.
Beginners will learn about the REM sleep stage, how to improve dream recall by keeping a journal and the importance of reality checks. Once you become lucid, you'll be shown exactly how to make the most of it. As the book's authors write: "Every time you dream, you are washing up on the shores of your own inner landscape." This is how you'll explore it.
Experienced by millions as supernatural assault, sleep paralysis often includes realistic and frightening hallucinations projected into the waking world. It's little known cure? Lucid dreaming.
In Sleep Paralysis, these night visitations of ghosts, vampires and even aliens are honored afresh from the perspective of contemporary dream science. Although they can be terrifying, these visions can also be a reliable portal to other extraordinary states, including lucid dreams, out-of-body experiences and guided journeys to realms beyond our imagination. Sleep Paralysis is a rare find that discusses sleep paralysis and its related dream visions from a how-to perspective - a book for those who want to manage their SP or engage more confidently with this ancient lucid dreaming technique.
Dreams of Awakening is a thorough exploration of lucid dreaming theory and practice within both Western and Tibetan Buddhist contexts. It not only explores lucid dreaming practices, but also Mindfulness of Dream and Sleep, the holistic approach to lucidity training which the author co-created. As a result, the book is personal, based on 12 years of real practice and hundreds of lucid dreaming workshops which Morley has taught around the world.
Using a three-part structure of Ground, Path and Germination the reader is given a solid grounding in the history and benefits of lucid dreaming, cutting edge research from dream and sleep scientists, entering the path of learning to do the practices, prophetic dreams, lucid living and out of body experiences. The fundamental aim of the book is to teach people how to lucid dream their way to psychological and spiritual growth.
"If we cannot carry our practice into sleep," Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche writes, "if we lose ourselves every night, what chance do we have to be aware when death comes? Look to your experience in dreams to know how you will fare in death. Look to your experience of sleep to discover whether or not you are truly awake."
This book offers detailed instructions from dream yoga including foundational practices done during the day. Dream practices are followed by sleep yoga, also known as the yoga of clear light. It is considered a more advanced practice to stay aware during deep sleep. Most Westerners do not even entertain this as a possibility...
This breakthrough book covers everything you need to know to experience lucid dreams and OBEs using the LDS (Lucid Dream Supplement) induction technique.
Thomas Yuschak holds Masters Degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Modern Physics and has been studying lucid dreaming for over a decade. Now a leading authority on the supplement approach of inducing lucid dreams, Yuschak delivers the first comprehensive guide that explains how to use natural, non-prescription, and healthy supplements to induce some of the most profound experiences that humans can achieve.
A lot has happened in the last 5 months. But how did we go from business as usual to changing the face of the entire lucid dreaming supplements industry? It’s a story that I think will interest you – and you might even learn a thing or two in the process. When I was first taken on-board as Chief Lucidity Officer in 2016, one of the first things I was tasked with was taking a good look at our operations and giving things a bit of an overhaul.
Lucid dreaming, like any advanced skill, requires a considerable investment of time, energy and dedication in order to master. Yet, as a lucidity researcher, I'm regularly asked by those new to the subject, for an easy and low-effort technique. Something that
To lucid dream, I recommend being able to remember at least one vivid dream per night. That will boost your self awareness in dreams (making lucidity more likely) and also means you can actually remember your lucid dreams. Which is nice. Here are four detailed tips on how to remember your dreams more frequently. And if you don't think you dream at all - trust me, you almost certainly do. It takes an extraordinarily rare sleep disorder to deprive someone of dream sleep.
It is estimated that these wise and wily Indians have been using mugwort in their healing and ritual practices for 13,000 years, where it is known as the ‘dream sage’. They use the herb to promote good dreams, which they consider an essential aspect of normal human functioning! But that’s not all...
Silene Capensis has been used for millennia by the Xhosa shaman of the river valleys in the eastern cape of South Africa, where it is known as Undela Ziimhlophe or 'white paths'. It's fragrant white flowers open only at night, when they emit a fragrant and almost hypnotising aroma. Also known as African Dream Herb or Ubulawu, Silene Capensis induces spectacularly vivid dreams - yet has never entered the mainstream and remains a fringe taste within western culture.
Experts agree that everyone is capable of having lucid dreams. Dreaming itself is a normal function of the mind. We all dream every night, even if we don't remember. And we all achieve conscious awareness while awake every single day. So what does it mean to combine these states? Why, the amazing ability to have conscious - or lucid - dreams. Sounds simple, doesn't it? So why do I keep hearing from people who say they can't achieve their first lucid dream?
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10 Exercise Myths, Busted
Although some old fitness fictions, such as “no pain, no gain” and “spot reducing” are fading fast, plenty of popular exercise misconceptions still exist. Here are some of the most common myths as well as the not-so-common facts based on current exercise research.
1. You Will Burn More Fat If You Exercise Longer at a Lower Intensity.
The most important focus in exercise and fat weight control is not the percentage of exercise energy coming from fat but the total energy cost, or how many calories are burned during the activity. The faster you walk, step or run, for example, the more calories you use per minute. However, high-intensity exercise is difficult to sustain if you are just beginning or returning to exercise, so you may not exercise very long at this level. It is safer, and more practical, to start out at a lower intensity and work your way up gradually.
2. If You’re Not Going to Work Out Hard and Often, Exercise Is a Waste of Time.
This kind of thinking keeps a lot of people from maintaining or even starting an exercise program. Research continues to show that any exercise is better than none. For example, regular walking or gardening for as little as an hour a week has been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease.
3. Yoga Is a Completely Gentle and Safe Exercise.
Yoga is an excellent form of exercise, but some styles are quite rigorous and demanding both physically and mentally. As with any form of exercise, qualified, careful instruction is necessary for a safe, effective workout.
4. If You Exercise Long and Hard Enough, You Will Always Get the Results You Want.
In reality, genetics plays an important role in how people respond to exercise. Studies have shown a wide variation in how different exercisers respond to the same training program. Your development of strength, speed and endurance may be very different from that of other people you know.
5. Exercise Is One Sure Way to Lose All the Weight You Desire.
As with all responses to exercise, weight gain or loss is impacted by many factors, including dietary intake and genetics. All individuals will not lose the same amount of weight on the same exercise program. It is possible to be active and overweight. However, although exercise alone cannot guarantee your ideal weight, regular physical activity is one of the most important factors for successful long-term weight management.
6. If You Want to Lose Weight, Stay Away From Strength Training Because You Will Bulk Up.
Most exercise experts believe that cardiovascular exercise and strength training are both valuable for maintaining a healthy weight. Strength training helps maintain muscle mass and decrease body fat percentage.
7. Water Fitness Programs Are Primarily for Older People or Exercisers With Injuries.
Recent research has shown that water fitness programs can be highly challenging and effective for both improving fitness and losing weight. Even top athletes integrate water fitness workouts into their training programs.
8. The Health and Fitness Benefits of Mind-Body Exercise Like Tai Chi and Yoga Are Questionable.
In fact, research showing the benefits of these exercises continues to grow. Tai chi, for example, has been shown to help treat low-back pain and fibromyalgia. Improved flexibility, balance, coordination, posture, strength and stress management are just some of the potential results of mind-body exercise.
9. Overweight People Are Unlikely to Benefit Much From Exercise.
Studies show that obese people who participate in regular exercise programs have a lower risk of all-cause mortality than sedentary individuals, regardless of weight. Both men and women of all sizes and fitness levels can improve their health with modest increases in activity.
10. Home Workouts Are Fine, But Going to a Gym Is the Best Way to Get Fit.
Research has shown that some people find it easier to stick to a home-based fitness program. In spite of all the hype on trendy exercise programs and facilities, the “best” program for you is the one you will participate in consistently.
Republished courtesy of IDEA Health & Fitness Association
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The poor are not the problem but the solution - Hernando de Soto
The Peruvian economist, Hernando de Soto, is founder and President of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD) headquartered in Lima, Peru. He is considered one of the most important development theoreticians in the world. He has published two books about economic and political development: The Other Path and The Mystery of Capital: Why Capitalism Triumphs in the West and Fails Everywhere Else. His main conclusion is that much of the marginality of the poor in developing and former communist nations comes from their inability to benefit from the positive effects that formal property provides. Without legal titles and the necessary property-related institutions, these poor cannot fully exploit their assets. The challenge these countries face is not whether they should produce or receive more money but whether they can identify which legal institutions are required and summon the political will necessary to build a property system that is easy for the poor to access. Over the last few years, Hernando de Soto has been granted several honours: The Fisher Prize in the United Kingdom, The Adam Smith Award in the United States and The CARE Award for Outstanding Development Thinking in Canada. “De Soto’s ideas about how to empower the world’s poor represent one of the most significant economic insights of our time”, says former President of the United States, Bill Clinton.
Together with the ILD, Hernando de Soto is designing and implementing capital formation programs to empower the poor in Latin America, Asia and the Middle East. Liberales staff member Dirk Verhofstadt had an exclusive interview with Hernando de Soto in his residence in Lima.
The Economist calls the Institute for Liberty and Democracy (ILD) one of the most important think tanks in the world. How did it start?
Hernando de Soto: At the end of the left wing dictatorship in Peru in 1979, we wanted to bring in new ideas. All we had here were traditional leftist messages, some of which I found very interesting. However, it was also very important to realize that we had nothing that related to a market economy and the more liberal view of democracy. So, the beginning was simply bringing in ideas from Friedrich Hayek, Jean-François Revel, Milton Friedman, and original Marxian thinking as well. We wanted to clear the air and explain that there was more substance to the kind of thinking which supports freedom and the efficient economies of the world than they suspected. One of these ideas was the relationship between marginality - where people are forced to live and work outside the system - and the law. At that time, I saw the law as the main factor of exclusion.
Take for example the history of Latin America where liberal ideas have come to government many times, but haven’t succeeded. The main reason for that failure was that they never included the excluded. [This was a harder task than it seemed.] We found that most ideas that related to freedom and productivity were well known by think tanks but had not penetrated to the political decision makers and the average person. So, the focus of the Institute for Liberty and Democracy very much became this extralegal sector - particularly on the areas of property rights and free enterprise because they are the trusses to everything else.
Do politicians understand the importance of property rights?
Hernando de Soto: If you are poor, like the majority of the people in the Third World or the former Soviet Union, you have only two things that allow you to survive - where you are living and whatever you are working with to provide you with an income. Poor people, for instance, put their simple belongings on a piece of unoccupied ground in the countryside or in the so-called pueblos jóvenes, favelas, ranchos, barrios marginales, bidonvilles or shantytowns around big cities in the developing world. If no one disputes his or her claim, a bit of a roof follows. As time goes by, and as the neighbours come to recognize the newcomer’s property, a regular structure will be added. Over time, not only do the neighbours recognize the squatter’s property, but also informal organizations may ‘register’ the ownership — unofficially, of course. The occupants have to dedicate all their time to protecting their possessions against such enemies as poachers, intruders, and, of course, the government.
If you want to understand the importance of property rights, a good place to start is the genesis of property, something that is not controversial for the entire political spectrum. Half of the governments we work for, for instance, are definitely on the left and understand that the poor do not have property and believe that they should. So the law gives a point of penetration were everybody is in an agreement. Property rights are even recognized on a global level in points nine and ten of the Washington-consensus. However, these are the only points that have never been implemented. The objective of these points is to establish free enterprise and property. This big gap needs to be filled in. That is the objective of the ILD.
In your book ‘The Mystery of Capital’, you write that capitalism is like a private club, only open to a privileged few, enraging the billions standing outside looking in. Can you explain this?
Hernando de Soto: Almost 5 billion people out of the 6 billion in the world live in either developing or formerly communist countries, where much of the economy is extralegal. Capitalism doesn’t thrive in these countries because of their inability to produce capital. However, capital is the force that raises the productivity of labour and creates the wealth of nations. It seems that poor countries cannot produce capital for themselves no matter how eagerly their people engage in all the activities that characterize a capitalist economy. In fact, the poor inhabitants of less developed countries do have things, but they lack the process to represent their property in such a way that it can create and transfer capital. They have houses but no titles; crops but no deeds; businesses but no statutes of incorporation. In other words: their property is not registered, not formally legalised. This last fact is crucial, for only through property rights is it possible to obtain credit. Property converted into capital provides the potential to create, to produce, and to grow. Landownership can only be exchanged for a loan if it is registered. The main objective of the ILD is to establish and incorporate the invisible network of laws that turns assets from ‘dead’ into ‘liquid’ capital.
One of the conclusions in your book ‘The Mystery of Capital’ is that poor people are not the problem, but the solution.
Hernando de Soto: They certainly are, and there are very simple reasons for this. First of all, wherever we go, we see that the poor have the majority of a country’s savings, which means that they have done the majority of the work. Look at the situation in Egypt. There, extralegals have accumulated up to $ 248 billion in their enterprises and homes. This is 37 times more than all the loans received from the World Bank. It is 55 times greater than all the direct investments in Egypt and 35 times more than the value of the companies listed in the Cairo Stock Exchange.
In fact, the total value of the assets held but not legally owned by the poor in the Third World and former communist nations is at least $ 9.300 billion. So, the poor are obviously the solution.
The history of many countries shows that very poor people have built today’s wealth. The poor today form a large entrepreneurial force, but it is a force that cannot leverage its assets. And that is the situation in all of the developing countries and in the former communist nations we have been in. There is no lack of entrepreneurship. There is no lack of a will to build assets. There just isn’t the legal system to allow these assets to be leveraged the way you can do so in the West. International financial institutions have traditionally not counted these assets. Poor people have always been seen as recipients of benefits. We are changing this around by saying that whatever you are giving to them is peanuts compared to what they themselves can do. So, the direction should be to enable them, to empower the poor.
So, to solve the real problem we have to make the informal world formal?
Hernando de Soto: Well, that’s it, but it’s not the old formality. You’ve got to think of a new formality. The old one has been offered to the poor, but they have obviously rejected it. There is the law. Don’t forget that informal and customary systems of property rights exist, but mostly outside the legal framework of the country.
I am now a member of a newly created agency for foreign assistance. The Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan and the Administrator of the UNDP, Mark Malloch Brown, have set up a commission targeting private sector development. These kinds of agencies had never focused on the private sector, in spite of the fact that they are a big part of the world economy. So, the agenda seems to be moving in the right direction now.
But isn’t the main problem legislation? Don’t lawyers stick on to the existing laws?
Hernando de Soto: That’s right. The legal and administrative mechanisms for creating live capital either do not exist or are complicated, these take ages to navigate and cost far too much for the ordinary person. Rich people, on the other hand, have easy entry to business; that is, they have easy access to the tools that facilitate their entry, such as lawyers, accountants, and legal advisors who are able to safeguard their interests in the labyrinth of bureaucracy.
If a squatter wanted to acquire a legal title to his or her property, it would take at least 13 years in the Philippines, over 11 years in Haiti, and 6 years or more in Egypt.
Moreover, in business, it takes you 549 days to get a license to operate a bakery in Egypt and that is with a lawyer. Without a lawyer, it takes about 650 days. In Honduras, it costs an individual entrepreneur 3.765 dollar and 270 days to legally declare, register, and start up a business.
To create a mortgage in Mexico it takes 2 years. It takes 17 years to get a title on a house in Egypt; in Peru it used to be 21 years before we corrected that, and in the Philippines it’s 24 years. These are but a few examples of complicated ownership legislation. The procedures for getting official authorization to build are so formidable that people chose to build without authorization. The entire phenomenon forces poor people into illegitimate and informal negotiations. It forces them to create extralegal means to gain access to a home or a business.
So, what the people in these countries need are transparent laws and efficient administration. One of the main reasons that laws are so complicated, and procedures are so costly and inefficient, is that legislators in developing countries only want to adopt western rules. They remain blind to the extralegal reality. In fact, they should leave their studies and offices and investigate the extralegal sector because that is where they would find all the information they need to create a legitimate legal system that everyone would understand and accept. By investigating and penetrating the ‘law of the people’, legislators and regulators can set up a better legal system. Most of the lawyers in developing countries are educated to protect the interests of their wealthier clients and write the law to assist them. However, they have an instinctive tendency to protect the legal status quo instead of to extend it or adapt it to suit the needs of an evolving reality.
You have been working in several developing countries by giving advice to their heads of state. What is your method of working?
Hernando de Soto: To us the most important part of our work is that part that we call the diagnosis. When we are hired by heads of state, we form a team of maybe seven people from our side and a hundred from theirs. Then we draw a line and find out what’s inside the law and what’s outside the law. In the case of Egypt, we found that 92% of all the constructions and the land and 88% of all enterprises are outside the legal system. This means that the large majority of owners are not registered as such and are therefore not visible to councils, town planners, investors, banks, post offices, water companies, electricity providers, and other firms. The results of our diagnosis show politicians that something is very wrong. It even has a Marxists element of class, an element that has always been missing, even in liberalism. Because people do have specific positions. People in the so-called informal economy are the biggest entrepreneurial class in the world. There are more entrepreneurs in any Third World country than there are in the rich countries.
Over the past fifteen years or so, your Institute has worked in Peru, Egypt, El Salvador, the Philippines, Honduras and Haiti. In which country are you working now?
Hernando de Soto: We are currently working with the Mexican government. We have finished the diagnosis. Seventy-eight million Mexicans - this is almost 80 percent of the total population - is either living or working in the extralegal economy. They produce approximately 35% of the GNP. In total there are about 137 million hectares of rural real estate, 11 million houses, and 6 million businesses that are not registered. Those are assets that can only be used as a shelter or as business tools, but not as a means to obtain collateral for a loan, to generate investment or to create additional functions to obtain surplus value. The whole value of this ‘dead capital’ amounts to $ 315 billion. That is equivalent to seven times the value of all known oil reserves in the country and 31 times the value of foreign direct investment. So, we are advising President Fox on the ways to reform all of this in order to integrate the excluded citizens. An efficient means is designing a legal framework to transform property and businesses into liquid assets. And by reducing the costs and increasing the benefits of operating legally, they can increase public tax revenues.
Is there a relation between corruption and the lack of property rights?
Hernando de Soto: Yes, of course. Because a great part of corruption is essentially the purchase of the law; that is, you pay somebody to stop looking your way or to draft the law in a certain direction. When I was working in the Middle East, there was an entrepreneur that I got to known so well that I could ask him about corruption and pay-offs - ‘baksheesh’ is the local word. He explained: “I love baksheesh because it gives me certainty and predictability.” They change the law continually. We have calculated that the government brings out about 30.000 new rules every year. None of these is enacted in a transparent manner, with public participation. The result is that the law is totally unpredictable and only serves the powerful and those who have the means to remain informed. So, from this point of view, ‘baksheesh’ gives a kind of predictability. All the entrepreneur had to do was pay-off five key policemen either near his workplace, or where he made his transactions. And he knew what his outcome would be.
Now, traditionally that is what the law is supposed to do - give you predictability. However, if the law is inadequate, then your way of getting predictability is corruption. Therefore, when you have property rights - understanding ‘property rights’ as your right to do business, hold shares and carry out business transactions - it is clear that people will not look to corruption for security and predictability, wherever you go in the world.
Some people say that culture is separating the Third from the First World. Do you agree?
Hernando de Soto: That is a myth. I really don’t think culture has very much to do with the fact that some people are desperately poor and others are wealthy. It’s an unfair proposition. It predisposes people to do the wrong things. It may even have racist implications. Instead of focusing on culture, let’s take away all of these enormous legal obstacles that poor people have to face. We’re absolutely convinced it does work because people are actively in enterprise all over the world. Countries that are less occidental than Latin American nations were poorer than us barely 50 years ago - like Japan, Taiwan and South Korea - changed their laws and are now in average 10 times wealthier than we are. Most of the people who say that ‘cultural’ handicaps do exist don’t have much solid facts to prove it. Development will not be achieved by throwing money at the problem but rather by radically changing the legal systems. And I don’t think it is primarily an IMF or World Bank responsibility. I think it’s a local responsibility.
Despite privatisations and deregulations, the Russian economy is not doing well. Do you attribute this situation to a property rights problem as well?
Hernando de Soto: There is only one way of knowing that and it is by getting the numbers on the shadow economy, which is precisely what we at the ILD do. It’s like in medicine: the doctor has to see the patient. You can have the best written law in the world, but if it doesn’t work on the ground it is only ink on paper. I wouldn’t be surprised if in Russia the law looks good on paper, but, on the ground, it doesn’t work. This is why a very important ingredient of any reform towards the market is feedback from the people so that you can create law based on general consensuses and on people’s beliefs. There is no way of designing it in the air as bureaucrats of the old class often do. If you want to get law that is enforceable you’ve got to go get to the street!
How is it possible that those liberal ideas were never popular in Latin America?
Hernando de Soto: Since liberation from Spain in the 1820’s, many governments have tried to bring in a liberal revolution in Latin America several times. We have tried to follow the US model or the Western European models. Latin Americans have privatized railways, lowered tariffs to zero, and opened our economies to foreign investment. And we have failed nearly every time. The reforms made sense for a very small group of people at the top, but for the majority, it didn’t fit their interests. The big mistake each time has been that although people were inspired by liberal ideas, in fact, they never had much interest for the poor. I would say that these people who pretended to be liberal, were not liberals but conservatives. By not caring for the poor, they gave the opportunity to the populist and communists to gain much ground.
Can we say that capitalism is in trouble?
Hernando de Soto: Of course capitalism is in trouble, because, as usual, it is only catching among the top 20 or 10 percent of the population in Latin American countries that have got their property rights paperized in a way that they can enter the market. Capitalism is in trouble in the sense that it isn’t working for the majority. I insist that capitalism doesn’t work without universally accessible property rights. Capitalism definitely did not win the battle against communism: what happened is that communism collapsed. The main ideas or concerns held by the early communists and socialists are still around.
Do you agree with libertarians that plead for a minimal state? What is your position with regard to libertarianism and liberalism?
Hernando de Soto: I think that some of the most resourceful sophisticated thinking comes from libertarians. To me, they are the ‘avant garde’ because, among other things, they point out the dangers of concentrated power. They are a continual source of inspiration to me but it is the gap between their proposals to do a way with government and reality. I am not too sure they understand that government is important to enforcing freedom and democracy - maybe this is because they do not know what it is like to live without any government like some of us in the Third World. The rule of law has to be managed and enforced by strong government if it is to prevail.
In my case, I would say that I am a classical liberal, corresponding to the liberal ideas of the 18th and 19th centuries, which were characterized by being radically opposed to the concentration of power and the causes of the poor.
The reason I study the 18th and 19th centuries of Europe and North Ame3rica is not because I like the past, but because they provide me with lead to understand the present with regards to developing countries. There is a sense that individualism becomes clearer with the Renaissance. Before, people could not envisage themselves as being anything other than part of a whole. That phenomenon of individualism is now starting to take shape in Latin America. In Mexico, for example, where we are currently doing our biggest project, one of the areas we have to focus on is the ejido, which is an indigenous collective property system. We found out that the average age of the Mexican farmer is 65, which means that most of the young people have already left to the city and are becoming individuals. In other words, we are at that stage of individualization that you in Europe were at a couple of centuries ago. Europe’s 18th and 19th centuries intellectual debate are very relevant to developing countries and former Soviet Union nations in the 21st century.
Interview by Dirk Verhofstadt
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Vitamin B-12 is a water-soluble vitamin that plays an important role in our bodies. Your body needs vitamin B-12 for many things such as: red blood cell formation, energy production, metabolizing carbohydrates & fats, assisting in proper digestion, and aiding your nervous system.
IV Hydration: Flu Cure
Feeling sick? This treatment will help get you back to normal. Our IV Flu Cure includes: 1 L Normal Saline - Zofran - Toradol - Multvitamin Cocktail
This mixture will aid in the relief of nausea, headaches, and body aches. It will also boost and restore immune system function. Prevent and treat symptoms of the common cold.
IV Hydration: Beautify Me
$200 ($250 at home)
Our Beautify Me IV treatment includes: 1 L Normal Saline - Multivitamin (vitamin A, D, E, K, C, Vitamin B complex, folic acid) - High Dose Vitamin C & Glutathione.
This mixture improves chronic fatigue and cell metabolism, aids in weight loss, promotes collagen and promotes the growth of healthier hair, skin and nails.
IV Hydration: Rehydrate
$80 ($140 at home)
This treatment includes 1L of Normal Saline Benefits Include: This electrolyte solution contains sodium and chloride. It allows for restorative hydration more quickly than consuming food or water.
Vitamin B-12 – Metabolizes carbohydrates and fats. Assists in proper digestion. Provides energy.
B-Complex – Works to maintain muscle tone and healthy function of nerves, skin, eyes, hair, mouth, and liver. Alleviates some symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Vitamin B6 – Helps maintain sodium and potassium balance. Protects the heart from cholesterol deposits and helps prevent kidney stones. Boosts the immune system.
MIC (Methionine Inositol Choline) - Helps release fat deposits and burn calories.
Chromium – Plays a key role in regulating insulin and blood sugar levels, which may help control appetite, reduce sugar cravings, and increase lean muscle mass. Is vital for glucose to be converted to energy rather than being stored as fat.
L-Carnitine Amino Acid – Creates energy and decreases cravings. Can help with weight reduction and fat loss, boosts cellular energy in the brain, and decreases signs of depression.
IV Hydration: Vitamin Mix
$130 ($180 at home)
Just like our Hydration Therapy, this mix quickly rehydrates your body. However, the added multivitamin cocktail gives your body an extra boost of energy as it replaces essential vitamins.
Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Vitamin D, Vitamin B, Vitamin E, Vitamin K, Folic Acid, Biotin, and Vitamin B-12.
Improve the appearance of dark circles to give you a brighter and well rested look. Recommended 2-4 sessions.
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$750 for 1 hour
CIT is an innovative collagen boosting treatment for fine lines, acne scars, skin texture, and tone with continued improvement over several months. This treatment stimulates collagen and elastin cells to multiply- giving skin a young, plump, even look that lasts! PRP uses your body’s own growth factors from your plasma to activate collagen stimulation, creating highly effective and visible results with continued improvement.
It is a minimally invasive procedure performed by a healthcare provider to treat uncomplicated spider veins and uncomplicated reticular veins. It involves an injection of a solution (sclerosis agent) into the affected veins. It has been used since 1939. A typical sclerotherapy session lasts 15 to 45 minutes. More than one treatment may be necessary to clinically treat superficial veins 3mm or less in diameter. 2-3 treatments separated 4-6 weeks are usually needed for desired results. Consult + Treatment + Compressions.
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Through the Pages
The Rape of the Fair Country
By Alexander Cordell
Set in the mid-19th century, this classic Welsh tale explores the hardscrabble life of iron miners and the beginning of their seemingly impossible quest for improved conditions.
Often difficult to read, the story chronicles the Mortymer family, whose children began working in the mines at the age of 7.
Designated a "Big Read" selection in Wales, the reader will look through a window into the culture of the class-divided country where a a very few held most of the money in the land, while the workers died young in the mines.
This book and many others are available in both Spanish and English as well as book and audio form at the De Soto branch of the Johnson County Library. The book is also available on audio tape.
For more information, call the library at 583-3106.
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From Uncyclopedia, the content-free encyclopedia
- For Giraffe Cancer's main rival, see Swine Flu.
Giraffe Cancer is believed to be a mutated strain of the Dead Parrot Syndrome, which has infected Northern Europe during the early and mid 20th Century. The strain has mutated into a much more lethal form, being able to kill a full grown human being in a minimum of 20 hours.
The first case of Giraffe Cancer was reported in Hong Kong, China, when a woman of the age 44 caught a mysterious virus and died a day after being hospitalized. The cause of death was massive expansion of the lungs, kidneys, cranium, and the left breast.
A similar death occured a few days later in Vancover, Canada, when a patient's head asploded in a city hospital. The relation between this death and the case in Hong Kong was disputed as the patient was listening to teenage band Jonas Brothers on his iPod at the time of death (music by the Jonas Brothers is outlawed by the Geneva convention due to it is classification as a weapon of mass destruction.). However, closer examination revealed that the virus that killed this patient was the exact same strain as the Hong Kong case.
Relation to Giraffes
Despite it's name, the virus had no relation to Giraffes at all. The connection between the virus and Giraffes is a result of a mistranslation between Chinese text to English, and English to Swahili. However, this misconception has lead to the slaughter of 500 giraffes by the Egyptian Government in order to quell the disease.
Notable symptoms include (but not limited to):
- Uncontrollable muscles
- Detaching limbs
- Loss of the sense of sight
- Loss of the sense of taste
- Loss of the sense of Humor
- Inability to write articles on Uncyclopedia
- Addiction to liquids with large amounts of Sugar
- Urge to watch Fox News
- Fatal reaction with music by any artist associated with Disney (though this is considered normal for any healthy human male over the age of 16)
Giraffe Cancer soon spread to multiple countries around the world. The number of cases of Giraffe Cancer total up to 15,000, 400 of them fatalities and 300 of them caught the disease during an historical reenactment of an ancient military engagement in Sparta. The World Health Organization has labeled Giraffe Cancer as a threat to humanity and called for all forms of precautions to be used against the disease. However, in contrast with public opinion to the disease, TIME put the disease in front of its cover as the most influential individual of 2009.
Rivalry with Swine Flu
Critics noted the intense rivalry between Giraffe Cancer and Swine Flu. In one notable incident in Beijing, China, a man got infected with both Giraffe Cancer and Swine Flu at the same time. Due to the fact that the man could only take one sort of flu, the two diseases engaged in a boxing match in Tiananmen Square, where in the process 50 bystanders went ill due to both diseases.
While there is currently no proper cure to the disease, the disease can be prevented by taking up the following measures:
- Wash Hands
- Avoid eating food with names that include the letter 'O'
- Convert to Scientology
- Donate 20% of your savings to the Republican Party
- Run at least a mile each day as a way of training yourself to run away from Giraffe Cancer
- Wash your body with Paint Thinner or Red Bull. (These liquids have been proven to make the person immune to Giraffe Cancer(
- Get other forms of cancer so Giraffe Cancer can't get to you
- Fall in love with one of the same gender
- Move to Canada (if you ARE living in Canada, move to Scotland)
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Underlying the thoughts that we audibly hear in our thinking mind, exist layers of unconscious beliefs that have been so deeply programmed within us that we don’t even experience them as thoughts, but rather, as automatic and immediate reactions. A belief, however, is simply a thought that you have thought enough times that it has now become automatic.
You can dissolve any limiting core belief by first seeing it, and then choosing to override it with a new belief, or simply by resting in the stillness of the present moment. Whenever you catch yourself in a state of negativity or ego reaction, take the opportunity to investigate your thought process to uncover the deeper unconscious belief that may be fueling your automatic reactions. Some common underlying core beliefs that may be shaping your moment-to-moment reactions are:
1. I am not good enough
2. I must prove myself worthy to receive love
3. I am not capable or competent enough
4. I do not have control over my reactions or thoughts 5. I must struggle in order to survive
6. The world is a dangerous place
7. Material possession, status and money equal happiness 8. I must fulfill other people’s expectations
9. I must be perfect
10. Other people’s perceptions of me define who I am 11. I must be logical and practical at all times
12. My feelings don’t matter
13. I am responsible for other people’s feelings
14. There is no order in the universe; life events are random 15. I must be in control of all aspects of my life
16. I don’t deserve to feel good
17. I don’t deserve to have abundance in my life
18. I am unable to change the circumstances of my life
19. I am powerless
Underneath most negative or limiting thoughts you will likely see one or more of these core beliefs. There are often multiple core beliefs operating simultaneously at the unconscious level within a person, which influence surface layer thoughts, and often create negativity and emotional turmoil. By identifying the core belief underlying the thought, you allow it to be witnessed and released from your subconscious mind, dissolving it’s hold over you. Here are a few examples of common negative thought patterns, with the accompanying core belief.
Thought: “I can’t change professions because my friends and family won’t approve if I quite my job.”
Core Beliefs: I must fulfill other people’s expectations. I must be logical and practical at all times. Other people’s perceptions of me define who I am.
Thought: “I don’t know what I would do if my partner left me, I don’t think I could handle it.”
Core Beliefs: I do not have control over my reactions and thoughts. I am not capable or competent enough. I am powerless.
Thought: “My friends and family will think I’m strange if I start eating healthy and begin practicing meditation and yoga.”
Core Beliefs: Other people’s perceptions of me define who I am. I must prove myself worthy of other people’s validation and love. My feelings don’t matter.
Thought: “I can’t mess up this project at work—it has to be perfect.” Core Beliefs: I must be perfect. I must be in control of all aspects of my life. I must struggle in order to survive.
Thought: “Look at that person with so much wealth, I will never have what they have.”
Core Beliefs: I am unable to change the circumstances of my life. I don’t deserve to have abundance in my life. Material possession, status, and money equal happiness.
Thought: “I better say something nice to this person. I don’t want to hurt their feelings, or to appear rude.”
Core Beliefs: I am responsible for other people’s feelings. I must fulfill other people’s expectations.
Thought: “What if the plane goes down during the flight—who will take care of my family?”
Core Beliefs: There is no order in the Universe; life events are random. I must be in control of all aspects of my life.
Whenever you have a limiting or negative thought, take the time to pinpoint the underlying core belief. Once you do, you can either simply drop the thought and remain in peaceful stillness, or you can consciously override the old belief with a new, more empowering belief. In the moment that you uncover the limiting belief, either say the new belief out loud, in your head, or write it down. This is a wonderfully empowering practice that will help you to recreate your reality from a place of conscious awareness. The following positive core beliefs would be suitable substitutes for the previous list of limiting beliefs:
1. I am good enough
2. I am worthy of love and attention
3. I am capable and competent
4. I have control over my reactions and thoughts
5. I am meant to thrive in life
6. I am safe and protected
7. Happiness is always available as a choice I make in this moment 8. I am free to create my life however I choose
9. I am perfect and pure just as I am
10. I am free to recreate myself in every moment
11. I am free to have any experience I choose
12. How I feel matters
13. I take full responsibility for my feelings
14. There is order in the Universe; everything happens for a reason 15. I only ever have control over myself
16. I deserve to feel good
17. I have abundance in my life
18. I create the circumstances of my life
19. I am powerful
Working with the mind, emotions and body in this way is a powerfully transformative practice that can change your life over time. I offer holistic counseling in the style of Eckhart Tolle to those seeking spiritual growth and healing. I offer personal sessions on a sliding scale to make this emotional healing work affordable for everyone. Bless you and have a wonderful day.
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Sean Silverthorne: What was the inspiration for this case and how did it come together?
Anita Elberse: I am particularly fascinated by companies and people in entertainment, media, and sports that have very strong track records over a long period of time. Sir Alex Ferguson is a manager who has been extraordinarily successful in a career that spans decades—he has been at his current club, Manchester United, for over a quarter of a century. Under his leadership, United has become one of the world’s most successful franchises in all of sports. So when I learned through an industry contact that there might be an opportunity to write a case on Sir Alex, I jumped at the chance. I figured I would undoubtedly learn a great deal about what it takes to lead and manage a sports team, and that indeed proved to be the case.
What are the reasons for his success?
Q: A big part of Ferguson’s story is his amazingly high and consistent performance over time-26 years. What are some of the key characteristics he demonstrates that account for these strings of successes?
A: I think his willingness to develop young talent lies at the heart of his long-run success. Sir Alex speaks of the difference between “building a team and building a club.” When he started at United, he immediately set about revolutionizing the club’s youth program. He also made it more visible in the organization: for instance, ensuring that academy players warmed up alongside senior players every day in order to foster a ‘one club’ attitude. And even early on, despite calls from many observers to play it safer (“You can’t win anything with kids” is what a respected television commentator famously said at the time), he gave youth players a chance to win a place in the first team. Many of the players he developed—Ryan Giggs, David Beckham, Gary Neville, Paul Scholes—became true standouts in their generation, providing the club with a strong base on which to build.
Managing this process well over a long period unavoidably involves cutting older players who may no longer be right for the team, which can be taxing emotionally. “The hardest thing to do is to let go of a player who has been a great guy,” Ferguson told me.
Many other factors contribute to his successes, too. One factor I am particularly impressed by is his ability to adapt to changing times. You have to realize that the world of soccer nowadays looks nothing like the one he started in as a coach at United 26 years ago. Sir Alex has embraced new technologies and new approaches, hiring sports scientists on his staff, and adopting new ways of measuring and improving the performances of players. That sounds straightforward, but if you have been as successful as he has, I can imagine it is very easy to get stuck in your ways.
Sir Ferguson even took classes at HBS..Superb read..
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Some recent evolutionary papers appear to make physical laws not just constraints on natural selection, but guiding hands that build optimal designs.
Hydrodynamics and the perfect transporter: In cell membranes, aquaporins are hourglass-shaped channels that allow water molecules through but block other molecules. Their “remarkable selectivity,” coupled with “optimal permeability,” is admired by biophysicists – so much so that authors of a paper in PNAS about aquaporins [AQPs] remarked, “in a biomimetic perspective, these results provide guidelines to design artificial nanopores with optimal performances.” How, then, did evolution stumble upon such design perfection? “This suggests that the hourglass shape of aquaporins could be the result of a natural selection process toward optimal hydrodynamic transport.” This statement could mean that natural selection found the optimal shape through blind search, but more implicitly that the laws of hydrodynamics lured natural selection toward “excellent water selectivity.” Most of the paper focused on why the geometrical shape is so effective:
The aim of this work was to determine the effect of geometry and BCs [boundary conditions] on hydrodynamic entrance effects in biconical nanochannels. Using FE [finite-element] calculations, we have shown that compared with a plain cylindrical pipe, a biconical channel of optimal angle can provide a spectacular increase in hydrodynamic permeability. A simplified model based on entrance effects and lubrication approximation rationalizes the observed behavior. Although speculative, this could indicate that the hourglass geometry of AQPs results from a shape optimization, to reduce end effects and maximize water permeability.
They said very little about evolution. What they did say amounts to an airy speculation that, somehow, physics drives evolutionary progress:
Among transmembrane proteins, and ionic channels in particular, examples abound where the particular function––ion selectivity, for instance––is tied to a specific feature of the molecular architecture. However, it remains worth wondering, as we have done here, whether generic factors such as viscous dissipation could be the driving force behind the shapes fine-tuned by evolution.
Fluid dynamics and the perfect lung: More blatant in the assertion that physics drives evolution is a headline on PhysOrg, “How fluid dynamics and transport shaped the structure of our lungs in the course of evolution.” The speculations of two French physicists goes beyond claiming that physics merely constrains evolution, though it overlaps with that notion. It elevates physics to an essential player in the process of design optimization, a voice telling the evolutionary tinkerer, ‘you’re getting warmer’—
In an evolutionary perspective, the size of primitive multi-cellular species was necessarily limited by nutrients’ diffusion speed. One hypothesis defended in this study is that larger primitive animals have thus been conditioned by a progressive Darwinian selection of tree-like ‘space-filling’ nutrient distribution systems. Then, their genetic material was ready to be shared to allow mammalian respiration. Successive inspirations and expirations cycles had to be optimised so that external air could reach the alveoli before expiration starts. This form of evolutionary tinkering, the authors believe, would have allowed the emergence of mammalian respiration—as opposed to fish-style breathing through gills.
With physics in the driver’s seat, it’s no wonder that “the structure of the alveolar system is indeed optimal to allow efficient transport of oxygen from the air to the blood,” the article ends. “This new insight into the lung’s evolutionary process stems from the physical principles underlying the architecture of living systems.”
Evolution is a mystical form of polytheism for modern intellectuals. Any questions? You thought evolution was impersonal and unguided. That would never work. Cryptic spirits animate all of nature.
They even have names. The blind goddess Tinker Bell is helped by Engineer Bill, calling out “You’re getting warmer!” as the unholy spirit of Charlie, the Bearded Buddha, smiles down from above, “allowing” endless forms most beautiful to “emerge.” Since these deities are invisible, one needs the shamans to interpret the game, continually offering “new insight” to the peasants, ever stringing them along to keep the funds flowing. The Great Myth must remain a perennial work in progress, lest the shamans run out of business in their temples, the universities. They shudder at the prospect of begging on street corners with signs, “Will tell stories for food.”
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A Brazilian Squirrel Monkey
- Description: A Brazilian Squirrel Monkey in the canopy of a large tree.
- Keywords: monkey, tree, squirrel monkey, canopy
- TIFF File: A high resolution TIFF of A Brazilian Squirrel Monkey (36 Mb) is available for download. This is a very large file suitable for printing. For most on-screen purposes, you should use the image displayed on this page instead of this TIFF.
- Source: Florida Center for Instructional Technology, Exploring Florida: Social Studies Resources
for Students and Teachers (Tampa, FL: University of South Florida, 2009)
- County: Broward County
- Date of Photo: 5/25/2008
- Photographer: Roy Winkelman
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Click on the link to access the Children and Family Relationships Act, 2015.
Part 2 deals with parentage in cases of donor assisted human reproduction
Part 3 deals with donor assisted human reproduction
Part 4 deals with amendments to Guardianship of Infants act, 1964
Part 5 amends the Succession Act, 1965
Part 6 amends the Family Law (Maintenance of Spouses and Children) Act, 1976
Part 7 amends the Status of Children Act, 1987
Part 8 amends the Family Law Act, 1995
Part 9 amends the Civil Registration Act, 2004
Part 10 amends the Passports Act, 2008
Part 11 amends the Adoption Act, 2010
Part 12 amends the Civil Partnership and Certain Rights and Obligations of Cohabitants Act, 2010
Part 13 amends some other miscellaneous acts.
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This article is the second of a two-part series in which Professor Gebbia-Pinetti considers how the complexities of state sovereign immunity apply to bankruptcy actions. The first article laid the foundation by analyzing the source, scope, and nature of states' immunity from suits filed in federal, court to enforce state and federal law (Journal of Bankruptcy Law and Practice, September/October 1998). The present article considers the extent to which the bankruptcy estate may enforce Bankruptcy Code actions against the states, notwithstanding state sovereign immunity.
Gebbia, Karen, "State Sovereign Immunity and the Bankruptcy Code (Part Two)" (1998). Publications. Paper 99.
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Structured data is a way to communicate more information about your content to any machine or program capable of understanding the structure. It’s a way to give more semantic meaning to your content and data.
Html has a limited set of elements that we can use to give meaning to our content. Marking up some words as a list communicates something different than marking up those same words as a paragraph or blockquote.
Html5 adds more semantic elements, but we’re still looking at about 100 or so elements Microdata is one way to add to the vocabulary of html.
Why Structured Data is Important
As I said in the first sentence of this post, structured data allows you to communicate more about your content.
It’s a way to tell anyone listening that one piece of content is your business address and another piece of content is your name or that certain content is an event while something else is a product review.
A person reading the content can tell the difference by reading the content. Machines can’t. They need more. Structured data makes your content more parsable so programs can more easily find and extract information.
For example it allows a search engine to pull out your special offer and present it to searchers looking for a sale. It can help search engines better understand your content and help them place rich snippets under your page’s link in the results
Microdata is not the only type of structured data available to us. You’re likely familiar with some other types.
Microdata is part of the html5 spec though, and it currently has the backing of Google, Bing, and Yahoo and so has a good chance of becoming a standard we all support.
How to Add Microdata to Your Code
A fourth attribute itemid may also be used in some cases.
Itemscope and Itemprop
At the highest level microdata consists of groups of name/value pairs. Groups are called items and each name/value pair is a property and corresponding value. These name/value pairs create a vocabulary for a type of data.
This is easiest to see with some examples.
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<div itemscope> <p>My name is <span itemprop="name">Steve</span></p> </div>
We create a new item by adding the itemscope attribute to an element. Our name/value pair will be included on a descendent of the itemscope element.
We wrap our value (in this case my name) with some html that includes the itemprop attribute. The value of itemprop is the name in our name/value pair.
Here name is the property name and Steve is the property value.
Items can be nested.
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<div itemscope> <p>My name is <span itemprop="name">Steve</span></p> <p>I have a brother named <span itemprop="brother" itemscope> <span itemprop="name">David</span> </span>.</p> </div>
And a single item can also have multiple properties with the same name and different values
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<div itemscope> <p>My favorite colors are</p> <ul> <li itemprop="color">green</li> <li itemprop="color">maroon</li> <li itemprop="color">brown</li> </ul> </div>
Itemtypes Define the Vocabulary
Microdata, as you would expect, is much more useful when we agree about the meaning of different name/value pairs. We need standard ways to markup our data so everyone understands what it’s communicating.
To do this we give items a type through the itemtype attribute. The value of itemtype will be a url where the vocabulary (the itemprop names) for an item are defined.
The content at the above urls would ideally define the properties for a person and movie respectively.
An item can only have one itemtype and the itemtype attribute gets added to the same element as the itemscope attribute.
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<div itemscope itemtype="http://www.example.com/person"> <p>My name is <span itemprop="name">Steve</span></p> </div>
Certain items might have a global identifier. Think about a book with an isbn number. Different books can have the same title or the same author, but each has a single unique isbn number to identify it. No two books will have the same isbn number.
Microdata reflects this with the itemid attribute as seen below in an example from the W3C.
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<dl itemscope itemtype="http://vocab.example.net/book" itemid="urn:isbn:0-330-34032-8"> <dt>Title <dd itemprop="title">The Reality Dysfunction <dt>Author <dd itemprop="author">Peter F. Hamilton <dt>Publication date <dd><time itemprop="pubdate" datetime="1996-01-26">26 January 1996</time> </dl>
An itemid can only be used if an itemtype is specified.
When you consider that an important part of seo is helping search engines better understand your content, it makes a lot of sense to take microdata and schema.org seriously.
Google is still supporting both microformats and RDFa, but they do note that microdata has a larger vocabulary. The schema.org FAQ offers this as well:
If you have already done markup and it is already being used by Google, Microsoft, or Yahoo!, the markup format will continue to be supported. Changing to the new markup format could be helpful over time because you will be switching to a standard that is accepted across all three companies, but you don’t have to do it.
In other words you don’t need to change anything if you’re already using another format of structured data, but know that microdata will likely have wider support
Schema.org lists itemptypes (schemas) for a large variety of things.
- Creative works (book, movie, recipe, article, blog, music recording)
- Event (business event, sale event, social event)
- Organization (corporation, localbusiness)
The above is not a complete list. There are many more schemas, but hopefully you can see how many in the list above would be useful.
Odds are your next site will contain content that could easily be marked up with the properties of one or more schema.
You might have recently seen some articles about rel=”author” which is Google’s way of displaying author information in search results and to help authors get credit for their work.
This isn’t quite microdata, however schema.org does provide for authorship in a variety of the defined itemtypes and Google will interpret the microformat author information similarly to the rel=”author” author.
Here are a few other articles with more information about marking up your content with rel=”author”
- Implementing Google Authorship Markup On Your Website
- Author Markup, Schema.org and Patents, Oh My!
- rel=”author” and rel=”me” in WordPress
Hopefully this introduction to microdata has helped you see how valuable it can be. Anything that allows us to communicate more and in more ways is something all web designers and developers should pay attention to.
While we already have some other ways to structure data and communicate meta information, microdata looks like it will be particularly important at least where search engines are concerned.
Adding microdata to your html isn’t hard to understand or do. Perhaps the most difficult part will be remembering what you can markup and what name/value pairs are part of any given itemtype vocabulary.
Fortunately schema.org will be there as a resource.
Have you started using microdata at all? Do you prefer another method of structuring data like microformats or RDFa?
Download a free sample from my book, Design Fundamentals.
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Chris Gilbert Interviews Joe Scanlan
Chris Gilbert was Matrix Curator at the Berkeley Museum of Art and Pacific Film Archive from 2005–2007, before he resigned in protest over a disagreement with the Museum’s board over the political framing of an exhibition he had curated: Now-Time Venezuela: Media Along the Path of the Bolivarian Process. Prior to Berkeley he was curator of contemporary art at the Baltimore Museum of Art from 2003 to 2005. He was associate curator at the Des Moines Center when this interview was conducted as part of By Design, an exhibition that took place there in Fall of 2001.
CHRIS GILBERT: I quite liked a short statement you wrote in frieze that was illustrated with an AK-47 assault rifle. It began, “Many artists today are keen on blurring the distinction between art and design, and rightfully so, since once you admit that anything is grist for the art mill, the next logical step is to design your own products as works of art.” What do you see as the historical background for this condition—everything becoming “grist for the art mill”?
JOE SCANLAN: It begins with two gestures: Picasso’s Still Life with Chair Caning (1911–12) and Duchamp’s Fountain (1917). The gesture of collage and the strategy of the ready-made declared that the “art mill” was open for business. Everything that has followed (Kurt Schwitters, Robert Rauschenberg, Joseph Beuys, Jeff Koons) has expanded the encyclopedia of things the art mill can digest, to the point that artists are just as fascinated with the ability of the art mill itself—the series of refining chambers that begins with the artist’s studio and runs through the gallery, the collector, the art magazine, and the museum—as they are with whatever materials they’re putting in it.
Personally, I prefer to focus on the fact that there’s another mill responsible for making things like inflatable rabbits and urinals available as raw material in the first place. That mill begins on the drafting table of some usually anonymous product designer and runs through the whole process of prototyping, fabrication, distribution and display before even having a chance of entering the public imagination. In the past decade, artists and consumers alike have become more and more interested in this other, shall we say, “ur-mill,” which begins with designers. And the more aware we become of this “ur-mill” the more appreciative we become of its own artistic greatness—from the Bauhaus and Herman Miller to Kartell and IKEA. Once you realize that there is more innovation, hubris, fantasy, and risk involved in product design than there is in contemporary art, once you realize that this is where the real cultural action is, it’s easy to start thinking that designing a great product is the best way to arrive at a work of art. Instead of making Brillo boxes you invent the Brillo pad, and things unfold from there.
CG: Let’s talk about the conceptual makeup of a product. Is something lost from the art object in order to make it more like a product, or is something added that makes it so? Perhaps the added element is the potential of a mass audience or new production methods?
JS: What is lost is the emotional guarantee that what you are making has value. A failed work of art is still a work of art. But a failed product is much more derelict, since all products contain the potential—I would say fantasy—of mass appeal. Because of this fantasy, the product not only needs an audience in order to be fulfilled, but it also has a much more precipitous fall from grace if it fails to be persuasive. Failed art is rarely part of the public imagination, but the Edsel and New Coke were great topics of derision. Compared to the public risks involved in designing products, making art is a rather safe enterprise. There’s very little at stake if you fail, and there’s not much to be gained or impressed with if you succeed.
CG: Is art, especially pop art or art that emulates modern design, just “ambulance chasing” after consumer culture?
JS: Art has been chasing ambulances ever since the Vatican hired Bernini to woo back the Protestants.
CG: Let me put it another way. In an interview you did with Amada Cruz in 1998, you drew a distinction between “talking” and “walking,” saying that ten to fifteen years ago, art tended to talk about mass culture but couldn’t actually keep pace with it. Do you think the presence of technology in the home and studio (for example, video editing software and CAD programs) might have contributed to this change, to art’s increased ability to walk with mass culture?
JS: Definitely. The U.S. government reports that one out of every five working adults today is self-employed, and some economists put the number as high as one in three. Either way, this entrepreneurial boom is partly due to the constant merging and downsizing that goes on in corporations, but it is also partly due to the fact that the technology accessible today makes it much more feasible for a person’s livelihood to be self-generated. In New York at the moment there’s an ad for a LaserJet printer whose tag line is: “Don’t let them know how small you are.” The gist is that if you buy this printer your professional image will be indistinguishable from Boeing’s or General Motors’. It’s not true, of course, but the mere acknowledgment of a desire to be indistinguishable from major corporations says a lot about the status of the individual.
For people whose primary product is digital output—graphic design, video, film, photography, drafting, publishing, music—it’s a great day. You really can make products that are technically indistinguishable from Fortune 500 products. The harder pull, the area where I think most artists are still not capable of “walking the walk,” is furniture design. Computers have greatly enhanced our ability to draw a chair, but the cost of fabricating it digitally on a scale that makes it feasible and competitive is still beyond the means of most individuals.
CG: You’ve written about democratic objects having a certain invisibility—how an object can serve its function so perfectly that you no longer see it—like the Bell 500 Series Telephones by Henry Dreyfuss. But can visibility also be part of a democratic object? If good and enfranchising design is invisible, can good and enfranchising art be about visibility or accessible beauty? I recall Michael Baxandall writing that early Italian Renaissance painting appealed to the same abilities that people at that time used in their everyday life, like judging a horse for its beauty and strength. It seems that for us a comparable ability might be looking at automobiles and looking at ranges and dishwashers and Walkmans and TVs. Might this training result in an art that relies more on “look,” or visual immediacy, rather than on theory or history?
JS: I don’t think it’s possible for an object to have immediacy without relying on theory and history. In order for something having a “look” it must reference something we’re already familiar with, be it a 1950s Formica pattern or a 1970s lapel width. Without a history of forms and our memory of them, nothing could have a look, because we wouldn’t be able to recall what the thing with the look “looked like.” As soon as we concede that the familiarity of a certain style is rooted in representation and memory, we are speaking from the standpoint of theory. For example, I can accurately say that Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon had a “look” and was visually immediate, connoting the eighteenth century, even though I was neither alive at that time nor did I see the film in its initial release. How can that be? Where did I get the information that makes Barry Lyndon seem familiar to me, and how do I trust that information? Those are theoretical questions based on historical experiences that inform my recognition of a style, no matter how immediate it may be.
CG: It seems that it is one thing for an object to be visual—to have references drawn from culture and history that determine its look—and a different matter for it to be visible and enfranchising, which is to say, seen by a large number of people.
JS: Yes, the two are distinct. I do think art can be enfranchising and thereby achieve a kind of democratic visibility. But in our time this has usually had to do with sensationalism or infamy, as with Andres Serrano’s Piss Christ (1987) or Carl Andre’s Equivalent VIII (1966) at the Tate Gallery. If we said those examples followed Michael Baxandall’s model, then we would have to say those artists are appealing to the people’s everyday appetite for scandal and contempt. A more humanist example would be Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Despite the turbulence around her proposal’s ultimate approval, no one can argue with how profoundly that sculpture reflected our capacity to appreciate an unconventional form and also deem it appropriate. Ironically, the sculpture’s most distinct trait is its invisibility.
I think there is a strange shift that happens with the democratization of culture that is related both to economics and to human nature, because an artwork’s broad visibility is first accomplished through word of mouth. Word of mouth is a kind of testimonial that, depending on how much we trust our source, tells us that a certain artwork or image or product actually lives up to its billing. Having a relatively narrow distribution network, an artwork can achieve a broad visibility only after it’s achieved a broad audibility. We hear about it or read about it first, and then want to see it.
CG: That sounds like a testimonial for criticism as a means to appreciate visual art. What about theory? Does it factor into the interest in merging art and design?
JS: It does, but in a backward sort of way. In the early 1990s there was a common refrain that the public “didn’t get” contemporary art, the presumption being that they lacked the sensitivity to discern it, the knowledge to understand it, or the attention span to be challenged by it. I think the truth is to the contrary: I think the general public has “gotten it” all too well. Having been presented with such concepts as the end of originality, the pernicious relationships between art and language and commerce and desire, the occasional need for art to be less precious and more diverse—many fans of art left the galleries and museums to conduct their own cultural anthropology. For five decades art had been saying that the viewer completes the work, and whaddaya know? They went off and did.
I think that relates to what we were saying before, about our increasing aesthetic appreciation of the “ur-mill” of popular culture and what technology has made possible. We don’t need art to transform the world into art for us, we can discern our own worlds and appreciate them as art. In a way, that’s what design artists are doing: they’re processing history, thinking about the Bauhaus and Dada and Robert Ryman and Sherrie Levine, thinking about function and material and surface and content. But instead of those thoughts being manifested in conventional art forms, they’re being manifested as applied design.
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Better Together provides a space to share experiences with – and strategies for engaging – three critical global issues that PC(USA) global partners are challenging us to address together as the body of Christ. These three issues are 1) addressing root causes of poverty, especially as it impacts women and children; 2) sharing the Good News of God’s love in Jesus Christ; and 3) working for reconciliation in cultures of violence, including our own. The purpose of Better Together is to feed a conversation to shape concrete action strategies at the October 2012 “Dallas II: Better Together” consultation and beyond.
Kristi Rice exhorts us to think about how we can support the training of pastoral ministers worldwide.
Theo senses a call into pastoral ministry after experiencing a dramatic healing along with love from Christians during a severe illness. He lives in a rural community and his family is poor, but mentors encourage him to go to the pastoral institute in Muena Ditu, about 100km away. Since it is a 3-year program, he and his wife move together with their two young children.
Theo is one of 15 students at the Pastoral Institute in Muena Ditu of the Congolese Presbyterian Church (CPC). He struggles along with the rest of the students to feed and support his family in the big city, so far from their fields in the village. There are no books to study from and no library – only notes copied from the professors’ lectures and the few books that professors are able to lend.
The Institute fees are only about $5 per month, but Theo’s home presbytery is poor and not able to send support. He struggles with discouragement when one of his children gets sick and he is not able to get medicine. He wonders how he will send his children to school. He sees other rural pastors who have to take second or third jobs to support their families on the meager salary that the church is able to provide. Is this really God’s call on his life?
As the number of missionaries in Congo has decreased, the Congolese Presbyterian Church (CPC) has taken on the responsibility of providing professors, oversight, and material support for these rural pastoral institutes. However, the environment of severe poverty and frequent insecurity means that buildings are not maintained, new books are not acquired, and often professors are not paid. We celebrate the perseverance and vision of our Congolese colleagues who have kept these schools running through periods of war and very meager support.
Congo is an environment where people are hungry for the truth of God and long to see God at work in their lives. One of the primary challenges for the church is the proliferation of sects with a ‘deified’ prophet figure that rivals Christ as savior (e.g. Kimbanguists, Brahnam, church of the Sacrificateur). Very few people have their own Bible, so it is hard for them to discern whether a church’s teachings differ from the Bible. In rural areas, especially, many Presbyterian churches do not have a pastor (both in the US and in Congo!) because that call requires significant personal sacrifice for the pastor’s entire family. Yet, a pastor, someone who has been trained in theology and the scriptures, can significantly help people to discern God’s truth and live out their faith.
There is great potential for growth in the church in Congo. Training and empowering pastors to minister well to their people in this environment of significant material poverty is a challenge. How can we continue to encourage local support that will make these rural Pastoral Institutes sustainable and accessible, while also providing additional resources to ensure adequate education of these future pastors?
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An oil tanker and a Norwegian navy frigate collided off Norway's west coast on Thursday, injuring eight people and triggering the temporary shutdown of a North Sea crude export terminal, Norway's top gas processing plant and several offshore fields.
The frigate, which recently took part in a major NATO military exercise, was aground and tilting on one side, live television pictures showed. The Norwegian military was attempting to save the ship.
"We are working on stabilizing the vessel," Norwegian Navy Counter-Admiral Nils Andreas Stensoenes told a news conference, adding that the eight injured were all Navy crew. Some 137 crew were on board at the time of the accident.
"We are very glad that no lives got lost and that the injuries are not more serious than they are," he added.
Police and the national Accident Investigation Board were investigating the accident, which took place at 0326 GMT.
The tanker had left Equinor's Sture oil shipment terminal with a cargo of crude, and the facility was shut for several hours on Thursday as a result.
The Kollsnes gas plant, with a processing capacity of 144.5 million cubic meters per day, was also shut for several hours.
Both the Sture terminal and the Kollsnes plant were restarting on Thursday afternoon, Equinor said in a statement.
Kollsnes processes gas from the Troll, Kvitebjoern and Visund fields for Britain and the rest of Europe. The Troll A platform was also restarting operations after its earlier temporary shutdown, Equinor said.
UK wholesale gas prices were up ahead of news of the incident and increased further afterwards. Gas for immediate delivery was up 6.2 percent at 66.50 pence per therm at 1136 GMT. Norway is a major supplier of gas to Britain so big outages can impact UK gas prices.
Flows from Norway to Britain were down by 14-15 million cubic meters due to the Kollsnes outage.
"Norwegian outages due to the collision have prompted extra buying. The market was already quite bullish due to lower temperatures," a British gas trader said.
There was no sign of a leak from the oil tanker, although it would return to port for inspection, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre for southern Norway told Reuters.
The Sture terminal receives oil via pipelines from North Sea fields, including Oseberg, Grane, Svalin, Edvard Grieg and Ivar Aasen, which in turn is exported to global markets on tankers. Oseberg, Grane and Ivar Aasen were restarting output after being shut, their operators said.
Oil output from the fields delivering to the Sture terminal was around 350,000 barrels per day in August, the latest data available from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate showed.
The Sture terminal has a capacity to store one million cubic meters of crude oil and 60,000 cubic meters of liquefied petroleum gas in rock chambers.
LPG mix and naphtha are also exported from the terminal via the Vestprosess pipeline to the Mongstad oil terminal.
Oseberg is one of the crude streams underpinning the global Brent oil benchmark. Brent crude futures were down 21 cents at $71.86 a barrel by 1249 GMT.
Production at the Edvard Grieg field was shut on Thursday, a source with knowledge of its operations said. It was not immediately clear whether output had restarted there too.
The Sola TS, an Aframax class vessel built in 2017, belongs to Tsakos Energy Navigation, the company's website says.
(Additional reporting by Camilla Knudsen, Nerijus Adomaitis and Nina Chestney, writing by Gwladys Fouche, editing by Raissa Kasolowsky, David Evans and Alexandra Hudson)
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November 23rd, 2020
The Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association (IMNDA) is truly saddened to hear of the passing of Patrick Quinn. The IMNDA wish to offer it’s condolences to Pat’s family, friends and relatives. Pat was a true inspiration for the entire MND Community and our thoughts are with his loved ones at this very sad time.
Patrick was one of the co-founders of the ALS/MND Ice Bucket Challenge. The ALS/MND Ice Bucket Challenge started with a professional golfer named Chris Kennedy, who challenged his sister, Jeanette Senerchia in Pelham, New York. Jeanette’s husband Anthony was living with ALS. Through Facebook, one of her friends was connected to Pat Quinn in Yonkers, New York, who was connected to Pete Frates in Boston, Massachusetts. Pat and Pete were both young men battling the disease and their social networks blasted the ALS/MND Ice Bucket Challenge out across America and even the globe.
Here is a message from Pat Quinn, talking about the success of the Ice Bucket Challenge: https://youtu.be/3uUB-0de09A
The whole idea behind dumping a bucket of ice on you was to freeze your whole body for a second to raise awareness about how the disease actually affects people. Even though it is for a split second it still gives the person some perspective on how an MND victim feels every day. MND can take your breath away and prevent you from moving – just like the shock of ice water to the body. Also the burn from ice cold water is similar to the pain associated with the fasciculation of MND patient’s muscles.
The Ice Bucket Challenge raised over €1.7 million in Ireland alone. For this we will be eternally grateful to Patrick Quinn, and all who participated in this phenomenon. He changed the course of history for this underfunded disease and his legacy will continue to support hundreds of people living with MND in Ireland. May he Rest in Peace.
For more information please contact:
Maeve Leahy, PR & Communications Executive 01-8730422 or email email@example.com
Notes to Editor
Motor Neurone Disease (MND) is a progressive neurological condition that attacks the motor neurones, or nerves, in the brain and spinal cord. This means messages gradually stop reaching muscles, which leads to weakness and wasting. MND can affect how you walk, talk, eat, drink and breathe. However, not all symptoms necessarily happen to everyone and it is unlikely they will all develop at the same time, or in any specific order.
The Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association (IMNDA) is the only organisation of its kind in this country. It was set up in May 1985 to provide care and support to people with Motor Neurone Disease, their carers, families and friends. There are currently over 400 people living with MND in Ireland. MND is often referred to as the 1,000 day disease as most people die within 1,000 days of being diagnosed. 1 person dies every 3 days from MND.
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Collaborating to make traumatic stress
research data “FAIR”
The FAIR Guiding Principles for scientific data stewardship state that data should be Findable, Accessible, Inter-operable, and Re-usable (FAIR). These principles are part of the growing movement toward more open and transparent science. Making traumatic stress research data more FAIR can promote better science, enhance understanding of trauma impact and recovery, and ultimately benefit trauma-exposed individuals and communities around the world. But to date most traumatic stress studies have not been designed with data preservation, sharing, or re-use in mind. Projects in this theme will create resources that can facilitate FAIR data across the field of traumatic stress studies.
Wanted for "FAIR": Project leaders, co-leaders, and helpers for FAIR Data projects 1 and 2.
Open to doctoral students and to researchers at any career stage. May be ideal for early career researchers who would have the opportunity to learn about a wide range of traumatic stress research datasets and to build key skills and knowledge relevant to data sharing and re-use. Most work will be done virtually via email and occasional web/phone conferences. Qualifications: some experience with traumatic stress research and an interest in how data are organized and shared. Requires excellent organizational, communication, and teamwork skills. If interested, contact Theme 5 leader Nancy Kassam-Adams (firstname.lastname@example.org).
1. FINDABLE TRAUMA DATA
Indexing traumatic stress datasets and data resources around the world
Can we make traumatic stress data more findable? This project will take a first step in that direction by indexing available traumatic stress research datasets and data resources around the world. We will make this information available online via the Global Collaboration. (Project leaders: Yaara Sadeh and TBD)
3. CHILD TRAUMA DATA
Sustaining / expanding a child trauma data archive
An international collaborative group of investigators has created the Prospective studies of Acute Child Trauma & Recovery (PACT/R) Data Archive. This project will examine ways to build on this research resource and to expand the preservation and re-use of child trauma research data. See www.childtraumadata.org. (Project leader: Nancy Kassam-Adams)
2. REUSABLE TRAUMA DATA
Describing traumatic stress studies and data via metadata and controlled vocabularies
“Sharing data is not enough - data need to tell their stories.” Reusability depends on good metadata, as well as common ways of categorizing concepts and variables. This project will build on existing efforts to describe traumatic stress research data drawn from multiple studies, different countries and languages. The first product will be a discussion document on metadata and controlled vocabularies for traumatic stress research data. (Project leaders: Nancy Kassam-Adams and Maya O’Neil)
4. TRAUMATIC GRIEF DATA
Building an archive for data on adult and childhood grief after traumatic and nontraumatic loss.
A group of researchers, based in the Netherlands, has started pooling data from several research programs on grief in adults and in children to build an archive of data that can be used for continuing research on symptoms, course, and correlates of disturbed and nondisturbed grief following traumatic and nontraumatic loss. This project will examine ways to expand this initiative, to enlarge the dataset and to develop options for re-use of these data. (Project leaders: Paul Boelen and Lonneke Lenferink)
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Skip to comments.Why “Gaudete?” (Third Sunday of Advent), Part Three
Posted on 12/13/2007 9:25:28 PM PST by Salvation
Other Articles by Br. Hyacinth Marie Cordell, OP
Printer Friendly Version
Violet is the liturgical color of Lent and Advent. Yet, in both holy seasons, over half way through, we discover the bright color of rose in the liturgy... but only for one Sunday.[i] The Sunday in Lent is called Laetare Sunday, in Advent Gaudete Sunday. Both these Latin words (Gaudete and Laetare, from the Entrance Antiphons at Mass) are translated, "Rejoice!" But why the color rose, and why "rejoice"?
The Meaning of Rose
To understand the meaning of rose, we first need to be aware of a certain liturgical principle, here expressed in the words of Dr. Pius Parsch:
"Nature's annual cycle is characterized by two phenomena, light and life. Out of the darkness of night comes light; out of death comes life. The transition from night to light characterizes the winter season; the transition from death to life is proper to summertime. The holy year of the Church is likewise divided into two phases which have similar characteristics."[ii]
In other words, nature and the mysteries of our salvation coincide. The dark color of violet in Advent harmonizes well with the diminishing sunlight late in the year, and in Lent with the silence of life through Winter leading up to Spring. In both cases, we see a parallel. Just as darkness gives place to light at the turn of the Winter Solstice and death to life at the beginning of Spring, so the violet of Advent gives place to the bright white of Christmas joy, and of Lent to the brightness of Easter life. "But wouldn't black be more appropriate as a color of darkness and death?" someone might wonder. Ah, here again we encounter the Church's wisdom! Black is the absence of all color and light. But as "children of the light," we are never in complete darkness. "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."[iii] Even in funeral liturgies where priests can wear black as a symbol of mourning, the liturgy speaks of light: "let perpetual light shine upon them." Violet is a dark and penitential color, but it is also the ancient color for royalty and wealth. Through baptism, we have been immersed in Light and Life, and we have been given the royalty of being children of the King of Heaven! So, violet expresses well both these aspects: darkness and royalty.
With this dramatic backdrop, we can understand the rose color of Gaudete and Laetare Sundays and the hidden lesson contained here for us. Rose is a softening of violet. It is violet approaching white. In this sense, it anticipates the pure white of the Birth and Resurrection of Christ. It intimates the mystery of the "already, and not yet" of Christian life. The Messiah has come. We have been redeemed. We have been washed. We have been sanctified. The Light that is God has come to dwell in our souls. The Father "has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."[iv] And yet, we wait for Christ to come. We wait for eternal life. We wait for "the redemption of our bodies."[v] We are still in a "valley of tears." "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face."[vi]
But even in the night of this life, this expectancy fills us with joy. Gaudete and Laetare Sundays express the foretaste of the good things to come that we experience even now. The Church summons us to "look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."[vii] In this sense, Laetare Sunday is like an oasis in the desert of Lent, and Gaudete Sunday like the appearance of the first streaks of dawn in the night of Advent. It is as if we were sentinels keeping watch at night, longing for the sun to appear, being buoyed up with joy at the first streaks of light. With the words of Psalm 130, we pray, "My soul waits for the Lord more than sentinels wait for the dawn."[viii] And with the prophet Habakkuk, we resolve: "I will take my stand to watch, and station myself on the tower, and look forth to see what he will say to me."[ix]
So, what are we waiting for? We are waiting for the One who said, "I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."[x] St. Bernard of Clairvaux explains that, "We know that there are three comings of the Lord. The third lies between the other two. It is invisible, while the other two are visible... In his first coming our Lord came in our flesh and in our weakness; in this middle coming he comes in spirit and in power; in the final coming he will be seen in glory and majesty."[xi] In Advent we, in a sense, wait with expectation and joy for all three. We place ourselves along the prophets of old as they waited for the coming Messiah. We do this mystically in order to comprehend more profoundly what a difference Christ's coming has made. We also wait in the darkness of this life for the coming of the Son of man "with the clouds of heaven."[xii] That is, we rekindle our longing for the Second Coming and the completion of our life's journey toward God. And finally, we wait for the coming of Christ more deeply into our life now, in preparation for the last coming. St. Bernard explains that this middle coming is the road from the first to the final coming of our Savior.
Advent is a time consecrated to this road. The nearness of the Lord's coming is announced to us at the beginning of Advent in the words, "Our Savior is coming."[xiii] It is made even more imminent during Gaudete Sunday when the announcement is changed to, "The Lord is near."[xiv] Just as the color rose approaches white, so in the middle of Advent we approach the Lord with joy. We are closer than ever before: "For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed."[xv] And here is the point: we rejoice not only in the future coming of the Lord; we rejoice now as we have the opportunity to let Christ penetrate more deeply into our hearts. In Advent, the Holy Spirit wishes to open the doors of our hearts more fully to the Savior of our souls: "Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors! That the King of glory may come in."[xvi] For, "the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn, which shines brighter and brighter until full day." "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."[xvii] Nothing matters more in life than that we grow in the divine light of love that is in Christ. And nothing can give us greater joy.
Joy, Fortitude, and Patience
Holy Mother Church knows that it is easy for us to get distracted by "the cares of the world,"[xviii] and overly sorrowful due to the trials of life. That is why she rouses us to joy in the Entrance Antiphon of Gaudete Sunday, which comes from Paul's letter to the Philippians: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice! The Lord is near." This text in Scripture continues: "Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. And the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." We can all reflect: in what ways am I overly anxious about the cares of life? In what ways have I let despair and self-pity conquer my hope? Jesus revealed the ways of the kingdom to us in his words, so that, as He said, "my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full." As He approached the Passion and Resurrection, He also said, "So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you."[xix] Even further, He reassures us: "In the world you have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."[xx] Gaudete Sunday is an opportune time to examine how free we are to embrace the joy of the Lord's coming into our lives more completely.
But where will we find strength to embrace this joy? In the Mass Readings for Gaudete Sunday this year, two virtues in particular are extolled for us to possess the Lord's joy more fully. In the first reading, Isaiah urges us on to fortitude: "Strengthen the hands that are feeble, make firm the knees that are weak... Be strong, fear not!" In the second reading, St. James exhorts us to patience: "Be patient... until the coming of the Lord."
Both virtues serve us in time of trial. Trials over time have a way of making us apathetic, complacent, and discouraged. Exercising the virtue of fortitude gives us the strength to endure times of pain, loss, sadness, and strain in relationships. And when the distress seems overwhelming and too much for human strength, the Holy Spirit provides us with the gift of fortitude to "go forward,"[xxi] so that we can know with St. Paul: "for when I am weak, then I am strong."[xxii] Patience, in turn, can be thought of as "fortitude over time." St. James insightfully associates patience with waiting through hardships. This waiting involves letting go of trying to control what is beyond our control. It also involves joyfully accepting these elements as within the will of God, which is always for our good in the end.
Fortitude and patience together are antidotes against apathy and anxiety. They enable us to have joy in the cross. We don't have the ability to give ourselves these graced virtues. But just as in the Gospel the Messiah is identified precisely as the One who can open the eyes of the blind and cleanse lepers, so He is the One Who can heal our own complacency and impatience and give us the strength to wait for Him in times of trial. In this fashion, the Lord heals us of our despondency and opens up to us the joy of His advent.
As the darkness augments at the close of this year, we know the light will prevail. Christ has come. And Christ is coming. With joy, fortitude, and patience, we keep watch for the approaching light. In rose vestments and with the rose candle of the Advent wreath, we rejoice in anticipation of the Day of our Redemption. What are we anxious about? St. Peter exhorts us, "Cast all your anxieties on him, for he cares about you. Be sober, be watchful."[xxiii] Let us cast them thus, so that the "Dawn from on High will break upon us"[xxiv] and saturate our hearts more completely. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us. Help us to receive Him. Maranatha! "Come Lord Jesus!"[xxv]
[i] The color rose is popularly but incorrectly thought of as pink.
[ii] Parsch, Dr. Pius. The Church's Year of Grace. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1962: p.169
[iii] Jn 1:5 (All Bible translations are from the following unless stated: The Holy Bible: RSVCE. 1st Edition. San Francisco: Ignatius Press)
[iv] Col 1:13-14
[v] Rom 8:23
[vi] 1 Cor 13:12
[vii] Lk 21:20
[viii] Ps 130:6 (Translation used during the daily Dominican prayers for the dead)
[ix] Hab 2:1
[x] Jn 8:12
[xi] Liturgy of the Hours. Vol. 1. New York: Catholic Book Publishing Co.: p. 169
[xii] Dan 7:13
[xiii] From the Entrance Antiphon of Monday of the First Week of Advent.
[xiv] From the Entrance Antiphon of the 3rd Sunday of Advent.
[xv] Rom 13:11
[xvi] Ps 24:7
[xvii] 2 Cor 3:18
[xviii] Mt 13:22
[xix] Jn 16:22
[xx] Jn 16:33
[xxi] Ex 14:15
[xxii] 1 Cor 12:10
[xxiii] 1 Pt 5:7
[xxiv] Lk 1:78 (Translation is from The Liturgy of the Hours)
[xxv] Rev 22:20
So, what are we waiting for? We are waiting for the One who said, “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
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Both these Latin words (Gaudete and Laetare, from the Entrance Antiphons at Mass) are translated, “Rejoice!”
Thanks for that article explaining the colors. I knew about them, but not to the extent written. “Gaudete(Christus est Natus)” is a Renaissance era hymn that I love! Was just listening to it a little while ago.
**a Renaissance era hymn **
Sounds wonderful. Does anyone have the ability to find an audio link?
I’m very partial to a version of “Gaudete” on The Carol Album - Seven Centuries Of Christmas Music. It’s by the Taverner Consort, Choir and Players.
Thanks for the suggestion! I LOVE classical Christmas music. The 'popular' stuff does nothing for me.
Freep-mail me to get on or off my pro-life and Catholic Ping List:
Please ping me to all note-worthy Pro-Life or Catholic threads, or other threads of interest.
bump for the beauties of the Advent season.
Advent 2009 bump.
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Design and build your own electronic devices http://www.gadgeteering.net
NET Gadgeteer is a platform for creating your own electronic devices using a wide variety of hardware modules and a powerful programming environment. Students with little or no electronics background can design and build devices that sense and react to their environments using components such as switches, displays, buzzers, sensors and more. Using cables these various modules are plugged into a mainboard which is programmed to make everything work together. Devices can be programmed using Visual Basic or Visual C#.
How to learn .NET Gadgeteer
.NET Gadgeteer can be incorporated into the teaching of programming at GCSE and A-Level, or introduced in extra-curricular clubs at KS3. Teaching materials for .NET Gadgeteer are available at http://www.gadgeteering.net
These are structured around key programming principles including selection, iteration, arrays and file handling, so that students can learn all the key concepts they need whilst having fun!
What to buy
.NET Gadgeteer is open source hardware that is available from a number of manufacturers. For our Visual Basic teaching materials one suggestion is to buy a Fez Hydra kit, and also a small display, SD Card module and button. However other mainboards can be used just as well. Gadgeteer components are available from the following manufacturers/suppliers: GHI Electronics, Love Electronics, SyTech, Proto-Pic, Cool Components and Mouser Electronics, amongst others. Students can work in groups of four to build a Gadgeteer project.
How students benefit
.NET Gadgeteer is a motivating environment for teaching programming and is ideal for collaborative projects, where students share out tasks and work together to build a device of their own invention. Crucially, it also gives them a better understanding of how the devices and technology all around them work, as well as the skills to create their own.
Heading to BETT http://www.bettshow.com
NET Gadgeteer can offer exciting possibilities for teaching computer programming, electronics and computer-aided design. Once the device is built and programmed, a housing can be built for the device to enable ease of use, which also helps students to learn about human-computer interaction.
If your attending BETT See .NET Gadgeteer in action at the AQA stand and for more information contact: Dr Sue Sentance, Schools outreach for .NET Gadgeteer, E-mail: email@example.com, http://www.gadgeteering.net
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is warning against military intervention in Syria, saying an attack would destabilize the country and the region.
Lavrov stressed the need for a political solution in a telephone call with U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi.
Russia's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday the diplomats agreed that all parties inside and outside Syria must act responsibly.
Brahimi has been working for a year to find a peaceful resolution to the crisis, which since March 2011 has left more than 100,000 people dead and millions more displaced.
He is due to brief reporters on the situation in Syria later Wednesday.
Western powers are weighing how to respond to what they say was clearly an attack by Syrian forces using chemical weapons in the suburbs of Damascus last week that killed hundreds of people.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem reiterated Tuesday his country's denial that it carried out a chemical attack and challenged the United States and its European allies to show evidence.
He said Syria's opponents are using the allegations as an excuse to attack, and vowed to strike back.
The Arab League has also condemned the alleged attack, blaming the Syrian government and demanding those responsible be put on trial.
A team of U.N. chemical weapons inspectors visited one of the attack sites on Monday and collected samples from victims. The investigators plan to continue their on-site work Wednesday, after security concerns forced them to postpone a visit to the Damascus suburbs on Tuesday.
U.S. officials have said there is "no doubt" Syrian forces used chemical weapons, and that President Barack Obama could decide on a response within days.
In Britain, Prime Minister David Cameron has recalled his country's parliament to discuss the situation on Thursday. He said any action would be a response to the use of chemical weapons, and not intended to draw Western powers further into the Syrian conflict.
French President Francois Hollande says his country is ready to punish those who made the "vile" decision to gas innocent people. He also promised France will increase its military support to the main Syrian opposition group.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of a "forceful" response if Syria makes any attempt to attack Israel.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu denounced the Syrian government's alleged chemical weapon attacks near Damascus as a "crime against humanity" and said it must "not go unanswered."
But China's state news agency Xinhua cautioned against a rush to military action. In a Tuesday commentary, it said the world should remember that the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq followed U.S. allegations that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Those weapons were never found.
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This is a blog about bicycles, but I want to emphasize the importance of expanding public transit to reduce our city's dependence on cars. Bikes and trains complement each other, with bikes being an ideal way to cover shorter distances, and trains being a fast and efficient way to cross greater distances within a city without generating a suffocating atmosphere of automobile gridlock and parking lots. In a future post on transit diversity in the city, I'll talk more on the relationship of cycling to other alternative transit modes.
Last night at the Santa Monica library was the first of a series of meetings this week to discuss the latest incarnation of the proposal for a subway connecting the West Side to the rest of the Metro rail network. It was a great presentation that explained the thought process and community meetings that led up to the current proposal, and the challenges moving forward. Speaker Jody Litvak also emphasized that despite criticism that this is only for Westsiders, such a connection would benefit all of L.A. County. Nearly 3 times as many people commute into the West Side for work as those who commute out of it, so it would in fact benefit Angelenos spread across the city. Compared to current public transit times to UCLA from various parts of L.A., the subway would save as much 11 full 24 hours days of commuting for a daily transit user per year according to one of the charts they had on display.
(A typical summer Sunday afternoon in Santa Monica)
During the public comment portion I put in my two minutes to talk about the failure of our Automobile dependence and the need for efficient alternatives such as the proposed subway. I spoke of beating average car travel times from Hollywood to Santa Monica on my bicycle at rush hour by as much as 20 minutes and the Crimanimalz beating freeway traffic on the 10 and 405 with bicycles and even in-line skates. Siel of green LA girl, was at the meeting live blogging the event until her laptop died, so check it out if you're curious to read more about what was discussed.
There are still more meetings, today and later in the week so if you have a chance I recommend checking it out, and if you've got something to say, go exercise your 2 minutes.
Sept. 4, 6 - 8 pm (Today):
Plummer Park, 7377 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood.
Sept. 6, 2 - 4 pm:
Beverly Hills Public Library – Auditorium, 2nd Fl., 444 N Rexford Drive, Beverly Hills.
Sept. 8, 6-8 pm:
Los Angeles County Museum of Art West - Terrace Room, 5th Fl., 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
Sept. 10, 6 - 8 pm:
Westwood Presbyterian Church, 10822 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles
For more details about the meetings and which transit lines serve these meeting locations check out Metro. If you are looking to bike to one of these meetings and are having trouble, let me know in the comments, and I might be able to offer some route suggestions.
Although Metro is not allowed to use these public meetings as a campaign platform for the next election, it is obvious that building such a subway is going to cost a lot of money that Metro doesn't have right now. If you want to see a Los Angeles future with a fast and efficient transit network, I suggest you read up on Measure R. This measure will appear on the ballot for L.A. County voters this November.
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Doing what no human being has ever achieved takes a very special person. One who can believe in himself and the task at hand. Taking on the odds of surving a 1 K swim in 2 degree water high up on Mount Everest and swiming at an altitute of 5 300 m .
Lewis Pugh swam the 1km across Lake Pumori at an altitude of 5,300m under the summit of Mt Everest. It took him 22 minutes and 51 seconds.
This incredible swim was accomplished because Pugh created a frame of mind that said that he could do it. He did it because he was able to physically do something that, before now, everyone said was impossible.
He did it because he has a great team behind him. And most of all, Pugh did it, because he cares about what is happening to the planet as a result of global warming.
He has demonstrated that the strength of the human spirit can overcome even the most adverse conditions.
On a training swim two days prior to the actual swim Lewis, while trying to swim 300m, almost “went under” twice. That is less than 1/3rd of what he actually accomplished.
On the 23 May 2010, Pugh pulled off the swim in the traditional manner: goggles, cap and speedo. Watch the Mount Everest footage on his website
[picapp align=”center” wrap=”false” link=”term=Mount+Everest&iid=2220205″ src=”7/2/0/c/50_Year_Anniversary_29f5.jpg?adImageId=13115622&imageId=2220205″ width=”500″ height=”305″ /]
Above: The melting glaciers of Mount Everest that supply water to 1.1 billion people
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Signs and Symptoms
A congenital optic disc pit (CODP) appears as a small, hypopigmented, yellow or whitish, oval or round excavated defect, most often within the inferotemporal portion of the optic disc. However, as CODP is considered to be an atypical coloboma (in that it is not limited to just the inferior disc region), it can appear anywhere within the boundaries of the disc. CODP width may range from 150 to 1000 microns, with an average size of 500 microns (1/3 of a disc diameter) and depths reaching as much as 0.16mm.1
CODP occur in one per 11,000 patients.1 Typically, a CODP is seen unilaterally, but the presentation is bilateral in 10-15% of cases.1,2 A large percentage of discs with congenital optic pits also have cilioretinal arteries.3 Discs with congenital pits are larger than fellow eyes without pits in 85% of cases.2,3 There is no apparent predilection for sex. In that they are congenital, their discovery typically coincides with a patient’s initial eye exam.4
Most patients are unaware of the presence of a CODP. Although many optic pits demonstrate arcuate scotomas on threshold visual field testing corresponding to the loss of retinal ganglion cells in the area of the pit, acuity is rarely affected by the pit itself. Patients with CODP are at risk of developing serous maculopathy affecting visual acuity. Should this occur, patients will notice visual blur and metamorphopsia. Those with temporally located pits are at the greatest risk for developing serous maculopathy.5
Maculopathy compromises vision in 25-75% of patients, typically occurring between the ages of 30-40 years.1,5,6 CODP maculopathy appears as a serous macular detachment of the sensory retina.3,6-15 However, careful observation aided by optical coherence tomography (OCT) has shown that the maculopathy caused by CODP is not limited to serous macular detachment, but also a retinoschisis-like splitting of the inner retinal layers.3,11,15-21
The origin of CODP remains unclear. CODP have been associated with colobomatous lesions, implying that they result from incomplete closure of the fetal fissure. The optic nerve is comprised of retinal ganglion cells, neuroectodermal layers of the optic stalk and its associated mesoderm. Failed development of the lamina cribrosa and its associated structures contribute to pit development.20 Arcuate visual field defects result secondary to the loss of the axons of the retinal ganglion cells, which correspond to the area of the pit or secondary atrophy of attenuated nerve fibers in the vicinity of the optic pit defect.
While the CODP itself is an unchanging entity, concern is directed toward the potential for associated serous maculopathy that can develop in up to 75% of patients with this congenital condition. While ophthalmoscopically the maculopathy manifests as a non-undulating, serous macular detachment, the pathology appears to be either a secondary event or an epiphenomenon from the development of inner nuclear layer macular retinoschisis.15,17,18,21
The origin of the serous submacular fluid is unknown, with hypotheses including cerebrospinal fluid from the subarachnoid space as well as liquefied vitreous from the vitreous cavity.16,22,23 It appears that an abnormal vitreoretinal interface inducing tangential tractional forces is the genesis behind the development of macular retinoschisis in CODP.16,19,24 Recently, optical coherence tomography (OCT) before and after vitreoretinal surgery for CODP maculopathy indicates that peripapillary vitreous traction with the passage of fluid into the retina through the pit is the cause of the schisis-like separation.25 Other OCT reports have indicated that fluid from the optic pit can go directly to the subinternal limiting membrane space, ganglion cell layer, inner nuclear layer, outer nuclear layer, or the subretinal space, although the outer nuclear layer is most commonly affected.26
The management of asymptomatic CODP begins with threshold perimetry to document the existence of visual field loss. Photodocumentation is appropriate at this point.
Home acuity assessment and Amsler grid self-analysis should be used to monitor for the onset of maculopathy. Patients should be educated to the signs and symptoms of macular compromise (e.g., blurred vision, visual distortions and metamorphopsia) and instructed to return immediately should any occur.
The treatment for CODP-related maculopathy varies. Barrier thermal laser photocoagulation has been used in an attempt to halt the spread of subretinal fluid.8,10,14 However, most surgeons have abandoned thermal laser photocoagulation alone in favor of vitrectomy, either with or without adjunctive juxtapapillary barrier thermal laser photocoagulation.
There is no clear consensus on the management of CODP-related maculopathy. Due to the tangentially induced tractional forces by the posterior hyaloid causing foveal retinoschisis formation, pars plana vitrectomy with complete removal of all vitreoretinal adhesions is necessary for optimal treatment of macular detachment associated with optic pits.13,15,16,24 In several cases, serous maculopathy secondary to CODP resolved with spontaneous detachment of the posterior vitreous.27 There are numerous reports on successful management with vitrectomy combined with retinal tamponade by either expansive gas or silicon oil.1,3,6,7,9,10,13-15,19,22-24,28-31
Other studies have indicated the necessity of additionally peeling the internal limiting membrane (ILM) as part of the vitrectomy for optimal visual results.28,30-32 Another report, however, indicated ILM peeling is not necessary for good visual outcomes.33 At this time, serous retinal detachment occurring from CODP will be surgically treated with a combination of vitrectomy, barrier juxtapapillary retinal laser photocoagulation, ILM peeling and expansive gas tamponade.34 Visual and anatomical outcomes have been quite good, but can be slow. The restoration of the junction of the inner and outer photoreceptors is evident 6-12 months after surgery and is complete 24 months after fluid absorption. Improvement in vision is noticed only during the first two years of follow-up.35
• CODP may also appear in conjunction with other optic disc anomalies, including congenital coloboma and tilted disc syndrome.
• Any changing of the appearance of the optic pit over time indicates the possibility that the lesion is actually an acquired defect of the neuroretinal rim secondary to glaucoma.
• Due to the fact that the embryonic fetal fissure closes inferiorly last, typical colobomas occupy the inferior aspect of the disc. CODP are atypical colobomas in that they can occur anywhere on the disc.
• Temporally located CODP are ominous in that they are at most risk for maculopathy development.
1. Kranenburg EW. Craterlike holes in the optic disc and central serous retinopathy. Arch Ophthalmol. 1960; 64(12):912-24.
2. Jonas JB, Freisler KA. Bilateral congenital optic nerve head pits in monozygotic siblings. Am J Ophthalmol. 1997;124(6):844-6.
3. Kolar P. Maculopathy in case of the pit of the disc. Cesk Slov Oftalmol. 2005;61(5):330-6.
4. Johnson KL. Optic disc pit: primary diagnosis in a child. Clin Exp Optom. 2006;89(4):257-9.
5. Brown GC, Shields JA, Goldberg RE. Congenital pits of the optic nerve head, II: clinical studies in humans. Ophthalmology. 1980(1);87:51-65.
6. Chiu YT, Chen HY, Tsai YY, et al. Stratus optical coherence tomography for evaluating optic disc pits associated with maculopathy before and after vitrectomy: two case reports. Kaohsiung J Med Sci. 2006;22(5):229-34.
7. Fantaguzzi PM, Vasco A. Vitrectomy and silicone oil tamponade for serous macular detachment associated with an optic disk pit. Eur J Ophthalmol. 2006;16(2):330-4.
8. Rosa AA, Primiano HP Jr, Nakashima Y. Pneumatic retinopexy and laser photocoagulation for treatment of optic disc pit detachment: case report. Arq Bras Oftalmol. 2006;69(1):101-5.
9. Hirakata A, Okada AA, Hida T. Long-term results of vitrectomy without laser treatment for macular detachment associated with an optic disc pit. Ophthalmology. 2005;112(8):1430-5.
10. Bakri SJ, Beer PM. Vitreoretinal surgery for optic pit associated serous macular detachment: a discussion of two cases. Int Ophthalmol. 2004;25(3):143-6.
11. Hassenstein A, Richard G. Optical coherence tomography in optic pit and associated maculopathy. Ophthalmologe. 2004;101(2):170-6.
12. Munteanu M, Munteanu G, Zolog I, et al. Colobomatous pits of the optic nerve papilla associated with serous retinal detachment. The clinical and pathogenic aspects. Oftalmologia. 2000;51(2):54-61.
13. Bartz-Schmidt KU, Heimann K, Esser P. Vitrectomy for macular detachment associated with optic nerve pits. Int Ophthalmol. 1995-96;19(6):323-9.
14. Montenegro M, Bonnet M. Optic nerve pits: clinical and therapeutic review of 21 cases. J Fr Ophtalmol. 1989;12(6-7):411-9.
15. Hirakata A, Hida T, Ogasawara A, et al. Multilayered retinoschisis associated with optic disc pit. Jpn J Ophthalmol. 2005;49(5):414-6.
16. Ishikawa K, Terasaki H, Mori M,et al. Optical coherence tomography before and after vitrectomy with internal limiting membrane removal in a child with optic disc pit maculopathy. Jpn J Ophthalmol. 2005;49(5):411-3.
17. Meirelles RL, Aggio FB, Costa RA, et al. STRATUS optical coherence tomography in unilateral colobomatous excavation of the optic disc and secondary retinoschisis. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 2005;243(1):76-81.
18. Morales Bertrand J, Teus Guezala MA, Perez Salaices P, et al. Congenital optic nerve pit associated with foveolar retinoschisis. Arch Soc Esp Oftalmol. 2001;76(5):327-30.
19. Kalvodova B, Ricarova R, Kuthan P, et al. Vitrectomy in optic nerve disc pit with maculopathy. Cesk Slov Oftalmol. 1999;55(3):123-7.
20. Krivoy D, Gentile R, Liebmann JM, et al. Imaging congenital optic disc pits and associated maculopathy using optical coherence tomography. Arch Ophthalmol. 1996;114(2):165-70.
21. Lincoff H, Schiff W, Krivoy D, et al. Optic coherence tomography of optic disk pit maculopathy. Am J Ophthalmol. 1996;122(2):264-6.
22. Kuhn F, Kover F, Szabo I, et al. Intracranial migration of silicone oil from an eye with optic pit. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 2006 Mar 8; [Epub ahead of print]
23. Johnson TM, Johnson MW. Pathogenic implications of subretinal gas migration through pits and atypical colobomas of the optic nerve. Arch Ophthalmol. 2004;122(12):1793-800.
24. Gandorfer A, Kampik A. Role of vitreoretinal interface in the pathogenesis and therapy of macular disease associated with optic pits. Ophthalmologe. 2000;97(4):276-9.
25. Hirakata A, Inoue M, Hiraoka T, McCuen BW 2nd. Vitrectomy without laser treatment or gas tamponade for macular detachment associated with an optic disc pit. Ophthalmology. 2012;119(4):810-8.
26. Imamura Y, Zweifel SA, Fujiwara T, et al. High-resolution optical coherence tomography findings in optic pit maculopathy. Retina. 2010 Jul-Aug;30(7):1104-12.
27. Bonnet M. Serous macular detachment associated with optic nerve pits. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 1991; 229(6):526-32.
28. Rizzo S, Belting C, Genovesi-Ebert F, et al. Optic disc pit maculopathy: the value of small-gauge vitrectomy, peeling, laser treatment, and gas tamponade. Eur J Ophthalmol. 2012;22(4):620-5.
29. Georgalas I, Petrou P, Koutsandrea C, et al. Optic disc pit maculopathy treated with vitrectomy, internal limiting membrane peeling, and gas tamponade: a report of two cases. Eur J Ophthalmol. 2009;19(2):324-6.
30. Pichi F, Morara M, Veronese C, et al. Double-vitrectomy for optic disc pit maculopathy. Case Report Ophthalmol. 2012;3(2):156-61.
31. Sandali O, Barale PO, Bui Quoc E, et al. Long-term results of the treatment of optic disc pit associated with serous macular detachment: a review of 20 cases. J Fr Ophtalmol. 2011;34(8):532-8.
32. Shukla D, Kalliath J, Tandon M, Vijayakumar B. Vitrectomy for optic disk pit with macular schisis and outer retinal dehiscence. Retina. 2012;32(7):1337-42.
33. Diab F, Al-Sabah K, Al-Mujaini A. Successful surgical management of optic disc pit maculopathy without internal membrane peeling. Middle East Afr J Ophthalmol. 2010;17(3):278-80.
34. Georgalas I, Ladas I, Georgopoulos G, Petrou P. Optic disc pit: a review. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 2011;249(8):1113-22.
35. Theodossiadis GP, Grigoropoulos VG, Liarakos VS, et al. Restoration of the photoreceptor layer and improvement of visual acuity in successfully treated optic disc pit maculopathy: a long follow-up study by optical coherence tomography. Graefes Arch Clin Exp Ophthalmol. 2012;250(7):971-9.
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With “Blue Monday” coming up — the day in January (this year, the 18th) unofficially dubbed the most depressing of the year due to the combined effects of cold weather and holiday credit card bills — it’s worth considering if this time of year gets the kids down, as well.
When school resumed this month, my 8-year-old complained bitterly all the way to school about having to wear snow pants. As in, “I hate my life.” And the night before, both kids were bemoaning the end of vacation. To be honest, I was a little anxious, too, when considering the onslaught of deadlines and work email that Monday would bring.
Emily Roberts, a psychotherapist and author of Express Yourself: A Teen Girl’s Guide to Speaking Up and Being Who You Are, says the first week back after the holiday break is hard on everyone in the family. “The holidays are not just taxing for us as adults. Our adrenals become fatigued at times because we’re in this excitement phase over and over again. Our schedules are thrown off and our sleep is thrown off. Our bodies are hungover in some ways,” she says. From our kids’ perspective, Christmas was fun and now it’s back to reality. “They don’t want to be back to the school grind.”
If you’ve noticed that your child doesn’t seem like himself this week, chances are good it’s a function of holiday comedown and fatigue, says Roberts. But it’s good to remember that this comes on the heels of winter’s shortest days. After October’s switch from daylight-saving time, we’re not getting as much vitamin D or serotonin — a mood-boosting hormone.
Seasonal affective disorder, sometimes referred to as winter depression, is a subtype of depression that most commonly comes on in the darker, colder months. Somewhere between 10 and 20 per cent of people suffer from some degree of SAD, but it’s not well documented in children.
That said, if you suspect your child has depression at any time of year, says Sara Dimerman, psychologist and author of How to Influence Your Kids for Good, look for symptoms such as big changes in behaviour, spending lots of time in her bedroom, avoiding plans with friends, not enjoying the activities she usually loves, and changes to the way she eats or sleeps. “If it’s fairly intense and it’s been going on for a while — 10 days to two weeks — then I would speak to a family doctor to start to get a referral for a psychiatric evaluation, just to make sure that there’s nothing else going on.”
Another thing to consider is whether you’re modelling good coping skills during the winter months, says Dimerman. “Do you complain about the short days and the gloomy skies? Do you grumble about having to put on a coat and boots? Or do you embrace winter by making snow angels and building snowmen with the children?” If you suffer from SAD yourself, show your kids how you manage by using a special phototherapy lamp, saving for that warm-weather vacation or hiring a teenager to help shovel the walk if the task makes you feel overwhelmed, says Dimerman.
There are a number of things you can do to help your kids beat ordinary winter doldrums, too, says Roberts. She recommends investing in a minitrampoline, usually under $50, to give kids a way to have some active fun in even the coldest weather. “Exercise, going outside, eating a lot of protein, getting more recess time or doing something after school with peers … these are all ways to boost serotonin.”
Brandie Weikle is a parenting expert and the host of The New Family Podcast and editor ofthenewfamily.com
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HTS Theological Studies
versión On-line ISSN 2072-8050
versión impresa ISSN 0259-9422
PUNT, Jeremy. Violence in the New Testament and the Roman Empire: ambivalence, othering, agency. Herv. teol. stud. [online]. 2008, vol.64, n.4, pp.1633-1651. ISSN 2072-8050.
The various ways in and degrees to which the New Testament is associated with peace, or the end or absence of violence, have often been argued or at least assumed. In contrast more recently, some studies have also argued that the New Testament documents endured and tolerated, but at times also incited and sanctioned violence - positions accompanied by various theories that have been offered to explain the prevalence of Biblical violence. The ambivalence of the New Testament texts regarding violence, particularly their virtually concurrent rejection and condoning of violence, mirrors the ambivalence of the New Testament's imperial setting. And, the agency regarding violence is situated variously by and through the documents addressing various socio-historical contexts in the agonistic first century CE, with the one common factor being the ubiquitous presence of the Roman Empire. It is argued that greater consideration for the impact of the imperial setting on the New Testament positions regarding violence provides an important starting point for and valuable insight in understanding the mixed messages (and accompanying tensions) of the New Testament concerning violence.
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NAD project won the Second prize award in the section “Best Completed Project Contest”
during the award ceremony that took place at Conference Dinner of Industrial Technologies 2014 Conference 2014 on April 10th, 2014
The prize was given to Massimo Masserini, coordinator of NAD project, by Clara de la Torre,
Director responsible for "Research and Innovation" in the European Commission
The success story about NAD project is online on the H2020 website
The NAD project is also mentioned in the brochure that President Barroso sent to the Heads of Government, in advance of European Council Summit
See brochure: Horizon 2020: boosting industrial competitiveness with NAD on page 5.
The NAD (Nanoparticles for therapy and diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease) Project is aiming to
develop nanoparticles for Alzheimer's diagnosis and therapy.
Recent statistics estimate that 24.3 million people have dementia today, with 4.6 million new cases of dementia
every year (one new case every 7 seconds). In the EU, about 5 million people have dementia,with Alzheimer’s
disease (AD) accounting for over 3 million.
The goal of the study, developed in the field of nanotechnologies, is to create nanoparticles (NPs)able
to cross the blood-brain barrier to reach the brain, principal site of Alzheimer's disease. Molecules that
can recognize (diagnosis) and destroy (therapy) the amyloid deposits, characteristic of the illness, will be
attached to the nanoparticles, and tested on animal models of the disease (transgenic mice). If the
expectations of the research are attained, future experiments can be performed on humans.
The results can have an enormous impact on the early diagnosis and therapy of a disease of high
incidence, which takes a heavy social cost.
The NAD project involves 19 European research centers of 13 European countries (Italy,France,
Slovakia, Sweden, Netherlands, Hungary, Finland, Greece, Belgium, Spain, United Kingdom, Portugal,
Research area: NMP-2007-4.0-4 Substantial innovation in the European medical industry:
development of nanotechnology-based systems for in-vivo diagnosis and therapy
(in coordination with topic HEALTH-2007-2.4.1-7 and HEALTH-2007-1.2-3 in Theme 1 "Health")
Prof. Masserini of University of Milano-Bicocca is the scientific coordinator of the project.
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The coronavirus situation has gotten a lot more serious than most people expected at some point or another, and it has become apparent that it is in all of our best interest to spend some time in self-isolation to help put a stop to the spread of this nasty disease.
We’re pretty sure this is a dream come true for introverts who get goosebumps when someone cancels some plans on them, and they can just chill between their four walls without having to do any peopling. But for others who can’t stand the idea of having to spend an hour alone or those who are simply addicted to being outdoors, self-isolation and quarantine can feel like a straight up nightmare!
Luckily, staying at home doesn’t have to be boring and there is always some interesting stuff we can do, not only to pass the time, but also to have some fun!
1. Do some exercise! Sure, the gyms are all closed right now, but that shouldn’t be stopping you from breaking your daily sweat. If you feel like you just can’t motivate yourself to do some sit-ups or yoga without a personal trainer, there’s like a gazillion fitness videos on YouTube that you can work out to!
2. Cook for yourself and your family! The internet is an endless ocean of recipes and all the cooking shows you can think of. Just pick your favorite cuisine, do a bit of googling, fire up that stove, and use all this free time to become an expert cook!
3. Read a new book! With today’s way of life being so fast-paced, it often feels like the only things we read are work documents and way-too-long comments on Facebook. So, use this time off to put your phone down, kick your feet up, and dive into that paperback that has been staring at you from the shelf for the past year. Heck, why not make it a trilogy?!
4. If you’re feeling crafty, make yourself some homemade soap! The number one recommendation these days is to wash your hands, so if there is anything that has been cleared from the supermarkets, it has to be soap! We’re sure that you’ve already stocked up and won’t really need to make any of your own, but actually, it’s pretty fun! Just google a few recipes and get to it!
5. Play some board games! Board games are an awesome way to spend some quality time with your family and they are fun for people of all ages. So, break out that Monopoly board and start buying out those properties and building those hotels! Or, if you want to play something simpler, go head to head in a game of checkers. If you don’t have any board games available at home, there is an almost endless list of social games you can play with just a pen and paper! (Here's a list of Fiab - Chicago's favorite board games: Betrayal at House on the Hill, Forbidden Island, Catan and the oh so timely Pandemic.)
6. Clean out your closet! It seems that the time has finally come to get that wardrobe under control. Cleaning out your closet can be overwhelming, so now you can finally go through all your stuff in peace and decide what to keep and what to ditch. Use this time to purge and organize your belongings as you have always wanted, down to the tiniest detail!
7. Take an online course! A great quote that always pops to mind here is: “Formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune.” But even if you’re not aiming to get rich beyond your wildest dreams, an attitude of lifelong learning will enhance your understanding of the world around you, open doors for new opportunities, and improve your overall quality of life. So, pick an online course you find useful, and go for it!
8. Fix up the house! With hardware stores still open, it's the perfect time to make those home improvements that you've been wanting to do, but just have not had the time. And afterwards (for bonus points) take a nap! We don’t really think you need much instruction here. It’s the perfect opportunity to get a good night’s sleep and doze off at any time during the day. With no boss standing over your shoulder and school being out until further notice, you finally have an excuse to spend all day in your pajamas!
9. Get creative! We all have that inner artist hidden away somewhere deep inside us. So what better time to let loose and get those creative juices flowing! Pick up that paintbrush and get your hands dirty with some abstract art, or finally start writing that novel you’ve always wanted to but could never find the time!
10. Put together a travel bucket list! You know, this quarantine and coronavirus situation isn’t going to last forever. Use this free time to make a list of all the wonderful and exotic destinations you want to visit before you kick the bucket. The opportunity to hit the road will present itself sooner or later!
We hope that all these ideas will make your stay in home quarantine a bit more bearable, and that you will use this opportunity to have some fun and spend quality time with your family and loved ones!
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Winter weather is getting serious now. It’s needed to freeze the germs that are causing lots of people to have colds and other illnesses, but severe chilliness isn’t my idea of fun!
Now that you’ve put away the last of the holiday decorations and Ohio’s winter gray has set in, the months before spring often bring boredom and loneliness to people of all ages. How do you beat the winter blues?
First, take good care of yourself. Good health requires eating right, getting plenty of rest and exercising. It’s important to remain active, both physically and socially, regardless of the weather. Some people are affected by a type of depression called seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, at this time of year. SAD is very real, especially for those of us in central Ohio where we experience an average of 180 gray days annually. If you feel depressed during the winter but feel much better in seasons when there is more daylight, you may have SAD. Some signs and symptoms of SAD include lack of energy, sleeping too much and overeating.
How are you going to avoid seasonal depression or loneliness? Try to stay physically and mentally active. Start a new hobby or a project using a skill you already have. Try a new recipe or revisit an old favorite and invite someone to share your creation. Attend a local university class to expand your knowledge about a topic. Crochet or knit items for a family member, friend or charity. Discover your inner artist – pick up a paintbrush and try your hand at creating your own masterpiece. Adult coloring pages are an option. Maybe woodworking or beading interests you. There are many creative pursuits that can help you stay busy, entertained and fulfilled, while relaxing and enjoying down time. Start a jigsaw puzzle and invite friends to help. Working together helps build relationships and is a wonderful time to share stories and even plan the next gathering.
The local library has a variety of programs open to all even if you don’t know other participants. For example, the main branch in Newark has an adult reading group through March 5. Libraries also have lists of best sellers and old favorites, including series that will entertain for hours. Books on CD or tape and e-books are alternatives to the written page. For anyone with difficulty reading, the free Talking Book and Braille Center (800-792-8322) provides books by mail with the necessary equipment.
Few activities are more uplifting than helping a cause that you care about. How about volunteering? Ask a nonprofit agency if they are looking for assistance. Churches often serve community meals or run programs needing volunteers. Most schools welcome volunteers to read with children or help in other areas.
If the weather keeps you from your normal workout regimen, you can still exercise at home. Workouts for all levels are offered on television and DVD. Try simple exercises that require no special equipment, such as squats holding onto a chair. Do an online search for “exercise at home without equipment” for ideas. Sing and dance to music, perhaps during one of the many talent shows on television. You just might become engrossed in one and following it will provide something to look forward to.
Penny Sitler is the executive director of Mental Health America of Licking County.
Found in The Newark Advocate Saturday, February 6, 2016
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Re: Bitting EverythingPosted by: Marie Evans
Posted on: November 27, 2002 at 10:28:04
In Reply to: Bitting Everything
: Hi, my JRT is almost 10 mth, he is nuetered and I've had him since he was 8 weeks old. For a while now he has been bitting everything from wood to leather. I read that he probably needed more exercise, so we took him for 2 walks a day and played ball for an hour a day and someone is always home with him. Even with all of this he still chews everything. We will be playing and he will just stop and start chewing the carpet or ripping up the grass with his teeth. He is also very pushy and I only play with him when I decide that we should, but that's not really helping either. He will just sit, stare at me and bark. Please help, I love Inky but he really needs to stop his behavior or my mom says he has to go.
Just like a child, Inky needs to learn what is okay to do and what's not okay to do. If nobody teaches him, he's not going to know.
So it's time to teach Inky. When Inky takes something he shouldn't have and starts chewing on it, you must give him a stern "NO" and give him something he can chew on (toy, chewy, bone). When Inky takes the right item, you tell him "GOOD INKY..GOOD BOY!" in a very happy way. This tells Inky this is a good thing to do and it makes you happy. When Inky takes something not good the "NO" and "BAD DOG" in a stern voice will signal Inky that this is wrong.
Jessica you need to understand that this is not going to change overnight. This is going to take time, a whole lot of patience and 100% consistancy to make Inky understand. And your whole family is going to have to get involved. Anyone that sees Inky chewing on something he's not supposed to must do the same thing I have told you to do. If not everybody is on the same page, then Inky will just get confused because he will think "it's okay to chew this in front of this person, but I can't chew it in front of Jessica."
Now is the perfect time to get Inky into school. Ask your parents if you and Inky can go to obedience school. You will be doing both you and Inky a big favor if you do this and your parents should be very happy that you want to make sure that Inky becomes a good canine citizen and a nice addition to your family instead of a headache.
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Author: Sapphital Original
Write your awesome label here.
This course is for anyone interested in learning the French Language. You will learn the basics of French, how to speak, write, and read. You will also develop the ability to apply it in real-life situations and conversations with people you meet. This course is for beginners and those that want to improve their fluency in French.
No. of Videos: 14
more about this course
French is the fifth most spoken language in the world, thanks largely to the millions of Africans who speak it daily. French remains the sole official language in 11 African countries, and the second official language in 10. As such, we Africans have countless reasons to learn French. Whether, for leisure, travel, business, academia, or even work.
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Results 1–10 of 12 for "Journal Special Issue"X related to "APA's council votes to move its next..." Refine Your Search Refine Your Search TopicWomen & men (3)Therapy (2)Children (1)Education (1)Emotional health (1) 8 more... [+] Ethics (1)HIV & AIDS (1)Learning & memory (1)Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (1)Personality (1)Race (1)Stress (1)Workplace issues (1)Hide detailsDocument TypeJournal Special IssueXYear2014 (1)2013 (5)2012 (4)2011 (2)Author/ContributorAmaro, Hortensia (1)Barnett, Jeffrey E. (1)Brough, Paula (1)Cameron, Linda (1)Dollard, Maureen (1) 15 more... [+] Freeman, Mark (1)Goodman, David (1)Gough, Brendan (1)Humphrey, Carolyn F. (1)Kelly, Jennifer F. (1)Klein, William (1)Koenig, Melissa A. (1)Loss, Christopher P. (1)Pukall, Caroline (1)Reissing, Elke (1)Roberts, Michael C. (1)Rosenfield, Sylvia A. (1)Rothman, Alex (1)Sabbagh, Mark A. (1)Tuckey, Michelle (1)Hide details Results 1–10 of 12 Previous 1 2 Next Relevance Title A-Z Title Z-A Newest First Oldest First Sort by: 1.Psychology, Politics, and Public PolicySpecial issue of the APA journal History of Psychology, Vol. 14, No. 3, August 2011. Includes articles about psychology, politics, and public policy in terms of same-sex relationships; apartheid; crisis counseling and disaster relief; identity politics; and socialism and eugenics.Journal Special Issue - History of Psychology (August 2011)2.HIV/AIDS: Social Determinants and Health DisparitiesSpecial issue of the APA journal American Psychologist, Vol. 68, No. 4, May–June 2013. Includes articles about HIV/AIDS in terms of social disadvantage; prevention and care; stigma and racial/ethnic disparities; gender and ethnicity; infection among people who inject drugs; and prevention among ethnic minority youth.Journal Special Issue - American Psychologist (May 2013)3.Telehealth and Technology Innovations in Professional PsychologySpecial issue of the APA journal Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Vol. 42, No. 6, December 2011. Includes articles about legal and ethical issues in telehealth; risk management; security management; electronic medical records; social media activity; and specific Internet-based treatments for various disorders.Journal Special Issue - Professional Psychology: Research and Practice (December 2011)4.Theoretical Innovations in Social and Personality Psychology and Implications for HealthSpecial issue of the APA journal Health Psychology, Vol. 32, No. 5, May 2013. Articles highlight major areas of innovation in recent social/personality psychology that hold promise for synergistic integration with health psychology and related fields in the pursuit of adequate health promotion, health care, and population health.Journal Special Issue - Health Psychology (May 2013)5.Selective Social LearningSpecial issue of the APA journal Developmental Psychology, Vol. 49, No. 3, March 2013. The articles pose important questions concerning how children learn from others, what the characteristic signatures of social learning might be, and how this learning changes over time.Journal Special Issue - Developmental Psychology (March 2013)6.Psychology & The OtherSpecial issue of APA's Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, Vol. 32, No. 4, November 2012. Includes articles about aesthetics, ethics, and erotics; difference, dialogue, and context:; futurity in empathy; and hermeneutics and language.Journal Special Issue - Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology (November 2012)7.Secondary Analysis of the National Latino Asian American Study (NLAAS) Dataset - Part IISpecial issue of APA's Asian American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 3, No. 2, June 2012. Articles discuss education, psychosocial adjustment, discrimination, and distress among Asian Americans.Journal Special Issue - Asian American Journal of Psychology (June 2012)8.Consulting in Education: Challenge and ChangeSpecial issue of APA's Consulting Psychology Journal, Vol. 64, No. 1, March 2012. Articles discuss issues in consultation in schools, including consultation competence; culturally-responsive consultation; and learning and behavioral change processes.Journal Special Issue - Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research (March 2012)9.Secondary Analysis of the National Latino Asian American Study (NLAAS) Dataset - Part ISpecial issue of APA's Asian American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 3, No. 1, March 2012. Articles discuss mental health issues among Asian Americans, including depression, suicidal behavior, and service use.Journal Special Issue - Asian American Journal of Psychology (March 2012)10.Men's Health: Masculinity and Other Influences on Male Health BehaviorsSpecial issue of the APA journal Health Psychology, Vol. 32, No. 1, January 2013. The first section focuses on public health issues, including physical exercise, alcohol consumption, and help-seeking. The second section covers illness-related phenomena, including male-specific cancers, sports-induced disability, and male sterilization.Journal Special Issue - Health Psychology (January 2013) Previous 1 2 Next Relevance Title A-Z Title Z-A Newest First Oldest First Sort by: ADVERTISEMENT Results 1–10 of 12 for "Journal Special Issue"X related to "APA's council votes to move its next..."
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Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political Economy, and the Political History of the United States
GERRY, Elbridge, vice-president of the United States 1813-14, was born at Marblehead, Mass., July 17, 1744, and died in office at Washington City, Nov. 23, 1814. He was graduated at Harvard in 1762, was a member of the continental congress 1776-80 and 1783-5, was a delegate to the convention of 1787 (see
—See Austin's Life of Gerry.
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The Great Blue Hole is a large submarine sinkhole off the coast of Belize. It lies near the center of Lighthouse Reef, a small atoll 70 kilometres (43 mi) from the mainland and Belize City. The hole is circular in shape, over 300 metres (984 ft) across and 124 metres (407 ft) deep. It was formed during several episodes of Quaternary glaciation when sea levels were much lower - the analysis of stalactites found in Great Blue Hole shows that formation took place 153,000, 66,000, 60,000, and 15,000 years ago. As the ocean began to rise again, the caves were flooded. The Great Blue Hole is a part of the larger Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, a World Heritage Site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
This site was made famous by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who declared it one of the top ten scuba diving sites in the world. In 1971, he brought his ship, the Calypso, to the hole to chart its depths. Investigations by this expedition confirmed the hole's origin as typical karst limestone formations, formed before rises in sea level in at least four stages, leaving ledges at depths of 21, 49, and 91 meters (69, 161 and 299 ft). Stalactites were retrieved from submerged caves, confirming their previous formation above sea level. Some of these stalactites were also off-vertical by 5° in a consistent orientation, thus indicating that there had also been some past geological shift and tilting of the underlying plateau, followed by a long period in the current plane.
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Whether or not individuals have a will in place, their estates will likely go through the probate process. There are, of course, ways in which Texas residents may avoid such proceedings, but in many cases, individuals opt to create wills as part of their estate planning process. Wills are subject to probate, and individuals can select their estate administrators. If there is no will in place, a state-appointed administrator will handle the probate process.
When a will is created, individuals can appoint whom they believe is most fit to manage their estate administration. This administrator must carry out the contents of the will. However, disputes pertaining to the contents of a will could still take place, leading to a potentially complicated situation. Nonetheless, creating a will could help distribute assets to individuals that the creator of the will sees fit in the event of his or her demise.
Without a will, the state will handle how pieces of estates are distributed. As a result, individuals’ assets may be bequeathed to parties that the deceased individuals may not have intended. Probate proceedings in which there is no will could also become difficult situations as steps are taken to determine which individuals may be rightfully entitled to inheritances.
Though the probate process is necessary when it comes to distributing a will, surviving loved ones may find themselves feeling overwhelmed by the circumstances. Luckily, Texas residents who are facing proceedings or even litigation regarding an estate may be able to find the right avenues to help them navigate these legal waters. Discussing concerns with experienced estate planning attorneys could allow individuals to better understand what to expect from the probate process.
Source: floridatoday.com, “Planning for Privacy and Ease Estate Settlements“, Stephen Lacey, June 13, 2016
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Hi. I am trying to calculate the 'kicking out' force created when an object topples over. Attached is a picture of what I mean. The body in the picture topples in a clockwise direction as shown, with its initial pivot point at 'a'. The centre of gravity of the body is shown as cg. Now I have been told that there is a force that causes the rod to kick back from this pivot position due to the centre of gravity that 'wants' to fall straight down. How would I work this out?
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J Addict Dis. 2012;31(2):173-82. doi: 10.1080/10550887.2012.665693.
Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous: the role of spiritual orientation and AA member affiliation.
1Division of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, NYU School of Medicine, New York, NY 10016, USA. email@example.com
Empirical findings characterizing long-term, committed Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) members are limited, particularly among younger members. The authors studied a sample of 266 highly committed attendees (mean age, 27 years) at an annual conference of Young People in Alcoholics Anonymous (YPAA), whose first encounter with AA was 6 years previously. Most (72%) had abused drugs and alcohol, and 36% had never received substance abuse treatment. They now reported a mean duration of abstinence of 44 months and had attended an average of 233 AA meetings in the previous year; 66% had served as AA sponsors, and 92% reported experiencing an AA “spiritual awakening,” itself associated with a decreased likelihood of alcohol craving. Scores on AA beliefs, affiliation to other members, and the experience of spiritual awakening were associated with lower depression scores. These findings are discussed to clarify the nature of long-term AA membership.
Click HERE to obtain the full article.
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|Authors||Swelstad MR, Swelstad BB, Rao VK, Gutowski KA|
|Journal||Plast. Reconstr. Surg. Volume: 118 Issue: 4 Pages: 840-8|
|Publish Date||2006 Sep 15|
Gigantomastia of pregnancy is a rare, severely debilitating condition characterized by massive enlargement of breasts and resulting in tissue necrosis, ulceration, infection, and, occasionally, hemorrhage. Typically, resolution of breast hypertrophy to near prepregnancy size occurs in the postpartum period. Treatment is controversial.The authors present a patient with gestational gigantomastia for whom nonoperative management failed and who subsequently required bilateral mastectomies. In addition, the authors performed a comprehensive review of reported cases and generated a treatment algorithm.The patient tolerated the mastectomies well and went on to deliver a healthy child. Postpartum delayed breast reconstruction with tissue expansion and implant placement yielded good results. The literature review demonstrates that medical management has successfully avoided surgery during gestation in 39 percent of cases since 1968. However, 35 percent of patients eventually underwent breast reduction (12 percent) or mastectomy (88 percent) during pregnancy. Spontaneous or elective termination of the pregnancy accounted for 30 percent of outcomes. Patients who underwent breast reduction and then became pregnant had a 100 percent (four of four patients) chance of recurrence. Two women had mastectomy and subsequent pregnancies. One woman developed multiple small areas of recurrence that were surgically excised. The other woman had two additional pregnancies with no recurrence of symptoms.Medical therapies to manage gestational gigantomastia are inconsistent in outcome. Since some patients respond, these therapies are worth trying. However, if the patient and/or fetus are experiencing significant morbidity, then surgical intervention is warranted. Breast reduction or mastectomy with delayed reconstruction is the preferred procedure. If the mother is considering future pregnancies, mastectomy offers the lowest risk of recurrence.
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Helping children and young people to be safe and feel safe
Reducing persistent absence from school for children living in families with multiple problems, who are receiving our help.
Keeping Hampshire’s children and young people safe is a key priority for all Children’s Trust partners. Working closely with the Safeguarding Children Board, we will retain a relentless focus on the timeliness, quality and effectiveness of the support given to children, young people and families; keeping children at the centre of what we do.
We recognise that preventative and early intervention services can do more to reduce abuse and neglect than reactive services. Therefore, through the Children’s Trust and Local Children’s Partnerships, we will develop a coherent and transparent offer of local services that work to prevent problems developing, and give support and help to families as early as possible, when needed. Collectively, we will increase our shared understanding of local levels of need and ensure that we can provide, refer or signpost to local services that match these needs and are based on strong evidence of what works. By working together, we can also more effectively help those families with multiple problems, supporting them to make positive changes in their lives.
This means we need to develop even stronger partnerships, with greater co-ordination, more effective information sharing and good training, support and professional advice for those working with children and young people. This includes building on our existing strong understanding of the thresholds for statutory services, ensuring that the most vulnerable children get this level of support as soon as possible.
Key activity areas:
- reviewing and redesigning children’s social work services in line with national changes in the framework for safeguarding, with an emphasis on promoting direct work with children and young people
- exploring the development of a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub
- ensuring there is sufficient provision of early help, with improved access to information about these services
- embedding the Principal Social Worker role and continuing to improve the quality of training, supervision and support for social workers
- providing targeted support for families with multiple problems
- promoting child safety with parents/carers, and helping children and young people understand how to keep themselves safe, thereby reducing the possibility of children entering risky behaviour.
How this has improved since 2009
Strengthened safeguarding arrangements
Investment in safeguarding services in Hampshire over recent years has focused on continually improving the timeliness and quality of services provided to vulnerable children and young people. It has also enabled us to effectively manage significant increases in demand for services, as illustrated in the chart below.
In summary, between 2007/08 and 2010/11:
- the rate of children in need per 10,000 population of children and young people increased by 58.1%
- the rate of referrals per 10,000 increased by 60.6%
- the rate of initial assessments per 10,000 increased by 56.6%
- the rate of Child Protection Plans per 1,000 increased by 58.8% (which reflects a 26.7% increase in the rate of new CPPs).
At the same time as responding to this increased demand, the County Council has improved the quality of services, with good and outstanding judgements received following the 2011 Ofsted inspection of safeguarding and services for children in care. Inspectors noted that outstanding partnership working helps keep children and young people properly safeguarded, with a strong sense of safeguarding being everyone’s business. They found that this effective working is leading to increasingly good outcomes for children and young people.
Reduced rates of bullying
Hampshire’s multi-agency Anti-Bullying Strategy Group was highlighted nationally as an example of promising practice. Implementation of the anti-bullying strategy included guidance for schools, a directory of good practice, training courses, leaflets and online information and an annual conference for young people, by young people. The proportion of children who reported being bullied in school during the last year fell from 23.7% in 2008 (Pupil Attitude Survey, Years 6, 7 and 9) to 17.8% of Year 6 pupils, 22.8% of Year 7 pupils and 18.5% of Year 9 pupils in 2011 (Pupil Attitude Survey).
Why this is still a priority
Area of significant change
Safeguarding is an area of considerable change nationally, so we need to give additional focus to adapting to new statutory requirements, ensuring that Hampshire’s services continue to provide effective support for the most vulnerable children, young people and families. We will strive to achieve high performance against the new national performance frameworks for safeguarding.
In securing the best outcomes for individual families, protecting children is a collective responsibility, requiring constant vigilance. Therefore, it is imperative that we work together to help prevent problems and address those that do develop, as early as possible. The earlier we help, the less likelihood there is of more serious problems developing later. The structure of Hampshire’s Children’s Trust, with Local Children’s Partnerships working together at a community level, provides an ideal platform for mapping levels of need and promoting a shared understanding of the services on offer in an area.
Protecting our most vulnerable children
We know there is always more that can be done to improve services. Hampshire has a strong and effective Safeguarding Children Board, closely linked to the Children’s Trust. All relevant partners will continue to play an active role in the Board, ensuring that we learn from practice and outcomes of Serious Case Reviews, both nationally and locally, so that we continue to improve services – and ultimately outcomes - for children and young people.
Families with multiple problems
By working together more effectively, we stand a better chance of changing the lives of those families who have a number of problems. This is an area of focus nationally, with the Government asking local authorities to identify and support each of these families. It is estimated that there are 1,590 families in Hampshire with multiple problems (Department for Education, 2011). The sort of problems these families have include: parents/carers not being in work, parents/carers with mental health problems, children not attending school, crime and anti-social behaviour. Rather than responding to individual problems as they emerge, we will work with families to put in place a plan of action to improve school attendance, reduce anti-social behaviour and support parents/carers into work.
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Asynt announces the DrySyn Multi-M high temperature adapter – a unique product that enables scientists to undertake parallel reactions that require solution temperatures of over 400°C.
A significant number of Asynt customers worldwide have reported great success in using single position DrySyn heating block systems at high temperatures. However, in order to carry out very high temperature reactions in parallel required development of a novel pin locating adapter plate. With high temperature hotplate stirrers being generally much larger than those considered as “standard”, the new adapter plate ensures that the DrySyn Multi-M loaded with 3 x 250ml round bottomed flasks can be accurately and securely positioned on a larger hotplate stirrer.
Manufactured from solid aluminium, the DrySyn Multi-M with high temperature adapter was originally designed for a customer who is now successfully undertaking novel nanoparticle synthesis reactions in parallel that require solution temperatures of up to and over 400oC.
Most standard lab hotplate stirrers have a maximum ‘plate’ temperature of around 300oC and therefore a higher temperature unit is needed if a solution temperature above around 280oC level is required. Asynt recommends the use of a high temperature hotplate stirrer such as the IKA HS7. This unit is capable of 500oC and works perfectly with the new DrySyn Multi-M high temperature adapter allowing parallel experiments to be set-up and used in a secure central position.
Download the press release in full HERE.
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As cars keep getting smarter, automation is taking many tricky tasks – from reversing to parallel parking – out of drivers’ hands.
Now, a University of Toronto study is underscoring the importance of drivers keeping their eyes on the road – even when they are in an automated vehicle, or AV.
Using an AV driving simulator and eye-tracking equipment, Birsen Donmez, a professor in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, and her team studied two types of in-vehicle displays and their effects on the driving behaviours of 48 participants.
The findings, published recently in the journal Accident Analysis & Prevention, revealed that drivers can become over-reliant on AV technology. This was especially true with a type of in-vehicle display the team dubbed “takeover request and automation capability,” or TORAC.
A “takeover request” asks the driver to take vehicle control when automation is not able to handle a situation, while “automation capability” indicates how close the automation is to its limit.
“Drivers find themselves in situations where, although they are not actively driving, they are still part of the driving task – they must be monitoring the vehicle and step in if the vehicle fails,” says Donmez.
“And these vehicles fail – it’s just guaranteed. The technology on the market right now is not mature enough to the point where we can just let the car drive and we go to sleep. We are not at that stage yet.”
Tesla’s AV system, for example, warns drivers every 30 seconds or less when their hands aren’t detected on the wheel. This prompt can support driver engagement, but when the automation fails, driver attention and anticipation can determine whether a traffic accident occurs.
“Even though cars are advertised right now as self-driving, they are still just level two, or partially automated,” says Dengbo He, a post-doctoral researcher and lead author of the study. “The driver should not rely on these types of vehicle automation.”
In one of the team’s driving scenarios, the participants were given a non-driving, self-paced task meant to mimic common distractions such as reading text messages, while takeover prompts and automation capability information were turned on.
“Their monitoring of the road went way down compared to the condition where these features were turned off,” says Donmez. “Automated vehicles and takeover requests can give people a false sense of security, especially if they work most of the time. People are going to end up looking away and doing something non-driving related.”
The researchers also tested a second in-vehicle display system that added information on surrounding traffic to the data provided by the TORAC system, called STTORAC. These displays showed more promise in ensuring driving safety.
STTORAC provides drivers with ongoing information about their surrounding driving environment, including highlighting potential traffic conflicts on the road. This type of display led to the shortest reaction time in scenarios where drivers had to take control of the vehicle, showing a significant improvement from both the TORAC and the no-display conditions.
“When you’re not driving and aren’t engaged, it’s easy to lose focus. Adding information on surrounding traffic kept drivers better engaged in monitoring and anticipating traffic conflicts,” says He, adding that the key for designers of next-generation AVs will be to ensure systems are designed to keep drivers attentive.
“Drivers should not be distracted, at least at this stage.”
Donmez’s team will next look at the effects of non-driving behaviours on drowsiness while operating an AV.
“If someone isn’t engaged in a non-driving task and is just monitoring the road, they can be more likely to fall into states of drowsiness, which is even more dangerous than being distracted.”
The research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
This article by Liz Do originally appeared on U of T News, December 1, 2020
- “Understanding and Supporting Anticipatory Driving in Automated Vehicles,” Dengbo He, PhD thesis, Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, 2020. Professor Birsen Donmez, Supervisor.
- From automated vehicles to operating rooms: Human Factors researcher Birsen Donmez studies human and technology integration
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Here are some helpful, useful and fun tips for Healthy Heart month that you can incorporate into your everyday life:
• Park in a spot that is not so close to your destination.
• Sit on a stability ball at work or at home.
• Take a few minutes each day to stretch – just a few minutes will help you feel revived and more alert.
• Plan a workout date with a friend so that you stay committed and are accounted for the workout session
And of course, there’s no better gift you can give your heart than exercise, so here’s a way to ramp up the cardio component of your Total Gym workout.
Total Gym workout for a healthy heart:
Perform 3 exercises combining cardio and strength on and off of your Total Gym:
1. Level 8, deep squats 10-20 reps, then add jump squats 10-20 reps
2. Level 5-8, pull-ups 10-20 reps, get off Total Gym for plié jumps on floor 10-20 reps
3. Level 3-5, pull over crunch -10-20 reps then add arm circle 10-20 reps. Get off the Total Gym for jump lunges 10 – 20 reps on floor
Hope these little tips and short workout help!
Maria Sollon Scally MS, CSCS holds a Masters Degree in Performance Enhancement/ Injury Prevention and Kinesiology. She has obtained numerous certifications in various areas of fitness and is a national fitness conference presenter. Maria specializes in Pilates, Performance Coaching, and Corrective Exercise Techniques. She is a Master Trainer for Total Gym, Resist-a-Ball, Body Blade, and MVe Peak Pilates. Maria teaches traditional and progressive fitness classes throughout Southeast Florida. She has also added her own brand of classes suited for her more advanced training clients. Maria is also active in free lance writing for Fitness accredited magazines. www.groovysweat.com
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Sweden believes the answer to the detrimental effects of fast fashion on the planet is to abandon the gala events. But can it really make a lasting impact?
Fashion weeks continue to be one of the important events around the world that celebrate clothing and vanity. But the bi-annual event is facing some serious critics, keeping in mind environmental issues.
At the same time, news of Swedish Fashion Council cancelling Stockholm Fashion Week spread around international platforms like wildfire. It has proposed to create a new format for the industry instead of having a standard fashion week. Coming from a Nordic country, this bold step is not surprising.
In Jennie Rosén’s view, who is the CEO at Swedish Fashion Council, this decision of separating from the traditional fashion week model is not an easy one. Putting the past behind and encouraging a platform that brings in sustainability and innovation, is what is needed, in her belief for today’s fast fashion industry.
The council that is now focusing on creating tools and platforms that are more relevant to the industry’s current needs is looking forward to generating revenue streams that encourage cross-sector collaboration.
In a day and age when fast fashion brands like Zara and H&M flourish, mimicking clothes from top fashion shows every 15 days – dissolving a country’s only fashion week is a micro move in an industry booming on the environment’s expense.
In India, apart from the two main fashion weeks that happen in Delhi and Mumbai, there is a long list of sponsored shows organised. This includes fashion weeks in Bangalore, Hyderabad, and Jaipur. There are fashion weeks organised by media giants, alcohol labels and others who knock off the main event in the same city.
Amancio Ortega, founder of Zara was the richest man in 2015 and Bernard Arnault, Chairman and Chief Executive of Louis Vuitton, recently took the position of the second richest man in the world. This tells us enough about the size in which certain fashion labels operate in terms of finances.
With the magnitude of fashion weeks that take place in Paris, Milan and New York, the idea of cutting down on fashion weeks only seems like a utopian yet fictitious future.
But what if there were no fashion weeks? We hear from various stakeholders on their take on how to navigate the traditions of the fashion business.
For Delhi based fashion designer, Shreya Khurana, the idea of not having fashion weeks is “only drab” and believes it won’t make the industry sustainable. “Brands that want to come up with new collections will still do so. Not having a fashion week won’t dissolve the concept of seasons,” she adds.
In her view, fashion weeks are bigger than just new collections. As a trade show, it’s a point of contact where people do business and meet people. “This is where new designers find new markets and old vendors find new designers. By cancelling fashion weeks, we’ll be going backwards in an age where exposure brings business,” Khurana says. She accepts that the concept of seasons is what needs to go, not necessarily fashion weeks if we look forward to a sustainable future.
For Annanya Bhowmick, a Bangalore based product designer who studied leather design at NIFT, the problem is not so much with fashion weeks but our intrinsic need to splurge on the “new collection”.
“This peer pressure of indulging in consumerism is what needs to be left behind. People need to understand that they can do without buying a lot of clothes”, Bhowmick says. She envisions a future, where people live a solitary life. A life that runs on a shared economy and no one really owns anything. She imagines bodysuits, like a second skin, that one can wear for years customising it every day, digitally and by adding extensions. “Although I don’t think we will survive for more than 50 years, the way the world is moving. Urgent action is required”, she adds.
Such scepticism towards our future is not new. We have seen Swedish teenager activist, Greta Thunberg uniting fellow school goers around the world on taking a stand for the environment.
For Asit Bhatt, an associate professor at NIFT, the Swedish Fashion Council’s steps are taken to move away from fast fashion, although he is not quite certain where it leads to.
Fashion weeks for years have created a sense of community within the fashion fraternity, a sense of belongingness apart from the economics involved in it. Eradicating the entire event does sound like a radical move for any society to go through.
However, there is great hope from what the Swedish Fashion Council will propose: a landmark project that will awaken the whole of the fashion community.
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go to Shearing Equipment
I can not stress enough the need to shear your llamas. This is an extremely important part of their care and maintenance. The original home of the llama is in South America where they are routinely sheared each year for their wool. This wool has become a very important end product of the South American llamas.
When we began bringing these animals to the US, not much thought was given to their care, especially shearing, and a lot of these animals died from heat exhaustion. In the South and South Western States, many farms began shearing in a desperate attempt to save the llamas life in an emergency. ( that is when the llama was actually suffering well into heat stress.)
Then some people began getting smarter and thought - as summer approaches, why not shear the animals which had this problem last year. A few people went as far as to try and shear as many of their animals as possible.
The desire for spinning wool, by some llama owners, resulted in a few more animals being sheared. The shearing for the health of the animal and giving relief from the heat, also progressed with show llamas as well, but it was quite hesitantly accepted that a show llama could be shorn and then shown.
In a round about way the llama has benefited greatly from all of these endeavors. Many areas now consider this as routine maintenance, and it should be. Here at Kent Rock Meadows, every llamas has a shearing at least once a year.
On our farm we have every animal receive at least one total grooming, bath, and shearing each year. We begin shearing in March, and our goal is to have them all done by the middle to the end of May - before the very hot season arrives. I feel it is very important to stress to any purchasers the absolute need for a yearly shearing, and we sell all our animals sheared, weather permitting, and we will shear any animals which were purchased in the winter in that next Spring . We feel so strongly about shearing that we have begun a yearly Shearing Clinic for llama owners to bring their animals to our ranch in May & the first weekend in June.
HOW TO SHEAR YOUR LLAMA
To obtain the best results in shearing, your llama should be as clean as you can possibly get them. This is not absolutely necessary, but really helps in the overall shearing process. If you are saving the wool to spin, as we do, your animal should be cleaned thoroughly. Also, the cleaner your animal the less wear and tear on your clipper blades.
Of Llama To Use Wool For Spinning
First blow you llama out. They have an incredible amount of dirt and particles in their coat because they roll two or three times daily. After you have blown them out, begin grooming with your favorite brush and some type of spray. You can find some very good sprays that can help you remove the knots and tangles. This brushing will probably take you several days to complete. After you have completed the cleaning, pick a warm day that will be at least in the 70ís to begin washing them. Blow them out again and do a thorough washing of the wool. Any type of shampoo will work, from llama shampoo to your own personal brand. Then you can rinse out with a conditioner. Be sure and thoroughly rinse the llama, since the smallest amount of soap will stay right there. The drying process can be helped along by blowing the animal out, and then let the llama finish drying naturally in the sun.
Yes, they will immediately run over to their favorites spot and roll in it. Not to worry, when they are dry if you blow them out before you clip, all the recent dirt comes right out.
If the animal is not a heavy wool sometimes you can clip them the same day. Otherwise you will need to wait until the next day to do this. As you can see, this is not a one step process, if you wish to save the wool to spin you will need to put aside several days to prepare your animal.
If you decided to just blow your llama out and it had a lot of knotted and long wool you may need to clip off some of this wool with some large shears made for this type of work. Then you can begin shearing. Your shearing can be accomplished by using scissors, or commercial clippers. The clippers come in various weights and sizes. They can be electric or battery powered. The wonderful thing about the blades is that they can be sharpened and reused.
After you have prepared your llama. Begin you shearing on the back starting at the top. Have a plan or a pattern design before you start to shear. You can set your design by parting the wool with a comb. Cut inside your design, make the pattern smaller than you intend so you donít over cut. It seems to be easier if you begin cutting at the top of the back nearer the head and neck. Think out your design and remember that you can return and finalize the cut by making a V by the neck or a rounded edge there. This doesnít need to be done at the beginning of your shearing.
Use long sweeping motions to shear. Donít cut with short chopping motions. This seems be the most difficult part to learn when you begin to use the electric shears.
If you are shearing with scissors always point the scissors down. As you shear, especially the first few times, cut higher off the skin and gradually you will learn by practice how to lay the shears or clippers on the animal to get the cut you desire. Then you can go back and adjust the desired height of wool you wish to leave on the llama. Wool length that you leave will vary with each person. We like to leave some wool on the animal because of sun burn and insects which bite them.
1. BARREL CUT- This cut is used on smaller llamas or cria. It is a great cut to give quick relief to an animal with the minimal amount of wool being removed. This cut is done around the midsection between the front and back legs.
2. EXTENDED BARREL CUT- I call it an extended barrel cut because the barrel cut seems to have evolved into more hair removal. Shearers began taking the barrel cut and adding more touches to give more air circulation to the animal. The barrel cut is done as usual. Then move further toward the front and back legs removing more wool around the middle. Then going past the abdomen and under the back legs all the wool is removed and sometimes wool off the stifle joint if there is a lot of wool there. ( the joint of the leg nearest the abdomen ). The same is then repeated at the front elbow joint ( the joint nearest the top part of the front leg). This allows for wonderful air circulation under the abdomen and front and back legs.
3. SHOW CUTS- This
cut is great because it now removes all the wool that the barrel cut does and
also removes all of the heavy wool from around the tail and back legs. We
first saw this cut in Oregon over four years ago on female llamas who were bred
and getting ready to deliver, and we came right home and did this cut on our
females. It was several more years before we actually saw this cut in the show
Do your extended barrel cut first, and then begin your angle cut and decide how low you wish to cut the angle on the legs. Then go down around the tail and the buttocks.
4. LION OR POODLE CUT- These cuts leave only a small portion of wool on your llama. It is an excellent cut for a heavy wool llama. You will be removing all the wool from the llama except the head and neck wool. Cut all the wool around the tail and then cut a portion on the leg from the hock joint down to the fetlock. Or in laymanís terms from the knee cap to the ankle. This will make the llama look like a lion when you view him from the front. Shearing this way allows quality air circulation to the abdomen and under the back legs and will keep a male very cool and still be able to look very handsome.
5. TOTAL CUT - This is just as it sounds since everything is removed. Another excellent cut for heavy wooled llamas, or llamas that havenít had a shearing in a long time. Just remove all of the wool on the neck, body, and legs. You can leave a ring around the neck if you like.
CLEANING ELECTRIC CLIPPERS
You will want to take proper care of your electric clippers. Before you start, lubricate the clipper with some lube oil especially made for them. Put some blade wash in a plastic bowel, and use this to clean the blades. As you are shearing, you will notice the clippers will change sound and also slow down. That is the time to place the shearing blades in the blade wash. Do this while the clippers are running, and the blade wash will allow you to flush out the hair which accumulates in between the clipper blades. Plus the wash is a lubrication for the blades.
After the clipping job is all done, clean the clippers. Take apart the clippers and put the screw and spring and two blades in the blade wash. Use an old toothbrush and clean all the parts making sure you brush between the teeth of the blades. Do the same thing to the head of the clippers where the blades go. This will really clean out all the dirt and hair and also extend the use of your blades. Remember, if you are good to your clippers they will be good to you. This will give you a lot of clippings. Anywhere from 15- 18 animals can be sheared if the blades are properly cared for.
The last thing needed to do to the clippers, is a spraying with a disinfectant. Then lay all the parts out on a paper towel and air dry before you put them back together.
Many organisms can be passed from one animal to another. To kill a variety of organisms such as Staphylococcus Ayreus, Samonella, Tubercule Bacilli, Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, and other organisms, the use of a spray disinfectant on the blades and the parts of your clippers or scissors is highly recommended. There are several excellent products out on the market designed to be used with clippers.
GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR SHEARINGS. DONíT BE AFRAID TO SHEAR YOUR LLAMAS. THEIR COMFORT AND LIVES DEPEND ON IT.
IF YOU MAKE A MISTAKE THE WOOL GROWS BACK and THE BARE SPOTS WILL GROW BACK IN A COUPLE WEEKS.
or call - 706 -359/2060
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Utah celebrates 100th anniversary of laying of Capitol cornerstone
SALT LAKE CITY — One hundred years after the state Capitol cornerstone was laid, state leaders charged Utahns to glance backward but focus on the future.
Gov. Gary Herbert was joined at Friday's centennial celebration by former Gov. Mike Leavitt, as well as an actor portraying William Spry, Utah's third governor who served during the building of the Capitol.
"You can imagine the Salt Lake Valley in 1914. It looked nothing like it does today," Leavitt said. "And to build on a hill, an edifice that would symbolize the people of Utah — their strength, their optimism, their sense of order — is something that we should not just commemorate, but we should, in fact, exemplify."
The outside of the building is constructed with the same granite used for the Salt Lake Temple. However, instead of taking 40 years to build as the temple did, the $2.6 million Capitol was built in 2 ½ years, starting when ground was broken the day after Christmas in 1912.
Richard Kletting, a German stonemason, became the architect when his design was selected out of 22 proposals, according to Capitol docent Chris Franco. Kletting's design focused on natural lighting and open spaces, while making the building as fireproof as possible.
Utah's state Capitol is the only one in the nation with an uninterrupted corridor, which is lined with 26 monolithic columns. Each column is 25,000 pounds of solid marble brought in by rail car from Georgia, Franco said.
A 1,000-pound chandelier hangs 90 feet from the rotunda dome. Artists painted the sky and clouds directly on the ceiling, as well as California gulls with 6-foot wings.
Visitors underneath the rotunda can see the feet of people walking around above through Singapore glass. Utah's Capitol is one of the first state capitols to have electricity. The floor under the rotunda is partially lit by 103 Thomas Edison lightbulbs, seen throughout the building's interior.
Also prevalent are 1/8-inch gold leaf decoration and rosettes, after the neoclassical tradition. The architecture has both Greek and Roman influences.
Herbert called the building "beautiful, ornate and large," noting that the grandiosity was controversial at the time.
The Capitol was closed in 2004 for four years to make the building earthquake-resistant and preserve the historical structure. Part of the $270 million renovation was the addition of seismic base isolation.
The system is made up of 265 base isolators that hold up the building and can move 24 inches — meaning the building would simply sway in the case of an earthquake. The Capitol, Franco said, is one of the best places to be during an earthquake.
Herbert and Leavitt encouraged Utahns to have the same "vision and courage" for tomorrow as their forefathers.
"May we commit ourselves again to the same principles of industry and order and productivity that this building exemplifies, and may it be the house of the people of Utah for yet another hundred years," Leavitt said.
Email: firstname.lastname@example.org, Twitter: Madeleine6
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The U.S. Green Building Council, home of the LEED Rating System, released its Top 10 States for LEED Green Buildings, and Nevada has earned the number one spot. The list was based on USGBC data as well as data obtained during the 2010 Census. Nevada’s 10.92 square feet of LEED certified space per person earned that state the top ranking.
“Using per capita, versus the more traditional numbers of projects, or pure square footage, is a reminder to all of us that the people who live and work, learn and play in buildings should be what we care about most,” said USGBC SVP of LEED, Scot Horst. “2010 was a difficult year for most of the building industry, but in many areas, the hunger for sustainable development kept the markets moving.” Source: USGBC
There are several notable LEED certified projects in Nevada, including the massive CityCenter in Las Vegas. The hotel, shopping and entertainment complex holds six LEED Gold certifications.
Nevada’s 10.92 square feet of LEED space per capita is quite a bit more than the second-place New Mexico’s 6.35 square feet.
Top 10 States for LEED Green Buildings
- Nevada – 10.92 square feet
- New Mexico – 6.35 square feet
- New Hampshire – 4.49 square feet
- Oregon – 4.07 square feet
- South Carolina – 3.19 square feet
- Washington – 3.16 square feet
- Illinois – 3.09 square feet
- Arkansas – 2.9 square feet
- Colorado – 2.85 square feet
- Minnesota – 2.77 square feet
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Posted by mysterychicken on Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 12:09pm.
Can someone please check if my answers are correct?
21. How do people survive living in harsh enviroments such as the desert?
a. by adapting and making changes to their enviroment
b. by moving to more hospitable areas
c. by not altering the natural landscape of their enviroments
d. none of the above
23. By which of the following are modern economic systems distinguished from one another?
a. means of production
b. kinds of goods and services produced
c. amount of investment capital
d. degree of government involvment
- Geography - GuruBlue, Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 12:19pm
I think you need to look again at #21.
I agree with #22
- Geography - mysterychicken, Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 12:26pm
Would #21 be D?
- Geography - GuruBlue, Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 12:38pm
I would go with A.... people learn to adapt to new environments. They learn how to change their habits and in addition, the find ways to make the new environment more habitable. Think about the researchers at Antarctic
- Geography - mysterychicken, Wednesday, August 26, 2009 at 12:40pm
Alright, thank you
Answer This Question
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Provide the right information from the start to make your design project a work of art.
As an agency with over 20 years of graphic design experience under its belt, Graphic D-Signs knows the ins-and-outs of the industry. Most of the time, delays with design projects result from impractical timelines, not providing the right files or information, or sometimes even some slight miscommunication between those involved in the project. Before beginning a new design project, there are a few things to know:
1. Provide Constructive Criticism
Designers are always working around the clock to ensure that a project is completed to the highest standard. After all, making sure that a client is satisfied with the final design is always the highest priority. As a client, don’t be afraid to be honest with opinions toward the final project. Constructive criticism will help the designer better understand exactly what the end goal of the design is—therefore, helping the project to move along at a faster pace.
2. Know Your Target Audience
When something is being designed for a company, designers are always making sure that the design that they are creating will be well received well by the client’s target market. Keep in mind that a design—especially one for a company with a distinctive brand—should appeal to the company’s customers, not just to the owner of the company. By knowing your target audience off the bat, the graphic designer can be sure to design for that particular group.
3. Have Awareness From the Onset
Whether it’s designing a brochure or a website, designers take their job very seriously. The discovery and application of a creative approach to a company’s brand is an important and time-consuming step in the process. While beginning a design project is exciting, it’s important to become aware of realistic deadlines and feedback—for all parties involved.
4. Understand the Power of Photography
Great photography, coupled with great design work, can help share the story behind a company’s brand. If there are brand assets specific to a company, be sure to share them with the designer. Photography that was previously used, whether on print advertisements, across social media or on the company’s website, can open a designer’s eye (and mind) to design something spectacular. Giving a designer an idea of what your brand entails will help them better understand the end goal for the project.
5. Trust the Professional
Designers are ready to tackle any project—as long as they can have a little bit of creative freedom. A trained and experienced designer will apply their skills to better your brand and company image. It’s up to the client to put trust in their designer’s abilities—allowing them to show off their skills in order to supply great results.
The next design project on the to-do list doesn’t need to be a daunting task. Now, armed with the knowledge of what designers are looking for, it’s time to rebrand, create a company brochure or even redesign the company website. Trust a design professional, provide as much constructive criticism as possible and set realistic timelines to ensure that it will be smooth sailing from the start.
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