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Senior Associate Dean Dan Filler was quoted in Business Week on Jan. 31 regarding the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to seek the death penalty against accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
In seeking the death penalty against Tsarnaev, “Eric Holder chose to speak for the nation as a whole, rather than for just Boston or Massachusetts,” Filler said.
With polls showing that many Massachusetts residents oppose the death penalty, Filler observed, “Massachusetts residents, the jury, will make the final call about imposing death.”
Tsarnaev was charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and malicious destruction of property in two blasts that killed three people and injured more than 200 near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013. Tsarnaev is also accused in the shooting death of an MIT police officer that occurred while he and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, sought to escape Boston in the days after the bombing. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was later killed in a police shoot out in Watertown, Mass.
The article noted that Filler launched a capital defense clinic while he served on the faculty at the University of Alabama School of Law. Filler was appointed by the Pennsylvania Joint State Government on Capital Punishment to the Advisory Committee on Capital Punishment in 2012. He has served as chair of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Law and Humanities and chaired an American Bar Association team that assessed the fairness and accuracy of Alabama’s death-penalty system. The U.S. Supreme Court cited the report that resulted from that assessment in a 2012 ruling that favored a death-row inmate in Alabama.
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It’s been a trip to manage all lenders all for a passing fancy site of Best Practices. Since alternative party income does unfit in to a “one size fits all” package, the regulation process becomes complicated. Web lenders build additional issues since their possible clients can be found beyond physical reach.
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Payday loans and money improvements are run by equally brick and mortar places along with the endless opportunities from an on the web lender. Car concept loan businesses are yet another choices for short-term income on the basis of the equity in the individual’s vehicle. For these name businesses, instances are changing, as more and more lenders start offering quickly money on the Internet. The ease of online financing has attracted new customers to car title loan opportunities.
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ROCK ISLAND, Illinois -- Heavy equipment emerges like a dinosaur from a cave on Monday, July 9.
"We won't know until we get into it," said Brian Bollmiller, Valley Construction, as he carries scraps from the past.
"You had steel, wood and bricks," he continued.
These are remnants from Rock Island Plow Company. A one-time rival to John Deere, it dates back to the 1850s, on property now occupied by Dohrn Transfer Company.
"A building that was torn down had mule stalls in the basement, it was so old," recalled Heather Dohrn, Dohrn Transfer's vice president of sales. "This was probably the newer building of Rock Island Plow, but we're going to say it was built in the early 1900s."
After also serving J.I. Case until 1988, the building sat vacant for decades. Some eight stories of bricks decaying from useful to ugly. There's even a live tree growing out of a broken window on a top floor.
"It's a beautiful old building," Dohrn said. "But it's gotten to be a safety issue because some of the bricks are falling down."
It also stands in the middle of Dohrn Transfer Company. Demolition, by way of a wrecking ball, will make way for needed expansion. They expect the project to take about three months.
"The safest route was really to do it brick-by-brick," Dohrn said. "We want to make sure we get any of the asbestos out."
Bollmiller, who helped to tear down other original buildings nearly 30 years ago, is back for this job.
"Everywhere you stood, you were under a roof," he recalled.
Dohrn Transfer will improve truck bays and parking. This growing family business counts on some 1,200 employees in 21 locations.
"We're going to add some more docks here, and then we'll have just a better system operating all the way around it," she said.
Bollmiller's scooping, much like the dinosaur, represents extinction and expansion.
"It's a neat building," Dohrn concluded. "So it's sad to see it come down."
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Isaac Kauffman Funk, (born Sept. 10, 1839, Clifton, Ohio, U.S.—died April 4, 1912), American publisher who was also a Lutheran minister, religious journalist, Prohibition Party publicist, and spelling reformer.
Funk graduated from Wittenberg College, Springfield, Ohio, in 1860 and was ordained a Lutheran minister the following year. Resigning his pulpit in 1872 he traveled in Europe and the Middle East. After his return to the United States he helped edit the Christian Radical. Funk entered the publishing business in 1876, his first publication being an aid to ministers, the Metropolitan Pulpit.
In 1877, with a former classmate, Adam Willis Wagnalls, he founded I.K. Funk & Company, afterward (from 1891) Funk & Wagnalls Company, in New York City. The firm became best known for A Standard Dictionary of the English Language (1st ed., 1893; subsequent editions entitled A New Standard Dictionary of the English Language).
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For 200 years, a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter. Across Europe, millions of sheep rub their fleeces raw before collapsing. In England, cows attack their owners in the milking parlors, while in the American West, thousands of deer starve to death in fields full of grass. What these strange conditions, including fatal familial insomnia, kuru, scrapie, and mad cow disease, share is their cause: prions. Prions are ordinary proteins that sometimes "go wrong", resulting in neurological illnesses that are always fatal. Even more mysterious and frightening, prions are almost impossible to destroy because they are not alive and have no DNA. And the diseases they bring are now spreading around the world.
In The Family That Couldn't Sleep, essayist and journalist D. T. Max tells the spellbinding story of the prion's hidden past and deadly future. Through exclusive interviews and original archival research, Max explains this story's connection to human greed and ambition, from the Prussian chemist Justus von Liebig, who made cattle meatier by feeding them the flesh of other cows, to New Guinean natives whose custom of eating the brains of the dead nearly wiped them out.
The biologists who have investigated these afflictions are just as extraordinary. They include Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, a self-described "pedagogic pedophiliac pediatrician" who cracked kuru and won the Nobel Prize, and another Nobel winner, Stanley Prusiner, a driven, feared self-promoter who identified the key protein that revolutionized prion study.
"Very timely and compellingly written." (Booklist)
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To access this title, visit your library in the app or on the desktop website.
A great scientific mystery
Very entertaining and enlightening
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All the pieces of a formal congressional hearing were in place. A row of lawmakers with furrowed brows were seated in wide, leather chairs behind an elevated table with microphones. Water pitchers and engraved nameplates were in front of them. A second, smaller table was set up below for witnesses to deliver their expert testimonies. Chairs lined the back for spectators and reporters.
The topic of Tuesday's discussion: government suppression of alien visitors from outer space.
Despite the setup, this was not an actual hearing. It was day two of a week-long event called the Citizen Hearing on Disclosure that will be part of a documentary called "Truth Embargo." Held at the National Press Club in Washington, the hearing will include testimony from some 40 panelists.
To conduct the proceedings, six former members of Congress are being paid $20,000 each to act like they're in Congress again, and ask questions about the government's alleged role in shielding the existence of alien visits to Earth. (Their pay comes to about $666 an hour. But that's a different conspiracy theory all together.)
The former lawmakers—retired Republican Reps. Roscoe G. Bartlett of Maryland and Merrill Cook of Utah; former Democratic Reps. Darlene Hooley of Oregon, Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Michigan and Lynn Woolsey of California; and former Democratic Sen. Mike Gravel—are tackling a variety of topics. They range from what "really" happened in Roswell, N.M., in 1947 and why Air Force service members aren't being treated by the Veterans Affairs hospital for injuries allegedly sustained while working with UFOs to why the U.S. government won't release more information about supposed visitors from other planets.
The purpose of the hearing, said organizer Stephen Bassett, is less to prove the existence of extraterrestrials than to pressure the federal government to end its silence about the thousands of UFOs allegedly spotted over the years.
"It's no longer about lights in the sky, it's about lies on the ground," Bassett said.
The last official congressional hearing on alien lifeforms was in 1968, but the White House denied just two years ago that there was any coverup.
"The U.S. government has no evidence that any life exists outside our planet, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted or engaged any member of the human race," said Phil Larson, a spokesman for the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye."
But these members of Congress aren't entirely convinced that the statement was truthful.
Like a bunch of nostalgic, former high-school football players tossing around the pigskin at a 20-year reunion, they peppered witnesses as though they were back in the game on Capitol Hill.
When Yahoo arrived at the "hearing" Tuesday morning—Congress is on recess this week, so why not?—retired Air Force Tech Sgts. John Burroughs and James Penniston were at the witness table where they described the night in 1980 they believe they had stumbled on a UFO in the Rendlesham Forest on their base in England. Penniston said he touched it, and that he suffers from injuries to this day that he believes stemmed from that moment.
"It's probably the worst decision I made, touching that," Penniston said.
The former congressional members listened for hours as the two described the night the alleged craft was found, how the government was covering it up, and Penniston's difficulties finding affordable medical care. He said that Veterans Affairs had declined to treat his injuries.
"I want to apologize from the United States government," Cook told him, as the others offered their own condolences when they heard his story.
After the morning session the group broke for lunch, and I met a man wearing a copper forehead headband with a crystal piece atop a silver coin. He told me in no uncertain terms that he was born more than 1,800 years ago beneath the surface of the Earth in a subterranean city where several million people live near Mount Shasta in California.
All humans, he said, are aliens from other constellations.
"You're from Pleiades," the man, who called himself Zaraya, told me.
"How do you know that? Do I look like someone from Pleiades?" I asked.
"No, I just know your essence," he said.
I also caught up with some of the retired lawmakers, who said they were divided on whether they believed in the existence of aliens. Gravel, an outspoken 9/11 truther who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination five years ago, is an enthusiastic believer.
"There's no question in my mind when you hear this kind of testimony," Gravel said. "This is reasonable testimony. It's a little bit like 9/11. When you begin to look at this and listen very carefully, you look at this and say, 'Hey, there's something wrong. There's something fundamentally wrong. And why won't the government, why won't our society respond to that?'"
Gravel added, however, that Earthlings probably could not handle a permanent visit from aliens.
"We're not ready to receive extraterrestrials. We're not mature enough," he said. "The way we approach it is, 'Shoot 'em down.' This is a little bit like Columbus and Cook when they made their discoveries. They killed a few natives and ... made slaves out of them. We don't have a good record of handling first discoverers."
Bartlett, on the other hand, said he was open to the idea that aliens could be among us, but wasn't completely sold. He just wants to know the truth.
"Is it some secret thing that we're doing, that Russia's doing? Is it extraterrestrial? I have an open mind. I came here with an open mind, I still have an open mind," he said. "Clearly it's not something that's common knowledge. My problem is that whatever is out there, the people have a right to know about it. I think it's inconceivable that the truth about this can have any effect on national security."
"I've had a curiosity about it for 50 years," Bartlett added. "I knew there were a number of sightings that could not be explained away."
If they only knew that, the whole time, they were talking to a Pleiadian.
- Politics & Government
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Scientist sees opportunities for Posilac
Educating consumers about hormone's benefits will spur widespread adoption
By TIM HEARDEN
A scientist who works extensively with dairy cows believes Posilac still has a future in the industry, though the drug has largely fallen out of favor with some producers.
As the world population grows, using Posilac makes sense because it has been shown to be an effective tool for increasing milk production, said Terry Lehenbauer, associate director of the University of California's Veterinary Medicine Teaching and Research Center in Tulare, Calif.
"From that perspective, I think it still has a place," Lehenbauer said. "It's just that in our current times and our current market situation, there's not an urgent need to produce more milk at the moment. But in the long term, the dairy industry needs to be productive and efficient. I think (Posilac) can contribute to that."
A growing dislike among consumers -- and some foreign governments -- of the use of hormone additives has soured many dairy farmers' taste for using Posilac, whose generic name is recombinant bovine somatotropin, or rBST.
The compound supplements a cow's natural levels of somatotropin, essentially causing dairy cows to eat more feed and produce more milk, Lehenbauer said.
The technology was developed in the 1980s and became available in the 1990s. Only one product was approved for use by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration -- Posilac, which was introduced by Monsanto and later sold to Elanco Animal Health.
Elanco's website describes Posilac as aiding "production practices that help dairy farmers increase milk production using fewer natural resources." It asserts the FDA's approval of the drug "required a stringent regulatory risk assessment to ensure human, animal and environmental safety."
At one time, Posilac was one of the largest-selling dairy animal pharmaceutical products in the U.S. The product "enjoyed a very favorable market and distribution and was widely used in the United States," Lehenbauer said.
Over time, though, some segments of the dairy industry began to try to distinguish themselves by not supplementing cows, he said. Many companies began restricting use of the product by the dairies that provided their milk, and some imposed financial penalties for milk that was produced using the technology, he said.
Internationally, concerns about rBST's impact on animal welfare have caused trading partners such as Canada and the European Union to severely restrict it.
One study in the European Union in 1999 linked long-term use of rBST to an increased risk of clinical mastitis, an increased incidence of foot and leg disorders and adverse effects on reproduction.
"These are problems which would not occur if BST were not used and often results in unnecessary pain, suffering and distress," concluded the study by the EU's Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare.
The milk produced by cows supplemented with the synthetic hormone is identical to that from other cows, scientists say.
Scientists "could not take milk from a supplemented cow and be able to confidently distinguish it from cows that were not supplemented," said Lehenbauer, who is part of a multi-university study of the potential for genetic resistance to bovine respiratory disease.
Worries about Posilac in Europe were based on "misinformation" and the perceived impacts on human health "really are not true," said Michael Marsh, CEO of Western United Dairymen.
Still, the use of Posilac by American dairymen has fallen off. In the Tulare area, a large majority of dairies used it at its peak, Lehenbauer said. Today, 10 percent or less of the dairies use it, he said.
The decline in its use in recent years likely minimized the decline in milk prices, as a slight decrease in the supply of milk helped edge prices up, he said.
"The U.S. and California dairy industries are very capable of supplying milk," he said. "Historically, it's been very easy for the dairy industry to overproduce milk for periods of time in excess of the market demand, which is what causes prices to drop so badly."
In the future, however, the use of Posilac will make sense "because it has been shown scientifically to be an effective tool for increasing milk production," Lehenbauer said. "So again overall, it allows us to produce more milk with fewer resources."
Marsh believes the drug may already be making a comeback.
"I think its use is probably a bit more prevalent today than it was during the nadir of its use," he said. "I think as farmers have come to understand there's more and more pressure ... to reduce environmental impact, more farmers have looked at that as an important tool to assist them in doing so."
The challenge will be to provide consumers with scientifically correct information about the safety of milk from cows who've received rBST, Lehenbauer said.
"It's an ongoing effort because consumers do tend to be concerned about the wholesomeness and safety of their food supply," he said. "It takes an effort by the dairy industry ... to provide assurance that consumers need when they consider using these types of modern technologies."
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The mayor of Bogota, claudia lopezdedicated his condolences to the families of the police officers killed by the Gulf Clanin addition to dedicating a few words to several of the uniformed men.
The police killings in Colombia by the Gulf Clan They have been used by criminals to try to intimidate or frighten the authorities.
Given the violence and atrocious acts caused by the criminal organization in Colombiathe president warned that no Colombian mayor’s office will give in to crime.
Although the number of homicides has been reduced, criminal groups began to assassinate police officers, in an act that the mayor described as “cowardly.”
He said that these homicides against the agents have occurred in the shadows, in ambushes, and not in confrontations against organized crime.
We recommend you read:
- Protests break out against Giammattei in Guatemala; perform blockades
- Congress of Peru requests prison for Pedro Castillo for proposing to give Bolivia an outlet to the sea
- Presidents of Colombia and Chile agree to deepen Latin American integration
“Each life of a Colombian hurts our souls, each murdered man and woman whose life, dreams, public service they were carrying out, contribution to the country they were carrying out, who are deprived of their friends, their relatives, their parents, the joy of seeing them grow, it hurts our souls, we have cried and will cry for them, we will accompany their families in this duel,” said Claudia López.
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AxleTech, which turns 100 years old this year, is reinventing itself with a focus on electrified vehicle solutions. By focusing on a “power-agnostic” between-the-wheels electrification technology, it believes it can provide integrated, in-axle systems that provide the same power and efficiency as conventional diesel powertrains – and maybe even better.
“This is key, as vehicle manufacturers and owners will demand this with any powertrain change,” explained Jason Gies, AxleTech director of business development for electric vehicle systems, in a March 1 webinar for reporters.
AxleTech, based in Troy, Michigan, traces its roots back 100 years as part of the original Rockwell International. Since then there have been a number of name changes and ownership transitions. Today, the company is emphasizing the “tech” in its name, providing advanced powertrain systems, axles, brakes, components, and aftermarket and remanufactured parts for heavy-duty commercial and defense applications.
Key in its growth is commercial vehicle electrification.
According to a Frost & Sullivan report, AxleTech said, the electrification adoption rate for medium- and heavy-duty trucks is expected to be 10.6% by 2025 globally, and 12.3% for North America.
The forecast calls for growth to increase starting in 2020. “That’s just next year,” Gies said. “The industry is looking at a lot of growth very quickly.”
Three years ago, AxleTech put together a team to develop electrified axle solutions. The company plans to make a big announcement at ACT Expo in April, but already has developed several electrified axle solutions. It has several vehicle partners:
• Thor Trucks. AxleTech is developing an on-highway fully integrated e-axle system that it will pair with Thor’s proprietary batteries
• Wrightspeed, which is making range-extended electric powertrains
• Proterra, an electric bus start-up, which Daimler last year made a big investment in. Part of what AxleTech developed are two-speed gear boxes that give the Proterra system a 20% efficiency improvement. In fact, Gies said, Proterra in 2017 set a world record for longest distance traveled on a single charge, over 1,100 miles, for any vehicle.
AxleTech's “between the wheel” systems are power-agnostic, Gies noted. It could be full battery electric, hydrogen fuel cells, range-extending technology, or even hybrids.
“We require three essential things from the OEM: a cooling line, a control cable, and a power cable – and AxleTech does everything else.”
AxleTech contends its system-engineered technology has an advantage over early electric truck solutions that involved replacing the truck engine with a single, large electric motor and multi-speed gearbox. This configuration is referred to as a “direct drive” solution, because it follows the traditional longitudinal drivetrain platform. However, AxleTech said, this approach has shortcomings, including poor packaging, efficiency, cost, and compatibility of the major components.
More recent commercial EV powertrains have very specialized configurations, AxleTech says, but varying degrees of customized chassis, suspensions, and e-powertrains raise concerns of long-term supportability and cost.
In contrast, Gies told reporters, AxleTech designs its technology to address four key factors: Performance, cost, maintenance support, and packaging (easily integrated into current vehicle platforms.)
Next month at ACT Expo in Long Beach, California, AxleTech said, it will launch “the most efficient electric powertrain in the world for Class 6-8 trucks,” as well as a compact and powerful system for low-floor transit buses and some new strategic partnerships.
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Patient Condition Reports
In accordance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 ("HIPAA"), with New Hampshire state law, and with Cheshire Medical Center/Dartmouth-Hitchcock policy, our patients' privacy is respected and protected at all times.
Requests for information about patient conditions must include the full name of the patient; age and hometown, if available, are also helpful in locating the patient within our system.
Media calls for information regarding a patient's condition should be referred to the Executive Administrative Assistant at (603) 354-5454 x2000
If the patient, or parent or guardian (in the case of a minor) allows directory information to be released, the patient's condition will be described in one of four, one-word reports, as outlined by the American Hospital Association:
- Good/satisfactory - Vital signs are stable and within normal limits. Patient is conscious and comfortable. Indicators are excellent.
- Fair - Vital signs are stable and within normal limits. Patient is conscious, but may be uncomfortable. Indicators are favorable.
- Serious - Vital signs may be unstable and not within normal limits. Patient is acutely ill. Indicators are questionable.
- Critical - Vital signs are unstable and not within normal limits. Patient may be unconscious. Indicators are unfavorable.
In addition, a report of "still being evaluated" means that the patient is awaiting a physician and/or assessment.
In some cases, even if you provide the full name of a patient, the hospital spokesperson may say "that name is not on the list of names of patients for whom I am authorized to release information." There may be several reasons for this response:
- The patient has exercised the right to have no information released regarding his or her hospitalization.
- The person is not a patient at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
- The patient is being evaluated and has not yet been admitted to the hospital.
- The patient has been discharged from an inpatient unit or was treated and released from the Emergency Department.
- The patient has died.
In the case of patients who have died, no information will be released until next-of-kin have been notified or all reasonable efforts to locate next-of-kin have been exhausted.
At the discretion of the External Relations staff, and in consultation with the medical staff, media requests for interviews are presented to patients and/or family members in a timely manner. Unless the medical staff deems an interview medically inappropriate, efforts will be made to accommodate media requests for interviews. If the patient makes arrangements for an interview, it is still dependent on approval from the medical staff and External Relations before final arrangements will be made.
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Each owner defines “love” differently. Is a dog loved that doesn’t go to the vet regularly or when necessary? Is a dog loved that doesn’t get monthly heartworm and flea/tick treatment? Is a pet dog loved if it is left outside all the time?
Is the dog loved that is crated excessively, if it never leaves the house for a leash walk or other experiences? Is a dog loved if it is allowed to develop separation anxiety from being with its owner too much? Is a dog loved if it is left home along for long hours all week?
Is a dog loved that hasn’t been taught certain basic commands to make the dog easier to live with and not develop behavioral issues? Is a dog loved if it doesn’t get the opportunity to socialize with other dogs when appropriate for its personality?
A pet allowed to reproduce unchecked is not loved. A dog allowed to wander and not kept safe is not loved.
Whew, that is quite a list! Many people think their dog is happy if it has human company. And yet I hear, and rescues hear all the time, “but I love the dog.”
Dogs are not possessions to be disposed of at will because they don’t fit into your life anymore, or when you find out that you can’t afford them. If you can’t afford a vet or decent food, you shouldn’t own a dog.
If you can’t expose a dog to a relatively full life, you shouldn’t own a dog. If you physically can’t handle the dog, then this might not be a good choice; look at another dog that suits your lifestyle. Don’t just look at breed, look at lifestyle, age (yours and the dog’s) and size.
This doesn’t mean that life changes don’t happen and you might need to make difficult choices. Tthat can happen to anyone after the fact. But, when you consider adding another family member to your home, make sure you have asked all the right questions of yourself.
It is hard to give up a dog you love, and it is even harder on the dog that doesn’t understand why they just lost their human and their home. Rescues, shelters and the streets are loaded with dogs like this.
Abby Bird is owner of Alphadog Training Academy. email@example.com
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Posted Mar 24, 2014 11:00 am CDT
As businesses increasingly avail themselves of the benefits of social media, they might be laying legal minefields in their path if they don’t archive the ever-changing content, Computer Weekly reports.
“Based on research I have conducted in the U.K. and U.S., it is clear that organizations need to take seriously the potential threat of their archiving systems not satisfying their e-discovery or regulatory requirements,” says Michael Osterman, founder of Osterman Research, whose research was commissioned by the archiving company Bluesource.
Most large organizations have at least 10 Facebook accounts, with some maintaining more than 200, according to Forrester Research. About 90 percent of them have Twitter accounts. But only six percent of U.K. organizations archive social media content, according to Osterman Research, and only 20 percent have the existing capability to do so if they chose.
Companies which must maintain records of all business communications face a challenge with social media.
“Social content doesn’t remain static,” says Nick Hayes, security analyst at Forrester Research. “Content creators can edit or delete posts after they are published, and other posters can comment and add to the discussion as well. Further complicating matters is determining what content is considered business communication and when that content should be captured and archived.”
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This is the first time since 1991, when President Said Barre was overthrown, that a Somali President has been chosen inside Somalia, The Guardian
This is seen by the international community as a positive step as the once war-torn country is now transitioning into a more secure, peaceful nation.
"I am happy to see the first free and fair election happen in Somalia after 40 years," outgoing President Ahmed said in his concession speech, The AP
reports. "I want to congratulate the new president for the fair election, and I want to declare that I am fully satisfied with the results."
Speaking on his victory, newly elected President Mohamud
said, "I congratulate all Somalis. The people are now taking a new direction You are now ending a difficult path and taking a new one."
"I hope that problems of Somalia will come to an end and Somalia will now turn a new page and that page will be written in good history rather than bad history," Mr Mohamud continued according to The NY Times
According to The Guardian
, Mohamud, was a professor and activist before going into politics. He has worked for several peace and development organizations including UNICEF. Last year, he founded the Peace and Development party, which he claims is the first real political party in Mogadishu.
Mohamud's win Monday is seen as a bit of an upset, Reuters
Outgoing Prime Minister Abdiwelli Mohamed Ali supported Mohamud and said Monday that "Somalia voted for change" by voting for Mohamud.
Abdirihad Hashi, an analyst on the Horn of Africa with the International Crisis group think tank said "nobody" thought Mohamud "had a chance to win," The AP
Hashi said Mohamud's victory is a crucial step for change in Somalia, but that it will be impossible to fix all of Somalia's problems on his own.
"This is a step in the right direction, but Somalia's problems are too big to solve alone," he said.
According to Hashi these problems include "piracy at sea, hundreds of thousands of refugees, and a lack of institutions, The AP
Somalia has already seen some improvements. Until last year, its capital, Mogadishu, was witness to devastating street battles between the Al-Qaeda linked militant group al-Shaabab and African soldiers. Now, Mogadishu is a booming, vibrant city where houses are being reconstructed as a way to get rid of all the wreckage and start anew, Reuters
Another positive step for Somalia happened just last month when Somali leaders showed their approval for a new provisional constitution, which the UN helped write, The AP
reports. The new constitution includes an expansion of rights for Somali citizens.
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The internet has a long memory.
There are a lot of examples of different programs that take advantage of all the information you upload onto the Internet to then provide analytics and data to you about it, such as Google Analytics. Facebook timelines take advantage of the content you upload, including your photos, the dates in your life, and events you have attended to then create a timeline of your life and display it to your “followers”.
As Facebook’s success has demonstrated, this is functionality that is very popular, but some users are beginning to realize that this type of online sharing may have its drawbacks.
We have all had pictures of us shared online that we may not want everyone to see. These anxieties are heightened in situations like when you are applying for a job – your potential employer may not appreciate those pictures of you partying last Friday night.
So then how do you get the Internet to forget about you?
Well from a practical perspective, some people are very careful about what they post online. These people “self-censor” their online presence.
This has become easier in recent years. Many websites are now paying closer attention to privacy issues and allowing users to control their information online. Google+ regulates how your information is shared and who it is shared with through the “circles” concept.
There is one app that I recently heard of called ”Snapchat” that allows people to take pictures or videos and send to their friends, who can then view the content for a limited period of time which is set by the user. They can allow the recipient to view their content for between one and ten seconds. What many dismissed as a program that was useful only for sharing of risky content is being used by many as their primary option for sharing multimedia content with their friends. Snapchat’s success seems to indicate that the desire to keep social media private is growing amongst today’s users.
What do the courts and government have to say?
The Spanish courts recently ordered Google to delete any records of people’s private information that they may have on the basis that privacy laws gave people the right to be forgotten. In this case, the plaintiff was unhappy with the search results that appeared when he searched his name on Google. Specifically, references to attachment proceedings connected to his social security debts were being displayed. The plaintiff argued that these references should be deleted as the matter to which they referred to had been settled and was no longer relevant. The Spanish courts agreed with his argument.
However, the Courts of Justice of the European Union has issued a general opinion arguing that this decision was incorrect. It seems that an individual’s ability to be “forgotten” on the internet is still up in the air.
While European courts seem to be wrestling with this issue, Canadian legislators have, as of yet, refused to broach the topic of being “forgotten” on the Internet. Currently, there is no right to have your information deleted after a certain amount of time. Do you think we should have such a right?
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Didi Chuxing, Chinese largest cab riding company has been given the go-ahead to test autonomous driving cars in California on May 10 according to the California Department of Motor Vehicles’ website.
The move has come in the wake of US rival Uber being given a suspension for its driverless car programme across North America after a fatal collision accident of a pedestrian early this March.
Additionally, the cab-hailing major is itself facing issues over safety concerns and has given a halt to is pooling service-Hitch for a week post-murder of one of its cab rider that created an outcry over Chinese social media.
Post the go-ahead with permits, Didi will become the 53rd company to receive a permit to test autonomous vehicles in California. The Chinese cab aggregator had opened its Silicon Valley office last year focusing on artificial intelligence and security. Its research facility in Mountain View has about 100 staff people.
Speculations and Rumours were floating in the market about Didi quietly testing vehicles in China and trying to take over Silicon Valley tech giants. The company faces head-on competition from Baidu, Tencent and Alibaba, all of which are investing heavily in the technology.
Internet firm Baidu had also obtained its own permit to test driverless cars in California in 2016. It also established a research centre in San Francisco to boost its artificial intelligence efforts.
Meanwhile, Didi is actively developing its driverless fleet in partnership with a group of suppliers and carmakers that call themselves as Didi Auto Alliance. Its foreign partners in the alliance include prominent names such as Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi and the China units of Toyota and Volkswagen.
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Trace a major piece of Civil War history at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park in Kennesaw, Georgia. The national park preserves a significant battlefield of the Atlanta Campaign that waged between June 19, 1864 and July 2, 1854, killing 5,350 soldiers. Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park features a Visitor Center and museum, hiking trails, battlefield relics, and living history demonstrations.
Conveniently Located near Kennesaw Mountian -
Enjoy upscale comforts and Southern hospitality at Hilton Atlanta Marietta Hotel & Conference Center. Located just a mile from Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park, Hilton Atlanta Marietta Hotel & Conference Center offers full-service amenities, championship golf at City Club Marietta golf course, flexible meeting and event space, Georgia vacation packages and much more. Make hotel reservations online for the best rates and availability at Hilton Atlanta Marietta Hotel & Conference Center.
Kennesaw Mountain Hiking -
While Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park offers an interesting look at history, the park also offers great opportunities for outdoor lovers. The park features 18 miles of interpretive hiking trails, scenic outlooks, wildlife, and picnic areas. Visitors can drive to the top of Kennesaw Mountain during the week, or enjoy a shuttle ride to the summit on weekends. The road to the summit of Kennesaw Mountain is closed to traffic on weekends.
Kennesaw Mountain Visitor Center -
The Visitor Center at Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield is the perfect starting point for an overview of the Atlanta Campaign. Interpretive signs, photographs and relics from the battlefield are on display here. An 18-minute video offers further explanation of the Atlanta Campaign and the battlefield at Kennesaw Mountain. Afterward, embark on a self-guided cell phone tour of the park.
Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park -
Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park is open for day use only. The park and facilities are open daily, excluding Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. The Visitor Center is open from 8:30am to 5pm; the main battlefield, Cheatham Hill Battlefield, is open from 8am to 7:30pm.
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The Winnipeg Free Press reports that, “While most of the business community encourages Manitoba to negotiate its way into the New West Partnership, labour interests are not as keen.”
“‘This agreement does not level the playing field,’ said Kevin Rebeck, president of the Manitoba Federation of Labour. ‘There are very few examples that interprovincial trade barrier actually exists. To have an agreement that overrides other legislative abilities of governments to govern seems irresponsible.'”
“The MFL was reacting to news that Manitoba is in discussions to join the western economic alliance signed in April between Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.”
“Rebeck argues that joining the western partnership would limit Manitoba’s flexibility, for instance on issues such as northern and aboriginal hiring preferences on certain projects. He also said that what are often referred to as trade barriers are really just different regulatory environments on things such as government procurement systems, labour standards, consumer-protection measures, environmental regulations, and taxes.”
“In a statement the MFL released on Thursday along with the Council of Canadians warning Manitoba to stay away from the New West Partnership, they argued, among other things, that the agreement would harmonize regulations down to the weakest level in the region and prohibit support for local economic development.”
The article can be read at http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/labour-balks-at-joining-new-west-111655084.html.
The Council of Canadians media release on this can be read at http://canadians.org/media/trade/2010/09-Dec-10.html.
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I have practiced yoga on and off for six years, but when I read about yoga philosophy, I realize there is much more to yoga than the physical practice. How can I experience the deeper meaning and purpose of yoga and use it to improve my life?
Melvin Karpinski, Ft Lauderdale, Fl
With the popularly of yoga in this country, its true depth has been diminished. In many cases, it has just a form of vigorous application of yoga postures for exercise. The focus on the physical aspect of hatha yoga has definitely had a powerful and beneficial impact. Today's practice may provide the breadth but certainly not the depth of authentic yoga.
Understand that the purpose of the practice of yoga is the same as the meaning of the word yoga itself. Yoga means integration of the fragmented forces of your being that shows up as tension in the body, restlessness in mind, and emotional reaction. Regardless of what asana, pranayama or other technique you practice, it must be aimed at regaining harmony of body, mind, heart and soul.
The spirit of yoga is manifest at a formless level. Yoga is incomplete without the internal, invisible component. The internal part of yoga represents the subtler form that must be brought into synchronicity through the external form. When inner and outer, external and internal, come together in harmony, your practice makes a quantum leap to a whole new level. During your practice, the most important core principals to apply are: Intention, Meditative Inward Focus, and the Posture of Consciousness
1. Intention - This is deliberate action (your movement) combined with integrative intention (internal union). By focusing on your intention, you can track all the mental dialogue, disruptive thoughts and emotions that arise along with the external practice of the asana. Intention is your guidepost; it continually brings you back when your fragmented thoughts lead you astray.
2. Meditative, Inward Focus - Maintaining an internal gaze exposes the underlying structure of underlying inhibitions that create physical tension, mental irritations and emotional reactions. Stay alert to whatever arises in your body and your mind without labeling or judging it. Simply observe it and be acutely aware of how such disturbances affect your well being.
3. The Posture of Consciousness - as you practice # 1 and #2, you will naturally begin to practice the posture of consciousness rather than the posture of ego, which is based upon competition, comparison and judgment. Integrative intention and inward focus take you on the true journey of yoga-to discover for yourself the essence of your being through these timeless techniques. It is an alignment of all aspects of your being, surrounded by a web of trust and faith in the universe.
An integrated, conscious yoga practice consists of two parts: the first part of the pose, deliberate action, is the path. The second part, surrender, is the pathless path. Once you are on the pathless path, there is no way of knowing of where you are going. You are traveling into the unknown. The second half is not about a journey through space or time, but about being totally present wherever you are. This is where trust and faith come in. On the pathless path, all effort, doing and struggles are obstacles to be surrendered. It is a non-linear, non-logical, time transcendent state of being-presence.
This is the experience of deep, silent stillness where there remains nothing for the ego to do in the dimension of space and time. When you are totally present, there is nowhere to go and nothing to achieve. The ego's futile struggle to find answers in the future instead happens here and now. The only lasting solution is unification, which brings resolution to all forms of fragmentation. This is the experience of yoga.
You cannot get any more from marriage than what you bring to it. You cannot get any more from life than what you bring to it. Thus, you cannot get any more from yoga than what you bring to it. If you bring just the physical benefits of the body as a central focus in your practice, then that is the most you can get from it. If you bring the body and mind to it, then you extend your benefits into a whole new dimension that is no longer confined to the body. If you bring the body, mind, heart and soul to it, then your practice moves into another dimension, where yoga can fulfill its true purpose.
As a result, the posture of consciousness you cultivate on the yoga mat is automatically available in your interpersonal relationships. It bleeds into every one of your daily life activities. Whatever you do outside becomes internalized; what is inside becomes externalized. There is no difference for the posture of consciousness - it is inside out and outside in.
I find myself stuck in a habit that I have been trying for years to get over it. I can stop the habit for a short time ,but it comes back stronger over time. How can I free myself permanently of this habit?
If you go just through the medium of the mind alone to recondition yourself, you never have power. This is because the part of your mind that is in control works according to neuro-glandular functions of the past. These patterns can be dissolved through the practice of Yoga Nidra, Third Eye Meditation, physical postures, diet, pranayama, if you are consciously engaged. You then alter the karmic patterns and disintegrate their power through meditative awareness.
When we adopt artificial relaxation vehicles such as tranquilizers, alcohol, drugs, career work, sports or art related activities, it becomes a way of ignoring pain rather than removing the cause of pain. No matter how long you ignore the enemy, the enemy moves closer every moment and it does not solve any problem. That which is used as a way to kill the pain also becomes the source of more pain. That which is adopted to avoid pain invariably sustains, prolongs and reinforces the pain. All the devices adopted either to suppress pain or to avoid pain are like throwing gasoline on a fire; it only makes the field of unconsciousness extend, creating greater insensitivity. The avoidance of pain through distraction gives you a vicarious sense of achieving something with a superficial sense of pleasure for achievement. You may receive external validation, but it cannot free you from the internal tensions that are building. As a result, when you're feeling center becomes progressively more numb, you not only prevent feeling the pain, but you simultaneously reduce your ability to experience natural pleasures associated with your bio-intelligence.
When you deepen your ability to feel, it is invariably accompanied with gathering the psychological patterns as well as biological patterns. Psychological patterns are self deceptive and self-defensive ways of rationalizing to protect yourself from reality, and physical tensions which actively works through our nervous system, diminishes our organic biological life-giving functions. On a physical level this creates fatigue, and on the mental and emotional level it creates depression.
As one becomes more depressed and fatigued, if they do not change that consciously and intentionally, then they are again driven to resort to external stimulus that can overcome their insensitivity and their psychological and emotional disturbances. This demands their wanting to go into the next level of excitement that goes slightly above the level of their insensitivity. As a result, people go from coffee, to cigarettes, to alcohol, to marijuana, to cocaine, in order to raise their level, and this level has to be exciting enough to submerge their tension, and drown in in-order to feel the integration which comes from unconsciousness induced by such drugs.
Whenever we use external ways of tranquilizing our tensions, reducing our sensitivity to catch the glimpse of pleasure or relief from tension, the method adopted to achieve such relief, once it becomes a habit pattern, its ability of changing biological chemistry to create the effect progressively diminishes. Each method which becomes adopted becomes boring, not interesting and not as engaging as it was in the beginning.
Suppose you adopt a sexual relationship as a way to get high on the experience of falling into new and fresh love. It is exciting and temporarily appears as if you are free from the inhibitions, tensions and problems which stem from the historical you. No matter how exciting the external sexual relationship is, the law of diminishing return with repeated use invariably applies. When sex gets boring, and when you don't find the other person as way of relieving your pain, then alcohol works, because you don't have to depend on someone else, but you can just engage in unconsciousness.
There is a tension-born attraction which is unconscious and invariably seeks external agency or another person, or external situations as a way of relieving tension. Such attractions become magnified as tensions become magnified. This happens because attraction becomes the way of neutralizing tensions, and attraction then takes the form of attachment to the object of attraction. When the attention grows even more, then attachment begins to take the form of addiction. When addiction creates even more tension, then addiction takes the form of obsession. In every stage of this change there is a boredom and fear and despondency and depression and fatigue and listlessness, which is experienced all along the journey from attraction to obsessions.
By moving past the medium of the mind with the technique of yoga nidra, you are able to directly address the source cause, and remove the root of your habit patterns. Instead of using your life energy to struggle with a multitude of effects, you are able to directly resolve a single cause, which instantaneously and automatically eliminates the multitudes of effects. Yoga Nidra is a powerful technique which takes you into the fourth dimension, where all of these shifts can happen spontaneously and effortlessly.
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Managing Inventory: A Delicate Balance
Managing inventory in a highly regulated environment directly impacts a company’s ability to offer competitive pricing without eroding profits.
Businesses face inventory management challenges with varying degrees of difficulty. From struggling with how much product to keep on the shelves to waging the battle between decreasing costs and increasing quality, determining how to manage inventory effectively—and the inevitable result of doing this successfully (or not)—can make or break any business. For many manufacturers, high levels of operational complexity and increasing pressures surrounding regulatory compliance compound this struggle. These additional variables weigh heavily on the already dynamic operational environment, demanding a balance that can be hard to manage.
Maintaining the correct levels of inventory is delicate balance. Levels should be high enough to provide effective speed to market, but low enough to limit investment and risk. Each business must take into consideration the damage that can be done by not properly balancing the two when determining these values. Having too much inventory can result in mismanaged handling and holding costs, disposal fees and potentially even regulatory fees for environmental non-compliance, all of which translate to reduced profit. Not having enough inventory can result in a loss of market share because of an inability to effectively service customer needs or meet price expectations.
Efficient inventory movement is a critical component to striking the necessary balance, and directly impacts a manufacturer’s ability to offer competitive pricing without eroding profits. In order to succeed, manufacturers must find ways to control inventory management while maintaining a competitive edge.
Establishing a comprehensive view into all areas of the business will allow much needed visibility for inventory control and facilitate the streamlining of inventory management. Implementation of a single software enterprise resource planning (ERP) system provides this visibility while also offering the single database needed to store and access company-wide data.
However, it’s important to understand the software models being evaluated and the effect they will have on daily operations. Traditional “integrated” ERP systems are often built by bolting together several third-party systems under the guise of one brand name. While it may appear to be a sufficient solution that is customizable to meet all identified requirements, the system suffers from inherent weakness due to the instability in the underlying infrastructure. This weakness leads to the use of unreliable workarounds (such as Excel), as well as unnecessary operational complexity. By increasing complexity, the risk of failure also increases.
A single system ERP simplifies business operations and reduces risk of failure by offering all required functionality without customizations, bolt-ons or workarounds. The advantage of one system developed, implemented, and supported by one vendor is the accuracy and availability of real-time results, a simple-to-use interface, and the ironclad process control provided when information is synced from formulation to shipment.
This single system is a central tool needed to manage and produce reports that are essential to optimizing inventory movement. For example, running an aged inventory report that can be sorted by the products’ age in days allows manufacturers to easily determine the products that should be disposed of and those that can be reworked or resold at a discount—minimizing waste, maximizing profit and offering insight into products that aren’t performing. By identifying slow-movers, companies can refine their product line and eliminate costly extra materials. This increased control over data and reporting facilitates more informed decision-making and ultimately improves process control.
With Control Comes Compliance
This ability to collect, organize, and retrieve information from across the entire manufacturing process is crucial to maintaining effective and compliant operations. While many manufacturers make primary investments in systems and training for compliance tracking, they ultimately sacrifice productivity due to ongoing manual record verification. The overall expense of this method is high, but it doesn’t compare to the cost associated with hefty fines, product recalls, plant shutdowns and loss of market share due to non-compliance.
A single software ERP system allows manufacturers to input, organize and have real-time access to their information at relatively minimal cost. This ability to document the entire manufacturing process in one accessible system provides a tool with which to establish controlled, repeatable processes whereby the end result is always the same. For some manufacturers, this can mean the difference between surviving and thriving in a highly regulated environment.
Compliance is only one of the factors that help determine if a manufacturer will remain competitive; another is quality. Having a well-balanced line of quality inventory that meets both customer and regulatory requirements is key, and is also heavily dependent on effective formula management. Being able to manage inventory from product specification through production and shipping directly impacts a manufacturer’s ability to quickly deliver quality products to the market. Real-time tracking of materials facilitates this increased rapid order fulfillment. Coupled with reliable service, manufacturers can more successfully maintain high levels of customer satisfaction.
In order to stay ahead of the curve and grow their customer base, companies must manage, capture, track and analyze customer specifications as well as product quality information. An effective ERP system simplifies the management of manufacturing-driven processes while supporting the implementation of customer-driven quality.
Gaining Competitive Ground
Though the inventory management battle wages on, coatings and adhesives manufacturers that use ERP software correctly are successfully striking the much-needed balance in order to maintain—and potentially grow—their market share. With the power to track inventory in real time and ship quickly to meet customer demand, these manufacturers gain additional control over the fate of their business, further substantiating that the return on investment of a best-fit ERP software is infinite.
For more information, email email@example.com.
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California has become the first state to mandate open access for the products of some taxpayer-funded research. On September 29 Governor Jerry Brown signed into law the California Taxpayer Access to Publicly Funded Research Act, coauthored by Assemblyman Brian Nestande (R–Palm Desert) and Assemblyman Mike Gatto (D–Los Angeles). AB 609, as the bill is known, ensures that those who stand to benefit most from state-funded research, such as healthcare providers, students and professors, biotech professionals, and anyone with an interest in the field, will have access to current research results free of charge. Beginning January 1, 2015, the products of more than $200 million in annual research paid for by California taxpayers will be freely available—with some restrictions: AB 609 applies only to research funded by the Department of Public Health.
After completing a complicated four-plus-year construction project, the Golden State is seeking silver this time—a Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED) Silver certification for its newly renovated Stanley Mosk Library and Courts Building, to be precise. The reopening celebration for the California State Library (CSL) was held in February and capped a remarkable collaborative effort led by California’s Department of General Services (DGS), landlords of the property.
For patrons who live in rural areas, finding the book they want is not always easy. The local library can’t collect everything, and interlibrary loan (ILL) can be slow to deliver, if it is even available. Purchase and fast shipping from Internet booksellers like Amazon.com offer an alternative, but not everyone can afford it. Now, the California State Library (CSL) has embarked on a pilot project to redress that situation.
California State Senator Lois Wolk (D-Davis) introduced an amendment to the state constitution which would make it easier for local governments to raise funds for public libraries. The amendment would reduce the percentage of votes needed to pass such a measure from the two-thirds supermajority currently needed to 55 percent, though still more than a simple majority.
Since California Governor Jerry Brown proposed in January a state budget with no funding for libraries for the second year in a row, librarians across the state are worried that two fundamental principles, universal borrowing and equal access, are threatened.
California Governor Jerry Brown’s 2012-13 budget includes zero state help for libraries for the second year in a row. And California is not alone: a recent IMLS study shows a decade-long drop in state library funding.
Library Journal’s annual budget survey reveals that many public libraries are, at best, furiously treading water.
The 388 libraries that responded to the survey projected a negligible overall decrease in their total 2012 operating budgets (0.7 percent). Materials budgets are down 1.2 percent. And personnel budgets are relatively flat, with an uptick of just 0.2 percent.
California Governor Jerry Brown announced Tuesday a mid-year, $16 million cut to state library funding, which essentially eliminates all remaining state funding for the California Library Services Act (CLSA), the California Library Literacy and English Acquisition Service, and the Public Library Foundation (PLF). Last year the programs received $30.4 million. The budget Brown first proposed […]
California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law Tuesday a measure that will modernize the state’s library privacy laws. The bill, SB445 sponsored by Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), updates circulation of records laws in order to keep confidential electronic as well as written patron use information and borrowing records. The information cannot be disclosed by […]
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You'll find "M" magical in this worksheet on "M" adjectives. Beginning writers will learn magnificent descriptive words as they practice parts of speech.
Nobody does "N" adjectives better than this no-nonsense worksheet! Novice writers will identify nifty adjectives and fill in the blanks.
Open your little one's eyes to the "O" adjectives in this outstanding worksheet! Students can practice parts of speech and build vocabulary.
Polish your petite prodigy's prowess with these "P" adjectives! She'll get plenty of practice with her parts of speech with these grammar exercises.
"Q" can be quite a challenge, but not with this quality worksheet about "Q" adjectives. Your student will hone grammar skills as he builds vocabulary.
"I" adjectives give us imaginary, industrious and intelligent! Your little writer will learn an incredible amount of descriptive words starting with "I".
"Z" is the end of the alphabet, but that doesn't mean there aren't "Z" adjectives! Your little student will practice parts of speech with these zippy words.
Your youngster will be the best with this worksheet on "Y" adjectives. He'll practice identifying parts of speech and he'll build vocabulary.
"X" marks the spot for the "X" adjectives! While not many words start with "X," there are lots that start with the "X" sound.
When it's time for writing, the "W" adjectives are the way to go! Your wee writer will be a winner after completing these wonderful exercises.
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Sensible delay on Medicaid changes should spur broader debate.
Gov. Mark Dayton made a compassionate and politically savvy decision this week when he asked state officials to delay for a year cost-saving changes that would have phased in reduced home and nursing care for about 3,300 Minnesotans in 2014.
Hitting pause on the rollout during this election year gives the state time to ensure that a new but not-quite-ready state program to deliver limited supports for those affected “has time to be fully automated and available statewide,’’ Department of Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson said in a Dec. 31 memo. It also gives the 2014 Legislature time to reconsider the long-delayed changes — expected to save about $50 million over the next four years — that were passed with bipartisan support in 2009 as legislators and then-Gov. Tim Pawlenty grappled with sobering budget deficits and soaring Medicaid costs.
Medicaid covers care for the poor, the disabled and elderly, and it’s funded jointly by the state and federal governments. Substantial Medicaid spending covers long-term care for low-income seniors without resources.
The recent outcry over the changes from powerful advocates for seniors puts pressure on lawmakers to reverse them. But the debate needs to go beyond the argument that the changes are no longer necessary because the state is in better financial shape. Medicaid spending in Minnesota rose to $8.2 billion in 2012, up 74 percent from 2003. That’s not sustainable.
The care eligibility changes protect those most in need of assistance. Seniors generally must now show they need help with four or more activities vs. one. The state also developed and expanded the new limited community support program as a cushion. Derided by some as “cuts,” the changes in reality are an example of “reform.” If this isn’t doable, what reform will be?
The Opinion section is produced by the Editorial Department to foster discussion about key issues. The Editorial Board represents the institutional voice of the Star Tribune and operates independently of the newsroom.
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The electric motor alone is more powerful than your VW Golf R.
The McLaren Speedtail is being shown to the public for the first time here at the Geneva Motor Show and it turns out it's more powerful than we thought. McLaren's design chief, Rob Melville, was on hand at the company's stand to give us more details. The world was previously told the Speedtail's combined power output was a serious 1,010 hp, but further testing has revealed that figure is really 1,035 hp. In addition, the exact details of how this was split between the ICE and electric motor was unknown. Until now.
The Speedtail uses the 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 that is currently used in the 720S and Senna but is suitably modified to work together with the electric motor. In this application, it produces 746 hp and 590 lb-ft of torque, slightly less than in the Senna's 789 hp but 36 hp up from the 720S.
A more relevant comparison would be with McLaren's previous hybrid hypercar, the P1. It made 727 hp and 531 lb-ft from its previous-gen 3.8-litre twin-turbo V8 and gained an additional 177 hp and 192 lb-ft from its electric motor.
The Speedtail not only trumps the P1's ICE specs but its electric motor is way more powerful too, pushing out 308 hp and 256 lb ft of torque. The Volkswagen Golf R, to compare, has 280 hp and 280 lb-ft. This is how the Speedtail manages to make that massive 1,035 hp and 848 lb-ft combined total. Big advances in battery technology mean that not only is the Speedtail's battery pack denser than that of the P1 but also four times lighter too.
That gives the new hybrid GT hypercar a claimed dry weight of 3,153 pounds, 44 pounds lighter than the P1. The Speedtail will be using its electrical assistance solely to assist the twin-turbo V8 in getting the three-seater to 186 mph in a mere 12.8 seconds (the P1 needs 16.5). Furthermore, it will not offer an electric-only mode as in the P1.
We can't wait to see how it compares to the current and upcoming crop of hybrid and electric hypercars in the real world. For now, we will have to wait until 2020 when the first cars will start being delivered to the 106 lucky owners.
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Stage 14 of the Giro d’Italia 2014 is a 164 km high mountain stage from Agliè to Oropa. The route contains 1099-meter-high Alpe Noveis and 1482-meter-high Bielmonte climbs. The stage has an uphill finish atop 1142-meter-high Biella.
Table of Contents
DATE: May 24 2014, Saturday
STAGE TYPE: High mountain
START-FINISH: Agliè (345m) > Oropa (Biella) (1142m)
LENGTH OF THE COURSE: 164.0 km
Agliè is a comune (municipality) in the province of Turin in the Italian region Piedmont, located about 35 kilometres (22 mi) north of Turin.Agliè borders the following municipalities: San Martino Canavese, Torre Canavese, Bairo, Vialfrè, Cuceglio, San Giorgio Canavese, and Ozegna.
Main sights of Agliè
Agliè’s main attraction is its Castello Ducale, one of the Residences of the Royal House of Savoy, listed in the UNESCO World Heritage Sites list. Dating from the 12th century, originally a possession of the counts of San Martino. In the 17th century it was turned into a rich residence by count Filippo d’Agliè, but was ravaged during the French invasion of 1706.
In 1765 it was acquired by Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy and sold it to his son Benedetto of Savoy who had it radically renewed ten years later, under design by Ignazio Birago di Bòrgaro. Thenceforth it was a summer residence for the Kings of Sardinia. It was sold to the Italian state in 1939.
It has a monumental façade with two stairs and a fountain; the interior includes 300 rooms, mostly provided with contemporary furniture. The castle is surrounded by large English- and Italian-style gardens. It was used as the location for the Italian series Elisa di Rivombrosa as Rivombrosa.
Other sights include:
- Church of Santa Marta, a notable example of Baroque architecture by Costanzo Michela
- Parrocchiale di San Massimo, annexed to the castle
- Villa Meleto, a 19th-century countryside residence used by poet Guido Gozzano
- Church of San Gaudenzio, where Gozzano is buried.
Read more on wikipedia
Finish: Oropa (Biella)
The Sanctuary of Oropa (Italian: santuario di Oropa), is a group of Roman Catholic buildings and structures in the municipality of Biella, Italy. It is located at a height of 1,159 meter in a small valley of the Alpi Biellesi.
Read more on wikipedia
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For the past dozen years or so, Americans have been deluged with talk about “heroes,” and especially “our brave soldiers.” I was at a funeral recently, and was shocked to see the funeral director conduct a ritual: he had all past or current members of the military line up and touch a flag for the deceased.
This is not only stupidly out of proportion, but it is deeply damaging to the “heroes.”
As I’ve said before, I understand how young people get pulled into the military, and I do not think that they join because they want to kill. (Though some small number may.) So, let me be very clear on something:
The vast majority of war heroes are victims.
As it happens, I talk to military people, sympathetically. And I know the other side of the war hero story – the side that they don’t show on TV or when worshiping uniforms in churches, schools, or at sporting events.
Point #1: No one leaves battle whole.
Don’t ever imagine that soldiers come out of battle in any way better than when they went in.
No normal human can kill people without damaging themselves. Perhaps if you’re 50 years old and have to shoot someone who is clearly in the process of killing others, you can come out of it without permanent damage. At that age your character is already developed, and if you can honestly reassure yourself that it was necessary, you may be okay.
But if you think a 19-year-old kid, shooting at people he has never met before, who are simply driving down the street, will be okay afterward… forget about it – that kid will never be whole again.
And the same goes for the soldier who sees his friend get his leg blown off. Or, just having to go into situation after situation where that could happen at any time.
Crowds can chant “hero” all they like, but the soldier who was in battle has something torn in his soul.
Point #2: The soldiers know it.
Can you imagine the kind of internal conflict this hero worship inflicts on the 22-year-old ex-soldier? He’s praised as a hero endlessly, but he’s torn up inside, and sometimes when he’s alone, he cries and shakes.
This is what really happens:
- The big, tough soldier hides in a bathroom and cries, because he can’t face going out into a crowd.
- He wonders what was in all those pills they were ordered to take before going into battle.
- He’s unable to make decisions for himself.
- He has post-traumatic stress in spades but dares not tell the VA, because that would prevent him from owning a gun, and that’s the only thing that makes him feel safe.
And all the while, the soldier is paraded in front of crowds and publicly praised as some type of superior being, god-gifted with bravery. Could you live with that?
Is it any wonder that US soldiers are killing themselves at a rate of 22 per day?
Point #3: They are abandoned.
I recently had a talk with a friend who spent a full 20 years in the military, and we discussed these subjects.
One of the things that bothers me most is that these young men and women are sent into the hell of battle and then ignored by the Veterans Administration when they get back. I’m certainly no fan of government or its programs, but if you send a kid into death and destruction, you’re also honor-bound to help them recover if they make it out.
The VA is abandoning these former soldiers. I expressed this complaint to my friend, and he told me that it was worse, and more callously malicious, than I knew.
My friend is a decent man, and he does his best to help returning soldiers because no one else does. We discussed this at length, and I was pleased to know that he sits down with whatever few soldiers he can, and says this:
Yes, you’re fucked-up. After what you’ve been through, that’s what you’re supposed to be!
So far as he knew, no one associated with the VA was helping the returning soldiers one-to-one, only him and a few others.
American hero worship is torturing ex-soldiers. It’s driving them to suicide. This mindless worship is good for the State, but it’s hell for the kids who were actually in battle.
Don’t follow that script. Have some compassion for the kid who was immersed in death and hell.
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Lara Whitely-Binder is an outreach specialist with the University of WA’s Climate Impact’s Group. Her presentation describes the Western U.S regional climate outlook and projected impacts to agriculture. She examines the impacts (some positive, some negative) on water supply, changes in yield, rangeland fire risk and forage quality, and milk and beef production.
Justin Derner, PhD is a Rangeland scientist with the USDA-ARS in Cheyenne, WY, and the director of the Northern Plains Climate Hub in Ft. Collins, CO. This presentation discusses livestock grazing in a changing climate and the implications for adaptive management on rangelands. Adaptive management is a process by which a manager is constantly evaluating the system and making adjustments to reduce risks and uncertainty. View Dr. Derner's proceedings paper for the conference.
Bea Van Horne, PhD is with the USDA Forest Service and the director of the USDA for the Pacific Northwest Regional Climate Hub. She gave an update of the Pacific Northwest Climate Hub. Climate change is expected to have significant impacts on agriculture. The climate hubs aim to deliver region-specific information and serve as a clearinghouse for providing science-based information to agricultural managers.
Megan Rolfe, PhD is an assistant professor in animal science department at Oklahoma State University and a beef extension specialist for the state of Oklahoma. The presentation discusses her program’s research findings on beef cattle selection and management for adaptation to drought. She discusses areas such as water intake, quality and quantity of available water, and animal performance and carcass characteristics under water restriction.
Susan Capalbo is Professor and Department Head of Applied Economics at Oregon State University. She gave an presentation discussing ways to encourage the ag community to adopt practices and policy makers to create policies that are beneficial in terms of climate and food production.
This page was developed as part of a project "Animal Agriculture and Climate Change" an extension facilitation project to increase capacity for ag professionals. It was funded by USDA-NIFA under award # 2011-67003-30206. If you have questions about any of the topics or have problems with links, contact Crystal Powers firstname.lastname@example.org or Jill Heemstra email@example.com.
For questions about the AACC project, contact Rick Stowell firstname.lastname@example.org or Crystal Powers.
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|Apr 11, 2005, 06:29 PM||#1|
Accessing the Line_In or Microphone with Java
I am trying to create a program that essentially tries to detect the Line-in or Microphone for any activity. I have been trying it with Java and tried to use Port.Info.MICROPHONE to get access to it but when I compile, I get errors. Any suggestions, pls?
|Apr 16, 2005, 11:28 PM||#2|
This is pretty easy to do. To capture sound from the microphone, you'll need to create an AudioFormat, TargetDataLine, and a few others. How exactly are you using Port.Info? If you post some code, I'll take a look at it.
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All times are GMT -5. The time now is 09:30 AM.
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Games for Actors and Non-Actors is the classic and best selling book by the founder of Theatre of the Oppressed, Augusto Boal. It sets out the principles and practice of Boal's revolutionary Method, showing how theatre can be used to transform and liberate everyone – actors and non-actors alike!
This thoroughly updated and substantially revised second edition includes:
- two new essays by Boal on major recent projects in Brazil
- Boal's description of his work with the Royal Shakespeare Company
- a revised introduction and translator's preface
- a collection of photographs taken during Boal's workshops, commissioned for this edition
- new reflections on Forum Theatre.
Table of Contents
Introduction: A New System of Exercises and Games From The Theatre of The Oppressed. Two Unities. Five Categories of Game and Exercise. I. Feeling What We Touch (Re-structuring Muscular Relations) II. Listening to What We Hear III. Dynamising Several Senses IV. Seeing What We Look At V. The Memory of the Senses. IMAGE THEATRE: Image Techniques: Models and Dynamisations 1. Image of the Word 2. Image of transition 3. Multiple image of oppression 4. Multiple image of happiness 5. Image of the Group 6. Ritual Gesture 7. Ritual 8. Rituals and masks 9. The Image of the Hour 10. The Kinetic Image 11. The Merry-Go-Round of Images. IMAGES OF TRANSITION - The Technique in action: Examples from Europe, New Image Theatre techniques, The cop in the head techniques, Four Very Simple Demonstrations of Some Embryos of Forum Theatre Pieces, Still As Projected Images. Rehearsal Exercises for Any Kind of Play, Exercises for the preparation of a Forum Theatre Model or for the rehearsal of other kinds of theatre, The Early Forms of Forum Theatre: The Rules of the Games, Dramaturgy, Staging, The Performance Games, Examples of Forum Theatre. First Experiences With Invisible Theatre, Forum Theatre: Doubts and Certainties, Artistic Creation and Divine Madness, The Pedagogy of Fear - Theatre and the Twin Towers.
Augusto Boal is a theatre director, dramatist, theorist, writer and teacher. He was a Member of Parliament for Rio de Janeiro from 1993-1996. He is the author of Theatre of the Oppressed, Games for Actors and Non-Actors, Rainbow of Desire, Legislative Theatre, and Hamlet and the Baker's Son: My Life in Theatre and Politics.
Adrian Jackson is Artistic Director of Cardboard Citizens. He has translated four books by Augusto Boal, collaborated on a number of occasions and taught Theatre of the Oppressed widely in other countries, including Namibia, South Africa, Hong Kong, Mauritius and Finland.
"This is an inspiring and powerful book, a lucid account that will be of substantial use to people already using "Theatre of the Oppressed." It should also act as an excellent introduction for those new to the system." - Artscene
"This is a useful handbook for those who want to explore Boal's 'Theatre of the Oppressed' and as such is greatly to be welcomed. Boals' work deserves and demands emulation." - Theatre Research International
"You have achieved what Brecht only dreamt of and wrote about: making a useful theatre that is entertaining, fun, and instructive. It is a different kind of theatre - a kind of social therapy.it focuses the mind, relaxes the spirit, and gives people a new handle on their situations." - Richard Schechner
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The Effects of Self-Selected vs Researcher-Selected Music on Psychological, Physiological and Performance Outcomes During a Running Task
MetadataShow full item record
The present study examined the effects of self-selected versus researcher-selected music on psychological, physiological and performance variables during a treadmill running task. Male and female participants (n = 30) performed a 30-minute treadmill run to their own self-selected music, researcher-selected motivational music and a no-music condition. Participants were assessed on intrinsic motivation, enjoyment, RPE, distance and heart rate. A series of repeated measures ANOVAs were used to analyse the data. Results indicated that following listening to their self-selected music, participants reported being more intrinsically motivated, more enjoyment, greater rating of perceived exertion and greater distance run. This study suggest that self-selected music may be an avenue to helping individuals overcome barriers to physical activity such as intrinsic motivation and enjoyment to help promote greater physical activity participation and adherence.
| 253,249
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You are here
ICT@School - ICT in education Indicators Working Group
ICT@School is a Europe-wide working group hosted by EUN-Schoolnet aimed at enhancing the quality and the cross-national comparability of data regarding the availability of ICTs in schools and their use by teachers and students. Representatives of 16 European countries participate in the project. Within ICT@School a detailed and systematic review of the existing international and national surveys on the topic is carried out with the aims of: (i) identifying a set of core indicators measuring the quantity and quality of ICT resources available in each national school system; (ii) deriving some methodological lessons for the development and realisation of surveys in this area; (iii) envisaging possible solutions to enhance the integration of existing surveys; finally (iv) drafting a comprehensive proposal on the comparability of existing surveys and the possible realisation of new European-wide studies.
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When it comes to our chosen craft, we all know the importance of improving our skill level. However, when it comes to the soft skills that enable us to navigate the world outside of our creative spaces, many of us fall short. Artists in general have to be particularly careful about not developing their soft skills because they have to spend so much time alone practicing their craft. In this episode, we break down ten soft skills (plus two bonuses) that every artist should focus on learning. They are simple, but will take you far in this thing. Episode 208 of the Super Duty Tough Work podcast is “SOFT SKILLS ARTISTS SHOULD LEARN” and is out now. Hit the link to listen or watch.
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When you mean “for example,” use “e.g.” It is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase exempli gratia. When you mean “that is,” use “i.e.” It is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase id est. Either can be used to clarify a preceding statement; the first by example, the second by restating the idea more clearly or expanding upon it. Because these uses are so similar, the two abbreviations are easily confused. If you just stick with good old English “for example” and “that is” you won’t give anyone a chance to sneer at you. If you insist on using the abbreviation, perhaps “example given” will remind you to use “e.g.,” while “in effect” suggests “i.e.”
Since “e.g.” indicates a partial list, it is redundant to add “etc.” at the end of a list introduced by this abbreviation.
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF UPGRADED SHIPPING: From now through Friday, December 21, we will give free Priority Mail shipping for the Common Errors in English Usage book (US delivery only). Click here to order.
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|HISTORY OF THE CORNWALL CHEESE AND BUTTER BOARD|
|J. A. FARLINGER|
| J. A. Farlinger|
A. FARLINGER is forty-three years old and is the son of Robert Farlinger and Emiline Loney. He was born on the 140-acre farm which he now operates, located Second Concession, Indian Lands, Charlottenburg Township, Glengarry County. He is a patron of the Farmer's Choice Cheese Factory, Tyotown.
A splendid herd of 40 cattle, 12 horses, 25 swine, and over 50 fowl, are a part of the livestock equipment of his farm. He is a successful breeder of pure-bred Clydes and Holstein cattle.
Mr. Farlinger is perhaps one of the largest growers of grain in the Tyotown District, producing over 1,000 bushels yearly. He grows over 100 tons of hay, 12 acres of corn, 100 bushels of potatoes and 25 barrels of assorted apples.
Our subject has been actively farming for upwards of twenty years, and for that period of time has been a patron of the Cornwall Cheese and Butter Board. The fact that he delivers an average of 700 pounds of milk daily to the Tyotown Factory, during the season, is proof of the quality of his cattle.
Mr. Farlinger married Catherine Jane Grant and is the father of three sons and one daughter. He is an Anglican in religion and a Conservative in politics.
He is one of the most popular and prosperous farmers in Charlottenburg, and has served five years in the Township Council, one year acting as Deputy Reeve, and one year as Reeve.
Barns of J. A. Farlinger
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If you thought India had scored a point by suggesting an Asian oil market, think again. For this was just the starter. India has now called for an Asian gas grid as well.
Speaking at the third Asia Gas Buyers Summit in the capital, petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar said that principal buyers and consumers of Asia could come together to develop a transnational gas grid to transport gas from gas producing countries to consumer countries like India, Japan and China.
The proposed Iran-India pipeline via Pakistan could be extended to South China via Myanmar while a network of criss-crossing pipelines could link former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan with Fast East Russia on the one hand and demand centres, India and China, on the other.
Mr Aiyar said: "We need to shed the confrontationist approach and create a pan-Asian forum on the lines of the Organisation of African Unity and the EU and leverage the power of offshore and onshore gas for the benefit of our continent", for which India can dip into its vast reserves of foreign exchange for investment in pipelines."
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How to Give Allergy Shots
Allergy injections are NOT administered the same way that vaccines like flu shots or pediatric shot series are given. Allergy shots are given into the sub-cutaneous tissues and NOT the muscle like most vaccines. The subcutaneous tissue is the layer where the fat is... or the layer between the skin and muscle. This article attempts to instruct how one administers allergy shots correctly into the subcutaneous tissues. After understanding how to inject, instructions on the correct amount to be drawn up is given.
Wondering about whether gloves should be worn with allergy shots? Click here for more info.
Allergy shots are given using a 1cc syringe with a 25 gauge or higher needle. The amounts injected are miniscule and may be confusing for an individual (even for non-allergy physicians and nurses). At least in our practice, the amounts administered are as follows: 0.025 cc, 0.05 cc, 0.10 cc, 0.20 cc, and 0.25 cc. Here are the photos depicting each of these amounts. Click on the picture for a magnified view.
Amount: 0.025 cc
Amount: 0.05 cc
Amount: 0.10 cc
Amount: 0.20 cc
Amount: 0.25 cc
Related Blog Articles
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- Why is Allergy Present More Now than in Past? Hygiene vs Hapten Hypothesis
- What's That Yellow Pollen Coating My Car Windows?
- Are You Able to Use Expired EpiPens Safely?
- Allergy Shots in the Leg? Abdomen?
- Why Does EpiPen Have to be Injected into the Thigh?
- Acupuncture to Treat Allergy Symptoms (Where are the Spots?)
- Allergy Sufferers also Have More Severe Migraines
- How Accurate is Food Allergy Testing by Blood vs Skin Prick?
- Christmas Tree Allergy (Mold and Pollen Studies)
- Food Allergy Reaction Video
- Hidden Costs of Allergy Shots
- Does Acupuncture Help With Allergies?
- Aspirin Allergy and Desensitization Protocols
- There are TWO Different Allergy Shot Systems (AAAAI and AAOA)
- Different Types of Immunotherapy for Allergy Cure
- Patients with Iodine or Seafood Allergy CAN Receive Contrast During CT Scans
- Allergy Shots in Britain Require a LONG Waiting Period Afterwards
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| 142,125
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Park Ridge, Ill. -- Today First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden announced a commitment from nurses across the country eager to serve our veterans and military families as well as they have served us. The American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) and numerous other nursing schools and organizations have committed to educating 1.3 million current and future advanced practice and registered nurses about how to recognize and care for veterans impacted by post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, depression, and other combat-related issues, in ways appropriate to each nurse’s practice setting by 2015. The AANA was represented at the ceremony by AANA President Debra Malina, CRNA, DNSc, MBA; Kelly Wiltse Nicely, CRNA, PhD; and Bette Wildgust, CRNA, MS, MSN.
In a broad, coordinated effort, the AANA and more than 150 other state and national nursing organizations including over 500 nursing schools have committed to further educate our nation’s 3 million nurses so they are prepared to meet the unique health needs of service members, veterans, and their families. This initiative has been spearheaded by the American Nurses Association, American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and the National League for Nursing, and the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense.
“The invisible wounds of war, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), have impacted approximately 1 in 6 of our troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq – more than 300,000 veterans. And since 2000, more than 44,000 of those troops have suffered at least a moderate-grade traumatic brain injury,” said AANA President, Debra Malina, CRNA, DNSc, MBA. “In fact, in an upcoming issue of the AANA Journal, research involving anesthesia care and PTSD will be featured. Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) administer anesthesia in every setting in which anesthesia care is delivered including the Veterans Affairs (VA) health system and in hospitals and communities across the United States, where the majority of veterans and military families usually visit for their healthcare needs. Nurse anesthetists have been the main providers of anesthesia care to U.S. military personnel on the front lines since WWI, including current conflicts in the Middle East,” said Malina.
“Whether we’re in a hospital, a doctor’s office or a community health center, nurses are often the first people we see when we walk through the door. Because of their expertise, they are trusted to be the frontline of America’s health care system,” said First Lady Michelle Obama. “That’s why Jill and I knew we could turn to America’s nurses and nursing students to help our veterans and military families get the world-class care that they’ve earned. It’s clear from today’s announcement that the nursing community is well on its way to serving our men and women in uniform and their families.”
“Nurses are at the center of providing lifesaving care in communities across the country -- and their reach is particularly important because our veterans don't always seek care through the VA system,” said Dr. Jill Biden. “This commitment is essential to ensuring our returning service men and women receive the care they deserve.”
Nursing leaders have also committed to disseminating effective models for care and to sharing the most up-to-date information on these conditions across academic and practice settings.
Key commitments include the following:
- Educating America’s CRNAs to care for our nation’s veterans, service members, and their families facing post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury, depression, and other clinical issues;
- Enriching nurse anesthesia education to ensure that current and future CRNAs are educated and trained in the unique clinical challenges and best practices associated with caring for military service members, veterans, and their families;
- Disseminating the most up-to-date information as it relates to traumatic brain injury (TBI) and psychological health conditions, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD);
- Growing the body of knowledge leading to improvements in health care and wellness for our military service members, veterans, and their families; and
- Leading and advancing the supportive community of CRNAs, institutions, and healthcare providers dedicated to improving the health of military service members, veterans, and their families.
“CRNAs can make a dramatic and positive impact on the long-term health of hundreds of thousands of veterans for years to come. And it is an important part of our education to understand the needs of those who have served, to recognize the warning signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, or suicide, and to know where to send them for help,” said Malina.
About the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists
2012 Press Release Archive
Current Press Releases
| 295,938
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Teens convert pizza boxes into solar-powered ovens
The most effective way to reduce our carbon footprint and enhance environmental sustainability is to reach out to the newer and younger generations and help them realize the ecological cause. Delivering the eco friendly message in a fun way will definitely yield better results than to be preachy or boring. What better way than to combine a free pizza party with solar cooking and add in great enthusiasm. Well, effectively a group of students in New York city have exactly found out this easier fun way of reaching out the greener mode of cooking to the masses.
With pizzas being the hot favorites of the young as well as older groups, a group of students from Brooklyn’s James Madison and Edward R. Murrow high schools have targeted an easy green method of catching the eye of all and that without being preachy. They have designed a greener mode of making your own pizza not in an electric oven but in solar-powered pizza boxes. Off to flaunt their new found secret in the streets of Manhattan, NYC, these green ovens or pizza boxes, they claimed can heat up to 200-degrees on a hot day which is more than required to cook a pizza.
Better than burning away fossil fuel at home these pizza boxes designed by the students are covered with tin foil and are completely safe for the food to get cooked evenly with no fear of getting burnt. The effort initiated by these students to spread the green awareness is worth mentioning more than the outcome as such warm participation and enthusiasm is not to get easily lost in a crowd of busy minds. It is generally observed that young minds with their purchasing patterns, life-style choices and networks with schools, universities, clubs, and sports can influence a wider world and influence communities, companies and countries to a greater cause that needs immediate attention and significance. And who knows with a steady rise in the prices of conventional fuels we might try out these handy green cooking boxes the next time the sun seems too bright for an outdoor pizza party.
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Oakland has been recognized as a top 10 green and sustainable U.S. city eight times in the last several years, including its recent rank of fourth among large cities by both the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Mother Nature Network. So its decision was natural to upgrade more than 30,000 roadway lights to LED street lighting fixtures.
The city by the San Francisco Bay—ranked as the “fifth most desirable destination to visit in 2012” by The New York Times—chose to convert from existing 70- to 400-watt high pressure sodium (HPS) fixtures to LED street lighting to conserve electricity while enhancing public spaces. City officials requested street lighting fixtures that met exacting light output requirements while consuming less energy. The quality of the LED street lighting also was important in the decision.
Distributed through Graybar, GE's team offered an LED street lighting fixture specific to these needs—GE's Evolve LED Roadway Scalable Cobrahead.
GE's advanced LED optical design offers hundreds of photometric options to meet precise street lighting requirements while delivering reduced glare and improved light control.
"LED lighting is a win-win situation for the residents of Oakland. This bright lighting has been desperately needed in our most vulnerable neighborhoods such as West Oakland,” said Councilmember Lynette McElhaney. “Because these lights are so energy efficient, the city will be saving a great deal of money that we can dedicate to other ways to enhance the quality of life for all Oaklanders."
Results & Benefits
The city of Oakland anticipates the longer life of the LED lighting will bring energy savings in excess of 40 percent and reduced maintenance costs, yielding $1.4 million in annual energy and maintenance savings for this West Coast port city of nearly 400,000 residents.
"The program again proves that Oakland is a national leader in civic innovation, saving money and helping to protect the environment," said Mayor Jean Quan. “These lights burn less energy, which means we're reducing our energy bills and our energy use at the same time, and their much longer lifespan also means we're reducing our e-waste footprint. Everyone who has contributed to this project is helping Oaklanders and making our city proud.”
In addition to the energy cost savings the LED street lighting fixtures will provide, the city of Oakland is utilizing rebates offered by California utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
Explore what’s possible with smart LED and other technologies for cities with Current, powered by GE.
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Kimberly-Clark Breaks Under Greenpeace's Kleercut Campaign, Goes Sustainable
Image via Greenpeace
Greenpeace has had quite a bit of coverage of late on TreeHugger with their latest actions of climbing Mount Rushmore to put pressure on politicians regarding climate change, and climbing to the roof of HP to get the company to remove toxins from their products. We wondered whether some of their actions would have impact. Well, here is one campaign Greenpeace has been pushing that has resulted in positive change. Thanks to their Kleercut campaign against Kimberly-Clark - makers of Kleenex, Scott and Cottonelle brands - the company has resolved to get all of its wood fiber for tissue products from environmentally responsible sources.Working with Greenpeace on a new set of supply chain standards, the company has enhanced the Endangered Forests and increased the use of both Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified fiber and recycled fiber. By 2011, Kimberly-Clark will ensure that 40% of its North American tissue fiber is either recycled or FSC certified, and the larger goal is to get to 100%.
"We are committed to using environmentally responsible wood fiber and today's announcement enhances our industry-leading practices in this area," said Suhas Apte, Kimberly-Clark Vice President of Environment, Energy, Safety, Quality and Sustainability. "It is our belief that certified primary wood fiber and recycled fiber can both be used in an environmentally responsible way and can provide the product performance that customers and consumers expect from our well-known tissue brands. We commend Greenpeace for helping us develop more sustainable standards."
Congrats, Greenpeace, on a victory for forests. Considering the sheer amount of tissue products sold by Kimberly-Clark, this is a substantial improvement.
More on Greenpeace's Eco Efforts
Greenpeace Putting Pressure on IT Industry to Walk the Climate Saving Talk
Greenpeace: In Defense of Our Recent Activism Tactics
Stop the Sniffles (and Deforestation) With Greenpeace's Recycled Tissue and Toilet Paper Guide
| 252,472
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Delivering Person-Centered Long-Term Services & Supports
February 02, 2018
Every good care plan starts with the evaluation or assessment. In the past, care plans for LTSS focused on managing symptoms, decreasing hospitalizations, and complying with recommended treatments. Less emphasis was put on the needs, hopes, goals, and preferences of the individual. Today, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) emphasizes person-centered care planning that promotes independence and quality of life. As a result, LTSS delivery has shifted towards individuals receiving services in their homes or community versus institutional-based settings.
- Beneficiary preference to receive services at home or in their communities
- Commitment by government policymakers to provide beneficiaries with increased choice
- Creates efficiencies that drive down costs while promoting independence
From the White Paper: Although less expensive than institutionalized care, HCBS poses a major financial burden
How are HCBS Delivered?
Services are delivered through state-specific HCBS waiver programs that provide beneficiaries and their caregivers assistance with skill development, respite, transportation, and other support services.
How is Eligibility Assessed?
State Medicaid agencies, and their partners, rely on functional assessment tools to make coverage and eligibility decisions and to create individualized care plans. Assessment results are then used to create a person-centered care plan that recognizes individuals’ specific strengths and abilities, and identifies supports needed to achieve more independence.
How is Telligen Different?
Person-Centered: Telligen’s experienced assessors understand the unique needs of the LTSS population, and the importance of employing a person-centered approach approach. This means that from assessment to service delivery, we’re helping individuals drive their own care – from picking their support teams, to indicating likes and dislikes about assessment approaches, to identifying the supports that will help them achieve their goals. Working as collaboratively as possible, we’re helping them carve out opportunities to live productive lives based on their strengths.This person-centered approach isn’t about the needs/goals of family members, providers, or support team. It’s about helping the individuals successfully achieve their defined goals, while remaining as independent as possible, no matter what their age.
Conflict-Free: Telligen offers our state partners a conflict-free case management process free from conflicts of interest. Conflicts arise when interested parties performing assessments and/or developing the care plans opt for convenience and revenue over person-centered care. Our next article will go into more detail about avoiding and recognizing these conflicts of interest.
Experienced: Telligen has more than 35 years’ experience conducting level of care reviews for Medicaid waiver programs, including prior authorizations for waiver services. This experience includes:
- Managing the varying benefits and eligibility requirements of Medicaid populations in Iowa, Oklahoma, Maryland, and Idaho.
- Conducting more than 35 training sessions (since 2014) for providers, beneficiaries, family members, case managers, and advocates.
- Performing more than 25,000 assessments each year for intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), physical disabilities, brain injuries, HIV/AIDS, the elderly, and mental health populations
“I just want to thank you for yesterday. Katy was quite upset by this whole process, and you did a great job of reassuring her. The most challenging part is that she understands she has a disability, but really does not want to have one. She just can’t come to terms with her limitations — especially when laid out for her in one assessment. It was nice to work with you.”
“[Telligen assessor] has made this evaluation process very comfortable and understandable. She was very thorough when explaining the purpose of the evaluation, listening, and acknowledging individual needs and circumstances. She demonstrates that she hears them. She asks the questions in a sensitive manner, and allows time for thoughtful, informative responses. She articulates the questions in a way the individual and all team members understand. It was so nice to see a person take a genuine interest in truly wanting to get to know the person.”
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Guggulu is prepared from the sap or gum resin of the Commiphora mukul tree, native to India. The resin of this tree has been used for centuries in Ayurvedic medicine as a treatment for atherosclerosis (hardening and narrowing of arteries). It also lowers high cholesterol and triglycerides level in the blood and helps weight loss. *Nature’s Velvet Shuddha Guggulu has been used historically for centuries to support normal fat levels and metabolism. It contains resin, volatile oils and gum. The extract has ketonic steroid compounds known as guggulsterones. It lowers the overall cholesterol levels in the blood Useful in Atherosclerosis. It also reduces the stickiness of platelets. It regulates metabolism and can help with weight loss. It acts as a blood purifier and helps to treat some types of acne. It detoxifies the body and helps to remove toxins and chemicals from the blood.
It supports healthy weight by regulating metabolism by enhancing thyroid function. It helps in weight loss (burns fat) and Anti-fungal (fights off with yeast infections).
It prevents coronary artery disease and other heart diseases by preventing deposition of cholesterol plaque in blood vessels.
It also increases the conversion of cholesterol into bile acids, facilitating removal of excess cholesterol through feces.
Shuddha Guggulu is used in the treatment of rheumatoid joints disorder.
- What is shuddha guggulu? Answer: This tree has been used in Ayurvedic medicine for centuries, and Ayurvedic texts dating back to 600 BC recommend it for treating atherosclerosis. Today guggul gum resin is used for arthritis, lowering high cholesterol, “hardening of the arteries” (atherosclerosis), acne and other skin diseases, and weight loss.
- How long can you take guggul? Answer: Guggul is POSSIBLY SAFE for most people when taken by mouth appropriately. It has been used safely in clinical trials for up to 24 weeks. Some evidence also suggests that long-term use up to 75 weeks may be safe.
- What is the dosage of Shuddha gugulu? Answer: The use of this ayurvedic preparation can be used in the treatment of high cholesterol levels. It can also be used for treating obesity and it help to control the symptoms of osteoarthritis and rheumatoid arthritis. Shuddha Guggulu can be used in a dose of 500 to 2000 mg twice daily.
- Which guggul is the best for losing weight? Answer: Guggul for Weight Loss. Guggul, or rather guggulsterone, is the active ingredient in an age-old Indian Ayurvedic remedy derived from the gum resin of the guggul tree (Commiphora mukul), which has been shown to lower lipid and cholesterol levels.
- How does shuddha guggulu work? Answer: Lowers blood lipid levels by modulating key enzymes in the liver responsible for cholesterol biosynthesis.shuddha gugullu guggulsterones, the key active ingredients in shuddha guggulu,help regulate critical biochemical steps in the liver and intestines that decrease cholesterol uptake.
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Spring turkey season forecast is fair in 2009
An estimated 50,000 hunters will take to the woods during the upcoming turkey season, generating an estimated $30 million in direct expenditures for South Carolina’s economy.
The 2009 wild turkey season runs April 1 through May 1 for all Wildlife Management Areas where turkey hunting is allowed and on private lands in 34 counties that make up Game Zones 1-5. The season opens March 15 and runs through May 1 on private lands only in Game Zone 6: Allendale, Bamberg, Barnwell, Beaufort, Berkeley, Calhoun, Charleston, Colleton, Dorchester, Hampton, Jasper and Orangeburg counties.
More information on wild turkeys including how to order turkey tags online, the 2009 Turkey Brochure, the 2008 Summer Turkey Brood Survey or the results from the 2008 spring gobbler season,
Also get more information on turkey age and sex determination.
Hunters in Game Zone 6 should note that the season will open on Sunday, March 15 not Saturday, March 14. The old law that provided for hunting on Saturday when the season opening date fell on Sunday was repealed last year by the General Assembly at the request of DNR. The opening date falling on Sunday, a situation that arose only every seven years, created confusion among hunters and presented problems with dates on printed materials that DNR publishes. This law was a carry-over from a time during which many people did not hunt on Sunday and when Sunday hunting of big game was actually prohibited in certain parts of the state. In the future, the season for all species of game will open on the date specified by law regardless of whether a Sunday is involved.
Saturday, March 28 is Youth Turkey Hunt Day in areas where the season opens on April 1. On this day, youths 17 and under who are accompanied by a properly licensed adult (age 21 and older) may hunt turkeys. Only the youth can take or attempt to take turkeys. Tagging requirements remain in place for this special youth day.
This year, most hunters will receive their turkey tags by mail during the weeks before the season opens. Hunters can also order tags online. For those hunters who do not get tags by mail, handwritten tags and the 2009 Turkey Brochure will be available the first week in March at DNR offices and some local businesses that were formerly Big Game Check Stations. Tags are free and the brochure describes all areas open for hunting, current regulations, and special restrictions for certain Wildlife Management Areas. Turkey hunting regulations apply to both public and private lands in most cases. No turkey hunting is permitted on any Wildlife Management Area not listed in the spring turkey brochure. To obtain a copy by mail write: Spring Turkey Brochure, DNR, PO Box 167, Columbia, SC 29202, call the DNR Columbia office at (803) 734-3886.
Hunters are reminded that although they must still possess and use turkey tags, taking harvested turkeys to check stations is not required. Hunters will also notice that turkey tags now include security features that require the hunter to notch or mark the day and month of kill when tagging their gobbler.
The outlook for the 2009 spring season is only fair for most areas, according to Charles Ruth, DNR Deer and Turkey Project supervisor. As was the case the last three years, it appears that wild turkey reproduction was less than desirable in many regions based on the annual brood survey conducted by DNR last summer. Although average brood size was good with hens averaging 4.2 poults, 49 percent of hens observed had no poults at all by late summer leading to a total recruitment ratio of 2.1, which is the minimum level needed to sustain the population. Recruitment ratio is a measure of young entering the population based on the number of hens in the population.
"In the Southeast," Ruth said, "weather often plays a big role in turkey populations with heavy rainfall coupled with cool temperatures during the spring nesting and brood rearing season leading to poor reproductive success. However, that does not appear to be the case last year because those types of events were not widespread across the state. Clearly there may have been broods lost due to strong thunderstorms at the local level; however this does not explain what can be considered only fair reproduction at the statewide level.
"On the other hand, last summer was extremely dry throughout much of the state, and although dry conditions are typically good for turkey reproduction, extreme drought negatively impacts production of food in the form of seeds and insects and vegetative growth that is important brood rearing cover. At the regional level it appears that reproduction was poorest in the piedmont and mountains and increased slightly moving towards the lower coastal plain. This trend follows the pattern of drought that the state is experiencing."
What does poor reproduction by turkeys mean for the spring turkey hunter? Ruth said: "With poor reproduction the last few years the number of mature gobblers (2 years and older) available during the spring of 2009 will likely be lower across much of the state. Not only is the number of adult gobblers expected to be down in 2009, the survey results indicate that the number of jakes (immature gobblers) will be lower as well. The summer brood survey has documented poor reproduction the last few years, and it is supported by a decline in turkey harvest each year. The statewide turkey population is estimated at 90,000 birds, which is good, but obviously lower than when reproduction is optimal.
"The bottom line," Ruth said, "is that we need a couple of years of better reproduction to overcome poor reproduction the last few years."
DNR protects and manages South Carolina’s natural resources by making wise and balanced decisions for the benefit of the state’s natural resources and its people.
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The resource has been added to your collection
Lesson Plan on Scientific Process, Measurement, and Number Sense. It was originally done informally as part of a "Math Camp" for 4th and 5th graders using 4-H juried curriculum, but was fleshed out into a more detailed lesson plan for a substitute teaching class I participated in. This is just the lesson plan, the Activity Sheet for students is another file.
This resource was reviewed using the Curriki Review rubric and received an overall Curriki Review System rating of 2, as of 2010-01-29.
Not Rated Yet.
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"They left clothes strewn around, unmade beds, open books, the TV turned on, as if they were about to come back soon. They left their rooms unprepared for emptiness.
Every year, the Polish police file 15,000 missing person reports. Every day, the faces of missing people gaze out from posters designed to attract our attention; yet, every passing day, they are noticed less. We become as immune to these posters, as we do to their faces. Only those who have lost someone in these circumstances can begin to imagine the pain these families are going through. Their feelings teeter between loss and hope. Often the rooms of the missing lost ones are left untouched, for several months, years, and even decades.
The individual stories differ amongst each other, but each raises questions: What happened? Where is he/she? When will he/she be back? Is there anything else we can do to find him/her? Is she/he suffering? Is he/she alive?
I travelled 7,200 km throughout the country to visit their homes. During each visit, I photographed the rooms of the missing with the permission of their families. These intimate portraits of frozen lives, time standing still, reflect a memory: an armchair in the corner with carefully folded rugs, a room with a clock collection, or an animal print throw immaculately arranged on a sofa; these are the tangible marks and evidence of existence. Somebody lived in these places; somebody was there, sitting at the table, sleeping on the sofa, living.
In addition, I also photographed the portraits that remained of the missing people in a very individual and subjective way. Each intimate portrait is a metaphor to a time that stands still, and an attempt to hold on to the memory of each unique life. Often it is not possible to recall information, or associations, which is testament to the slow, but inevitable process of forgetting. Each family also gave me a handwritten letter addressed to the missing loved one.
This project seeks to reinvigorate the efforts to find the missing, and to create awareness of the immense pain caused by the loss of a loved one, who one day went missing—by highlighting the plight of those who are missed and those who miss them. On a personal level, the project also serves as an exploration of the link between depression and disappearance.
My goal is to raise awareness of the missing both in Poland and worldwide."
Karolina Jonderko was born in 1985 in a small town in Silesia Region in Poland. She is a student of photography at the Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School in Lodz, Poland. She has taken photos since she was 18. Most of her works are based on experience and childhood memories. Karolina has been chosen for the prestigious mentor program of Napo Images.
The featured photographer for July 2014 was Karolina Jonderko
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Case Study: Keyshot Engine Rendering Challenge
Keyshot is a popular program for a lot of Engineers and Designers in the community. So having a little Challenge seemed like a good idea! Everybody got an opportunity to get a short license and really mess around with Keyshot. It made the reason to win that much more appealing? Well it seemed that way - 178 entries of the most realistic renders of an engine that your CPU could handle!
To get a little more info about what Luxion thought of the whole competition, I caught up with Josh Mings, Web Marketing Director at Luxion and he had a few things to say.
Good times? Bad times? Did you get what you expected?
Overall, this was an excellent contest. It gave both communities an opportunity to show the other what they were capable of. The variety of style, creative approach to the visuals, was great to experience.
In your opinion, which community 'won'?
GrabCAD won in quantity of renderings produced and there were a lot of high quality renderings on both sides.
Does Luxion want to do more challenges with GrabCAD?
It's definitely possible. A lot of GrabCAD users have an interest in KeyShot and it's a huge community that we love being part of.
Is there a bright sparkling future in crowdsourcing rendering?
That's an interesting question. I don't think it's been pursued by many. I think a lot of companies and product design houses would have a great experience co-creating visuals with community like GrabCAD. Especially for variation on ideas and presentation is needed. Based on a lot of comments from users, I think a good format for future contests, would be one model using only the KeyShot software.
At GrabCAD we're always trying to come up with Challenges that get everyone's creative juices going - Keyshot Challenges like this seem to do the trick. But you, the wise GrabCAD Community, what would you like to see? Render just a single model, not a whole category? Something like a specific, like an HD quality CAD model of a car? Where every stitch, button and spoke has to be carefully rendered? Or perhaps an interior scene? Is there are a particular model that someone has in mind?
Tell us in the comments below because we're going to do another challenge in the future, and we'd like to make em bigger and better than before!
About the author: (JF Brandon)
All posts by JF Brandon
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Ace, a male giant Pacific octopus (Enteroctopus dofleini) between 40 and 50 pounds and two-and-a-half to three-years old, and YoYo, a female of a similar size and age, will be introduced for the first time today.
At 12 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (3 p.m. Eastern), keepers at the Seattle Aquarium will lift a barrier that has been separating these two octopuses and see if sparks fly—or at least if the encounter raises the rates of the six hearts involved (each octopus has three of these blood-pumping organs). The encounter will be broadcast live on their Octopus Cam.
Octopuses usually mate just once in life. They can also be aggressive to their own kind (and occasionally cannibalistic). So to keep things safe, most aquariums keep octopuses in their own tanks for their whole life spans (or until they're released).
The Seattle Aquarium has created a tradition of letting two of their resident solitary cephalopods make a little love—in full public view—each Valentine's Day.
The mating rituals of the octopus vary among species and individuals. Some males wrangle a female in an army embrace, inserting their specialized hectocotylus arm (which transmits the sperm packets) into her mantle via her funnel. Others practice safer sex and perform this from a distance. Still others risk neither life nor limb. They voluntarily remove their hectocotylus (which, yes, happens to actually be their third arm) and gives it to the female for her to use when she is ready. Finally, one unusual species—that has yet to be named—mates mouth-to-mouth and throughout the course of their life.
If mating is successful, a female will lay a clutch of tens or hundreds of thousands of fertilized eggs. These can take months to hatch, a period during which the female carefully tends and cleans them. Once the tiny baby octopuses—just millimeters in length—emerge, the female's job is done, and she fades away. Males begin their own descent to death soon after they mate.
The giant Pacific octopus is the longest-lived octopus that we know of, but their average lifespan is only three to five years. (Earlier this week the Smithsonian's National Zoo's longest-lived octopus, Pandora, died at the age of five.) The exact ages of these two octopuses in Seattle is unknown, but "we guess according to their size and behavior," Kathryn Kegel, a biologist at the aquarium, says.
And judging from their behavior, they might just be ready for love. "From what we have seen, we feel that this pair is ready to mate," she notes. A transparent barrier separates their two tanks, behind which they have already been interacting "and checking each other out."
Does this mean they are sure to pair off? "We never know for sure until we remove the barrier, but we are pretty sure it will go off without a hitch," Kegel says.
This octopus blind date kicks off Octopus Week at the aquarium, during which there are other cephalopod-centric activities, including the public release of each of the blind date's participants "to complete their life cycle back in the Puget Sound," Kegel says. (The releases of the octo-lovers will also be streamed live. The female YoYo will get her sendoff Friday. And Ace will get his splash down on February 23.)
Because the adult octopuses are sent off into the sound so soon after their one-afternoon stand, "we never know for 100 percent if the mating was successful," Kegel says. "But from what we can observe we have had almost all of our pairs come together and display mating behavior."
What does a union look like with all of those arms? Will they fight? Will they play hard to get? Will it be octo-lust at first sight? Stay tuned to the aquarium's live feed starting at 12 p.m. Pacific Standard Time (3 p.m. Eastern) and watch for yourself. If you miss it, we'll link to a video below in the days to follow.
To read more about the mysteries of octopus love and courtship, check out Octopus! The Most Mysterious Creature In the Sea.
Illustration courtesy of Ivan Phillipsen
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The Vedanta Sutras, commentary by Sankaracharya (SBE34), tr. by George Thibaut at sacred-texts.com
23. Moreover Smriti also speaks of him (i.e. of the prâgña. Self as being the universal light).
Moreover that aspect of the prâgña Self is spoken of in Smriti also, viz. in the Bhagavad Gîtâ (XV, 6, 12), 'Neither the sun, nor the moon, nor the fire illumines that; having gone into which men do not return, that is my highest seat.' And 'The light which abiding in the sun illumines the whole world, and that which is in the moon and that which is in the fire, all that light know to be mine.'
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Darwinian evolution is the creation story of atheism. It is the tale of nothing becoming everything through an incremental, unguided process of random change and adaptation.
Yet despite its many logical and technical difficulties—not the least of which is explaining how nothing became a “something” to get the whole process started—the narrative has captured the imaginations of a wide spectrum of individuals, religious and non-religious alike.
Today nearly any article or television program, covering any aspect of the natural world, from the eating habits of chimpanzees to the dreams of humans, is sure to make mention of “our evolutionary heritage.” What’s more, phenomena as counterproductive to Darwinian fitness as homosexuality and altruism are increasingly being traced to some evolutionary advantage. It is as if to be taken seriously as a researcher, writer or thinker, one must pay homage to Darwin, no matter how tenuous the connection to the subject matter, or fatuous.
The charm of the tale comes not only in what it has to say about history, but in what it has to say about the future—the eternal struggle for survival will lead to change; change will lead to progress, and progress to perfection.
As the story gained currency, faith in a caring Superintendent began to be displaced by hope in an indifferent, impersonal mechanism of change—“Change we can believe in,” change we must believe in, if we reject the antediluvian myth and its Author.
It is no wonder that few phrases in recent memory have provoked as much comment, criticism and derision as “intelligent design.”
Since its introduction into modern lexicons, intelligent design (ID) has been called everything from “creationism in a cheap tuxedo” to a “Trojan horse” to a “sham.” And those are some of the kinder put-downs.
And ID opprobrium has not been restricted to the fever swamps of atheism. Educators, judges, politicians, scientists, journalists, and even Christians have logged withering comments about the science of design. But why the invectives over a non-sectarian enterprise that makes no claims about the identity of the Designer?
Although the proposition of intelligent design is modest—that certain features of the universe are best explained as the products of intelligence—there is fear that ID and science are mortally locked into a zero-sum game: For ID to win, science must fail. The fear is not unfounded.
Science, properly understood, is a systematic method of empirical investigation, philosophically open, for the acquisition of knowledge. It is the science, modern science, mid-wifed by individuals—Bacon, Ockham, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton—whose openness to an external Source of order, beauty and harmony made possible the game-changing discoveries that led to the scientific revolution.
Science, as it has become today, is an investigative enterprise ideologically confined to naturalism, which holds that the material world is a brute fact fully explicable in terms of matter and motion, without appeal to external causes.
For that science, ID is bad news.
Bad news for science
Like the pioneers of modern science, the ID investigator is not committed to rules of play and conventions of “good form” aimed at protecting the consensus view. He is free to follow the phenomena wherever they point, whether to chance, law, or intelligence, whether of the material world or beyond it.
Unfettered by the groupthink of the scientific establishment, he represents a threat to those for whom Oxford cardiovascular physiologist Denis Noble writes, “[Materialistic science] functions as a security blanket.” The security of their paradigm, Noble continues, is that “It avoids the need to ask too many questions, to stare into the abyss of fundamental uncertainty.” Yet sooner or later, that abyss will be encountered.
Over the last several decades, discoveries of the functional elegance and integrated complexity of the universe have made the materialistic underpinning of science increasingly untenable, leaving those so-committed to cede it all to luck or to some yet to be discovered final Law which, if found, would itself beg an explanation.
For instance, should an ultimate law be unearthed down that ever-receding shaft of exploration, it would not account for immaterial phenomena like thought, free will, creativity, and aspirations, except as illusions created by the chemical firings of neurons. Likewise, a meta-Law of the universe would neither provide, nor explain, the moral “oughtness” pressing upon the conscience of man.
If it could, humans could no more choose to violate it than they could choose to change their height or blood type. Yet not only do we violate it, we have feelings of guilt when we do, suggesting something behind Law, a teleology, a concern about humans and their social dealings—an intelligence. And that is bad news for another group.
Bad news for social engineers
Products of intelligence are engineered to satisfy the functional requirements of the designer. And like any engineered product, they provide optimum benefits when used according to their design and minimum benefits, to detrimental effects, if twisted and pressed into the service of personal desires or popular fashions.
Consider sexuality. According to the theories popularized by Freud, Kinsey and Hefner, sex exists for the fulfillment of personal happiness through the satisfaction of sensual desire, with pregnancy as a byproduct.
Even a cursory consideration of design shows that this popular conception has it exactly backwards. Since sexual satisfaction could be realized on a mono-sex planet and only on a heterosexual one could civilization survive past the first generation, it is evident, even through the prism of Darwinism, that reproduction is the purpose of sex, with sensual satisfaction as a byproduct.
Design suggests that the “machine” is not infinitely malleable as Darwinian theories would have it, but fixed with an in-built limit of “flex.” And that is bad news for social engineers who view humanity as an intermediary life form in the march to our utopian, transhuman future.
Bad news for the culture of death
Although the outward, visible features of design can tell us important things about an object’s purpose, they are not always the whole story.
Imagine a native of a primitive culture happening upon a DVD loaded with Microsoft Office left by a modern-day explorer. The thin, flexible, perfectly circular disc of foreign construction would lead the native to conclude it was of unnatural, maybe supernatural origin. Yet nothing about the appearance of the DVD would reveal its rich information content, much less the purpose for which the information was intended.
The same is true of human beings. Although outward appearances may tell us a lot about human nature, there is much more than meets the eye.
Giving consideration only to the material dimension, humans share a genetic code that, while variable from person to person, is distinct from all other living creatures, both in its internal structure and in its external, visible expression. It is the recognition of human exceptionality that inclines most people to acknowledge the superior worth of a person over everything else; even another product of design, like a priceless work of art.
Yet many folks who would never think of discarding an irreparably damaged Monet, have few qualms “discarding” a person who is unborn and unwanted or who has been irreparably damaged through injury or impaired through the onset of age.
The design inference suggests that all persons—even the least-developed and most-infirmed among us—have intrinsic value, worthy of vigorous protections against forces that would threaten their lives and welfare. And that is bad news for the culture of death.
For those who have built careers, labs, and reputations on the shoulders of Darwin; for those whose investigative quest is driven by an ideological commitment; for those who want to make peace with “science” and appear reasonable to their peers; for those who are more concerned about protecting orthodoxy than in the pursuit of truth; for those whose hopes for the planet lie in evolution’s inexorable march of progress; for those who would litter the road to Utopia with carcasses of the unwanted, the disabled, the aged, and infirmed; and for those who seek escape from the deeper implications of human existence—intelligent design is bad news. It is very bad news.
Regis Nicoll is a freelance writer and a BreakPoint Centurion. His "All Things Examined" column appears on BreakPoint every other Friday. Serving as a men’s ministry leader and worldview teacher in his community, Regis publishes a free weekly commentary to stimulate thought on current issues from a Christian perspective. To be placed on this free e-mail distribution list, e-mail him at: firstname.lastname@example.org.
Articles on the BreakPoint website are the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Chuck Colson or BreakPoint. Outside links are for informational purposes and do not necessarily imply endorsement of their content.
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CARRINGTON, EDWARD H.
CARRINGTON, EDWARD H. (1847–1919). Edward H. Carrington, former slave, grocery store owner, and African-American community leader, was born on September 27, 1847, in Virginia to Leonidas Davis Carrington and Harriet Russ. Carrington and his parents were slaves in Virginia and after emancipation moved to Austin, Texas. In 1872 Carrington opened a grocery store, called the E. H. Carrington store located at 522 E. Sixth Street in Austin. He operated the store until 1907, when son-in-law Louis D. Lyons took over. Lyons ran the grocery store until the 1940s and was often called “the black mayor of Sixth Street.” The grocery store began as a one-story building, with a second story added on after several years. The second story was called Lyons Hall and used for social functions for the African-American community of Austin.
Carrington was considered a community leader and often loaned money to poor farming families. Additionally, he worked with the Friends in Need fund to help cover funeral expenses for the needy. In 1900 Carrington attended the Austin Emancipation Day Picnic, and he was known as being the first African American in Austin to sign a deed for his own property. Carrington was also registered to vote in Austin in 1892.
E. H. Carrington was married twice in his life. His first wife’s name is not known. His second wife was Lavinia Flora Jackson (1861–1944), and they married in 1884 in Texas. He had two known daughters, possibly from his first marriage, Emma and Rebecca. The E. H. Carrington store building was still standing on Sixth Street in Austin in the early twenty-first century and had undergone several renovations. In the early 1970s the Junior League of Austin restored the building and used it for a thrift shop. Later, the building was used for a Harley Davidson Motor Clothes Store with a restaurant upstairs and then as housing place for the M2K Advertising Agency. In 2002 a conglomerate called “The Carrington Group,” named so in honor of the building’s first owner, E. H. Carrington, purchased it. Carrington was considered a pillar of the Austin African-American community throughout his long life. He died in Austin on May 17, 1919. His wife followed him decades later on November 6, 1944.
Nancy C. Curtis, Black Heritage Sites: An African American Odyssey and Finder’s Guide (American Library Association,1996). Matt Hudgins, “Group of Firms Seeks to Preserve Building,” Austin Business Journal, February 10, 2002 (www.bizjournals.com/austin/stories/2002/02/11/story8.html), accessed March 28, 2012.
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.Jennifer Bridges, "CARRINGTON, EDWARD H. ," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fcafn), accessed July 31, 2014. Uploaded on June 13, 2013. Modified on June 18, 2013. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
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Communicating with data
Data visualization is about communicating with data clearly. It draws upon insights from several fields, from cognition to design to data analytics and comprises approaches, methods, tools and guidance to create and interact with charts and tell stories with data. This training session by KCL covers:
- Using charts to communicate results
- Communicating data and results effectively
- Producing effective visualizations
- Understanding why some visual designs work better than others
- Presenting visual tools that make machine learning algorithms more accessible.
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The Integrated Reasoning section of the GMAT® exam consists of 12 questions.
This page has been successfully e-mailed.
There are four question types to measure test takers' ability to analyze and synthesize data in different formats and from multiple sources:
- Almost all question formats require multiple responses. Questions are designed to measure how well test takers integrate data to solve complex problems, so they must answer all parts of a single question correctly to receive credit.
- All answer choices for a single question are presented on the same screen. Test takers may not go back to a previous screen to change their answers to previous questions.
- Data presented in text are approximately 300 words or fewer.
- Answer options don’t provide information or clues that will help you solve other questions.
- One set of data is used for several Multi-Source Reasoning questions, but the questions are independent of one another—test takers won’t have to answer one question correctly to be able to answer another.
For interactive samples of the Integrated Reasoning question formats, click on each of the graphic images displayed in the tabs below.
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The Morning Light Campus Ministry Voluntary Group (Founded by Pastor Jung Myeong Seok) reaches out to over 60 stateless children. This article reported in Taiwan’s popular “Next Magazine” on 31st May 2016 (archived), and translated here.
During the programme, interactive picture books featuring “You are special” are shared with the children through one-to-one interaction. They have added great warmth to the upcoming Mother’s Day.
On this special morning, the “Morning Light Campus Ministry Voluntary Group” has also garnered the support and help of many caring mothers. They prepared sumptuous and healthy meals for the children in the Home. This is with the hope that they can receive the optimum nutrition from the food for their growth.
The children that the Home has adopted, aged between 0 to 3 years old. They are considered “stateless babies” as either their parents do not have the Taiwanese nationality. Their parents do not have a legal marriage, thus the children are ineligible for a Taiwan citizenship. This has created a big hurdle for the babies as they are not eligible for government subsidies or any medical treatment.
The role of the Care Home for the Women and Young
The Care Home for the Women and Young has since then become the home of refugee for the stateless children and their vulnerable families. There are 1,070 children in China and 30-40 adults who are in need of help. In Taiwan, there are over 300 children, and among them, more than 70 children require milk feeding.
With an average monthly basic living expenses of 7 to 8 million Taiwan New Dollars (about USD221,000 to USD253,000), the income comes mainly from the public donations. However, more financial assistance and resources from the society would be needed. Secretary-General Yang Jie Yu commented, “The Care Home is currently providing assistance to the less fortunate people in the society. They are mainly the AIDS patients who are facing social discrimination and unemployment. Some are foreigners in Taiwan without any nationality status. They face desperation in their life when they encounter legal issues in Taiwan, illnesses or pregnancies. They have no relatives, friends or resources to turn to for help.”
“These are people who need our attention and their issues are something that even the Government is facing its limitations. It is our hope to rally more help from the community to work together with the Care Home, be it to contribute financially or volunteering of time and service.”
The Morning Light Campus Ministry Voluntary Group
As part of the Taiwan Christian Gospel Mission founded by Pastor Jung Myeong Seok, the “Morning Light Campus Ministry Voluntary Group” comprises many youths and students. Some as young as 6 years old or are in the elementary schools, and some are seniors above 60 years old. The group is always actively recruiting talents of different fields and areas, so that they can serve and contribute according to their professional expertise. This aligns to the mission and vision of the Group – to raise and develop the new generation of young people based on their characteristics and individuality.
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On to 1 John 2:1-11
v1: My (little – this word does not appear in the original text) children: This speaks about a family relationship. John is writing to people who he considers close family, people he greatly loves and is concerned about. He wants only good for the people he is leading.
- You may not sin: This is how G-d expects believers to behave – it should be our normal behaviour. Those who have been brought into the family of G-d should not sin.
- If anyone sins: To be a true believer does not mean that we live a perfect life and never sin. There are times when we do sin. However, sin should not characterize our lives. Sin in our lives should be the exception rather than the norm.
- We: Believers; those who are in a new covenant relationship with G-d.
- Advocate: A word that refers to a lawyer; someone who represents us in a court of law.
- Messiah Yeshua: He is our defence attorney, but He is also the judge (John 5:22). Because of this, we can have confidence that our sins have been forgiven. If we should sin we have a righteous Advocate who will defend us before the Father.
- Yeshua… the righteous: In the same way that our sinfulness was placed upon Him, His righteousness was placed upon us (His righteousness has been imputed to us).
v2: Propitiation: Atonement covers up our sins but does not remove them -they are still there, and judgement remains in the equation. Propitiation, on the other hand, is better than atonement. It is a type of redemption. It means that our sins are not covered over (like with atonement) but they are erased, annihilated, destroyed! This means that there is no longer any sin that can be charged against us!
- (The sins) for the whole world: Messiah’s death is not a limited atonement. Some people teach that He only died for the elect. This is a false teaching. What He did at the cross was a work of redemption – a redemption that was complete and not limited in any way (John 3:16). The only criteria to receiving this redemption is confessing that Messiah Yeshua is L-rd and believing that the Father raised Him from the dead (Roms 10:9-10).
v3: Know that we know Him: This word for knowing something is repeated. It is also written in the perfect tense. This means that we have known Him in the past, we know Him today and that knowledge will continue into the future.
- If we keep His commandments: There is evidence, a testimony, when one knows Messiah. Those who know Messiah are going to want to keep His instructions, His revelation to us. In other words, as a new creation (2 Cor 5:17) our desire is to obey Him by keeping His commandments.
v4: “I know Him”: Written in the perfect tense. This means that they are claiming that they knew Him in the past, they know Him now and they will know Him forever.
- Does not keep: This one has no desire to keep the commandments. He is uninterested in them and is not committed to keeping them.
- The truth is not in him: There is a connection between receiving the truth and that truth giving us the desire to obey. If we do not want to obey G-d’s commandments, then we cannot say that we know Him. The truth of G-d brings about a G-dly change in our lives. That change is made evident through our obedience to the commandments (rooted in the Torah/Law) of G-d.
v5: The love of G-d is perfected in him: This means that the love of G-d works out, and brings to completion, His desires for that person who keeps His Word. Love and the commandments (Word) of G-d work hand in hand (John 14:15). The greatest commandments have to do with love (Luke 10:27, Gal 5:14)
- By this we know that we are in Him: The love of G-d being perfected in our lives, and evidence that we are obeying His instructions, confirms the fact that we are indeed in Him. It reveals the reality of our relationship with the Living G-d through Messiah.
v6: In Him: I.e. He says he has a covenant relationship with Messiah (He says he abides/lives/remains in Messiah).
- Him: Referring to Messiah.
- Walk just as He walked: There needs to be a similarity, a continuity, between how Yeshua lived and how we are to live. We need to imitate how He lived when He was in the flesh – fulfilling the law and steering clear of sin.
- Walk: Lifestyle is important. We are not saved by our obedience or lifestyle, but once we are saved the way we live is going to demonstrate our relationship with Him – whether we are in Him or not.
v7: Brethren: This includes men and women.
- I write no new commandment to you: Those who teach that we need to unhitch ourselves from the commandments of the Old Testament are teaching a false doctrine.
- The beginning: From when G-d’s revelation to man begun (at the creation of man).
- The Word: This revelation
- The beginning: John, in this epistle, has repeated and therefore placed emphasis on
- “the beginning”. The beginning speaks about G-d’s revelation to man, a revealing of His purpose. Before the preaching of the gospel, even before the earthly ministry of Messiah, the objective of G-d had already been clearly revealed.
v8: A new commandment: John has just told us (v7) that he is not writing about a new commandment but about an old one, one that has been around since the beginning of known time. This verse is not in conflict with verse 7. John’s intent in this verse is to reveal to us that it is only through the ministry of Messiah Yeshua that the old commandments can become new. It is only through being a new creation in Messiah, having His Holy Spirit dwelling in us, that the old laws can become new covenant realities. Those who walk in the Spirit have the power, the potential, to fulfil the righteousness of the law (Roms 8:4).
- True in Him: Only when we are in Him do we have the potential to take the Old Testament commandments and apply them, under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, in order to make them into that which can manifest (through our behaviour) the righteousness of the Kingdom of G-d.
- The true light is already shining: Through salvation and through the receiving of the Holy Spirit it shines, through our behaviour, in our lives.
v9: In darkness: There has been no change in him.
v10: Light: Light brought order and a change into creation. If we do not accept and apply G-d’s light (revelation/illumination) into our lives we are going to continue to live in disordered darkness. There are only two possibilities: either we are going to be walking in the light (being led by the truth of G-d and being submissive to all of His instructions) or we are going to be stumbling in darkness.
- No cause for stumbling: The one who loves his brother and who remains in the light has nothing offensive or scandalous attached to him. He is not a stumbling block or a cause of offense to others.
v11: But: In contrast to the one who is loving his neighbour.
- Hates his brother: The old commandment spoke of loving our neighbours (Lev 19:18). John changes the word ‘neighbour’ to the word ‘brother’. This is simply a different way of saying the same thing. John adds a more personal dimension to the commandment.
- In darkness: This means that he is not utilizing truth or taking hold of the revelation of G-d. He is not acting in light of the message that has been revealed to us.
- Does not know where he is going: Darkness leads to confusion (physically, emotionally, and spiritually).
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UATAG - product originality identification, made of glass.
- UATAG idea arose during a dispute between the authors of the project, whether one person could create something that the other would never repeat. Among such moments of "uniqueness" were cracks in the glass. The texture of the broken glass is always unique and it is impossible to duplicate it. The inventors used these unique glass properties to identify the goods authenticity.
- Unlike most anti-counterfeit solutions available on the market today, UATAG is non-reproducible, does not require any special reading devices and provides instant visual product authentication, enabling every customer to choose original products everywhere they shop and every time they buy.
- In addition to the main function of counterfeit protection, UATAG can also play the role of a stylish accessory. Customers will be able to order a protective tag in a plastic or a metal frame.
- Today, UATAG is preparing to start mass production. Nevertheless, brands, who are looking for protection solution can make pre-production order agreements Be the first to try UATAG.
Read the full version of the article on Marketer.ua.
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Title: Making Sense of the Nonsense - Theory and Practice
When: 04/12/2013 at 09:00 to 04/14/2013 at 17:00
Where: Wolf Park
|CPDT-KSA Knowledge:||4||CBCC-KSA Knowledge:||4|
|CPDT-KSA Skills:||7.5||CBCC-KSA Skills:||7.5|
Roger Abrantes brings a unique perspective to dog and animal behavior through his experience working with numerous species around the world. Born in Portugal, Abrantes speaks seven languages and has written 17 books on animal behavior. He is currently researching, writing and lecturing on behavior and evolution at the Ethology Institute Cambridge, touring the world with seminars and talks, and diving in Thailand. This seminar, which has never been given in the United States, will have four main modules: 1. On Behavior 2. On Signals, Cues, Commands and Changing Behavior 3. On Aggression, Fear, Dominance and Submission 4. On Leadership This seminar will include time in the enclosures with Wolf Park's wolves. There will also be live demonstrations with dogs to show how we can communicate with our own dogs and teach them many behaviors without the need of gizmos, using our own body language, facial expressions, etc.
Sponsor: Wolf Park
Speaker(s): Roger Abrantes
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The Taxi and Limousine Commission quietly approved the privatization initiative that will allow livery vans to operate along bus routes eliminated by the cash-strapped state agency — including the B71 route that once journeyed from Columbia Street through tony Carroll Gardens and Park Slope on its way to Crown Heights.
Williamsburg’s former B39 line, which was popular with seniors and the handicapped because it went over the Williamsburg Bridge, is also included in the initiative.
Under the plan, the vans will only be allowed to pick up passengers at specified locations — but drop-offs can be at locations negotiated by the driver and commuter.
Where the rubber hits the road, not everyone is getting on board. The proposal is likely to be lambasted in neighborhoods such as Park Slope and Carroll Gardens, where the so-called “dollar vans” have not traditionally operated.
As such, civic leaders in those neighborhoods expressed fear and loathing.
“Oh my god, it’s insane!” said Maria Pagano, president of the Carroll Gardens Neighborhood Association. “You’ll have guys dive-bombing in and out on Union Street between school buses.”
Roy Sloane, president of the Cobble Hill Association, added that the “public-private partnership” leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
“The government should be providing essential services that don’t necessarily make a profit,” he said. “The government and this administration seems to be keen on privatizing all the services that [they] used to provide.”
Even Michael Cairl, the president of the Park Slope Civic Council who was initially open to the idea, saw stepped-up van shuttles as the beginning of the end of public transportation.
“This is the beginning of a pared-down transit system, and that’s unfortunate,” he said.
The city insisted that it is not looking to privatize mass transit.
“The best outcome is a robust, healthy MTA that can provide bus service everywhere it is needed,” said David Yassky, commissioner of the Taxi and Limousine Commission. “Since we don’t have that at the moment, all we can try to do is give commuters the best set of options we can — we are not replacing the MTA.”
And van operators may not be interested in replacing the transit agency either.
“They are trying to use us, but there is nothing in it for us,” said Winston Williams, owner of Blackstreet Van Lines. “I think they’re full of it.”
Williams said the program will have too many restrictions to make it profitable, particularly the inability to pick up passengers where the driver sees fit.
Yassky insisted van companies would have plenty of reasons to participate in the program.
“Their incentive is that if they can make money transporting people, they will do it. Our market research tell us that there are providers willing and eager to serve the market.”
The buses will be able to transport up to 20 passengers, each paying a flat $2 fare — a quarter less than a city bus ride. Interestingly, the MTA applauded the assistance.
“The MTA welcomes the city’s independent efforts to promote livery van service in areas where funding is insufficient to support public transportation,” spokesman Kevin Ortiz said.
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Target groups, change agents, educational sessions
Research also showed which target groups to include in Spandana. Young women in their reproductive years turned out not to have much say in their own reproductive lives. Mothers-in-law tend to play a particularly important role, even more than husbands do. Spandana's activities first focused on women's groups, including not only women in their reproductive years but also older women. In later stages, men's groups and adolescents (girls and boys) were also included. Educational sessions, in which the flashcards were applied, were conducted in small groups consisting of 10 to 15 members formed on the basis of the homogeneous characteristics of the members and proximity of their homes in the village.
Community workers (30) and organisers (4) living in the villages themselves implemented Spandana's activities in 31 villages. They acted as change agents in their own villages and organised the group educational sessions. These sessions were conducted at times that were convenient to the groups (and not to the interventionists), which usually was in the evening. In addition to the educational sessions, supportive activities such as food demonstrations were conducted to balance cognitive messages with easier and traditional ways of communication
|Last modified:||15 November 2012 2.26 p.m.|
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South African Journal of Animal Science
Print version ISSN 0375-1589
HUGO, A. et al. Effect of dietary lipid sources on lipid oxidation of broiler meat. S. Afr. j. anim. sci. [online]. 2009, vol.39, n.5, pp. 149-152. ISSN 0375-1589.
The objective of this study was to investigate the effects of different dietary lipid sources and inclusion levels on lipid oxidation of thigh and breast muscle of male broilers. Eight isoenergetic (15.12 MJ AME/kg DM) and isonitrogenous (222.8 CP/kg DM) diets were formulated, using sunflower oil (SO), high oleic sunflower oil (HOSO), fish oil (FO) and tallow (T) at 30 g/kg and 60 g/kg inclusion levels. Eight hundred, day-old Ross 788 broiler males were randomly allocated to the eight treatments (n = 100) and further subdivided into four replicates/treatment (n = 25). All birds received a standard diet for 14 days whereafter the experimental diets were fed for an additional 28 days until termination of the study. Birds were slaughtered under commercial abattoir conditions at 42 days of age. Carcasses from 12 birds per treatment (n = 12) were trimmed for breast and thigh cuts by removing the skin. Twelve breast and thigh samples from each treatment group were stored at 4 ºC for seven days under an oxygen permeable overwrap film and another 12 breast and thigh samples were vacuum packed and stored at -18 ºC for 100 days. Meat samples were used for thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) analysis. Birds fed FO showed significantly more oxidation in both thigh and breast meat than birds from any of the other treatments during storage. These results indicated that dietary lipid sources do influence the lipid oxidation processes of broiler meat.
Keywords : Ross 788; broiler meat; oil; fat oxidation; TBARS.
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CP002: VTALKUP – 5 Excel lookup functions demystified + 4 Resources for you
In the second session of Chandoo.org Podcast, We will be learning how to use 5 Excel lookup functions.
Good News – We are on iTunes and more
Before we proceed with the show, let me share few very happy news with you all.
- Chandoo.org Podcast is on iTunes. What more, we are featured in New & Noteworthy section too. Click here to subscribe.
- Our show is on Stitcher and Windows Phone Podcasts too: Click here to subscribe on Stitcher. For Windows phone, search your podcasts app for our show.
- As always, you can get latest episodes, show notes & resources from our Podcast page.
What is in this session?
In this session, we tackle one of the most important areas of Excel. The lookup functions.
You will learn,
- Why lookup functions are necessary
- 5 Important lookup functions in Excel – VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, LOOKUP, MATCH & INDEX
- When & how to use each of these 5 functions?
- Extreme scenarios:
- What happens when the value you are looking up is not there?
- What if too many items match the lookup value?
- What if you have too many conditions in the lookup criteria?
- Using IFERROR function
- Re-cap of the new powers you acquired
- 4 Resources for you to learn lookup functions better
Go ahead and listen to the show.
Links & Resources mentioned in this session:
4 Resources to learn lookup functions:
- Comprehensive guide to Excel lookup functions
- VLOOKUP Cheatsheet
- The VLOOKUP Quiz – test your knowledge
- Recommended book: The VLOOKUP Book
Example workbook for this podcast:
Click here to download example workbook to play with the ideas mentioned in this podcast.
Other formulas and links mentioned in this podcast:
- INDEX formula – introduction, how to use it and why you should use it?
- INDEX + MATCH formula combination
- IFERROR Formula What is it, syntax, examples and uses
- Looking up 2nd or 3rd matching value
- Looking up based on multiple conditions
Special gift for you:
- Listen to this session to unlock a special gift for you.
Transcript of this session:
Thanks to Jordan
I almost forgot. Special thanks to Jordan (@SpikingWhamos) for suggesting VTALKUP as a name.
If you enjoy the podcast…,
Please do these 2 things. It means a lot me & our community.
- Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
- Please leave an honest review on iTunes by clicking here.. It will help the show & its rankings immensely. Thank you so much.
Now its your turn to talk
Do you use lookup formulas in Excel? What do you use them for? Where do you struggle? What new things have you learned about them thru this podcast? Please share your views, suggestions, questions and tips in the comments area below.
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|You can move formula help box with your mouse!!! [quick tip]||Free Invoice Template using Excel – Download|
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According to a study conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, child-safety seats decrease the risk of death by up to 71 percent for infants and 54 percent for 1- to 4-year-olds when used correctly. However, car seats are confusing and many parents find it hard to use it right.
Therefore, we’ve compiled 8 of the most common car seat mistakes faced by both new parents and parents. Read ’em below:
1. Placing the car seat in the wrong direction
While safety experts say children should ride in rear-facing car seats until at least age 2 or as long as the child fits comfortably in the seat, parents should also refer to their country’s child safety law. Besides that, the car seat should be placed in the back seat, away from active airbags.
2. Using the car seat outside of the car
A car seat is a safety device to be used in a car, not for use as a general seat in your home. As Mayo Clinic explains, sitting in a car seat for lengthy periods poses health risks. It affect your child’s ability to breathe, contribute to the development of a flat spot on the back of your baby’s head, and worsen gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD).
3. Getting a used car seat without checking it thoroughly
A car seat is one of the most expensive purchases for new parents, so we totally understand if you’re considering a used car seat for your child. However, there are a few things you should check before getting one, such as manufacture date and model number, visible damage or missing parts, and more. Remember, if you don’t know the car seat’s history, don’t use it!
4. Low chest clip positioned
The chest clip is a little piece of plastic on the car seat harness and should be placed at your little one’s armpit level. Neck injuries could result if it’s too high; stomach trauma if it’s too low.
5. Not removing your child’s heavy outerwear during the colder months
Many parents are unaware that bulky outerwear can prevent harness straps from securing your child. When a child is wearing a winter coat, the straps are actually dangerously loose – even though it may feel like they are strapped snugly into the car seat. In fact, this rule also applies to adults. Experts say adults shouldn’t wear their winter coats when they’re behind the wheel or riding in a car.
6. Harness straps in the wrong position
As your little one grows, you’ll need to adjust the harness straps’ location in infant seats, convertible seats, and combination seats. According to Cars.com, a child in a rear-facing seat should have the harness straps positioned at or below the shoulders, while a child in a forward-facing seat should have the straps placed at or above the shoulders.
7. Skipping the manual
We know, we know – manuals are boring! But when it comes to the safety of your child, you should really consider taking time off to read the manuals of the car seat and your car. In case you didn’t know, there’s a child safety section in your car’s owner’s manual. So be sure to cross check both manuals when installing your child’s car seat.
8. Using the wrong car seat
Last but not least, you should buy a car seat that fits your child’s height, weight, and age. Do keep in mind that children have outgrown a car seat when they reach its height or weight limit.
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Arctic freeze damages Louisiana citrus crop
Farmers reporting big losses
Citrus growers are surveying the damages following this weeks deep freeze.
Ben Becnel, one of Plaquemines Parish' biggest citrus farmers, said the freezing temperatures likely caused tens of thousands of dollars in damages to his orchard alone.
"Our mandarins suffered the most damage," Becnel said. "They just couldn't handle multiple days of freezing temperatures."
Monday Becnel and his 10-man team spent all day trying to pick as much of his citrus crop before this weeks arctic air settled over southeast Louisiana, but it was too big of a job for the time they had.
"It's always a gamble in the citrus business," said Becnel. "If we pick to much too soon, we have no where to sell it."
Between recent hurricanes and this year's cooler than normal weather, citrus farmers have been battling to stay in the black.
"It's a constant battle. And this is the time of season when we make our profits," Becnel said.
His tomato crop, worth $20,000, was also wiped out. One bright spot, Becnel said: the family's strawberry crop survived the cold temperatures.
Farmers in Louisiana's top three citrus-producing parishes, Plaquemines, Terrebonne and Lafourche are reporting freeze damage.
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How to Defend like a Champ!
Defense is key in soccer. Whether you’re playing against an extremely good team and you are defending to preserve a draw, or whether you are desperately trying to hold onto a one-goal lead in the dying moments of a game, defensive capabilities are key for your youth soccer team to be successful. Here are some tips that will be sure to improve the back end of your squad.
1. Always watch the ball – when you are defending, this is a key ingredient to success. Never focus on the attacker’s wiggling legs, or where they are shifting their body to change directions. The ball needs to be your primary focus. Much of soccer attacking is based around deception and fake-out moves to confuse a defender. Therefore, if you insist on only watching the ball you will be immune to such moves, and when the moment is ripe you can strike in and take the ball away.
2. Be aggressive – Your duty as a defender is to win the ball back for your team and to prevent opponents from scoring chances. A great defender always has that cutting edge and intense fight to win the ball no matter what. Try to instill some of this into your players so that they will make brave tackles. Congratulate them on displays of aggression and help keep up that fire. There is always a chance that you may get penalized for a foul, but sometimes that is the right move, gives your team more time to bring extra defenders back, and will also demoralize weak-minded attackers.
3. Keep your team organized – Whether your team defends with three or four players makes no difference; your players need to be well-organized in order to prevent open players gaining easy access to the goal. Try to help your players cover all areas of the pitch. Also, instill a defensive mindset in your midfielders to come back and cover open spaces. Have plans in design in case one of your defenders falls or is beaten by an attacker. A well-oiled defense can shift over another defender to fight the attack while a midfielder drops back into his or her defensive role temporarily. Team organization isn’t crucial for very young players, but its importance increases as the players get older.
The true mark of a good defense is when they don’t allow any open shots or legitimate scoring chances throughout an entire game. Naturally this is a very tough proposition for even the best of teams, but if you spend some practice time on improving your defender’s skills, there is a definite likelihood that your players will get better and give up fewer goals.
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We’ve just been sent over three how-to features. They show you how to draw Charlie Brown. Make a Snoopy puppet. How to make Snoopy’s nemesis’, The Red Baron, airplane out of things lying around the house.
Not only that, you can also find out what else you can do by having a look at the Activity Pack that was released a while ago.
Learn how to draw Charlie Brown
Create your own Snoopy puppet
All you need is some paper, tape and some help to cut things out.
How to build a Red Baron clothes pin/peg plane
Paint, clothes peg and a couple of lolly sticks & then you ‘re in the skies!
You can also try the earlier released Activity Pack.
Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy, Linus and the rest of the beloved “Peanuts” gang make their big-screen debut, like they’ve never been seen before, in state of the art 3D animation. Snoopy, the world’s most lovable beagle – and flying ace – embarks upon his greatest mission as he takes to the skies to pursue his arch-nemesis The Red Baron, while his best pal, Charlie Brown, begins his own epic quest.
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|Birth: ||Oct. 14, 1812|
|Death: ||May 23, 1871|
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume II, Biographical, 1911, page 762
Thomas J. Huffman . . . Son in law
William Bede and Mary Price
The father was a native of Scotland and the mother of Kentucky.
They were married in Ohio and subsequently came to Van Buren county Iowa, later removing to Louisa county, where Mr. Bede passed away in January, 1857. His wife died May 23, 1871, and was laid to rest beside her husband in Wapello cemetery.
There were eight children born to Mr. and Mrs. Bede:
Mary, who died at the age of sixteen years;
Richard, who gave up his life for his country at the time of the Civil War;
Cynthia, now Mrs. Thomas J. Huffman;
Robert, of Nebraska;
Elizabeth, the wife of Israel Hill of Conesville;
Minerva, who became the wife of John Price of Illinois and is now deceased;
Jackson, who died an Conesville, February 7, 1910; and
Nancy, who died in infancy.
information kindly contributed by Collene/Family Finder
Mary C. Bede (1836 - 1852)*
Richard Bede (1838 - 1863)*
Elizabeth Hill (1844 - 1925)*
Created by: C & N Rasmussen
Record added: Jul 15, 2010
Find A Grave Memorial# 54967703
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by Darren Cotton, Board Vice President, University Heights Collaborative
What started as a group of neighbors in Buffalo sitting around a table talking has transformed into a multi-faceted, multi-phased project that is uniting their corner of the city. ReTree the District is a collaborative project of community partners in Buffalo’s University District that is working to plant 1,000 exclusively bare root trees across the northeast corner of the city. The project utilizes the Cornell Urban Horticulture Institute bare root method and the trees come from Schichtel’s Nursery.
Started in early 2014, ReTree the District has made great strides toward its goal of planting 1,000 trees. Between fall 2014 and fall 2015, 585 trees were planted on residential streets throughout the district’s neighborhoods. The project has already brought over 1,000 volunteers to the community who invested $85,000 in volunteer hours, it has raised over $20,000 to purchase trees and tools, and it has supported the development of many new partnerships and collaborations within the community. Planting trees has become a great way for neighbors to meet one another and contribute positively to their community. Block clubs have gotten organized, student renters have worked alongside longtime homeowners, and dozens of different organizations are working together toward the same vision.
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There's An Open Seat, Only She's Not Taking It, And He Knows Why
Discrimination is a lot easier to spot when it dons black clothing and tells you what to do.
As is true in the U.S. and other countries, indigenous people in Australia suffer from widespread discrimination. And lots of times, that discrimination is experienced in subtle ways, small slights that happen every single day.
Here are some of the research findings about the impact of racism on mental health that generated the campaign behind this video.
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Control of Cognitive Processes
One of the most challenging problems facing cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience is to explain how mental processes are voluntarily controlled, allowing the computational resources of the brain to be selected flexibly and deployed to achieve changing goals. The eighteenth of the celebrated international symposia on Attention and Performance focused on this problem, seeking to banish or at least deconstruct the "homunculus": that conveniently intelligent, but opaque, agent still lurking within many theories, under the guise of a central executive or supervisory attentional system assumed to direct processes that are not "automatic."
The thirty-two contributions discuss evidence from psychological experiments with healthy and brain-damaged subjects, functional imaging, electrophysiology, and computational modeling. Four sections focus on specific forms of control: of visual attention, of perception-action coupling, of task-switching and dual-task performance, and of multistep tasks. The other three sections extend the interdisciplinary approach, with chapters on the neural substrate of control, studies of control disorders, and computational simulations. The progress achieved in fractionating, localizing, and modeling control functions, and in understanding the interaction between stimulus-driven and voluntary control, takes research on control in the mind/brain to a new level of sophistication.
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More and more Newtownabbey people are having to turn to foodbanks for help as the problem of food poverty worsens.
The shocking scale of the borough’s food poverty crisis was highlighted during Newtownabbey Citizens Advice Bureau’s AGM, when CAB district manager Pat Hutchinson revealed that the organisation is having to help increasing numbers of people who are unable to afford food for their families.
She said that people come to the CAB office in Rathcoole “every single day” asking for help because they don’t have any food. And she revealed that the Bureau is having to refer more and more clients to foodbanks or storehouses run by local churches for assistance.
“Every single day we have at least two or three clients who need food,” Mrs Hutchinson told the Times. “It takes real courage to come in here and say ‘I have no food and I’m desperate’.
“It beggars belief in this day and age that some people don’t actually have any food. To be able to help someone in that respect is very important.”
Mrs Hutchinson, who has worked for Newtownabbey CAB for 30 years, believes that problems such as food poverty and fuel poverty are getting worse.
“Not only are we seeing more people who are on benefits, we are talking about the working poor - people who get out of their beds every morning to go to work and are on very low incomes and are struggling to pay whatever they need to pay and suddenly find that they don’t have any food or can’t heat their homes. I think that is an important group of people that we need to target and help,” she added.
The AGM, which took place at the Dunanney Centre on June 25, saw Newtownabbey CAB chairman Billy Snoddy launch the organisation’s annual report for 2013/14.
The publication reveals that between April 2012 and March 2013 local CAB staff dealt with more than 33,000 enquiries and recovered £5.4million for clients in unclaimed benefits.
Pointing to the fact that that figure represents £16 for every £1 the CAB gets in funding, Mr Snoddy said it shows the “value for money service” provided by the CAB, with millions of pounds being put back into the community and the local economy.
He also revealed that CAB money advisors are currently helping clients deal with £12.5million of debt, including mortgage arrears and payday loans.
• Read the full story in this week’s Times (on sale now)
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Triggering a Word that has more than one associated Action presents a choice of the Action to carry out. This choice dialog is called a "Pick List," and appears at the cursor location. Use the arrow keys to select the Action you want and press Enter.
Usage: You would use this feature to simplify. For example, you might associate three different data stamp formats with the Word "date." When you trigger "date" you get a list of the choices, use the arrow keys to select the format you want, and press Enter.
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The Bishops Aren’t Alone
In the first, fevered days of the controversy over insurance coverage of drugs that prevent pregnancy and induce abortions, early polling results made their way into conventional wisdom: The White House and supporters of its mandate cited survey results that found a majority of Americans on their side of the issue. Some pollsters found that even a majority of Roman Catholics said they favored a government requirement that religiously affiliated schools, hospitals and social service agencies provide the coverage.
That narrative – Even Catholics support this! – had the effect of isolating Catholic bishops and other opponents of the requirement. Their objection that the mandate violated the Constitution’s guarantee of religious liberty looked to be outside the nation’s mainstream of thought.
But new evidence suggests that, as Americans spend more time thinking through this polarizing issue, their attitudes may be shifting away from the White House’s position, and toward protection of religious freedom. A nationwide survey released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life found that six in 10 Americans have heard about the dispute. Of those, a plurality of 48 percent now favors an exemption for religiously affiliated institutions; 44 percent say those institutions should have to provide the coverage.
Among Catholics, 55 percent now favor an exemption, while 39 percent do not. Drill down more layers and you find 63 percent of Catholics who attend church weekly favoring an exemption, with 25 percent opposed. Of those who identify themselves as Catholic and visit church less frequently, 48 percent support an exemption; 49 percent disagree.
We argued earlier this week that public opinion shouldn’t dictate government policy in matters of conscience. To do so, we said, would force opponents of capital punishment to surrender their objections because of the most recent finding from Gallup – in line with decades of its research – that Americans now favor the death penalty by a margin of 61 percent to 35 percent.
But the state of public opinion, we also said, is good to know. That’s especially true if opinion is on the move. One possibility is that, early on, many Americans viewed this issue as primarily about contraception – but the ensuing debate has focused them on the notion of the federal government telling the University of Notre Dame or Catholic Charities that, despite church beliefs, it must provide these drugs to its employees.
President Barack Obama sought to amend that impact Friday. He said that while “religious organizations” that primarily serve their own members would be exempt, “religious institutions” that serve students or clients of other faiths wouldn’t have to “directly” provide these services. Instead, employees would obtain contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs, at no cost, from the religious institutions’ insurers. Opponents of the president’s revised mandate suspect that it’s a shell game; they fear that their premium dollars essentially would be laundered through their insurers to provide the very coverage the institutions oppose.
Though the news may startle the White House, the president’s Friday revision didn’t convert opponents of the mandate into supporters. Pew says its pollsters interviewed 1,501 respondents from last Wednesday through Sunday, and: “The survey shows little difference in opinions among people interviewed before the administration’s proposed modification (Friday) and those interviewed afterward.” [More]
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The Faces of 90.5 WESA
Tue April 16, 2013
2010 Microwave Incident Helped Prepare Pittsburgh Marathon for Emergencies
Marathon organizers across the country are examining how they can better prepare their races for an incident like the one seen this week in Boston, but much of the ground work for such a discussion was already laid in Pittsburgh following a scare at the 2010 race.
Not long after the Pittsburgh race started that year, an abandoned microwave oven was found near the finish line, and organizers and police had to spring into action.
“Since the 2010 incident I would say that we have developed an even closer relationship with the city office of emergency management,” said Patrice Matamoros, executive director of the Dick’s Sporting Goods Pittsburgh Marathon. “And then we have also gone through year-round extensive training for a variety of situations that might occur on race day.”
The microwave contained leftovers, but no explosives. However Matamoros said local race organizers are always asking, “What if?”
Organizers will not release details of their plans to keep runners and spectators safe, nor will they talk about their emergency response and evacuation plans. However Matamoros said the marathon “is very prepared to handle race day” and has no plans at this time to cancel or postpone the 2013 race.
In fact, Matamoros said there is great support for not postponing the race.
“A lot of people are coming together and saying that they now have a cause, a huge cause," she said. "They are running for Boston, and this race is more important to them now than it was two days ago.”
Matamoros said they will continue to meet with public safety officials to tweak security plans and will be very strategic in making those plans.
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So, why Platt College San Diego – Digital Media Design?
Platt College San Diego’s educational programs are designed to empower you and generate a creative atmosphere of learning and development. Whether you are a first-time college student, returning to college, transitioning from the military, an international student, or another scenario, we are happy to provide the information applicable to each unique situation. At PCSD, you are not a number. You are part of the PCSD family! We care about each of you and your future from the first day until long after graduation. We look forward to learning about your goals!
- Platt’s degrees and programs are career-focused. We offer an education that allows you to become marketable.
- Digital creation changes constantly and Platt keeps up with the evolutions. Our technology is updated to remain relevant in today’s’ quickly changing industry.
- Our school structure is designed to fit your life, not the other way around. You take one class at a time and focus on one important skill. As you progress through your education, your skill set builds on the last class. Class sessions are offered in the Morning, Afternoon and Evening.
- Career Services are available to current students and alumni. A Career Services representative meets with each student to set up a day one meeting and continues to provide resources through graduation and beyond.
- Enjoy the feeling of being a part of a family at Platt. Students at Platt are the number one priority of the staff and faculty. Courtyard activities and more often bring students, faculty and staff together for both celebration and educational events.
- We encourage all students to showcase their artwork at galleries and exhibits throughout the San Diego area. As a student at Platt, you may encounter several ways to display your designs! Student work and articles may be found on Platt’s social media channels.
- Extracurricular activities provide you a variety of opportunities to become inspired outside of the classroom. We encourage you to participate in field trips, competitions, art exhibits, community and cultural activities.
- The majority of classes are taught in computer labs. Labs are available for you to use from 8am to 10pm Monday thru Thursday and 8am to 5pm on Fridays.
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- Psychology & the public
- What we do
- Member networks
- Careers, education & training
Caring teens 'more academically engaged'
Teenagers who feel responsibility towards their parents are more likely to remain engaged in the classroom and often perform better in school. This is according to a longitudinal study that considered students from both the US and China and has been published in the journal Child Development.
Research was carried out at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Beijing Normal University and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Children were asked to fill out a number of questionnaires over a two-year period and it showed those who had greater feelings of obligation to their mother and father and were motivated to please them invested more effort in their school work.
Eva Pomerantz, Professor of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said: "The findings suggest that parents need to communicate to teenagers the importance of acting responsibly as they enter middle school."
Peter Sharp said: "Young people with secure attachments to parents are far more likely to do well at school, in forming relationships, in succeeding at University and getting and progressing at work."
"This recent international study provides further evidence of what has been shown elsewhere and highlights the element of 'responsibility', which combines with other influencers such as parental expectation and support and the value they place on education."
"One implication of the finding is that parents need affirmation and in some cases support and training to inject what is known to be the 'fuel of success' for their children."
Dr Eddie Edgerton, an Environmental Psychologist from the University of the West of Scotland, recently presented research at the British Psychological Society's Annual Conference in Glasgow that suggested better school buildings can help to improve pupil behaviour and learning.
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4h presentation Ideas
I am new to 4h and I have to do a presentation that is 5-10 minuets long. Id like it to be horse related and something that is interesting, not some thing that will bore everyone in the group. Any suggestions are welcome!!!
Equine colic is something every horse owner can relate to, especially this winter with all the wild temperature swings.
Google credible hits like vets or .edu sites.
I've looked and there diagrams showing the insides of a horse as they pertain to the stomach and colic.
That should be good for about ten minutes max, if you don't use a bunch of flowery adjectives and adverbs.
The diagrams will help everyone else better understand colic and why they need to do their best to avoid it in their horse(s):-)
My duaghter did one once on showmanship presentation and the showmanship square. She made a horse out of a saddle stand and some cardboard, and hung the chain from the horse's halter (drawn on the cardboard). She selected another 4h member to be the judge.
She used chalk to draw the square on the ground, and then demonstrated the proper crossing over, how the elbows and body line should look - expression of the exhibitor and (back in the day - don't know if you all still do this) how to answer the judges question and what to do if you don't know the answer.
She got a lot of laughs at her 'horse', but all the kids paid attention and learned something.
Oh the days of horse presentations for 4-H... aka my childhood!
My best advice to you would be to go with something you're already interested in/know about. Perhaps do a demonstration on how to saddle a horse, tie a slip knot, ect? Do a presentation on your favorite event at a show and walk an example of the pattern (as an example; i did this once explaining the benefits of competing in reining, what skills are needed to compete, and I even took part of the room to "ride" the pattern at the end).
You'll be more comfortable and confident if you work off of prior experience.
Hopefully that's helpful for you. 4-H is a great program to be involved in, I know for me personally it helped me to grow into the person I am today. :)
I second doing the presentation on something that you are already interested in. Plus the more you know about your topic the easier it will be for you to explain it to others. If you are enthusiastic about your topic, you will keep your audience interested!
I am helping a little girl right now that has to do this the end of January.
She is doing it on trail riding alone. She has borrowed my husbands old helmet that is broken all around the bottom (the thick Styrofoam is cracked completely) and is skinned up so bad from the rocks he fell on that the brand name has been scratched and gouged out of the shell of the helmet. This is from a fall he took 3 years ago when a colt spooked and ducked out from under him. He landed on the left side of his head in the ricks and broke his left shoulder in 3 places. He was alone and when he came to, he had his cell phone and called me. He did not know what happened or where he was for sure when he first called.
So, she is using his old helmet, a cell phone and has also borrowed a pair of saddle bags and is showing what is always put in them besides 2 water bottles that fit into pockets on one side of them. The other side has big and a small zipper pockets.
Husband healed up and still trail rides (he is 72 and has had a stroke), but I do not let him go off our place by himself anymore. He rides on the same trails, but, I or someone else is close by. I MADE him promise to wear his helmet that day and to keep his phone in his pocket and not in his saddle bags. I do not have to remind him to wear his helmet anymore.
I actually brought my horses to the demo day and did "how to braid horse manes and tails." I came up with a bunch of braids I drew and passed it around and only did two braids, two of which were pre-done because it would have taken all day.
My sister, when she was like 14 or 13, she did an awesome demo on "unsoundness and blemishes."
I might do something on groundwork, or places of natural pressure on the horse and how to use them correctly.
I might also do something on like traiing horses..
I'm not sure yet what this years willl be! We don't do it till june, so it is nice nad sunny.
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Rooftop gardening does come in with an array of noble ideas. It started off as an incubator entrepreneurial activity handled by an enterprising group from a to z. Once they have gone through the whole cycle, they should be able to duplicate it somewhere else with confidence. It fits the concept of dare to dream. Then comes the environmental, economical and social issues they will probe further.; about saving energy with temperature drop in buildings, about improving air quality with more green lungs in cities, about idle rooftop generating decent income, about rooftop turning into a field for social/recreational outlet.
It comes a long way to at last see seedlings growing in white polybags. The idea of rooftop gardening came out early in the year, followed by training and courses on techniques of modern gardening / farming. Then the whole rooftop gardening concept was drafted during the first week of April 2011. By 19th of April, 1000 chili centil seeds were germinated, a definite landmark on the commitment to see the whole project through. Then components of irrigation system, polybags and growing media were purchased and assembled by the group. By the 18th of May 780 seedlings were transplanted and another 20 the next day. The whole program was officially launched by Datuk M on the 19th of May 2011.
Phase 1: Working on the irrigation system and growing media in bags
|pic 1: crane used to take everything up.|
|pic 2: Bags of growing media being unloaded at rooftop.|
|pic 3: Irrigation system being assembled.|
|pic 4: Irrigation system being assembled, one in one out!|
|pic 5: Cocopeat and burnt paddy husk as growing media, mixed.|
|pic 6: mixing of growing media|
pic: at the back of their Tshirts "rooftop gardening"
|pic 9: prayer - everything would be alright hopefully|
Phase 2: Transplanting of 800 chili centil
|pic 10: everybody get involved in transplanting.|
|pic 11: even the ladies joined in|
|pic 12: He fixed the drip system|
19th of May 2011, The launching of rooftop gardening ~ 800 chili centil
|pic12: The young entrepreneurs dressed up for the launching|
|pic13: Datuk M, firmed the growing media at the base.|
|pic14: another two dignitaries joining media blitz|
The first 10 days.The irrigation system is working well, pushing through the seedlings into healthy looking chili plants
|pic:15 Age of plant ~ 7 days|
|Pic16 : Age of plant ~ 10 days|
The age of plants is normally counted after the day of transplanting. Now they are 10 days old. The chili centil plants are getting stronger, stems progressively getting out of the green baby look, becoming slightly darker, and side shoots are appearing at lower nodes. They are going to keep the side shoots.., it seems that will add to the general stability of the plant against wind. A serious farmer had mentioned to them about keeping the side shoots which will later develop into side branches with the promise of bigger harvest. Farmers do have a lot of secrets under their sleeves and gardening hats.....
bangchik and kakdah, tanah merah
thanks Aziem for the photos.
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One Week After Deadly Venice Beach Strike, Dangerous Lightning Expected to Return to L.A. on Sunday
Forecasters warned that isolated thunderstorms were expected to head back to Los Angeles County on Sunday, as monsoonal moisture heads in from Mexico.
“Just about any location from the beach to the mountains and the Antelope Valley will be susceptible to isolated thunderstorms,” the National Weather Service said. “When skies look threatening, move to a safe place.
“When thunder roars, go indoors!” the weather service said.
Forecasters said the sight of lightning should cause people to move into a vehicle or indoors and wait until 30 minutes has passed. Brief heavy downpours are also possible.
Click here to read the full story on LATimes.com.
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134 pages, Figs, tabs
The world's dependence on fossil fuels is widely acknowledged to be a major cause of rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Thus there is an urgent need to develop energy sources with lower environmental impact, with attention focusing on renewable energy sources. This title reviews various energy technologies, as well as taking a critical look at the political, social and economic aspects. Throughout, the emphasis is on renewable energy sources (wind, wave, solar, biomass), but a discussion of fossil fuels and nuclear power is also presented. The text should be of interest to those in the energy industries as well as by policy-makers, consultants and engineers. Students and lecturers should also find the material of use.
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A local economist who acknowledges he’s known for his usually gloomy outlook has good news: Cuyahoga County’s sales tax revenue is on a record upswing. ideastream’s Joanna Richards has more.
Revenue has been up every month compared to the year before for 46 straight months, according to independent economist George Zeller.
"And that is extremely welcome, particularly given the huge declines that we previously had," he said. "We had a big hole to dig out of."
Zeller said just a few years ago, the Great Recession brought the worst-ever plunges in sales tax revenue.
The upward trend is good for local government, but it’s also a sign of overall economic improvement: people are spending more money.
But Zeller said there are still challenges. The county’s income from sales tax is still $28 million short of where it was at its peak in 2001. And there may be speed bumps ahead.
"We’re all very worried about the next several months, because the Federal Reserve is thinking of raising interest rates," Zeller warned.
Even when delivering good news, he can’t help but include a few caveats.
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Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan says he will gladly return an award given to him by a Jewish-American association a decade ago in a letter released by his office, which also called on the US group to condemn Israel’s government policies in Gaza.
The New York-based American Jewish Congress said in a letter to Erdogan last week that he had become the world's "most virulent anti-Israeli leader" and it demanded that he return the prize. He had been given the award partly for his efforts to broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians 10 years ago.
"Prime Minister Erdogan will be glad to return the award given back in 2004," Turkey's ambassador to Washington Serdar Kilic said in the letter addressed to American Jewish Congress President Jack Rosen.
Erdogan's office released a copy of the letter to the media, describing it as Turkey's official response.
"The absence of this award will not prevent Prime Minister Erdogan from resolutely fighting against terrorism, working towards the peaceful solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and upholding the safety and well-being of the Jewish community in Turkey," the letter continued.
Rosen's open letter to Erdogan had cited the Turkish leader's recent comments that Israel had "surpassed Hitler in barbarism" through its attacks on Gaza. However, there is widespread anger in Turkey at Israel's offensive in Gaza.
"Attempts to depict Prime Minister Erdogan's legitimate criticisms of the Israeli government's attacks on civilians as expressions of anti-Semitism is an obvious distortion and an effort to cover up the historical wrongdoings of the Israeli government," the ambassador's letter said.
"We would like to urge you to publicly condemn the Israeli government's policies that have caused public outrage around the world," it added.
The Palestinian death toll in the conflict is climbing and has already exceeded 1,100, while the number of wounded is over 6,200, with the majority of those civilians. Over 50 Israelis have been killed since the beginning of the Gaza offensive on July 8.
The US State Department called Erdogan's earlier remarks, in which he likened an Israeli MP to Hitler and said the Jewish state was terrorizing the region, "offensive and wrong."
Turkey, a member of the U.S.-led NATO military alliance, was once Israel's closest regional ally. Washington considered it a credible broker in the Middle East peace process.
Relations between Ankara and Washington soured when Obama failed to use force against Syria, which led to Erdogan ceasing to hold phone conversations with the US President.
Erdogan, a supporter of rebel fighters opposed to Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government, was upset, he said, that the United States did not follow through with military action against Damascus amid the fierce civil war there.
"In the past, I was calling him (Obama) directly. Because I can't get the expected results on Syria, our foreign ministers are now talking to each other," Erdogan said in an interview with the pro-government ATV channel.
There have been protests in Turkey following Israel’s actions in Gaza. Thousands gathered outside the Israeli Embassy in Ankara on July 18, with pro-Palestinian activists chanting slogans such as "Hail to the resistance from Istanbul to Gaza," "Murderer Israel, get out of Palestine," and "Strike, strike Hamas; strike against Israel." Demonstrators also waved Turkish and Palestinian flags.
Erdogan is expected to win the August 10 presidential election in Turkey. Should he win the race, many analysts expect him to be more assertive with Turkish foreign policy.
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This collection of essays, first published two decades ago, presents central feminist critiques and analyses of natural and social sciences and their philosophies. Unfortunately, in spite of the brilliant body of research and scholarship in these fields in subsequent decades, the insights of these essays remain as timely now as they were then: philosophy and the sciences still presume kinds of social innocence to which they are not entitled. The essays focus on Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Marx; on the 'adversary method' model of philosophic reasoning; on principles of individuation on philosophical ontology and philosophy of language; on individualistic assumptions in psychology; functionalism in sociological and biological theory; evolutionary theory; the methodology of political science; and conceptions of objective inquiry in the sciences. In taking insights of both Liberal and Marxian women's movements into the purportedly most abstract and value-free areas of Western thought, these essays chart sexist and androcentric assumptions, claims and practices in the cognitive, technical cores of Western sciences and their philosophies. They begin to identify the distinctive aspects of women's experiences and locations in male-supremacist social structures which can provide resources needed for the creation of post-androcentric thinking in research, scholarship, and public policy. Such uses of feminist insights remain controversial today, and even among some feminists. These authors were all junior researchers and scholars two decades ago; today many are among the most distinguished senior scholars in their fields. Their work here provides a splendid opportunity for upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in philosophy and the social sciences to explore some of the most intriguing and controversial challenges to disciplinary projects and to public policy today.
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Rent Discovering Reality 2nd edition today, or search our site for Sandra textbooks. Every textbook comes with a 21-day "Any Reason" guarantee. Published by Springer.
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For years coconut oil was demonized as one of the worst kinds of fat you could ingest. Since then, science has backtracked on its accusations of coconut oil clogging your arteries and killing us one heart attack at a time. Science now touts the many benefits of coconut oil for it’s great ability to cook with, and bake with, and, for some of us, even having a spoonful a day. From aiding in digestion and metabolism to promoting heart health, and from staving off infection to boosting brain function, coconut oil may be the “it” cure-all right now.
While it may not save your relationships or your bank account, coconut oil does have some fantastic tangible uses beyond baking and cooking. In fact, the entire family from birth up to seniors can benefit from this oh-so-wonderful oil. So let’s highlight some top uses for coconut oil that may have you reaching for that Costco-sized tub of it…
After you bring home your precious little bundle of joy, it can be really concerning for any new parent when their newborn begins developing red bumps all over their sweet faces. Baby acne is common, and often thought to be caused by hormones from breast milk. Don’t fret, coconut oil can help clear your baby’s skin, moisturize and heal those little red bumps, and have your newborn looking, well, good as new!
Another common skin condition often found in newborns is cradle cap. Simply rub some coconut oil on the scalp, let it sit and soften for about an hour, and then comb gently with a fine-tooth comb or a soft brush to remove the cradle cap. Follow this scalp treatment with a bath to help wash away any excess oil or flakes.
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42 U.S.C. §§ 11,001-11,050; 40 C.F.R. §§ 370.1-370.41, 372.25 and 372.27, 48 C.F.R. § 52.223-13; 40 CFR Part 355
; Exec. Order No. 12,969 (60 Fed. Reg. 40,989 (Aug. 8, 1995))
This law, Title III of Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act, requires the disclosure of all toxic chemicals used or stored and also requires emergency planning.
The Emergency Planning Notification
requirement involves chemicals listed on the extremely hazardous substances list (see 40 CFR part 355). See the EPA web page on Section 302 (c) for reporting requirements.
The Emergency Release Notification Requirement
comes into play if an accidental chemical release exceeds the applicable minimal reportable quantity. See the EPA web page on section 304 for the reporting requirements.
The Hazarous Chemical Storage Reporting Requirement
applys to any hazardous chemical used or stored in the workplace. Facilities must maintain a material safety data sheet. See the EPA web page on Section 311-312 for reporting requirements.
The Toxic Release Inventory Reporting requirement requires the EPA and the states to annually collect data on releases and transfers of certain toxic chemicals from industrial facilities. See the EPA web page on Section 313 for an explanation of the Toxic Release Inventory Program. This section does not apply to colleges and universities.
See The Campus Environmental Resource Center for a summary of the EPCRA as it applies to colleges and universities.
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During the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan held in the Japanese capital this past summer, the foreign ministers of Japan and Australia met on the sidelines to discuss the importance of enhanced bilateral relations in uncertain times. During the meeting, both sides discussed future collaboration on issues ranging from Afghanistan’s development to Burma’s diplomatic thaw with the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). On the multilateral side, Australia and Japan continue to work together at regional cooperation frameworks such as the East Asia Summit and the ASEAN Regional Forum.
Australia and Japan have several common interests but their relationship for the past several decades has been focused almost entirely on economics. There is good reason for this – as Japan and Australia are two of largest and most dynamic economies in the region and also share common democratic and free market values. Bilateral trade amounts to nearly $70 billion annually with a heavy trade imbalance favoring Australian exports to Japan which exceeded $50 billion in 2011. Japan continues to be heavily reliant on Australia’s booming mining sectors such as coal, iron and copper to satiate its manufacturing needs. Meanwhile, Canberra imports motor vehicles, electronics and technological parts from Japan but import growth has largely flat lined due to increased competition from South Korea and China.
Australia has been keen to recognize the dynamism of its backyard. Unfortunately, as result of changing priorities, engagement with Japan has played second fiddle of late to emerging partnerships with Seoul and Beijing. This can no longer be the case. The days when geopolitics and economics were handled separately are a distant memory. Julia Gillard’s administration seems to have recognized this foreign policy gap and has maneuvered its diplomatic compass towards engagement with China while shoring up a strategic foundation with regional allies such as the US, Japan, South Korea and Thailand.Enjoying this article? Click here to subscribe for full access. Just $5 a month.
Within the past five years, Japan-Australia relations have evolved significantly from the 1970s-80′s which were dominated by trade officials and business exchanges. In 2006, Tokyo and Canberra bolstered their partnership through the signing of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership and have since maintained momentum through frequent exchanges, symposiums and meetings on security, defense and trade issues. The security side of the relationship has dramatically increased as Asia’s landscape changes and brings new challenges to both countries. Japan and Tokyo have held four Joint Foreign and Defense Ministerial Consultations (2+2) meetings since this pact – with the most recent summit taking place earlier this month.
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Telomere length analysis in goat clones and their offspring
- Additional Document Info
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Incomplete epigenetic reprogramming of the donor genome is believed to be the cause behind the high rate of developmental mortality and post-natal anomalies observed in animal clones. It appears that overt phenotypic abnormalities are not transmitted to their progeny suggesting that epigenetic errors are corrected in the germline of clones. Here, we show variation in telomere lengths among Nigerian dwarf goat clones derived from different somatic cell types and that the offspring of two male clones have significantly shorter telomere lengths than age-matched noncloned animals. Telomere lengths were significantly shorter in skin biopsies of goat clones derived from adult granulosa cells compared to those measured for controls. Telomere lengths were highly variable in male goat clones reconstructed from fetal fibroblasts but their mean terminal repeat fragment (TRF) length was within normal range of normal goats. However, in the progeny of two male clones, mean TRF lengths were considerably shorter than age-matched controls for both skin and leukocyte samples. Evidence for possible inheritance of shortened telomeres was obtained by measuring telomere lengths in testicular biopsies obtained from the clones, which when compared with those from noncloned animals of a similar age were significantly shorter. The offspring exhibited telomere lengths intermediate to the TRF values obtained for their cloned fathers' and age-matched control testes. These results demonstrate that telomere length reprogramming in clones is dependent on the type of donor cell used and that the progeny of clones may inherit telomere length alterations acquired through the cloning procedure.
has subject area
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Differences in individual glass melting practices are driven by the scale and scope of the manufacturing, the glass composition needed, the downstream processes involved, and the ultimate product quality required. In this article, we’ll review two common glass manufacturing methods: continuous and batch melting.
As with any manufacturing process, glass melting can be broadly subdivided into batch and continuous processes. Both of these processes can be used to manufacture common glass compositions, such as borosilicate and soda lime silicate glasses. The best glass melting process for your product depends on many factors, such as volume, speed, flexibility in design, and costs. We’ll take a look at these two manufacturing processes, and discuss when each should be considered.
Continuous Glass Melting Process
A continuous process has a “beginning” and an “end;” raw materials are fed into the front of the furnace, and molten glass is removed from the end. As the glass passes through different zones within the furnace, specific steps in the melting process are performed.
Continuous Process Advantages:
- High throughput: glass is always being made, and finished product is always coming out of the furnace.
- Conducive to automation: this can translate into lower costs when large numbers of product are required.
- Long runs and high volumes (100-500 tons/day) of the same or very similar formulations of glass.
- Limited number of color or compositional changes between products.
Types of Products Typically Produced by Continuous Melting:
- Food and beverage containers.
- Architectural glass.
- Insulation and reinforcing fiberglass.
- Consumer products, such as TV and smartphone screens.
Batch Glass Melting Process
In a batch process, all raw materials are added at one time, as opposed to being continually fed into a furnace. The glass is melted in a single vessel or furnace, which is sometimes called a “day tank.” Once the glass is melted, a portion of the glass is removed from the melting vessel and is formed into a product. This step is performed multiple times until the vessel is empty, which marks the end of that batch.
Batch Process Advantages:
- Nimble manufacturing process: easy to scale up and down to customer demand.
- Flexibility: multiple formulations can be melted with the ability to minimize cross-contamination between different glass compositions.
- New product development due to simpler process control and smaller scale. Melting parameters can be customized and adjusted easily to shorten the new product development cycle.
- Short runs of a wide variety of glass formulations and colors.
- Short lead times for uncommon or custom glasses.
- Small - medium volumes ( 0.5 – 2000 pounds).
Types of Products Typically Produced by Batch Melting:
- Aircraft lighting lenses.
- Molded filter glasses.
- Custom molded lenses for industrial and signal applications.
Finding the Right Glass Manufacturer for Your Product
The best glass melting process for your product depends on many factors. Whether you are making containers, aircraft lenses, or optics for industrial lighting, there is a method best suited for your product that will provide the quality and price you need.
However, determining the process best suited for your product isn’t always easy. Below are some questions that you should consider when selecting a glass manufacturer.
- What are my volumes? Do I need 200 or 200,000 parts?
- Does the demand for a finished good suit the size, scale, and cost needed for a continuous process?
- Do I need a common glass composition like soda lime silicate or do I need an uncommon, unique glass composition, such as a UV glass?
- What shape or form is my product? If it’s a 3D form, is it best to fabricate a flat piece of glass or should I consider molding it? If it’s flat, should I use float glass?
- How soon do I need my glass? How long can I wait for my glass to get into the production queue?
The answers to these questions can help you select a glass manufacturer that is best suited for your product. Communicate with your glass manufacturer to understand their process and to ensure alignment with your requirements.
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Nothing To Do - a Memory of Windlesham.
As a child growing up in Windlesham village I was frustrated because there was so little to do. I went to the local school which backed onto our house at the bottom of Poplar Avenue which joined Up Down hill. When I had grown up and married I moved back to the village because it provided the tranquil refuge I craved! I knew the 'battling farmer' Glanfield. He fought the authorities for compensation when the electricity pylons were constructed and then, later, when the M3 Motorway was put through his land. He became a nationally famous figure and put Windlesham on the map!
A memory shared by on Jan 20th, 2010. Send Raymond White a message
Tips & Ideas
Not sure what to write? It's easy - just think of an important place in your life and ask yourself:
How does it feature in your personal history?
What are your best memories of this place?
How has it changed over the years?
How does it feel, seeing these places again?
Do you remember stories about the community, its history and people?
This week's Places
Here are some of the places people are talking about in our Share Your Memories community this week:
...and hundreds more! Enjoy browsing more recent contributions now.
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A new study finds hospital emergency room waits may not be as long as we think. Or they may be longer, depending on your perspective.
The study by Propublica found that the average wait time before being seen by a doctor is 28 minutes nationwide and 32 minutes in Mississippi.
But if you have a broken bone and need pain killers, the averages are 60 minutes nationally and 69 minutes in the state. And it’ll be a total of 138 minutes on average before you are sent home nationally but just 117 minutes in Mississippi.
The times vary by hospital. For instance, the average wait time for a doctor is under 30 minutes at small hospitals in Eupora and Louisville. But it’s 41 minutes in Tupelo and 54 minutes in Columbus.
For a look at the complete study or to see more on hospitals in your state or area, click the link below:
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"These days in Los Angeles, there are midnight bike rides, East Side bike rides, women’s bike rides and nude bike rides rolling out nearly every day," The New York Times reports. "In the past 18 months, close to 40 miles of bike paths and lanes have been created across the city and the City Council passed a measure to prevent bicyclists from being harassed by motorists."
“The popularity of cycling is totally surging,” Jennifer Klausner, executive director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, told the paper. “What I see is more and more people than ever before on bicycles, at all hours of the day and night. It’s taken a while for the city to catch up.”
Nathan Baird, bicycle coordinator for the city’s Department of Transportation, said the city installed 19 new miles of bikeways last year and 35 miles this year, and intended to build 40 miles of bikeways a year over the next five years. A city plan, adopted in March 2011, pledges the city to build roughly 1,350 miles of pathways, dedicated lanes, and bike-friendly streets over the next 30 years.
For more in-depth coverage on this topic:
• Subscribe to Better! Cities & Towns to read all of the articles (print+online) on implementation of greener, stronger, cities and towns.
• See the March 2012 issue of Better! Cities & Towns. Topics: Traffic congestion, Zoning, DOT mainstreams livability, HUD's Sustainable Communities, Transit-oriented development, TOD tips, Form-based codes, Parking minimums, New classical town, Urban retail, James H. Kunstler, Placemaking and job growth, Maryland's smart growth.
• Get New Urbanism: Best Practices Guide, packed with more than 800 informative photos, plans, tables, and other illustrations, this book is the best single guide to implementing better cities and towns.
• See the January-February 2012 issue of Better! Cities & Towns. Topics: Value capture and transit, Social networks aid downtown, Live smaller, Rentals are market key, Streetcar inspiration, Box building, Civilizing suburbs, Alley houses, Sprawl repair, Healthy communities, Funding for infrastructure, Chicago River reversal.
• See the December 2011 issue of New Urban News. Wall Street and urbanism, streets to plazas, Sustainable Communities grants, Choice Neighborhoods, TIGER grants, buyers prefer smart growth, protecting historic buildings, public health and planning, redevelopment in Georgia, Ecovillages, parklets.
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Whether you want to make your home smell like scented candles or essential oils, there is always an air freshener for that. Indeed, there is a variety of fragrance options available to meet the needs of everybody. But do you know that these sweet-smelling products might have some damaging effects on your health?
Over the past few years, many scientific studies have revealed that many common air fresheners in the household contain some chemicals which would be possibly harmful.
Can Air Fresheners Cause Breathing Problems?
While most air fresheners might smell sweet, many studies have shown that they contain many hazardous chemicals which can cause serious breathing issues with average exposure.
Even “all-natural” products which are often marketed as organic often contain these toxic components. This should not be surprising because fragrance products don’t remove bad odours but only cover them up.
Basically, our lungs work as a pair of filter which can get rid of millions of toxic particles every day. But when you are directly exposed to some harmful substances found in air fresheners, these body parts can’t filter out everything and let many of them penetrate your body.
As a result, they will increase the risks of breathing problems, especially in those people whose lungs are highly susceptible like kids or asthma suffers. Keep in mind that children might have as many as 20 times greater exposure than adults due to their degree of activity and size.
For this reason, it is essential for households to consider the possible risks of air fresheners and make better choices for their health. The main concerns should be long-term exposures. You can’t notice the effects of these products after a few weeks or months.
But using them year after year might result in these mentioned health issues, such as asthma, respiratory tract irritation, or allergies.
5 Chemicals To Keep An Eye On Air Fresheners
If you want to use air fresheners in your home, it is necessary to understand the presence and effects of the following chemicals:
Volatile organic compounds or VOCs
VOCs are the byproducts of airborne gas released by a variety of household products, such as paints, disinfectants, and air fresheners. Some of the most prevalent forms are widely considered as hazardous and toxic include acetate, pinene, d-limonene, ethanol, and acetone.
Depending on your sensitivity and exposure, VOCs can have many health effects such as throat and nose irritation, headaches, nausea, and damages to your central nervous system.
Formaldehyde is a type of carcinogen that can lead to many symptoms such as coughing, nose irritation, dizziness, or bronchitis. Some common indoor sources of this substance include paints, resins, cosmetics, cleaning products, and air fresheners.
The risks can be increased when you combine these options with fragrance. To ensure safety, you can purchase a testing kit and measure the level of formaldehyde in your home.
Many air fresheners, including unscented and all-natural products, contain phthalates, which are often used to carry and dissolve fragrance. However, many studies have shown that this chemical is associated with changes in levels of hormone, poor quality of semen, or even birth defects.
1,4 DCB (dichlorobenzene) is another main ingredient in many air fresheners, room deodorisers, and mothballs. Many studies have shown that it might trigger minor reductions in your lung function. The only way to protect yourself, particularly kids who have respiratory diseases, is to minimise the use of these products.
For those with a common cold, chronic asthma, or seasonal allergies, air fresheners are a definite no-no because most of them contain many allergens or irritants to your airways. Direct exposure to these substances might worsen the inflammation and lead to more serious breathing issues.
Safer Alternatives To Freshen Your Home
If you are worried about the breathing issues caused by chemicals in air fresheners, but still want your living space smell good, then it is better to go for natural sources.
Only pure, natural sources would be completely free of chemicals. Keep in mind then even essential oils can release some similar harmful substances to air fresheners. For example, you can grind up fresh oranges or brew mint tea to create a healthy and sweet fragrance.
It is also important to clean the air in your home regularly to eliminate any offensive smells. Make sure to avoid cigarettes, aerosol products, and check your bathroom or kitchen vents to ensure they direct moisture and odours outside.
Wash your bedding and clothing at least twice per week. Even when they don’t annoy you, these personal items might build up odours which might irritate others.
Another simple way to freshen up is to keep your home well ventilated just by opening the windows and letting fresh air come in. By doing this, you don’t need to use any air fresheners, which are chemical mixtures used to mask smells rather than clean or disinfect the air.
The best odour is no odour, meaning that you should keep the air in your home always circulate and be fresh.
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The Global Feed LCA Institute (GFLI) is an independent animal nutrition and food industry institute with the purpose of developing a publicly available Animal Nutrition Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) database to support meaningful environmental assessment of animal nutrition products and stimulate continuous improvement of the environmental performance in the animal nutrition and food industry.
- GFLI will maintain and expand its regional and sectorial Animal Nutrition ingredient LCA database, ensuring the integrity and quality of the LCA ingredient datasets in accordance with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Livestock Environmental Assessment and Performance Partnership (FAO/LEAP) guidelines for animal nutrition and food chain systems.
- The Institute will provide public access to the GFLI database, as the recognized global reference for animal nutrition and food LCA data by the public and private sector (LCA researchers, industry, academia and government bodies).
- The Institute will also facilitate GFLI database access for animal nutrition and food industry on a subscription basis, for use in conducting environmental footprint calculations of their products and meaningful comparisons based on a harmonized methodology.
For more information on participating in the GFLI project or gaining access to the current datasets, contact [email protected].
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A mortgage loan is different from a home loan. This form of loan is secured by the mortgage lien. The money from this loan can be used for various purposes, which means that the borrower can freely dispose of the money. Mortgage loans are one of the most common forms of bank loan.
- Mortgage loan for the dream of owning a home
- Also note interest rate developments for mortgage loans
- Mortgage loan comparison with the best deals
Loan amount, unlike a home loan, not just to buy or build a property. The borrower receives the money at his free disposal and provides his own property as security.
In Germany, a mortgage loan can only be taken out on a piece of land or rights equivalent to real estate. The mortgage gives the borrower better conditions for the mortgage loan.
- The mortgage associated with the loan is tied to certain conditions and imposes various conditions on the property through which the loan is to be secured.
Fixed interest rates and an initial repayment of 2-3% are due on the mortgage loan.
A mortgage loan comparison clearly shows the best mortgage loan offers
Calculator provides an overview of the costs associated with a mortgage loan. It is a listing of the
- monthly installment to the bank
- Term for the mortgage loan
- Residual debt at the end
shown. With the mortgage loan calculator, the borrower can see exactly what the cost of a mortgage loan would be. For the mortgage calculator, only a few details need to be given:
- Amount of the loan
- What the interest rate on the loan is expected to be
- How much repayment is made (in percent)
- Term: How long the loan should run
Loan amount $ Annual interest rate % Redemption % running time Years Monthly Rate $ Term until full repayment Years Remaining debt $
Financing plan, extract from land register, land map, extract from property book, certified purchase contract)
- Entry of the mortgage in the land register
- Rank certificate (with early payment of the loan amount)
Before concluding the loan agreement, the bank will also check various things to ensure that the ownership structure is correct and the sum is secured by the property. It will therefore collect the following information:
- Inspection of the loan documents
- Carrying out a security assessment (mortgage lending value is estimated)
- Determination of the lending limit
- Information on the borrower’s credit rating
Advantages and disadvantages of mortgage loans
If you want to take out a mortgage loan, you should weigh up the advantages and disadvantages. The great advantage of a mortgage loan is that the borrower can negotiate much better loan terms through the mortgage than a borrower who cannot offer such security. In addition, a property owner has good protection if he defaults on payment.
- In the event of a delay in payment, the bank will first attempt to sell the property in order to secure its money. You can achieve this by legally enforced administration of the property or in the form of a forced auction.
First of all, such a loan is a relatively large burden because you often owe the bank a very large amount. It is not easy for every borrower to cope with the account statement. Another disadvantage is that a property with a mortgage is more difficult to sell than an unencumbered one.
The registration of a mortgage in the land register is associated with costs (land registry, notary), which of course the property owner has to bear.
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Date of Degree
MS (Master of Science)
Occupational and Environmental Health
This study looked at 19 years of Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Fatality data for the purpose of describing occupational homicide and suicide for farmers and agriculture workers. The study found homicide rates for farmers and agriculture workers were lower than rates for total occupations for 14 years, while suicide rates for farmers and agriculture workers were consistently higher than total occupations. Significant regional variations in homicide and suicide patterns were identified. Finally, this study confirmed prior research in that males were most commonly victims of both occupational homicide and suicide when compared to females, while both male and female farmers and agriculture workers were most likely victims of homicide by firearms.
Copyright 2014 Wendy Jeannette Wehrman Ringgenberg
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For the choir director. A [a]Maskil of the sons of Korah.
42 As the deer [b]pants for the water brooks, So my soul [c]pants for You, O God. 2 My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; When shall I come and [d]appear before God? 3 My tears have been my food day and night, While theysay to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 4 These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng and[e]lead them in procession to the house of God, With the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.
5 Why are you [f]in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? [g]Hope in God, for I shall [h]again praise [i]Him For the [j]help of His presence. 6 O my God, my soul is [k]in despair within me; Therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan And the [l]peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. 7 Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me. 8 The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; And His song will be with me in the night, A prayer to the God of my life.
9 I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning [m]because of the oppression of the enemy?” 10 As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me, While they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” 11 Why are you [n]in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? [o]Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, The [p]help of my countenance and my God.
Psalm 42:1Possibly Contemplative, or Didactic, or Skillful Psalm
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Our economic troubles in the United Kingdom may soon be over. A 6-year-old girl heard our prime minister speaking of the hardships that lie ahead in the effort to bring the nation out of recession. She had just lost one of her baby teeth, and the tooth fairy had left her a pound coin in its place. Realizing the severity of the nation’s economic plight, she taped her pound coin to a letter that she sent to David Cameron with the request that he should use it “to make the country better and pay for jobs.”
The story touched all our hearts, and, of course, the pound was sent back to the sender, thanking her sincerely for her generosity but suggesting that Mr. Cameron would like her to spend it on something nice for herself. He was, however, reported to observe that if we all sent our tooth-fairy money, Britain would soon be on the road to recovery.
Would that it were so simple! Yet this story touches a deep truth. A 6-year-old gives away all she has so that someone else might benefit. She has it completely right. Miracles happen when we put the common good before our own personal gratification. The tiniest thing can be the start of a miracle. In fact the smaller the better, if Jesus’ parables are an indication of the divine dynamic. Little seeds, little deeds are the almost invisible beginnings from which transformation grows.
Perhaps our problem with miracles is that we try to get at them from the wrong end. We strive to see the end of the miracle—the great transformation, the unexpected cure, the new life where there was none before. But we very rarely notice the start of the miracle. This is a great pity because, actually, these almost invisible beginnings of the miraculous are all around us. It is a bit like going through the countryside and, because we are in the right place in the right season, happening to see a tree laden with fruit or a field ripe with corn.
What we do not see is the puff of wind that blows a seed through the air to land in the place where new growth might begin or the moment when a little bird flies off with a berry in its beak and drops it in a place where it can germinate and grow into a whole new berry-bearing plant.
Many years ago, I spent a morning in the Spanish Pyrenees meandering along the banks of a tiny mountain stream. That night in the apartment where I was staying, I was kept awake by the constant roar of the nearby power plant, which was keeping the entire region supplied with electricity. The trickle of clear mountain water that had delighted me in the morning had become the means of sustaining life for a whole community down in the valley.
I had witnessed the start of a miracle, and when you have seen one miracle beginning, you start to notice some of the many others gestating in the world around you. You may see, for example, how a word of encouragement turns a whole life around from despair to hope or how an apparent misfortune can open our minds to fresh perspectives and change the direction of our lives. The thing about miracles, of course, is that they usually take time. Perhaps that is the hidden gift of time—the opportunity to grow miracles in it.
I was spooning some cauliflower cheese into my baby granddaughter’s eager mouth one day, when a sudden realization dawned. “Do you know what?” I asked her, “You and I are performing a miracle here. We are turning a cauliflower into a little girl!” She smiled her approval and went on with her part in the miracle as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Perhaps it is. Perhaps the kingdom of God is the endpoint of the entire miracle we call life on earth, and each of us carries a seed of its beginnings, to plant and water or not as we choose. We may never see what it becomes, but time will.
The approach of Advent invites us to recognize miracles when they are still very small. The miracle of human transformation starts here, and almost no one recognizes it. Just an obedient Jewish girl and her betrothed, a few shepherds, an old man and an old woman in the Temple and a handful of visitors from the East. And the little child at the heart of it all invites us to come close, to see what a miracle looks like when it is just beginning and to be part of its growth and its fulfillment in our own lives in the precious time that we have been given.
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On the 50th anniversary of President Kennedy’s establishment of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Barack Obama, the guy who’s done more to obstruct freedom than any American president in history, will be the one handing out the medals.
Having Barack Obama dispense freedom medals is on par with Hitler lighting Shabbat candles or Bill Clinton hosting a couples’ seminar on the joys of marital fidelity.
Nonetheless, according to the White House website, the purpose of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is the nation’s highest civilian honor, is to pay tribute to those who’ve made “meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
President Obama had this to say about the Medal of Freedom:
The Presidential Medal of Freedom goes to men and women who have dedicated their own lives to enriching ours. This year’s honorees have been blessed with extraordinary talent…
Read my full article at American Thinker
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These biodegradable hot cup lids are made from a variety of biodegradable materials, including polylactic acid (PLA), which is made from agricultural crops such as corn and potatoes. The lids are fully biodegradable and compostable. There are no animal or petrochemical ingredients in the lids. The lids fit the following cups: Ecotainer 10/12/16/20/24 ounce cups. Pack of 100. Eco Categories: Biodegradable, agriculturally based, less toxic, animal friendly.
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Is English language is measure of intelligence ?06-06-2016 / 10:59 am - Improve English - 0 Comments
Your question is a very pertinent one. Because English has become the predominant language of communication in professional workspaces, it is often confused with a person’s ability to perform well. The concept of intelligence is a complex one with several facets that include comprehension, communication, creativity, expression, etc. Mastery over any language of your choice (not just English) is only a small part of being intelligent. It is the ability to communicate that is much more important than simply being good at a language. Good communication is all about getting your thoughts and ideas across in as simple and easy-to-understand a manner as you can.
You could read our blog post on why communication skills are more important than language skills. Also look up the Improve English section on our blog.
09-06-2016 / 1:30 pm - MeraJob Expert
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Pain Complaints Prompt Most ER Visits After Ureteroscopy
Most emergency department visits and readmissions after ureteroscopy are due to complaints of pain.
HealthDay News — Most patients who present to the emergency department after undergoing elective ureteroscopy complain of pain alone, according to a study published in The Journal of Urology.
Jonathan Bloom, MD, from New York Medical College in Valhalla, and colleagues conducted a retrospective chart review from 2010 to 2014 of all elective ureteroscopies at a single tertiary hospital serving an underserved population. The author collected and analyzed demographic, operative, and discharge characteristics for 276 ureteroscopies.
The researchers found that 15.6% of ureteroscopy patients presented to the emergency department within 30 days; 5.8% were readmitted. Readmitted patients were more likely to have hypertension, asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, 2 or more comorbidities, or a complication linked to ureteroscopy (odds ratios, 3.64, 5.54, 3.65, and 7.27, respectively). Patients who sought care in the emergency department after ureteroscopy were less likely to have had a ureteral stent in place before ureteroscopy or an endoscopic procedure within the previous 30 days (odds ratios, 0.35 and 0.35). Most patients (about two-thirds) who presented to the emergency department had a complaint of pain alone, while readmitted patients most often complained of fever and pain (43.8%).
"The majority of emergency department visits after ureteroscopy were due to pain," the authors write. "These patients were less likely to have a preoperative ureteral stent placed or a history of recent urological procedures."
- Bloom J, Matthews G, Phillips J. Factors Influencing Readmission after Elective Ureteroscopy. J Urology. 2016;195(5):1487-1491; doi: 10.1016/j.juro.2015.11.030.
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The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) is a Federal program designed to assist with home heating costs. The program provides a once per year heating season payment on behalf of eligible participants.
Energy Assistance typically runs from November 1st to March 31st each year. Eligibility is based on Federal Poverty Guidelines. If you are a participant in SNAP (Food Stamps), you are presumed eligible for the Energy Assistance program.
SNAP (Food Stamps) recipients need the following information to complete their application:
- Name, Address, Phone Number, Social Security Number
- Do you Rent or Own your home? If you Rent, what is your Landlord's Name, Address & Phone number?
- If Renting, is your rent subsidized?
- Your electric bill account number (even if primary heat source is gas) and your account's Service Agreement Number
If you do NOT receive SNAP (Food Stamps), you will need:
- Names/birthdates for all household members
- Social Security numbers for all household members
- Heating Energy Vendor Name/Account number (utility bill)
- Electric Vendor Name/Account number (utility bill)
- Verification of residence address (utility bill)
- Income verification for the previous 3 months (check stubs, SS/SSI award letters, etc.)
- If you rent, your Landlord's name, address, and phone number
An application cannot be processed without the documents listed above.
If you desire to fill out a printable application form for submission, please go to Idaho CAPAI LIHEAP form.
For LIHEAP, please call the SEICAA office for an appointment according to the county in which you live. The office phone numbers by county are:
Bear Lake... 847-1462
|Family Size||Monthly Income Limit||3 - Mo. Income Limit|
|Ea. Add'l Member||$507||$1,522|
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What if older adults just aren’t interested in computers? It’s a question I get often, though increasingly with a slight hesitationalmost as though the asker intuits, but cannot quite pinpoint, a flaw in the inquiry. Most are satisfied if I merely point out that while many might not be interested, others are, and the goal is to design for them. It’s an easy answer and thus one that I, along with many others, am guilty of providing.
The problem is this answer is only partially correct. Yes, there are older adults who would like to adopt technology but find they cannot (perhaps due to a physical, sensory, or cognitive barrier). However, many others would quite like to reject technology but find themselves confronted with an increasingly digital world. Focusing on only one part of the answer risks underselling the importance and need for work in this latter space.
Technology has fundamentally changed the ways in which society operates such that exclusion from technology can mean exclusion from society. That might seem a bit cliché, but it is sometimes forgotten or overlooked when it comes to older adults. It is as though there is a perception that seniors can perhaps avoid the onslaught of technology the rest of us cannot escape. As an example of why this is untrue, let’s consider photo-sharing practices and how they have changed over the past decade or so.
Back when photos were taken on film, physical prints were the dominant sharing medium. Paper photos were easily accessible, and ownership of physical copies was limited. Though it was not uncommon for proud parents to make extra prints for the (equally proud) grandparents, the limitations of physical prints meant that outside these intimate relationships, prints were rarely distributed.
Today, digital cameras and social networking sites have made it easy to upload and distribute photos, with the result that even casual acquaintancesfrom grade-school friends you haven’t seen in over two decades to colleagues from work whose profile headshots you barely recognizehave ready access to your photos. However, as photos are rarely printed for personal use, producing an extra set for the grandparents is no longer a natural extension of an existing workflow. And because prints are less likely to be produced, Grandma moves from a privileged position in the photo-sharing hierarchy to just beyond its reach.
Negotiating a Digital Society
So what can Grandma do? Well, she can join Facebook. And there is evidence that this is happening. Recent survey data suggests 34 percent of Internet users age 65 and over (or about 18 percent of the over-65 set overall) are using social networking sites, reflecting 150 percent growth in use since 2009 .
But we should use caution in interpreting such statistics as evidence that these technologies are meeting the needs of older adults. Indeed, when researchers have directly asked seniors what they think of social media sites, they have expressed an aversion to the lightweight style of communication espoused by these technologies, and have shown a preference for more personal forms of communication . As such, it seems that older adults are not embracing social networking so much as accepting an unavoidable reality.
Anecdotally, there is some evidence of an alternative. Amazon reviews of the Kodak Pulse Digital Picture Frame, for example, reveal that many are buying them to facilitate sharing photos with older parents and grandparents. Once set up, the device can be remotely managed, acquiring new photos through either its dedicated email address or connection to a Facebook account. This product is a good example of how technologies can be designed to connect inexperienced or uninterested users to very advanced and complicated systems.
In a similar vein, researchers are also looking for ways to design high-tech solutions with a low-tech feel. One particularly poignant example is the work done by Vines et al. on the development of digital checks . This project seeks to preserve the benefits of paper checks (which are still very much used and often favored by older adults) while better harmonizing with digital banking practices. They eloquently summarize this as balancing “innovation and conservation.” To users of their system, which incorporates Anoto digital pen technology, writing checks is much the same as it has always been; however, the digital pen communicates with a backend system to electronically complete the transaction.
What is particularly powerful about the above example is that it tackles the extreme end of the spectrum: The participatory design informants in that project firmly rejected any design requiring a computer. But there are many shades in between zero and complete acceptance of technology, and older-adult HCI researchers are exploring the full spectrum of this space.
Managing the Complexity of Later Life
People are living longer today, and for the most part are enjoying good health further into old age, with evidence of chronic disability levels trending downward . In large part, these improvements have been due to advances in medicine enabling individuals to stay healthy longer. However, achieving and maintaining this level of health often requires a number of medicines, the management of which can pose substantial challenges. In addition, the sheer number of older adults means that despite advances, a staggering number live with serious and challenging health conditions. In particular, advances that have reduced mortality rates for conditions such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes have indirectly led to an increase in the number of individuals living with dementia by making it possible to live long enough to experience cognitive decline.
In response to these challenges, an additional thread of older-adult HCI research explores the ways in which technology can be harnessed to help older adults manage the unique challenges that arise in later life. For example, dwellSense uses sensors to track a number of everyday activities (such as taking medications, talking on the phone, or making a pot of coffee) and then reports these behaviors back to the individual through easy-to-interpret time-series visualizations, thereby aiding in the detection and diagnosis of problems or declines.
In addition, many older adults experience shrinking social networks as their children gain independence (potentially moving far away from their childhood homes), as they retire from the workplace, and as their peers begin to pass away. Research has also begun to explore how technology can be designed to help older adults maintain and grow their social networks. For example, one project of the Technologies for Aging Gracefully Lab at the University of Toronto is investigating games as a social medium. Seniors tend to value the social interaction that results from game play much more than the game itself, but few commercial games are designed to prioritize this value. Their research is exploring the design of mechanisms for promoting the social aspects of play among older-adult peers.
Other work has instead explored how to connect older adults with their families. For example, the Family Window project used always-on video media spaces to create a sense of connectedness between distance-separated homes (e.g., between a grandparent’s home and that of an adult child and his or her children) . A more recent study examined the use of video for connecting a distant or homebound grandparent to kids’ activities outside the home (such as birthday parties and sporting events) .
Designing for intergenerational use brings its own set of interesting research challenges. It is not uncommon for older adults to adopt technology specifically to connect with younger generations. Thus, we must remember that it is not enough to design a senior-friendly system if that system is not compatible with those in use by younger generations. Addressing intergenerational needs in system design (e.g., building a system that appeals equally to those in their twenties as to those in their eighties) remains an interesting but underexplored area of research.
Competing needs can also arise from different views on where the boundaries should be for technology. For example, home monitoring has been touted as an appealing way of balancing security and independence. While it may be true that at the extreme endwhere the choice is between accepting home monitoring or moving to a care facilitymany individuals are willing to trade privacy for independence, at the less extreme end, there can be tension between the desire of younger generations to ensure continued safety and the desire of older adults to maintain their independence and autonomy. Thus, a key challenge for research is to understand the social contracts needed to ensure that safety goals are achieved while respecting privacy and autonomy.
Finally, it is important to acknowledge that older adults are not solely care recipients. Although older-adult HCI has mostly focused on the ways in which technology can compensate for age-related losses, older adults today are healthier, better educated, and more financially secure than any group of elders before them . As such, they have more time and energy to devote to their families, and correspondingly require less financial or care-giving support from younger generations, or require it much later. Although relatively little research has explored how technology can harness the abilities of older adults to provide support, some projects have indirectly begun to touch on this space and serve as good examples of how we could further expand work into this area. Family Story Play , a joint project between Nokia Research and Sesame Workshop, is a system that enables grandparents and grandchildren to read together over the Internet. One could imagine this system being used to support a busy parent by enabling a remote grandparent to help occupy a child while the parent prepares dinner nearby.
The examples here are by no means comprehensive. My goal was not to systematically review the work being done in this space, but rather to highlight some of the diversity and to illustrate some of the complexity of designing for later life. One thing that stands out is that older-adult HCI is diverse and covers many different facets of aging. In particular, current older-adult HCI research is more than just accessibility for seniors. Work in this space asks not only how we can make everyday technologies more accessible to older adults, but also, what kinds of new technologies we can design to support their unique needs. This work thus extends into other HCI communities, including HCI for health and for families.
One challenge for the older-adult HCI community is to consider how to showcase its work as a whole. Early work developed predominantly within ACM SIGACCESS, but the community no longer fits exclusively under that umbrella. Older adults share commonality beyond their specific accessibility barriers. They come from similar social generations and thus share certain cultural experiences and expectations. They are at a similar stage in lifeone that tends to bring with it retirement and grandparenting, among other things. As a result, there are many more aspects of later life for HCI researchers to explore than just accessibility.
As a comparison, the HCI for children community (which also uses a period of human development to define its focus) notably has a dedicated conference, Interaction Design and Children (idc2013. org), which serves (among other purposes) to help define the community. While it’s not clear that conference proliferation is desirable, this does highlight the need to start thinking about ways to strengthen our community identity, not just for the benefit of bringing like-minded researchers together but also (and perhaps more important) for the purpose of clearly defining and communicating the breadth and depth of the field to the outside world.
3. Vines, J., Blythe, M., Dunphy, P., Vlachokyriakos, V., Teece, I., Monk, A., and Olivier, P. Cheque mates: Participatory design of digital payments with eighty somethings. Proc. CHI 2012, 11891198.
Karyn Moffatt is an assistant professor in the School of Information Studies at McGill University. Her research explores the ways in which technology can be employed to meet the needs of older adults and people with disabilities.
Figure. Devices like Kodak’s Pulse Digital Picture Frame can be managed remotely, allowing families and friends to share photos with those who may be inexperienced or uninterested in the technologies that make it possible.
Sidebar: Who Are the “Older Adults”?
Although in HCI research, an age threshhold (often 65) is typically used, it is important to remember that age alone does not define this group. Rather, it’s defined by its common characteristics, with individual membership depending on a number of factors that vary by context and from person to person. For example, some individuals may find that the technological preferences typically associated with later life do not resonate with them. For these individuals, social networking sites like Facebook might be appealing but nevertheless difficult to learn or use. Conversely, for others, a combination of past experience and/or relatively good function may ease the adoption of new technologies. However, these same individuals might nonetheless adopt views and preferences that align with those observed among older adults. Finally, some might find that they start to appreciate senior-sensitive designs at age 55, while others have no interest in them at 80.
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