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Seutter, Georg Matthaus 1678 - 1757. 11in x 8 1/2in (280mm x 215mm). This beautifully hand coloured original copper-plate engraved antique map of The Russian Empire was engraved by Tobias Lotter and was published in the 1744 edition of GM Seutters Atlas Minor Prae cipua Orbis Terrarum Imperia Regna et Provincias....Paper thickness and quality: - Heavy and stable Paper color : - off white Age of map color: - Original Colors used: - Yellow, green, blue, pink General color appearance: - Authentic Paper size: - 11in x 8 1/2in (280mm x 215mm) Plate size: - 10 1/2in x 8in (265mm x 205mm) Margins: - Min 1/4in (5mm). Margins: - None Plate area: - None Verso: - None. Background: Atlas Minor was a series of beautiful maps of all parts of the world. Georg Matthäus Seutter was one of the most and important of the German cartographers of the 18th century, being appointed as the Geographer to the Imperial Court. His son, Albrecht Carl, joined Matthäus and eventually inherited the business. The maps from Atlas Minor were drawn by the two Seutters and engraved by Tobias Conrad Lotte. These maps are highly detailed and engraved with a bold hand with equally strong original hand color in the body of the map as was the 18th century German style.
The cartouches were left uncolored in order to emphasize the elaborately detailed illustrations for which German maps are especially prized. These are some of the most decorative and interesting maps of the eighteenth century. Seutter, Georg Matthaus 1678 - 1757 Seutter was one of the most important and prolific German map publishers of the 18th century. Seutter started his career as an apprentice brewer. Apparently uninspired by the beer business, Seutter left his apprenticeship and moved to Nuremberg where he apprenticed as an engraver under the tutelage of the prominent J.Sometime in the early 18th century Seutter left Homann to establish his own independent cartographic publishing firm in Augsburg. Though he struggled in the early years of his independence, Seutters engraving skill and commitment to diversified map production eventually gained him a substantial following. Most of Seutters maps were heavily based upon, if not copies of, earlier work done by the Homann and Delisle firms. By 1732 Seutter was one of the most prolific publishers of his time and was honored by the German Emperor Charles VI with the title of Imperial Geographer. Seutter continued to publish until his death, at the height of his career, in 1757. The Seutter firm continued under Seutters wastrel son Albrecht Carl until his death in 1762. Following Albrechts death, the firm was divided between the established Probst firm and the emerging firm of Tobias Conrad Lotter. Lotter, Seutters son in law, was a master engraver and worked on behalf of the Seutter firm. Lotter would eventually become one of the most prominent cartographers of his day. Please note all items auctioned are genuine, we do not sell reproductions. A Certificate of Authenticity (COA) can be issued on request.
What is an Antique Map. The word Antique in the traditional sense refers to an item that is more than a hundred years old. The majority of antique maps for sale today come from books or atlases and have survived due to the protection offered by the hardback covers.
The first thing to determine when staring a collection or purchasing an item, is what is important to you. Most collectors prefer to build their collections around a theme. You may decide to collect maps from one region or country, charting its development through time. Similarly you could collect maps of one particular period in time, by type i.Sea or celestial charts or by cartographer. The collector might also want to consider the theme of cartographical misconceptions such as California as an island or Australia as Terra Australis or the Great Southern Land. The subject is so wide that any would-be-collector has almost endless possibilities to find his own little niche within the field, and thereby build a rewarding collection. Starting a collection & pricing. Pricing is based on a number of different factors, the most important of which is regional. In any series of maps the most valuable are usually the World Map and the America/North America.
The World because it is usually the most decorative and America because it has the strongest regional market. Other factors that come into play re: price is rarity, age, size, historical importance, decorative value (colour) and overall condition and quality of paper it is printed on. As specialised dealers, we frequently work with first time map buyers who are just starting their collection. Classical Images was founded 1998 and has built an excellent reputation for supplying high quality original antiquarian maps, historical atlases, antique books and prints. We carry an extensive inventory of antiquarian collectibles from the 15th to 19th century.Our collection typically includes rare books and decorative antique maps and prints by renowned cartographers, authors and engravers. Specific items not listed may be sourced on request. Classical Images adheres to the Codes of Ethics outlined by the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA).
We are a primarily an online based enterprise, however our inventory may be viewed by appointment. |
Antibodies from S Africa COVID variant may offer cross-protection
The 501Y.V2 variant reportedly produces a high number of antibodies, providing protection against infection by other variants. The findings in laboratory studies offer hope that COVID-19 vaccines based on the 501Y.V2 variant first identified late last year could protect against multiple variants circulating in different parts of the world
4 Mar 2021
Research by South African scientists suggests that antibodies triggered by exposure to the country’s dominant coronavirus variant can prevent infection by other variants.
The findings in laboratory studies offer hope that COVID-19 vaccines based on the 501Y.V2 variant first identified late last year could protect against multiple mutations circulating in different parts of the world, scientists said on Wednesday.
The more contagious variant drove the second wave of infections in South Africa that peaked in January and is believed to have spread to many other countries in Africa as well as other continents.
'We used plasma … from people that were infected in this latest wave with the 501Y.V2 and we used it against the first-wave virus, … what we found is that it could neutralise, OK not as well as it could neutralise itself but it’s not bad at all,' Alex Sigal from the Africa Health Research Institute told a news conference.
The findings have yet to be peer-reviewed by researchers.
Sigal said vaccines designed with the 501Y.V2 version in mind 'might be cross-protective to other variants, … this gives you some idea how this problem of variants can be solved'.
Top virologist Tulio de Oliveira also said in the video conference attended by senior government ministers that 'the 501Y.V2 can produce a high level of antibodies that can neutralise itself,', adding that the immune response outperforms previous variants.
‘Good prospect of success’
Penny Moore, a professor at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases, said the antibody response from the 501Y.V2 variant was only reduced threefold against the first-wave virus, whereas the response from the first-wave virus was reduced nine-fold against 501Y.V2, which is also known as B1351.yes
'It’s not that the antibodies that are triggered by 501Y.V2 are somehow magical, there is a drop-off, but unlike the antibodies triggered by the original variant they seem to somehow have a little bit more breadth,' she told the same briefing.
Salim Abdool Karim, a top government adviser on COVID-19, said big vaccine manufacturers including Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson were already making vaccines based on the 501Y.V2 variant.
He predicted that by the end of 2021 most vaccine manufacturers would have adapted their shots, 'not because they are specifically worrying about the virus coming from South Africa … but because key mutations in the 501Y.V2 are actually also present in many other variants'.
'These findings are basically telling us that we have a good prospect of success if we make a vaccine based on it,' he said.
Health Minister Dr Zweli Mkhize said the research was encouraging and that genomics surveillance had helped the government respond to the pandemic.
South Africa has recorded by far the most COVID-19 cases and deaths in Africa, with 1.5 million cases and more than 50,000 fatalities since the pandemic began.
The coronavirus mutations – some more contagious than others – have prompted vaccine manufacturers to tweak their formulas in response to their spread.
US biotechnology company Moderna last week said it will begin in mid-March a clinical trial of a version of its vaccine specific to the South Africa variant.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines researchers warned that the next vaccine the country will get may not be effective in preventing mild to moderate infection caused by the South Africa strain that was first reported in the country on Tuesday.
Biologist and Catholic priest Nicanor Austriaco, of the Manila-based OCTA Research, said in an online forum that the AstraZeneca vaccine had proved ineffective against the South Africa variant, prompting a pause in the rollout of vaccine in South Africa in February and the switch to the single-shot Janssen vaccine.
Austriaco pointed to a report in February by the website medRxiv that showed how the vaccine 'dramatically decreased' in efficacy from 70 percent to 10 percent against the B1351.
A 10 percent efficacy rate is 'no different from injecting water in the patient,' Austriaco was quoted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper as saying. The World Health Organization has recommended AstraZeneca’s use even if there are variants in the country.
SOURCE : AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
News date: 2021-03-04
Voices of Biotech Research. Annabi N, Baker M, Boettiger A, Chakraborty D, Chen Y, Corbett K, Correia B, Dahlman J, de Oliveira T, Ertuerk A, Yanik M, Henaff E, Huch M, Iliev I, Jacobs T, Junca H, Keung A, Kolodkin-Gal I, Krishnaswamy S, Lancaster M, Macosko E, MartÃnez-Núñez M, Miura K, Molloy J, Cruz A, Platt R, Posey A, Shao H, Simunovic M, Slavov N, Takebe T, Vandenberghe L, Varshney R, Wang J, Nature Biotechnology (2021), https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-021-00847-1:. |
Urban Development of Barcelona’s Airport
Aena, the main operator of airports in Spain, announced in its strategic plan, the urban development of Barcelona’s Airport (Josep Tarradellas Barcelona – El Prat), which will start next year, 2024.
The development which has been proposed to the government since 2018, after a series of changes, will finally be realised. The plan will cover 151 hectares (ha) and is divided into three categories according to its use: logistics (highly demanded in Barcelona due to the lack of supply), offices and hotels.
The first stage of the plan will be the developing of the surrounding area of Terminal 2, in which the first 2 ha a hotel will be build, followed by a logistics hub, with an extension of 36 ha. The rest of the development, expected further down the line, will include a hotel, an office area, several hangars for airlines, and 19 ha more for logistics use.
The urban development of the area is supposed to be a complementary investment to the main expansion of the airport, with the construction of a new terminal and the extension of the main airstrip. However, such expansion has been rejected by the local government for the moment, although Aena insists on not putting on hold the investment.
Barcelona’s development is one of the multiple plans the operator has designed for Spanish airports. For instance, last September, Aena awarded to the Singapore’s sovereign fund the development of 32 ha to transform into a logistics use in Madrid’s airport. Moreover, plans will be announced in the nearby future for Malaga, Valencia and Sevilla’s airports. |
The Chata.ai teams train AutoQL language models by connecting to a database and leveraging the database structure to generate database-specific corpora. Since models are trained on the schema of the database rather than the data, a few options are available for clients to share their database structure with Chata.ai:
This is the optimal way of creating a model because the models generated can be tested against data that is known by the customer. An added advantage is that changes to the database structure can be easily added to the language model.
In this case, Chata.ai supplies IP addresses to the customer so they can be added to their firewall and routed to the database. A read-user with access to the Information Schema also needs to be created for the database.
A database backup can be sent to Chata.ai so it can be recovered in Chata.ai’s cloud environment. This is a viable option to create a high-quality model since the database schema is fully available.
In some instances, a dump of data via CSV files can be sent to Chata.ai. While this can be used for proofs of concept, it’s less optimal for creating the best models, as it less-closely matches a real database connection.
Once the data or data schema is received, the Chata.ai integration team uses a proprietary system to generate the language model and make it available to customers for testing and validation. Once the language model is thoroughly tested, it gets published into the customers’ cloud storage. This makes it available to be assigned to a database connection created in the Enterprise Portal.
Updated 12 months ago |
Feeding A Tiger Dream Meaning
Explaining what dreams of feeding a tiger mean, the dreambook is guided by the characteristics of the animal and the peculiarities of interaction with it. The image in a dream personifies a surge of energy and dedication.
If you dreamed of feeding a tiger, which tries to attack in response, the best intentions risk getting rebuffed. Ingratitude will upset the dreamer.
If you dream that a predator is not in a hurry for food in a dream, a coincidence of circumstances will protect the dreamer from a rash act. When you see tiger taking the first step towards you, this means you should avoid worthless obsessive people, otherwise you won't be saved from them.
If the woman touched the striped tiger fur, this means that the dreamer is playing with fire for exquisite pleasures in reality.
Feeding the baby tiger and seeing it eat is a symbol of correct choice and precaution.
When you happen to see a violent tiger cub in a dream, the dreambook of Danilova informs about a secret ill-wisher, envious or rival who decided to break the rules of fair play. It is unlikely that he can cause significant damage. If you see a small tiger cub instead of an adult predator, the enemy is not as strong and dangerous as the imagination draws it.
According to Esoteric dreambook, if you fed the tiger with meat in a dream (a product that is associated with life energy), the plot makes you think whether you are not wasting your energy in vain in real life. It is most likely that you invest energy to gain the qualities of a real hunter: power, leadership, indestructibility, courage and confidence.
The psychoanalytic interpretation of dreams identifies meat with what the dreamer lacks in order to achieve harmony with himself. Very often the dreamer’s desire to be himself shows itself in such a way.
- The dreambooks give various interpretations of dreams about feeding a tiger depending on details:
- If you dreamed of feeding the tiger from your hands, you will tear the enemies the way it would have done;
- If you eat together in a dream, an influential person will support you in reality;
- By feeding the meat to a tiger cub, you are laying an indestructible foundation;
- When you see several small cubs that started a romp, family troubles are coming;
- If you had to feed a tiger sitting in a cage, you will destroy the reputation of the enemy.
If the tiger bites you during feeding, Magini’s dreambook warns that the dreamer is threatened by the consequences of someone else’s tricks or his own negligence.
Longo’s dreambook believes that the evil predator reflects the mood of the dreamer himself. In reality he is driven by swiftness, thirst for power, purposefulness and cunning.
Peacefully minded or tame animal symbolizes the ability to temporarily curb a wild temper in order to achieve the desired. Sometimes feeding a tiger in a dream happens shortly before a very timely meeting with an influential patron or wise guru.
The dreambook gives interpretation of breastfeeding a tiger. Feeding your milk to a baby of other species represents a vain drain of energy. It seems that you give a lot of mental strength and means to those who simply use you in reality.
It is possible that an energetic vampire appeared in your close surrounding. As a result of communication with him, the Old dreambook promises ill health and deceived expectations. Troubles can be avoided by consciously enhancing bioenergy protection. |
Autoimmune enteropathy (AIE) is a rare disorder of the immune system condition that affects infants, young children and (rarely) adults causing severe diarrhea, vomiting, and other morbidities of the digestive tract. AIE causes malabsorption of food, vitamins, and minerals often necessitating replacement fluids and total parenteral nutrition.
There are 3 types of autoimmune enteropathy:
Type 1: IPEX syndrome: Immune dysregulation, Polyendocrinopathy, Enteropathy, X – linked syndrome, which is caused by a mutation in the FOXP3 gene. This can only affect boys.
Type 2: IPEX-like, which manifests similarly to IPEX syndrome but without recognizable mutations in the FOXP3 gene. This can affect both genders and includes a variety of manifestations of varying severity.
Type 3: Autoimmune manifestations primarily limited to the GI tract. This can affect both genders and may also be considered IPEX-like.
There is considerable overlap in these disorders, and it is often unclear how to properly distinguish between them as the responsible genes are generally poorly understood at this time.
- Diarrhea (frequent loss of fluids)
- Intestinal inflammation
- Intestinal bleeding
- Difficulty or inability to gain weight
- Rapid weight loss
- Decreased urine output from dehydration
There is a diagnostic test for AIE that looks for an antibody against the enterocyte. The diagnostic test contains the Western Blot which can identify the antibody IgG or IgA and with the immunohistochemistry can localize these antibodies. Endoscopy with biopsies of the colon, small colon, stomach, and other locations may be helpful in diagnosing. This test is done to look at the stomach and small intestines and to see what cells are infiltrating the digestive tract. There are also documented cases of autoimmune enteropathy where the auto-antibodies were undetectable and the diagnosis was made on the basis of clinical presentation and response to treatment.
The first line of treatment are corticosteroids and other medicines used to suppress the immune system such as tacrolimus and sirolimus. A intravenous nutrition such as total parenteral nutrition and/or a special diet may be necessary. Hematopoietic stem cell transplantation may be curative. |
The last quarter of every year is epochal for two reasons: one, everyone believes that the world is coming to an end on 31 March and the budgeted numbers that could not be met in the preceding nine months have to “somehow be done” in the remaining 90 days. Two, a fever to make next year’s save-the-world agenda takes hold. This is a period characterized by mindless obsession with numbers. I ask you, to borrow from Dhanush’s popular song, “Why thisKolaveri di (murderous rage)?”
We hurtle into this madness without taking any time to step back and reflect: what is the purpose of this ritual called budgeting? Is it merely to cast numbers and targets for the year, or ought it to be seen as an opportunity to review and put in place an operational plan for the larger strategic intent?
Since almost everything we call modern management practice has been adapted from the practices of the Armed Forces, I am going to lean on military history to illustrate the multiple dimensions of budgeting.
How focus on winning a battle cost Germany the war
During the winter of 1944, the Battle of the Bulge unfolded in the Ardennes region spread across Luxembourg, Belgium and France. This major German offensive ended with about 200,000 casualties—two-thirds of them from the German forces and the rest predominantly from the American forces.
It appears that Hitler wanted to relieve the pressure arising from the Allies’ dash to Berlin after they had run over France, post Normandy in June 1944. He believed that if he mounted an all-out attack on the weak Allied lines in the Ardennes region and punched through to the Belgian ports, mainly Antwerp, and cut off the Anglo-American forces to the north, he would have a stronger hand during the armistice negotiations.
Some military historians believe that Hitler was delusional in believing that if he won the Ardennes battle and took Antwerp, he could declare the war a stalemate and not a loss for the Third Reich. Germany was being squeezed on the eastern front by the Soviets and on the west by the Anglo-American forces. Even his own generals were not sure how realistic any of these objectives were.
However, Hitler was driven largely by personal ambition. At this stage of his life, he would harangue his veteran generals that it was “Primacy of Will” that made impossible dreams become real.
The supreme Allied commander General Dwight “Ike” Eisenhower’s son, General John Eisenhower, recounts the battle in his book The Bitter Woods: The Battle of the Bulgeand surmises that belief, devoid of reason, takes charge of an individual’s judgement when ambition, which is not tempered by counsel from others, drives one’s pursuits. He believes that this attitude makes one overestimate the infallibility of one’s own information and judgement.
When his generals advised digging in and defending at the German borders rather than stretching the lines in an all-out attack, Hitler concluded that they were being defeatist. He disregarded the ground realities, the capacity and capability of the resources at his command, the superiority of the Allied forces, or the fact that Germany was fighting on two fronts.
Pretty sane leaders have erred the same way in believing that “never defend, never withdraw and only attack” is inspirational. Thus, we see “Primacy of Will” all around us, especially with larger-than-life leaders.
By this time, Hitler had no air power; the Luftwaffe had been blown out of the skies during the preceding six months. In an all-out gamble, he committed even his reserve forces to Ardennes—all the armour and battle-hardened infantry that had been kept back to fight a defensive battle inside Germany. All that remained as reserve force were 14-year-old untrained children, the Hitler Youth.
Even a new student of military strategy will understand the importance of the reserve force. It steps in to hold conquered territory. It keeps the supply lines open for the attacking forces (all the more pertinent for Germany because with the Luftwaffe decimated, supplies could not have been airdropped). It replenishes the loss in infantry, armour and artillery. Above all, at the decisive moment in battle, it becomes a force multiplier.
There was no force or equipment left to keep the Soviets (on the eastern front) and the Anglo-American forces (on the western front) long enough at the German borders. Only a long battle of attrition on the borders would have given Hitler enough room to negotiate an armistice treaty to protect Germany’s sovereignty.
Sight on the main objective Contrast this with Eisenhower’s moves.
The strategic objective of the Anglo-American forces was to end the European war quickly and get to Berlin before their allies, the Soviets, so that the post-war shape of Europe could be determined by the Anglo-Americans.
By this time, it was evident that the German war machinery was broken.
Hence, Eisenhower’s focus was the roads to Berlin and not Ardennes. He knew that the loss of Ardennes may delay the end of the war but was unlikely to damage the core strategic objectives of ending the European war and taking Berlin before the Russians. So, Eisenhower put heavy resources into the attack forces moving to Berlin and left the forces at Ardennes with lighter resources to fight a defensive battle, should the need arise.
Thus, Hitler was correct in his assumption that the Ardennes was thinly resourced. However, the central point is, what really was Hitler’s strategic objective and how did an all-out attack in Ardennes support it? Was he fighting to win the war, manoeuvre a strategic negotiating advantage or was it meant to delay the impending Allied push into Germany—and if so, for what purpose? Clarity on this alone would have helped his staff officers set the battle plans with any degree of confidence.
History tells us the meticulous planning Hitler’s staff officers did for the Battle of the Bulge. In contrast, the Allies had only a vague inkling that Hitler may attack in the Ardennes. So, on 16 December 1944, when the Germans attacked, the Americans were caught with their proverbial pants down.
Yet, in three weeks, the Germans would be in headlong retreat, with their forces in complete disarray. Hundred days later Berlin fell, the war was over and Hitler was dead.
Your budget is not an end in itself, but a stepping stone
What are the key lessons from the Battle of the Bulge for us in business?
Over the years, budgets have come to represent targets. However, in reality, a budget deconstructs the strategy into executable actions. In that sense, it is the operational plan for a given strategy. It largely deals with allocating resources to effectively execute the operational plan. As C.K. Prahalad wrote, it is also a plan to leverage resources—depending on your strategic objective, where do you need to attack and therefore deploy more? Where will you defend and can do with less?
The thumb rule is, new product launches and markets you want to wrest from competition demand resource superiority. Established, mature markets can be milked with much thinner resourcing. How often do you see budgets making this distinction in resource allocation?
No strategy can dictate only attack on all fronts, with no defensive lines or options to withdraw. If a business leader adopts an attack-only approach, he will face the same consequences that Hitler faced in Ardennes. A caveat here: no one can really have a plan for withdrawal; it is a flexibility that leaders give their field commanders, lest they foolishly decimate valuable resources.
How much and how long do I commit resources where the result is a foregone conclusion? Can I redeploy a resource to where it will alter the balance of power and the eventual result?
Hence, the obsession that once a budget is set it is sacrosanct, is akin to Hitler’s “withdrawal is superfluous” doctrine. There ought to be room to modify a budget if market conditions have changed.
The little pieces that make up the final picture
The budgeting outcome should answer the question, how will an operational plan and resource allocation best achieve the strategic objectives? It has to be dynamic. It has to be specific to the business line, product and market, and not based on any one doctrine. Growth-obsessed leaders are in a way doctrinal in their approach.
I often wonder: if strategy is for a time frame that is more than one year, how can an organization’s budget be for one year? Markets, customers and competition do not change between 31 March and 1 April. Is it not strange that we think of budgets in terms of discrete fiscal years and not as a strategy cycle aligned to the number of years for which we may have framed our strategy?
Hitler did not have a final picture of what would signify to him the achievement of his strategy. So, he went from one battle to another. However, the Allies were clear about their strategy—the liberation of Europe in the Western theatre by pushing back the Germans and the liberation of Asia-Pacific in the eastern theatre by pushing back the Japanese.
When the limits of our strategy are unknown to us, very often, the planning process becomes the casualty. We call this expansionist strategy. It is impossible for any planner to plan an expansionist strategy not framed in a timeline. Occasional opportunism pays, but the strategy itself cannot be opportunistic. This makes resource planning almost impossible, which is the key to acquiring appropriate capacity and capability to execute the operational plan. Building resource capacity and capability has a lead time. Eisenhower negotiated with American President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, a full 18 months’ time to build capacity for the main European invasion.
During the past 10 years, many Indian businesses pursued an expansionist strategy without knowing their limits; they overreached and found themselves overwhelmed in terms of resources which include people, funding, innovation, access to market, and access to and assimilation of technology.
Ask yourself: is going to Europe to build a steel business wise, when you have not yet achieved global-standard capacity or capability at home? How much leverage of capital is sound when you are venturing into unknown new businesses, where you have no proven proprietary capabilities?
Where the budgeting process is a formalization of the CEO’s personal aspiration and not a well-tested output aligned to the institutional strategy, it is doomed to go the way the Battle of Ardennes went for the Germans.
A process of consultation and critique by informed team members is the best way to test any proposition. When CEOs refuse to do this and impose their propositions on institutions, the staff officers will cast great operational plans that look as sound as the plan for the Ardennes offensive, but the result will not be any different. The unfolding saga of Vijay Mallya is a case in point.
Eisenhower always had his key generals together when he planned a battle. He believed this balanced out the blind spots and also prevented an attack-only or defend-only general from running away with his default approach. Yet, he always gave the final word to the general who would command a particular battle.
So for next year, perhaps you could tell your colleagues this time-tested story of the Battle of the Bulge and develop a shared understanding of why even a seemingly mundane process of budgeting could help you achieve your collective ambitions.
Read an unabridged version on www.foundingfuel.com
K. Ramkumar is an executive director on the board of ICICI Bank Ltd and the president of ICICI Foundation. |
A facile and efficient synthetic reaction with high atom economy developed by Prof. Yanghui Zhang’s group
Atom economy (atom efficiency) is the conversion efficiency of a chemical process in terms of all atoms involved and the desired products produced. In chemical reactions, the key to reduce the formation of chemical wastes is to improve atom economy. Atom-economical reactions can maximize the utilization of resource and reduce environmental pollution caused by chemial reaction. In an ideal atom-economical reaction, all the atoms of starting materials are transformed into products, and no byproducts or chemial wastes are generated and produce zero pollution. The “atom-economy” in chemical reactions is one of the core focuses of green chemistry and has been the hotspot in modern chemical synthesis.
Prof. Yanghui Zhang’s group in School of Chemical Science and Engineering has been committed to developing simple and efficient atom-economical synthetic methods, particularly innovative organic reactions based on palladacycle complexes. In the past few years, the Zhang group has made great achievements in palladacycle chemistry, and developed a series of novel organic reactions. After the recent discovery on alkylation of palladacycle intermediate (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2017, 58, 12288. DOI: 10.1002/anie.201800330), a significant progress in this field has been made again.
In this significant discovery, they found that palladacycles, produced via Pd-catalyzed C(sp2)–H or C(sp3)–H bond activation of arylhalides, could react with hexamethyldisilane and form disilylated arenes as the final products. Notably, almost 100% yield was achieved with only 0.1 mol % Pd-catalyst and one equivalent of hexamethylsilane. The two trimethylsilyl groups were completely transformed into the products and no byproducts were formed, so this transformation is a typical atom-economical reaction. Moreover, the reaction possesses broad substrate scope and great compatibility of various functional groups, and a range of palladacycle intermediates derived from C(sp2)–H, C(sp3)–H or remote C–H bond activation are effective. The ingenious reaction is highly facile and efficient, and represents a new type of organic reactions. The products have important applications in materials science and medicinal chemistry. Furthermore, the products could be transformed into disiloxane-bridged biphenyls, which have great application potentials in OLED materials.
The research has been published as “Palladium-Catalyzed C–H Silylation through Palladacycles Generated from Aryl Halides”in Angewandte Chemie, International Edition, (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2018, DOI: 10.1002/anie.201800330). Prof. Yanghui Zhang is the sole corresponding author, and MSc student Ailan Lu and PhD student Xiaoming Ji are listed as the first authors. The research was supported by NSFC (21372176、21672162). |
Expert presenters provided an overview of recent impactful papers highlighting advances in neurocritical care, nonpulmonary critical care, and mechanical ventilation and respiratory support in the Sunday morning session Critical Care Year in Review – I.
Neha Dangayach, MD, MSCR, FCCP, Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and Neurology, and Director of Research for Neurocritical Care and Recovery, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, presented an array of neurocritical care topics, including recently published data from the AcT trial demonstrating the efficacy of a novel agent for the treatment of acute ischemic stroke (AIS).
Tenecteplase, which has not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for use in AIS, has shown promise in this space, with similar clinical outcomes to the tissue plasminogen activator alteplase.
“[Tenecteplase] is a modified version of alteplase—a larger molecule, slightly longer half-life, and can be given only as a bolus,” Dr. Dangayach said. “So, there are definitely advantages to using tenecteplase.”
Several recent studies have compared the efficacy of tenecteplase and alteplase, and researchers have repeatedly proven the noninferiority of the former to the latter. As with alteplase, Dr. Dangayach said, the faster tenecteplase is administered, the better the outcomes.
She also highlighted recent research focusing on therapeutic targets for intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH).
“ICH is no longer a disease process that means poor outcomes,” said Dr. Dangayach, who predicts more minimally invasive surgical evacuation for ICH is on the horizon.
Findings from the ENRICH trial, which are not yet published but were presented at the American Association of Neurological Surgeons annual meeting earlier this year, demonstrated that minimally invasive parafascicular surgery to remove the hematoma results in an improvement in functional outcomes, Dr. Dangayach explained.
Nonpulmonary critical care
Akram Khan, MD, MBBS, FCCP, Associate Professor of Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University, discussed recent literature in nonpulmonary critical care, including bleeding and line placement, nutrition, pancreatitis, and delirium and long-term outcomes.
The current standard of care calls for nutritional support for critical care patients within 48 hours of ICU admission, using an enteral route for administration unless contraindicated, he explained. The American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition and European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism target for daily protein intake in the ICU is 1.2 to 2 g/kg. The daily caloric intake target is 20 to 25 kcal/kg.
EFFORT Protein, an international multicenter, pragmatic, registry-based randomized trial, has shown that giving these patients high-protein diets may not improve outcomes.
The NUTRIREA-3 study compared caloric intake among ventilated patients across 61 French ICUs in a randomized, controlled, multicenter, open-label, parallel-group, superiority trial.
“Using for the first 7 days, a low-calorie, low-protein diet did not lead to any significant increase in mortality,” Dr. Khan said. “And what I was surprised to see was that you actually got discharged 1 day earlier from the ICU if you used a low-calorie, low-protein diet compared to a standard-calorie, standard-protein diet.”
Gastrointestinal side effects were more common in patients who received the standard caloric intake, he added.
Mechanical ventilation and respiratory support
Robert C. Hyzy, MD, FCCP, Professor of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Michigan Medicine, shared recent findings in mechanical ventilation and respiratory support, including criteria for weaning patients off a ventilator.
The observational study WEAN SAFE included more than 5,000 patients who were on a ventilator for at least 2 days, 77% of whom experienced at least one separation event, Dr. Hyzy explained. About two-thirds of these individuals were weaned within a day. Another 10% had a 4- to 6-day wean, and nearly 10% had a prolonged wean of more than a week. Nearly 16% experienced weaning failure, and 20% had a tracheostomy at some point.
The median time for the first weaning attempt after meeting weaning criteria was 1 day; however, more than 22% of patients had a delay of at least 5 days due to such factors as frailty, trauma, a nontraumatic neurological event, level of consciousness/sedation, and ICU-written protocols for weaning.
The latter may seem counterintuitive, but Dr. Hyzy suggested, “If the only time you’re going consider a spontaneous trial [off the ventilator] is when [the ICU] protocol kicks into gear, maybe you’re not pushing hard enough.”
Dr. Hyzy also provided context for recent research on personalized, noninvasive support for acute hypoxemic respiratory failure, oxygen targets for intermittent mandatory ventilation, nutrition prior to extubation, and noninvasive ventilation vs high-flow nasal cannula post extubation for very high-risk patients.
Other recent advances
Dr. Hyzy also discussed recent papers on developments in acute respiratory distress syndrome during a continuation of the session, Critical Care Year in Review – II. In addition to Dr. Hyzy’s presentation, Angel Coz Yataco, MD, FCCP, discussed recent advances in the diagnosis and treatment of sepsis, and Mary Jane Reed, MD, FCCP, described new findings in surgical critical care. An audio recording of both sessions will be available following CHEST 2023 to attendees who purchased an On Demand Pass as part of their meeting registration. |
China Aid Association
(HONG KONG—January 8, 2008) As Beijing gears up to host the 2008 Olympics, authorities there have detained a key civil rights activist on charges of “incitement to subvert state power” and demolished the last of a shantytown housing people lodging complaints against the government.
Chinese rights activist Hu Jia, best known for his advocacy work on behalf of those living with HIV/AIDS, has been detained by national security police in Beijing on charges of “incitement to subvert state power,” a fellow activist said.
Hu was detained days after he told RFA’s Mandarin service that the government had intensified its crackdown on rights activists, dissidents, and petitioners during 2007.
Around the time of the Olympics, a lot of foreigners will come to Beijing, and the petitioner village will spoil the look of the city. That’s why the authorities have demolished it.
Petitioner Zhao Shuling
“The worst period of China’s human rights violations in the past five years was when the Chinese Communist Party held its 17th Congress,” Hu told reporter Shen Hua.
“People involved in the Congress security arrangements totaled almost 1 million,” Hu said. “This was out of fear that unmanageable protests might erupt while the meeting was in session.”
Meanwhile, Hu said police had warned dissidents and rights activists nationwide against traveling or publishing any articles, detaining some of them just to be on the safe side.
As he was taken from his home, bulldozers were clearing away the last shacks in Beijing’s “Petitioner village” near the southern railway station in the capital, a shantytown that gave scant shelter to the thousands of people in the capital lodging complaints against official wrongdoing.
Beijing-based petitioner Zhao Shuling said: “It’s because of the Olympic Games. The area around the southern railway station will become an international railway terminus, which will be huge, with three levels underground.”
“Around the time of the Olympics, a lot of foreigners will come to Beijing, and the petitioner village will spoil the look of the city. That’s why the authorities have demolished it.”
The government is behaving like the Mafia.
Resident of Baima village, Guangdong
Asked where the petitioners were going to live, Zhao replied, “Of course there’s nowhere for them to go.”
“I hope you will be able to tell people, because I am a petitioner too, and I really understand what these people are going through. Only great hardship, grief, and injustice could prompt them to leave their homes and villages to suffer hunger and cold here in Beijing.”
China has promised a spirit of greater openness around the Games, relaxing controls on foreign journalists, at least on paper.
But some journalists think the message hasn’t filtered through to the country’s security forces.
“The problem is that there are too many departments, and they don’t coordinate with each other,” Bao Yaoming, sports reporter at the World Daily News, told RFA’s Mandarin service.
“For example, the Olympics Committee is saying that things are opening up, but that hasn’t filtered through to the police, who proceed in their usual fashion,” he told Mandarin service reporter Yang Jiadai.
Online activist Huang Qi agreed: “Several decades of history have shown that the Chinese government doesn’t relax its hold around this sort of event.”
But he said Hu Jia’s detention was unlikely to be linked to the Olympics.
“Large numbers of dissidents have been the targets of oppression from the Chinese government, long before the Olympics came along,” Huang said.
In the southern city of Shenzhen, which neighbours Hong Kong, where Olympic equestrian events will be held, hundreds of police used water cannon and tear gas to move residents of “nail houses,” or hold-outs, who refused to leave their homes to make way for a local subway line.
Elsewhere in Guangdong province, three reporters whose video equipment carried China Central Television logo were reported missing after they interviewed villagers in Heping county about how thousands of hectares of farmland came to be expropriated for commercial use.
After the three wrapped up their interviews Dec. 26, officials from the local county government took them away, saying they were being treated to a meal.
Local public security told the villagers that the three were “fake reporters.”
Local villagers told Mandarin service reporter Yan Xiu they saw the CCTV logo on the reporters’ equipment. One journalist was identified as Xu Jinfeng, a CCTV editor. But a CCTV spokeperson said no such person worked at the state-run station.
Also in Guangdong, tensions continued to simmer in Baima village near the southern industrial city of Dongguan, where plainclothes police had been sent to watch residents following clashes involving hundreds of villagers and police over a land dispute.
“The government is behaving like the Mafia,” a Baima resident surnamed Li told RFA’s Cantonese service.
“The villagers show no signs of agitation, and yet they sent riot police here€¦to beat people up. The government could have used peaceful means to settle this.
There was no need to use violence,” Li said.
Original reporting in Mandarin by Yan Xiu, Xin Yu, Shen Hua, and Yang Jiadai, and in Cantonese by Lee Kin-kwan and Grace Kei Lai-see. Mandarin service director: Jennifer Chou. Cantonese service director: Shiny Li. Translated and written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie and Chen Ping. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.
China Aid Contacts
Rachel Ritchie, English Media Director
Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985
Email: [email protected] |
Edit: while I still believe the trajectory discussed below is valuable, and appreciate the votes, I believe the other info in this answer is important: https://hermeneutics.stackexchange.com/a/66370/43095
where Perry Webb outlines based on the Greek that, “Basically, Logos/Word in the New Testament does not always mean Jesus as it does in John 1:1-18. The same can be said for light. It does not always mean Jesus, even in John 1.” And a case can be made for the Logos first entering as Christ in 1:9. Importantly, it cannot be viewed as a different Logos though, as proven below.
“We are told in v14 that the logos became flesh. This refers to Jesus and his subsequent conception and birth through Mary. This question seeks to determine if it can be shown biblically that Jesus is not that logos referred to in John 1:1-3 and is the logos only at a later time based on v14?”
It cannot be shown biblically, and I personally do not know of any groups that claim this. While I can understand the OP’s reading of it and the enquiry, a closer examination uncovers the implausibility. If this was at all debatable after a careful read, then I would seek outside confirmation and citation, but we can probably agree. The reason that it cannot be shown biblically is the ongoing bridge from 1 through 14, including at a couple key spots. 1 through 14 quoted below and inline a bit (all NIV)
First to motivate the question, notice that the early verses of John are discussing the time of “the beginning”, then by 3 it’s already up to creation, and 4 says that man is being made in God’s image and it is being emphasized (some may think it is being ‘learned’) that this required the light of the Logos to do so. Exact agreement on that summary of 4 is not needed. Then 5 is in the present tense. But by 14 Logos is being made flesh. Is that only part of the original Logos, the same Logos at all, or a different one, or a combination, or what?
We can make the bridge obvious going forward from 3 and backward from 14. Ultimately the bridge is 6 and 7, John the Baptist. But 9 is the clincher. Via 9, not 14, the question is answered. Jesus is in 10 and The Logos as the Light in 8. Then 9 is the light, the whole light*, and only the light, coming into the world:
9The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. (all NIV)
The challenge was that this fact was not listed in 14, and we had to find it. So it wasn’t immediately clear if it was only the Logos, and/or if it was all of the Logos. The rest of this answer is just the details of bringing Jesus Christ backwards to 10 and the Logos forward to 8, but that’s probably close to obvious by a mere reading of it now that it has been emphasized explicitly.
Even by the OP, 14 is Jesus Christ. Reading 12 and 13 as a unit, 12 is clearly about Jesus Christ Himself and 13 is being born again.
12Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God
10 by itself might be less than completely obvious (or at least disputable) that it is Jesus, but when combined with 11:
11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.
10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.
Now trace from 3 to 8. From here just see the main quote, emphasis mine. 3 is clearly the Logos with God, in creation. The almost parallel construction beginning 3 and 4 makes it therefore clear that 4 is as well. “3 Through him all things were made.. 4 In him was life..” Obviously same “him”. Being the same as “him” in 3, “The light” subsequently carries on unchanged from 4 through 8. It probably seems like a no-brainer after all that, but I had the same question.
In Summary: It cannot be shown Biblically from those verses that a different Logos is being discussed.
1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
6There was a man sent from God whose name was John [the Baptist]. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
9The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. [now and hereafter in the world] 10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God - 13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
*“whole” is not entirely correct, but how to settle that specifically is debatable, and debated. And beyond this question anyway. |
Rep. Yvette D. Clarke’s Statement on the Anniversary of the Affordable Care Act
Today, Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke released the following statement regarding the second Anniversary of the Affordable Care Act falls on March 23.
“It has only been two years since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, but millions of Americans are already seeing lower costs and better coverage,” Rep. Yvette D. Clarke stated. “This includes hundreds of thousands of people right here in the 11th Congressional District of the New York.”
A new analysis prepared by the Minority staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee provides estimates by congressional district of the number of people benefiting from the new law. The new analysis shows that the new health care law has already provided:
· 390 small businesses in the district received tax credits to help maintain or
expand health care coverage for their employees;
· 5,100 young adults in the district now have health insurance;
· 46,000 seniors in the district received Medicare preventive services without paying any co-pays, coinsurance, or deductibles;
· $2.5 million in public health grants have been given to community health centers, hospitals, doctors, and other healthcare providers in the district to improve the community’s health.
· 23,000 children and 100,000 adults now have health insurance that covers preventive services without paying any co-pays, coinsurance, or deductibles.
“Two years ago, I was proud to cast my vote to expand health insurance coverage for 32 million Americans. This law continues to give Americans more choices and brings down health care costs for everyone. As the new benefits of the health care law continue to be implemented, I will continue to fight GOP efforts to repeal this critical law. Republican efforts to repeal reform will put the insurance companies back in charge and will lead to higher costs and reduced benefits for millions of Americans across the country,” concluded Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke. |
How to Keep Your Family Happy When You Are an Entrepreneur
According to Warren Buffet, one of the richest and most generous people in the United States, “Don’t risk what is important to you, to get what is not important to you.” This is great advice for entrepreneurs who are looking to balance their work and family and making both sides of their life work out successfully.
In this article, we will look at 1) the importance of family for an entrepreneur, 2) how to keep your family happy when you are an entrepreneur, and 3) successful entrepreneurs and family.
THE IMPORTANCE OF FAMILY FOR AN ENTREPRENEUR
Entrepreneur David K Williams highlights the importance of family, specifically the spouse not only in his articles but also his book. He attributes this role as one of the most critical and underappreciated ones on an entrepreneurial journey. He also mentions in another article that of all the critical priorities and people for an entrepreneur, their spouse and family should stand at the top of the list.
There is a misconception that an entrepreneur’s family gets to benefit from them being their own boss or that there is a higher income and more flexibility for vacation time and family emergencies. However, the truth is much the opposite. An entrepreneur’s life is a whirlwind with long hours, lots of risk and a high degree of uncertainty. Most of their time and interest is, therefore, devoted to the company even in the best of times.
Many successful entrepreneurs agree on the fact that in dire times, if they had not had the support of their families, they may not have gotten through them towards success. This highlights the importance of family for any successful entrepreneur. For this reason, a considerate entrepreneur can take some steps to work on his family and their happiness despite being deep into the creation of new businesses.
Even the President of the United States gives due time to his family. He has breakfast with his wife and daughters every day along with daily exercise routine. He then heads to office at 9am and makes sure to take time out for dinner with his family at night before returning to work.
At work, success is measured by numbers and results. At home however, it is the amount of dedicated time that you put in that counts.
HOW TO KEEP YOUR FAMILY HAPPY WHEN YOU ARE AN ENTREPRENEUR
Though it may seem that you do not have enough hours in the day to work on keeping your family happy as an entrepreneur, but there are several small steps and actions that can help you achieve this without taking time away from the business.
For an entrepreneur, prioritizing effectively is extremely important for the successful accomplishment of goals and tasks. It is not enough to have a general idea in your mind. Instead, it is good practice to make a list of items in order of importance to help make decisions about what needs to be taken on when. If this prioritization exercise is ignored, the urgent tasks will always take over, whether they are meaningful and value creating or not. The more vital tasks will take the background and create chaos and frustration. Entrepreneur Brock Blake cites his three top, never to be missed, priorities as family dinner, time spent with each child and a weekly date with his wife.
And this is the key point to note. No matter how important it is to ensure the success of a business, family needs to be prioritized above all else. Family is there for you before, during and long after your current endeavor has ended and you are ready to move on. The way to go about this is to rearrange work schedules or take a day off once in a while to spend as much quality time with you family as you can.
Once the priorities have been clearly laid out, plans can be made to ensure that these priorities are met. The plan should take into account the details of work, family time, meals as well as special events. Though it may seem strange to make plans for fun or family time, it helps ensure that time is optimized and every moment is spent doing something productive or meaningful. The COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg makes sure that she leaves work by 5:30pm. Her priority is then to spend the evening with her family and her plan ensures that she leaves on time to make it happen.
Making a plan may be easier in the end then actually sticking to it in practice. There will always be something or the other vying for your attention and pushing the rest of the priority items away. There may be requests for appointments and meetings, a new challenge, a new competitor or some upcoming deadline. These will become excuses to make exceptions to the plan. During these times, your priorities will truly be tested and it will be up to you to handle these items without changing the plan.
4) Hard Work and Sacrifice
To continue to be organized, follow your plan and stick to your priorities, you will need to put in extra effort and make some sacrifices. In order to make time for family and continue to be effective at the workplace, social activities with friends or colleagues may need to be taken out of the equation. In addition, some early mornings or late nights may need to be added to the work day. These uninterrupted periods of work will allow you to catch up on projects and emails without interruption.
5) Work Smarter, Not Harder
In the business world of today, everyone is always too busy to do anything and this is taken as a point of pride. Being busy is seen as a sign of success. However, successful business owners build systems that allows them to spend time with their families, enjoy weekends and take vacations when they can. These people have learned how to prioritize and plan as well as to delegate to the right people. To achieve this, a good idea is to conduct an audit of your time to see how you spend an average day and an average week. Identify if the tasks that you are engaged in are important and whether they are creating value for the business. Also identify which tasks can be delegated to others without a loss in productivity or direction.
Another good way to keep your family happy by acknowledging their sacrifice and input into your life is to give a voice to your appreciation. Take the time to say thank you every day. You can also surprise family members with an unexpected gesture when they are least expecting it. Practicing gratitude on a daily basis will help maintain a state of happiness.
7) Learn to Say No
Often, the entrepreneur or CEO is the most involved and thought to be the most important person in the company. This is the thought process of the entrepreneur himself as well as those around him. However, in addition to growing the company you also need to focus on your family and your health. This is why it is important to say no and refocus on your priorities. With adequate delegation to the right people in your team, you will be able to pass on tasks that do not absolutely require your personal attention. Growing a company is not a sprint, but a marathon, and you need to sustain your family life alongside for long term success.
8) Find Harmony
When making your plans, it is important to define what a harmonious day will look like for you and your family. This could mean taking kids to school before work, coming home for lunch or leaving work early. Harmony will also mean allowing yourself to stray a little from your scheduled list of activities and your plan. This helps make time for family events or emergencies or whatever else is needed.
9) Communicate and Share Information
Another key to success for entrepreneurs is communication. This goes beyond tools and calendars and instead is more basic. Spend time everyday checking in with your spouse and kids to find out what has been happening in the family and where one or the other person needs support. In addition, when there is a stressful situation at work or at home, do not try to hide it. The more secrets that build up, the harder it will be to manage the issues that crop up later.
10) Be Away When You Are Away
One of the most important, yet most difficult task for most entrepreneurs is to switch off completely when they are away from their work and with their family. When you stop working, then shut down your computer, turn off your email and take a step away both physically and mentally. The decision has to be made consciously and strongly to be present in the moment and pay attention to your family.
Multi-tasking may seem like the best of both worlds in this situation but in case of work and family, it can turn out to be a bad habit that leads to an unhappy family and a difficult to manage workplace. The best idea is to be present fully when you are at work and all-in when you are with the family. Children especially sense a parent’s distraction and this method will help you pay attention where it is due.
11) Take Family Vacations
Vacations seem to signal too much money and time spent, but in the end a vacation together can go a long way towards strengthening a family’s bond and keeping everyone happy. A well planned vacation will not break the business but the benefits will be felt by all parties.
SUCCESSFUL ENTREPRENEURS AND FAMILY
Insight from Richard Branson
Richard Branson is an English business man and investor, best known as the founder of the Virgin Group. His company is made up of more than 400 companies. He began his foray into entrepreneurship when he was sixteen and he has continued to grow and expand his reach ever since. According to Forbes magazine’s 2014 list of billionaires, Richard Branson is the 7th richest citizen of the United Kingdom.
According to Branson, “If you share in your kids’ lives and give them a chance to take part in yours, you will have a much better relationship with them, and you will waste far less energy worrying about what they are doing. One of the great things I learned from my children was that I was a better parent when I was also their friend. When they needed guidance or discipline, I’d recall my own youthful misadventures and explain how I resolved those problems and what I learned from them. I carried over that sort of sharing, understanding and energy to my work life, and I believe that it made me a better manager.”
Branson suggests that instead of trying to juggle home and family at the cost of both, keep your family the priority. He suggests putting family time into your appointment calendar and to prepare your colleagues to handle situations where you are called away from work in an emergency.
Branson does not share his daily routine because he doesn’t have one. Says Branson, “I try to make every day unique. If you love life and live it to the fullest there are limitless ways to spend your time.” He feels that a key quality of an entrepreneur is to be flexible. There is no way of knowing what the next day will bring and what will need to be managed. But this does not mean letting go of priorities and things that you enjoy doing. He stresses the importance of finding the time for friends, family and whatever else is important to you.
Catherine Clifford asked six finalists in the running to win the title of National Small Business Person of the Year Award about what keeps them happy, grounded and peaceful. Some of their answers are explored below:
Michael Miqueli – Founder San Antonio Broker Services
Founded in 1996, the company has 71 full time employees and an annual revenue of $8 million. Michael says that his wife and kids keep him grounded. The family jokes around and helps him forget his stresses. He also takes time out to play golf as a way to disconnect from thoughts of work.
Necole Parker – Founder The ELOCEN Group, LLC
Founded in 2006, the company has 62 employees and annual revenues of $19.4 million. Parker feels that stress is part of the package when it comes to entrepreneurship. You are always on the go and there is never a dull moment. She relaxes by including exercise in her day as well as spending quality time with her family away from work.
Alan Doan – Founder Missouri Star Quilt Company
Founded in 2008, the company has 180 employees. Doan finds that his happiness is all about family. From dinners together to lunch at his mother’s home with siblings to playing baseball with nieces and nephews. He feels that family never lets you get a big head or feel too sorry for yourself and it is important to have these people around.
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Claustrophobia is a fear of being trapped. It is an anxiety disorder. While most of the time claustrophobia is understood to be fear of being in closed spaces it can also be triggered in a crowded public space. The feeling of being trapped or having no escape generally triggers it. Claustrophobic people tend to avoid lifts or crowded alleys then how would they be coping with being stuck inside their houses for the past six months of lockdown.
While most of us are complaining about being bored cooped up in the house some people also faced their fears every day as the lockdown extended. We feel trapped in our houses because of the lack of social interaction. Add the fear of being trapped in this situation and it is the perfect recipe for a healthcare disaster. Based on the intensity of the phobia one can experience panic attacks, breathlessness, or nausea recurrence. It can not only affect your mental well-being but can also affect you physically.
In times where being in your best health is necessary for both yourself and your loved ones; one cannot afford to lose themselves in their fear. It would not be easy but this curse of a situation for claustrophobics can be turned into a boon. Consider getting help pinpointing the cause of the fear and eventually overcome it.
What better chance would you get to get over the fear of being trapped, than being trapped in your own home?
Stay Home, Stay safe!!!
#healthcare #wellness #claustrophobia #anxiety #lockdown #trapped #cancer #webinar #pediatrics #trapped #breathe #mentalhealth |
Patient engagement key to improving Alzheimer’s study success rates
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia, contributing to 60% to 80% of cases. By 2050, the Alzheimer’s Association expects the number of people diagnosed with dementia to increase from 46.8 million to 131.5 million. There is a clear need for continued drug development in this area.
However, AD trial recruitment is challenging due to medical comorbidities, extensive use of prescribed and OTC medications, behavioral complications of AD and many other factors. To address recruitment challenges, there are a number of tactics researchers can employ to maximize patient engagement.
We have seen much benefit from the utilization of digital media. Facebook and other channels provide a direct and low-cost way to reach millions of individuals seeking health-related information. By utilizing social media, forums, blogs, etc., and through the clever use of geo-targeted digital media programs, we help researchers promote study awareness, generate study interest and boost referrals.
Engagement and participation in community outreach events has also proven to increase interest and participation in AD clinical trials. For example, researchers can set up “Lunch and Learn” events for clinics, community screenings or other events in partnership with local support and advocacy groups where study information is made available to potential patients and their caregivers.
At Worldwide, we have found that following attendance at these events, we see an uptick in patient and caregiver interest, physicians that are more likely to actively engage with a study, and patient referrals to investigative sites, all resulting in a return on investment within two to three weeks.
By harnessing the power of the internet, engaging with the medical and patient communities, and utilizing insights gathered from patients and their caregivers, researchers can better engage with potential participants.
Guest Contributor Barbara Zupancic is currently Director, Global Patient Recruitment Optimization at Worldwide Clinical Trials. Barbara has over 15 years of experience in clinical research, specifically focused on patient recruitment and feasibility. Passionate about engaging patient volunteers to better the lives of many, Barbara has spent countless hours in the field working with various types of research sites and patient groups. Connecting with patients and their families is at the core of any successful patient engagement and recruitment campaign, and Barbara has used her global field experience, coupled with industry know-how and innovations, to optimize recruitment and retention campaigns in most disease states and phases of research. She is joined by her forward-thinking team to move the needle every day and make trials more accessible to patients, less burdensome for sites and more seamless for sponsors. Barbara’s passion is in the rare disease arena, as well as CNS – specifically Alzheimer’s disease. She is a frequent speaker at conferences, has conducted numerous webinars and is a published author. Barbara has a Bachelor of Science in psychology, Master of Science in counseling psychology & research, and an MBA in management. She has lived and worked in Slovenia and Germany for six years.
This article was reprinted from Volume 24, Issue 12, of The CenterWatch Monthly, an industry leading publication providing hard-hitting, authoritative business and financial coverage of the clinical research space. The Action Items section features short columns focusing on actionable or how-to advice from clinical trial professionals. To submit an Action Item, please contact email@example.com. Subscribe >> |
For many years, hospital accreditation bodies assumed that if the structural criteria were met, that is, that the physical plant, the qualifications of the staff, and the necessary equipment were in place, the quality of the services would automatically be acceptable. Subsequently, accreditation groups decided that they had also better look at the medical records to see how the services were being provided. They assumed that, if the necessary structure was in place, and the required services were delivered as prescribed, the quality of care would be acceptable. Now, these same accrediting groups find it necessary to look at the outcomes of care as well.
Describe “structure, process, and outcome” in the assessment of the quality of medical care, and provide examples of each dimension.
How are the three dimensions related?
Can these relationships be trusted to assure the quality of care in the complex, high-tech world of modern medicine? If not, why? |
Join the Global Fashion Design Contest Against Hatred and Bigotry
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM) is launching a new contest for fashion designers from across the globe, to harness their creative talents to fight prejudice, foster interfaith tolerance, and help build a better world free of antisemitism.
From the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s to present-day social justice activism, fashion is a proven tool of change. Clothing and fashion accessories have long been used to convey political messages on the street and publicly identify with and advocate for greater causes.
In recent years, unfortunately, anti-Zionists on college campuses have used fashion to advance their agenda of hate. There have also been numerous items sold online bearing Holocaust-era symbols, such as yellow “Juden” stars, or anti-Israel slogans, such as “Make Israel Palestine Again.”
As Jew-hatred surges around the world, CAM is inviting you to join an artistic initiative to turn the tables and inspire a fashion uprising with fresh transformative trends that spread messages against Jew-hatred and bigotry of all forms.
If you are a designer looking for a career-launching opportunity, you are invited to join the “Strike a Pose Against Hate” Fashion Design Contest and have a chance of winning up to $15,000.
The Fashion Design Contest offers you the opportunity to submit entries in three categories, each with a top winner and up to five runners-up, all of whom will receive cash prizes to help develop their products. A judging committee consisting of a group of professional experts from both the fashion and advocacy worlds will be established by CAM to determine the winners and runners-up. Your entries will be assessed for their innovativeness and potential impact, and the competition will run for several months to allow for global participation.
We expect each participant to express their artistic and creative talent in an original piece matching one of the categories below. The piece should be fashionable, aesthetic, and unique. The purpose of the contest is to help fashion maintain its historic role as an effective method for promoting impactful social change. Therefore we are looking for participants able to find ways of delivering their messages, through their art, in an intelligent and nuanced manner.
How does it work?
1. Choose the category that best fits you:
- “Accessories of Change”: Submit an entry that is a fashion accessory (such as hats, gloves, shoes, jewelry, belts, bags, scarves, etc.) designed to feature visual messaging against antisemitism and turn heads on the street.
- “The Power of Print”: Submit an entry that is a clothing print people can wear (i.e. on t-shirts, which are a highly-visible platform), that includes images and texts educating people about interfaith coexistence or highlighting a symbol synonymous with the global campaign against antisemitism.
- “A Piece for Peace”: Submit an entry that is an original runway piece — with the idea it could be featured in a future fashion show – that, through creative production techniques and use of materials, manifests inclusion and intercultural solidarity, and makes people question their preexisting notions about Jew-hatred.
2. Think about an idea you would like to submit in the category.
3. Take the time to design
4. Submit your entry before February 1st, 2022 here: https://bit.ly/3hQpi2V
5. Our expert committee will determine which submissions will earn prizes.
If you like to discuss your idea with us please reach out at: combatantisemitism.org/fashion OR +972 58-400-6503.
Read the rules to join the contest: https://combatantisemitism.org/hedy-strnad-fashion-design-contest-rules/ |
Is the data stored in a physical location or on a virtual. Can i see the data that is stored. Is it possible to access the data from server, Can someone please give details
Depends on if you got as distributed edition or not.
Distributed: data stored in Hadoop, or other supported co-located provider (e.g. Teradata).
Non distributed: common data stores available through ordinary SAS session (Base, SPDE, SAS/ACCESS engines).
For more details: there a lot of papers describing LASR/Visual Analytics. Also, there should be some interesting parts of the admin documentation (requires that you hold a VA license).
The datasets are copied from a file system or database to the LASR Analytic Server. Since the LASR server is an in-memory location - it confuses many people. If you have permissions you can access the LASR server with a LIBNAME statement.
If you do not have access to the original source, then you could use the Data Builder to save the dataset into a local location. This technique is explained in the user documentation. Otherwise, your site admin should be able to get a copy of the desired dataset.
However if you have created calculations within SAS VA - these calculations are not saved with the dataset.
Time is running out to save with the early bird rate. Register by Friday, March 1 for just $695 - $100 off the standard rate.
Check out the agenda and get ready for a jam-packed event featuring workshops, super demos, breakout sessions, roundtables, inspiring keynotes and incredible networking events.
See how to use one filter for multiple data sources by mapping your data from SAS’ Alexandria McCall.
Find more tutorials on the SAS Users YouTube channel. |
APA Writing Log
Douglas, C. The Corruption of Our Churches Religion Is Leading Us Down The One World Road To Slavery. The Corruption of Our Churches Religion Is Leading Us Down The One World Road To Slavery. Retrieved April 14, 2014, from http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/corruption_of_our_churches.htm
This article discusses how our churches are corrupt. It also gives several examples to give support. This is an informative article for my topic because it discusses the corruption in religion.
Fallows, J. Why the Anti-Corruption Drive in China Is So Important, and So Potentially Destabilizing. The Atlantic. Retrieved April 14, 2014, from http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/why-the-anti-corruption-drive-in-china-is-so-important-and-so-potentially-destabilizing/360011/
This article talks about political corruption in perhaps the most corrupt countries China and Japan. It highlights the main reasons why they are so easy to be corrupted and some solutions to this problem. This is a good source for my topic because it discusses political corruption in perhaps the most corrupt countries.
Holman, J. Debunking Christianity: A Corrupt and Scandalous Faith. Debunking Christianity: A Corrupt and Scandalous Faith. Retrieved April 11, 2014, from http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2006/03/corrupt-and-scandalous-faith.html
This article gives many examples of how Christianity corrupted the American legal system. Also it talks about how religion is not free minded and it vilifies everyone who disagrees with it. This relates to my topic because it includes information on how religion corrupts society.
Moreland, J. Political Corruption on the Rise | Economy in Crisis. Economy in Crisis RSS. Retrieved April 14, 2014, from http://economyincrisis.org/content/political-corruption-on-the-rise
This article summarizes the problems with political corruption in the United States. Also it provides a focus on the economic side of corruption. The importance of this article in terms of my topic is that it provides not only political corruption but relate-able corruption in the United States.
Orwell, G. Animal Farm. New York : New American Liberty.
Animal Farm focuses on the corruption in a society. The novel begins with a utopian like society but as the novel progresses corrupt leaders take control. Animal Farm is important in terms of my topic because it is all about corruption in society, which is its main focus.APA Writing Log
Political corruption. Political corruption. (Factual World) Retrieved April 14, 2014, from http://www.factualworld.com/article/Political_corruption
Factual World gives a wide variety of political, social, and religious corruption. It also provides many examples and summarizes corruption in general. This site is important in terms of my topic because of its wide variety of information
Rao, V. Corruption- The Biggest Evil in our Society. Teen Ink. Retrieved April 14, 2014, from http://www.teenink.com/hot_topics/all/article/404137/Corruption-The-Biggest-Evil-in-our-Society/
This article summarizes some of the evil effects of corruption. It also portrays on of corruptions main proponents which is greed. This is important to my topic because this article talks about corruption as a whole.
Palma, B. (Director). (1983). Scarface [Motion picture]. USA: Gaumont Columbia tristar home video.
Scarface is about a Cuban immigrant who takes over a drug cartel and rises to power and fame. As the film progresses however, Tony Montana (played by Al Pacino) falls due to greed. Scarface is a important and popular display of how greed and corruption can lead to someone’s downfall and is very beneficial in relation to my topic.
Shakespeare, W. (1959). Macbeth. Washington D. C. : Louis B. Wright and Virginia A. Lamar.
As we read this year Macbeth is a tragedy dealing with corrupt leaders having a struggle for power. Macbeth and his wife are power hungry and are almost willing to do anything for Macbeth to become king (even kill the king). This tragedy is perfect for my topic because it deals with corruption in politics relating back to the Elizabethan era.
Uzochukw, M. Corruption: Causes and Solutions. HubPages. Retrieved April 14, 2014, from http://uzochukwumike.hubpages.com/hub/corruption-solutionandcuses
This article summarizes the causes of corruption. While stating the causes of corruption it also offers some solutions. This is important in relation to my topic because it summarizes corruption from a social and political standpoint.APA Writing Log |
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WMA stands for Windows Media Audio and is used to store and playback digital audio content on Microsoft Windows systems. Sometimes referred to as Windows Media Audio, WMA can refer both to a file format as well as its codec with different types such as WMA Pro, Lossless and Voice available as options. Although created to compete with MP3, its ...
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Potassium plus Iodine Tablets
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Natural color variation may occur in this product. |
Final Report Summary - BIOCHARGE (Investigation into the Biological Cost and Adaptation of the Host to Antibiotic Resistance on mobile Genetic Elements in Enterococcus species) Antibiotic resistance in bacterial populations currently represents one of the greatest challenges to modern medicine throughout the world. Enterococci are commensal bacteria that reside in humans, animals and the environment. They are also nosocomial pathogens responsible for a range of human diseases. One way of enterococci acquires antibiotic resistance genes is via horizontal gene transfer. Conjugative transfer of mobile genetic elements such as conjugative transposons (cTns) carrying resistance genes is one way antibiotic resistance genes are spread between different bacterial populations and is particularly common among the enterococci. The cTn Tn916 is the prototype of a large family of these highly promiscuous genetic elements and has been found in, or been transferred into, a wide range of bacteria.Long-term stability of cTns, carrying antibiotic resistance genes in bacterial populations is influenced by the biological cost that results from the carriage of these elements in a bacterial genome. It is generally accepted that the acquisition of antibiotic resistance genes leads to reduction in fitness of the host bacteria. The objectives of the project are to determine the genetic variability of Tn916 elements in a wide range of enterococci and to determine if these conjugative transposons affect the fitness of their host. The project also aims to determine if the host genome is able to evolve in order to compensate for any observed fitness loss. Description of the work performed in the project and main resultsA total of 100 tetracycline resistant Enterococcus strains were investigated in the project to determine the diversity of Tn916–like elements in these strains. The strains were obtained from Denmark, England, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, China and the USA. At least seven different enterococcal species were included in this study. These were Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium, Enterococcus hirae, Enterococcus durans, Enterococcus gallinarum, Enterococcus casseliflavus, and unspeciated Enterococcus.Diversity of Tn916 –like elements were analysed by performing Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCRs) designed to amplify a large range of Tn916 –like cTns followed by restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. Our data suggested a high prevalence of Tn916 in the diverse collection of enterococcal species investigated. Surprisingly there was little variation seen in between the isolated elements which is different from that seen in other genera e.g. the oral streptococci.In order to determine the biological cost of harbouring Tn916-like cTns in these bacteria, we transferred wild-type Tn916 and Tn6000 from suitable donor strains into suitable enterococcal lab strains and tested the growth in competitive fitness assays compared to the original host without the elements.Our results shown that the relative fitness cost of Tn6000 carriage is approximately 3% in all transconjugants tested, however, the cost of harbouring Tn916 varies among transconjugants and can be as high as 16.7%. To understand how Tn916 is maintained in wild-type Enterococcus spp. despite our finding of its high biological cost, a total of 42 E. faecium::Tn916 transconjugants were generated by filter-mating and analysed by competitive growth assays to determine their biological cost. We found that Tn916 could reduce the fitness of E. faecium as much as 46% immediately after acquisition. However, amelioration of such high fitness cost was observed after only 700 generations of growth in the absence of any selective pressure (tetracycline). This could explain, at least in part, the stability and the high prevalence of Tn916 in the enterococcal isolates worldwide.In order to investigate if the transcription of the tet(M) gene and downstream genes in Tn916 was involved in stability a mutation was made in the start codon of the tet(M) leader peptide. This mutation resulted in a permanent state of repression of transcription and therefore we expected the stability of the element to be affected. However after repeated sub-culturing of the mutant followed by replica plating on both tetracycline containing and antibiotic free agar plates we found that stability was still 100% in the colonies tested.Our study shows how bacteria are able to cope with the acquisition of foreign DNA and restore their fitness (reducing the biological cost) within a relatively short amount of time. Our data shows that once acquired the mobile genetic elements of the Tn916 family are inherently stable; at least in the enterococci and that cessation of use of tetracycline is not likely to lead to a decrease in the incidence of this resistance. |
COASTAL PROTECTION DRAGØR
LYTT Architecture (lead consultant), Cornelius Vöge, Hele Landet and Tyréns Danmark
Clima strategy and 13 km of coastal protection
Our proposal on how to protect Dragør and its 13 km coastline, “Sådan Ligger Landet”, builds upon the unique cultural heritage of Dragør. It aims not only to protect the citizens of Dragør, but to strengthen and communicate the specific identity, history and authenticity of Dragør – the flat land, the worthy of preservation harbour and town and the closeness to the sea and the horizon.
The proposal seeks to enhance security and the main concept is to gently integrate protection into the existing landscape and the cultural heritage of Dragør harbour and town.
The idea is to strengthen and develop elements that are already there and characteristic of the area. In the landscape for example by improvements of the dikes and at the harbour by increased hights of bulwarks and slipways, not solely as a discrete protection against the sea, but also to provide citizens and visitors with new informal places to meet.
The proposal includes a plan on how to gradually extend the level of protection and adjust to changes – without losing the closeness to water and horizon.
Previous project Next project
Same approach have been used by our studio in previous coastal protection project for Roskilde Municipality. |
“I did not ever plan to be an LGBT director or to be doing gender and sexuality work,” said Brian Patchcoski, associate dean and director of Cornell’s LGBT Resource Center. As an undergraduate at the University of Scranton, Patchcoski trained to become a Catholic priest. Born into a Roman Catholic family, Patchcoski said he was determined to be a priest. When the seminary he entered after high school closed, he was faced with transferring to a more conservative seminary or leaving the seminary system completely. When he visited the new seminary with his mother, she was not allowed past the front door because “she was a woman,” Patchcoski recounted. |
Encryption method used for processing Offline .xml files
What type of encryption is used for credit card data in Offline Ticket Entry xml files?
NCR CounterPoint uses the industry standard Blowfish algorithm to encrypt all sensitive data. All encryption is performed in 16 rounds using a 448 bit key, the maximums allowed.
Encrypted data includes a unique dynamically generated cryptographic salt derived from the row’s unique primary key. The Key ID is an index indicating to Counterpoint that the data is encrypted within the software which has the private key to decrypt the data.
The private key is encrypted and stored in source form. It is only decrypted at runtime when needed, then disposed of, and is never visible in plain text form.
The context-specific key is provided by the application based on the data being encrypted, e.g. the primary key field values of the database row being stored. This ensures that all encrypted data uses a unique encryption key of the maximum length allowed. |
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Buddies, maximum oldsters throughout the planet are in lockdown thanks to coronavirus. We are all attuned in indulging in optimistic activities for the duration of the path of the day- either we are running, coaching or reading. But coronavirus has compelled us to live in the four partitions of our residence. Even as many oldsters could also be spending time in honing the interests they’re passionate about , some may also be spending time listening to song, seeing television or maybe expanding their dependency of the social media.
Right here is an presenting from Gandhi smriti and darshan samiti, the national memorial of Gandhi in new Delhi to pursue a stimulating orientation on nonviolent verbal exchange.
The samiti has been presenting schooling in nonviolent verbal exchange for all sections of the society- proper from college students to judicial officials and civil servants. Nonviolent communique may be a effective tool of effective conversation which facilitates people to attach and interact with no longer simplest themselves but their families, pals and consequently the society at huge. It’s supported pillars of Gandhi an nonviolence- mutual appreciate, know-how, acceptance, appreciation and compassion.
Nonviolent conversation now not most effective allows in emotional bridge building but is also a crucial tool to solve disputes and conflicts. If we nurture the dependency of the use of nonviolent conversation in our day by day lives, we will be geared up to conquer many troubles in our families and society.
So, pals, we welcome you onboard to the existing simple, but amusing-crammed path on nonviolent verbal exchange. We are certain you’ll experience it and most importantly imbibe its elements in your daily lives. Refresh yourself by means of being a part of this direction.
Gandhi smriti and darshan samiti will provide you a certificates to any or all people who absorb this on-line direction.
The subsequent is that the route structure:
1)what’s nonviolent communication?
2)elements of nonviolent communique…
Three) practicing nonviolent communique in our every day lives
Come on, you are doing not want to present any exams to urge a certificates.
Just undergo the route substances which you’ll download from www.Gandhismriti.Gov.In or
Connected pdf (English)/(Hindi).
As soon as reader absolutely reads & understands those volumes then he/she is asked to share in-intensity all that he/she has grasped then share your reflections to the subsequent 7 questions:
APPLY LINK: CLICK HERE
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Twelve exciting community projects in South Cambridgeshire, aimed at reducing carbon emissions and engaging communities on climate change, are set to receive grant funding totalling £120,544 from the District Council
The Zero Carbon Communities grants, awarded by South Cambridgeshire District Council, are part of its vision to help the district become net zero carbon by 2050, to create a greener future for local people.
This is the fourth round of grants since they were established in May 2019. More than £400,000 has been allocated to 61 different grass roots projects including campaigns and awareness-raising around reducing carbon emissions, tree planting, energy efficient heating and lighting, food production and distribution, and waste reduction.
The newly announced projects for the coming year focus on activities to reduce carbon emissions and reliance on fossil fuels, encourage behaviour change towards low carbon lifestyles. Projects include cookery sessions to reduce food waste, a mobile tool-loan library, an e-bike rental scheme plus eco-friendly lighting and heating measures in community buildings. |
I believe that you can teach children about the environment while keeping it positive and even making it fun! This book can help.
I am not into doom-and-gloom environmental literature for children. I know that kids have to learn about endangered animals, global warming, deforestation, and sustainability, but I think it’s important to their little hearts and minds to focus on the positive, and too much juvenile literature tries to teach children about the environment by focusing on the negative. How it could possibly be considered helpful and appropriate to make children fear living on a collapsing planet, I do not know.
*steps down off of soapbox*
Anyway… one way to stay positive while still discussing environmental issues with kids is to focus on the “helper” aspect. Just like Mr. Rogers said to do, find the helpers who are making positive changes. And one of the things that I like the most about the book 23 Ways to be an Eco Hero (which I definitely received free from a marketer at some point, but I have no idea when of from whom–sometimes, I kid you not, they seriously just send books to my house without any say-so from me) is that the focus is on the kid as the helper.
23 Ways to be an Eco Hero discusses environmental issues, but always in the context of giving a kid a specific activity to help abate that issue. Kids learn about carbon footprints, then are taught how to cook a vegetarian hamburger patty from scratch, since eating meat-free at least one day a week can reduce one’s carbon footprint. Kids learn that throwing away plastic is terrible for the environment, and then learn how to make reusable shopping bags out of T-shirts and jeans.
We’ve done some of the projects of this book already–we made Mason bee nests this spring, and we still have the bat box that we made years ago–but each of my very different kids nevertheless found several projects that appealed to them in the book. I will say that the projects are on quite a wide spectrum of difficulty and complexity, which is nice because kids of very different ages can all find something to suit in it, but you’ll likely want to take a look through the book yourself, first, if you’re planning to give your kid free reign over what to make. They might choose to make a cute little self-watering planter, or a timer that will encourage them to take shorter showers, or you might find yourself spending the weekend in the backyard helping them make an honest-to-goodness pond. My older kid SUPER wants a small pond and that’s for sure on our to-do list… just not for this weekend, okay?
Instead, one kid chose to make a mini rain barrel out of two plastic bottles, to use for watering our indoor plants, and both kids chose to plant trees. In fact, they got REALLY excited over the tree-planting chapter! My younger kid took a cutting from our neighbor’s willow tree and is now babying it in a little pot in her bedroom window, and my older kid…
Well, I couldn’t help her make the pond that she wanted, so instead I bought her the redwood sapling that she also wanted.
Yes, it is breaking my natives-only rule, the one that has me dragging the kids out every other day to help me hack down the millions of multiflora rose that proliferate on our property (Friends, for the sake of all that is good in the world, don’t ever plant multiflora rose!), but we do have the space for it, with a grassy acre or so around it on all sides, and also?
She wanted it!
I received 23 Ways to be an Eco Hero for free from… someone, because I can’t review a book if it hasn’t inspired my child to plant the world’s largest tree in our backyard. |
Regardless of whatever industry you are in, securing data is of the utmost importance. As COVID-19 made working from home a necessity, the transfer of data and remote access created new ways in which companies or institutions can be attacked. Whether it’s from an accidental leak, to the wrong email, or an attack that stole data, the overall safety of that data is a major risk that can lead to millions of dollars worth of losses.
All of these cases were either from an internal rogue who released data, an accidental leak from a misguided email, or an attack from external threat actors. Within the information age, data of all forms is highly vulnerable to cybercrimes or neglect. |
The Hot Jezebel Dip is a unique blend of sweet and spicy flavors that will tantalize your taste buds and leave you craving for more. This appetizer has gained popularity for its perfect balance of creaminess from the cheese and a tangy kick from the horseradish and mustard. It’s a go-to dish for parties, family gatherings, or even a cozy night in. The simplicity of the ingredients belies the complex flavors they create when combined, making this dish an unforgettable culinary experience. Let’s embark on a culinary journey to create this simple yet sophisticated dip.
- 1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup apricot preserves
- 1/4 cup prepared horseradish
- 1/4 cup Dijon mustard
- Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- Wheat thins or crackers for serving
- Begin by placing the softened cream cheese on a serving platter.
- In a separate bowl, mix the apricot preserves, horseradish, and Dijon mustard until well combined.
- Spread the mixture evenly over the cream cheese.
- Sprinkle the top with freshly ground black pepper to enhance the flavors.
How to Prepare
The key to the perfect Hot Jezebel Dip lies in the preparation of the spicy apricot topping. Ensure that your cream cheese is at room temperature to facilitate easy spreading. When preparing the apricot mixture, taste as you go to find the perfect balance between sweetness and heat.
- Active Prep: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 10 minutes
This recipe serves 6-8 people as an appetizer.
Q: Can I make Hot Jezebel Dip ahead of time? A: Yes, you can prepare the apricot mixture ahead and refrigerate. Spread over cream cheese before serving.
Q: What alternatives can I use instead of apricot preserves? A: Peach or pineapple preserves are great alternatives.
Q: Is this dish suitable for vegetarians? A: Yes, the Hot Jezebel Dip is vegetarian-friendly.
Q: How can I adjust the spiciness? A: Modify the amount of horseradish to increase or decrease heat.
Q: Can I use low-fat cream cheese? A: Absolutely, low-fat cream cheese works well for a lighter version.
The Hot Jezebel Dip is a harmonious blend of contrasts – it’s at once sweet, spicy, creamy, and tangy. It’s a conversation starter, a centerpiece for your appetizer table, and a guaranteed way to impress your guests. With its easy preparation and adaptable ingredients, this dip is not just a dish but an experience. It’s a testament to the magic that happens when simple ingredients come together to create something extraordinary. Try this dip for your next gathering, and watch it become the star of the show. |
A post-mortem examination on the body of British Cypriot scientist Natalie Christopher who was found dead in a 20-meter ravine in Ikaria late on Wednesday afternoon is expected to be carried out today, although first indications suggest she fell when a rock gave way.
Authorities on Ikaria have been waiting for the arrival of a pathologist and a team of investigators.
The body of the 34-year-old astrophysicist, known for her peace activism, her campaign for more women in under-represented scientific fields and her love for the sport, remained at the scene overnight which was closed off and guarded by police.
Natalie’s body was found by a volunteer fireman who knew the area well, three days after she was reported missing prompting a massive search by land, air and sea.
A person who participated in the search told Greece’s Open TV that Natalie may have fallen in her attempt to climb, or descend, a cliff-face.
“Unfortunately it appears she caught onto a rock which came away and crushed her,” Vaggelis Kriaras, said, citing accounts from others in the rescue operation.
A pathologist arrived in Ikaria from Syros on Thursday morning and is carrying out an examination of the scene. The body is expected to be taken to Athens for the post-mortem examination.
Greek police said the body was found in a 20-meter deep ravine. The area is difficult to reach with rough terrain, while reports said that mobile reception there was not particularly strong, something which made the search even more difficult.
Search teams had passed by the area several times during the three-day search but the body was only spotted when a volunteer fireman who knew the terrain well descended further into the ravine.
Tributes have been pouring in for the British Cypriot scientist.
“I was very saddened to hear of the tragic conclusion of the search and the fate of Natalie Christopher. A young scientist and active citizen who had her whole life in front of her and so much to give have been unfairly lost. I express my sincere condolences to her family and friends,” President Nicos Anastasiades wrote on Twitter.
Justice Minister George Savvides said he was “profoundly shocked” by Christopher’s death and offered condolences to her family and friends.
Unite Cyprus Now, a grassroots group of which Christopher was a member, said: “You touched our lives with energy and dedication to make this world a better place.”
The Cyprus Trail Runners, of which she was a member wrote on their Facebook page: “We are devastated. We have lost a beautiful soul, wonderful friend and an inspiring trail runner.”
US ambassador Judith Garber in Nicosia expressed her condolences saying Natalie’s loss will be deeply felt in Cyprus where she inspired many.
Kriaras posted an exchange of messages with the 38 years old Cypriot, Kyriakos, who asked him to convey a big thank you to everyone – civil defence, volunteers, firefighters.
Natalie and her partner had arrived in Ikaria on August 3 and were due to leave on Monday afternoon.
An enthusiastic trail runner, she went for a run on Monday morning. When contacted by telephone by her partner she told him that she was descending a ravine. A couple of hours later, after being unable to contact her, he alerted police who launched a search.
The search was boosted with the arrival of a special team with GPS equipment who were able to narrow the search after pinging her mobile phone.
Overall, 20 elite police rescuers, another 50 policemen and 30 volunteer firemen joined in the search, Greek media reported/
Natalie’s last post on her Facebook was from Seychelles beach in Ikaria on Sunday. “Beautiful spot for swimming and deep water solo … had so much fun here today! Realized later there are bolted routes here too, would love to come back again to climb. Any takers?” |
French culture values the practice of healthy habits. We should all consider adopting these customs
France is an attractive country with stylish manners and impressive cuisine. They also have one of the lowest obesity rates in Europe. So what gives? The answer is simple: the healthy French people don’t know they’re in a country of glamour.
French restaurants typically follow a set of habits that are easy to incorporate into daily life. By understanding these traditions, it’s easier to emulate the French diet. Let’s learn by looking around France’s Côte d’Azur or through Paris streets.
Diminish your consumption of everything so that you can savor it to your heart’s content
A research study found that only 8% of French people eat light foods. If you prefer milk in your coffee instead of half-and-half, or you want some yogurt, use the same reasoning. Fat is healthy and necessary for a balanced diet— don’t substitute it with water-based foods.
Compared to other western countries’ cake portions, the French typically have small plates of dessert. This is because many American and British restaurants serve enormous portions of food.
Appreciate your meal from start to finish
The French don’t feel guilty after eating a croissant. This is due to their cultural identity, and it’s a great way to live life with no stress. It’s also healthy to have a positive relationship with food.
People in France are more focused on the taste, texture, and effects of their food than they are the calories it contains. This motivates them to enjoy each bite to the fullest because they don’t have to fear overeating.
No processed food remnants were found
French people eat a diet that’s mostly based on seasonal products. A small percentage of them regularly consume processed foods. This data was proven by the same study in which only 28% of French people regularly ate processed foods. Their diet is very natural and doesn’t include a lot of processed foods or packaged foods. Instead, they prefer Grandma’s recipes like onion soup, ratatouille and beef stew.
Avoiding processed foods is important to maintaining a healthy diet— as these foods contain significant amounts of calories with little nutritional value. Additionally, avoiding these foods helps avoid sugars and trans fats that have high levels of calories but low nutritional value.
The French eat early
Many people who eat dinner later in the evening are more likely to suffer from obesity. In fact, studies show that late dinners lead to poor sleep and decreased health.
Like many other European countries, the French generally eat dinner between 19:30 and 20:00. They don’t eat dinner later than 22:00 in Spain.
Cheese is always an option!
In 2015, French citizens consumed the most cheese of any country. A large portion of this was likely due to the popularity of their fondue recipes. The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry published research in 2015 that stated the average French person consumes 26 kilograms of cheese each year.
People consider cheese to be unhealthy, but it actually has many positive health effects— including Vitamin K and calcium for the bones. It’s also an excellent source of high biological value proteins, excellent energy and heart benefits. Additionally, no one can deny that cheese tastes delicious.
There is no better way to spend time than at the market
Parisian’s love to shop the local markets on the weekends. They often do this with reusable totes full of fresh produce. This isn’t just a popular habit for French people; it’s a great example for others to follow. This shows how buying food from the source is much healthier and more natural than buying packaged food. It also encourages local artisans and supports their communities.
The French don’t eat five meals a day
The latest theories prove that the French get by with only three meals a day. When we eat nonstop and regularly skip meals, our bodies have to take time between meal intervals to cleanse itself. Try this out and you will definitely notice a difference: you’ll feel more energized, alert and weightless.
Eating in a sitting position is a matter of great importance
Before a meal, the French enjoy a lingering moment at the table. For them, this is a tradition that takes time away from their day. They don’t rush through their meal when they’re in a hurry to go to work.
Our sense of calmness while seated at a table leads to improved digestion. This fact may not be noticeable to some, but it has a significant effect on how our bodies process nutrients from our meals. Eating calmly, chewing slowly and with focus, and taking a seat instead of running around can help promote good digestive processes. |
The attorney general’s directive to the FBI to raid former President Donald J. Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence last week was an unprecedented and aggressive action that has understandably raised concerns over the ongoing appearance of a politicized justice system.
Questions surrounding the decision-making process undertaken by the leadership of the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ) to execute a search warrant against a former president — and political adversary of the current party in power — make the DOJ’s decision not to release the underlying affidavit supporting the raid even more suspect. The American people deserve answers. (RELATED: CLEVELAND: America Has A Two-Tiered Justice System And The FBI Just Proved It)
The expectation is that the rule of law will be enforced evenly and consistently, regardless of political status or partisan affiliation. In recent years, the DOJ has eroded that bedrock principle, pursuing investigations that appeared to target political and ideological adversaries while insulating their political allies from scrutiny.
During the concluding months of the 2016 campaign, and then deep into his presidency, President Trump was constantly being harassed by a 22-month long, $32 million investigation regarding alleged campaign collusion with Russia, an investigation based on dubious evidence and one that ultimately found insufficient evidence that anyone on the former president’s campaign engaged in collusion.
The public revelation of the Russia collusion investigation cast a cloud over the 2016 election and sowed doubts over the integrity of the soon-to-be Commander in Chief. The further revelation that much of the evidence for the FBI’s investigation was derived from opposition research paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign only made the investigation seem all the more unsavory.
At the same time, Secretary Clinton’s notorious private server containing classified information generated little more than a verbal rebuke by then-FBI Director James Comey, who determined that while the FBI “did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.”
Objective observers can understandably question if these similar investigations were handled equitably.
As egregious as these examples are, they were merely a prelude to last week’s search of Mar-a-Lago. Attorney General Merrick Garland supposedly agrees that the DOJ’s policy is to use the least intrusive methods to obtain evidence, which includes negotiating with lawyers or issuing subpoenas. In this case, the FBI did the exact opposite.
The search of President Trump’s private residence and personal belongings, conducted without an attorney present, was ostensibly in pursuit of 11 sets of potentially classified documents. Since the former president’s legal team asserts that it had been cooperating with the FBI for months, the leap to executing a high-profile search warrant, without evidence pointing to the presence of exigent circumstances, begs the question of timing and if political considerations played a role in the decision.
To better understand the calculus behind the DOJ’s decision, it is necessary to see the affidavit outlining the probable cause and rationale for the search. The DOJ has thus far refused to release the document, despite President Trump calling for the “immediate release of the completely unredacted affidavit.” A court hearing on releasing the affidavit is scheduled for Aug. 18.
The need for investigative integrity is understandable, and safeguards can be placed to ensure that sensitive information is not compromised, but the erosion of public trust in the institutions of our justice system threatens to undermine the rule of law itself further. For this reason alone, the DOJ should heed the public call for transparency and publicly explain its actions.
Matt Whitaker is the co-Chairman of the Center for Law and Justice at the America First Policy Institute and previously served as the Acting Attorney General of the United States.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact firstname.lastname@example.org. |
TWO STYLES. ONE CREATION
An innovative new panel from Danpal brings you exciting new possibilities for building envelope design.
Depending on viewing angle, a building clad in Danpalon® Kinetic changes its appearance – its lighting, colour, opacity and translucency. Produced from very high quality polycarbonate using a unique extrusion technique, the Kinetic panel structure integrates alternately coloured surfaces, arranged diagonally between the two outer skins.
- Unique dynamic look
- Two colors in a single panel
- Infinite combinations of contemporary colours
- Alternate opacity and translucency
- Excellent technical and mechanical properties
- Integrates into Danpalon® systems
As with all of its product range, Danpal designed the panel with technical and mechanical properties allowing it to be used with our standard connector system. It offers a wide choice of integration options to meet thermal, light transmission and sound insulation demands.
SUITABLE AS A GLAZING MATERIAL FOR ALL DANPAL SYSTEMS AND APPLICATIONS.
FACADE – Danpalon® Kinetic enables the creation of animated façades with dynamic effects not seen before.
CLADDING – A ventilated exterior cladding system meeting requirements for energy efficiency, quality and durability in both refurbishment and new build projects.
SKYLIGHT – Easily fits all Danpal skylight systems, creating a functional roofing with a designed looks.
INTERIOR DESIGN – The two-colors game in Danpalon® Kinetic, creates a dynamic look and by that brought life to any Internal spaces. |
Russian ship designer Rubin Design Bureau has unveiled a new design for a “submersible” patrol ship that is supposed to combine the benefits of a submarine and a patrol ship.
According to a company release, the project is intended for foreign customers and was named “Guard” (Border and Offshore Submersible Sentry, BOSS).
“The cost of patrol ships in the world market is relatively low, which makes them acceptable to small countries. Exploitation pays off by preventing poaching and other economic offenses. Ships of this type are multifunctional, can be used for security, as well as a rescue or research ship,” the company explained.
Going underwater gives the ship two advantages at once: the ability to conduct hidden surveillance of violators (and successfully intercept them) and escape from adverse weather conditions without interrupting patrols. A submerged ship can also be used as a classic submarine – for exploration and other tasks.
It can also serve as an inexpensive training tool for preparing crews for the operation of more conventional submarines.
According to its architecture and shape, the ship resembles submarines of Project 613 (Whiskey-class submarines), a mass-produced Soviet submarine exported to a number of foreign customers. They would also be similarly sized, with a displacement of about 1,000 tons, and a length of 60 to 70 meters depending on the equipment.
Crewed by up to 42 personnel, the ship can be equipped with torpedo weapons, small controlled missiles and small-caliber weapons, Rubin added. A photo of the design shared by the designer also showed an embarked RHIB for inspection groups. |
National Energy Conservation Day Celebrated on 14 December
Lok Sabha Speaker Smt. Sumitra Mahajan releasing the publication along with other dignitaries at the National Energy Conservation Day function in New Delhi on 14 December, 2018.
The National Energy Conservation Day is celebrated on 14 December by the Ministry of Power in association with Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE). The objective of this celebration is to recognize the efforts of industry and other establishments towards promoting energy efficiency. The Ministry of Power organizes National Energy Conservation Awards event every year on this day.
This year, 26 industrial units from various sectors were given awards for their excellent performance in energy efficiency. 333 units and establishments from across the country participated in the National Awards Programme this year. A total saving of 3,917 million units have been reported this year which is worth Rs. 2000 crores.
The Ministry of Power also organises National Painting Competition to mark this day. This year, awards for winners for the National Painting Competition have been given to 19 school children. A total of approx. 90 lakh school children from class IV to IX from across India participated in this competition. The final competition was held in Delhi on 12 December 2018. |
What Is Substance Addiction and Alcoholism?
Alcoholism is not a new term in the history of addiction and millions of people across the globe have been suffering from this chronic disorder. Understanding the signs, symptoms and treatment of alcoholism is what everyone should know so as to avoid or overcome alcohol dependence and live an alcohol free life.
Alcoholism, also known as alcohol dependence or alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a chronic physical and mental problem characterized by uncontrolled drinking and obsession with alcohol. The physical and emotional dependency on alcohol leads to an addiction and the body and mind cannot function normally without alcohol.
Are you worried about your drinking habits or those of a family or loved one? Do you know if you are alcoholic and wondering how to go about it? Have you had several unsuccessful attempts to quit drinking? Are you sick and tired of your drinking habits and you want to bring your life back on track? In this article, all these concerns and many more are going to be thoroughly addressed in a simple and easy to understand manner.
How Do I Know That I Am An Alcoholic?
Since time immemorial to date, many people who drink alcohol live in denial. Some of them are not even sure whether they are alcoholics or not. If you are concerned about your drinking problem and you’re not really sure whether or not you are an alcoholic, here are the signs of alcoholism you should know. The earlier you notice these signs the better so you can find help.
If you have uncontrollable desire or physical need to drink alcohol even when you realize that it is posing negative impacts on your life, it means that you are an alcoholic. Alcoholism results when your drinking behavior becomes severe. An alcoholic spends most of the time thinking about alcohol and doesn’t have control over the quantity or frequency of taking alcohol even when it is causing serious problems at home or work place.
Signs Of Alcoholism
Many sufferers of alcoholism will always try not to show anyone that they are having a drinking disorder. Some will try to hide it or deny. When confronted, they might even be abusive and violent.
If you really to tell whether you or your family member is suffering from alcoholism, here are some key signs to look at: –
- Lack of interest in former activities
- Inability to control drinking
- Drinking in secret
- Staying in isolation
- Easily irritated
- Appearing fatigued
- Strong urge to drink more so as to achieve same effects
- Appear intoxicated almost every time
- Stealing money or belongings to buy more alcohol
- Redness of face and eyes
- Appearing sickly
- Nausea, vomiting or shaking when not drunk
Not everyone who drinks alcohol is alcoholic. There are individuals who drink a lot once in a while when partying or over the weekends but they do not drink when working or when having serious engagements.
When you find that alcohol has taken the top priority in your life and all you can think about is drinking, these are red flags that your drinking habit has taken a negative scope and you need help. Alcoholism ranges from mild, moderate to severe alcohol dependence.
Are You Suffering From Alcoholism? Find Help Now
Since alcoholism is the most severe form of alcohol abuse, an alcoholic cannot control the strong urge and craving for alcohol. When the condition gets out of hand, many things can happen and it becomes hard for that person to continue living a normal and productive life.
The moment you realize that you are suffering from alcoholism, the sooner you need to find help. Trying to fight alcoholism on your own may not help especially if you have a severe drinking problem. The withdrawal symptoms can be too tough for you to handle the situation on your own. Find a professional addiction specialist to help you with alcoholism treatment that works for you.
Effects Of Alcoholism
When it becomes difficult for an individual to control their drinking habits, there are countless negative physical, mental, emotional, financial and family problems that arise. Remember we said earlier that an alcoholic will spend most of the time thinking about drinking and therefore he loses interest in things that seemed important in life before the onset of this acute drinking disorder.
This implies that the individual becomes less productive at work, home and society. This results to career death and family issues that are endless. When an alcoholic loses the job that was the main source of income, he/she cannot manage to fulfil the financial obligations at home and this may cause conflicts and marital breakdown.
When a parent loses a job due to alcoholism, he is unable to take the children through quality schooling and this can shutter the dreams of the young minds. When this happens, we end up having many uneducated children and as a result, a society loses important people who could have contributed a lot to development and progress.
Parents who spend most of their time on alcohol do not find time for their children. This means that they don’t have time to promote and build good morals on their children. This leads to increase on social crime in the society.
When an individual becomes alcoholic, he/she becomes unable to control their behaviors- especially when drinking becomes intense. This exposes an individual to sexual immorality and other crimes. As a result is unwanted pregnancy, contract HIV or facing legal charges.
Alcoholism In Children
According to research, children born in families with a history of addiction will tend to use alcohol at their early stages of life. Alcoholism can badly damage the developing brains. Children aged below 24 years are actively having their brain developed and alcoholism affects them negatively.
As we handle the issue of alcoholism, we should address the issue of alcoholism in children because they if we raise a generation of alcohol free children, then we can be sure of a better future some years to come.
Due to this, drug/alcohol awareness campaigns are becoming intensified across the globe. Schools are not relenting on the battle against drugs/alcohol and this is really impressive. Parents should also be at the forefront on the battle against alcoholism. They should be present and actively involved in their children development at every stage and seek to notice their children’s change of behavior to correct the vice before it gets out of hand.
If you are worried about your child’s drinking behavior, don’t worry. You are not alone. Millions of parents across the globe are facing this challenge but there is hope. By finding a children friendly rehab facility, you can find quality alcoholism treatment for your child.
Stop Alcoholism Today – It Makes You Feel Empty
If you talk to many people who have been suffering from alcoholism, they’ll tell you that the constant feeling of emptiness is making them live in desperation. Many alcoholics suffer loneliness. Broken relationship ties are hard to mend once you become an active alcoholic.
An alcoholic will find it an uphill task to perform even the life’s simple tasks like good grooming. This negatively affects an individual’s appearance. The smelly odor and bad breath keeps people away from you.
Impacts Of Alcoholism On Your Health
Alcohol dependence affects the normal functioning of the brain and you find that your brains cannot function normally without alcohol. This interferes with the neurotransmitters in the brain and this badly affects the sufferer’s judgement.
Alcohol drinking badly affects your health. There are many health problems that arise from alcohol dependence. Liver and lungs complications, respiratory problems, cardiovascular problems are among the most common health disorders arising from alcoholism. Spending most of your time drinking decreases your appetite. As a result, your body’s immunity is lowered, you look weakly and sickly and there is unintentional weight loss.
When alcohol becomes the daily routine of life, it can cause: –
- Blurred vision
- Poor concentration
- Slow reaction time
- Reduced inhibitions
- Difficulty breathing or even
Individuals who consume too much alcohol for a long time are likely to suffer from severe effects of alcohol dependence. Long-term alcohol dependence damages most of the body organs. Brain, cardiovascular system, liver and the gastrointestinal system are the most affected organs. Alcoholism causes chemical changes in the brain that badly affects cognition and memory.
The following are some of the long-term health conditions of alcoholism:-
- Cardiomyopathy / drooping of the heart muscle causing heart attack or strokes
- Increased risk of cancer (colon cancer, esophageal cancer, stomach cancer, breast cancer, liver cancer, mouth cancer etc.)
- Consistent high blood pressure
- Vision damage
- Wernicke – Korsakov syndrome caused by vitamin deficiency leading to dementia and inability to walk
- Bone loss
- Brain defects
- Liver complications (liver failure, cirrhosis or alcohol- induced hepatitis)
- Digestive problems
- Low hormone levels
- Memory loss
- Mood disorders (depression or anxiety)
- Seizure disorder
- High blood sugar causing diabetes
In severe cases of alcoholism, immediate professional intervention is required. If this condition is not handled thoroughly, it can lead to severe health complications which can lead to death.
People living in alcohol dependency have been reported to die from accident related deaths. This mostly happens when one drives while drunk. It could also result from a bad fall when one is drunk leading to internal bleeding.
Is Your Drinking Habit Taking A Toll On Your Life?
One thing that is very obvious is that once you become an alcoholic, there is a negative change of behavior and life now takes a different route. You’ll find an individual who used to be well groomed, quiet and well-disciplined becomes a dirty, unkempt and abusive noisemaker.
If you realize that your drinking problem is taking a toll on your life, what are you waiting for? Find help from addiction specialists as early as now. In fact, the earlier you identify your drinking problem, the sooner you need to find help. Don’t wait until the condition gets severe and complicated to treat.
Factors That Increase The Risks Of Alcoholism
There are many reasons why many people drink alcohol. No one turns on alcohol with a mere purpose of developing dependency. What starts as a fun glass of alcohol can potentially trigger lifelong alcoholism.
A good number of people who gets hooked to drinking got into it due to fun. This mostly happens when one is hanging around friends who are drinking and he/she envies the experiences of the drunken friends.
Many people drink due to influence from peers. This usually happens when the company one is walking in demands that they drink to fit in. so, whether or not willing to drink, one is left with no option but to drink in order to fit into that specific social class.
To Relief Stress
Life at any stage can be very stressful. In order to get a break from the reality, many people prefer to get drunk. Because of the daily life stressors event in everyday life, many people rely on alcohol and this dependence leads to a bad alcohol obsession. This is because an individual will be forced to drink more so as to achieve the same effects.
To Cope With Loss
In life, one can suffer great loss. It could be loss of a loved one, loss of a job or a marital breakdown. This can take a toll on an individual’s mental, emotional and physical health. In order to overcome the feelings of desperation and loneliness, a glass of alcohol has been thought of a quick solution.
Alcoholism, if goes for long without proper professional intervention can become deadly. According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), the US number three cause of deaths is alcohol abuse.
If you are feeling embarrassed about your drinking problem, hiding your problem will not help you. Neither is living in denial will. The best justice you can do to yourself is to speak loud and talk about your drinking concerns. Visit your local rehab and meet addiction specialists who are ready and willing to help you begin your journey to sobriety.
Stages Of Addiction Treatment
Sobriety or total alcohol cessation is not a one day event. Alcoholism treatment is a journey that may last for months or years before sobriety is achieved and this duration basically depends on the severity of addiction, age, gender, health status and whether the patient is using alcohol along with other drugs.
Alcohol treatment usually involves three stages – detoxification, rehabilitation and maintenance.
This stage usually involves flushing off all alcohol traces in the body system. The main aim is to clear the body system after alcohol cessation and help the body gain stability by living without alcohol. It is one of the toughest stages of alcoholism treatment coupled with multiple severe and life-threatening withdrawal symptoms.
In order to achieve a successful alcohol cessation, it is highly recommended that individuals suffering from alcoholism to consult with a doctor. Before attempting to quit alcohol, understanding what to expect is very important. No one should ignore the severity of the withdrawal symptoms if a relapse is to be avoided. An attempt to quit alcohol suddenly can lead to seizures. This can be very dangerous not forgetting the many other dangerous withdrawal symptoms that need the attention of a professional doctor.
Withdrawal symptoms of alcoholism
- High fever
- Joint pains
- Abdominal pains
- Racing heart rate
- High blood pressure
- Strong cravings and urge to drink
Why Find Alcohol Treatment?
If you look at the above withdrawal symptoms, you will agree that some of the symptoms are difficult to manage on your own. Excessive vomiting can lead to dehydration and can result to loss of life.
If the high blood pressure goes untreated, it can lead to fatal heart problems or even death. Excessive pains require medicine to help relief the discomforts. For the intense cravings and urges to drink even after quitting alcohol can be very difficult to manage on your own. You need a doctor to help make detoxification easy, fast, tolerable and successful.
Talking to an addiction specialist is the best way to go if you want to overcome that nasty alcohol dependence. The doctor will take you step by step through alcohol treatment and recommend the best therapy that works for you.
Depending on the severity of your alcoholism, the doctor can recommend inpatient, residential or outpatient rehab. The kind of alcoholism treatment recommended also depends on whether you have family responsibilities like childcare or tight work schedule that cannot allow you stay within the rehab facility throughout detox. You will discuss with your doctor on the detox program that fits your lifestyle. Upon a success detox, you can progress to the rehabilitation stage.
As stated earlier in this content, sobriety is not a one day event. It is a journey. After your body gains stability by functioning without alcohol, the battle is not over yet. This does not mean that intense cravings, urges and temptations to sip a glass of alcohol will fade away. In fact you will experience these cravings every now and then.
During rehabilitation, your doctor will put you in intense therapies to help you understand the root causes of your addiction to alcohol/drugs to help you change your behaviours and bring your life back on track. This also helps you change your behaviours towards alcohol and other intoxicating substances. This stage runs for 90 days.
How To Stay Motivated During Alcoholism Treatment?
Understanding that treating alcoholism is a tough journey coupled with its good share of ups and downs, being patient with yourself and keeping the right attitude is the best thing any alcoholism treatment patient must do.
Whether you’ve had several relapses or not, don’t give up the fight. After a relapse, take your lessons and go back to treatment again with confidence that this time you are making it. Relapse is dangerous though and should be avoided at all cost.
After going through the detox and rehabilitation, maintenance is the final stage of alcoholism treatment. It is the ongoing aftercare treatment to help you stay sober and healthy. If insufficient aftercare is not given, relapse can occur at this stage.
The doctor provides counselling sessions along with other therapies like putting you in a support group whereby you meet on scheduled appointments and discuss broad topics related to alcoholism. At this point, you can raise your concerns about your progress and talk about your experiences openly to get the help needed at this stage.
Depending on the severity of your alcohol dependence, the doctor can prescribe maintenance medication to help reduce or eliminate cravings. Support from family and friends is very important at this stage.
A supportive home environment, moving into a new home, clearing drugs/alcohol pills and bottles from your home, changing your old friends and replacing them with new ones who do not take alcohol, changing your previous hangout points and engaging yourself in worthwhile activities are some of the things you can do to avoid situations that can trigger you into drinking.
Relapse – which is going back to alcohol/drugs after a period of abstinence can happen during rehabilitation if you are not committed to your treatment program and you are not honest with yourself or not active in your support groups.
Are You An Alcoholic? You Are Not Alone!
Actually, gone are the days when people used to suffer from alcoholism in silence. Alcohol abuse is no longer a social mischief as it used to be long ago. Alcoholics are therefore no longer treated as social outcasts.
In the world today, alcoholism is treated just like any other chronic disease. If you visit your local rehab centre, you will be treated with care and dignity because professionals understand that you are suffering from a severe physical and mental disease.
Sobriety Is Worth Fighting For! Find Someone To Help You Out
Now that you understand that alcoholism is a chronic physical and mental disorder, you must be willing to admit that you need help. If you want to bring your life back on track and achieve your goals and aspirations in life, finding the best alcoholism treatment option is the way to go. Call your local rehab center and get an appointment with the addiction specialist who is experienced and committed to help you gain sobriety. |
Here’s a really pretty design for a Valentine’s Day Card with watercolor flowers for your sweetheart or best friend, with an eco-friendly touch. Try your hand at making some hand-made paper and embed seeds in it, which you can then plant and watch them grow in your garden!
You don’t need much in the way of equipment for this project. Here’s a summary of what you will need – most of it with the exception of the deckle and mould you will find around the house.
Equipment for making hand-made paper
- a few sheets of used copy paper, old envelopes or similar.
- a sheet of red paper or red food dye or a few drops of red paint to tint the paper pink if desired.
- seeds of your choice – I used lavender and foxglove from the garden.
- a food blender – nice and powerful if possible.
- a large plastic storage box, half full of cold water.
- pieces of J-cloth or old sheet cut to a size about 2″ larger all round than your deckle.
- old towels for soaking up water.
- wooden boards to dry paper on.
- A deckle and mould. You can make one, or buy one on Amazon or at a craft store. If you buy one from Amazon be careful not to get one of the cheap hinged ones as they do not last or work well.
How to make the paper
- Tear the paper into postage-stamp sized pieces and place in blender till half full. Add a torn-up sheet of red paper.
- 3/4 fill the blender goblet with hot water, stir briefly and let sit for half an hour.
- Whizz the blender for about a minute until the paper forms a pulp.
- Pour the contents into the storage box filled with water, and stir in the seeds.
- Take your deckle and pull a sheet of paper. See my video for a demo of how to do this.
- Transfer the paper sheet to the J-cloth and press. This is also shown in the video.
- Let dry.
- The following day your paper is ready to use.
Paper-Making for Valentines Day Card Video
This video covers the whole process of making the card and the paper.
A plastic bone folder is very helpful for making greetings cards.
I have found paper palettes useful – the paint can be re-used next day.
Indispensible for speeding up your accuracy when painting cards.
A waterbrush gives you more control over the water used in painting.
If you don’t want to make your own, you can buy them here!
Strathmore cards by Canson – excellent quality paper for cards. |
Original published in www.MyMediaDiary.com.
Photography by Kevin Walsh
Detroit’s Woodlawn Cemetery offers a unique historical walk through Detroit’s golden era, founded in the late 1890s by Detroit’s captains of industry and politics
I first encountered the magic of Woodlawn on a walking tour with Bailey Sisoy-Moore, founder of Detroit History Tours. I then was forutnate enough to become a guide in her tour company’s “Buried in Detroit” bus tour of multiple historic cemeteries.
Incorporated in 1895, it offered the opportunity of a new subdivision of mausoleums when they were either not permitted (or perhaps frowned upon) in other city’s established public and private memorial gardens.
It’s located across from the State Fairgrounds–at the turn of the century considered the distant country before the city lines engulfed so many villages and neighborhoods following the boom of Henry Ford’s $5 work-day and the influx of immigrants and Americans from across the country.
In addition to founding-fathers of Detroit’s industry, Woodlawn is also the home for some of Motown’s great talents including lead singers for the Four Tops, Temptations and the Spinners
The most recent newsworthy burial in 2018 was following the nationally telecast funeral for Aretha Franklin, who sang at the funeral of Rosa Parks 12 years earlier.
Woodlawn is just a few miles south of me so I stop by often with my camera, particularly when the sunlight provides great depth and beauty to the grounds–and particularly to its art and architecture in the brilliant late winter sunshine.
Sunlight & Stained Glass
The following caught my eye on a gorgeous day–leading me to taking a look through the bronze framed windows then heading to the rear of the mausoleum to see the artwork from the other side.
My first and favorite stop is just to the left of the entrance–the fabulous Kahn-designed Rosa L. Parks Freedom Chapel, renamed after the civil rights icon’s death in Detroit in 2006. The peace is palpable as you enter the beautifully quiet area and see the reflection of the stained glass over her name.
This weekend was warm enough and dazzlingly bright so I took a couple trips to focus on the spectacular stained-class found in Woodlawn. I’ve got some notes on who occupies these memorials, detailed further in our toors, but mainly this is a glimpse of the images that can only be captured through perfect lighting conditions–sometimes through very dusty windows.
One of Woodlawn’s founders and president of the US Gypsum Company and chief supplier of alabaster and plaster for the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago–known most recently as the setting for The Devil in the White City.
Robert H. Traver
Successful retail clothier, Traver’s 5-story building still stands on Woodward Ave. across from the old Hudson’s building.
Theatre owner and philanthropist, Wiggins got his start in the circus and entertained the growing city with everything from waxworks to vaudeville.
Clark James Whitney
Whitney, also a prominent showman in Detroit, ran what was considered one of the gateways to Broadway.
Detroit’s favorite Mayor and famous for his care for the city’s poor, Pingree became governor while he was still mayor and ran both offices until he was forced to choose Lansing.
The Dodge Brothers: Horace & John
Both auto-pioneers passed in 1920–John in January and Horace the following December.
Matilda Dodge Wilson
John Dodge’s widow married Alfred Wilson and, in addition becoming Michigan’s first female lieutenant governor for 1940, built Meadowbrook Hall in Rochester. Her 1939 commissioned art deco mausoleum stands in stark contrast lakeside beside her first husband’s resting place.
Merrill L. Mills
Prior to being known as the Motor City, Detroit was known for its cast-iron stoves. Merrill Mills’ Detroit Stove Works was famous for its Jewel stove with over 800 models.
George W. Balch
Detroit’s first school board president and founder of Michigan Bell.
Frank Grainger Smith
Wealthy jeweler with four wives, Frank Smith died of mysterious circumstances in the waters of Miami Beach in 1936.
Brewer of the Pfeiffer beer, with the iconic mascot Johnny Pfeiffer.
George T. Stevens
While Mr. Stevens’ history remains a mystery of this writing his tomb offers three cherubin–causing either charm or a bit of eeriness.
I encourage you to take the next sunny afternoon and stroll through time in the very walkable Woodlawn Gardens. |
For many, the bar is a safe zone. Free from risks of bacterial contamination and general food safety. Unfortunately, this is simply not the case. Although limited and to a lesser degree than the kitchen. The risks in the bar is much the same as the kitchen.
What do we know about food safety risks?
What are the risks in the bar?
The bar handles dairy in the form of milk and cream. Water in the form of ice, and the bar is also popular for cocktails.
In itself the mix that goes into making cocktails has a high sugar content and obviously alcohol. These, through the manufacturing process are not high risk items and very rarely show bacterial contamination.
However, the percentage of alcohol as well as the sugar content is not high enough to kill bacteria that has resulted from cross-contamination.
The bar gets sticky and dirty surprisingly quickly and easily transfers to the hands of staff. So although staff in the bar are not dealing with high bacterial load foods such as raw meats, they are exposed to the regular risks of personal hygiene.
The basic idea of scooping ice and where and how the ice scoop itself is stored is also a concern. Remember that ice does not necessary kill bacteria, and only slows or stops its growth. As soon as the germs in the ice are placed in a favourable condition, they can grow and cause contamination.
We all realise that the bar does need to be cleaned, mostly to prevent and minimize stale alcohol odours. However there are high risk equipment in the bar.
Equipment such as:
Ice scoops and basins
These are all items that come into direct contact with dairy, water and juices. All items that can be considered open to contamination.
Considering the above, it would make sense then that these are should be treated with care. This means that these areas need to be hygienically cleaned and disinfected. This would follow the basic principle of cleaning and sanitising.
Below is a video demonstration of how to clean and sanitise in the bar:
As mentioned, although bar staff are not exposed to dangerous bacteria in the normal course of their job. There is a need for clean hands. Exposure to the refuse bin, dirty cloths and counter tops are areas that encourage the growth of germs. At the very least, a hand sanitiser is needed in the bar for staff to sterilise their hands during service.
In general we find that milk, cream and juices are often left uncovered in the fridge and therefore exposed to the open environment. This means that these beverages expire a lot faster, and allow the opportunity for cross contamination. There are also a number of syrups are often left out after opening, and as per the supplier labels actually need to be refrigerated.
Fridge temperature also plays a part in the hygiene of the bar, and keeping fridges running optimally is not just important for beer temperatures. Milk and creams are also left out due to the busy conditions of the bar. And as mentioned above, milkshake and cocktail syrups are also incorrectly left out.
The idea of lemons and other fresh fruits that are increasing being added to beverages being risk-free is also a concern. The bar is usually responsible for preparing and storing these items, usually with a knife and cutting board that is never submitted for cleaning in the kitchen, and if so, usually at the end of a shift or every other day. This creates a dangerous environment for germs to grow. Needless to say, lemons are not able to kill bacteria, despite their natural anti-microbial properties. All foods are prone to contamination.
Creating awareness in the bar about the risks in otherwise neglected areas, will go a long way in developing an understanding of hygiene and food safety in the hotel, restaurant and general public environment.
For more about the food safety pillars, hygiene and food safety, sign up to our monthly newsletter. |
This is a sweet little picture book about little girl Rosa who wants to surprise her mum while she’s shopping. Rosa asks her grandfather to help to fold the laundry. Rosa has to tell him exactly how to do it properly. Once they are done, Rosa and her grandad are bound for a quick adventure on the open seas to catch some fish on the living room floor.
It’s a sweet story with bright and colourful illustrations. In the end of the book a reader can find some very useful information about the importance of using big words with toddlers and preschoolers for their language development.
I received a review copy for honest opinion. |
Non-Linear relationship between Body Mass Index and labor market outcomes: New evidence from China
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- Luo, Mi & Zhang, Chuanchuan, 2011. "Non-linear relationship between body mass index and labor market outcomes: new evidence from China," MPRA Paper 38936, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Feb 2012.
References listed on IDEAS
- Brunello, Giorgio & D'Hombres, Beatrice, 2007.
"Does body weight affect wages?: Evidence from Europe,"
Economics & Human Biology,
Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 1-19, March.
- Giorgio Brunello & Beatrice d'Hombres, 2006. "Does Body Weight affect Wages? Evidence from Europe," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0027, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
- Markus M. Mobius & Tanya S. Rosenblat, 2006. "Why Beauty Matters," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 222-235, March.
- Harper, Barry, 2000. " Beauty, Stature and the Labour Market: A British Cohort Study," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 62(0), pages 771-800, Special I.
- Morris, Stephen, 2006. "Body mass index and occupational attainment," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 347-364, March.
- Hamermesh, Daniel S & Biddle, Jeff E, 1994. "Beauty and the Labor Market," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(5), pages 1174-1194, December.
- John Cawley, 2004. "The Impact of Obesity on Wages," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(2).
- Naci Mocan & Erdal Tekin, 2011. "Obesity, Self-Esteem and Wages," NBER Chapters,in: Economic Aspects of Obesity, pages 349-380 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
More about this item
KeywordsBody mass index; Unemployment; Wage; Non-linear correlation;
- J31 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials
- I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
- J64 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Unemployment: Models, Duration, Incidence, and Job Search
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When ENSO Reigns, It Pours: Climate Forecasts in Flood Planning
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References listed on IDEAS
- James W. Mjelde & Troy N. Thompson & Clair J. Nixon, 1996. "Government Institutional Effects on the Value of Seasonal Climate Forecasts," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 78(1), pages 175-188.
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- Robert Hersh & Kris Wernstedt, 2002. "Gauging the Vulnerability of Local Water Systems to Extreme Events," Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(3), pages 341-361.
- Wernstedt, Kris & Hersh, Robert, 2002. "Flood Planning and Climate Forecasts at the Local Level," Discussion Papers dp-02-27, Resources For the Future.
More about this item
KeywordsFlooding; Climate; ENSO; Water Resources Planning; Water Policy; Water Management;
- Q2 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Renewable Resources and Conservation
NEP fieldsThis paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2006-01-24 (All new papers)
- NEP-ENV-2006-01-24 (Environmental Economics)
- NEP-FOR-2006-01-24 (Forecasting)
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Through power demonstrations and feats of strength Ray and Jannet show children of all ages and adults alike that they can overcome challenges and tough times. When you realize that your not born a winner nor a loser - you were born a chooser, you can therefore choose to be a champion in life.
There are many types of champions. An athlete is what most people think of when they think of a champion. A person who overcomes all the odds is another thought of a champion. We believe also that a champion is a person who fights for or defends any person or cause. A TRUE CHAMPION is one who will go out of his/her way to help others succeed and not just themselves. A TRUE CHAMPION helps others see that failure is not an option. Where there is team...there is conquest.
1.You can expect to have the Best School Assembly Ever
2. Students and teachers will be inspired and motivated to choose to be a CHAMPION
3. Students and teachers will be taught what it means to be a TRUE-CHAMPION in life
4. We will discuss topics age related such as; Making Good Choices- Bullying - Peer Pressure - Drug Prevention - Alcohol Abuse - Abstinence - Suicide -Self Esteem - Violence - Power of Words -Character Building - Being A Dream Maker and Not A Dream Breaker
I am a lifetime drug-free professional bodybuilder and have been competing since 2011. I am a motivational and inspirational speaker and have been speaking in schools, prisons, events and organizations around the world since 2000 with my wife Jannet Abraham-Clark.
We use feats of strength such as breaking baseball bats, bending steel bars, ripping phone books and rolling up frying pans as and illustrated message to bring hope and encouragement to our audiences.
Graduated High School 1994
United States Marine Corp Security Forces 1994-1997
Certified Personal Trainer 1997-Present.
Married in 2000 to Jannet Abraham-Clark.
2010 Started competing in Bodybuilding.
2010 NPC Atlantic Coast Classic First Place and Overall Winner.
2010 NPC All South 2nd Place.
2011 NPC Orlando Europa First Place.
2011 NPC Battle on the Coast First Place and Overall Winner.
2011 Hurricane Bay Second Place.
2012 OCB Southeast States First PL
2012 NGA Sunshine State First PL
2012 OCB Florida State First PL
2014 NPC Orlando Metropolitan First Place and Overall Champion.
*2014 Turned Pro NGA Northeast Ohio Natural.
2014 Pro Debut NGA Peoria Natural Championship Second PL.
2014 Earned Mr. NGA Pro Universe Title
2015 DFAC Minnesota Mayhem First Place Champion.
2015 IPE Kansas City International First Place Champion.
2015 OCB Gaspari Pro Second Place.
2017 OCB Yorton Cup First Place Heavyweight Champion.
2017 NGA Pro Universe Second Place.
2017 NGA Mid Atlantic Pro Blowout Open Second Place and Masters First Place.
As a dynamic and powerful motivational speaker and innovator, My wife and I will bring new life and a powerful assembly to your school. Contact me, and we can design presentation that fits the needs and hopes for your school.
After making so many wrong choices in my life growing up, it took one person to help my see that I had a "seed of greatness" on the inside of me. She helped me see that its never too late to start over. My life long dream from a little girl was to grow up and get married, to be teacher and to travel the world. Because of tough times and pressures in life, I became a high school dropout strung out on drugs and tried to commit suicide twice. I'm ever so grateful for that "lady in a laundromat" who was willing to look past my faults and see my need. I actually went back to school and got not only my high school education but college education as well! Today i'm living my dream! Known as some of the BEST MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKERS and TOP MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKERS, my husband Ray and I speak in schools around the world teaching, motivating and encouraging students of all ages to "choose2beachampion" to be a Dream-maker and not a dream-breaker. We use feats of strength to capture their attention!
1990 Became the FIRST WOMAN EVER to blow up a hot water bottle till it expodes.
1997 obtained my General Education Diploma.
1998-2000 was a Star Skater on TNN's Roller Jam Television Show, known as "The Abra-hammer" and "The Minister Of Pain"
Guest on Entertainment Tonight.1999
Guest on T.V. Show "To Tell The Truth" 1999
Appeared on Fox Sports Going Deep 1998
Featured Story in Sports Illustrated 2000.
Article in USA Today.
2000 Became the First Woman ever on the ALL Male Power Team.
2000 Married the man of my dreams Ray Clark in South Africa.
2012 Set record breaking 20 bricks with my forearm.
All-time best bench press 350lb
All-time best squat 475lb
All-time best deadlift 375lb
Sign up to hear from me about upcoming events and special appearances. |
Best Feldenkrais® Moves for Back Pain Relief Part 1 Easy and effective movements from the Feldenkrais Method® for relief from back pain. MaryBeth Smith, Founder and Director of the Feldenkrais Center of Housto.
Tendu Stretch Loop Flexibility Band Introducing: the Stretch Loop, a heavy duty resistance band designed especially for dancers! Seamless Strong A continuous loop for hands-free stretching Long enough to suit most average height dancers Has a smoot
Learn to draw and sketch with these easy drawing tips. Read step-by-step instructions (with pictures) explaining how to draw what you see. If you want to be able to draw realistically, these 12 drawing techniques will help improve your drawing skills.
The splits is an impressive feat of flexibility that is beneficial for a wide variety of activities, including ballet, martial arts, gymnastics and yoga. Training to do the splits takes months or even years of practice and intense. |
Описание презентации по отдельным слайдам:
English as a global lingua franca. Two thousand years ago. English did not exist. A thousand years ago it was a language used by less than two million people. Now it is the most influential language in the world, spoken by more than a billion people on the planet, as their first, second or third language.
The difference between a “dialect” and an “accent” An accent is the way that particular person or group of people sound. It’s the way somebody pronounces words, the musicality of their speech, etc. A dialect describes both a person’s accent and the grammatical features of the way that person talks.
Main stream British accents. Received Pronunciation. Features: Non-rhoticity, meaning the r at the ends of words isn’t prounounced (mother sounds like “muhthuh”). Trap-bath split, meaning that certain a words, like bath, can’t, and dance are pronounced with the broad-a in father. (This differs from most American accents, in which these words are pronounced with the short-a in cat). The vowels tend to be a bit more conservative than other accents in Southern England, which have undergone significant vowel shifting over the past century.
Cockney Features: Raised vowel in words like trap and cat so these sounds like “trep” and “cet.” Non-rhoticity: the r at the ends of words isn’t prounounced. Trap-bath split: certain a words, like bath, can’t, and dance are pronounced with the broad-a in father. London vowel shift: The vowel sounds are shifted around so Cockney “day” sounds close to American “die” and buy is close to “boy”. L-vocalization: The l at the end of words often becomes a vowel sound. Hence pal can seem to sound like “pow.” Th-Fronting: The th in words like think or this is pronounced with a more forward consonant depending on the word: thing becomes “fing,” this becomes “dis,” and mother becomes “muhvah.”
West Country (Southwest British) Features: Rhoticity, meaning that the letter r is pronounced after vowels. So, for example, whereas somebody from London would pronounce mother as “muthah,” somebody from Bristol would say “mutherrr“. (i.e. the way people pronounce the word in America or Ireland). Welsh English Features: Usually non-rhotic. English is generally modelled after Received Pronunciation or related accents, but with many holdovers from the Welsh language. The prosody of the accent is often very “musical”. The letter r is often trilled or tapped. Some dialect words imported from the Welsh language.
Scottish English Features: Rhotic, with trilled or tapped r’s. Glottal stopping of the letter t when in between vowels (similar to Cockney and related accents). Monopthongal pronounciations of the /ei/ and /ou/ dipthongs, so that that face becomes fe:s and goat becomes go:t.
American English accents. General American. Prominent Features: The short-a (as in cat) is raised. Hence man and can’t are pronounced something like “meh-uhn” and “keh-uhnt.” Rhotic, meaning the r is pronounced at the end of words like car and mother. Words like lot and rod are pronounced with an unrounded vowel, as “laht” and “rahd”. The diphthong in words like boat and rode is pronounced relatively back: i.e. boʊt and roʊd
Eastern New England English. Prominent Features: Non-rhoticity, as mentioned above. Fronted pronunciation of words like father and palm, so this vowel is close to the vowel in words like “cat” and “mad” in General American. Unlike most other American accents, the vowel in lot and rod is rounded as in most British dialects, pronounced “lawt” and “rawd”. New York City English. Prominent Features: Non-rhoticity: see explanation above. Tense-lax split: In New York City the short-a in words like cat, mad, can’t and last follows a complex set of rules whereby some words are pronounced tensely (slightly higher in the mouth) while other words are pronounced laxly (lower in the mouth). The long-a in words like father and cart is often pronounced back and sometimes rounded :“fawthuh” and “kawt”. The vowel in words like thought, north and dog are pronounced “thaw-uht,” “naw-uht” and “daw-uhg”).
Some other English accents. Central Canadian English. Prominent Features: Most features are fairly similar to General American accents, with slightly different placing of the vowels. Caught-Cot Merger, as in Western American accents. Canadian Raising: The diphthongs in words like about and right are raised before voiceless consonants. Hence about becomes something like “uh-boat” and right becomes “ruh-eet”.
Australian accent. Australians (Aussies) join words together, drop letters and speak at break-neck speed - like "did_ya_hav_a_gud_weekend?" or "Hav_a_go_ya_mug". The English have a tendency to separate their words . Aussies reckon they do this because they have a 'plum in their mouth'. Aussies are never quite sure about anything so they tend to turn all their statements into questions. That is, their inflection at the end of a sentence turns up - a bit like asking for some assurance.
Conclusion. In conclusion, it is worth saying that English language has a lot of different dialects and accents and quite often people, who speak different dialects don’t understand each other. I am strongly convinced that in the learning process it is very useful to learn about various types of language. It will help to understand English-speakers all over the world.
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1. Explain what is Fermi level?
The maximum energy that an electron in a metal has at the absolute zero temperature is called the Fermi level of energy.
2. Explain what is the basis for classifying a material as a conductor, semiconductor, or a dielectric? Explain what is the conductivity of perfect dielectric?
Conductors possess high conductivity whereas the characteristic property of insulating materials (or dielectrics) is poor conductivity. Semiconductors occupy an intermediate position between conductors and insulators. Though there is no rigid line separating the conductors from semiconductors and semiconductors from insulators, but still according to resistivity the materials of resistivity of the order from 10-8 to 10-3 , 10-13 to 106 and 106 to 1018 ohm-meters may be classified as conductors, semiconductors and dielectrics respectively.
Another classification is based on temperature coefficient of resistivity. Metals have positive temperature coefficient of resistivity. Semiconductors have small negative temperature coefficient of resistivity and insulators have large negative temperature coefficient of resistivity.
3. Differentiate semiconductors, conductors and insulators on the basis of band gap.
The distinction between conductors, insulators and semiconductors is largely concerned with the relative width of the forbidden energy gaps in their energy band structures. There is a wide forbidden gap (more than 5eV) for insulators, narrow forbidden gap (about 1eV) in case of semiconductors and no forbidden gap in case of conductors.
4. Explain what is the importance of valence shell and valence electrons?
The outermost shell of an atom is called valence shell and the electrons in this shell are called valence electrons. Formation of energy bands occur owing to overlapping of energy levels of these valence electrons in valence shells. With the decrease in interatomic distance between the atoms in a crystal, the energy levels of electrons in outermost shells of atoms overlap to form energy bands.
5. Explain what is the forbidden energy gap? How does it occur? Explain what is its magnitude for Ge and Si?
The energy gap between the valence band and conduction band is known as forbidden energy gap. It is a region in which no electron can stay as there is no allowed energy state. Magnitude of forbidden energy gap in germanium and silicon is 0.72 eV and 1.12 eV respectively at 300 K and 0.785 eV and 1.21 eV respectively at absolute zero temperature.
6. Is a hole a fundamental particle in an atom?
Hole is not a fundamental particle in an atom. Holes may be thought of as positive particles, and as such they move through an electric field in a direction opposite to that of electrons.
7. Define a hole in a semiconductor.
When an energy is supplied to a semiconductor a valence electron is lifted to a higher energy level. The departing electron leaves a vacancy in the valence band. The vacancy is called a hole. Thus, a vacancy left in the valence band because of lifting of an electron from the valence band to conduction band is known as a hole.
8. Explain what is hole current?
The movement of the hole (positively charged vacancy in the valence band) from positive terminal of the supply to negative terminal through semiconductor constitutes hole current.
9. Explain what is intrinsic semiconductor ?
An intrinsic semiconductor is one which is made of the semiconductor material in the extremely pure form (impurity content not exceeding one part in 100 million parts of semiconductors).
10. Why silicon and germanium are the two widely used semiconductor materials?
Because the energy required to release an electron from their valence band (i.e. to break their covalent bonds ) is very small (1.12eV for Si and 0.72eV for Ge).
11. Which of the two semiconductor materials Si or Ge has larger conductivity at room temperature? Why?
Since energy required in transferring electrons from valence band to conduction band is more in case of Si than that in case of germanium , the conductivity of Ge will be more than that of Si at room temperature.
12. Why does a pure semiconductor behave like an insulator at absolute zero temperature?
For a pure semiconductor at a temperature of absolute zero (-273.15oC)the valence band is usually full and there are may be no electron in the conduction band and it is difficult to provide additional energy required for lifting electron from valence band to conduction band by applying electric field. Hence the conductivity of a pure semiconductor at absolute zero temperature is zero and it behaves like an insulator.
13. Explain what is the main factor for controlling the thermal generation and recombination?
Temperature, because with the increase in the temperature, concentrations of free electrons and holes increase and the rate of recombination is proportional to the product of concentration of free electrons and holes and also the rate of production of electron-hole pairs (thermal generation) increases with the rise in temperature.
14. Define mean life of a carrier.
The amount of time between the creation and disappearance of a free electron is called the life time. It varies from a few nanoseconds to several microseconds depending how perfect the crystal is and other factors.
15. In which bands do the movement of electrons and holes take place?
Free electrons move in valence band while holes in valence band.
16. Explain what is the mechanism by which conduction takes place inside the semiconductor?
Conduction occurs in any given material when an applied electric field causes electrons to move in a desired direction within the material. This may be due to one or both of two processes, electron motion and hole transfer. In case of former process, free electrons in the conduction band move under the influence of the applied electric field. Hole transfer involves electrons which are still attached to the atoms i.e. those in valence band.
17. Explain what do you mean by drift velocity and mobility of a free electron?
The average velocity of an electron is known as drift velocity whereas mobility of an electron is defined as the drift velocity per unit electric field.
18. Define mobility of a carrier. Show that the mobility constant of electron is larger than that of a hole.
Mobility is defined as the average particle drift velocity per unit electric field.
The mobility of electrons is more than that of holes because the probability of an electron having the energy required to move to an empty state n the conduction band is much greater than the probability of an electron having the energy required to move to the empty state in valence band. The mobility of electron is about double that of a hole.
19. Define diffusion current in a semiconductor.
The diffusion of charge carriers is a result of a gradient of carrier concentration (i.e., the difference of carrier concentration from one region to another). In this case concentrations of charge carriers (either electrons or holes ) tend to distribute themselves uniformly throughout the semiconductor crystal. This movement continues until all carriers are evenly distributed throughout the material. This type of movement of charge carriers is called diffusion current.
20. Define drift current in a semiconductor.
The steady flow of electrons in one direction caused by applied electric field constitutes an electric current, called the drift current.
21. Explain what happens to the conductivity of semiconductor with the rise in temperature? Compare with the conductivity of metals.
With the increase in temperature, the concentration of charge carriers increases resulting in increase in conductivity of semiconductors. The conductivity of metal decreases with the increase in temperature.
22. Why temperature coefficient of resistance of a semiconductor is negative?
With the increase in temperature, the concentration of charge carriers (electrons and holes) increases. As more charge carriers are made available, the conductivity of a pure semiconductor increases i.e. resistivity of a pure semiconductor decreases with the rise in temperature i.e. semiconductors have negative temperature coefficient of resistance.
23. Explain what is meant by Fermi level in semiconductor? Where does the Fermi level lie in an intrinsic semiconductor?
Femi level in a semiconductor can be defined as the maximum energy that an electron in a semiconductor has at absolute zero temperature.
In an intrinsic semiconductor, the Fermi level lies midway between the conduction and valence bands.
24. Differentiate between intrinsic semiconductors and intrinsic semiconductors?
An intrinsic semiconductor is one which is made of the semiconductor material in its extremely pure form.
When a small amount of impurity is added to a pure semiconductor crystal during the crystal growth in order to increase its conductivity, the resulting crystal is called extrinsic semiconductor.
25. Why doping is done in semiconductors?
Intrinsic (or pure ) semiconductor by itself is of little significance as it has little current conduction capability at ordinary room temperature. However, if very small amount of impurity (of the order of one atom per million atoms of pure semiconductor) is added to it in the process of crystallization, the electrical conductivity is increased many times.
SEMICONDUCTORS – PN JUNCTION Theory Questions and Answers ::
26. Describe the difference between P-type and N-type semiconductor materials.
When a small amount of trivalent impurity (such as boron, gallium, indium or aluminium) is added to a pure semiconductor crystal during crystal growth, the resulting crystal is called a P-type semiconductor.
When a small amount of pentavalent impurity (such as arsenic, antimony, bismuth or phosphrous) is added to a pure semiconductor crystal during crystal growth, the resulting crystal is called the N-type semiconductor.
27. Explain what do you mean by donor and acceptor impurities?
Donor impurities (such as arsenic, antimony, bismuth or phosphorous) when added to a pure semiconductor lattice , form N-type extrinsic semiconductor. The pentavalent impurities are called donor impurities as such impurities donate electrons to the lattice.
Acceptor impurities (such as boron, gallium, indium or aluminium) when added to a semiconductor lattice form P-type extrinsic semiconductor. The trivalent impurities are called acceptor impurities because such impurities accept electrons from the lattice.
28. Explain the term doping and its need.
The electrical conductivity of intrinsic semiconductor, which has little current conducting capability at room temperature and so is of little use, can be increased many times by adding very small amount of impurity (of the order of one atom per million atoms of pure semiconductor) to it in the process of crystallization. This process is called doping.
30. Explain what is the effect of temperature on extrinsic semiconductor?
With the increase in temperature of an extrinsic semiconductor, the number of thermally generated carriers is increased resulting in increase in concentration of minority carriers. At temperature exceeding critical temperature the extrinsic semiconductor behaves like an intrinsic semiconductor but with higher conductivity.
31. Explain what are the charge carriers in P-type and N-type semiconductors?
Fee electrons in n-type semiconductors and holes in p-type semiconductors are the charge carriers.
32. For the same order of doping, why does n-type semiconductor exhibit larger conductivity than p-type semiconductor?
Since the mobility of electrons is higher than that of holes, for same level of doping, n-type semiconductor exhibits larger conductivity.
33. Explain what is the ratio of majority and minority carriers in intrinsic and extrinsic semiconductors?
For intrinsic semiconductor the ratio of majority and minority carriers is Unity.
For extrinsic semiconductor the ratio of majority and minority carriers is Very large.
34. Explain what is a p-n junction?
The contact surface between the layers of p-type and n-type semiconductor pieces placed together so as to form a p-n junction is called the p-n junction.
35. How do the transition region width and contact potential across a p-n junction vary with the applied bias voltage?
When the p-n junction is forward biased , the transition region width is reduced and the contact potential is also reduced with the increase in applied bias voltage.
When the p-n junction is reverse biased, the transition is widened, and the contact potential is increased and with the increase in applied bias voltage.
36. Which type of charges present on the two opposite faces of the junction?
Positive charge on n-side and negative charge on p-side of the junction.
37. Explain what types of carriers are present in space charge region?
No mobile carrier is present in the space charge region.
38. Why is space region called the depletion region?
The region around the junction is completely ionized on formation of p-n junction. As a result, there are no free electrons on the n-side nor the holes on the p-side. Since the region around the junction is depleted of mobile charges, it is called the depletion region.
39. Why an electric field is produced in a depletion region of a p-n junction?
The separation of positive and negative space charge densities in a p-n junction results in an electric field.
40. Explain what is space charge width?
The space charge region extends into the n and p-regions from the metallurgical junction. The distance is known as the space charge width.
41. The electric field in the space charge region decreases with forward bias and increases with reverse bias. Why?
Because applied electric field opposes built-in field.
42. Define cut-in voltage of a p-n junction diode?
The forward voltage, at which the current through the p-n junction starts increasing rapidly, is called the cut-in voltage.
43. Explain what do you understand by reverse saturation current of a diode?
Reverse saturation current of a diode is due to minority carriers and is caused when the diode is reverse biased. Only a very small voltage is reuired to direct all minority carriers across the junction, and when all minority carriers are flowing across, further increase in bias voltage will not cause increase in current. This current is referred to as reverse saturation current.
44. Explain what is the effect of temperature on the reverse current of a p-n junction?
Reverse current of a p-n junction increases with the increase in junction temperature.
45. Why is silicon preferred to germanium in the manufacturing of semiconductor devices?
Silicon preferred to germanium in the manufacturing of semiconductor devices because such devices have higher peak inverse voltage and current ratings and wider temperature range than germanium ones.
46. Define peak inverse voltage?
Peak inverse voltage is the maximum voltage that can be applied to the p-n junction without damaging the junction. If the reverse voltage across the junction exceeds its peak inverse voltage(PIV), the junction may get destroyed owing to excessive heat.
47. Define breakdown voltage.
Breakdown voltage is defined as the reverse voltage at which p-n junction breaks down with sudden rise with reverse current.
48. Define the limitations in the operation conditions of a p-n junction.
Every p-n junction has limiting values of :
- Maximum forward current
- Peak inverse voltage (PIV)
- Maximum power rating
- The p-n junction provides satisfactory performance when operated within these limiting values. The p-n junction diode may get destroyed due to excessive heat if any of these values are exceeded. |
How to Overcome the Fear of Flying
Generally, a fear of flying is a relatively normal experience to have – mild turbulence can make even the most seasoned flyer’s stomach churn.
Fear of flying, or pteromerhanophobia, is one of the most common phobias affecting the adult population, it’s right up there with arachnophobia (fear of spiders) and acrophobia (fear of heights). While many of us will experience some level of anxiety associated with flying, those who suffer pteromerhanophobia will often exhibit symptoms of a panic attack; for example breathlessness, nausea, and light-headedness which can result in a full blown panic attack. The fear of flying is usually associated with other phobias like claustrophobia and agoraphobia and is rarely due to trauma from past flying experiences. Like many phobias the fear is irrational but unfortunately for sufferers this explanation offers little comfort, as they’re unable to reason themselves out of it. But there are ways to ease and even eliminate the fear, starting with facing it head on.
Cognitive behavioural therapy
For very serious cases, therapy is the most effective way to completely eliminate the phobia or at least help to manage it. If your fear gets in the way of you experiencing overseas travel it is worth addressing it with a professional therapist.
Cognitive behavioural therapy is based on evidence that shows that repeated and controlled exposure to the fear trigger will eventually help to overcome that fear. Fear of flying is very much anticipatory anxiety and often occurs before the individual is even on the aircraft. Therapy includes techniques to help manage anxiety before and during flight, relaxation techniques, breathing techniques and cognitive restructuring, or changing the way an individual thinks about flying. Exposure therapy can be experienced on a simulation aircraft and it is a proven way to successfully treat flight phobia.
However, not everyone will have a fear serious enough to warrant spending a lot of money on therapy. You can attempt to overcome it on your own, but it will most certainly require you to step into a plane!
Take a short flight
If you don’t fly regularly, or have never flown in your entire life, your fear of flying may be amplified from sheer lack of experience. Try taking short trips with someone you trust, such as a family member (preferably someone who is not anxious about flying!). An hour flight is quite short and a good place to start for inexperienced flyers. Gradually, with the right amount of exposure you will become used to flying and become more confident to fly for longer periods.
Practise correct breathing techniques
Most people who have suffered a panic attack will complain of feeling like they are unable to breathe. In fact, they are breathing just not the right way. In a state of panic, a person tends to breathe very quick, short breaths which lead to that feeling of light-headedness. Excessive breathing (hyperventilation) can upset the balance of oxygen and carbon dioxide levels in your blood stream. Anyone who has ever tried to blow out too many candles at once knows what that dizzying sensation feels like!
Discuss with your doctor or health care professional about the best breathing technique for you. It’s important to practise these techniques regularly so that you can get used to them and perform them correctly when you feel the onset of a panic attack.
Realise that flying is a routine matter
In Tina Fey’s autobiography Bossypants, she claims that her husband’s deathly fear of flying was the reason they decided to travel to Bermuda for their honeymoon by cruise ship. Upon returning to the ship, a fire had ignited in the engine room, leaving 1,500 passengers fearing for their lives, ready to jump ship. Fortunately, no one was hurt and the fires were extinguished, but it is this not-so-subtle irony that supports the case for flying.
The chance of a flying accident are so much less than road vehicle accidents, but few people have a fear of driving. Thousands of flights depart from countries all over the world every single day with no incidents. Planes follow a set flight path and the likelihood of an accident is extremely low. Thinking rationally, the fear of flying is practically unjustified.
Eat lightly before you board
For those who get a bit of an upset stomach before a flight, you’re more likely to feel sick if you have a big meal before flying. Instead, have your meal when you are well into your flight. Meals on planes are designed to be light so that passengers don’t feel ill, or go to the restroom too often. Your fear of flying may not be completely eliminated by avoiding food before your flight, but reducing the chance of feeling sick will help you cope better if you do start feeling anxious.
There are medications available that can help quell nausea during take-off. They may not be available over the counter so make sure you talk to your GP or health professional before you leave. They may prescribe you something to either help calm you down, or prevent nausea.
Benefits are subject to the terms and conditions including the limits and exclusions of the insurance policy. Cover is issued by The Hollard Insurance Company Pty Ltd ABN 78 090 584 473 AFSL No. 241436 (Hollard). Woolworths Group Limited ABN 88 000 014 675 AR No. 245476 (Woolworths) acts as Hollard’s Authorised Representative. Any advice provided is general only and may not be right for you. Before you purchase this product you should carefully read the Product Disclosure Statement to decide if it is right for you. |
During the 19th century, marketing was considered a fairly easy task. Back then, there was no need to digitalise how customers could be reached. It wa
During the 19th century, marketing was considered a fairly easy task. Back then, there was no need to digitalise how customers could be reached. It was all about prints and direct sales. Once you had a store, all that was needed was to wait for consumers to walk in, pick, pay and leave. Nowadays, marketing is predominantly digital and anyone not embracing this is more or less outcast. So, how should marketers think and act in the modern age? What should be done to increase traffic and conversion rate? The answer lies in understanding the customer’s standpoint and focus, as reflected in these 10 points.
Focus on Customer experience
Make it a priority to create customer-centric policies and tailor products and services to fit them. Increase the amount of promotional products made, so that your message can go far and wide. It’s useful for sharing brand details with prospective customers, because even people that don’t know your location may stumble upon your product and record your contact number and/or address for future needs. In addition, its advantageous because most promotional products are affordable compared to some other marketing materials and are kept by clients for a long time.
How many times have you checked your mobile device in the last 24 hours? Indeed, we live in the smartphone era, as both the younger and older generations are unable to do away with their mobile devices. Often, you find youths saving money to spend on phones and tablets rather than daily basic necessities. This means that more people are mobile savvy and your products will in turn reach lots of customers online. By now, if your site is not mobile responsive, you will likely have missed many potential clients. Accordingly, ensure that all your site details are accessible via mobile devices, as people rarely use Desktop to surf the net nowadays. Therefore, you must safeguard your site by enabling mobile responsive plugins.
The type of content most customers relate to is changing over time. Take Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram as examples. Most advertising content is video based. There is something compelling about watching rather than reading all the time. People will click on videos repeatedly and watch an animation to the very end, more so than staying glued to written content. So, produce interactive content, but also make its video twin and go the extra mile by providing infographics of the same content. Some people get bored reading, though never get bored seeing animated content. Some are better listeners and vice versa, so you must take every step to reach different customers via their preferred method(s).
As a counterpart to video content, live-streaming is a great way to show customers that you are active day in, day out. Not only do you include them in various activities that will be beneficial, but it also shows your dedication to work. It’s a friendly way to connect with your target audience and position your brand in an interactive manner. So, think about going live on Facebook or Instagram.
Increase social media marketing
You may have many followers on your Social Media platforms, but don’t get complacent. Dedicate a lot more time to creating stories for your followers and audience. Let it be about your product, its benefit to them and how they can source it online. Get your message across within seconds. Input buttons they can click on to get your product or services or provide adequate information on how to locate your company in person if they prefer a physical purchase. Social media is a huge marketing tool and you will be shortchanging yourself if you ignore it.
Personalising products to suit different target markets and segments is the way to go in 2017. It ranges from ensuring touch points are more familiar, to paying appropriate attention to the way customers receive your products and services (directly or via content produced online). How would you like to see your name on a Coca-Cola can? It is the same feeling customers get when they see ‘Dear Moana’ on their e-mail newsletters. This strategy is a win-win for any brand willing to make their mark by turning customers into loyal, indirect ambassadors.
Professional Interactive Content
Interactive content enables readers to participate and be engrossed in Content Marketing. Presenting facts in a way that resonates with the reader and feels personal, is a great way to reach out to them. Marketing is becoming highly competitive, because every company strives to get the attention of the same people. Therefore, to beat the rush and stand out, you must reform traditional content production and produce content that relates with customers directly. There are some great content marketing ideas here.
Tap into their innermost feelings by carrying them along with your words, whilst conveying your marketing message. Furthermore, engaging your target audience through your content spreads your brand message like wildfire. Moreover, developing polls and surveys helps you better understand customers’ needs. It will increase your brand awareness and keep potential customers loyal, because they already relate with and trust your content.
Traditional advertising seems to have lost its hold on today’s consumers. Nevertheless, one of the best ways to keep customers focused and not bore them with traditional advertisements is to create ways to inject your products into interactive content. The use of banners and prints bring lower returns compared to incorporating the same information into content marketing, according to AJ Agrawal, contributor to Forbes magazine.
Utilising the power of Data Science
Data gives adequate insight into the driving force of your sales strategy. The amount of data available should also help to improve personalising marketing campaigns. Data establishes segments and sectors to focus different marketing strategies. For example, it can help to understand the age group or gender a certain product or service should be dedicated to. It propels the ability to add more information to newsletters and email marketing mail-outs.
The more you create tailor-made marketing strategies from data results, the more successful your marketing effort will prove to be. Therefore, to have many happy and loyal customers, you need to ensure you are taking all data indications seriously, as it remains one of the best sources of information to rely on in terms of understanding client satisfaction and areas in need of improvement. Finally on this point, it is advisable to spend some money on Google Analytics or Get Socila.io. These apps help you track your traffic so that you can personalise products and services where and when necessary.
Marketing Automation sets the pace in keeping products and services available, even after trading periods. Manually repeating online marketing actions eats into time, which could be better spent on other endeavors. Therefore, to maximize time and increase productivity, marketing automation is the way forward. Examples of automation softwares are Hubspot and Marketo. Try them out. |
How to Replace the Wheel Bearings on a Saturn SL2by Jody L. Campbell; Updated November 07, 2017
Items you will need
1/2-inch drive breaker bar
1/2-inch drive socket set
1/2-inch drive hub nut socket
1/2-inch drive ratchet
1/2-inch drive adjustable torque wrench
Slide hammer (with hub removal adapter)
Box end/open end combination hand wrench set
Emery cloth/light grade sandpaper
The wheel bearings on a Saturn SL2 are hub bearing assemblies. This means the bearings are integrated with the hub and lug studs as a single assembled unit. Although this simplifies the process somewhat, it's still a detailed project to replace one. Considering the hourly labor charges of the local repair shops, you can save a lot of money by performing the repair yourself.
Park the Saturn SL2 on a paved flat surface. Apply the parking brake.
Release the hood latch if the Saturn SL2 has Anti-lock Braking System (ABS) and open the hood. Disconnect the negative battery terminal from the battery.
Remove the hub cap from the tire you’re replacing the bearing on. Have someone depress the brake pedal inside the SL2 while you loosen the hub nut with a breaker bar and a hub nut socket. Have the assistant exit the SL2 once the nut is loosened.
Loosen the lug nuts on the wheel using the breaker bar and a socket.
Lift the front quarter of the Saturn with the floor jack and place the jack stand under the front frame rail. Remove the lug nuts and wheel. Remove the hub nut.
Pry the outboard brake pad against the rotor using the flathead screwdriver. This will compress the caliper piston enough to remove it easily and replace it easily once removed.
Remove the caliper anchor bolts (2) and remove the caliper, caliper anchor and pads as an assembled unit. This will save time for replacement. Support the caliper assembly to the coil spring of the SL2 with a bungee cord so it does not hang from the brake hose.
Remove the brake rotor. If necessary, spray lubricant on the center of the rotor by the hub bearing connection and use a rubber mallet to knock the rotor off if it is stuck to the hub
Remove the ABS connector if so equipped. Remove the ABS sensor jumper connection from the strut bracket if so equipped.
Locate and remove the three wheel bearing assembly mounting bolts located on the backside of the knuckle using the breaker bar and a socket. If necessary, tap the driveshaft spindle inward away from the hub bearing to allow room to get a socket onto the mounting bolt heads. Once the mounting bolts are broken loose, switch to a ratchet it order to speed things up.
Place the slide hammer onto the lug studs of the bearing assembly and tighten three lug nuts onto the studs to secure the slide hammer. Slide hammer the bearing off of the knuckle spraying lubricant as necessary in between the joint connection. When the bearing and spacer are removed, make sure to be aware of the spacer position so you replace it on the new bearing in the same position. Also note the position of the backing plate to replace that in the same position.
Clean the surface of the knuckle face and the hub cavity with a piece of emery cloth or light grade sand paper to remove and rust or uneven surface. Clean the inside of the rotor where the hub of the rotor sits against the flange of the hub bearing as well.
Replace the spacer onto the new bearing and insert it into the knuckle with the backing plate in between. Replace the bearing mounting bolts and alternately tighten them to draw the bearing into the knuckle evenly. Torque the bolts to 90 foot pounds with the adjustable torque wrench and socket.
Replace the ABS jumper connection to the strut bracket. Replace the ABS sensor connector. Replace the rotor, caliper assembly, and caliper mounting bolts. Torque the bolts to 80 foot pounds with the torque wrench and a socket.
Reattach the negative battery cable to the battery.
Get your assistant to step onto the brake pedal again while you torque the hub nut to 90 foot pounds with the torque wrench and the hub nut socket.
Replace the wheel and lug nuts. Tighten the lug nuts snug to the hub and lower the Saturn. Torque the lug nuts to 100 foot pounds with the torque wrench and a socket.
Remove the wheel chock, release the parking brake and test drive.
The rear wheel bearings in the Saturn SL2 are also wheel hub bearing assemblies. The procedure to replace them would be similar. However, you would not engage the parking brake and the placement of the wheel chock would go in front of one of the front tires. On rear drum brake applications for the SL2, the drum would need to be removed in order to remove the wheel bearing assembly. |
How to Tell the Difference Between an Exhaust Leak and a Valve Lifterby Jack Hathcoat
Engine noise can be hard to identify and even harder to isolate. Sometimes the noise can be frighteningly loud and sound ominous--only to be engine belt noise. Other times the noise can be a tiny ticking that leads to a costly, major repair. Distinguishing between the assorted rattles, squeals, knocks and ticks is somewhat of an art form. Exhaust leaks sputter and are very different than lifter noise or any abnormal engine sounds at all. To accurately diagnose under-hood noise, here are a few guidelines for getting started.
Locate the noise. At times it is difficult to zero-in on the noise, especially since sound will carry through metal. It helps to twist an old newspaper into a cone and listen. The general area of the sound can then be more easily located.
Isolate the sound. A mechanic's stethoscope will help pin-point the noise; however, it's not foolproof. It's great for distinguishing between a bearing hum or squeal in an alternator or an air conditioning compressor. It will also localize an engine knock to the point that there is no question that the noise is coming from the engine. It cannot, however, be stated with absolute certainty precisely what inside the engine is knocking or where in the engine the knock is located.
Test for under-hood exhaust leaks. Exhaust leaks are distinct and easily checked. As the vehicle warms up, these leaks get louder. As the metal expands, exhaust manifold cracks and flanges expand, allowing more exhaust gases to escape. They make a sputtering sound as opposed to a lifter with a ticking sound. Exhaust leaks also leave a trail of black soot. It is also easy to smell exhaust fumes under the hood, but they do present the danger of carbon monoxide poisoning.
- Lifter noise is caused by the valve train components "lashing" back and forth. Older engines require periodically setting the lash to specifications. New cars use hydraulic components to cushion the lash. When these fail, there is a ticking at idle which will often quiet down as the engine revs up. This is caused by the accompanying increase in oil pressure, allowing a slight "float" in the hydraulic system. The ticking immediately reappears when the engine is returned to idle.
Items you will need
- Noel Hendrickson/Digital Vision/Getty Images |
In 2014 when I took leave from work, I could not sit idle for too long, so I took up volunteering as a tour guide (that can be another post) and at the Chapman Valley museum at Nanson to catalogue all the objects that have been donated over the years and any new items that were to be donated. It is an ongoing job, however, I really wanted to do something for the Centennary of Anzac.
With the help of other members of the Chapman Valley Historical Society, we formed a project committee and built a tribute to the WWI Fallen Soldiers from the district. I took on the research of the soldiers with the help of Dr. John Sharpham. Below is my speech that I gave at the opening to the tribute, on Wednesday, 6th September 2017 with some photos taken from the day. I would have to put the opening at the top of my list of a very significant time in my life and I’m proud to have done something for the community that will be remembered for many years to come.
Welcome and thank you for coming here today on this beautiful spring day to the opening of the tribute to the WWI Fallen Soldiers from the Upper Chapman District.
In the lead up to the Centenary of Anzac, we had been travelling around in our caravan and visited many museums, as one does. I noticed that many had new WWI displays and I wanted to do something at the Chapman Valley museum, however, we already had other projects on the go so it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
Then in October 2015, Pam Batten and I visited Carnarvon for a Museums WA meeting and she saw their display and knew then what I was on about.
At the November meeting of the historical society, Pam suggested we could perhaps put something along these new paths that would commemorate the Centenary of Anzac. I was quick to put my hand up to be on the new project committee with several other keen members.
At our first committee meeting, we decided to start with the first Anzac’s, those from WWI. Over 150 men had enlisted from this district. However, we chose to honour the fallen as it would take a lot more time and resources to research and extract the information of every soldier who enlisted. There were 36 names on the memorial at the Nabawa Cemetery of soldiers who had fallen from the Upper Chapman District, now known as Chapman Valley.
Our first task was to identify each soldier as the memorial only listed a surname and an initial. There were spelling errors and often the initial was a nickname or a second name. Then we extracted their service history. The National Archives of Australia have digitised all the WWI records in the lead up to the Centennary of Anzac and made them available free to the public. It was a very time-consuming task.
However, 6 months into the research, divine intervention or call it what you will, someone challenged me to look further into those names on the honour boards. How do you know if all the names have been recorded correctly? They do get things wrong you know! What if you missed someone out? And what about those who came back? Well, I couldn’t leave it at that.
The district honour boards, listing only surnames and initials, were checked and cross checked and triple checked against the Australian War Memorial, the National Archives of Australia, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and various other websites and I found that there were indeed another 6 soldiers who had paid the ultimate sacrifice and had not been added to the memorial at Nabawa. Some did not have that allusive asterisk next to their name that you see on honour boards to indicate they had died in the war. We have now added those names to this tribute. The fallen soldiers from the Chapman Valley District now totalled 42.
You might be asking yourself, well why were those names missing? We need to understand the criteria for inclusion which was determined by those creating the memorial and they did vary. Sometimes they listed just those who were born in the district or those who enlisted from here. Or it could be veteran’s who came to work and live here after the war and they wanted the names of their fallen comrades on the memorials. In some cases, an individual could be named on more than one honour board or memorial.
One would have to be a very hard person not to feel any emotion when researching soldiers records. However, it became necessary to lock my heart away and focus on the task at hand.
We saw many graphic images of gross injuries and read reports of the devastating affect caused by the use of chemicals such as mustard gas and chlorine. Trench fever, from body lice that was easily spread from one soldier to another causing sores all over their bodies. Trench feet, from standing in cold, damp conditions, sometimes in mud up to their knees. The women back home were madly knitting socks and beanies to keep the troops warm and dry.
We also saw graphic images of the horses, up to their bellies in mud, pulling those heavy guns along, many too exhausted to continue on.
Swarms of flies would carry infection from refuse, the latrines and rotting corpses to their food being eaten from unwashed mess tins. Disease was just as much a threat to the troops as was the enemy. 3 soldiers from Chapman Valley died of disease.
One soldier wrote “the guns just bang away incessantly… the noise is deafening. I hope this warfare will soon end.”
Another wrote “we realised that when bullets hit you and they hurt, that’s when we knew what fear was.”
These conditions all took their toll. Some of those that ended up in hospital from an illness or were wounded, returned to their units on the front line and suddenly, had their lives cut short.
1917, 100 years ago this year, on the Western Front, was the worst year for the allies, 22 of our Chapman Valley soldiers died in that one bloody year. On the 11 April 1917 at the Battle of Bullecourt in France, over 3000 Australian’s died, 4 of our lads also died on that one day, a brother was taken as a prisoner of war and died two days later of his wounds.
The Geraldton Guardian wrote on May 1, 1926 at the unveiling of the Nabawa Memorial, “the proportion of those who fell was very high, the Commonwealth average was one in six.” Chapman Valley lost one in three.
The youngest to enlist from Chapman Valley was 18 and the oldest 40. Most were in their 20s. 3 were married with children.
17 have no known grave. I’ll let you ponder why that was!!!
Of the 60,000 Australians killed in the Great War, 1/3 were listed as missing. We read heartfelt letters from mother’s to the authorities, asking them to check the Prisoner of War lists and the hospitals for their sons. Unfortunately, many were not going to come home. Overseas war cemeteries have headstones with Kipling’s words “A soldier of the Great War…known unto God!”
In the killing of such large numbers of able bodied men and women, the war prevented them from having their own families and generating a stronger Australia.
We also wish to pay our respects to those who did return. Their challenge was to come back into the community and pick up where they left off. Their lives were forever touched by that dreadful conflict as any conflict touches everyone.
Many suffered depression, remained single and mourned the loss of their loved ones. Others were physically and mentally incapacitated with daily needs. Many were able to resume civilian lives, gain employment, get married and have families. It is these combatants that we also remember today, as no family was left untouched.
A new board has been added inside the museum on the east wall with 154 names of those who were associated with this district and enlisted in WW1.
The best tribute that we can pay to those who served is to remember them.
This tribute is also dedicated to those who have served and those who continue to serve this country.
We would like to thank everyone who has helped in any way to build this tribute.
To the families of the soldiers, thank you so much for your support, offering photographs and information. I hope we have made your boys proud.
Sandra Playle, for your military contacts both here and overseas and for your advice and encouragement.
To the Birdwood Military Museum, Irwin & Districts Historical Society and the Northampton RSL for helping to identify names and gather photographs of our soldiers.
To both the Geraldton and Northampton RSLs for your support when we were applying for the grant to build this tribute.
The Shire of Chapman Valley, thank you for supporting us in this worthwhile project which I’m sure will bring many visitors to the district.
To Lotterywest for providing the grant. Just remember, when you buy a lotto ticket, the proceeds from the sales goes towards helping non-profit organisations such as ours.
The Department of Corrective Services along with the Central Regional TAFE, thank you. We hope the work on this project has given the lads a sense of achievement.
The members of the Chapman Valley Historical Society, thank you for encouraging and supporting the project committee. And a special thanks to those who helped with the proof reading. What a mammoth task that was. Dotting i’s and crossing t’s. Putting commas in, taking them out. No! that doesn’t read right, what about this? How many times did we say that this was bigger than Ben Hur!?
Pam Batten, thank you for your tireless work in pulling this day together. No dotting of i’s but there were a few lists to cross off to get this day organised.
To the Fallen Soldiers project committee, John, Val, Kevin, Margaret & Eric who collectively came up with the idea of this tribute and Dr John Sharpham who was by my side all the way. We worked many hours together to bring this information into the format that you see here today. Thanks John.
You will notice that on each profile, there is a signature that has been clipped from the soldier’s enlistment papers when they signed on, now they have signed off.
I’m very proud to stand here today and pay tribute to the Fallen Soldiers in WW1 from the Upper Chapman District.
You gave up your today for our tomorrow.
A Duty Nobly Done. Thank you!
Richard Williams, Northampton poet, recited the Waler. There was not a dry eye in the crowd by the time he’d finished. Read and hear it here. |
by Jeffrey A. Butts
March 16, 2015
Close to Home (C2H) is an effort to localize the youth justice system in New York City by keeping young offenders near their neighborhoods and families rather than sending them away to facilities that are far from home. Phase 1 of the C2H initiative began in 2012. Phase 2 is scheduled to launch in 2015. As State and City agencies widen the scope of Close to Home into a second phase, the key question is, “Did Phase 1 work?”
The Research & Evaluation Center at John Jay College of Criminal Justice reviewed C2H outcomes to date. Researchers collected statistical information about the effort, interviewed many of the officials who designed and implemented it, and talked with private providers and advocates about their impressions of the initative. The study suggests that C2H successfully changed the youth justice system in New York City, and in the way intended by the designers of the reform.
Out-of-home placements among New York City youth are falling. The overall volume of delinquency placements declined after the launch of C2H. Overall, placements dropped from 544 in 2011 to 494 in 2012 and 428 in 2013. By April 2014 the total number of New York City youth in placement was 415.
The decline in placements, however, cannot be attributed to C2H because the downward trend existed long before the reforms and did not accelerate appreciably after implementation. Changes in the configuration of placements, on the other hand, may be attributed to C2H. The number of youth in State-run “non-secure” facilities plummeted as intended, from 87 placed youth in 2011 to 6 youth in 2014.
Before the launch of C2H, youth advocates worried that restricting New York City’s access to the State’s non-secure facilities could cause more offenders to be reclassified as “limited secure” (the next highest level of security), leading to an expansion of those placements. This did not happen. The number of New York City youth placed in the State’s limited-secure facilities continued to fall after C2H. In 2014, there were 65 New York City youth in limited-secure placements — half the number in 2011.
Other dire predictions about Close to Home also failed to come true. There were concerns among advocates and even some officials that the expansion of programs and placements at the City level would lead to an overall expansion of the system rather than merely replacing State placements with local placements. As police and courts learned about the greater resources available at the local level — so went the argument — the perceived negative consequences of taking action against a youth would be lessened. Since there would be less chance that a particular youth would end up hundreds of miles away in a State-operated juvenile facility, the decision to arrest and charge a youth would be easier to make, resulting in more youth overall involved in the justice system.
This did not happen. According to data disseminated by New York State’s Division of Criminal Justice Services, juvenile arrests in New York City actually dropped more compared with the rest of the state more after C2H. In the years just before C2H (2009 to 2011), arrests were declining in the City and State, but the relative decline was smaller in New York City (–4% in New York City versus –18% in the rest of the State). After the beginning of Close to Home, the situation was reversed. Between 2011 and 2013, arrests in New York City fell more than in other areas of the State (–39% compared with –24%).
The same pattern was apparent in the number of intakes to probation departments. Intakes for delinquency matters declined more in New York City than the rest of the state after the implementation of Close to Home. In the two years just before C2H, intakes dropped 2 percent in New York City, but fell 18 percent in the rest of the State. After the beginning of Close to Home, the decrease in intakes by New York City probation was three times greater than in other New York communities (–41% versus –12%).
Policymakers were pleased when other unintended but feared consequences failed to occur after C2H. Restricting out-of-home placements could have led to greater demand for detention space. In fact, however, the launch of C2H was associated with an even larger decline in detention in New York City. Before C2H, the number of juvenile detention admissions in New York City declined at a pace that was slightly greater than the rest of New York State. Between 2009 and 2011, detention admissions in New York City fell 17 percent while admissions in other areas of New York State dipped 15 percent. After C2H, admissions in New York City decreased even more relative to the rest of the state (–30% versus –21%)
The same pattern was seen in the average daily detention population. Before C2H, the detention population in New York City fell slightly more than the rest of the state (–21% compared with –20%). After the launch of C2H, the decline in the City’s detention population outpaced that of the rest of the state (–22% versus –15%).
Recent trends in youth justice suggest that Close to Home succeeded in lowering the number of New York City youth placed in the State’s non-secure facilities. Critics of the reform initiative warned that making these changes could widen the net of intervention and even increase the use of placements and detention at the local level, but these predictions did not materialize. It will take several more years before additional research will be able to assess whether Close to Home also protected public safety and accomplished critical goals related to treatment and behavior change among young offenders. In the early years of Close to Home, however, the effort appears to be working as promised. State and City policymakers succeeded in meeting their stated goals without the negative effects of net-widening and system expansion.
Support for this research brief was provided by the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation with additional funds from the Pinkerton Foundation. The authors are grateful for the cooperation and support of the officials and practitioners interviewed for this project, but any points of view or opinions contained in this document are those of the authors alone. |
John Rylands Library
Watch an introductory video to the John Rylands Library here.
The world famous John Rylands Library is one of Britain’s finest academic libraries. The JRL houses its remarkable and rich ‘Special Collections’ at its Deansgate building in central Manchester. This historic purpose-built library building, the ‘finest example of neo-Gothic architecture in Europe,’ has resources ‘from papyrus to plastic’ that ‘constitute one of Britain’s greatest cultural assets’. It is an internationally renowned centre of scholarship as well as a wonderfully inspiring building in which to study: ‘one of Britain’s great university buildings’.
This historic Victorian gem has been refurbished and ‘unlocked’ by a new magnificently crafted extension, sensitively and tastefully added to make it even more user friendly and accessible. The Special Collections of the JRL contain a wealth of primary source materials with numerous collections and libraries of rare books and manuscripts that span six millennia and originate from cultures across the world.
Online access is available and researchers are able to access detailed descriptions through a newly developed online catalogue.
Fellows of the MWRC enjoy access to the JRL, the University of Manchester Library, and the resources of the Nazarene Theological College and MWRC libraries at the MWRC premises in Didsbury.
The MWRC is designed to guide and support research students in finding their way through this ‘labyrinth [of an] endless multiplicity of books’ (as John Wesley described such a problem facing his own eighteenth century students when writing the Preface to his fifty-volume Christian Library, published 1749-55). The MWRC facilitates access and use of one unique part of these Special Collections: the internationally renowned Methodist Archives and Research Centre (MARC) which holds the world’s largest collection of manuscripts relating to the founders of Methodism, John and Charles Wesley and other members and close associates of the Wesley family. The MARC also holds vast resources on the development of Methodism up to the present.
What Resources are held in the Archives?
The Archives include the personal libraries of both Charles Wesley and John Fletcher (John Wesley’s ‘designated successor’). The majority of Samuel, Susanna, John and Charles Wesley manuscripts that survive are part of the MARC collection. There is also an outstanding collection of ‘anti-Methodist’ printed materials and other items. The MARC also contains an extensive collection of over 5,000 hymnals (not merely of Methodist denominations) including many rare items - such as the only complete copy of the Collection of Psalms and Hymns printed in 1737 for John Wesley when he was in Charles-town (now Charleston, South Carolina).
This volume is what one scholar, Winfred Douglas in 1937, described as ‘the first real Anglican Hymnal’. Of course, the number and width of all kinds of items of Methodist interest is increasing each year, as the MARC extends the collection by adding modern (as well as older) books, pamphlets, periodicals, newspapers, manuscripts and other materials relating to Methodism.
In addition to the Wesley family documents themselves, MARC also has extensive collections of the personal papers of numerous prominent evangelicals of the 18th century and later Methodists up to the present, including John Fletcher and his wife Mary Bosanquet, George Whitefield, Selena the Countess of Huntingdon, Benjamin Ingham, Howel Harris, Thomas Coke, Adam Clarke, Hugh Bourne, Jabez Bunting, John Ernest Rattenbury, and Rupert Davies. The collection also includes extensive Conference and other institutional records of all major pre-union (i.e. pre-1932) British Methodist denominations. |
Tag Archives: ecology
I was reading Your Farm in the City by Lisa Taylor and there was information stating that rainwater from rooftops might be toxic. Any one ever hear such a thing? I have two 300 gallon barrels and would hate to think that the water in them could be toxic. I do use it for my vegetable garden. Advice anyone?
We made good work on Saturday getting in a bit of yard work before dark by blowing and mulching the leaves in the yard. I mowed part of the lawn and added the bagged cuttings to the garden coffin that has become the compost coffin until spring. I am hoping the leaves will help the composting process over the winter.
Hubby got the blower and corralled another heaping pile that he ran over with the mower and added them to my flower beds. To think that last year I did not even consider the leaves as a garden commodity. We ran them over and left them to fertilize the grass, what a waste! This year I am putting my new-found knowledge to use by utilizing every last leave to help in the effort of amending the icky dirt we have in our yard.
Putting the leaves to work in you garden is an easy project. You can just add them to your compost pile, whole or shredded. Shredding leaves helps them to break down faster. You can make leaf mold by packing the leaves in plastic bags and letting the leaves break down for 6 months to a year. The leaf mold mixed with the garden soil helps amend the soil and aids in water retention. Read more on how to use leaves in the garden here.
Imagine the concept of saving your own poo! ICK! Double ICK! There is a movement (heehee) going on in this department. But the jury is till out on the concept called humanure. You can read all about it here.
Given that most of us have a hate relationship with our excretory system, I am pretty confident that this will be not become the norm. But for the truly self-sufficient soul it may be just another way to put the poo to good. From the earth back to the earth. There are a number of ways to utilize the poo, you can purchase a composting toilet.
Companies like Outdora sell self containing or full out composting systems for those interested in the humanure concept. There are more primitive solutions such as the old style outhouse that will also work. You can read some interesting history about outhouses @ The Outhouse’s of America Tour.
If you truly have a desire to compost your waste you must check out Joseph Jenkins blog and books on the subject. He appears to be a leading expert on poo uses. He is the author of the book the Humanure Handbook listed above
While this concept may seem foreign to many of us it seems to be the logical conclusion to the “in the mouth out the pooper “process. And for those who practice it I am sure most adhere to an organic diet by being a vegetarian or a vegan. But it is still important to fully understand the process and not just dump human waste into your garden. We do have many harmful bacteria that can be deadly living in our digestive track. If you follow the rules and compost properly it believed that the good bacteria will kill the bad.
For more information on the process you can also read what Grandpappy Robert Wayne Atkins writes on the humanure movement. 🙂 |
How to Make a Pinwheel Wind TurbineHome Science Tools
>> Use this pinwheel pattern (PDF) to build your turbine.
What You Need:
- Pencil with eraser
- Straight pin or thumbtack
- Small electric motor (can find at a hobby store)
- Alligator clip leads or insulated copper wire
- 1.5-volt bulb and bulb holder (you can also find these at a hobby or hardware store)
- Strong fan (standing or box fan)
What You Do:
Part 1 – Pinwheel
- Cut a piece of cardstock into a 4′ square. (If you’re only doing this part of the project, you can make it bigger if you like.) Look at the pinwheel pattern to do the following steps.
- Use a ruler to draw diagonal lines from corner to corner. Make a small mark along each line 3/4 of an inch from the center of the square.
- Cut along the diagonal lines toward the center until you reach the 3/4-inch mark.
- Fold the corners marked with circles on the pattern into the center and staple the layers together. (You’ll probably need to use at least two staples, but make sure to leave space between staples in the very center). When all four ‘blades’ are folded in, stick a straight pin or thumbtack through all the layers at the center. Push the pin through the eraser on the pencil to finish the pinwheel.
- Hold the pinwheel in front of a fan and watch it spin. The currents of air coming from the fan catch the curved part of the blades, causing them to spin.
Part 2 – Generator
- Remove the pinwheel from the pencil and punch the shaft of the motor through the center. (Try putting a couple strips of masking tape on the back of the pinwheel before you punch it through – this will make a tighter fit on the motor shaft.) If your motor came with a little cap for the end of the shaft, put that on to hold the pinwheel in place. If you don’t have a cap, use a piece of clay or cork.
- Use the alligator clip leads to connect the motors wires to the light bulb.
- Now hold the motor/pinwheel close in front of the fan again. Does the bulb light up? Look closely – you should at least see the filament begin to glow. The brightness of the bulb will depend on how much voltage your turbine is producing, which can change with the size of the pinwheel and the strength of the fan.
When you attached the motor to the pinwheel and put it in front of the fan, you transformed the motor into a generator, which converts mechanical force (the spinning of the pinwheel) to electricity. It does this with the help of a magnet inside the motor. When you connected the wires from the motor to the light bulb, you made a complete electrical circuit, allowing the electricity to flow from the motor through the bulb and back again.
One way to measure power is in volts. A volt measures the amount of electricity flowing through a circuit. The faster a generator spins, the more volts it will produce. With our simple wind turbine, a smaller pinwheel will produce more volts because it can spin faster. To fully power the bulb, your turbine would need to produce 1.5 volts. If the bulb just glows dimly, it means the turbine is producing less than 1.5 volts.
Real wind turbines have very large blades, so they have gear boxes that increase the rotational speed (how fast the shaft spins). For example, the main shaft might turn only 22 times per minute, but the gears in the gearbox can use that power to make a smaller shaft turn up to 1500 times per minute, creating a lot more voltage!
If you have a digital multimeter, you can measure the amount of voltage and current (amps) produced by your mini turbine. Experiment with larger or smaller pinwheels, or make individual blades like a modern wind turbine. Which design can produce the most voltage? Which produces the most amperage? When would you want more amps and when would you want more volts? What size of pinwheel causes the light bulb to glow the brightest? Can you use your turbine to power another motor? To lift weights? |
Geology Quest Study
Ancient squid and starfish fossils. Roots of a 1.8 billion year-old, compressed Minnesota mountain. Rocks from France, Germany, India, Italy, California, and Indiana. The same marble that Michelangelo used to carve David. Where can you find all of these geologic treasures? As our 4th and 5th graders are finding, in the walls and floors of downtown Portland!
The city is alive with many examples of sedimentary, igneous and metamorphic rock. Last fall, students visited numerous locations downtown as part of their trimester-long unit in geology. The 4th and 5th graders worked in small groups to research and write about specific buildings or other locations (like the flooring around the fountain in Pioneer Place mall). Earlier last fall, the students learned about geology from Portland Parks and Rec staff at Mt. Tabor, from OMSI staff who visited our school, and from their knowledgeable classroom teachers. The students used all that hey had learned to create a fun, educational scavenger hunt, called a ¨quest,¨ which was then distributed to other teachers and families who wanted to learn about geology in Portland. This project is being undertaken in collaboration with the Geological Society of the Oregon Country, who are super excited to gain learning materials geared towards young people.
Click here to explore their Geology Quest: |
Betrayal is traumatic. If you have been betrayed by someone you trusted, you know how it feels.
At first, you refuse to believe it. You feel disoriented. And you want to know how, when, where, and with whom, at the risk of becoming obsessed about it. Emotions surge – anger, hurt, fear.
You will need professional help to work through this trauma, especially if this is not the first time something like this has happened in your relational life. It is not uncommon that someone bonds on the basis of betrayal. That’s called a betrayal bond.
Please take the assessment below if you think you have been in relationships that involve betrayal bonding. |
My 2nd great grandfather James Rogan died on 21 April 1938 at 78 years of age. His death certificate tells a lot about both how he lived and how he died. He was born in Aurora, New York to James Rogan and Esther Callahan. He was a second generation American, as both his father and mother were born in Ireland. His primary occupation was in the steel mills, although what he actually did is not discernible.
The last months of his life were no doubt difficult both for him and his family. He suffered a serious fall on 10 January 1938, which led to a fracture of his right femur (thighbone). The femur is the largest bone in the human body, and it takes significant force to break. Breaks of the femur and the hip to which it connects can have significantly detrimental effects to the lifespan of the elderly, who suddenly lose all mobility. About 10% of people who break their hip die within the first 30 days. That number increases dramatically if there are other complications, including pneumonia, heart trouble, or another acute medical problem. In James’s case, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, no doubt brought on in part by his sudden immobility.
At the time of his death, he was being cared for at Saint Elizabeth’s Hospital in Youngstown but was previously living in the home of Catherine Rogan. His final arrangements were handled by D. A. McVean in Youngstown, long considered the Lowry family funeral home. However, he was a long time resident of New Castle, Pennsylvania, and that is where he is buried.
|Click to enlarge.
“Ohio, Deaths, 1908-1953,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-1942-21757-24359-29?cc=1307272 : accessed 09 Sep 2014), James Rogan, 1938; citing Youngstown, Mahoning, Ohio, reference fn 24019; FHL microfilm 2023561. |
The Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply (CIPS) recently published an article in it’s Supply Management Blog. The article is called The Six Fundamentals of procurement
The article is written by Francis Churchill and quotes Matthew Sparkes Deputy Director, Financial Services, Crown Commercial Service at the University of Gloucestershire in London.
Mr. Sparkes offers great practical advice for anyone old or young in a procurement function.
As someone who can relate to Mr. Sparkes in not being a “procurement person” by trade, I find great value in bringing experience from other fields into procurement.
For me, the experience of being an architect has greatly enhanced much of what I do in procurement. Throughout my procurement career, I have found many parallels between the process of architecture and the process of procurement.
Today, I want to share with you how the processes from these two seemingly unrelated professions align.
Procurement Profile / Project Programming
One of the first steps in architecture is developing a project program. During this phase of work, the architect spends time interviewing the Owner and his staff to develop a program for the space. This program is the foundation for a floor plan. It identifies the number of rooms, adjacencies between rooms, equipment that is needed for the space, and number of occupants the space should accommodate.
In procurement, we start the process by talking to stakeholders to understand the scope of services or goods that are needed. During these interviews, we ask probing questions, to help understand priorities, incumbent relationships, and projected spend. From these interviews we formulate a procurement profile that informs us on the size of the opportunity, helps us formulate a supplier profile, identifies priorities, and defines the scope of the sourcing.
Supplier Sourcing and Prequalification/ Blocking Diagrams
After an architect has a project program the next step in the process is to develop the blocking diagram. Blocking diagrams are used as a precursor to a schematic plan. The blocking diagram acts as a list of rooms graphically showing adjacencies between rooms and diagrammatically shows the size and scale of each room in relation to the others.
A supplier sourcing and prequalification similarly creates a list of potential bidders setting them side by side for evaluation. The prequalification process includes preliminary research on each supplier to help identify the best qualified vendors to solicit. We use KT scoring to generate a ranking and ultimately a short list of vendors to invite to bid.
RFP Development / Schematic Design
During the schematic phase of work the architect further develops the blocking plan into a conceptual floor plan and a schematic design. The architect documents the information collected in the project program and blocking diagram to develop the schematic design. This schematic design becomes the foundation for further development of the drawings. The schematic design is presented to the client for approval before moving on to the next phase.
In procurement, we developed the request for proposal from the information we collected in the procurement profile. The RFP becomes the foundation for the rest of the solicitation. We also use information learned during the pre-qualification about the supplier pool to enhance are qualification questionnaires. The request for proposal is then presented to the client for approval before releasing the solicitation.
Bid Analysis / Design Development
During design development the architect further develops the schematic plan using information and feedback received from the owner. The architect may also derive critical information from the code or discover key information from various sources such as engineers and product vendors that help further refine the details of his schematic plan. Once again before proceeding to the next phase of work the architect will present the design development drawings to the owner.
For procurement, bid analysis is another opportunity for discovery. Quotations are received from the bidders and set side by side for evaluation. Once again using KT scoring and line by line analysis we begin to see a select few vendors rise to the top. Our analysis reveals critical pieces of information about each vendor. As information allows us to further refine our negotiation strategies and our recommendations. This information is packaged and formatted to present to the owner for review and evaluation.
Contract Development / Construction Documents and Specifications
During the final phase of drawing development an architect pulls together the various details and pieces of information into a well coordinated set of drawings and specifications. Bearing in mind the importance of clear communication to the contractor the architect performs multiple reviews ensuring that each detail is properly coordinated with each plan. These documents are then prepared to present to the building authority for review and approval.
In preparing a contract, a procurement professional pulls together all of the relevant information into the contract. All of the terms and commitments made by the parties are pulled into the contract. Pricing exhibits and the scope of work documents are coordinated and properly labeled within the body of the agreement. This contract is formatted and finalize for review by the party’s legal representative.
Negotiations / Construction Administration
In the final phase of work, the architect conducts site visits to review the progress of the work. During these visits the architect may help answer questions about the design intent and clarify details. The architect may also documents field observations and report to the owner work that is not compliant with the contract documents.
In closing the solicitation, the procurement professional manages the documents as they pass from the owner to the vendor and back for execution. Terms may need to be negotiated between the parties often requiring the procurement professional to identify middle ground positions and clarify intent from either party. But procurement professional may also document other covenants and add commitments to the final draft of the agreement.
When I made the move from architecture to procurement, I wasn’t conscious of the parallels between these two professions. In some ways I wonder if these correlations are simply my own way of aligning one profession to the other. Regardless, I think it’s quite interesting to see how similar the processes of one correlates to the other.
What about you? Have you made a career move from one profession to another? If so, I wondered if you have made similar correlations to your former profession. Tell me your stories.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this content, please feel free to browse my previous articles and please like, share, comment, and subscribe. This helps promote my content and is greatly appreciated. |
I’m a student of the University of Colorado again. I’ve gone back to finish my bachelor’s in mathematics, which essentially involves fulfilling a bunch of core requirements. I’m going to start the discussion by mixing my experience of one class (religions of south Asia) with a concept from another class (connectedness from topology).
Last spring I took my (now ex-)’:girlfriend on a trip to Hawaii. While we were there, we attended a weekend immersive class on Sanskrit. The class was very “new-agey” — we chanted, meditated, in addition to learning Devanagari (the Sanskrit/Hindi alphabet) and something about Indian religion. The ideas combined with the approach fascinated and inspired me. I have never been much of a religious person; the religious ideas I had heard of always sounded a bit naive and silly. But this new approach gave me a glimpse of another way of looking at the world: the words of the Bhagavad Gita played with the gods, using them half as entities, half as concepts. The philosophical ideas, language, and religion we studied were clearly inseparable, all connected and synthesized into a single world view. Further, this world view seemed to incorporate my objections to the naivety of western world views — emphasizing the duality in all things, focusing not so much on right and wrong but on purpose and spirit, using the malleability and metaphor of truth.
My curiosity whetted, I enrolled in a class about Hinduism at the university. So far it has been a disappointment. What drew me to these ideas in the first place was the connectedness and duality — the yin and yang, so to speak — I perceived in the world view. And we have started by drawing thick lines categorizing the different approaches to divinity. An especially potent event in bringing to my attention my disappointment with the class occurred during our discussion of Bhakti. The professor began to describe the philosophy of Bhakti: that connecting with the divine is about love and devotion, that the details of ritual are not as important as a true spiritual devotion to god. Immediately after this description, the professor wrote on the board BHAKTI RITUALS. Um, teacher, did you not feel that just now? How did you build your immunity to cognitive dissonance?
We have been categorizing, deconstructing, analyzing this beautiful philosophy as if engineers. After the class I suspect I will know many facts, but have no understanding. If I were to talk to a yogi, he will consider me no closer to understanding his spirituality than any other American out of the hat. This is disappointing, since I don’t consider myself to have learned something until I understand it. We have a Hindu temple here in Boulder; I hope to find a way to study there and use the class as a supplement.
But why I am really writing this post is to help me to grip a vague sense I felt as I was processing after the BHAKTI RITUALS class. I am in a topology class this semester, and we are learning set-theoretic point-set topology. The constructivist in me winces every few minutes, lamenting the non-computability of everything we are discussing. I think the same cognitive orientation is fueling my dissatisfaction with the Indian religions class and my taste for constructivism. Classical mathematics seeks to separate the world into true and false, existence and nonexistence, equal and inequal. The inclusion of the law of excluded middle as obvious is evidence of this, as is the surprise felt by the mathematical world over Gödel’s incompleteness theorem. “What? We can’t eventually separate everything into two categories?!”
If you ask a set theorist whether ℕ = ℚ, they will probably say they are not equal (although have equal cardinalities). If you ask a type theorist whether ℕ = ℚ they will say “huh?”. The question cannot be answered, for we must consider what it means to treat 1 : ℕ as a ℚ, and we don’t know how to do that — not without a function that shows how. Indeed, in constructivism we have to be careful when talking about real numbers, since the set of observations matters, i.e. it matters how we look at them. And for any reasonable construction of the reals, their connectedness falls out of the constructivism of the theory: we cannot separate them into two categories in any way. A set theorist can, and has to define himself into a more realistic world where he can’t using the mechanism of topology.
Mathematicians are probably getting upset at me or thinking I’m an idiot. This isn’t a mathematical post, it’s philosophical, thus my fuzzy intuitive discussions. If you have the desire to leave an emphatic corrective comment at this point, maybe take a step back and try to make out the landscape with me. I don’t consider any of this true, I’m just trying to get a feel for the philosophically general idea of connectedness, outside of a particular formal system. I have the impression that we can think of the world — the real one or the mathematical one — this way and it might lead to a more accurate, if less “clear-cut”, way of thinking.
The pure untyped lambda calculus is connected in the Scott topology. This fact has fascinated me since I heard of it, trivial though it might be. We are used to adding traditional totally disconnected types to the lambda calculus and pretending bottoms don’t exist. I have been curious about what it would look like if we embraced this connectedness and extended lambda calculus with connected concepts. They may play more nicely in a connected system. I still have not made any concrete progress on this idea, but it appeals to me as potentially beautiful and powerful. Maybe we are computing in an awkward way without realizing it.
Did you like this post? Accelerate the flow of Karma :-) |
the great Australian poetry hoaxPosted: April 27, 2011 | |
This 1944 Autumn edition of Angry Penguins featured a painting of Sidney Nolan’s on the cover. (Image from ABC Radio National’s Bookshow where you can also find an audio download about the hoax poems included in the publication).
Angry Penguins was the creation of Max Harris and his editorial committee – John Reed, Sunday Reed and Sidney Nolan. This edition featured the work of Ern Malley whose work had been introduced to Harris by his ‘sister’ Ethel. But things weren’t necessarily as they seemed.
Mr. Brian Elliott, lecturer in Australian literature at the Adelaide University, has challenged Mr. Max Harris to prove the existence of Ern Malley, a poet ‘discovered’ by Harris. (The Max Harris link is to the Professional Historians Association of South Australia)
The mystery of Ern Malley is causing concern in literary circles not only in Adelaide, but through out Australia. The reason is that the poems are good, whoever wrote them. Some of them were included in the anthology of Australian verse collected by the American poet, Harry Roskelenko, and published in New York by Henry Vinnal.
AN alleged life story of Malley, together with all his poems, appears in the latest issue of ‘Angry Penguins.’ published by Reed & Harris. ………… Harris says:— ‘Recently I was sent two poems from a Miss Ethel Malley, who wrote saying they were found among her brother’s possessions after his death on July 23, 1943. Someone suggested to her that they might be of value, and that she send them to me for an opinion. ‘At this stage I knew nothing about the author at all, but I was immediately impressed that here was a poet of tremendous power working through a disciplined and restrained kind of statement into the deepest wells of human ex perience.’ ………… Adelaide University students who have seen the original of this letter and the original poems say that if it is a hoax it is an elaborately prepared one, as these documents appear to be genuine.
The two cheerful and healthy-minded young graduates of the Sydney University who perpetrated the much-discussed “Ern Malley” hoax, and who thus blew to smithereens the irritating pretensions and incomprehensible philosophy of a school of so-called “modern poetry,” are deserving, perhaps, of some higher distinction than the bogus doctorate conferred upon them by “the Sydney University Oxometrical Society.” But the authors of the “Ern Malley” documents, who labored so hard to make his pretended “poems” the most arrant gibberish, and whose highest expectations must have been exceeded when a laboriously bad skit on bad verse was hailed as the work of “a giant of contemporary Australian poetry,” will not wear the trappings, if any, of “doctors of oxometry,” with an ill grace. The one thing that remains to be thought of, is the invention of a fitting academic award for the poetasters and other literary quidnuncs [a self-important newsmonger and gossip] who took the fictitious “Ern Malley” to their bosoms, swearing that he was a genius after their own hearts, and implying, in the usual way, that all who ventured to pronounce him childish and incomprehensible, would but betray their own pathetic lack of aesthetic taste and spiritual perception. A wooden spoon or a leather medal, might conceivably meet the case. |
Sometimes you find stories that never saw the light of day in family conversations. When I fell across this article referring to Karl Krummel in the Courier Mail of 3 September 1945, it begged many questions.
The late Roger Mansell told the story of the SS Regensburg which transported survivors of the sinking of the Kirkpool and the Nankin (on which Karl Krummel was second engineer). Several ship transfers later, they found themselves in a civilian internment camp in Fukushima where they spent the next three years of their lives.
Thor sighted Kirkpool on afternoon of April 10th in poor visibility and tracked the vessel until near dark when she closed to track again using her early version radar. She closed range until 2007 hrs at 2,420 yards range torpedo launched, for a miss, and gunfire opened up. Of four shells fired in second salvo, three struck the Kirkpool. Thor ceased fire at 2011 hrs with the steamer on fire. The Kirkpool turned to ram or maybe lost steering control and gunfire was resumed for another minute. Thor stuck around for three hours searching for survivors. The 17 survivors (out of 46 crew) were picked up from the sea. Thor later transferred the survivors to the SS Regensburg. This ship already held POWs from the sinking of the Nankin, (who were also held in Fukushima camp).They were moved again, this time to the SS Dresden, a merchant ship bound for Japan, and then finally transferred to SS Ramses.
They were handed into Japanese custody by the German authorities on the 10th of July 1942 on board the SS Ramses in Yokohama harbour. On the night of the 10th /11th July 1942 they were taken north by train to the town of Fukushima and reached their destination, a Roman Catholic Convent on the outskirts of town which had been turned into a Civilian Internment Camp. There, the civilians were placed in the charge of a special branch of the local police force. One death and one birth were reported shortly after arrival.
We are fortunate to have access to the personal accounts of experience of the Nankin sinking and life in the Internment Camp by Cecil Saunders and Malcolm Ingleby Scott. This aerial photograph of the camp comes from Scott’s article.
In addition to the personal accounts, I found the book Lost at Sea – Found at Fukushima written by Andy Millar whose father was in the camp.
Here’s an excerpt from what looks to be an excellent way to steep yourself into the lives of David Millar, Karl Krummel and others during those difficult three years for them. |
Joselyn Mendoza is one of eight women who were arrested last week for protesting outside a Democratic Party event. Here’s why she is taking on the president and party leadership.
In my home country of Mexico, I endured discrimination for being a transgender woman. When I was 24, I decided to move to the United States, both to reunite with my mother and in search of a country that would accept me for who I am. In Mexico, I was abused and discriminated because of my gender identity.
But even in the U.S., the land of opportunity, my undocumented status and my gender identity led to further criminalization and discrimination. I was unjustly fired from my first job for reporting inappropriate behavior from coworkers, who made fun of me for who I was. In my next job, I was physically abused by one of my managers and I was afraid of speaking out or telling anyone.
I have had enough. I knew I had to speak out and take action, not only for myself but for the more than 267,000 undocumented LGBTQ immigrants across the country, who have two closets and two stigmas to fight every day.
I was arrested outside of the Democratic National Committee’s Women’s Leadership Forum Conference last week. As leaders of the Democratic Party, including President Obama, spoke on family values and the importance of women’s role in shaping America’s future, they seemed to forget the plight of immigrant mothers, sisters, and LGBTQ people who the president has allowed to be deported and detained.
Inside, the conference was highlighting the work and leadership of women within the party, but unfortunately, leaders like Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have stood idly by as mothers and children are torn apart.
Outside, I stood alongside seven other powerful women, each of us fighting for our families and our community. I fight for our trans sisters and brothers, who are in detention facing deplorable conditions, such as solitary confinement and (often) being prohibited from receiving essential hormone therapy. I fight for my mother, Lucia, who has sacrificed so much for our family, to make sure that my family can fulfill our dreams.
It was only a few months ago that President Obama promised to give deportation relief to millions of undocumented immigrants. When I heard President Obama give his speech from the Rose Garden, I dreamt of the day I would not have to live with the constant fear of discrimination. I thought I could finally live a life out of the shadows and live with dignity. I’d have similar relief like that of my younger brother, who is eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival, a program that has given him a new outlook on life and new opportunities.
Instead, the president, with cover from Democratic leadership, has asked our community to wait. He’s told my mother and me that our lives are expendable and we don’t matter. By delaying action, he leaves millions at risk of unjust deportation. He leaves LGBTQ immigrants under imminent threat of deportation, which for many could mean abuse or even death.
Until the president acts, we’ll continue escalating across the U.S., fighting for justice, our families, and our lives. We’ll confront any politician who stands in the way of justice, because justice delayed is justice denied.
To view the original article, click here. |
When a stay-at-home parent returns to the work force after years of child raising they frequently find that they are considered unqualified for their former occupation. They may need to return to school to refresh their skills. When they do find work, they frequently start with entry positions instead of a job comparable to their peers who never left their occupations.
Prior to 2011, divorce judges frequently compensated such stay-at-home parents with alimony awards designed to maintain their standard of living. However, in 2012 Massachusetts enacted an alimony reform law that can result in loss of security for the stay-at-home parent. The alimony reform law contains, among other provisions,1) a limitation preventing the award of alimony if child support is paid and the combined income of the parties is less than $250,000.00; 2) time limits for the period of alimony when alimony is granted; and 3) a termination of alimony at retirement age. Given the changes due to the alimony reform law, it is wise to plan for the potential of a divorce.
An agreement between the spouses can provide security for the stay-at-home spouse despite the changes caused by the alimony reform law. If the parties create such an agreement before marriage, it is called a pre-nuptial agreement. Many couples don't anticipate such situation before marriage. There is an alternative: a post-nuptial agreement. A post-nuptial agreement is an agreement between the spouses that is like a pre-nuptial except that it is executed after marriage. Massachusetts has joined the growing number of states that allow post-nuptial agreements in some circumstances. An agreement between the spouses which results in one spouse leaving the work force to raise children should be valid as a post-nuptial agreement in Massachusetts.
A person who is contemplating leaving work to raise children should consult an experienced lawyer about a pre-nuptial or post-nuptial agreement to compensate them for the anticipation of not working as a result of their decision.
Source: “Dostay-at-home moms need a 'postnup'?” by Jeff Landers published at Today.com |
Your bird may look all delicate and dainty, but the fact is, our feathered friends are much more resilient than we think. Especially when we give them the right TLC, from top to tailfeathers.
A well-maintained cage and routine veterinary check-ups are a great place to start. Other care your wingman needs would include regular exercise, such as free-flying (as opposed to falling, Mr. Petty) in a safe, enclosed space. These things not only build the foundation for a fit, healthy bird – they’ll also keep your brainy little Amazon as sharp as ever.
Now, because your bird is so strong to begin with, he’ll be hiding any signs of illness so well, you’ll need more than a trail of breadcrumbs to find them. Your best bet is to learn how to recognise these subtle changes in behaviour, while trying not to let on to your Lovebird that you’re checking them out. (OK, that didn’t sound quite right, but you get the drift.)
Signs of an ailing African Gray or other chirpy chum, may include:
- Fluffed feathers more frequently. (Try singing that 10 times fast.)
- Any discharge from the eyes or nostrils.
- Matted feathers around the eyes and beaks.
- Laboured breathing.
- Sitting on the bottom of the cage, instead of his perch.
- A decrease in being vocal.
- A decrease in eating and drinking.
- Less activity.
- Less preening.
- Significant change in colour, form or consistency of droppings, over a 12–24 hour period.
If you notice any of these tell-tail signs, take Polly over to the vet and she’ll be singing ‘I Feel Good’ in no time. So good, so good, she’s got YOU! |
Aspen University and the financialization of STEM degrees
Should those of us in private non-profits and public universities care about for-profit computer science education?
For-profit postsecondary education is a sector speckled with dubious practices and outright fraud that has largely operated as a small player in the design and research areas of STEM education. On August 2nd, 2017, Aspen University, a company offering a 25 month Doctor of Science degree in Computer Science for $31,000 started trading publicly on the Nasdaq Capital Markets Exchange. Eighty percent of Aspen University’s students are enrolled in nursing programs with fewer than ten graduates in the “doctorate” in Computer Science (Aspen University, 2017 4th Quarter Earnings Call Transcript).
We need to watch this for-profit STEM doctorate. The 2-year, 1-month, for-profit degree de-emphasizes the independent research capacity typically associated with doctorate holders and may be a harbinger of a growing marginal tier of educational offerings in computational sciences. For-profit educators like now defunct Corinthian College have historically capitalized on the hopes of first generation students who are unaware that they could get a higher quality degree for less at their local state school or even private non-profits, depending on the student and degree.
One of Aspen University’s key priorities, according to their mission statement, is to offer “responsibly priced” degrees. The Doctorate of Science in Computer Science will set students back ~$31,000 with on-time graduation according to Aspen University’s website. The pricing model is marketed like a subscription — $375 per month— reducing sticker shock. Aspen University sounds eminently affordable. There are also fees listed on the website, but these are downplayed in most of the copy. Still, the relevant comparison is the cost of obtaining a doctorate elsewhere: FREE tuition and fees. This pricetag is widely known within academia, but most people who don’t have PhDs assume all students, including graduate students, pay tuition. Those of us who have doctorates need to remember that the virtual absence of tuition in most PhD programs is insider knowledge. In 2013, only 2 percent of US residents held a doctorate.
Attending Aspen University for a computer science doctorate will be more expensive than attending a state university or private non-profit. The major financial benefit associated with attending Aspen U is that students can plausibly work part-time and earn a Doctor of Sciencein 2 years and 1 month, far shorter than the full-time 4–5 year commitment required of those earning Doctor of Philosophy degrees at state schools and private non-profit universities. The drawbacks of graduating quickly are large: most employers who require a PhD in computer science are also going to expect to see the publication history and letters of recommendation from tenured research professors associated with the 4–5 year PhD. As at other for-profit institutions, when schools merely exchange classes for tuition dollars, they may not provide students with the meaningful apprenticeship and professional development required to get the type of job commensurate with holding a Doctor of Philosophy.
To be fair, not all for-profits are the same. General Assembly is a for-profit providing solid technology skills-building courses, physical classrooms and all the networking that comes with them, AND excellent professional development to their students. They don’t bother offering a doctorate because they aren’t trying to ape the university system. Their services are transparent and high quality. I have no problem with for-profit education in general, but I do have a problem with degrees that piggy-back on the reputation of higher education without delivering a high quality product at a fair price.
There are other reasons — besides overpricing and de-emphasizing research — to be skeptical about Aspen University.
For one thing, their name implies that they are based in Aspen, Colorado. In fact, they are based in Denver with an operations base in Phoenix, running on money from investors largely based in the New York City metropolitan region (two of the investors are Ear, Nose, and Throat doctors from New Jersey; another is a real estate developer, also from New Jersey; another lives near me in Brooklyn and also has an affiliation with NYU).
Secondly, and much more importantly, the holding company had no interest in education at its inception. It originally incorporated as “Hidden Ladder” in 2010 when it offered penny stocks on a regional exchange to raise money to develop a ladder that homeowners could affix to the wall in their bedrooms and dangle from the window to escape house fires. Hidden Ladder never gained traction with large retailers like Home Depot and Loews, dropped the effort, but kept the legal shell. In 2011, the CEO left and the company got a new name: Elite Nutritional Brands. Elite Nutritional Brands had a CEO who ran a print marketing company, but never announced a product. That idea was also dropped.
In 2012, the holding company became affiliated with Aspen University, which was originally accredited in 1993. A cohort of ~10 mostly New York area investors came in at $50,000 minimum buy-ins. The school enrolls students, offers degrees, and generates value for shareholders, trading at $6.02 per share ($ASPU). This is a huge leap from the initial penny stock valuation of the holding company. Revenues are projected to be up 100% in Q4 of 2017 compared to Q4 of 2016. Financializing education is a move that will have consequences for the entire educational sector, not only for-profit schools, governments whose grants back them, and the students they serve.
With employers demanding STEM educated students faster than universities can prepare them or the Department of State can grant them visas, there are clear financial rewards available to for-profit schools that move into the computer science degree space. Some of the programs are excellent and fill gaps in the burgeoning demand that mainstream public and private non-profit schools are unable to scale up fast enough to meet. Some are weak. Unless we are careful, aspiring students will be fleeced and employers will still be facing a thin labor market, now with dubious degrees they’ll need to sort through. I trust many companies to do this, but not all. Companies that are not in tech and do not require technical interviews nevertheless hire programmers and engineers who go on to build the products we all use. These products could malfunction, they could be more susceptible to malware as Bruce Schneier has pointed out (cybersecurity is often not a top priority), they could be buggy and annoying, and they could be more susceptible to data breaches which put our personal information at risk.
Existing computer science programs in state schools and private for-profits must offer more degrees to a wider range of students. We need to expand to keep pace with the demand from students and employers alike or we will be partly culpable for marginal offerings. One thing that no educators like to admit is that we may have to market in order to reach underserved students who are out of our typical reach. We need to reach out to would-be tech workers who are not 18–24 years old and offer classes after work when they can attend. We need to reach out to lower income communities where people may not feel they can afford college.
Part of this problem is a classic information assymetry between students who — by definition! they are students looking for education — do not have the wealth of information available to institutions whose reason for being revolves around selling them degrees. Many of my colleagues feel that marketing is a waste of money, an activity with no redeemable value, but I hope we can begin to think differently. The students we miss when we refuse to full-stack outreach programs are most likely the first generation in their family to get PhDs.
It is a falsehood to think we can keep science “pure”, apolitical, and free from the financialization engulfing one industrial sector after the next. When financialization engulfs education we will be imperiling the very playing field we rely upon for launching all subsequent careers.
With the great privilege of being professors with voices in the knowledge production class, we have a great responsibility to reduce information asymmetries and empower our students and would-be students to succeed in technology jobs. They will build the future we all inhabit. Let’s do our part to make sure that future has space to test the full range of good ideas bubbling up out of our astoundingly rich and diverse collection of minds and experiences. |
The federal government recently passed Bill C-13 in an effort to prevent anti-cyber bullying across Canada. The legislation is aimed at combating online harassment by making it illegal to distribute intimate images of a person without their consent.
To adapt to ever changing technologies, the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act gives police the tools they need to remain effective in investigating crime. It modernizes investigative tools in the Criminal Code to facilitate the investigation of crime that involves electronic evidence, including the new offence of distributing an intimate image of a person without consent.
The goal of Bill C-13 is to make Canadians, young people in particular, safer while allowing them to protect their personal integrity when it comes to sharing images and information online. The consequences of sharing such intimate images can often be devastating.
In addition to making it illegal to distribute non-consensual intimate images, the Bill will also:
*Empower a court to order the removal of intimate images from the Internet;
*Permit the court to order forfeiture of the computer, cell phone or other device used in the offence;
*Provide for reimbursement to victims for costs incurred in removing the intimate image from the Internet; and
*Empower the court to make an order to prevent someone from distributing intimate images.
For more information on cyber-crime and the new legislation please visit the Government of Canada website.
Cyberbullying (JPG file, 113.0K bytes) |
Online International Collaboration Demonstrates Reliability of Quantum Simulations for Materials Design
Scientists from Duke University teamed up with colleagues from over 30 universities and institutes to investigate to what extent quantum simulations of material properties agree when they are performed by different researchers and with different software. Thanks to an online collaboration, they successfully demonstrated that the most recent generations of codes agree well, in contrast to earlier generations. Their study appears in this week's edition of Science.
Reproducibility does not come easily
It's a corner stone of science: independent yet identical experiments should produce identical results. Only in this way can science identify ‘laws’, which lead to new insight and new technologies. However, several recent studies have pointed out that such reproducibility does not always come spontaneously. In scientific areas as diverse as psychology research and genetic research, cases were identified where repeating previous experiments led to very different results. Even predictions by computer codes require caution, since the way in which theoretical models are implemented may affect simulation results. This is a reason for concern in any field of research that critically depends on computer simulations. For the study and design of materials, for instance, there are several independent software packages available based on quantum physics. They are moreover being used increasingly often in automated procedures with limited human supervision. It is therefore essential to know to what extent predicted materials properties depend on the code that has been used.
Online collaboration brings experts together
Despite the need for reliable property predictions of materials, the reproducibility of quantum simulations had not been investigated systematically before. This is mainly because there is no single person sufficiently skilled in all existing codes. Scientists from Duke University therefore joined forces with more than 60 colleagues, bringing together the know-how of over 30 prominent institutions. The researchers investigated 40 different methods to describe the influence of pressure in 71 different crystals. Due to the highly international composition of the team, discussions and collaboration were mainly conducted via online tools – similarly to the way people collaborate to write Wikipedia. The team can now demonstrate that, although a few of the older methods clearly yield deviating results, predictions by recent codes are entirely equivalent. They moreover define a quality criterion that allows the verification of future software developments against their extensive database. New test data are continuously added to a publicly available website. The researchers involved hope that their work will contribute to higher standards for materials property simulations, and that it will facilitate the development of improved simulation codes and methods.
Led by Kurt Lejaeghere and Stefaan Cottenier of the Center for Molecular Modeling at Ghent University in Belgium, the collaboration investigated 40 different methods to describe the so-called equation of state in 71 different crystals.
“If you want to predict a material’s properties, you need to know what its structure is at given conditions. And to predicts its structure, you need its equation of state,” said Volker Blum, associate professor of mechanical engineering and materials science and of chemistry at Duke, whose code called FHI-aims proved to be one of the most accurate. However, there is more work to be done.
“The equation of state goes a long way to make sure the foundation is sound, but many quantities require additional numerical approximations,” said Blum. “These would be good to test in the future in a similarly broad way. The present study is, in a sense, a trailblazer for such work.”
"Reproducibility in density-functional theory calculations of solids." Kurt Lejaeghere et. al. Science 351 (2016), DOI: 10.1126/science.aad3000 |
21' (Full HD)
French Version with English subtitles.
We did not fall for the vain temptation of defining love, endlessly sang in poetry, described on prose and reflected in philosophy. As to what concerns family, there is no consensus about the origin of the word, nor its definition. Wikipedia presents one of its meanings: “an invisible set of functional demands which regulates its members’ interaction considering it also a system operating through transitional patterns”. We find it a very wide satisfactory meaning under the scope of contemporary family mutations, quite contrary to the definition suggested by Claude Lévi-Strauss.
This French anthropologist suggests that "family arises from the moment there is a marriage, and consequently there are spouses and children as a result of the union." In our opinion this is an outdated significance, since marriage doesn’t hold anymore the exclusiveness of the origin of family bonds, notwithstanding that it is a sacrament in most of the cultures and many mating rituals can be included there. With present time’s evolution of society, new family configurations appeared. It is true that single parent families largely result from the rupture of marriages, but they derive too, from the possibility a woman has to generate a child independently. And there is also the rainbow family, consisting of a homosexual couple with one or more children, not necessarily fruit of a marriage. There is the stereotype of the happy family, living together in harmony, and on the other side there is the dysfunctional one, or even the one where, for a number of reasons, hatreds are generated.
There are countless dysfunctional situations yet we can’t resist recalling Greek mythology in the figure of Erigone, the daughter of Aegisthus and Clytemnestra. [...] That is why we really believe that within a family, whatever structure it may have, the common denominator lies, indeed, on a functional framework which manages the interactions among its members. The narrative we have created starts with the video "Divorced" in which the author, Mireille Loup, a particularly good actor, embodies a group of various women in their forties who raise their children alone.
Rui Prata in She Loves me, She Loves me not, catalogue of the festival Encontros da Imagem, Braga, Portugal, 2013.
Cameraman: Héloïse Gousset. |
Amnesty International reports a rise in death sentences world-wide but warns capital punishment does not deter crime. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).
ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION Governments using executions to punish crime and "terrorism" are responsible for a 28% rise in death sentences worldwide, a report released by Amnesty International said on Wednesday (April 1). The annual report, which was launched at a news conference in London, detailed that despite a spike in the awarding of the death penalty, 22% fewer executions took place in 2014 than the previous year. In 2014, an Egyptian court sentenced more than 500 members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group to death, in what has become the largest mass death sentence in modern history. Nigeria imposed 659 sentences last year, with some used to prosecute soldiers who had refused to participate in fighting militants Boko Haram. Pakistan lifted a moratorium on the death penalty in December in response to the massacre of 141 people in a Peshawar school, hanging several militants believed to be responsible for the attack. According to the report, the number of executions in the U.S. fell from 39 in 2013 to 35 in 2014, but the country faced condemnation for three botched executions using new methods to kill after a change in European Union policy on selling drugs believed to be used in the lethal injection. Amnesty's report said that China was the worst offender worldwide, with the charity claiming it executes thousands but that the figures are kept a state secret. 140 countries have so far abolished capital punishment, with others looking set to follow in 2015. |
First of all, don’t bolt your entire living room set to the
floor beneath. Don’t keep yourself up at night imagining nightmare scenarios.
In other words, don’t panic. You can baby-proof your home
and live to tell the story. Just start with the basics, and build from there.
We promise. It’s that easy.
crawling. Really. “Get down on your hands and knees and crawl around the
room,” says safety expert Debra Holtzman, author of The Safe Baby: A
Do-It-Yourself Guide to Home Safety and Healthy Living. “You will be
surprised by what you see!” What can you pull up on? Is it stable, or will it
crash to the floor? What can you knock over? Will it break when it hits the
ground? What can you grab and chew (assuming that was a goal)? What can you
open down there? And what can you close?
2. Now stand
up, and head to your kitchen. Stash all poisonous and hazardous products
out of your child’s reach and sight.
Get locks and safety latches for your cabinets and drawers. You can also buy
appliance locks for the oven, the microwave, the refrigerator and the trash
compactor. Remember to cook on the stove’s back burners whenever possible and
always keep your pot handles turned to the back of the stove.
3. Next, consider
your television set. “TVs have gotten huge,” says Dr. Garry Gardner, a
pediatrician in private practice in Darien, Ill., and chairman of the Council
on Injury, Violence and Poison Prevention for the American Academy of
Pediatrics. “They are huge, and then
they are put on small TV stands and they are not stable.” Anchor that screen to
the wall to ensure it does not smash down on an adventurous little one. While
you’re at it, anchor the bookshelves. Anchor chests of drawers. Anchor paintings,
and anything else capable of teetering. Toddlers climb up furniture. That’s
just what they do. Make sure your furniture is ready before your baby is.
4. Lock up anything
that could be trouble -- the medicine cabinet, the toilets, drawers (so they
are not used by your toddler as a makeshift step-ladder), etc. Put a deadbolt
on exterior doors so your child cannot let herself in and out at will.
5. Cover up danger.
Cushion sharp furniture edges with furniture guards. Put outlet covers on
electrical outlets, but make sure those covers cannot be easily removed by the
child and are not choking hazards. Put a gate or a guard around the fireplace.
Glass doors may prevent little ones from falling into the flames, but they can
still burn their hands if they press them against the hot glass.
6. Gate off the
top and bottom of staircases with hardware-mounted safety gates. If you just
want to separate, say, the kitchen from the playroom, a pressure-mounted gate
that can be easily installed and removed is fine, Holtzman says.
7. Installwindow guards on all windows from the ground floor up. If that gets too
expensive, try a window-stopping device. Screens, Holtzman says, do NOT offer
8. Watch out
for button batteries, otherwise known as lithium batteries. They are about
the size of a nickel and power common household objects such as TV remotes,
cameras, watches, singing/talking greeting cards, and hearing aids, to name a
few. They are also deadly if swallowed. “If a child swallows one and it gets
stuck in the esophagus, the moisture in the esophagus sets up a current, the
battery gets activated, and it can burn a hole in the esophagus in four hours,”
Gardner says. “If a child swallows a battery, it’s an emergency.” |
With the end of the year holidays approaching, and much gift buying and giving happening, that old phrase keeps on popping into my head. I was wondering just how long we have been concerned with scams and buyer's remorse. We can probably trace it back to 1523, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, when writer John Fitzherbert wrote to warn buyers to ride horses first before purchasing one to see if the horse is tame or wild. Just like back then we hope, when purchasing a product or service, to find the one that makes us the happiest. At MCPL we are committed to providing information to help our customers make informed choices in the marketplace. Here are some great resources to help you be an informed consumer.
ProductsConsumer Reports. It is a great source to get unbiased product testing and ratings information. Their general information about products is a great way to help customers know what to look for when purchasing a product. Once you know what features you want you can check that product's ratings. Products are rated from excellent to poor based on test results, features are mentioned, and they have their recommendations for best buy.
ServicesIf you are interested in a local service and not sure what company to go with have a look at Washington Consumers' Checkbook. It has ratings, comments, and advice on many local services from Accountants to Wood Finishers. Once you find the service you are interested in you can limit the companies to within a specified number of miles of your zip code. Companies are rated for quality, price, and the percentage of customers who rated the service as superior on their survey for overall performance. You can also access their customer survey results and comments. Washington Consumers' Checkbook is available online, but can be accessed only at a library branch.
AutomobilesConsumer Reports) and auto repair services and auto insurance (Washington Consumers' Checkbook), you have online access to Auto Repair Reference Center. It contains up-to-date repair and maintenance information on almost all domestic and imported vehicles. ASE-certified technicians created all of the content. Interested in purchasing or selling a car? Have a look at the Kelley Blue Book and the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) for car values. Automobile Recall and Defect Information from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and information on Maryland's Lemon Law can be found on our Automobiles resource guide.
HealthHealth and Wellness Resource Center is a trusted source for articles on health, medicine, and wellness from magazines, journals, and reference books. It includes information on diseases and conditions but also includes trusted health websites and a medical dictionary. If you would like to research doctors that you are interested in seeing based on years of practice, medical school attended, primary specialty, state of license, and board certification, Reference USA is a good source. You can research physicians' state licences, including disciplinary actions, for Maryland and Washington, D.C. on our Health resource guide. To find rated doctors, hospitals, and more have a look in the Washington Consumers' Checkbook. Health information is vast, rapidly changing, and sometimes presents contradictory viewpoints. It must be evaluated critically by the user.
Nonprofits and CharitiesThis time of year a lot of individuals donate to nonprofits and charities. With so many organizations it can be difficult to find those that match your interests. It's also good to know what the nonprofit or charity does with your donation. For example, the State of Maryland has a Charitable Organization Division that registers, regulates and renews charitable organizations doing business in Maryland. We have resources to assist you in researching and evaluating charities.
Government HelpMontgomery County's Office of Consumer Protection you can file complaints and search their complaint records. The State of Maryland also has a Consumer Protection Division where you can file complaints and get important consumer information. From the Maryland State Department of Labor, Licensing, and Regulation you can check to see if businesses or individuals are licensed in Maryland before doing business. The federal government also has many consumer protection agencies and departments.
We’re happy to provide you with the resources you need to make informed consumer choices this holiday season and beyond! |
High School Book Club (aka the HBC)
The HBC is open to all academic students in the 9th through 12th grades who like to read and discuss great books!
Students in the club choose a book that they would all like to listen to at the same time and receive copies of that book. A date is set to meet a few weeks later during lunch time. At this meeting, the students and the librarian discuss what happened in the book and how they felt about it.
One of the goals of this club is to participate in the Gateway Readers Award Program for high school students. Students read or listen to at least 3 books from the current list to participate. To learn more about this program, click here: Gateway Readers Award Program
After reading at least three books from the Gateway list, students choose other books that they would like to listen to and discuss for the rest of the school year.
An end-of-the-year activity is planned for all who participated in the Gateway Program each year. Past excursions took HBC members to the public library to learn about downloadable books and to a book store, where they could browse through the recorded bookshelves and purchase books for themselves. Other years, club members enjoyed a pizza-and-movie-night at school during which they watched a movie based on one of the books they have read, or if the timing is right, to a theater to watch a new movie based on one of the teen books they've read. The whole point of the HBC is for high school students to enjoy popular books for teens with their peers. Students in the original HBC in 2005 established the ground rules, listed below, for how the meetings should proceed:
Book Discussion Club Rules:
- Everyone's opinion is important.
- It is okay to disagree with one another.
- Everyone will be polite.
- Everyone is encouraged to participate, with no one person monopolizing the discussion.
- Everyone should try to be on time.
- There will be no throwing library books or venting your anger on library books! |
While reading this tale; I discovered that the people who decided they were in charge of what is deemed fit for the Bible, need to resign from their positions of power. Who put them in charge of the worlds Spiritual walk and Understanding of the Most High and His Son? Most believe this book was written in pre-Christ era; while others believe it was written many years after Our Savior, however Enoch was Written in Aramaic and found in or around Israel and/or Jordan: yet it’s use is still discouraged even though there are several references between the Bible and this book including direct quotes. One reason it is not shined upon is a text in Enoch 71; 14 & 17 where the Most High calls Enoch the Son of Man….. Must I remind them of Ezekiel 37 where the Most High says Son of Man prophecy (speaking to Ezekiel) unto these bones that they may Live……. Enoch seems to add substance some of the scriptures that had us just a little bit stomped; other than the two scriptures the refer to Enoch as the Son of Man, I can’t find anything contradicting the Bible or Torah teachings. It also gives us a detailed account of why, when and what took place when the angels fell….. So lets get into where these two books meet: Let us begin with the giants.
- Enoch 6:1-6 And it came to pass that when the children of men had multiplied in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters 2 and the angels, the children of heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said one to another: “Come let us choose wives from among the children of men and get us children” 3 And Semjaza, who was their leader, said unto them : I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.’ 4 And they all answered him and said: Let us all swear an oath, and bind ourselves…….. 5 Then swear they all together and bound themselves……. 6 And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared…..
- Genesis 6:1-4 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
- Enoch 1:9 And behold! He cometh with ten thousand of His holy ones to execute judgment upon all, And to destroy the ungodly: And to convict all flesh Of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, And of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.
- Jude1:14-16 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,15 To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.16 These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage. Zechariah 14:5 And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the Lord my God shall come, and all the saints with thee. Revelation 19: 11-14 11 And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.12 His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself.13 And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God.14 And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean . (HalleluYah)
- Enoch 13:3 Then I went and spoke to them all together, and they were all afraid, and fear and trembling seized them.
- James 2:19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.
- Enoch 5:13 Wherefore have ye left the high, holy and eternal heaven, and lain with women, and defiled yourselves with the daughters of men and taken yourselves wives, and done like the children of earth, and begotten giants as your sons.
- Jude 1:6 & 13 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. 13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.
- Enoch 18:2 And I saw the cornerstone of the earth; and I saw the four winds which bear the which bear the earth and the firmament of the heaven
- Revelation 7:1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. Zechariah 6 : 1-5 And I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came four chariots out from between two mountains; and the mountains were mountains of brass.2 In the first chariot were red horses; and in the second chariot black horses;3 And in the third chariot white horses; and in the fourth chariot grisled and bay horses.4 Then I answered and said unto the angel that talked with me, What are these, my lord?5 And the angel answered and said unto me, These are the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth.
I can go on and on with these many similarities, but I am sure you got my drift so I hope that you find this read as interesting as I have.
Book of Enoch 2nd Edition Ronald K. Brown
Holy Bible KJV |
Maniac (William Lustig, 1980)
How often has the seasoned moviegoer watched a set-up like the one in this scene? One person has pursued another into a public restroom. He checks the first stall for the pursued. Then the second. Then the third. At the last stall, the hunter either gives up interest or the hunted bursts out in surprise confrontation. Here, the predator feigns disinterest and leaves before the final stall, only to spring upon the relieved prey a few moments later. The movements of Joe Spinnell as the titular maniac are captivating here. Spinnell appears behind MTA bars; his hands caress them. He walks slowly as if he is not even in pursuit of his victim. When he enters the graffiti-laden restroom he takes small deliberate steps. He appears to drop interest and leave; the music stops and the actress' breathing takes up the whole soundscape. Peace. Relief. When the expected murder comes, Spinnell's appearance in the mirror is sudden but his movements remain deliberate.
Part of what makes Maniac a disturbing work is that it connects the trope of the omnipotent slasher-villain with the insecurities of abandoned spaces. A subway station's restroom, late at night, bereft of transit employees, blurs the line between public and private. In a multi-stall public restroom there are no social taboos about one person entering the restroom, assuming gender conformity. But if the normative gender line is crossed this is the first cause for alarm. So a scene like this one draws upon everyday, if submerged, anxieties about social behavior—can the “rules” of the restroom, flimsy as seem are in the face of a maniac, defer pursuit? Well, unfortunately for the victim, not quite.
The first time I ever saw Maniac (1980) I had mistaken its release date with one of William Lustig's later Maniac Cop series (1988, 1992, and 1993). I soon realized my mistake, but at first I marveled at how sincerely Maniac recreated a whole era. “Even more than Ferrara circa 1990,” I thought to myself, “this movie really nails what we'd come to think of as the scummy, criminal charms of pre-Giuliani New York!” But of course Maniac didn't preserve the aesthetic artifacts of 1980 in 1990; instead it really was just a plain old artifact from 1980. Even still, I'm transfixed by this movie as a bodega-brand reimagination of Psycho. And I appreciate how it connects its threatening moments across the texture and feeling of different kinds of places—home, hotel, subway, streetside. Its this effusive sense of danger that reinvigorates a convention of checking every stall in the bathroom—even if we've seen it a hundred times.
Part of our on-going video series, The Last Place You Look |
Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency (CCSVI)
From MSAA’s MS Research Update 2015
Written and compiled by Stephen Krieger, MD
From approximately 2009 through 2013, the Chronic Cerebrospinal Venous Insufficiency (CCSVI) theory of MS pathogenesis received considerable attention. The evidence continues to increase that occlusions/obstructions of the vascular system in cerebrospinal veins (certain veins located in the head and neck), imaged with ultrasound and magnetic resonance venography, do not appear to be related to MS.
Reports from an ongoing study at the University of Texas Health Sciences Center in Houston showed that people with and without MS had abnormalities consistent with CCSVI, and that this abnormality was not found to be more common in people with MS. The group used strict ultrasound criteria definitions, and concluded that their tests – using neurosonography and magnetic resonance venography – did not support the concept that CCSVI is causally involved in MS.
Several vascular-intervention procedures to address the reported venous narrowing in MS are being studied. However, these procedures have also been offered in clinical practice, outside of the safety oversight inherent in clinical trials. Shortly after the American Academy of Neurology’s (AAN) meeting in mid-2012, the FDA issued an alert about risks, including death, associated with these surgical treatments of CCSVI.
The FDA Safety Communication regarding CCSVI treatment in MS stated that the FDA believes there is no reliable evidence from controlled clinical trials that this procedure is effective in treating MS. Data to support CCSVI as a clinical entity on its own or its relationship with MS are inconclusive and at times, contradictory. The FDA believes that using these medical devices in CCSVI treatment procedures poses a risk to patients for several reasons.
First, there is no clear diagnostic evidence that CCSVI exists as a distinct clinical disorder or is linked to MS. Second, the venous stenoses seen on imaging tests may be normal variants and not related to a disease process. Furthermore, the safety and effectiveness of using balloon angioplasty devices or stents in the internal jugular or azygos veins have not been established, and that major risks, including death, have been associated with these procedures.
The largest CCSVI study to date was presented at ECTRIMS in the fall of 2012. In the CoSMo study, Comi and Italian colleagues studied nearly 2,000 people with MS and other neurological diseases, as well as healthy controls. Differences in CCSVI between MS and other neurologic conditions and healthy participants were not statistically different, and the study group concluded that the data did not support that CCSVI is a disease connected to MS.
For more information on CCSVI and the FDA’s warning, please refer to MSAA’s online news articles, “FDA Issues CCSVI Treatment Warning” and “CCSVI Update.” These may be accessed by visiting MSAA’s website at mymsaa.org and selecting “News from MSAA” under “MS News,” and then scrolling down to the articles on CCSVI. |
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Install Lombok for Eclipse on Mac
I am a big fan of Lombok. It makes my life much easier. You can consult the official instructions on how to install most things: here. However, it turns out that installing Lombok for Eclipse on Mac is not as easy as it suppose to. That is because, on Mac, Eclipse files are combined into Eclipse.app file which Lombok does not natively recognized. So for those who has the same problem, here are the step to do just that. Note that this is tested for Eclipse Oxygen (or Photon) on macOS Sierra (verion 10.12.3).
- Download lombok.jar Lombok comes in a jar file which can be downloaded from here.
Put the jar file for Eclipse
The lombok.jar must be placed where Eclipse is expected.
In Mac, Eclipse comes in an app file called Eclipse.app.
Depending on how it is installed but it is likely be in the Application folder.
To put the jar file in the right place,
the file must be put in Eclipse.app/Contents/MacOS folder
which is in side the Eclipse.app.
To to that
- Right click on Eclipse.app (seen as just Eclipse)
- Select "Show Package Contents"
- Browse to "Contents" then "MacOS"
- Drop the jar file there.
- Tell Eclipse to load lombok For Lombok to work, it has to be loaded as an agent. This can be done by adding add '-javaagent:lombok.jar' to the end of Eclipse.app/Contents/Eclipse/eclipse.ini. See the above stop on how to get to the inner contents of Eclipse.app.
- Run Eclipse Lombok will be loaded at the time Eclipse starts so if it is running, it has to be restarted.
- Enable Annotaion Processing for the project. Lombok utilizes many techinques but the most important trick involves annotation processing. Thus, we need to tell Eclipse to enable annotation processing.
- Clean/build the project. Now clean and rebuild projects so that Lombok can start doing its magic!
Happy coding! Nawa Man |
Top Ten Picture Books That Encourage Us To Get Outside And Explore by Wendy BooydeGraaff
Reading seems like an indoor thing, or maybe an outdoor activity if there’s a hammock or a nice chaise lounge nearby. These picture books, though, encourage a whole lot more than that. They inspire kids and adults to get outside and interact with nature, the weather, the wide, wide world, no matter what season or time of day.
Goodbye Summer, Hello Autumn by Kenard Pak
Here the chatty narrator says hello to everything she meets on her walk: trees, wind, beavers, chill in the air. This book is all about noticing the world, its beauty and its changes, especially as nature moves from summer to autumn. Try going outside after reading this book and not saying hello to the first tree you see.
Snow by Uri Shulevitz
In this classic picture book, a gray city turns white with snow and everyone (including the dog and the goose, Mother Goose and Humpty Dumpty) comes out to play, highlighting the magical quality of snow. Snow is always an invitation to dance outside and after every reading of this book, I’m itching for that first snowfall.
And Then It’s Spring by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Erin Stead
Spring is the season I’m most eager for and this picture book captures that intense longing for green and newness. There’s a great spread where a child is ear down to the ground, listening for seeds that grow. It begs us to go outside and explore, and yes, listen to the earth.
Worm Weather by Jean Taft, illustrated by Mark Hunt
The fun language splashes into our imaginations. After reading this, kids will cheer for the next rainy day so they can stomp in puddles and run from thunder. Yes, it’s one of the few picture books where kids are outside in a thunderstorm.
Sail Away poems by Langston Hughes, illustrated by Ashley Bryan
One way of enjoying the great outdoors is via boat. Sail the nighttime waters or nap on the beach beside the calm. Visit rivers, bridges, mermaids alongside the seaworthy poems and illustrations collected in this book.
Mae and the Moon by Jami Gigot
Not many books encourage kids to go out at night; Mae’s friendship with the moon makes the nighttime warm and inviting, full of things to watch and find. Moonlight is surprisingly un-dark, and letting kids in on the beauty of the night brings life-long pleasure.
Flashlight by Lizi Boyd
Walking around the dark forest, a boy’s flashlight beams colour onto the black and white illustrations. Skunks, field mice and an owl are all illuminated, until bump, the boy falls and the flashlight shines on him, giving the woodland creatures a chance to spy on him.
Firefly July: A Year of Very Short Poems selected by Paul B. Janeczko, illustrated by Melissa Sweet
True to the title, these very short poems take us through each season, reveling in mud, noticing the wind, understanding the magic of mist and fog. The poems included are by well-known poets, such as William Carlos Williams, Richard Wright and Emily Dickinson, and are accessible to child-readers, perhaps because they all focus on the outdoors.
Finding Wild by Megan Wagner Lloyd, illustrated by Abigail Halpin
Discovering the many varieties of wild out there makes nature a mysterious entity that seems vast. Even in the city, which seems “clean and paved, ordered and tidy,” you can look and look and eventually you’ll find wild again. Which leads to…
Sidewalk Flowers by Jon Arno Lawson, illustrated by Sydney Smith
Wild flowers are all over the city’s cracks and a child collects and redistributes them while on a walk with her father. I love the dual story here: the child is all about noticing and interacting with the environment, while the adult is all about talking on the phone and getting to the destination quickly. They are outside together, even though their purposes for being there couldn’t be more different.
I’m sure you have many favourites that you’d love to tell me about in the comments. Please do—I’d love to make a huge list of them on Pinterest. But if you’ll excuse me, there’s something about writing this post that makes me want to run outside first.
Wendy BooydeGraaff is the author of the picture book SALAD PIE (Ripple Grove Press 2016) which has inspired several children to go outside, pick up shiny gum wrappers at the park and add them to a pretend pie. You can find out more at her website, and you can read about many other picture book authors and illustrators at On the Scene in 2016, a picture book debut blog. Connect and share your favourite outdoorsy books @BooyTweets, on Pinterest or Goodreads. |
|Base price||30 zm|
|Monster use||Will not be used by monsters.|
Normally, corpses of dead monsters will rot away quickly, or they may be too large for one person to eat. Applying a tinning kit to put the corpse in a tin can will preserve it for future consumption, or as a trophy. However, you cannot sacrifice tinned corpses, and partially eaten corpses cannot be tinned.
Many damaging corpses do not cause their usual damage if tinned; normally, Z and M are sickening to eat, but they become edible when tinned. This is because tins cannot be tainted, and the taint in the zombie and mummy corpses is removed by the tinning process. Poisonous and acidic corpses are also rendered harmless. However, corpses which turn you to stone, turn you to slime, stun you or cause you to hallucinate will still have the same effect when tinned. Additionally, tins of corpses will provide the same intrinsic as a corpse alone. This makes them quite useful when working with giants and dragons, and for keeping tengu corpses to eat once you have a ring of teleport control to avoid getting uncontrolled teleportitis. It should go without saying, but if eating a corpse is cannibalism, eating a tin of that corpse is too. Tinning dwarf zombies or dogs doesn't make eating them less bad if you are a dwarf.
Tins made from a tinning kit always have the same BUC status as the tinning kit, and are either homemade or rotten; its status as homemade or rotten is determined when the tin is eaten. Blessed tins can be opened in one turn. Uncursed tins are occasionally rotten and cursed tins always are. Homemade tins of foo only have 50 nutrition, making it possible to consume several giants or dragons without becoming satiated. Rotten tins provide negative 50 nutrition.
An uncursed tinning kit is included in the starting equipment of the Archaeologist, containing 30 to 99 charges.
Tinning kits only have a limited number of charges, and may need to be recharged after much use. See Charging#Tinning kit for more details.
There are many situations in which tinning a corpse is a good idea.
- As an Archaeologist, food is sometimes scarce at the start. It may be worth tinning small monsters to raise their nutrition until a good supply is secured. Soldier ants, Sewer rats, Rock moles, Ravens, Rabid rats, Newts, Killer bees, Iguanas, Green molds, Giant rats, Giant beetles, Giant ants, Geckos, Floating eyes, and Brown molds are all prime early candidates where tinning will raise their nutrition at the risk of being rotten, until you can get the kit blessed.
- If you are too full to eat them soon, tin monsters which may grant intrinsics you don't have yet to save them for later. Similarly, tinning giants is useful because they boost strength.
- You may also want to tin intrinsic-granting corpses when you already have the intrinsic in case you lose it. This is particularly useful with dragons and floating eyes which are guaranteed to grant their respective intrinsics.
- As discussed above, poisonous and sickening corpses become safe to eat when tinned.
- Tin tengu and eat them once you have a ring of teleport control (or a farily large number) for the intrinsic because they might give you teleportitis instead, if you do not want that. Similarily, in that case, eat leprechaun and nymph tins only after getting extrinsic or intrinsic teleport control.
- Tin an invisible stalker and eat it once you have some means of becoming invisible, even if temporarily. You will gain the invisibility and see invisible intrinsics permanently from one meal.
- A blessed tin of nurse meat will restore you to full health in two turns. But be warned - for humans, this is cannibalism.
- Tinning a troll is a good way to keep it from reviving; this is especially useful on the Barbarian quest.
- A blessed tin of acid blob (or other acidic monster) always opens in one turn and can save you from stoning. The acid damage is removed by the tinning process, but the unstoning properties of the acid are NOT. Note that while a cursed lizard corpse or a cursed potion of acid will still work, a cursed tin of acid blob meat can take a long time to open, far too long to use in emergencies. Therefore it is important to track the tins' BUC if you go this route.
- Tinning can be performed while riding so you don't need to dismount to eat corpses. This can be important if you are not a knight, the corpse is too heavy to carry and your steed is difficult to keep tame (i.e. Ki-rin).
Consider tinning named monsters and keeping them as trophies. A tin of Medusa or Wizard of Yendor meat is a pleasant item to find in your inventory.
The act of tinning involves gloveless contact with the corpse. Thus, unless you have stoning resistance, attempting to tin a cockatrice or chickatrice will cause instant death by stoning.
Tinning kits are not considered magical tools when polypiling.
Tinning in the Real World
NetHack's tinning kit is not considered a magical tool for purposes of polymorphing, but it is hard to say what kind of non-magical object(s) in the real world it is meant to correspond to. Home canning of meats is a fairly laborious process that involves cutting the meat into appropriate pieces, usually salting and partially cooking it, packing it into containers and then boiling the containers in a pressure cooker for over an hour. The pressure cooker is needed to raise the cooking temperature above 100 degrees C (212 degrees F), to eliminate dangerous microbes. This corresponds to the concept in NetHack of tinned food not rotting away. Home canning uses screw-top glass jars, but the NetHack tinning kit obviously uses tin cans, which further adds to the complexity, as the cans must be sealed. This is probably done by soldering the top onto the base, as was originally done with tin cans in our world. Canning guidelines from the United States Department of Agriculture are here. So, we can assume that the NetHack tinning kit includes the following:
- A large number of tin cans.
- Soldering supplies (presumably).
- A knife or knives for preparing the meat.
- A pressure canner.
- A good heat source, such as a propane burner, and fuel.
- Tongs, silicone gloves, or some other implements for handling the hot containers.
- (Maybe) salt.
- (Maybe) a frying pan, or some other implement for pre-cooking the meat.
The length of turn in NetHack is fairly abstract and flexible, and attempts to work this out will yield different results based on what kinds of activities (movement, combat, etc.) are used to calculate it. But, in light of the above, tinning a corpse is clearly one of the most action-packed turns a player will ever experience.
However, it never hurts to remember that NetHack is not real life. |
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East
Those who have read Pity the Nation, Robert Fisk’s epic chronicle of Lebanon’s wars and invasions, will know that he does not favour the exquisite miniature or the understated aside. Hard facts are his stock in trade and it is to his eternal credit that, in his journalism, he consistently goes the extra mile to uncover information that those in power would rather keep hidden. It is no surprise that his new book is as ambitious as it is exhaustive.
Fisk’s thesis is that the chaos in the Middle East stems from the aftermath of the First World War – the Great War for Civilisation – and the accommodations and arbitrary borders that resulted from the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. As a war reporter for three decades, Fisk has spent his working life watching the people within these borders suffer and die, and he has poured all his research and experience into this massive tome.
This is no arid history of the region; it is a sustained and meticulous – and rightly angry – polemic against those leaders who, repeatedly, give us lies and blood and claim to have delivered victory and democracy. Fisk combines a personal memoir of life on the front line with vivid portraits of the protagonists – he interviewed Osama bin Laden three times – and devastating accounts of the suffering of those at the receiving end of a total war that stretches from Iraq to Algeria, Afghanistan to Israel.
Because of its subject matter and sheer length, *The Great War for Civilisation* is in no sense an easy read. It may make you weep – with rage, frustration and foreboding for the future – but it provides chapter and verse on the mendacity and bad faith that have led us to our present dark times. |
Make Education Your Husband
issue 248 - October 1993
Make education your husband
Without schooling, a girl is left stranded in the home.
For black South Africans this may mean being a servant
in the home of a white family. Sindiwe Magona recalls
her own escape due to her mother’s insight.
‘Make education your husband,’ my mother used to say. ‘He will never tire of you. If I was growing up during these times of yours, my child, I would not bother getting married. I would just make sure I got an education and then worked for myself.’
Even as a very young child, I was aware of the tremendous importance of education. ‘Akaboni’ (s/he is blind), say the Xhosa people of one who cannot read. Mama told me repeatedly that I would be insane not to fit myself with the only means of self-support that I could ever hope for – an education. She believed that just as we teach children to walk, so we should give them at least primary education. Education is a debt that each generation owes the next.
For an African woman of her age and circumstance, Mama was very progressive in her thinking. Even today, as we approach the end of the twentieth century, there are still countries in Africa where women are in such total dependency on their men that they do not have a right to a pension. ‘Her husband will look after her,’ is the thinking of officialdom, and this is reinforced by law. Despite an abundance of evidence to the contrary, the myth persists that for every woman there is a man out there who will always be able and willing to provide for her every need. And so, in places where resources are scarce, it is the girl child who misses out on an education. She is condemned to drop out of school at an early age; to remain ‘unsighted’ in the modern world.
Thanks to my mother, I was lucky. I did go to school. What is more, I went to secondary school as well as primary, and even to teacher training. By the age of 19, I was ‘something’, not only in my own eyes but also in the eyes of the community. Such was the lack of educated people that even with qualifications that would seem like ant spittle in other parts of the world, I was held in very high esteem. I was a one-eyed giant in the land of the blind.
When, at the age of 23, I found myself a single parent with three children who depended solely on me for their survival, I saw the tremendous advantage that was mine. Many a woman finding herself in a similar situation would have had no other alternative but to find another man to provide for her.
I chose to remain single. I decided to raise my three children alone until the youngest finished high school. Why? I knew that any man marrying a woman in her early twenties would expect to have children with that woman. But I also knew that children are not cement; they do not glue a man to the woman who is the mother of his children. This is what that brilliant teacher, bitter experience, had taught me by this time.
Would I have been in a position to make those choices had I not had my teacher’s certificate, humble as it was? Would I have even been aware that such choices existed, that it was not compulsory to be always attached to a man? I made those choices because I had the means of supporting myself and my children. I knew I would not be confined to menial jobs for the rest of my life. Although I had to work for some time as a domestic labourer, I knew that one day I would go back to teaching. And as soon as I was able to start teaching again, I started studying once more, building on the qualifications that I had. They gave me the ability to dream. And that was crucial. I had a stepping stone to greater things – a stepping stone that eventually got me over the water to a job in the United States.
In the meantime, I knew that I was my children’s only resource. The Government didn’t care. I was determined that my children would get an education. Aware that men, even uneducated men, enjoy better employment opportunities in South Africa, and that women labour under tremendous disadvantages in society, I felt it was my duty to make sure my daughters got an education.
Girls are fitted for the role of wife and mother from the start. From about the age of five, even before they start school, girls are taught to sweep, fetch water from the river, tidy up after a meal, wash and put dishes away, and look after younger children. That last chore, minding children, is perhaps the most lethal to the education of a girl. Whenever mother cannot be with the younger children the eldest girl has to deputize. African women, by definition the poorest of the poor, do not have nannies to mind their children while they go about these demanding duties: they have their own girl children. And so the cycle of educational deprivation continues...
So I was determined to send my girls to school. But events were not always under my control. Black education underwent a violent rupture in 1976, when the Soweto Uprising took the schoolchildren onto the streets. My children, then in primary school, were only mildly affected at first. But some years down the road, when they were in high school, this changed. Like all other schoolchildren, they went on strike. Their schooling came to an end. My paltry plan had foundered.
The thought that I had borne children who would be forced to work as cleaners and nannies in white homes was a nightmare that drove me to the brink of insanity. Was that all their lives would be? Terrible as Bantu education was, it was still better than no education at all. At one stage, shortly before the boycotts, I had nearly taken my eldest daughter out of primary school and put her on a correspondence course. I had had enough of irrelevant subjects being taught to her in Afrikaans, a language she did not understand. I protested publicly against Bantu education. But in the end I kept her in school. At least it would give her the bare basics, something she could use towards a real education which would give her the confidence that she belongs to this world. I was truly horrified at the thought that she might miss out on her education altogether.
Yet this is precisely what happened. In the early 1980s my children roamed the streets. They had no education. They were part of the lost generation of Southern Africa, the generation who were sacrificing their own future for what they saw as a greater cause – ‘the struggle’. They brought their plight to the attention of the world, but in doing so they lost their own education. For me, this was too great a sacrifice; too high a price to pay.
So when I was offered a job overseas in 1984, I knew that I had to go. I knew that it would not be easy to find them an education in the US when they had missed out on so much. I knew that, in their late teens and early twenties, they would probably be the oldest children in the school. But I wanted to give them back their future, however hard this proved to be. I fled South Africa to allow my children to resume their education. I owed them that much.
Sindiwe Magona is the author of Forced to Grow (the second volume of her autobiography) and Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night (short stories) – published by the Women’s Press in the UK. She currently lives in New York. |
History of the Chilean Sea Bass market
May 4, 2006
Today The Wall Street Journal ran an account of how the Chilean Sea Bass was first brought to market in 1977.
Since its introduction, the species — also known as the Patagonian toothfish — has gone from being shunned to being welcomed at the worst’s finest restaurants. But demand for the fish has taken its toll and the slow-growing species which takes 10-12 years to reach sexual maturity suffers from illegal over fishing in parts of its range. Some groups estimate that the illegal take may be up to five times the legal catch limit, leading some ecologists to predict the immanent collapse of the fishery.
The The Wall Street Journal article, adapted from “Hooked: Pirates, Poaching and the Perfect Fish” by G. Bruce Knecht, details the history of the Chilean Sea Bass from the early years as strange and menacing bycatch to its current status as the “white gold of the Southern Oceans” — a product sought by pirates and top chefs alike. The book and the article recount the harrowing 3 week, 4,000-mile pursuit of an illegal fishing boat through icebergs of the South Atlantic Ocean. The Viarsa, loaded with contraband Chilean Sea Bass, was eventually captured by an international team of ships and its crew now awaits justice in court. |
This is my first tutorial, so be patient with me, and if you have a question….please ask it! I would love some feedback from this.
So I recently discovered something called ‘Wonder Under’. (Wonder Under is just a brand name, and actually not even the brand that I bought, but I keep calling it Wonder Under the same way most Texans call all sodas ‘ Coke’, or people who don’t play video games call all game systems ‘Nintendo’.) I had heard of it, but thought it was just a tool to use when you couldn’t use a sewing machine to make a hem. And it does come in strips so you can avoid sewing hems, but it also comes in big sheets, and that is what we will use today.
For this little activity you will need a few things:
- Wonder Under (or Steam a Seam, or any brand of double-sided iron on backing)
- Kids T-shirt
- small amount of fabric
- stencil of whatever you want to put on the shirt
- non-fusible featherweight interfacing
- iron/ironing board
- your choice of embellishments (I used embroidery needle, thread, and small hoop…you can bedazzle, sew on machine, the possibilities are endless)
- sewing machine (unless you don’t mind raw edges, or are using a fabric that doesn’t fray)
First, you need to figure out what you want to put on the shirt. It could be a letter of the first name, a simple shape, anything really. I think for a first project though, maybe pick something easy like a simple shape: square, triangle, heart or circle.
Either draw or print out your picture, then cut it out. Trace it onto your fabric (I would use a disappearing ink pen, or chalk), cut it out of your fabric, then cut one out of your interfacing. (note: if you want your picture to have raw edges and fray, don’t worry about the interfacing, just skip that part).
Pin your interfacing to the right side of your fabric, then sew all the way around the edge. Try to get close to the edge. I line mine up with the inside of my presser foot.
Now cut a small slit in the interfacing, and flip your shape inside out. Run your fingers along the inside of your shape, pushing out all of the edges and trying to get them to be as smooth as possible. Then iron it flat.
Next, trace your shape on to your Wonder Under, cut that out. I’m not sure if all brands are like this, but mine is sticky on both sides, but you can easily pull it off the fabric. So after you cut it out you can stick it to the fabric and make sure they line up just right, and if they don’t, trim the edges a bit. Once you have the fabric lined up on the wonder under, peel the back paper off, and stick your design wherever you want it on the shirt. You can stick in one spot and test that out…if that doesn’t work for you pull it up and try another until you are happy with it. Once you have it in place, iron it on. Read your instructions! Mine says to iron it on cotton setting for 15-20 seconds. You can tell around the edges if it has worked or not, but in the middle it’s a little harder to tell. Just be sure to iron it at least as long as the instructions say, and then maybe a little longer just to be sure…just don’t burn your fabric!
Now look!! We have taken a plain shirt and made it something special 🙂 My daughter was thrilled with it like this, but I am not done yet.
I like the look of hand embroidery, and since it was one of my New Year resolutions to try, I am going to embellish my design by hand. You could also stitch around it on your sewing machine, or glue millions of little plastic crystals to it, or if you have a bedazzler…..then bedazzle that thing!!
A couple of tips for hand embroidery…1. Don’t sweat it if it’s not perfect, that’s the beauty of doing something by hand…it’s like a fingerprint or handwriting, it’s uniquely yours. 2. Use a thimble, it will save your fingers! Pushing a needle through layers of fabric is tough on fingertips. 3. Get a hoop. They are super cheap, and makes embroidering anything a million times easier. 4. If you have never hand embroidered, or sewn anything by hand take a second to google hand embroidery….I learned from my Grandmother years ago, but I used Youtube.com as a refresher.
Once you are done you can sit back and enjoy your handy work. If you don’t sew you can still do this…just omit the interfacing, or sew that by hand. I think it would be cute to have a frayed look around the edge. The wonder under stuff claims that it will stay put forever, wash after wash, but I never trust that and usually sew some kind of stitch around the outside.
Hope this was somewhat of a help, or at least a stepping stone to get you to try something new.
Let me know if it worked out for you and maybe you could share your creations with me! If you have any questions at all, just leave me a comment.
Happy crafting everyone 🙂 |
Please share these videos with your neighbors. The airport authority has not given the citizens of Burbank enough info on NextGEN. Neither has the FAA. The technology begins its roll out right after the election. There are lawsuits in Culver City and Newport Beach taking the FAA to task for noise increases in neighborhood previously unaffected by air traffic. Why haven’t they brought up NextGEN in those glossy mailers? There are just too many questions to just pass B right now. Let’s hold off until we know the effects of this new set of technologies.
Here’s text of the first video and list of citations follows.
When it comes to Measure B on the November ballot, the Airport Authority’s isn’t telling voters the whole story. And there’s one word in this story they obviously don’t want you hear.
Nextgen is the FAA’s controversial new air traffic control system and it’s on its way to the Burbank airport.
CBS Clip: “It uses satellites instead of old fashion radar to guide airplanes.”
It’s hi-tech, efficient and promises to revolutionize air travel. So why aren’t we hearing about this from the airport authority?
FAA Clip: “Overall NextGEN has already yielded 1.6 Billion dollars in benefits to airlines.”
The word Nextgen is not mentioned anywhere in the Environmental Impact Report for the new project. That document is 6 volumes and 4,162 pages. It covers the construction and operation of the proposed new terminal. So why would something so important NOT be included?
Probably because Nextgen is causing huge problems all over the country for local governments and homeowners.
WBAL Clip: “Flight patterns have changed and planes are flying lower and turning lower, all in an effort to save money and time.”
CBS Clip: “Noise complaints have taken off too, soaring from 221 in 2013 to more than 3,300 in just the past four months since the flight paths were changed.”
Changes in takeoff lanes allow for more departures and arrivals per hour.
“If you can imagine yourself at an airshow.”
“Except you live at the airshow.”
“I live at the airshow.”
And even worse, these different flight paths are bringing noise to areas where it wasn’t a problem before.
WBAL Clip: “Clearly there’s been a change. If you came in and moved near and airport and you knew the noise was gonna be there, that’s a different thing but to have it change on you after you already have been there is very difficult.”
So even if you aren’t near the airport, this could be a disaster for the value of your home and your quality of life. Some airports with NextGEN are seeing between 8 and 12 additional flights per hour.
FAA Clip: “We’ve increased capacity by 5% in Atlanta and by 17% in Memphis. Delta Chairman Richard Anderson said this was the equivalent of building a new runway in Atlanta.”
Nextgen saves fuel and lowers carbon emissions while planes are on the taxiway, while at cruising altitude and when they land. But during takeoff, they are still raining down the same amount of dangerous particulates on our city. Voters should be extremely concerned by the fact that Nextgen could mean many more takeoffs per day.
Measure B will increase the terminal size by over 50% and modify the some of the taxiways near the runway.The airport authority obviously wants a larger terminal to accommodate the guaranteed, increased capacity. If we have more flights per day with Nextgen, the authorities’ promise to limit the gates to only fourteen means nothing.
The FAA is rolling out Nextgen in Burbank starting right after the Measure B vote in November and will be completely operational by April of 2017. But voters don’t know the impact yet because the FAA is just starting community outreach in Southern California.
Passing Measure B will likely increase air traffic and cause more pollution from the increased amount of takeoffs – even without additional gates. A bigger terminal means more passengers waiting for more flights.
Voting NO on Measure B is the safest way we can limit the impact of Nextgen technology, instead of rushing a vote without all the facts.
Please Vote No on Measure B
Airport Authority’s Replacement Terminal Website
FAA Page last modified: September 21, 2016
FAA Page last modified: October 05, 2016
NextGen implementation plan
CBS This Morning January 2015 http://www.cbsnews.com/news/faa-new-air-traffic-control-system-nextgen-causing-major-noise-pollution/
Washington Post March 4, 2016
Flying Clean Website
NatGeo October 2010
LA Times May 2014
Gate to Gate NextGen explained YouTube
FAA NextGen tech video
WBALTV Video July 2016 |
Ecoprinted Nuno Felt Lampshade
Felting wool to create fabric is an ancient process that predates spinning and knitting. In this class, students will create a nunofelt lampshade using wet-felting resist techniques. The first day will be spent felting the lampshade and some sample pieces. The second day will be devoted to eco-printing the lampshades and samples using natural dyes, plant materials from the florist and leaves from home. While our eco-print lampshades are simmering, there will be time to do additional felting or bundle more projects to take home and process. These nunofelt lampshades celebrate the soft, subtle natural colors of the eco-printing and when illuminated, the beautiful structure of the wool fibers shines through. Students will leave class with a floor lamp that creates a soft, warm light to enhance any room and an understanding of how they can use this technique to retrofit lampshades they have at home. Prior experience wet-felting and/or familiarity with laying out wool is beneficial. Materials fee includes floor lamp with LED bulb.
You will need the following tools for this class:
Ice cream bucket
2 old bath towels
ball brauser (or plastic water bottle with holes punched in the cap)
a plastic bag to carry wet items home.
All other required tools/materials are provided by your instructor and North House and will be available once the course begins.
Once registered, students will receive a confirmation email with further class information. Please call the front office if you have not received it within 24 hours. |
Just a word of warning to beginning aquarists, its better not to expect either to breed fishes too soon after purchase, or to rear too big a proportion of fry from eggs that have hatched. Reality probably hits most often in regard to the bubble-nest-builders. Expectations are high because, in the first place, they are among the fishes most readily spawned. Secondly, their small eggs are usually numerous, anywhere between 300 and 600 or more being common. With luck most of them hatch. Unless eaten by a parent they live about a week, even without food. At that point the let-down begins, even with food, especially in a small tank, their numbers start to decrease. Indeed if the number reared to half-adult size is 50, it should be considered to be above average. All too often it comes down to half a dozen, or even less. One consolation is that the survivors must be the naturally strong ones, fit for carrying on the reproduction of the family. Is this infant mortality rate unavoidable? In an aquarium or tank under 15-gallon size the practical answer is yes. The newly-hatched fishes are very small and our guess is that in a small tank there are insufficient amounts of very small infusoria to give the babies a start until they can eat the sizes present in most cultures. At any rate, the larger the tank, the better the chances. This follows through until one reaches something like an outdoor pool say 5x5 feet, in which approximately 100% of hatched fry may reach maturity, barring other misfortunes. This may explain why the beginner with limited water space should not be too disappointed if only a small proportion of a hatching reaches maturity. Another way to increase your chances of success is to place an EcoBio-Stone in your tank. EcoBio-Stone takes care of the toxins that are dangerous to fish while slowly replacing necessary trace minerals, creating a healthy environment for breeding fish and reducing loss. In referring to “pairs” of any kind, I must touch on the subject of “guaranteed” pairs, usually bought at a good fat premium price. They are usually a disappointment, and not worth the outlay, for they seldom make good. This is not meant to cast any reflection on the honesty of the seller, but pairs that are known to have bred may be "bred out". No one can tell when time has caught up with fertility. Besides a change of environment may throw a pair out of reproduction rhythm. It is best to develop one’s own breeders if possible. As to time required for breeding after acquiring a pair, there of course can be no set period of reasonable expectation. I refer mostly to the egg-laying type of fish. They may possibly be ripe for spawning almost at once, but ordinarily they need not only to be well-fed (on live food if possible), but must have time to adjust themselves to new surroundings and changed water. Several weeks are usually needed. Besides (although we do not know why) some species are difficult, even for experienced aquarists, to get to spawn at all. That is true of most of the Characins (Tetras). It sometimes happens that a beginner has acquired one or more kinds of fishes that are always difficult (or nearly impossible) to breed, even if they are close relatives of species that are easy to reproduce. Here are a few examples: Corydomr pazleaim, and C. azenezu are often bred, but that is not true of other members of that large family. Razrbommeinkeni is the only one of its numerous family, possibly excepting the "Scissors Tail" (trilineatur), from which success may be more likely. The live-bearers are more obliging and less sensitive to change. In fact new water and changed surroundings often stimulate them to early delivery. It is from the egg-layers that we should not expect too much too soon. In any case, optimism is good, but it should be tempered by what may be called “reasonable and realistic expectations.”
Why my aquarium plants are dying?
Freshwater aquariums have untold value as both a living, breathing ecosystem in your own home for educational purposes as well as a gorgeous home decor item for your pleasure. There are a vast array of decorations you can put in your aquarium ranging from store-bought ceramic statues to driftwood, but the favored addition for many are plants. Beginning aquarists frequently opt for plastic or silk aquarium plants because they have a beauty similar to nature and are presumably easier to take care of than live plants. However, many have found that hardy live aquarium plants rarely require more maintenance than fake plants, and they really aren't that difficult to keep. Having trouble with plants dying and don't know what's causing it? There are a number of common, easy-to-fix causes of plant death.
By far the most common affliction for live plants in a freshwater aquarium is the light level. When selecting your plants, make sure that they all have similar lighting requirements, and that your aquarium can provide the ideal light level. In general, most low-light plants still grow in higher lighting -- although many can grow out of control -- so your best bet is to increase the lighting. If the style of your light fixture allows, this could be as easy as lining the bulb housing with aluminum foil to increase the amount of light reflected into the water.
The next concern is the nutrient level and water quality. Plants require nitrates as well as various trace nutrients in order to grow. They may also require CO2 injection into the tank, especially if your aquarium is well-aerated and has quite a bit of surface agitation as this will help the CO2 gas off quickly. Poor water quality (in general) can have a detrimental effect on aquarium plants; if the water isn't within healthy parameters for the fish living in the aquarium. It's not healthy for the plants either. Water quality can be ensured through regular water changes and/or with a high-quality water maintenance product such as EcoBio-Block. EcoBio-Block contains beneficial bacteria to break down ammonia and nitrites into plant-usable nitrates as well as essential trace minerals to ensure the water stays at an optimal level between water changes.
Medications may also be to blame for plant problems. Many aquatic treatments and medications are harmful to invertebrates such as shrimp and snails as well as any live plants in the aquarium as they contain copper; these include any kind of algae destroyer as well as many ich medications, fungicide, and antibiotics. EcoBio-Stone or a similar water maintenance product may reduce or eliminate the need for any of these treatments, as high water quality is critical for healthy fish. However, if you must use medications to treat the water, EcoBio-Block should be removed during the process as the live bacteria could also be harmed.
There is a lot that can be learned about what conditions might be ailing a particular plant by the color and pattern of blemishes and the way in which it dies that can help diagnose the issue; however, in the majority of cases the problem is one of the above which can easily be corrected.
It seems that I begin many of these letters by quoting from some correspondence. After all, what better or more practical source of inspiration can there be? In this instance, the point is one that is brought up rather frequently by beginners in aquarium care, who have not been very successful after having seemingly followed the primary instructions gleaned from books or our dealer friends. They give recommended foods in conservative amounts, have good light and temperature control. But here is where trouble starts, through the acceptance of a fallacious signal as to what constitutes “overcrowding." The signal watched for is when the fishes gasp at the surface of the water, "blowing bubbles." That is a carry-over from the days when goldfish was King. Goldfish and other cool-water fishes are very sensitive to any shortage of oxygen in the water, or the presence of too much carbon dioxide. They quickly express their distress by breathing at the surface. Incidentally, I have often wondered how fishes, never before in such a situation, know enough to get a fresh supply of oxygen at the surface of the water. Warm-water fishes are better equipped to get along in oxygen-deficient conditions. In a tank containing both goldfish and exotics (a combination not recommended) the goldfish will invariably be the first to register discomfort from overcrowding. The point that I am stressing is that “Tropicals” are apt to "suffer in silence." When they come to the surface and stay there, conditions are not merely bad, but very bad. Undetected crowding has been present for some time past, indicated by the poor condition of the fishes. Of course such symptoms can come from other causes, but crowding is one of the first to look for. That suspicion can be confirmed if frequent partial changes of water relieves the condition. Water changes help keep the parameters within acceptable limits, help remove excess organic material such as waste and uneaten food, and also replenish required minerals in the water that the fish use up over time. If you prefer not to do as many water changes or are physically unable to, there are alternatives that can reduce your labor. My favorite is the EcoBio-Block, which is an aquarium care product that introduces beneficial bacteria into the aquarium (which keep the biological filter healthy) and slowly leach necessary minerals into the water to keep fish healthy and help beginners become successful aquarists. Advising a new aquarist at the height of his frenzy to go slowly in building up his tank of fishes is like talking against the tempest. Recently I fitted out a grandson with an aquarium and a suitable collection of fishes. All was lovely for a few weeks until he was bitten with the desire for more and more. The dealer could not be blamed for selling to him, but the result was not hard to foresee – a general attack of "Ich." Overcrowding does not necessarily cause that disease, but reduces the vitality of the fishes so that they are more subject to it. The elder Rothschild is credited with the wise crack "Nobody ever got poor taking a profit." I would paraphrase that in reverse: "No aquarist ever got into trouble by having too few fishes:"
When you are ready to purchase your first aquarium, one of the first things you learn is how to properly cycle the aquarium and how to slowly introduce new fish to avoid ammonia spikes while the colonies of beneficial bacteria are developing. That's easy enough to follow -- but what about when you have to move an existing community of fish to a new home? Maybe you moved and have to re-establish the aquarium, maybe you're moving to a larger or even a smaller tank; whatever the reason, there are ways to safely move the fish without as much risk of ammonia spikes.
A properly cycled tank contains a healthy colony of bacteria that breaks down ammonia from a fish's waste and uneaten food into nitrites and then into nitrates. In a healthy tank, there should be 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites and less than 40ppm nitrates (20ppm if you have invertebrates such as snails or shrimp). Without sufficient amounts of beneficial bacteria, ammonia and nitrite in the water may be fatal to fish.
Beneficial bacteria live all through the water and on every underwater surface in the aquarium, but the water itself carries a very low concentration of bacteria so it's not very effective to simply transfer water from the old aquarium to the new in order to maintain bacteria levels. Ideally, you will be able to transfer some old filter media to the new aquarium, or even a handful of gravel or fake plants that will all have beneficial bacteria on them. Make sure that the materials of your choice stay wet with tank water until they can be placed in the new aquarium.
Alternatively, if you have EcoBio-Stone products in your aquarium, that will be sufficient to switch over to the new one. EcoBio-Block has a lot of beneficial bacteria living in its volcanic rock and has quite a bit of surface area so a lot of additional bacteria get transferred over from the established tank. It is not necessary to keep EcoBio-Block wet, but it may help eliminate any minor ammonia spikes that may occur after the transfer as there will be more active bacteria immediately if kept wet. EcoBio-Block will also allow you to wait a little bit longer before doing the first water change as it provides essential minerals that would otherwise have to be replenished through water changes, giving the fish extra time to de-stress after a big move without being bothered.
Make sure not to put whatever bacteria-containing materials you've chosen into the new aquarium until a de-chlorinator has been used in the water as chlorine will kill the bacteria. Keep close tabs on the water parameters for the first week after the transfer, doing minor water changes as needed to compensate for any ammonia in the system that may not be compensated for by the bacteria yet. Watch the fish closely for any clamped fins or red, puffy gills as these may be signs that the water parameters are off. If these simple guidelines are followed your fish should have a relatively effortless and healthy move. |
Neo4j in Action is a comprehensive guide to designing, implementing, and querying graph data using Neo4j. Using hands-on examples, you’ll learn to model graph domains naturally with Neo4j graph structures. The book explores the full power of native Java APIs for graph data manipulation and querying. It also covers Cypher, Neo4j’s graph query language. Along the way, you’ll learn how to integrate Neo4j into your domain-driven app using Spring Data Neo4j, as well as how to use Neo4j in standalone server or embedded modes. |
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Saint Theodore Trichinas ("Hair-Shirt Wearer") was born into a wealthy yet pious family in Constantinople. He denounced all earthly and material riches and dedicated his life to Christ in a monastery in the Imperial City. Having given away all that he had to the poor, and himself not owning anything, he clothed himself not in clothes but a rough hair garment all his life, and hence his name. He reposed at the end of the fourth or early fifth centuries. His memory is celebrated on April 20.
- The image of God was faithfully preserved in you O Father,
- for you took up the Cross and followed Christ
- by your actions you taught us took look beyond the flesh for it passes
- rather to be concerned about the soul which is immortal
- wherefore O holy Theodore your soul rejoices with the angels.
- As your fiery chariot you did descend on the virtues, O God-bearer,
- mounting up under the dwellings of heaven.
- And you are an angel living on earth among men,
- and a man dancing for joy with the holy angels.
- Hence O Theodore, you have proven yourself a holy vessel of awesome wonders and signs.
- St. Joseph the Hymnographer (April 4), who composed a canon in his honour.
- "The Prologue from Ochrid", by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovic - Lazarica Press - Birmingham 1985 (Four Book Edition - Translated by Mother Maria. |
Using Data to Improve Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) Services for Immigrants and Refugees
This 2015 webinar from the Migration Policy Institute profiled a series of fact sheets with in-depth data profiles of immigrant and refugee adult learners and workers. The webinar explored Census data findings and state and local efforts to devise plans for implementation of the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA).
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- Special Populations |
Music plays a vital role in our life because of positive effects on our life. There are many sources has given statistics suggesting that people can do a lot of other things while listening to music, which is listed as follow:
Facts have shown that Music can enhance the concentration in studying a lot. While you listen to music, you can study more effectively. Nowadays, many kinds of music are known as a useful source for student or anyone else to concentrate on studying such as Instrumental music, or baroque music, etc. You can search that type of music on YouTube or convert YouTube to MP3 at Linktomp3.com if you want to hear them offline situation.
Listening to music and doing other things like playing video games is one of the most familiar habits of many people, especially teenagers. Normally, type of music that people would like to hear when playing is top hit songs of the months. This action will push them in high feeling when playing game as well as much more concentration in games.
There is no doubt that Music can be used as an effective method to aid you sleeps better. Sometimes, after a stressful day, it’s comfortable to have something disperse your pressure and let your body and your mind rest in a peaceful atmosphere. In particular, Parents play lullaby song for their kids to sleep tightly.
When mentioning to exercising, you might think of gym, or aerobic, etc. In my opinion, you also can hear music while jogging, cycling, or even working. It will help you feel more comfortable to do everything better.
If you have ever come to any party, a part of beautiful space the thing that impresses you most is music. That party is successful or not is up to music first. With exciting music, you will quickly join in the dynamic atmosphere of the party. See? Music appears everywhere around your life. Let it make your life more meaningful.
Music is an effective assistance to aid in your meditation. This method seems to be too simple to do, but it needs a lot of concentration. At that time, you will see that music will be the most efficient tool let you deep into you are the own enough world.
To be the truth, Music seems to a miracle in our life, which motivates you to live better, heal your sorrow soul, put you in a good concentration, and an effective meditation. Imaginably, when we live without music, how bored parties are, how bad the mood is, and how quiet the life is. |
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What is beyond our sky? (galaxy)
Transcript of What is beyond our sky? (galaxy)
Hopefully with further investigation, research and technological advancement, we can delve deeper into the vastness of space and expand our knowledge of our universe
In a clear night away from any light pollution, we are able to see a band of stars twinkling in the night sky. These billions of stars are surrounded by a sea of gas and dust, which makes up our galaxy- the Milky Way. In 1900s astronomers discovered that the Milky Way was one of many galaxies as our neighbour galaxy, Andromeda, was found by the Hubble telescope. The growing capability of different technology, especially the telescopes on land and in space have enhanced our knowledge about what the whole universe hold.
Andromeda is our neighbour galaxy and is larger than the Milky Way. However, it would be unreasonable to find life in Andromeda because it's 2.5 million light years away.
A radio telescope is an astronomical instrument made up of a large metal dish which reflects the radio waves to an antenna which is attached above the dish. Radio Telescopes are an important tool as it detects any radio waves emitted by extraterrestrial objects or sources.
The Milky Way began forming around 13.6 billion years ago. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy which belongs to a cluster containing about 30 galaxies and at least 100-400 billion stars.. The Milky Way is so big that it takes 100 thousand light years to travel across. The central bulge of the Milky Way is about 10,000 light-years thick. The galactic centre, which is located about 26,000 light-years from Earth, contains at least one supermassive black hole.
A light year is how distance is measured in space. It is defined by how far a beam of light travels in one year. Light moves at about 300,000km per second. One light year travels about 9,460,000,000,000 kilometers.
To get an idea, light can travel 7 times around the Earth in 1 second.
On Earth, there is plenty of radiation interference to mess with telescopes.
In 1990, NASA decided to launch the Hubble Space Telescope. Since the telescope is OUT OF THIS WORLD, the earth's atmosphere can't block it. So Hubble can provide better images of the new found galaxy. Other great telescopes in space are the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, Spitzer Space Telescope and Compton Gamma Ray Observatory
Telescopes in Space
What is beyond our sky?
- Science Essentials 10 ACE-Williamson CE
By: Emily Qiu, Eric Pham, Truc Pham and Linh Khong |
A/B testing (also known as split testing and bucket testing) is a randomized method of comparing two versions of an element (A and B) against each other to determine which one performs better using a metric to define success. You subject both versions to experimentation simultaneously, measure which version was more successful, and select that version for real-world use.
- Which features of my product or service will increase my conversion rate?
- Which is the most effective design of my product or service to increase sales?
- What is the most effective design of my website to generate traffic?
- Which website layout will lead to a higher sales conversion rate?
- Design features
- Conversion rate
- Bounce rate
- Value proposition
A/B testing is similar to the experiments you did in Science 101. Remember the one where you tested various substances to see which supports plant growth and which suppresses it? You measured the growth of plants at different intervals as they were subjected to different conditions and in the end tallied the increase in height of the different plants.
A/B testing allows you to show potential customers and users two versions of the same element and let them determine the winner. As the name implies, two versions (A and B) are compared that are identical except for one variation that might affect a user's behavior. Version A might be the currently used version (control), while version B is modified in some respect (variation).
In online settings, such as web design (especially user experience design), the goal is to identify changes to web pages that increase or maximize an outcome of interest. Constantly testing and optimizing your web page can increase revenue, donations, leads, registrations, downloads, and user generated content, while providing teams with valuable insight about their visitors.
For instance, on an ecommerce website the purchase funnel is typically a good candidate for A/B testing, as even marginal improvements in drop-off rates can represent a significant gain in sales. Significant improvements can sometimes be seen through testing elements like copy, layouts, images, and colors, but not always.
By measuring the impact that changes have on your metrics such as signups, downloads, purchases, or whatever else your goals might be, you can ensure that every change produces positive results.
This differs from multivariate testing, which tests multiple variations of a page at the same time.
The vastly larger group of statistics broadly referred to as multivariate testing or multinomial testing is similar to A/B testing but may test more than two different versions at the same time and/or has more controls, etc. Simple A/B tests are not valid for observational, quasi-experimental or other nonexperimental situations, as is common with survey data, offline data, and other, more complex phenomena.
Imagine a company, Acme Cables, that operates a web store selling cables. The company’s ultimate goal is to sell more cables and increase their yearly revenue, thus the checkout funnel is the first place Acme’s head of marketing will focus optimization efforts.
The “Buy” button on each product page is the first element visitors interact with at the start of the checkout process. The team hypothesizes that making the button more prominent on the page would lead to more clicks and therefore more purchases. The team then makes the button red in variation one and leaves the button grey in the original. They are able to quickly set up an A/B test using an A/B testing tool that pits the two variations against each other.
As the test runs, all visitors to the Acme Cables site are bucketed into a variation. They are equally divided between the red button page and the original page.
Once enough visitors have run through the test, the Acme team ends the test and is able to declare a winner. The results show that 4.5 percent of visitors clicked on the red buy button and 1 percent clicked on the original version. The red “Buy” button led to a significant uplift in conversion rate, so Acme then redesigns their product pages accordingly. In subsequent A/B tests, Acme will apply the insight that red buttons convert better on their site than grey buttons.
You can also use it when you want to test your headline, but you have three possible variations. In that case, running a single test and splitting your visitors (or recipients in the case of an email) into three groups instead of two is reasonable and would likely still be considered an A/B test. This is more efficient than running three separate tests (A vs. B, B vs. C, and A vs. C). You may want to give your test an extra couple of days to run, so that you still have enough results on which to base any conclusions.
Testing more than one thing at a time, such as a headline and call to action, is a multivariate test, which is more complicated to run. There are plenty of resources out there for multivariate testing, but we won’t be covering that when talking about A/B testing.
Once you've concluded the test, you should update your product and/or site with the desired content variation(s) and remove all elements of the test as soon as possible.
A/B testing is not an overnight project. Depending on the amount of traffic you get, you might want to run tests for anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks. And you’ll only want to run one test at a time for the most accurate results.
Considering the impact A/B testing can have on your bottom line, though, it’s worth taking a few weeks to properly conduct tests. Test one variable at a time, and give each test sufficient time to run.
Define the question you want to answer: "Why is the bounce rate of my website higher than industry standard?" Start an A/B test by identifying a goal for your company. E.g. reduce bounce rate.
Do background research: Understand customer/consumer behavior. For websites you can use Google Analytics and any other analytics tools. For other purposes you can use consumer behavior analytics if they are available. Construct a hypothesis: define the hypothesis you want to test in a concise and measurable manner, e.g., "Adding more links in the footer will reduce the bounce rate."
Define metrics and significant difference: derive one metric that measures the hypothesis, in this case the “bounce rate.” Once you have defined the metric, set the significant difference, that is, the minimum difference between the two versions’ metrics that will mean the change is worth it. E.g. significant difference: version B must have at least 3 percent less bounce rate than version A to consider it a successful and meaningful improvement.
Calculate the number of visitors/days you need to run the test for: Always calculate the number of visitors required for a test before starting the test. You can use an A/B Test Duration Calculator for website purposes.
Test your hypothesis: You create two products/services A and B, in which the variation (version B) has the hypothesis you want to test, in this case a footer with more links. You test it against the original and gather results of the metric selected, in this case bounce rate.
Analyze data and draw conclusions: If the footer with more links reduces bounce rate more than the target set, then you can conclude that increased number of links in the footer is one of the factors that reduces bounce. If there is no meaningful difference in bounce, then go back to step 3 and construct a new hypothesis.
Report results to all concerned: let others in marketing, IT and UI/UX know of the test results and insights generated.
We must set from the beginning the significant difference (practically significant), that is, what difference between the version will lead to change. This decision is based on several factors such as: investment of the changes, periodicity of changes, etc. For online testing, a 1-2 percent difference is enough to justify the change. For offline testing (e.g. new medicine or new hardware product), the difference to make the change beneficial can be around 10-15 percent difference in magnitude.
We must ensure that what has been observed is repeatability, and not an isolated case. The size of the experiment must be in a way that the statistical significance bar is lower than the practical significance.
It is important to note that if segmented results are expected from the A/B test, the test should be properly designed at the outset to be evenly distributed across key customer attributes, such as gender. That is, the test should both (a) contain a representative sample of men vs. women, and (b) assign men and women randomly to each “treatment” (treatment A vs. treatment B). Failure to do so could lead to experiment bias and inaccurate conclusions being drawn from the test.
Giving a test insufficient time can mean skewed results, as you don’t get a large enough group of visitors to be statistically accurate. Running a test for too long can also give skewed results, though, since there are more variables you can’t control over a longer period. Make sure that you stay abreast of anything that might affect your test results, so that you can account for any statistic anomalies when reviewing your results. If you’re in doubt, it’s perfectly reasonable to retest.
A/B testing is not so good for testing:
- New things (e.g. change of version or novelty effect)
- Too many changes, as the results will not be conclusive
- If something is missing (e.g. feature, style, information)
- “Keep your A/B Testing variations to a minimum to ensure meaningful results” @sircastel
- “Define your metrics and minimum success rate before running A/B Testing” @sircastel
- Got a tip? Add a tweetable quote by emailing us: [email protected]
- VWO - Website Redesign Increased Conversions
- VWO - SaaS Pricing A/B Testing
- Airbnb - Experiments at Airbnb
- Grab - How Grab experimented with chat to drive down booking cancellations
- Got a case study? Add a link by emailing us: [email protected] |
India – History and Society – for those who wish to think and learn for themselves
The people of this tribe are famous for their exotic and colourful costumes and jewellery. Both hindu as well as muslim, they are found in an area extending from the deserts of Rajasthan, into Gujarat and across the border into Pakistan. Their numbers are probably less than a million. Depending upon the districts where they reside in, they may speak Marwari, Dogri, Punjabi or Urdu.
Megh means rain in Hindustani and therefore the Meghwal consider themselves to be descendants and followers of the Saints who borught down rain into these more arid parts of India.
In terms of ethnicity, it is speculated that they were early migrants into India from perhaps Assyria. However, over the centuries further migrations and marriages certainly led to a blending with more indigenous tribes and groups, including those from Kashmir. Shia Islamic beliefs were also imbibed and certain Islamic beliefs and practices are still found in the day to day lives of the current Meghwal who are in most practical purposes followers of Hindu practices.
Please watch this video from Conde Nast:
Picture courtesy of Retlaw Snellac – flickr.com |
The Resilient Borders Project: Reimagining Galashiels 2040
From workshop to exhibition, this project was about putting together an ambitious plan for how you want Galashiels to be in 2040. How do you imagine a prosperous, resilient, and cohesive community?
We used work completed by postgraduate design students as a starting point for a series of workshops that asked these questions. Community workshops asked participants to look at all the work, rate the projects to a series of sustainable metrics, and ultimately agree on a series of themes. Specifically, the second workshop embedded these themes in the town as a series of ambitious and far-reaching proposals. We’ve taken these, and presented them as a vision of how that town can be 25 years in the future. We’ve taken the student work and used this again to help visualise what these developments might really mean.
What you’ve proved is that the town itself is as ambitious as any student project in planning a sustainable and resilient town, fit for the future.
Throughout this process a bold vision for the future of Galashiels has emerged both from ideas brought forward in the workshops as well as from the postraduate student’s projects. Thus, this exhibition maps and links the outcome strategies and their possible materialisation as a coherent vision for a sustainable Galashiels in 2040.
What value does this work have in the longer term?
Over the years, you will be asked for your views and opinions for developing Galashiels. Some of the work here can be used to put together a more ambitious vision than what is often the outcome. We hope it allows you to see the town, differently. The coming of the railway was a milestone for the town, but its natural, economic and cultural assests are strong too. This project simply suggests some of the possibilities open to you all.
The workshop identified different sources of renewable energies to help Galashiels 2040 become a more self sufficient and sustainable town. The waterways are used to generete clean energy through a network of hydropower stations. Wind farms are be strategically placed to capture winds, and Solar panel grids are proposed in south-facing fields.
Housing & Growth
One aspect of Galashiels 2040 that was not fully explored by the design students was accommodating housing growth to reflect new travel-to-work and pressure on housing in the Central Belt. The community workshops picked up the slack and thought carefully about the implications of long term expansion. Their proposals were a combination of infil and extension along with ambitious expansion around the east. Cohesion and inclusiveness were a key consideration to ensure a mix of housing type and tenure.
Business & Development
The workshops identified small business development as being important to long term resilience. Small market garden enterprises were suggested as well as growing key sites around the University and existing provision at Tweedbank. The town centre is transformed to provide clear routes and memorable places for the visitor, to make Galashiels a distinctive shopping centre with a wide catchment area. Opening up streets from the station and the making of a new commercial square provides opportunity for growth and expansion.
Education & Community Hubs
Our workshops thought carefully about how education and training can forge more cohesive communities. In particular the size and number of primary schools was debated. In the end, it was proposed that a campus for whole life learning and development be located adjacent to the University. It would include the High School, Further Education as well as business incubator and start-ups. The primary schools are all located really close to their catchment communities. The workshops thought that again these sites could be enhanced with more facilities to address the needs of all ages.
Tourism & Wellbeing
A combination of a strong textile heritage, and a compact town centre surrounded by a rich landscape means that new sustainable development compelling proposition. A transformed town centre acts as a starting point for recreational pursuits including a summit art trail and mountain biking routes served by a new centre. The workshops and the students were both unanimous that a new cycling and pedestrian route would transform the experience of travelling from the town centre west towards Tweedbank. A major proposition is a new railway station at Langlee to serve both the education campus and housing in that part of the town.
Bringing it all together… |
Reader’s Theater Script for Acts 3:1-20 (NRSV)
For three voices. It would be easy to add non speaking roles and simple staging to this script to fully dramatize the story. (the crowd, the lame man, John, etc.)
One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. A man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple.
When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said,
Look at us
The man fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said,
I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you;
in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk
Peter took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
The man clung to Peter and John. All the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s Portico, utterly astonished. When Peter saw it, he addressed the people,
You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. You rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.
By faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.
And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.
In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus.
Acts 3:1-20 (NRSV) from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
arrangement © 2012 Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia
You are welcome to use this work in a worship setting with proper attribution.
Contact Lisa for posting and publication considerations.
For more information on the use of the scripture translation, art and this resource in other settings, please refer to the copyright information page. |
As many of you know by now, I like to watch old TV shows. On one such show called This is Your Life, Petula Clark, the song goddess of England, was being honored. One man, who was a child star with Clark, was filmed for the event, not able to be present in person. That man was Songwriter Hall of Fame member Anthony Newley who would pass away three years later.
I chose Anthony Newley for todays #BeWoW post for his charm, elegance, and dignity to his craft and others. He represents a time long gone, when even the celebrities who were not at the top knew how to act in public and be respectful to others. Even the rock stars of his time knew respect.
Anthony Newley was an early influence on David Bowie, but that legends recent passing did not influence this selection. I only discovered that fact a few seconds before typing this sentence, long after making the selection. However, when listening to recordings of Newley from the early to mid ’60s, I do hear the sound some speak of.
Anthony Newley’s legend has fallen by the wayside for many. Perhaps not so flamboyant as to seek out the spotlight, he did his magic where it mattered most.
There are many types authors. Some are writers of books, of poetry, of newspapers. Then there are the writers of songs.
In 1996 Newley spoke the following words on the This is Your Life special I mentioned earlier.
“In a profession where little boys with dirty t-shirts are called stars, it’s truly reassuring to know that there are real stars like yourself still with us.”-Anthony Newley to Petula Clark.
I believe we could say the same for Anthony Newly and many ‘music stars’ today.
“In a profession where little boys with no shirts and underwear showing are called stars, it’s truly reassuring to know that there are real stars like Anthony Newly with music that will forever be with us.”-Ronovan Hester to Anthony Newley
What Kind of Fool am I
Once in a Lifetime-Judy Garland
The film score for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
Here is Sammy Davis Jr. doing his rendition of The Candy Man from the movie.
And the theme from the James Bond movie Goldfinger. Newley wrote the lyrics.
Gonna Build a Mountain-Sammy Davis Jr.
And I close with the one that may be what many recognize Newley from.
The Mad Hatter from the TV Alice in Wonder Land from the 1980s.
For more Writer’s Quotes Wednesday click HERE to visit SilverThreading.com, and check out the comments below for links to more #BeWoW articles. (#BeWoW stands for Be Writing on Wednesday, Be Wonderful on Wednesday, writing positively.)
Ronovan Hester is an author, with his debut historical adventure novel Amber Wake: Gabriel Falling due out in February 14, 2016. He shares his life through his blog RonovanWrites.WordPress.com. His love of poetry, authors and community through his online world has led to the creation of a site dedicated to book reviews, interviews and author resources known as LitWorldInterviews.com.
© Copyright-All rights reserved by ronovanwrites.wordpress.com 2016 |
Thank you for submitting. You should receive an email about our programs and trainings, but in case you do not here is the same text:
Thanks for joining the effort to reverse runaway inequality! Now, can you spread the word to keep up our momentum?
Or you can send your friends this link: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/sign-up-to-fight-runaway-inequality?source=direct_link&
Or copy and paste the email below.
If you would like to learn more about how we started, please visit this web page .
We’ve had the good fortune to give more than a hundred presentations and workshops on runaway inequality and movement building this past year. Out of this process two major goals have emerged:
- For progressives the goal is to help us see that we have to get out of our issue silos and join together in a common movement — that in addition to any other identity we have, we need the identity of movement builder.
- For those who migrated from Obama to Sanders to Trump, the goal is to understand the severity of runaway inequality and how it is crushing working people. As in the first goal, the information is used to show how many problems are connected and why we need a common movement to address them.
We’ve given this rap to union groups where half the members supported Trump. It goes over well.
For all of us, the education also opens up a discussion of common agenda to reverse runaway inequality.
- Will any of this make a difference?
The answer depends on many factors that we can’t control:
- Will large institutions decide to join together to build a new formation?
- Will the protests now springing up around resistance to Trump coalesce into to a sustained movement?
- Will the Sanders forces gain control of the Democratic Party?
- Will a Sanders-like person run for president in 2020?
- Will unions make movement building a primary goal?
We can’t control those things, but we can control education. We can build an educational movement based on the idea that when large numbers of people actually have the information and the space to discuss runaway inequality, good things happen. Without education we really have no direct way to move people and change directions. So our hope is that we can lay the foundation for a grand coming together of a national movement that crosses issue silos and attracts the Obama-to-Sanders-to Trump voters. (See How To Win Back Obama/Sanders/Trump Voters)
What you can do now
Here are six ways you can serve as an educator:
1. Share materials on Runaway Inequality: You can take materials on runaway inequality and share them with others. Just showing one of your favorite charts or graphs could make a difference. (Many charts can be found at the newly updated curriculum for the Reversing Runaway Inequality workshop .)
2. Start runaway inequality reading groups:You can set up a book club with friends, neighbors and colleagues to dig more deeply into the literature on inequality. (You will have access to the book Runaway Inequality at the lowest possible costs.)
3. Serve as a petition educator: You can ask people and groups to sign the “Reverse Runaway Inequality Now! Petition .” In doing so you also will have to explain the issue and why the proposed solutions will help. Also you will be helping to recruit more petition educators. Learn more about how it can be shared, and how names can be collected.
4. Become trained as a runawayinequality.org trainer : This is designed for those who might have opportunities to conduct from 2-hour to full-day workshops using the curriculum for the Reversing Runaway Inequality workshop . The train-the-trainer workshops are one- to two-day training sessions that will be held across the country.
(Those of you who already are skilled trainers can run with the curriculum. Please do and let us know where and when you train.)
5. Join the speakers bureau: This involves giving 45-minute PowerPoint presentations to large groups to introduce them to the ways financial strip-mining is tearing apart our country and what we can do about it. These speakers also serve a key recruiters for the RunawayInequality.org educational network.
6. Media group We are setting up a media group that can move the ideas and materials through social media and regular media.
Thanks again for volunteering your time and effort. We need you. We need each other.
all the best,
Copy and paste this email to friends to spread the word:
Subject: Take Action: Sign Up To Fight Runaway Inequality
I took an action today to Reverse Runaway Inequality.
Please join me in this effort. Contact RunawayInequality.org ?source=email& to discuss how you can help spread the word.
Or click here to sign up directly: https://actionnetwork.org/forms/sign-up-to-fight-runaway-inequality?source=email& |
Sadhana Forest India is not connected to the electrical grid. As a part of our sustainable living, we chose to only use solar and human powered energy. Tamil Nadu, the state where Sadhana Forest India is located, currently has a load balance deficit of 34.1% where people sometimes go up to 9 hours without power each day . This deficit continues to rise every year throughout India. Through mindful energy conservation practices, Sadhana Forest India is able to supply 100% renewable electricity for the needs of our community.
Our Solar System
We currently have an XXX Watt solar (photovoltaic) power system, connected to 10 batteries. This system was recently updated in November 2013.
To minimize our environmental footprint, we mainly use power during the day; this means energy is coming directly from the solar panels and not from our batteries which are environmentally unfriendly. On sunny days (which is the majority of the year) volunteers have an average of 4 hours of charge time per day and more on the weekends.
We also use a submersible solar pump to fill our water tower. The water is then gravity fed throughout the community.
Human Powered System
On cloudy days we supplement our energy needs with a set of four “exercise” bicycles, which charge the batteries. This is a human powered generator capable of producing XXX. Our volunteers are always very eager to do this when it is needed. This is an excellent tool to educate that energy is a valuable resource that requires serious effort to obtain.
As a further attempt to utilize human power and to use less current, we have built a bicycle mixie (blender) and plan to build a bicycle powered laundry machine in the future. |
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