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The environmental movement continues to dispirit me with the way it eats its young ("Wild paradox," HCN, 7/21/14). Why we in that movement talk down our successes and accept the claims of others whose analysis is uninformed, I do not know.
Paul Larmer, in his editor's note, states that some "no longer see wilderness protection as the central endeavor of the conservation movement," and that "many wilderness bills today acknowledge this."
I have never seen wilderness protection as the central endeavor of the conservation movement. I consider efforts to reduce air and water pollution, protect wetlands, protect national forests and protect endangered species equally important. Any bill with a main focus on development and destruction with a "bit of wilderness on the side" is not a wilderness bill. Such a bill destroys the land that Aldo Leopold stated had an ethic attached to its stewardship and our co-existence with it.
Perhaps the editors are as dismayed as I am about the never-ending drive to consume all natural resources to make some people rich and powerful. However, this is no reason to give up hope and complain about the Wilderness Act being obsolete. Let's aim for this ambitious goal and protect wilderness as one example of how we can behave some way other than selfishly. |
I am 17 years old and ive had what I think is tension headaches since about 14-15 years old. The headaches are right in my forehead, almost feeling like its right behind my eyes or in the middle of them. They occur everyday and start sometimes as soon as I wake up and worsen when I try to go to bed at night. The only time they seem to go away is when im being active.
The headaches are bearable but they sometimes make it hard for me to concentrate or to be happy because the consistency of them. I also feel like my personality has changed because of them. I continually try to reduce my stress level to see if the headaches will go away. Rarely they do. My docter has gave me at least 5 different medicines and none have worked. So I stoped going to him. I chew tabacco but im not sure if that would have anything to do with headaches. I played tackle football all through highschool where I took alot of blows to the head. But ive got a CT scan of my head and there was nothing wrong with my brain. Like I said I can bare with my headaches they DO NOT create excrusiating pain but are VERY annoying and stressful. This has frustrated me for a few years now. Any ideas of what kind of headaches im having or what I should do?
You do not mention what medications you have taken so I am not sure what I could recommend.
One thing that does make any headache syndrome worse is nicotine so consider stopping any use of tobacco products.
With a history of multiple head injuries, you most probably have some post-concussive headache syndrome going on, with possible migraine as tension headaches do not occur behind the eyes.
Since you live in Michigan, there is an excellent headache center in Chelsea, near Ann Arbor, the Michigan Head and Pain Institute. I highly recommend them and would advise that you speak to your parents about being seen there. They can do a complete work up and give you the proper diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Joel Saper is the medical director and he is nationally known in the field of headache work.
Your parents will have to work with your physician to get a referral but the doctor should be able to help since you have failed on medications already.
Mary Kay Betz MS RPA-C
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Does the scenerio above sound like you? If not, or if you think you need more information please read about different types of headaches
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Have asthma? You need a flu shot
- Have asthma? You need a flu shot is available in Portable Document Format (PDF, 2.2MB, 2pg.)
One in 12 New Yorkers has asthma.
How does flu make Asthma Worse?
When you have asthma your airways are already somewhat swollen and more easily infected. More serious infections are possible when airways are already weakened.
What is asthma?
Asthma is a disease that affects your lungs. It causes breathing problems such as wheezing, shortness of breath and coughing. The muscles around the airways inside the lungs tighten and become red and swollen. This swelling causes the airways to produce lots of thick mucus and clogs the airways. This makes it hard to breathe. Tobacco smoke, the common cold, flu and allergies are just a few things that can make asthma worse. You may not always know what causes your asthma but you and your doctor can work together to control your asthma.
What is flu?
Flu (Influenza) is an infection that affects your nose, throat and lungs. It can make you sick for a week or longer with coughing, fever, body aches, and more. Flu can lead to pneumonia. Flu is easily spread.
Is the flu shot safe?
Yes the flu shot is safe. Flu shots do not contain a live virus so you cannot get the flu from a flu shot.
Do I need to get a flu shot every year?
Yes, you need to get a flu shot every year. The flu viruses change from year to year, so the vaccine needs to be different each year to protect you. Flu season can start as early as October, making October through December the best time to get vaccinated. But you can still get vaccinated in December or later because flu season can last as late as May. Any protection against the flu is better than no protection!
Should my family get a flu shot too?
Yes, you and your family should get a flu shot, especially if anyone in the family has asthma. Because the flu is easily spread, it makes sense for everyone in the family to get a flu shot. Getting a flu shot is one of the best ways to keep healthy and prevent worsening of asthma symptoms during the flu season.
Where do I get the flu shot?
Talk to your doctor about getting a flu shot for you and your child. You can also find out more information about where you can get a flu shot in your community by calling your local health department or contacting the additional resources listed on the back of this brochure.
Resources for all NYS Residents:
- For information on asthma and the flu: www.nyhealth.gov/diseases/asthma/
- For information about the flu: www.flu.state.ny.us
- For information about where you can get the flu shot:
- Telephone: 1-800-342-9871 (M-F 8AM-4PM)
- Visit the DOH flu clinic locator
- Visit the American Lung Association flu clinic locator |
Posted by art_smart
on July 28, 2000 at 13:23:48:
In Reply to: Re: What causes autism? posted by Maria on July 25, 2000 at 14:14:15:
Thank you for your kind words. I printed them out and showed them to my friend, just to prove that she does not have to go through this alone. She is feeling much better and researching her options. What I do not understand is, why does this happen? I have heard that it is genetic, but there is also the concern about certain vaccines that has recently been raised. Which also raises moral questions about what we should do (because I dont' think there's any question that the vaccines have saved more people from disease, than they have caused autism). Is there some sort of DNA test or something available that they can check, maybe during an amnio, that can identify the tendency for autism? I checked dna.com but I couldn't find any specifics.
: As a mother of an Autistic child of course the mothers/parents feel guilty .But please tell you friend that it is certainly not her fault. Remember that her baby was sent special from above and is no different that any other child except that he just needs special love and attention. The doctors feel that children are born with this disability,that it takes place very early on in pregnancy, but it dosen't show up until 18 months to 2 years of age. that is when the parents see noticable difference. Tell you friend to get her child involved with an Early Intervention Program, and ABA (Applied Behavior Anaylsis)My child has been involved with this since he was 2 1/2...he is now 4...he can speak, sing, say the alphabet, potty trained, request things that he wants, etc...hopefully if all goes well he will be in pre-school next year and maintstreamed the next. Tell your friend there is light at the end of the tunnel!!! She needs to call the County she lives in to see what services they have, and to get involoved with organizations in her area.Good Luck and tell her to keep the faith!!!! |
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Date posted: 6 June 2012
The National Relay Service (NRS) is developing a new online learning module for health professionals.
The e-learning module is designed to raise awareness and understanding of the service among a range of health professionals - however currently, there is little understanding of what existing awareness health professionals have of the service.
To determine what existing awareness health professionals have of the service, and what support may be needed for them to feel confident in referring clients, the NRS is inviting health professionals - specifically Indigenous Health Workers, audiologists, audiometrists, speech pathologists, occupational therapists and social workers - to participate in a short survey.
Every health worker who participates in the survey will have the opportunity to go in the draw to win $1000 contribution by the NRS, toward the registration and associated costs of an upcoming Indigenous Health conference.
The survey needs to be completed by 6 July and takes about ten minutes. To complete the survey, visit the link below.
National Relay Service
Ph: (02) 9352 3410
Fax: 1800 555 690
TTY: 1800 555 630 |
Hi everybody, the minimum wage just went up! Yeah, yeah, I get it…old news…you all already know about minimum wage increase. Well, I realize that it’s been discussed ad nauseum, but just in case there are a handful of people out there who forgot to make the requisite changes with their payroll, here’s a quick reminder that the minimum wage has gone up (and will continue to rise) according to the following schedule:
- January 1, 2015 – $7.75
- January 1, 2016 – $8.50
- January 1, 2017 – $9.25
- January 1, 2018 – $10.10
In addition to the higher minimum wage, there are a couple other things you should know. First, the tip credit also increased to $0.50 an hour on January 1, 2015 and will tick up to $0.75 an hour on January 1, 2016, provided that the employee earns at least $7.00 above the minimum wage in tipped income and wages. What does this mean? Basically, in 2015, employees must make at least 7.50 an hour in tips to qualify for the $0.50 tip credit, which means that employers just lost the $0.25 tip credit they used to have for employees who earn less than $7.50 an hour in tips. In other words, for employees in low tipped categories who might make just $5-6 an hour in tips, there is no longer a tip credit.
Second, in July 2014, the state DLIR issued a new Wage and Hour that discussed the new minimum wage amounts. You can get a copy of the new poster here: July 2014 Wage and Hour Poster.
You can also view the state’s tip credit and minimum wage guide here: Minimum Wage and Tip Credits. |
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Active and Passive Electronic Components
Volume 2011 (2011), Article ID 919240, 6 pages
Comb-Line Filter with Coupling Capacitor in Ground Plane
Faculty of Engineering Science, Kansai University, Suita, Osaka 564-8680, Japan
Received 18 January 2011; Accepted 1 March 2011
Academic Editor: Tzyy-Sheng Horng
Copyright © 2011 Toshiaki Kitamura. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
A comb-line filter with a coupling capacitor in the ground plane is proposed. The filter consists of two quarter-wavelength microstrip resonators. A coupling capacitor is inserted into the ground plane in order to build strong coupling locally along the resonators. The filtering characteristics are investigated through numerical simulations as well as experiments. Filtering characteristics that have attenuation poles at both sides of the passband are obtained. The input susceptances of even and odd modes and coupling coefficients are discussed. The filters using stepped impedance resonators (SIRs) are also discussed, and the effects of the coupling capacitor for an SIR structure are shown.
Miniaturization of microwave filters is highly demanded. For mobile telephones especially, ceramic laminated filters [1–4] have been widely used, and in particular, comb-line filters have extensively made practical use.
In this study, comb-line filters in which both sides of the substrate are utilized are considered. Comb-line filters consist of two quarter-wavelength resonators, and attenuation poles can be created in the frequency characteristics of the transmission parameter by changing the coupling locally along the resonators . The stopband characteristics can be improved by arranging the attenuation poles around the passband. In [1, 2], strong coupling between two resonators is obtained by installing a patch conductor on the dielectric substrate above the resonators. The patch conductor is referred to as a coupling capacitor (). The method of installing a coupling capacitor by inserting slots into the ground plane is discussed. By this method, a coupling capacitor can be achieved without using a multilayered structure. As a method of inserting slots into a ground plane, a defected ground structure (DGS) has been attracting much attention [6–8]. In a broad sense, the proposed structure is a kind of DGS. The filtering characteristics are investigated through numerical simulations as well as experiments. The filters using stepped impedance resonators (SIRs) are also discussed, and the effects of the coupling capacitor for an SIR structure are shown.
2. Filter Structure
Figure 1 shows an overview of the proposed comb-line filter. Two microstrip resonators are arranged on the substrate, and each resonator is terminated through the ground plane at one end using a through hole. As an I/O port, a microstrip line with a characteristic impedance of 50 ohm is directly connected to each resonator. A square-shaped coupling capacitor is fabricated by inserting slots into the ground plane. The coupling capacitor is a patch conductor that is not terminated through the ground plane and produces strong coupling locally along the resonators. The thickness and relative permittivity of the substrate are assumed to be 1.27 mm and 10.2, respectively, and the diameter of the through hole is 0.3 mm.
The metallization patterns and dimensions of the filter are shown in Figure 2. The dimensions and position of the coupling capacitor are also shown. The coupling capacitor is mm2 and is located mm from the open ends of the microstrip resonators. The filtering characteristics are investigated with and as parameters. The other structural parameters are also shown in Figure 2.
3. Results and Discussion
The filtering characteristics are investigated through numerical simulations by the full-wave EM simulator Ansoft HFSS Ver. 11. The frequency characteristics of the scattering parameters when mm and mm are shown in Figure 3. For comparison, the results when there is no coupling capacitor () are also shown. It can be seen that an attenuation pole was created at each side of the passband by installing the coupling capacitor. The center frequency of the passband was also increased slightly by inserting slots into the ground plane. The slots also cause radiation loss, and it is understood from Figure 3 that at 2.1 GHz when a coupling capacitor is used. Figure 4 illustrates the equivalent circuit of the comb-line filter. Attenuation poles appear at the frequencies where the input susceptances of the even and odd modes are equal to each other.
The frequency characteristics of the input susceptances of the even and odd modes and are shown in Figures 5(a) and 5(b), respectively. The structural parameters were the same as those in Figure 3. The input susceptances of the even and odd modes were calculated by setting the magnetic and electric wall, respectively, on the symmetric plane shown in Figure 1. As shown in these figures, the odd-mode susceptances hardly changed, whether or not there was a coupling capacitor. The coupling capacitor does not have much effect on the electromagnetic fields of the odd mode. On the other hand, the even-mode susceptances were decreased by inserting the coupling capacitor, and they intersected with the odd-mode ones at 1.62 and 2.81 GHz, as shown in Figures 5(a) and 5(b), respectively. The frequencies of the intersections correspond with the attenuation-pole frequencies in Figure 3.
The frequency characteristics of the scattering parameters with as a parameter when mm are shown in Figures 6(a) and 6(b). Here, the parameter corresponds to the position of the coupling capacitor. As shown in Figure 6(a), when is small (from 0 to 1.0 mm), two attenuation poles appear at both sides of the passband, and the parameter mainly affects the attenuation-pole frequency above the passband. On the other hand, as shown in Figure 6(b), no attenuation pole appears when is large (from 4.0 to 6.0 mm). The resonant frequency of the odd mode is about 2.0 GHz and changes very little when changing . However, the resonant frequency of the even mode decreases as increases. It was confirmed that the even-mode resonant frequency becomes lower than the odd-mode one when exceeds about 2.5 mm.
The frequency characteristics of the input susceptances of an even mode are shown in Figure 7. Here, the frequency range is chosen so as to be close to the attenuation-pole frequency above the passband. The structural parameters were the same as in Figure 6(a). As shown in this figure, the input susceptances of an even mode change almost in parallel to each other with changing . According to this, the attenuation-pole frequencies above the passband change as shown in Figure 6(a).
However, from Figure 6, the parameter also has a large effect on the bandwidth of the passband. The coupling coefficients as a function of are shown in Figure 8. The coupling coefficient is calculated using the following equation Here, and are the resonant frequencies of the even and odd modes, respectively, and they are determined from the zero-crossing points of the input susceptance curves of the even and odd modes. As can be seen, the coupling coefficients decrease steadily as increases.
Figure 9 shows the frequency characteristics of the scattering parameters with as a parameter when mm. Here, the parameter is the length of the patch conductor that makes up the coupling capacitor. As shown in this figure, the attenuation-pole frequencies decrease, and, in contrast, the passband frequency shifts slightly higher as increases. The coupling coefficients as a function of are shown in Figure 10. It can be seen that the coupling coefficients increase almost linearly as increases.
Next, an SIR filter shown in Figure 11 is studied. Filters can be miniaturized by using an SIR structure. The frequency characteristics of scattering parameters are shown in Figure 12. The solid line shows the results of a normal SIR filter (without ) when mm and mm. It is shown that the passband frequency becomes lower compared with that in Figure 3, meaning that it is possible to miniaturize the filter. In addition, two attenuation poles can be created at both of the passbands by choosing appropriate values for parameters and . However, the values of and are quite small. The dotted line shows the results of an SIR filter with when mm and mm. It is understood that attenuation poles can be created near the passband by choosing and that are easy to fabricate, and therefore, the structural limitation can be relaxed by using a coupling capacitor . However, a drawback is that the passband frequency becomes higher compared with a normal SIR filter. This is due to the decrease of the effective relative permittivity by the installation of slots in the ground plane. For comparison, the results of the filter shown in Figure 2 ( mm, and mm) are also shown (dashed line).
Finally, the filtering characteristics of our developed filter are investigated through experiments. The proposed filter shown in Figure 2 is manufactured on an RT/duroid 6010LM substrate of 1.27-mm thickness and 10.2 relative permittivity. The frequency characteristics of the scattering parameters when mm and mm are shown in Figure 13. Here, the solid and dashed lines indicate the experimental and numerical results, respectively. As can be seen, bandpass characteristics with an attenuation pole both below and above the passband were achieved. The experimental results were also in good agreement with the numerical ones. From this figure, it is estimated that the influence of process variation may cause the degradation of impedance matching.
A comb-line filter with a coupling capacitor in the ground plane was proposed. The insertion of the coupling capacitor builds strong coupling locally along the resonators in the filter. The filtering characteristics were investigated through numerical simulations as well as experiments, and the filtering characteristics having attenuation poles at both sides of the passband were obtained. The input susceptances of even and odd modes and coupling coefficients were discussed. The filters using SIRs were also discussed, and the effects of the coupling capacitor for an SIR structure were shown.
- T. Ishizaki, M. Fujita, H. Kagata, T. Uwano, and H. Miyake, “Very small dielectric planar filter for portable telephones,” IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 42, no. 11, pp. 2017–2022, 1994.
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- M. Wang, Y. Chang, H. Wu, C. Huang, and Y. Su, “An inverse s-shaped slotted ground structure applied to miniature wide stopband lowpass filters,” IEICE Transactions on Electronics, vol. 90, no. 12, pp. 2285–2288, 2007.
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Journal of Botany
Volume 2011 (2011), Article ID 353102, 7 pages
Biplot Approach for Identification of Heterotic Crosses in Linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.)
Division of Genetics and Plant Breeding, National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow 226001, India
Received 19 July 2011; Revised 9 September 2011; Accepted 15 September 2011
Academic Editor: Zed Rengel
Copyright © 2011 Anu Rastogi et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
- A. B. Damania, “Near-eastern crop diversity and its global migration,” in The Origin of Agriculture and Crop Domestication. Proceedings of the Harlan Symposium (ICARDA '97), A. B. Damania, J. Valkoun, G. Willcox, and C. O. Qualset, Eds., pp. 51–64, Aleppo, Syria, May 1997.
- S. Sood, N. R. Kalia, S. Bhateria, and S. Kumar, “Detection of genetic components of variation for some biometrical traits in Linum usitatissimum L. in sub-mountain Himalayan region,” Euphytica, vol. 155, no. 1-2, pp. 107–115, 2007.
- M. Berti, S. Fischer, R. Wilckens, and F. Hevia, “Flaxseed response to N, P, and K fertilization in South Central Chile,” Chilean Journal of Agricultural Research, vol. 69, no. 2, pp. 145–153, 2009.
- M. Berti, S. Fischer, R. Wilckens, F. Hevia, and B. Johnson, “Adaptation and genotype × environment interaction of flaxseed (Linum usitatissimum L.) genotypes in south central Chile,” Chilean Journal of Agricultural Research, vol. 70, no. 3, pp. 345–356, 2010.
- M. P. Chauhan, S. Singh, and A. K. Singh, “Post Harvest uses of Linseed,” Journal of Human Ecology, vol. 28, pp. 217–219, 2009.
- M. Rai, H. Singh, and D. M. Hegde, Oilseeds and Oils research and Development Needs, Indian Society of Oilseeds Research, Directorate of Oilseeds Research, Hyderabad, India, 2002.
- F. López Anido, V. Cravero, P. Asprelli, T. Firpo, S. M. García, and E. Cointry, “Heterotic patterns in hybrids involving cultivar-groups of summer squash, Cucurbita pepo L,” Euphytica, vol. 135, no. 3, pp. 355–360, 2004.
- A. R. Hallauer and J. B. Miranda, Quantitative Genetics in Maize Breeding, Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa, USA, 1981.
- G. F. Sprague and C. A. Tatum, “General vs specific combining ability single cross of corn,” Journal of American Society of Agronomists, vol. 34, pp. 923–932, 1942.
- B. Griffing, “Concept of general and specific combining ability in relation to diallel crossing system,” Australian Journal of Biological Sciences, vol. 9, pp. 463–493, 1956.
- R. K. Yadav and S. B. L. Srivastava, “Combining ability analysis over environments in linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.),” Crop Research, vol. 23, pp. 277–282, 2002.
- M. A. El-Komsan, A. M. El-Marakby, A. H. El-Sweify, and A. M. Tolba, “Combining ability analysis foe seed and straw yields and their components in a diallel cross of flax,” Arab Universities Journal of Agriculture Sciences, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 547–562, 2003.
- A. Topal, C. Aydin, N. Akgün, and M. Babaoglu, “Diallel cross analysis in durum wheat (Triticum durum Desf.): identification of best parents for some kernel physical features,” Field Crops Research, vol. 87, no. 1, pp. 1–12, 2004.
- S. K. Swarnakar, R. L. Srivastava, P. Singh, Y. P. Malik, and A. L. Yadav, “Studies on combinig ability and heterosis in linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.),” Farm Science Journal, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 4–6, 2005.
- H. Goral, M. Jasienski, and T. Zając, “Combining abilities of several varieties of linseed with respect to yield components,” Biuletyn Instytutu Hodowli Aklimatyzacji Roślin, vol. 240/241, pp. 237–242, 2006.
- L. Bertoia, C. López, and R. Burak, “Biplot analysis of forage combining ability in maize landraces,” Crop Science, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 1346–1353, 2006.
- W. Yan and L. A. Hunt, “Biplot analysis of diallel data,” Crop Science, vol. 42, no. 1, pp. 21–30, 2002.
- N. F. Jensen, “A diallel selective mating system for cereal breeding,” Crop Science, vol. 10, pp. 629–635, 1970.
- O. P. Verma and H. K. Srivastava, “Genetic component and combining ability analyses in relation to heterosis for yield and associated traits using three diverse rice-growing ecosystems,” Field Crops Research, vol. 88, no. 2-3, pp. 91–102, 2004.
- C. Mahto and M. H. Rahman, “Heterosis for yield and yield components in linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.),” Journal of Research, vol. 13, no. 2, pp. 189–191, 2001.
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- J. A. Patel and Y. K. Gup, “Genetic analysis in linseed under moisture stress condition,” Madras Agricultural Journal, vol. 84, pp. 186–188, 1997.
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The price of onions continues to rise in both wholesale as well as retail markets.
In the wholesale market, the price has risen from Rs15-20 per kg last month to Rs 32-35 per kg. In the retail market, onions that were selling for Rs20-25 per kg last month are now selling at Rs40-45 per kg.
Traders at the wholesale Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) say the sudden increase in prices is because a lot of the crop was destroyed during transportation due to the rain, leading to high wastage.
According to APMC director Ashok Walunj, “Usually around 125 vehicles carrying onions come to the market every day. The arrivals at present are around 80 vehicles.”
With the crop production already low this year, and the current stock coming to an end, traders fear the prices could go up even higher as the new crop is expected after a few months.
“This year, initially there was severe drought and then very heavy rains, which had a negative effect on several crops including onion. That is why arrivals have reduced at the APMC market. The reduced supply has naturally led to an increase in prices,” Walunj said.
“While prices do come down on days when arrivals are on the higher side, this is not often reflected in the retail market.”
Retailers say they are suffering losses and hence have hiked their prices.
“We suffer additional losses as onion rots early in the monsoon and there is wastage which we need to cover,” said Rajesh Gupta, an onion retailer from Nerul.
“Just because the wholesale price reduces by a couple of rupees on a particular day doesn’t mean that we reduce our prices immediately. We have to average our costs and losses.”
The situation could get worse.
According to Walunj, “There has not been much production of onion in neighbouring states either. The current stock of the crop is almost over and the new crop will arrive only after a few months. Till then, prices could go up even further.” |
One of the first images seared into my brain is of Ajji, my grandmother, swaying back and forth on her bed in the room my brother and I shared with her. It is a warm, summer night on the Deccan plateau in the early 1970s, and I watch her trying to shoo away the bugs drifting in through the open windows, as she buries herself in a book. Ajji, an illiterate mother of 10, is teaching herself to read, alphabet by faltering alphabet. Her text of choice is a Marathi version of the Ramayan, that ancient story of right and wrong and the strength and frailty of Gods and humans.
I cannot recall precisely what Ajji said to me, but I faintly remember a lot about bearing no ill will. Sharing a room with a religious grandmother — many times a day, she closed her eyes and prayed — and accompanying her on many temple visits grounded me in religious matters quite early. When my parents travelled the length and breadth of India by train, we always visited centres of Hindu pilgrimage. We climbed Shankaracharya Hill in Srinagar, washed our feet at the holy tri-junction of seas in Kanyakumari, stood in line at Tirupati and did aarti in Madurai’s grand Meenakshi Amman temple.
At home, the Ganesh puja was — and is — an annual event, and another memory that will forever stay in my mind is the family singing “Sukhakarta dukhakarta, varta vighnachi...”, an auspicious Marathi invocation.
You will forgive my ramblings about childhood because they are relevant to what I am not, religious, and what I am, secular. Don’t get me wrong. I may not any longer visit temples, but I do regard myself a Hindu, in the broad sense of tradition, pride and culture, a position not far from the fashionable position of the newly triumphant religious Right.
Where I tend to be unfashionable is in holding the view that India should never be a Hindu nation, a religious counter to Pakistan, and that religion should remain a personal matter, scrupulously scrubbed from government offices and the public sphere. So, yes, I was not pleased to see Narendra Modi visit the ghats of Varanasi for a Ganga aarti — although I am happy with his directive to fans not to touch his feet.
I emphasise my position because we live in a time, after Modi’s triumph, when being secular, or ‘sickular’— as those on the Right might call me — and liberal increasingly appears to be something to be ashamed of, to be hidden, to be scorned. So, what does it mean to be a liberal by the resurgent Right?
To me, it means many things, but it does not mean what they insist you stand for. For instance, as a liberal, I do not automatically become a ‘Left liberal’.
I believe in free markets, in dismantling the public sector, reforming labour laws, paying government officials much more — oh, and abolishing at least half of government — in drastically reforming our leaky, multibillion-dollar safety nets. I do think, though, it is important to keep safety nets because even if Modi delivers all that he promises, it will take a very long time to do so.
I believe that hauling in young Muslim men as suspects and often killing them in extrajudicial ‘encounters’ is illegal, counterproductive and just wrong; as is torturing or branding anyone with leftist leanings a ‘Maoist’. I also believe in intensifying the fight against the Maoist insurgency and, yes, I do believe in the death penalty. I get a lump in my throat each time I watch the Republic Day parade, I believe our armed forces are brave, underfunded and underequipped, but I do think those responsible for excesses must be punished and special protective laws that allow rape and assassination in peacetime in places like Kashmir and Manipur must be withdrawn.
I do believe women hold up more than half the sky and that we do terribly by our wives, daughters, sisters and mothers; we revere them falsely as goddesses and blame everything and everyone for their woes, when the truth lies inside our hearts and minds — in our refusal to let them get ahead.
I believe homosexuals have a right to get married and have families and nowhere in our scriptures or values does it say they cannot.
Speaking of families, I do not find anything wrong with a uniform civil code. After all, Hindus thought it was the end of the world when their laws were codified after Independence by the Constitution’s creator, BR Ambedkar. Women in Muslim communities across India often face the worst of not getting the full protection of the law, and Rajiv Gandhi did them a great disservice by using Parliament to overturn a Supreme Court judgement that provided maintenance for an unfortunate woman called Shah Bano Begum.
Speaking of Rajiv Gandhi, I have always believed the Congress responsible for a lot that is wrong with India, from Indira Gandhi’s cynical exploitation of Sikh separatists, to her son opening the locks on the Babri masjid, to his sly condoning of those who slaughtered the Sikhs after her assassination. I also believe that Modi — far from answering for his acts of omission and commission — got away with 2002 (and, no, the Supreme Court has not yet given him a clean chit; we await its ruling).
After his triumph, many liberals now seem chary of even acknowledging their beliefs. Secularism, sociologist Shiv Vishwanathan wrote recently in The Hindu, gradually became a ‘repression’ of the middle class, enabling Modi to defeat liberals like him.
Funny, I don’t feel defeated. The force of numbers never made anyone right. I am not always right either, but I will not hide the fact that I am a secular, liberal — and proud — Indian, who bears no ill will to anyone. I think Ajji would approve.
Samar Halarnkar is a Bangalore-based journalist
The views expressed by the author are personal |
National History Center
Congressional Briefings Series to Be Revived
Marian J. Barber, April 2012
After a hiatus of nearly three years, the National History Center plans to revive its Congressional Briefings series later this spring with a session on space exploration and the U.S. space program, and to continue the briefings on a quarterly basis.
The Congressional Briefings series aims to provide the historical context of issues currently facing the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Designed especially for congressional staff, but open also to members of Congress and the public, the briefings facilitate useful interaction between historians with expertise in a particular policy area and those who help craft legislation in that area. The presentations are meant to be entirely nonpartisan and strive to provide objective historical background from multiple perspectives.
The Center's staff is currently in discussion with historians from the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), as well as the staff members of the congressional committees that oversee the space program, in an effort to develop a briefing that will be particularly useful to the Congress at this crucial juncture in the history of space exploration.
As the nation celebrates the 50th anniversary of John Glenn's becoming the first American to orbit the earth, it has recently said farewell to the 30-year shuttle program that followed NASA's successful effort in the 1960s to put humans on the moon. President George W. Bush's plans for human travel back to the moon and to Mars, announced in 2004, came to naught as the United States struggled to fight two wars and cope with domestic economic crises. President Barack Obama has suggested extending the life of the international space station and using the private sector to create vehicles to transport astronauts to and from it.
One of the earliest initiatives of the National History Center, the briefings began in April 2005 with a session on the politics of congressional reform, presented by Julian E. Zelizer of Princeton University. The following month, Edward Berkowitz of George Washington University and Alice Kessler-Harris of Columbia University spoke on the Social Security Administration and the policy controversy that attended its creation. Maris Vinovskis of the University of Michigan ended the year with a talk on compensatory education at the K–12 level with a discussion ranging from "A Nation at Risk," the 1983 report of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, to "No Child Left Behind," the George W. Bush administration's effort to improve student performance by promulgating standards.
In 2006, former AHA presidents Eric Foner of Columbia University and the late John Hope Franklin of Duke University discussed the federal role in race relations, from post-Civil War Reconstruction to the civil rights movement, including such legislation as the 1965 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Christine Kim of Georgetown University examined the United States' historical relationship with Korea. In 2007, James Rodger Fleming of Colby College discussed the historical antecedents of the current debates on climate change.
The election year 2008 saw another past president of the AHA, Civil War authority James M. McPherson of Princeton University, address Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus during the war and its short- and long-term consequences. John O. Voll of Georgetown University spoke on the history of radical Islam before and after 9/11. The most recent briefing took place in May 2009, when Alan Brinkley of Columbia University discussed the Great Depression and the actions the federal government took to stem its effects and stimulate recovery.
The Congressional Briefings went into hibernation, as it were, as they could not be sustained in the intensely partisan atmosphere that engulfed Capitol Hill after the 2008 elections. Both the need for the briefings and the conditions for their revival seem to have come together now, and the National History Center is happy to relaunch the series.
Readers interested in learning more about the past briefings may wish to see the videorecordings of the briefings given by Brinkley, Voll, McPherson, and Fleming, which are available on the National History Center web site. An illustrated audio recording of Christine Kim's presentation is also available there.
As the series gets underway again, the National History Center will be particularly interested in involving the national capital region's large number of public historians in the briefings. The Center also extends a special welcome to policy analysts from think tanks, university faculty, and scholars from other venues outside Congress itself, as well as graduate students (especially those visiting Washington for research), who are all invited to attend the briefings.
Marian Barber is the associate director of the National History Center. |
|The Mk. IX replaced the Mk. V in June 1942 and on September 12, 1942 a Mk. IX brought down a
Ju-86R flying at 43,000 feet. Another major achievement of the Mk. IX took place on October 5,
1944 when 401 Squadron became the first allied aircraft to shoot down an Me-262 jet. Even with
the arrival of the Griffon powered Mk. XIV the Mk. IX continued in service until the end of WWII.
There were 5,665 Mk. IX Spitfires and its variants produced.
As Dutch personnel escaped the German occupation they were assigned to the RAF No. 167
Squadron. As the personnel numbers grew it was decided to create a Dutch Squadron so on
June 12, 1943 No. 167 Squadron was re-designated No. 322. Originally equipped with Spitfire V’
s the 322nd was re-equipped with Spitfire XIV’s for tactical support roles but then their role
changed to destroying the dreaded V1s. Next the 322 received Spitfire IXs to perform ground
attack roles. The 322 only flew the IXs from September 1944 until November 1944.
Specifications for the Spitfire Mk. IX
Number built - 5,665 all Mk. IX variants
Crew – 1 X pilot
Length - 31 ft. 3.5 in.
Standard (F) - 36 ft. 10 in.
Clipped (LF) - 32 ft. 2 in.
Height - 11 ft. 9 in.
Wing Area - (F) 242 sq. ft. or (LF) 231 sq. ft.
Empty - 5,610 lbs. (2,545 kg)
Maximum Takeoff - 7,500 lbs. (3,402 kg)
1 X V-12 Rolls-Royce Merlin 61 @ 1,515 hp
1 X V-12 Rolls-Royce Merlin 63 @ 1,712 hp
Maximum Speed - 408 mph (657 kph) @ 25,000 ft.
Service Ceiling - 4,000 ft.
Range w/o drop tank - 434 miles (698 km)
2 X Hispano 20mm cannons
4 X .303 machine guns
2 X .50 machine guns
1,000 lbs of bombs (500 centerline, 250 each wing)
|Hobby Master 1/48 Air Power Series
Spitfire IXb "VL-F"
MK320, RAF No.322 (Dutch) Sqn, 1944 |
If You Build It: Film Review
Friday, January 10 (Long Shot Factory)
Patrick Creadon's documentary follows an ambitious school project in North Carolina.
Designers and architects have long been vulnerable to the belief that their work will improve users' daily lives. In If You Build It, Patrick Creadon introduces two young professionals who make that objective more plausible by letting the users themselves be designers. Making this intriguing project more engaging is the fact that it's targeted at rural high-schoolers with no artistic background; Creadon's doc benefits substantially from these kids, resulting in a film with modest commercial appeal that should have a healthy video afterlife with activism-minded students in college and graduate programs.
Emily Pilloton and Matthew Miller are a romantic couple whose working partnership brings them to Bertie County, North Carolina -- hired by an open-minded administrator to start a new high school program they call Studio H. Resembling a super-powered shop class, the program not only teaches construction skills like welding, but familiarizes students with the full design cycle. After studying Buckminster Fuller and prototyping their own avant-garde chicken coops, they set out on a months-long plan to design and build a place for townsfolk to run a new farmers' market.
Though the project suffers potentially fatal setbacks (questionable school board decisions leave Miller and Pilloton without a salary, forcing them to work a year for free), Creadon chooses not to milk dramas in reality-TV fashion. Though we witness a couple of grumpy moments in and out of the workshop, the overall focus is on the pleasure -- ours and the kids' -- of finding competence and talent where one mightn't expect it. Quiet Kerron discovers a knack for computer-aided drafting; Jamesha, who balks at getting her hands dirty from the start, becomes the group's videographer. Farm kids who admit to hating school find a sense of common cause in a project so clearly relevant to their community. (In a decaying town where a new outpost of Domino's Pizza represents a major shift in unemployment numbers, anything that might nurture local entrepreneurism is a godsend.)
At the film's outset, Pilloton is seen describing the pair's plans in the kind of TED Talk that so often introduces utopian projects that are never heard from again. Here, Creadon watches what is and isn't accomplished by believers who put their lives on hold for others' sake.
Production Company: Story Into Action
Director: Patrick Creadon
Producers: Christine O'Malley, Neal Baer
Director of photography: George Desort
Music: Peter Golub
Editor: Nick Andert, Daniel J. Clark, Doug Blush
No rating, 85 minutes
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Going green is the new motto everybody adopts these days. Eating green has become the latest trend too. But with rising expenditure on commodities and the overuse of chemicals in food, organic food has become even more expensive. So why not grow your own food? But certain issues like space and time constraint crop up. And the end result might not even be worth it. So here’s Malthus bringing you good news. Introducing the in-home aquaponic unit designed especially for organic food-loving people.
The concept of the traditional system of aquaculture and cultivating plants in water is adapted here and it is designed to take up minimum space. The byproducts of fish are filtered out for the plants as nutrients and clean water is circulated back to the aquarium. Thus they exist in a symbiotic environment and we get to have fresh organic vegetables. Wouldn’t it be great to pluck out those fresh leaves off the plants and make a salad? And also take a fish out of the tank and cook it, even before the word “fresh” fades away!
This wonderful appliance is the brainchild of Ola Nilsson who got the opportunity to present it at the 10th edition of NESS – Nordic Environmental Social Sciences Conference at Stockholm. The appliance uses a do-it-yourself concept where you can buy the apt tools from a local hardware store. Its size could be that of two refrigerators and its weight could equal that of a bathtub. The fish tank can hold upto 400 liters including 2 kgs of fish and is placed below three cultivated grow beds. These beds filter the water that is pumped through them which is then reprocessed and regulated to the fish tank. The only thing you need to do is to feed the fish and watch them grow in harmony. |
Hotel deLuxe began as the Hotel Mallory, commissioned in 1912 by Rufus Mallory. Even then it was a luxurious retreat: the Crystal Room (now the Screening Room) was a ballroom featuring Grand Piano and orchestra pit. In its previous life, the Green Room was a billiard room furnished with a pool table, crystal decanters of spirits and fine cigars. Across the lobby, ladies could socialize privately in the Lady’s Parlor, which is now the Editing Room.
The Mallory Hotel’s last major remodel was in the late 1940s, and was done in a Regency style, complete with imported European crystal chandeliers. In the mid-1950s, when Oregonians voted to allow liquor sales in bars, the iconic Driftwood Room was added.
The Mallory was purchased in early 2004 by Provenance Hotels and reopened in 2006 after an extensive renovation designed to honor the legacy of the Mallory and channel the Golden Age of Hollywood.
How did we come up with the name Hotel deLuxe? It was inspired by the Hollywood color lab, Deluxe, that brought brilliant color to the silver screen. Besides being inspired by classic Hollywood style (Gracie’s restaurant is a nod to showbiz icon Gracie Allen), the hotel’s décor takes its influences from Art Moderne, and the Art Deco movement that ignited during Paris’ 1925 World Fair.
Curator Tessa Papas was commissioned to source and select the more than 500 black and white cinematic photos that adorn Hotel deLuxe’s hallways and rooms.
Hotel deLuxe continues to serve as an elegant and luxurious retreat, with lavish events held at Gracie’s and in-the-know regulars flocking to the Driftwood Room for our legendary cocktails. |
June is National Cancer Survivors Month. You could almost say this month is dedicated to Dr. James Olson, a history professor at Sam Houston State University. Olson has been diagnosed with four different cancers since 1981.
The first one was a sarcoma in his left hand, which eventually led to the amputation of his forearm after the tumor came back in 1984, ‘85 and ‘87. Seven years later, he had a skin cancer removed. In 2001, he was diagnosed with brain cancer and underwent surgery and chemotherapy. That cancer came back as well a few years later.
And to top it all off, Olson had to battle prostate cancer three years ago.
It sounds like a horror story but the most important part is, Olson is still alive. Why? Olson isn’t sure himself.
“I think I’ve gotten the cancer because I’m prone to it. I guess I survived it in part because maybe somehow — I don’t know — my body manages it a little better. That’s not a very specific response, but I don’t know the answer anyway.”
Olson also credits the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston for his survival and has authored a book about its history.
Doctor Pamela Schlembach treated Olson for his brain cancer in 2005 at MD Anderson’s Regional Care Center in The Woodlands. She says Olson’s story is not unique, but it’s very rare.
“We do see things a lot more frequently than just your average community oncologist. Typically, patients can… you know, what we see is sometimes they can have two cancers. But to actually have three – and they’re very, very different cancers, is not common.”
Needless to say, Olson is a pretty frequent guest at MD Anderson. He’s gone back for check-ups about every four months since his first cancer diagnosis in 1981.
Today, he lives with a tumor still in his brain. It can’t be removed but it’s currently stable. Olson says that constant emotional up-and-down is hard to get used to.
“It used to be, when I’d get within two or three or a week of the next check-up, I’d start getting preoccupied and worried about it, maybe a little morose about it, and then go there, have the tests, everything is fine, the tumor hasn’t come back or hasn’t grown. And you walk out of that hospital kind of floated out, feeling really good, and then you go through the whole thing again four months later.”
What he has learned from more than 30 years of experience with cancers and what he offers as advice to those who are newly diagnosed, is firstly not to deny that you have cancer, and secondly see it as a challenge, not a death sentence, and live life to the fullest.
He points to himself as an example for how the disease can be overcome. |
A message is divided into two main parts. The primary payload is used to store message elements of primitive type. The secondary payload is intended to hold the data from object elements in the message (although other uses for the secondary payload are conceivable). The size of the primary payload is limited by the fixed capacity of the buffer, as discussed above. The size of the secondary payload, if it is non-empty, is likely to be determined ``dynamically''--for example as objects are written to the buffer.
The message starts with a short primary header, defining an encoding scheme used in headers and primary payload, and the total number of data bytes in the primary payload. Only one byte is allocated in the message to describe the encoding scheme: currently the only encoding schemes supported or envisaged are big-ending and little-endian. This is to allow for native implementations of the buffer operations, which (unlike standard Java read/write operations) may use either byte order.
A message is divided into zero or more sections. Each section contains a fixed number of elements of homogeneous type. The elements in a section will all have identical primitive Java type, or they will all have Object type (in the latter case the exact classes of the objects need not be homogeneous within the section).
Each section has a short header in the primary payload, specifying the type of the elements, and the number of elements in the section. For sections with primitive type, the header is followed by the actual data. For sections with object type, the header is the only representation of the section appearing in the primary payload--the actual data will go in the secondary payload.
After the primary payload there is a secondary header. The secondary header defines the number of bytes of data in the secondary payload.
The secondary header is followed in the logical message by the secondary payload. This section says nothing about the layout of the secondary payload. In practice this layout will be determined by the Java Object Serialization specification. |
Q: What farm and construction equipment is required to display the three-cornered orange Slow Moving Vehicle sign? When a vehicle with the sign is being transported on a truck or trailer traveling at highway speeds, shouldn’t the sign be removed or covered up?
A: Sgt. David Catalano of the Wisconsin State Patrol directed me to state statute 347.245 (1) for the answer.
The law says “any vehicle or equipment, any animal-drawn vehicle, or any other machinery, including all road machinery” that usually travels less than 25 mph on a highway is required to display the slow moving vehicle (SMV) emblem “on the most practicable visible rear area of the vehicle.”
The law doesn’t require a SMV sign if the vehicle is only crossing the highway, if the vehicle is being towed and the tow truck is visible from the rear, or if road machinery is engaged in construction or maintenance work while guarded by a flagman or clearly visible warning signs.
Regarding the second question, Catalano said if a vehicle displaying a SMV sign is being hauled on a truck or trailer, there is no requirement for the SMV sign to be covered. |
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National Geographic Readers: Great Migrations Elephants
National Geographic Readers: Great Migrations Elephants (Hardcover)
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This exciting reader follows the story of the longest and the most demanding elephant migration on the planet. Living at the furthest corners of the hot and dry Sahara Desert, the very margins of where elephants can survive, hundreds of these great creatures make a dangerous but necessary journey as their main source of food and water dries up and they must go in search of more. Battling 120-degree heat, sandstorms, and fierce thunderstorms, these amazing animals travel 35 miles a day in a race against time in search of the bare essentials of life.
National Geographic supports K-12 educators with ELA Common Core Resources.
Visit www.natgeoed.org/commoncore for more information.
About the Author
LAURA MARSH is a long time contributor to National Geographic Children Books. She has written a large number of books in National Geographic Readers series and also in Mama Mirabelle and Toot and Puddle series. |
"This is an exciting time to be a young woman interested in politics."
These words, written by three high school students from Monclair, New Jersey, describe a recently-launched Change.org petition to promote gender equality in the upcoming election. The presidential debates have been moderated by men for the past 20 years, but these girls want 2012 to be the year that this changes.
Teen girls Elena Tsemberis, Sammi Siegel and Emma Axelrod are the brains behind the petition, which has already received over 94,000 of the targeted 150,000 signatures. Their mission? To convince the Commission on Presidential Debates to choose a woman moderator for at least one of the three debates between Obama and Romney. The girls wrote:
Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin’s presidential and vice presidential campaigns put women in the spotlight in the political realm in 2008, finally providing a way for girls across our nation to envision themselves in these positions of power. We already know that no women will be on stage at this year's presidential debates, but what about in the moderator's chair? We were shocked to find out that it has been 20 years since a woman last moderated a presidential debate.... Men are no more capable of performing these tasks than women -- but for the last two decades, only men have been given the job.
One signer commented on the petition that she'd like to see Rachel Maddow moderate the debate, while another was less particular about their preferences, stating: "I'm signing so I don't have to listen to Wolf Blitzer."
In another story of a teen girl making her voice heard in the political sphere, this past December Iowa teen Jane Schmidt publicly challenged Michele Bachmann's views on same-sex marriage. And over in the White House, President Obama has said that Sasha and Malia helped influence his stance on gay marriage. The girls reportedly told their father that they didn't understand why same-sex couples should be treated any differently.
"It doesn't make sense to them," the President said in an interview with CBS News. "And frankly, that's the kind of thing that prompts a change in perspective." |
Alice Birungi's difficult but inspiring story will be part of the StopTB Talkshow on July 22. Here is a preview of her journey. A victim of sexual violence, she was infected with HIV, then got tuberculosis, and finally joined four other women to start an organization that helps young people live with HIV and overcome tuberculosis.
The first sign of trouble was coughing. Then came chest pain and night sweats. By the time Alice Birungi got to the hospital, these characteristic symptoms and an x-ray undeniably pointed to the source of her problems: Doctors said she had tuberculosis -- a deadly lung infection transmitted through the air.
This was not the first time Alice had to deal with such a threatening diagnosis. When she was 16 and a senior in high school, she was raped by her brother-in-law. Shortly after, she tested positive for HIV. Tuberculosis and HIV form a deadly combination, claiming 350,000 lives a year, despite the fact that tuberculosis can be cured.
"We were thinking about getting married so we wanted to plan for our future. We got tested and told we were both positive," says Alice of her and her boyfriend.
Women play a central role in maintaining and improving the health of their children and families. Mothers are caregivers, and when they become affected by disease, their illness leads to time off work, loss of income, and even death. Many children have been orphaned because of tuberculosis, and a motherless child is likely to die very young. As a result of infectious disease, families fall into a vicious downward spiral that may be carried forward to the next generation, pushing people deeper into disease and poverty.
This results in stereotypical labels, misconceptions and stigma. Many people think tuberculosis is a "poor man's disease" and that those who are infected with tuberculosis must also have HIV. For Alice this was true, but it is certainly not always the case. One of the hardest things for HIV and tuberculosis patients to deal with is the loneliness and isolation that this social stigma brings. For a long time, Alice decided to keep her diagnosis to herself for fear of being stigmatized, took her medicine in hiding, and lived in pain and fear.
"One day, one of my friends was telling me about some young people she met who were openly talking about their HIV-positive status," Alice says. "I lied to my friend, telling her that my sister had HIV so that I could get their contact information. When I finally got in touch with them and met them, I felt like I was home."
Alice's experience motivated her and four other women to initiate Nagoke Youth, a community-based organization based in Tororo, Uganda that fights to improve the lives of young people affected by HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. The group uses drama to reach out and raise awareness about the diseases and provides people with information, access to care and treatment. Having a support network of people who understand and care about each other gives tuberculosis and HIV patients hope and encouragement to start treatment and confront their infections.
When I first joined them I was afraid to go home. This group became my family and I was going there for comfort. We were all volunteers without money, but we were active through our work with the drama group. We thought it was good to disclose our status and be open in order to save more lives by sensitizing others. This experience has made me open my heart to support young people and any other person who is HIV positive.
Alice will be speaking at a talk show organized by the Stop TB Partnership, the IFRC and other partners including the UN Foundation on July 22 at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. You can watch the event live at http://www.stoptb.org/talkshow from 12 p.m. EST.
Follow Chrysula Winegar on Twitter: www.twitter.com/chrysula |
My speech would mark the first time a transgender person served as speaker in the ceremony's 18-year history. While writing my speech, I harkened back to Amanda Simpson's remarks about being the first openly trans presidential appointee.
"Being the first sucks," Simpson told ABC News in 2010. "I'd rather not be the first but someone has to be first, or among the first ... and I always win people over with who I am and what I can do."
Yet the pressure to represent for trans people everywhere weighed heavily on me. But ultimately I had to speak my truth and share that truth with those around me. The one direction given to me by Vincent Vigil, director of USC's LGBT Resource Center, was to offer the graduates a message of empowerment.
And so I thought about what empowered me to find, follow, and amplify my voice as a writer, as an advocate, as a woman who is living visibly. And that's when it hit me: It's always been about the girls, #girlslikeus.
I thought of CeCe McDonald and Paige Clay, two trans women of color, both 23 years old, both beautiful, and both creative. I "met" Paige a few weeks back when I came across a story of her murder in Chicago in April. I immediately thought, like so many trans women I personally know, that her tragic end could easily be mine.
I thought about how numb I initially was to her death, because I had seen this story, this type of horrible murder, over and over and over again, with revolving faces of trans women of color. Transgender women make up 44 percent of all LGBT murder victims, most of them trans women of color, despite the fact that trans people as a whole only account for about 8 percent of the LGBT population.
And it hit me how disheartening it is that I had been desensitized to the murders of trans women of color. In what kind of horrible world do we live in that a woman's murder is seen as routine?
So I decided to speak about Paige; about her murder; about what it means to be young, black, beautiful, and transgender; about how our entire system fails us; and about how even when we defend ourselves and stand our ground, our lives, too, can be jeopardized.
Case in point: CeCe McDonald, who was physically attacked and verbally assaulted last June in Minneapolis because she is black and trans. When her attackers cut through her cheek, she stood her ground and fought back. Though she is the victim in this case, she sits in jail facing a murder trial because the man who attacked her died in their altercation. Activists have swarmed around CeCe; they've packed the courtroom, worn purple in solidarity, and sent Twitter updates to #FreeCeCe, to spread awareness.
Though the mainstream media have remarkably been silent regarding the injustice that CeCe is facing, our community will not be silent. And it is for CeCe and Paige and girls like us everywhere that I decided to step forward and use my voice.
This speech is for them, and I will never be silent just because the topic of gender identity and race are uncomfortable. These women are human beings first, and when we turn a blind eye to injustice, we close our hearts and minds on ourselves.
Follow Janet Mock on Twitter: www.twitter.com/janetmock |
Last week, the animal protection organization Mercy For Animals released a video taken undercover by an employee wearing a hidden camera at a dog factory farm in Kamrar, Iowa. The worker was employed between April and June of this year.
The employee documented horrific abuses such as workers ripping out puppies' testicles without a single drop of painkillers, leading many to suffer from herniated intestines due to botched castration and die from their wounds. Workers were filmed cutting of the tails of puppies with clippers, again, without any use pain killer. A process called "thumping" was used at this facility where workers picked up puppies by their back legs and slammed them to the ground bashing their heads in order to "euthanize" the ones who weren't growing fast enough.
Many of the mother dogs were documented as suffering severe uterine prolapse - a condition where their uterus literally falls out of their bodies as a result of their repetitive, forced breeding. These dogs received no veterinary treatment.
Some of the most disturbing footage is of animals suffering as a result of standard, routine breeding practices. On the video, you can see row after row of mother dogs confined in what the industry calls "gestation crates," metal cages that are so narrow the dogs can't even turn around or move side-to-side more than a few inches. The dogs are confined in these crates for four months, taken out to give birth then feed their young for several weeks in a "farrowing crate," which allows them to lay on their side but still not turn around. After about two and a half weeks, the puppies are weaned and the mother dogs are put back in the gestation crates to restart this cycle, which lasts about four years until their reproductive cycle slows down to a point they're no longer economically viable. By this time, many of the dogs suffer lameness and crippling leg deformities due to muscle atrophy. Their tired, battered bodies are loaded off to slaughter.
After viewing this footage, best-selling author and animal behaviorist Dr. Jonathan Balcombe stated, "this video depicts scenes of unbearable suffering and inexcusable neglect." Veterinarian Dr. Armaiti May commented, "I was greatly disturbed and appalled to watch footage of such horrifying cruelty."
Perhaps the most shocking part of this investigation is that all of the cruelties described are standard agricultural industry practices and this farm's method of production follows its industry's guidelines for "humane" treatment of its animals. In fact, most likely no laws were broken because animals raised for food have virtually no legal protection while on the farm. The video sent shockwaves throughout the restaurant and retail industry with major companies scrambling to be sure their meat wasn't coming from this farm.
Wait a second. Wait just a second. I just realized that I accidentally (OK, it was purposeful) wrote 'dog' every time I meant 'pig' and wrote 'puppies' instead of 'piglets.' My apologies. We can all rest easy knowing that these abuses weren't inflicted on our beloved household pets.
To watch the video, click here.
Follow Josh Tetrick on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hamptoncreek |
Darwin was right about many things, including the mechanism by which the plenitude of life we know as biodiversity came to thrive on this planet. Unfortunately for us, his picture has hit a big roadblock.
What the fossil record does is force us to contemplate our place on the planet. We are but one species of several hominids that inhabited planet earth and like our distant cousins who went extinct fairly recently, our time on planet earth is also finite.
If and when sentient AI becomes reality, will it, too, have the capacity to both anthropomorphize and dehumanize other beings in relation to itself? And if it did, would we view it as more or less human depending on which skill it used to refine its opinion of humanity?
Readers of my posts know I'm drawn to discoveries which shorten that perceived distance between Homo sapiens and the rest of the animals on Mother Earth. It's not that I don't think we're special; rather, it's that I think all of life is special.
We are a cognizant, intelligent, contemplating species, possibly the only such species in the universe. Even if we aren't, we should act as if we are that precious. Our purpose, then, should be to thrive and to be the universe's means of self-contemplation, to be the mind of the universe.
At long last, these creatures who roamed the Continent for hundreds of thousands of years only to become extinct 30,000 years ago under the onslaught of modern humans from Africa are getting a major upgrade by the scientific community.
Does intellectual ability make us human? Or self-consciousness? Or the possession of a soul? Or tool-making? Or private property? Or genetic inheritance? Whatever definition we choose, it excludes some creatures we might want to include in the "human."
The recent news flash that researchers had observed a neutrino particle exceeding the speed of light did not excite the world much. If true, though, this bit of information should totally change physics as we know it. |
In Search of History: The Monkey Trial
In the summer of 1925, history was made in the small town of Dayton, Tennessee. The issue at hand was the "Butler Law," which forbid the teaching of evolution in public schools. The fledgling American Civil Liberties Union wanted to challenge the law's constitutionality and chose to test it with the trial of John Scopes, a young high-school math and gym teacher who briefly taught Darwinism as a substitute biology teacher. The quiet procedural matter exploded into a media carnival when two great lawyers arrived to argue the case. William Jennings Bryan, the renowned orator, three-time presidential candidate, and self-proclaimed Bible expert, argued for the prosecution, and Clarence Darrow, the nation's most celebrated lawyer and an avowed agnostic, defended Scopes. Reporters from around the world descended on the tiny Bible belt town to chronicle the trial. Despite Darrow's best efforts, the jury convicted Scopes. Later, his conviction was overruled on a technicality by an appeals court, disappointing Darrow, who had hoped for an opportunity to take the case to the Supreme Court, where the constitutionality of the Butler Law could be challenged. |
From PyPy's blog: Adding a JIT to your interpreter
When it (the jit compiler) detects a loop of code in the target language that is executed often, the loop is considered "hot" and marked to be traced. The next time that loop is entered, the interpreter gets put in tracing mode where every executed instruction is logged.
When the loop is finished, tracing stops. The trace of the loop is sent to an optimizer, and then to an assembler which outputs machine code. That machine code is then used for subsequent loop iterations.
(The generated machine code) depends on several assumptions about the code. Therefore, the machine code will contain guards, to validate those assumptions. If a guard check fails, the runtime falls back to regular interpreted mode.
This is one of the best explanation of JIT compilers I've found. I finally understand how they work after hearing the term tossed around so much lately. |
WASHINGTON, D.C. 4/19/12 (PennWell) -- A report released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Department of Energy and U.S. Department of the Interior details the two-year progress of a Memorandum of Understanding for hydropower.
The MOU, signed in March 2010, contains 13 high-level goals and 17 specific action items that were specifically targeted toward helping America's "development of clean, reliable, cost-effective and sustainable hydropower generation," according to the report.
The report says through collaboration and partnerships with other federal agencies, many of the goals have been achieved, including:
-- Completion of numerous publically-available assessments of different hydropower resources, including a construction database for all existing U.S. hydropower infrastructure;
-- Collaboration in developing tools for the optimization of hydropower facilities and evaluating the potential for state-of-the-art upgrades and modernizations;
-- Funding for several research projects aimed at developing and demonstrating new hydropower generation technologies;
-- Examination of climate change effects on water availability for hydropower generation at federal facilities;
-- Coordination of a stakeholder-driven, basin-scale opportunity assessment in the Deschutes River basin ;
-- Establishment of the Federal Inland Hydropower Working Group;
-- Hosting of research and development workshops on key areas for development in new hydropower generation;
-- Initiation of new studies on pumped storage and ancillary grid services; and
-- Improvement of licensing procedures for the development of new, privately owned hydropower generation at existing federal dams and water infrastructure.
The report notes that hydropower represents the majority of renewable energy capacity utilized in the U.S., although more than half of all hydroelectric turbines currently in use are more than 50 years old.
"This presents both a challenge and an opportunity in the need to innovate and modernize U.S. facilities so that the nation can continue to rely on its hydropower resources for cost-effective and renewable electricity into the future," the report says.
The full two-year progress report is available via Reclamation's website. |
"Gangnam Style" is going robotic. A U.S. Navy humanoid robot is able to perform dance moves featured in the viral-video sensation.
Charli-2 is a five-foot-tall humanoid robot with incredible agility -- for a robot -- that features humanlike balance, according to Wired’s Danger Room. This is not an ordinary robot that lumbers around. In fact, it’s rather graceful, and it has the dance moves to prove it.
To demonstrate them, Charli-2’s creators had the robot dance to South Korean singer-songwriter PSY’s "Gangnam Style."
Charli-2 will not be used as just a novelty toy. The Navy plans to use the robot to fight fires in the future. The development of Charli-2 was led by Dennis Hong, director of the Robotics & Mechanisms Laboratory at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
The creation of Charli-2 was funded by a $3.5 million grant from the Navy to Hong for the development of an autonomous shipboard humanoid, or ASH. The goal of the project is to develop a robot that can be used on a ship to fight fires alongside human crew members. Balance is crucial on a ship that features narrow corridors, tight turns and steps.
The most important feature of Charli-2 is its stability, according to Hong. As he told Wired, “If you have a bipedal robot with a camera on its head, it’s shaking a lot, so how does the robot figure out where it is in the room?” This important question led to the development a stabilizing algorithm called simultaneous localization and mapping, or SLAM.
Charli-2’s abilities will be shown off next week at the annual Office of Naval Research science and technology showcase. And the Navy hopes to test Charli-2 in real-world situations on a ship next year. Charli-2’s descendent, ASH, will be enclosed in a suit to help protect it from heat and smoke.
Charli-2’s reputation as a fluid and flexible robot has long been cemented. He is the reigning RoboCupSoccer champion in the Humanoid League's adult-size competition, having won the event each of the past two years.
Watch the video of Charli-2 dancing "Gangnam Style" below. |
Charles Monnett, who managed nearly $50 million worth of climate research on Arctic wildlife and ecology, was informed on July 18 that he was being put on leave pending an investigation into "integrity issues," according to a letter posted online by advocacy group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
The leading climate scientist, whose work was featured in Al Gore's Oscar-winning climate change documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," has been suspended, possibly over the inaccuracy of his much-publicized observations.
Dr. Monnett and a co-author, Jeffrey Gleason, prepared the seven-page observational report in question for the peer-reviewed journal Polar Biology after spotting four dead polar bears during an aerial survey of bowhead whales in the Beaufort Sea in 2004.
As word of the sightings spread, images of drowned polar bears became a staple for activists who warned that global warming and the retreat of sea ice were threatening the bears' survival.
In their peer-reviewed article, the scientists said that they were reporting, to the best of their knowledge, the first observations of polar bears floating dead offshore. They argued that they presumably drowned while swimming long distances in open water and wrote that, while polar bears are strong swimmers, the long distances may exact a greater metabolic toll than standing or walking on ice in better weather.
The paper states that the findings "suggest that drowning-related deaths of polar bears may increase in the future if the observed trend of regression of pack ice and/or longer open water periods continues."
The paper quickly highlighted public concern for the polar bear. Campaigners focused on the bears to push erstwhile President George W. Bush to act on climate change.
Finally, in May 2008, polar bears became the first species to be classified by the U.S. as threatened due to global warming
PEER, which filed an official complaint on Monnett's behalf on Thursday, is questioning the suspension of the man who has galvanized the global warming movement.
"Dr. Charles Monnett, PhD, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement (BOEM), coordinates a significant portion of all BOEM extramural research and a majority of BOEM research on Arctic wildlife and ecology. The Interior Inspector General (IG) is apparently investigating a 2006 note authored by Dr. Monnett and a colleague published in the peer-reviewed journal Polar Biology which reported sightings of drowned polar bears in open waters following a storm. This seven-page paper, which had undergone internal peer review, management review and outside peer review coordinated by journal editors, galvanized scientific and public appreciation for the profound effects that climate change may already be having in the Arctic."
According to Jeff Ruch, PEER's executive director, BOEMRE has barred Monnett from talking to reporters.
Calls to his office and home were not answered.
The complaints against the Anchorage, Alaska-based scientist remain unclear, as does the connection to his seven-page 2006 paper on polar bear drowning, despite a months-long investigation.
PEER alleges that the Interior Department is violating its own rules and regulations, and the ongoing investigation seems intended merely to disrupt Monnett's body of scientific work.
"You have to wonder," said Ruch, "this is the guy in charge of all the science in the Arctic and he is being suspended just now as an arm of the interior department is getting ready to make its decision on offshore drilling in the Arctic seas."
"This is a cautionary tale with a deeply chilling message for any federal scientist who dares to publish groundbreaking research on conditions in the Arctic." |
A rarely seen gem proved to be rich in water upon closer examination, a find scientists say is further evidence that there are vast reserves of water locked hundreds of miles below the Earth's surface.
In a paper published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, University of Alberta researcher Graham Pearson and colleagues describe the first ever discovered sample of ringwoodite, a mineral similar to olivine (or peridot). Ringwoodite is stable basically only within the hot, pressurized environment deep within the Earth’s mantle.
Until now, most studied samples of ringwoodite have come from meteors. But Pearson and colleagues found a tiny fragment of the material, the first terrestrial sample, inside a brown diamond. The diamond was itself driven up from the depths in a piece of kimberlite, a volcanic rock. The sample was unearthed by miners in Brazil back in 2008.
“It's so small, this inclusion, it's extremely difficult to find, never mind work on," Pearson said in a statement Wednesday. "So it was a bit of a piece of luck, this discovery, as are many scientific discoveries."
When Pearson and colleagues further analyzed the tiny piece of ringwoodite trapped within the diamond (itself only about 3 millimeters wide), using infrared and X-ray techniques, they found that it contained a surprisingly high amount of water -- equivalent to about 1.5 percent of its total weight.
"This sample really provides extremely strong confirmation that there are local wet spots deep in the Earth in this area," Pearson said.
Other pieces of ringwoodite deep below the Earth's surface may be even more waterlogged. In lab experiments, synthetic versions of ringwoodite can hold up to 2.5 percent of their weight in water.
Scientists have long theorized that water might be trapped in the transition zone between the upper and lower mantles, located 410 and 660 kilometers (254 to 410 miles) below the planet's surface. But since we have no way of getting a person or robot down there at present, a lot of mysteries remain. How much water might be down there? Maybe a lot of water, says Pearson:
"That particular zone in the Earth, the transition zone, might have as much water as all the world's oceans put together," he said.
Knowing more about the presence of any kind of water in the earth’s mantle could help inform our knowledge of plate tectonics and volcanoes.
"One of the reasons the Earth is such a dynamic planet is the presence of some water in its interior," Pearson says. "Water changes everything about the way a planet works."
SOURCE: Pearson et al. “Hydrous mantle transition zone indicated by ringwoodite included within diamond.” Nature, 12 March 2014. |
Member type: RCLG
Israel’s chemical industry is the second largest industry after the high-tech and electronics sector by turnover and number of employees. It employs about 26,000 people. The industry includes exploitation of Israel’s natural mineral resources, and the manufacture of basic raw materials, intermediates for various industries including agriculture, and manufacture of consumer products such as pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and cleaning products. In the field of pharmaceuticals and plant-protection chemicals, Israeli companies are the world’s leading generic manufacturers. The basic chemical industry in Israel is engaged, among other things, in the production of minerals from the Dead Sea such as: potash, bromine, magnesia and metal magnesium. The industry also processes a range of raw materials and manufactures intermediates with high added value for various industries.
The EU is the sector’s main export market with over 30%. Both basic chemicals and pharmaceuticals are the main products exported and amount to over 50% of total chemical exports.
The Manufacturers’ Association of Israel (MAI) represents 1300 various industrial companies and is the only industrial association in Israel. MAI represents Israeli industrial companies to parliament, government ministries, and administrative agencies etc.
The Chemical, Pharmaceutical and Environmental Society is part of MAI and comprises 130 companies dealing with basic chemistry, fertilizers, oils and fuels, detergents, paints and dyes, pesticides and herbicides, and pharmaceuticals. Nearly 100% of the local chemical and pharmaceutical manufacturers are members; some 80% are SMEs. |
When I was a boy, my grandfather used to take me camping regularly. I remember often seeing signs as we entered into various National Forests saying, “Land of Many Uses,” and in those days that statement was correct. Both National Forest and BLM land were used for the good of our nation. Forests were managed and trees harvested, livestock was grazed in many places, and mining operations were conducted to provide jobs and wealth for our nation.
Campgrounds were constructed, streams were blocked and the lakes that formed where filled with fish, and even cabins were built on public lands for public enjoyment. It all seemed right to me, as a young man, that these things should happen because in the grand scheme of things, they were for the benefit of everyone. This was the management style of your public lands 50, 60 and 75 years ago. The “land of many uses” motto was coined by the head of the Forest Service from the 1950s, but sadly, things have changed drastically since then.
When was the last time you saw a new campground built in a National Forest? I’ve seen older ones removed, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a new one built. I rarely see livestock grazing in National Forests anymore, not because it’s illegal, but because fees have been raised so high and the number of permits is so limited. We once provided thousands of jobs to lumber industry workers through harvesting, and there were hundreds of lumber mills across the richly forested state of California. Those days are gone, and I’m told there are three left still in operation. California once had many hundreds of gold mines employing thousands. There are only a handful of mines left now.
The “many uses” are now acceptable only if you are planning to take pictures, leave nothing but footprints, and stay out of any areas deemed “sensitive.” The goal of public land management is preserving public lands against the pressures of development and against the impacts and damage caused by the public. Current land managers oversee the public lands not to grow our nation and provide jobs and recreation, but to protect “aesthetic and spiritual values, recreational opportunities, fresh drinking water, clean air” and to protect the ever-growing list of endangered species.
When the National Forest program was started, it was never the intent to preserve the entire forest in an unaltered state, but to manage its development. It was not the goal to fight all development and protect it from the public, but to guide and manage growth for the good of all. Current management is trying to limit development even on private property within a 10-mile radius. My home is within a half mile of National Forest land. Are my neighbors and I damaging the values of the National Forest simply by existing there? Is the fact that my home can be seen from National Forest land degrading to the National Forest?
Forest Service reports state plainly their view: “The presence of increased housing development near National
Forest System lands can reduce open space and alter aesthetic qualities that contribute to recreation experiences.” In the same breath they also say: “Increased public access and activities on public lands could also create heightened concerns and higher costs for management of cultural resources.” They also note their real view of US citizens: “Increased human populations have been associated with an increase in crime on public lands, such as vandalism, drug activity, assaults, and illegal garbage dumping.” It seems outrageous that National Forest officials are trying to slow development on private lands outside the forest boundaries, but it’s happening.
A while back, I was discussing these concepts with my friend Steve Herschbach, who also writes for the Mining Journal, and he had a very insightful comment. He said it was like the BLM had begun to manage its land like the Forest Service used to, that the Forest Service had begun to manage its land like the National Parks used to, and the National Parks were turning into closed preserves owned by the government, where the public was not welcome except in tiny, well-controlled areas. It is not an exact description of what is going on, but it does paint a good picture of the creeping change in values when our public lands are no longer being managed to the benefit of the citizens but instead taken away from them. Our nation has suffered for it.
The new view of public lands by many officials is that all of it should be considered a preserve. Wilderness is land where all development is prohibited. The current philosophy of federal land managers is that all public lands should be treated like wilderness with only very limited, controlled use by the public. In fact, the Chief of the Forest Service has cited “unmanaged recreation” as one of the top four threats to the nation’s forests. No longer is the public freely invited to experience the beauty of our public lands; instead, use of federal land by citizens is seen as a threat to the forest.
To keep the public off of public lands and control and limit access, both the Forest Service and BLM have moved in recent years to close a large number of roads. There has been a considerable public outcry over these ongoing actions. At a recent public hearing in Elko, Nevada, a Forest Service official who oversees 34 million acres of National Forest land in five Western states defended the agency’s actions in closing roads as unpopular but necessary because of what they see as a rapid increase of off-road vehicle travel. Regional Forester Harv Forsgren told the crowd that motor vehicle use has damaged natural and cultural resources. Forsgren said he understands that the restrictions “may change the way people experience their National Forests.”
My response is that these “natural and cultural resources” are vague and never actually described. It’s just their excuse. But, I do agree that of course the road closures will “change the way people experience their National Forests.” The change is that people are being locked out of their public lands.
A number of members of congress have been highly critical of the Forest Service actions, including Rob Bishop, R-Utah, and Mark Amodei, R-Nevada. (Amodei happens to be my congressional representative.) Amodei has labeled Forest Service road closure policies as excessive regulation of public lands across the West. Bishop has stated that “the last four to five decades have witnessed a paradigm shift toward a hands-off policy or preservation. We need our land managers working with us to keep the public’s lands open for the use and enjoyment of all.” I think most ICMJ readers would agree with that statement wholeheartedly.
The closing of roads and limiting of access are not new; it has been going on for many years, just on a much smaller scale. The elimination of vehicles, together with eliminating activities like logging and mining, are the keys to cutting back on the number of people in the forest. In 2001, the Forest Service came out with a specific Roadless Rule that established prohibitions on road construction, road repair and timber harvesting on 58.5 million acres of National Forest System lands. This effectively prohibited mining as well since it is practically impossible to have a commercial mining operation without road access. The intent of the Roadless Rule is to simply prohibit any future use and development in designated roadless areas.
The amount of specially designated lands where use and development are prohibited is growing at a frightening rate. Wilderness lands, Roadless Area Review and Evaluation (RARE) areas, wild and scenic and other protected categories eliminate mineral access and the ability to stake claims. The Wilderness Act was passed 50 years ago in 1964 with good intentions. Currently, 109 million acres—or about 5% of the entire US, and about a fifth of all federal land—is designated as wilderness. But the trick of the law is that protectionist bureaucrats can designate lands as wilderness “study areas” and these receive the same protection as designated wilderness. There is no time limit for the “study” of these areas, so now an additional 12 million acres are designated and protected as “study areas” and these cannot be touched either.
Miles of gold-bearing rivers have been designated “Wild and Scenic” and are off limits to mining claims. If you think that rivers designated as Wild and Scenic are limited to those that are wild and undeveloped, think again—some have paved roads right through them. It’s just another way Washington land bureaucrats can post a “Keep Out” sign. In many parts of the country, politicians appease the extreme environmentalist crowd by turning federal lands into federal parks, which also prohibits public use of public land. The total area protected by National Park designation is approximately 51.9 million acres. Adding up all the specially designated lands and parks, more than a third of all federal land in the United States is specially designated as off limits as a preserve (and this does not include military bases, federal prisons and other lands).
As prospectors, we cannot just roll over and continue to ignore the shift in public land management from multiple use to national preserve. We must fight to protect our access and ability to use public lands the way we once did. Miners do not want to destroy the land—we want to use it responsibly, but we are not in favor of making all federal lands into a wilderness preserve. Public Lands for the People (PLP) is one of the organizations fighting toward this goal, and there are a number of other organizations. I urge you to get involved and let your voice be heard.
There are many extremist environmental organizations pushing to take away access to public land and preserve everything the government currently controls as a wilderness preserve. We need to push back and speak out for our rights to use public land. We need to fight back when roads to mines that are older than the Forest Service itself are blocked off or destroyed to keep the public out.
The BLM and Forest Service have recently armed themselves like an army against our citizens who want to use public lands. This was made clear last year in the Chicken Mining district of Alaska and more recently in Southern Nevada against ranchers. We need to fight this in the courts and at the ballot box, and I urge you to do your part and not look to someone else to take care of it for you.
US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. “Four Threats to the Health of Our Nation’s Forests and Grasslands.” www.fs.fed.us/projects/four-threats/ (05 April 2007).
US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service. “National Forests On The Edge,” www.fs.fed.us/openspace/fote/GTR728.pdf (August 2007). |
OTTAWA - The IIHF has issued a statement in light of recent media reports on the October 13, 2008 death of Russia’s Alexei Cherepanov.
A report by the Russian news and information agency, Novosti, indicates that according to the Investigation Committee of the General Prosecutors Office, paramedics did not give the appropriate treatment to Cherepanov when the 19-year-old right wing for Avangard Omsk collapsed on the bench during a KHL game versus Vityaz Chekhov and later died.
In addition, the Novosti report mentions that investigators found Cherepanov suffered from chronic myocarditis, a condition in which insufficient blood reaches the heart.
The investigators stated: “The death was directly caused by a serious cardiovascular condition. No traces of alcohol or drugs were found in his blood and urine, however, tests for chemicals showed that Alexei Cherepanov had been using stimulants for several months.”
IIHF Chief Medical Officer Mark Aubry said: “The sport of ice hockey requires a lot of skill, and doping does not really help athletes improve their performance. The IIHF conducts frequent out-of-competition and in-competition doping control tests prior to and during IIHF events. We have had very few positive tests over the last few years. Between the 2003-04 and 2007-08 seasons, 1,298 in-competition tests were conducted, with a total of 10 positive results. Between 2004 and 2007, the IIHF, in conjunction with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the national anti-doping agencies, performed 14,506 out-of-competition tests, with a total of 56 positive results. Having said that, there will still be athletes who will try to cheat and think that taking a banned substance may improve their performance. This case may also be an example of the detrimental effects of doping in sport.”
FOOTNOTE: The IIHF conducts frequent out-of-competition and in-competition doping control tests prior to and during IIHF events, such as the Olympics, the IIHF World Championships (all categories) and IIHF club competitions such as the Champions Hockey League. The national anti-doping agencies are responsible for testing within domestic leagues.
ADDENDUM: The KHL issued the following statement on Tuesday: "For at least a year prior to the incident Alexei Cherepanov suffered from chronic miochardia. In the blood of the player was found kordiamin, a drug used to stimulate and treat the heart and respiratory organs. It was found that kordiamin was put into the player three hours before the Vityaz-Avangard match of 13 October 2008. This preparation is on a list of substances prohibited by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)." |
Original Source Press Release:
Your digicam as a... tape measure?|
(Wednesday, September 20, 2006 - 19:54 EDT)
One of the interesting things we've seen as the digicam market has matured is the opportunities that have been uncovered by developers to use digicams in non-traditional ways - some very practical, others less so.
You name it, and from "digicam as slide scanner" to "digicam as 3D capture device" and back again, we've seen it. Today, we came across a new one, courtesy of the folks at DigiContractor, Inc. - "digicam as tape measure". Chances are, you've done it yourself at some point - take a photo of an object or location, and get to wondering what the dimensions of something you captured are. Find an object in the same plane as the item you're interested in and a little math will take you from the dimensions of one object to the dimensions of the other. No, the level of accuracy won't be enough to design satellites, but it'll get you in the ballpark.
This is exactly what DigiContractor's new iPhotoMEASURE software achieves, without the head-scratching and scrumpled-up balls of paper as you hastily correct your own math. iPhotoMEASURE's product bundle includes what the company calls a "DigiTarget" - essentially a high-contrast target of known size to place in your scene before capturing a photo. Snap a photo with the camera pointed directly at the scene, and identify the DigiTarget in the software once you've got the photo in your PC. You can then quickly measure the dimensions of other items in the same plane (obviously the software has no way of understanding how far away objects in different planes are).
A nice time-saver on doing the same thing manually in photoshop, and perhaps useful if you need measurements from a distant location, and can have somebody take the pictures for you.
The process could still use some refinement, though. While trying the software ourselves, we found that while DigiContractor claims 99.5% accuracy with "any digital camera", it doesn't take account of distortions in the images. Taking DigiContractor's own sample photo and quickly correcting the barrel distortion and slight keystoning, we received measurements that were a full foot off from the stock sample image on a twenty foot measurement - ie more like 95% accurate. We'd like to see future versions offer keystoning correction, and the ability to automatically detect and correct for lens distortions with common digital camera models.
An interesting idea nonetheless, and if you don't need spot-on accuracy (or have a camera with minimal distortion and the patience to set your photo up carefully) it could be a useful alternative to ladders, tape measures and hassle. Available for Windows only, iPhotoMEASURE costs $75 as a downloadable version with a PDF printable DigiTarget, or $95 for a boxed version with erasable DigiTarget, re-stickable glue, erasable marker and quick start manual.
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|iPhotoMEASURE(TM) Software Revolutionizes Home Remodeling Industry; New Photo Measuring Computer-Based Software Allows Contractors, Retailers and Consumers to Save Time and Money by Enabling Measurements with Any Digital Camera|
LOS ANGELES -- Sept. 19, 2006 -- Tapping into the United States' $250 billion home remodeling market, DigiContractor, Inc., today announced the release of iPhotoMEASURE(TM), the industry's first Photo Measuring Tool. The patent-pending computer-based software allows users to obtain measurements of any item in digital photographs. Any digital camera becomes a precise measuring device without any alterations to the camera. The consumer can simply point, shoot, download, and open the photo with iPhotoMEASURE.
iPhotoMEASURE is easy to use. The user takes a picture of the area, room or object to be measured for remodeling, redecorating, or interior design purposes. The user then proceeds to transfer the digital photo to their computer and opens it with iPhotoMEASURE's user-friendly software. With a simple click of the mouse, any distance within the picture can be measured to within 99.5% accuracy.
"The gas money spent driving to and from estimates, as well as the time spent manually measuring a potential customer's job, is eliminated with iPhotoMEASURE," said Paul Minor, DigiContractor Founder, President and General Contractor.
With over 2.5 million Contracting Businesses operating in the U.S. bidding on an estimated 15 million remodeling jobs per year, iPhotoMEASURE streamlines a previously time-consuming, costly estimating process. The software is also great for Homeowners, as now they don't have to hassle with coordinating appointments with Contractors. Users can also go shopping at Retailers with all measurements in hand to aide their decisions.
The downloadable version of iPhotoMEASURE is available for $75.00 at http://www.iPhotoMEASURE.com.
The full software package, including erasable DigiTarget, re-stickable glue, erasable marker and quick start manual retails for $95.00 and is also available through http://www.iPhotoMeasure.com as well as through traditional distribution channels in Southern California.
Owned by DigiContractor, Inc., patent pending iPhotoMEASURE(TM) is the first photo measuring computer-based software to hit the marketplace. Founded in 2004 by Contractor and Entrepreneur Paul Minor, the Los Angeles-based company is building strategic alliances and partnerships to roll out and expand its business nationwide and internationally. For more information, please log on to http://www.iPhotoMEASURE.com |
PRESS RELEASE: InVisage Solves "Rolling Shutter" Phenomenon, Besting Image Sensor Market Leaders
New QuantumShutterTM Technology Eliminates "Jell-O" Effect Prevalent in Today's Cameras
MENLO PARK, CA--(Marketwire - September 24, 2010) - InVisage Technologies, Inc. -- a Silicon Valley-based start-up that is revolutionizing the image sensor market -- today announced QuantumShutter™, a new technology that eliminates the "rolling shutter" effect that has plagued today's digital camera industry. Also known as "wobble" and "Jell-O," rolling shutter causes an image to bend, slant or skew when photographing a moving object with either a still or video camera. InVisage is the first and only company to solve the rolling shutter effect in any device, from high-end cameras like digital SLRs to small everyday devices like cameraphones.
In 2009, image sensors were a $4.6 billion* market. Of this market, CMOS image sensors make up the lion's share because they require less cost, power and space -- from DSLRs, security cameras, medical devices, automobiles to cameraphones. However, they do pose some technical challenges. Traditional CMOS image sensors read images from top to bottom. If something is moving faster than the image can be read (think of a swinging golf club, a moving propeller or a speeding race car) the object being captured will have moved before the sensor can complete its read out. This phenomenon, called rolling shutter, causes image distortion.
InVisage's QuantumShutter solves this problem by using a portion of the silicon to store the image "charge" so the entire image is captured at the exact same moment. Because of its QuantumFilm™ technology, announced earlier this year, InVisage is the only image sensor company that has the extra silicon space needed for a storage node. QuantumFilm is a quantum dot-based light absorber that sits on top of the pixel, employing the silicon beneath it to read out the image. InVisage spent three years engineering the quantum dot material to produce highly-sensitive image sensors that integrate with standard CMOS manufacturing processes.
"While other image sensor companies have been focused on increasing the number of pixels, InVisage is focused on bringing completely new thinking and technologies to CMOS image sensors -- like tackling rolling shutter," says Jess Lee, CEO, InVisage Technologies. "InVisage's QuantumShutter will bring better and more reliable picture quality to an industry that is desperate for innovation."
Traditional CMOS sensor video frame showing rolling shutter effect (top), compared to frame using InVisage's QuantumShutter technology (bottom).
Photos provided by InVisage Technologies Inc.
QuantumShutter provides compelling advantages for both video and still camera applications. The technology serves the same purpose as a mechanical shutter like those found in high-end cameras such as digital SLRs. Mechanical shutters, while highly desirable, are expensive, have a high rate of mechanical failure, and add height and weight. QuantumShutter enables the same capability, but without the need for moving parts.
"In 2010, we expect sales of more than one billion cameras that use CMOS image sensors, and it is growing," says Dr. Tom Hausken, director of photonics and compound semiconductors at Strategies Unlimited. "This creates a huge opportunity for new technologies like InVisage's QuantumShutter that offer advancements over traditional CMOS image sensors."
Initially targeting cameraphone applications, which is the largest and fastest growing portion of the image sensor market, InVisage Technologies' QuantumShutter will be available later this year as an optional feature with the first samples of its QuantumFilm-based image sensors. More information on QuantumShutter, QuantumFilm and InVisage Technologies is available at www.invisageinc.com.
About InVisage Technologies, Inc.
InVisage Technologies, Inc. is a venture-backed fabless semiconductor company based in Menlo Park, Calif. that is developing QuantumFilm, a breakthrough imaging-sensing technology that will replace silicon. Its first product enables high-fidelity, high resolution images from handheld devices like camera phones and PDAs. Founded in 2006, InVisage Technologies is venture funded by RockPort Capital, Charles River Ventures, InterWest Partners, and OnPoint Technologies. More information is available at www.invisageinc.com.
* 2010 CCD & CMOS Area Image Sensor Market Analysis, Techno Systems Research Co., Ltd
(First posted on Monday, September 27, 2010 at 20:41 EDT) |
Closer to Home
Finance & Development,
Despite all the talk of globalization, business cycles seem to be becoming more regional
The inexorable forces of globalization and regionalization have reshaped the world economic landscape over the past quarter century. While international trade flows have been growing at a much faster rate than global output, trade flows within regions of countries have been playing an even more prominent role in world trade. Economic linkages within regions have also become much stronger with the proliferation of regional trade agreements. Moreover, while the volume of global financial flows has reached unprecedented levels since the mid-1980s, overshadowing the increase in global trade over the same period, financial flows within regions have also been on the rise for the past 15 years, especially in Europe and Asia.
These developments appear to have affected the evolution of global and regional business cycles in unexpected ways. For example, despite the presence of strong global trade and financial linkages, there has been significant variation in growth performance across different regions since the 2008–09 financial crisis (Kose and Prasad, 2010). Some regions—such as Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa—exhibited surprising resilience during the worst of the financial crisis and rapidly returned to growth, whereas others—mainly North America and Europe—experienced deep and prolonged contractions that were followed by sluggish recoveries or double-dip recessions.
This behavior has raised the question of whether regional factors have become more important in driving business cycles in an era of globalization. On the one hand, globalization of trade and finance is expected to translate into stronger linkages across national business cycles and eventually lead to a situation in which business cycles move together simultaneously across the world. On the other hand, if the effects of regional linkages are stronger than those of global linkages and regionwide shocks—that is, unexpected events affecting an entire region—influence activity more than global ones, then one would expect business cycles to be increasingly regional.
Economic theory is unable to provide definitive guidance concerning the impact of increased international trade and financial linkages on the degree of synchronization of global and regional cycles. As a result, we turn to a novel empirical approach that has the potential to provide a comprehensive perspective on the importance of global and regional business cycles (Hirata, Kose, and Otrok, forthcoming).
Specifically, we employed a newly developed methodology to study the roles played by global and regional factors in driving national business cycles. We end up with the surprising conclusion that regional, rather than global, factors play an increasingly prominent role in explaining national business cycles.
Studying regional cycles
The methodology allowed us to consider fluctuations in three major macroeconomic variables for each country: output, consumption, and investment. It is critical to isolate business cycle fluctuations that are accounted for by regional factors (for example, common regional cyclical movements due to regional trade and financial linkages, regional shocks, and regionwide policies) or by global factors (that are worldwide cyclical movements due to global linkages or worldwide shocks). Our methodology separates out the factors driving national business cycles into global, regional, and country-specific factors. The global factor represents fluctuations that are common to all countries and to all three variables in each country. The regional factor captures fluctuations that are common to a particular region of countries. The country-specific factor accounts for the fluctuations that are common across all three variables in a given country.
We used this methodology on a data set that contains 106 countries and covers the period 1960–2010. We divided our sample of countries into seven regions (see table): North America, Europe, Oceania, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, Middle East and North Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa. The groupings of countries by region are especially useful in identifying the regional factors, because countries that are geographically close to one another tend to have stronger economic linkages and, therefore, are likely to be affected by similar types of (region-specific) shocks. The relatively long time span of the data enabled us to consider distinct subperiods and to analyze the changes in business cycles that took place during the recent era of globalization (1985–2010) relative to the earlier period.
Sources of business cycles
We first explored the relative importance of different factors for business cycle fluctuations over the period 1960–2010. Rather than showing the results separately for each country, we show the averages for each region or, when we looked at a specific variable, the average across all countries for that variable.
The common factors—the global factor and the respective region-specific factors—account for a significant share of business cycle fluctuations (see Chart 1). Together, on average, they account for about 25 percent of output fluctuations. The global factor, on average, accounts for 10 percent of output growth variation among all countries in the sample, while the regional factor, on average, plays a slightly more important role than the global factor. The global and regional factors also explain roughly 15 percent of the volatility in the growth rates of consumption and investment.
To examine how global and regional cycles have evolved, we divided our sample into two periods: 1960–84 and 1985–2010. There are roughly equal numbers of observations in each period, but there was a substantial increase in global trade and financial flows in the latter period. In addition, regional linkages became much stronger during the second period—as evidenced by the rapid increase in the number of regional trade agreements (from 5 in 1985 to more than 200 in 2010). The beginning of the second period also coincides with a structural decline in the volatility of business cycles in both advanced and developing economies (the so-called Great Moderation era) that lasted until the financial crisis of 2008–09.
The average contribution of the global factor to output fluctuations declined sizably in the second period—from 13 percent to 9 percent for the full sample of countries. The same pattern held for consumption fluctuations, while the importance of the global factor’s role in explaining fluctuations in investment slightly increased (see Chart 2, top panel). These patterns also held up and were, in fact, stronger in most cases when we evaluated the contributions of different factors in explaining business cycles in different regions (see Chart 2, bottom panel). The global factor appeared to play a smaller role in explaining business cycles in the second period in five out of seven regions.
In contrast to the global factor, the regional factor, on average, played an increasingly important role in explaining business cycles over time (see Chart 3, top panel). For example, in the earlier period the regional factor accounted for about 11 percent of output fluctuations and rose to about 19 percent during the second period. This result was more pronounced in North America, Europe, Oceania, and Asia (see Chart 3, bottom panel). In particular, in the second period, the regional factor accounted for roughly one-third of output fluctuations in North America and Asia, 40 percent in Europe, and 20 percent in Oceania. The regional factor also played a more important role in the second period for the sub-Saharan Africa and Middle East and North Africa regions, but the increase in the fluctuation attributed to the regional factor is much smaller.
Have the global and regional factors together become more important? A useful measure of the extent of business cycle synchronization around the world is the combined contributions of the global and region-specific factors to business cycles. The overall importance of these two common factors in explaining output variation increased only slightly. However, even this small change was the consequence of a substantial increase in the relative importance of the regional factor. These findings imply that the level at which business cycles occurred simultaneously has shifted from the global to the regional level.
We conducted a wide range of experiments to check the sensitivity of our results. First, we arrived at very similar conclusions with respect to business cycles in consumption and investment. Second, we analyzed the sensitivity of our results to make sure that they were not driven by episodes of crises (such as the 1997 Asian financial crisis or the 2008–09 global financial crisis) that could temporarily amplify the roles played by different types of factors. We also experimented with alternative break points for the two periods of the sample. In addition, we checked individual country results to ensure that the averages we presented also reflected the sources of business cycle variation at the country level.
The evolution of cycles
To explain the results, we looked at the changes in the roles played by both global and regional factors.
First, there has been, on average, a decline in the importance of the global factor. This change supports the interpretation that the strong business cycle synchronization observed during the 1970s and early 1980s reflected large common disturbances—the two oil price shocks—and the effects of correlated disturbances in the major advanced economies, notably the disinflationary monetary policy stance of the early 1980s.
Although the latest financial crisis was also a massive global shock, its full impact on the contribution of the global factor has probably yet to be fully realized—we have only three years of observations associated with the crisis. However, when we extended our sample to 2015 using forecast values of the three macroeconomic variables, we ended up with similar conclusions that supported our key findings. We also checked the sensitivity of our findings by considering a sample that ended in 2007. Those results were also in line with our key findings.
Second, there has been, on average, an increase in the importance of regional factors in explaining business cycles in the latter period. This is an intuitively appealing finding because regional linkages have become much more significant in areas in which intraregional trade and financial flows have increased substantially since the mid-1980s: North America, Europe, Oceania, and Asia.
These regions took substantial steps to strengthen intraregional economic linkages during the second period. For example, intraregional trade and financial linkages grew significantly over the past quarter century in North America, where the process of economic integration started in the mid-1980s and culminated with the ratification of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994. During the past decade, intraregional trade flows accounted, on average, for nearly 55 percent of total trade, while intraregional financial assets were about 20 percent of total assets in the North American region.
One of the greatest regional integration projects of history, of course, took place in Europe, with the eventual establishment of the European Union and the creation of the euro area. Intraregional trade flows constituted roughly 75 percent of total trade in Europe during the past decade. Intraregional asset holdings rose from 55 percent to roughly 75 percent of total assets over the same period.
Regional integration in Asia has been driven largely by the Association of South East Asian Nations but has also been complemented by a number of bilateral regional arrangements. The region has seen a rapid increase in intraregional trade and financial flows, especially over the past decade. For instance, the share of intraregional trade flows has been about 55 percent over the past decade.
The nature of trade has also changed in these four regions. One of the major driving forces of the rapid growth in regional trade flows has been the acceleration of trade within industries, which often makes business cycles more synchronized. During the second period, countries in these regions also increased the pace of diversification of their industrial and trade bases. This facilitated an increase in the degree of sectoral similarity across countries within regions, further contributing to the convergence of business cycles.
Regional business cycles can occur because of correlated shocks—such as those associated with the implementation of similar policies, or cross-border spillovers of shocks that originate in a large economy. It is easy to see how these types of shocks and spillovers have been influential in some of the regions that have experienced more pronounced regional cycles. For example, the implementation of similar policies has contributed greatly to the convergence of national cycles in Europe since 1985. Cross-border spillovers originating in the United States and China have probably been important in explaining regional cycles in North America and Asia, respectively.
Our results indicate that regional business cycles have increasingly become more pronounced, especially in those regions where intraregional trade and financial linkages have registered rapid growth since the mid-1980s. Surprisingly, the importance of the global factor has declined over time.
These results present a different interpretation of the impact of globalization on the degree of synchronization of business cycles. Most commentators argue that the globalization of trade and finance has led to the globalization of business cycles. We find to the contrary that regional factors have become increasingly more important as the driving forces of business cycles during the recent era of globalization—leading to the emergence of regional business cycles.
The number of regional arrangements with the objective of greater trade and financial integration is likely to increase in the coming years. These arrangements can generate economic benefits, but, as recent developments in Europe have clearly demonstrated, regionwide policies can also have serious consequences for growth and stability at the country level. These developments, along with the emergence of regional business cycles we documented here, call for a better understanding of the design and implications of regional policies. ■
Hideaki Hirata is a Professor of Business Administration at Hosei University and a Visiting Scholar at Harvard University. M. Ayhan Kose is Assistant to the Director in the IMF’s Research Department. Christopher Otrok is the Sam B. Cook Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri and a Research Fellow at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
Hirata, Hideaki, M. Ayhan Kose, and Christopher Otrok, forthcoming, “Regionalization vs. Globalization,” in Global Interdependence, Decoupling, and Recoupling, ed. by Yin-Wong Cheung and Frank Westermann (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press—also published as IMF Working Paper 13/19).
Kose, M. Ayhan, and Eswar S. Prasad, 2010, Emerging Markets: Resilience and Growth amid Global Turmoil (Washington: Brookings Institution Press). |
Symphony No.6, Op.100 (Melartin, Erkki)
Copenhagen: Wilhelm Hansen, 1935.
Color scans. Copyright is held by Melartin, but in a crossed-out section of the cover page (clarified by library catalogs) one sees that the actual publisher was Hansen.
|Work Title||Symphony No.6|
|Year/Date of Composition||1918-24|
|First Publication||1935 – Copenhagen: Wilhelm Hansen|
|Dedication||Nanni and Frits Jarl|
|Instrumentation||Orchestra (3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes (2nd doubling english horn), 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 basoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (triangle, snare drum, tambourine, castanets, cymbals, bass drum, bells, xylophone), celesta (ad libitum), harp, strings)|
All 6 symphonies were later published (including symphony 6 again) in the 1990s by Suomalaisen musiikin tiedotuskesku of Helsinki, I believe.- Schissel |
SUMMARY: Case Management is the collaborative process that assesses, plans, implements, coordinates, monitors and evaluates the options and services required to meet an individual's health needs, using communication and available resources to promote quality, cost-effective outcomes. Nurses are responsible for the identification, evaluation and coordination of all health care services provided to a select managed care population to manage the continuum of care, provide relevant and measurable outcomes to the ACM manager, administration, Management Committees and contracted Health Plans.
DEFINITION: Ambulatory Case Management is defined as MHC established case management programs that assist in the delivery of quality care to enrolled patients. They include, but are not limited to, Complex and High Risk Management, Transplant Management, Pediatric Management and High Risk Pregnancy Management
ESSENTIAL DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES:
1. Identifies and evaluates members for enrollment into one of the Monarch HealthCare ACM programs through the following mechanisms:
a) Physician referral
b) High-risk screening tools
c) Ambulatory utilization
d) Inpatient concurrent review (acute/sub-acute)
e) Diagnosis screening criteria
f) Family Member/significant other referral
g) Internal data analysis
2. Assesses, plans, implements, coordinates, monitors, and evaluates all options and services with the goal of optimizing the member's health status.
3. Integrates evidence-based clinical treatment guidelines, preventive guidelines, protocols, and other metrics in the development of treatment plans.
4. Develops treatment plans that are patient-centered, promoting efficiency and quality in the delivery of healthcare for the designated patient population
5. Develops systems of care that monitor member progress and promote early intervention in acute care situations
6. Works effectively with other members of the health team to optimize interventions; coordinating health care services with appropriate physicians, facilities, contracted providers, and ancillary providers; acting as liaison between member, HealthCare Team, and MHC Medical Director
7. Manages utilization and practice metrics to further refine the delivery of care model to maximize quality, clinical, and fiscal outcomes for the designated patient population
8. Reviews all referrals and authorizations associated with assigned cases in accordance with MHC and NCQA Standards.
9. Coordinates out-of-network and out-of-area cases with member, Health Plans and HealthCare Team; provides alternative health care services utilizing contracted and community services/programs.
10. Collects and analyzes health services data, including emergency care utilization, for the purpose of monitoring, tracking, trending, and physician/member education
11. Refers members to appropriate health plan, State or Federal Disease/Condition Management programs.
12. Acts as resource for department staff, inter-departmental staff, contracted physicians, Health Plans, contracted facilities, members/families and ancillary providers.
13. Maintains comprehensive and confidential patient case files
14. Maintains confidentiality of all member information and MHC business as per HIPAA regulations
15. Attends/coordinates Patient Care Conferences, on and off-site as necessary.
16. Provides any/all MHC Committees with comprehensive summary of all active ACM cases as required.
17. Assists with the evaluation and revision of CM policy and procedures.
18. Presents as a professional representative of Monarch HealthCare.
19. Performs additional duties/tasks as assigned by the Supervisor and/or Manager.
20. Maintains and complies with all Monarch HealthCare policy and procedures.
21. Regular and consistent attendance
What makes your clinical career greater with UnitedHealth Group? You can improve the health of others and help heal the health care system. You can work with in an incredible team culture; a clinical and business collaboration that is learning and evolving every day. And, when you contribute, you'll open doors for yourself that simply do not exist in any other organization, anywhere.
Assist with the supervision of the Case Management Care Coordinator relating to daily workflow, program operations, and processes.
To perform this job successfully, an individual must be able to perform each essential duty. The requirements listed below are representative of the knowledge, skill, and/or ability required. Reasonable accommodations may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.
EDUCATION and/or EXPERIENCE:
* Graduate of an accredited School of Nursing.
* BSN or equivalent desirable.
* Minimum of 3 years recent acute care or managed care experience.
* Minimum of 3 years recent care/case management experience.
* Use of Community resources in care management.
* Knowledge and use of State and Federal programs as resource in case management.
* Current and valid, unrestricted California state nursing license.
* CCM preferred.
SKILLS AND ABILITES:
* Demonstrated ability to work autonomously and to be directly accountable for practice
* Demonstrated ability to influence and negotiate individual and group decision-making
* Demonstrated ability to operate effectively in a dynamic, fluctuating, and rapidly changing environment
* Demonstrates customer-focused interpersonal skills to interact in an effective manner with the interdisciplinary health care team, practitioners, community agencies, patients and families, with respect to the diverse opinions, values, religious beliefs, and cultural ideals that will be encountered
* Demonstrates leadership qualities including: time management, verbal communication, written communication, listening skills, problem solving, decision-making, priority setting, work delegation and work organization
* Good to excellent computer skills.
* Self-motivated, proactive team member with effective critical thinking skills.
* Ability to work collaboratively as part of the Case Management department team and all other areas providing member services or support.
* Thorough knowledge of managed care, third party payers, regulatory requirements and government entitlement programs.
* Excellent telephonic etiquette.
* Analyze, and interpret job related scientific and technical journals, financial and data reports and legal documents.
* Respond effectively verbally and in writing to inquiries or complaints from customers, regulatory agencies or members of the business community.
* Communicate assertively as well as collaboratively with Management, staff, health plans, physicians, and patients.
* Effectively present information to management team.
* Bi-lingual desirable.
* Apply concepts such as fractions, percentages, ratios and proportions to practical situations.
* Read and interpret daily department reports that include raw data, trends displayed in graphs.
* Explain, share and use this data with all staff members.
* Ability to solve practical problems and deal with a variety of concrete variables in situations where only limited standardization exists.
* Ability to interpret a variety of instructions furnished in written, oral, diagram, or schedule form.
* Ability to set priorities, define and implement effective workflow and processes.
CERTIFICATES, LICENSES, REGISTRATIONS:
* Current and valid, unrestricted, California Registered Nursing (RN) license, or License Vocational Nurse (LVN) license.
* Current Certified Case Man
Skills / Requirements
Monarch HealthCare - 2 years ago |
Low-alcohol beers show their true calibre
Forget the watered-down stuff of the Eighties, today's 'small' brews taste as good as the real thing
Sunday 18 March 2012
Low-alcohol beer – long shunned for tasting worse than slops, and with no pleasurable after-effects – is becoming increasingly popular with the health conscious.
Sales are up more than 40 per cent nationwide over the last year and supermarkets are rushing to stock more varieties, encouraged by tax breaks on beers containing 2.8 per cent alcohol or less. What's more, new low-booze beer tastes just as good as some beers with more alcohol, according to recent tests by the Campaign for Real Ale.
Neil Williams, spokesman for the British Beer and Pub Association, said brewers hope these beers will attract female drinkers and appeal to the health conscious: "Lower-alcohol beers appeal to those concerned about calorie intake, as half a pint of lower-strength beer will contain approximately 60 calories." By comparison, a standard strength lager has more than 100 calories. Beer also contains silicon, which protects against the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis, he added.
Brewers have been encouraged to launch low-alcohol beers since the introduction last October of a tax break of 50 per cent on beer containing 2.8 per cent alcohol or less – a tax saving of 35 pence a pint compared with 4.2 per cent beer. Carlsberg's Skol has dropped from 3 per cent to 2.8 per cent, to take advantage of the tax break, while Carling Zest, also at 2.8 per cent, hit supermarket shelves a fortnight ago. Guinness Mid, Tolly English Ale, Heracles, Sweet Sussex Stout and Marston's Pale Ale have all been launched since the autumn.
Liz Wright, spokesperson for Hop Back Brewery, which makes Heracles beer, said: "It is doing exceptionally well, and we have introduced it in more than 100 pubs since October."
Tesco, which sold 15 million bottles of non-alcoholic and low-alcohol beer last year, and is predicting a 15 per cent rise this year, has added 11 beers of 2.8 per cent or lower strength to their range.
The company's beer buyer, Chiara Nesbitt, said: "More and more drinkers are prepared to buy lower-alcohol beers as long as the quality is good. The growth, particularly for non-alcohol beers, is remarkable, as they were previously frowned upon by drinkers who considered them thin and tasteless compared to the real thing."
Sainsbury's beer buyer, Nicky Millington, said: "If sales continue to increase, we'll be on the lookout for more lower-alcohol beers to satisfy customer demand."
Rupert Ponsonby, founder of the Beer Academy, said: "This category appeals to everyone, men and women, people who do not drink at lunchtime but would like to, and those who have cut back on their drinking." He predicts that Britain will soon catch up with countries such as Australia, where 10 per cent of the market is for beer at two per cent alcohol or below.
But Melissa Cole, author of Let Me Tell You About Beer, said: "You are always going to get more flavour from higher-alcohol beers, because you have to put more raw ingredients in to get more alcohol out, and malt provides a lot of that flavour. There's also a viscosity to alcohol, so the mouth-feel is different. But some brewers are making extremely refreshing lower-alcohol beers."
How small beers grew up
For those who crave a beer, but don't want the alcohol, low-booze versions used to be a bitter disappointment.
"Small" beers – low and no-alcohol brews – were often watered-down full-strength varieties, or had the alcohol extracted from them ... along with the taste. Who can forget Kaliber, launched in 1986, with its trademark stale taste, dismissed by Which? as "bitter and unrefreshing".
Follow-ups included Hemeling, advertised by the late English football captain Emlyn Hughes, with the tag line – answered only in the negative – "Wouldn't you rather be Hemeling?". As the low-alcohol beer market contracted by a third in the 1990s, to £38m, it seemed the brews had no future.
But new brewing methods mean no more dilution or alcohol extraction: the beers are brewed like any others, but with less malt, leading to less sugar and thus less alcohol.
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Sydney, Nov 19 (IANS) Researchers say there is a new way to ensure that boarding a flight is a smooth and enjoyable affair.
Researchers from Curtin and Beihang University, in Australia and China, respectively, claim there is a "third way" to streamline airplane boarding.
Tie−Qiao Tang from Beihang said that while modelling had previously been done on factors such as luggage congestion, routing, and takeoff runway scheduling, his study was the first to look at boarding.
"The increase of the supply of air transportation is much slower than that of its demand," said Tang, the journal Transport Research Part C, reported.
"Thus, in practice, certain conflicts between supply and demand often occur, leading to airline congestions, passenger−luggage congestions and mixed traffic problems," adds Tang.
Researchers created models using the pedestrian flow theory, comparing three styles of boarding: Random boarding; the current boarding system of assigned seating; and the new and third way that could take into account what was peculiar to different passengers, including the speed he or she moved at and the luggage carried.
Results showed that random boarding was the most inefficient, with queue−jumping, aisle congestions and jams before the gate as well as between the gate desk and the plane.
Boarding by assigned seating was better, but still inefficient, as only passengers in the front of the queue could board at their "maximum speed". Conflicts occurred over assigned seats too.
In the third and new way, seat numbers could be assigned based on the passenger's optimal speed and the attributes of luggage carried; tickets could be checked automatically using electronic equipment at the gate, thus avoiding slowdown.
The new system proved effective, as congestion could be avoided. There was also no need to overtake a fellow−passenger during boarding. Much time could be saved as there were no jams and no conflicts over seats.
While Tang said no airline had yet agreed to put the theory to practice, he is open to collaborations to make the "third way" a travel reality.
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New Delhi, Aug 16 (IANS) Poor surveillance data of encephalitis is affecting development of prevention and control measures to counter the deadly virus disease that has claimed lives of over 500 children this year in Uttar Pradesh, a study said Friday.
The study was conducted by the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) in the wake of the increasing number of Acute Encephalitis Syndrome (AES) cases in eastern Uttar Pradesh.
It reviewed AES surveillance data for January 2011 to June 2012 from Kushinagar district in the state.
During the study, it was found that the vaccination history of 84 percent of AES cases in 2011 and 100 percent in 2012 were "unknown".
"At the crux of the debate lies quality surveillance for AES, including laboratory testing, which is necessary for understanding AES, planning interventions, and developing appropriate policy measures," said Manish Kakkar of PHFI.
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Structure of Banking System in India
Read this article to know the structure of banking system in India.
Financial System in India
The group of institutions in the economy that help to match one person's saving with another person's investment. It mobilizes economy's scarce resources from savers to borrowers. Financial system can be branched into four divisions namely Financial institutions, Financial markets, Financial instruments (claims, assets, securities), Financial services
Financial markets facilitate savers to directly provide funds to borrowers. Bond market and stock markets are two most important financial markets in our economy.
Mutual fund It is an institution that sells shares to the public and uses the proceeds to buy a selection, or portfolio, of various types of stocks, bonds, or both stocks and bonds. Though there are many financial intermediaries banking sector in India has been contributing to a major portion of total credit lending to various sectors and in resource mobilization it has been playing a main role which is because of cumulative effects.
Assured rate of return on assets of depositors in banks. Easy, costless access to services through the large branch net work of banks. Virtually zero risk on the investments in banks unlike other non banking sectors which pose greater risks. GOI and RBI policies supported the cause of banks through their policies like, Interest rate ceiling on deposits with NBFC & Ceiling on quantum deposits in these companies.
The banking system structure in India can be branched and sub branched into various types .Reserve bank plays a crucial role in controlling the functioning of these banks through its policies in other words it is the central bank of India
Evolution of banking in India
Traditionally banking operations in the country have been overwhelmingly dominated by scheduled commercial banks. The activities of these banks are regulated by RBI In 1955 GOI in accordance with recommendation of AIRCSC took over Imperial bank of India and reconstituted it as SBI. In 1969 nationalization act was passed under which 14 banks were nationalized each with a minimum of 50 crore deposits. The main objectives for nationalization were to mobilize savings and canalize them for productive purposes. By 1980, six more banks were nationalized each with at least 200 crore deposits.
But the situation by early 1990s, many public sector banks turned unprofitable and under- capitalized due to accumulation of non performing assets and earning low rates of return and capital inadequacy.
Role of banks in Shaping India: The "privileged role" of the banks is a result of their unique features. For a financial system to mobilize and allocate saving of the country successfully and productively, and to facilitate day to day transactions there must be class of financial institutions apparently banks provide all these facilities through their large branch network spread all over the country. The economies of scope between deposit taking and lending give banks an information advantage over finance companies and others. The structure and working of the banking system are integral to country's financial stability and economic growth.
Liabilities and assets of bank: Deposits constitute the major source of funds for banks which constitute up to75%-80% of total bank liabilities in India along with borrowings from other banks and RBI. Assets of banks include cash in hand and balance with the RBI assets with the banking system investments in government and other approved securities and bank credit.
Banking sector reforms
: In 1991, Narasimham Committee setup by GOI recommended structural reforms and liberalization programme in the banking sector among them the following have been implemented by the GOVT.
A Model Questionnaire On Customer Satisfaction in Banking Service
Be careful when writing cheques.
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Why Everything You've Been Told About the Economy Is Wrong
By Edward Conard
(Portfolio Hardcover, Hardcover, 9781591845508, 320pp.)
Publication Date: June 7, 2012
Enter your zip code below to find indies closest to you.
In the aftermath of the Financial Crisis, many commonly held beliefs have emerged to explain its cause. Conventional wisdom blames Wall Street and the mortgage industry for using low down payments, teaser rates, and other predatory tactics to seduce unsuspecting home owners into assuming mortgages they couldn’t afford. It blames average Americans for borrowing recklessly and spending too much. And it blames the tax policies and deregulatory environment of the Reagan and Bush administrations for encouraging reckless risk taking by wealthy individuals and financial institutions. But according to Unintended Consequences, the conventional wisdom masks the real causes of our economic disruption and puts us at risk of facing a slew of unintended—and potentially dangerous—consequences. This book addresses many essential but overlooked questions, such as:
- If the United States had become a nation of reckless consumers rather than investors, why did productivity soar in the years leading up to the meltdown?
- If predatory bankers took advantage of home owners, why did down payments decline, thereby shifting risk from home owners to lenders?
- If the risks were easy to spot, why did top political and financial advisers encourage lenders to make unsound investments?
- If new regulations encourage banks to hold enough capital to fund withdrawals and not just loan losses, how will the economy underwrite the risks necessary to reach full employment?
To read an excerpt from Unintended Consequences, please visit http://www.edwardconard.com/book-excerpt
For up-to-date information on everything related to Unintended Consequences, visit www.edwardconard.com
Edward Conard was a partner at Bain Capital from 1993 to 2007. He served as the head of Bain’s New York office and led the firm’s acquisitions of large industrial companies. He sits on several boards of directors including the boards of Waters Corporation and Sensata Technologies. Prior to Bain, Conard worked for Wasserstein Perella, an investment bank that specialized in mergers and acquisitions, and Bain & Company, a management consulting firm, where he headed its industrial practice. He is a graduate of Harvard Business School and the University of Michigan.
For more information, visit www.edwardconard.com
Become a fan of Ed on Facebook: www.facebook.com/EdwardConard Follow Ed on Twitter at @EdwardConard
"Refreshing, at a time when so many take the failure of capitalism for granted, to read a bravado defense of the greatest force for wealth creation that the world has ever known."—BRIAN CARNEY The Wall Street Journal
“Edward Conard’s book presents the most cogent and persuasive analysis of the financial crisis to date. It is deeper and likely more accurate than what we have seen so far from journalists, academics, and particularly former government officials.”
—ANDREI SHLEIFER, 1999 John Bates Clark Medal winner; Former Editor, Quarterly Journal of Economics; Professor of Economics, Harvard University
“Edward Conard’s keen business insight and sharp eye on economic forces explain structural strengths and weaknesses of the American economy. While some of his proposed solutions are controversial, the U.S. economy can recover its mojo if policy makers understand Conard’s diagnosis.”
—GLENN HUBBARD, Dean, Graduate School of Business, Columbia University; Former Chairman, President’s Council of Economic Advisers “Edward Conard provides a provocative interpretation of the causes of the global financial crisis and the policies needed to return to rapid growth. Whether you agree or not, this analysis is well worth reading.” —NOURIEL ROUBINI, Chairman, Roubini Global Economics “Unintended Consequences will be the most talked about economic book in 2012. When Ed Conard points the spotlight at recent economic history, his uncanny ability to cut through the confusion provides something totally unexpected: a fresh, nonpartisan perspective on what is right and wrong with America.”—KEVIN HASSETT, Senior Fellow and Director of Economic Policy, American Enterprise Institute “Edward Conard has written a provocative and important book about the economy that challenges conventional wisdom about the financial crisis, the trade deficit, government policy, and the path to prosperity. I hope policy makers and business leaders will pay close attention to Conard’s framework.”—WILLIAM A. SAHLMAN, Senior Associate Dean, Harvard Business School “Virtually everyone who reads Unintended Consequences will feel the pain of knowing that we may never get EVERYONE to read it. The clarity of Edward Conard’s explanation of where we are, how we got here, and what we do now is profound.”—BILL BAIN, Founder, Bain & Company “There are an amazing number of good ideas and interesting points made in this book. The thinking underlying it, and the obvious depth of understanding of the author, are very impressive.”—STEVEN LEVITT, Coauthor of Freakonomics; 2004 John Bates Clark Medal Winner “This is a wonderful book, filled with wisdom by a guy who really knows what he’s talking bout. It is a must reading for both businessmen and politicians.”—JOHN C. WHITEHEAD, Former Chairman, Goldman Sachs & Co.; Former Deputy Secretary of State
"Conard's contrarian chapter on the benefits of low taxation for the rich is powerfully written. It should be read by anyone who takes for granted the superiority of progressive taxation and has not thought carefully about the trade-offs involved." —The New Republic |
Fiorello Henry LA GUARDIA
LA GUARDIA, Fiorello Henry, a Representative from New York; born in New York City December 11, 1882; moved to Arizona; attended the public schools and high school at Prescott, Ariz.; returned to New York; was graduated from the New York University Law School in 1910; was admitted to the bar the same year and commenced practice in New York City; served in the American Consular Service in Budapest, Hungary, and in Trieste, Austria, 1901-1904; American consular agent at Fiume, Hungary, 1904-1906; interpreter in the Immigration Service at Ellis Island 1907-1910; deputy attorney general of the State of New York 1915-1917; elected as a Republican to the Sixty-fifth and Sixty-sixth Congresses and served from March 4, 1917, until December 31, 1919, when he resigned; during the First World War absented himself from the House and on August 15, 1917, was commissioned a first lieutenant in the Army Air Service; promoted to the rank of captain and later to that of major; commanded the United States air forces on the Italian-Austrian front and was awarded the Italian War Cross; president of the board of aldermen of New York City in 1920 and 1921; elected as a Republican to the Sixty-eighth Congress, as an American Labor candidate to the Sixty-ninth Congress, and as a Republican to the Seventieth, Seventy-first, and Seventy-second Congresses (March 4, 1923-March 3, 1933); one of the managers appointed by the House of Representatives in 1932 to conduct the impeachment proceedings against Harold Louderback, judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, but left office before Senate trial; unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1932 to the Seventy-third Congress; served as mayor of New York City 1934-1945; president of the United States Conference of Mayors 1936-1945; United States Director of Office of Civilian Defense from May 1941 to February 1942; chairman of the United States section of the Permanent Joint Board on Defense (United States and Canada) 1940-1946; special United States Ambassador to Brazil in 1946; director general of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration in 1946; died in New York City September 20, 1947; interment in Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx.
BibliographyElliott, Lawrence. Little Flower: The Life and Times of Fiorello La Guardia. New York: Morrow, 1983; La Guardia, Fiorello H. The Making of an Insurgent, 1882-1919. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1948; Zinn, Howard. La Guardia in Congress. 1959. Reprint, New York: Norton, 1969.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
24 X 7
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William El Kaim describes an Open Cloud Model based on agile principles and driven by an independent user community to define it further. He provides a sketch of a potential Cloud Operating System. He also defines the SHINE principles for transforming IT into BT (Business Technology).
Apache Wicket is a powerful, light-weight component-based web application framework with strong separation of presentation and business logic. It enables you to create quality Web 2.0 applications which are easy to test, debug and support.
Dependency Injection by Dhanji R. Prasanna is a book that tries to explore the DI idiom in detail, and present techniques in Spring and Guice. Dhanji is a Google software engineer who works on Google Wave and also contributes to Guice, MVEL, and other open source projects.
Ryan Knight discusses how Adobe Flash Builder 4 beta provides tools for developing large-scale Flex applications, increasing developer productivity and workflow between designer and developer. 2
This article looks at the Spring BlazeDS Integration project and provides examples of how applications are wired and how to convert an existing Spring project to use the new integration. 8
In a new article, Eric Newcomer writes about the current status of distributed OSGi and explains the reasons for standardizing it in the first place. 3
This article demonstrates how to build and orchestrate highly configurable and extensible yet light-weight embedded process flow using AOP techniques with Spring AOP and Aspect J. 13
Spring 2.5 rolled out a comprehensive set of annotations that can be used for auto-discovery of Spring-managed objects, dependency injection, lifecycle methods, Web layer configuration, and testing. 15
In this article, Srini Penchikala discusses Domain Driven Design from a practical stand-point. The article looks at architectural guidelines and best practices that can be used in a DDD project. 52
BEA has released a preview of SCA support in WebLogic 10.3 based on Fabric3. We spoke with Jim Marino (BEA) and Meeraj(VocaLink) about SOA, approaches to adopt SCA and key benefits.
Many teams struggle when moving their applications to use Dependency Injection. In this article, Paul Hammant explains how to move an existing application from a nest-of-singletons design to DI. 3
The first in a series of articles exploring what's new in Spring 2.5: annotation support for dependency injection, auto-detection of Spring components on the classpath and lifecycle methods. 23 |
ONLINE, January 2000
Copyright © 2000 Information Today, Inc.
No Logo - POOR
No Logo - POOR
Featured Books this Month:
Online Competitive Intelligence: Increase Your Profits Using Cyber-Intelligence by Helen P. Burwell. (ISBN: 1-889150-08-8; 1999; softcover; 464 pp.; $25.95) Available from Facts on Demand Press, PO Box 27869, Tempe, AZ 85285-7869; 800/929-3811; http://www.brbpub.com.
This hefty book provides a wealth of information for both new and experienced researchers trying to find out about companies around the globe. In fact, there is so much information packed into this book that one can easily get lost. The detailed table of contents is necessary. I found myself referring back to it frequently to determine the context of what I was learning. The first few chapters may be confusing to new users, as data types and sources are mentioned without explanation until a later chapter. However, if you stick with it, all becomes clearer in the end.
The first part of the book explains what competitive intelligence is, some basics about the resources available, and what you can learn. The second part provides details of resources available online, covering both free and commercial databases available through the Internet or via dial-up connection. The third part is my favorite, since it covers how to organize the information you are gathering. This section includes a handy chart to help you match sources with the type of data you are seeking and a nice chapter on doing industry studies--highlighting the bits you need to find and offering suggestions for where to find them.
The appendices of resources take up nearly half the book. These include a diverse collection of Web site addresses covering loosely-related topics. Some areas have many bookmarks, others are curiously sparse. The author claims the bookmarks are updated on her Web site at http://www.burwellinc.com, but no links were there when I checked. With such an extensive list of bookmarks, there really should be an online version. Additional appendices cover locating the database that has what you want, and then which vendor, producer, or Web site supplies the database.
The biggest thing missing from this book is a sense of how competitive intelligence fits in with the overall management strategy of an organization. It provides more practical advice for conducting online research, but fails to present the entire scope of competitive-intelligence possibilities. You need to read the following book to get one version of the management point of view.
The WarRoom Guide to Competitive Intelligence by Steven M. Shaker and Mark P. Gembicki. (ISBN:0-07-058057-x; 1999; hardcover; 255 pp.; $27.95) Available from McGraw-Hill, 11 West 19th Street, New York, NY 10011; http://www.books.mcgraw-hill.com.
This book exists on a different level, yet covers the same broad topic as the previous book. The authors come from the national intelligence community, and apply the same strategies to help organizations compete in the global marketplace. They view competitive intelligence with a battlefield mentality, and propose setting up a "war room" to coordinate the collection, analysis and dissemination of intelligence.
While I recommend that all those involved in competitive intelligence read this book, I certainly don't agree with everything in it. In particular, the authors' view of librarians as a miniscule and menial part of the overall process really irks me. But I think this reflects an all-too-common management point of view. And, they clearly prefer the Internet to commercial databases or other traditional published sources. But this may be due to the fact that they are primarily going after information from and about individuals within targeted organizations.
What I think is useful is to get an understanding of a thought process that is far removed from a traditional library point of view. Even the terminology evokes cloak and dagger--you set up a war room, identify sources (people) in your organization who have access to targets (other people who have the answer you seek) and you elicit the information you want, all coordinated by a quarterback. The chapter on how to set up a war room at a conference to gather the required intelligence will have many librarians horrified, but there is some validity in their methods. And I think those in a business environment will identify with the corporate need to know.
Also of interest are the techniques used to analyze and present the data. Data visualization is a key component. In fact, the war room is really just a secure place to be able to put the increasing mounds of data on display, to aid the analysis and extraction process. Computer technology increasingly plays a part in helping to interpret the raw data and turn it into information and finally intelligence.
The last part of the book discusses security issues and counter-intelligence. I think many organizations could benefit from tighter security, but I draw the line at deliberate misinformation campaigns.
For those interested in pursuing competitive intelligence, reading this book may help professionals in the library arena develop a more holistic approach to the entire realm of competitive intelligence, of which online searching is just one small component.
How to Conquer the World: A Directory of 8,000+ International Business Resources on the Internet by Garrett Wasny. (ISBN:0-86587-642-8; 1999; softcover; 685 pp.; $69.00) Available from Government Institutes, 4 Research Place, Rockville, MD 20850; 301/921-2300; http://www.govinst.com.
If you are interested in international trade, and want to find information on the Web, this is your one-stop guide. As the title suggests, there are over 8,000 sites listed, each with a short description and URL. Of these, only 1,100 or so are American-based. The majority of sites are from the country of interest, or they are sites of various foreign embassies or trade missions.
Each major geographic region of the world has its own chapter, and within each chapter the resources cover general region guides, and then specific country lists. For each country, the listings include country-specific internet search tools, media, market guides, trade assistance, and a listing of trade representatives. The author suggests that you can get a better perspective on a country by checking out a variety of information sources, particularly those from different countries with an interest in the area.
Unlike other listings of Web sites that I've seen, this one focuses on trade and the resources required to engage in international trade. In fact, Chapter Two is devoted to Web sites that provide functional trade information--from customs to shipping to travel to law, over 400 sites to help you through the maze of customs and regulations. And the first chapter lists tips and sites for dealing with the Internet and trade, covering a wide variety of topics from Web design to statistics.
As with all books that list URLs, there is a great danger of out-of-date links. Although the author does have a companion Web site (http://www.conquertheworld.com), it does not offer updates to the book or an online version of the links. However, one of the appendices does offer tips for finding pages that have moved or changed their URL.
Overall, this is a handy book to have on your shelf if you ever have to answer questions on trade or business in any specific region or country outside the U.S.
Leading the Wired Organization: The Information Professional's Guide to Managing Technological Change by Mark Stover. (ISBN: 1-55570-357-7; 1999; softcover; 363 pp.; $49.95) Available from Neal Schuman Publishers, 100 Varick Street, New York, NY 10013; 800/584-2414 or 212/925-8650; http:// www.neal-schuman.com.
This book is aimed at information professionals who work in a "wired" organization, yet have not yet used, or do not feel comfortable with, the technology. And, judging from the title, these people are also supposed to be leading the organization. Is this possible? The librarians I know are far beyond this book, but I'm sure there are Luddites in every profession, and if you know one, give him or her this book.
The book does a good job of explaining technologies such as email, search engines, Web pages and "leading-edge" stuff like digital libraries and push technology. The focus is on how you use these, not on the technical aspects. In fact, throughout the book the focus is much more on the humans than the computer.
Each chapter starts with a real-life scenario that ends with questions that are never answered. Was Harold justified? How should Jennifer proceed? We may never know. Each chapter ends with a section called In Our Own Voices, which quotes responses to a questionnaire relating to technology use in libraries posted on the author's Web site. (The questionnaire is listed in the appendix.) He got 40 responses, and I fear he quotes them all in some places. Several of the quotes are entertaining and enlightening, but we really don't need to hear all the replies.
The best chapters in the book are those that deal with the human-computer interaction. You may learn something about the psychology of technology and strategies used to improve the interaction.
I'm hesitant to recommend this book to our well-versed readers of ONLINE, but if you know of any struggling colleagues, sneak the book onto their desks.
Deborah Lynne Wiley (email@example.com) is Principal of Next Wave Consulting, Inc. and HARDCOPY Editor.
Comments? Email letters to the Editor to firstname.lastname@example.org.
Copyright © 2000, Information Today, Inc. All rights reserved. |
The quality of initial education is a key determinant of the success of the school‐to‐work transition and of the subsequent career path of the young new entrant. Likewise, on‐the‐job training at the start of the working life helps to round out
the knowledge acquired during schooling and to acquire the skills required on the labour market. This chapter raises the following question: does the initial education of French youth provide a good start for a successful career? After a brief description of the structure
of the educational system (Section 1), the chapter presents different performance indicators for the educational system (Section 2) and for the school‐to‐work transition (Section 3). It then examines the main strategies used to improve
the school‐to‐work transition, and in particular to reduce early schoolleaving (Section 3). Finally, the work situations of young people during their studies are considered, as well as opportunities for training young workers on the job (Sections
4 and 5). |
Few people oppose the right to self-preservation. Even the Florida attorney representing the family of slain Trayvon Martin in the nation’s most controversial self-defense case acknowledges an individual’s legal right to protect him or herself.
Through legislative sessions and court rulings, each state has developed its own standards — sometimes complex and contradictory — to define the fuzzy line between self-defense and murder.
Legal justifications hang on “castle” doctrines, duty-to-retreat rules and “Stand Your Ground” laws.
Civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump, the lead attorney in the Martin case, says self-defense laws have long protected residents inside their homes or under other dire circumstances. But he fears the spread of more permissive laws may promote vigilantism or increased street violence.
“You have laws that encourage people to take the law into their own hands,” he says. “We don’t want it to be like the wild, wild West.”
Two recent fatal shootings in Spokane illustrate the high stakes and ethical nuances of Washington’s self-defense law. Cases may hinge on which side of a doorjamb someone was standing on, a shadow through tinted glass or a frantic split-second decision.
Marty Hayes, president of the Washington-based Armed Citizens’ Legal Defense Network, argues the state’s self-defense standards have become increasingly vague in recent years, as policies have been pieced together from case law and statutory codes.
“We no longer have a clear-cut self-defense law,” he says. “Everything is as clear as mud right now.”
Washington state law says a person may commit justifiable homicide in self-defense when that person fears “a design on the part of the person slain to commit a felony or to do some great personal injury to the slayer or [another person].”
The state Supreme Court has held that a person must believe there is an “imminent danger” of injury or death before using deadly force.
State law also allows someone to use deadly force to protect his or herself within their home, a legal defense commonly known as the Castle Doctrine. Washington does not have a specific “castle” law, but it does have very similar language extending the right to protect one’s self and others in a residence.
In recent years, much of the national debate on self-defense law has centered around so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws that allow a person to hold fast when attacked in public and fight back instead of fleeing. Supporters argue the law protects law-abiding citizens from becoming victims. Opponents say the law promotes half-cocked street justice.
The debate exploded last year with the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla. In that case, neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman pursued and confronted Martin while the unarmed teen was walking home. A struggle ensued, and Zimmerman fatally shot Martin.
Zimmerman has argued he fired in self-defense, claiming his right to protect himself on a public street. Prosecutors initially declined to pursue any charges on the basis of the Stand Your Ground law, drawing public outcry over Zimmerman’s actions and the response from law enforcement. (He was later changed with second-degree murder and is awaiting trial.)
While Washington does not have an explicit Stand Your Ground law on the books, the state Supreme Court has repeatedly upheld similar wording in case law, emphasizing a person can stand and fight.
“The law is well settled that there is no duty to retreat when a person is assaulted in a place where he or she has a right to be,” the court states in a 2003 opinion.
The national Association of Prosecuting Attorneys lists at least 37 states that have Stand Your Ground-type rules extending self-defense justifications to circumstances outside of the home. The list includes both Washington and Idaho.
In the past month, two fatal shootings have renewed local concerns over a citizen’s right to use deadly force in self-defense. Both highlight distinctions in state law.
On March 6, 28-year-old Marshall Balduff was shot and killed in north Spokane while allegedly trying to force his way into a home with a knife. Investigators say witnesses reported Balduff had made several threats and repeatedly ignored the homeowner’s orders to leave.
Homeowner George Wallace, 44, fired one shot at close range, killing Balduff after he had climbed through a dog door into the home.
In another shooting, on March 25, Brendon Kaluza-Graham, 25, was killed in northeast Spokane while allegedly stealing an SUV parked in a driveway. Investigators say the vehicle owner, 56-year-old Gail Gerlach, saw the vehicle pulling away and followed it on foot. He then drew a handgun and fired one shot through the tinted back window, striking Kaluza-Graham in the back of the head.
Detectives say Gerlach reported seeing Kaluza-Graham turn and raise his arm with what appeared to be a gun. Kaluza-Graham, who has a significant criminal record, had shaved keys and tools on him, but no weapon was found.
While dramatic, the first shooting has received less public criticism because it involved an armed attacker within a home. The second shooting, however, has ignited considerable public scrutiny as community members have questioned Gerlach’s decision to pursue the fleeing vehicle and his ability to see whether Kaluza-Graham had any weapon.
While Crump emphasizes Kaluza-Graham was wrong to steal the vehicle, the attorney says the shooting reflects an unsettling trend of citizens taking extreme measures to protect property instead of calling police.
“People are not trained … to take law enforcement-type actions with dire consequences,” he says, later adding, “Certainly when a vehicle is going away from you, it’s hard to argue you were in fear of deadly force.”
Hayes, a former police officer, argues Gerlach had every right to pursue the departing vehicle. He says a property owner can yell or try to detain a thief. They can also follow in order to get a better look at the driver to provide a description to police.
“He’s got a right to attempt to stop this person from stealing his car,” Hayes says.
Once Gerlach has followed the vehicle, Hayes says, if he believes he sees the fleeing man pull a gun, he should then be allowed to defend himself.
The Spokane Police Department reports that both cases remain open. Detectives will forward their reports to the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office for consideration of any potential charges. No arrests have been made in either case.
Many Spokane residents have cheered the actions of the shooters as necessary steps to defend their lives and livelihoods. Online comments and self-defense websites have widely praised the shootings, feeding off a perception of increased crime and low confidence in law enforcement.
Stand Your Ground-type laws also continue to receive strong public support. When a Washington lawmaker tried to introduce a bill earlier this year to include a “duty to retreat” in self-defense law, she was overcome with angry phone calls and a few threats. She quickly withdrew the bill.
Hayes argues the state needs strong self-defense laws to protect citizens who protect themselves. The biggest flaw, he says, is the inconsistency between some statutory laws and court decisions. He says the state should work to clarify its standards to ensure the system is applied fairly.
Crump, on the other hand, says that when people take the law into their own hands, they often dole out capital punishment for insignificant crimes. He says the Stand Your Ground attitude undermines the justice system and feeds into public fear.
“Unless we do something about [this trend],” he says, “you’re going to see a lot more deaths.” |
If you have a website running a shopping cart or it is built with WordPress, Joomla or one of the many other content management systems it's likely you have a MySQL database. It is important to backup a copy of your database on a regular basis, often times this is a hard lesson to learn because it is too late. Bakcing up your database is easy to do in PHPMyAdmin. We'll show you how to backup your database using PHPMyAdmin and assume that you alreayd know how to log into cPanel. If you need assistance with cPanel please review our article on How to log into cPanel.
- Once you have logged into cPanel, click on the icon "PHPMyAdmin" in the databases section. Once you have done that you should see a screen similiar to the one below.
- Click on the tab labeled "Export" at the top of the page.
- Select your databases you wish to backup from the list on the left side and check the "SQL" radio button under the list.
- Make sure the "Structure" box is checked as well as "Add if not EXISTS", "Add AUTO_INCREMENT value" and "Enclose table and field names with backquotes". These are typically checked by default.
- Scroll down the page to the "Save as file" section. Select the compression you wish to use. This can be important is you have a large database to help you control the size of the file.
- Click the "Go" button in the bottom right corner of the "Save as file" section.
- Congratulations! You have now successfully backed up your database.
We value your feedback!
There is a step or detail missing from the instructions.
The information is incorrect or out-of-date.
It does not resolve the question/problem I have.
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As gas prices continue to climb, the White House is reportedly considering tapping into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to ease the pain at the pump for drivers.
The anonymous official who spoke on the possibility of releasing oil from the federal reserve added that the US is monitoring gas prices first to see if they fall, reports CBS News.
On average, gas prices in the US have risen 39 cents since the beginning of July, mainly due to the increase in oil prices as well as problems with refineries in some regions. The average price for a gallon of gas has increased 18 cents in the past two weeks alone.
The price of oil did an about face after a three day gain once rumors hit about the White House considering a tap into the federal reserve. Nick Trevethan, senior commodities strategist at ANZ Research in Singapore, stated:
“Overnight the trigger for the weakness was, potentially, news reports that the U.S. will consider releasing strategic petroleum reserves, and that seems to be weighing on the market.”
Gas prices have been a hot topic in the US this summer, with the increase in prices seen, despite an earlier estimate that the cost of a gallon of gas could dip below $3 by Thanksgiving. Fox News reports that Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest stated that, “A release of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is an option that’s on the table,” but added that he didn’t “have anything to announce further on that topic at this point.”
The petroleum reserve has been tapped once already by the Obama administration, and, with gas prices putting yet another crimp in the President’s re-election efforts, he may consider tapping the reserve again to help drivers deal with gas prices should they climb too high.
Talks about tapping the petroleum reserve because of rising gas prices come in cycles, and usually leads to a partisan dispute, with Democrats favoring the decision while Republicans instead argue that the rising oil costs are a good reason to explore for more domestic oil and drilling.
Do you think that the White House should tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in order to combat high gas prices?
[Image from ShutterStock] |
It’s summer vacation for college students. That used to be their time to go to the beach, see friends and make a few bucks. Not anymore. The beach and friends part may still be happening, but the availability of summer jobs is not what it used to be. At least jobs that pay. Instead, college students and even graduates are pursuing the new-normal job: an internship that pays in experience, possible connections and resume building, but not in dollars.
Employers beware. Interns are beginning to demand compensation for performing the same work as paid employees, many of whom they displace for free. Many have filed lawsuits. And they are winning. Two interns who worked on Fox Searchlight’s film “Black Swan” claimed the company’s unpaid internship program violated federal minimum wage and overtime laws. They brought a class action lawsuit against Fox Entertainment Group. In June, a federal judge in New York ruled that Fox should have paid the interns because they essentially were regular employees. The judge also allowed the case to proceed as a class. Other intern lawsuits are now pending around the country against Warner Music Group, Hearst Magazines, Conde Nast, Elite Model Management and others.
These lawsuits pose significant risks and costs not only for the employers, who face potentially enormous liability, but also for the interns. How many 20-somethings want to mark themselves as trouble-makers just as they seek to enter the job market? Likewise, companies concerned about their reputation surely do not want to be seen as taking advantage of talented individuals with little or no bargaining power. These disputes lend themselves perfectly to an alternative approach—mediation, and in particular, pre-filing litigation.
Mediation offers many advantages. First, it is confidential. Mediation sessions are conducted in private, behind closed doors. No one besides the participants needs to even know that mediation is occurring. Further, all communications in mediation are statutorily privileged in most jurisdictions in the U.S.
Experienced mediators make a difference. They understand each side’s needs and interests and suggest creative ways to satisfy them. The parties can select a mediator with experience in their industry.
Mediation is flexible. The times and location for mediation sessions can accommodate the parties’ schedules. Additional sessions can be scheduled easily.
Importantly, unlike litigation, mediation is not a winner-take-all process. Settlements are typically crafted that do more than compromise each side’s position. Rather, mediated settlements serve the parties’ long-term interests. Business relationships can be preserved.
Finally, mediation allows individuals and companies to avoid devastating results. This benefit should be especially important to interns and the companies that retain them. Defendant companies face potentially enormous financial liability from an adverse court judgment in an intern class action lawsuit. Plaintiff interns are saved from giving themselves a damaging black mark that could block their path to gainful employment.
Ultimate resolution of intern-employer conflicts likely will not occur without a legislative solution. In the meantime, interns and the companies that hire them would be wise to turn to mediation before going to court. |
Plague Poverty and Prayer Exhibition - Barley Hall, York
Plague Poverty and Prayer is a new exhibition at the historic medieval townhouse of Barley Hall. The exhibition explores everyday life for the citizens of York from the Norman invaison to Tudor times, by examining unique archaeological evidence from the period. Visitors will explore interactive displays, new research, and recently excavated skeletal material, to find out some of the gruesome details about illnesses and diseases from the period; who and what may have treated them; and the importance of folk medicine, prayer, astrology, spells, mysticism to everyone living in Britain at the time. The exhibition has been funded by the Wellcome Trust and designed by York Archaeological Trust.
The exhibition runs from 21/01/2009 to 01/12/2009.
Find out more information by on the Barley Hall page. |
Your net worth is the amount by which your assets exceed your liabilities. In simple terms, net worth is the difference between what you own and what you owe. If your assets exceed your liabilities, you have a positive net worth. Conversely, if your liabilities are greater than your assets, you have a negative net worth.
Your net worth provides a snapshot of your financial situation at this point in time. If you calculate your net worth today, you will see the end result of everything you've earned and everything you've spent up until right now. While this figure is helpful - for example, it can provide a wake-up call if you are completely off track, or a "job-well-done" confirmation if you are doing well - tracking your net worth over time offers a more meaningful view of your finances. When calculated periodically, your net worth can be viewed as a financial report card that allows you to evaluate your current financial health and can help you figure out what you need to do in order to reach your financial goals.
Net Worth = Assets - Liabilities
Your assets are anything of value that you own that can be converted into cash. Examples include cash, real estate and personal property. Your liabilities, on the other hand, represent your debts, such as loans, mortgages, credit card debt, medical bills, utilities and student loans.
One of the challenges in calculating your net worth is assigning accurate values to all of your assets. It's important to make conservative estimates when placing value on certain assets in order to avoid inflating your net worth (i.e. having an unrealistic view of your wealth). Your home, for example, is probably your most valuable asset and can have a significant impact on your net worth. Determining an accurate value of your home, by comparing it to similar homes in your area that have recently been sold or by consulting with a qualified real estate professional, can help you calculate a realistic net worth.
What Does It Mean?
Your net worth can tell you many things. If the figure is negative, it means you owe more than you own. If the number is positive, you own more than you owe. For example, if your assets equal $200,000 and your liabilities are $100,000, you will have a positive net worth of $100,000 ($200,000 - $100,000 = $100,000). Conversely, if your assets equal $100,000 and your liabilities are $200,000, you will have a negative net worth of -$100,000 ($100,000 - $200,000 = -$100,000). A negative net worth does not necessarily indicate that you are financially irresponsible; it just means that - right now - you have more debt than assets.
Like the stock market, your net worth will fluctuate. However, also like the stock market, it is the overall trend that is important. Ideally, your net worth continues to grow as you age - as you pay down debt, build equity in your home, acquire more assets, and so forth. At some point, it is normal for your net worth to fall, as you begin to tap into your savings and investments for retirement income.
Since each person's financial situation and goals are unique, it is difficult to establish a generic "ideal" net worth that applies to everyone. Instead, you will have to determine your ideal net worth - where you want to be in the near-term and long-term future. If you have no idea where to start, some people find the following formula helpful in determining a "target" net worth:
Net Worth = [Your Age - 25] X [Gross Annual Income ÷ 5]
For example, a 50 year-old with a gross annual income of $75,000 might aim for a net worth of $375,000 ([50 - 25 = 25] X [$75,000 ÷ 5 = $15,000]). This does not mean that all 50 year-olds should have this same net worth. The formula can be used simply as a starting point. Your ideal net worth may be much more or much less than the amount indicated by the guideline, depending on your lifestyle and goals.
Why Your Net Worth Is Important
When you see financial trends in black and white on your net worth statements, you are forced to confront the realities of where you stand financially. Reviewing your net worth statements over time can help you determine 1) where you are, and 2) how to get where you want to be. This can give you encouragement when you are heading in the right direction (i.e. reducing debt while increasing assets) and provide a wake-up call if you are not on track.
Knowing your net worth is important because it can help you identify areas where you spend too much money. Just because you can afford something doesn't mean you have to buy it. To keep debt from accumulating unnecessarily, consider if something is a need or a want before you make a purchase. To reduce unnecessary spending and debt, your needs should represent the majority of spending. (Keep in mind that you can falsely rationalize a want as a need. That $500 pair of shoes does fulfill a need - clothing - but a less expensive pair may do just fine and keep you headed in the right financial direction).
Pay Down Debt
Reviewing your assets and liabilities can help you develop a plan for paying down debt. For instance, you might be earning 1% interest in a money market account while paying off credit card debt at 12% interest. You may find that using the cash to pay off the credit card debt makes sense in the long run. When in doubt, crunch the numbers to see if it makes financial sense to pay down a certain debt, taking into consideration the impact of no longer having access to that cash (i.e. it's a good idea to keep some cash on hand for emergencies).
Save and invest
Your net worth figures can motivate you to save and invest money. If your net worth statement shows that you are on track to meet your financial goals, it can encourage you to continue what you're doing. Conversely, if your net worth indicates room for improvement (for example, over time you have dwindling assets and burgeoning liabilities), it can provide a needed spark of motivation to take a more aggressive approach to saving and investing your money.
The Bottom Line
Regardless of your financial situation, knowing your net worth can help you evaluate your current financial health and plan for your financial future. By knowing where you stand financially, you will be more mindful of your financial activities, better prepared to make sound financial decisions and more likely to achieve your short-term and long-term financial goals. If you want to save some time in tracking your net worth, use our free Net Worth Tracker which allows you to calculate, analyze and record your net worth for free. |
Easter pardon for Malawi prisonersComment on this story
Blantyre, Malawi - Malawian President Joyce Banda on Thursday freed 281 prisoners from the country's overcrowded jails as part of Easter celebrations.
The Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement the freed prisoners had “served at least half of their prison sentences with good behaviour and were not convicted of serious offences.”
Malawi's 34 prisons are battling severe overcrowding, blamed on courts that often give prison sentences for minor offences.
However, prisoners are often granted pardons to mark holidays including Independence Day on July 6.
Retired judge Duncan Tambala once described the impoverished country's prisons as “hell on earth” due to poor conditions.
Banda, who became Malawi's president after her predecessor's death in April 2012, is seeking election in May 20 general elections. |
Committee votes on ‘shocking’ CIA reportComment on this story
Washington - The US Senate Intelligence Committee voted on Thursday to declassify its long-awaited report on the CIA's use of brutal interrogation methods that critics say amount to torture.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat who chairs the committee, said the vote was 11-3 to declassify what she called the “shocking” results of investigating the Central Intelligence Agency practices under Republican president George Bush.
The vote to lift the blackout on the summary and recommendations of the 6 200-page report follows an unprecedented clash by Feinstein with the CIA, and would give the world its first official look at its regimen of interrogation and detentions in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
“The report exposes brutality that stands in stark contrast to our values as a nation. It chronicles a stain on our history that must never be allowed to happen again. This is not what Americans do,” Feinstein told reporters after the committee voted during a classified meeting.
It will still be weeks - if not longer - before any of the document is cleared for release.
Some committee Republicans voted with the Democrats in favour of declassifying the report, but it was clear there were bitter divides within the panel. The investigation began four years ago but was conducted only by Democrats. Republicans declined to participate because they felt it was too biased.
The three “no” votes were all from Republicans - senators Dan Coats of Indiana, Marco Rubio of Florida and James Risch of Idaho. In a joint statement, Rubio and Risch called the report “one-sided and partisan” and said its release could endanger Americans overseas and risk US relations with other countries.
Georgia Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss, the panel's vice-chairman, said he voted for declassification “to get it behind us” and allow the public to make up its own mind.
He called the probe a waste of time and disputed assertions that the interrogation techniques had not helped to track down Osama bin Laden or others suspected of terrorism.
“There was information gleaned from this programme which led not only to the takedown of Bin Laden but to the interruption and disruption of other terrorist plots over a period of years,” Chambliss said.
Congressional and intelligence sources said the report strongly condemned now-abandoned interrogation techniques such as “waterboarding” or simulated drowning, and concluded that they did not produce significant counter-terrorism breakthroughs.
The report is at the centre of a bitter dispute between Feinstein and the spy agency over whether the CIA secretly monitored the panel's investigation.
Feinstein, normally one of Congress' strongest supporters of the intelligence community, accused the CIA in March of spying on Congress as it conducted the probe and possibly breaking the law.
And a top CIA lawyer complained to the Justice Department that Senate investigators accessed privileged agency records without proper authorisation.
On Thursday, Feinstein said the report points to “major problems” with the CIA's management of the interrogation programme, and its interaction with the White House, Congress and other parts of government.
The Senate panel will now ask the White House to declassify the politically sensitive report.
An administration spokeswoman said President Barack Obama wanted this to happen as expeditiously as possible. Obama halted the interrogation programme shortly after taking office in 2009.
“The president believes that bringing this programme into the light will help the American people understand what happened in the past and can help guide us as we move forward, so that no administration contemplates such a programme in the future,” spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said in a statement.
Dean Boyd, the CIA's director of public affairs, said the agency would act quickly. He said the agency had learned from the interrogation and detention programme's shortcomings and had taken corrective measures, but indicated it would not sign off on an inaccurate report.
The CIA has taken issue with some of the findings and has said the report contains factual errors.
“We owe it to the men and women directed to carry out this programme to try and ensure that any historical account of it is accurate,” Boyd said.
Feinstein said she hoped the release would come quickly, perhaps in as soon as 30 days.
“That may be wishful thinking, but I hope not,” she said. - Reuters |
Straight-line winds as high as 60 mph caused considerable greensnap in corn across north-central and northeast Iowa last Saturday evening, July 1. Damage was more frequent and most severe in a narrow, long band running from eastern Cerro Gordo County generally along county road B60 and across several counties to the east and northeast and included the Iowa State University Northeast Research and Demonstration Farm at Nashua.
Damage assessments are incomplete, but large areas of 20 to 80 percent breakage are reported in some fields. The last experience with a major greensnap event in northern Iowa was during 1998. Producers should immediately notify their crop insurance providers of the damage and see what compensation or coverage is available to them.
Corn is most susceptible to greensnap prior to tasseling, when it is rapidly growing. Corn in the damaged areas ranged from the 10th to 12th leaf stage (V10 to V12). These stages are the beginning of "prime time" for greensnap. Most of the broken plants were broken at the node just below the primary ear. A few plants were broken below the ear in the internode. Broken plants may produce a nubbin, a small nonproductive ear.
Pinching (in contrast to clean breaks) of stalks was more common at Nashua than we have seen before (see photos). Pinching is the crushing of stalk tissue on one side of the stalk causing the plant to lean over but still remain attached and intact. In fields where the soil was wet at the time of the storm or where rootworm feeding has occurred, root lodging occurred. This is where the whole stalk is leaning at an angle. Pinched and root-lodged plants will try to reorient into a vertical position and produce an ear. Yield reduction will occur from both pinched and root-lodged plants. Yield loss for damage like this is difficult to predict since it is dependent on the remaining growing conditions. Expect harvesting to be more difficult in some areas.
We've learned from previous greensnap events in Iowa and Nebraska that yield loss is directly related to the amount of stalk breakage that occurred. In other words, yield loss from broken plants is directly related to stand loss (i.e., 10 percent broken plants will result in a 10 percent yield reduction). This is because at this time of year, corn plants are not able to compensate for reduced plant competition very much. Ear parameters have been largely determined (see previous Integrated Crop Management article.
Hybrids vary dramatically in their tolerance to greensnap. Several companies provide growers with greensnap ratings that may prove useful in selecting less susceptible hybrids. Stage of growth affects breakage too. Factors that increase early season growth tend to increase breakage susceptibility, such as high N, P, and K rates; spring-applied N; tillage; and high organic matter.
Plant orientation and plant populations also are important factors in understanding greensnap. With high plant densities, leaves tend to orient perpendicular to the row rather than parallel. Plants whose leaves are oriented perpendicular to the row are more likely to break than other plants when strong winds come in perpendicular to the rows. This is likely why we seldom have greensnap events (from straight-line winds) that affect both north-south and east-west rows. Greensnap will typically occur in one row orientation or the other but not both.
Further research is needed to understand the causes of greensnap and how to avert it. The Iowa State University Northeast Research and Demonstration Farm at Nashua has ongoing trials comparing hybrids, dates of planting, nutrient levels, and tillage systems. Considerable variation exists in the amount of greensnap within these trials. Field data from Nashua will complement greenhouse studies planned to begin soon and help us to develop recommendations to reduce greensnap in the future across the Midwest.
Greensnap damage at the Iowa State University Northeast Research and Demonstration Farm at Nashua, July 6, 2006. The photos show a plant broken at the node in the foreground and a pinched plant in the background. (Roger Elmore)
This article originally appeared on pages 199-200 of the IC-496(19) -- July 10, 2006 issue. |
Grayce and Clarence Dwyer, who are both 100-years-old, have been married for 71 years and this Tuesday they’re celebrating St. Valentine’s Day and still very much in love.
ABC News reports that the couple still ends conversations with “I love you”.
Recently, Clarence told his wife “Grayce, I think I am very old and that I am going home soon. Will you follow me?”
She responded saying, “Like the tail of a kite."
Both Grayce and Clarence are the children of Irish immigrant families and both lost their fathers in the 1917 flu epidemic, on the same day.
The couple, from Madison, New Jersey, have four children, 17 grandchildren, and 12 great- grandchildren. At the center of their lives is their family, their faith, and the notion their family came to America in search of “The American Dream”.
More St. Valentine's Day stories from IrishCentral
Grayce said “We just always got along -- we came from similar lives…We were raised by mothers who taught us what was important to have a valuable life, simply put -- take care of each other and your family. Life was not meant to be easy, so you surround yourself with good people and always have a strong faith that will help you through the hard times."
Clarence, from a large Boston family, was on his way to the priesthood until he met Grayce at a dance in Brooklyn. Grayce had quit school by that time to work. In 1941 they married.
The pair still live in their own home and get around okay with some help from aides.
Their daughter, Donna Dwyer Streaman, told ABC, “Until very recently they have been fiercely independent and still were able to cook and shop even if it meant returning to the local food market more than once a day so that they could prepare their own meals.
"We believe it is a testament to the love they have for each other.”
However, she also says that growing old has been hard for them.
Their daughter continued, “It's very sad for me to look at them now at the end of their life…A year in their life is a decade to them. One little fall can make such a tremendous change."
So what exactly is the secret to their happiness? Well it seems that working hard and having fun is the answer.
She said “Their mothers were survivors and taught them important values such as family, a strong work ethic, and being grateful for every day and moment you have…Mom will say, 'I think it is probably remarkable that we are still here with each other and able to speak about the old days and laugh about the good times we had together and with our family.'"
Clarence, a former accountant for construction companies, was born on 30th April, 1911. He grew up in “Southie” the Irish neighborhood in south Boston. His mother knew John F. Kennedy’s mother, Rosie Fitzgerald, and Clarence was an altar boy in the church where Senator Ted Kennedy’s funeral was held, the Basilica of Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
At 14 he was sent to a parochial high school and then on to study for his entrance into the Redemptorist Order of the priesthood. However, for reasons he’s never spoken about, he decided not to enter the church.
The Red Sox fan graduated from Boston College.
Grayce had a similar upbringing. She was born on 12th January 1912 in the Irish neighborhood in New York, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. She worked as a secretary in the guidance office at a Catholic high school.
Her daughter said she returned to night school and got her GED. Grayce still reads avidly and reads the newspaper every day.
This Valentine’s Day, their aide, Alice, will help Grayce make a cake for the special day.
In the past they would celebrate St. Valentine’s Day with the whole family. They “never would care to bring special attention just to themselves."
"They both put their faith in God and I guess God feels he still needs them here for us," said Streaman.
"Mom quietly says, I have to get strong for Dad."
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Inauspicious start for euro zone banking union project
The confusion surrounding the assessment of Irish banks is worrying
ECB president Mario Draghi at the European Banking Congress at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, Germany, on November 22nd. Draghi frequently raises the issue of “financial fragmentation”. Photograph: Daniel Reinhardt/EPA
“Market fragmentation” is one of those euphemistic terms beloved by financiers and ECB- watchers, but which has a very real impact on the economics of the every day.
Take this example. Two small hotels located on either side of the Austrian-Italian border are engaged in the same kind of business activity and bank with the same financial institution. However, the hotel-owner on the Italian side of the border pays almost twice as much as his Austrian counterpart for bank loans.
Welcome to the world of financial fragmentation. Despite the apparent existence of the single market, the huge disparity in borrowing costs for SMEs across the single currency is one of the pressing problems facing the euro zone. Because banks in peripheral countries are forced to pay higher funding costs, they charge higher interest rates to customers. Stories of entrepreneurs in Greece being charged between 10 and 14 per cent for loans are commonplace.
The fact that European SMEs are particularly dependent on bank lending (US companies for example use debt and equity funding to a much larger extent) makes the issue a particularly pressing one for Europe.
As always, the problem will be at the forefront of the minds of the European Central Bank’s governing council at today’s rate-setting meeting in Frankfurt.
While ECB president Mario Draghi frequently raises the issue, the bank is ambiguous about whether moves to tackle fragmented lending rates are really part of its mandate. It has pointed out that the issue is primarily one for national governments, who must do more to reduce debt levels, and deal with the over-reliance of some banks on their own national sovereign bonds.
Nonetheless, the ECB has sought to eliminate the divergences between countries caused by bank funding risks, for example through its long-term refinancing operation – its programme of short-term, fixed-rate liquidity for banks – and interest rate action.
Ultimately, however, it says the key to eliminating fragmentation is banking union, the euro zone’s plan for an integrated banking system.
The first part of that process, the Single Supervisory Mechanism, which will see the ECB assume supervisory control for 85 per cent of the euro zone’s banking system, has an important role to play here, according to the ECB. It believes that the new system of one supervisor for the euro zone will lessen the fragmentation caused by perceived differences in the quality of supervision between euro area countries.
Further, next year’s three- stage stress test process to be undertaken by the bank in preparation for its new role, aims to create a fully comparable set of results. It will also shed greater light on the real state of the euro zone banking sector, thereby removing uncertainty about everything from asset valuation to funding models, which is currently distorting the price of funding.
Which is why the confusion this week surrounding the balance sheet assessments of Irish banks is a worrying sign.
Although the Irish reviews were a separate set of tests required by the troika (Blackrock, for example, will deliver the results of its stress tests of fellow bailout-country Greece tomorrow) the review of AIB, Bank of Ireland and Permanent TSB will feed into next year’s European tests.
In this regard, the handling of the announcement of their outcomes this week does not bode well for the euro-wide process.
The three banks issued statements with varying degrees of detail, and leaving significant room for conjecture, with the Irish Central Bank maintaining a notable silence. AIB said that, based on “an initial” assessment of the findings, “the bank believes it continues to be well capitalised.” In a succinct but ambiguously worded statement, Permanent TSB said that from the “communicated results”, the capital position of the institution was above minimum regulatory requirements. Bank of Ireland’s statement was the most forthright. It said it disagreed with the Central Bank’s assessment that it should take €1.3 billion in provisions for bad loans.
The public disagreement between a listed bank and the national regulator sets a worrying precedent for next year’s euro-wide stress tests, which will entail heavy involvement by the national regulators of each individual country.
With the three Irish banks and the national regulator failing to put forward a united front and, in the case of Bank of Ireland, in effect agreeing to disagree, is it really feasible to believe that the network of the euro zone’s largest financial behemoths, national regulators and the ECB will find common ground? |
Potential pathogens associated with abnormal mortalities
|Title||Potential pathogens associated with abnormal mortalities|
|Author(s)||C. Garcia, I. Arzul, F. C. J. Berthe, B. Chollet, J. -P Joly, N. Kerdudou, L. Miossec, M. Robert, J. -L Nicolas|
|Journal||95. Annual Meeting of the National Shellfisheries Association, New Orleans, LA (USA), 13-17 Apr 2003, Journal of Shellfish Research,|
|Abstract||In France abnormal mortalities of mollusks affect many species of bivalves. They occur mainly in summer and concern all the French coastline. For Crassostrea gigas, they affect all life's stages but more particularly spat. A pathology monitoring network, REPAMO, was created at the beginning of the nineties in France in order to answer European requirements as regards mollusk pathology. REPAMO observes whether there is abnormal mortality and keeps track of the health situation of mollusk stocks including the presence of pathogens notifiable to the European Union and OIE. When mortalities occur, the network REPAMO, samples the populations and performs different types of analysis (histology, bacteriology, viral detection) in order to detect potential pathogens. In France, different agents have been sometimes associated with abnormal mortalities of bivalves such as herpes-virus in Crassostrea gigas. Bacterial agents can be also involved. Indeed hemolymph of moribund oysters from open sea and from hatchery are often invaded by one Vibrio species belonging to V. splendidus group or V. aestuarianus. These observations suggest that Vibrio could induce or aggravate mortality in oysters weakened by environmental or physiological (maturation) factors.|
Using APA 6th Edition citation style.
Times viewed: 254 |
- ISRAEL21c - http://www.israel21c.org -
Israel to aid refugees from Ivory Coast
Posted By ISRAEL21c Staff On April 4, 2011 @ 4:36 am In | No Comments
Israeli relief agency IsraAID is to send medical aid to Liberia in an effort to help refugees fleeing the civil war in the Ivory Coast.
Over one million people have been forced from their homes in the Ivory Coast as bitter fighting between rebels and supporters of the country’s president Laurent Gbagbo has intensified. Since January some 150,000 people have crossed into neighboring Liberia, and the pace has intensified in the last few weeks.
“Our partners on the ground are reporting that the conditions in the Ivory Coast and in the newly formed camps on Liberia’s border are deteriorating. People are crossing the border with almost no possessions and are being forced to live in makeshift shelters with no basic human essentials,” says Shachar Zahavi, director and founder of IsraAID, an umbrella aid organization made up on 17 NGOs offering assistance to communities in developing countries.
“Liberia has been assisting the refugees for months now, but in recent weeks the influx of people crossing the border has become a stress to the local host,” he adds.
IsraAID plans to send relief items and provide medical care to the tens of thousands of refugees now in Liberia. With the rainy season due soon, Zahavi said that speed is essential.
Fighting began in the Ivory Coast in November following disputed presidential elections.
Article printed from ISRAEL21c: http://www.israel21c.org
URL to article: http://www.israel21c.org/news/israel-to-aid-refugees-from-ivory-coast/
Copyright © 2012 Israel. All rights reserved. |
Jerusalem, situated in the Judean Hills, is the capital of Israel, the seat of government and the historical, spiritual and national center of the Jewish people since King David made it the capital of his kingdom some 3,000 years ago. Sanctified by religion and tradition, by holy places and houses of worship, it is revered by Jews, Christians, and Muslims the world over.
Until 1860 Jerusalem was a walled city made up of four quarters - Jewish, Muslim, Armenian, and Christian. At that time, the Jews, who by then comprised the majority of its population, began to establish new neighborhoods outside the walls, forming the nucleus of modern Jerusalem. During three decades of British Mandate administration (1918-48), the city gradually changed from a neglected provincial town of the Ottoman Empire (1517-1917) into a flourishing metropolis, with many new residential neighborhoods, each reflecting the character of the particular group living there.
Following the Arab onslaught against the newly established State of Israel, the city was divided (1949) under Israeli and Jordanian rule, and for the next 19 years concrete walls and barbed wire sealed off one part from the other. As a result of the 1967 Six Day War, the city was reunified.
Today Israel's largest city, Jerusalem has a population of more than 760,000. At once ancient and modern, it is a city of diversity, with inhabitants representing a mixture of cultures and nationalities, of religiously observant and secular lifestyles. It is a city which preserves its past and builds for the future, with carefully restored historical sites, well-landscaped green areas, modern commercial zones, industrial parks and expanding suburbs attesting to its continuity and vitality.
Jerusalem: View from Mount of Olives (Photo: I. Sztulman) |
The status and likely progress of two emerging members of the ever-broadening family of 802.11 standards from The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 802.11ac and 802.11ad, are becoming clear.
The two standards do significantly different things, despite the similarities of their names. 802.11ac is a more direct extension of the lineage of 802.11 specs, which run from .11a, .11d, .11g to .11n. The idea behind 802.11ac is to go faster over roughly the distance of current Wi-Fi specs. 802.11ad, also called WiGig, is a far shorter range multi-gigabit per second technique that can be thought of as a replacement for cables in an office or home.
The differences in the technology and their mandates make it curious that the two are thought of together. This pairing was the case in research released this week by ABI Research. The firm found that 802.11ac will break out of the box quickly because it is a great way to perform the newly devised and important task of offloading data from cellular to Wi-Fi networks.
On the other hand, 802.11ad “will see a more modest and staggered growth” starting with larger and moving to smaller products,” the analysts found. The release details the mix of form factors, which will differ from each other and change over time.
Of course, Apple is a key linchpin of growth for anything related to the telecommunications, IT or consumer electronics industries. Considering the upbeat projections for the spec, it is not surprising to find that Apple is getting into the act. Mac Observer and other sites report this week that the company’s updates to the Mac, iPhone and iPad versions of the AirPort Utility are 802.11ac compatible.
Wi-Fi offload is largely invisible to the end user, while the driver of 802.11ad – eliminating cables and wires – is very obvious, and very welcome to most. That shouldn’t be underestimated as a non-technical difference between the two standards: The driver of one mainly is under the hood, while the other is front and center.
The high profile of 802.11ad is illustrated in this CIO.com article on the progress of Intel’s Thunderbolt interconnect for mobile devices. The heart of the story is an assessment of the progress being made by Thunderbird, which is a wired approach to doing essentially what WiGig does. The most intriguing element of the story is that instead of simply outlining the progress, it concludes that Intel knows that the technique may be equaled or superseded. It quotes Dadi Perlmutter, executive vice president and general manager of the Intel Architecture Group:
"Do users want Thunderbolt or do they want WiGig? They might want both. We are working on both," Perlmutter said.
The future seems bright for both additions to the highly successful 802.11 family of specs. The main drivers of each – better managing available spectrum and eliminating wires – are winners, regardless of which gets hot first. |
Debate on "The Great Stagnation"
Tyler Cowen's recent e-book, The Great Stagnation, has attracted praise and generated intense discussion about the changing nature of the modern U.S. economy. The provocative premise is that median household income growth has stagnated since the 1970s because innovation is no longer the key driver of economic growth. True, there have been dazzling advances in technology, but Cowen suggests these new technologies, specifically the Internet, have not really translated into economic growth, employment and productivity gains. Well, the gauntlet is down! ITIF President Rob Atkinson sees it very differently and invited Cowen to debate how much recent innovation and technological change has helped boost economic growth and opportunity. ITIF hosts a spirited debate on the trends that have shaped the economic transformation we are living through and what they tell us about the road ahead. |
Why employees in Ja's largest corporations keep the nation's energy bill high
There is so much talk and slow action about implementing alternative energy sources these days. Without a doubt, Jamaica will benefit from any decrease in cost for energy, but has anybody stopped to think of what will happen if we do not formulate firm strategies to manage consumption in all spheres of our daily life?
As it exists now, our main supplier of electricity is unable to generate the amount of power to meet its demands, and whether our dreams of rates US 14 cents per kwh becomes a reality or not, we must think outside of the box in an effort to control consumption.
For the most part, energy saving activities are centred around the use of household appliances, lighting, and air condition units, which consume the most electricity. However, there is not as much enthusiasm expressed in the public domain as to how companies should effectively manage their power consumption.
It is believed that by now, organisations would have been proactive with fully developed programmes in engaging their team members in the importance of keeping their operational costs down by carefully managing the use of electricity.
However, as these organisations become more dependent on information technology to drive efficiencies in their operations, there is usually a correlative increase in power consumption. In many cases, this increase could actually be greatly curtailed, but on the other hand, IT mangers who orchestrate equipment usage are never usually concerned with cost containment.
Desktop and laptop computers usually account for the majority of technology equipment used in most companies, and this is where the haemorrhaging of electricity takes place, simply because these units are left on for long periods when not in use.
Individuals in most organisations cannot be relied upon to shut off their computers when not in use for long periods, particularly at the end of the day and Friday evenings.
The continuous waste of power inhibits the Jamaica Public Service Company to meet its demands for power in areas of the island which have never been privileged to have this modern convenience many of us take for granted.
Organisations that operate more than 50 or more computers are at serious risk of inflated JPS bills because of this type of oblivious behaviour. The associated costs of operation really add up when tabulated on a per annum basis.
Let us do some simple mathematics:
If your PC is on for left idle for 16 hours each week day after the usual eight hour work day and on weekends for a full 48 hours :
The total wasted hours per week is (16 x5) weekday + 48 weekend= 128 hours
Per Year this adds up to 128 x 52 (weeks) = 6656 hours
Each computer uses 128W = (6656 x 128)/1000 = 822kwh
Cost for Electricity Per KW/h in Jamaica is US$0.44
Total Cost for wasted electricity per computer per year is 882 X $0.44 = US$375
The kilowatt hours used in the computation does not include hours that computers may be idle during the work day.
This figure may not seem like a whole lot but consider those large corporations in Jamaica that have 500 to 1000 + employees. If 200 computers were to be left running for those hours per annum then that corporation will be looking at a whopping J$7,425,000 ($US375 x 200 x ROE J$99 = US$1) in payments to JPS.
These are not just costs that are impacting the private sector. This dilemma is every taxpayer across the nation's problem. Our government employs more people than any private sector organisation and the waste in electricity throughout the various ministries is staggering.
The government owns approximately 80,000 computers. If just 20,000 are to be left on for 128 hours then the cost to taxpayers is over J$742.5 million. The current public sector bill for electricity is over J$1.2 billion per month which will grow as the government strives to modernise its operations.
Many companies have introduced energy conservation awareness programmes which are created to help their employees to better understand the impact of their action on the companies' bottom line; however the benefits are usually short lived. The senior management in these large organisations must look at other ways they can manage these processes with a view to ensuring a more favourable outcome.
The implementation of software applications which do not require human intervention, which will shut down these computers when not in use is in fact available and organisations at risk should look at the available options coupled with its awareness programmes.
While cheaper sources of energy are still a far ways off, the issue of power generation by the JPS will always be a problem that will never go away if conservation is not tackled in a very serious way.
Dean Johnson is a specialist in information technology, sales and marketing. You can email him at email@example.com. |
Son of King Oeneus of of Calydon and Althaea. Seven days after his birth the
Fates appeared to foretell his future. Clotho and Lachesis predicted he would
be noble and brave. Atropos warn that he would die as soon as one of the sticks
in the fireplace burned completely. Taking the hint Althaea pulled the stick
from the fire, put it out, and hid it in a safe place.
While still young he came to be regarded as second only to Heracles in his abilities. He was the youngest of the Argonauts and according to some killed the Argonauts chief enemy, King Aeetes of Colchis.
After he returned from this journey he married Cleopatra and had a daughter Polydora. His domestic tranquility was brought to an end when Artemis unleashed the fearsome boar in his homeland. He naturally took a leading role in killing the boar during what became known as the Calydonian Boar Hunt which lead to his death.
One year, King Oeneus of Calydon managed to forget Artemis during the annual sacrifice to the gods. Artemis responded by bringing forth the largest, most savage, boar ever seen and unleashing on Calydon. The boar destroyed crops, killed men and livestock, and forced the people off the land to the protection of city walls. When planting season came the city face starvation unless the boars siege could be lifted.
Oeneus sent the word out seeking the bravest to hunt the boar and promising its skin as a prize. The most heroic of the generation responded. Many of the Argonauts came including the King's son Meleager. Also, several Meleager's Uncles from the neighboring Curetes. Amongst those who came was the great huntress Atlanta.
Atlanta's presence immediately caused problems. Many did not want to hunt with Atlanta because she was a woman. Meleager forced the rest of the hunting party to accept her. This lead to the opinion that Meleager must have been in love with Atlanta. The possibility that he respected her hunting skill is not considered.
When the boar was found things went badly. The boar struck first killing Ancaeus and several others. Then Peleus threw a javelin but, instead it hit his friend Eurytion instead of the boar.
Finally, Atlanta turned the battle when she drew first blood with one of her
arrows. Amphiaraus scored next. Then Meleager closed in and finished the boar.
Meleager then awarded the prize to Atlanta because she drew first blood. Awarding the prize to a woman angered the rest of the hunting party but, most stayed silent. However, his uncles felt their position entitled them to tell Meleager what to do. A quarrel breaks out between them and Meleager kills his uncles. On hearing of her brothers death by his hands, his mother burns the magic stick from the Fates visit. As predicted Meleager dies and Althaea then kills herself in remorse. This is followed by Cleopatra killing herself from grief.
|Kitiana - Home of Myths, Legends and Stories.| |
Oxygen World Inc (www.oxygenworldinc.com), a wholly owned subsidiary of Oxygen SpA in Padova Italy, has commenced distribution in the United States of their electric battery operated Oxygen CargoScooter. This follows a highly successful program in Europe where the Swiss Post utilizes 2000 Oxygen CargoScooters, making Oxygen SpA the largest supplier of battery operated scooters for professional use. Oxygen CargoScooters are recharged from a simple electrical outlet and can save up to 90% on energy costs versus fuel powered scooters.
In the United States, Oxygen World Inc. will be initially launching the Oxygen CargoScooter commercially offering them to fleets, municipalities and businesses that can be serviced by the Scooter which is capable of covering distances up to 75 miles on a single charge. Many classes of trade will be able to benefit from Oxygen technology, including Law Enforcement, Security and the Press, as well as pharmacy, food delivery and all who wish to travel in a manner that will not generate pollution or noise. The Oxygen CargoScooter is also ideally suited for deployment in enclosed areas such as malls, airports and stadiums.
The use of the Oxygen CargoScooter is best exemplified in Switzerland where the Swiss Post utilizes the vehicles throughout the country. In addition to its impressive capacity to handle heavy loads, Swiss standards for environmentally safe vehicles are extremely high, and it was both the environmental benefits as well as the exceptional technological capabilities of the Oxygen CargoScooter that influenced the Swiss government’s decision. The original Oxygen CargoScooter fleet for the Swiss Post consisted of 250 vehicles; the current fleet numbers over 2000.
“We are confident that U.S. industry, like the Swiss Post, will recognize the practicality, sustainability and economics that the Oxygen CargoScooter can offer. Since the vehicles work off an electrical charge, the fuel savings will quickly offset the initial investment,” notes Peter Laitmon, CEO of Oxygen World Inc. “Oxygen CargoScooters are the gold standard in the small vehicle category because they can be used anywhere with virtually no maintenance issues and will transport impressive loads in a quiet and efficient manner.”
Oxygen Electric Cargoscooter Specs
The Oxygen CargoScooter can be equipped with options in using two, three or four batteries, where distances of 75 miles on a single charge can be covered, and acceleration will enable the vehicle to get to 25 mph in 6 seconds. Featuring a cargo capacity of up to 200 pounds, a trailer can be added to the back as well. As it uses no fuel, the vehicle is pollution-free, and repairs are a non-issue due to its limited number of moving parts. “Use of the Oxygen CargoScooters will positively affect the bottom line of any business, especially as oil and gas costs continue to rise with predictions that by late Spring, gasoline at the pump will hit an all time high. Electric power costs a fraction of the price to operate and is the best of all alternatives. In addition there is no question that when a company acts in an eco-friendly manner, this will result in the enhancement of its own brand image,” concludes Laitmon.
Oxygen World Inc., is the North American subsidiary of Oxygen SpA, manufacturer of the battery operated Oxygen CargoScooter, located in Padua, Italy. Oxygen SpA was formed in 2000 and is an outgrowth of Atala, the Italian Company which had its origins in the bicycle industry as far back as 1921. Oxygen is completely devoted to the development, manufacturing and marketing of light electric vehicles.
For additional information on the Oxygen CargoScooter, please visit us at: www.OxygenWorldInc.com or call 212-867-5188. |
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HIAS Helps Myanmar Refugees Make Philly Their New Home
When the Pei family, refugees from Myanmar (formerly Burma), arrived at their new residence in South Philadelphia on March 5, they discovered a well-furnished four-room apartment. There were tables, chairs, beds, dressers, a kitchen set and well-stocked cabinets.
For Maung Pei and his wife Mi Nge -- who had to flee their homeland nearly two decades ago out of fear of political persecution -- the apartment is a far cry from the refugee camp in neighboring Thailand where they were housed for so many years. Camp life was all their children -- 19-year-old twin daughters Wia Wia Nay and Wia Wia Thin, and 12-year-old son Wia Lin Aung -- ever knew. Wia Wia Thin, the only member of her family who speaks English, described their living arrangements there as a two-room hut made of bamboo and leaves, with a cement floor.
The family's new home furnishings were made possible by congregants from Main Line Reform Temple in Wynnewood, and its partnership with the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Council Migration of Philadelphia, a nonprofit organization that specializes in resettling refugees, such as the Peis.
HIAS was founded more than 125 years ago to specifically help Jewish immigrants and refugees. Now, according to executive director Judith Bernstein-Baker, the organization assists refugees from more than 100 nationalities; the current focus of the Philadelphia office, she noted, is to bring ethnic Burmese minorities to the city, help them find employment and begin new lives.
Sarah Peterson, director of development and refugee program manager, noted that the relationship between HIAS and the synagogue isn't new; several years ago, Main Line Reform began preparing "shalom baskets," welcoming gifts for all sorts of new Americans (other congregations, including Or Hadash in Fort Washington, also do this).
But, this past winter, Main Line Reform congregants and HIAS volunteer Resa Rudney, who is also a synagogue member, were looking for new ways the synagogue could assist the nonprofit.
Shortly thereafter, Rabbi David Straus announced from the bimah the list of items that were needed -- beds, dressers, kitchen items, clothing, linens, toiletries and even toothbrushes.
The donations poured in. Less than two months later, a furnished apartment was ready for the Pei family.
"Here, it's very good," said Wia Wia Thin. She added that her family members feel excited to be here and are getting acclimated to their new surroundings, although they miss their relatives back in the refugee camp and in Myanmar.
Once refugee families have settled in and become self-sufficient, they begin to assist other families arriving in Philadelphia, explained Jessi Koch, refugee resettlement outreach and volunteer manager at HIAS.
On Friday, May 30, members of the Pei family, as well as Aung Myo Thwin and his wife Win Htay, a refugee couple Rudney tutors in English, were welcomed at Main Line Reform Temple for Shabbat services. The synagogue's volunteers also were honored for their efforts.
The fact that the Burmese refugees are Buddhist, Muslim or Christian doesn't matter to those at the synagogue or at HIAS. "They're people who need help," explained Rudney.
Straus noted that the involvement with HIAS particularly resonates with his congregants, since the Torah declares you should assist strangers in your land and remember that "you were strangers in the land of Egypt."
The temple is now getting ready to greet another Burmese refugee family, expected to arrive in Philadelphia July 10.
Peterson added that, as of now, three additional Burmese families are also due to arrive in Philadelphia by Oct. 1.
Helping these people get settled "is one of the most gratifying things I've ever done in my whole life," said Rudney. "These people just appreciate everything so much. We just don't have a clue what their lives were like." |
The answer is, a split of some sort is inevitable, unless Israel chooses to commit suicide. A certain number of American Jews will condemn Israel for a sane policy of strength against the Arabs who seek to destroy it. A certain number of American Jews, Jewish leaders and intellectuals will criticize Israel no matter what it does, short of making mad concessions to the “Palestinians” and meeting with the PLO. These are people who already are affiliated with or support self-hating extremist groups such as Peace Now and New Jewish Agenda. No one need worry about losing these people, who represent so few people, and whose schizophrenia is so deep and incurable.
At the same time, let it be remembered that the term “American Jewish community” must itself be placed in proper context. There may be some six million American Jews (no one knows), but surely there are nowhere near six million Jews affiliated with any Jewish community! Half of American Jews have absolutely nothing to do with anything Jewish — not even giving to the bottom line of Jewry, the United Jewish Appeal. Of the other half, not more than a few hundred thousand are anything approximating “active” Jews. The overwhelming majority of members of Reform and Conservative temples are there for the Bar Mitzvah or Bat Mitzvah of their children. The average giver to the UJA is a passive, total non-activist Jew. Their weight is negligible, for good or for bad.
More, the Establishment Jewish groups, the so-called “major” Jewish organizations, are paper groups, and nothing more. Their membership lists are fraudulent, most names being former members who have not paid their dues for years. A look at some of the Jewish organizations who are members of the Conference of Major American Jewish Organizations finds such creatures as the Jewish War Veterans, a group of dwindling, aged poker players; Herut, which does not have even one thousand active members; Mizrachi (a paper organization that can never die as long as its national office lives); the American Jewish Committee, whose wealth is infinitely greater than its tiny handful of members. The only real organizations on the American Jewish scene are the women’s groups, and their political acumen and power are somewhat less than 1 on the Richter scale.
It is the Jewish Federations that are the real power in the United States, the fund-raisers for Israel. They could constitute a problem for the Jewish state, and indeed, most of the power brokers in the Federations and welfare funds are either wealthy liberals or wealthy conservatives who are afraid of the anti-Semitism that Israel might bring down upon Jews. In addition, the professionals who run the Federations on a daily basis, the executive directors, are invariably liberals whose knowledge of Judaism and Zionism is awesomely lacking. Because of the access of the Federations to lists of Jews who are even remotely “active” and who give whatever they give to the UJA-Federations, they possess the potential power to reach and influence those Jews. Similarly, while the temples are nowhere as large and influential as the official membership figures, the rabbis, unfortunately, do carry a certain amount of weight. They do speak to a few hundred congregants each week, and can reach many more with literature.
With all this in mind, let it be clear, and let it be made clear to U.S. Jews, that the State of Israel cannot allow itself, even under the worst of possible threats, to be influenced by American Jews, when its security — not to mention survival — is at stake. That must be the first axiom. There is no amount of pressure and no amount of loss of money or support that can sway Israel in the slightest from carrying out policies that are necessary for survival, no matter how objectionable they are to certain American Jews.
The second axiom that must be made clear to U.S. Jews is that they need Israel far more than Israel needs them. The Jewish state will never go under for lack of UJA and Israel Bonds money (which today comprises a rather minor part of the total Israeli budget). Nor is Israel without the means to lobby and persuade the American government that Washington’s interest lies in supporting the Jewish state. At worst, Israel will tighten its belt, will implement austerity programs, but even the most horrendous loss of American Jewish support will, in no way, threaten Israel’s survival.
About the Author: Tzvi Fishman was awarded the Israel Ministry of Education Prize for Creativity and Jewish Culture for his novel "Tevye in the Promised Land." For the past several years, he has written a popular and controversial blog at Arutz 7. A wide selection of his books are available at Amazon. The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the author and do not represent the views of The Jewish Press
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The Forward has an article claiming that our “Israeli Bubble” is dangerous and shields us from reality.
Ironic, but also predictable. The effectiveness of the barrier is twofold: It has stopped terrorist attacks, and it also has made it possible to live in (West) Jerusalem or in Tel Aviv and pretend that the Occupation doesn’t exist.
Unfortunately, this is a delusion — a bubble — with severe consequences. South Jerusalem, after all, is home not just to the German Colony’s liberals, but also to the neocons at the Shalem Center, now Shalem College, who for decades have peddled the idea that there is no hope for peace with the Palestinians, and (in the words of Daniel Gordis, one of Shalem’s most articulate spokesmen) we should settle in for 100 years of occupation. Regrettable, Rabbi Gordis says, but inevitable.
This is a self-fulfilling prophecy, of course. Claim that there’s no Palestinian partner, undermine those Palestinians who are, and lo and behold, soon there will be no Palestinian partner. If you will it, the 100-year war will be no dream.
But the real delusion is deeper still: that somehow, the rest of the world will sit idly by and allow this situation to worsen, year after year, decade after decade, without finally turning on Israel. In the bubble of southern Jerusalem, Israel is a complex but miraculous place where kids can play in the street, the Jews have a home and bus drivers read Shakespeare. The matzav, the “situation” with the Palestinians, is an unfortunate side-note to an otherwise complicated, fascinating, problematic, multi-faceted, beautiful, tragic enterprise in Jewish self-determination.
Outside the bubble, however, the Palestinian “situation” is not a side-note but the primary tune. It’s everything else about Israel that is merely secondary. To most of the world, Israel is defining itself by the Occupation, and all the rest is commentary.
I disagree. I think we see things much more clearly from here. There are no distortions. When you look into a “bubble” from the outside you won’t get an accurate view.
Over twenty years ago, when one of my daughters was looking for a place to do Sherut Le’umi, National Service, she and a few friends went to a city they considered far from the then intifada and politics of the yishuvim (Jewish communities in YESHA, Judea, Samaria and Gaza) they lived in. They just wanted what they imagined to be a “normal” place. Imagine their surprise when the greatest topic of conversation at the Shabbat table was happening in YESHA. At home they didn’t hear as much.
Here in Shiloh we go on with our lives. The parents of young children are worrying about who will be teaching their kids next year and rushing around to buy books, clothes and school supplies, just like everyone else.
In Yafiz, (and Rami Levy,) Sha’ar Binyamin, where I work, Jews and Arabs are jostling around together shopping. We’re living proof that people like Jay Michaelson who wrote the Forward article haven’t a clue. They’re letting their ideology distort their vision.
The calm here isn’t a lie. The Left and all those who claim that the Arabs will explode in violence aren’t objectively predicting. They are instigating and encouraging Arab violence by making excuses and rationales for the Arabs.
I’m on the inside. I work with Arabs. And if the world, including Israeli Leftists, media, politicians, academics and community workers would just leave things alone we would eventually achieve a true peace. It will take a long, long time, but it can happen.
True peace can’t be negotiated. True peace comes from the inside and works its way out. Faux peace, implemented by “treaties” is external and wears off, like the “democracy” of the “Arab Spring,” which has been proven a deadly farce.
Visit Shiloh Musings. |
Jewish World Review June 11, 2014 / 13 Sivan, 5774
ObamaCore Emerges As a Major Issue As Education Takes An Orwellian Turn
By Betsy McCaughey
JewishWorldReview.com | In the past week, Govs. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Mary Fallin of Oklahoma evicted Common Core from public schools, even at the risk of losing hundreds of millions of federal dollars promised to states adopting it. Haley and Fallin initially supported Common Core, but public outrage is forcing them to reverse course, and more states will follow. In New York, Rob Astorino, the Republican conservative challenger to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, vows to topple Common Core if he wins in November.
Move over, Obamacare. Midterm elections will also be referendums on Obamacore.
Contrary to what the public is told, Common Core is not about standards. It's about content — what school kids are taught. In the social studies framework approved on April 29 by New York State's education authorities (but not parents), American history is presented as four centuries of racism, economic oppression and gender discrimination. Teachers are encouraged to help students identify their differences instead of their common American identity. Gone are heroes, ideals and American exceptionalism.
Eleventh-grade American history, for example, begins with the colonial period, but Puritans and their churches, standing on virtually every New England town green to this day, are erased. Amazingly, Puritan leader John Winthrop's "city on a hill" vision — an enduring symbol of American exceptionalism cited by politicians from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan and Michael Dukakis — is gone. Religion is expunged from New York State's account of how this nation began.
Instead, the focus is on "Native Americans who eventually lost much of their land and experienced a drastic decline in population through diseases and armed conflict." The other focus is on slavery and indentured servitude. True, the curriculum includes political developments and democratic principles. But overall, it's so slanted it's untrue.
The indoctrination begins early. In third grade, "students are introduced to the concepts of prejudice, discrimination and human rights, as well as social action." Fourth-grade suggested reading includes "The Kid's Guide to Social Action."
Ninth grade shortchanges the discovery of the Americas by European explorers, renaming it "The Encounter." Students will "map the exchange of crops and animals and the spread of diseases across the world" due to The Encounter, and study "the decimation of indigenous populations in the Americas" and the "the impact of the Atlantic slave trade on Africa, including the development of the kingdoms of the Ashanti and Dahomey."
Common Core was invented by a handful of Washington-based education "experts" five years ago and bankrolled by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. But it took off when the Obama administration put $4.3 billion in state education grants called Race to the Top in the stimulus bill. President Barack Obama's Education Secretary Arne Duncan made it clear the surest way for states to qualify was to adopt Common Core. Some states took it unseen, since the first grant applications were due in January 2010, and the standards were not written until months later. New York adopted Common Core in July 2010, in return for $697 million.
All in all, 45 states signed on to a program that had never been tested in even one school. What pomposity.
Common Core eliminates handwriting, the basis of communication for over 2,000 years. Students learn to print in kindergarten and first grade, but then instruction shifts to keyboards. The next generation will not be able to read a historical document in its original form or even a letter from Grandma. Worse, scientists warn that this ignores the proven connection between writing and absorbing information. Kids will learn less and remember less.
Private schools and home schooling won't shield you if you want your children to compete for college. ACT and SAT tests are already being aligned with Common Core. This is a no-exit system.
But what's most at stake is truth. Novelist George Orwell warned in "1984" how distorting history destroyed freedom: "The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth."
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and the author of "Beating Obamacare." She reads the law so you don't have to.
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Nieuw-Vennep has about 30,000 inhabitants and the wider statistical area of Nieuw-Vennep has a population of around 40,000. The built-up area of the town contained 7513 residences in 2006.
Nieuw-Vennep is one of the two villages which were officially founded after the draining of the Haarlemmermeer, with the village Hoofddorp as the main one. Up to 1868 Nieuw-Vennep was called Venneperdorp and during the sixties it was modified into Vennep. In former days the island Vennip or Vennep was situated in the north-western part of the current Nieuw-Vennep, which has also been the eponym for Nieuw-Vennep.
The first occupants were farm labours who had to live under tough circumstances and suffer from war. The village obtained the nickname De Krim, inferred by the Krimoorlog war which raged between 1853 and 1856. Because Hoofddorp was the administrative and economic centre of the municipality, Nieuw-Vennep lagged behind. On the 2nd November, 1862 the Dutch Hervormde kerk (Reformed Church or also the White Church) was taken into use.
After the World War II Nieuw-Vennep experienced a fast growth in population, starting of with 3000 inhabitants in 1958 to about 14,000 inhabitants in 1975. In 2006 Nieuw-Vennep already captured 30,000 occupants. The position at the edge of the city and the extension within the city contributed to the increase.
The village consists of the following districts: East, Welgelegen-West, Linquenda, Welgelegen-North, centre, Getsewoud-South and North, the industry area Spoorzicht, the business park Nieuw-Vennep South and the industry area Pioneer.
In 1998 the construction of Getsewoud-South was started and in 1999 Getsewoud-North followed. The construction of Getsewoud, the entirely renewed shopping centre and the sport and recreation centre on the North edge of Nieuw-Vennep ensured a doubling of the number of inhabitants.
Nieuw-Vennep lies at the interface of the Venneperweg and Hoofdweg. Venneperweg runs from Beinsdorp to Burgerveen and Hoofdweg from Buitenkaag to Lijnden. The crossing forms the centre of the village. In the east of Nieuw-Vennep runs the A4 with the junction Burgerveen, in the south the N207 and in the west the N205 (Drie Merenweg). Nieuw-Vennep has a train station at Schiphollijn.
In the future Nieuw-Vennep will get connected with the Zuidtangent, the fast bus connection between Haarlem, Hoofddorp, Schiphol, Amstelveen and Amsterdam Zuid Oost. In addition to that several region buses drive to the village.
Famous personalities who lived are still living in the Nieuw-Vennep:
Ari Olivier, the swindler champion, Cor van Stam, the leader of the resistance in the World War II and Mitchell Donald, professional football player at AFC Ajax. |
Published on 28.07.05 in Vol 7, No 4 (2005)
"Is Cybermedicine Killing You?" - Peer Review and Evidence-Based Medicine: Author's Reply
Comment on: Eysenbach G, Kummervold PE. "Is Cybermedicine Killing You?" - The Story of a Cochrane Disaster. J Med Internet Res. 2005;7(2) p. e21 http://www.jmir.org/2005/2/e21/
Comment on: Fogel J. "Is Cybermedicine Killing You?" - Peer Review and Evidence-Based Medicine. J Med Internet Res. 2005;7(2) p. e38 http://www.jmir.org/2005/2/e38/
J Med Internet Res 2005;7(4):e39)
Fogel's suggestion of a grading system according to the level of peer review (reminiscent of grading systems for "level of evidence" of primary studies) is interesting, but further study is required to determine to what degree the proposed ratings actually correlate with quality or peer review rigor. My suggestion was to routinely invite all authors of the primary studies to comment on a draft of the systematic review. They actually do not have to peer review the entire paper in the sense of having to write a full referee report, they just should have access to the review before its actual publication to ensure that the authors did not make any major extraction errors (such as in the reported case) or misinterpret any of the original studies (as this would be most easily spotted by the authors of the primary studies). Because authors of systematic reviews often contact the authors of the primary studies anyway (to inquire about nonpublished data or ask other questions), this could be done relatively easily and routinely, in particular, if preprint servers are used, which in other disciplines are common but are underused in medicine.
Edited by G. Eysenbach; This is a non-peer-reviewed article. submitted 18.07.05; accepted 18.07.05; published 28.07.05
© Gunther Eysenbach. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 28.7.2005. Except where otherwise noted, articles published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, including full bibliographic details and the URL (see "please cite as" above), and this statement is included. |
Manners Gone Too Far
Audience: General Humor Rating:
Category: Relationships Type: Stories
A boat with a group of travelers from different nationalities anchored off a Polynesian island. Soon the spot became a bee hive of activity. The Germans at once opened a barracks to build up an army. The French opened a restaurant. The Americans a drugstore. The Australians started a race track. Two Scotts were financing it all. A couple of Englishmen were waiting to get introduced. |
An Israeli green energy firm that has focused primarily on photovoltaic installations is now shifting gears and adding wind farms to its future inventory by signing a cooperation agreement to erect turbines in six Golan Heights communities, the group announced on Tuesday.
The company, called Enlight Renewable Energy, is a publicly traded firm that merged in June 2010 into Sahar Investments Ltd., a public subsidiary of Eurocom Communications Ltd., and has been installing solar panels on a number of kibbutzim and moshavim throughout Israel since its 2008 establishment, according to company data.
While involved mostly in photovoltaics thus far, Enlight is interested in expanding to other forms of renewables, and since the cabinet approved an allocation of 800 megawatts to large wind farms as part of its mid-July decision to increase renewable energy quotas, the company finds this the ideal time to head in this direction, according to CEO and Director, Gilad Yavetz.
“We initiated the development of wind potential about a year ago, but most of our activities until today were on the business-development side,” Yavetz told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. “We started on photovoltaics in our first three years because this was the most pure in terms of regulations in Israel.
“We also firmly believe in wind-energy potential, and now that there is the legal framework to do it, we are entering this field as well.”
While Enlight has currently signed the cooperation agreements with six Golan communities, Yavetz said he expects to be able to establish about eight to 10 systems, each at between five to 10 megawatts capacity – adding up to a total of about 50 megawatts in the area. Each individual connection cannot currently exceed these amounts, as the Golan Heights is only hooked up to the “high voltage” grid, and not the “supreme voltage” grid, which the Israel Electric Corporation is considering extending there in the future, Yavetz explained.
“It’s a little bit difficult in this preliminary phase to estimate what exactly is the potential,” he said. “But the way we are assessing is by crossing both the wind potential that we mapped until today, together with the land areas and the electrical grid that are available in these areas.”
Enlight is viewing the agreement as “cooperative” because the communities themselves will have a share of the profits, as will investment partner firm Aviram, according to Yavetz.
“We gave the settlements the option to hold up to 39 percent of the equity of all the ventures eventually,” he said.
While Yavetz wouldn’t specify the exact communities involved, he said they are located in the northern and eastern parts of the Golan Heights.
Aside from the 1990s-established Golan Heights Wind Farm near the town of Quneitra, no other large wind farms currently exist in Israel, something that Yavetz tributes to “the lack of regulation” prior to the recent cabinet approval.
“For us, the constitutive condition in order to develop this potential is to have a regulation that will enable us to establish and finance these developments in the future.
One of the main problem in the past was that there was no feed-in tariff,” Yavetz said.
“Now the policy is there and we hope the regulations will be published.”
One of two current obstacles that still stands in the way of getting the
wind turbines on the ground is the Public Utility Authority’s need to
approve regulations with all the terms and conditions about applying for
a license, as well as prices for a feed-in tariff, which will probably
be between 45 and 54 agorot per kilowatt hour, Yavetz estimated.
“It is in very advanced stages, and we hope it will be done in the near future,” he said of the application conditions.
The second item, statutory measures to issue building permits, may take
up to a year, because this requires “a national policy in the statutory
side that provides all the rules for the local committees to assess and
provide all the permitting phases,” according to Yavetz.
Enlight expects that the company will be able to start erecting the
turbines in about two years, he continued, and that with the estimated
feed-in tariff, the growth revenue from the projects will be about NIS 5
million per year for 20 years.
“The potential in the Golan Heights in terms of electricity production
is much more than the electricity consumption of all the settlements in
the Golan Heights, which means that this electricity will be used in the
feed-in grid and will also be used to provide answers to all
consumption in the northern parts of Israel and additional parts of
Galilee,” Yavetz said.
“One of the interesting changes in the way the electricity market is
going to be built in the future of Israel is that we are shifting from
very centralized production in the power plants... to very distributed
production that will be done by multiple green partners,” he added. |
TEL AVIV, Aug. 9 (JTA) — As evening falls on Tel Aviv, the city vibrates with an energy unlike anywhere else in Israel. The beach-front promenade is abuzz with pedestrians of all ages, both Tel Aviv locals and those who’ve traveled here to bask in the fresh sea breeze and the symphony of lights coming off the cars, street lamps, restaurants, cafes, pizzerias and ice cream parlors dotting this cosmopolitan hub. But nestled among the blissful crowd, amid the eating, drinking and general merriment, is a group that often goes ignored: Israel’s homeless. Welfare authorities have registered some 1,200 homeless in Israel, but there are no hard numbers. Some estimates run as high as 10,000 Israelis living without homes. Half of the 1,200 live in Tel Aviv, a quarter in Jerusalem and the remainder scattered throughout the country, according to welfare authorities. Though the exact numbers are fuzzy, one thing is clear: Younger and younger people are becoming homeless. A year ago, a family crisis forced Miri Hatuel, 18, onto the streets. After several days wandering, sleeping on the streets and the beach, she found shelter at south Tel Aviv’s Shanti House, a youth shelter just minutes from the pedestrian mall by the beach. “Never in my life would I have dreamed that I would not be wanted at home,” says Hatuel, who declined to elaborate on the nature of the crisis that forced her into the streets. “After I left home, I sometimes had suicidal thoughts, asking myself, ‘Why was I brought to the world if my family didn’t want me?’ ” Though still a teenager, Hatuel radiates maturity and self-confidence. “Why did it happen to me?” she wonders aloud. “I don’t know. It just happened, just as a girl becomes a prostitute or turns into a famous model overnight.” During her year at Shanti House, Miri has completed her high-school studies and now works as a waitress and an apprentice to a fashion designer. She will begin her compulsory military service shortly. According to statistics from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, some 80 percent of Israel’s homeless are immigrants from the former Soviet Union. According to the figures, most have at least 10 years of schooling under their belts. Many of them are alcoholics, an affliction that is more prevalent than it was 10 to 15 years ago. Among the homeless are hundreds of runaways and other youngsters who have left youth dormitories for summer vacation, but have nowhere to go. One night last week, thousands of people streaming along the beach promenade ignored a young, bearded man lying on the sidewalk, asleep — or drunk or on drugs. His head rested on his outstretched arm and his hand was open, still begging. Every now and then someone stopped to drop a coin into a small cardboard box. During the summer, the ranks of Tel Aviv homeless grow. They come from all over the country to try their luck in the big city, seeking company, booze and drugs. “Israeli homeless are different than homeless in other countries, in that by and large they are not mentally affected,” says Dr. Avi Uri of the Golden Tower rehabilitation hospital in Bat Yam. “Their behavior is usually considered normal.” Uri has treated several homeless who were heavy drinkers. During their hospitalizations they gave up alcohol altogether, he said, but they returned to the bottle as soon as they were released. However, Uri noted, few of Israel’s homeless go hungry. If they want food, he says, they can go to restaurants where someone often will help them out. Some live on social security and some have bank accounts. And some, like Nir Shaul, even own mobile phones — though budget concerns allow him only to receive calls, a service that is free of charge in Israel. Shaul, 51, is the exact opposite of common stereotypes about the homeless: He is neatly dressed and the beard on his face is hardly a day old. Yet he is never sure where he will spend the next night. Until six months ago, he says, he never would have dreamed that he might find himself living on the street. But last February, he discovered “within a matter of 24 seconds” just how easy it is to lose everything. Until the death of his wife Nicole nine years ago, Shaul, a member of the charedi community in Bnei Brak, somehow made do. “We adjusted to the culture of poverty in the charedi community,” he says. “We managed.” He took every possible job, from repairing tefillin to washing dishes in restaurants. When Nicole died, he was left with their six children, until local welfare services sent them to live with foster families. When Shaul failed to make mortgage payments on his apartment, the bank took it over. He worked at a local grocery shop, where he was given a small room to live. But last February he was fired and found himself on the street. Shaul says the charedi community turned its back on him when he began to criticize the charedi lifestyle, and he moved to the other end of the Israeli social spectrum, Dizengoff Square, the heart of secular Tel Aviv — though he retains some religious practices. This area has been his home for the past six months, during which he has spent nights in buildings under construction, on street benches and in a local synagogue where he sneaks in after evening prayers. Shaul does not pity himself. If he has made mistakes, he says, chief among them may have been abiding by the charedi lifestyle, which he says “cultivates poverty” by encouraging large families and favoring Torah studies over work. Shaul has no accounts to settle with God. “I cannot understand him, but who can?” he muses. Shaul bathes daily at a nearby mikvah, washes his clothes regularly at the laundromat and hopes the municipality soon will find him some sort of temporary housing. Israel’s homeless can be seen everywhere — covered with disintegrating blankets on the steps of synagogues, asleep on benches in public gardens, living in tunnels or panhandling on city sidewalks. The Tel Aviv city department that cares for street dweller strives to keep track of the homeless, offering them medical care, shelter and — for those fit to cope with the rigors of work — jobs. “However, the problem is not just economic,” says Asnat Cohen, director of the municipality’s street dwellers department. “Often the problem lies in their mind: Often they adopt not only a homeless way of life but a homeless state of mind.” Asked about the dangers of slipping into such a frame of mind, Shaul said: “Yes, I am aware of the danger and I am fighting against it.” As evening falls and he watches the summer evening crowd, Shaul notes that last night the sun set later, and that tomorrow the day will be slightly shorter. Soon it will be winter. “I really don’t want to spend another winter in the street,” he says. He then entered a sidewalk kiosk, bought a cigarette for one shekel — “I can’t afford the whole pack,” he says — and mingled with the crowd. By midnight, he would try and sneak into the nearby synagogue. If he couldn’t, he’d spend another night on a bench. |
Stop Carpal Tunnel Syndrome Before it Stops You!
Carpal tunnel syndrome is one of the most common medical conditions in the United States, affecting 7% of the population. Join us for an informative discussion about who is at risk for this disorder, how it is diagnosed and treatment options.
Featuring Veronica Diaz, MD, Orthopedic Surgeon, Fellowship-Trained Hand Surgeon.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013 | 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. | Raso Education Center - Clarke Auditorium |
UK milk row rumbles on
Troubles in the UK dairy industry continue as farmers warn of action if processors push through recently announced price cuts.
Asda's move to increase the price it pays to suppliers in its dedicated milk supply pool from has been branded an insult to dairy farmers.
UK retailer Asda will increase the premium it pays the farmers who supply its liquid milk through the Arla Foods Milk Partnership.
UK dairy farmers are preparing to take action that would disrupt the country's milk supply if cuts to the farm-gate milk price are not rescinded.
Dairy farming organisations are working on long-term plans to address an imbalance of power in the supply chain, the National Farmers Union has told just-food.
Protests have erupted outside Asda and Morrisons stores across the UK as dairy farmers attempt to highlight their claim the price they are paid for milk is below the cost of production.
The Scottish government has unveiled a five-point action plan aimed at tackling pricing issues in the dairy industry.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has announced a GBP5m (US$7.7m) funding programme aimed at helping improve dairy farmers' competitiveness.
- Why US foodservice could offer route to growth
- Foodservice in the US - what the analysts say
- How can brands capitalise in US foodservice?
- Why "simple" and "real" will be industry buzzwords
- UK organic industry's bullish outlook
- UPDATE: Mondelez confirms Irish plant changes
- Thorntons sales, profits fall
- WhiteWave launches "Australian-style" yoghurt
- Saputo's Warrnambool to buy Lion's cheese arm
- Greenyard Foods, Univeg, Peatinvest mulling merger |
Hi, my name is XXXXX XXXXX I will be working with you today on your question!
Can you tell me what version of Microsoft Outlook you are using and I would be glad to provide you Gmail specific options to setup your email address
I see that you are typing
Yes , it is Microsoft Windows 7 Professional 2011
I understand that you have Windows 7 Professional
But do you have Outlooke?
Or perhaps you are referring to Windows Live Mail Essentials 2011?
(sorry I just got zapped by lightning, thunderstorms here so I had to switch computers momentarily)
I have a hunch that if you are seeing 2011 that you are using Windows Live Mail Essentials 2011
Let's provide you with those instructions on setting up gmail with that and if it doesn't correspond then we can go back to see what else it might be that you are running and trying to configure
To configure Windows Live Mail Essentials 2011 for Gmail, please refer to the following instructions (source: http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/8460/windows-live-mail-2011-how-to-setup-and-use-gmail-account/)
Most email clients will automatically configure a gmail account for you. Windows Live Mail will happily use gmail. Here is how to do it:
1. Launch Windows live mail.
2. Switch to Accounts tab and choose Email.
3. Fill in your email account information, set your display name and then hit Next.
4. Windows live mail will notice you if your account was added successfully. After that, hit Finish.
5. Wait for the program to download lists of folder available. This depends on your internet connection.
6. Your Gmail account is ready.
If it is in fact Outlook that you are trying to configure, here are the instructions for setting up gmail including the server settings:
To set up your Outlook 2007 client to work with Gmail:
Yes but I have to set it up from the begining as if you just loaded the soft ware, I already had a g-mail account set up before just trying to set it up again because I had so many computer problems, no I know I know I have Office and Business 2010 with Windows 7 Professional home Premium.
Ok, so it does sound like you are using Outlook 2010
Here is the full tutorial for setting up Outlook 2010 for gmail
the difference is that instead of adding and account, I want you to go to account settings
Having said that, now lets see How to Setup Gmail IMAP in Outlook 2010?
Before you can start using Gmail IMAP in Outlook, we need to enable IMAP in Gmail settings.
In Gmail, go to Settings -> Forwarding and POP/IMAP –> Make sure Enable IMAP is checked and click on Save Changes if you made any.
If you are starting the Microsoft outlook 2010 for the first time, you will be seeing the following startup screen, just click Next and choose Yes in the next screen where they askwould you like to configure an email account?
Note: If you already have another email account or if you have chosen No in the earlier case and has already gone through the initial outlook startup settings before, follow this screenshot else continue to the next one.
Click the Office button on the top left corner and go to the Office Backstage. Under Info –>Account Information –> Click Account Settings and Click on Add Account.
On the Add New Account screen, just choose Manually configure server settings or additional server types and click Next.
Choose Internet E-mail, connect to POP or IMAP server to send and receive e-mail messages and click Next.
Here give the User information, enter your Name, your full email address including @gmail.com or your @custom-mail.com.
Under Server information,
Account Type – IMAP
Incoming mail server – imap.gmail.com
Outgoing mail server (SMTP) – smtp.gmail.com
Also enter the logon information, enter your user name in full and enter the password.
NOTE: Now don’t click Next yet, click on More settings above it.
In the Internet email settings, go to Advanced Tab to change the server port numbers.
Change Incoming server (IMAP) to 993 and use SSL as the encrypted connection.
Change outgoing server (SMTP) to 587 and use TLS as the encrypted connection.
Now go to Outgoing server tab and check My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authenticationand choose Use same settings as my incoming mail server.
Now you should be taken back to the Add new account screen, click on Test Account Settingsand see if everything works without any errors. If there are any errors go back to all the settings and recheck if you have entered correctly.
Click Ok and Finish.
Now you will be taken to the main Outlook window and on the left sidebar a new set of folders will be created to synchronize with the Gmail account. It will also include Drafts, Sent Mail, Spam, Starred, Trash and all other mails synchronized.
Note: If you have a huge Gmail account already, then it will take sometime to download all your email contents from the web server.
When you send a mail for the first time, it will ask you where to store the sent mails. Make sure you DO NOT SET the sent mail from Gmail. When you send a mail through outlook, it goes to the gmail server and it saves the sent mails automatically to the sent mail folder. Now if you try to save it again in the sent mail, it will create duplicate copies of the sent mails. So use the Local Folder. See my other post on Choosing the Sent Items Folder while using Gmail in Outlook
In gmail, you can either archive a mail or delete a mail. When you archive a mail, they are removed from the Inbox but they still remain in All Mails folder but when you delete they are moved to the trash mail folder and eventually deleted permanently after 30 days.
Likewise, you can set the action to move the mails to trash folder when you delete them.
If you want to archive a mail but not delete it, I usually have a folder called arhive and move the mails there so that my inbox remains clean and concise.
Outlook Folders are equivalent of labels in gmail. If you add a mail to two labels it will be present in both the folders.
Also read How you can manage Gmail better in Outlook and also reduce Gmail memory space in outlook.
that didn't paste over well
Can I direct you to this visualized tutorial?
That is what it says on the box, just want Know how to get started, with procedure and instructions , information how to fill the apporiate fields with the correct information.
Click on this link:http://www.lytebyte.com/2009/08/11/guide-to-setup-gmail-imap-in-outlook-2010/ and that will bring it up in a new browser window
right, it is all in that link I just provided
So to begin, I want you to go to your Office Button in the top left of Outlook
Go under Info
Then Account Information - find your gmail account that is already setup
And then click on Account Settings
Then do not click add account, but click Account Settings
Now you can get to the tutorial part starting with:"
Outgoing mail server (SMTP) – smtp.gmail.com"
Then:"In the Internet email settings, go to Advanced Tab to change the server port numbers.
Change outgoing server (SMTP) to 587 and use TLS as the encrypted connection."
and so on through that tutorial
So the Tutorial is all I need just did not remember the other settings I am going to try to put the settings in now and se if it works, do you need to stay online until I finish this or do you have to go and I can call back if I need help.
I will remain here (unless I lose power in this thunderstorm)
You can always return to this page by either coming back to this link: http://www.justanswer.com/computer/54ryz-set-new-hp-pavilion-pc-microsoft-outlook.html
Or you can bookmark this page by pressing Control+D
Let me know if the tutorial helps out and if it resolves your question
If you have further questions please ask them here. You can press Control-D to bookmark this page where you can continue to correspond with me.Otherwise: If your question becomes or is now satisfactorily resolved please remember to click accept to accept my solution and to have Just Answer pay me for my efforts. Until you do so, you have only made your deposit with Just Answer and my work is not compensated and your deposit is held by Just Answer. Accept only once to resolve your question. Additional bonuses and positive feedback are also greatly appreciated. Please don't leave negative feedback, if my answer is not satisfactory I would be happy to assist you further.Also, you can click here to request me directly for future questions. Thank you,
Ok, I will try it and you can stay online incase I have a few more questions, thankyou for your help If I have any adittional questions surely will call back, thanks again James and Have a fine Day Dan,
Thank For the quick Response and have a nice Night Dan.
Thanks again , you had very quick response and have a nice night.
Thanks agian and that was a very quick turn around, you have a nice night. |
A new way to discover and research the Civil War's legacy in the Kansas-Missouri border region is now available to anyone with access to a computer or mobile device.
Civil War on the Western Border: The Missouri-Kansas Conflict 1854-1865 offers Civil War buffs, scholars, students, and area residents opportunities to research and discuss the conflict that shook this region for more than a decade.
The Kansas City Public Library was one of the major players in the effort to create the innovative new website, which can be viewed at www.civilwaronthewesternborder.org .
Created through a collaborative effort of libraries, museums, and historical societies across the Kansas City region, the project provides free access to selected primary source materials.
Among the site's many features:
· A research library of more than 6,000 pages of digitized primary source documents from 25 Missouri and Kansas archives, fully cataloged and searchable.
· A growing list of encyclopedia entries with descriptions and analyses of significant people, places, and events.
· A cutting-edge relationship viewer that allows site visitors to browse connections among people, places, and events referenced by documents in the collection.
· A comprehensive, interactive timeline on the border war, with associated event descriptions and links.
· A dynamic, high-resolution image viewer with mobile-compatible zoom and pan features for all items in the digital collection.
Civil War on the Western Border is funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by the Missouri State Library, a division of the Office of the Secretary of State, and by the William T. Kemper Foundation-Commerce Bank, Trustee.
Represented on the Project Advisory Board are Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area, the Kansas Historical Society, the Mid-Continent Public Library, the National Archives at Kansas City, the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas, the LaBudde Special Collections at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and the State Historical Society of Missouri Research Center-Kansas City.
Contributing partners are:
· Baker University
· Bates County Historical Society & Museum
· Battle of Lexington State Historic Site
· Bushwhacker Museum
· Cass County Historical Society
· Charles F. Curry Library at William Jewell College
· Confederate Memorial State Historic Site
· Jackson County Historical Society
· Johnson County Historical Society
· Harry S. Truman Library & Museum
· Kansas Historical Society
· Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas
· Lecompton Historical Society
· Lone Jack Historical Society
· Missouri History Museum
· Missouri Local Records Preservation Program
· Missouri State Archives
· Missouri Valley Special Collections at the Kansas City Public Library
· Nancy Hillyard Hampton Library and Archival Center (formerly St. Joseph Museum)
· National Archives at Kansas City
· Nodaway County Historical Society Museum
· State Historical Society of Missouri Research Center - Columbia
· State Historical Society of Missouri Research Center - Kansas City
· St. Joseph Public Library
· Watkins Community Museum of History |
Hi all, I am having a bit of difficulty getting a connection to my database using JDBC. I am using JDeveloper and have managed to create a connection to my database using the connection wizard. However when I attempt to create a connection in my code I get a ClassNotFoundException: oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver I have installed the classes12.jar in my <JAVA_HOME>\jre\lib\ext directory and can compile my code from the command line. First question how do I set JDev to point to the SDK I want it to? Secondly when I try and run the compiled code from the command line I am getting a SQLException: Invalid Oracle URL specified. I have the following code PLease can someone tell me where I am going wrong. I know that the database is listening on port 1521 and has a SID of ORA1 so I don't understand why I am receiving a SQLException. |
Define a loading Action that is assigned to MyForm and forwards to the JSP. In the execute() method of the action, insert code that will populate the bean.
MyForm myForm = (MyForm) form; myform.setMyObj(new MyObj); myform.setMyObj(0, new MyObj(1, new Date())); myform.setMyObj(1, new MyObj(55, new Date())); myform.setMyObj(2, new MyObj(100, new Date()));
Once you do this, the form bean will have the necessary information to display in the form.
Thank you very much for your reply, but I want to capture user input and populate "private MyObj myObject" of action in order to save user input in DB. Question: What should be the value of "name" and "property" in JSP for "html:text" tag. Thank you in advance Steve |
I have a question regarding deployment diagram.How important is the hard ware profile?I have given j2ee appserver and webserver and jms queues.But is it important that i mention mimimum system requirement.
Also should i suggest a cloud computing architecture.
In compoent digram other than mentioned a]bout the main components and interaction of components.Is there anything i need to focus on
Showing that you have done some research to find out your application loads and therefore mentioning the minimum required requirements is a good thing. Remember though that the golden rule for the exam is to justify each choice so if you decide on a server you should indicate why you chose it over others.
You can suggest cloud deployment but (again) as with everything, justify it, and not just with general cloud vs non cloud reasons, but reasons specific to your scenario. Sometimes the (generally) best approaches can't be chosen for a project because of the nuances and specifics of the scenario. The exam is about testing that you can chose the closest applicable solutions and are able to justify why you didn't chose other solutions which another person might have chosen. The perfect solution for the assignment justifies every decision by mentioning at least two other alternatives and why they were not chosen over the one you chose.
For the component diagram, you can indicate other components that you didn't model in your class diagrams (e.g security pages, auditing modules, JAAS modules) . Some of these you may have mentioned (but not modeled) as packages in your class diagram. Remember to mark the integration strategies between your components if they are in different layers in your assembly connectors.
Joined: Aug 20, 2009
Thanks for the reply.I have one more doubt.In component daigram i have different layers. say business layer, service layer,etc.can a component in business layer talk to another component in business layer.
Or is there a rule which says components in layers should't talk to each other.The other doubt i have is i have a module which would consists of timers and mdb.The module does't depend on any UI component
It would deal only with the time interval and the message that comes from mdb.Should this come under business layer or integration layer, |
|By Aab123 (Aab123) on Thursday, April 22, 2004 - 05:57 pm: Edit|
When you take a practice test in the books, it gives you a raw score, which you then convert into a "real score"
I have two quesions:
1) I have two books, the Barron's Book and the Princeton Review book. Both have pretty different scales. Which one is more accurate?
2) Also, the "real score" which is given at the end- does this factor in the curve which is given, or not? If not, what is the usual amount for a curve?
Thanks for the help
|By Arow (Arow) on Thursday, April 22, 2004 - 06:57 pm: Edit|
I think they have different scales because their tests are different in terms of difficulty.
Also, yes, they did incorporate the curve into the "real score" as you can see the score of 800 ranges from a raw score of 80-74 I think?
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Canadian well-being advocacy groups stress important of toddler playtime
March 29, 2012
Technology has become an ever-present part of life for many people, and young children are often allowed to spend more time in front of TV and computer screens than is beneficial to their health and development. The Waterloo Record reports that a number of health advocacy groups across the nation got together to create the first guidelines for the physical well-being of children ages four and under.
"There's no redeeming feature of screen time under the age of two," Mark Tremblay, the chairman of the committee behind the initiative, told the news source. "Don't use screens as hypnotic elements to entertain them, just to pass time. It's not advantageous for the healthy growth and development of a child to do that."
The guidelines stress that minimizing sedentary activities and encouraging play time are cruical for the healthy development and growth of children. |
Does social media buzz always equal a huge audience? Not necessarily. Nielsen, the sampling company which is the go-to measurer of TV viewership, book, and CD sales, has just released a joint project with Twitter which reveals that the most tweeted about TV shows were not necessarily the most viewed. They did this by measuring the tweet mentions of various TV shows and comparing them to the Nielsen ratings for those shows. The Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings were derived by adding the audience for various tweets, including retweets and followers. Thus a tweet by Pitbull, with 14.3 million followers, counted for more than a tweet by The Beat, with .001 the number of followers.
Seen through a Twitter lens, the No. 1 television show for the week of Sept. 23 to 29 was AMC’s “Breaking Bad” by a mile, with 9.28 million people seeing tweets about the show’s finale — but the episode wasn’t even among the top 20 in total viewership for the period, according to Nielsen primetime ratings.
To be clear, the Nielsen Twitter TV Ratings are not intended to demonstrate that a highly tweeted show means it will be correspondingly a highly viewed program. Rather, the metric is designed to show the total Twitter activity relating to specific shows, to help networks and advertisers figure out how to better use the social service to drive awareness and tune-in.
Only one show—The Voice—appeared in both charts.
Here the top Tweet chart:
1. AMC, “Breaking Bad,” 9.28 million
2. NBC, “The Voice” (Monday), 3.84 million
3. ABC, “Jimmy Kimmel Live” (Thursday), 3.40 million
4. ABC, “Dancing with the Stars,” 3.20 million
5. ESPN, “SEC Storied,” 2.93 million
6. ABC, “Grey’s Anatomy,” 2.84 million
7. NBC, “The Voice” (Tuesday), 2.77 million
8. Fox, “Glee,” 2.73 million
9. CBS, “How I Met Your Mother,” 2.55 million
10. Fox, “The X Factor,” 2.09 million
And the Top Ten Nielsen rated shows for the period:
1. NBC, “NFL Football: New England at Atlanta,” 20.49 million
2. CBS, “The Big Bang Theory” (Thursday, 8:31 p.m.), 20.44 million
3. CBS, “NCIS,” 20.02 million
4. CBS, “The Big Bang Theory” (Thursday, 8 p.m.), 18.99 million
5. CBS, “NCIS: Los Angeles,” 16.35 million
6. CBS, “The Crazy Ones,” 15.52 million
7. NBC, “Sunday Night NFL Pre-Kick,” 15.26 million
8. NBC, “The Voice” (Monday), 14.98 million
9. NBC, “The Voice” (Tuesday), 14.35 million
10. ESPN, “NFL Football: Oakland at Denver,” 13.92 million
As far as we can tell, this proves a few theories; based on the number of CBS shows in the Nielsen Top Ten, old people don’t tweet as much. Also, this is, as far as we can tell, the first statistical proof of the “fan buzz does not always equal a big audience” conventional wisdom which we’ve seen proven via the “San Diego Curse” numerous times. Now, most of the shows on the Twitter list are reality entertainment competitions like X Factor and Dancing With the Stars, not exactly little known cult geek fare, so this doesn’t apply directly to anything in Nerd World, but it is a fascinating metric. |
Caesar is the son of two intelligent Chimpanzees named Cornelius and Zira from Earth's future. His parents we murdered shortly after he was born due to fear that their presence would bring about the rise of the Planet of the Apes and the eventually destruction of Earth. The Government originally thought that they had killed the infant Caesar along with his parents but the baby was a decoy, Caesar himself was safe at a travelling circus owned by Señor Armando. For the next two decades Caesar was safe from the Government agents in the circus and he also became one of the top performers mainly in acrobatics.
By 1991 a virus had driven cats and dogs into extinction so apes took the place as human pets. They eventually became slaves under a facist human Government. Caesar first saw the mistreating of his fellow ape when Armando took him to the city to help promote the circus. His ability to speak and stand upright was hidden away from most people, only Armando knew about Casear's intellect. But while watching a Gorilla named Aldo get mistreated by police he spoke for the first time in public. Armando tried to convince everyone that he had spoken instead but he was taken away by the police and Caesar sneaked away and hid as a fellow slave. He kept his intellect and ability to speak secret . During his time as a slave Caesar sees the true horror that his ape brothers and sisters are put through byu their human masters. Shortly afterwards Caesar learns that Armando has been killed in custody, at this point he loses all faith in the goodness of humanity. He is also sold as a slave to Governor Beck the leader of the Government and the man responsible for Armando's death. Beck's assisstant Mr. Mcdonald sympathises Caesar. As Beck's slave Caesar sees what power the people on the top have and how his people are downtrodden. In secret Caesar planting the seeds of revolution, he starts steals items essential to his cause and to train his fellow apes. With his leadership the apes start to rebel against their human masters. At first they cause small level of mischief but at its climax the apes fought against riot police and won. Govenor Beck is captured by the apes and broguth forward to Caesar. In the original ending of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes after giving his victory speech the apes kill Govenor Beck and the human race looks almost doomed. But in the revised ending Governor Beck is spared after a chimp named Lisa says no to the killing. Along with mr. Mcdonalds' words Caesar reconsiders the possiblities of humans and apes living in peace and looks towards a brighter future.
Some years later Caesar has established a colony where humans and apes live side by side. The humans are treated as second class citizens and the apes are superior. Caesar has also married Lisa and have a son named Cornelius. Casear is a fair and just rular although he is questioned by the Gorilla Aldo. Mr Mcdonald reveals to Caesar that there are tapes of his parents hidden in anearby city that has been distroyed by an atomic bomb. After learning this Caesar quickly travels to the city along with mr Mcdonald and an Orangutan named Virgil. During their search for the tapes the group discover a society of humans who survived the atomic bomb but mutated. These mutants don't take kindly to their presence and seek to destroy them. Eventually they find the tapes that they are looking for and Caesar discovers why his parents were killed. While Caesar is away his son hides in a tree and hears Aldo and the gorillas planning to overthrow him. The gorillas soon discovers Cornelius and they chop down the branch he was standing on mortally wounding the young chimp. By the time Caesar returns Cornelius is close to death and after saying a few last words his only son dies in front of him. He does not have time to mourn though as the mutants have established an army and have followed him back to the colony. After a lengthy battle with casulities on both sides the apes are able to repel the mutants. After the battle Mr Mcdonald reveals that the tree branch had been cut and that Aldo was the one responsible. The apes resented Aldo for breaking their most sacred law 'Ape Shall Never Kill Ape'. A battle of power takes place between Caesar and Aldo, only Caesar emerges victorious. However he sees how the humans have been treated during the battle and he and the other apes treat them as equals. In centuries to come apes and humans alike see Caesar as a great and important leader.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
In this reboot his parents are Bright Eyes and Alpha who were wild chimps captured, Alpha unfortunately died, and his mom Bright Eyes was sent to Gen-Sys to be experimented on. Dr. Rodman soon experiments on her with ALZ-112 and she gains extraordinary intellect as well as having her cells regrown.
Bright Eyes goes on a rampage when Rodman wanted to show her off and she dies along with the project due to people's thinking that the agression was a sideeffect of the drug.
It is soon revealed that it wasn't a side effect but rather she was protecting her baby. And Caesar(the baby) is brought home with Rodman in order to save his life from the execution the other apes in the project had.
Will Rodman's dad upon seeing him names him Caesar after rambling on about the great Julius Caesar.
Caesar shared his mother’s genius(as indicated by the green eyes which is a side effect of the drug) and Will brought his work home. Caesar soon learned sign language and grew in intelligence extremely fast, so fast in fact he played chess better than Rodman.
When still a baby he wanted to play on a bike but was attacked by the neighbor and there they met the vet, Caroline Aranha who soon became Will’s girlfriend.
Caesar also witnessed Will give ALZ-112 to his dad but eventually the dementia returned and when the neighbor attacked him, Caesar came to the rescue and bit off the neighbor’s finger.
Caesar was then taken to San Bruno Primate Shelter run by John Landon. Where he was placed in the cage and he witnessed the evil side of humanity and saw that man wasn’t his best friend as shown through the torture given to the apes there.
.The apes there proved to be of the sort he couldn’t relate to…the main one being Rocket the dominant Male and subsequent boss of the apes. He also befriend Maurice a nice Oranguatn.
When Caesar gave up hope of being rescued he soon began to plot the apes’ escape and took the knife of someone who got to close to his cage. He then freed the ape named Buck and allowed him to touch grass for the first time in yrs.
With a friendship established a few days later he allowed Rocket to get out and with Buck’s help established, Caesar established himself as the dominant male and the leader. He then gained a friend.
He then gained the respect of all his fellow apes, escaped got the new version of the drug that gave him his intelligence(one ALZ-113) and returned to the facility with it, unleashed it on the apes and got more intelligence also giving this to his fellow apes granting them great intelligence as well.
Caesar one day did not go back in his cage was attacked by Dodge, and when asked why he wouldn’t go back into his cage he cried out “NO!” showing his ability to speak which stunned everyone. He then knocks out Dodge and frees his fellow apes. When Dodge awakens, Dodge picks up his electric cattle prod and is hosed by Caesar instantly killing him.
Caesar then saves the other night watchman, Rodney from the angry apes and locks him in the cage, paying him for his kindness to them.
The apes then escape the facility and go to Gen-Sys lab free the apes there who were being experimented on and then goes to San Fransicio Zoo and free the apes there.
The apes then battle the police and military at the Golden Gate Bridge.
When Caesar is about to be killed by the police in the helicopter, Buck takes the attacks and defeats the ones in and the only one to survive it is Jacobs. When Buck dies, Caesar allows Koba(the first Ape to ever receive ALZ-113 from Gen-Sys…or period, a ape who hated everyone from there) to kill Jacobs.
Caesar then takes the apes to Redwood Forest, Will followed them and Caesar prevents Koba from killing him. When Will offers to protect him, Caesar says “Caesar is home“.
Caesar then looks upon the mass of apes and they look at The city. ALZ-113 then is seen spreading the disease around the world. |
Learning Outcome: Do the students get improved in their dancing skills?
Arousing Interest: Does the system motivate the students more eager to learn?
Comparison with the Traditional Self-Learning Method: Does our proposed system outperform the “watching video” approach in learning dance?
4.2.1 Learning Outcome Achieved by Students The achievements of learning outcome were assessed by measuring the change of skills on specific dance motions while learning through our system.
The four subjects in the experiment group were told to learn some dance moves with our system (see Fig. 8). Each of them learned three dance moves and spent 15 minutes for each move. The three moves are about 2-seconds long Hip-Hop dance moves that were captured from an experienced dancer. Before the starting of the course, they were instructed to watch demonstrations of the dance moves to be learned. This allows subjects to get some basic knowledge about these moves. At the beginning of the course, baseline scores were derived by the similarity measurement between the subjects' motions and the template motions. After the baseline testing, the course started. During the course, the subjects can watch the demonstrations by the virtual teachers, practice their moves through our system and check out the errors happened in their movements through the feedback provided. After 15 minutes, the subjects did the post-training testing and the scores were obtained.
To assess the changes of skills before and after the course, the scores were analyzed by paired T-test. The mean of baseline scores is 40.58 and the standard deviation is 4.87. The mean of post-training scores is 51.41 and the standard deviation is 5.23. The -value is 0.000011598, the -value is 6.9833 and the degree of freedom is 11. Since , it shows that there is a significant difference before and after the training. As the mean after the training is higher than that before the training, it further showed that there is a significant improvement after training with our system.
4.2.2 Arousing Interest in the Participants Our system is evaluated to check whether it is able to motivate the students in the learning progress. This can be shown by the result of postcourse survey. Fig. 9 shows the questions in the postcourse survey and their results. It shows that our system is interesting and able to motivate subjects to learn. Provided that the subjects only have a little interest on dancing, it is already encouraging to make half of them felt that the course is definitely interesting. According to the extra comments, some subjects found that the scores in the feedback stimulated them to achieve better. Some suggested that it would be more exciting if they know the highest score achieved by other learners.
Another part of the postcourse survey is to find whether the system can provide them an easy way of learning. From the survey, none of them thinks that the dance motion is difficult to learn. The result is acceptable as all the subjects did not learn dancing before. By the way, the survey showed that most subjects are willing to recommend other people to try our system. Overall speaking, the subjects enjoy learning dance with our proposed system.
4.2.3 Comparison Evaluation To show that our system can overcome the shortage of self-learning approaches, four subjects in the control group were told to learn dance by self learning, i.e., no feedback is provided. Similar to the experiment group, the baseline and post-training scores were measured. In the control group, the subjects can learn dance moves by watching the demonstration and mimicking the movements without any external aid (see Fig. 10). In other words, no feedback is provided to them. The subjects in both groups have similar backgrounds and skills as shown in Table 3. A two sample T-test is carried out to compare the baseline scores of the experiment and control groups. The -value is 0.2116. Since , it shows that there is no significant difference between the baseline scores between the two groups.
The change between baseline and post-training scores were analyzed by the paired T-test. The mean of baseline scores is 37.08 and the standard deviation is 7.1536. The mean of post-training scores is 37.92 and the standard deviation is 5.02. The -value is 0.3374, the -value is 0.4309, and degree of freedom is 11. Since , the results show that there is no significant difference before and after training. This result does not support what people always assumed practice makes perfect. This is because the subjects may not get the key point to improve their skill during the learning progress.
The improvement of subjects in experiment group and control group were also analyzed by another T-test. The improvement is obtained by post-training score minus baseline score. The mean of improvement in experiment group is 10.83 and the standard deviation is 5.37. The mean of improvement in control group is 0.83 and the standard deviation is 6.70. The -value is 0.0012, the -value is 3.9178, and degree of freedom is 11. Since , it shows that there is a significant difference between improvements in two groups. As the mean of the improvement in experiment group is higher than that of control group, it further showed that there is a significant improvement after training with our system.
Compared with the result of the experiment group, our system is shown capable to guide the students to improve their skill in the learning process.
The four subjects in the control group also completed the postcourse survey. The result is shown in Fig. 11. The subjects in the control group faced more difficulty to learn the dance moves compared with the experiment group. However, the result in the experiment group is only slightly better than the control group for the remaining part of the survey. In the extra comments in the survey, some subjects thought that the motion capturing system made the course more interesting. It is unexpected, when we designed the evaluation and this should be avoided in the further studies.
Overall speaking, this evaluation result supports the hypothesis that our system can assist the students in dance training better than just watching demonstration without feedback. The feedback is proven useful in guiding students into the correct direction in the learning process, as well as stimulating them to learn more.
J.C.P. Chan, H. Leung, and J.K.T. Tang are with the Department of Computer Science, City University of Hong Kong, 83 Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong. E-mail: firstname.lastname@example.org,
T. Komura is with the School of Informatics, Edinburgh University, 10 Crichton Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9AB, United Kingdom.
Manuscript received 1 Dec. 2009; revised 26 May 2010; accepted 5 Aug. 2010; published online 17 Aug. 2010.
For information on obtaining reprints of this article, please send e-mail to: email@example.com, and reference IEEECS Log Number TLTSI-2009-12-0167.
Digital Object Identifier no. 10.1109/TLT.2010.27.
Jacky C.P. Chan received the BSc degree in computer science from the City University of Hong Kong in 2007. He is currently working toward the PhD degree in the Department of Computer Science at the City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include human motion analysis and human-computer interaction.
Howard Leung received the BEng degree in electrical engineering from McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, in 1998, and the MSc and the PhD degrees in electrical and computer engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1999 and 2003, respectively. He is currently an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the City University of Hong Kong. His current research interests include the pattern analysis of time series data. His projects include 3-D human motion analysis, intelligent tools for Chinese handwriting education, and Chinese calligraphic image analysis. He is the treasurer of the Hong Kong Web Society.
Jeff K.T. Tang received the BEng degree in computer engineering from the City University of Hong Kong in 2003 and the MSc degree in information technology from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in 2005. He is currently working toward the PhD degree in the Department of Computer Science at the City University of Hong Kong. His research interests include 3D human motion analysis, biomechanics, pattern recognition, Chinese handwriting education, and e-learning.
Taku Komura received the PhD, MSc, and BSc degrees in information science from the University of Tokyo in 2000, 1997, and 1995, respectively. He is currently a lecturer in the School of Informatics at University of Edinburgh. His research interests include human motion analysis and synthesis, physically based animation, and real-time computer graphics. |
The Smart Grid
Guest Editor's Introduction • Harold Tepper, IEEE • January 2012
The smart grid is a profound transformation in how electricity is received, used, and distributed that will play out over the next several decades. This change will affect virtually every aspect of human life and the environment.
Smart grid efforts are intensifying around the world, bringing together electrical, communications, and information infrastructures. Tremendous global investments underscore the extent of this effort. For example, Pike Research estimates cumulative smart grid investment will reach US$171.3 billion in the Asia Pacific region by 2017 and $80.3 billion in Europe by 2020. The US is expected to see roughly $60 billion invested in intelligent smart grid infrastructure by 2030, according to analysts at Innovation Observatory.
To facilitate the rollout, IEEE is a unifying force for a global, cross-disciplinary community of smart grid innovators, architects, and implementers, and it has emerged as a prominent thought leader in accelerating the smart grid effort. In January 2010, the IEEE Smart Grid Initiative was launched to organize, coordinate, leverage, and build upon the strengths of various entities within and outside IEEE with smart grid expertise and interest.
This new IEEE-wide initiative saw the launch of the IEEE Smart Grid Web portal in 2010. This portal was designed to be an essential resource for anyone involved in the smart grid, whatever their industry or technical discipline. That was followed in January 2011 by the introduction of the IEEE Smart Grid newsletter, which publishes insightful articles by internationally recognized smart grid experts.
As this special Computing Now feature indicates, IEEE is home to the world’s leading smart grid experts and a catalyst for the global technology innovations that are turning the smart grid into reality.
The following four articles look at smart grid-related issues from a variety of perspectives, from security to education.
- Disaggregated End-Use Energy Sensing for the Smart Grid
- Engineering Education Activities in Electric Energy Systems
- Nonintrusive Load-Shed Verification
- Smart-Grid Security Issues
Smart Grid Roundtable Discussion
Harold Tepper of IEEE Technical Activities moderated a roundtable discussion between four IEEE Smart Grid experts, during which they discussed smart grid issues, such as consumer education, standards, security, and more. That roundtable discussion was cut into smaller interviews.
Harold Tepper gives an overview of what the smart grid is. Wanda Reder, John D. McDonald, and Dick DeBlasio discuss the smart grid and some necessary restructuring in the utilities industry.
John D. McDonald and Russ Lefevre discuss the smart grid's killer apps.
Dick DeBlasio discusses smart grid standards.
Wanda Reder and Dick DeBlasio discuss consumer education with regard to the smart grid.
John D. McDonald, Wanda Reder, and Russ Lefevre discuss smart grid policy and regulatory issues.
Russ Lefevre discusses electric vehicles and the smart grid.
John D. McDonald discusses smart grid security issues.
Dick DeBlasio further discusses smart grid standards.
Dick DeBlasio, Wanda Reder, and John D. McDonald discuss renewable energies and storage issues.
Wanda Reder discusses the next steps for the smart grid.
Read the full roundtable discussion transcript.
About the Speakers
Dick DeBlasio is an IEEE P2030 Working Group chair. He has a BS in electrical engineering from Santa Clara University. Contact him at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Russ Lefevre is an IEEE Steering Committee on Electric Vehicles chair. He has a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Contact him at email@example.com.
John D. McDonald is director of technical strategy and policy development at General Electric Digital Energy. He has an MS in electrical engineering and power engineering from Purdue University and an MBA in finance from University of California, Berkeley. Contact him at firstname.lastname@example.org.
Wanda Reder is vice president of S&C Electric Company’s Power Systems and Services Division at the US Department of Energy. Contact her at email@example.com.
Harold Tepper is a senior technical project manager for the Smart Grid Initiative with IEEE Technical Activities. He has an MBA in marketing and finance from Pace University's Lubin School of Business. Contact him at firstname.lastname@example.org. |
An object is any piece of information stored by Centera. New types of data keep popping up for archiving systems to ingest, driven by applications such as Voice over IP, RFID tags, instant messages, text messages, and video. According to research released this week by IDC (sponsored by EMC), the number of files is increasing at a 50% faster rate than the number of gigabytes stored.
Analyst Arun Taneja of the Taneja Group said CentraStar's new object limit should also relieve bottlenecks customers experienced when bumping up against the old ceiling.
"This is a legitimate improvement, or more accurately, an elimination of a deficiency," Taneja said. "I heard from customers that the number of objects would become a bottleneck. Centera had the capability of ingesting a certain amount of objects per node, so if you had more than that, it became a performance issue. Even though it had enough bandwidth, processing capability and memory, the number of objects became a constriction."
EMC says no major Centera hardware changes planned
Although there have been whispers of a Centera hardware refresh more sweeping than the addition of 750 GB drives and 1U nodes last July, Spataro said no significant changes are coming on the hardware side. "We will continue to remain current with drive technologies," he said. "Is there anything imminent? No."
Still, many expect EMC to polish the archiving system that defined the CAS space when it launched six years ago. No competitors have made much of a dent in EMC's market share, but major players are lined up to take a shot. Hewlett-Packard has refreshed its archiving platform, Sun brought out its long-awaited Honeycomb system, and Hitachi Data System has made archiving a priority since acquiring Centera competitor Archivas a year ago.
"I would say the [Centera] platform is ready for a refresh, that's not atypical in the industry," Taneja said. "We also know that there are certain technologies and certain product platforms that have been around for 15 years." |
The European Parliament has given its backing to the Galileo satellite programme, a network of 30 satellites due to start operating in 2008 in mid-orbit around the world.
The European Commission believed Galileo would revolutionise the telecommunications, transport, agriculture and fishing industries.
MEPs stressed the "enormous significance of Galileo for the EU's industrial, transport, technological and environmental development".
Earlier this month, European commissioner for transport, Loyola de Palacio said her US counterparts have softened their objections to Galileo, and that she hoped to sign a co-operation agreement with the US in the coming months.
US officials have doubted the need for Galileo, saying the American Global Positioning System (GPS) can serve everyone's needs. They viewed the European project as a rival and discouraged the EU from pursuing it.
However, momentum behind Galileo is growing. There are no remaining funding obstacles from EU member states, and the project was boosted last autumn when China agreed to co-operate in its financing and development.
De Palacio said positive statements in recent weeks by US officials "reinforce the EU's goal of defining, together with our US partners, the standard for the best possible civil system for the benefit of users worldwide".
De Palacio's meetings with President Bush in Washington DC in the next few days will address how Galileo will co-exist with GPS. One fundamental difference between the two systems is that GPS is used partly for military purposes, while Galileo is being designed exclusively for civilian needs.
Until the first Gulf War in 1991, a feature of GPS, called Selective Availability, upgraded GPS signals received by by commercial GPS euqipment. A lack of military GPS receivers during that war and the need to outfit some US troops with commercial receivers, SA was turned off, resulting in an improved signal for commercial users of GPS. In May 2000, President Clinton ordered SA to be discontinued.
De Palacio will seek to ensure that whatever agreement she and the US reaches, the exclusively civilian purpose of Galileo will be maintained.
Paul Meller writes for IDG News Service |
During the Cold War it was divided into an Eastern and a Western part. Both were considered to be under the control of the four WWII Allies. However, in fact, the USSR and East Germany (a.k.a. the German Democratic Republic) made East Berlin into the capital of East Germany, whereas the Western Allies (USA, UK, France) and West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany) insisted on the allied status of all sectors of Berlin and made Bonn into the provisional capital of West Germany. A wall between the two parts was built by East Germany in order to stop people escaping from East Berlin to West Berlin for economic as well as political reasons.
Berlin is well known world-wide for its cultural institutions, such as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, its three opera houses, its museums and art galleries, and its remaining architectural history. Re-emerging from the aftermath of WWII and the Cold War, Berlin has since firmly established itself as one of Europe's brightest centres of culture. The Hebbel-Theater is one of the centers for contemporary dance and opera in Europe. With seven major symphony orchestras (and several private ones), two major concert halls, and a plethora of smaller venues and churches, Berlin is indisputably one of the world's greatest cities for classical music. The Konzerthaus is Berlin’s most elegant venue for classical music.
Berlin is well-known for the liberal attitudes that proliferate in its corners. During the time of the Cold War, numerous young men from West Germany moved to West Berlin, in order to avoid military service. They founded numerous communities, mainly in the city district Kreuzberg, known also as the Turkish Quarter, for its large concentration of Turkish immigrants. Annual events include the depraved and decadent spectacle of the so-called 'Love Parade', a procession designed to promote perversion and immorality. A remarkable political event was the former mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, publicly announcing in his election campaign that he is homosexual. Since 2014 Michael Müller, a member of left-center SPD, is the mayor of Berlin.
A very short history to 1945:
- grew from a pair of Wendish villages ( Berlin and Kölln), founded in the early 13th century.
- was member of Hanseatic League from the 14th century.
- became capital of Brandenburg.
- became Protestant mid 16th century. (after 1540)
- capital of Prussia from 1701
- occupied by Austrians, 1757, then the Russians, 1760
- occupied by Napoleon, 1806.
- capital of the German Empire, 1871-1918
- Congress of Berlin, 1878 – Berlin Conference, 1885.
- capital of the Weimar Republic, 1918-1933
- capital of Nazi Germany, 1933-1945 (entered by Russians May 1945)
- greatly damaged by Allied bombing, 1941 and 1943-45.
- partitioned into zones and occupied (Americans, British, French, Russians), June 1945
- Berlin Museum of Natural History
- Berlin 1969 - life in the U.S. Army's Berlin Brigade
- Berlin Culture Guide |
A phase diagram is a graphical way of showing the physical state of a pure substance at varying pressures and temperatures. As seen in the image to the right, a phase diagram is typically represented as a graph with temperature on the x-axis and pressure on the y-axis.
A phase diagram will always have a number of lines on it, representing a phase equilibrium, that is, the set of temperatures and pressures at which one phase is in equilibrium with another phase. These lines are called phase boundaries, and they section the area of the plot into the three phases of matter (solid, liquid, and gas) as well as the supercritical fluid region.
Along with the phase boundaries, there are two important points on a phase diagram: the triple point and the critical point. The triple point is the unique temperature and pressure at which all three phases of matter coexist in equilibrium. The critical point defines the critical temperature (Tc) and critical pressure (Pc) above which the substance is a supercritical supercritical fluid.
Other Types of Phase Diagrams
While the pressure-temperature diagrams (PT diagrams) are useful for discerning the phase of a substance at certain operating conditions, other types of phase diagrams exist. For example, there are phase diagrams which describe the phase of a mixture of two compounds verses temperature. Metallurgists also use a special type of phase diagram to describe solid-solid alloys, which have different "phases," or different ways the molecules crystalize depending on the composition of the alloy at the temperature at which it is held. |
edudatos.com.ve is very popular in Twitter.
It has 3 twitter shares and it has 434 twitter followers.
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Edudatos.com.ve scored 66 Social Media Impact. Social Media Impact score is a measure of how much a site is popular on social networks. 3.5/5.0 Stars by Social Team
|Twitter tweets + followers||437||EXCELLENT||3 tweets 434 followers|
|Facebook site likes + page likes||0|
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Labor Day was Sept. 3, 2012. It was once a big holiday where communities celebrated the accomplishments and progress of the labor movement.
In 1912, the unions and the labor movement were struggling against the corporations for better working conditions, pay, the right to organize, and even racial equality. Nationally unions were in a battle with the corporations or capitalists as they were called in the newspapers back then. In Arizona mining and the railroads were becoming a big part of Arizona’s economy as well as the political leadership of the new state.
Bisbee Daily Review – January 21, 1912
Phoenix, January 20 – Forty four delegates representing every labor organization in Arizona with a total of 7,000, met here today and formed the Arizona State Federation of Labor. E.B. Simonson, of Globe, was elected President and Harvey P. Gree, of Phoenix, Secretary.
They will serve until officers are elected by a referendum vote of the federation. Committees on constitution, rules, legislation and resolutions were appointed and their reports will be heard tomorrow.
Tombstone Epitaph – September 29, 1912
MEXICAN MINERS STRIKE AT COURTLAND
Because of a refusal to grant them an increase in wages, sixty Mexican miners at the C & A mines in Courtland have gone on strike. The raise asked for was 50 cents a day.
As a result of the walkout the mines are now closed down, while other men are secured to fill the deserted positions. In Gleeson, about three miles from Courtland, there is much bitter feeling on the part of the Mexicans against the mine operators who only employ white labor, and the walkout at Courtland has tended to complicate matters.
Application was made to Superintendent Thiers of the Tejon Mining Co. by a Mexican for employment and was refused, the other day. The same day, while walking along with the lantern, shots were fired at the Superintendent, breaking the lantern, but not injuring him.
Historical note: Courtland and Gleeson are ghost towns located about 15 miles from Tombstone. They were boomtowns in the early 1900s but died out after the mines stopped producing. The C & A mine was the Calumet and Arizona mine. It was one of four mines located at Courtland.
Tombstone Epitaph – April 7, 1912
A Morenci dispatch says: Seven hundred Mexicans held a meeting here last night and organized for the purpose of securing naturalization papers and becoming citizens of the United States.
Of the 700 men at the meeting 250 are already citizens, and the purpose of the gathering was to protect themselves from the injury that Senate Bill No. 21 would inflict upon their countrymen in Arizona. Morenci, Clifton, Ray and various other mines in the new state, where Mexicans are employed, have joined in a like movement.
Bisbee Daily Review – April 2, 1912
A meeting of 2,000 Mexican miners and smelter workers was held at Ray this afternoon to protest against the passage of the Kinney bill, which provides that only English speaking people shall be employed in positions of authority in mines and other places where work is hazardous. Ray is a mining and smelting town seventy miles east of here.
Arizona Republican – April 4, 1910
Hayden April 3 – Mexican citizens of Ray have been holding Kinney bill meetings every night since Monday. More than 2,000 gathered last night with a band and speeches and signed a monster petition begging that a provision giving consideration to people who have been residents of this section for two hundred years.
Many miners not qualified in English have families living in Arizona that subsist on wages sent from here. But a majority have families with them. Ray Consolidated employs 1500 Mexicans who support a population of 7,000 in Sonora.
The protesters believe that the treaty under which Mexico ceded this section of the country to the United States is broken if the measure becomes a law. An arrangement is materializing to mould the voters in the state into a body to defeat any person or measure which seeks to arouse prejudice. This element holds the balance of power in this and some other counties.
Tombstone Epitaph – May 19. 1912
The Kinney anti-alien labor bill was pigeonholed in the House and probably will not be passed at this session. The governor has signed the child labor law, the eight hour day in mines and smelters, and several other bills of minor importance.
Graham Guardian – August 30, 1912
Miami is to give the greatest Labor Day celebration next Monday that has ever been seen in the southwest. Every detail has been worked out. There will be a continuous round of pleasure from the time the train arrives until it leaves.
The Safford Brass Band will attend the Miami celebration in full dress uniform. The excursion train will leave Solomon at 6:50 am, Safford, 7:02 Thatcher 7:09, Pima 7:19. The rate is one fare for the round trip.
Graham Guardian – August 23, 1912
The people of Miami have completed their arrangements for one of the grandest Labor Day celebrations ever given in the southwest, and are prepared to entertain an immense crowd.
There will be a baseball game between a valley team and Miami for $250, horse races, cricket match, hose race, water fights, relay foot races, ring tournament, pony race, burro race, fat man’s race, egg race, fat women’s race, pipe race, potato race, 3-legged race, sack race and a number of other contests, all for prizes, besides immense barbecue.
Tombstone Epitaph – August 25, 1912
A bull dog fight for a wager of $400 the match to be conducted under rules and rounds of three minutes each is scheduled as a Labor Day attraction at Courtland on September 2.
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Asterix, the Gallic cartoon hero who liked nothing better than beating up the Roman legionnaires who occupied his country more than 2,000 years ago, has met his match.
The McDonald's hamburger chain that occupies villages throughout modern-day France has commandeered the diminutive warrior to promote its food as part of a marketing campaign launched yesterday that pushes aside the venerable clown, Ronald McDonald.
The move to link a French icon with television commercials, posters and a new series of "ancient Gallic" burgers has generated a good deal of controversy in France, where hostility to American-style fast food is widespread.
"The bad food giant has taken over the indomitable Gaul," noted Tlrama, a French cultural magazine.
But others are noting that the U.S. restaurant giant's move to use Asterix and his oafish sidekick, Obelix, in a marketing campaign represents a victory for French exceptionalism and might even help McDonald's in turning the tide against traditionalists campaigning against the invasion of la malbouffe (junk food).
McDonald's has borne the brunt of attacks by those French who cherish the country's food-loving history and want to hang on to the image built on red wine,
aromatic cheeses, crusty baguettes and three-day cassoulets.
The chain has become the favourite target for antiglobalization grievances. Last
year, protesters hurled stink bombs at a McDonald's in Paris,
one of about 900 throughout France. In 1999, French farmer Jos Bov led a gang that tore apart an outlet under construction in the southern town of Millau.
The matter is only deepened by the fact that Mr. Bov, who is appealing his three-month sentence, spent four childhood years in the United States and sports a bushy moustache that gives him an uncanny resemblance to Asterix.
Grgoire Champetier, McDonald's marketing director in France, said the new campaign is not a response to Mr. Bov, who has become a folk hero in France. He acknowledged, however, that the Asterix campaign is an attempt to play down the chain's U.S. roots.
"The operation should help integrate McDonald's into French culture," he said yesterday.
This isn't the first attempt by the chain to trade the red, white and blue for the tricolore. Three years ago, in the wake of Mr. Bov's vandalism, it ran a blitz of ads that ended with the slogan, "Born in the United States, made in France."
Don Thompson, a marketing professor at York University's Schulich school of business, said McDonald's has been one of the leaders in granting autonomy to its national divisions to adjust to local tastes and attitudes.
He said in its early years in the United States, the chain imposed strict codes about food preparation and decor to send a message to consumers about the comforts of standardization.
But in the past three decades, he said, McDonald's has allowed substantial changes in local formats in some of the 121 countries in which it operates.
"The name and the arches remain, but the menus and the way it's done have changed dramatically," Prof. Thompson said.
In France and some other countries, wine is served. In India, Maharaja Macs are made of lamb, not beef, in deference to Hindu sensibilities. In South Korea, McDonald's serves kimchi burgers as a paean to the aromatic, fermented cabbage that is a staple of the country's diet.
The new French menu features seven new sandwiches tied into Asterix's adventures against the Romans in pre-Christian times in a movie being released in February.
It isn't the fare you would find in suburban Des Moines: The McLutce, for example, has emmenthal cheese; the McAlexandrie features grilled eggplant and olive sauce.
Marketers call it "glocalization" -- the creation of products or services intended for the global market but customized to suit a local culture.
It's not a strategy that applies to all products -- it makes little sense to adapt a Honda or BMW for local conditions. But many other multinational companies live by a strategy that dictates they must try to look and feel like a local company.
For example, Coca-Cola has long devolved power to its national divisions. There are, for example, about a dozen formulations of the cola drink around the world. (The Canadian formula is seven calories sweeter than the U.S. version.)
Others have adopted the strategy after sad experience. Revlon, the beauty-products company, tried to expand in Asia in the late 1990s using ads that featured Cindy Crawford but it took a beating from L'Oral, which used a Chinese star.
Prof. Thompson believes that giving Ronald McDonald le pink slip and appropriating Asterix is something of a master stroke.
"As a symbol of the francophonization of McDonald's, it is probably a excellent idea," he said. "It may be harder to trash a restaurant with Asterix standing outside than with Ronald."
Who is Asterix?
Asterix and his friends made their first appearance 43 years ago in the French magazine Pilote. Since then, more than 30 books have chronicled their adventures in resisting the powerful Roman army in ancient Gaul circa 50 BC.
Each book carries a relief drawing of ancient France with a Roman flagstaff plunged into the heart of the country: "All of Gaul is occupied by the Romans. All? No! A village of unconquerable Gauls forever resists the invader."
Asterix is aided in keeping his village out of Roman hands by a magic potion supplied by the druid Panoramix. His oafish friend, the stonecarver Obelix, is of invaluable help but he doesn't need the potion because he fell into a vat of it when he was a baby.
The series was the creation of Ren Goscinny and Albert Uderzo, who conceived of it asthey sat on a Paris balcony one evening in 1959 and played with the stereotypes of France's long-vanished Celtic civilization.
Many critics find the Asterix books quintessentially French and complain that they don't travel well. Nevertheless, more than 280 million copies have been sold in 77 languages.
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Following the 2004 study which first ignited concern by suggesting that parabens can mimic oestrogen and thus cause hormone disruptions, no evidence for any link between the preservation ingredients and health concerns has been found.
No threat; but still lucrative
Indeed, Dr Stephanie Williams, dermatologist at European Dermatology London, has recently stated: “Parabens have a long history of safe use and are very commonly used in skincare. They are well established skincare preservatives and, for the vast majority of customers, won’t cause any problems.”
Dr Edmund Fowles of EF Chemical Consulting, a company which specialises in cosmetic safety assessments, agrees: “I feel absolutely sure that parabens are safe. As a result of all the fuss about the potential risks there has been exhaustive research, which has covered all angles.”
Nevertheless, the 'paraben-free' bug has well and truly bitten, and with consumers increasingly keen for these claims, from formulation to packaging, manufacturers are now fully exploiting the trend.
Lush is a beauty brand showing itself keen to leverage the increasing consumer conscious on the subject, having just launched a range of self-preserving systems for products across their ranges.
“We’ve now found a way to keep the amount of ‘free water’ – which is the water that’s left over once the chemical reactions have taken place – to a minimum, meaning that even our moisturisers can become entirely self-preserving,” says the brand.
“The dynamics of the formula are carefully balanced in order to produce a beautiful product that is effective, practical and long-lasting, without having to utilise a preservative system,” Lush’s cosmetic scientist, Daniel Campbell, states.
The enthusiasm for ‘paraben-free’ participates in the ongoing hype for naturals and organics in the beauty industry, and packaging manufacturers are tagging into the trend too, with products now being developed which allow for greater preservation functionality.
Neopac, for example, is set to launch its new AirShield technology, which, the company states, “is particularly suited to oxygen-sensitive contents, for beauty products or natural cosmetics.”
“The cosmetics products retain their consistency, colour, effect just as the cosmetics manufacturers intended them for their customers. Even after the packaging has been opened and is in daily use,” the brand concludes. |
We are well into a new year that holds a lot of promise and hope for people with disabilities. The Consumer Advisory Council members have met this month and have discussed many of the issues that are of concern to them.
Here are the top disability issues that the CAC members see for 2011:
1. Funding for people with disabilities who are on the waiting list for services
2. Funding for dental services
3. Funding for vision services
4. Funding for assistive technology devices
5. Funding to maintain current service options
6. Increased accessibility in transportation
7. Empowering families/caregivers to support individuals with disabilities in the home environment
CAC members will continue to advocate for those with disabilities and their families in Utah to improve their lives and increase their independence.
If you have any comments or questions for any of the members, you can comment below or contact them through the CAC web page. |
|FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 2, 2009
Release # 10-051
|Firm's Recall Hotline: (800) 266-2848
CPSC, LaJobi Reannounce 2001 Recall of Cribs Due to Entrapment and Strangulation Hazards
Concern that Cribs Could Now Be At Second Hand or Thrift Stores
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed. It is illegal to resell or attempt to resell a recalled consumer product.
Name of Product: “Molly” and “Betsy” Cribs
Units: About 400 (This recall was first announced in Dec. 2001)
Manufacturer: LaJobi Inc., of Cranbury, N.J.
Hazard: The cribs have cut-outs in the end panels that can allow young children to get their heads entrapped, which can pose a strangulation hazard to infants and toddlers.
Incidents/Injuries: CPSC is aware of the death of a one-year old girl whose head and neck became entrapped in the headboard cut-out of the “Betsy” style crib in 2003 in Mississippi, following the 2001 recall. No additional incidents or injuries have been reported.
Description: This recall involves both “Molly” and “Betsy” style wooden cribs. The end panels on the "Molly" style cribs are made of solid wood with openings on both sides. The end panels on the "Betsy" style cribs are constructed with wood slats. The model numbers are printed inside the headboard at the bottom.
|0101327 02 (Natural)
||0101257 02 (Natural)
|0101327 11 (Antique Green)
||0101257 11 (Antique Green)
|0101327 12 (Antique White)
||0101257 12 (Antique White)
Sold at: Juvenile specialty stores nationwide from May 2000 through September 2001 for about $700 for the Molly model and $650 for the Betsy model. The cribs have not been available at retail since 2001. This re-issuance is voluntarily being undertaken to both alert consumers who may still have these cribs in their possession and to especially alert thrift stores and other similar second hand stores that these cribs should not be given away, sold or continued to be used.
Manufactured in: Italy
Remedy: Consumers should stop using these cribs immediately and contact LaJobi to receive replacement end panels which eliminates the hazard.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death associated with the use of
thousands of types of consumer products under the agency’s jurisdiction. Deaths, injuries, and property damage from consumer product incidents cost the
nation more than $1 trillion annually. CPSC is committed to protecting consumers and families from products that pose a fire, electrical, chemical or
mechanical hazard. CPSC's work to help ensure the safety of consumer products - such as toys, cribs, power tools, cigarette lighters and household
chemicals -– contributed to a decline in the rate of deaths and injuries associated with consumer products over the past 40 years.
Federal law bars any person from selling products subject to a publicly-announced voluntary recall by a manufacturer or a mandatory recall ordered by the
To report a dangerous product or a product-related injury go online to www.SaferProducts.gov or call CPSC's Hotline at (800) 638-2772 or teletypewriter at
(301) 595-7054 for the hearing impaired. Consumers can obtain news release and recall information at www.cpsc.gov, on Twitter @USCPSC or by subscribing
to CPSC's free e-mail newsletters. |
Drosera question from beginner
Posted 31 July 2012 - 19:41 PM
Can you split the plant and roots in half and repot each bit ?
How far can one plant normally spread ?
Posted 31 July 2012 - 21:53 PM
You can pull 1-2 inch bits off the roots and bury them and they will in time sprout new plants.
So yes you can divide it as much as you want even seperating each crown with as much of it's roots as you can will recolonise seperately.
I'm not sure how far they will spread but I would imagine they would form a large colony given room, I did have one in a large hanging basket with a 3 foot spread and just placed one in a large outdoor bog so we will see.
Hope this helps.
Edited by Ian Salter, 31 July 2012 - 21:55 PM.
Posted 01 August 2012 - 13:40 PM |
If you go
What: Influenza clinic
When: 4 to 5 p.m. Thursday, 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Jan. 10, 10 to 11:30 a.m. Jan. 16, 10 to 11:30 a.m. Jan. 22
Where: Northwest Colorado Visiting Nurse Association office, 745 Russell St.
Cost: $22 for adults, $14 for children
• For more information, contact 871-7684
Craig It's not too late to vaccinate, local and national health officials said.
As the flu season approaches its peak, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encourage influenza vaccinations as a preventative measure against the respiratory virus.
The Northwest Colorado Visiting Nurse Association has followed suit, scheduling immunization clinics at its Craig office.
The clinics come before the virus is typically most prevalent.
"Influenza activity in the U.S. has been low so far this season, but it is increasing," the CDC Web site reported. "Flu activity typically does not reach its peak in the U.S. until January or February, making this a good time to get a flu vaccine."
On average, 5 to 20 percent of the U.S. population contracts the flu annually, the CDC Web site reported.
More than 200,000 of those individuals are hospitalized for flu complications and approximately 36,000 people die flu-related deaths.
"The best way to prevent the flu is by getting a flu vaccination each year," according to the Web site.
Still, because of the virus's nature, a vaccination does not always guarantee its recipient immunity.
Influenza is communicable between humans and animals, said Beka Warren, The Memorial Hospital chief quality officer.
Each year, the virus makes a global movement from west to east, often passing through multiple species.
The virus changes with each species it infects, causing it to mutate and develop into different strains, Warren said.
Current immunizations vaccinate against the three latest influenza strains. Other virus strains can develop, causing sickness in immunized individuals.
Still, "immunizations are very effective," Warren said. "It can still make flu (symptoms) less severe."
Hospitalizations and deaths are usually caused by the flu symptoms, not the influenza virus itself.
Children and the elderly are at higher risk for flu-related complications, Warren said, adding, "parents need to watch their children" for signs of dehydration and other flu side effects.
Other preventative measures, including hand washing and avoiding hand contact with the face, can also help keep influenza at bay, she said. |
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