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warc | 201704 | Effects of Nebivolol on Exercise Tolerance and Left Ventricular Systolic and Diastolic Function Overview This trial is active, not recruiting.
Condition hypertension Treatment nebivolol Sponsor St. John's Health System, Missouri Collaborator Forest Laboratories Start date November 2009 End date December 2013 Trial size 50 participants Trial identifier NCT01056718, BYS-MD-32 Summary
The goal of this pilot study is to effectively treat hypertension in subjects with either known or newly diagnosed hypertension and concurrent evidence of diastolic dysfunction. In patients with predominantly diastolic heart failure it is hypothesized that by using more robust echocardiographic measures of diastolic dysfunction, significant changes will be detected. Furthermore, due to the unique properties of nebivolol it is also hypothesized that there will be improvements in LV function manifesting as increased exercise capacity as well as LVH regression as measured by echocardiography. The investigators hope to reproduce the findings shown in a prior study that showed increased stroke volume and preservation of CO in subjects receiving nebivolol.
Study Design
Intervention model single group assignment Masking open label Primary purpose treatment Primary Outcomes
Measure
Improvement in LV function.
time frame: Week 2, 4, and Week 10
Eligibility Criteria Male or female participants from 18 years up to 90 years old.
Inclusion Criteria: - Diagnosis (new or established) hypertension, defined by serial measurements >/= 140/90 - Evidence of diastolic dysfunction on echocardiography measured by tissue Doppler Exclusion Criteria: - Severe bronchospastic disease/ reactive airway disease - Inability to tolerate beta blocker therapy including: >1st degree AV block, symptomatic hypotension, symptomatic bradycardia, - Subjects with physical limitations that would prevent them from participating in an exercise treadmill test - Age <18 or >90 years - Those with life expectancy <1 year - Subjects with class III/IV NYHA heart failure symptoms - CKD 3 or greater (CrCl <30 cc/min) - Subjects with active ischemia or evidence of ischemia on initial stress echocardiography
Additional Information
Official title Effects of Nebivolol on Exercise Tolerance and Left Ventricular Systolic and Diastolic Function Principal investigator James A. Stokes, M.D. Call for more information
Phone Principal Investigator Trial Trial ID Institution Location | 2,453 | 1,252 | 1.959265 |
warc | 201704 | Comparison of Medication Adherence Between Once and Twice Daily Tacrolimus in Stable Renal Transplant Recipients Overview This trial is active, not recruiting.
Conditions renal disease, renal transplant Treatments tacrolimus - prograf® twice daily formulation, tacrolimus - advagraf® once daily formulation Phase phase 4 Sponsor University of British Columbia Collaborator Simon Fraser University Start date September 2011 End date December 2016 Trial size 100 participants Trial identifier NCT01334333, H11-00446 Summary
A critical aspect of real-world functioning following kidney transplantation involves how adherent individuals are to their medication regimens. Regardless of the possible dangers of failing to adhere to anti-rejection medications, such as increased graft rejection, studies have reported rates of non-adherence at almost 50% following renal transplant.
The Cognitive Aging Laboratory under the direction of Dr. Wendy Thornton, at Simon Fraser University, has previously identified relationships between several potentially important cognitive and psychosocial variables, and self-reported medication adherence in renal transplant recipients, including depressive symptoms, as well as everyday and traditional cognitive functioning [4]. The possibility that changes in dosing regimens for a given medication may have an additional impact on medication adherence presents an important issue worth further exploration.
The current study will allow for more thorough delineation of the roles of psychosocial and cognitive predictors of adherence with state-of-the-art monitoring techniques. In addition, the investigators will assess whether different dosing formulations of tacrolimus impact adherence behaviors in renal transplant recipients.
The proposed research has two primary aims to examine:
1. To examine the role of cognitive and psychosocial variables in predicting medication adherence in renal transplant recipients.
2. To examine whether different formulations of tacrolimus (once per day dosing versus twice per day dosing) will impact medication adherence in renal transplant recipients.
Study Design
Allocation randomized Intervention model parallel assignment Masking open label Primary purpose supportive care Primary Outcomes
Measure
electronic monitor of medication taking
time frame: 4 months
Secondary Outcomes
Measure
blood levels of medication
time frame: 4 months
self-reported medication adherence
time frame: 4 months
pharmacy refill data
time frame: 4 months
Eligibility Criteria Male or female participants at least 19 years old.
Inclusion Criteria: - a minimum of one year post renal transplant with a successful kidney graft and stable renal function (estimated glomerular filtration rate [GFR (glomerular filtration rate)] above 25 ml/minute per 1.73 m2). - currently prescribed tacrolimus - able to swallow pills - a minimum of grade six education - fluent in the English language. Exclusion Criteria: - refusal to or inability to give written informed consent. - any visual, hearing or other sensory/motor impairments which may interfere with the testing procedures. - have had a stroke determined to be of significant severity - have had a head injury determined to be of significant severity - have a current psychiatric diagnosis determined to be of significant severity - have the presence of an acute illness (e.g., metastatic cancer), neurological disease, and other major organ failure (e.g., end stage liver disease)
Additional Information
Official title Comparison of Medication Adherence Between Once Daily Tacrolimus (Advagraf®) and Twice Daily Tacrolimus (Prograf®) Administration in Stable Renal Transplant Recipients - a Randomized Study Principal investigator R. Jean Shapiro, M.D. Call for more information
Phone Principal Investigator Trial Trial ID Institution Location | 3,888 | 1,730 | 2.247399 |
warc | 201704 | 10 October 2013
Dr Mandy Sadan, Lecturer in the History of South East Asia at SOAS, University of London considers the long-term development of ethno-nationalist conflict in the northern parts of Burma, which border with India to the west and China to the east, in her latest book.
Being and Becoming Kachin: Histories Beyond the State in the Borderworlds of Burma (British Academy and Oxford University Press, 2013) is particularly timely because of current discussions about political transformation in Burma and the ongoing difficulties that are preventing the development of a nationwide peace to facilitate those transformations. The book is also of significance for the ways it suggests new understanding of Edmund Leach’s work and encourages more penetrating, empirical criticism of the model of 'Zomia' advanced in recent years by James C. Scott. Through combining long-term ethnographic and historical research, the book is set to change the way that the historical relations between Burma and one of its most important 'peripheries' are discussed, with implications too for promoting deeper understanding of similar border regions locked in apparently perennial conflict with their adjacent nation states. Published in the prestigious British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowships Monographs Series, published by Oxford University Press, Dr Sadan said: "It has been a real privilege to have had the support and advice of the Academy at this stage of my career. I feel especially fortunate that they were prepared to allow me the freedom to write the kind of book that I had envisioned over many years. Academics writing their first books are not usually given such a privilege." In addition, to expand the debate about the book and make rare and highly vulnerable archival material from the region available to a wider audience, Dr Sadan has set up a website mandysadan.weebly.com. There will be a seminar at SOAS on Saturday 12 October to discuss the recent history of conflict and peace in the Kachin region. Registration details and further information are available here. | 2,091 | 1,107 | 1.888889 |
warc | 201704 | Figures released this week by the Department for Education show that four academies are now opening each day.
In the last month alone, 97 schools converted to academy status, meaning there are now more than 800 across England.
Academies now account for more than a fifth of all secondary schools in the country.
Commenting on the figures, schools minister Lord Hill noted that are hundreds more conversions in the pipeline.
"I am particularly pleased that through the academies programme some of our best head teachers are reaching out to other schools, working with them to raise standards for local children," he commented.
"The best way of improving schools is by getting professionals who have already done an excellent job to spread their expertise."
Albert Mistrano, headteacher at Etonbury Middle School, which is planning to become an academy and join a multi-academy trust with the Robert Bloomfield Academy, said: "Our academy bid rests on our firm belief that by teaming up with an outstanding school we will quickly introduce outstanding teaching practices and leadership.
"This has already started with the introduction of a brand new Year 5 team led by the head of Year 5 from Robert Bloomfield Academy and a new director of specialism/head of science, also from Robert Bloomfield Academy. Indeed, our timetables have been written together this year in order to have seamless joint staffing."
He added that Etonbury is aiming for outstanding status within the next two years as a result of its work as an academy within a multi-academy trust.
More than 1,350 schools have applied to become academies since June 2010, with more than 500 having already converted.
Strong schools that convert to academy status are expected to support other local schools that can benefit from improvement.
Posted by Dolcie Thacker | 1,845 | 942 | 1.958599 |
warc | 201704 | A View from Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov Asks, “How Do People Get New Ideas?”
Note from Arthur Obermayer, friend of the author:
In 1959, I worked as a scientist at Allied Research Associates in Boston. The company was an MIT spinoff that originally focused on the effects of nuclear weapons on aircraft structures. The company received a contract with the acronym GLIPAR (Guide Line Identification Program for Antimissile Research) from the Advanced Research Projects Agency to elicit the most creative approaches possible for a ballistic missile defense system. The government recognized that no matter how much was spent on improving and expanding current technology, it would remain inadequate. They wanted us and a few other contractors to think “out of the box.” When I first became involved in the project, I suggested that Isaac Asimov, who was a good friend of mine, would be an appropriate person to participate. He expressed his willingness and came to a few meetings. He eventually decided not to continue, because he did not want to have access to any secret classified information; it would limit his freedom of expression. Before he left, however, he wrote this essay on creativity as his single formal input. This essay was never published or used beyond our small group. When I recently rediscovered it while cleaning out some old files, I recognized that its contents are as broadly relevant today as when he wrote it. It describes not only the creative process and the nature of creative people but also the kind of environment that promotes creativity. ON CREATIVITY
How do people get new ideas?
Presumably, the process of creativity, whatever it is, is essentially the same in all its branches and varieties, so that the evolution of a new art form, a new gadget, a new scientific principle, all involve common factors. We are most interested in the “creation” of a new scientific principle or a new application of an old one, but we can be general here.
One way of investigating the problem is to consider the great ideas of the past and see just how they were generated. Unfortunately, the method of generation is never clear even to the “generators” themselves.
But what if the same earth-shaking idea occurred to two men, simultaneously and independently? Perhaps, the common factors involved would be illuminating. Consider the theory of evolution by natural selection, independently created by Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace.
There is a great deal in common there. Both traveled to far places, observing strange species of plants and animals and the manner in which they varied from place to place. Both were keenly interested in finding an explanation for this, and both failed until each happened to read Malthus’s “Essay on Population.”
Both then saw how the notion of overpopulation and weeding out (which Malthus had applied to human beings) would fit into the doctrine of evolution by natural selection (if applied to species generally).
Obviously, then, what is needed is not only people with a good background in a particular field, but also people capable of making a connection between item 1 and item 2 which might not ordinarily seem connected.
Undoubtedly in the first half of the 19th century, a great many naturalists had studied the manner in which species were differentiated among themselves. A great many people had read Malthus. Perhaps some both studied species and read Malthus. But what you needed was someone who studied species, read Malthus, and had the ability to make a cross-connection.
That is the crucial point that is the rare characteristic that must be found. Once the cross-connection is made, it becomes obvious. Thomas H. Huxley is supposed to have exclaimed after reading
On the Origin of Species, “How stupid of me not to have thought of this.”
But why didn’t he think of it? The history of human thought would make it seem that there is difficulty in thinking of an idea even when all the facts are on the table. Making the cross-connection requires a certain daring. It must, for any cross-connection that does not require daring is performed at once by many and develops not as a “new idea,” but as a mere “corollary of an old idea.”
It is only afterward that a new idea seems reasonable. To begin with, it usually seems unreasonable. It seems the height of unreason to suppose the earth was round instead of flat, or that it moved instead of the sun, or that objects required a force to stop them when in motion, instead of a force to keep them moving, and so on.
A person willing to fly in the face of reason, authority, and common sense must be a person of considerable self-assurance. Since he occurs only rarely, he must seem eccentric (in at least that respect) to the rest of us. A person eccentric in one respect is often eccentric in others.
Consequently, the person who is most likely to get new ideas is a person of good background in the field of interest and one who is unconventional in his habits. (To be a crackpot is not, however, enough in itself.)
Once you have the people you want, the next question is: Do you want to bring them together so that they may discuss the problem mutually, or should you inform each of the problem and allow them to work in isolation?
My feeling is that as far as creativity is concerned, isolation is required. The creative person is, in any case, continually working at it. His mind is shuffling his information at all times, even when he is not conscious of it. (The famous example of Kekule working out the structure of benzene in his sleep is well-known.)
The presence of others can only inhibit this process, since creation is embarrassing. For every new good idea you have, there are a hundred, ten thousand foolish ones, which you naturally do not care to display.
Nevertheless, a meeting of such people may be desirable for reasons other than the act of creation itself.
No two people exactly duplicate each other’s mental stores of items. One person may know A and not B, another may know B and not A, and either knowing A and B, both may get the idea—though not necessarily at once or even soon.
Furthermore, the information may not only be of individual items A and B, but even of combinations such as A-B, which in themselves are not significant. However, if one person mentions the unusual combination of A-B and another the unusual combination A-C, it may well be that the combination A-B-C, which neither has thought of separately, may yield an answer.
It seems to me then that the purpose of cerebration sessions is not to think up new ideas but to educate the participants in facts and fact-combinations, in theories and vagrant thoughts.
But how to persuade creative people to do so? First and foremost, there must be ease, relaxation, and a general sense of permissiveness. The world in general disapproves of creativity, and to be creative in public is particularly bad. Even to speculate in public is rather worrisome. The individuals must, therefore, have the feeling that the others won’t object.
If a single individual present is unsympathetic to the foolishness that would be bound to go on at such a session, the others would freeze. The unsympathetic individual may be a gold mine of information, but the harm he does will more than compensate for that. It seems necessary to me, then, that all people at a session be willing to sound foolish and listen to others sound foolish.
If a single individual present has a much greater reputation than the others, or is more articulate, or has a distinctly more commanding personality, he may well take over the conference and reduce the rest to little more than passive obedience. The individual may himself be extremely useful, but he might as well be put to work solo, for he is neutralizing the rest.
The optimum number of the group would probably not be very high. I should guess that no more than five would be wanted. A larger group might have a larger total supply of information, but there would be the tension of waiting to speak, which can be very frustrating. It would probably be better to have a number of sessions at which the people attending would vary, rather than one session including them all. (This would involve a certain repetition, but even repetition is not in itself undesirable. It is not what people say at these conferences, but what they inspire in each other later on.)
For best purposes, there should be a feeling of informality. Joviality, the use of first names, joking, relaxed kidding are, I think, of the essence—not in themselves, but because they encourage a willingness to be involved in the folly of creativeness. For this purpose I think a meeting in someone’s home or over a dinner table at some restaurant is perhaps more useful than one in a conference room.
Probably more inhibiting than anything else is a feeling of responsibility. The great ideas of the ages have come from people who weren’t paid to have great ideas, but were paid to be teachers or patent clerks or petty officials, or were not paid at all. The great ideas came as side issues.
To feel guilty because one has not earned one’s salary because one has not had a great idea is the surest way, it seems to me, of making it certain that no great idea will come in the next time either.
Yet your company is conducting this cerebration program on government money. To think of congressmen or the general public hearing about scientists fooling around, boondoggling, telling dirty jokes, perhaps, at government expense, is to break into a cold sweat. In fact, the average scientist has enough public conscience not to want to feel he is doing this even if no one finds out.
I would suggest that members at a cerebration session be given sinecure tasks to do—short reports to write, or summaries of their conclusions, or brief answers to suggested problems—and be paid for that, the payment being the fee that would ordinarily be paid for the cerebration session. The cerebration session would then be officially unpaid-for and that, too, would allow considerable relaxation.
I do not think that cerebration sessions can be left unguided. There must be someone in charge who plays a role equivalent to that of a psychoanalyst. A psychoanalyst, as I understand it, by asking the right questions (and except for that interfering as little as possible), gets the patient himself to discuss his past life in such a way as to elicit new understanding of it in his own eyes.
In the same way, a session-arbiter will have to sit there, stirring up the animals, asking the shrewd question, making the necessary comment, bringing them gently back to the point. Since the arbiter will not know which question is shrewd, which comment necessary, and what the point is, his will not be an easy job.
As for “gadgets” designed to elicit creativity, I think these should arise out of the bull sessions themselves. If thoroughly relaxed, free of responsibility, discussing something of interest, and being by nature unconventional, the participants themselves will create devices to stimulate discussion.
Published with permission of Asimov Holdings. | 11,313 | 4,948 | 2.286378 |
warc | 201704 | New Delhi, Jan. 15: The rate of inflation touched a five-month low of 6.16 per cent in December on lower vegetable prices, providing some relief to the Congress-led UPA coalition before the Lok Sabha polls.
While inflation data raised hopes of a rate cut among industry representatives, analysts expect the Reserve Bank of India to hold on to key interest rates in its policy review later this month.
The wholesale price index (WPI) climbed 6.16 per cent last month, its slowest pace since July 2013, when inflation was at 5.8 per cent. In November, wholesale price inflation increased at the fastest pace in 14 months at 7.52 per cent.
The moderation in December WPI figures comes on the back of easing prices of essential food items, including vegetables, cereals and protein-rich items.
Vegetable prices fell nearly 30 per cent from November, bringing down overall rise in food prices for the month to 13.68 per cent from 19.93 per cent a month ago.
Vegetable prices in December rose 57.33 per cent compared with December 2012, while the rate of price rise was much higher in November 2013 at 95.25 per cent against November 2012.
Onion prices gained 39.56 per cent in December, while in November it rose 190.34 per cent against year-ago numbers.
However, the rate at which potato prices rose was more than double at 54.65 per cent in December over November. Inflation in fruits and protein-rich items such as eggs, meat and fish was 9.07 per cent and 11.40 per cent, respectively. For milk, the rate of inflation was 6.93 per cent.
“The easing of inflation at a time when industrial growth continues to be in the red should induce the RBI to review its monetary policy stance and cut its policy rates to rejuvenate growth, which has been hit by high interest costs, flagging investments and subdued demand,” CII director-general Chandrajit Banerjee said.
However, Aditi Nayar, senior economist of Icra, said, “Given the weakness in consumer demand and contraction in industrial production in October-November 2013, we expect the central bank to retain the repo rate in the upcoming policy review.” | 2,132 | 1,071 | 1.990663 |
warc | 201704 | New on the Green Scene
New on the Green Scene
Consumers' interest in being green continues to grow, particularly when it comes to home products. Not only are the latest eco-friendly home products good for the environment, but they look great and work great. From energy-efficient light bulbs to solar-paneled roofs, consumers continue to gravitate to green products when building their new home, thanks in part to manufacturers, builders, and architects encouraging the use of green products.
Interest in being green continues to spread, thanks to groups like the NAHB (National Associate of Home Builders) and USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council), government programs like ENERGY STAR and WaterSense and of course the rising cost in energy prices which have forced homeowners to reevaluate their home purchases and daily habits.
Here are some of the latest top eco-friendly home trends and products:
Copper and copper alloys, such as brass and bronze, are showing up on roofs, entryways, facades, gutters, and downspouts. Despite being quite pricey to purchase and install, they're seen as a good long-term investment because they tolerate inclement weather and are completely recyclable. A copper roof that's installed properly will last over 100 years versus a composition roof that may last only 30 years.
Timber framing requires significantly less lumber than the traditional "stick-built" housing and almost always incorporates superior insulating panels (SIPS), which keeps heat and air conditioning from escaping the house. There's less waste when large timbers are used, compared with conventional construction that produces sawdust and waste every time a 2-by-4 stud is planed.
Low-emittance (Low-E) windows, doors, and skylights offer natural light while blocking the sun's UV rays that heat up the inside of a home. The special low-E glazing also stops the sun from fading fabrics, wall coverings, and artwork.
Rainwater holding tanks are great for capturing rainwater so that they can be used in other ways, such as watering the yard or flushing toilets.
LED lighting (LED stands for light emitting diodes) is a semiconductor that emits light when an electric current is applied. One big, green advantage is that it contains no hazardous chemicals, like compact fluorescents that contain mercury and incandescent bulbs that give off gasses. In addition, LED fixtures use 80 percent less energy than a traditional incandescent light bulb and can last up to 20 years.
Toilets account for one third of the water wasted in American homes every day. WaterSense toilets use 30% less water, and are tested for efficiency and performance. The average American flushes the toilet nearly 140,000 times a year, and with a WaterSense labeled toilet, you can reduce the number of gallon wastes by 4,000. Savings with a WaterSense toilet add up to about $90 a year, and provide an easy way to conserve water resources.
Things have really started cookin' in the kitchen with a wide selection of high-tech green ovens and stoves. New gas ovens have electronic ignition systems, which save about 30% more energy than older models fitted with a pilot light. Combination appliances such as full-size ovens combined with smaller "toaster" ovens save energy by occupying the space of one appliance while delivering the utility of two! When it comes to electric burners, new technology using radiant elements under ceramic glass are far more energy-efficient than the old coil element cooktops. The innovation of induction elements— which transfer electromagnetic energy directly to the pan where the heat is needed— cut energy requirements in half.
Bamboo and cork are great floor options. Cork is a 100% renewable resource, harvested from the bark of living cork oak trees and bamboo is a sustainable, harvested grass that regenerates at least 8x faster than hardwood. Both are beautiful, sustainable and low-maintenance flooring materials, so it's only a matter of personal taste.
Green furniture is the latest buzz. Basically, Green Furniture refers to furniture that is eco-friendly and environmentally safe. The most common types of products are made from FSC Certified Wood, reclaimed materials, bamboo, rattan and recycled materials. | 4,260 | 2,117 | 2.012282 |
warc | 201704 | Yale University Press is to be congratulated on producing, at not too high a price, another elegant volume, furnished with many beautiful illustrations as well as with notes and bibliography that occupy more than 100 pages as against a text of just over 200.
Roman Fever will shine on a coffee table. The book is a pleasure to riffle.
No doubt that is as it should be, since Richard Wrigley assures his readers disarmingly on more than one occasion that he is an art historian who writes with the assumptions and theoretical base of his trade. “From the sixteenth until the late nineteenth century,” he pronounces, “Rome held a talismanic place in the European and later North American imagination as a destination of artistic pilgrimages.” Given that situation, he sets his task as to enquire “what did influence [then] mean…as applied to artists’ and travellers’ experience of Rome?” “Influence”, he knows from Michel Foucault, is an under-theorised term, all the more since, he adds, it has ironical connections with the Italian “
influenza”, a word that began to acquire an international medical meaning following an epidemic of some sort in Rome in 1743.
Wrigley’s major focus is on
mal’ aria, the ‘something in the air’
As the title indicates, Wrigley’s major focus is on
mal’ aria, the “something in the air”, as he evocatively puts it, that was the physical background to what he establishes was often a fundamental uneasiness, even a trauma, afflicting artists and travellers as they tried to frame a meaning of classical and Renaissance, and, less often, contemporary, Rome around their own creativity. For the Abbé Dubos in 1719, we learn, what had once been a fine climate in the city had been destroyed during its decline and fall. Such environmental change could explain why “decadent” contemporary Romans had lost in the battle between ancients and moderns then being waged so vigorously, but might also allow non-Italian moderns their own victory. As Wrigley hastens to remark, not everyone agreed; for some, Roman “light” was eternally “special”; its air enthralled still. Yet, Wrigley shows in his key chapters, the fatal presence of malaria could not be ignored, especially given the rise into the 19th century of medical understandings of the human condition.
Quite often such comprehension did not go far. Wrigley is at his drollest when he indicates efforts by experts to map just which part of the city was vulnerable to the disease and which was not. He cites one English traveller’s perplexing advice in 1813 that “At St. Callixtus, the cells next to the country are unhealthy in summer, while the opposite side of the convent is safe”. Opinion, we learn, was more united in dreading the Campagna surrounding Rome, although even it could be viewed by Thomas Ashby, early paladin of the British School in Rome, as an enticing expanse of classical treasure. Wrigley in his lengthiest chapter reproduces many lovely images of this treacherous but redolent countryside.
There is much of interest and importance in this commentary. Yet, for your reviewer, who is a historian and not an art historian, Wrigley’s findings are fretted by a curiously imprecise chronology and a failure to take his contextual imagining far. The Enlightenment, the Italian and Roman confrontation with the French Revolution and especially its hostility to peasant “backwardness”, the Industrial Revolution (which surely changed the meaning of “dirt” for many Europeans and so must have conditioned the earlier view, examined in detail in chapter 6, that Rome was “one of the dirtiest cities in Europe”), the rise of the modern nation (“Italy” seems always to be Italy for Wrigley), the spread of modern imperialism and its linked racial “science” (and of Italy’s unbecoming role as the least of the Great Powers) – none of these crucial developments rates a major place in Wrigley’s account. Even the Roman Catholic Church, its changes and continuities, its myths and images, remain noises off. The result is that Wrigley’s book contains some fascinating description of artists’ thoughts about the medical perils of Rome and its hinterland. But he scarcely achieves his (laboured) initial promise of a full-scale rethinking of “influence”, “acting through an ambient, immersive dimension as much as being the result of conscious ambition be that individual or institutional”.
Roman Fever: Influence, Infection, and the Image of Rome, 1700-1870
By Richard Wrigley
Yale University Press, 0pp, £45.00 ISBN 9780300190212 Published June 2013 | 4,808 | 2,403 | 2.000832 |
warc | 201704 | Many of Europe's football clubs are facing an uncertain financial future: television revenues have nose-dived and the transfer market has all but disappeared. Yet, at the same time, players' salaries have continued to soar. It is against this background that the European football community has been discussing the need to adopt some form of what is seen by many as the most radical form of cost control – salary capping.
The purpose of salary capping is simple. Caps limit the amounts that clubs can spend on players, thereby controlling increases in players’ wages and limiting the risk of clubs spending more than they can afford on players, whilst maintaining the competitiveness of the league. The form of cap currently under consideration by the Football League and by the G14 group of Europe’s 18 ‘elite’ clubs is a scheme in which each club’s spending would be limited to a percentage of its turnover.
Under European competition law an agreement or practice is deemed unlawful if it imposes restrictions on competition in the relevant market and is not given exemption because the restriction is considered to be justified. In the past, the EC authorities have recognised the intrinsic nature and value of sport and have ruled that a UEFA rule will not restrict competition if, without the rule, the various UEFA competitions would lose credibility which, in turn, would devalue the competitions and the clubs and threaten the “very existence of credible pan-European competitions”.
There is, however, little evidence to suggest that a cap in the form currently being proposed would preserve the credibility or value of Europe’s many leagues.
G14 has suggested a cap set at 70% of each club’s turnover. If this type of cap was imposed, although Real Madrid would have to cut their spending to comply with the cap, the cap could have little or no effect on the rest of Europe’s elite clubs. For example, despite their high profile signings and legion of super stars, last season Manchester United only spent around 50% of its turnover on player wages.
In contrast, many smaller clubs gamble in order to compete at the highest level. The average English First Division football club spends 101% of its revenue on players' wages alone. If the proposed cap was introduced, each of these clubs would be forced to slash wages or sack staff to comply with the cap. The position would deteriorate further if revenues continue to drop and some clubs could go out of business in the process.
So, rather than creating competitive balance and preserving the “very existence of credible pan-European competitions”, arguably the very opposite would happen as the effect of a cap would further widen the gulf between Europe’s elite and the chasing pack. Arguably therefore the cap in the form currently under consideration would be a restriction of competition and would not be given exemption, especially as there are alternative courses of action open to clubs to prevent wages from spiralling out of control.
If UEFA is unable to obtain a satisfactory level of support for the proposed cap from clubs, players and unions, it is unlikely that it will make the decision to impose a cap and risk both a strike by players or the scheme being struck down by the competition authorities. If UEFA is unwilling to impose a capping system each national league could impose a salary cap on its own clubs. However, if UEFA is unwilling to impose a cap, the national leagues are likely to be equally unwilling to impose one themselves and have it challenged in the European Courts, especially if the cap risks putting its league at a competitive disadvantage with other European leagues.
Arguably a properly set G14 wage cap could bring down wages throughout football. However, the current proposed cap of 70% of turnover is unlikely to have a significant effect on many of G14’s members and, even if the cap was set at an effective rate, as a gentlemen’s agreement, it remains to be seen how effectively the scheme would be adhered to in what is a highly competitive market place where winning is everything. | 4,183 | 1,844 | 2.268438 |
warc | 201704 | This essay has been submitted by a student. This is not an example of the work written by our professional essay writers.
Building Maintenance Design.
It can't be ignored. Once a building is finished themaintenance process begins and it never stops until the structure is eventuallyremoved from the landscape. The value of a commercial property can remainelevated for the duration of the building's lifetime. An ongoing deferredmaintenance program will keep he investment table and re-sale value high aspossible.
The design of a new building must take in consideration theimmediate and long-term cost of maintenance of that building. The architectneeds to factor in the ability of the owner to commit the necessary resourcesto maintenance. Based on that commitment, the architect can design thebuilding to meet the needs of the owner's assurance that the new building will bewell cared for.
The design and construction processes for a modern commercialbuilding involves a collection of choices that can influence the visual andfunctional quality of that building. The selection of materials and finishes,both interior and exterior, by the architect will affect the level ofmaintenance required for that building to remain the best investment for theowner by requiring the least amount of maintenance over the life of theproject.
Building maintenance4 has several levels. These levelsinclude the simplest needs that require attention on a regular basis. Examplesof this basic maintenance are the replacement of light bulbs and the trimmingof bushes. More complex examples of on-going maintenance needs include carpetstain removal and simple repairs to wall and floor surfaces. Finally, lessfrequent maintenance might include the changing of wall materials, re-plantingthe landscape, new signage and/or repair or replacement of HVAC mechanicalcomponents.
The architect must weigh the cost and effect of materialswhen designing the building. Additionally, he or she needs to understand theinherent cost of maintenance when selecting materials, finishes and equipment.Expensive natural wall covering, while beautiful, can also be quite delicateand be peculiarly subject to damage. The additional cost of maintenanceassociated with fragile materials must be considered in the design of theinterior. This also applies to exterior materials as well. Any material belowseven or eight feet will be subject to graffiti and damage due to vandalism.If not considered during the design process, the maintenance associated withvandalism can substantially increase the cost of maintaining the visualappearance of the building's public appearance. There are architecturalfinishes on the market that claim to repel spray paint so the graffiti damagecan be minimized. It would make good sense to test the coating materials on asmall part of the building before committing to the entire exterior surfaces.Signage is subject to vandalism as well. Architects often like the appearanceof individual letters applied low on the building entry wall. The visualappearance is secondary to the maintenance cost of constantly replacing theletters as individuals wishing to spell their name or have the initials ontheir own residence steal them. This problem is compounded when the individualletter are electrical pan-channel letters. The expense to replace the lettersis secondary to the possible liability when the thief is injured by anelectrical accident. Additionally, liability for the owner is always a concernwhen floor materials are to slick or mechanical equipment is poorly maintained.
The use of the building also may dictate the selection of materialsand details. Health care facilities need to have surfaces that can becontinually cleaned with harsh cleaners and clean rooms need surfaces that willnot created static electricity or retain dust. These are two examples ofunique needs that should be considered during the building design process. Theindividual responsible for the maintenance of these specialty-building typesshould be involved in the decision making process with the building'sarchitect, contractor and owner.
It is critical that the mechanical systems are planned foreasy and efficient maintenance duration of the building's life. Technology isconstantly changing and mechanical systems need to be flexible enough to easilyaccept these changes. Being able to update equipment in the future as thetechnology advances will keep the building efficient and maintainable. Thesenew efficiencies will require that persons responsible for the maintenance beable to understand the new technologies and be constantly trained. The obviousbenefit of new technology is efficiency, which will make the building moremarketable. The cost of maintaining and running a building will increase asit's systems age and become dated. This added cost could make the differencein the financial edge to the marketing of the development in the future. Bydesigning mechanical systems with the built-in flexibility of being able tochange as needed, can keep the project financial relevant in future markets.Insuring the ability for change is the responsibility of the architect andmechanical engineer during the design's development. The ease at which abuilding can be altered in the future to adapt to new maintenance technologiesand the ease at which the new systems are integrated can extend the useful lifeof the development for the owner.
New commercial developments are constantly coming on-line andeach will claim in their marketing to be the latest and greatest. The newbuildings will contain the most recent technologies in their mechanical systems.For long-term marketing viability, every new building should be designed toadapt to changing technology and those who will maintain the systems need tochange as needed to make certain the building will be competitive for as longas possible, even in a more competitive marketplace. The architect who doesnot take future mechanical technologies into consideration during the design ofthe building could be creating a financial calamity for the owner as newer moreefficient developments come into the market. The long-term cost of maintainingout dated building must be a consideration to the owner. The added cost ofmaintenance could make the difference in the development's success of failure.
The reality is that buildings cannot move to the newer neighborhoodas cities expand, they must remain behind. By insuring that they can be easilymaintained is a responsibility the architect and owner must take seriously ifthe building will be competitive in the future. | 6,603 | 2,628 | 2.512557 |
warc | 201704 | ‘Can I start using my credit card the same day after a balance transfer?’
Answer: Balance transfer cards are designed to allow you to transfer your expensive debt from one credit card to another. Compare balance transfer cards
Find a balance transfer credit cards with the lowest fee or the longest interest free periodCompare credit cards
They’re a great idea if you’re paying extortionate interest rates to your current provider, but by their very nature people want them to work quickly. After all, why would you want to pay more than you need to, particularly if you have a large repayment coming up.
Same day balance transfer
The good news is that it is possible to get a same day balance transfer, but it depends entirely on the time you make the transfer, and who you’re making the transfer with.
Some providers allow a same day balance transfer as long as the request is received within working hours and early enough on the day (typically before 5pm).
Naturally this will depend on when your old provider processes the payment, so you will have to speak to your current provider as well.
Other providers will process your transfer by the next working day.
Be aware
Even if the balance transfer goes through the same day it’s a good idea to keep up your repayments on your old card until the balance is cleared to avoid unnecessary interest payments or late fees.
You should also make a careful note of when your balance transfer deal is likely to expire to avoid paying interest on your balance transfer card. When deals expire you will quickly revert to a high interest rate, so aim to pay off your balance to transfer again.
Read more… How to spring-clean your finances – Your personal finances are no different to your home, garden or garage – they need a spring clean from time to time. Credit builder cards – Improve your credit rating and get a better deal for future credit cards Credit cards: the uSwitch guide – All you need to know about credit cards and how to make the most of them | 2,071 | 972 | 2.130658 |
warc | 201704 | <p><a href="https://www.verywell.com/polarized-sunglasses-3422163" data-component="link" data-source="inlineLink" data-type="internalLink" data-ordinal="1">Polarized sunglasses</a> are specialized eyewear designed to reduce glare and increase contrast sensitivity. Glare distorts the true color of objects and makes it harder to distinguish.</p><p>Unlike traditional sunglasses, polarized sunglasses block out glare instead of dimming the entire field of vision. Traditional sunglasses may reduce glare, but they may also block out subtle details about the surroundings because of the dye used in tinting the lenses.</p><p>Polarized sunglasses have been enjoyed for years by boaters and fishermen to reduce unwanted glare from the water. This glare prevents fishermen from spotting fish swimming below the surface. Wearing polarized sunglasses reduces this glare, allowing fish to be more easily seen.</p><p>Today, polarized sunglasses are becoming more and more popular with other sports enthusiasts, including skiers, golfers, bikers and joggers, as well as the general public. Although they are more expensive than <a href="https://www.verywell.com/tips-for-buying-sunglasses-3421919" data-component="link" data-source="inlineLink" data-type="internalLink" data-ordinal="2">traditional sunglasses</a>, polarized sunglasses effectively reduce glare from surfaces other than water, such as snow and glass. Drivers can also benefit from polarization, as the special lenses help reduce glare and reflections from the surface of the road.</p><p><sub>Source</sub></p><p><sub>American Optometric Association, Texas. Shopping Guide for Sunglasses. AOA, 2008. </sub></p> | 1,686 | 822 | 2.051095 |
warc | 201704 | Definitions from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition n. The study of history using economic models and advanced mathematical methods of data processing and analysis. from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License n. The use of econometrics to study economic history Etymologies from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition Clio+ -metrics. Examples
The result of more than thirty five years of the new economic history, or
cliometrics, is not only to shed new light on the past as a result of the application of economic theory and quantitative methods to history but to provide social scientists with new insights into and a deeper understanding of the nature of societal and economic change.
Ms. McCloskey enjoyed a stellar career in economic history before her apostasy, being among the earliest pioneers of
cliometrics—the quantitative study of economic history.
In other words, the turn to
cliometrics-- quantitative observation of historical trends -- is more or less essential to the history of the longue durée.
Both Fogel and North have been credited with founding the discipline of
cliometrics, the application of economic theory to history, a subject traditional economists have largely ignored.
Meyer wrote on the microeconomics of slave investment, Conrad worked on the demographics, they put the two parts together, made some convincing estimates of just how profitable slavery actually was historians nearly universally assumed it was a money-losing business and in that putting-together created the controversial displine known today as
cliometrics.
But Cambridge was also home to a group of scholars who together would create the “new” economic history—or “
cliometrics,” as it gradually became known in the newspapers.
Second, attitudes toward age may be measured in census data, by an "age heaping" test, which Professor Stone dismissed as merely a "clever exercise in
cliometrics."
But they overlook the portion of that change that began with John Meyer, a Harvard professor who was present at the creation of the Boston consulting firm of Charles River Associates, served as vice chairman of the Union Pacific Railroad, helped invent “
cliometrics” and ran the Bureau for a decade between Arthur F. Burns and Feldstein.
- whether
cliometrics, hermeneutics, deconstruction, or symbolic interactionism - when they are also good ideas, carry powerful residual value in their originality and authority.
Try reading some Jared Diamond and then playing that game (particularly
cliometricsafter reading the Foundation series as a kid. | 2,713 | 1,359 | 1.996321 |
warc | 201704 | Definitions
Sorry, no definitions found.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Examples
Now, most of the
hospital-baseddiabetes education programs that still exist are outpatient programs, many of which struggle to survive, as patients are reluctant to pay more than a small co-payment or their deductible for education they feel is not worth the price.
Over the last 15 or so years this has led to most
hospital-baseddiabetes education programs closing their doors, as education programs could not support themselves.
Chiropractic doctors were in just 19 percent of those 27
hospital-basedclinics, naturopathic doctors in 15 percent.
This includes local primary care physicians and mental health professionals, community health centers and
hospital-basedclinics, mental health clinics, social services agencies, emergency rooms and inpatient services in local general hospitals.
Most
hospital-basedcochlear implant programs provide excellent medical and audiologic support to children with cochlear implants.
These forums can be either
hospital-basedat The Children's
And with zero antitrust enforcement in the last 30 years in the hospital world, we are cruising for regional
hospital-basedoligopolies—not good for doctors, patients or our hopes for a more efficient system.
To help shift the U.S. from an unsustainable path of
hospital-basedcare to providing essential services in the home, it's critical that CMS reconsider this proposed action.
Once associated chiefly with
hospital-basedprograms, the industry is now dominated by private firms, some with fleets as large as regional carriers, a Washington Post investigation found last year.
Doctors who provide chemotherapy in their offices are more cost effective than
hospital-basedtreatment centers which have historically received profits from 150% to 500% greater than office-based care. | 1,883 | 945 | 1.992593 |
warc | 201704 | For those of you who have somehow avoided the controversy until now, the Dervaes family has trademarked the term “Urban Homesteading.” I don’t know exactly what their intentions were for doing so – it may have started innocently as a way to protect the term from more insidious corporations, it may have been an honest belief that they coined the term and made it what it is, or it may have been for some other reason entirely.
The Dervaes are very press savvy. Full disclosure – back when I was in film school, I featured them in one of my thesis films about peak oil and climate change. I don’t want to violate any of the trust they put in me by revealing their innerworkings behind the scenes. So suffice it to say that it was clear to me that they have ambition and understand how the press can help them get where they want to go.
Trying (it seems twice) to trademark urban homesteading is something that they probably knew would make many fans more loyal, turn a few away, but in general give them some additional press to spread their word. I’m sure they had no idea how much press – actually I imagine they probably view it as a misstep now, but I don’t know.
But whatever the reasons they did it, it has divided us.
Again.
We have a multitude of very real, very severe planetary problems around us. Yet we are fighting about a terminology, fighting about owning a thing that isn’t really a thing at all – just utterances in air and ink. Instead of uniting against much worse things out there: Congress that never passing much in the way of planetary protection, oil drilling in Alaska, butterflies and birds that are going extinct, terribly unpredictable weather around the world this season, wars that never cease, world poverty that is devastating whole cultures….
Don’t get me wrong – I think the Dervaes did make a mistake in taking a seriously bold step to trademark a lifestyle that so many people are proud of. I will use the term urban homesteading – along with permaculture, biodynamic, four square gardening, simple life, local living, and so on – because I believe it is more important for us to unite around such terms. These define
our movement, the movement we have built together over many years. We are all in this together, hoping to impact the world in a positive way, as our predecessors did in the 70s, the 40s, and all those before them.
Let’s not lose sight all the many important reasons to harness our anger before it’s too late – before the planet changes irreversibly, our lives change irreparably, our children don’t have the same planet to grow up in.
Dervaes family, you know I respect you all for what you have done. I hope you, too, can see this controversy is leading us off our important track together. I wish you the best in making a decision that is good for the planet, good for the movement, and good for us all.
And for the rest of us, if this is really making you angry, ok – put your anger there. But reserve a bit of your anger for something bigger than all of us. Today, consider putting an equal amount of anger toward helping an important planetary cause that you really believe in.
It took me 45 minutes to write this post today. I will spend 45 minutes signing petitions, calling Congress, and finding other ways to inspire positive social change. | 3,421 | 1,658 | 2.063329 |
warc | 201704 | Remember Stanley Kubrick's epic 2001: A Space Odyssey? More specifically, remember the malevolent supercomputer HAL 9000?
It may still be decades before computers become "self-aware" and smart enough to do something evil on their own, like turn against humans. But the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is hoping that renewed research and funding could within the next few years lead to machines that act more like human assistants.
For years, DARPA has funded research into so-called artificial intelligence systems — computers that approach tasks using advanced software and schemes that mimic how humans solve problems. But under a new, five-year project called Perceptive Assistant that Learns, or PAL, researchers are hoping to take "cognitive systems" to a new level.
The goal of the project is to develop a computer system that would help decision-makers — business managers and battlefield commanders, for instance — automatically manage the flood of daily mundane chores and allow them to concentrate on more important tasks.
Just like human administrative assistants, these developing "cognitive systems" would answer e-mail, arrange meetings, and write reports. But in handling these routine tasks, the computer would remain alert for information and events that are vital to its human manager's chores.
An Astute RADAR
One team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh is tackling the PAL program challenge with a project called Reflective Agents with Distributed Adaptive Reasoning — RADAR. The project, funded for the initial year with $7 million from DARPA, brings together several "expert systems" that have been developed over the years for very specific purposes.
For example, voice recognition systems used in automated call centers to give information about credit cards or bank accounts use specially developed software that helps a computer understand a very limited number of spoken commands and phrases.
But researchers at the university hope that further study and development of these types of specific expert systems will lead to a common approach and methodology. By working from a common "base" of knowledge and structure, different parts of RADAR will know, or learn, how to interact with others.
According to Scott Fuhlman, one of the computer scientists working on the CMU project, the RADAR component that handles e-mail could be taught how to handle certain e-mails, looking for key phrases like "meeting" and times associated with them. When it finds such messages, it would then alert the RADAR piece that handles the person's scheduling, which in turn may directly interact with the e-mail sender's agent to determine a mutually agreeable meeting time.
"Everything I've described has a simple version that people have worked on and used in isolation in the past," says Fuhlman. "But by pulling them all together, we can create a new capability."
A Soldier’s Servant
SRI International, a nonprofit research organization in Menlo Park, Calif., is also tackling DARPA's PAL program with its own project called Cognitive Agent that Learns and Observes, or CALO.
Like the CMU project, SRI's CALO program will pull together different bits of "expert software" and technology that have been researched and developed in 20 universities and other research institutions, such as Boeing Phantom Works in Seattle. With $22 million in funding from DARPA, SRI hopes to develop a cognitive system specifically geared toward managing the flood of information and tasks that arise when the military faces an important decision-making process.
William Mark, vice president of the information and computing sciences division of SRI, says the military has developed specialized expert systems over the years. But CALO researchers hope that over the next five years they can develop a software system that can link all of these separate systems together.
"Right now, [expert] systems are designed as isolated engines, optimized for specific tasks and performances," says Mark. "We're turning that on its head. We're designing each piece of the [CALO] system so that it's part of the whole."
Speeding Along?
Researchers at both SRI and Carnegie Mellon say it will take years of work before computer programs are capable of handling informational tasks as aptly as a human assistant. But they are confident that the rapid advances in computing power will — eventually — help bring about smarter, more adaptive computers.
"Today's computer systems run faster, so computation-intensive tasks — speech processing, reasoning — can be performed in time frames we [normally] react in," says Mark. "Things that weren't tractable five years ago — speech recognition or natural language dialog systems, for example — are now capable."
Still, others note that we're a long way from the creation of a HAL-like computer.
"There's a large amount of [software] programming, knowledge engineering — getting knowledge into a format [computers] can digest," says CMU's Fuhlman. "There's an enormous amount of engineering that has to happen to make this all mesh." | 5,198 | 2,434 | 2.135579 |
warc | 201704 | Without permanent employment for domiciled seafarers maritime skills, will simply disappear.
National Cabotage has been one of the main tools where national governments have regulated their domestic waters from the full effects of global competition. This is to ensure that at least certain domestic trades are not conducted purely on the basis of lowest labour cost, and minimum standards are protected.
Many of these safeguards for seafarers are now under threat, both from national governments and proposed international trade treaties which are now threatening to effectively eliminate cabotage in the US and Canada.
Member states of the European Union have already witnessed the impact of the free movement of trade and many other countries around the world are promoting increasing free trade in domestic waters for maritime services. European shipowners have been prominent in lobbying for complete liberalisation.
However many countries depend on the sea for their trade and require maritime skills and experience to regulate shipping and safeguard their own strategic interests as maritime nations. The benefits of clustering maritime knowledge bring added economic value to a country with significant extra revenue from trade in the wider maritime sector on shore, in addition to the obvious employment benefits for home national seafarers.
The Seafarers’ Section has produced a toolkit for the Retention of Maritime Skills. The toolkit is an aid for affiliates campaigning for the recruitment and retention of their own national seafarers.
It contains the following:
A number of key arguments that can be deployed when affiliates are in dialogue with national administrations, including advice on how to beat the likely arguments advanced by the shipowners A number of examples of good practice for retaining national skills from around the world, including countries where ITF affiliates have played a leading role in achieving change A presentation that outlines how a national campaign can be run with advice on practical steps A further presentation on the role the ITF can play in supporting affiliates A series of template letters and press materials that can assist when working through the national campaign plan A Maritime Union of Australia and ITF document on Maritime Cabotage around the world, and recommended campaign tools
The resources can be found at the following links:
Affiliates of the ITF have recently met to consider the threats posed by the latest moves towards liberalisation in the shipping industry. As a result of this meeting it has been decided to set up National Cabotage Task Force which will be responsible for running a campaign highlighting the dangers posed by the international trade treaties.
The Task Force will also advise affiliates on national campaigning to defend minimum standards and secure long term employment in their shipping industries. | 2,916 | 1,337 | 2.181002 |
warc | 201704 | Along with sunny days and higher temperatures, the beginning of summer in the South brings some favorite fruits and vegetables — blueberries, peaches, cucumbers, peppers, and of course, summer squash.
Vegetable farms and home gardens across the state are laden with yellow squash, ready to be served alongside grilled feasts on warm nights.
Dale County farmer Monica Carroll knows all about cooking squash and a host of other vegetables — for many years, Monica and her husband Chris raised vegetables on their farm. These days, they grow peanuts, corn and wheat in addition to broilers and cattle, but the family still has a large garden and buys produce from the farmers market. In the summertime, squash frequents the Carrolls’ plates.
The family has always eaten only what is available seasonally, and children Brittany and Blake have never been picky about vegetables.
“One reason I don’t have picky children is because when they helped grow things, they wanted to try them,” Monica said. “When we would pick our vegetables, they would want to come in and eat it right then. They were proud of what they helped grow.”
In addition to raising two children, Monica drives a school bus in the mornings and afternoons and helps Chris on the farm. Somehow, she still finds time to cook a big breakfast and dinner almost every day.
“Someone told me once, ‘To keep your family in line, you must sit at a table together at least once a day,’” she said. “The good Lord has blessed me to be able to help Chris on the farm and to have time around the house to cook.” | 1,637 | 860 | 1.903488 |
warc | 201704 | I don’t usually do this. Impromptu blog posts. In fact, I can’t name another time in my entire blogging life I have done this. But here I am. Doing it.
I’ll get to this more in a minute, but the fact that I am writing this is made doubly ridiculous by the fact that I have never in my whole life wanted to quit blogging as much as I have in the past few weeks. Just quit everything and sign off the Internet for good. I told a friend on the phone the other day, “I’m not doing it. I’m out. I give up” to which he suggested I should probably go eat dinner and get a good night’s sleep.
But I woke up this morning, and I don’t know, I guess I just felt like I had some things I needed to say.
This is for me. And, well, if it helps you, all the better.
This morning, I’m reminding myself of a few things.
First, I’m reminding myself of what Marianne Williamson says about miracles—that they are
sometimes a shift in circumstance, but more often they are a shift in perspective. And that when circumstances don’t turn out exactly how we wish they would, how we think they should, our only option left is to change our perspective.
And look, I am not talking just about politics here. Please, dear Lord, I need a break from talking about politics.
I’m talking about life and the world as it stands. The fact that things don’t always turn out exactly how we wish they would. The devastations, big and small. The fact that people all over the world are struggling and hurting. How it feels to be a woman in a world that is violent toward the softest part of who I am. That’s what I’m talking about.
About how many things feel wrong and how I wish they would change.
But of course it is at exactly at this point—when the things we want to change don’t change—that we discover changing perspective is actually harder, in ways, than changing our circumstance. More miraculous. Sure, curing Cancer or re-routing a wayward lover or restoring a relationship between a mother and a child—that would be miraculous. But choosing joy and peace and hope and gratitude in the face of not getting these things?
Well, that’s just crazy.
It’s a task of epic proportions. One for which we are not prepared. One we do not even really desire to undertake. Everything in our biology resists when we ask ourselves to change, when we ask our minds to change.
It seems absurd and impossible.
And of course, that is why it is called a miracle.
So I reminding myself of that this morning, that when things in my life and in this world are not going the way I wish they would, when I am not getting exactly what I want exactly when I think I should have it, when I can imagine a thousand better outcomes to any situation, a thousand outcomes that would seem more miraculous…
It is time to change my mind.
I change my mind from fear to love. I change my mind from chaos to peace. I do whatever I have to do. Sign off of social media. Pray without ceasing. Repeat mantras to myself over and over. Write them out a hundred times on a white board—like a high school kid in detention, “I am safe and protected in the world, my heart is in perfect harmony, my heart is in perfect harmony, my heart is in perfect harmony, I am safe and protected in the world, I am a force of love and peace, I am a force of love and peace.…”
Whatever I need to do—I just do it. Because if I’m not a miracle-worker in this world, then what am I? If I am an amazing writer, a successful business owner, a brilliant thinker, the most spiritually and physically disciplined of anyone I know, but have not LOVE, what the hell am I? That’s what I am reminding myself of this morning—how we can do all the right stuff, but without love, we are like a clanging symbol.
Just noise without meaning.
Without love, we make no sense and neither does the life we are leading.
So I am focusing on love this morning. Loving the marginalized and forgotten. Loving the arrogant and absurd. Loving the hateful and dishonest and despising. Loving myself, being gentle with this soft hurting creature that I am, loving my own arrogance and bitterness, because love is the only way to heal these wounds, and trusting that somewhere deep inside we are all that same soft hurting creature that I am. We are not alone.
Second, I reminding myself I really have two choices.
My two choices go like this, so simply: to give up or not to give up.
I mentioned earlier that I have wanted to give up on blogging and writing more in the past weeks of my life than ever before. I don’t say that to get sympathy. I’m not asking for compliments or affirmations. I’m only saying it because I think, when we’re honest with ourselves, we have to admit we all struggle with this sensation more often than we’d like to admit. The sense that we’re just going through the motions of this life and that nothing we do really matters.
Especially when things don’t turn out how we plan, or when life seems cloudy and dark, this is the time when it’s hardest to get up and keep doing our lives day after day.
And I guess the realization I’m having lately is that we really have two choices about this. The choices are so simple, it’s almost dumb. It’s just this:
we can give up or not give up. We can keep going or not keep going. There is no middle ground. I’d like to think that there is a middle ground. That I can just sort of go through the motions of my life until I decide if I really want to be in it 100%.
But the truth is life is asking us this question, every day: are you going to show up—or not? Are you going to keep going, or not?
Are you going bring your whole self to the world, or are you going to hide?
Are you going to choose the pain of changing, or settle for the pain of staying the same?
The time we need hope the
most is when it is most tempting to let it go. Hope is dangerous. It threatens to make fools out of us. It threatens to make a mockery of the life we choose for ourselves. Will anything we’re doing ever matter? Will our circumstances ever change? Well, there is really no way of knowing. So are you going to do it anyway? That’s hope.
And that’s what life is asking of us today. Are you going to keep hoping, or are you going to quit?
Third, I’m reminding myself that the way up is down.
This is the way Richard Rohr’s says it, and I love that. I’ve been repeating it to myself a dozen times a day lately:
the way up is down.
But translated, into my language, it would go like this:
The way to be strong is to be soft. Just so, so soft.
I just recently spent a week at the beach working on a book, and as always, I was struck by how amazing the ocean is. I kept thinking about how water is literally one of the softest things on planet earth. So forgiving. You can fall into it, and it gives way to you. You become weightless when you’re surrounded by it, just so carried by it’s suppleness. If you took a drop of water and put it on the most tender part of your skin, you would hardly feel it.
It’s just so gentle.
Our bodies are made of 85% water. We use water to heal us, to nourish. It is literally our survival.
And yet when you look out at the ocean, there is no question: it is a force to be reckoned with. You can swim out into the ocean, if you want, thinking in all your arrogance, “Look at me! I’m a great swimmer, I’m fine, I’ve got this, I’m in control!” and you might be right… until the rip tide pulls you under and sucks you into itself and you become a part of it.
The ocean will make no apology for this.
It’s whole job is to still your arrogance.
And when you stand there, and realize your place in everything, all the fear and the bitterness and hatred and heaviness… it all just sort of melts away.
How can you stand at the edge of the ocean and not be in awe?
Anyway, I kept thinking about this as I stared out at the ocean—as I watched it do what it does everyday, just in and out, in and out, in and out. I thought about what happens when gentle, soft, healing, holy people come together like an ocean and agree to just move together. I thought about how we might just be able to be a force to be reckoned with. Not a violent force. Not an evil force. But a soft, gentle, consistent, in-and-out, showing up everyday kind of force.
An organism who’s entire existence serves to call people unto itself, to still our hearts and calm our minds and clean out all the arrogance.
Awe. Just so much awe.
I’m thinking so much lately about how to stay soft in the face of disappointments, in the face of fears and uncertainties and injustices—real fears and real uncertainties and real injustices. How on earth do we stay soft in light of all of these things? How on earth are we not suppose to just armor up and try to survive this crazy ride? That is the question I think life is asking us, right now. How?
Are you in? Or out?
Are you going to give up? Or are you going to keep going?
Are you going to keep hoping, even though you don’t know for sure?
Are you going to stay soft, even though it hurts?
I want to keep going. I want to choose hope. I want stay soft. I don’t want to give up. But some mornings, I don’t know how. I just don’t know how I can possibly make that happen. How I can change my mind about these things. How I can stay soft in this world and still survive.
I guess that’s why it’s called miracle. | 9,694 | 3,997 | 2.425319 |
warc | 201704 | Please welcome Shining Light International.
There are 62 million girls around the world that are not in school.
Pakistan has the world’s second highest population of girls not attending school. Parents often can’t afford school or if they could, they send a son, and the tradition of early child marriages remained a frightening reality. Imagine attending a school where half the room is empty and there are virtually no females present to add their voices or participate in class discussions. This is the scene in most schools in rural villages of Northern Pakistan.
Oppression and religious extremism create incredible hurdles for girls and entire communities to thrive spiritually, physically, and economically. Not only are families struggling to provide food and protection from the violence that is prevalent in their nation, the lack of education severely stunts their economic opportunities. When most Pakistanis are asked what they dream of most: It’s education. A hope for their future.
At Shining Light International we decided to join with our friends in Pakistan and say YES, there is a hope for the future. Through strong partnerships with local leaders, our goal is to empower and equip them to improve their own economic situation and create opportunities for their sons and daughters. Village committees are established to identify community needs and work with SLI to access urgently needed resources, materials, training and support.
Working hand in hand with the Pakistani people, Shining Light is aspiring to meet practical needs and resource sustainable programs. We do this through: Education: Together we have established a private academy in which we provide high quality and affordable education to 375 children from troubled regions of Northern Pakistan. In addition, we have established schools in 4 rural Gujjar villages and provide school in tents with traveling teachers to allow nomadic families to keep their children in school as they travel to the high pastures. While the Gujjars have previously been 98% illiterate, there are now over 500 children, 150 of them are girls, in school for the first time in the history of their people.
Women’s Vocational Training: Women from all religious backgrounds; Sunni, Shia, and Christian are coming together under one roof for our year long Women’s Vocational Training Program in which they learn how to learn how to sew, knit, and embroider. Upon graduation, women receive a sewing machine to start their own business, provide a valuable skill to their families, or obtain employment. In the mornings, the Center is transformed into a manufacturing space where graduates from the training program are employed in a safe, secure and supportive environment to design and manufacture products for sale to local and international merchants and organizations. We have been blessed to be a part of seeing nearly 300 women graduate from the program and gain an elevated status in their growing communities.
We believe that the only way to break the cycles of extremism and oppression in this region of the world is to equip men AND women to stand against them, and that when ALL children are educated, including the girls, entire communities are transformed. We envision a world where light dispels darkness, hope overcomes despair, help empowers the helpless and prosperity replaces poverty making a much brighter future for many. Join Us…We’ll be at Allume!
We could not be more excited to be joining such a powerful group of women who are using their voices and platforms as bloggers to change the world. We recognize that to make a significant and sustainable impact in places like Pakistan, we need to gather an army. An army of people who will stand with us and say:
YES…your little girls deserve an education. Women are worth training and are crucial to a thriving society. There is a hope and a future for the hurting communities of Northern Pakistan. And we believe in you, so we will invest in you. We can’t wait to chat with you, hear your stories, and partner together to conquer the great justice issues of our day. We’ll have scarves created by the women at our Life Stitch Manufacturing Center, Home Party kits to help you get started on raising awareness about girl’s education, and opportunities for you to use your blog get more girls in school in Northern Pakistan. Get to know us before Allume: Hear more of our story: http://shininglight-intl.com | 4,503 | 2,109 | 2.135135 |
warc | 201704 | French start-up company Ynsect has identified a cheap, nourishing and locally produced alternative to soybeans as a vital source of protein in animal feed. The clue is in its name.
Ynsect is not alone in looking to invertebrates to meet a jump in demand for meat and fish, and so for feed, in coming decades.
Black soldier flies, common housefly larvae, silkworms and yellow mealworms were named as among the most promising species for industrial feed output in a report last month by the United Nations food agency.
“Given insects’ natural role as food for a number of farmed livestock species, it is worth reconsidering their role as feed for specific poultry and fish species,” the Food and Agriculture Organization’s report said.
Jean-Gabriel Levon, co-founder of Ynsect, said new protein sources were essential in a market where costs are set to climb.
“Insects are an interesting source which can be bred locally,” said Levon. “We are in the same situation as oil, with resources getting scarcer and more expensive.”
According to the food agency, protein such as meat meal, fishmeal and soymeal make up 60 to 70 percent of the price of feed.
Soybean prices have more than doubled over the past decade due to soaring demand and fishmeal prices have also jumped.
The two-year-old company has been developing an insect-based meal that could make up five to 30 percent of feed products, according to Levon.
Ynsect, which has around 10 rivals globally, is now raising funds to build the first European insect meal production unit by 2014-2015. One well-heated part of the plant would breed insects and the other would crush them into powder.
It aims to focus on using flies and beetles and Levon says a great advantage is that they can eat just about anything – for example human food leftovers such as potato peelings.
Once crushed, co-products such as shells can be used in the pharmaceutical sector, for cosmetics and wastewater treatments.
What is more, insect droppings make great fertilizer.
“Insects drink very little water. Their droppings are very dry. They’re like sand and have all the qualities needed for a classic fertilizers,” Levon said.
Stephane Radet, who heads France’s animal feed industry lobby, said he was cautious, as the protein product would have to prove itself to feed makers and win public acceptance.
“For new material to enter the manufacturing chain, it has to meet four major criteria: safety, quality, competitiveness and acceptability in the food sector, processors and at the bottom of the chain, the consumer,” said Radet.
While another pioneering company, South Africa’s AgriProtein Technologies, is rearing house flies and using insect flour for cattle feed, this is not allowed in the European Union where the mad cow disease crisis of the late 1990s has led to caution over the use of processed animal proteins.
Processed animal proteins particularly when cattle were given bovine protein, were blamed for the bovine spongiform encephalopathy outbreak.
The European Commission has approved the use of processed animal proteins to feed fish from June 1, which includes insect meal. It may allow their use in pig and poultry feed from 2014, lifting a ban on animal by-products imposed during the mad cow outbreak.
The EU imports about 70 percent of its protein-rich material for animal feed. According to European Feed Manufacturer’s Federation Fefac, Europe’s market for processed animal feed is worth around 45 billion euros ($60 billion) a year.
Ynsect aims to start with fish feed, where insect-based meal could replace increasingly scarce fishmeal and fish oil.
According to the the Food and Agriculture Organization, fish farming is the fastest-growing animal food producing sector and will need to expand sustainably to keep up with increasing demand.
Trials on certain fish species showed that diets where up to 50 percent of fishmeal was replaced with grass hopper meal produced equally good results as fishmeal only, the Food and Agriculture Organization added.
A further step one day might be to rear insects for direct human consumption. The Food and Agriculture Organization said insects already feed more than two billion humans in Africa, Asia and South America. | 4,332 | 2,036 | 2.127701 |
warc | 201704 | Fellowship in Gastrointestinal and Liver Pathology... Read More
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The first small bowel transplantation in Kerala was performed in Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences on 05th January 2015.
A small bowel (intestinal) transplant is an operation to replace a diseased or shortened small bowel with a healthy bowel from a donor. It is a complicated and highly specialised operation that is not commonly performed, although the number of procedures carried out has increased in recent years. These procedures are carried out only at specialist centres.
The small intestine or small bowel is the part of the gastrointestinal tract between the stomach and the large intestine, and is where much of the digestion and absorption of food takes place. The small intestine has three distinct regions – the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum. It receives bile and pancreatic juice through the pancreatic duct, controlled by the sphincter of Oddi. The primary function of the small intestine is the absorption of nutrients and minerals from food.
A small bowel transplant is an option for children and adults whose bowel has stopped working properly and who are being fed by total parenteral nutrition (TPN). This is where a person requires all their nutrition to be given through a drip into a vein because their bowel is unable to absorb nutrients from any food they eat.
While many people needing TPN can have this treatment at home without experiencing any significant problems, the long-term use of TPN can lead to serious complications such as liver disease and repeated infections.
A small bowel transplant may be considered when the person has a serious problem with their bowel, but have developed complications from TPN or are unable to tolerate this form of feeding.
This is a complicated and difficult operation that takes, on average, around 8-10 hours and is carried out under general anaesthesia. During the procedure, the surgeon will remove the bowel and connect the transplanted bowel to your blood vessels and digestive tract. They will also form an ileostomy, where part of the small bowel is diverted through an opening in the tummy, called a stoma. The stoma will allow digestive waste to pass out of your body into an external pouch, and lets the transplant team easily assess the health of your transplanted bowel. Although it is not always possible, the ileostomy may be reversed a few months later.
Some persons are born with or develop irreversible intestinal failure. Intestinal failure occurs when a person's intestines can't digest food and absorb the fluids, electrolytes and nutrients essential to life and normal development. Patients must then receive TPN, which provides liquid nutrition through a catheter or needle inserted into a vein in the arm, groin, neck or chest.
Patients with intestinal failure may receive all or most of their nutrients and calories intravenously through total parenteral nutrition, or TPN. TPN is given through a catheter placed in the arm, groin, neck or chest. Patients on TPN may live for many years, but long-term use of TPN can result in serious complications, such as bone disorders, central venous catheter infections and liver disease. If those complications become life-threatening, an intestinal transplant may be required.
The most common cause of intestinal failure is short bowel syndrome where at least half or more of the small intestine has been removed. Short bowel syndrome is typically a postsurgical condition for treatment of conditions such as trauma or necrotizing enterocolitis.
Intestinal failure may also be caused by functional disorders such as Crohn's disease, a digestive disorder, or chronic idiopathic intestinal pseudo-obstruction syndrome. The conditions leading to intestinal failure are age-dependent. That is, some conditions are more closely associated with pediatric intestinal failure while others are more common with intestinal failure in adults.
Congenital malformations such as small bowel atresia, gastroschisis, aganglionosis Infections of the gastrointestinal tract such as necrotizing enterocolitis)
Short bowel syndrome following extensive bowel surgeries secondary to mesenteric ischemia (e.g., midgut volvulus) Absorptive impairment (e.g., intestinal pseudo-obstruction, microvillus inclusion disease)
There are three major types of intestinal transplants that are described in detail below.
In an isolated intestinal transplant, the diseased portion of the small intestine is removed and replaced with a healthy small intestine from a donor. In an isolated intestinal transplant, the disease limited to the small bowel only without liver failure. This procedure can be lifesaving for patients with irreversible intestinal failure that has become life-threatening.
Combined liver and intestine transplantation is done for patients with both liver and intestinal failure. IN In this procedure, the diseased liver and intestine are removed and replaced with a healthy liver and intestine from an organ donor. Complications of intravenous nutrition (TPN) are the main cause of liver failure attendant to intestinal failure. Without a transplant, patients with intestinal and liver failure have an expected median survival of 6 - 12 months while continued on TPN.
Multivisceral transplantation is performed where two or more intra-abdominal organs (including the intestines) are failing. The transplanted organs may include the stomach, duodenum, pancreas, intestine, and liver. This complex procedure can be life-saving for patients with combined abdominal organ failure resulting diseases such as Gardner's syndrome (familial colorectal polyposis), a pre-malignant colorectal condition and intestinal pseudo-obstruction (decreased ability of the intestines to push food through). | 6,704 | 2,715 | 2.469245 |
warc | 201704 | On November 8, the New York Times ran a piece in the Food Section that turned the homemade bread world on it’s ear. Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery made public his recipe and technique for making the ultimate minimalist bread, one that requires no kneading and only four ingredients. Lahey claims that a six-year-old can make this bread.
Food blogs buzzed last week with discussion, reports of success, and some gorgeous photos. I was a bit late in joining in the discussion due to an equipment dilemma, but I did spend some time over the weekend experimenting with the method, and I am very excited about the results. The crust is crispy, so crispy that it actually crackles audibly as it cools. I could hear it across the room. The interior is chewy and full of holes, like a good artisan-style loaf should be. The flavor is rich, and Michael asked me a couple times if the bread had butter in it, which it does not.
Now, regarding my equipment dilemma. Lahey recommends a 6 to 8 quart heavy covered pot such as cast iron, enamel, Pyrex, or ceramic, and I have nothing that fits the bill. After scouring my cabinets and the attic for a couple days, I decided to try a half recipe in a regular loaf pan, but there was still the issue about covering it. My glass loaf pan has a plastic lid, certainly not appropriate for oven use. So I decided to put the dough into the glass loaf pan and then invert a metal loaf pan on top and use it as the cover, and I was pleasantly surprised. It wasn’t the lovely artisan-style boule that you will get with a round pot, but the bread baked up nicely.
As soon as the first loaf was out of the oven I started the second loaf, a full recipe this time. I used the same baking method as before and still had good results, although there wasn’t much room available for expansion in my regular loaf pan. I think I’m going to scout out a good oval shaped dutch oven and try that. Lindy over at Toast says that it worked very well for her.
The only part of the instructions that I disagreed with was the use of towels (flat weave) for the second rise. No matter how much flour I used, the dough stuck to the towel. I lifted the towel and turned it upside down, and the dough hung on like a barnacle. So for the next loaf I just put the dough into a shallow pan dusted with course cornmeal for the second rise, and it released perfectly.
The original article, recipe, and instructional video are available for a very limited time at the NY Times web site, so check them out before they disappear behind the archives.
Time: About 1½ hours plus 14 to 20 hours’ rising
Equipment
large bowl (for mixing and first rise)
shallow pan (for second rise) 6 to 8 quart pot with a lid (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex, or ceramic) Ingredients
3 cups unbleached all-purpose or bread flour, more for dusting
1/4 teaspoon instant yeast 1-1/4 teaspoons salt 1-1/2 cups water Course cornmeal or wheat bran as needed Preparation
1. In the large bowl stir together the flour, yeast, and salt. Add water and stir until blended. The dough won’t look very pretty; it will be shaggy and sticky. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest for 12 to 18 hours at warm room temperature, about 70 degrees. You don’t want the dough to get too warm since this is supposed to be a long, slow rise.
2. Check the surface of the dough; it should be dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour your work surface and turn the dough out on it. Sprinkle a little more flour on the top of the dough and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover it loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest about 15 minutes.
3. Lightly flour your hands. Gently and quickly shape the dough into a ball. Dust the shallow pan with flour, cornmeal, or wheat bran, and then lay the dough in the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and allow it to sit for 2 hours.
4. About 30 minutes before the dough is ready, preheat your oven to 450 or 500° F (the higher the temperature, the better for baking). Put the heavy covered pot in the oven as it heats. When dough is ready, carefully remove pot from oven. Turn the dough over into pot, seam side up. It doesn’t have to look pretty, so don’t worry about the seam showing. Cover with the lid and bake for 30 minutes, then remove the lid and bake another 15 to 30 minutes, until loaf is browned and sounds hollow when tapped. Remove from the oven and cool completely on a rack. The bread doesn’t cut well while warm, so resist the urge to dive into it.
Resources (Get in on the discussion.)
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Source: NY Times Disclosure: This blog earns a small commission through affiliate links.] | 4,733 | 2,235 | 2.117673 |
warc | 201704 | The question isn't whether or not reparations should be paid out, it is whether or not they should stop being paid out:
From 1882-1968 3,446 blacks were lynched in the US. That comes to an average of just under 40 blacks per year. In 2011, to take a recent year in which data are readily available, at least 448 whites were murdered by blacks (keeping in mind that the rate of black-on-white homicide is several times higher than the rate of white-on-black homicide and that in more than one-in-three cases of homicide the murderer is never identified). If we subtract from this figure the number of blacks murdered by whites during the same year (193), we still get a net interracial white body count of 255. It is likely the case that, over the course of US history, more whites have been killed by blacks than blacks have been killed by whites. And with every passing year, that black advantage over whites in interracial murders increases. Of course it naturally follows from this that the biggest intellectual sensation in the US today is a black guy who profitably laments things like white privilege and the legacy of slavery, a message that Colin Flaherty parsimoniously reduces to three words: "White people suck"! Perhaps it's unfair to be so dismissive of the work of Ta-Nehisi Coates. Besides making life miserable for Coke executives, Coates accurately perceives that rather than fading into the past, racial strife is America's future. Google's Ngram corroborates that insight: | 1,496 | 836 | 1.789474 |
warc | 201704 | Power/Alternative Energy?? Global regulations on external power supplies
Both of these new rulings further restrict the efficiency and no-load power consumption requirements on external power supplies to the highest levels in the world. The purpose of this article is to discuss the evolution of the different power supply standards up to now, what the new rulings mean and how they impact the power supply market.
At a global level, mandates for power efficiency exist for most consumer electronics and home appliances. External power supplies have had regulations dating back to 2004, when the California Energy Commission created one of the first mandates for efficiency of external power supplies used to power appliances or consumer electronic devices. Since then, the US, European Union, China and other countries adopted both voluntary and mandatory external power supply standards as part of energy conservation legislation.
Table 1 shows a breakdown of some of the current voluntary and mandatory standards by region. Japan has a mandatory energy efficiency standard and a voluntary program called Top Runner, but neither includes an external power supply specific standard.
US: California, Energy Star and the Department of Energy After California released its initial state regulation on external power supplies in 2004, Energy Star developed and released its first national standard for external power supplies. The specification was largely based on the original California specification, but eventually became the foundation for the first federal mandate, the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The EISA 2007 act regulated all single-output external power supplies up to 250W of output power and stipulated minimum efficiency requirements for external power supplies, including standby power consumption at no load.
In February, the Department of Energy filed a final ruling on their new External Power Supply Energy Conversation standard, a significant expansion of the original EISA 2007 EPS standards. The original EISA standard had two classes of power supplies, Class A and Non-Class A power supplies. The new proposal, started originally in 2009, published in 2012 and finally ruled upon in 2014, breaks down the Class A power supplies into five new classes, with the bulk of the power supply market falling into Classes B and C.
Tables 2a and 2b show a summary of the original and new class breakdowns for the Department of Energy External Power Supply regulations.
Related Articles Editor's Choice votes:? Add to Favorites | 2,564 | 1,136 | 2.257042 |
warc | 201704 | The North Dakota State University Extension Service is holding a three-part "Beef 101: From Calves to Carcasses" program Oct. 23, Oct. 30 and Nov. 5. All three sessions will be held in Bowman from 4 to 9 p.m. Mountain time and will include a meal. Participants should plan to attend all of the sessions. The first session will focus on quality and yield grade calculations, market beef evaluation techniques, live animal evaluation and ultrasound technology applications. It also will include an ultrasound technology demonstration. Session two will cover beef carcass grading and pricing, conversion of muscle to meat/palatability and carcass evaluation, plus a review of quality and yield grade calculations. Topics for the third session are pricing cattle on grids, management strategies for improving carcass quality and genetic tools cow-calf producers can use to increase carcass quality. In addition, this session will include a dinner-taste panel and course review. Instructors include NDSU Extension beef specialists, county Extension agents and faculty from NDSU's Department of Animal Science. The registration deadline is Oct. 18. The cost is $30 per person for adults, $50 for two people from the same operation and $15 for youths. The program is limited to 50 participants. Lisa Pederson, Extension beef quality assurance specialist, says the cost actually is $90 | 1,381 | 739 | 1.868742 |
warc | 201704 | NINGXIA HUA XI, China — As caves go, the one in which peasant farmer Liu Ming Han had lived all his life wasn't bad. It was cozy in winter, and it was, after all, home--at least three generations of his family had lived there before him.
It was a cave nonetheless, and living in a cave comes with all kinds of disadvantages, not the least of which was the cave's irritating habit of collapsing during heavy rains, burying the family in mud and rubble.
Unfortunately for Liu and his cave-dwelling neighbors in the arid mountainous corner of the northern province of Ningxia, it never rained enough. Though peasants living in more fertile, wetter parts of the country have grown wealthy in the wake of market reforms, the Lius were lucky even to grow enough to eat through a whole year.
So imagine Liu's delight when local authorities came knocking at his cave's door last year to inform him he was being offered the chance to move to fertile land alongside the Yellow River, where he would be given money and materials to build a house.
"It's fantastic," he said, gesticulating around the little, four-room brick home he has just completed for himself and his four daughters. "It is light and there is good ventilation, and we can sleep in different rooms."
Liu's transition from cave-dweller to homeowner, a socio-economic evolution that took many millennia in other parts of the world, dramatizes the seriousness with which China regards the gulf that is starting to yawn between its rich and poor citizens after nearly two decades of market reform.
The change in his life also underlines the enormousness of the task facing China as it seeks to lift out of poverty the last 65 million or so of its most impoverished citizens, who have been left behind in the country's rush to get rich.
The government has identified the eradication of poverty by the year 2000 as one of its chief priorities, and is throwing money, energy and ideas at a problem that has proved intractable in most parts of the world. Current spending of $1.3 billion a year by the central government, in addition to sums being spent by provincial governments, is expected to be increased soon, according to officials at the State Council. A special meeting of senior party leaders next month will look at ways of coming up with extra money.
The Chinese campaign could prove to be one of the most far-reaching efforts ever to combat poverty. Plans include the relocation of more than 1 million people from poor areas to wealthier ones and the diversion of mighty rivers to reach impoverished communities.
One of the most ambitious projects is the plan to move as many as 1 million peasants living in barren, mountainous parts of the province of Ningxia to wasteland near the Yellow River and then divert the river to irrigate the land. The neighboring province of Gansu has announced plans to relocate 600,000 of its poorest peasants to better land.
In the first year of the program alone, the number of officially poor people fell from 80 million to 65 million, the government recently announced. If accurate, that would mean China is on target to wipe out poverty.
Some of those 15 million people may in fact have migrated to the cities to join the swelling ranks of urban poor, who are not targeted by the program, independent experts say.
They also doubt whether all these programs can work and whether they will prove financially viable. Not every province has proved equally effective in spending its allocation, and in some places money has either been wasted or has disappeared into local officials' pockets.
But they do not doubt the government's determination. "There's a lot of enthusiasm and idealism," said Trine Lund-Jensen of the UN's Development Program in Beijing. "Every county and every province has its own poverty alleviation plan, and we do see a lot of evidence that work is being done."
Still, many rural residents have seen no improvements in their living standards. They are living on land that is too poor, in regions that are too arid and in communities that are too remote for market forces to have any relevance.
Sharp disparities also exist between peasants in different parts of the country, and even within regions. In the famed village of Hua Xi outside Shanghai, farmers' incomes average $10,000 a year, and most peasants own cars, two-story homes and satellite dishes. In forgotten little places like the Ningxia province village of Lui Dian, accessible only by a winding dirt road, 240 cave-dwellers scratch out a subsistence living on steep, barren slopes.
It was just such a village that Liu left behind. The provincial government estimates local incomes at $48 a year, but the figure is virtually meaningless because families here function outside the market economy.
"Out of every 10 years, for at least five we don't have any harvest," said Hai Peng Shuo, 70, who lives in a cave hollowed out of the yellow rock by his great, great-grandfather. "Of course we don't have anything left to sell."
For at least two months in every year, the family relies on food handouts from the local authorities.
But if the promised resettlement program goes ahead, the cave dwellers of Lui Dian could soon be starting new lives. Hai, who has heard about the program, doesn't want to move, because he is an old man. "It is too late for me," he said. "But for the younger ones, it is the only hope. There is no future here." | 5,459 | 2,621 | 2.082793 |
warc | 201704 | STORRS — After decades of processing milk fresh from its own herd of cows, the University of Connecticut announced Tuesday that it is getting out of the milk-production business.
The move will not affect the sale of UConn's rich, popular ice cream, which is sold at its dairy bar next to the creamery.
The dairy bar, one of the state's most popular attractions for visitors and schoolchildren, may be expanded to include the sale of other UConn products, such as cheese, apples and pears, said Karen Grava Williams, a spokeswoman for the university.
Milk processing at UConn's aging creamery no longer serves an academic function, Provost Thomas J. Tighe said. The creamery also has built up a deficit of $500,000 and would have required extensive renovations and new equipment to stay open, officials said.
"We would have had to spend more than $2 million on new equipment or face problems with health-code violations," Williams said.
UConn received $2.8 million in bonding funds this year to renovate the White building, which houses the creamery and dairy bar.
Much of the cream used in the ice cream already was being purchased from off-campus vendors, and that will continue, Williams said.
In the past two years, UConn phased out production of UConn-brand butter, cream cheese and other products to save money. Reports of a deficit often were disputed by creamery workers and their union officials, who said money was being siphoned from the operation to fund academic operations in UConn's animal science department.
Department head Lowell M. Schake, who has defended the use of the funds, is stepping down from that post this academic year, but the move is not related to the creamery issue, Williams said.
Tuesday's long-rumored announcement that milk production would end in three weeks actually brought relief to 11 creamery employees. They had been waiting to hear for more than two years whether the operation would close, said Ronald Schlehofer, a
creamery employee for 24 years.
UConn officials first began talking about closing the creamery in April 1989, after state health inspectors found 50 health-code violations in the operation in UConn's White building. The inspections prompted to correct the violations.
Schlehofer led a petition drive then to keep the operation open, but Tuesday he was pleased just to be assured of a new job at UConn's college of agriculture and natural resources. All the employees will be reassigned, UConn officials said.
"I feel relieved it's all over and everybody will be transferred to new jobs," Schlehofer said.
Still, it hurts to see UConn abandoning a portion of its agricultural past, he said.
"These are my roots. I've done every job here," Schlehofer, 44, of Windham, said. "It's kind of like being uprooted out of your house."
Frank Niederwerfer, a South Windsor farmer and UConn alumnus who had lobbied for milk production to continue, said last week that he was resigned to the closing. He was encouraged, though, by recent talks with state Agriculture Commissioner John J.C. Herndon, who has pledged to bolster UConn's agricultural college.
Originally a training ground for students interested in learning milk production, the creamery ceased to have that role years ago, officials said. It no longer has any role in research, either, Williams said. Students who want work experience in dairy manufacturing will be helped to find jobs at commercial dairies in the area, Tighe said.
UConn processed and delivered milk to its 91 dormitories, to state prisons and to the Mansfield Training School. Those deliveries will be phased out during the next few weeks as the plant is closed, Tighe said. All contracts will be honored, he said, until the buyers can find other milk suppliers. | 3,777 | 1,812 | 2.084437 |
warc | 201704 | Extracellular Matrix Metalloproteinase Inducer (EMMPRIN) Is Induced Upon Monocyte Differentiation and Is Expressed in Human Atheroma Jump to Abstract Because extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer (EMMPRIN), a tumor cell–derived protein, induces matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) in fibroblasts and because MMPs are important in atheroma formation, we investigated if EMMPRIN was expressed in granulocyte/macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF)–differentiated human peripheral blood monocytes (HPBM) and macrophage foam cells. In addition, EMMPRIN was studied for its expression in human atheroma.Objective— After 10 days of GM-CSF–induced monocyte differentiation, EMMPRIN mRNA increased 5- to 8-fold relative to undifferentiated monocytes. GM-CSF treatment of HPBM revealed that both EMMPRIN mRNA and protein were upregulated by day 2 over undifferentiated monocytes. GM-CSF–differentiated HPBM showed characteristic macrophage phenotype by showing increases in pancake-like morphology and increases in biochemical markers such as apolipoprotein E, MMP-9, and cholesterol ester (CE). While acetylated LDL treatment of the 10-day GM-CSF–differentiated HPBM increased CE mass 13- to 321-fold, EMMPRIN expression was unchanged relative to nonlipid-loaded macrophages. In human coronary atherosclerotic samples, EMMPRIN was observed in CD68(+) macrophage-rich areas as well as areas of MMP-9 expressions.Methods and Results— Based on these data, we conclude that monocyte differentiation induces EMMPRIN expression, CE enrichment of foam cells has no further effect on EMMPRIN expression, and EMMPRIN is present in human atheroma. Therefore, EMMPRIN may play a role in atherosclerosis development.Conclusions— atherosclerosis EMMPRIN (extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer) cholesterol ester human peripheral blood monocyte (HPBM) matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) matrix metalloproteinase-1 (MMP-1)
Atherosclerosis is a complex pathological process that has been characterized as the accumulation of modified lipids, monocytes, and cholesteryl ester (CE)-containing macrophage foam cells.
1–4⇓⇓⇓ Associated with the accumulation of arterial wall macrophages and macrophage foam cells are active forms of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) and it is presumed that in these areas extracellular matrix degradation and remodeling may ultimately weaken the atherosclerotic lesion and promote plaque rupture. 5–8⇓⇓⇓ Numerous reports have shown that MMP-9 (92-kDa gelatinase), MMP-2 (72-kDa gelatinase), 9 and MMP-1 (interstitial collagenase) 10 are present in various human atherosclerotic lesions.
Another pathological process that involves the degradation of extracellular matrix to promote cellular invasion is the metastasis of human tumor cells into stromal tissue. A recently discovered membrane protein on tumor cells promotes the invasion and metastasis of tumor cells. This human tumor protein has been termed EMMPRIN or extracellular matrix metalloproteinase inducer. EMMPRIN, also known as basigin, M6 antigen, or CD147, is a 58 kDa cell surface glycoprotein and is a member of the immunoglobulin superfamily that is enriched on the surface of most tumor cells and shown to stimulate underlying stromal cells to produce elevated levels of MMPs, including MMP-1.
11–13⇓⇓ These elevated levels of MMPs become concentrated and provide a mechanism for tumor cells to invade and metastasize into the extracellular matrix. 14,15⇓ Recently, Guo et al 16 have demonstrated that, in addition to inducing MMPs, EMMPRIN forms a complex with MMP-1 at the tumor cell surface, and this additional function may provide an important mechanism for directed modification of extracellular matrix to promote invasion.
Numerous biological mediators such as cytokines, reactive oxygen species,
17 and cholesterol 18 have been shown to induce expression of MMPs and their endogenous inhibitors, tissue inhibitors of metalloproteinases or TIMPS in atherosclerotic plaques. However, it has remained unclear what regulates EMMPRIN expression in tumor cells. Given the similarity of cellular migration, differentiation, and MMP expression between tumor cell metastasis and the transmigration of monocytes during the atherosclerostic inflammatory process, we proceeded to determine if EMMPRIN is expressed in cultured human peripheral blood monocytes (HPBMs), granulocyte/macrophage-colony stimulating factor (GM-CSF)–differentiated macrophages and macrophage foam cells. In this report, we demonstrated that GM-CSF induces EMMPRIN expression in differentiated human macrophages and this expression is not altered by increased cholesterol. For the first time, EMMPRIN has been shown to be expressed in macrophage-rich atheromas from human coronary arteries. Methods Materials
Dulbecco’s modified Eagle’s medium (DMEM), penicillin/streptomycin (pen/strep; 10 000 U/mL each), and Trizol reagent for RNA isolation were purchased from Life Technologies, Inc. Fetal bovine serum (FBS) was obtained from HyClone Laboratories. The monoclonal antibodies to human EMMPRIN (CD147) and CD68 were obtained from Pharmingen. Mouse monoclonal antibodies to human apolipoprotein E (apo E) and α-actin were from Santa Cruz. The monoclonal antibody to human MMP-9 was obtained from Labvisions-Neomarkers. The monoclonal antibody to human MMP-1 was obtained from Calbiochem. All other reagents used for these studies were of the highest commercial purity available.
Cell Culture
Fresh human peripheral blood monocytes, supplied by Advanced Biotechnology, Inc, were elutriated from the blood of healthy, adult donors as previously described.
19 The first set of cell culture experiments determined the effects of GM-CSF treatment on EMMPRIN expression during a 0- to 8-day monocyte differentiation period. The second set of in vitro experiments evaluated the effects of lipid loading after a 10-day monocyte differentiation induced by GM-CSF. In these experiments, HPBMs were maintained for 10 days in DMEM containing 10% FBS, 1% pen/strep, and 1 ng/mL GM-CSF from R&D Systems to promote monocyte differentiation. On day 10, the cells were washed and incubated with DMEM, 1% Hu-Nutridoma (Boehringer Mannheim) and 1% pen/strep for an additional 48 hours. On day 12, the cells were incubated with fresh medium; acetylated LDL (acLDL; Intracell Inc) was added for an additional 1, 3, or 7 days (total of 13, 15, or 19 days in culture, respectively). To assess the level of neutral lipid accumulation in macrophages, fluorescent labeling with Nile red stain (Sigma Chemical Co) was used. MMP activity was also assessed from the medium of GM-CSF–differentiated macrophages by gelatin zymography.
Used as a positive control for EMMPRIN expression, human U937 monocytic cells (American Type Culture Collection) were grown and maintained in suspension culture in RPMI 1640 medium (Life Tech.) containing 10% FBS and 1% pen/strep. For each experiment, the THP-1 cells were plated in T-75 flasks at a density of 30×10
6 cells/flask in RPMI 1640 medium containing 1% Hu-Nutridoma, 1% pen/strep, and 40 nmol/L phorbol 12-myristate 13-acetate. After 24 hours, the cells were harvested. Protein Isolation and Western Blot Analysis
For Western blot analysis, cells (30×10
6 cells) were washed with PBS, pH 7.4, and then solubilized with 100 to 300 μL of lysis buffer (0.5% Nonidet 40 containing 50 mmol/L Tris-HCl, pH 7.5, 1 mmol/L EDTA, 1 mmol/L EGTA, 150 mmol/L NaCl, 10% glycerol, 50 mmol/L sodium fluoride, 10 mmol/L sodium pyrophosphate, 1 mmol/L sodium orthovanadate, 80 μmol/L β-glycerophosphate, 1 mmol/L PMSF, 10 μg/mL aprotinin, 100 μg/mL soybean trypsin inhibitor, and 10 μg/mL leupeptin). Cellular lysates were incubated on a rotary mixer for 1 hour at 4°C. Protein concentrations were measured by using the Bradford reagent (Bio-Rad). Protein extracts (30 μg) were electrophoresed on separate sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gels and transferred onto nitrocellulose for 2 hours at 1 amp. Filters were stained with ponceau red to show protein loading and transfer completeness. Filters were blocked with Tris-buffered saline with 0.05% Tween-20 and 3% nonfat dry milk for 1 hour at room temperature followed by incubation overnight at 4°C with anti-EMMPRIN (1:500 dilution), anti–apo E (1 μg/mL), and anti–α-actin (1 μg/mL) with gentle rocking. Filters were then washed two times with tris-buffered saline with tween-20 for 5 minutes each. The secondary antibodies were incubated with the filters on a rocker for 1 hour at room temperature. After 2 30-minute tris-buffered saline with tween-20 washes, the filter signals were detected by chemiluminescence (Pierce) and exposed to Kodak Biomax MS film. Densitometric signals were imaged by scanning the film with Adobe Photoshop. RNA Isolation and Northern Blot Analysis
Total RNA was extracted by using the guanidine isothiocyanate method
20 with Trizol (Life Tech.) according to the manufacturer’s protocol. Total RNA (10 μg) was electrophoresed in a 1% formaldehyde/agarose gel and blotted onto a nylon membrane (Ambion) in 20X SSC by capillary transfer. The Northern blot was baked at 80°C for 20 minutes, UV cross-linked, and prehybridized with prehybridization/hybridization buffer. Blots were hybridized at 42°C overnight with radiolabeled [α- 32P]dCTP cDNA probes for human EMMPRIN (a 0.591-kb fragment insert from an EcoRI-ligated pCRII plasmid) and, as an internal control, human S9 ribosomal cDNA (0.9-kb fragment; Clontech). Blots were washed at 55°C twice in low-stringency wash for 10 minutes to remove unbound probe and then twice in high-stringency wash for 15 minutes per wash to remove nonspecific hybridization to the blot. The blots were exposed to either x-ray film or directly on a Storm 860 PhosphorImager for 24 hours, and then resulting signals were quantified by densitometry with Quantiscan software (Biosoft) or ImageQuant software (Molecular Dynamics), respectively. High-Pressure Liquid Chromatography (HPLC)
Cell culture experiments designed to measure the free cholesterol (FC), CE, and triglyceride (TG) contents of the human monocyte–derived macrophages (HMDM) were performed concomitant with those experiments designed for RNA isolation. Cellular lipids were quantified by using a HPLC method.
21 Briefly, HMDM cells were plated into 6-well plates, differentiated for 10 days with 1 ng/mL GM-CSF, incubated for 2 days in 1% nutridoma-HU/RPMI 1640 medium without GM-CSF, and then treated for 1, 3, or 7 days with acLDL. After each time period, the internal standard, 1,2-hexadecanediol (Aldrich Chemical Co), was added at 37.5 μg/mL to each well, and lipids were extracted with 1 mL of hexane/isopropanol (3:2 vol/vol). After extraction, the organic phase was dried under N 2 and redissolved in isooctane/tetrahydrofuran (97:3 vol/vol) and then injected into HPLC for quantification of FC, CE, and TGs. Gel Zymography
To assess MMP expression in HMDM cells, media were removed, and MMP activity was determined by SDS-polyacrylamide gel zymography. Media samples were centrifuged to remove cellular debris, and supernatant was collected and stored at −20°C. Each sample (10 μL) was mixed with SDS sample buffer without reducing agent and loaded onto a 10% polyacrylamide gel containing 0.1% gelatin (Novex). Positive control lysates known to express MMP-2 and -9 were also added to each gel (data not shown). After electrophoresis at 125 V for 90 minutes, the gel was renatured in renaturing buffer containing 25% Triton X-100 for 30 minutes. After equilibrium in developing buffer containing Tris base and Tris HCl, NaCl, CaCl
2 and 0.2% Brij 35 for 30 minutes, fresh developing buffer was added, and the gelatin-containing gel was allowed to develop overnight at 37°C. The gelatin gels were stained with 0.5% Coomassie blue and destained with buffer consisting of 10% acetic acid, 50% methanol, and 40% distilled water for 30 minutes to visualize the zymogen bands. An image of each gel (after drying) was scanned into a computer with a Hewlett-Packard scanner, the zymogen bands were quantified by using densitometry, and results are expressed in arbitrary densitometric units. To validate that the zymogen bands were MMPs, 20 mmoL/L EDTA was added to the developing buffer to abolish catalytic activity and 0.1 μmol/L P-aminophenylmercuric acetate, which is known to convert latent zymogens to their active forms, was also added to the developing buffer. Immunohistochemistry
For immunohistochemistry, formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded sections were used for each human coronary artery atherectomy specimen. For comparison, the internal mammary arteries were used as normal arterial specimens. Nonspecific binding was blocked by preincubation with PBS containing 5% normal horse serum for 30 minutes at room temperature. Serial sections were incubated with mouse antihuman CD147 (EMMPRIN) primary antibody (1:100 dilution), mouse antihuman CD68 (macrophage-specific) primary antibody (1:100 dilution), mouse antihuman α-actin primary antibody (1:50 dilution), mouse antihuman MMP-9 primary antibody (1:10 dilution) or mouse antihuman MMP-1 primary antibody (1:300 dilution) for 1 hour at room temperature. The sections were then incubated with biotinylated conjugated horse antimouse IgG for 30 minutes at room temperature. Antigen-antibody complexes were localized by incubation with avidin/biotin/horseradish peroxidase or alkaline phosphate complex for 30 minutes at room temperature and by subsequently using 3,3′-diaminobenzidine/0.01% hydrogen peroxide or Vecter Red chromagen (Research Genetics). Nonimmune controls were performed by substituting mouse serum for specific primary antibodies during the incubation of arterial sections.
Statistical Analysis
Data are expressed as mean±SEM. Comparison between undifferentiated monocytes and various times of macrophage differentiation were performed by using nonparametric analysis for unpaired data (Wilcoxon/Kruskal Wallis test).
Results Effects of GM-CSF on EMMPRIN Expression and HPBM Differentiation
To ascertain if EMMPRIN was expressed in human monocytes, western analysis was performed on human peripheral blood monocytes that were differentiated into macrophages in culture by GM-CSF. As shown in Figure 1, EMMPRIN expression increased on day 2 of GM-CSF treatment over the untreated HPBMs. EMMPRIN continued to increase in expression through day 8. Proteins that mark differentiation of monocytes into macrophages such as apo E and MMP-9 activity (by gel zymography) were found to increase in their expression as GM-CSF treatment continued through day 8. Because GM-CSF-treated HPBMs become macrophages by day 8, EMMPRIN expression appears to be directly correlated to the differentiation process.
In addition to the EMMPRIN protein expression observed in Figure 1, EMMPRIN mRNA also increased through day 4 of GM-CSF treatment (Figure 2A). As with the protein expression, little or no EMMPRIN mRNA was observed in untreated HPBMs. MMP-9 mRNA also increased after 1 day of GM-CSF treatment and marks, as did MMP-9 protein activity, the differentiation of HPBMs into macrophages (Figure 2B).
EMMPRIN Expression in 10-Day GM-CSF-Differentiated HPBMs and Effects of Lipid Loading
To establish a protocol that would be able to assess EMMPRIN expression in cultured macrophages and foam cells, the experimental design of HPBM differentiation and lipid loading, as shown in Figure 3A, was used. Human monocytes were differentiated into adherent macrophages for 10 days under the influence of GM-CSF and then lipid-loaded by incubating for 1, 3, or 7 days with acLDL under serum and GM-CSF–free conditions. Phase contrast images of each stage of monocyte differentiation are shown at each point of cellular harvest (Figure 3A). A pancake-like cellular morphology of the differentiated macrophages and the “soapy-like” lipid vesicles of the cytoplasm due to lipid accumulation in the macrophage foam cells.
To assess EMMPRIN mRNA expression in differentiated macrophages, a Northern analysis was done. As shown in Figure 3B, EMMPRIN increased 5- to 8-fold in differentiated macrophages, 13 to 19 days after GM-CSF treatment, relative to the monocytes. In all 3 to 4 experiments with individual HPBM populations studied, EMMPRIN expression relative to the housekeeping gene ribosomal S9 RNA was consistently upregulated. The 19-day EMMPRIN expression appears to be comparable to that level observed after 8 days of GM-CSF treatment.
To explore the relationship between lipid loading and EMMPRIN induction, concentration-response and time course experiments were performed with acLDL. Neutral lipid accumulation in differentiated macrophages after acLDL treatment is tabulated in the Table. The maximum accumulation of cellular CE increased 7-, 39-, and 321-fold at 1, 3, and 7 days after acLDL treatment. In addition, acLDL increased TG levels in a concentration- and time-dependent manner while FC remained virtually unchanged (Table). After 3 days of acLDL treatment, the amount of neutral lipids was increased in the macrophages as measured by the bright yellow staining of nile red as compared with the reddish staining due to nile red background (Figure 4A). Similar results were observed at 1 and 7 days of acLDL treatments (data not shown).
To assess if this marked increase in neutral lipids would effect EMMPRIN mRNA expression in macrophage foam cells, a Northern analysis was done. As shown in the representative blot in Figure 4B, EMMPRIN expression was unchanged in macrophage foam cells after 6 to 100 μg/mL acLDL treatment for 3 days relative to the unloaded macrophages. EMMPRIN protein expression followed the same changes as the mRNA expression (data not shown). To assess the effects of foam cell formation on MMP-9 expression, gelatin zymography was done. Shown in Figure 4C, 3 days of lipid loading did not change MMP-9 activity relative to unloaded cultured macrophages.
EMMPRIN Expression in Human Atherosclerotic Specimens
Because nothing is known about the expression of EMMPRIN in human atheromatous plaques, experiments with immunohistochemistry were carried out. EMMPRIN was found to be expressed in all 5 human coronary atheroma samples and not in normal internal mammary artery specimens examined (Figure 5). Serial sections were stained for EMMPRIN, CD68 macrophage-specific stain, and α-actin smooth muscle cell (SMC)-specific stain using monoclonal antibodies. EMMPRIN was observed to be localized to lesion areas of the human atheromas. The area of strong EMMPRIN protein expression (Figure 5) coincided with areas of CD68-positive macrophage staining and not to areas of α-actin–positive SMC staining. In addition, MMP-9 expression coincided with CD68-positive macrophage staining, but MMP-1 expression appeared to be more associated with the SMCc of the media and intima.
Discussion
EMMPRIN, which has been found in human tumor cells, has been revealed to exist in human macrophages after GM-CSF–induced differentiation and, for the first time, in human atherosclerotic lesions. In addition, the level of EMMPRIN expression in cultured GM-CSF–differentiated macrophages was maintained during lipid loading.
EMMPRIN expression on monocyte-macrophage differentiation suggests that EMMPRIN may be important in the early phases of directed cell migration and both autocrine and paracrine stimulation of MMP expression, but further work is needed to test this hypothesis. From our data, EMMPRIN mRNA and protein expression were markedly increased 5- to 8-fold on GM-CSF–induced monocyte to macrophage differentiation. Such increases in a protein may provide the differentiated macrophage with a mechanistic framework to perform specific functional activities at this stage of cellular maturation. In particular, EMMPRIN expression in invading tumor cells is increased significantly and leads to specific upregulation of metastatic tissue MMP levels. These elevated levels of MMPs become concentrated and provide the mechanism for tumor cells to invade and metastasize the extracellular matrix.
22,23⇓ Recently, Guo et al 24 have demonstrated an additional mechanism for EMMPRIN in that it forms a complex with MMP-1 at the tumor cell surface, and this additional function may provide an important mechanism for directed modification of extracellular matrix to promote invasion. In 7-day cultured dendritic cells generated by GM-CSF and interleukin-4 (IL-4), CD147, or EMMPRIN was found to be expressed. 25 CD147 monoclonal antibodies have recently been shown to induce homotypic cell aggregation of monocytic cell line U937. 26,27⇓ Another example of protein upregulation that occurs during the differentiation of monocyte to macrophage is the increase in the cell surface scavenger receptor. The type I scavenger receptor is upregulated during monocyte maturation in order for the macrophage to begin accumulating modified LDL particles that reside in the subendothelial space of the vascular wall. Geng et al 28 demonstrated that a selective increase in type I scavenger receptor mRNA during differentiation from monocyte to macrophage leads to an increased uptake of modified LDL, and such processes precede foam cell formation. The co-expression of EMMPRIN and MMPs on monocyte-macrophage differentiation suggests that EMMPRIN may help establish the differentiated macrophage in the subendothelial space of the atherosclerotic vessel.
Given that vascular macrophages become lipid loaded, the effect of CE enrichment on EMMPRIN expression was studied in vitro. The present study has shown that CE accumulation and foam cell formation do not appear to have a regulatory role with respect to EMMPRIN expression, because lipid loading did not further increase the levels of EMMPRIN mRNA or protein expression in differentiated macrophages. In contrast to our results, Wang et al
29 have shown that cholesterol loading of the human monocytic cell line THP-1 as well as macrophage-rich areas of human coronary atheromas does influence expression of cellular proteins. They found an increase in the expression of a cytokine, IL-8, after cholesterol treatment. In addition, it has been shown that cholesterol also increased expression of the MMP elastase in human macrophages. 30,31⇓ EMMPRIN gene expression has recently been shown in human THP-1 and mouse RAW 246.7 monocyte/macrophage cell lines and under the regulation of non–cholesterol-related transcriptional factors Sp1 and Sp3. 32 Based on these observations, one can conclude that GM-CSF stimulates EMMPRIN expression on monocyte differentiation and that this EMMPRIN expression is not altered by cholesterol loading.
Consistent with the in vitro observations, EMMPRIN is localized to macrophage-rich regions of human atherosclerotic plaques. Several lines of evidence exist showing an experimental basis for the potential mechanisms for stabilization of atherosclerotic plaques. Bocan et al
33 showed that inhibition of vascular acyl-CoA:cholesterol O-acyltransferase (ACAT) by the ACAT inhibitor, avasimibe, can directly limit macrophage accumulation and can potentially stabilize pre-established atherosclerotic lesions by reducing MMP expression within the lesion. Shah et al 34 showed that the accumulation of human monocyte-derived macrophages in the fibrous cap region of atherosclerotic plaques induce collagen degradation due to the overexpression of MMPs and that an MMP inhibitor partially blocked this process. In a more recent study, lipid lowering by dietary manipulation has been documented to show a decrease in MMP activity and increase collagen content of established atheroma in rabbits. This lipid lowering was found to decrease the number of macrophages present in the lesions. 35 Lipid lowering in the vascular wall either by diet or ACAT inhibition may decrease matrix-degrading protease expression by limiting the stimuli for gene expression and/or by reducing activation or secretion of these enzymes. Past work has concluded that proinflammatory cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor-α or IL-1β, potently stimulate MMP expression in macrophages 36,37⇓ and vascular SMCs. 38 Aikawa et al 35 speculated that lipid lowering may decrease the stimulus for cytokine gene expression in turn decreasing the expression of vascular wall MMPs. However, cytokine regulation of MMPs may contribute to the overall MMP expression and activation in the atherosclerotic plaque. Novel, previously unknown proteins that can induce MMP expression in the vessel wall may provide other potential mechanisms for the transcriptional regulation of extracellular matrix-degrading proteases and, in part, contribute to overall plaque destabilization. As revealed in this study, a tumor-derived protein, EMMPRIN, may be one of these MMP-inducing proteins in atherosclerosis but further investigation is needed.
In summary, this study reveals for the first time that differentiation of human monocytes into macrophages by the cytokine GM-CSF results in increased expression of the tumor-derived MMP inducing protein EMMPRIN as early as 1 day after the cytokine treatment. Further, our data show that EMMPRIN expression appears to be unaltered by cholesterol treatment in cultured macrophage foam cells. EMMPRIN has also been shown to be expressed in human coronary atherectomy tissue by immunohistochemistry. Because this study has found EMMPRIN present in human atheroma, we hypothesize that the role of EMMPRIN in the atherogenic process is possibly through the induction of MMPs by invading both monocytes and vascular SMCs through EMMPRIN binding with its yet unidentified receptor. EMMPRIN expression, as in tumor growth, may provide a mechanism for atherosclerotic plaque growth and potentially for lesion destabilization at sites of active monocyte invasion and differentiation, but this hypothesis still remains untested.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Dr Mark Rekhter (Pfizer Global Research and Development) for providing us with sections of human coronary and internal mammary artery specimens.
Footnotes
Received March 5, 2002; revision accepted April 26, 2002.
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TNF-alpha, and IL-1beta selectively induce expression of 92-kDa gelatinase by human macrophages. J Immunol .1996; 157: 4159–4165. ↵Mach F, Schonbeck U, Bonnefoy JY, Pober JS, Libby P. Activation of monocyte/macrophage functions related to acute atheroma complication by ligation of CD40: induction of collagenase, stromelysin, and tissue factor. Circulation .1997; 96: 396–399. ↵Galis ZS, Muszynski M, Sukhova GK, Simon-Morrissey E, Unemori EN, Lark MW, Amento E, Libby P. Cytokine-stimulated human vascular smooth muscle cells synthesize a complement of enzymes required for extracellular matrix digestion. Circ Res .1994; 75: 181–189. | 33,102 | 12,447 | 2.659436 |
warc | 201704 | I’m still thinking about Isaac. My writing hasn’t been able to keep pace.
They say every storm is unique, and certainly Isaac was very different from Katrina. Yet comparisons are inevitable, despite being problematic. One headline put it this way:
The US Army Corp of Engineers has done a lot of work since the floods of 2005. In monetary terms, it’s something in the neighborhood of $14 billion. I have no idea how many hours of human labor that represents. I still believe we should aim for a higher level of protection. We should build not for a so-called hundred year storm, but for 10,000 year storm, as the Dutch do. But that’s a separate gripe. One story coming out of Isaac is that the work the Corps has actually been tasked with appears to be effective. New Orleans was not flooded by Isaac’s surge.
But immediately outside of these federal flood protection structures, communities did flood. Braithwaite. LaPlace. Slidell. Lots of homes under water. (If you want to help the people who were flooded, please consider making a donation to Beacon of Hope.) A key question is, did our flood protection cause or exacerbate flooding elsewhere? It will take a while for that analysis. But if the answer comes back
yes — if the system that keeps my home dry floods someone else’s home — what then, I wonder? | 1,356 | 798 | 1.699248 |
warc | 201704 | With terrestrial and marine ecosystems undergoing global change, we need to develop and establish long-term and large spatial-scale monitoring methods and datasets to detect, quantify, and describe trends in animal distributions and abundances, community structures and functions, and interactions with their environment. This knowledge will serve as a basis to identify and understand changes due to anthropogenic influences and large-scale ecosystem adaptations.
A broad range of invertebrates and vertebrates use sound for communication and sensing of their environment. Each ecosystem contains a unique symphony of sounds, a soundscape, that informs us about its species composition, possibly abundance, and together with information about the physical environment leads to the characterization of the ecology and behavior of the species producing and interpreting sound. Acoustics can be used to investigate how the individual’s behavior may be shaping the ecology of the community or how individuals and populations may be reacting to a changing environment. The group is using active and passive acoustic methods, optics and auxiliary environmental measurements to monitor and understand ecosystem adaptations. | 1,225 | 632 | 1.938291 |
warc | 201704 | The mind that turns ever outward will have no end to craving. Only the mind turned inward will find a still point of peace.
Most, if not all, that drives us, whether is ambition, greed, desire for food or other comforts, materialism, or whatever, is nothing more than a desire and need to fill some type of emptiness within ourselves. We all suffer from this to some extent. Most of us are not alcoholics or drug addicts but we still have addictions. I think I have an addiction to buying music. I have approximately 2,500 CD’s and you would think that would last me for the rest of my life. However, over the weekend I received a large box set of music from one of my favorite bands. For the curious, the band is Pink Floyd. Enjoying music is a legitimate pleasure but I know I am also obsessed with collecting CD’s and it is a veiled attempt to fill some type of emptiness in my life. I have also read that our different personalities are also created by a deep need that aches to be fulfilled. It may be the need to be perfect, the need to be successful, or the need to be seen as “special”. The Tao is telling us that everything we need is within us. Minds that are always turned outward, away from our center, will be on a ceaseless journey that will not satisfy our cravings or needs and we will never find the inner peace that most of us want. The famous psychologist, Carl Jung, said “He who looks outside, dreams. He who looks inside, awakens”. Until you look inside and awaken to the greatness of who you are, you will never find an end to craving and you will never have inner peace. | 1,627 | 833 | 1.953181 |
warc | 201704 | Affiliation: IRCCS “S. de Bellis”, Castellana Grotte (BA), Italy.
Abstract
Purpose: Platelet extracts can stimulate cell growth and contribute to tumor biology. It was recently shown that they stimulate the growth of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells and decrease apoptosis. Doxorubicin is a commonly used HCC chemotherapy that increases apoptosis. We therefore examined the effects of platelet lysates (hPL) on doxorubicin-mediated HCC cell growth inhibition and apoptosis induction.
Methods: Three human HCC cell lines, PLC/PRF/5, Hep3B and HepG2 cells, were grown in culture and growth was measured by the MTT assay and apoptosis was measured using Muse Annexin V assay kit. Cells were also probed by Western blot.
Results: hPL decreased doxorubicin-mediated growth inhibition and apoptosis induction in all three cell lines. When doxorubicin and hPL were added at separate time intervals, protection by hPL was also observed. WB showed that hPL caused prolonged and increased levels of phospho-JNK and phospho-p38. Furthermore, a p38 inhibitor abrogated the modulating effects of hPL on both growth and apoptosis, indicating its importance in mediating hPL actions. WBs also showed that hPL decreased doxorubicin-induced markers of apoptosis.
Conclusions: hPL modulate the actions of the cancer chemotherapeutic agent, doxorubicin. Platelets are part of the complex microenvironmental milieu and their effects may contribute to a modulation of chemotherapy actions. Conversely, drugs that alter platelet levels or degranulation could potentially augment doxorubicin actions on HCC cells. | 1,611 | 828 | 1.945652 |
warc | 201704 | There are now a couple of books available that were written by people who were diagnosed, first by themselves, and later by professionals as being transsexual, and who later determined that they had made a very serious error in transitioning. Even though these individuals had opted for and received male-to-female sex reassignment surgery, they ultimately re-transitioned to a male gender role. I almost hate to admit it, but although I am saddened by these stories for many reasons, I secretly love to read books like these by those who admit they have made a big mistake in transitioning because it points to the difficulty of this decision and the fallibility of the human condition. Although these stories are full of pathos, they make all of us feel more human and vulnerable.
However, I would have to disagree with the opinion of those who have reviewed and commented so negatively about the short memoir by
Michael Brinkle, “Return to Michael.” The general thinking and consensus expressed by readers (some of whom admit to not actually having read this book) is that it’s another attempt by those of the religious right to impose their own particular style of belief on others. I disagree. If anything, “Return to Michael” is a cautionary tale about an individual who had a complete and irreversible sex change in a foreign country at the tender age of 18, without fully having explored his deep psychological issues and the many wounds of his past.
For me, “Return to Michael” in no way invalidates the decision of thousands of others who have successfully negotiated transition to the opposite gender role, nor does it seek to impose a religious doctrine on anyone. The author freely acknowledges that his decision to switch back, although clearly influenced by his strong Christian belief, was his own choice. In so doing, he takes great care not to invalidate others for their beliefs, only to warn them to be careful. As I wrote in my review of
Walt Heyer’smemoir “Trading my Sorrows,” another book of the same ilk, “this is a well-written, albeit relatively brief memoir about a sad and extremely tortured life, leading to a calamitous decision that eventually rights itself to a happy ending, as the author finds a higher calling and dedicates himself to a power larger than himself.”
There are other books, notably “Transparently,” by
Lisa Salazar, which, while extolling the value of Christianity, are about those who find a place for themselves as transgender individuals in the arms of a loving and beneficent God. And speaking of religious opinion about sex reassignment surgery, we know that Christianity is, of course, one of the world’s great religions, but it is by no means the only religion or even the most widely practiced religion in the world. Many conservative Christians seem to believe quite fervently in the idea that God created only men and women and it is a sin to attempt to live in the opposite gender role. Of course, homosexuality and gay marriage are completely forbidden and considered to be a horrible offense in the eyes of God. I think it is interesting and very ironic to note, that in Iran, a devoutly Muslim country, sex reassignment surgery appears to be emerging as an alternative to those who might be homosexual. The thinking in Iran appears to be that homosexuality is a mortal sin against God, but that if one switches genders, it can be considered a kind of “work-around” that God will accept. Some might think that is a pretty messed up way of thinking, but doesn’t it nicely illustrate that organized religion is a belief system and as such, is subject to interpretation by those who practice it? Which religion is right? Or, is neither one correct? You make the decision.
As I wrote about the Walt Heyer memoir and it fully applies to “Return to Michael,” as well, “I give the author props for finding a solution to his particular problem which is all well and good for him, but, in my experience, the ‘author's way’ is not necessarily ‘the way’ for every, or even most gender dysphoric folks. It is fortunate that most of those with serious gender confusion seek competent therapists and doctors who subscribe to the WPATH Standards of Care that tend to protect gender dysphoric individuals, like the author, from going down this same tragic road. It is certainly my hope that these feelings will not emerge again full blown again in the author, but somewhere lurking, may be that shadowy girl, so be careful. In my therapy practice, I haven't encountered anyone who has made this horrible mistake, thank goodness, but after reading these aforementioned accounts, I can say that the moral of the story is to be damn sure you want what you wish for, because you may eventually get it.”
[Reviewed by Samuel] | 4,906 | 2,298 | 2.1349 |
warc | 201704 | I usually think of multiculturalism as a fairly benign concept wherein we are asked to appreciate the enrichment that can come when many cultures have input into the life of this country. The fact is America has always been a rich tapestry of cultures. The English, French, and Spanish colonist interacted with the native populations, they also brought African slaves with them. In the late 1800s through the mid 1900s waves of immigrants from almost every European country also added to the mix. The group we usually call “Whites” today is actually an assimilation of many very different cultures. My father’s generation (b. 1928) made very sharp distinctions between Irish, Italians, Poles, and so forth. Many of these groups lived in distinct neighborhoods, attended different Catholic parishes, and intermarriage was almost unthinkable between them at the early stages. In more recent years, immigrants from the South, from Africa and the Far East have also added to tapestry and the “look” of America. And whatever friction has sometimes existed between various groups, ethnicity and races, I have no doubt that we have been enriched by our interaction and life together in this land.
This is the multiculturalism I know and what I usually mean by the term. Apparently the experience in Europe has been less satisfactory and we now see some European leaders calling for stricter curbs on multicultural expression. For example, in France the wearing of certain Muslim Garb, especially the Burqa, has been banned. In the video below, a commentator gives a much more sober assessment of multiculturalism. To some extent I would describe his approach to be in the form of a rant that intentionally overstates the case in a sometimes humorous, even satirical way. It sometimes helps to understand the genre when viewing such viewpoints. So you may wish to read up on the genre of “rant” HERE.
Nevertheless the purpose of “rant,” though overstated and sometimes satirical, is to make a point that the orator considers important. And what I take away from the video is that some distinctions and limits are necessary when it comes to multiculturalism. Without these, we may find multiculturalism fails as a lived reality and may rest on premises that are unacceptable. Here are just a two concerns:
1. Multiculturalism must be rooted in a fundamentally shared vision and in something higher than any individual culture in the mix. When people and groups immigrate, they bring with them their own traditions and culture. Fine, herein lies a richness. But they also come to a new experience, a new culture, shared by those already in the land, which can also enrich them. There must be certain fundamentals to which all in a culture agree to share. Without this there are enclaves which set up, and friction is inevitable. Here in America there have traditionally been two fundamental visions that have united us and helped us to overcome our differences and experience multicultural success: the American Dream, and a fundamental belief in the existence of God. The American Dream, while difficult to reduce to a sentence or two, is essentially rooted in the economic freedom to work, run and own businesses, own property and participate in the political process without harassment. It includes freedom of speech and assembly, basic equality, and all the rights described in our Constitution. Ultimately most Americans see its fulfillment for them personally when they are economically independent, and able to own a home. It would seem that the American Dream is still largely intact, as a shared vision. I think most people who come to this land are still looking for just these things. They admire our freedoms, our prosperity, and basic form of government. Many take enormous risks to come here and take part in the dream. This existence of this common vision causes a shared unity that makes multiculturalism workable. As for a shared belief in God, this has become frayed in recent decades. It still remains true that the vast majority of Americans still believe in God, but an increasingly strident form of secularism threatens to undermine the shared “cultus” of our culture. “Cultus” or “cult” here does not mean what modern English has assigned as a narrow, closed and often extreme group, engaged in strange religious practices. Originally in Latin, and even in English, “cult” meant simply a shared faith among the people. That “cult” is at the heart of the word culture is no accident. For every culture needs someone and something above it to which, and to whom, it must answer. That Someone, we in the West, have called the God of the Bible. Without this cult, it is questionable that a culture can survive for there is nothing and no one higher than it to unite it. That Western culture is in serious decline at the same time that secularism is on the rise is, likely, no coincidence. Here in America, most of our immigrants are Catholics and Christians. Hence they share in the basic Judeo/Christian view or “cultus.” The jury is still out on whether secularization will continue. But for now, the vast majority of Americans still share a common belief in the God of the Bible, even if they do not live this faith perfectly. In Europe the situation seems quite grave, and the Pope has described that the lights are going out all over Europe. With high secularism and low birthrates among Europeans, the Muslims are largely poised to replace European culture. But it is questionable that the Muslim immigrants value what we call Western culture and their “cultus” is not the same “cultus” that gave rise to Europe. Hence the multicultural tensions are growing fiercer, since there is no shared faith, and no European version of the “American Dream” that unites new immigrants and traditional Europeans. But here in America, multiculturalism largely still “works,” though threats are on the horizon. This does not mean that there are not certain tensions. But there always have been and there still seems to be a way to work through it. One of the flash points here is the question of language. And, although I often hear fears expressed by some that “Spanish is taking over,” my own experience is that, in every immigrant family I know, the kids all know English. Hence, I am not personally concerned that Spanish will take over. English remains the language of access in this country. Thankfully, it seems we have gotten over the silly experiment in Education of running bilingual school systems. As far as I can tell, immigrant children are immersed in English and quickly expected to take their seats in an English-speaking classroom. But some of you may correct me on this. 2. While accepting the benefits of multiculturalism, we must avoid the trap that everything is equally valid – The orator in the video below makes the case that multiculturalism is just another form of moral relativism. I am not sure that I accept the word “just” in his argument. But there is a danger that some of the premises do come from moral relativism or tend to be reinforced by unhealthy notions associated with it. I’ll just be bold (as a Westerner) and say that there is something essentially superior to the what we have come to call “western culture.” We are not perfect, and sadly, western culture does seem to be in significant decay at this time. But historically western culture has produced the highest standard of living, had the most stable economies, produced the most just and equitable forms of democratic government, has a rich deposit of learning, and brought forth a great expression of the dignity of the individual. I, (Christian that I am) attribute a lot of this to faith, for it was the Church that established most of the great universities, the hospitals, the scientific method, and so forth. The Church also, through the tireless work of monks and others helped to preserve the works of classical antiquity which has so blessed us and served as the basis for the high standard of living and the flourishing of the sciences we have today. As I say, I’ll just be bold and probably “politically incorrect” but western culture is the finest flower in the garden, given our history and what we have contributed to the world. This does not mean that there are no excesses in us, or that other cultures are nothing at all. I do not the deny the World Wars and other sad chapters. But the fact that so many flock to live in the West, especially in America, is silent testimony to the greatness of what we are, and have to offer. They are often fleeing poor economies, corrupt dictatorships and terrible living conditions. To be sure, they bring gifts to us in their cultural heritage and are able to add to rich tapestry of the West, especially in America. But that too is part of the greatness of the West, tolerance, and an open marketplace of ideas. It is a fact that the West as we have known it is in fairly serious decline. Some centuries ago de Tocqueville noted that for democracy to thrive, morality and self-control of the populace had to be presumed. The fact is, without a general level of moral self-governance, democracy and freedom cannot thrive. For the genius of Western style democracy is that power and control are shifted from the central state more to individual. Freedom is wonderful, but it requires self-control of the populace. If we are not willing to curb our behaviors, proper order and the common good are threatened and freedoms begin to be lost. It is no coincidence that, as bad behaviors begin to proliferate, government grows and freedoms are limited, Today, often due to the breakdown of personal behavior and a sense of personal responsibility, there are increasing demands for laws and for the government intervention. But the tradeoff is that personal freedoms are eroded, taxes increase and fears grow about further intrusions as a litigious attitude grows. Whether the great experience of western culture will continue depends largely on whether we can reclaim some of our lost moral code and live by it without a government insisting on it. But as it is conceived, I will say again that western culture is the finest flower of the modern world. It is threatened but it is wholly worth saving as the best hope for future generations.
The fact is we ought not become moral relativists in this matter and, as others come to join us, it is not wrong that we insist they observe what is best about us and seek to join, rather than replace what we are. With this premise multiculturalism is enriching and to be celebrated.
OK, please remember this is a discussion. I am not pontificating here, just starting a discussion. Please add your own views, additions, distinctions and so forth!
As for this video remember, it is in the style of a rant. I do not know who Andrew Klavon is, this is the first I have seen of him. Hence, I do not endorse everything he says or may have said elsewhere. I just found his video here to provoke thought and to help me clarify what I think of multiculturalism . | 11,254 | 4,763 | 2.362797 |
warc | 201704 | For a couple of months my husband and I have been planning our big trip to Washington DC to advocate for children’s health care. Between the time that we were asked to go and actually making the trip we learned a few staggering facts. More than half of the patients that are treated at Dayton Children’s are recipients of Medicaid. Even though teaching hospitals like Dayton Children’s make up 1% of all hospitals, they educate 30% of the pediatricians from whom our children receive care. We also learned that almost every year, no matter who the president is, funding is cut for children’s hospital graduate medical education (CHGME) and then reinstated by congressional representatives at the urging of advocates like us. Funding for child recipients of Medicaid is also on the line as Medicaid needs to cover more and more adults. These are the items we hoped to encourage our legislators to support.
During our time in Washington DC we attended appointments with Senator Sherrod Brown and Representatives Mike Turner, Steve Austria, Robert Latta and Jim Jordon. We were also able to finagle a meeting with our Representative and Speaker of the House, John Boehner. All six of these Congressmen listened to our story and why access to children’s health care matters to our family and other families that we know. This is an issue that crosses party lines and hopefully can be supported across party lines for the sake of all. Often we hear that children are the future of the country. However, children are the country now and how adults support, nurture and care for the children in our midst will impact our nation’s future.
So, two pastors from southwest Ohio took their nine-month-old daughter to Washington DC. We were humbled to be asked to represent the hospital that helped us out so much when our little girl was just two days old. We were even more humbled to share our story with people that make such a difference for Ohioans. We can only hope now that our story made a difference and a positive impact to help other children who need specialized care just like our Amelia. At the end of it all, we keep asking ourselves, “What just happened?” Did we really just go to Washington? Did we really just meet with representatives that listened to us and supported the same cause? It’s hard for us to believe. But it wasn’t just us and it wasn’t just Dayton Children’s. Nearly thirty other hospitals and families were there, too: families with more heartbreaking stories than ours, families that had to make emergency visits to the hospital in Washington, families that seemed completely normal trying to make it to the next step in their children’s development without them being just sick kids.
We can only hope that our efforts make a difference for our little girl and many other little ones.
-Sara Cutter | 2,891 | 1,361 | 2.124173 |
warc | 201704 | Key to this success in the hyperlocal environment is the audience… For myspace it is the peers of the tweens and teens; for facebook, college peers constitute the largest draw. Frankly, one of the main reasons both sites are a success is that most there are probably on the make.
While there is some of that on paulding.com, the draw is infinitely more community minded. Many come to this hyperlocal community because they need the knowledge of those who live and know the community.
The point is each kind of social network targets a different demographic group – and most are places where ‘people like me’ congregate. That the large national social networks seem to target the youth is unmistakable. What is equally obvious is that in the hyperlocal sphere, it is geography rather than the common angst of being pubescent that is at the core of the social mortar.
This meas the hyperlocal network naturally targets adults living in a community. The prom is decidedly less an issue than is deciding the communities future by passing a fire tax. The challenges they face are politics, dealing with government, dealing with the schools, dealing with fulfilling the needs of the family to shelter, feed, clothe, educate, entertain and keep its children safe. All of these processes are at the core of adult involvement in a community. It is their interests, presence and experience and their willingness to share that knowledge that are at the core of the value proposition of the hyperlocal social network.
And…
The power of this network is that as it forms and grows it begins to write the narrative of the life of the community. In doing so it naturally challenges the schools, the newspapers, the politicians and the business community – any and all who previously controlled the public debate. The authority of those who head local institutions will likely find themselves in the midst of unanticipated conflicts.
I just can’t see adults with family and community responsibilities spending all day “poking friends” on Facebook. Seems I’m not alone…
Remember the Gail Sheehy’s book “Passages?” Consider that people in the Internet age are going through one of many stages in life. As they age they will not so much change their media habits as adapt them to the new demands they face. I’m pretty certain they will move on from these national peer group networks and with the nesting instinct, instead turn to tend their gardens in their own backyards. My gut is they will migrate to a hyperlocal social network if one exists in their community and that migration will be an element of their passage from being kids to adults…
I fully believe that hyperlocal networks will become integral to the communities. Part virtual tool, part social network and part news, their function is to aggregate the knowledge and understanding of the adults in a community. As in all networks, it is the people who are the most valuable resource. It is their local knowledge that adds value.
However I question the next point… I think the glue is connecting with those around you rather than local news.
Local news is the glue that brings these largely disparate elements of community life together and only a fool would expect the result to be quiet order. Strife and conflict are as natural an element of the network as are death and taxes. Those who create these hyperlocal social-networks will have to be adept at managing them.
Managing that and bringing together a new kind of community that has more cohesion than dissention is the challenge of the hyperlocal community network builder.
For those who might say, but it is the sales, stupid, I can’t over-emphasize that commerce is the life-blood of a community network and permeates all aspects of the community. The task of the 21st century hyperlocal publisher is to build a virtual social, economic, political and spiritual network that transcends the conflicts of individuals and ultimately unites all elements of the community by telling their individual stories.
The tool is radically different from a newspaper. There will be hundreds or thousands of individual writers conversing. Still, when it is all distilled, the product of the hyperlocal network is just a new kind of journalism.
I can see how this looks like a new kind of journalism to a journalist… but I see it more as a new kind of citizenship… one where lots of people are involved in a open conversation with those around them about issues large and small… a huge departure from the individualism and isolation so in vogue today.
And about ad sales…
The secret of good sales is a good salesperson… give a good salesperson a product like Paulding.com with our average 10,000 daily visits, average 15 pages per visit and 13 minute plus average visit and money will come.
Yes, I’m celebrating a bit because we’ve had our best month yet. Not great but we’re now at about 20 percent of target in revenues up from about 12 percent. Our target revenue is $25,000/mo.
[Also] for a hyperlocal site to get national advertising revenues they’re going to have to either go with Google adsense or find some other kind of national representation.
The first is http://www.thenewsroom.com. This is generating about $250-300/month with my traffic and has given me access to those local stories… The second national site is http://www.adsdaq.com which is serving the purpose of a national advertising representative… They are selling about 25 percent of that inventory and and I’m netting over $300/month from the arrangement.This helps me establish a value the value locally for these front page banners at about $1400/month which, while they don’t sell for that locally, makes for good conversation with locals over the value of advertising on Paulding.com.
And do know that establishing that value proposition is a critical task in local sales… but not nearly as important as a good salesperson.
Great stuff… congratulations and thanks to Paulding.com | 6,135 | 2,715 | 2.259669 |
warc | 201704 | By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy
There's been a question sitting in my to-answer pile for a while:
This isn't an easy question to answer. Well, that's not entirely true, it's easy to answer but that answer isn't very helpful. Any tips you have on getting just the right amount of description, plot/subplot tangles, and internal thoughts will be appreciated. Now that I've reached the higher side of the curve, the 'line' seems to be the capstone I need to make it to the next level. It's so hard to be objective about exactly where that 'line' is. There is no line. It depends on a multitude of factors that's different for every book and every writer.
Like I said, not very helpful.
Last week, Victoria Grefer over at The Crimson League wrote a fantastic article about balance in fiction, where she talks about how it varies from writer to writer, genre to genre and even reader to reader, and your best bet is to keep your target audience and what you want from the book in mind as you write it. She covers the first half of the question well (and there's little I'd add), so I'll focus more on the second part now.
How to bump your writing to the next level.
When your technical writing skills are at a professional level, but you're still not getting bites from agents, editors, (or readers if you self publish), it's time to look at the story itself.
A beautifully written, technically perfect, yet boring story will not grab readers. A generically written, technically average, yet amazing and gripping story
A generically written, technically average, yet amazing and gripping story
willgrab readers.
Now, I'm certainly NOT saying that good writing skill isn't something to worry about or work toward, but we all know books out there that sold millions of copies and aren't well written. But the stories resonated with readers on such a deep level that they didn't care. They didn't read the book to marvel at the technical skill of the author, they read it for the
story.
So with this is mind, if the writing skill is clearly not the reason you're getting rejected (and you'll know this by the types of rejections you're getting--usually they'll say "while this is well-written...") shift focus to the story, because odds are that's what's holding you back.
Possible Reasons the Story is Holding You Back A lack of conflict
A good protagonist needs an equally good antagonist to struggle against, be it a person, inner demon, society, or force of nature. The obstacle that has to be overcome should be worthy of the person trying to overcome it. If the struggle isn't a life and death fight (either literally or metaphorically) readers probably won't care.
Is it a problem your protagonist hasto deal with or her life comes to a screeching halt (again, literally or metaphorically)? Do things get harder to overcome as the story unfolds? Do the problems and conflicts of the overall novel tug the protagonist in different directions? Does the protagonist have to make tough choices or is the path always clear (and thus predictable)?
(Here's more on creating conflict in your novel)
A lack of stakes
Without consequences for failure, it's hard to care about the conflict in the first place. A character might have her heart set on getting a job developing computer games, and have huge competition for the position, but if nothing happens to her but disappointment if she doesn't get the job, readers won't care. They also won't care if nothing
goodhappens to her either, except that she's happy for getting her dream job. If her life is basically the same before and after the book, why should anyone read her story? Are there consequences for both failure and success that fundamentally change the life of the protagonist? Do the stakes escalate as the protagonist struggles to overcome the obstacles? Are these stakes personal to the protagonist or could they apply to anyone?
(Here's more on raising the stakes in your novel)
A reactive protagonist
The protagonist should be the person driving the story. She makes it happen through the choices she makes and the results of those choices. If all she does is react to what's happening around her, she can feel pointless as a character. She never
doesanything of her own volition so the story feels aimless and thus pointless. If you took her out of the story, nothing would change, because she wasn't doing anything to make the story happen in the first place. Does the protagonist make choices that affect how the story unfolds? Do those choices cause things to happen that would not have happened had she not made that choice? Is the protagonist planning and acting out those plans to achieve a desired result? Does the protagonist have goals or does she just deal with whatever is in front of her at the time?
(Here's more on making choices that matter)
A lack of character motivation
Even if the protagonist is making decisions, she also has to have good reasons for acting that make sense to her character and her problem. Her motivation for why she's willing to do whatever the story requires her to do needs to be believable or readers will wonder why she's even there. Would John McClane have risked his life to stop the bad guys in
Die Hardif his wife hadn't been held hostage in the building? Probably not. If your protagonist is risking her life for no good reason, readers will call you on it. Are there personal reasons for your protagonist to do what she needs to do in the story? Does she have a personal stake in what happens? Does she care about the outcome or is she doing it because plot says so? Do her motivations hold up under questioning or do they fall apart after one or two questions about why she's doing this?
(Here's more on character motivation)
A lack of originality
Sometimes a writer has done everything right and the book still gets rejected, because the story is one agents, editors, and readers have seen many times before. This can be the hardest snag to fix because the novel is working, it's just not fresh enough to stand out in a crowded marketplace. The common story makes the plot feel predictable and gives the sense that we've seen this all before. This kind of story needs a fresh twist or different angle to capture a unique aspect of a familiar tale.
What's unique about this story vs. others like it? Does the plot unfold in predictable ways that readers can see coming? How many books like it can you name? Is the fresh angle just a twist at the very end or is it woven through the entire book?
(Here's more on adding a fresh twist to a common idea)
Novels are all about stories, and sometimes in our pursuit of publication we forget how important those stories are. It's easy to get scope-locked on craft and let the story flounder. If you're feeling stuck, try taking a hard look at your story and see if you can make it stronger.
Are you working on your writing skills, your storytelling skills, or both right now? What do you feel your weak areas are? Your strengths? Looking for tips on planning and writing your novel? Check out my book Planning Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, a series of self-guided workshops that help you turn your idea into a novel. It's also a great guide for revisions!
Janice Hardy is the founder of Fiction University, and the author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, where she tapped into her own dark side to create a world where healing was dangerous, and those with the best intentions often made the worst choices. Her novels include
The Shifter,(Picked as one of the 10 Books All Young Georgians Should Read, 2014) Blue Fire, and Darkfallfrom Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. The first book in her Foundations of Fiction series, Planning Your Novel: Ideas and Structureis out now.
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | Indie Bound | 7,866 | 3,463 | 2.271441 |
warc | 201704 | I'm not convinced that we craft credible profit and loss statements anymore.
We need to outline the tolls that the marketing department pays to various vendors for access to customers. We need for our Finance teams, and for all employees in general, to understand just how costly it is to gain access to customers.
Now, many folks will point to the "ad-to-sales" ratio, and old-school metric, as the window into the tolls that marketers pay to access customers. That's fine. But we can do better.
Look at this profit and loss statement. This is a moderately healthy business. But look at the tolls that need to be paid, in order for this business to function. My goodness. My, my goodness.
We lose ten million dollars in percentage off promotions. That's a toll we pay to get the customer to purchase.
We lose more than fifteen million dollars in tolls paid to paper reps, the USPS, and to your printer. Without these tolls, catalogs don't go out in the mail.
We pay more than two million dollars in tolls to the co-ops.
We pay more than two million dollars in tolls to Google and Bing.
We pay a half million dollars in tolls to Facebook.
We pay more than a million dollars in tolls to retargeters and affiliates and other digital vendors.
We pay a half-million dollars in tolls to other marketing vendors.
We pay a three million dollar toll to offer free shipping to a subset of customers.
In total, this business pays more than thirty-five million dollars of tolls. Those tolls generate $3.8 million in earnings before taxes.
We should create a new metric, don't you think? We should create a toll-to-variable profit ratio (before fixed costs).
This company generates $10,820,000 variable profit.
This company pays $35,180,000 in tolls.
In other words, this company pays $3.25 in tolls to generate $1.00 of variable profit. The toll-to-profit ratio is 3.25 to 1.
The best companies have a very low toll-to-profit ratio. In fact, their toll-to-profit ratio tends to be 1.00 to 1 or lower. A company like Nordstrom, when I left in 2007, would have had a ratio of 0.15 to 1. Let that one sink in for a moment.
The most helpless companies pay a very high toll-to-profit ratio.
What is your toll-to-profit ratio? Have your CFO create the metric for you. Look at your profit and loss statement in this light. Make sure you factor in discounts, promotions, giveaways, and free shipping.
Then prepare to be shocked.
Is it any wonder the vendor community wants you to be "omnichannel"? The more omnichannel your business becomes, the more you pay in tolls. | 2,576 | 1,162 | 2.216867 |
warc | 201704 | During the summer, faithful Mormons put on musicals (or pageants) as a way of illustrating their religious history, as well has encouraging the seeker to convert to their uniquely American faith. The early Latter-Day Saints were among the pioneers who trekked into the American West, carving out a place for themselves within the mountains of Utah and in the surrounding territories. Their sacrifice, bravery and perseverance are part of their heritage, and one they are justifiably proud of. Yet there is an incovenient truth about their faith which dims the glory of this often told story, which is this: when the pioneers moved into the western territories, they were leaving a democracy for a theocratic kingdom, which quickly became the greatest anti-democratic force of that era – with polygamy the most visible manifestation of that force. How the United States government broke that power is discussed in a recent Weekly Standard article by Stanley Kurtz. After outlining the complete economic and social control that the Church wielded, he goes on to note:
The 12-year federal drive to enforce Reynolds was far more than a quest to root out polygamy. In effect, the fight against polygamy was a slow, frustrating, expensive, ultimately successful campaign to democratize Utah. (The parallels to the war on terror are eerie.) As federal agents descended on Utah, the Mormon leadership went underground, sleeping in hay ricks, hiding under floorboards, dispersing to remote mountain valleys, communicating in code, and depending on early warnings from a sympathetic populace.
Given the demonstration effect of the Civil War, polygamists knew that armed resistance was futile. Yet by evading capture and withholding the evidence needed for conviction, the Mormon leadership hoped to win a legal war of attrition. Still, Mormon resistance was limited by the fear of provoking a full-fledged military occupation, and by the thirst for statehood.
For the better part of a decade, polygamist resistance seemed unbreakable. The railroads were supposed to bring civilization (a nineteenth-century version of globalization and the Internet). Instead they brought more Mormon converts. Elections and the female franchise were supposed to sweep polygamy aside. Instead, pious women and unlettered men voted to solidify the church’s power. Then the outlines of a demographic nightmare emerged. With a fertility boom fueled by four decades of polygamy, Utah’s population was spilling into Idaho, Oregon, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming. Mormons bragged that, with the admission of the territories, they would hold the balance of power in a politically divided America.
Back East, these threats provoked a tougher line. Attending to the social and economic foundations of Mormon power, Congress set out to break polygamist rule. By 1833, the disestablishment of churches in the American states was complete, and it had been accomplished partly by state legislatures’ setting limits to the churches’ business and property holdings. Congress now applied these standards to the Utah Territory, modeling its legislation on the original “mortmain” laws that had curbed church power in England. In this way, church control of Utah’s economy was dissolved, and erstwhile church property was used to fund public education, with a curriculum designed around democratic values.
The result was capitulation. With the economic and social foundations of theocracy destroyed, a shooting war unwinnable, and the quest for statehood hanging in the balance, the Mormons renounced polygamy and set themselves on the path to democracy.
It’s to the LDS Church’s credit that once that power was broken, it became an enthusiatic defender of American democracy, but that doesn’t negate the unpleasant reality of its early ambitions. It should trouble Mormons (and seekers) that an analogy can successfully be made between our government’s current fight to democratize the Middle East and its effort to democratize Mormon dominated territories – and that the early LDS church embodied everything that is in opposition to what they today believe to be a divinely inspired document, the United States Constitution. This unfortunate history calls into question the spirit which motivated and controlled early Church leadership, and reduces its glorious story of pioneer faith to a pious fantasy. | 4,437 | 2,167 | 2.047531 |
warc | 201704 | If you are looking for a new home lighting plan for your recent home improvement project or new-build, it is helpful to know the proper lighting terms used by interior designers and lighting specialists. Here are the main lighting terms:
General lighting This is the overall, main lighting in a room. Florescent lights can fill up large areas well, but the white light makes the room look bland. Many homeowners are now using halogen lights that can be dimmed to give a more flattering glow to the room. Accent lighting This type of lighting is used to draw attention to special artwork, collection, among other displays. Accent lighting, such as a spotlight create shadows of overlapping light. Decorative lighting This is lighting that is use strictly for decorative purposes. Examples of decorative lighting include chandeliers, silk lanterns, or a wrought candle stand. These lighting objects do not put off that much light, but add to the decorative elements of the room Task lighting This is lighting that is intended to help you fulfill a certain tasks whether it is reading, working, or sewing. An example of task lighting is a desk lamp that can be positioned for the best lighting. Task lighting is also beneficial in the kitchen to prevent accidents.
You do not need to be an expert in lighting to create your own captivating ambience. Contact us to learn about bringing timeless designs into your home.
Source: www.unique-home-decor-ideas.com | 1,459 | 755 | 1.93245 |
warc | 201704 | Editors Note: Please see the announcement about Reinvest Yourself 2014 below …
“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending”. – Maria Robinson
Now more than ever before, I hear from those who are in what I call, the “fog”. They know they need a new direction in their life and career, but they are caught up in the “stuff” of life that creates a fog and clouds forward thinking direction. They know there is an “open door of opportunity” but they cannot see it let along jump through it.
This becomes especially true after a number of years in one career or job – or when considering recareering for the future as you mature (that means get older) into your 40’s – 50’s – 60’s. I really doesn’t matter where you came from, or what you did or the industry you were in — the fog affects all at some point. If I am describing you, don’t feel bad – you are in the 70-80% of boomers or second-career population who feel the same way.
The first step is accepting that you need a change …
Here is the good news: There are opportunities – great opportunities out there – for those who accept that it is okay to change what they have been doing and follow their calling or passion. The sad fact is – many just do not accept the change. That’s where some “coaching” or in other words, a swift kick in the rear end helps. Left to our own devices, we would do the same old – same old, over and over again until some radical defining moment event hits you square in the face.
Don’t let pride get in the way …
Pride can be a brain-killer. One example: A very successful person in his own company, told me he couldn’t sleep at night well because his inability to determine his next direction (or Next-Act – could not resist) kept his mind working when he should have been resting. It is okay not to know – but not okay to let that situation continue.
Better not to get hit square – take charge …
Am I describing where you are and what you are feeling? If so, high time to take charge – take the controls and begin steering. It will be a relief knowing that you have made the decision to change and then took action to begin that path out of the fog and on to what you really want to do – on your terms.
Take the First Step …
1. Accept that change is good.
2. Commit to being successful – on your terms. 3. Give yourself permission to succeed and do for yourself. Don’t let anyone get in your way or tell you your can’t!
Make today the start of a new ending and chapter. Grow and excel – only you can do this for yourself!
And yes –
get out of the fog!
And thank you for reading this. – Dan
PS: Ready to make 2014 your breakthrough/breakout year? … Attend Reinvent Yourself 2014 May 3rd, 8:30 am to noon (Saturday) Hilton Garden Inn (Hoosick Street, Troy). Join yours truly, Pam Howard of AYS Coaching, Dave Gregoire, executive-in-residence Next-Act, for a program that will give you the tools and motivation to move your life and career forward, no matter what is challenging you. In just a few short hours, you will be ready to change the course of your life or career, and be on your to making 2014 YOUR year. Also joining us … Heather Levine, co-owner of the huge success Lukas Confectionary Wine Bar in Troy who will talk about what it takes to succeed as an entrepreneur. More speakers are being added as well. Leave with your define personal & professional mission statement, the answer to what may be blocking you and more. Register today (limited seating): www.eventbrite.com/e/reinvent-yourself-14-tickets | 3,799 | 1,902 | 1.997371 |
warc | 201704 | In a rare bipartisan torrent of outrage, the former mayor of Flint, Michigan, the former special state-appointed emergency manager for the city, and the former regional head of the Environmental Protection Agency were eviscerated Tuesday at a House hearing for their alleged lack of action to protect children and residents in the infamous lead-water crisis. How did the task of providing clean water go so wrong?
The proceedings were so heated in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee that Georgia Republican Buddy Carter told former EPA Region 5 Administrator Susan Hedman, “There’s a special place in hell for actions like this.”
Ranking Democrat Elijah Cummings of Maryland said he “almost vomited” as he tore into former emergency manager Darnell Earley’s failure to be alarmed about Flint’s water. Earley said, “We were told our chemicals were hurting car parts, but not hurting humans.” Cummings shouted that a five-year-old could have found out the water was also hurting humans.
No member of either party spared Earley, Hedman or former Mayor Dayne Walling as the three frustrated the committee by pointing fingers at other agencies for letting people drink poisoned water for months. The most incredulous moment came when Hedman claimed, “I don’t think EPA did anything wrong.” Marc Edwards, the Virginia Tech scientist who helped expose the dangerous levels of lead in the city’s water from the Flint River after it switched from the Detroit water system, said “EPA had everything to do with creating Flint.”
That likely sets the stage for an even more contentious hearing Thursday, when EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder testify before the committee. In an op-ed in Tuesday’s
Washington Post, McCarthy launched a new fusillade of blame toward Snyder, writing, “From day one, Michigan did not act as a partner. The state’s interactions with us were dismissive, misleading and unresponsive.”
But it is clear from Tuesday’s hearing that the EPA has questions to answer, too. The hearing centered on a preliminary report last June of high lead levels in Flint water by EPA scientist Miguel del Toral. But nearly another half-year passed before the city did anything. Del Toral wrote an email that hints he and his findings may have been suppressed. “It almost sounds like I’m to be stuck in a corner holding up a potted plant.”
Del Toral also wrote another email, three months after his preliminary report, fretting, “At every stage of this process, it seems that we spend more time trying to maintain state/local relationships than we do trying to protect the children.”
That deference to state authorities seems to be at the heart of EPA’s failure to act. Despite clear scientific evidence, it seems that Hedman shied away from questioning state officials. But the EPA’s job should be enforcing the law and protecting public health and safety, not just avoiding conflicts with state agencies. The political pressure for the EPA to defer to states is part of the problem—and that comes as much from Congress as from anywhere.
It seems that, at every level, public officials were worried about money, perception, and turf, instead of what really matters. The voices of Flint community members, backed up by strong scientific evidence, were clearly left out. That’s a serious breakdown of the role science should play in a democracy, and it’s done real damage to human lives and to public trust.
Edwards, for one, is even more outraged by these failures than ever. After the hearing, he said, “I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe my ears. The lack of remorse is breathtaking. We all screw up in life but from EPA, there is no ‘I’m sorry,’ no learning. Like anybody, I want an effective EPA, but they keep shooting themselves in the foot. “
On Thursday, McCarthy will get a chance to weigh in. In her
Post column, McCarthy said, “It is tragic that it took a disaster of this scale for this issue to get the attention it deserves.” But it remains a very open question as to how much attention the EPA, outside of del Toral, gave the poisoned water of Flint.
Support from UCS members make work like this possible. Will you join us? Help UCS advance independent science for a healthy environment and a safer world. | 4,464 | 2,166 | 2.060942 |
warc | 201704 | ==========
The Coalition for Secular Government is pleased to announce the release of its policy paper on the "personhood" movement by Ari Armstrong and Diana Hsieh (Ph.D):
The 'Personhood' Movement Is Anti-Life: Why It Matters that Rights Begin at Birth, Not Conception (PDF or HTML). The 'Personhood' Movement Is Anti-Life Why It Matters that Rights Begin at Birth, Not Conception by Ari Armstrong and Diana Hsieh, Ph.D. A policy paper written for the Coalition for Secular Government (www.SecularGovernment.us) Published on August 31, 2010 Contents Introduction The 'Personhood' Movement The Destructive Effects of 'Personhood' Individual Rights and Abortion The Morality of Abortion 'Personhood' and the Separation of Church and State Amendment 62 Is Not a 'Message' Notes From the Introduction
Amendment 62, set to appear on Colorado's 2010 ballot, seeks to legally establish personhood from the moment of conception, granting a fertilized egg (or zygote) full legal rights in the state's constitution. Following in the footsteps of 2008's Amendment 48, Amendment 62 is the spearhead of a national campaign to outlaw abortion and other practices that could harm a zygote, embryo, or fetus.
If fully implemented, Amendment 62 would profoundly and adversely impact the lives of sexually-active couples, couples seeking children, pregnant women and their partners, doctors, and medical researchers. It would subject them to severe legal restrictions, police controls, and in many cases protracted court battles and criminal punishments.
Amendment 62 would outlaw abortion, even in cases of rape, incest, terminally deformed fetuses, and danger to the woman's health. It would prohibit doctors from performing abortions except perhaps in some cases to save the life of the woman, thereby endangering the lives and health of many women. In conjunction with existing statutes, Amendment 62 would subject women and their doctors to first-degree murder charges for willfully terminating a pregnancy, with the required punishment of life in prison or the death penalty.
The impact of Amendment 62 would extend far beyond abortion into the personal corners of every couple's reproductive life. It would outlaw many forms of birth control, including the pill, IUD, and "morning after" drugs. It would require criminal investigation of any miscarriages deemed suspicious. It would ban potentially life-saving embryonic stem-cell research and common fertility treatments.
Amendment 62 rests on the absurd premise that a newly fertilized zygote is a full human person with an absolute right to biological life-support from a woman--regardless of her wishes and whatever the cost to her. The biological facts of pregnancy, in conjunction with an objective theory of rights, support a different view, namely that personhood and rights begin at birth. Colorado law should reflect those facts, not the Bible verses so often quoted (and creatively interpreted) by advocates of Amendment 62 and other "personhood" measures.
About the Authors
Ari Armstrong publishes
Free Colorado and co-authors a column for Western Colorado's Grand Junction Free Press. He is the author of Values of Harry Potter: Lessons for Muggles, a book exploring the heroic fight for life-promoting values in the Potter novels.
Diana Hsieh founded the Coalition for Secular Government in 2008. She earned her doctorate in philosophy from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She is currently working on a book on Ayn Rand's novel
Atlas Shrugged, based on her series of podcasts at ExploreAtlasShrugged.com. More of her work can be found at DianaHsieh.com. | 3,633 | 1,716 | 2.117133 |
warc | 201704 | CSU faculty has received four of the six California Sea Grant Focus Awards for new investigators from the California Sea Grant. Humboldt State’s Dr. Christine Cass, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Dr. Kristin Hardy, Moss Landing Marine Laboratories’ Dr. Scott Hamilton, and San Diego State’s Jeremy Long are among the early-career investigators who have been commended for their extraordinary scientific merit.
California Sea Grant—a state program that sponsors marine research and education activities to support the conservation of California’s coastal resources—awarded the one-year grant to individuals who started their first faculty-level position after mid-2009. The funding will be used to conduct marine research that will help manage, conserve, and enhance California’s coast.
The CSU lead investigators and their topics are:
Christine Cass, assistant professor of oceanography at Humboldt State University, studying seasonal changes in the fat and protein content of zooplankton in northern California and southern Oregon. Kristin Hardy, assistant professor of biology at Cal Poly, examining the consequences of a common industrial compound in household products on Pacific oysters’ immune function. Scott Hamilton, an assistant professor at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, exploring ocean acidification and its potential to disrupt olfactory sensory perception in young rockfishes. Jeremy Long, assistant professor of biology at San Diego State, helping restore cordgrasses at the Sweetwater Marsh National Wildlife Refuge in Chula Vista.
Tags: | 1,604 | 809 | 1.982695 |
warc | 201704 | High-speed mobile broadband continues to enrich our daily lives with increasingly useful and entertaining applications. Whether you are streaming a movie to your tablet or doing real-time multiplayer gaming on your smartphone, incredible improvements to network speed and device technology … Read more >
It is exciting to see the industry conversation around 5G growing to a crescendo. This is good because it means we are all thinking about the future! Every so often, I am asked: What is 5G and how it is … Read more >
The Intel® Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260 is Intel’s 3rd Generation 802.11ac, dual band, and 2×2 Wi-Fi + Bluetooth® 4.2 adapter. It’s engineered to deliver lower power consumption1, improved RF coexistence1, and complete Microsoft Windows 10 support. The M.2 1216 form … Read more >
At the end of 2014, Marriott and the American Hospitality & Lodging Association made waves by petitioning the FCC for the right to block personal Wi-Fi hotspots at their venues. The backlash was immediate and fierce. Everyone from consumer advocates … Read more >
Let’s face it — cords aren’t cute. Every time you connect your laptop or 2-in-1 to your external display you spend precious time fumbling around with clumsy cords or rummaging around in a bin full of random adapters looking for … Read more >
Wireless display capabilities have grown leaps and bounds in recent months. To take the new cord-cutting technology to the next level, Intel partnered with LG® to release the industry’s first wireless displays supporting full 4K UHD video streaming. This industry-leading … Read more >
What you don’t know about Wi-Fi could cost you when you buy a new 2-in-1. If your new device doesn’t include the latest 802.11ac Wi-Fi, you won’t be able to take advantage of incredible new speeds and stability that this … Read more >
As new mobile devices and laptops increasingly support fast 802.11ac wireless, the demand on institutions to keep up by delivering better wireless speeds and capacities has dramatically increased. The “GenMobile” workforce is pushing for greater flexibility and freedom in the … Read more >
Many manufacturers are still putting outdated 802.11bgn wireless technology in new devices despite the fact that the technology is almost 8 years old and has since been replaced by 802.11ac Wi-Fi, which is 3x faster and more stable. Since this … Read more >
New products mean new technologies, right? Not necessarily. Even though laptop manufacturers could be utilizing 802.11ac Wi-Fi (which is 3x faster than 802.11bgn), many continue to stuff slow, outdated 802.11bgn into millions and millions of new products. Don’t get duped … Read more >
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warc | 201704 | Guest blog by Gemma Ortiz, Neglected Diseases Senior Advocacy and Liaison Officer, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Barcelona, Spain
Over 1 billion people, about one-sixth of the world’s population, are infected with one or more neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). These parasitic diseases are the most common infections in the 2.7 billion people living on less than $2 a day, afflicting populations who live in remote, rural areas, urban slums, or conflict zones and are often marginalized or forgotten by governments and the rest of the world.
Of the 14 NTDs identified by the World Health Organization (WHO), 4 are specifically highlighted as being the most neglected and requiring “innovative and intensified disease management” (IDM): sleeping sickness, Chagas disease, leishmaniasis, and Buruli ulcer. Except for Buruli ulcer, these IDM diseases have the highest fatality rates of all NTDs.
These IDM NTDs are particularly challenging to control due to poorly understood disease burdens, difficult and costly management (diagnosis, treatment, follow-up), inadequate R&D investment, and affected populations who often live in remote or insecure areas. Despite these challenges, MSF has been able to diagnose and provide life-saving treatment for those infected with these NTDs over the past 10-20 years, and continue to prioritize these populations.
Human African trypanosomiasis (HAT, or sleeping sickness) has been treated by MSF since 1986, with more than 48,000 patients treated to date in 7 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, where 99% of cases occur. MSF helped develop an improved treatment option, nifurtimox-eflornithine combination therapy (NECT), which is now being rolled out in endemic countries. However, current diagnostic algorithms need to be simplified; a new biomarker that allows diagnosis and staging of HAT using whole blood or serum, removing the need for a painful lumbar puncture, is urgently needed. More R&D and investment are needed to improve treatment (without injections) and ensure it is affordable, effective in both stages of the disease, and easy to use in remote, primary health posts close to the patients.
Patients with HAT also often live in areas of violent conflict, making it difficult to access care. For example, in a HAT program in the Democratic Republic of Congo, MSF was forced to halt activities in March 2009 due to insecurity; HAT treatment was only able to resume in January 2010.
Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis) primarily afflicts populations throughout Latin America, where MSF has diagnosed and treated patients over the last decade. To date, we have tested more than 60,000 people and treated over 3,000. A barrier to patients not being treated is the lack of screening, leading to underreported numbers of cases. Two drugs are currently available to treat Chagas, benznidazole and nifurtimox, but few treatment programs exist, especially in rural and periurban areas, where ironically the burden of disease is higher due to the transmission cycle of the parasite. Both available drugs were developed in the 1960s for other indications and are associated with adverse events that can hinder treatment compliance. Safer, more effective medicines are needed, as is a test for cure.
The proposed Chagas Resolution from the WHO Executive Meeting in 2009 will finally be presented, discussed, and hopefully approved at the World Health Assembly in May this year.
Visceral leishmaniasis (VL, or kala azar) is the second-deadliest parasitic disease after malaria. VL is troublesome for similar reasons as the above trypanosomal NTDs, but with the compounded medical challenges of HIV co-infection, propensity for epidemic spread, and high endemicity in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Over the past 20 years, we have treated more than 95,000 patients for VL, and have validated and introduced a rapid diagnostic test (rK39 antigen-based dipstick) that can be used in the field (ie, testing of patients possible in any context, without depending on the existence of health care or laboratory structures). In Bihar, India, one of the poorest states in the world, we have treated more than 4,000 patients with liposomal amphotericin B (AmBisome) since 2007; this treatment is simpler than conventional amphotericin B. However, drug costs of AmBisome and other VL drugs, such as sodium stibogluconate (SSG), are a key barrier to patients receiving treatment.
With the release of the proposed US federal budget for fiscal year 2011, global health has received attention, including NTDs. The largest proportional increase in the US global health budget went to NTDs: 138.5% increase from $65 million in 2010 to $155 million in 2011. Although this is welcome news, none of deadliest NTDs—HAT, Chagas, or VL—are included among these NTDs, nor is emphasis placed on R&D. This glaring omission of the most fatal NTDs is something MSF is addressing today (February 22) at a US Congressional Briefing in Washington DC, alongside the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) and RTI International. We hope this will bring more action on NTDs by both US and international policymakers and researchers. The US approach to NTDs needs to be comprehensive and include increased patient access to diagnosis and treatment for HAT, Chagas, VL, and Buruli. This must be coupled with increased R&D for new, more effective, field-adapted drugs and diagnostic tools. There is a clear opportunity to break the cycle of neglect and save lives. | 5,530 | 2,705 | 2.044362 |
warc | 201704 | Whither the Yale model?
David Swensen has been called “Yale’s $8 billion man” for outperforming the average university endowment by that amount during the first 20 years of his tenure as Yale’s Chief Investment Officer. Chalk that outperformance up to the success of what’s become known as the “Yale model,” or the insight that institutional investors like endowments or pension funds can achieve outsize returns by allocating a large chunk of their assets to hedge funds, private equity, real estate, and other alternative investments.
As Swensen explained in a lecture he gave to Yale MBAs in 2008 , the Yale model rests on two core tenets: 1) “an equity bias for portfolios with a long time horizon,” because equities and equity-like alternative investments tend to rise in value in the long run; and 2) diversification, because by spreading investments among several asset classes with varying degrees of liquidity, “for any given level of risk, you can increase the return.”
These days, though, it seems both of Swensen’s credos have become passé in the community of corporate pension fund managers, as Reuters’ Sam Forgione reported late last week:
For the first time in over a decade, more of the $1.246 trillion assets represented by the 100 largest U.S. corporate pension funds is now in bonds instead of equities, according to pension consulting firm Milliman…
“There will definitely be less demand for equities from corporate pensions if you look out the next several years,” said Aaron Meder, head of U.S. pension solutions for Legal and General Investment Management America. Corporations are “tired of the volatility in the stock market, so they want to de-risk their pensions,” he added.
What’s striking here isn’t that pension funds no longer share Swensen’s fondness for allocating money to hedge funds or private equity — after all, Swensen himself believes that the majority of institutional investors who can’t match the resources or qualifications of Yale’s Investment Office “should be 100 percent passive.” Rather, it’s that Swensen’s golden rules of asset management — stocks for the long run and diversification — seem to be out of fashion. Pension-fund managers that have years to ride out losses on their stock portfolios until they turn into gains are increasingly throwing in the towel in favor of less volatile, lower-returning bonds. The advantage of endowments and pension funds that Swensen has touted for years — a near-infinite time horizon — is being ignored.
This risk aversion among institutional investors is trickling down to the retail level, too. Mom-and-pop investors withdrew $4.43 billion from equity funds last week, the largest amount since the start of the year, data from the Investment Company Institute showed today. These investors are also showing a preference for fixed income: bond funds saw with $6.12 billion in inflows that same week, for a total of over $26 billion in the previous three weeks.
The question institutional investors are now asking is whether the events of the past few years require a re-appraisal of principles underpinning the Yale model. Hedge funds, one of Swensen’s darling asset classes, had a particularly bad 2011, with the average fund down nearly 5 percent and some stock-picking funds down 19 percent. The
New York Times published a story earlier this week that claimed that over the past five years, a set of public workers’ pension funds that had more of their assets in hedge funds, private equity, and real estate posted lower returns and paid higher fees than those with stodgier portfolios.
For what it’s worth, Yale’s target allocation for fiscal year 2012 includes having over 70 percent of its portfolio in private equity, real estate, and hedge funds and only around 10 percent in U.S. stocks, bonds, and cash; for fiscal year 2011, Yale’s endowment returned 21.9%. | 4,063 | 1,894 | 2.145195 |
warc | 201704 | REUSING RECOVERED OCEAN PLASTIC
Plastic that is recovered from the ocean is exceptionally clean and suitable for processing in at least two ways:
There is an established process whereby plastic from the sea can be turned into a MARPOL friendly marine fuel, so helping ships to travel cleanly. By using converted plastic, we will be saving so much of our oil deposits for other uses, where we cannot replace that fuel at the moment, such as in aircraft engines.
It is law is some countries that new plastic products must include a sensible percentage of recycled plastics. What this does is to save manufacturers having to produce more new plastic than is necessary to keep society functioning in a sustainable way. Unfortunately, modern life is dependent on plastic. Yes, we might look for alternatives wherever possible, but while that is happening, the least we can do is recover what we can from the polluted oceans and then recycle it.
Importantly, the value of clean plastic that is recovered from the high seas, could reduce the operating costs of a SeaVax fleet, and after around five or so years of operations, may even yield a return for any commercial franchise - assuming that private concerns may want to get involved.
WASTE PLASTIC TO FUEL
Something else we will be looking at is the practicality of installing plastic sorting and treatment at sea, alongside pyrolysis equipment. If that were a viable option, then the transport ships would also be floating factories, along the lines of factory fishing ships. These floating factories would be powered by the plastic they are collecting from our SeaVax fleets, and producing the raw materials for plastic products.
Please help us to help the world rid itself of ocean plastic waste by supporting our research.
PLASTIC TREATMENT
Please help us to play our part in creating a truly Circular Economy by supporting SeaVax development and SeaNet for intelligent deployment of an efficient robotic clean up fleet. We know this is only one part of the jigsaw puzzle, where there are so many other things to resolve until we reach equilibrium with our planet. But every push in that general direction is a statement for world leaders to take notice of. If not for all of the marches and protests, climate change would still be a dark secret. Today, because the people have been voting with their donations, climate change is big on all political agendas.
http://www.internationalenvironmentalyouthcampaign.org/Plastics/history
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbirds_%28TV_series%29
This website is Copyright © 2016 Bluebird Marine Systems Ltd. The names Bluebird™, Bluefish™, RiverVax™, SeaNet™, SeaVax™ and the blue bird and fish in flight logos are trademarks. CONTACTS The color blue is a protected feature of the trademarks. | 2,832 | 1,501 | 1.886742 |
warc | 201704 | Relationship Symmetry in Social Networks: Why Facebook will go Fully Asymmetric
A description of symmetry and how it affects relationships in social networks. Also, a prediction that Facebook will eventually go asymmetric.
Recent events have made it clear that Facebook sees Twitter as a serious threat to its business. First, Facebook tried to buy Twitter for $500,000,000 in stock. Twitter declined. Facebook then began describing their service in increasingly-twitter like ways, such as during the Inauguration when they showed a “live stream” of chatter alongside CNN news. And on March 11 Facebook redesigned their homepage (the logged-in homepage) to a layout remarkably similar to Twitter. As Twitter’s growth continues to accelerate, it is obvious that Facebook is trying to block Twitter from catching up.
In addition, Facebook redesigned their Pages feature. The pages feature is “a customizable presence for an organization, product, or public personality to join the conversation with Facebook users”. The pages feature will now become more like a personal profile, with status updates from a Page showing up in people’s news feeds. For example, if someone from the New York Times updates the status of the NYT Page, then a corresponding notification will show up on the news feed of all the Facebookers who have identified themselves as “fans” of the NYT Page. In this way entities with Pages (organizations, products, & public personalities) can essentially broadcast messages to their fan base.
This, of course, is how Twitter works. The difference is that on Twitter this is the default behavior for everyone, not just special entities. And on Twitter the term is “following”, not “fan”.
Relationship Symmetry
In general, there are two ways to model human relationships in software. An “asymmetric” model is how Twitter currently works. You can “follow” someone else without them following you back. It’s a one-way relationship that may or may not be mutual.
Facebook, on the other hand, has always used a “symmetric” model, where each time you add someone as a friend they have to add you as a friend as well. This is a two-way relationship, and it is required to have any relationship at all. So as a Facebook user there is always a 1-1 relationship among your friends. Everyone who you have claimed as a friend has also claimed you as a friend.
Andrew Chen recently described one advantage of the Twitter model. It allows 4 types of relationships, while Facebook only allows for two. The two relationships of Facebook are “friend and Not Friend”. The four relationships of Twitter are:
People who follow you, but you don’t follow back People who don’t follow you, but you follow them You both follow each other (Friends!) Neither of you follow each other Attention Inequality & the Power of Asymmetry
As Andrew points out, an asymmetric model allows for more types of relationships. I think the benefits go further than that. I think that the asymmetric model better mimics how real attention works…and how it has always worked. Any person using Twitter can have a larger number of followers than followees, effectively giving them more attention than they give. This
attention inequality is the foundation of the Twitter service…
Note that this is a structural concern of the software, not just a philosophical leaning. The
information architecture (IA) of the Twitter service was designed in such a way to do this from the start. The IA of Facebook does not allow this. In a similar way the structure of a building determines the activity of those who enter it, the structure of social networking software determines the activity of those who use it. And from these initial, structural decisions the future of the services are, at least partially, determined.
As I noted above, for some entities on Facebook the relationship is asymmetric. But for the vast majority of “regular” people using the service (i.e. You and Me), it is not. Facebook has designed a service that forces you to keep track of your friends, whether you want to or not. 🙂
Facebook’s stated goal is to model the social graph. By this they mean that they want to model the relationships between all people. If you have a friend in meat space, they want to model it in software. But it has become increasingly clear that Facebook is modeling
personal relationships, not relationships based on attention. That’s the crucial difference between Facebook and Twitter at the moment.
I have approximately twenty times more Twitter followers than I do Facebook friends (Me on Twitter | Facebook). I doubt I could ever have as many friends on Facebook as followers on Twitter, because if I did I would have to pay attention to all of them, all of the time. On Twitter I don’t even try to follow everyone because I don’t have enough attention to do so (I tend to follow people I’ve met). Similarly, many of the people I follow don’t follow me back. Why would they?
For the most part, if you use Twitter you accept this discrepancy. This is how attention works. Imagine if the musician John Mayer had to pay attention to all of the 422,877+ people who follow him on Twitter (he currently follows 20). He would
immediately be overwhelmed. Seriously, if an full-blooded American male can’t even pay attention to Jennifer Aniston, we see how dire this entire situation has become.
We understand that attention is often one-way. While we would be angry if our friends ignored us…we are mostly fine with the fact that Tina Fey doesn’t return our dozens of phone calls.
Why Facebook will go Fully Asymmetric
I predict Facebook will soon go fully asymmetric, allowing all users of the system (not just celebrities or companies) to have “follower” relationships that don’t require reciprocation. I believe they will once again follow in Twitter’s footsteps and people will be able to have follower lists that are much bigger than the number of people they follow.
I don’t know how they’ll do this, my guess is they’ll attempt to keep both systems intact. They’ll keep the friends designation for symmetric relationships, but also add another asymmetric capability. It would probably be best to use the term “follow” for this, but they may continue to keep the term “fan”, even though being a fan of another individual sounds a bit silly…the term “follower” is better.
Facebook will announce this publicly in their common way, by saying their goal is to help you connect to your friends and family better. They’ll say they’ve realized that there are many relationships that aren’t as strong as mutual friends but are nonetheless important…and therefore they’ve hit upon this wonderful new functionality for you…and they’ll somehow recast it as “Open” in some way…and blah blah blah. Pundits will point out how they’re copying Twitter. Robert Scoble will say it’s brilliant and remind us Zuck just doesn’t care what people think. Users will revolt by creating a “Facebook Users Against Fan Designation” group and it will quickly grow to 1 million members.
The actual design of the system will hardly come up. Ev Williams will probably tweet something completely unrelated. You know. The usual.
The real reasons why Facebook will go asymmetric are reach (growth) and data.
Facebook will grow their service by allowing people to accrue attention in a way they can’t currently in the system. People will realize the same benefits they currently do on Twitter…you can actually start to have an audience that is larger than your current friends list. In other words, this will allow members of Facebook to have a much larger reach than they could before…thus giving Facebook a larger reach as well. This will be the next big growth spurt for Facebook, who has executed so well on almost everything they’ve done so far…but at the present moment the structure of the system prevents this from happening.
In short, Facebook will improve the ability of its members to accrue social capital within the system. And, if you aren’t familiar with this notion, check out Yochai Benkler’s The Wealth of Networks, which lays out in excellent detail why social capital is the wealth of networks. He also describes the way humans have trouble with exchanging social capital with economic capital. (this exchange is the nut Facebook and other social networks are trying to crack)
The second reason Facebook will go asymmetric is that this will mean more data. While personal relationship data must be extremely valuable, this additional attention data is being left on the table. As Tim O’Reilly foresaw in his 2005 What is Web 2.0 post, and what huge players Google and Amazon know intimately, is that data is an increasingly important asset.
I would guess that this is why Twitter isn’t too worried about building revenue quite yet…they know how important people’s followers are to them. Hearken back to the few days last fall when follower numbers were going wonky…twitterers were up in arms! The attention Twitterers have accrued in their followers is worth serious cash. Imagine the effort of rebuilding your follower list. For example, it would take me 20 times as long to build my Twitter list as it would rebuild my Facebook friends list! That’s worth money. A
lot of money. What of Other Networks?
My good friend Christina Wodtke and I discussed this a lot at the recent IA Summit. Christina works for LinkedIn, whose relationship model is symmetric like Facebook’s. She told me that LinkedIn are *always* thinking about these issues; they obsess over the ability of their users to connect and improve relations with others. There is probably similar obsession over at MySpace, and Bebo, and well…just about any social network. My guess is that all players in this space have to be looking at the Twitter model and thinking about how they might adopt it in some way.
Where is your money?
Given their recent attempt to buy Twitter, their not-so-subtle copying of the Twitter interface, and the tweaks to the Pages feature, my money is on Facebook moving to a asymmetric relationship model in the very near future. I think their current structure has served them well, but when they look at Twitter’s growth curve, they can’t help but wonder what an asymmetric structure would do to improve their own.
Further Reading: Adina Levin of Socialtext adds some interesting thoughts on why asymmetry scales better. James Governor has a nice post on the asymmetric relationship pattern. Om Malik suggests that Facebook is facing an identity crisis
Currently working on: | 10,981 | 4,628 | 2.372731 |
warc | 201704 | November 10, 2013
They fundamentally transform the way people in the developing world interact with one another and their governments, and access basic health, education, business and financial services. Source
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Shocking Infographic created by Online Sociology Degree about the high cost of poverty, Why the poor pay more than the rich. Source
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United States foreign aid spending: How much is spent, what percentage of the budget amounts to what is given in aid, where it goes and what the global impact is. Source
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Millions of Americans don’t have reliable access to food. Here, we take a look at who’s affected and why. Source
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American society prides itself on being a meritocracy, particularly with the fruition of the ‘American Dream’ being achieved by individuals from all types of backgrounds. Success today typically involves some form of higher education, to expand intellectual capacity and to hone one’s skill-set. However, the highest quality education is not the most easily accessible. This […]
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Payday loans are a devious scheme perpetrated on the people most in need of real financial help. They are most insidious because they masquerade as a way out of debt, when in reality they are designed to dig the poor in even deeper. Source
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Even in a recession, the United States remains one of the most powerful and wealthiest nations in the world. But where exactly is all the money? Who has it and why is there such a large gap between the haves and have-nots in America? This infographic looks at money in America and tries to figure […]
July 19, 2012
The Census Bureau uses a set of money income thresholds that vary by family size and composition to determine who is in pocerty. If a family’s total income is less than the family’s threshold, then that family and every individual in it is considered in poverty. Source | 2,049 | 1,078 | 1.900742 |
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They will play their final 38 games in a grueling span of just 75 days, but if Pittsburgh (26-12-7) loses in regulation to Chicago on Wednesday, the Blueshirts will stand for the next week in third place in the Metropolitan Division, just one point behind the second-place Penguins, with two games in hand.
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Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of the NationalVaccine Information Center, a group calls for "informed consent"for parents regarding vaccinations, said the Disneyland outbreakhad touched off a "media frenzy" around the issue.
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The rapidity of the decisions startled Saudis, used to a delay of up to several months before top appointments following the deaths of their monarchs. The choice of Mohammed bin Nayef was seen by some as a reflection of his strong record in counter-terrorism in his role as interior minister. | 7,347 | 3,722 | 1.973939 |
warc | 201704 | Canada’s changes to the national pension scheme in the 1990s helped buffer the country against demographic changes that are affecting a number of countries including Japan, Russia and Hong Kong, according to pension consultant Mercer.
“Unlike many countries around the world, Canada acted in the 1990s to help mitigate the future impact of an aging population on its national pension system,” said Scott Clausen, a partner in Mercer’s Canadian retirement business.
The percentage of Canada’s population that is of working age is projected decline to 65% from 69% over the next eight years. That is double the percentage point decline expected in the United States and the United Kingdom, according to Mercer.
Among the steps Canada took in the 1990s was to increase Canada Pension Plan contributions to an amount larger than needed to meet benefit payments at the time. The excess contributions are invested by the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) and are expected to help mitigate contribution increases or benefit reductions that would otherwise have been required as the population aged, Mercer said.
Canada also took “significant steps” to reduce its level of federal government debt and, earlier this year, made changes to its Old Age Security program so the start of benefits will ultimately kick in at age 67 rather than 65.
Some notable Canadians such as former Bank of Canada governor David Dodge and David Denison, the former chief executive of the CPPIB, have recently pointed to the successes of the Canada Pension Plan model to explain why expansion of the national scheme might be preferable to the federal government initiative to fill gaps in retirement planning with a pooled pension administered by the banks and insurers for Canadians who don’t have a workplace plan.
Ottawa moved ahead with legislation to create the Pooled Registered Pension Plan (PRPP) in June.
So far, only Quebec has announced its intention to introduce companion legislation to roll out the retirement savings vehicle.
“All provinces agreed to move forward with the PRPP framework at the December 2010 meeting of Finance ministers,” Ted Menzies, minister of state for finance, said in an emailed statement Thursday. Citing a Finance Canada study in 2009 that identified a gap in private savings, he said PRPPs “are a low-cost savings option will help address that gap.”
A report released by the OECD in June recognized the role of private pensions in addressing gaps in retirement systems in industrialized countries. | 2,592 | 1,278 | 2.028169 |
warc | 201704 | A A A News Room All business iconBusiness press release iconPress Releases accoladesAccolades tourism and film iconTourism and Film social iconSocial Utah Cities Rise to the Top in Milken and Harvard RankingsJanuary 22 2014 - 2:52 pm News ReleaseFor Immediate Release
January 22, 2014
Contact: Michael Sullivan, GOED Communications Director 801-538-8811 mgsullivan@utah.gov Utah Cities Rise to the Top in Milken and Harvard Rankings Utah continues to show great business and economic opportunity performance Salt Lake City, UTAH — In Utah’s ongoing battle for business supremacy, a recent report from the Milken Institute endorses Utah as the place to do business. Milken ranks Salt Lake City as number five and Provo-Orem as number two on its list of “Top 25 Best-Performing Large Cities.”
“Having two Utah cities recognized as ‘best performing’ in a study that takes into account the largest cities in the nation is a huge accomplishment,” said Spencer P. Eccles, executive director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. “This accolade speaks to the hard work being done in the state to create a business friendly environment focused on recruiting and retaining top companies.”
Rankings for the study were based on data from both long- and short-term growth in jobs, wages, salaries and technology output. Provo-Orem, Utah moved up five spots from last year’s ranking. This is in part due to the growing technology sector and high job growth rate. The technology sector in this area is supported by large companies like IM Flash, Ancestry.com and Adobe. Provo-Orem is one of three U.S. cities with Google Fiber, a superfast fiber-optic service.
Salt Lake City, ranked number five on Milken’s list, has a diverse, consistently growing economy with a positive outlook for the future. During 2012, Salt Lake added 2,600 professional, scientific and technical services jobs, a gain of more than 7 percent from the previous year.
The Milken institute rankings are reinforced by a study produced by researchers at Harvard University and the University of California at Berkeley. The study, The Equality of Opportunity Project, mapped the 10 best and 10 worst cities for economic mobility in the United States. According to researchers, Salt Lake City is the top city for economic mobility.
The Equality of Opportunity Project measured the chance that someone born into the bottom fifth of income earners could reach the top fifth over the course of his or her lifetime. According to the study, there is an 11.5 percent chance that a child born in the bottom economic quintile in Salt Lake City could end up in the top economic quintile in his or her life. The fabled American Dream is more likely to be achieved in Salt Lake City than any other U.S. city.
One consistency between the two studies is the top rankings for cities in Texas, California, Washington and Utah. The West is maintaining a reputation as the place to be for technology and entrepreneurship. Combine the growth Utah is experiencing in the technology sector with the quality of life, strong workforce and low operating costs and it is easy to see why technology companies are seeing Utah as “the place” to do business.
###
About the Utah Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED)Web: business.utah.gov
The Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) charter is based on Governor Gary Herbert’s commitment to economic development statewide. Utah’s economic development vision is that Utah will lead the nation as the best performing economy and be recognized as a premier global business destination. The mandate for this office is to provide rich business resources for the creation, growth and recruitment of companies to Utah and to increase tourism and film production in the state. GOED accomplishes this mission through the administration of programs that are based around targeted industries or “economic clusters” that demonstrate the best potential for development. GOED utilizes state resources and private sector contracts to fulfill its mission. For more information please contact: Michael Sullivan, 801-538-8811 or mgsullivan@utah.gov | 4,255 | 1,942 | 2.19104 |
warc | 201704 | The website that accompanies this p.r. campaign reinforces the misogyny, implying that all men share this need to defend themselves from the moods women experience because of raging hormones.
All this to promote a product that actually helps deplete calcium from women's bones rather than strengthening them. And contributes to the ongoing medicalization of women's lives. If you want calcium, you'd be better off turning to kale and other leafy greens.
Perhaps, the Dairy Council is getting desperate. As more and more people learn through books like
Whitewashjust how cow's milk is obtained, learn of the terrible lives cows endure to produce what I have called "feminized protein," they are rejecting cow's milk. The Dairy Council must know at this point that with so many wonderful alternatives in local grocery stores, more people are asking, "why are we still enslaving female animals to be our wet nurses?" Mercy for Animals shows us what cows endure for a product we don't need:
http://www.mercyforanimals.org/calves/
The question is "Got Soy Milk?" "Got Almond Milk?"
Dairy Industry--I am listening to what you are saying and what you are meaning. Yours is a dangerous campaign, built on stereotypes about women, requiring the imprisonment and suffering of other animals, offering misleading information about sources of calcium, and promoting a product that many women of color can not digest because of lactose intolerance.
You'll probably say my response shows I don't have a sense of humor. That's another way you're wrong; I just don't have your sense of humor. | 1,592 | 882 | 1.804989 |
warc | 201704 | Relocating with your cats is not as traumatic or impossible as you may think, but the process does require some forethought. Check out our tips for making the event safer and less stressful for all of you.
During the truck-loading phase of your move, tuck your cats away in a safe place (such as a bedroom or bathroom) so they don’t escape through open doors or get hurt. They’ll appreciate being out of the chaos, too.
Have clean carriers set up with a towel and a small litter pan (plastic storage boxes that fit along the back of the carrier work great). Feed your cats an hour or two before you leave, giving them time to use the litter box beforehand. Barring any medical conditions, most cats will be all right without food for 8 to 10 hours. If your cat has a medical condition, check with your vet on this before you go.
Always keep your cat in a carrier while in the car, and never open car doors and kennel doors at the same time!
Place identification collars and tags with cats’ name, your name, and phone number on each kitty. Collars should fit so that two of your fingers can slide between it and your cat’s neck. Carry a folder with vaccination and medical history, a photo, medications in your travel bag. For long distance trips, locate a few veterinarians along the way just in case, and write down the phone numbers.
Don’t get stressed out if your cats meow a lot in the car — they probably will. Just stay as calm as you can and reassure them often. Music may help, but resist the temptation to drown them out with loud music. That will just stress you — and them — even more.
If your trip includes overnight layovers in hotels, call ahead to make sure the hotel is pet friendly. Get all belongings inside and secure the door before opening the carriers. If you must go in and out later, pay attention to avoid escapes. Cats will always find somewhere to hide in the room, usually under beds or behind furniture. Check to see what’s movable should you need to extricate someone!
A separate bathroom/changing area may be the best place to set them up overnight with food, water, a regular size litter pan, and a bed or blanket from home. Reassure them and stay calm. Cats can be amazingly adaptive to new circumstances as long as you are there too!
If your move involves air travel, check with airlines and health departments of each state you stop in regarding vaccination requirements. Follow these regulations
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Once inside your new place, tuck the cats into a safe, quiet room while you unload. Set the room up with their familiar toys and beds, and put a note on the door to alert helpers so the door isn’t accidentally opened.
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warc | 201704 | Cyberspace Innkeeping: Building Online Community
Copyright 1992,93,98 by John Coate tex@well.com
Early January, 1998
In the five years since I wrote the last revision to this essay,a great
catalyst has propelled the Internet and all things online into the forefront of world consciousness: the World Wide Web. Of course, developments such as the manufacturing of inexpensive routers, cheaper computers and faster modems have played a crucial role; there would be no popular use of the Internet and Web without them. But it is this easy-to-understand platform that integrates multimedia and communication using HTML, a code that anyone can easily learn, that has propelled the Internet to center stage.
In the process, the once-obscure notion of online or "virtual"community
has become commonplace to the point that it is now in vogue to declare almost any online gathering of people a "community." Recently I said in joking to a friend, "these days an online community seems to be defined as any group of people any place, for any length of time, for any reason, that communicates." And, indeed that may be right: I can concede that it is plausible to use the word "community" to describe a huge variety of social configurations.
The first two entries of "community" in the AmericanHeritage Dictionary
call it 1.) a group of people living in the same locality and under the same government; and 2.) a group of people having common interests. If you believe the "space" part of "cyberspace," and you consider that a Terms of Service for use of an online service could be called a kind of government, then #1 works in the online realm. Second, consider that "common interests" are the only real reason that people get online to communicate, then #2 works well too. Make a hybrid of these two and it gives a pretty good working definition of "online community."
But, assigning the mantle of "community" to one'senterprise before the
fact as a marketing hook just serves to cheapen the term. Because it can only really be true if the people who are actively involved in it, declare for themselves that it is true: we are a community.
This essay has an orientation towards the "conferencing"environment,
which is written conversation of the asynchronous or "bulletin board" style. Most of my own experiences at both the WELL and my current work at The Gate (www.sfgate.com) have been centered around it. But I have also worked for two companies, French Minitel and Ubique.com, where I focused almost entirely on real-time chatting. These principles work equally well for chat as well as MUDs and other forms of online communication.
Over the years much has changed but the advice is still valid:do these
things and your online offering will allow your participants a better chance of developing real and meaningful relationships with the people that they meet online. Because at its essence the advice is to be kind, be interested and pay attention. Not so different than the rest of life. And that's the point. As virtual as you may want to make it, it is still reality governed by the same operating principles as the rest of life. Cyberspace doesn't live outside the rest of the universe. But it is still helpful to know a few tricks.
I. Something Old, Something New
When you log into an online service, you use new tools foran ancient
activity. Even with all the screens and wires and chips and lines it still comes down to people talking to each other. The immense potential of this partnership of computer technology and human language is in this blending of the old and the new.
Language is so ancient a currency of communication that peopleof the
Northern Hemisphere, from Europe to India, know of their common tribal roots mostly just by the remnant commonalities of the languages. Through all these thousands of years (sign language excepted), language has been either spoken or written. But online conversation is a new hybrid that is both talking and writing yet isn't completely either one. It's talking by writing. It's writing because you type it on a keyboard and people read it. But because of the ephemeral nature of luminescent letters on a screen, and because it has such a quick - sometimes instant - turnaround, it's more like talking. This act of conversing over computers is such a new twist that the lasting term for what it is has not yet been coined.
The new with the old. It is also new because you often feela real sense
of place while logged in, though it exists "virtually" in each person's imagination while they stare into a CRT screen. It's old because even if the village is virtual, when it's working right it fulfills for people their need for a commons, a neutral space away from work or home where they can conduct their personal and professional affairs.
My work with online services such as the WELL in Sausalitoand The Gate
in SF, is about building an online version of what Ray Oldenburg calls "the Third Place." In The Great Good Place he calls home the First Place and work the Second Place. "Third places," he says, "exist on neutral ground and serve to level their guests to a condition of social equality. Within these places, conversation is the primary activity and the major vehicle for the display and appreciation of human personality and individuality. Third places are taken for granted and most have a low profile. Since the formal institutions of society make stronger claims on the individual, third places are normally open in the off hours, as well as at other times. Though a radically different kind of setting from the home, the third place is remarkable similar to a good home in the psychological comfort and support that it extends."
I'll say right up front that my love for online interactionis because it
brings people together. At the personal level it helps people find their kindred spirits and at the larger social level it serves as a conduit for the horizontal flow of information through the population.
In this piece, I will first describe some of the elements thatcan
combine to create a village-like quality in an electronic environment along with some of the social dynamics at play in there, and then I'll offer a little advice for anyone who is, or wants to be, the innkeeper, so to speak, of their own online service.
II. The Virtual Village
Who does it attract?
Online systems attract independent-minded people. People whothink for
themselves and many people who work for themselves. Freelancers, contractors, entrepreneurs, and others who, because they are always looking ahead to that next job, need to have their shingle hung out. With so many people moving from one job to another, online public forums are good places to run into others who may lead you to your next work opportunity.
Online systems appeal to people who love wordplay, languageand writing.
And it appeals to people with active minds. The classic couch potato just isn't going to be that interested. Good conversation can be a hard commodity to find these days. If you love stimulating conversation - what I like to call an "intellectual massage" - it's a place to debate, joke, schmooze, argue and gossip.
Many people have fairly specialized interests and to find peoplewith
similar interests, you often need the opportunity to interact with a larger base of people rather than just the few in your physical neighborhood. And it appeals to people who have numerous interests because you don't have to go from club to club all over town to hang out and talk with people interested in specific things like boating or books. You can get around town without getting up.
And of course they are used by private groups to conduct ongoing
meetings. It's an efficient way for a group to stay in touch, collaborate on documents, or plan other meetings and events. One of the great strengths of online conferencing is how you can switch from a relaxing and playful kind of conversation to something serious or businesslike with just a few keystrokes.
And then there are people who just have unfulfilled socialneeds and want
to meet some people.
The mind pool
When it works right, an online gathering is a kind of organizedmind
pool. Everyone picks each other's brains. The informal nature of online conversation encourages people's amazing generosity in sharing the things that they know. It's a potluck for the mind.
The sysops don't create the information and sell it to everyoneso much
as the people themselves create the information and share it with each other. In a way we who manage online services are like operators of a picnic ground. We provide the tables and the people bring the food.
The information doesn't flow in a top-down manner, but rather
horizontally among the peer group of the participants. I like to call it a People's Think Tank. People join online systems because they are useful personal tools. The horizontal information flow is really a by-product of this, but it has, I believe, a deep and abiding importance to all of us. Because the free flow of information among the people is essential to the health of a democratic society.
The sense of place
But something more is going on here. Dry terms like "thinktank",
"information exchange" and "conferencing network" are too flat, too monodimensional. They don't convey the reality that while you and the other people logged in are separated by miles of phone lines looking at CRT screens that just display written words, it feels like a real place in there. And those terms don't show that it's just about the easiest, lowest risk way to meet new people that there is. Nor do they describe how, via all this online talk, people form and sustain relationships. This is when it crosses over into something else, something fuller, something more like a community. In attempts to accurately describe this we conjure up familiar images like village, town, neighborhood, saloon, salon, coffee shop, inn. It's as if it is all of these things, yet isn't really any of them because it's a new kind of gathering. It just helps to hang something familiar onto it so we can picture it.
The tangible and the intangible
The tangible part is the hardware and the software - the physical
network. Obviously you have to have that, and it has to work reliably. The intangible - the people part - is just as important because a system is as much defined and shaped by everyone's collective imagination as it is by the computers, discs and software tools.
All of this descriptive imaging about community comes fromreal people
meeting there. But it goes much farther than that because traveling through the chips and wires, as a kind of sub carrier to the words themselves, is real human emotion and feeling. The spectrum of the "vibes" is just about as wide as it is when people meet face to face. It's sometimes harder to interpret them because there isn't any facial expression or body English, but they are there just the same and people feel them and react to them. Furthermore, the quality of the vibes - the atmosphere, the ambience - largely determines whether or not the people involved will develop any affection for the system at all.
Forums and hosts
It's important for public forums to have hosts who welcomethe newcomers,
try to keep the conversations reasonably on track and do basic housekeeping so there isn't too much clutter and confusion. They are responsible for maintaining some civilized degree of order in the conference. Old extinct discussions are pruned out like tree branches. When people argue too heatedly and start tossing out the ad hominems, the host blows the whistle.
Every host has his or her own style and some forums allow alot more
tumbling than others.
Online conversation is, by its very nature, a mix of organizationand
chaos. This hybrid of talking by writing presents some interesting new challenges. Both talking and writing have their unique strengths. With writing, organization and a high concentration of usable information are desired. Online it's very useful to have labels for each discussion so you can get to the information you seek with efficiency. It's pretty difficult at a party to stand at the doorway of a crowded room where everyone is talking and determine which conversation is most interesting to you. In such cases, the benefits of the written word are strong. When talking, the whims of the people take the discussion off on any number of tangents. We have come to call this process of meandering "topic drift" and it often leads to the most delightful illuminations. So much so that many people find this to be one of the most appealing aspects of the whole online scene. But it can conflict with other peoples' expectations that a conversation will consist of material that is truly in keeping with the theme of the topic. This is where good searching tools are helpful.
Anonymity or your real name?
This is one of the most important decisions one has to makein the online
realm, both as a provider and a user of a service. There is a definite tradeoff that will occur with either choice. One the side of anonymity you have: easy entry, greater safety, more freedom to play with one's whims and fantasies and higher population. With declaration of your real identity you get: commitment, greater likelihood that people will be truthful with each other, stronger chance that relationships formed online will blend into long-lasting "real life" relationships, increased confidence that minors could participate without being tricked, and a lower population.
My bias is towards declaring because when people don't haveto take
responsibility for what they say, then some of them will say a lot of irresponsible things. In an open group discussion, the signal to noise ratio develops a poor balance. Some situations are fine for open, "who cares" anonymity - single topic chats related to events like the Super Bowl, reader comments about specific current event topics, entertainment and fantasy sites that are focused on that purpose - but community as I define the word isn't likely to develop from it. Because we chose depth, reality and commitment, at the WELL, we required that people say who they really are. (Once in awhile there was an exception but that was one in a thousand. Actually it was possible to use an assumed name, but you would have to do it consistently with address and billing information and that required some motivation and dedication.) And it worked for us in a five-thousand-member environment that was mostly based in a specific geography where most people were fairly earnest cyber-pioneers who had some allegiance to the values of the Whole Earth Catalog organization that had started it, and thus, a sense of safety in being so open.
Here, in 1998, the online environment is far different andpeople must
consider very carefully how easily they are willing to trade off their safety. These days, online activities are rarely centered in a single geographical region and participants can be very distant from one another, and the sheer numbers of online participants means that a higher number of unsavory people are out and about looking for sardonic amusement, or something worse.
When we first started a conference facility at The Gate in1995, we
wanted to make a responsible and valid discussion forum that would be appropriate for the large newspapers that owned it. And we wanted people to be able to communicate directly with each other so they could have one-on-one communication. So we required that people verify their identity with their actual email addresses. After awhile, one of the participants who disagreed strongly with a few of the people wasn't content to just contact those people in email. He found out where they lived and worked and started harassing them directly through the US Mail and even actual uninvited visits. This caused some of those people to leave the system and never return. Single women especially were wary of making any comments after that.
We knew we'd have to do something so we came up with a compromisethat
works quite well: you don't have to use your real name and you don't have to list your email address unless you want to, but you do have to have a consistent identity and you have to tell us, the managers of the system, who you really are so we can have a legitimate business and legal relationship with you.
A wide variety of topics
It's important to have variety. And if you don't see a topiccovering
what you want to talk about, you should be able to open up your own line of conversation.
What happens then is that you see the same people in differentplaces and
in different contexts, and fuller pictures of the people emerge as they reveal more dimensions of themselves.
The relationship of public and private conversation
Being able to converse privately in email or in a live chatwith someone
alongside a public discussion helps people form all kinds of relationships. It often starts with something like, "Hey, I liked what you said over in that discussion and I have a similar interest. Maybe we could talk more about it on the side." In the heat of debate, people use email to form alliances, and when people are moved by a touching story or feel agreement with a particular statement, they use email to lend support.
Encouragement of free speech
While system managers or hosts usually have the ability toremove or
"censor" a given comment, I discourage it as a practice. And I especially dislike the approach where there are paid censors who prescreen everything to make sure it conforms to their standards. Better for people to speak freely and frankly to each other because when each individual knows that he or she may speak freely and that they in fact take full responsibility for what they say, then it improves the content of the system.
I encourage all online systems to be places where controversialsubjects
may be discussed in a civilized way. Of course, how you defines "civilized" determines what you will allow. I frown on ad hominems, personal harassment, and threats but otherwise give wide berth to the variety of tastes and styles found wherever individuals gather.
However, a problem can arise if you have a registration systemthat
allows the person to make public comments before you validate their entry. If someone is a nuisance to the other participants and you can't get them to stop and decide you must bar their entry, it can become a kind of game for the other person to continually come back in under new names and make the same comments. Then you either let them control the conversation or you have to assign someone to spend considerable time following them around erasing their remarks. So, again, a decision has to be made between easy entry and ability to control the conversation when necessary. You could just let anyone say anything at all and declare that anything goes, but those looking for some subtlety in human communication won't stick around.
Web pages and online conversation
When I left the WELL at the end of 1991, part of what I washoping to
help develop was an online environment that allowed easy blending of written online conversation with the more prepared written material of essays, articles, reports and books. Thanks to the wonders of hyperlinking and the World Wide Web, it is now common. This means that any conversation can contain immediate access to support or reference material. It isn't just everyone's opinion anymore. And with multimedia, it is possible to see pictures and listen to sound clips. This is a profound advancement of the art of online communicating. And, of course, any article could easily link to an ongoing conversation about that subject, which helps make it more vital.
In putting together a system or choosing one for participation,I would
make sure that the software makes this linking easy for both reader and writer. Especially when the geographic distances are so great on the average, this ability to "show" as well as just "tell" makes a huge difference to the quality of the experience.
The face-to-face factor
When such things are possible, members of many online serviceslike to
see each other socially. A lot of online services host parties and get-togethers. The WELL has sponsored an open house pot luck party every month for over ten years. At The Gate we have had a few dinners. Participants in the online systems everywhere now regularly meet at dinners, mixers and parties.
On a smaller scale you can encounter someone online, startsomething up
in email, and then take them to lunch, get up a card game, go to a movie, or meet them about a business project.
When a number of the participants in a discussion have metoffline, the
overall sense of familiarity in the online atmosphere increases. And this increases the sense of place for everyone, including those who either can't or don't want to meet anyone outside the online environment.
Professional and personal interactions overlap
This is where things really get interesting. Ultimately, anynetwork is
about relationships. I like to say that, rather than being in the computer business, I am in the relationship business. Some are ad hoc, some are long term, some are for business and some are social. Get online for business or for pleasure. While you can just do one or the other, many people use it for both. I know people who got online just for fun but made contacts that led to a new job. I also know people who joined for business reasons such as getting help on a computer application or doing research and made some new friends through conversing in other non-technical forums. Or maybe you are thinking of hiring someone you met online because of their technical expertise and by seeing their comments in other conferences you find that you also like their sense of humor. Or perhaps you don't care for their dogmatic attitude and that influences your decision the other way. The variations are endless.
One person who comes to mind is the radio producer who usesthe WELL to
talk shop with others in his field all around the country. When his two year old daughter became deathly ill, he would log in from way out on Cape Cod and would report, diary style, in the WELL Parents Conference about what they were going through. He would give the details and describe his emotional state and people would lend their support. It comforted him and it touched all of us who read it. Furthermore, this experience greatly increased his enthusiasm for what this kind of network can do and that spread to his business related activities online. Another described, over the course of a few years, his search for his biological parents. When he finally found them many of us rejoiced with him after reading his eloquent account. This guy works the same online crowd for his consulting business. I also know several people who found jobs via contacts at the WELL and The Gate that had come to it for strictly social reasons.
For the term "village" (as in "electronic village"or "virtual village")
be applied to an online scene with any accuracy at all this blending of business and pleasure must be present. Because that's what a village is: a place where you go down to the butcher or the blacksmith and transact your business, and at night meet those same neighbors down at the local tavern or the Friday night dance.
III. Social Dynamics
Commonalities and differences
One of life's great paradoxes is that we are all the same andwe are all
different. One of the ironies of online interaction both public and private, is that, in developing relationships, people seek commonalities while displaying and discussing their differences. When people gather, much of what takes place as they develop these relationships and bonds, is a process of mutual discovery. This discovery produces a lot of the "aha! moments" that give online life its kick. These moments, in which many talk back to the computer screen can range from empathetic tears, to "I feel like that too" to "oh, neat!" to "what a bozo" to "if he says that again I'm gonna scream!"
The level playing field
The great equalizing factor, of course, is that nobody cansee each other
online so the ideas are what really matter. You can't discern age, race, complexion, hair color, body shape, vocal tone or any of the other attributes that we all incorporate into our impressions of people. This, of course, will change as audio and video become common along with the written word. But, even then, a lot of people will play their sounds and show their video but won't show themselves. If the balance tips to anyone's advantage, it's in favor of those who are better at articulating their views. Some people are amazingly skilled at debating. Other people feel shyness around their own forensic or expressive skills. Posting a comment is "stepping out," so to speak, putting yourself "out there" to people you might not know. And many of them aren't going to reveal themselves because they are just "lurking" (reading without participating).
Posting and Lurking
In the online environment, just like any other social situation,the
basic currency is human attention. In the public forums, you communicate with groups that may have as many as several hundred people involved - even if they don't all make comments.
Some people make so many comments they seem primarily interestedin the
attention, but many people don't say anything at all. In fact, most people who use online services don't post any comments. They lurk. In the world of online services theory the lurker/poster ratio is one of the indicators. Ten or more lurkers for every poster is common. Many people who do post comments are aware of this fact and orate at times as if they are addressing the Roman Senate, the online Continental Congress, or the lunchtime crowd at Hyde Park. I have heard online discussion called, "writing as a performing art." It sometimes reminds me of Amateur Night at the Apollo or the Gong Show, because you don't know what reaction people may have to the comment you make. Maybe you won't get any reaction. Maybe you'll get email voicing support or dissent, maybe someone will take you on in the discussion, or maybe you will have said something good enough to warrant a string of online "amens." At any rate, many are reticent to say anything at all because of this version of stage fright, while others take to it like Vaudeville troupers. An online system is a place where you have to give yourself permission to step out and participate.
The personality you project
Each person holds his or her own mental image of what the onlinesociety
is and how it is structured. The corollary to this is the personality each person projects to everyone else. What you find here is that some people, viewing this as just another communication tool or social environment, try to make their online personality be as similar as possible to their personality everywhere else.
Other people change their personalities once they get online.This may
come from the sense of safety and empowerment they feel in the sanctity of their room or office talking with people that they know can't deck them if they say the wrong thing. The online world might be where words can break your bones but sticks and stones can never hurt you. Others may be self-conscious about their appearance or some other handicap and, knowing that it isn't a factor in the interactions, simply feel more confident than they do elsewhere. For some others, the online environment is a place to "take time out" as MIT's Sherry Turkle would call it, by developing an imagined alternate persona and playing a kind of game.
I know some people who are much more bristly online than theyare in
person. And they enjoy the contentious nature of many of the conversations. They sometimes even agitate it to be more that way, as if it was a kind of "sport hassling." They like the ferment for its own sake.
Ferment
By its very nature, online discussion is going to involve disagreement.
In our reach for analogies we often ask "is it a salon or is it a saloon?" Once again it's a hybrid. It's a salon, certainly, in the classic image of gathering for spirited, bright conversation where people of different backgrounds and disciplines come together for that intellectual massage that feels so good. But it's also like this Wild West saloon where you never know who's going to come in the swinging doors and try out their stuff on everybody. Somewhere on a system at any time there is usually some sort of ferment going on. Ferment is a necessary part of the recipe. Part of the scene will always be in flux. At times it will be argumentative and contentious. At other times it will seem like some sort of mutual admiration society. As a host or a manager, you accept that, and work with it.
There is concern amongst some participants that a topic ora forum won't
feel "safe" to them. This elusive quality of safety depends on a few factors. The size of the group, the nature of the subject matter, the personalities of the people who happen to be in there talking, and the way that forum is hosted.
A forum environment that has a hostile atmosphere will discourage
participation by those who have less aggressive tendencies. The hosting is important because in overseeing the discussion, you don't want things to sink down too far but setting too high of a standard for "niceness" can also kill off a discussion before anything worthwhile gets figured out. That means that some temperatures will rise some of the time. There will always be some rough spots whenever a group works to define itself. Without any ferment at all, the "brew" will quickly go flat.
Some of the arguments and debates we've had over the yearshave been
pointless personal hassles, but many have led us to a fuller understanding of what we were as an entity, or what we thought we ought to be. It is important to note that policy and custom has been shaped at times by arguments and hassles that were often quite personal in nature. Like everything else in a scene there is a lot of blending of different elements. Disagreement about a point or a matter of principle can get complicated when mixed in with dislike for the other person's style or personality.
The other side of this coin is the overt effort of people tolend
affirmation and support to others. This may be something as simple as complimenting them on something they said or wishing them good luck in one way or another. It's like sending an electronic "get well" card.
Newcomers
Many of the regulars and old-timers know each other prettywell. To a
newcomer it can seem like being a new kid in a high school.
When the face-to-face factor comes into the picture, thingscan get
thicker still. People who haven't or don't see others "in person" may wonder if in-group tendencies get reinforced at social gatherings. In reality, the opposite is true for many people such as Carol Gould. She says, "My own experience at the WELL parties has been very positive. I was somewhat nervous about walking up to the group of people, none of whom I knew, but I was able to enter a conversation or two and before long I felt fairly at ease. People were curious as to who I was and, surprisingly, claimed they'd 'seen me around' on the WELL. At any rate, my sense was that people were curious and friendly, and it encouraged me to come to the next event. And I would have to say that I have never felt excluded or rebuffed by anyone."
Perhaps it's just a clique in which everyone is a member. AsSF
Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll observed, "I had a great experience at Howard's book- signing, which was my first Well event. I met all these folks for the first time, and the air was filled with, 'You mean you're onezie' and 'I think that's rabar over there' and glad cries and furious conversation and the other people in the bookstore were like, 'Who are these people?' In other words, I was member of a clique totally composed of people I had never met before."
There is, however, always a challenge for the regulars to rememberwhat
it is like for a newcomer.
It must be remembered by all that newcomers are essential tothe survival
of the group because they refresh the place, strengthen its vitality and replace the people who move on. Without new viewpoints and personalities the place becomes stagnant.
Ownership of words and intellectual property
Is it publishing or is it just conversation that happens tobe in
writing? The WELL User Agreement says "You own your own words." This simple phrase gets to the heart of the matter of intellectual property as applied in the online world, but, like all of these other issues, is fraught with ambiguity and is subject to myriad personal interpretation. "You own your own words" was intended to mean that you, and not the system operators or management, are responsible for what you say. You take the heat, but you get the credit. But does getting the credit mean that your every utterance is a standalone piece of copyrighted intellectual property that requires your express permission for reproduction? Does the fact that anything you say in an online system can be downloaded and printed out by anyone who happens to read it create a different class of reproduction than quoting without permission for a commercial publication? If a journalist quotes something from an online system and they don't obtain permission, did they steal it, or did they overhear it in a conversation? We can't lose sight of the concept of fair use here. Like a publishing agent told me once, "if you think it's fair use, then it probably is."
While I don't like to see people get too maniacal about whathappens to
things they type into a system because actual control is already just about impossible, and getting worse, I do think that good manners and consideration of others' wishes are critically important, even into the far reaches of cyberspace.
Censorship
If a system is privately owned, what are the rights of theindividual
verses the right of the owner to remove someone's comment? Does a user of an online system waive certain absolute rights when they join a given network? Are the owners of a system responsible to their customers and the right of those customers to express themselves freely, or is the system responsible for making sure that some kind of community standards must apply to the electronic dialogue? Some of it is easy to answer because certain activities such as posting an illegally obtained credit card number or offering to sell controlled substances are clearly illegal and must be removed.
But what about "community standards?" Current obscenitylaw refers to
"local community standards" having jurisdiction in deciding what constitutes obscenity. But in the online world, where people meet in virtual space even though the participants may be located anywhere in the world, are there any local standards that even can apply? Does the physical location of the system matter? If the WELL were located in Alabama or Georgia instead of Sausalito California, would it have to alter its method of managing the online society? Does the SF Gate need only to conform to San Francisco standards? The question can be posed: do you bring the service to them (in which case their local community standards would apply) or did they come to you to get it (in which case your community standards would apply)? To me, the latter of these makes more sense.
Opting out
I like to say that if you think you are in a community youprobably are,
and if you don't, you aren't. Online, this sense of community is far less obvious than it would be in a small town or a church community. In fact, it only exists as a commonly-held, ongoing agreement of the participants who make it be true *for them.* Ultimately, all communities are a set of agreements among the people and in any community (and especially these days when many neighbors hardly know each other), one can always have strong or weak involvement with the group. But the online environment lends itself well to a person who wants to interact online, follow rules, observe protocol and etiquette, and still being completely disengaged from any sense of belonging to a community.
There will always be people who will say, "uh-uh, notme. I'm just here
for the info. I'm not part of any community, thank you very much." And I think that's healthy. Indeed, some of these people speak up at times when there seems to be an excess of "groupthink" taking place.
IV. Keeping it Running
Your primary job
As manager of an online service, everything you do boils downto one
thing: keep the dialogue going.
In this sense it's like running a railroad or a cruise ship.In those
kinds of businesses there is the need to keep the motors running or, in our case, the server running. But the customers must also be pleased aesthetically as well as other ways that are not so tangible as making schedules and keeping the restrooms clean. We have to have good quality conversations and the atmosphere has to be warm enough that it encourages people to open up. You can't have just one of these things going for you; it has to run right and people have to like it.
Being a service business means that success brings increasedpressure to
deliver a high standard to the growing number of people. A service business isn't like doing a painting or making a record. It's more like an airline that upgrades its planes as the technology moves forward. The basic product needs to be constantly refined and made more efficient. Furthermore, large sizes of people involved in the same conversation changes the dynamics of the conversation. Growth means the potential for more good minds and hearts meeting and relating and sharing what they know. But size could cause the conversation to deteriorate by becoming cumbersome and complicated.
The real fuel that drives the engine of online interactionis enthusiasm.
And you work to build and preserve that just as much as you work to keep the equipment together.
An informal atmosphere
You need to have rules and policies, but leave a lot of roomfor judgment
calls. I like to run it similar to the way they referee NBA basketball games. There actually is a certain amount of body contact that goes on, but at some point you decide to blow the whistle and call a foul.
While I believe that it is important to have wide acceptanceof various
personal codes of conduct, I do like to cultivate a social atmosphere where it's basically not OK to be a jerk. What that means in practical terms is rightfully a hot, ongoing discussion topic that helps a group arrive at its social equilibrium.
My feeling is that informality is essential to the healthygrowth of an
online community. According to Ray Oldenburg in _The Great Good Place_, "the activity that goes on in third places is largely unplanned, unscheduled, unorganized and unstructured. Here, however, is the charm. It is just these deviations from the middle-class penchant for organization that give the third place much of its character and allure and that allow it to offer a radical departure from the routines of home and work." Hence, I favor just enough rules to get us by and no more.
Whoever's there: those are your people
You can target and you can recruit and you can bring in yourfriends, but
a lot of the population of the scene is self-selected. And these people whom you, too, will be meeting for the first time are going to be your customers and, hopefully, your allies. The trick is to make your alliances with the best qualities in a person. Then, help introduce that good part of someone to the good part of someone else.
They aren't going to all agree and you don't want them to allagree. If
everyone agreed on everything, the place would get dull fast. And they aren't going to all like each other either. While it would be lovely if everyone got along, even if they disagree about a lot of things, it's a pretty unrealistic expectation. So, you have to be diplomatic. You will have to perform all sorts of little mediations between people, even if it's just to say, "aw, he's not so bad, really."
The big suggestion box
Suggestions and advice happen at one time or another in justabout every
area of a system. In that sense the whole thing is like one huge suggestion box. While you don't have to do everything that everyone tells you, and ultimately you make the decisions, it is essential that people know that you are listening and that you not only listen to advice and suggestion, you welcome it.
You need a big fuse
If you want to manage an online system that is devoted to thefree
exchange of ideas and opinions, then you need to have your tolerances set very high so that you don't melt down when the disagreement gets too thick.
There will always be people who disagree with your views oryour approach
and sometimes they may even be right. This is your opportunity to show what you mean by tolerance, because you have to expect a certain amount of criticism and you can't freak out when you get it.
Use a light touch
Computers and and other high-tech gadgets call to mind imagesof Orwell's
1984 and other scary visions of people droning away at terminals while Big Brother determines their destiny and even their everyday actions. Ironically, among those most concerned about such possibilities are computer professionals themselves. As manager of an online environment you have a lot of clout, should you choose to wield it, so you need to be almost reassuring to people that you aren't interested in such heavy-handed control practices. Try to use a light touch in your actions and in the way you communicate to people both publicly and privately. Even if you are refusing to take a suggested action. People like to know that their views are respected and considered and that they won't be treated in an arbitrary manner as if they were a number instead of a person. For a long time I have had the very strong impression that if I act too capriciously or with a heavy authoritarian hand, a bunch of people would sort of turn and say, "oh, gee I didn't know you were really the Brain Police. I guess I was wrong." Just about anything that smacks of heavy-handed administration has a kind of chilling effect on a scene that is based on the free flow of ideas. People won't stick around if it isn't any fun or if they feel they are being squelched. "Innkeeping" for an online scene is a balance between setting policy rules based on your own vision of things, and finding the "sense of the group" so that you may incorporate it into whatever decision you make.
Dealing with the dark side
The upbeat tone of this essay is not intended to deny the realitythat
there is a dark side to online interaction. This is an arena of real life, as valid and dynamic as any other. This means that there is both opportunity and risk. Especially now in these early days when there is so much excitement about this wonderful new meetingplace and the promise of a new community, a newcomer can have the illusion that the intentions of everyone they encounter in the online population are as good as they may appear from their words or tone of their conversation. It isn't always so.
As the manager of an online scene, you have a responsibilityto inform
people that there is danger and risk as well as opportunity. Think of yourself, perhaps, as the proprietor of a swimming pool or a beach resort. There is abundant opportunity for people to have fun, but if you aren't careful and aware, you could drown. Of course, you can't drown or get physically hurt from an online encounter or relationship, but you can get emotionally hurt and those wounds are just as real as they are anywhere else.
This is tricky stuff for everyone. How do you develop trust?Do you
assume good intentions on someone's part unless they show you otherwise? Do you watch guardedly and only open up when someone earns it? The process of arriving at a sane balance is a journey that the group takes towards self- definition.
Censor and boot: the heavy artillery
The hosts of conferences, chats and forums have their own challengein
keeping things moving and energetic without it getting out of hand to the point that people feel intimidated or hurt. The atmosphere definitely varies from place to place based on how the host handles things. There are different tolerances for topic drift or what one person can say to another. Ad hominem statements are discouraged just about everywhere, but one host may, upon reading a comment that attacks the person more than the statement, censor the comment outright. Another may just get into the conversation at that point and say something regarding ad hominem statements. Another may just let the fur fly. The balance is tricky when you want to build traffic because some people will want things quite polite or they won't say anything at all, and some people won't participate if they think there's too much control going on.
My own preference for censoring or removing a comment is thatif someone
says something that is outright illegal such as, "hey everybody, I just found this credit card. Here's the number!" then you remove it. But if it's something controversial or personally offensive, then I prefer to let the comment stay there and perhaps make a comment after it, saying something like, "here is an example of a truly offensive comment which says a lot more about the person making it than the person to whom it is directed."
Then there is the more extreme action: booting someone offof the system.
In the six years I was at the WELL, we did this only three times. At The Gate, in three years, we have done it twice. I feel booting should be limited almost soley to deep and repeated harassment by one person to another. However, in each of these cases, the boot wasn't permanent. When the person agrees to shape up, they can re-enter. Rather than treating it like being exiled from a country, never to return, it is more like being told to step outside of the saloon until you cool down. Because the point isn't to get rid of people. The point is to try to make it so everyone wants to stay and talk.
Harassment, which means "intent to annoy," does happenonline. To keep
it to a minimum and to let the one who feels harassed make the determination, online systems should have user controls in email and in real-time interaction (like chatting) that allow you to block incoming messages from any given person. And, if you don't want to read anything that a certain person posts, it should be easy to filter it out.
The Management as part of the community
For many years I have been the manager of an interactive online
environment. The people, the discussions they have, and the relationships that weave into the fabric of community are essential products of my business. But those of us who manage these products can also be a part of it. We too contribute to the discussions, joke and argue and tell stories about ourselves and the adventures we've had. We understand that it involves the heart as well as the mind. We don't have to hold ourselves separate from the folks. In that one may be akin to the innkeepers of old where the proprietor hangs out around the table and fireplace, sharing a cup or a good word with the guests.
APPENDIX
Principles of Cyberspace Innkeeping
The currency is human attention. Work with it. Discourage abuse of it.
You are in the relationship business.
Welcome newcomers. Help them find their place.
Show by example.
Strive to influence and persuade.
Have a big fuse. Never let the bottom drop out.
Use a light touch. Don't be authoritarian.
Affirm people. Encourage them to open up.
Expect ferment. Allow some tumbling.
Don't give in to tyranny by individual or group.
Leave room in the rules for judgment calls.
Encourage personal and professional overlap.
Think "tolerance."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
For permission email: tex@well.com | 48,300 | 20,350 | 2.373464 |
warc | 201704 | Home Staging and Space
Look for ways to optimize the apparent space in the home. This is particularly important if it is not big.
Create a 'sense of space' rather than just putting things away. Emphasize spaces by placing lone objects in them, rather than leaving them empty, for example with a single art object on a shelf or a single picture on a large wall.
Here are a number of things you can do to create that all-important sense of space:
Have a big clear-out. Put things on internet sale or auction sites. Take stuff to car-boot sales. Donate things to charities. Give things to relatives and friends. Hire a skip and tip in the stuff that others do not want.
It can sometimes help to
It can help during the visit if you talk about space, noting how this was something that attracted you when you were looking first at the house.
The opposite of space is clutter. In a material world, many of us have so much stuff we do not know where to put it. Getting rid of clutter can be painful, as we often have a personal attachment to it. If necessary, hire storage or 'loan' things to friends and family.
The appearance of space is often created through use of the contrast principle, for example where a small space is placed next to a large space or a single item is placed within a space to make the space seem larger. Light is also important, as dark spaces seem smaller and light spaces seem bigger.
One of the things that people think about when they review a prospective home is where they will put all their stuff. They also look for alcoves, spaces for shelves. Talking about all the nooks and crannies and how you love the space can help you with this. Asking them to stand in corners where they can see the spacious vistas across rooms will also get them to better appreciate the space.
If you are lucky enough to have a very big house, then space may be viewed more strategically. People who seek big houses also have different views, for example wanting a big, imposing hallway and huge kitchen. All the same, they still have 'stuff' and will want to know how their lives will fit into your house.
And the big
Disciplines
* Argument
Techniques
* Assertiveness
Principles Explanations
* Behaviors
Theories And | 2,242 | 1,126 | 1.991119 |
warc | 201704 | Ozone preparation
Figure 10.2. Preparation of ozone Brodie s apparatus
How would you obtain a sample of pure ozone Account for the conditions used in your method of preparation. What is the arrangement of oxygen atoms in an ozonide and what evidence would you cite in support of the structure you suggest [c.308]
One of the chief uses of chloromethane is as a starting material from which sili cone polymers are made Dichloromethane is widely used as a paint stripper Trichloromethane was once used as an inhalation anesthetic but its toxicity caused it to be replaced by safer materials many years ago Tetrachloromethane is the starting mate rial for the preparation of several chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) at one time widely used as refrigerant gases Most of the world s industrialized nations have agreed to phase out all uses of CFCs because these compounds have been implicated m atmospheric processes that degrade the Earth s ozone layer [c.167]
Tetrafluoroethylene Oxide TFEO has only been prepared by a process employing oxygen or ozone because of its extreme reactivity with ionic reagents. This reactivity may best be illustrated by its low temperature reaction with the weak nucleophile, dimethyl ether, to give either of two products (47) (eq. 10). [c.304]
The relevant properties of peroxide and superoxide salts are given in Table 4 (see Peroxides and peroxide compounds, inorganic). Potassium peroxide is difficult to prepare and lithium superoxide is very unstable. The ozonides, MO3, of the alkah metals contain a very high percentage of oxygen, but are only stable below room temperature (see Ozone). [c.486]
Commercial production and utilization of ozone by silent electric discharge consists of five basic unit operations gas preparation, electrical power supply, ozone generation, contacting (ie, ozone dissolution in water), and destmction of ozone in contactor off-gases (Fig. 1). [c.497]
Suppression of Nitrogen Oxides. The concentration of nitrogen oxides during preparation of ozone from air increases linearly with the energy density in the discharge, causing a decrease in the formation rate of ozone. Most commercial ozone generators produce 0.5 kg of nitrogen oxides for every 100 kg of ozone generated. The formation of nitrogen oxides at a given energy density is minimized by decreasing the residence time and temperature, increasing the pressure, and reducing the dew point of air. [c.498]
Feed Gas Preparation. The use of oxygen for industrial ozone generation is significant and increasing. Oxygen provides a higher ozone concentration and more efficient ozone dissolution than air, and does not add nitrogen oxides to the water. It is prepared from dry, filtered air by hquefaction and fractional distiHation. Liquid oxygen (LOX) can be prepared on-site or purchased from vendors. Oxygen is sometimes used to enrich air-fed systems. Although oxygen-rich off-gases from ozone contactors can be recycled, more often they are discarded to avoid redrying costs. [c.498]
Energy Requirements and Efficiency. The thermodynamics of ozone synthesis require the expenditure of 142.7 kj/mol (34.1 kcal/mol) thus the formation of 1 kg of ozone requires 2.97 MJ (711 kcal) or 0.85 kWh/kg at 100% efficiency. The more concentrated the ozone, the higher the specific energy (kWh/kg) and the lower the efficiency. The specific energy for ozone production from dry oxygen varies from 7—14 kWh/kg over the 1—6 wt % range. For dry air, the specific energy (15—22 kWh/kg for 0.5—3.0 wt % ozone) is lower than expected due to the contribution of atomic nitrogen to ozone formation. The higher-than-theoretical specific energy requirements are due to the fact that most of the suppHed energy is converted to heat resulting from ozone formation and decomposition reactions. These specific energy requirements correspond to ozone synthesis efficiencies from oxygen and air of 6—12% and 4—6%, respectively. Thus, the portion of the input synthesis energy dissipated as heat is 88—94% for oxygen and 94—96% for air. In addition to the power requirements for the ozone generator, the air-preparation unit requires 4.4—7.7 (kWh)/kg ozone, and the oxygen-recycle unit an additional 2—7 (kWh) /kg ozone. [c.499]
The pharmaceutical industry employs ozone in organic reactions to produce peroxides as germicides in skin lotions, for the oxidation of intermediates for bacteriostats, and in the synthesis of steroids (qv) such as cortisone (see Disinfectants and antiseptics). Vitamin E can be prepared by ozonation of trimethyUiydroquinone. [c.503]
The ozonides are characterized by the presence of the ozonide ion, O - They are generally produced by the reaction of the inorganic oxide and ozone (qv). Two reviews of ozonide chemistry are available (1,117). Sodium ozonide [12058-54-7] NaO potassium ozonide [12030-89-6] 35 rubidium ozonide [12060-04-7] RbO and cesium ozonide [12053-67-7] CsO, have all been reported (1). Ammonium ozonide [12161 -20-5] NH O, and tetramethylammonium ozonide [78657-29-1/, (CH ) NO, have been prepared at low temperatures (118). [c.98]
The potassium salt is the best characterized. It is an orange-red paramagnetic soHd having a magnetic moment of 1.6 x 10 J/T (1.73 Xg). It reacts with water, yielding oxygen gas and potassium hydroxide. It decomposes to the superoxide, KO2, upon standing at room temperature. Potassium ozonide is prepared by ozonation of dry potassium hydroxide. It can be purified by extraction and recrystaUization from Hquid ammonia. Whereas the inorganic ozonides are of potential importance as soHd-oxygen carriers ia breathing apparatus, they are not produced commercially. [c.98]
Efforts to raise the alpha-selectivity have been made. Thus nitration of anthraquinone using nitrogen dioxide and ozone has been reported (17). l-Amino-4-bromoanthraquinone-2-sulfonic acid (bromamine acid) [116-81 -4] (8) is the most important intermediate for manufacturing reactive and acid dyes. Bromamine acid is manufactured from l-aminoanthraquinone-2-sulfonic acid [83-62-5] (19) by bromination in aqueous medium (18—20), or in concentrated sulfuric acid (21). l-Aminoanthraquinone-2-sulfonic acid is prepared from l-aminoanthraquinone by sulfonation in an inert, high boiling point organic solvent (22), or in oleum with sodium sulfate (23). [c.310]
Processing ndProperties. Neoprene has a variety of uses, both in latex and dry mbber form. The uses of the latex for dipping and coating have already been indicated. The dry mbber can be handled in the usual equipment, ie, mbber mills and Banbury mixers, to prepare various compounds. In addition to its excellent solvent resistance, polychloroprene is also much more resistant to oxidation or ozone attack than natural mbber. It is also more resistant to chemicals and has the additional property of flame resistance from the chlorine atoms. It exhibits good resiUence at room temperature, but has poor low temperature properties (crystallization). An interesting feature is its high density (1.23) resulting from the presence of chlorine in the chain this increases the price on a volume basis. [c.470]
It is evident that for ordinary preparative work the careful calibration given in section G is not essential. It is only necessary to adjust the voltage of the transformer to about 10,000 to 11,000 volts and turn on the flow of oxygen to as rapid a rate as the absorption tubes will handle when surrounded by cooling baths. The amount of ozone produced in 5 minutes at the observed flowmeter reading is determined as in section F. By operating the ozonizer at this rate of flow and voltage the ozonization of organic compounds can be carried out. [c.75]
A number of novel techniques have been attempted to provide (atomically) clean steel surfaces for optimal chemical bonding, but generally there has been no improvement over grit blasting. Ultraviolet light/ozone exposures have been used very successfully to provide extremely clean surfaces for semiconductor processing. However, when this technique was applied to oily steel, the cleaned surfaces showed no improvement in bond strength compared to control specimens [118]. Glow-discharge etching, which is another method of providing very clean semiconductor surfaces, was used to prepare steels for an anti-corrosion, polymer-film-coating process [119] but the results were no better than wiping with a solvent cloth. Neither was the result of another scheme [120] that incorporated cleaning components into the adhesive itself. [c.985]
Such a sequence of snapshots, calculated in intervals of 4 fs, is shown as a series of double contour line plots on the left-hand side of figure A3.13.11 (tire outennost row shows the evolution of I equation (A3.13.68), the imremiost row is I I equation (A3.13.67), at the same time steps). This is the wave packet motion in CHD for excitation with a linearly polarized field along tlie the v-axis at 1300 cm and 10 TW cm after 50 fs of excitation. At this point a more detailed discussion regarding tlie orientational dynamics of the molecule is necessary. Clearly, the polarization axis is defined in a laboratory fixed coordinate system, while the bending axes are fixed to the molecular frame. Thus, exciting internal degrees of freedom along specific axes in the internal coordinate system requires two assumptions the molecule must be oriented or aligned with respect to the external polarization axis, and this state should be stationary, at least during the relevant time scale for the excitation process. It is possible to prepare oriented states [112. 114. 115] in the gas phase, and such a state can generally be represented as a superposition of a large number of rotational eigenstates. Two questions become important then How fast does such a rotational superposition state evolve How well does a purely vibrational wave packet calculation simulate a more realistic calculation which includes rotational degrees of freedom, i.e. with an initially oriented rotational wave packet The second question was studied recently by frill dimensional quantum dynamical calculations of the wave packet motion of a diatomic molecule during excitation in an intense infrared field [175], and it was verified that rotational degrees of freedom may be neglected whenever vibrational-rotational couplings are not important for intramolecular rotational-vibrational redistribution (IVRR) [ ]. Regarding the first question, because of the large rotational constant of methane, the time scales on which an initially oriented state of the free molecule is maintained are likely to be comparatively short and it would also be desirable to carry out calculations that include rotational states explicitly. Such calculations were done, for instance, for ozone at modest excitations [116. 117], but they would be quite difficult for the methane isotopomers at the high excitations considered in the present example. [c.1075]
The superacid-catalyzed electrophile oxygenation of saturated hydrocarbons, including methane with hydrogen peroxide (via H302 ) or ozone (via HOs ), allowed the efficient preparation of oxygenated derivatives. [c.166]
Phosphoms oxyfluoride is a colorless gas which is susceptible to hydrolysis. It can be formed by the reaction of PF with water, and it can undergo further hydrolysis to form a mixture of fluorophosphoric acids. It reacts with HF to form PF. It can be prepared by fluorination of phosphoms oxytrichloride using HF, AsF, or SbF. It can also be prepared by the reaction of calcium phosphate and ammonium fluoride (40), by the oxidization of PF with NO2CI (41) and NOCl (42) in the presence of ozone (43) by the thermal decomposition of strontium fluorophosphate hydrate (44) by thermal decomposition of CaPO F 2H20 (45) and reaction of SiF and P2O5 (46). [c.225]
Many of the chemical reactions used to modify lignosulfonates are also used to modify kraft lignins. These include ozonation, alkaline—air oxidation, condensation with formaldehyde and carboxylation with chloroacetic acid (100), and epoxysuccinate (101). In addition, cationic kraft lignins can be prepared by reaction with glycidjiamine (102). [c.145]
The unstable ammonium ozonide [12161 -20-5] NH O, prepared at low temperatures by reaction of ozone withHquid ammonia, decomposes rapidly at room temperature to NH NO, oxygen, and water (51). Tetrametbylammonium ozonide [78657-29-1] also has been prepared. [c.493]
Synthesis. Hydroperoxides have been prepared from several types of peroxygen compounds including hydrogen peroxide or sodium peroxide, ozone, oxygen, and other organic peroxides (45). Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) and its anions are powerful nucleophiles and react with reagents RX to form ROOH and HX, where X can be sulfate, acid sulfate, alkane- and arenesulfonate, chloride, bromide, hydroxyl, alkoxide, perchlorate, etc. RX can also be an alkyl orthoformate or alkyl carboxylate. [c.104]
Monolayers of Organosilicon Derivatives. SAMs of aLkylchlorosilanes, alkylalkoxysilanes, and alkylaminosilanes require hydroxylated surfaces as substrates for their formation. The driving force for this self-assembly is the in situ formation of polysiloxane, which is connected to surface silanol groups (—Si—OH) via Si—O—Si bonds. Substrates on which these monolayers have been successfully prepared include siUcon oxide (125—130), aluminum oxide (131,132), quartz (133—135), glass (130), mica (136—138), zinc selenide (131,132), germanium oxide (130), and gold (139—141). OTS monolayers on siUcon oxide and on gold activated by uv-ozone exposure have been compared by in spectroscopy, eUipsometry, and wetting measurements showing identical average film stmctures (142). [c.537]
Titanium oxide dichloride [13780-39-8] TiOCl2, is a yellow hygroscopic soHd that may be prepared by bubbling ozone or chlorine monoxide through titanium tetrachloride. It is insoluble in nonpolar solvents but forms a large number of adducts with oxygen donors, eg, ether. It decomposes to titanium tetrachloride and titanium dioxide at temperatures of ca 180°C (136). [c.131]
Other Arsenic Hydrides. Diarsine [15942-63-9] AS2H4, occurs as a by-product in the preparation of arsine by treatment of a magnesium aluminum arsenide alloy with dilute sulfuric acid and also may be prepared by passing arsine at low pressure through an ozonizer-type discharge tube (19). Diarsine is fairly stable as a gas but quite unstable (above — 100°C) in condensed phases. The for diarsine is +117 4 kJ/mol (28 1 kcal/mol) and [c.333]
Brassylic Acid. This acid is commercially available from Nippon Mining Company (Tokyo, Japan). It is made by a fermentation process (76). Several years ago, Emery Group, Henkel Corp. (Cincinnati, Ohio) produced brassyUc acid via ozonization of emcic acid primarily for captive use in making dimethyl brassylate and ethylene brassylate. A pilot-scale preparation based on ozonization of emcic acid has been described in which brassyUc acid yields of 72—82% were obtained in purities of 92—95%. Recrystallization from toluene gave purities of 99% (77). [c.63]
Other Derivatives. Various derivatives have appeared on the market or reached the market development stage. A carboxy-terminated polyisobutylene (28) was prepared by ozonization of high mol wt butyl mbbet or poly(isobutylene-ff -pipetylene) [26335-67-1] in the presence of pyridine. The resulting polymers were viscous hquids with viscosity average mol wt about 2,000 to 4,000, and an average functionality of 1.8 COOH groups pet chain. This ptedominandy diacid could be converted to networks by various reactions, eg, with epoxides or aziridine. High mol wt [c.481]
Ozone for laboratory use has always been prepared by the action of the silent electric discharge upon a stream of air or oxygen. Although dielectrics other than glass are nsed in commercial ozonizers, they do not give a percentage of ozone high enough for laboratory use, and practically all laboratory ozonizers employ the Berthelot tube and are modeled after the one originally constructed by Harries. Good ozonizers of this type have been described by Briner, Patry, and de Luserna, and by Church, Whitmore, and McGrew. The ozonizer described above is a modification of the one described by Smith, as improved by Herme, and by Smith and Ullyot and Greenwood. Henne and Perilstein described a modification of their ozonizer in which the inner electrode is a tube filled with mercury the outer electrode is water-cooled. [c.76]
Silent electrical discharge at up to 15 kV may be used to create concentrations of about 5% ozone in an oxygen stream, which may then be reacted with a flammable or combustible substance for chemical synthesis. Laboratory preparations in (nonconductive) glass reactors have resulted in occasional explosions via static discharges in the oxygen enriched atmosphere, possibly exacerbated by residual vapor space ozone. An alternative to predilution with nitrogen, which forms nitrogen oxides in the ozonizer, is to add nitrogen downstream of the ozonizer. Other measures are to operate well below the flashpoint of any flammable liquid, typically at approximately -70°C using dry ice mixtures, and to select a more conductive solvent, as opposed to a hydrocarbon such as heptane. During shutdown of the system, a suitable inert gas such as argon should be used to thoroughly purge the system. Precautions should be taken to minimize the vapor space volume, avoid tightly closed containers that will not contain the pressure from an internal deflagration/detonation, and take appropriate measures for personnel protection if a flammable mixture might occur during operation. The hazards of unstable peroxides and ozonides, plus materials of construction suitable for oxygen service should be separately evaluated. [c.162]
Ozone is an allotrope of oxygen eontaining three oxygen atoms. It oeeurs naturally in the upper atmosphere and is formed in small quantities during eleetrieal diseharges from eleetrieal maehines or when white phosphorus smoulders in air. In the laboratory it is most eonveniently obtained by subjeeting air to eleetrieal diseharges in ozonizers when some of tlie oxygen moleeules dissoeiate into oxygen atoms whieh then eombine with other oxygen moleeules. However, the yield of ozone is only 10% even when pure oxygen is used. It may also be prepared by eleetrolysis of iee-eold dilute sulphurie aeid using a high eurrent density. Here the eoneentration of ozone liberated at the platinum-in-glass anode is about 14%. [c.303]
A typical ozone treatment plant consists of three basic subsystems feedgas preparation ozone generation and ozone/water contacting. Commercially, ozone is generated by producing a high-voltage corona, discharge in a purified oxygen-containing feedgas. The ozone is then contacted with the water or wastewater the treated effluent is discharged and the feedgas is recycled or discharged. [c.485]
See pages that mention the term
Ozone preparation: [c.27] [c.95] [c.293] [c.294] [c.294] [c.294] [c.101] [c.492] [c.494] [c.498] [c.111] [c.113] [c.304] [c.41] [c.75] [c.340] [c.40]
Chemistry of the elements (1998) -- [ c.609 , c.611 ] | 19,294 | 8,552 | 2.25608 |
warc | 201704 | Recently my daughter tried out for the regional ODP(PDP) soccer team in our state. It was a last minute decision to make the five hour tirp to the field with her having to stay overnight with another family.
Needless to say upon arrival at the fields I was surprised to find that the check in was not very professional and somewhat disjointed.
The coach of this new team gave us parents about two minutes of his time to basically “ask questions now” because this is the only time you have.
This is the same coach that her current team coach highly recommended and maybe he is great on the field and with the kids, but his approach to us was less than charitable and somewhat brash.
It has been my experience dealing with the youth soccer world that certain coaches have this attitude and this coach was no different. Now maybe he is a really nice fellow underneath the standoffish exterior. But for an estimated $2000 to $2300 over 7 to 8 months it seemed like he could have given us a little more time, or at least an FAQ handout?
After all we parents do pay the bills, invest our time, drive the miles and so I feel a little common courtesy would have gone a long way. At least with me that is.
In five plus years of dealing with youth soccer I have never seen a more unorganized tryout. It was like the people running it had no personal relations skills whatsoever and the organization behind them only scored a 2 (out of 10 – with 10 being highest) in my marketing and PR book.
You see, as a marketer that is actively developing and growing businesses, I am attuned not only attuned to ads, slogans, headlines, colors, sayings and results, but more so the entire package. And in this case the entire package was weak and left much to be desired.
So what this organization did was ‘not build up my confidence’ and for this next year they lost a great player.
Yep, I’ll toot the horn for her. She really is a great soccer player and everywhere we go, parents approach her and us about her abilities and skills. She works very hard and soccer is her only sport at this stage in her life.
For us first timers(at this regional level) this was an experience that I hope not to come across again in the future.
And now this leads us back to your business…
Most youth sports organizations need PR and marketing people who specialize in sports marketing. These people should be up front telling the story, sharing the facts, and paving the way for the programs and leagues that are to come. It’s that simple.
This is also the case for most small businesses and this is where soft selling comes into the picture..
DO NOT ASSUME that your prospects know all about your offer, your business, and how great you are. 1. You need to tell the story. 2. You need to provide the facts and testimonials(if you have them). 3. You need to be proactive and follow up with your prospects. 4. You need to provide customer service and this starts before the sale!
And if you are running any kind of youth sports organization that relies on parental funding to keep the paychecks, fields and operations running…
Then I suggest you Over Communicate and Build Repore.
Until next time,
Dave Krygier
Publisher | 3,249 | 1,620 | 2.005556 |
warc | 201704 | Alcohol is metabolized by the body differently than all other calories you consume. Alcohol is one of the only substances that you consume that can permeate your digestive system and go straight into your bloodstream. It bypasses normal digestion and is absorbed into the body intact, where it goes straight into the liver. Your liver is your main fat-burning organ. If you are trying to lose weight or even maintain your ideal weight, drinking alcohol is one of your worst enemies. The liver is going to metabolize alcohol first vs. the fat you want to get rid of - making weight loss even harder. Additionally, one of the primary functions of the liver is to remove environmental toxins from your body - if it is overtaxed with alcohol, the normal removal of these toxins becomes extremely diminished and can result in rapid aging, loss of libido, and other diseases. The one thing that has gotten me before and Im sure many of you is the health marketing claims on alcohol products making drinking them seem like a good idea and an added "benefit" to your health. The low alcohol content of beer makes it appear as an innocuous beverage and something people throw back without even thinking about it. Who hasn't seen those studies that say a beer a day is great for you (I want to ask who ever stops at just one beer?)? So, inherently, alcohol by itself is not a healthy persons best friend -- but thats just the tip of the iceberg. Beer, especially American beer, is made with all sorts of ingredients beyond the basic hops, malt and yeast. There are numerous other ingredients used to clarify, stabilize, preserve, enhance the color and flavor of beer. When you drink beer, there is almost a 100% chance that you don't know what you are drinking (unless you quizzed the beer companies like I did). The ingredients in beer are not required by law to be listed anywhere on the label and manufacturers have no legal obligation to disclose the ingredients. For regular beer, calorie levels and percent alcohol are optional and for light beer calories are mandatory but alcohol levels are optional. Michele Simon, a public health lawyer, author of Appetite for Profit, and president of Eat Drink Politics told me the reason that beer companies dont disclose ingredients is simple: they dont have to. "Ingredient labeling on food products and non-alcoholic beverages is required by the Food and Drug Administration. But a whole other federal agency regulates beer, and not very well. The Department of Treasury the same folks who collect your taxes oversees alcoholic beverages. That probably explains why we know more about whats in a can of Coke than a can of Bud. You can also thank the alcohol industry, which has lobbied for years against efforts to require ingredient labeling." I figured if the beer companies arent required to tell us the exact list of ingredients, I needed to investigate this for myself and asked them the pointed questions until I got the truth. First of all, I was able to obtain a baseline list of "legal" additives allowed in beer from the book "Chemicals Additives in Beer by the Center of Science and Public Interest. This list allowed me to ask specific questions about each beer I investigated. For example beer sold here in America can contain several of the following ingredients: Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) alcohol is already addictive with some people, but with MSG?! Holy smokes. Propylene Glycol (an ingredient found in anti-freeze) Calcium Disodium EDTA (made from formaldehyde, sodium cayanide, and Ethylenediamine) Many different types of sulfites and anti-microbial preservatives (linked to allergies and asthma) Natural Flavors (can come from anything natural including a beavers anal gland) High Fructose Corn Syrup GMO Sugars Dextrose, Corn Syrup Caramel Coloring (Class III or IV made from ammonia and classified as a carcinogen) FD&C Blue 1 (Made from petroleum, linked to allergies, asthma and hyperactivity) FD&C Red 40 (Made from petroleum, linked to allergies, asthma and hyperactivity) FD&C Yellow 5 (Made from petroleum, linked to allergies, asthma and hyperactivity) Insect-Based Dyes: carmine derived from cochineal insects to color their beer. Animal Based Clarifiers: Findings include isinglass (dried fish bladder), gelatin (from skin, connective tissue, and bones), and casein (found in milk) Foam Control: Used for head retention; (glyceryl monostearate and pepsin are both potentially derived from animals) BPA (Bisphenol A is a component in many can liners and it may leach into the beer. BPA can mimic the female hormone estrogen and may affect sperm count, and other organ functions.) Carrageenan (linked to inflammation in digestive system, IBS and considered a carcinogen in some circumstances) During my investigation, I couldnt get a single mainstream beer company to share the full list of ingredients contained in their beer. But I did get some of them to fess up to the use of these ingredients in writing so Im going to share this information with you now. Carcinogenic Caramel Coloring Newcastle, a UK brand, confessed to using what I would consider one of the most controversial food additives. Toasted barley is usually what gives beer its golden or deep brown color, however in this case, Newcastle beer is also colored artificially with caramel color. This caramel coloring is manufactured by heating ammonia and sulfites under high pressure, which creating carcinogenic compounds. If beer companies were required by law to list the ingredients, Newcastle would likely have to have a cancer warning label under California law because it is a carcinogen proven to cause liver tumors, lung tumors, and thyroid tumors in rats and mice. Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) Many of the beers I questioned contained one or more possible GMO ingredients. High Fructose Corn Syrup (Guinness unable to provide an affidavit for non-GMO proof) Corn syrup (Miller Light, Coors, Corona, Fosters, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Red Stripe) Dextrose (Budweiser, Bud Light, Busch Light, Michelob Ultra) Corn (Red Stripe, Miller Coors Brand, Anheuser-Busch Brands) Most beers brewed commercially are made with more GMO corn than barley. Many of the companies I contacted dodged the GMO question however Miller Coors had a very forthcoming and honest response. They stated Corn syrup gives beer a milder and lighter-bodied flavor and "Corn syrups may be derived from a mixture of corn (conventional and biotech.)", admitting their use of GMOs. Pabst Blue Ribbon responded saying their corn syrup was special and made of carbohydrates and some simple sugars like dextrose and maltose. The sugars are fermented into alcohol and CO2, and the carbohydrates, both from the corn syrup and the malt, remain in the beers as flavor, color and body components. Dextrose and maltose can come from a variety of substances that are sweet, but likely are derived from GMO corn because it is super cheap for a company to use corn instead of fruit or other non-GMO sources. With cheap beer you are not just getting a cheap buzz, you are getting the worst of the worst. Just like with cheap fast food if you dont invest in your beer you will be drinking a lower quality product like Pabst Blue Ribbon that is made from GMO Corn and Corn Syrup. In 2007, Greenpeace found unapproved and experimental GMO Rice strain in Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser, Bud Light) beer. Anheuser-Busch responded saying their US-grown long-grained rice may have micro levels of a genetically engineered protein called Liberty Link, but added that the protein is substantially removed or destroyed during the brewing of beer sold domestically. Dont you think its hard to trust any beer company that gets caught using experimental food made in a laboratory? GMOs have not been tested long term on human beings and one of the main pesticides (Roundup) they spray on GMO crops are linked to inflammation, cancer and other diseases. Speaking of trusting companies, lets get one thing straight, Guinness beer is no longer owned by the Irish, they are now owned by a large beer conglomerate called Diageo and manufactured in over 50 different countries. No matter how many St. Pattys Day celebrations youve had with this dark stout, its time to stop because they use high fructose corn syrup in their beer. But, Guinness beer also contains isinglass, a gelatin-like substance produced from the swim bladder of a fish. This ingredient helps remove any haziness, solids, or yeast byproducts from the beer. Mmmmm
fish bladder sounds delicious, doesnt? The sneaky thing this beer company does like many of the companies mentioned here today is create an illusion of using the best ingredients when in actuality what they tell you publicly on their websites is a complete farce. On Guinness FAQs they have a question that states: What are the key ingredients in Guinness and the answer doesnt reveal the whole picture it only states Our key ingredients other than inspiration are roasted, malted barley, hops, yeast and water. What BS, right? You have to call, email, question and know the right things to ask to even have a chance at getting the truth. This is insanity. So What Beers Are Additive and GMO Free? If you enjoy the occasional beer and wish to maintain your healthy lifestyle, choosing one without GMOs and additives is ideal. Unfortunately, most of the mainstream beers available have additives, but luckily, there are a few that dont. For example, Sierra Nevada, Heineken, and Amstel Light (8/1 Update: Heineken reached out to me personally to say their customer service department made an error in telling me and others who called their beer has GMOs. I met with a head brew master and have viewed affidavits from the company and confirmed Heinken and Amstel Light do not contain GMOs they apologize for the confusion.) appear to be pretty clean (but these companies still wouldnt disclose the full list of ingredients to me. They did say they use non-GMO grains, no artificial ingredients, stabilizers or preservatives). German Beers are also a good bet. The Germans are very serious about the purity of their beers and enacted a purity law called Reinheitsgebot that requires all German beers to be only produced with a core ingredient list of water, hops, yeast, malted barley or wheat. Advocates of German beers insist that they taste cleaner and some even claim they dont suffer from hangovers as a result. An obvious choice to consider is also Certified Organic Beers. They are required by law to not include GMOs and other harmful additives. Organic beers also support environmental friendly practices and reduce the amount of pesticides and toxins in our air, support organic farmers which is a huge plus. (To this day, the beer drinkers in my family havent found one they love so if you have suggestions, please let us know in the comments!) Craft & Microbrews Beers For certain local craft and micro beers, you can ask those companies for a list of ingredients and many of them will be up front with you. However, companies like Miller Coors are slowly closing in on craft beers and buying them up one by one
like they did when they created the unique popular variety called Blue Moon (the beer you drink with an orange) and Anhesuer-Busch did this with Rolling Rock and Goose Island Brewery. Make sure your favorite craft and microbrew is still independently owned and controlled before taking a sip. In the end if you decide to drink beer, you are definitely drinking at your own risk for more reasons than just the crazy ingredients that could be in them. The key point to remember is if you like to drink beer and want to be healthy, drink it infrequently and quiz the beer companies for the truth. Find a beer that you can trust and stick with it. For your reference, here are some important questions to ask your favorite beer company: * What are the ingredients in your beer all of them from start to finish? * Are any of your ingredients GMO? * Do you use any soy, corn, or rice processing ingredients? (Examples include: dextrose, corn syrup, etc.) * Do you add any natural, artificial flavors or colors to the beer? (Examples include: yellow #5, caramel coloring, red #40, MSG, natural flavors) * Are there any additional preservatives, stabilizers and/or clarifying agents added to your beer during processing? (Examples include: propylene glycol, Calcium Disodium EDTA, anything ending in sulfite like sodium metabisulfite, Heptylparaben, isinglass) If you know someone who drinks beer share this post with them. These ingredients are no joke. We must inform and protect each other from these industrial chemicals, untested and potentially harmful ingredients and it starts by sharing your knowledge with the ones you love. ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED The Shocking Ingredients In Beer | 12,824 | 5,722 | 2.241174 |
warc | 201704 | Many environments require an area to be free from particulate and bacterial contaminants. Spaces like laboratories, hospitals and industrial areas require a cleanroom environment.
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97 views | 2,562 | 1,166 | 2.197256 |
warc | 201704 | The Data Quality Act (DQA) is an attempt by Congress to ensure that federal agencies use and disseminate accurate information. The DQA requires federal agencies to issue information quality guidelines ensuring the quality, utility, objectivity and integrity of information that they disseminate and provide mechanisms for affected persons to correct such information. It is important for natural resources and environmental attorneys to be aware of this law in the event that a client has an interest in filing a petition with an agency to challenge the quality of information it has used or disseminated. Questions that remain unanswered about the DQA are whether agency information quality guidelines apply to rule-making and whether an agency's denial of a petition to correct information is reviewable by the courts.
I. Background Information
In 1980, Congress enacted the Paperwork Reduction Act (PRA) in response to the federal government's growing demand for data from small businesses, individuals, and state and local governments and attempted to institute controls over government requests for data. 44 U.S.C. § 3501(1). Under the PRA, Congress established the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and designated it as the overseer of other federal agencies with respect to paperwork. 44 U.S.C. § 3503(a) and (b). The OIRA is responsible for developing uniform policies for efficient information processing, storage, and transmittal systems, both within and among agencies.
Id.
The DQA, which is uncodified, amends the PRA. 44 U.S.C. 3501 et seq. It was enacted in December of 2000 as a two-paragraph provision buried in an appropriations bill.
See Treasury and General Government Appropriation Act for Fiscal Year 2001, Pub. L. No. 106-554, § 515 Appendix C, 114 Stat. 2763A-153 (2000) (attached to the back of this memo). The DQA took effect on October 1, 2002, the deadline for federal agencies to issue their final information quality guidelines. II. Purpose of the Data Quality Act
Congress enacted the DQA primarily in response to increased use of the internet, which gives agencies the ability to communicate information easily and quickly to a large audience. Under the DQA, federal agencies must ensure that the information it disseminates meets certain quality standards. Congress' intent was to prevent the harm that can occur when government websites, which are easily and often accessed by the public, disseminate inaccurate information.
See Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Agencies; Republication, 67 F.R. 8452, 8452 (Feb. 22, 2002).[1] III. To Whom it Applies
The DQA applies to all federal agencies that are subject to the PRA.
See 67 F.R. at 8453. The PRA defines "agency" as "any executive department, military department, Government corporation, Government controlled corporation, or other establishment in the executive branch of the Government (including the executive office of the President), or any independent regulatory agency . . ." 44 U.S.C. § 3502. The term "agency" does not include the General Accounting Office, Federal Election Commission, the D.C. government or the territories and possessions of the U.S. or their subdivisions, nor does it include "Government-owned contractor-operated facilities, including laboratories engaged in national defense research and production activities." Id. IV. Primary Directives of the Data Quality Act
On February 22, 2002, the OMB's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) published the final version of its
Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility, and Integrity of Information Disseminated by Federal Agencies (Guidelines). See 67 F.R. 8452. As provided in the DQA, the Guidelines mandate that each federal agency: By October 1, 2002, issue its own information quality guidelines ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information that it disseminates; Establish administrative mechanisms to allow affected persons to seek and obtain correction of information maintained or disseminated by the agency that does not comply with OMB or agency guidelines; Report periodically to OMB the number and nature of complaints received by the agency regarding the accuracy of its information and how such complaints were resolved. Id. at 8458. Quality of Information
First, the agencies were to adopt a basic standard of quality of information as a performance goal as well as specific standards of quality appropriate for the various categories of information they disseminate. 67 F.R. at 8459. Each agency was required to publish its own guidelines in the Federal Register as well as on the agency's website.
Id. In addition, each agency promulgated guidelines that can be found on OMB's website. See www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/agency_info_quality_links.html.
The Guidelines apply to a wide variety of government information dissemination activities and all types of media, including printed, electronic, or other. The Guidelines define "information" as "any communication or representation of knowledge such as facts or data, in any medium or form, including textual, numerical, graphic, cartographic, narrative, or audiovisual forms." 67 F.R. at 8460. This definition includes information that an agency disseminates from a web page, but does not include hyperlinks to information that others disseminate. The Guidelines also do not apply to opinions, where the agency's presentation makes it clear that what is being offered is someone's opinion rather than fact or the agency's views.
Id.
The Guidelines define "dissemination" as "agency initiated or sponsored distribution of information to the public".
Id. Explicitly not included within this term is distribution limited to "government employees or agency contractors or grantees; intra- or inter-agency use or sharing of government information; and responses to requests for agency records under the Freedom of Information Act, the Privacy Act, the Federal Advisory Committee Act or other similar law." Id. It also does not include "distribution limited to correspondence with individuals or persons, press releases, archival records, public filings, subpoenas or adjudicative processes." Id. The exemption for information disseminated for adjudicative processes is intended to exclude "the findings and determinations that an agency makes in the course of adjudications involving specific parties." 67 F.R. at 8454.
Under the Guidelines, "quality" encompasses "utility," "objectivity," and "integrity." According to Guideline definitions, "utility" refers to the usefulness of the information to the public or any intended user. 67 F.R. at 8659. Before disseminating information, the agency must assess the potential uses of the information from its own perspective and that of the public.
Id. "Integrity" refers to the security of information and the agency's responsibility to ensure that information is protected from unauthorized access or revision. Id. at 8460.
Finally, "objectivity" involves both the presentation and substance of information.
Id. at 8459. First, in order for information to be considered objective, it must be presented in an accurate, clear, complete, and unbiased manner. Id. The agency must present the information in the proper context and identify the source (to the extent possible consistent with confidentiality protections) along with the supporting data or models so that the public can assess for itself whether there may be some reason to question the objectivity of the sources. Id. Second, the substance of information disseminated must be accurate, reliable and unbiased. Id. Agencies must identify the sources of the disseminated information, the methods used to produce it, and provide full, accurate, and transparent documentation. 67 F.R. at 8460. Sound statistical research methods must be used to generate original and supporting data and develop analytical results. Id. at 8459. Data subjected to formal, independent, external peer review, is presumed to be of acceptable objectivity, although such a presumption is rebuttable. Id.
Information that agencies deem to meet OMB's definition of "influential scientific, financial, or statistical information" also must be reproducible to demonstrate its objectivity. "Influential scientific, financial or statistical information" has a clear and substantial impact on important public policies or important private sector decisions. 67 F.R. at 8460. Agencies that disseminate such information must ensure a high degree of transparency about the data and methods to facilitate its "reproducibility" by qualified third parties.
Id. "Reproducibility" means that the information is capable of being substantially reproduced, subject to an acceptable degree of imprecision. Id.
Notably, the objectivity standard does not override other compelling interests such as privacy, trade secrets, intellectual property, and other confidentiality protections.
Id. When data is protected, the agency must apply an "especially rigorous robustness check to analytic results" and document what checks were undertaken. Id. Agency guidelines, however, must require in all cases a disclosure of the specific data sources that have been used and the specific quantitative methods and assumptions that have been employed. Id. The Corrections Process – What Natural Resources and Environmental Attorneys Should Know
Environmental attorneys should be aware of the DQA and the newly-implemented data quality guidelines from each federal agency. One important reason for this is that it may serve the best interest of a client to file a petition with an agency such as the Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, U.S. Fish & Wildlife, Department of the Interior, Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement, Bureau of Land Management, or the Bureau of Indian Affairs, challenging the utility, objectivity or integrity of information that agency has disseminated. Petitions have already been filed with the EPA, which raise issues of how the agency is using scientific information. Under its own guidelines, the EPA has 90 days to respond to these petitions.
Guidelines for Ensuring and Maximizing the Quality, Objectivity, Utility and Integrity of Information Disseminated by the Environmental Protection Agency, at 31, available at www.epa.gov/oei/qualityguidelines/EPA-OEI-IQG-FINAL-10.2.pdf.
The DQA itself does not define the key terms of quality, utility, objectivity and integrity. Sydney Shapiro, a panelist at the Data Quality Act teleconference and board member for the Center for Progressive Regulation, expressed the views of many environmentalists. He argued that OMB, when defining these terms, attempted to model the regulatory process on the scientific process. According to Shapiro, this is fine up to a point, but the two processes have different goals. Science benefits when results are as accurate as possible, while regulations are made to protect people from harm and should always err on the side of safety. Finally, Shapiro argued that the DQA and its implementing guidelines will lead to costly litigation and mislead agencies from their mission.
During the teleconference, the panelists addressed the question of whether "dissemination" includes rule-making. Neither the DQA, nor its sparse legislative history, nor the OMB guidelines answer this question. One argument is that rule-making does not involve agencies "disseminating," or actively giving out information. Instead agency rule-making involves receiving information. Individual agencies, however, including EPA, have applied their own guidelines to rule-making.
See e.g., EPA Guidelines at 15.
The panelists also discussed the petition process and how the DQA will be enforced. The DQA does not have a judicial review provision allowing for a party to take a data quality dispute to court. Whether or not such a provision is necessary for courts to review an agency's denial of a petition to correct data is a question beyond the scope of this memorandum. Mark Greenwood, one of the panelists at the teleconference and former Director of EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, anticipates that this question will be adjudicated in the next few years. If courts hold that there is no judicial review, the DQA probably will not have much of an effect on the way federal agencies use and disseminate data.
The Guidelines do not present an official position on the judicial review question although John Graham, Administrator for the OIRA, has opined that court involvement in policing data disputes is inevitable. Rena I. Steiner,
Toward Better Bubbles and Future Lives: A Progressive Response to the Conservation Agenda for Reforming Environmental Law, 32 Envtl. L. Rep. 11421 (2002). One obvious problem with judicial review of data quality is that judges are often ill equipped to make determinations on the reliability of hyper-technical scientific data. An alternative danger posed by the DQA is that agencies may anticipate such action by courts and become timid about disseminating information and slower with rule-making. Industry lobbyists and other conservatives contend that Congress intended the DQA to "provoke a revolution in how decisions get made," and meant to provide a means to force agencies and departments into court at any stage of the rule-making process if an affected party believes that inaccurate or unreliable information has been considered. Id. This contention, however, has yet to be substantiated. The Data Quality Act In General -- The Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall, by not later than September 30, 2001, and with public and Federal agency involvement, issue guidelines under sections 3504(d)(1) and 3516 of title 44, United States Code, that provide policy and procedural guidance to Federal agencies for ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by Federal agencies in fulfillment of the purposes and provisions of chapter 35 of title 44, United States Code, commonly referred to as the Paperwork Reduction Act. Content of Guidelines. – The guidelines under subsection (a) shall – apply to the sharing by Federal agencies of, and access to, information disseminated by Federal agencies; and require that each Federal agency to which the guidelines apply – issue guidelines ensuring and maximizing the quality, objectivity, utility and integrity of information (including statistical information) disseminated by the agency, by not later than 1 year after the date of issuance of the guidelines under subsection (a); establish administrative mechanisms allowing affected persons to seek and obtain correction of information maintained and disseminated by the agency that does not comply with the guidelines issued under subsection (a); and report periodically to the Director – the number and nature of complaints received by the agency regarding the accuracy of information disseminated by the agency; and how such complaints were handled by the agency
[1] These guidelines are not yet published in the Code of Federal Regulations. | 15,525 | 6,047 | 2.567389 |
warc | 201704 | Tarcia Edmunds-Jehu, a nurse midwife from Boston, MA, beautifully captured how the current health system leaves some patients struggling desperately to pay bills - and providers feeling terrible that their well-meaning care is to blame.
Brad Wright, a graduate student from Durham, NC, articulately described his experience as a savvy patient who did everything possible to avoid expensive and unnecessary care, but got saddled with a large bill anyway.
All of the finalist submissions have since been published, including the stories of hardworking, responsible Americans falling through the cracks, getting a $11,000 bill for indigestion, a $10,000 bill for pre-approved surgery, a $1000 bill for birth control.
Ultimately, the stories came from nurses, patients, and doctors from more than thirty states - Alaska to Texas, New York to California, North Dakota to Florida. The contest was covered in the national media, including NPR and ABC TV. And a great conversation about routine opportunities to save money in the healthcare system with better decisions was started.
Stayed tuned for information about our 2011 essay contest launching soon! | 1,154 | 683 | 1.689605 |
warc | 201704 | Fairtrade works
Fairtrade is making a difference to six million farmers, workers and their communities in over 60 countries across the globe. Producers report a 22 percent increase in Fairtrade Premium returns in 2010, and their Fairtrade sales revenues have grown by 24 percent.
Our 2011 Monitoring Report highlights the impact Fairtrade is making, how producers are investing the Premium, how much they are selling on Fairtrade terms and much more.
Read the entire report here (PDF)...
Or for an overview of the key data from the report, check out our power point presentations on Slide Share...
Celebrating Cooperatives
“Co-operatives are a reminder to the international community that it is possible to pursue both economic viability and social responsibility.” Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General.
2012 is the UN Year of the Cooperatives – find out what makes the cooperative model so successful, and how Fairtrade helps cooperatives thrive. Read more...
Throughout 2012 we’ll be featuring Fairtrade cooperatives on our website. Like CONACADO - the Dominican Republic’s largest cocoa co-op. Read more…
Sweet Success
Fairtrade Premium money is helping Manduvira sugar cooperative in Paraguay build its very own sugar mill – a first for a small producer group! Read more…
Meanwhile, sugar experts from trade and industry are helping Fairtrade develop its sugar strategy, so even more cooperatives can enjoy similar success to Manduvira. Read more...
FSC & Fairtrade Team Up
Fair prices and new sales opportunities for forest workers in Latin America. Fair and sustainable furniture for consumers.
FSC and Fairtrade are collaborating on an exciting pilot project combining FSC certification with Fairtrade Standards. Small-holders in Bolivia, Chile and Honduras are producing the timber and the first products have reached store shelves. Read more... | 1,906 | 1,001 | 1.904096 |
warc | 201704 | This doesn't mean that the individual is wrong. His particular circumstances may be such that for him the contrarian position is correct. However, the position is harmful to a greater number of people and he does not see that either through willfull ignorance or the inability to comprehend. Thus the appellation "idiot."
Mind you, we've all probably been in a position where we could have been a useful idiot. However, most of us don't have it recorded. I recently ran across one who was.
I was reading King & Noble's article on jury sentencing in Kentucky, Arkansas, and Virginia. Of course, I was concentrating on the parts about Virginia. As anyone who has read this blog for a while knows, I consider the system as it operates in Virginia to place a jury out of bounds for the vast majority of cases because of jury sentencing; in fact it is probably
per semalpractice to recommend a jury in 90% of felony cases in Virginia. While the authors bend over backwards trying to be even-handed and make the case in favor of the system the numerous quotes from prosecutors make it clear that in Virginia a jury is much more often a sword in the hands of the prosecutor instead of the shield it is supposed to be for the the citizenry. And then they find someone from the .0000001% of the defense bar who thinks that jury sentencing actually works: Even in Virginia, one defender reported that juries impose sentences that are more lenient than the guidelines recommendations in some cases.Okay, I see four possible reasons to make that claim. 205 205"I love jury sentencing because I find it is easier to work with, and I can have more impact on the jury. The jury is more honest, and less influenced than judges, when they are properly prepared. I trust the jury. The guidelines were written the way they were to discourage jury trials. . . . . Not all defense attorneys would agree with me. They don’t go to trial as much as I do. Q: Why not? A: Because they’re punks. They don’t have enough confidence. . . . I still run across some prosecutors who will say, 'If you don’t take this deal, I'll take this to the jury.' And I give them my standard response, 'Oooh, I’ll have to sleep with my night light on I'm so scared.' I love the jury. I’m not intimidated by it. So many defense attorneys do not do an adequate voir dire; some, to this day, never even ask one question. Not one question. That’s so incredibly stupid. Lazy people don’t go to jury trial.". I always demand a jury
1) Bravado: If you claim this constantly and loudly perhaps the prosecutors will know you are a pain in the rear when they see that you are on the case and offer a little better deal just to get rid of you.
2) The Ability to Pick Clients: If you only do retained cases and you loudly proclaim this you will get people who come to you already dedicated to taking a jury. Fees are therefore larger and you are percieved as someone who will "fight for" his client. You can reject clients who really shouldn't be tasking a jury trial either directly or by overpricing them.
3) Only Handles Very Serious Cases: Imagine a 45 year old defendant charged with murder; he has the option of 35 years under the guidelines, 22 years per the prosecution offer, and a life sentence if found guilty by a jury. Why wouldn't you take that to a jury? All three are basically life sentences. If this is the type of case you face day after day you should be taking juries.
4) Ineptitude: Probably justifies himself with the 10% of clients who have gotten better results than the judge would have given them but forgets about the 50% who are serving years more than they would have without a jury trial.
Look, I think jury trials are a necessity of a just system. It's the reason I am so disturbed by the system as it exists in Virginia. About the only cases wherein I push my clients toward a jury are Virginia Exile cases, because I know they're going to get the mandatory time whether the trial is by a judge or jury, or cases where the punishment by statute is so huge that it's doubtful that jury sentencing will make much of a difference. In others I explain the pros and cons and then let them make the decision. If they cannot make up their mind I schedule a bench trial because they can always assert their right to a jury trial later but once the jury trial is set they aren't going to get out of it unless they plead guilty. Once jury sentencing is explained to them the vast majority do a risk-benefit analysis and realize that the potential sentence by a jury is too great a burden to take a jury.
The overwhelming reality of jury sentencing in Virginia is that it denies most people a realistic opportunity at a jury trial. An individual attorney might be able to put himself within a bubble so that he only schedules jury trials but the majority of us must live outside that bubble. In a fairly typical case Client is charged with distribution (5-40 years): the jury must sentence him to no less than 5 years, the judge doesn't have to give him any active time, and the judge's guidlines call for 7 months incarceration. In a more serious case Client is charged with aggravated malicious wounding (20 years - life): the jury must sentence him to no less than 20 years, the judge doesn't have to give him any active time, and the judge's guidelines call for 7 years in prison. BTW, jurors are forbidden the knowledge of what kind of punishment they will be forced to impose if they convict. Why? Because "beyond a reasonable doubt" could become a much higher burden if the jurors knew they would be required to send someone to prison for 5 years. Assuming the case is close (why else take a jury?), a jury trial carries a disproportional risk. It is definitely not the protection it was meant to be.
I'm sure someone will write to tell me how wonderful jury sentencing is. In Virginia this usually takes the form of a statement that jury sentencing is a tradition woven into the fabric of our system expressing the will of the people.
Poppycock. Rubbish. Malarkey. Bunk.
Jury sentencing as it is currently set up in Virginia is a historical abberation. Traditional sentencing was done without the jury being told of the defendant's history. The prosecution didn't get the advantage of introducing the defendant's 16 page criminal record. Traditionally a jury decided its sentence purely on the basis of the act itself. Additionally, prior to the current system the jury's sentence was strongly mitigated by parole. This no longer exists except as it is reflected in the sentencing guidelines - which the jury is forbidden. The only way to get that parole time back is by judge sentencing, which means a bench trial. Judges, in theory, can reduce the jury sentence to the appropriate level; they don't. Going back to the old system would be painful (I know I don't want to mess with figuring out potential sentences considering parole), but if we want to be historical we must. Or we could just go for a system that works and opt for judicial sentencing. Figure the odds . . . | 7,110 | 3,261 | 2.180313 |
warc | 201704 | A guest post written by Steven Salt, Committee on Publication for Ohio
Amid the nationwide debate about health care and each individual’s search for a safe, effective and affordable approach, more of us are experiencing the “aha moment” when it becomes clear that being healthy and staying in the pink is an individual responsibility. It’s a personal endeavor.
November 2012 has been declared “Personal Health Care Month” by Ohio Governor, John Kasich. The executive proclamation is the outcome of a proposal initiated by the Cleveland Clinic and the OSU Wexner Medical Center which hope to raise awareness on how individuals can increase their own role in improving their health.
Dr. Clay Marsh, executive director of the Center for Personalized Health Care at OSU says that it is important to “focus on the health and well-being of our families, friends and communities. Given the Thanksgiving holiday, it is important to recognize the central importance of family, fun, food and gratitude for our health and longevity.”
Events associated with the observance during November will emphasize among other things the importance of proper diet, exercise and “decreasing stress by increasing mood, optimism and spiritual growth.”
Spirituality is receiving a lot of attention in the health care community lately. Dr. Christina Puchalski has published a new textbook for health care workers, the
Oxford Textbook of Spirituality and Healthcare, a comprehensive look at the role of spirituality in health care. She is director of the George Washington University Institute for Spirituality and Health.
Dr. Puchalski’s interest in the connection between spirituality and health began two decades ago. She is primarily responsible for the first compulsory medical school course on spiritually and health in the U.S., an area of study that has spread to most health related academic institutions today.
Amid the journey to bring spirituality into health care, how to define “spirituality” has been a key area of concern. “It’s very broadly defined: religion, philosophy, relationship, compassion, love, dignity, respect, a person’s search for purpose, meaning, nature, rationalism, the arts,” Pulchaski explains in an interview with Michelle Boorstein at
The Washington Post.
The trend toward recognizing the role of spirituality in health care speaks more to patient centered care and the idea that it is “about you” than any other trend in medicine today. After all, our health is crucial to our life and how we think about our health is an outcome of how we see life. Is it just biological or is it something more?
From my Christian roots I think of spirituality as God’s infinite universe (which includes me) and where my health and well-being are an outcome of what God knows and makes evident. Praying refreshes me and allows me to see myself from a different angle; from a spiritual perspective. And this consistently reinforces my health. “The calm, strong currents of true spirituality, the manifestations of which are health, purity, and self-immolation, must deepen human experience,” writes Mary Baker Eddy, author of
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and an important contributor to the dialog about the connection between spirituality and every day/practical health.
Dr. Puchalski confirms on her institute’s website what we already know, that deliberations over ways to improve health care have been primarily focused on technology and physical science. “What is uniformly missing is a relationship-centered compassionate approach, and that’s the foundation of spirituality in health care. How do we honor the individuality of each person? We respect patients and their families, and we need to integrate them into creating their own treatment plans and empower them to find hope and healing in their own lives.”
Senator Tom Patton (24
th Senate District), a lifelong resident of Cuyahoga County, has a keen interest in empowering individuals regarding their health care and alerting them to their responsibilities. Senator Patton is sponsor of Ohio Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 31 in tandem with the Governor’s initiative to bring attention to the contributions each individual can make in their own health care. He sees big benefits from a personalized health approach, which includes “extended quality of life and life expectancy.”
The Senator understands the importance of educating the public about the health choices they have and the decisions they can make now to avoid hospitalization later. It is about the individual. Patton puts it this way: Hospitals have “enough business already, they don’t need more.”
While the pursuit for the best health practices continues alongside the deliberations on how to include everyone in the push for healthier lives, there is consensus on this: health care is about YOU!
Steven Salt is a writer and blogger about health, spirituality and thought. He is a Christian Science practitioner, curious about everything, and intrigued by questions as well as answers. You can follow him on Twitter @SaltSeasoned. | 5,251 | 2,428 | 2.162685 |
warc | 201704 | Flows Across Five Rivers
Through tracing the journey of a Punjabi performance tradition Bhangra from the doab of Punjab’s five rivers across various continents, this paper examines one non-essentialist identity space by focusing on the self imaginings of Punjabi ethnicities group in pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial times. My contention is that the self-fashioning of this group crosses national boundaries to converge on a linguistic and cultural commonality. At the same time, they point to future elective identities where commonality of concerns and interests rather than birth is community producing. The examination of communities formed in relation to Bhangra demonstrates two counter trends in modern subject formation, one pointing to globalization, the other to ethnic specificity. I hope to raise certain fundamental issues relating to nation as an identity signifier by focusing on this specific example.
Keywords:Flows, Nation, Ethnicity, Identity Stream:Identity and Belonging; the Politics of Diversity; Globalisation Presentation Type:Paper Presentation in English Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.
Prof. Anjali Gera Roy
Ref: D08P0294 | 1,179 | 670 | 1.759701 |
warc | 201704 | By Joseph Parish
We often wonder what will be our reactions during some type of major disaster or crisis. Will we behave as we expect ourselves to? Will we do everything by the book as we had planned? Will we be able to provide for our loved ones properly? There are more questions then we have answers for. Under the expected circumstances all we can do is guess as to what our actions will be.
One area in particular that may present a problem is the fate of our elderly friends and family members. Being an elderly person presents somewhat of a grim future for them as it is. Add to that situation the critical actions that are often associated with any sort of emergency and our elderly folks are simply at grave risk.
During the preparation stage of any sort of emergency condition the rules provide only a rough set of standards and guidelines for anyone and this aptly applies to the healthcare system as well. It is not unusual that during a crisis the governor of any state can suspend various statutes or regulations relating to our hospitals and health care facilities. After all during emergencies the health backup systems are extremely taxed to their limits.
Quality care will usually be at a premium as there simply will not be sufficient personnel to adequately take care of the injured and ill. It is not unusual for the governor of the various states to take those retired or unlicensed volunteers and extend emergency credentials to them so that they may provide the necessary and needed care.
Many alternate care sites will be setup and functioning. These types of sites will be placed in school gymnasiums, sports centers as well as in ordinary parking lots. These particular sites will be equipped for handling various ill and injured patients.
Since most medical equipment will be rationed you should not expect to see much in the way of electronic medical equipment at the temporary sites. The patients who have a critical need for such treatment and here is the key words, “who are likely to survive” will be the ones that are treated prior to those who may be extremely sick or injured to the extent that they may not survive. This was one of the key points for which my FEMA classes stressed.
In view of this shortage of equipment, supplies and practitioners we should be fully prepared to accept that some of the older and sicker of the patients will simply be permitted to die so as the lives of patients that are more likely to survive may receive the available care. This scenario is more then likely to be seen during massive disasters, any sort of biological terror attacks or during an influenza pandemic.
Of course, we fully realize that this is simply not the manner for which nurses and doctors conduct their affairs, however, it is certain to become a part of the various statewide planning.
This new program has even been given an official name. It is known as the "surge capacity guidelines". These guidelines have been released by several state Departments of Public Health. The guidelines actually provide a scenario where patients can be herded into emergency public locations for care or at places where animal doctors could tend to their wounds or repair their broken bones.
The state of California has a 1,900 page document which outlines the various practical and ethical principles for the local and county health personnel, hospital administrators and emergency responders. It will certainly be difficult for those people who are used to saving lives to actually forsake those patients who require their help. In addition the California plan sets guidelines for which the responsibilities for the patient’s protection can be waived in the event that the governor declares an emergency. Additional changes to business as usual would be where the hospitals would not have to report births of newborns, deaths of patients, any sort of infectious disease outbreaks, any acts of medication errors or suspected child or elderly abuse. Keep in mind that any rules that currently protects a patient’s privacy will be simply tossed out the window.
Although this may appear to be tough to think about it actually is the only effective way that the system can handle the massive problems that will be associated with any sort of major disaster. In view of all this perhaps if you have anyone in a hospital or a nursing home you might wish to reconsider putting your priority on getting them out of their as your first item of business.
Copyright @ 2009 Joseph Parish
Original: http://survival-training.blogspot.com/2009/02/fate-of-elderly-during-crisis.html | 4,632 | 2,148 | 2.156425 |
warc | 201704 | Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01r494vn402
Title: A Method Only: The Evolving Meaning of Science in the United States, 1830-1910 Authors: Cowles, Henry M. Advisors: Rodgers, Daniel T. Contributors: History of Science Department Keywords: Evolution
Human Sciences
Philosophy
Psychology
Scientific Method
Social Sciences
Subjects: History of science
American history
Philosophy of science
Issue Date: 2015 Publisher: Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Abstract: On or about March 11, 1910, scientific method changed. John Dewey's publication of a five-step method of inquiry marked the climax of decades of debate over the evolution of the mind and the foundations of science. Between 1830 and 1910, certain thinkers came to see science less as a body of knowledge and more as an adaptive tool based in the brain. In doing so, these figures recast one version of scientific practice--the experimental method--as both natural and fundamentally human. This dissertation traces that process of naturalization through the efforts of British and American psychologists and philosophers in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Chapter one argues that men of science such as William Whewell and Charles Darwin blended ideas about the nature of science and the science of human nature, forging a "vocabulary of method" adapted by subsequent authors. Each of the next three chapters takes up the work of one such figure in turn--Charles Peirce, William James, and Dewey--to show how they wielded Whewell's philosophy of science and Darwin's theory of evolution to fashion new meanings of mind and method to suit their purposes. The final chapter examines the resonance of these debates in a neighboring field: medicine. Scientific method gained new authority in the medical community during this period, thanks in part to the work of Abraham Flexner, whose valorization of the experimental ideal was grounded in his reading of Dewey. Ultimately, this evolutionary view of science was used to justify a range of activities, including animal experiments, child study, and scientific research in medical contexts. Seeing science as a mental tool capable of being used wherever it was needed--seeing it, in other words, as "a method only"--paved the way for an instrumental approach to scientific and everyday thought that is still with us today. URI: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/dsp01r494vn402 Alternate format: The Mudd Manuscript Library retains one bound copy of each dissertation. Search for these copies in the library's main catalog Type of Material: Academic dissertations (Ph.D.) Language: en Appears in Collections: History of Science
Files in This Item:
This content is embargoed until 2019-02-08. For more information contact the Mudd Manuscript Library.
Items in Dataspace are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. | 2,958 | 1,542 | 1.918288 |
warc | 201704 | “I think this process is totally broken,” wrote Melinda Kimble, the U.N. Foundation’s senior vice president, who as a State Department negotiator helped forge the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on global warming. “While we are searching for a new paradigm to advance international cooperation, this meeting is definitely not a model.” “This process has been exceedingly ill-prepared,” said de Boer [Yvo de Boer, who previously oversaw the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change], a special global adviser on climate change and sustainability for the accounting firm KPMG. De Boer praised the “explosion” of new business commitments unveiled in Rio but added, “although I think all the individual initiatives by companies and partnerships are interesting, they don’t deliver the scale that is necessary to address the global challenges we face on sustainability.”But this is probably the most significant comment of all: “I don’t know if they’ll ever do this again, and I don’t know if we’ll need it again,” said the Pew Environment Group’s director of international policy, Susan Lieberman. She said she was at least pleased that oceans received more attention this year. “It’s a 12-ring circus here.”As long as every group in the world who wants to do good looks to attach themselves to such gatherings, the process is going to be diluted into nothingness. Of course they should do good, as should we all, but did the Maldives really need to go to the summit to announce that they would ban damaging fishing practices? They did it, of course, as a quid pro quo for assistance/handouts. “It helps us broaden the understanding of situation of small island countries like the Maldives.” -- Maldives President Mohamed WaheedBy the way, the 45,000 attendees emitted more CO2 flying to the conference than 14 of the world's nations do in a year -- most notably, Vanuatu. Details: 45,000 attendees, each flying an average distance of 1/4th of the Earth's circumference, emitting 1 lb of CO2 per airline-mile, is 127,000 metric tons of CO2. That's the annual emissions of 28,000 world citizens (each at 4.5 t CO2/yr), 88,000 Indians (1.4 t/yr), or 7,400 Americans (17.0 t/yr).
Worse, the
paceat which conference attendees emitted, for the 3-day conference, was 15 Mt/yr, which would have placed them 88th among national emissions (2008), or more than 60% of the world's nations. Added 1.5 hours later: OK, I'll admit, using the 3-day rate of emissions is a bit of a cheap shot.... | 2,591 | 1,379 | 1.878898 |
warc | 201704 | A new economic era is on the rise. Call it the Dream Economy. Will libraries be ready for it?
Actually, I have no idea if the Dream Economy is upon us, but it does offer some interesting perspectives about changing consumer expectations, and how a service organization like a library could use this knowledge to design better user experiences. Pat Jordan explains what the Dream Economy is by explaining that:
Consumers are increasingly looking for products and services which will meet their higher needs, enhance their self-image, and perhaps even help them move towards self-actualisation. People want great experiences and an enhanced self-image, they want to express their values and convictions through their purchase choices. The key to success is in understanding people. The better our understanding of consumers, the greater our ability to create products and services that they will find compelling. To connect with people we need to know what is important to them – their hopes, their fears, their dreams, their lifestyle, their aspirations.
Self actualization? Enhancing the self-image? Libraries are fundamentally good places. They make a positive contribution to the quality of life. But to say they can help people to achieve the highest level of Maslow’s hierarchy – well, that might be stretching things a bit. At a basic level libraries are about connecting people with information so that they can get their work done. Excluding the most passionate of library users, the vast majority of people will only visit the library when they have to, and how do we expect to be a part of the Dream Economy if that’s the nature of our service? Can we aspire to meeting the end user’s higher level needs?
The answer to that question may become more clear with a look at the “Four Pleasures” which Jordan says provide a framework for understand the good experiences that people can have. As you read them ask yourself if libraries could deliver these experiences:
Physio-Pleasure. This is to do with the body and the senses. It includes pleasures associated with touch, taste and smell, as well as feelings of sensual pleasure. It also includes pleasures associated with physical enablement, such as being able to perform physical tasks. Psycho-Pleasure. Pleasures associated with the mind such as being able to understand things and positive emotional states. Mental challenges come into this category as do things that people find interesting. Socio-Pleasure. This is to do with relationships, both in the concrete and abstract sense. Concrete relationships are those with specific people, such as friends, family, co-workers, neighbours and loved ones. Abstract ones are concerned with our relationship with society as a whole, such as our social status, image and memberships of social groups. Ideo-Pleasure. These include our tastes, values and aspirations. Tastes are to do with our preferences – what colours we like best, what kinds of music and art we like for example. Values are to do with our moral belief system and our sense of right and wrong. Meanwhile, our aspirations are to do with our sense of who we want to be and the self-image of ourselves that we want to have.
Let’s take a closer look at each.
Physio-Pleasure? Well, no one will mistake the library for a fine restaurant or spa, but even a good physical environment – comfortable furniture; a cafe brewing aromatic beverages; attractive displays – is within the reach of many libraries. Psycho-Pleasure? This seems to play to our strong hand. Few societal structures are so closely associated with pleasures of the mind and mental challenges as are libraries. What can we do to better promote reading as a path to Physio-Pleasure? Socio-Pleasure? Libraries have always had a role in the social life of the community. One challenge is making the library a destination for community members. The library should be the place you WANT to visit, not the place you HAVE to visit. We can capitalize on Socio-Pleasure by facilitating the community member’s ability to establish relationships with others. Ideo-Pleasure? Somewhat more challenging to grasp, but are their ways the library can connect with human desires for good taste, strong values and developing a good self-image? People certainly value success, and want to see themselves as being successful. Libraries can help people achieve success, both academically and in careers. How do we transition our brand from books to life success?
It can be difficult to design a better library user experience when there is difficulty in grasping what users would define as a great experience. You can’t deliver an experience without a thorough understanding of the user and their desires, and then shaping an experience that not only meets those desires but makes a lasting impression (the WoW factor). I think this is where thinking through the Dream Economy may be of help. It can provide better insight into what our users’ desires are – or at least four categories of desires that can be used as foundations for well designed user experiences. Jordan provides a few case studies. One of them is about the L’Oreal cosmetic company. He writes that “L’Oreal has understood contemporary femininity better than any of their competitors, have built a brand to reflect this, and then, through their initiatives, built a community around the brand. Their in-depth understanding of their customers has been rewarded with a huge success”. Now, imagine that statement with “your library” there instead of L’Oreal and “their community’s information needs” instead of femininity. It sounds pretty good. Now we need to make it happen. | 5,829 | 2,554 | 2.282302 |
warc | 201704 | Last week, when Florida announced that it would buy U.S. Sugar properties in South Florida, it seemed to me that some things were being left unsaid in the initial wire reports. I was particularly concerned with the funding for the purchase, and wondered if any other problems were lurking. (Yes, the last eight years have made me very cynical, indeed.) It turns out that funding is a problem in the Everglades deal.
But the deal will also tie up much of the state's share of Everglades funding -- at a time when budget worries have delayed other projects in the restoration plan. Federal funds have been so scarce that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is co-managing the restoration, has been ordered to slash project costs.Restoration of natural flow from Lake Okeechobee to Everglades National Park also seems unlikely, despite initial reports. The state typically spends about $325 million a year on Everglades projects, said Tom Olliff, the district's assistant executive director. But the debt payments on the $1.7 billion sugar deal will eat up as much as $153 million of that each year. The water district should still have about $170 million a year to spend on other Everglades projects and land purchases, Olliff said. But some of that money must be approved annually by the Legislature, which cut Everglades funding for the budget year that begins Tuesday. No one has drawn plans for building on the U.S. Sugar property, but any combination of new reservoirs and marshes would certainly add billions of dollars to the price tag. For example, a 16,000-acre Everglades reservoir under construction in Palm Beach County is expected to cost taxpayers about $800 million. ''It's a lovely concept,'' said Carol Ann Wehle, the water management district's executive director. But ``you are never, ever going to have sawgrass marsh there.''There are other issues as well; in particular, indigenous tribes living in the area do not seem to have been consulted by the state. There is plenty more discussion at the link. Planners say the sugar fields south of the lake have lost too much earth to farming, leaving a deep bowl that would prevent any water from flowing to the south without artificial pumps. Studies also have shown that converting the sugar fields to marsh would produce so much evaporation that the Everglades could wind up with less water. In any case, Lake Okeechobee's water is simply too polluted to pour directly into the Glades. A reservoir would allow water managers to manipulate water depths and move it where it's needed depending on rainfall and seasonal conditions.
The deal was still worth doing, even if it temporarily stops some of the other restoration projects. U.S. Sugar's cessation of operations will remove at least one major water user and polluter. That seems to be a step in the right direction, even if its potential takes a long time to be realized. | 2,901 | 1,435 | 2.021603 |
warc | 201704 | A friend brought to my attention a Canadian preppers blog post on the merits of a bicycle for survival transportation. The author rides his bike to work and back in Ottawa each day. He made such great points, I thought I’d summarize them for you.
You can only stockpile so much gasoline, but you don’t have to fuel or feed a bike. You provide its power. No electronics required. Of course, you can use batteries for a headlight, but they’re not essential to a bike’s functions. A bike is easy on the body and good exercise, no matter what your age. Fixing and maintaining a bike is relatively easy, as opposed to a car. You can transport loads up to a hundred pounds as long as you balance the load. You can go just about anywhere on a bike, whether in town or in the country. With practice, you can travel several hours a day. Get away as much as 100-200 miles if you need to. Pull into the bushes and you’ve disappeared. It’s easier to camouflage a bike than a car or horse. You can attach various packs, saddle bags, racks, carts, trailers, etc. for transporting camping and survival gear. *A bike is a good investment. A new one may cost a few hundred dollars but last 15 years. Of course, you can buy a used one for much less.
If you have back or other medical problems and have difficulty balancing a bike, click here for info on an adult-sized trike.
Find out more about how bicycling is transforming business in many large cities. | 1,473 | 829 | 1.77684 |
warc | 201704 | My Quick Links You have no saved Quick Links FAQ List What should I do before classes begin in preparing for a student with disability? What should I do on the first day of class? Whom do I contact if a student asks for a disability-related accommodation? Can I share information about DRES students? What is involved in confidentiality? What are some general suggestions for teaching students with disabilities? What are some instructional do's and don'ts? What are the student's rights and responsibilities? What are the University's rights and responsibilities? When is an accommodation request "unreasonable"?
If you have been contacted by the DRES Accessible Media Office concerning a student with a disability in your class, it is important to work with that office to ensure all the materials you present in class will be accessible by that student.
Students with disabilities who need an accommodation are responsible to contact their professors to notify them of this need by means of presenting them with a Letter of Accommodations. DRES encourages students to present this letter as soon as possible, preferably within the first week of classes. Professors do not need to provide accommodations until they are notified by the student. However, to encourage students to request accommodations, DRES recommends that instructors place a note in the syllabus requesting that students with disabilities contact the instructor to request accommodations. Please click here for examples of disability statements and content statements for your syllabus.
If the disability-related accommodation is a testing accommodation which you cannot provide yourself, you may contact our Testing Coordinator at 333-4604 or by email. If you have a question about an accommodation that is requested, please contact the student's case manager. This is the person who signs the Letter of Accommodation and contact information is included.
A student’s registration with DRES and personal information about the nature of their disability is protected and confidential information covered by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the IL Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities Confidentiality Act. Obviously, for a student to receive accommodations in your course, there must be 1) a disclosure from the student that he or she has a disability, 2) some details about how the disability may impact their educational performance, and 3) reasonable and appropriate accommodations that are designed to overcome those barriers. The Letter of Accommodations is designed in such a way to include all of that information while protecting the student’s privacy as much as possible (e.g., without identifying the nature of their disability).
When a student discloses that they are registered with DRES, it is important to keep that information confidential. It should not be included in their permanent academic record, for example. Letters of Accommodation should be shredded or deleted at the end of each academic semester. If an instructor is consulting with a colleague about how to implement a student’s accommodations, it is advisable to not refer to the student’s name.
Instructors are not advised to ask personal details about the nature of a student’s disability (“what’s your disability?” “how long have you had it?”). Sometimes student may choose to disclose that information themselves, and it is certainly permissible for an instructor to listen and engage the student in an empathic way. There are even some scenarios where an instructor and student may have a very close working relationship (e.g., as is often the case in graduate programs, for example), where the student discloses personal, disability-related information in a way that truly enhances the working relationship. The best advice is to let the student take the lead in disclosing or discussing disability-related information.
It is certainly acceptable to ask any student if they need accommodations in a course, or invite them to register with DRES if they have accommodation needs. Also, if a student gives you a Letter of Accommodation from DRES or discloses to you that they are registered with DRES, you can contact us with questions or concerns and that is not considered breaking confidentiality.
It is certainly NOT acceptable to “out” a student with a disability in your course. For example, making the volunteer note taker announcement and referring to the DRES student specifically by name or asking a student by name in front of the class about some aspect of their accommodation.
Students with disabilities at the University have the right to: equal access to courses, programs, services, activities and facilities offered through the University; an equal opportunity to learn and to receive necessary accommodations, academic adjustments, and/or auxiliary aids and services; appropriate confidentiality of all information regarding their disability and to choose to whom, outside of the University, information about their disability will be disclosed, except as disclosures are required or permitted by law; and information, available in accessible formats.
Students with disabilities have the responsibility to: meet qualifications and maintain essential institutional standards for courses, programs, services, activities, and facilities; identify as an individual with a disability when an accommodation is needed and seek information, counsel, and assistance as necessary; demonstrate and/or document (from an appropriate licensed clinical professional) how the disability limits their participation in courses, programs, services, activities and facilities; and follow published procedures for obtaining accommodations, academic adjustments and/or auxiliary aids and services.
Please refer to the University of Illinois Nondiscrimination Statement.
The University of Illinois has the right to: identify and establish standards for courses, programs, services, activities, and facilities and to evaluate students on this basis; request and receive, through DRES, current documentation that supports requests for academic adjustments and/or auxiliary aids and services; deny a request for accommodations, academic adjustments, and/or auxiliary aids and services if the documentation demonstrates that the request is not warranted, or if the individual fails to provide appropriate documentation; select among equally effective accommodations, adjustments, and/or auxiliary aids and services; refuse an unreasonable accommodation, adjustment, and/or auxiliary aid or service that imposes a fundamental alteration on a program or activity of the University.
The University of Illinois has the responsibility to: provide information to students with disabilities in accessible formats upon request; ensure that courses, programs, services, activities, and facilities, when viewed in their entirety, are available and usable in the most integrated and appropriate settings; evaluate students on their abilities and not their disabilities; provide or arrange accommodations, instructional and testing adjustments, and/or auxiliary aids and services for students with disabilities in courses, programs, services, activities and facilities; maintain appropriate confidentiality of records and communication, and to disclose where permitted or required by law.
If an accommodation request is "unreasonable", it may compromise the integrity of the course. However, prior to denying an accommodation request, please contact the student's case manager to discuss options. | 7,638 | 2,779 | 2.748471 |
warc | 201704 | Seu, I.B.; (1996) A psychoanalytic feminist inquiry into shame. Doctoral thesis, University of London.
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Abstract
This thesis offers an inquiry into shame; in particular a reading of some women's lived experience of shame from a psychoanalytic and feminist perspective. This work also reflects critically on epistemological issues and tensions between the adoption of qualitative methods of research and psychoanalytic, feminist and post-structuralist readings of texts. The thesis starts with an outline of its contents, a reflexive history of the research, and a brief introduction on shame. Chapters one to three review the main body of literature on shame, critically reflecting on how shame is constructed within different theoretical frameworks. This investigation begins with the work of Sigmund Freud and the different constructions of shame in Freudian metapsychology (chapter one) and continues with a review of the literature on the role of shame in social and interpsychic dynamics (chapter two). Chapter three focuses on the literature arguing for a crucial link between shame and femininity. Epistemological and methodological issues are discussed in chapters four; while chapter five provides a detailed description of how the research was carried out and of the analysis of the text. Chapters six to ten are based on in-depth semi-structured interviews on women's experience of shame. The discursive analysis investigates the ideological function of the shameful subject position within the context of the themes identified in the thematic decomposition of the interviews. The conclusion summaries and reflects on the thesis as a whole; it also comments on some implications of the different readings of shame proposed in the thesis.
Type: Thesis (Doctoral) Title: A psychoanalytic feminist inquiry into shame Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery Language: English Additional information: Thesis digitised by British Library EThOS UCL classification: UCL > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Psychology and Language Sciences (Division of) > Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology URI: http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1317507 Archive Staff Only
View Item | 2,286 | 1,137 | 2.010554 |
warc | 201704 | Efficient density-based methods for knowledge discovery in databases
Today's data storage facilities allow recording of billions of transactions from business applications, scientific sensor readings, monitoring systems etc. Scientists developing new drugs, system administrators monitoring complex technical processes, and decision makers being responsible for complex social or technical systems require an overview and even a deeper understanding of their respective data. The knowledge discovery in databases (KDD) process has been designed to identify hidden patterns in large data resources. A central step of the KDD process is the data mining task. Major data mining tasks are clustering and classification. Density-based approaches have proven to be very effective for many data mining methods. However, the good effectiveness often comes at the cost of a high runtime complexity. This thesis presents new efficient density-based approaches for different data mining applications whereas the effectiveness of the new developed methods is always kept in mind.
The first part of this thesis is concerned with new density-based clustering methods. Clustering is a data mining task for summarizing data such that similar objects are grouped together while dissimilar ones are separated. Density-based approaches have shown to successfully mine arbitrary shaped clusters even in the presence of noise. In multi-dimensional or high dimensional data, clusters are typically hidden by irrelevant attributes and do not show across the full space. As relevance of attributes is not globally uniform for all clusters, global dimensionality reduction approaches are not adequate. Subspace clustering aims at automatically detecting clusters and their relevant attribute projections. This work presents a new clustering model DUSC which guarantees a comparable and redundancy free subspace clustering result. As the number of possible subspaces is exponential in the number of dimensions subspace clustering is a computationally challenging task. The algorithm eDUSC developed in this work is based on a filter-and-refinement architecture which avoids repeated database scans. Further on, this work proposes a new visualization technique for subspace clusters and a specialized clustering technique for multi-dimensional sequence databases. The second part of this thesis proposes new density-based methods for classification. Classification aims at assigning a class label to unknown objects. Various approaches for classifying objects have been investigated in the last decades. Classifiers based on statistical approaches have been most intensively studied in the literature and results like asymptotical behavior and classification bias have been derived. To apply statistical classifiers the density of objects has to be estimated. In this work, a hierarchy of density estimators is proposed which makes the classification of objects possible anytime. Additionally, a new classification method using subspace clusters for higher dimensionalities is developed in this thesis.
The proposed density-based clustering and classification methods are evaluated in terms of both efficiency and effectiveness in thorough experiments on real world and synthetic data.
Authors: Krieger R. Published in: Dissertation, Fakultät für Mathematik, Informatik und Naturwissenschaften, RWTH Aachen University. Sprache: EN Jahr: 2008 Additional:
Tag der mündlichen Prüfung: 09.07.2008
URL: RWTH Bibliothek Typ: Dissertationen Forschungsgebiet: Data Analysis and Knowledge Extraction | 3,591 | 1,630 | 2.203067 |
warc | 201704 | Dietary iron intake in the first 4 months of infancy and the development of type 1 diabetes: a pilot study 2:58 DOI: 10.1186/1758-5996-2-58
© Ashraf et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2010
Received: 25 February 2010 Accepted: 20 September 2010 Published: 20 September 2010 Abstract Aims
To investigate the impact of iron intake on the development of type 1 diabetes (T1DM).
Methods
Case-control study with self-administered questionnaire among families of children with T1DM who were less than 10 years old at the time of the survey and developed diabetes between age 1 and 6 years. Data on the types of infant feeding in the first 4 months of life was collected from parents of children with T1DM (n = 128) and controls (n = 67) <10 years old. Because some cases had sibling controls, we used conditional logistic regression models to analyze the data in two ways. First we performed a case-control analysis of all 128 cases and 67 controls. Next, we performed a case-control analysis restricted to cases (n = 59) that had a sibling without diabetes (n = 59). Total iron intake was modeled as one standard deviation (SD) increase in iron intake. The SD for iron intake was 540 mg in the total sample and 539 mg in the restricted sample as defined above.
Results
The median (min, max) total iron intake in the first 4 months of life was 1159 (50, 2399) mg in T1DM cases and 466 (50, 1224) mg among controls (
P < 0.001). For each one standard deviation increase in iron intake, the odds ratio (95% confidence interval) for type 1 diabetes was 2.01 (1.183, 3.41) among all participants (128 cases and 67 controls) while it was 2.26 (1.27, 4.03) in a restricted sample of T1 D cases with a control sibling (59 cases and 59 controls) in models adjusted for birth weight, age at the time of the survey, and birth order. Conclusion
In this pilot study, high iron intake in the first 4 months of infancy is associated with T1DM. Whether iron intake is causal or a marker of another risk factor warrants further investigation.
Background
The incidence of type 1 diabetes (T1DM) is increasing worldwide and the age of onset is shifting downwards with a significant number of cases occurring between birth and 4 years of age [1–4]. Although the causes for increased incidence and early onset of T1DM are uncertain [1], a number of risk factors associated with induction of autoimmunity in the genetically susceptible individuals have been suggested. These include viral infections (especially enterovirus), stressful life events, vaccinations, early exposure to milk protein, such as bovine insulin, casein and other proteins, early introduction of cereal to infants, low serum vitamin D levels and premature exposure of the gut immune system to foreign proteins [5–19]. The role of environmental determinants in initiating the autoimmunity cascade has also been suggested by studies in discordant/concordant twins [20, 21]. Prolonged breast feeding may protect against type 1 diabetes [22, 23]. Timing of introduction of solids/cereals was found to influence the risk of developing islet autoimmunity whereas breastfeeding duration/introduction of cow's milk were not statistically associated with the risk factor for developing islet auto antibodies [11, 24]. There are no major associations reported between breast feeding and risk of T1DM [11, 25, 26].
Iron, a major supplement in fortified baby formula, could play a role in modifying the risk for T1DM given that studies in adults have suggested an association between iron burden and T2DM. During the first 4 months of life, there is an increased breakdown of fetal erythrocytes leading to increased amounts of circulating iron that are subsequently stored in the parenchymal cells of liver and reticuloendothelial macrophages [27, 28]. The estimated iron requirement for the term infant for the expansion of the erythrocyte mass and to maintain adequate stores is 1 mg/kg/day [27, 29]. Iron absorption for term infants fed cow's milk formulas varies from 4-12% depending on a variety of factors including age of the infant, reticulocyte count, body iron status, and composition of the baby formula (e.g., calcium concentration and added ascorbic acid). Absorption levels are even lower with soy milk formula. Studies using isotopically labeled iron reveal that the bioavailability of iron in infant formulas is approximately 11% [30] and 11.3% in premature and term babies, respectively [31]. Compared to breast milk, from which approximately 50% of the iron is absorbed [27, 31, 32], only about 19% of the iron in baby formula is absorbed [33]. In vivo, recombinant human lactoferrin added to the infant formula attenuated iron mediated free radical formation and lipid peroxidation [34]. Thus, lack of breast milk lactoferrin may predispose the formula fed infants for further added oxidative damage at critical time period.
The American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Nutrition recommends early use of iron-fortified formula instead of cow milk [27]. This has reduced the prevalence of anemia in children ages from 6 months to 60 months[35]. Since 1974, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) provides only high iron formula, unless there are special instructions against this by a health care provider. In 2001 the National Academy of Sciences recommended that the Dietary Reference Intake of iron (DRI) in infants 0-6 months to be 0.27 mg/day with a tolerable upper intake level of 40 mg/day with an assumption that 75% of iron is from heme iron sources [36]. Mature human breast milk contains 0.5 mg/L of iron [35], a considerably lower concentration of iron than iron-fortified baby formulas which also vary in the type and source of protein (e.g., bovine, soy or protein hydrolysate). The aim of this study is to explore whether the amount of iron consumed in the first 4 months of life is associated with T1DM before 6 years of age. A 6 year age cut off was used mainly because children are exposed to more environmental stimuli after that age. Even though a cause-effect relationship cannot be validated with this study, we aimed to assess a potential association between iron consumption in the first 4 months of life and risk of developing T1DM as a preliminary step for future studies.
Materials and methods Subjects
This was a case-control study among children diagnosed with T1DM before the age of six and who at the time of recruitment were not older than 10 years and were receiving care from the pediatric diabetes clinic at the Birmingham Children's Hospital, a University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) affiliated hospital. Patients were identified through the Children's Hospital electronic medical records system using ICD 9 diagnosis codes 250.01, 250.03 and 250.13. Surveys were sent to a total of 250 children diagnosed with T1DM before 6 years of age and at the time of survey not >10 years old. A total of 141 surveys from children with T1DM were returned of which 130 children with diabetes were entered in the analysis and 11 excluded because of unclear answers. Some (n = 75) of the control questionnaires were rejected due to ambiguity in the answers leaving 83 controls eligible for further analysis. Thus our main sample consisted of a total of 130 T1DM cases and 83 controls which includes siblings of T1DM cases. Since type 1 diabetes is characterized by significant insulinopenia which requires insulin administration to control blood sugar, the controls were selected based on parents history of whether or not the sibling had diabetes. Siblings of T1DM children were included in the study if they were aged between 6 years and 10 years of age.
Methods
After obtaining approval by the University of Alabama at Birmingham Institutional Review Board, 250 questionnaire surveys were mailed out between June 2006 and April 2007.
Data collection: A questionnaire and letter of introduction stating that this research is being conducted to determine whether maternal nutrition, childhood infections, co-morbidities and the type and components of infant formula (e.g., minerals and vitamins) are associated with T1DM were mailed to the parents or guardians of the study participants. A questionnaire, which was completed by the parent or care-taker, was used to assess maternal medical history and baby feeding practices (e.g., gestational diabetes, maternal T1DM or type 2 diabetes (T2DM), period of exclusive breast feeding, introduction of supplementary infant formula, type of formula consumed in the first 4 months of life, number of weeks on formula, and vitamins and iron supplements) as well as child specific information such as birth weight, year of birth and illnesses in the first 4 months of life. The names of the patients and their caregivers were not included on the survey form. Anonymous filled questionnaires were returned to the Children's Hospital in self-addressed stamped return envelopes (without participants return addresses) provided by the researchers. Assessment of amount and duration of intake of specific iron containing foods
The infant formulas were then classified as high or low iron formula based on the self-reported formula brand name. The majority of available products at the time of the study were high iron except Similac low iron
®, Similac PM 60/40 ® and Enfamil Lipil low iron ® infant formulas. Comparisons were made between children with T1DM and non-diabetic siblings based on consumption of high-iron, low-iron formulas and breast milk.
The amount of iron intake that a normal term infant receiving the recommend daily allowance (RDA) of formula or breast milk would receive in the United States.*
Month
RDA milk
(oz/day)
Iron, mg/day
Vitamin with iron (10 mg/serving)
High-iron formula
Low-iron
formula
Breast milk
First month
23
8.28
3.22
0.345
300
Second month
29
10.44
4.06
0.435
300
Third month
29
10.44
4.06
0.435
300
Fourth month
30
10.8
4.2
0.45
300
Inclusion and exclusion criteria
We excluded individuals where the parent could not recall the type of infant nutrition source and whether or not solid foods (e.g., cereals) were introduced before 4 months of age, if there were serious illnesses prior to the diagnosis of diabetes (to exclude medication-induced diabetes), if gestational length was ≤ 37 weeks) and if diabetes was diagnosed after 6 years of age. Siblings were excluded from the study if they were >10 years at the study point for age- matching with the cases.
Statistical analyses
Data management and analysis was done in Microsoft EXCEL
® and Statistical Analysis System (SAS version 9.2, SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC). From total sample of 213, we excluded individuals who had missing data on age (n = 16), sibling rank (n = 1) and one child who iron intake was implausible (11,988 mg). Thus we had 195 children (67 controls and 128 cases) for the main analyses. For subgroup analyses, we created a subset of 59 controls and 59 cases where case had a control sibling. The distribution of iron intake and other continuous variables was checked for normality and log- or square root-transformed where appropriate to improve normality before comparing cases and controls. Because transformations did not completely correct the skewed nature of the data, we used the Wilcoxon Rank Sum test to test for the significance of differences in iron intake as well in other variables between cases and controls. Multivariable conditional logistic regression was performed to test whether the intake of iron is associated with T1DM before and after adjusting for birth weight, age at the time of the survey and birth order. In the final sample, there were two few mother's with a history of gestational diabetes or T2DM (< 4%). Thus these variables were not included in the multivariate conditional logistic analyses. The results are reported as odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) for 1 SD increase in iron intake for all sources. Associations were considered significant at a P-value of 0.05. Results
characteristics of the study participants by diabetes status.*
Controls
(n = 67)
Type 1 diabetes cases
(n = 128)
Variable
Median
Min, Max
Median
Min, Max
P
Age at diagnosis, y
--
--
3.0
0.16, 6.0
--
Age at recruitment, y
5.0
0.4,10.0
6.0
2.0, 10.0
0.05
Birth weight, kg
3.32
2.3, 4.7
3.32
1.11, 4.91
0.94
Total iron: form., suppl. & breast milk, mg
466
50, 1224
1159
50, 2399
< 0.0001
Iron from formula & supplements, mg
466
0, 1213
1144
0, 2399
< 0.0001
Duration of feeding low-iron formula, wks
12
0, 16
0
0, 16
< 0.0001
Duration of feeding high-iron formula, wks
12
0, 32
10
0, 16
0.10
Duration of breast feeding, wks
12
0, 16
4
0, 16
0.001
Mother had gestational diabetes, %
0
3
0.30
Mother has diabetes, %
3
4
1.00
Sibling rank, %
First
42
49
0.44
Second
49
42
Third
6
8
Forth or higher
3
1
P< 0.05) in controls (12 weeks) than in T1DM cases (4 weeks). The median (min, max) total iron intake in the first 4 months of life was 1159 (50, 2399) mg in T1DM cases and 466 (50, 1224) mg among controls ( P< 0.001). The SD for iron intake was 540 mg in the total sample and 539 mg in the restricted sample. Table 3 depicts odds ratios for the association between 1 SD increase in total iron intake from all sources in first four months of life and type 1 diabetes. For each one standard deviation increase in iron intake, the odds ratio (95% confidence interval) for type 1 diabetes was 2.01 (1.183, 3.41) among all participants (128 cases and 67 controls) while it was 2.26 (1.27, 4.03) in a restricted sample of T1 D cases with a control sibling (59 cases and 59 controls) in models adjusted for birth weight, age at the time of the survey and birth order. In multivariate analyses, only age at the recruitment was associated with T1DM. For each one year increase in age, the odds ratio for T1DM was 1.44 (1.07, 1.95) in models adjusted for total iron intake, birth weight and sibling rank.
Odds ratios (95% CI) for the association between total iron intake in first four months of life and type 1 diabetes.
Odds ratios (95% CI) for 1 SD increase in iron intake*
All participants
(128 cases and 67 controls)
Restricted to cases with a control sibling
(59 cases and 59 controls)
Total iron intake, SD units†
2.01 (1.183, 3.41)
2.26 (1.27, 4.03)
Age at recruitment, y
1.44 (1.07, 1.95)
1.69 (1.15, 2.49)
Birth weight, kg
1.09 (0.37, 3.27)
0.77 (0.24, 2.51)
Sibling rank
1.46 (0.62, 3.41)
2.17 (0.77, 6.08)
Discussion
The novel proposition of a causal link between the quantity of iron intake in the first 4 months of life and future development of T1DM is plausible considering the known strong association between ferritin and Type 2 diabetes in adults [38, 39], a disorder sometimes diagnostically indistinct from T1DM with similar surrogate autoimmune markers and medical histories. Because in genetically susceptible subjects β-cell auto antibodies may materialize in infancy [40], this observation buttresses the argument that the environmental trigger for diabetes autoimmunity occurs early in life.
The physiological anemia of infancy seen in the first 2-3 months of life is not due to iron deficiency and does not respond to iron supplementation [35]. A normal term infant has sufficient iron stores for the first 4-6 months of life. Hence, the introduction of iron fortified formula in the critical period of 4-6 months could be potentially baneful. There has been a significant reduction in the prevalence of iron deficiency anemia in 6 to 60 month-old children after the introduction of iron-fortified baby formulas. However, there is limited clinical evidence which can be adduced to support the early introduction of iron fortified formulas in the first 4 months of life.
Although the mechanism remains unresolved, numerous studies have confirmed that prolonged breast feeding protects against T1DM [23], and breast feeding activists advocate the postponement of formula feeding. As regards to iron intake with breast feeding, even though 50% of the iron is absorbed, which is incontestably a high proportion when compared with cow's milk or iron fortified formula, breast milk per unit volume contains roughly 1/10
th of the iron content of the "low" iron formulas [27, 32, 33, 35]. The net result is that breast fed babies absorb quantitatively far less iron than formula-fed babies, and this fact alone may explain the putative effect of breast milk.
Another confounding variable is that breast fed babies may delay feeding formula, cow's milk, cereals or other solid foods. This practice may avert exposure of the infant to foreign food antigens, such as gluten and bovine insulin, which may induce a cross-reacting immune response, particularly if gut permeability is altered by microbial infection [41]. Contrary to other studies [35], our study did not show that the number of weeks of breast milk ingestion conferred protection, most likely due to the small sample size in our study. Moreover, only a minority of children were on low-iron formula and the majority of children who had low total iron intake in the first 4 months had at some point also received breast milk. The absence of statistically significant association between the number of weeks of breast milk intake and having diabetes in our study is not enough to abandon the tenet that breast feeding is a protective factor against T1DM.
Type 1 diabetes involves the inexorable destruction of β cells secondary to autoimmunity. In iron overload conditions such as hemochromatosis, there is excessive iron storage in solid organs and selective destruction of β cells. Iron overload form hereditary hemochromatosis is associated with diabetes and impaired glucose tolerance and decreased insulin secretory capacity, which is reportedly reversed with phlebotomy therapy [42, 43]. Excess pancreatic β-cells iron reportedly impairs mitochondrial function and glucose-stimulated insulin secretion [43, 44].
The etiology of T1DM is likely multifactorial with a complex interplay between genetic, autoimmune, environmental, infectious and dietary factors. The role of iron in the infant formula in manifestation of T1DM was explored in this study. We could not find any studies examining relationship of iron status before onset of T1DM in genetically susceptible individuals. However, as in other autoimmune disorders, there are reports suggesting iron status may play a role in manifestation of systemic lupus erythematosis in murine models [45]. Iron is involved in the proliferation of T cells and other cells of immune system [46]. Similarly, ferritin reportedly has immune regulatory roles as well [47]. The pathoetiology by which fortified iron formulas could predispose to development of autoimmune diabetes in genetically susceptible individuals is uncertain. Whether the development of T1DM appertains to the actual quantity of iron ingested or is somehow attributable to the type of the fortified iron (ferrous sulfate vs. ferrous fumarate), or duration and timing of iron intake is likewise unclear. Excess cellular uptake of ferrous iron could in theory initiate a oxidation cascade which overwhelms the numerous intracellular protective anti-oxidation biochemical strategies [48]. It is thereby conceivable that the oxidative stress from immoderate iron exposure in the first 4 months in genetically susceptible infants may promote autoimmunity due to overproduction of free radical oxidative species. Parenthetically, ferrous fumarate is thought to produce minimal or no oxidative stress in vitro compared with ferrous sulfate [34]. And, interestingly, lactoferrin in breast milk reportedly attenuates iron-induced oxidative damage in vitro[34]. Finally, in the gut an overabundance of iron may modify the gastrointestinal immune response or its micronutrient milieu [49]. In conclusion, large-scale prospective studies are warranted to determine whether low iron or lactoferrin enriched formulas forefend against T1DM in high risk individuals.
Limitations of the study
The major methodological pitfall of this retrospective study is that the data are self-reported. Hence, there is a potential chance of error insofar as this information relies on maternal dietary recall over a long duration. A memory bias may exist between that of the child with diabetes and non- diabetic sibling and that could have caused differential misclassification. Even though the letter accompanied the survey did not specify our hypothesis on iron content of formula, it mentioned we are investigating a link between T1DM and any of the minerals, vitamins, infant formulas or maternal nutrition. As the surveys were anonymous we do not have any data (clinical, demographic or medical) about the non-responders. We have excluded all ambiguous surveys. The choice of infant formula after birth depends on parental preferences, cost, co-morbid conditions like colic, acid reflux disease, lactose intolerance, milk protein allergy, type of formula the mother is first exposed too, etc. Consequently, the choice of low iron formula could be a proxy for socioeconomic characteristics or other factors which were not assessed in the surveys. Another confounding factor is that early introduction of bovine milk formula, besides increasing iron intake, may introduce previously proposed diabetogenic protein antigens.
Conclusion
This pilot study suggests that higher intake of iron in the first 4 months of life is a probable risk factor for future development of T1DM. These results are not conclusive as this study was not designed to assess risk for T1DM. Even though the association of "high iron intake" with T1DM is seen in this study, in view of potential biases that may have confounded the results of this study, a future prospective large scale study to assess the possible association between high dietary intake of iron in infancy and T1DM is warranted. Whether iron intake is causal or a marker of another risk factor needs to be further investigated.
Declarations Acknowledgements
We are grateful to all families of children with diabetes for completing their questionnaires, without whose help this would have been impossible.
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This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. | 34,558 | 14,166 | 2.439503 |
warc | 201704 | Abstract
The problems and progress made in the development of automated methods for the recognition and extraction of urban land use features from the LANDSAT digital data of the UK are described. In the data examined so far density slicing in one waveband appears to be almost as effective as multiwaveband classification in selecting the urban areas. While absolute boundaries may be difficult to delineate, new developments may be recognisable which would be adequate for monitoring needs. It appears important to include the effects of seasonal change and make use of texural analysis in the classification process.
Date of this Version
1976 | 650 | 396 | 1.641414 |
warc | 201704 | FIRST TIME ORGASM: Most young girls will begin by using their hands and massage oil. A young woman who has a history of little or no masturbation and has reached her mid to late-20s and is looking for her first orgasm, a battery driven vibrator can be a good choice. There are many of these vibrators available.
However, it you are in your thirties or older, the Magic Wand is also a good choice. If you are using a Wand, I recommend putting some kind of fabric between you and the vibrator to soften the vibes. Lately I've been putting a sock on mine. I use a thin or a thick one, depending upon my mood.
The Magic Wand vibrator only works on AC current so the company will not ship to countries with direct electrical current. However, there is a vibrator that works on batteries called the Mystic Wand. It’s like the Magic Wands little sister. This new one has five different settings. The low setting is good for young women who are beginners and the third setting has vibrations as strong as the Big Mama Magic Wand. The Mystic is smaller, quieter and adorable. Both vibrators are available from our sex shop. Another good vibrator is the Eroscillator that is compatible with both AC and DC current.
GETTING READY: You will need to gather a few basic items. If at all possible set aside at least an hour in a warm room that's completely private. Turn off the telephone and put your cell phone in another room. Although it's not necessary, it's also nice to have candle light and music of your choice.
For your genital exam you will need
1. a makeup mirror that stands alone with at least an eight-inch mirror surface.
2. A gooseneck desk lamp is the best or some light source that can be aimed between your legs..
3. A bottle of organic massage oil such as almond, coconut, apricot, avocado, etc.
4. A soft washcloth and a towel to sit on.
5. The Magic Wand vibrator or a battery oporated one. For some women, the softer vibrations of a battery vibrator may be preferable.
Or if you prefer, you can also use your hands. Ideally girls would use their hands until they enter their late twenties or early thirties.
6. Betty's Barbell for penetration. Or improvise with a peeled carrot or zucchini. The advantage of the Barbell is that the weight will hold it in place while you stimulate your clitoris.
GENITAL EXAM: To learn about the form and function of your vulva, it's essential to begin with a genital exam. Get a soft towel and put it on the floor with some kind of back support. Place the mirror so that you have a view of your entire genital area. Aim a bright light between your legs. Oil your hands. Now spend a few minutes doing an over-all genital massage while observing your vulva in the mirror. Enjoy the pleasurable feelings as you press, kneed and move your hands over the entire area.
Next spread your outer lips apart to explore your vulva's intricate internal design with its delicate folds. Locate your clitoris at the top of your vulva just below where your pubic hair begins. Find the shaft and hood of the clitoris. Pull the hood back so you can see your clitoral glans. With a well-oiled finger, touch the glans softly to understand why ithose 8,000 nerver endings are protected with the hood. Now massage your clitoris using different kinds of pressure from light to firm on either side, on top and underneath your clitorial glans. Observe the different sensations. Spread the inner lips apart with both hands. Locate your vaginal opening that will appear as small folds that will part when you enter with your finger. The vaginal vestibule is the recessed space inside your inner lips. See if you can locate your urethra, a tiny opening nestled somewhere in the vestibule below the clitoris and above the vaginal opening.
Arrange your genital flower in a manner you find most appealing. Take a few moments to appreciate the beauty of your magnificent sex organ. You might want to trim or shape your pubic hair and take a pussy portrait for your lover on Valentine's Day. Or enter your photo in my Genital Art Gallery.
THE PELVIC FLOOR MUSCLE: Consciously relax your vaginal muscles while taking several deep breaths. Then very slowly press your middle finger inside your vagina. Once inside, circle your finger feeling the contours of the vaginal barrel. Take another deep breath and relax all the surrounding muscles and focus primarily on the muscle that stops the flow of urine. Now squeeze and release this muscle on your finger. You will feel your vagina gripping your finger softly or firmly depending on the strength of your PC (pubococcygeus) muscle. Take your finger away and watch your entire genital area move from your clitoris to your anus when you contract the muscle by lifting up and squeezing. Do not bear down or push out. Lift and release. Lift and release. Be sure to check out how to do Kegel exercises under Betty's Vaginal Barbell.
BREATHING: Next lie down on your bed, a futon, or a blanket on the floor. Make sure you are comfortable and warm. Place a pillow under your head. Your feet are on the floor with your knees bent and both legs at a comfortable angle. Take a series of deep breaths exhaling with an audible sigh. Send loving thoughts to your body. During your masturbation session it's a good idea to be able to hear yourself breathing out loud. Getting oxygen into the blood stream is essential for clitoral engorgement. Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth. If your nose is stopped up, do both the in and out breath with your mouth. Most women tend to hold their breath during sexual arousal so make sure you are breathing fully.
PELVIC ROCKING: Avoid tensing up and holding your body rigid. Move your pelvis like Elvis. Roll your hips. Do a little dance lying down. Use movements that feel good. Loosen up and stretch. Smile. As your hips rock forward and back the muscles in your body flex and relax similar to an athlete in motion. Take a minute and dance to the music of your choice with rhythmic pelvic thrusting along with deep breathing and sounds of pleasure. Remember sex is about having fun and feeling good. During your entire masturbation session, a gentle rocking motion can be perpetual motion. Rest if you get tired.
PENETRATION WITH PC MUSCLE: Now that you are in touch with your PC muscle, you are ready to do slow penetration. If you are new to vaginal penetration begin with your finger. Then use a peeled carrot or zucchini gradually making them bigger. Just be aware that squeezing your vaginal muscle will tend to push the veggie dildo out so hold it with one hand. If you have Betty's Barbell, penetration virgins or postmenopausal women unaccustomed to vaginal penetration will place the smaller end of the Barbell just at the vaginal opening (inside the vestibule). As you begin to squeeze and release the PC muscle, observe the sensation. Penetrate your vagina very slowly going an inch at a time while pausing to grip and release the dildo or Barbell with your muscle. Once the Barbell is inserted, it stays in place leaving both hands free. Your veggie dildo will get pushed out as you squeeze the muscle, so hold it in place or just forget set it aside.
CLITORAL STIMULATION: With the Barbell in place, add clitoral stimulation first with your oiled finger. Release all expectations of what you "should" be feeling. Just observe what is happening without passing any judgments. Stay with manual as long as it feels good. When you desire more clitoral sensation, add a battery vibrator. Stay with this for as long as it feels good.
For women using an electric vibrator, begin with the switch on low. Its okay to experiment with high later on, but the low setting will allow you to take more time and enjoy all the pleasurable sensations. Keep a light touch. The whole point of selfloving is to train your body to tolerate higher levels of sexual pleasure that last longer than a few moments.
COMBINING BREATHING, PELVIC MOVEMENTS AND THE PC MUSCLE: As you rock your hips forward, squeeze your PC muscle and exhale through your mouth. As your pelvis drops back down inhale through your nose and release the PC muscle. Forward, exhale and squeeze the PC. Drop back down as you inhale and release the PC muscle. Continue doing this while breathing out loud. Listen to yourself breathing. While this seems a bit complicated at first, like any new dance step, once you've done it a few times your body will remember the moves. As you reach a higher level of sexual arousal your breathing will be similar to jogging or walking briskly. Eventually you can make sounds of pleasure on the out breath. Try the vowels sounds of Ah, Oh or say the word "yes." Let your jaw drop and have your mouth slightly open. Keep your eyes closed with your attention focused on the sensations in your genitals.
ORGASM: It's important to let go of all romantic notions of what you think an orgasm will be like. Instead keep an open mind and pay attention to the good feelings that are happening in your body. Be patient. A consistent problem for beginners is putting pressure on yourself to come. This is the exact opposite of experiencing pleasure. Sexual excitement does not go in a straight line to orgasm similar to many men's sexual response. You can get a sensation that feels great and then it will drift or go away completely. Nothing is wrong. Keep breathing while you tense and release your PC muscle. Find another rhythm with your clitoral stimulation and change your pelvic movements until you catch the next wave of pleasure.
Just in front of a climax your pelvic movements might become more urgent and breathing more rapid as your heart rate increases. Or you might slow down and get quiet. At that point trust your body until it has the orgasm. Once orgasm occurs, don't stop. Simply lighten up with clitoral stimulation by moving the vibrator above or off to one side. Keep breathing, moving your pelvis and pumping the pelvic floor muscles. After a few moments, the hypersensitivity will subside and for some women, her clitoris will be ready to go again. At that point you have the choice of building up to another orgasm or simply riding the aftershocks of pleasure from the orgasm you just had. Some women feel satisfied with one nice full orgasm. We are unique so one size does not fit all.
About The Magic Wand: This vibrator is sold as an electric body massager. Although there are many electric vibrators on the market now, the Wand is my personal favorite. This sturdy and reliable machine is great for relaxing and soothing sore muscles throughout the entire body. The therapeutic vibrations bring a new supply of blood to any area being massaged including the genitals. Once I discovered how great this vibrator was for sexual pleasure, I started buying them by the case to share with the women in my original Bodysex groups. Since the early seventies I have recommended the Magic Wand without being paid for my endorsement. I currently sell the Wand on my website in addition to Betty's Barbell, my vaginal exerciser, and a few other favorite sex toys along with my books and videos. When you use the Wand, I recommend using a layer of cushioning. At first, I used a soft washcloth layered. Today I just put a clean white sock on the head of the vibrator.
The Magic Wand vibrator only works on AC current so the company will not ship to countries with direct electrical current. However, there is a vibrator that works on batteries called the Mystic Wand. It’s like the Magic Wands little sister. She has five different settings and one has vibrations almost as strong as her Big Mama Magic Wand. Mystic is smaller, quieter and adorable. The low setting is good for beginners. Another good vibrator is the Eroscillator that also comes in both AC and DC current. These vibrators plus other sex toys are available from our sex shop.
A woman who has a history of little or no masturbation and is looking for her first orgasm in her mid-thirties or older, the Mystic or Magic Wand will provide steady stimulation for as long as she needs to awaken her slumbering clitoris. The strong consistent vibrations will make up for years of sensory deprivation. The Wand is a must for postmenopausal women who want to renew a fading libido or for women taking an anti-depressant. The electric vibrator is to women what Viagra is to men. The Wand is also marvelous for women interested in increasing the intensity of their orgasms, wanting to have several orgasms during a masturbation session and for women that want to experience orgasm during penetration sex with a partner. Get my book Orgasms for Two that has information on how to use a vibrator while having sex with your partner.
VARIATIONS ON EXPERIENCES WITH VIBRATORS: When you are new to vibrator sex, you may experience any number of responses. One client I observed had a full-body orgasm, but she claimed nothing had happened. Her expectations of an orgasm were so exaggerated she couldn't identify what was actually taking place in her body. Another woman had a small climax and didn't think it was real. In order for her orgasms to grow, she needed to acknowledge her small climaxes. A girlfriend told me that the first time she used a vibrator, she had the most intense orgasm of her life, but it was over before she knew what had happened. Another woman had to practice for a month before she broke through to her orgasm. We are all very different in how we respond to clitoral stimulation.
COMMON MISUSE OF THE VIBRATOR: Some women create pain instead of pleasure by bearing down with the vibrator, crushing their sweet little clits while demanding immediate results. Or they vibrate too long irritating their vulva. If you feel pain or a burning sensation, stop. You are doing something wrong. Instead of relying on pressure to increase the sensation, keep the vibrator moving around your clitoris with a light touch. A little pressure from time to time is okay, but bearing down will numb out the most athletic clits. Breathing fully, rocking your pelvis and squeezing the pelvic floor muscles will increase your genital sensation. Avoid bearing down harder with your vibrator.
The other problem is not spending enough time. Most women who come for a private session have never masturbated for more than five or ten minutes. In order to get the energy moving similar to getting your heart rate up, I often keep my client moving, breathing and vibrating for at least an hour, sometimes up to three hours. The common complaint from women is, "I seem to get right in front of an orgasm but I can't get over that edge." My answer is, "There is no edge." Just keep vibrating while trying something different; a new fantasy, a different rhythm, shifting the position of the vibrator, altering vaginal penetration., increase your pelvic floor muscle squeezing. Most important is don't stop, keep going.
SEXUAL FANTASY: One of the best ways to focus your mind on sexual pleasure is to engage your mind in a hot fantasy instead of running the grocery list. If you are new to fantasy you can start by imagining something sexual that you enjoyed and gradually embellish the details. Sexual fantasy is at the heart of the creative process that requires the freedom to imagine the unimaginable. Get rid of the mental censor inside your head. My fantasies have ranged from sugary romantic scenarios to thinking up elaborate set ups for bondage where I'm taken advantage of by cruel men. At first I worried about my rape and bondage fantasies, but these were the images that got me really hot. In real life I have never been put into bondage or raped. Once I understood that I was playing all the roles in my fantasies, it freed me to stop passing judgment. That alone freed my imagination to think about anything that turned me on.
DILDO USE: Once you have your orgasm pattern established, adding vaginal penetration with Betty's Barbell or differently sized dildos will intensify sexual sensations. When using my Barbell, first oil your toy and start with slow penetration. Once inside, you can leave the Barbell in place while you squeeze and release the PC muscle. The weight of the Barbell holds it inside the vagina. Or you can move it slowly in and out or do a short rapid motion while continuing clitoral stimulation. Angle the Barbell or any other dildo up toward the ceiling of your vagina and press into the urethral sponge (G-spot) and observe the sensation. Don't look for some special spot inside your vagina. It's a sensation.
Focus on your primary sex organ, the clitoris with its eight thousand nerve endings. The internal clitoris inside the body surrounds the first third of your vaginal barbell. Continue to work the PC muscle against the Barbell. Try a variety of different sized dildos. You might find a larger dildo that stretches your vagina feels good. If vaginal penetration is not that interesting for you or it doesn't feel good, then drop it and just stay with your clitoris.
GETTING EVERYTHING TOGETHER
Combining the five elements of clitoral stimulation, vaginal penetration, pelvic movements, PC muscle contractions and breathing out loud makes this style of masturbation the one that's most easily translated to partnersex. During intercourse, you or your partner can add the kind of clitoral contact you prefer with fingers, a battery vibrator or any electric vibrator including my favorite, the Magic Wand or the Mystic Wand.
If you've followed these instructions and STILL CAN'T ORGASM, I've put together a longer version that's an ebook: Learn How to Orgasm.
Also, go to the Nav Bar and under Ask Dr. Betty, read the questions and my answers asked by other women. This will give you more ideas of skills you can try. I'm always working on gathering new facts to share. Be sure to read my information on the G spot. If a woman squirts naturally it's perfectly OK, but I advise beginners to stay focussed on the clitoris which is our primary organ for sexual pleasure. Another fact is that squirting is not the same thing as having an orgasm so don't get caught up in all the PR surrounding this over-stated sexual response. | 18,173 | 7,645 | 2.377109 |
warc | 201704 | Where does your dog sleep? It is obvious that your bed or your couches are among the options, but they are not always the best option. A dog needs a place of its own that represents a sort of retreat where it can relax comfortably. A special bed for your dog is not among the things that are considered whims. On the contrary, it is a necessity just like its food and water bowls. Choosing between the best dog beds recommended by specialists is not an easy thing to do since the variety is overwhelming. However, there are certain factors that can help you decide.
While most of us do not think of our own bed as a priceless object, it still is a piece of furniture without which it would be almost impossible to live. A good bed ensures insulation, warmth, support for our back and joints, as well as it contributes to our feeling of safety. When a dog gets its own bed, it benefits of all the comfort mentioned above.
In fact, a future dog owner should be buying a bed along with all the other accessories needed for the new member of the family even before getting it. Buying a bed for your dog should always be a priority and situated on the top of the list. There is no dog, regardless of its age or size that does not need a bed.
The importance of a bed for a dog
When you think of getting a dog, you also have to think where it will sleep. Any dog needs a place of its own that is quiet and protected from drafts and direct sunlight. It cannot sleep directly on the floor, on cement or on hone because they are cold and it would definitely not feel happy, but abandoned and lonely.
Even those dogs that live outdoors in little wood houses need a sort of bed that is suited for any weather conditions. A soft bed is always a great choice for any type of dog living indoors or outdoors.
Sleeping in a comfortable bed is a pleasure for anybody, therefore for any dog as well. Although a dog might prefer to sometimes sleep in bed with its owner if he or she allows it or on the couch, any dog wants a place of its own where it can go when it wants to be alone or when it is alone at home. So, in case you already have a pup and it doesn’t have a bed, you should definitely browse for options online or go to a pet shop.
However, before you do that, you can find out more here about which factors you should consider prior to making a purchase. The fact that the offer is so generous in our days is amazing, so choosing the perfect bed is actually something you can accomplish for the sake of your canine friend. Among the factors you should consider are your dog’s size, sleeping style, age, indoor or outdoor temperatures and so on.
Having a dog bed isn’t a luxury, as many people may think. In fact, a dog bed is the best thing you can do for your dog in terms of:
Protection.Some dogs may tend to shed their hair a lot. Imagine if they’re also doing that whilst they’re sleeping. Besides, many other dogs tend to drool, and the owner of a drooling dog knows exactly what it means to clean that up. Moreover, the best beds on the market are way better than a blanket in terms of hygiene. If your dog got to play outside all day long, he may still have some bacteria or dirt you couldn’t have properly cleaned, even if you wash him regularly. This may all end up on your carpet and furniture if you aren’t careful. Comfort.Dogs also need to have their comfort, especially when they’re sleeping. Finding the most appropriate bed for your friend means picking the right size, to let him enjoy his nuzzle. It doesn’t have to be much wider than the size of your dog, but it should give him a bit of room to move around. Dogs are more comfortable in a bed than on a blanket, because a blanket can crinkle underneath them. The carpet isn’t a good solution either, it doesn’t provide the level of reassuring coziness that settling in a dog bed does. Ownership.Having a dog bed can give your dog a sense of ownership, of having something of his own, where other people or pets aren’t allowed to sleep in. That is one of the most important psychological advantages of a dog bed. Plus, giving him a good night’s sleep will make him happier, which can solve some of the more stringent dog behavior problems like: separation anxiety, barking, biting and aggression. At the end of the day, having a calm dog can really help his training because he can focus more on the commands he has to learn. Health.There are a number of health benefits that the beds on the market can offer your dog. Firstly, they can help keep his body temperature constant, as well as providing a good support for his spine and limbs. If you own an older dog, you must know he has more acute needs of sleeping in a supportive dog bed, to alleviate his age-related problems, like arthritis. The best dog bed for this type of dog doesn’t put extra-pressure on his skeleton, but takes some of that pressure off, giving him a chance at a good night sleep.
Some of the bigger size dogs can experience bone problems as they get older, but smaller size dogs aren’t exempt from them either.
As a dog owner, you can choose between different types of dog beds such as, special mattresses, wicker baskets, soft-edged beds, lounge chairs and so on. The mattresses are made of cotton, nylon or canvas-type bed linen. Dogs usually prefer beds that have soft edges because the edges can support their heads. Dog owners prefer beds that are made of plastic because they are easy to clean. In such beds there is a big pillow that fits right in or a mattress, both being easy to clean as well thanks to their pillow cases.
In addition, you should avoid buying a random bed or just something a seller suggests without being aware of your dog’s requirements. For example, when you take into account the size of your pooch, you can buy a larger one in case it hasn’t reached maturity yet. A big bed is not a problem, but a bed that is too small is. Usually, you should measure your doggy when it lays and stretches.
When it comes to colors, this is an aspect that does not have a high degree of importance. However, as a quick advice, it would be best not to pick a fluorescent color, but a discrete one that may match your dog’s fur color or the general decorations from the room the bed will be placed in. The used materials are much more important than the used colors.
The most indicated mattresses are those made of memory foam because they are very comfortable for any dog and they are typically covered with an anti-moisture material that can be washed whenever it is necessary in order to prevent illnesses due to inadequate hygiene. Impurities, dust and various smells can accumulate inside the fabric and cause discomfort to your doggy.
In short, among the benefits a dog bed can provide for both you and your dog are the fact that it provides the necessary temperature regardless of season, it represents a personal space where your dog feels safe and comfortable even when you are not at home, it is a way of controlling where your dog lays the most and makes collecting its hairs in just one place a lot easier and it is also useful for situations when a dog would have to jump from a couch on a hard floor, risking injury.
In addition, dogs that live outdoors can find a dry spot in their special bed if it is chosen wisely and it is waterproof. Humidity should be a problem for them anymore.
Beds for small, large and old dogs
Generally, small sized dogs prefer round beds that have some sort of walls because they provide a sense of security and keep them warm easily. Even if your dog is not small sized, but you notice it going round in circles before lying in bed, then you should think of buying a circular one for it as well. Conversely, if your dog is large, you might find that rectangular shaped beds are the most recommended. Those dogs that like to sleep with their legs stretched would also need a rectangular shaped bed.
In conclusion, your biggest concern is to make sure not to choose a bed that is too small. The rest of the aspects are not as important as size is. If you are not sure of the needed dimensions, it would be better to choose a larger bed than a smaller one. This situation is similar with a human’s needs. You would not like a bed that is too small for your feet to also fit in, so the same goes for your dog.
Older dogs have special needs, fact which should also be considered when purchasing a bed for them. They might have joint pain, therefore you should focus on finding mattresses made of memory foam because that takes the shape of the dog’s body and it helps a lot at enhancing its comfort.
When you test the fabric from a dog bed, you should make sure it does not stay compact after several compression. Also, check if it is a fabric that retains moisture or if there is an anti-moisture layer attached on it. If you ignore these aspects, you might be surprised of how fast your dog’s bed will become unsanitary and really hard to clean.
Types of beds made for dogs The standard bed
A standard bed made for dogs does not have anything fancy. It is usually simple, looking like a pillow. Its shapes, sizes and colors are varied and mostly suited for an owner’s aesthetic taste more than a dog’s needs. Some of these standards beds contain pieces of cedar inside them. This is because cedar is known to keep insects away as well as unpleasant odors.
In addition, most of these beds come with special covers that can be changed or just taken off and washed. The standard bed is suitable for most dog breeds, however there is an exception. Dogs that have orthopedic problems would not feel best in such a bed.
The nest shaped bed
The nest shaped bed is pretty similar with the standard bed. The only difference between them is that the standard bed does not have tall edges, but the nest shaped bed does. Because of these edges, it tends to look like a nest, therefore its denomination.
Also, this type of dog bed can be built in a way that would make it resemble a couch, encouraging dogs to cuddle in a tight space. There is also another type of bed shaped like a peanut, which is provided with tall edges that are also very fluffy.
Most dogs love the fluffy feeling, the round or the peanut shape. However, these preferences are not the same for sick dogs. Some might find it very hard to climb in or get out of such a soft bed cause of their bone or joint problems.
The orthopedic bed
Finally, the orthopedic bed is the one suited for the needs of sick dogs. Those pooches that are older or that have orthopedic problems can relax in a special bed made for them. This bed is filled with dense foam in order to not put pressure on a dog’s fragile joints.
Also, these beds are recommended for skinny dogs, such as those from the Greyhound breed or the Whippet breed because of the same considerations. Of course, these beds have different features that can enhance their basic characteristics and become more suitable for each dog in need of such a bed.
The elevated bed
The elevated dog bed is rather interesting for humans than it is efficient for dogs. Because it is situated above ground, it keeps dogs away from dirty or cold floors.
Also, the insects would have a harder time reaching the dogs compared with if they were on the floor. It goes without saying that these types of beds are not indicated for dogs with joint problems or for dog breeds that are predisposed to developing back problems, such as the Dachshund breed is.
Jumping in and out of this type of bed could also cause discomfort for some pooches.
The covered bed
The covered bed is especially designed in order to look like a small house or like a tent and it is usually recommended for small sized dogs. Timid dogs that like to play hide and seek or just hide for a while would be delighted by such a bed.
These covered beds come with heating systems that are convenient for colder days. However, the heating systems are not the only great feature they have. Special cooling systems were also incorporated. The type of technology used is based on water or specials gels. Those dogs that belong to the Bulldog breed are the happiest with such beds.
Depending on how much you want to spoil your dog, you can limit yourself to one bed, or you can buy multiple beds for it. If you have a spacious home or if your dog also likes to go outdoors and take a nap, then you might consider purchasing more than one piece of such useful furniture.
Getting two models alike is definitely okay, but if you want to offer some diversity to your dog, you might treat it with two different types of beds that have different features, but which are sized correctly according to your dog’s specific dimensions.
The best dog beds on the market
We’ve perused the World Wide Web in search of topnotch beds for your furry animal friend, to find out what people around the globe tend to choose.
The best selling dog beds have most of the characteristics discussed above, they’re affordable and comfortable for your dog. So here’s a list of the most liked dog beds:
Majestic Pet Suede Bagel Dog Bed
With a review of 4.5 out of 5 stars from 799 customer reviews, this dog bed is donut shaped, comfortable and costs only $53.99. It is 52 inches by 36 inches on the outside, while on the inside is 46 inches by 30 inches.
Its base is a heavy duty water-proof Denier, while the bolster and cushion are made out of Fau by Suede. Its filling is made out of Premium High Loft Polyester, and can be washed in a washing machine. It also comes in different colors: chocolate, rust, sage, stone and brown.
Many people prefer to but this type of standard dog bed for their medium sized dogs, due to its soft cushiony filling and its easy cleaning process. Are you one of them? Order it on Amazon.
Coolaroo Elevated Pet Bed with Knitted Fabric
With 4.4 out of 5 stars from 5950 customer reviews, this elevated dog bed costs just $28.38. You can choose the color you like, as you can find it in green, gray, terracotta and nutmeg.
This is actually one of the best dog beds for bigger dogs. As you can see, it’s quite sturdy, can hold a dog which weighs up to 100 pounds, and its size is more than capacious at 51 inch x 31.5 inch x 8 inch. In fact, its frame is powder-coated steel, which is very light but sturdy at the same time. It allows for a quick assembly and comes with included rubber feet, which won’t let this bed slip.
Moreover, it’s made out of a certain fabric – HDPE knitted mesh – that allows the air to pass through it. This breathable fabric allows your dog to stay cool in the summer, should you choose to use it outside. However, keep in mind that it can also be used as an optimal indoor dog bed.
If you find this is a good option for you, check it out on Amazon.
Stella Bed. Orthopedic Memory Foam Dog Bed for Large Breeds
This is one of the top-rated dog beds you can find: although it has only 15 customer reviews, it still gets 4.8 out of 5 stars for a number of advantages. Costing $139.99, it’s a pretty pricy item, but it’s one of the best choices on the market for larger breeds at 48 inches. You can also choose the extra-large option, at 52 inches and $159.99. If your dog isn’t THAT big, you can always go for the medium option of 34 inches and $99.99.
This orthopedic bed has a strong cotton top. If it gets too warm, you have the option of flipping it on the other side, so that your dog can enjoy the cooler cotton top.
The cover is made from a washable material, lined with water-proof backing. If your dog drools a lot, or if you spill something on it, water won’t get to the foam. This material is better than plastic, which can become irritating because of the noise it makes.
The Stella Bed has Structured Reflex Support Foam, which can accommodate bigger dogs and you won’t have to be afraid of it bulging out. You can also find a layer of Gen II Hybrid Gel Memory Foam which keeps dogs cool during summertime, as well as a Plush Crate Memory Foam Layer which insulates better during the winter.
You’ll also get a special offer: another free machine-washable cover, if you decide to buy it now on Amazon.
MidWest Quiet Time Pet Bed
This standard dog bed comes into a variety of sizes, from 18 inches to 48 inches, which means your dog can be as small as 6 pounds or as big as 110 pounds. If you pick the smaller sized bed, it’ll cost you only $3.30, while the bigger size bed costs just $26.82.
You can likewise choose the color you like: Gray, Mocha and CoCo Chic. It has an average review of 4.3 out of 5 stars, thanks to the votes of 2327 happy customers.
You can use it inside a crate or a kennel, but it can also be a valid option for a travel bed. Another good news is that you can clean it in the washing machine. Being made out of ultra-soft Synthetic Fur, this can be a really good choice if your dog has arthritis, joint problems or other age/ health related issues.
Another advantage provided by this bed is that it’s bottom surface is non-skid. That’s something very important to consider if you’re planning to place the bed on a slippery surface.
If you want to give this bed a try, find it on Amazon.
How to choose the right option?
As mentioned before, there are certain factors that should be taken into consideration before buying a bed for your canine friend. Your dog’s sleeping style is just as important as your dog’s size. The need of getting a bed in which your dog fits perfectly cannot be emphasized enough.
Also, once you make a purchase, you have to put the dog’s bed in a certain place from your apartment that meets all the requirements regarding light, temperature and intimacy as well. The situation is similar for dogs that live outdoors. Their bed needs to be placed accordingly too.
Your dog’s sleeping style is among the essential factors that you should consider before buying a bed for it. A dog that likes to sleep lying needs an edgeless bed, so that its head and members can stretch freely. Therefore, a big bed is the best choice for it.
Conversely, if your dog likes to sleep in a small place, looking almost like it hugs itself, then it needs a small bed with margins on which to lean on and support its body weight while sleeping. The plastic baskets accessorized with a soft cushion are a good option if you cannot afford to spend more money on something else, more pretentious.
A dog’s bed size is, as said, essential. If you have a puppy, you should consider how large it would get before you buy a bed for it. Unless you want to invest in a dog bed twice or more, this is the best option you have. A puppy does great with a larger bed, but an adult dog will not like to curl up on an undersized pillow. If you still have the feeling that a bed is too large for your pup, you can add a few pillows to restrain the space and thus make it feel safer and more comfortable until it gets bigger.
The best method to find out how much space your dog needs to sleep comfortably is to measure it while it sleeps. There is no better way to figure out what it needs. However, add one or two inches to the result just be sure. Never go for the smaller version of a bed even it has the best characteristics on the market.
In order to protect your dog from cold, make sure not to place its newly bought bed between doors or windows or in other areas that are exposed. Also, the bottom of its bed should be thick enough to keep it warm. If it is not, you can add a piece of isoprene or something similar underneath. Intimacy is also important when it comes to choosing a place where to put your beloved pet’s bed in. A dog needs a place to consider its own where it is not stressed or nervous because of any reason or because of anyone.
Dogs that live outdoors have different needs. They need a bed that keeps them warm when the temperatures drop and, at the same time, a bed that cools them down when the temperatures rise. Regardless of the season, the bed should be waterproof. If moisture infiltrates in a pillow, it will retain humidity and feel cold. During summer, ventilation is the keyword, so these two aspects might be difficult to encompass in just one bed. Thinking of two types of beds would probably be the best choice in the case of a dog that lives outdoors throughout the year.
In areas with extreme temperatures and in case of healthy dogs, elevated beds are best. This is because not being on the floor ensures separation from cold and warmth. The addition of pillows is a great solution for chilly weather, while replacing them with thinner ones is a solution for hot days. These beds can be more versatile than they might look at the beginning and a dog will definitely learn to enjoy them as soon as they recognize them as their own special places where they feel best at any given time of the day or the night.
As said, if your lovely pooch has problems with its bones or joints or anything regarding orthopedic issues, then your choice is much simpler. The beds for old or sick dogs are made of memory foam. You can check this aspect by putting pressure on it. If the foam goes back to its initial shape in a matter of seconds, then this is what you are looking for. Only these types of pillows are comfortable for dogs with special needs. In addition, this bed should be placed in an accessible place that does not require any effort from your dog in order to reach it.
Buy a dog bed that can be perfectly integrated in one of your rooms. Do not invest in something that would completely ruin the theme or a room and make you hate it because of that. The offer is so varied that it would be impossible not to find a match. For example, there are couches for dogs made of natural leather that would be a great addition to your living room. However, those cannot replace a proper sleeping place for your canine pet. The main idea is that if you look close enough, you will find the perfect product from all points of view.
Soft and comfortable conclusions
While browsing online or going in different pet shops, you can definitely find exactly what you are looking for in terms of beds for dogs. There are so many types, that you could be overwhelmed, so try to make a better idea about them before actually going shopping. They come in various types, shapes and sizes, but not all of them are suited for your pooch. Your choice should be based on usefulness, not on aesthetic aspects, but your requirements regarding looks might be met as well given the variety.
If you decide and you buy a bed for your doggy, the next step you need to take is to help it get used with it. By using simple commands and rewards, you can train your dog to sleep there and spend time there pretty fast. Remember not to wash the pillow cases for as long as your dog is still getting used with that place as being its own private space. Having its smell impregnated there will be of great help at the beginning. | 23,148 | 9,485 | 2.440485 |
warc | 201704 | You have heard the word "absorb" in many contexts. Think of a paper towel commercial. They advertise, "This towel is more absorbent than the average towel." Or think of a sponge. If you spill grape juice, you clean it up by wiping a wet sponge over the grape juice spill. The sponge has just absorbed the grape juice. The same thing happens to sound. As sound travels through a medium such as water, it gets absorbed - caught by the molecules within the medium. The medium actually changes some of the acoustic energy of the sound wave into heat. One way that this happens is that the acoustic energy of the sound causes the molecules of the medium to start vibrating. The molecules are at rest before the sound wave comes through. In order for them to start vibrating, the sound must be powerful enough to overcome the molecule's resistance to movement. The molecules must overcome the viscosity of the medium through which the sound is propagating. They do this by stealing some of the energy from the sound wave. The absorption in sea water is much greater than would be expected due to the viscosity of pure water. In addition to the absorption due to viscosity, some of the chemicals that make the ocean salty also absorb sound and convert it to heat. The final result of absorption is that as sound travels or propagates through a medium, its amplitude decreases faster than it would due to spreading loss alone. This is due to the loss of acoustic energy to heat.
The amount of absorption depends on the frequency of the sound. A high frequency sound has many cycles in a second, and the particles in the medium are therefore vibrating very rapidly. Just as when you rub your hands together very rapidly, this produces more heat than if you rub your hands together slowly. Since the molecules get their energy to vibrate from the sound wave, the sound wave will run out of energy sooner when it is a high frequency sound. This means that, under the same conditions, a high frequency sound won't travel as far as a low frequency sound.
High Frequency Sound Low Frequency Sound | 2,090 | 914 | 2.286652 |
warc | 201704 | Find out why Multnomah County Sheriff’s Captain Bobbi Luna, in charge of our jails, says her additional duties as President of the American Jail Association will benefit both those in custody – and everyday citizens …
Here, at the annual meeting of the American Jail Association, at the Oregon Convention Center, MCSO Captain Bobbi Luna is about to become President of that national trade association. Story and photos by David F. Ashton Typically, we don’t cover national conventions that meet in Portland.
But, when we were invited to see Multnomah County Sheriff’s Captain Bobbi Luna – she’s in charge of the Bookings Unit and Programs Unit with the Multnomah County Detention Center and Inverness Jail – be sworn in as President of the American Jail Association (AJA), we attended the ceremony.
Before the program started, a little before noon on Sunday, May 23, we talked with Captain Luna. “In November, I’ll celebrate 27 years with the Sheriff’s Office. It’s been a wonderful career choice.”
Most interesting to her, she said, is the variety in her work. “No two days look exactly the same, because we’re dealing with people; it’s a people business.”
Captain Luna says she’s thrilled to be inducted into national office here in Portland.
One of four women ever elected to the post
Dressed in her Class A uniform, Luna said she was pleased to serve as president of her national trade organization. “I’ll be one of four women who’ve held the office. It’s a very big honor, it’s huge.”
The American Jail Association, Luna told us, represents about 3,300 jails across the nation. “Every community has a jail. We’re the ‘silent partner’ in the justice system; working hard 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, to support community safety.”
One of the best things about being part of a national organization, Luna pointed out, is that she can advocate on behalf of improvements in our jails, work to find appropriate funding and resources and focus on critical issues – such as lack of mental care funding in jails – on a “national stage”.
Captain Luna is sworn in as President of the American Jail Association.
Sworn in after business meeting
After the outgoing president tended to organization business, and there new officers were announced, Luna took the AJA oath of office.
Luna addressed the assembly, “It’s a tremendous honor to been sworn in as your president. It’s an even greater honor for me to be part of the National AJA Conferences here this week. I am remarkably proud that our Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office is hosting the conference; and take office here in my hometown, with my family and friends present.”
Each year, Luna said, the AJA has delivered high-quality training and networking experiences to the annual training conference, and showed new equipment at their Jail Expo.
“[During the conference] you’ll not only have an opportunity to learn from leaders in our field, will also be celebrating 29 years of setting the standard and networking for American jails.”
In her address, Luna highlights the association’s work to lobby Congress to provide better mental health care in jails.
Concerns about mental health surface
One of the issues addressed in the conference, Luna said, was that of the mentally ill in the justice system.
After her address, Luna took a few moments to expand on the topic, and how it relates to Multnomah County jails.
“As I said in my remarks, there’s a focus across the nation on issues of the mentally ill and America’s jails, and meeting their needs as they re-enter the community. This means making sure that they have the resources they need in the community.”
Asked what resources were available, Luna replied, “That is the problem. For example, a big problem is that federal entitlements that an individual has, when arrested, are all suspended. Sometimes it’s difficult to get them back.”
She noted that even if the primary reason a person is in jail is a mental health issue, their Social Security or disability or SSI or SSD, along with medication funding and their Veterans benefits, all stop. “We’re working with [the U.S.] Congress on the Recidivism Reduction Act, to see if those benefits can be
immediately reinstated.”
In addition to running typical jail operations, Luna says a good portion of their budget goes for psychotropic medications for the mentally ill.
Health care costs strain budgets
The Multnomah County Jails spends more than $100,000 annually on psychotropic medications, added Luna. “These are medications are needed to treat the seriously mentally ill. And, many of these people, with serious mental illnesses, don’t touch our jail systems only once. They’re touching our jail systems time and time again, plowing through the resources of the local jurisdiction.”
It’s as if the jail has a revolving door for people with mental illness, Luna told us. “They get stabilized in jail. But when they go back out in the community, and the resources are not available to them, they destabilize, and roll right back into the jail.”
Planning for improvement
It’s not a hopeless situation, Luna said. “I think there’s some really exciting work going on in Multnomah County around these issues. Just recently, our local Public Safety Coordinating Council sponsored a planning session where we used the GAINS* intercept model.
For two days, Luna said, a panel made up of criminal court judges, jailers, mental health advocates and others looked to find ways to divert the mentally ill from our jails. The planning process continues.
Regarding funding, Luna stated, “What we are looking to do, is to work with existing resources by the reframing of services already provided. By redirecting funding and realigning services, hopefully we can create better outcomes.”
*
GAINS is a United States Center for Mental Health Services of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration strategy: Gathering information Assessing what works Interpreting/integrating the facts Networking Stimulating change
Multnomah County Sheriff Daniel Staton congratulates Captain Bobbi Luna on being named President of the national association.
© 2010 David F. Ashton ~ East Portland News | 6,532 | 2,878 | 2.269632 |
warc | 201704 | Soil Safety Program is spending the summer at several parks, cleaning up arsenic and lead soil contamination from the old Tacoma Asarco smelter.
The largest project is at Jane Clark Park in north Tacoma, where we will remove and replace 2.2 acres of soil!
Other projects include finishing some soil replacement at Titlow Park in west Tacoma, and finishing last fall's work at American Lake in Lakewood.
Why do park work in the summer?Unfortunately, construction season in the Pacific Northwest overlaps with summer break. To keep our cleanup work from interfering with summer camps and sports, we work with local park districts as we plan each project. We have also spaced cleanups out over several years so we don't have too many parks under construction in the same area. How can I find out what's in my own yard?Depending on where you live, you may qualify for free soil sampling, or we might already have sampling results for your yard. You can search your address on our interactive map to see if you live in an area that could have soil contamination.
June 2013 fact sheet for neighbors of Jane Clark Park. | 1,118 | 625 | 1.7888 |
warc | 201704 | Muted Monday
Reading through the financial headlines and watching some of the talking heads on the business shows had an entirely new feel today. Compare the following points with what was happening when the market tanked in August:
I did not find many headlines which linked a market drop to a FED rate cut. I think the recent focus on the high price of Oil, in US Dollars, has finally woken people up to the dollar collapse may not be a wonderful thing for the US economy and consumer going forward. If the mainstream media ever links rate cuts with a falling dollar I can save the shipping costs of a flashlight and detailed GPS map to the "get a clue" box I have buried in the backyard. There is broad discussion that Merrill Lynch will disclose huge losses for the 3rd quarter, and get this, there will be more in the 4th quarter! Who would have guessed? The August-September superficial wound may instead be a deep puncture wound that is going to bleed red for a while. (Note to Merrill, be careful if you go to the hospital, the drug resistant staph infections are running wild this year!) A commentator on CNBC asked a talking head why Merrill did not just write down all the losses in the 3rd quarter, and the guy actually told the truth. He explained that Merrill only could write down little pieces at a time, because they do not want to liquidate their holdings at pennies on the dollar. Those losses, he remarked, are almost beyond estimation. I think Merrill is holding out for the SIV Superfund as well. This is a key moment, the loan losses are going to continue and that has begun to filter down to the mainstream discussion. The Superfund is getting way more attention than anyone involved would ever have wanted. There simply is no way to repackage, rename, or represent the fund as anything but a time bomb and a market rigging of price discovery for mortgage related assets held by the banks. Bill Gross even said it was "lame". It has been a while since a market rigging bailout wasn't embraced like a pretty blonde after last call. Countrywide closed at $15.68 today, well below the $18 dollar convertible price that Bank of America had struck way back in August. The message boards of CFC and BAC are ablaze with speculation on what this could mean. Jim Cramer did not have a melt down on TV. Where's the fun in that?
Quite a difference from August. Now one day does not a trend make, but those are some real changes in sentiment. The existing and new home sales numbers come out on Wednesday and Thursday, and those are going to help with reality osmosis as well.
In Search of The Elusive Bottom
A while back I remember Bob Toll of Toll Brothers saying on a conference call that housing was "
dancing on a bottom". The bottom has been predicted by the NAR, homebuilders, and mainstream media every month for the last 12 months. In fact the housing bottom is like one of those exotic animals that are rumored to inhabit some jungle somewhere. They are stalked and tracked for years, but have yet to be captured on film. The bottom for housing is also elusive and secretive it seems. What was supposed to be a late 2007 turnaround was pushed back to a 2008 recovery. Now there is acceptance that the housing downturn could go on well into 2009. That also seems hopelessly optimistic, and I will bet Bigfoot is found before housing posts a gain in 2009. I said Bigfoot, not the Loch Ness Monster because the Loch Ness Monster is actually real. (kidding)
Two things to keep in mind when thinking about a bottom is housing.
Calculated Risk has a great mortgage reset chart up today, check it out: http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/2007/10/imf-mortgage-reset-chart.html
No way are things getting any better in the foreclosure arena anytime soon.
From the
NY Times and Calculated Risk covers it today: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/22/us/22auction.html?_r=3&ref=business&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Key quotes:
"
The market’s really low right now, so you can get a good price,” said Lori Crook, a food server at Keys Cafe who said she was looking for a place she could fix up and sell. “Even if you can’t sell it right away, if you just sit on it and sit on it, it will go up.”
“
I just looked at the picture and thought if we got it cheap enough, we could rent it for a year, then sell it when the market goes back up,” said Mr. Kihle, a building contractor."
“
It won’t always be low,” said Pearl Dobbins, who said she was willing to spend up to $50,000. “This is our chance to buy a home and start our financial future.”
I have gone on in detail how a house is a
forced savings plan for people without the means or ability to manage their finances. As longs as there is this kind of get rich fast, and a home equals financial freedom mindset we are absolutely nowhere near any bottom. I think I want to leave my molecular biology job and become a foodserver instead. It seems that's where the real cash is being made.
Have a good night. | 5,058 | 2,562 | 1.974239 |
warc | 201704 | Grow sprouts in a jar and you’ll find it is as easy as turning on the faucet a few times a day! Growing sprouts doesn’t have to involve specialized equipment. All it takes is an empty jar, cloth, and some daily TLC.
Even more important is the nutrition and texture growing sprouts brings to your daily diet. Sprouts are a powerhouse of nutrients, essentially concentrating the nutrition of seeds in a more digestible plant form. Read on to learn how to grow sprouts in the comfort of your home.
Equipment
To grow sprouts, you will need a wide-mouth jar, a cheese cloth that you can use as a lid, and a rubber band to seal the cloth tight.
Seeds
Look for seeds that are labeled “sprouting seeds” or “for sprouting”. This is important for several reasons. The label ensures that the seeds will indeed spout properly as well as most likely have been cleaned and hence devoid of pathogens. If unlabeled, reach for organic seeds to ensure there are not fungicides, pesticides, or other things you don’t want to ingest. The most common beans, seeds, and grains to grow sprouts are alfalfa, lentil, mung, rye, yellow soy, and wheat. Experiment with radish, beet, pea shoot, red clover, barley, amaranth, broccoli, and sunflower sprouts as well!
Sprouting Process Place 1-2 tablespoons of seeds in a jar and cover with 2-3 inches of water. Let soak overnight. The next day, drain and rinse the seeds thoroughly with water. Drain and allow the seeds to remain wet in the jar wet, but not swimming in water. Cover the top of the jar with a cheese cloth, muslin, or nylon. Secure with a rubber band. Store the seeds in a place they don’t get direct sunlight. Rinse the seeds 2-3 times per day. Once rinsed, drain by turning the jar upside down at an angle, allowing the cheese cloth to act as a sieve to let excess water drain. Keep the jar in the this position, placing it in a small bowl of some sort so it can stay at the upside down angle. Once they begin sprouting, place the jar somewhere it can receive sunlight to turn the sprouts green and allow them to grow larger. After a few days the sprouts will need to be de-hulled. Shake the sprouts in water to separate the hulls, then drain. After 3-7 days, depending on the variety, the sprouts should be ready to use. Sprouts are best when they are still small and turning green. Image: Darnlucky Related on EcoSalon: | 2,408 | 1,205 | 1.99834 |
warc | 201704 | Birds--General/ Clay cat litter dust and bird health problems! Question
Hello. I have been online searching for information for about TWO HOURS now and can't find any solid, detailed articles to help me. My Mother and I have been fighting about this subject for a bit now. We have a Sun Conure who acts like he can hardly ever breathe well expansion of chest all the time, looking fluffy, etc, even after baytril or other medications. It's like he's ALWAYS sick. He is in our Glass Aviary (used to be our deck) at the back of the house. We keep TWO CATS in there with the 15 birds (all in sep cages) and they get along. There are TWO litter boxes. My Mother uses the refillable kind from PetCo and it is REALLY DUSTY when you dump or scoop (even if you're careful) and when the cats paw it after going! I think he possibly has asthma and the dust is irritating resp track. I want her to switch to another litter but, one of the cats had issues urinating out of the box and she doesn't want to switch litters because she thinks the current one "is the one" and doesn't want the urinating to re-start (even though it hasn't really stopped)! This is the reason the one cat is locked in there at all times and the other is because she fights with others. There is very little air flow in the room. Even the plants are covered in dust and there is (obviously) a lot of dander! No air purifier and she doesn't want one! She is FRUGAL!
I was wondering if you know of any IN-DEPTH articles that could help me out in explaining the NECESSITY of finding a new litter for this room. Also, to explain the harmful health effects of clumping clay litter on birds respiratory tracks! Or, maybe several short, descriptive articles? Or, if you could WRITE a detailed response to this specific issue, it would REALLY HELP A LOT!
Thanks,
Brandon
Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Answer
Hi Brandon,
Birds have a unique respiratory system. While they have a very small set of lungs, the most important feature is a system of 7-9 air sacs. While this makes their respiratory system more efficient than that of mammals, it also means that toxins (like dust) in the air are also transferred more efficiently. Since it sounds like a veterinarian has checked for bacterial or fungal diseases, maybe your bird has a hypersensitivity to the cat litter dust? Have you tried using a good air filter (such as a HEPA filter) located near the cage? Sorry I can't be more help, I've never seen this addressed in an article. Good luck!
Robin | 2,505 | 1,350 | 1.855556 |
warc | 201704 | Kidney Disorders Kidney disorders may be acute or chronic. Acute conditions usually arise suddenly, most frequently as the result of infection with inflammation of the nephrons. These diseases commonly run a course of a few weeks and are followed by complete recovery. Chronic conditions arise slowly and are often progressive, with gradual loss of kidney function. Acute glomerulonephritis, also known as acute poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis, is the most common disease of the kidneys. This condition usually occurs in children about 1 to 4 weeks after a streptococcal throat infection. Antibodies formed in response to the streptococci attach to the glomerular membrane and cause injury. These damaged glomeruli allow protein, especially albumin, to filter into the glomerular capsule and ultimately to appear in the urine (albuminuria). They also allow red blood cells to filter into the urine (hematuria). Usually, the patient recovers without permanent kidney damage. In adult patients, the disease is more likely to become chronic, with a gradual decrease in the number of functioning nephrons, leading to chronic renal failure. Pyelonephritis, an inflammation of the renal pelvis and the tissue of the kidney, may be either acute or chronic. In acute pyelonephritis, the inflammation results from a bacterial infection. Bacteria most commonly reach the kidney by ascending along the lining membrane from an infection in the distal part of the urinary tract. More rarely, bacteria are carried to the kidney by the blood. Acute pyelonephritis is often seen in people with partial obstruction of urine flow with stagnation (urinary stasis). It is most likely to occur in pregnant women and in men with an enlarged prostate, because the prostate surrounds the first portion of the urethra in males. Other causes of stasis include neurogenic bladder, which is bladder dysfunction resulting from neurologic lesions, as seen in diabetes mellitus, and structural defects in the area where the ureters enter the bladder. Pyelonephritis usually responds to the administration of antibiotics, fluid replacement, rest, and fever control. Chronic pyelonephritis, a more serious disease, is frequently seen in patients with urinary tract stasis or back flow. It may be caused by persistent or repeated bacterial infections. Progressive damage of kidney tissue is evidenced by high blood pressure, continual loss of protein in the urine, and dilute urine. Hydronephrosis is the distention of the renal pelvis and calyces with accumulated fluid as a result of urinary tract obstruction. The most common causes of obstruction, in addition to pregnancy or an enlarged prostate, are a kidney stone
Acute glomerulonephritis
Pyelonephritis
that has formed in the pelvis and dropped into the ureter, a tumor that presses on a ureter, and scars due to inflammation. Prompt removal of the obstruction may result in complete recovery. If the obstruction is not removed, the kidney will be permanently damaged.
A polycystic kidney is one in which many fluid-containing sacs develop in the active tissue and gradually destroy it by pressure. This disorder may run in families, and treatment has not proved very satisfactory, except for the use of dialysis machines or kidney transplantation. Tumors of the kidneys usually grow rather slowly, but rapidly invading types are occasionally found. Blood in the urine and dull pain in the kidney region are warnings that should be heeded at once. Surgical removal of the kidney offers the best chance of cure because most renal cancers do not respond to chemotherapy or radiation.
Polycystic kidney | 3,635 | 1,579 | 2.30209 |
warc | 201704 | Some tough medicine for getting back to good
By Frank Salvato
I recall during the waning days of my Fathers life his incredulousness at how apathetic the American public has become; how narcissistic and unaware the American populace had grown. From the announcement of the formation of the Nation of Islam in Chicago to the over-reaching of labor unions and government, his exasperated retort was always the same, So this is what I fought in World War II for?
I can only imagine the heartbreak that his surviving brethren feel at the state of our nation today.
It has been said many ways but it bears repeating. The Me Generation, those who brought us the cultural revolution of the 1960s and 1970s, those who twirled in the streets at Haight and Ashbury while placing feelings above fact, have done more to damage the United States, bastardize the Constitution and jeopardize the continuation of our existence than all of the enemies we have faced combined. They have spent us (and both political parties are responsible for this) into trillions of dollars of debt, balkanized and dumbed down the populace, misused and abused our military and have allowed caustic special interest groups hell-bent on one-world globalization to capture influence. They have taken a country bequeathed to them in good societal and financial health and moved it to the point where our nations AAA bond rating is being reevaluated and US Representatives laugh at the idea of saying the Pledge of Allegiance before SEIU meetings.
For this I cannot feel the heartbreak of those who fought in World War II, but I can feel a kinship to them in my frustration, sense of urgency and call to duty, because today, it is my generation that must fight the battle for our nations survival against ideologues, opportunists and those of seditious intent who, in many cases, also happen to be US citizens.
But I am not alone in holding these feelings, especially the call to duty. As was made evident on September 12, 2009, in Washington DC, and every day since then in every part of the country, millions of Americans have re-awakened to their civic responsibility to governmental oversight. This re-awakening is commonly referred to as the Tea Party Movement. It is real. It has sufficient motivation to succeed in its goals. And those who attempt to diminish its potency or providence do so at the cost of their political careers.
The unique facet of the Tea Party Movement is that it is a true grassroots movement of people who believe in the Constitution; who believe in limited government, limited taxation, States Rights, fiscal responsibility and a strong national defense. There is no leader and there neednt be one. And while there have been organizers in locations around the country, good people one and all, should anyone claim to be a leader or an originator he or she is a charlatan. This movement was born in the soul of the American and belongs to no one but the American; no political party, no special interest group, no individual.
So, in these dark days for our country, days in which politicians continue expanding the debt on the backs of our children, in which the strength of America overseas has been diminished through the appearance of weakness, and in which Progressives try to fundamentally transform the United States of America, there is hope, real hope, not the fake, manufactured, media-hyped hope that the American voter was sold in 2008.
The re-awakening has allowed the American people to reestablish their connection to the fact
and the importance of the fact that our government was created by the people, for the people and subject to the consent of the governed.
This, in turn has allowed us to clearly see that most multi-term politicians in Washington and in the many State Houses have elevated themselves into a class of elected elitists, in their eyes, much more qualified to decide what will and will not be good for the people. The American people have re-awakened from a fifty-year slumber of apathy and ignorance to find that most multi-term politicians are actually political opportunists more concerned with the politics of getting re-elected than in performing good government for their constituents.
In an honest quest to get back to good, our country is going to have to take some tough medicine and endure some cultural clashes. Think of it as political chemotherapy. As part of this political chemotherapy a few things, among many others, must be accomplished.
Taking Back Our Schools
Our schools have turned from places where children are taught critical thinking skills, skills that allow them to intelligently engage in life, into ideological indoctrination mills, churning out political operatives who can better put a condom on a cucumber or spew false information about non-existent man-made global warming than solve complex mathematical equations of write an accurately structured sentence. The attention span of the average child pales in comparison to a child of just fifty years ago. And while the technical knowledge of our children today may be far more advance than that of their parents, they have no meaningful education in US History or the philosophies that moved our Founders and Framers to risk life and limb to create our great nation.
There was a legitimate need for labor unions after the turn of the 20th Century. Some unscrupulous employers took great advantage of the work force providing less than safe working conditions, demanding long hours and issuing degrading compensation. But that was then...this is now.
For years the federal government has abused the Commerce Clause in order to expand its reach of authority over the States. The Commerce Clause, Article 1 Section 8, Clause 3 of the US Constitution, reads, "The Congress shall have Power to...regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes...
Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005):
Since the American Industrial Revolution, Congress has pushed the limits of the Commerce Clause to the point of usurping the Tenth Amendment, which states, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Limiting Governments Ability to Spend
Both the Legislative and the Executive Branches have proven they cannot be trusted with spending within their allotted means. Today, even as Harry Reid (D-NV) and Nancy Pelosi (P-CA) trumpet the virtues of Pay As You Go rules, the fact is they routinely exempt certain pieces of legislation from that specific rule.
Constitutionally, the only entitlements that the American people have bestowed upon them as legitimate rights are the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, all rights granted to us not by Congress or even by the Constitution, but, as the Founders and Framers plainly stated in the Declaration of Independence, by our Creator; through Natural Law.
The numbers speak for themselves. Our nation, with the debt that it has amassed, and until definitive action is taken to alleviate the debt burden that will not most assuredly reach past our childrens childrens generation, cannot affords even one more entitlement program, not healthcare, nothing. To continue to call for entitlement programs or to continue to work toward establishing entitlement programs is not only irresponsible, it is a direct threat to the continuation of our country.
Many will read these suggestions and immediately say that there is no way in Hades that any of this can come to pass, not in the climate we have today in Washington. And while I would agree that these are formidable tasks to achieve I would have to also ask, what is the alternative?
...and then I just heard my Father say, So this is what I fought in World War II for?
Get weekly updates about new issues of ESR! | 7,914 | 3,669 | 2.156991 |
warc | 201704 | A study of entrepreneurship : Taiwanese digital content companies in China
Chiu, Chi-Hsuan (2008)
A study of entrepreneurship : Taiwanese digital content companies in China. PhD thesis, Queensland University of Technology. Abstract
China’s accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has greatly enhanced global interest in investment in the Chinese media market, where demand for digital content is growing rapidly. The East Asian region is positioned as a growth area in many forms of digital content and digital service industries. China is attempting to catch up and take its place as a production centre to offset challenges from neighbouring countries. Meanwhile, Taiwan is seeking to use China both as an export market and as a production site for its digital content.
This research investigates entry strategies of Taiwanese digital content firms into the Chinese market. By examining the strategies of a sample of Taiwan-based companies, this study also explores the evolution of their market strategies. However, the focus is on how distinctive business practices such as guanxi are important to Taiwanese business and to relations with Mainland China. This research examines how entrepreneurs manage the characteristics of digital content products and in turn how digital content entrepreneurs adapt to changing market circumstances.
This project selected five Taiwan-based digital content companies that have business operations in China: Wang Film, Artkey, CnYES, Somode and iPartment. The study involved a field trip, undertaken between November 2006 and March 2007 to Shanghai and Taiwan to conduct interviews and to gather documentation and archival reports. Six senior managers and nine experts were interviewed. Data were analysed according to Miller’s firm-level entrepreneurship theory, foreign direct investment theory, Life Cycle Model and guanxi philosophy.
Most studies of SMEs have focused on free market (capitalist) environments. In contrast, this thesis examines how Taiwanese digital content firms’ strategies apply in the Chinese market. I identified three main types of business strategy: cost-reduction, innovation and quality-enhancement; and four categories of functional strategies: product, marketing, resource acquisition and organizational restructuring.
In this study, I introduce the concept of ‘entrepreneurial guanxi’, special relationships that imply mutual obligation, assurance and understanding to secure and exchange favors in entrepreneurial activities. While guanxi is a feature of many studies of business in Pan-Chinese society, it plays an important mediating role in digital content industries.
In this thesis, I integrate the ‘Life Cycle Model’ with the dynamic concept of strategy. I outline the significant differences in the evolution of strategy between two types of digital content companies: off-line firms (Wang Film and Artkey) and web-based firms (CnYES, Somode and iPartment). Off-line digital content firms tended to adopt ‘resource acquisition strategies’ in their initial stages and ‘marketing strategies’ in second and subsequent stages. In contrast, web-based digital content companies mainly adopted product and marketing strategies in the early stages, and would adopt innovative approaches towards product and marketing strategies in the whole process of their business development. Some web-based digital content companies also adopted organizational restructuring strategies in the final stage.
Finally, I propose the ‘Taxonomy Matrix of Entrepreneurial Strategies’ to emphasise the two dimensions of this matrix: innovation, and the firm’s resource acquisition for entrepreneurial strategy. This matrix is divided into four cells: Effective, Bounded, Conservative, and Impoverished.
Impact and interest:
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ID Code: 28386 Item Type: QUT Thesis (PhD) Supervisor: Keane, Michael & Flew, Terry Keywords: foreign direct investment, international entry strategies, entrepreneurship, strategy, digital content industry, Guanxi, Chinese market Divisions: Current > Schools > Creative Writing & Literary Studies
Current > QUT Faculties and Divisions > Creative Industries Faculty
Institution: Queensland University of Technology Deposited On: 02 Nov 2009 06:12 Last Modified: 28 Oct 2011 19:53
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warc | 201704 | Despite a relative paucity in major earnings reports and regular statistical releases, the upcoming week could be a busy one for domestic and international equity markets. After conflicting reports on the health of the economy last week–retail sales figures were up but consumer confidence trended lower–all eyes will be on the Fed this week as the market searches for guidance in order to give direction to stocks in the near future.
Below is a look at three ETFs that could be on the move this week amidst central bank meetings, data releases, and political developments that could impact the economy:
Financials Select Sector SPDR (XLF) Why XLF Could Be On The Move: Chris Dodd, the Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is scheduled to unveil his financial reform bill on Monday at 2pm ET. What To Watch For: Several key details of the highly anticipated bill were released over the weekend, revealing that the latest iteration will consolidate banking regulators and create a new consumer watchdog agency within the Federal Reserve. The extent to which the full bill impacts Wall Street banks, as well as the initial reaction to the plan from legislators, could significantly impact financial ETFs. One area of focus is the scope of power given to the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Another area of interest to investors is the so-called Johnson Fiduciary Amendment, which asks that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) conduct a study “to determine appropriate obligations” of advisors and brokers, ultimately leading to new rules at the completion of the study. Global X/InterBolsa FTSE Colombia 20 ETF (GXG) Why GXG Could Be On The Move: The results from the weekend’s Colombian legislative elections should be known early this week. What To Watch For: These elections, in which all of the senators and representatives will be decided, should give some indication of what to expect from presidential elections scheduled for late spring. Should the Social National Unity Party win handily, it could bode well for Juan Manuel Santos, who is seen as the successor to current president Alvaro Uribe. Uribe is barred from running for a third term, but a continuation of the popular leader’s policies and economic reforms could promote stability in the South American country. PowerShares DB USD Index Bullish (UUP) Why UUP Could Be On The Move: The FOMC meets on Tuesday. What To Watch For: While it is almost a certainty that the Fed will not make any major announcements this week, details from the meeting will be intensely scrutinized by investors looking to glean details on the “exit strategy.” Some Fed members have criticized the phrasing of the Fed’s vow to keep interest rates close to zero for an “extended period,” saying that is is restricting their room to maneuver as the economy recovers. This week’s meeting will be particularly interesting in the wake of reports that president Obama intends to nominate Janet Yellen to become the next vice chairman. Yellen is widely considered to be a dove on monetary policy, meaning that she is more concerned about high unemployment than rising inflation.
EWI: The fund finished up 2.5% from the lows of the week despite weakness from component ENI Spa.
BNZ: This fund dropped roughly 1.5% between trading on Wednesday and Thursday, but regained its lost ground to finish the week in the black.
EWL: Swiss markets faced a choppy midweek period, but finished the week little changed after a meeting of the Swiss National Bank.
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Disclosure: No positions at time of writing | 3,696 | 1,896 | 1.949367 |
warc | 201704 | From boom to bust to bubble, the ups and downs on Wall Street have proven to be a blessing for some investors’ portfolios and a curse for others. Calling the tops and picking the bottoms in the market is an easy chore, only in retrospect of course. While it’s true that past performance is no guarantee of future returns, there are still valuable lessons to be learned from the tumultuous times on Wall Street [see Visual Guide: Major Index Returns by Year from 1970].
Previously, we’ve recapped some of the Biggest ETF Bubbles as well as 10 of the Best ETF Trades of All Time; in the spirit of learning from experience, below we take a stroll down memory lane to revisit five of the more recent political crises and look at how they shook up the markets.
5. Egypt Index ETF (EGPT, C) Drops 7.2% on November 26th, 2012
Demonstrations organized by Egyptian protesters against president Mohamed Morsi erupted on 11/22/2012 after the government enacted a temporary constitutional declaration granting it unlimited power. The protests intensified over the weekend as anti-Morsi demonstrators clashed with the armed Republican Guard, leading to bloodshed and then turmoil in the financial markets overseas. As the chart above illustrates, despite there being “blood on the street,” this was
not the best time to buy in. In retrospect, Egypt’s political crisis got a lot worse before it got better from the ETF’s perspective; notice how EGPT sank another 30% following its steep one day drop before bottoming out in late June of 2013 [see also Egypt ETF In Focus: The Economic Consequences of Revolution]. 4. FTSE Greece 20 ETF (GREK, C) Sinks 54% in Four Months
On 2/12/2012, approximately half a million protesters gathered outside the Parliament House in Athens to voice their opposition against the newly proposed austerity measures that would have to come in effect in order for the country to receive bailout funds from the European Union and International Monetary Fund. Despite the opposition, the austerity measures were passed the next day and on March 20th, 2012, the government still announced default. The protests in this case signaled the start of a downtrend; the Greece ETF dropped more than 50% before finding a bottom in early June [see also Euro Free Europe ETFdb Portfolio].
3. MSCI Thailand Capped ETF (THD, A-) Sinks 15% in Just Over One Month
On 11/25/2013, protesters stormed their way into several government buildings, prompting their closure, in response to a recent court ruling. The Constitutional Court of Thailand ruled that a proposed amendment to the 2007 Constitution was invalid, which would have transformed the senate from a partially appointed body to a fully elected body as it was before the 2006 military coup. In this case, because the Thailand ETF had already been beat-down by more than 20% since peaking in May of 2013, its drop of 15% following the intensifying protests in November through its bottom in early 2014 wasn’t nearly as severe as the sell offs seen in the Egypt and Greece ETFs; put simply, the “bad news” came closer to the bottom in the case of THD, perhaps because the ETF had already endured a downtrend in the months prior to the crisis.
2. MSCI Turkey ETF (TUR, A-) Sheds 45% in Eight Months
On 5/28/2013, a clash between police and protesters erupted in response to the public’s opposition to plans to demolish an iconic park in Istanbul. Leading up to this breakout were a series of government threats and attacks on people’s freedom of the press, of expression, assembly, and even religion. Adding to the “bad news” for TUR was the Fed’s mention of starting to taper stimulus on 5/22/2013, which in turn sparked a nasty sell-off for equities across the globe and sank this ETF over 45% before finding a bottom in early 2014. In this case, the Turkey ETF had enjoyed a stellar run-up in 2012-2013, which is why the combination of the taper scare and protests erupting led to such a steep decline; this was unlike the Thailand ETF, which had less room to fall, given its downtrend prior to the crisis [see ETF Pick of the Month: Emerging Market Country ETF Boasts Attractive Risk/Return Profile].
1. Market Vectors Russia ETF (RSX, A-) Drops 6.8% on March 3d, 2014
On 3/3/2014, the political crisis between Russia and Ukraine intensified greatly after Russian military buildup in Crimea raised concerns over a potential military conflict breakout. Despite Russian officials denying the nature of the armed confrontation, financial markets overseas and at home responded with stiff selling pressures. The Russia ETF shed nearly 7% in a single session and proceeded to sink another 8% before finding a bottom on 3/13/2014. In this case, the “bad news” appears to have come at a relative low-point for RSX, which is perhaps why the selling pressures following the intensifying crisis weren’t as severe for RSX compared to the Turkey ETF, which had enjoyed a stellar run-up prior to the protests there.
The Bottom Line
It’s no surprise that political crises can rattle investors’ confidence and lead to steep declines, often times signalling multi-month downtrends. Furthermore, putting into practice the age-old adage on Wall Street that says, “the time to buy is when there’s blood on the street,” is no easy chore and not nearly as simple as the saying might suggest; in some cases, the proverbial blood is spilled well in advance of the worst days to come for a particular security, while in other instances, the “bad news” does in fact coincide with a bottom more so than a top. All in all, investors should maintain a defined risk-return profile and know why they bought a security in the first place, so that they can more objectively decide what to do in case a political crisis erupts and rattles their investments.
Follow me on Twitter @SBojinov
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Disclosure: No positions at time of writing. | 6,074 | 2,905 | 2.090878 |
warc | 201704 | Flockemann, Richard (2011)
Epistemic Norms, A Priority, and Self-Knowledge. PhD thesis, University of York.
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Abstract
This thesis is primarily focussed on developing a novel characterisation of the distinction between a priori and a posteriori justification. My working hypothesis is that we can make a surprising amount of progress in this field by paying attention to the structure of epistemic norms. I argue that direct a priori beliefs are governed by a structurally different kind of epistemic norm to the one that governs perceptual beliefs. That, I argue, is where the fundamental epistemological difference between the two categories lies. I call this view ‘Seeming-Independence’. Seeming-Independence holds that while a posteriori beliefs depend epistemically on how it perceptually seems to us, there is no corresponding dependence relation between a priori beliefs and how it intellectually seems to us. Intellectual seemings, or intuitions, simply do not play the kind of epistemological role that perceptual experiences play. The central contention of this thesis is that Seeming-Independence is a theoretically fruitful view of the a priori. The arguments I marshal in favour of Seeming-Independence are in this way primarily focussed on the explanatory power and flexibility of the view. In effect, what I suggest is that Seeming-Independence, unlike some of its rivals, is a particularly clear way of dividing the a priori from the a posteriori, and it allows us to neatly bypass some of influential criticisms of a priority.
Item Type: Thesis (PhD) Keywords: epistemology, a priori, analyticity, self-knowledge Academic Units: The University of York > Philosophy (York) Identification Number/EthosID: uk.bl.ethos.538652 Depositing User: Mr Richard Flockemann Date Deposited: 26 Aug 2011 10:30 Last Modified: 08 Sep 2016 12:20 URI: http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/1585 | 2,066 | 1,093 | 1.89021 |
warc | 201704 | Title:
Managing to learn - learning to change : reflection and refraction in action
This qualitative practitioner research is set in a mixed, rural 11-16 Church of England Comprehensive School. It embraces reflective action enquiry into leadership and management of innovation in a turbulent period of national educational change. It is founded on the belief that if change processes are to be understood widely, practitioners must share experience emanating from reflective and analytical practice. This study is about "managing to learn" It embraces concepts of managing personal learning; managing colleagues' and students' learning; and managing processes leading to the emergence of the school as a "learning organisation" It is also about "learning to change" and espouses learning to promote personal change; learning to facilitate change in others; and learning to establish institutional change as a natural on-going characteristic of organisational life. This study is founded on a process of "reflection", as characterised by Schön (1983). Consequently, it employs a process of personal reflection on leadership roles in managing change and learning processes. It employs processes of reflection on cultural and political aspects of organisational life and resultant manifestations and implications of introducing, implementing, and institutionalising organisational and cultural change. This research utilises "refraction"- that is, convergence and divergence. Firstly, it promotes divergent and creative ways of organising which encourage and facilitate innovative processes. Secondly, it employs processes of converging, focusing, and concentrating on taken-for-granted "critical incidents" in the life of a developing school, to elicit meanings of events as understood by participants. Thirdly, it applies cultural and political prisms to school organisation, together with autocratic, bureaucratic, adhocratic, and reticular-democratic lenses in order to elucidate important cultural, political and organisational data. Finally this research is about "action" It is about doing, intervening, intending, committing, motivating, accomplishing, fulfilling and achieving. The essential concept and understanding of "action" is that it should be informed action. | 2,298 | 1,046 | 2.196941 |
warc | 201704 | Fantastic!
There is an interdisciplinary view of evolution called metasystem transition theory which would find this on the cutting edge of progressive.
The theory was developed by philosopher, computer scientist, and physicist Valentin Turchin in 1970 in his paper The Phenomenon of Science, and has since been developed within the branch of systems theory known as cybernetics. It is a seminal work in the field that seeks to find an overarching paradigm to reorganize all other paradigms within it, and therefore all knowledge and methodologies. Thus, the paper's goals were implicitly nothing short of the integration of evolutionary biology, anthropology, sociology, psychology, computer science, physics, chemistry, mathematics, philosophy and culture itself. In as much, work of this nature which was the basis for the Principia Cybernetica Project by Turchin, Cliff Joslyn and Francis Heylighen, simultaneously asserts a coherent philosophy, evolutionary otogeny, methodology, ethical system, epistemology and culture.
Abstracting the theory in broad strokes, it holds that when possible, organisms socially organize to maximize adaptive output based on the simple law that teamwork outproduces individual output, and well-organized teams outproduce the lesser so. Single-celled organisms did it in forming multi-celled organisms, and humans are now doing the same on a similar scale. From this view, the history of civilization from the past five-thousand years has been a competition of evolving social systems. Social breakthroughs in ideas, institutions, religions, traditions, academics, infrastructure, government, economics, and so forth, provide the adaptive advantages that allow some systems to outcompete others in war, diplomacy, economics, technology or just in creating a nice pair of shoes. Incidentally, eventually a dominant, maximally streamlined system dominates that is almost idealistic because it's evolutionary destiny is predicated on "harmony" and "equilbrium" in the system, as close to utopian a vision there is.
This system you have here...it's so great to hear that the complex social organization embodied in capitalism, which despite it's current flaws is a system that has exceled over previous systems, is being modeled for children in their critical developmental periods (even if it's just in some more progressive schools). If indeed, complex organization is more adaptive, than individuals capable of interacting with such information-rich, abstract and dynamic systems will also be the well-adjusted ones, and sewing the seeds young sets up the neural architecture in critical developmental periods to support just that.
This is such an awesome idea! Evolution in progress! | 2,730 | 1,371 | 1.991247 |
warc | 201704 | So writes Rachel Hadas in “Only So Much,” a poem about attentiveness and distraction. A baby perceives creation as “one great blooming buzzing confusion,” according to William James, and some of us relive that perception in times of stress or illness. Hadas convincingly chronicles a civilized mind careening among activities – painting, writing, recalling a dream – avoiding an unhappy reality. For her speaker, the wiry runners of strawberry plants recall the brain’s neural networks and her efforts to ground herself – a vivid image.
For a month last fall I worked with a bright, funny, always-moving seventh-grader with attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and a Jamesian baby’s perception of the world. It’s too much with him and frequently overwhelms him, like a bucket with too much water poured into it. Antaeus-like, he thrives on grounding. Recently his mother called and asked if I would tutor him twice a week after I get out of the high school where I work in a special-education center. With ground rules and a generous wage, I agreed, and our first session was Thursday.
Seated at his mother’s kitchen table, with my younger sons in the dining room doing their homework, we calculated the volume and surface area of prisms and cylinders, drafted a short story on the theme of rescue and a eulogy for Gandhi, and answered questions about
Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolutionby Ji-Li Jiang. We had a good laugh over the definition of “study session” in the glossary of Red Scarf Girl:
“A small meeting intended to change someone’s behavior or thinking by studying Mao’s work and government documents. Held as needed, these sessions were used to improve revolutionaries and re-educate others.”
“That sounds like you, Mr. Kurp,” he said.
Holding this kid’s focus on a narrowly defined topic is like collecting smoke with a butterfly net. It can be done, but briefly and imperfectly. We labored for two hours, and for perhaps 20 minutes of that time my student worked with real absorption and dedication. By his standards he was Goethe. In the final line of her poem Hadas writes:
“But there is room for only so much attention.” | 2,277 | 1,245 | 1.828916 |
warc | 201704 | I’m also a connector who makes linkages, across time and space, between books. No book, after all, is an island. In an essay on the nature of evil Theodore Dalrymple describes his reading strategy, and in it I recognize my own:
“Often I read more than one book at a time. When I tire of one I fly to another. This is because the world has always seemed to me so various and so interesting in all its aspects that I have not been able to confine my mind to a single subject or object for very long; therefore I am not, never have been, and never will be the scholar of anything. My mind is magpie-like, attracted by what shines for a moment; I try to persuade myself that this quality of superficiality has its compensations, in breadth of interest, for example.”
On the table beside my bed are collections of essays and reviews by D.J. Enright, John Lahr’s
Notes of a Cowardly Lion, Hilary Masters’ In Rooms of Memory, the poems of Janet Lewis and Yvor Winters, and Holy Warriors: A Modern History of the Crusadesby Jonathan Phillips – no fiction, I’ve just noticed. That doesn’t count material I read online and strategic sorties into books on the shelves.
Like Dalrymple, I’m no scholar of anything but enjoy learning something about almost everything. In one of his essays, “Montaigne’s Bordeaux,” Masters refers to Shakespeare as “that keenest of cullers,” and in that I also recognize myself. To cull is to select with discernment, whether the sweetest strawberry or the tartest book. | 1,565 | 889 | 1.760405 |
warc | 201704 | I'd like to see the evidence that supports this claim of humans having the genes to develop a fully functional tail, (developing a coccyx isn't a tail Goku).
This is an abstract that explains the Wnt-3a gene in mice plays a pivotal role in the development of mice tails, with reduction in said gene linked to vestigial tails: http://www.ncbi.nlm....ubmed/8595882�
This is another abstract comparing the similarities between said gene(s) in mice and humans, which in conjunction with the previous paper demonstrates that we have the genes for tail development even if those genes are too degraded to develop a fully functional tail at the flip of a switch (which makes sense given that humans haven't had tails for millions of years so some mutations are to be expected, also I never said we have the genes to develop a "fully functional tail") : http://www.ncbi.nlm....7?dopt=Abstract
You stated....
"I would say that the fact that we have the genes for a tail, , and that some people are born with a tail is more than some superficial consistent evidence for ToE, but is strong evidence in favor of it." that we have a tail as an embryo
and again
"The spine may develop early, but a human embryo has extra vertebrae that are then eaten away by the body later. The tail is essentially an extension of the spine, so when a human embryo has an extension of the spine (extra vertebrae) what logical reason is there to say it only has the appearance of a tail rather than being a tail or the beginnings of a tail since it is later phased out?"
Which IMPLIES recapitulation, seriously did you not read what I wrote, or do you not understand what recapitulation is?
Here is what recapitulation is
The
theory of recapitulation, also called the biogenetic law or embryological parallelism—often expressed in Ernst Haeckel's phrase " ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"—is a largely discredited biological hypothesis that in developing from embryo to adult, animals go through stages resembling or representing successive stages in the evolution of their remote ancestors.
https://en.wikipedia...tulation_theory
You believe that humans "evolved" from bacteria to fish to amphibians to reptiles to mammals to humans. These animals mostly had tails, (and fish had gills).
Now when you are talking about embryos having tails and gill slits then you ARE implying or even discussing recapitulation.
I shouldn't have to explain this to you.
And I shouldn't have to explain to you that an evolutionary carry over in embryological development is not the same thing as recapitulation, yet here we are.
Also, as I told you literally last post, I never said that human embryos have gills slits (I was quoting Mike, who brought it up in the first place, when I said gill slits). We have pharyngeal clefts that are homologous to the precursors of gills in fish embryos (that then develop into gills in fish), but instead of developing into gills ours develop into various parts of our neck and head.
Actually its not a good thing since you claimed human tail, which is what you had confused the Coccyx for... The coccyx is not a tail, you need to understand that Goku.
I know how much you want it to be a tail, your emotional need for evolution to be true, but you need to come to grips with reality and understand that the coccyx is simply a part of the spine and thus is not a tail.
If its a part of the spine, then it isn't a "tail"..
tail
1
(tāl)
n.
1. The posterior part of an animal, especially when elongated and extending beyond the trunk or main part of the body.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/tail
Does the Coccyx extend beyond the trunk of the body?... No.... So its merely a part of the spine.
You need to stop playing word games Goku, this may work in an atheist-centred blog or something but you're not going to fool anyone here.
Which is Gokuese for 'I know that the coccyx is not a tail, but I am just going to call it one because I have an emotional investment in evolution'.
Its called the Coccyx not "the tail"... Again stop playing word games.
Again, if its a part of the spine then why not call it "the spine"? Why create a differentiation when there is none?
And since the coccyx IS a section of the spine, you've just contradicted your own claims...
So embryos have "tails" which then actually develop into the spine.... I think its a bit anal to be calling shots on organism parts when the organism is still in development. The fact that the "tail" of the embryo develops into the spine demonstrates that it wasn't actually a tail after all.
Also still waiting for your examples of humans having tails today.... (I've already seen them a few years ago, but am curious as to what argument attempt you'll use with them).
I really don't know how to explain it any more simply than this, with few exceptions (I only know of one, the vestigial tail of the Barbary Ape which I talked about earlier in this thread),
the mammalian tail is part of the spine.
Your assertion that if it is part of the spine then it isn't a tail is like saying if the number 5 is an integer then it can't be odd.
The spine of mammals is divided up into several sections. The tail end (pun intended) of the spine is called the caudal region and is composed of the caudal/coccygeal vertebrae. In species that have a tail the tail is composed of the caudal vertebrae. To use your own definition of tail, it is this caudal vertebrae that extend beyond the main body that makes up the tail.
The human embryo will develop extra coccygeal vertebrae that extend beyond the main body - a tail by any other name including your definition. As the embryo develops several of these coccygeal vertebrae will be destroyed and absorbed back into the embryo via apoptosis. The remaining coccygeal vertebrae, usually three to five, will also be reduced during this time period and eventually fuse into coccyx. This is why the coccyx is called the tail bone; it is essentially a reduced tail with the few remaining (and degraded) tail vertebrae fused together.
I never said the coccyx is a tail. Why are you putting words into my mouth?
For a visual shocker you can go to youtube and see people with tails voluntarily moving them (true tails contain nerves and muscle etc).
For something more academic you can read this: http://www.bjj.bonea.../4/508.full.pdf
Note that in the "On human tails" section of the paper at the end, it describes the patients condition as brought on by hypertrophy of the coccygeal vertebrae. Hypertrophy in this context means that the vertebrae are larger than normal; the three to five remaining coccygeal vertebrae were not reduced to their normal size during embryonic and fetal development. The paper doesn't say, but it sounds like the gene regulation in charge of apoptosis of the coccygeal vertebrae was being partially turned off. I wonder what would happen if it was further turned off and the other coccygeal vertebrae were not completely absorbed back into the embryo. Sounds like a tail, does it not?
Missing the point....
Yet you used your intelligence to utilise the rock as a paper weight.... Hence intelligence is STILL required when there is a design involved... (There is no way for you to dodge this fact since a design
by definition denotes the use of intelligence to account for said design).
Very well, I won't beat around the bush and give another rock example; calling the human embryonic tail a designed feature is begging the question.
And so begins the evolution evidence merry-go-round... When one piece is debunked on a thread, evolutionists point to something else, yet when that gets debunked on a different thread then they'll point to the evidence that was debunked in the previous thread...
I never pointed to any other evidence in lieu of human tails. Why are you either accusing me, or dreaming up fantasy scenarios, that I have not partaken in?
You asked if the human tail thing was debunked if it would also debunk ToE, and the answer is simply no. Theories are explanations of a broad set of facts, and while a single observation/fact can make or break a theory the theory is going to bend towards the preponderance of evidence or be broken by it. The simple fact is that the human tail is not that kind of make or break observation for ToE. I said it was strong evidence because it is visually striking and can be emotionally jarring for many - it personalizes the issue in a way that talking about bird evolution doesn't.
If, hypothetically, you prove that the human embryo never has a tail, that we don't have the genes for a tail, and any and all medical cases of human tails is debunked, then logically it would no longer be evidence for ToE. However, logically, it does not mean every other piece of evidence for evolution is also debunked, and there is more than enough evidence in support of ToE without ever mentioning the human tail.
Way to dodge my point.
Actually I was discussing your ability to call out something as "strong evidence"... Since if you think this is "strong evidence" and it is debunked... which it has been... Then your reliability to determine what is "strong evidence" would be called in to question, yes?
Some advice, play your cards close to your chest. Don't be like other evolutionists and try and speak out with undue confidence.
To be fair your original question was poorly worded and semi-incoherent. I'm sure it made sense in your head, but sometimes when you write things down and show it to someone else the meaning simply isn't there.
I think it is premature to assert that it is debunked; from what I can tell you were mostly debunking a strawman. Of course if someone makes a strong claim and does so forcefully, and it later turns out to be false then the person's credibility takes a hit. Again I think this talk is a bit premature, and is somewhat close to a poisoning the well fallacy on any future claims I make before those claims are properly vetted in a fair and objective way.
Do you agree that each and every claim stands or falls on its own merit?
As Adam would say. Words they mean things.
Funny how words requiring intelligence (like engineering) gets used when discussing nature and biological function... Yet then this is believed to have been caused by a blind, un-thinking, un-engineering, un-creating process.
Words do mean thing, but context matters too; something like only 10% of the meaning is carried in the word itself. You are looking at a word devoid of the context and trying to shoehorn in a different context you feel makes your point.
Did I say it was synonymous? (Don't put words in my mouth).
I was asking you for a demonstration of this process you claim that occurred...
How do you know that that methodology was used by nature unless you have some examples within nature to demonstrate?... Or was this you making a statement of faith
Since as I said, genetic algorithms are a product of human intelligence and thus cannot be a "proof of concept" for natural phenomena... IF you want evidence for nature, then go TEST nature.
Did I say that equations are not blind or were sentient? Or are you attempting to put words in my mouth....
(Why do you keep doing this? It only makes you look dishonest...)
Which is what I said.... The algorithms are a product of human thinking, not evolution.
Wrong.... Nature doesn't have the intelligence or sentience required to use algorithms... All you are doing is spouting airy rhetoric.
Now I must ask you, do you understand that your "blind and unthinking" process is actually BLIND and UNTHINKING? Since how can you claim that nature uses genetic algorithms with the understanding that nature isn't sentient?
It just seemed you were implying that the two were synonymous when you brought up CCHE; if you can bring up CCHE what is to stop you from asserting that I ought to demonstrate how any and every biological system evolved?
The methodology of genetic algorithms (GA) is based off the mechanisms of ToE; mutation (dissent with modification) and natural selection (differential reproduction), which even creationists accept insofar as such is required for micro evolution.
As for a demonstration of a GA that produced a complex solution you can read about some of them here: https://www.damninte...n-of-circuits/
From the article: Dr. Thompson dabbled with computer circuits in order to determine whether survival-of-the-fittest principles might provide hints for improved microchip designs...... Finally, after just over 4,000 generations, test system settled upon the best program....... Dr. Thompson peered inside his perfect offspring to gain insight into its methods, but what he found inside was baffling. The plucky chip was utilizing only thirty-seven of its one hundred logic gates, and most of them were arranged in a curious collection of feedback loops. Five individual logic cells were functionally disconnected from the rest— with no pathways that would allow them to influence the output— yet when the researcher disabled any one of them the chip lost its ability to discriminate the tones. Furthermore, the final program did not work reliably when it was loaded onto other FPGAs of the same type. It seems that evolution had not merely selected the best code for the task, it had also advocated those programs which took advantage of the electromagnetic quirks of that specific microchip environment. The five separate logic cells were clearly crucial to the chip’s operation, but they were interacting with the main circuitry through some unorthodox method— most likely via the subtle magnetic fields that are created when electrons flow through circuitry, an effect known as
magnetic flux. There was also evidence that the circuit was not relying solely on the transistors’ absolute ON and OFF positions like a typical chip; it was capitalizing upon analogue shades of gray along with the digital black and white.
Please explain to me how the above is not an example of a GA using dissent with modification coupled with differential reproduction to produce a complex solution.
You misunderstand, nature doesn't use GAs, GAs are analogous to evolution; they are based off of evolutionary principles. Furthermore while the algorithm itself is produced by humans, the solution is designed by the blind, unintelligent algorithm in an evolutionary process, and that's the point.
Which is the big issue for gradualism and why irreducible complexity was invented to attempt to solve that problem.
Just a question, what viability was there for cells to shift from a single celled organism (the most efficient organism known to humankind), to a multi-celled organism (inefficient and thus reduces fitness).
How does irreducible complexity solve the issue of viability in gradualism?
I'm not sure I understand your question; fitness is based on environment, and when the environment is full of resources multi-celled organisms can get the upper hand as it is harder for single cells to eat them, and multicellular organisms can have cell differentiation which can lead to more complex anatomy and physiology giving them novel abilities. So I don't know why you think multicellularity is necessarily a reduction in fitness. As for viability in the shift you can look at colonial organisms like the volvox to get an idea of how a transitioning organism may have looked. Even bacteria show some interesting features when they aggregate; cooperation is an extremely powerful tool.
Its not just distance but also duplication and entanglement of the artery around the vein.
IF this is so simple for evolution, (not sure how you can possibly know that), then can you do as I asked and provide a demonstration of evolution designing this in action.
I'm not sure what you are asking of me. I can't write a code that perfectly mimics an animal's body and run a simulation where it needs to adapt to the cold while I tell it to build a CCHE system.
Again the point of bringing up GAs is that they are a proof of concept that dissent with modification coupled with differential reproduction can and will produce complex solutions, provided there is a viable pathway. This was done as a rebuttal to Mike's argument that complex anatomical features can only be produced by intelligent agents. GAs do create complex solutions without intelligence by simply working with the basic paradigm of evolution. | 16,501 | 7,078 | 2.331308 |
warc | 201704 | Meet Michal-Anne Fox, Co-Principal at Explore Charter School How did you discover Explore? A former colleague of mine was working at Explore and I had been talking to him for some time. I was brought on as a Recruitment Manager at Explore and started by focusing on how to align that process with what we wanted to get out of teachers in the classroom. Then I moved into the Academic Director role at Explore Charter School. From the beginning, there were so many things I loved about the network. I saw that Explore was a charter that was thinking thoughtfully about growth, and I was excited to be in a particular community in central Brooklyn with a group of folks who were thinking about how to best serve the needs of the community and its children. How is Explore Schools different from other schools? We give teachers the opportunity to practice lessons. As a teacher, I never had that experience. If I had, I would have been a much better teacher. In looking at a lesson objective, we work with teachers on finding the best way to explain a concept to a child. We ask ourselves, “Have I thought through how I want a student to be able to do this?” Doing this as a teacher and then as a leader has been transformative and it’s changed the way I look at a lesson objective and think about it. It’s changed how I explain and demonstrate to a teacher how to model for a child. The difference is in the amount of time we spend talking about instruction and how to make a lesson that’s been planned (but not executed) an even better one. I know that’s not happening at other schools and I believe it has positively impacted our student outcomes. Tell me about your day-to-day at Explore: A great day for me is one where I am spending the majority of my time observing instruction and talking to teachers about their lessons before and after they’ve taught them. That’s the best kind of day – sitting down with a teacher, talking about the choices they made during their lesson, and then practicing and revising the actions the teacher took. Through debriefing these choices, that teacher ultimately ends up with a much better lesson than earlier planned/executed. My ideal day would be spending most of my time doing that and getting a chance to watch lessons that we’ve already talked about because I love getting to watch kids learn! What’s your favorite part of your job? My favorite part is seeing the Aha! moment for a child when I have figured out the way to say something as clearly as possible so that the child understands it. It’s the same with watching teacher development. It’s an extended process but watching a teacher think through his or her lesson, teach/practice it several times and then realize it’s much, much better, is great. I love seeing their confidence grow and when they say things like, “I never thought about it in that way, and I can’t wait to teach this – it’s going to be so much more engaging!” That’s what I get most excited about. What has been your biggest challenge? School leaders often have to make serious and heavy decisions. There are so many situations where you need to look at all facets and nuances of a solution to ultimately decide whether it’s the best one. Things are rarely cut and dry. It’s about thinking carefully and critically about what’s important. You have to keep the big picture in mind, and you have to commit to your decisions. That’s been challenging at times. What should future Explore Schools leaders know? The hardest part of the work we do is that we still work in a school, where things come up that are out of our control. The best teachers have a really reasonable understanding of what’s in their control and are solutions-oriented when things pop up. There are always opportunities for things to not go as we planned, and there are a number of internal/external pressures that impact our kids’ ability to learn. We need solutions-oriented people who will hold kids to high expectations. Every day is a new day and challenges come up, so you learn that you have to be flexible. Something that brightened your day this past year: I was working very closely with a teacher and she was telling me about how her lesson planning practice had changed. She told me, “I thought about the teach-back work we did and as I was writing something, I stopped myself and said, there’s no way a kid will understand what I’m saying! I stopped what I was doing and tried again.” I know that her response was a direct result of the work we did on lesson planning together – it was impactful. What is your most memorable experience from when you were in school? In fourth grade, I had a lead role in a play about the trail of tears. It was the first time I had learned about such a horrible human rights atrocity, and it changed the way I think. It made me think that I would love to work in the field of social justice. I wanted to impact a group of people in a positive way. | 5,089 | 2,272 | 2.239877 |
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