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warc | 202143 | Starting Sunday, April 5, RTD will suspend fare collection on all buses and trains until further notice, and switch to rear-door boarding on most buses. The move follows similar actions taken by many other transit systems across the country in response to the outbreak, and comes after pressure from boardmembers, transit advocates and the RTD operators' union to take greater precautions to protect drivers.
RTD came to the decision after discussions with its safety consultant this week, according to the April 3 announcement of the changes: "RTD officials received a recommendation from the consultant that RTD institute rear-door boarding based on emerging COVID-19 conditions and the potential for transmission of the disease to operators. Rear-door boarding provides for distance between operators and the public, mitigating known circumstances of infection — namely, close proximity to those who might be infected."
People with disabilities will still be able to board at front-door wheelchair lifts, and regional buses like the Flatiron Flyer, which don't have rear doors, will continue operating as normal.
RTD will also suspend service on its two free downtown shuttles, the MallRide and MetroRide, which have seen low ridership during the outbreak. MallRide buses, which feature an enclosed compartment that separates drivers from passengers, will be redeployed to regular routes to maximize protections for drivers.
The emergency measures are the latest in a rapid series of changes that have come to RTD services since ridership and revenues began to plummet last month. Under an emergency service plan approved by RTD's board of directors on March 24, bus and rail operations will move to a weekend schedule full-time between April and September, though officials are hopeful that some or all of that service could be restored sooner than that.
The agency got some welcome news this week when it received $232 million in emergency aid from a federal relief bill, giving it a much-needed financial lifeline as it seeks to continue paying operators and provide a transportation option for essential workers.
RTD is urging passengers to use caution and maintain safe physical distancing while riding buses and trains during the outbreak — and to "use judgment" about whether to board a bus or train with too many people on it. In addition to performing daily vehicle cleanings, the agency says it's monitoring passenger loads and working to redeploy available buses if particular routes are becoming crowded.
“It’s important that we be strategic and practical in our operational changes, not reactionary," RTD interim general manager Paul Ballard said in the statement on the new measures. "Our team will continue to monitor information as it emerges, be nimble and make decisions that we deem to be the most prudent and responsible.” | 2,885 | 1,453 | 5,648.881624 |
warc | 202143 | Self-growth is the act of improving oneself by fostering personal self-improvement or development. Self-help or self-improvement is an independent self-directed improvement, usually with a strong emotional basis. Personal development has three common elements: personal worth, a personal mission, and social skills and attitudes. The first two can be considered progressive, since they are interdependent on each other and often involve lifelong processes.
Self-development projects are intended to foster personal development by challenging negative patterns and behaviours, knowingly changing beliefs and perceptions, learning new communication skills, finding comfort zones, eliminating bad habits, or improving our everyday interactions with others. Although all these are valid aspects of personal development, some forms are more important than others, particularly in today’s culture when”getting along” has become a zero-sum game. Consequently, we must be careful how much emphasis we put on”getting along” and”getting well.”
Lots of folks confuse personal development with self-improvement. While the two are necessary, self-development is typically more time-consuming and requires an investment of time, energy, and resources. Conversely, self-improvement can occur within one day, week, month, or year. Still, many men and women view self-development as a more urgent need than self-improvement. The reason is that several people have deep-seated beliefs and behaviors that interfere with their ability to successfully execute and enjoy a meaningful personal development lifestyle.
For instance, some people have a habit of trying to be successful in small tasks or projects without investing time and effort in building competencies and skills necessary for bigger goals. For instance, if you are planning to buy a new house, an agent may advise you to”just do it.” This may be fine for someone who does not need a house and has no immediate plans for living elsewhere, but it can be a huge mistake for people with dreams of living abroad, a new profession, and a better lifestyle. Investing the time and energy required to build a base for higher personal development is much less expensive, as well as more rewarding, than opting for a home on the market or purchasing a”now” that never comes. So whether it is about starting a family, building a network of contacts and friends, or enhancing your income potential, taking advantage of the terrific way free time permits you to work on your own schedule is a wise decision for your personal growth.
In addition to personal growth, another important part of healthy living is self-development. Through this endeavor, we aim to enhance our knowledge, mindset, and understanding about our world. Ultimately, we want to have the ability to contribute what we learn new things, and then be able to share these things with other people. While working toward a goal of personal growth can take some energy and focus, it’s possible to take advantage of your spare time by participating in a broad array of tasks and learning new skills at exactly the same time.
To ease your journey toward personal development and self growth, think about what your habits are currently giving you pleasure. You may be surprised at how much pleasure you are taking in things which you previously regarded as dull, useless, or insignificant. If you’ve got a habit of taking long baths, you might want to make a few modifications to that practice so that you are more relaxed and fulfilled in the afternoons. Likewise, if you have a custom of eating the exact same kind of food daily, why don’t you try to eliminate one or two of these items until you find foods which are more appealing to you. Developing a collection of new habits that foster better health is an important part of your process of achieving personal development and self growth.
While there are lots of things you can do to encourage a healthy, positive self development, it’s also important to keep yourself motivated and keep your mind”stuck on the target” throughout the process. It could be tempting to give up or procrastinate, but you will have a far greater probability of making progress toward your self-development and personal development if you are able to remain focused. Remind yourself of all of the ways that you may develop into a better you, even if it may not look like it’s going to happen on its own. You will need to be able to believe that you can make improvements and that you have everything within reach to move forward toward your targets.
Self-awareness is the first step towards self-development and personal development. You can learn all kinds of information and insight into your self by simply being aware of the things going on within you. It’s vital that you are able to listen to your thoughts, feelings, and body during the day and throughout the week. The more you pay attention, the more you’ll learn. Your new knowledge and comprehension of yourself can help you make important choices about what you should do, who you need to be around, and how you should live your life. This form of self-knowledge is the cornerstone of personal development and self growth, which explains why it’s among the best ways to stop procrastination in your daily life. | 5,412 | 2,450 | 11,703.173878 |
warc | 202143 | Both wireless earbuds of Apple come with microphones. But, AirPods Pro includes two inward-facing mics to give you an incredible listening experience.
Apple’s AirPods are renowned for their excellent wireless sound. Besides, these wireless earbuds integrate well with Apple Watch, iPhone, and various other products and services of Apple. Plus, AirPods also feature a microphone. While talking about the microphone, it is pretty sure that they make a big difference in the sound quality. Also, they make a difference in the way you use the product.
If you have earbuds that contain a microphone will give you a better sound experience than those that don’t. Both AirPods and AirPods Pro are equipped with many mics. However, AirPods Pro has more mics than AirPods that serves several exciting purposes. No doubt, it deserves more discussion.
Sports training used to necessitate a lot of paperwork and post-practice effort from both the trainer and the athlete. While the athlete was practicing, meticulous notes and footage were collected, which were subsequently compiled into charts and graphs that represented the athlete’s performance. After practice, the trainer and the athlete would talk about aches, pains, and thoughts regarding physical actions that had occurred earlier in the day. The approach was difficult, but it seemed to work as far as athletes and trainers were concerned. That is until recent technological advancements revolutionized the sport of athletic training.
In recent years, advanced technology has shrunk in size, become more robust, and become less cumbersome, paving the way for new options, particularly in athletics. Athletes now wear sensors that send real-time data to a trainer’s tablet, GPS pinpoints action correctly, smartphones keep everyone up to
Just thinking about the new 24-inch Apple iMac in the box, the old curved-back 27-inch iMac was a living corpse. The long-standing iMac design, which has been essentially unchanged since 2012, has held up well over time, but a change was long overdue. The new smaller iMac model (previously 21.5 inches, now 24 inches) sports a streamlined, updated appearance and comes in a range of colors. It feels especially new because this is the first Mac to feature a completely new design to complement its new M1 CPU/GPU platform. On May 21, the new models will be available for purchase.
The general Mac line is evolving, and it’s the most significant change since Intel CPU was added to Macs in 2006. The entire portfolio, including laptops and desktops, is transitioning away from Intel processors in favor of Apple’s own design. With the Apple M1 models of the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini, the changeover began in late 2020.
When we talk about premium streaming boxes, Roku and Apple are the best options available in the market. Both streaming boxes work on an internet connection. And streams movies and TV shows from popular networks like Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, and Disney Channel. Apple TV 4K and Roku Ultra are expensive due to the additional perks they offer. For instance, wired Ethernet ports, and faster processors. For those who wish to buy a flagship device with all the premium features, the comparison given below is for you. Apple TV 4K includes $180 cost, and Roku Ultra includes $100 cost with compelling features. Let’s see how both streaming boxes stack up against each other such as:
Roku Ultra: Presents Excellent Value
Roku’s high-end ultra does not include much of a change when compared over the past years. And do not think of it as a bad thing. It includes an impressive interface, adds support, and remote finder features
Apple Watch allows its users to track their sleep duration, create sleep schedules, and set sleep duration. Here’s how you can do it for your overall wellbeing and health.
Sleep tracking is one of the various features that Apple Watch offers to its users. When you understand your sleeping patterns, it helps you immensely improve your sleep quality and quality. In turn, it can help you improve your overall wellbeing and health. Improving users’ overall health and wellbeing is the main reason why Apple introduced a sleep tracking feature to its Apple Watch.
Apple Watch & Its Evolution Over Time
Apple introduced sleep tracking features natively to its smartwatch with the watchOS 7 updates last year. The tech giant introduced several exciting features on its Watch. But, its entry in the sleep
A firewall is made up of a set of rules. When a data packet enters or exits a protected network region, its contents (particularly information about its source, destination, and the protocol it wants to use) are examined using firewall rules to determine if it should be allowed through.
ClearOS
ClearOS is by far the slickest and most attractive firewall distribution in this roundup. It’s clear that a lot of thought and effort went into building the interface.
Because most anti-virus distributions are written for geeks, it’s great to see a refreshing departure from what appears to have been the de facto standard of “cobble it together and worry about the interface afterward.” To attract more sophisticated users, ClearOS will cheerfully and readily operate from the command line.
Change is inevitable, and this applies to everything, even the internet. The Internet in 2021 is quite a different place than it used to be a year ago. Those days are gone when people only visited a handful of sites, and other things were neatly organized in your book. But now, people visit dozens of websites in a single day, or we can say within hours. Many times, people sign up for a new account too. Online surveys suggest that, on average, an internet user has between 50 and 200 online accounts. The disadvantage of this is that most of us had at least one of these accounts unknowingly compromised or breached in recent years.
But don’t worry, we have some good news for your password managers who are universally acclaimed to safeguard our account while also improving online security. But are they effective, and should you have them? We will answer some of these questions right here. So, let’s dive in. | 6,268 | 3,004 | 12,867.761651 |
warc | 202143 | Year after year, new technology opens avenues for greater convenience, ease and possibility. This is especially so in healthcare environments, where a higher level of digitalization, distancing and efficiency is being demanded every day. Each patient is expecting to receive the utmost quality of care, yet doctors and nurses are struggling more than ever to deliver, as they’re constantly pressured to balance their time and attention between a multitude of patients who may be scattered all over a hospital campus or city. As a result, those charged with optimizing acute care models are looking at just how far remote patient monitoring can go in closing the gap.
So, we have turned once again to Zebra’s top two healthcare experts – Chris Sullivan, Zebra’s global healthcare lead, and Rikki Jennings, Zebra’s Chief Nursing Informatics Officer (CNIO) – to better understand how remote patient monitoring is being used today both in patient homes and hospitals. Learn more about the ways it may reshape the healthcare world as we know it moving forward…
Your Edge Blog Team: We’ve been talking a lot about telehealth lately , and we know through conversations with others that remote patient monitoring may be viewed as a component of telehealth. So, to kick things off, can you paint a better picture of what remote patient monitoring actually is and clarify its relationship with telehealth?
Chris: Most clinicians define remote patient monitoring – sometimes abbreviated to RPM – as the ability to monitor the status of patients located across any distance, whether that be inside or outside a healthcare facility.
During the pandemic, more patients have been given wellness tracking
tools like pulse oximeters, blood pressure monitors, and blood glucose monitors to use at home so they could report vitals back to their care teams without having to go into the clinic as frequently for these types of checkups. Some of the devices can trigger alerts when someone’s blood pressure is too high or their medication is no longer keeping cholesterol levels under control, prompting a nurse to check in or a physician to request a video consult with the patient. And there’s a new echo stethoscope that some practitioners are issuing, including one that can intermittently capture heart sounds and get an EKG.
However, many at-home devices aren’t plugged into healthcare information systems, meaning care team members can’t always monitor them in real time. But that’s okay, because patients are now empowered to monitor their own vitals and report into their care teams when something is concerning. They don’t have to wait until their next scheduled appointment or go into the clinic just to have their vitals checked. They can be more proactive in managing their personal health day to day.
Your Edge Blog Team: So, it sounds like RPM tools are giving patients more autonomy, but providers are still relying on the patient to convey health information back to them?
Chris: Exactly. Some care team members may be able to login to a dashboard or app tied to the device to see reported data for the last 30 days, much like you can with your Nest thermostat or Dyson air purifier. And it’s possible the wearable trackers or at-home monitoring devices will one day be able to automatically trigger an intervention if someone is struggling to manage their health or having an acute medical crisis at home. But we’re not quite there yet, at least not on a mass scale. In the meantime, the patient or an at-home caretaker can proactively track device readings and then work closely with doctors and nurses to decipher what they mean in the context of the patient. This is still so beneficial when you consider the alternative. Information is power, and RPM tools are providing far more information about our personal health than we had even a few years ago.
Your Edge Blog Team: It seems like the possibilities of RPM technology are very promising, then, right?
Chris: We still need to iron out accessibility-related concerns specific to at-home patient monitoring practices. The healthcare community must work cooperatively with governments, non-profits and even private sector partners to ensure patients have the proper at-home technology and medical device hardware. They must also ensure patients have stable internet connections so data can be transmitted and they can tap into virtual care as needed. And as information sharing starts to happen automatically, we must be sure patient privacy, security and safety are not compromised. There are a lot of benefits to at-home patient monitoring, though. So, healthcare leaders need to sit down with the various stakeholders to have worthwhile conversations about where this goes long term.
That being said, we are already seeing RPM become part of the new standard of care in hospital settings. That’s where investments are increasing the most right now and the impact of these technologies is looking to be the greatest long term.
Rikki: Chris is right. Much like telehealth, remote patient monitoring has the potential to increase the quality of care for hospital patients, especially given the disparity between the number of patients needing care and the number of doctors and nurses available to provide it. Remote patient monitoring can help healthcare facilities overcome staff shortages, the spread of infectious diseases, and quality of care being impacted by distance between clinicians and patients.
The mobility, visibility and connectivity that comes with the integration of remote patient monitoring solutions help optimize the performance of healthcare workers – regardless of the inflow of patients scattered across a single hospital facility. And acute care nurses and doctors can feel better supported during their hectic schedules knowing they can check in on all their patients from anywhere at any time.
Your Edge Blog Team: COVID-19 has presumably strengthened the case for remote patient monitoring, then?
Rikki: No doubt. But even before the pandemic, healthcare leaders understood that the more inpatient care teams can enlist the help of offsite providers, the more likely they are to provide the right type of intervention at the right time. The nursing workforce has been understaffed for several years, and clinicians can only be in so many places at once. It is impossible for one person to keep an eye on every patient at once. Of course, this issue has been compounded by the influx of COVID-19 patients over the past 18 months. Even if there are enough beds to handle surges, there isn’t enough staff – at least not on site. So, teams of healthcare change agents have been coming up with new ways to expand their workforces. Many are setting up remote monitoring centers where doctors, nurses, EMTs and others who aren’t comfortable or able to be in a hospital setting all day can sit at a desk and watch over patients from a distance. Nemour’s Children’s Hospital is a great example of how remote patient monitoring is taking patient care to a whole new level.
Others are just trying to make it easier for offsite physicians to consult on patient cases remotely, often via telehealth systems, by providing them with real-time information dispatched by a host of smart Internet of Things (IoT) devices connected in patient rooms.
Of course, every possible precaution must be taken to minimize physical staff interactions with infectious patients, especially in hospitals where there are many immunocompromised and vulnerable patients. This is true whether patients have COVID-19 or other highly transmissible and dangerous diseases. In fact, minimizing staff exposures to contagious patients and slowing the spread to others has been one of hospitals’ long-standing challenges. Now, remote patient monitoring technologies, when combined with telehealth solutions, can allow staff to administer some forms of care and/or guidance to patients without physically entering the patient’s space.
Your Edge Blog Team: Are they just hooking up vital monitoring devices in patient rooms and transmitting real-time information to the nurses’ station? Or does it go beyond that?
Chris: There are two fundamental things that hospitals must do to set up and benefit from remote patient monitoring. First, doctors, nurses and even some non-clinical support staff such as pharmacists, lab technicians, porters and facilities managers should be equipped with mobile devices that enable them to stay in touch with one another. This enables them to coordinate patient care actions in real time while on the move. However, these should be healthcare purpose-designed clinical devices that can be disinfected and connect to healthcare information systems and telehealth systems.
Many hospitals that have supported “bring your own device” (BYOD) policies in the past are now changing course. Both hospital administrators and clinicians are concerned about the spread of infectious diseases right now, as they made clear in Zebra’s recent Hospital Vision Study, and workers’ personal devices may not be able to be sanitized to healthcare standards. Plus, they may struggle to safely connect with some of the IoT smart medical devices that are required in order for remote patient monitoring applications to be successful.
Plus, BYOD policies can put undue burden on IT, as they must make sure every device is properly configured and locked down. In clinical environments, mobile devices are being used to access private patient data in electronic health records (EHR). And, if used for telehealth consults with doctors across campus or even across the country, sensitive patient matters will be discussed. Hospital administrators and IT must ensure those mobile devices don’t become points of vulnerability for cybercriminals. Issuing staff hospital-owned devices purpose built for healthcare applications, synced with the right information systems, and loaded with the right features for each user’s role and unique workflows is the best way to do that.
Once staff have the right mobility solutions in hand, then patient rooms can be equipped with IoT devices that allow doctors and nurses outside the room to see what’s happening inside at all times. This might include a blood pressure machine, IV pump and oximeter as well as video monitors that allow someone to visually assess the patient from afar.
From there, you can decide whether you want to take it a step further and employ artificial intelligence (AI) to help monitoring and interventions or simply employ more clinicians in a central monitoring center like Nemours Children’s Health System did.
Your Edge Blog Team: What are the key benefits of hiring nurses, physicians and paramedics to work in a command center?
Chris: The quality of patient care can be improved tremendously because clinicians are watching patients in real time. They can call in the right people to consult on cases, which brings about faster and more accurate clinical resolution. The technology also allows specialists to be leveraged more effectively, as they can see patients without having to actually be on site. A cross-functional group of experts can leverage their collective knowledge and real-time data to solve problems. It’s teamwork at its finest. Plus, it’s much cost-friendlier than “feet on the street” specialist approaches and gives patients access to the best specialists for them.
As a side benefit, it also opens doors for new job opportunities and responsibilities for healthcare professionals who are high risk, nearing retirement, recovering from injury or experiencing burnout. Remote patient monitoring assignments could enable these clinicians to take on virtual preceptor or virtual mentorship roles for a given amount of time. This broadens the scope of healthcare provider involvement and engagement in a multitude of circumstances. For example, they could provide support for EMTs in the field as well as hospital ICU or bedside nursing teams.
Rikki: Command center staff can also manage the flow of patients and clinicians in a way not possible if they were on the ground. They’re kind of like air traffic controllers, but better, as they help hospital staff see how best to care for hundreds or thousands of critical patients in settings only designed to support a few dozen.
Your Edge Blog Team: Would you say that’s the top benefit of remote patient monitoring, in general?
Rikki: I think the biggest advantage of remote patient monitoring is that care teams can see and do more from a distance. This is especially true when you also combine RPM toolsets with telehealth. There are fewer missed alarms, we can better screen those alarms to see if they warrant immediate action, and we don’t have to wait for the assigned nurse or doctor to get to the bedside to help the patient. We can intervene more quickly than if we didn’t have the additional oversight or support resources. Those sitting in the central monitoring center or perhaps even a clinic across campus can take action as soon as they’re alerted to an issue. That may entail dispatching an EMT to check on the patient while the nurse is occupied or notifying the on-call doctor that the patient’s status is changing and requesting a new medication order or lab test. The physician may not need to come in to do those things on every occasion. In fact, being able to consult from a distance makes doctors and specialists more accessible to more patients as Chris previously said.
In fact, many now say they wouldn’t be able to do their jobs effectively without this type of tech in place. It’s enabling them to connect to other clinicians during hectic shifts and see the real-time status of all their patients in the palm of their hands. It’s also allowing them to become more proactive than reactive. Nurses can get alerts when a patient needs another dose of medicine, for example, which helps to reduce mistakes or oversights as they’re bouncing from room to room.
Chris: Clinicians should also be able to spend more time with each patient upon the adoption of this technology, which is the most valuable aspect of care. As Rikki noted, we’ve already started to see the flexibility of clinicians to work from anywhere at any time. Burnout was becoming ubiquitous among healthcare workers even before the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, chaos in the work environment is the number one cause of burnout among clinicians, followed by a lack of effective teamwork and being inundated with bureaucratic tasks. Integrating remote monitoring and telehealth tools into existing workflows has shown to reduce burnout in acute care environments by reducing the cognitive burden and enabling clinicians to care for all patients collaboratively versus working in a silo.
Your Edge Blog Team: Chris, you mentioned AI earlier. How exactly does that play into remote patient monitoring?
Chris: One of the surgeons on Zebra’s healthcare customer advisory board was telling us how the capstone project for her MBA program in 2018 was focused on AI in healthcare and, specifically, the ways in which it could be used for remote patient monitoring. At the time, there was doubt about the viability of such a solution as it was designed with the assumption that a primary physician is standing at a computer at all times waiting for data to come in, which just doesn't happen. Even in command centers, there isn’t a one-to-one patient to provider ratio, and there isn’t just one data feed for each patient. So, recent innovation and engineering efforts in this space have been really focused on creating a solution that takes the massive amount of data being generated by edge systems, such as mobile devices and remote monitors, and puts it into a format that’s actually accessible and useful to a clinician from both an IT and workflow perspective. Such a technology platform is only beneficial if it allows for real-time alerting and action, and AI can help bridge those digital divides a bit by more prescriptively assigning that action to the best person in real time.
Rikki: Yes, she gave a great example of how, within her own institution and emergency room, they are now setting up alerting systems for sepsis and other things that employ aspects of AI. Although, it was interesting to hear her describe this particular application as being more like “big data crunching” than remote patient monitoring. The AI system essentially collects and analyzes data before sending it to teams that are remotely monitoring patient status on a screen outside the room. But that speaks to Chris’ point in that it can’t just be another data feed. It has to provide actionable intelligence to the person on the receiving end. If they have to stop and figure out what to do with the incoming information, that doesn’t really help them become more efficient or make better decisions.
Your Edge Blog Team: Would you say AI is the key to unlocking more benefits from today’s remote patient monitoring tools? Is that what’s needed for this to be widely adopted as part of the standard, everyday inpatient and outpatient care models?
Chris: AI will certainly have to mature a bit more and become more pervasive before we’ll see remote patient monitoring available and utilized at full scale for outpatient use cases as mentioned before and, perhaps to a certain extent, in hospitals as well. The key is to achieve an effective, operationalized program that allows AI to surveil an at-home or in-patient’s condition accurately and determine if and when physician intervention is needed. Simply put, the physician may not need to be involved in each phase of patient care or even be the one to take care of every patient’s needs. That’s why remote patient care is a great tool with the potential to reinvent typical care administration. It can provide more accessible, practical and beneficial wellness solutions for professionals and patients alike.
Rikki: Remote patient monitoring still has a long road ahead, but we have to start somewhere. And the benefits this technology can bring to acute care settings are going to become a pivotal aspect of caregiving well into the future.
For now, though, remote patient monitoring gives flexibility to the caregiving process, and that holds a lot of weight given the gravity of the pandemic and the level of exhaustion and defeat healthcare providers are feeling right now. Time and space hold no bounds with remote monitoring and telehealth technologies. Patients can have unconditional access to nurses, doctors or specialists, even if they can’t physically be in the room. More patients can be treated at once. Expert advice can be harnessed from wherever. And greater trust can be established between patients and healthcare providers knowing that the care will be safe and timely.
### Editor’s Note:
The results of Zebra’s latest Healthcare Vision Study are now available here:
### Related Reads: | 19,296 | 7,736 | 47,162.457084 |
warc | 202143 | Both ‘Superprofits’ and ‘Supersocialism’ are exaggerated terms, but the power debate – as much about ruling the country as about about electricity – has become a highly charged superdebate.
There is more at stake than whether we will get a few dollars off our power bills. It may be critical in deciding who runs the next government, and is in part an ideological battle between capitalism and socialism.
Ten business groups led by Business NZ yesterday issued an open letter to Labour and the Greens criticising the policy – which the two political parties argue may reduce power prices for industrial and commercial users – and have asked them to withdraw it. The business groups said they were “particularly” concerned the policies would have a “chilling effect on investment across the entire economy”.
David Farrar and co. comment at Kiwiblog: Major Electricity Consumers ask Labour and Greens to drop their nationalisation policy.
Labour’s ‘Eddie’ at The Standard hasn’t addressed the letter directly but continues his campaign of trying to discredit critics in Why First NZ Capital wants you to keep paying too much for power and Why Brian Gaynor wants you to keep paying too much for power, with modest levels of discussion.
UPDATE: ‘Eddie’ has address this now in on Why Phil O’Reilly wants you to keep paying too much for power.
Labour MPs are distracted by Parekura Horomia’s tangi so have been quiet, although David Parker commented:
He said the letter “repeats the National Government’s scaremongering about investment”. “The NZX stock exchange is up since the announcement. There is no investor flight or fear. It is irrational and damaging to markets and the New Zealand economy to claim there is.”
Parker was reported as saying he knew more about markets than Phil O’Reilly of BusinessNZ, and put out a media release attacking O’Reilly:
“The letter from Mr O’Reilly does not cure the current problems in the uncompetitive electricity market. Prices have increased since the independent report from Professor Wolack found $4.3 billion of overcharging. The system must be fixed.
“Currently super-profits are made on the back of our public resource – free water. This must be addressed if power bills are to be lowered. Mr O’Reilly again offers no effective solution.
“There are several other mistakes in the letter. There are no subsidies involved. It is remedying overcharging and will increase retail competition, and enable new entrants into generation.
Mr O’Reilly has made no effort to contact Labour to discuss this policy. If he had some of his errors would have been avoided,” says David Parker.
That’s ironic considering Parker’s policy was released without any effort to discuss it with business groups.
And according to Whale Oil Labour corrected Parker’s original release:
Correction: at Labour’s request this replaces the earlier press release on this matter.
As for the Greens, Russel Norman is still overseas on leave, and Clint seems to have muzzled Gareth Hughes, but Clint himself fought back yesterday:
Biz NZ’s extraordinary attack on Green/Labour plan to lower power prices shows they know it’s popular & it’ll work, ending rentier profits @ georgedarrochit’s pretty telling, eh? They’re advocating for rentier companies’ ‘right’ to parasite off real NZ businesses and families
Familiar parrot lines. Clint later tries to talk down a poll result (see Roy Morgan poll bounce)…
latest Roy Morgan. did 1/17 NZers switch left to right in last fortnight or just normal statistical variation w Nat trend down?
…but the swing against Greens and Labour should worry him. But the business letter didn’t seem to worry Metiria Turei in
Greens respond to Business New Zealand open letter:
The Green Party will not be withdrawing its popular plan to reduce power prices for Kiwi families and businesses, Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei said today.
“The NZ Power plan proposed by the Greens and Labour will lower power prices for Kiwi families and businesses. That will mean warmer homes, a healthier population, and more jobs. We are declining Business New Zealand’s request that we withdraw this popular plan,” said Mrs Turei. “The Greens make no apologies for wanting to get power prices down to a fair level. Business New Zealand and National seem to think that electricity companies’ profits matter more than lower power bills for families and businesses.
Turei continued with familiar talking points, and concluded:
“The Greens are a democratic party and we won’t have our policy choices dictated to us by big business. We will make our policy choices based on what is best for New Zealand, its people, its economy, and its environment. NZ Power fits the bill,” said Mrs Turei.
The claim “
based on what is best for New Zealand” is obviously just a Green view, they often seem to think their own convictions are uncontestable. But there are many opinions about what might be best for the country.
I also saw comments on Twitter suggesting that as National wouldn’t discuss with Greenpeace so why should Greens discuss with business groups.
I think when it comes to the election crunch voters will be thinking more about economic and business issues in New Zealand than they will worry about whaling in remote oceans.
The power debate will continue, largely between capitalists – National and business interests – versus what is seen as Labour backing more socialist Green policies.
A super heated battle between Superprofits and Supersocialism. | 5,823 | 2,635 | 12,099.02277 |
warc | 202143 | [PMID]: 26778456 [Au] Autor: Romanucci V; D'Alonzo D; Guaragna A; Di Marino C; Davinelli S; Scapagnini G; Di Fabio G; Zarrelli A [Ti] Título: Bioactive Compounds of Aristotelia chilensis Stuntz and their Pharmacological Effects. [So] Source: Curr Pharm Biotechnol;17(6):513-23, 2016. [Is] ISSN: 1873-4316 [Cp] País de publicação: Netherlands [La] Idioma: eng [Ab] Resumo: Aristotelia chilensis ([Molina], Stuntz) a member of the family Eleocarpaceae, is a plant native to Chile that is distributed in tropical and temperate Asia, Australia, the Pacific Area, and South America. The juice of its berries has important medicinal properties, as an astringent, tonic, and antidiarrhoeal. Its many qualities make the maqui berry the undisputed sovereign of the family of so-called "superfruits", as well as a valuable tool to combat cellular inflammation of bones and joints. Recently, it is discovered that the leaves of the maqui berry have important antibacterial and antitumour activities. This review provides a comprehensive overview of the traditional use, phytochemistry, and biological activity of A. chilensis using information collected from scientific journals, books, and electronic searches. Anthocyanins, other flavonoids, alkaloids, cinnamic acid derivatives, benzoic acid derivatives, other bioactive molecules, and mineral elements are summarized. A broad range of activities of plant extracts and fractions are presented, including antioxidant activity, inhibition of visible light-induced damage of photoreceptor cells, inhibition of α-glucosidase, inhibition of pancreatic lipase, anti-diabetic effects, anti-inflammatory effects, analgesic effects, anti-diabetes, effective prevention of atherosclerosis, promotion of hair growth, anti-photo ageing of the skin, and inhibition of lipid peroxidation. Although some ethnobotanical uses have been supported in in vitro experiments, further studies of the individual compounds or chemical classes of compounds responsible for the pharmacological effects and the mechanisms of action are necessary. In addition, the toxicity and the side effects from the use of A. chilensis, as well as clinical trials, require attention. [Mh] Termos MeSH primário: Elaeocarpaceae Extratos Vegetais/farmacologia [Mh] Termos MeSH secundário: Alcaloides/análise Animais Flavonoides/análise Frutas Seres Humanos Medicina Tradicional Compostos Fitoquímicos/análise Extratos Vegetais/química Folhas de Planta [Pt] Tipo de publicação: JOURNAL ARTICLE; RESEARCH SUPPORT, NON-U.S. GOV'T; REVIEW [Nm] Nome de substância: 0 (Alkaloids); 0 (Flavonoids); 0 (Phytochemicals); 0 (Plant Extracts) [Em] Mês de entrada: 1612 [Cu] Atualização por classe: 161230 [Lr] Data última revisão: 161230 [Sb] Subgrupo de revista: IM [Da] Data de entrada para processamento: 160119 [St] Status: MEDLINE | 2,924 | 1,575 | 5,235.352381 |
warc | 202143 | They Were Asked 3 Questions About injury care center... It's A Great Lesson
Why clients think twice to get medical therapy for whiplash
Some individuals attempt to prevent medical treatment for whiplash injuries. They believe that whiplash injuries are not serious as well as will simply disappear in time. This is potentially the most awful choice you can make when managing whiplash injuries. Postponed therapy can cause unneeded surgical procedure, raised and long lasting discomfort, stiffness, and also boosted clinical expenses.
Lots of people tend to underestimate their whiplash injuries. Discomfort onset from whiplash can take days injury care centers jacksonville fl or perhaps weeks to feel, which makes it simple to disregard. The general misunderstanding is that whiplash is just stiffness or neck discomfort. Whiplash is a general term made use of to explain a number of spine injuries. Stiffness as well as neck discomfort is typically a indicator of much deeper tissue or spine damages.
Types of physicians that treat whiplash
Medical Physician
Chiropractic practitioner
Orthopedic
Medical Care Doctor
Physical Therapist
Not all of these Doctors can or will treat whiplash injuries after a car crash. For instance, most PCPs will not treat vehicle crash injuries. It's not that your family practitioner does not wish to deal with accident injuries, they simply can not bill through the insurance provider.
Auto Mishap injuries need a Doctor that can bill with 3rd party invoicing, PIP, No Fault, automobile insurance or a letter of protection from an lawyer. A lot of, otherwise all, family doctors can not bill via third party payment or vehicle insurance coverage. For that reason, you need to seek a certified Accident Physician that is able to costs through car insurance policy, Med Pay, PIP or LOP.
Why will not my Medical care Physician see me for Whiplash
When you attempt to make an consultation with your PCP and tell them you have actually remained in vehicle crash, for the most part the Physician will tell you that they do not deal with vehicle crash clients. Naturally, your Household PCP would certainly treat the injuries preferably, yet they are incapable due to the billing practices.
3rd party billing is the term generally used for car crashes. Third party billing consists of: Automobile Insurance coverage such as Geico or Progressive, PIP, No Fault and also LOP or Letter of Security from an lawyer. Health Insurance is not included in third party billing, which is why your PCP is unable to treat your injuries.
Medical insurance
The main reason that you need to not use medical insurance for cars and truck mishap injuries is that your case could be denied. Your Wellness Insurer will certainly declare that your injuries are due to the cars and truck mishap, which is covered by car insurance coverage or various other third party invoicing.
Second of all, you will more than likely be required make co-payments for therapy under your health insurance. If your medical claim is rejected, after that you could be held accountable for the overdue clinical expenses, which is an additional reason not to use medical insurance for car crash injuries. | 3,209 | 1,482 | 6,907.361673 |
warc | 202143 | dc.contributor.author Maria Caporale, Guglielmo dc.contributor.author Gil Alana, Luis A. dc.contributor.author Poza Lara, Carlos dc.date.accessioned 2020-09-11T09:39:24Z dc.date.available 2020-09-11T09:39:24Z dc.date.issued 2020 dc.identifier.issn 1062-9769 spa dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10641/1965 dc.description.abstract This paper examines persistence, structural breaks and non-linearities in the case of five European stock market indices, namely the FTSE100 (UK), DAX30 (Germany), CAC40 (France), IBEX35 (Spain) and FTSE MIB40 (Italy), using fractional integration methods. The empirical results provide no evidence of non-linearities in either prices or returns; the former are found to exhibit unit roots and the latter to be I(0) in most cases. Further, between 2 and 4 structural breaks are found for each of the return series, and mean reversion in some subsamples. spa dc.language.iso eng spa dc.publisher The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance spa dc.rights Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 3.0 España * dc.rights.uri http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/es/ * dc.subject European stock markets spa dc.subject Nonstationarity spa dc.subject Unit roots spa dc.subject Fractional integration spa dc.subject Persistence spa dc.subject Non-linearities spa dc.title Persistence, non-linearities and structural breaks in European stock market indices. spa dc.type article spa dc.description.version pre-print spa dc.rights.accessRights openAccess spa dc.description.extent 715 KB spa dc.identifier.doi 10.1016/j.qref.2020.01.007 spa dc.relation.publisherversion https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1062976920300077 spa | 1,688 | 878 | 3,222.1959 |
warc | 202143 | COVID-19 does not affect everyone in the same way, with the marginalized segment of the population bearing the biggest brunt from the crisis. Hence, DHRRA saw the urgent need for a more inclusive and equitable responses that address the different experience and needs of the marginalized and vulnerable groups in Malaysia, which extend beyond provision of basic necessities. This led to our economic empowerment endeavor targeted at uplifting B40 entrepreneurs. With the support of
Yayasan Hasanah, we are able to successfully work towards the economic empowerment of 120 aspiring and existing B40 entrepreneurs, whose livelihoods are affected by COVID-19, through a series of Entrepreneurial Capacity Building Workshops.
A crucial outcome of this effort is the launching of the
E-Jana Portal, which enables the B40 entrepreneurs to showcase and promote their products. A virtual booth on the E-Jana site is allocated for each entrepreneur, for them to do business or deal directly with their customers. | 1,008 | 588 | 1,719.428571 |
warc | 202143 | The origins of digital storytelling are seen to be the pioneering work led by Dana Atchley and Joe Lambert in California in the 1990s (Hartley & McWilliam, 2009). The emergence of digital storytelling at this time was a reflection of the increasing accessibility of digital technologies and a cultural shift toward the consumer as producer that has continued further with Web2.0 technologies. The innovation led by Atchley was to ‘develop an exportable workshop-based approach to teach “ordinary” people ... how to produce their own personal videos’ (Hartley & McWilliam, 2009: 3).
Hartley & McWilliam (2009:4-5) argue that at this moment in time digital storytelling provides a pivotal term that can be used to represent:
An emergent form, combining the personal narrative and documentary A new media practice, combining individual tuition with new publishing devices An activist/community movement, combining experts with consumer led activity A textual system, challenging the traditional view of the producer/consumer model and new forms of literacy.
A typical digital story created within this tradition is a personal narrative of no more than 2-3 minutes. Burgess & Klaebe (2009: 155) identify two important core elements in the wide range of practice that has evolved in this tradition: the collaborative workshop and the first-person narrative. The workshop element, whereby support can be provided for the crafting of stories, contrasts digital stories created in this tradition with the more informal ‘stories’ that are being made available through Web2.0 platforms such as YouTube. These creations are less ‘top-down’ in approach and highlight a criticism of the CDS model that it can be too ‘teacher-centric’ (Hartley & McWilliam, 2009: 15). This CDS approach, while using simple technologies, has also been critcised for being 'deceptively complicated' because of the formalised workshop approach (Dush, 2009: 261). This will present barriers to use, particularly in educational settings, and make it difficult to sustain as a practice. The focus on the personal narrative also represents a potentially restrictive view for educational use, and Hartley & McWilliam (2009: 15) note that the emphasis on self-expression can lead to a ‘serious’ work being underdeveloped. Other developers of digital stories have expanded the range of uses and the definition of digital storytelling; for example, the website 'Educational Uses of Digital Storytelling', developed at the University of Houston, organises stories into three categories:
Personal narratives Stories that inform or instruct Stories that examine historical events.
The CDS tradition of digital storytelling has informed and inspired a wide range of activities in different contexts. The workshop dynamic, as illustrated through the Capture Wales project (Meadows & Kidd, 2009: 106), lies at the core of why this approach has gone on to be used within community projects, health work and professional development. The workshop can have a theapeutic benefit, helping to create a coherent story of events which have personal value to the individuals involved. For example:
Patient Voices Project: project to gather the stories of ordinary people to inform health care professionals
Kelvin Grove Urban Village: digital stories representing the indigenous, military, educational, residential and natural history of this Brisbane urban development.
Within education it is increasingly used within schools, particularly for engagement and literacy development, though the nature of digital storytelling does mean that the focus of use will vary by age. Within higher education digital storytelling is most common within education departments, reflecting the use in schools, and also in media production departments (McWilliam, 2009: 46). This pattern of usage does reflect the CDS tradition. The potential applications increase if a broader interpretation of digital storytelling is adopted, such as new media narrative. This wider pattern of usage has been evidenced at the University of Gloucestershire with use for a variety of purposes across a range of disciplines (Gravestock & Jenkins, 2009; Jenkins & Lonsdale, 2008). | 4,259 | 1,945 | 9,172.72545 |
warc | 202143 | [1] Scientific discovery is not scientific. [2] Math is the language of ignorants. [2.1] Universal Lookup Table contains math but has no need to use it. [3] There is no infinity or singularity in the universe. [3.1] They are merely mathematical constructs. [3.2] If they exist then there is no causality. [4] If causality is broken then there is no science. [5] There is no theory of everything. [5.1] There are theories of some things and they do not need to be unique and exclusionary. [5.2] Occam's razor should not only be succinct, it should also shave. [6] Every theory is void out of its scope. [6.1] Most of the theories have no scope in reality. [6.2] Reality does not care about your theory or categorization. Do not let them fool you. [6.2.1] We can not engineer reality. It is what it is. [7] Consciousness emerges as a reflection upon itself with an ability to halt. [7.1] There is no objective halting. [7.2] Even an objective condition is put subjectively. [8] Humans are not merely biological entities. [8.1] They are more of cultural entities in which ideas, thoughts, and beliefs can be cultivated. [8.2] I do not belong to a culture, I am culture. [9] Ideas, thoughts, beliefs are the highest level products of the human body. [9.1] Schizophrenia is the highest level human disease. [9.2] Humans possess ideas, ideas should not possess humans. [10] Communication does not assure understanding. [10.1] It is made via symbols and agreement is achieved over the symbols, not the meanings attached to them. [11] Information is ante-knowledge. [11.1] The initial source of information is the reality. The rest is human narrative. (Anthropic Narrative Obfuscation Theory) [12] If you want to see further, sometimes you need to knock down the giants in front of you. [13] Understanding reality is priceless. Its worth cannot be based on any fictitious value. [1] Werner Heisenberg: What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning. [2] Carl Sagan: Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. [3] Max Planck: Science progresses one funeral at a time. [4] Robert A. Heinlein: Everything is theoretically impossible, until it is done [5] Louis Pateur: Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world. [6] Konrad Lorenz: Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more, until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less, until they know everything about nothing. [7] Santiago Ramón y Cajal: All outstanding work, in art as well as in science, results from immense zeal applied to a great idea. [8] Louis Pasteur: Luck favors the prepared mind. [9] Richard Feynman: Knowledge isnt free. You have to pay attention. [10] Albert Einstein: The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination. [11] Isaac Newton: If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. [12] Isaac Newton: If others would think as hard as I did, then they would get similar results. [13] Galileo Galilei: In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. [14] Richard Wesley Hamming: What appears to be a fault, often, by a change of viewpoint, turns out to be one of the greatest assets you can have. [15] Richard Wesley Hamming: They believe the theory enough to go ahead; they doubt it enough to notice the errors and faults so they can step forward and create the new replacement theory. If you believe too much you'll never notice the flaws; if you doubt too much you won't get started. [16] Richard Wesley Hamming: Most great scientists are completely committed to their problem. Those who don't become committed seldom produce outstanding, first-class work. [17] Richard Wesley Hamming: So the way to manage yourself is that when you have a real important problem you don't let anything else get the center of your attention — you keep your thoughts on the problem. Keep your subconscious starved so it has to work on your problem, so you can sleep peacefully and get the answer in the morning, free. [18] Friedrich Nietzsche: If a man have a strong faith he can indulge in the luxury of skepticism. [19] William Osler: In science the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs. | 4,658 | 2,199 | 9,332.945884 |
warc | 202143 | BEIJING, May 5 -- The notion of "American exceptionalism" argues that the United States has a special role in the world and serves as a role model for others to follow. That myth has fallen prey to the rampaging coronavirus pandemic, or more specifically, to Washington's disruption to the global fight against the deadly pathogen. As the world's sole superpower, the United States has an unshirkable responsibility to pioneer or support a global combat against humanity's common enemy, or at least set a fine example to contain the outbreak at home. However, Washington's performance has made it a disruptor-in-chief in this ongoing vital struggle, and let the world down deeply. Many politicians in Washington love to boast of America's leading role in the world. The country is truly leading today, but in a tragic way no one is willing to see. Being the world's epicenter in the COVID-19 pandemic, the country now has about one third of the world's caseload and death toll respectively, more than any other places on the surface of the Earth. Clearly, despite all the warnings flashed by China or the World Health Organization (WHO), or even its own intelligence communities, this U.S. administration has simply dropped the ball because of either self-conceited arrogance or gross negligence, or both. In a recently published Op-ed, The Associated Press said the United States responded the pandemic with a system with "cascading failures and incompetencies," and grumbled that "a nation with unmatched power, brazen ambition and aspirations through the arc of history to be humanity's 'shining city upon a hill' cannot come up with enough simple cotton swabs." It seems that some Washington politicians, such as U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and White House trade advisor Peter Navarro, have no interest in reflecting on what is going wrong in their own country. Facing their coronavirus debacle, they are interested in two things: covering it up and blaming others. When the Pompeos and the Navarros attack China over transparency, they should know that they are the ones who tried to play down the dire threat of the disease despite having been repeatedly warned, refused to disclose how the administration was distributing medical supplies, and blocked Dr. Anthony Fauci, an infectious disease expert and key figure on the White House coronavirus task force, from testifying before Congress. Trying to sell their theory on the virus's origin, they just couldn't be more desperate to smear China. During this past weekend, Pompeo said that there is "enormous evidence" that coronavirus outbreak originated in a laboratory in Wuhan, China, but failed to provide any. Pompeo's bluffing can easily remind people of the theatric UN presentation back in 2003 delivered by Colin Powell, then U.S. secretary of state, who made the case for the bloody and destructive Iraqi war with outright lies. Instead of contributing to the global drive to bear down the pandemic, the incumbent U.S. government has even launched an offensive to disrupt it. Last month, Washington has decided to halt funding for the WHO while accusing it of "severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus." That is so irresponsible an decision that could not come at a worse time when the world needs more than ever this global health body to play its backbone role to coordinate an effective global response among governments in the face of the still-raging pandemic. Following the World War II, the United States joined countries around the world to create the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, all of which are the pillars of the current world order that is underpinned by the spirit of multilateralism. That was a time when the United States had won some respect in the world although Washington and Moscow quickly went head-to-head in the Cold War. The coronavirus pandemic is "shaking bedrock assumptions" about "American exceptionalism," Katrin Bennhold, The New York Times's Berlin bureau chief, wrote in a recently published opinion piece. Washington's performance during the ongoing pandemic, along with this administration's ballooning hostility towards free trade, economic globalization and the post-war world order the United States helped shape, has degraded itself to a short-sighted and strong-arm bully who is willing to do anything for short-term self-interests. The human race today faces a myriad of daunting challenges, like climate change and fatal infectious diseases such as COVID-19. To weather those challenges demands the input from everyone. If those U.S. decision-makers want their country to be exceptional, they need to be responsible and their actions should be inspirational. Otherwise, "American exceptionalism" would only become a laughing stock, for which the international community would feel an intense loathing. Xinhua | 4,955 | 2,444 | 10,009.34329 |
warc | 202143 | Dorri Partain Contributor The United States Congress was setting aside lands for national parks years before they had created a department to oversee those lands. Yellowstone, the first national park, dates to 1872 but the National Park Service wasn’t officially created by act of Congress until August 25, 1916. Operating under the Department of the Interior, the National Park Service has grown to manage 418 federal sites, including parks, monuments, memorials, military parks, historic sites, recreation areas, seashores, scenic riverways and scenic trails. Collecting fees to enhance national park lands for the comfort of visitors began with the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act in 1908. The act has been updated nearly every decade since, with the Fund Act of 1965 stating, “Clear notice that a fee or charge has been established shall be posted at each area to which it is applicable” and “that no free passes shall be issued to any member of Congress or other government official.” The Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act of 2004 stipulates that 75% of fees collected for entrance, camping, and other permits shall be used for park maintenance and programs, with current entrance fees set at $25.00 per day for one vehicle and passengers, $15.00 for visitors arriving on foot or bicycle, and $25.00 for each motorcycle. Entrance fees are waived on six days each year: Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Great American Outdoors Act Anniversary (August 4), the National Park Service Birthday (August 25), National Public Lands Day (September 25), Veteran’s Day and the first day of National Park Week. The Short-Term Entrance Permit for Rocky Mountain National Park shown here was issued July 23, 1968. Based on the entrance code, the entrance fee was $1.00 for one vehicle with passengers. The fee also included entrance to the Shadow Mountain National Recreation Area, located at the southwestern border just outside the national park. | 1,982 | 1,024 | 3,774.316406 |
warc | 202143 | The state space of the whole system is = ( of the state space is called a configuration and describes the global state of the system. and cell turnover replacing polarized cells by initially unpolarized cells. We show that a persistent Naringenin global orienting signal determines the final mean polarity orientation in this stochastic model. Combining numerical and analytical approaches, we find that neighbour coupling retards polarity pattern reorganization, whereas cell turnover accelerates Tcfec it. We derive a formula for an effective neighbour coupling strength integrating both effects and find that the time of polarity reorganization depends linearly on this effective parameter and no abrupt transitions are observed. This allows us to determine neighbour coupling strengths from experimental observations. Our model is related to a dynamic 8-Potts model with annealed site-dilution and makes testable predictions regarding the polarization of dynamic systems, such as the planarian epithelium. the plane, termed planar cell polarity (PCP) [4]. PCP controls fundamental processes during embryonic development and tissue regeneration in many species including actin filament orientation, convergenceCextension, tissue reshaping, sensory organ formation, wing hair orientation, directional tissue growth and animal locomotion [4C6]. Mechanistically, PCP and the resulting planar tissue polarity integrate two general classes of inputs. (i) Global cues provided by the slope of tissue-scale gradients. These can consist of ligand concentration profiles [7,8], gene expression gradients [9] or mechanical shear stress [10]. (ii) Local cues are provided by cellCcell coupling. The alignment of cell polarization vectors among neighbouring cells propagates anisotropies from tissue boundaries or mutant clones and is mediated by the differential distribution of PCP and/or Fat/Dachsous components across cell/cell interfaces [4,11C13]. These mechanisms are universally found across many species and tissues. In most contexts, both inputs act synergistically to establish and maintain planar tissue polarity [14]. Theoretical studies of the collective phenomena of PCP confirmed that cellCcell neighbour coupling fosters a uniform polarity response of all cells to noisy and non-monotonous tissue-scale signals [6,15C23]. In particular, weak and even transient biases stemming from a polarized boundary or graded signal suffice to orient an entire epithelium when present from the of PCP dynamics in initially unpolarized cells [20,21]. Understanding of the underlying principle can be gained from statistical physics: the in the following, for the study of planar polarity formation and maintenance in biological tissues. Second, it elucidates the transient dynamics approaching the asymptotic state. We propose that new insight into polarity pattern formation can be gained from analysing the particular transient dynamics of polarity reorganization when Naringenin an initially coherent polarity pattern is confronted with an opposing instructive signal. We therefore ask, how the contradiction between inputs is resolved and how the time requirement for conflict resolution depends on parameters, especially the cell birth and death rates. The biological inspiration for our approach is the experimentally inducible inversion of global body plan polarity in the planarian [27,28]. The regeneration of a second head instead of a tail (figure 1the response of planar tissue polarity to dynamically changing global inputs, whereas cell turnover it. Finally, we establish a relation of the system parameters that determines the time requirement for polarity reorganization. We close with a discussion of these results. 2.?Mathematical model of cell polarity and Naringenin turnover 2.1. Model definition We define an IPS?[41C43] model for tissue polarity dynamics at the cellular level, which incorporates polarity alignment with respect to a global signal and to neighbours’ polarity vectors as well as cell turnover. The model cells occupy the nodes of a finite two-dimensional lattice that represents the epithelial tissue subjected to initially conflicting signals, as for instance the grey-shaded area in figure 1cell, which determines the cell’s polarity orientation, is abstracted as one unit vector per cell pointing towards the highest membrane accumulation of a selected PCP component. The directions of the unit vectors are discretized yielding the eight states 2.1 Naive cells, in planaria resulting from progeny Naringenin of stem cells immigrating into the epithelium and presenting no polarity information for an initial period of time, are represented by a ninth, has a polarization state which is an element of = 0, ,. | 4,755 | 2,146 | 10,509.303355 |
warc | 202143 | The sheep and goat dairy industry is rapidly growing in the South Island, from Winton to Kaikoura. Already well established in parts of the North Island, such as Waikato, we are now getting demand for goat and sheep dairy sheds in Canterbury and further afield.
Locally there is a strong presence in Kirwee and Lincoln, with entities such as Sheep Milk New Zealand promoting the many benefits of sheep milk. For farmers the options are many - incorporating sheep or goat milking into an established dairy farm, making a switch, or a new enterprise.
For RBS, moving into building sheep dairy sheds is a natural progression, and great utilisation of our existing skills and partnerships. For example, our longstanding partners GEA/Milfos who are specialists in sheep milking shed technology for New Zealand.
Likewise our partner Chapman Dairy, which is based in the centre of the sheep dairy industry in Waikato.
If you're considering dairy sheep or goats, contact us to draw on the established base of NZ experience in this industry.
We can work through your sheep dairy shed design and build today. | 1,105 | 611 | 1,985.744681 |
warc | 202143 | DuoDote (Atropine and Pralidoxime Chloride Injection)- Multum
Phasing diagram for Buckthorn City, 1995. A decade later, West 8 came back with an even more ambitious proposal for Happy Isles, a massive offshore archipelago manufactured by industrial dredging.
Composite of Zandmotor migrations, from the official Flickr photostream. As designers, planners, and land endometriosis surgery, we lack a concept of migration which would focus our attention on the dynamic moving whole.
Ecology Ecology provides a fundamentally relational view of landscapes, focusing on the generative interactions between things and their environment. Assemblage Ecologists, archaeologists, geographers, urbanists, and philosophers all comfortably speak of assemblages, whether they are talking about remains of buried civilizations, family disagreements associations of species, or the socio-material assembly of cities.
As the manifestation of a design choice, infrastructure is contextual and political, rather than universal or given. Climatic zones are migrating toward the poles. As a report for the 2013 National Climate Assessment states: Range shifts will result in new community assemblages, new associations among species, and promote interactions among species that have not existed in the past. How we engage these accelerated landscape migrations is the preeminent challenge of our time.
Your support makes our work possible. Notes Chris Reed and Nina-Marie Lister, Projective Ecologies (New York: Harvard University Graduate School of Design and Actar Publishers, 2014). Caverject (Alprostadil Injection)- FDA two Klamath Restoration Agreements (2010) are online at KlamathRestoration.
In 2014, they were extended Injectlon)- the Comprehensive Upper Basin Agreement. All hatchery descriptions are based on field observations and interviews conducted
DuoDote (Atropine and Pralidoxime Chloride Injection)- Multum the author on October 18, 2011, and a follow-up interview on June 15, 2015.
Interview with David Mauser, Senior Wildlife Biologist, U. Fish and Wildlife Service, June 2011. Productivity is measured by number of waterfowl recorded during site observations. Agricultural production on the Tule Lake and Lower Klamath wildlife refuges is mandated by the Kuchel Act (1964). Nico de Jonge, The Phenomenon
DuoDote (Atropine and Pralidoxime Chloride Injection)- Multum (Wagenignen: Uitgeverij Blauwdruk, 1996).
Ying Yu Hung, et al. Daniel Czechowski, et al. Anuradha Mathur and Dilip da Cunha, Mississippi Floods: So iv roche
DuoDote (Atropine and Pralidoxime Chloride Injection)- Multum Shifting Landscape (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001). Alan Berger, Drosscape: Wasting DuoDote (Atropine and Pralidoxime Chloride Injection)- Multum in Urban America (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2006).
Jackson, The Necessity for Ruins (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press,1980). Hugh Dingle and V. Michael Samers, Migration (New York: Routledge, 2010), 8. A major breakthrough occurred in the 1960s, when researchers became able to image the ocean floor and sample materials from it. See Kent Condie, Plate Tectonics and Crustal Evolution (Oxford: Elsevier Science, 1997), 1.
David Waltner-Toews, James J. Kay,
DuoDote (Atropine and Pralidoxime Chloride Injection)- Multum Nina-Marie E. Lister, The Ecosystem Approach: Complexity, Uncertainty, and Managing for Sustainability (New York: Columbia Young pfizer Press, 2008). Tubal ligation Thompson and Frederick Steiner (New York: Wiley, 1997), 80-108.
Charles (Atropinf (New York: Princeton Architectural Press,: 2006), 29-30. Reed and Lister, op cit. Lance Injectoon)- and C.
Holling, Panarchy: Understanding DoDote of
DuoDote (Atropine and Pralidoxime Chloride Injection)- Multum and Natural Systems (Washington, DC: Island Press, 2001). Manuel De Landa, A New Philosophy of Society: Assemblage Theory and Social Complexity, (London: Continuum Books: 2006), 10-11. See Jane Bennett, Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010).
Rod Barnett, Emergence in Landscape Architecture, (New York: Routledge, 2013). For a range of contemporary examples, see Eds.
Stephanie Carlisle and Nicholas Pevzner, Scenario Journal 03: Rethinking Infrastructure, Spring 2013. Jackson, Discovering the Vernacular Landscape (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 8. Political ecology proposes to move the role of unifier of the respective ranks of all beings out vigrx the Norgestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol Tablets (Low-Ogestrel)- Multum arena of nature and politics and into the single arena of the collective.
For a deeper discussion of this, see Timothy Morton, The Ecological Thought (Harvard University Press, 2010). Wolfe, Tales From the Underground: A Natural History of Subterranean Life Praidoxime Perseus Publications, 2001). See also, Marina DuoDkte, Advances in Urban Ecology (New York: Springer, 2008), 133-81. Global Change Research
DuoDote (Atropine and Pralidoxime Chloride Injection)- Multum, National Climate Assessment, 2014. Comments: 15.02.2019 in 17:25 Неонила:
Моя мама говаривала, что бог дал мужчине две головы, но крови так мало, что думать ими можно только по очереди Жила-была обкновенная шведская семья: мама, папа, брат, сестра и Малыш, который хотел собаку. Девственность не порок, а половая безграмотность. Доверяю, но проверяюсь | 6,523 | 2,990 | 11,669.407023 |
warc | 202143 | Sports medicine is concerned with physical wellness, especially as it pertains to athletic pursuits. Sport physicals are typically recommended for child athletes of every age, from puberty through early adulthood. Here are four key facts you might be interested to learn about sport physicals:
1. A thorough medical history is necessary.
Sport physicals are conducted by specialists who have studied sports medicine extensively. Many of these specialists have also studied pediatric medicine. Whenever your child sees a doctor other than their typical physician, you will be called upon to provide a thorough medical history. When filling out the medical history form, make sure to include any serious illnesses your child has had, ongoing conditions, accidents, and prior hospitalizations. Your family history is also relevant. Some health problems, such as heart conditions, are hereditary. When the doctor knows what what illnesses run in your family, they can test your child appropriately.
2. Kids who don't participate in organized sports can benefit from a sport physical.
Many sporting teams require a doctor's note certifying that your child has received a clean bill of health during a sport physical. Doctor clearance for physical activity is the most common reason parents seek sport physicals for their children. However, your child can benefit from a sport physical even if they don't take part in organized sports. Regular exercise is important for kids of all ages, and most kids get plenty of exercise by playing outside with their friends. Sport physicals can catch any physical problems early, so your child can run, bike, swim, and play without worry of injuring themselves due to a preexisting condition.
3. Sport physicals should be conducted every year.
Children's bodies are always changing. Unlike adults who have already finished growing, kids are still developing. Some of these developments can impact their ability to play sports. Regular medical care will allow your child's doctor to chart their progress over time. Your child should return to their doctor for a sport physical annually. During this exam, your child should bring up any issues they have run into during the year. Aches, pains, and even emotional disturbances due to sports should all be broached with a medical professional.
4. Sport physicals are especially important for growing girls.
Many girls are just as active as their male counterparts. The female body goes through unique changes around puberty, including the onset of menstruation. Vigorous physical activity can delay or disrupt menstruation. A sport physical can help your daughter find ways to maintain her endocrine health while still participating in the activities she loves.
For more information about sport physicals, reach out to a professional near you.
13 May 2020
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warc | 202143 | The target of sports activities medicine colleges is to prepare college students for career chances that include athletic teaching at clinical and qualified levels. Coaching in sports activities medicine can demonstrate you how to help other individuals attain ideal health and overall performance objectives. You will also learn about the prevention [url=http://www.cheapnewjerseyschina.com/]Wholesale NFL Nike Jerseys[/url] , administration, evaluation and rehabilitation of athletic accidents, as nicely as the demands of working a sports medication plan at several levels.
Coaching will concentration mainly on anatomy and the software of medical principals to activity, physical exercise, and physical performance. College students discover about the a variety of locations of training and distraction science that relate both equally to physical performance and care of accidents and sickness. Studies cover each medical science and exercising, and the industry can be referred to as either exercising science (the study of the essential principals that govern exercising) or jeu medication (the healthcare factors of bodily activity).
Sports activities medicine educational institutions provide certificates and degree plans that can contain instruction in athletic teaching, training science [url=http://www.cheapnewjerseyschina.com/]Wholesale NFL Jerseys[/url] , wellness advertising, kinesiology, passe-temps coaching and a selection of other disciplines. There are quite a few trade schools, vocational colleges and group colleges ready to aid you practice for certification in a specific spot. Scientific tests can include medical medication, orthopedics, exercise physiology, biomechanics [url=http://www.cheapnewjerseyschina.com/]Wholesale Jerseys From China[/url] , kinesiology, bodily therapy, athletic education, therapeutic massage treatment, distraction nutrition, and sports psychology.
College students looking for an state-of-the-art degrees might get started with an undergraduate significant in biology, chemistry [url=http://www.cheapnewjerseyschina.com/]Wholesale Jerseys China[/url] , physical schooling, nursing, activity nutrition, bodily treatment or athletic teaching all are great preparing for attaining a Grasp Degree in Jeu Medication. Master’s Degrees will qualify graduates to get specialist employment in a selection of connected places, this kind of as physical therapist or orthopedic therapist.
Relying on the level of education, a passe-temps medicine degree can qualify you for careers ranging from fitness instructor to scientific researcher, from nutritionist to academic professor. Maintain in head [url=http://www.cheapnewjerseyschina.com/]Wholesale Jerseys[/url] , however, that quite a few professions in the subject need certification or a license, and regulations can range from region to area. The normal office could be in a private or public clinic, a hospital, or a higher education or college setting. Salaries can variety from $twenty,000-$35,000 or additional yearly.
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DISCLAIMER: Previously mentioned is a Common OVERVIEW and might or may well not mirror certain practices, programs andor expert services associated with ANY A person certain school(s) that is or is not advertised on our site.
Copyright 2008 – All legal rights reserved by Media Constructive Communications, Inc.
Discover: Publishers are free of charge to use this guide on an ezine or web site, supplied the report is reprinted in its entirety, which includes copyright and disclaimer, and ALL links continue to be intact and energetic.
Sam continues crafting quite a few posts on education and highschool. You can learn about exercise science degree as well as other exercise science degrees.What to Tell Your Dentist Before Getting Pain Medication Health Articles | September 29, 2011
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warc | 202143 | Weight training is an old form of workout for growing the size and also stamina of the skeletal muscular tissues. It takes advantage of the force of gravity in its kind of weight-bearing weights, cables or weight stacks to oppose the result produced by muscle mass through eccentric or concentric contraction. The major emphasis of weight lifting is to enable the body to build even more lean muscular tissue mass and end up being more powerful at the same time. Weight training can be done by utilizing free weights or using specific weight makers. In this post I will discuss weight training as well as provide ideas to begin with weight lifting.
Weight training is among the most essential and also helpful types of workout for enhancing toughness, developing muscle mass, slimming down and enhancing stamina. This method enables the release of great deals of all-natural hormones such as testosterone, human development hormone (HGH), epinephrine as well as nor epinephrine. These hormonal agents are really beneficial in the body due to the fact that they assist you to boost endurance, toughness as well as muscle mass size. weight lifting
Before you begin stamina training you need to do some research study by yourself or find the recommendations of an individual instructor. If you are a beginner you ought to begin with light weight-lifting that you can do by yourself in your home. A great way to start is to perform squats as well as dead lifts, while progressively raising the weight to larger weights and also reps. You ought to make sure that your weight lifting routine does not trigger you to struggle with any kind of injury which you do not strain your muscles and also injure yourself.
A brand-new trend in weight-lifting is referred to as the overload circuit. It contains four specific exercises that have been established by health and wellness specialists to target details muscle mass teams or parts of the body. Each of these workouts has actually been created based upon clinical research study as well as is claimed to be reliable in promoting the release of testosterone, which is accountable for development and toughness in the body.
In addition to these brand-new trends there are additionally many workouts that have actually been made use of for years however which were never ever especially determined as weight training exercises for beginners. One such exercise is referred to as the weights clean and also press, which is commonly suggested by physical fitness experts for novices. The function of this exercise is to build a breast wall and also develop upper body muscle mass, which is important for building a masculine figure. Various other good choices for novices consist of chin ups and also bring up and also any other workouts that target your arms as well as upper back muscle mass.
Another workout that is generally suggested by fitness experts for weight training newbies is doing exercises with dumbbells. Dumbbell exercises are fantastic due to the fact that you can obtain more powerful by adding more weights, thus obtaining more powerful with each succeeding workout. To do pinhead exercises just hold the pinheads either in your hands or between your hands. Beginning with small weights and also slowly boost the weights as you get more powerful. muscle tee
When you are first starting with weightlifting for newbies it is recommended that you do not add too much weight to your workout up until you are completely conditioned and also able to lift hefty weights for a very long time. As soon as you have actually been able to raise hefty weights for a time period then you might begin including some weights to your exercise. Keep in mind that bodyweight exercises need to only be done on days when you are not going to be utilizing any other workouts so that your muscle mass do not become over worked. Doing your workout on a regular basis will certainly also assist to prevent injury to your muscular tissues since your workout will certainly become much more extreme every single time you lift a weight.
The hyperbody has actually urged many health and fitness professionals to compose extensively regarding the advantages of resistance training for the public. The writer of this book declares that by executing an appropriate heat up as well as a suitable cool regular during your exercise you will be much more most likely to acquire a muscle body that is lean and toned instead of one that is filled with fat. The author of the hyperbody states that by doing workouts like the rowing device and also squat shelf you will be able to create every one of the significant muscle groups of your body, along with all of the smaller ones. These smaller sized muscle groups are referred to as sub-trophic zones by the writer of the hyperbody.
Weight lifting is a reliable as well as reliable kind of fitness training for increasing the size and also strength of skeletal muscle mass. It uses the force of Gravity in the shape of pinheads, weight heaps or heavy bars to oppose the force created by an individual muscle mass through eccentric or concentric contraction. This type of exercise likewise helps the body to remainder between exercises as well as recover from strenuous activities. Weight training can be executed by both men and women.
Weight training has actually gotten popularity specifically amongst ladies due to the fact that it aids to construct a well-rounded and solid body. For beginners, among the vital advantages of weight lifting is building muscular tissue mass which is essential for developing a healthy and balanced constitution. Muscle building is excellent not only for accumulating a well-built body but it is additionally critical in lowering one’s possibilities of obtaining osteoporosis.
Weight lifting trains the muscle mass to use maximum effort to lift heavy weights. It creates the muscle mass to eliminate against extreme stress or tension. Consequently, weight training aids develop a well-developed physique. The most crucial benefit of weight lifting is that it helps boost bone density.
Some individuals consider weight lifting as a choice to other types of workout such as biking, swimming or running. Weight training is considered a part of a complete body program that ought to not be disregarded. In addition, weight lifting likewise enhances total control, pose, muscle toughness, cardiovascular efficiency as well as body control. Nevertheless, weight training need to not be done to excess where the joints or muscles end up being stressed. Excessive of lifting can likewise cause serious injury. weightlifting jewelry
There are 2 kinds of weight lifting: stringent and flexible. Stringent types of workout usually involve really heavy reps. The objective of this sort of workout is to enhance muscle toughness, build huge muscle mass, and build more lean mass. Versatile weight training, on the other hand, calls for the professional athlete to utilize their very own body weight in place of weights. | 7,028 | 2,967 | 16,602.376812 |
warc | 202143 | Many industries use technology to automate all the time-consuming and repetitive work. These are the places where human error can be a real problem. Accounting is no exception. We have tools to replace lengthy ledgers that pull in bank feeds and reconcile for us. Automation technology in accounting streamlines recording, completing, reconciling, and reporting. Accounting automation is made for accountants gives them more time to do what only humans can do.
Automation is going to have a long-term effect on accounting and some of the effects we cannot predict. Here are some of the popular myths that stopping accounting professionals from adopting automation technology in accounting. It’s time to bust them!
MYTH 1: I don’t need Accounting Software
Accounting consists of more functions than most people realize. From billing customers to paying vendors, to tax accounting and reporting, accounting is what keeps your business in control. The numbers don’t just need to be accurate; they also need to be easily accessible. Therefore, you can’t just rely on spreadsheets. To maximize your time and accounting data quality, you really need accounting software.
You can automate invoicing and recurring bills through billing automation.
Studies show that companies who invest in accounting software were able to add five times more clients than companies who didn’t implement these tools. In 2020, 58% of large companies and 78% of small businesses used accounting automation software. On top of that, businesses that use cloud accounting services have displayed 15% year over year revenue growth.
MYTH 2: Automation Only Benefits Businesses of Certain Size
Maybe you’ve gone through the internet and researched cloud accounting technology considered it for your small business, and concluded that automation tools are only beneficial only for larger organizations. Or perhaps the cost and expenses associated with implementing the technology and moving your data to the cloud have deterred you from investing in automation technology. But the reality is completely different.
For example, if you are a small business owner with a limited number of invoices generated every day, you can benefit from the automatic GST filing and reconciliation. What can take hours of manual work of matching your invoices and then uploading it to the GST portal, can now be done automatically for you.
Taking other situations into consideration, if you are an accountant that serves a growing business with hundreds of transactions in a day, you can benefit from automation with the help of API integration. Once all the APIs are in place, invoices can be automatically generated and sent to the customers from you and an entry would be made against the purchase automatically.
MYTH 3: Accountants will be substituted by Technology
Although quite often the accountancy industry has dealt with the question of whether accountants will be sidelined by technology, the discussion has now moved on to the adaptation of the much-talked digital age. Hence, instead of being worried, CAs and accountants must focus on their roles as they will be changed but not completely substituted.
Analytics and reporting might entirely be controlled by business accounting software sooner or later, but accountants in the industry need to possess the ability to utilize the data created by technology to aid clients and in making informed business decisions, including pricing strategy, growth model, and risk identification.
It can be noted that though the pace of technical developments is alarming, human intelligence and interpersonal skills can never be replaced by any advanced technology.
Certified Charted Accountants and accounting professionals need to be self-assured with technology and develop their skills outside of the traditional statistical tasks. They must be able to look at the bigger business picture where the coexistence with accounting technology can take the place, rather than limiting themselves to just one part of an organization i.e. Accounts, which will majorly be digitized.
MYTH 4: Firms have doubts about the security of clients’ sensitive financial or proprietary data in the cloud.
Today’s advanced cloud technology provides greater security than most firms can afford with internal servers. That’s the reason why 96% of organizations now use some or other form of cloud computing.
MYTH 5: Automation Will Take Away Your Control of Accounts
Automation features work for us. For example, you can set the invoicing on autopilot and focus on the core business functions that need your attention. It’s you who will be deciding what to automate and what you don’t. The control to set things on automates ultimately stays with you. This means you are in control at which aspect of your accounting you want to automate and to which extent.
Automation and accounting will always go together. It’s the partnership of both that will enable us to take our heads out of the general ledger and advise our clients on what they need for their businesses to truly succeed.
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warc | 202143 | Students deserve every opportunity to succeed in computer science
Learning skills in computer science helps students thrive in a rapidly changing world. That's why it's Code with Google's goal to make sure everyone has access to the collaborative, coding, and technical skills that can unlock opportunities in the classroom and beyond.
“By involving students in creative lessons that allow them to express their ideas, coding becomes much less intimidating.”
Tim Hilborn, Technology Teacher, Abbott and Borel Middle Schools
“Technology alone will not improve education, but it can be a powerful part of the solution.”
Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google
Projects to help close global equity gaps in education
Technology is transforming teaching and learning. It’s helping kids learn at their own pace, become creative problem solvers, and effective collaborators. But for those without access, existing learning gaps are only widening. That's why we’ll continue directing our products, people, programs, and philanthropy toward a future where every student has access to the quality education they deserve. | 1,136 | 635 | 1,962.507087 |
warc | 202143 | There are many headhunters and professional agencies, but it is important that you take the time to do your research and find the one that is the best fit for your organization. Finally, the conclusion of a permanent investment contract is a great commitment and an investment. So you should know what to expect and make sure you feel safe and comfortable with your decision. It is also important to ensure that your direct lease covers all the basics it should have so that there are no surprises. We`ve compiled a list of some important components that you should look for in your direct lease. As with anything unusual or outside a person`s comfort zone, there is a huge anxiety factor associated with contract staff. Many recruiters believe that contracting is extremely complicated and different from direct hiring. However, as the popularity of contract services grows, more and more recruiters are making the leap forward and finding that contract agencies are not as directly leased as they thought. Payment terms determine when fees are due and payable. This part of the direct recruitment staff agreement should also cover penalties for late payments. It is important that you know this in advance, as it may be different between agencies: some may charge a lump sum late, while others charge interest based on late payment. If you want to use a professional recruitment agency or headhunter to fill the positions directly employed in your organization, there are many factors to consider.
You`ve probably already thought about your hiring needs, your future goals, your schedules and your budget – but what you may not have wondered is, “What should I look for in a direct rental contract for recruitment agencies?” While this may seem obvious, make sure your direct adjustment agreement clearly indicates that these are direct brokerage services. Recruitment agencies can offer different types of professional services to staff, all of which could have different payment structures, schedules and final results. Therefore, you want to make sure that there is no confusion about the type of service provided by the recruiter. Now that you know some of the benefits of entering into a personal direct recruitment contract, you may be looking forward to getting started. It is important to note, however, that the acceptance of any direct conciliation agreement does not guarantee success. It is the commitment to the right that is essential to achieving your staff goals. We work with our clients to fill everything from large positions to specialized positions that require advanced degrees and qualifications. In order to meet the needs of businesses and professionals, both locally and nationally, we offer a multitude of staff solutions that go beyond direct hiring of staff, including contract/temporary workers, staff and wage processing services. It`s incredibly important to know what you need to pay attention to with a direct recruitment contract. It should set clear expectations for industrial relations in order to give both parties confidence that they will be respected. A high-quality and comprehensive direct rental contract keeps you and your recruitment agency partner on the agenda – that`s why we`ve outlined some of the basics of direct recruitment contracts and some advice on what to look for at home.
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warc | 202143 | The adventure park Euro Space Centre in Transinne in Belgium is home to a number of different simulators, including the original NASA multi-axis chair dating back to the 1960s which was used to familiarise astronauts with the sensation of disorientation. Today, visitors to the park have the chance to tread in the footsteps of the early space pioneers for a few moments. To make this possible, the chair has been automated using the latest technology, with a control system supplied by Siemens.
Every child has dreamt of following in the footsteps of Neil Armstrong or Buzz Aldrin and discovering space as an astronaut. It has now been made possible to at least experience some of the same sensations, if only for a short time, in the Euro Space Centre. Using simulators, visitors can experience the moonwalk or find out what a disorientation exercise felt like on the multi-axis chair. This chair was used by NASA to prepare astronauts for life in space, and the original is now in operation in Transinne.
The former manual control of the chair, which swivels around three axes using two aluminium rings, has now been replaced and automated using the Logo! 8 logic module from Siemens.
Always perfectly oriented
“Our employees always used to have to start the simulator, then regulate the speed, decelerate the chair and stop it using a simple hand wheel,” recalls Catherine Vuidar, marketing manager of the Euro Space Centre. The use of Logo!nbsp;8 has not only improved equipment handling for the operators, it has also increased the chair’s steerability, efficiency and safety. Placed in charge of upgrading the chair was the company Heinen, which did the calculating, testing and adjusting the settings for the new control program. “To improve the system’s safety, we mounted two sensors at precisely defined positions in the simulator,” says head development engineer Marc Radoux. The sensors are connected to Logo! 8, and ensure optimum positioning of the chair both at the start of the cycle and, most importantly, when stopping. This prevents errors such as the chair coming to a standstill with the visitor upside down.
Additional projects in the pipeline
The turning movement itself is powered by an induction motor with a maximum speed of 3600nbsp;revolutions per minute (rpm) which is connected to a frequency control. The current program offers three speed levels – slow, fast and very fast – with up to 30nbsp;revolutions of the chair per minute. This is enough to challenge the stomach and equilibrium organ of any test candidate. The chair can be brought to a standstill at any time using an emergency stop button, and the voltage and speed parameters can be viewed in real time at the control system’s display panel throughout the sequence. “The project has been so successful that we’ve actually developed a mobile multi-axis chair, and a third one is currently in progress,” concludes Radoux.
How to embrace the benefits of smart pneumatics Third Quarter 2021, Emerson Automation Solutions, Editor's Choice, Pneumatic systems & components Understand how this challenge creates opportunitiesIt is important to consider how insights from data can help end-users react to real-time events or even predict the future. For example, the Emerson ...
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warc | 202143 | In Home Senior Care in Denton
Seniors who are strong enough to survive on their own but inadequate to perform specific household tasks might require in house senior care services in Denton. Most senior individuals choose to remain in a familiar environment for as long as they can because like the majority of us, they treasure their self-reliance. This is why it is a lot easier for them to accept the idea of senior home care than assisted living home. Through some aid from a home care service provider, elders can be quickly kept in good condition making it possible for them to preserve their dignity and independence.
The expense of in house senior care services is also often less than that of full-time assisted living home. This is why it might not be essential to relocate your senior moms and dads to a nursing home, particularly if their condition isn’t serious enough.
There are at least two main kinds of in house senior care services, namely knowledgeable or custodial care and encouraging or inexperienced care.
Competent services are those offered by physician, and these consist of nursing care, occupational, physical, speech and breathing therapy, hospice care, social services. A qualified home health assistant may also supply individual care to elders throughout a restricted period of time, offered that he follows a certain care plan and he works under the direct guidance of a proficient expert such as a nurse or a therapist. Knowledgeable services are frequently not provided on a regular basis. The proficient providers have a set home check outs to their customers based upon a treatment strategy recommended by a medical professional. Some of the factors for employing skilled services are to accelerate health center discharges, prevent unwanted hospitalizations, and allow an elder to remain in his home while he’s recuperating from a sickness or throughout a severe health problem.
Meanwhile, helpful services are those offered by non-medical home caretakers. These home care service providers offer aid to seniors through such individual care as bathing, dressing, grooming, housekeeping, meal preparation, and shopping. Depending on the customer or his family’s request, a house care provider can likewise supply assistance in ambulation and workouts, self-administered medications, and transportation to medical consultations. Custodial or helpful services can be scheduled depending upon the requirement of the client. The services offered often vary in quantity and frequency with some lasting from a couple of hours a week to twenty four hours, 7 days a week. Helpful services are focused on helping an aging individual deal with his deteriorating capabilities, maintain his independence, and prevent moving.
Aside from guaranteeing that your senior loved one is correctly taken care of, in home senior care services guarantee that he preserves sufficient interaction with the outside world as he ages. This is very important since numerous seniors who live very far from their friends and family who are unable to keep regular interactions with other people tend to be separated and lonesome, which can sometimes lead to depression.
Both skilled and inexperienced services are planned to supply care assistance to a senior right at his own house and often this is much better option than institutional care. You can either get in house senior care services from a house care company or work with a personal caretaker straight, which is frequently the cheaper alternative and allow more possibilities for your involvement in the choice making process. This can be the very best option offered that you exercise much perseverance and put in more effort in the employing process.
Although you have to pay for most of the senior home care services, there are some types of senior care and social work that are offered totally free or donated. If you belong to a particular church, for example, some of your members might willingly provide their time to provide some quantity of care to your senior parents. There are likewise federal government programs or medical insurance that can offer assistance in spending for some specific house care services.
In home senior care services can be the very best bet not only for senior individuals but likewise for their loved ones. Senior home care is the less costly choice than a full-time nursing center. Although every household is distinct and should pick the best kind of senior care for their elderly loved one, in house senior care services is generally the most economical and effective option for numerous households.
In Home Elder Care or Retirement home?
Many seniors are not pleased when positioned in a nursing home. This is due to the fact that they wish to maintain their self-respect by living independently in their own house for as long as possible. If your senior loved one requires any kind of care and you’re considering which kind of senior care is best for him, then consider supplying him in-home care services. This is the very best kind of senior care since it allows an individual to stay in a familiar surrounding while getting the ideal care they require.
Typically, cost and care are fantastic determining consider picking the best kind of senior care. In house care services do not consist of charges on hospital or assisted living home facilities and devices so they are usually less expensive and more affordable. Nursing home’s cost differs by state, however in general the expenses are frequently far above the average earnings of many seniors. Medicare can only cover a small portion of long-term care. For this reason, seniors who can not pay for the expenses of an assisted living home can start to consider about working with in-home care services.
There are more advantages to getting home care services than remaining in nursing homes. For the majority of elders, the capability to keep particular level of independence can help enhance their quality of life along with their over-all wellness. Besides, not all senior citizens need full-time support. Some are still mentally and physically fit to perform daily chores and they just require some help in other areas of their life, such as grocery, shopping, or going to doctor’s appointments. These types of seniors might just need help for a couple of hours a day. But even those who require constant care may still discover it more beneficial to stay in their own home than in a retirement home. Ill senior citizens who get in home care services often get more customized care than those who remain in retirement home, where staff needs to take care of lots of people with different levels of requirements.
As in-home senior care ends up being more and more common, so are the choices for you to select from. The industry involved in supplying senior care services has broadened to offer services targeted at improving your senior loved one’s life by means of an individualized home care services. There are at least 3 classifications of senior care to choose from, particularly, personal care, companionship, and home maker services; and the type you pick depends generally on your senior loved one’s needs.
Personal Care Providers
The individual care services supplied depend primarily on every person’s needs. This might include bathing, which is very important in making an individual feel well and more comfortable. Helping your loved one carry out day-to-day activities he has to stay psychologically and physically active is likewise part of this kind of service. Meal preparation and preparation for senior citizens needing an unique diet can likewise be offered by in-home care companies in coordination with the senior’s health care professionals and relative.
Companion Solutions
In this hectic world, where we often do not even have time to say “Hello” or wave goodbye to our senior loved ones, life can be extremely singular and lonely for them. This is where buddy services play a crucial function. Having people to provide friendship to your senior loved one can significantly improve the quality of his life. This type of services is generally provided for only a couple of hours a day, or many days in a week depending on the requirements of a senior. Providers may consist of discussion, grocery shopping, running errands, medication suggestions, and reprieve for relative.
Housewife Solutions
Homemaker services are practically the very same services provided by personal care and buddy companies. Receiving this kind of senior care in house typically postpones the requirement for a specific to be transferred to a nursing facility or permits someone who has actually been hospitalized to return home rather.
Choosing a senior care in-home service provider requires probing into the credentials of the specific if you’re employing straight or a firm’s qualifications, ought to you decide to work with a caretaker through them. Make sure that the provider you work with is extremely trained and qualified to offer dependable care to your loved one. If at all possible, do a background check of the person just to make sure that you’re leaving your loved one in great hands. With the ideal senior care supplier, your loved one can take pleasure in complete flexibility and satisfaction while living in familiar surroundings, which is what is doing not have in nursing homes. | 9,462 | 3,976 | 22,284.247485 |
warc | 202143 | Publicly available “report cards” on the quality and cost of physicians and hospitals have proliferated in recent years. While consumers say they value this information, it can be difficult to understand and use and to date has had minimal influence on consumers’ choices. Difficulties in measuring performance at the individual physician level, as well as recent changes in health care delivery, have made the collection and dissemination of consumer-relevant quality information challenging. In this Commonwealth Fund–supported study, researchers interviewed experts and surveyed stakeholders involved in the public reporting of health care quality data to gain their perspectives and insight.
New study by The Commonwealth Fund looks at how physician, physican groups and hospital report cards can have greater impact on consumer choices
More from United StatesMore posts in United States »
Massachusetts Acute Care Hospital Quarterly Update (October 2018 – June 2021) Study Finds Medicare Advantage and Traditional Medicare Beneficiaries Have Comparable Health Care Experiences New Analysis Finds Southern States Have Lowest Insurance Coverage Antibiotics for Respiratory Conditions: NCQA Release Newly Revised Measure 2019 Health Care Cost and Utilization Report Released | 1,311 | 742 | 2,254.495957 |
warc | 202143 | Changing the expectations of delivery, drone delivery company Wing has been operating in select locations in Australia and across the world.
An average delivery time of 10 minutes due to the impressive speed and agility of the drones is set to transform how we view delivery services.
As a consumer this sounds like a dream- no longer waiting days for your items or sitting hungry for an hour until dinner arrives, but what does this mean for the skies above our towns or cities and what will happen to those who already work in delivery services?
Delivery drones would mean an entire transformation of law and legislation to regulate airspace, leading to the privatization of an entire space which has been mostly unused. Drones continue to become more available faster than the laws that govern them are created. Across the world drones have led to issues surrounding damages caused by malfunctions or conflicts when drones are shot down by landowners. Scenarios that cause legislation to clash, creating a grey area of the unknown.
The commercial applications of drones raise several considerations surrounding monitoring and controlling them as well as remaining aware of weather conditions in specific areas. Advanced monitoring technology and autonomous systems make the drones not directly piloted by a person. While it removes the need for direct delivery drivers, drones create a new style of workforce required to ensure the technical systems function correctly.
With over 100 000 delivers made globally, Wing has seen a positive reaction from consumers. There are many questions surrounding the overall impact on the industry and society, following the issues at Amazon warehouses. As delivery times reduce, pressure from the competition could lead to workers being put under strain.
While there are many concerns and questions surrounding Wing and their delivery drones, excitement about swift and contactless delivery continues to grow, and the nature of transport continues to evolve. | 2,006 | 1,018 | 3,937.119843 |
warc | 202143 | SEOUL -- A pilot study involving SK Telecom, a top mobile carrier in South Korea, has been conducted to monitor sea pollution in real-time by connecting an underwater base station and detection sensors to a communication network. The study would provide an opportunity to quickly check for seawater contamination and replace the method of collecting seawater samples manually for lab analysis.
SK Telecom (SKT) teamed up with Hoseo University and the state-run Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) for a study from August 23 near a suspension bridge in the southern port city of Busan by installing related equipment at a depth of about 30 meters. The company said the study would help South Korea establish a key infrastructure in the era of Internet of Underwater Things (IoUTG) as it can collect and analyze information in real-time as well as overcome the limitations of sonic wave communication.
"This test is a good example of underwater IoT services, and underwater communication network technology will be South Korea's core infrastructure," Ko Hak-lim, a Hoseo University professor, said in a statement on August 26, adding the study would help South Korea lead the underwater communication technology market
An underwater base station and a node equipped with detection sensors were placed on the seafloor to measure marine pollution every ten minutes and transmit related information through sonic wave communication to a surface buoy installed with a modem and a multi communication network switching system that selects an optimal communication network and sends data to a management platform on land.
The management platform monitors and manages various information such as the location and configuration of sensors, base stations, controllers, communication status, water temperature and salinity, SKT said, adding its network design optimization solution would be an important foundation for predicting network coverage and measuring sea areas that can be linked to underwater networks.
The study in Busan was done as part of a research project involving SKT, seven universities and two research bodies to secure core technologies for communication networks based on underwater base stations. It is aimed at developing technologies that can be used in a wide range of areas such as the monitoring of marine disasters, communication between underwater robots, management of marine plants, and the establishment of a port defense system.
Unlike light waves and electromagnetic waves used for communication on land, underwater communication is very limited because signals get lost. In 2018, a new system to receive and send text and photo images using a buoy and underwater sensors was tested successfully between a surface buoy and an underwater base station.
© Aju Business Daily & www.ajunews.com Copyright: All materials on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the authorization from the Aju News Corporation. | 3,017 | 1,422 | 6,367.100563 |
warc | 202143 | August 13, 2021
Many media outlets are reporting on an increase in cases and pediatric hospitalizations due to COVID. In response, cities, counties and school districts are implementing mask mandates. In some areas, like
Dallas County, children as young as two-years-old will be required to wear masks in commercial entities.
To be frank, I find this insane. Considering all the data available that shows the lack of efficacy of most masks in most settings, especially in kids, there is no apparent reason to mandate masks for schools.
Before we get into it, let me say that I have never been an outright anti-masker, and I sure as heck have never believed COVID is some kind of hoax.
I know people whose families have been seriously, negatively impacted by the virus, so I have seen its severity. Also, I’m a germaphobe and a bit of a hypochondriac; it doesn’t take much to make me scared of a virus. Back when we thought COVID had a 20% death rate, I was one of the people screaming from the rooftops (aka Twitter) that people need to stay inside. I was sanitizing my groceries, for crying out loud. (I may or may not still be sanitizing my hands every five seconds.)
But, as time went on, and 15 days to slow the spread and relieve the hospitals turned into months of shifting goal posts and mixed messages that seemed to be more correlated with politics and public opinion (here’s
one example) than science, it became clear that many of our public health experts, and certainly our politicians, really aren’t trafficking in fact.
From everything I’ve read from the world’s leading researchers, the science shows there are *certain* situations in which *certain* masks worn a *certain* way by *certain* people *may* be effective at preventing the spread of COVID, but even
that is debatable. Personally, I think the risks far outweigh the benefits of masking kids. But, I’ll present you with the data, and you can decide for yourself.
First, let’s talk about this Delta variant that’s sent everyone into a tizzy—kind of for good reason, but also kind of not.
The Delta variant
is causing a spike in cases, and there is an increase in hospitalizations, too. But we’re still nowhere near where we were at our peak in January as far as deaths go. Vaccines could get the credit, and/or it could be that the strain isn’t actually as deadly as the original. And, as we’ll get to more later, the AAP found that pediatric hospitalization numbers are being inflated because of the CDC’s requirement for testing.
Plus, if Delta goes the way it’s gone in the other countries it’s passed through, it’s going to spike then steeply drop off.
Data from India (where Delta originated), Netherlands, and the UK all show a spike in cases due to Delta and a sharp decrease. This data is compiled by
The New York Times.
Delta rose and fell in India. Mask compliance
remains low in the country (32%).
Delta rose and fell in the Netherlands. The country
ditched masks in most places on June 26, 2021, and they are only required in some spaces for people 13 & over.
Delta rose and is still falling in the UK. Masks are
not required in England, are enforced in some places in England and Wales, and are not required in Northern Ireland for worshipers or students in classrooms.
Delta will do the same in the United States as it has in other countries—spike then fall—regardless of universal masking.
We really don’t have a lot of evidence of mask mandates staving off the virus at all.
In late October 2020, 93% of adults in the United States
reported that they sometimes, often or always wear masks when they leave their home. 72% said they always do. (That puts us right on par with Germany, and ahead of other European countries, as of Jan 2021.)
And yet data from the NYT shows that the end of October marks the beginning of the biggest spike in COVID cases:
Sweden never mandated masks. In January 2021, only 12% of Swedes
said they wore a mask all the time, with 59% saying never. They haven’t fared any worse than we have, and their death rate is lower than some other European countries, like those in the UK, who have had mask mandates.
We can also compare Sweden to a U.S. state with a similar population size, Michigan, which implemented its mask mandate in March of 2020. While Sweden has had slightly more cases than Michigan (1.11 million vs. 1.02 million), Sweden has had far fewer deaths than Michigan (14,658 vs. 21,243).
Yinon Weiss, a reporter at The Federalist,
graphed COVID case stats from Our World in Data of European countries, as well as states in the U.S. and pinpointed when each national and state government implemented mask mandates. What he found was that mask mandates seem to have no effect on the spread of the virus. *See charts toward the end of the article.*
A recent example is Israel, which reinstated its mask mandate on June 25th.
As you can see, Israel’s cases have risen in a similar fashion as other countries, like Netherlands, which did the exact opposite—they ditched their mask mandate right before the rise in Delta cases.
Sweden
never mandated masks (and has even created a stigma around them) or locked down. Their death rate is much lower than some other European countries that have mandated them, like countries in the UK.
Now, there are other studies looking at other states and countries that do show that cases began to decrease after a mask mandate. But, I believe that’s more coincidence than causation. Why? Because of the many studies that have already been done on the effectiveness of masks at stopping the transmission of disease.
Mask mandates aren’t proven to do much because masks aren’t proven to do much.
Several studies demonstrate this:
“In 2010, at the end of the last influenza pandemic, there were six published randomised controlled trials with 4,147 participants focusing on the benefits of different types of masks.
2 Two were done in healthcare workers and four in family or student clusters. The face mask trials for influenza-like illness (ILI) reported poor compliance, rarely reported harms and revealed the pressing need for future trials.
Despite the clear requirement to carry out further large, pragmatic trials a decade later, only six had been published: five in healthcare workers and one in pilgrims.
3 This recent crop of trials added 9,112 participants to the total randomised denominator of 13,259 and showed that masks alone have no significant effect in interrupting the spread of ILI or influenza in the general population, nor in healthcare workers. It would appear that despite two decades of pandemic preparedness, there is considerable uncertainty as to the value of wearing masks. For instance, high rates of infection with cloth masks could be due to harms caused by cloth masks, or benefits of medical masks. The numerous systematic reviews that have been recently published all include the same evidence base so unsurprisingly broadly reach the same conclusions. 2 However, recent reviews using lower quality evidence found masks to be effective. Whilst also recommending robust randomised trials to inform the evidence for these interventions. 5
Many countries have gone onto mandate masks for the public in various settings. Several others – Denmark, and Norway – generally do not. Norway’s Institute for Public Health reported that
if masks did work then any difference in infection rates would be small when infection rates are low: assuming 20% asymptomatics and a risk reduction of 40% for wearing masks, 200 000 people would need to wear one to prevent one new infection per week.”
– Hmm. Sitting in a cloth mask all day without sterilization could transmit pathogens (organisms that can transmit diseases). Interesting.
Other countries get it. We, apparently, don’t.
Even UNICEF, which is pro-mask in general (and, I would add, seems to not be following the science by recommending cotton masks),
strongly advises against kids under age 5 wearing masks, and recommends mask-wearing for children ages 6-11 only in certain settings.
– This is in direct opposition to airlines and some city governments mandating masks for children as young as age 2.
The UK
removed face mask requirements for students in May. Education secretary Gavin Williamson said , “Removing face masks will hugely improve interactions between teachers and students, while all other school safety measures will remain in place to help keep the virus out of classrooms.”
A Swedish student was
kicked out of class for refusing to take off his mask. As noted above, the Netherlands only urges mask wearing for people 13 and over.
Also, keep in mind that mask-wearing has been
a prevalent trend in Asia—China, specifically—for years, and that obviously didn’t stop the virus from originating and spreading there.
And maybe it’s also worth noting that many of the same people mandating/advocating for these rules aren’t always following them (like
Lori Lightfoot, Gretchen Whitmer, Gavin Newsome, Barack Obama, Muriel Bowser and Nancy Pelosi, to name a few). Just something to consider. Even if masks were proven to be super effective, kids have a very, very, very small chance of getting anything close to a severe case of COVID.
The American Academy of Pediatrics
finds that pediatric hospitalization of kids *because of* COVID is extremely rare. A recent study found that some hospitals are reporting children admitted to the hospital *with* COVID symptoms, or who tested positive for COVID, but who were not admitted *because of* COVID.
“Children have suffered tremendously due to policies that have kept schools and recreational facilities closed to them, and the burden has been greatest on children who are low-income and English language learners.
Scientific and media reports that inaccurately portray the risk of COVID-19 to children can do harm by alarming parents and providing justification for ongoing restrictions to in-person education and other programming (i.e. summer camps). Kushner et al and Webb et al have contributed greatly to the field by careful work to understand the true burden of COVID-19 disease among children. Via these studies, parents and policy makers should be reassured that pediatric hospitalization for severe COVID-19 disease is indeed rare.”
Dr. Roshni Mathew, a Stanford School of Medicine pediatric infectious disease specialist,
told NPR: “For children in particular, the risk of serious consequences from COVID-19 is the same magnitude as the risk they face from the flu, she says. But many parents seem more worried about the new and less familiar disease. That anxiety is heightened by the new guidelines on mask-wearing. But experts urge parents to try not to worry too much.”
If we’re to take the CDC’s numbers at face value (there may be
a reason or two not to), 416 children have reportedly died “with COVID” out of 74 million children in the U.S. Most, it seems, had underlying conditions. These facts, taken with the AAP’s warning we previously noted about inflated pediatric hospitalization numbers, lets us know that there is almost a 0% chance of healthy kids dying from the virus.
While every life lost matters, it’s important to have some perspective.
In the 2017-2018 flu season, the CDC
estimates that 643 children 17 and under died of the flu.
“Deaths in children with laboratory-confirmed influenza virus infection are reportable in the United States and 183 deaths were reported for the 2017–2018 season. However, influenza-associated pediatric deaths are likely under-reported as not all children whose death was related to an influenza virus infection may have been tested for influenza. Therefore, we used a mathematical model to estimate the total number of pediatric deaths based on hospitalization rates and the frequency of death in and out of the hospital from death certificates,
estimating that there were more than 640 deaths associated with influenza in children.”
Keep in mind, too, that flu seasons are about 6 months. We’ve had COVID for over a-year-and-a-half. So, far more children died of/with the flu in 6 months a few years ago than have died of/with COVID in the last 18+ months. There were
11 million kids who tested positive for the flu in the 2017/18 season. There have been 4 million children who have tested positive for COVID so far.
Did anyone suggest shutting down schools or wearing masks in 2018? Why not? Because, until COVID, we understood the importance of kids receiving in-person instruction unencumbered by plexiglass and pathogen-laiden face cloths. The only thing that’s changed, at least for this age group, is politics. As Matt Walsh said in a school board meeting recently, the masks are really more about security for the teachers, school board and administration, not for the kids.
Even if kids do get it, they’re unlikely to pass to teachers (who, by the way, can get vaccinated if they want to).
⁃ Studies in Sweden, France, Wales, and China
show that transmission from a child to an adult, mask or not, is extremely rare.
“The data are striking,” said Dr. Raszka. “The key takeaway is that children are not driving the pandemic. After six months,
we have a wealth of accumulating data showing that children are less likely to become infected and seem less infectious; it is congregating adults who aren’t following safety protocols who are responsible for driving the upward curve.” The risk of mask-wearing for kids simply outweigh the benefits.
Dr. Marty Makary, professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,
wrote this about the adverse effect of masks on kids for the Wall Street Journal:
“In March, Ireland’s Department of Health announced that it won’t require masks in schools because they “may exacerbate anxiety or breathing difficulties for some students.” Some children compensate for such difficulties by breathing through their mouths.
Chronic and prolonged mouth breathing can alter facial development. It is well-documented that children who mouth-breathe because adenoids block their nasal airways can develop a mouth deformity and elongated face.
The possible psychological harm of widespread masking is an even greater worry.
Facial expressions are integral to human connection, particularly for young children, who are only learning how to signal fear, confusion and happiness. Covering a child’s face mutes these nonverbal forms of communication and can result in robotic and emotionless interactions, anxiety and depression. Seeing people speak is a building block of phonetic development. It is especially important for children with disabilities such as hearing impairment.” In summary…
Kids are at extremely low risk of severe COVID illness. They are not driving the spread of COVID to adults. Plus, everyone 12 and over has had the opportunity to get vaccinated. If the vaccines work, everyone who has taken it is protected, and everyone who has chosen not to take the vaccine has accepted whatever risks that choice may or may not pose. There is therefore no reason to treat kids as if they are a threat to public health.
Furthermore, there is no solid evidence to prove that masking kids is an effective strategy in mitigating COVID, and, in fact, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary. Parents can protect their kids as they see fit, but they should not be forced to wear masks. Follow the science.
–>A couple recent articles in mainstream outlets have noted the unscientific absurdity of mask mandates for kids:
“The Science of Masking Kids at School Remains Uncertain:” https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-masking-kids-at-school-remains-uncertain.html
“The Downsides of Masking Young Students is Real” https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/09/school-mask-mandates-downside/619952/ | 16,203 | 7,303 | 34,904.23059 |
warc | 202143 | An algorithm to detect non-background signals in greenhouse gas time series from European tall tower and mountain stations 1Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, LSCE/IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Université Paris-Saclay, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France 2Laboratory for Air Pollution/Environmental Technology, Empa, 8600 Duebendorf, Switzerland 3Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland 4Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, 22100 Lund, Sweden 5Meteorological Observatory Hohenpeissenberg, Deutscher Wetterdienst, 82383 Hohenpeissenberg, Germany 6DRD/OPE, Andra, Bure, 55290, France 7European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, Shinfield Park, Reading, UK Correspondence: Alex Resovsky (alex.resovsky@lsce.ipsl.fr) Received: 19 Jan 2021 – Discussion started: 09 Mar 2021 – Revised: 23 Jul 2021 – Accepted: 30 Jul 2021 – Published: 17 Sep 2021
We present a statistical framework to identify regional signals instation-based CO
2 time series with minimal local influence. Acurve-fitting function is first applied to the detrended time series toderive a harmonic describing the annual CO 2 cycle. We then combine apolynomial fit to the data with a short-term residual filter to estimate the smoothed cycle and define a seasonally adjusted noise component, equal to 2 standard deviations of the smoothed cycle about the annual cycle. Spikes in the smoothed daily data which surpass this ±2 σ threshold are classified as anomalies. Examining patterns of anomalous behavior across multiple sites allows us to quantify the impacts of synoptic-scale atmospheric transport events and better understand the regional carbon cycling implications of extreme seasonal occurrences such as droughts.
Continuous measurements of long-lived atmospheric greenhouse gases (GHGs) at ground-based monitoring stations exhibit variations at multiple timescales. These include a well-established diurnal cycle and an annual pattern linked to seasonality which generally exist on top of the long-term trend of the background concentration. Other variations, related to localized surface fluxes or regional-scale atmospheric transport patterns, are observable at synoptic frequencies lasting from 1–2 d to several weeks, while others reflect longer-term meteorological occurrences such as droughts or ocean circulation anomalies. Identification of these latter components can reveal much about the intensity and geographic extent of specific atmospheric events while also improving understanding of background signal evolution. Extracting them, however, requires a methodology to decompose the signal into “background” and “non-background” components and to differentiate meteorology-driven regional signals from spikes due to local emissions, biospheric uptake and other forms of signal noise.
We define “background” here as “the concentration of a given species in apristine air mass in which anthropogenic impurities of a relatively shortlifetime are not present” (IUPAC, 1997). Various methods exist to extractbackground signals in atmospheric time series. These include back-trajectoryanalyses that categorize readings based on air provenance (e.g., Schuepbachet al., 2001; Balzani Loöv et al., 2008; Cui et al., 2011) and theapplication of chemical filters using markers such as
222Rn (e.g., Biraud et al., 2000; Pal et al., 2015; Chambers et al., 2016) or NO and CO (e.g., Parrish et al., 1991; Zellweger et al., 2003). Although suchapproaches yield reliable estimates, they are often labor-intensive orrequire sophisticated transport modeling or additional instrumentation andmust take into account site-specific measurement conditions and dataavailability. Statistical algorithms provide high-precision, computationallyinexpensive alternatives to these techniques. These commonly involve a two-or three-step process in which data are first smoothed using filters orpolynomial curve fitting then subsequently refined through theidentification of outliers, characterized as points which deviate from thecurve by more than a specified threshold (e.g., ± y σ, ±2 σ, or ±3 σ, where σis the standard deviation of the residuals about a smooth curve fit to the data).
Already in the late 1980s, Thoning et al. (1989) developed a filteringtechnique to separate the annual cycle from the long-term trend andapproximate the background signal of the CO
2 record at Mauna Loa(Hawaii). More recently, O'Doherty et al. (2001) extracted non-backgroundcomponents of atmospheric CHCl 3 time series by fitting a polynomial tothe daily minima of a moving 121 d span of measurements. They thensubtracted the polynomial fit from the data and estimated σ from themeasurements below the median of the residual distribution. Measurements onthe middle day of each 121 d period exceeding ±3 σ wereflagged as “polluted” and removed. In a second iteration, readings between±2 σ and ±3 σ above the median of the newlyrefined residual set were marked as “possibly polluted” and subsequentlyremoved if immediately adjacent to “polluted” data points. Giostra et al. (2011) applied a similar approach to atmospheric halocarbon records. Theycalculated a probability density function (PDF) using the deviations of alldata points from σ, predefined as the 16th percentile ofmeasurements within a 30 d span. A Gaussian curve was then defined using σ and the median value of the PDF, and a Gamma curve was fit suchthat the sum of the two curves yielded a best-fit to the PDF. The backgroundwas approximated using all data points below the intersection of the Gammacurve and the right-hand branch of the Gaussian curve. Ruckstuhl et al. (2012) estimated background signals in atmospheric CO and HFC-152a series byapplying a localized linear regression to a given span of data points andremoving points which deviated by more than the σ value of thenegative (left side) residuals within each successive, overlapping span.Individual points were then weighted for robustness according to theirdistance from the newly defined background curve, with iterativeapplications further refining the dataset. Apadula et al. (2019) developedan algorithm to subtract outliers from hourly CO 2 datasets. They firstremoved all values which differed by more than a specified threshold ρfrom the median value within a sliding 21 d window and subsequentlyrejected values that differed by more than ρ from the mean value ofthe remaining points.
Such methods have been widely applied to estimate baseline concentrations of atmospheric trace gases and, in some instances, to identify the occurrence of short-term signal spikes in time series (e.g., El Yazidi et al., 2018). Lacking in the current literature, however, is a comprehensive statistical framework for the extraction of non-background events occurring at synoptic (1–2 d to several weeks) to seasonal timescales. We thus present here a novel approach to identify exceptional non-background events (“anomalies”) in atmospheric time series based on statistical curve-fitting, LOESS smoothing and outlier detection with the aim of developing a protocol for the detection of anomalous episodes of synoptic and seasonal duration. The methodology is designed for application to station data from the Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS) network. In particular, our goal is to investigate whether seasonal- and synoptic-length deviations from background concentrations can be discerned in near real time (NRT) through statistical filtering and cross-referencing observations from multiple sites and to present a framework for communicating information about such events to station managers and other end users.
We focus primarily on CO
2, although we validate our detection ofwintertime CO 2 signal peaks by applying our methodology to concurrentCH 4 time series. In the winter months, since carbon exchanges relatedto terrestrial ecosystem exchange are relatively limited, the timing ofsynoptic-length anomalies observed in CO 2 and CH 4 signals shouldbe similar as these are linked principally to changes in the predominantupwind air source. Validation of summer CO 2 anomaly patterns usingCH 4 is impractical due to the dominant role of the biosphere onCO 2 concentrations during the growing season.
We place particular emphasis on the discernibility of anomalies observable at multiple European sites since we reason that these are most likely to represent continent-wide terrestrial biosphere changes or synoptic-scale transport patterns as opposed to localized (within ∼ 100 km) contamination effects or other forms of noise. Moreover, the ability to identify these multi-site events is critical in communicating to station managers in near real time the presence of atypical signals and in mapping the footprint of regional carbon cycle fluctuations.
Finally, we present the methodology in the context of a near-real-time anomaly detection algorithm (ADA) developed and employed at the ICOS Atmospheric Thematic Centre (ICOS ATC). The algorithm is concise and portable and is intended to be used with multi-year datasets consisting of validated (level 2) and NRT (level 1) daily datasets from sites in the ICOS network. Both R and Python implementations of the algorithm currently exist, but the methodology can theoretically be adapted to any programming language by any user with access to the ICOS Carbon Portal (ICOS CP) or other standardized GHG data. The methodology described in the following sections refers to the R implementation of the algorithm.
We conduct our analysis using daily aggregated CO
2 and CH 4 datafrom 10 European sites. At each, we approximate the background signal ofboth trace gases using the curve-fitting method of Thoning et al. (1989).We then define an “envelope” representing the range of normal or expectedseasonal variability in the signal. The envelope is calculated from thesmoothed cycle, which consists of a polynomial function fit to the data anda short-term residual filter. The upper and lower bounds of the envelopeare defined by the second standard deviation (2 σ) of the smoothedcycle about the background signal and are adjusted to account for seasonaleffects on signal stability.
We then smooth the daily data using a LOESS function and evaluate thesmoothed daily data in relation to the ±2
σ envelope. In ourcase, we select two different settings for the short-term filter and theLOESS smoothing span: 30 and 90 d. These settings are user-definable.The 30 d analysis is applied to the extended winter season(November–March), where our goal is to discern anomalies indicative ofshifts in atmospheric transport patterns. These synoptic-scale anomalies(SSAs) are identified as peaks where consecutive smoothed daily measurementsfall outside the ±2 σ envelope. The 90 d analysis isapplied to the growing season (April–October) with the aim of identifyingseasonal anomalies. At this wider bandwidth, the smoothing function shouldbe minimally affected by shorter (< 1 month) regional signals orSSAs, and thus large spikes detected are taken to reflect seasonal-lengthperturbations such as droughts, springtime carbon uptake or mesoscalecirculation anomalies.
The distinction we make between wintertime and summertime signals is notmeant to imply that SSAs occur exclusively in winter nor that “seasonal”anomalies are best characterized as summertime-only events. It is rather, inour view, the most logical way to divide the analysis while illustrating thescope of the algorithm's functionalities. This is because the distinction wemake between SSAs and seasonal anomalies is primarily based on the perceivedunderlying causes of each and not necessarily their duration. For example,the persistent formation of easterly transport patterns in the wintertimecould, in some cases, result in positive CO
2 anomalies that will appearat the 90 d seasonal bandwidth. However, such anomalies would be morerepresentative of a sequence of similar synoptic-scale transport regimesthan a seasonal-length reduction in photosynthetic activity or otherirregularity in regional carbon cycling. In the summertime, identifyingtransport-driven SSAs in the record is complicated by a slightly lesswell-defined North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) index than in winter(Bladé et al., 2011) and the contemporaneous effects of variations interrestrial net primary production (NPP), which often occur over slightly longer timescales. Our aimin applying a 90 d smoothing span to the summer data is thus to filter outthese synoptic signals to the extent possible and focus only on longer-termperturbations. 2.1 Observations
We analyze continuous time series data from 10 stations, which are part ofthe Atmosphere network of the European ICOS research infrastructure (ICOSRI, 2020a, b). ICOS provides high-precision, long-term and standardizedobservations of the carbon cycle such as GHG concentrations in theatmosphere and GHG exchanges between the atmosphere, ecosystems and oceans.All ICOS stations are rigorously assessed before being labeled, i.e., beforereceiving approval to join the network (Yver-Kwok et al., 2021). DailyCO
2 and CH 4 records for the 10 stations are available through theICOS CP (https://www.icos-cp.eu, last access: 5 July 2021) from varying start dates, depending on thedate an individual station joined the ICOS network. Table 1 summarizes thestations selected for the analysis and gives the time range of analyzed dataat each.
For four of the selected sites, we use only the complete level 2 (L2) records available through the ICOS CP. At the other sites, indicated in Table 1, we use slightly longer historical records obtained from the ICOS ATC data products database. We first concatenate all available pre-L2 and L2 daily data (ICOS RI, 2020b) together with daily near-real-time (L1) data (ICOS RI, 2018), which are typically available for the past year or so. We then extract and aggregate the afternoon (12:00–17:00 CET) values for each site except for the two mountain sites (JFJ, PUY), where we extract and aggregate nighttime values only (20:00–05:00 CET). These time periods can be set by the user; however the general convention in our field is to select the afternoon mean for non-mountain sites since this generally represents optimal mixing conditions of boundary layer air (e.g., Morgan et al., 2015; El Yazidi et al., 2018). At the mountain sites, nighttime values are used to capture the properties of subsiding air from the free troposphere. The concatenated datasets are stored as R data frames for the ensuing analysis.
The sites chosen are distributed throughout central and northern Europe and include a mix of rural and mountain sites – which are fairly remote and minimally affected by nearby pollution sources – and sites in closer proximity to large urban settlements or other sources of anthropogenic contamination. Figure 1 shows the locations of the 10 sites.
2.2 CCGCRV curve fitting
CCGCRV (Thoning et al., 1989) is a curve fitting application for long-lived GHG time series maintained at the Carbon Cycle Greenhouse Gases (CCGG) group of the Global Monitoring Laboratory (GML) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, USA). The version of CCGCRV used here is applied as a stand-alone function in R and is available from the NOAA GML server at https://gml.noaa.gov/aftp/pub/john/ccgcrv/ (last access: 24 June 2021) (Global Monitoring Laboratory, 2021).
The method is succinctly summarized by Pickers and Manning (2015).Basically, a fit to a time series is first obtained using a linear leastsquares regression following the “LFIT” protocol, in which a linearfunction describing the data is determined from an
x 2 minimization ofthe residuals (Press et al., 1996). The seasonal cycle (an annual,non-sinusoidal oscillatory variation) and the long-term trend (the multi-yeargrowth rate in mean annual CO 2) of the time series are thenapproximated through the combination of a polynomial and a harmonicfunction:
where
t is the time in years; n is the number of terms in the polynomial(typically three); a 0, a 1, …, a ( n−1) are constants; hrepresents the nth harmonic (typically four); and m and k φ define the magnitude and phase of each successive sinusoidal component. k
Next, a fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm is applied to the residualsof the input data to
C( t) in order to retain short-term and interannualvariations in the fitted curve. The data are transformed from the timedomain into the frequency domain and multiplied by a low-pass filter toremove variations with frequencies higher than a specified cutoff threshold.An inverse FFT is then used to transform the filtered data back to the timedomain. The low-pass filter function is represented as
where
f c is the cutoff frequency in cycles per year. The low-pass filter is applied to the residuals twice, once with a short-term cutoff value( f c= f s) to smooth the data and once with a long-term cutoff ( f c= f l) to capture interannual variations in the data notcharacterized by the polynomial part of C( t) and to remove any remaininginfluence of the seasonal cycle. For f l, we use the default value of 0.55 cycles per year (667 d).
Finally, the features of interest (e.g., the long-term trend and the seasonalcycle amplitude) are derived by combining the relevant components of thefitting procedure. The long-term trend is represented by the combination ofthe polynomial part of
C( t) with the f l filter (i.e., long-term trend = C( t) polynomial only+ H( f l)). The seasonal cycle is obtained by subtracting the long-term trend from the combination of C( t) and the f sfilter (i.e., seasonal cycle ). A moredetailed description of the routine can be found in Thoning et al. (1989)and on the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratories (ESRL) website athttp://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/mbl/crvfit/crvfit.html (last access: 10 December 2020). 2.3 Synoptic and seasonal anomaly detection
To develop the synoptic and seasonal anomaly detection algorithm (ADA), wefirst apply CCGCRV to extract a background signal at each site. The timeperiod used to calculate this background curve is user-definable. In ourcase, we use the full records available at each station. The backgroundcurve is meant to approximate the mean annual cycle and is composed of thelong-term trend plus the harmonic part of
C( t) fitted to the detrended data.Figure 2 shows an example of this procedure applied to the 2013–2020CO 2 data from the TRN station.
We then extract the smoothed seasonal cycle,
S( t), defined as the function C( t) plus the short-term filter of the residuals. We use two different settingsfor the short-term filter f s, equivalent to 30 and 90 d. We thencalculate the difference between S( t) and the harmonic on each day t for bothseasonal cycle curves to derive the vectors δ C 30 and δ C 90. These are then used to compute variability vectors σ 30 and σ 90, which are adjusted to reflect seasonal patterns in CO 2 and CH 4 variability. This adjustment is done by taking the standard deviation of all δ values within a moving window of 90 calendar days around C tand 90 d around the same calendar day in all other years in the record. Thus for each calendar day din a time series consisting of nyears,
For example, the
σ value for 10 January at TRN would be the standarddeviation of the δ C values between 26 November 2013 and 24 February2014, between 26 November 2014 and 24 February 2015, etc., up to 24 February 2020 (or as many of those days existin the record). The use of this 90 d window is based on the considerationthat the amplitude of deviations from the background signal is not uniformthroughout the year; variability tends to be higher in the winter monthswhen increased fossil fuel burning and decreased vertical mixing tend toresult in high positive signal spikes and during the early spring monthswhen enhanced photosynthesis and increased terrestrial carbon uptake inducelarge negative peaks. The calculated σ values are thus used toproduce envelopes about the background curve representing the range of“normal” or expected variability in the signal, depending on the time ofyear. In general, this is meant to encapsulate slight interannualfluctuations in the seasonal cycle. Finally, the σ values aremultiplied by 2 to further restrict the definition of outlier events. Theselection of a ±2 σ envelope width represents a compromisebetween the desire to disregard smaller, site-specific signal excursions(which we term “localized fluctuations”) to the extent possible whileretaining the capacity to capture the true magnitudes of atypical regionalevents. Figure 3 shows the CCGCRV harmonic and the 30 and 90 d smoothed,detrended seasonal cycle of CO 2 at TRN for the period 2013–2020.
The algorithm next smooths the raw data via a LOESS (locally estimatedscatterplot smoothing) function (Cleveland, 1979) implemented via the R
stats package (R Core Team, 2019). This is done as a way of filtering the dailydata and attenuating the influence of short-duration, high-intensity signalspikes when categorizing deviations from the background as anomalies vs.normal signal instabilities. Short-duration (≤ 1 d) spikes are notuncommon in continuous greenhouse gas measurements and are often related toinstrument errors or localized perturbations from contaminated air masses.Smoothing the daily data ensures that these short-duration spikes are lessheavily weighted and that spikes will only be considered non-background ifpart of a cluster of other nearby measurements that fall outside the rangeof expected variability. The LOESS algorithm is applied using a smoothingspan (bandwidth) of 30 and 90 d. Anomalous events are then identified bycomparing the smoothed daily values to the respective ±2 σ range for each day; i.e., the 30 d LOESS curve is compared to the ±2 σ 30 envelope and the 90 d curve to the ±2 σ 90 envelope.
The goal of the 30 d analyses is to identify synoptic-scale anomalies(SSAs). We identify these as peaks in the signal where the smoothed dailyvalue is outside the ±2
σ envelope for at least 2 consecutive days. We focus these analyses on the extended winter season(November–March) when effects on the signal not directly related tosynoptic-scale meteorology – including terrestrial biosphere exchanges –are minimized. We consider 30 d sufficiently wide to mask short (≤ 1 d) spikes yet precise enough to detect the signals of distinctatmospheric transport episodes (as opposed to more generalized effects ofseasonal trends in circulation patterns). For example, winter weather inEurope may be influenced at seasonal timescales by the phase and strength ofthe NAO (e.g., Trigo et al., 2002; Haarsma et al., 2019), which can producebroad signal anomalies in years with consistently developing strong NAOindicators. With a bandwidth of 30 d, these broader patterns should beless apparent, while individual synoptic events such as Scandinavian blocking(BLO) regimes should still leave an identifiable imprint on the signal.
Although we focus primarily on CO
2 in the analysis, we also attempt tovalidate the SSA detection by applying the methodology to concurrentCH 4 records from the 10 sites. Emissions of both CH 4 andCO 2 largely occur over the continents (Friedlingstein et al., 2020;Saunois et al., 2020). Thus, if positive CO 2 anomalies during thewinter months coincide with periods of sustained transport of easterly windsfrom the continental interior, such as when NAO conditions or BLO regimesprevail, then they should be more or less synchronized with CH 4 spikes.Meanwhile, concentrations of both species should approach background levelswhen westerly, marine-influenced winds predominate. Although this approachis complicated slightly by the fact that the annual CH 4 cycle is lessdistinct than that of CO 2, our envelope is wide enough thatmeasurements must be rather far from the mean annual cycle determined byCCGCRV for several consecutive days in order to register as SSAs. The methodshould therefore be able to adequately discern anomalous signal componentsfor both species in most winters.
The 90 d analysis is intended for the extraction of longer-term seasonalanomalies. In effect, any period when the 90 d LOESS curve is outside the±2
σ 90 envelope is considered to be an anomalous event.At such a wide bandwidth, the smooth curve should be minimally affected byregional signals lasting from a few days to a few weeks, leaving only abroader signal representative of seasonal effects (Ruckstuhl et al., 2012).Anomalies may be induced by enhanced spring carbon uptake; extended droughts;or, to give a more germane example, wide-scale emissions reductions due toglobal pandemics. For the 90 d application, we concentrate on the extendedsummer growing season (April–October) to examine the capacities of themethodology in detecting large-scale terrestrial biosphere anomalies. Wefocus in particular on the summer of 2018, which saw a spate of intensedroughts and heat waves across central and northern Europe that alteredcontinent-wide gross primary production (GPP) and CO 2 storage and flux patterns (Lindroth et al.,2020; Ramonet et al., 2020; Rinne et al., 2020; Wang et al., 2020). 3.1 SSAs
Table 2 summarizes the results of the SSA extraction for the 10 sites forthe period 1 November 2015 to 31 March 2020. This period is selected sincethe winter of 2015–2016 is the first year in which we have CO
2 dataavailable at enough sites to accurately discern the number of localizedfluctuations detected at each site, for which we require that CO 2 datamust be present at no fewer than five sites. Localized fluctuations aredefined as SSAs with no analog at any other site, i.e., spikes at a singlesite which do not coincide with a similar spike elsewhere. These areidentified manually after running the algorithm. Figure 4 shows thebackground CO 2 signal, ±2 σ envelope (shaded in gray) and 30 d LOESS curve at each of the 10 sites. The period 1 July 2018 to 1 July 2019 is selected as an example. An analogous paneled figure forCH 4 is presented as Fig. 5.
Figures 6 and 7 show the difference between the LOESS curves and theenvelope boundaries for measurements outside of the ±2
σ rangefor CO 2 and CH 4, respectively. Positive SSAs (above the envelope)are shown in red, while negative SSAs are shown in blue. Periods wheremeasurements fall within the envelope are represented by flat, black lines.Note that only winter periods (November–March) are shown.
Overall, the algorithm produces similar patterns for both CO
2 andCH 4 at the three Scandinavian sites (SMR, NOR, HTM). In particular, theADA seems to identify simultaneous positive CO 2 anomalies in November2018, January/February 2019 and November 2019 at SMR, NOR and HTM. Thesethree northernmost sites also share some similarities with the three Germansites (GAT, LIN, HPB); both the November 2018 spike and the early 2019 spikeare captured at HPB for both trace gases, while the November 2018 spike iscaptured at LIN for CO 2. Regarding the CH 4 records, the sameNovember 2018 spike is captured at HTM and HPB, while a similar early 2019CO 2 spike is seen at SMR, NOR, HTM and HPB. Smaller synchronic positiveCO 2 anomalies with broader geographic extents are seen in January 2017(at HTM, GAT, LIN, HPB, OPE and TRN) and March 2018 (at NOR, HTM, GAT, LIN, HPB, TRN and PUY). In both cases,these continent-wide anomalies are well synchronized with the CH 4patterns, which show spikes with similar timing at nearly all of the samestations. For the southernmost sites, for which records date back prior tothe winter of 2015–2016, several simultaneous anomalies are observed,including one in February/March 2013 (OPE, PUY), and an especially largesignal excursion seen at the three French sites (OPE, TRN and PUY) inNovember/December 2014. Both of these coincide with CH 4 events ofcomparable magnitude. 3.2 Seasonal anomalies
Figure 8 shows the 90 d extraction procedure at each of the 10 sites and is analogous to Fig. 4, except that we show the period 1 January 2018 to 1 January 2019 as we wish to assess the algorithm's performance with regard to the timing, intensity and extent of the 2018 drought and heat wave events across central and northern Europe (Ramonet et al., 2020). Figure 9 shows the anomaly patterns at the 10 sites during the extended growing season (April–October). For reference, we also include the average April–October standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI; Vicente-Serrano et al., 2010) values at each site location to represent the relative intensity of drought conditions throughout the summer.
The CO
2 patterns observed during the growing season of 2018 areconsistent with the timing of terrestrial biospheric aberrations thatcharacterized that year's exceptional drought conditions. The ADA findsnegative CO 2 anomalies in May 2018 at all sites except for OPE and TRN.The largest of these is at HTM, although a fairly large spike is detected atPUY as well. This may be a product of unusually warm and sunny early springconditions in 2018, which contributed to early green-up and growth acrossthe region and led to enhanced net biome production (NBP) and plant CO 2uptake. Subsequent extreme heat and dry conditions led to a lapse insummertime productivity and reduced photosynthesis (Ramonet et al., 2020),which may explain the July CO 2 spikes captured at SMR, NOR, HTM andLIN. The ensuing dip in CO 2 observed at SMR, NOR and LIN in September2018 can plausibly be interpreted as a legacy effect of the reducedsummertime productivity; drought stress likely led to decreased litteravailability in the fall and hence lower-than-normal decomposition ratesand total ecosystem respiration (Bastos et al., 2020).
Several other multi-site anomalies are captured at the three French sites inthe summers of 2012–2015, though the lack of recordings at the other sitesmakes it unclear whether these represent smaller-scale meteorologicaloccurrences or broader regional patterns. We note, however, that the largepositive spike seen at OPE and TRN in October 2015 followed an intensesummer dry spell that year (Erdman, 2015). This could plausibly havetriggered early senescence onset and reduced photosynthetic activity in thefall. Likewise, an unusually wet summer in France in 2014 might have led toincreased ecosystem productivity in the fall, resulting in the negativespike seen simultaneously at OPE, TRN and PUY in that year. We note alsothat in general, at OPE and TRN, anomalous enhanced maximum CO
2 uptake(indicated by negative spikes in early to mid-summer) appears to correlatewith higher SPEI values (wetter conditions).
Worth noting is that although some summertime anomalies detected at the90 d bandwidth correlate with known periods of exceptional enhancement orsuppression of biospheric productivity, we have not attempted to establish acausal link between the two here. This would require a detailedquantification of the direct impacts of atmospheric transport. In the summerof 2018, for example, the positive CO
2 anomaly we observe acrossseveral sites agrees well with estimated reductions in continent-widephotosynthesis predicted by flux inversion studies (e.g., Ramonet et al.,2020). However, the timing of this anomaly also corresponds with thepresence of a high-pressure blocking system which formed over the region inJune and July 2018, which may have enhanced easterly CO 2 transportthrough persistent anticyclone formation (Rösner et al., 2019). Theextent to which this may have been the case is not examined in detail.Similar spikes, alluded to above, which appear to track known meteorologicalevents of exceptional duration and/or intensity likewise cannot be said toexclusively reflect NPP irregularities without the additional implementationof back-trajectory or wind sector analyses. Such an analysis isoutside the scope of this report, which tends more toward a technicaldescription of our algorithm and its potential applications than a detailedclimatological study.
Several potential challenges may arise in the technical application of the ADA. These include the presence of large data gaps in time series which could arise from instrument malfunctions or other technical issues. CCGCRV is ill-suited to handle such gaps (Pickers and Manning, 2015), meaning missing data points must be artificially imputed using a structural modeling function or linearly interpolated. We opt for the latter by applying the method of Moritz and Bartz-Beielstein (2017), which is sufficient for small data gaps but generally impractical for large ones (∼ 1 month), where simple linear interpolation can potentially result in erroneous anomaly selection. This appears to be the case, for example, in late October 2018 at GAT, where the algorithm detects negative anomalies in both trace species coinciding with the start of a month-long gap in the daily readings (Figs. 4 and 5). Significant data gaps such as this should thus be identified before performing the linear interpolation and applying the anomaly extraction so that any quantification of the signal during these periods is regarded with caution. One potential workaround is to interpolate data gaps using the values of the multi-year average detrended seasonal cycle at a site. This has not been attempted here since it would require an a priori interpolation of data gaps, i.e., via a linear interpolation, followed by an a posteriori re-interpolation of the same gaps, followed by a secondary application of the CCGCRV fitting procedure. It is unclear whether any reduction in gap-related false positive detection, which appears to be quite rare overall, justifies such a trade-off in efficiency.
The reliability of the results may also be strongly influenced by the rangeof available data. Sites with longer historical records will have a largerresidual dataset to draw from, allowing for more precision when extractingthe mean annual cycle and resultant ±2
σ envelope, while siteswith shorter records may produce less precise results. The potentialdrawbacks of this are twofold; (1) very slight anomalies might tend to beobscured at sites with a limited number (∼ 3–4 years) ofrelatively capricious measurements, and (2) low-amplitude localizedfluctuations might be detected at sites where the full range of expectedseasonal variability is underestimated by the ±2 σ envelope, orthe background curve is an imprecise fit to the true seasonal cycle. Anomalypatterns at sites with shorter records should thus be regarded with cautionand cross-validated with patterns from other nearby sites if possible. Inthe future, as longer historical records become available at a greaternumber of ICOS stations, a standardized setting for the record length usedto estimate the background (e.g., 10 years) may be adopted.
Furthermore, the method may have limited applicability at more isolated sites that have no clear analog within the ICOS network. Evaluation of anomalies through cross-validation is difficult if a site has relatively few nearby sister stations which can reasonably be expected to sample from similar air masses most of the time. This drawback is apparent when considering the results at PUY and JFJ, both background sites which sample frequently from well-mixed air above the planetary boundary layer (Asmi et al., 2011; Herrmann et al., 2015). At PUY, for example, planetary boundary layer (PBL) height analyses reveal that the station samples from the free troposphere more than 70 % of the time and up to 81 % in the winter (Lopez et al., 2015). With such infrequent sampling of surface air, air parcels most likely to contain the carbon signatures of bellwether biospheric events (such as droughts and their legacy effects) or shorter-term anomalies linked to localized contaminant plumes or sudden changes in atmospheric transport patterns may go undetected. At JFJ, PBL air is sampled only intermittently when conditions favor mountain venting or advection (Zellweger et al., 2003; Griffiths et al., 2014), meaning short-duration anomalies may merely reflect the prevalence of such localized phenomena rather than broader atmospheric transport patterns. In the future, this limitation will become less important as the ICOS Atmosphere network continues to grow in size; 26 stations across Europe currently possess the ICOS label, and another dozen or so are set to join soon.
The occasional selection of localized fluctuations is an additional concern. In some cases, low-amplitude spikes classified as anomalies at a particular station might not truly represent significant regional-scale excursions from the background signal. This implies the need for station-specific protocols to classify anomalies based on duration and magnitude, which may require cross-validation using multiple station readings or manual inspection by principal investigators. The similarity in the patterns at the six northernmost sites, for example, offers a means of validation for the detection of SSAs; since true synoptic-scale anomalies should produce a signal over a broad swath of the continent, those anomalies observed only at certain sites can reasonably be assumed to indicate localized events. Note, for example, the very slight positive anomaly in December 2016 seen only at GAT (Fig. 6).
In other cases, signal excursions might register as anomalies at certainsites but not others. In such cases, users may determine that these eventsare noteworthy enough that they should be classified as anomalies morebroadly. The recourse then is a site-specific refinement of the selectioncriteria or tuning of the algorithmic parameters. For example, although weuse a bandwidth of 30 d for SSA detection, this choice may not be themost appropriate in all cases. Different stations have different ambientsignal variability ranges depending on their geographical setting andproximity to emission sources; those with higher overall variability (andhence wider ±2
σ ranges) might record too few SSAs if applyingan excessively wide smoothing span as peaks in the smoothed signal would bedampened sufficiently to be contained within the envelope. Users may thusfind a bandwidth of, for example, 15–25 d to produce more informative resultsat some locations. Likewise, sites with lower overall variability might tendto record too many SSAs when using a bandwidth that is too short. Bydefinition, the envelope width also affects the anomaly selection. Note, forexample, that the 2018 drought pattern typified at the six northernmostsites does not appear at OPE or TRN in Fig. 9. A closer examination ofFig. 8 reveals that while measurements at these two sites during, for example, May2018 were below the mean annual cycle, no anomalous springtime CO 2 dipwas registered since the smooth curves at OPE and TRN were still containedwithin the ±2 σ envelope bounds. As mentioned, thespecification of a ±2 σ threshold stems from our desire toavoid excessive selection of low-amplitude, site-specific signal peaks.However, this width might mask noteworthy seasonal patterns at certain siteswith greater year-round variability, making cross-examination all the morecritical.
Uncertainties can also arise in the interpretation of the results. Forexample, the distinction we make between synoptic-scale and seasonalanomalies is primarily based on the length of observed signal spikes.Normally, SSAs which persist from 1–2 d to several weeks are presumed tobe linked to prevailing wind conditions at a given site and hence changes inthe source regions of sampled air parcels, e.g., from relatively clean NorthAtlantic air to continental-sourced air parcels bearing the signatures ofterrestrial emissions. However, in some cases, anomalies deemed to beseasonal in length may simply represent the frequent occurrence or unusualpersistence of synoptic-scale atmospheric transport patterns. For example,as alluded to previously, the extreme heat waves in northern and centralEurope throughout much of June and July 2018 were associated with thepersistence of a high-pressure blocking system which formed over the region.Although synoptic in size, this pressure anomaly – combined with hightemperatures – had resounding effects on European forests and resulted insubsequent CO
2 anomalies in the fall of 2018. It is thus moreappropriately considered to be part of a broader seasonal anomaly. Theimplication is that in some cases, “seasonal” anomalies are ratherpatterns which consist of a series of shorter, related signalirregularities. These irregularities will often be visible at shorterbandwidths and could be directly linked to meteorological events. Summertimeanomalies should thus be considered in the wider context of terrestrialecosystem production, indicators of which may lag well behind the occurrenceof exceptional transport episodes.
In general, we find that the algorithm captures well the signature effectsof unusually strong or persistent atmospheric transport regimes in thewintertime. This interpretation is reinforced by the fact that the CO
2and CH 4 anomaly patterns during the extended winter season arestrikingly similar for the 30 d implementation of the methodology. The ADAalso shows promising potential with regard to detecting the imprints ofregional and continent-wide extremes in NBP and other ecosystem indicators,specifically the distinctive markings of the 2018 European drought, on whichwe have placed particular emphasis. An analysis of the effects of summertimeatmospheric transport is required to more definitively score the method'scapacity to correctly identify exceptional biospheric episodes.
The robustness of the results is reliant on cross-validation of anomalydetection across multiple sites. However, we note that anomalies ofsufficient size – e.g., ∼ 3 ppm CO
2 greater than our±2 σ envelope boundary when using a 30 d bandwidth or∼ 0.5 ppm CO 2 when using a 90 d bandwidth – willusually register simultaneously at multiple sites within the same region andseem generally unlikely to stem from localized contamination. The methodalso has a low computational cost, and the process of including additionalsites in an analysis is relatively straightforward. As new NRT (level 1) GHGdata are uploaded to the ICOS CP, users have only to concatenate these toexisting datasets and reinitiate the method beginning with the stepsoutlined in Sect. 2.3. A fully automated Python implementation of the codeis available online in which L2 and L1 data for a given station areextracted directly from the ICOS CP and concatenated to form a continuousmulti-year time series for all dates up to the present. Users also have theoption to extract longer historical records than those available through theICOS CP and preprocess these themselves before running the code. The currentdefault implementation is to produce time series plots in the style ofFigs. 6, 7 and 9.
The ability to detect in NRT the occurrence of non-background signal events at multiple timescales is central to an improved understanding of GHG variability and regional carbon cycling processes at multiple timescales, and the ADA represents an important step toward this end. Eventually, our aim is to make results available online so that station managers and other end users can be alerted in NRT when anomalous signal events occur, i.e., through the automated generation of data files and time series plots to display on the sites' respective panel board pages.
The ADA is intended to be open-source, and the R code is currently accessible via a GitHub repository page (https://github.com/hellonskis/ICOS_ATC_anomaly_detection) (DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4639780, Resovsky, 2021a). Python code is available internally via the ICOS Jupyter hub at https://jupyter3.icos-cp.eu/ (last access: 16 April 2021) and is available upon request. An open-source version of the Jupyter code is also available online at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5166711 (Resovsky, 2021b).
The ADA is developed at the ICOS ATC (LSCE) in Gif-sur-Yvette, France. The code is intended to be applied to datasets consisting of validated (level 2) hourly values and NRT (level 1) measurements. Level 2 data are available online (https://doi.org/10.18160.WJY7-5D06; ICOS Research Infrastructure, 2021). Level 1 data are available online (https://doi.org/10.18160.ATM_NRT_CO2_CH4; ICOS Research Infrastructure, 2018).
All code required to run the ADA was written and is maintained by AR. AR carried out all experiments and produced the figures and text in this paper. MR manages the OPE and PUY stations and also contributed the conceptual idea behind the ADA as well as many hours of advice and feedback, especially on the sections discussing the 2018 European drought. LR was instrumental in finalizing the layout of the figures and the experimental workflow detailed in the methodology section. JT assisted in pre-processing of ICOS data products and provided scientific advice regarding the smoothing procedures used to extract anomalies. PC provided suggestions related to the terminology used for the text and figures, descriptions of the 2018 European drought and its aftereffects, and additional data analysis considerations included in the discussion section. MS is the manager of the JFJ station data and also provided a great deal of advice and feedback regarding the organization of this paper and the presentation of the ideas herein. MH (HTM), DK, ML, JMW (GAT, HPB, LIN), IM (SMR), MM (NOR) and SC (OPE) are the station managers for the seven other stations whose data are used in this paper. RE is the deputy head of the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, whose contributions made this work possible.
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note: Copernicus Publications remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
This work was made possible by the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS), which is funded under regulation no.377/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 April 2014 establishing the Copernicus program (“the Copernicus Regulation”) and operated by the ECMWF under an agreement with the European Commission dated 11 November 2014 (“ECMWF Agreement”). The authors also acknowledge the persons in charge of the 10 monitoring stations, which are part of the ICOS Atmosphere network. ICOS Atmosphere stations are supported through national consortia and funding agencies. JFJ observations are supported through ICOS Switzerland, which is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grants 20FI21_148992 and 20FI20_173691) and in-house contributions. GAT, HPB and LIN observations are supported through ICOS Germany and funded by the German Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (DWD) and in-house contributions. OPE, PUY and TRN are supported through ICOS France, ANDRA, CEA and CNRS. HTM and NOR are supported by ICOS Sweden and Lund University. SMR is supported by ICOS Finland and the University of Helsinki. We also wish to thank all members of the ICOS Atmosphere Monitoring Station Assembly for their contributions to the discussions surrounding anomalous signal detection techniques.
This research has been supported by the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA) (grant no. ECMWF/Copernicus/2016/CAMS_26).
This paper was edited by Can Li and reviewed by two anonymous referees.
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warc | 202143 | In this Section
198943 Effectiveness of disaster surge training for public health nurses
Tuesday, November 10, 2009: 3:30 PM
Background: Due to current expectations of public health nurses (PHNs), competency based training for surge capacity is a critical need. This evaluation assessed the effectiveness of a blended educational intervention (in-class and online learning) developed to enhance Ohio PHNs self-perceived competencies regarding confidence and need for training in 25 previously validated PHN disaster surge competencies. The educational intervention, developed using adult learning principles, addressed the role and skills of PHNs in preparedness, response, and recovery related to public health surge events.
Methods: A pre-intervention survey was given during each of the in-class seminars (N=182) to determine self-perceived confidence and need for further training prior to the competency building intervention. Post-intervention surveys were mailed to all participants who had completed the in-class seminar and at least portions of the online surge curriculum. Using paired t-tests, pre- and post-survey results were compared (N=54).
Results: PHNs confidence in performing all 25 nursing competencies significantly increased and their self-perceived need for further training correspondingly significantly decreased. Subgroup differences at post-test indicated directors of nursing (n=19) self-perceived competence in describing crisis, crisis management, emergency, disaster, catastrophe, and surge was significantly greater than public health nurses (n=22). Those completing all components of the blended educational intervention had greater self-perceived confidence in their ability to locate their health department's disaster plan resources and their ability to describe the PHN functional roles in the plan.
Conclusions: Using a blended learning approach to surge training effectively improved confidence in competencies for PHNs and reduced the participants' perceived need for further training.
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation. | 2,331 | 1,094 | 4,945.384826 |
warc | 202143 | Paclitaxel (PTX) is an antineoplastic agent commonly used in the treatment of solid tumors and is known to cause dose-limiting peripheral neurotoxicity. This study was performed to evaluate the protective effect of curcumin (CUR) against PTX-induced spinal cord and sciatic nerve injuries in rats. The rats were administered PTX (2 mg/kg, BW) intraperitoneally for the first 5 consecutive days followed by administration of CUR (100 and 200 mg/kg, BW daily in corn oil) orally for 10 days. Our results showed that CUR significantly reduced mRNA expression levels of NF-kappa B, TNF-alpha, IL-6, iNOS and GFAP whereas caused an increase in levels of Nrf2, HO-1 and NQO1 in the spinal cord and sciatic nerve of PTX-induced rats. In addition, CUR suppressed the activation of apoptotic and autophagic pathways by increasing Bcl-2 and Bcl-xL, and decreasing p53, caspase-3, Apaf-1, LC3A, LC3B and beclin-1 mRNA expression levels. The results showed that CUR also maintained the spinal cord and sciatic nerve histological architecture and integrity by both LFB staining and H&E staining. Immunohistochemical expressions of 8-OHdG, caspase-3 and LC3B in the PTX-induced spinal cord tissue were decreased after administration of CUR. Taken together, our findings demonstrated that CUR has protective effects on PTX-induced spinal cord and sciatic nerve injuries in rats. | 1,365 | 724 | 2,569.744475 |
warc | 202143 | Infant toys are designed to help stimulate a baby’s senses and give them pleasure. Music and movement can soothe and calm your little one while you work on something else. This is why baby toys with music and lights are becoming very popular. When you baby hears music, it helps to reduce crying, and can even distract crying from other things that are going on. Music can soothe baby and help with his or her sleeping patterns.
Different Types Of Sounds
Babies are able to discriminate between different types of sounds. That means when a different type of sound is played they will know that sounds mean different things. This means that certain sounds like a heartbeat, cough, or even a kiss can trigger different emotional responses in babies. That is why music can be so soothing to them.
Infant toys come in all shapes and sizes, but there are some unique ones that include music and light that make for ideal baby toys. There are many soft toys that mimic the sounds and movements of actual animals, including rocking horses and mobiles. Some of these items include music and lights that help to make it more fun. Soft mobiles look just like a real animal as it rattles and shakes. Music makes it more fun because babies associate movement with an emotion.
There are also many toys that imitate another language, such as baby’s native language. These items include dolls that talk, musical instruments, and toys that move. All of these things make it easier for a baby to learn his or her own language. As a parent you want your baby to start learning his or her own language as soon as possible. It can be frustrating for babies to not understand what is going on around them.
Musical toys are great for this. Many baby toys are in the shape of things that make music, such as musical mobiles. Babies love to put their fingers in and grab at the strings. Music can help to calm them down, making it much easier for them to learn to speak. The sounds and tones of music can have a calming effect on babies, which helps them to relax and sleep better.
The lights that come on and off along with the music can add to the fun as well. Some baby toys include lighted cubes that make sounds when the baby touches them. You can even buy baby monitors that have music and lights on them. These are very popular among new parents who want to give their baby something fun to do while they are sleeping.
While playing with the toys, babies tend to explore what they are touching. When the lights on the toys go off, they know that it is time to get rid of the toy. Music and lights will keep the baby entertained long after the baby is done playing with it.
Bottom Line
The more you learn about baby toys with music and lights the more happy you will be as a parent. Babies absolutely love music and it seems to make their little world come alive. This is especially true when it is being played by themselves. You will find that playing baby toys with music and lights can be a wonderful gift for any occasion. Birthdays are a great time to give baby toys like this. They love these things and you just never know when they might need to play with them. | 3,173 | 1,428 | 7,003.708683 |
warc | 202143 | We all know that computers are complex devices, machines made out of an amalgam of electronic parts and components. But which computer components are essential for a computer to run? Modern PCs can still function fully without Bluetooth or a floppy disk drive. Here is a list of computer components that a computer system cannot do without.
* Motherboard
The motherboard is a very basic unit in any computer system. This is the computer component to which all other internal computer components are attached. It links all the other main components of a computer system together. Consequently, motherboards are sometimes referred to as the “heart” of a computer system.
* CPU
The central processing unit or CPU is the computer component responsible for running programs and applications on the computer. Without a CPU in your computer, you will not be able to do any tasks — you cannot boot to an operating system, you cannot play music, videos and games, and you cannot do any word processing. For a computer to function, it has to have a CPU.
* RAM
Random Access Memory or RAM is another vital computer component. It is the storage media where a computer temporarily stores files and information that it can pull at random when running programs and applications. Together with the CPU, RAM determines the computer’s speed. A computer with a large RAM and a mediocre CPU can actually run faster than a computer with a powerful CPU but low RAM.
* HDD
As opposed to the RAM, the hard disk drive or HDD stores computer files and data long-term. Even without power, the hard drive still retains the files stored inside it. The hard drive can store important system files like the operating system, program files and other data. It can also be used to store mp3s and videos. If the computer runs out of RAM, it will temporarily use the hard drive as a virtual memory bank.
* Video Card
A video card allows a computer to display images on the computer monitor. It helps speed up the rendering of images onscreen and contributes to clearer and detailed pictures. PC gamers and multimedia software users will find a high-end dedicated graphics card helpful in running graphics-intensive programs smoothly.
* PSU
The power supply unit or PSU supplies all computer components with power. It converts the high voltages from an AC power outlet to lower voltages that are safe for internal computer components. Without a PSU, a computer and its components will not be able to power up.
A computer can also benefit from an optical drive to read and play CDs and DVDs, a network card and router for connecting to the Internet, and peripheral devices such as printers and scanners. The motherboard, CPU, RAM, HDD, video card and PSU are, however, the main components that make up a computer system. | 2,817 | 1,297 | 6,042.323824 |
warc | 202143 | Sole traders using home offices for business have long been able to claim deductions for home office expenses. Now, through lockdowns and increased accommodations for work-life balance, many businesses have employees working full or part-time from home. This raises questions about whether companies can claim home office expenses.
If a company’s shareholder or director runs the company’s business through a home office and pays all expenses relating to the home office, Inland Revenue does not consider the company has incurred any expense. A company cannot claim a deduction for home office expenses, say in the home of a shareholder, unless it incurred the actual cost.
A company
may claim a deduction where: the expense relates to earning business income the expense was incurred in the same income year the deduction is claimed, whether the company paid the provider, or reimbursed the homeowner.
If the company reimburses an employee (or shareholder employee) for home office expenses, the reimbursement is exempt income for the employee or shareholder employee.
The owner of a look-through company (LTC) is not considered to be a shareholder employee, though, under certain conditions, they can be considered to be an employee. If LTCs reimburse employees using their home office for work, the reimbursements are tax exempt. An owner of a look-through company can claim for home office expenses in their own right, provided they can prove the expenditure relates to their LTC income.
Keep good records, including any agreements allowing the company to use the home.
Call us for advice. | 1,612 | 710 | 3,616.783099 |
warc | 202143 | Review Open Access Published: Current knowledge about behaviors of honey bee queens with highlighting of the importance future studies The Journal of Basic and Applied Zoology volume 82, Article number: 37 (2021)
329 Accesses
Abstract Background
There is one queen in each honey bee,
Apis mellifera L., colony under normal conditions. This queen performs egg laying and pheromonal control in the colony. All genetic characteristics of bee workers and drones depend on the queen. This reflects the importance of bee queen in the colony. In this review, behaviors of honey bee queens are presented and further studies are suggested to fill in gaps in knowledge. Main body
The major studies about behaviors of honey bee queens either inside or outside the colony were reviewed. Some behavioral aspects especially egg laying pattern, sperm storage and utilization, conflict between queens, and the role of the queens in swarming and absconding have gained relatively few attention. Also, some other points such as the ability of a queen to transmit parasites after mating to her offspring and effects of pesticides on queen rearing and characteristics of emerged queens were highlighted.
Conclusion
This study highlighted the points that require further detailed studies. This review article may stimulate others toward performing specific future studies on bee queens.
Background
Honey bees are super-organisms live in colonies consist of three castes: one mother queen, thousands of sterile workers, and few hundreds of drones. In very few cases, more than one queen can be existed in the same colony for a short period of time (Butler, 1957). The queen is the main reproductive member of the colony. Specific behaviors are expressed by the queen during her life. Virgin queens, after emergence, fight each other (Fletcher, 1978; Schneider et al., 2001) until the winning of only one queen to be subsequently the mother of the colony. Then, the queen makes nuptial flights outside the colony to mate with many drones (Cobey, 2007; El-Niweiri & Moritz, 2011; Heidinger et al., 2014; Lensky & Demter, 1985; Tibor et al., 1987). After mating flight, the queen stays in the nest to lay eggs (fertilized eggs to give workers and unfertilized eggs to give drones), and to control the behaviors and physiology of the workers using her pheromones. Egg laying and pheromonal control are the main tasks of the queen (Cobey, 2007; Moritz & Kuhnert, 1984; Naumann et al., 1991; Seeley, 1979; Tibor et al., 1987). Basically, the queen does not leave the colony except in case of absconding or swarming (Fell et al., 1977; Grozinger et al., 2014). Herein, these behaviors are described and further studies are suggested. This review paper covers all
Apis mellifera honey bee subspecies except the Cape honey bees, A. m. capensis, because this subspecies has some unique behaviors unlike the other subspecies. Main text Process of queen rearing and conflict between queens
In normal cases, honey bee colony is headed by one queen only. Honey bee workers can rear additional queens at three cases: emergency, supersedure and reproductive swarming. Emergency queens are raised in queenless colonies, while supersedure happens in colonies headed by diseased or aged queens. Reproductive swarming occurs during active seasons. One or more new queens are reared during supersedure (Butler, 1957), and brood perhaps is moved by worker bees into empty queen cells (Butler, 1957; Punnett & Winston, 1983). Supersedure happens mostly during the swarming season (Allen, 1965). In fact, queen infected with
Nosema ceranae induced the production of supersedure queen by workers (Alaux et al., 2011). More investigations on the impacts of infected queens with diseases on queen rearing activity in bee colonies are needed. The process of queen rearing is regulated by workers that built different numbers of queen cells from different ages of brood (Hatch et al., 1999), and queen age is a significant element over queen quality (Tarpy et al., 2000). During queen rearing, worker bees cooperate to rear queens of similar reproductive potential (Tarpy et al., 2004). Indeed, queen quality traits are regulated by preventing the development of low-quality queens by workers (Tarpy et al., 2016). For research purposes, the queen body weight is utilized as a reliable indicator of potential colony productivity (De Souza et al., 2013). Other indicators for queen quality require additional investigations.
Pesticides can affect queen rearing colonies. The exposure of queen larvae to coumaphos during their development increased the percentage of grafted cell rejection up to 50% and the pre-emergence pupae had low weight (Collins et al., 2004). Moreover, exposure of queen rearing colonies to sub-lethal doses of pesticides (chlorpyrifos and fungicide Pristine) showed less emergence rates of reared queens than control colonies (DeGrandi-Hoffman et al., 2013). Additional studies on the potential effects of pesticides on characteristics of emerged queens would be paramount important.
The emerged virgin queens engaged in a conflict until only one queen becomes the mother of the colony. Virgin queens have specific defense strategies against their rivals. Usually, virgin queens attack other queens prior to their emergence from the queen cells and sting them. Piping of virgin queens in the presence of other queens is considered as activating conflicts (Fletcher, 1978). Virgin queens that vibrate at higher rates can remove more rivals (Schneider et al., 2001). Also, during the conflict, the queen sprays her rectal contents toward the rival queen as a defense strategy (spraying behavior) (Tarpy & Fletcher, 2003). Moreover, fecal materials of virgin queens have a role in repelling workers and stimulating grooming behavior (Post et al., 1987). Waxy esters composed of 8–14 carbon acids and 6–14 carbon alcohols were detected in feces of queens, and it was suggested that these esters have a role in nest-mate recognition (Breed et al., 1992). Workers play role during the conflicts without killing the queens but may immobilize them (Gilley & Tarpy, 2005). The conflict strategies between honey bee queens in different subspecies need to be investigated well.
Mating flight
The virgin queens, after emergence, stay in the colony for a short period prior to mating. This period depends on the subspecies and climatic conditions such as temperature and rainfall (El-Niweiri & Moritz, 2011; Heidinger et al., 2014; Lensky & Demter, 1985; Tibor et al., 1987) as well as the availability of drones (Cobey, 2007) especially mating which occurs in the air within a few seconds (Gary, 1963). The usual numbers of drones that mate with a queen are between seven to ten (Taber & Wendel, 1985) and up to 45 (Cobey, 2007; Moritz et al., 1996; Neumann & Moritz, 2000). Low-quality queens resulted from older worker larvae and mated with fewer drones (Tarpy et al., 2011). Single insemination resulted in fewer spermatozoa entering the spermatheca than did multiple inseminations (Bolten & Harbo, 1982). It is better for the queens to mate with as much drones as possible because better colony performance was found in colonies headed with queens inseminated with 30 to 60 drones or over 15 drones (Delaplane et al., 2015). However, seven mates at least or more can be considered as sufficient (Tarpy & Pettis, 2013; Tarpy et al., 2012). Queen mating can occur at distances up to 16.2 km (Peer, 1957) but during mating drones select the shortest way to a fast mate (Gries & Koeniger, 1996).
Nuptial flight frequencies of queens depend on mating success in the previous nuptial flights (Schluns et al., 2005). Sperms are stored in the spermatheca after mating. The number of spermatozoa stored in the spermatheca is not impacted by the queen defection before insemination but vice versa with sperm viability (Czekońska et al., 2010). Sperms can stay alive for a long period, and secretions from spermathecal glands of mated queens are essential for viability of sperm (den Boer et al., 2009). Few studies concentrated on the viability of sperms in the spermatheca and the maximum time that sperms can stay alive. Queens fertilize all eggs when receiving 50% fresh semen or more (Collins, 2000). A recent study showed the transamination of deformed wing virus to queens during mating with infected drones (Amiri et al., 2016). Further studies on the possibility of diseases transamination during mating are required. Workers at one to 11 days old are responsible for feeding the mated queen, and the period of each feed is about 47 s (Allen, 1955). Very few studies were done on queen feeding. The feeding dynamic of mated queens across seasons by the nurse workers requires additional investigations.
The queens can naturally mate during all seasons except in winter in temperate regions but spring was found as the better season over autumn at different regions (Al-Ghzawi & Zaitoun, 2008; Jhajj et al., 1992; Moritz & Kuhnert, 1984). So far, there is no any evidence for the occurrence of queen mating in the hive. However, queens can mate with drones from the same colony and from other colonies or apiaries in the open space. It is possible to control queen mating by using isolated areas, e.g., islands, or by using the artificial insemination (Cobey, 2007; Kaftanoglu & Peng, 1982).
Egg laying
Some physiological and behavioral changes occurred after queen mating (Tanaka & Hartfelder, 2004), and changes in the ovaries happen faster than changes in the brain (Kocher et al., 2008). The newly mated queens take a period prior to the onset of egg laying. This period ranges from 5 days up to 4 weeks (Cobey, 2007; Moritz & Kuhnert, 1984; Tibor et al., 1987). This depends greatly on mating conditions, season, and temperature inside the colonies (Schluns et al., 2005; Woyke & Jasinski, 1990), and distance from the apiary at which mating occurred (Peer, 1957). The queen can lay up to 1500 eggs per day, but this number varies according to many factors including season, colony strength, and diseases prevalence (Moore et al., 2015). The queen normally lays one egg per cell. There are two types of eggs: fertilized (diploid) and unfertilized (haploid). The fertilized eggs are laid in small wax cells (worker cells), while the unfertilized ones are laid in relatively larger cells (drone cells). The sizes of the cells are greatly relying on the bee subspecies. Adding combs with large cells to colonies with small bees in size (e.g., Yemeni honey bees) can disturb the normal egg laying manner of the queens (Abou-Shaara, 2013). The role of cell size in egg laying ability of the queens needs detailed studies. Workers and queens are developed from fertilized eggs unlike drones. The queen has a physiological mechanism to control the fertilization of eggs. All eggs in worker cells are fertilized; hence, they are heterozygous at least on one microsatellite locus, while eggs from drone cells are unfertilized as eggs had a single band at the B124 locus (Ratnieks & Keller, 1998), and the complementary sex determiner gene must be heterozygous for female development (Beye et al., 2003). About one to ten spermatozoa are released per egg (Woyke et al., 1966). The number of sperms released per egg during fertilization worth further studies. The queen determines the population of drones rearing through regulating drone eggs production (Wharton et al., 2007). So far, there are no available comparisons among bee subspecies, and their hybrids regarding the ability of the queens to control the fertilization of eggs.
Drones are derived from unfertilized eggs. However, fertilized eggs laid in worker cells by inbred queens can produce low survival drone larvae (Woyke, 1964). Diploid drone larvae are mostly eaten alive by the workers instead of carrying them out of the hive (Woyke, 1963). Thus, adult drones from fertilized eggs are not seen in the hive. In very few cases and for temporary period, queens can lay more than one egg in single wax cells (Abou-Shaara, 2013). The pattern of egg laying differs from colony to colony. But in the perfect model, the queen should lay fertilized eggs at the center of the comb, while drone cells, pollen and honey at periphery. The brood pattern of a good queen should be circles of brood with the oldest brood in center while younger brood periphery with few skipped cells (Moore et al., 2015). The young queens lay more worker eggs than drone ones, while the older queens do the vice versa. Some queens could run out their stored sperms earlier than others. This point requires further investigations on bee subspecies.
Egg marking pheromones
The queen marks her eggs with specific signal which known as egg marking pheromone. Such signal is important to guide police workers to discriminate between eggs laid by the queen than those laid by the workers (Ratnieks, 1995). Workers are sterile but they can lay eggs in queenless colonies and in colonies headed by diseased or aged queens. Such workers are called egg laying workers. Large differences in gene expression between queens and sterile and reproductive workers (about 2000 genes) were found in brains as well as between sterile and reproductive workers (221 genes) (Grozinger et al., 2007). In fact, eggs laid by workers represented about 7% of the unfertilized eggs laid in the colonies (Visscher, 1996).
Queen eggs have diversity in the number of hydrocarbons and specific acetates of some fatty alcohols, alkenes and monomethyl alkanes than worker-laid eggs, while linear alkanes is coating all egg types (Katzav-Gozansky et al., 2003). Indeed, mating is not necessary for the queen to produce egg-marking signal (Beekman et al., 2004). Also, dufour gland is larger in queens than egg-laying workers, suggesting its role in reproduction (Abdalla & Cruz-Landim, 2001). Dufour’s gland secretion constitutes part of a complex queen signal (Katzav-Gozansky et al., 2001). The correlation between queen age and egg marking pheromones requires further deep investigations.
Pheromonal control
The honey bee queen has many pheromones but the main pheromone is queen mandibular pheromone (QMP) (also known as queen substance). The main component of QMP is 9-keto-2(
E)-decenoic acid (9-ODA). Mated queens produce 12–400 µg of 9-ODA/day, and retinue bees take the greatest amount (Naumann et al., 1991). The queen substance is surface transmitted by workers over transmission by food exchange, while airborne dispersal is a minor mechanism (Seeley, 1979). The most attractive body part of the queen to the workers is abdomen followed by head, and then thorax (Hazan et al., 1989). QMP is responsible for the ovary-regulating pheromonal capability of queens (Hoover et al., 2003). But pheromones of mandibular gland are not suspected to be as indicators of queen reproductive value (Strauss et al., 2008). Other pheromones are also used by the queen to control the colony beside QMP (Maisonnasse et al., 2010). Outside the colonies, the QMP has role in attracting drones to mate with the virgin queens (Butler & Fairey, 1964). Drones can detect queen pheromone from long distances (Loper et al., 1993). 9-ODA is suggested to be responsible for attracting drones from a long-distance (Wanner et al., 2007).
Inside the colony, this pheromone has many roles: preventing queen cell production by workers, control attendance behavior, inhabit ovary development of workers and regulating the work within the colony. QMP can prevent queen cell production completely for a short period (2 days) (Pettis et al., 1995), and beside other signals over 6 days (Winston et al., 1990). The other signals include tarsal secretion (Lensky et al., 1981) and brood-associated signal (Pettis et al., 1997). Queen mandibular gland is more attractive than tergal gland secretions, and secretions mixture of queen tergal gland and mandibular gland (Wossler & Crewe, 1999). Queen replacement can be partially prevented by extracts of queens or 9-ODA, while building of queen cells during the swarming season cannot be reduced by continuous treatment with 9-ODA (Boch & Lensky, 1976).
Another four compounds are account for the retinue attraction by queens beside QMP (Keeling et al., 2003). In fact, QMP allows attendance of the queen (Vergoz et al., 2009). However, attendance behavior perhaps has a genetic basis over linking with response to QMP (Pankiw et al., 1995). As reviewed by Trhlin and Rajchard (2011), queen retinue pheromone (QRP) is a releaser pheromone attracting bees to the queen and is a primer pheromone in inhibiting the ovary development of workers physiologically. On the contrary, QMP did not prevent ovary development in workers at any dose (Willis et al., 1990). Also, the composition of QMP is not related to ovarian development of workers (Plettner et al., 1993). However, extract of queen mandibular glands and synthetic (
E)-9-oxo-2-decenoic acid impacted caged queenless workers to the level of queen-right workers (Kaatz et al., 1992). It seems that studies are contradicted in regard to the role of QMP in inhibiting the ovary development of workers. Hence, more experiments are still needed on this specific point.
Various activities in the colony are influenced by the queen pheromones. Colonies with freely moving queens have more comb building activity (Gilley, 2001). Also, the ontogeny of foraging and division of labor of honey bees can be controlled by QMP (Pankiw et al., 1998). Honey bee foragers can be attracted to crops by applying suitable concentrations of QMP (Currie et al., 1992). The role of applying queen-derived pheromones including QMP in activating crops pollination by honey bees requires additional experiments. It is clear that QMP has many roles but still additional studies are required to cover its roles in organizing the activities of workers within the colony especially comb building and foraging behavior.
Swarming and absconding
Swarming is the natural phenomena of reproduction by honey bee colonies (Grozinger et al., 2014). In this particular case, many queen cells up to 20 or more are built up. The queens do not leave their colonies except in case of swarming or absconding. In general, swarming is happened during the active seasons. For example, the majority of swarming happened during the first 2 weeks in June in Ithaca, USA, with virgin queen or a young mated queen (Fell et al., 1977). The intensity of swarming is differed according to colony subfamilies resulted from multiple mating of the queen (Kryger & Moritz, 1997). Queen piping happened prior to colony swarming (Simpson & Cherry, 1969), and bees in one-nest-box started in piping and in takeoff earlier than five-nest-box trials (Seeley & Visscher, 2004). The roles of the mother queen in swarming of the colony needs shading more lights.
All the bees including the queen leave the colony and nesting in another place during absconding. This behavior is very harmful to beekeeping. Absconding happens when the colony is not in a suitable location for staying due to intensive attack of ants, hornets or other bee enemies, exposing the colony to harsh cold or hot conditions or continuous disturbing (Abou-Shaara et al., 2017). Also, the intensive infestation with wax moths may lead to colonies absconding (Tsegaye et al., 2014). Queen behavior during this abnormal situation has not been widely investigated.
Conclusion
This study highlighted the points that require further detailed studies. It is clear that researchers focused on some behaviors especially queen mating and pheromonal control more than other behaviors. Notably, swarming and absconding have gained little attention across honey bee subspecies. The effects of pesticides on queen behaviors are a fertile filed for future studies. Also, the transmission of diseases from drones to queens during mating as well as from queen to her offspring requires special attention due to the importance of this topic to honey bee health. This review is likely to be a helpful guide for researchers studying honey bee queens and teaching beekeeping management.
Availability of data and materials
All data that support the study are included in the manuscript.
Abbreviations QMP:
Queen mandibular pheromone
9-ODA:
9-Keto-2(
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Journal of Apicultural Research, 5, 71–78. Acknowledgements
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About this article Cite this article
Abou-Shaara, H.F., Adgaba, N. & Al-Ghamdi, A.A. Current knowledge about behaviors of honey bee queens with highlighting of the importance future studies.
JoBAZ 82, 37 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s41936-021-00234-x
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Keywords Honey bees Apis mellifera Queens Egg Ethology Pheromones | 39,560 | 14,792 | 103,759.418605 |
warc | 202143 | When people come to your restaurant, they have a few options of where to order from. They can either call you up and place their order over the phone. They can ask for it at the counter when they walk in. Or, if you're lucky enough to have an online menu, they might browse while sitting on their couch or waiting for their kids outside of school. With so many different ways people interact with your business these days, what does it mean if your restaurant doesn't have an online menu?
It means more people will be inconvenienced by not being able to find out about new specials or see all of the delicious dishes available at your establishment without having to make a call, stop by your restaurant, or frantically search through an old printed menu at home.
a) Lose the PDF
Why are so many restaurants still using this cumbersome menu format?
A PDF menu is helpful for reference, but it shouldn't be the primary way people interact with your menu online. Here are three reasons why a digital version of your restaurant's food and drinks will frustrate customers:
a) PDF menus are a thing of the past. They're inconvenient to download - some people won't even view your PDF menu if they don't want to bother downloading it for their browser window not to be cluttered with yet another file!
b) Plus, unlike live websites that can usually update themselves when necessary, static documents like pdfs take customers away from visiting your site instead of encouraging them on-site longer.
c) In the age of mobile, PDF menus are outdated. It's much easier to make quick changes with live sites instead of paper documents that can't be changed quickly enough; they're difficult to view on a small screen and not user-friendly when we're always viewing content online via our smartphones or tablets.
b) Use Real Food Images
Images can help you express your food in a way that words cannot. The images of dishes on the menu or those found at an eatery's website touch customers more than any other visual medium and should be used to their full potential when crafting menus online. Whether it is one image next to each dish showing off its mouthwatering presentation or two three professional shots scattered throughout the page highlighting ingredients from cooking videos - adding visuals like these will give people something they'll remember about your restaurant long after they've left.
c) Keep the Online Menu Simple
No one wants to stare at a cluster of words on their menu for five minutes before they can figure out what kind of food you offer or how much each item costs.
A popular design is the "one-page" concept, which keeps everything in easy reach and organized by meal type: breakfast, lunch, dinner, etcetera. If your establishment offers more than one option per category (e.g., oatmeal vs granola), I recommend splitting up menus according to morning/afternoon meals or evening light fare versus heartier entrees like steak Frites with fries – something that appeals to all tastes!
The simple design of your restaurant's menu will significantly impact whether or not potential customers visit and buy from you. The first step to making the most out of this medium is simplifying your menu presentation so that it's easy for customers to see what they want without feeling overwhelmed by too many words or images.
d) Make your online menu more interactive
Your online menu is your key to customer satisfaction. Add a call-to-action on every page so that it's easy for customers to order what they want with just one click!
Also, include the phone number and address of where you are located if any questions arise about picking up food or an item from our store.
e) Update the menu regularly
Why do customers hate when they call to order an item and find out it's no longer offered? This is problematic because not only is the customer's time wasted, but if their desire for that product remains strong, this could permanently turn them away.
Benefits of Online menu for restaurants It saves time! You can view everything right there without scrolling through pages or waiting in line. Your online menu gives customers more options than just calling in their order while on the go, making them less likely to abandon ship for another restaurant out of frustration. With an online menu, you're more likely to be found by customers than if there isn't one. You can change your menu often without having to reprint anything, even when it's last minute. Customers can order the foods in real-time with a call-to-action on the online menu. The menus are easy to update. Just add a new item when you change the menu or delete it if something is discontinued. | 4,699 | 2,250 | 9,755.124 |
warc | 202143 | It’s halfway through the trip now, and we have gotten the chance to experience Dubai. Between visiting the attractions and going to presentations, I have been able to better understand the hospitality available. Upon arriving one of the first things I noticed was how welcoming everyone is. From the check-in agents in the hotel to any of the servers at the restaurants, there is excellent service.
As part of understanding how Dubai runs its hospitality services, it is important to understand the culture. One presentation that really resonates with this was the speaker at Jumeirah Mosque. Nasif Kayed’s presentation on “Open Doors, Open Minds” really did allow for us to ask questions that we would normally shy away from asking. He had a great insight into what it is to be Muslim and what Islam is.
Dubai is located in an Islamic county so, when an industry like tourism is involved, there is going go be people from all over the world with different customs. As a tourist it’s important to understand that we must respect the religious teachings that govern over day to day life in an Islamic state, and by having someone explain the religion and culture, it makes it easier to go in with an open mind. As someone who is looking to work in this industry, knowing about different cultures makes it easier to understand someone’s needs and would help me attend to their needs.
The Spice Market and the Gold Market was a beautiful area to visit. It brought a touch of the old Dubai to the new city everyone believes it is. The streets were old and clean, and the people that resided in them were far from the polished look in downtown Dubai. I enjoyed going through the souks and getting a hands-on approach to the bargaining that takes place. I have never bargained before and I learned that it wasn’t as easy to do in a foreign currency. Even with these challenged I enjoyed learning from our tour guide some of the tips and tricks.
From New Dubai to Old Dubai there are infinite numbers of activities. This is a city with a “can do” attitude. It is clearly reflected in the way locals go around doing their business. There are no limitations here, and in the short time I’ve been here, I’ve enjoyed it. | 2,270 | 1,139 | 4,402.484636 |
warc | 202143 | Yes thats what we have discovered… Mattresses Naturepedic…Sleeping, for the majority of my life, was never much of an issue for me. I ‘d tuck myself in, close my eyes, and off I ‘d go to the Land of Nod. Last year, my previously unencumbered sleep dealt with an unforeseen challenge: periodic night sweats.
This doesn’t make me special. I had a decent air conditioning system that kept moisture at bay– that is, up until I got a new task and moved to a 50-year-old house in Cambridge, Mass., that, for all its vintage appeal, did not have central air.
This is how I landed upon the Chilipad Sleep System.
What is the Chilipad Sleep System? Mattresses Naturepedic
The Chilipad Sleep System is a mattress pad that links, through a long, flat tube, to a temperature-regulating cube. To use it, you put water into the cube (more details on that in a moment) and set a temperature from a dial on the cube or a remote control that includes it. The cube’s temperature variety is 55 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit (or 13 to 43 degrees Celsius), so you can make it cooler or hotter while you sleep. The cube is where the magic happens, cooling and heating water (depending upon what the user wants when they sleep), prior to pumping the temperature-controlled water through the tube into the pad, which is filled with smaller sized silicone tubes.
How much water does OOLER use?
On its website, the Chilipad’s producers declare sleeping on it increases sleep quality, makes users revitalized during the day, eradicates night sweats, and restores “natural rhythms” (this one is from a video review from person who composed a book called “Paleo Manifesto”). The rate for all this was what I thought was a quite high $499 for a half of a queen-size pad that covers one side of the bed, for when just one bed partner struggles with temperature-regulation issues, and approximately $1,199 for a California king with 2 separate temperature level settings. Armed with a business budget plan particularly designated for buying products so we can evaluate them out, I chose order one– the half queen size– so we might see for ourselves.
Setup was time-consuming, and a little confusing, thanks to a sparse instruction manual. I had to peel off my sheets from the bed, place the pad on the side of the mattress I generally sleep on, then re-make the bed– pretty straightforward for a mattress pad. I had to fish a thick, broad tube out from under the mat (an umbilical cable, in a sense) and plug it into the control cube, about the very same size as a space heating unit.
The way my mat was packaged, the tube was tucked along the underside of the mat and, based on what I saw in the instruction manual, I believed it was supposed to remain that method. When I linked the pieces, the part of the tube that predicted from the head of the bed was too short to permit the cube to rest on the flooring without tipping over. My bedroom isn’t tiny, but I do not have a lot of surface area– my nightstand is complete and my cabinets are rather tall– so I improvised by bringing my desk chair over to the foot of my bed and positioning the cube there.
Are Naturepedic mattresses worth it?
While it prevails understanding that the quality of the food we eat will affect the way we feel, the concept that what our mattress is made from has an effect on our health is still quite brand-new.
Originally established as one of the few choices for chemical-free and environmentally sustainable crib mattresses, Naturepedic is a leader in natural mattresses and bedding.
Naturepedic bed mattress are specifically created without hazardous chemicals and with organic materials. Mattress and bed linen choices are offered in sizes for grownups, kids, and children, with a range of bed mattress types, including innerspring, hybrid, and latex.
Within Naturepedic, mattress prices vary based on size, type, and collection. Like most organic brands, Naturepedic mattresses are pricey, due in large part to the high-quality materials used.
When buying a mattress online, you can expect to spend between $300 and $1,600 for a queen mattress depending on the brand.
Mattresses from brands like Naturepedic, which are made with high-quality materials and go through a rigorous certification process, tend to have luxury price tags, with an average queen costing $2,500.
Naturepedic has a wide range of mattresses in three collections, along with mattresses designed for kids’ beds and cribs. To make it easier to sort through, we have divided our reviews based on mattress collection: Chorus and Serenade, EOS, Halcyon, and kids and crib mattresses. Mattresses Naturepedic
Within Naturepedic, bed mattress prices differ based on type, collection, and size. Like the majority of organic brand names, Naturepedic bed mattress are expensive, due in large part to the top quality materials utilized.
When purchasing a bed mattress online, you can anticipate to spend between $300 and $1,600 for a queen mattress depending upon the brand name.
Bed mattress from brand names like Naturepedic, which are made with top quality materials and go through a rigorous accreditation process, tend to have high-end cost, with a typical queen costing $2,500.
Naturepedic has a wide variety of mattresses in 3 collections, along with mattresses developed for kids’ beds and cribs. To make it much easier to arrange through, we have actually divided our reviews based on mattress collection: Chorus and Serenade, EOS, Halcyon, and kids and crib bed mattress.
Is Naturepedic waterproof?
The most basic alternative sold by Naturepedic, the Chorus Organic Bed Mattress is a hybrid mattress with medium firmness, which the brand calls “universal convenience.” This mattress is only available in medium firmness, though the business states it’s made to fit all sleeping types.
Like all mattresses from the line, this Chorus bed mattress is made with natural products, including:
organic cotton fabric and fill
organic wool batting, which controls temperature and provides natural fire protection a layer of non-GMO polylactide (PLA), which is a soft polyester product that’s expected to resist body impressions individually framed coils that are made without glues or adhesives
Unlike most other Naturepedic bed mattress, this bed is made without latex, making it a good option for anyone with a latex allergic reaction.
Hybrid bed mattress have spring coils at their core for extra support and layers of foam for included convenience. The added support makes this type of bed mattress a good option for all body types, consisting of those who weigh over 230 pounds.
While this mattress is advertised for all sleeping types, some individuals might not find the medium firmness rather universal adequate to fit their needs.
Reviewers rate this bed incredibly high, with an average of 4.8 stars. The majority of state this mattress is very comfy, though some state it’s softer than preferred.
Pillowtop have zippers that enable you to switch out particular layers to tailor comfort and maximize sturdiness. You can likewise pick different comfort levels for either side of the bed mattress, which can be an incredible choice if you sleep with a partner.
As hybrid bed mattress, their spring coils offer additional assistance, making them ideal for people with greater body weight and those who need more spine support. They’re also thicker than basic mattresses, which includes much more assistance and makes it easier to get in and out of bed. It likewise develops a more glamorous feel.
The main difference in between the two mattresses remains in the name: The added pillow top makes for a thicker mattress and also produces an additional layer for personalization. The Pillowtop version likewise is available in an ultra plush firmness choice, making this an excellent choice for anybody that likes a softer mattress.
Customers of all sleeping types rate these bed mattress highly. They state they assist provide support for pain in the back which they can’t feel the split in the bed mattress where comfort levels varied. They also say they deserve the investment. Mattresses Naturepedic | 8,289 | 3,582 | 18,787.937186 |
warc | 202143 | Yes thats what we have discovered… Naturepedic Buybuy Baby…Sleeping, for the majority of my life, was never much of a problem for me. I ‘d tuck myself in, close my eyes, and off I ‘d go to the Land of Nod. Last year, my previously unencumbered sleep dealt with an unforeseen barrier: occasional night sweats.
This doesn’t make me special. I had a decent air conditioning system that kept moisture at bay– that is, up until I got a brand-new task and moved to a 50-year-old home in Cambridge, Mass., that, for all its vintage charm, did not have main air.
This is how I landed upon the Chilipad Sleep System.
What is the Chilipad Sleep System? Naturepedic Buybuy Baby
The Chilipad Sleep System is a bed mattress pad that links, via a long, flat tube, to a temperature-regulating cube. The cube’s temperature level variety is 55 to 110 degrees Fahrenheit (or 13 to 43 degrees Celsius), so you can make it cooler or hotter while you sleep.
How much water does OOLER use?
On its website, the Chilipad’s producers declare sleeping on it increases sleep quality, makes users refreshed during the day, eliminates night sweats, and restores “natural rhythms” (this one is from a video review from man who wrote a book called “Paleo Manifesto”). The price for all this was what I thought was a quite high $499 for a half of a queen-size pad that covers one side of the bed, for when simply one bed partner suffers from temperature-regulation problems, and approximately $1,199 for a California king with 2 different temperature settings. Equipped with a business budget plan specifically designated for buying items so we can evaluate them out, I decided order one– the half queen size– so we might see for ourselves.
Setup was lengthy, and a little complicated, thanks to a sparse user’s manual. I needed to peel my sheets from the bed, put the pad on the side of the mattress I usually sleep on, then re-make the bed– pretty simple for a mattress pad. I had to fish a thick, broad tube out from under the mat (an umbilical cord, in a sense) and plug it into the control cube, about the very same size as an area heating system.
This is where I ran into a problem. The method my mat was packaged, the tube was tucked along the underside of the mat and, based on what I saw in the instruction manual, I believed it was expected to remain that way. So, when I linked the pieces, the part of television that predicted from the head of the bed was too short to enable the cube to rest on the floor without toppling. I required some method to raise it. My bed room isn’t tiny, however I don’t have a ton of surface area area– my nightstand is complete and my dressers are rather tall– so I improvised by bringing my desk chair over to the foot of my bed and positioning the cube there. This worked fine, however didn’t look fantastic, and made it hard to browse around my room.
Are Naturepedic mattresses worth it?
While it’s common understanding that the quality of the food we consume will impact the method we feel, the concept that what our mattress is made from has an influence on our health is still pretty new.
Initially established as one of the few choices for chemical-free and environmentally sustainable crib bed mattress, Naturepedic is a leader in natural mattresses and bed linen.
Naturepedic bed mattress are particularly developed without hazardous chemicals and with organic materials. Mattress and bedding choices are available in sizes for grownups, babies, and kids, with a series of mattress types, including innerspring, hybrid, and latex.
Within Naturepedic, mattress prices vary based on size, type, and collection. Like most organic brands, Naturepedic mattresses are pricey, due in large part to the high-quality materials used.
When buying a mattress online, you can expect to spend between $300 and $1,600 for a queen mattress depending on the brand.
Mattresses from brands like Naturepedic, which are made with high-quality materials and go through a rigorous certification process, tend to have luxury price tags, with an average queen costing $2,500.
Naturepedic has a wide range of mattresses in three collections, along with mattresses designed for kids’ beds and cribs. To make it easier to sort through, we have divided our reviews based on mattress collection: Chorus and Serenade, EOS, Halcyon, and kids and crib mattresses. Naturepedic Buybuy Baby
Within Naturepedic, bed mattress prices differ based on type, collection, and size. Like most natural brands, Naturepedic bed mattress are expensive, due in large part to the high-quality products utilized.
When purchasing a mattress online, you can expect to spend between $300 and $1,600 for a queen mattress depending on the brand.
Mattresses from brand names like Naturepedic, which are made with top quality materials and go through a strenuous accreditation procedure, tend to have high-end price, with a typical queen costing $2,500.
Naturepedic has a large range of bed mattress in 3 collections, together with bed mattress created for kids’ baby cribs and beds. To make it simpler to arrange through, we have divided our reviews based on bed mattress collection: Chorus and Serenade, EOS, Halcyon, and kids and crib mattresses.
Is Naturepedic waterproof?
The most fundamental alternative offered by Naturepedic, the Chorus Organic Bed Mattress is a hybrid bed mattress with medium firmness, which the brand calls “universal comfort.” This bed mattress is just offered in medium firmness, though the company says it’s made to suit all sleeping types.
Like all mattresses from the line, this Chorus bed mattress is made with organic materials, consisting of:
natural cotton material and fill
natural wool batting, which manages temperature and offers natural fire security a layer of non-GMO polylactide (PLA), which is a soft polyester material that’s supposed to resist body impressions separately enclosed coils that are made without glues or adhesives
Unlike a lot of other Naturepedic mattresses, this bed is made without latex, making it an excellent alternative for anyone with a latex allergic reaction.
Hybrid mattresses have spring coils at their core for extra assistance and layers of foam for included comfort. The included assistance makes this kind of bed mattress a great choice for all body types, consisting of those who weigh over 230 pounds.
While this mattress is promoted for all sleeping types, some people may not find the medium firmness rather universal sufficient to fit their needs.
Reviewers rate this bed exceptionally high, with an average of 4.8 stars. The majority of state this mattress is really comfy, though some state it’s softer than chosen.
Pillowtop have zippers that allow you to change out specific layers to tailor convenience and maximize sturdiness. You can likewise pick different comfort levels for either side of the bed mattress, which can be a remarkable choice if you sleep with a partner.
As hybrid bed mattress, their spring coils provide additional assistance, making them perfect for individuals with higher body weight and those who need more spine assistance. They’re also thicker than standard bed mattress, which includes much more assistance and makes it simpler to get in and out of bed. It also produces a more elegant feel.
The main difference in between the two mattresses remains in the name: The included pillow top makes for a thicker mattress and likewise creates an extra layer for personalization. The Pillowtop variation also comes in an ultra plush firmness alternative, making this a great pick for anyone that likes a softer bed mattress.
Reviewers of all sleeping types rate these mattresses highly. They state they assist supply assistance for neck and back pain which they can’t feel the split in the bed mattress where comfort levels differed. They also state they deserve the investment. Naturepedic Buybuy Baby | 8,063 | 3,493 | 18,173.489551 |
warc | 202143 | If you’re investing in a home, selecting a realtor may be the main decision you make. A great realtor can help ensure that you will be notified of homes that meet all of your criteria. A great agent will also answer your questions and will walk you through the buying process, which will be an important service for first-time homebuyers. Despite all of this, most buyers choose their agent in a completely haphazard way, simply falling into a connection with the first realtor they encounter. A much better strategy is to complete some sleuthing to uncover the agent who will truly help you discover that perfect property. You’ll find the right professional by:
1) Interviewing candidates. It might look like a lot of work, but comparing different real-estate agents from different agencies can quickly show you which agents you respond better to and which ones seem to provide the most effective service. Interviews also enable you to assess experience, education, and other factors important in a good real-estate agent.
2) Checking qualifications and sales. Look for a realtor who has some experience and has been on the job good enough to own expertise in the area. Ideally, you would like someone who has worked as a real estate agent for decades in exactly the same area and has an impressive sales record. In most community, you will generally locate a few agents who perform well simply because they know what they’re doing and are proficient at what they do. Try to find these agents and check to ensure that no complaints have already been filed about them with the State Board of Realtors.
3) Lining up personalities. Buying real-estate is highly emotional, so it is important to get someone you’re compatible with. Look for a realtor you can really communicate with. If your personalities don’t match novaland, you could feel that your realtor isn’t doing enough for you personally and your realtor gets frustrated that you will be not placing any bids. Find somebody that registers a top comfort level with you and you can avoid these problems.
4) Making sure that your realtor is creative. Your agent will use the Multiple Listing Service (M.L.S.) to get homes, but he or she must also use their knowledge, contacts and experience to get homes that match your needs. You don’t want someone who is able to simply run simplistic searches you can run yourself from home.
5) Ensuring that your agent knows the area. A realtor who knows the area where you hope to buy can allow you to know what can be obtained and at what prices.
6) Checking customer support before you enter right into a relationship. Real estate agents are busy people, but they ought to still manage to provide you with good care. Your telephone calls must be returned, your concerns must be addressed and you should be able to contact your realtor when you need to. If your agent uses an associate, you’ll need to ensure it is the realtor themselves who will handle all use contracts along with the closing. That is what you are paying your realtor for. Avoid agents who seem distracted, disorganized, and are incapable of communicate with you personally. You might find that your home buying experience suffers with these types of agents.
The good thing is that there are many of terrific, highly qualified real-estate agents out there. Given that guess what happens to look for, you can hunt them up and have superlative help if it is time for you yourself to buy property. | 3,506 | 1,652 | 7,336.708232 |
warc | 202143 | High-volume call centers need certainly to hire new employees quickly. When a new call center opens up or seasonal help will become necessary, it is essential to hire qualified call center employees fast. Call center recruiting software is crucial to helping weed out unqualified applicants and find the best people for the job. Call center recruiting software will help recruiters reduce the amount of unsuccessful interviews they conduct, hire more qualified applicants faster, and save the business time and money.
Call center recruiting software programs may be used to eliminate unqualified applicants early in the recruiting process. The program can filter applicants who don’t have the proper work experience, education, or skills required for the call center position. The program identifies the resumes of those candidates in order that recruiters don’t discover they’re not qualified later in the hiring process. This permits recruiters to only interview candidates that meet all the mandatory requirements for the job.
Call center recruiting software makes the recruiting and hiring process proceed much faster. The program programs enable recruiters to instantly view an applicant’s resume and contact information without having post job to sort through any paper applications or resumes. Since call center recruiting software weeds out unqualified applicants and highlights qualified candidates, recruiters do not need to waste time on unqualified applicants and can skip ahead to the best candidates.
Quicker, better hiring allows companies to save time and money. The organization does not need to get the services of a recruiting firm if they can use call center recruiting software to fill any vacancies. All of the software programs are user-friendly enough that companies can designate some current employees to locate new hires.
Call center recruiting software enables companies to hire qualified call center operators quickly. The program saves the business money and finds the best applicants and weeds out unqualified candidates. | 2,078 | 880 | 4,845.518182 |
warc | 202143 | Imagine that you are a special education teacher that is also a licensed speech–language pathologist (SLP). You were recently hired by a large school district as a language development specialist to support the teachers and school staff that work with children with learning disabilities and language and development disorders within the district. The Director of Special Education Services wants all teachers and support staff to receive a refresher training on language acquisition and language disorders and has assigned this task to you.
Create a self-led training presentation that addresses the following: Key components in the acquisition of language Examples and characteristics of common language disorders seen in school-age children Tools and strategies used to support these children in the classroom Linguistic and cultural influence Note: You may choose a delivery medium from the Technology Resource Library located on the College of Education Resources page, or use another medium as approved by your instructor. Some possibilities include Google Slides, Glogster, Piktochart®, Popplet, Powtoon, Prezi®, and Smore. Include the following in your presentation: A timeline showing at least 10 milestones in language acquisition Signs that may indicate a child has a language disorder Differences between developmental and acquired language disorders Characteristics of 3 to 5 language disorders seen in school-age children Description of 2 to 3 assessment tools used to diagnose language disorders Description of 3 to 5 strategies or tools used to support students with language disorders in the regular classroom Relationship between linguistically and culturally diverse learners and language disorders
38.
The post Language Acquisition and Disorders Presentation first appeared on COMPLIANT PAPERS. | 1,834 | 882 | 3,771.968254 |
warc | 202143 | RUAS project aims at giving the municipalities in Paraná access to higher quality projects, template details and budget using artificial intelligence on PARANAINTERATIVO web platform, focusing on accessibility, sustainability, mobility, reducing time for analysis and approval, allowing a higher amount of investments. The same model will be the basis for a SDG-based Urban Quality Certificate.
For the full understanding of the project’s feasibility, the institutional framework of PARANACIDADE is important to be presented. PARANACIDADE is a company that has a contract with the Secretariat of Urban Development and Public Works for the management of the Urban Development Fund in the state. The Fund finances urban infrastructure works, municipal plans and supports actions for municipalities in the state of Paraná, enabling the urban policy defined by these municipalities with support from the state government. Projects are defined by the municipalities and sent for analysis to PARANACIDADE, most frequently and in great amount for urban design projects - paving, sidewalks and drainage systems of public streets. Once approved, they are bid and executed with financial resources from the Fund and PARANACIDADE technical supervision until final receipt. Municipalities repay the financing to the Fund, whose interests pay PARANACIDADE, investors and increase the Fund for future works and investments. RUAS project is divided into five phases; the first, feasibility, has already been completed and briefly presents the following data. The feasibility analysis showed that most of the municipalities of the state do not have architects and engineers who work exclusively with urban projects, nor can devote themselves to detailed studies of urban design. Very often constructive projects are outsourced, but with no, or insufficient studies by the municipalities. Frequent problems within this process are lack of clear details, proposals with poor urban quality, errors in accessibility projects, low concern for sustainability, delayed project delivery after financial approval, repetitive project analysis of similar details. In some cases, municipalities miss the deadlines and do not deliver the necessary projects, losing access to resources. The analysis also identified that, in the state of Paraná, there are still about 9,500km of streets that require requalification with paving, drainage, accessibility and landscaping. Most of these streets are in municipalities and neighborhoods with lower income population and, in some cases, in environmental fragility areas. For this demand, the total volume of investments would be approximately US$ 2.5 billion. The project focuses on the streets in the municipalities with the greatest technical need and in the neighborhoods with the lowest income population and environmental fragility. For these priority areas, the required investment would be approximately US$ 800 million. Investments in the accessibility of urban center streets that require improvements to comply with federal legislation and standards are the other focus of the project. Especially in the small municipalities, about 500km of public streets and walkways require sidewalk adaptation works, requiring investments of around US$ 70 million. The technical proposal of the RUAS project is to use PARANAINTERATIVO platform, which gathers georeferenced information from the municipalities of Paraná and already open to the public, including streets axis, as a tool for project development. The technical details will be defined by PARANACIDADE and made available for urban design, filtering the best templates for the reality of the streets to be requalified, which can be carried out with greater speed, quality, performing accessibility and sustainability solutions and ease of analysis and approval by PARANACIDADE. The solutions will be classified in a score system in order to create, at a later stage of the project, SDG-based Urban Quality Certificate. Feasibility phase is complete.
RUAS project is in the second phase: development of the tools, technical and executive project details base to be used in the PARANAINTERATIVO platform. The score system for the Urban Quality Certificate and its use as state grants for the best municipal projects are to be studied too.
Phase three: pilot projects and studies to be conducted for Platform refinement;
Phase four: general implementation and feedback
Phase five: SDG-based Urban Quality Certificate model detailing and mapping of the existed Urban Qualities in the municipalities in PARANAINTERATIVO for urban planning efforts and investment decision making
Advanced Design: Clear funding requirements, operational feasibility. Financial model exists.
Yes, there is a timeline.
The Project milestones are the development of the platform to be mature mid 2020; construction and implementation of pilot projects until the end of 2020; Project refinement and general implementation to begin in 2021.
The project was designed to improve the quality of urban design and engineering projects, with eligibility requirements linked to a certification system. The focus is on sustainability and accessibility, applied by a system of points that can be monitored and ranked in the state of Paraná: quality of urban design, accountability, local dregane systems (sponge cities concept), local funding, improvements in street lighting, mobility and local waste reuse and treatment.
RUAS Project may be adopted in every urban area, nonetheless, low urban quality areas will be primarily focused, such as low income neighborhoods and environmentally fragile areas. Accessible routes (as defined by federal legislation) in dense urban public spaces affect many people, specially disabled people, in the cities, even who don’t live downtown. Considering these, at least 3 million people might be affected.
SDG 6 – Clean Water and Sanitation.
Sanitation is mandatory in the general investments on urban infrastructure in use; what the Project intends to advance is on alternative drainage systems like rain gardens or permeable pavement, allowing groundwater recharge;
SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure.
There is potential to increase infrastructure investments if the gap between financial resources approval and executive projects is filled with quality and focus on accessibility and sustainability. The tool in development is innovative in the sense that it provides municipal technicians the means to study, plan and create projects with templates designed concerning the SDGs, as well as the Urban Quality Certificate;
SDG 10 – Reduced Inequality.
Inequality in urban infrastructure is linked to income. The Project aims at creating means to allow investments on low income cities and neighborhoods at lower costs and more quality. One of the objectives is to reduce urban infrastructure inequality. Another way of reducing inequality is with accessible projects, giving equitable opportunities for mobility.
SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities.
The Project rationale is based on sustainable projects and solutions, as well as accessibility and urban design.
SDG 17 – Partnerships to achieve the Goals.
PARANACIDADE has some partnerships with different organizations, such as the United Nations, Inter-American Development Bank and other institutions. The platform may be used by other institutions to improve urban projects and to be improved by the know-how of experts who apply the tool.
The platform assists project development, but it will not achieve a good result if the technicians of the municipalities do not do the research and basic studies with quality;
There is a risk that the platform will be used without the final review and refinement, as if it were enough for cost sheets and technical details; Project development will depend on ongoing system, technical details and budget spreadsheets maintenance and updating; The RUAS project cannot be more laborious and complicated than traditional project methodologies, otherwise it will not achieve the objective of increasing the amount of resources to be invested; At least initially, the project aims at simpler projects for municipalities that have technical difficulties in preparing technical projects. The most structured municipalities and the most complex streets and avenues do not fall within the initial scope of the program.
PARANACIDADE’s institutional and operational framework and the state urban Development Fund have been maintaining different programs over the past 25 years. Two complete programs have already been carried out with international organizations and Parana Urbano 3 program (just as an example of continuity) is in advanced level, in partnership with the Inter-American Development Bank.
Debt
Entirely Publicly Financed
Internal investment made by PARANACIDADE
Yes. $50,000,000.00
RUAS platform on PARANAINTERATIVO needs investments on artificial intelligence, information technology and expert detailing and know-how: US$ 400.000,00. RUAS project implementation may reach US$ 100 million per year. The Urban Development Fund of the state of Parana may cover about 60% of this amount, the other 40% that could increase the investments may be of interest by investors. Importantly, the Urban Development Fund already operates about US$ 80 million every year in investments in municipal projects. RUAS Project intends to improve some of these investments and increase the amount.
N/A
The main areas that need to be developed are in artificial intelligence, integrating our planning tool called Parana Interativo, and the development of the Certification System for Sustainable and Accessible Projects in Urban Planning and Urban Design
Yes. Subnational/regional level.
The state government guarantees the Urban Development Fund and the institutional functioning of PARANACIDADE, as well as other resources invested in specific programs. The use of investment grants for the best projects to achieve better results in search of the SDGs is under study.
No national entity involved.
PARANACIDADE Autonomous Social Service.
Key contact: David Pierin, Urban Development Analyst. Álvaro Cabrini, CEO Camila Scucato - COO
Regional level involved.
The state government guarantees the Urban Development Fund and the institutional functioning of PARANACIDADE, as well as other resources invested in specific programs. The use of investment grants for the best projects to achieve better results in search of the SDGs is under study.
Cities Investment Platform in progress - updates pending
Project featured on the Cities Investment Platform, which was launched at the Tenth Session of the World Urban Forum (WUF10)
No supporting documents included. | 10,844 | 4,271 | 27,248.37462 |
warc | 202143 | The path to financial inclusion holds different marketplace barriers and opportunities in different countries, but the push continues because of proof that an increase in economic activities among the financially vulnerable can reawaken a comatose economy. For Nigeria, the last three years have seen significant growth of the financial inclusion rate from 56.8% in 2016 to 63.2% in 2018. FirstBank’s *894# USSD banking service is playing a key role in it.
FirstBank’s *894# USSD banking initiative is already averaging about 99 million transactions monthly, with a naira worth of (N’m) 370,543 on these transactions. This figure includes the undergraduate doing a mobile airtime recharge; the trader receiving a mobile payment from a customer; the IT person hurriedly buying a data bundle to keep business afloat; the anxious father paying his daughter’s hospital bills for treatment to commence, and the busy worker in Lagos transferring money to his parents in the village since he cannot get to a banking hall.
This is just a rough sampling of the financial transactions that amounted to over N3.6 trillion in transaction value on the *894# USSD banking service in 2020. There is practically no financial emergency that the USSD service does not come in.
The problems that the *894# USSD service from First Bank of Nigeria Limited is solving is the only justification for the rapid traction it has gained since it was introduced in 2015. It is easy to see Nigerians trust and confidence in the USSD system, with the Bank rapidly growing from 9.5 million customers on the USSD feature to 12.26 million customers within the last year. Over 1.02 million of the figure, are customers who registered in the first 6 months of 2021.
The first and perhaps the most attractive feature of USSD banking has got to be that it can be done from any kind of phone and without any form of internet connectivity. Although smartphones are getting more common, there is still a high poverty rate and many financially vulnerable people who cannot access internet banking. The internet penetration in Nigeria is still below the ideal, so users have to deal with poor internet connections in some areas.
That is why this kind of banking service that can be accessed without internet connectivity is ideal for the financial inclusion drive. The *894# USSD feature can be used across the four major GSM network operators in the country, meaning there is no added demand on the users.
Getting started on the service is as easy as dialling *894*0#, and creating a pin. With that done, you can do airtime and data purchase for yourself and other parties, transfer funds to other accounts, make a BVN enquiry, check your account balance and get a mini statement.
For non-customers, this feature allows you to open a bank account in a couple of minutes without having to visit the banking hall. You can open a bank account, receive your account number immediately and start transactions on it right away. The claims of “instant banking, anytime, anywhere” can’t get more real than this.
There is even an added security step, requesting a second-factor authentication (2FA) for transfers above N20,000 as a way to secure customers from being ripped off their funds. There is a cumulative maximum daily transfer limit of N100,000 to both FirstBank and other banks accounts.
How does FirstBank USSD improve the lives of Nigerians?
For one, the data being generated through this service is sufficient to help the bank understand its current and prospective customers and develop products that suit them.
Traders and small businesses can also get a Merchant ID which customers can use to make payments for products and services. This of course is better than having to send one’s account details to countless customers, even without knowing whether or not they are ready to make their purchase.
To ensure customers can meet emergency needs before month-end, the Bank’s FirstAdvance service is at their fingertips. FirstAdvance is a digital lending solution designed to offer convenient and easy access to cash for payroll customers awaiting payment of their salaries.
Offered through the Bank’s USSD Banking service and leading banking app product, FirstMobile, customers are exposed to a range of loan offerings which put them at an edge in meeting immediate financial needs. To initiate the service through the USSD banking service, the customer is to dial – USSD CODE-*894*11# or *894#. The service is open to customers with a salary account domiciled with the Bank and have received salaries for the last 6 months at the least.
There are much more about FirstBank’s *894# USSD banking that puts customers at a distinct advantage in carrying out their daily personal, financial and business activities; meeting unforeseen emergencies, and carrying out a wide range of transactions – with so much fun and convenience – irrespective of where they are in the country.
UBA Announces Winners of the 7th Bumper Savings Account Promo
Pan African financial institution, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, has again rewarded its loyal customers in its Bumper Savings Promo in line with its unwavering commitment towards prioritizing its customers’ financial well-being as well as boosting savings culture in Nigeria.
Since the bank commenced the promo in 2020, over 200 winners have emerged from the initiative that continues to reward loyalty and encourage customers to cultivate a savings habit that helps to stay afloat especially during challenging times.
The promo is open to account holders of the bank from the six geographical zones in Nigeria, and customers only need to open a UBA Bumper account and save a minimum of N5000 in a month to qualify. The more multiples of N5000 they saved, the higher their chances of winning cash prizes and other juicy benefits.
The electronic raffle draw, which is the 7th since inception, was held at Kairo’s Hub on Wednesday, and was witnessed by relevant regulatory bodies including the National Lottery Regulatory Commission and Consumer Protection Council who were on ground to ensure transparency and accountability.
Winners who emerged from the draw, include Olunwa Osita Ambrose who smiled home with the star prize of a whooping N2m, while Saheed Adeshina Adediran won N1.2m rent for a year. Adewunmi Olaniyi Sobowale, another lucky winner got a 500k shopping allowance.
Others who equally smiled home with N100,000 cash prizes were; Bayode Peter Oluwaseun, Archibong Unyime Gift, Yakubu Fali, Alaegbu Promise Uchenna, Onyenwenyi Chidimma Confidence, Maria Obianuju Onyeneke, Emmanuel Kalu, Aramide Afolabi Temitope, Ijeoma Juliet Okika, Taiwo Micheal Odofin, Daina Ochekema Egbe, Ighodalo Thompson, Mercy Effiong, Alice Gabriel, Imrana Bello, Onyedika Promise Umeji, Uzoma Chibuike Timothy, Adewole James Idowu, Opeyemi John Kolawole and Israel Ojima Daniel.
Olunwa Osita Ambrose who won N2m could not hide his excitement when he was contacted over the phone. He screamed, “Thank You God” over and over and took time to appreciate UBA for the wonderful gesture saying; “This is indeed great. Thank you UBA. You people cannot understand the great impact you have made in my life with this reward. It will transform my life greatly. May God almighty bless this bank and all those who conceptualized the UBA Bumper Account Savings Promo,” Ambrose gushed excitedly. “I am committed to UBA for life,” he concluded.
UBA’s Head of Personal Banking, Ogechi Altraide, who presented gifts to some of the winners who were physically present at the event told customers that UBA places them at the very heart of its business which, according to her, is why the bank remains passionate about their overall success and added that this has consistently been proven in numerous ways which is why the bank has continually invested in cutting-edge technology to improve its service delivery and its overall aim of delighting customers.
She said, “With customer-centric promos like the UBA Bumper promo, we have created an ever-increasing list of millionaires who continue to join the UBA customer millionaire club. For this edition of the promo, we decided to pick the month of October, which is the month of independence commemoration so we can give more Nigerians reasons to cheer while celebrating the country’s independence anniversary”.
“We know that this promo will put lasting smiles on the faces of our customers and will also assure them that UBA truly values them’” Altraide said.
Head, Marketing, Diana Ubah also spoke of UBA’s passionate commitment to give back to its customers especially during these challenging economic periods, where people need all the support they can get to make life more meaningful.
“I have witnessed a lot of events like this and I must say the happiness and live to change moments that comes with a customer getting an unexpected reward is indeed a special one! To this end, I encourage those who are yet to join the winning team, should do so quickly. Without any iota of doubt, you always win with UBA” said Ubah.
United Bank for Africa Plc is a leading Pan-African financial institution, offering banking services to more than twenty-one million customers, across over 1,000 business offices and customer touchpoints, in 20 African countries.
With a presence in the United States of America, the United Kingdom and France, UBA is connecting people and businesses across Africa through retail; commercial and corporate banking; innovative cross-border payments and remittances; trade finance and ancillary banking services
FINTECH SUMMIT 5.0: FIRSTBANK TO HIGHLIGHTS THE IMPACT OF OPEN BANKING ON FINANCIAL INCLUSION
First Bank of Nigeria Limited, Nigeria’s leading financial inclusion services provider, has announced that the 2021 edition of its annual FINTECH Summit is scheduled to hold on Thursday, 7 October 2021 by 10:00 am. The virtual event is opened to everyone, but participants are required to register via the link https://firstbanknigeria.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_NmkYfeckQqu4vjTWy5lr5w
The 2021 edition of the summit which is the fifth in its series is themed; “Open Banking and its Derivative Opportunities for the Financial Ecosystem” and will be discussed by experts, policy influencers, regulatory officials as well as key and leading players in the Nigerian financial, banking and technology climate.
Prof Ndubuisi Ekekwe, the Lead Faculty of Tekedia Institute with a PhD in engineering from John Hopkins University, USA, will be leading the discussion as the Keynote speaker alongside other panelists; Ankit Sharma, Director at Strategy&, a part of the PwC network, based out of Mexico; Ope Adeoye
, CEO (Chief Plumber) at One Pipe ; Aminu Maida , Executive Director, Technology & Operations at Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System Plc (NIBSS),
The need for Open Banking in Nigeria cannot be overemphasized as the importance goes beyond just convenience to its game-changing impact in transforming value creation, product conceptualization and closing the financially excluded gap.
Through standardized and accessible open API technologies, innovators and product developers alike are now availed a wealth of big data and attendant insights, with the potential to completely redefine standards for product conceptualization, customer satisfaction and service delivery across Africa’s largest economy. This is the focus of this year’s theme; exploring the depth and range of these derivative opportunities set to be triggered by the application of an Open Banking regime in the country.
Building up conversations into the event, the Bank recently hosted several podcasts with speakers sharing insightful tips that will impact an end–to–end growth of financial technology in the country. The podcasts are enhanced with useful nuggets as there is new and useful information for everyone.
Guests discussants in the podcasts include; Joshua Chibueze, Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of PiggyVest, a Nigerian FinTech company committed to giving everyone the power to better manage their growth and finances; David Peterside, Chief Operating Officer of Okra, a fintech company committed to empowering companies and developers to build products with seamless access to inclusive financial data and secure payments. The podcasts which are opened to everyone are available on the Bank’s official Instagram handle –
firstbanknigeria.
Speaking on the event, the Chief Executive Officer of FirstBank, Dr Adesola Adeduntan said, “our annual FinTech Summit in the past four years has been a platform of leading conversations and practices that have impacted the financial technology and electronic banking eco-system which has been integral to bridging the gap and digital divide of modern banking in today’s global village. Participants at our summits have been enlightened on ways to optimally carry out their digital transactions and business activities in safe and seamless ways.
Financial services have continually evolved in Nigeria and the world over and we intend as in previous years to use our FinTech summit this year to discuss different views on Open Banking and its associated opportunities with the goal of building on the successes achieved in the past’’.
.
FINTECH 5.0: EVALUATING HOW FIRSTBANK STRENGTHENS COLLABORATION
…To drive financial inclusion
It was Sir Isaac Newton, in his letter to Robert Hooke in 1675, who wrote the now-famous quote: “If I have seen further (than others), it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”The shoulders of giants Sir Newton referred to has to do with leverage provided by the discoveries and experiences of people who have gone before or walked that same path earlier, that pave the way for and enable other people and a new generation to take things to a totally new dimension.
The truth is, giants whose shoulders provide such leverage to the next generation can be found in various fields and various nations. In Nigeria, for example, such giants exist in various fields and they are known and recognised.
Take the fintech (financial technology) space in Nigeria, where one bank is known to have stood as a giant with very broad shoulders, having capacities that have been built up and accumulated over 127 continuous years. Every year since 2016 (apart from 2017 when it was implementing ideas from 2016, including a Digital Innovation Lab), this well-recognised bank has provided a platform for the most robust engagement of the fintech industry in Nigeria. Tagged Fintech Summit, the annual engagement has continued to help in catalysing the fintech sector to ever-higher levels from year to year.
Held in Lagos the commercial capital of Nigeria and arguably the fintech capital of Africa, given Nigeria’s status as the leading nation in the fintech space in Africa, the annual FirstBank Fintech Summit has attracted an average of a thousand participants, who are mostly fintech owners, workers and enthusiasts, yearly. Last year’s Summit, Fintech Summit 4.0 with the theme
“How Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence will Disrupt Fintech in Nigeria”, however, drew an unprecedented number of participants – over 6,000 from across 52 different countries. It was the first virtual Summit due to the restrictions imposed because of the COVID-19 pandemic and it featured as keynote speaker Silicon Valley-based innovator of international repute, Chinedu Echeruo, who founded HopStop that was later sold to Apple for US$1 billion. Imagine the inspiration, dreams and aspirations young people soak up while listening to speakers with such a profile.
Far from being one-directional – with all the talk flowing from only the speaker to the audience – the yearly Summit is actually a platform for multidimensional engagement involving various stakeholders in the fintech industry – operators, regulators, investors, enthusiasts, fintech journalists and writers, bankers, et cetera.
It offers an unequalled opportunity for networking among fintech and other stakeholders, leading to opportunities for collaboration within the community. For small businesses and start-ups powered by FirstBank’s support, the annual Summit has been a veritable platform for showcasing them. The platform has also served for the announcement of policy initiatives coupled with pronouncements that provide clarifications to policy. This is due to invitations extended to regulators and the important role they are assigned in conversations facilitated during the Summit.
The Summit that preceded last year’s, i.e., the third edition of Fintech Summit 3.0 held in 2019, featured another heavyweight in Nigeria’s fintech industry, Victor Asemota, founder of Swifta Systems & Services, as keynote speaker. The theme “Banking + Tech = Solving Real Problems”, included panel sessions featuring experts with over two hundred combined years of experience in both the financial and technological industries.
They applied their knowledge, expertise and experience to address challenges in the technologically-driven business world, structured in terms of Solving Business Problems; Solving Regulatory, Security and Legal Problems; and Solving Lifestyle Problems. At the end of the Summit, participants must have felt that the Summit delivered on the confidence the Chief Executive Officer of FirstBank, Adesola Adeduntan, had expressed when he remarked in his welcome address, “I am optimistic that every organisation represented here will be empowered to provide services with greater speed and solve real societal problems to the advantage of the Nigerian populace through the insights that will be gained from this event.“
Fintech Summit 3.0 had built on the success of the second edition, Fintech Summit 2.0 held in 2018, which had “The Future of Banking – The Role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data” as a theme. Adia Sowho, the Managing Director of Mines in Nigeria, had, as the first keynote speaker, stressed the importance of collaboration between legacy banks and fintechs in the overall good of their shared financial services space. The Deputy Managing Director of FirstBank, Gbenga Shobo, had, in his welcome address, said that FirstBank was committed to finding the right balance in its approach in supporting the budding fintech industry. It is gratifying that the bank has since found that right balance and pushed ahead enthusiastically with the continual annual engagement that is its yearly Fintech Summit.
For those who like to bring up the argument that deposit money banks (DMBs) and fintech are rivals competing in the same space for the same customers and wonder why FirstBank, a leading deposit money bank, would itself be involved in efforts to catalyse the fintech industry, they need to wake up and smell the coffee. FirstBank is continuously evolving and staying on the cutting edge of technology in order to better serve its customers, who are themselves evolving and adapting to newer and more efficient and convenient technologies as they become available.
And FirstBank is on a journey to a future where it is happy, in the spirit of the African tradition of Ubuntu, to take all fintech along with it. In the words of another famous quote, “The sky is too big for two [or many] big birds flying in it to collide.” FirstBank believes there is ample room for all players – deposit money banks, fintech, et cetera – to fulfil their unique roles. Therefore, collaboration, not competition, is FirstBank’s watchword. And FirstBank considers fintech partners in progress in its avowed commitment to driving financial inclusion.
FirstBank’s own evolution and the transition is causing some people to question its continuous classification by the Central Bank as a deposit money bank (with a preponderance of bricks-and-mortar banking operations) rather than a digital bank. And the reasons for their argument cannot be easily waved aside. In 2020, for example, over 85 per cent of the banking transactions that were required by customers of FirstBank were performed on the bank’s self-service channels.
That means customers of the bank only needed the attention of the bank’s staff or branches for just 15 per cent of all the banking transactions they required in 2020. There are now as many as over 16 million customers between FirstBank’s digital channels of online banking (called FirstOnline), mobile banking (christened FirstMobile) and USSD banking (called *894# quick banking).
Between FirstOnline and FirstMobile, a growth of 21 per cent in the user base was experienced in 2020. Customers on both platforms conducted approximately 256 million transactions worth N15.7 trillion in the same year. FirstOnline, as of June 2021, had an impressive 597,466 customers on the service, a 17 per cent growth on the previous year and 578,292 transactions per month, averaging a value of N388 billion per month.
For FirstMobile, besides the impressive gain in numbers, it gained recognition as “Best Mobile Banking App” at the Global Finance Best Digital Bank Awards, for providing excellent self-service through its user-friendly app. FirstMobile had, as of June 2021, 4,596,203 users on the platform, which is a nine per cent growth on the previous year and an average of 27,730,830 transactions every month. While these numbers point to the giant statue of the bank, none of it excites FirstBank as much as Firstmonie, because of its invaluable role in driving financial inclusion at the grassroots level, one of FirstBank’s overriding commitments.
Firstmonie, the agent banking network of FirstBank, currently has over 130,000 agents across the country, making it the largest bank-led agent network anywhere in Africa. As the foremost financial inclusion service in the country, it has achieved over 750 million transactions worth N15 trillion (about US$30 billion) processed from inception to date.
Over 295 million of those transactions with a total value of N6.65 trillion were processed in 2020 alone – the same year COVID-19 caused widespread disruptions across the globe. Firstmonie agency banking scheme has empowered agents across all Local Government Areas in the country, providing employment to thousands of people.
FirstBank through the Firstmonie platform further supports the fintech industry via partnership collaborations with local and international fintechs. All these are geared towards expanding financial inclusion and providing a variety of services to customers of the bank with giant shoulders that customers and fintechs can stand on to see further.
As for Sir Isaac Newton, the giant of a scientist whose famous quote began this piece, if he could read us from the grave, he would feel very proud today to see that celebrated line from his 1675 letter being aptly used to represent the relationship that exists between the broad, energetic and dynamic shoulders of Nigeria’s banking behemoth, FirstBank, and the rapidly emerging beautiful bride of Nigeria’s economic sectors, the fintech industry. This relationship climaxes every year in the annual Fintech Summit and the forthcoming Fintech Summit 5.0 promises to take the relationship to a whole new dimension.
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warc | 202143 | Sustainable and inclusive business models can help the EU advance on its various objectives, whether creating decent work opportunities for all or contributing to the ecological transition. It’s time to amplify their power through EU external action.
2020 marks the first year since 1998 that the global rate of poverty has increased. The COVID-19 pandemic has much to do with that, but it doesn’t help that the EU and its Member States are further off-track than ever in meeting their aid targets.
In this podcast, Jeroen Kwakkenbos from Oxfam International EU Office, guides us through the new trends in aid and the more recent mechanisms put in place to finance development objectives in innovative ways.
Despite the well-received 25% reduction in inflated aid, EU aid is still decreasing after discounting these components. This means that, at the current rate of growth, the EU will only meet the 0.7% ODA/GNI target in 2061, as revealed by the CONCORD AidWatch 2019 Report.
Aid is not only about quantity, it is about quality too! It needs to reach the people who need it the most. Our new paper “Who owns Development Effectiveness? A European Reality Check” analyses how EU aid is actually used for. This paper puts forward a series of recommendation based on some selected indicators which sets the scene for achieving a more effective and inclusive aid. | 1,388 | 820 | 2,305.434146 |
warc | 202143 | 654 Visual presentation
Scientists' opinions and attitudes towards citizens' understanding of science and their role in public engagement activities
Author: Carolina Llorente
The increasing perception that public communication in science and technology is an important tool to create a knowledge society is encouraging numerous public engagement activities. In Spain, every two years, the Spanish Foundation for Science and Technology (FECYT) analyzes the relationships between science, technology and society through a survey. However, little is known about scientists’ understanding of the perceptions of the public regarding scientists’ role in the research, development and innovation process or on Spanish scientists’ actual understanding of the public. If we want to establish an effective dialogue between science and society, we need to be aware of the opinions and perceptions that both parties have of each other. In this study, we address this issue by focusing on 1022 responses to a survey conducted among scientists in Spain to discover their views of the public, and we then compare these responses with data from national surveys on the public’s understanding of science.
Communication and Society Studies Centre, Pompeu Fabra University, Spain, Spain
The results show that approximately 75% of Spanish scientists think that the general public has a serious lack of knowledge and understanding of scientific reasoning, although scientists do recognize that science interests the public (73%). Scientists believe that the public values the scientific profession to a lesser extent than suggested by public surveys: on a scale of 1-5, survey respondents rate their valuation of the scientific profession at 4.22, whereas scientists rate the public's valuation of the profession at 3.12, on average. Significant differences were detected between scientists’ perceptions of how citizens are informed about science and what citizens report in surveys. The challenge for the future is to narrow this gap in order to help scientists gain a better understanding of the public and their interests and to make public engagement activities more effective.
Co-author: Gema Revuelta
Communication and Society Studies Centre, Pompeu Fabra University, Spain
Co-author: Mar Carrió
Group of Educational Research in Health Sciences, Pompeu Fabra University, Spain
Co-author: Júlia Alessandra Garcia Chillida
Communication and Society Studies Centre, Pompeu Fabra University, Spain
Return to: Session parallels: draft program
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Visual presentations: draft program | 2,611 | 1,169 | 5,717.844311 |
warc | 202143 | Dear Friend:
With a month left in the legislative session, attention has turned to state budgets. House Democrats released their operating, transportation and capital budgets this week and our caucus received briefings on each one. The tentative plan is to vote on them late next week. As in recent years, our ranking members on the House Transportation and Capital Budget committees -- Rep. Andrew Barkis and Rep. Mike Steele -- were influential in shaping their respective budget proposals. As a result, I think you will see some bipartisan support for both. House Democrats' operating budget The operating budget is another story. While Rep. Drew Stokesbary and the House Republican operating budget framework likely impacted decisions of majority party budget writers, the proposal released by House Democrats a few hours ago is partisan in nature. Our members on the House Appropriations Committee are studying House Bill 1094 closely. It will receive a public hearing tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. If you are interested in weighing in on this legislation, this video explains how to do so. Both the House and Senate Democrat operating budgets rely on an income tax on capital gains and spend far beyond what the governor proposed in December. And when their budget writers go behind closed doors for final negotiations, fiscal responsibility seems like an unlikely outcome. We will have more to share on all three budgets, including House Republican responses, in the upcoming days. In the meantime, I encourage you to follow our legislative news aggregator, The Ledger, for news, views, and messaging on these proposals and others. Governor allows schools to reduce social distancing to three feet The governor announced yesterday that K-12 schools could reduce their distance between students in classrooms from six to three feet. Senate Republican Leader John Braun and I asked the governor to endorse this guidance last Thursday, a day before the CDC updated its guidance. We appreciate the governor's response and believe it removes the last barrier for students and teachers returning to the classroom. Addressing the The Washington Supreme Court's Blake decision Blake decision struck down our state's felony drug possession law. The ruling surprised everyone and created problems across our criminal justice system and communities. State lawmakers are now facing an unexpected, complex situation that must be addressed this legislative session. It is still not clear what Democrats plan to do, if anything. House Republicans are again taking the lead and putting real solutions on the table. We unveiled comprehensive legislation (House Bills 1558-1562) at a news conference on Tuesday. Sincerely, Rep. J.T. Wilcox House Republican Leader (360) 786-7912 JT.Wilcox@leg.wa.gov | 2,783 | 1,415 | 5,467.660777 |
warc | 202143 | Rounding And Comparing Decimals Worksheets – Fantastic, exciting and free of charge math worksheets should be able to existing a numerical issue in a different way. Math is all things considered simply a numeric manifestation of a few of life’s simplest queries: How much money do I have kept basically if i purchase a soda? By the end of every week, the amount of my daily allowance am i going to have the capacity to save if I don’t? Download latest Rounding And Comparing Decimals Worksheets Here
When a youngster understands to connect math to daily queries, he is going to be great at it from your easiest addition all the way to trigonometry. To transform percentages, decimals and fractions is therefore a single essential talent. The amount of an apple company cake has become eaten? The reply to this query may be expressed in percentages, 50%; or even in decimals, .5; or perhaps in fraction, ½. In other words, [%half of|50 % of|one half of%] mom’s scrumptious apple company pie has disappeared. How many youngsters in school have done their homework? Again this is often resolved in numerous ways: in percentages, 70%; or even in percentage, 7:10; Both of these mean from ten kids in school there are 7 good ones who performed and a few not-so-great kinds who didn’t. The end result is that kids discover math far better when it seems sensible.
Hence, the Rounding And Comparing Decimals Worksheets which you get for the kids needs to include interesting phrase problems that help them to with the practical implementation of the teachings they find out. It ought to also existing the same issue in a variety of ways to make sure that a child’s grasp of the subject is further and thorough.
There are numerous regular workouts which teach individuals to transform percentages, decimals and fractions. Converting portion to decimals for instance is really as easy as shifting the decimal level two areas to the left and dropping the [%percent|%|percentage%] indication “%.” Hence 89% is the same as .89. Conveyed in fraction, that could be 89/100. When you drill kids to do this frequently enough, they figure out how to do conversion process almost instinctively.
Ratios and dimensions are also wonderful math training with lots of intriguing useful applications. If three pots and pans of pizzas, a single kilo of pasta, two buckets of fowl can properly nourish 20 starving close friends, then exactly how much pizza, spaghetti and poultry does mother have to prepare for birthday party with 30 children?
Start Teaching your kids with Rounding And Comparing Decimals Worksheets
Wouldn’t it be fantastic if your child discovered how you can mathematically physique this out? To aid coach him, begin by offering him a lot of free Rounding And Comparing Decimals Worksheets! | 2,842 | 1,420 | 5,571.921127 |
warc | 202143 | The European Union has demonstrated a tremendous success story of unification and implementation of a joint currency for 330 million people. Nevertheless, in the last years, the European project has shown the need for a consistent, longer-term strategy, a vision that again sparks enthusiasm and support for this project.
For the last four years WWWforEurope, has worked on such a strategic approach in close communication with policy makers, the research community and stakeholders. The results of this research work and the policy conclusions are to be presented and discussed at the Final Conference of the WWWforEurope project, taking place in Brussels, on February 25th, 2016. The Final Conference will provide an opportunity to present and discuss key results of the WWWforEurope project particularly on the topics of how to combine environmental concerns with dynamics and innovation, the social investment perspective, governance reforms the regional dimension and the historical perspective of socio-ecological transition Confirmed contributors not involved in the project include among others Anton Hemerijck (VU University Amsterdam), Adam Posen (Peterson Institute for International Economics), Peter Victor (York University) and Guntram Wolff (Breugel). Please note that even though the conference is public registration is mandatory. It would be appreciated if you could confirm your participation until January 31st, 2016 by sending an e-mail to wwwforeurope-events@wifo.ac.at. http://www.growthintransition.eu/mc-events/final-conference-wwwforeurope/?mc_id=59 | 1,578 | 871 | 2,853.444317 |
warc | 202143 | Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2021
Abstract
Hailing from its native land of Cuba, the Afro-Cuban rhythms of salsa dance immigrated to America during the 20th century. The contagious groove permeated urban cities across the country, eventually becoming an artistic landmark in New York City and Los Angeles. The following paper addresses how the genre of salsa dance endured stylistic, social, and cultural changes during its migration overseas. Specifically, this paper contextualizes salsa dance in the rich history of the New York City and Los Angeles dance communities. By exploring how L.A style salsa dance teams became a global phenomenon, this essay articulates how the popularization of salsa dance was one element of Latinx culture that rose to the mainstream influence in America. Scholarship on the cultural tensions between Latinx and Mexican salsa dancers in Los Angeles is applied to demonstrate how the increasing popularity and competitiveness of this dance style caused a divide between these ethnic groups. Finally, the paper concludes with an analysis of how Los Angeles-based dance company CONTRA-TIEMPO Activist Dance Theater captures the complexity of salsa dance in relation to the social and political landscape of minority groups. In doing so, this essay is ultimately able to demonstrate how these distinct changes made to salsa dance over the course of its migration are omnipresent in the performance of the dance style in the present day.
Publisher Statement
This Paper was selected under double-blind peer review as one of the best academic papers in dance of by a review committee consisting of members of the LMU National Dance Education Organization Student Chapter, Dance department students, William H. Hannon Librarians, Dance faculty and an external scholar.
Repository Citation
Farrell, Natalie, "“on 2” and Overseas: The Migration of Salsa Dance" (2021).
Dance Department Best Student Papers. 18. https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/dance_students/18 | 2,017 | 1,049 | 3,832.107722 |
warc | 202143 | One of my favorite golf blogs (www.mygolfspy.com) just released a series of articles called “How To Get Your Dream Golf Job.” There was a piece about how to become a golf pro, another about how to become a golf sales rep, and one about how to play professionally. After reading a few of the blog entries, two things came to mind: 1) I spend entirely too much time reading golf blogs, and 2) a good start to getting your dream golf job is to play golf at Gibraltar High School.
While high school athletic programs are rightly judged by the amount of hardware they’re able to put in the school’s trophy case, the legacy of Gibraltar’s high school golf program cannot be measured by plywood plaques with mahogany veneers and gaudy gold golf figurines standing atop cheap plastic trophies. Instead, it’s the tradition of supplying the golf industry with its best and brightest that truly sets The Vikings apart from other golf programs.
At Gibraltar, the golf culture has been cultivated by many, including coaches, teachers, parents, and the players themselves. So why do so many Gibraltar golfers choose to pursue a career in golf? To answer this question let’s look through the lens of an employer.
Employers love team players, and Gibraltar Golf has always been a team game despite the solitary nature of golf. For me, the team-first concept was ingrained early on in my freshman year, when upper classmen Jon Conlon, Nate Sunstrom, Kevin Klatt and then Coach Bob Spielman organized daily runs every morning at 6:00 am before classes started. Sure, golf is a game that requires a degree of athleticism, but Big John Daly and Craig “The Walrus” Stadler are testaments that cardiovascular fitness is not a prerequisite for golfing success. We weren’t running to get in shape; although it certainly helped…we were running to bond! And bond we did. By the last of those mornings, we were running thick as thieves. At our first few matches that year, Spielman trained us to concern ourselves not with our own score, but the team score. Months later, at the State Tournament, our shaved heads were emblematic of the success brought by that “team first” attitude.
In addition to team players, employers look for honesty and integrity. After all, if they’re going to give us the keys to the cookie jar, they want to make sure there won’t be crumbs on our cheeks and melted chocolate chips on our fingers at the end of a shift. One Gibraltar golfer, the late Chris Simon, instilled honesty among Gibraltar golfers that has been passed down from player to player year after year. Simon was playing a heated match at Door County’s beautiful Peninsula State Park Golf Course. The atmosphere was tense on the 17th hole (“Hill 17” to you wintertime sledders): Simon blasted his tee shot into the woods behind the green, while his competitor hit a nice easy shot into the heart of the putting surface. Miraculously, Simon escaped the woods with a pitch that landed near the hole for a tap in par. His competitor missed his birdie putt and settled for par. When Simon converted his short putt, he was congratulated on his par and amazing recovery. Simon said, “Thanks but, I made Bogey.” His ball had moved while he wrestled with fallen limbs, leaves, and other debris while trying to cement a stance in the woods. He called the penalty on himself. Many golfers would have stood in the woods asking themselves, “If a golf ball moves in the woods, and no one is around to see it, did it really move?” In Simon’s case, his integrity was more important than the final score.
A small act like Simon’s can cause a chain reaction, the impact of which is hard to measure. Former Gibraltar golfer Nick Kwaterski probably summed it up best when asked which Gibraltar golfer inspired him the most. “In all seriousness, it was Simon that got me into it, I thought he was a God back then,” Kwaterski says. Golf is a game that doesn’t need referees, but you can be certain that when Nick traipses the fairways of the Dakotas Tour – a feeder series of tournaments for the Nationwide & PGA Tours where he will played professionally this summer – he won’t hesitate to call a penalty on himself…Simon told him to.
Once an employer knows she’s dealing with an honest team player, she’s going to want to know if a job candidate can lead by example. One natural born leader is former Gibraltar golfer Jason Daubner. I remember clearly the first time that Jason Daubner (then a high school senior, now Director of Golf at Maxwelton Braes) came to talk to my middle school class about the game of golf and going out for the golf team. Now, to be fair, I grew up playing golf and by the time I was in middle school, golf was, without question, my drug of choice. Nonetheless, Jason’s presentation made me realize that golf could be cool! Further, Jason said that he and Jim Schultz (Director of Golf at Green Bay’s prestigious Oneida Golf and Country Club) were heading off to college to study Professional Golf Management and pursue a career in golf. Study golf? I was all ears! Golf as a career? Count me in!
Not only did Jason inspire me, several other Gibraltar golfers followed in Jason’s footsteps by studying golf in college. Peter Rericha (now a sales representative for Nike Golf in Beaverton, Oregon) attended Jason’s alma mater Ferris State for Professional Golf Management, and Ivan Bridenhagen enrolled in the same program at Mississippi State. David Celusta (Green Bay Country Club) studied at the San Diego Golf Academy, and also received tutelage from Jason as an assistant at Maxwelton Braes.
Employers also gravitate toward those individuals that set goals and tackle them one by one. Aaron Slaby, who is currently studying Golf Enterprise Management at the University of Wisconsin-Stout mentioned that while his team’s ultimate goal was always the season ending state tournament, Coach Fred Anderson and Assistant Matt Meacham taught the team that by achieving short term goals, the ultimate goal would take care of itself. Slaby stated that “being a part of a successful team at Gibraltar helped guide me into the field of golf because it was something that I came to enjoy very much during my time at Gibraltar.” He further mentioned that he is looking forward to a career in golf after college, saying, “After Stout I plan on continuing my education to become either a golf professional or golf course superintendent.” Setting attainable goals has also helped Gibraltar golfer Taylor Mueller who now plays collegiately. Mueller’s Knox College Prairie Fire golf team in Galesburg, Illinois made it all the way to the NCAA Division III National Championships in Atlanta last year.
Employers always want to know if their interviewees can multitask. At many schools, the term “student athlete” is more of a paradox than a proverb, but Gibraltar golfers were taught early on by faculty and staff that frequent travel and missed classes did not equal an exemption from studying and hard work. Perhaps no one has embodied the “student athlete” nametag better than Shane Kwaterski. Kwaterski is a stand out member of the Western Illinois Leatherneck golf team and was recently named to the Summit League All-Academic Team, making him eligible for Academic All American Status. Kwaterski is a marketing major at WIU, and maintained a 4.0 GPA this past year.
So next time the crack staff at www.mygolfspy.com blogs about one of the golf industry’s up and comers being a Gibraltar Golf Alumnus, don’t be surprised. After all, when an honest, goal-oriented, team playing, leader by example who can multitask shows up for an interview, you’d be hiring too. | 7,888 | 3,744 | 16,066.74359 |
warc | 202143 | Floaters, Flashes, Retinal Detachment
The retina is the light sensitive nerve layer that lines the inside back of the eyeball. A detached retina is a serious and sight-threatening event, occurring when the retina becomes separated back wall of the eye. Much like wallpaper peeling off a wall. The retina cannot function when it is detached and permanent vision loss may result if it is not reattached as soon as possible through surgery.
The most common cause of retinal detachment is a tear or hole in the retina allowing fluid from the inside of the eye to seep through and collect under the retina, causing the retina to detach from the back wall of the eye. Tears or holes can occur in anyone but are more common if you are highly myopic (short-sighted), have had trauma in the eye, or have had previous eye surgery.
Symptoms and Signs of Retinal Detachment
If you suddenly notice
floaters (spots, lines) in your vision and /or experience flashes of light you may be experiencing the warning signs of a retina tear that could progress to a detached retina. Your vision may become blurry or blocked. You may also notice an opaque shadow or a curtain coming from any direction across your field of vision that you cannot see through. Pain is not associated with retinal tears or detachment.
If you experience any of these signs or symptoms, Contact us immediately. Time is of essence and can reduce your risk of permanent vision loss. | 1,444 | 714 | 2,904.179272 |
warc | 202143 | Technology has transformed the way our learners share their opinions and argue. Not only do our learners observe arguments daily on their social networks, but […]
Our students are joining digital communities at very young ages and not reflecting on their roles as community members. Every member has rights and responsibilities […]
Getting students to care about seeking and spreading the truth is one of the key topics in my new book, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 […]
Many educators, administrators, and parents would prefer to leave social media out of the curriculum. Social media is scary! Yes, our learners do very scary […]
Our learners become citizens of the digital world as toddlers or younger. They create digital avatars and profiles as part of their membership to online […]
Many people don’t know how to argue respectfully or intellectually online. Differences of opinion often lead to personal attacks, cyberbullying and trolling. Even world leaders lack […]
In today’s #EdtechMissions chat we shared ideas for teaching students how to use web tools and apps to research more effectively. In my book, Hacking Digital Learning […]
In my new book, Hacking Digital Learning Strategies: 10 Ways to Launch EdTech Missions, students create various digital projects to make a meaningful impact on their […]
“The number one benefit of educational technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It […]
Brainstorming is an important process students need to learn to do when innovating, creating, and problem-solving with technology. Brainstorming helps students come up with ideas, […]
Integrating technology isn’t an easy process. My technology knowledge continues to grow even with over a decade of experience, research, and professional development dedicated to […] | 1,918 | 951 | 3,692.805468 |
warc | 202143 | As a nation renowned for its friendly locals, it’s hardly surprising to hear that the
UAE has been named as the world’s largest donor according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
When it comes to which country has the biggest heart, the UAE has jumped up from 19
th place in 2012 and straight to the number spot in 2013 with data revealing the region’s official development assistance came to a total of US$5.2 billion. That’s an increase of 375 per cent.
During the devastating Arab Spring and the undergoing political turmoil in its neighbouring Arab nations, the UAE has been incredibly generous with aid packages. It was announced that US$60 million alone was donated to the victims of the civil war in Syria, with US$50 million be used to help displaced victims.
According to sources US$108 million was used to provide humanitarian assistance and US$98 million towards charity projects. The UAE is also said to be committed to donating US$1.52 billion in future development projects across 13 countries.
The UAE’s minister of development and International Co-operation
Sheikha Lubna bint Khalid Al Qasimi revealed the UAE’s first position was not accidental. She said: “The UAE continues its work with its international donor partners in line with the directives of our wise leadership in order to enhance the sustainable development in the Third World countries and eradicate poverty. The culture of giving is deeply rooted in our society and it has always nurtured by UAE leaders since the inception of the UAE.”
Behind the glitz, bling and bright lights of an advancing modern nation, the UAE is constantly hailed for it’s generous nature. Earlier this year it was also praised for it support to Palestian refugees with US$15 million going toward the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
The general commissioner for the UNRWA said: “This generous pledge from the UAE will help the UNRWA to deliver crucial assistance to the suffering people of Yarmouk and other Palestine refugee camps in Syria. We appreciate the trust that the UAE has placed in us to deliver aid inside Syria. With our 3,700 workers, we are managing to deliver assistance to almost 400,000 Palestinians in Syria.”
Image: Getty | 2,304 | 1,195 | 4,313.010879 |
warc | 202143 | The wealth of nations, Adam Smith believed, would result from free economy. It is for that reason that he is considered today the founding father of classic liberal economic theory. Adam Smith explained the mechanism of free market. Since that time this theory has been the ABC of economic education. Everyone who is familiar with economics has heard about the invisible hand of the market. “Three conditions are required,” Adam Smith wrote, “to raise the state from barbarity to the highest degree of prosperity: first, peace inwards and outwards, second, tolerance in ruling the state, and, third, reasonable taxation. The natural order of things will do all the rest.” Here is one more indisputable idea by him: “Great nations never get poor due to wastefulness and carelessness of individuals, yet they often get poor due to the wastefulness and carelessness of state power.”
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What saints did the conquistadors pray to and why did they decide to conquer Mexico? What was the ethnic, regional, and age composition of the Conquista? | 1,703 | 920 | 2,585.968478 |
warc | 202143 | For centuries, it was long accepted that humans were the only creatures complex enough to wage war. Sure, other animals might occasionally scuffle over food, territory and other resources, but true war in the anthropomorphic sense, intact with all its violence, brutality and tribalism, was thought to be a unique component of human nature. Perhaps then, it shouldn’t be surprising that this notion was challenged by our closest living relatives.
Gombe National Park lies on the western edge of Tanzania, bordered by the vast blue expanse of Lake Tanganyika. Famed primatologist Jane Goodall won renown here for her groundbreaking studies of the native chimpanzee population. The park is also home to a tribe of chimpanzees that Goodall named the Kasekela, and for a bloody time in the 1970s, this tribe turned the woodlands, valleys and rainforests of the park into a battlefield during the first-ever documented chimpanzee war.
A House Divided
In 1971 the Kasekela tribe began to splinter, after the death of its former leader. Over a span of eight months, the separatists, which included nine adults and their young, claimed the southern portion of Kasekela territory as their own, and formed their own clan, dubbed the Kahama. A brother duo named Charlie and Hugh would occasionally lead a war party of six males north into enemy territory, an unambiguous display of strength to the Kasekela.
Around the same time, the northerners kept out of the area used by the breakaway group, and a borderline was formed. Two years after the split, tensions escalated further. Males from the two groups would screech at each other and display their strength, before retreating back to their home territory.
Another year passed until first blood was drawn on January 7, 1974, by a war party of six Kasekela males, who ambushed Godi, a southern male, as he was eating fruit from a tree. The northerners approached silently; Godi was not aware of their presence until it was too late. He jumped down and ran, with the Kasekela males on his heels. A chimp grabbed Godi’s legs and threw him to the ground. The other five caught up, then bit, pounded, and stamped on Godi while he was pinned to the ground. After 10 minutes of the whirling tornado of screeching chimps, the northerners left, leaving Godi on the forest floor to die from his injuries.
Over the next four years, more of the Kahama males were picked off in a similar manner. The second victim was beaten to death for 20 minutes by three males. Next was old Goliath, a high ranking male back when the two chimp groups were united. Five Kasekela males, his former friends, turned on him. After the attack, his murderers repeatedly drummed on tree trunks, hurled rocks, and threw branches while calling out, as if in triumph. Goliath died from his wounds the next day.
Contact and Conflict
Eventually, Hugh, a chimp who founded the sepratist Kahama tribe, went missing, likely killed by the Kasekela. Two more Kahama were killed, and one vanished, either killed by the Kasekela or having left the region altogether.
Only Sniff, the sole survivor out of the six original males, now remained. For a while it seemed as if he might manage to survive in spite of all odds, but his good fortune would not hold out. He was murdered like the others, and after four years and plenty of bloodshed, the war ended in 1978. The Kasekela had won, and expanded their range into what was previously Kahama territory.
There’s an old, well known theory in psychology called the contact hypothesis. It holds that contact between two groups, ideally under equal status, promotes tolerance and acceptance. While this model was developed specifically to study human behavior, it also applies here. Once the two groups separated and ceased contact, hostility between them intensified, and any hopes of peace flew out the window. This “us” vs “them” outlook is also mirrored in human behavior. While the Gombe Chimpanzee War isn’t exactly identical to human war, it is strikingly similar in brutality and allegiance to a tribe.
“For so many years I had believed that chimpanzees, while showing uncanny similarity to humans in many ways, were, by and large, rather ‘nicer’ than us. Suddenly I found that under certain circumstances they could be just as brutal”, explained Goodall, “…they also had a dark side to their nature.”
Since the war in Gombe, more documented large-scale conflicts between chimpanzee groups have been observed in Tanzania and Uganda.
Source : Discovermagazine | 4,596 | 2,251 | 9,200.167037 |
warc | 202143 | 26 Aug 5 Common Dental Problems in Old Age Introduction – Dental Problem in old age
For most people, getting old seems unreal. Even though you may think and feel like a teenager, your face, dental health, and body will show natural signs of your age. Experienced endodontist says it is essential to maintain oral hygiene as neglecting may become a root cause of many health-related issues.
As we age, we tend to encounter more health problems. Research shows that elderly patients tend to pay less attention to oral hygiene, either for limited capacity or other reasons. The elderly must have someone to remind them of the importance of oral health. If not, the dental care at antwerpen will responsibly take care of your teeth.
Common Dental Problems in Senior Citizens
The most common dental problems associated with old age generally include dry mouth, tooth discoloration, and gum disease. However, if elderly patients do not take good care of their teeth, they are prone to diabetes and heart disease. Dry mouth results from certain medications and radiation therapy (i.e., cancer treatment) to the head. Saliva always keeps the mouth moist, prevents cavities, and prevents infections. In the long run, dry mouth can cause more problems. Gum disease is another problem that often affects the elderly. Gum disease is a severe disease related to many physical problems, including diabetes and heart disease. Jaws help define the face and provide a stable surface on which the teeth fix. Studies have shown that over time, the jaw shrinks, causing crowded teeth in the elderly population. However, the chin is not the only part of the body that is affected by aging. As we age, every organ changes, from the hair follicle to the tooth. Due to the shrinking chin and decreased skin elasticity, even a person’s smile can be different in old age.
However, a person’s age is not the only factor that determines oral health. Certain conditions, such as arthritis of the hand, can make brushing or flossing difficult. Medications can also affect oral health and can cause changes in necessary dental treatment.
Why is Dental Care important after the age of 60?
1) Dental Plaque
Plaque caused by bacteria can damage tooth enamel and cause tooth decay. One of the reasons the elderly have a higher risk of tooth decay is dry mouth. Saliva helps protect teeth and reduce bacteria, but dry mouth is a side effect of certain medications that older people often take, such as depression, asthma, and high blood pressure.
2) Tooth loss
It is common in the elderly. Loss of teeth affects nutrition because older people with missing teeth may not eat or enjoy fresh food, such as fruits and vegetables.
3) Heart disease
Gum disease can worsen certain heart diseases and may be associated with an increased risk of stroke.
4) Pneumonia
Older people with poor dental hygiene, especially smokers, have an increased risk of bacterial pneumonia. This is because when someone breathes, bacteria in the mouth can spread to the lungs. Maintaining good oral hygiene for the elderly who cannot take care of themselves can help reduce this type of pneumonia.
5) Oral cancer
The elderly have a higher risk of oral cancer. People who chew tobacco or smoke cigarettes, pipes, or cigars are at higher risk.
We have an idea of how difficult it can be to take care of your oral health when you cross your 60s. You can consult our experts at the best dental implant clinic in antwerpen and live without worries! | 3,514 | 1,653 | 7,397.894737 |
warc | 202143 | Smoothies are an easy way to add valuable nutrients to your day. Especially when you have a little less time to spare.
What’s the benefit? Except that it tastes good!
Drinking a detox smoothie provides you with essential vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants and phytonutrients. What are the benefits for your health? Below are some advantages: More energy Stronger immune system Weight loss (less appetite for sweets) Radiant skin A more stable blood sugar level What does a good smoothie consist of?
The best detox smoothies consist of natural, only “real” ingredients that are full of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and healthy fats.
Antioxidants ensure the removal of free radicals. When your body is full of free radicals for a long time, this leads to a low resistance, bad skin and a lower energy level. It also contributes to the prevention of various forms of cancer.
Your body needs healthy fats to burn energy. It is the raw material for the building blocks of the body. It also gives a longer satiated feeling, so that you will reach for carbohydrate-rich products less quickly. Which is also beneficial for the weight.
You can vary endlessly with detox smoothie recipes. Make sure you don’t add too much fruit, because of a high fructose content. Combine with raw vegetables, herbs and spices.
The recipe below is an example of a detoxifying smoothie with the right composition.
Detox Smoothie Recipe
Ingredients: ½ avocado 40 grams blueberries 40 grams pineapple Handful of fresh raw spinach Handful of fresh raw kale ¼ cucumber 100 ml coconut water Preparation method:
Mix all ingredients in the blender until it becomes a smooth smoothie.
Is the smoothie too thick? Then add some extra coconut water or tap water. What makes this detox smoothie so healthy? Avocado: Avocados are low in fructose and rich in the healthy fats the body needs as an energy source. Kale: Kale is full of vitamins K, A and C and antioxidants. This vegetable has been proven to have a lower risk of at least five cancers and help protect your DNA from damage. Blueberries: Berries have a lower sugar content than many other fruits, making it better for your insulin levels. It is full of antioxidants that are beneficial against skin aging, type 2 diabetes and cholesterol. Pineapple: Pineapple is rich in vitamin C. It contains an enzyme that is beneficial for your digestion, is anti-inflammatory and contributes to a better resistance. Spinach: Spinach is rich in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. It protects your body from free radicals and is anti-inflammatory. Cucumber: Cucumber consists of 95% water, ideal for hydrating your body. It has an anti-inflammatory effect and contains lignans that are beneficial against several cancers. Coconut water: Coconut water hydrates your body (also consists of 95% water) and contains many minerals, such as potassium, calcium, magnesium, sodium and copper. It ensures a good pH value in your body. | 2,987 | 1,417 | 6,205.877205 |
warc | 202143 | Indian equity market benchmarks BSE Sensex and Nifty 50 ended the month at a 7-week high level on Thursday tracking global markets that gained on reports of positive trials of an experimental drug for coronavirus treatment. BSE Sensex surged 1,000 points or 3.05 percent to end the session at 33,717, while the broader Nifty 50 index advanced 306 points or 3.21 percent to 9,860. Sensex and Nifty 50 have posted 20 percent gain in April and have risen more than 30 percent from their March lows of 25638.9 and 7,511.10, respectively. In the early trade on Monday, markets will react to the quarterly earnings by Reliance Industries (RIL) and Hindustan Unilever (HUL).
“There is a distinct possibility of gradual reversal of lockdowns across countries in the coming weeks and that could lead to the revival of financial activity. But it should be noted that the economic fundamentals remain unchanged as of now, and any pick up in macroaggregates will take some time. Markets, by their very nature, run ahead of the economy,” Joseph Thomas, Head of Research – Emkay Wealth Management, said. Markets witnessed sharp gains during the week on positive global cues after encouraging trial results of an experimental COVID-19 treatment, US Federal Reserve pledges to shore up the economy and jump in oil prices along with the slowing of COVID-19 cases globally. Sentiments also got a boost after the RBI announced a special liquidity facility of Rs 500 bn for mutual funds in the wake of the winding up of six debt funds by Franklin Templeton.
Post-closing of the markets, Reliance Industries’ earnings disappointed investors whereas HUL earnings missed estimates for Q4FY20. Markets are expected to open sharply lower on Monday, however, it may hold at lower levels and retrace the fall on hopes of Finance Minister’s stimulus package, says independent analyst Ambareesh Baliga.
Markets are also expected to keep an eye on long-awaited stimulus packages as well as mutual fund investors’ behavior on the inflows and outflows from Sensex D-Street. Volatility will remain higher in the coming week and a lot of volatility is expected in small and midcap stocks, although they will face selling pressure at higher levels. Investors should be in wait and also watch mode and preserve cash by not aggressively investing at that the current levels. As it is told that in bull market equity is king and in uncertain times cash is king. Investors can selectively book profits too in order to raise liquidity. Nifty50 closed the week at 9859.90, up by 7.7%.
Investor wealth jumps Rs 7.68 lakh crore: With the four consecutive days of rally, investors’ wealth jumped Rs 7.68 lakh crore in a holiday-shortened week. The market capitalization of the BSE-listed companies gained Rs 7,68,168.35 crore to Rs 1,29,41,620.82 crore in four trading days.
Nationwide lockdown extends till May 17: The nationwide lockdown has been extended till May 17, 2020, to contain the fast-spreading coronavirus pandemic. According to the government data, the total number of infected people in India has surpassed 40,000-mark, with the death toll at 1,306. Rupee may trade towards 76 per dollar: The Indian rupee settled stronger against the US dollar on Thursday. Rupee gained 57 paise to close at 75.09 against the US dollar amid higher domestic equity markets. Sensex “The fears surrounding the virus faded with the drug coming. Also, several countries are easing lockdown restrictions which means the economies will start to get back on track. However, there is still a risk of a second wave of infection, and India’s macros are not attractive enough to bring in heavy dollar inflows. Thus, going ahead USD/INR spot may trade above the support of 74.50 towards 75.50/76.00,” as the word given by Rahul Gupta, Head of Research Currency, Emkay Global Financial Services.
The week gone by The US Federal Reserve in its two-day policy meeting decided to keep the interest rates near zero and warned of an “unprecedented” drop in second-quarter GDP. The Fed left the benchmark overnight that lending rate in a target range of 0% to 0.25% and repeated a vow to use its “full range of tools” to shore up the economy. | 4,255 | 2,165 | 8,209.300231 |
warc | 202143 | Topic: Has anyone heard of people with HIV/AIDS and Lyme
david1097Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)Member # 3662
postedThere must be some out there. If so it would be interesting to know what treatment they recieve from the ID's that treat them? Do they get long term IV etc?Posts: 1184 | From north america | Registered: Feb 2003| IP: Logged |
KeeblerHonored Contributor (25K+ posts)Member # 12673
posted-
I wondered this, too, as most doctors who treat HIV are a cut above the rest and very interested in learning.
Most HIV patients are on combined oral treatment, a "cocktail" of anti-viral treatments and immune support. Many also incorporate nutritional supplements.
You might check out an HIV site. You might also ask at one of your local HIV support groups - the leaders of those groups might be able to suggest a particular doctor if they know of a client who is being treated for both.
It is likely, though, that an HIV doctor would not be able to treat patients who did not have HIV as either primary or secondary dx. You'd have to ask about that.
postedI have worried about this issue, since the last thing HIV patients need is another immune-compromised illness.
I think it would be a good idea to check with your local AIDS organizations and let them know about Lyme/co's.
One thing, tho - it took a while for the AIDS movement to get meds and now I think they have them. So that should give us hope that we too are going to be able to get stopgap combos in the future.Posts: 13041 | From San Francisco | Registered: May 2006| IP: Logged |
Starfall1969Frequent Contributor (1K+ posts)Member # 17353
postedThis is an interesting question.
I've also wondered about any correlation or misdiagnosis between the two, because some people have suggested I get tested for HIV.
I have refused that because I have never been in any of the risk groups--only 1 sexual partner, no IV drugs, no blood transfusions.
But I can imagine if someone did have both, they'd likely be quite a bit more vulnerable to infection and likely sicker than most.Posts: 1682 | From Dillsburg, PA | Registered: Sep 2008| IP: Logged |
postedI've found AIDS docs. are very open to the idea of Lyme. The Immmunologist I take my daughter too is an AIDS researcher. He said he believes in the chronicity of Lyme disease.
I know I've read reports of AIDS patients with Babesiosis, so they must have had Lyme too, right? In the article I know if, only the babesiosis treatment is talked about though.Posts: 371 | From CT | Registered: Jun 2008| IP: Logged |
postedI read somewhere that those who convert to full blown AIDS and deteriorate are those that are coinfected with the Treponema Pallidum spirochete (Syphilis). Just like Bb, the Syphilis bacterium produces false negatives on Western Blots, and is a relapsing illness.
Just like with Lyme there is a misconception that Syphilis can be cured with a short course of Penicillin.
Now, if somebody with Lyme were to contract the HIV, then it's game over. Bb is several times more evolved and virulent than its cousin Syphilis.Posts: 655 | From USA | Registered: Sep 2007| IP: Logged |
postedFrom my above post you can postulate that those Lyme patients who are really sick and can't seem to get better are actually coinfected with some virus that is acting in synergy with Bb. Maybe not HIV but something similar.
I wonder how many Lyme patients are taking anti-viral medications in addition to ABX. Might be interesting to see how people respond.
It might be worthwhile to try some available anti-HIV herbs: Arctium lappa L., Viola yedoensis, Andrographis paniculata, Lithospermum erythrorhizon, Alternanthera philoxeroides, Epimedium grandiflorum, Lonicera japonica, Woodwardia unigemmata, Senecio scandens, Coptis chinensis, Prunella vulgaris. | 3,800 | 1,928 | 7,434.439834 |
warc | 202143 | The term "easy-to-use" is thrown around a lot when it comes to TMS software for freight brokers. Let's break down what it means to be "easy-to-use" and why your freight brokerage might be interested.
If you've been a freight broker or just been around logistics for long enough, you probably remember freight broker TMS software (aka. transportation management software or dispatch software) as a slow, clunky program you opened on your work desktop built by a company like Oracle or IBM.
Things have certainly changed since then - with cloud-based software solutions (like FreightPath!) you can log into your freight broker TMS software from anywhere on any device and get work done in a way that would've seemed like magic twenty years ago. However, not all TMS software is built to the same standards - just like twenty years ago, there's plenty of players in the market still in a feature race without thinking about ease-of-use.
If you're looking for a new web-based freight broker TMS software for your freight brokerage you've probably made a feature list you're looking for. You need the ability to enter in all the different types of loads you run. You want an accounting module to do your invoices and expenses. You want a CRM module so you can keep track of your customers. You want calculators for mileage and rate modules to give your customers and carriers instant quotes. Maybe you've even thought of GPS tracking, customer portals and other high-value features for your clients.
So, you talk to a sales rep for whatever TMS software you're looking for and they check every box on your list. Aljex, Ascend TMS, ITS Dispatch, Avaal and more will likely try to check every box you have and even every box that you don't have.
Easy decision, right? Just pick the freight broker TMS software that checks the most boxes for your freight brokerage!
Not so fast!
In our research surveying over 400 freight brokers in North America ranging from small mom-and-pop shops to big 3PLs about their TMS software, the number one complaint these freight brokers had (~65% of them to be precise) was that their software was slowing them down. This happened in three distinct ways:
These problems can't be solved by checking more feature boxes - in fact the TMS software feature race actively makes these problems worse!
So, how can your freight brokerage tackle these challenges? Here's how our process engineering experts at FreightPath see it:
In our research and development process working with freight brokerages that were using legacy TMS softwares like Aljex, TMW, Mcleod and ITS Dispatch (among others), we studied real brokerage agents' processes and where they would get stuck.
Here's what we found in most freight broker TMS software's booking processes:
That's why our mission in building FreightPath is to beat these challenges head on. Why are freight brokers entering their loads in under two minutes with FreightPath TMS? Here's why:
If your freight broker TMS software isn't solving these problems for your freight brokerage, you're not just missing out on checkboxes. You're likely paying for a software that actively slows down your team and creates friction with your clients.
Thankfully, if you're looking for an easy-to-use TMS software for your freight brokerage, there's no better choice than FreightPath. Not only is it the easiest-to-use freight broker TMS software, it's the only TMS software that keeps your data secure, built-in GPS track & trace with no extra fees, and provides value for your customers and carriers through digital tools.
Want to learn more or get started? Book a demo with our sales team today (we have special programs for new freight brokers and freight brokers switching from another TMS!) | 3,760 | 1,738 | 8,088.975834 |
warc | 202143 | About 45 minutes drive southeast of Caranavi is the Taypiplaya district. Rolando Martines, who previously worked as a technical instructor for coffee plantations in the eastern major city of Santa Cruz, runs his coffee farm there. We listened to Rolando’s story about his move to Taypiplaya district in the year 2000, at the age of 32, and his journey of producing coffee 2 years later.
“Good quality coffee has a fruity or a cacao flavor, while bad coffee can have a fermented odor and taste so bad that it doesn’t make you want to drink any. I think good coffee can be highly addictive, almost like cola,” he says laughingly.
Having learned at a technical school and experienced working as a technical instructor for coffee plantations, Rolando has a different perspective on coffee compared to other producers.
“Picking ripe coffee cherries and drying them right are the most important things in making good coffee. Another important thing is to take good care of the plants – in other words, pruning coffee trees, removing weeds and maintaining a well-groomed farm.”
Rolando has an outstanding achievement of placing 4th place in the Cup of Excellence, but his coffee production wasn’t always a success. In 2015, Rolando’s coffee farm was completely devastated from coffee leaf rust that was spread from the coffee imported from Brazil.
As coffee was the only crop he was producing, his entire income had vanished and so he made his living by helping his family’s restaurant in the city. After 1 year of no harvest, he spent around 3 years replanting coffee trees.
“It certainly made me sad, but I learned a lot from this experience. Before, I used to leave my farm alone and would only go when there were cherries to pick from the trees. After experiencing coffee leaf rust, I realized that I needed to take care of the plants better. As a result, my workload increased, but my coffee quality also increased drastically.”
It’s been 18 years since he transitioned from being a green coffee bean buyer to being a producer. Despite its challenges, he’s able to maintain his passion for coffee because he learned that in the world of specialty coffee, efforts will be rewarded.
“The quality of Bolivian coffee has improved significantly and I feel incredibly proud that the world is beginning to acknowledge this. My dream has always been to make coffee and I’ll continue this job until I die.”
For Rolando, the opportunity to practice direct trade may have been the coffee god’s intention.
“I had never imagined that the coffee we make could be directly delivered to the roasters across the ocean. All the hardships that we endured seems worth it when I hear that our coffee is enjoyed by those who received the coffee. I hope that we can maintain a relationship where we can keep satisfying each other and continue building relationships.” | 2,954 | 1,443 | 5,817.926542 |
warc | 202143 | "Tretinoin cream 0.05% cheap, skin care 4men palm bay".
By: C. Jerek, M.A., M.D.
Medical Instructor, New York University Long Island School of Medicine
Physicians should counsel patients to skin care lab buy discount tretinoin cream 0.025% on-line take special care when transferring into vehicles and positioning themselves in bucket seats and/or low vehicles skin care ingredients to avoid discount 0.025% tretinoin cream overnight delivery, either of which may result in hip flexion greater than 90 degrees acne vulgaris pictures purchase online tretinoin cream. Physicians should also counsel patients that reaction time may not return to baseline until eight weeks after the surgery, and that they should exercise extra caution while driving during this period. Measurement of brake response time after right anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction. Peripheral arterial aneurysm Section 8: Peripheral vascular diseases aortic aneurysm No restrictions to driving unless other disqualifying conditions are present. Indi viduals whose aneurysm appears to be at the stage of imminent rupture based on size, location, and/or recent change should not drive until the aneurysm has been repaired, if possible. Patients whose an eurysm appears to be at the stage of imminent rupture based on size, location, and/ or recent change should not drive until the aneurysm has been repaired, if possible. Renal transplant Section 9: Renal disease chronic renal failure No restrictions unless the patient experiences symptoms that are incompatible with safe driving. Many patients with renal failure requiring hemodialysis can drive without restric tion. However, management of renal failure requires that the patient be compliant with substantial nutrition and fluid restrictions, frequent medical evaluations, and regular hemodialysis treatments. Furthermore, certain medications used to treat side effects of hemodialysis may be substantially impairing. These effects may require that patients avoid driving in the immediate post-dialysis period. Sleep apnea "Drowsy driving" or driving with fatigue or sleepiness is a common cause for a motor vehicle crash, and some estimate that more than 100,000 crashes a year may be attributed to this problem. Sleepiness, sleepdisordered breathing and accident risk factors in commercial vehicle drivers. Influence of chronic illness on crash involvement of motor vehicle drivers, Monash University Accident Research Centre, Report No. Patients should be counseled not to drive during acute asthma attacks, or while suffering transient side effects (if any) from their asthma medications. The patient should not drive if he/she suffers dyspnea at rest or at the wheel (even with the use of supplemental oxygen), excessive fatigue, or significant cognitive impairment. If the patient requires supplemental oxygen to maintain a hemoglobin saturation of 90 percent or greater, he/she should be counseled to use the oxygen at all times while driving. A patient diagnosed with sleep apnea (apnea/hypopnea index of 5 or greater) who has fallen asleep while driving, or a patient with severe obstructive sleep apnea (apnea/hypo pnea index of 30 or greater) should be counseled to refrain from driving until he/ she is receiving effective treatment (via a positive airway pressure device) following a formal sleep study to confirm the diagnosis. If these patients undergo other treat ments (surgery, oral appliances), they should be advised to have a post-treatment sleep study to confirm effectiveness. Physicians should counsel patients using posi tive airway pressure devices that they should not drive if they do not use the device unless a formal sleep study confirms resolution of their obstructive sleep apnea. Physicians should counsel patients who undergo surgery-both inpatient and outpatient-not to drive themselves home following the procedure. Although they may feel capable of driving, their driving skills may be affected by pain, physical restrictions, anesthesia, cognitive impairment, and/or analge sics. As patients resume driving, they should be counseled to assess their comfort level in familiar, traffic-free areas before driving in heavy traffic. If the patient feels uncomfortable driving in certain situations, he/she should avoid these situations until his/her confidence level has returned. A patient should never resume driving before he/she feels ready to do so and has received approval from the physician. Section 11: Effects of anesthesia and surgery abdominal, back and chest surgery the patient may resume driving after demonstrating the necessary strength and range-of-motion for driving. Because anesthetic agents and adjunctive compounds (such as benzodiazepines) may be administered in combination, the patient should not resume driving until the motor and cognitive effects from all anesthetic agents have subsided. Both the surgeon and anesthesiologist should advise patients against driving for at least 24 hours after a general anesthetic has been administered. Longer periods of driving cessation may be recommended depending on the procedure performed and the presence of complications. If the anesthetized region is necessary for driving tasks, the patient should not drive until he/she has recovered full strength and sensation (barring pain). The patient may resume driving after recovering full strength and sensation (barring pain) in the affected areas.
Both kinds worked by receiving analog signals from towers broadcasting tens of thousands of watts acne 4 week old baby purchase tretinoin cream 0.05% without a prescription. Depending on the market acne 30s female order tretinoin cream mastercard, both kinds of analog antenna are sometimes still seen today skin care equipment purchase generic tretinoin cream pills. Some are roof-mounted, though these are usually smaller and lighter than their analog counterparts, and are often self-installed. These self-installed digital antennas can receive between 10 and 30 channels, at no cost to the user. We base this prediction on the year-over-year decrease among all demographics in 2019 (figure 6). The implications may be sobering for broadcasters in many countries: While this particular report is based on data from the United Kingdom, data from other markets shows similar trends. As long as they are watching, and the broadcaster can charge advertisers for those eyeballs, who cares how the content is delivered But since then, in the United States as well as other countries, distributors have been paying broadcasters retransmission consent fees. The willingness to do this is not confined to antennas and terrestrial broadcasts. As we described in 2018, about 10 percent of "adlergic" North American (American and Canadian) adults block ads in four or more different ways. In all three countries, the percentage of individuals showing adlergic behavior was higher among young people, those with jobs, and those with higher incomes or more education. This latter group likely represents another tenth of the population in North America, but it is higher or much higher almost everywhere else. At that point, it was thought, the frequencies used for terrestrial broadcast could be reassigned. Switzerland has already announced that it is doing so, and some articles speculate that the rest of Europe could follow in the next 10 to 15 years. A digital signal was better than analog, had less interference and static, and could support high-definition images rather than standard, all using a narrower chunk of spectrum than analog. Governments were then able to reallocate this spectrum, mostly to mobile network operators, raising billions of dollars via spectrum auctions in the process. For their part, operators using these frequencies were able to improve coverage and higher data transmission speeds. Channel 4, "Sky and Channel 4 broaden industry-leading partnership," September 17, 2019. Zenith Media, "Advertising expenditure forecasts March 2019: Executive summary," March 2019. Paul Dughi, "P&G cuts programmatic ad spend by 90% due to brand safety concerns," Paul Dughi. Adam Jacobson, "Retransmission consent revenue: An 11% growth engine," Radio+Television Business Report, July 30, 2019. Live video streaming and the emergence of streaming video games may further spur growth, as well as prompt more technical innovation. They evolved to support software downloads, accelerated mobile content, and richer media such as video. These appliances are physical boxes with large storage capacity and software capabilities, sometimes referred to as micro data centers. The Netflix core manages the transcoding of new content and regularly pushes updates to its edge appliances. The system is continuously monitored for loads and faults, and failing appliances can be quickly taken offline and capacity shifted to other redundant PoPs. In 2018, global subscriptions to streaming video services overtook those for cable television for the first time, reaching over 613 million people, 27 percent more than the year before. From a technical standpoint, live and on-demand video streams move a lot of bits to render high-resolution images. Live video streams support real-time events like concerts and sports games, but they also include social streaming services that let anyone stream video, a global phenomenon that is growing quickly. Software layers deliver status dashboards, extract and operate on data analytics, and automate network-scale load balancing, fault detection, and demand prediction. More sophisticated data science and machine learning solutions can predict failure rates for digital content and hardware assets before deploying them to the end user.
Total health insurance premium amount attributable to acne 4 week old baby discount tretinoin cream online the pharmacy benefit is derived by multiplying the percentage of commercial health insurance premiums attributable to skin care discount tretinoin cream online visa the pharmacy benefit by total commercial premiums skin care books order tretinoin cream amex, then aggregating the result with total managed Medicaid pharmacy premiums. Prescription drugs claims expense is paid out of a pool of revenue that includes health insurance premiums and manufacturer rebates. Because commercial health plans do not report margins or claims expense independently for the pharmacy benefit, we assume a medical loss ratio consistent with Medicare Part D health plans. Part D medical loss ratio: See Medicare Part D Plans section (C*A) + B Prescription Drugs Claims Expense 19 Manufacturer Rebate Payments Component Manufacturer Rebates as Percentage of Prescription Drugs Claims Expense Description Collected through primary research with health plans. Calculated by multiplying rebates as a percentage of prescription drugs claims expense by prescription drugs claims expense. As with any survey, there are inherent limitations in how applicable the results are to the overall population. Where possible, results from the Berkeley Research Group survey were benchmarked against publicly reported data on the Medicare Part D program, and additional discussion on these results is included in the Survey Results section. Some state Medicaid programs "carved out" a portion of the retail pharmacy benefit from Medicaid managed care plans-meaning drug coverage was provided through a fee-for-service model- at different points in time during the study period. Limited information is available on which drug classes are carved out; this study methodology assumed no carve-out for these states. Medicare Part D Plans this stakeholder group comprises Medicare Part D plans (both standalone Part D plans and Medicare Advantage plans offering Part D benefits). Part D Plan Administrative Expenses and Profits as a Share of Plan Payments: "2018 Annual Report of the Boards of Trustees of the Federal Hospital Insurance and Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds" (2012-16) C. Manufacturer rebates (see Manufacturer Rebate Payments section) A - (A*B) + D - C Prescription Drugs Claims Expense 21 Manufacturer Rebate Payments Component Description Sources A. Derived from the Medicare Trustees Reports by multiplying the average Part D rebate percentage by total Part D claims expense. The pharmacy section describes the methodology for estimating the spread pricing component (B). The portion allocated to health plan fees is apportioned between commercial and Part D plans based on the claims expense calculated for each. Medicaid Fee-for-Service and Other Direct Government Payers this stakeholder group comprises state Medicaid programs and other government payers that reimburse pharmacies for dispensing prescription drugs to beneficiaries. Direct payments to the pharmacy do not reflect subsequent rebates or discounts paid by pharmaceutical manufacturers, including Medicaid rebates, supplemental Medicaid rebates and Tricare rebates. Patients this stakeholder group comprises all patients who purchase prescription drugs either through a pharmacy benefit or as a cash payer. Payments can take the form of copays, coinsurance, deductibles, premium payments or cash payments for the entire cost of a prescription drug. Patients do not retain a portion of prescription drug expenditures but are a significant source of funding for prescription drugs. Patient spending for health insurance premiums is net of subsidies received on health exchange plans attributable to the pharmacy benefit. Patient share of commercial premiums: Kaiser Family Foundation, annual "Employer Health Benefits Survey" (2012-16) B. For employer-sponsored plans, calculated as total premiums (see Commercial Health Insurers) multiplied by the percentage of premiums paid by the patient as reported by the Kaiser Family Foundation. For nongroup plans, calculated as the full premium amount less the percentage of exchange subsidies attributable to the pharmacy benefit. Average Medicaid copay per prescription: Kaiser Family Foundation, "Premium and CostSharing Requirements for Selected Services for Medicaid Adults"; Kaiser Family Foundation, "Distribution of Medicare Beneficiaries by Federal Poverty Level"; Kaiser Family Foundation, "Medicaid Enrollees by Enrollment Group" (2012-16) B. Cost-Sharing Payments for All Insured Patients Cost-Sharing Payments for Part D Patients Payments include all copays, deductibles, coinsurance and other forms of cost-sharing paid by Part D beneficiaries. Cost-Sharing Payments for Medicaid Patients Payments include all copays paid by Medicaid beneficiaries. Cash Payments to Pharmacies Cash payments account for all prescription drug purchases made without prescription drug coverage.
Finally skin care gift baskets cheap tretinoin cream 0.025% with amex, the scale has a heavy emphasis on behaviors reflecting hyperactivity and impulsivity acne y estres 0.05% tretinoin cream otc, so that persons may be missed who have suffered long courses of inattention by itself acne 5 year old purchase tretinoin cream online. In contrast to these measures, two well-developed measures have strong psychometric properties and show appropriate sensitivity and specificity. Additionally, once a diagnosis has been established the scales can be used to track response to treatment. Test-retest reliability has been established for the adolescent version, but is not reported for the adult version. The clinical sample means were 2 standard deviations higher than that of the control group on the derived total score and on all of the five cluster scores. In administration to more than 800 adults, internal reliability measures were high on the total score and four factor scores. Importantly, the correlations were highest between the Hyperactivity and the Impulsivity/Emotional Lability factor scores and the Wender total score. However, the Conners scale appears to have advantages because it has established reliability with adults and it has been normed on a larger sample. Future plans for development of the instrument include efforts to establish norms of ratings provided by significant others as a supplement to the data already gathered on self-report. Rating Scale Guidelines A set of guidelines emerges from the review of rating scales. This fact is acknowledged by the creators of the rating scales, who indicate that they are not designed to be thorough or definitive. This is useful to answer questions about the struggles that the person is facing currently and has faced in the past. It is likely that persons with a longer course of difficulty will be at risk for other problems that need to be investigated. A person who has the combined impact of difficulties with hyperactivity and inattention compared to a person who has problems only with inattention is expected to have faced more social, academic, and behavioral consequences that need to be reviewed. The rating scales can also be used to place a person in relative position compared to nonclinical and clinical samples for determining the severity of the disorder. A combination of clinical interviews with the person and significant others and the use of questionnaires helps. A standard review of current complaints and current life circumstances should be completed as would be completed in any other initial evaluation. Most methods simply ask a person to indicate whether he or she struggles with a listed set of behaviors reflecting inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity. Present occupational functioning or educational functioning should also be reviewed. The information gathered should be integrated with the full occupational and educational history described above. Frequently, disturbances in relationships motivate the person to obtain an evaluation. If the person is married or in a stable relationship of some length, supplemental review using the Locke-Wallace Marital Adjustment Scale is advised. How the person has coped with frustration and other emotional reactions to the limited success frequently experienced should be reviewed through an analysis of adjustment. The careful history completed will have already eliminated other primary disorders by the time that this stage is reached. Therefore, reviews of adjustment at this point turn to consideration of comorbid conditions. Comorbidity and the Clinical Setting the setting in which assessment occurs is likely to have a large influence on the comorbid conditions encountered. Distinctions have been reported depending on the recruitment methods used and the setting in which persons are encountered. With regard to affective or anxiety disorders, only 4% showed problems compared with the same level of concern in the control group. At the time of evaluation, affective disorders and anxiety disorders were present at very low rates that were not different from controls. Despite this, lifetime prevalence of affective disorders and anxiety disorders fell near 30% for both groups. The overall pattern was repeated in an independent sample reviewed at the 24-year-old average age. Substance abuse disorders were encountered in 19% of targets compared to 10% of controls.
With your support, Global Rights for Women can do more to promote women’s human rights through focusing on effective legal reform on violence against women. There are many ways you can support Global Rights for Women! | 19,408 | 7,782 | 48,303.025443 |
warc | 202143 | How to include a grief plan in your end of life plan
When you think about planning for your death, what comes to mind? Funeral expenses? Estate planning? These important end-of-life considerations will help your loved ones manage the financial impact of your passing, but what about the emotional impact? Consider incorporating a grief plan into your end-of-life plan. You can provide your loved ones with peace of mind after your passing by anticipating grief responses, normalizing the grieving process, and identifying appropriate and available resources for support after the death of a loved one.
During the end-of-life planning phase, we can give grief permission to exist. Giving a voice to the grief that is present can create a sacred space where feelings and thoughts can be shared, absorbed, and in some cases released. For some people this means using their final months to engage in the “
making” of memory, legacy, and meaning, so that grief can be acknowledged every step of the way.
Some ideas that many people find healing and helpful as they integrate grief into end-of-life planning are to:
Think forward. What are important dates or milestones that will occur for your family and friends? Consider writing a note or pre-arranging flowers to be delivered so that your presence is felt during big life moments. Examples: a child graduating from high school, receiving a congratulations card, in your handwriting, with a few words of inspiration. Or a spouse, receiving flowers on their first wedding anniversary as a bereaved widow/widower with a note on how to still love you while also giving permission for them to move forward. Think backward. Consider having your life’s story recorded. Leaving bits of your life’s story so that future generations can know you and learn from your wisdom can be an incredible gift to mourners. Programs like StoryCorps or Lastly.com help guide you through the process of telling your life’s story. You may also enlist in your family and friends to help capture your life’s story. Think present. For some, this is the time to mend and nurture the relationships around you. In Dr. Ira Byock’s book, The Four Things that Matter Most, he explains that four simple phrases “ Please forgive me,” “ I forgive you,” “ Thank you,” and “ I love you” have enormous power to resolve interpersonal disconnections and/or strengthen existing connections. Reflect on who in your life may benefit from having a conversation that includes one of these phrases. Think and plan for the long haul of grief. Consider gifting a few Grief Coach subscriptions to family or friends so that they can receive expert, thoughtful, personalized grief support via text message, all year long. Think about practical ways to supportyour loved ones. This could look like purchasing prepared meal deliveries, arranging a maid service for a few months, or even pre-paying for some therapy sessions that can be rendered at any time. Think about grief resourcesthat your loved ones can access. Finding local and online grief counseling books, groups, camps, and conferences can encourage them to seek out additional support during their grief experience.
The end-of-life planning process is, just that,
a process. It requires time, thoughtfulness, attention, and support. We hope these suggestions can be a starting point to help guide your own personal reflections on what attuning to grief looks like for you and the ones you care about.
Co-authored by Melissa Lunardini, MA, MBA, FT, Director of Community Operations for Grief Coach & Cindy N., PhD, LICSW, Founder, Sagebrush Crossing, SPC | 3,694 | 1,813 | 7,353.362383 |
warc | 202143 | What Is Vaping?
More than a quarter of California highschool college students who vape reported that they’d made an attempt to cease vaping. People who have already switched utterly from smoking to e-cigarettes shouldn’t swap back to smoking (both solely or along with e-cigarettes), which could expose them to probably devastating health effects.
The main tobacco companies – Philip Morris, Imperial, British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco – didn’t take long podsmall.com to realise the potential of e-cigarettes, and all are actually players in the vaping business. Blu, launched within the US in 2009 by an Australian entrepreneur, was bought by Lorillard Tobacco, and later acquired by the British company Imperial. In 2015, RJ Reynolds, makers of Camel and Lucky Strike, produced Vuse, which was the most popular model within the US earlier than Juul came alongside.
Manufacturing Digital Nicotine Supply Systems And E
Scientists are still learning about how e-cigarettes affect health when they’re used for lengthy durations of time. It’s important to know that the aerosol (“vapor”) from an e-cigarette contains some cancer-inflicting chemical substances, although in significantly lower amounts than in cigarette smoke. JUUL is the overwhelming favorite e-cigarette product among younger individuals. Kids and teenagers are known to make use of them in class restrooms and even within the classroom. The FDA doesn’t currently require testing of all of the substances in e-cigarettes to ensure they are secure. It’s also onerous to know precisely what chemical compounds are in an e-cigarette as a result of most products do not record all the harmful or doubtlessly dangerous substances contained in them.
In the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 4.9 million high school college students, she said, 6 percent reported smoking standard cigarettes while 33 % puffed e-cigarettes in the past 30 days. Most e-cigarettes include nicotine—the addictive drug in regular cigarettes, cigars, and different tobacco products. Surgeon General, Dr. Jerome Adams, declared e-cigarette use by youth an epidemic. Let your baby know that you really want them to stay away from all tobacco merchandise, together with e-cigarettes, because they don’t seem to be safe for them. She Survived The Icu Now, She Has A Message: Quit Vaping!
Altria, the mother or father firm of Philip Morris USA, acquired a 35% stake in Juul. The claim by PHE that vaping is ninety five% safer than smoking tobacco, regularly quoted by e-cigarette producers and sellers, has been criticised as deceptive by anti-smoking campaigners in the US. Matt Myers, who heads the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids in Washington DC, the largest anti-smoking organisation on the earth, has called the ninety five%-safer determine “mere fiction”. Many students have realized that vapes may be addictive and have determined that they need to quit vaping.
E-cigarettes aren’t protected for youth, younger adults, and pregnant ladies, as well as adults who don’t currently use tobacco merchandise. E-cigarettes have the potential to benefit adult people who smoke who usually are not pregnant if used as an entire substitute for normal cigarettes and different smoked tobacco merchandise. E-cigarette, or Vaping, Products Visual Dictionary This product is meant for educational functions only for public well being officers and healthcare suppliers. The gadgets and brands offered on this pamphlet are meant to spotlight the different e-cigarette, or vaping, product generations and substances used in these devices. Ann McNeill says there’s not a lot development in vaping amongst youngsters within the UK. Her key concern would be a rise in vaping among young people who have by no means smoked, however there’s no sign of that. She thinks the key to reducing youth uptake is “getting adult smoking down”, as a result of younger people tend to imitate their elders’ behaviour. | 4,049 | 2,003 | 7,944.368447 |
warc | 202143 | After using the toilet, you flush it using the handle and then all of the wastes go to the pipe and eventually into the septic tank. So for keeping your septic tank free of any damage, you have to use everything that goes well with it. You have to choose the
best toilet paper for septic from all the toilet paper available in the market.
You should be mindful of what you are flushing into your toilet. If you are using low-quality toilet paper then it will not dissolve with water easily rather it will keep accumulating into the septic tank. Thus, it will threaten it, causing potential damage and you will have to go through so many difficulties to then resolve this issue.
A good quality biodegradable toilet paper will save you from the hassle and potential damage to your toilet.
Top 7 Best Toilet Paper for Septic System Comparision Table:
You should not pick any random toilet paper to use in your bathroom. You have to have the proper knowledge to buy the best toilet paper septic tank to avoid any unexpected difficulties later. So we have picked 7 toilet paper brands that are worth a try from your side for sure;
Product Name
Key Features
Check Details
1.Charmin ultra strong toilet paper
2. Charmin Ultra Soft Cushiony
3.Scott Rapid-Dissolving Toilet Paper
4.Mega Roll Toilet Paper
5.Scott Comfort Plus Toilet Paper
6.Quilted Northern Ultra Plush Toilet Paper
7.Cottonelle Ultra Comfort Care Toilet Paper
Note: If you are in a hurry need to grab a product right away, this section is just for you!
Now we can jump right into the detailed review of all the toilet papers. Keep reading to see more products and learn more about them.
1.Charmin ultra strong toilet paper
Charmin’s ultra strong clean touch toilet is one of the perfect toilet paper available in the market. You should definitely be considering this toilet paper while buying it. Charmin’s ultra strong family mega roll is a significantly long-lasting mega roll. It equals 5+ regular rolls for a very reasonable value.
It has a very distinctive clean touch which makes it possible to clean better than the leading and the more pricey brands. It has a very lucrative texture and a very high absorbing ability. It will require a lot less toilet paper while using the rest of the leading pricey brands of toilet paper. It has a 2 ply feature and it is completely toilet paper septic safe. So you can use it without much tension.
Pros:
Charmin ultra strong family mega roll provides great value with more quantity. This toilet paper is longer lasting compared with competitors. The price that it offers is very reasonable It requires lesser toilet paper to get the job done. It has a very unique clean touch that ensures a cleaner outcome Charmin ultra strong family mega roll has a very high absorbing ability It has a washcloth-like texture. This toilet paper is septic safe.
Cons:
The rolls are way bigger than the standard sized roll holder. 2. Charmin Ultra Soft Cushiony
Charmin ultra soft family mega roll is a very big-sized toilet paper just like other offerings from this brand. Charmin ultra soft family mega roll is a very long-lasting one that equals multiple regular rolls that are available in the market at a very decent price.
This toilet paper comes with a very distinctive cushiony touch, which makes it so comfortable that it becomes very hard to resist. So naturally, it won’t be hard on your skin and cause you any rashes. Furthermore, it has got a super 2x absorption ability. So it lets you use less comparing with all the leading toilet paper brands available in the market.
Charmin ultra soft family mega roll has 2-ply. It makes it longer lasting. So there is no chance of disturbance later. You will be able to enjoy your bathroom experience significantly by having Charmin Ultra Soft Cushiony Touch Toilet Paper to use.
Pros:
Charmin ultra soft family mega roll has 2-ply. Charmin ultra soft family mega roll is a big-sized toilet paper comparing other toilet papers. It is really very soft It has a very clean cushiony touch that makes the job easier. You will need lesser paper. Superb absorption ability. It is also septic-safe toilet paper.
Cons:
The roll has a very large size that doesn’t fit with most of the roll holders 3.Scott Rapid-Dissolving Toilet Paper
Scott Rapid-Dissolving Toilet Paper is very gentle and nice to your skin. This toilet tissue is specially made to use in RVs, boats, buses, and other applications like these. This is one of the suitable toilet paper available and it is perfectly suited for your motor home. On top of that, this toilet paper is very much friendly to the environment.
This Scott Rapid-Dissolving Toilet Paper is a rapid dissolving toilet paper tissue that breaks down four times faster than the other leading well-known toilet paper brands. This toilet paper is clog-clinic tested. So there is no possibility of getting clogged in the toilet.
All the materials that are being used for this are responsibly chosen so it keeps the septic tank of RV and your home very safe. This toilet paper is also very friendly to the environment for the elements that are being used moreover, This best toilet tissue for a septic tank is very soft and absorbent. So it can serve your skin pretty well without any doubt.
If you are on the go, you will need toilet paper for sure. So choose a toilet paper that will not cause any plumbing problem to your RV. So in such a case, Scott Rapid-Dissolving Toilet Paper can definitely serve your purpose.
Pros:
It is an RV septic tank and sewer safe. It is very much friendly for the skin and absorbent. It is FSC certified. It breaks down four times faster. It is perfect for use on the go.
Cons:
Some users may find it overpriced. 4.Mega Roll Toilet Paper
Presto! Ultra-Strong Toilet Paper is something that you must consider while going to buy toilet paper from the market. This toilet paper comes with some features that you can not simply ignore. Presto! Ultra-Strong Toilet Paper is very soft so it is gentle to your skin. It offers the softness and the needed strength that you expect.
This strength will keep you comfortable while using it. This toilet tissue is stronger than the rest of the toilet 100 leading brand of toilet tissues by almost 80%. Each of the mega rolls that it brings with it stays 4x longer than a regular toilet paper roll. So you can expect to buy a lot of lesser toilet paper for future use.
It is a 2-ply toilet paper that means it has two sheets of toilet paper so it is very firm. You can have better results by using it. It is made of substances from sustainably managed forests and controlled sources. The amazing part is if you are running short of this then you can order it through Alexa by just saying, “Alexa, order Presto! toilet paper”
Pros:
It includes 24 mega rolls. It is 2-ply toilet paper. It is almost 80% stronger and thicker. It is a septic-safe bath tissue. This is longer-lasting toilet paper. It is well-suited for small-sized toilet paper holders.
Cons:
Some may find it not so soft. 5.Scott Comfort Plus Toilet Paper
Scott ComfortPlus Toilet Paper ensures your everyday comfort with all the extra convenient features it brings with it. This tissue is designed in a way that will take good care of your skin, keeping you comfortable, and adds some little extra value.
Scott ComfortPlus Toilet Paper comes from a very trusted brand. It has very thick sheets that are enough to ensure the comfort and cleanliness of your skin. Scott ComfortPlus Toilet Paper is properly tested about the strength and it is perfectly designed that surely provides comfort.
It comes with a 1-ply sheet that means the sheet has only 1 layer. It is made without the use of any sort of chlorine. So it is not harmful to the environment during the production or while using it. This toilet paper doesn’t come with a cardboard roll.
Pros:
It is super strong from the rest of the toilet paper. Scott ComfortPlus is designed to ensure comfort to the users. It is a 1 ply toilet paper that makes it possible to do the amazing cleaning. It is septic and sewer safe. So there is no tension regarding it. It is unscented so no use of chemicals. It is chlorine-free. It is made from responsible materials.
Cons:
Some users may find it very light and thin. 6.Quilted Northern Ultra Plush Toilet Paper
Quilted Northern Ultra Plush toilet paper is the thickest and softest toilet paper around. It has a very cushiony touch so you will not feel awkward or irritated while using it on your skin. It is very much absorbent as well which makes it possible for it to do a proper cleaning. Quilted Northern Ultra Plush Toilet Paper is made from 3 silky soft layer that is able to pamper you with ultimate comfort.
Quilted Northern Ultra Plush Toilet Paper is 3x thicker and absorbent from most of the leading brands. All the rolls have 319 silky soft 3 ply sheets. All the sheets have the signature texture design of this brand. The big-sized roll comes with the feature that it doesn’t let you change the roll regularly like any normal roll. The role perfectly fits with most of the roll holders. This biodegradable toilet paper is safe to use in any septic or sewer system.
Pros:
This toilet paper is septic and sewer safe. It is 3-ply toilet paper that has a silky soft layer. It ensures 3x comfort and absorbing ability. The roll size is very big. It has a luxurious embossed texture. It has a cushiony touch that is very soft and gentle to your skin.
Cons:
Difficult for the toilet paper roll to fit in a standard toilet paper holder. 7.Cottonelle Ultra Comfort Care Toilet Paper
You can take a little bit of technology in your bathroom with Cottonelle Ultra ComfortCare Toilet Paper. It has a CleanRipple Texture that removes more stains. This toilet paper also brings safe flush technology that ensures each sheet of paper is absolutely sewer and septic safe. So there are no difficulties later.
This Cottonelle Ultra ComfortCare Toilet Paper ensures cleanliness for your family and offers the ultimate cushiony comfort to your skin. You will also have a fresh feeling after using flushable cleansing cloths from the same maker. You will be very much satisfied by using this Cottonelle Ultra ComfortCare Toilet Paper and flushable cleansing cloths together.
Unlike so many toilet papers around the market Cottonelle, Ultra ComfortCare toilet paper is both soft and strong at the same time. It is septic and sewer safe. So it will not expose you to any trouble later.
The softness of this product of this brand can add luxury to your daily life. It is also very absorbent considering so many leading brands.
Pros:
This toilet paper is septic and sewer safe. This Cottonelle Ultra ComfortCare Toilet Paper is a perfect combo of both soft and strong. It is very absorbent. It ensures cushiony comfort to your skin. It is a big roll of toilet paper having 2-ply. The toilet paper roll fits with the standard roll holder size.
Cons:
It has poor dissolvability. Different Types of Toilet Paper
The toilet paper industry is a very booming industry considering the demand it has in the market. There are so many companies that are producing different types of toilet paper and researching, even more, to provide more upgraded products to the consumers.
Competition in the industry is huge and the people are trying all the time to make serve the consumers with varieties of offerings of toilet paper to stand out from the rest. These are some of the significant types of toilet papers that are available in the market;
Luxury Toilet Paper
Luxury toilet paper is totally different from the rest of toilet paper. What makes it different is that it comes with some luxury variations like it can be perfumed, lotioned, and scented.
Bamboo Toilet Paper
These toilet papers are made mostly from bamboos and sugarcane. If you want to use eco-friendly toilet paper then this is the one.
Recycled Toilet Paper
Recycled toilet paper saves energy and saves the tree significantly. But the smoothness and texture may not be appealing to some users.
Brown Toilet Paper
This is an unbleached toilet paper very recent addition to all toilet papers range. The color is normally brown.
Colored Toilet Paper
These colored toilet papers come with having different colors that make the toilet paper better to look at.
1-Ply Toilet Paper:
This is only a single layer of toilet paper. Here ply refers to as a layer.
2-Ply Toilet Paper
This is a double layer of toilet paper.
3-Ply Toilet Paper
This toilet paper has three layers of sheets.
How to Use Toilet Paper?
There are so many ways of using toilet paper. These ways will depend a lot on the place you belong to. Generally, western and eastern people have different ways of using toilet paper whenever they are inside the toilet. Eastern people use water to ensure their personal hygiene so they use it in a completely different way.
However, by blending both ways here is the ways of how to use toilet paper for maintaining cleanliness:
This process requires you to be seated the entire time. So take a decent amount of tissues from the hanging roll and reach behind your butt and start wiping it with the tissue holding it with your hand. You will do it with very gentle pressure. Keep on repeating the process until the residue is gone. In this second step again take some toilet papers that seem appropriate to you. But this time will be lesser than the former one. Keep repeating the process mentioned earlier but the pressure will be more from the former one. Continue doing so until the residue decreases to a very small amount. In this stage, you will take even less toilet paper. One folded square of toilet paper is enough in this stage. Repeat the same process as the former one in here also but you have to keep doing this with a significant amount of pressure. You have to keep doing it until there is no residue left behind your butt. Though this step is ignored by so many, I think ensuring absolute cleanliness is a must. Here you wipe some tissue paper and continue doing the former procedure. This will make sure there is no stain left on your skin. In this final step, you have to flush out your toilet, adjust your clothes, wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water.
So these are the basic ways of using toilet paper.
Things to Consider Before Buying Toilet Paper for Septic
There are a few things to consider before buying the best toilet paper for septic tanks. As it is being already told earlier if the toilet paper gets accumulated in the septic tank it can seriously damage it. So you have to choose the toilet paper crucially considering these things;
Dissolve into Water:
You have to consider if the toilet paper gets dissolve into water easily. If it gets dissolved easily then this is the one you should choose. It will not create any blockage.
Chlorine Free:
You have to make sure the toilet paper that you are going to use is chlorine-free.
Softness:
The softer toilet paper is the more easily it will dissolve into water.
Strength:
You have to check out the strength toilet paper brings to the table.
Absorbency:
You will have to find out the absorbing capacity of toilet paper. The more it can absorb the water or other things the better it is.
Septic safe toilet paper:
You have to check if there is a
septic safe toilet paper mark in the packaging of the toilet paper. This marking in the packaging indicates that this toilet paper will not harm your septic tank in any way. It will also mean that this toilet paper will dissolve into the water pretty easily. So these things must be considered before buying any toilet paper to make it septic friendly
Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs) Is there any substitute for the Best Toilet Paper?
Yes, there is. You can use facial tissue paper but it has the chance of clogging in your toilet so it would be much better if you choose to use toilet paper instead. But just like the Indians and People from the middle east you can choose to use your hand and wash it away with water. It totally depends a lot on your preference actually.
What is the difference between Toilet Paper Vs Tissue Paper?
These are both actual tissue papers but there are some differences. Toilet papers mostly come in a roll whereas tissue paper comes in a box or bag. Tissue papers are made in a way that is used as your facial tissue but toilet paper is made to use in the toilet to maintain personal cleanliness. The toilet paper is thinner as it gets dissolved into the water very quickly.
Final Words:
The Septic system is very important for the toilet. If it gets clogged in any way it will cost you a fortune. But most importantly your bathroom will become unusable and that is very scary for someone. So, to avoid such incidents you will have to pick the in the market. They say prevention is always better than the cure.
In this case also just being a little bit conscious from the beginning you can ensure your septic system is safe from any unusual occurrence. So while choosing the
best toilet paper for septic for your day to day use, pick it very consciously so that you don’t have to regret it later.
Welcome,
I’m Lucas P King who has a passion, product reviewers, and blogger. However, My Home Gears Blog is created with the objective of sharing comprehensive and in-detailed information to the people on how to get their day to day work done at home through gear available in the market. We do proper research on the products before sharing more details with you on how to use them. Hence, you will be able to go through the recommendations that we share through our blog and make an informed decision to make your life easy in getting things done at home through the assistance of home gear and other equipment available. | 17,887 | 6,440 | 49,217.024845 |
warc | 202143 | How to Change an HID Light Bulb
Changing an HID light bulb is not the same as changing a conventional light bulb. HID -- high-intensity discharge -- bulbs produce more lumens per watt than ordinary light bulbs.
These lights are usually found in industrial, commercial and transportation settings, but they are also used for flood lighting and other residential lighting tasks. HID lights use metallic salts that are vaporized within the bulb. Because of the bulb's intensity it burns extremely hot, thus one must take more care when changing an HID light bulb.
Things You Will Need New HID bulb Towel or cotton glove Tip
Many municipalities won't allow burnt-out HID lights to be put out for trash collection, so it's wise to check with the local sanitation authority. Some communities have recycling programs for HID bulbs. Check local regulations for details and dispose of the old light in an approved fashion.
Leave the light fixture off for at least 30 minutes before touching the HID bulb. These bulbs take much longer to cool than traditional bulbs, so let the bulb cool completely to avoid injury.
Remove the tempered glass covering, if applicable. Not all fixtures will have this component, but if yours does, remove the screws or clasps that hold the cover in place and remove it from the fixture.
Unscrew the HID bulb in a counterclockwise motion using a towel or cloth glove to remove it. Never handle these bulbs without a hand-covering as oils can damage the overall light fixture.
Screw the new bulb into your fixture with a clockwise motion, again using a towel or glove. HID bulbs are fragile so be careful not to over-twist when inserting.
Reattach any glass covering and turn on light to test. Leave the light on for at least 30 minutes the first time. HID bulbs must reach full temperature the first time they are turned on.
References
Writer Bio
Steve Bradley is an educator and writer with more than 12 years of experience in both fields. He maintains a career as an English teacher, also owning and operating a resume-writing business. Bradley has experience in retail, fashion, marketing, management and fitness. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in English and classics.
More Articles | 2,218 | 1,118 | 4,370.531306 |
warc | 202143 | CNN Health: Bioliefife, the medical device company, is developing a new way to give blood plasma for the first time, but only with donated dog food.
The company announced today that it has raised $10 million from investors and will begin donating the blood plasma in the next three to four weeks.
The blood plasma can be given to a dog through a blood bank or can be made into a plasma capsule.
There is no price cap on the plasma.
The technology is still in its early stages and Biolifeife has no plans to sell the plasma to the general public, according to co-founder and chief scientific officer Peter Wozniak.
It will instead use the plasma for research and development, the company said.
The product is also being used in an experimental therapy that was developed at Duke University to treat blood clots.
The Duke study was a trial that found a combination of a small amount of the plasma and diet can reduce the risk of clotting.
This is not a new approach to plasma donation.
Companies such as Bioscience and Transplantable Organ Systems have already developed other methods of giving blood plasma, including a capsule that is infused with a small, thin, bio-compatible polymer.
A smaller, more portable version of this technology is being developed by a team at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
This story was updated at 11:18 a.m. | 1,359 | 727 | 2,516.112792 |
warc | 202143 | By Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine
The writers spent six years traveling the country studying high schools.
March 30, 2019
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Credit Ping Zhu
Image
CreditCreditPing Zhu
“When you ask American teenagers to pick a single word to describe how they feel in school, the most common choice is “bored.” The institutions where they spend many of their waking hours, they’ll tell you, are lacking in rigor, relevance, or both.
They aren’t wrong. Studies of American public schools from 1890 to the present suggest that most classrooms lack intellectual challenge. A 2015 Gallup Poll of nearly a million United States students revealed that while 75 percent of fifth-grade students feel engaged by school, only 32 percent of 11th graders feel similarly.
What would it take to transform high schools into more humanizing and intellectually vital places? The answer is right in front of us, if only we knew where to look.
When the two of us — a sociologist and a former English teacher — began our own investigation of this question several years ago, we made two assumptions. Both turned out to be wrong.”
“SANTA FE, N.M. — Have I got a college for you. For your first two years, your regimen includes ancient Greek. And I do mean Greek, the language, not Greece, the civilization, though you’ll also hang with Aristotle, Aeschylus, Thucydides and the rest of the gang. There’s no choice in the matter. There’s little choice, period.
Let your collegiate peers elsewhere design their own majors and frolic with Kerouac. For you it’s Kant. You have no major, only “the program,” an exploration of the Western canon that was implemented in 1937 and has barely changed.
It’s intense. Learning astronomy and math, you don’t merely encounter Copernicus’s conclusions. You pore over his actual words. You’re not simply introduced to the theory of relativity. You read “Relativity,” the book that Albert Einstein wrote.”
David Lindsay: Bravo Bruni.
Great piece and comments too. Here is one of many good comments: | 2,120 | 1,175 | 3,586.859574 |
warc | 202143 | Exophiala infection from contaminated injectable steroids prepared by a compounding pharmacy United States July-November
In the United States, pharmacists compound medications to meet unique patient drug requirements or to prepare drug products that are not available commercially (1). In September 2002, the North Carolina Division of Public Health (NCDPH) was notified of two cases of meningitis caused by a rare fungus in patients who had received epidural injections at outpatient pain management clinics. This report describes five cases of fungal infection associated with contaminated drugs prepared at a compounding pharmacy. Clinicians should consider the possibility of improperly compounded medications as a source of infection in patients after epidural or intra-articular injections.
Case Reports
Case 1. On July 5, 2002, a woman aged 77 years with chronic low back pain was admitted to hospital A in North Carolina with a 4-day history of progressive diffuse headache, fever, chills, and malaise with subsequent development of vertigo, nausea, and vomiting. She was febrile (100.4[degrees] F [38.0[degrees]C]) and had slight nuchal rigidity. Analysis of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) was consistent with meningitis: 979 white blood cells (WBC)/[mm.sup.3] (normal: <10 WBC/mm3) with 63% neutrophils, protein of 134 mg/dL (normal: 15-45 mg/dL), and glucose of 38 mg/dL (normal: 40-80 mg/dL). The patient showed no improvement on antibacterial drugs, and a follow-up CSF analysis on July 18 revealed yeast-like elements on microscopic examination. The patient was treated with amphotericin B and transferred to hospital B in North Carolina. On July 24, a fungus cultured from CSF was identified as Exophiala (Wangiella) dermatitidis. Amphotericin B was discontinued, and voriconazole and flucytosine were started. The patient' s condition continued to deteriorate, and she died 51 days after hospitalization. The patient had been treated at pain management clinic A in North Carolina and had received lumbar epidural injections with methylprednisolone acetate 100 and 35 days before hospital admission. The injectable methylprednisolone had been prepared by compounding pharmacy A in South Carolina.
Case 2. On August 14, 2002, a woman aged 61 years who was being treated for chronic low back pain at pain management clinic A was admitted to hospital A after CSF obtained during a myelogram was consistent with meningitis (820 WBC/[mm.sup.3] with 52% neutrophils, protein of 108 mg/dL, and glucose of 57 mg/dL). The patient had a 3-5 day history of mild headache, subjective fever, chills, sweats, and mild neck stiffness. The patient had received lumbar epidural injections at pain management clinic A 84 and 34 days before hospital admission. The injections contained methylprednisolone acetate prepared by compounding pharmacy A. CSF grew yeast, later identified as E. dermatitidis, 27 days after collection. The patient was begun on intravenous voriconazole and later switched to oral voriconazole; as of December 5 (70 days into therapy), her condition had improved.
Additional cases. Clinicians from hospital A notified NCDPH of the two cases of E. dermatitidis meningitis; three additional cases have been identified. Case 3 occurred in a woman aged 71 years who had E. dermatitidis meningitis. She was admitted to hospital B in North Carolina on July 8 and had received epidural methylprednisolone acetate injections at pain management clinic B 82, 55, and 35 days before hospitalization. Case 4 occurred in a woman aged 65 years who had E. dermatitidis meningitis. She was admitted to hospital C in North Carolina on October 8 and had received epidural methylprednisolone acetate injections at pain management clinic A 116 days before hospitalization. Case 5 occurred in a woman aged 52 years who had E. dermatitidis sacroiliitis. She was admitted to hospital D in North Carolina on November 4 and had received intra-articular methylprednisolone acetate injections at pain management clinic B 103 and 152 days before hospitalization.
Investigation of Compounding Pharmacy A
Compounding pharmacy A was the source of the methylprednisolone acetate administered to all five patients with Exophiala infections. The pharmacy had been supplying the compounded product to hospitals and pain management clinics in five states after a proprietary form of methylprednisolone acetate injectable suspension (Depo Medrol [R], Pharmacia Corp., Peapack, New Jersey) became difficult to obtain from the manufacturer. An investigation of compounding pharmacy A by the South Carolina Board of Pharmacy (SCBP) found improper performance of an autoclave with no written procedures for autoclave operation, no testing for sterility or appropriate checking of quality indicators, and inadequate clean-room practices as outlined in the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) guidance for pharmacy-prepared sterile products (2). Microbiologic culture at CDC and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of unopened vials from three separate lots of injectable methylprednisolone obtained from compounding pharm acy A yielded E. dermatitidis (Figure). On September 27, SCBP ordered the pharmacy to halt further sale of compounded drug products. Injectable drugs had been distributed to physicians, hospitals, clinics, and consumers in 11 states (Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virginia). FDA inspection of the compounding facility revealed that the firm failed to have adequate controls to ensure necessary sterility, including the absence of appropriate testing for potency and sterility before distribution. On November 15, based on the lack of assurance that the pharmacy’s products were sterile, FDA announced a nationwide alert about all injectable drug products prepared by the pharmacy.
All sites that received injectable methylprednisolone prepared by compounding pharmacy A have been contacted and have returned all unused products for testing. Treating clinicians were informed of the investigation of the adulterated product. In two states, patients who might have received the product were sent letters directing them to seek medical attention if they developed symptoms, and laboratories were instructed to notify state officials if they isolated E. dermatitidis from clinical specimens.
Reported by: J Engemann, MD, K Kaye, MD, G Cox, MD, J Perfect, MD, W Schell, MS, SA McGarry, MD, Duke Univ, Durham; K Patterson, MD, S Edupuganti, MD, Univ of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; P Cook, MD, East Carolina Univ, Greenville; WA Rutala, PhD, DJ Weber, MD, KK Hoffmann, MS, Statewide Program in Infection Control and Epidemiology and Univ of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; J Engel, MD, North Carolina State Dept of Health and Human Svcs, Raleigh, North Carolina, S Young, E Durant, K McKinnon, N Cobb, South Carolina Board of Pharmacy, Columbia; L Bell, MD, J Gibson, MD, South Carolina Dept of Health and Environmental Control. D Jernigan, MD, M Arduino, PhD, S Fridkin, MD, L Archibald, MD, L Sehulster, PhD, Div of Healthcare Quality Promotion: J Morgan, MD, R Hajjeb, MD, M Brandr, PhD, D Warnoch, PhD, Div of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, National Center for Infectious Diseases; WA Duffus, MD, EIS Officer, CDC.
Editorial Note: As of December 5, five cases of Exophiala infection associated with injectable medication from compounding pharmacy A had occurred. Cases occurred up to 152 days following an injection.
Pharmacy compounding is the process of combining drug ingredients to prepare medications that are not commercially available or to alter commercially available medications to meet specific patient needs such as dye-free or liquid formulations (3). The practice of compounding has been reported to be increasing with an estimated 43,000 compounded medications prepared daily in the United States (4,5). Pharmacists traditionally have prepared medications to fulfill individual prescription requests or manipulated reasonable quantities of human drugs on receipt of a valid prescription for an individually identified patient from a licensed practitioner. Some compounding is legal under state laws, and, when appropriate, FDA can exercise its enforcement discretion regarding new drugs and certain other requirements of the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (6).
On-site investigation of compounding pharmacy A by state and federal regulators identified several instances of nonadherence to sterile technique. Microbiologic cultures at CDC and FDA of methylprednisolone from unopened vials prepared by compounding pharmacy A yielded isolates of E. dermatitidis. This fungus caused the death from meningitis in one patient, sacroiliitis in another, and meningitis in three other patients who had received either epidural or intra articular injections of methylprednisolone compounded at pharmacy A. Other recent clusters of infections associated with products prepared by compounding pharmacies include Serratia meningitis from epidural injections of betamethasone in California (Contra Costa Health Services, unpublished data, 2002) and Chryseomonas meningitis from epidural injections of methylprednisolone in Michigan (CDC, unpublished data, 2002). These meningitis clusters all occurred among patients who received epidural injections for chronic pain management.
E. dermatitidis is a neurotropic, dark pigment-forming fungus found in soil and is an uncommon cause of human illness (7). Limited data are available on treatment; however, in vitro data suggest that amphotericin B, itraconazole, terbinafine, and voriconazole might be effective (8). Isolates from four of the five infected persons reported were tested in vitro and were susceptible to voriconazole, itraconazole, and amphot ericin B. Voriconazole was chosen for treating the five persons reported because of in vitro susceptibility results and availability of an oral form of the drug.
Clinicians or laboratorians diagnosing any cases of Exophiala should determine if the patient had received injections of methylprednisolone in the last year. Although the implicated product has been recalled, clinicians should be aware that cases might still occur because of the possible long incubation period of the fungal infection. Patients with possible injection-associated Exophiala infections should be reported to their state health department and to CDC, telephone 800-893-0485; such information should be exchanged rapidly with other state and local health departments. Clinicians should consider the possibility of contaminated medication as a source of infection in patients after epidural or intra-articular injections. Compounding pharmacies should ensure that pharmacy staff are trained appropriately and that proper sterile technique is followed in accordance with existing standards from ASHP (2) and the United States Pharmacopeia (http://www.usp.org). FDA has outlined specific activities that help dist inguish the role of compounding pharmacies from pharmaceutical manufacturing (4).
Some health-system pharmacists might not realize that they are purchasing injectables prepared through compounding (1). Purchasers of pharmaceuticals should determine if supplies are provided from a compounding pharmacy that is licensed in their state and that follows appropriate measures to ensure that injectable products are free of contamination. In most states, compounding pharmacies are not required to report adverse events associated with their products to state or federal agencies. Such reporting to FDA is required for pharmaceutical manufacturing companies. Health-care professionals and compounding pharmacies are urged to report contaminated compounded drug products or adverse events associated with compounded drug products to their state boards of pharmacy and health departments. To help prevent further cases, practitioners also are encouraged to submit such reports to FDA’s MedWatch program by telephone at 1-800-3321088 or at http://www.fda.gov/medwatchfreporr.htm.
References
(1.) Young D. Outsourced compounding can be problematic: community pharmacies linked to contaminated injectables. Available at http://www.ashp.org/public/pubs/ajhp/current/12a-news_oursourced.pdf.
(2.) American Society of Health-System Pharmacists. ASHP guidelines on quality assurance for pharmacy-prepared sterile products. Am J Health Sys Pharm 2000; 57:1150-69.
(3.) International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists. About compounding. Available at http://www.iacprx.org/about_compounding/index.html.
(4.) Smith LK. Regulatory and operational issues of founding a compounding pharmacy. International Journal of Pharmaceutical Compounding 2002;6:434-7.
(5.) Professional Compounding Centers of America. History of compounding. Available at http://www.pccarx.com/about_comp.asp.
(6.) U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Compliance policy guidance for Food and Drug Administration staff and industry. Section 460-200, pharmacy compounding. Available at http://www.fda.gov/ora/compliance_ref/cpg/cpgdrg/cpg460-200.html.
(7.) Matsumoto T, Matsuda T, McGinnis MR, Ajello L. Clinical and mycological spectra of Wangiella dermatitidis infections. Mycoses 1993;36:145-55.
(8.) Meletiadis J, Meis JF, de Hoog GS, Verweij PE. In vitro susceptibilities of 11 clinical isolates of Exophiala species to six antifungal drugs. Mycoses 2000;43:309-12.
COPYRIGHT 2002 U.S. Government Printing Office
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group | 13,542 | 5,476 | 33,395.027027 |
warc | 202143 | A Scrum Team is a collection of individuals (typically between five and nine members) working together to deliver the required product increments. The Scrum framework encourages a high level of communication among team members, so that the team can: Follow a common goal. adhere the same norms and rules.
What best describes a scrum team?
Scrum.org is what best describes a Scrum Team by defining it as ‘
a framework within which people can address complex adaptive problems, while productively and creatively delivering products of the highest possible value. What are the 3 Scrum roles?
Scrum has three roles:
product owner, scrum master and the development team members. While this is pretty clear, what to do with existing job titles can get confusing. How do you motivate a scrum team? 6 Tips to Boost Team Motivation for Your Agile Team Acknowledgment and Recognition. Who doesn’t like a pat on their back after a day or month of hard work? … Team Building Activities. … Staying Positive During Setbacks. … Ensuring Balanced Workload. … Being Open to Criticism and Differing Opinions. … Having Fun. Who is responsible for Scrum team performance? The Scrum Master is responsible for ensuring that proper Scrum is adhered to. The Scrum Master is definitely “invested” in the good performance and growth of the team that he/she serves. The entire Scrum Team is “accountable” for how well they work and deliver value. What are the 6 Scrum principles? What are the key scrum principles? Control over the empirical process. Transparency, evaluation, and adaptation underlie Scrum methodology. Self-organization. … Collaboration. … Value-based prioritization. … Timeboxing. … Iterative development. What are 5 Scrum values?
Scrum Values. A team’s success with Scrum depends on five values:
commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect. What is KPI in Scrum?
A
Key Performance Indicator is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving key business objectives. Organizations use KPIs at multiple levels to evaluate their success at reaching targets. What is the difference between Scrum and agile?
The Difference Between Agile and Scrum
The key difference between Agile and Scrum is that while Agile is a project management philosophy that utilizes a core set of values or principles, Scrum is a specific
Agile methodology that is used to facilitate a project. Who should decide who will be the scrum master for a new Scrum team?
A team such as this would likely bristle at being assigned a ScrumMaster. So, who should select a team’s ScrumMaster? My default position is that the
decision should be left up to the team. However, a caveat to that position is to first make sure the team is up for the initial challenges of adopting Scrum. | 2,870 | 1,406 | 5,652.226174 |
warc | 202143 | A Project Manager is responsible for the planning, procurement, execution and completion of a project. The project manager is in charge of the entire project and handles everything involved, such as the project scope, managing the project team, as well as the resources assigned to the project.
What services does a project manager provide?
Project management services specialize in
planning, coordinating, and executing projects according to specific requirements and constraints. … Project Managers Developing the project plan. Managing the stakeholders and team. Managing the schedule and budget. Managing the risk. Managing conflicts. What does a project deliver?
A project schedule delivers the objective of the project,
what needs to be performed and in which timeframes the project needs to be completed. It communicates the minimum time, cost and budget that would be required for completing the project. What does a project manager do on a daily basis? Set the right expectations and coordinate with stakeholders. Manage multiple projects at a time. Assemble a detailed plan where you can track the team’s progress during project development. Act as a team leader and motivate your team members to put in the hard work and finish the project successfully. What should a project delivery plan include? 10 Critical Steps to Include in a Project Plan Project Goals. Marc Romanelli / Getty Images. … Project Scope. … Milestones and Major Deliverables. … Work Breakdown Structure. … Budget. … Human Resources Plan. … Risk Management Plan. … Communications Plan. What are the 3 things a project manager needs to succeed? Here are the three “must-have” skills for every successful project manager: Communication and interpersonal skills. … Ability to negotiate and resolve conflicts. … Building commitment within the team. … Concluding thoughts on team leader skills. What makes a great project manager?
Excellent Communicator
Being able to communicate clearly and effectively when managing any project or team is a skill that is absolutely essential. Project leaders must be able to communicate their visions and articulate a project’s goal in a way that everyone can grasp for themselves, quickly and easily. What is successful project delivery?
Project management success is defined by the
level of efficiency the project achieved to reach the project objectives. Efficiency is related to how the project manages its limited resources to meet the goals while building good relationships with internal and external stakeholders. What are the tasks of a project manager? What Are the Responsibilities of a Project Manager? Plan and Develop the Project Idea. Every project starts as an idea. … Create and Lead Your Dream Team. … Monitor Project Progress and Set Deadlines. … Solve Issues That Arise. … Manage the Money. … Ensure Stakeholder Satisfaction. … Evaluate Project Performance. How many hours a week does a project manager work?
Most construction managers work full time, and some work
more than 40 hours per week. Construction managers’ work schedules may vary. They may need to work extra hours to meet deadlines, and they may have to be on call 24 hours a day to respond to project emergencies. What are the 10 steps to write a good project plan? 10 Steps to Creating a Project Plan Step 1: Explain the project plan to key stakeholders and discuss its key components. … Components of the Project Plan Include: Step 2: Define roles and responsibilities. … Step 3: Hold a kickoff meeting. … Step 4: Develop a Scope Statement. … Step 5: Develop scope baseline. What are the 5 stages of project planning?
In this section, we will explore the stages that a project goes through, from conception to completion. Project management is mapped into process groups and knowledge areas by the Project Management Institute. The five key process groups are
initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling and closing. How do you write a timeline for a project? Steps to creating a Project Timeline Step 1: Understand the scope of your project. … Step 2: Split the project into milestones. … Step 3: Estimate the time of each task. … Step 4: Assign tasks to your team. … Step 5: Choose your project timeline software. … Step 6: Plot each task on your timeline. | 4,441 | 1,927 | 9,843.025947 |
warc | 202143 | This continues the Organomic Thesis. If you’re new, you may prefer to start with the
Year Zero: Progressive Economic Primer I – II The Organomic Manifesto III – V The Tenets of Organomics VI – X 4 Books to Change the Future of Economics
Updated: 8/18/21
PDF & MP3 Coming Soon VI Resistance will fall away, in the light of what we’re unearthing. What seems out of reach today, tomorrow will be common sense. Such has been the course of history, of many an inevitable revolution. Pulling aside the curtain on the shell game, our plan is not concerned with egos and left/right polarities, only focusing in on the real costs, ecological crises and the limits of our real resources, as we build out a system for measuring the totality of Value. Dealing here with a $50T/year sum, we step right past the billionaires to get to the real money, vilifying only the closed-minded. This proposal is larger than any one of us, any party, wing, or any single document, larger than a simple list of Tenets. It will evolve from here, as a living science must, but this is our original contribution, a handful of straight-forward statements.
These are the
Tenets of General Organomics: Only sustainable systems survive. Infrastructure is inherited.
If 7 words could change the world, if common sense could be phrased so simply, we might end poverty and ready humankind for the century ahead, and these are the first words we would choose. Each of these axioms is, in the final analysis, to be taken as self-evident, but we arrive with more than just a pocketful of proofs. We are hardly the first to name the insanities of 20
th century economics, warfare and environmental destruction, surplus and excess. If proofs were factories, there is no doubt society would’ve been paying UBI to Homemakers – a living wage for living work – at least since 1995. By that time, empirical studies around the world and at the UN had well shown that Homemakers are not unemployed, presenting a productive sector of economics comparable to total GDP. In Sections VII and IX of this Thesis we examine the evidence, revealing such unaccounted or satellite value in the Invisible Economy as would run a large country.
Proofs are not factories, however, and despite the growing chorus from ecological groups and revolutionaries regarding progressive ideas like Modern Monetary Theory (Stephanie Kelton, a doctor of economics and major proponent of MMT, was a trusted adviser to Bernie Sanders during his 2016 US presidential campaign), Resource Based Economy (Jacque Fresco and the Venus Project have been promoting theories of sustainability and resource inheritance for over 30 years), Universal Basic Income (Andrew Yang famously ran for US President on this platform in 2020) and others, still we continue to careen off course. Organomics presents study after study, sourcing data from Oxford, the UN and the US government among others, but we will not pretend that this usurps understanding. We won’t pretend that science is more influential than money in politics. If it was, if it did, if economics were so simple as sums in a row, we might’ve reached a sustainable conclusion in the 1980s, avoiding these tipping points and traps – resource depletion, storms, extinctions and large-scale environmental collapse. They have been pounding at our door, and it is past time we take a serious look at why we even still act as if we don’t hear them coming.
Large populations – Gross Potential Labor and the Ready Unemployed – represent massive resource pools. Read that again if needed, it takes a moment sometimes to reverse large mental mistakes. Society must fulfill its role in nurturing this potential – as with the mining of gold or filtering of water – viewing education, health, livelihood and economic security as investments in vital infrastructure. These are not debts in an advanced society. Process Improvement – the evolution of technology – accounts for more Value than all labor and capital combined at any time, resulting in widespread surplus. We can measure the additive value of technology via the concept of Real Labor Intensity, that is Newtonian work per labor-hour, and its reduction over time. In Section IX of this Thesis we present the argument for wealth-as-evolution, based on an aggregate of studies and evidence.
As a cumulative science Organomics picks up where MMT, RBE & UBI leave off, bringing in object-oriented programming techniques and gaining insight from a quiver of other sciences. MMT debunks federal deficits, revealing how they actually result in public surplus. It says we can spend until we reach the limits of our real resources or inflation. RBE (Resource Based Economy) claims these resources by right as the inheritance of the masses. This Thesis will show exactly how and where, as technology gives us access to the product of our world like never before. We do the math, but we also acknowledge when equations are not the proper language. As Organists it is our responsibility to transcend mere academics. We must thrive.
Money does not equal wealth. Real Value is a much larger, multidimensional category. Cash is not the sole cornerstone of economic function, just a medium of trade and stored value. Processes, ideas, products and labor which we produce, consume, own, gift, trade, share or steal comprise the original Organomic Spectrum of Real Value.
Taking a broad sweep outside the models of trade, we recognize categories of value that are sometimes not interchangeable, and a variety of modifiers thereof, which are not always exclusive. This is the analog domain of Real Value, where we begin to render the categories of real world wealth.
Algorithmic Function is the primary language of economy. The systems science approach to economic and social questions may be communicated via conceptualizations or diagrams of interconnected flows. Representing inputs, internal mechanics/rules, and outputs, we gain a view of the subsystems as functional Organs within the larger body of our society and economy. This approach emphasizes functional separation, insulating infrastructure from tangential failures like inflation, and allows for simultaneous function of disparate and essential systems without any need to quantify. Any system, no matter how complex, may be finite and knowable in the algorithmic sense. By approaching the science in terms of components and flow, we are able to identify even the immeasurable aspects of wealth, or unknown mechanics, then work to find their places in the flow. Should we decide to add Gross Domestic Happiness to the diagram, or otherwise modify our theories as they evolve, it will be relatively easy to do so because of this object oriented approach. What is not essential, hinders. This is not a genocidal commitment to efficiency, to be absolutely clear. It’s the experiential understanding that energy wasted is value lost. Here we commit to Occam’s Razor as a guide in both theory and practice.
These 10 original Tenets comprise the General Theory of Organomics, unique within the realm of economic and social science. The Special Theory focuses on our specific systems and active solutions. Deliberate in the language of the economic revolutionary, Special Organomics comes to the table with direct answers to modern questions. Following General Organomics does not require the acceptance of the special theory, which brings a more difficult learning curve. The Special Theory builds out directly from the general, rejecting false compromise and delay, accepting nothing less than a peaceful and immediate transition to a sustainable world economy. There is a storm bearing down. Our lives and heritage depend on what we do next. The list becomes increasingly radical as we continue.
We now present the
Tenets of Special Organomics: Activating the potential Real Value revealed in the 3 Invisible Mammoths – General Tenets 3,4 & 5 – Homemaking and the Invisible Economy, Process Improvements, Gross Potential Labor and the Ready Unemployed – we stand and face the challenges of the 21 stcentury as the richest generation in human history, claiming our inheritance without mincing words. Modern Employment Theory prizes high unemployment, paired with UBI and a Jobs Guarantee, in response to the rise of automation, and the challenges of climate change and degrowth. We go against old macroeconomic theories wherever they conflict with science, facing the unsustainable resource costs of last century’s methods of mass production, squarely. The Ready Unemployed are a resource – and more than that – the healthier, wealthier, more educated and higher their living standard and numbers, the better. We seek nothing less radical than the abolition of taxation. Recognizing that taxes do not fund federal spending (in monetarily sovereign nations), implementing a suite of methods for the control of inequality, inflation and currency circulation, Special Organomics renders taxes largely obsolete. Our infrastructure having become dependent on this archaic extortion, we recognize a step-by-step approach to its safe dissolution.
Borrowing tools from established disciplines does not leave us beholden to their limits. Where MMT and others look to refine capitalist ideas to run society, we throw off the yoke of these falsehoods entirely. Capital must also serve society, not only the other way around. There are practical ways to control for inflation and employment, as well as value our currency, without perpetuating the 5000-year shell game of taxation. As MMT informs with clarity, taxes do not fund government spending in monetarily sovereign nations. Rather, they are a tool of coercion and control – in good weather a control against inflation, in bad a cause to cut infrastructure in the name of budgetary theory that does not hold water today, and at worst a cesspool of corruption. Government debt is, by definition, a public surplus. As the issuer of our own currency, we are only ever limited by ecology, labor or other practical boundaries, and never by a lack of money itself. Special Organomics refuses to perpetuate the ancient cons of kings and bankers, proposing other means of expiring money from circulation when it is necessary. We remove the profit motive associated with federal taxation (and its loopholes), purging large pools of dangerous political influence. This vampirism of the corporate state upon its own tit, this corrosive undercurrent of governments throughout history, is a subject for much further study, but here, unadorned, stands the principle and promise of the abolition of taxation for its own sake – Special Organomics no less than a Robin Hood with arrows in flight.
Inflation, a market phenomenon, must be isolated from infrastructure – kept “on the table” – via financial circuit breakers, Minimum and Maximum Wage, Housing Guarantees, a Jobs Guarantee and other measures. It can’t be allowed to direct social policy, which must raise our aims higher than just steady pricing. The old economic boogeyman of inflation has run its course and may be isolated, prevented from broadly threatening social and economic stability. Self-perpetuating systems arise spontaneously from the feedback loops of capitalism, finding viral expression in the profit motive itself. Special Organomics is concerned with unraveling parasitic, unbalanced profit motives from the workings of infrastructure, and everything outside of the free market. We claim as the domain of this study the broader nature of these self-perpetuating systems, with the aim of understanding and controls that serve both the individual and societal bodies.
From here, our Tenets become increasingly bold, yet independent still, not necessarily dependent upon the successful implementation of the changes – nothing less than paradigm shifts, each – already discussed.
The Inheritance of Infrastructure does axiomatically include Housing, Healthcare, Food, Education, Banking, Recycling, Transportation and Defense, in addition to more commonly understood societal commodities like Water, Sanitation, Broadband and Power. Origination and maintenance costs are differentiated clearly, where standing infrastructure is not to be paid for into perpetuity. Our houses do not therefore rightly belong to the banks, after so much as a single generation or a single paying-for, but to the people. This may require occasional resets, via paid nationalization. Organomic Paid Nationalization (OPN) is a process of profit-sharing and democratic decision making, without totalitarian control or political appointments like the more ill-conceived nationalization programs of the 20 thcentury. Recognizing those socialist mistakes, OPN shall be defined by delivering ownership to the people. Day to day management should remain unchanged by this process where possible, with exceptions. The extremes of pay inequality must be leveled via Minimum and Maximum Wages, to create solvent arithmetic, girding the marketplace. The banks may be compensated at full market value when necessary. Housing, while infrastructure, is best transferred directly to individual ownership via Organomic Paid Nationalization. We’ll revisit this concept in Section X of this Thesis.
Organomic Paid Nationalization acknowledges the inherent contradictions of state control, hybridizing the process into a flexible form akin to corporate takeover, yet generally less controlling (seeing also such consolidation in the free market of corporatism – like Disney acquiring Pixar, or Nestle buying up water rights – as often ruining their acquisitions’ core vitalities in ways to rival any misguided state effort – short of Stalin). OPN is, in essence, a redefining of the corporate charter, an individualized process whereby the voting population becomes the board of directors, with proper checks and balances given over to both national and corporate constitutions or their like. Nationalized infrastructure should not be considered exclusive from private competition, wherever possible, to gain the positives of both approaches. Yet OPN infrastructure will often have inherent advantage, discounted for the people, by the people. For the Organist, a thriving society is paramount.
The market, as a counterpart to infrastructure, is often circulatory in nature. Limited to “the table” as described, it may then be freed to a great extent of the red tape that today attempts to guide by the invisible hand. Following degrowth principles, sustainability must be achieved, with a renewed emphasis on quality of production and widespread reductions in waste and consumption. Via UBI, a Housing Guarantee, Jobs Guarantee and other measures, the prime goals of a functioning market will at last include solvent arithmetic, where wages and cost of living coexist rationally.
The insane, complex and redundant laws of taxation ultimately confuse the nature of economic policy, returning funds to the power that issues them, but with the rider of corruption. We do not need them for our Left-branch MMT framework. Circumvented, unrestrained by ethics, our tax and subsidy structure has turned political lobbying into a massive industry. Here our tomes of tax law simply fall away without undue consequence, as a mathematical set of bricks we no longer need to fortify collective economic action. Perhaps we will use them to warm the homeless. Combining the abolition of taxation with tools like Maximum Wages and Net Worth, the extremes of the profit motive may be leveled out. Those powers of reward can be refocused away from corruption at last, toward innovation and proper solutions to actual problems, for which they are an exceptional motivator.
The Organist will often disavow economics math beyond basic algebra – as meaningless or worse, without a science first capable of defining a dollar itself. The exploration of this dense part of economics is yet encouraged, believe it or not, along with research of nearly every other kind, in this light. Much of Keynesian and Austrian theory is ultimately incorporated as-is by Organomics – simply kept on the table, understood as foundational studies of money and its flows, one of multiple subsystems of the Organomic Body. As a doctor may study the flow of blood, it is understood that the ready goal of each organ is not simply and always to obtain the most blood.
Within the full Spectrum of Real Value, GDP may represent as little as 1/12 of what is truly going on – the measures and rates of change regarding our resources, access to them and living standards each given weight – what is owned, produced, consumed, traded, gifted, shared or stolen – cross-referencing ratios of sustainability, rates of consumption, and degrees of function. Even by more conservative measures, GDP as we know it accounts realistically for no more than 1/2 of all production, as demonstrated in Sections VII – IX of this Thesis. The other half of worldly wealth – tens of trillions of dollars each year that we are just sitting on – is here excavated, the 3 Invisible Mammoths.
Complex financial instruments and endless acquisitions are challenged by Organomic thought to produce functional results. In the language of algorithmic function, a sum by itself is meaningless. As we transition from a language of pretentious mathematical equations, toward one of functional algorithm, there are numerous ways to answer the liquidity problems (like inflation) presented by common hoarding of financial assets. Reducing tariffs and opening borders – even conservatively so – produces deflationary pressure. Flattening income distribution and expanding public profit-sharing with OPN infrastructure, removing so many houses, education and more from the banking and loans sector, will make large strides to eliminate debt-based economics itself. All of this isolates market risk from livelihoods, ensuring social stability. Cash that must be removed from circulation need not be taxed, but rather simply expired. Minimum Wage, Maximum Wage, Net Worth and a Jobs Guarantee each might serve the role of relieving inflationary pressure when necessary. The Crown no longer needs their pound of flesh. Instead the problem we are faced with is a system in need of a sustainable flow of currency to facilitate the liquid movements of capital. Organomics recognizes this as a matter requiring solvent arithmetic, expanding the MMT viewpoint to clarify: just as a monetarily sovereign government may produce currency with a keystroke on a computer, money removed for the sake of balancing the overall system need not “go” anywhere. By simply retiring our excess currency with these limits, Occam pink-slips the IRS and quite a few busy lobbyists, sending them home to reevaluate their Earthly purpose, with UBI, a Housing Guarantee and full recompense for relevant assets.
We aim to refine and contain the role of government. The people must be included in high-level decision making whenever possible. Via OPN and Digital Democracy, daily management will not be taken over by power-hungry politicians any more than by novice citizens, left instead to the managers and educators, empowering the streamlined private sector to prioritize efficient and intelligent, often democratic leadership. Combining economic security with a restrained profit motive, Maximum Wages and Net Worth applying to Congress as to anyone else, the driving purposes of government and market alike become function and quality. Corruption is yet another self-perpetuating feedback loop, draining from the system, which we aim to root out in every instance via utter transparency. We declare the end of war, worldwide, as a realistic collective goal, bringing functional math to bear on the tremendous costs, in lives and Real Value lost to this archaic, tragic and destructive abomination. As an economic motor, the production of destruction is a viral mathematical error, a flipped modifier which we are ready now to correct, without caveat. We advocate the development of Digital Democracy and a Living Federation of Nations, as the fruition of historically unreachable ideals, augmented by technology which will allow privacy, accuracy and accessibility. Using the internationally successful banking systems as templates for a new technology of secure online voting, we will empower unprecedented voter turnouts, with quick international recounts and verifiability, including error-correction like never before. With such a system in place, we move to position the Democratic Populous directly alongside any House, Parliament or nation, active in the decision-making of the world, with institutional checks against abuse of power.
We are the largest, richest population in history. Giants must be willing to take full-grown steps. Each of these Tenets is a realm of study in itself, not to be mistaken for full descriptions. Special Organomics is unabashedly far-reaching. Some of the terms referenced here – MMT, RBE, UBI – are established fields already, and we encourage the eager student to venture into those well-lit rabbit holes with eyes wide open. The foundations of Organomics are deep. Still others – like Organomic Paid Nationalization and a Living Federation of Nations – find their first direct expression here and will become explorable only in due time. First, there is groundwork still to lay. We’ll stop now, though this is not the end, as a good bookmark to return to those world-changing ideas. For a moment, let us bring it back a bit closer to home, to a topic few will contend.
VII Let’s talk about our mothers, revisiting the origin of economy from another perspective. The Organomic model insists that we must seek a full account. The real labor of the homemaking sector rivals GDP. So long as it is ignored in our accounts we will at best have a half science – like a bank statement that covers checking but not savings or investments. Men can be homemakers, of course, but ignoring the gendered bias in economic history would be a far greater injustice than overstating it. Any astute economic theory must include our mothers’ contributions in full. All pretense aside, it’s about time she takes her due.
First, we need to get a handle on the stakes. How much money is on the line here? How we measure value has a high degree of subjectivity, but while experts lack full agreement on dollar figures for this nonmarket group, we’ll be far from the first to make the attempt. Let’s look at the evidence:
As our baseline – our first clear but present measure of money we’re just sitting on – the US Bureau of Economic Analysis endorses an estimate of the Homemaking Economy (as a Satellite Account not included in GDP) at $3.8T, or 26% the size of GDP (Accounting for Household Production in the National Accounts, 1965 – 2010). Ignoring $3.8T nationally in 2010 was equivalent to only taking pay for 3 weeks, even though we worked the whole month, all year, every year – nationwide.
At that we’re just getting started.
How much is an hour of homemaking worth? The BEA report uses a basic laborer’s pay for all work in this estimate. They also conclude that the hours dedicated to homemaking tasks are constant across income levels. This means that for janitors, nurses, psychiatrists or CEOs, making a home requires about the same amount of labor. A median wage is then, at least, worthy of parallel analysis with a low and high. So we’ll compare the median from 2010, $24/hr (Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States, 2010, by the US Census Bureau), to a base labor wage of $10/hr. This will more than double the final estimate (240%), to 62% of unadjusted GDP. This assumes that some people are making homes with the talent of a young construction worker or entry level clerk, and others with the dedication and skill of a doctor, executive or team lead. This spread is reasonable for a then $9.3T sector of the nonmarket economy (2010). There is no reason for looking only at the base wage, to the exclusion of all others. There is no reason that a professional chef, when she operates at home, would perform at a level akin to a base living wage, or that a college counsellor would not provide professional level career advice to her own children – or parents.
This 62% of GDP holds up well within the zone of expectation– in size and methodology – to other documented efforts. The Swiss government estimated the value of unpaid work at 70% of GDP way back in 2004.
A 2011 Australian study by the think tank PwC, titled “Understanding the Unpaid Economy,” counted childcare alone as the largest national industry – 3 times as large as the financial and insurance sector. Their results indicated a market value for unpaid household work of anywhere from 33% (replacement value – often minimum wage) to 59% (opportunity cost – paying professionals a professional wage) of the total Australian GDP.
The 1995 United Nations Human Development Report came through with a figure of $16T for the worldwide state of “Invisible Output.” With an official global output in the same timeframe of $23T, we have an international figure from this UN report equal to 70%, though the exact portion of this due to homemaking is unclear.
Salary.com goes bolder still, estimating a fair salary for a full-time, live-in mother at $178,201 in 2019.
At this high end of $91/hr (2.7x the median of $33/hr – which is 2.7x a base labor wage for 2019), Salary.com is closer to an opportunity-cost method, choosing an amalgamation of marketable skills from accountant to groundskeeper, cook and tailor. If we average just 18 hours/week at the task (as suggested by the American Time Use Survey), given 255M adults in the US in 2019, $21.7T in value was actually produced by the Household Sector in 2019 (101% the size of total GDP).
So we have a realistic range of value here, worth anywhere from 59% – 70% of unadjusted GDP, with a low boundary at 26% and a high at 101%. While $91/hr assures overestimate, $10/hr is certain to be well under. Go ahead, hire someone to do everything your mom did for you for 18 (or 30) years, for $10/hr. We’ll wait, you test the market for that answer. It is sad that this is the closest our government has yet come to any recognition of her economic contributions at all. But while we wait for you to conduct those interviews, let’s contemplate the meaning here, and why exactly we’re so much more ready to accept the lowball historically when it comes to our mothers.
It is production to maintain a home. What would the real estate market be without homemakers, or live-in handymen? It is production to raise a child. Are education, medicine and the sustenance of our people societal
debts? Or are they Values? The answers to these questions are not philosophically inert, but reasonably, measurably as large as 3/4 of total GDP. That is to say we are leaving trillions of real dollars on the table, even by the most conservative estimates, ignoring from a position of historical patriarchy a major economic sector – because if dad won’t pay, who should? For the Organist the answer to these questions is simple, no matter how you measure it, even at $10/hr: Homemakers are not unemployed.
It’s quite the story though really, how we got here.
In Section III of this Thesis we talked about the 7,000-year history of currency, but the first adoption of coin should not be mistaken for the beginning of all Value. Our study is going to begin a mote earlier. Two million years of cultural evolution predates the first agrarian societies, and in this time we developed language, fire, technology itself – weaponry, boats, musical instruments, visual art and the first cookware – religion, monuments, family values and more. These are all examples of the accumulation of wealth long before money, as traditions became technology over millions of years, equipping all future generations to address the problems of life with more tools – more inherited Value – than those who came before.
Then, about 12,800 years ago, the comet Clovis struck the Earth, with an explosion that scattered diamonds across the North American continent (scientists believe there’s a very good chance that’s what happened, anyway). The world’s climate changed abruptly, mammoths went extinct, and we started farming, tilling soil and shaping the land. Sparking greater accumulations, our proto-economy sped up like wildfire. In the blink of an evolutionary eye, organized domestication and larger permanent constructions emerged, defining homes, villages and then cities, as families settled in place.
Imagine the phase transition from water to ice, as the molecules suddenly slow down and crystalize, forming solid bonds across what was moments before a moving liquid. This visualization serves as a strong analogy for the patterns of cultural gain as they may have transformed at the time, becoming more predictable, solidifying with the home – and homemakers – at the center of each unit.
The first trade of metals for goods occurred around 7000 years ago, but innovations like writing, the wheel, empire and banking all predate actual coins by thousands of years; minted coin first arrived about 600 BC. Electrum coins emblazoned with the image of a lion were a part of Lydian, Turkish culture, setting a precedent for how we count wealth to this day. In the 1990s we began to transition to digital currency, but coins remain the model even so, and around the world this is still how we trade nearly every single thing. Literally a billion transactions per day were recorded in 2018.
What is the value of two million years of innovation, and how does it relate to the concept of inherited wealth in 2021? We’ll return to this under the banner of Process Improvement in Section IX. To our purpose now, we’ll ask: What portion of this economic development is dependent on or emergent from the homemaking sector?
Imagine that water-to-ice phase transition and understand that the crystal at the heart of every condensation of knowledge, technology and livelihood, is and always has been the family unit – the primary brick, the foundation of all long-term accumulations of wealth in human society. When assets are inherited, they remain with family or tribe, and it has been this way for millennia, broadly across many cultures.
So when the first trades were taking place, coins were given exclusively for goods that originated outside the home – not because the home is worth less, but because it is the essential building block of all accumulation. The only place to trade was outside the home. As millennia passed, the consolidating force of profit took root deeper in society, eventually permeating nearly everything, with its fingers in every inheritance of wealth. Businesses grew from humble beginnings, to become large repositories for the accumulation of money (though asset inheritance remains most often within familial lines). Without being subjugated like homemakers, business itself demonstrated that people working together for mutual benefit still need economic recognition. Without, they are either slaves, or moms. Specifically in the debt-based mortgage world, where livelihood is now unremittingly defined by bankers’ notes, where all citizens are expected to pay their way, it becomes absolutely necessary for solvent economics to account for homemakers by the same measures as any production. In the next section we’ll discuss a deeper arithmetic of GDP, to illuminate just how real the hole we’re speaking of here is. In Section IX we’ll compile a gross state of the invisible economy. Where once, millennia ago, the exemption of in-home production was a thing of nature, even reverence for the home’s central importance, it has evolved to become one of literal subjugation. This is a great blindness of our age, as large as $5T – $20T per year in the US alone, in 2021.
All of this labor, historically, has been given away. Our family units, and most particularly the contributions of familial caregivers, are partnership economies in microcosm. Homes are the original cells of the Organomic body.
We’re not here to disparage dad’s role in all of this, to deny for even a second that men have played the part of caregivers throughout history, or to suggest that only binary households have been the unexceptional norm. The 2
nd Invisible Mammoth of Organomics is empowered by contributions from men, homosexuals, asexuals and household relationships of all types, and is in fact not concerned with gender or sexual partnerships at all in modern terms. Still the monumental role of women in the history of the world cannot be understated as a genuine phenomena unlike all others, economically bearing forth something akin to half of all innovation, production, accumulation and preservation of technology, process development and wealth itself throughout history, generally and identifiably in a spirit of partnership, non-competition and family. This economics of partnership, which served us for two million years, served the dominant patriarchies that erupted after the invention of coin and government, subjugated definitively during our postindustrial bloom.
As automation begins to lighten this load, our numbers explode, and the real productive value of our in-home economies is only increasing, at least in step proportionally with time.
Our inability to properly account for them did nothing to dissolve their foundational relevance to everything that has come since – that some 50% of every house and coin is in fact owed, and long overdue, not to the banks, but to our mothers.
VIII Let’s talk through the math. In the conclusion to Section VII we took the fast 50% – women being about half of the world population (51%). Among the lessons of a scientifically grounded study – like that of gendered economic history here only touched upon – is that our results will often vary with our methods, and the contextual focus of our search. For an algorithmic analysis, knowing a function’s purpose is essential without exception. In more subjective measures of value, a reasonable approximation may be more useful than an intricately calculated logarithmic output, wasting fewer resources in the mining, and every bit as accurate. Multiple approximations may be more useful and accurate yet. A sum, by itself, is meaningless. While not all sums in Austrian or Keynesian economics lack context to this dire extent, it is precisely the ubiquity and exaltation of numbers which has fed the profit-bearing vine into every aspect of society, worldwide, on a blind lie of the total dominance of trade. Leaving us paralyzed, it constricts with greed and inertia, precisely when we need the most agility from our massive economy, facing the ecological cliff amidst a rising storm of consumption.
How much is Homemaking worth? Is it 26% or 101% the size of GDP? Is it rightly an average – mean or median – of all acceptable methods? An unbiased observer must admit that these answers all have merit, if not equally so. 26% may be the reasonable answer in terms of today’s dollars, if our goal is to support homemakers via UBI without delay, while minimizing inflation, in a market that is bound still like an addict to the debt-based consumption models of the prior century.
For those more intent on getting mom her due, and less concerned with perfect price balances at the market, 70% could be a more consistent benchmark.
We have then to solve for an adjusted GDP in this context, to start planning for inflationary and ecological contingencies. Estimating the invisible sector at an even size with GDP is going to appear more reasonable than may be initially thought – putting our domestic and trade economies in line with the 50% gendered split – as we bear down on next steps, without the rose-tinted lenses of imperialism, manifest destiny and profit clouding our view of what is “product” and what is “cost.” As we broaden our view to illuminate the 2 remaining Mammoths, even the differences between these percentages may start to appear trivial, given the size of what we are unearthing. This is a mass of wealth conservatively doubling the size of GDP.
As informed by Modern Monetary Theory, fiat currency like ours, or any distributed by a sovereign entity, is created at will every day by nothing more than keystrokes in a computer. We could literally double our money supply overnight, if we could figure out where it was all supposed to go, and somehow control for market spasms and inflation. If the resultant consumerist binge doesn’t thrust us over the ecological cliffs of mass extinction or market and infrastructure collapse, it’s shocking just what we could accomplish with enough money. Ignoring inflation for a moment, the question of what we could buy with such cash becomes one of ecological limits, total labor and resources, of which we have access to so much currently that the position of most economists is that any attempt at their aggregate measure is foolish and impossible. Are we to measure the sun itself? How much raw manpower is represented by a population of 5.2B working-age souls (2020)?
As it turns out, we live in strange times. Not only can we measure the sun, but we’ve already done it. The Earth receives 240W per square meter (NASA Earth Observatory, Climate and Earth’s Energy Budget, 2009). What we lack is context for what that number means in terms of potential productive Value. Enter Organomics.
Even progressive economists will shy away from considering these questions, convinced like the mainstream that we are always at or near the limits of economic activity, appearances of equilibrium being self-evident and inflation frighteningly apocalyptic. A boost of 20% could shatter us like 1929 or 2008 or worse, let alone the 70% – 300% increase being bandied around here like magic dust. The discipline on all sides is consumed daily by debate over a mere 2% of GDP ($418B in 2020) – the target growth rate for inflation. Special Organomics pulls back the veil on this false conflict, illuminating that spending power over 200% of our national budget is by all appearances a conservative undershot of where we truly stand. We reveal exactly how the classical model is flawed – crippled at the roots – so long as we continue to leave our inheritance unclaimed, and how for the sake of misunderstood, idolized numbers, we allow our very land to grow fallow.
It is not magic dust at all, but more like a comet that exploded 12,800 years ago, showering the world in diamonds. Science, history and multiplication are all a little bit stranger than we may sometimes imagine – in our bubbles of retail, finance, hunger and rent – but they will carry us into the future nonetheless, like the Nile to the sea.
Next, we’ll take a few pages to estimate the sum adjusted GDP (aGDP). This analysis should not be taken as an endorsement of GDP methodology in anything but the narrow sense. Neither is it a complete accounting by Organomic terms. That would be much longer than this introductory space will allow. Not only more sectors, but in fact more modifiers, must be positioned to model the economy in anything nearing full resolution. For the moment, however, it serves our point to flesh out the immediate and broad impact of some Organomic ideas within the standard framework.
Money loaned = production. This is the equation that creates businesses and puts new money in the economy, when central banks make business loans. Repaid with interest it explains the growth of civilization, or so the story goes. Ensuring the perpetuation of the machinery of debt through interest rates, we can never stop growing, swimming against a current of our own creation, because the amount owed in aggregate is always larger than the amount in circulation. Production = income in GDP theory, introduced in more or less modern form by Simon Kuznets in 1937. Income = expense. By classic and common definition, in this open loop, when national cashflow (money printed and in circulation) is greater than national production, inflation follows. The forces of supply and demand thus tend toward balance.
There are troubles inherent in these equations, forming an unfinished picture regarding the nature of production/consumption/cashflow/resources, of their complex web of social and mechanical interrelations. As a scientist of ecology and the humanities first, the Organist is not motivated by profit or nationalism but by evidence, and so has no predisposition to a clearly false, minimalist view of these networks. We would rather admit ignorance than pretend to a system that does not work, a privilege not afforded to traditional economists, who ultimately must act as if they understand, as if their system is an expression of pure natural law, or risk catastrophic losses of public confidence. But the gulf between economists and reality is wide enough to lose nations.
Among the omissions in those basic equations – and in most theories of inflation – is that the most common factor in all hyperinflationary crises, without equal, is war and political upheaval (Wikipedia’s Hyperinflation entry presents the evidence in detail, though it is currently blind to the conclusion). In war, the evidence shows that inflation tends to afflict the losers and not the winners, or via revolution: the coup and not the peaceful democratic election. Let’s be clear: all sides of a conflict will be spending, often at huge deficits, to maintain the machinery of war, yet dangerous inflation typically afflicts only the losers. The correlation is then between bombs going off, social unrest, abrupt changes in institutional structures, and wild inflationary movements – in short, between a lapse in social cohesion, trust and infrastructure, and a drop in market stability. In large, stable societies like the US, stimulus or quantitative easing of trillions of dollars is often absorbed with little more than a flicker on the inflationary gauge. Inflation is primarily a social phenomenon, more directly related to market confidence than any other indicator. We claim as the future domain of this study, more nuance in these mechanics, like the feedback of inflationary inertia, price gouging and politically motivated market manipulation. For this Thesis we present the postulate in general: When the sense of security drops, prices rise.
If there is yet a balance between cashflow and inflation, where purchase of goods and services determines the fulcrum – the point of equilibrium at which we should print no more cash – all market-relevant production must be accounted for. Otherwise our currency will be artificially restricted, resulting in a high-stress and insolvent economy in which many will struggle. Homemakers, thieves and volunteers all contribute productive output to a nation, their services intermingling, uncounted yet fluid into and out of the moneyed economy, both influencing and being influenced by inflation.
Current practice conflates production and destruction as if they were one. They are not. It turns out that inflation is not the only blindness shared between economists and the machinery of war. An invention of the Greatest Generation, gaining international acceptance as it drove the large wartime economies of WWII, GDP theory favors widespread calamity, loss of life and environmental devastation as economic positives, treating foreign aid and desolation with the same brush. It may seem disingenuous to treat invasions as exports, but this is essentially the course taken by GDP theory, and mainstream economists for nearly a full century. We dispense with this insanity outright. Outside of any manufacturing boom, wars do consist of resource export, and of the abject destruction of foreign assets. Without recompense, however, these exports are a gross loss of value.
What is the cost of war? As we open the file on this question, the economic and social impacts flower outward like a plume of smoke, exponential, reaching into every aspect of the nations engaged. Bombs exploded, destruction of infrastructure, declines in the working population, psychological costs, opportunity costs, social instability, inflation, reconstruction and more tie themselves to the neck of every nation on the receiving end of nearly every armed conflict in the modern world. Mercy is due any economist tackling a serious estimate of the cost. We sooner measure the sun itself.
Governments are deliberately opaque on the matter, classifying real expenses, miscounting casualties, and ignoring long-term consequences as a matter of course. However, an approximation of the real and complete destructive costs of war is essential to our thesis. So we’ll start by comparing multiple efforts.
The Indian think tank Strategic Foresight Group compiled reports on the costs of conflicts throughout Asia and the world, from 2004 – 2009. They counted the opportunity costs of wars in the Middle East at 7% – 10% of the respective nations’ GDPs. Oxfam International, studying genocides in Africa between 1990 and 2005, found they cost in real terms as much as 32% – 37% of the afflicted countries’ total GDP.
However damaging this pattern may be for those countries, here we are focused on 1
st world wealth, as the engine which represents our collective future. While the US State Department has released figures for the War on Terror of about $2T, the Washington DC think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies found that as of 2019 they would more realistically be measured as high as $5.9T. A study by Brown University, that same year, came to $6.4T for the campaign. This includes debt service, veteran expenses and other categories not typically considered in defense budget reports. Over 19 years this comes out to about 2% of the average US GDP. But is it accurate?
On a broader look, the US officially put out 3.7% of GDP for defense spending (2020). This covers much more than only the War on Terror however, and even to this progressive analysis is not entirely destructive. Yet we find it still leaves trillions uncounted, and not due to an inability to measure.
For instance, the US government invokes an unsurprisingly clinical term, VSL (Value of a Statistical Life), to weigh the costs of a whole spectrum of public policy in terms of the lives lost. As of 2020 this number is recognized by the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Department of Transportation as between $4M and $10M per life. An odd omission from Pentagon assessments, we apply this figure to the 7,000 American forces, 8,000 contractors, 110,000 allied troops and national police, 355,000 direct civilian deaths and 350,000 indirect noncombatants to have died in result of these wars (Brown University’s Costs of War Report). 110,000 opposition fighters, and 1,000 journalists or humanitarians round out the rough figure of the human costs of this period at 946,000 lives lost. At the higher average of $10M apiece (Oxford, The Value of a Statistical Life, 2019), this represents the outright destruction of $9.5T in VSL. 1.7M disabled American vets, and 37M displaced Middle Easterners complicate things only a little further. The UN has a ready number for how much a displaced person costs, at $310/year (we’re not sure what hotel they’re being put up in, but this is in fact the official number today). $14,400/year is the average cost of an American disabled vet. Thus, $35.5B/year is added. Without anything beyond arithmetic then we have a human cost alone for the War on Terror of $10.2T. Without mentioning a single physical asset, we’ve measured quintuple the total expense reported by the US State Dept. Adding this human cost to the low-end estimate of asset costs reported by the Pentagon (where we are certain they were not already counted, even for purpose of comparison), we have a skyrocketing $12T cost – or, divided over 19 years, roughly 4% of average GDP for that same timeframe. How much is the destruction of inanimate assets (buildings, infrastructure) worth, and who bears the burden of that cost?
As a unique sort of export, invasion incurs net cost not only for the producer (the invader), but even more so for the consumer nation (the invaded). Without any invoice to imply these exports were ever desired, one fair analysis may find that the entire cost rightly lay with the producers.
Real estimates of the cost of the destruction of Middle Eastern physical assets by the US and their allies during this War on Terror are hard to come by, and so for the scope of this Thesis we will end our summary here, with a realistic range of 2% – 5% of GDP spent on purely destructive ends by the US military over the prior 19 years. We will end this part of the analysis with an understanding that even on the high end, this is very likely a dramatic underestimate of the long-term and total destructive output of these wars, ignoring with due respect not only the physical destruction just now mentioned, but myriad long term and interconnected reductions in output, loss of resource infrastructure, and opportunity costs that may easily be measured exponentially as related to an intentional loss-of-life-and-infrastructure event on the scale of the War on Terror.
Environmental and resource degradation is not only a result of war, but of industry worldwide. An approximation of this cost must be subtracted from our adjusted GDP, to build our concept of net productive value. Only the insane would set their house on fire to cook dinner, yet that is precisely what we encourage by not counting these costs in the standard economic model.
Thankfully the shroud of governmental interest over this question is less dense, and numerous think tanks have come out with official estimates which we can compare in brief. As with the costs of war, this question of environmental costs is staggering in scope when treated with any realism, an entire macro-field of study unto itself, but also like war, in this space we are concerned with answers in the trillions, so with respect for the inherent ambiguity, a realistic approximation will suffice to get us into the ballpark, which itself will be sufficient to demonstrate that market economics must be kept on the ecological field if we want to play at all.
The World Bank estimates that pollution alone causes 9 million premature deaths per year, worldwide (the WHO cites 7 million, with similar methodology). The WB report goes on to state the costs of this pollution amount to 4.8% of world GDP. Clearly they haven’t tried the VSL approach, and we see here again how significantly our methods will affect our results. By a $10M VSL this makes $70T – $90T annually, lost. The human cost of a single dimension of environmental degradation is enough to completely eclipse the combined world GDP ($84.5T, 2020). To be clear that is to say, if we adjust GDP for net productivity, worldwide, factoring out only the immediate human cost of pollution in VSL based on World Bank counts, basic arithmetic shows a result of about -$5T net adjusted GDP. This before we even touch on deforestation or climate change. Perhaps this is why career economists, consumed in complex graphs and heady theorems of price trajectories, are not seriously considering the question.
Setting aside that dark cloud – the looming unknown regarding what this measurement might mean for the degrowth trajectory of a real survivable economy, or the racial bias inherent in any PR effort to dilute it – let’s focus in again on our bastion of 1
st world wealth, cutting edge healthcare and visionary new science, the USA. Here in the land of plenty, far fewer people per capita die as a direct result of pollution than in the world at large.
At the low end comes an EPA-funded study by Carnegie Mellon University, tallying 30,000 such deaths in the United States. A 2019 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of sciences attributes 100,000 deaths per year to pollution. A study in the JAMA Open from the same year found a figure of 200,000 premature deaths from pollution-caused illnesses. By the Value of a Statistical Life, this represents $300B – $2T in lost productivity, depending on statistical methods (1.4% – 9% of 2019 GDP). In line with this, an independent Stanford Earth study found that air pollution costs the US 5% of annual GDP (2019), primarily associated with premature deaths.
Preventable deaths from pollution represent but a single dimension of the environmental degradation resultant from human affairs. The National Resource Defense Council (NRDC, an environmental organization with over 1.2M members), in their “Cost of Climate Change” report (2008) estimated the cost associated with unchecked global warming will reach 3.6% of world GDP annually by 2100, anticipating natural disasters, real estate lost to sea level rise, agricultural damages and costs to the energy sector.
Extreme weather related to climate change has cost the US $240B/year over the last 10 years, marking a trend to transcend political divides, according to a report by the Universal Ecological Fund, a nonprofit think tank in the US (The Economic Case for Climate Action in the US, 2017). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) reports on a 20 year average in “Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: An Overview” (2021) a much lower $94B/year.
A 2016 report titled “The Value of Land,” by the Economics of Land Degradation (ELD) Initiative, found that degraded land (increased erosion and decreased vegetation) was costing the world as much as 17% of global GDP ($6.3T – $10.6T) annually. They are certified by the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD, 2018), who estimated this same at a lower but still heavy average of 9% of GDP per country across a sampling of 21 countries (the hardest hit among the countries studied rose to land degradation costs at 40% of annual GDP). More than half of the world’s arable land is degraded, with 74% of land in North America degraded according to a US Department of Agriculture report (Land Degradation, An Overview). This same USDA report then lowballs the cost to the United States at $44B/year. This exceptional variance between the official and independent numbers leaves us with high-dollar doubts about the accuracy of the USDA estimate.
The combination of land degradation and weather disasters due to anthropogenic climate change is therefore between $138B and $2.12T annually (the high estimate including the 9% average cost for land degradation around the world suggested by the UNCCD report, which may seem fair considering the US position in relevant international trade) or 0.6% – 10% of US GDP (2020). The tendency of US official estimates to lowball the relevance of environmental costs, lives lost and nonmarket work, inclines the Organist for these approximate purposes to lean on the higher of these contending values – and even to suggest this is a vast underestimate of the potential costs of a shattered ecosystem. Lost productivity from declining health, opportunity costs in every sector, deep system ecological damage, and more are for now ignored with respect, due to insufficient official data.
Thus we have a net productive aGDP (Organomic adjusted GDP), incorporating studies spanning decades and around the world, employing mostly basic arithmetic in our method, approximated at 76% – 96% of the unadjusted amount. Breaking this down, in summary we subtract between 2% and 5% for the average annual destructive costs of the ongoing War on Terror, 1.4% to 9% for the VSL loss due to pollution alone, and 0.6% to 10% for the combination of land degradation and extreme weather due to climate change. We find that the US GDP as presented has been classically overestimated by every account, with a margin of this error between $837B and $5T (2020). At the low end, using US government official statistics, that is yet larger than the entire defense budget today, in conservatively measured, completely ignored costs. At the high end, that’s almost a clean 1/4 cleaved off of our collective economy. We really can’t count destruction as production. These are only some of the most obvious and necessary adjustments, but enough to serve our study.
How have we allowed this blindness for so long? “Asleep at the wheel” barely begins to cover it.
IX The 3 Invisible Mammoths are here at last brought up into the light. The Value of Process Improvements, Home Economics and Ready Labor, together clearly outweigh aGDP but have traditionally been entirely ignored by professional economics. Rectifying this, Organomics steadies us for the challenges of the 21 st century, not a moment too soon.
We make no claim that this list is exhaustive, only that it is unique. For the scope of this Thesis, we will refrain from discussion of further elements which may render a real economic picture larger yet than everything herein, while acknowledging that such expansion of the theory will take place. Any science of the living must be provided at the outset with room to grow. In this vein, we will be content if what is presented here amounts to no more than fertile soil. Yet fertile it is.
The Value of Process Improvements is generally considered as a feature of ROI (Return On Investment) models, and a few accepted methods are developed for its analysis. These are not framed in the broad sense by which the Organist approaches. Process improvements thrust forward entire generations and have done so for literally two million years, since homo erectus first used tools. These improvements and their effects on the economy are measurable by more than one method, and the failure to include them in our macro algorithms is enough to render the entire science of economics broken, so to speak, at the root – at the very definition of value.
Where the strict Marxist will assume that all value comes from labor, and the Austrian economist will claim value is a result of subjective agreements between parties to a trade, we Organists are ready to demonstrate that both of these concepts are ignoring the long evolution of Process. From serf labor in the Middle Ages to coal miners in the 1800s, to digital advertising admin assistants in our modern online marketplace, the growth of technology forms the very environment in which all value is generated. From the garden hoe to the railcar to the internet, process improvement drives all industry, defining societies by passing down technique and tradition along generational lines. This is important to understand for multiple reasons. Primary among them is that our tremendous modern worldly wealth, while not unrelated to labor and capital, is the result of so many past generations, their inventions and investments, an epic foundation of Value for which humanity today owes no debt and is, instead, in the enviable position of heir.
To the extent GDP is willing and capable of calculating this value, it has already done so, and nearly all of our current GDP is a reflection of technological progress. So here we focus on finding the process improvements to which current theory is blind. Organomics proposes a new, more useful concept of Labor Intensity, along with the basic mathematical, Newtonian discipline for measuring it. However, for this Thesis we will continue the process of historical deduction and cross-examination.
As we’ve built this store of value, we have become privileged with greater specialization, with progressively less need for physical labor. In our historical paradigm where all resources were originally scarce, all excess, waste and luxury – the entirety of the entertainment and service industries, and so much more – are the result of long-term process improvement. Along with an increase in leisure activities classified as work – professional athletes, financiers, actors and pro videogame players – we have also steadily increased the prominence of analysts, engineers and scientists, unaffordable to earlier societies.
Among the luxuries thus acquired, relevant to a balanced market yet ignored by GDP theory, is time. A brief look at labor trends will make this clear, and there is no serious counter-claim in the economic or social sciences. So why does it not have a dollar value? Leisure time is often traded and easily commodified. The Economic History Association, in their report “Hours of Work in US History,” compiles many studies on the subject. Prominent in its findings is that from the years 1830 to 1988 the average US laborer’s workweek declined in length from 69.1 hours to 39.2. The report goes on to explore how this was achieved via a cocktail of mechanization, legislation, unionization and diversification, all of which we will include under the umbrella of Process Improvement. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, by 2020 hours fell further, to 34.6, just about halving the length of the EHA reported workweek from 1830. In 2020 the US civilian labor force numbered 161M (BLS, 2020). These 161M workers, with an average leisure time at 5.2 hours/day (BLS, American Time Use Survey, 2019), total 305.6B hours of leisure per year. At an average hourly wage of $28.44 (BLS, 2020), that is $8.69T in Value. Counting simple changes in gross hours as indicated above and dividing by 7 days in a week, about 4.9 of these daily leisure hours are due to process improvements in the last 190 years, leaving us with an estimated $8.2T in leisure time value produced, yearly. This is not to include any leisure products, services or industries already included in GDP, or the time required for homemaking, but only leisure time itself in large but average form, on the market and impacting the push/pulls of wage and labor like any true commodity. If you’re unsure yet whether leisure time belongs in this position, consider trading yours for dollars. You’ll quickly find it is exactly the commodity here described, and the only block to this new accounting is social or mental – or a wonder at “where we’ll get the money” to pay for it . . . this resource that we already have.
Time is not the only product of technology which increases in each generation.
Automation, as a branch of the process improvement tree much older than robotics, represents staggering gains across the economy. Agriculture, construction, manufacturing, home economics and even consumption itself have ridden the rising tide of automation since their inception, in a curve which accelerated exponentially during the industrial revolution. Anywhere repetition can be maximized and choice minimized, we find ways to replace human labor with this strange evolutionary appendage: the machine. From basic irrigation to laundry machines to robotic welding, we’ve been crafting machines to do our dirty work for a very long time. Most study focuses on workers’ rights and the goals or problems of labor and capital, failing to address net gains beyond a basic ROI.
As Organists we approach with a different disposition. Concerned with the outright productive potential of automation and its long-term cumulative effects on generational wealth, we have no incentive to downplay any of the following effects.
Automation in agriculture is old news. The National Bureau of Economic Research found in their 1966 report, “Labor Force and Employment 1800 – 1960,” that after peaking in 1810 at 84% of the US workforce, a rapidly descending curve saw 40% workforce participation in agriculture by 1900 and less than 1% in 1960. According to a USDA report, titled “The 20
th Century Transformation of US Agriculture and Farm Policy,” that percentage didn’t drop near 1% until the year 2000, but both studies agree that this threshold has been reached, not much less than about 20 years ago today. Simultaneously, agricultural output enjoyed an unprecedented boom. The USDA report finds that Total Factor Productivity (the ratio of outputs to inputs) has increased by over 100% just between 1948 and the year 2000. The same report tracked an increase in mechanized equipment replacing work animals, between 1930 and 1960, of over 500%. The USDA report clarifies that in this period, US agricultural exports increased dramatically as well, up nearly 800% from the years 1915 to 2000. Another study, by the Economic History Association (EHA), “American Agriculture in the 20 th Century,” found that by 2000, agriculture required 66% less labor as compared to 1900, with 700% the output.
Automation alone then accounts for the lion’s share of the $1.1T agricultural US GDP (USDA, 2019). It’s worth over $600B by applying those EHA percentages, and the implications of this are heavy for a serious inquiry into modern problems of hunger and wealth distribution. For now however we’re still looking for the invisible part. So we need to measure the surplus, now that we can demonstrate where it’s coming from and how processes are affecting market balance. Anything produced but unused, where historically scarcity prevailed, will be necessarily a result of process improvement in the long view. In the US, we throw away or otherwise waste between 30% and 40% of the food we produce. This is overtly to avoid the impact it would have on market prices. The EPA estimates, in their “International Efforts on Wasted Food Recovery,” this number at $218B, or 1.3% the size of total GDP (2020).
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in their “Food Wastage Footprint,” reports resource, environmental and social costs of our wasted food surplus at $2.6T in the US alone. This includes measures of soil degradation, landfill effects, losses in consumer pricing, and other effects which may elsewhere be represented in our analysis, so for now we’ll lean on the lower EPA estimate. The FAO report is still worth a mention before we move on. The Real Value cost of our broken food distribution systems are great, likely exceeding these higher estimates, interconnected throughout the Organomic body.
In construction, costs are deducted from GDP accounts before a building is sold or rented, but value isn’t added until its sale. Revolving totals of built yet unsold housing therefore represent substantial wealth that is increasing yearly. According to the US Census Bureau’s “Quarterly Residential Vacancies and Homeownership,” in the first quarter of 2021 there were 9.6M vacant homes and rental properties in the US. The same report lists the median asking price at $200,900, granting a quick estimate of $1.9T in unused but livable housing, nationally. GDP will include the same homes being sold or rented year after year, so we will acknowledge the unsold homes as a store of annual Real Value. Not the least of our process improvements are reflected in homes that stand for generations, not needing to be rebuilt each time they are put on the market. As common as this fact may at first appear, its economic relevance is undeniable. Having too many houses is not in fact a sign of lower wealth.
Manufacturing itself is no more than an arrangement of processes and their improvements over time, like most of GDP. So likewise here we’ll focus on the more recent and unacknowledged aspects, avoiding any chance of double-counting.
Inherited processes, like manufacturing itself, require no payment, a wellspring from which value blooms perpetually, to the mutual benefit of us all. This does nothing to diminish the role of labor or capital, but only to complete the tripod on which it all stands. Neither account for these evolved processes and the wealth flowing from them, whether they be public domain or protected by patent. Robotic automation in manufacturing is threatening to close this debate over who owns past processes – these intangible inventions of the long-dead – even further however, so it’s high time we started to look at it straight on.
From automobile assembly lines to long-distance truck drivers, 25% of all jobs are at high risk of being automated in the next ten years, with an additional 36% at medium risk, according to a study by the Brookings Institute’s Metropolitan Policy Program (Automation and Artificial Intelligence, 2019). About 20M of these will be in manufacturing alone (Oxford Economics, How Robots Change the World). The World Economic Forum reports that these trends will, however, create as many as 133M new jobs (The Future of Jobs, 2018). What is rarely considered, however, is not the quantity of this labor change, but the quality – and that’s not a reference to how much they will pay. The Organist asks: How hard will they be? From the hoe to ai, the trend has gone in a single direction for millennia, and is only speeding up, yet we continue to ignore it in economic theory. This is the Invisible Mammoth, come clear, and there is science for its measure. How many calories does it burn for a human worker to run an automated assembly line, vs manufacturing by hand? While this question is more nuanced across industry, the simple, broad answer is evidenced in every efficiency improvement throughout history – far, far fewer. This is why we do it – moving a boulder with a lever is easier than doing it by hand, almost every single time.
Added up over millennia, this energy savings becomes an unprecedented store of inherited wealth, unlike anything classical economics is prepared to deal with. For the moment though, let’s step back and return to the comparison of manufacturing as relevant to national production in more traditional terms.
The Federal Reserve produces a report called “Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization,” and in 2021 they report 75.2% total capacity utilization. The US Department of Commerce recently measured the manufacturing sector at 11% of total GDP (2019), and the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports it at $2.3T (2020), or 10.9% of total GDP (2020). Steadily shrinking since at least the 1950s – as a percentage of the United States’ total production – manufacturing still reports a significant surplus of capacity. By basic arithmetic then we deduce running at full capacity would produce $3.1T, valuing our surplus capacity at $800B/year. Let’s be clear: having the ability to manufacture more than we need is a sign of positive, surplus wealth.
Distribution and consumption processes include everything from packaging to trucking to container ships to email, a multiplicative factor in product quantities and values nationwide, and therefore are relevant both to GDP and living standards. Measuring surplus for this Thesis is a matter of accounting for the vehicles that remain unsold and the products remaining on store shelves. Classical GDP theory will count this surplus as an unrecouped cost of doing business for car lots and grocers, et al, but the Organist rejects this as the final word. Having more than enough products is not a sign of decreased productivity.
The internet, as a means for the distribution of ideas, is possibly worth as much as all previous encyclopedias and libraries combined, multiplied by the number of active users, and more, a museum of the past and future unlike anything that came before, a dictionary and a live translator, an automated tutor and international telephone, today kept in every pocket, for some $100/mo, or an average of about 3 labor-hours in 2020. In every living room we now have a movie theater, streaming everything from classics to new releases that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to produce. The true value of this process improvement we call the Net, and the long, accelerating curve of evolution by which it came about, is one of the great untold stories of modern economics, reshaping our world much faster than our understanding of it can keep up. To measure this Value we must take stock of everything offered, adjusted to reflect instant, nearly resource-free distribution, and multiply it by the number of users.
Without ready statistics for these aggregates however, we’ll leave this section unfinished, with only a nod to recognize how dramatic its likely impact will be when properly understood.
If there are in truth more than enough cars in the US for everyone to have one, more than enough food for everyone to eat, and more than enough houses for everyone to have shelter, and generally just more than enough products for us all, from backstocks of paper towels to real towels to TVs to sex toys to toothpaste, and many brands of each no less, the impending results for our very way of life are breathtaking, not to be ignored by science any longer. With this Thesis we present only the ground level, the framework to begin to study the webwork of Real Value at hand, all around us.
In fact even without these last numbers, what we have compiled so far is more than enough to force an overdue paradigm shift – from scarcity to plenty, from supply and demand to effective production and ecological sustainability. Process Improvement, this vault of inherited Value for which we owe no debt, for which no living labor or trade is possible, expands to include all social, legal and political algorithms as they have evolved in time. Corporate structure itself, like legal structure itself, like social structure itself, is just another kind of automation, a set of rules that form a foundation, producing and consolidating wealth day after day, generation after generation. This surplus is not a “cost of business.” It is our 21
st century inheritance. It rightly belongs to us all. Its continued absence from national balance sheets is nothing less than theft – under cover of ignorance as darkness, of the very substance of our futures.
The simple sum of our surplus time, food, homes and manufacturing capacities is then only the tip of the Invisible Mammoth here defined. Yet as such, this sum will serve fine as a comparative estimate for aGDP – a launchpad for our new science. The sum of this market-relevant surplus alone is $11.1T annually, 55% – 70% the size of our aGDP in 2020.
The 2 nd Invisible Mammoth, Home Economics, is the sum Value of the keeping of our homes, raising of our children, and maintenance of our standard of living. We have already estimated this value according to traditional financial terms in section V, at 59% – 73% of unadjusted GDP, or $12.3T – T15.3T in 2020.
Here we will add the Volunteer, Gift and Illegal economies, which are ignored by classical GDP and yet fully relevant to actual market dynamics and totals of national production.
The National Center for Charitable Statistics posits over half a trillion dollars in the US Volunteer and Gift Economy of 2018 ($622B). Estimated at $22/hr this falls into lowball territory, given the economy-wide median wage of $31/hr the same year. Adjusting their published findings up to the median then, a likelier estimate of the Volunteer and Gift Economy was $679B (given 8.8 million labor-hours reported), approaching 3/4 of a trillion dollars. This statistic is referring specifically and exclusively to charitable Gifts and Volunteered time, and not the enormous profits reported to the IRS yearly by the nonprofit sector. That number was well over a trillion for 2018 (the true size of the official nonprofit sector then being the sum of these – our interest here is however only the portion that is not already incorporated in GDP, which we refer to as the Volunteer and Gift Economy). So it is fair to assume this trillion-dollar industry of nonprofit production requires many professionally skilled workers, from the bottom rung to the top.
The size of illegal production is harder to measure, as generally its practitioners must hide their existence in order to survive. However this has not stopped studies on the subject from arriving at realistic estimates. Known as the Underground Economy, Black Market, Shadow Economy, or Informal Economy, it includes drugs, prostitutes, bodily organs and illegal products of all kinds. A 2018 study by the International Monetary Fund estimated the Illegal Economy worldwide at 31.9% of global GDP, but this is weighted toward developing nations, with their developed counterparts averaging around 10%. Dickinson College produced a report in 2018 that agreed with this, putting the US Illegal Economy at 11%-12% of the nation’s GDP, or $2.3T – $2.5T. A 2013 study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison found the Illegal Economy at a value of $2T (2012), which would put it at 12.3% of GDP in that year. Thus we estimate an Illegal Economy of $2.3T – $2.5T in 2020. While there are many questions left unanswered in this number, its net-positive effect on market relationships is hard to dispute, at least to the same extent as any legal sector. Drug money buys food and shelter, every day.
Totaling these estimates, we find that the invisible Home, Gift & Illegal Economy is worth a fair-market Value of $15.3T – $18.5T annually, or 76% – 116% the size of aGDP in 2020.
Gross Potential Labor (GPL) is the 3 rd Invisible Mammoth, a store of inherited Value unlike anything seen before our time, and another primary driving force behind global GDP as it is. The full Value of GPL will be outside the scope of this Thesis, but as we begin to excavate, it is worth a glance here at the worldwide estimate of labor surplus, to properly orient our sense of scale. Global unemployment, as estimated by the World Bank, was 5.4% in 2019, and spiked to 6.5% in 2020. While statistical methods vary around the world, this will be the best official estimate, equating to 416M – 507M completely unused individuals, willing, capable and waiting to be put to work. Estimating between $1.93/hour (Turkey minimum wage 2020) and $19.33/hour (US median wage according to the Economic Policy Institute for 2019), this equates to a yearly surplus of available labor realistically worth $1.7T – $20.4T worldwide, or 2% – 24.1% of world GDP in 2020. The question, as with all developed assets, is to what use and by what right they may be put – from heavy lifting to technological or directly creative pursuits. This hesitation does nothing to prevent the constant effect of global unemployment on markets worldwide. As Organists, we see and measure for the first time the incredible value inherent in an unemployed yet ready-to-work populace – the larger and more prepared – more educated, healthy and skilled – the better.
We can apply this reasoning to US statistics in short form, to gather just the tip of this Mammoth’s horn, finishing our survey of surplus value in the US today. The BLS reported 5.9M unemployed in 2019, before the Covid pandemic. At the median wage of $19.33/hour (EPI, 2019), this Ready Labor force amounts to roughly $237B in Value.
Totaling these efforts, we find surplus value represented by these Invisible Mammoths at $26.64T – $29.84T per year. Compared to our aGDP of $15.9T – $20.09T, this additional amount equals 132% – 188% of that total size. However, despite the relevance of these continued comparisons, we will remind the reader that our purpose in measuring only these surplus totals is to avoid double counting the portions of these Mammoths that are already represented by classical GDP theory, and so in the end we are building an additive total. Thus our estimated Organomic Sum aGDP, by this non-exhaustive analysis, has become $42.5T – $49.93T (2020). X Where do we go from here? You don’t need to accept all of Special Organomics to follow this math. Among the paradigm shifts we’ve discussed this far – and there are many – the only leaps of faith here truly necessary are that of valuing our surplus, and our homemakers. Excesses of product, money, labor and time indicate more and not less societal wealth. Maintaining homes and raising children has economic value. If these simple statements seem less than sincere to you after seeing the evidence, at this point feel free to go your own way. Here we diverge, without apology, with the math to show that these points have been the subject of a strange and expensive blindness. We will tolerate this no longer.
It won’t be long before this is taken as common sense, but let history show that the battlefield here is bloodied with the senseless, greedy, ignorant and misinformed at a scale that the children of our future will scarcely believe – that is unless they are still, while reading these words, paying the ecological prices of our foolishness.
You do not need to agree with every point. We have laid a wide margin for error and evolution.
Accept these two propositions and see that the United States has at least double the developed assets we thought we had, NOW. Accept these two propositions, to see how we can not only feed the world without hesitation, but face down ecological catastrophe before it destroys our future, and begin the era of real space explorations without unbalancing any accountants’ quills, no matter how sacred they may have seemed just moments ago. Accept these two propositions – that extra money still counts, that homemakers have economic value – and glimpse here the ink-black shadow of how much time and life we’ve been wasting on outdated ideas of scarcity.
And yet these are hardly the only bodies on the field. Follow this new science with us, and together we’ll explore how humankind may at long last try to live in organic harmony with nature, without sacrificing an ounce of our potential for leisure, technology and entertainment. We aim to grab these possibilities with both hands now and make them our own, as we are the inheritors of not only our grandparents’ real estate and bank balances, but truly of all that has come before us on this Earth – stretching back millions of years, to reap what our ancestors lived and died to sow – a crop beyond anything they could even begin to know.
The path of the Organist is not for those interested in short-sighted consolidations of money and power at the expense of the world. Survival does not favor the unsustainable. It is not for those who prize 19
th century economic theories above modern techniques of scientific survey and basic mathematics. It is not for those who believe inflexibly that all value is the direct result of labor and modern capital – we build on these two concepts, making a tripod of the understanding that the foundation of generational wealth is evolution and technology. In these pages we have systematically dismantled the old superstitions of profit and inflation, and from this point we will not be turning back.
Here we recognize that it is the destiny of our times to unflinchingly activate all of this potential. Here we open our eyes to a new century, with a new science, new math and goals no less than worthy of our dedication and our lives.
The question remains. What next? Well, we’re certainly not going to avoid the dramatic, but first we must deal with the practical.
Regarding next steps for the exploration of the Organomic field, critical readers may have already noted habits that will set us apart. Let’s lay out a few specific Organomic Methods: We have no incentive to illusions of certainty. Without hesitating to separate falsehoods, we will recognize that more than one approach usually has merit. Therefore we often deal with ranges, rather than single numbers. Low, high and median estimates will all have use in their own way. No single results will be considered as sacred, because numbers are not meaningful in isolation. We are invested in algorithmic answers to complex problems and will pretend to nothing less. Where we do employ pure mathematics, we’ll reduce our methods to basic arithmetic and algebraic functions where possible. We will not hide the vagaries of humanist systems behind complex math with the superstitious numerology of our forebears. Our goal is simplicity, accuracy and understanding, and in this we recognize complex math is more often an impediment or illusion, rather than a tool for greater understanding. This won’t prevent us from what may be required to build computer models and other predictive instruments or larger organizations. In these a multi-pronged and complex approach will often increase accuracy. Yet simplicity will be our guiding star. As Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” We employ a functional naming convention, using real terms and broadly understood definitions. Steering away from naming new principles or fields after their discoverers or oblique historical and academic references, we will attempt at all times to just call things what they are, in plain language. As a cumulative science we are privileged to pick and choose from foundational and confrontational fields as we choose, building out from the work of others or completing whole studies in comparison to more traditional sciences, as we have done in this Thesis by using only the parts of MMT or GDP theories that serve the algorithmic frame. None of this will relegate us to their limits or mistakes, just as our comparison to GDP is not to be taken as anything approaching a full Organomic analysis of Real National Productive Capacity, or the ratios thereof to our developed resources and ecological limits. Organomics is a living, breathing science of the living and the breathing, and as such will not be limited by its own devices or those of others. Like artists, we obtain a fuller view of our subject through repeated renderings from as many angles as possible, employing as many mediums and tools as we can find for the purpose. Our goal is not merely reductionist or predictive, but nothing less than a true thriving of the many systems that comprise our world. This allowance for variance will not paralyze us. An algorithmic answer is only as good as its functional results, and our goal at every moment will remain the same. We aim for nothing less than the building of a real, sustainable, flourishing, intelligent world, where our human potential may at last bloom true, no longer in bondage to industry, money, royalty or any of our creations, but instead, at last, in charge of our own structure and future. We will not hesitate to apply what we have learned. Should our reach be local, we will apply localized solutions. Like the bodies we study, we understand in our own work the ultimate importance of cells to organs, of solutions to real problems at all scales. Looking forward then, the field is wide open to be tilled and planted. There is much work to be done. Yet the outline is clear for how we may begin.
MMT informs us that sovereign governments like the United States are not limited in their spending by taxation or cashflow. We may in fact simply print as much money as we like, so long as we don’t pass the limits of ecological and resource boundaries, or those of financial responsibility set by the balances of employment and inflation. Our analysis of aGDP has revealed that the common understandings of employment and inflation are far from accurate, that even by traditional dollar-value terms, national production amounts to at least twice the number we have been using. Further, this Thesis has found that dangerous hyperinflationary events are linked predictably to social instability, most often related to wartime losses or military coups, and not primarily to increases in the money supply. We see clearly why decades of expanding the money supply, including trillions of dollars in quantitative easing, has done very little to cause inflation in the US. Yet all of that expansion combined, without the science to show where our reasonable limits and purposes may be, has been but a drop in the bucket of what is possible. We do hold in our hands a blank check passed down from our ancestors, and it is up to us to decide how to use it. It would be a grave mistake to continue to pretend it does not exist.
We are not here advocating for a simple doubling of the money supply. That sort of immediate shock and redistribution could well lead to a breach of social stability of the sort that causes hyperinflationary events, simultaneous with a consumerist binge that may thrust us headlong over our ecological limits. Money does not equal wealth, so converting our entire productive capacity immediately into a river of cash may not in fact leave us any richer, and the basis for doing so may be as yet unproven despite our conclusions. There is unknown risk in treating aGDP as a spending account, though the basic premise of weighing our cash against our assets is quite accepted in banking, and truly no alternative has yet been posed since the end of the gold standard in 1971. With some gray notion of balancing taxes vs spending, while never actually doing so, we’ve been accounting in the dark, trying to impose a zero-sum act on top of a little-understood major fiat system. We have not in these pages dealt with the empty promises of a stock market valued at $70.8T (World Bank, 2019), or the bald illusions of our money-as-debt banking system in general. These are entire studies unto themselves, but their hollow cores serve to underscore the basic Organomic argument for removing the markets from their central role in our economics and infrastructure. We don’t aim to get rid of markets, but to set them truly free within the table of their proper function, in a sustainable and self-contained algorithm explicitly aimed to engender invention and progress, rather than the rampant, endless and ecologically catastrophic growth of profit for profit’s sake that we see today. Let this dangerous lesson, consumerism for its own sake, become taboo, with the price of so many millions of lives – with our close-as-nails tightrope walk along the cliff’s edge of mass extinction. So a mere doubling (or tripling) of the money supply, and the resultant unpredictable market explosion, would not be an appropriate response to these revelations of aGDP.
Instead, we advance a 3-stage Cycle of proposals which will serve to increase trust in society, build stability in our Real Value foundations, nurture our population and come to grips with our ecological responsibilities to future generations. These Cycles are not to be taken as exclusive, mutually dependent or only possible in the order here presented. Rather they form a wide web by which we might reshape our world, like addicts on the mend, one believable step at a time.
The department of Housing and Urban Development estimates it would cost $20B to end US homelessness in 2020. If that sounds low, let’s compare it to the outright purchase of a home for every homeless person in the US. That would cost about $156B (at the Zillow.com median price of $269K, for the 580K homeless reported by the HUD in 2020). Hunger Free America has estimated it would cost about $25B/year to end hunger throughout the country. So even at the high end, we might barely notice the societal cost of taking care of our people in these absolutely basic ways. This would only increase the stability of our society, leading to less inflation, not more. As we’ve already demonstrated, both the housing and food required already exist in our surplus, so these actions should come at little to no additional resource costs. In fact at these low prices, we don’t even need Organomics to justify the expense, only OPN for the method. It is an absolute condemnation of our way of life that we have not already done these things. So with the new tools here revealed, let’s raise our sights.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs (OCHA), estimates range from $7B – $265B/year to end hunger worldwide. Professional reports of the costs of ending global warming go as high as $50T (Morgan Stanley, 2019). However this estimate is aimed at the year 2050, indicating a yearly cost of $1.6T. The United States, without assistance, has the wealth at hand to solve both of these catastrophic world problems while hardly breaking a sweat. A dearth of leadership and science is costing us dearly.
Ending world hunger, ending US homelessness, and averting climate disaster would cumulatively cost us some $1.7T – $2T/year. Leading to greater stability and so less inflationary risk, we do not lack the wealth, only the initiative. The Organist finds this an insufficient roadblock. We raise our sights.
The US Department of Education estimates a yearly cost for free college education at all public universities of $79B. Forgiving all outstanding student debt in the US would cost about $1.7T (US Department of Education, 2021). Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP, an advocacy group consisting of over 20K physicians), estimates the cost of Universal Healthcare throughout the US at $46T over 10 years, or $4.6T/year. Subscribing to the MMT principle that government spending is not funded by taxation, we will for this purpose ignore the plethora of studies that indicate these are in truth large savings over current costs, as a sum of individual and insurance expenses, and treat the estimate as a simple cost. This is not to imply that the personal savings inherent in such programs are negligible or irrelevant – only that we don’t need them to make the point. Adding these programs to our plan, ending world hunger, fighting climate change and ending US homelessness, we bring our cost estimate upward to $8.1T – $8.4T/year, or27% – 32% of the dollar value revealed by only the surplus portion of our 3 Invisible Mammoths. This is wealth we already have, just sitting there. These are workers we already have, just waiting to be given a chance to work for something they can believe in. This is food we are throwing away and manufacturing that is sitting idle.
You may recall that GDP is not actually endorsed by the Organomic approach at all. We bring it up to define the MMT-implied upper boundary of our spending powers, where traditional economists fear to tread: the gross productive output of our nation, beyond which we might be stopped by inflationary fears. We define aGDP not to set our own limits, but to assure the conservative population that doing all of these things, NOW, is not only within our power but is not even a threat to the traditional marketplace. Yes, our surplus wealth is a bank from which we may directly spend, within ecological limits. “Who is paying for all of this?” Not you, don’t worry. It is being paid for, without caveat, by our ancestors, by the processes they passed down to us through thousands of years of labor and innovation, the same processes that have left us with these tremendous surpluses. In fact, among the things we value in modern life, perhaps the only one in dramatically short supply is money itself. An artificially restricted currency will leave the working class in a state of constant stress and fear for their security, while simultaneously wasting masses of resources. Does this sound familiar?
We stand here ready to rectify it.
What we have outlined so far would be the most aggressive humanitarian agenda in history but matches well with established progressive goals in the US as of 2021, in line with broad voter support, ending multiple long-standing tragedies and tearing down artificial barriers all at once, stabilizing societies worldwide in unprecedented ways, leading rationally to a much more grounded marketplace. Doing this math with no participation from any world power other than the United States, this is therefore quite the understatement for what could be accomplished by a union of allied 1
st world powers, the Living Federation of Nations empowered by the coming of true Digital Democracy.
That may be enough for Cycle One. We don’t want to give your parents a heart attack, after all, and there are complex webs of interacting consequence to work with in each of these programs. But time will go on from here, and so should our ambitions.
So let’s raise our sights.
A generous UBI, paying out $2K per month to each of the 259.3M US adults with no strings attached, would cost about $6.2T/year by basic multiplication. At $24K/year, this is well above the poverty line and far below the mean. Again we will estimate conservatively to start, ignoring the many studies which show how UBI may actually save money in many ways, and treat it as an outright expense to quiet the critics, not in place of other safety nets but simply additional to them. UBI targeting only Homemakers and other unpaid labor, as a stepping stone to launch from, would be significantly less expensive. For instance, paying out $2K/mo to each of the lowest income 85M stay-at-home parents in the country would run us about $2T/year.
Outright purchase of every single home in the US would cost approximately $37.6T (139.7M homes according to the US Census in 2021, at a median price of $269K according to Zillow.com). To minimize the economic shock, we propose spreading this action across 10 years, resulting in a cost of $3.76T/year, to not simply end homelessness, but to close out most of the mortgage sector, paid in full. Removing ownership from the big banks’ revolving balance sheets, we give them to the people who call them home. After this initial decade of investment, continuing to fund the construction of 1.29M homes per year for new families (2019) at this median price would cost about $347B/year. If these giant steps seem at first unrealistic, we may do well to weigh this proposal against the costs of the ongoing War on Terror, and compare the potential benefits while we’re at it.
In 2020, the US government took in $3.42T in total tax revenue. While it may best be taken one sector at a time, with respect to solvent math and sustainable resource flows, the ending of federal taxation may be approximated easily at this same cost.
Having ended hunger worldwide in Cycle One, we might follow up here with the outright acquisition of related distribution in the public interest. This OPN would not drastically alter the organizations’ daily operations save at the extremes of profit, but would transition ownership, including profit-sharing and voting rights, to the general population. Walmart was recently valued at about $386B (Gobankingrates.com, 2018). Kroger was recently valued at $29B (Macrotrends.net, 2021). Amazon has been valued at $315B (Gobankingrates.com, 2020). Together, purchasing these major distribution enterprises in the public interest would cost us approximately $730B, in a single payment lump sum.
Totaling these major Cycle Two costs, counting the full UBI as discussed, we come out to a 1
st year sum at $14.11T, followed by 9 years each at $13.38T, with a final ongoing expense after that point of about $10T per year.
Adding our first 2 Cycles together, we are proposing here to spend as much as $22.5T initially, followed by $18.4T ongoing after ten years. At no point does this estimate rise above our basic measure of Mammoth Surplus, in fact leaving a final grace of as much as about $10T/year unspent ongoing. Ignoring for now the large margin, and many ways that these changes will create profits, how they will fundamentally redefine our sense of what it means to work and live productively, in trade we have not only ended poverty and climate change worldwide. We have stabilized society over the course of about a decade, preparing our populace with reliable housing, education and medicine, for the challenges yet unseen ahead of us in this century and those to come. We have freed our people from the endless service of ecology-destroying consumption, to instead prepare them as a potential workforce like no other in history, empowered instead of hog-tied by the best that markets, technology and automation have to offer, counting the educated unemployed no longer as a false liability, but instead as the greatest, most versatile resource ever known.
This is the power inherent in accounting at long last for the contributions of our Homemakers. This is the change to come when we realize how the long curve of technological progress doesn’t need to be paid for by each new generation. This is our great inheritance, and it is just waiting – like a field to be planted. The sun is raining down, and all the while we’re just counting dollars.
These are mind-bogglingly huge numbers, programs that could impact billions of lives. So the reader may be forgiven their inertial resistance to the way we have tossed them around so playfully. Yet this is the scale at which modern society moves. If the giant must be constrained to baby steps, chained to the anvils of fear and superstition, it will never learn to walk.
Each of these proposals is a field unto itself, and they interweave with others in more ways than we can possibly know at this time. Some hesitancy to dive headlong into major changes is healthy, and it should be clear that simply throwing money at problems like anthropogenic climate change and mass extinction will not immediately cause them to evaporate. At $50T over 30 years, the Climate Action Plan we endorse here is both far-reaching and unknown. OPN might be employed to stop the profit motive from strangling our recycling as it does. We can support the distribution of solar power. The fight to save our climate will necessarily involve infrastructure overhaul, worker displacement, damage reduction and mitigation, migrations, degrowth and replanting initiatives. It will absolutely require an international coalition to reach its goals. There is every chance we have underestimated the real costs even at these hefty sums, and the difficulty of overcoming these thousand-year ecological storms. However in Special Organomics this $50T is only the US contribution. Worldwide, we have the resources. Do we have the will? Is it worth the risk of failure, inflation, joblessness and more, to put forth even the bare minimum needed to protect this world for our children? Are we cowards, or are we humankind? We are giants of technology, unparalleled in all of history. It’s time we come together.
What we’ve outlined via UBI and a Housing Guarantee, with the aim of an endless pool of Ready Labor, is a recipe for directed degrowth, and no matter how much we can do by advancing green technology, it is clear that among the best things we can do for the environment right now, is simply
less.
And believe it or not, this is just the beginning. What is truly possible, when we throw off the chains of ancient economic falsehoods and begin to ask the real questions about our limits? Cycle Three brings another major wave. With the market realigned, free and secure on its table, Ready Unemployment understood as a resource and not a cost, Homemakers paid for their time and everyone both fed and educated, we may then begin the larger tasks ahead. What are our real resource limits, and how do we treat them sustainably? With immediate threats from climate change and mass extinction then perhaps behind us, what are our long-term ecological limits? What becomes possible with the advent of verifiable, secure Digital Democracy? When these immensely complex questions are answered, with the power of automation unleashed and our people free to work as needed or as they desire, is there anything that we won’t be able to accomplish? As we transition away from facing down our mistakes, over the course of the next 20 to 50 years, we may become even more wealthy – not just by accumulating things but so much better than that – ready to look squarely at our potential.
Exploring our solar system is not merely a job for government or private industry, but a calling for our race. Preparing defense against asteroids is an absolute necessity for our long-term survival. We might colonize other planets and moons, and eventually leave even the range of our mother sun. Until then, her resources are nearly limitless if we will learn to use them. Let’s raise our sights.
If you’re here at the end and skepticism still is holding you back, we rest in the knowledge that what has been seen in these pages can’t be unseen. If even a fraction of what we’ve said here is true, it is nothing less than revolutionary. Let it haunt your every step until you realize the tragedy of any lesser path. The average life of the coming century will make the wealthy of yesterday appear poor – like a King without a cellphone – not merely in terms of the things they owned, but in their unhealed, unanalyzed, paralyzing poverty of the imagination.
For the most part however, they won’t be around to see it. Waste not your time mourning for the past, our hungers and our mistakes. The future is yours, and today like every day is our bridge, our time, our moment – this, now, is yours. These, here, these decades – these tens of trillions of dollars – are your inheritance. Take it. Own it. Raise your voice and you will be heard.
Stand with us at these gates.
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warc | 202143 | Purpose of review
Although outcomes for patients with follicular lymphoma have improved with chemoimmunotherapy, the disease remains incurable. There is a wide variation in survival, and although the Follicular Lymphoma International Prognostic Index helps to risk-stratify patients, there is a need for robust biomarkers of disease outcome. Most patients will succumb to the emergence of chemoresistance or transformation to diffuse large B-cell lymphoma and there is a need for new treatment approaches in this disease.
Recent findings
Gene expression profiling studies and immunohistochemical analyses have highlighted the importance of the tumor microenvironment in follicular lymphoma. There have, however, been conflicting results regarding the prognostic significance of specific subsets of immune cells in follicular lymphoma. Recent studies have highlighted the interaction of specific treatment protocols and the immune environment on outcome. We are now beginning to uncover the molecular basis of the complex interactions that occur between follicular lymphoma cells and the immune microenvironment.
Summary
There is an active interaction between follicular cells and the microenvironment that determines the clinical behavior, prognosis, and response to specific treatment protocols. As we have a more complete understanding of this complex interaction it is the likely that the tumor microenvironment itself may become a target of therapy, or that therapy might be tailored based upon the specific immune microenvironment of the biopsy. | 1,557 | 721 | 3,347.226075 |
warc | 202143 | Cannabis food pairing has become a popular sub-niche within the cannabis community. Restauranteurs and foodies alike are searching for the perfect combinations of cannabis and flavor to put those senses in a frenzy! We thought we would hop onboard provide some tasty food combinations to satisfy the munchies.
It is often said that food tastes better when you are under the influence of cannabis. This is actually true. The THC component in cannabis binds itself to the endocannabinoid receptors in the brain, leading to an enhanced sense of smell, which further leads to increased appetite. It is because of this that munchies taste extra good when you are high. Here are some of the best food and cannabis combinations that will make your taste buds EXPLODE with flavor. These foods taste exquisite when you have cannabis in your system. Let’s jump right in!
Cookies and cream
Whether you have cookies and cream as an ice-cream/milkshake or have cookies and cream separately, they taste EXTREMELY good while you are under the influence. It can make you feel satisfied and relaxed and is great for any time of the day. If this is too sweet for your liking, you can add tomato soup to the mix. It might sound odd, but the tangy taste of the soup will balance the sugary sweetness of the cookies and cream.
Nachos
This one is no shocker. The cheese, the spice, the saltiness, the flavor. I'm drooling just thinking about it. If you are feeling a creative boost, you might even turn those chicken breasts and green peppers into a nacho supreme dish for the ages. Nachos are a simple but great option when it comes to munchies.
Indian food
Indian food is a fantastic food option for a post-consumption feast. Indian cuisine is known for its variety of unique flavors. Adding cannabis to that mixture is a recipe for a flavorful explosion. Green Crack and Indian take-out was a popular combo from uproxx magazine. Whether it’s Aloo Gobi, Dal Makhani, or curry, it can feed the beast and satisfy the munchies. There are also a variety of options for the vegetarian cannabis connoisseurs
Chocolate
Chocolate contains an element known as tryptophan, an amino acid that helps release serotonin in the brain. Serotonin, also known as the “feel-good” chemical, makes us happy and relaxed. This is what makes chocolate pair so perfectly with cannabis, the combination of serotonin release in the brain and the THC (the psychoactive component of cannabis) makes us feel exceptionally good.
You can check out the 4/20 Quarantine edition here! | 2,561 | 1,269 | 5,103.836879 |
warc | 202143 | Indecision – a wavering between two or more possible courses of action.
I suppose if someone was to ask me what is my biggest flaw, that would be it – Indecision. I just have trouble Making up my mind; especially when making choices that I would have to live with for the rest of my life.
You see… with me, when faced with a choice, I prefer to choose once and choose well. Hence, why I don’t have much of regrets when it comes to my stuff. Even if they were bad decisions in the end, like the Alfa Romeo, I have no regrets because I knew had weighed all the options and the details before committing. I’ll discuss the Alfa later in another post. The story behind it is far more complex.
So as the title suggests, this article is about choosing a keyboard layout and basically sticking with it. It has actually been about just over a year, I’ve been deliberating on the choosing a layout – QWERTY vs Dvorak. You see I know that I don’t want to go back to Colemak – even though it makes the most sense.
The reason is because I’ve already tried it for about 2 years or more and not only did I not make much progress in it, I didn’t really enjoy using it that much. You can read about that in my previous posts.
In choosing a keyboard layout, I feel that it is something that I will be choosing for life. Now, I know that there are those who say, “I don’t need to choose. I can learn and train my brain to switch back and forth”. These people may be right. I just saw a video posted where this guy was basically typing at over 100WPM on every single layout. So, there are people who are really that smart. I however know my limitations. I would rather stick to just one – however considering I spend quite a bit of this blog talking about layouts, maybe I should take the time to do so.. Who knows, it might become a useful skill. Oh, I would like to say something here – If you don’t know how to touch type yet, do yourself a favor and learn it. Regardless of your age, it is a necessary skill these days. We are in the computer age, where everything is done through computers, so looking at your keyboard and typing anything should not be a thing unless you are like 5 years old. It really annoys me to see places where you go to a counter and someone is literally taking an age to do something because he/she isn’t touch-typing. This really should not be a thing in 2020.
Think about how much faster things would go if people were touch-typing…
Now back to my indecision. I always have this fear that whether I would regret choosing one over the other 5 or 6 years down the line. Oh how I sometimes wish that I had never known that such layouts exist. But then again, you know that is the part of the problem. Most people don’t know that they exist and hence why we don’t have such a change of shift into the using them as a norm.
Whenever I think about alternative layouts and no matter how much more comfortable I do feel them to be, this article always comes into my mind.
As well as this video…
Quite pessimistic views I would say; however they do make some great points. For instance in the article, while the movement of the fingers is minimum, I have large hands and I felt that when using Dvorak, my fingers were a bit cramped and that would actually fatigue my fingers more and cause me to make mistakes. A number of tests on 10fastfingers.com proved the point. Believe it or not, QWERTY was faster for me. However I felt that I was making less mistakes on Dvorak, especially when using my Bastron Glass keyboard.
I think I’ve weighed the pros and cons of alternative layouts (specifically Dvorak) in this article here – Dvorak – Does it make sense?
I wrote the article to weigh the pros and cons of moving to Dvorak. Yet, here I am a year later, still trying to make up my mind. For now, I believe that QWERTY is where it is at for me. But what I still have that nagging feeling that perhaps it is a mistake and I should just choose to stick with Dvorak.
At home, I use MacOS and I use the Dvorak + QWERTY Cmd layout. It is the best layout by far for me because it addresses the issues that most people have with Dvorak when it comes to the keyboard shortcuts. However, at work I am forced to use Windows and Microsoft does not have such a feature. So I am stuck using the shortcuts in the standard Dvorak location. It’s not that bad, but it is not as good as the standard QWERTY.
So it seems that for my needs, QWERTY is the better fit, but I still have this nagging feeling and it has to do with one thing – health. As I suggested in my previous article, I adhere to the phrase “Prevention is better than cure.” While there is still no clear evidence that QWERTY causes RSI and Carpal tunnel, there is clear evidence that those who move over to Dvorak have had their pains and aches reduced or even eliminated altogether. So when it comes to overall health, if there is something better, I would choose that. However, in this case, both the better options have their flaws. Dvorak’s flaw is the shortcuts. Colemak’s flaw is that is it not installed by default on quite a few operating systems – which was one of the reasons for me moving away from it.
This still nags me though because recently the IT manager at work, who is incidentally my age, was complaining of pain in his fingers. I advised him to look at Colemak or Dvorak if he didn’t want to move to an ergonomic keyboard.
I also noticed quite a few others at work using ergo keyboards; all of whom spend quite a bit at the computer at work. And then comes this video…
All of this should actually send me packing all the way back to Dvorak, if it weren’t for one issue. Whilst typing on Dvorak on the Bastron, I did feel that my fingers were feeling a bit more cramped than when I was using QWERTY. I feel my fingers more free with QWERTY; even though typing is less efficient, slower and slightly more hard work. It is less comfortable, but not overly so uncomfortable to say its an issue.
I am going to give QWERTY on my Bastron another go. Can’t say for how long. Perhaps till I am reasonably comfortable with it. With considerable practice, let me see if I can reach my goal of crossing 50WPM typing on Glass. If I can, then I will stick with it for life.
Categories: Uncategorized | 6,457 | 2,903 | 13,914.912849 |
warc | 202143 | A younger bald eagle has died because of to ingesting rodent poison, marking the next in 5 months in Massachusetts, MassWildlife introduced on Thursday.
A younger woman eagle was observed in “obvious distress” on the floor in Middlesex County in July and was taken to the Tufts Wildlife Clinic in Grafton, authorities mentioned. On Thursday, MassWildlife announced the eagle experienced died.
A necropsy and toxicology examination verified that the eaglet’s bring about of loss of life was owing to lethal amounts of second-technology anticoagulant rodenticide (SGAR) poisoning. It was the next ever documented case of an eagle dying from rodenticide in the point out, MassWildlife claimed. The initially involved an grownup eagle that died in March.
Analysis of liver tissue confirmed two distinctive SGARs ended up ingested by the eaglet, MassWildlife stated. Given the hunting variety of eagles, it is unattainable to establish the exact supply of this rodenticide poisoning, authorities explained.
Anticoagulant rodenticides are a type of rodent poison that kills by avoiding blood from clotting typically, ensuing in fatal interior hemorrhage or bleeding, MassWildlife said.
The poison while can not only eliminate the intended concentrate on, but also a predator or scavenger that eats the prey just after they die. Scientific studies of birds of prey in Massachusetts executed at Tufts Wildlife Clinic have revealed common exposure to SGARs, authorities reported.
“Not only raptors, but many other kinds of wildlife have been the victims of unintentional rodenticide poisoning,” MassWildlife’s Condition Ornithologist Andrew Vitz explained. “Secondary exposure to rodenticides has been documented in other animals these as foxes, bobcats, and coyotes.” He also noted that other predatory wild mammals and unsupervised puppies and cats are vulnerable to unintended publicity.
The U.S. Environmental Safety Agency has imposed limits on rodenticides. SGARs aren’t be sold as a result of normal purchaser shops for use by the typical home-owner, MassWildlife stated. SGARs can nevertheless be ordered on-line in commercial use quantities for use only by certified pest specialists and agricultural consumers.
Although bald eagles mostly eat fish, they are opportunistic foragers and will scavenge or prey on a assortment of animals, MassWildlife claimed.
Extra than 80 pairs of bald eagles nest in Massachusetts.
To limit harm to wildlife and animals, MassWildlife and Tufts Wildlife Clinic offer the following suggestions for house owners and other involved citizens:
Avert Rodent Complications:Get rid of or securely protected any resources of food items or garbage that appeals to rodents. Maintain food items for animals, poultry, and livestock in animal-proof containers. Rodent-evidence your household! Close off or restore any exterior openings in your property and other outbuildings that may well make it possible for rodents to enter. Obtained Rodents?Commence with baited snap traps which give a swift and humane loss of life and are straightforward for a house owner to use. Poisons must be employed only as a very last resort. If utilizing poisons, use enclosed in bait stations and follow the merchandise label instructions. Choosing a business? Choose a accredited integrated pest management organization that works by using multiple techniques to pest management as a substitute of relying solely on poisons. You can request that the business steer clear of making use of SGAR items together with brodifacoum, bromadiolone, difenacoum, or difethialone. | 3,629 | 1,773 | 7,309.170333 |
warc | 202143 | Maximum Independent Set And Maximum Induced Matching Problems For Competitive Programming ASU Author/Contributor (non-ASU co-authors, if there are any, appear on document) Janet Dean Brock (Creator) Institution Appalachian State University (ASU ) Web Site: https://library.appstate.edu/ Advisor Raghuveer Mohan Abstract: Competitive programming is a growing interest among students, with some students training for years to be competitive in national and international competitions. Competitive programming problems continue to become more complex; yet they are always solvable with skills learned in an undergraduate algorithms class. This makes competitive programming a great way for undergraduates to develop their coding skills and learn complex algorithms. However, there are very few competitive programming problems on particular graph classes, despite the fact that the field of graph theory is rich with complexity and algorithms results for over eighty years. This may be because of the overwhelming amount of graph classes and terminology that students need to be familiar with to understand even the simplest results in graph theory, sometimes overlooking the connection between graph theory and the study of algorithms. Some of these algorithms, like that of computing a maximum independent set (MIS) or a maximum induced matching (MIM) on special graph classes, only require techniques learned in an undergraduate algorithms course. However, in the literature, they are hidden behind results for generalized classes, often using terminology and notation far beyond what undergraduate students are exposed to. Some of these graph theoretic results are either so old that the original papers are hard to find or they are held behind payment gateways from publishers. Therefore, there needs to be substantive work done to improve the expositions of old (and some new) graph theory algorithms that can be solved using topics learned in an undergraduate course. This will allow students in algorithm classes to be exposed to topics in graph theory, while fundamental problems on graphs can be used as excellent motivating examples for topics in algorithms.
Maximum Independent Set And Maximum Induced Matching Problems For Competitive Programming
PDF (Portable Document Format) 962 KB Created on 6/21/2021 Views: 58 Additional Information Publication Honors Project Brock, J. (2021). Maximum Independent Set And Maximum Induced Matching Problems For Competitive Programming. Unpublished Honors Thesis. Appalachian State University, Boone, NC. Language: English Date: 2021 Keywords maximum independent set, maximum induced matching, competitive programming, special graph classes, graph theory | 2,706 | 1,228 | 5,954.081433 |
warc | 202143 | Yep, giving birth to big babies can be hereditary. In general, babies tend to be in the same weight range as their parents. In other words, if you were nine pounds, eight ounces at birth, it’s incredibly unlikely that you’ll give birth to a five-and-a-half-pound peanut.
Does birth weight come from Mom or Dad?
A
child inherits half their genes from their mother and half from their father, and the child’s own resulting genetic make-up plays a role in birth weight. The paper reveals the complex balance of how both the mother’s genes and the baby’s genes can influence the baby’s growth. Does parents birth weight predict baby birth weight? A father’s genetic code influences the weight of a baby at birth, according to a new study led by the UCL Institute of Child Health (ICH). Is having a big baby hereditary?
A baby may
be large at birth due to genetic factors, the mother’s health or, in rare cases, a medical condition that causes the fetus to grow too quickly. Several factors can contribute to large birth weight. For example: the baby’s parents’ height and stature. What is a healthy birth weight?
The average birth weight for babies is around 7.5 lb (3.5 kg), although
between 5.5 lb (2.5 kg) and 10 lb (4.5 kg) is considered normal. In general: Boys are usually a little heavier than girls. First babies are usually lighter than later siblings. Is birth weight an indicator of a baby’s future size?
Yes. There’s
no way to predict exactly how big this enormous infant will become, but studies have shown a linear correlation between birth weight and adult size (as measured by the body mass index). We also know that the length of a baby is associated with its eventual height and weight. What causes babies to be big at birth?
What is
macrosomia? When an infant weighs more than 8 pounds 13 ounces at birth, she’s considered a “big baby” — or one with macrosomia. Macrosomia occurs when a baby gets more nutrients in utero than she needs, causing her to grow faster and larger than usual. At what age does birth weight double?
Expect your baby to double his or her birth weight by about age
5 months. From ages 6 to 12 months, a baby might grow 3/8 inch (about 1 centimeter) a month and gain 3 to 5 ounces (about 85 to 140 grams) a week. Expect your baby to triple his or her birth weight by about age 1 year. How accurate are ultrasounds at birth weight?
In accordance with numerous other studies, our results confirmed that the ultrasound-derived EFW during labor at term is an appropriate diagnostic tool, with an
average accuracy of 70% within a relative difference of ±10% to the real birth weight [9,10,11,12,13]. Does mom’s weight gain affect baby size?
For weight gained from 14-18 weeks, birth weight rose by 26.1 grams for each additional kilogram of maternal weight gain. But
weight gain later in pregnancy had no effect on newborn size. Early in pregnancy, the authors note, the fetus grows slowly, so weight gain mainly involves the mother’s body. | 3,087 | 1,505 | 6,098.106977 |
warc | 202143 | Undecided on how to go about storing your valuables and belongings? Stressful eh? Well, read through these self-storage tips and start a stress-free, simple and convenient storage today.
Doing all the packing and moving by yourself sure isn’t easy. Especially, if it’s your first time doing it. That’s why you have a lot of questions like how should you go about it. As well as how do you choose the right storage facility for it? Then, these self-storage tips will give you the answers that you’ve been looking for. This will give you the insights and ideas that can really be helpful for this venture.
Here are the
self-storage tips to consider when you’re having a hard time thinking about how and where do you store your belongings. 1. Plan Everything before doing anything
First of all, how about we do some planning first before doing anything? We should get everything right before we proceed to the next step. Especially, if our comfort and contentment are at stake. Everything must go smoothly without a hitch. So, before you cross the bridge to decide. Make sure that you have already set up a plan on how do you go about it. Also, you must include the storing team in the plan. We are happy to add some ideas and insights that can help you out. Planning with us will help you identify the unforeseen cost and problems that may arise during that time.
2. Self-storage tips in choosing the right facility
You need to check your prospective self-storage facility. Considering that you want your stuff to be safe and protected by the time you store it in that facility. Therefore, it is important to do some research if the facility can really protect your goods. You can’t just easily decide to store your belongings. We have to know that they have the right security measures that will protect your valuables. Furthermore, you need to check if the facility is suitable for your needs. Particularly if it’s clean and has climate control. And most importantly, if they offer re-delivery of your stuff after storage.
3. Allocate budget
Now that you already know how to choose the right facility. You have to inquire if how much does it cost to store your belongings. It is important to consider your budget. You don’t want to get ahead of yourself in storing. Moreover, you can’t simply pack your stuff, call the facility and go right ahead in storing. Instead, you need to inquire how much you have to spend for the time that your valuables are in their hands. Furthermore, it is not a loss to set aside some budget for later use. In fact, it is one way to be prepared for the unforeseen problems that may arise.
4. Set up Timeline
One of the important self-storage tips to consider as well is to set up a timeline. A detailed timeline in which you can see the corresponding work you have to do for a period of time. It is where you can manage every process that you have to do for packing and storing. Also, you have to include the team in the timeline. Let them know when are you going to pack your things and move them to the storage. As a matter of fact, they can help you a lot in that matter. For in the first place, that is one of the reasons why you hired them. To make everything easy and simple for you.
5. Pack your things the right way
But before you start packing, you need to have a list of items that you want to store. As well as the storage supplies that are needed for your belongings. Such as boxes, tapes, covers, and bubble wraps. This will help you organise everything in your plan. Moreover, using the list you can then sort your valuables. You might even find some that are fit for disposal. Especially electronic gadgets that are still functional but do not bring many assets to you anymore. If so, then you might want to check some a smart E-Waste What Should I do with IT article for useful tips for this one too.
Going back, in order to protect your valuables from scratches, dust, mildew, and moulds, you need to apply these ways on how to pack your things properly.
Wrap each item with paper or bubble wraps before packing. Group the items in one box and put a label on it. Pack the fragile and breakable items separately. Fill the boxes up to its capacity. With no void spaces left for the items to move. Seal the boxes tightly with packing tape to avoid dust, mildew, and moulds. Make sure that the item is not wet before packing. Clean the appliances and furniture before wrapping. Use special boxes for mirrors and picture frames to avoid breakage. Hang your valuable clothes in the Porta Robe. Pack heavy items in a small box to limit the weight. Self-storage tips for you
Overall, these self-storage tips give you the ways and ideas on how should you store your valuables and belongings. Together with the experience and expertise that we have, we aim to provide you with the most convenient service you could ever have. So, what are you waiting for? Start storing your things with us today.
Want to know more?
Also, read our Self Storage Packing Supplies blog to know how to efficiently use the different packing supplies.
For more inquiries, visit our website at macysmobileselfstorage.com.au or call us at 1300 40 90 69. | 5,231 | 2,315 | 11,673.15162 |
warc | 202143 | With the cost of solar panels at an all-time low, there has never been a better time to go solar. A solar electric system can eliminate your electric bill, and you will also enjoy the benefits of powering your home with clean, renewable energy. Saving money, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, benefiting the environment; Investing in a solar electric system is a smart investment that saves you money and simply feels good!
One of the most common first questions our solar customers ask is, “How much will a solar electric system cost?”
First, it’s important to know that there is no one-size-fits-all answer. Just as each home’s electric bill varies, so does the cost of a solar electric system designed to eliminate that home’s electric bill. Our goal is to provide you with a fixed-cost system designed to eliminate your annual electricity bill. We calculate your annual electricity usage, perform a thorough site evaluation of your home and design a customized solar proposal specifically for your home.
Your customized, all-inclusive solar quote will present a few system options and a range of pricing. In addition, our solar consultants take the time to explain how solar works, educate you about your options and answer your questions so that you have the information you need to make an informed decision.
Factors that affect the cost of solar panel systems The size of your solar array
The size of a solar panel system plays a significant role in how much your solar installation will cost. Solar systems are commonly measured by the number of watts in the solar array. Multiplying the number of solar panels times the wattage of the panels yields a system size measured in kilowatts (KW). (One thousand watts equals 1 KW). So a 10-panel system consisting of 400-watt panels would be a 4 KW system size.
The bigger your electric bill, the bigger the system you will need to cover your annual electrical usage. So although larger solar electric systems cost more, they are eliminating a larger annual electric bill! It is helpful to know that solar installations benefit from economies of scale; there is a fixed cost to any size system installation, so the more significant the total system size, the lower the cost per watt.
The cost of solar panels
The cost of solar panels is the largest equipment cost for solar electric systems. Not all solar panels are created equal. There are many solar panel manufacturers, and each manufacturer offers multiple solar panel models. Each solar panel model has specifications related to its size, wattage, efficiency, appearance, and warranty. Each of these specifications impacts the solar panel cost and factors into their relative value. A higher efficiency solar panel may come with a higher price tag, but more efficient, higher-quality equipment comes with benefits worth the added cost.
Be wary of solar companies that tell you that solar panels are all the same or seem to be pushing only one solar panel model or manufacturer. Our customers find value when we present a range of solar panel options and take the time to educate them about the differences in panel features, performance, and value.
The specifics of your home
The specifics of your home roof and orientation to the south can also play a part in your total costs. People often ask, “Is my roof good for solar? Does my house face the right way for solar panels? What’s the ideal roof angle for solar?” Roof angle (also known as roof pitch) and the orientation of your home towards the south will impact the system size and thus the system cost. Roofs facing more to the east or west or roofs with more shade may require a few more panels than ideal roofs facing south. However, many people are surprised to learn that even if their home faces to the east or west, solar can still be an affordable investment.
Ground mounts vs. Rooftop
The choice between a rooftop versus a ground-mounted array also affects the cost of a solar electric system. The majority of solar electric systems installed in Maine are rooftop solar arrays. But sometimes aesthetic concerns or heavily shaded roofs make consideration of a ground mounted solar array advisable. Although a ground mounted solar array costs more than an equal-sized rooftop array, many of our customers have found that a ground mounted array provides the best balance of cost, aesthetics, and value. Ground mounted solar arrays typically cost between 15-25% more than rooftop solar arrays. Our experienced solar consultants can show you the relative costs of both options and help you determine what makes the most sense.
What does solar cost in Maine? does
Now that you know what influences the cost of a solar electric system, here is a range of prices you can expect to see in quotes for a solar panel system in Maine. Solar panel costs for a 10 kilowatt (kW) installation in Maine range from $20,000 to $32,000 after factoring in the 26% federal solar tax credit. It is common to see solar pricing presented as “cost per watt.” Simply divide the cost of a solar electric system by the number of watts in the solar array. The average cost of a solar electric system in Maine ranges from $2.60 to $3.15.
Electric bill is: Average System Size Estimated Cost Net Cost (after 26% Tax Credit) $75 per month 6 kW $14,716 $10,889 $100 per month 8 kW $17,401 $12,877 $150 per month 9 kW $23,836 $17,639 $250 per month 15 kW $37, 285 $27,591 *ROUGH ESTIMATES. PRODUCTION LEVELS AND COSTS WILL VARY BASED ON YOUR FREE SITE ASSESSMENT FINDINGS Financial incentives for solar customers in Maine.
Solar electric systems in Maine benefit from a 26% federal tax credit. Solar customers can take 26% of the total cost for their solar electric system and use it as a credit to pay down their federal tax bill. The 26% federal tax credit is available for systems installed through the end of 2022. In 2023 the tax credit is scheduled to be reduced to 22% and the tax credit is currently scheduled to expire at the end of 2024. The good news is that the tax credit has been extended in the past and there is strong support to extend it in the future.
Are solar panels a good investment?
A solar electric system can be a significant investment. But a solar panel system is one of the few investments that truly pay for themselves in savings over time. Buying a solar electric system is the equivalent of buying 30 or more years of electricity supply at one fixed cost. Over time the money you save in reducing or eliminating your electric bill will pay back that initial investment. For most homeowners, you can see a payback or return on investment (ROI) in as few as 7 to 12 years.
Once the system pays for itself, your cost of electricity is essentially free. And from day one, your solar electric system saves you money in avoided electrical costs and protects you from ever-increasing Central Maine Power (CMP) rates!
There are also various ways to finance a solar system – such as no money down solar loans – so your solar consultant can help you pick which option works best for you and your situation.
What to look for in a solar installer
It’s important to note that cost should not be the only factor for settling on a particular company. Solar is a 25-year commitment, and part of what you’re paying for is which company will support you best before, during, and after the installation. A “cheap” installation could end up costing you more money in the long term from low-quality products and installation. Every customer wants a company with caring and skilled staff who are quick to respond. The best solar installers have a collaborative team of caring and qualified staff who work together with customers during each step of the project.
The best way to see what a solar electric system will cost for your home is to schedule a Free Solar Assessment.
At Maine Solar Solutions, our goal is to empower you to make an informed decision. Knowledge is power. The easiest thing to do to get customized pricing for a solar installation at your home is to sign up for one of our informative, | 8,161 | 3,504 | 18,758.188927 |
warc | 202143 | Super Strength Natures Smile Gum Balm Review
Nature’s Smile, an extremely concentrated professional-grade gum balm, can be used to replace regular dental toothpaste. Its composition contains an exclusive, powerful blend of fresh fruit, herb, and plant extracts that will efficiently eliminate (in just 30 seconds*), the dangerous ‘bad’ bacteria and viruses in your mouth that damage gum and tooth tissues. You will notice a difference in three weeks. Your gums will begin to shrink and you will not feel as irritated. It could be used as a mouthwash to maintain that fresh, clean breath you are wishing for. Nature’s Smile also offers a powerful antibacterial action.
Nature’s Smile is Anti-Inflammatory.
Gingivitis may be avoided by Natures Smile gum salve’s anti-inflammatory qualities. Gingivitis can be defined as inflammation of the gum and surrounding tissues, such as the supporting bone or the underlying support tissue. Aloe Vera, which can be common within gum balm, has anti-inflammatory and healing properties. Gingivitis is the most frequent gum condition among people aged between fifteen and thirty.
Stop Gum Disease with Nature’s Smile:
Natures Smile Gum Balm reduces inflammation and eliminates gingivitis. It helps to prevent receding gums and repairs broken teeth. Clinical studies support the efficacy and safety of Nature’s Smile Gum Balm.
It eliminates plaque, which is what can cause tartar and decay of the teeth. It also improves the grade of your breath. You should have no unpleasant bacteria in your mouth. Nature’s Smile includes detailed guidelines on how to utilize it, as well as reminders for brushing and flossing.
Nature’s Smile can be a great way to keep your mouth healthier. Bacteria are attracted to the edges of the creases of the denture and the edges of your mouth. These bacteria can cause cavities and dental decay. It is destroyed by this natural product. It not only can help you keep an ideal smile but can also assist in preventing other diseases from entering your mouth.
Read more click here https://naturessmilegumbalmreviews.splashthat.com/
One of the primary problems with floss and toothpaste is that they do not kill harmful bacteria. But most toothpaste and rinses for the mouth contain harsh chemicals. It could cause irritation when the chemicals come in contact with sensitive and painful tissues.
Nature’s Smile is powerfully anti-cavity and contains 100 % natural ingredients that attack the root cause. Our anatomies are prone to many diseases, such as for example gum bleeding and cancer.
A study comparing old-fashioned dental services and products with Natures Smile unmasked that 100% natural ingredients in Natures Smile somewhat decreased the chance of developing gum disease. For those who have bad breath or gingivitis, this evidence is encouraging.
Exemplory case of natural ingredient used in Nature’s Smile:
Nature’s smile is made up of Oak, Silver Fir (Pine tree carotene extract), Chamomile, and Yarrow.
Natures Smile Reviews
Nature’s Smile is a big success. It includes an alternative to traditional services and products for those who are sensitive to the chemicals in dental hygiene. Individuals who have receding teeth report healthier gums after using this product. Nature’s Smile contains no unwanted effects and has natural ingredients that keep your teeth clean and fresh. Nature’s Smile may also kill parasites to prevent bad breath. It is possible to use. Just place it on your own fingertip and massage it into your gums. You’ll have a new degree of oral hygiene.
Nature’s Smile pleasant sensation when it’s applied to your gums is what you will first notice. After applying the product to your gums, it’ll feel like you are experiencing a mild tingling sensation. The bottom of Nature’s Smile has Chamomile, Yarrow, and Nettle. These ingredients have been which can calm and numb soft tissues in your mouth. Some individuals report that they feel more rested if they utilize this product before bed.
Nature’s Smile can help with bad breath, gum disease, and bad breath. You should have an amazing experience thanks to the combination of soothing aloe vera and powerful antibacterial qualities.
Additionally, it is a good idea to stop smoking if you want your teeth to be healthier. Brushing your teeth daily and flossing each day will help to keep your breath fresh and healthy. You should attempt nature’s smile gum balm if you have bad breath or are suffering from gingivitis. There’s a 60-day guarantee that the merchandise is clear of any problems.
– You can find out more information about the things that are found in nature’s smile when you visit their website. Additionally, there is customer feedback and support available through email. There are numerous products you can use by people who have sensitive teeth. This will ensure that everyone in the family has fresh breath. Click here
Nature Smile contains powerful anti-oxidants that attack the root cause of tooth decay and gum bleeding. Gum bleeding and cancer are caused by free radicals inside our bodies.
– Natures Smile is somewhat safer than traditional dental products according to a report.
Nature’s Smile Gum Balm fights plaque and cavities. It includes powerful anti-oxidants, natural ingredients, and a clinical strength antiseptic. Healthy gums are possible in less than 30 days. | 5,506 | 2,399 | 12,260.546895 |
warc | 202143 | This paper analyzes variation in the medium-term effects of the oversubscribed Boston Public Schools prekindergarten program. Prekindergarten gains persisted if kids applied to and won a seat in a higher-quality elementary school.
United2Read
Assessment-to-Instruction (A2i) is a data-driven professional support system that helps teachers tailor instruction for each child. When delivered with intensive in-person training, it is effective at improving students’ reading ability. This Issue Focus introduces the evaluation of a delivery model that uses technology to make the system more affordable.
Engagement in New York City’s Kindergarten Application
Parents applying to kindergarten today must follow multiple steps. Identifying families who do not apply can help a school system improve its application process and can help it target families who need support. MDRC partnered with the New York City Department of Education to conduct this sort of diagnosis.
Results from the Evaluation of PACE Center for Girls
PACE provides academic and extensive social services in a gender-responsive environment to girls at risk of juvenile justice system involvement. Over a one-year period, PACE increased school enrollment and attendance, as well as girls’ likelihood of being “on track” academically.
A Case Study of PACE Center for Girls
MDRC worked closely with PACE in evaluating its program for girls. As an organization dedicated to continuous improvement, PACE used the implementation research findings to refine its services in several ways. This issue focus summarizes the study and the partnership and explains how the program applied some of the lessons.
Context, Components, and Initial Impacts on Students’ Performance and Attendance
During the first three years of implementation in six urban schools, The Talent Development Middle School model—an ongoing, whole-school reform initiative—had a positive impact on math achievement for eighth-graders but appeared to produce no systematic improvement in outcomes for seventh-graders. | 2,094 | 1,120 | 3,817.810714 |
warc | 202143 | After months of reporting the bickering between Democrats and Republicans to hit Biden’s $1 trillion infrastructure bill, it got us thinking — the 45-year-old explainer needed more information. So we enlisted cartoonist Matt Wuerker and the video team to do just that.
Before drawing it all out, Wuerker spoke with Mediafrolic congressional reporter Sarah Ferris to better understand all those extra steps required to pass a bill.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. What do people not see or understand about the current process?
If there is a controversial bill, it will contain much more than just the steps to go through the committee and go to the House of Representatives. Weeks, if not months, behind the scenes to negotiate.
It’s so much now: what will be the political impact, what is the reason for party leaders to put this bill on the ground, and how will you get the votes for it if it’s on the ground?
And it’s not just committees, there are also bipartisan gangs that are part of the process?
Yes, if you think of the presidents in both the House and Senate, they are both Democrats. Sure, they agree on many things, but the big hurdle that Democrats have faced for years is the Senate filibuster, that 60-vote margin.
You can’t just have the Democratic president write and approve bills and send them to the president. You have to have dual cooperation, and that’s not in the vast majority of legislation.
But are you going to let the two party leaders from the Democratic side and the Republican side sit in a room and talk things over? New. That’s why this bipartisan group has actually become rogue.
Did the old version of Schoolhouse Rock “I’m just a Bill” omit anything?
The more accurate version of this Schoolhouse Rock video may now be about frameworks and proposals and more than the actual legislation. That’s what both parties have to agree to before you can even agree to write a bill.
A Speaker of the House in charge of infrastructure and transportation, Peter DeFazio, had this entire bill ready. He really wanted the Senate to pass his bill rather than their own bipartisan version. Now his account is nowhere, he is gone. It will never see the light of day.
These very high-ranking committee chairmen like DeFazio who supposedly have all the power, don’t they really have a say in the end?
They go to work behind the scenes. But they are not the ones who at the end of the day will have the hammer, pass a bill from the committee and send it to the floor. The only way it can get to the ground is if the party leaders on both sides can say, ‘We have the votes to pass this on.’
And to complicate matters, when we talk about the infrastructure bill, we’re actually talking about two: the bipartisan infrastructure bill and a separate $3.5 trillion dollar bill that was spun off because they realized that this wouldn’t be allowed by the filibuster. come but instead with atonement?
Right. It is extremely rare for either government party to be able to put together a package that can actually be signed into law
. But reconciliation is now the way to go. It’s the only game in town if you want to make substantial policy changes. The only other thing that motivates Congress to get things done is a deadline. And the only other way to try and get bills on the ground is to tie them to a must-pass government shutdown that’s looming. Another concept that has surfaced that is not part of the Schoolhouse Rock class is vote-a-rama. And to go through this process in the Senate, we had a vote – a rama that went on until 4 a.m. So what the hell is a voice-a rama?
When a party does not have full control over Congress, they will be forced into this process every time they try to create special budget bills. And it comes with these really obscure rules where any senator can propose unlimited amendments. These votes are all political. It’s actually Mitch McConnell and his members trying to get Joe Manchin or Kyrsten Sinema to vote for a potentially controversial topic.
Think of the budget resolution as a checklist of how much money you can spend on certain categories. You don’t have to spend it all, nor do you have to say exactly what it will be for. In principle, each commission receives a certain amount.
Is there a change from board to board in the role of chairmen? Are some presidents more involved in this complicated process than others?
We’ve seen a mix of different personalities and how they try to deal with Congress. Former President Donald Trump had a bit more of a vinegary approach to his Republican conference. He would outright threaten members not to vote for bills.
What is the biggest misconception the public has about the current legislative process?
I think people think it’s much more of a linear process and the people in charge of the House and Senate have more leeway in how they decide to prepare these bills. But in reality there are so many invisible barriers.
That’s why Congress is going around in circles with all kinds of extensions. You can recognize that something is a problem, but coming up with even the first step to the solution will never get the votes you need. | 5,314 | 2,478 | 11,074.05004 |
warc | 202143 | The Global Monetary Fund (IMF) warns that the rising popularity of cryptocurrencies poses new challenges to monetary balance. “Cryptoization can prick back the capacity of central banks to effectively implement monetary policy. It can per chance perchance well also create monetary balance risks.” IMF Sees Unique Challenges to Monetary Steadiness From Crypto
The Global Monetary Fund (IMF) warned in regards to the hazards posed by the cryptocurrency enhance in a weblog put up published Friday. The put up, titled “Crypto enhance poses new challenges to monetary balance,” is authored by three monetary experts from the IMF’s Monetary and Capital Markets Department: Dimitris Drakopoulos, Fabio Natalucci, and Evan Papageorgiou.
Noting that “The total market stamp of the entire crypto sources surpassed $2 trillion as of September 2021 — a 10-fold create better since early 2020,” they acknowledged that many entities within the ecosystem “lack solid operational, governance, and possibility practices.” These embody exchanges, wallets, miners, and stablecoin issuers.
The authors proceeded to keep in touch about “Particular person security risks,” pointing out that they “remain mountainous given cramped or insufficient disclosure and oversight.”
They warned: “Trying ahead, widespread and quick adoption can pose predominant challenges by reinforcing dollarization forces within the economic system — or in this case cryptoization — the set residents commence up the utilize of crypto sources rather then the native currency.” The IMF experts additional described:
Cryptoization can prick back the capacity of central banks to effectively implement monetary policy. It can per chance perchance well also create monetary balance risks.
Moreover, they stated: “Threats to fiscal policy may per chance per chance perchance well also intensify, given the aptitude for crypto sources to facilitate tax evasion. And seigniorage (the earnings accruing from the accurate to anxiousness currency) may per chance per chance perchance additionally decline. Elevated quiz for crypto sources may per chance per chance perchance well also facilitate capital outflows that affect the foreign commerce market.”
The authors also fast policy movement. “As crypto sources pick retain, regulators have to step up,” they wrote.
“As a predominant step, regulators and supervisors ought to level-headed be capable to display screen quick dispositions within the crypto ecosystem and the hazards they invent by all straight away tackling recordsdata gaps,” they detailed. “The worldwide nature of crypto sources ability that policymakers ought to level-headed crimson meat up unsuitable-border coordination to prick back the hazards of regulatory arbitrage and make sure efficient supervision and enforcement.”
The IMF experts fast: “National regulators ought to level-headed also prioritize the implementation of present global requirements. Globally, policymakers ought to level-headed prioritize making unsuitable-border payments faster, more affordable, more transparent and inclusive via the G20 Adversarial Border Funds Roadmap.” They concluded:
Time is of the essence, and movement desires to be decisive, swift and effectively-coordinated globally to permit the advantages to sprint with the stream nonetheless, at the same time, also take care of the vulnerabilities.
What attain you take into narrative the IMF’s warning and suggestions? Enable us to know within the comments part beneath.
Characterize Credits: Shutterstock, Pixabay, Wiki Commons Disclaimer: This text is for informational capabilities handiest. It is rarely an instantaneous offer or solicitation of an offer to make a selection or promote, or a advice or endorsement of any products, companies and products, or firms. Bitcoin.com does now now not present investment, tax, lawful, or accounting advice. Neither the company nor the author is responsible, right away or circuitously, for any afflict or loss introduced about or supposed to be introduced about by or in connection with the utilize of or reliance on any sigh material, items or companies and products mentioned in this text. | 4,308 | 1,960 | 9,119.332653 |
warc | 202143 | MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) — Having a baby isn’t always easy for couples, and fertility can be a sensitive topic.
But with more women waiting to have children later in life, it’s a subject doctors say they can’t avoid.
READ MORE:Maple Grove Man Convicted Of Murder In Wife's Shooting Death
It’s estimated one in five women wait until they are 35 or older to have their first baby. So more doctors are bringing up the delicate subject of fertility, letting them know that time won’t always be on their side.
READ MORE:‘Our Business is Down Over 50%’: Deadly St. Paul Bar Shooting Impacts Surrounding Businesses
“There is no question that fertility decreases with age,” said Dr. Adam Romoff of Lennox Hill Hospital in New York. “Think it’s kind of gradual between 35 and 38, and it starts to go down rapidly between 38 and 42.”
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Doctors are also making women aware that pregnancy complications also increase with age — things like high blood pressure and diabetes. | 1,100 | 667 | 1,683.808096 |
warc | 202143 | Home Financing Library Should I Pay Points
A point, which equals 1% of the total loan amount, is an upfront fee that reduces your monthly interest rate and total interest due over the life of a loan. This means that a one point loan will always have a lower interest rate than a no point loan. Paying points is in essence a trade-off between paying money now versus paying money later.
Deciding whether to pay points depends on how long you are looking to keep the loan. You may pay points up front if you plan on keeping the loan for at least four years to ensure that you recoup the costs through lower monthly payments. If you think that you might move within the next four years or might want to refinance because the market rate is declining, then you probably would be better off with a no point loan.
When comparing rates from different lenders, make sure you compare the associated points and rate combinations of the offered program. The published Annual Percentage Rate (APR) is a tool used to compare different terms, offered rates, and points among different lenders and programs. | 1,097 | 595 | 2,013.317647 |
warc | 202143 | Can Your Organisation Become Resilient in the Face of Adversity?Whitepaper Understanding the resilience of a business and developing a plan for business continuity have long been ideas relegated to the ‘not immediately urgent’ pile for many organisations. The pandemic, however, has had other ideas, and this totally unpredicted spanner in the works has put the…Details
How can understanding methodologies from other disciplines benefit business leaders?Whitepaper During the day to day running of a business it can be hard to see how and where to effect change to see the best results. A lot of the latest ‘hot’ ideas are actually just new takes on existing methodologies that have been repackaged, and it…Details
How well do you really know your business?Whitepaper It seems like an obvious question, and most leaders might say “of course I know my business!”, but once you start to dig a little deeper, the gaps start to appear. Knowing your business is not just understanding your mission, vision, and values, or being able to describe your company culture, and account…Details
Efficient tools are made for efficient people: are you making the most of your teams and your tech?Whitepaper There are a lot of vendors out there offering businesses solutions and tools to make the day to day running of a business more efficient, but the real challenge can be deciding which tool to implement, and…Details
How can leaders cultivate and maintain engagement across teams?Whitepaper Ensuring your teams are engaged and motivated can be a challenge at the best of times, not to mention maintaining those levels of engagement and enthusiasm longer term. While many organisations continue to work remotely, this is only exacerbated. In fact, since the outbreak of the…Details
How can uncertainty both drive and hinder your organisation’s transformation?Whitepaper The state of uncertainty is by no means foreign to us all after the past year – the pandemic has upturned anything we previously thought of as ‘normal’ and has had an impact of nearly all areas of our lives. We are all accustomed to…Details
Innovation vs Change for the Sake of Change: What Should be Driving a Transformation Initiative?Whitepaper What should be driving a transformation initiative? It certainly should not be just because everyone else seems to be doing it. Transformation initiatives, whether large- or small-scale, are a huge undertaking and jumping into a process without a clear idea…Details
A Hybrid Workforce – Could it Work for You?Whitepaper For all its pros and cons, remote working has been the legally required norm for the majority of us over the past year. But as restrictions gradually loosen and we contemplate the world of the office once again, discussion has been rife about the type of…Details
How a Continuous Feedback Loop Can Be the Key to Making Change StickWhitepaper The estimated figures around failure rates for transformation and change projects vary, but they all tend to be high. The effort that goes into the transformation project is huge, and the financial investments generally match the effort. So why are organisations allowing…Details
Construction: How do you embark upon digital transformation when legislation is ever-changing?Whitepaper The idea of business-as-usual across most industries has been dramatically altered over the past year. The impact of the Coronavirus pandemic and the associated restrictions, not to mention the challenges of navigating a post-Brexit landscape, have resulted in a massive acceleration of transformation…Details | 3,678 | 1,720 | 7,616.881395 |
warc | 202143 | IMPORTANT!If you’re a store owner, please make sure you have Customer accounts enabled in your Store Admin, as you have customer based locks set up with EasyLockdown app. Enable Customer Accounts
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Posted on by Paula Gallagher
A small study has shown that fish oil has benefits for heart failure patients. "Adding n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, even in patients that had a major improvement
, showed a further improvement in heart function and exercise capacity," said study co-author Dr. Mihai Gheorghiade, a professor of cardiology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.This shows that even in patients who respond to therapy, "we can make them much better," he added. "This opens the door for the potential of a natural therapy - so-called macronutrients - in the management of heart failure."For more about fish oil, contact Village Green Apothecary at 800-869-9159 Categories Humanized Health - NEW!
Learn about personalized health from top experts! Check out our fascinating new shows every week, available as videos, podcasts and transcripts.:
Our Bloggers Paula Gallagher Paula is a highly qualified and experienced nutrition counselor on the staff at Village Green. read more.. Margo Gladding Margo's impressive knowledge base is the result of a unique blend of educational and professional experience. read more.. Dr. Neal Barnard Dr. Barnard leads programs advocating for preventive medicine, good nutrition, and higher ethical standards in research. read more.. Dr. Joseph Pizzorno Dr. Joseph Pizzorno, ND is a pioneer of integrative medicine and a leading authority on science-based natural medicine. read more.. Debi Silber Debi is a registered dietitian with a master’s degree in nutrition, a personal trainer, and whole health coach. read more.. Teri Cochrane Teri is a is a Certified Coach Practitioner with extensive certifications and experience in holistic medicinal practices. read more.. Dr. Rav Ivker Dr. Rav Ivker is a holistic family physician, health educator, and best-selling author. read more.. Susan Levin Susan writes about the connection between plant-based diets and a reduced risk of chronic diseases. read more.. Dr. Rob Brown Dr. Brown's blended perspective of healthcare includes a deeply rooted passion for wellness and spiritual exploration. read more.. | 2,349 | 1,224 | 4,461.948529 |
warc | 202143 | Tips for Developing Tech Skills for Your Career
If you love playing complex video games, are intrigued by the interworking of everything from your PS5 to your cell phone, or are just looking for a more lucrative career, then you may have a future in the tech industry. In addition to the ambition to find a job that will utilize your love of tech, you will also need to develop many hard and soft skills to help you along the way. If you currently work full time, you may believe that learning the required skills is easier said than done, but that is not necessarily the case.
Whether you are looking for a career in game design, analytics, or anything in between, there are many ways that you can develop your tech skills while remaining at your current job. Once you learn what you need, you can use your new, advanced skills to find your dream career. Let’s look at what you’ll need to learn and how to get started.
Necessary Skills
When it comes to finding work in the tech industry, there are many necessary skills to consider. Some, like coding, an understanding of cybersecurity, and database management, will be specific to the job you desire, and you will want to work on those skills to land the job. If you do have the time, the best way to do so is to attend school, get certified, and then start applying to jobs. However, you don’t need to quit your current position just yet, because you can hone many of the other soft skills necessary for just about any position in tech, even if you currently work at a non-technical job.
For instance, a major aspect of the information technology field is the ability to show creativity when it comes to troubleshooting issues within a company. You can practice troubleshooting in just about any job. All you have to do is look at a specific process within your current company that could be fixed or streamlined and come up with possible solutions. Send those potential fixes to management and see how that goes. Even if the changes are not implemented, you have at least practiced your troubleshooting abilities and you can continue to tweak your skills from there.
Another key skill that is necessary for most tech careers is the ability to see, understand, and analyze complex data. Right now, some of the most lucrative careers are those within the data science industry, and you can find many different jobs in this area, from becoming a research associate to a junior data scientist. You can practice your analytical skills at your current job by asking questions about a process that you are not very familiar with and see where the answers lead. Outside of work, you can practice analytical skills by playing brain games or taking math classes.
Learn Career-Specific Skills During Your Current Job
When it comes to learning the tech-specific skills you will need for your future career, you can also fit in some instruction while at your current day job. During breaks and lunches, take advantage of online tutorials and YouTube videos that are made by professionals so you can learn the basics. It may be a good idea to follow several experts in your chosen field and watch new content whenever it becomes available.
Another great idea is to talk to the human resources team or your manager at work, announce your intention to move up in the company or join a new department, and ask what opportunities or side projects might exist that you can take part in to hone your skills. While you may not be single-handedly running these projects, you can still play a small role or just sit in on meetings so you can understand more about the skills you wish to learn and how the experts use those skills in real-life scenarios.
If you are not currently employed but still want to learn the necessary tech skills, then you may also consider applying for an internship at a company you hope to work at in the future. This work may not be paid, but you will get first-hand and real-world experience that you won’t always learn in school. Plus, this is a great way to make connections with folks you work with who could put in a good word for you once you are ready to interview for a full-time position.
Showcase Your Skills for Employers
Once you have done the time and you believe that your skills are up to par, you’ll likely be excited to get your first job in your dream career. Since tech is a growing field, you will want to stand out from the crowd and showcase your new skills to potential employers. That starts on the resume. In a specific “technical skills” section, list your proficiencies and how you can use them in your new career. While you may be a jack of all trades at this point, it is smart to focus on the tech skills that will benefit the specific job in which you are applying.
While you can talk about your skills all day long, sometimes, showing is better than telling. Once you have acquired the skills you need, it may be a good idea to complete a side project on your own time that showcases those skills. The project could be a mock-up analysis of a company’s process and how they could improve or it could be creating a new calculator or a chatbot. Bring this creation up during your job interview and they are sure to be impressed.
In your free time, you can also showcase your skills by creating a website where you can list all of your talents and show examples of your side projects. You can list this website on your cover letter and resume and even create business cards that can spread the word about your expertise. You’ll likely be thrilled when the website is completed and up and running, but be sure to keep it updated whenever you learn a new skill or create a new project, so prospective employers know that you are dedicated to your craft and that you are always looking to improve.
As you can see, already being employed or not having enough free time are not enough to keep you from your dream career. If you are hungry for a position in the tech industry, continue to hone your skills when you can, and with dedication and hard work, you will achieve what you desire. | 6,133 | 2,685 | 13,867.204097 |
warc | 202143 | The 26th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Climate Change Conference (ukcop 26) is taking place in Glasgow from Oct. 31st through November 12, 2021.
A statement by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Re:wild (formerly Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC)), World Resources Institute (WRI), and Rainforest Foundation Norway (RFN).
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) welcomes China’s white paper, Biodiversity Conservation in China and the increasing commitment of China to biodiversity conservation, both at home in China and across the globe.
In recognition of the vital role of local organizations in assuring long-term conservation, WCS and FFI are announcing new commitments to help local partners build critical capacities to adapt to new realities.
The following statement was released by WCS President and CEO Cristián Samper in response to President Biden’s commitment to double the United States’ previous climate finance pledge, announced at the UN General Assembly.
On Thursday, September 23, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) hosted its annual gala honoring businessman and philanthropist David Bonderman for his dedication to conservation causes.
The following statement was released today by WCS President and CEO Cristián Samper upon the announcement of the new groundbreaking “Protecting Our Planet Challenge” and its $5 billion commitment toward protecting and conserving 30 percent of the planet by 2030
The European Union will support WCS’s Five Great Forests initiative, a successful collaboration to protect Mesoamerica’s five largest forests—the last remaining intact forests from Mexico to Colombia critical to the region’s people, culture, biodiversity, economic health, and resilience to climate change.
Join more than one million wildlife lovers working to save the Earth's most treasured and threatened species.
Thanks for signing up | 1,956 | 1,013 | 3,649.397828 |
warc | 202143 | Abstract
Consistent antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence is necessary for HIV viral suppression. However, adherence may fluctuate around daily routines and life events, warranting intervention support. We examined reasons for ART adherence interruptions, using in-depth, semi-structured qualitative interviews, among young (18–34-year-old) Latino men who have sex with men (YLMSM) with HIV. Interviews (n = 24) were guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior, the Information-Motivation-Behavioral Skills Theory, and the Socio-Ecological Model. Two coders independently coded transcripts using NVivo 12 software and synthesized codes into themes using Thematic Content Analysis. Results suggested 4 primary influences on ART adherence interruptions: (1) HIV diagnosis denial, (2) breaks in daily routine, (3) substance use, and (4) HIV status disclosure. Participant quotes highlighted routinization of pill-taking and planning ahead for breaks in routine as critically important. The narrative suggested modification of pill-taking routines during alcohol use, and that periods most vulnerable for long-term interruptions in ART adherence were following an HIV diagnosis and during periods of drug use. Support at the time of HIV diagnosis, including a plan for routinization of pill taking, and adaptive interventions incorporating real-time support during breaks in routines and substance use episodes may be one way to help YLMSM adhere to ARTs.
Original language English (US) Pages (from-to) 962-969 Number of pages 8 Journal AIDS Care - Psychological and Socio-Medical Aspects of AIDS/HIV Volume 33 Issue number 7 DOIs State Published - 2021 Keywords Human immunodeficiency virus Latinos adherence antiretroviral therapy ASJC Scopus subject areas Health(social science) Social Psychology Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health | 1,855 | 1,028 | 3,331.060311 |
warc | 202143 | Whereas touring is without doubt one of the best components of the human expertise, it isn’t all the time enjoyable and video games. Many a traveler has run into an unlucky expertise or two whereas on the street or within the air, and typically one dangerous day can spoil an entire trip. The Atlantic has even compiled a collection of their readers’ worst travel experiences, starting from getting questioned by the FBI to a mugging in Ecuador. Though these are examples of worst-case situations, it’s all the time greatest to arrange for the surprising. Listed below are just a few downsides to journey that you need to maintain an eye fixed out for, and the best way to put together for them.
Meals Poisoning
Touring to an unique locale means attending to pattern some new and thrilling native delicacies, however being gastronomically adventurous doesn’t all the time finish nicely. Whereas you may as well find yourself with meals poisoning in your hometown, the very fact of the matter is that your abdomen may not be used to new elements or methods of cooking. That may result in some unlucky conditions whereas touring, and nobody desires to spend their trip days hunched over a rest room. Smarter Travel has put together a list of tips on what to keep away from in foods and drinks whereas touring, which may show a useful learn for these planning journeys to a international nation.
Lengthy Haul Flights
The world is a fairly large place, and typically a long-haul flight might be unavoidable. When Australian airline Qantas Airways revealed plans for a 20-hour flight from Sydney to New York, Aviation JobNet collected reactions from passengers and flight crews about doubtlessly taking the brand new route. Passengers had combined reactions, with some involved concerning the bodily downsides of staying seated in a aircraft for therefore lengthy. When you actually should take a long-haul flight, attempt to wrangle for a seat improve, or on the very least deliver alongside issues like journey pillows or earplugs that’ll make the expertise extra snug.
Unruly Passengers
Numerous journey these days includes air journey, which is principally you being caught in a flying room with lots of of strangers for hours on finish. Not all passengers may have the identical requirements for conduct that you’ll, and that is likely to be to your detriment. A study conducted by Expedia discovered that passengers thought-about seat bumping/grabbing aggravated them most on flights, adopted by passengers with unlucky physique odor. When you’ve got the misfortune of encountering this in your flight, strive asking your flight attendant in case you can swap seats, or, failing that, sleep off the entire flight and pray that it ends shortly.
Getting Scammed Whereas Touring
Touring will deliver you into contact with a number of various kinds of individuals, and statistically you could come throughout just a few unscrupulous people. Getting scammed whereas touring is likely to be one of many worst issues that may occur to you, particularly if you find yourself shedding cash or essential paperwork, so it’s essential to all the time concentrate on your environment and context. The Travel Channel has put together a list of 11 common travel scams, such because the “What time is it?” rip-off and “useful” taxi drivers who take you to utterly totally different sights the place you’ll be pressured to spend cash. Fortunately, the article additionally contains tips about how one can keep away from them, so make certain to learn up and put together your self for any eventuality. | 3,660 | 1,805 | 7,269.307479 |
warc | 202143 | Click on this week’s files,
videos in this assignment, and websites provided in this assignment, to review the instructions for the annotated bibliography, library tutorial, and research paper.
View this video to learn how to read a scholarly journal article.
Next, read the
six sources you located for the paper and be sure to take notes as you read.
Finally, visit this website and
. The bibliographic information in your annotated bibliography must conform to APA guidelines (refer to the attached APA Citation e-book) AND the annotations MUST be in your own words! create an annotated bibliography based on the six sources for the paper
I will review creating an ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY in the live chat this week, along with the timeline and directions for the entire research project.
There are 4 items to include for each of your sources:
*the complete APA formatted Reference,
*the in-text citation for the source, using APA formatting and place at the end of information cited,
*a summary in your words of the information located, and lastly,
*a sentence or two that indicates where you would place this information within your paper (which section of the paper)
Place all 4 requirements together for each of your 6 sources.
*** Be sure to view the attached sample annotated bibliography and grading rubric for this assignment.
You can also use a reference list generator to create the APA formatted reference for the annotated bibliography. (citefast.com)
My Thesis statement:
Effects of COVID-19 and isolation on university students and academic staff.
The emergency of the global health crisis due to coronavirus prompted the shutdown of academic institutions across the world. In quest of mitigating the spread of the pandemic, economies issued various measures to ensure the safety of their citizens. Isolation was one of the measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus; however, the measure significantly impacted the students and academic staff members in American universities and the world in general. Higher Education Institutions required schools, educators, and students to adapt to online learning due to the isolation.
Thesis statement: Social interaction is an essential aspect of humanity's life, therefore, COVID-19 and isolation have significantly impacted university students and the academic staff.
Keywords: COVID-19 AND isolation AND university students OR academic staff.
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warc | 202143 | Writing instructions
Private Sector Partnerships Case Assignment Private Sector Partnerships:
Terrorism Below are examples of private sector partners that should be covered in an emergency response plan for a town or city. Each are dependent upon the other and must work together: Transportation (e.g., trains, planes, ships, emergency vehicles) Telecommunication systems Utilities (e.g., water, electricity, waste disposal) Banking (responding to local credit demands) Hospitals Retail (e.g., lumber outlet, supermarket) Although Transportation and Telecommunication are involved, for purposes of this assignment, you will focus on Hospitals. One of the main components of an emergency response plan is medical care. Depending on the type of terrorist response, medical facility caregivers must be ready to attend to the sick and injured. Injuries could be from shrapnel, blasts, brain trauma, contamination from a biological agent, or radiation poisoning, for example. Those injured will be civilians, children, and first responders. Medical triaging, accessing supplies, and fielding medical personnel will certainly take priority. The Incident Commander must establish a liaison with the medical gatekeeper. Some of the injured come from diverse backgrounds requiring assistance in understanding medical staff. Culturally appropriate communication is necessary. Depending on the multicultural configuration of the affected site, emergency hospital personnel may require interpreters or the aid of family members. Assignment View the video clip Radiological Terrorism – Training for Hospital Clinicians. A “dirty bomb” exploded in the city, exposing over 200 men, women, and children to radiological contamination. Some patients presented with life-threatening injuries while others were not physically compromised but were exposed radiologically. After viewing the video clip, comment on what the video says about treatment priorities; that is, life-threatening injuries vs. radiological contamination. Which should be attended to first and why? Go online and search the title: “hospital’s emergency operations plan.”
NOTE: You may want to place a specific hospital’s name before the title. Go to the section on radiological contamination and describe the steps to be taken. If the plan does not have a radiological section, locate a section about terrorism. After reading the Shiu-Thornton et al. (2007) article located in the Background reading, what conclusion can you draw concerning Medical Interpreters as cultural brokers and gatekeepers? Assignment Expectations Length: This Case Assignment should be 3-5 pages, not counting the title page and references.
References: At least two references should be included from academic sources (e.g., peer-reviewed journal articles).
Required readings are included. Quoted material should not exceed 10% of the total paper (since the focus of these assignments is critical thinking).
Use your own words and build on the ideas of others. When material is copied verbatim from external sources, it MUST be enclosed in quotes. The references should be cited within the text and listed at the end of the assignment in the
References section (preferably in APA format).
Organization: Subheadings should be used to organize your paper according to question. Grammar and Spelling: While no points are deducted for minor errors, assignments are expected to adhere to standard guidelines of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and sentence syntax. Points may be deducted if grammar and spelling impact clarity. | 3,593 | 1,723 | 7,398.702263 |
warc | 202143 | The Art of Mastering
Oct 7, 2021 // By:aebi // No Comment
Stone Masonry – An Age Old Profession
A stone mason is a person who is trained to build and repair stone structures. Stone masons are persons who have knowledge in all aspects of stone structures including design, application, fabrication, installation, removal, leveling, finishing, repair, and maintenance of stone structures. Generally, stone masons work on residential homes, businesses, government buildings, museums, or other establishments that require stone structures for indoor and outdoor purposes. They construct, install, repair, and maintain structures using concrete, block, marble, granite, sandstone, slate, travertine, and other natural stone materials.
Most stone masons work on houses. In order to build a house, the initial structure is constructed by a foundation which is followed by the floor, walls, doors, windows, and skylights. Once the foundation, floor, walls, and roof are ready, the interior of the house is laid out. Then the stone mason applies various finishing techniques such as stucco, mortar, glazing, painting, hardening agents, and sealing. After finishing the interior structures, the bricks are placed in the appropriate positions and transported to the site where they are placed.
In order to build stone masonry structures, skilled masons use several types of equipment including concrete hammers, steel wedges, water driven cement mixers, steel rollers, hydraulic presses, hammers, levelers, drills, cutters, handrails, plasters, stilts, rollers, floors, ceiling tiles, wall tiles, lintels, ventilators, etc. Other important equipment used by stone masons includes concrete plant tools, saws, water hoses, gas lines, plumbing systems, electric fittings, electric tools, etc. These equipment and tools are available at local tool workshops and supply houses. However, most stone mason shops have the latest models on hand. Reputable stone masons also provide maintenance services for their equipment and tools, including oiling and cleaning.
Stone construction is a labor-intensive process which requires skill and knowledge of designing and building structures of various kinds. A stone mason’s daily work involves the use of hammer, chisel, cement, sand, water, grinding stone, cutting, etc. The main job of a stone mason includes pouring earth or mortar, building the walls, floors, etc., adding grout and sealing them. Since most stone structures are large and weigh a ton, masons use forklifts to move the large blocks. Usually, it takes four to six weeks for a new structure to be completed.
Although there are many stone masons in the world today, only a few are truly excellent. For this reason, a prospective stone mason must undertake thorough training and practice his craft in order to become proficient. Most stone mason colleges and stone masonry schools offer apprenticeship programs to train students in all aspects of the trade. During their apprenticeship, students will be trained to construct both interior and exterior structures, including homes, offices, parks, malls, bridges, hospitals, government buildings, private residences, churches, chapels, schools, hotels, shopping malls, businesses, residential and commercial buildings, memorials, museums, etc. By attending an apprenticeship program at a certified stone mason school, individuals will be able to take part in one of the most rewarding and enjoyable career choices. | 3,473 | 1,595 | 7,520.841379 |
warc | 202143 | LONDON — Costa Rica and Demark are spearheading efforts to build the world’s first diplomatic alliance
The co-leaders of the initiative, known as the “Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance,” are seeking to establish a deadline for the end of oil and gas production that would get countries aligned with the 2015 Paris Agreement. This legally binding treaty aims to limit global heating to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — and preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Meeting the conditions of the agreement is widely recognized as critically important to avoid an irreversible climate crisis.
The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance is expected to formally launch at U.N.-brokered climate talks in early November, a summit known as COP26.
Until then, Costa Rica and Demark are seeking to persuade as many countries and jurisdictions as possible to join them in bringing an end to oil and gas production.
It comes at a time when policymakers are under intense pressure to meet the demands of the climate emergency. Burning fossil fuels, such as oil and gas, is the chief driver of the climate crisis, and yet the world’s fossil fuel dependency is expected to get even worse in the coming decades.
Speaking on Thursday during an online webinar hosted by the International Renewable Energy Agency, Dan Jorgensen, minister for climate, energy and utilities for Denmark, said: “The science is clear. We cannot negotiate with nature.”
“There is no scenario in which we burn all the oil and gas that we can find and in which we stay below 2 degrees — and definitely not 1.5. It is just not possible, so we need to stop.”
Denmark pledged in December last year to end all future licensing rounds on oil and gas exploration in the North Sea and put a stop date of 2050 on oil and gas production. At that time, the relatively small European country was the largest oil producer in the European Union.
“On one hand, if you look at it, it is a huge thing to ask a country,” Jorgensen said, acknowledging the challenge of trying to persuade others to sign up to the alliance.
“What you are saying, like one of my political opponents did when I proposed this in Denmark, is: ‘So, basically you want us to say no to free money? You want us to stop pumping money out of the ground so that others can do it instead of us?'”
“And I had to say: Well, yes,” Jorgensen continued. “But it is for a good reason.”
Climate hypocrisy
Andrea Meza, environment and energy minister for Costa Rica, said on Thursday that some opposition political parties were pushing the country’s government to consider using oil and gas revenues to pay for their energy transition. “We are very clear that this is not the right pathway.”
Costa Rica, a Central American country of around 5 million people, has never extracted oil. What’s more, it is currently considering a bill to permanently ban fossil fuel exploration to ensure that no future government does so.
When asked during the same webinar why other countries would consider joining their initiative, Meza said that platforms such as the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance need to exist to show others that it is possible.
“It is just one planet,” Meza said. “This is not about doing things in the right way in the internal part of our countries and selling … all of the old technologies outside of our borders. This is not fair.”
Research published in the scientific journal Nature on Sept. 9 found that the vast majority of the world’s known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground to have some hope of preventing the worst effects of climate change.
Separately, analysis published by Carbon Action Tracker on Wednesday, showed that none of the world’s major economies are currently on track to contain global heating to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
It follows a bombshell report from the influential, yet typically conservative, International Energy Agency earlier this year. The IEA concluded that there could be no new oil, gas or coal development if the world was to reach net zero fossil fuel emissions by 2050.
Denmark’s Jorgensen said it would be “impolite” to name specific countries, but described it as a “paradox” that many governments were touting their commitment to net zero by 2050 while also quietly planning to extract oil and gas to sell to others. These countries include the U.S., Canada, Norway and the U.K., among others.
“You are not going to burn it yourself and you think others shouldn’t either, but you will make money selling oil to other countries? It doesn’t make sense,” he added.
Jorgensen said he did not want to dismiss the fact that signing up to the yet-to-be-revealed pledges of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance would come with difficult economic choices, particularly those heavily reliant on oil and gas. “But, it is the tough questions that we need to ask ourselves.”
“Can we live with a future where we don’t do this? I don’t think that we can.”
‘Inferior technologies’
Speaking alongside Denmark’s Jorgensen and Costa Rica’s Meza on Thursday, former U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres addressed the urgent need for governments to dramatically scale down fossil fuel use. She cited air pollution, caused mostly by the burning of fossil fuels, which kills an estimated 7 million people worldwide every year.
Figueres also stressed that the economic imperatives for moving beyond oil and gas were compelling. “They are simply inferior technologies by now. They weren’t inferior last century but, in this century, given the rise of all the other alternatives that we have, they have become inferior technologies.”
An increasing number of cities banning the use of fossil fuel burning vehicles was likely to usher in “the demise of oil,” Figueres said. The end of gas production may take longer given that it is recognized as a transition fuel, she said, but still not more than 20 to 30 years as there are alternative fuels coming on the market, such as hydrogen and ammonia, “that will be able to compete favorably.”
In summary, Figueres said the economic case, “pounding” litigation in Europe and elsewhere and a social license for these fuels that has been “completely lost,” showed that there is no more space for oil and gas production. | 6,554 | 2,996 | 13,606.769025 |
warc | 202143 | Thinking about home remodeling, home upgrading, or remodelling is actually the identical procedure for Visit the following Page generating additions or improving one’s household for it to be an improved place to stay. Home improvement might include tasks that enhance the inside of the home, exterior or some other key changes over the property. These tasks are done by programmers, installers and Read More Here individuals that have finalized a number of lesser undertakings in their households which are down the road wants.
For home improvement ventures to always be licensed by the homeowner’s connection or Read More Here homeowners’ association, mouse click the Next webpage they will be carefully planned out and Read More Here explored. Planning is accomplished by having a examine several probable types and fashoins of home improvement tasks. For example examining the household from unique sides plus the ways that they can impact the family home. Furthermore, it involves exploring the funds with the homeowners and searching out the feasible ways that they can pay money for the projects. One example is, installers may need to find some change sources of funds for quite a few portions of the job.
There are various variables required in relation to renovations. One of the Read More Here important elements is how the advancement will get a new mortgage rates of your property owner plus the quantity the person is able to demand to the venture. Read More Here are some ideas that building contractors can offer their clients regarding how to reduced the influence of renovations about the present mortgage rates: Make sure you apply for a personalized bank loan with a lower interest rate,
Prior to do anything. It happens to be very best that you employ this bank loan to settle the many pending costs together with other modest jobs. Make sure you make application for Read More Here a redecorating bank loan internet to ensure the lenders to gain access to your credit history and figure out how much personal loan within your budget. Using this method, they are going to determine it will be possible to settle the borrowed funds quickly or perhaps not.
Another thing that impacts rates is whether or Read More Here not you do have a express certification to do do-it-yourself job. If you are considering doing lots of home remodeling operate by yourself, Read More Here it might be far better if you have a point out license as a way to lower concerns on the floor and Read More Here steer clear of law suits from clients. You can go ahead and Read More Here get a essential certification to receive your enterprise going if you only want to opened a building enterprise. Make sure to do a investigation concerning the concepts of any do it yourself license before starting developing households.
Once you have most of the expected documents, Read More Here you may currently submit your property improvement licensed contractor Read More Here permit app. Either you make this happen actually or Read More Here purely distribute it on the internet. When posting it online, prev there are two techniques on what it is possible. First, Read More Here you can easily look at the City Hall and inquire for those information you need. Second, Read more here additionally you can perform a search working with Google to search for the information you need. Both these options are less complicated since you will save time and energy in intending to City Hall.
Next, just after accumulating all the wanted papers, you may now send in the application for that certificate. In order for your app to generally be authorized, you must follow the requirements and pay money for the necessary charges. Among the essential papers include the proof of financial capacity together with the contractor’s license. The latter is necessary to become able to work on a certain location. In case you have an inadequate repayment daily schedule or Read More Here you do not have any function done in a certain amount of time, you will need to pay for one Read More Here transaction.
Make sure to in addition have a believe in account whereby the bucks you pay for www.worldcruising.com will be moved to once your do it yourself contract is finished. Your professional should have a have faith in profile which means you be confident that the funds you possess on your changes will likely be risk-free. Should you been unsuccessful to create a have confidence in account, the loan originator can need you to have a single well before closing the money. You must keep in mind some building contractors may well request you to opened an escrow consideration to make certain he can get his transaction once the jobs are finished. | 4,753 | 2,148 | 10,453.05959 |
warc | 202143 | Develop Website Strategies to Achieve Your Goals
Reality vs. Wishful Thinking…Let’s discuss a real website development timeline. As a Cleveland web design firm, the first question we hear from our clients after they’ve decided to build or redesign their websites is: When will it be done?
The short answer: It’s not how quickly it can be done, but how well it can be done.
If you don’t have any goals and strategies in place to achieve those goals, your website development timeline won’t get too far along and could take a very long time to complete. This is why it’s important to develop strategies needed to achieve your goals and then build content around those strategies. For example, if you already know how many pages your website has or should have, that is one useful piece of knowledge that may severely impact the timeline of your website build.
Keep in mind, publishing a website is not as simple as making a page of HTML code live. That won’t attract business leads or help you achieve your goals. Consider working with an experienced partner to set goals for your website and online strategies to achieve those goals. Understand it will take some time, but that time is well-invested toward producing a top-notch website that will bring sales and leads your way.
How much time can website development take?
Typically, plan for a website design and development to take between two to four months. Although that may sound like an eternity, keep in mind, once all the information is obtained, a website can be turned around rather quickly. You need to be involved by providing content and ideas of how you want the website to look. Without content, there won’t be anything to fill the pages of your site so it’s important to stay on top of any new content creation or proofing of existing content. Unfortunately, most people don’t have good images prior to beginning a website redesign. Take the time early on to think about the images you’d like to showcase on your website and it will help prevent delays towards the end of your design project. Without good content and images, everything tends to stall in the process.
Of course, many people say their websites can never or will never produce business leads. Often, their websites are like static brochures on the Internet causing them to miss many opportunities, while their forward-thinking competitors have websites built around specific strategies and goals. Their competitors are also most likely generating leads and bringing in online business opportunities.
Cleveland web design team explains how to prepare for your website redesign
To, get ahead of your competition and start planning today, start pulling together content and images you’d like to showcase in your website redesign. Once you identify an experienced partner to work with, make your website a priority and don’t put it on the back burner. Here are a few pieces of information that will help you best prepare your web development partner:
Access to Google Analytics Define a single person at your company to be the point of contact with your developer Find 3-5 examples of websites you like stylistically Provide sales brochures, sell sheets and terminology your industry uses Have a folder containing brand assets and images your company owns Think about possible content pieces that you could give to visitors in exchange for their email addresses (example: an industry guide) Estimate how many total leads you hope to gain each month Know what company hosts your website and provide login credentials List out all domain that your company owns Be prepared to meet the team and have 1-2 discovery meetings before any work begins
Keep focused on your goals and it will get done, but it’s important to remember that your website is a business asset that should be consistently evolving and updated. Whether or not you partner with an outside marketing firm, your involvement is crucial to creating and launching a successful site that generates valuable leads. If you are interested in a website launch or redesign, contact Proximity today to get started! | 4,182 | 1,913 | 8,949.873497 |
warc | 202143 | Abstract:
A cloud chamber was built to study the effect of anthropogenic originatedaerosol particles on cloud formation in The Netherlands. The results of the
study provide maxima for the influence of manmade aerosol on the
microstructure of clouds to be used in the calculation of their optical
properties. The investigation of cloud formation in marine air is emphasized,
since sensitivity studies show that the reflectivity of such clouds is most
effectively influenced by the (extra) anthropogenic aerosol particles. For
this reason the supersaturations in the study were as low as in typical
marine stratus. The effect of the anthropogenic aerosols on cloud formation
was determined from a comparison of the number of droplets formed in 'clean'
arctic marine air versus the number of droplets formed in marine air which
had traveled over the UK. The performance of the cloud chamber was tested
with reference aerosol of varying number concentrations. It was found that
the reference particles above a threshold ('critical') size of 0.07
micrometer grew into droplets. The number of cloud droplets formed in the
clean marine air was 60 cm"- 3, while the number of droplets formed in air
masses which passed over the UK averaged 300 cm"- 3. The polluted air masses
were further divided into moderately and heavily polluted air. For the
moderately polluted air on average about 50% of the aerosol particles of the
proper size became droplets. This could be explained by the fact that only
half of the particles are water-soluble and can serve as so-called cloud
nuclei. In the heavily polluted air, with large numbers of aerosol particles,
only a limited number of additional cloud droplets were formed. In
continental air the number of cloud droplets was twice as much as those in
the polluted marine air. This shows the limiting value for the number of
droplets in 'polluted' continental clouds. It is strongly recommended to
validate the results of the cloud chamber by aircraft campaigns in which the
actual cloud droplet numbers in marine stratus are measured in the vicinity
of the cloud chamber. 14 figs., 2 tabs., 3 appendices, 17 refs.
Back to List | 2,192 | 1,012 | 4,676.411067 |
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