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warc | 201704 | Published Tue, 4 Dec 2012 11:00 CET by TopYields.nl
The connection between gender and corporate profitability does not appear to be so obvious, but empirical research shows that higher participation of women in corporate management is good for the company's bottom line. While the share of women chief executives at the helm of the world's 1000 largest companies remains low at 4% and the percentage of women as executive officers hovers around 14.6%, companies managed by women tend to outperform their peers based on several profitability metrics. Moreover, among the most prominent corporations run by women, several pay attractive dividend yields.
Evidence from empirical studies of the positive effect from women's participation in executive decision-making on corporate bottom lines is plentiful. According to a multi-annual study by Pepperdine University of the performance of about 200 of the Fortune 500 companies (the ones providing gender breakdown of their executives), it was concluded that the “correlation between high-level female executives and business success has been consistent and revealing.”
Two studies from Catalyst, a non-profit organization that seeks to expand women's roles in the workplace, and a business consultancy McKinsey & Co., support this assertion. The two studies have found that Fortune 500 companies with more women on their boards/executive committees show better financial performance than those with no or low number of women executives. According to Catalyst, in terms of returns on equity, Fortune 500 companies with 3 or more women on the boards/executive committees outperform those with the least by 53%. In terms of returns on sales and returns on invested capital, Fortune 500 companies with 3 or more women on the boards/executive committees outperform their peers with the least by 42% and 66%, respectively. McKinsey has found similar results in its study, concluding that companies with the highest percentage of women in executive bodies show the best performance.
Now, while the share of women in top executive posts has increased over the past several decades, it remains low by all means. The number of female corporate officers in Fortune 500 companies increased from 11.2% in 1998 to a peak of 16.4% in 2005. It has since dropped to about 15.7%. According to Catalyst, at the observed rate of growth, “it would take 40 years for the number of female corporate officers to match the number of male officers.” On the other hand, the share of women-held board seats has risen progressively from 9.6% in 1995 to 16.1% in 2011. However, in terms of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), the share of women in top post remains low at 3.8% of the Fortune 500 companies, or 19 in total.
Among Fortune 500 companies, several female-led corporate giants are dividend-paying corporations with a long history of strong earnings power and consistent dividend growth. In fact, out of 19 Fortune 500 companies led by women, 14 or 74% pay a dividend. The largest Fortune 500 company led by a woman is
Hewlett-Packard(NYSE: HPQ). Managed by Meg Whitman as CEO, HPQ, the tenth on the list of the world's largest Fortune 500 companies, currently does not espouse all the aforementioned qualities of the women-led corporate giants. In fact, the stock, which has fallen precipitously by 53% over the past year, is a value trap, although it boasts a high dividend yield of 4.1%.
Several other corporate giants led by women are good examples of business excellence.
IBM(NYSE: IBM), as the second-largest company managed by a woman, is a model of outperformance. Over the past five years, the company grew its EPS and dividends at average annual rates of 16.6% and 17.1% per year, respectively. The company currently has a dividend yield of 1.8% on a low dividend payout ratio of only 24%. Its return on equity (ROE) is exceptionally high at 74%. In terms of total returns, investment in this stock five years ago would have returned, to date, 14.6% annually. This is better than for any other stock in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The cash-rich IBM is likely to continue to boost its dividends in the future. It is one of the preferred stocks of legendary investor Warren Buffett. PepsiCo(NYSE: PEP), a Dividend Aristocrat boosting dividends for 39 years in a row, is another female-led corporate giant with outstanding performance. With a dividend yield of 3.1%, this company pays out 57% of its earnings in dividends. It has been growing dividends at a rate of 9.3% per year over the past five years. PepsiCo's total ROE is high at 26.2%.
Other dividend payers on the list of women-led corporations include food and biofuel maker
Archer Daniels Midland(NYSE: ADM), chemicals manufacturer DuPont(NYSE: DD), the copier company Xerox(NYSE: XRX), Sempra Energy(NYSE: SRA) and legendary soup company Campbell Soup(NYSE: CPB). Of these, DuPont has the highest yield at 4.0%, followed by Sempra Energy's 3.5%, whose dividend rose more than 13% per year over the past five years. Campbell Soup, Archer Daniels Midland and Xerox pay dividend yields of 3.2%, 2.6%, and 2.5%, respectively. Campbell Soup boasts a remarkably high ROE of 66.5%. DuPont's ROE is also high at 26%.
Among the Fortune 500 firms is also a high yielder
Frontier Communications(NYSE: FTR). The company has an elevated dividend yield due to poor stock performance amid lackluster financial results in recent periods and a weak balance sheet. In fact, the company slashed its dividend by 47% in the first quarter of 2012. Still, it pays a yield of 8.3% on a payout ratio of 51% of free cash flow. The current payout ratio is sustainable, and has declined to 46% of free cash flow in the previous quarter from 70% in the year-ago quarter. The stock is a viable income play.
Furthermore, as of January 1, 2013, the aerospace and defense sector will be richer by two new women executives taking over the helms of two other Fortune 500 companies:
General Dynamics(NYSE: GD) and Lockheed Martin(NYSE: LMT). Both these companies have had remarkable earnings and dividend growth in the past. Despite the fiscal tightening, their earnings outlooks remain solid. General Dynamics, whose dividend increased 12.7% per year over the past five years, currently yields 3.1%. Its competitor Lockheed Martin yields a lush 4.9% dividend, with a 5-year dividend growth averaging 23% per year over the past five years. The new CEO of Lockheed Martin, Marillyn Hewson, faces a challenge of sustaining a skyhigh ROE at 107%.
Based on the documented studies, an increase in the number of female executives in the corporate bodies should lead to the affected companies' better financial performance in the future. Investors who want to reap benefits from the winning leadership of the few women running the world's largest corporation should invest in the dividend-yielders with a proven record of business success.
Stock name Dividend Yield Frontier Communications 11.83 Xerox 4.42 Hewlett Packard 3.64 Ibm 3.36 Pepsico 2.93 Lockheed Martin 2.87 Archer-daniels-midland 2.67 Campbell Soup 2.25 Du Pont 2.07 General Dynamics 1.73 Articles featuring Frontier Communications (FTR):
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Read more | 7,250 | 3,123 | 0.000322 |
warc | 201704 | Nails
8 Fast Fixes for More Energy Feeling sluggish? Snap out of it with these quick tricks The Reason:This meal can make or break your energy reserve for the rest of the day. If it's way too large (like Sunday-brunch status) you'll be left feeling sluggish, and if you forget to eat it in the first place, your metabolism will never get that wake-up call.
"People who eat a balanced breakfast have more energy, perform better at school and at work, and sleep better at night, which means they wake up the next day more energized," says Elizabeth Somer, M.A., R.D., author of "Eat Your Way to Happiness." But Somer isn't talking doughnuts and coffee.
The Fatigue Fighter:For a winning breakfast to fuel your energy, follow Somer's 1, 2 ,3 rule. The breakfast must have:
1) whole grains, which provide high-quality carbs for the brain during the morning hours,
2) a little protein to keep you satiated and maintain your blood sugar level throughout the morning, and
3) one or two colorful fruits and vegetables.
Try a bowl of whole-grain cereal with low-fat milk and a handful of berries on top with a side of sliced watermelon, or make a smoothie with fruit, soymilk and wheat germ.
SEE NEXT PAGE: The Zapper: Dehydration | 1,235 | 742 | 0.001363 |
warc | 201704 | Code of Business Practices
The International Council of Toy Industries (ICTI), an association of associations, is committed on behalf of its member companies to the operation of toy factories in a lawful, safe, and healthful manner. It upholds the principles that no underage, forced, or prison labor* should be employed; that no one is denied a job because of gender, ethnic origin, religion, affiliation or association, and that factories comply with laws protecting the environment. Supply agreements with firms manufacturing on behalf of ICTI members must also provide for adherence to these principles.
The role of ICTI is to inform, educate, and survey its members so that individual member companies can adhere to its Code of Business Practices. As an association, it also acts to encourage local and national governments to enforce wage and hour laws and factory health and safety laws.
Specific operating conditions that member companies are expected to meet and obtain contractor agreement in advance are as follows:
Labor
that working hours per week, wages and overtime pay practices comply with the standards set by law or, in the absence of a law, address humane, safe and productive working conditions; that, within this, there be one day of rest granted per week, in accordance with the C14 Weekly Rest (Industry) (1921) convention of the International Labour Organization;
that no one under the legal minimum age is employed in any stage of toy manufacturing; that a minimum age of 14 applies in all circumstances, but notwithstanding the foregoing, that C138 Minimum Age Convention (1973) and C182 Worst Forms of Child Labor Convention (1999) apply;
that no forced or compulsory labor is employed for the benefit of private individuals, companies or associations, in accordance with the terms of C29 Forced Labour Convention (1930), that workers are free to leave once their shift ends, and that guards are posted only for normal security reasons;
that equal remuneration for work of equal value shall be provided to men and women, in accordance with C100 Equal Remunerations Convention (1951). Remuneration includes the ordinary, basic or minimum salary and any additional emoluments whatsoever, payable directly or indirectly, whether in cash or in kind, by the employer to the workers and arising out of the worker’s employment;
that all workers are entitled to sick and maternity benefits as provided by law;
that there will be no discrimination in employment practices on the basis of race, colour, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin which has the effect of nullifying or impairing equality of opportunity or treatment in employment or occupation, within the terms of C111 Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention (1958);
that all workers are entitled to freely exercise their rights of employee representation as provided by local law. The Workplace
that toy factories provide a safe working environment for their employees and comply with or exceed all applicable local laws concerning sanitation and risk protection;
that the factory is properly lighted and ventilated and that aisles and exits are accessible at all times;
that there is adequate medical assistance available in emergencies, and that designated employees are trained in first aid procedures;
that there are adequate and well-identified emergency exits, and that all employees are trained in emergency evacuation procedure;
that protective safety equipment is available and employees are trained in its use;
that safeguards on machinery meet or exceed local laws;
that there are adequate toilet facilities which meet local hygiene requirements, and that they are properly maintained;
that there are facilities or appropriate provisions for meal and other breaks;
if a factory provides housing for its employees, it will ensure that dormitory rooms and sanitary facilities meet basic needs, are adequately ventilated and meet fire safety and other local laws;
that no mental or physical disciplinary practices are employed. Compliance
The purpose of this Code is to establish a standard of performance, to educate, and to encourage commitment to responsible manufacturing, not to punish.
To determine adherence, ICTI member companies will evaluate their own facilities as well as those of their contractors. They will examine all books and records and conduct on-site inspections of the facilities, and request that their contractors follow the same practices with subcontractors.
An annual statement of compliance with this Code must be signed by an officer of each manufacturing company or contractor.
Contracts for the manufacture of toys should provide that a material failure to comply with the Code or to implement a corrective action plan on a timely basis is a breach of contract for which the contract may be canceled.
Because of the great diversity in the kinds of toys manufactured and the manufacturing methods used, as well as the wide range in factory sizes and number of employees, three annexes are attached to this Code to provide guidelines for determining compliance. A rule of reason must be used to determine applicability of the annex provisions.
This Code should be posted or available for all employees in the local language.
NOTE: This document is to be used in conjunction with
Appendix I: Methodology for Evaluating Compliance Appendix II: Audit Checklist Appendix IIa: Guidance Document Appendix III: Corrective Action Plan Enquiries as to the certification of factories to the ICTI code of Business Practices should be directed to : ICTI CARE Foundation Asia Limited Room 518, Star House 3 Salisbury Road, Tsim Sha Tsui Hong Kong Phone: +852 2111 2462 Fax: +852 2111 2126 e-mail: asia@icti-care.org © International Council of Toy Industries Ltd. 2004 | 5,859 | 2,607 | 0.000386 |
warc | 201704 | Patently Obvious
From the August 2015 issue
Automakers don’t just dream about self-driving, 100-mpg cars; they’re busy creating the technologies to build them—and filing flurries of patents in the process. According to a report by the business-data company Thomson Reuters, automakers, suppliers, and independent inventors doubled their automotive patent applications in a five-year span, from fewer than 18,000 in 2009 to more than 40,000 in 2013. We’re not talking mere perfume dispensers here, rather real advances in powertrain, chassis, safety, infotainment, and telematics systems.
As with most things it does, Toyota is the world leader in total patent filings, with more than double that of any other company except Bosch and Hyundai. The company went nuts on powertrain patenting in 2013 with 1100 filings, an elevenfold increase from ’09. The Germans ruled the development of driver assists such as pedestrian detection, with Bosch, Daimler, and Continental taking the top three spots. And despite Wall Street’s current fascination with Silicon Valley firms, it’s Toyota and General Motors, not Google, leading the way on patents related to autonomous driving.
General Motors also stormed patent offices with telematics filings, no surprise given its commitment to OnStar and upcoming vehicle-to-vehicle networks. It also joined Hyundai, Ford, Toyota, and Honda among the top five companies registering fuel-economy-tech patents. But it’s Hyundai that’s staged the heaviest surge of patent filings since 2009. It’s racked up the most in fuel-saving features and infotainment, and it’s on pace to topple Toyota in total annual filings. We just hope that someone in those vast research and development departments remembers that cars should be fun.
Patently Obvious
2009–2013 data source: Thomson Reuters Derwent World Patents Index | 1,908 | 1,017 | 0.00102 |
warc | 201704 | Humane Guidelines and a Training Program for Dogs in Shelters
Imagine a potential adopter walking into your shelter and visiting with a dog who can sit, show self-control, and calm himself even when excited. Imagine a potential adopter who sees a shelter dog as partially trained and is inspired to do more training with the dog since the dog knows more than their previous dog ever did!
I created the Train To Adopt (TTA) program to encourage, promote and provide quality of life for dogs in shelters.
When a shelter spends time training and working with its dogs, everyone benefits. The mental stimulation from the training can help prevent the dog from succumbing to the stressful and harmful effects of kenneling. The methods outlined here teach shelter dogs how to LEARN. They can get relief from the frustration of life in the shelter through their success at learning new skills. It is not enough to simply house a dog and care for its physical needs. A dog’s quality of life is about his present mental state. A dog does not live for a future—he spends his time in the present. It’s what we love so much about a dog. Dogs keep us in the moment. They don’t spend a lot of time dwelling on the past, nor can they sit in a cage and fantasize about a future in a home. We can do that. It is therefore our responsibility to do more than just keep our shelter dogs alive. We assure that they are living humanely, each and every day while in our care. We must make sure that their mental, behavioral and emotional well being is better each day they are with us.
It is my hope that the Train to Adopt program can help us all meet that goal.
Sue Sternberg | 1,681 | 859 | 0.001183 |
warc | 201704 | As the March 2016 photography trends reveal, there is a significant shift in the way that consumers are taking pictures, as well as how they are storing their photos. Not only are consumers moving away from traditional cameras, but they are also seeking out more creative ways to preserve their images.
Although digital cameras remain a popular photography solution, active consumers are increasingly looking for more robust devices that will stand up to their energetic lifestyle. For example, many companies are integrating cameras into existing equipment such as helmets and goggles, in order to help consumers capture images on the go. There are also many action cameras that are small and durable enough for sports such as skiing, surfing and mountain climbing. Beyond the changes in the way consumers are taking photos, the March 2016 photography trends also reveal a change in how consumers are tending to their pictures after the fact. In terms of storage, many people are seeking out applications such as Polaroid Blipfoto, which allow them to organize and curate their images. As far as printing, there is a demand for more creative printing options such as making sticker books or even holographic GIFs. Top 55 Photography Ideas in March
Score
More Stats +/-
Impressive Micro Cameras Camera-Friendly Knapsacks Quick Setup Security Cameras Quirky Mirrorless Cameras Social Media Sticker Books From Enhanced Camera Goggles to Printable GIF Platforms
Mar 18, 2016By: Katherine Pendrill - | 1,502 | 804 | 0.00125 |
warc | 201704 | Tag: Growth
AP / Philippe Wojazer
Germany’s economy slowed to a crawl during the second financial quarter this year, registering only 0.1 percent growth during that time and dampening the optimism that Germans felt after an exceptionally strong first quarter. (more)
Posted on Aug 16, 2011 READ MORE
Flickr / swanksalot (CC-BY-SA)
A measly 18,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in June, far below expectations for a rise of close to 90,000, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 9.2 percent. The numbers are a reality check ... (more)
Posted on Jul 8, 2011 READ MORE
Flickr / FlyingSinger
The U.N. forecasts the world will hold more than 10 billion people by the end of the century, including a tripling of Africa’s population.
Posted on May 3, 2011 READ MORE
Flickr / jrmyst
The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 8.9 percent in February, the third straight monthly decline and putting it below 9 percent for the first time since April 2009.
Posted on Mar 4, 2011 READ MORE
AP / Sang Tan
The U.S. economy had a bit of a pickup during this year’s third quarter, showing growth of 2 percent. Meanwhile, the housing market remains limp and high unemployment recalcitrantly hovers at 9.6 percent.
Posted on Oct 29, 2010 READ MORE
Flickr / specialkrb
After climbing 3.7 percent in the first three months of the year, the U.S. economy grew just 2.4 percent in the second quarter, an underwhelming performance that reinforced the reality that the recovery is struggling to find some footing.
Posted on Jul 30, 2010 READ MORE
AP / Mark Lennihan
June’s private-sector employment growth was less than stellar, with a “dishearteningly low number” of jobs being added to domestic payrolls in a signal that the economic recovery is encountering some serious headwinds.
Posted on Jul 2, 2010 READ MORE
Flickr / International Monetary Fund
Who would have thought that peace could be good for the economy? Ask Stanley Fischer, Israel’s central bank chief, who delivered that startling pronouncement in a speech this weekend, arguing that a peace deal between his country and the Palestinians would actually help Israel achieve “one of the most advanced economies in the world.”
Posted on May 2, 2010 READ MORE
AP / M. Spencer Green
An improving U.S. labor market has convinced President Obama that the domestic economy is “beginning to turn the corner,” though he cautions that a sustained employment boom will take time.
Posted on Apr 2, 2010 READ MORE
flickr/specialkrb
Whoops! The bad news in this bulletin is that the U.S. economy didn’t grow at quite the rate—3.5 percent—from July through September that the Department of Commerce previously said it had. The good news: It still grew, albeit at the whittled-down pace of 2.8 percent during that time.
Posted on Nov 24, 2009 READ MORE
chinadigitaltimes.com
As the U.S. struggles to recover its footing due to the economic crisis, China is expecting yet another stellar year as it reports that the country’s economy is on track to reach its target of 8 percent GDP growth this year.
Posted on Oct 22, 2009 READ MORE
Flickr / illuminating9_11
According to a Palestinian census, the population of Gaza jumped by 40 percent between 1997 and 2007. West Bank officials expect the Gaza population, which they estimate at 1.4 million, to double over the next 21 years.
Posted on Feb 15, 2009 READ MORE
tumblr.com
The world economy this year is likely to grow at a rate of only 0.5 percent, according to the International Monetary Fund, which re-evaluated its figures after the U.K. officially entered into recession last week. The growth rate, as projected, is the lowest in more than 60 years.
Posted on Jan 28, 2009 READ MORE
wikimedia.org
China’s unceasing economic growth has always worried environmentalists, and a new report by the Center for Global Development may put those concerns on a new level. After increasing power-plant emissions by a third this year, China’s coal-based power sector is poised to be the most polluting in the world ... even worse than that of the United States.
Posted on Aug 27, 2008 READ MORE
Bloomberg.com
The International Monetary Fund, the darling lending institution of neoliberal capitalists, believes that the U.S.‘s current mortgage crisis is dragging down the world economy. The IMF is predicting at least a two-year global economic downturn, led by the U.S. credit crunch, that also has a gambling chance of turning into a “global recession.”
Posted on Apr 9, 2008 READ MORE
Here’s a study that the makers of Ritalin probably won’t love: Researchers working on the Multimodal Treatment Study of Children With ADHD, which has been tracking 600 kids in treatment for ADHD since the 1990s, now question earlier findings about the effectiveness of medication and raise new concerns.
Posted on Nov 17, 2007 READ MORE
time.com
If you’ve been putting off that trip to see China’s “goddess of the Yangtze,” you’ve waited too long. Scientists believe the human-sized dolphin to be the first aquatic mammal species to go extinct in half a century, a victim of China’s economic growth.
Posted on Aug 10, 2007 READ MORE
This is according to Scott Redd, director of the National Counterterrorism Center. These groups of Islamic radicals are made up of disaffected men in their teens and 20s who draw moral inspiration from Al Qaeda and use the Internet to organize and plan potential attacks.
Posted on Jun 13, 2006 READ MORE
A nonpartisan, nonprofit think tank concludes: “the tax cuts have not paid for themselves, recent economic growth and revenue growth have not been particularly strong, and revenues remain lower than had been predicted before the tax cuts were enacted.”
Posted on Mar 10, 2006 READ MORE
The 800-pound gorilla’s rampage has started to slow down a bit, as evidenced by the chief financial officer’s admission that the search company will have to find new ways to boost revenue.
Related: Check out Truthdig’s eye-opening report on Google’s grasp of the intimate details of your life. Posted on Feb 28, 2006 READ MORE
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warc | 201704 | Capoeria is not your average martial art. Created more than 400 years ago by Africans brought as slaves to Brazil, it began as a way of training to fight for freedom, incorporating lots of kicks and escape moves widely thought to accommodate fighters whose hands were tied behind their backs. But, as slaves, the first capoeira fighters had to disguise their training as a dance, incorporating song and percussion--not to mention amazing cartwheels, spins and flips--into their practice sessions. The resulting art form is beautiful and compelling to watch.
Nevertheless, capoiera developed a bad name in post-slavery Brazil, because it was often used by muggers and in street fights. In fact, it was illegal to practice until 1965. But over the many years it's been in existence, it's gained popularity throughout the world, especially in the United States--including Tucson.
Anne Pollack, who's been practicing capoeira for almost 20 years, will offer Tucsonans the chance to both watch and take part in the sport this weekend at the grand opening of her capoeira school, Capoeira Mandinga Tucson. Attendees ages 5 and older can take a free class for beginners, as well as observe a capoeira and Brazilian dance performance to see true capoeira masters at work.
"Capoeira is a really fun challenge--mentally, physically and musically," said Pollack in an e-mail. "It is a very flowing art form, as escapes from kicks, rather than blocks, lend themselves to all kinds of movements depending on your talents. ... It is hard only if you are not patient with yourself."
Both the introductory classes and the show will be free, so bring your whole family and give it a try.
--A.M.
The Old Soul Sisters aren't old. Nor are they sisters. But they do have soul.
Made up of 11 talented local women, the Old Soul Sisters are a folksy vocal ensemble that sings music in all kinds of languages from all kinds of countries, from America to Africa to Eastern Europe. As long as it's folk, and as long as it sounds good, they'll give it a try. Because they
love to sing.
"We're a group based more on the process of singing than on performing," says director Gabrielle Pietrangelo. "The beauty's in the a capella tradition of just getting together and singing beautiful folk songs." In other words, the Sisters aren't in the singing game for money or fame, and they don't go too far out of their way to promote themselves. At the same time, though, they've just released their first, self-titled album--and they're very excited. They've agreed to give a live concert this Friday, featuring a lot of old, traditional songs as well as some brand-new original material. And while the group doesn't like to show off, Pietrangelo does admit that "it's very fun to share."
The new CD is something to check out, because it was recorded live and in the round, with a very unique and organic sound that lets each woman's individual voice emerge. And the energy these women bring to their singing is a spectacle not to be missed: "It's an expression of music that's very heartfelt," declares Pietrangelo. "We get so high off singing together that (the audience) will get high, too!"
The concert will be followed by a dance party featuring DJ Adam Higgins spinning world beats and funk music. Drinks, refreshments and CDs will be available for sale, and the event will cost $5 at the door for adults. (Kids of a single-digit age get in free.)
--A.M.
Born in New Mexico of Indian-Mexican descent, Jimmy Santiago Baca was abandoned by his parents when he was 2 years old. He grew up raised by relatives, in an orphanage and on the street. Functionally illiterate at the age of 21, he was arrested for drug possession and incarcerated in a maximum-security Arizona prison for five years.
But Baca made good use of his time in prison, not only learning to read and write, but discovering that he had a fierce passion for poetry--and skill at composing it. He earned his GED and had his first poems published the very year he was released. Today, he's one of the most famous mestizo writers in the country.
Baca has won numerous awards for his work in both poetry and prose, which covers themes like poverty, injustice, love and the Southwestern landscape. He's devoted his post-prison life to helping others overcome hardship through writing and is currently conducting workshops at schools, community centers and correctional facilities around the United States. His down-to-earth attitude and close work with communities have earned him the nickname "The People's Poet."
This week, Baca will be making visits to our own Pima County Juvenile Detention Center, as well as to the Tucson complex of the Arizona State Prison. But those of us who aren't locked up can hear him speak next Thursday, when he'll deliver this year's Lawrence Clark Powell Memorial Lecture. The lecture will focus on the role of literature and the Southwest.
"Everyone should come to this lecture!" exclaims Helene Woodhams, project coordinator for the Southwest Literature Project (which will be hosting the event). "Baca's message will resonate with everyone, and we hope to attract people from all segments of the Tucson community."
The event is free.
--A.M.
Everyone knows HIV/AIDS is a huge problem, but not many people think about the devastating effect it has on women. According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, it's much easier for females than for males to contract HIV through heterosexual intercourse. Plus, women with HIV suffer from additional, gender-specific manifestations of the disease, and it's generally harder for them to receive adequate health care and social support. In any case, the number of females infected with HIV/AIDS worldwide is rising faster than that of males. And the problem is the worst in sub-Saharan Africa--the United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS reports that women account for 59 percent of all adults living with HIV in that region.
Luckily, AIDS awareness is spreading along with AIDS itself. For that, we can thank people like Anita Isaacs, an HIV-positive Namibian activist who's gone to great lengths to help prevent AIDS in her country, as well as to support women both infected with and affected by the disease. As the director of an organization called Lironga Eparu, or "Learn to Survive," she inspires Namibians to accept their HIV status and live positively despite their illness.
Now, it's time for Isaacs' message to reach a broader audience, so she's been doing radio interviews and giving public speeches here in the United States. She's also the focus of a new documentary called
You Wake Me Up, an inspiring story of the courage and energy of HIV-positive women in rural Namibia. And in honor of World AIDS Day--which takes place this year on Dec. 1--Tucson's own RESULTS and TIHAN will be screening the movie this Sunday.
The event is free, and the movie is a must-see. If you don't think AIDS affects you--well, it's a must-see for you, too.
--A.M. | 7,035 | 3,499 | 0.000288 |
warc | 201704 | Clinical education is the cornerstone in bringing the classroom knowledge to life and is vital to equipping the next generation of students with the experience they need for success in the future. It is an essential and irreplaceable component in preparing students for their role as a practicing medical professional post graduation. Clinical education provides the student an opportunity to put classroom information into practice, while also enabling student development of knowledge and skill sets best learned in the clinical setting.
All nursing students are required to complete credit hours in the clinical setting under the supervision of a nursing professional. These clinical experiences support the mission of the College of Nursing, integrating practice and coursework, to provide a comprehensive nursing education. Students may choose to complete their clinical hours in a variety of clinical settings and nursing environments. | 944 | 485 | 0.002068 |
warc | 201704 | E&E: Thursday, April 19, 2007
PUBLIC LANDS: Senate bill would codify BLM conservation system; Red Rock wilderness revived Dan Berman, E&E Daily senior reporter The chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee yesterday proposed legislation that would codify a Bureau of Land Management program that oversees 26 million acres of sensitive public lands and rivers across the West. Sen. Jeff Bingaman's (D-N.M.) bill would provide a legal footing for the National Landscape Conservation System, a Clinton administration creation that manages 15 national monuments, 161 wilderness areas, 38 wild and scenic rivers, and other sensitive areas such as California's Headwaters Forest Reserve. Separately, Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) revived legislation that would designate 9.4 million acres of BLM lands in Utah as wilderness. A bipartisan group of lawmakers and groups such as the Wilderness Society and National Trust for Historic Preservation have endorsed plans to codify the NLCS, even though the bill promises no new funds for the system and would not alter BLM's current management plans. "Because the NLCS was established administratively, it does not have the permanence that it would have if enacted legislatively," Bingaman said in a floor statement yesterday. "Legislative enactment of the NLCS will help increase the attention to these important, congressionally protected areas, and hopefully will help ensure that the system remains a high priority within the BLM and the Department of the Interior." Part of the purpose behind separating the now-26 million acres into the NLCS was to stop the loss of open space and give the areas a different focus from the rest of BLM's 262 million acres, which are managed for multiple uses, including oil and gas drilling, mining, grazing and motorized recreation, among others. "By putting these lands into an organized system, the BLM hopes to increase public awareness of these areas' scientific, cultural, educational, ecological and other values," BLM's NLCS Web site states. Red Rock wilderness bill reintroduced Also on Capitol Hill yesterday, Democrats revived the America's Red Rock Wilderness Act, which would set aside 9.4 million acres of BLM land in Utah as wilderness. New wilderness areas in the Hinchey and Durbin bill would be established in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, Capitol Reef National Park, Canyonlands National Park, the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and other federal lands in Utah where energy or other development pressures exist, according to the sponsors. "Energy companies are gobbling up leases in red rock country right now while they have an oil friendly administration in the White House," Hinchey said in a statement yesterday. "We're going to do everything we can to stop this free-for-all lease sale before it's too late and ensure that this beautiful land is safeguarded." A wilderness designation would prohibit motorized activities such as off-road vehicle use, oil and gas drilling, and mining. The bill is supported by over 240 environmental groups, but the Utah congressional delegation is not on board. "I can't imagine it going forward," said Scott Parker, chief of staff to Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah). "A Utah wilderness bill at the very least should come from a member of Congress in Utah and be based on legislative criteria for wilderness designations. I'm pretty sure this bill does neither of those." Bishop, ranking member of the House Parks Subcommittee, is not opposed to new wilderness designations, Parker noted, citing the 100,000-acre Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area in northeastern Utah that Congress approved in 2005. That bill was part of an effort to prevent the Skull Valley Band of Goshute Indian reservation from building a rail line to the planned 44,000-ton nuclear waste repository. Although Hinchey has introduced the Red Rock wilderness bill several times in recent session of Congress, Pete Downing, legislative director for the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said the Democratic Congress gives supporters hope. "The atmosphere in Congress is that people are now very wary of the excesses of the oil and gas industry," Downing said. | 4,248 | 2,058 | 0.000488 |
warc | 201704 | Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York Secretary-GeneraL, at Regional Summit, Calls for Strategic Plan
to Bolster Growing United Nations-ASEAN Partnership
Following are UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s opening remarks at the fifth ASEAN-UN Summit in Bandar Seri Begawan on 10 October:
I am pleased to join you for the fifth ASEAN-UN Summit, and I congratulate Brunei for successfully chairing ASEAN (Association of South-East Asian Nations) over the past year. Let me also congratulate His Excellency Mr. Le Luong Minh for assuming his post as the ASEAN Secretary-General earlier this year.
Two years ago in Bali, we adopted the Joint Declaration on Comprehensive Partnership between ASEAN and the United Nations. This year, we are reviewing the Joint Declaration for the first time. This framework document has laid the foundation for a partnership that is growing broader and deeper.
ASEAN is at the threshold of an exciting new era as it moves towards its next important transformation: the establishment of the ASEAN Community in 2015. The year 2015 also marks an important threshold for the United Nations. It marks the deadline for achieving the Millennium Development Goals. At the same time, we are looking forward to a new post-2015 development agenda and an ambitious climate change agreement.
We need your engagement and dynamism to set new standards for equitable growth and sustainable development in the region and beyond. You have a tremendous opportunity to position the ASEAN region for the twenty-first century. The United Nations is proud to be your partner, and we value your openness in furthering this partnership. I would like to highlight four areas where our partnership can produce tangible results ‑ regional connectivity; sustainable development; human rights; and peace and security.
First, regional connectivity. Our assistance under the Comprehensive Partnership is closely aligned with your moves towards integration. ASEAN connectivity in the fields of transport, trade and cross-border movement is critical to your objectives for closer, more efficient relations and to spread prosperity and close development gaps within and among countries. I am pleased that our regional commission, ESCAP (Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific), has helped ASEAN develop its Regional Connectivity Master Plan. UN collaboration will continue as you work towards establishing the ASEAN Community in 2015. We also stand ready to support efforts to improve energy security and the improved management of shared resources such as water.
This brings me to my second point: sustainable development. ASEAN countries have made impressive progress towards most of the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals). We will continue to work with you to achieve all the MDGs across the board. This is imperative as we work to define a shared vision for the post-2015 period. The United Nations is eager to hear the voices of ASEAN nations and work with you in implementing a bold new sustainable development agenda.
Poverty eradication must be our priority, and sustainable development our guide and principle. The new agenda must be bold in ambition yet simple in design, supported by a new partnership for development. It must be universal in nature yet responsive to the complexities, needs and capacities of individual countries. It must protect the planet’s resources, emphasize sustainable consumption and production and support action to address climate change.
Climate change is a threat to the development and prosperity of all nations. The region is highly vulnerable to weather-related disasters. I extend my sympathies to the people of Cambodia and also the wider region who have been affected by recent floods and severe storms. The UN will continue our support for disaster management. This is one of the most advanced areas of our collaboration. The UN is working closely with the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on this issue.
It is important to ensure that our systems are fully interoperable at all levels. Our response to disaster must also encompass preparedness and prevention. Ultimately, we can only prevent climate disasters by addressing climate change. We must do everything we can to keep global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
To do that, we need to finalize a robust legal agreement on climate change in 2015. To add momentum to this process, I will convene a climate summit in September 2014. I am inviting leaders at the highest level — from government, business, finance and philanthropy, civil society and knowledge institutions.
I count on your leadership and I hope that all of the leaders of ASEAN will be able to participate in next year’s climate summit meeting. I will try to make it much easier for all the leaders to participate because I am now negotiating with the President of the General Assembly so that we can have one full day dedicated for climate change during the general debate session. So once you come to the United Nations you will be able to combine two important meetings. The post-2015 development agenda must also be rights-based, with particular emphasis on women, young people and marginalized groups.
This is my third point. The ASEAN region is one of the most diverse in the world, representing many of the world’s great cultures, faiths and traditions. Peace and sustainable development for all the people of the region depend on harmonious relations among communities and nations. We must avoid the divisive effects of rising inequality, which often evolve along ethnic or religious lines.
The UN stands ready to work with all of you to promote human rights for stability and development. I welcome your commitment to implementing your Human Rights Declaration in accordance with international standards. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR) and others in the UN system stand ready to assist.
The fourth area I wish to address is peace and security. The UN system is working with ASEAN countries to fight corruption, transnational organized crime, including drug and human trafficking, terrorism and other non-traditional security threats. Multifaceted peacekeeping is another area for collaboration. The UN welcomes the opportunity to work with ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation that you will launch soon. We also welcome the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Mine Action Centre in Phnom Penh.
Let me now turn to broader issues. I applaud the various efforts to resolve tensions and conflicts in the region. The border between Cambodia and Thailand has been calm. The Thai Government has initiated a peace dialogue with one of the southern insurgent groups, facilitated by Malaysia. Malaysia also facilitated last year’s Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro between the Government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. The two parties are now moving towards a comprehensive peace agreement.
Myanmar has been going through an unprecedented reform process, which the United Nations fully supports. However, I remain concerned about ongoing communal violence. I urge the Government and all communities to address all contributing factors. The reform process in Myanmar can only succeed fully if all groups in the country feel safe and part of the whole, secure in the realization of their human rights.
To advance our work on all fronts, we need to strengthen cooperation between our Secretariats. As we complete the review of our partnership today, may I propose that the two Secretariats work out a draft strategic roadmap for implementing the ASEAN-UN Comprehensive Partnership for 2014-2015. This would contain immediate priorities for consideration by senior officials. I welcome your views. I strongly believe it is time for our two Organizations to enhance our liaison.
As I advised your Foreign Ministers in New York last month, the United Nations plans to establish a liaison presence in Jakarta. I am very much grateful and encouraged by His Majesty’s comment that ASEAN leaders support my proposal to establish a Secretariat liaison office in Jakarta.
We have much work ahead, and we look forward to working with Myanmar as the Chair of ASEAN next year, and with Malaysia in 2015. Let us continue to work together for peace, human rights and sustainable development across Southeast Asia.
* *** * For information media • not an official record | 8,578 | 3,795 | 0.000266 |
warc | 201704 | 1. Global Environmental Outlook (GEO) - (1995-present) - GEO is a participatory and regionally distributed assessment process with a strong capacity building component. GEO has resulted in 3 global integrated environmental assessment reports (GEO-3 in 2002, GEO-2000 in 1999 and GEO-1 in 1997), numerous regional, sub-regional, national and sub-national level reports and products, a range of youth, educational and capacity building products, as well as assessment tools, methodologies, and information systems such as the GEO Data Portal. GEO-4 is now under preparation and will be published in 2007. See: http://www.unep.org/geo.
2. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - (1988 - present) - IPCC was established by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and UNEP to assess scientific, technical and socio-economic information relevant for the understanding of climate change, its potential impacts and options for adaptation and mitigation. It is open to all Members of the UN and of WMO. IPCC has published three assessments of climate change (1990, 1995 and 2001) as well as numerous related scientific and technical publications, and has started planning the fourth assessment report (AS4). See: http://www.ipcc.ch.
3. Ozone Assessments - (1988 - present) - Scientific, environmental, technical and economic assessments related to ozone depletion are required under the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer. In 1988 four Assessment Panels were created to carry out the assessment process, later reduced to three with the merger of 2 panels to form the Panel for Technology and Economic Assessment. 5 major assessments have been carried out so far (1989, 1991, 1994, 1998 and 2002). See: http://www.unep.org/ozone
4. Global Environmental Monitoring System / Water Programme (GEMS/Water) (1978 - present) - The GEMS/Water Programme provides authoritative, scientifically-sound information on the state and trends of global inland water quality required as a basis for the sustainable management of the world's freshwater to support global environmental assessments and decision-making processes. See http://www.gemswater.org/.
5. Biodiversity assessments and related activities - UNEP has been involved in many biodiversity assessment related activities including producing the Global Biodiversity Assessment (1995), and the Cultural and Spiritual Values of Biodiversity (1999). The UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre provides information for policy and action to conserve the living world. Its programmes concentrate on species, forests, protected areas, marine, mountains and freshwaters; plus habitats affected by climate change such as polar regions, and the wider aspects of biodiversity assessment. See: http://www.unep-wcmc.org.
6. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) - (2001-2005) - UNEP is the implementing agency for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which is designed to meet the needs of decision-makers for scientific information on the links between environmental change and human well being. See: http://www.ma-secretariat.org
7. Post-conflict assessments - (1999 to present) - UNEP's Post Conflict Assessment Unit works to determine how conflict influences the environment and to identify the environmental consequences of modern warfare in areas of the world where the natural and human environment has been damaged as a consequence of conflict. Assessments have been undertaken for Afghanistan, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, the Occupied Palestinian Territories and an assessment of environmental conditions in Iraq is currently under way. See: http://postconflict.unep.ch/
8. Global International Waters Assessment (GIWA) - (1999 - 2003) - The aim of GIWA is to produce a comprehensive and integrated global assessment of international waters, the ecological status of and the causes of environmental problems in 66 water areas in the world, and focus on the key issues and problems facing the aquatic environment in transboundary waters. See: http://www.giwa.net
9. Global Mercury Assessment - (2001-present) - UNEP carried out a global assessment of mercury and mercury compounds, and published the Global Mercury Assessment report in December 2002. The 22nd session of the UNEP Governing Council concluded that there is sufficient evidence from the assessment to warrant immediate action to protect human health and the environment from releases of mercury and its compounds. UNEP is now inviting submission of governments' views on medium- and long-term actions on mercury, which will be synthesized into a report for presentation at the 23rd session of the UNEP Governing Council, with a view to developing "a legally binding instrument, a non-legally binding instrument, or other measures or actions." See http://www.chem.unep.ch/mercury.
10. Global Marine Assessment (GMA) - (2001-present) – GMA is an upcoming activity for the assessment of the state of coastal and marine environments building on existing regional assessments. The UN General Assembly in its resolution 57/141 decided to establish by 2004 a regular process for the global reporting and assessment of the state of the marine environment. The resolution was inter alia based on a feasibility study of the GMA initiated by UNEP Governing Council in 2001. The UN Secretary General is now in the process of preparing proposals on the modalities of the GMA. UNEP will, in follow up of decision GC22/1/II, contribute to the preparatory process based on its ongoing assessment activities, and programmatic and available financial resources. See: http://www.unep.org/DEWA/water/MarineAssessment.
11. The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development (IAASTD) - (2004 - present). IAASTD is a unique international effort that will evaluate the relevance, quality and effectiveness of agricultural knowledge, science, and technology (AKST); and effectiveness of public and private sector policies as well as institutional arrangements in relation to AKST. The IAASTD is a three-year collaborative effort (2005 - 2007) that will assess AKST in relation to meeting development and sustainability goals of:- Reducing hunger and poverty- Improving nutrition, health and rural livelihoods- Facilitating social and environmental sustainabilityThe project is a major global initiative, developed out of a consultative process involving 900 participants and 110 countries from all regions of the world. See: www.agassessment.org | 6,594 | 2,905 | 0.000345 |
warc | 201704 | As a Senior Producer with Untamed Science, Dan taps into an unusual mix of talents and experience when crafting educational media. His roots within science run deep – thousands of feet actually. He spent years as a professional environmental and consulting geologist protecting natural resources and exploring for mineral resources a mile under the surface using a combination of geological and geophysical techniques.
His published science and technical writings expanded into other forms of creative science media and before he knew it, Dan waded into the realms of syndicated radio, television, and documentary filmmaking. His productions have earned national and international awards in media education while impacting millions. Besides designing and producing educational media for a number of state agencies, educational non-profits, and industry coalitions, Dan has also developed promotional and distribution programs to successfully place his media in front of a variety of target audiences across the country.
“Today’s educational media” says Dan, “isn’t about telling students facts or what to think about science. That what’s textbooks mostly accomplish. Instead, it’s all about using engaging media to equip them to think for themselves while connecting their lives with concepts in science that will shape their future on this planet. Because once you give them the conceptual tools to make their own decisions about the importance of science in their lives, you’ve given them ownership in their future using science. And I can’t think of anything more important in media production that inspiring the next generation of scientists to embrace fulfilling careers as scientists, or even scientist filmmakers.”
That rare professional blend of being scientists and filmmakers is one of the distinctions of the producers at Untamed Science that have helped them place over 200 productions in front of millions of students while earning national acclaim as leaders in today’s arena of inspiring media education. | 2,084 | 1,025 | 0.001007 |
warc | 201704 | Many men, just like women, would want to look sharp and well groomed. Research shows that modern men don't mind spending money buying the latest styles in clothes and shoes, visiting bars, and even visiting spas for a little TLC.
It is inevitable to any man, who consider his face as his image, when you take into account the importance placed on appearances at recent times. Since your face is something everyone sees every day, taking good care of your hair, teeth, and skin is especially important. The power of a good shave should never be underestimated because it makes a huge difference to looking your best. You will want your face to be smooth, clean and stubble free, but in a way that won't cause irritation or pain on your skin when you shave. An electric shaver is a specific product designed primarily for men's grooming to provide quick and easy close shave. Electric shaver produces a comfortable and basic means of shaving to busy men, who favor to do other things on top of shaving. The advantages of using an electric shaver include less chance of skin irritation, scratches, cuts, ingrown hairs and a painful shave. Electric shavers offer a close, good-looking shave without these inconveniences. Modern, elegantly designed cordless electric shavers incorporate the latest cutting technology, if you haven't tried an electric shaver in the past few years, try it again, you may be pleasantly surprised. Manufacturers are producing higher quality models. Always try to look out for features that are important to you, like quality of the product, whether it's easy to clean and charge, and the life of the battery. Norelco shavers rate at the top when it comes to getting a complete set of features at a price that's reasonable. The self-cleaning mechanism of today's Norelco shaving devices has impressed many a user who originally thought it was a gimmick that would turn out to be impractical once it was put into effect. Another nice thing about Norelcos is that the Norelco replacement heads are very well designed to give a close shave. The replacement heads can pick up long loose hairs that would otherwise be fairly hard to catch in a traditional shaver. The Norelco replacement heads and cleaning cartridges are affordable, too. For example, the Norelco Reflex Action shaver head comes with 3 cutters and 3 combs. This razor produces great results, giving really sharp, clean and close shave. For maximum performance, it's best to replace your shaving heads at least every year. Your shaving head type number is on the back of the razor. You may see something like this: HQ8 shaver heads fit the razor types: 71--, 72--, 73--, 7800, 7810, 84--,88--.
As with any quality shaver, there is the need to purchase replacement heads like the Norelco replacement heads to ensure the closest and best shave available. Check out our Philips Norelco shaver site and get the best prices today! | 2,914 | 1,422 | 0.000704 |
warc | 201704 | Waste Water 507. Wastewater
Wastewater is used water that drains from toilets, sinks, tubs/showers and washing machines located on the University of Texas at Arlington campus. The wastewater travels through a series of collection pipes to a treatment plant where it is treated to strict quality standards and then released.
Contact the Environmental Health and Safety Office to report any illicit discharges. 507a. Sink Disposal
Do NOT dispose of hazardous wastes in any quantity by pouring down the drain. Do not dispose of the following materials in the sanitary sewer (sink or other drains):
Flammable and combustible solvents including benzene, toluene, xylenes, hexane, acetone, ethers, formaldehyde, tetrahydrofuran, and ethyl acetate. Halogenated solvents including chloroform, dichloromethane, carbon tetrachloride, and chlorinated fluorocarbons. Mercury or mercury salts or dyes Phenolic and amine compounds including phenols, hydroquinone, acrylamide, and ethanolamine. Corrosive materials including sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, acetic acid, sodium hydroxide, and potassium hydroxide. Aqueous solutions containing regulated quantities of arsenic, barium, boron, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, selenium, silver, or zinc. Cyanide and sulfide compounds including organic nitriles and mercaptans. Poisons including bromine, ethidium bromide, benzidine, and osmium tetroxide. Explosive compounds including picric acid and organic peroxides (see APPENDIX III for other examples). Commercial products including strippers, paints, dyes and some concentrated cleaners. Radioactive materials. Untreated liquid special (biological) waste.
Do NOT flush acid or base solutions containing organic or inorganic impurities (for example, base baths or acidic solutions used to clean glassware) down the drain; collect these solutions for disposal by EH&S. If you have any questions about sink disposal of any material, contact the Hazardous Materials Section of EH&S at 817-272-2185 for assistance. Violations of the City of Arlington wastewater discharge permit or other waste disposal regulations could result in
507b. Back Flow Prevention
Water for the University is supplied and delivered through piping systems from the City of Arlington. This water is used for drinking (potable water) and for industrial and commercial facilities such as laboratories, laundries, hospitals, etc. Cross-connections between potable water distribution systems and industrial/commercial piping systems could create a potential for backflow of contaminated wastewater into the drinking water system if there is a loss of water pressure as may occur during a pipe break or during plumbing maintenance. For this reason, backflow prevention devices such as check valves, air separation gaps and similar devices are installed in certain situations to prevent cross-contamination of the drinking water supply. These backflow prevention devices are required by code and must be installed and periodically tested by qualified personnel. Different devices are required for different types of facilities and uses. High hazard areas such as laboratories, clinics and hospitals require sophisticated backflow prevention devices.
There are many backflow prevention devices installed in University of Maryland facilities. Backflow prevention devices must often be installed during new construction or renovation/repair of existing facilities. This Fact Sheet describes the requirements for installation, testing, registration and repair of backflow prevention devices.
Definitions:
Backflow means the flow of water or other liquids, mixtures or substances into the distribution pipes of a potable water supply system. Backflow may occur when non-potable water is siphoned into the pipe distribution system as a result of loss of pressure.
Backflow Prevention device means a device that mechanically prevents the reverse flow or back- siphonage of non potable water into potable water pipe distribution system.
Backflow Prevention Assembly Tester (BPAT) means a person who has demonstrated competency in inspection and testing of backflow prevention devices.
Cross-connection is an actual or potential connection between a distribution pipe of potable water and any waste pipe, drain, sewer, non-potable system or any source of water that has been treated to a lesser degree in the treatment process.
Applicable Regulations
Rules and Regulations for Public Water System of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Summary of Requirements:
Backflow prevention devices must be installed and conform to the American Water Works Association (AWWA) standards C510, C511 and AWWA Manual M14. Backflow prevention devices must conform with the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) standards. Backflow prevention devices must be readily accessible for inspection, testing and maintenance. Backflow prevention devices must not be installed in pits or similar submerged areas. Backflow prevention devices shall be inspected and tested after initial installation. Routine inspection, testing and overhaul of backflow prevention devices is the responsibility of Facilities Management. Training
Personnel who perform backflow prevention inspection, testing and overhaul must be certified (40 hour training class) as a Backflow Prevention Assembly Tester (BPAT) by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
Reporting
All Backflow assembly testers including test gauge serial numbers and date their gauge was last tested for accuracy must be documented on “Test and Maintenance” report forms.
Inspections
The facility owner is responsible for ensuring that backflow prevention devices are inspected, tested and overhauled by a Certified Backflow Prevention Assembly Tester and documentation kept on file for at least three years.
Recordkeeping
Records detailing the installation, inspection, testing and overhaul of backflow prevention devices must be maintained by the Facility Management and a copy forwarded to EH&S.
507c. Safety Shower/Eyewash Unit Runoff
Safety showers and eye washes are pieces of safety equipment located in several labs at the University of Texas at Arlington. They are used in emergency situations when a chemical exposure has taken place. Hazardous components in this water are not likely to be a concern due to dilution.
BMP Hazardous characteristics of runoff should be evaluated. If the hazardous material has been sufficiently diluted, it may be disposed of via drain. If no chemical hazard is present, the runoff may be wet-vacuumed or mopped. If a large amount of chemical hazard is still present, collect the runoff and process as hazardous waste. 507d. Acid Neutralization Tanks
Acid neutralization tanks are installed at the discharge site in various buildings on the University of Texas at Arlington campus. Their primary function is to reduce the pH of small quantities of acids in the event of an accidental release into the city’s sewer system.
BMP All laboratory staff should be trained on how to properly dispose of their chemicals and not rely on the acid neutralization tanks as a primary treatment system. Acid neutralization tanks should be inspected by Facilities Management periodically under a regular preventative maintenance program. 507e. Fleets
Wastewater is generated from the cleaning of vehicles and maintenance areas which may contain oils or other contaminants.
BMP University fleet vehicles will be cleaned at a commercial car wash that collects and recycles the wash water. In the absence of an oil water separator, all fluids should be collected with approved absorbent material and packaged for proper disposal. Contact Environmental Health and Safety Office for disposal. P2-E2 Spill containment materials and procedures should be in place for appropriate use. | 7,861 | 3,328 | 0.000302 |
warc | 201704 | How Tax Savings from a College Savings Plan Could Pay for a Year of College by Tara Thompson Popernik, AllianceBernstein
The option to front-load funding makes a tax-deferred college savings plan is a great way to avoid taxes on the future growth of funds earmarked for higher-education expenses. We project that the taxes avoided over a 10-year savings horizon could pay for a full year of college.
How It Works
Saving for a child’s or grandchild’s college or graduate school tuition is in some ways a more daunting challenge than saving for retirement. The costs are impossible to control, and the time you have to save is shorter—typically, just 18 years. Fortunately, there is a tax-advantaged way to save for education.
Contributions to tax-deferred college savings plans, commonly referred to as 529 plans, grow free of federal tax, and earnings can be withdrawn tax free as long as the funds are used for qualified higher-education expenses. These expenses include tuition, fees, books, supplies and equipment, and special-needs services required for enrollment or attendance at an eligible educational institution, as well as room and board, for students attending at least half time.
The 529 program allows taxpayers to front-load five years of annual exclusion gifts, and thus give up to $70,000 in one year ($140,000 for a married couple) per beneficiary.
Contributions to a tax-deferred college savings plan for a child beneficiary are considered gifts, but qualify for the gift-tax annual exclusion, which is now $14,000 per beneficiary and will increase with inflation. Taxpayers can make gifts of up to $14,000 ($28,000 for a married couple) per year per beneficiary to an account for any number of individuals, such as children and grandchildren.
Another program, called a Coverdell Education Savings Account, is also available, but only to couples with less than $220,000 in annual income and individuals with less than $110,000 in annual income. It has much lower contribution limits.
Quantifying the Benefits
Let’s assume that a married couple expects their child, currently in second grade, to start college in 10 years. They have just begun to save for her college tuition and want to look at a few options:
Save $28,000 per year for the next 10 years in a taxable account Save the same amount in a tax-deferred plan over 10 years Use $140,000 from a recent bonus to front-load a tax-deferred plan with five years of contributions today and again at the beginning of year six
These amounts may seem outlandish, but the cost of attending an elite private college is now about $65,000 a year and is rising faster than inflation. The benefits of smaller contributions are scalable. All else being equal, if you contribute 10% as much ($6,500) each year, the outcome would be 10% as large.
The
Display below illustrates the advantage of a tax-deferred plan. We project that the taxes avoided by saving each year would increase the plan’s account value to $296,900, or $15,400 more than the $281,500 in a taxable account, in today’s dollars in the median case, represented by the diamond within each bar.
When the contributions to the plan re front-loaded, the additional years of tax-free growth bring the median value of the plan to $330,100 in today’s dollars, or $48,600 more than in the taxable account. To the extent that parents or grandparents begin saving earlier in a child’s life, the tax-free growth potential is even greater—enough to pay for a full year of college tuition at an elite university.
Many investors fear front-loading their contributions to a plan. “What if the market plunges in the first year?” they ask. “Wouldn’t I be better off spreading out the contributions, so that I’d be investing at lower prices after a market drop?”
Our answer is no. Our worst projected outcomes for a plan with front-loaded contributions are still higher than our worst projected outcomes for the plan with regular contributions for 10 years, as the display also shows.
When considering a front-loaded contribution, think about its timing. Toward the end of the year, it may make more sense for a taxpayer to make an annual exclusion gift for the current year and plan to front-load five years of contributions in January of the next year. That way, more money can begin growing tax free more quickly.
Bernstein does not provide tax, legal or accounting advice. Please consult with your legal or tax advisor regarding your specific situation. The Bernstein Wealth Forecasting System SM uses a Monte Carlo model to simulate 10,000 plausible paths of return for each asset class and inflation, producing a probability distribution of outcomes. It projects forward-looking market scenarios, integrated with an investor’s unique circumstances and taking the prevailing market conditions at the beginning of the analysis into account. The forecasts are based on the building blocks of asset returns, such as yield spreads, stock earnings and price multiples. These incorporate the linkages that exist among the returns of the various asset classes and factor in a reasonable degree of randomness and unpredictability. Tara Thompson Popernik, CFA, CFP, is Director of Research for the Wealth Planning and Analysis Group at Bernstein Global Wealth Management, a unit of AllianceBernstein. | 5,405 | 2,425 | 0.00042 |
warc | 201704 | Having a competent partner is indispensible to the managament and marketing of artists' estates. By establishing VAN HAM Art Estate, VAN HAM offers a comprehensive service that draws on our years of experience in the art market and our commitment to traditional, scholarly engagement with art.
Why do some artists fall into oblivion after their death? In many cases, the artist's heirs and subsequent generations lack the knowledge of how to adequately preserve the legacy of the deceased artist. Indeed, this process requires specialized knowledge of the art market, the proper handling of art and its conservation, collaboration with museums and galleries, as well as professional contact with news sources and regular publications.
The proper management of an artist's estate depends on the artist's public presence, as well as her/his reputation and relative importance on the art market. The neglect of these factors can allow an artist to easily be forgotten. Normally, it is difficult for heirs to manage all of these diverse and time-consuming requirements. Such management demands experts with the appropriate knowledge and skillset, in addition to connections to a well-developed network of curators, conservators, gallerists, and journalists.
The care and preservation of the estate is also often twinned with the desire to sell certain works. In this regard, it is important that an artist maintains not simply a presence on the market. He or she must also remain memorable. again, here, well-organized estate management is essential. although the need for skilled administra-tion of artists' estates continues to grow, there were no large and significant service providers. VAN HAM is now meeting this demand with the founding of VAN HAM Art Estate.
As a fine art auction house, VAN HAM has many advantages: a dominant market position; a high level of expertise; a prominent media presence; several publications; its own department of public relations; a modern website; and extensive logistic services and storage facilities. The key skills of VAN HAM Art Estate stem from its decades of experience as an auction house: evaluations, condition reports, and marketing.
Through its use of the software program HIDA designed to archive museum collections and bequests, VAN HAM Art Estate is connected to the Cologne Museums association. Foto Marburg and the Volkswagen Foundation developed the software. | 2,420 | 1,205 | 0.000832 |
warc | 201704 | Intervertebral Disc Disease - Slipped Disc Article Written by Dr. Daniel A. Degner, Board-certified Veterinary Surgeon (DACVS) Key Points Discs in the mid back region (thoracolumbar) tend to be under the most stress thus rupture more commonly The result is weakness, incoordination, and frequently paralysis A hemilaminectomy is usually needed to remove ruptured disc material, which is compressing the spinal cord If your pet has sensation in the hind limbs prior to and after surgery, there is a 90% chance that your pet will regain the ability to walk well again
Anatomy The spine is made up of many bones called vertebrae. These are held together by ligaments, muscles, and intervertebral discs. The discs act as shock absorbers between the vertebrae. An intervertebral disc consists of a fibrous outer ring and an inner part that is soft and jelly-like (imagine a jelly doughnut) called the nucleus pulposus. The fibrous outer ring is thinner at the top than the bottom.
Disc rupture Discs in the mid back region (thoracolumbar) tend to be under the most stress thus rupture more commonly When a disc becomes diseased, either through gradual degeneration or injury, the thinner top portion of the outer ring tears, and disc material displaces into the spinal canal located directly above the disc. When the disc ruptures completely, the outer ring collapses and the inner jelly-like portion is forced into the spinal canal. The spinal cord is located in the spinal canal. A bulging or ruptured disc causes irritation, pressure, or damage to the spinal cord. This causes inflammation which results in irritation, pressure, or damage to the spinal cord. The resulting inflammation causes back pain, weakness, incoordination, and frequently paralysis. The damage to the spinal cord impairs the transmission of "messages" down the cables (neurons) in the spinal cord. Thus, loss of use of the limbs and little or no control of the bladder and sometimes the bowel occurs. When severe damage to the spinal cord is present, loss of pain sensation to the limbs occurs. Below is a CT scan of a disc rupture in a dog - D is the oval shaped intervertebral disc; note the white part of the disc which is the diseased (calcified) nucleus pulposus; a fibrous ring surrounds the nucleus pulposus; also note the large amount of herniated white disc material labeled with an arrow that is compressing the spinal cord (yellow) against the top of the spinal canal
Diagnosis A diagnosis of intervertebral disc disease is based on physical signs, neurological tests, and radiography. In order to diagnose where the spinal cord is damaged, a myelogram usually is required. This procedure involves inserting a needle in the bag (dural sac) that surrounds the spinal cord and dye (which can be seen on radiographs) is then injected. Radiographs (x-rays) are made to see where the spinal cord is being compressed. In most cases a CT scan is also made of the spine to clearly define the exact location of the disc material. When the surgeon has this information, less manipulation and trauma to the spinal cord may result during the surgery. A CT scan may not be needed if the myelogram provides a clear indication of the exact location of the herniated disc material.
Surgery A hemilaminectomy is usually needed to remove ruptured disc material, which is compressing the spinal cord. During the surgery a hole or window is made on the side of the vertebrae at the site of the offending disc. The hemilaminectomy also relieves some pressure off of a swollen spinal cord. If the mid-back is being operated, fenestration of intervertebral discs in the area is frequently performed. Fenestration involves making an incision in the side of the disc to allow the jelly portion to leak out. This decreases the risk of a future disc rupture and spinal cord compression in the future.
Prognosis If your pet has sensation in the hind limbs prior to and after surgery, there is a 90% chance that your pet will regain the ability to walk well again. After surgery some pets will regain function quicker than others. By 3 to 6 weeks after surgery most pets will be able to walk again. Sometimes no improvement in the neurological status is seen in the first month, then a rapid improvement occurs. Healing of the spinal cord will continue for a period of 6 months after surgery (at most 9 months). Therefore, by the time 6 to 9 months have lapsed, your pet’s neurological status will be as good as it is going to get. Occasionally some pets will still have some residual weakness in the hind limbs, but will be able to ambulate well enough to be a functional pet. Dogs that have no deep pain sensation to the hind limbs may never walk again. If surgery is done within 12 hours after sensation to the hind limbs is lost, there is about a 50 to 75% chance that the pet will walk again. In the event that your pet does not regain the ability to walk again, a K-9 cart can be fitted to your pet. This device basically is a wheel chair for pets. It has a harness, which is strapped around the pet and wheels to allow the pet to ambulate with the front limbs.
Postoperative care A urinary catheter is usually placed if your pet is paralyzed and has no voluntary motor function to the hind end so that the pet will be kept dry and clean. Medications are given include: Steroids: to help prevent swelling of the spinal cord and prevent free radical damage to the cord; if used at all they are only given at high doses during the first 24 hours. Side effects of steroids: Stomach ulcers, rupture of the colon due to ulceration, pancreatitis, increased thirst and urination, increased appetite Pepcid and carafate and misoprostol These are used to treat stomach ulcers if they occur Antibiotics These are given intravenously during surgery to prevent against infection. Antibiotics may also be continued after surgery if a urinary catheter was used after surgery to minimize the possibility of a bladder or kidney infection. Muscle relaxants (valium or methocarbamol) If your pet has pain due to back spasms after surgery or if you have a difficult time expressing the bladder, a muscle relaxant may be prescribed. Rest: Your pet should be kept in a crate at all times except for urination and bowel movements for a period of one month. Passive rehabilitation: The joints of the hind limb (ankle, knee and hip) should be flexed and extended. Another important exercise is called abduction of the hip. This involves pulling the leg away and toward the belly. These exercises will keep the limbs from getting permanently stiff. This activity should be done 4 times daily for 10 minutes each time until your pet can walk again. Active rehabilitation: Your pet’s back end should be elevated and the hind limbs placed in a standing position. As you balance your pet, allow standing. Early on after surgery your pet will be weak, but with time he/she should be able to support weight for a longer period of time. This exercise should be done 4 times daily for 5 minutes each time. Another form of rehabilitation therapy is swimming (if a water facility is available). This can be started about 7 days after surgery (at this time the incision will be sealed). Best is to use warm water. Swimming (with support under the belly) should be allowed 4 times daily for 10 minutes per time. Bladder care: It is very common for patients with spinal injury to have lost control of the bladder and bowels. Your pet should be taken outside 4 to 5 times daily for elimination purposes, so that your pet will be encouraged to do this bodily function outside. If your pet is not urinating on his/her own, the bladder will need to be expressed (do this outdoors). This is done by applying constant pressure to the belly in front of the hind limbs. Your pet should have a bowel movement with in the next 3 days. Incision: Please check the incision for signs of infection: redness, swelling, pain or discharge. Do not allow your pet to lick at the incision. Please make an appointment to return to MVS in 10 to 14 days from the time of surgery for evaluation of the incision (usually no external sutures to be removed) and neurological status. If your pet is overweight, weight reduction is needed since excess weight puts additional strain on the back. Provide a soft padded bed to prevent bedsores. These are sometimes seen on the points of the buttocks if the pet is constantly sitting up on its hind end. Any of the bony parts of the limbs can develop bed sores from laying on that part of the body too long and failing to turn the body.
Notify the doctor if any of the following occur Your pet seems increasingly uncomfortable Your pet loses control of its bowel movement, is constipated, or has bloody or dark stools Your pet has difficulty urinating or you cannot express the bladder Your pet has breathing problems, rigid front legs or seizures.
Intervertebral disc disease of the neck Dogs having a disc problem in the neck frequently only have pain and sometimes lameness of one of the front limbs Some dogs may have paralysis of all four limbs The disc material is usually removed by making a hole in the bottom of the vertebra called a ventral slot Many dogs will have immediate relief following neck surgery, but occasionally the neck pain may take 1 to 2 weeks to completely resolve
Potential complications Infection of the spine Bladder infection Temporary worsening of the neurological status after surgery is not uncommon due to the myelogram and the surgical manipulation. If your pet can walk prior to surgery and cannot just after surgery, do not be alarmed. The most important factor that indicates whether your pet will recover again is retention of good sensation to the hind limbs after surgery. Permanent paralysis can occur, but is unusual if deep pain sensation was intact prior to surgery Anesthetic death Life threatening pneumothorax or leakage of air in the chest following fenestration can occur but is rare. Side effects due to medications (see above)
Dogs that do not regain function of hind limbs Some dogs will not regain the ability to walk again following surgery in spite of our efforts; dogs that do not have deep pain sensation prior to surgery have a a poorer chance to regain function. These pets do not need to be euthanized, but require extra attention which includes the following: exercise expressing urine from bladder urine tests every 2 to 4 months to make sure that bladder infection is not present A K-9 cart can be purchased from a company on-line to allow your pet to go for walks again (of course using the front limbs only). In general, pets adjust to the use of a K-9 cart very quickly and enjoy their walks once again. Below is a photo of a dog harnessed to his K-9 cart.
Frequently Asked Questions After Surgery
When should my dog have the first bowel movement after surgery?
Many dogs will not have a bowel movement for the first 4 to 5 days after surgery Reasons that a dog will not have regular bowel movements after surgery include: The dog has been fasted prior to surgery Dogs do not eat well during the hospital stay They frequently do not eat well when they go home They are fed highly digestible food that produces little stool Pain medication that contain narcotics (such as morphine, fentanyl patches, and tramadol) can be constipating If a pet does not have a bowel movement on the 5th day of being home, a stool softener such as metamucil can be fed Dose of metamucil is 1 tsp per 25 Kg mixed in with each meal (canned dog food); feed immediately after mixing, as the metamucil will gel the food and may make it less palatable
My pet had surgery and will not eat. What can be done? Dogs Most pets will not eat their regular dog food after surgery, especially if it is kibble. Offer a cooked diet having a 1:1 ratio of a protein source and carbohydrate source. The protein source can be any meat (example: chicken breast, turkey breast, lean hamburger) that is low in fat and should be cooked (drain off all fat after the meat has been cooked). The carbohydrate can be pasta, potato or white rice. Try canned dog food; to enhance the flavor sprinkle a very small amount of garlic powder or chicken or beef broth (Chicken-in-a- Mug TM or Beef-in-a-Mug TM products) Try Gerber strained meats for babies such as the chicken, beef, turkey, or veal Try Hill's A/D diet available at most veterinary hospitals Hand feeding: place a small amount of food in the mouth so that your dog gets the flavor Warm the food slightly in a microwave, as the food will be more aromatic; stir the food before feeding and test the temperature on the bottom side of your wrist; it should only be luke warm. Remember that most pets will not eat the first day or two after they get home from surgery Cats Offer smelly foods that contain fish such as tuna or smelly cat foods Try Gerber strained meats for babies such as the chicken, beef, turkey or veal Hand feeding: with your finger place a small amount of food on the roof of your cat's mouth; use a syringe to get soft food into the mouth Warm the food slightly in a microwave as the food will be more aromatic; remember to stir the food before feeding and test the temperature; it should be only luke-warm Some cats will only eat dry food, try kibble if your cat normally has been fed that food Petting and stroking your cat frequently will help to stimulate appetite Remember that most pets will not eat the first day or two after they get home from surgery Appetite stimulants such as cyproheptadine may be helpful If your cat refuses to eat anything for 7 days a stomach tube or nasogastric tube should be placed to provide nutrition so that a serious liver problem (hepatic lipidosis) does not develop
My pet is vomiting. What can be done? The first thing for you to discern is whether your pet is vomiting or regurgitating. Both will result in fluid or food being brought up. Vomiting always will have heaving or retching of the abdomen prior to expulsion of the vomitus. Regurgitation is not associated with heaving and the pet usually just opens the mouth and fluid or food will be expelled. Usually the regurgited material will be clear or brown colored fluid. Next is to identify the cause of the vomiting or regurgitation. Causes and treatment of vomiting after surgery When some pets return home after a stay in the hospital they may drink excessive amounts of water at one time and then vomit; if this appears to be the case, the water should be limited to frequent smaller amounts. Medications such as antibiotics, narcotics or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medication commonly cause vomiting after surgery. In order to see which medication is causing the problem, the administration of each drug should be separated 2 hours apart. Usually the pet will vomit or appear nauseated (drooling and sick look) within 1 hour of administration of the medication that they are sensitive to. The antibiotic in some cases may be changed to a different one, or may be discontinued. Stomach upset from anesthesia is a potential cause of vomiting and will pass within a couple of days. An uncommon cause of vomiting after surgery is internal organ failure. Blood testing will confirm this problem. For this reason vomiting should not be ignored if it persists for more than 24 hours. If your pet had surgery of the bowels or stomach, vomiting is always a concern, as it may indicate that infection of the abdominal cavity, called peritonitis, is present. Do not ignore this sign. Symptomatic treatment of vomiting involves withholding food for 12 to 24 hours, then introducing small amounts of bland food such as rice and lean cooked hamburger, if your pet does not vomit after that then gradually wean him/her back onto the regular diet after 3 days. In order to decrease the acidity of the stomach, Pepcid AC 0.5 mg/kg can be given by mouth twice daily for 5 days. Metoclopramide and Cerenia are good anti-vomiting medications for dogs and cats. You should always consult a veterinary healthcare professional before administering medication. Causes and treatment of regurgitation after surgery The most common cause of regurgitation is reflux of acid from the stomach into the esophagus while your pet is under anesthesia. Acidic fluid from the stomach can cause a chemical burn of the esophagus and result in a bad case of heart burn, called esophagitis. This results in poor motility of the esophagus, therefore water and food will accumulate in this structure. In most cases, esphagitis is self-eliminating and will resolve within two or three days. If the esophagitis is severe the esophagus may develop one or more strictures. A stricture is a narrowing or stenosis of the esophagus and does not allow passage of food down the esophagus, in regurgitation that lasts longer than one week. This problem should be brought to the attention of your pet's doctor within the first two weeks so that it can be treated by ballooning the stricture (minimally invasive procedure, as it is done with the aide of an endoscope). If an esophageal stricture is chronic surgery is needed. Symptomatic treatment of regurgitation caused by esophagitis includes feeding bland food, and administering a coating agent (sucralfate) and an acid blocker (omeprazole or other). Consult a veterinary health care professional if the regurgitation continues for more than a couple of days.
How do I know that my dog is in pain following surgery? Signs of pain include crying biting if you get near the surgical site grimacing (lips are pulled back and the the dog looks anxious) tragic facial expression panting restlessness and unable to sleep; pacing if abdominal surgery was done the pet will not lie down on the incision, or will continually sit up in spite of appearing very tired the worst pain will be for the first 2 to 3 days after surgery
What can I do to control my dog's pain? Narcotic medications that control pain: tramadol, butorphanol, Duragesic (fentanyl patch) Anti-inflammatories used to control pain: Deramaxx, Rimadyl, Previcox, or Etogesic If an orthopedic surgery has been done cold packing the surgical site may be helpful A cold pack may be a pack of frozen peas, crushed ice in a Ziploc bag, or a cold gel pack; place a thin barrier between the skin and the cold pack. An alternative to a cold pack is to freeze water in a styrofoam cup; after frozen cut the bottom of the styrofoam cup out. Cool the surgical site around the incision by rubbing the exposed ice directly on the skin in a circular pattern. Cooling the surgical site helps to numb the area.
How do I know that my cat is in pain following surgery? Pain is more difficult to assess in cats versus dogs, as signs can be more subtle and they usually do not vocalize when in pain Signs of pain in a cat include the following: biting if you get near the surgical site growling or deep cry not wanting to eat hiding and not wanting to be near owner (remember that this could also be caused by the cat just being upset about leaving home and coming back)
What can be done for pain at home for my cat? Pain medication such as buprenorphine or a Duragesic (fentanyl) patch Tylenol will kill a cat as they lack abundant glutathione enzyme in the liver Anti-inflammatories can be used, but the dose is much less than dogs
Is it okay for my pet to lick the incision? If a dog licks the incision, the healing process may be delayed. Licking can remove stitches and cause the incision to open Licking can become a severe habit that is difficult to break Licking can cause infection as the mouth has many bacteria Dogs will frequently lick the incision when the owner is not watching such as at night time; if the skin looks red or excoriated the most common cause is from licking. To stop your pet from licking the following can be tried: Elizabethan collar can be placed on the neck; this will not help stop your pet from scratching at the region Cervical collar (bite not collar) is a less awkward device and can be effective at stopping a pet from licking the surgical site A tee shirt can be used to cover an incision on the chest or front part of the abdomen; gather the waist of the shirt up over the dog's back and wrap an elastic band around this part of the shirt. A bandage or sock can be used to cover an incision on a limb; fasten the top of the sock to the dog's limb with tape. Bitter apple can be applied around the incision; many dogs will continue to lick after application of this topical Bitter Apple and Liquid Heet TM (obtain this from a drugstore...it is used for sore muscles) mixed in a 2:1 ratio can be applied around the skin incision Antipsychotic medication in some cases is needed Board-certification by the American College of Veterinary Surgeons What does it mean? Four years of advanced training in surgery beyond the Doctor of Veterinary Medicine Degree Experience in the development of new surgical treatments Rigorous examination by the American College of Veterinary Surgeons to ensure competency in advanced surgical techniques Assurance that a veterinarian is a surgical specialist
All information on this web site is copyright © 2004 Vet Surgery Central Inc. VCS Inc. will not be held liable for any information on this site that may be used for or against medical litigation. | 21,342 | 8,345 | 0.00012 |
warc | 201704 | Alternative investments are one of the fastest growing asset classes, especially in liquid form, but many clients (and advisors) have a hard time wrapping their hands around it. To that end, Pershing has added an Alternative Investment Center to its NetX360 advisor platform, which will include resources, research and tools to help advisors educate clients on alternative investments. The company made the announcement during its annual INSITE 2014 conference in Hollywood, Fla.
“Education remains one of the toughest obstacles when it comes to alternative investments,” said Sandra Bolton, managing director, financial solutions at Pershing, in a statement.
According to a 2013 survey by Natixis Global Asset Management, 72 percent of investors would consider alternatives if their advisors recommended them, and 85 percent said they would invest if they understood them.
The new offering will include research from Morningstar and Blue Vault Partners, among others, as well as comparison and screening tools, market announcements, whitepapers and commentary from alternative managers. Pershing’s platform has information on more than 2,300 alternative products.
In addition to the educational resource, Pershing has brought new alternative asset classes to FundVest 200, a list of no transaction fee mutual funds. Pershing is adding domestic and international real estate, credit and event-driven funds, managed futures, absolute return and multi-strategy funds. | 1,486 | 802 | 0.001265 |
warc | 201704 | ASIC’s 2013 proposal to change requirements around limited managed discretionary account (MDAs) platforms is now on hold, prompting an industry insider to recommend interested advisers use the opportunity while there’s still time.
Claire Wivell Plater, the managing director of The Fold Legal, told
Wealth Professional
that now that the proposal is on hold it means that even if ASIC decide to follow through with it in the near future it would probably be subject to a significant transition period, potentially giving advisers until at least 2016.
“If in the past they were thinking they had to wait, it’s best to jump on now rather than later, because there’s probably time to get their operations established,” she said.
MDAs enable advisers to quickly rebalance their clients’ portfolios allowing them to, for example, quickly take advantage of a momentary over or under valuation of a stock, or exercise a corporate action such as a rights issue or share buyback.
And unlike full service MDAs, limited MDA services are provided through a platform, which takes care of administration, custody and reporting.
“The attraction of MDAs for advisers is the operational efficiencies they offer,” Wivell Plater said. “There is no need to obtain a client’s consent in advance to simply rebalance a portfolio. Provided advisers can operate them efficiently, [they] can be an excellent way for advisers to add value.”
Currently advisers who provide a limited MDA service must obtain a Power of Attorney from the client authorising them to manage the investment within agreed parameters, however they don’t need a specific MDA authorisation on their AFS licence.
However among other things the ASIC proposal would mean advisers are required to have the specific authorisation.
But the long and drawn out consultation period, which has been paused twice, has caused much uncertainty within the industry and has put advisers who would be otherwise interested in using an limited MDA off due to the potential of considerable restrictions, said Wivell Plater.
“I think it was put on hold last year initially because it was very complex, but more recently it’s because of uncertainty around the regulative climate,” she said. “We’ve got the Financial System Inquiry, reforms, and I think ASIC wants a bit more certainty about the way the world looks before they go forward.”
Wivell Plater, who said a month ago she would have advised clients against starting to offer the limited MDA service, is now encouraging interested parties to get on board in light of the pause.
“I imagine people would be excited about it,” she said. “Putting a toe in and doing it within a platform is a good stepping point to gain the experience required [for an MDA].”
SEE MORE: | 2,876 | 1,397 | 0.00075 |
warc | 201704 | As smartphones get ever smarter, consumers are demanding more and more from their phones. This is how many people now search for stores, view maps, access social media and more. But we continue to see many websites tanking in the mobile market. What is the best way to make them successful?
Some at Google think the answer is responsive web design. At a recent conference in Seattle, Webmaster Trends Analyst Pierre Far discussed responsive web design as a way to deal with mobile phone Internet use that is great from an SEO angle and also from usability too.
The problem with today’s Internet market is that developers and designers have to create an Internet experience that is made to work on many different platforms and for many different devices. Responsive design would let fluid site design to be created and that would adjust automatically based upon the screen size of the end user. So many different designs of one site would not have to be done. There would be just one site, and one set of HTML pages that would adjust layout to display the best on phones, laptops, tablets and desktops.
SEO would benefit with responsive Web design because you would have the ability to build your ‘search equity’ on one set of HTML pages, and not several sets. This would make your organic search methods more agnostic as far as devices go. So you would not need a separate budget to optimize your site on mobile products. Cool, huh?
Now if your mobile site and your regular site really do have different needs and requirements, no worries, because responsive web design can handle it. But, the same URL structure could be maintained.
Google seems to be moving forward on this front. Last year, the search giant launched Googlebot-Mobile, a new mobile user agent. Websites that serve content dynamically for mobile experience on the identical URL will need to tell Google by Vary HTTP header so that Googlebot-Mobile will crawl and index the mobile content so that it is included in their mobile index.
So, if you’re using the same content on your mobile and desktop sites, you would want to use responsive Web design to keep the same URL structure and to display the best lay outs based on the screen size. | 2,234 | 1,082 | 0.000936 |
warc | 201704 | Advertisement - story continues below
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker signed off on a new administrative rule Tuesday that will require drug testing for welfare recipients starting next week.
The rule was written by the Wisconsin Department of Children and Families and requires testing for “certain able-bodied adults” receiving welfare benefits — such as food stamps, unemployment insurance, or job training — to pass a drug test, according to The Capital Times.
Walker said in a statement, “Our 2015-17 State Budget implements common-sense reforms that put in place drug screening, testing, and treatment mechanisms, so we can continue strengthening Wisconsin’s workforce.
Employers across the state frequently tell me they have good-paying jobs available in high-demand fields, but need their workers to be drug-free. These important entitlement reforms will help more people find family-supporting jobs, moving them from government dependence to true independence.
At least 13 states have passed provisions similar to Wisconsin’s, according to the National Conference of States Legislatures. They are: Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah.
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Eighteen other states have proposed legislation requiring some form of drug testing for those receiving public assistance.
A federal judge halted enforcement of Florida’s law, ruling it a violation of constitutional protections against unreasonable searches. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the decision.
Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel filed a lawsuit in federal court in July against federal officials who are seeking to block implementation of the program in the Badger State. The state budget, passed last spring, made provision for drug testing for welfare recipients, which the new administrative rule seeks to implement.
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Should welfare recipients have to pass a drug test to get taxpayer money? | 2,083 | 1,070 | 0.000959 |
warc | 201704 | TAKE THE SNAP CHALLENGE
We challenge you to eat on only $4.17 per day for the week of May 10th-17th, 2015!
By taking the SNAP Challenge and experiencing what life is like for millions of Americans living on the average daily allowance of only $4.17, we hope to raise awareness for alternatives like Wholesome Wave Georgia's programs that support access to healthy food while on SNAP.
While on the challenge, shop at a WWG partner farmers market where SNAP dollars are doubled and you'll find local, fresh, healthy foods at affordable prices. This means that as a SNAP Challenge participant, each time you shop at a WWG partner farmers market, your budget doubles from $4.17 to $8.34/day. That's the magic of Wholesome Wave's Double SNAP Program! Could you feed your family on $4 a day?
In Georgia, almost 2 million people–one in five Georgians–receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP or Food Stamp) benefits each month. The average person receives a food stamp allowance of $4.17 a day to purchase food.
Across our state, not only are families and individuals finding it difficult to afford food, they're also having trouble accessing fresh, healthy, food.
One of Wholesome Wave Georgia's top programs doubles every SNAP dollar from $1 to $2 at nearly 40 partner farmers markets. Through this doubling initiative we increase access to and affordability of fresh, locally produced food for SNAP recipients. This means more healthy food for communities in Atlanta and across the state of Georgia, where healthy food is often sparse, expensive and low-quality, and more money for farmers. | 1,619 | 862 | 0.001173 |
warc | 201704 | Superman was described on radio and television as able to "bend steel in his bare hands." Although the Man of Steel could bend girders like taffy, it isn't necessary to have been born on Krypton to bend large nails and small metal bars using only the strength in your arms. It takes strength training, careful planning, a few pieces of equipment, and an understanding of proper technique. Here's how to bend steel with your hands.
Steps 1Choosing the Steel 1 Choose the right steel alloy.Most steel bars are either hot-rolled or cold-rolled; a cold rolled bar is shinier than a hot rolled bar, but is also harder to bend. Stainless steel is even harder to bend. The stronger the steel, the more the bend will approximate a "V", while the weaker the steel, the more the bend will look like a "U." 2 Choose a comfortable length of steel bar.Most strongmen who bend steel bars prefer to work with lengths of five to seven inches (12.5 to 17.5 cm). (A common strongman feat was bending a 60-penny nail, which is 6 inches [15 cm] long.) The shorter the bar, the harder it is to bend, as shorter lengths give less bending leverage than longer lengths; however, some prefer a six inch (15 cm) bar to a seven inch (17.5 cm) bar because of the way the stock was formed. You can buy steel bars in the optimal length for hand-bending from some online retailers or buy longer bars either online or from your local hardware store and cut off a piece of the desired length. To cut the steel bar, use a pair of bolt cutters, preferably about 24 inches (60 cm) long. Wear safety goggles when cutting, as short pieces can travel at high speed when cut from the larger bar stock. Grind or file off the cut end to smooth it. 3 Choose a comfortable thickness.Thicker bars are harder to bend than thinner bars. Doubling the diameter quadruples the amount of force required to bend the bar; it takes four times the torque to bend a 3/8-inch (9.6 mm) bar as it does a 3/16-inch (4.8 mm) bar. 4 Choose a well rounded bar.The more sides the bar has, the easier it is to bend it. A hexagonal bar is easier to bend than a square bar, while a round bar is the easiest of all to bend. 2Wrapping the Steel 1 Choose a suitable wrapping material.Before attempting to bend the steel bar, you need to wrap it in material to make it easier to grip and bend, as well as to protect your hands as you bend it. Suitable wrapping materials include the following: Leather. Leather is the toughest material you can use to wrap the steel with and is the best material for adding leverage to your grip. Cordura. Cordura, a synthetic canvas-like fabric, is used in professionally created bending wraps. It's as puncture resistant and durable as leather, but not as good in adding leverage to your grip. Cordura is initially stiff, but becomes more supple over time as it absorbs the oils from your skin. Heavy cloth. A heavy cloth, such as a shop cloth or rag, is the cheapest suitable wrapping material, and has been traditionally used for nail bending feats. However, it is nowhere near as durable or puncture-proof as either leather or Cordura. 2 Fold or cut the wrapping material into strips.If you're using leather, cut strips twelve inches (30 cm) long by four inches (10 cm) wide. If you're using either Cordura or heavy cloth, fold the material into strips of these dimensions. 3 Coat the strips with chalk.The chalk will keep the wrap from slipping once it's wrapped around the steel. 4 Wrap each end of the bar with a strip, leaving a gap between the strips.Wrap the strips around the bar as tightly as possible to keep them from slipping; you may wish to use a rubber band to keep the wrapping tight. Leaving a gap between the strips prevents one strip from bumping into the other as you bend the steel and preventing you from completing the bend. 3Gripping the Steel 1 Choose an effective grip.You can grip the steel bar in one of four ways: double overhand, double underhand, palms down, and reverse. Each method has its own individual techniques. In the double overhand grip, you hold the bar close to your body, preferably just under the chin, with your hands gripping the steel from above. This method transfers the greatest force from your arm muscles into the bend and is the best grip to use on thicker bars. In the double underhand grip, you also hold the bar close to your body, although at about the center of the breastbone. You will bend the bar upward, using your pinkies as fulcrums, and your driving muscle strength comes from your triceps and upper back. In the palms down grip, you grip the bar with your hands the same as in the double overhand grip, but you hold the bar away from your body, either at arm's length or with your arms bent. Because you're holding the bar further from your body, your thumbs serve as fulcrums more when bending the steel than in the double overhand grip, requiring stronger thumb muscles. In the reverse grip, you also hold the bar away from your body, but perpendicular to your chest instead of parallel to it as in the palms down grip. The hand further from your body grips the bar in an overhand grip, while the closer hand grips the bar underhanded. The further hand provides more of the bending force, while the thumb and forefinger of the near hand serve as a fulcrum. 4Bending the Steel 1 Grasp the bar firmly.If you're using either the double overhand or palms down grip, your thumbs should be pushing into the nail or bar through the wrapping, while your index, middle, and ring fingers are wrapped tightly around the bar. If you're using the double underhand grip, your pinkies should grip the bar the tightest, while your index, middle, and ring fingers grip the bar slightly less tightly. 2 Apply force to the bar.Push your fulcrum fingers into the steel as you start bending the ends of the bar toward each other. Your wrists will channel the driving force from your arm muscles, concentrated in your index fingers with the double overhand or palms down grip, the index finger of your far hand with the reverse grip, or your upper palms with the double underhand grip. Your goal is to bend the bar to at least a 45-degree angle. 3 Sweep the bar to a 90-degree bend.Keep up the bending pressure from your fulcrum fingers and your driving muscles as you bend the steel further, until your fulcrum fingers start to touch. If you're bending from the double overhand position, you can go from making the initial bend to continuing the bend in a single motion without changing your hand grip. If you're bending from the palms down or reverse position, you may have to change to the double overhand position to continue bending the steel. Ideally, you want to make this part of the bend in a single, smooth motion. If you're not strong enough to do that, you can make multiple attempts in rapid succession, using as much force as you can muster. Don't rest too long between attempts, or the steel will cool, making it harder to bend. 4 Crush the ends of the bar together.Press the ends of the bar together until you can lace your fingers together; the ends should be about 2 inches (5 cm) apart. Then, use your clasped hands and upper arms like a nutcracker to finish bending the steel. You may have to remove some of the wrapping around the steel if it gets in the way. You may also have to grasp the bent steel in one hand and clasp that hand with your other hand, squeezing both the steel and your hand. As with the sweep, crush the bar's ends together should follow quickly after making the 90-degree bend so that the steel doesn't have time to cool. Community Q&A Tips Regular practice bending steel, done correctly, can not only improve your wrist and hand strength, but also improve your overall body strength. You can keep your bent nails, bolts, and bars on a trophy board. If bending steel is initially too challenging, you can start with either aluminum or brass, which are softer than steel. Aluminum makes a particularly wide "U" shape when bent. Warnings Do not attempt to bend a steel bar without wrapping it first with protective material. Although Superman could bend steel in his bare hands, Superman was invulnerable as well as super-strong. The ends of the bar can puncture the skin of your hands, while the bar itself will damage nerves in the hands as you press on it barehanded. (This is why weightlifters in competition wrap their hands before grasping the bar of a barbell.) Things You'll Need Metal bar, 5 to 7 inches (12.5 to 17.5 cm) long Wrapping material (leather, Cordura, or heavy cloth) Powdered chalk Bolt cutters, 24 inches (60 cm) long Metal file | 8,616 | 3,547 | 0.000282 |
warc | 201704 | Posts Tagged ‘academia’ Business
- Written Tuesday, April 7, 2009 by Jeff Perron - 3 Comments
Last week I introduced you to Jim Stolze‘s
Virtual Happiness Project. In exploring the topic of the Web and its effect on our happiness more deeply, I spoke with Mr. Stolze himself. He walked me through some of his findings – evidence both pro and contra the notion that the Web is a source of happiness. Today, I share some of the evidence with you.
Contra-Happiness: Feeling Pizzled
You may not know the word, but you probably have felt pizzled before. Actually, you probably have felt pizzled at some point today. Stolze explains that feeling pizzled is an adverse effect of our Web 2.0 world: “People sometimes forget the hierarchy of communication. An example of disregard for the hierarchy is ignoring a face-to-face conversation to communicate digitally. For example, you are having a conversation with someone, but all of a sudden they are looking at their Blackberry, or answering ‘very important’ phonecalls. When the person we are talking to does this we feel pizzled – both pissed off and puzzled.”
Pro-Happiness: The Web as the World Wide Window and a Global Campfire
“In my research nearly all respondents answer that the Web has enriched their lives in two ways,” said Stolze. “The first one being that they consider it their window to the world. There’s no doubt that the democratizing of knowledge has had a positive impact on the way people go through life. From deep thoughts on philosophy to things like finding a restaurant’s phone number or looking up a user review on IMDB. The second reason is that the Web is a perfect place to find people who are like you – to set up a discussion without the risk of being judged by your looks, skincolor or clothes. We are a social species and we have this deep need to be part of a group. The Internet has become the perfect place to gather around this new global campfire.”
Debateable: We have fewer deep, face-to-face realtionships because of the Web
The other side of the “ease of interaction” coin is concern over the extent to which we carry out relationships online, Continue…
Colleges should learn from newspapers’ plight Does the Web make us happy? – Part One EMR Part 2 : What’s the hold-up? Guest Blogger: “Collaboration: Concept, Power and Magic” by Julie Lindsay Net Gen on campus: where a grade is the prof’s opening position What kind of education do inmates deserve? If the early bird always gets the worm… Brain food: …internet use? HP Social Computing Lab on Crowd Sourcing, Attention, and Productivity | 2,722 | 1,443 | 0.000733 |
warc | 201704 | Winchester leads the way towards a low carbon society Press Release: 08/02/2010
Major organisations in the Winchester District have pledged to reduce their carbon footprints in a pioneering local declaration on climate change.
Winchester District Strategic Partnership (WDSP) has been working with Winchester Action on Climate Change (WinACC) on 20:12, the campaign to cut the carbon footprint of Winchester by 20% by the end of 2012.
The Winchester Declaration on Climate Change gives organisations of all types, including businesses, charities and the public sector, the opportunity to pledge to reduce their carbon emissions by 20% between 2009 and 2012.
The first wave of organisations to sign up include Winchester City Council, The University of Winchester, Winchester College, and Winchester Area Community Action. Winchester and Eastleigh HealthCare Trust is already working on an NHS scheme for carbon footprint reduction, but it has the same goals as the Winchester Declaration so the Trust has also signed up.
The Declaration has been launched at the start of the New Year 2010 to encourage a fresh start and to get organisations to think about how they can reduce their impact on the environment. This first signing of the declaration is just the start of the two year long campaign to change habits and behaviour to create a low carbon future
This declaration recognises the seriousness of the threat of human caused climate change and the potential benefits, both social and economic, to the Winchester area, by becoming a leading city in creating a low carbon society.
Organisations agreeing to sign up will publish a plan for reducing their carbon footprints by 20 percent by 2012, sign up to at least one low carbon campaign, and support their staff in reducing their own personal carbon footprints.
For more information about climate change, how you can make changes, or to pledge to reduce your emissions go to www.winacc.org.uk/2012-winchester-declaration-climate-change | 2,000 | 945 | 0.001064 |
warc | 201704 | Learn something new every day
More Info... by email
The Federal Information Security Management Act is a United States federal law that was passed in 2002. The act itself recognizes the importance of information security to the national and economic security interests of the United States. FISMA requires all federal agencies to develop, implement and document programs to provide security for their information and information systems.
The need for online security is stressed in the Federal Information Security Management Act. It tasks the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) with responsibilities designed to strengthen information security. Information security means guarding information and information systems against unauthorized access, disruption, disclosure, modification, use or destruction.
The Federal Information Security Management Act states that the NIST is responsible for the development of adequate information security for all government agencies but national security systems. The NIST created standards and guidelines for information security that must be followed by all government agencies, and it works with each to ensure the proper understanding and implementation of FISMA. The NIST must also measure the effectiveness of FISMA's implementation.
Agencies must inventory all information systems that are operated by or are under the control of the agency. The inventory must identify the interfaces between each such system and all other systems, including those not under the control of that agency. The agency must then categorize the information and information systems according to risk level as defined by the Federal Information Security Management Act standards and the guidelines set out by the NIST.
FISMA requires minimum security requirements to be met by all government agencies. It allows for a degree of flexibility in the application of the minimum security standards in order to meet the specific mission and operational environments of all agencies. Each agency must document its minimum security requirements.
All agencies must submit to risk assessment to verify their security controls and determine whether additional controls are required for the minimum amount of security already established by FISMA and the NIST. All of this information is then compiled into a document that records milestones and plans of action. This document is periodically reviewed and can be modified as necessary. It is the main input and contribution in the certification and accreditation portion of FISMA.
Following all other steps in FISMA's information security initiative, the security system's controls and security plan come under review. After the review, a senior agency official authorizes operation of the information system and accepts the risks and controls therein. The information system is accredited. Each accredited system is required to monitor a set of security controls. Should the security system change in a large way, an updated risk assessment is required, as is possible change to the controls.
One of our editors will review your suggestion and make changes if warranted. Note that depending on the number of suggestions we receive, this can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Thank you for helping to improve wiseGEEK! | 3,364 | 1,424 | 0.000705 |
warc | 201704 | Many years ago in college, I took a required psychology class. One day we were told by our professor we had to divvy ourselves up into two groups for a particular project.
I don’t remember the nature of the project, but I am quite serious when I say it took us
three class days to divide ourselves. Much of that time was spent discussing all the hidden hurt feelings and angst that come with being “chosen” into one group or another, reminiscent of the painful procedure of choosing sides for softball in gym class.
After one day of this ridiculous procedure I happen to glance at the professor, who had been largely silent after guiding us into this divvying process. He was watching us carefully, noting our emotions. Suddenly it was crystal clear to me: The end result (two groups) wasn’t important. It was the
process of dividing us that he found psychologically fascinating.
So, naively, I pointed this out to the rest of the class: “Do you realize we’re being manipulated into endless discussions and painful emotions for what is, after all, a very simple procedure?”
The class stared at me as though I were nuts. No one believed me – they were too busy reveling in their woes and insecurities. My comment was dismissed as the endless discussions of painful emotions continued for another two class sessions. I didn’t utter another word during those days because I don’t like being manipulated.
Sure enough, after it was all over and the class had divided itself, the professor told us the two groups weren’t important; it was the
process of dividing ourselves that was significant, and how did we all feel about it? Yadda yadda yadda …
This fascinating little exercise in group psychology is now being played out on a national scale right before our very eyes. We are being deliberately manipulated to behave, speak and act in certain ways. By withholding critical information or by emphasizing biased viewpoints, we are being jerked around like marionettes on strings, dancing to a tune long ago established by forces beyond our comprehension.
And those forces are dividing us as a nation. Make no mistake – the motto
E pluribus unum – Out of many, one – is being superseded by a new motto: Ex unus, plures. Out of one, many. (My Latin may be faulty, sorry.)
We are being manipulated into violent emotions around such issues as:
Education. Parents who don’t remove their children from government-run indoctrination centers often witness their own offspring turning against the values they hold dear.
Income disparity: Occupy “Whatever” is actively encouraged and applauded to illustrate the division between the “haves” and the “have nots.”
Inflation. The feds insist that inflation is not a threat, while blithely disregarding rising food and energy costs, arguably two of the biggest expenses in any personal budget.
Health care. In a blindly unconstitutional power-grab, the government is trying to force us to purchase a product against our wishes.
Bureaucracy. We must deal with unnecessary nitpicky regulations that divert private industry from creating jobs.
Victimhood. We’ve turned it into an art form as well as a government-funded way of life.
Left vs. right. We’re told if we’re not left-wing, we’re a hate group.
Fourth Amendment violations (TSA, Child Protective Services, etc.)
Abortion
Economic crises
Environmental legislation (light bulbs, smart meters)
Unemployment
Et cetera ad nauseum
If America topples, it likely won’t be because of a foreign invasion. It will be because we’re rotting from within, orchestrated by the very people we entrust to safeguard our rights. And make no mistake, this orchestration comes from both Democrats and Republicans (interchangeably known as the Evil Party and the Stupid Party).
Consider this quote:
“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.”
These incredibly prescient words were said by Marcus Tullius Cicero, the ancient Roman statesman … who lived from 106 B.C. to 43 B.C. Apparently some things never change.
This rotting from within is accomplished slowly, subtly, through the classic and efficient divide-and-conquer strategy. Americans are being deliberately manipulated into hating one another, which creates crises a good politician never lets go to waste.
And this is all channeling into a single apex that may not be visible from the ground level: the ultimate need to remove firearms from the hands of citizens.
The government fears the Second Amendment. It has spent decades trying to undo it. It was no accident when, way back in 1995, Eric Holder admitted on video his strategy to “brainwash” people into believing firearms are evil.
Without that pesky Second Amendment, our nation would have sunk into tyranny and despotism decades ago. But because hundreds of millions of firearms are in the hands of law-abiding citizens, our government is forced to tread carefully. It still treads, yes; but it must do so subtly as it strives to undo that right.
At some level, I think Americans know this. Gun sales are higher than they’ve ever been, and it’s because deep down people know that only when firearms are in the hands of free citizens can those citizens stay free.
Whatever you do, people, cling bitterly to those guns. Unteach the brainwashing done to your children about the constitutional right to bear arms. Don’t believe the gentle seductive whispers that suggest we can obtain safety and security if we’d only give up our arms.
It’s not a foreign enemy that is breaking up America. It’s treason from within. | 6,457 | 3,139 | 0.00033 |
warc | 201704 | Is having sex painful?
If the pain is persistently painful, and/or periods are causing serious discomfort and pain, it is a good idea to see a gynecologist for a check-up. There is a chance there is an underlying condition that is exacerbating the issue.
If endometriosis or PID is associated with the pain there is a risk of fertility issues due to scarring in the uterus and tubes. Endometriosis is generally found outside of the uterus, within the pelvic cavity.
Other Symptoms that can be painful
Often, a tipped uterus is not problematic and some women do not experience any symptoms from it. However, if there are symptoms present, they are primarily pain during intercourse, called dyspareunia; and pain during menstruation, called dysmenorrhea. There are other symptoms that can accompany a tipped uterus that include:
· back pain during intercourse
· minor incontinence
· urinary tract infections
· fertility problems
· difficulty using tampons
UPLIFT Procedure
As long as a woman is not experiencing any symptoms, there is no need to interfere. However, if she is experiencing symptoms, the physician may recommend repositioning the uterus using surgery.
By suspending the uterus, pain during intercourse and menstruation can be reduced. The procedure used to reposition a tipped uterus from its backward facing position to a forward facing position is called the UPLIFT procedure and is a newer, improved, method of uterine suspension.
Often, repositioning the uterus this way provides lasting pain relief in situations of painful sex and menstruation.
Read more about retroverted uterus and the effects of it in our article in this section. | 1,693 | 818 | 0.001253 |
warc | 201704 | When to take painkilling drugs
Pain killing drugs can be of great benefit to you when used within the safe guidelines.
In terms of timing:
Diamorphine: in early labour because it has a longer length of action. Pethidine: in both early labour and a little later on, as its action is shorter and less likely to affect the baby. Meptazinol: up to late in the first stage of labour because of it's minimal effects on the baby.
Powerful painkilling drugs give good relief of pain. The effect of each injection is around two to three hours. If given often, in big doses, or too close to the delivery of the baby, they can make you and your baby sleepy and may delay successful breastfeeding.
Epidural analgesia
The nerves from the uterus (womb) and birth canal go to the brain through part of your lower back (see the diagram). It is possible to bathe these nerves with local anaesthetic using an injection.
A fine tube is placed in the region of the nerves so that painkiller can be injected. This can be repeated or 'topped up' when needed during your labour.
Positioning of this tube is done by an anaesthetist. Once the tube is in position you will be almost unaware of its presence.
For the second stage of labour, the 'top up' is usually injected with you sitting up. This stops the pain from the lower nerves. This top up will also allow a doctor or midwife to deliver your baby painlessly if assistance is required.
Any stitching can be done while the epidural is still working. An epidural will leave you pain free, but you may still have some sensation of pressure, particularly as your baby is born.
A Standard Epidural
This technique uses a strong local anaesthetic solution. You may find your legs may feel quite heavy with this technique.
A Mobile Epidural
A fine needle is placed in the region of the nerves and a single injection of painkiller is made. The fine tube is then placed in the same region so that 'top ups' can be injected.
The 'top ups' are a combination of two types of painkiller. The local anaesthetic is weaker than a standard epidural and it is less likely that your legs will feel heavy. Good pain relief is achieved by the use of a second pain killer in the mixture used for 'top-ups.' | 2,232 | 1,079 | 0.000934 |
warc | 201704 | Data security has become paramount for average users and businesses alike, with cyber terrorism and freelance hacking by skilled individuals on the rise. However, for all the threats that have appeared, tools for combating the danger have also been created. Here a few of the most advanced methods for securing your data; some that are simple, and some that you’re unknowingly using already.
Two-Step Security Protocol
A password, the long-favored security method, has become more of an irritant than a barrier for hackers with malicious intent, as a range of technology and techniques has allowed them to bypass it easily. However, some of the best companies such as Google have taken to a two-step security protocol for adding that final barrier between your data and third-party eyes. By requiring a password and then sending a verification code to your email or phone, they can ensure that it’s really you checking into your inbox or accessing your account, as most hackers do not have access to both.
Drive Encryption
Drive encryption is the best defense for protecting your data, and also the most simple, as many devices have it enabled by default. By encrypting your drive, it becomes more difficult for hackers to work through the assembly of codes standing as a barrier between them and your information. One such example is Windows 8’s BitLocker Disk Encryption, which comes as a default to any user who purchases their device.
Often times users don’t realize the strength of the encryption key they create, and it’s subtly stored in OneDrive to be recovered later if needed, making it much more difficult to be maliciously accessed either remotely or directly.
Stronger Passwords
You may have noticed already that certain websites, storage devices, and computers rate the strength of your password as you create it, requiring numbers, characters, and many letters to be included. This is far more crucial than it seems. As simple as creating a stronger password may appear, the longer and more complicated the word is, the more difficult it becomes for hackers to deduce the code or set their software to decrypting it.
Unified Extensible Firmware Interface
Even if hackers cannot access and steal your data, it’s not difficult for them to throw a few monkey wrenches in the mix and leave your data too scrambled and corrupted for use. Security advancements such as UEFI stand as a guard at your data’s door, blocking any modifications to your firmware that don’t match up with the previous vendor’s requirements. This makes it difficult for custom modifications, but for the average user, it ensures that no dabbling fingers can reach into your data.
Smarter Virus Protection
Virus scanners of the modern day have gone above and beyond their predecessors, using Big Data and other methods of data analytics to identify common threats and recurring holes. This information allows them to create a strong counter-attack to these dangers.
With newer technology allowing data to be processed faster, many virus programs create defenses against new viruses before they’re even unleashed. The best advancement in data security is the most common one, and the mainstream virus programs have earned their status through reliability and quality performance, making them the best choice for keeping your data safe.
Stronger Firewalls
Firewalls monitor the incoming and outgoing of your web searches, downloads, and emails, catching threats before they have a chance to reach into your data. Much in the same way as virus programs, modern firewalls are a product of innovation and learning. Companies are aware that consumer confidence is the most important element for success, and have improved their efforts in making the default firewalls the strongest available, often times offering additional protection at an extra cost for extremely sensitive data.
Data protection is no joke. Whether you’re storing vital business information, government data, hyperconvergence strategies, or your favorite collection of cat videos, a data breach can mean the tearful destruction of your valuable content. However, new techniques, technologies, and default applications have been created to ensure you can enjoy every aspect of your data without fear of losing it.
~ Rick | 4,339 | 2,044 | 0.000498 |
warc | 201704 | Essays Tagged: "Natural Law" Natural Law The School of Natural Law Philosophy wa ... ual group ofphilosophers. They developed new ways of thinking about religion andgovernment. Natural law was based on moral principles, but the overall outlookchanged with the times.... her from the middle of the 17th century.He was a primary contributor to the new ideas concerning natural law of thattime. He argued that humans in the state of nature are free and equal, yet...
atures'(McKay, 601).The prevalent ideals of thesethinkers were progress, reason, and the search for natural law. Of these thinkers, Francois Marie Arouet, orVoltaire was undoubtedly the most famous. O ... not without reason. Although hegenerally followed the Enlightenment ideals of progress, reason and natural law, he also had some very originalthoughts at the time. Despite his razor sharp tongue, he ...
Natural law, existing as an embodiment of what is considered as laws drawn from nature and those tha ... n juxtaposition with laws that have been set forth by humans and the judicial sphere. The theory of natural law is very controversial, in which the subject matter is very much criticized, but can be d ... number of theorists and philosophers. This paper will outline and defend against the criticisms of natural law in regards that natural law does not provide protection, it is very difficult to perceiv ...
The history of "
Natural Law" is extensive. Classical Greek Naturalism was the major doctrine until Christian Theolog ... rine until Christian Theologian Doctrine replaced it. As societies have moved away from the church " Natural Law" has been to some extent superseded by Positivism. We have been asked to critically eval ... d by Positivism. We have been asked to critically evaluate these two schools of Jurisprudence.Greek NaturalismThe classical Greek philosophers believed that natural law was a moral order, which was su ...
overned not only by law or god, but by the law of reason. All that occurs, happens in accordance to
Natural Law, God. Their two fundamentals are: 1. Whatever happens is the inevitable outcome of the l ... e. A. made up first sin. World is the place of punishment. Faith becomes predominant before reason. Natural evil: evil that results from natural causes (disease, natural disasters). If God is all-powe ...
reasons? As writer Anatole France once said:"It is almost impossible systematically to constitute a natural moral law. Nature has no principles. She furnishes us with no reason to believe that human l ...
s of violent revolution, but by encouraging free use of reason and the universality of humanity and natural rights. These same principles evoked a rallying cry throughout France and later America for ... cke (1632-1704) wrote the "Second Treatise on Government", in this work he hypothesized that man is naturally a social animal, characterized by reason and tolerance. He also maintained that in man's " ...
Subjects: History Term Papers
aditional morality, moral law, the knowledge of right and wrong, or virtue. C.S. Lewis calls it the
Natural Law.Feuerbach was an early prominent atheistic philosopher. He denied all supernaturalism an ... re. Feuerbach said that the idea of God arose as a result of men desiring to have some sort of supernatural Being as an explanation for their own existence and the events that they observe around them ...
father and child. Central to this filial theme is the conflict between man's law and nature's law.
Natural law is synonymous with the moral authority usually associated with divine justice. Those who ... with the moral authority usually associated with divine justice. Those who adhere to the tenets of natural law are those characters in the text who act instinctively for the common good--Kent, Albany ...
John Locke had his own views on many of the major Enlightenment ideas. He firmly believed in natural law: that man has a right to life, liberty, and property. He believed that man had to make a ... hough the government was not just, they had a right to overthrow the government. With his belief of natural law, he believed that government had to follow this law in order to rule justly.John Locke w ...
The term 'natural law' is ambiguous in meaning, but it can essentially be defined as the principles of human c ... nd the world, just as physical law derives from the nature of space, time, and matter. According to natural law ethical theory, the moral standards that govern human behavior are, in some sense, objec ... man behavior are, in some sense, objectively derived from the nature of human beings. The idea of a natural right order to which all things, including human beings, should conform is one of the most a ...
This essay explains what exactly
Natural Law is and how it can be applied to contemporary times.------------------------------------- ... rough the Civil Rights movement, and finally making its way to modern times, all of the theories of natural law all have the same thing in common: that natural law implies, if not explicitly states, t ... eing that instilled in man a notion of what is morally right and what is morally wrong. But what is natural law? Charles Rice says that the natural law is a "guide to individual conduct and also serve ...
intellectuals, who found that the doctrines of orthodox religion offended their reason, turned to 'natural' religions founded on the belief of a Deity as evidenced by nature, which the rational man c ... al one. As a result the perception of the foundational structure of society shifted from that of a 'natural' hierarchical order to that of a voluntary construction. Absolutism gave birth to the notion ...
that there is a difference between law and justice. The Mallor text describes Legal Positivism and
Natural Law and indicates the differences between the two are the unjust positive laws. This essay l ... examine and understand these differences. The essay first looks to understand what positive law and natural law mean, and then look at what is meant by the law of nature.Positive LawPer the text, posi ...
nal law) - treaty based on recognition of community of independent and equal "sovereign" entities- "
Natural law", given universalist empire and Church, initially theological (including divine revelati ... l (including divine revelation as one of its sources) - however by time of Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) natural law adopting a rationalist approach, being seen to derive from universal reason- Independenc ...
Moral
Law Vs. Natural Law "At the dramatic center of The Scarlet Letter is the idea of the awesomeness and inescap ... ).Assuming that Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter exploring the relationship between Moral law and Natural law, he chooses the moral laws to be absolute. Using definitions of nature and character pro ... e absolute. Using definitions of nature and character provided by Seymour Katz applied to the terms natural law and moral law allow an extension of Leo Levy's claim that Moral laws are supreme. Moral ...
Subjects: Literature Research Papers
hics, Thomas Aquinas proposed the existence of four distinct types of laws. These laws are eternal, natural, human, and divine. Aquinas defines eternal law as that which orders everything in the unive ... everything in the universe. It is a cosmos which issues from the will and wisdom of God. He defines natural law as a subset of eternal law. He states that the natural law is the location for the funda ...
onally consented to its authority over him. The consent theory supports the idea that man is naturally free. To be born free does not mean to be born without moral constraints of one's actions. ... can the government then have legitimate control. Even then these rights must be operated under the "natural law".
Natural law meaning the prescribed laws that derived from men which are in place at bi ...
he last two types of justice and the notion of equity Aristotle refers to in his book. The first is natural justice, true for everyone, and next to that there is conventional justice which can differ ... justice, distributive justice, reciprocal justice, political and social justice, domestic justice, natural and conventional justice. I would like to point out the last two types of justice in order t ... | 8,330 | 3,714 | 0.000271 |
warc | 201704 | The UK’s Serious Fraud Office has an unenviable task: tackling fraud and money laundering and related activities, in all their various forms.
Whilst attempting to tackle these white collar crimes, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has come under great criticism for recent failed cases, and its own activities. The cessation of a case against a firm accused of bribery for a fine in excess of £6m once again brought the Office under unfavorable scrutiny.
In details released to the media, the UK subsidiary of an (unnamed) US company recently agreed to pay in excess of £6m for bribery and corruption offences. This is the second deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) that the much criticised SFO has arrived at with a company under investigation for fraud related offences. The deal struck between the unnamed company (identified due to ongoing legal proceedings only as ‘a UK SME’) and the SFO was formally approved in a court hearing by Lord Justice Leveson.
The charges against the company include alleged conspiracy to corrupt – contrary to Section 1 of the
Criminal Law Act (1977) – conspiracy to bribe – also contrary to Section 1 of the same Act – and failure to prevent bribery – contrary to Section 7 of the Bribery Act (2010). These and other charges are all in connection with contracts to supply products to customers in a several overseas countries. Further details released of the case and the DPA indicate that allegedly the company’s employees and agents were involved in systematically offering (or paying) bribes to secure contracts overseas. These offences happened between 2004 and 2012. In 2011, the parent company started a global program of compliance and similar checks; that is when the alleged fraud first came out into the open, with questions raised over how some foreign contracts were obtained. With concerns raised internally, a law firm was hired by the SME to conduct an independent internal investigation. In turn, the law firm passed the results of its findings to the SFO, which began a two year investigation into the alleged activities of the UK company in February 2013. When sufficient evidence had been gathered, the SME was taken to court by the SFO on fraud charges. In line with the DPA earlier this year, legal proceedings concerning the alleged offences wereimmediately suspended. In return, the the company will pay financial orders of £6,553,085. This includes a £6,201,085 payment of gross profits, and a financial penalty of £352,000. Of the main payment, £1,953,085 will be paid by the US registered parent company, as a reflection of the dividends received by them from the UK subsidiary.
What helped in the negotiations towards the settlement was the fact that the company had effectively self – reported the misconduct, and investigated the alleged fraud itself, involving an external party and the relevant authorities at an early stage.
Indeed, following the settlement being formally approved in Southwark Crown Court, Lord Justice Leveson said of the settlement that ‘[this conclusion] provides an example of the value of self-report and co-operation along with the introduction of appropriate compliance mechanisms, all of which can only improve corporate attitudes to bribery and corruption.’
SFO Director David Green attempted to silence critics of the deal by saying of the case that it said ‘raised the issue about how the interests of justice are served in circumstances where the company accused of criminality has limited financial means with which to fulfil the terms of a DPA but demonstrates exemplary co-operation.’
The SFO has been greatly criticised in recent years, after a string of high profile fraud cases that either resulted in no prosecutions, or cases that revealed glaring errors or issues with the SFO. Fraud and money laundering are never easy cases to prosecute; such cases are inherently complicated, and regularly involve money changing hands globally, shell companies, and more often a degree of legality and legitimacy. The relevant laws and regulations do not make things easy for the British authorities, with unclear definitions of various offences, and a lot of latitude in how various laws can be interpreted. Further, communication between the various government investigative agencies is rarely effective; the sand can be said of communication between the financial and legal sectors involving suspected fraud.
Although that issue of communication is being addressed (with some success), the fact remains that fraud by its very nature is a hard area to prosecute successfully. As such, quite often an agreement similar to a deferred prosecution agreement can be the only way to see justice done. Instead of risking a lengthy and expensive trial, which could very well result in no convictions, it could be argued that a DPA does see justice done, in that the alleged perpetrators of fraud and money laundering in effect admit to their guilt. Although there are no jail terms or stiff fines handed down, a fine is handed down, and a degree of guilt is reached at.
Admittedly, though, there are many who would see such agreements as a miscarriage of justice. The case is dropped, the charges dropped, and the party at fault walks away free, and with only a fine to pay in reparation for their wrongdoing. Morally and ethically, such agreements remain questionable.
Although not ideal – a DPA or similar does make the fraudsters suffer, and sees them make at least some reparation for their crimes. The question is though, whether it is better to see justice done with a trial that could result in no prosecutions – or whether such a deal and indirect acknowledgment of guilt is better for justice.
This case and settlement with the unnamed UK based US subsidiary company is the second of its kind. Whatever the morals and merits of such agreements – rest assured it will not be the last. With the Serious Fraud Office under increased pressure and scrutiny to tackle and successfully prosecute fraud and money laundering in all its various guises – DPA’s are a welcome method the Office can use to resolve complex and uncertain fraud cases.
The final word goes to Christopher David, legal counsel in WilmerHale’s white collar crime team. Commenting on the case, he said of the judgement that it ‘may well give comfort to lawyers and companies that the DPA regime is going to provide a meaningful alternative to a guilty plea in cases of corporate misconduct – not least because the penalty has been carefully designed to remove the benefit of the criminality but not force the company into insolvency.’ Further, Mr David noted that the case‘does… reinforce the SFO’s stated view that companies that self-report and provide full co-operation will be see this co-operation recognised by a favourable resolution’. | 6,985 | 3,164 | 0.000325 |
warc | 201704 | Burzynski and Patient Choice
It’s difficult to know where to start a post like this, perhaps because I most often start my posts by noting something which has been asserted as fact, and then proceed to debunk it. This post is about Burzynski, a subject which is becoming increasingly hard to write about, because two issues – namely the validity of the treatment (incorporating Burzynski’s practices, honesty, publication, etc), and the patients being treated – have become so entangled that it is difficult to discuss one without treading on ground covered by the other. Last week, after being contacted by a tweeter who asked me some leading questions about Burzynski, I tweeted the following messages:
This sparked a series of messages (excerpts of this particular exchange can be seen here, many examples can be seen by simply searching for #Burzynski on Twitter) the general form of which have become par for the course for any people critically discussing Burzynski on Twitter. It isn’t long before I am being asked to comment on specific patient cases (in this case, Laura Hymas of HopeForLaura), and before that specific patient is drawn in to the conversation. Despite the fact that it was a supporter of Burzysnki who originally began to include Laura in the conversation, it quickly becomes a case of “skeptics attacking a patient”.
Though I suspect our reasons will differ wildly, there is one point on which myself and @BurzynskiSaves agree on here – it is all very sad indeed; a conversation which started about a treatment, and the need to publish data, has devolved into mudslinging with patients and supporters.
Stanislaw Burzynski & Antineoplastons
At the heart of all of these exchanges are the questions of validity, honesty, and integrity – does Burzynski’s treatment work as advertised, is he being honest about the protocols that he is using and the results he is getting, and is it correct for him to be operating as he does. At the risk of treading over old ground, I do not currently believe that Burzynski’s treatment works as advertised. However, this belief is not because I blindly believe whatever the FDA tells me, or because I want to help suppress a revolutionary cancer cure; it is because I have examined the evidence presented to me, and concluded that it does not support the assertions that he is making. Burzynski’s website tells us that he discovered antineoplastons in 1967, the same year he graduated. It also tells us that he founded his clinic and began treating patients in 1977. Burzynski’s resume notes that he made a presentation on April 9th, 1988, in Kurume, Japan, at the Kurume University School of Medicine. The title of this presentation was “Clinical Results of Antineoplaston Therapy”. In order for such a presentation to be made (assuming that the details about the presentation are accurate), there would have to be clinical results, and in order for there to be results, there would have to be clinical trials. One can postulate, then, that Burzynski began trying his antineoplaston therapy, in humans, at some date before the presentation. It has been approximately 45 years since he discovered antineoplastons, approximately 35 years since he began treating patients with them, and approximately 24 years since that first presentation in which he discussed the clinical results of his treatment. This is an extremely long time to be testing a treatment without publishing significant results, moving further through the trial process, or reaching a stage where the product can be marketed to the general public. The FDA estimates that it takes approximately 8.5 years for a new cancer drug to reach the market, from inception, through trialling, and to delivery. This 8.5 year timeline includes laboratory and animal testing. The FDA have recognised that some drugs are a priority, and have even made special processes available to try to shorten this timeframe further, to allow patients to benefit from lifesaving drugs. Even allowing for extra time in laboratory development, typical delays in the process, and other factors, 45 years is an extremely long time for anyone to be trialling a drug, especially one with such astonishing results.
There have also been some questions raised about the honesty of Burzynski, and this is of particular importance when it pertains to his treatment protocols. Patients go to Burzynski when they have no other treatment options available, or when those treatment options available have proved unsuccessful or too dangerous. They do so because what Burzynski advertises is a targeted gene therapy using his antineoplastons. I suspect that many are not expecting to be given chemotheraputic drugs as part of their treatment, and it is certainly not something that is featured prominently on his website, but Burzynski isn’t just treating with antineoplastons – he’s often prescribing multiple chemotheraputic drugs for off-label use, at highly inflated prices from his own pharmacy. One patient blog talks about Afinitor and Votrient, and mentions that the patient is taking a combination of five off-label chemo drugs, along with the antineoplastons. This is not the only mention of Afinitor, there are numerous comments (scroll to comments for those) and patient blogs which mention that they are taking this (and other) chemo drug in addition to the antineoplastons. This couple maintain that they were not told that some of the drugs were chemotheraputic drugs, and that taking those drugs has cause problems with eligibility for other trials (though I am uncertain of the veracity of this site). Though the Burzynski clinic website prominently features the antineoplastons as the cure for cancer, it seems that many (if not all) of the patients are being given traditional chemotherapy in addition to the antineoplastons.
Finally, many have questioned Burzynski’s integrity, due to the prices of treatment at his clinic. Reported prices vary, but are generally in the tens of thousands per year of treatment. The FDA permits charging during clinical trials under very specific circumstances (related to investigational drugs), though it does not regulate what is charged. The FDA permits the charging so that drug manufacturers can recover the costs for making these drugs while trialling them. Although one patient blog mentions that the charge is not for the trial but for “case management” (suggesting that they are not being prescribed under this investigational drug regulation), it is possible that things have changed since this blog (and indeed, the law changed to allow for charges around the time of that blog). One can only speculate what it costs to produce antineoplastons, though Burzynski sells capsules containing antineoplastons for approximately $1 per capsule (0r $0.78, if you buy in bulk), though Burzynski seems to make most of his cash charging inflated rates for case management and off-label chemo drugs.
Data is important
It would be more than a little hypocritical of me to point out the fallacy of ad hominem attacks, and then base my own criticism of Burzynski solely on personal actions which are questionable. Whether or not Burzynski is himself ethical, honest, or even nice, if he has developed a miracle drug, he has as much right to trial it as anyone else (and even to be lauded for his discovery). Though I don’t like the stories which suggest dishonesty, they are just stories, and are as liable to bias as the patient anecdotes that “skeptics” dismiss as “not proof”. One thing which is more telling than any stories, and the point which should be focused on, is the lack of any real data to support Burzynski’s treatment. Though his website has many patient anecdotes and success stories, there are also plenty of examples where the treatment did not work, and as he seems to exclusively list success stories, they can not be counted on as reliable evidence. Most articles about antineoplastons published in scientific journals have been authored or co-authored by Burzynski himself. When people use these to point out that he has published data, they overlook the mediating factors – namely that the research hasn’t been replicated (to any significant degree) by completely external researchers, and that the journals in question are often considered poor quality. When it comes to drug development, data is king – this is simply the application of the scientific method. An assertion must have the data to support it, or else it should be considered false, and in this case, the data to support it is not reliable. It is true that there have been cases where data has been withheld from the FDA, and where drug companies have behaved unscrupulously – I absolutely won’t claim that “big pharma” is perfect – but these cases do not override the need to produce data which supports your assertion that your treatment works.
Patient Choice & Informed Consent
It has been said to me that patients don’t care about data, they care about people. They speak to people treated by Burzynski and they are given hope, and hope is the most important thing. It would be easy to keep discussing Burzynski in a very detached way, focusing only on the data (or lack thereof), but for many, this discussion is too shallow, because there are patients involved, and those patients have families and friends, and a whole host of people who would give anything for them to be better again. More than this, the patients have been drawn into the discussion, either willingly or unwillingly, and for them, attacks on Burzynski must often seem very personal, for a number of reasons.
One issue that is often raised is that of patient choice – the right of a patient to chose their treatment without criticism. Cancer treatment can be brutal, and even though treatments have improved, and the side effects are more manageable than before, there is an undeniable effect on the patient. Sometimes, patients decide that the side effects of the treatment outweigh the potential gain, and either decide to seek no more active treatment (e.g. pursuing palliative care only), or decide to seek an alternative, whether it be conventional treatment in another country/hospital, or an alternative therapy. Patient advocates, and Burzynski supporters, all maintain that patient choice is important, and I’m inclined to agree. I imagine that, if I were very ill, and the chances of a cure were not good, I would like the ability to choose whether to pursue further treatment. I wouldn’t like to deny this choice to anyone, but what I would like is for that choice to be based on the best information possible.
People say that patients don’t care about data, journals, and FDA squabbles, but even if that is true, patients do deserve the truth about their treatment, their prognosis, and everything associated with it. A patient has every right to choose alternative medicine over conventional treatment, but it is a poorly informed choice if it is based on informercials, advertising websites, and unproven claims. The fault, and the criticism, lies not with the patient, but with those who would prey on people when they are feeling vulnerable or desperate. Scientific papers are often dry and inaccessible (both because of the content, and because of the expensive paid access required to read them), and it is not as easy to relate to data points on a graph as it is to relate to a named patient, with an adorable picture and a heart-warming cure story. Quacks know this, and use it to manipulate people, helping only their own bank balance, and often leaving families devastated when the promised cure does not come about. I have been accused of attacking patients seeking Burzynski treatment, of wanting to deny their freedom of choice, or take away their last hope; this has never been the case. I don’t attack patients because I am aware of how difficult it is when a family member is sick, and when the treatment is difficult. I don’t attack patients, because I believe the blame should be laid squarely at the feet of those who manipulate and deceive patients.
A final, thorny issue is that of fake patients. Even as people call for Burzynski to publish data, there are various patient blogs reporting successes and shrinking tumours, and a multitude of patient anecdotes and youtube videos featuring people who were given a very poor prognosis, and have lived far longer than expected. Whenever Burzynski is discussed, these patients are mentioned as proof, and I have more than once been asked to comment on specific patient cases, or asked if I am, in criticising Burzynski, calling these patients fakes, shills, or liars. The truth is, I can’t comment on these cases, because I just don’t know the circumstances. I am not privy to medical treatment details, personal information, or anything like it. I see the information that is made public by the patients and nothing more. I am glad to know that there are people beating the odds, living longer than expected, and even going into remission where before there was little hope for a cure, but I can’t say what causes these events any more than a Burzynski supporter can claim them as definite proof of efficacy. I would certainly prefer to believe that we do not live in a world where people pretend to have terminal illnesses to make money, sell a treatment, or otherwise deceive people, though I know there are those who have. Asking me to comment on patient cases is ultimately fruitless – I have no way to know if people are legitimate, or if they are telling the truth when they update their blogs – and, importantly, my quibble has never been with the patients. If there are people acting as paid marks for Burzynski, then they are doing something which my conscience would not allow me to do, but they are ultimately in the employ of Burzynski, and this is where the buck should stop.
This is not, and has never been, about me wanting to take away hope, or be malicious to patients. The onus is on Burzynski to publish data to support his claims, and I believe that patients are entitled to know what data there is (or is not). Patients deserve real information to help them make their treatment choices, they do not deserve to be manipulated or lied to. This has only ever been about one thing: information. Patients deserve information, not infomercials. | 14,589 | 6,012 | 0.000169 |
warc | 201704 | The list just keeps growing for the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids and overall health. The newest to the list is breast cancer. A study just published in the journal of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention surveyed approximately 35,000 postmenopausal women, ages 50 to 76, for their use of various specialty supplements (1). The 24-page summary took into account past and present use of supplements as well as frequency (days/week) and duration (year). Individuals taking high purity omega-3 oil had a 32 percent reduced risk of developing breast cancer, whereas other supplements typically taken to reduce menopausal symptoms (e.g., black cohosh, dong quai, soy, or St. John’s wort) had no association. Although further research needs to be conducted, this again adds to the growing body of evidence on the benefits of omega-3s for disease prevention.
Of this survey didn’t answer the question about if they had taken more, would they have seen even better results? This is because cancer like all chronic diseases is driven by silent inflammation coming from increasing levels of Toxic Fat (i.e., arachidonic acid). High purity omega-3 oil dilutes Toxic Fat, but only a strict anti inflammatory diet can actually reduce Toxic Fat. Follow an anti-inflammatory program consisting of a strict anti inflammatory diet, ultra-refined high purity omega-3 oil concentrates and anti-inflammatory polyphenols to reduce the driving force for virtually all chronic disease.
1. Brasky TM, Lampe JW, Potter JD, Patterson RE, White E. Specialty supplements and breast cancer risk in the VITamins And Lifestyle (VITAL) Cohort. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2010 Jul;19(7):1696-708. Nothing contained in this blog is intended to be instructional for medial diagnosis or treatment. If you have a medical concern or issue, please consult your personal physician immediately. | 1,884 | 1,028 | 0.00098 |
warc | 201704 | Abstract
The emergence of bacterial resistance to commercial antibiotics is an issue of global importance. During the last two decades, the number of antibacterial agents that have been discovered and introduced into the market has steadily declined and failed to meet the challenges posed by rapidly increasing resistance of the pathogens against common antibacterial drugs. The development of new classes of compounds to control the virulence of the pathogens is therefore urgently required. This perspective describes the historical development in brief and recent advances on the preparation of small organometallic compounds as new classes of antibacterial agents with potential for clinical development. | 712 | 397 | 0.00253 |
warc | 201704 | Collocations & Lexical Bundles
We'll learn a lot more about this topic as the semester goes along. So, this introduction will be brief and will stick to some definitions.
Here's the
First, all language use is local. We select the words and grammar that we use based on the contexts in which we will use them. If we want to tell a story about the past, we select past tense and past time adverbs along with vocabulary appropriate to the story; and we tend to use indirect and direct quotation and proper nouns and pronouns to refer to those proper nouns; and chronological order and adverbs to signal that order.
Second, words tend to stick together; they hand around together in packs. Those packs are based on meaning...so there are sets of words to use to talk about particular topics. That is, we tend to be working with sets of words rather than single words. These sets can be anticipated by us...sets of words to use to talk about families or work or politics. But some word relationships are almost impossible to anticipate and these are the word relationships that linguists label collocations and lexical bundles.
Collocation is the name for pairs of words that tend to occur together in discourse. When we analyze the vocabulary in large sets of English in a corpus, we find sets of words that show up together. The tendency is that when you find one of the words, you'll fine the other word in that same setting.
On page 18 in the
These relationships are real. They exist. They are fundamental to the structure of English and to communication in English. But, they are not relationships that we can come up with just sitting around thinking about English vocabulary. Collocation analysis requires corpora and computers and software to analyze the vocabulary relationships in the corpora. We are now getting dictionaries that provide us with collocational information about words.
This topic also ties to the issue of the use of "authentic" materials for teaching ESL/EFL: there's always a chance that if we write materials to illustrate a grammar point that we'll violate the rules of English vocabulary and come up with examples that teach students the wrong collocations.
On page 455, in the Glossary of Terms, collocation has this definition: "a combination of lexical words which frequently co-occur in texts:
We are also learning that words very often come in sets of 3 or more words that are just about always just together. We do not take one word and combine it freely with the other words. These words must be used together. These include sets such as the following:
Research has shown that one of the most frequent sets of words in English conversation is "I don't want to...." Isn't that just lovely and so true to human nature?!
For now, just notice 2 things about these "lexical bundles": 1. certain words occur together as a set and 2. that set is open to addition of other words to complete the meaning and the grammar. | 2,966 | 1,377 | 0.000731 |
warc | 201704 | Wh at is Mathematics? Mathematics is about counting, problem solving, organising, measuring and estimating, as well as making patterns and sequencing. Attitude is key. Children who see themselves as capable math thinkers and problem solvers are on the road to mathematical success. By spending time with your child and giving him or her lots of encouragement and praise, you will help build your child’s self-esteem and give him or her the confidence to try new things. We must be careful not to tell them that we, as adults, are uncomfortable or struggle with math. It provides children with a reason to give up when math concepts become more difficult. Why is mathematics important? Mathematics enables people to develop logical thinking and reasoning strategies in their daily lives. We need mathematics to Five main areas in math Number sense: Using and understanding numbers is about knowing their relative values, how to use them in flexible ways when adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing and how to develop useful strategies when counting, measuring and estimating. Estimating: Using what you know to make a guess that makes sense. It is thinking “about” how much, how many, how far and how heavy. Measurement: Measuring occurs daily, whether it is length, height, weight, time, or distance. Tools can be standard (cm, m, grams etc.) or nonstandard (steps, arm lengths, paper clip lengths etc.). Patterns: Finding patterns is all about seeing repetitive cycles, events and images that are predictable. Shape and Space: Understanding where things are in our world and how they relate to each other helps us make sense of our world. Math and Literature Reading stories with math concepts is a fun way to learn about math without even realizing it. | 1,777 | 920 | 0.001097 |
warc | 201704 | Yale researchers are one step closer to reversing the effects of Alzheimer’s disease.
Led by Paul Lombroso, professor of neurobiology and psychiatry , an interdepartmental team at the School of Medicine has discovered that removing a certain protein from Alzheimer’s-affected mice can reverse cognitive deficits associated with the disease. The results of the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Oct. 18, provide opportunities for new treatments to be developed for both Alzheimer’s and similar diseases, like schizophrenia and fragile X syndrome, though researchers cautioned that it would take between ten and fifteen years for such a drug to make it onto the commercial marketplace, due to restrictions on human testing.
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“Though there are drugs on the market to treat Alzheimer’s disease they can only mildly slow the progression,” said Christopher Pittenger ’94 GRD ’94, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the School of Medicine and a co-author of the study.
When the researchers crossed a mouse affected by Alzheimer’s with a “knock-out” mouse which lacked the striatal-enriched tyrosine phosphatase protein, they found that the six-month-old “knock-out” mice, though still afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease, performed as well as normal mice on various cognitive tasks. The tasks included locating a transparent platform in a tub of water.
The protein, in a healthy body, serves to help cycle the glutamate receptors on the synapses of neurons, which is a process crucial to learning, Lombroso said. But in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, the protein increases in number until it impedes this process, he explained.
“Normally mice [affected by Alzheimer’s], when they get to be six months of age have difficulty in completing cognitive tasks,” he explained. “But in [the knock-out] mice the results were indistinguishable from a [normal] mouse.”
More significantly, Christopher van Dyck ’78, director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Unit at the School of Medicine, said, the study did not address the amyloid hypothesis, a contested theory which places the cause of Alzheimer’s disease with a certain peptide, or series of amino acids.
The peptide in question is considered by some scientists to be toxic, causing increased levels of the studied protein and playing a role in the cognitive degeneration of Alzheimer’s disease, Lombroso said.
The fact that the “knock-out” mice had these toxic peptides makes the results of the study even more interesting, van Dyck said, because the results are not tied to the outcome of the amyloid debate.
“There has been a lot of controversy in the past few weeks and months about the amyloid hypothesis,” said van Dyck, who is also a professor of psychiatry and neurobiology.
But Pittenger said that the study still does not get to the crux of the matter.
“It has a limitation in that it doesn’t target what causes the progression of the disease,” he said.
The study does, however, address how to alleviate the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, which Pittenger said offers future opportunities for the development of a drug to treat the condition.
The Lombroso lab has developed a drug which can reduce the protein concentration in mice and reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s on the brain, Pittenger said, though delays in drug approval mean that it will not be available for up to 15 years.
The research, which was done in collaboration with Paul Greengard, the Vincent Astor professor at Rockefeller University and a 2000 Nobel Laureate, was funded by the American Health Assistance Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. | 3,905 | 1,788 | 0.00059 |
warc | 201704 | The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is to sue the Obama administration in order to force them to release documents which detail the use of the top secret ‘kill list’ which contains information on drone strike targets.
Rt.com reports:
Filed Monday in US District Court in Manhattan, the lawsuit asks the Southern District of New York to order four government agencies, including the Departments of Justice, Defense and State, to heed Freedom of Information Act requests filed by the ACLU in 2013 concerning the administration’s “targeted killing” program.
Although the US has relied on unmanned weaponized aircraft, or drones, to conduct strikes in counterterrorism and military operations for over a decade, the ACLU says the Obama administration has been far from forthcoming when it comes to releasing details on to how those operations are carried out.
The ACLU began filing requests in October 2013 for records containing any legal justification for the lethal drone strikes and the process by which those targets are designated, “before-the-fact assessments” concerning potential civilian or bystander casualties and the names and numbers of individuals killed or hurt as a result of these “targeted killings.” Nearly a year and a half later, however, the ACLU says that none of the agencies served with FOIA requests have followed through and released documents, despite assurances given by Obama.
This week’s lawsuit asks the District Court to order the Justice Department, the Pentagon, the State Dept. and the CIA – as well as the Dept. of Defense’s Office of Legal Counsel and Office of Information Policy – to “immediately produce all records” on the drone strikes.
“The Obama administration has made numerous promises of greater transparency and oversight on drones,” Spurlock said. “In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama pledged to make lethal targeting ‘more transparent to the American people and the world’ because ‘in our democracy, no one should just take my word for it that we’re doing things the right way.’ But the administration has failed to follow through on these commitments to openness, and it is continuing to withhold basic information.”
Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU’s legal director, told The Guardian this week that US-led drone strikes have been blamed in the deaths of thousands of people, including hundreds of innocent civilians.
“The public should know who the government is killing, and why it’s killing them,” Jaffer said.
Spurlock said Monday that the release of the Al-Awlaki memo was an “important victory for transparency,” but nevertheless leaves many questions unanswered.
A New York Times report from 2012 revealed that the Obama administration maintains an expanding “kill list,” described by the paper as “macabre ‘baseball cards’ of an unconventional war” containing the details of suspects sought for execution by drone.
One of the administration documents sought by the ACLU, and successfully received, revealed that the US considered Al-Awlaki an “operational leader” of an “enemy force,” and therefore could be targeted “as part of the US’ ongoing non-international armed conflict with Al-Qaeda.” With other requests for details having gone unfulfilled, however, the organization hopes to have a District Court judge compel the government to make further disclosures.
Explaining the 2011 strike that killed Al-Awlaki in Yemen, US Attorney General Eric Holder said in 2012 that “Al-Awlaki repeatedly made clear his intent to attack US persons and his hope that these attacks would take American lives.” He added: “Based on this information, high-level US government officials appropriately concluded that Al-Awlaki posed a continuing and imminent threat of violent attack against the United States.”
Spurlock said that the Obama administration’s drone program “lives far too deep in the shadows.” He added: “As long as the government continues its campaign of secret, unacknowledged lethal strikes across the globe, we will fight to subject this policy to the scrutiny and debate it deserves.”
Latest posts by Sean Adl-Tabatabai (see all) German Supreme Court Rules Measles Does Not Exist - January 22, 2017 ISIS Militant Caught Attending Anti-Trump Protest - January 22, 2017 Study Confirms Holistic Medicine More Effective Than Morphine - January 22, 2017 | 4,604 | 2,204 | 0.000483 |
warc | 201704 | We have to wonder at the logic that Dan Kruger is using in this case. Since when do central banks play market moves in anticipation of Fed policy decisions? Why would they express this through short rates when most QE has been happening on the long part of the curve? Why wouldn't investors be reacting to a decreased risk sentiment in light of the recent equity rally which has parked most smart money on the sidelines?
An interesting piece on the side - China was reported to have bought $5.6B in bills and sold almost $1B in notes and bonds in February. This move away from long exposure on the duration curve can be exhibited a number of different ways. The conspiracy theorists may see this as a sign that China wants a shorter term lockup because they are hatching a grand plan to move to a commodities based currency/IMF basket/other conspiracy and they are going to be deploying this in the next 6 months to a year. Or it could be a repositioning of their portfolio on their beliefs on the current yield curve. Or it could be some small reason, given the overall exposure that they have to Treasuries. Either way, it is worth watching to see if this trend continues over the next few months.
Finally, we have to believe that middle part of the yield curve has to perk up - the 1 to 5 year yields just do not seem sustainable. For example, pricing in a 1% yield between 2-3 years does not seem reasonable especially given what's being priced in for inflation, demand and other macro factors.
Sphere: Related Content Print this post | 1,543 | 850 | 0.00118 |
warc | 201704 | Adopted from an article by Philip Guo
Grades do not necessarily reflect effortOf course, better grades are often correlated with greater student effort, but effort alone does not determine one’s grade. It is dangerous to have a sense of entitlement that “If I work X hours, then I deserve a grade of Y” or “Z got an A last semester and put in W amount of work, so if I put in at least W amount of work, then I should also get an A”. Often times, there is simply no such thing as an “A for effort”. Grades do not necessarily reflect aptitudeAlthough employers might look at grades as a first-pass filtering step, what they really care about (or, rather, should care about) is real abilities and work ethic. If I were interviewing for a software engineering position, I would ask the candidate about technical concepts and his work experiences. If he were able to explain himself clearly with competence and enthusiasm, that would more than make up for a lack of an A grade. Conversely, if I interviewed a candidate who received an A in the class but didn’t seem to be able to speak competently about his technical experiences, then I wouldn’t care about his A grade — I would hands-down prefer the B candidate who actually knew what he was talking about. Grades only reflect how you perform what is required for a classSo if grades do not necessarily reflect effort or aptitude, then what do they reflect? They simply reflect how well a student has performed what is required for a class. Why you shouldn’t get arrogant only because you have good gradesYou should never be arrogant or overly proud simply because you received good grades in your classes, unless you think that satisfying artificial requirements set by your instructors is a highly valuable accomplishment in itself. How important are grades?From the tone of my observations so far, it seems like you shouldn’t care about grades at all, but most of the time, the contrary is actually true. When people ask me how important grades are in college, I will respond with my own question: “What do you want to do after you graduate?”
Your post-graduation plans (not parents, not peer pressure, not personal ego) should be the most important factor in determining how much grades matter to you.
If you are applying to medical school, you probably need a pretty high GPA (grade point average) so grades probably matter a lot. If you are applying for Ph.D. programs, you should be much more concerned about gaining research experience instead of simply getting good grades. If you want to begin full-time work, you should focus on internships and professional networking in addition to your academics. If you are going to inherit your parents’ billion-dollar fortune after you graduate, you shouldn’t care about your grades at all, as long as you pass your classes. For almost everyone (except for the uber-wealthy heirs), grades will somehow matter, but it’s up to you to determine how much you want to stress about them.
Required classes that you don’t care about at allThroughout your undergraduate career, you will invariably need to take many required classes that you don’t really care about at all, and you have a choice to either not worry about your grades or to ‘eat your peas’ and work hard in them to try to get good grades even though you have little to no interest in the class material. Your choice of what to do about these classes depends largely on how important your GPA will be in determining what you want to do after you graduate. There is nothing wrong with doing the answer sniping (legally without cheating) or exam cramming thing just to get high grades without really understanding the class material if you simply need to boost your GPA, but if you ever need to demonstrate to somebody that you’ve mastered the material for some class, you better be prepared to actually learn it. Read More About GPA | 4,000 | 1,836 | 0.000561 |
warc | 201704 | By Shawn Kennedy, AJN interim editor-in-chief
Concussions among young athletes are on the rise—are parents and coaches taking them too lightly?
My sons played ice hockey and football in their high school years, what my husband and I referred to as “collision sports.” The unmistakable sound of helmet-hitting-helmet always made me cringe, especially in hockey where a good skater can generate considerable speed (and therefore force) before impact. I’ve witnessed many players being helped off the ice. The coach, who knew I was a nurse, would sometimes signal to me to come to the bench and check out a player. Most of the time, the player was fine; but there were a few times when it was clear that the player was a bit more than just shaken up.
I recall one 12-year-old who had nystagmus and ringing in his ears and kept asking the same question in a slow, sleepy voice. The coach wanted to put him back out on the ice (“He just saw a few stars, right?”), but instead I sent him with his parents to the ED for evaluation. After an overnight stay in the hospital he was released, but was cautioned not to play hockey for two weeks because he’d suffered a concussion. So he waited two weeks and went back to playing, even though he still had frequent headaches. I also remember a girl who was an excellent high school soccer player. She was hoping to play in college, but by the end of her senior year she’d sustained three concussions and was having cognitive issues—she had trouble working with numbers and suffered headaches. Her neurologist told her she shouldn’t play competitively for at least a year, and perhaps permanently. She was resistant, but her parents enforced the neurologist’s ban. Good for them.
On August 30, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) published an online report in
Pediatrics on sport-related concussion in children and adolescents, noting in an accompanying press release that “adolescent concussions can cause serious long-term injury or death, and should always be taken seriously.” A related article describes the incidence of ED visits for sport-related concussions in children and adolescents. Despite an overall decline in participation by school-age children in organized team sports during the 10-year period examined, the number of ED visits for concussion increased significantly, especially in the 14- to 19-year-old age group, which had more than a 200% increase. (Both articles are currently free online and will also appear in Pediatrics’ September 10 print issue.)
School nurses, parents, coaches, and teachers need to be aware of the potential long-term effects of repeated concussion. One only has to look at aging former boxers and football players to see what the deficits can be. It’s not something to be taken lightly—yet it often is. (See Diana Mason’s post on this from last summer.) In the press release summarizing its updated guidelines, the AAP states, “After a concussion, all athletes should be restricted from physical activity until they are asymptomatic at rest and with exertion. Physical and cognitive exertion, such as homework, playing video games, using a computer or watching TV, may worsen symptoms. ” Athletes and parents need to know that while symptoms may resolve within 10 days, sometimes it takes months to recover completely. And in some cases, recovery may require finding an alternative to competitive sports—a difficult choice for the child, and sometimes even more so for the parent. | 3,578 | 1,798 | 0.000573 |
warc | 201704 | It’s a common scenario: a 90-year-old resident of a U.S. nursing home — call her Ms. B. — has moderately advanced Alzheimer’s disease, congestive heart failure with severe left-ventricular dysfunction, and chronic pain from degenerative joint disease. She develops a nonproductive cough and a fever of 100.4°F. The night nurse calls an on-call physician who is unfamiliar with Ms. B. Told that she has a cough and fever, the physician says to send her to the emergency room, where she’s found to have normal vital signs except for the low-grade fever, a normal basic-chemistry panel and white-cell count, but a possible infiltrate on chest x-ray. She is admitted to the hospital and treated with intravenous fluids and antibiotics. During her second night in the hospital, Ms. B. becomes confused and agitated, climbs out of bed, and falls, fracturing her hip. One week after admission, she is discharged back to the nursing home with coverage under the Medicare Part A benefit. The episode results in about $10,000 in Medicare expenditures, as well as discomfort and disability for Ms. B.
There is an alternative scenario, however . . .
That’s from an article in
NEJM called “Reducing Unnecessary Hospitalizations of Nursing Home Residents.” In any health care system of as much complexity as ours, there’s bound to be a huge amount of waste. The article gives a good example of how the skills of NPs might be put to excellent use both saving a lot of money for Medicare and making the lives of nursing home residents a whole lot nicer. It may be cheaper, but it’s not “rationing”—it’s rational. Now a matter of language rather than money: the Viewpoint essay by Kathleen Thies in the October issue of AJN is about the use of military language to refer to nursing staff. Here’s how it begins, and you can click the link to read the whole article, including the author’s suggestion for an alternative terminology. We’d love to know whether the author’s perspective resonates with you:
How often have you heard the term
frontline staffused to refer to direct care nurses and others working at a patient’s bedside? It conjures images of the great world wars, of soldiers marching across battlefields to fight the enemy. The infantry are invariably young, dispensable, interchangeable. Commands are issued by generals and passed down through the ranks. No questions are asked. Blog roll update: We’ve added some interesting new blogs to our blogroll (they’re not new blogs, actually, just new to our blogroll). A few of them are by MDs, such as The Carlat Psychiatry Blog and Movin’ Meat, and a couple of are by nurses, such as madness: tales of an emergency room nurse, which has a good short post about why it doesn’t always help to be a nurse when your family member is in the hospital (there have been a few posts on this topic lately in different venues, I think?). Also added: The Nursing Ethics Blog, which is run by two people, a nursing professor/ethicist and a philosopher. It should be interesting to explore. As the editor of the Reflections column (and this blog), I read hundreds of submissions each year about dying patients, with a subgenre of submissions devoted to dying infants or miscarriages. This makes sense: nurses see more than their fair share of loss and tragedy, and it’s inevitable that these are the experiences that will touch them the most deeply, as they are for most of us. Even so, we’re always delighted when someone surprises us with a perspective or a topic we haven’t seen, whether related to death and dying or not. We’ve accepted a few submissions lately that are decidedly upbeat, or even funny. This month’s Reflections, “Keeping Secrets,” has some death and dying too, but the angle struck us as compelling because of its perspective on a time many of us may have forgotten (or been too young to experience), and for its wisdom about the costs and ironies of keeping secrets. Here’s how it begins:
In the spring of 1988, two months after my husband, Clarence, was diagnosed with AIDS, I went to work as a pediatric AIDS nurse at a clinic in New Jersey. Clarence had fought in Vietnam, and now he was on the front lines of this epidemic. I felt a need to be there too. It was a time when treatment options ran out fast. The kids I cared for got very sick and soon died. Activists were marching in the streets with signs proclaiming “Silence = Death,” but for many, AIDS was something to be whispered about or not spoken of at all. I became a keeper of secrets, and one of them was my own.
We hope you’ll read the entire essay, and pass it on if you like it, or let us know your stories of health-related secrets, past or present
.—Jacob Molyneux, senior editor
0C4D08CB0FDB6B79986D43377D1CF293 | 4,924 | 2,509 | 0.000415 |
warc | 201704 | Profile: Thorpe Comments Re sparrowbee's suggestion, there is certainly historical anecdotal evidence that iconic Australian songs have been an element in deterring drop bear attacks. But as has been noted in this correspondence, you must always be conscious of their adaptability to circumstances. If you're going to try anything from Cold Chisel, for instance, start with the first verse, and pause, say, halfway through the third line. If the drop bear goes on to complete the line, you're going to need your vegemite. (Chico rolls, on the other hand, seem to have been effective deterrents to just about anything that drops, or bites, or breathes ...) I want to thank the two correspondents who contacted me regarding their families’ experiences with Drop Bears, though in respect of Mary T.’s great aunt and her reputed hairy companion or “pet” I admit some confusion as to who did the dropping. Of great historical interest however is my second correspondent who reports on stories told to him by his grandfather of his own grandfather, who lived on Kangaroo Island in the early nineteenth century. At that time the island was a base for whalers, sealers, escaped convicts and even pirates. According to my correspondent, Drop Bears were as plentiful as Kangaroos, but far less pleasant eating, so while Kangaroo populations deteriorated from hunting, Drop Bears were only killed in self-defence; they were affected however by the local timber industry, and the felling of forest tree for building and for ships’ repairs. In some areas they disappeared as their habitat declined, but my correspondent’s ancestor described a quite remarkable adaptation by Bears in at least one region of the island – they learned to launch attacks from the ground. Apparently they would hide in undergrowth beside animal tracks or even human pathways, and leap out at passing prey, fastening on to their lower extremities. In fact one particular strain (according to my correspondent’s ancestor) took to disguising themselves as largish tufts of dried grass, or piles of windblown leaves and twigs, even dried logs, and lying on the pathways. Just as animals or humans ventured to step over them, they would leap upwards, gripping their prey with their teeth. Interestingly (he says), and we must be mindful that women were very much a minority on the island in those lawless days, the only reports of attacks on humans were on men, and the injuries were something fierce. Locals came to rename this strain of the animal Jump Bears, but my correspondent reports that his grandfather’s grandfather called them Squirrels. This (he says) was partly due to a sort of nostalgia for European woodlands and woodland animals for which there were no counterparts on the island and therefore no cause for confusion in the name, but mainly because they took nuts. I'm interested to know if anyone has ever tried to keep or raise these animals as pets. There has been very little research on this, but there are records of land settlers in the early nineteenth century having drop bears in confinement, though it is uncertain whether they were for display, or kept and fed in some sort of domestic arrangement. A caged bear is recorded, and one or two on some kind of leash in a tree. They may have been trained to catch prey for human consumption. This was pre-vegemite, of course, and pre-toothpaste for most, so there would seem to have been the very real danger of losing offspring or smaller visitors. At any rate records are few and limited to a few years. | 3,586 | 1,757 | 0.000577 |
warc | 201704 | The Bufflehead, confined as a breeder to the boreal forest and aspen parkland of North America, is our smallest diving duck. Its small size has probably evolved with its habit of nesting in the holes of the Northern Flicker (
Colaptes auratus), an abundant resource too small to accommodate other, larger cavity-nesting ducks. Bufflehead also nest in boxes, facilitating management of this species and studies of its reproductive biology. Territoriality probably limits the breeding density of this aggressive little duck, although lack of suitable nest cavities may also be a factor in many areas.
Bufflehead breeding habitat is dominated by ponds and small lakes, where the birds dive for insect larvae and amphipods. In winter, this is primarily a coastal, salt-water duck, feeding on crustaceans and molluscs in shallow water bays and inlets. Almost exclusively monogamous, this is one of the few ducks that often keeps the same mate for several years. Females are also faithful to their natal and breeding areas, often reusing the same nest site year after year.
Although Buffleheads are not prized among sport hunters, shooting is a significant factor in their mortality. They are nevertheless among the few species of ducks whose numbers have increased markedly since the mid-1950s. | 1,294 | 715 | 0.001404 |
warc | 201704 | “Is it not necessary,” Krishnamurti writes, “for each one to know for himself what is the right means of livelihood? If we are avaricious, envious, seeking power, then our means of livelihood will correspond to our inward demands and so produce a world of competition, ruthlessness, oppression, ultimately ending in war.” That statement dates from 1944, even though it sounds like a cogent observation of the moment.
On Right Livelihood is a collection of J. Krishnamurti’s talks, writing and conversations about how to find what we are meant to do for a living. But it is really an exploration of the motives of the human heart and how to balance economic necessity with moral integrity.
Krishnamurti was a spiritual teacher aligned with no particular teaching or organization. He brought a deep knowledge of eastern spiritual tradition to western audiences but his message was one of inner silence, environmental awareness, individual responsibility and world peace.
His wasn’t an easy prescription to follow. An absence of ambition and indifference to material success reads like the road to nowhere in our society. We are conditioned to create hierarchies—the CEO is worth millions more than the chef, the financial advisor is revered and compensated, the farmer is impoverished and loses his land. Whose children go to college? Where is the honor in simple labor? How do we hear the calling of our true vocation in this clamor?
Krishnamurti preached non-duality and freedom. We are at once who we are and what we do, he said. We embody our beliefs. Once we learn to set aside society’s thought shackles about struggle and success, we can be truly free.
I read this book with one eye on our dwindling finances, one on the news about the little shop of horrors that passes for political discourse these days. Talk about jobs and joblessness, about the 1% who own all the money and the rest of everyone who are cast in the role of collateral damage, is repetitive and cheap. Our civilization is beyond broken, our planet is in a shambles, our leadership should be set adrift in space, maybe with the titans of industry to keep them company. But sweeping away the mess won’t bring us any closer to Krishnamurti’s vision.
His book speaks to educated people who are not captive of ideologies, convinced of their own superiority and entitlement or blind to the inherent bleakness and exploitation of consumer-capitalism. Maybe not so many people. Education is a failure system that trains compliant cubicle workers and coddles the privileged through universities that supply little more than vocational training. People learn how not to think, how to avoid painful truths, how to fill chasms of emptiness with stuff, frantic schedules and all things superficial. Krishnamurti’s advice is timeless but it seems almost too challenging for our times.
“How am I to live sanely in this world that is insane?” he asks. “To live in this insane world sanely, I must reject that world and a revolution in me must come about so that I become sane and operate sanely. That’s my whole point.”
Good point. Add: Get a Life to the to-do list. Figure out how to pay the escalating grocery bill with the proceeds from honorable and valuable work. Identify what honorable and valuable work means these days. Meditate to experience inner peace. Respect the integrity of the planet. Read more books. Refrain from manufacturing or selling weapons. And stop using plastic bags.
On Right Livelihood J. Krishnamurti | HarperSanFrancisco 1992 | 3,606 | 1,826 | 0.000562 |
warc | 201704 | What people are saying - Write a review
Michel Foucault was born on October 15, 1926, in Poitiers, France, and was educated at the Sorbonne, in Paris. He taught at colleges all across Europe, including the Universities of Lill, Uppsala, Hamburg, and Warsaw, before returning to France. There he taught at the University of Paris and the College of France, where he served as the chairman of History of Systems of Thought until his death. Regarded as one of the great French thinkers of the twentieth century, Foucault's interest was in the human sciences, areas such as psychiatry, language, literature, and intellectual history. He made significant contributions not just to the fields themselves, but to the way these areas are studied, and is particularly known for his work on the development of twentieth-century attitudes toward knowledge, sexuality, illness, and madness. Foucault's initial study of these subjects used an archaeological method, which involved sifting through seemingly unrelated scholarly minutia of a certain time period in order to reconstruct, analyze, and classify the age according to the types of knowledge that were possible during that time. This approach was used in Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason, for which Foucault received a medal from France's Center of Scientific Research in 1961, The Birth of the Clinic, The Order of Things, and The Archaeology of Knowledge. Foucault also wrote Discipline and Punishment: The Birth of the Prison, a study of the ways that society's views of crime and punishment have developed, and The History of Sexuality, which was intended to be a six-volume series. Before he could begin the final two volumes, however, Foucault died of a neurological disorder in 1984.
Bibliographic information
Title Microfísica del poder Volume 1 of Colección Genealogía del Poder Issue 1 of Genealogía del poder Authors Michel Foucault, Fernando Álvarez-Uría Editors Julia Varela, Fernando Álvarez-Uría Translated by Julia Varela, Fernando Álvarez-Uría Edition 3, illustrated Publisher La Piqueta, 1992 ISBN 8477311021, 9788477311027 Length 189 pages Export Citation BiBTeX EndNote RefMan | 2,247 | 1,194 | 0.000862 |
warc | 201704 | In a new article at
Harper’s (“Legalize It All,” April 2016), Dan Baum recalls a 1994 confession by former Nixon domestic policy adviser John Ehrlichmann, about Nixon’s motives in first launching the War on Drugs. Baum, interviewing Ehrlichman for a book on drug prohibition, asked a “series of earnest, wonky questions, that he impatiently waved away”:
“The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar Left, and black people…. We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black. But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
Judged by those objectives, Nixon’s War on Drugs and its subsequent dramatic escalation under Reagan have been resounding successes.
Many liberals, unfortunately, are prone to describing the War on Drugs as a “failure” — much as the Vietnam or Iraq War was “a mistake” — implicitly accepting the general goals of the American state as good and well-meaning, and merely unfortunate in their execution. The liberals who frame the wars in this way, as Noam Chomsky has argued, share the hawks’ view that “America owns the world” and has the right to define as a “threat” any country that defies its authority or attempts to undermine the global corporate order. And liberals and progressives are nauseatingly prone to referring to criminal foreign wars of aggression and domestic police wars on civil society as something “we” did.
But if you genuinely think the actions of the American state have anything to do with “we” or “us,” either you belong to the economic classes served by the state, or you probably still ask the dentist to save your extracted molars to put under your pillow.
Long before I saw Ehrlichman’s admission, I noted that the expanded War on Drugs against crack and meth under Reagan and Clinton had had a disruptive effect on two of the demographic groups (inner city black people and rural poor whites) that, as it happens, are least socialized to cheerfully accept direction from authority figures behind desks.
Going back to the passage of the Virginia Slave Code after the defeat of Bacon’s Rebellion, running through the use of racial divisions to split and defeat the southern tenant farmers’ unions, and right up to the present, the possibility of a strategic political alliance between poor black and white people has been one of the major fears of the propertied classes who control the American state.
So whether it be Nixon’s or Reagan’s War on Drugs, or the Clintons’ support for a Crime Bill (to “bring to heel” so-called black “super-predators”) that completed America’s growth into the largest carceral state in the world, the fact that a third of the urban black male population is in some phase of the “criminal justice” system and deprived of the franchise has had an enormous effect on radical political possibilities in this country. It has gone a long way towards nullifying the effects of the Voting Rights Act, in much the same way that Black Codes nullified the effects of Emancipation. Jeb Bush’s purge of 70,000 alleged “felons” — mostly not felons, but mostly black — from the Florida voting rolls was the main factor in handing the presidency to his brother.
I’m not, by the way, the kind of conspiracist who thinks every government policy fits into some larger, malign strategy that serves as the “real” motivation for all officials. I don’t doubt a great deal of legislation and executive action is intended as a good faith response to the stated concerns of policy-makers. Of course even such “well-meaning” policies are subject to the law of unintended consequences, mission creep, refusal to reassess in response to feedback on their effectiveness, and abusive or self-dealing execution by the bureaucracies tasked with enforcement.
But even when policies are sincerely “well-meaning,” they still tend to serve vested interests through a sort of structural “invisible hand” effect. The “well-meaning” policies that get passed are those that structurally benefit the economic ruling class, and those that get repealed are those that no longer do so.
The state does not represent “us,” and the destructive and genocidal effects of its policies are not “mistakes.”
Citations to this article: | 4,869 | 2,379 | 0.00045 |
warc | 201704 | Author Michael Lewis captures a poignant moment during the draft preceding the 2002 Major League Baseball season. The scene was the conference room of the Oakland Athletics. The A’s had just completed an amazing season, posting 102 wins, while carrying the second lowest team payroll in the major leagues.
They were about to embark on a season in which they would post 103 wins, far outpacing their competitors who were carrying much, much higher operating expenses (read: payrolls).
Management at the A’s had taken a path far, far different from strategies and tactics employed by the vast majority if their opponents. So far afield, in fact, that they were frequently openly ridiculed in the trade press and in the management offices of their competitors.
As we pick up the scene, the draft is at the thirty-fifth pick of the first round. The A’s head of player recruitment is sitting alongside the speakerphone:
As the thirty-fifth pick approaches, Erik once again leans into the speakerphone. If he leaned in just a bit more closely he might hear phones around the league clicking off, so that people could laugh without being heard. For they do laugh. They will make fun of what the A's are about to do; and there will be a lesson in that. The inability to envision a certain kind of person doing a certain kind of thing because you've never seen someone who looks like him do it before is not just a vice. It's a luxury. What begins as a failure of the imagination ends as a market inefficiency: when you rule out an entire class of people from doing a lob simply by their appearance, you are less likely to find the best person for the job. [1]
Which would you rather manage?
What was true about personnel selection with the A's is equally true in the matter of selecting strategies and tactics--for, for the Oakland A's, the selection of player personnel was intimately related to their strategy and tactics for achieving wins.
I am often amazed at how many executives and managers are reluctant to try new approaches to managing their companies and supply chains. Even when radical new approaches to management of organizations and supply chains have demonstrated over and over the ability to significantly improve customer service levels (read: “wins”), while driving inventory levels lower—usually, significantly lower.
So, imagine yourself at the end of another year.
Which organization would you rather take credit for managing?
The Texas Rangers, who finished their year 31 games out of first place, after spending about $107 million for their “inventory” of players? or The Oakland Athletics, who finished first in their division, and spent just under$42 million for their “inventory” of players?
I can tell you this: I’d rather be trying to explain to senior management how I managed to be at
the top of my division while spending less than half what my big-spending competitor was spending, than trying to explain to senior manager how I spent $107 million while losing ground to my “smarter” competitors.
Everyone’s doing it now
Today, virtually every Major League Baseball team plays some form of “moneyball.” The teams that led the way had the early advantages.
But, the executives and managers of that run-producing “supply chain” called the Oakland A’s had to be willing to endure the laughter and sneers of their competitors while they took up their position on the cutting edge of their industry.
Lewis brings two more keen insights as to what keeps executives and managers from making improvements by adopting fresh new strategies and tactics early. Here, Michael Lewis quotes Pete Palmer, an engineer at Raytheon, who had become a keen observer of baseball managers’ tendency to make irrational decisions: “Managers tend to pick a strategy that is least likely to fail rather than pick a strategy that is most efficient," said Palmer. "The pain of looking bad is worse than the gain of making the best move.” [2]
Then, Lewis finds himself quoting Dick Cramer, a research scientist for the pharmaceutical company then called SmithKline French (now GlaxoSmithKline): “'Baseball is a soap opera that lends itself to probabilistic thinking,' is how Dick Cramer described the pleasure [of winning against old-school thinking]." [3]
So, are you managing your organization and supply chain based on the fresh new insights made available through demand-driven MRP and demand-drive supply chains, or are you still finding day-by-day adventure managing a “soap opera” with no shortage of drama?
Let us know about
your rationale for managing your company and your supply chain. We’re interested in hearing your comments.
*****************************************
[1] Lewis, Michael.
Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. New York: W.W. Norton, 2003.
[2] Lewis,
ibid.
[3] Lewis,
ibid. | 4,968 | 2,316 | 0.000446 |
warc | 201704 | Now We Know Why Obama Doesn’t Understand VAM
In order to truly understand value added modeling (VAM), forget the likes of me and of others who hold degrees in mathematics, or statistics, or measurement. Forget that we offer solid, detailed discussions of the problems of VAM. Forget also that those who formerly promoted VAM, like Louisiana’s George Noell, are mysteriously “no longer associated with the project.”
According to Michael Bloomberg, just ask a banker.
That’s right. Banker and former director of the Office of Management and Budget for the Obama administration Peter Orszag has written an enlightening piece for Bloomberg.com explaining that VAM really does work. According to Orszag, VAM can determine “which teachers are best.” Now, mind you, I’m no banker, but I would like to offer my thoughts on Orszag’s very positive article on the value of the value added.
First, let me begin with Orszag’s statement regarding “promoting the most talented teachers.” What, exactly, is a “most talented teacher,” according to corporate reform? One whose students score highest on standardized tests, of course:
One way of measuring a teacher’s effectiveness has been to see how much his or her students’ test scores rise. This kind of “value added” measure is straightforward and can easily be used to weed out bad teachers and promote better ones. [Emphasis added.]
According to our banker, VAM is the answer to the “teacher problem.” And remember, according to corporate reform, the teacher must be the problem if the test scores are not stellar.
In a “sleight of word” in his “study,” Orszag decides to narrow the problems of VAM in his next statement:
Critics complain, however, that this measurement has two potential flaws:
In short, VAM has only “two potential flaws” because Orszag decided such was true.
Let me pause here to state that as an expert in statistics and as one who has written detailed accounts of the problems with VAM such as this discourse to Louisiana legislators, I did not (I could not) limit my discussion to only two flaws. VAM is replete with problems, not the least of which is the problem of data integrity and management of the so-called pilot studies purporting to support VAM. No study is ever better than the quality of its data. Neither will be any “testing” of teachers using VAM. Data collection for a high-stakes measurement situation must be flawless.
Orszag does not touch the data integrity issue. He does not address the erratic classification issue. He does not address the limitations of using hierarchical linear modeling (the statistical analysis commonly employed in VAM) in pinpointing “causes” for student test scores. He does not address the huge validity issue of using tests designed to assess student achievement as a measure of “backdoor” teacher “achievement.”
Orszag limits the reader to these two VAM issues, which he presents as if these are the only two issues:
Critics complain, however, that this measurement has two potential flaws: Some teachers’ scores may rise not because they have performed so well in the classroom but merely because they have better students. And some teachers may push up their students’ scores by teaching to the test, rather than giving students the understanding of concepts that pays off in the long run. [Emphasis added.]
Orszag then offers “two important pieces of research” to “rebut both of these concerns.” The first is a study sponsored by the Gates Foundation where students are “randomly assigned… to about 1600 teachers.” In a glaring jump in logic, banker Orszag’s next statement is
The random assignment ensured that any observed improvement in the students’ test scores was caused by their teachers.
So, random assignment removes any and all other influences upon student achievement as measured by the standardized test? Not so if these students are actual human beings with independent wills. And not so if the measures (standardized tests) are not designed for the purpose that they are being used (a looming validity issue). And not so if there is anything else, anything at all, in the lives of these students other than their teachers.
Student learning can never be absolutely controlled. Period.
Orszag’s “outcome” statement is also suspect:
The Gates team… found, as non-randomized studies had also found, that value-added measures were predictive of student achievement.
This statement actually says nothing. What does it mean that the measures were “predictive” of student achievement? I thought the focus here was on connecting student achievement to teacher effectiveness. Instead, Orszag connects VAM to student achievement. Orszag offers nothing solid, such as the reclassification rates of teachers given no change in student achievement. (High reclassification of teachers not altering their teaching into their original categories based upon multiple, subsequent measuring times is what is required to establish VAM as reliable. I have yet to see a VAM stability study offer such proof.)
Intstead, Orszag offers yet another lukewarm outcome statement:
As [the Gates researchers] conclude, “our findings suggest that existing measures of teacher effectiveness provide important and useful information on the causal effects that teachers have on their students’ outcomes.”
Yet another uncommitted statement. What happened to the earlier statement that VAM is “straightforward” and “can be easily used”?
In the next paragraph, Orszag notes the usefulness of subjective measures to assist VAM, which is already doing the “heavy lifting” in labeling teacher effectiveness. He notes that the Gates study found that “bad” teachers are so bad that their self-reporting can be trusted because it cannot conceal just how bad they are:
The Gates researchers also experimented with various supplements to a purely test-based metric, and found that although the value-added measure did the heavy lifting, student surveys and observational analyses of teaching quality were useful. Interestingly, they found that teacher analysis could be done without having observers make random visits to the classroom; allowing a teacher to submit a self-selected set of videos from the classroom worked just as well, because even the best classes conducted by bad teachers were worse than those from better teachers. [Emphasis added.]
This last statement begs the question: If even subjective self-reporting by “bad” teachers is so useful in determining teacher quality, why are we doing all of this testing? Could the supposed VAM “heavy lifting” be a sham?
As to Orszag’s addressing the “second” critique of VAM, teaching to the test, well, he writes that teaching to the test isn’t happening (never mind that this year I have been instructed to “expose” my students to items relating to three separate standardized tests). Orszag offers two “studies” as proof. First, he offers this proof, which inadvertently undermines his first point for rebuttal, that teachers’ scores rise on VAM due to their having better students:
The Gates team also partially addressed the second critique — that “good” teachers are only teaching to the test — by examining results from other measures of educational quality. For example, the researchers administered open-ended word problems to test students’ understanding of math. The teachers who were predicted to produce achievement gains on state tests produced gains two-thirds as large on the supplemental assessments. [Emphasis added.]
Are these teachers predicted to produce achievement gains because their students are already achievers? Random assignment cannot account for this “what-comes-first-chicken-or-egg” scenario. Orszag does not address this issue.
And what of this “two thirds” gain on the supplemental assessments? Orszag is writing that the students score higher on the standardized tests than they did on the open-ended word problems. That is, the students did not score as high on the non-standardized test as they did on the standardized test. How is this proof of not “teaching to the test”?
Finally, Orszag offers this “proof” that teachers are not just teaching to the test (never mind the firsthand pressure I face as a teacher to do so):
An even more compelling rebuttal of the second critique, however, is found in a December 2011 paper by Raj Chetty and John Friedman of Harvard University and Jonah Rockoff of Columbia University. These researchers assembled a database of 2.5 million students in grades 3 through 8 along with 18 million English and math tests from 1989 through 2009. They then linked that database with income tax returns. Their paper is fascinating because the researchers assessed how a high value-added teacher can influence students’ later earnings and other outcomes. Someone just teaching to the test, without improving the quality of education, wouldn’t be expected to have any lasting impact on students’ earnings. Yet Chetty and the others found big effects later on in students’ lives from having a higher value-added teacher.
Okay. Here are some obvious issues: Are we to assume that there is a direct, otherwise-uninfluenced connection between my third- through eighth-grade math or English scores and my salary? And is my math or English score for each year nothing more than the math or English teacher I had that year? Does not my choice of profession have any influence upon my salary? How about my work ethic? The region where I reside? The economy?
What of those who cheat on taxes? This is a valid question concerning the integrity of the outcome data measure in the Chetty-Friedman study.
And should we assume that data from 1989 to 2009 really has captured the devastation that the 2012 nationwide emphasis on tying teacher jobs and reputations to test scores will bring?
Based upon the newly-instituted Race to the Top’s love affair with nonpartisan corporate reform and the unprecedented punitive measures levied against teachers, schools, and school districts, do corporate-reform-vested people like Orszag, and Bloomberg, and Obama have any clue regarding the potentially irreversible damage they are inflicting upon public education?
Don’t they realize that VAM is a disappointing, two-dimensional cardboard cutout for assessing educational quality?
Nope.
What we need to do, according to Orszag, is fire those bottom 10%. Sure, VAM isn’t perfect, but let’s use it, anyway, as a means of purging a profession to which we don’t even belong:
As the Gates report demonstrates, it’s possible to improve teacher effectiveness metrics. But that shouldn’t keep us from using the ones we have now. To help raise future productivity, we should set a clear goal for all school districts: to deny tenure to teachers in the bottom 10 percent of the distribution according to value-added measurements. That would still mean granting tenure to lots of teachers who perform worse than the average novice, but it would be a good start. [Emphasis added.]
Wow. And this man advised Obama. Good thing Obama replaced him with Wal Mart. | 11,565 | 4,913 | 0.000213 |
warc | 201704 | Everyone wants to look and feel their best. Many people understand the link between the foods they eat and their overall health. While most people try to eat healthy, our bodies are polluted with toxins. A lot of people turn to a juice detox, also referred to as a juice cleanse, to restart their nutritional health. While this type of diet has become trendy in recent years, there are a few considerations to bear in mind if interested in reaping the benefits of a juice cleanse.
Juice Detox
While there is still some dispute on the effectiveness of juice detox, it can still be a great way to practice clean eating. Clean eating is a method of eating only natural, non-processed foods to rid the body of toxins. For those looking for a quick boost in essential nutrients and vitamins, a juice detox can be a great means to an end. However, the process used for juicing strips most fruits and vegetables of some of their nutrients. Most fruits are healthier eaten raw, and some vegetables actually offer higher health benefits when cooked.
Many people do a juice cleanse in an attempt to lose weight. While it can be an effective method for some, for others the results will be less noticeable. It is important to remember that this type of diet is not intended to replace your routine of healthy eating. It is meant to be for a few days or a week at most to ensure proper nutrition. As with any diet, extra care should be taken to avoid going overboard which could lead to binge eating as a result of doing a cleanse for too long.
It is also important to note that while one of the benefits of a juice cleanse is that it can make you feel great after it is finished, it can also lead to some crankiness and mood swings during the cleanse as your body attempts to adjust. There is also some concern that during a juice cleanse, your body loses fats and proteins it requires to stay healthy. After a cleanse, it is recommended to indulge in healthy fats, such as avocados, and lean protein, such as chicken or fish, to help regain the iron your body needs.
Comments will be approved before showing up. | 2,108 | 1,019 | 0.000985 |
warc | 201704 | A proof-of-concept power plant using excess energy from renewable resources to produce methane from biomass will be tested in Sweden.
Developed by engineers from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the system could help efficiently balance electrical grids strained due to the fluctuation of power production by renewable resources such as wind and solar.
The pilot system, called the DemoSNG unit, is mobile and about the size of a conventional shipping container.
“DemoSNG shows the way to store green power and transport it in our gas grids in the form of methane,” said Thomas Kolb, head of the Engler-Bunte Institute of KIT, who worked on the project.
The researchers believe producing methane from the excess energy has tangible advantages as the infrastructure for methane and gas distribution already exists.
In addition to producing methane from biomass-based carbon dioxide, the surplus energy could also be used to power electrolysis to produce hydrogen.
“The variable operation modes were the biggest challenge during development,” explained Siegfried Bajohr of the Engler-Bunte Institute (EBI) of KIT, the project’s leader.
The DemoSNG unit achieves better results than previous concepts thanks to the use of a nickel-based catalyst contained in metallic honeycomb-like structures, similar to those used in cars to neutralise exhaust gases.
The system produces hydrogen, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide by gasification of biomass and turns those directly into methane and water.
If further green power excess is left after the completion of the methanation, it can be employed to power electrolysis of the resulting water to produce hydrogen.
“As conventional methanation processes reach their limits at this point, we have developed a new reactor concept,” Bajohr said. ”The DemoSNG plant shows that our concept also works in a large-scale pilot plant.”
The team has completed first tests and is about to ship the unit to Köping in Sweden for integration into gas flows of a biomass gasification plant using wooden residues.
The team said the system’s innovative honeycomb catalyst makes the technology suitable for operations of plants of various sizes including smaller and medium facilities. | 2,289 | 1,110 | 0.000929 |
warc | 201704 | Healthcare or R&R: Where Does Massage Fit?
Elements Massage Arvada Feb 20, 2015
At Elements Arvada, oftentimes we find ourselves confronted with questions on where massage fits in terms of health and wellness routines. Does it count as healthcare or is it a more leisurely activity? To be honest, our answer is both. Massage doesn’t fit into a neat category and it’s an unfortunate notion that many people believe it needs to be one or the other.
The common misconception around the idea that massage is only R&R instead of a way to contribute to your wellbeing has to do with the idea that our society views relaxation as a luxury. However, more and more research is coming to light that is causing healthcare practitioners to recommend the powerful use of massage used in conjunction with other treatments to help alleviate a wide variety of symptoms including:
-Anxiety and stress
-Insomnia
-Chronic migraines and tension headaches
-High blood pressure
-Arthritis
-Lower back pain
-Sciatica
-And more!
The holistic and non-invasive approach of massage make it tricky to categorically define but the relaxation that massage therapy can bring for general wellbeing and health is an absolute necessity for any individual interested in living their life to the fullest.
Other concrete health benefits attributed to the art of massage include:
-Lower levels of stress hormones and higher levels of good endorphins
-Improved circulation and oxygenation of blood
-Better mood and energy levels
-Improved confidence
-Relief from muscle aches and pains
-More quality sleep
-Less daily aches and pains
-A calmer, more centered feeling
-Increased ability to concentrate or focus
Among other benefits, massage boasts a wide variety of benefits to help you both look and feel your best. Talk to your doctor about how regular massage therapy sessions could provide you with much needed attention to target your individual needs. | 1,952 | 1,041 | 0.000978 |
warc | 201704 | Fibromyalgia Awareness
May 20, 2014
So, what is fibromyalgia? Fibromyalgia (pronounced fy-bro-my-AL-ja) is a common and complex chronic pain disorder that affects people physically, mentally and socially. Fibromyalgia is a syndrome rather than a disease. Unlike a disease, which is a medical condition with a specific cause or causes and recognizable signs and symptoms, a syndrome is a collection of signs, symptoms, and medical problems that tend to occur together but are not related to a specific, identifiable cause.
Fibromyalgia, which has also been referred to as fibromyalgia syndrome, fibromyositis and fibrositis, is characterized by:
chronic widespread pain
multiple tender points
abnormal pain processing
sleep disturbances
fatigue
psychological distress
For those with severe symptoms, fibromyalgia can be extremely debilitating and interfere with basic daily activities.
Whether you have been diagnosed with fibromyalgia or suffer from its symptoms, or have a family member or friend with the disorder, the National Fibromyalgia Association website is designed to provide you with a better understanding of this chronic pain disorder that affects millions of people worldwide.
Complementary therapies can be very beneficial to people with fibromyalgia. These include: physical therapy, therapeutic massage, myofascial release therapy, water therapy, light aerobics, acupressure, application of heat or cold, acupuncture, yoga, relaxation exercises, breathing techniques, aromatherapy, cognitive therapy, biofeedback, herbs, nutritional supplements, and osteopathic or chiropractic manipulation.
To make an appointment for Fibromyalgia relief, please visit our website: http://elementsmassage.com/springsranch | 1,737 | 906 | 0.001113 |
warc | 201704 | ERIC Number:ED126555 Record Type:RIE Publication Date:1976-Apr-21 Pages:11 Abstractor:N/A Reference Count:0 ISBN:N/A ISSN:N/A
Criteria Acceptable to the Educational Developer.
Hopkins, John E.
This paper discusses the problem of selecting appropriate minimum criteria for the review of educational programs and products that will not unduly hinder the creative freedom of educational developers. The author first asserts that although most people support the concept of examining and assessing educational products and programs, there is much disagreement over pertinent criteria. Although it is possible to develop a matrix of criteria for the evaluation of each product, the author suggests, the question of which criteria should be applied to all products should be based on the free enterprise model. That is, criteria should be applied that assure the harmlessness of a product, but beyond that point the market place should be allowed to work its will free of further requirements. Specifically, the only criteria that should be applied to the assessment of any new educational product before its release, the author argues, are the criteria of "social balance and fairness" and "user effects." (Author/JG)
Publication Type:Speeches/Meeting Papers Education Level:N/A Audience:N/A Language:N/A Sponsor:N/A Authoring Institution:N/A Note:Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (San Francisco, California, April 19-23, 1976); Pages 8-9 may not reproduce due to small print | 1,534 | 835 | 0.001205 |
warc | 201704 | ERIC Number:ED280277 Record Type:RIE Publication Date:1986 Pages:73 Abstractor:N/A Reference Count:0 ISBN:N/A ISSN:N/A
Learning a Foreign Language through the Media. CLCS Occasional Paper No. 18.
Devitt, Sean M.
The use of mass media as a means of learning a foreign language from the beginning of language study is discussed. Using the media enables many of the features of the natural language acquisition process to be brought into play in a way that much current language teaching material does not. This position is supported by recent research into the processes of reading and listening. The paper also discusses some of the ways in which activities preceding or accompanying the use of media texts can make the texts accessible to a wide variety of learners, including beginners. Beginners can be helped not only to understand foreign language texts but also to create and edit their own texts at a relatively sophisticated level. This approach greatly enriches the comprehensible linguistic input while also reducing affective barriers to language learning. A practical exercise built around an Italian news story and using four newspaper articles and one radio broadcast transcript in Italian as the basis for a series of activities is appended. (Author/MSE)
Descriptors: Advance Organizers, Class Activities, Classroom Techniques, Cognitive Processes, Difficulty Level, Foreign Countries, Instructional Materials, Introductory Courses, Learning Activities, Learning Processes, Mass Media, Media Selection, Second Language Instruction, Second Language Learning, Student Attitudes, Student Role, Writing Exercises
Publication Type:Reports - Evaluative; Opinion Papers Education Level:N/A Audience:N/A Language:English Sponsor:N/A Authoring Institution:Trinity Coll., Dublin (Ireland). Centre for Language and Communication Studies. Note:Newspaper article reprints contain small print. | 1,900 | 1,026 | 0.000978 |
warc | 201704 | Formal logic can help us achieve clarity and help us make sure our arguments are relevant in various ways, but there are other requirements for a good argument. Most philosophers seem to get caught up discussing fallacies (errors in reasoning) rather than good reasoning. I will discuss the following four requirements for writing good arguments and the corresponding fallacies for failing to achieve the requirements:
Supporting Evidence Relevant Evidence Consider all Viable Options Charity
1. Supporting Evidence
Arguments must have premises and a conclusion. Premises are statements that must be accepted before the conclusion is accepted. Premises could be considered evidence for the conclusion, but even controversial premises be supported by evidence. Sometimes we might accept a premise because it is taken for granted as true, but philosophers often try to support every somewhat controversial premise they can.
An argument can only have relevant supporting evidence if (a) the conclusion is appropriately modest, (b) the conclusion isn’t overly ambitious, (c) the premises are more likely true than the conclusion, and (d) the conclusion isn’t illegitimately absurd.
(a) Modest conclusions
The premises of an argument must lead us to the conclusion. If the argument is valid and the premises are true, then we have no choice but to accept the conclusion. Such a conclusion is appropriately modest. For example:
If Socrates is a man, then he is mortal. He is a man. Therefore, he is mortal.
The conclusion must be accepted because the premises are almost certainly true.
(b) Overly ambitious conclusions
A conclusion that is not sufficiently supported by the premises is an inappropriate type of conclusion. Such conclusions tend to be what I call overly ambitious. For example:
If Socrates is a philosopher, then he is relatively wise. Socrates is a philosopher. Therefore, Socrates knows that the Earth is the third planet from the sun.
It is common knowledge that the Earth is the third planet from the Sun and we would expect that relatively wise people would know such a thing, but that is only common knowledge in our day and age. Socrates was from a different period of time, so he might have not known. The conclusion is overly ambitious because we can only accept the conclusion given certain unstated assumptions.
(c) Premises that are likely true
The premises should be more likely true than the conclusion. Conclusions must not be more likely true than the premises or the premises aren’t really good evidence for the conclusion. Imagine that someone argues the following:
If people exist, then atoms exist. People exist. Therefore, atoms exist.
This argument is logically valid, but we are more certain that people exist than atoms exist. The fact that people exist shouldn’t be accepted as evidence that atoms exist. That isn’t to say that atoms don’t exist. We just know less about atoms existing than people.
To have a conclusion that is more likely true than the premises is a fallacy, but I don’t know the name of it. It might not have a name. I will call such a fallacy an argument with a trivial conclusion because the conclusion is already known to be likely true and the premises do not properly help assure us that the conclusion is true.
(d) Absurd conclusions
Even worse than having a trivial conclusion is having an illegitimately absurd conclusion. Absurd conclusions are extraordinary claims, and my point here is merely that extraordinary conclusions require extraordinary evidence. An absurd conclusion can be a conclusion that is almost certainly false even if the premises seem to be probably true. It is impossible to have an illegitimately absurd conclusion if the conclusion is appropriately modest, so the premises used must be questionable. But the fact that questionable premises can lead us to an absurd conclusion just makes us that much more certain that a premise has to be false. For example:
I have existed for over twenty years. The past resembles the future. Therefore, I will always exist.
Some people can’t imagine not being immortal and they believe they probably have an immortal soul. After all, we have existed all our lives. However, the conclusion is so incredible that one of the premises is almost certainly false. In this case the premise “the past resembles the future” seems to be taken the wrong way. If we are ever to accept the immortality of the soul, we will need a much better argument than this.
To have an absurd conclusion, such as the argument above, is to commit a fallacy, but I don’t know if it has a name. I will call it the “absurd conclusion” fallacy. In many cases this fallacy will be a type of suppressed evidence fallacy—there is usually information that will undermine the conclusion that isn’t mentioned. Such information can be more important than the supporting premises for the conclusion.
Some people call the absurd conclusion fallacy a ‘reductio ad absurdum’ or a ‘reductio’ for short. However, there are nonfallacious ways to reason using a reductio ad absurdum.
Moreover, the above argument has insufficient premises to prove the conclusion. Even if the premises are true, the conclusion might not be true.
Another example of an argument with an absurd conclusion is the following:
Many people have past life experiences that provide insightful information. Either past life experiences are caused by past lives or dreams. It is very unlikely that a dream would lead to such insightful information. Therefore, some people probably have past lives.
Although all of the premises look very likely to be true, the conclusion is absurd. The problem is that we have good reason to suspect that at least one premise is false. Perhaps there are other explanations for past life experiences than the two mentioned, and perhaps dreams can lead to the insightful information given by past life experiences. The fact is that we are uncertain about the premises all being true, and extraordinary conclusions require extraordinary evidence. Such extraordinary evidence isn’t given.
2. Relevant Evidence
The evidence used in arguments must be relevant or we have no reason to trust them. The fact that bread has always been nutritious (rather than poisonous) makes it reasonable to think bread is still nutritious. However, people seem to be drawn to distractions (red herrings) rather than relevant considerations.
For example, the fact that the Soviet Union had universal health care doesn’t prove that universal health care is wrong. If everything the Soviets did was wrong, then we should never eat food or have sex. The temptation to dismiss some idea out of hand just because it was endorsed by an undesirable person or society is just a problem with human psychology.
The fallacy of using irrelevant evidence for a position is often called the red herring fallacy. Red herring fallacies are very common when people give objections to other arguments. Why? We often ignore the other person’s argument and just argue against their conclusion. It is often inappropriate to reject an argument just by rejecting the conclusion. For example, consider the following argument:
Abortion kills people. Killing people should always be illegal. Therefore, abortion should be illegal.
A common response is that abortion should not be illegal because that would violate women’s rights. However, women’s rights are somewhat irrelevant to the above argument. If we accept the premises, then the conclusion follows. If women’s rights prove that abortion isn’t forbidden, then we are stuck with contradictory arguments for and against the conclusion: Abortion should be legal and illegal.
A good objection to the abortion argument is likely going to oppose one of the premises. Is killing people always wrong? If so, war should be entirely illegal. Does abortion kill people? Why should we think fetuses are people?
If we find it important to argue against someone’s conclusion, then we can do so, but we should often also give objections against the arguments given in support of the conclusion we reject.
An obvious example of the red herring fallacy is the following:
Bob argues that “we shouldn’t throw people into prison who are found guilty of illegal drug possession because it makes everyone worse off.” However, Bob probably takes marijuana and just doesn’t want to go to prison for it. Therefore, we should reject Bob’s argument.
This argument gives us no good reason to reject Bob’s argument. It actually changes the subject, then says we should reject Bob’s argument. Fallacious arguments are generally not written in such an explicit way and the conclusion in particular would probably not be explicitly stated in real life.
3. Consider all Viable Options
Arguments require that we accept that something is true instead of something else. Every single premise could be challenged if it doesn’t describe reality perfectly. When we argue that Einstein’s theory of relativity is true, we need to take a look at how much better it is than any alternative. The same goes for any other theory.
It is difficult for us to consider every viable option, so beliefs that fail to do so are common. Consider the following assertions:
Either communism is good or universal health care is bad. Ether creationism is true or evolution is true. Either God exists or morality is just a matter of taste.
We might wonder, Why can’t both be false? Maybe capitalism is mostly good, but universal health care can also be good. There are often more options than we see at first. To assume that there are less viable options than those that really exist is to suppress evidence and commit a popular fallacy known as the false dilemma.
An obvious example of the false dilemma fallacy is the following:
Either Socrates is a horse or a cow. Socrates isn’t a horse. Therefore, Socrates is a cow.
The problem is that the first premise is false because it does not lay out the most plausible options. In particular, it should say “Either Socrates is a human, a horse, or a cow.”
4. Charity
When we object to an argument or belief, we need to be able to describe it and fully understand it, or what we have to say against it will be irrelevant. To properly describe an argument or belief is to be charitable. To misrepresent another person’s view destroys our chances of saying anything relevant about it. Consider the following argument:
People who believe in God live a better life. We have some reason to engage in actions that offer us benefits. Therefore, we have some reason to believe in God.
Someone might then disagree with you and say the following: “You are saying that everyone has to believe in God because it offers us benefits, but we shouldn’t have to believe something just because it benefits us in various ways!” This objection has misrepresented the argument because having some reason to believe in God is much different from the belief that “everyone must believe in God.” Such an objection is irrelevant.
To misrepresent other people’s arguments by making their argument worse is a fallacy called the straw man. However, to misrepresent someone’s argument by improving it isn’t wrong. Rather than argue against a flawed argument, we should generally want to argue against the best argument we can.
Conclusion
Supporting evidence, relevant evidence, considering all viable options, and charity are essential for any good debate. People often fail to live up to these standards, and such standards are difficult to live up to without experience. People with no experience with logic have an even greater chance of providing us with inappropriate supporting evidence (trivial conclusions), overly ambitious conclusions, absurd conclusions, red herrings, false dilemmas, and straw men.
(Updated 11/24/2013)
For more information on fallacies, you might like this website: | 12,144 | 4,514 | 0.000227 |
warc | 201704 | EU accused of hypocrisy over weak fish deal
A leading pro-green NGO has said the EU's latest fisheries agreement should be a source of embarrassment at the Rio summit next week.
EU environment commissioner Janez Potocnik, speaking of the upcoming summit on sustainable development, told reporters in Brussels on Wednesday (13 June) the world must find "a new circular structure, where nothing is wasted and growth is driven by reducing pressures on the environment."
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But his message fell flat in the Brussels office of the World Wildlife Fund.
"I don't know how the EU can defend their position in front of the world community at Rio ... On one side they talk of sustainable capacity but on the other they commit illegal fishing practices on a global scale," Roberto Ferrigno, the WWF's expert on EU fishing policy told EUobserver.
Minsters of agriculture earlier the same day - following 18 hours of tense negotiations - agreed to limit over-fishing of main species by 2015 and of bycatch species by 2020.
They also agreed to ban fish discards by 2019 - up to 60 percent of all fish caught by European boats is tossed overboard every year. Fishermen are only held accountable for the quotas they bring ashore, not what they catch in the open sea.
Quotas are already in place but are set independently for each species. In other instances, fishermen are allowed limited days at sea, rather than quotas, and attempt to catch as much as possible.
The European Parliament must give the green light before the decision becomes law, with talks due to start in October.
WWF's comments relate to the fact Europe agreed at a previous development summit in Johannesburg in 2002 to limit main and bycatch fishing in 2015.
The European Commission had also proposed targets for all species by 2015.
"Scandalously, the EU Council has decided to overturn this proposal, postponing any shift to sustainable catches and only 'where possible'," said Swedish Green Party MEP Isabella Lovin.
But the commission said it is a "workable compromise" anyway.
"Our proposal is more ambitious and is still the basis for further discussion for the parliament," EU fisheries commissioner Maria Damanaki noted. | 2,706 | 1,453 | 0.0007 |
warc | 201704 | Here’s a fascinating piece on the sources of food myths, and the scientific truth about MSG: How MSG Got A Bad Rap: Flawed Science And Xenophobia, written by Anna Maria Barry-Jester for FiveThirtyEightScience.
MSG was developed in Japan as a flavour enhancer, and was popular in North America for more than half a century.
But then…
In 1968, the New England Journal of Medicine published a letter from a doctor complaining about radiating pain in his arms, weakness and heart palpitations after eating at Chinese restaurants. He mused that cooking wine, MSG or excessive salt might be to blame. Reader responses poured in with similar complaints…
In other words, anecdotes and confirmation bias. Early research seemed to support the anecdotes. But…
Subsequent research has found that the vast majority of people, even those claiming a sensitivity to MSG, don’t have any reaction when they don’t know they are eating it….
…a small subset of people do have negative reactions that are directly due to glutamate, but the science to date shows that is likely to be a rare phenomenon.
and
“It was the misfortune of Chinese cooks to be caught with the white powder by their stoves when the once-praised
flavor enhancersuddenly became a chemical additive.” [emphasis added] | 1,327 | 770 | 0.001361 |
warc | 201704 | First 546 words of the document:
Organisational Structure
Within Sainsbury's, the organisational structure is a traditional hierarchy. This means that there are levels of staff, some of which have control over others and some who don't. As a general rule, the higher up the hierarchy you go, the less staff members there are per layer, but they each have more responsibility. In my opinion, an organisational structure is vital for Sainsbury's achieving high levels of customer satisfaction because it puts authority into some members of staff and allows them to tell lower staff members where to go and which jobs to do. This is important because it helps to keep the store running smoothly. To support my opinion, I believe that the organisational structure provides somewhere for a customer to go if they have a complaint. It is able to do this as it allows some staff to be more senior, and therefore able to take action better than other staff. This is important for Sainsbury's objective of customer satisfaction because the customer feels their complaint is being taken more seriously if they are talking so a senior staff member. However, I do appreciate there are limitations to having an organisational structure. The first one of these is that some of the staff, particularly towards the bottom of the structure, may feel undervalued. This exists because higher staff members are paid more, and have more responsibility. This could potentially hinder Sainsbury's objective of increasing market share because in order to become a store with a large market share, the staff need to feel appreciated in order to be working to their full potential. Another potential problem is that there are too many levels and people get confused who they are supposed to report to. This exists because there are supervisors which manage the floor, and supervisors who manage the checkouts. Some staff work between the floor and tills so it could get confusing who they are supposed to go to if they have a problem. However, I don't think this problem will exist in all stores as the smaller stores will only have 1 or 2 supervisors so it will be easier for the staff to know who to report to. To conclude, I believe that an organisational chart is extremely important to Sainsbury's because without it the whole company would fall apart. No one would know what they should be doing or where they should be. For an organisation structure to work, I think it is important that it is kept simple; with it clearly defined who reports to who. Sainsbury's can achieve this by assigning certain staff members to one supervisor, not by the area of the store they are in. It is also important that the staff are treated with respect by those above them in the structure. Sainsbury's can achieve this through basic teamwork training. Overall, I believe that the organisational structure is effective in Sainsbury's because Sainsbury's have a very large market share and are still making a huge amount of profit. | 2,999 | 1,284 | 0.00078 |
warc | 201704 | First 260 words of the document:
Social Learning Theory: Social learning theory as a bridge between traditional behaviourism and the
cognitive approach. Assumptions of social learning theory. The role of mediational processes in learning, motivation and performance of behaviour. Observational learning and the role of vicarious reinforcement. Strengths and limitations of social learning theory. Assumptions Behaviourist Cognitive Similarities to SLT Role of reinforcement Cognitive processes Behaviour learnt Human behaviour rather than animals Differences from SLT Importance of Observational learning expectancy isn't part of the SLT looks forward on cognitive approach the behaviour whereas Cognitive processes behaviourism looks e.g. schemas are used backwards SLT focuses on external Learning and behaviour whereas performance are cognitive psychologists different focus on internal Animals are not the processes same as humans Bandura proposed SLT to explain human behaviour in a more complex way than the behaviourist approach (stimulus-response). "Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform then what to do [and so] from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviours are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide of action." By this he meant that learning would take too much time if people relied on observing the effects from their own actions. By learning from others, we learn the correct/appropriate actions in each Other pages in this set Page 2
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We can use
other people as "models" for which behaviour to use and when. Observational learning: learning from observing the behaviour of others and then replicating it, or, in the case of children, learning through identification (internalising said person's norms and values). Imitation is not automatic. Expectancy: behaviour will only be copied if the person anticipates some form of reward/reinforcement. If a child observes an aggressive adult winning a fight, they will expect to win the fight using aggression and so they imitate this.…read more Page 3
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Difference between
learning from observation and performance of behaviour Bandura's Bobo Doll AO1 Aim: Investigate the imitation of aggression in children. Method: 36 boys and 36 girls (average age 52 months). Divided into 8 groups of 6 and one control of 24 children. The groups were matched on pre-experiment aggression ratings made by teachers and observers. The children were placed (alone) in a playroom for 10 minutes with an adult acting as a model.…read more Page 4
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Higher aggression score for imitation of the adult male model for physical aggression by
both sexes. Children in non-aggressive conditions had lower aggression scores than the children in the control condition. Conclusion: the children learned aggressive acts from watching the models, other factors also affected their learning. AO2 This study provides support for SLT- that we learn to be aggressive through observing others behaviours. Demand characteristics, the bobo doll is meant to be hit...…read more Page 5
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SLT is less deterministic Bandura's experiment
and reductionist, talks of can be criticised by more of an interaction Cumberbatch (1992) who between behaviour and found: the environment; this is - demand characteristics `reciprocal determinism' made children aware of "Behaviour partly creates what was expected the environment and the - bobo doll was pleasant resultant environment, in to hit because it bounced turn influences the back up behaviour" - bobo doll would SLT explains specific increase aggression imitations of behaviour scores as it is a novelty…read more Page 6
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Good at explaining specific imitated Cumberbatch criticism of bobo doll
behaviour experiment Explains development of culture and Cannot explain the learning of abstract complex behaviours ideas Applied Forensic Psychology SLT acknowledges the role of mediating cognitive variables lying between stimulus and response. These shape our behaviour as they cause us to think about the consequences of our actions. Bandura stated that influences on our behaviour are from the observation of role models in the individual's environment.…read more Page 7
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Doesn't explain CRIMES OF PASSION
Sutherland's Differential Association Criminal behaviour is learned through exposure to criminal norms. Crime occurs because of: Learned attitudes Imitation of specific acts Criminal activity is the result of an individual expressing their needs e.g. stealing = need for money. Some of these needs are learned as we are not born with the immediate need for money as it is not a biological necessity.…read more Page 8
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Hallway et al found children learn and maintain identities within the classroom.
Connell: an experiment into school enforcement of gender regimes. At secondary school women are more likely to teach humanities and men teach maths and sciences. Colley divided curriculum into boys and girls subjects: boy's subjects were physics, IT, history and physical activity. Girl's subjects were geography and social sciences.…read more Page 9
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Isabella Danks.
Notre Dame High School.…read more | 5,424 | 2,382 | 0.000426 |
warc | 201704 | Jules didn’t set out to lead, inspire and advocate for the gluten-free community. But to anyone who knows her, it’s no surprise she does.
As a celiac diagnosed in 1999, and as an indomitable perfectionist with a penchant for equality and fairness, this former domestic violence attorney was simply unwilling to accept the dry, gritty, vacuous foods that were the norm then. Two years in her kitchen later, Jules had perfected an all-purpose gluten free flour blend that enabled her to continue her passion for baking.
Gluten free flour this amazing is hard to keep secret (thus its award!). But even 8 years after Jules perfected her acts-just-like-wheat flour blend, many people haven’t heard of it. That’s because Jules didn’t set out to make flour for anyone but her celiac self and the family she lovingly feeds. But word (and yummy samples) spread in her circles, and folks begged her to make her 5-flour blend for them. How could this ever-accommodating southern girl say no to that? Jules has sold more than a million pounds of her unparalleled gluten free flour since she introduced it in 2008, first with her former company, Jules Gluten Free, and now
exclusively through her new company, gfJules™.
Maybe you’re here because you’ve heard Jules speak, attended one of her cooking classes, read one of her three books or countless magazine articles, heard about her advocacy work promoting gluten free food labeling regulations, or maybe just because you’ve been enthusiastically referred by friends whose lives have been transformed by her tireless efforts. Because Jules’ mission in life is to make your gluten free going safe, successful, delicious and even fun, her vision for her role in the gluten free community is crystal clear.
(Side note: that wasn’t the case with her now-ex partners. It was an inelegant separation, to say the least. And one which has caused more confusion than it should have. So maybe you think you have heard of Jules, at her old company and website with her name on it…but a site that is strangely devoid of an actual Jules. That’s because it IS devoid of an actual Jules, and has been since an ignominious day in March of 2014. BUT, if you’re reading this, rest assured–YOU’VE FOUND THE REAL JULES!)
As the gluten free community burgeoned, the need for accurate information, advocacy and leadership did too. So in addition to running her gluten free flour company and authoring three highly regarded books, Jules took to the road. Jules logs tens of thousands of miles a year speaking to, teaching and encouraging gluten-free consumers, businesses and trade gatherings, as you can see in the photo at left.
When the FDA appeared stuck in neutral regarding long-overdue gluten-free food labeling regulations, Jules literally brought the gluten free community together and built an 11-foot-tall, one-ton gluten free cake to get the FDA’s attention. The Washington Post, USA Today, Forbes … and ultimately the FDA took note. The FDA not only attended the event, but promised to front-burner the legislation, which it did. The resulting gluten-free food labeling regulations went into effect in August, 2014.
This mother of two also hosts a popular GF radio show, personally pens one of the community’s most active blogs (voted #1 Gluten Free Blog 2 years in a row), organizes the annual Gluten Free Cookie Swap, and personally moderates her FaceBook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and Instagram presences.
She rarely sleeps. | 3,566 | 1,820 | 0.000566 |
warc | 201704 | Q. I’ve heard several well known preachers making a claim that it never rained before the great flood. Is that so? Does the bible actually discuss it? Some say that rain was never mentioned before the flood, that’s why they assumed it never rained. I personally find it hard to believe. If it never rained, how did God manage to sustain the life on the planet?
Also, does the bible actually say that it took Noah 120 years to build the ark? Where is that in the bible?
A. Genesis 2:4-6 says, “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens- and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the LORD God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams (literally mist) came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground-“ and verse 10 continues, “A river watering the garden flowed from Eden; from there it was separated into four headwaters.”
Then in
Hebrews 11:7 we read, “By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”
So at first, the Earth was watered by mist that came up out of the ground by night and watered the plant life since there was no rain. Some scholars believe that method continued until the flood, and the “things not seen” by Noah and his contemporaries included rain.
Simple logic tells us that the rainbow God promised to Noah after the flood wouldn’t have been necessary for reassurance if they had often seen rain in the past. (
Genesis 9:14-16) No, it was promised because the only time they’d ever seen rain everybody had perished. They were scared to death of it.
The 120 years referenced in
Genesis 6:3 actually refers to the grace period between God’s announcement of judgment and its occurrence. The 120 year period of construction is assumed from the view that God had Noah begin building at the same time that he announced the coming flood. Adam’s account of man’s earliest history ends at this point and Noah’s begins, but the small overlap favors this view.( Genesis 7:9-14) | 2,330 | 1,167 | 0.000892 |
warc | 201704 | I can’t even tell you how excited I am to have Megan D here today. We met through the internet YEARS ago and she has become one of my best friends. You will love her. I learn so much from her every time I am around her and I am so happy she is here with us today:
——————————————————
Hello HRG readers, my name is Megan. AKA ‘Megan D’. Why Megan D, you may ask? Well, for one there are approximately one billion Megans in this world. Okay so probably not, but I swear it feels like it. As a result, the human population is always finding ways to distinguish each of us Megans apart. People have always created nicknames for me. I mean, if Janae just referred to me as ‘Megan’ this image might pop in your head.
But that isn’t me! How confusing! I am not Muncher Cruncher Megan. We can’t have that mix up happening. So I am Megan D.
Actually, she calls me ‘Megan D’ because that is the name I use when I comment on her blog. You may have seen my comments. You may have gotten a cramp in your hand with all the scrolling you have to do to get PAST my comments. They are novel length and I have no shame about it.
I started reading HRG almost 5 years ago. I loved reading it daily and I could relate to Janae in so many ways. One day (about 4.5 years ago) she did a reader meet up in St. George after her race. I happened to be down there on a vacation with some friends. I decided to go to the meet up so I could meet Janae in person (with my friends mocking me about how this was like a blind date and super weird all along the way). She was every bit as awesome in person as she was on her blog and so we became friends. In hindsight, and after looking at this picture, perhaps she took pity on me and how awkward I am in pictures. maybe she thought she could turn me into a service project (cue makeover scene in clueless) and help me to step out of my personal picture taking bubble (I always feel like I am SOOO close when we take pictures. Then I look at the picture and I am always off to the side. Standing super awkward) since she takes 100 pictures a day.
5 years later. Nope. didn’t work.
(Hey guys. That’s me. I threw the donut themed shower. I mean, I will just pause here and give you a moment to type out any praises you have for me in the comment section below. Take your time. Tell me specifics. Much humble. All the praises. Okay, back to the blog.) I am just so happy for Janae and Andrew right now. On a side note, my youngest turns 2 in a few weeks and I am planning on reusing all the decorations for her birthday party. Two for one, people. I am not sure what that says about Janae (or me as the party planner) that I can recycle a 30 year old’s bridal shower as a 2 year olds birthday, but I don’t really care. Moving on.
A little about me. I am a mom to 3, a wife, a lover of PB, food, hashtags #YepIamThatAnnoyingPerson #SorryNotSorry and all things random. I also love(d) to run. I started running in college after I had stopped dancing and needed some form of exercise in my life. Growing up I remember my dad running and when I was home for a weekend during summer break he encouraged me to go for a run with him. It was my first ‘real’ run (i.e. not a warm up for some other sport I was playing). We went 3 miles and I thought I was going to die. Apparently when you feel like you are going to die, you also think, ‘Hey, I should keep doing this now. Only more often #RunningIsWeird
That was 14 years ago. Running is addicting. People always ask me why I run and I tell them ‘For the feeling when I STOP.’ However, I have always kept my mileage low and cross trained a lot because I tend to get injured easily. I have had IT band syndrome, plantar fasciitis, runner knee, and currently what doctors THINK is proximal high hamstring tendinopathy. I have had this current injury for 3 years. THREE. YEARS. Not something I have been diagnosed with, gone to physical therapy, do the exercises and 3 months later it is gone like the other injuries. Over the course of 3 years I have gone to several Drs, chiropractors, different physical therapist, had 3 different MRI’s, a cortisone shot in the most awkward of places, dry needling, ASTYM, and on and on. But to no avail. I can’t run even a mile without pain.
As runners we all (well like 95% of us) have, or will have, an injury at some point. Most of us get diagnosed, do our exercises/treatment and cross train during said injury and then ease our way back into running. But what if you can’t? What if it goes on for 3 years? Let’s talk about the 5 stages of grief and how they relate to running injuries.
1. Denial: This isn’t an injury. It’s just pain. Pain associated with running (Again #RunningIsWeird) and I can push through this. I will just push through this temporary pain and everything will be fine.
2. Anger: Everything is NOT fine and I can’t even walk without limping. This is so freaking dumb. If I see another runner out enjoying this beautiful day I am going to run them over with my van full of children. Ugh. This is the worst. (drama NOT added for emphasis).
3. Bargaining: If I can just get an answer as to what is wrong with me, I will be fine. I just want answers. I will do everything the Dr/PT tells me to do. I will be grateful to run just recreationally. No more dreams of doing another marathon, of running Boston one day (sniff) I will stick to short distances and be fine. As long as I get to JUST RUN!
4. Depression: What is the point of even trying? I have tried so many different Drs and therapies and nothing works. I have drained our HSA account (and then some) for nothing. I should give up trying because sometimes it is easier to NOT try then KEEP TRYING and not get results. I mean, if I am not going to run either way…
5. Acceptance: I took a break from Drs and treatments. Doesn’t mean I won’t ever try to run again, but I need the break mentally. I can keep trying to work through this injury. I can keep trying to find answers and hopefully run again. But if I never do, it isn’t the end of the world. You know why? Because running isn’t WHO I am. My kids don’t need me to run to be a good mom. My husband doesn’t need me to run to be a good wife and I don’t need to run to be a good person. Sometimes I move through these stages of grief again (I’m looking at your race days on Instagram) but for the most part I feel like I have, at the very least, accepted this injury.
When I die and people are at my funeral, do I want them to be talking about how I was the best mediocre runner? That I always made sure to get my miles in? Or do I care if they talked about how I served others? How I was there to help people in need? That is what I care about. It was easy to set running goals. I am not saying they are easy to reach, but they were easy (for me) to make. New PR? Check. Goal setting done. It is rewarding to see the progress I made in running. But now I can’t. I don’t have that instant feeling of accomplishment from hitting a run at my target pace or setting a new PR. They don’t have races on the step mill (aka the sweat climber and my, now, cardio BFF) yet. So I find other exercise plans or complete other exercise programs and check them off to get that feeling of accomplishment. Some goals are exercise related, some are not. Sometimes I have had to shift my priorities elsewhere to get the same feeling. So far, I have survived;) but I am still holding on to the hope I will be a runner again.
Anyone else super awkward when you get your picture taken? Do you like your name? Is your name common?
I made sure to give my kids less common names because of my situation.
Do you have a nickname you go by instead?
Megan the motormouth. If you actually made it to the end of this article, you get why.
Have you been injured long term? With what?
If you have never been injured let me quickly go through the 5 stages of how I feel about that. “Are you serious? I hate you. Actually, I just wish I could BE you…cause I stink. That is so awesome for you! Good luck on your next race!” | 8,326 | 3,887 | 0.000267 |
warc | 201704 | Estimated Age Effects in Baseball
Age effects in baseball are estimated in this paper using a nonlinear fixed-effects regression. The sample consists of all players who have played 10 or more "full-time" years in the major leagues between 1921 and 2004. Quadratic improvement is assumed up to a peak-performance age, which is estimated, and then quadratic decline after that, where the two quadratics need not be the same. Each player has his own constant term. The results show that aging effects are larger for pitchers than for batters and larger for baseball than for track and field, running, and swimming events and for chess. There is some evidence that decline rates in baseball have decreased slightly in the more recent period, but they are still generally larger than those for the other events. There are 18 batters out of the sample of 441 whose performances in the second half of their careers noticeably exceed what the model predicts they should have been. All but 3 of these players played from 1990 on. The estimates from the fixed-effects regressions can also be used to rank players. This ranking differs from the ranking using lifetime averages because it adjusts for the different ages at which players played. It is in effect an age-adjusted ranking.
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Volume (Year): 4 (2008) Issue (Month): 1 (January) Pages: 1-41
Handle: RePEc:bpj:jqsprt:v:4:y:2008:i:1:n:1 Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.degruyter.com
Order Information: Web: http://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jqas References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: Fair, Ray C, 1994." How Fast Do Old Men Slow Down?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(1), pages 103-18, February. Ray C. Fair, 2004. " Estimated Age Effects in Athletic Events and Chess," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1495, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised Feb 2006. Full references(including those not matched with items on IDEAS)
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Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services. | 3,777 | 1,867 | 0.00054 |
warc | 201704 | The influence of local and national economic conditions on French legislative elections
This article's aim consists in building and estimating a model which explains and forecasts the outcomes of the French legislative elections by department. This model, which constitutes the first attempt for such a geographical level, emphasises the role of the economic and political factors in the explanation of the legislative vote. The model seems to be very accurate in forecasting the elections of the past at the local and national level. Furthermore, its behaviour for the 2002 election was very satisfactory. This model is therefore a reliable alternative to the vote intention polls as an electoral forecasting instrument. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005
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Volume (Year): 125 (2005) Issue (Month): 3 (December) Pages: 363-383
Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:125:y:2005:i:3:p:363-383 DOI: 10.1007/s11127-005-3056-9 Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.springer.com
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warc | 201704 | European Monetary Union in Crisis
So far it has not been possible to solve the crisis of the European Monetary Union. In recent months it has worsened increasingly and is now placing a drag on global economic activity. A comprehensive solution to the crisis would include the establishment of joint liability for government debt in the euro area, measures to stabilise the economy and ensuring long-term stability of government debt.
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Volume (Year): 17 (2012) Issue (Month): 2 (May) Pages: 81-94
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warc | 201704 | The Role of the Merchant Coalition in Pre-modern Japanese Economic Development: An Historical Institutional Analysis
This paper examines the role of the merchant coalition (kabu nakama) in the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth century in Japan, from the standpoint of Historical Institutional Analysis (Greif[1997, 1998]). Quantitative economic history literature has made clear that market-based economic growth started around the end of the eighteenth century in Japan. On the other hand, the Bakufu, the central government, repeatedly promulgated Aitai Sumeshi Rei (Mutual Settlement Decree), prescribing that the public authorities would not accept suits on pecuniary affairs. This implies that the public system for third-party enforcement was not working well. Activities of the merchant coalition substituted for the public third-party enforcement. Many of the merchant coalitions' codes wrote that all of each coalition's members should suspend transaction with those who cheated any one of the members of the coalition. This was the multilateral punishment strategy (MPS), formulated by Greif[1993]. It is hypothesized that kabu nakama played the role of contract enforcement using the MPS, which reduced incentives for the transaction counterparts to cheat, and thereby promoted a market economy. Also, this paper empirically examines this hypothesis, using an opportunity of a natural experiment. In 1841, the Bakufu prohibited the coalition, intending to eliminate monopoly. The above hypothesis implies that prohibition of the coalition lowered the performance of the market economy. As predicted, we found that the growth rate of the real money supply contracted, that the efficiency of price arbitrage declined, and that inflation rate went up.
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.: Ohkura, Takehiko & Shimbo, Hiroshi, 1978." The Tokugawa monetary policy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 101-124, January. Duffy, William J. & Yamamura, Kozo, 1971." Monetization and integration of markets in Tokugawa Japan: A spectral analysis," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 395-423. Yamamura, Kozo, 1973." Toward a Reexamination of the Economic History of Tokugawa Japan, 1600–1867," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 33(03), pages 509-546, September. Hanley, Susan B., 1983." A High Standard of Living in Nineteenth-Century Japan: Fact or Fantasy?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(01), pages 183-192, March. Greif, Avner, 1989." Reputation and Coalitions in Medieval Trade: Evidence on the Maghribi Traders," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(04), pages 857-882, December. Greif, Avner, 1994." Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(5), pages 912-50, October. "Wakita, Shigeru", 1996." Rational Expectations in the Rice Futures Market of Osaka, in the 18th Century," Economic Review, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 47(3), pages 238-247, July. Masahiko Aoki, 2001." Toward a Comparative Institutional Analysis," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262011875, March. Greif, Avner, 1993." Contract Enforceability and Economic Institutions in Early Trade: the Maghribi Traders' Coalition," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 525-48, June. Full references(including those not matched with items on IDEAS)
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Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services. | 5,399 | 2,598 | 0.000388 |
warc | 201704 | The Macroeconomic Impact Of Natural Disasters In Developing Countries: Evidence From Hurricane Strikes In The Central American And Caribbean Region
In this paper we investigate the macroeconomic impact of natural disasters in developing countries by examining hurricane strikes in the Central American and Caribbean region. Our innovation in this regard is to employ a windfield model combined with a power dissipation equation on hurricane track data to arrive at a more scientifically based index of potential local destruction. This index allows us to identify potential damages at a detailed geographical level, compare hurricanes' destructiveness, as well as identify the countries most affected, without having to rely on potentially questionable monetary loss estimates. Combining our destruction index with macroeconomic data we show that the average hurricane strike caused output to fall by up to 0.8 percentage points in the region, although this crucially depends on controlling for local economic characteristics of the country affected.
Length: Date of creation: 2009 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:zbw:gdec09:35 Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.ael.ethz.ch/
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Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services. | 2,438 | 1,209 | 0.000832 |
warc | 201704 | English français Knowledge Creation Through External Venturing: Evidence from the Telecommunications Equipment Manufacturing Industry
Investment in entrepreneurial ventures has gained recent popularity as a means for established firms to learn about new technologies and markets. However, the link between such corporate venture capital (CVC) investments and innovation outcomes has not been examined in detail. Using panel data from corporate investors in telecommunications equipment manufacturing, we investigated the conditions under which CVC investments affect knowledge creation for corporate investors. We found that, when investor involvement is low, number of CVC investments has an inverted U-shaped relationship with innovation performance. However, when investor involvement is high, the relationship reverses, and an increase in investments boosts innovation. | 881 | 479 | 0.002107 |
warc | 201704 | Nº 3 2014 > Council 2014 All signs point to Busan as Council 2014 wraps up Highlights At the helm
The ITU Council met from 6 to 15 May to finalize preparations for the forthcoming Plenipotentiary Conference, to be held in Busan, Republic of Korea, from 20 October to 7 November 2014.
“We stand on the threshold of a bright and extraordinary future, delivered by the power of information and communication technologies. This is an important moment for ITU", said ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun I. Touré in his State of the Union address.
There were 421 participants from 48 countries representing ITU's total membership of 193 Member States at this year’s session. They were joined by 40 Member State observers, five Sector Member observers and representatives of three regional telecommunication organizations. Also in attendance were ministers from Australia, Cameroon, Jamaica, Mali, the Philippines and Tunisia, as well as vice-ministers from China and Costa Rica.
Opening the session, outgoing Council Chairman Marius Cătălin Marinescu, President of Romania's National Authority for Management and Regulation in Communications, said that
“Each day we lay the foundations for the future, each task we complete opens doors towards new challenges, each problem we solve just brings along other questions to answer. This is what our lives should be about — our struggle to leave the world we live in a better place, at least from the telecommunications point of view, should be our mission”.
Aboubakar Zourmba, Deputy Director-General of Cameroon's Telecommunications Regulatory Agency, was elected as Chairman of the 2014 session of the Council, having served as Vice-Chairman in 2013. Mr Zourmba emphasized the importance of digital inclusion and said that care should be taken to ensure that populations with literacy gaps are not condemned to digital exclusion. In the light of consultations with countries of Region E (Asia and Australasia), Wonki Min from the Republic of Korea was elected Vice-Chairman of the 2014 session of the Council.
Caroline Greenway from Australia was re-appointed Chairman of the Standing Committee on Administration and Management, and Marcin Krasuski from Poland and Vernita Harris from the United States were re-appointed Vice-Chairmen.
Implementing the 2012–2015 Strategic Plan
ITU Deputy Secretary-General, Houlin Zhao, presented the report on the implementation of the 2012–2015 Strategic Plan of the Union. The activities undertaken to date show how ITU has continued to provide a forum for debate and for international agreements on information and communication technologies (ICT). ITU has also continued to establish innovative standards, follow up on spectrum management matters, and work to strengthen capacity and provide technical assistance, all in the interests of Member States.
In approving this report, the Council authorized the Secretary-General, under the supervision of the Council Chairman, to update it in the light of councillors' observations, and add the results of the World Telecommunication Development Conference (WTDC-14), held in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates from 30 March to 10 April 2014, the Global Symposium for Regulators (Manama, Bahrain, 3–5 June 2014), the World Telecommunication and Information Society Day celebrations, and the WSIS+10 High-Level Event (Geneva, 10–13 June 2014). The final version of the report will be submitted to PP-14.
ITU Strategic Plan and Financial Plan for 2016–2019
In discussing the report of the Council Working Group on the Elaboration of the Strategic and Financial Plans for the Union for 2016–2019, presented by its Chairman Mario Canazza from Brazil, councillors stressed the importance of following the results-based management and budgeting methodology, of ensuring coherence between the financial plan and the strategic plan, and of the need for the latter to be made flexible enough to ensure that it did not undermine the balance in the financial plan.
The Council endorsed Resolutions 71 (Strategic Plan), 72 (Linking strategic, financial and operational planning in ITU) and 151 (Implementation of results-based management in ITU), and will submit these resolutions to PP-14. It fixed the provisional amount of the contributory unit at CHF 318 000.
Draft revisions to Decision 5 (Revenue and expenses for the Union for the period 2016–2019) were agreed, subject to final decision by PP-14. Member States are encouraged to identify additional measures for balancing revenue and expenses. Brazil proposed a series of measures for reducing expenditure, and these will be transmitted to PP-14.
The Chairman of the Council Working Group on the Elaboration of the Strategic and Financial Plans, was authorized, under the supervision of the Chairman of the Council, to incorporate the results of any subsequent discussions, for example, in the Radiocommunication Advisory Group (RAG) or in the Telecommunication Standardization Advisory Group (TSAG), into a revised version of the report for submission to PP-14.
China to increase its financial contribution to ITU
During the discussion on the financial plan, the Deputy Minister of China’s Industry and Information Technology, Lihua Liu, announced that, as of 2016, China would raise its financial contribution to the Union's budget from 12 to 14 contributory units, that is from CHF 3.816 million to CHF 4.452 million.
Council Working Group on Financial and Human Resources
Following a report from the Chairman of the Council Working Group on Financial and Human Resources, Bruce Gracie from Canada, the Council instructed the secretariat to provide a comprehensive report to PP-14 on rights, obligations and conditions for participation of Sector Members, Associates and Academia, as appropriate, in meetings of all three Sectors and in the Council and Plenipotentiary Conferences. The Council adopted a new draft resolution concerning the review of the current methodologies and development of a future vision for the participation of Sector Members, Associates and Academia in the activities of ITU. This resolution will be submitted to PP-14.
ITU’s operational plans for 2015–2018
The Council considered and unanimously approved the Union’s four-year rolling operational plans for 2015–2018, as outlined in the examples below.
Radiocommunication Sector (ITU–R)
In ITU–R, the period starting in 2015 will be marked by the transition from analogue to digital terrestrial television broadcasting, especially in countries subject to the GE06 Agreement deadline of 17 June 2015. Work to complete this transition on schedule and to facilitate the implementation of the resulting digital dividend will be a priority, and assistance will be provided in cooperation with ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau (BDT) and the regional organizations. The need to compile information on experiences with the digital transition for the use of all those engaged in the process was stressed.
The World Radiocommunication Conference in 2015 (WRC-15) will decide on the future of radiocommunications in areas ranging from mobile and satellite services and broadcasting to emerging spectrum requirements and regulatory and procedural matters. Implementing WRC-15 decisions and preparing for the following WRC will constitute some of the Sector's key tasks in the coming period. Other tasks for ITU–R include delivering relevant recommendations, reports and handbooks in a timely manner, and continuing to assist the membership in implementing best practices in spectrum usage.
Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU–T)
With the convergence of the telecommunication and information technology sectors, the ITU–T operational plan for 2015–2018 aims to ensure that ITU–T continues to adapt to the changing environment. The first part of ITU–T's strategic goal is to develop interoperable, non-discriminatory, international standards that can be implemented on a worldwide basis. Therefore, any patents in the standards must be made available either free of charge or on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. The second part is to bridge the standardization gap by involving as many ITU Member States as possible in developing standards. The third part is to collaborate with other national and regional standards bodies, forums and consortia.
Telecommunication Development Sector (ITU–D)
The four-year rolling operational plan for ITU–D provides the framework for implementing the Sector’s mission and objectives during 2015–2018. These years will be dominated by the implementation of WTDC-14 outcomes and of resolutions and decisions emanating from PP-14. A number of councillors laid emphasis on the assistance to be given to countries making the digital transition and the steps to be taken for countries unable to meet the deadline of 17 June 2015. Others drew attention to the assistance to be provided to developing countries in the areas of cybersecurity, broadband development and bridging the digital divide.
General Secretariat
The General Secretariat aims for effectiveness and efficiency in the planning, management, coordination and delivery of services to support the Union and its membership. It ensures the implementation of the financial and strategic plans of the Union, and coordinates intersectoral activities. In the years 2015–2018, the General Secretariat will aim, among other things, to implement a resource mobilization policy, foster the implementation of the human resources strategic plan, maintain and continue to improve the conference and publications-related services to the membership, enhance security and assurance of ICT infrastructure and information assets, and foster greater understanding of the role of ITU, promoting its activities and mission to core constituencies.
International cooperation to enhance cybersecurity
Councillors expressed their appreciation for the work of ITU in helping to combat threats such as denial-of-service attacks, identity and data theft, and increasingly destructive and sophisticated malware. This work is aligned with ITU’s Global Cybersecurity Agenda, which is built around legal measures, technical and procedural measures, organizational structures, capacity building and international cooperation.
Illicit use of ICT
Algeria, a prime mover in the adoption of Resolution 174 (Guadalajara, 2010) on ITU’s role with regard to international public policy issues relating to the risk of illicit use of ICT, noted that the resolution was yet to be implemented. Algeria, backed by Saudi Arabia, would therefore put forward a proposal to PP-14 to revise the current text.
Child online protection
The Council Working Group on Child Online Protection emphasized the importance of international cooperation in addressing child online safety. Several councillors encouraged ITU to continue its action in this field.
ITU's activities for youth
Some of ITU's activities on youth fall within the Five-Year Action Agenda launched in 2012 by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to encourage and guide the work of the United Nations system. The agenda advocates the empowerment of young people, as does the System-wide Action Plan for Youth Development (SWAP), which the United Nations launched in 2013. ITU plays an active role in implementing SWAP and in inter-agency activities on youth. Other activities include the Young Innovators Competition, held every year as an integral part of ITU Telecom World events.
Councillors acclaimed the BYND2015 Summit on Youth, held in September 2013 in San Jose, Costa Rica, where young people were able to advocate for the inclusion of information and communication technologies in the United Nations post-2015 global development frameworks. Several countries that had sent young participants commended ITU and Costa Rica for this initiative.
Noting that there is no ITU-wide coordination and reporting mechanism on activities for youth, Costa Rica announced its intention to put forward a resolution to PP-14 to create such a mechanism. Poland offered its support. Bulgaria encouraged the ITU membership to increase the number of youth in their delegations. Saudi Arabia requested that indicators and benchmarks be developed to provide a baseline for the purpose of measuring and reporting.
The ITU secretariat appealed to national administrations to include young people and ensure a gender balance in their delegations to PP-14. It was agreed that an annual report on ITU's activities on youth will be presented to each session of the Council.
ITU's Internet-related activities
The Council noted a report summarizing ITU's activities within the scope of Resolutions 101 on "Internet Protocol-based Networks", 102 on "ITU's role with regard to international public policy issues pertaining to the Internet and the management of Internet resources, including domain names and addresses", 133 on the "Roles of administrations of Member States in the management of Internationalized (multilingual) domain names", and 180 on "Facilitating the transition from IPv4 to IPv6”.
Councillors welcomed the role of various forums in facilitating discussions on Internet-related public policy issues, including ITU's World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum, the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and NETmundial, hosted by the Government of Brazil in Sao Paulo in April 2014.
The Secretary-General congratulated the Government of Brazil for hosting NETmundial — an event he and United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) Under Secretary-General Wu Hongbo had attended as representatives of the United Nations, at the request of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
"I believe that NETmundial is an important milestone in the global dialogue on Internet governance, and I am pleased that this meeting demonstrated the continuing desire for dialogue between all parties," Dr Touré told the Council, adding that he and Mr Wu had delivered a common message from the United Nations system, namely that “as a global public good, the Internet should be open, fully inclusive, free, reliable, robust, secure and trustworthy. It should ensure human rights online, and stakeholders from all nations should have a say in its running and development.˝
Councillors supported the principle of a multistakeholder approach to Internet governance, and several councillors also congratulated Brazil on hosting the successful multistakeholder event NETmundial. Turkey invited everyone to attend the 9th IGF in Istanbul in September 2014.
Council Working Group on International Internet-related public policy issues
Recent activities of the Council Working Group on International Internet-related public policy issues were reported on by the group's Chairman, Majed Almazyed from Saudi Arabia.
The group’s third meeting had examined the results of the consultations held with all the stakeholders concerning the fight against spam, international public policy issues relating to IPv4, and the development of Internet networks. The fourth meeting had examined the replies to the questionnaire which the third meeting had agreed to send out, and which had provided useful information on States' practices in the area of international public policy in regard to the Internet.
Councillors expressed their support for the group's activities, especially as a platform that fosters dialogue and experience sharing among Member States with regard to issues pertaining to international Internet-related public policy. They also welcomed the various online open consultations with stakeholders throughout the working period of the Council Working Group. In this regard, all Member States are invited to participate actively in the deliberations and contribute to the work of the group.
World Telecommunication Development Conference
Convened under the overarching theme of “Broadband for Sustainable Development˝ in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, from 30 March to 10 April 2014, WTDC-14 charted a course to accelerate and expand broadband uptake and digital literacy worldwide, particularly in the least developed countries. The key outcomes of WTDC-14 are the Dubai Declaration, the ITU–D contribution to the draft ITU Strategic Plan, and the Dubai Action Plan.
Councillors congratulated the Director of BDT and his team for the excellent results obtained at WTDC-14, and thanked the host country, the United Arab Emirates. They also expressed full support for the Dubai Declaration and Action Plan, which opened up new horizons. Several councillors highlighted the importance of Objective 5 “
Enhance environmental protection, climate change mitigation and adaptation, and disaster management efforts through telecommunication/ICT,” emphasizing that the measures needed to tackle climate change were at the heart of many countries' concerns.
The Secretary of Science and Technology of the Philippines, Mario G. Montejo, said that he had come to the Council to first and foremost deliver a message of gratitude for the assistance extended to his country by ITU in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan. “ITU's response of immediately sending its experts with satellite phones and data terminals played critical roles at hospitals and evacuation and relief operation centres. ITU's assistance saved lives,” he said, explaining that cell towers rated for 180 kilometres per hour winds had been no match for Typhoon Haiyan's greater than 300 kilometres per hour winds, and that the typhoon even affected an undersea cable, with the result that all communications were lost.
“We are currently updating our policies on emergency communications, and are now in the process of putting in place resilient communications systems with valuable input from the ITU's real-world example.” he said.
The Director of BDT, referring to his efforts to link action in emergency situations to sustainable development, drew attention to the difficulties in shipping equipment following the occurrence of a disaster, and to the need for rapid delivery of useful equipment to the most vulnerable populations and to isolated areas.
Councillors underlined that WTDC-14 had set the tone for the year and hoped to see the positive atmosphere and constructive spirit experienced in Dubai continue at PP-14. The Council agreed that the ITU–D strategic component, developed at WTDC-14, should be incorporated into the overall draft strategic plan of the Union for 2016–2019 to be submitted to PP-14 for approval.
Climate change and protection of the environment
A report was presented to the Council on ITU's activities on climate change and the protection of the environment, ITU's contribution to the United Nations environmental agenda (with a particular focus on the ongoing negotiations within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change), and progress achieved by ITU itself in approaching climate neutrality.
Cameroon called for further action to reinforce Resolution 79 of the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly 2012 (WTSA-12) on “The role of telecommunications/information and communication technology in handling and controlling e-waste from telecommunication and information technology equipment and methods of treating it˝, observing that the transition from analogue to digital television will result in a significant increase in the quantity of e-waste. Cameroon — supported by Rwanda, Egypt, Mali, Italy and France — proposed that the Council ensure the effective implementation of the measures taken for the treatment of e-waste and protection of the environment.
The Council invited the ITU membership to contribute to the work of the Union as well as to the broader United Nations process on climate change, as envisaged in Resolution 182 (Guadalajara, 2010) on “The role of telecommunications/information and communication technologies on climate change and the protection of the environment˝.
ITU’s conformance and interoperability programme
ITU's conformance and interoperability (C&I) programme is based on four pillars: 1) Conformity assessment; 2) Interoperability events; 3) Capacity building; and 4) Establishment of test centres and C&I regimes in developing countries. Pillars 1 and 2 are led by the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB) and pillars 3 and 4 by BDT.
Cameroon’s request to BDT for assistance in implementing the subregional telecommunication maintenance centre was supported. Councillors also emphasized the importance of test centres and virtual laboratories, and considered that ITU should formalize procedures, recommendations and guidelines for certifying such establishments vis-à-vis ITU–T standards. They welcomed the recognition by WTDC‑14 of the importance of conformance and interoperability, in devoting a new Question to the issue in its programme of studies, and stating in the Dubai Declaration that “widespread conformance and interoperability of telecommunication/ICT equipment and systems through the implementation of relevant programmes, policies and decisions can increase market opportunities and reliability and encourage global integration and trade˝. The United States said it would provide a rapporteur for this new study question on “Assistance to developing countries for implementing conformance and interoperability programmes˝, assigned to ITU–D Study Group 2.
Tunisia recalled that it had hosted several C&I workshops and seminars. The Russian Federation stated that the C&I programme was one of the most important activities in ITU, while China offered to make its C&I expertise available to developing countries. Several councillors from developing countries urged ITU to accelerate the programme to eliminate the risk of non-compliant or counterfeit equipment and devices.
The Council decided that a report from the ITU secretariat on the progress made over the past four years in implementing the C&I programme should be submitted to PP-14.
International numbering resources
The Council considered a document on International Numbering Resources (INR) and agreed with the view of TSB Director Malcolm Johnson that the assignment criteria for INR ranges that ITU assigns directly should be aligned more closely with criteria that national administrations have introduced to allow number ranges to be used more flexibly.
The Council instructed the Director of TSB to invite ITU–T Study Group 2 to set up an expert group to review the assignment criteria for INR ranges that ITU assigns. Further, the Council requested the Director of TSB to forward a report to the final session of the Council on 18 October 2014 on the advantages and disadvantages of using revenue generated from international numbering resources for the purpose of balancing revenue and expenses.
ITU's potential role as supervisory authority of the future international registration system for space assets under the draft Space Protocol
The Council considered a report on follow-up to the discussions that took place at its 2012 and 2013 sessions on the possible role of ITU as supervisory authority of the international registration system for space assets under the Space Protocol.
The second session of the preparatory commission for the establishment of the International Registry for Space Assets, held in Rome on 27 and 28 January 2014, considered that 90 per cent of the draft Space Regulations were already approved in principle. The entire Regulations will be presented for final approval at the September session of the commission, which will also consider selecting the space assets registrar. The commission is working on the assumption that ITU will eventually accept the role of supervisory authority.
Pending the entry into force of the Space Protocol, the preparatory commission will act as the provisional supervisory authority. If the governing bodies of ITU decide that ITU should not become the supervisory authority, the commission will appoint another international organization or entity for that role.
Annexed to the report was a note from the secretariat of the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) clarifying the role of the supervisory authority of the international registration system for space assets.
Japan said that before deciding whether or not ITU should become the supervisory authority it was necessary to clarify such matters as how ITU’s mandate and activities correlated with the role of supervisory authority, and what the consequences would be if ITU decided to refuse that role.
The United States considered that ITU is at present the appropriate organization to serve as the supervisory authority, and called for an assessment of the feasibility of ITU performing that role, having regard to the financial, juridical and technical implications. The United States and others proposed that if PP-14 did not have sufficient information to decide on the matter, then it should authorize the Council to do so. Other councillors considered that the decision had to be taken by the plenipotentiary conference.
China was in favour of ITU agreeing to become the supervisory authority, provided that the financial, juridical and technical implications of that function were considered. One possibility would be for ITU to take on the role on a trial basis after the entry into force of the Protocol.
Councillors noted with satisfaction that the secretariat’s report clarified numerous points raised during previous sessions of the Council. They also welcomed the fact that the preparatory commission was proceeding on the assumption that ITU would be the supervisory authority of the international registration system for space assets.
The Council recommended that a full report clarifying all the legal, financial and technical questions raised by councillors should be submitted to PP-14 for action, as appropriate.
Meanwhile, the Council authorized the Secretary-General to continue to express ITU’s interest in becoming the supervisory authority, without prejudging whether or not ITU should take on that role. Further, it authorized the Secretary-General or his representative to continue to participate as an observer in the work of the preparatory commission.
Preparations for RA-15 and WRC-15
Preparations for the Radiocommunication Assembly 2015 (RA‑15) and the World Radiocommunication Conference 2015 (WRC-15) are well under way. The following dates and venues for these events have been confirmed: RA-15 will be held in Geneva from 26 to 30 October 2015, followed by WRC-15, also to be held in Geneva from 2 to 27 November 2015.
The Radiocommunicatiion Bureau (BR) was commended for holding regional preparatory meetings. The Director of BR, François Rancy, confirmed that BR would continue to support regional preparatory meetings. He informed the Council that an International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) meeting had discussed the recent Malaysia Airlines aircraft loss and that ICAO intended to ensure that the matter was brought up at WRC-15, which might well be requested to allocate frequency for the monitoring of flight data. The matter would probably be raised at PP-14, with a view to adding an item to the agenda of WRC-15.
ITU Telecom World
The Council took note of the outcomes of ITU Telecom World 2013 and preparations for ITU Telecom World 2014, which will take place in Doha (Qatar) from 7 to 11 December 2014.
The model for Telecom events — comprising a forum, an exhibition/showcase area, and interaction, dialogue and networking spaces and activities — was perfected at ITU Telecom World 2013. A post-event survey of participants demonstrates the success of ITU Telecom World 2013, a result reinforced by the surplus of almost CHF 2 million generated by the event, net of ITU Telecom secretariat operating costs, event costs and salary costs reimbursed to the secretariat.
China noted the immense progress made between 2011 and 2013 in ITU Telecom events in terms of scale, influence, participation and financial outcome, stressing the importance of considering new approaches to organizing the event to better respond to the different needs of participants. China called on all Member States to endeavour to increase ITU’s visibility and influence, learning from the lessons of Telecom between 2011 and 2013, and invited the Secretary-General to consider the appropriate future direction of ITU Telecom events and report to PP-14. Councillors endorsed China’s proposal, which should lead to revision of Resolution 11 (Rev. Guadalajara, 2010) on “ITU Telecom events” at PP-14.
Speakers welcomed the trend of growing revenue from ITU Telecom World events and the surplus of almost CHF 2 million resulting from the 2013 event, recognizing that such surpluses were in principle earmarked for assistance to least developed countries.
Remote participation
ITU efforts to promote remote participation and electronic working methods were highly acclaimed, following a report on work undertaken since the previous Council session in June 2013. A pilot project, now in its fourth phase, was one response to Plenipotentiary Resolution 167 (Guadalajara, 2010) on “Strengthening ITU capabilities for electronic meetings and means to advance the work of the Union˝.
Councillors welcomed the report, noting the benefits of remote participation in particular for developing countries. Several councillors highlighted challenges, including the importance of ensuring that the status and rights of a remote participant were equal to those of an onsite participant, the need to revise existing rules of procedure devised on the basis of physical rather than virtual participation, the need to ensure that the six official languages were used on an equal footing, the potential adverse effects of different time zones on participation, and the lack of opportunities to resolve difficulties during coffee breaks.
Responding to comments, the secretariat explained that the current regulatory and procedural framework, developed for onsite participants, does not cater for the full exercise of all the rights deriving from the status of delegate in a remote participation scenario. There are procedural and technical difficulties, for example in calculating the quorum, voting by a show of hands or secret ballot, in the impact of a lost connection during a vote, and in the exercise of all prerogatives by a remote chairman. The General Rules of Conferences, assemblies and meetings of the Union, the Rules of Procedure of the Council and resolutions of World Radiocommunication Conferences, World Telecommunication Standardization Assemblies and World Telecommunication Development Conferences would require revision if remote participation was to be applied to all ITU meetings and conferences.
The Council requested the secretariat to prepare a detailed report to PP-14 on the legal, technical and financial challenges of remote participation, as a basis for discussion of the direction to be taken and the procedural changes that would be required for remote participation to be institutionalized. The report should also address the equal use of languages, and access for participants with disabilities and specific needs.
ICT access for persons with disabilities
Promoting accessibility to ICT for persons with disabilities (Resolution 175, Guadalajara, 2010) has been at the heart of ITU’s activities in the past year. The Council noted with appreciation a voluntary contribution of USD 15 000 made by Rwanda Utilities Regulatory Authority to the ITU Accessibility Fund for the Digital Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities.
Indonesia, supported by Cameroon, China, India, Kenya, Romania and Turkey, proposed that adequate resources should be devoted to providing assistance to ITU Member States, particularly developing countries, in establishing the necessary mechanisms to fast-track the implementation of Resolution 175. The Council decided that it will put this proposal before PP-14 and also noted that its Working Group on the Strategic Plan and the Financial Plan had agreed to incorporate a new intersectoral objective on ICT accessibility in the draft Strategic Plan for the Union for 2016–2019. If PP-14 approves that objective, then resources will have to be allocated to this area of activity.
Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates suggested that the phrase “persons with disabilities” be changed to “persons with disabilities and specific needs" in line with the agreement reached by WTDC-14 regarding ITU–D documents.
Working definition of the term ˝ICT˝
A Correspondence Group on the Elaboration of a Working Definition of the Term “ICT”, set up in September 2012 by ITU–D Study Group 1 at the request of the Telecommunication Development Advisory Group (TDAG), agreed on the following working definition of ICT: “Technologies and equipment that handle (e.g., access, create, collect, store, transmit, receive, disseminate) information and communication”.
TDAG in 2013 received liaison statements from the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), ITU–T Study Group 12 and the Chairman of ITU–T Study Group 2 voicing concerns about the proposed working definition. TDAG concluded that any further comments should be submitted directly to the Council.
So when this working definition was presented to Council 2014, the United States and others proposed that if the Council decided to transmit that definition to PP-14 (a step that it was not obliged to take), it should do so by sending the final report of the chairman of the correspondence group. That report included the definitions and all relevant guidelines and parameters under which the working definition was to be understood.
The United Arab Emirates and others considered the definition to be a work in progress, and stated that a definition not agreed by all Sectors should not be forwarded to PP-14 by the Council.
Among other views expressed, one councillor said that it would be preferable to define ICT in fundamental terms, observing that the proposed definition was somewhat tautological, since it used the words “technologies”, “information” and “communication” to define ICT. Another councillor recalled that ITU had been trying to define ICT since PP-06. Noting that many ITU member organizations had “ICT” in their titles, he proposed asking them (by letter) what they meant by the term. A report giving all the different responses should then be submitted to PP-14.
After a long debate, the Council agreed to transmit the definition drawn up by the correspondence group, together with the group's report, to PP-14.
Free online access to ITU publications
Over a 17-month period to the end of April 2014, there were more than 14 000 free downloads of the 2012 edition of the Radio Regulations yet sales of that edition are more than 9 per cent higher than sales of the previous edition.
Cameroon proposed that free online access should be extended to other documents of the Union. The Russian Federation proposed that the Rules of Procedure approved by the Radio Regulations Board, the Radio Regulations, and ITU publications concerning the use of telecommunications and information and communication technologies in emergency situations should be made available to the general public free of charge on a permanent basis.
These proposals were supported but some councillors wanted any final decision on document access policy to be deferred pending consideration of all relevant information, including the report of the Council Working Group on Financial and Human Resources.
The Council revised its Decision 571 to provide the general public with free online access to the following publications on a permanent basis: International Telecommunication Regulations; Radio Regulations; Rules of Procedure; Council Resolutions and Decisions; ITU–R Handbooks on radio-frequency spectrum management (these include the ITU–R Handbooks on National Spectrum Management, Computer Aided Techniques for Spectrum Management, and Spectrum Monitoring); and ITU publications concerning the use of telecommunications and information and communication technologies for ensuring disaster preparedness, early warning, rescue, mitigation, relief and response. The Secretary-General will report to PP-14 and Council 2015 on the impact of this decision on revenues.
Access to the reports of the Internal Auditor, the External Auditor and Independent Management Advisory Committee
The Council debated at length the subject of public disclosure of reports of the Internal Auditor, the External Auditor and the Independent Management Advisory Committee (IMAC).
While a number of councillors supported the public disclosure of these documents to enhance the transparency of ITU decisions, improve decision-making and help ensure accountability, some emphasized that caution must be applied in public disclosure of such information and that the documents must be carefully verified to avoid incorrect conclusions being drawn.
The United States proposed that the reports of the Internal Auditor and IMAC be made publicly accessible, highlighting the importance of transparency of financial management practices to build confidence among all stakeholders and to ensure continued support of the organization and its mandates.
Some councillors supported the United States proposal, others expressed reservations, and a number wanted to defer the discussion to allow ample time to study the matter.
In the end, the Council approved the publication on a temporary and exceptional basis of the report of the IMAC for 2013, the report of the external audit for 2013, and a summary of the internal audit report for 2013. Such temporary arrangements should in no way create any precedent, leaving it to PP-14 to decide on the general policy of accessing ITU information and documents.
Use of the six ITU official languages on an equal footing
Resolution 154 (Rev. Guadalajara, 2010) on use of the six ITU official languages on an equal footing mandates the Council Working Group on Languages (CWG-LANG) to monitor progress and report to the Council on the implementation of this resolution. A report from the Chairman of CWG-LANG, Imad Hoballah from Lebanon, acknowledges that the secretariat has implemented equal treatment of languages in terms of structure, processes, working methods, tools and resource allocation. However, the report notes two major items — Arabic terminology and use of languages on the ITU website — as requiring particular attention and improvement.
Cameroon proposed that the website be translated into the six languages, in application of Resolution 154. A number of countries, including Saudi Arabia, India, Mali, the Russian Federation, Spain and Switzerland, supported Cameroon’s proposal. The Russian Federation emphasized that timely and simultaneous delivery of documentation is an important factor for equality of treatment and said it would submit proposed revisions to Resolution 154 to PP-14.
Saudi Arabia, backed by Kuwait and others, stressed the need to complete the Arabic terminology project and expressed the hope that the report to PP-14 would provide assurances that the use of the six official languages on an equal footing had finally become a reality. Others sought to know the financial implications of the recommendations set out in the report of CWG-LANG.
The secretariat explained that ITU clearly did not have sufficient financial resources to translate the entire website, given its volume and the cost of translation. All possibilities to make savings were being explored, and the secretariat would continue to do its best within the limited resources available.
The Council endorsed the report's recommendations, and adopted a set of updated measures and principles for interpretation and translation. Member States may wish to use a draft revision of Resolution 154 (contained in Document C14/INF/10) in preparing for PP-14.
Preparations for PP-14
Several presentations were made on the preparations for the Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-14) in Busan. First was a status report from the ITU secretariat, which also outlined a proposed structure of the conference as follows: four standing committees (steering, budget control, credentials, and editorial) and two substantive committees — on policy and legal matters (Committee 5) and administration and management (Committee 6) — as well as a plenary working group.
The Republic of Korea highlighted some of Busan’s attractions and provided information on the conference venue and facilities. The United States put forward a proposal and draft decision on providing webcasting and captioning during PP-14. The United Arab Emirates presented a document containing proposals to amend provisions 229 and 231 of Article 55 of the Constitution in order to accomplish a stable ITU Constitution.
All speakers thanked the authorities of the Republic of Korea for the preparations for the conference. Clarification was sought on the financial implications of the United States’ proposal. Both the secretariat and the authorities of the Republic of Korea were urged to facilitate the granting of visas, particularly for citizens of those countries without consular representation of the Republic of Korea on their territory.
Responding to questions, the secretariat said that while webcasting could be made available for all the main conference rooms, captioning in all meeting rooms had not been foreseen when the Host Country Agreement had been signed and would cost approximately USD 49 000. Should the Council wish to proceed with the United States’ proposal, Member States would be invited to make voluntary contributions to offset the cost of captioning.
The secretariat further said that ITU and the Republic of Korea were working to anticipate and resolve difficulties associated with the granting of visas. The Host Country Agreement allows, on an exceptional basis, for visas to be issued free of charge on arrival. For countries in which the Republic of Korea has no diplomatic representation, the possibility is being studied of issuing visas through a third State in which the Republic of Korea has diplomatic representation.
Regarding the proposal by the United Arab Emirates on the entry into force of constitutional amendments, the secretariat anticipated that the report of the Council Working Group on a Stable ITU Constitution would be considered by Committee 5 of PP-14.
The Council noted the secretariat's report and the proposed structure of PP-14. It was agreed that captioning will be provided as far as possible within the budgetary restrictions for PP-14. The Council also noted the proposal by the United Arab Emirates to facilitate and accelerate procedures for the entry into force of amendments to the ITU Constitution. The United Arab Emirates will submit its proposal to PP-14.
Project to replace the ITU Varembé building and study on relocation of ITU headquarters
The Council instructed the Secretary-General to submit a report to PP-14 for a decision on whether or not to replace or renovate the Varembé building, to rent premises locally or to relocate the headquarters of the Union. Councillors agreed that the report should cover all the current ITU buildings and should include a time-frame for action and a cost-benefit financial analysis for every option.
In brief World Telecommunication and Information Society Day
The Council took note of the report on World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2014 and approved “Telecommunications and ICTs: Drivers of Innovation” as the theme for 2015.
ITU’s 150th anniversary celebration
The Council approved a report from the Chairman of the Committee for the preparation of the 150th anniversary celebrations in 2015, Nasser A. Bin Hammad from the United Arab Emirates. Essentially, the 150th anniversary celebrations should focus on ITU achievements in innovation and its impact on daily life throughout history and in the future. The Council also approved “Telecommunications and ICTs: Drivers of Innovation” as the overarching theme for the 150th anniversary of the Union, aligning it to that of World Telecommunication and Information Society Day 2015. Finally, the Council approved a draft resolution proposed by the committee to hold the anniversary celebrations throughout the entire year in 2015.
Council Working Group on the World Summit on the Information Society
The Chairman of the Council Working Group on the World Summit on the Information Society, Professor Vladimir Minkin, reported on the group's two recent meetings, which focused on ITU's role in the Overall Review of the WSIS Implementation. The Council considered the report and commended the multistakeholder approach being used for the WSIS+10 Multistakeholder Preparatory Platform (MPP) for its inclusiveness, effectiveness and cost efficiency.
Connect the World initiative
Councillors welcomed a report on the series of regional summits held as part of the Connect the World initiative, along with updates on progress in implementing the outcomes.
Cameroon presented a document describing the achievements in his country following the Connect Africa Summit, and proposing that ITU monitor project performance and check that the commitments of financial and other international institutions were being fulfilled.
Many councillors expressed appreciation for ITU’s Connect the World initiative and supported Cameroon’s proposal. Some emphasized the importance of public-private partnerships. Others advised ITU to report on progress under the Connect the World initiative (including projects) to Council 2015.
Information and Communication Technologies Development Fund
The Council approved the withdrawal of USD 2 million from the Exhibition Working Capital Fund to be transferred to the ICT Development Fund (ICT-DF) Capital Account. This approval follows a recommendation from the Secretary-General to transfer this amount, taking into account the high demands from the membership for support to various projects at national, regional and global levels.
Future reports on ICT-DF will provide more details about projects supported by the fund, including the Regional Initiatives approved by WTDC-14.
Strengthening ITU's regional presence
The Council saluted progress made over the past four years by ITU in implementing Resolution 25 (Rev. Guadalajara, 2010) on strengthening its regional presence. In particular, councillors appreciated the new approach promoted by the Director of BDT, whereby the regional initiatives are considered the main deliverables of BDT at country level. They also welcomed the new focus of regional development forums, now being used as tools to inform the membership about the activities carried out at regional level and to get feedback on the approach to be followed according to each region's needs and priorities. Several councillors supported a contribution from Cameroon calling for further reinforcement of the regional presence.
BDT will continue to enter into partnerships with entities, in particular the private sector, governments and nongovernmental organizations, in order to implement activities, including projects identified by the Connect summits.
Mainstreaming gender in ITU
During 2013–2014, much has been achieved in ”Gender mainstreaming in ITU and promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women through information and communication technologies˝ (Resolution 70, Rev. Guadalajara, 2010). The Council welcomed the progress made in implementing the ITU Gender Equality and Mainstreaming Policy (GEM) that it approved last year. Among the steps taken to implement the new policy is the creation of a Gender Task Force, which is preparing an ITU-wide action plan.
Some councillors hoped to see more being done within ITU and its membership. Switzerland encouraged the ITU management to introduce more flexible working arrangements, and requested that more detailed statistics be included in the annual report, such as the number of applicants by grade and gender who are pre-selected, shortlisted and then selected for posts.
Australian Minister emphasizes the need for innovation
Australian Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull recalled that Australia has been a Council Member State for 55 years, saying ”It is a position that we greatly value. We value the ITU's work in radiocommunications, its work in telecommunications development and in reducing the digital divide, and the opportunity Australia has had to work together with the ITU Regional Office in Bangkok on furthering these issues.˝
Mr Turnbull noted that the Dubai Declaration recently adopted at WTDC-14 describes telecommunications and ICT infrastructure, services and applications as powerful tools for economic growth and innovation
. ”This is true of course, and yet infrastructure, services and applications will not foster innovation and — from that — economic growth if innovation is hampered in other ways. Governments cannot legislate innovation, but what we can and should do is make it much easier for businesses in our countries to innovate,˝ he said. Malian Minister commends ITU officials for their great achievements
Mali's Minister for the Digital Economy, Information and Communication, Mahamadou Camara, said that Council Chairman Aboubakar Zourmba, who represented not only Cameroon but also Africa as a whole, could count on Mali's full support. He congratulated the Secretary-General and all the elected officials and their colleagues on the excellent work they had accomplished.
Qatar invites Council Member States to ITU Telecom World 2014 in Doha
Ambassador Faisal bin Abdullah Al-Henzab, Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, said that his country, which had successfully organized numerous regional and world events, was looking forward to hosting Telecom World 2014 from 7 to 10 December. He invited all councillors to participate actively in that highly influential event for the global ICT community and to take advantage of the many opportunities offered by Qatar for cultural and recreational activities.
Tunisia committed to maintaining its close relations with ITU
Tunisia’s Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Information and Communication Technologies, Tawfik Jelassi, was pleased to announce that, following the adoption of a new constitution and installation of a government of technocrats, Tunisia was now a stable State. Tunisia was committed to maintaining its close relations with ITU and was ready to host meetings and conferences of the Union.
Jamaica’s competitive environment
Jamaica’s Minister of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining, Phillip Paulwell, said that Jamaica had led the Caribbean region in deregulating telecommunications, and that the competitive environment had resulted in a 100 per cent increase in teledensity. Speaking as President of the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, he saluted the Secretary-General for his tremendous work in enabling people to become part of the knowledge-based world. ITU had supported CARICOM in areas such as Internet governance and spectrum management, and through a range of projects, in particular to eliminate roaming charges and to provide access to persons with disabilities.
155th anniversary of Russian radiocommunication pioneer Alexander Popov commemorated in ITU headquarters meeting room bearing his name
ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun I. Touré launched celebrations on 7 May 2014 to commemorate the 155th anniversary of Russian radiocommunications pioneer Alexander Popov and ''Radio Day'' in the Russian Federation.
”Radio Day˝ is celebrated in the Russian Federation on 7 May each year to mark the day in 1895 when the Russian scientist gave what is widely regarded as the first demonstration of communication over radio waves. Addressing the Council to mark the occasion, Alexey Borodavkin, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations Office and other International Organizations in Geneva, gave a brief outline of the career of Alexander Popov and his impact on the development of radiocommunications. Tributes to the Russian scientist were also expressed by Ms Lyudmila N. Bakayutova, Director of the A.S. Popov Central Museum of Communications in St Petersburg, and Rashid Ismailov, Director of the Department of International Cooperation at the Ministry of Communication and Mass Media of the Russian Federation.
Silver medal for Council Chairman
ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun I. Touré presented Council Chairman Aboubakar Zourmba with the ITU Silver Medal for brilliantly chairing the session and for outstanding service to the Union.
Next Council meetings
The final meeting of this year's session of the Council will be held on 18 October in Busan, Republic of Korea. The Council agreed to the following dates and duration for its session next year: Tuesday 12 May to Friday 22 May 2015. | 53,789 | 19,126 | 0.000053 |
warc | 201704 | The core values parents instill in their children depend in great part on their culture. I grew up in a context in which independence, usually accompanied by individualism, was instilled in me. The value of independence was ever before me. The urban planning models for most places where I lived consisted of single-family homes, with yards separating the buildings. The farther you travel from the city in your individual form of transportation, the greater the distance between the houses seems to be. The unexpressed cultural value is separation and/or independence. Obviously this is a general observation of an historical reality, and there are always exceptions to the rule. But few native US citizens would deny that the concept of rugged individualism and independence have been woven into the fabric of our society. One outside observer notes, “The most widely studied set of American parental beliefs concerns independence…and in recent years many researchers have come to believe that independence is a culturally specific goal of childrearing (Kim 2006:146).”
What is independence? Obviously the word independence shares something in common with the word dependence. However, the prefix “in” causes the meaning of the two words to be polar opposites. One dictionary defines independence (independent) as not being influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion, conduct, thinking, acting for oneself, not subject to another’s authority or jurisdiction, not relying on another or others for aid or support; refusing to be under obligation to others (Woolf 2002).
Many times the concept of dependence is associated with small children, elderly people, and mentally or physically handicapped persons. Dependence demonstrated in the lives or attitudes of any others is normally viewed negatively, if not with hostility. A codependent generally refers to one side of a relationship between mutually needy people. The dependent, or obviously needy party may have emotional, physical, financial difficulties, or addictions they seemingly are unable to surmount. This is a form of unhealthy dependence. One could assume that the opposite of unhealthy dependence is independence. From the perspective of my socialization process I might be inclined to agree, but as a citizen of the Kingdom of God, I have strong reasons to reject that assumption.
Interdependence is being mutually dependent, or simply being dependent on each other (Woolf 2002). Two people in a healthy relationship are said to be interdependent. In contrast to existing alone, it is a voluntary recognition that “no man is an island,” and that we must co-inhabit the space in which we live. The most important point to understand is ”this debate positions both independence and interdependence as alternative endpoints of maturity… Independence and interdependence are polar opposites—either the two ends of a continuum, or else mutually exclusive categories” (Kim 2006:146).
We can look to God as the supreme example. God is one essence who exists eternally in three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. From the earliest pages of Scripture, God refers to Himself in the first person plural: “Let
us make man in our image, in our likeness.” (Italics for emphasis) It is not difficult to build a case for the Trinity being the eternal example of perfect interdependence. The Trinity demonstrates perfect mutual dependence. Instead of self-reliance, the Trinity points to inter-reliance.
Another lesson of God’s revelation is that He Himself did not make His creation to exist independently or separately from Himself, nor does He desire to exist independently from His creation. In fact, the basic problem of human history is precisely that humans have attempted to exist independently of God. The central story of the Scriptures is God’s quest to enter into a mutual relationship with all men and women, one in which they are very much dependent on Him. The first rebellion against God by Lucifer or Satan was a selfish intent to be independent of God (Isaiah 14:12-15). Fallen human beings have followed this sinful pattern, and the eternal division is the tragic part of the story of the Scriptures, both in time and in eternity (Romans 3:23). All humans in all times and in all places must learn their basic need for dependence upon God.
Since the beginning of time, God believed it was not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18-24). God made humans social beings, to be in relationship with other human beings. Once again, total independence or social separation is an aberration of God’s plan. The second part of the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:39), which summarizes all the law of God, is for all of us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. That command clearly mandates mutual dependence, or interdependent relationships. In answer to Cain’s question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Jesus replies, “Yes, you are your brother’s keeper.” Fulfilling all the law of God means we willingly enter into relationship with God and with our fellow human beings. All humans need the love and care that result from loving relationships. We must voluntarily enter into loving, interdependent relationships.
God also views independence as completely unacceptable in the relationship between His children in the Church. No believer must adopt an attitude of independence from other believers. To do so violates multiple divine mandates, such as the Apostle Paul’s teaching that no member of the Body of Christ can act as if other members of the Body are insignificant or unnecessary (1 Corinthians 12). Rather, within the Body of Christ, God’s plan is for all believers to view themselves as interdependent.
Therefore, there are obvious ways in which, from God’s perspective, complete and absolute independence is not only undesirable; it is morally wrong or sinful. We are to be dependent upon God and interdependent within the Body of Christ.
Two factors tend to interfere with healthy interdependence: a self-centered approach to life and human sociocultural norms to the contrary. The first factor is simply egotism, and must be dealt with as such. It is morally wrong, and totally outside the will of God for His children. The second factor is more complex, and one that deserves much thought and attention. Personal sin in the lives of other people is much easier to see than systemic evil within human systems, cultural contexts, or societies. This is especially true if misconceptions exist within the cultural context of our birth, the one in which we spent our formative years, passing through a process of socialization at the hands of everyone we have ever known or who has been dear to us. Sometimes outsiders are best suited to point out shortcomings. Like all criticism, we must learn to divide the wheat from the chaff. All criticism is not destructive, and in this case is very edifying for Christians. One Swedish scholar, obviously from an etic viewpoint of the sociocultural context of the United States, made the following observation: “Abstract individualism is the foundation of democratic theory and practice in the United States” (Svensson 2006:421).
Others have pointed to the tendency in the United States to overemphasize individualism and independence, many times to our own demise. For example, “because Westerners value independence, most research on aging in Western societies has focused on how to help the individual maintain his or her functional independence throughout the life-span, and it is common to find elderly persons who live alone… but not so in non-Western societies” (Eyetsemitan, 2002). S. M. Lipset’s analysis of North American history and society is that “collective considerations and obligations, such as maintaining a stable marriage or family life, obeying society’s laws, or participating in the political system, are less important to Americans than their individual freedom to do as they wish” (1996: 13, 26, 46). When independence and individualism are taken to an extreme, family and community values tend to take second place.
A good friend and colleague from Australia, Dr. David Cummings, spent over twenty-nine years working alongside people from the United States in his role as international director of Wycliffe Bible Translators. While living in the US, he worked hard to understand its culture in order to deal with issues flowing from the cultural perspectives of North American mission candidates. While he complimented what he saw as a generous spirit, in general, one of the intrinsic values that he observed that worked against missionaries from the United States was their strong emphasis on independence. In a 1987 Evangelical Missions Quarterly article Dr. Cummings wrote:
The Word of God does not teach independence. It teaches self-control. It teaches commitment -commitment to God, and to one another. One cannot be committed to another person, or to a group, and maintain his independence. (Cummings 1987)
It can be very difficult and painful to examine and critique our own cultural values. However, as Christians, we must do precisely that. Dr. Cummings noted that when asked what they most desire in life, many citizens of the United States often included independence as something they longed to attain. Christians in this context were seldom different in this life goal and desire. However, Dr. Cummings rightly declares this value flows more from cultural norms and human systems than from Scripture. Furthermore, an overemphasis of this value can most certainly lead to a harmful view of life, relationships, and ministry.
Many believers find it difficult to accept help from other believers. When in need, any sense of recuperation is normally measured by the amount of time in which the person in need is able to achieve independence from help. What God very well may want to teach us in these situations is precisely how much we all always need one another, and how we need to learn to depend on each other. In what could be a circumstance permitted by God to help diminish pride and enhance humility, often just the opposite takes place. This could be due to a strong cultural value of individualism and independence, reinforcing a very strong internal desire on the part of individual believers to refuse to show weakness by soliciting or accepting help from others. In turn, this hampers the ability of the believer to freely offer help to others in need. In some cultural contexts, it will be counter cultural to follow the Apostle Paul’s admonition to glory in our weakness and dependence on God (2 Corinthians 12:9), as opposed to being strong and independent individuals.
Sadly, Christian leaders who have been taught to value individualism and independence may view and judge other believers’ maturity based on their ability to be independent of others. They tend to desire and to seek out believers who, at least from all outward appearances, have no needs, and value those who somehow take care of all their own needs. If we were to debate this issue in a group of pastors or missionaries, a very practical point might arise. That is, you have to have people with means in order to help those in need. Plus, from a caregiver’s perspective, it is a breath of fresh air to have parishioners who give rather than take. But once again, is that a value that flows more from Scripture or more from human cultural values? I contend that it flows more from human cultural values than it does from Scripture. The Scriptures remind us of our need to carry each other’s burdens, and by this fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6).
Interdependence does not mean individuals can be lazy, nor can they expect others to do for them what they are capable of doing for themselves. God instructs His children to work in order to provide for their own needs as well as to have something to share with others (2 Thessalonians 3:10; Ephesians 4:28; 1 Timothy 3:4). Also, as we work and God blesses us, we are to be responsible and faithful stewards of what God entrusts to us. Jesus powerfully demonstrated to His disciples that people and changed lives are more important than earthly possessions, and therefore should be the central focus for Christian leaders (Luke 18:18-30).
Church planters also work to help new believers, new leaders, and local congregations as they mature. Our core values impact not only what we teach, but also what the people around us catch from our attitudes and lifestyle. It is very easy to simply accept and to allow our cultural ideas concerning the development from complete dependence to less dependence to dominate our thinking in missions. Nonetheless, we have a greater and higher need to think about reality from another perspective. That is, we must rise above our cultural understanding of reality and attempt to view it from God’s perspective, based on our understanding the Scriptures.
In the development of the field of missiology, many different ideas, values, and experiences have given rise to principles and practices that guide cross-cultural workers. Works such as those of Charles R. Taber (1991) reveal that the development of some Protestant mission principles have origins other than the Scriptures. It behooves us to carefully examine each principle and practice from a Kingdom perspective.
One such principle has often been called the three selves: self-government, self-support, and self-propagation. Taber noted that this idea in Protestant mission work first appeared in the early nineteenth century, attributing it to Henry Venn and Rufus Anderson (Taber 1991:61). We need to understand that they also believed in the superiority of Western civilization, assumed cultural and racial superiority, and a de facto cultural establishment of Christianity. Without going into great detail, there is good reason to ask ourselves if the idea of self-governance, self-propagation, and self-support are biblical concepts, or are they concepts and values that flow from human cultural values? Gary Corwin wrote that on occasions the implementation of these principles “appear contrary to the biblical teaching on interdependence in the Body.” (EMQ, Corwin 2005)
The essence of the three selves principle has been to set as a goal the complete autonomy of believers, local churches, and Christian organizations. We must differentiate between autonomy and interdependence. While helping the new believer, the new church, or the organization mature, the goal is to bring them to the point in which they will be able to function on their own, and to enter into interdependent relationships with others in which they give and receive. As in the life of a small child, an unhealthy dependence on parent organizations is undesirable and counterproductive. But, going to the extreme of complete and absolute independence should not be the goal in mission work. We must understand that in the Kingdom context the idea of give and take involves much more than money. How many times have workers and parent organizations lamented the fact that believers, local churches, and groups of churches have completely separated themselves from the one who brought them to faith?
While the answers are complex and vary from situation to situation, it may be that at least part of the problem is that missionaries instill within new believers and leaders the idea of complete independence, as opposed to the Kingdom value of interdependence. Missionaries desire that new converts and new church plants mature and continue the process of multiplication. That is a good and healthy desire. However, what is the proper balance in our concepts of complete autonomy versus healthy and biblical interdependence? If we teach complete self-reliance, we build in the ingredient for an eventual separate existence, something that we really do not want or desire. Even more importantly, that is not what God desires. We need to rethink how we go about teaching and instilling the idea of individual responsibility while at the same time continuing to value and cultivate healthy interdependence. I do not advocate the complete abolition of the three selves, but rather that we reflect on their origin and on a balanced contextualized application. Whatever we do, we must honor the biblical value of healthy mutual dependence.
Another area of missiological concern that relates directly to the subject of independence versus interdependence is subsidization. In the late nineteenth century, Dr. John L. Nevius, a Presbyterian missionary working in China, received an invitation from a group of seven young missionaries beginning a work in Korea. Based on the talks he gave these young missionaries, Nevius delivered a series of articles on missionary methods in the
Chinese Recorder in 1885, now recorded in the book Planting and Development of Missionary Churches (1886). From very negative experiences in the work in China, Nevius questioned the idea of expatriate workers giving money directly to local workers. The young missionaries going to Korea heeded Nevius’ suggestions. Today many church historians attribute the growth of Christianity in Korea to that decision. From that time on, Protestant leaders have debated the proper and improper use of money in mission subsidizations.
As ideas, concepts, and practices concerning subsidization have formed, some workers speak of subsidization that leads to dependence versus subsidization that leads to independence. Do we want either? In light of our value of interdependence, we need to add a new category and speak of subsidization that leads to interdependence. In what ways does that change our thoughts about subsidization? If God desires for His children to live and work in healthy mutually dependent relationships (i.e., interdependence), we must view even subsidization in that light. Possibly we should speak of subsidization that produces healthy dependence and more responsible believers. It should stimulate the type of maturity that causes believers to rely more on God, to enter into healthy interdependent relationships with other believers, advance the Kingdom, and ultimately bring honor and glory to God through the cooperative effort.
When the Lord Jesus Christ entrusted His Church with the responsibility of extending His Kingdom throughout the world and throughout the ages, there can be no doubt that His vision was wrapped around the core value of healthy interdependence. Interdependence is one of the key virtues that will draw a lost world to Jesus Christ, as well as the only way the Church can accomplish the task of world evangelization. Interdependence is a core value of Christian missions.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Corwin, Gary, 2005, Church Planting 101. Evangelical Missions Quarterly: April 2005. Cummings, David, 1987, Programmed for Failure – Mission Candidates at Risk. Evangelical Missions Quarterly: July 1987. Eyetsemitan, Frank, 2002, Life-span developmental psychology: Midlife and later years in Western and Non-Western societies. In W. J. Lonner, D. L. Dinnel, S. A. Hayes, & D. N. Sattler (Eds.), Online Readings in Psychology and Culture (Unit 12, Chapter 2), (http://www.wwu.edu/~culture), Center for Cross-Cultural Research, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington USA. Kim, Uichol, Guoshu Yang, Kwang-kuo Hwang, 2006, Indigenous and Cultural Psychology: Understanding People in Context. New York: Springer Publications. Lipset, S. M., 1999, The Origins of American Individualism. Canadian Journal of Sociology 23, 4 (1999): 511-533. Nevius, John L., 1886, Planting and Development of Missionary Churches. Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company. Svensson, Frances, 2007, Liberal Democracy and Group Rights: The Legacy of Individualism and Its Impact on American Indian Tribes. In the Journal Political Studies, Volume 27 Issue 3, pages 421 – 439, University of Michigan. Taber, Charles R., 1991, The World Is Too Much With Us: Culture in Modern Protestant Missions. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. Woolf, Henry Bosley, Editor, 2002, Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfield, MA: G. & C. Merriam Company. | 20,488 | 8,500 | 0.000119 |
warc | 201704 | The Online Journal of Writer Kate Sykes
My experience with athletics as a kid provided me with a solid foundation on which to build a lifetime of fitness. I’ve belonged to one gym or another for most of my adult life, exercising at least three evenings a week after work, and spending my weekends riding a bike, skiing, or hiking around in the woods with a fishing pole searching for Hog Johnson, which is the name we anglers give to the biggest trout we’ve ever seen.
In the early spring of 2008, however, all of that changed.
I had been living in Seattle for fifteen years and all over the Rockies and the Southwest the decade prior to that. My recent marriage was dissolving, and the gloomy weather wasn’t helping my outlook any.
I had a great job that allowed me tremendous creative freedom, put me in close contact with great minds and even greater hearts, and immersed me in the social justice movement, but it was an office job, and I had never thought of myself as a career secretary. Then, through a series of corporate mergers, promotions and raises, the work morphed into an administrative position with big responsibility and a bigger paycheck than I had ever had before and I woke up one day doing the kind of job I vowed I would never have: one that paid so well I could never leave it.
What I wanted was a full time writing career. I had been working towards that goal for fifteen years but had never felt secure enough financially to make the leap, and it felt more like a hobby than a vocation. Still, I was enjoying some successes. A play I wrote had opened to rave reviews in Seattle and enjoyed a sold-out run, and my fiction and freelance articles were starting to get picked up. With a part-time teaching job on the side, however, there never seemed to be enough hours in the day to get any publishing momentum going.
Selling my house, which I’d owned for ten years and had some equity in, seemed to offer a swift path to freedom, a clean slate, and an opportunity to re-align my talents and skills with my livelihood.
When my real estate agent came over to do a walk-through of the house, however, she left me with a daunting two-page list of renovations and repairs to complete before she would even consider listing it. Alone, and wanting to put away as much money as I could to jump start my freelance business, I set about doing it all myself—everything from refinishing floors, mitering and installing new molding, updating the kitchen and bathroom fixtures, landscaping the exterior, and painting every square inch of the place, inside and out.
While it was not highly skilled work, some of it was physically strenuous, and I was under pressure to list the house before April, which was when my agent predicted I could expect the quickest sale at a price of my asking.
I set the alarm each day for 4:45 a.m., rising in the dark to sand floors and re-grout tile before going to work. When I got home, I changed into sweats and repaired the deck until it grew too dark to pound a nail, and then went inside and worked late into the night.
Over the course of the three months it took to get the house in shape, my back started to give me trouble, tensing up whenever I bent over or straightened up, and aching constantly from the strain of the non-stop physical labor, plus the emotional stress I was under as a result of my imploding marriage.
I had experienced episodes of back pain before. The trouble started in college, after a car clipped me on my bicycle on my way to campus, causing the books in my backpack to shift violently and wrench a muscle in my back. Perversely, I still remember what those books were: hardback versions of the complete and unabridged works of William Shakespeare, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and the Oxford Annotated Bible. Clearly, there are advantages to earning a degree online.
In the past, a light jog around Green Lake, or a yoga class would have made me feel better, but with so much work to do I didn’t have time to exercise, so I popped a few ibuprofen, moved on to the next project, and didn’t think much more of it.
When I was finally ready to list the house—a month later than I had hoped to—news of the mortgage crisis had already broken. Real estate values in Seattle plummeted as a result, and I watched my equity shrink with every passing day as my agent continued advise me to reduce the list price further and further. Many people in Seattle speculated prices would stabilize and remain propped up by the strong local economy, but sales were very slow, and I prepared myself to wait a long time to find a buyer.
Through a combination of hard work, listing it in the right price bracket, and luck, the house sold within four days of listing it. Overjoyed, I met with my agent over lunch to discuss a closing date, went back to work, and turned in my resignation.
When I got home that evening, I poured myself a celebratory glass of wine and sat out on my newly painted front porch, which now overlooked an immaculately landscaped yard, and wondered what the hell I was thinking. My house looked the best it ever had; economists were talking about a major recession; and I had just undersold my house and quit a very good job to be…a writer?
Had I lost my mind? Was this a mid-life crisis? I was forty years old. No, I decided; things are only a crisis if you do nothing about them. I was making changes. This was forward progress.
That night before bed, I read another chapter of DeVoto’s
The Journals of Lewis and Clark. It was the only book I hadn’t packed, sold, or spread out on the coffee table to make the living room look like the front cover of a Pottery Barn catalog.
Lewis and his party had just reached the location where the Missouri River splits into the Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin rivers, an area now known as Three Forks, Montana. Captain Clark had previously taken a side journey to explore another river and, due to illness, had not yet rejoined the party, so Lewis was alone when he came upon the site, in July of 1805.
We arrived at 9 A. M. at the junction of the S. E. fork of the Missouri and the country opens suddonly to extensive and beatifull plains and meadows which appear to be surrounded in every direction with distant and lofty mountains; supposing this to be the three forks of the Missouri I halted the party on the Lard. shore for breakfast and walked up the S. E. fork about ½ a mile and ascended the point of a high limestone clift from whence I commanded a most perfect view of the neighbouring country.
Lewis was an inclusive and democratic leader, who encouraged his men to keep diaries of their own. His liberal use of the plural pronoun “we” resounds throughout the pages of the journal, leaving the reader with a strong sense of partnership between the two leaders, and a conviction that the success of the expedition—indeed the survival of every man in the party—depended on a team effort.
This may be why, in entries where Lewis uses the personal pronoun “I”, the passages seem to lift off the page. And, as I read this one, I had a clear image of Lewis forgoing his own breakfast, leaving his men to cook their beans and venison jerky beside the river while he walked off by himself to climb above the plains and survey the way ahead.
What follows in the journal is a lengthy and painstaking description of the topography, including the color and texture of the surrounding rocks, the plants and animals, plus every meander and rapids in all of the rivers, tributaries and byways that Lewis could see from his vantage point atop the rock, including a description of the fearsome range of snow-peaked mountains, which had been drawing ever closer for last many days and now loomed ominously over the party.
Historians frequently point out that the richness of Lewis’ description, along with his subsequent decision to make camp at the Forks for three days in order to record the party’s position by the stars, reveals his great instincts as an explorer and his skills as a cartographer. Certainly, Lewis understood that a thorough description of the confluence of these three previously uncharted rivers was critical to the success of future expeditions. But, as I read the passage that night, I couldn’t help feel the tremendous weight of the decision Lewis faced at this juncture. He was at a crossroads, tasked with the responsibility of choosing between three equally uncertain routes. Going down the wrong fork might force the party to have to backtrack to this spot, effectively trapping them in the Rocky Mountains in the dead of winter, where they would likely have perished.
Lewis wrote that his view from his rock was “most perfect.” But, to my eyes, the density and detail in the description that follows conveys less what he could see and more what he couldn’t: the future. | 8,969 | 4,291 | 0.000237 |
warc | 201704 | Have you booked a flight to Romania? Our travel advice tells you how to best prepare for your trip. It is important to know that vaccinations are recommended when you visit Romania. Which specific vaccinations you require, is dependent on the duration of your stay in this beautiful country.
Romania borders the Black Sea and the countries Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary, Ukraine and Moldovia. The largest part of Romania has a temperate continental climate with warm summers and cold winters. The coastal regions have a maritime climate. The winters in these regions are slightly milder. Romania offers plenty of unspoilt nature and a great diversity of landscapes. The country features fabulous beaches on the Black Sea, rugged mountain scenery in the Carpathians and vast wetlands in the east. Romania is home to the largest populations of wolves, lynxes and bears in Europe. The capital of Bucharest is rather different from the rest of the country. This elegant city – in the interwar period also referred to as ‘Little Paris’ – houses many historic buildings. The city has known rough times, but managed to retain much of its elegance and appeal.
Regardless of your holiday plans for Romania, please be aware diseases to which you are not resistant. Our skilled KLM Health Services nurses gladly tell you what vaccinations you require for Romania and provide advice on what else you can do to reduce health risks. Click here to make an appointment with one of our nurses.
Romania vaccinations: the most common risks
In Romania, you run the risk of catching diseases to which you might not be resistant. Vaccines can protect you against these. Please find below a list of the most common health risks and diseases in Romania and read which specific vaccinations you require. | 1,800 | 927 | 0.001095 |
warc | 201704 | When a retailer’s credit card systems get breached by hackers, banks usually can tell which merchant got hacked soon after those card accounts become available for purchase at underground cybercrime shops. But when companies that collect and sell sensitive consumer data get hacked or are tricked into giving that information to identity thieves, there is no easy way to tell who leaked the data when it ends up for sale in the black market. In this post, we’ll examine one idea to hold consumer data brokers more accountable.
Some of the biggest retail credit card breaches of the past year — including the break-ins at Target and Home Depot — were detected by banks well before news of the incidents went public. When cards stolen from those merchants go up for sale on underground cybercrime shops, the banks often can figure out which merchant got hacked by acquiring a handful of their cards and analyzing the customer purchase history of those accounts. The merchant that is common to all stolen cards across a given transaction period is usually the breached retailer.
Sadly, this process of working backwards from stolen data to breach victim generally does not work in the case of breached data brokers that trade in Social Security information and other data, because too often there are no unique markers in the consumer data that would indicate from where the information was obtained.
Even in the handful of cases where underground crime shops selling consumer personal data have included data points in the records they sell that would permit that source analysis, it has taken years’ worth of very imaginative investigation by law enforcement to determine which data brokers were at fault. In Nov. 2011, I wrote about an identity theft service called
Superget[dot]info, noting that “each purchasable record contains a two- to three-letter “sourceid,” which may provide clues as to the source of this identity information.”
Unfortunately, the world didn’t learn the source of that ID theft service’s data until 2013, a year after
U.S. Secret Service agents arrested the site’s proprietor — a 24-year-old from Vietnam who was posing as a private investigator based in the United States. Only then were investigators able to determine that the source ID data matched information being sold by a subsidiary of big-three credit bureau Experian (among other data brokers that were selling to the ID theft service). But federal agents made that connection only after an elaborate investigation that lured the proprietor of that shop out of Vietnam and into a U.S. territory.
Meanwhile, during the
more than six years that this service was in operation, Superget.info attracted more than 1,300 customers who paid at least $1.9 million to look up Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses, previous addresses, email addresses and other sensitive information on consumers, much of it used for new account fraud and tax return fraud.
Investigators got a lucky break in determining the source of another ID theft service that was busted up and has since changed its name (more on that in a moment). That service — known as “
ssndob[dot]ru” — was the service used by exposed[dot]su, a site that proudly displayed the Social Security, date of birth, address history and other information on dozens of Hollywood celebrities, as well as public officials such as First Lady Michelle Obama, then FBI Director Robert Mueller, and CIA Director John Brennan.
As I explained in a 2013 exclusive, civilian fraud investigators working with law enforcement gained access to the back-end server that was being used to handle customer requests for consumer information. That database showed that the site’s 1,300 customers had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars looking up SSNs, birthdays, drivers license records, and obtaining unauthorized credit and background reports on more than four million Americans.
Although four million consumer records may seem like a big number, that figure did not represent the total number of consumer records available through ssndob[dot]ru. Rather, four million was merely the number of consumer records that the service’s customers had paid the service to look up. In short, it appeared that the ID theft service was drawing on active customer accounts inside of major consumer data brokers.
Investigators working on that case later determined that the same crooks who were running ssndob[dot]ru also were operating a small, custom botnet of hacked computers inside of several major data brokers, including
LexisNexis, Dun & Bradstreet, and Kroll. All three companies acknowledged infections from the botnet, but shared little else about the incidents.
Despite their apparent role in facilitating (albeit unknowingly) these ID theft services, to my knowledge the data brokers involved have never been held publicly accountable in any court of law or by Congress.
CURRENT ID THEFT SERVICES
At present, there are multiple shops in the cybercrime underground that sell everything one would need to steal someone’s identity in the United States or apply for new lines of credit in their name — including Social Security numbers, addresses, previous addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, and in some cases full credit history. The price of this information is shockingly low — about $3 to $5 per record.
KrebsOnSecurity conducted an exhaustive review of consumer data on sale at some of the most popular underground cybercrime sites. The results show that personal information on some of the most powerful Americans remains available for just a few dollars. And of course, if one can purchase this information on these folks, one can buy it on just about anyone in the United States today.
As an experiment, this author checked two of the most popular ID theft services in the underground for the availability of Social Security numbers, phone numbers, addresses and previous addresses on all members of the
Senate Commerce Committee‘s Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety and Insurance. That data is currently on sale for all thirteen Democrat and Republican lawmakers on the panel.
Between these two ID theft services, the same personal information was for sale on
Edith Ramirez and Richard Cordray, the heads of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), respectively.
Getting these ID theft service Web sites shut down might feel good, but it is not a long-term solution. Both services used to conduct these lookups of the public figures mentioned above are second- and third-generation shops that have re-emerged from previous takedown efforts. In fact, at least one of them appears to be a reincarnation of ssndob[dot]ru, while the other seems little more than a reseller of that service.
Rather, it seems clear that what we need is more active oversight of the data broker industry, and new tools to help law enforcement (and independent investigators) determine the source of data being resold by these identity theft services.
Specifically, if there were a way for federal investigators to add “breach canaries” — unique, dummy identities — to records maintained by the top data brokers, it could make it far easier to tell which broker is leaking consumer data either through breaches or hacked/fraudulent accounts.
Data brokers like Experian have strongly resisted calls from regulators for greater transparency in their operations and in the data that they hold about consumers. When the FTC recommended the creation of a central website where data brokers would be listed — with links to these companies, their privacy policies and also choice options, giving consumers the capability to review/amend the data that companies maintain — Experian lobbied against the idea, charging that it would “have the unintended effect of confusing consumers and eroding trust in e-commerce.”
The company’s main sticking point was essentially that it was unfair to impose such requirements on the bigger data brokers and ignore the rest. Experian’s chief lobbyist
Tony Hadley has made the argument that there are just too many companies that have and share all this consumer data, which seems precisely the problem.
“The Direct Marketing Association (DMA) estimates that even a narrow definition of a marketing information service provider is likely to include more than 2,500 companies from all sectors of the economy,” Hadley wrote in a blog post earlier this year. “Simply put, the entire data industry – extremely vital to the US economy — cannot be neatly or accurately identified and then subjected to unrealistic requirements.”
My guess is that if the data broker giants are opposed to the idea of inserting dummy identities into their records to act as breach canaries, it is because such a practice could expose data-sharing relationships and record-keeping practices that these companies would rather not see the light of day. But barring any creative ideas to help investigators quickly learn the source of data being sold by identity theft services online, data brokers will remain free to facilitate and even profit from an illicit market for sensitive consumer information.
Tags: breach canary, CPP for PII, Dun & Bradstreet, Experian, Kroll, LexisNexis, Product Safety and Insurance, Senate Commerce Committee, Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Tony Hadley, U.S. Secret Service | 9,618 | 4,248 | 0.000241 |
warc | 201704 | Sasja Beerendonk, a collaboration consultant at e-office, is talking about the role of gamification in achieving user adoption. It’s a very popular session – the room is about 80% full; easily 300 people in the room. Some notes:
1. Focus is on how to use gamification to drive user adoption of IBM Connections. Sasja’s work is about helping companies with user adoption.
2. Gamification – using game elements and game design techniques in non-game situations. The point is to achieve something else – adoption of better ways of working. It’s about meaning and purpose. Gamification will possibly solve the short-term engagement problem.
3. Gamification – is used widely in consumer applications. Increasingly being used in other areas – utilities, car usage. And other technology examples – LinkedIn profile completion. Gartner’s research says that Global 2000 organizations will make increased use of gamification.
4. By the time most people are 21, they have spent 10,000 hours playing games. They are an expert in … playing games. How could we get people to spend 10,000 hours learning new collaboration approaches and tools. Assertion – let’s use gamification methods to get them to learn new approaches / tools.
5. User adoption – from “the way we work now,” to “the way we work new,” and then to “the way we work now.”
6. e-office’s “yellow and blue” – yellow (smart and flexible), and blue (structure and process). The yellow is supported by tools like IBM Connections – supporting knowledge, creativity, collaboration, etc. The blue processes are still important. So the approach is to integrate the yellow and blue, and get people to go back-and-forth between them.
7. Motivation – see Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, plus Dan Pink’s intrinsic motivators (purpose, autonomy, mastery). From Fogg’s behavioral model, three things need to work together – motivation, ability, and trigger.
8. Clicker training for a dog. Works by building up from simple actions to complex processes. Sasja played this video …
9. Application to user adoption with IBM Connections – small steps, instant feedback, and positive rewards.
– gamification – measure, reward, enhance. – need to have a compelling narrative about why it is important. – tasks need to be challenging, but achievable.
10. Roadblocks to change – a variety of them. Eg., fear of the unknown, comfort with the status quo, pushback on being forced to change. Sasja says that gamification can help with overcoming such roadblocks.
11. Adding gamification to IBM Connections:
– Eg., shows how complete your profile is, and what the next step is. – It’s about increased utility, rather than punishment. Financial rewards works for a little bit, then it stops. – Helps with developing intrinsic rewards.
12. There are some products available for IBM Connections:
– Badgeville – Bunchball – ISW Kudos Badges – TemboSocial
13. (Michael’s comment) If you don’t like the term gamification, how about “directional in-context guidance”? Eg., here’s the next thing to do – a bit like a personal coach built into the system.
Thanks to Sasja for the mention of my book, User Adoption Strategies 2nd Ed. (2012). For those of you at IBM Connect 2013, the book is available in the bookstore in the Expo Hall – and you don’t have to pay postage to get it. | 3,576 | 1,721 | 0.000631 |
warc | 201704 | One of Tesla’s major rivals in the home battery storage stakes, Panasonic, has released its new 5.3kWh system for sale on the Australian residential market – just two weeks after Tesla’s bigger and cheaper Powerwall 2 was launched in the US.
Panasonic’s new LJ-SK56A lithium-ion system, which will be available from December 2016, has a 10-year warranty, with 5.3kWh usable capacity and 2kW output. It has a “slim, stand-alone design” and can be installed outside. Cost of the product has not been disclosed.
The batteries will be sold through energy companies including ActewAGL and Red Energy, following the success of a Canberra pilot project that tested the lithium-ion batteries in local households.
The solar plus storage trials conducted kicked off in December last year, with the installation of an 8kWh Panasonic battery system alongside a 5.2kW PV array at the home of an ActewAGL employee in Forde.
Panasonic Australia’s Managing Director Paul Reid said the pilot project showed the its batteries had performed well in Australia’s variable and dynamic climate conditions.
Modelling by Panasonic shows their battery storage has the potential to reduce household dependence on the electricity grid by between 30 and 60 per cent.
Energy retailers, meanwhile, can access the batteries via demand response platform software and DRED interface compliance to address peak load pressures and network inefficiencies.
The Demand Response Software allows programmed charge/discharge, remote control charge/discharge and controls and monitors usage, according to Panasonic.
This helps utilities with peak shaving and to improve stability across the network, with one utility server able to control up to 20,000 storage systems and monitor their time-of-use tariffs and control of demand load.
“We’re now evolving with this new 5.3kWh battery system, to support the needs of Australians who have adopted clean solar energy, balancing affordability, capacity and performance and delivering for retailers and consumers alike,” Reid said.
ActewAGL said it had decided to include the new Panasonic battery in its solar product suite on the back of the pilot program’s results.
“For example, our first installation created expected savings of up to 50 per cent on one family’s annual electricity bill,” said ActewAGL general manager retail, Ayesha Razzaq.
“The battery storage industry will continue to grow as an important companion for renewable energy systems and these technologies will increasingly have a positive impact on the ACT’s renewable energy target of 100% by 2020,” she said. | 2,688 | 1,357 | 0.000767 |
warc | 201704 | Bacteria and archaea are among the smallest forms of life on the planet, but don't let their size fool you. These simple creatures have persevered for billions of years, thanks in part to a recently discovered immune-like defense system that protects them from marauding infectious agents like viruses and plasmids.
University of Georgia researchers Michael and Rebecca Terns were some of the first to describe how the bacterial immune system works in a 2009 paper published in
Cell. Now, thanks in part to two grants from the National Institutes of Health totaling more than $2.4 million, the Terns lab hopes to find ways of manipulating this bacterial immunity that could have far-reaching implications for a variety of biotechnological and biomedical industries.
"Bacteria, from the pathogens that you hear about on the news to the microbes that normally live in and on our bodies, play a whole range of diverse and important roles in human lives," said Rebecca Terns, senior research scientist in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in UGA's Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. "What we're studying is a defense system that protects bacteria from viruses."
The fact that bacteria are vulnerable to viruses is a double-edged sword, because bacteria are both powerful enemies and essential allies. On one hand, pathogenic bacteria cause serious and debilitating diseases in humans. On the other hand, many bacteria serve protective functions, or are used in industries to clean wastewater, make food, produce medicine and make plastics.
Once they have a better understanding of the various mechanisms involved in bacterial immunity, the Terns lab hopes to develop methods to protect helpful bacteria and destroy those that make people sick.
"We're trying to bolster this immune system in the good bacteria that we exploit to make foods, pharmaceuticals and biofuels," said Michael Terns, UGA distinguished research professor of biochemistry and molecular biology and genetics. "At the same time, we're trying to find ways to turn this immune system on itself and kill pathogenic bacteria."
When a bacterium encounters an invader like a virus, it recognizes the viral DNA, chops it up into pieces and incorporates a segment of the viral DNA into its own genome. As the bacteria experiences more threats from viruses, it accumulates a memory bank of past infections in a special part of its genetic code commonly known as CRISPRs, short for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats.
After this initial step, the bacteria then create special CRISPR-associated proteins that ultimately recognize and destroy the virus if it tries to invade again.
"If we take a bacterium and challenge it with a virus in the lab, overnight most of the bacteria will be killed, but there will be a few survivors that have found a piece of the virus and incorporated it into their own genome," Michael Terns said. "And the resulting immunity is heritable, because when these survivors reproduce, all new cells exposed to the same virus will survive."
The Terns lab is working to understand precisely how this process takes place in the bacterium Streptococcus thermophilus, which is commonly used by the dairy industry to make yogurt and cheese, and the archaeon Pyrococcus furiosus, used to make industrially important enzymes and chemicals and to increase heat tolerance in plants.
While this research holds great promise for industry, discoveries made in the Terns lab also illuminate previously unknown basic microbiological processes, opening the doors for new fields of exploration and new levels of understanding.
"Eventually, you are going to find the pathways that the people in our group are delineating in textbooks," said Rebecca Terns. "It's a rare opportunity in biology to be in the position to contribute to something this fundamental."
Explore further: Researchers discover biological basis of 'bacterial immune system' | 3,965 | 1,914 | 0.000527 |
warc | 201704 | It was Christmas dinner at my in-laws’ cabin. It was my mother-in-laws’ super, super delicious yams and some accidentally over-cooked broccoli. Yams technically aren’t a vegetable, they’re a tuber. And the broccoli was over-cooked. So technically, I’m not sure I can actually claim the last time I ate a vegetable and enjoyed it was Christmas eve. It would have been a few days before that, I guess. I think we had salad at dinner.
I am a vegetarian. Seventy-five plus percent of my subsistence strategy involves vegetables. Nutritious, delicious, colourful, splendid, earth-grown vegetables. I love them. Almost as much as I love coffee. (I had a white mocha from Second Cup today which was glorious, by the way.)
But since the end of December when the nausea started to take over my life and body, I haven’t been able to stomach vegetables. I’ve tried though. Tried to out stubborn the sickness. Tried to eat a vegetable and enjoy it. All of which failed. The only triumph I can claim here, is that I
not to throw up a few weeks ago after tried to eat a salad and I managed to only throw up a little bit. Does that count as a triumph? Only puking a bit? I had no idea I could ever be so offended by a salad. A salad. trying
So today started out great. I didn’t sleep well at all last night but I didn’t care about being tired when I woke up and my stomach felt 95% normal. And it has stayed that way all day. It was so good I stopped by Second Cup and got myself a coffee. A delicious, glorious, long over due, holy shit have I ever missed you coffee. I was euphoric.
The euphoria lasted and I worked out today. I bought a treadmill on the weekend, but until today didn’t feel well enough to use it. I tried to run, but, being as I haven’t run since December 24 (I know) when I ran a hilly 7 km and I haven’t been exercising with any regularity, I had to switch back to a brisk walk with a satisfactory incline. I walked for an hour and was able to confirm I’m not currently at the top of my fitness game, but was mostly pleased that I had exercised and I felt like a million bucks.
I drank coffee. I worked out. Life is good.
Then I made protein bars. My midwife told me I need to eat between 75 and 100 grams of protein a day … which is a big stretch for me. Many of the vegetarian foods I eat have protein in them, but they don’t contain nearly as much protein as meat and animal products do.
So I made these protein bars … which are purely delicious. Though, when my girlfriend makes them they are far tastier than my version. She claims not to do anything extraordinary when she makes them, but I’m pretty sure she’s got a trick or two up her sleeve. She did tell me once, though, “A sandwich always tastes better when someone else makes it.”
*** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
Here’s the recipe for the protein bars ….
1 Cup natural peanut butter
1 Cup large flake oatmeal (I start with 1/2 cup and add until I reach desired texture) 1 Cup slivered almonds 1/2 Cup agavae (I substitute with honey) 2 scoops protein powder
Mix in the quanity of what you like of any of the below, in any combination:
unsweetned coconut, ground flaxseeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, chocolate chips, raisins, cranberries, or anything else you think would add more yum!
Mix together, put in a 8X8 and refrigerate. When cooled, cut into bars. Can be frozen.
A little tip….. microwave the peanut butter for 20-30 seconds to make it easier to mix everything together. Also, while adding seeds and dried fruit, mix as you go so you don’t end up adding too many extras which can cause the bars to be crumbly.
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Wait. What was that? Something I read in a pregnancy book? Too much vitamin A can result in a mutant baby? It was something like that. More accurately, while vitamin A is important to both baby and mom during pregnancy, too much during pregnancy can result in birth defects and liver toxicity. Carrots = yummtastic. Birth Defects = Not desirable.
That I’m not nauseous, I’ve had coffee, I’ve exercised, I’m going to eat me some carrots euphoric feeling I’ve had all day:
SUDDENLY IN JEOPARDY!
So how much is too much? How much do you need? The books I have on hand at the house don’t really provide a clear idea of how much is too much vitamin A. Being as one carrot provides 270% of your vitamin A requirements, it’s easy to be concerned about eating the sweet, orange root vegetables when the threat of birth defects is lingering.
Problem with the Internet these days … it’s an overload of information that may or may not be reliable. So while my carrots were peeled, sliced, and sitting in a pot on the stove waiting to cook, I spent a huge chunk of my afternoon trying to understand this whole vitamin A thing.
Super long story short …
Vitamin A comes as two types of nutrients: preformed vitamin A (aka retinol or retinoids) and provitamin A carotenoids. Preformed vitamin A is found in animal products like eggs, milk, and liver and is used directly in the body. Provitamin A carotenoids are found in fruits and vegetables which the body has to convert into vitamin A).
Too much PREFORMED vitamin A = birth defects and liver toxicity.
Too much carotenoids = no such thing! Eat as many carrots as you like!
For direct information on vitamin A doses …
Pregnant women: 19 years and older: about 770 micrograms RAE of vitamin A (approximately 2,565 IU) per day
Pregnant women: 18 years and younger: 750 mg (2,500 IU)
Breastfeeding women, 19 and older: 1,300 mcg RAE (4,330 IU)
Breastfeeding, 18 and younger: 1,200 mcg RAE (4,000 IU)
3,000 mcg RAE (10,000 IU) of vitamin A is considered to be the maximum amount of preformed vitamin A that you should consume in the combined form of supplements, animal sources and fortified foods per day.
CRISIS AVERTED!
I’m not sure if it’s common knowledge that vitamin A comes in two forms, but I for one, have never felt the need to scrutinize my food as much as I do now that I’m pregnant. I have a pretty in-depth understanding of good food vs. bad food and consider my self to be an informed, conscientious, and healthy eater. And I have never been afraid of carrots.
But now I’m pregnant and even healthy foods can be scary. But it’s not all bad, I learned a bunch of stuff about vitamin A today. And then I ate a plate of delicious carrot casserole.
And here’s the recipe …
4 cups cooked carrot rounds
2 Tbsp. butter
1 tsp. sugar
2 Tbsp. flour
¼ tsp. pepper
1 tsp. salt
1 onion, chopped
1 cup sour cream
Topping:
2 Tbsp. melted butter
¾ cup bread crumbs
Grated cheese (optional)
Directions:
Cook yourself 4 cups of carrots.
In a frying pan, melt butter and stir in salt, sugar, flour, and pepper on medium heat until it forms a paste. (Which really, doesn’t look very appealing)
Add chopped onion and stir.
Add sour cream and mix well. (Wow, this doesn’t look all that yummy. Just wait.)
Add sour cream mixture to carrots and mix well. Then put mixture into greased casserole dish.
Mix melted butter with bread crumbs to make topping.
Spread topping over carrots. Add grated cheese if desired. (I don’t like it with cheese).
Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes.
EAT AND ENJOY!
I ate way more than pictured. It was so yummy. I have missed vegetables so much. Here’s to hoping I don’t pay for it tomorrow. And assuming I wake up and feel fine … I’ll probably end up eating carrot casserole for breakfast! | 7,727 | 3,644 | 0.000286 |
warc | 201704 | Obama Administration To Justify Drone Strikes With Casualty Counts
President Barack Obama’s administration bombed what the Pentagon claimed was an al Shabab training camp and killed 150 people. The death toll from the air and drone strikes was higher than any strikes in America’s covert drone wars thus far.
The number of deaths was higher than the death toll in the al Majalah strike in Yemen, which killed 55 people, including 41 civilians on December 17, 2009. It was higher than a CIA drone strike in Pakistan, which killed 80 children and a man in a religious school.
But the Pentagon and anonymous “intelligence officials” maintained in the aftermath that all of the 150 people killed were “militants” or al Shabab members. There was absolutely no reason to doubt that each person dead from drone missiles and aircraft bombs were bad people, who the U.S. was justified in attacking.
Nearly every establishment media outlet in the U.S. raised little to no concerns about the death toll and the scale of the attack in Somalia in their coverage.
There is nothing in the Associated Press’ report about the Shabab militants posing an “imminent threat” to Americans. The New York Times reported the strikes were launched to prevent “an imminent attack against American troops and their allies in East Africa.” The Washington Post reported the fighters were a threat to “both U.S. and African Union troops stationed in the war-torn country.”
Sarah Knuckey, associate clinical professor of law at Columbia Law School, has pointed out that in Somalia, the U.S. supposedly follows rules for “use of force in counterterrorism operations outside of active hostilities.” In other words, these are supposed restrictions on use of force in places away from Afghanistan or Iraq, where war has not been declared.
The Obama administration claims to follow the guideline that the U.S. “will use lethal force only against a target that poses a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.” What rules were being followed in launching these strikes?
Previously, in October 2013, Obama deployed a Navy Seals team in Somalia to carry out a “kill or capture” mission. There were questions then about whether Obama had war powers to launch such an operation.
What rules are being followed with these strikes in Somalia? Does it matter? If it does not matter, what about the potential blowback? How about the concern that this kind of action draws the U.S. further into the destruction of another country and that the results could very well end up being as destabilizing as in Libya?
Journalist Jeremy Scahill detailed in his book, “Dirty Wars,” the extent to which actions by the U.S. have transformed “al Shabab and its al Qaeda allies” into groups “more powerful in Somalia than it—or the CIA—could ever have imagined.”
Briefly, CIA-backed Somali warlords were defeated by the Islamic Courts Union in the mid-2000s. “Blowback sparked by US policies in Somalia and abroad,” further inspired al Qaeda activity. “The civilian tolls the wars were taking in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, gave credence to the perception that the United States was waging a war against Islam,” according to Scahill.
“While the United States backed its own warlords in Mogadishu, Washington’s post-9/11 actions led to the formation of a coalition of former warlords and religious movements that would challenge the rule of the U.S. proxies in Somalia.” Ethiopia joined the conflict, and the escalation helped Shabab reinvigorate itself.
To what extent will this attack fan the flames of militant operations in Somalia?
Additionally, on the same day that the Obama administration killed more alleged fighters in counterterrorism operations than in any of its operation thus far, the administration made an announcement that it would finally disclose the number of people killed by U.S. drone and other air strikes since 2009.
The AP reported the disclosed casualty counts would include combatants and civilians. It would not cover war zones like Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan. These reports of casualties would focus on Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, and other locations where extralegal and undeclared warfare is being waged.
There is an element of propaganda to this announcement. Not only did Lisa Monaco, a counterterrorism and homeland security adviser to Obama, say this is “the best way to maintain the legitimacy of our counterterrorism actions and the broad support of our allies,” but the announcement came as 150 alleged Shabab fighters were killed.
The Obama administration clearly intended to create the perception that it would disclose numbers, thereby diminishing concerns about human rights violations. The U.S. can argue it only kills terrorists now, as it did with this attack on a training camp.
A key issue is how the Obama administration defines “combatants” or “militants,” and how it defines “civilians.” There has been much controversy over the fact that the Obama administration used a criteria, which counted any “military-age male” in a strike zone as a “militant.” A drone whistleblower also revealed last year that the U.S. has killed hundreds of people in strikes, who were not “targets, and government officials have often lied or concealed the true number.
The American Civil Liberties Union, which has been fighting in court to force the Obama administration to be transparent about drone operations, said the administration should “release the legal memos that supply the purported legal basis for drone strikes—particularly those carried out away from recognized battlefields. It should acknowledge individual strikes, and it should investigate and explain strikes that kill innocent bystanders.”
Naureen Shah of Amnesty International stated the information disclosed on strikes must “include information on the U.S. government’s definitions and legal standards for these strikes.”
Whatever is released, the larger concern should be how the released data may be used to justify further military operations or regime change, which have the effect of destabilizing and destroying states like Libya or Somalia. | 6,428 | 2,899 | 0.000361 |
warc | 201704 | Zero Carbon Australia: We can do it Posted on 19 March 2011 by James Wight
My recent post about long-term CO
2 targets was rather doom-and-gloom: I concluded that we must phase out fossil fuels to keep the climate in the range that humans have experienced. The good news is that action on this scale is not only possible but surprisingly feasible.
Last year, the University of Melbourne Energy Research Institute in conjunction with Beyond Zero Emissions produced the Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Stationary Energy Plan. The ZCA2020 Plan outlines an ambitious and inspiring vision: to power Australia with 100% renewable energy in ten years.
The report that has been released only covers emissions from Stationary Energy (though it does refer to electrifying transport). Five future reports are planned on how to eliminate emissions from other sectors (Transport, Buildings, Land Use and Agriculture, Industrial Processes, and Replacing Fossil Fuel Export Revenue).
Why do it, and why now?
As I’ve explained here, to prevent “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system” we must reduce CO
2 to below 350 ppm. That necessitates a rapid transition to a zero-carbon economy.
A common approach is to define a quota of allowable future global emissions to limit warming to less than 2°C above preindustrial levels, and divide them up by nation per capita. At Australia's current rate of emissions, we will use up our share of the global budget in just five years (the same goes for the US and Canada). This gives Australia about a decade to make the transition.
Figure 1: CO 2 emissions budget for selected nations.
That’s why Zero Carbon Australia 2020 is not a low emissions plan but a zero emissions plan. This is a fundamentally different way of thinking about the problem. It goes straight to zero emissions technologies, without a detour through low emissions ones which would waste time and resources.
If the Plan is adopted later it could still meet a later deadline. But obviously, further delay means ever increasing risks – and the risks are already very high.
What energy sources would power Australia?
The Plan chose only technologies that can meet demand, can be implemented within ten years, are already commercially available, and (obviously) are zero-carbon, not counting emissions from construction.
60% of the grid would be powered by concentrating solar thermal (CST). The other 40% would come from wind turbines. The Plan also includes small-scale solar to reduce the grid demand during the daytime. Biomass and existing hydroelectric would be used as backups.
Of course, this is only one possible scenario. Technologies that become available in future could increase our options and reduce the cost.
Nuclear power was not considered because the implementation time is longer than a decade. Hydro and biomass are limited in scalability for unrelated environmental reasons. Wave, tidal, and geothermal are promising technologies but not yet ready. Carbon capture and storage is neither commercially available nor zero-carbon.
How would they provide continuous power?
A common misconception is that renewables can’t provide continuous (“baseload”) power. But the technology of concentrating solar thermal can. It was proven at commercial scale in the 1990s. The US Department of Energy lists several dozen solar thermal plants currently in operation.
Here’s how it works. Mirrors called “heliostats” track the Sun and focus sunlight onto a central “power tower”. This energy is stored in molten salt as heat, warming the salt to 565°C. This energy storage has an efficiency of up to 93%. To produce electricity, the hot salt is pumped into a generator, where the heat is transferred to steam which drives a turbine. Once the salt is cooled to 290°C (still warm enough to be molten), it returns to the tank to be reheated.
Figure 2: Diagram of a concentrating solar thermal power plant.
The Sun doesn’t shine at night, but this is not a problem for a solar thermal plant because it has a store of energy ready to go at any time. CST can produce power around the clock. The ZCA2020 report describes it as “better-than-baseload” because it is more flexible. CST works well with wind power, because the stored solar energy can be used when there is not enough wind.
As the cheapest form of renewable energy, wind can provide a generous portion of our electricity. Because the wind isn’t blowing all the time, wind farms average only 30% of their capacity. At least half of the electricity produced (ie. 15% of capacity) is expected to be as reliable as “baseload”.
Finally, the Plan includes more than enough backup biomass capacity to fill the gaps created by worst-case weather. The hydro and biomass backups are required for just 2% of demand.
The report modeled the ZCA2020 grid, based on real-world insolation and wind speed. They assumed a demand 40% higher than today (accounting for increased energy efficiency and electrification of transport and heating). The modeling confirmed the proposed portfolio of solar, wind, hydro, and biomass would indeed supply demand.
How much solar and wind must be built, and where?
Figure 3: Map of proposed sites. Yellow squares are solar power plants, blue squares are wind power plants, red lines are high-voltage direct current transmission, and green lines are high-voltage alternating current transmission.
The Plan proposes 12 CST sites, each with 13 major power towers, each power tower with 18,000 heliostats. Together, they would have a total capacity of 42.5 GW and be able to store enough energy to meet winter demand.
The proposed locations are near Bourke, Broken Hill, Carnarvon, Charleville, Dubbo, Kalgoorlie, Longreach, Mildura, Moree, Port Augusta, Prairie, and Roma. These towns are far enough inland to have high sunlight throughout the year, but close enough to the populated coasts for it to be economical to build high-voltage transmission lines.
Each site would measure approximately 16 by 16 km. The total land used would be less than 3,000 km
2. That’s comparable to Kangaroo Island, smaller than some large cattle stations, and 0.04% of the area of Australia.
To provide enough reliable wind power for a 40% target, we need a total capacity of 50 GW, 25 times what it is now. The best commercially available wind turbines have a capacity of 7.5 MW, so we need to build 6,400 of them. Land covered by wind turbines can still be used as farmland.
The Plan proposes 23 sites dotted around the coast. The locations are widely dispersed so the grid is not dependent on the weather in any one place. They are also chosen for high wind speeds in winter, when less solar power is available. Each site has annual average wind speeds of at least 25 km/h.
To put all this in perspective, some other nations are investing in renewables on a large scale. China already has 25 GW of wind capacity and will have 150 GW in five to ten years. Denmark has a target of 50% wind power by 2025. And Spain will have 2.5 GW of solar thermal capacity by 2013.
What is the timeline?
The CST plants would be built in two stages. The first stage would begin by constructing small power towers and gradually ramp up until 2015, when solar power costs become competitive with coal power. The majority of the power supply would come online during the second stage, with a constant rate of manufacture to 2019.
Wind would be scaled up faster because it is cheaper and there are already a number of installations in the pipeline. New projects would start every six months and take a year to complete. A three-year ramp-up should lower the cost to European levels, also followed by a constant rate of construction.
What resources are required?
The Plan involves building 23,000 km of high voltage transmission – both to connect the new power stations to the grid, and to connect the multiple existing grids to each other (so supply does not depend on the weather in one place).
At peak construction, the Plan requires 600,000 heliostats and 1,000 wind turbines per year. These could either be mass-produced in Australia or imported. In Australia it could create 30,000 jobs in manufacturing.
The plan would also create 80,000 new construction-related jobs, and 45,000 ongoing jobs in operation and maintenance, replacing an equivalent 20,000 in fossil fuels. In addition, the 30,000 manufacturing jobs could also be retained to export components to the world. Some solar jobs would even be in the same areas as lost mining jobs.
The concrete needed is a tiny fraction of Australia’s resources, and the steel a tiny fraction of our exports. A solar power plant uses merely 12% as much water as a coal power plant. However, we would need several new factories producing glass and other materials.
How much will it cost?
The total capital cost over the decade is $370 billion, or 3% of GDP per year. That’s about the amount of money spent on insurance, or the value added by the real estate sector, or the money spent on coal, gas and uranium. Most of the money is spent in the latter half of the decade, after the public has already seen some of the benefits of the initial investment.
About half of the money, $175 billion, would be spent on solar thermal plants, as well as $92 billion to upgrade the grid, $72 billion on wind turbines, $17 billion on off-grid solar, and $14 billion on biomass. However, the Plan looks at these costs as an investment. It leaves open the question of where the funding would come from, suggesting a combination of public and private sources.
The investment pays itself back by 2040 or as soon as 2022, depending on which costs you count. The Net Present Cost over the period 2011-2040 is equal to business-as-usual (BAU) if you only include direct costs. Though the capital costs of ZCA2020 are much higher than BAU, more money is saved because solar power plants do not need a constant supply of coal and gas for fuel. If you also take into account the Net Present Cost of oil and (possibly) priced emissions under BAU, ZCA2020 could potentially save $1.5 trillion.
Figure 4: Net present value of ZCA2020 Plan compared to business as usual.
All the above completely ignores climate and environmental costs, which obviously would heavily favor ZCA2020. The Stern Review estimated that a global effort to mitigate climate change could save 20% of GDP per year by 2050.
The effect of the transition on electricity prices depends on how it is funded. In one possible scenario, they could rise by $8 per household per week, similar to what is expected under BAU.
What will happen to the fossil fuel industry?
The report does not address this as it is a political question. However, it does point out companies were aware of the risk to their industry when they invested in their assets.
How do we convince our leaders this is a good idea?
Now I wish I knew the answer to that one. When Australia (and the world) finally wakes up to the climate crisis, Zero Carbon Australia 2020 provides a useful blueprint for decarbonising our energy sector. But we’d better wake up pretty damn quick.
Societies have shown that they can be mobilized by ambitious visions. When J.F.K. proposed landing a man on the Moon before the end of the 1960s, it seemed incredible. Yet the goal was accomplished twice before the deadline.
So far Australia has not shown leadership on clean energy, preferring to see itself as a mining nation. Renewable energy entrepreneurs are going overseas because there is no market in Australia. Yet we have vast untapped renewable resources.
Global warming is a very real and urgent threat. As an extremely high per capita emitter Australia has an imperative to take drastic mitigating action. ZCA2020 shows powering Australia with renewable energy is feasible using commercially available technology. Solar thermal can provide better-than-baseload power. The transition would stimulate the economy, save up to $1.5 trillion by 2040, create jobs, and make Australia a leader in clean energy. So what are we waiting for? | 12,215 | 5,510 | 0.000184 |
warc | 201704 | Does Fasting 2 Days A Week To Lose Weight Really Work?
So I’ve been doing intermittent fasting for a long time now to lose weight and if there’s one thing that I know for sure it’s that intermittent fasting works!
If you don’t know what intermittent fasting is then checkout the Skinny Express guide to intermittent fasting for tips and a guide on exactly how to do it!
In this post I’m going to give you 3 quick tips on how to get the most out of intermittent fasting.
Personally I like to fast from dinner time to dinner time the next day.
This means I will eat dinner one day and then not eat again until dinner time the next day therefore I’ll go 24 hours without eating.
When I first got started with intermittent fasting I fasted 2 times per week, every 3 or 4 days.
But now I’ve reached my weight loss goals I fast once a week to make sure I don’t gain any weight.
I’ll carry on doing this for life.
Here’s a few tips to get the most out of your fasts.
Tip #1
It’s ok to drink coffee and green tea on your fasts. Black coffee is a good metabolism booster and will help perk you up when your energy is running low.
Green tea is full of antioxidants and always helps perk me up when I’m fasting.
Remember that the whole point of fasting is to not consume any calories so you’ll be low on energy at some point. Coffee and tea will help get you through it!
Tip #2
Exercise works wonders on a fast.
Now I know what you’re thinking, exercising while fasting?! Are you crazy?
Trust me doing some exercise on the last 30-60 minutes of a fast will turbo charge the amount of fat you’ll burn.
When you fast your body burns through all of its stored energy.
As you come to the end of a fast your body starts to burn fat for energy as it doesn’t have any energy left from recently digested food.
So by exercising, which requires a lot of energy your body will churn through its stored fat to help get you through the workout.
Exercising while fasting won’t be the nicest of experiences but it’s really not that bad and you can feel good knowing that you’re becoming a fat burning machine.
Tip #3
Don’t over eat after you’ve finished fasting.
Many people think it’s ok to go and binge eat after a fast because they haven’t eaten in 24 hours. By doing this they may as well have not even fasted to begin with.
So after you’ve finished fasting just eat your normal size dinner and carry on as usual.
Getting hungry while on a fast can be quite common as a lot of people aren’t used to not eating.
This post here will help give you some tips on pushing through the hunger pangs.
So there’s a few tips to help you with your fasting. Don’t forget to read the Skinny Express guide to intermittent fasting!
And to answer your question does fasting 2 days a week to lose weight really work?
The answer is a big YES! Fasting is the best way I know to burn fat fast, so do it! | 3,027 | 1,387 | 0.000763 |
warc | 201704 | As a B2B marketer, you face the challenge of not just engaging but also educating and informing your prospective customers. Since different prospects have different preferences for how they learn about your products or services, creating a wide variety of content in different formats helps to ensure that you have something to offer everyone. One of the most effective formats for engaging and educating prospects is online video. But what kinds of online videos work best for B2B companies? Here are three top options.
How-to/Demonstration Videos
Demonstration videos help your prospects get over the hump of envisioning how your product or service will fit into their business. Let’s face it: No B2B buyer wants to take a chance on purchasing something that turns out to be the wrong decision. If a buyer can see your product in action, he or she can better envision how well it will fit into that company’s needs. Videos are also a great way for decision-makers to share information with each other and overcome objections that may arise.
There are all kinds of ways you can use demonstration videos. For example, if you make a tool from manufacturing assembly lines, you could show how easy it is to install and how quickly it works. If you sell software to businesses, create an introductory demo video that shows how to set up the product into some basic tasks. A good demonstration video can serve more than one purpose: It can be a sales tool and also a support tool that customers can refer to later on.
Webinars
If your biggest marketing goal is to promote your business as an expert resource and thought leader, webinars are a great way to go. Survey your target market or follow them on social media to get a sense of what their biggest challenges and problems are. What do they must want to know? Create webinars to answer those questions and help them overcome their challenges, while also subtly positioning your business as the expert that can help them.
Consider involving a complementary business in your webinar so you can both benefit from each other’s customer base. You can save time on content creation and expand the audience for your webinars by repurposing your webinars into ebooks, white papers or Slideshare presentations, or vice versa.
Testimonial Videos
Social media is becoming increasingly important as a marketing tool for B2B companies. Consumers have always turned to social word-of-mouth for purchasing recommendations and reviews; now B2B buyers are beginning to do the same. Recording short testimonial videos with your customers can enhance your business’s credibility. Share them on your social networks as well as spotlighting them on your business’s website.
Testimonial videos don’t have to be long — in fact, it’s better if they’re not. Try developing a series of testimonial videos, each highlighting a different benefit of your product or service for customers. Or, if you have different product lines or niche markets, develop a specific testimonial video for each specific product and niche.
Want more assistance growing your business online? Join the Web.com Small Business Forum for free access to our library of ebooks, the latest industry news and support from other business owners, entrepreneurs and working professionals. Join a Group to ask questions, share your opinions and grow your network! Visit Web.com to learn about our full range of affordable website design and online marketing services.
Author information Maria Valdez Haubrich
Maria Valdez Haubrich is Chief Liaison Officer of GrowBiz Media, a media company that helps entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses. Visit her company’s blog at
SmallBizDaily.com. | 3,749 | 1,757 | 0.000579 |
warc | 201704 | By Stephen Leahy
Feb 5 (IPS) – With the stark realisation that global warming is transforming our world, there will be crazy new era of “greenwashing”, desperate “geo-engineering” schemes, “grandfathering” of newly-built coal power plants and carbon-credit “profiteering”, environmentalists warn.
Welcome to the battle to save ourselves and future generations from the worst impacts of climate change, like increased floods, droughts and storms.
The scientific evidence proving that climate change is caused by human activities is now overwhelming with the widely-anticipated release of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Feb. 2. And many scientists and environmental activists say the only important scientific questions remaining are how bad it will get and what can be done to lessen the impacts.
Most advocate immediate and drastic reductions in the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, emitted mainly in the transportation and industrial sectors, which contribute to global warming.
But many of the most heavily industrialised nations find the economic costs of this prescription hard to swallow. Instead, some, led by the United States, are looking at geo-engineering schemes — large-scale attempts to manipulate the environment to produce environmental change, according to the ETC Group, a Canadian-based non-governmental organisation.
Full story
No Getting Around Emissions Caps Questions, story ideas, assignments, speaking engagements contact: writersteve AT gmail . com (no spaces) | 1,603 | 882 | 0.001177 |
warc | 201704 | The Love You have to Beg For Isn’t Love Those who beg a partner for love know full well that their bond is no longer true, that the relationship is over. But they’re still trying to stoke the dying embers with the desperation and dreams of a second chance, even though all that comes from it is more suffering.
Something else to consider is that whoever makes the mistake of begging to be loved is putting
the other person in a very dangerous position of power.
That is when you find yourself in an unequal relationship with potential for manipulation, blackmail, and even humiliation.
The person who begs for love can lose sight of who they are, and when that happens it seriously damages your self-esteem.
These are important things to remember.
The love that begs and pleads is already lost It’s not easy to admit that a relationship is over, that you’re living in a delusion, that the other person is already a thousand light years away and you’re just a lone, stray satellite.
Although your emotions might be well aware that the love is no longer there,
denial is the defense mechanism that you use to hold on to hope. You live in an illusion, continuously feeding a love that isn’t real but that you can’t let go of.
What is really behind this kind of behavior? Why do we continue to ask for love when the other person has already said that it’s over?
See also “No one deserves your love more than you do“
False hope
We teach children the value of hard work and the need to fight for what they believe in and desire. Somehow, this struggle also gets associated with human relationships when in fact, the world of emotions doesn’t always work that way.
No amount of struggle, self-humiliation, or demonstration of your unbridled passion for the other person will make them want you. The heart simply does not work that way. False hope is poison for those who refuse to face reality. Of course it isn’t easy to accept heartbreak, but when the other person has made it very clear that the feel nothing, it’s vital that you accept that.
Don’t miss “How love affects your health“
Acting differently in order to be loved
This is a tactic that many people use to beg for love and try to recover their lost loved one.
They behave contrary to their values, putting on an act or image that isn’t theirs, in order to be more desirable… All of this is a slow form of self-destruction that, in addition to humiliating yourself, can seriously affect your mental and emotional health. Don’t let yourself fall into that trap. Delusion as a defense mechanism
One thing is clear: leaving a relationship means you have to rebuild your life, and that’s something that not everyone is ready for.
This is why people sometimes use delusion as a defense mechanism. It becomes an emotional life raft to think perhaps “if I do this you’ll notice me again,” or “if they feel sorry for me they’ll love me again.”
All of this is very understandable behavior that after a few days should lead to gradual acceptance of reality. If it continues for several months, however, you could be doing great harm to yourself and your former partner.
The road to acceptance when love dies
When it’s time to deal with the end of a relationship or a lost love, everyone will react in their own way.
One thing to remember is that in order to reach acceptance,
everyone will need to follow their own path to healing (seeking support, changing cities, taking up new hobbies, going on a vacation…)
Nevertheless, the following strategies are worthwhile to remember when it comes to caring for your own self-esteem.
Everyone needs a reason. Relationships end for a reason and you have the right to know it. It will help you better be able to turn the page without feeding any false hopes or dreaming of a second chance. Goodbye should be face to face.Rejection, saying “we’ve come to the end of the road,” should always be done in person and never through a message or via a third party. Sincere words, although painful, can also be therapeutic. They must be firm and realistic: this is the end, there are no other chances. It’s time to think about yourself.When you beg for love though the reality is clear, you’re betraying yourself. You must proceed toward acceptance by passing through grieve in all of its phases. It’s essential to think about yourself and heal the emptiness, rejection, and absence. The pain you feel now is made of the pieces of yourself that you’ll collect with dignity and rebuild again. It’s a difficult task that requires time, effort, and a lot of attention, but it will hurt less and less with time. In the end, there will come a day when you’ll feel proud of yourself for not having done it – for not having begged for love. | 4,929 | 2,248 | 0.000465 |
warc | 201704 | What Does It Mean to Have Cancer in America? What Is Cancer?
Cancer is a disease when the cells reproduce at an uncontrollable rate, resulting in a tumor, or multiple tumors. There are many different types of cancer including:
Prostate cancer Breast cancer Lung cancer Colon cancer Leukemia What Having Cancer in America is Like
Do you know someone who has or had cancer? Chances are you have, cancer has affected 1,658,370 people in the US alone, just in 2015. Taking these statistics into consideration, cancer doesn't receive enough attention or federal funding to go towards research for a cure. Although these statistics are frightening, there are some good things that come along with living in America while being diagnosed with cancer, because America has many highly successful research and treatment facilities. In America, 63% of young cancer patients live five years after being diagnosed. This is due to the various treatments patients can receive, such as chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgery, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, hyperthermia, stem cell transplant, and photodynamic therapy. However, these treatments won't cure all patients, cancer is still a very serious disease that affects thousands of people and families everyday, it's a battle that families must overcome together.
How Cancer is Affected: Geographically
When most people think about diseases in Africa, most people think about AIDS/HIV, malaria, or polio because those are the diseases we hear most about. However, 60% of cancer deaths occur in the developing countries and only 5% of global resources to help patients are being used in the developing countries. Not only are there many cancer cases in developing countries, Africa's cure rate for cancer is only 5%, and there are only 4 facilities to help treat these patients. Since the majority of cancer cases are in developing countries, it would make sense to help Africa and send more technology, resources, doctors, and medicine to help cure the patients.
How Cancer is Affected: Generations
Having cancer as a baby or as a young child is extremely difficult. More than 175,000 children are diagnosed around the world, yearly. Although the majority of child cancer patients have genetically developed the disease, some children are affected because of the secondhand smoke in houses and because of environmental factors. This is heartbreaking because children are getting deadly diseases that they're not even responsible for, they can't even control is what is happening to them. Since children's bodies are also not as immune to diseases as adults' bodies, 1 in every 5 children living with cancer dies. Cancer is the leading cause of children's deaths than any other disease and yet less than 4% of federal cancer research funding is donated to childhood cancer research. Because of lack of federal funding, St. Baldrick's is dedicated to fundraising money for cancer research. It's looking up for the children; St. Baldrick's has raised $30,214,631 so far in 2015. With this funding, doctors can continue to work towards the common goal; a cure for cancer. | 3,117 | 1,466 | 0.000684 |
warc | 201704 | by Bill Barclay
[This article from Chicago DSA’s New Ground was written before the dizzying recent Federal actions on Freddie and Fannie Mac, Lehman Bros and AIG. The analysis and program is more relevant than ever.-TU]
On October 9th, 2007, the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both closed at new all time highs
. By late January 2008, both had lost more than 10% of their value and investors worried about a developing bear market. In the intervening three months the outlook the U.S. economy went positive to negative. In November and December 2007, the auction rate securities market, used by tax exempt borrowers such as hospitals, collapsed with no bids; on Dec 12th, the Fed announced the creation of by the Term Auction Facility which allowed banks to borrow anonymously for 28 days using a wide range of collateral to meet their pressing liquidity needs and stave off possible bank runs; in March, 2008, the Fed orchestrated the acquisition for Bear Sterns by J.P. Morgan Chase for $10/share, down more than 90% from the previous year’s high (Bear was the only major investment bank that refused Fed pressure to assist in the bailout of Long Term Capital Management in the 1990s); and, in that same month the U.S. Congress agreed to a “stimulus package” of $150 billion. At the same time the rest of the world began to realize that the 2007 2008 financial crisis was not restricted to the U.S. So much for the stock market as a leading economic indicator, a status it achieved under Alan Greenspan’s tenure at the Federal Reserve.
What happened? And why? And what should progressives be saying and proposing in response to what is now widely acknowledged as an economic downturn of potentially major significance? This article argues (i) that the economic problems the U.S. now faces are long term and not readily amenable to the usual policy fixes; (ii) that the crisis is rooted in a convergence of three trends, two long-term and one more immediate; and (iii) that there are important policy ideas that progressives should be proposing, although their adoption will occur only as the result of political struggle and pressure.
The Crisis: How Serious Is It?
The sense of an economic threat is relatively new, even among those who might be thought to be attuned this kind of issue. At the 2007 Take Back America Conference , the War in Iraq was seen as by far the most important political issue, chosen by over 30% of the attendees with the economy listed as the number one issue by only 13% of the attendees. By the March 2008 Conference, this had changed: the economy was now listed by 30% of the attendees as the number one issue facing the country. Still, the presidential campaigns, both Democratic and Republican, were slow to focus on the economy and, when they did, the attention was often dismissive as in the famous claim by Phil Gram, McCain’s chief economic advisor, that the recession was largely a mental one and that to focus on this issue was catering a nation of whiners.
So, how serious is it? First, when people talk about a financial crisis in contrast to a crisis in the real economy, they are referencing the economy we once had, not the economy we have now. As late as the 1970s, manufacturing accounted for a larger portion of the GDP than did services but that is no longer true. By 2005, finance in all its forms (banking, insurance, mortgage brokers, etc.) represented approximately 25% of total economic production in the U.S. A crisis in an industry that accounts for one quarter of GDP
is a crisis in the “real economy.” Of course, finance is linked in myriad ways to the rest of the economy. One simple equation: the housing sector, consisting of mortgage lenders, construction, furnishings and related industries, accounted for a similar quarter of US output.
Second, it is clear that the crisis is not and will not be restricted to the financial sector. One in ten homeowners is or will be facing the threat of foreclosure over the next two years a level not seen since 1933. Defaults on corporate debt are rising with the second quarter of 2008 being the tenth consecutive quarter of increasing business bankruptcies. U.S. automakers are on the ropes as demand drops for their large, energy intensive vehicles. The companies (they used to be called the Big Three) are asking for a federal bailout of $25 billion and saying they may not survive in the absence of such assistance. Retail stores are already cutting back on sales staff and nationwide the unemployment rate rose to 6.1% in August, the eighth consecutive month with a decline in jobs. Today is not like the Fed’s rescue of CitiBank via Saudi investment in 1981 1982, the assistance the same entity gave to junk bonds holders and issuers by lowering interest rates in the early 1990s, or even the scale of assistance necessary to clean up the Savings and Loan fiasco of the late 1980s / early 1990s.
Third, today’s economic problems come at the end of a long period of global credit expansion and deregulation, placing constraints on the available policy alternatives. While we can learn from the New Deal, the national and global economic environment and the U.S. relationship and role in the today’s global economic system is quite different. We will not be able simply to copy New Deal programs.
The Causes
There are, I think, three primary causes. These causes intermesh in a variety of ways but each presents distinct problems and each needs specific policy responses. These causes are (i) the long term trend towards economic inequality in the U.S.; (ii) the credit expansion / contraction and debt cycle, primarily driven by housing; and (iii) the role and value of the dollar in the international economy, with particular emphasis on the trade in oil.
Growth in Economic Inequality
The long term trend towards increasing economic inequality in the U.S. has been documented so many times that even conservatives have acknowledged its reality. It is hard to come up with fresh ways to demonstrate the extremes of economic inequality, but perhaps the following may serve to remind us both how recent this trend is and the extremes to which we have gone. First, from 1945 to the mid 1980s, the median family income for all U.S. families increased faster than that for the top 10%, 5% and 1% by income families. Since the mid 1980s, the exact opposite has occurred with the median family income declining for all groups
except the top 5% and 1%. Between 2001 2006 the top 15,000 families, .01% of all families, captured 25% of total family income growth in the U.S while the bottom 90% grabbed only 4%. As to the extreme to which we have taken this trend, consider the following. If workers’ salaries had increased as rapidly as those of the CEOs of the largest corporations, the average workers’ salary would now be over $200,000/year.
What has been less commented upon is the significance of this growing inequality for the political economy. First, the growing concentration of income and wealth constrains the consumption (purchasing power) of the population as a whole. Savings rates dropped consistently over the past quarter century, actually turning negative in some recent years, as families tried to keep up with the American standard of consumption. But consumption was not, of course, simply financed by drawing down or foregoing savings. Don’t have the cash? Put it on plastic. Use of credit cards to finance current consumption was not, of course, a new development. As far back as 1977,
Time Magazine had observed that “insistence on buying only what can be paid for in cash seems as outmoded as a crew cut.” However, the growth of consumer debt escalated in the past quarter century and is roughly equal to total U.S. GDP and is larger than the often cited government debt.
Second, the increased concentration of income and wealth reshapes the political terrain. The cost of political campaigns has increased sharply in part because of the possibility of raising more money from people who literally have more than they know what to do with. The importance of large donors has in turn increased because there is an increased need for money. Thus the impact and influence of larger donors eclipsed that of competing institutions such as labor, civic and community groups.
But the political use of concentrated income and wealth has not been restricted to the financing of campaigns. In fact its more significant impact has probably been in the reshaping of the universe of political discourse. Wealthy individuals and families have turned to founding and funding “research” institutes and think tanks. And the bias of these institutions is towards a system that has made their benefactors well off on a scale never seen before. Even as I write, there are proposals to found a Milton Friedman Institute at the University of Chicago with an initial target level of $200 million. It is very unlikely that the studies emanating from such an institute will find fundamental flaws in the functioning of markets or produce arguments for government intervention in the same.
Debt Financial Deregulation and Credit Expansion
What is the debt problem facing the U.S? Despite highly publicized, ideologically driven lamentations about government debt such as those put forth in the propaganda film I.O.U.S.A., it is not the debt of governments, whether federal, state or local that threatens the U.S. economy. Rather, it is private and corporate debt that poses the greatest risks and that has brought us to the current crisis. Credit card debt has been of concern for some time. However, credit card debt is far from the only source of debt financing of consumption and in fact is now a smaller percentage of total consumer debt than two decades ago. Its place has been taken by mortgage debt. It is the housing sector that defines the specific nature of this economic downturn and is the major reason why the outcome is likely to be so difficult to control. From the early 1980s to the mid 1990s housing prices rose more or less in line with general inflation levels. However, that changed dramatically in later 1990s and the first 5 6 years of the 2000s. In the decade 1995 2005, housing prices increased by 30% above inflation. Homes, our primary residence, also became our savings vehicle and our bank accounts.
Certainly home ownership is good, at least for most people, as recognized in the Bush mantra of the “ownership society.” So how did access to home ownership and rising house prices get us into so much trouble? There are at least three reasons for the mortgage and foreclosure crisis we face today. First, the banking model changed from a traditional, relatively conservative set of practices to an originate and distribute model. Second, as the housing boom continued while incomes lagged for the majority of the population, the standards on which mortgages were based deteriorated. Third, and perhaps most important for the individual home buyer, rising prices allowed the buyer to borrow against the appreciating value of the home.
The 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagel allowed financial institutions such as CitiGroup or J.P. Morgan Chase to combine banking, insurance and real estate for the first time since the 1930s removing the walls that the Act created. Repeal was also the impetus for changing the mortgage lending business model and allowed almost anyone to enter the mortgage lending business. Prior to repeal, mortgage banking was largely a business of making loans and managing the resulting portfolio of loans. Banks (and other mortgage brokers) made loans to home buyers based on their income and assets and then earned the interest on the loan. If the borrower was unable to make timely payments, it was the lending bank who bore the financial risk and whose profitability was threatened. This risk meant that banks had an incentive to inquire into the financial resources of the borrower and to determine that that the borrower was a good risk for the life of the loan (since the 1930s, usually 30 year terms but often paid off in less time). However, the repeal of Glass-Steagel offered another method of participating in the mortgage business: banks (and others who entered the business of offering mortgages) could make the initial loan (“initiate” in the language of the industry), then “package” the loan into a mortgage backed security (“securitization”), and sell the new security to investors (“distribute” the security), take the money from this sale and make another mortgage loan. This model of banking turned out to very profitable more so than the traditional approach. In 2006 mortgage lenders originated $2.5 trillion in loans (3 times the 1997 amount) and 75% was securitized.
The “originate and distribute” model of banking (securitizing and selling off mortgages and other loans such as auto loans) provided little incentive for banks and other mortgage lenders to assess the long term financial viability of their borrowers. Put most bluntly, the mortgage lender only faced “pipeline” risk, i.e., the risk that the borrower could not make the payments required before the loan was securitized and sold off, that is the risk was limited to the loans still in the lender’s pipeline. This inevitably led to a lowered set of standards for making mortgage loans; as long as the lender was confident that the borrower could make the first, or perhaps the first two payments on the loan, there was little reason to reject the applicant. Further, as it appeared that housing prices would rise indefinitely, even borrowers who might have been rejected as near term risks could be offered “creative” loan packages, perhaps requiring interest only payments during the initial period of the loan. Alt-A and NINJA (no income, no job, no asset) loans became increasingly popular as mortgage lenders flowed into the business, all planning to make the initial loan and pass the default risk on to someone else who bought the securitized package.
This scope of this accident waiting to happen was enhanced by the increasing draws that borrowers made on the equity in their homes in order to finance other consumption, whether that is a car, vacation, college, etc. In 2005 net mortgage borrowing for purchases other than houses totaled $600 billion, about 7% of total family disposable income. Refinancing commonly included taking out cash in return for taking on a bigger loan amount after all, houses were worth more so they could securitize more debt. These home equity loans (HELs) were securitized and sold to investors seeking high yield, high rated investments.
The only problem with this is the old problem of leverage. Housing prices could not rise faster than income indefinitely. When the music stopped, there would be some, actually many, people who were too highly leveraged to continue making payments on their mortgages. With median down payments averaging 2% in 2005 2006, housing prices did not have to fall very far before leverage destroyed the buyer’s original investment. The result, beginning in earnest in 2007, has been a rapid increase in foreclosures with more to come as the number of borrowers behind on their payments also spiraling. Nor is the problem restricted to subprime mortgages. The ability to refinance, take out cash and assume an increased debt burden that would, it was hoped, be covered by subsequent increases in housing prices was attractive not just to subprime borrowers but also to many home buyers who qualified for prime mortgages. An increasing number of these are now finding themselves with an asset, their residence, which is worth less than what they owe. Estimates of the eventual default rate on the almost $1 trillion mortgages securitized are in the 20 25% range but no one really knows. Leverage works just as efficiently on the downside as it does on the upside it’s just scarier.
Before going on to the last cause of the current crisis it is worth considering briefly who is at risk in the collapse of the subprime mortgage market. Subprime mortgages coincided nicely with the politics of the ownership society, the idea that minorities and lower income people could have an economic stake in political stability and that they would thus be more benefit the Republican Party. Almost all of the net increase in family wealth reported for the bottom 80% of wealth holders during 2001 – 2005 came from increased prices for housing. A large portion of subprime mortgages were made to African-Americans, Hispanics, and single (usually female) parent families. These are the groups now suffering most from the escalating foreclosure levels. Their suffering is not just a current economic problem but has important long-term implications for these groups. For most people, particularly in the bottom half of the income distribution, a house is their primary, often only wealth asset. Thus the foreclosure boom is draining wealth away from a large number of families who had only just begun to acquire it. Estimates of wealth loss from these foreclosures are in the $170 190 billion range for African-Americans and $75 100 billion for Hispanics. Although these groups were three times as likely to have subprime mortgages as whites, the evidence strongly suggests that half or more of those granted subprime mortgages actually qualified for prime mortgages but the profitability of the former was greater than the latter.
The Value and Role of the U.S. Dollar
One of the reasons for believing that this economic downturn will be more severe and longer lasting than those of the past three decades is the convergence of a domestic credit and housing crisis with some negative (for the U.S.) international tends. In the 1970s the U.S. moved from being an international creditor nation to an international debtor and is now the largest such debtor. This is one of the important differences between today and the 1930s when the U.S. was a major creditor nation, giving FDR greater policy latitude.
In the early years of the shift to debtor status the primary concern as what an ally, Japan, might someday do with all that debt. Nothing, as it turned out. However, the debt is larger now and the primary holders include nations such as China whose relationship with the U.S. is quite different, today and over the strategic long term, than the Japanese. Further, a major reason for the growing debtor status of the U.S is increased, and increasingly costly, imports of the largest single commodity in world trade: petroleum. During the Bush administration the cost of oil imports more than doubled, rising from $130 billion in 2003 to over $300 billion in 2006.
And what do we have to offer in return? After all, trade is trade. During the period that the U.S. shifted from being a creditor to a debtor nation, we also shifted from making and exporting “things” to the buying and selling the representation of things, e.g. claims to income streams from assets. Financialization remade the structure of the U.S. political economy as policy makers made a long term bet an implicit industrial policy on the finance sector. As the growing U.S. trade deficit increased the dollar holdings of foreigners, these investors looked for ways to put this money to work. In response we exported securitized debt, primarily asset backed securities (ABS) including their mortgage back security (MBS) and collateralized debt obligation (CDO) components. Government debt was also marketed abroad. As early as mid-2007, the Deutsche Bank estimated that non-US investors held 40% of all MBS, the instrument largely responsible for initiating the crisis. These exports helped spread the negative economic consequences of the current crisis even to small towns in Norway and beyond where, relying on the ratings given to the tranches of ABS by S&P, Fitch and Moody’s (the role of the rating agencies in the current debacle deserves considerably more attention than it has received to date) and seeking higher yields on pensions and other investments, portfolio managers around the world purchased these AAA and AA rated securities.
So now we face a challenge to the dollar as the ultimate reserve currency, this time on two fronts. First, as the value of the dollar has declined, central banks have diversified their reserves, adding Euros and other currencies to their holdings. This gradual shift will probably continue; whether it will reach some kind of tipping point is difficult to predict. It required almost three decades for the dollar to replace the U.K. pound as the preferred reserve currency. What would more directly impact the average U.S. citizen’s standard of living is the possibility that petroleum producing nations will shift pricing out of dollars and into either a basket of currencies or a specific currency. The only serious current candidate for the latter is the Euro, but it remains an unlikely event. It is clear that some petroleum exporters, particularly Venezuela and Iran, have priced some of their oil in currencies other than the dollar and the Asian debt market is moving towards pricing in local currencies rather than the dollar.
All of this is overlaid with the very real possibility that the age of petroleum is much nearer its end than its beginning. If the peak oil argument is valid, our trade deficit will continue to grow and the costs of transporting people and things in a domestic built environment that is based on the gasoline powered car will become prohibitive. The beginnings of doubts about the long-term economic viability of suburban sprawl are another restraint on the possibility of any rapid recovery of housing and the U.S. economy as a whole.
What Can Be Done Thoughts on Policy
I have argued that the 2007 domestic economic crisis is not restricted to the financial sector, that it is likely to be more severe than anything we have experienced since WWII and that it coincides with unfavorable international economic trends. But of course, challenges are also opportunities and I think there are real opportunities, as well as risks, for the Left. In this concluding section I will suggest some ideas for policies to address our current economic situation. First, however, two points: we need to emphasize, insist, that the current crisis is systemic, and that piecemeal responses will be inadequate to remedy the situation and that market fundamentalist approaches of the current administration as well as the Republican presidential candidate fall woefully short of what is needed. This is the task of removing the underbrush before building the new structure.
So what can we suggest? There are both near-term policies that may have long-term consequences, and policies that we can pursue only in the intermediate or longer term.
· Empowering the Working Population: The Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).
We will only reverse the long-term inegalitarian trend in the U.S. if we make it possible for working people to build institutions that are powerful enough to push a political agenda that can effectively mobilize
against policies that will increase inequality, e.g. the privatization of social security, and for egalitarian policies, e. g., removing the income cap on FICA (the social security tax). The EFCA is already endorsed by a majority of congressional Democrats but we need a president that will sign it or a 2/3 majority to pass it over a McCain veto. · Increase and Index the Minimum Wage.
I will not repeat the economic facts about the lag of the minimum wage behind inflation here but I do want to note something that is not usually acknowledged. Opponents of minimum wage increases often claim that the primary beneficiaries would be teenage workers earning extra spending money. Besides the reality that most minimum wage workers are not teenagers, the earnings of teenagers are not simply spending money. For example, when I attended college in the 1960s (at a state university) I was able to pay my own way by working, full time during the summer and part time during the school year, at jobs that paid the minimum or just above the minimum wage. That would not be possible today because of the gap between the growth in college costs and the lag of the minimum wages behind inflation. What should the index be? I am tempted to say congressional salaries but use of the CPI is probably a better political decision.
· Reinstate, Index and Make Progressive the Estate Tax.
The Estate Tax, which the Left should insist on labeling the Paris Hilton Tax, will revert back to pre-Bush levels in 2010 if no action is taken by Congress. The complaints against the tax, driven by the financing of a few very wealthy families who seek to found their own dynasties, have made this a tougher issue than it should be. We should tie the proceeds of the tax to the funding of specific programs so that the “who pays / who benefits” equation is clear. This requires some additional thinking and economic modeling of the expected revenue (United for a Fair Economy has done a lot of the latter) but the Paris Hilton tax could fund universal health care or a subsidy to help with college costs. The most important aspect of the tax is, however, that is a tax on wealth, a taxation concept that is worth fighting for.
· Tax Surcharge on Incomes Above $250,000
John McCain may think that middle income is anyone with incomes below $5 million but the reality is that an income of $250,000 or more puts a family in the top 2% of all families. Rather than spend political capital arguing about how to make the existing tax code more progressive, let’s just do it the simple way: impose a surcharge on high income recipients. As in the case of the Paris Hilton tax, the revenue generated should be targeted for specific social investments, perhaps in this case in alternative energy technology.
· Develop a Jobs Program.
Unemployment is certainly not at 1930s levels and probably will not rise that high; it is, however, a serious and growing problem, particularly when the uncounted unemployed are included. A jobs program should have three foci. First, it should focus on social investment such as schools, roads, bridges, light rail, etc. Second, we should seek to reaffirm the importance of public employment, training and employing people in the health care sector, education, and the recreational environment we have lived off the wonderful work the CCC did in our parks and trials for a long time.
There also need to be a set of policies that address both the deep problems of the housing sector and the out-of-control financialization of the US economy. For starters we should consider the following.
· Create a New Home Owners Loan Corporation (HOLC).
In this case we can draw directly on the New Deal experience. The HOLC acquired mortgages that were or were about to be in default at a discount to the original value, renegotiated the terms of the mortgage, both the duration (effectively creating the 30-year mortgage we know today) and the interest rate. When the HOLC closed up operations, it had actually turned a small profit for the taxpayers. Two things are important here: first, the HOLC had the power to require that mortgages be placed into this system and second, it was the mortgage lender who absorbed the difference between the original mortgage amount and the payment made by the HOLC to acquire the mortgage. This will not, of course, be welcomed by banks and other mortgage lenders or by MBS investors but if the alternative is default and/or becoming a landlord, this approach is less painful medicine.*
· Empower Bankruptcy Judges to Adjust the Mortgage Terms.
At first glance this may sound radical but there has already been congressional legislation drafted to grant this power. It did not get out of committee. There is a precedent: these very same judges now have that power for mortgages on second homes. This policy would bring additional pressure to bear on lenders to seek accommodation with their borrowers.
· Restrict Leverage in the Finance Sector.
Leverage, at approximately the 30:1 ratio, is what brought Bear Sterns down, and, as I have argued above, leverage is at the root of many of the problems in the mortgage meltdown. Leverage is also the problem faced by many of the large investment banks such as CitiGroup and Lehman (the latter may be the next victim of the deleveraging that is going on today), and leverage has gotten Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae into their current troubles. Both of these entities own and or guarantee over $2 trillion in mortgages on capital bases of less than $50 billion. The proper maximum ratio can be left to further analysis buy it is probably in the 12 15:1 range. Will some financial engineers and high flying hedge funds object and threaten to move offshore? Yes, and they shouldn’t let the door hit them in the ass on the way out. If you can’t turn a reasonable profit at 10 or 15:1 leverage, you should not be in the business.
· Extend Regulatory Control Over All Entities That Can Create Credit and That May Be “Too Big To Fail.”
This may be the most important of the long-term policies. It was necessary to bail out Bear Sterns. But it was not necessary, in fact it only encourages moral hazard activities among the financial sector, to do so without acquiring the basis for a significant return to taxpayers, perhaps in the form of senior preferred shares issued by J.P. Morgan Chase, the acquiring entity. While this policy seems so obvious that it is amazing there is the need even to suggest it, there has been virtually no recognition of the socialization of economic risk and the privatization of economic reward that underlies the Fed’s and Treasury’s actions to date. It is time to insist that those who want to dine at the public trough also accept public regulatory control. Further, this regulatory control should not reside in the Fed, both because that entity has enough to do already and because the Fed and its representatives are treated by both Congress and the press as economic oracles whose word is not to be questioned but simply appreciated by us lesser mortals. We need a new agency with the same reforming spirit that drove the early New Deal.
· Implement a Wealth Tax.
Almost all of us pay a wealth tax already it is the property tax, paid directly by homeowners and indirectly by renters. The tax targets the asset that constitutes the bulk of total wealth for most Americans. Primary residence is half or more of total net worth for almost all US households up to about the 95th percentile of net worth. Above that level, however, the story changes dramatically; primary residence becomes less and less important in total net worth while financial assets (stocks and bonds) become increasingly important. Among the top 2% of households by net worth, primary residence drops to 5% or less of total wealth. If we added a broad wealth tax, say a 0.5% levy on only the top 1% of wealth households, we would generate $50 75 billion annually. Again the revenues should be targeted so that the “who pays / who benefits” equation is clear.
Conclusion
The reference to the New Deal was deliberate. To date in the presidential campaign the economic crisis into which we are entering has received little attention. At the Republican Convention neither Joe Lieberman nor Sarah Palin mentioned the economy in their speeches and McCain barely touched on it. I think, however, that will change over the remainder of the campaign. Whether it will change enough to insure John McCain’s defeat I am not sure. But, with respect to Obama, it is useful to remember that FDR did not walk into the White Hose in 1933 with a program that resembled what we came to know as the New Deal but only with a commitment to help his fellow citizens. In fact, had he spelled out something that looked like the New Deal during the campaign, he might well not have been elected and that was when the GDP had dropped by more than 10% and the unemployment rate was over 20%. It was the commitment to bettering the lives of other that drove what came next and in this campaign that is probably the best we can expect.
* 09.08.2008 Postscript: * 09.08.2008 Postscript: As I write, the federal government is implementing the take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with the stated intention of reassuring the financial markets, encouraging mortgage lending to continue access by new home buyers ad taking less risk. Whether all of this can be accomplished plus the additional goal of shrinking these two entities beginning in 2010 remains to be seen. This action is a halfway house, a compromise between those who oppose any government-sponsored enterprise and those whose primary concern is stabilizing the economy and the housing market. Bill Barclay is an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago. He worked for 22 years in the finance industry at various exchanges (MCE, CBOT, CBOT, CHX). He is a currently a member of Democratic Socialists of America, Progressive Democrats of America and the Oak Park Coalition for Truth and Justice. He also paddles white water. | 33,486 | 13,831 | 0.000073 |
warc | 201704 | NASA has released the global temperature estimate for February of 2016. It’s a new record for the hottest monthly anomaly yet.
The red dot at the end marks the latest monthly value.
Deniers like Ted Cruz like to start their temperature graphs in 1997 or 1998, to hide the context which makes continued warming obvious. But that trick won’t work any more; here’s a view since 1997:
Deniers like Ted Cruz also like to show satellite-based estimates of temperature in the atmosphere rather than at the surface (where we live), because it shows less warming than the surface temperature data. They also like to claim that it’s the “best data we’ve got” — which is ironic, because Carl Mears (lead scientist of the team that processes the data they use, from Remote Sensing Systems) thinks the surface temperature data is better. In any case, those tricks won’t work any more either; here’s a view of satellite data for the troposphere:
The red dot at the end marks the latest monthly value.
It’s often noted that a single month is a limited view of what’s happening lately, that there’s also value in seeing what’s happening on the time scale of an entire year, and that 12-month running means are a way to do that. Here they are:
I like to emphasize that what matters most is the
trend:
It’s going up. Has been, steadily, no pause.
The continuing barrage of record-breaking heat is remarkable. That’s because of the trend. Of course there’s fluctuation too, but without the trend we wouldn’t see records getting smashed again, and again, and again, year after year, month after month. We’re sure to see times again — soon — when the fluctuations go the other way and we get a respite from record-breaking heat. But that respite will be brief, because fluctuations will turn hot again too; that’s what they do. When they do, they’ll be added onto an even hotter
trend value, because the trend isn’t going to stop any time soon.
Any way you look at it, not only was it a scorcher of a February, the trend is rapidly taking us down the path to worse trouble than we’re already in. Except one way: if you put your blinders on and refuse to see reality, because you’re in the grip of an ideology that denies science when you don’t like it, you’ll believe what you want to believe regardless what the facts say. Like Ted Cruz. And Donald Trump. And Marco Rubio.
If you value this post, feel free to donate at Peaseblossom’s Closet. | 2,581 | 1,219 | 0.000874 |
warc | 201704 | The struggles in Madison have understandably focused attention on the wages and working conditions of public sector workers. Thankfully, it appears that these struggles have helped to promote greater solidarity between public and private sector workers. Now, we must build on this new solidarity to focus our collective energies on the bigger challenge: transforming a system that demands that workers (in both the public and private sector) accept ever worsening living and working conditions.
As many involved in the Wisconsin struggles have pointed out, there is plenty of wealth being produced—the problem is that those who are doing the producing are being increasingly denied access to it, both collectively and individually. For example, as the Economic Policy Institute points out:
U.S. productivity grew by 62.5% from 1989 to 2010, far more than real hourly wages for both private-sector and state/local government workers, which grew 12% in the same period. Real hourly compensation grew a bit more (20.5% for state/local workers and 17.9% for private-sector workers) but still lagged far behind productivity growth.
The chart below highlights this development. As one can see, the real issue isn’t whether public sector workers make more or less than private sector workers (and the chart covers compensation which includes pay and benefits). Rather it is that workers together have been increasingly productive but receving an increasingly smaller share of the fruits of their labor. Those who are well place to benefit, those at the very top of the income scale, have of course done quite well. For example, the richest 1% received 56% of all the income growth between 1989 and 2007 (before the start of the recession). By contrast the bottom 90% got only 16%.
If we want to change this we are going to have to build a powerful political movement, one that is prepared to take on the powerful interests that are determined to keep spending on the military; privatizing our educational, health, and retirement systems; promoting corporate mobility; weakening labor laws; and confusing us all about the causes of existing trends.
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If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers. | 2,324 | 1,181 | 0.000872 |
warc | 201704 | The Linux Foundation recently released the 2013 Linux Jobs Report and in a competitive marketplace where companies are struggling to find new talent and salaries are skyrocketing, the other side of the coin is "love the one you're with." We're talking about retention of course, and if you think it's not something that you have to be worried about, consider that 75% of those surveyed said they have received a call from a recruiter in the last six months and 35% plan to switch employers in 2013. Instead of monitoring your employee's phone records, below we provide some ways IT managers can retain their Linux talent.
As part of the jobs survey, Linux IT professionals were asked the top three incentives to staying with their current employer. 74% said more money, 61% chose better work/life balance and 47% selected a flexible work schedule or telecommuting. Also highly cited was opportunities for professional development, especially if they resulted in advancement.
Here are four ways to keep your employees sitting tight in their current chair.
Give Engineers a Seat at the Table
Talented engineers don't respond well when they aren't given an opportunity to contribute to the decisions being made. Involve your engineers in architectural decision processes. Make sure your support technicians have a chance to provide feedback before new systems get deployed. Rather than just impose technological decisions, increase ownership in your infrastructure by involving everyone in the design process.
When you share ideas and future plans with them and give them a chance to share their opinion, the result will be an increased connectedness to their managers and the organization.
Challenge Them and Make Sure They're Learning
Most employees don't think ahead about what's next for their careers until they are unhappy or bored. A work environment where employees are constantly learning is key to keeping them happy. Consider finding them a mentor in the organization or looking for projects you can get them involved in that will push them in new directions. Investing in Linux training for your employees also shows a commitment to helping them advance their skills, while providing value back to your department / organization.
Provide Constant Feedback About Clear, Meaningful Goals
When talented employees understand how what they do every day contributes to the success of their team, their department, and the entire organization, their interest, commitment, engagement level, and retention increases. Receiving feedback and aligning it with meaningful goals makes employees feel valued as a contributor and is a critical component of employee engagement. Employees want feedback and they want it often, so build a process where feedback is a constant.
Give Them Freedom
The 2013 Linux Jobs Report shows your engineers want flexibility and the freedom to get their work done from home or on their own time. We all have our families and lives outside of work that also need attention.
Your goal should be to hire great people, set challenging yet realistic goals with them, be available to help when they’re stuck, and then get out of the way. Show trust in their ability to work through challenges and meet their goals.
During the great recession, employees felt fortunate to have a good gig. Now, at least for Linux talent, it’s an employees’ market, and if you don’t give them freedom, the next time their phone rings, don’t be surprised if they listen. | 3,512 | 1,716 | 0.00059 |
warc | 201704 | For this first of several reports from the NIST/EAC Future of Voting Systems Symposium II, some readers of my recent report on standard work, may heave a sigh of relief that I’m not doing a long post that’s a laundry list of topics. However, I will be doing a series of posts on one part of the conference, a session held by some EAC who run the voting systems certification program, which relies on a “guidelines” document that is actually a complex set of standards that voting systems have to meet in order to get certified.
The reason that I am doing a series of posts is that the session was on a broad topic: if you were able to write a whole new requirements document from scratch, oriented to future voting systems, not required to support the existing certification program backwards-compatibly, then … what would you put in your hypothetical standards for each of several topics? Not surprisingly, I and my colleagues at TrustTheVote (and like minded folks in the election world more broadly) have some pretty clear views on many areas. As promised to the folks running this session, I’ll be using this blog to document more fully the recommendations we discussed, informed (with thanks) by the views of others at this conference. But I’ll be doing it in chunks over time, because I don’t think anybody wants tome here. 🙂
The Fork in the Road
The zeroth recommendation — that is, before getting to any of the topics requested! — is about the overall scope of a future standard. In the decade or so since the current one was developed (and even more years to the earlier versions), things have changed a lot in the election tech world, and change is accelerating. We are no longer in the stage of
“wow that hanging chad fiasco was horrible, we need to replace them fast with computerized voting machines.” We’ve learned a lot. And one of the biggest learnings is that there is a huge fork in the road, which effects nearly all the requirements that one might make for voting systems. That’s what I want to explain today, in part because it was a good chunk of the discussions at the conference. The fork in the road is this: you either have a voting system that supports evidence-based election results, or you don’t.
In this context, evidence-based means that the voting system produces evidence of its vote tallies that can be cross-checked by humans — and this is the important part — without having to trust or rely on software in any way. That’s important, because as we know, software is not and can never be perfect or trustworthy. In practice, what this means is that for each voter, there is a paper ballot that can be counted directly by people conducting a ballot audit. The typical practice is to take a statistically significant group of ballots for which we have machine count totals — typically a whole precinct in practice today — and manually count them to see if there is any significant variance between human and machine count that could indicate the machine count (or the human audit) had some errors. The process for resolving the rare variances is a larger topic, but the point here is that the process provides assurance of correct results without relying on computers working perfectly all the time.
That’s not the only way to build a voting system, and it’s not the only way to run an election. And in the U.S., our state and local election officials have choices. But many of them do want paper-based processes, to complement modern use of ballot marking devices for accessibility, ballot counters, ballot on demand, ballot readers for those with impaired vision, and a host of technical innovations emerging, including such things as on-boarding processes at polling places, interactive sample ballots for home use, and more. And for those election officials, the evidence-based voting systems have some important requirements.
The Harder Path
But let’s respect the other path as well, which includes a lot of paperless DRE voting machines still in use (and also some internet-voting schemes that several elections orgs are experimenting with). A lot of voters use these older systems. But there is a big difference in the requirements. Indeed, the bulk and complexity of the early requirements standard (and its larger 10-year-old successor) is due to trying to encompass early DRE based systems. Because these systems placed complete reliance on computers, the current requirements include an enormous amount of attention on security, risk management, software development practices, and more, all oriented to helping vendors build systems that would to the extent possible avoid creating a threat of “hacked elections.”
In fact, if you read it now, it looks like a time warp opened and a dropped through a doc from 2004 or so; and it reads pretty well as good advice for the time, on how to use then-current software and systems to — pardon me for the vernacular — “
create a system that is not nearly as easily hacked as most stuff being made now.” (This was in windows XP days, recall.)
I suppose that some updated version of these requirements will be appropriate for future non-evidence-based voting systems. It will take a while to develop; it will be a bit dated by the time it is approved; and its use in voting system development, independent testing, and certification, will be about as burdensome as what we’ve seen in recent years. It has to be done, though, because the risks are greater now that ever, given that the expertise of cyber-adversaries continues to expand beyond the ability of the most sophisticated tech orgs to match.
The Road Not Taken?
So my 0th recommendation is
do not apply these existing standards to evidence based voting systems. I’d almost like to see the new standard in two volumes – one for evidence based and one for others. It would just be a crazy waste of people’s time, effort, energy, and ingenuity to apply such burdensome requirements to evidence based systems, and ironic too: evidence based voting systems are specifically defined to entirely avoid many risks — in fact, the exact risks that the current requirements seek to mitigate! In fact, I would almost recommend further that the new version of the EAC start getting input on how to develop a new streamlined set of voting system requirements specifically for evidence-based systems. I say “almost” because I started to see exactly that starting to glimmer at the NIST/EAC conf this week. And that was super encouraging!
So, my specific recommendations will be entirely focused on what such new requirements should be for evidence-based voting systems. For the other fork in the road, the current standards set a pretty good direction. More soon …
— EJS | 6,918 | 3,093 | 0.000334 |
warc | 201704 | STEM Learning Outside the Traditional Classroom
The project "Advancing Informal STEM Literacy & Learning: A Co-Created Citizen Science Rainwater Harvesting in Underserved Communities" runs from Sept. 15, 2016, to Aug 21, 2021.
The goal of the project is to:
Understand the fate and transport of potential pollutants in harvested water and how these possible pollutants might impact soil, plant and human health. Evaluate the learning outcomes of a citizen science and community-engaged approach to research.
The project will provide a robust dataset that will inform guidelines for harvested rainwater use and also build capacity in underserved communities and inform the safe and sustainable production of food sources. To build trust and make sure that the citizen science data directly informs environmental policy, the project team will build a multi-stakeholders advisory board.
With a $2.26 million grant from the National Science Foundation, University of Arizona researcher
Mónica Ramírez-Andreotta is helping gardeners in Arizona's underserved neighborhoods analyze the safety and quality of water collected through rainwater harvesting systems.
The project, "Advancing Informal Environmental STEM Literacy & Learning: A Co-Created Citizen Science Rainwater Harvesting in Underserved Communities," will be funded for five years.
Ramírez-Andreotta, an assistant professor in the UA
Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science, or SWES, in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, will lead a team conducting urban research in the southern part of the metro Tucson area. Within the area, some communities have poverty rates as high as 51 percent. The team also will conduct a study in rural areas, including some medically underserved mining communities in Gila, Yavapai and Greenlee counties.
"Due to the current and future impacts of climate change, we chose communities that are likely to be disproportionally exposed to pollution and water scarcity in arid and semi-arid environments," Ramírez-Andreotta said.
"This research effort is especially critical for those populations, which account for about 40 percent of the global land area inhabited by one-third of the world's population," she said. "Environmental justice means that everyone has the same degree of protection from environmental and health hazards and equal access to the environmental decision-making process. When environmental justice is achieved, environmental health disparities will be reduced."
Team members in the Department of Soil, Water and Environmental Science include:
Jean McLain, associate director of the CALS Water Resources Research Center; Leif Abrell, an associate research scientist; and Robert Root, a research assistant professor. Also involved is Animata Kilungo, director of research and development at Sonora Environmental Research Institute, a Tucson-based nonprofit organization.
The group will recruit and work alongside seven community health workers (known as promotoras) — and up to 176 families living near urban and rural sources of pollution in Arizona — to monitor the quality of harvested water, soil and plants grown for food.
"This project is an important example of the impact that the University can have by working with members of our community," said UA President
Ann Weaver Hart. "Adapting our land-grant mission for the challenges of the 21st century is absolutely crucial, and Dr. Ramírez-Andreotta and her colleagues in Soil, Water and Environmental Sciences are helping to lead this effort with admirable creativity and dedication. This is wonderful news, and I know I am one among many who will be excited to see the outcomes of this work."
As in many poor communities around the world, residents of these communities often feel the effects of pollution, water scarcity and food insecurity more acutely than others of higher socioeconomic status.
Homegrown fruits and vegetables are an important source of healthy, affordable food, but irrigation costs and concerns about environmental contaminants may deter some residents from gardening and implementing water conservation strategies.
Through the study and a partnership with Sonora Environmental Research Institute, participants will have access to knowledge and resources to address both of these barriers.
"It's a project where there is public participation in the scientific method," Ramírez-Andreotta said.
"Community members living in the targeted areas have identified rainwater harvesting as an environmental health research question," she said, adding that residents have limited information and guidelines that would help them to appropriately use harvested water when growing food crops.
A bilingual (English and Spanish) training program will be developed to certify promotoras in environmental monitoring, sustainability and climate change adaptation. They will then recruit and train urban and rural families on how to install rainwater harvesting systems in their gardens and properly collect water, soil and plant samples for analysis.
Through a program offered by Sonora Environmental Research Institute, community members who take part in the research project also can participate in the SERI Low Income Rainwater Harvesting Program. The program provides assistance to qualified low-income families to cover costs of a rainwater harvesting system. In addition, the team will assist participants in applying for rainwater harvesting incentive rebates offered by the city of Tucson.
The heart of the project lies in the participants' ability to work alongside communities to co-learn and co-generate data to improve environmental health, not only in Arizona but across the world.
Families will collect samples over a three-year period and be provided different tools to monitor the environmental quality of their gardens. For example, harvested water samples will be collected before and after monsoon season and at the beginning and end of winter. The data and potential health risks will be reported back to communities, using different communication methods to see which types are more effective.
"We will be looking at the potential microbial, organic compounds and metal contaminants in harvested rainwater and how those move through the environment — in this case, soils and plants," Ramírez-Andreotta said. "The people will be engaged in most steps of the scientific process and will do their own monitoring after we train them."
While the community participants are collecting samples, the researchers also will assess the learning and action-based outcomes of the project and how a citizen science and community-engaged approach affects informal science learning in underserved communities.
Said Ramírez-Andreotta: "This project will help us understand how people learn science outside formal classrooms, how to increase environmental health literacy in communities near pollution, and how to teach and include more people from different backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and mathematics informal learning." | 7,146 | 3,077 | 0.00033 |
warc | 201704 | The town of Oak Bluffs emerged a winner from Tuesday’s monthly Steamship Authority meeting, which set next year’s summer and fall operating schedules. Vineyard Haven was a loser, as was the boat line itself. Marc Hanover, the Vineyard’s governor, was just angry.
Credit hard economic times for all of the above.
The story began some months back, when the SSA was facing a huge budget hole caused by the high price of fuel. In an effort to find cost savings, management suggested closing the Oak Bluffs ferry terminal early and moving two inbound and two outbound sailings to Vineyard Haven.
The change would have applied throughout next year’s peak season, and saved the SSA an estimated $45,000. But Mr. Hanover, an Oak Bluffs businessman, refused to support it.
He said he could not see the logic in reducing services out of his town, particularly in view of the fact the SSA was in the throes of improving the terminal facilities there.
Why spend $10 or $12 million on new facilities and then use them less, while putting added strain on the crowded facilities of Vineyard Haven, Mr. Hanover said.
He was supported by port council member Bob Huss, also from Oak Bluffs, who had examined the passenger numbers on the services; they were well-patronized boats.
Between them, the two boats brought an average of more than 300 walk-on passengers into the town each day.
“I think it would be tough on passengers. It also would be tough on the economy of Oak Bluffs as well,” he said.
Management promptly dropped the idea, a decision made far easier by the fact that fuel prices fell dramatically.
But this did not sit well with Tisbury, which would have liked to have those extra ferries sent its way.
So on Tuesday, selectmen Tristan Israel and Denys Wortman traveled to the meeting in Woods Hole to plead their case.
“I hate to make this town versus town,” said Mr. Israel, noting that the past 10 to 15 years had seen services moved out of Tisbury.
The town needs the business, he said, all the more because of the big fire last July 4. The selectmen said they were worried about the economic well-being of the town as well as the cost to town revenues resulting from the loss of embarkation fees.
Tisbury is the Island’s year-round town and does not deserve to be penalized for its success, Mr. Israel said.
He went on at some length and handed over a couple of letters supporting his case, one of them from the town administrator.
Mr. Wortman was more succinct. He cannily argued the boat line should consider its own financial interests, that it could still save $45,000.
In contrast, the Oak Bluffs selectman Ron DiOrio, was brief in his submission. He simply expressed his confidence that the SSA would stick to its plan of maintaining the boat services to “Camelot.”
And that is just what the boat line governors did, after a little homily from SSA general manager Wayne Lamson about the need to maintain service levels, and a few choice words from Mr. Hanover, defending his integrity in the process.
He said he regretted any perception that he favored one town over another, that Tisbury had in fact received 50,000 more people this year, that it had suffered some “horrendous” traffic snarls because of the boat traffic, and that the plan came from management.
In particular, he said he resented any suggestion that he was looking after his own restaurant business.
“The last boat docks at 8:15 and my restaurant shuts at 8,” Mr. Hanover said.
In the end Tisbury won one small concession: SSA governors agreed that ferry passengers would be surveyed this coming season to determine whether they would prefer to be delivered to Oak Bluffs or Tisbury.
In other business, the governors held a hearing on licence renewals for several private operators who run services to the Islands. Proceedings showed times are tough.
Hy-Line Cruises’ proposed schedule for its Hyannis to the Vineyard operations next year is greatly reduced — down from five to three round-trips per day in spring, from five to four in early and late summer, from five to three in early fall and from four to two in late fall.
Cape and Islands Transport Inc., operators of the Pied Piper passenger ferry service from Falmouth to Edgartown, sought only minor time adjustments for their services — they previously have cut the number of weekly trips from 35 to 29 — but reported a steep decline in patronage.
Total passenger numbers fell from 27,000 in 2007 to 17,000 last year.
In an effort to make up some of their losses, the ferry owners are exploring joint marketing with hotels and other destinations on the Island.
On the upside, the SSA management told the governors they are putting together a plan to protect the boat line against sharp spikes in fuel costs in future. For a cost of about 15 cents per gallon of fuel, they could insure against the price rising above what is currently budgeted, ensuring no fare hikes in the coming year. | 5,046 | 2,422 | 0.000423 |
warc | 201704 | 1. It has been established that athletes and bodybuilders need more protein to insure fast recovery and new muscle growth. This leads to the need of a good intake of protein. Before we further delve into the topic, let’s take a look at what proteins are.
Proteins are one of three macronutrients used by the body for energy. These macronutrients include protein, carbs and fats.
In addition to its muscle building properties, protein also provides the following benefits:
It keeps a balanced PH level in the blood.
It preserves muscle tissues during dieting or cuts.
It helps in building and maintaining proper hormone levels.
It is necessary for chemical reactions to take place.
It keeps the body’s immune system functioning properly.
It helps in regulating the body’s fluid balance.
While working out at the gym, your muscles are depleted of glycogen leading to damage that requires repair. Protein then plays a vital role in muscle recovery. A steady stream of protein ensures a proper nitrogen balance. A positive nitrogen balance allows your body to be in muscle repair mode. The faster your muscles repair, the faster you recover. Conversely, under-eating protein foods create a negative nitrogen balance. In this state, it will take longer to recover. Extra protein is essential, especially for athletes who have frequent workouts, or for athletes who are cutting fat.
Typical protein food sources include: eggs, cheese, milk, chicken, seafood, fish, poultry, beef, pork, lamb, veal, soy, nuts and legumes. Small amounts of protein can also be found in fatty and starchy foods. Because protein levels in these foods are minimal, they are generally overlooked by bodybuilders and athletes when a protein diet is structured.
Protein supplement foods have grown in popularity over the last 30 years because of several factors. They are convenient, and require no cooking time. Protein supplements are also cost effective, and can provide an average serving cost far below that of typical protein foods. These are utilized to assist bodybuilders and athletes to achieve their desired daily protein intake requirements. Types of protein supplements include protein powders, protein bars, weight gainers and meal replacements.
Below is a sample Protein Supplementation Plan:
The following is a list of suggested times for various protein supplements. It is not recommended that you eat only protein supplement foods. Protein variety is essential for good health and muscle mass.
Morning – Protein shake, whey/casein protein powder blend.
Mid-Morning – Protein Bar
Lunch – Protein shake, slow digesting protein source such as casein or egg protein.
Mid-Afternoon – Protein Bar
Pre-Workout – Whey protein shake, fast digesting protein source. Waxy maize.
Workout - Whey protein and waxy maize.
Post-workout - Protein shake, whey/casein protein powder blend. Waxy maize.
Before Bed - Protein shake, slow digesting protein source such as casein or egg protein.
We hope our comprehensive guide on proteins was useful to you. Visit www.vitaminplanet.in/protein to learn about our best offerings on protein supplements. | 3,178 | 1,432 | 0.000713 |
warc | 201704 | Tags
Cereal will be different tomorrow because this bowl will not be apart of it. Yes, I am a sentimentalist and I do hang on to certain things, if they have meaning and continue to provide enjoyment and usefulness.
Big deal I know, but as I sit here smiling with all the memories of this little dish it is a big deal to me. This vintage SCIO oatmeal bowl belonged to my great grandmother, Mommie Wilcox. She lived on this earth with us until she was 92 years old and was the oldest matriarch of my family that was alive during my lifetime. I had an amazing thirty-three years with her. She has been gone for just over 9 years and that is exactly how long I have used her little bowl.
It is significant for me and my family that we are able to have the memories of her; thoughts that put special meaning in something as trivial as a ceramic cereal bowl. It makes me fulfilled that she was here long enough to have time with each of my children too.
In the generations that my great-grandmother (1912) and her daughter, my grandmother (1929) were born, food was the most integral part of their lives and it didn’t come from anywhere else other than their own gardens and their own kitchens.
An enormous part of their lives was dedicated to food. The growing, canning, preparing, and cooking of food was as much a part of their life as raising a family – without the food and their relentless efforts to always have it, there would be no family.
I am proud of Mommie Wilcox’s hodgepodge dishes for the simple reason that when we use them I am reminded of how fortunate I have always been. I am not sad that this bowl is gone I am only blessed with the reflection it brought to my life.
Momma & Mommie Wilcox 1996~ | 1,735 | 913 | 0.001111 |
warc | 201704 | If there’s one thing participants focus on the fastest, it’s when they can’t hear the presenter. Speaking too softly, mumbling, or garbling words are a few ways a speaker gets in the way of their own message. Well SpeakSchmeak has a few tips for speaking to be heard.
Relax – When we’re nervous or tense, our voices sound unnatural. This leads to low volumes, abnormally high pitches, and even our words pouring out too fast to be understood. To avoid all that, take deep breaths and slow down. Before the presentation we can calm down by stretching our arms over our head, or even bending at the waist and just dangling to the floor. Open Your Mouth – The main cause of garbled words or mumbling is simply that we need to open wide. For practice, reading aloud helps us hear ourselves being unclear, and encourages us to enunciate and let our voices out. Improve Your Posture – Sitting up straight or standing tall doesn’t just help us look better, it properly aligns our bodies the way they were designed. With a straight spine, our lungs can fill with more air, our diaphragm can support our sound better, and our voices have a clear route out. Focus Your Voice – We may have good posture, be relaxed, and speak with our mouths open, but if we’re sending our words to the floor or just in front of us, we’ll still be unheard. We should speak out to, and focus our voices to where the ears are. If in front of an audience, we aim towards the back. If on a conference call, we make sure our mics are close enough and unobstructed. | 1,589 | 845 | 0.001228 |
warc | 201704 | Published: Jan 1993
Format Pages Price PDF (136K) 8 $25 ADD TO CART Complete Source PDF (6.5M) 308 $91 ADD TO CART
A summary of current heavy duty engine coolant technology is provided which includes a description of heavy duty engines and applications, current problems and concerns which face the industry, industry standard specifications and test methods which are under development to address the concerns, and future directions for the technology. The special needs of heavy duty engines dictate that engine coolant formulations be developed and made available that are tailored to these engines. Efforts to improve fuel economy and durability while reducing emissions and noise will have an important impact on the application of engine coolant technology to heavy duty diesel engines in the future.
Keywords:
heavy duty engine coolants, liner pitting, cavitation corrosion, coolant recycling, water pump seals, supplemental coolant additives, coolant maintenance, coolant test methods, water quality
Author Information:
Kelley, FA
Project Manager, Caterpillar Inc., Peoria, IL Committee/Subcommittee: D15.11 DOI: 10.1520/STP25174S | 1,168 | 652 | 0.001566 |
warc | 201704 | Stochastic inversion workflow using the gradual deformation in order to predict and monitor the CO\(_2\) flow within a saline aquifer
Due to budget constraints, CCS in deep saline aquifers is often carried out using only one injector well and one control well, which seriously limits infering the dynamics of the CO_2 plume. In such case, monitoring of the plume of CO_2 only rely on geological assumptions or indirect data. In this paper, we present a new two-step stochastic \(P\)- and \(S\)-wave, density and porosity inversion approach that allows reliable monitoring of CO_2 plume using time-lapse VSP. In the first step, we compute several sets of stochastic models of the elastic properties using conventional sequential Gaussian cosimulations. Each realization within a set of static models are then iteratively combined together using a modified gradual deformation optimization technique with the difference between computed and observed raw traces as objective function. In the second step, this statics models serves as input for a CO_2 injection history matching using the same modified gradual deformation scheme. At each gradual deformation step the CO_2 injection is simulated and the corresponding full-wave traces are computed and compared to the observed data. The method has been tested on a synthetic heterogeneous saline aquifer model mimicking the environment of the CO_2 CCS pilot in Becancour area, Quebec. The results show that the set of optimized models of \(P\)- and \(S\)-wave, density and porosity showed an improved structural similarity with the reference models compared to conventional simulations.
One of the major challenges limiting large-scale deployment of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) operations is the issue of evaluating and forecasting the fate of CO_2 in deep rock formations. The characteristics of the reservoir determine from the very beginning the design and operational conditions of most of the CCS chain. Indeed, having a comprehensive knowledge of the physical characteristics of the storage site is crucial to determine the optimal rate of CO_2 injection, which influences the rate of capture, as well as the parameters of a proper monitoring strategy. Let us recall that monitoring is an essential component of any CCS project and that most, if not all, jurisdictions require more or less elaborated monitoring, verification and accounting (MVA) programs (e.g. European CCS directive).
A common task in CCS projects is thus to monitor the spatial distribution of CO_2 over time. However, the spatial distribution of the CO_2 plume that is estimated through monitoring is often inconsistent, to varying degrees, with model-based simulations (Ramirez et al., 2013). This is mainly due to the lack or sparseness of direct measurements of petrophysical properties of the reservoir, to the low spatial coverage of geophysical surveys, to the underlying resolution of inversion techniques and to uncertainties that limits the understanding of the subsurface and therefore the ability to produce accurate reservoir models allowing reliable forecast of the CO_2 plume.
The process of optimizing a reservoir model to fit dynamic data is commonly known as history matching and is extensively used in the oil and gas industry. In conventional history matching, the target variables are reservoir engineering properties such as pressure, water-cut, rate of production of oil, and the like, all involving at least one injector and one pumping well. In CO_2 storage projects, such well configuration is not conceivable (pumping is not done) and only one injector well is usually available. In this context, only indirect data have the spatial coverage and the potential to improve the estimation of the CO_2 plume within the deep saline aquifers.
History matching requires the knowledge, at least in the stochastic sense, of the spatial distribution of the static properties of the reservoir (porosity, permeability). Due to the geological complexity and the scarcity of direct observations (i.e. well data), probabilistic methods appear to be the most suitable choice to build a reliable reservoir model. In addition, it is established that seismic measurements are well suited to constrain static reservoir property modeling as they provide indirect but correlated and spatially extensive information about reservoir properties (Doyen, 2007).
The estimation of static parameters from seismic data is a complex, ill-conditioned, nonlinear inverse problem due principally to the limited bandwidth and resolution of the seismic data, to noise, to measurement errors, and to the assumptions underlying to forward models (Tarantola, 2005). Seismic inverse problems may be developed following deterministic or probabilistic approaches and can be divided into two main categories: (1) multiple step inversion methods and (2) stochastic inversion methods (Grana et al., 2012).
In multiple step inversion methods, the problem of estimating reservoir properties from seismic data is split into two or more subproblems; elastic properties are first derived from partial stacked seismic data through elastic inversion; then, reservoir properties are classified by statistical techniques, such as Bayesian classification (Avseth et al., 2001; Mukerji et al., 2001; Buland et al., 2003).
Iterative stochastic inversion methodologies solve the seismic inverse problem using deterministic or stochastic optimization techniques. First, a set of equivalent earth models is simulated using a stochastic algorithm based on prior information usually from available well log data and a spatial continuity pattern (e.g. variogram, training image) to create fine-scale reservoir models (Bosch et al., 2009) . Then suitable rock-physics transforms are applied to generate the corresponding volumes of the elastic properties. Finally, synthetic seismic volumes are computed and compared to real seismic data to evaluate the mismatch. Several optimization methods exist to infer the elastic properties based on the measured traces. González et al. (2008) performed a trace-by-trace deterministic optimization, Bosch et al. (2009) proposed an iterative optimization based on Newton’s method; Markov chain Monte Carlo approach has been used successfully for the stochastic exploration of the model space (Eidsvik et al., 2004; Larsen et al., 2006; Gunning et al., 2007; Rimstad et al., 2010; Ulvmoen et al., 2010; Hansen et al., 2012). Grana et al. (2012) show the efficiency of the probability perturbation method (Caers et al., 2006) to estimate fine-scale reservoir models in a stochastic inversion. A multidimensional scaling technique was successfully applied by Azevedo et al. (2013) to asses how the parameter model space is explored by global elastic inversion algorithm.
In addition to the static information and in order to evaluate the performance of the reservoir in terms of CO_2 storage, reservoirs models need to be constrained by dynamic data obtained from the CO_2 injection operations. To be meaningful, reservoir models must match the observed dynamic behavior of the reservoir within some interval of tolerance. History matching is also an ill-posed problem and can be solved using the same algorithms as the one used for estimating the static properties, but then involving the injection data and forward fluid flow modeling.
In this paper we propose a stochastic inversion workflow using a modified gradual deformation parametrization method (Roggero et al., 1998) as a stochastic optimization technique that integrates geophysical and geological logs, seismic reflection data and CO_2 flow simulations in order to analyze and monitor the CO_2 injection and its propagation within a saline aquifer. This paper is organized as follows. In the first section, we focus on each step of the seismic inversion algorithm. The second section presents an the application of the approach to characterize a synthetic reservoir for the CO_2 injection in the St. Lawrence Lowlands, Quebec, Canada. | 8,056 | 3,368 | 0.000298 |
warc | 201704 | How would you react if you discovered that your company’s selling expenses were 30 percent, or even 50 percent, higher than those of other companies? And what would you do if you also found that your company had more back-office employees than revenue-generating sales reps, and that it was not benefiting from economies of scale typical of commercial functions in other industries? Finally, what actions would you take if your own team considered your company’s commercial capabilities too immature to meet the rapidly changing demands and buying patterns of key customers?
Before you answer, let this reality sink in: many medical-technology companies spend not 30 percent or 50 percent more, but 200, 300, or even 500 percent more on selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses as a percentage of the cost of goods sold than the typical technology or industrial company. (See Exhibit 1.) At the same time, the majority of medtech companies realize no economies of scale in commercial back-office operations such as marketing, human resources, and finance—meaning that as these companies grow larger, their back offices grow at the same rate. Further, in a recent BCG survey of medtech businesses, the majority of employees assessed their companies’ critical commercial functions as operating at only a basic or an intermediate level of maturity.
These findings may be hard to believe for a healthy industry, but they describe the reality at most medtech companies. Two decades of hard-earned clinical innovation have yielded attractive gross margins, but these margins mask high-cost commercial models and underdeveloped commercial skills when compared with other industries. | 1,711 | 867 | 0.00117 |
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