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warc | 201704 | Dear Members,
As we kick off the new year with the best of intentions to make 2017 the best one yet, don't forget to make some resolutions for your business. Whether it is to increase sales, learn how to market your business better with social media tools, or grow staff and production by 10%, etc., having goals is a proven methodology to improving overall health and success of your business. The end of the year is a good time to reflect on the progress that was made in the last year, and the beginning of the year should be about strategically planning for your company's growth and increased success.
A simple google search of "Business Resolutions" will bring up tons of ideas for strengthening and refining your goals for your business. One great article published by Intuit Quickbooks summarized the more common New Year's resolutions for small businesses in 2016:
Resolve to Re-Evaluate Your Mission Statement and Overall Goals
Resolve to Ask for-and Listen to-Feedback
Resolve to Refresh Your Social Media and Marketing Strategies
Resolve to Enhance Your Technology Footprint
Resolve to Plan Ahead
Resolve to Take a Breath and Nourish Your Mind and Body
Resolve to Learn One New Thing
Resolve to Achieve a Bit of Balance
The full article can be found here. Some other articles discuss more specific goals for particular businesses and industries.
The most important thing to remember is the process of establishing your resolutions is what will be the key. Outlining goals and strategizing for your business' growth and success will help guide your business practices and decisions throughout the year. Sticking to your resolutions will be that much easier!
Happy New Year!
Sincerely,
Erin Donovan-Boyle | 1,733 | 902 | 0.001121 |
warc | 201704 | A civil war is still under way in Syria and dozens of rebels and civilians are being killed on a weekly basis. For our next president, this growing problem will demand attention.
While the presidential campaign draws to a close, an international crisis continues to rage in the Middle East.
A civil war is still under way in Syria and dozens of rebels and civilians are being killed on a weekly basis. For our next president, this growing problem will demand attention. But the nation clearly does not want another war, and the military options are limited. Yet inaction could be dangerous too. The Syrian civil war will continue to heat up — as it has done for more than year — until it possibly boils over and burns its neighbors in the Middle East. A spreading Syrian problem could drag the United States and NATO into a larger war. Already, Syria has shelled our NATO ally, Turkey. After Turkish civilians were killed, Turkey responded with force. The actions on Syria's part were likely accidental in the chasing of rebels, but Turkey is clearly weary of the Syrian civil war raging across its southeastern border. Syria is also reportedly interfering in the affairs of its western neighbor, Lebanon. In mid-October, a top Lebanese intelligence official, Brig.-Gen. Wissam al-Hassan, known for his efforts in investigating Syrian spying, was assassinated via a car bomb. Lebanese authorities say Syria is trying to manipulate the small Middle Eastern nation, which contains allies of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Seeing Lebanon dive back into the kind of civil war it has experienced would add to the body count in this part of the Middle East. The worst part of this 19-month-old tragedy has been, of course, contained within Syrian borders. War casualty estimates vary, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters that 31,000 people have been killed in the conflict. That includes 21,500 civilians. Recently, the Syrian regime has launched at least 60 air strikes against civilians, even in the suburbs of the nation's capital, Damascus. If Assad is desperate enough to use airplanes in strikes in Damascus suburbs, then he is likely to use even more murderous methods to crush the rebels. It's past time for stronger action by the United Nations and the Arab League. The U.N. Security Council needs to stop worrying about wider geopolitical concerns between Russia, China and the United States, and start worrying about the people of Syria. More military involvement in the Middle East is not an attractive option — especially since U.S. foreign policy officials can't seem to decipher what's going on there. The object of using military force is to kill people and break things. It should never be used unless U.S. and international leaders have a clear objective and achievable goals. More stringent sanctions placed upon Syria, as well as support for the rebels, may be the best way to proceed. However, American leaders need to know whom they're dealing with in Syria. Replacing Assad with a totalitarian Islamic state bent on attacking the U.S. and Israel obviously isn't a desirable outcome. The United States and NATO countries often struggle to understand the ethnic, cultural and political differences of the Middle East. Supporting democracy in Egypt, for example, seemed like a great idea during the “Arab Spring” of 2011 — until an Islamic party took over the government. Now the United States is concerned that religious fundamentalists may seek confrontation with Israel. Also, the U.S. and NATO did not seem ready for the power vacuum created in Libya by the removal of Moammar Gadhafi. Partly as a result of this confusion and irresolution, the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans are dead. But no stone should be unturned as the United States and the UN pressure Syria and seek to aid the rebels. Assad has shown no restraint in crushing dissent. Ousting him may save the lives of thousands of Syrians.� | 3,997 | 1,930 | 0.000523 |
warc | 201704 | desvenlafaxine modified release tablets
Consumer Medicine Information
NOTICE: This Consumer Medicine Information (CMI) is intended for persons
living in Australia. This page contains answers to some common
questions about
. It does
not contain all the information that is known about
. It does not take the
place of talking to your doctor or pharmacist. All medicines have risks
and benefits. Your doctor has weighed the risk of you using this medicine
against the benefits he/she expects it will have for you. If you have
any concerns about using this medicine, ask your doctor or pharmacist.
Bookmark or print this page, you may need to read it again.
What Desvenlafaxine Sandoz is used for What it does
Desvenlafaxine is used in the treatment and prevention of relapse of depression. Depression can affect your whole body and may cause emotional and physical symptoms such as feeling low in spirit, being unable to enjoy life, poor appetite or overeating, disturbed sleep, loss of sex drive, lack of energy and feeling guilty over nothing.
Ask your doctor if you have any questions about why Desvenlafaxine Sandoz has been prescribed for you.
Your doctor may have prescribed it for another reason.
How it works
Desvenlafaxine Sandoz contains the active ingredient called desvenlafaxine. It belongs to a class of medications called Serotonin-Noradrenaline Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRIs).
Serotonin and noradrenaline are chemical messengers that allow certain nerves in the brain to work. Desvenlafaxine Sandoz tablets increase the level of these two messengers. Experts think this is how it helps to restore your feeling of wellness.
Desvenlafaxine Sandoz is not addictive. It is available only with a doctor's prescription.
Before you take Desvenlafaxine Sandoz When you must not take it
Do not take Desvenlafaxine Sandoz if you are taking other medications for depression known as monoamine oxidase inhibitors, even if you have stopped taking them, but have taken them within the last 14 days.
Do not take Desvenlafaxine Sandoz if you are allergic to desvenlafaxine, venlafaxine or to any of the ingredients listed at the end of this leaflet.
Symptoms of an allergic reaction include:
Skin rash
Itching or hives on the skin
Swelling of the face, lips, tongue, throat or other parts of the body
Shortness of breath, wheezing, troubled breathing or difficulty swallowing.
Do not give Desvenlafaxine Sandoz to children or adolescents under 18 years of age.
The safety and effectiveness of desvenlafaxine in this age group have not been established.
Do not take this medicine after the expiry date (EXP) printed on the pack, or if the packaging is torn or shows signs of tampering.
If it has expired or is damaged, return it to your pharmacist for disposal.
If you are not sure whether you should start taking this medicine, talk to your doctor.
Before you start to take it
Tell your doctor or pharmacist if you have allergies to any other medicines, foods, preservatives or dyes.
Tell your doctor or pharmacist if you are pregnant or intend to become pregnant.
Desvenlafaxine Sandoz is not recommended for use during pregnancy. Your doctor will discuss the risks and benefits of taking desvenlafaxine if you are pregnant. One of these risks is that newborn babies whose mothers have been taking desvenlafaxine may have several problems including breathing difficulties, seizures and lack of oxygen in their blood.
Tell your doctor or pharmacist if you are breast-feeding or plan to breast-feed.
Desvenlafaxine passes into breast milk and there is a possibility that the breast-fed baby may be affected. For this reason, the use of desvenlafaxine is not recommended in breast-feeding women.
Tell your doctor if you have, or have had, any medical conditions, especially the following:
a history of fits (seizures or convulsions)
a personal history or family history of bipolar disorder
blood pressure problems
glaucoma (increased pressure in the eye)
a tendency to bleed more than normal or you are taking a blood thinning medication
raised cholesterol or lipid levels
problems with your kidneys or liver
problems with your heart
low sodium levels in your blood
any other medical conditions.
Tell your doctor if you plan to have surgery. If you have not told your doctor about any of the above, tell them before you start to take Desvenlafaxine Sandoz.
Taking other medicines
Tell your doctor or pharmacist if you take any other medicines, including:
all prescription medicines
all medicines, vitamins, herbal supplements or natural therapies you buy without a prescription from a pharmacy, supermarket, naturopath or health food shop, such as St John's Wort or tryptophan supplements.
Do not start to take any other medicine while you are taking Desvenlafaxine Sandoz, unless it is prescribed or approved by your doctor.
Some medicines may interfere with desvenlafaxine or desvenlafaxine may interfere with these medicines. These include:
medications for depression known as monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) (such as moclobemide, phenelzine and tranylcypromine). Tell your doctor if you are taking or have stopped taking them within the last 14 days. Ask your doctor or pharmacist if you are unsure if you are taking any of these medicines. It is important that you do not take Desvenlafaxine Sandoz or medicines similar to Desvenlafaxine Sandoz with MAOIs or within 14 days of taking an MAOI as this may result in a serious life-threatening condition. Your doctor or pharmacist can tell you what to do if you are taking any of these medicines.
any other medications for bipolar disorder, depression, anxiety, obsessive-compulsive disorder or pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder, including St John's Wort
drugs that affect serotonin levels e.g. tramadol, dextromethorphan, fentanyl, methadone and pentazocine.
medicines for weight loss, including sibutramine
triptans (used to treat migraine)
linezolid (used to treat infections)
drugs that affect your tendency to bleed eg: aspirin, NSAIDS, warfarin.
You may need to take different amounts of your medicine, or you may need to take different medicines. Your doctor will advise you.
Your doctor or pharmacist has more information on medicines to be careful with or to avoid while taking Desvenlafaxine Sandoz.
Switching to Desvenlafaxine Sandoz from other antidepressants
Side effects from discontinuing antidepressant medication may occur if you are switched from other antidepressants, including venlafaxine, to Desvenlafaxine Sandoz. Your doctor may gradually reduce the dose of your initial antidepressant medication to help reduce these side effects.
How to take Desvenlafaxine Sandoz
Follow all directions given to you by your doctor or pharmacist carefully.
They may differ from the information contained in this leaflet.
If you do not understand the instructions on the box, ask your doctor or pharmacist for help.
How to take it
Swallow the tablets whole with a glass of water or other non-alcoholic liquid.
Do not divide, crush, chew or place the tablets in water.
Do not be concerned if you see a tablet 'shell' in your faeces after taking Desvenlafaxine Sandoz.
As the tablet travels the length of your gastrointestinal tract, the active ingredient desvenlafaxine is slowly released. The tablet 'shell' remains undissolved and is eliminated in your faeces. Therefore, even though, you may see a tablet 'shell' in your faeces, your dose of desvenlafaxine has been absorbed.
How much to take
The usual dose is 50 mg taken once daily with or without food.
Do not change your dose unless your doctor tells you to.
Your doctor will gradually increase your dose if needed. If you have kidney problems, you may need a lower dose of Desvenlafaxine Sandoz.
When to take it
Desvenlafaxine Sandoz should be taken once daily and can be taken with or without food.
Take Desvenlafaxine Sandoz at approximately the same time each day.
This could be either in the morning or in the evening. Taking it at the same time each day will have the best effect. It will also help you remember when to take it.
How long to take it
Continue taking your medicine for as long as your doctor tells you.
Although you may begin to feel better after two weeks, it may take several weeks before you feel much better. It is important to give Desvenlafaxine Sandoz time to work.
This medicine helps to control your condition, so it is important to keep taking your medicine even if you feel well.
If you forget to take it
If it is less than 12 hours until your next dose, skip the dose you missed and then take your next dose when you are meant to. Otherwise, take it as soon as you remember, and then go back to taking as you would normally.
Do not take a double dose to make up for the dose you missed.
This may increase the chance of you getting an unwanted side effect.
If you are not sure what to do, ask your doctor or pharmacist. If you have trouble remembering when to take your medicine, ask your pharmacist for some hints.
If you take too much (overdose)
Immediately telephone your doctor or the Poisons Information Centre (tel: 13 11 26) for advice, or go to Accident and Emergency at your nearest hospital if you think that you or anyone else may have taken too much Desvenlafaxine Sandoz.
Do this even if there are no signs of discomfort or poisoning.
You may need urgent medical attention.
Keep the telephone number for these places handy whilst taking any medications.
While you are taking Desvenlafaxine Sandoz Things you must do
Visit your doctor regularly for a check-up so that your progress can be checked. Always discuss any questions you have about Desvenlafaxine Sandoz with your doctor.
Take Desvenlafaxine Sandoz tablets as your doctor has prescribed. Tell any other doctors, dentists and pharmacists who treat you that you are taking this medicine.
Keep enough Desvenlafaxine Sandoz tablets to last weekends and holidays.
This medicine helps to control your condition, but does not cure it. It is important to keep taking your medicine even if you feel well.
Watch carefully for signs that your depression is getting worse, especially in the first few weeks of treatment or if your dose has changed.
Sometimes people with depression can experience a worsening of their depressive symptoms. This can happen even when taking an antidepressant.
Tell your doctor there is the potential for a false positive urinary drug screen while on Desvenlafaxine Sandoz.
Tell your doctor immediately if you experience any of the following symptoms, especially if they are severe, you have not had these symptoms before or they happen very suddenly.
anxiety or agitation
panic attacks
difficulty sleeping
irritability
aggressiveness
hostility or impulsiveness
restlessness
overactivity or uninhibited behaviour
other unusual changes in behaviour
thoughts of suicide.
Tell your doctor immediately if you have any thoughts about suicide or doing harm to yourself.
Warning signs of suicide:
If you or someone you know is showing the following warning signs, contact your doctor or a mental health advisor right away or go to the nearest hospital for treatment.
All thoughts or talk about suicide or violence are serious.
thoughts or talk about death or suicide
thoughts or talk about self-harm or doing harm to others
any recent attempts of self-harm
an increase in aggressive behaviour, irritability or agitation.
Things to be careful of
Be careful driving or operating dangerous machinery until you know how Desvenlafaxine Sandoz affects you.
Desvenlafaxine Sandoz tablets may make you feel drowsy.
Things you must not do
Do not stop taking Desvenlafaxine Sandoz or change the dose without the advice of your doctor, even if you feel better.
Your doctor may want to slowly decrease your dose of Desvenlafaxine Sandoz to help avoid side effects. Side effects are known to occur when people stop taking Desvenlafaxine Sandoz, especially when they suddenly stop therapy.
Some of these side effects include:
headache
nausea
dizziness
tiredness
irritability
anxiety
abnormal dreams
diarrhoea
excessive sweating.
Slowly reducing the amount of Desvenlafaxine Sandoz being taken reduces the possibility of these effects occurring.
Some of these symptoms may impair driving, or the operation of dangerous machinery. Avoid these activities if you experience any of these symptoms.
Avoid drinking alcohol while you are taking Desvenlafaxine Sandoz. Do not give this medicine to anyone else even if they have the same condition as you.
Side effects
Tell your doctor or pharmacist as soon as possible if you do not feel well while you are taking Desvenlafaxine Sandoz.
All medicines can have side effects. Sometimes they are serious; often they are not. You may need medical attention if you get some of the side effects.
It can be difficult to tell whether side effects are the result of taking this medicine, symptoms of your condition, or side effects of other medicines you may be taking. For this reason it is important to tell your doctor of any change in your condition.
Do not be alarmed by the list of side effects.
You may not experience any of them.
Ask your doctor or pharmacist to answer any questions you may have.
Tell your doctor if...
Tell your doctor or pharmacist if you notice any of the following and they worry you:
stomach, bowel or urinary tract problems:
nausea or vomiting
loss of appetite
diarrhoea
constipation
difficulty passing urine
changes in your behaviour:
difficulty sleeping, abnormal sleepiness or abnormal dreams
sexual function problems such as decreased sex drive, delayed ejaculation, problems achieving erection or difficulties achieving orgasm
nervousness or anxiety
feeling jittery or irritable
difficulty thinking or working because of
yawning
disturbances in concentration
fainting or dizziness after standing up
fatigue - Rapid heart beat
chills
headache
changes in your appearance
excessive sweating
hot flushes
rash
weight loss or weight gain
blurred vision
ringing in the ears
altered taste, dry mouth.
Tell your doctor as soon as possible if...
Tell your doctor as soon as possible if you notice any of the following:
muscle stiffness, weakness or movement disorders
abnormal facial movements such as tongue thrusting, repetitive chewing, jaw swinging, or grimacing
a feeling of apathy or not caring about things
feeling detached from yourself
hallucinations, confusion
bleeding or bruising more easily than normal
numbness or pins and needles.
Go to hospital if...
Tell your doctor immediately, or go to Accident and Emergency at your nearest hospital if you notice any of the following:
swelling of the face, lips, tongue, throat or other parts of the body
seizures or fits
symptoms of sudden fever with sweating, rapid heartbeat and muscle stiffness, which may lead to loss of consciousness.
Tell your doctor or pharmacist if you notice anything else that is making you feel unwell.
Other side effects not listed above may also occur in some people. Some of these side effects (for example, increase in blood pressure, increase in blood cholesterol, changes to liver function, protein in the urine) can only be found when your doctor does tests from time to time to check your progress.
This is not a complete list of all possible side effects. Others may occur in some people and there may be some side effects not yet known.
Tell your doctor if you notice anything that is making you feel unwell.
After taking Desvenlafaxine Sandoz Storage
Keep your Desvenlafaxine Sandoz tablets in their original packaging material until it is time to take them.
The tablets may not last as well if you take them out of the original packaging material.
Keep Desvenlafaxine Sandoz tablets in a cool dry place where the temperature stays below 25°C.
Do not store Desvenlafaxine Sandoz tablets or any other medicine in the bathroom or near a sink. Do not leave Desvenlafaxine Sandoz tablets in the car or on windowsills.
Heat and dampness can destroy some medicines.
Keep Desvenlafaxine Sandoz tablets and all medication where young children cannot reach it.
A locked cupboard, at least one-and a-half metres above the ground, is a good place to store medicines.
Disposal
If your doctor tells you to stop taking this medicine or the expiry date has passed, ask your pharmacist what to do with any medicine that is left over.
Product description What Desvenlafaxine Sandoz looks like
There are two strengths of Desvenlafaxine Sandoz tablets:
50 mg, light pink coloured, diamond shaped, biconvex tablets, debossed with 'L189' on one side and plain on other side. Blister packs containing 28 tablets.
100 mg, dark brown to red coloured, diamond shaped, biconvex tablets, debossed with 'L190' on one side and plain on other side. Blister packs containing 28 tablets.
Ingredients
Active ingredient:
Desvenlafaxine Sandoz 50 mg - 50 mg desvenlafaxine
Desvenlafaxine Sandoz 100 mg - 100 mg desvenlafaxine
Inactive ingredients:
alginic acid
citric acid monohydrate
microcrystalline cellulose
povidone
purified talc
magnesium stearate
hypromellose.
The 50 mg tablets are film coated with OPADRY film coating system 03F84770 PINK (ARTG No. 109228) and the 100 mg tablets are coated with OPADRY film coating system 03F86990 BROWN (ARTG No. 109232).
This medicine does not contain lactose or gluten.
Supplier
Sandoz Pty Ltd
ABN 60 075 449 553
54 Waterloo Road
Macquarie Park, NSW 2113
Australia
Tel: 1800 634 500
This leaflet was revised in August 2016.
Australian Register Numbers
50 mg modified release tablets: AUST R 218083 (blisters)
100 mg modified release tablets: AUST R 218082 (blisters) | 17,786 | 6,558 | 0.000155 |
warc | 201704 | When Kate Evans was freelancing, she says trying to sort through health-insurance choices was a nightmare.
Kate Evans "The options weren't really straightforward, and it was very confusing as to what you really got. Pages of information that just didn't make sense." Consumer Reports analyzed 984 private, Medicare, and Medicaid health-insurance plans ranked by the National Committee for Quality Assurance, or N-C-Q-A, a nonprofit accreditation organization. Nancy Metcalf Consumer Reports "The rankings take a number of factors into consideration, including customer satisfaction and how good a job the plan does on treatment and prevention." Hospital hallway On the plus side - the quality of care has improved. But Consumer Reports says there are troubling trends as well. Nancy Metcalf "There are treatments and tests that have been shown not to be helpful, yet research shows many are still being overused. That's not only a waste of money, but you could end up getting treatments that are unnecessary, and sometimes even dangerous." Turns out the providers of the top ten private plans are all nonprofits. Nancy Metcalf "That means they don't have to worry about turning a profit for investors, they only about pleasing their customers." In the rankings, big name for-profit companies - UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, and Humana - had more private plans at the bottom than at the top. When it comes to shopping for insurance, a new form will make the process much easier. Nancy Metcalf "For the first time, every plan will have a form that looks exactly the same, which will make it much easier to compare them side by side." So people will have a much easier time comparing different policies. Local family moves in to Habitat for Humanity home Women's March on Madison draws thousands to protest Trump UW-La Crosse students organize 'Women's March on La Crosse' Wisconsin Supreme Court orders John Doe documents released UPDATE: Officer won't be charged in Holmen shooting The Latest: Judge won't drop charges against ex-UW student Baldwin supports pair of Trump nominees Taste of Onalaska raises money for teachers Chili cook-off warms up community while raising money Area protester goes to joins Women's March on Washington D. C. | 2,248 | 1,181 | 0.000852 |
warc | 201704 | It's easy to bypass certain difficult topics by simply not making time for those conversations. But the truth is, there are some discussions every couple needs to be having because change never comes easy, nor does it always come pre-announced.
1. Where is everything? Chances are, one or both of you can't answer that question about the important paperwork of your life. In most relationships, one partner is the bill-payer and records-keeper; the other partner is in the dark -- and therein lies the problem. But both of you need to know where...
Read more | 562 | 357 | 0.002821 |
warc | 201704 | Now we finally know what Bernie Sanders means by “democratic socialism.” Speaking on his political philosophy at Georgetown yesterday, the Vermont senator and Democratic Presidential candidate opened with a long invocation of Franklin Roosevelt and the social protections that the New Deal created: minimum wages, retirement benefits, banking regulation, the forty-hour workweek. Roosevelt’s opponents attacked all these good things as “socialism,” Sanders reminded his listeners.
Curiously, Sanders seemed to agree with them, taking his definition of “socialism” from its nineteen-thirties opponents, the people Roosevelt called “economic royalists.” “Let me define for you, simply and straightforwardly, what democratic socialism means to me,” Sanders said. “It builds on what Franklin Delano Roosevelt said when he fought for guaranteed economic rights for all Americans.”
This isn’t the first time Sanders has defined his position from the right flank of history. Pressed in the most recent Democratic debate to say how high he would take the marginal income tax, Sanders answered that it would be less than the ninety (actually ninety-two) per-cent level under the Eisenhower Administration. He added, to cheers and laughter, “I’m not that much of a socialist compared to Eisenhower.”
But, of course, both Roosevelt and Eisenhower distinguished themselves vigorously from “socialism,” which they understood to be a revolutionary program of extreme equality, committed to centralized control of the economy, and a cat’s paw of Soviet power. Accusations of “socialism” trailed liberals for decades after Roosevelt parried his opponents, from Ronald Reagan’s attacks on Medicare to the Republicans’ refrain against Obamacare. Democrats, like Roosevelt, have furiously defended themselves against the charges. But now a candidate whose ideal American economy does in fact look a lot like Eisenhower’s—strong unions, secure employment, affordable college—is waving the red flag, and finding favor with large numbers of Democratic voters.
The new eagerness to embrace the word reflects the climate that a Pew poll captured, in 2011, when more respondents between the ages of eighteen and twenty-nine reported a positive view of “socialism” (forty-nine per cent) than “capitalism” (forty-six per cent). (Gallup polls regularly find that a slim majority of Democrats express a positive view of socialism, but an overwhelming majority supports “free enterprise,” suggesting, charitably, some ideological flexibility.) Those under-thirty respondents are, of course, the first voters of the post-Soviet era, whose formative experiences are of a not very heroic unipolar world of American power and market-oriented ideas. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet empire put the word “socialism” up for grabs again: it may have landed in the dustbin of history at first, but that left it free for scavenging and repurposing.
A decade before the Wall fell, the United States saw the quieter but also momentous collapse of the pro-government consensus that dominated the middle of the twentieth century. The Eisenhower paradox—that he was a big-government, welfarist conservative—is no paradox at all: he led the center-right at a time when the center was deeply welfarist and big-government. American politics after the Second World War was founded on the core idea of the earlier Progressive movement, which both F.D.R. and his cousin Theodore championed: the old ideals of personal liberty, economic opportunity, and civic equality could not survive in a laissez-faire industrial economy. Values once associated with small government now needed big government—the regulatory state—to preserve them. So, in 1937, F.D.R. urged that government should “solve for the individual the ever-rising problems of a complex civilization,” and, in 1965, L.B.J. echoed him, warning that “change and growth seem to tower beyond the control and even the judgment of men.” Strong government was the answer: a counter-power to wealth and to economic crisis. Their world was also Dwight Eisenhower’s.
Ronald Reagan’s declaration, in his 1981 inaugural address, that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem” announced a new era. Government did not in fact shrink, thanks largely to military spending and retirement benefits, but the willingness to say that it could provide what F.D.R. had called “a permanently safe order of things,” let alone F.D.R.’s economic “Second Bill of Rights,” was almost forgotten. The market was the new all-purpose solution, even before the Soviet collapse and the subsequent elevation of disruption, innovation, and self-branding as the language of emancipation.
So, between roughly 1979 and 1989, two figures went into the wilderness: the long-dominant American idea that strong government was necessary to humanize a market economy, and the word “socialism” as a name for a different kind of society. Exiled as opponents, they returned as friends. Bernie Sanders’s socialism is Eisenhower’s and F.D.R.’s world if Reagan had never happened: economic security updated by the continuing revolutions in gender, cultural pluralism, and the struggle for racial justice. In a word, Denmark; but also America with a counterfactual history of the last forty years.
The mid-century political settlement between government and markets that Eisenhower took for granted never really had a name. It was not a fighting faith. “Welfare capitalism,” which is a pretty accurate name for a market system that redistributes for common benefit, sounds like the worst of both worlds. “Socialism” is historically inaccurate, and using it to name Eisenhower-era welfarism may come at the cost of further burying its other, more radical meanings. But some of the term’s appeal, as a name for Sanders’s program, is that it sounds more radical than it is. The radical label accentuates the feeling that something has gone wrong in economic life. It marks the intensity of dissent.
In this way, Sanders’s use of the word harkens back to pre-Soviet, even pre-Marxist socialism. Then the term named a clutch of objections to industrial capitalism: the physical toll of the jobs, the equal and opposite toll of unemployment and economic crisis, widespread poverty and insecurity in a world where some lived in almost miraculous luxury. Assessing the socialists of the nineteenth century, whose programs ranged from the nationalization of industry to the creation of village coöperatives, John Stuart Mill doubted that they understood how markets worked, but he admitted their moral claims unreservedly: “The restraints of Communism would be freedom in comparison with the present condition of the majority of the human race.”
Mill predicted that capitalism would burn out its fuel of cupidity and become a realistic version of what socialists (and communists) wanted. Worker-owned co-ops would out-compete traditional enterprises by aligning workers’ motives with the company’s success. At the same time, with poverty overcome, people would care less about getting richer, and spend their time in what Mill felt made life worthwhile in the first place: conversation, friendship, appreciation of poetry and painting. His optimism came from faith that, once people had less to fear from material want and from one another, they would find new ways to coöperate without the narrowness and cruelty of old hierarchies. He applied exactly the same premises to the relations between men and women, insisting that absolute legal equality would spur new discoveries about how to live and who to be—new creativity in gender identity (not his term but certainly his thought) and new experiments in how equals could care for one another. This humanistic faith in gender equality was one of the most accurate social prophecies in modern thought, but the same faith in egalitarian coöperation was a nonstarter in economic life.
Mill was hardly alone in expecting capitalism to work out its kinks. Eisenhower’s world lacked a name for its settlement between government and markets partly because that settlement was the new normal, and the normal doesn’t need a name. Mature capitalism was supposed to produce only a moderate level of inequality. A strong government, staffed by public-minded experts, would iron out economic wrinkles. The remaining problems for reformers were remedial: bringing in previously excluded populations, especially African-Americans and isolated Appalachians. For those already on the inside, the challenges were those of what the liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith called “the affluent society”: how to want less, enjoy life more, and help build a post-materialist paradise of humanism. It is no coincidence that L.B.J., who supported the civil-rights movement and launched the War on Poverty, also promoted the National Endowment for the Humanities to enrich the lives of those whose historical labors were over. He described his Great Society program as seeking an economy that satisfied “the desire for beauty and the hunger for community,” where “the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.”
That is the lost world to which Sanders’s “socialism” points back. The return of the label, though, doesn’t mean that anyone knows how to get more radical than tacking toward Scandinavian social democracy, with its socialized health care and higher education and generous family leave. Sanders isn’t much of a socialist compared to F.D.R., either. At the heart of Roosevelt’s program was the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which greatly strengthened the hand of unions, essential parts of every welfare-capitalist order in the twentieth century, from Scandinavia to Canada. Sanders, astonishingly, didn’t once mention unions in his Georgetown speech. Roosevelt proposed a maximum income of twenty-five thousand dollars (the equivalent of about four hundred thousand dollars today), which we won’t be hearing from Sanders. Sanders’s socialism is a national living wage, free higher education, increased taxes on the wealthy, campaign-finance reform, and strong environmental and racial-justice policies.
This is not a program for a different kind of economy, based on coöperation and deepened democracy— what socialism used to stand for, which powered it as both a threat and a hope. The heart of Sanders’s program, like F.D.R.’s, is economic security: like F.D.R., he argues that “true freedom does not occur” without it. In the same way, he sees a strong government as protecting individualism from an economy that bats people around like the gods in Greek dramas. Calling this once mainstream idea socialism is a way of saying how far it feels from where we find ourselves now, how radical a step it would be to get back to it. | 11,296 | 5,130 | 0.000204 |
warc | 201704 | New Zealand is know for the best lamb in the world and so it has become a chief exporter of lamb products around the globe. New Zealand-Lamb.com is your source for information about New Zealand Lamb;
we are also offering this and other domains for sale. Why is New Zealand Lamb different?
New Zealand lamb is raised naturally all year round on lush green pastures in the New Zealand countryside. Like Australian lamb, it is rich in nutrients, so just a small portion contains a high concentration of vitamins and minerals, which are essential for maintaining your health
Lamb from New Zealand is high in protein, B vitamins, zinc and iron, all of which are necessary for a healthy, balanced diet. At the same time, it also is relatively low in calories, fat and cholesterol. In fact, lamb can be included in a diet designed to lower blood cholesterol.
A four ounce serving of New Zealand Lamb provides:
At least 25 percent of protein (Recommended Daily Allowance) All essential amino acids About 0.2 ounces saturated fat and 0.14 ounces of polyunsaturated fat About 50 mg of cholesterol A rich source of B vitamins, especially B12 and niacin A good source of iron and zinc
In New Zealand, sheep are classified very specifically, not all sheep is considered lamb. The breakdown is as follows:
Lamb — a young sheep under 12 months of age which does not have any permanent incisor teeth in wear Hogget — a sheep of either sex having no more than two permanent incisors in wear Mutton — a female (ewe) or castrated male (wether) sheep having more than two permanent incisors in wear. Where can I get New Zealand Lamb?
There are many exporters of New Zealand lamb as well as many local farms which can provide for all of your sheep's meat needs. Below is a list of sites which can provide you with more information about New Zealand Lamb including how and where to get it, more about the farmers who grow it and the answers to nearly any question any person could have about sheep products coming from that region of the world:
www.beeflambnz.com is the premier farmer-owned industry organization for New Zealand beef and lamb. Their site is bursting with valuable information about industry progress, national and international events, farming, marketing and data/analysis. http://www.nzlamb.com is one of the top full service exporters of New Zealand Lamb. They are certified free-range as well as hormone and steroid free. They provide custom cuts all across the world and have been operating since 1882. http://www.linnaneco.com is a supplier of New Zealand and Australian meat products to the United States. Carrying the finest lamb products from both nations under its own private label, Linnane & Co. has been servicing Americans desire for quality meat from coast to coast. NZ Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. From their web site: "Our mission is to enhance New Zealand’s natural advantage. We do this by: encouraging high-performing sectors; developing safe and freer trade; ensuring healthy New Zealanders; and by protecting our natural resources for the benefit of future generations" How can I prepare my New Zealand Lamb? So, you've got yourself some New Zealand Lamb but you don't know how to prepare it? Lucky for you we have listed a couple spectacular recipes so you can get the most flavor out of your lamb. (recipes courtesy of about.com) Lamb Biryani:
500 gms of lean ground lamb
1 medium white onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, minced
1 can of whole tomatoes, roughly chopped
A bunch of green beans, cut into 2 inch pieces
1 tsp of paprika
1 1/2 tsp of cumin
1/2 tsp of chili powder
1 cinnamon stick
A handful of fresh mint, cilantro & parsley, finely chopped
Juice of half a lemon
1 1/2 tsp of sea salt
1 1/2 cups of basmati rice
Scant 3 cups of water
2 Tbsp of olive oil
1. Cook the basmati rice with just under 3 cups of water in a rice cooker. If you are cooking rice on the stove, place it in a pot with the water and bring to the boil. 2. Turn the heat down and cover the pot. Cook the rice for 10-12 minutes or until done.
3. Once the rice is ready, put it straight in the fridge so that it cools down and dries out.
4. Saute the onion in a medium saucepan over a moderate heat until translucent. Add the garlic and fry for 1 minute.
5. Add the spices including the cinnamon stick and fry for 2-3 minutes to release the oils. Stir well.
6. Add the ground lamb and break it up with a wooden spoon. Stir well to coat lamb in the spices. Add the salt. Lower the heat slightly and cook lamb for about seven minutes or until browned.
7. Add the chopped canned tomatoes and about 300ml of the sauce from the can. 8. Stir well and then add the green beans.
9. Cover and simmer on a low heat for 25 minutes.
10. Carefully combine the lamb mixture with the rice and mix thoroughly to coat it.
11. Squeeze some lemon juice over the biryani and stir well.
12. Sprinkle with fresh herbs and serve immediately.
Traditional Lamb Roast
1 kg (2.2 lbs) leg of lamb
1/4 cup of olive oil
2.5 tsp of sea salt
6 cloves of garlic, cut into slivers
Several sprigs of fresh rosemary
8 potatoes
2 large sweet potatoes
2 white onions
Mint Sauce
1. Preheat the oven to 290F.
2. Cut the potatoes and sweet potatoes into inch-thick slices. Cut the onions in half and then place vegetables into a baking tray.
3. Drizzle the vegetables with olive oil and sprinkle on some salt. Place tray in the oven on the bottom rack and roast.
4. Cover the lamb in olive oil and then sprinkle with sea salt.
5. Use the point of a sharp knife to make small incisions all over the lamb.
6. Place the garlic slivers and rosemary springs in the holes.
7. Place the lamb onto the middle oven rack with the vegetable baking tray beneath it to catch drippings.
8. Roast for 90 minutes. Test meat to see if it's done by slicing it in the thickest part. Remove from oven and transfer to a plate to rest. Cover lamb in foil and let it sit for 10 minutes.
9. Serve with potatoes, onions and mint sauce.
The groups and sites listed within the link are closely associated with the meat industry in New Zealand. Some are members of the Meat Industry Association of New Zealand. | 6,225 | 2,901 | 0.000349 |
warc | 201704 | Friday February 6 2015
Finger length is related to hormone levels
"How to work out if your partner is cheating on you? Check their fingers," the Daily Mirror advises. The news comes from research founded on the theory that humans are believed to display two types of mating pattern – one more promiscuous, and the other more monogamous.
Previous animal and human studies have already suggested higher testosterone exposure is associated with longer ring to index finger ratios. And high testosterone has been linked to sexual promiscuity.
To look into this further, the researchers studied two separate samples. One sample of just over 500 people completed an online survey of their sexual behaviour. A completely separate sample had their finger lengths measured.
The results from the first sample found more men tended towards the promiscuous side, and more women towards the monogamous.
The second sample's results found more men have longer ring fingers than index fingers, while roughly equal proportions of women have either similar length fingers or longer ring fingers.
From this, the researchers inferred that – contrary to the findings of the survey – a more promiscuous pattern seems to be found in both sexes. Had women been more monogamous, as the survey suggested, they apparently should have had longer index fingers.
Whatever interpretation you could reasonably take, the study proves nothing about any association between sexual behaviour and the ratio of finger length.
Comparing two entirely different data sets takes you into "oranges and apples" territory – trying to find connections between two entirely different objects.
You also have to consider how representative people who chose to complete an online survey of sexual behaviour are of the general population.
Where did the story come from?
The study was carried out by psychology researchers at the University of Oxford and Northumbria University, and received funding from the European Research Council.
It was published in the peer-reviewed journal, Biology Letters, which is a publication of The Royal Society.
The article is open access, so it can be read online for free.
The UK media appear to have taken the study at face value, choosing not to report its important limitations. Namely, this study separately analysed sexual behaviour in one group and finger length in another group, and then drew links between the two.
But from the tone of the reporting, we suspect the journalists themselves were taking the findings of the study with a pinch of salt and with their tongues firmly in their cheeks.
If the suggestion that finger length can be used as a reliable predictive method for something as complex as human sexual behaviour sounds ridiculous, then it probably is ridiculous.
What kind of research was this?
This was a study looking at sexual behaviour patterns in one study sample, and the ratio of index and ring finger length in another study sample.
It aimed to look at the patterns of distribution of the two separate factors in these two separate samples, and from this see whether there may be an association between sexual behaviour and finger length.
The researchers say, in animal terms, humans are believed to fall midway between a monogamous and polygamous species, respectively a mix of longer-term and short-term mating patterns.
They say the extent to which any individual primarily pursues a "restricted" mating strategy, favouring exclusive pair-bonds, or an "unrestricted" strategy of promiscuity, is called "sociosexual orientation".
As a broad generalisation, males are usually considered more likely to favour promiscuous patterns than females as a way of getting more mating opportunities.
The researchers say previous studies have shown that index to ring finger ratio is influenced by the amount of testosterone the growing foetus is exposed to in the womb, as well as the density of testosterone receptors.
Other studies in primates are also said to have shown finger length is associated with mating patterns.
This research tested the theory that there are two restricted and unrestricted types of people by looking at two large data sets – one sample completed a sociosexual orientation survey, and one sample had their index to ring finger ratio measured.
What did the research involve?
A total of 595 North American and British men and women (average age 25 years) completed the online sociosexual orientation survey (SOI-R).
Preferred mating strategy was said to be assessed using the "attitude" and "desire" subscales of the SOI-R, but this was not explained further.
A separate study collected data on index to ring finger ratios on the right hand of 1,314 British men and women.
The researchers then carried out analyses looking at the modelled distribution of sexual behaviours in the North American and British sample, and the distribution of finger length ratios in the other British sample.
What were the basic results?
Sociosexual orientation survey
The researchers plotted distribution curves, where SOI-R score is plotted against density (the number of people who had that score). They did this for four separate groups: British men and women, and North American men and women.
All the groups of men and women showed what is called a "bimodal" distribution – two normal patterns of distribution. For all four groups, there was one pattern with a peak of normality at a lower SOI score (a more monogamous pattern), and a second pattern with a peak of normality at a higher SOI score (a more promiscuous pattern).
There was a slight difference for men and women, though. For both North American and British men, the higher peak was at the higher SOI score, corresponding with slightly more men with a more promiscuous pattern.
Meanwhile, for both North American and British women, the opposite was seen – the higher peak was at a lower SOI score and corresponded with slightly more women following the monogamous pattern.
Finger length ratios
When similarly looking at the distribution of index to ring finger ratios for the other British sample, the researchers also found two normal distributions, but this time there was more of an overlap between the two curves.
For the sample of British men, the much higher peak was at a ratio of around 0.94 (ring finger slightly longer than index). There was a second much lower peak at a ratio of around 1 (similar length fingers).
For women, there was one common peak at around 0.94 and another equally common peak at a ratio of around 1.
Interpreted crudely, this means in men it is more common to have a longer ring finger than index finger, while in women equal numbers have fingers of the same length, or a ring finger longer than an index finger.
How did the researchers interpret the results?
The researchers concluded that: "This study is the first, to the best of our knowledge, to show statistically that both men and women exhibit two reproductive phenotypes of varying proportions."
But they go on to say that: "The proportional split in males slightly favours an unrestricted (short-term) mating strategy, with a 57:43 split on average, whereas females have a reversed split (47:53)."
The researchers then said that: "However, the mixing proportions in the [index to ring finger] ratio data set suggest that a slightly higher proportion of the unrestricted phenotype is present in both sexes (males approx. 62%, females approx. 50%)."
Presumably, this is based on previous research, which suggested testosterone levels are associated with finger ratios.
Conclusion
This research was founded on the theory that, as a species, humans are believed to display two types of mating pattern – one more promiscuous pattern made up of shorter-term attachments, and the other more monogamous pattern favouring longer term pair-bonds.
Traditionally, the male of a species is considered to favour the more promiscuous pattern to create more mating opportunities.
The research also centres on the other observation from previous human and animal studies, which found finger length is associated with mating patterns, and that index to ring finger ratio is influenced by testosterone levels.
The researchers used two separate samples for their study:
The first sample suggested there does seem to be two normal mating patterns for both men and women – one more promiscuous, and the other more monogamous. However, a higher proportion of men tend towards the more promiscuous side, while a higher proportion of women tend towards the more monogamous side.
The second sample, which assessed index to ring finger ratio, suggested more men have longer ring fingers than index fingers, while roughly equal proportions of women have either similar length fingers or their ring fingers are longer.
The researchers seem to imply from this that finger ratios actually show a more promiscuous pattern seems to be found in both sexes. This is because men tend to have longer ring fingers, which presumably ties up with higher testosterone levels and more promiscuous patterns.
However, women were found to have two equal distributions of finger length ratios. But if women were indeed more monogamous, as the other survey suggested, the researchers should have expected them to have longer index fingers.
Overall, this paints a rather unclear picture and it is hard to draw any reliable conclusions from this study.
Analysis by Bazian. Edited by NHS Choices . Follow Behind the Headlines on Twitter. Join the Healthy Evidence forum. | 9,622 | 3,753 | 0.00027 |
warc | 201704 | Thanks to all who responded to last week’s message, “Checking In.” It was good to hear about what is going on in your lives. And guess what, many of you reported the having the same experiences. Hmmm …
One of the things that came up a lot was the question of how to keep hope alive. When life has dealt you a really nasty blow, the kind that knocks you to floor, how do you come out of it and keep your hope alive?
I have to admit that the question has been hard to answer because I’m struggling right now. Just in the last 10 days, I’ve been dealt a series of nasty blows, some of which totally blindsided me. And though in retrospect the timing of that question is perfect I have had a hard time collecting my thoughts to answer it. It’s like, I know the answer but I can’t pull the energy from within to formulate it into words. Does that make sense?
Thank you Joel Osteen!
I awake each Sunday morning knowing that if nothing else goes right today, at least I’ll get an uplifting message from Joel Osteen. You know how people show up in your life with just the right words at the time when you most need it? That happened this morning.
The Well of Joy
One of the first things I needed to hear to keep hope alive is what creates hope. Hope stems from our ability to feel joy.
Going further, joy is something that we are all born it. It stems from a well inside of us that we and only we have the power to control. It’s an inalienable right of a human being, a gift or blessing we are born with.
When life deals us a nasty blow, it is us that determines how much joy will be sucked from our well.
Joel gave a great example that I want to pass along to you.
The Bird Song
A lady had a bird that lived happily in it’s cage. Each day the bird would sit on its swing singing joyfully. The lady cleaned the bird’s cage every so often using a vacuum cleaner hose. One day, as the lady was cleaning the cage, she got a call. Before she knew it the hose had tilted up and sucked the little bird in.
The lady searched the house for the little bird but couldn’t find it. Finally she decided to look in the vacuum cleaner. Taking out the bag she saw it, disheveled, covered with dust, but still alive.
The lady cleaned up the little bird as best she could and put it back in its cage, but from that day on the little bird never sang; instead it sat staring blanking into space.
That story hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized that like the little bird, I had stopped singing my song because of a traumatic event. Since my brother’s death in 2011 till now I have struggled to find my song, to feel passion and joy. Instead, I have endured, trying to get through each day, finding bits of pieces of joy along the way. In fact, I remarked to a friend just recently how much I miss the joy I used to feel. Even when bad things happened, that joy was still there … like a silent undercurrent running through my world. As long as i had that joy, I could reignite my hope no matter what.
How do we refill our well of joy?
Joy stems from our ability to be grateful. To feel grateful we simply focus and give thanks for the things that are working in our lives. For example, I am grateful for having a roof over my head, for the heat that kept me warm this morning, and for the coffee that soothes me. Feeling gratitude is how we fill the well of joy … but there’s more.
Deciding to Thrive; Not Just Survive
What if we are struggling to want to refill our well? What if we try to feel gratitude but still feel empty? Well–the problem is that we are not yet ready. For whatever reason we haven’t had enough of feeling empty, lost, struggling to just to survive each day. We are just not tired enough of being sick and tired.
But there is something we can do about it. Once we realize that that is where we are, stuck in survival mode, but still not ready to let go of the pain, we can ask our souls to help us get there. I did that this morning.
Now, if that is still not enough there is one more thing we can do.
Remember the Reward
I firmly believe that we don’t go through these painful events for nothing. From a soul perspective they are meant to help us. By facing the fear and changing the dysfunctional belief that is source of the fear, we grow beyond it. From that point on it will not affect us in the same way again. It’s like facing the fear of falling by falling and getting back up. But if we are stuck on the ground, and no matter how much we want to be grateful for what we have we can’t, there is one more thing that can help us: remember the reward.
The reward is that whatever we lose, whatever we have to endure, if while still in the midst of it we can find a way feel joy, all that we have lost will be restored. Moreover, it will be more than we had before. I find this to be a great incentive because I’ve experienced it occurring in my life not once but several times. Each time what was given back was more than I had before.
In closing, though it may be hard at times to keep hope alive, knowing what creates hope, knowing what is keeping us stuck if we are, and remembering the reward to come if we can continue to fill our well of joy, even in the midst of our struggles, can be just the tickets we need to get us through. | 5,376 | 2,480 | 0.000414 |
warc | 201704 | China - one of the world's fastest growing economies in recent years - has not been immune to the recession sweeping the global economy. Its export-driven economy has slowed, and unemployment is growing. The Chinese government has introduced a stimulus package and is encouraging citizens to spend more. But whether they actually do so may require a change in cultural dynamics. Without the social safety net of Western countries, the average Chinese family saves about 30 percent of its income (most American families save almost nothing).
How China shifts from an export model to one driven by internal growth is the subject of a new article from Nielsen Vice Chair Susan Whiting. According to Nielsen's most recent Global Consumer Confidence Survey, nearly three-quarters of Chinese consumers are optimistic that their country is not in a recession, and China's Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) of 96 has remained relatively stable since 2006, well above the CCI global average of 84. The article outlines the challenges facing China both at home and abroad as it seeks to re-invigorate its economy.
Click here to read the full article in February's Consumer Insight magazine. | 1,182 | 691 | 0.001452 |
warc | 201704 | Apple has its own in-house university; so does McDonalds. Also on that list of corporate colleges: Time Inc. But instead of another institution to help the ambitious find a glide path to middle management, Time’s institution is more j-school than Hamburger U.
At the three-year-old Time Inc. University (imaginary mascot: The Fightin’ Henry Luces), the core curriculum is journalism, ranging from writing and the art of the interview to video storytelling and news on mobile devices. And digital courses make up the majority of the classes, as the company tries to keep staffers learning about the newest tools and techniques in the media universe. The 150-plus courses include topics like “10 Things You Need to Know to Run a Digital Business,” “The Beginner’s Guide to Mobile,” and “How to Get the Most Out of Breaking News Online.” All of the courses, which usually run as one-day sessions, are led by staff from within the company and are taught at Time Inc.’s HQ in New York.
Corporate universities are an old concept. At Pixar University, that means “a complete filmmaking curriculum, classes on painting, drawing, sculpting and creative writing.” Apple University, perhaps with more urgency than ever, strives to create a curriculum that shapes executives in the mold of Steve Jobs.
But unlike some corporate universities, Time’s program is not specifically reserved for or aimed at managers or executives — it’s wide open to anyone in any job across all their titles. Maybe that’s more community college than ivy, but it hints at a philosophical choice for a company with 115 magazines (21 here in the U.S.): That reinvention won’t happen in board rooms and corner offices alone. Time Inc.’s taking a dual approach, with training open to all as well as a track for executives. (Separate from Time Inc. U, the company holds Digital Labs events bringing in editors, presidents and other executives to meet with leaders in the world of tech, including Tim Armstrong from AOL, Jason Kilar of Hulu, and Stephanie Tilenius of Google, among others.)
All together, it sketches a picture of a company still heavily invested in the print business, trying to reposition itself from the bottom of the org chart to the top.
Fran Hauser told me the courses are about developing a kind of working knowledge of new media for people that can improve their jobs, if not their understanding of the industry. Hauser, president of digital for Time Inc.’s Style & Entertainment Group and Lifestyle Group, said a good chunk of the people taking the courses are in departments unconnected to the digital side of the business. Hauser taught the “10 Things” course and focused on areas like building an online audience, new methods of market research, and strategies for using social media. Hauser, who’s got experience in online media from previously running People’s digital division and Moviefone, said the following the latest tools and trends is critical, but changing the way people make decisions is what’s important.
“One of the things I talk about is it’s easy to become overly attracted to the shiny new toy. A lot of times we’ll be sitting in a room brainstorming and someone will inevitably bring up an idea around a new capability out there, but it’s always important to think about the consumer you’re reaching,” Hauser said.
The classes are also a form of knowledge sharing across different magazines. If a particular strategy spiked mobile traffic for Sports Illustrated, or a social media campaign increased followers for Entertainment Weekly, they all can get together in one room to trade secrets. Again, when you’re a company with more than 100 magazines spanning healthy cooking, personal finance, entertainment, and home repair, that can be a particularly thick web to cut through.
John Cantarella, president of digital for Time Inc.’s news group, said a number of the courses have a “this is how we did it” vibe that eschews theoretical talk for a more pragmatic approach. When Time.com found success with the work they were doing around social media it only made sense to share that with other magazines who could readily apply it to their own work, said Cantarella, who’s led a class called “Building an Audience Through Social Media.”
“We’re a big company, so it’s a question of how do you share information across lots of people,” Cantarella said. “How do you get people who work at This Old House Interactive with people at Time or Real Simple? It’s a great way to bring people together.”
Image by Cody Geary used under a Creative Commons license. | 4,789 | 2,345 | 0.000448 |
warc | 201704 | Tailoring the Bar Experience Editor's Note: The following is the sixth in a series of blogs provided by the experts who have worked incredibly hard to make Spike TV's "Bar Rescue" reality program, starring Nightclub & Bar Media Group President Jon Taffer, such a success. The Bar Rescue Insider blog series will deliver tried-and-true tips and tricks to help bar owners, operators and managers solve common problems and increase their bottom line. Tune in to Nightclub.com every Wednesday for the next edition of Bar Rescue Insider !
In the bar industry, bartenders and service staff are taught to educate the guests and get them to try new things, leading them to the experiences
management wants them to have. In my experience, this is not always the best path to follow. Any bar’s staff would be better off learning how to read the guests. In fact, one of the toughest challenges bartenders and servers face is reading the establishment’s clientele and tailoring their expectations to their experiences.
Simple fact: Not every patron wants suggestions, and not every guest wants to have a conversation as well as the chance to get to know you. Some people want to be
served, not waited on. Some customers simply want you to take their orders and deliver their drinks. While this may not be the type of experience management thinks guests should have, the people on the other side of the bar are your guests. Understanding what they need and want is crucial to building repeat business, so, give them the amazing experiences they want.
Reading a guest is the most important thing a staff member can do. I like to challenge myself with a little game I call “What’s Their Story”. How many people are in the party? What kind of relationship is at play? Are they friends? Old friends? Business associates? Is this a first date? Second date? What can I learn from their body language? What can the guests’ demeanor tell me?
For example, a group of friends celebrating someone’s promotion should not be handled in the same manner as two people who are talking business. A bartender or server should suggest different types of drinks to the various parties, perhaps even different dishes. Additionally, knowing when to approach a guest or when to back off can be a deal breaker. A bartender or server actually can ruin a customer’s evening simply by being unaware of his or her party’s dynamic.
Just because a staff member doesn’t create a great conversation with a guest or get a patron to have the bar’s specific, pre-determined “experience” doesn’t mean the customer didn’t have an awesome time. What’s most important is that a bartender or server gives the clientele the kind of adventure they long for. | 2,793 | 1,387 | 0.000745 |
warc | 201704 | At Now Care Dental, not only can you turn to our experienced dentists for a range of emergency dental services. You can also quickly and easily brighten your smile with our affordable teeth whitening procedures—whether you choose our at-home or in-office teeth bleaching options.
We use the latest in bleaching technology to offer safe dental whitening methods that go beyond cosmetics—correcting many tooth discolorations caused by staining, aging or chemical damage to teeth. Other benefits of tooth bleaching include:
Did you know that it's best to have your teeth whitened immediately after your teeth have been professionally cleaned?
For our Eagan, MN, teeth whitening patients, we take an impression to create clear, custom "mouth guard" or "stent" that holds a special bleaching agent against your teeth each night for three to four hours. The bleach bubbles stains right out your enamel—you’ll notice significant teeth whitening after only a week or two.
The process is safe and effective—and won’t harm your teeth or gums, unlike over-the-counter bleaching agents. Once your teeth reach the brightness you want, only occasional treatment is needed to maintain your smile.
Not only do white teeth enhance your smile, but they make you feel more confident about our appearance. You’ll actually look younger and feel better in just 20 minutes! You deserve to have a beautiful and exceptional smile. We can help you achieve a whiter smile and a more confident you, in just 20 minutes.
Sinsational® Smile teeth whitening combines a fast and effective technology with our patented pre-filled silicone tray that allows your jaw to remain relaxed and comfortable. During a 20-minute procedure, we’ll use an LED accelerating light to help activate the gel’s whitening ingredients—resulting in whiter teeth in less time. You’ll receive a take-home whitening pen to further extend your new brighter smile. Sinsational® whitening treatments vary on need and color preference. Most people notice a big difference after only one appointment.
The number of treatments necessary will vary based on your need and color preference. On-going whitening treatments may be repeated on a scheduled basis to maintain and rejuvenate your smile. Though most people will notice a big difference after only one treatment, additional treatments could be necessary to achieve the sparkling white teeth you desire.
Whitening durations vary from person to person. Certain food and drinks as well as other factors (i.e. tobacco, medications, age) can all affect the longevity of your results, especially if between visits you continue to use the whitening pen. This easy to use pen can be used anywhere and takes only a couple of minutes to help you keep your teeth looking their whitest.
Yes. Research has shown that when teeth are normal and healthy there are no apparent adverse effects on the tooth’s enamel.
Aging, smoking and the ingestion of dark pigmented food and drink such as coffee, tea, cola and red wine are the leading causes of tooth discoloration.
Only a small percentage of people may experience a slight tingling sensation during treatment. This subsides once the teeth are rinsed.
Teeth whitening is not effective on individuals with stained teeth as a result of certain medications, decalcification, or those who were born with grayish teeth. It is not recommended for pregnant or nursing women, or children under 14.
Set up a whitening consultation, call Now Care Dental at (651) 686-6800 today. Clinic hours are 10am to 8pm, seven days a week—and answering services are available 24/7. | 3,679 | 1,806 | 0.000568 |
warc | 201704 | Jeff Madrick’s
The Case for Big Government arrives when one might imagine that Wall Street has made the case quite persuasively on its own. By mid-February, the Federal Reserve’s once-gargantuan $29 billion rescue of Bear Stearns had been dwarfed not just by the government’s hotly debated $700 billion “bailout bill” last fall, or even President Obama’s nearly $800 billion stimulus package, but far more stunningly by the $7.6 trillion the Fed and Treasury had by the beginning of 2009 already pledged to contain the ever-widening collapse of the economy, and the additional sum of up to $2 trillion that the new administration said it would raise from public and private sources to rescue banks. Governments from London to Beijing have meanwhile rushed to provide vast sums to their own capital markets.
These figures are mind-numbing to voters—and to sophisticated investors and economists as well, and for good reason: fifty years ago the United States spent what in today’s dollars would amount to only $115 billion on the Marshall Plan to reconstruct all of Western Europe; the 1980s savings and loans bailout—at the time the largest financial rescue operation since the Great Depression—cost taxpayers a mere $130 billion. But while bailing out the financial system should urgently concern us, Madrick argues, what is fundamentally needed is a different conception of the role of government.
In the midst of this crisis, one can make cases for three very different kinds of “big government.” The first is the rescue of Wall Street, an immediate but temporary intervention, already in play; the second is for government to act as a general contractor in the economy’s reconstruction—the medium-term investment in infrastructure, from roads to schools, that Obama is now unveiling in his “recovery plan.” But the third possibility, which is the central concern of Madrick’s book, has not yet been the subject of serious public debate: to use government as long-term guarantor of America’s (and indirectly the world’s) economic stability, as provider of widespread opportunity, and as partner with the private sector in restoring long-term stable growth. Madrick, in a nuanced and wide-ranging fashion, makes the case for that third approach.
The book’s logic runs something like this: at the heart of the US government’s economic policies since the Nixon administration is a set of arguments that may cripple Obama’s ability to carry out more ambitious reforms, and has, in Madrick’s well-documented view, already damaged the well-being of most Americans when their lives are compared to those of previous generations and to citizens of other well-to-do countries. These arguments deride the idea of “big government” in any form, and are widespread and deep-rooted in our history; those who make them are well financed, often…
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warc | 201704 | Submarines for Sale: Run Silent, Run Cheap Published: September 7, 1987
Looking for a used submarine? So are hundreds of other people.
Seaforth Holdings Ltd. found that out when it took out an advertisement in May in The New York Times, with the headline, ''Submarine for sale.'' The ship-repair company wanted to sell two attack submarines that it had bought from the British Royal Navy.
''From the response, it would appear that there is quite a large market for leisure submarines,'' said Peter J. Dunn, marketing and defense director at Seaforth, which is based in Liverpool, England.
The company said it has been beseiged by potential buyers, from tourist attractions to individuals to foreign navies, although it has not yet sold the submarines.
''There's a fantastic interest in submarines throughout the world and right across America,'' Mr. Dunn said. ''There's really a fascination with them, a lot of it from boyhood dreams.'' 'Competition Is Fierce'
Seaforth is one of a number of small companies around the world that design, build, refit, operate and lease submarines. The size and capabilities of the vessels range from decommissioned military submarines to vessels made of transparent acrylic plastic. The submarines are used by tourist attractions and businesses, as well as foreign navies.
''The competition is fierce,'' said Andre Galerne, owner and president of International Underwater Contractors Inc. in New York, which leases submarines for research purposes.
The size of the industry is difficult to gauge. Sales of submarines to tourist attractions and research concerns are the most visible. Yet there is a substantial military market for some companies, although it is veiled in secrecy. Several companies slide from market to market, using similar technology both to take tourists beneath Caribbean waters and to provide a navy with a mine-laying weapon.
''There are a variety of military applications for the smaller submarines,'' said W. Stan Angrove, general manager of Fluid Energy Ltd., of Inverkeithing, Scotland, a company that makes submarines. From Oil to Tourists
The industry's recent success in the tourist market was spawned in part by a past failure in the business market. The smaller submarines were frequently used during the 1970's and early 1980's for deep-sea exploration by the oil companies. But the sharp fall in oil prices eliminated the demand for many submarines, so the technicians and engineers who operated the vessels began searching for new uses.
''With the fall in the price of oil,'' said Dr. Andreas B. Rechnitzer, vice president of Viking Oceanographics in San Diego, ''companies could get started in the business buying a submarine at 10 cents on the dollar.''
The submarine companies were reluctant to disclose financial information, but most of them indicated that the business was profitable. ''It gives us bread and butter - and jam,'' Mr. Angrove said.
The cost of leasing or buying submarines varies depending on the type of vessel. For example, a leisure submarine, a smaller ship for carrying tourists, costs a minimum of $2 million to $5 million. A military submarine, such as the ones being sold by Seaforth, costs at least $11 million, not including potential refurbishment of the vessel, such as removing the equipment that fires torpedoes. A Growth Area
The tourist market is the fastest-growing area for submarine sales, industry officials said. The submarines take tourists on short trips to view undersea life in tropical areas.
Research Submersibles Ltd., for example, began business in 1983 at Grand Cayman Island in the Caribbean with one refurbished submarine that it bought from an oil company. The company now makes about 30 dives a week with its four ships. For $250 each, two persons can take a dive to about 800 feet, lasting a little more than an hour. The company also leases its submarines for academic and commercial research.
''Most people get very excited that they've done something so strange,'' said M. Christine RoseSmyth, a marine ecologist at the company.
The Sub Aquatics Development Corporation of Vancouver, British Columbia, was the first company to design and deploy new submarines for public underwater excursions, starting at Grand Cayman. The company was begun in 1983 by Dennis R. Hurd, who, until that year, did survey inspection for large oil companies.
Sub Aquatics has rapidly grown, with revenue rising from $1.2 million last year to an expected $6 million this year. By the end of the year, the company expects to have four submarines operating in various resort locations, including St. Thomas and Hawaii. The submarines carry passengers on hourlong trips to a depth of 150 feet, charging $48 for a day voyage and $56 for one at night. Lucrative Military Market
Despite the growth of the tourist market, the military market appears to remain quite lucrative, although few in the industry are willing provide details. The smaller companies often deal with countries that are unable to build their own submarines, such as Thailand and Malaysia, industry officials said.
The makers of these submarines include some companies that build similar vessels for tourist attractions. For example, Fluid Energy is working with Seaforth to try to sell to navies, including the Royal Navy and the United States Navy.
Nations that have difficulty obtaining military technology because of legal restrictions have approached almost every type of company that manufactures submarines, industry officials said. Several companies, including Seaforth, said they had been contracted in the past few months by people who claim to represent the Iranian Government.
Some of the companies have also been approached by private arms dealers, but many industry officials said they avoid the dealers out of fear that they might not get paid.
Companies in the military market prefer to go the traditional route to attract sales. Seaforth, for instance, has no plans for newspaper advertisements in its venture with Fluid Energy.
''We'll use agents,'' said Mr. Dunn, the marketing and defense director. ''We'll go through various diplomatic and military channels. That's where you get potential customers.''
Photo of submarine used for leisure excursions | 6,268 | 2,922 | 0.000344 |
warc | 201704 | University of Washington Conducts Expensive Study, Discovers Junk Food Is Cheaper Than Healthy Food
A paper recently published in the
Health Affairs professional journal suggests that eating healthy foods costs more than eating unhealthy foods.
Gee,
thanks, Captain Obvious!
The paper, by Pablo Monsivais, Anju Aggarwal and Adam Drewnowski of the University of Washington and based on a survey of 2,001 people conducted after the publication of the government's new food-plate diagram, said that the biggest costs come from increasing one's intake of vitamins and fiber to the suggested levels, and that it could add hundreds of dollars to the average American's food bill to comply.
I agree that the government's plate imagery is out of reach for the average American, especially the initial version that had the fish on the side--how many people in rural North Dakota does the government think are sitting down to salmon?--but the issue is deeper than the undisputed fact that empty calories are cheaper.
It's a bit like giving a young child the choice between five pennies or one quarter. Five is more than one, thus they choose the pennies. In this case, it's possible to buy a huge quantity of unhealthy, sugar- and fat-laden food, even though it is not as nutritious as a smaller quantity of something else. The effect can best be seen in restaurants: if the plate isn't full, even if the amount of food on it is enough for a meal, Americans complain. It's a big part of why portion sizes have ballooned so much over the last forty years.
The problem is exacerbated by over-packed schedules. It's faster to grab packaged food--or, worse, the drive-through--between one family member's yoga class and another's school play rehearsal, and the result is that Americans are losing the knack of cooking.
It is possible to construct a healthy meal--or a set of them--without blowing the budget out of the water, but in order to do that, people in the U.S. will have to commit to cooking food at home and--horror of horrors--eating a diet that is mostly vegetables, whether fresh or frozen. Unfortunately, short of an invasion of personal freedom that would give armchair libertarians a collective cardiac infarction, there's not much the U.S. government can do to force the issue. Maybe they should start by fixing the school nutrition guidelines to focus on health, and declare that no, ketchup is actually not a vegetable.
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Our weekly guide to Orange County dining includes food news and reviews, as well as dining events and interviews with chefs and restaurant owners. | 2,616 | 1,389 | 0.000724 |
warc | 201704 | Thermodynamic data are important for the modelling of the chemical processes in the engineering part on nuclear waste repository systems (the "near-field" region), and also to describe the effect of the "far-field", i.e. how the chemical change in ground and surface water systems may affect the transport of toxic elements from the repository to the biosphere.
This publication contains guidelines on how to use the NEA-recommended TDB values, and on procedures to estimate values for cases where none can be recommended based on published experimental work.
This volume is of interest to any person involved in modelling of aqueous systems, including scientists working in non-nuclear activities. Each subject is introduced in an elementary way, including simple examples, and prior expert knowledge in the various subjects is not required.
The text contains the scientific background, and references, to the various subject areas, and is therefore a reference source also for the experts working with modelling of aquatic systems. Emphasis is given to the advantages and limitations of the various models described in the frame of a simplified systems discussion. Some of the chapters are intended as guidelines for the chemical equilibrium modelling of aquatic systems (for example, ionic strength and temperature corrections). Other chapters are intended to introduce the reader to non-equilibrium modelling: mass transfer between phases and transport of solutes in aquatic systems.
Each chapter has been written independently by the author(s), while the coordination of the different subjects has been the task of the editors. A peer-review procedure has been followed to ensure the quality of the text. | 1,719 | 837 | 0.001202 |
warc | 201704 | Estonia
my select
Hot STI issues Increasing the quality and efficiency of public research and reforming the public R&D funding system. Strengthening the private sector's R&D investment and innovation capability and the business environment for innovation. Strengthening the future supply of PhDs in S&E.
Estonia is a small OECD economy and its government's priorities include R&D and innovation. Over the past decade, Estonia has strengthened its R&D and innovation system through market-oriented reform of the former Soviet system. Estonia has one of the highest GERD growth rates in the OECD area, at 11.8% a year during 2005-10. BERD increased significantly from 0.42% to 0.82% of GDP over the same period. In 2010, the business sector performed 50% of GERD, up from 45% in 2005. Nonetheless, business innovation remains below the OECD median in terms of R&D expenditure (Performance index (d)), top firms (Index (e)), patents (Index (f)) and trademarks (Index (g)), and it is concentrated in a limited number of high-technology sectors, such as ICT, biotechnology, and financial and telecom services. Estonia has a relatively strong public and university research system (Index (a)(c)), a solid human capital base (Index (s)(t)(u)(v)), good connections to global knowledge networks (Index (q)(r)) and Internet infrastructure and use is at the OECD median (Index (k)(l)(m)(n)). General features of the STI system:
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Key figures Labour productivity, GDP per hour worked in USD, 2010 26.4 GERD, as % of GDP, 2010 1.63 (annual growth rate, 2005-10 ) (+3.2) (annual growth rate, 2005-10) (+11.8) Environmental productivity, GDP per unit of CO 1.77 GERD publicly financed, as % of GDP, 2010 0.73 (annual growth rate, 2005-09) (+2.5) (annual growth rate, 2005-10) (+12.1)
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In spite of the economic crisis, GERD rose from 1.28% of GDP in 2008 to 1.63% of GDP in 2010. The government funds 44% of GERD, the business sector 44%, and foreign sources 11%. For 2007-10, government-financed GERD and industry-financed GERD increased from 0.45% to 0.71% and from 0.49% to 0.72% of GDP, respectively. Forecasts suggest public R&D budgets are likely to increase in the coming years. Recent changes in STI expenditures: The Knowledge-Based Estonia II Research and Development and Innovation Strategy 2007-13 sets the key objectives and technological priorities for R&D. The main objectives are to increase the quality of both public research and private-sector innovation and the potential for long-term growth. These objectives are to be achieved by developing human capital (e.g. increasing the attractiveness of researcher careers); increasing enterprises' innovation capacity; developing policies for long-term growth; and reorganising public-sector R&D and innovation to increase efficiency (e.g. modernising R&D infrastructures). The key technologies identified in the strategy are ICTs, biotechnology and material technologies. The strategy for 2014-20 will be formulated during 2012. Overall STI strategy: The Estonian Research Council was created by the 2011 amendment of the Organisation of Research and Development Act to serve as a funding agency; it has absorbed the previous Estonian Science Foundation and Archimedes Foundation. Its missions are to: foster basic and applied R&D, support researchers, encourage international co-operation and co-ordinate and implement national and international training and educational and research programmes. STI policy governance: Over the last decade, Estonian public research has improved significantly. The four public universities play an important role in R&D and stand slightly above the OECD median in terms of international scientific publications (Index (c)). However, university-performed GERD fell from 52% in 2000 to 38% in 2010. The Estonian government has adopted several programmes to support knowledge production and to increase universities' excellence, competitiveness and internationalisation. The amendment of the Organisation of Research and Development Act introduced two new types of R&D evaluation: regular evaluations to assess R&D quality against internationally recognised criteria and targeted evaluations designed to improve research in specific fields. Science base: During 2001-10 BERD grew faster than in other OECD countries. Yet, as a share of GDP and of patenting by firms, BERD remains well below the OECD median. Moreover, just 58 firms account for 75% of BERD. The Estonian government intends to stimulate business R&D and innovation with direct funding (e.g. innovation vouchers) and non-financial measures (e.g. the Innovation and Entrepreneurship Awareness and Competence Raising Programme 2009-13). Business R&D and innovation: The conditions for entrepreneurship and innovation are below the OECD median (Index (h)(j)). Efforts are under way to promote entrepreneurship (e.g. Innovation and Entrepreneurship Awareness and Competence Raising Programme 2009-13; Start-up Estonia). In addition, fostering entrepreneurship in HEIs is part of the Government Action Plan 2011-15. Entrepreneurship: Investments in R&D infrastructures are largely funded by EU structural funds. The total budget for 2007-13 is USD 320 million, split between investment in buildings (USD 165 million) and in research equipment (USD 157 million). In 2010, the government adopted a Research Infrastructures Roadmap outlining the need to upgrade existing research infrastructures and create new research facilities. It lists 20 research infrastructures of national importance and serves to guide public investments in R&D infrastructures over the next 10-20 years. ICTs and scientific infrastructures: Efforts are being made to strengthen interactions between the scientific and business communities (e.g. the University of Tartu has adopted a new governance structure which involves external partners in the university's work and the government has a programme for training doctoral students in co-operation with business). Knowledge flows and commercialisation: The Estonian population's tertiary education level is above the OECD median (Index (s)). In view of the low rate of S&T doctoral graduates, the Archimedes Foundation created in 2010 a Unit for Science Communication to co-ordinate several publicly funded initiatives and to manage a programme to raise young people's interest in S&T careers (budget of USD 6.5 million for 2009-13). Also, the Higher Education Strategy and the R&D and Innovation Strategy have as an objective 300 PhD graduates a year by 2015. Human resources: The Estonian government has launched six national R&D programmes in support of R&D in energy technology, ICT, biotechnology, health, environment technology and material technology. The Centres of Excellence and Competence Centres programmes also clearly target ICTs, environment and new materials, health care and medicine. Emerging technology fields: Energy, sustainable development and environmental issues are increasingly important government priorities. This is reflected, for example, in the Estonian Energy Technology Programme, a co-operation programme involving research, business and the state, to develop oil shale technologies and new, mainly renewable, energies. Green innovation:
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Further material: Access STI Outlook 2012 dataset Access STI Outlook Policy database | 7,474 | 3,176 | 0.000315 |
warc | 201704 | Microbial Corrosion Masterclass on 8th & 9th November 2011 in Vienna, Austria
Website: http://oilgas.flemingeurope.com/microbial-corrosion-training/
Unlike any other similar courses on MIC, an important feature of this course-in addition to a review of electrochemical corrosion for industry applicants – is the
emphasizing upon “myths” and misunderstandings related to recognition and treatment of MIC (micro-biologically influenced corrosion).
During this two day course, practical measures against MIC in new and operating systems will be discussed with a top ranked speaker Dr. Reza Javaherdashti, who has more than 19 years of experience in corrosion management in various industries around the world, has done consultations about corrosion management for clients such as Petronas, Woodside, BHP and more and has published more than 30 root cause analysis reports, 3 books on corrosion and microbial corrosion and authored/ coauthored more than 40 peer reviewed conference and journal papers.
Special features: - Several case studies - Practical examples - Group works - Shot tests at the beginning of each day targeting the topic of the day - Extensive course manual
Program On the completion of this course the participants are expected to be able to: - Have a better understanding of the importance of routine corrosion mitigation methods - Have learned the most sensible and trustful way of MIC treatment - Recognize MIC from other types of corrosion manifestations - Give advise on materials selection and biocide control - Differentiate “myths” from “realities” in MIC mitigation - Design/apply prevention/mitigation of MIC practices
Course outline: - Why are corrosion management techniques effective? - How can a system become vulnerable to MIC - Prevention and mitigation methods: How effective are they in practice? - “Myths” and misunderstandings about MIC: How much truth is there?
Who should attend
The course is designed for the benefit of industries such as: - oil and gas industry (on shore and off-shore), - piping industry, - mining, - construction, - sewage and waste water treatment. The course is of a special use to: - asset managers, - plant engineers, - consulting engineers, - specialist contractors, - asset condition inspectors and overseers, - pipeline engineers, - materials and corrosion engineers.
For more information contact on [email protected] or +421 257 272 118.
Website: http://oilgas.flemingeurope.com/microbial-corrosion-training/ | 2,533 | 1,273 | 0.000804 |
warc | 201704 | Olney City Council discussed the fiscal year 2013-2014 General Corporate budget, including a proposal to buy nearly $200,000 in equipment for street work, during its regular meeting on Monday.
The budget is projected to be a little more than a half-million dollars in the red, with projected income at $5,982,633 and projected expenses being $6,495,587, leaving a shortfall of $512,954.
However, this is projected to be covered by anticipated use of existing funds to pay for $513,400 in budgeted expenses. A few of the more expensive items on this list include $199,800 from reserves for a Boone Street drainage project, $215,000 from a restricted fund for Pacific Cycle roof work, and $50,000 from reserves for a Van Sandt water retention pond project near East Richland Middle School.
In the street department's budget, there is a proposal to spend $195,500 for equipment for street work. This includes an asphalt zipper, a vibratory roller and a pulverizer attachment.
City Treasurer Chuck Sanders said the city could finance the project through Motor Fuel Tax funds by purchasing the equipment through the General Fund, then renting the equipment and labor to the street department, which would then qualify it for MFT money. He said it could be paid for in four or five years using MFT money.
Councilman Bob Ferguson noted this would also reduce the amount the city could annually spend from MFT.
Sanders said the other scenario would be to finance the equipment through a local bank and use MFT money for principal interest payment.
In General Corporate, Police Department income is projected at $155,095, while expenses are projected at $1,457,230; Fire Department income is projected at $277,790 while expenses are estimated at $610,931; Street Department income is estimated to be $623,008 while expenses are estimated at $1,657,465; the recycling program is expected to essentially break even, with income at $21,701 and expenses at $21,075; and the Administrative department is showing a projected income of $4,079,864, while expenses are $571,264. There are also several other funds reflected in General Corp.
Councilman Brad Brown said he was not entirely sold on this proposal, but was willing to listen.
Street Department Supervisor Marty Nuss said the equipment would pay for itself in around five years and that it would reduce the amount of manpower needed and the cost of hiring portions of the work.
Regarding training employees to use the equipment, he said, "It's just not that hard."
He added that the city would be getting the equipment at a much lower rate that it would if it were new.
Councilman Gary Foster was in favor of the purchase, saying the city would not get nice roads until it had better equipment.
Councilwoman Barb Thomas was also in favor of the purchase.
"If we can do more for less and get our money back, I think that's a good thing," she said.
In the Parks and Cemeteries fund, Parks Department Supervisor Frank Bradley said he was concerned about the amount budgeted for cemetery road work. There was $13,000 budgeted for Maple Dale Cemetery and $13,000 for Memorial Gardens.
Councilman Bob Ferguson asked if $13,000 was not enough.
Bradley recommended cutting the $10,000 budgeted for security cameras at the city park and putting it toward the road work.
Because Maple Dale road work was thought to be a priority at this time, the council voted to take the $13,000 budgeted for Memorial Gardens and put it toward Maple Dale.
The city's budget will have to be passed before May. | 3,551 | 1,677 | 0.000601 |
warc | 201704 | London, January 28 : Scientists have cleared one of the major obstacles to the development of targeted medicines for autoimmune diseases by uncovering a genetic mechanism that may help halt chronic inflammations.
VIB researchers, connected to Ghent University and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, claim that they are the first to show that MALT1 is able to cleave the A20 protein, which inhibits inflammation.
By counteracting MALT1, believe the researchers, the body's natural inhibition of inflammation can be restored. This may provide an alternative for treatments that tax the immune system, and may lead to a profound improvement over current medicines, they add.
It has long been known that the MALT1 protein plays an important role in initiating inflammation reactions. The VIB team set out to discover exactly what its particular role is.
Their research showed that MALT1 allows the inflammation to progress freely by cutting the A20 protein into pieces. Thus, say the researchers, both proteins play very important parts in fine-tuning the intensity of inflammatory reactions.
According to the research team, it is possible to restore the natural "brake" on the inflammation process by developing new medicines that ocutneract MALT1.
The researchers believe that their findings may also be applied to the typical immunoreactions toward organ transplants or the treatment of cancer, which is caused by genetic defects in MALT1, such as MALT lymphoma.
The findings will be published in the journal Nature Immunology.
ANI | 1,543 | 801 | 0.001258 |
warc | 201704 | A new study suggests that replacing water with a sugary drink per day has huge benefits to overall health. This study, conducted at Virginia Tech University emphasizes on reducing the use of beverages and aerated drinks.
The consumption of sugar added beverages like soda, canned juices, energy drinks and sweetened coffee add a toll to the calories you consume. The additional calories increase the risk of several diseases like hypertension, obesity, Type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
In the experiment, researchers observed the effect of replacing approx. 230ml of sugary beverages with a 230 ml serving of plain water. The data used was retrieved from National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys from the year 2007-2012. The individuals selected were aged 19 and above. The data showed that the one-for-one drink swap could reduce daily calories and the prevalence of obesity in populations that consume sugary beverages. A reduction in daily calorie intake from sugary drinks also improves individual scores on the Healthy Beverage Index - a scoring system designed to evaluate individual beverage patterns and their relation to diet and health.
The higher score is related to better cholesterol levels, lowered risk of hypertension with lowered blood pressure in men. As per experts, drinks like coconut water and lemonade are healthy alternatives of soda one must try.
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warc | 201704 | Vaginal yeast infection and vulvitis respond well to treatment. The infection is cured in most women. Your doctor will examine you and recommend treatment.
These are meant to be applied topically in and around the vagina. The commonly used topical antifungal creams are:
Many over-the-counter topical treatments are also available for vaginal yeast infection. But if the symptoms do not improve or recur, consult your doctor as infections can also be caused by other factors that can cause similar symptoms.
Many antifungal medications are also available as vaginal suppositories or creams. These are meant to be inserted into the vagina. These vaginal suppositories or creams come with special applicators for proper administration. Some antifungal medications available as vaginal tablets are:
Topical antifungal creams or vaginal suppositories are preferred to oral medications. Oral medications can cause side effects such as headache, nausea, and abdominal pain. Also the use of oral antifungal medications is not recommended during pregnancy. The side effects of vaginally applied treatments include vaginal burning and itching, rarely contact dermatitis, irritation, inflammation.
Your doctor will recommend oral, topical or vaginal medication based on the severity of infection, whether infection is recurrent, and your personal history (such as diabetes or pregnancy). If required you will be prescribed combination treatment, that includes an oral agent followed by vaginal application (vaginal tablet, cream or suppository). Women with severe or recurrent infections may be given maintenance treatment. These medications are usually taken periodically (for example, once in a week).
Women with recurrent infections need treatment for longer duration. You may be given a topical (cream or suppository) medication along with oral treatment. To prevent further recurrence preventive therapy with fluconazole (150 mg orally once per week) or clotrimazole (500 mg vaginal suppositories administered once per week) may be started.
Read more articles on Vaginal Yeast Infection Treatment
Related Questions | 2,119 | 939 | 0.00107 |
warc | 201704 | Send vital aid to displaced families in Syria and Iraq – and enable them to return when it's safe.
Receive the latest news, updates and prayer requests from the persecuted church direct to your inbox.
New World Watch List shows growth in Global persecution 13 January 2016 The 2016 Open Doors World Watch List, released today, shows that global persecution of Christian is more extreme than ever before.
Although the attention of the world's press and politicians has been on persecution in Syria and Iraq, those countries are just the tip of the iceberg.
Systematic religious cleansing is widespread across Africa and the Middle East. Every year well over 100 million Christians are persecuted because of their beliefs. Extreme Islamic fundamentalism is rising most sharply in sub-Saharan Africa, where more people are killed for their Christian faith than anywhere else in the world.
Open Doors records show that worldwide there were well over 7,000 Christians killed for faith-related reasons in the reporting period. That is a rise of almost 3,000 in comparison to the figures from the previous year. (And this excludes North Korea, Syria and Iraq, where accurate records do not exist.) Statistics also show that around 2,300 churches were attacked or damaged, which is over double the number for last year.
Summing up this year's figures, Lisa Pearce, CEO of Open Doors UK & Ireland said: "The persecution of Christians is getting worse, in every region in which we work - and it's getting worse fast. "
North Korea still number one
For the fourteenth consecutive year, North Korea is number one on the list: it remains the worst place on earth to be a Christian, with estimates of around 70,000 Christians imprisoned in labour camps. Others who worship in secret risk death if they are discovered.
But other countries have seen increasing persecution and oppression. Iraq (2) has replaced Somalia (7) as the second most dangerous place to be a Christian, while Eritrea - the so-called 'North Korea of Africa' - jumped six places to number three. Afghanistan (4), Syria (5) and Pakistan (6) are the next most difficult places for Christians.
India (17), the second most populous country in the world, has seen persecution levels rise dramatically for the third year running, rising to number 17 from a ranking of 31 in 2013.
Despite the gloomy news, however, there is hope.
"In many parts of the world, despite the pressure and the often terrible cost, the church continues to grow," says Lisa Pearce. "There is always hope, and yet we are in unmarked territory - the pace and scale of persecution of Christians is unprecedented and growing fast."
The 2016 World Watch List
The Open Doors World Watch List is an annual index of the 50 countries in the world where persecution is most severe for Christians. What makes it unique is that the Open Doors research team has access to grass roots data right down to village level, thanks to the long-standing relationships and practical work that Open Doors has been involved in - in small and even underground communities over the last 60 years.
This data is compiled by Open Doors experts using a point system which records the level of persecution. And this demonstrates the rapid rise: in 2013, the lowest ranking country had 35 points, this year's lowest ranking country had 53 points, a rise of 50 per cent.
"This is a cause of great concern," says Lisa Pearce. "Many countries have dropped down the list, not because persecution there is decreasing, but simply because others are getting worse faster."
Open Doors in Parliament
The 2016 World Watch List will be discussed at the House of Commons this afternoon at a cross-party launch. Over 120 MPs have said that they will be attending.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said: "In the Middle East Christians are suffering terribly and around the world in many other places. Those who speak for them with information and authority are few and far between. Open Doors is clearly one of them."
Prime Minister David Cameron has said: "Standing up for religious freedom is a priority for my Government. We are committed to promoting and protecting the right to freedom of religion or belief as one of the foundations of human rights. No matter what faith we follow, charity, compassion, responsibility and forgiveness are values which speak to us all." | 4,405 | 2,127 | 0.000475 |
warc | 201704 | The chorus of voices calling for revisions to the province’s carding regulations grew louder Monday as a coalition of black community groups spoke out about the “the deeply problematic gaps” in proposed legislation aimed at halting discriminatory policing in Ontario.
“Ultimately, when it comes to eliminating racial profiling or preventing racial profiling and anti-black racism, the regulation does not go far enough,” said Anthony Morgan, a lawyer with the African Canadian Legal Clinic.
Among the groups speaking out is the Association of Black Law Enforcers (ABLE), which expressed doubt about the effectiveness of carding in a letter to the province this fall.
Carding, also known as street checks, “has yet to be reasonably demonstrated an effective or scientific tool to achieve the intended purpose of public safety,” ABLE president Kenton Chance wrote in a submission to the Ministry of Community Safety earlier this year. The Toronto Star recently obtained the submission.
On behalf of membership that includes black police officers across Ontario, Chance told the province that police now have other ways to solve crimes, such as video surveillance, that could be “exponentially more valuable and dependable” than the “hit or miss” information obtained through carding.
ABLE spokesperson Terrence Murray stressed the group does not speak for all black and racialized officers.
But in a statement to the Star, he reiterated that the group could not find any reliable information to prove the effectiveness of carding.
“As black police and peace officers, we live and work in two worlds that have allowed us to develop unique perspectives,” Murray wrote.
In October, Minister of Community Safety Yasir Naqvi unveiled draft regulations aimed at eliminating random and arbitrary police stops. Written after months of public consultation, the proposed regulations would place new limits on how and when police stop, question and document members of the public who are not suspected of a crime.
While many are applauding the sentiment behind the regulation, several dozen rights groups and community leaders have sounded the alarm in recent weeks about problems with the regulations.
Among the major concerns is that the proposed legislation includes too many exceptions that allow police to circumvent the safeguards.
“It does not apply to an alarmingly broad range of police activities, including when officers are investigating a particular offence,” the groups wrote in a lengthy response to the province this month, which was released at a news conference Monday.
The signatories — which include the ACLC, ABLE, the Black Action Defence Committee, the Anti-Black Racism Network and more — want to see the province amend the regulation so the safeguards are in place for “all relevant duties of police officers.”
The only exception to the regulations would be when a covert operation is underway or when a police officer is executing a court order or a warrant.
Members of the black community have long been subjected to officers viewing their everyday activities as “suspicious,” Morgan said.
Last week, more than two dozen rights groups, community activists and prominent Torontonians released a joint response to the draft regulations and made similar criticisms. Among them was Knia Singh, who launched a constitutional challenge of carding earlier this year and says the majority of the police carding interactions he has experienced would still be allowed under the proposed regulations.
Singh has mostly been carded while driving. There is an exemption for street checks in circumstances when a member of the public is statutorily obliged to provide information, such as when driving.
While many rights groups argue the province has not gone far enough to stop unnecessary carding, police leaders and unions have said the draft regulations would handcuff police and keep officers from having meaningful conversations with the public.
Lauren Callighen, Naqvi’s press secretary, said the province will “thoroughly consider all the advice that we have received.”
“(We) will continue to meet with interested parties to review the submissions and work to improve the regulation if necessary,” she said in an email Monday. | 4,384 | 2,036 | 0.000509 |
warc | 201704 | Obama Apologizes to People Who Lost Lousy Insurance Because of ObamaCare ·Friday, November 8, 2013 ·
President Obama has apologized for breaking his “If you like your plan, you can keep it” pledge. Does he have anything to be sorry about?
NBC (“
Exclusive: Obama personally apologizes for Americans losing health coverage“):
President Obama said Thursday that he is “sorry” that some Americans are losing their current health insurance plans as a result of the Affordable Care Act, despite his promise that no one would have to give up a health plan they liked.
“I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me,” he told NBC News in an exclusive interview at the White House.
“We’ve got to work hard to make sure that they know we hear them and we are going to do everything we can to deal with folks who find themselves in a tough position as a consequence of this.”
Obama’s comments come 10 days after NBC News’ Lisa Myers reported that the administration has known since the summer of 2010 that millions of Americans could lose their insurance under the law.
Obama has made repeated assurances that “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan” with Obamacare.
Consumers who buy insurance on their own — about five percent of the population — are at risk of being forced off their current policies because their plans have changed and don’t meet the new standards of the Affordable Care Act.
Obama’s statement has been called into question as Americans have begun to receive cancellation notices, effectively forcing them to enroll in a new plan either with their current insurer or through the government exchanges, in many cases at a higher rate.
Guidance from the Department of Health and Human Services dating back to July 2010 estimated that “40 to 67 percent” of the 14 million consumers in that marketplace could lose their policies due to turnover in the individual insurance market, NBC News found.
That part of the law does not impact the 80 percent of Americans who receive their health insurance through employers or through Medicare or Medicaid.
“Obviously we didn’t do a good enough job in terms of how we crafted the law,” Obama said in the interview Thursday. “And, you know, that’s something I regret. That’s something we’re gonna do everything we can to get fixed … We’re looking at a range of options.”
But Ezra Klein and Evan Soltas argue that “
Obama shouldn’t apologize for blowing up the terrible individual market.”
People aren’t finding themselves in this situation based on the president’s promises. They’re finding themselves in this situation based on his policy. And Obama isn’t apologizing for the policy.
“Before the law was passed, a lot of these plans, people thought they had insurance coverage,” he said. “And then they’d find out that they had huge out of pocket expenses. Or women were being charged more than men. If you had preexisting conditions, you just couldn’t get it at all.”
Obama was wrong to promise that everyone who liked their insurance could keep it. For a small minority of Americans, that flatly isn’t true. But the real sin would’ve been leaving the individual insurance market alone.
The individual market — which serves five percent of the population, and which is where the disruptions are happening — is a horror show. It’s a market where healthy people benefit from systematic discrimination against the sick, where young people benefit from systematic discrimination against the old, where men benefit from systematic discrimination against women, and where insurers benefit from systematic discrimination against the uninformed.
[…]
This is a market that desperately needs to be fixed. And Obamacare goes a way toward fixing it. It basically makes the individual market more like the group markets. That means that the sick don’t get charged more than the well, and the old aren’t charged more than three times as much as the young, and women aren’t charged more than men, and insurance plans that don’t actually cover you when you get sick no longer exist. But the transition disrupts today’s arrangements.
[…]
There’s been an outpouring of sympathy for the people in the individual market who will see their plans changed. As well there should be. Some of them will be better off, but some won’t be.
But, worryingly, the impassioned defense of the beneficiaries of the status quo isn’t leavened with sympathy for the people suffering now. The people who can’t buy health insurance for any price, or can’t get it at a price they can afford, or do get it only to find themselves bankrupted by medical expenses anyway have been left out of the sudden outpouring of concern.
If people have a better way to fix the individual market — one that has no losers — then it’s time for them to propose it. But it’s very strange to sympathize with the people who’ve benefited from the noxious practices of the individual market while dismissing the sick people who’ve been victimized by it.
Obama is rightly taking flack for making a promise he wasn’t going to keep, and he’s right to apologize for it. But he shouldn’t apologize for blowing up the individual market. It needed to be done.
While I agree that the existing market was awful, the problem is that we fixed parts of the problem while creating new ones.
Given that a single payer system—which both Klein and I would prefer—is not a politically viable option in the United States, people who are young, poor, and healthy face a quandary. They need to be covered in case they suffer a healthcare catastrophe but can’t afford a decent healthcare policy at today’s prices. ObamaCare creates a fix for some of them: If they’re under 26 and their parents have good coverage, they can get coverage that way. But if they’re, say, 27 or their parents don’t have decent coverage, they’re still left to their own devices. And that means the cheapest plan that provides catastrophic protection.
Klein and others rightly praise ObamaCare for eliminating plans that were essentially fraudulent. Those that preyed on the ignorant and desperate, seemingly promising coverage if they got really sick but in fact having so many loopholes that they weren’t covered at all, needed to go away.
But plans that were above board—not offering coverage for routine medical expenses like checkups or birth control but serving as a backstop in case of serious accident or major illness—went away, too. By mandating that every single insurance plan in America offer blanket coverage to everyone, regardless of health or age, ObamaCare ended these plans. That puts some people in a far worse position than they were in previously. And this was a known defect. | 7,170 | 3,098 | 0.000344 |
warc | 201704 | Fast After 50 : How to Race Strong for the Rest of Your Life 9781937715267| 17,78x23,11x2,79 cm. | İngilizce | 336 Sayfa | Türler Spor
Fast After 50 is for every endurance athlete who wants to stay fast for years to come.
For runners, cyclists, triathletes, swimmers, and cross-country skiers, getting older doesn’t have to mean getting slower. Drawing from the most current research on aging and sports performance, Joe Friel—America’s leading endurance sports coach—shows how athletes can race strong and stay healthy well past age 50.
In his groundbreaking book Fast After 50, Friel offers a smart approach for athletes to ward off the effects of age. Friel shows athletes how to extend their racing careers for decades—and race to win.
Fast After 50 presents guidelines for high-intensity workouts, focused strength training, recovery, crosstraining, and nutrition for high performance:
How the body’s response to training changeswith age, how to adapt your training plan, and how to avoid overtraining How to shed body fat and regain muscle density How to create a progressive plan for training, rest, recovery, and competition Workout guidelines, field tests, and intensity measurement
In Fast After 50, Joe Friel shows athletes that age is just a number—and race results are the only numbers that count.
With contributions from: Mark Allen, Gale Bernhardt, Amby Burfoot, Dr. Larry Creswell, John Howard, Dr. Tim Noakes, Ned Overend, Dr. John Post, Dr. Andrew Pruitt, and Lisa Rainsberger. | 1,549 | 860 | 0.001205 |
warc | 201704 | No Marshmallows, Just Term Papers
Priscilla Suero
Statistics in Business
University of Phoenix - QNT 351
November 19th, 2012
Introduction
What is statistics? Statistics is “the science of collecting, organizing, presenting, analyzing, and interpreting data to assist in making more effective decisions” (Lind, Marchal & Wathen, 2011, p. 5). Statistics is commonly used in marketing procedures that involves the development of strategies to creating an effective marketing plan. In business, the collection of data is vital for the ability to make decisions and implement processes and policies within a business’ external and internal elements.
Types and Levels of Statistics
The term “statistics” is usually used in a general format but there are two categories the study of statistics is divided into. They are descriptive and inferential statistics. Descriptive statistics are “methods of organizing, summarizing, and presenting data in an informative way” (Lind, Marchal & Wathen, 2011, p. 6). This means that this form of statistics may use tables, graphs and summary measures to depict the descriptive statistical data. Therefore, inferential statistics are “methods used to estimate a property of a population on the basis of a sample” (Lind, Marchal & Wathen, 2011, p. 7). Aside from the two key types of statistics, there are different levels of measurement within statistics. These four levels of measurements include nominal data, ordinal data, interval data and ratio data. Within each level, the survey used to obtain feedback will transform the results in various formats. Therefore not all measurement levels are used by researchers. The measurement levels are chosen based on the purpose of the study and the analytical process used in generating the statistics.
Role of Statistics
Statistics serves a critical role in the decision-making procedure process of a business. This type of research will allow for researchers and businesses to use statistical thinking in the... | 2,046 | 941 | 0.001093 |
warc | 201704 | Homosexual Practices Might Have Begun in the Term Paper
Length: 12 pages Subject: Women's Issues - Sexuality Type: Term Paper Paper: #55556451 Excerpt from Term Paper :
homosexual practices might have begun in the early centuries, the word "sodomy" was first used by a Catholic missionary, now a saint, Father Peter Damien around 1050. By sodomy, he meant masturbation and anal intercourse between men, a sin he condemned as the most perverse of sexual sins in his long letter to the Pope, entitled "the Book of Gomorrah." He emphasized that God designed sex exclusively for procreation and that the enjoyment of the sexual act outside this divine purpose was unnatural and therefore summarily grievously and wickedly sinful.
The unnaturalness of sodomy remained more or less the same through the centuries, till the 1700s when the so-called modern homosexual subcultures made themselves visible in London, Paris and Amsterdam. The rest soon perceived them as "sodomites (who were merely) ... constitutionally different from other men" (Wikholm 1999) and effeminate woman-haters who refused to have sex with women. Things were to evolve further for them 150 years later.
Doctors of those times came to adopt the term "homosexual" to refer to this class of men, whom, in Richard von Krafft-Ebing's belief, must have developed this mental illness, among others, from degenerative genes of their parents. Sigmund Freud, however, suggested that the subculture must be due to a defective upbringing of children. His followers, though, believed that homosexuality is a very serious mental disease, even a "severe personality disorder" (Wikholm).Others offered the opinions that such men's emotions were infantile and thus rendered them incapable of love; that homosexuality is extreme self-admiration or narcissism; or "injustice collectors." (Wikholm). Though making its reality felt, homosexuality in those times was generally camouflaged.
The first to publicly acknowledge his gender preference was Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, a German jurist, in 1864. Ulrichs published 12 pamphlets in defense of homosexuals whom he called "Urnings," or men who are attracted to other men. At first, he used the pseudonym Numa Numantius until he sufficiently revealed his identity in 1868. Ulrichs advanced the cause of Urningism and opposed Paragraph 175, a law that prohibited sex between men (Wikholm), through his pamphlets. Doctors of the period immediately rejected his campaign and frowned at Urnings as "diseased creatures." So widespread was the rejection that even Ulrichs' own fans withdrew open support from him and he had to live as an exile in an Italian village to the end of his life.
The term "homosexual" was first used by writer Karl Maria Kertbeny for the technical classification of people's sexual types (Wikholm). Heterosexuals were men who are attracted to women (and vice versa), monosexualists are masturbators, and pygists are devotees of anal intercourse. He named many other categories of other sexual orientations and practices, and believed that these variations were genetically determined. He used this argument to oppose Paragraph 175 and other laws against sex between men but to no avail. Doctors, including Richard von Krafft-Ebing, even borrowed his term in their diagnostic work on mental illness.
Another German, a physician, professor and editor, Karl Westphal, wrote an article which identified homosexuality in both sexes in 1869. He considered the condition a psychiatric disorder and assumed that such men and women who desired members of their own sex as possessing "contrary sexual feeling" or sexual inversion (Wikholm 1998). Like other physicians, he assumed that the condition was part of or associated with a mental illness. He also described such women as masculine-looking and such men as effeminate, believing the cause to be congenital (Wikholm). He likewise opposed the passage of Paragraph 175 and instead suggested, medical treatment for these men and women with sexual inversion.
Paragraph 175 was nonetheless passed and adopted in 1871 in the newly unified German kingdoms (which we now call Germany) under King William I. This law, which forbade sex between men was part of Prussia's native and conservative code imposed on all the German states in place of liberal laws based on the Napoleonic Code before the unification (Wikholm).
The theories and views of Ulrichs and BA Morel, a French physician, were incorporated by Richard von Krafft-Ebing into his book, Psychopathia Sexualis, in 1886. He borrowed Ulrichs' term, Urnings, but not his belief that homosexual desire was natural or healthy. Krafft-Ebing instead built on Morel's disease theory on degenerate heredity, setting forth that most homosexuals were mentally ill and their illnesses were genetically caused (Wikholm). His book both took pity on these "unfortunate effeminates" and also denigrated them as "cultivated pederasts" -- men believed to have been born heterosexual but grew up with homosexual preferences for the pleasure of sexual perversion. His theory was the prevalent belief in this respect until Sigmund Freud came up with his own view in the early 20th century.
The sexual inversion theory went on and became the subject of the first edition of a book an Englishman, Havelock Ellis, in 1896 as Das Kontrare Geschlechtsgefuhle in Leipzig, Germany. English publishers refused to publish it out of fear. Ellis was not himself an invert, but his book gave inverts a sort of mouthpiece, whereby they could speak and be heard. He insisted that sexual inversion was not a disease, but only a congenital variation. He rejected the combined theories of Ulrichs, Westphal and Hirschfeld that male inverts were effeminate, but that they were as variable as "normal heterosexual" men, based on case studies he conducted and presented in his book.
Because he was an objective and systematic thinker and not an invert himself, he soon gained respect as an American publisher without gaining the unpopularity of Freud, a contemporary in the field.
In the same year of the publication of Ellis' book, a book entitled Uranisme et Unisexualite was also published in France and which immediately earned the repulsion of French physicians. The author, Marc Andre Raffalovich, a Russian Jewish brought up in France, railed against the unfounded, erroneous and ridiculous medical opinion on sexual inversion, i.e., "male inverts are effeminate degenerates." (Wikholm) He introduced his own terminology, "unisexuality," to mean sexual attraction between men.
While he was known to have maintained "unisexual" friends, he was particularly touchy about his friendship with a John Gray, supposed to be a former lover of American poet Oscar Wilde. Raffalovich was especially sensitive about congenital unisexuals' being described as effeminate, reasoning that:
"Effeminacy ... is usually a sign that a man had taken up inverted practices out of debauchery and isn't really a congenital unisexual."(Wikholm)
Havelock Ellis significantly influenced Raffalovich, whose thought was introduced by Raffalovich into French medical literature. But his works were objects of derision at the French medical sectors, unlike his model Ellis' work, Uranisme et Unisexualite, which was well received.
The Sexology Movement came to a head the following year with the founding of the Scientific Humanitarian Committee by another German physician and sex researcher, a homosexual. Magnus Hirschfeld wrote books and other publications that made him a leading figures in sexology, especially when he opened the world's first sexological school, the Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin. Through his Institute, he fought very hard for the repeal of Paragraph 175, but failed. His career was to reach its peak in the third decade of the 20th century and to be recognized by the American press as a "great sex expert." But rumors that he was involved in the selling of useless patent medicines and that his obtaining money from known German homosexuals for his cause but through extortion. (Wikholm)
He was a supporter of Karl Ulrichs but was never a scientific and honest thinker. He maintained that homosexuality is a matter of hormones, and led others to use hormone injections to "cure" homosexuality. The Nazis destroyed his Institute in 1933 while he escaped to France as an exile and died there two years later.(Wikholm)
Homosexual or unisexual relationships were also known to have spilled over to or found in circles of literary greats in the United States and Europe in the late 19th century. One of them is acknowledged a great American poet after his time, as he was also an object of controversy in his time. (Wikholm). His most significant work, "Leaves of Grass," published in 1855, was a celebration of sensuality and intimate friendship with the common man. It contained verses about the bodily senses, sweat and "father-juice" that strongly hinted at his same-gender relationships, which he kept secret. He was said to have had a sexual relationship with a Peter Doyle.
His book was accepted and praised for its vision of a classless American society and focus on America's working class. But those who looked more closely found intimations of something else behind the "comradely love" Whitman professed. These critics sensed darker motives and avenues, perhaps bordering on the peccatum illud horribile, inter-Christianos non-nominandum (the horrible sin not to be named among Christians). (Wikholm)
Whitman explained "comradely love" as consisting only of "physical intimacies" when he was asked by an English devotee. Whitman expressed outrage for the "morbid inference" and subtle suspicion, which he considered "condemnable." Notwithstanding his denials and repugnance towards homosexuality, admirers like… | 9,887 | 4,571 | 0.000221 |
warc | 201704 | Lets start with what a squat jump actually is.
When you break it down, it really is as simple as a squat and a jump. It’s a type of plyometric exercise.
Athletes incorporate squat jumps, and other plyometric exercises, into their programmes to develop speed and power. They can also help maintain and increase strength levels. It’s nice to be the strong guy in the gym, or the girl with great glutes, but the squat jump will take you from average to awesome.
Imagine being able to combine your strength with speed for the all round athletic package, or matching your nice glutes with nice quads, hamstrings and calf muscles, for the whole leg effect! Squat jumps are a compound exercise meaning that, like a squat they work loads of muscles and burn heaps of calories.
The squat jump, when done properly, can actually help decrease the chances of knee injuries as well by enhancing the functioning of the stabliser muscles in the joint. They are also a very dynamic exercise and so work on your coordination as well.
Now you know what a squat jump is and the benefits of doing them, let’s talk about how to do it.
It’s probably best to start without any weight, that can always be added in as a progression.
1. Start as you would with a normal squat, feet shoulder width apart, core tight, straight back etc.
2. When you’re ready, squat down and get ready to explode upwards. When you reach your desired depth (just above a 90 degree knee bend is fine) put everything you’ve got into pushing yourself upwards and off the floor.
3. Try to pull your toes up to your shins as well rather than letting them dangle in the air. You are trying to generate as much force as possible don’t forget. Have your hands on your hips or out in front of you or even by your sides to help swing and jump higher.
4. When you come down from your great height, land softly with bent knees. This will help prevent injury.
It's important to not over do it on this exercise. Doing 3 sets of 5 reps to start with is fine. Focus on correct technique and generating power before you adding in more sets and reps.
When you feel like you need a bit more of a challenge you can add weights such as dumbbells or a barbell. This exercise is about speed and power so don’t add so much weight that it jeopardises your technique and slows you down.
In summary, squat jumps are great. When done properly, the benefits are endless. There is a huge amount of research backing their effectiveness all available online, have a look if you don’t believe me or want to learn more. Try super setting squat jumps with squats for a real leg burner.
Squat jumps are the epitome of quality over quantity, so keep it short, keep it tight and get jumping!
by Kath Webb
by Laura Briggs
by Kath Webb
by Kath Webb
by Jessica Ambrose | 2,846 | 1,409 | 0.000727 |
warc | 201704 | CareerNews
In a perfect world, everyone with the passion, skill, and willingness to work hard would have his or her dream job -- and a dream salary to match. Reality, of course, is often quite different. But there's a world of difference between making less than you want (or even less than you're worth) and making nothing at all. And yet, for people in the arts, this is often the pitch: work for nothing, hoping that exposure or another project for your portfolio will lead you to real, paying work down the road. The question, of course, is whether or not it's ever worth it to do so. After all, you can't pay the rent with exposure.
Climbing to the top of the professional ladder is hard enough for any worker, but when that worker is a woman, the challenges increase exponentially. According to an article published by Women on Business, "As of 2010, only 2.4 percent of the U.S. Fortune 500 chief executives were female [and] only 6 percent of U.S. companies have a woman CEO." As a result, we're always impressed when we read about a woman who has ascended to a principal position at a large firm. We want to hear her story, learn from her experiences, and be inspired in our own career pursuits. Here are five tips from powerful businesswomen who overcame the odds and broke through the glass ceiling. | 1,316 | 764 | 0.001315 |
warc | 201704 | Information Systems (IS) Analyst Salary
Job Description for Information Systems (IS) Analyst
Information systems (IS) analysts are responsible for conducting system analysis and providing technology project leadership for their organization. One of their main duties includes coordinating operational procedures related to information systems and their management. IS analysts are in charge of programming technical solutions that improve the efficiency of current processes. They also help provide easier access to key information by performing complex data queries in a timely manner.Read More...
IS analysts improve efficiency of currently deployed programs that hold large amounts of data. They create documentation features for existing applications, as well as analyze business problems and data to develop solutions. IS analysts conduct statistical analyses and modeling to reach business objectives. They also make recommendations based on their findings and present those results and recommendations to managers in their organization. These analysts establish direction for their organization's automation efforts, serve as a resource for information technology management tasks, and work with process development in designing support duties, installation, and validation operations.
A bachelor's degree in computer science, information systems, or a related field is required for this position. Relevant experience in programming and in a similar analysis capacity is generally required or preferred. IS analysts must work well with other analysts and perform effectively on their own with minimal supervision. They need to have advanced analytical skills and pay strong attention to detail, as well as be able to multitask on a variety of co-occurring technology projects. Information Systems (IS) Analyst Tasks Create project plans for information technology development and testing. Translate requirements into new information technology project specifications. Identify, communicate, and manage risks associated with projects. Identify business or customer requirements and information technology alternatives. Common Career Paths for Information Systems (IS) Analyst
Information Systems Analysts may experience a large salary bump if they progress into a role such as Senior Software Engineer. The latter position pays an average of $94K annually. Career advancement for the typical Information Systems Analyst often leads to becoming a Senior Systems Analyst or an Information Technology Project Manager; median salaries in these positions are $20K higher and $24K higher, respectively.
Business Analyst, IT Job Listings Search for more jobs: Popular Employer Salaries for Information Systems (IS) Analyst
Popular Skills for Information Systems (IS) Analyst
Survey takers working as Information Systems Analysts report using a large range of professional skills. Most notably, skills in Epic Information Systems, Microsoft SQL Server, IT Security & Infrastructure, and C++ are correlated to pay that is above average. Skills that pay less than market rate include Microsoft Word, Windows Operating System General Use, and Microsoft Office. The majority of those who know Microsoft Excel also know Project Management.
Pay by Experience Level for Information Systems (IS) Analyst Median of all compensation (including tips, bonus, and overtime) by years of experience.
Information Systems Analysts do not generally earn higher incomes from more experience in the field. Salaries for the relatively untried average out to around $56K, but survey participants with five to 10 years of experience earn a significantly higher median of $67K. Information Systems Analysts claiming one to two decades of experience make an estimated median of $73K. In the end, more experience does seem to mean larger paychecks; seasoned Information Systems Analysts with more than 20 years of experience earn a predictably higher median salary of $82K. | 3,957 | 1,741 | 0.000576 |
warc | 201704 | Editor:
It's painfully obvious that none of the Democrat candidates for president knows anything about national forests beyond some politically correct press release handed them by some radical "green" organization run by city-dwellers who want to control every twig and stick in every national forest, and utterly destroy the economies of forest communities.
There's the usual blather about "protecting old growth" and "giveaways to the timber industry." All the Democrats want to restore the rights of radical greens to endlessly challenge sane forest management -- like the group out of Santa Fe who sued to prevent the Forest Service from cutting down dead trees after the Rodeo-Chediski Fire.
No candidate mentions that the original charter for the creation of U.S. national forests was specifically to provide a steady supply of a renewable resource -- TIMBER -- to the American people. None mentions that our national forests used to have around 20-40 trees per acre, and that now in many places there are 1000-3000 or more, all competing for ground-water, and contributing to drought conditions. No one seems to know that presently a third to a half of our national forests are already dead because of drought and bark-beetles, creating throughout the entire forest the danger of a massive conflagration that could dwarf the recent California fires and the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski Fire.
No one I know, who actually lives and works in a community surrounded by national forest (beyond, perhaps, some extremist greenies in Flagstaff), can take any of the pronouncements of these Democrats as anything but a direct threat to our lives and homes. Their proposals are an insult to anyone who knows anything about the present, unhealthy state of our national forests -- a state that is the direct result from decades of enacting the stupid policies promoted by Democrats.
I'm by no means a fan of everything Bush and the Republicans have done or are proposing to do. But the Healthy Forests Restoration Act is the only sane start to preserving our national forests and restoring them to health. It will also help rural Arizona restore many lost timber-industry jobs and greatly lessen our present danger of being totally burned out of existence by green-extremist-supported forest policies.
I encourage as many rural Arizonans as possible to contact these Democrats and let them know the truth about their ignorant forest proposals.
Ned Weatherby, Payson | 2,467 | 1,246 | 0.000807 |
warc | 201704 | Two Nutritional Supplements All Pets Should Be Taking
I am sure you have all been told that your pets don’t need any supplements if they are on a commercial diet that meets AAFCO (Association of American Feed Control Officials) nutrient requirements. For adequate nutrition that is probably true. But who wants just adequate nutrition for their pet?
Like ourselves, we want our pets at maximum health and wellness. Commercial diets fall short of providing the quality that pet parents want. Expensive brands that add various supplements don’t fill the bill either. Despite their marketing, the companies seldom include the supplements in quantities that are considered therapeutic or helpful. Mounting evidence suggests that there are certain supplements that will improve pet health. What are those supplements?
DHA and EPA
DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) and EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) are omega-3, polyunsaturated fats. These fatty acids are important in tempering the inflammatory response of the immune system. It is this anti-inflammatory effect that makes DHA and EPA helpful in reducing itching in allergic pets and reducing joint pain in pets with osteoarthritis. The anti-inflammatory effect is also thought to decrease the symptoms of dementia and hearing loss in geriatric pets. New research suggests that learning and other cognitive brain functions are improved in puppies supplemented with DHA and EPA.
Fish oil is the richest source for DHA and EPA. Krill oil is a somewhat distant second. Because of the chemical formulation of these fatty acids in krill it is believed they are more readily bioavailable, so a higher dose is not necessary. Unfortunately this has yet to be proven in humans or animals.
Oils made from algae are rich in DHA but do not contain EPA. Because DHA is the end product of EPA metabolism in the inflammatory reaction chain this may not be important. However there are few studies that have compared algal oil to fish oil for pain or allergy relief. Flaxseed and other plants are poor sources of DHA and EPA due to the poor efficiency of mammals to convert plant omega-3 to DHA and EPA.
My preference is still fish oil due to the higher concentrations of DHA and EPA and affordability.
Prebiotics and Probiotics
An amazing amount of research points to the fact that gut health is not only important for digestion but necessary for effective internal immune function. Maintaining a beneficial bacteria population of the colon is now the primary treatment for intestinal problems or problems with an intestinal origin.
Prebiotics and probiotics are becoming standard treatment for vomiting and diarrhea. Treating boarding pets or pets subject to other stressful situations with pre- and probiotics helps prevent stress induced colitis and diarrhea. Maximum gut health is now thought to play a role in preventing asthma and aiding in the treatment of respiratory, allergic, and autoimmune conditions.
Prebiotics are non-digestible fiber products that are fermented for food by many of the beneficial bacteria in pets’ colons. Inulin, a fructan fiber, is found in more than 36,000 plants, including bananas, asparagus, and wheat bran. Chicory is the richest source and is the source used for most inulin prebiotics. Metamucil Clear and Natural is 100 percent inulin from chicory.
Probiotics are products containing beneficial bacteria. Yogurt and acidophilus are probably the best known and the most readily available to most pet owners. Now pet store and veterinary shelves are crowded with a wide variety of probiotic formulas.
There are disadvantages to probiotics. The bacteria must survive the harsh acid environment of the stomach before reaching the intestines and colon. A probiotic product that does not include a technology to protect the bacteria from stomach acid will probably not be very effective. Giving probiotics to your pet with a meal will decrease stomach acid destruction of the bacteria.
Bacterial colony counts in probiotic products should be in the billions. The intestines contain trillions of bacteria so products with colony counts only in the millions will have a minimal effect on your pet’s gut health.
And most importantly, there are no FDA testing requirements for manufacturers that the bacteria in their product are actually alive and useful. This is even true of probiotics marketed for human consumption.
These disadvantages are a reason I prefer prebiotics. The major reason however is the individuality of the pet. There are hundreds to thousands of different types of intestinal bacteria. The populations of beneficial bacteria may differ from pet to pet. This, I think, is the major reason different pets react differently to different brands of dog food. Rather than try and influence the individual pet’s gut flora with a probiotic, why not just provide food for good bacteria, a prebiotic, and promote the bacterial colonies that work best for the pet.
All pets of all ages should have adequate amounts of these supplements in their wellness plan. Ask your vet for appropriate dosages and amounts for your pet(s).
Dr. Ken Tudor | 5,149 | 2,342 | 0.000431 |
warc | 201704 | Sea Levels Along The Northeast Rose Almost 4 Inches In Just 2 Years: Study
Sea levels across the Northeast coast of the United States rose nearly 3.9 inches between 2009 and 2010, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Arizona and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The waters near Portland, Maine, saw an even greater rise — 5 inches — over the two-year period.
While scientists have been observing higher sea levels across the globe in recent decades, the study found a much more extreme rise than previous averages. Such an event is unprecedented in the history of the tide gauge record, according to the researchers, and represents a 1-in-850 year event.
“Unlike storm surge, this event caused persistent and widespread coastal flooding even without apparent weather processes,” the study’s authors wrote. “In terms of beach erosion, the impact of the 2009-2010 [sea level rise] event is almost as significant as some hurricane events.”
The analysis relied on data from dozens of tide gauges along the eastern seaboard. The nearly 4-inch rise for the Northeast represents the average of 14 tide gauges located between New York and Canada. Tide gauges farther south in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast indicated a sea level rise far less extreme in 2009 and closer —> Read More Here | 1,371 | 756 | 0.001369 |
warc | 201704 | Government proposed to Set up Plastic Parks
The Government of India on 9 October 2013 proposed to support setting up of Plastic Parks for the promotion of downstream plastic processing industries. The Scheme to be implemented by the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals envisages setting up of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which would provide infrastructure and common facilities for the industries.
State Government or its agency, which would set up such SPV, will have to mandatorily have equity participation in it. Share subscription agreements between the SPV and its members will have to be executed. The contribution of the members will have to be at least 20 percent of the total equity, including the cost of the land.
The Government of India would provide a Grant-in-Aid to the extent of 50 percent of the project cost, not exceeding 40 crore rupees per SPV to be set up for the purpose. The remaining contribution in the SPV will be from the State Government, its agencies, beneficiary industries or loan from financial institutions. The release of funds will be based on identification of milestones and time limits set for each such milestone to be decided at the time of the project approval by a Scheme Steering Committee (SSC) in the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals. The proposals are to be made by the State Governments.
The Scheme is aimed at increasing investment in the sector for additions in capacity and for increased exports in the sector. Adopting a clustered development approach, the scheme aims to achieve environmentally sustainable growth through innovative methods of waste management, recycling etc.
Currently the share of India in world trade for plastics is very low. The industry in the country is very large but highly fragmented with the dominance of tiny, small and medium units.
Source: www.jagranjosh.com/current-affairs/government-proposed-to-set-up-plastic-parks-1381318046-1 | 1,946 | 972 | 0.001033 |
warc | 201704 | The Unintended Environmental Impacts of the Current Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) Publication Date: January 2008 Publisher(s): Environmental Working Group Author(s): Michelle R. Perez Keywords: biofuels; renewable fuels Type:
Report
Abstract:
Biofuels can provide a significant source of renewable energy to reduce dependency on foreign oil and reduce climate change pollution. As Congress considers increasing the current RFS, we have an opportunity to promote biofuels while reducing unintended negative effects on the environment, natural resources and public health. Unfortunately, the ethanol industry is ramping up production dramatically before even rudimentary questions about the environmental impacts have been answered. Reliance on corn grain as a feedstock - which accounts for 98% of current ethanol production - is already having adverse effects on food and feed prices, and is already posing local and regional environmental problems. | 954 | 558 | 0.001802 |
warc | 201704 | Road to reform lies across the aisle Text Size - + reset President Barack Obama's health care plans are floundering under the weight of their own complexity. AP Photo Health security: Something has to be done to ensure that the small numbers of Americans with serious pre-existing illnesses aren’t denied access to affordable private health insurance. However, plans under consideration in Congress would thrust expensive new regulations like “community rating” and “guaranteed issue” onto the entire individual insurance market to try to make insurance affordable for that small demographic. Instead, we should make sure private plans are as flexible and affordable as possible for the vast majority of Americans, and then concentrate on specific reforms for pre-existing conditions.
Costs: Worries about federal “death panels” shift the debate off the mark, but Medicare recipients are right to be concerned that Congress will pay for expanding coverage to the uninsured by limiting access to expensive tests or new drugs for diseases like cancer or Alzheimer’s.
Now let’s get to the politics:
As a lifelong policy geek, I believe the substance is important and essential. But I have also come to appreciate the importance of how you do business. For example, Obama should return to calling it health care reform, not hiding behind health insurance reform. The main issue is a better, cheaper health system, and insurance markets are only part of the problem.
The president should also stop saying that Republicans “have no ideas.” Democrats have already shamelessly adopted pieces of GOP campaign proposals on tax treatment of health insurance, Medicare efficiency reforms and covering high-risk individuals.
Moreover, to build the political momentum for a bipartisan, substantive bill, the president should make it clear that GOP concerns should be addressed and that no bill that strips GOP ideas as a matter of parliamentary legerdemain will earn his signature.
For example, the president should finally take the public option off the table. It’s the single-biggest sticking point for millions of Americans (not just Republicans) who are worried that the government-run plan would drive private insurers out of business, robbing them of the coverage they have, and like, today.
Obama came to office by promising a new era of bipartisanship. His plans for health care reform, however, have floundered as Congress has shut Republicans out of the debate and crafted partisan legislation that will increase government spending without alleviating any of our fundamental health care woes or reducing costs.
To build support for lasting, bipartisan reform, next week Obama should call on Congress to go back to the drawing board and reach out for good ideas from across the aisle. And he can lead by example, by borrowing some good ideas from Republicans.
Douglas Holtz-Eakin is a former director of the Congressional Budget Office. He is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and president of DHE Consulting in Arlington, Va. | 3,095 | 1,529 | 0.000669 |
warc | 201704 | Succulents give gardeners options for stylish designs
June 6, 2014 10:41 PM
Carol Papas
Succulents in a container include Sedum rupestre 'Angelina,' paddle kalanchoe and red-leafed sedum.
By Carol Papas
When a bored teenager takes the time to notice a plant, calling it “cool” and “different,” you can bet that plant is a succulent. Most succulents are not hardy to our zone 5 climate, but their amazing shapes, textures and colors make them worthy garden plants, especially well-suited to use in containers.
The plant that got my teen’s attention was a shiny, burgundy rosette perched atop a 3-foot stalk that looked like something Dr. Seuss would have drawn. Its proper botanical name is Aeonium arboreum ‘Zwartkopf’ and I brought it home in a 2-inch pot, wintered it over for several years, watching it grow taller and more awkward over time.
Besides their eye-catching appeal, succulents are relatively pest- and maintenance-free. They are easy to grow if their cultural needs are met. Their large, fleshy leaves store moisture, making them relatively drought-tolerant. The larger the leaves on the plants, the longer they can go without water. The most critical factor in success with succulents is to plant them in a container mix that drains freely. When you do water your container, make it a nice deep watering, allowing the water to flow out of the bottom of the container. A small container might require weekly watering, while a larger one could be watered every two weeks. A container planted outside might do fine with natural rainfall until the hottest days of summer. Jade plants will actually tell you they need more water. Their plump leaves will begin to pucker if the plant is too dry, making it perfect choice for an unsure gardener. Humidity affects the need to water. If the weather is sunny and dry, you will need to water more often than if the dew point is high.
Do not allow the top of the soil to dry out completely between watering. If the soil is so dry it’s pulled away from the sides of the pot, you’ve waited too long. Ideally, the roots should be contained within potting mix as moist as a wrung-out sponge. Although similar in appearance, spiky leaved agave plants can tolerate less water than aloes. Smaller-leaved sedums require a bit more water than their larger-leaved relatives. However, a mixed planting of succulents will do just fine if their watering needs are met as described above. A layer of gravel on top of the exposed soil sets succulents off well, and it also has the advantage of keeping their stems dry. Rotting from too much water is the most common pitfall.
Most succulents prefer a partly sunny location, about four hours of sun, preferably not the hottest midday exposure. Variegated and light green leaves can scorch in full sun. Darker green and burgundy leaves can generally tolerate more sun. If you are a shade gardener, more shade-tolerant species include Haworthia attenuata or zebra plant and sansevierias, commonly known as mother-in-laws’ tongue or snake plant. These species can thrive in as little as 2 hours of sun per day.
Interestingly, a light-stressed succulent, one that is getting more sun than it prefers, will display brighter coloration of the leaves. One popular succulent is Euphorbia tirucalli ‘Sticks on Fire.’ The red coloration on the ends of the “sticks” is enhanced if it is planted in full sun. Large-leaved kalanchoes, commonly called paddle plants, will have warmer red leaves if they’re given a higher than optimal dose of sunshine.
Specialist growers of succulents may recommend a more specific soil mix than the good quality soilless mixes that I have had success with. Many advocate the addition of grit, bark, coir, pumice or perlite. There is near unanimous agreement that fertilizing is unnecessary, but your plants might appreciate a watering with half strength fertilizer in the spring when you’re bringing overwintered succulents outdoors.
The range of species is vast. It includes plants hardy in our area, such as sedums and sempervivums, commonly known as hens-and-chicks. But most succulents are tender in the Pittsburgh area. For the purposes of design, succulents offer a diversity of forms and -- let’s face it, weirdness -- which few other species possess.
Succulents can be found from the best local nurseries to the ubiquitous box stores. Hopefully, when you find a plant that intrigues you, a plant tag will be included. That is not always the case. The aeonium that drew me into the world of succulents was not marked, but it was easy to grow and encouraged me to try more of these truly interesting plants. I have successfully wintered some over, simply pulling the pots in before the first frost and seeing which species survived. Jade plants and a cool gray-green Graptoveria ‘Fred Ives’ have proven hard to kill.
The real fun in growing succulents is creating compositions in containers that will enhance your garden and have great style. Succulents allow the gardener to create a vignette of plants that will look terrific from early spring until frost, complete with a range of height, color and form unequaled by the common flowery confections found in most gardens.
Dramatic, linear plants such as agaves, sansevierias and aloes look terrific planted alone atop a narrow container or urn. A row of tall zinc containers with a sansevieria planted in each, repeated on a contemporary deck, would be effective and easy-care.
Alternatively, you can add rosettes of aeonium and echeverias at the base of the anchor plant. If you like the “thriller, filler, spiller” formula for your container plantings, add trailing sedums or senecios to the pot. Sedum burrito or burro tail, Senecio radicans ‘Fishhooks,’ commonly known as string of bananas, or string of pearls (Senecio rowleyanus) all will tumble down the sides of a container. A memorable container with such trailing plants was a chubby cherub holding a planter filled with string of pearls.
As for that teenager who noticed the aeonium many years ago, his own home garden now features a single decorative container, a pot glazed in shades of brown, tan and blue/gray. It is planted with bluish echeverias, Sedum rupestre ‘Angelina’ and Carex flagellifera ’Toffee Twist,’ making for a display that is both cool and different.
Carol Papas is a Penn State master gardener. Columns by master gardeners sometimes appear in place of the Garden Q&A by Sandy Feather, a Penn State Extension educator.
To report inappropriate comments, abuse and/or repeat offenders, please send an email tosocialmedia@post-gazette.com and include a link to the article and a copy of the comment. Your report will be reviewed in a timely manner.Thank you. | 6,858 | 3,269 | 0.000313 |
warc | 201704 | HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania state senators gave their approval Wednesday to a major transportation spending proposal that proponents hope will end a long journey to modernize travel in the state and stem its rising backlog of bridges, highways and mass transit agency facilities in need of repairs.
The Senate’s 43-7 vote on the $2.3 billion bill came after Republicans angered Democrats by employing a rarely used parliamentary maneuver that kept them from stripping out a provision to reduce wages on some road projects.
Otherwise, the Senate has been a driving and bipartisan force behind the effort to respond to studies that for years have told lawmakers that Pennsylvania’s spending on its extensive highway system, aging bridges and deficit-strapped mass transit agencies was woefully inadequate.
The proposal, which is supported by Gov. Tom Corbett, could leave Pennsylvania with among the highest fuel taxes in the nation and higher motorist fees that will rise with inflation.
“Yes, to the citizens of Pennsylvania, we are going to be asking you to dig deeper into your pockets,” said Sen. John Wozniak of Cambria County, the ranking Democrat on the Transportation Committee. “We are not happy about it, but we have the responsibility to govern and to make difficult decisions. It has been almost 15 years since any gasoline taxes in Pennsylvania have been raised. I don’t think there is any place in the private sector that has not raised their prices in 15 years.”
However, Wozniak and other lawmakers also said the greater good is at stake, including tens of thousands of jobs, the safety of people on the roads and Pennsylvania’s economic competitiveness. They warned the cost of doing nothing would be too damaging.
“I don’t know of a successful business in this country that didn’t invest in themselves at some point in time,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Jake Corman, R-Centre. “This is a great investment in ourselves.”
The Senate passed a similar bill in June — the wage provision was the biggest difference — but the more conservative House had struggled to respond until this week. With an election next year, the tax increase could be publicly unpopular, but the money would begin funding projects in the spring and potentially provide a visible example of the results.
Approval is expected Thursday in the House, where conservatives objected that it would be the second-largest tax increase in state history. The chamber signaled its support for the measure in a 106-95 preliminary vote on Tuesday under considerable pressure from Corbett, the Senate and business groups and labor unions that support transportation legislation.
The proposal would raise gasoline taxes and registration, licensing and other motorist fees to spend $2.3 billion a year more on transportation, an increase of about 40 percent over the amount the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation currently spends. A small slice of the money would go to airports, ports, railways and walking and cycling routes.
It would allow up to $60 million per year in capital grants to help mass transit agencies convert fleet vehicles to compressed natural gas or another alternative fuel. Meanwhile, tens of millions of dollars more would go toward transportation-related discretionary accounts controlled by lawmakers and the transportation secretary.
In a reference to that money, Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Allegheny, said the bill carries $50 million a year in WAMs — short for “walking-around money,” a term for grants that have existed in one form or another for at least a couple of decades and are built around the concept of providing lawmakers with a pot of money to spend as they see fit.
“This bill has WAMs,” Ferlo said. “Republicans don’t like to admit it. They refer to it as discretionary spending.”
WAMs have a reputation of being used by governors or legislative leaders on rank-and-file lawmakers’ pet projects as a reward for supporting top-priority or controversial legislation. Ferlo said he hoped the grant money in the bill will be used for high-priority projects that are evenly distributed geographically.
Others said the money would enable the state the flexibility to respond to unexpected sudden needs, such as flood-damaged bridges and infrastructure improvements to attract business development. | 4,473 | 2,158 | 0.000479 |
warc | 201704 | By Steve Benson
We’ve all been there. The forecast calls for an overnight dump but the storm somehow jukes, leaving clear skies, cold winds and broken hearts. If you’re like me, obsessed with sliding on snow, you’ve been disappointed by the snow Gods too. And there’s not much you can do about it. Or is there?
The National Weather Service
1 does a great job of forecasting, but there are limits to their reach. They can’t take the time to pin-point what a storm is going to do in each individual drainage or isolated area. But you can. Which is why I try to cut out the middle man—the weather man. That way, when that forecasted blizzard doesn’t materialize, it is—as the song goes—nobody’s fault but mine.
After all, orographics, a primary factor in mountain weather, “vary tremendously from one valley to the next, and one drainage to the next,” says Chris Lundy, director of the Sawtooth National Forest Avalanche Center
2 in Ketchum, Idaho. So if you want to predict what’s going to happen on a micro-level, it requires thinking on your own, and familiarity with the local lore.
The first step is grasping the direction, historically speaking, that the fattest storms ride in from. A forecasted dump is great, but it doesn’t mean much if it approaches from a poor direction. A storm can easily be tracked with radar, satellite and water-vapor imagery, which is streamed live on a variety of weather-related web sites, like Intellicast.
3
“You kind of learn that with the unfavorable directions, [the NWS] tends to overestimate what we’re going to get,” Lundy said. “And other times they tend to underestimate what we’re going to get. A lot of it just kind of lives in the mountain town lore.”
Mountain snowfall, Lundy said, is largely affected by terrain, and more importantly, what type of terrain exists between the approaching storm and your home hill. The flow, or the upper level winds associated with a storm, plays a big role in winter weather pageantry.
Orographic lift refers to the lifting of air over terrain features, such as mountains. As air lifts to rise over those features, it cools and condenses, often creating precipitation. But as those mountains suck out moisture, they are essentially stealing snow from other locales in the storm’s path. And that’s where the dreaded term, shadowing, comes into play.
“Basically the first mountain range that might be exposed, it’s gonna suck out a lot of moisture as it gets lifted,” Lundy said. “And then the next range might get a little less and so on. Each range is shadowed by the ones in front of it.”
One area that has terrible orographics and great shadowing—not a good combination—is Sun Valley, Idaho, my home mountain. Surrounded by a sea of mountains to the west, north and east, Sun Valley has long been known as a donut hole. Its one saving grace is storms that cruise up from the south—basically a sea of desert—can pummel the resort and surrounding mountains.
“The classic storm here comes out of the due south,” Lundy said. “And as it cruises up the Wood River Valley, [Sun Valley] is at the end of the gun barrel.”
This helps explain why areas like Alta, Snowbird and Solitude, located in the high reaches of the Cottonwood canyons southeast of Salt Lake City, get clobbered with an average of more than 500 inches of snow a year.
The west-facing Wasatch Range erupts dramatically off the salty desert floor, rising in some areas more than 5,000 vertical feet in less than four miles. With a swath of desert, low lying hills and the Great Salt Lake situated to the west and northwest of the Cottonwoods, storms that ride in on northwest flow bury the Wasatch in freakish and legendary dumps. (One storm cycle in Nov. 2001 dropped 108 inches in 100 hours). The Cottonwoods not only have amazing orogrpahics, they benefit tremendously from lake-enhanced snow.
But those are two extremes—dry Sun Valley and the wet Wasatch. Most resorts fall somewhere in between. Typically, Lundy said, coastal regions like the Cascades and Sierra Nevada have more predictable storms. If a storm is forecasted to hit, it’s likely going to make contact since it’s loaded with Pacific moisture and has little land to cross before bumping into the first major mountain ranges. But the deeper you sink east into the Continental West and the Rocky Mountains, the tougher the forecasting gets.
Take a place like Aspen, Colo., for example. With four resorts within a stones throw of each other, you’d think snowfall from resort to resort would be uniform. But that notion couldn’t further from the truth.
Of course elevation plays a big role. But there’s a bigger factor.
“When something is driven by orographics,” such as Colorado’s mountains, Lundy said, “snowfall can be as varied as the mountains they’re going over. There are huge variations over short spans of distance.”
While shadowed Sun Valley skirts by with a thin snowpack, other regions within Lundy’s forecast area get two-to-three times as much snow, like the Galena Summit area and the Sawtooths.
So as a storm approaches, take a look at its path, its flow, and what type of terrain it has to cross before it hits your home hill. If it needs to cross numerous mountain ranges, temper your excitement a bit. If it looks like shadowing won’t be an issue, and the storms path includes desert and natural funnels, get the fat boys ready.
Perhaps the most revered, yet cursed, forecast is the winter storm warning. Illuminating and exciting, a winter storm warning can turn moody and dark. These advisories from the Weather Service occur frequently throughout the season in most of the mountain West. While typically celebrated—no news spreads faster in a gossipy ski town—they’re also over-hyped. Not necessarily by the Weather Service, but by our snow sliding brethren. As a result, they seem to me to be a curse, and are taken with a thick grain of salt. I do not trust them anymore. I should have learned my lesson as a kid, when a gigantic Nor’Easter was pegged to wallop New England with record snow. Following a dramatic winter storm warning, school was cancelled before a single flake fell from the sky. And in the end, a single flake never did fall. The ground remained brown. While I didn’t have to go to school, I also didn’t have mountains of snow to play in. But I did not learn.
Am I a pessimist, or a realist? It doesn’t really matter. All I know is a winter storm warning is not to be trusted. The Weather Service is responsible for warning, and therefore protecting, the general public from potentially life-threatening weather events. That means that occasionally a storm system may draw more attention than it warrants simply because it has the capability to become severe. Obviously, most winter storm warnings are necessary and deliver as advertised. But many are issued 12 hours before a storm’s arrival, which gives it plenty of time to slip away. They can also be fairly broad-brushed and often include a large forecast area. I’ve seen just as many winter storm warnings leave a meager inch as unadvertised storms blossom from seemingly nowhere and drop a phantom foot.
When you see these warnings, calm down, regroup, and take a closer look. I’ll often turn to the Weather Service’s daily forecast discussion page, which is basically meteorologists communicating with each other about what’s going on with the local weather. When storms approach, the discussion can be very enlightening to the weather novice, which is basically all of us non-meteorologists. While they can be technical and often over my head, they can also shed light on key factors in a given storm. Specifically, the discussions can highlight areas meteorologists think may be favored by more intense precipitation, and which ones may receive the shadow effect, or simply less snow. Or, they may even hint at a weakening system and a potential downgrade from a winter storm warning to a mere winter weather advisory, which is not a good thing. When that happens, the party ends before it even starts. Leave your hopes and dreams at the bar.
Still, while short-term forecasts will help you get a better understanding of how storms materialize, long-range forecasts shouldn’t be overlooked.
Giant, stubborn high pressures can turn a powder haven into more of a beach environment with sunny skies, warm temperatures and bikini tops. But there’s a silver lining (besides the female fashion): for high pressures to budge, it usually requires a whopper of a low-pressure system. After Sun Valley winced through a brutal six-week high pressure last February and March, the mountain was deluged with nearly five feet of powder in one week. Similarly, that 108-inch storm that buried Alta in late Nov. 2001, was preceded by one of the driest and warmest Novembers on record. Local lodges held meetings urging employees to spend Thanksgiving elsewhere, as there was no snow, guests, nor paychecks—and an ever-decreasing food supply. More so, local managers began whispering that when the high finally moved out, a mega storm cycle would likely follow. Turns out they were right. The Climate Prediction Center
4 is a gem, offering a host of long-range forecasts.
“For people living in mountain towns, often just knowing those things they can one-up the weather forecasters who take such a broad brushed forecast,” Lundy said.
Antijinx.
———— 1 There are a host of good weather-related web sites out there. But the most reliable is the National Weather Service, which has offices scattered all over the Intermountain West. NWS.gov is a good starting point, and you can easily navigate to your local region. NWS also offers great streaming satellite and radar imagery pages. 2 Local Avalanche Centers are treasures. Not only do they offer comprehensive daily advisories on snowpack and mountain weather, they are phenomenal educational resources. Reading the advisories on a daily basis will open you up to whole new winter world and keep you on par with the constant changes occurring in the mountains. Local avalanche centers are dotted throughout the West. Find yours here: Avalanche.org for the U.S., and Avalanche.ca for Canada. 3 Intellicast.com is full of helpful weather-related products, especially their national and local radar and satellite imagery. 4 The Climate Prediction Center, which is a part of the National Weather Service and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association), releases daily long-term precipitation and temperature trends ranging from 6-10 days, 8-14 days, 1 month, and 3 months. These are great when looking at the big picture, such as stubborn high pressures, or large troughs of low pressure. These are trends, not short-term forecasts. They’re best used for trying to determine what the trends will be in the coming weeks and months—and at the start of a road trip, which direction to turn the steering wheel. | 11,242 | 5,100 | 0.000203 |
warc | 201704 | I have two teen girls and have seen first-hand how they cope with beauty anxiety. My oldest, Grasshopper and Sensei, refuses to play the beauty game. It took me years to get her to willingly shop for clothes so that she wouldn’t look like a slob. She still is not one for make up or personal grooming beyond running a brush through her long hair.
My middle daughter, PickyKidPix, is fascinated by beauty. She avidly follows more than four dozen beauty Vloggers and knows more about beauty products that I do. Most likely in retaliation for her sharp tongue, a boy hurt her feelings by telling her that she had a monobrow. She promptly starting tweezing her eyebrows to avoid this humiliation. She was in elementary school.
Beauty anxiety is felt by girls as young as ten years old. That’s sad, isn’t it? Dove’s research found:
9 out of 10 girls want to change at least one thing about their physical appearance. 72 percent of girls (ages 10-17) feel tremendous pressure to be beautiful. Only 11 percent of girls (ages 10-17) are comfortable using the word beautiful to describe themselves. When girls feel bad about their looks more than 60 percent globally (age 15 to 17) avoid normal daily activities such as attending school, going to the doctor or even giving their opinion.
Dove believes that everyone has the opportunity to make a difference in a girl’s self-esteem. I love their new film that encourages girls to realize they don’t need to change one thing about their appearance.
Dove is committed to creating a world where beauty is a source of confidence, not anxiety. The Dove Self-Esteem Project, which reached more than 17 million young people to date with self-esteem education, is launching a Pinterest page to provide free resources addressing today’s biggest barriers to a girl’s self-esteem. This includes ‘media and celebrity culture’ and ‘teasing and bullying’. Their Pinterest page allows every woman and girl to have a personal confidence-boosting board they can turn to when they need it most.
It’s easy to help girls with the pressures of a beauty culture that we all live in. Every time you choose Dove, you help support self-esteem building programs for girls. That’s something to feel good about! | 2,301 | 1,193 | 0.000868 |
warc | 201704 | Potential heads of Nigeria’s proposed development bank, DBN, have been interviewed, the Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun has said.
Mrs. Adeosun, who did not disclose the names of the interviewed candidates said interviews held during the weekend for candidates into the positions of Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer. She said the bank is expected to take off by January 2017 with a $1.3 billion seed funding from the World Bank and affiliates of the group.
Fresh from the 2016 International Monetary Fund / World Bank meetings, Mrs. Adeosun said Nigeria received positive responses at the meeting from investors who were interested in partnering with to execute the projects.
Nigeria was able to secure the commitment of various international investors to specific requests by her delegation to the meetings, she said.
The minister, who was guest on the Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, programme on Monday, said commitments were received on specific areas of the country’s economy in line with the economic agenda of the present administration.
Apart from assurances by representatives of other developed countries to share economic intelligence on how certain challenges in the Nigerian economy could be tackled, Mrs. Adeosun said commitment also came on infrastructure development.
Other areas the country received assurances of support, she said, were housing and power projects.
“The establishment of DBN is very important. It is going to provide money for the small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs). For Nigeria, it is really important, because 50 per cent of the country’s GDP is made up of small companies.
“These are small size, petty traders. So, finding how to make money available to them is really an important way of getting out of the challenges we currently face. So, getting DBN off ground is a big priority for us, and we have set ourselves a very tight deadline,” she said.
The minister also raised the prospect of mutual agreements between the federal and state governments over some of the World Bank-assisted projects.
“There are a number of projects that have been stalled. Most of the projects, which are health related, she said, were at state level, pointing out that government would report to the National Executive Council, where state governors usually attend, and the quarterly meeting of the Executive Council of the Federation.
“There is a $500 million for irrigation projects held up, because the counterpart funding, which is Nigeria’s contribution, just $4 million, hasn’t been paid,” she said.
On the status of the Public Private Partnership arrangement being sought, Mrs. Adeosun said government must get to a point where such partnership was working effectively, particularly with technical help from some other governments. | 2,848 | 1,386 | 0.000739 |
warc | 201704 | NRCA Resources
A note from NRCA's president
In my first note to you as NRCA president, I would like to thank you for this wonderful opportunity to help our association. I pledge to you, NRCA members and those who should and need to become NRCA members but don't know it yet, that I will work for your interests.
We are in trying times—an era unlike anything I have seen during my 32-year roofing and business career. We have gone through ups and downs in economic and business cycles before, but the ride this time is different. I am not telling you something new; each of you knows this because you are living it, as well.
In my humble opinion, one of the differences this time is the financial arena is being affected more than ever by global events. The reality is our markets, which include goods, services and finances, are affected by markets and economies around the world over which we have little control. Also, the U.S. has entered an era of more government intrusion into our businesses and personal lives. Unfortunately, the intrusion is not "potential" anymore; it is becoming reality. Tax rate increases are set for next year; additional taxes are being proposed, such as a value-added tax; and new health care regulations and mandates are now law. Occupational Safety and Health Administration activity is increasing. Financial reform legislation is here, which affects how we borrow money for business and personal use, as well as how we use our credit cards.
Professional Roofingonline content. Register now for free access Full access to every article Online Web exclusive information Photo gallery Breaking news Online classified ads | 1,666 | 909 | 0.001109 |
warc | 201704 | For those of you who think you have it bad in North America, you only have to look to Japan to realize that stock markets here have performed exceptionally well in comparison.
Japan’s economy and stock market had been in a slump that lasted for nearly 15 years. The Nikkei 225, a barometer of 225 of the largest companies in Japan, was trading at nearly 40,000 in late 1989, but then the major slide started, with the index falling to below 10,000 in 2003.
Just take a look at the comparative price trends of the Nikkei 225 versus the major U.S. indices from 1985 to the present. During that 20-year timeframe, Japanese investors saw their wealth dwindle, as the Nikkei 225 is just about 22% higher now than where it was trading in 1985. That is a 22% gain over 20 years, folks! You might as well have left your money in a low interest bearing bank account.
Now take a look at the U.S. indices during the same timeframe. I bet this will put a smile on your face. It has paid for many your cars, houses, vacations, and so on. While the Japanese have suffered financially during the last two decades, Americans have enjoyed the riches. The Dow, NASDAQ, and S&P 500 are up over 500% during the 20-year period. You should feel better now, especially given that the recent U.S. bear markets have been short.
But we have seen some hope in Japan over the last few years. The country’s economic trend has been improving, and this has spilled over to the stock markets.
On Thursday, the Nikkei 225 surged to its highest level since August 7, 2001. The Japanese economy, asleep for the last decade or so, is finally beginning to wake up. The superlative economic growth in neighboring China has surely helped the Japanese economy. Also, Japan’s jobless rate, which, at one time, was near 0%, fell to a seven-year low of 4.2% in June. The export market has strengthened, driven by weakness in the U.S. dollar. All seems fine in Japan, but the price trend for the Nikkei 225 will only move higher if the hope for the economic renewal in Japan becomes reality. Otherwise, it could be more years of despair. For Americans, we’ve seen wonderful times for investors. Take a look. The charts don’t lie. | 2,217 | 1,154 | 0.000879 |
warc | 201704 | Atlanta, GA (PRWEB) May 05, 2015
Care Logistics has published a new hospital leadership guidebook called “Medicare Breakeven Challenges? A Model to Achieve Sustainable System Performance.” The guidebook includes:
Formulas for two critical hospital efficiency metrics you probably aren’t measuring but should be A model for care that squeezes out unproductive “white space” and ensures sustained efficient operations The reasons why greater efficiency goes hand-in-hand with improved clinical outcomes and patient experience
“Medicare breakeven is an Everest for hospital leaders and seems more elusive than ever as reimbursements continue to shrink,” said Ben Sawyer, co-author and executive vice president of Care Logistics. “But it’s achievable and sustainable.”
Sawyer said that the key for hospitals is to adopt a “production model” for care delivery to achieve sustainable system performance. He likened the hub-and-spoke care model to the approach delivery companies use to ensure that packages arrive on time, or how air traffic control ensures the safe takeoff and landing of all planes in flight, all the time.
“Efficient, system-focused care coordination makes operations reliable, drives down costs and enables sustained delivery of quality care with margin at Medicare reimbursement rates,” said co-author Samantha Platzke, CFO and SVP of system performance at Care Logistics. “It’s how hospitals will thrive in a value-based world.”
The Medicare Breakeven Challenges Guidebook can be downloaded in its entirety from the following site: http://www.carelogistics.com/landing-and-redirect-pages/achieving-medicare-breakeven-a-care-model-for-sustainable-hospital-performance-request.aspx
About Care Logistics: Care Logistics partners with hospitals to provide the only logistical control system for patient care and throughput. It combines breakthrough approaches to care coordination and throughput efficiency with powerful hospital logistics software. The result: Reliable and predictable operations that dramatically improve throughput, care quality, patient experience and financial performance.
Care Logistics operates with a single, purposeful goal: Customer First, Dramatic Results.
For more information, contact Care Logistics at (800) 930-0870, or learn more about the dramatic results Care Logistics customers are achieving at http://www.carelogistics.com. | 2,471 | 1,211 | 0.000859 |
warc | 201704 | The first areas to receive support from the newly formed Public Service Transformation Network have been announced by Communities and Local Government.
The Network will provide dedicated support to help the selected areas develop practical reforms and deliver better services for less at a local level. The Network will spread the opportunities created by Community Budgets around the country, leading to more joint working and shared services.
The Network will be made up of people with expertise from across the public and private sectors to provide direct links between government departments, councils and local places. Departments represented in the Network include HM Treasury, Cabinet Office, Department for Communities and Local Government, Department of Health, Ministry of Justice, Home Office, Department for Work and Pensions, councils and local agencies, as well as employees from the NHS and other public bodies.
The areas that will receive support are: Bath and North East Somerset, Bournemouth, Poole and Dorset, Hampshire, Lewisham, Lambeth and Southwark, Sheffield, Surrey, Swindon, the West London Alliance (Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Harrow, Hillingdon and Hounslow) and Wirral.
Announcements about additional places receiving intensive support will be made later as part of a rolling programme of engagement and support for local public services in England.
This funding is part of the department’s Spending Round package of incentives that will help places across the county to transform local services. That includes funding for social care integration; an expanded Troubled Families programme; better integration between community safety and crime, and across the emergency services; as well as £100 million transformation fund for local government, and national action to improve data sharing. | 1,831 | 918 | 0.0011 |
warc | 201704 | FORMER Queensland Farmers Federation interim chief executive officer Ruth Wade has been appointed as an independent ombudsman to work with Queensland landholders and gas companies on coal seam gas industry issues.
State Development Minister Anthony Lynham said the new land access ombudsman was a central element of a revamp of the state’s Gasfields Commission and CSG dispute resolution system.
Dr Lynham said the new-look commission would have a new focus after three years of operation.
“Our multi-billion-dollar agriculture and LNG industries need to continue to co-exist in and around our regional communities,” Dr Lynham said.
“The new ombudsman will give landholders a trusted and independent decision maker to resolve issues before they escalate into full blown legal disputes.
“As well, a more streamlined dispute resolution will be more cost-effective and efficient.
“Government will work with stakeholders, including the recently appointed president of the Land Court, to finalise legislative and regulatory changes to make this happen.
“Our other reforms to the Gasfields Commission will allow it to continue the work of building sustainable coexistence, but with what is now an ongoing and mature industry.”
Ms Wade has more than 25 years’ experience in agriculture and business. She will be joined by Theodore cotton farmer Fleur Anderson, a passionate advocate for rural communities and small businesses. Current commissioners Ian Hayllor and Rick Wilkinson were reappointed.
Dr Lynham thanked the Gasfields Commission’s outgoing chairman John Cotter and the commissioners who had worked to establish the Commission since its inception in 2013.
“Their efforts over the past three years have been instrumental in the growth of the onshore gas industry in very challenging circumstances,” he said.
“Local workers are benefiting from the jobs, local businesses from the direct investment by the companies, and the royalty stream will support the state’s schools, hospitals and essential services for decades to come.”
The revamp follows an independent review by retired Land Court member Bob Scott, who interviewed more than 80 stakeholders including landholders, peak producer groups, industry, industry peak bodies, government agencies, local governments and community groups.
Queensland Farmers Federation president Stuart Armitage said the previous Gasfields Commission failed to live up to its intended mandate to act as proactive facilitator at the interface between landholders and the coal seam gas industry.
“QFF commends the government for making the changes required to refocus the commission, enabling it to better deliver upon community and industry expectations,” Mr Armitage said.
“Having worked professionally with Ruth in her previous role as interim QFF CEO, I am confident she will competently lead the commission in a balanced way to ensure it works more effectively to realise the new charter.
“QFF also welcomes the reappointment of current commissioners Ian Hayllor and Rick Wilkinson, and the new appointment of Theodore cotton farmer Fleur Anderson.”
Mr Armitage said QFF thanked outgoing Gasfields Commission chairman John Cotter and the other commissioners for their hard work establishing the commission during a contentious time for many farmers with the newly emerging coal seam gas industry.
However, he said the new land access ombudsman would give landholders a trusted and independent decision maker to resolve issues before they escalate into often time consuming and costly legal disputes.
“QFF looks forward to working further with the government to finalise the details as to how the ombudsman will work in practice and the resourcing required to ensure it is effective,” he said.
“QFF will continue to work on behalf of its members to hold the commission to account on its renewed charter and it acting independently to deliver positive outcomes for industry and the community.” | 4,071 | 1,767 | 0.000586 |
warc | 201704 | Focus on Generic Skills for Information TechnologyLiteracy 1 Introduction
For at least the past four years, the authors of this paper have studied issues related to the possibility of providing "universal" access to electronic mail (and related online access) within the U.S. We have examined both the technical feasibility and the societal implications of such access (Anderson et al, 1995). We are currently studying the costs and benefits of Internet-based interactions between government agencies and their citizen-clients. Our brief comments here are based primarily, but of course not exclusively, on our experiences and findings resulting from this continuing research program.
It is clear that initiatives such as the National Information Infrastructure, digital government, and digital libraries imply that most Americans will have to become Internet literate in the near future just to carry out the day-to-day activities of citizens in a developed society, quite independently of the computer skill demands made on them by their workplace. Our research has focused on those digital literacy requirements for citizen participation, rather than specific workplace skills or the skills required by computer professionals.
A Focus on Generic Knowledge
We believe that generic, rather than application-specific, knowledge and skills should be the focus of computer literacy. Furthermore, we contend that this holds true for individuals in both roles--that is, as everyday citizens in an information society, and as job holders in a highly technologized workplace.
Why not focus on applications? The primary reasons are continuing rapid changes in what becomes available for use, causing rapid obsolescence of application-specific know-how, plus big changes in what extant applications can do when they're integrated with new applications (e.g., intimately combining an operating system like Windows with a web browser, to choose a recent newsworthy example).
Why the generic focus? Generic skills, plus competence in the functions to be performed, will better equip people to carry out their roles as citizens (and job holders) under conditions of continuing technological change (see also the discussion in National Research Council, 1997, Chapter 2, pp. 47-48). Here "generic skills" refer, as in general educational literature, to such cognitive abilities as learning-to-learn, analysis and problem solving, innovation, and communication (Stasz et al, 1990; Bikson and Law, 1995; Bikson, 1994). Such generic skills enable new applications to be learned as they become functionally relevant. As Attewell has shown (Attewell, 1994), most new applications needed for doing workplace tasks can be learned with modest effort and training by those familiar with the job functions. Note also that other studies of model-based teaching and learning (e.g., McArthur, Lewis and Bishay, 1995; McArthur, 1987; Curley and Pyburn, 1982) suggest that learning the underlying model is more important than learning highly specific features of a computer application.
What Generic Knowledge Is Valuable?
What, then, are components of the generic knowledge that "information society literate" citizens should have or acquire? There are many possible categorizations; here is one we suggest for discussion.
Connectivity.Perhaps the most fundamental new need for knowledge, with the most profound implications, concerns having a reasonably accurate model of connectivity. When (as a result of my actions, or otherwise) is the device I'm using connected to other sites? When connected, what information is passing over that connection? Is that information protected from eavesdropping? from alteration? Can I know with a degree of certainty which other sites or persons I'm connected with? Can they verify my authenticity? Understanding connectivity includes such constructs as "protected enclaves" and "shared trust," which refer to hierarchies of established trust. The users of modern devices and interfaces should know when they are communicating and computing within such enclaves (and with whom they are sharing trust within the enclaves) and when and how they are reaching out beyond variously defined levels of trust (see also the discussion in National Research Council, 1997, Chapter 2, pp. 58-59). This knowledge becomes all the more important given the next generation of interfaces combining local facilities (documents, folders, applications) with remote ones in a uniform browser-style presentation. One click might be local; a seemingly identical click might download executable code from a remote source; another might send information from the local site to remote ones. Having a clear model of what information transmissions are being initiated by these seemingly similar actions--and placing desired constraints on one's own actions so that they are compatible with the information-sharing policies one holds--are vital for retaining intellectual control of information-intensive behavior in an environment in which connections are ubiquitous, dynamic, and subtle. Is such knowledge of connectivity needed? Is it commonplace among computer users? We believe that, if asked, most users of most interfaces to information today would be hard pressed to answer at all accurately regarding what connections with which sites, both local and remote, and with what protections, they are initiating in the course of their routine interactions with computers. It might be an interesting research project to check the accuracy of this assumption. Logic.Computers are different from us: they're much more logical (in their operation, not necessarily in their usage). Anyone who needs to understand why they do the kinds of things they do, and don't do other kinds of things, should understand some basic logical and programming concepts that underlie their operations. We're thinking of such constructs as: conditional expressions ("if <this> [is true] then <that> should be done"); repetition (do <this> n times; do <this> until <that> becomes true); simple inferences ("if A then B; A; therefore B"); and the combination of such expressions into simple algorithms (see also the discussion in National Research Council, 1997, Chapter 4, pp. 129-132). We don't suggest that everyone should become a programmer (although some good ones might be found among those who regard themselves as least likely candidates!). Rather, we argue that it is important to understand the fundamental constructs by which computers "decide" what actions to take, so that users expect neither less nor more of them than they can accomplish. The list of basic logic constructs will need periodic updating. For example, when neural nets and genetic algorithms become more ubiquitous, and computers are tailoring their behavior to their perceived environments, some knowledge of learning, adaptation, and even evolution within programs might be necessary in order to understand--or at least cohabit with--the developing intelligence on the other side of the screen. The structuring of data and information.Again, we don't recommend creating a generation of programmers. But some understanding of the ways that data can be structured (lists, trees, relational, objects) and stored (volatile memory, nonvolatile storage, archived storage) and an understanding that some data might be migrated at least among storage sites, if not among structure forms, may be critical to users' competence in carrying out day-to-day tasks in a digital world. Is the "smart card" in my wallet that "contains" digital cash a readable and writable nonvolatile storage device? If so, who can read? Who can write? Under what conditions? Is there a backup archive if the card becomes corrupted? And so on. Generic tools.While our focus is not application specific, a number of tools are common across applications in everyday use; understanding their behavior, then, comprises another component of generic computer literacy. For instance, what can be expected, or not expected, of a "spelling corrector"? A "grammar checker"? A search engine? A filtering system for e-mail or web pages? How can these be tailored to one's specific needs? Can that tailoring be saved for future use? Can it be shared with others? What is the difference (e.g., in a search) between relevant-but- missed information and retrieved-but-irrelevant? How can these forms of error in the course of using generic tools be reduced? Media.Another key to contemporary computer literacy has to do with understanding that almost all new intellectual creations are becoming digital, and that much of extant knowledge and culture can be digitized as well (see also the discussion in National Academy Press, 1998, pp. 1- 2). Whether they are perceived as sound, images, text, numbers, graphics or combinations of these, bits are bits (for purposes of storage, transmission, ...). Future computer literacy means understanding some of the implications of digital media and the accompanying synthesis of communication, computation, video and audio. A "smart card" can in the future store, for example, a song, a video clip, a movie, an encyclopedia. Formerly distinct media domains (e.g., Blockbuster Video; motion pictures on celluloid; songs and telephony over the Internet) will be changing quite rapidly in the future; individuals (and companies) should be preparing for new opportunities and new challenges. Interfaces.Finally, the user interface represents the means by which people communicate with a particular system and the machines and people connected to it; it is their handle on the functionality of any application. Although usability has improved substantially over the past decades, it is still not easy for most people to make full use of the digital resources to which they--in principle--have access. Despite recurring predictions to the contrary, interface design and performance characteristics are still neither intuitive nor transparent. Until those expectations are realized, we suggest that technical literacy should include learning about the basic ways that interfaces permit users to interactively guide computer programs plus common options for tailoring those interactions.
What are the implications of these new skill needs? We believe that what Toni Carbo (Dean of Library Science at Pittsburgh) has to say about the "new mediacy" is relevant. She says we have to learn to "read," or to interpret and communicate, using a greater variety of information objects than ever before, including multimedia digital objects along with text, graphics and numbers. The "new mediacy" phrase is meant to contrast with earlier notions of literacy by suggesting both the multidimensionality and the interactivity (or immediacy) of the complex digital objects that will constitute the fabric of information and communication in the near future.
Beyond Technical Literacy Skills to Social Values
Earlier discussions of computer literacy often presuppose a view of human-computer interaction as an exchange involving a single individual performing an independent task by using a computer program. This view, perhaps influenced by the "input-process-output" paradigm, gave rise to a substantial body of information about the significance of individual differences in ability and prior experience for ease of use and judged usefulness (or "friendliness") of computer systems (see also National Research Council, 1997, Chapter 4). Now, however, the move to distributed architectures, densely interconnected systems and tools for collaboration means that computers must be viewed as social machines.
Thus perhaps as important as generic computer literacy skills are the social values that accompany them. Two general categories of these values are:
Ethics and etiquette.From simple guidelines on using new forms of communication such as e-mail (e.g., Shapiro and Anderson, 1985) to more fundamental ethical questions of appropriate access to, and treatment and dissemination of, information. Rights and responsibilities.The broader policy context--now national, soon global--for appropriate handling of information and communication in a networked digital environment. What are a citizen's responsibilities and rights in cyberspace, with respect especially to privacy, anonymity, disclosure, intellectual property and other aspects of its governance?
As a recent National Research Council report points out, these value issues are broadly comprehensive, widely debated, and transcend such area-specific concerns as digital literacy (National Research Council, 1998, p. 40). But because their resolution will affect all aspects of networked computer use, awareness of public deliberation, emerging social norms and eventual legislation should be treated as cornerstones of user literacy.
References
Anderson, R.H., T.K. Bikson, S.A. Law, and B.M. Mitchell (1995)
Universal Access to E-Mail: Feasibility and Societal Implications, Santa Monica CA: RAND, MR-650-MF.
Attewell, Paul (1994) "Computer-Related Skills and Social Stratification," presentation to the workshop on Universal E-Mail: Prospects and Implications, RAND.
Bikson, T.K. (1994) "Organizational Trends and Electronic Media,"
American Archivist, Vol. 57(1), pp. 48-68.
Bikson, T.K. and S.A. Law (1995) "Toward the Borderless Career: Corporate Hiring in the '90s,"
International Educator, Vol. 4(2), pp. 12-33.
Curley, K.F. and P.J. Pyburn (1982) "'Intellectual' Technologies: The Key to Improving White Collar Productivity,"
Sloan Management Review, Fall, pp. 31- 39.
McArthur, D. (1987) "Developing Computer Tools to Support Learning and Performing Complex Cognitive Tasks," in D. Berger and C. Pedzek (eds.),
Applications of Cognitive Psychology: Computing and Education, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, pp. 281-307.
McArthur, D., M. Lewis and M. Bishay (1995) "ESSCOTS for Learning: Transforming Commercial Software into Powerful Educational Tools,"
Journal of Artificial Intelligence and Education, 6(1), pp. 3-33.
National Research Council (1998
) Developing a Digital National Library for Undergraduate Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology Education, Washington DC: National Academy Press.
National Research Council (1997)
More Than Screen Deep: Toward Every--Citizen Interfaces to the Nation's Information Infrastructure, Washington DC: National Academy Press.
Shapiro, N.Z., R.H. Anderson (1985
) Toward an Ethics and Etiquette for Electronic Mail, Santa Monica CA: RAND, R-3283-NSF/RC.
Stasz, C., D. McArthur, M. Lewis and K. Ramsey (1990
) Teaching and Learning Generic Skills for the Workplace, Santa Monica CA: RAND, R-4004-NCRVE/UCB.
This paper was submitted as part of the participation of one of the authors (Anderson) in a workshop on "Information Technology Literacy," sponsored by the Computer Science and Technology Board of the National Research Council, and held in Irvine CA on January 14-15, 1998. | 15,014 | 6,686 | 0.00015 |
warc | 201704 | There are countless Los Angeles and surrounding area homes that discover that they are in the need to replace a window or door. There are many different reasons why this can occur, from simply needing to replace one that is faulty, improperly installed, or broken, to the simple realization that there are profoundly better and more energy efficient windows and doors available out there on the market. Tens of thousands of customers in the area already know and understand that the team at Renewal by Andersen® of Los Angeles understand their job well and are the best professionals and experts that money can buy. But when it comes to what type of window or door replacement a customer should choose, without already understanding the many differences there are this can be an overwhelming process.
When it came time for Renewal by Andersen® of Los Angeles to choose the right company who would serve as the ideal complement to an already amazing service, they chose Renewal by Andersen® to offer replacement windows because they are made from Andersen’s exclusive Fibrex® material. This is a compound that is crafted through a process that combines the stability and strength of natural wood with the remarkable benefits that low-maintenance vinyl replacement windows require. Renewal by Andersen® has replacement windows that are not only substantially high in performance but are also a wonderfully beautiful way to create a home that is profoundly more comfortable and energy efficient.
One of the reasons that Renewal by Andersen® replacement windows is so good is because they use superior materials and technology to craft these beautiful fixtures. The Fibrex that they use is designed to be a low cost and low maintenance window that has features similar to vinyl replacement windows in that they do not required to be painted or scraped once you have them installed. Rather then flaking, blistering, cracking, peeling or corroding away they will remain strong and new looking so as long as you give them a basic wash every so often. Not only is Fibrex a great insulator, but it also prevents the cold and heat from transferring from your home, causing you to spend unnecessary money on energy costs.
In addition to these amazing benefits, because this material is so strong Renewal by Andersen® replacement windows can be made to have much narrower frames, and ultimately this can allow the window to be built with a larger area of glass. Theses stunning windows come in a wide variety of options, featuring as many as 22 color combinations that can come standard.
With windows that can be resistant to the changes that Los Angeles and the surrounding area can see in temperatures throughout the year you can take comfort in knowing that with the custom fit that the team of certified professionals at Renewal by Andersen® of Los Angeles provide you will take control of your monthly energy costs. To learn more about the services that Renewal by Andersen® of Los Angeles provides click HERE, or to schedule a free no obligation consultation and estimate call (310) 734-5554. | 3,142 | 1,421 | 0.000716 |
warc | 201704 | Inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity are the key behaviors of
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It is normal for all children to be inattentive, hyperactive, or impulsive sometimes, but for children with ADHD, these behaviors are more severe and occur more often. To be diagnosed with the disorder, a child must have symptoms for 6 or more months and to a degree that is greater than other children of the same age. Children who have symptoms of inattention may: Be easily distracted, miss details, forget things, and frequently switch from one activity to another Have difficulty focusing on one thing Become bored with a task after only a few minutes, unless they are doing something enjoyable Have difficulty focusing attention on organizing and completing a task or learning something new Have trouble completing or turning in homework assignments, often losing things (e.g., pencils, toys, assignments) needed to complete tasks or activities Not seem to listen when spoken to Daydream, become easily confused, and move slowly Have difficulty processing information as quickly and accurately as others Struggle to follow instructions.
Children who have symptoms of
hyperactivity may: Fidget and squirm in their seats Talk nonstop Dash around, touching or playing with anything and everything in sight Have trouble sitting still during dinner, school, and story time Be constantly in motion Have difficulty doing quiet tasks or activities.
Children who have symptoms of
impulsivity may: Be very impatient Blurt out inappropriate comments, show their emotions without restraint, and act without regard for consequences Have difficulty waiting for things they want or waiting their turns in games Often interrupt conversations or others’ activities.
For more information on ADHD, visit the National Institute of Mental Health.
Some people like to travel by train because it combines the slowness of a car with the cramped public exposure of an airplane.
Dennis Miller
I think my pilot was a little inexperienced. We were sitting on the runway, and he said, “OK, folks, we’re gonna be taking off in a just few—whoa! Here we go.”
Kevin Nealon
“I can’t wait until your vacation is over.” —Everyone following you on Instagram
@kristencarney
A man knocked on my door and asked for a donation toward the local swimming pool. So I gave him a glass of water.
Comedian Greg Davies
Just found the worst page in the entire dictionary. What I saw was disgraceful, disgusting, dishonest, and disingenuous.
@sixthformpoet Client: We need you to log in to the YouTube and make all our company videos viral. From clientsfromhell.net
My cat just walked up to the paper shredder and said, “Teach me everything you know.”
@NicCageMatch
“Just because you can’t dance doesn’t mean you shouldn’t dance.” —Alcohol
@yoyoha (Josh Hara)
My parents didn’t want to move to Florida, but they turned 60 and that’s the law.
—Jerry Seinfeld
Q: What do you call an Amish guy with his hand in a horse’s mouth?
A: A mechanic. | 3,144 | 1,591 | 0.000656 |
warc | 201704 | August 3, 2011 New Spinal Discs Reduce Back Aches
(Ivanhoe Newswire) "“ Every year, millions of people suffer from lower back and neck discomfort. Engineers have created a biologically based spinal implant that could someday spell relief for the countless sufferers.
Lawrence Bonassar, Ph.D., associate professor of biomedical engineering and mechanical engineering, and Roger Härtl, M.D., associate professor of neurosurgery at Weill Cornell Medical College and chief of spinal surgery at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, have created bioengineered spinal discs that have been successfully implanted and tested in animals."We've engineered discs that have the same structural components and behave just like real discs," Dr. Bonassar was quoted as saying. "The hope is that this promising research will lead to engineered discs that we can implant into patients with damaged discs."
Each year, 40 percent to 60 percent of American adults suffer from chronic back or neck pain. For patients diagnosed with severe degenerative disc disease, or herniated discs, neurosurgeons perform surgery called discectomy "” removing the spinal disc "” followed by a fusion of the vertebrate bones to stabilize the spine. In spite of the surgery, the patient's back will likely not feel the same as before their injury.
"The surgery prevents pain, but often limits mobility, which may hinder someone who has an active lifestyle or even end the career of a professional athlete," Härtl, who is also the team neurosurgeon for the New York Giants, was quoted as saying.
Human discs look something like a tire, with the outer part, called the annulus, made of a stiff material, and the inner circle, the nucleus, made of a gel-like substance that gets pressurized and bears weight.
Bonassar's lab, which focuses on the regeneration and analysis of musculoskeletal tissue, engineered artificial discs out of two polymers "“ collagen, which wraps around the outside, and a hydrogel called alginate in the middle. They seeded the implants with cells that repopulate the structures with new tissue. Remarkably, as opposed to artificial implants today that degrade over time, the scientists are seeing that the implants get better as they mature in the body, due to the growth of the cells. "Our implants have maintained 70 to 80 percent of initial disc height. In fact, the mechanical properties get better with time," says Bonassar.
The implants would treat a broad category of illness called degenerative disc disease "“ a leading cause of disability worldwide. "Bone or metal or plastic implants are complicated structures which come with a mechanical risk of the structures moving around, or debris from the metal or plastic particles accumulating in the body from wear and tear," Härtl said.
From a biological perspective, the new discs could create a "huge advantage" over traditional implants because of how they integrate and mature with the vertebrae. This major surgery would become less invasive, safer and come with fewer long-term side effects, he says.
SOURCE: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published online August 3, 2011 | 3,228 | 1,580 | 0.000647 |
warc | 201704 | Galilee Diary: Out of Zion Shall Go Forth Torah
Rabbi Abba said in the name of Samuel: For three years the Schools of Hillel and Shammai were in conflict, each saying, “the law is according to our view.” A heavenly voice announced: “Both are the words of the living God – but the law is according to the School of Hillel.” But if both are the words of the living God, why did the School of Hillel “win?” Because they were calm and humble and always taught both their own view and that of the school of Shammai. Moreover, they would always state the view of the School of Shammai before their own.
– Babylonian Talmud, Eruvin, 13b
This past Shavuot was tinged with sadness for me and for many friends and colleagues, as Professor Michael Rosenak passed away the day before the holiday, at the age of 80. The media were busy, of course, with hard news (in both meanings of the word), so this event, which so resonated in the lives of Mike’s hundreds of students, disciples, colleagues, and friends, seems to have passed under the radar.
Over decades, quietly, gently, but with intellectual rigor, Mike created a language for talking about Jewish education, created a philosophical basis for a pluralistic view of Jewish education. He taught and inspired thousands of educators, from his close colleagues and collaborators at the Melton Centre of the Hebrew University and the Mandel Institute, all of whom see themselves as his disciples – to the many who were influenced by his writings, by his teaching – and by the above-mentioned disciples, and who have translated his ideas into curriculum and practice around the world. He didn’t like to define himself, but it is fair to say that he belonged to the world of modern Orthodoxy in his practice, beliefs, and community affiliation. But he received honorary doctorate degrees from both HUC and JTS, and we all thought he belonged to us - which he did.
We tend to complain, automatically, about the entanglement of religion and politics. However, it is useful to clarify: it may be possible to separate religion and state – but it is impossible to separate religion and politics. Religion is about beliefs that give rise to values – that give rise to behaviors. A disconnect between our religious values and our behavior is generally called hypocrisy. But politics is about values that give rise to behaviors of groups, communities, states. Thus, we would hope that our religious commitment would translate into a vision for the society we want to live in and for the way to achieve it. Separating religion from politics means separating religion from life – in which case, who needs religion?
The challenge comes when different members of a society have different beliefs, that lead to different values, that lead to different definitions of required – and acceptable – behaviors. What seems to be the instinctive way to deal with this conflict is to apply force: the one who shouts louder, or manages to pass a law, or throws more rocks, or has better weapons, gets to decide what values get translated into norms.
By his example and by his teachings, Mike showed us a different way: to listen carefully, with respect; to dig deeply to uncover the common ground; to think creatively to find a new path; to keep a sense of humor – especially about yourself; and never to raise your voice. Pluralism turns out to be a slogan that everyone likes, but that is very hard to implement when it comes to actually hearing the truth of the other, when it comes to knowing where to “draw the line.” Trying to implement a pluralistic Jewish society – in the state or elsewhere – is a constant struggle, mostly with ourselves. Michael Rosenak’s life and work helped us understand the struggle better, and thereby made it a little less difficult.
Mike’s passing is a great loss. But reflecting on his legacy is a cause for joy, as it reminds us that there is a lot more going on here, Jewishly, than conflict and power struggles; quietly, the tools for building a better future are being fashioned. | 4,165 | 1,973 | 0.000523 |
warc | 201704 | Christian beliefs Menu Christianity A key topic: beliefs about life afterdeath, mainly in
Overview:
Is there life after death? What form does it take?
Various Christian denominations and leaders have taught conflicting answers to those two questions:
We eventually land up in Heaven, Hell, Limbo, Purgatory, Sheol,or some other place, state, or condition. We simply disappear and cease to exist in any form. Our souls separate immediately from our body and go to Heaven or Hell while our bodies remain on Earth to decay. We sleep for a longtime after death before waking up for a final judgment. We are reincarnatedinto new bodies to live another lifetime on Earth, either as a human or animal. We go through a number of steps after death before weend up in our final destination. Infants who die go to Limbo, where they remain in an infant state forever.
Unfortunately, the Bible seems hopelessly ambiguous on matters related to life after death. This can be shown by the great variety of scenarios, covering the above options and more, which have been proposed by different Christian faith groups and writers over almost two millennia.
Each group has based their beliefs on what they regard as true interpretations of key biblicalpassages, supported by church tradition, reason and the occasional personal experience when people have claimed to have died, gone to heaven or hell, and returned to lilfe on Earth.
Most faith groups teach that their beliefs are correct, while all others are wrong. It is obvious that most or all of the tens of thousands of faith groups around the world are mistaken in their beliefs.
To answer the original questions:
Just about every devout churchgoer is absolutely certain that there is life after death and that they know what form it takes. Generally, these beliefs match the teachings of their faith group. Any priest, priestess, pastor, minister, etc. would probably be happy to fill you in with the details of what their particular faith group teaches. One might try to determine the truth via prayer to God. However, a pilot study that we conducted some years ago indicated that getting such answers from God througy prayer is unreliable. No human may really know where the truth lies. If life after death exists, it might be necessary to die first before we learn the truth. Even worse: if there is no afterlife to experience, then we will never know, because -- after death -- we will not have a functioning brain to realize that there is no afterlife.
Sponsored link.
Topics in this section:
Introduction Beliefs about the afterlife: Heaven, Hell, Purgatory, Limbo Hell:
About Hell itself: Beliefs about Hell: Beliefs unique to Roman Catholics:
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Related topics elsewhere in this web site:
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Copyright © 2001 to 2011 by Ontario Consultants on ReligiousTolerance Originally written: 2001-FEB-24 Latest update: 2011-JUN-10 Author: B.A. Robinson Sponsored link | 2,955 | 1,506 | 0.000669 |
warc | 201704 | The practical application of formal description techniques (FDT) is becoming increasingly important in computing. However, there remains a gulf in the literature between the language of application developers and the more theoretical language often used to describe formal methods. The aim of this paper is to try to bridge this gap by introducing the formal description technique LOTOS in a non-theoretical manner. The main features of LOTOS are introduced through a worked example, a specification of a multi-way phone system. This example was chosen because the specification is compact and yet is sufficiently complex to introduce most LOTOS features. Furthermore, the protocols involved in a multi-way phone are intuitive. The paper also stresses the importance of supporting tools in the development of formal specifications and presents two tools, namely SEDOS and CAESAR/ALDÉBARAN, and explains why they are important in the specification process. | 962 | 529 | 0.001904 |
warc | 201704 | We explore the impact of both the number of option prices and the measurement errors in option prices upon the information content of the model-free volatility expectation, and compare it with the Black–Scholes at-the-money (ATM) implied volatility. We simulate the realized volatility process and option prices using Heston's price dynamics and option valuation formula. The results show that the model-free volatility expectation always contains important information about future realized volatilities. When the option prices contain random measurement noise, the informational efficiency of the model-free volatility expectation increases monotonically with the number of out-of-the-money options. The model-free volatility expectation outperforms the ATM implied volatility, except when there are only a few option price observations. For the traded strikes for S&P 500 index options, we further show that fitting implied volatility curves before applying the current CBOE procedure for constructing the VIX index can improve the VIX's efficiency when forecasting future realized volatilities. | 1,105 | 530 | 0.001899 |
warc | 201704 | Deck:
Our expert, Randall Whitehead, IALD, troubleshoots a troublesome wiring issue with low voltage outdoor lights.
Question:
I installed new low voltage wire to my exterior light fixtures after an animal chewed through the old wire. After the sun set and the lights came on, they were only half power — if that. The transformer is not overloaded. The wires are connected properly. The lamps are new. What’s wrong?
If the fixtures all are at low output, you may have the incorrect voltage of lamps. See if you have 24V lamps instead of a 12V. (The boxes look the same.). Also, most transformers are multi-tap for numerous voltages. Make sure that you have connected to the voltage that matches the lamp voltage.If the fixtures are dimmer at the end of the run and brighter at the end closest to the transformer, then you may be using the incorrect gauge of wire, resulting in voltage drop. There could also still be a tear in the wiring, resulting in power “leaking” into the soil. Or your house may have been built over a graveyard like in “Poltergeist.” Make sure your daughter has not disappeared into the television. | 1,157 | 623 | 0.001657 |
warc | 201704 | Best Practices for Test and Assessment Translation
The fact is that not everyone who takes a test or assessment speaks English. And not everyone who speaks English speaks it well enough to answer questions accurately. Making people take a test in a language they don’t understand well actually trashes the results.
Accuracy demands that assessments be given in the language of understanding. This is especially important for any organization working internationally. To get the best from a respondent, you owe it to him to communicate in his best language. This means translation. And assessment translation is hard.
In tests and assessments, questions are kept short, and so are short on context. Without context word choice gets tricky, as any test preparer knows. But assessment translation is rarely word for word. Nuance in expression and cultural context call meanings into question. In some cases, test respondents may not understand poorly-translated questions or may be unable to give accurate answers.
These problems undermine a test’s effectiveness. The effort you put into creating a useful assessment in the original language may go to waste if you can’t get reliable responses from different language communities.
Even worse, some questions simply don’t translate. They have to be adapted, changed to fit a given cultural context or modified because of the peculiarities of a particular grammar.
And with each change in each language, it becomes more and more difficult to achieve ideal testing outcomes among different groups of language speakers.
Harmonization becomes the ideal, the level playing field where all test takers or respondents get the same chance at an accurate response, regardless of language.
One answer is team assessment translation. This ensures good quality, easily understood assessments in the target languages. Let’s take a look at an ideal team translation process below, but clients should take their own customized approach, selecting the tools that work best for them.
Team Translation
First things first: What is team translation? Simply put, team assessment translation refers to a group of people with specific skills and roles who are brought together to complete a defined process. We’ll show you what we mean in a moment.
You need to start off with the right translators though. Translators working with assessments and tests need to be able to recognize the design features and various components in order to handle them appropriately. Assessment questions have special vocabulary and syntax that is sometimes at odds with normal written language; instruments have sections addressed to different audiences (interviewer, respondent, programmer, etc.) and questions and answer scales reflect measurement goals that are opaque to an untrained reader.
Draft
Two heads are better than one. To begin, we arrange for a draft translation of the survey using a team of two or more translators. This way, we benefit from the assessment translators’ combined expertise and different points of view.
If the survey is long and the budget is tight, we can have each translator translate different sections. The goal is to bring more than one point of view across without doubling costs for the review conference to follow.
But whichever approach our clients decide to take, we ask the translators to keep careful notes as they proceed. These notes include questions about word choice and points on cultural nuance.
Review
This is where things start getting good. Once the translation team has finished the first draft, we arrange for the translators to meet with a reviewer in a virtual conference. The reviewer should not have been part of the original translation team.
The goal is to reach agreement on what translation is best. The reviewer brings a fresh approach and works alongside the translators to create a second draft.
Harmonization
Does everything play well together? With the second draft of the assessment translation completed, a second meeting takes place to make sure the translation is balanced with the assessment in other languages. This time the translators, the reviewer and the language manager all attend.
The language manager may be a testing expert in the subject matter who will work with the translators to decide if the translated assessment is ready for pretesting. The language manager works with the rest of the team to make sure the final assessment is harmonized across all languages, so that the small adaptations required by each language are compared across languages to ensure that the result is balanced as much as possible.
At the meeting, the team looks over the two drafts. Discussions are likely to focus on three areas: 1. Regional and multilingual variations in meaning, 2. Individual opinions on the use of words and phrases and 3. Issues that one or more of the translators may have missed in previous iterations.
To encourage teamwork, we try to ensure that everyone understands there is not a “correct” translation as such. Instead, the team’s goal is an assessment translation that meets the organization’s and the respondents’ needs.
Pretesting
Things are moving along. The meeting with the language manager may lead to a third draft. Either way, once the team is satisfied with the assessment translation, it goes for pretesting with a small group of respondents.
Any pretesting results then go to the translation team. If necessary, the team makes further changes to the translation. When they’ve reached agreement, the language manager and team all sign off on the document. This becomes the version for use in the field. It’s game time!
Documentation
There’s a certain beauty to the process. As with any ISO 9001-certified workflow, each step of the team translation process is documented. Any process errors are corrected for continuous quality improvement.
Also, experience breeds wisdom. Once the assessment translation is approved, each question and response becomes a valuable asset for future projects. Using translation memory, we maintain a database of all previously-used translations, so that if a similar phrase occurs in the future, we already have it mostly covered. Glossaries and style guides are updated at the end of each project for the same reason.
Other Approaches
When it comes to assessments, alternatives to team translation do exist, such as machine translation, back translation, ad hoc translation and oral translation. But these all have major drawbacks.
Machine Translation
Software translation is quick and cheap. But machine translation of test questions spells trouble. The result is a series of poorly worded questions that at their best make no sense, and at their worst confuse and mislead.
Ad Hoc Translation
Ad hoc translators tend to be bilingual staffers at the office “volunteered” for translation tasks. Asking someone who is bilingual to do an ad hoc translation of an assessment sometimes leads to amateur results. Translation is a profession for a reason: pros are worth the extra money that amateurs cost in bad translation.
Oral Translation
On-the-spot oral translation of assessments also produces inaccuracies. Actually, this “short form” is a license to kill in many settings. For example, healthcare interpreters are rarely trained for precise oral translation of questions. It is always a better option is to use a translation team to produce a written version of the survey. You can monitor a written translation and ensure its quality. You can’t do that for an oral translation.
Back Translation
With back translation, you arrange for the translation of a test from the original language into the target language. You then ask another translator to translate the target language survey into the original language. The goal is to identify translation problems by comparing the two original versions.
This method is useful for a sentence-by-sentence content check, but for matters of style and understanding, it can be very misleading. Back translations are useful only to help reviewers work in languages they do not know. Additional edits and review are always a better value.
Accuracy and Quality
In the end, what do you expect from your assessment? Being aware of other translation approaches allows you to make an informed decision about assessment translation. But what you want above all are accurate responses from your tests. Without these, you can’t investigate the experience and opinions of a target group of people relevant to your organization’s plans.
It is team translation that ensures precise assessment responses, not to mention a defensible process in the event of litigation. Team translation also helps you meet the standards of quality assurance your organization demands and the test takers themselves deserve.
For more best practices for assessment translation, contact us at 1-800-872-6752 (+1-212-355-4455 outside the US) or info@responsivetranslation.com. | 9,083 | 3,862 | 0.000263 |
warc | 201704 | By AK Press | January 25, 2016 Here is a taste of Walidah Imarisha’s powerful new book Angels with Dirty Faces: Three Stories of Crime, Prison, and Redemption. You can read blurbs and a description, and order it, here THROUGH THE GATES
“Ma’am, you’re going to have to check the underwire from your bra, or I’m not letting you in.”
She was a squat woman, bleached blonde wisps leaking out from her California Department of Corrections baseball hat. The mud brown uniform drew color from her face. In the unforgiving fluorescent lighting of the prison processing center, her features bled away, leaving only razor-edged eyes that bored into me, a mouth twisted with impatience.
The people waiting behind me in line, shoes and belts in hand, shifted irritably. I understood. We had all been on our feet for an hour and a half, up early enough to see the sun crack dawn over the lonely highway that, for us, dead-ended at a wall wrapped in concertina wire.
In the bathroom ten minutes earlier as I hurried into a stall, I passed two women who had the movements of birds, faces heavy with makeup too hastily applied. Using the box cutter with the chipped orange handle given to me by the dour-faced guard, I ripped the seams out of my new black bra, the metal skeleton underneath as exposed as I felt. Meanwhile, the women preened in front of the warped bathroom mirror, one reapplying the dark stain of lipstick every few minutes. The other spoke of her man’s sentence as though it was a communal one they shared: “Girl, we only have 148 days left!” One woman, red-faced from her obvious hangover, laughed too loudly as her friend pointed to the hickie on the side of her neck. She murmured an embarrassed “thank you” and re-adjusted her collar to cover it.
I took in the processing room that never had enough chairs as I walked back towards the counter after the dissection of my bra. White faces dotted the institutional green. Even when it wasn’t their first visit, they always looked like it was. Most faces, however, reflected me back as I met eyes briefly: Black and brown, female. Tired. No men by themselves; only women alone, shifting on swollen ankles they had spent all week on. Many were mothers of the men warehoused here. On their faces was stamped the dogged resignation that comes from going to see your child week in and week out in a place surrounded by razor wire.
Some waiting were like the young woman in line next to me. Her carefully ironed shirt, laid out lovingly the night before, was now creased like the frown on her face as she tried to manage three wildas- weeds children, who shot questions about seeing daddy in rapid fire succession. The wide-faced baby in her arms shifted fitfully as the mother separated out the six diapers and two clear baby bottles allowed in.
Two bright-faced and dark-skinned boys tumbled past me, giggles streaming in their wake. Before their mothers had a chance to rope them back under control, one of the guards behind the processing desk boomed out, “No running in the waiting area!” The boys’ faces froze more than their bodies—eight-year-old bodies that would soon grow into young Black men bodies: dangerous property, to be handled only by professionals.
As an anti-prison organizer, my work takes me behind the walls, into cages where dignity is stripped and humanity denied, where rehabilitation is nonexistent and abuse is a daily practice. I have spent years visiting political prisoners, which this country denies having. Most of them are from the hopeful, chaotic, and turbulent 1960s and 1970s, when they believed revolution was a single breath away. Now they strain to draw each lungful in the stifling atmosphere of incarceration. Many of them have spent more years in prison than I have on this planet. I have been to the white-hot hell of Texas’s death row, and to the stainless steel brutality of Pennsylvania’s most infamous restricted housing unit. I have gone behind the walls, and I have the heartbreaking privilege to walk out of them every time.
That day’s prison in California looked like so many of the newer institutions: sprawling three-story concrete buildings, windows like slitted eyes squinting in the harsh sunlight. All new prisons look the same from the outside. And thanks to the prison-building boom in the 1980s and 1990s, almost all prisons are relatively new.
California prisons spread faster than a forest fire during a drought and became a symbol for prison growth across the country. 1852 marked the first California state prison, San Quentin. In the first hundred years of California penal institutions, nine new prisons were constructed. That state now operates thirty-three major adult prisons, eight juvenile facilities, and fifty-seven smaller prisons and camps, the majority of which have been built since 1984. The prison-building brushfire of the 1980s often relied on the same corporations and the same plans to build institutions quickly, quietly, and profitably. The corporations profited in dollars, and the state profited from the control of potentially rebellious bodies. There wasn’t time for creativity to grow in the shadow of gun turrets.
Now over 2.3 million are incarcerated across this country. One in one hundred adults are living behind bars, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts, and over seven million are in prison or on parole. This means one in thirty-one adults is under some form of state control or supervision, by far the highest rate in the world. American prisons account fully for one-quarter of the entire world prison population. Is this the “number one” people are always shouting about?
At the California prison where I was, there had been an attempt at beautification. Art pieces decorated the sterile visiting room, including a piece from my adopted brother, all flames and burnt black tree limbs. A garden was planted along the walkway to the visiting building. The inmates tended it. It was, my adopted brother told me, a coveted job, because you got to be outside, working with your hands, instead of washing someone’s dirty underwear or scraping meatloaf off 3,769 plates each dinner service. The prison’s designed capacity was seventeen hundred, but three times as many people are crammed in: 7,538 feet in shoes three sizes too small. This meant triple bunking: three prisoners lived in a cell designed for one. The gym was no longer used to release frustration; it was used as dormitory-style sleeping, where two hundred people lived on top of each other. Fifty-four people shared one toilet.
This is not unique to this prison. The majority of prisons across the country are filled until the seams are bursting, but California is an extreme case. The entire system warehouses almost double the number of people it was designed to hold, and the federal government has been forced to intervene. In May 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling: California’s prison system violated the Eighth Amendment, the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, though not so unusual in this nation. The Supreme Court ruled the state must parole or transfer thirty thousand prisoners in the next two years.
Thirty thousand: everyone with a loved one in California began dreaming it would be them. One in five: much better odds than the lottery. We were so busy whooping with cries of celebration, the second word of the ruling was drowned out: transfer. California argued the whole time that it could solve the overcrowding issue by new construction (during an economic collapse) or by transferring prisoners to be held in other states’ prisons. Ultimately they only had the second option. They brokered deals; they sent prisoners to Texas, Arkansas, Missouri. The State of California will still continue to pay for these prisoners, but technically the California prisoner population will be reduced—for now. Yet this is only a stopgap measure.
This is not how we stop the hemorrhaging.
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Comments
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warc | 201704 | Kyiv, 15 June 1998 (RFE/RL) -- For Lena Dremchenko it was her childhood summer ritual. For just a small fee, she enjoyed three weeks on the Black Sea in a pioneer camp owned by her father's factory. The pioneers were the highly politicized, Soviet-era version of the scouting movement, and Lena's days were filled with morning exercises, games, and sporting competitions, all seasoned with a touch of propaganda that aimed to nurture her loyalty to the Motherland. Like most children, her time at the pioneer camp was viewed simply as a right -- the right to rest and to improve one's health during the summer vacation and have it paid for by the state. But the summer days Dremchenko knew are over, and what was once viewed as aright is merely a privilege enjoyed by the few who can afford it. Pioneer camps have long stopped their activities and most are now too dilapidated to use. Those that were salvaged, however, were converted into private camps that require up to $1,000 for a three-week stay. Few families in Ukraine can afford to send theirchildren away, and are left to search for other ways to keep their kids busy during the Summer. "There are options ... but they only exist for parents who have money," parent Valentina Kukhtik tells RFE/RL. "At least we had a choice when I was a child. But now, sending a child to a camp isn't even discussed." However, most parents can rely on grandparents or other relatives to take their children off their hands for at least part, if not all, of the Summer. One mother says, "The first thing on parents' minds when thinking about their child's vacation is getting them away from Kyiv and to a place where there's fresh air and it is ecologically cleaner. Some kids will go to one grandmother for a month, another grandmother the next month and then to the seaside with one parent when they have their time off." But, as Ukraine's economic situation worsens, people are forced to work longer to make ends meet, leaving thousands of the country's kids with no adult supervision throughout most of the day. Social workers in Kyiv estimate that up to 150,000 children will be left to wander the streets of Ukraine's capital this Summer. "Parents don't have time anymore because they are concentrating on making money," said Irina Kryzhanovska, director of social services for the Leningradskaya district in Kyiv. Mother Dremchenko's two sons, 12-year-old Dima and 14-year-old Zhenya, hang out with her while she works her fruit stand nearLva Tolstoho metro station. "They'll sit with me for an hour and then go wander around for a few hours and come back," she said. "I have no choice. I need to work," she says. For those children having to stay in the city this Summer, some parents have the option of sending them to local sports clubs or day camps at schools. The activities, supported by the Ministry of Education, are free of charge and include various physical training schemes, trips to parks or the beach, and an occasional tour outside Kyiv. "It helps take kids off the streets," said Andrey Bykov, a coach at a sports club in the Pechersk region. However, such clubs and camps are on the decline. Once part of every school in Soviet times, only a select few, whose cash-strapped regional governments can afford to help subsidize them, are functioning today. According to the most recent United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports, Kyiv had 95 institutions or clubs that provided recreational activities for children in 1990, but only 36 in 1996. "Up until two years ago, the state provided extracurricular activities, but now parents need to pay for most of them because the government doesn't have the money," Alla Solovyova, head of UNICEF in Ukraine, tells RFE/RL. A further problem, say social workers, is that most of Kyiv's residential areas lack proper parks or playgrounds for children. They also say that with the deterioration of the Soviet system, community life has also begun to fade. "There use to be a special committee of parents in each apartment complex who would organize activities for the neighborhood children. And, parents would go out in the courtyard and make their children play with the others. That doesn't happen anymore," said Kryzhanovska. "The overall social activity of children has dropped," added her colleague, Anna Nastich, director of social services in the Darnitsa region. "Kids are no longer as physically active. They need more people to push them." "It is UNICEF's policy to provide young children with activities," Solovyova said. "Every child has a right to recreation. And we want to help grant them this right." | 4,653 | 2,274 | 0.000442 |
warc | 201704 | Service Quality
Roland T. Rust and Richard L. ("Rich") Oliver
To Order: Domestic orders: 805-499-0721 -Sage Publications International orders: 805-499-0871(fax) - Sage Publications Go to http://www.amazon.com
Abstract
The importance of service and service quality has been growing in the world economy since the late 1970s. Establishing new levels of sophistication and rigor, as well as a broad set of approaches, Service Quality presents the latest research and theory in customer satisfaction and services marketing. In this book, designed to advance the practice of delivering superior service, the field's leading scholars and practitioners present a wealth of stimulating ideas that include measuring the managerial impact of service quality improvement, new methods of assessing the various elements of service quality, and philosophizing about the nature of customer value. Presenting diverse points of view and revealing a variety of emerging ideas, the editors conclude with a look toward the future of service quality.
An exhilarating-and sometimes demanding-change of pace, Service Quality is essential for professionals involved with any aspect of service, as well as researchers, scholars, and students in marketing studies.
Preface
Since the late 1970s, there has been a growing realization of the importance of services in the world economy. This realization is reflected in the increasing number of scholarly articles devoted to such topics as customer satisfaction, service quality, customer service, and services marketing and the number of companies that have reemphasized their relationship with the customer. Service quality and customer satisfaction are now seen as integral parts of total quality management.
In the 1980s, a first wave of researchers defined the frontier n service quality. These pioneers included Christian Gronroos of Finland, who established a research agenda for service quality management; Len Barry, A. Parasuraman, and Valerie Zeithaml, who devised an influential service quality rating scale; and Lynn Shostack, who argued successfully that managing services was very different from managing products. Steve Brown established the First Interstate Center for Services Marketing at Arizona State, and some important research resulted, led by such people as Terri Swartz, Larry Crosby, and Mary Jo Bitner. Ray Fisk and Steve Grove pioneered the notion that service could be viewed as a drama. These first wave researchers have had an unusually large impact on management, and several are "household names" in the business community.
In the 1990s we are experiencing a second wave in the investigation of service quality. A new generation of researchers, most of whom are highly trained in quantitative methods, psychology, sociology, or anthropology, is establishing new levels of sophistication and rigor, as well as a surprisingly broad set of approaches. This new group includes quantitative modelers such as Ruth Bolton and Jim Drew at GTE; Claes Fornell, Wayne DeSarbo, and Gene Anderson at Michigan; John Hauser and Birger Wernerfelt at MIT; Rick Staelin and Bill Boulding at Duke; Steve Shugan at Florida; and Donna Hoffman at Vanderbilt. The group also includes behavioral researchers such as Morris Holbrook at Columbia, John Deighton at Chicago, Valerie Folkes at USC, and Aaron Ahuvia at Michigan. This second wave is expanding the field of investigation and building upon the efforts of the first wave, which itself continues to make important contributions.
The advent of the second wave in service quality research has been marked by several important events. Vanderbilt University founded its Center for Services Marketing in 1990, with the mission of being "the focal point for cutting edge thought in the management of service quality." Vanderbilt's Owen Graduate School of Management also instituted an innovative curriculum in customer service and service quality.
Vanderbilt's strong ties to both leading academic researchers and the business community created a new opportunity to expand the scope of research in service quality. A TIMS Conference on Service Quality, Customer Satisfaction, and Services Marketing (cosponsored by Vanderbilt's Center for Services Marketing) was held at Vanderbilt in September 1990, and again in March 1992. This conference established a forum for leading thinkers in service quality to trade ideas and quickly attracted some of the leading researchers in marketing academia, along with some of the leading researchers in the business community. The conference drew attendees from many nations, from both business and academia. This conference then merged with the AMA's Services Marketing Conference to form the new AMA Frontiers in Services Conference (again cosponsored by Vanderbilt's Center for Services Marketing), first held at Vanderbilt in September 1992. The new conference retained the international flavor of the TIMS conference and its invigorating mix of academics and business people.
This book features many of the second wave researchers who are currently making cutting edge contributions to service quality, as well as some recent work by first wave researchers. The chapters range from measuring the managerial impact of service quality improvement (Bolton), to new methods of measuring the importance of various elements of service quality (DeSarbo), to philosophizing about the nature of customer value (Holbrook). Many points of view are represented, revealing the great variety of new ideas currently springing up on this topic.
Too many management books, conferences, and seminars get stuck in the same jargon and war stories. This book should prove an exhilarating (if some times demanding) change of pace. Both managers and academics should find plenty of stimulating ideas in these pages. We are happy to be part of it. | 5,868 | 2,529 | 0.000397 |
warc | 201704 | The lifeboat project was initiated after weaknesses were discovered last year on six free-fall lifeboats on the Kristin platform in the Norwegian Sea and the Veslefrikk B platform in the North Sea. The boats sustained superstructure damage during testing. Alf Morten Sirevaag, senior engineer in Statoil, has headed the lifeboat project.
“The current international standard is too general,” said Sirevaag. “The past year’s pioneering work is expected to drive a new standard. Neither the buyers, nor the sellers, have been aware of the dynamics of the forces exerted during a free fall. Weaknesses have been discovered on several boat types.”
The original purpose of the project was to analyze the skid-launched lifeboats with weaknesses on Veslefrikk B and Kristin. The project was later extended. All of the 14 types of free-fall boats used on the Norwegian continental shelf have been tested in the past year.
Both model testing and physical full-scale testing have been performed. Nearly 5,000 tests, both in calm waters and under different wave conditions, have been performed at Marintek in Trondheim. Pending a new international standard the oil industry now tightens up its own requirements.
“Based on knowledge gained through the project we have now established much stricter requirements for new lifeboat purchases,” noted Sirevaag. “New specifications will be developed.”
After weaknesses in one boat type from the producer Umoe Schat-Harding was discovered last year, it was soon established that another boat from the same producer had similar superstructure weaknesses.
“We notified all users of this lifeboat, and last autumn the Norwegian Oil Industry Association (OLF) got involved in the project. Also a network of operators and drilling companies take part,” said Sirevaag, who has been nominated for the this year’s health, safety and environment award granted by the Petroleum Safety Authority Norway and Offshore Northern Seas (ONS) 2006.
Tests have also revealed a slight risk of compression of the roofs and walls in certain lifeboats from the producer NorSafe. Teams on five platforms have been involved in reinforcement work on 56 lifeboats since June. 25 have been completed so far, and all boats with weaknesses will be reinforced by October 1.
There are a total of 211 free-fall lifeboats on the Norwegian continental shelf, half of which are located on Statoil-operated installations.
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warc | 201704 | Have you heard of the iCub? It is a one-meter high android originally developed by the Europe-based RobotCub Consortium. This robot strongly resembles a human baby or toddler, and like a real child it has the ability to learn new behaviors and improve its cognitive abilities. In fact, the "Cub" in its name is short for Cognitive Universal Body.
Around the world, many researchers are running experimental projects to see if they can get the iCub to gain artificial intelligence by means of interacting with the world much as a three-year-old human child would.
Recently, at the 2011 IROS Expo in San Francisco, the robot demonstrated a learned ability to crawl using an optic marker on the floor to guide it. While the robot can crawl, it does so much more slowly than a baby.
At the University of Plymouth in Devon, a team of researchers has been trying to teach the little android how to talk. The team is made up of robotics experts as well as language development specialists. The researchers hope that their project will lead to the development of a future generation of robots that will be able to learn human speech and communicate effectively with people.
The four-year project involves getting the the robot to learn how to successfully perform simple tasks, such as placing objects of different shapes into the correct holes in a container, arranging nested cups in the proper serial order, and stacking a set of wooden blocks. The robot is also being trained to learn the names of objects and actions so that it will be able to comprehend simple phrases such as "robot puts stick on cube."
Team member Angelo Cangelosi, a professor in artificial intelligence, told BBC News that the research will help scientists find their way toward determining the technological requirements for the design of artificial beings capable of a human-like level of behavior, cognition, and communication.
In the past, these robots have been successfully taught a number of simple behaviors. The "baby robot" has been trained in the use of facial expressions, allowing it to express a range of emotions. It has learned how to use its hands to properly grasp and manipulate small objects, including balls and plastic bottles.
The iCub has also learned how to exert judicious force control, making use of proximal force and torque sensors to provide feedback. One robot has even been taught the skill of archery, and can shoot an arrow right at the center of a bullseye target. | 2,484 | 1,280 | 0.000786 |
warc | 201704 | BEFORE
AFTER
BEFORE
AFTER
Skin Rejuvenation The power of elos, safety, comfort, results
Over time, the aging process and the effects of the sun, wind and pollutants in the air can wreak havoc on our skin. Unfortunately, our highly competitive society places a premium on a youthful look.
The Elos Photofacial uses the Elight system developed by SYNERON. It combines optical energy with radio frequency (RF) energy to deliver satisfying, lasting results. Now, patients can enjoy the results they desire regardless of their skin type.
Full face, neck, hands or body may be treated using ELOS™. These gentle, no-downtime treatments are used to improve the cosmetic appearance of the face, neck or body. The Elos Photofacial procedure has increased in popularity and recognition to the point where it is now one of the most commonly performed cosmetic procedures in North America. The procedure has been featured in Allure, Cosmopolitan, In Style, Vogue, USA today and numerous national and regional Television shows such as Oprah. Many Hollywood stars and TV personalities rave about the Elos Photofacial and credit this procedure for the renewed health and vitality in their skin. The Elos Photofacial is the next generation in high-tech skin enhancement.
How does elos work?
ELOS™ (electro-optical synergy) combines the synergy of bipolar radiofrequency and light energies to treat superficial and benign vascular and pigmented lesions like Rosacea, spider veins, skin imperfections by sun damage, red and brown spots. It treats fine wrinkles and improves skin texture irregularities, laxity and smoothness.
How does the Elos Photofacial differ from other Photorejuvenation procedures?
Unlike other lasers, with a Elos Photofacial, the visible light energy is absorbed by the pigment in the skin’s surface, while the RF energy stimulates the production of collagen (which supports the skin) from within. In marrying Intense Pulsed Light and RadioFrequency energy into one treatment, Elos Photofacial treatments offer the very latest and most effective high-tech, non-invasive form of non-invasive skin enhancement. Many other lasers and devices, such as N-lite®, Cooltouch®, SmoothBeam®, V-Beam®, IPL photorejuvenation or Intense Pulsed Light systems with the Quantum® or Vasculight®, offer mild rejuvenation.
With these basic Photorejuvenation procedures you may notice a degree of improvement in the appearance of some aspects of your skin, particularly an improvement in vascular and melanin based discolorations. However, by combining RadioFrequency and Intense Pulsed Light into one Elos Photofacial treatment, you will achieve the optimal degree of enhancement to all components of your skin. By adding the RadioFrequency to the Intense Pulsed light, the Elos Photofacial procedure can now boast excellent, no downtime wrinkle improvements together with the significant improvement in redness, rosacea, pinkness, spider veins, pores and texture.
How does the Elos Photofacial work to improve the appearance of the skin?
Each pulse of the Elos Photofacial RF device, the Elight, sends two types of energy into your skin, Intense Pulsed Visible Light and RadioFrequency energy, that act synergistically to enhance the skin. Energy is given up to brown spots, blood vessels, and redness to gradually and gently lessen or eliminate these blemishes. The RadioFrequency energy also produces significant amounts of collagen, elastin and ground substances in the dermis, the thick undercarpet of the skin, resulting in a noticeable and significant smoothing of fine to moderate wrinkles and textural irregularities of the skin.
Is it safe?Elos is the safest technology available with high patient comfort. Most people experience no side effects at all, though a few exhibits some short term local redness. Treatment requires no patient downtime and you can return to work immediately after. What conditions can be treated with Elos Photofacial?
Fine lines, rosacea, flushing, pore size, ruddy complexion, broken capillaries and spider veins, hyperpigmentation, melasma, freckles, age and sun spots, a pregnancy mask, as well as non-pitted acne scars can all be diminished in a softer, more gentle way with a Elos Photofacial. All patients see positive results from a Elos Photofacial without any of the potential side effects seen with other laser systems.
How is the Elos Photofacial treatment performed?
It is a simple, office based treatment. First, the area to be treated is cleansed. The patient is covered with a thin layer of cooling gel and the entire face, chest, hands or arms are treated with a gentle pulse of light and RadioFrequency energy. When placed against the skin you will feel the cold tip. When the pulse of light and low energy radio frequency is administered there is a momentary sensation that is easily tolerated. Each treatment takes about 30 minutes depending on the size of the area being treated. Most patients require about 5 Fotofacial treatments to see the desired results and they are performed every 4 weeks. Some patients will benefit from additional treatments.
What About Results?
All patients notice a consistent improvement in the appearance of their skin. The degree of improvement is gradual and persistent over the 15-18 week program and 5-6 Elos Photofacial treatments. The noticeable and significant changes that have been reported include: Improvement in pink and brown discoloration, spider veins, pink and brown blemishes, sundamage, age spots, pore size, acne scarring and wrinkles. Since the aging process continues after your treatments, maintenance treatments may prevent the return of your symptoms
Flushing, redness, ruddy complexion,broken capillaries and spider veins of the face. All these "Pink" vascular based conditions of the skin improve, on average, between 50-75% percent with Elos Photofacial treatments. Sun spot, age spots, hyperpigmentation, melasma, cholasma, mask of Pregnancy, multiple freckles. All these "Brown", melanin based conditions of the skin improve, on average, 50-75% with FotoFacial RF™ treatments. Chronic sundamage and photoaging improve, on average, 50-75% with Elos Photofacial treatments. Sun Damage and aging signs of the hands, neck (Poikiloderma) and Chest skin can be improved by 50-75% percent with Elos Photofacial treatments (Elos Photofacial for the skin of the body) Wrinkles and skin laxity. Unlike other more basic forms of Photorejuvenation, the Elos Photofacial, with its synergy of simultaneous Intense Pulsed Light and powerful RadioFrequency energy produces industry leading non-ablative wrinkle and skin laxity improvements of up to 70% without downtime; a claim that no other device or procedure has been able to boast. How long will the Skin enhancement effects of the Elos Photofacial last?
At the completion of the Elos Photofacial program the skin will have achieved a noticeable and consistent degree of improvement that over 90% of patients are very happy with. Occasionally, some patients desire an even greater degree of improvement and these patients will sign up for additional procedures Most Elos Photofacial patients will just desire to maintain the nice skin enhancements they achieved from the program and, for these satisfied patients, a single maintenance Elos Photofacial treatment is recommended every 4 months to keep the skin looking vital, even, smooth and youthful.
Following your treatment:
Immediately after your treatment the area is cleansed and you can return to your normal activities. Dark spots and small blood vessels may seem a little more noticeable, but they will begin to fade after several days. Your physician may recommend that you use a specially-formulated skin care product line or prescribe a skin care regime especially formulated for your skin type after your Elos Photofacial treatments. The use of sunscreen is recommended on any treated areas exposed to the sun. | 7,994 | 3,344 | 0.000302 |
warc | 201704 | Fueling Running Success
Fueling running success means you must have attention to detail. Like a car, a runner who wants to operate at his or her most optimum potential needs their particular set of fuels.
They needs the right combination of carbs, proteins and fats to fuel his running. I know everyone’s body is different. My wife almost entirely organic foods while she is training and it seems to work best for her.
You may be a vegetarian that doesn’t eat meat but supplement your diet with other foods high in iron such as spinach, beans and nuts.
Each of these food groups has a specific function to fulfill in the body. Getting the right amount and mix of these important nutrients is the right step onwards to success in your sport.
Carbohydrates
The primary fuel for exercising muscles and for high-intensity exercises are carbohydrates. The athlete’s body needs around 50 to 65% carbohydrates in his or her food intake to support training.
Lacking enough carbohydrates causes the body to under-perform and cannot burn fats as effectively as it should during workouts. It should be the staple of your diet before, during and after each exercise, including intervals throughout the day.
Carbohydrates abound in such food as whole grain breads, pasta, brown rice, oatmeal, fruits, vegetables, potatoes, corn, beans, and low-fat dairy products.
These days, many people make do with easily digestible carbohydrates from sports drinks or gels. Consult your sports nutritionist for the exact amounts of your carbohydrates requirements.
Proteins
Proteins are important because they build and repair muscles, ligaments, and tendons ñ all essentials in becoming a strong athlete.
You can get your proteins from such sources as egg whites, poultry (with the skin), fish, ground turkey or chicken breast, lean ground beef, game meat, nuts, tofu and soy milk and low-fat dairy products.
They are more important after workouts than before or during. This is because proteins help the body repair itself after strenuous activities like exercises and workouts.
Studies have shown that chocolate milk taken immediately after a long run or workout is even better then sports drinks and is packed with protein.
The more you run (or train as an athlete) the more you need proteins to a point. Your needs depend on how many hours a week you run, or if you are trying to lose body fat or if you are lifting weights.
I would also highly advise you to take an iron tablet daily. I have said this in numerous posts and will continue to bring up because this is probably one of the most neglected practices runners are not paying enough attention.
It means a lot to me because I don’t want to see other runners, who have all the motivation money can buy and yet not produce the results they deserve on account of something they can control like keeping their iron stores high within their body.
You lose iron through sweat and foot strike hemolysis, meaning every time your foot strikes the ground you are bursting red blood cells diminishing the amount of oxygen capacity your body possesses.
Fats
The last food group, fat, helps sustain prolonged exercises at lower intensities. Our bodies have enough stored fat to fuel prolonged exercise.
However, fat is difficult to use for quick energy. This is why carbohydrates are the choice fuel during most exercises.
That being said, if you can train the body to utilize fat as its primary fuel source and conserve carbohydrates during your racing you will offset the effects of the ‘wall’ and not experience it at all.
You will only be able to do this by training at higher speeds for gradually longer periods of time. This form of training is extremely taxing, but that is why running times that your seeking, which you know are hard, are difficult to attain.
Running easy has its purpose for overall general fitness and recovery runs but to run fast, the body has to be stressed, have proper rest between, then stressed again.
Athletes need about 20 to 30% of calories from fats. Healthy sources of fats include fatty fish (salmon for omega 3 fatty acids), nuts and natural peanut butter, avocado, olive oil, and canola oil.
Unfortunately, most people get too much fat in their diets. What is worse is that too much of these fat come from unhealthy fats (saturated and trans-fats from sausages, burgers, French fries, donuts, sweets and many more).
How many Kenyans would you think eat these forms of food while training in the high altitude of Ngong Hills or Kapsabet? 0
It is fine to enjoy fatty foods from time to time but to if you want to be a better runner, lose weight or drop time off your personal best you have to keep these forms of foods in check.
Correct Balance
For an athlete, achieving the right balance of these three all-important food groups is the first step to fulfill your potential. Your day-to-day diet had to be adjusted accordingly to support your training.
Since everyone is different from the next person, it is important that your diet is suited to your exact personal body needs.
Remember, running (especially competitive running) can be as strenuous as any other energy use-intensive sports. Your body fuel should not be taken lightly.
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warc | 201704 | Qualifying Time For Boston Marathon
The qualifying time for boston marathon participation is
not easy.
You would think having run under 2.20 for
the classic distance me mentioning that it isn’t easy would be comical, not so.
Runners at
my level or above should pay more respect to runners seeking to earn a qualifying time for boston marathon entrance.
This isn’t to say that male athletes running
sub 2.20 or women running under 2.40 for the distance or faster don’t have admiration or respect for the masses of full-time runners seeking to qualify for the prestigious race.
I just feel many times at my level so much focus is on
setting personal bests and training to make Olympic teams that someone working to earn a qualifying standard to compete in the Boston Marathon isn’t looked as highly upon as they should be.
I see no difference in a 4 hour marathoner setting a new personal best and qualifying for the
Boston Marathon then someone qualifying for the Olympic Marathon Trials.
They both warrant equal respect.
Full-time athletes have nothing more to concern themselves with in this sport then to train hard, get plenty of rest and go out and run fast.
Athletes who aren’t as fortunate to have the opportunity to train full-time have other time
constraints and responsibilities so many times I feel someone training to earn a qualifying time for boston marathon participation is an even more impressive feat. The Boston Marathon, similar to other major Japanese marathons such as Lake Biwa and Fukiyoka require participants to run specific times in order to enter.
Boston Marathon Running Standards
AGE GROUP MEN WOMEN 18-34 3hrs 05min 00sec 3hrs 35min 00sec 35-39 3hrs 10min 00sec 3hrs 40min 00sec 40-44 3hrs 15min 00sec 3hrs 45min 00sec 45-49 3hrs 25min 00sec 3hrs 55min 00sec 50-54 3hrs 30min 00sec 4hrs 00min 00sec 55-59 3hrs 40min 00sec 4hrs 10min 00sec 60-64 3hrs 55min 00sec 4hrs 25min 00sec 65-69 4hrs 10min 00sec 4hrs 40min 00sec 70-74 4hrs 25min 00sec 4hrs 55min 00sec 75-79 4hrs 40min 00sec 5hrs 10min 00sec 80 and over 4hrs 55min 00sec 5hrs 25min 00sec
These are not walk-in-the-park times that runners must achieve in order to compete.
They are demanding and take more then just running a few miles here and there during the week with
little effort.
If you are like me, working a full-time job while having no other choice but to use your
time management skills, these time standards for men and women between the ages of 18 to 80 require 100% dedication. Do not be intimidated if you have not achieved your boston marathon qualifying goal just yet.
The key is to remain patient and tenacious
You have the capability and the closer you are to hitting the times the more evident this should become.
The marathon is one event where enormous amounts of time can be dropped off one’s
personal best time.
I had a personal best of 2.40.02 prior to running my current best time of 2.19.35.
My coach at the time and I had a plan and we didn’t let setbacks ruin the overall objective. I had run a 1.07.06 half-marathon so even though I failed at the marathon distance I knew it was just a matter of perseverance.
We achieved the objective (sub 2.22.00).
I coach a man that dropped from 4.40 to 3.27 for the distance so who is to say you don’t have what it takes or are beyond your prime?
I have included in this post
a breakdown of what you must be able to maintain throughout the 26.2 mile distance in order to obtain times close to or below these boston marathon standards.
I will share a few of my own tips that I hope will benefit you in obtaining a
qualifying time for boston marathon entrance. Help Tips For Boston
1. Athletes with specific time goals in mind must practice at speeds equal to as well as exceed the paces they want to hold in the race
.
There are many well-meaning runners around the world who have full potential to earn a Boston Marathon qualifying time but when they fail mental self sabotage sets in.
What needs to be done is simply a shift in how you are setting up your weekly training.
I had a recent discussion with Lisa Rainsberger over the phone. Lisa won the Boston Marathon in 1985 with a time of 2.34.04.
They didn’t have gels to ingest back then and the fancy sports drinks we cannot seem to live without in our training now were not even around in the 80’s.
The best runners in the 70’s and 80’s were ingesting water and watered-down coke during their races.
This was one of the most successful era’s of marathoning in our Nation’s history and ironically, most of the runners back then were
working full-time jobs and running faster then most professional runners today.
Runners seeking to earn a
boston marathon qualifying time for boston marathon entrance have to shift from quantity and start asking themselves this question. Race Pace Training Or Junk
“
What percentage of my weekly training volume am I using to practice the goal pace I have in mind to qualify to earn a Boston Marathon qualifying standard”?
If the answer is 10% anaerobic and 90% easy aerobic running there lies your problem.
It isn’t a lack of ability or your past your prime. We all can still
run faster late in life.
I just read about masters runner Tracy Lokken who ran a 2.21.36 marathon and set a personal best at age 44.
Haile Gebressalassie is probably closer to 50 ad just recently ran a 1.00.40 half-marathon in England.
Germany’s Irena Mikitenko set a masters world-record for women placing 3rd and running a time of 2.24 at the age of 40.
It all comes down to your
level of dedication and how resilient you are willing to become to get your goal.
2. Increase the speeds you conduct your long runs at
An absolute must to earn a qualifying time for boston
marathon acceptance is being able to keep lactic acid levels low within your blood stream.
It isn’t the lactic acid that slows us down but a component of lactic acid, the hydrogen ion.
It when our bodies are not able to
convert lactic acid back into energy when we begin to experience problems in pace sustainment.
Runners are selling themselves short by thinking they don’t have what it takes or worse yet, that their best days are behind them.
It isn’t a capability problem, it is a training mindset issue.
If you have a certain level of
physiological capability to where you know you are capable of earning such an achievement as a Boston Marathon qualifying standard, then a change in training is one of the best ways to get that goal accomplished.
Running easy for 20 miles will do no more than
burn fat and prepare you well to run very long, very slow.
A race at a demanding, specific pace that runners have to hold to earn a Boston Marathon
qualifying standard requires better economical running ability.
The only way to create that physiological effect is running longer at
higher anaerobic intensities.
Easy running is good for recovery and maintenance, just don’t spend too much of your training week at that level.
3. Do longer tempos and break them up if they seem too daunting at first
For example, if your goal is to run 7.00 mile pace for 26.2 miles then perhaps, doing 10 miles at 7.00 mile pace early on in your training may seem too aggressive.
A great way of
gradually hardening yourself is to break these tempos into shorter segments.
Consider 2×5 miles at 7.00 mile pace, 3x3miles at 7.00 mile pace or 5x2miles at 7.00 mile pace with longer recovery jogs in the initial stages of your training block and then maintaining the paces and shortening the recoveries as your fitness grows.
You could also aim for doing the same distance, but 10 seconds faster then goal marathon
race pace, with longer recoveries.
Tempo runs, also called
Anerobic Threshold runs, teach your body to handle high levels of lactic acid within your blood stream.
The hardest part is teaching the body to continually maintain it’s ability to convert lactic acid to energy.
Once you get to a point where your body is able to clear lactic acid and convert it to energy faster then it is building up you know you are ready.
It is only by running at speeds that far
exceed goal race pace that this physiological effect can come about.
Too much easy running without stressing your body’s anaerobic engine is not going to cut it.
Races As Stepping Stones
4. Don’t be afraid to use races as workouts, even up to the marathon distance
.
Some of the best runners in the world go as far as 30 miles for long runs in preparing for their goal races.
I flew to Sacramento December 6th to compete in the California International Marathon.
I had already payed for my flight, hotel and rental car months ago and nearly didn’t go as I felt that unless I was going to aim for sub 2.18.00 I might as well just go out for a long run.
Lisa Rainsberger, someone I worked with for 3 years and my wife who’s combined expertise and
world-class knowledge was the deciding factor in me going.
Lisa advice, “Use it as a workout, go out there and try to break 2.30.00,’It is going to hurt but will give you a physiological boost leading into the Houston Marathon'”
The Houston Marathon is my goal race where I want to run under 2.18.00 for the distance. This is 5.16 per mile pace.
I knew going out and running 7.30 mile pace for 26.2 miles was not going to assist me in preparing to hold the demanding goal I have in mind.
My goal for the marathon distance is no different then someone seeking to earn a qualifying time for Boston Marathon acceptance.
Our paces may be different but someone working to earn a 3.05.00 marathon in the age 18-34 group for males or a 3.35.00 marathon for women aged 18 to 34 years and each descanting age group and time goal, is just as demanding as running 2.18.00 is for me.
Let’s take a look at my race breakdown.
Split
Time
Distance
Avg Pace
Summary 2:32:56.8 26.22 5:49 1 5:36.0 1.00 5:36 2 5:42.7 1.00 5:43 3 5:20.2 1.00 5:20 4 5:24.7 1.00 5:25 5 5:28.5 1.00 5:28 6 5:32.7 1.00 5:33 7 5:32.9 1.00 5:33 8 5:29.3 1.00 5:29 9 5:34.6 1.00 5:35 10 5:28.0 1.00 5:28 11 5:22.7 1.00 5:23 12 5:31.7 1.00 5:32 13 5:33.2 1.00 5:33 14 5:34.5 1.00 5:35 15 5:38.0 1.00 5:38 16 5:43.7 1.00 5:44 17 5:38.1 1.00 5:38 18 5:42.1 1.00 5:42 19 5:46.6 1.00 5:47 20 5:47.6 1.00 5:48 21 6:57.9 1.00 6:58 22 6:07.3 1.00 6:07 23 6:14.8 1.00 6:15 24 6:17.9 1.00 6:18 25 7:10.9 1.00 7:11 26 6:29.5 1.00 6:29
You can see that the overall goal here was to use this as an aggressive long run.
You have to work to gradually build your body’s ability to hold faster paces for very long periods of time to get to a point where race pace no longer looks impossible, but attainable.
The more you practice at, near and even
below goal pace the better equipped you are going to be in making a Boston Marathon qualifier a reality in your athletic life.
There are so many runners around the world who are training to achieve this prestigious goal. I want to see you be the next.
Based on Lisa’s recommendation to break 2.30.00 for this 26.2 mile long run in preparation for the Houston Marathon I would have to hit 5.43 per mile pace for the run.
I was somewhat fast early, but I felt very much in control through 20 miles.
It is very difficult to train for the last 10K of a marathon and a big reason for me slowing down was not ingesting enough calories in the race and perhaps some mental lapses in the latter stages of the race.
I didn’t take a gel until mile 23 and had this been an all-out assault I would have never made it based on my calorie consumption and a couple emergencies in the race.
I had to jump in a porta john just pass mile 20 and then got sick at mile 25 having to stop a few times to vomit and as you can see from the mile splits it did cost me some time.
I met Lisa’s goal of a 2.29.59 marathon long run, if I am not counting the two stops.
Stop and review how you have been conducting your training in the past.
Let’s say these were your splits and it was not in a competition setting, but it is just you on a paved road clipping off mile after mile.
If your goal was to break 2.18.00 or hold 5.16 pace for the marathon distance, which run would you think would bring you closer to your goal?
A 22 miler at 7.30 pace or a 26 miler at 5.49 pace?
It doesn’t matter what the time goal you have in mind.
Runners seeking to earn a qualifying time for boston marathon need to spend a segment of their weekly training at speeds that far exceed goal marathon race pace, runs above race pace and very easy recovery runs to rebuild the breakdown of the body.
It is a cumulation of various levels of training intensities that brings about the gold medal effort.
It isn’t just about race pace efforts and doing repeat miles on the track that are 10-20 seconds per mile faster then you want to hold per mile in the marathon distance.
It is all the other little sections of weekly training that will make the difference.
Your 24 Hour Day
What are you doing the other hours of your 24 hour day? How much rest are you taking? Are you eating enough? etc.
Are you taking your nutrition seriously?
I did 4 days of very easy running after this long run.
My paces ranged from 6.45 to 8.00 mile pace on my easy recovery days after the marathon so you always want to be aware of how your body is reacting to the stress you are placing on it and allowing proper recovery in between the hard efforts.
Some days you aren’t going to have it.
If you feel like total ass one day then back off, drop the workout if you have to cause your body will never lie to you.
Is the sport mental?
Absolutely.
A big factor of athletic success comes down to how mentally hardened you have become through training and your nutrition.
If you are a half mile into a planned 10-mile tempo run and you are having a hard time running at the same paces you usually could hold for the marathon distance then it is time to back off and recover.
Drop the run and rest.
Attack tomorrow, end of story.
In conclusion, don’t over think the process.
Allow yourself to get into your rhythm and you will.
There are many ebs and flows in training and every day is not going to be an effortless performance.
Your mental state is vital and part of that comes down to letting go of a bad workout or race.
Take easy days, easy and construct your weekly training in such a way that you have a healthy balance of fast and slow running to get the most bang for your buck.
Your
qualifying time for Boston Marathon acceptance depends on it.
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warc | 201704 | Many people ask the question: why should I wear chaps when riding? There are many advantages to wearing chaps while you are riding, other than you feel totally like a cowboy or cowgirl. The first being that chaps provide the rider with added protection to the thigh and calf regions. This protection helps to prevent chaffing and saddle sores from the saddle or saddle fenders/stirrups. Saddle sores are highly unpleasant and can be very hard to heal if you continue to ride before they are completed healed.
The second advantage of wearing chaps is if you are an avid trail rider the chaps provide a layer of protection when encountering woody or spiny terrain. This terrain would normally cause the riders jeans to rip when travel through. So if you don a pair of chaps feel free to take on whatever challenges the trail presents with a confidence that your pants are more likely to return to the barn in one piece.
Do you live and ride in a four season state? The third advantage to wearing chaps is during the cold winter months they provide an extra layer that helps keep your legs warmer on those more frigid days. Has the wind picked up a bit? Not only do chaps provide you with warmth, but they act as a perfect wind block.
We have all had moments when riding where our horse spooks, bolts, bucks, rears, spins, or any combination thereof. Chaps provide the rider with better grip to the horse and saddle during those more interesting moments or simply for that nice gallop through the open field.
The next question you should ask yourself: Do I want chap with fringe or no fringe? The advantage to having fringe on your chaps, other than its the current trend in the western riding arena, is that fringe is designed so that water is wicked away from the material. So if you happen to be riding and a spring shower rolls on in the fringe on the chaps will help to keep your legs a bit drier till you can make it back to the barn.
So to answer the question that prompted this inquiry, yes wearing chaps while riding has many advantages that every rider should take advantage of. | 2,092 | 1,014 | 0.00099 |
warc | 201704 | Choice of rigid plastic or self-adhesive vinyl for long-term use Easy to position around your facility as required Can be used outdoors or indoors
Whether you run a public space or a private workplace, you can help to make the location of various facilities clear to all by using the right signage. Our range of general information signs includes signage for a range of way-finding needs. These baby change facility signs are a clear way to mark out the corresponding facilities and help to make it easy for parents to tend to their children when the need arises.
The signs are ideal for placing at various points throughout your building and are available in a choice of two durable materials – rigid plastic or self-adhesive vinyl. The vinyl version is ideal for sticking to a range of smooth, clean and dry indoor surfaces – even curves – without needing to use any fixtures or fittings. For outdoor use, our plastic version is ideal; it is fully water resistant and will not fade or erode – giving you years of reliable use. The signs display a very clear message for all to understand; a picture of a parent changing a baby leaves no room for doubt, even for those that cannot read the corresponding text.
Like the vast majority of our information and safety signage, these baby care facilities signs have been made to fully comply with current UK and EU legislation around signage in the workplace; conforming to BS 5499, you can rest assured that these signs are enabling you to take all the necessary measures to provide a duty of care towards staff and members of the public.
Another popular choice for marking out facilities in various workplaces and public spaces are these unisex toilet signs, which are ideal for smaller establishments. | 1,775 | 895 | 0.001134 |
warc | 201704 | Special Feature: Products Sally Recommends
The Smell of Parsley When Emily, transported to heaven in Thornton Wilder's play Our Town, is asked what she misses most on earth, she says, "the smell of parsley." It's hard to imagine life without parsley. Parsley apparently was growing wild in the Mediterranean basin about the time man was. Parsley is to the Western world what coriander (sometimes called Chinese parsley) is to the Eastern, an herb so common and pervasive that like other ordinary things-----spring and youth and small towns like Grover's Corners---we miss them only when they're gone. I always grew two kinds of parsley in my garden---the flat-leafed kind the grocers call "Italian" and the curly-leafed kind, which for Americans seems to be the only way a cooked salmon or turkey can appear in public without looking nude. I made no headway with a third kind grown for its roots rather than leaves, the turnip-rooted parsley that looks like a skinny parsnip and tastes like celery root. As a lazy gardener, I owed a lot to parsley because the plants lasted two years without replanting, and because all winter long I could step outside, brush the snow off, and snip a green and curly top. Medieval herbalists found all kinds of parsley as useful in medicine as in food. The seventeenth-century Nicholas Culpepper prescribed a paste of parsley seed and root, mixed with fennel, caraway, burnet, and saxifrage, for "the jaundice, falling-sickness, the dropsy, and stone in the kidneys." Parsley was also a major ingredient in the green garden pottages of the Middle Ages and the pureed green garden sauces of the Elizabethan Age, when they were called "Garden Sass." What Englishman even today would eat a dish of jellied eels or a leg of mutton without a parsleyed sauce? What Frenchman would eat a snail without a pool of parsley and garlic butter or a mussel without a broth of parsley and wine? What Italian would eat a veal shank without that sprinkling of parsley, garlic, and grated lemon peel they call "gremolata"? And what Moroccan would eat a salad of cracked wheat, or bulgur, unlaced with parsley and mint? Because parsley is so often minced, the herb has developed its own line of kitchen hardware and impassioned ritual. For years I refused to use the efficient hand-cranked Mouli parsley grater because I liked the ritual of scrunching sprigs of curly-leafed parsley together and chopping them with a knife, either the old-fashioned double-handed chopper or a Chinese cleaver. I liked the ritual of cutting flat-leafed parsley with a pair of scissors. I know a Hollywood dowager, once a silent film star accused of murdering her lover, who fired her housekeeper for not mincing parsley fine enough. And I have a friend so obsessed with parsley that he keeps a mini spin-dryer exclusively for drying parsley leaves and a special rolling chopper for cutting them. Despite our constant use of parsley as a garnish, we neglect it as a vegetable. On a hot spring day it makes a fine cold soup, a salad, or a sauce for thin slices of smoked tongue, ham, or beef, not to mention poached chicken and fish. Deep-fried it makes delicious finger food to serve with shellfish. And for a one-dish vegetarian meal, there's always tabbouleh, which returns chopped parsley to its origins in the Middle East. When we're tempted to take parsley too much for granted as our commonest garden herb, we might remember the moral pointed out in Beatrix Potter's rhyming tale: Cecily Parsley lived in a pen, And brewed fine ale for gentlemen; Gentlemen came every day, 'Til Cecily Parsley ran away.
Parsley Soup
2 cups packed parsley leaves
6 cups chicken or fish stock ¼ cup uncooked rice 3 whole eggs juice of 1 lemon ½ to 1 cup yogurt
Wash parsley, remove the stems, and spin-dry the leaves. Mince leaves by hand or in a food processor. Meanwhile bring stock to a boil, add rice and simmer, covered, about 15 minutes, or until rice is tender. Beat eggs with the lemon juice, stir in some of the hot broth, then add egg mixture to the pan and whisk rapidly over very low heat for a minute or two (higher heat will curdle the eggs). Off heat, add parsley and yogurt to taste. Refrigerate until wanted. (This soup is also good hot).
Serves 4 to 6.
Parsley Salad
5 cups curly-and flat-leafed parsley, mixed
1 cup bread cubes, cut in ¼-inch squares 3 garlic cloves, minced ½ cup good olive oil 1 tablespoon wine vinegar pepper to taste ¼ pound feta cheese
Remove stems from parsley and put leaves in a covered steamer about 45 seconds to barely soften them. Refrigerate immediately to crisp. Make croutons from the bread cubes by sauteing them with the garlic in 2 to 3 tablespoons of the olive oil until brown. Mix remaining oil with vinegar and pepper, mix parsley with crumbled feta cheese, and sprinkle croutons on top.
Serves 4.
Deep-Fried Parsley
4 cups parsley leaves
vegetable oil for frying Salt to taste
Make sure parsley leaves are thoroughly dry. Drop a handful at a time into oil heated to 370 degrees F. in a wok or deep skillet and remove the leaves quickly, after less than a minute, with a slotted spoon. Drain leaves on paper towels. They should be crisp and green. Sprinkle lightly with salt. Serve as a garnish or a finger-food snack.
Yields about 2 cups.
Betty Fussell is a food historian, home cook, author, English professor and freelance writer. Her book, The Story of Corn, was reprinted by University of New Mexico Press. Betty Fussells' latest work is My Kitchen Wars, which was transformed into a one-woman show performed in New York City and Hollywood. Fussell is currently writing a history of American beefsteak. | 5,701 | 2,828 | 0.000357 |
warc | 201704 | continued "We had never heard of any complaints or accidents," he says. Nonetheless, the kindergarten kids began to play on the main playground. Several weeks later, Magers, who lives across the street from the school, saw surveyors measuring the now-empty kindergarten playground site and discovered that the district intended to place a bungalow there. With two weeks to mobilize the community, Magers gathered 500 signatures on a petition against the bungalow idea and appeared at the school board meeting with 35 parents and picket signs. His efforts were too late. The school district, citing the urgent need for classroom space and the absence of any other options, won approval for the measure. Two weeks later the kindergarten playground disappeared.
With that defeat fresh in their minds, community representatives scrambled to come up with a bungalow-financing alternative. Meanwhile, the school district was winning parents over to the bungalows-in-the-park idea by juxtaposing that action with others, such as multitrack scheduling and busing, which parents considered worse. It was the threat of busing that supplied the answer to the financing dilemma.
The school district spends $750 a year to bus a child out of the Normal Heights neighborhood. Community representatives convinced Ottinger that the $750 per student could be used to finance other options: use that money to pay for a construction loan to build ten permanent classroom facilities on the church land. Those ten classrooms could house a total of 200 students, generating $150,000 of cash flow each year. If the school district leased the classrooms for seven years, the project broke even. After the school district vacated the classrooms, the church could use the facilities or rent them out for community events.
The school district resisted the revived community plan and the Ottinger-sanctioned financing. They said leasing permanent facilities in the neighborhood would delay construction of the new area school promised by the school board. The community went ballistic. A coalition of residents, parents, and business owners met with Ottinger in October and told him they would mount a recall effort if planning for the new school was suspended or "one blade of grass was plowed under in Normal Heights."
By November of 1997, school district officials had retracted their statements about a possible delay in the construction of the new area school and spoke of working "for the good of the children." Ron Ottinger characterized the community's proposal as "an unprecedented opportunity to find a solution to school overcrowding throughout Mid-City." At their November meeting, the school board gave unanimous approval to proceed with the community's plan.
It's quiet now on School Street, but undercurrents ripple through the neighborhood. The school district's statement suggested that "all parties must cooperate to a very high degree" for the plan to succeed. But cooperation may be difficult to achieve. The church has established two committees to study the issue, and a vote is expected in mid-February. | 3,114 | 1,495 | 0.000673 |
warc | 201704 | How to Evaluate Cremation Services And Avoid Problems: Internet ScamBusters #247
ScamBusters #243 was a special issue on funeral scams, and frankly we were very surprised at how popular it was. (We had thought subscribers might shy away from this topic, but we were wrong.)
We got a lot of positive feedback — and a lot of questions. Most of the questions related to cremation. So today, we’re doing a follow-up issue on cremation scams — and what to watch out for. We interviewed a funeral industry leader and pulled together the best info to answer your questions.
Again, we suggest you read through this issue now and then remember to look at it again
if you ever need to plan a funeral that involves cremation, or help someone else who is making these decisions. This can really make a big difference, especially at a very difficult time.
First, though, we recommend you check out the most popular articles from our other sites during the past week:
Things You Need to Know About Disputing a Credit Card Error: Credit card error disputes are a fact of life but can be easier to manage with these tips. Helpful Tip Tips So You’ll Never Look Like a Bad Tipper: Use this advice to save yourself the embarrassment of being labeled a bad tipper without being taken to the bank. The Smell of Spam in the Morning: You may not end all spam in your inbox but you can reduce your spam email with these tried and true ways. Your Home Is Not an Identity Theft Sanctuary: Reduce your risk of identity theft in your home by being aware of these ideas.
On to today’s main topic…
Ashes To Ashes – How to Avoid Cremation Scams
Fortunately, there are fewer cremation scams than other funeral scams, but there are certainly important things to watch out for.
You will definitely want to check out a crematory’s practices for diligence and fairness.
Proper handling of a loved one’s remains and fair pricing are concerns best addressed before the emotional days after a loved one has passed away.
Though this certainly is a sad time, many people feel there’s something comforting about the idea of cremation. There is a serenity of ashes scattered out to sea or at a favorite place of a loved one.
There are also many options. Cremains have been worked with paint to create a memorial painting; attached to a concrete structure that, when dropped to the bottom of the ocean, becomes a “living” reef, and processed into carbon pendants that are worn by the bereaved.
“As people are becoming more educated about funerals they realize cremations give them more options,” said Mike Nicodemus, board member of the Cremation Association of North America.
The national cremation rate stands at 28 percent and is on the rise. When Nicodemus first directed funerals in 1979, about 5 percent of his clients opted for cremation. Now that number has risen to 43 percent.
However to avoid problems, you should definitely plan ahead so your last memory of a loved one doesn’t turn into a nightmare.
Who’s Really in That Urn?
Properly identifying remains is one of the biggest issues in the cremation industry today. Nicodemus says there “absolutely” have been cases where a family was delivered ashes not belonging to their loved one.
“There was one story of a person who was cremated in Florida who was scattered in their three favorite places,” said Nicodemus. “When the family got to the third and final location, a vacation spot in Maine, they found a set of dentures at the bottom of the ashes. Only the deceased had never worn dentures.”
In a second case, a family scattered remains in several far-flung locations, only to discover afterwards the ID tag on the container didn’t match the paperwork from the funeral home.
Obviously, these cases are rare. However, for this reason, it’s important to ask a crematory what procedures they use to track the body through the cremation process and to verify the identity of the remains following cremation.
A crematory can have a family member or friend visually identify a loved one before cremation in states where this is allowed. Otherwise, the funeral director should have a diligent tagging system.
“It can be a big problem because certain states will not let the funeral director open the container the body has been placed in,” Nicodemus said. This is especially a concern when funeral homes contract a removal service to retrieve the body from the hospital.
Also, a good funeral director should allow you to tour their facility, present their license and be able to show that their operators are certified. Make sure what you see leaves you with peace of mind.
Here are some other cremation questions you may want to ask: Can the cremation be witnessed by a family member or designated individual? What is the average time between receiving the deceased and the completion of the cremation? Do they have refrigeration facilities for use prior to cremation? How are the cremated remains returned if an urn is not provided prior to cremation? What is the policy regarding holding of the cremated remains after the cremation is completed?
From the Cremation Association of North America.
How High a Price for Ashes?
The high expense of traditional funerals is another reason why cremations have become more popular. But cremation itself is no guarantee of a good value in a funeral.
Make sure you understand your options and don’t get roped into services you don’t really want or need.
You may wish to forgo one or all of the following in a cremation: the casket, the viewing, the visitation and the funeral service. Called “direct cremation,” this option can cost consumers $1000 or less.
The Funeral Rule, a federal law that protects consumers from unfair funeral practices, says:
The funeral director should not charge you for embalming services with direct cremation because there will not be a viewing. There is no state that has a law requiring the purchase of a casket with a cremation (in spite of what funeral directors may tell you). You have the right to purchase an unfinished wood box to be used prior to cremation.
Finally, it is not necessary to purchase an expensive urn for remains. Crematories may place remains in a metal, plastic or cardboard container adequate for burying or transporting.
However, if you choose direct cremation, you definitely may still wish to hold a memorial service run by the family. Talk with your loved ones ahead of time. If planning your own funeral, don’t just go with the cheapest option — this can really be a disservice.
So as you can see, there definitely are important questions and facts to be aware of when deciding on a cremation. We hope these tips will help during a very difficult time.
Time to close — and we’re off to take a walk. See you next week. | 6,944 | 3,191 | 0.000323 |
warc | 201704 | The Chinese Bouyei College Students’ Strategies for Coping with Classroom Anxiety in Foreign Language Learning: A Survey Study Abstract
The present study aims to investigate the degree of FL classroom anxiety experienced and the coping strategies employed by the Chinese Bouyei college students. The research subjects were 320 1st- and 2nd-year Bouyei college students from five colleges located in the southern and southwestern areas of Guizhou Province, China. Two sorts of written questionnaires were administered to collect the data. The simple descriptive statistics, i.e. mean, standard deviation (S.D.) and percentage were used to find out the levels of the informants’ FL classroom anxiety and their anxiety coping strategy use, while a factor analysis was employed to examine the students’ anxiety coping strategy categories. The findings demonstrate that the levels of the Chinese Bouyei college students’ overall FL classroom anxiety and their reported anxiety coping strategy use are at the medium level on the whole. Six main categories of Bouyei college students’ FL classroom anxiety coping strategies were found in the study. In addition, comments were made on the research findings, as well as what English teachers could do to help alleviate and eliminate learners’ FL classroom anxiety.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5430/wjel.v2n1p31
World Journal of English Language
ISSN 1925-0703(Print) ISSN 1925-0711(Online)
Copyright © Sciedu Press
To make sure that you can receive messages from us, please add the 'Sciedu.ca' domain to your e-mail 'safe list'. If you do not receive e-mail in your 'inbox', check your 'bulk mail' or 'junk mail' folders. | 1,703 | 870 | 0.001179 |
warc | 201704 | A team of whale watchers just uploaded some jaw-dropping drone footage of a rare white whale calf off the coast of Western Australia, giving scientists an invaluable, overhead look at the behaviour of these marine mammals.
If we can understand more about how southern right whales breed and grow, we could help to ensure that human activities aren't disrupting their natural environment.
"Little is known about the three-dimensional movements and habitat-use of southern right whales in their breeding and calving grounds in Australia – many of which are slated for development activity, including associated increases in shipping, marine tourism, and recreational activity," says one of the team, Lars Bejder, from Murdoch University in Australia.
"Our aim is not only to study the behavioural ecology of these amazing animals, but also to provide information to industry and management towards conservation."
A drone slowly buzzing overhead is a lot less disruptive than a boat full of scientists carrying cameras, giving a unique perspective on the whales in their natural habitat.
The aerial view also makes it easier for experts to get an idea of the size and the length of the whales they're observing.
To monitor the whales, the team is using a technology called digital acoustic recording tags (DTAGs), which feed back data on whale movement, sounds, calf suckling rates, and the acoustic environment, all at 800 samples per second.
These DTAGs were attached to the whales using handheld poles after the scientists were able to get close to them in a small vessel. The tags automatically detach from the whale after 24 hours.
"We need to know more about the ambient ocean noise in these regions and the extent to which southern right whales will be exposed to increased noise from human activity," says Bejder.
The southern right whale population is spread out all across the lower half of the southern hemisphere, covering the southern tips of Australia, South America, and Africa, and there are thought to be around 10,000 of them in the ocean in total.
Less than 5 percent of right whales are estimated to be born white, but they then turn black during the first year of life.
Calves are typically 5 to 6 metres long when born, and can reach up to 18 metres long – about 1.5 buses in length.
The name has an interesting origin as well. The animals were originally considered the 'right' whales to hunt, as they're not very fast in the water, they float to the surface when killed, and they have a lot of valuable substances inside them (including oil).
But after watching this clip, we're much happier they're now being left in peace. | 2,676 | 1,352 | 0.000748 |
warc | 201704 | Future War
Why is the preferred weapon of the Galactic Empire the sword? It is to answer that question and perhaps one or two other questions of deeper import that this essay attempts.
Science fiction is now old enough that a perspective of its changes over time is possible, to contrast the dreams of past futures with the present futures.
A particularly telling survey should look at future war stories. Of all the institutions of man, war is the one that is the closest mortal men ever reach to hell. In war, good men do bad things, law and order breaks down, but also becomes tyrannical as military exigencies force civilian rights to one side, and continual fear, danger, desperation, and stench of death renders life brutal and miserable and hopeless. There is one small ray of heaven in this hell, tiny as a thread of sunlight that steals through the lock of a prison door, which is that the emergency can from time to time bring out acts of selfless and unselfregarding fortitude, patriotism, honor, sacrifice, and heroism.
War is fundamental. A man’s views on war tell you the basic axioms of his view on life. Because of this, a popular war story will tell you in an abbreviated form much about the storyteller’s most fundamental ideals and fears, and that of his audience.
I have long maintained that science fiction is the mythology of the scientific age.
A mythology is an exploration by means of concrete images of the abstraction and passions of the age; myth speaks in a vocabulary of anthropomorphized figures.
The scientific age was one in which the empirical method explained the natural world to man with shocking clarity, gave him an unprecedented degree of dominion over it, made technological change a part of human experience, and, for better or worse, banished belief in magic, in a world where woods were haunted by elves and villages by witches, to the remote fringes.
Hence while science fiction is often defined as stories about future technology or future attitudes toward technology, I submit that a more useful definition would look at the themes, not at the props, of the stories. These themes, namely, cluster around the factors crucial to the scientific revolution: the shock of clarity when the system of the world is revolutionized; the thrill or terror which accompanies dominion; the wonder of technological change and its social ramifications, or the horror; the grim romance of naturalism, when man finds himself alone in a universe of astronomical grandeur and appalling unending emptiness.
I made the bold statement above that a man’s views on war tell you his views on life. This is because his views on war should tell you what he thinks worth killing for and dying for, what he thinks death is, or virtue, and whether there is more to life than this world; and from this you can assess his character, distinguishing the shallow from the profound, the romantic from the realist, the craven from the noble.
In the ultimate analysis, there are only five basic attitudes toward life: the hopeful, the noble, the ruthless, the idealistic, and the despairing.
The hopeful believes in life after death and in supernatural justice in that next life, which will mete out the rewards and punishments men elude on earth; and therefore this ideal can encompass both the extravagant pacifism of a Saint Francis or the extravagant bravery of Saint George. They have no illusions about the horrors of war, but they fight with a joyful abandon and a scrupulous chivalry, because the war, to them, is both physical and spiritual, and a small part of a larger cosmic reality.
The noble are skeptical about such cosmic justice, but dedicate themselves with stoic melancholy honor to work such justice as their frail human hands can work; this view also has no illusions about the horrors of war, but also recognizes the glory of self-sacrifice in a noble cause.
The ruthless are skeptical about cosmic and human justice, and see the conflicts in life as inevitable and irreconcilable. They believe that the ends justify the means, and they believe in total war, fought to extermination. For the ruthless any trick, any lie, any act or torture or terror is permitted, so long as it is efficient in its service to the cause. Ironically and absurdly, they also believe human nature is malleable, and can evolve to a point when all war shall cease. Note that the utopia is envisioned to be without flaw, therefore to be so desirable that any ruthlessness is justified to achieve it. Gallons, nay, oceans of innocent blood are justified if this permits we can sail to paradise on the red flood.
The idealists believe the ends never justify the means, and that no evil is ever necessary, no violence ever practical. This is a utopian belief in pacifism, a notion we might call “total peace” as foolish as the theory of total war. It is a theory which blames the existence of the instruments of war for the existence of war. It is a belief that disarmament in the face of an enemy will enlighten him, soothe his fears and allay his ambitions, and render him a lover of peace. In other words, they believe that the utopia envisioned by the ruthless has already somehow been achieved, and human nature already been perfected. Idealism is the stark opposite of the ruthless belief in an endless Darwinian war between irreconcilable enemies: it is the idea that there are no real foes, merely unmet friends, no real conflicts, merely misunderstandings.
The despairing hold with none of this. They are skeptical of the utopianism of the idealists as they are of the craven treasons of the ruthless; they regard nobility as a deception, and hope as a madness. They believe in nothing, fight for nothing, value nothing aside from their own selfish appetites. They are willing that other men fight and die for them, that they might mock their benefactors, and sneer at heroes.
Now, these are not five pigeonholes with neatly limited edges where any one story or any one man can be neatly stowed. Think of them instead as five directions or dimensions toward which a man can move, closer to one and farther from another.
With this in mind, let us take a semi-random sample of some well-known science fiction books, and make a guess about the view of life betrayed.
I say ‘semi-random’ because for the purposes of this very unscientific and rough overview, I compared more than one list I found here and there online of the hundred greatest science fiction stories of all time.
These tales are all so famous that I include no spoiler warnings nor summations of them. I assume you’ve read them, dear reader. If not, why are you wasting time reading this?
The list is also heavily skewed toward older novels. No Military SF properly so called is included at all. This is because in order to get a hundred people at random to compile a list of a hundred favorite SF books, the older the book is, the more people have had the more chances to read and to recommend it.
Of these several lists of one hundred bests, most had no battles in them, and contained no speculation of about future combat, but of those that did, one immediate fact was obvious: the writers of scientific romances are lousy predictors of the real future. Which is as God and Nature intended, no doubt.
Writers are lousy predictors of the future because accurate prediction is not, despite what an occasional Jules Verne yarn or Analog story might predict, the point of telling a scientific romance. The point is to tell a myth using the setting and theme and moral concerns inherent in the scientific worldview. The science fiction writer is caught in a tension between two apparently opposite goals: the first goal is to use mythic archetypes and images that will appeal to the reader’s imagination, or more, which will come to life in the reader’s imagination and shed bright light on all his other ideas and ideals, as inspiration and insight. The second goal is to create an illusion of realism, a verisimilitude, by extrapolating from known technology to the tools and weapons of the unknown future or unknown other worlds, to make the unreal seem realistic.
Tales that seek the first more strongly than the second are called Soft Science Fiction, and they include Space Opera, which seeks to wow the audience with astronomical magnitudes and epic action, but also Sword-and-Planet stories as well as Sword-and-Spaceship stories, which seek to charm the audience with archaic-flavored adventures in a futuristic or extraterrestrial setting.
Tales that seek the second are called Hard Science Fiction, or Nuts-and-Bolts stories, and the less wild the extrapolation, the harder the science and the more persuasive the verisimilitude.
Of these two, only the second will make a serious attempt to think realistically about future war, but even they are obligated by the nature of their craft to emphasize those things that will be different, new, and strange about the way our children conduct war. Hence, even of the ‘Hard’ SF war stories culled from the list of hundred greatest, few or no soldier fired bullets from rifles that used gunpowder. That is too quotidian, too much like the current time of the reader, not exotic enough.
Some of the hardest science fiction is the earliest. While TWENTY THOUSAND LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA by Jules Verne was not a war story, the ironclad submersible vessel, the
Nautilus, was a warship. Anachronistically, she was armed with the same arm as a Hellenic trireme: a ramming prow. The military applications of the invention were clear: submersion was the same as invisibility, and gave Captain Nemo mastery of seven tenth of the world.
WAR OF THE WORLDS by HG Wells established the best known of science fiction tropes, namely, that of extraterrestrial invasion by a scientifically superior Martians. To this day, someone unfamiliar with science fiction regards it as a field filled with little green men shooting heat-rays. The war here is as shocking to the Englishmen as, in real life, the English invasion was to the aborigines of Australia or the Americas. The combatants are too unequal for it to be considered a war properly so called: it is merely slaughter and devastation, and the humans are gassed like rats. The invaders are eventually destroyed without any human intervention by a remorseless Darwinian principle: they are not suited by natural selection for our germ-ridden planet, germs which, by killing our ancestors, created as if by process of elimination our various resistances and immunities. The high civilization of Mars millions of years ago eliminated from their world all microbes that cause illness and morbidity, which they would no more keep around than we would keep man-eating tigers in our city streets.
A PRINCESS OF MARS by Edgar Rice Burroughs is the first of the Sword-and-Planet stories. The science fiction is much softer than that seen in Wells or Verne, but some sober scientific speculation does underpin at least some of the concepts in this yarn, such as the effect on raising children communally on the family structure. Other parts are pure flights of fancy. Here is the best example of what we might call “the rule of no gunpowder”—the Martians fight with radium-powered atomic bullets loaded in rifles with a range of over a hundred miles, but also fight with longswords, and wear no armor.
Much as I love this tale, it is admittedly juvenile. The hero, under the lighter gravity of Mars, has superhuman strength, and he is also the best swordsman of the world, who fights his way from pole to pole of a world filled with barbarians and beasts to win the heart of the fairest of woman, and a princess. He saves the entire planet from asphyxiation at the end of the first volume, overthrows the gods in the second volume, and becomes the warlord and leader of the entire globe in the third.
This tale depicts battles in the most romanticized fashion imaginable: it is like the heroic combat of Homeric heroes, but without the unblinking honesty of Homer, who described death wounds with the precision of a battlefield surgeon. I do not recall hearing a single wound described, or a funeral, or an act of mourning, in all this Martian ILIAD. Even more romanticized is the universal eagerness of the Martians for war: there is not a single monk, or even an unarmed man, on the whole planet.
THE SKYLARK OF SPACE by E.E. Doc Smith is akin to PRINCESS OF MARS in more ways than one. The combat is again utterly romanticized without the slightest reference to the pain and horror of combat. When the interplanetary ship
Skylark reaches the world of Osnome in the multiple star system at the core of our galaxy, we find the same social elements as were present on Burrough’s Mars, namely, a warrior race of nudists who have no concept of, nor appetite for, peace.
GALACTIC PATROL and its many sequels in the Lensman series by E.E. Doc Smith shares this attitude of romanticized heroism, albeit there enter for the first time some hints of the ruthlessness of an unromantic nature: the Patrolman and Boskonians kill each other without remorse and do not accept nor seek surrender, and the narrator emphasizes that in hand-to-hand combat the Gray Lensman fights with no holds barred, no ‘Marquis of Queensbury rules’ but instead it is as dirty a fight as any bar brawl.
In both SKYLARK and the Lensman series, the wars are genocidal wars of extermination, and whole worlds are snuffed out with (to a modern reader) an alarming insouciance. In the final Skylark book, SKYLARK DUQUESNE, and entire galaxy is destroyed as countless millions of sun are teleported through the fourth dimension to occupy the same three dimensional space as their target suns, igniting both into novae. The entire galaxy is a cloud of supernova energy from core to arms. E.E. Smith books portray a war of superhumans and super-scientists with superpowers.
Books like BRAVE NEW WORLD by Aldous Huxley and NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR by George Orwell do not have any battle scenes in them, but the attitude of the book toward war is nonetheless defined: the wars between Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia are utterly cynical, meant only to serve as an excuse to cow the subject population of the various tyrant states, and consume goods and people, because, or so it is asserted, each of the three tyrannies is so powerful that the other two allied against cannot possibly destroy or uproot it.
Likewise, the World State in the year After Ford 632 has no rebellions, no civil disturbances, no migrations, and nothing that would cause or permit any acts of violence.
Both these philosophies are in the ‘ruthless’ category: the only difference being that Big Brother is from a time of perfect control of man before the Utopian perfection of man through science, and the world-state of Ford is from a time after. Both philosophies of war are war are naive to the point of nonsense. Any speculative fiction writer who does not predict wars and rumors of war to continue to Doomsday is writing very speculative fiction indeed.
STARSHIP TROOPERS by Robert Heinlein is as original a way to tell a war story as was GONE WITH THE WIND, which told the story from the point of view of the Southern women left behind during the fighting. In this case, TROOPERS is told from the point of view not of a superhuman hero but of the infantryman, who neither knows the causes nor the outcome of the war. It is eerie that the cause or matter of the war is simply never mentioned, and there no hint in the book of the ultimate outcome. It is a book about patriotism, romantic only in the limited sense of praising the virtue and valor of the enlisted man, the grunt, the able seaman, the footslogger.
The ‘hard’ science fiction comes in such elements as extrapolating that technology will give a single soldier the firepower of a modern platoon, or even a regiment; the use of armored exoskeletons to make each man a walking tank; or extrapolating how to perform a paratrooper drop from orbit.
Sociologically, the book postulates a social system something like that of ancient Rome, where men earned their citizenship by military service, which is perhaps the least wild of the speculations in the book, but is the one which engenders the most criticism.
And by ‘criticism’, I mean slander and hatred from the various craven and weak-minded critiques who are stung too deeply by the book’s unapologetic message about civic responsibility. I do not think it necessary either to repeat nor to answer their unserious criticisms. The selfish brats do not like being told they are selfish. It wounds their precious self-esteem.
The war, once again, is portrayed as somewhat sanitary, albeit, unlike the purely romantic books, there is death and self-sacrifice throughout, indeed, it is the main point of the book. This book is the best SF example of what I called the noble and melancholy attitude.
THE MOON IS A HARSH MISTRESS by Robert A Heinlein retains much of the same atmosphere, but in this case it is retelling of the American Revolution in Space. The attitude is inching, however, toward the ruthlessness with find the ends justifying the means. The hardest SF speculation in the book is the use of nonexplosive payloads, that is, merely rocks, dropped from orbit onto targets, landing with the force of meteors.
THE FOREVER WAR by Joe Haldeman is more clearly in the ruthless territory, since the main point of the book is that relativistic effects will act like the sleep of Rip Van Winkle whenever the soldiers return from cruise to and increasingly older and stranger Earth. The sacrifice of the men is something imposed by the exigencies of war, which ultimately turns out to be a pointless war. Mr Haldeman displays something of the anti-war attitude that was fashionable during the Vietnam war, where, for some reason never clear to me, the American string of uninterrupted victories convinced the American public that the weak, cruel and vile communist enemy was undefeatable, or, at least, undefeatable at a reasonable loss of blood and treasure. So, depending on how much of that spirit the reader sees in FOREVER WAR, one might arguable put this in the idealist territory.
More clearly in the idealist territory is Mr Haldeman’s FOREVER PEACE, which contained perhaps the least believable resolution to a war tale I have ever read. The book itself is very well crafted—I mean no disrespect—but the philosophical speculation on which the final plot resolution hangs was poorly conceived. The speculative idea is that in the future soldiers will be linked nerve-to-wire into fighting groups that operate war machines by remote control, and that a side effect on the psychology of the soldiers is that, if exposed to this nerve-link for too long, they will develop so much empathy that war and violence will be impossible. As if all violence were merely caused by mere misunderstanding, and none by fear, greed, ambition, or honor. Obviously no one has performed the experiment and discovered this, but, seriously, most hatred between peoples in this world is between neighbors who understand each other very well indeed.
LORD OF LIGHT by Roger Zelazny and DUNE by Frank Herbert occupy the same territory as PRINCESS OF MARS, except these authors come up with a reason why the soldiers of the future on far worlds do not use pistols and rifles, but instead have psychic powers, swords and knives, tridents, spears, lasguns and lightningbolts. The warfare here, despite the archaic or mythic flavor of the weapons, are occasions of death and sorrow.
In case it is not clear, the reason why the sword is the preferred weapon of the Galactic Empire, is that the easiest way for an author to summon up images of grandeur, either godlike or Oriental or barbaric, or images of chivalry, is to hearken to the past, and a sense of things both half-familiar and hauntingly romantic is most easily achieved by such archaisms.
That Paul Atreides is a prince as well as a Messiah, and that Sam is a god, give them a mythic stature that Juan Rico, Manuel Garcia O’Kelly-Davis, and William Mandella, do not achieve. But the trade-off is that Rico and Mannie and Mandella are more human, more solid, and they bleed when you cut them.
ENDER’S GAME by Orson Scott Card is a tale which is only about the sorrows of war, where even the victors suffer from the sacrifices they make. It has spawned as many sequels as PRINCESS OF MARS and GALACTIC PATROL, but in theme is the opposite. The original short story retains a considerable power to move the heart. It is the only book on the list I can put in the ‘hopeful’ category, because its realism about the horror of war is absolute, but also its hope in salvation even of souls bent, broken, and ruined by war is absolute. It is not a pessimistic nor despairing book. The only other book I can think of which has this attitude toward war is not a science fiction book at all, but a fantasy, indeed, the fantasy: I see the same attitude in J.R.R. Tolkien’s trilogy.
As for books in the despairing category, stories that say that there nothing is worth fighting for, I tend not to read such things, but authors such as Kurt Vonnegut come to mind, and this categories is more popular these days that it had been in times past. | 21,484 | 9,372 | 0.000108 |
warc | 201704 | Researchers have hijacked sperm cells to create spermbots that can be remotely controlled through magnetic fields, to go to the desired location.
Hijacking sperm cells to create little robots might seem far out, but that's exactly what researchers from the Dresden Institute for Integrative Nanosciences have done. Their "spermbots" consist of live sperm cells in little tubes, that can be magnetically controlled to move in a desired direction until they reach their destination and do their job – they're currently robust enough to even guide a specific sperm cell to an egg cell. The scientists hope that further development will allow the technology to offer a viable alternative to parents trying to have a child through in-vitro fertilization. When perfected, the spermbots could also be used as a safe means for drug delivery and gene manipulation.
One of the major challenges in creating micro robots that can potentially travel within the human body is the issue of a safe fuel source. Nanobots with engines efficient enough to propel themselves through bodily fluids need to carry fuel that's often toxic to the human body, and sometimes these machines can pass through into the cells and affect their functioning. To overcome these problems, the Dresden team began looking at safer alternatives to artificial nano engines.
"We thought of using a powerful biological motor to do the job instead and we came up with the flagella of a sperm cell, which is physiologically less problematic," Professor Oliver G. Schmidt, the Institute's Director, tells Gizmag. "The idea came to us five years ago when I noticed that sperm cells are of similar size to microtubes we can fabricate."
To create biorobots out of sperm cells, the researchers began working with bovine (bull) sperm cells – which are similar in size to human sperm cells. The first step was to create thin conical magnetic tubes capable of trapping sperm cells out of a titanium and iron film. The microtubes are rolled up in a way that makes one end larger than the other, with a diameter that's slightly larger than that of a bull sperm head.
Via Jeff Morris | 2,151 | 1,097 | 0.000921 |
warc | 201704 | Story
“..for He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6
I grew up with childhood depression. I cannot remember a time when I was not depressed. Sure I had fun like other people, but underneath was a darkness that I didn’t know how to navigate. You see, I was molested at the age of five. It happened again when I was seven. Both of my abusers were male.
As a child, I did not consider myself abused. That understanding came later. I was processing all of it with a child’s intellect and had no ability to discern what was going on. As far as I knew, I was asked to engage in something and was choosing to partake in it. It’s amazing how powerful that lie was. Something was being done to me and I thought I was a willing participant. I had no idea what I was being led into.
It must be told that sexual stimulation—even for a child, is exciting and pleasurable. But in the truest sense of the word, it “perverted” my natural development. A child is never meant to navigate through the stimulus of sex.
An emotional undercurrent stirred inside me. It was a palpable darkness. I believe this is how confusion came over me; a confusion that led me to places very far from God.
I understood that men were attracted to women and women were attracted to men. As I took stock of what was going on inside me, I concluded that I must be a girl. The events of my childhood emasculated me so my behavior started to mirror my inner thoughts. I started to behave like a girl. Throughout my childhood, I was even mistaken for a girl.
Many people spoke words that stung, slinging insults at me with great ease. It was not easy to hear them, however. I had no idea how to navigate around them. I found myself getting angry and then I internalized the anger. I found that food could soothe the poisonous tide inside my soul.
With my expanding girth came increased softness, and the insults only got worse.
Faggot. Homo. Queer. Sissy. You’re going to go to hell. They shattered my heart. I figured if they saw me smiling, they would know that they weren’t getting to me. Just behind the smile was a boy ready to break.
I had grown up with a religious background. I heard that God loved me. But somewhere along the line, I had heard that “God hated fags.” When I was about 18, I assumed that’s what I was and that’s what God thought of me.
When I was in the gay lifestyle, it was common for my friends to jump into sexual relationships and then try to build emotional relationships out of them. They rarely worked. I always wanted to have a friendship first then build a relationship, but that never happened. My friends would say, “It doesn’t work that way.” They would encourage me to hook up.
My idea of a relationship was not found in the gay lifestyle and although I didn’t know it, the words of God that I heard earlier in my life were actually at work. I knew He wanted something very different for my life.
I found myself rejecting the homosexual life, but never told anyone. Out of convenience, I stayed in the culture. I couldn’t fathom being rejected from one more group of people. Even so, I struggled with the darkness that was inside of me and still kept smiling through my depression.
To kill the pain, I turned to crystal meth. It was as if I had finally found what I was looking for—something to make me feel happy and optimistic. The darkness had been replaced with light¬, or so I thought.
One day, I was doing some meth, but I couldn’t get high. I did more, but once again...nothing. I did all I had…nothing.
I went about my day and all that was stuck in my nasal cavity dropped into my nose and made its way into my system. Suddenly, my heart began to beat violently. I tried to ignore it.
Later that day while working on my friend’s backyard, my heart was pounding nearly out of my chest. I was terrified—death seemed to be coming over me like a quickly moving shadow. I started to panic and told my friends. They chalked it up to having a bad trip and ignored me.
I felt as if I was at the edge of the abyss about to fall from this world into something unknown. My life flashed before my eyes.
I remembered all that I had done wrong. I had become aware of how off-course my life was. I did not want to go into this unknown world with so much sin...those burdens, deeds, impulses. Something within me wanted to pray.
I hurried over to my mother’s home and told her what I had done. She saw the seriousness of my condition and, by what I know now to be a directive by the Holy Spirit, she grabbed her Bible and began searching.
By this time, I was very weak and my voice was very soft. She fumbled around the scriptures and came upon Psalm 119. She read and I repeated. “Blessed are those whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the law of the LORD. Blessed are those who keep His statutes and seek Him with all their heart…”
Something came over me. What happened next can only be described this way:
Imagine a light bulb is giving off heat, and depending how close or how far your hand is to that bulb, that is how much heat you feel—the closer, the more heat. The further, the less heat. In the same way I felt “something” drawing closer to me: it was the Holy Spirit. As it drew closer my voice went from a labored whisper to full throated and confident. I continued to repeat what my mother was reading while God filled the room with His presence. Then He touched my heart with the knowledge that He was real and interceding in my life.
I burst into tears of joy. God had shown me that He was real.
At that time, I was on fire for the Lord. I wish I could say that my sexual confusion had left me. It didn’t. But now I knew I had His Spirit guiding me.
I began reading my Bible and going to church. I attended for about 18 months, but I fell away because the churches I attended still couldn’t help themselves from making judgments about me. Harsh words had not just been a component of my past, but had shaped the perception I had of myself. I had to come out of that even if it meant running away from the church. It turned out that church was just as unsafe as a crowded high school hallway. It was no different than the world.
Looking for truth, I began to read everything I could get my hands on—anything that even hinted at having answers to my sexuality. Psychology, comparative studies on religion, philosophy, mysticism, witchcraft, biology, prophecies, new-age reading, self-help. You name it, I have read it.
This went on for 17 years.
I believe God allowed this time in my life to train me to discern truth, because bit by bit, every word I read started to feel increasingly hollow, especially in contrast to the Word of God. God’s Word was alive. Everything else was desperate men grasping at the light.
On Sept 11, 2001, the Lord spoke to my heart. “Now is the time to understand what I have said.”
With this, God delivered to me a miracle, it was just what I needed—like an ointment to tend to the thousands of wounds sustained over a lifetime. It came in the form of the Agape Ministry, the Rock Ministry that reaches out to people who struggle through same-sex attraction. They did for me what other churches couldn’t or were simply unprepared to do—reach out with truly forgiving arms. The Agape Ministry made it acceptable for me to be transparent about my sin and shame. I could voice all of my struggles and fears and confusions.
On some days, I could not believe the progress I was making—I was experiencing freedom. I was actually speaking the emotions I had buried for so long. Everything that was hidden and tucked away in shame was now coming out. It felt like love. I came to find out, that’s exactly what it was. I started to feel boldness about the person I was growing to be. And who I was, who I am, is a child of God; loved, accepted and forgiven.
That is where I am today. Now, here’s the part of my story most Christians would rather I did not include. But I will speak it because it is the truth: I still struggle.
I lay myself at the Lord’s feet daily. There are days that I fail. But He is faithful.
He has cleansed my heart of many things that plagued me in my younger years, but the process is not over. I know I will continue to fail Him, but God and His love and His forgiveness are my inheritance.
I have come to trust Him with my life. I have no choice.
Top Stories So You're Doing A Liquid Fast? (+ more Daniel Fast ideas) Fasting Sugar and Processed Foods? Answering the Call An Unexpected Christmas Blessing Going the Distance Toys for Joy Celebration 2016 An Eternal Makeover A Follow Up: The Left, Right, and Great Divide It's More Than A Toy Light in the Darkness | 8,958 | 4,199 | 0.000245 |
warc | 201704 | In 2013, the SEC brought fewer enforcement actions involving financial fraud and issuer disclosure — 68 — than during any year in the previous decade. Even including Foreign Corrupt Practices Act cases, the number was still a record-low 73, compared to 94 cases brought the previous year and far down from the high-water mark of 219 in 2007. But recent developments suggest that the downward trend will turn, perhaps dramatically, in 2014.
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warc | 201704 | Does the Cloud work for everyone? Does everyone need to use the Cloud? Of course, there are a number of questions that beg answers. There is a lot of hype around the Cloud. If you remove the fluff, it is obvious that the Cloud is no longer an item in the list of ‘fashionables” or “possibles”. It is inevitable. If your business is growing, expanding or already online, you are going to need the Cloud. So, hold on to the idea that the Cloud is a “need” a “necessity”, and not a luxury to be indulged in when you can afford it. Forget the hype!
The simplicity of the Cloud is its attraction. Cloud accounts are easy to set up and use. Wizards and set up tools are used to make the task of setting up and using the Cloud account a breeze. Any complexity perceived in the Cloud is a result of the improper configuration of databases and applications by user organizations and individuals.
The Cloud works for everyone. Everyone, who has an Internet connection, has used the Cloud sometime. The concept is neither new nor complex. Children who play online games, individuals who share pictures with friends or access their email, businesses that use online office suites or databases, programmers who use hire space on remote servers for application development are all using the Cloud in myriad ways. The Cloud is very familiar.
Business and data growth creates Cloud adoption imperatives. Use of mobile phones, digital cameras and other devices of a similar kind have generated huge volumes of data that individuals and organizations would like to store and retrieve for a variety of purposes. Disaster recovery is almost automated. This creates Cloud imperatives and makes the Cloud inevitable.
The Cloud facilitates flexible capacity planning. It is scalable on demand and users can scale up or scale down storage space as the volume of data in their possession increases or decreases or workloads peak or wane. The Cloud is highly available. Data is replicated and mirrored on to multiple servers and failover systems are in place, so that users never feel any outages that may occur on the primary server. The Cloud is accessible from anywhere, anytime. Mobile users can access business accounts or individual accounts from wherever they are using a simple browser interface and modem. The inevitability is further underscored.
Finally, the Cloud is economical and hence inevitable. It drives down costs and increases the speed of delivery. Cloud solutions reduce the burden of IT Administration and staffing issues. Legacy models can be transformed, on demand services can be built up and service portfolios can be managed innovatively and agilely. | 2,699 | 1,317 | 0.000773 |
warc | 201704 | Pitchers like C.J. Wilson finding a new way to win battle with hitters
What if a consequence of speeding up the game is that it takes even more offense out of it? In the case of the Los Angeles Angels' C.J. Wilson—and his mental skills coach, Fran Pirozzolo, a licensed consulting psychologist—that consequence is fully intended. With the help of Pirozzolo, Wilson decided over the winter to cut the amount of time between his pitches, a tactic not only encouraged by baseball’s new pace of play rules but also one that may yield statistical evidence as yet another way of suppressing offense.
In his first start of the season, the new and faster version of Wilson, who previously was known as a notorious nibbler and slow worker, did something he never did in 171 previous career starts: He threw eight innings with fewer than 100 pitches (96). The Angels beat Seattle, 2–0, in two hours, 13 minutes—the second shortest start by time in Wilson’s career.
Wilson’s second start, a 9–2 loss to Kansas City, was less successful, as he allowed six earned runs in 5 2/3 innings. But in both starts, Wilson sent a message: He is going to attack hitters, not just with his stuff but also in dictating a faster pace to the game.
"We talked about what a lot of the best pitchers do,” Pirozzolo said. “We worked on just trying to get him to trust his plan and more quickly attack with that attitude. Taking an extra beat or two invites intrusion of thought—the ‘what if?’ ‘What if the hitter is thinking this?’ ‘What if I miss with this pitch?’ That cognitive intrusion is what we wanted to eliminate. If you study something long enough, you’re going to have cognitive intrusion: ‘If I do this, than this could happen…’”
Pirozzolo has worked with Wilson for most of the lefthander’s 11-year career, first as the mental skills coach for Texas. When some Rangers officials were hesitant about converting Wilson from the bullpen to the rotation in 2010, Pirozzolo was one of the staff members arguing that Wilson would flourish in the role because of his analytical mind. Wilson won 15 games in his first season as a starter and 16 the next year.
Pirozzolo previously worked for NASA, the Houston Astros, Detroit Tigers and the championship New York Yankees teams managed by Joe Torre. Last week, he attended the Masters, where several of his golf clients participated. Pirozzolo has worked with Jason Dufner, Billy Horschel and Hunter Mahan, among others, and was chosen as one of the 10 best golf psychologists in a 2013
Golf Digest survey of players from the PGA, LPGA and Champions tours.
Last January, Pirozzolo visited Wilson in California for three days. Pirozzolo knows that Wilson is a natural contrarian who questions everything and prefers doing his own research.
"You can’t tell him what to do,” Pirozzolo said. “It just won’t work. He has an active mind to begin with, and when you have the cognitive intrusion on the mound that can lead to the ‘what if’ problem.”
Over the course of a few days, Pirozzolo gently guided Wilson toward self-examination of his pitching habits. Wilson was coming off a career-worst season as a starter in terms of ERA (4.51) and throwing strikes (58.8%, the worst in the American League). He threw a pitch, on average, every 22 seconds, which actually represented a slight improvement on his glacial 23.2 average in 2013. Translation: Wilson had become a classic nibbler.
While Pirozzolo worked with Wilson on his mental approach, Major League Baseball was preparing rules and procedures to speed up the pace of the game, including a rule for hitters to keep one foot in the batter’s box. Boston designated hitter David Ortiz was the first to suggest such a rule worked in favor of the pitcher, saying, “When you force a hitter to do that, 70 percent [chance you make an] out, because you don’t have time to think. And the only time you have to think about things is that time. I don’t know how this is going to end up.”
You have heard for years that when a pitcher works fast he puts the hitter on the defensive and his fielders in a better state of readiness. But is that really true?
Let’s examine what happened to the hares and the tortoises of pitching last season. The average hurler took 23.0 seconds between pitches last year. Among the 87 qualified starters, let’s consider only the 30 pitchers on the extremes: the 15 who worked the fastest, starting with Mark Buehrle (17.3), R. A. Dickey (18.3) and Doug Fister (18.5), and the 15 who worked the slowest, starting with David Price (26.6), Jorge De La Rosa (26.0) and Clay Buchholz (25.6). Here’s how they did:
category W-L Pct. ERA K/9 BABIP Fast Workers 182-149 .550 3.38 7.05 .296 Slow Workers 184-136 .575 3.51 7.83 .301
This little test confirms some intuitive truths:
1) Strikeouts slow down the game; the slow workers were the better strikeout pitchers.
2) Working fast is more efficient, especially when it comes to the defense behind you; the fast workers posted a lower ERA and pitched to a lower batting average on balls in play.
Buehrle is the extreme outlier. He won his 200th game last week—even though his average fastball never has been better than 87.1 miles per hour and this year is down to 83.3. How does he do it? He is the ultimate example of Pirozzolo’s philosophy of eliminating cognitive intrusion. Buehrle doesn’t study hitters, doesn’t attend pregame “game plan” meetings and has not shaken off a sign from a catcher—any catcher—in at least a decade. Moreover, though he has a great pickoff move and is almost impossible to run against, Buehrle never throws to a base on his own; all of his pickoff attempts are called from the bench. Buehrle puts the entire game in the hands of the catcher and manager and simply follows along. There is never a single moment of “what if?”
The effect of this rapid-fire strategy is to disrupt the hitter’s timing in every sense. In his first start this season, last Friday in Baltimore, Buehrle averaged just 15.6 seconds between pitches—ridiculously fast even for him. He allowed just two runs over six innings in a 12–5 win against the Orioles.
Wilson is not exactly Buehrle—nobody is—but the Angels' starter is beginning to see the power of pace. He has cut his average time between pitches by three full seconds from two years ago, from 23.2 seconds to 20.2 seconds this year, a career low.
Wilson is far from alone in picking up the pace. The overall average time between pitches has dropped from 23.0 seconds to 22.2 seconds—cutting 3 1/2 minutes off the average time of game right there. Starting pitchers have cut their average time between pitches from 22.3 seconds to 21.5 seconds. The number of qualified starters using less than 20 seconds between pitches has jumped from nine last year to 19 this year (though as with all statistics this early in the year, beware the small sample size and hold off on your conclusions).
This much is true: pitchers are working faster, and so far, they are sucking more offense out of the game. Compared to last April, the leading offensive indicators are down slightly, including batting average (.242 from .249), OPS (.693 from .706) and runs per team per game (4.20 from 4.21). Let’s see how the rest of the season plays out. But for now, in addition to increased velocity, increased use of the cutter, a lower strike zone, defensive shifts and more specialized relief pitching, pitchers may have found yet another weapon in winning the war on offense: work faster. | 7,767 | 3,712 | 0.00028 |
warc | 201704 | November 27, 2011
How much time do you spend online?
According to a time use survey compiled by ComScore Media Metric, the average American spends 33.9 hours on the Internet every week. Depending on age and other demographics, this number can double! And for those lucky individuals whose occupations rely primarily on computers: the Internet commands their lives and they are never not connected.
Computers have drastically changed the technological landscape. The Internet has facilitated efficiency in a number of offline processes. We use the web to communicate with our family, friends and business acquaintances in real-time chats. Books and other multimedia are available for online viewing and instant download. We can even shop for gifts online – often offered at a deeper discount than in brick-and-mortar stores! The Internet has revolutionized the way that we live, as we now spend one-sixth of our lives in the digital world.
Where are We Actually Spending Our Time Online?
Google has compiled a list of the 100 most-visited websites in the United States. (Being the modest company that they are, Google has chosen to omit their website and statistics from the study.) These 100 websites are sorted into six categories: social networking, search engines, shopping, entertainment, business and software.
The Internet can deliver information instantaneously, so naturally search engines and other information-related websites comprise the most popular category – sites ranging from web portals, such as Yahoo! and Bing, to encyclopedias and other how-to pages, such as Wikipedia and eHow. Closely tailing search engines are online shopping and other e-commerce websites – pages such as Amazon, eBay and Walmart – followed, in descending order, by the categories Entertainment, Social Networking, Business and Software.
Social networks are defined as any and all websites that are personal communities, professional networks, blogs, dating communities, deal of the day websites and other content sharing sites. It is significant that social media occupy the fourth largest category, as these websites have only gained popularity within the past few years. In fact, two of the top three websites in America are “social” sites. The number one site, Facebook, is the largest social network in the world with over 800 million loyal users. YouTube trails behind this social giant as the second most popular social network, and the third most popular website in the US.
Which Social Sites are Americans Frequenting the Most?
Americans have become fully absorbed in the social networking infrastructure. According to Nielsen, social media has engrossed 22% of our total time online. The chart, “Total Reach of Social Networks,” reveals the percentage of Americans that are logged-into the 15 most- popular networks in the country. The most popular social network is Facebook, with a total national reach of over 67%. Close in proximity is YouTube, with 54.7% of the population viewing, sharing and commenting on videos posted by others around the globe. Other social networks are used by less than half of the population – networks such as Twitter and LinkedIn, and blogging websites such as Blogspot and WordPress.
Another sub-category of social networks has made it to the top 100. Within the past year, the deal-of-the-day industry has flourished. There are dozens of competing websites, but the two that have thus far generated the bulk of the traffic and seized the largest marketing share are Living Social and Groupon. Consumers flock to these websites for the great discounts on a variety of products, services and activities. Only 5% of the United States population is connected to these sites. However, in another year it is predicted that the reach of these sites will more than double as the popularity of these sites is accelerating at an enthusiastic rate.
Which Americans are on Social Networks?
Of the 310 million individuals in the United States, at least 210 million are actively participating in social networks. Who are these individuals? According to Google, the majority of users are women. Females are more active participants in social media than their counterparts. Women are especially more active on deal of the day social networks – where users typically register in order to receive coupons. In fact, the only social network where men have the greater presence is LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network. This may be correlated to the fact that men hold higher-level positions in the US workforce than women. Currently out of the running Fortune 500 companies, there are only 16 female CEOs (as told by USA Today). Even more shocking is that this is the greatest number of women
that have ever held this position at the same time.
In regards to age, the correlation shows that younger individuals prefer more active social networks, whereas older individuals prefer networks where there is an emphasis on content retrieval. Senior citizens are most active on deal of the day sites, which provide coupons and other group discounts for those that choose to lead active lifestyles. On the other hand, the media of choice for younger generations appear to be networks where regular, active participation is encouraged. Teenagers and kids flock to social sharing sites such as YouTube and Photobucket, an image hosting website. For young adults, blogs and other weblog sites that facilitate comments and sharing are most popular. Overall, the group that has the largest presence on social media is adults. The majority of the users of the 15 most-visited social sites are between the ages of 35 and 54 years of age.
Exhibit 4: Social Media Usage by Age in the US, according to Google Ad Planner How Important are Demographics?
The Internet and technologies that make the Internet more accessible for us have been strongly embedded into modern culture. Laptops, smart phones, tablets and mp3 players with Internet access are consumed by all age groups. Internet users flee to the web not just for information, but also to shop, communicate and consume multimedia. The increase in Internet consumption has led us to spend more time in the digital world and less time in the real world – one-sixth less time to be exact.
The media patterns of target audiences are changing. Marketers need to redevelop their marketing strategies in order to better influence target audiences and stimulate them to consume. The most successful advertisers are those that are able to reach their audiences through multiple channels. In modern America, this requires integrating an online marketing strategy.
Using the demographics of our ideal buyer persona, we can learn which websites our target audiences are frequenting. These trending websites will prove to be the best online locations to advertise to these individuals. If the ideal buyer is a 35 year old soccer mom, then research shows that it would be useful to advertise on deal of the day websites that women in this age group tend to frequent. Alternatively, if our ideal candidate is a business executive that works long hours for a prestigious law firm, LinkedIn advertisements would be the indisputable way to go.
All in all, social media shows us that demographics matter. Using factors such as age, gender and nationality we can determine an online marketing strategy that will lead to effective advertising results. More targeted marketing leads to increased sales and a healthier business.
Sources
“Average Time Spent Online per U.S. Visitor in 2010.” The ComScore Data Mine. 13 Jan. 2011. Web. 08 Nov. 2011.
“Led by Facebook, Twitter, Global Time Spent on Social Media Sites up 82% Year over Year.” Web log post. Nielsen Wire. The Nielsen Company, 22 Jan. 2011. Web. 09 Nov. 2011.
Petrecca, Laura. “Women ‘Fortune’ 500 CEOs Hits Record” USATODAY.com. USA Today. A Gannett Company, 26 Oct. 2011. Web. 14 Nov. 2011.
“Social Networks/Blogs Now Account for One in Every Four and a Half Minutes Online.” Web log post. Nielsen Wire. The Nielsen Company, 15 Jan. 2010. Web. 09 Nov. 2011.
“The 100 Most-visited Sites: United States.” Doubleclick Ad Planner. Google, Jan. 2011. Web. 03 Nov. 2011.
“US & World Population Clock.” Census Bureau Home Page. U.S. Census Bureau, 31 Oct. 2011. Web. 09 Nov. 2011.
Article by Caitlin Rambo. For more information about Modern Mail, please visit our website at: www.modernmail.com.
Caitlin Rambo currently works as Marketing Assistant for Modern Mail. For more information about this article, or for other articles by her, please visit her company’s website at: www.modernmail.com. | 8,763 | 3,866 | 0.000264 |
warc | 201704 | TRUST WITHIN A TEAMTrust within a team is fundamental – without trust, team members lack the confidence to open up and to speak with candor.
When team members hide information and don’t speak up 100 per cent with the truth because they don’t feel comfortable doing so, not all the available information is on the table to take the best possible decisions – information is the main ingredient in strategic decision-making.
A leader can build trust by being authentic – authenticity is the result of having integrity, being humble, and being vulnerable.
Integrity – Are you one in thought, word and action within the team you lead? Do you invest your time in what you say it is important?
Humility – Do you openly admit it when you make a mistake, even if you find it difficult to do so? Do your direct reports know your weaknesses, and areas of opportunity?
Vulnerability – Do you honestly admit your limitations and your errors, and as a result of this, do all the members of the team you lead honestly admit their limitations and errors within the team? Do you identify and discuss with the team you lead your strengths and your weaknesses, and as a result of this, do all of your direct reports identify and discuss their strengths and their weaknesses within the team you lead?
Trust, integrity, humility, and vulnerability are not touchy-feely let’s hug each other kind of stuff. Rather, they are critical leadership skills that have a direct impact on the bottom line.
Comments? Ideas? Feedback? I’d love to here from you – just reply to this e-zine and tell me what you would like future e-zines to be about – I'm listening.
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warc | 201704 | So, you’ve decided to implement a Data Loss Prevention solution for your business, but you have no idea how it works. We can fix that.
First, we need to identify the three major categories of data for you:
1
. Data in Motion: Any data that is moving throughout the network (especially from inside the network to outside the network via the internet)
2.
Data at Rest: Data that is stored on file servers, databases, backup drives, mail servers, etc.
3.
Data at the Endpoint: Data that resides on end-user devices such as workstations, laptops, tablets, Smartphones, external drives and other mobile devices. It's important for you to understand… A good Data Loss Prevention solution will provide monitoring and protection for all three of these categories of data.
First, the solution must be able to monitor the network to ensure that “Data in Motion” is protected against unauthorized transfers. Examples include employees emailing sensitive files to themselves using public webmail services like Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, etc.
Second, the solution should be able to monitor all file storage locations (“Data at Rest”), and ensure users aren’t manipulating that data in a way that violates the Data Loss Prevention policy. As an example, preventing employees from copying data from a file share to a USB drive.
Finally, the solution should have an “agent” component that can be installed on end user devices, such as workstations and laptops to ensure that policies aren’t violated, even when those devices are outside of the corporate network.
Click here to read parts 1,2 and 4 of this series
Steps for a Successful Data Loss Prevention Plan Implementation What is Data Loss Prevention? Choosing a Data Loss Prevention Solution. | 1,788 | 890 | 0.001165 |
warc | 201704 | Cone snail venom contains some 1,000 peptides that have potentially useful medicinal properties, and for decades, scientists have been uncovering possible applications for the compounds. Venom from the magician cone snail led to Prialt, the first commercial therapy derived from cone snails. Approved by the FDA in 2004, Prialt is a pain reliever 1,000 times more potent than morphine, yet lacking the addictive properties. It's possible the venom from other snails could be used to treat epilepsy, stroke, depression and more. | 529 | 332 | 0.003023 |
warc | 201704 | There's more to the PM's stance on immigration than meets the eye, writes Ross Gittins.
What a tricky chap is Honest John Howard. If you doubt that, try yourself on this test: would you say he is a supporter or an opponent of high levels of immigration? If you think he's an opponent - congratulations. Your ability to pick up a subtle message through body language and undertones is first-rate.
Though he's never actually said as much, that's exactly what he wants people to think.
If you think he's a supporter of high immigration, however, you've hit the truth. The media haven't noticed, but if you look at the figures they shriek it.
Then again, if you conclude from this that he's working a great con on his anti-immigration supporters - well, that's not at all clear. As I say, getting a handle on Howard is tricky.
A major part of Howard's political success arises from the great swag of working-class voters he's managed to lure away from Labor. Many of these people have been persuaded that, like them, he has his doubts about immigration - particularly (though he could never say so out loud) Asian immigration.
They think he shares their unwillingness to welcome to this country people with strange headwear and strange religions.
How has he managed to convey this impression? By his reluctance to dissociate himself from Pauline Hanson and the things she was saying. By the super-tough line his Government has taken towards the detention of asylum seekers/illegal entrants.
By the way he swung into action to prevent the Tampa's boatload of Iraqis and Afghans even setting foot on our soil. And by the way he made the centrepiece of his last election campaign triumph his defiant declaration that "
We decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come."
Well, yes, we do. Always have, in fact. So just what have we been deciding lately?
Bureau of Statistics figures show that, far from falling, net migration has been on an upward trend since the Howard Government's first year in office, 1996-97.
In 2000-01 it reached a peak of 136,000 - its highest level in 12 years. The following financial year (the last for which we have figures), it stayed high at 134,000.
The net inflow of migrants in those two years was so great that, for the first time in yonks, immigration contributed more to the growth in the population than natural increase did.
And this may be a foretaste of things to come. Almost to a person, the business community believes in high immigration. As our birthrate declines and our rate of population growth slows, business wants us to make up the gap with immigrants.
The Business Council is in Howard's ear urging an intake of 150,000 to 170,000 a year.
It's important to understand that the big increase in recent times has come not so much from the Government's permanent settler program (though it too has been growing), but from rapid expansion in net long-term arrivals.
In 2000-01, the Government granted visas to 80,600 settlers under its migration program, plus 13,800 visas under its humanitarian program.
From fairly low and steady levels until 1991, net long-term arrivals shot up to 56,000 in 1999-2000, then 75,000 and then 93,000 in 2001-02. And in these years, for the first time, net long-term arrivals exceeded net settlers.
This is globalisation in action. We still have permanent migration, but we now have a lot more people shifting to other countries for extended periods of work or study.
In Australia, the faces of the people in this pool of long-term visitors change, but the size of the pool is growing rapidly. (And who knows how many people will end up leaving the pool not by going home, but by seeking permanent residence and then citizenship.)
Putting the permanent and long-term net arrivals together, what can we say about where they're coming from?
Guess what? There isn't a predominance of white faces. In 2001-02, a third of people came from North-East Asia (particularly China and Hong Kong), 17 per cent came from South-East Asia (particularly Malaysia and Indonesia), 8 per cent from South Asia (particularly India) and 5 per cent from the Middle East (particularly Lebanon and Turkey). That's the best part of two-thirds.
So, does this mean Howard's been quietly delivering the strong immigration his big business supporters are demanding, while quietly thumbing his nose at his working-class supporters?
That depends on exactly what it is they don't like about "Asian" immigration. It could be simple xenophobia - a fear of foreigners with their strange dress and unfamiliar practices - or it could be out-and-out racism.
Or it could be a fear which got lodged in the Australian worker's mind well over a century ago and which explains why, historically, Labor was the most ardent defender of the White Australia Policy.
It could be that what workers fear most about boat people and Asian immigrants generally is that they'll undercut their wages and take their jobs. Something a Labor type told me about the way unionised factory workers were cheering Howard on during the Tampa affair makes me think there's a lot in this.
If so, Howard's in the clear. Why? Because of the way he's transformed the immigration program to favour small-business people with capital and employees with high skills and good English, over family reunion.
Of those in the workforce (who stated their occupation) among settler arrivals in 2001-02, 13 per cent were managers, 48 per cent were professionals and 19 per cent were para-professionals or had trades. These people aren't going to take the workers' jobs; they're going to offer them jobs.
Of the long-term visitor arrivals, fewer than 40 per cent were in the workforce because most were full-time students. But, among the workers, 28 per cent were managers and 45 per cent were professionals.
So, where does that leave Honest John - scheming politician or skilful leader?
Well, as he himself would say, I leave that for others to judge.
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warc | 201704 | PowerPoint rules university's self-paced training
Next
A grassroots lecturer-led movement is organically growing the University of Tasmania's digital resources, without pricey investments in new e-learning technology.
Macromedia Flash, ASP web-databases and web-CT e-learning platforms have all been considered - yet, for ease of use, the clear winner was Microsoft PowerPoint.
But how effective is PowerPoint for creating self-paced training rather than instructor-led presentations?
To find out, Dr Simon James, a lecturer at the university's faculty of science, engineering and technology, and colleague Anna McEldowney encouraged 31 staff at eight schools to create 35 CD-based multimedia resources across 32 units. These were distributed to 1200 students.
Thanks to a few simple tweaks governing PowerPoint's behaviour, the effort has been worthwhile. The idea has jumped from the science faculty over to medicine, mutating as it goes.
"It's really good for case-based learning," James says, "which is the mode a lot of medical schools are shifting to. You can't truck 120 medical students through a small field laboratory at the Royal Hobart Hospital."
In a survey asking students for their unguided opinion on PowerPoint's effectiveness as a self-paced training platform, a large number volunteered it was very easy to use. But, given the program's labyrinth of menus, viewing options and slide selection mechanisms, how could this be?
The trick is to switch the finished work over to PowerPoint 2000's "kiosk mode". This is done by selecting the Slide Show/Set Up menu item and checking the "Browsed at a kiosk (full screen)" box. This removes the complexity of PowerPoint's menus and built-in navigation.
Then the file is saved and locked for editing, by changing the .ppt file extension to .pps. The result opens up directly to a full-screen slideshow, while blocking edit mode.
Ye olde "six points to a slide or you'll lose 'em" and other venerable PowerPoint presentation tips are out the window.
"PowerPoint slides often have a linear aspect to them," James says, "but from an educational validity point of view, you need students to move through in a structured way. You can make multiple-choice questions using hyperlinks. If they choose the wrong one, they get thrown back to the relevant section. If they choose the right one, they can go on."
Another advantage of PowerPoint has to do with the Copyright Act, which sometimes requires registration of online resources. However, by distributing self-contained PowerPoint files on CD-ROM, large new video clips can be included, while portions of other works can be freely distributed under fair-use educational reproduction rules.
And PowerPoint slides don't need a network, database or web server to work.
But what is driving the adoption of PowerPoint for self-paced training is lecturer ease of use. Unlike many dedicated e-learning tools, James says, PowerPoint answers the core issue holding back flexible learning - a chronic shortage of lecturer time and expertise to create new digital works.
"The Learning Federation is doing fantastic work with Flash but a teacher on the ground can't change it. Because with PowerPoint (lecturers) can drop pictures in and change text, they can update it themselves. So the resource lives, because it can be changed by the lecturer who cares, not a big multimedia process."
So James is prepared to sacrifice all of e-learning's bells and whistles, including learning object reuse and standards compliance, to engage time-strapped lecturers in a meaningful way.
To promote the idea, short workshops are held for lecturers, improving their PowerPoint skills. James has also built a service surround, providing self-paced templates plus a business model, which cuts lecturer time required to create digital works by two-thirds.
"When you look at the chalkface, lecturers participate quite well - except they are too busy," James says. "But you can quite easily train up a postgraduate, paying them out of the slush fund to digitally photograph field trips. So you shed some of the development cost to someone who's good with PowerPoint, making it a lot more likely to happen."
Comments in a survey of lecturers indicate this kind of assistance is a crucial factor for digital success. But not everyone was entirely satisfied.
"It's an additional resource, which does not remove the need for other delivery methods," one lecturer commented. "It does not replace a poorer delivery method with a better one - there's no relief on teaching time.
"But when teaching biostatistics, providing a number of alternative ways of learning - seeing it - increases the number of students who will grasp the concepts. It should also provide students with more real-world applications of the skills."
James's guide is available at www.agsci.utas.edu.au/ppmultimedia/PPMultimedia.doc. | 4,923 | 2,397 | 0.000421 |
warc | 201704 | A privilege doing MPs' business
In 1688 when the British Parliament dethroned James II and established political supremacy over the monarchy, its bill of rights became the fundamental, durable instrument of constitutional law. In article 9, the bill declared "freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament". In other words, MPs bestowed on themselves a right to say in Parliament what they liked, without putting themselves at risk of being sued for defamation. Understandably and appropriately, this absolute freedom of speech - the principle of parliamentary privilege - has persisted over the centuries, shored up by convention and statute and enjoyed by parliaments across the Westminster system.
Public tolerance of this parliamentary freedom is not always generously extended because some MPs who exercise it abuse it. They make unfounded or unsubstantiated allegations against other MPs or against individuals outside parliaments. Some allegations are vile and ruinous and often leave the accused without reasonable means of effective rebuttal. The preposterous claims of the former state MP Franca Arena of a criminal conspiracy among senior politicians, judges and others to protect high-placed pedophiles is an example. Another is the claim, subsequently withdrawn, by the senator Bill Heffernan that a High Court judge used a chauffeur-driven, taxpayer-funded limousine to lure youths for sex - an allegation built on a falsified limousine logbook. There have been many more instances of abuse, giving sustenance to the perception that parliaments sometimes are cowards' castles.
Now, the independent MP in the South Australian Parliament, Peter Lewis, has added to the tarnish, again on the subject of pedophilia. As the Speaker, Mr Lewis was the umpire of parliamentary behaviour and was about to dirty the playground by naming an MP he claims was a pedophile, although the allegation is now withdrawn by the original accuser.
The removal from the speakership of one so reckless as Mr Lewis might have been the end of it had anti-pedophilia activists on the Lewis staff not disgracefully released details of the allegations, and had the Rann Government not panicked, scrambling together a proposed law that would have turned off Mr Lewis's freedom of speech. Fortunately, the bill was defeated in the upper house, but the fact of its drafting is an awakening to the brittleness of freedoms taken for granted.
Parliaments need freedom of speech because they are the chambers in which the people, through the agitation of elected representatives, get to hear allegations that are often well grounded but still would not pass the test of exemption from defamation. Preventing abuse of privilege is the job of parliaments. But it should not be tackled by a method so open to abuse itself; that is, by applying legislation as if a tap can turn off privilege each time a parliament (and here, read "government") wants to silence a troublemaker MP. Parliaments need to instil in MPs a sense that great privileges come with stern responsibilities. Discipline and respect from the leaderships of governments and oppositions would be a good start.
Exposing rawness of the GST deal
The Commonwealth and the states, but NSW in particular, are locked in a battle of brinkmanship which may not be resolved without substantial revision of the rules of federation. The Federal Government is reviewing methods of funding state services, such as hospitals and schools, with possibilities of bypassing the states. It has told the states to cull state taxes or face unspecified dire consequences. There has been reckless state talk of withdrawing co-operation from national application of corporations law as a payback for Canberra's standover tactics. This risks throwing out one of the more productive achievements of federal-state co-operation to make a heavy-handed point about co-operation shortcomings. It rarely pays to shoot yourself in the foot, hoping to scare away the bully. But NSW has little to lose in testing the patience of the Treasurer, Peter Costello, by refusing his tax elimination timetable and risking his implied threat to tear up the agreement on GST proceeds.
In the event Mr Costello is not bluffing and scraps the agreement, it seems NSW could not be worse off, and might just do better for itself. NSW consumers pay $13 billion a year in GST but the State Government gets only $10 billion back. The cause of this massive short-changing is an anachronistic method of calculating the GST split so that Australians, wherever they are in this country, supposedly get equal access to government services. The principle is OK, but its application is woefully inadequate, not least because the distribution equation is flawed by subjectivity and because the introduction five years ago of the GST exacerbated inequities. The result is that NSW and Victoria subsidise not only the weaker states of South Australia and Tasmania but also the boom states of Queensland and Western Australia. And subsidise, in the case of NSW, by $3 billion of GST revenue a year.
States should spend some GST windfall revenue on abolishing their business taxes. Since the GST is at the efficient end of the tax range and most business taxes are not, it makes good economic sense. But the GST distribution formula means Mr Costello is not offering one-for-one. He wants NSW, for instance, to forgo business tax revenue it can spend as it sees fit, in exchange for 77 cents in the dollar of its GST load.
The GST worsened inequity but it has exposed strains in federal-states financing, rather than imposed them. This might be the argument the nation needed. | 5,761 | 2,782 | 0.00036 |
warc | 201704 | Visitors to the lobby of the Empire State Building in Midtown Manhattan are often surprised to find a series of pictorial stained-glass panels. Added in the 1960s, they were meant to link the great skyscraper to other engineering triumphs. These triumphs, however, are not the great symbols of American modernity you might expect—other massive steel-and-concrete structures like the Hoover Dam or the Panama Canal—but the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The colorful lobby paintings make no attempt at accuracy. Rather, they echo fantasies of the ancient monuments that have been current since the Renaissance—but they are mysteriously inspiring all the same: the Pyramids of Giza, the Pharos of Alexandria, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, the Colossus of Rhodes, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Statue of Zeus at Olympia.
Why should a collection of monuments more than two millennia old still capture the imagination—especially when six of the seven are no longer standing?
“It’s that word ‘wonder,’ ” says David Gilman Romano, professor of classics at the University of Pennsylvania. “If you just called them the Seven Architectural Marvels, it wouldn’t have the same impact.” Then, too, the one that does survive—the Pyramids of Giza—is sufficiently stunning to convince us that the ancients weren’t exaggerating the splendor of the other six.
It’s also our passion for ordering the world. “We are living in a time very much like that of the Hellenic period,” says Larissa Bonfante, professor of classics at New YorkUniversity. “The Greeks loved to have things categorized—they loved anything out of the ordinary—and so do we.” In our chaotic age, bombarded as we are with new technologies and rapid cultural change, we still seem to yearn for the security of mutually acknowledged “greats”—whether it be Impressionist painters,
Citizen Kane, the Washington Monument, Cartier-Bresson photographs or the HangingGardens of Babylon.
One of the first-known lists of wonders was drawn up in the third century B.C., when a Greek scholar at the Library of Alexandria, Callimachus of Cyrene (305-240 B.C.), wrote a treatise called “Acollection of wonders in lands throughout the world.” The essay has been lost, but his choices may have become the basis for later selections, such as the famous list attributed to the engineer Philo of Byzantium around 250 B.C. Of course, the whole idea of Seven Wonders started with antiquity’s fondness for the number seven: being indivisible, it gave each of its elements equal status and so enjoyed a privileged position in numerology.
The list also reflected a shift in Western attitudes toward the world, as thinkers began to celebrate man-made creations along with those of the gods. In the wake of Alexander the Great’s conquests of the Persian Empire and parts of India (334-325 B.C.), Greeks marveled at their own achievements. “Like the sun,” raves Philo of the HangingGardens, “beauty dazzling in its brilliance.”
From their inception, the ancient Wonders were also rooted in human curiosity. In fact, the sites, originally, were not called “Wonders” at all, but
theamata, “things to be seen,” preferably in person. In the Hellenic era, wealthy and erudite Greeks traveled by land and sea around the cultural centers of the eastern Mediterranean, broadening their education firsthand. Although the lands conquered by Alexander the Great had dissolved into separate kingdoms by the time Philo compiled his list, they were still ruled by Greek-speaking dynasties, and while travel was not yet as safe as it would become under the Roman Empire, the network of Greek culture extended far and wide, offering an open invitation to explore.
Today one can follow the itinerary of an ancient traveler as he—a peripatetic Greek scholar of that time was almost always male—sought out the magnificent Seven. Along the route, he would find passable highway inns and cheap roadside restaurants. At the sites themselves, professional tour guides called
exegetai, or “explainers,” jostled for commissions (“Zeus protect me from your guides at Olympia!” prayed one first-century B.C. antiquarian worn down by their harangues). There were papyrus guidebooks to consult before departing and vendors with whom to haggle over souvenirs: a cheap glass vial engraved with an image of the Pharos of Alexandria has been found by archaeologists as far away as Afghanistan. THE STATUE OF ZEUS AT OLYMPIA | 4,687 | 2,395 | 0.000439 |
warc | 201704 | Question
A machine that lasts four years has the following net cash outflows: $12,500 to purchase the machine and $7,500 for the annual year-end operating cost. At the end of four years, the machine is sold for $3,200; thus, the cash flow at year 4, C4, is only $4,300:
The cost of capital is 8 percent. What is the PV of the costs of operating a series of such machines in perpetuity?
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warc | 201704 | Share Description
Goats are fairly adaptable creatures in the wild but, if kept as pets, or commercially farmed, they rely on their owners not only for food, but also for protection from diseases, injury and predators.
As the title of the book suggests, goat health and welfare are closely linked and it is a truism that 'a fit and healthy goat is a happy and productive goat'.
This is comprehensive and non-technical book covering the following: general goat health, welfare, behaviour and related management issues; principal diseases and abnormalities affecting goats - considers their causes, main diagnostic signs, treatment and prevention; recognizing abnormal behaviour as an early indicator of ill-health; the importance of goat keepers establishing good working relationships with their vets; poisoning and diseases that can be transmitted between goats and man.
Information Format: Hardback Pages: 200 pages, 120 b&w photos and diagrams 20 col photos Publisher: The Crowood Press Ltd Publication Date: 20/02/2006 Category: Veterinary medicine: large animals (domestic / farm) ISBN: 9781861268242 | 1,111 | 671 | 0.001498 |
warc | 201704 | WHAT is FRS17? It is a new rule on how companies should draw up their accounts. FRS stands for Financial Reporting Standard. The rule, drawn up by the Accounting Standards Board, will force firms to take account of the state of their pension funds in drawing up profit and loss accounts.
This will bring the UK into line with American and international practice.
WHO will be affected by it, and when? All companies reporting results after June next year will have to conform to FRS17. WHAT does it mean? The new rule will compel businesses to value pension scheme assets at market rates. About 70% of the average fund's assets are in shares. These will be valued at their closing prices at the end of a company's financial year.
Actuaries will then calculate whether the value of a fund is enough to meet future commitments. Their sums will be based on the cautious assumption that the total fund is invested in top-grade corporate bonds - investments that are safe but which, history suggests, grow more slowly than shares.
This means that funds may therefore show a gap between what they are worth and what they need. This gap will be reflected in the company's profit and loss figures.
WHY are bosses so upset about it? Beause they have had it good on pensions for years. They have ridden a stock market boom that built up big pension fund surpluses, allowing them to take breaks from contributing to pension funds - so-called pension holidays.
That boom is over. And now, by having to value funds annually instead of every three years, as has happened until now, pension fund values are likely to yo-yo in unison with fluctuations in the stock market.
From next year, these swings in fund deficits or surpluses will show up in companies' profit-and-loss accounts. And in some cases, a fall in the pension fund value will wipe out profits altogether.
Big fund deficits could also hit firms' credit ratings and push up the price they have to pay to borrow money. If balance sheets are weakened, some could breach the terms of bank loan agreements, triggering a cash crisis.
Profits and dividend payments will become more volatile, and consumer and employee confidence in a company could be damaged.
WHY should employees and pensioners worry? Because a pension fund surplus or deficit will show up in annual profits, businesses are seeking to limit their exposure by moving from defined benefit pension schemes into defined contribution schemes.
With the first, employees know how much they will get on retirement - a pension usually based on final salary and number of years worked. The company has to make up any shortfall if the pension fund is unable to cope.
But now employers are favouring defined contribution schemes. Here, the level of contributions paid by both employer and employee is fixed, but an employee does not know how much income the accumulated fund will yield on retirement because this will depend on stock market performance.
Even more worrying, some firms are not only shifting from final salary to defined contribution schemes, but are cutting their contributions.
'Resist this pensions attack'
More about: Annual Report Debt Market (bond Market) Employment Retirement Stock And Equity Market And Stock Exchange | 3,255 | 1,563 | 0.000643 |
warc | 201704 | So when war broke out in September of that year, although I was close to getting a degree in Chemistry, I abandoned that and joined the Army. They put me in the Engineers (and when I see a bridge I still catch myself calculating where I would put the charges to blow it up).
Before I could actually do any of that I was moved to a highly secret experimental station in the south of England. At the time they were bombing London every night and our job was to help to find out what to do if, one night, they used poisonous gas.
Some of England's best scientists were there. There were a lot of experiments with small animals, I was a lab assistant making biochemical determinations, my boss was a professor of physiology dressed up as a colonel, and I was dressed up as a staff sergeant.
The results I was getting were very variable and I told my colonel that what we really needed was a statistician.
He said "we can't get one, what do you know about it?" I said "Nothing, I once tried to read a book about it by someone called R. A. Fisher but I didn't understand it". He said "You've read the book so you better do it", so I said, "Yes sir".
I asked the Army for some literature about Statistics and they duly sent me a number of useful books.
In the next 3 to 4 years I designed and analyzed hundreds of experiments of many different kinds. In my list of published papers the first two described some of that work.
At one point I was having trouble with a statistical problem. A very senior scientist suggested that I contact R. A. Fisher, who asked me to come and see him. The Army did not know how to send a sergeant to see a professor, so they made a railway warrant that said I was taking a horse to Cambridge. It was a beautiful day. Fisher said "let's go and sit under that tree in the orchard, I'll look up the probits and you look up the reciprocals". The specific problem was soon solved and set me thinking about estimating data transformations.
As the War was winding down, it was discovered that the Germans had developed nerve gasses: Tabun and other agents that were orders of magnitude more toxic than anything we knew. So I was part of a team that went to study these at their research station in Northern Germany. We must have seemed a strange lot. About fifty trucks filled with lab equipment slowly making its way through the ruins of Belgium and Germany, manned by all kinds of people: some civilians, some in Army, Navy, and the Air Force uniforms. I helped to design the field trials.
When I finally got my discharge from the Army, they gave me a medal and paid for me to attend University College, London to study statistics under Professor E. S. Pearson.
It took me 18 months to finish my undergraduate degree. I spent the rest of the time doing graduate work.
While I was at University College, my vacations were spent working for a large chemical company: Imperial Chemicals (ICI). I helped them to write a book "Statistical Methods in Research and Production" edited by O. L. Davies and they offered me a job and paid my salary for a year of graduate work.
The next 8 years were some of the happiest in my life. My division in ICI made, among other things dyestuffs, synthetic textiles, and waterproofing and mothproofing agents. An expert group of chemists and engineers developed and improved the complicated processes needed. I quickly got myself involved with them and with their experiments both on the full scale and in the lab. Typically a 1% increase in the yield could give huge profits. To help design effective experiments I had to know all about the processes. I found myself climbing up and down ladders talking and arguing every day with process workers and technical staff.
I enjoyed this, and had no thought of academia, but in the course of solving practical problems, I had come up with a number of ideas for the development of statistical methods and I had written them up and published them.
In 1952 I was surprised to receive a letter from University of North Carolina at Raleigh: an invitation to come for a year as a "visiting professor". The ICI board of directors gave me a year's leave of absence. But they wanted me back and sent me over on the Queen Mary. I had a wonderful year at Raleigh where I met Stu Hunter, then a graduate student. We worked on RSM methods.
After that I went back to England and worked for ICI for 3 more years.
In 1956, John Tukey was calling me from Bell Labs every morning. He wanted me to come to Princeton to be the director of the Statistical Techniques Research Group (STRG) that was being set up. Finally in 1956, I went to Princeton and initiated the group with Stu Hunter, Don Behnken, Collin Mallows, Geoff Watson, Henry Sheffe, Merve Muller, Norman Draper, and others. This group did some excellent research with many publications. That was where I first met Gwilym Jenkins.
We believe that really new ideas in Statistics were most likely to come from careful study of specific scientific problems. One idea we had was to design and build an automatic optimizer, but the faculty at the chemical engineering department at Princeton were not interested.
In 1960 Wisconsin asked me to come and give two seminars: one technical and one on how, if given the opportunity, I would set up a new statistics department. I told them about my ideas and eventually they told me to come and do it.
So I got the department started in the fall of that year in a Nissan hut near the lake and it flooded from time to time with books floating around the floor.
Also the distinguished Chemical Engineer, Olaf Hougen, at Wisconsin, was enthusiastic about our Automatic Optimization idea. And we got some money from NSF. And after three years and many setbacks, we built the Optimizer - and it worked. This was where Gwilym Jenkins and I gained the experience in the use of non-stationary models, dynamics and non-linear estimation we needed to write the book, "Time Series Analysis Forecasting and Control", now in it's forth addition.
The Math department was keen to get rid of all its Statistics courses. So I found myself teaching what became 709, the "Advanced Theory of Statistics". I had seven students, three of which were Bill Hunter, George Tiao, and Sam Wu. I remember that George Tiao was my bell-weather. Whenever he looked worried, I looked at the blackboard to see what I had done wrong.
Early on it seemed to me that students were learning a great deal about statistical theory but very little on how to use it. So I instituted what came to be called the "Monday night beer session". This was not an official course. It happened in my house and there were no course requirements, grades etc. You came if you felt like. Students and faculty were welcomed from all departments. So we had graduate students and often faculty from Statistics, Engineering, Business and Medical School among others. We also had talent scouts looking for people who had problems they wanted to discuss. Typically in 20 minutes or so the problem was presented and then there was a general discussion about how it might be solved. Decades afterwards, from one-time graduates, I continually hear "the thing I remember best and most helpful was the Monday night beer session". I believe people learned how to solve problems there.
There were many things that happened that happened after this time, some of them very amusing. For example, when we had the house on Johnson Street, I was sitting in my office one afternoon and a man came in and started knocking on the walls. I asked him what he was doing and he said that he was checking where the joists were. I said, "Why are you doing that?" His response was, "As you know we are knocking down this house next week." So I called someone in the University and I was told, "Oh no Professor Box! Although that house is scheduled for eventual demolition, this is not likely to happen for another year or two." So I put down the phone and after about 15 minutes it rang, they said, "You're right!! Can you start getting out this afternoon?"
I have been most fortunate in the friendships, and all the kindnesses and support I have received from so many different people throughout my life. And to all those who are here, and to the many who are not, I say thank you. | 8,329 | 3,957 | 0.000254 |
warc | 201704 | For more
Jody Patten, project information manager for Scott Contracting, is providing several sources of information about the U.S. Highway 40 construction project. She will give updates at least daily on the project information hot line, 819-7008. A map of the coming week’s work zones will be in a newspaper ad each Friday. The map also will be sent via e-mail.
To sign up for e-mail updates on the project, visit www.coloradodot.info and click on the “Sign up for E-mail and Wireless Alerts” link in the upper right corner. Enter an e-mail address, select the appropriate updates and click “Submit.” If you already receive Patten’s e-mail updates, you do not need to sign up online.
For more information, visit the project Web site at www.coloradodot.info/projects/us40steamboat.
Public meetings will be held every other week throughout the duration of the project at 5:30 p.m. Thursdays in Centennial Hall.
Steamboat Springs Unforeseen problems have delayed for a few days the start of paving work on U.S. Highway 40 in downtown Steamboat Springs.
Jody Patten, project information manager for Scott Contracting, said paving was scheduled to begin this week. Instead, it’s scheduled to begin Wednesday night or Thursday morning. She said weather remains the wild card.
The $5.6 million project will replace the asphalt with concrete on Lincoln Avenue from 13th to Third streets, as well as add a traffic light at 11th Street, incorporate bump-outs at each intersection and upgrade existing sewers.
While digging up the asphalt, crews discovered a layer of concrete and unstable clay soil beneath the existing road surface, Patten said. She said that caused crews to have to dig deeper than anticipated and has resulted in additional work to stabilize the ground for paving.
“This isn’t like we’re having to come up with a new method to get this substructure the way we want it,” Patten said. “We just hoped when we went underneath the asphalt pavement, we would find a stable surface to lay the concrete down. That didn’t happen.”
Philo Shelton, the city’s public works director, said the asphalt and concrete being removed from Lincoln Avenue is being stockpiled at the old lagoon west of the Routt County Sheriff’s Office. Shelton said the materials will be ground up and used for future road projects.
The earth materials are being put into the lagoon, Shelton said. He said the city has a plan to fill the lagoon to add green space at some point.
In preparation for Wednesday night’s scheduled paving, Patten said the 36-foot-wide paver would be moved to 13th Street from the Stock Bridge Transit Center on Monday night and possibly into Tuesday morning, weather permitting. Moving the paver will take about three hours. Patten added that when the paver is turned on, it will be “very loud.”
The project has caused delays in navigating through downtown. Westbound traffic on U.S. 40 into downtown was backed up to Hilltop Parkway on Wednesday. Steamboat Springs Police Capt. Joel Rae said he didn’t know why traffic was backed up more than usual. Rae said despite the additional westbound traffic, he thought the department’s traffic control efforts were going well.
“The whole goal of the project is to keep traffic moving as safely and smoothly as possible,” he said. “With what’s going on, I think that’s happening with the exception of morning and evening rush hour.”
Rae said he understands that the downtown traffic is a burden but asked that residents obey traffic laws, remain patient, plan ahead and not rush.
The project, which Scott Contracting hopes to finish by June 30, also includes installation of storm drains at Third and Fifth streets, a fiber optic conduit for traffic signals, concrete bump-outs at each intersection, colored crosswalks, a new traffic signal at 11th Street, and curb and gutter work.
Patten said the additional roadwork and last week’s snowstorms resulted in a loss of about a week.
“Needless to say, this is jeopardizing our ability to finish by June,” she said.
If Scott Contracting is unable to complete the project by June, it can’t resume before Sept. 1, according to its agreement with the city to not work during the summer tourist season. Its contractual completion date is Nov. 12, after which it would face daily fines for not finishing the work. | 4,477 | 2,079 | 0.000501 |
warc | 201704 | Airport operators' quest for efficiency: How airports can focus operational improvement efforts on their addressable drivers of cost
Airports facing increasingly complex operational challenges can drive efficiency by focusing their investments on their differentiating capabilities. For an updated benchmarking study of European airport operators that examines operating cost, revenue, EBITDA and passenger numbers between 2010 and 2014 for selected European airports, please also view our "Quick reference guide".
Airport operators’ quest for efficiency
How airports can focus operational improvement efforts on their addressable drivers of cost Contacts Chicago Andrew Tipping Partner +1-312-578-4633 andrew.tipping @strategyand.pwc.com Frankfurt Stefan Stroh Partner +49-69-97167-423 stefan.stroh @strategyand.pwc.com Kuala Lumpur Edward Clayton Partner +60-3-2095-2088 edward.clayton @strategyand.pwc.com London Michael Burns Partner +44-(0)-20-7804-4438 michael.h.burns @uk.pwc.com John Potter Partner +44-207-393-3736 john.potter @strategyand.pwc.com Andre Medeiros Principal +44-207-393-3407 andre.m.medeiros @strategyand.pwc.com 2 Strategy& About the authors John Potter is a partner with Strategy& based in London. He focuses on strategic operations issues for consumer goods, automotive, and other industrial goods companies and heads up the firm’s operations practice in Europe. Andre Medeiros is a principal with Strategy& based in London. He focuses on operational improvement and cost transformation issues for clients operating within frontline service-oriented industries such as airport operators and retail. He has extensive experience serving major airport operator groups across Europe. Also contributing to this report were James McMicking of the Aerospace Technology Institute, Strategy& associates Jerome van Innis and Lars Nielsen, and Strategy& senior consultant Kamil Klamann. Strategy& 3 Executive summary Today’s airports are increasingly complex operations, requiring excellence across a broad and diverse set of capabilities and the management of many different stakeholders. Increasing service expectations (from both passengers and airlines); regulator-imposed constraints on aeronautical charges; and the need to fulfill a national, regional, or municipal development role mean that airports are continually challenged in a drive for efficiency, service quality, and passenger growth. Being able to focus operating expenses and investments on the capability areas that matter most is critical to meeting these challenges. Only activities representing essential capabilities that differentiate an airport — that give it a unique and sustainable winning position in its market — deserve significant investment. These activities, after all, allow an airport to deliver its unique value proposition. By contrast, capabilities that are necessary to keep the airport running but that don’t make a big difference to airlines or passengers should be handled as efficiently as possible. Finally, activities and capabilities that don’t provide a significant operational benefit and that aren’t differentiating from an airline or passenger point of view should be cut back or eliminated. Benchmarking operating cost performance across airports can be a valuable tool in the quest for efficiency. However, the analysis needs to account for the inherent differences in airports’ operating environments. For instance, local labor costs can vary across comparator airports, and a terminal infrastructure design can give some airports inherent operating cost advantages (or disadvantages) over the short and medium terms. The good news is that once these differences are accounted for, cost benchmarking can be very valuable, providing perspective and illuminating areas of the operations that are ripe for improvement. 4 Strategy& One way that airports can get a sense of which costs are essential is by breaking them down into four groups using our ISSR framework: inherent, structural, systemic, and realized costs. Management can do something about all of these costs in the long run, though the near- and medium-term opportunities are generally found within systemic and realized costs. Strategy& 5 Generating profit is a part of the airport operator’s job The global trends toward airport privatization and the increased participation of private operators are gaining momentum as many governments tighten their belts and look for ways to run local airports more efficiently. In many parts of the world, private financial investors are now looking at airport infrastructure as a generator of a stable, long-term income stream. This is leading to a transformation in how airports pursue operations excellence. If they are to maximize returns, airport operators will need to address several big challenges. First, they have to find a way to thrive in often tightly regulated environments. The second challenge for private airport operators is keeping up with constant changes in the provision of air travel itself. These changes include the needs of mobile Internet– enabled passengers, the increasing sophistication of on-site retail models, diverse airline business models, and the ever-changing security protocols for passenger and cargo screening. These are all changes that force airport operators to make investments, adjust established processes, and refine their management of passenger flows. For airports to effectively manage their financial returns in the face of all this, it is essential that they develop a clear understanding of their operating costs, and how those costs align to their defined essential capabilities and to their larger strategic objectives. This, indeed, is the crux of the challenge. With this kind of clarity, airport operators can improve their chances of meeting regulatory and market requirements, achieving operational excellence, and delivering sustainable positive financial returns, year after year. It is essential to understand how operating costs align to capabilities and strategic objectives. 6 Strategy& The first question: How well is an airport doing on costs today? The big challenge for airports is ensuring that the money they’re spending is supporting capabilities that differentiate them within their market. Companies need to invest in capabilities that are critical to their market success, and reduce or eliminate their spending in areas that aren’t differentiating from the perspective of passengers and airlines. The best way for an airport to know how well it’s doing in this regard is to make detailed comparisons of its operating costs with those of other airports. This is much easier said than done, however. Airports that are alike superficially — handling about the same volume and mix of passengers and the same number of daily flights, and doing so with roughly the same number of runways and terminals — may still be operating within wildly different regulatory regimes and labor markets. They may also have strikingly different demand profiles — some serving experienced business travelers and others serving leisure travelers, some being connecting hubs and others being only points of origin or destination, some concentrating on long-haul flights and others on short-haul flights. Airport executives and regulators sometimes ignore these differences, leading them to unsophisticated conclusions about where various airports stand in terms of productivity and operating cost efficiency. Indeed, simplistic regulator conclusions based on the unsophisticated benchmarking of other airport operations can undermine the economics of airport operators and worsen service levels to airlines and passengers. Airports are increasingly run like other businesses in their need to earn positive financial returns. In some other fundamental ways, however, airports are unique. When other businesses see an opportunity to become more efficient by moving some function to a new location, they can often just go ahead and make the change. That is, a manufacturing company can move a plant closer to consumption centers to reduce distribution costs, or transfer the assembly of finished goods to a country where labor is cheap. Airports don’t have this flexibility; they can’t adjust their location to benefit from differences in distribution or labor costs, or take advantage of Strategy& 7 Airports don’t have flexibility; they can’t adjust their location. more favorable tax or sourcing environments in another country or city. In this respect, airports are largely stuck with what they have. Saying that benchmarks can be misleading in comparing airport operations does not mean that benchmarks shouldn’t be used. On the contrary, they should be used, and in many cases they already are. In the United Kingdom, the Civil Aviation Authority has used airport operating cost benchmarking to help it set recent price cap determinations. Many other airport regulators — in Europe and beyond — also make use of benchmarking. The challenge however, is that benchmarked airport operating costs must be adjusted for costs that are circumstantial — including the airport’s location, its layout, its mix of airlines, the range of destinations it serves, and the regulatory environment in which it operates. With these differences taken into account, benchmarks become much more meaningful and yield more telling comparisons. Of particular value are benchmarks with a lot of functional specificity, such as aircraft turnaround times, average waiting times in security lines, and different customer service-level metrics. With the circumstantial differences accounted for and with the use of these more functional benchmarks, airport-to-airport comparisons can provide perspective, give directional reassurance, and illuminate areas that might benefit from cost reduction or service enhancement efforts. 8 Strategy& Back in the ISSR: A framework for evaluating costs To help companies see their costs for what they are — circumstantial and hard to change versus tactical and more malleable — Strategy& uses a framework called ISSR (see Exhibit 1, next page). The acronym stands for inherent, structural, systemic, and realized costs, and can be used to get a high-level picture of how an airport’s expenditures break down. • Inherent costs: These are determined by the nature and design of the airport and the industry itself. The nature and design includes where the airport is located, the number of runways it has, the regulatory regime under which it operates, and the products and services it is able to offer (including lounges, retail services, and large-scale cargo warehousing). These are strategically critical issues that have a significant impact on costs but are often outside the near- and medium-term control of management. • Structural costs: These are determined by the type of business the airport engages in and how it provides its services and products. This includes the mix of airlines served by the airport, whether it operates at constrained capacity rate levels (at potential bottleneck points, such as landing slots, gates, and check-in desks), and the extent to which it maintains its own staff versus outsourcing different activities and operations. • Systemic costs: These involve the organization, processes, policies, and infrastructure the airport uses to manage its product and service delivery. They include people management processes, overhead, and the technologies that support the business. • Realized costs: These are a function of how well the airport handles its operation and work practices. They are tactical in nature, making them easier to increase or decrease than inherent and structural costs. ISSR can be used to get a highlevel picture of how an airport’s expenditures — circumstantial versus tactical — break down. Strategy& 9 Exhibit 1 The ISSR framework, applied to airports Increasing influence on cost Airport location Circumstantial Product/service design Inherent costs Airport layout Regulatory requirements Mix of airlines served Range of destinations Structural costs Utilized capacity Vertical integration, outsourcing Focus and scale of facilities Strategic Overhead/ support infrastructure Infrastructure Business processes Systemic costs Organization Tactical Increasing ability to influence Operating efficiency/ productivity Realized costs Systems Source: Strategy& analysis 10 Strategy& One way to think about the four categories of costs is to show the different ways in which they can affect efficiency. Using the theoretical concept of an “efficiency frontier,” we would say that investments in and adjustments to inherent and structural factors have the biggest potential impact on efficiency (as measured by operating expenses per passenger). For instance, the building of a new terminal facility — which could allow an airport to significantly increase its passenger capacity — can lead to a step change in an airport’s productivity. Depending on the design of the terminal and what goes into it, it could also lead to an enhanced passenger experience. Such a change would allow the airport to be more efficient (operating at a lower cost per passenger), whatever the number of total arrivals and departures (see Exhibit 2, next page). By contrast, addressing systemic and realized factors moves an airport’s operating costs closer to the current point of maximum efficiency — that is, closer to what we’re calling the efficiency frontier (see Exhibit 3, page 13). Setting up continuous improvement programs for frontline processes such as passenger security and trolley management, streamlining decision-making processes, leveraging back-office shared-services centers, and creating a more flexible work culture with responsive labor scheduling are all examples of changes that can improve operating efficiencies within the limits imposed by an airport’s inherent and structural cost factors. Without a change in inherent and structural cost drivers, there will be a limit to an airport’s ability to drive productivity beyond a certain threshold. Simply put, without longer-term capital projects or a largescale strategic reorientation, some costs will remain out of reach. Investments in and adjustments to inherent and structural factors have the biggest potential impact on efficiency. Strategy& 11 Exhibit 2 How airports can improve their efficiency frontiers Inherent costs Addressing these costs requires fundamental changes in the way of doing business, allowing a redefinition of where the efficiency frontier lies Operating expenses Structural costs Cost per passenger Source: Strategy& analysis 12 Strategy& Exhibit 3 How airports can move toward their efficiency frontiers Systemic costs Addressing these costs moves airports toward their efficiency frontiers Operating expenses Airport X at start Airport X after improvements Realized costs Cost per passenger Source: Strategy& analysis Strategy& 13 Putting the framework to use To get a sense of the impact that circumstantial factors can have on airport efficiency, Strategy& analyzed 24 European airports, using readily available public data. When adjusted for circumstantial factors — which, in the case of this analysis, means treating every European airport as though it had the same inherent costs as airports in the United Kingdom — airport efficiency (as measured by operating expenses per passenger) changes, sometimes dramatically (see Exhibit 4, next page). To see how an unadjusted benchmark can be misleading, consider two airports, one in a highly developed country and another in a less developed country. Superficially, the two airports might be a lot alike. For instance, they could both have similar annual passenger volumes and operate with similar terminal infrastructure. A straight comparison of operating cost per passenger might suggest that the airport in the less developed country is more efficiently run. But that calculation could easily ignore differences in local and site-specific labor and utility costs — differences that could be sizable. Indeed, it might be that if you adjusted for these factors — that is, if you normalized the comparison — the airport in the less developed country would no longer come out as the more efficient. Instead, it might have a ways to go to become as efficient as its counterpart in the highly developed country (see Exhibit 5, page 16). This analysis suggests there are three steps to making effective use of airport benchmarking data. Step 1: Select structurally comparable airports • Similar traffic volumes • A similar mix of business (low-cost vs. premium airlines, business vs. leisure passengers, long-haul vs. short-haul flights) • Comparable infrastructure (number of runways and terminal configurations) When adjusted for circumstantial factors, airport efficiency changes, sometimes dramatically. 14 Strategy& Exhibit 4 Comparing operating efficiency across selected European airports Operating cost per passenger (in £), 2012/2013* No adjustment CDG MUC VIE LHR BUD ZRH OSL HAM AMS FRA GVA ARN LGW GLA MAN LTN STN DUB CPH ATH SVO BRU BHX EDI 5.6 13.6 13.0 12.4 11.9 11.2 11.2 10.9 10.8 9.8 8.9 8.8 8.5 8.5 8.4 7.9 7.8 7.4 7.2 7.1 6.6 15.6 15.6 15.3 Factor adjusted to U.K. Position change shown in ( ) VIE (+2) MUC (0) CDG (-2) BUD (+1) LHR (-1) AMS (+3) HAM (+1) OSL (-1) FRA (+1) SVO (+11) ZRH (-5) ARN (0) ATH (+7) LGW (-1) GLA (-1) MAN (-1) LTN (-1) GVA (-7) STN(-2) DUB (-2) BRU (+1) BHX (+1) CPH (-4) EDI (0) 7.1 6.6 6.5 5.6 9.2 8.9 8.9 8.8 8.5 8.5 8.5 8.4 8.3 12.1 11.9 11.8 11.7 10.8 10.3 13.6 17.8 16.6 16.3 16.1 * BRU, BUD, DUB, EDI, LTN, MUC, and STD are all based on 2012 results; other airports use 2013 results. Source: Airport annual reports; Strategy& analysis Strategy& 15 Exhibit 5 Fine-tuning the comparison across two airports Operating cost per passenger (in £) in real terms 3.6 10.8 2.5 1.9 8.9 0.8 7.2 0.3 6.4 4.2 3.9 0.8 1.2 0.4 Labor Utilities Other 3.0 3.3 3.8 Note: Numbers may not add up due to rounding. Source: Strategy& analysis Airport 1 operating cost Circumstantial factor adjustments Adjusted airport 1 operating cost Systemic and realized cost differences Airport 2 operating cost 16 Strategy& Step 2: Adjust for the inherent cost differences • Isolate labor costs and adjust for labor market differences • Isolate utility costs and adjust for local-market energy rate differences • Remove noncomparable activities such as retail operations Step 3: Focus operational improvement efforts on the systemic and realized drivers of costs (the costs about which management can do the most in the short term) Strategy& 17 Making cost adjustments within a strategic context An airport looking for ways to lower its operating costs should work from its strategy out. That is, it must start with an understanding of the unique value propositions it has in the market, or with its essential capabilities that allow it to perform certain activities better than others. To be sure, airport strategy choices are strongly influenced by their circumstantial (inherent and structural) factors. However, there are still many ways in which airports operating under similar inherent conditions can choose to compete. For example, there are major world cities served by two or three (or even more) airports. One of the airports may position itself as the premium international hub. Another may be hub-like functionally but cater to airline customers using low-cost carrier models. A third may be a sort of commuter airport — good for short-haul flights into and out of the city. An airport’s chosen strategy or “way to play” determines the differentiating capabilities it needs to sustain or develop. Capabilities that may be important, depending on the market position the airport is trying to occupy, are value-added passenger services, shorter minimum connection times, deep passenger insights, retail services, ground connectivity, digitization of the passenger experience, regulatory engagement, and airline collaboration/key account management. Few airports have the need or the ability to do all of these things equally well; the important thing is to know what’s important to your strategy and then to develop the capabilities to succeed in those areas. Successful organizations (in the airport sector and elsewhere) typically concentrate their investments on three to six capabilities that allow them to meet their strategic objectives; more than that, and the organization tends to lose focus (see “Two airports, two ways to play,” next page). This capability focus helps identify where investments — including capital investments — will generate superior returns, and where expenditures may not produce anything of value. The organization, especially at senior management levels, is able to 18 Strategy& Successful organizations typically concentrate their investments on three to six capabilities. Two airports, two ways to play Airport A Strategic objective To be a regional airport operator in a less developed country, serving primarily low-cost airlines Airport B To be a major city hub airport in a highly developed country, serving primarily full-service carriers for regional and long-haul destinations and significant transfer volumes • Premium service offerings • Mall management • Security (for high volume of carry-on/ leisure travel) • A sset flexibility (facilitating low-cost carrier sharing and usage) • Process standardization • C apital development planning and management • R esilience for events such as heavy weather, and passenger welfare if planes are grounded and passengers are stranded (regional airports don’t have to worry as much about these capabilities, since passengers tend not to use them for connecting flights and are thus less likely to get stranded there) • External stakeholder relations, including with regulators, airlines, and unions Examples of capabilities that might be essential to meet the strategic objective • Gate allocation/ management (turnaround speed) Strategy& 19 make decisions faster. At the highest level, this has implications for the airport’s operating model, from how it is organized to its embedded processes and to who has decision rights. With this strategic focus, it becomes much easier for airport operators to see which costs are justified — and if there are any activities that can be cut so that investment funds can be redirected into more important areas. We generally encourage management to organize costs into three groups (see Exhibit 6, next page). “Lights on” costs: These include activities and expenditures associated with the basic requirements of an airport’s operation and business. (To operate, you need to have the lights on.) Many of the activities performed by support functions fit into this category, such as budgeting, accounting, recruitment, training, purchasing, and IT support. Since these activities do not differentiate the airport, the focus should be on ensuring that they deliver the necessary level of internal/external service expected of the industry as efficiently as possible. Competitor benchmarking — acknowledging circumstantial drivers of cost differences — is a powerful way to determine the level of efficiency achieved in these activities, as they will be strategically common across the industry. Airport operators should focus on minimizing these costs, since they are, in effect, “hygiene” factors — things that will be missed if they are absent but that, in and of themselves, don’t confer competitive advantage. “Limited value” costs: These include activities and expenditures that are neither important to differentiating the airport nor required to operate and function in the industry. These costs often creep in over time and typically include duplicated work or process work-arounds created by problems with “lights on” activities. In some cases, activities are fully outside the airport’s domain and do not serve the strategic objectives of the business. Efficiency initiatives should look to challenge the need for these activities — minimizing the level of activity or eliminating it altogether. Asking “What would happen to the business if we stopped this activity?” or “How would our stakeholders and business be affected if we lowered service levels on this?” can help to test and identify costs that have limited value. Choosing to stop a service or activity can be challenging and disruptive, so it sometimes helps to frame the decision as an investment choice. Ask yourself this question: “What essential capabilities could I invest in with the money saved by stopping these other activities, and what impact would that have?” The answer can highlight the value of taking action. Ask yourself: “What essential capabilities could I invest in with the money saved by stopping these other activities?” 20 Strategy& Exhibit 6 A hypothetical look at the breakdown in an airport’s costs Essential capabilities 25% – Differentiating capabilities that build sustainable advantage – Streamline for effectiveness and efficiency – Invest in critical activities to reach best-in-class service levels Lights on – Activities required to keep the lights on and operate – Activities required by industry dynamics to compete in a given sector – Look for opportunities to increase efficiency Aim for best-in-class cost levels 55% 20% May spend more than competitors and drive incremental investment Limited value – Nonessential capabilities – Challenge the need to have investments at all – Increase efficiency or lower service levels for what you keep Eliminate or be parsimonious Note: Percentages shown are illustrative only. Source: Strategy& analysis Strategy& 21 “Essential capabilities” costs: These include activities and expenditures the business willingly takes on in order to differentiate itself to passengers and airlines — those three to six things the airport does better than any competitor to ensure the uniqueness of its market position. Though even these activities should be optimized, this is the area where investment will produce the greatest return. Cost benchmarking can help determine if an airport is spending sufficiently to differentiate itself from the competition. Even more important is obtaining feedback on whether the capabilities investment is resulting in something that customers value and can’t get elsewhere. Service-level benchmarking and industry performance surveys, such as those carried out by the Airports Council International, are some of the mechanisms that airports can use to see how they’re doing — although commercial success is the ultimate output metric of successful differentiation. By understanding how activities fit into each of these categories, management can make better-informed decisions about where to invest, cut, or optimize. Benchmarking can help determine if an airport is spending to differentiate itself from the competition. 22 Strategy& Conclusion Successfully meeting service expectations of regulators, airlines, passengers, and other stakeholders — while optimizing operating costs and delivering positive financial returns to increasingly demanding private shareholders — is no easy task. A critical input is being able to look at comparator and competitor airports in a way that provides a meaningful view of efficiency opportunities. Developing a clear understanding of an airport’s essential capabilities and of the costs that are within management’s control also provides a greater level of focus to efficiency initiatives. By doing both these things, airport operators are able to create more sustainable, competitive, and profitable operations that deliver on their strategic objectives. Strategy& 23 Strategy& is a global team of practical strategists committed to helping you seize essential advantage. We do that by working alongside you to solve your toughest problems and helping you capture your greatest opportunities. These are complex and high-stakes undertakings — often game-changing transformations. We bring 100 years of strategy consulting experience and the unrivaled industry and functional capabilities of the PwC network to the task. Whether you’re charting your corporate strategy, transforming a function or business unit, or building critical capabilities, we’ll help you create the value you’re looking for with speed, confidence, and impact. We are a member of the PwC network of firms in 157 countries with more than 195,000 people committed to delivering quality in assurance, tax, and advisory services. Tell us what matters to you and find out more by visiting us at strategyand.pwc.com. www.strategyand.pwc.com © 2015 PwC. All rights reserved. PwC refers to the PwC network and/or one or more of its member firms, each of which is a separate legal entity. Please see www.pwc.com/structure for further details. Disclaimer: This content is for general information purposes only, and should not be used as a substitute for consultation with professional advisors. | 29,681 | 11,140 | 0.000092 |
warc | 201704 | Introduction
1.1 INTRODUCTION
In these changing times both the employee & employer are under tremendous pressure to perform. There is fierce competition not only in the industry but also across categories. This new liberalized cutting edge technology driven environment has made employee retention mind-boggling. The fast pacing change across the globe has made the new employee & employer relationship irreversible. However all corporations not only in IT sector but also traditional manufacturing sector are attempting to stem attrition. This paper attempts to unravel this paradox & study the various facets that surround this burning issue i.e. * factors that make employees stay in a organization
* reasons why they leave
* what could be done to make them stay with the company
Let Us see what “Employee Retention” used to mean
This entails understanding just a little history. The term “employee retention” first began to appear with regularity on the business scene in the 1970s and early ’80s. Until then, during the early and mid-1900s, the essence of the relationship between employer and employee had been (by and large) a statement of the status quo: You come work for me, do a good job, and, so long as economic conditions allow, I will continue to employ you. It was not unusual for people who entered the job market as late as the 1950s and ’60s to remain with one employer for a very long time—sometimes for the duration of their working life. If they changed jobs, it was usually a major career and life decision, and someone who made many and frequent job changes was seen as somewhat out of the ordinary. As a natural result of this “status quo” employer-employee relationship, an employee leaving his or her job voluntarily was seen as an aberration, something that shouldn’t really have happened. After all, the essence of “status quo” is just that little or nothing should change in the relationship—and leaving was a pretty big change!
What is Employee Retention Today?
Employee retention is more than just keeping employees on the job. It is also about sustaining employees, primarily by enhancing their job satisfaction. Job satisfaction, in turn, can increase productivity and keep employees energized and motivated to give their best. Job satisfaction can equate to employees who stick with their current employer and strive to perform at or above expectations and standards. Employee retention is beneficial for the organization as well as the employee. Employees today are different. They are not the ones who don’t have good opportunities in hand. As soon as they feel dissatisfied with the current employer or the job, they switch over to the next job. It is the responsibility of the employer to retain their best employees. If they don’t, they would be left with no good employees. A good employer should know how to attract and retain its employees. Most employees feel that they are worth more than they are actually paid. There is a natural disparity between what people think they should be paid and what organizations spend in compensation. When the difference becomes too great and another opportunity occurs, turnover can result.
This study helps to realize the importance of effective employee retention. This research study examines types and effectiveness of various factors leading to retention. It helps to provide insights to support future research regarding strategic guidance for organizations that want to retain their most valuable asset.
1.2 Objective-
*
1.2.1 Primary objective- To find out factors that lead to retention of employees. *
1.2.2 Secondary objective-
* To find out the gap between employee expectations and present measures. * To find out various factors that make the employees leave the organization. * To examine the effectiveness of retention strategies in place. * To identify alternate strategies for retaining valuable employees.
1.3 Scope... | 4,008 | 1,844 | 0.000555 |
warc | 201704 | 1900's
Communication And Transportation In The Early 1900's
Transportation and communication are closely linked and one
would not be possible without the other. Development in
both of these areas have brought many conveniences and
comforts to the average person. During the 1800's, people
seldom left their towns or farms, because travel was
difficult even for short distances. Only the very wealthy
could have the luxurious accommodation for those long
journeys. In 1890, people traveled an average of only 200
miles a year away from their home communities. Today, it
is not unheard of to travel an average of about 4,000 miles
a year; 3,600 of them by automobile.
There are three main kinds of transportation: land, water,
and air. The chief means of land transportation are
automobiles, railroads, trucks and animals. During the
1900's horses played a significant role in the everyday
life. A horse drawn carriage would bring a doctor to the
house if there was an illness, birth or death. A hearse was
pulled by horses to the cemetery when somebody died.
Farmers used them to pull their ploughs while town dwellers
kept them for transportation around town. Horses pulled
delivery wagons for businesses such as a bakery, dairy
factory, and coal company. Horses even pulled fire engines
through the streets in a fire emergency.
Another mode of travel is the bicycle. It is easily
maintained and offers a sense of freedom to virtually
anybody willing to learn.
Henry Ford revolutionized the world we live in by inventing
the "horseless carriage". His invention offered a method of
transportation to the public, and helped with our
emergency services such as fire engines, police cars, and
ambulances. Now we have a large variety of cars to choose
from varying in size and price. He also brought a large
profitable industry to North America; the car industry.
Eleven years prior to World War I, Orville and Wilbur
Wright made a successful flight in the first airplane at
the beach of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Although the
flight only lasted 12 seconds, this invention was
instrumental in bringing many changes to the world.
The area of communication also had many new inventions. The
telephone, an item which is taken for granted today, was
invented by Alexander Graham Bell. This device brought
people into closer proximity to each other and allowed the
house needs to be satisfied without leaving the home. It
created new jobs and women were given the opportunity to
work as switch board operators.
Another important invention in the communication industry
was the development of wireless telegraphy or radio. This
accomplishment is credited to an Italian inventor,
Guglielmo Marconi. He produced the first transatlantic
wireless signal in history and invented the beam system of
wireless for long-distance communication. He can be also be
credited with contributing to modern-day television. The
spectacular growth in the communication industry opened up
thousands of job opportunities in a variety of fields. The
broadcasting industry needs such workers as writers,
producers, directors, cameramen, engineers, electronic
technicians, stagehands, lighting specialists, graphic
artists, set designers and performers. Radio and TV news
departments provide a variety of jobs for journalists.
Communication and transportation are so closely linked that
they are difficult to separate. Communication often makes
transportation possible. For example radio and radar guide
airplanes to safe landings. Charts help sailors bring
their ships into harbors. Transportation takes us where we
want to go, and brings us nearly everything we eat, wear,
and use in daily life. Without trasportation, our modern
society could not exist. | 3,795 | 1,906 | 0.000535 |
warc | 201704 | One of the major concerns facing the prepper and homesteader community is self-defense. Prepper and homesteader sites have articles on how to properly shoot a firearm or how to pick from the various survival knife brands. However, many blogs (my blog Living Dead Prepper is guilty as well) tend to neglect the legal aspects of self-defense. This negligence is a mistake though as you’ll need to have at least a working knowledge of legal self-defense. The notable exception would be total collapse of society. This article will give you a starting point in learning the Castle Doctrine (CD) and the Modified Castle Doctrine. Both of these doctrines are the primary US self-defense laws.
LEGAL DISCLAIMER: THIS ARTICLE IS GENERAL INFORMATION AND IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE. READ YOUR STATE’S SELF-DEFENSE LAWS TO PROPERLY UNDERSTAND YOUR STATE’S HOME SELF-DEFENSE STATUTE . BETTER YET, CONTACT AN EXPERIENCE LOCAL ATTORNEY.
Posts may contain affiliate links, which allow me to earn a commission at no extra cost to you. This helps keep costs down so that I can continue providing high quality content to you for free. I appreciate your purchase through the links! (full disclosure)
The Castle Doctrine
The below principle should always guide you when it comes to protecting yourself and your family:
I’d rather be judged by twelve than carried by six.
You obviously want to avoid being judged by twelve if at all possible in the first place. In that sense, you owe it to both yourself and your family to learn your state’s self-defense laws.
You need to understand common law self-defense to best understand CD. Let’s address common law self-defense. (Self-Defense)
An Overview of Common Law Self-Defense
Please note: Common law is based upon previous court ruling and not written statutes.
Self-defense is an affirmative defense which allows you to reasonably use force against an intruder, or other criminal, without fear of arrest.
To show legal self-defense you must show the following:
Immediate Threat:You must be, at the moment you or a loved one are attacked, afraid that you are in danger. Self-defense cannot be claimed if you drive ten miles to shoot someone who threatened you over the phone. Proportional Response:The use of force must be proportionate to the danger that you would reasonably think may happen to you or others if you were to do nothing. For example, an average sized adult would likely be guilty of murder if they shoot an unarmed, elderly female who is threatening to beat them up. Home Self-Defense Doctrines
The Castle Doctrine and its variants evolved from the above self-defense laws. As a result, many of the common law self-defense concepts, like “Proportional Response” were put into legal statutes.
Castle Doctrine Overview
The predominant home self-defense laws in the USA are CD and Modified CD. Keep in mind that each state may have different variants of the CD. Many states have a different limitation on when, where and how an individual whose state is covered by the Castle Doctrine can legally use self-defense. This explanation of the Castle Doctrine will be based upon a general overview of the CD. I’ll not address any particular state’s specific Castle Doctrine statute.
Below are the main elements of the Castle Doctrine:
Location:You must be physically inside where you live. (e.g. house, apartment, mobile home, etc.). You can’t shoot a burglar, on your front law, who is running away from you. Breaking and Entry:The bad guy must have either broken into your home or attempted to break into your home. The CD would not apply if you shoot someone who is breaking into a shed in your yard. Justification:Was your use of force reasonable? As explained earlier, reasonableness is based upon your particular situation. For example, it may not be considered reasonable to shoot a drunk who has wandered into your house passed out on your couch. Whether a shooting was reasonable can be dependent upon the district attorney, judge, jury and the state where the incident occurred. Duty to Retreat:Historically, to use the Castle Doctrine you must have first shown that you were unable to run to safety. This means that to use the CD defense you could only use deadly force as a last resort. The duty to retreat is currently only required in around half of the US States. Approximately half of the other states use the Modified Castle Doctrine. The Modified Castle Law Doctrine
Under the Modified CD, you don’t have to retreat from an intruder when you’re in your house, yard or workplace. In some states, your personally owned vehicle is covered under Modified CD. Thus, under the Modified CD, you can “Stand Your Ground,” in your residence and use deadly force without first seeing if there were avenues to escape.
Conclusion
Ultimately, a fundamental knowledge of your state’s home Castle Doctrine laws and using common sense are your best self-defense tools. You definitely should know whether your state uses the traditional Castle Doctrine or the Modified Castle Law Doctrine.
Above all, your self-defense strategy needs always to be based upon what is best for that particular situation. For example, just because you don’t have to retreat doesn’t mean that you should never attempt to run for safety.
You need to ask yourself: “Is is safer for me to run, hide, retreat or confront?”
Your final decision on whether to fight or flee ultimately needs to be based upon what is best for both yourself and your family or friends.
References: | 5,606 | 2,590 | 0.000395 |
warc | 201704 | Protecting vulnerable children is no easy job. But Hillsborough Kids Inc. needs to answer for the eight children under the agency's supervision who have been killed in the last two years. For many abused children, the state's safety net is their only chance. The nonprofit needs to examine its training and followup procedures to ensure that these children are receiving the attention they deserve. And the state needs to ensure that the agency has made improvements before considering whether to renew its contract next year.
An article Sunday by the
St. Petersburg Times' John Barry chronicled the deaths and the performance concerns about Hillsborough Kids and its subcontractors. Seven of the eight children who died were under supervision because of reports of abandonment, abuse or neglect. The state Department of Children and Families said no other child protection agency in Florida had as many deaths in the past two years. "When you have eight," said Mike Carroll, the DCF regional director, "that raises alarms."
Saving children from abusive environments is difficult enough when everything is done right. But a review of the eight deaths found several shortcomings cited by DCF. Front-line workers failed to understand the dynamics in the most potentially dangerous homes, and supervisors failed to adequately guide them. These are fundamental weaknesses in an operation where intuition and judgment play such a heavy role in life and death decisions.
DCF has issued invitations to other providers, both for-profit and nonprofit, to compete for the Hillsborough Kids' contract when its term expires in June. While going out for bids is routine, the state sent the right message about the importance of child safety, and Hillsborough Kids president Jeff Rainey said: "Message received." His agency has moved against several key subcontractors, paring back their caseloads or demanding better oversight from caseworkers. The organization has expanded its training programs for staff and will institute a new system for flagging domestic situations that pose greater risks. The agency is also seeking to form a special dependency court for the highest risk cases, to be presided over by Circuit Judge Katherine Essrig, a respected veteran of the family law bench.
The training improvements, new tracking capabilities and more focused attention from the courts will all help — but results are what matter. Hillsborough Kids should examine whether it has farmed out too many duties, eroding accountability in the process. There clearly is a need for better supervisory control. Weaknesses at the managerial level can trickle down rapidly in any organization. But a breakdown here affects victims who literally cannot speak for themselves. Better communications and a process for acting on them should at least help caseworkers make more informed decisions.
Hillsborough Kids has been DCF's lead social service agency in the county since the state began outsourcing family and children's services in 2001. In fairness, the agency has helped thousands of children over that time. And there is value in having a local provider with local roots and local connections. But the agency needs to build a new sense of vigilance and urgency in its child protection efforts — and it must do so quickly. The state should take an active and helpful role in advancing that progress in the coming months. | 3,421 | 1,699 | 0.000593 |
warc | 201704 | I am continuing on with Baby Week today, even though after my appointment on Monday, the doctor thinks that baby won’t be here until next week. But I guess this is one of the things that you just can’t predict!!
One thing that I wanted to do with both of my kids was to make their baby food. I was semi-successful with both, but probably more successful with Abbi, since we ended up in a temporary move in the middle of introducing new foods to Easton. But there is something that feels really good about making food for your baby from scratch – knowing exactly what goes into it. And let’s be honest – it doesn’t hurt that it costs
a lot less, too!!
There are a ton of websites out there today that will help you and walk you through what to feed your baby and when. And of course, you should always listen to the advice of your doctor. The first foods were always the easiest for me. Cook, puree and freeze the peas. Cook, puree and freeze the peaches. But once they got past those first foods, I always found myself looking for more ideas. I wanted to make sure that they had a diverse array of tastes.
When Abbi was first eating solids, I hit up the library. A friend had suggested books by Annabel Karmel, so I picked up one of her books – First Foods, plus another that I found there on the shelves – The Big Book of Recipes for Babies, Toddlers & Children. I liked them both so much that I ended up buying copies of them. These two books ended up being my inspiration through most of their early foods, and continue to be inspiration to me today. I’m not going to lie – some of the recipes are super simple (I really need a recipe for this??) and some of them are pretty out there, but I have been able to pull so much inspiration out of these two books that I want to give them to one of you today.
Done having kids? Aren’t going to have kids? Not even thinking about having kids yet?? Still enter! You can gift these to a friend or relative and I’m sure they will love you forever. And I’m sure there are all kinds of great books out there, but these are two that I first came across, and that I’ve been using for years now.
Want to enter? | 2,226 | 1,121 | 0.000924 |
warc | 201704 | From the
TeachingtheWord
Bible Knowledgebase
Part one of a series
Dr. Timothy J. Keller is one of today's most influential religious leaders, and one of the most dangerous. At the heart of the danger is his widespread promotion of a false gospel that encapsulates Keller's un-Biblical views of God, His Word, His creation, man, sin, the cross, and the mission of Christ's church.
Who is Tim Keller?
Born in 1950, Timothy J. Keller is Senior Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. After undergraduate studies at Bucknell University, Keller earned a Master of Divinity degree from Gordon-Conwell Seminary in 1975. In 1981 he completed studies for a Doctor of Ministry degree at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. Westminster was then, and is now, a hotbed of neo-liberal theology. Its trademarks are the deconstruction of the inspiration of Scripture and the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Keller continues to teach at Westminster as an adjunct professor of practical theology.
In the late 1970s Keller was ordained as a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). In 1989, PCA leaders asked Keller to start a congregation in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Under Keller's leadership, Redeemer Presbyterian Church has since grown to approximately 5,000 members.
Keller is a best-selling author and popular speaker. He has written at least eight books and appeared in several video series, and has contributed to several other books and video productions. His own works include
The Reason for God, The Prodigal God, and Generous Justice.
Keller's Associations
Keller's work has spawned the "Redeemer Network" of churches (officially known as Redeemer City to City) promoting Keller's theology and philosophy. According to its website, the Redeemer Network includes over 150 churches. As of this writing (November 2011) there were 56 in metropolitan New York City, 26 in other North American cities, 12 in South America, 52 in Europe, and 10 in Asia. Redeemer Network churches dominate the PCA's Metro New York Presbytery
Keller is a frequent contributor to the website of the BioLogos Foundation, which promotes belief in theistic evolution in churches, in Christian academia, and in the Christian homeschool movement. According to his biography on the BioLogos website, Keller duplicitously "prefers to be 'noncommittal' on the theories of origins in his writing, so as not to alienate those who prefer one view of creation over another."
In 2009, Keller was one of the original signers of the ecumenical
Manhattan Declaration, the latest effort to bring nominal Evangelicals and Roman Catholics together in the promotion of a common but undefined "gospel" under the banner of social justice and cultural reclamation. The signers of the Manhattan Declaration seek to have what the Bible tells us are the results of the Gospel, without the Gospel - true moral improvement without the prerequisite of eternal life by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit.
Keller is also a key mover in the Gospel Coalition, an ecumenical organization whose leadership and membership are not even agreed among themselves on the definition of the Gospel. Any church is free to list itself as a coalition member. The Coalition's directory web page says, "Find a gospel-centered church near you." But the same page includes the disclaimer that "we are not able to fully vet" the churches listed. Even a cursory exploration of the churches listed shows that many of them have no grasp of the one true Gospel. Instead they substitute variations on the "social gospel" that ensnared thousands of churches during the 20th century, and dominates the Purpose-Driven and Emergent Church movements today.
Why Keller is Dangerous
Tim Keller is one of today's most influential religious leaders, and one of the most dangerous. Many who are familiar with Keller's embrace of theistic evolution think this is the extent of the danger. But there is much more about Keller's ministry that should alarm Bible believers. At the heart of Keller's dangerous influence is a false gospel. As we shall see, Keller's hetero-gospel encapsulates his un-Biblical views of God, the authority of His Word, the origin and present state of His creation, the nature of man, the definition of sin, the purpose of the cross-work of Christ, and the mission of His church.
In this, Keller is essentially no different from 20th-century modernists like Harry Emerson Fosdick and Norman Vincent Peale, or present-day postmodernists like Rick Warren and Brian MacLaren. Yet Keller has a wide following, just as these men have had - including many who consider themselves to be conservative Evangelicals. How can that be? The answer is twofold.
Some in Keller's large following simply assume that he is orthodox because he is a leading figure in a purportedly conservative Protestant denomination. When faced with the reality of Keller's true beliefs, many of these people recoil in righteous horror.
On the other hand, I have found that many of Keller's advocates know that his theology is essentially heterodox. They simply choose to place that inconvenient fact on the altar of pragmatism. They claim that the theology of men like Keller is a side issue, and that confronting it would interfere with being "missional". But their view of the church's mission is, like Tim Keller's, un-Biblical: They seek growth - in both numbers and influence - through compromise of the essentials of Biblical Christianity.
sac0058 | 5,555 | 2,631 | 0.000383 |
warc | 201704 | This single-transistor circuit performs comparably to a prior four-transistor circuit.
Figure 1 shows a single-stage monolithic microwave integrated circuit (MMIC) power amplifier in which the gain element is a double-heterojunction bipolar transistor (DHBT) connected in common-base configuration. This amplifier, which has been demonstrated to function well at a frequency of 172 GHz, is part of a continuing effort to develop compact, efficient amplifiers for scientific instrumentation, wide-band communication systems, and radar systems that will operate at frequencies up to and beyond 180 GHz. The transistor is fabricated from a layered structure formed by molecularbeam epitaxy in the InP/lnGaAs material system. A highly doped InGaAs base layer and a collector layer are fabricated from the layered structure in a triple mesa process. The transistor includes two separate emitter fingers, each having dimensions of 0.8 by 12 µm. The common-base configuration was chosen for its high maximum stable gain in the frequency band of interest. The input-matching network is designed for high bandwidth. The output of the transistor is matched to a load line for maximum saturated output power under large-signal conditions, rather than being matched for maximum gain under small-signal conditions.
In a test at a frequency of 172 GHz, the amplifier was found to generate an output power of 7.5 mW, with approximately 5 dB of large-signal gain (see Figure 2). Moreover, the amplifier exhibited a peak small-signal gain of 7 dB at a frequency of 176 GHz. This performance of this MMIC single-stage amplifier containing only a single transistor represents a significant advance in the state of the art, in that it rivals the 170-GHz performance of a prior MMIC three-stage, four-transistor amplifier. [The prior amplifier was reported in “MMIC HEMT Power Amplifier for 140 to 170 GHz” (NPO-30127), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 27, No. 11 (November 2003), page 49.]
This amplifier is the first heterojunction- bipolar-transistor (HBT) amplifier built for medium power operation in this frequency band. The performance of the amplifier as measured in the aforementioned tests suggests that InP/lnGaAs HBTs may be superior to high-electron-mobility (HEMT) transistors in that the HBTs may offer more gain per stage and more output power per transistor.
This work was done by Vamsi Paidi, Zack Griffith, Yun Wei, Mattias Dahlstrom, Miguel Urteaga, and Mark Rodwell of the University of California at Santa Barbara and Lorene Samoska, King Man Fung, and Erich Schlecht of Caltech for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
For further information, access the Technical Support Package (TSP) free on-line at www.techbriefs.com/tsp under the Semiconductors & ICs category. In accordance with Public Law 96-517, the contractor has elected to retain title to this invention. Inquiries concerning rights for its commercial use should be addressed to:
Innovative Technology Assets Management
JPL Mail Stop 202-233 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA 91109-8099 (818) 354-2240 E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. Refer to NPO-40956, volume and number of this NASA Tech Briefs issue, and the page number. This Brief includes a Technical Support Package (TSP). (reference NPO-40956) is currently available for download from the TSP library. MMIC DHBT Common-Base Amplifier for 172 GHz
Please Login at the top of the page to download. | 3,502 | 1,790 | 0.000563 |
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