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warc | 201704 | Not mulching leaves or grass-cycling on-site? You’re wasting time & money!Reduce your annual cost for fall leaf collection/handling by shredding leaves on-site and retaining this valuable resource as mulch. Adding grass-cycling provides a full three-season approach to turf management for parks and public spaces.
Many local landscapers and municipalities are already saving money, time and energy through these simple on-site grass & leaf retention methods. Join the list of municipalities who have adopted LELE practices and/or passed resolutions of support for this initiative (.pdf file).
Who should be paying attention to this initiative? VIllage Boards, Town & City Councils, Supervisors, and Administrators Municipal DPWs & Parks staff School district grounds maintenance staff Conservation Advisory Committees / Environmental Boards, Sustainability Committees Corporations, condos, churches (and other larger property owners) Taxpayers and budget oversight committees
Watch this short video with Chris DePaoli, Foreman of Irvington Parks Department as he talks about why LELE makes sense for any municipality:
"It's Green and It Makes Cents!"With tight budgets and high labor and materials costs, adopting leaf mulching-in-place and grass-cycling practices makes a lot of sense. Equipment upgrade costs are minimal. Training is available for free (Contact us to discuss scheduling an event or consultation.) The techniques are simple to learn.
Perhaps the most difficult piece of the practice is to develop adequate METRICS to track the savings (reduction in yard waste tipping fees, labor overtime, fuel & transportation costs, specialized equipment purchase and maintenance, for example) that can accrue at the municipal level. Potential savings estimates range from $100k to $750k at a municipal level, depending upon the municipality. Read details at this FAQ.
During the Fall season (Oct-Dec), over 90% of all organic yard waste handled in the County is leaves. Over 60,000 tons of leaves! During the Summer months (May-Sept), 50% of yard waste is grass clippings. Over 38,000 tons. Removal of such yard waste from the County's waste stream could reduce total tonnage processed and transported out of the county by half! That's potentially a $4 Million savings.*
*Estimates supplied by the Westchester County DEF (Department of Environmental Facilities) based upon metrics gathered during 2010. See details in this report on Organic Waste Transfer.
Read what the
EfficientGovwebsite has to say on its blog about the LELE Initiative and leaf mulching. "Westchester Leaf Removal Program Saves $3.5M"
LELE helps reduce labor required to maintain parks. On-site leaf mulching results in environmental and economic benefits! Reduction in the labor and materials costs for fall leaf collection and disposal. Reduction of the traffic hazard caused by piles of leaves in roadway. Reduction of localized flood risk resulting from clogged storm drains. Reduction in the costs to clear clogged storm drains. Reduced phosphate runoff into our waterbodies. Reduced noise and air pollution from leaf blowers. Improved quality and health of turf in parks and public spaces. Improved resiliency of landscape plantings. Virtually free, high-quality, mulch for lawns, gardens and planting areas. Grass-cycling provides many of the same benefits for turf health and soil enhancement. Note: benefits paraphrased from the Village of Scarsdale website. Three Easy Steps to Begin LELE Now Pass a municipal resolution or corporate statement of support for LELE. (Download a sample resolution from Irvington or Scarsdale.) Select a park or municipal property to run a "demo" evaluation in this season. See the difference next Spring! Make use of the materials in our LELE toolkit including "how to" demos, letters, signage. Contact us for availability of training and on-site consultations. Refer to our Landscaper page and our FAQs for more "how to" LELE information. What Are Other Municipalities Saying?Here are a few links to postings related to adopting the LELE Initiative: Did You Know That LELE Training and Outreach May Be Applied to Your Annual NYS MS4 Reporting Requirements? MCM 1- Targeted Public Education and Outreach Best Management Practices printed materials (bookmarks, bilingual "how to" cards, yard signs) public training events video of events (including Board/Council presentations) municipal listserv "eblasts" on LELE (techniques, website, and local training programs) municipal website page on LELE and link to LELENY.ORG MCM2- Public Involvement / Participation neighborhood training events, hands-on demos, Q&A neighborhood LELE cleanup days. MCM 6- Stormwater Management for Municipal Operations catch basin cleanout (reduction in required cleanouts) fertilizer applications (reduction in required applications) municipal staff training (on-site LELE consultations for DPW & Parks staff.) NYS DEC Grant Funds Available For LELE Programs:Expenses incurred for local LELE initiatives (i.e., printing, postage) should be eligible for 50% reimbursement by the state, being that this is a waste reduction/recycling educational outreach effort.
A pre-application for the expenses with estimated costs must first be filed, and then you'll have to wait until DEC requests you file your full municipal application.
For more information, refer to this NYSDEC webpage on State Assistance Programs for Waste Reduction, Recycling and Household Hazardous Waste Programs. Or contact your DEC Regional office.
Here's a sample of some of the educational outreach materials available in our LELENY Toolkit for your use: Informational LELE Bookmark. Bilingual "How To" Card. Letter to Homeowners encouraging adoption of LELE practices. Letter to Landscapers encouraging adoption of LELE practices. Letter from DPW to residents describing LELE practices.
See our LELE Toolkit for both printer-ready and "source" files (allowing edit/modification or co-branding). Toolkit materials include program logo, yard signs, informational letters, PSA videos, bi-lingual "How To" cards (and more!) that will prove useful for your LELE public education and outreach. | 6,193 | 2,965 | 0.00034 |
warc | 201704 | Auto enrolment, the legal obligation on employers to automatically enrol certain workers into a pension arrangement and contribute with respect to them, has been rolled out since October 2012, with larger employers being subject to compliance first. However, it is now the turn of smaller employers, with, ultimately even those employing just one or two people being subject to the requirements. There has been an article on this in our employment publication 'Law at Work' which includes a brief reminder of what is involved. | 528 | 328 | 0.00306 |
warc | 201704 | In
Ardmore Construction and Andrew Perrin v HMRC [2015] UKUT 633 (dual appeal), the Upper Tribunal (UT) dismissed the taxpayers appeals and confirmed that they had received UK source dividends on which UK income tax was deductible at source. Background
Ardmore Construction Ltd (Ardmore) and Andrew Perrin (Mr Perrin) (together the Appellants) each appealed against separate decisions of the First-tier Tribunal (FTT) ([2014] UKFTT 453 (TC) and [2014] UKFTT 223 (TC)) that interest paid on loans arose in the UK and they were liable for tax that should have been deducted by the payer of the interest under section 874 Income Tax Act 2007 (ITA).
Mr Perrin was resident and domiciled in the UK. He was the managing director of a UK company which made contributions to a retirement benefits scheme via two trusts. One of the trusts made loans to Mr Perrin, payment of which was made from the trust's Isle of Man bank account to Mr Perrin's Isle of Man bank account. The underlying loan agreement was governed by Isle of Man law. Mr Perrin made two interest payments from funds in his Isle of Man account.
The FTT determined that Mr Perrin's obligations to pay would have been enforced or would have substantially originated from the UK. It found that the factors of Mr Perrin's residence in the UK and the source of funds for payment or enforcement in the UK outweighed that of the Isle of Man's jurisdiction and actual payments there, and therefore the interest payments arose in the UK for the purposes of section 874 ITA.
In the case of Ardmore, a UK company, two Gibraltar trusts lent funds to it pursuant to facility agreements. Ardmore also entered into loan agreements with companies registered in the British Virgin Islands which were owned by the trusts. Interest payments were made from Ardmore's bank account in the UK, funded by income from Ardmore's UK trading activities. In determining the source of the interest, the FTT referred to Ardmore's residence in the UK and found that the UK, as well as being the source or origin of the funds for payment, was the place of enforcement of the debt.
Relying on
National Bank of Greece SA v Westminster Bank Executor & Trustee Co (Channel Islands) [1971] AC 945, the Appellants submitted that the source of the interest should properly be found by ascertaining the "nationality" or "residence" of the relevant loan instrument, or the place where the credit was provided, and the FTT had erred in applying a multi-factorial test.
Alternatively, if the multi-factorial test was the proper test, the FTT erred by affording too much weight to the Appellant's residence.
The UT's decision
The Appellants' appeals were dismissed by the UT.
The Appellants' relied upon three principal grounds of appeal, each of which were in the alternative.
Firstly, that the source of interest should be found by ascertaining the "nationality" of the loan instrument.
Secondly, the residence of the debtor is not a material factor in determining situs (ie the multi-factorial test).
Thirdly, that the place where credit is provided is the source of the interest.
In the view of the UT, the interest arose in the UK.
The UT gave weight to the residence of the payer and the source of the funds that the payer used to make the payments. Ardmore was repaying its loan using money derived from UK trading activities and Mr Perrin was not able to demonstrate that he could repay his loan from non-UK sources.
The place where the loan was provided and the residence of the lender were not relevant. The UT agreed with HMRC that the question of whether the interest had a UK source was not the same as whether the loan had a UK legal situs.
The UT considered that the FTT was right to have placed such significance on the residence of the debtor and the source of the payments. The
National Bank of Greece case applied so that the source of the obligation to pay interest was pertinent and had to be determined by reference to all the relevant factors. The UT said that it was not possible to list an exhaustive set of relevant factors, since this would depend on the facts of each case. However, the residence of the debtor was material.
The UT therefore concluded that a multi-factorial test applied to determine whether interest arose in the UK for the purposes of UK withholding tax on interest. The UT's decision accords with HMRC's Savings and Investments Manual guidance that a number of factors must be considered, with the residence of the debtor being material. It is pertinent that section 874(6A) ITA now expressly provides that, with effect on and from 17 July 2013, the legal situs of a debt is irrelevant in determining whether interest arises in the UK.
Comment
This case is a reminder that it is important to determine whether payments of interest are from a “UK source” or “arise in the UK”, as such interest is subject to withholding tax unless specific exemptions apply, or the withholding obligation can be removed by a double tax treaty or the EU Interest & Royalties Directive.
It is also of importance to individuals who are resident but not domiciled in the UK who seek to rely on the remittance basis of taxation in respect of non-UK source income and gains.
In practice considerable reliance is placed on HMRC’s published guidance (SAIM9090) which states that whether or not interest has a UK source depends on all the facts and on exactly how the transactions are carried out. Some relevant factors include:
the residence of the debtor and the location of his assets; the place of performance of the contract and the method of payment; the competent jurisdiction for legal action and the proper law of contract; and the residence of any guarantor and the location of any security for the debt.
In light of the above, it will be difficult to avoid the conclusion that interest paid by a UK resident is UK source if that interest, or the repayments of principal, are made (or will very likely be made) out of UK income and assets. | 6,042 | 2,507 | 0.000403 |
warc | 201704 | In 1996, in
Detroit Free Press v. Dept. of Justice, 73 F.3d 93 (6th Cir. 1996) (“ Free Press I”), the Sixth Circuit held that the Freedom of Information Act required the release of booking photos for criminal defendants who appeared in trial. In March, twenty-two years later, the court in Detroit Free Press v. Dept. of Justice (“Free Press II”) found this ruling to be “untenable” considering the unanticipated technological advances which make these photographs easier to access and more likely to stick around. In a 9-7 decision, the en banc Court overruled Free Press I and held that the FOIA’s Personal-Privacy Interest Exemption allows a booking photo to be protected from the public.
The Court recognized that today, unlike in 1996, a simple “idle internet search” can produce these pictures largely due to websites that are dedicated to preserving and displaying even decades-old booking photos. The Sixth Circuit reasoned that because “[a] disclosed booking photo casts a long, damaging shadow over the depicted individual,” a criminal defendant has a strong privacy interest in keeping the picture sealed. And further, these booking photos “fit squarely within the realm of embarrassing and humiliating information,” which the Personal-Privacy Exemption of the FOIA was designed to protect.
Having found that a non-trivial privacy interest existed, the Court then queried whether that privacy interest was outweighed by the public’s interest in disclosure. The Court rejected the categorical approach that requires a finding in favor of the public, and instead, adopted a case-by-case analysis method. The Court held that while the FOIA’s core purpose is to illuminate any shortcomings of government agencies, that purpose is not served by the disclosure of booking pictures, which “reveal little or nothing about an agency’s own conduct.” Thus, the privacy interest was weightier than any public interest in disclosure.
In his dissent, Judge Boggs explained that because neither public nor the criminal defendant expects that a booking photograph will remain hidden from public view, there was no cognizable privacy interest. Yet, in embracing the categorical approach that the majority rejected, the dissent would have held that even if a privacy interest existed, it was outweighed by the “public’s interest in knowing who the government is prosecuting.” The dissent focused on the necessity of a transparent prosecutorial system, and urged that the disclosure of booking photographs is central to the public’s ability to oversee that process: “Open government is too dear a cost to pay for the mirage of privacy that the majority has to offer.”
Free Press II brings the Sixth Circuit in line with the Tenth and Eleventh Circuits. Indeed, the intervening authority from those circuits appeared to be what precipitated the Sixth Circuit’s change of perspective on this issue. Thus, no longer can “straw man” requesters come to Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee to obtain photos maintained in other jurisdictions, as Bernie Madoff’s booking photo was once procured. | 3,230 | 1,512 | 0.000693 |
warc | 201704 | Mandatory Paid Sick Leave
Every California employer, regardless of size, must allow its employees to accrue paid sick time beginning July 1, 2015. Employees must accrue one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours worked, and the benefit is available to temporary, parttime, and fulltime employees. Employees must be provided no less than 24 hours of paid sick time each year, in increments of not less than two hours. Employers may cap the amount of sick time accrued to 48 hours per year and are not required to pay departing employees for accrued but unused sick pay. Paid sick time can be used by employees to attend health care appointments, to care for themselves, and to care for certain family members. Employee wage statements should be updated as the law requires employers provide information to employees of the amount of paid sick time available. Finally, posting and notice requirements for the new law are effective January 1 although sick pay benefits do not have to be provided until July 1, 2015.
Tip: Whether or not currently paid sick leave or PTO policies are in place, employers with any employees working in California for more than 30 days per year should contact legal counsel to ensure they are compliant with all aspects of the new law by July 1, 2015. New Liability for California Employers That Utilize Staffing Agencies
Effective January 1, 2015, California employers with more than 25 employees that utilize a labor contractor, i.e., staffing agency, to supply workers to “perform labor within the client employer’s usual course of business,” will share all civil and legal liability for the payment of wages and provision of workers' compensation coverage with the labor contractor.
Tip: Employers that utilize staffing agencies should perform their due diligence on the agencies’ wage and hour practices to ensure they are fully compliant with California law. Additionally, employers should require proof of workers’ compensation coverage showing their borrowed employees are covered under the agencies’ policy. Additionally, indemnification provisions in agreements with staffing agencies should be reviewed and strengthened. Expanded Mandatory Harassment Training for California Supervisors
California currently mandates two hours of sexual harassment training bi annually for supervisors of employers with more than 50 employees. Effective January 1, 2015, the mandatory training must also include an “abusive conduct” component. The new requirement is focused on preventing workplace bullying but does not create a new legal cause of action for employees.
Tip: California employers must ensure their training programs are updated to include the new component for all training conducted after January 1, 2015. Employee’s Personal Cell Phone Use Is Reimbursable
California has long had a broad requirement that employers reimburse employees for “all necessary expenditures or losses incurred by the employee in direct consequence of the discharge of his or her duties.” Recently, the California Court of Appeal applied this broad reimbursement provision to an employee’s use of his personal cell phone to make workrelated calls. To establish an employer’s liability for failing to reimburse employees as required by state law, all an employee must show is that “he or she was required to use personal cell phone to make workrelated calls and he or she was not reimbursed.”
Tip: California employers must review and revise their policies to ensure work related calls made on personal cell phones are eligible for reimbursement. Policies for reimbursement of Internet usage charges incurred by employees for workrelated activities should also be reviewed and updated. | 3,787 | 1,592 | 0.000643 |
warc | 201704 | On February 26, 2015, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to adopt its Open Internet Order (Order). The Order reclassifies both wired and mobile “broadband Internet access service” as a “telecommunications service” and brings broadband Internet service providers (ISPs) under Title II of the Communications Act (Act). Additionally, the Order adopts some “bright line” rules, and specifies those provisions of Title II that are not in the public interest and, therefore, will not apply to broadband.
The Order
The move to adopt the Order ends the FCC’s attempts for more than a decade to enforce its open Internet policies, including its two previous attempts that were struck down by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (D.C. Circuit) for lack of authority to regulate “information services,” the classification previously used for broadband Internet services. These previous attempts were sparked when ISPs attempted to charge certain Internet content providers, such as streaming audio and video providers, higher rates to ensure priority over the network. The FCC hopes to prevent the courts from invalidating the Order and future regulations through reclassification of both mobile and wired broadband Internet service as telecommunications services.
The Order sets three bright line rules to prohibit broadband ISPs from engaging in the following activities: ISPs cannot block access to any legal content, applications, services, or other non-harmful devices ISPs cannot throttle Internet traffic on the basis of content, applications, services, or other non-harmful devices ISPs cannot give priority to some types of traffic over others in exchange for consideration of any kind
In addition, the Order requires ISPs to disclose, in a common format, all promotional rates, fees, surcharges, and data caps to consumers. The disclosures must also include packet loss as a measure of network performance and provide consumers with notice of the ISP’s network management practices that may affect service levels. The Order offers a temporary exemption from the disclosure requirements for ISPs with 100,000 or fewer subscribers, and requests that the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau make recommendations as to whether the FCC should retain this exemption in whole or in part.
The Order explicitly recognizes that ISPs need to engage in reasonable network management outside of the context of paid traffic prioritization. The FCC will consider the underlying technology involved to determine the reasonableness of an ISP’s network management practices, and specifically cautions against attempts by ISPs to justify network management practices primarily designed for a business purpose as reasonable network management. The FCC is required by the U.S. Congress to only apply provisions of the Act that are in the public interest. While the FCC will endeavor to modernize Title II for broadband Internet service, it took an initial look at Title II to decide which provisions should immediately apply to modern broadband services, and which provisions are not relevant to such services. The major provisions found to apply to broadband are: ISPs cannot use unjust or unreasonable practices or discrimination The FCC may investigate consumer complaints and pursue certain enforcement actions Fair access to poles and conduits must be ensured in an effort to boost the deployment of new broadband networks The FCC may protect consumer privacy There must be protections for people with disabilities Support is necessary for the universal service fund
The major provisions that do not apply are:
The FCC will not undertake utility-style rate regulation, including tariffs and last-mile unbundling Broadband providers will not be required to contribute to the Universal Service Fund, although this will be considered in a separate, unrelated proceeding Broadband service will remain exempt from state and local taxation under the Internet Freedom Act Removes the FCC From Enforcing Privacy and Security Promises Under Section 5 of the FTC Act
Ever since its first enforcement action in United States v. ChoicePoint in 2006, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has held companies that do business over the Internet responsible for their privacy and security promises to consumers through its power to investigate unfair and deceptive trade practices under Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act (FTC Act). However, Section 5 of the FTC Act explicitly holds the practices of entities considered common carriers, such as telecommunications companies, outside the FTC’s reach. The FCC’s decision to reclassify broadband Internet access services as telecommunication services appears to strip the FTC of its authority to regulate ISPs through its Section 5 powers. Instead, the FCC itself will be permitted to regulate the privacy and security practices of such entities. The FCC has been gearing up to bring such enforcement actions since 2014, when it filed complaints against mobile communications carrier Verizon Wireless (Verizon) and against Lifeline telephone carriers TerraCom Wireless and YourTel Wireless. This stripping of power is limited, however, and the FTC will continue to regulate the security and privacy practices of other businesses, including those that provide their goods and services over the Internet, but do not otherwise provide broadband Internet access services.
The Benefits and Challenges of the Order
The Order — and its potential meaning to consumers, ISPs, and other businesses — is not without controversy. Supporters of the Order cite the benefits of security for consumers, the end to “discrimination” in the delivery of broadband services, and the promotion of every individual’s right to communicate freely online. On the other hand, some question whether the Order will simply invite more legal fights between the FCC and the ISPs, and stifle investment and innovation in the Internet. Moreover, the process by which the Order passed is characterized as partisan by critics.
Verizon published a creative, if not wholly impartial, response in the form of a “Throw Back Thursday” 1930s-style press release, complete with typeface reminiscent of an old Remington typewriter. In this response, Verizon cites the Order as “unnecessary and unproductive…,” while also pointing out that Congress is currently working on legislation to codify rules for the Internet. AT&T Corporation’s response firmly points out that there should be a middle ground between the Order and the current status. This controversy is sure to play out in the near future. Most likely, it will include ISPs and others challenging the Order, its enforcement, and its validity in court. Primary among the arguments will likely be what exactly is meant by being “in the public interest” under Title II. An additional test will be whether the post-2016 election commission, staffed by new players, will uphold the Order. Impact on Businesses
The Order applies mostly to providers of broadband Internet access services and, therefore, the new regulations will not affect most entities that operate websites to provide their goods and services over the Internet. For the few types of businesses that took advantage of the so-called “fast lanes” ISPs provided at additional cost (mostly streaming video providers), the new regulations might negatively affect the speed and quality of service the end user experiences. This could result in increased complaints from consumers who are not able to achieve the download and/or streaming service speeds to which they have become accustomed. Broadband ISPs, on the other hand, will need to become familiar with the host of new regulations that will apply to them and maintain vigilance for additional regulatory changes, as the FCC fine-tunes what Title II regulations will apply to such services. | 8,042 | 3,421 | 0.000298 |
warc | 201704 | “I wonder how many people don’t get the one they want, but end up with the one they’re supposed to be with.” – Fannie Flagg
Like Fannie rightly puts above, love is always found and for those who don’t get the ones they had found, there is always someone better for them. While also defining love in its profoundness, some like to relate it with compatibility while others do with commonality. Quite frequently though, common interests play a very vital role in making the bond strong and understanding each other better.
This article here presents to you a list of such amazing things that only couples with common interests can experience.
1. They are more understanding during the difficult times.
For couples sharing a common career interest, for example lawyers or engineers, the partners can better understand the hard times that one has to go through and the struggle to even earn for living.
The partners also understand how hectic the work can get and be easy with the tough schedule of their partner or might even get one theirself according to their routine. It’s something like having your lover also as your best friend.
These understandings do not only play a motivational role but also the couples can work as an assistant for each other by being of some good help during difficult times.
2. They have perfect holidays and weekends.
For couples having similar favorite adventures or hobbies, they can spend their holidays and weekends with all the fun and excitement.
Imagine both partners crazy about cycling, rock climbing or even travelling. They can spend their holidays or weekends without having to compromise each other’s interest. They can help each other with something they know well about f.e. a sport and foster their love in their mutual love for the game.
These experiences that they together gain can help them better explore into the persona of each other. In this way, both can better realize the weaker and stronger aspects of each other.
3. They always have something to share together.
Generally, the couples having common interests have more common topics to talk about and share ideas on. Their similar choices that could range from sports to academic fields, keeps them engaged in a conversation that they both love to have.
They can have a good dinner table talk, visit a theatre because they both love to or maybe keep dancing to some music. Having topics of similar interest not only helps the couples have a good conversation but it also interestingly keeps them thinking of their partner whenever something related comes across them.
4. They know the personality of their partner better.
Such couples generally get to spend more time together than other couples because they have so many things in common. Just as mentioned above, such couples can spend their holidays doing something that both of them love.
While spending more time together, the partners get the chance to learn more about the inner personhood of their partner. These learnings can be really helpful in deciding how to handle the relationship in a matured way. Understanding each other’s personality is not only important in making the relationship last for a longer time but also helps both of them live happily together.
5. They have personal growth within the same space.
Relationships play a significant role in motivating people to achieve their goals. In a relationship, when both the partners share similar interests, one can assist the other grow not only career wise but also as a person in whole.
The couples can learn from each other and even struggle or live through the hard times together. Each of them can work as a helping hand to the other, in a way helping both grow in a common way. With all these motivational factors and their working together to achieve the common goal, efforts from two should definitely bring better fruits.
6. They create unforgettable memories together.
In a relationship when both the partners have attraction, interest or love for a common thing, they tend to explore such things. This will not only make the couples content with their relationship but also helps them create unforgettable memories.
For someone loving extreme sports or simply travelling, what could be better than to have a partner having the same interests who would love to accompany them on such adventures? What in fact a person loves to recall as memories are the good moments that have passed away.
7. They have expert’s opinion when needed.
Interestingly, for couples having common interests, one can guide the other in times of difficulty or confusion. One can play the role of an expert and deliver good advice at times of need because of their earlier experiences on the subject, which is quite common for people with common interests.
This however, will also make the partners dependent on each other or in another sense respect each other for their support, which in turn gives rise to the feeling of being compatible with each other. One can also learn from the mistakes of the other. These traits are very essential for enduring relationships with the partners assisting each other in times of trouble with solutions they really know about.
8. They have a long-lasting relationship.
The couples sharing common interests understand each other’s troubles better, always have something to share with each other and get to spend lots of time together, all of which we have already discussed in the article.
Interestingly, these characteristics lead to a much stronger bond because both the partners feel connected, attracted and loving towards each other exactly because of their common interests.
These traits really help in making the relation more beautiful and lasting for a longer time. With many things in common and a better understanding of each other, the partners love spending more time with each other. This helps them create a life-long bond.
Featured photo credit: Couple holding hands in Kauai via commons.wikimedia.org
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warc | 201704 | Mondays are depressing enough but today is Blue Monday, and known to be the most depressing day of the year.
It's the day when your New Year's resolutions start slipping, and the January struggles begin to take their toll, especially with the winter weather and the long wait until pay day.
But don't worry, we've got 10 tips on what you can do to brighten up your day, beat the blues and get through it without it being too miserable.
If you're job is making you depressed - now is the time to change it.
It's a new year and it can be a new you too. Have a look at possible job options and explore what you might like to do. The Open University's Careers and Employability Service says that "if you're eager for a change, consider how a new role could work as a stepping stone to your ultimate goal or whether investing time in part time study might support your development."
Forget Dry January!
Perk up your day with a nice glass of bubbly. Research from the University of Columbia has found that champagne contains proteins that are beneficial for your short term memory and so can help stave off dementia. And a study by Reading University in 2013 also said that three glasses of bubbles per week can help improve short term memory. And let's face it, who doesn't like getting together with friends or family for a glass of fizz? A small flute of champers is roughly 80-100 calories, so that's fewer than a 175ml glass of wine.
Book a holiday
The summer months may seem so far away, but you can motivate yourself and dream of the lighter mornings by having something to look forward to. Book a holiday to that place you've been desperate to go and start planning your trip, not only will it come around more quickly as you have something to focus on, it'll ensure you think about something positive.
Go to the gym
So your New Year's resolution is to shed those Christmas pounds and you're half way through January and losing the motivation. But did you know that working out releases natural endorphins? According to the NHS, exercising can help to boost self-esteem, make you sleep better, give you more energy and those who regularly work out have up to 30% lower risk of depression.
Book a feel-good show
Book you and a friend two tickets to see Billy Elliott and be uplifted by the story of the north east miner's son who swapped boxing for ballet. The UK tour starts in Plymouth on February 24 and ends in Southampton in February next year. See www.ents24.com for more details.
Eat more chocolate
Giving it up or eating less might be your New Year's resolution, but eating chocolate can help to lift your mood. It boosts levels of serotonin, which is the brain's antidepressant, and endorphins. Dark chocolate can also reportedly cut levels of stress hormones.
A random act of kindness
Perform a random act of kindness for a stranger. Give up your seat on the train or pay for their morning latte. A study in Clinical Psychological Science found that helping others is a natural way to relieve stress and help improve your overall health.
Pamper yourself
If you've had a long day at work, run yourself a bath, light a few candles and relax. Taking some time out for yourself will allow you to de-stress and reboot your energy to take on the next day.
Watch a funny film
Let a comedy take up your evening. On Monday, Sky Movies Comedy has Horrible Bosses 2 on at 8pm and Sky Movies Disney has the Robin Williams family favourite Flubber on at 9.20pm.
Go to bed an hour earlier than usual
If none of the above has worked and you've had a bit of a bad day, go to bed that little bit earlier. The NHS says that most adults need between six and nine hours of sleep each night and getting the recommended amount will help you feel refreshed and able to function properly the next day. | 3,814 | 1,949 | 0.000517 |
warc | 201704 | Americans spent about $139 each on chicken in 2007, as reported by the American Meat Institute, making it one of the most popular meats consumed. Several major companies dominate the chicken farming market. These companies have raising chickens down to a science, but many disadvantages come with that science. If you are concerned about issues such as antibiotic administration and animal cruelty, consider shopping for free-range or organic birds.
Salmonella
Commercially raised chickens are raised in crowded conditions. As a result, infections and bacteria spread more readily among the birds. Commercially raised chickens are more likely to carry salmonella, which causes illness in humans. Symptoms of salmonella poisoning are diarrhea and vomiting, with hospitalization or even death occurring in severe cases.
Inhumane Conditions
Commercially raised chickens are often kept in pens without light or access to the outdoors. Animal rights advocates call these practices cruel and unnecessary to the raising of healthy chickens. If you care about the way your chicken was treated before slaughter, this is a distinct disadvantage of commercial chicken farming.
Drugs
Commercially raised chickens are often fed antibiotics to prevent the spread of disease in the farms. Although the Food and Drug Administration requires a waiting period between administration of the drugs and slaughter to help reduce residue of the drugs in the chicken’s system, it does not change the fact that the drugs were administered. The antibiotics used are the same used by humans. Farmers administer antibiotics to prevent disease rather than treat it, which can encourage the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Additives
Most commercially raised chicken is injected with a salt or monosodium glutamate solution during processing. Adding these solutions plumps the chicken and preserves its pink color. They also increase the sodium content of the meat and can cause health problems in sensitive individuals. Consuming too much sodium is associated with an increased risk of hypertension, or high blood pressure, which may be associated with atherosclerosis and other circulatory problems.
Feed Quality
Commercially raised chickens are fed compounds that may be dangerous to human health, reports a study published in the journal “Environmental Health Perspectives” in April 2008. Some companies have discontinued use of these compounds, but commercially raised chickens may still be eating feed that contains parts of slaughtered chickens, feces, plastics and an overabundance of grains. Some feed also contains arsenic, which helps make chicken meat pink, but could also be hazardous to human health. Poor quality feed could mean poor quality meat. | 2,772 | 1,311 | 0.00077 |
warc | 201704 | Various conditions from sinus infections and heartburn to allergies and tonsillitis cause your body to make too much saliva. Ask your doctor about steps to take to reduce excess saliva until the underlying condition is under control. Some people find eating certain foods while avoiding others helps manage excess saliva. Dietary changes alone are likely not enough if you have a more serious underlying issue.
Nix the Sugar
It's best to avoid or limit foods rich in sugar when you have issues with excess saliva. Sugary foods may increase your body's saliva production, according to MedlinePlus. Sugar-sweetened beverages, candies, baked goods and dairy desserts like ice cream represent some of the major sources of sugar in the typical diet. Eating a diet rich in these foods has other health implications like weight gain and an increased risk of insulin resistance. Take steps to eliminate these foods if you find yourself eating them often.
Temporarily Eliminate Sour Foods
Sour foods significantly stimulate saliva production, and avoiding them may help control the problem, according to the ALS Association. Citrus fruits like lime, lemon and grapefruit have a particularly tart taste. If you're used to eating these, replace them with less bitter fruits like ripe oranges, peaches and ripe plums. Other tart foods include fermented vegetables like sauerkraut, Greek yogurt, foods containing vinegar and tamarind. Add these otherwise nutritious foods back into your diet once the underlying condition is treated.
Boost Fiber Intake
Most fiber-rich foods contain a mixture of soluble and insoluble fiber. The soluble type dissolves in water, and boosting your intake of it may help reduce excess saliva, writes Janet Maccaro in the book "Natural Health Remedies." You may have even noticed that your mouth feels dry after eating bread. Increase your intake of whole-grain breads, whole oats, beans and lentils to get more soluble fiber in your diet. Fiber supports digestive health and may promote healthy blood sugar and cholesterol.
Salted Nuts
If you've ever eaten salted nuts, you likely noticed your mouth felt dry afterward. This is because the salt on the nuts absorbs fluid. Nuts contain beneficial fat, vitamins and minerals that are good for you. Unless you're on a restricted sodium diet, snacking on salted nuts helps manage excess saliva, according to Maccaro. Too much sodium isn't good for you, so moderation is key. A few salted nuts as a snack may go a long way. | 2,498 | 1,239 | 0.000811 |
warc | 201704 | Why topping hurts trees
A tree that needs to be pruned back should never be cut across the top. Known as topping, this method should be avoided if you want to keep the tree alive. Instead, prune the tree to retain its natural structure.
Radio interview source: Sharon Lily, Education Director, International Society of Arboriculture
Every tree has a natural shape, and should be pruned carefully to retain its structure. Trees that are buzzed straight across the top are not only ugly, they'll never grow back into their beautiful form.
Sharon Lilly is the education director for the International Society of Arboriculture. She says people who top their trees often don't know any better. Some do it because they're afraid the tree is unsafe and think topping is the proper thing to do. She says it may be safer in the short term but it will likely bring even more problems.
"The tree needs to put out leaves to survive, so it puts out a lot more shoots from each of those cuts," she says. "The problem is, those shoots are very weakly attached and as they grow and become larger, they tend to snap right and left with the wind storms that come through."
Wounds left from the cuts will often decay. The branches are putting out new shoots on the outside, and decaying on the inside.
Lilly also notes that in the longrun, topping trees is expensive.
"Once the trees are topped, they grow back very fast," says Lilly. "Sometimes in as short as three-years they are back to the height that they were before they were topped, and they need to be topped again. So it's expensive to do it over and over again. The tree becomes progressively more decayed and conceivably more hazardous with each topping. So, it starts a spiral that just really gets worse and worse."
If you have a tree that has to be reduced in height or spread, Lilly advises hiring an professional arborist who understands the recommended pruning techniques to retain the natural form of the tree.
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warc | 201704 | Three billion years after inanimate chemistry first became animate life, a newly synthesized laboratory compound is behaving in uncannily lifelike ways.
The particles aren’t truly alive — but they’re not far off, either. Exposed to light and fed by chemicals, they form crystals that move, break apart and form again.
It makes me think of this: | 363 | 257 | 0.004106 |
warc | 201704 | ONE ward at Craigavon Area Hospital failed to meet standards during an unannounced inspection last year.
Four wards were inspected however a follow-up visit was required after the first inspection felt improvement was needed on cleanliness and infection prevention.
Indeed the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority which carried out the inspections, revealed it had returned to five of the six largest acute hospitals in Northern Ireland for follow-up inspections.
Last year there was an unannounced inspection to Lurgan Hospital in May, another in Craigavon on June 23 which required a follow-up unannounced inspection in September and there was a fourth unannounced inspection to the Cancer Unit at Craigavon in October.
The RQIA is the independent body responsible for monitoring and inspecting the availability and quality of health and social care services in Northern Ireland.
Details of each hospital visit and the issues discovered have not been revealed. However during their hospital visits, RQIA inspectors found that some clinical areas failed to have automated or elbow-operated taps, despite last year’s pseudomonas outbreak which claimed the lives of four babies.
Inspectors also found an unacceptable degree of lime scale in some sink areas.
While overall hospitals in Northern Ireland were found to be are a lot cleaner, there is still room for improvement according to the RQIA.
Of the four wards visited in Belfast’s Royal Victoria Hospital, all four had to be revisited in a follow-up inspection.
Three out four wards were checked again at the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald, two out of four wards at Belfast City Hospital were revisited and one ward was rechecked in both Craigavon and Altnagelvin.
While only one ward was inspected at Longstone Hospital in Armagh, inspectors were not satisfied and returned for a follow-up inspection.
The criticisms included that there was a lack of a robust monitoring system by the appropriate staff.
This meant patients and families could not be assured about the level of cleaning taking place.
Some wards had dirty, bloodstained mattresses while older buildings often had cracks and crevices which were, according to the inspectors, reservoirs for bacteria.
Unannounced inspections to the acute hospitals in Northern Ireland resulted in a follow-up inspection in five of the six largest acute hospitals.
A spokesperson for Craigavon Area Hospital said: “Unannounced inspections to the acute hospitals in Northern Ireland resulted in a follow-up inspection in five of the six largest acute hospitals. One ward in Craigavon Area Hospital was subject to a follow-up inspection and achieved an overall compliance score.
“The Southern Trust has some of the lowest rates of infection and in particular, has the lowest rates of C difficile in the UK.” | 2,854 | 1,243 | 0.000817 |
warc | 201704 | The length of your snowboard will vary depending on your body weight and the type of riding you plan to do. Back in the day, traditional snowboard sizing meant you stand next to the snowboard and if the top hits your chin, great, it fits! While that may be a good place to start, weight followed by riding style are the most important factors in determining the appropriate board length.
A rocker board side profile is the opposite of a cambered board, with a smooth downward curvature to it and less edge contact length when the board is weighted. Rocker boards float well in powder and pivot more easily underfoot. They also tend to be less “hooky” at both tip and tail and better for landing spin maneuvers when you don’t quite have enough rotation.
When a snowboard waist width is sized correctly the snowboard boots will hang over the edges of the snowboard just slightly but not so much as to hit the snow when the board is on edge. Extending the toes and heels slightly over the edges of the snowboard allows you to apply leverage to the board and modulate pressure with your ankles.
For more information on your width options and benefits,click here. | 1,178 | 636 | 0.001599 |
warc | 201704 | Cardinal O'Malley Urges Congress to Support the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act
WASHINGTON--Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), urged support for the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act (H.R. 7) when it comes before the U.S. House of Representatives. In a January 28 letter to the House, Cardinal O'Malley called the bill "one small step toward a society that promotes life and not death for unborn children and their mothers."
"It will write into permanent law a policy on which there has been strong popular and congressional agreement for over 37 years: The federal government should not use its funding power to support and promote elective abortion, and should not force taxpayers to subsidize this violence," Cardinal O'Malley wrote. "Even public officials who take a 'pro-choice' stand, and courts that have insisted on a constitutional 'right' to abortion, have agreed that the government has every right (in the Supreme Court's words) to 'encourage childbirth over abortion.'"
Cardinal O'Malley noted that this consensus is reflected in the Hyde amendment and other provisions in appropriations bills, but that such measures have not prevented the Affordable Care Act of 2010 from subsidizing health plans that cover elective abortions. H.R. 7, he wrote, "would end this glaring contradiction in federal law." He added: "The American people, including American women, oppose public funding of abortion and want that opposition reflected in our law once and for all."
The full text of Cardinal O'Malley's letter is available online.
On January 9, Richard Doerflinger of the USCCB Secretariat of Pro-Life Activities testified before the House Judiciary Committee in support of H.R. 7. More information is available online: http://www.usccb.org/news/2014/14-005.cfm .
Unnecessary Confiscation of Palestinian Lands in Occupied West Bank
WASHINGTON--The United States should urge the government of Israel to cease and desist in efforts to unnecessarily confiscate Palestinian lands in the Occupied West Bank, said the chairman of the Committee of International Justice and Peace of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to Secretary of State John Kerry. In a January 28 letter, Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, specifically addressed the situation in the Cremisan Valley, which he visited earlier this month.
"As I stood amidst the beauty of this agricultural valley and heard the testimony of the Christian families whose lands, livelihoods and centuries-old family traditions are threatened, I was simply astounded by the injustice of it all," wrote Bishop Pates.
Bishop Pates enclosed a January 28 communique from the bishops of the Holy Land Co-Ordination, which made a similar call:
"Our deep concern, as we have repeatedly stated is that this planned security wall is more about consolidating the settlement areas and permanently choking off Bethlehem from Jerusalem," wrote bishops from Europe, North America and South Africa. "This particular plan is a microcosm of the tragic situation in the Holy Land which incites resentment and mistrust, making the possibility of a much-needed solution less likely."
The full text of Bishop Pates' letter and the message from bishops on the Holy Land are available online.
U.S. Bishops File Amicus Curiae Brief Challenging HHS Mandate
Laws must protect individuals and families who seek to practice faith in daily life
WASHINGTON--The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) on January 28 filed an amicus curiae brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in support of the plaintiffs in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius. In both cases, family-owned businesses are challenging the legality of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) regulation that forces virtually all employers to include in their employee health plans coverage of sterilization, contraceptives, and drugs and devices that may cause abortions, as well as related education and counseling.
The USCCB explained in its amicus brief that it opposes "any rule that would require faithful Catholics and other religiously motivated business owners to choose between providing coverage for products and speech that violate their religious beliefs, and exposing their businesses to devastating penalties." These penalties include "potentially fatal fines" of $100 a day per affected individual.
The brief reflects and implements the U.S. bishops' consistent support for litigants from the non-profit and for-profit sectors alike who have challenged the HHS mandate in court.
Archbishop William E. Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the USCCB's Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, stated that "Catholics believe that the right to religious freedom proceeds from the inherent dignity of each and every human person, and that includes people who run businesses. They should not be specially excluded from the freedom to practice their faith in daily life."
The amicus brief argued that religious exercise cannot, and should not, be excluded from the marketplace; that the mandate substantially burdens Hobby Lobby's and Conestoga's religious exercise; and that the mandate cannot survive strict scrutiny review by the Court.
Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood Specialties are among over 90 lawsuits filed by more than 300 plaintiffs challenging the HHS mandate in courts around the country.
The brief is available online. | 5,550 | 2,624 | 0.000384 |
warc | 201704 | US Crude is showing limited movement on Tuesday, as the pair trades at $42.26 a barrel in the European session. In the US, all eyes are on Preliminary GDP. As well, the US will release another key indicator, CB Consumer Confidence. On Wednesday, there are two key major events – Core Durable Goods Orders and Unemployment Claims.
Oil prices posted gains on Monday, after Saudi Arabia expressed willingness to cooperate with OPEC and non-OPEC members to stabilize oil prices. This was a notable development as the Saudis have previously opted to allow market forces to squeeze out the higher cost producers, rather than act to reduce production levels in order to raise the price of oil. Since August, oil prices have dived, as OPEC members and other oil producers continue to pump out oil at high levels, which has resulted in a global glut, as supply has far outstripped demand. If the current situation continues, analysts say that we could see oil drop below $30 a barrel as early as next year. The markets will be keeping a close eye on the OPEC meeting on December 4th. It’s doubtful that we’ll see oil move much higher before then, as the economic slowdown in China and other emerging countries continues to have a negative impact on global markets and has led to a sharp decline in commodity prices.
The guessing game continues, as the markets hunt for clues as to what we can expect from the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting in early December. Last week’s Fed minutes did not confirm a December rate hike, but most analysts feel that the long-awaited move will indeed occur next month. Market expectations have risen to 66% that the Fed will make a move next month, and recent comments by Fed policymakers have hinted that a rate move is a strong possibility. At the past two policy meetings, the vote against a rate hike was 9-1, but that clearly will not be the outcome at the December meeting. With the US economy showing improvement and employment and consumer indicators pointing upwards, the markets appear prepared for a small hike of 0.25% or 0.50%, and there is a growing view that modest, incremental moves would not cause unwanted turbulence on the global markets. One remaining question mark in the rate move puzzle is that of inflation levels. Recent inflation readings have been weak, and the Fed has repeatedly stated that inflation is a key consideration in any decision to raise rates. The markets will get a look at key inflation indicators shortly before the critical Fed policy meeting on December 16.
WTI/USD Fundamentals Tuesday (Nov. 24) 13:30 US Preliminary GDP. Estimate 2.0% 13:30 US Goods Trade Balance. Estimate -61.8B 13:30 US Preliminary GDP Price Index. Estimate 1.2% 14:00 US S&P/CS Composite-20 HPI. Estimate 5.2% 15:00 US CB Consumer Confidence. Estimate 99.3 points 15:00 US Richmond Manufacturing Index. Estimate 0 points Upcoming Key Events Wednesday (Nov. 25) 13:30 US Core Durable Goods Orders. Estimate 0.5% 13:30 US Unemployment Claims. Estimate 273K
*Key releases are highlighted in bold
*All release times are GMT
WTI/USD for Tuesday, November 24, 2015
WTI/USD November 24 at 10:05 GMT
WTI/USD 42.26 H: 42.52 L: 41.75
XAU/USD Technical
S3 S2 S1 R1 R2 R3 35.09 37.75 39.87 42.59 44.30 47.04 39.87 is providing support. 42.59 is a weak resistance line and could be tested during the day.
Further levels in both directions:
Below: 39.87, 37.75 and 35.09 Above: 42.59, 44.30, 47.04 and 49.06
This article is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Corporation or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. Leveraged trading is high risk and not suitable for all. You could lose all of your deposited funds. | 3,834 | 1,943 | 0.00052 |
warc | 201704 | Soups Soups Industry Market Research Reports, Analysis & Trends
Soups industry comprises companies that manufacture, produce and supply products that are commonly liquid dishes that are prepared from vegetables, fish, chicken or any other meat stock which is combined with other flavored ingredients. Soup is basically a comfort food staple that has been growing at an impressive rate and especially in the last five years with over 30% growth rate. Globally, soups are traditionally divided into clear and thick and they can be again divided into vegetarian and non-vegetarian. It was the invention of canning that resulted in commercializing of soup in the food market. Now, the most common retail soups such ready to serve are being sold at hotels, restaurants, prepared at home, and ready mix packets that required addition of hot water. It is the convenience aspect that attracts most consumers to soups.
The global economic recession made consumers help understand the value of soup and according to Mintel International, the soup products industry is expected to maintain the momentum for many years in the future. Its health benefits and high quality nutrition filled convenience has made soup products and its sales to shoot up at a good rate across the world. Mintel International adds that private label soups are majorly attracting many consumers and there are different varieties such as condensed soup, dry soup mix, bouillon, ramen and frozen soup are some of the new products that are introduced. While the innovation keeps happening, the industry seems to be generating a great amount of revenues.
Commonly, condensed soups, require some preparation by adding an equal amount of water or some type of liquid. Dry soups too require some preparation and contain agglomerated starches that dissolve easily in hot liquids. Frozen soups have the shortest shelf life, and Ramen is a simple type of noodle in bouillon or broth, usually dehydrated. Basically, soups are popular and most consumed as a starter before main course among consumers as filling and tasty dishes that can be both healthy and inexpensive.
Current Trends in Soups Industry
Soups industry mainly produces soups of different varieties. Soups usually don't spring up in mind as something as fast-moving and dynamic products that attracts consumers like a moth to a flame, but it is a big market and big enough to sustain and function for a long time to come. The soup industry is a vast industry worth over $4 billion and there are significant sector shifts, such as the dominant category such as ready to serve wet soup, condensed soup and dry soups.
Since last few decades, the convenience is defining the theme for the packaged soup market, and the soup category has reacted to the recession and constant changing consumer needs, and the number of new soups that claim to be premium has declined over the last two years while economy soups have reached a new high. As the recession and economic instability has faded, Mintel International reports that there is an increase of demand across many categories and there is an increased consumer interest in value.
Major Soups Industry Players
Major players in the soup industry include Knorr, Baxters Food Group Ltd, Associated British Foods Plc, Hain Holdings Uk Ltd, Hj Heinz Manufacturing Uk Ltd, Premier Foods Plc, Symington's Ltd and Unilever Plc | 3,390 | 1,608 | 0.000624 |
warc | 201704 | “Dangerous.” “Frightening.”
Really? Those were the recent pronouncements of a fund manager and a technical analyst. As a portfolio manager and a technical analyst with four decades of experience, I was struck by those harsh words, and I was compelled to carefully review my bullish posture to determine if I had missed something obvious and ominous.
In the end, I simply could not subscribe to those dire market forecasts. Far from it. While I could soon have egg on my face, my technical studies are posing a considerably different outcome than a short-term decline of 25% set forth by a “frightened” technician.
Seemingly similar disciplines, however, can yield wildly different forecasts. I remember in the 1980s, two practitioners of the Elliott wave theory had completely opposing views of the market outlook at the time — one was resolutely correct, the other shockingly wrong.
The 'open carry' controversy
My evaluation of the stock market begins with the technical observation of individual stocks, identifying subtle trading nuances that may reflect the astute investor’s perceptions and investment actions. My technical strategy is bottom-up, pointing us in an unconstrained manner to the most attractive stocks and leading sectors, and providing my unbiased general market forecast.
Through this disciplined approach I am hard-pressed to see the sorts of technical deteriorations that would cause me to deem the market “frightening.” The bull-market cycle has not evolved into an overheated stage where feverish, reckless buying is evident. Stocks are not astronomically valued, nor is the market dangerously micro-thematic.
And the market is not vulnerable to an assault on any one leadership group. For instance, when biotechnology and technology stocks came under heightened selling pressure recently, the broader market remained composed, pulling back only modestly. This market is extraordinary for its diverse leadership, which may explain, in part, why it has managed to navigate gracefully through negative headwinds for years.
It is not a large-cap market alone, but one populated also by mid-cap and small-cap stocks. It has endured regular and routine corrections that have addressed near-term price and sentiment excesses, bolstering support at incrementally higher market levels. It is a market that spent nearly half of 2013 consolidating its earlier hefty gains. And it is a market that has had four distinct moves into record territory this year, which have been anything but straight-line advances.
So-called momentum stocks in fields such as biotechnology and technology got hammered recently, but many of these same stocks appear to have reestablished support at acceptable downside limits with a number of these stocks now reclaiming their shorter-term uptrends. The market has benefitted substantially from its most vital course determinants — interest rates and earnings.
Low interest rates, transparent Fed policy and better-than-expected earnings augur well for the bull camp. It is my contention that terms such as “dangerous” and “frightening” are a bull’s delight in a setting where monetary and fiscal trends are encouraging and the market scales a rising “wall of worry.”
Indeed, this may be the “Rodney Dangerfield bull market” of modern times: It gets too little respect, is feared rather than revered for its accomplishments, and sports an S&P 500 multiple of about 17.5 that is in stark contrast to the earnings-starved stock leaders of the last cycle that ultimately led to the great technology bubble.
Rather than treat this bull market as a mirage, perhaps it should be regarded as predictive. It seems this market is anticipating something more optimistic than the daily headlines or the naysayers would have us believe. My conclusion is that even a 10% correction could remain elusive until stocks rally considerably higher (Dow Jones Industrial Average: 17,250-plus). Like the cycles that preceded this one in the past 30 years, it is unlikely to expire until there is more widespread optimism, more speculation and, perhaps, a smiling bull on the cover of a major periodical.
I believe one of the outcomes of this cycle will be a strong revival in U.S.-based industrial activity. This postulation is based on the longer-term strength and durability of manufacturing-related stocks since 2002. The linked materials group also appears robust which may, in turn, explain the strength in transportation-related stocks. In fact, the market’s bullish pattern is confirmed by the Dow Theory, which argues that when the Dow Jones Transportation Index leads the Industrial Average (DJIA), the trend is more likely reliable.
This year, the Dow Transports have outpaced the Industrials by more than 800 basis points (as of May 29). That is impressive and provides top-down evidence that manufacturing activity may eventually accelerate beyond economists’ expectations.
Gene Peroni Jr. is senior vice president of equity research and a portfolio manager at Advisors Asset Management. He airs a daily podcast and publishes the monthly Peroni Report, offering subscribers a technical perspective on the equity markets. More from MarketWatch: | 5,305 | 2,601 | 0.000394 |
warc | 201704 | Browse by Medical Category
Recognizing the association between intimate relationships and health, the health care setting is an ideal place to provide services to survivors of intimate partner abuse (IPA). Through a culturally diverse and linguistically appropriate array of supportive services, HAVEN provides supportive counseling, advocacy, support groups, workshops and accompaniment to survivors of intimate partner abuse.
HAVEN helps connect survivors to needed services, provide information and referrals relating to the legal aspects of domestic violence and accompanies survivors to health care, legal or other appointments. Strong community partnerships with legal, elder, child, and other health care services are integral to HAVEN’s work.
HAVEN advocates are available at MGH Boston, as well as the healthcare centers in Revere and Chelsea. HAVEN also provides training, consultation, and policy advice to providers at MGH. The program also conducts research on various issues facing program clients, as well as program evaluations to identify areas for improvement.
For more information, visit the HAVEN at Mass General website.
The Revere High School Youth Empowerment Group, led by HAVEN's Cate Leonard, create a video to raise awareness of teen dating violence.Watch
The HAVEN program at Mass General Hospital held activities at Revere High School to shine a light on Teen Dating Violence Awareness Week.
Read more
It was a morning of honest, powerful speeches at the Sept. 5 anniversary breakfast for HAVEN (Hospital’s Helping Abuse and Violence End Now). The group has provided counseling, advocacy, support groups and workshops to domestic abuse survivors at the MGH for 15 years.
STAFF AT THE MGH play a crucial role in the lives of their patients.
Contact HAVEN
HAVEN Advocates are available Monday through Friday 8:30 am-5:00 pm. After hours and on weekends, call 1-877-785-2020, Massachusetts Statewide Hotline, Safelink.
Contact us to schedule an appointment or with any questions. Boston: 617-724-0054Chelsea: 617-887-3513Revere: 781-485-6108
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warc | 201704 | Using the Project Management Process to improve Your Project Success
Project Management Process vs. Project Management Lifecycle vs. Project Management Methodology
As mentioned on the Define Project Management page, there are several Project Management methodologies in use around the world.
In fact, most of the “methodologies” in use are actually project management processes, which attempt to encapsulate and standardize the project management lifecycle. Typically, a “methodology” is at a much higher level, a more “strategic” definition of project management. The project management process or lifecycle is a “tactical” view of the project management work – it defines not only “what” is to do; but also “how” you will accomplish the work.
This page discusses the project management process and lifecycle – the tactics of successfully completing your project.
Project Management Process
Typically, a project management process follows a flow similar to the “Plan-Do-Check-Act” cycle, defined by Shewhart and modified by Deming (from the ASQ Handbook, pages 13-14, 1999). Simply, the phases or steps of the PDCA cycle are linked together by results – the result of one step becomes the input to another.
A successful project management process must address the various phases of the project lifecycle. In some cases the work phases are arbitrary, based on organizational project practices. In all cases, the phases are well defined and the transition from one work phase to another typically involves the transfer of some sort of deliverable (a document, piece of software, invoice, bill of materials, report, etc.)
Alignment between project management processes and the project lifecycle is driven by project work, deliverables, and milestones. Although project lifecycle phases appear to be sequential, involving the exchange and approval of deliverables, the vast majority of all projects are actually highly iterative. Work phases of a project are defined by specific schedule milestones and deliverables, or Work Product.
Project management steps or phases of the project lifecycle are similar to those of most project management processes.
The project management process defines the following
what work needs to be accomplished in each project phase
Who performs the work in each project phase
When the deliverables are produced and delivered in each project phase
Who is responsible for review and approval of each deliverable
How the delivery, review and approval of each deliverable, as well as the work of each project phase, is monitored and controlled The criteria which determines the conclusion of the project phase and the initiation of the next phase
What is the deliverable acceptance criteria
Which group is responsible for the deliverable requirements, review, and acceptance
Typically, the project management process includes the following project characteristics:
Stakeholders have much more ability to influence the project (cost, deliverables, resources, and schedule) earlier in the project rather than later
Project costs and resource levels begin low, peak during the middle phases (the Project Execution steps), and drop-off as the project nears closure
Project risk and uncertainty are highest early in the project and will typically reduce as the project progresses – assuming it is on-schedule and on-budget
The project management process defined by the PMBOK®, from PMI, mirrors the typical project lifecycle phases. Remember that all organizations apply the phases of the project lifecycle differently; and even differently for different projects. For example, one company may apply a single design phase while another might apply 2 or more design phases during a single project.
Throughout the pages of this website, I will assist you in bringing the application of the project management process to a tactical level. I will also work with you to align the project management process phases to the project lifecycle phases within your organization.
Project Management Statistics and Performance Poorly planned, mis-managed, undisciplined and poorly executed projects are doomed to failure... So what else is new, right? Read on...
Some statistics I gathered look like this:
if a project is in trouble within 15% into the project, the project will never recover and stay in trouble through completion (from a DOD study of over 700 projects).
it almost always takes twice as long to complete a task as what we originally thought it would take (more a “true-ism” than a statistic).
70% of projects fail to deliver the benefits anticipated at the outset.
a government study (GAO) showed that major projects were overrunning budgets by 75% on average and that the huge projects ($1B and over) were 14% over budget. Seven years later, these overruns were measured at 140% and 189% respectively.
using the "80/20 Rule", we will typically accomplish 80% of our results using 20% of our resources. While the other 20% of additional results comes from using about 80% of our resources. (Again probably more of a truism.)
over 90% of project failures are due to poor planning.
A 1998 Information Technology project survey (seems old, but is still quoted) of 203 participants indicated the following reasons for failure:
75% deadlines missed,
55% budget exceeded,
40% poor communications,
37% unmet project requirements.
The same survey indicated the following as project success factors:
51% meet milestone objectives,
32% maintain quality levels,
31% meet budget objectives.
According to most studies in this area, poor software implementation is due to bad or poorly articulated requirements. Many experts agree that 40-60 percent of software defects and failures are attributed to bad requirements.
Most who quote project management failure statistics are quoting, usually out of context, from a 1994 report by The Standish Group, called the CHAOS Report.
The Standish Group has been producing and updating its research report since 1994. Their report on project performance, called The CHAOS Report of 1994 documented sobering statistics: 31.1 percent of projects cancelled, 52.7 percent "challenged" (completed over budget and/or behind schedule), and just 16.2 percent successful. An updated report, 2003 CHAOS Chronicles, shows a 50 percent improvement in project success rates.
Even though statistics may look gloomy, they are continually improving due to:
Improved information sharing through web sites such as this
Self-Discipline through industry associations, such as PMI and IPMA
Improved practices through project management certifications and continuing education requirements
Increasing discipline among company leaders, focused on projects as implementing change and ensuring that project meet ROI thresholds
All of these reasons, along with your search for the best information, tools, and coaching (by using this web site) means that project success rates will continue to increase – and we will all win.
PMBOK® -- Project Management Body of Knowledge
The Project Management discipline mentioned above is embodied in the various, proven project management processes, such as PMI's PMBOK® (Project Management Body of Knowledge) and the OGC's PRINCE2®. Although these are often called “methodologies”, they play a dual role. They provide the tactical tools and guidance for you as a Project Manager and for your Project Team Members to effectively and successfully manage projects to conclusion.
Although I have worked projects in the UK (in England) which used PRINCE® and PRINCE2®, I am most familiar with PMI’s PMBOK®. Although less a project management process than PRINCE2, PMBOK® provides high-level structure through its project lifecycle, called Project Process Groups.
Project Initiation – Project Planning – Project Execution – Monitoring & Control – Project Closure
PMBOK® also weaves in 9 “Project Management Knowledge Areas”:
Project Integration Management
Project Scope Management
Project Time Management
Project Cost Management
Project Quality Management
Project Human Resource Management
Project Communications Management
Project Risk Management
Project Procurement Management
PMBOK® further defines the Inputs and Outputs for each individual project management process within each of the 5 Process Groups. There is enough detail within all of the 44 project management process, grouped under the 5 process groups, to provide specific tactical project management steps, tools and templates.
As stated in the PMBOK® Guide (3rd Edition), for your project to be successful, you must work with your team to:
Select appropriate processes within the Project Management Process Groups required to meet project objectives
Use a defined approach to adapt the product specifications and plans to meet project and product requirements
Comply with requirements to meet stakeholder needs, wants and expectations
Balance the competing demands of scope, time, cost, quality, resources, and risk to produce a quality product.
Although you follow the PMBOK® and have adapted those project management processes to your project, your project’s success is meaningful only when it encompasses:
the degree to which the technical goals were achieved on time and within budget
the contribution that the project makes to achieving the strategic mission of the enterprise or customer.
(I will discuss the PMBOK® and how it can benefit your project on a subsequent pages.)
Project Quality Management Project Quality Management is an extensive subject area that I will begin to explore on this page and continue provide additional, more detailed pages of discussion and examples.
Project Quality Management is one of the nine PMBOK® Project Management Knowledge Areas, which align with the five project management process phases. PMBOK® defines “Project Quality Management” as:
”… all of the activities of the performing organization that determine quality policies, objectives, and responsibilities so that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was undertaken. It implements the quality management system through the policy, procedures, and processes of quality planning, quality assurance, and quality control, with continuous process improvement activities conducted throughout, as appropriate.”
As you can see from the definition, the PMBOK® provides a somewhat “basic” and “general” approach to project quality management. According to the PMBOK® Guide, this is done on purpose to allow for compatibility with the various approaches to quality, as might be implemented within your organization or your client’s organization. The PMBOK® approach is compatible with ISO, TQM, Six Sigma, Cost of Quality (COQ), Continuous Improvement and others. It also is compatible with approaches espoused by Deming, Juran, Crosby, and others in this field.
PRINCE2®, mentioned above is an “open” method, meaning no license fees. It is sponsored by the UK government's Office of Government Commerce (OGC) and recognized as best practice project management process. A basic difference, among others, is that PMBOK® is customer requirements driven, while PRINCE2® is business case driven.
The layout of PRINCE2® is comparable to PMBOK® and the two are in close alignment in many areas. One of these is Project Quality Management, with the difference that PRINCE2® provides a more tactical, process-based approach than PMBOK®. PRINCE2’s approach to project quality management consists of:
Clear quality management points (esp. Quality Control), and Quality Assurance roles and responsibilities
Defined and orderly handling of Work Packages (Managing Product Delivery)
A fit with the ISO 9000 Quality Management System and consistent with CMM Level 5, though rarely considered as a "quality tool"
Specifies one type of Quality Control (work product focused)
Used for documentation, websites, and other text-oriented deliverables
Consensus on completion and scope verification
Provides clear, tactical guidance on how-to implement quality management
There are definite synergies between the two project management processes – PMBOK® and PRINCE2®. PMBOK® provides structure, depth, and techniques which are adaptable to all project situations. PRINCE2® provides complimentary techniques and project guidance in areas of Organization (such as establishing “Project Board” governance), Product-Based Planning (a focus on the product produced), Product Descriptions, Quality Review, Configuration Management, Change Control, and Work Packages (definition, review, and approval processes).
The basis of solid Project Quality Management is the discipline of your project management process and the rigor with which you apply it, as the Project Manager. Next, you as the PM must comply with your organization’s (or your customer’s) quality policies and procedures.
(Does your organization have an enterprise-wide quality initiative?) Finally, you must be rigorous and consistent in your application of your Project Quality Management Plan (which is an important component of your overall Project Management Plan.
(I will address all of the above topics in more detail throughout this web site, as we continue to define project management.)
Back to the Project Management Tools & Resources page for practical templates and tools to take better advantage of the Project Management Process.
Take another look at Project Management Career & PM Certification opportunities, now that you have a good understanding of the answer to “what is project management”.
Return to Home Page from this Project Management Process page. | 14,036 | 5,667 | 0.000183 |
warc | 201704 | Individuals may experience pain with prolonged sitting or standing. Some individuals develop chronic pelvic pain. About 60% of individuals who experience a sacral fracture will have a neurological complication (Wheeless). These include cauda equina syndrome, in which the individual experiences decreased sensation in the buttocks, genitalia, or thighs with urinary retention and loss of rectal tone, and bladder dysfunction caused by nerve injury (neurogenic bladder). Sexual, bladder, or bowel dysfunction may persist due to nerve damage. Other possible complications include death of the bone cells (avascular necrosis) due to inadequate blood supply, bleeding from injuries, infection, an unstable or arthritic spine following injury, and deep vein thrombosis (DVT).
Source: Medical Disability Advisor | 808 | 482 | 0.002082 |
warc | 201704 | The researchers say their predictive system allows experimental biologists to bypass the need to create stem cells in converting human cells from one type into another.
In a
Nature Genetics paper, the team - led by scientists from the University of Bristol in the UK - notes that the current method for directly reprogramming human cells from one type to another - called "cell transdifferentiation" - takes a long time because it relies on trial and error to find the correct transcription factors.
Transcription factors are proteins that - among other things - help to regulate gene expression. All the cells of our body carry the same genes, but different genes are expressed and silenced in different cell types.
To transdifferentiate one cell into another, you have to change the arrangement of which genes are switched on and which are switched off - and for this, you need a unique set of transcription factors, depending on which genes you are dealing with.
There is another way to create new cells of a certain type, and that is to go via pluripotent stem cells - immature or precursor cells that have not yet "decided" which type of cell they are. But, as Julian Gough - professor of bioinformatics at Bristol - explains, their predictive system means you do not have to go down this path:
"The barrier to progress in this field is the very limited types of cells scientists are able to produce. Our system, Mogrify, is a bioinformatics resource that will allow experimental biologists to bypass the need to create stem cells."
Pluripotent stem cells can be used to treat many different medical conditions and diseases. There are two types: embryonic and artificial. Embryonic stem cells are derived from embryos, and while they are the best quality stem cells, there are ethical concerns about their use - plus, the process of harvesting them from embryos for therapeutic use is expensive and difficult.
The first human artificial pluripotent stem cells were created nearly a decade ago by a team led by Shinya Yamanaka, of Kyoto University in Japan. It took them a long time - using trial and error - to find the four transcription factors that allowed them to reprogram fibroblasts from the skin of mice into pluripotent stem cells. Since then, scientists have only been able to discover further conversions for human cells a handful of times.
'Atlas of cellular reprogramming'
Prof. Gough says Mogrify predicts which transcription factors to use in order to create any human cell type from any other cell type directly.
With Prof. Jose Polo, of Monash University in Australia, the Bristol team tested the system on two new human cell conversions - and succeeded first time in both cases. Prof. Gough notes:
"The speed with which this was achieved suggests Mogrify will enable the creation of a great number of human cell types in the lab."
It took the Bristol team 5 years to construct the algorithm by bringing together information on gene expression with that of transcriptional regulatory networks. They used data from the FANTOM international consortium (based at RIKEN, Japan), of which Prof. Gough is a long-time member.
The paper notes how the team "applied Mogrify to 173 human cell types and 134 tissues, defining an atlas of cellular reprogramming," and that the algorithm "correctly predicts the transcription factors used in known transdifferentiations."
Prof. Gough sums up the implications of their work:
"The ability to produce numerous types of human cells will lead directly to tissue therapies of all kinds, to treat conditions from arthritis to macular degeneration, to heart disease. The fuller understanding, at the molecular level of cell production leading on from this, may allow us to grow whole organs from somebody's own cells."
In an effort to accelerate progress in the field, the team has made Mogrify available online for other researchers and scientists to use.
In November 2015,
Medical News Today reported a study where scientists directly reprogrammed human skin cells into serotonin-releasing neurons. The team identified a cluster of six transcription factors for directing the cell differentiation. | 4,185 | 1,883 | 0.000536 |
warc | 201704 | Merck's human papillomavirus vaccine Gardasil is effective in preventing vaginal and vulvar tumors, according to a study to be published on Saturday in the journal Lancet, Dow Jones reports.
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Gardasil in clinical trials has been shown to be 100% effective in preventing infection with strains 16 and 18, which together cause about 70% of cervical cancer cases, and about 99% effective in preventing HPV strains 6 and 11, which together with HPV strains 16 and 18 cause about 90% of genital wart cases, among women not already infected with these strains.
FDA in June 2006 approved Gardasil for sale and marketing to girls and women ages nine to 26, and CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices later that month voted unanimously to recommend that girls ages 11 and 12 receive the vaccine, which is given in a three-shot series. Merck last month announced that it has submitted an application to FDA for extended approval of Gardasil to help prevent vaginal and vulvar cancers.
After three years of follow-up, the study found that the vaccine was 71% effective in preventing vaginal and vulvar cancers related to HPV strains 16 and 18 among women who previously had been exposed to HPV strains 6, 11, 16 and 18.
It was 100% effective among women who previously had not been exposed to those strains. The vaccine was not effective in fighting vaginal or vulvar lesions that had already formed, according to the study.
According to Merck, vaginal and vulvar cancers account for about 3% and 4% of gynecological cancers, respectively. According to HealthDay News/Forbes, HPV is present in about 80% of the 6,000 vaginal and vulvar cancers diagnosed annually in the U.S.
Source: Kaiser Family Foundation
LIN/B
Advertisement | 1,752 | 830 | 0.001212 |
warc | 201704 | When it comes to weight and size, the London Olympic medals are the largest, however they are in fact worth less than three pounds.
Advertisement
According to The Daily Mail, the bronze medals are made up of 97 percent copper, 2.5 percent zinc and 0.5 percent tin, and is therefore only worth about three pounds.
AdvertisementThe gold medal consists of just over one percent real gold, the rest is made up of 92.5 percent silver and 6.16 percent copper.
For a silver medal the gold is replaced with more copper, meaning the final product is worth around 210 pounds.
Rules laid down by the International Olympics Committe specify that the medals must contain 550 grams of high-quality silver and six grams of gold.
The 2012 gold medallion is therefore only worth about 410 pounds as raw metal, although the real value would, of course, be much higher if the medals were ever sold.
The medals will be awarded in 805 victory ceremonies over the next two weeks.
The medals weigh 375-400g and are 85mm across and 7mm thick.
Even though Olympic gold medals are not made of 100 percent gold, a medal can still fetch hundreds of thousands of pounds at auction.
Source: ANI
Advertisement | 1,191 | 639 | 0.001582 |
warc | 201704 | Enchanté: Golden chanterelles are just the start of the mycological miracles on display at this weekend's Fungus Fair. Morel Authority
This weekend's Fungus Faire celebrates the mighty mushroom.
By Christina Waters In the beginning, there was foraging. Long before there were delis, salad bars and smorgys, humans combed the forests and fields hunting for enticing edibles. It probably didn't take long for successful food gatherers to discover the magical changes that occur immediately after a rain shower. Mushrooms, fungi, fabulous organic shapes, began sprouting on trees, logs, leaves and mossy banks and in verdant fields. And lo, much of this stunning natural phenomena was good to eat—if it didn't kill you. But that's a different story.
Part of the mysterious allure of the mushroom, as well as of its cousins the fungi, yeasts and molds, lies in its sudden eruption. Unlike green plants that live by converting chlorophyll into sugars through photosynthesis, fungi form invisibly, in vast underground networks of filaments called mycelia. Feeding on other organic matter, the mycelium is what makes the mushroom resemble an animal more than a vegetable. The mushroom that pops up above ground is actually the fruiting body of the unseen web. There's no gradual growth from seed to tiny shoot to large botanical entity. With the mushroom it's literally an overnight transformation.
Among the endless reasons to live in the Santa Cruz Mountains is one that mycologists (mushroom experts) know full well. Some of the most delicious and highly prized wild mushrooms love to spring forth after those first rains from the dense oak-leaf floors of our forests. Experts will tell you that this happens—local restaurants might even showcase some of the wild captures on winter menus—but few mycophiliacs will show anyone their prized mushroom hunting grounds. As with the European truffle, the actual locations where edible mushrooms appear are closely guarded secrets.
Nonetheless it's quite possible for anyone willing to crawl around under oak trees during wet weather (!) to discover their own treasure troves of the most sought-after varieties—the sweet butter-yellow golden chanterelle (
Cantharellus cibarius) and the supple, earthy black trumpet chanterelle ( Craterellus cornucopioides). The experts who will gather at Louden Nelson Center This weekend for the 34th Annual Santa Cruz Fungus Fair will show you what to look for and how to get started.
This year's Fungus Fair offers two days of eye-opening, educational and delicious exhibits and demonstrations. Hundreds of wild mushrooms will be on display, as well as experts available to answer all your questions. Herbalist Bill Schoenbart will deconstruct medicinal mushrooms at 1pm on Sunday. Saturday's cooking demo by mushroom chef Dan Brophy begins at 3pm, and on Sunday (same time) Jozseph Schultz will wok you through some India Joze-style mushroom magic.
The 34TH ANNUAL SANTA CRUZ FUNGUS FAIR happens Saturday-Sunday, Jan. 12-13, at Louden Nelson Center, 301 Center St., Santa Cruz. Tickets at the door are $6 general/$4 seniors and students (kids under 12 free). For complete details, call the Santa Cruz Museum of Natural history at 831.420.6115 or check the Fungus Fair website: www.santacruzmuseums.org. A Few Fungus Facts Factoid 1: Underground mycelium networks are among the largest and oldest living organisms. Take the Armillaria ostoyae, a fungus also known as the Shoestring Rot. The aggressive mycelium of this fungus feasts on the hardwood and conifer forests of the Cascade Range, and travels huge distances under the trees to form its immense network of "shoestrings." Even though this fungus survives by attacking and eventually killing the roots of its tree hosts, the process helps to recycle nutrients and encourage further forest growth. Ecology in action, if you will. One such fungal colony in eastern Oregon's Malheur National Forest is currently touted to be the largest such entity in the world, covering (are you sitting down?) over 2,000 acres, or 1,200 football fields. It's also over 2,000 years old! That's one big ol' biomass. Next time you see a cluster of mushrooms, have some respect for its sheer existential vitality. FACTOID 2: The ancient Romans and Greeks prized mushrooms as gastronomic delicacies—the earliest "cookbook" by Apicius lists many recipes for preparing truffles and boletes. The ancients were also adept in applying the lethal properties of some mushrooms. It was the highly poisonous Amanita muscaria (with its beautiful red cap covered by white spots), administered by his third wife, Agrippina, that ended the illustrious life of Emperor Claudius. FACTOID 3: When preparing mushrooms for eating, do not soak them in water. Their highly porous bodies will absorb the water and become mushy. Instead brush them off with a dampened paper towel, or with one of those nifty little mushroom brushes.
Send a letter to the editor about this story. | 5,014 | 2,597 | 0.000389 |
warc | 201704 | Diaz Plan Calls For Green Certification For New Buildings
Written by Risa Polansky on March 22, 2007
By Risa Polansky
If you’re going to build big in Miami, build green or don’t build at all, Mayor Manny Diaz says.
New buildings of about 50,000 square feet or more would be required to be Leadership in Energy Efficient Design-certified if the city commission approves the mayor’s proposal in May when they review the first phase of Miami 21, the city’s blueprint for growth.
"There may be some initial "Oh my God, what is this?" Mr. Diaz said. "But I think we’ll get over it quickly."
The response of builders has been "so-far so-good," he said. "I think they’re all realizing that this is the wave of the future."
Developers would be offered density incentives to build green, Mayor Diaz said, which could help soften the blow of higher associated costs.
Through research in developing Holly Realty’s Miami Green, a 120,000-square-foot LEED-certified office condo at 3150 SW 38th Ave., "we found the extra cost is actually negligible," said sales broker Bert Checa.
To develop within the lowest LEED standards would require a 2% increase in construction costs, Mr. Checa said.
To meet the medium-grade, or silver, standards Miami plans to require, a developer may see a 4% increase, 10% to meet the highest LEED requirements, he said.
LEED projects are designed to cost less in operation and maintenance, Mr. Diaz said.
According to Mr. Checa, the state is considering offering incentives for green buildings.
About $1 billion in green projects are "on the table, on the way to build-out" in Miami, Mr. Diaz said. He said he will take several green-related resolutions to the commission April 12 — including one calling for a two- to four-person office to coordinate the city’s greening efforts. | 1,870 | 1,007 | 0.001033 |
warc | 201704 | I fly a lot as part of my job and I find myself frequently flying Barcelona to London Gatwick round trip. When I do I’m usually flying EasyJet. The last time I flew I noticed that I could print my boarding card at home and thereby avoid the check-in line at the airport provided I wasn’t checking bags.
EasyJet is Europe’s Southwest Airlines in the sense that there is no assigned seating. Passengers are divided into boarding groups. Before home printing of boarding cards became available through EasyJet you had to go to the airport and stand in the check-in line just as with most other European airlines. Those who get there early get to be in Group A which means getting to board the plane first and enjoying the “luxury” (not a word that should be in a post about EasyJet but bear with me) of choosing your seat; window, middle or asile – front, middle or back of the plane. Those in boarding Group B can usually get a pretty good seat as well but by Group C the pickings are pretty slim. If you’re in Group D you probably got to the check-in counter moments before the pilot switched off the fasten seat belts sign at 10,000 feet and you were more than likely stuck between sweaty fat guy and the football hooligan.
So you can imagine my delight when I saw I could print my boarding card at home, go straight through security and to the gate. Except when I got to the gate I noticed that my boarding card said Group D. What the – ? I printed my boarding card two days earlier and the only reason for me to be in Group D I thought was that everyone in Groups A, B and C must have printed theirs three days earlier. Since that was unlikely, I asked one of the gate attendants about it and was told that “since you didn’t have to wait in line at the airport you were relegated automatically to Group D”.
WHAT?
That didn’t make much sense to me. It seemed pretty counter-intuitive to good business.
I think the airline would be better served to encourage people to print their boarding cards at home. It saves the airline workers time and effort herding passengers at the check-in counter and that reduces cost – for both the airline and the passengers. Wouldn’t it make more sense to offer every incentive to the passenger who does more of their own work – i.e. printing the boarding card at home and showing up without bags to be checked? Shouldn’t the passenger who does that get to be in the first-boarding groups instead of automatically placed in Group D?
Next time I have the opportunity to print my own boarding card with EasyJet I will think twice. I may rather get to the airport a littler earlier, listen to a good podcast while I stand in line and get a better seat on the plane. On the other hand, maybe EasyJet customer service and marketing executives are blog readers (or some friends of theirs are) and they’ll get this note. | 2,939 | 1,406 | 0.000734 |
warc | 201704 | The Marital Attitudes Evaluation (MATE) measures the amount of satisfaction that the respondents feel toward someone close to them (their mates) and the amount of satisfaction that they perceive their mates feel with them. The MATE questionnaire is designed to explore the relationship between two people who have close contact with each other. Such pairs include husband and wife, parent and child, a couple living together, lovers, close friends, or two people who work together closely. The pair may be of the same gender or of opposite genders. The term "mate" is used generically to refer to each person in these relations. It means simply "one of a pair."
The MATE has been used very effectively as an opening to explore a relationship and can help to pinpoint areas of difficulty. It is an excellent resource for marriage, school and relationship counseling. Anyone in a close personal relationship can benefit from the information brought to light by this evaluation. Based on the FIRO Awareness Scales model, respondents indicate the kinds of inclusion, control, and affection they desire from their partner and their understanding of their desires. Recommended for stimulating discussion and analysis of relationships.
Copyright © 1989 by Consulting Psychologists Press, Inc. | 1,298 | 717 | 0.001409 |
warc | 201704 | Reprints YOUR ACCOUNT YOUR ORDERS SHOPPING BASKET
Items: 0
Total amount: € 0,00 HOW TO ORDER YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS YOUR ARTICLES ACCESSIBILITY THE JOURNAL OF SPORTS MEDICINE AND PHYSICAL FITNESS A Journal on Applied Physiology, Biomechanics, Preventive Medicine, Sports Medicine and Traumatology, Sports Psychology
Indexed/Abstracted in: Chemical Abstracts, CINAHL, Current Contents/Clinical Medicine, EMBASE, PubMed/MEDLINE, Science Citation Index Expanded (SciSearch), Scopus
Impact Factor 1,111
The Journal Of Sports Medicine And Physical Fitness 2015 Nov 12 language: English When celebrations go wrong: a case series of injuries after celebrating in sports
Momaya A., Read C., Estes R.
✉ Division of Sports Medicine, University of Alabama Birmingham, Birmingham, AL 35205, United States
AIMS: Athletes often engage in various celebration maneuvers during sports events. These celebrations can result in acute injuries. Our objective was to document publicized injuries in collegiate and professional athletes resulting from celebrations and examine associated variables.
METHODS: A retrospective case series study was performed based on internet searches performed using the following major sporting news websites: espn.com, SI.com, bleacherreport.com, totalprosports.com, cbssports.com, larrybrownspots.com, nfl.com, and mlb.com and PubMed. Keywords used during these searches included “celebration injury,” “score celebration,” and “surgery after celebration.” These same sources were used to document the sport, athlete’s age at time of injury, celebration action, type of injury, previous play, and whether surgery was required. RESULTS: A total of 62 athletes sustained 62 injuries resulting from various types of celebrations. All but two athletes were males, and the average age was 26.5 years old. The injuries occurred between 1993 and 2015. Sixteen (25.8%) of these injuries required surgery. Professional soccer players accounted for the greatest number of these injuries with a total of 22 injuries. One celebration in a professional soccer player resulted in a cervical spinal cord injury and subsequent death. Common celebration maneuvers included leaping into the air, pile ups, sliding, and somersaults. CONCLUSIONS: Serious injuries occur in a diversity of sports after celebrations. The most prevalent celebration maneuvers resulting in injuries included sliding and pile ups. The most common injuries were ACL ruptures and ankle sprains. The most serious injuries were a spinal cord injury and ankle fractures. Sixteen (25.8%) of the injuries required surgery. By encouraging athletes to temper excessive celebrations and prohibiting certain types of celebrations, many injuries may be prevented. | 2,773 | 1,396 | 0.000731 |
warc | 201704 | "A Data-Driven Approach to Closing the Skills Gap & Knowledge Retention"
presented by: Kenneth Mall, Managing Director and Kevin Watson, Director of Business Development - EDSI, Dearborn, Michigan
DESCRIPTION:
Worried about knowledge retention as baby boomers start to exit your workforce? Whether you expect to lose a significant number of workers in the next five years, or have a handful of mission-critical employees nearing retirement age, the speaker will provide you with actionable steps that you can take to identify critical skills within your organization, determine knowledge at risk of disappearing from your organization, and jump-start your training and knowledge retention programs. The speaker will share best practices and lessons learned from across the country, so that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Train employers and managers how to conduct Knowledge Loss Risk Assessments
Focusing on the critical positions where knowledge loss is the greatest threat
Identifying and prioritizing the specific knowledge and skills at risk
Developing concrete, actionable responses to mitigate this loss
Teach employers and managers how to identify employee Skill Gaps (incumbent workers and new-hires).
Train employers and managers how to create a Skills Balance Sheet for their organization (a red, yellow, green matrix that helps to identify training priorities).
Teach employers and managers how to develop knowledge capture strategies, so that institutional knowledge does not walk out the door as employees exit the organization.
Teach employers and managers how to develop knowledge transfer strategies, so that they can build their talent pipeline.
HRCI CREDITS:
This webinar has been approved for 1.0 General Credit.
COST:
Complimentary for Detroit SHRM Members
$25 for Non-Members of Detroit SHRM
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS:
Kenneth Mall has more than 20 years of leadership experience working with top-tier companies, labor organizations and government agencies, identifying the skill needs of their workforces, and developing and implementing solutions to meet those needs. Kenneth received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Walsh College, Troy, Michigan.
Kevin Watson is the Director of Business Development for EDSI. Over the last decade, Kevin has had the pleasure of working with hundreds of accomplished clients. As more and more baby boomers start to retire, Kevin is passionate about working with HR Managers and Hiring Managers to (1) capture institutional knowledge before it “walks out the door,” (2) pass that knowledge onto incumbent workers, and (3) efficiently and effectively identify, train and/or upgrade the skills of our next generation of workers.
About EDSI
Founded in 1979, and headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, EDSI is a workforce development, customized training and consulting company intertwined with one common thread: helping people and companies in transition. EDSI employs close to 500 people in eight states, and was named to the Inc. 500/5000 list of fastest-growing private companies in America in 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012.
EDSI is internationally recognized for its work in the area of workforce skills analysis and organizational knowledge management. EDSI is one of the only private workforce development and management consulting companies to be ISO 9001 certified. This distinction, which is awarded by an internationally accredited auditing firm and monitored every 12 months, signifies that EDSI has policies, procedures and practices that are well-documented and consistently-implemented.
EDSI (Recent Awards):
101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For (National) – (Winners 2012, 2013, 2014)
101 Best and Brightest Companies to Work For (Metro Detroit) – (Winners 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014)
101 Best and Brightest Sustainable Companies – (Winner 2014)
Crain’s Cool Places to Work in Michigan – (Winners 2011, 2014)
When Work Works Award – (Winners 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014)
Inc. 500/500 – (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012)
Certificate of Congressional Recognition – (Winner 2010) | 4,153 | 1,924 | 0.000531 |
warc | 201704 | Ken has a 7-year-old golden retriever named Pal that has been diagnosed with arthritis in his elbows. Pal is very stiff in the front legs in the morning when first arising and is reluctant to jump in and out of his spot in Ken’s truck.
He has been dealing with this problem for six or eight months and currently is not being given any treatments for the arthritis. His main concern is whether or not to allow Pal to exercise. Will it be harmful to his arthritis? Pal certainly wants to exercise but Ken does not want him to do so if it would be harmful.
Arthritis is by definition, inflammation of one or more joints in the body. Joints are very specialized junctions between bones that allow for bending in various directions. We are all familiar with elbows, wrists, ankles, knee, shoulders, hips – these are all joints and there are many others. Without these intricate structures our companions would not be able to move.
Structurally, joints have within them a special tissue called cartilage that cover the bones inside the joint to cushion between them and allow smooth movement, one bone against the next. Also found within the joint is a wonderful fluid appropriately called joint fluid. This stuff acts as a lubricant, like oil for your joints.
Arthritis can occur for many reasons. If a companion is born with joints that do not fit together properly, there will be an abnormal wear within the joint causing inflammation and pain. Over time, this process being progressive, the joint will show secondary changes that result from this chronic inflammation. This is called secondary joint disease and adds to the pain of arthritis alone.
The question concerning exercising when there is arthritis affecting certain joints is a good one. On the surface it may seem logical to avoid using joints that are arthritic; however quite the opposite is true. If a definitive diagnosis of arthritis has been made in one or more of your companion’s joints, exercising that or those joints can be very beneficial.
Perhaps those of you with companions that have arthritis have noticed that as your companion begins to “warm up” the pain and stiffness in the arthritic joint(s) begins to disappear. This is because as the joint is used, the fluid within the joint is circulated and adds more protection to the joint, thus less pain. The inflammatory process is muted and the joint(s) feel better.
Exercising arthritic joints also has another benefit. The more the joint is exercised the less secondary joint disease will develop. Once secondary joint disease develops, it becomes increasingly more painful to use the affected joints and the companions become less willing to use them. Using these joints through exercise is still beneficial but it is much harder on the patient.
One point of importance I just briefly touched on earlier deals with diagnosing arthritis. Never under any circumstances should a diagnosis of arthritis be given without actually diagnosing this process. What did I say?
There are many different diseases that cause lameness and pain it should never be assumed that because your companion is showing such symptoms that he has arthritis. I have seen patients that were “diagnosed” with arthritis and ended up having a bone tumor in their leg. Make sure if your companion is showing and lameness or pain in his body, you seek your veterinarian’s care.
As is always the case, if the process is caught early, your friend will be better off. Arthritis is no exception. If this process is diagnosed at an early stage, with a good exercise program and with the aid of anti-inflammatory medications and supplements, these patients can live a good quality life without having to endure chronic pain. | 3,765 | 1,735 | 0.000584 |
warc | 201704 | Before the “how”, a quick word about the “why”. The idea of the Monthly Barometer originated after coming across the concept of “contextual intelligence” (coined by Nihtin Nohria several years ago, before he became Dean of Harvard Business School). He and his team researched for many years the qualities of the executives at companies that generated outstanding shareholder value over a sustained period of time, and concluded that only one trait – that of “contextual intelligence” (the sense of context; the ability to understand the trends), linked effective decision-makers across generations. This is even truer today than before: the ability to connect the dots, to anticipate, and to exploit emerging trends is not only a prerequisite for successful decision-makers, but also a condition for survival.
Methodology -How is it produced?
The Monthly Barometer is produced by a small research team benefitting from the input of several hundred thinkers and media leaders, and ultimately written by Thierry Malleret, one of the co-founders. Over the years, the Monthly Barometer’s production methods have constantly evolved in pursuit of an ever-greater intellectual and methodological rigor.
We start by monitoring in a systematic manner:
“Op-eds” from the international media. The market for “op-eds” is global and exceedingly competitive. Therefore, “op-eds” from the Financial Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, etc. are the forum where opinions are being forged. The way in which they are selected constitutes a good barometer of trends “in the making” and the formation of consensus / contrarian opinions. Put simply, “op-eds” are a distillation of all that matters; Various blogs on particular issues or countries which we find insightful; Various investors’ and investment banks’ newsletters.
More importantly, we ask a broad range of people in the Monthly Barometer’s network (all prominent thinkers and decision-makers from a variety of professional backgrounds and origins) to tell us what they think is important. We have about 50/60 major conversations a month. We view this process as essential because it allows us to tap into some of the most insightful brains worldwide, be they policy-makers, business leaders, top academics, or opinion-makers. The diversity in the composition of the network is essential – in order to provide meaningful, independent, “conflict-of-interest-free” advice to our subscribers, we want diversity of opinion, diversity of information, and diversity of attitude. The point being that diversity makes the group as a whole more intelligent (this argument is developed in The Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki: diversity prevents groups from succumbing to the problems that so often plague high-functioning teams: group think, peer pressure, homogeneity of thought. Any time a management team senses that “it is right and knows the answer”, it should seek a second – possibly contrarian – opinion. The book also makes the fascinating argument that a group comprising some very smart people and some who are not so smart always outperforms an all-smart group).
Every relevant article, plus all the interesting thoughts, ideas and conversations that emerge are incorporated in a word document that contains several categories (economics, geopolitics, environment, S&T, etc., sub-categories (in economics: financial markets, macro, etc.) and “sub-sub” categories (within macro: high-income countries, emerging markets, frontier markets, etc.). This master document quickly reaches about 200-300 pages.
A week before the end of the month, the most salient issues are selected, the dots connected and opinions formed about their outcome. We do this by using the “analysis of competing hypotheses”, a method developed and recommended by Richard Heuer (a senior intelligence officer) in his Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (available on the CIA website). Heuer contends that today’s most acute problem is all the “chatter” : there is so much noise around that we tend to form opinions by falling back on intuitions, or hunches. Later, we seek confirming evidence for those views, shutting down dissonant information. As humans beings, we are indeed biased to look for confirmatory evidence : when someone is bullish on oil or China, for example, he tends to pick out the pro-oil or pro-China arguments in whatever he reads. It’s a fact of life : very few people train themselves to look for disconfirming evidence. To solve this problem, Heuer recommends the adoption of the “analysis of competing hypotheses”, which involves formulating two opposing arguments about any given issue and examining fresh information to see which one is gaining ground. We do this for each bullet point that appears in the Monthly Barometer: we formulate two opposing arguments for any one of them, and then simply examine any fresh information that corroborates whichever argument is gaining ground (this requires compiling in the first place a list of the data, analysis or indices that could point in one direction or the other). We do this by talking to our network so that we can be aware of all sides of each argument. The value of the Monthly Barometer’s network is based upon the “strength of weak ties”. Proper exposure to diverse ways of thinking is a prerequisite for understanding and advancement, which can only be achieved by harnessing the so-called “strength of weak ties” (the concept coined by the sociologist Mark Granovetter in 1973). Good networks are built on the strength of these weak ties: connections to people who know other people whom you don’t know; and channels through which ideas, influence or information socially distant from an individual can succeed in reaching him.
A week or so before the end of the month, we start distilling the 200-300 pages into 1, having attached vital importance to what the German philosopher Emmanuel Kant called an “enlarged mentality”, i.e. by looking at problems and issues from a multiplicity of viewpoints before reaching a judgement.
Some relevant quotes:
“A good decision is based on knowledge, not on numbers”
Plato
“Information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not understanding”
Anthony Grayling
“The spoken word is ultimately much more powerful than the written”
McLuhan
“To reduce the complex to the simple without being simplistic requires the painful necessity of thought”
Bertrand Russell
“Most of us view the world as more benign than it really is, our own attributes as more favourable than they truly are, and the goals we adopt as more achievable than they are likely to be”
Daniel Kahneman
“All ideas are second-hand”
Mark Twain,
discussing the combinatorial nature of creativity | 7,068 | 3,304 | 0.000317 |
warc | 201704 | Nowhere is the blistering pace of change in China more obvious than in its language. Chinese, the language with the most native speakers, is constantly coining and importing new terms to describe new ideas and things.
Lately in China, it's become fashionable to use the passive voice when authorities have done something that you don't like. You could call this new grammatical voice the "passive subversive."
For example, if your prison inmates beat you to death, but the police make it look like you killed yourself, then you've been "suicided."
A recent event held by an arm of the Education Ministry made it quasi-official: The Chinese character of the year last year was "bei" (pronounced "bay"). Put "bei" in front of a verb and it indicates the passive voice.
Lei Yi, a historian with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, was one of the judges at the event. He says that Internet users nominated and voted for the new word by a landslide.
"We felt we should recognize this result," he said, "so we named 'bei' as the character most representative of China's situation last year."
So, for example, if your school falsely claims you got a job, to bolster its job-placement statistics, you've been "employmented."
The idea here is that somebody has used you to cover up some unpleasant truth. You've been built into a facade in someone's Potemkin village.
Doubleleaf is the online name of a Beijing-based blogger. Early last year, he found that access to his blog, which is hosted on a U.S. server, had been blocked within China, probably because of his political writings.
"I thought: 'I've been harmonized,' " he says.
Being "harmonized" is now a common expression that means you've been censored. Doubleleaf explains that it's a sardonic swipe at the "harmonious society" China's leaders claim they're trying to build.
"The government just covers up all sorts of conflicts, problems and clashes through coercion," he says. "They feel this is very harmonious, but it's really not. It's nothing more than an illusion."
Meanwhile, activists like human-rights lawyer Jiang Tianyong now find themselves involuntarily "invited to tea" by police. Jiang says that's the new euphemism for being questioned by police, usually about political matters.
"Because there are more and more people like myself," he says, "the police are forced to refine their methods and at least appear more polite. I think this is an improvement."
The new, softer tactics, Jiang says, reflect authorities' consciousness of their own diminishing powers — diminished by citizens' increasing access to information and awareness of their legal rights. Authorities also know that they are offending the people they censor or interrogate, and the less power they have, the riskier this becomes.
That's why it's safer to cover their coercion under a layer of deniability — we're just having a cup of tea. But Jiang says he's not always thirsty.
"They don't admit that they're investigating you," he says. "They just say that they're friends and they want to chat. I say that since they're just friends, I can accept their invitation or not. It depends on whether or not I have time."
About this time every year, delegates file into Beijing's Great Hall of the People for the annual session of China's Parliament. They're supposed to be the people's elected representatives, but the people often have no idea who their representatives are.
Historian Lei says that when Chinese now say "we've been represented," it means they're aware that they have actually been misrepresented, without their consent.
"For centuries we've been told that the emperor represented the people's interests," he says, "or that some organization or some leader represented our interests. People did not realize that they had 'been represented.' This word of the year signals the awakening of citizens' consciousness."
So many Chinese have seen through the charades, and they're not as afraid of authority as they used to be. But still there's not much they can do about it, except take a darkly humorous poke at their situation.
Gradually, says Lei, that will change, as increasingly enlightened and empowered Chinese citizens go from passive to active. | 4,276 | 2,113 | 0.000482 |
warc | 201704 | Presidential inaugurations are traditionally bear market days for stock traders, but Jan. 20, 2009 was by far the worst. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) lost 332 points (4 percent) and the broader S&P 500 index (S&P) lost nearly 45 points (5 percent).
CNBC “Squawk Box” co-host Carl Quintanilla appeared on the Jan. 20 “NBC Nightly News” to offer an explanation.
“Well, historically stocks don’t respond well to inauguration days at all,” Quintanilla said. “But this was brutal even by those standards – the worst day for stocks on any Inauguration Day in history.”
Quintanilla noted the obstacles the new Obama administration has ahead of it, especially as Treasury Secretary designate Tim Geithner is facing a more difficult than expected confirmation fight in the U.S. Senate. Questions have arisen over why Geithner failed to pay his taxes.
But, even if that hurdle is cleared, Quintanilla declared that if the economy doesn’t respond to the Obama stimulus, it’s much worse than a recession.
“The president’s going to meet with his economic team tomorrow,” Quintanilla said. “We’re going to have these confirmation hearings for Tim Geithner, the Treasury Secretary nominee. Their mission will be convincing investors that this problem can be fixed with enough stimulus. Economies that don’t respond to that are said not to be in recession, but in depression.”
As for the inaugural market plunge, Quintanilla told viewers the new administration could impact the markets eventually, but the real problem is the lack of confidence in the banking system that is plaguing the economy.
“There is all the pageantry and all the hope surrounding the address today is something that might bleed into the markets down the road,” Quintanilla added. “But if you look at some new stocks today – Citi (NYSE:C) below $3,
Although many talking heads have dismissed the notion that Obama’s presidency and the trends in the markets aren’t related, Business & Media Institute advisory board member Don Luskin showed there is a connection to politics on CNBC’s Jan. 20 “The Call.”
“Well, you know – when you say more or less rallying since Obama was elected, I say less rallying,” Luskin said. “The S&P’s off about 18 percent since Election Day – that’s definitely less rallying. It’s not just Obama, but look, let’s face it – we’ve got an anti-business Democratic congress, we’ve got a Democratic president who’s more centrist than that, but who isn’t more centrist than that?”
According to Luskin, the anti-business sentiment in
“We’ve got a real battle going,” Luskin added. “We don’t know whether this administration is going to be able to hold back the populist impulses of this Congress or not. Stocks are scared to death and they should be.” | 2,997 | 1,436 | 0.000762 |
warc | 201704 | Toronto – Recruiting qualified employees in the face of a declining workforce is a top problem facing today’s manufacturers. And solving it will require taking concrete steps to narrow the gender gap, say industry experts as they prepare for Fabtech Canada, the only event of its kind in this country, which takes place March 18-20, 2014, at the newly-renovated Toronto Congress Centre.
“Manufacturing today is more about brains than brawn,” said Allison Grealis, vice-president of membership and association services at the Precision Metalforming Association (PMA), and director of Women in Manufacturing (WiM), a 400-member-strong organization established in 2011 to support women in the manufacturing sector. Grealis will be moderating the Fabtech Canada opening day panel discussion, Diversity in the Workplace: Embracing Women in Manufacturing.
“If we’re going to fix the workforce shortage, we can’t just focus on half of the population,” said Grealis. “We have to look at women as a viable solution to fill the gap and commit our industry to doing a better job of attracting, retaining and advancing women in manufacturing.”
The opening day discussion on diversity, sponsored by WiM, PMA and Metalforming magazine, will kick off this year’s Fabtech show on Tuesday, March 18 at 8:30 a.m. with a keynote address by popular TV personality, metal fabricator and race car driver Jessi Combs. Combs will share her own inspirational story about her career in the manufacturing sector.
The full opening session will examine the current state of women in manufacturing. In addition to proposing ways to attract women to manufacturing careers, the panel – which includes Natalie Panek, a mission systems and operations engineer with MDA Space Missions, and Karin Lindner, the founder of Karico Performance Solutions – will also highlight the benefits of a diverse workplace.
“What we’re seeing is that women make up 50% of the general workforce, but only 30% of the manufacturing population,” said Grealis. “Our biggest challenge is selling the story of today’s high-tech manufacturing environment. Too many women – of all ages and backgrounds – don’t see manufacturing as a professional path because they aren’t aware of the many opportunities in today’s modern manufacturing facilities.”
In Canada, women accounted for approximately 475,000 of 1,734,000 manufacturing jobs in 2013.
Immediately following the panel discussion, Fabtech will offer a comprehensive educational program featuring targeted technical, operational, economic and managerial sessions designed to exchange best practices and explore latest advancements. Sessions are grouped into the following categories: Laser/Cutting, Management, Forming and Fabricating, Finishing, Welding, Stamping and Robotics.
Highlights include a look at the skills gap and what manufactures are doing about it, the latest applications for lasers in industry, more on manufacturing workforce solutions, and an in-depth look at welding and finishing fundamentals.
Fabtech Canada is hosted by SME, The Fabricators & Manufacturers Association Int’l (FMA), the American Welding Society (AWS), PMA, and Chemical Coaters Association International (CCAI). Significantly expanded in size and scope from the previous version of the event, Fabtech Canada 2014 features a larger conference and welding area, and brand new finishing and stamping pavilions, in addition to a wide range of exhibiting companies.
For more information or to register for Fabtech Canada 2014, visit www.fabtechcanada.com or call 1-888-322-7333 ext. 4447. | 3,704 | 1,825 | 0.000569 |
warc | 201704 | The surgical navigation systems market is propelled by the rising demand for orthopedic, trauma, neurological, and ENT surgeries across the globe. A growing geriatric population results in rising number of orthopedic surgeries such as shoulder, hip, and knee replacement. This has fueled the demand for surgical navigation systems. An alarming rise in road accidents has translated into increase in trauma surgeries, once again, resulting in the demand for advanced surgical navigation systems.
The precision that these systems offer in a wide range of surgical procedures is exemplary, which is why the demand for the same has grown in recent times.
The research report offers a comprehensive overview of the global surgical navigation systems market, backed by thorough research, accurate and updated information, and key insights from industry experts.
Overview of the Surgical Navigation Systems Market
The global surgical navigation systems market in 2013 was pegged at US$218.5 million, which is poised to grow to US$295.5 million by 2020 at a CAGR of 4.5% between 2014 and 2020. This growth can be attributed to development of generic systems, increasing demand for minimally-invasive surgeries, and growing knowledge about the uses as well as benefits of surgical navigation systems. In contrast, high cost of equipment has limited the sales of these systems across the globe.
Among the key product types of surgical navigation systems – ENT navigation systems, neurosurgical navigation systems, and orthopedic navigation systems, the segment of neurosurgical navigation systems accounted for the largest share of the market in 2013.
North America led the global surgical navigation systems market in 2013, surpassing Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Rest of the World with a 40% share. Driven by a well-defined regulatory framework, effective implementation of these regulations, and advanced healthcare infrastructure, this region is likely to retain its lead during the forecast period. Asia Pacific has been identified as a lucrative market for surgical navigation systems fueled by rapidly developing healthcare infrastructure, supportive government initiatives, growth of medical tourism, and rise in healthcare spending.
Companies Mentioned in the Report
The prominent players that feature in the surgical navigation systems market report are GE Healthcare Ltd., Stryker Corporation, Siemens Healthcare Corporation, B. Braun Melsungen AG (Aesculap AG), Zimmer Holdings Inc., Brainlab AG, and Medtronic, Inc.
The report indicates that the global surgical navigation systems market is immensely competitive, with vendors offering numerous discounts and adopting effective marketing strategies to increase their share in the market. Offering surgical navigation systems to community hospitals at a nominal price, fee per use, customer portal and operating room assistance, and continual medical education are some of the tactics adopted by vendors in the surgical navigation systems market.
Surgical Navigation Systems Market, by Product Major geographies analyzed under this research report are: This report gives you access to decisive data such as: Key highlights of this report
MRRSE offers custom market research services that help clients to get information on their business scenario required where syndicated solutions are not enough.Get A Free Custom Research Quote | 3,401 | 1,525 | 0.000659 |
warc | 201704 | A federal district court today struck down the U.S. Army’s promotional affirmative action policy because, according to the judge, the policy impermissibly preferences women and minorities. The policy requires those on the promotion board to examine the list of applicants “best qualified” for a promotion and insure that that the percentage of women and minority candidates in the “best qualified” pool is similar to the percentage of women and minorities in the pool of applicants judged to be qualified for a promotion. If females and minorities are found to be underrepresented, the board is to revaluate applications. In addition, when evaluating the applications of women and minorities, the policy instructs the board to consider that prior discrimination may have limited the opportunities of women and minority candidates.
The district court found that this policy, which does not require that a specific number of women or minority officers be promoted, created a racial and gender preference that disadvantaged white males. The district court also found that the Army failed to show that the review process was required because of prior discrimination in the Army in promotions.
As of 1997, women made up 14% of the Army. In that same year, an Army report found that “sexual harassment exists throughout the army” and that “sex discrimination is more common than sexual harassment.” A 1997 report of Defense Advisory Committee on Women in the Services found that the practice of male commanders denying women leadership positions and assigning them desk duty is "widespread." At some bases, women were "openly demeaned and their roles in the military ridiculed."
The case is Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Saunders v. Thomas E. White.
Media Resources: Washington Post 3/5/02, cnn.com 9/11/97, FMF | 1,857 | 899 | 0.001146 |
warc | 201704 | The NY Times had a provocative two-part series on portfolio asset allocation by David A. Levine, former chief economist at Sanford C. Bernstein & Company:
Why Your Portfolio Needs Plenty of Stocks, Whatever Your Age How Much of Your Nest Egg to Put Into Stocks? All of It
I enjoyed reading his opinions, but didn’t agree with all of his points. The heart of my argument is that when the writer says “most people”, he seems to be talking about his Wall Street peers with multi-million dollar retirement portfolios, where most of it will eventually be passed onto heirs or charity. Instead, “most people” are actually trying to make something like a $200,000 nest egg last as long as it possibly can.
Time horizon vs. asset size. The first article brings up the topic of “time horizon”:
This consensus view, though, rests on a fallacy: the belief that as people grow older, their investment horizon shortens and, therefore, their ability to withstand volatility diminishes considerably.
I would argue, instead, that there is an insufficient appreciation of just how apt the metaphor of the “investment horizon” is. Just as a sailor sees but never reaches the horizon, the same is true for nearly all investors.
[…] But what if there’s a bear market? “No big deal,” I say. As long as you don’t panic and sell most of your holdings at the worst times, your annual withdrawals are limited. As a result, you should not really worry about fluctuations in the stock market.
A rule of thumb is that stocks can drop 50% in any given year. Again, let say all you have is $200,000 and you’re withdrawing 4% of that ($670 a month) to supplement your Social Security and/or pension income. If your balance drops to $100,000 due to a economic crisis, and you still need that $670 a month to pay the bills,
yes you are going to panic.
If you have a $10 million portfolio, and a market crash means that you simply reign in some of your discretionary purchases, then your stress level is going to be lower. As my own portfolio has grown, I now only hold 70% stocks but also worry less about the stock portion as I know can ride out a bad sequence of returns.
As Josh Brown reports on The Reformed Broker:
Having worked directly and indirectly with investors from all walks of life and every region of the country over the last 18 years, I can promise you that almost no one can endure – emotionally speaking – the volatility and drawdowns that an all-equity portfolio brings to the table.
Long-term performance vs. asset allocation. The second article makes the point that the historical long-term performance of stocks has been higher than all types of bonds, over many different holding periods:
In my opinion, the logical conclusion from such tables as above is limited to saying that
if you are going to invest in stocks, you need to hold them for 20+ years. So if your portfolio is 60% stocks, keep that portion in stocks for 20+ years. The table doesn’t take into account withdrawals or timing risks where you are forced to take out money to meet spending needs during a period of negative returns.
In addition, Warren Buffett is used as an example because he stipulated 90% S&P 500 stocks and 10% Treasury Bills for his wife’s trust upon his passing. Buffett is worried about the long-term returns, not the risk of his wife
running out of money. Do you think her withdrawal rate will be anywhere near 4%? It’s going to be a tiny fraction of 1%. I’d bet big bucks that Buffett would not have set the same asset allocation if she only had $500,000 to live on.
In the end, I guess what I am saying is that your asset
allocation also depends on your asset size. Your time horizon matters, but also how close you are to missing a rent payment matters too. Products like target-date retirement funds don’t adjust based on if your balance is $10 million or $10,000. Nor should they really, as they don’t know your future spending needs either. Investors themselves (or their advisors) need to take both of these factors into account.
Of course, it would be great not to have to worry about keeping a balance greater than zero. With a big asset base and modest spending levels, you could indeed have an indefinite time horizon and keep 60% in stocks forever, much like a traditional pension plan. I’d require some enormous amount like $10+ million to be 100% stocks forever, though. | 4,504 | 2,254 | 0.000458 |
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warc | 201704 | Texas retail as an export to Mexico Updated 5:57 pm, Thursday, April 25, 2013
San Antonio and South and Central Texas are connected with Mexico by shared history, traditions and people — and connected by something else as well. Governments and policies change, but commerce has been a given throughout.
The sponsors of a new report on one nuance of this commerce give this niche a name — Texas retail as an export. Which is to say that Mexican nationals come to shop and take their purchases home.
It is a relationship that brought $2.68 billion to the region last year in shopping dollars, according to the report by the Strategic Alliance for Business and Economic Research Institute, or SABER, a collaboration of the San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and St. Mary's University.
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That $2.68 billion is up 12.9 percent from 2011 across the 20-county region identified in the report. Bexar County alone netted about $373.9 million and nearly 4,000 jobs from the relationship. The figures, which do not include real estate buys, are calculated from VISA card purchases by Mexican nationals here and Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas data.
Though this trade has endured through governments and changed policies, this doesn't mean that either can't affect commerce. And this is something to keep in mind as Congress contemplates immigration reform that also includes proposals for enhanced border security.
Congress needs to guard against unintended consequences. Other sectors insulate San Antonio and Bexar County from recession more, but this report makes it clear that spending by Mexican nationals is a beneficial factor.
If nothing else, Congress can look at this report as confirmation for what Texas has long known — a border freer for commerce has immense benefits for growth on both sides. | 1,837 | 981 | 0.001033 |
warc | 201704 | Future generations could be exterminated by Terminator-style robots unless machines are taught the value of human life.
This is the stark warning made by Amsterdam-based engineer Nell Watson, who believes droids could kill humans out of both malice and kindness. Teaching machines to be kind is not enough, she says, as robots could decide that the greatest compassion to humans as a race is to get rid of everyone to end suffering.
’The most important work of our lifetime is to ensure that machines are capable of understanding human value,’ she said at the recent ‘Conference by Media Evolution’ in Sweden. ‘It is those values that will ensure machines don’t end up killing us out of kindness.’
Why would we expect robots to be more enlightened than many of our so-called thought leaders?
Pay attention to debates around euthanasia, Obamacare, transhumanism, animal rights, radical environmentalism–and other war on humans agenda items. We may not be into total genocide, but the quest to end suffering definitely puts many of us in the proverbial cross hairs.
Before we can teach robots the value of human life, we need to accept it ourselves. | 1,194 | 665 | 0.001565 |
warc | 201704 | Democrats, fresh from securing a series of tax increases during the fiscal-cliff negotiations, now seek additional tax increases as part of negotiations to avert the sequester, which would impose deep cuts in federal spending, largely on defense.
Many Democrats are especially keen to reopen the fight over what is known as “carried interest,” a tax treatment under which certain kinds of income are treated as long-term capital gains, meaning that they are taxed at a lower rate. The United States, like many developed countries, taxes investment profits at a lower rate than salaries, bonuses, and the like, with risk being the general principle of delineation. In addition to reducing the burden of double-taxation on business profits and rewarding those who choose savings over immediate consumption, the United States wants to encourage economic risk-taking and the entrepreneurial activity associated with it, meaning that $100,000 made by taking the risk of investing long-term in a small business is taxed at a lower rate than $100,000 paid as a straight-up salary. This is probably a good thing, and the policy of taxing risk-incurring capital gains at a lower rate than guaranteed salaries has historically enjoyed widespread, bipartisan support. But the policy also creates incentives for investors and financial firms to structure their businesses so that their income takes the form of capital gains rather than regular income, and therein lies the controversy.
A few things should be noted immediately. The first is that investors already have seen their tax rates raised by one-third as a result of the fiscal-cliff negotiations — the long-term capital-gains tax rate has been raised from 15 percent to 20 percent. That is not insignificant, inasmuch as U.S.-based investors are now in some cases at a tax disadvantage relative to overseas investors in such investment destinations as Switzerland, Japan, and New Zealand. On the more significant measure of the combined take from capital-gains and corporate-income taxes, U.S. firms are at a serious tax disadvantage when compared with those based in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, or Ireland — and that was the case even
before the tax hike. A company operating out of Switzerland pays a combined rate of about 21 percent, but one operating out of the United States pays a combined rate of more than 50 percent, more than it would pay in Sweden. And while U.S. entrepreneurs selling a business for a one-time windfall are for tax purposes treated as though they made that much money year in and year out, similar investors in the United Kingdom are eligible for “entrepreneurs’ relief,” with earnings up to about $16 million eligible to be taxed at just 10 percent. It is a myth that the United States has an especially advantageous tax climate for investors; what it has is an excellent corporate-tax environment for politically connected and influential firms that arrange exemptions for themselves to avoid the OECD-leading U.S. business-tax rate. That isn’t capitalism, but cronyism.
The second thing to keep in mind about “carried interest” is that as a fiscal matter — meaning its effect on the deficit — it is a non-issue. Democratic proposals to deprive private-equity and other investment firms of the carried-interest tax benefits available to other kinds of businesses would generate less than $2 billion a year in additional tax revenue, according to government estimates — 0.2 percent of the trillion-dollar deficits we’ve been running under Barack Obama, or about twelve bucks shy of bupkis. Never mind whether it is appropriate (or even legal) to single out a particular industry for an act of political retribution enacted through the tax code. (Democrats seek to do the same to oil and gas firms.) As a matter of balancing the books, the carried-interest controversy amounts to nothing.
There are tax deductions whose elimination would generate more substantial amounts of new tax revenue. For instance, the tax-free treatment of municipal bonds (an arrangement beloved by many Democrats) is estimated to deprive the treasury of some $30 billion a year, while the deductibility of state and local taxes hoovers about $50 billion a year out of Washington’s coffers. The two combined cost the treasury more than 40 times what the carried-interest treatment for private equity does. Democrats are a great deal less excited about those. Why?
For Democrats in the age of Obama, tax increases aren’t really about feeding Leviathan. They are about punishing people who make their money and live their lives in ways that Democrats do not approve of. There is deeply embedded in their souls a puritanical streak that recoils at the thought of Mitt Romney’s car elevator. Some people in private equity make a great deal of money, and some lose a great deal of money. Your average guy parking his money in tax-free munis is well-off, too — thus making the tradeoff between returns and taxes desirable — but, unlike the private-equity firm, he is entirely passive. But he is putting money into government, while private equity puts money into building companies seeking profit, and so those investors must be punished.
At issue is the question of “sweat equity,” whether we should encourage people to trade their labor and expertise for an ownership stake in a company or enterprise. How people feel about sweat equity in any given circumstance seems to be driven almost entirely by emotion, by whether they are inclined to like or dislike the taxpayer in question. Everybody is familiar with the case of the “Microsoft secretary,” employees of startup firms who agreed to forgo higher salaries (or, in some cases, any salary) in exchange for a share in the company. In some cases, those bets were wildly successful, and people ranging from technology specialists to administrative assistants and receptionists were suddenly able to retire at 40 with millions of dollars in the bank. (The great majority of cases are of course much less dramatic.) Typically, the Microsoft secretary does not put any of his own capital at risk — contributing only his time, his work, his expertise, and his willingness to forgo a guaranteed paycheck today for the possibility of a larger payday down the road. How big a piece of the company he received was the subject of negotiation between him and his employer. Private equity firms do the same thing on a larger, more organized scale, but also put up some of their own money. They contribute work and expertise in exchange for a share of the profits (usually 20 percent) generated by a particular investment, either in an individual company or a group of companies. Those profits are not guaranteed — they do not come automatically; 20 percent of nothing is nothing.
There is very little in the way of persuasive argument for treating the startup worker’s sweat equity differently from the private-equity worker’s sweat equity. You might make a principled argument for treating all income the same (and I am sympathetic to that view), whether it is from salary or investments, or you might make a principled argument for treating sweat equity differently from money-out-of-pocket investments. But it is difficult to make a principled argument that some kinds of sweat equity should be rewarded and others should be punished, which is precisely what the Democrats are pressing for.
Punishing private-equity investors will do almost nothing to balance the books. It would upset a longstanding model of doing business and would put American investors — from Wall Street houses to teachers’ retirement funds — at a distinct disadvantage. That’s a cost-benefit matrix that makes sense only if your bottom line is resentment.
— Kevin D. Williamson is National Review ’s roving correspondent. | 7,977 | 3,586 | 0.000285 |
warc | 201704 | The Shyne Foundation
Bob and Liz Johnson South Florida
The Shyne Foundation is a non-profit parrot sanctuary for over 150 parrots. Bob and Liz Johnson have created a ¼ acre enclosed mini rainforest so that the parrots live as closely as possible to the way nature intended them to live. Habitat Immersion is the term used to describe an environment like this and it is now practiced by most zoos. The birds at The Shyne Founation are flighted and enjoy fresh air, sunshine and rain. They interact with each other amongst the plants and trees, playing games, foraging, and demolishing foliage much as they would in the wild.
Many of the “behavior problems” created by keeping birds in captivity may simply vanish when they are allowed to express themselves as birds. Aggression, screaming and feather picking improve and the birds develop self confidence and autonomy. The most fascinating aspect of The Shyne Foundation's free flight, rainforest sanctuary is the relationship between the parrots and people. Liz Johnson explains how your relationship with your bird can reach new levels when your bird enjoys such self expression, because you become a co-inhabitant sharing their world, instead of a captor restricting their world.
Many people with companion birds aren’t able to duplicate what the Johnson’s are able to offer their parrots. However, even with small spaces and tight budgets, there is always something you can do to make your bird’s world more natural and allow more self-expression. Both you and the bird will benefit from it. The NaturalBird List was created specifically for the discussion of this subject.
For more information about The Shyne Foundation please visit their website at www.shynefoundation.org. The site includes photos, video, informative articles, and a description of the how they constructed their enclosure. | 1,884 | 971 | 0.00105 |
warc | 201704 | A new study confirms what might sound like common sense: the more severe one’s case of diabetic retinopathy, the more likely one’s quality of life is to deteriorate.
Published in the journal Ophthalmology (Issue 118, 2011), research suggests that individuals’ quality of life declines more rapidly when their sight loss due to diabetic retinopathy becomes more severe. The study involved over 1,000 type 2 diabetes patients taking part in the Los Angeles Latino Eye Study.
Authors indicate that quality of life markers related to dependency, mental health, and tasks that required visual skills, dependence were most significantly impacted by worsening cases of diabetic retinopathy.
Link Between Erectile Dysfunction & Diabetic Retinopathy
Not surprisingly, another study finds new information about the link between erectile dysfunction and diabetic retinopathy in men with diabetes.
Published in the journal
Urology, this research included men with type 2 diabetes of an average age of 64 years, some of whom exhibited proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) and some of whom were diagnosed severe nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy (NPDR).
Researchers found that there is an association between erectile dysfunction and diabetic retinopathy, regardless of age, time since diabetes diagnosis, and cardiovascular risk factors.
Source: Urology, 4 January 2011 | 1,389 | 719 | 0.001416 |
warc | 201704 | Eddie S. Winstead III, Esq. Harrington, Ward, Gilleland & Winstead, L.L.P. 1410 Elm Street Post Office Box 1045 Sanford, North Carolina 27330-1045
RE: Advisory Opinion: N. C. Gen. Stat. Chapter 122C (House Bill 381)
Dear Mr. Winstead:
In your 8 May 2002 letter you asked for an opinion on behalf of a member of the Lee-Harnett Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Abuse Services Area Board. Specifically, the board member wants to know whether “Individual counties or groups of counties may be exempted from the mandates of Chapter 122C of the North Carolina General Statutes with regard to the establishment of mental health authorities.” In addition, as the Board’s attorney, you inquire whether G.S. §153A-77(a) violates Article II, Section 24 of the North Carolina Constitution. For the reasons that follow, it is our opinion that the application of
G.S. §153A-77(a) would not violate the Constitution. Further, it is our opinion that while the law does allow for alternative governing structures, this does not constitute an exemption from “the mandates of Chapter 122C” since all counties must still provide the same mental health services regardless of the governing structure they use. As you know, Chapter 122C was amended significantly during this past legislative term by H.B. 381 (enacted as S.L. 2001-437). In addition to all the other changes it wrought, and directly relevant your issues, H.B. 381 now permits counties, subject to certain prerequisites, to choose to operate their own Mental Health, Developmental Disabilities, and Substance Abuse Services (MH,DD,SAS) programs, rather than using the vehicle of an area authority. This portion of H.B. 381 is codified at G.S. §122C-115 and G.S. §122C-115.1. Almost as a precursor to this part of H.B. 381, the General Assembly enacted legislation many years ago, codified at G.S. §153A-77(a), that allowed the Boards of Commissioners of counties with populations greater than 425,000 to assume direct control over boards of health, social services, and MH,DD,SAS. In essence, these larger counties were allowed to do what all counties may now elect to do: operate their own county MH,DD,SAS programs. However, G.S. §153A-77(a) Eddie S. Winstead III, Esq. September 6, 2002 Page -2
retains its relevance because the amended G.S. §122C-115 provides that to the extent that there is a conflict, that G.S. §153A-77(a) will control.
We do not read these statutes as exempting any county from the service delivery mandates of Chapter 122C because G.S. §153A-77(a) only pertains to the governing structure of a county program and not to the provision of services. In other words, if there are any conflicts between these two code sections, they would involve procedural or governance issues, not provision of service issues. It is also noted that North Carolina courts would seek to minimize conflicts when interpreting these sections. Our courts have held that statutes should be interpreted so as to avoid conflicts, “If possible, they are to be reconciled and harmonized.”
Board of Education of Onslow County V. the Board of County Commissioners of Onslow County 240 N.C. 118; 81 S.E.2d 256; (1954) . The Court will only resolve such questions, “If and when confronted by inescapable conflicts and inconsistencies....” Ibid. With that standard in mind we find that the courts would not construe G.S. §153A-77(a) as providing license to exempt a county from the mandates of Chapter 122C, because it would not find a conflict concerning the provision of services requirements.
Article II, Section 24(1)(a) of the North Carolina Constitution prohibits “any local, private, or special act or resolution...relating to health.” On behalf of the Board, as their attorney, you question whether G.S. §153A-77 is local legislation, on the premise that it effectively exempts Wake and Mecklenburg from the provisions of G.S. §122C. We respectfully disagree that G.S. §153A-77 effectively exempts any county from the provisions of 122C. It allows for an alternative governance process, but requires compliance with all the rules relating to the provision of services to clients. In short, Wake or Mecklenburg citizens have exactly the same mental health care provisions that Lee or Harnett citizens are entitled to. Statutes such as G.S. §122C-115 and G.S. §153A-77 that operate uniformly throughout the state are not unconstitutional local laws, even though there are different classifications based upon population.
McIntyre v. Clarkson, 254 N.C. 510,518,119 S.E. 2d 888, 894 (1961).
We hope that this advisory opinion will be useful to you. Please let us know if you have additional questions concerning this matter.
Very truly yours,
Richard E. Slipsky Special Deputy Attorney General
Ann Reed Senior Deputy Attorney General
RES:AR:fs | 4,953 | 2,251 | 0.000458 |
warc | 201704 | RAISE THE RETIREMENT AGE WORLDWIDE
December 16, 2005
Government pension systems worldwide are facing insolvency because of demographic pressures. However, by adjusting some pension benefits to account for increased longevity, they could survive according to a new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research.
The authors analyzed 12 different countries, including the United States, Japan and several European nations. The greatest challenge for all of these nations is to increase work participation by the elderly:
Despite lengthening life spans and better health in old age, the proportion of men who are officially out of the labor force between ages 55 and 64 has increased substantially in industrialized countries since 1960. It now ranges from 70 percent in Belgium to about 20 percent in Japan.
The solution to pension insolvency is to encourage more people to work longer while reducing their benefits. The authors model different policy solutions and how the pension systems would adjust. They find that:
Raising retirement ages in existing social security systems by three years would generate savings of over 40 percent in the United Kingdom, about 30 percent in the United States and slightly over 15 percent in Italy. Reducing the pension benefits to those who retire early (before 60) would reduce costs by about 40 percent in Germany and by 10 to 20 percent in Belgium, Denmark, Japan, Italy and the Netherlands.
Source: Linda Gorman, "Social Security and Early Retirement," National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER Digest, December 2005; based upon: Jonathan Gruber and David Wise, "Social Security Programs and Retirement Around the World: Fiscal Implications Introduction and Summary," National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 11290, May 2005.
For text:
For abstract:
Browse more articles on Tax and Spending Issues | 1,876 | 994 | 0.001015 |
warc | 201704 | Security delivered as a cloud service has several benefits, including costs and flexibility, but there are some cautions, too, adopters say.
Organizations that are looking for security features including identity management, encryption and access control -- and at the same time want to take advantage of the cost and flexibility benefits of the cloud -- might check into security-as-a-service offerings available now from several vendors.
In this scenario, security is delivered as a service from the cloud, without requiring on-premises hardware. "The largest benefit to using security as a service is the ability to avoid sometimes substantial capital outlays," says Lawrence Pingree, a research director at Gartner Inc. who covers the security market.
To continue reading this article register now | 808 | 463 | 0.002179 |
warc | 201704 | By the time he reached 7th grade, Izer Martinez had attended eight different schools. He wasn’t a problem child. He hadn’t been kicked out. He and his parents were simply trying to find a school that would look past his dyslexia to see what he could achieve.
Martinez spoke about his experiences Monday at a conference that launched the Multicultural Dyslexia Awareness Initiative, a new program from the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity. The conference drew more than 150 attendees from across the country to discuss how they could use advocacy and education to increase awareness of dyslexia among black and Latino communities.
Martinez served as a poster child for a new message: that the under-diagnosis of dyslexia among minorities is a pressing civil rights issue.
Dyslexia, a developmental reading disorder, causes difficulties with spelling, reading, writing, and finding the proper words when speaking. A child might be unable to read the word volcano, or might say the similar-sounding “tornado” when presented with a picture, even though he or she knows what a volcano is.
Though children with dyslexia may be labeled “dumb” or “lazy,” the center’s co-director Sally Shaywitz said, the disorder is actually marked by high levels of intelligence. Dyslexics tend to be creative, “out-of-the-box” thinkers and possess strong reasoning skills. Studies have shown that in dyslexia, a child’s reading ability and IQ level are worlds apart, even though people often take reading ability – or inability – as an indicator of intelligence, Shaywitz said.
In the United States, more than 10 million children live with the disorder. Dyslexia is the most common learning disability and affects one in five children.
Yet, the disorder often goes undiagnosed. Issues with reading may get attributed to a lack of intelligence or effort. Teachers of undiagnosed students may never have heard of dyslexia. Many dyslexics aren’t diagnosed until high school, college, or even middle age. Some never receive an explanation for their struggles with reading.
This under-diagnosis is even more pronounced among minority communities, according to Shaywitz.
The purpose of the conference, one of the initiative’s leaders, Keith Magee, said, is not only to inform, but to gather information about what can be done to diagnose and then support those with dyslexia.
“There’s an overwhelming number of children of color who are untested and undiagnosed,” Magee said. “People know there’s a literacy issue, but they don’t realize it’s dyslexia.” By bringing educators, policymakers, faith leaders, attorneys, and scientists together, he said, the initiative hopes to build a movement for change.
Treating dyslexia is an issue of civil rights, organizers emphasized. “All these people are marginalized,” Magee said. “There are all these barriers they can’t cross because they haven’t been accommodated.”
These accommodations include extra time on school exams and standardized testing. Additional time allows dyslexic students to reconcile their slow reading speed with their high level of thinking, Shaywitz said. It gives them a chance to show what they know. “Without time, even the most knowledgeable person can’t show that knowledge,” Shaywitz said. In one study, test results shot up from 12 percent to 75 percent correct when dyslexic students received extra time.
Informing teachers about the disorder and placing dyslexic children in small classes will also help, Shaywitz said.
Other conference speakers included the singer and actor Harry Belafonte, Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer Victor Villasenor, and an associate dean of the Duke School of Medicine, Dr. Brenda Armstrong.
In one panel, three teens – Gloria Clark, Joseph Harris, and Izer Martinez – described their experiences with the disorder. The three provided suggestions for a 6th grader in the audience who just learned he has dyslexia. Sit in the front row in class. Find what makes you passionate about school. Get involved with sports – a realm where no one will know you’re dyslexic, Clark said.
“Find the beauty of it. That’s when it’s going to get better,” Harris added. “And once you find it, it’s like oh my gosh.”
For Harris, this beauty is his talent in art and architecture, an ability he credits to the creative thinking often found in those with dyslexia.
For Clark, it’s a love of reading and writing. As a child, she worried she’d end up homeless because she couldn’t read. Now, she is a published author and she performed one of her original poems for the conference.
Martinez, who’s from Chicago, bounced around between eight schools before finding one in Buffalo, New York that specializes in helping kids with learning differences. He now studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He went from goofing off in class as a child, a tactic to avoid having to read aloud, to sitting in the front row in college lecture halls and tackling hundreds of pages a week in assigned reading.
Though having dyslexia can be difficult, Clark said, the important thing is to keep trying. “Don’t give up. I used to tell myself that every day before school,” she said. “It’s going to be hard, but don’t give up.”
The initiative will hold five more conferences by the end of the year in locations across the country: Washington D.C., Atlanta, Houston, San Francisco, and Cleveland.
I am not impressed with Shaywitz as an expert. I don’t know if she doesn’t read the research or just doesn’t agree.
” the disorder is actually marked by high levels of intelligence.“Shaywitz quote from article.
There has never been a study that has concluded that dyslexics have a different IQ distribution than the general populace. People with very low IQ’s ( below 60)are difficult to diagnose and often excluded from the dyslexia population but to be fair then they should be excluded from the general population statistics for comparison .
Why care about people promoting the feel good concept that “Johnny the dyslexic” must be smart because dyslexics are smart ? Because lower IQ dyslexics are another minority that is being excluded as having the possibility of being dyslexic. Studies have concluded that lower IQ dyslexics benefit as much from interventions as higher IQ dyslexics.
Shaywitz is famed as an expert for her fMRI dyslexia studies and yet fMRI subjects in those studies are determined as being dyslexic or not with pen and paper tests and interviews. Shaywitz can not diagnose anyone as being dyslexic or not by fMRI. She also promotes that the fundamental cause of dyslexia is phonological problems when the biggest and best study finds that 12% of dyslexics have no phonological problems .
” Magee said. “People know there’s a literacy issue, but they don’t realize it’s dyslexia.” At the risk of being politically incorrect, dyslexia is only one component as there are many more people with literacy issues than can be accounted by the 5-20% rate of dyslexia. Poverty and unfunded schools account for more literacy problems than dyslexia.
If blacks and Latinos want to deal with dyslexia issues please don’t let anyone define the lower IQ population out of being tested.
My niche is visual dyslexia ( about 10% of dyslexics ). Most visual dyslexics can describe the visual problems that make reading difficult . Visit dyslexiaglasses.com for more information.
posted by: Mr. Brad Rogers on August 7, 2013 7:45pm
Dr.s Shaywitz are leaders in the field of both research and teaching application of dyslexia education. Based on their vast publications, lectures, and origional contributions to the field, we owe them a generous tip of the hat. The young man named Izer in this well written piece is a former student of mine. I had the distinct honor of being his teacher and mentor at The Gow School in Buffalo, NY. At age 12, Izer joined us as a fagile yet creative learner who quickly learned to cope and compensate for his academic stuggles. After six years at Gow (http://www.gow.org), Izer quickly emerged as a leader and academic work horse. His social and emtional intellegences prospered and he now attends an Ivy League school with a plan to expand our working knowlegde of dyslexia. I join his parents as we burst with pride! As teachers and school leaders we must take a good lesson from Izer and the other two successful young people discribed in this piece. Grit matters and we can teach not only academic skills but also those real life tools necessary to conquere all obsticles including heritage barriers. Bravo to Team Shaywitz and those at Yale who organized this meaningful conference. Parents, students, teachers, and all dyslexic learners, there is great hope and promise for you all. May grit and innner stregnth be part of your building blocks for success. Brad Rogers, Headmaster, The Gow School, Buffalo, NY.
“Dr.s Shaywitz are leaders in the field of both research and teaching application of dyslexia education.”
And as leaders who people respect in the field of dyslexia they should qualify their statements and not imply characteristics that are common to most dyslexics as being common to all dyslexics or promote the myth that dyslexics have a different IQ distribution than the general population.
That higher IQ dyslexics stand out more because of higher expectations for their reading skills and so are more likely to be identified and diagnosed does not justify the idea that dyslexics are generally above average.
I would be satisfied if they qualified their statements to be that diagnosed dyslexics are generally smarter than average. That is true but only because there is a self fulfilling idea that only smarter people should be suspected of being dyslexic.
I would think that minority groups that have received poor consideration for dyslexia identification and intervention would be sensitive to the exclusion of below average IQ dyslexics by implication rather than fact. You do understand that the Saywitzs aren’t looking for below average IQ dyslexics and so any program of theirs will likely not identify any minority below average dyslexics.
I guess I can understand. It is just like Pandas and tigers getting all the endangered species money because people feel better helping them rather than snail darters.
I understand . It is more satisfying helping a high IQ dyslexic graduate from H.S. and college rather than drop out compared to helping a lower IQ dyslexic learn to read well enough to get that minimum wage job.
I am also not a big fan of dyslexia experts that fail to acknowledge there are a non-trivial amount of dyslexics that fail to respond to phonological based interventions because they don’t have phonological problems as causal.
I guess just be happy that they are trying to help the smart and phonologically impaired majority of dyslexics. | 11,182 | 4,863 | 0.000213 |
warc | 201704 | Last year, Edward Snowden released top secret NSA documents to the world about US and UK surveillance. Ever since then, shocking revelations of spying by international governments spill out more frequently than anyone would like.
Vodafone’s revelations added another dimension to show no one can avoid Big Brother’s prying ears, neither online or on your phone. With Big Brother’s ever watchful gaze, is there such thing is true privacy within this surveillance ridden world?
The very notion of Internet privacy refers to Personal Identifying Information (PII) like your name and address or non-Personally Identifying Information (non-PII), which is your behaviour on a website. Whether you can maintain both these types of privacy hangs in the balance.
Vodafone’s latest revelations show us how easy it is for governments to obtain phone information as some countries do not require the network operator’s permission to access the data. The network giant spans across 29 countries and over three continents. Vodafone’s report issued last week said "In those countries, Vodafone will not receive any form of demand for lawful interception access as the relevant agencies and authorities already have permanent access to customer communications via their own direct link." The citizen’s right to privacy is cast aside, not by the network itself but by the government agency. You have to question the citizen’s fundamental right to privacy when a government body can obtain private data without legal means such as a subpoena.
Snowden caused the world to revolt at the concept that their government and foreign governments could spy on their Internet habits, phone calls, and all electronic network use. Yet, as Mike Silber, a telecommunications specialist lawyer told
Mail & Guardian in 2013, South Africans suffer this fate every day. Apparently once we go through the legally required RICA process (Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision), our information can be monitored through big data. This is non-PII information, namely, what phone numbers you called, when you called that number, and the duration of your conversation. Although obtaining this data should be bound by court ordered subpoena, Silber says this is not always the case. This was substantiated in a 2008 ministerial review on intelligence where Silber said that democratic principles were appallingly disregarded by South African intelligence services.
The latest revelations revealed by Vodafone showing the wide extent of Big Brother’s surveillance of citizens across the network’s international reach reveal less about government spying and more about vulnerabilities open to hackers. If the government is able to get their hands on your private information, hackers, who often use malware, will be able to obtain it just as easily.
The best rule of thumb, according to TechCentral’s interview with Dominic White, the chief technology officer at an information security firm, SensePost, is that if you don’t want your private information available to anyone online, don’t put it online in the first place. He further warns against what Edward Snowden revealed to be ”dragnet surveillance” where the content of emails, text messages, credit records, phone calls, and webcam recordings were collected en masse by government bodies such as the NSA.
In an age where we as a society share so much online, our governments spy on what we say, where we say it and how we say it, is there still such a thing as “privacy”? The notion of anonymity and the right to keep your own business to yourself dangles at the very edge of a dangerous precipice.
Yet, can you really escape Big Brother without becoming a technological recluse? At this point, the average citizen holds little to no power against government organizations and hackers, the only thing one can do is use as many encryption tools as possible to combat this surveillance assault.
You can take proactive steps to protect your information from hackers including basic things such as being more careful where you submit private and personal information. Always make sure your social media and other site accounts have strict privacy settings.
Especially take note of the sites where you enter private information such as your address and credit card information. If you think that a website may be unsecured, contact the admin on the page or leave the website. You can use fantastic online anonymity tools like Tor, which boasts over 120 million downloads since Snowden revealed the true nature of electronic network privacy. Encryption tools are becoming increasingly available but it is imperative that you be weary with what you share online.
©Diane Moalem | 4,809 | 2,242 | 0.000456 |
warc | 201704 | As one of the media of communication, social networking plays an important role in people’s lives. Its usage may vary from one person to another depending on the benefits that this medium can provide for them. For students specifically, social networking
serves as their channel to express their thoughts and feelings about a certain issue. It helps them in building up stronger relationships with their loved ones especially those who are living far away from them. It makes them more vigilant about the happenings in different places by getting news from their friends on the Internet. Most importantly, while it entertains them, it also helps them in doing research.
Yet some university administrations perceive students’ social networking activities as detrimental to students’ academics and have blocked sites such as Facebook during office hours. But does social networking take away the time that students ought to spend
on their study time and media use?
To answer this question a study was conducted in a Visayas State University in America. Using a survey, time diary and a focus group discussion, this study was conducted among 116 randomly selected college students.
Respondents’ social networking usage did not displace their time spent for watching television, texting on mobile phone, reading books, and listening to radio. On the other hand, newspaper reading and landline telephone use were displaced due to social networking
usage.
Although in general, motivations was not associated with displacement effects on study habits, a significant relationship was found between cognitive motivations and displacement effects on study habits. This suggests that motivated people who use social
networking to fulfil cognitive needs to acquire information, knowledge and understanding are more likely displace their study time duration. In terms of social networking use and displacement effects on study habits, a significant difference was found between male and female respondents, with females reporting higher networking usage than males. This supports the previous study that teen girls are more likely to use social networking and posted online profile than boys. Technique used in Study and results Time Diary
All respondents who participated in the survey were given a time diary on which they were to record their study hours, media use and time spent in using social networking sites for two weeks. Out of 116 respondents who participated in the survey, only 62
percent of them returned their time diaries. A total of 72 time diaries were analyzed. Respondent profile. Close to two-thirds (64.7%) of the respondents aging from 16 to 28 were female while the remaining 35.3% were male. A little more than one-fifth (20.7%) of the respondents were enrolled in BS Hotel Restaurant and Tourism Management (BSHRTM), followed by more than a tenth (12.9%) who were enrolled in both Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) and Bachelor of Secondary Education (BSED) . Displacement effects on study habits
When asked about the effect of social networking use on their study time duration (in hours), more than three-fifths (69%) of the respondents indicated that it stayed the same, while exactly a fourth (25%) of them reported a decrease. The remaining 6 percent
of them expressed that their time in studying increased because of social networking use. Since more than two-thirds (69%) of the respondents indicated that their hours spent in studying did not decrease, it appears that social networking use did not have a displacement effect on respondents’ study habits. Displacement effects on media use
Overall, 11.2 percent of the respondents reported an increase in time spent on other media as a result of social networking use, (46.6%) reported that their time spent on the six media activities stayed the same while more than two-fifths (42.2%) of the
respondents answered that the time they spent on other media decreased because of social networking use. Displacement effects on media-related activities
Of the six media-related activities, only reading newspaper (56.9%) and using landline telephone (55.2%) decreased since the respondents started using social networking sites. | 4,239 | 1,811 | 0.000558 |
warc | 201704 | NewswireToday - /newswire/ -
San Jose, CA, United States, 2012/03/21 - Wrike research finds two thirds of workers expect to go fully virtual in a few years, 89 percent say ability to work remotely is priority benefit - Wrike.com.
Virtual collaboration is clearly a top priority among both small businesses and Fortune 500 companies, according to the results of a new online survey released today by leading social project management platform provider Wrike.
With some 83 percent of respondents already spending at least a few hours each week working outside the office, two-thirds say they expect their offices to go fully virtual within the next few years, a result that highlights the prominent role virtual work is expected to play in the future of business.
In spite of certain challenges virtual collaboration can impose without the right tools in place, 89 percent of respondents rated the opportunity to work remotely as an important fringe benefit in a job, pointing to the potential vital role this capability could play in both recruiting and retention. Across the board, the results underscore the growing demand for virtual work capabilities - either while on the road or working from home - among both small and large enterprises. Other key findings from the study include:
• More than 43 percent said they now work remotely more than they did just two or three years ago, indicating just how much the scope of virtual collaboration has increased in the past few years. The growth has been the most significant among executives: one-half of these respondents said they spend more time working outside the office.
• One in four said they believe their company will fully shift to virtual collaboration in a year or two.
• Time savings, increased productivity and the opportunity to focus on work rather than becoming distracted by office politics emerged as the top three benefits workers appreciate in remote collaboration.
• Thirty-seven percent said a lack of direct communication is the biggest obstacle to efficient remote collaboration, while other challenges include hindered data accessibility (21 percent) and poor visibility into colleagues’ activities (19 percent).
In spite of these challenges, workers confess they would be willing to forgo certain other job perks for the opportunity to work remotely. According to the survey, nearly 80 percent would sacrifice employer-provided free meals and 54 percent would give up their employer-paid cellphone plans. Perhaps even more astounding, 31 would accept a reduction in paid vacation, and one-fourth would even accept a salary reduction.
Amid the overwhelming demand for a virtual working arrangement, the vast majority of surveyed workers (87 percent) cite smart collaboration software as a vital, mission-critical factor in the success of virtual teams.
Many organizations are dealing with the ‘human cloud’ paradigm—this idea of employees spread across several cities, countries and cultures. Our survey shows there might actually be many more distributed teams than one might think. Technology can make virtual teams just as efficient as if they were collaborating in the same office. With so many companies now dealing with the promise of remote collaboration, Wrike’s remote project management features are specifically designed to ensure everyone stays on the same page, no matter where they’re physically located,” said Andrew Filev, Wrike CEO.
quotes
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warc | 201704 | A recent Comment of mine has caused some readers to mistake me for (as one e-mailer put it) “a guardian of the American electoral system as presently constituted.” Ouch. My bad, as the kids say.
To remind: G.O.P. operatives plan to use California’s low-turnout June primary to slip through a ballot initiative that would allocate the state’s electoral votes next year by Congressional district instead of by statewide winner-take-all, as in every other big and medium-sized state, red and blue alike. This would spot the 2008 Republican nominee around twenty electors, making it next to impossible for a Democrat to win nationally if the election is as close as the last two.
Although I did say that “to most people, the electoral-college status quo feels intuitively wrong,” I may have left the impression that I think such people are mistaken. They’re not mistaken. They’re right. The status quo not only feels wrong, it is wrong.
Others who have since written about the California initiative—e.g.,
Newsweek’s Jonathan Alter and, this morning, the editorial board of the New York Times—have mentioned that there is a terrific alternative: the nonpartisan National Popular Vote plan. I should have mentioned it, too, particularly as (if I may toot my own horn) I was the first to trumpet it in the so-called mainstream media a year and a half ago and plugged it a second time in an April handwringer about the front-loading of primaries. I won’t go through the details again (they can be found on the plan’s own Web site), but its effect would be to turn the electoral college into a vehicle for electing Presidents the same way we elect senators, governors, and members of Congress—namely, by counting the votes cast by actual human beings.
The National Popular Vote plan is by far the most potentially salutory and far-reaching political reform I know of. It even stands an outside chance of happening, not so much because it’s in the interest of citizens (though it most certainly is) as because it. . .s in the interest of politicians, most of whom get left on the sidelines during general election campaigns because their states are already in the red or blue bag. I should have plugged the plan again. I hereby do so. | 2,306 | 1,214 | 0.000854 |
warc | 201704 | We can’t afford alternative Medicaid plan The state needs a sensible, quality, affordable system for uninsured low-income residents
Earlier in September, the state Commission to Study the Expansion of Medicaid heard a presentation about another alternative to Medicaid expansion, presented by Avik Roy. It’s an alternative that New Hampshire’s uninsured, low-income families cannot afford, and neither can the state.
It is expected that the commission -- composed of bipartisan legislators and public policy experts -- will measure each option against critical principles, such as affordability, quality of services, scope of coverage, ways to maximize federal funds, leverage existing infrastructure and systems and cost-sharing options.
Roy’s alternative plan falls short on several key principles: It is unaffordable for low-income families; it would only cover 11,150 out of 46,200 uninsured residents at 100 percent federal poverty level; it recommends a “concierge” type of primary care that is not empirically tested; it recommends only catastrophic insurance coverage; it forgoes a significant federal investment; and it does not build on the investments our state and the federal government have already made to help lower-income families gain access to health care.
Under this newly proposed plan, designed to serve individuals with annual incomes of less than $12,000, the catastrophic insurance plan would have an annual deductible of over $6,000. If we allow 30 percent of this income for housing ($4,000) that would leave $2,000 to pay for food, utilities, gas to get to work, and clothing. It is unrealistic to believe that a person could live on $2,000 a year.
Beyond catastrophic insurance, this plan requires an individual to pay $100 per month to access primary care. Any alternative plan must be broader in scope, and like Medicaid coverage, allow for primary and preventive care, specialist care, hospital emergency and inpatient care, hospice services, home health, nursing facilities and prescription drugs to name a few.
For our current Medicaid population, the Legislature made the decision to invest in Medicaid care management, selecting three health plans with a proven record nationwide. Medicaid Care Management incorporates the patient-centered medical home model of care, an accredited and evidence-based model which uses a team-approach of providing care for each patient that results in high-quality, comprehensive primary and preventive care. Nearly all primary care providers in the state with expertise in caring for low- and moderate-income families use this well-tested model. However, this alternative plan proposes the use of primary care practices that typically see only a quarter of the patients other practices do, thus limiting access to providers for this population overall. New Hampshire should continue its wise investment in Medicaid Care Management and the patient-centered medical home model.
Finally, this alternative leaves $2.5 billion in federal funding on the table and will cost New Hampshire $320 million in state funds over seven years.
If the state chooses to expand Medicaid, nearly 60,000 (at 138 percent of federal poverty level) uninsured residents will receive crucial health care coverage through the Medicaid Care Management program. Many health care providers and organizations have publicly supported Medicaid expansion and have stated that New Hampshire providers have the capacity to treat current and newly eligible Medicaid patients.
The Bi-State Primary Care Association supports the continued expansion of Medicaid Care Management for low-income people without health insurance in New Hampshire. We look forward to the commission’s report to evaluate which public policy options make sense as we work toward a path to provide access to affordable, quality health care for uninsured, low-income residents.
Tess Stack Kuenning is president and CEO of the Bow-based Bi-State Primary Care Association. | 4,021 | 1,818 | 0.000557 |
warc | 201704 | Popular Now
Popular Now
Popular Now
Popular Now
By: J Horel and J Geisler
152 pages, Figs, tabs
Global Environmental Change describes how the atmosphere works as a global entity to maintain a given global climate or to maintain an adequate ozone shield. It focuses on the two aspects of global change brought about by human activities: a global change in climate and a deterioration of the earth's protective shield of ozone. The authors show how to use information about how the atmosphere functions to predict the future courses of these two aspects of global change.
The Global Atmosphere.
The Radiation Balance of the Earth-Atmosphere System. Weather and Climate. The Natural Variability of the Earth-Atmosphere System. Long-Term Climate Variations. The Carbon Cycle. Greenhouse Gases, Clouds, and the Radiation Balance. Predicting Climate Change. Depletion of Stratospheric Ozone. Appendices. Index.
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warc | 201704 | Nielsen measures more than half of the world’s total broadcast, print and online advertising. In New Zealand, advertising spend is a $2 billion industry spanning across TV, print, online display, radio, out-of-home, direct mail and cinema advertising.
We provide advertisers, agencies and media owners with a picture of the competitive landscape in New Zealand by measuring who advertised, on which medium, and how much was spent. We can then break this down further by key industry sector and individual advertiser.
Our advertising information service monitors advertising and estimates expenditure across the key media. We also collect ad creatives in a database that advertisers, agencies and media owners can leverage.
Advertisers and agencies use our advertising tracking and analysis tool to gain actionable insights into ad spend and placement to inform the strategic media planning process. Media owners can get a clear gauge of their own performance, agency and industry movements. | 1,000 | 545 | 0.001853 |
warc | 201704 | Project to improve risk assessment and monitoring of offshore Carbon Capture and Storage sites
The world’s first ‘real world’ deep-water controlled experiment simulating emission from a submerged carbon dioxide storage reservoir is to take place in the North Sea, with the aim of further verifying the safety of offshore carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage (CCS).
Small quantities of CO₂ will be injected into mud on the sea floor in the North Sea, 100km North East of Aberdeen. This site is in the vicinity of a depleted gas field and is a typical location that could be used for carbon dioxide storage.
First of a kind
This first of a kind experiment, due to take place in 2018, will form part of a €16M collaborative project led by the National Oceanography Centre (NOC), which will enable scientists to develop a system for detecting and quantifying the volume of any CO₂ released. This work will help provide greater reassurance around the safety of CCS operations in the future.
- Currently, it is challenging to detect and quantify CO₂ emissions in the marine environment because of dispersion and attenuation effects, the small volumes involved and considering large existing natural variability. This project is a really exciting opportunity to develop innovative, safe and cost effective technology to address these problems, Project leader, Dr Doug Connelly from the NOC, said.
Leakage scenarios and local impact predictions
In order to ‘listen’ for the released CO
2, the project partners will be developing acoustic and chemical sensors that can be fitted into robot-subs. Automated photographic analysis software will also be developed to enable the detection of any visual changes at the release site. Additional technology used by this project will include devices in the water and on the seabed to monitor changes in the chemistry, temperature, salinity and currents in the water.
- In this project, the NIVA model of benthic redox chemistry BROM will be used to detect and propagate the biogeochemical impacts of CO2 leakage from CCS and natural seepage, with a focus on the sediments and benthic-pelagic interface, Dr Evgeniy Yakushev, Research Scientist at NIVA's section for Marine Biogeochemistry and Oceanography, says.
- The model will then be used to investigate leakage scenarios, predicting local impacts on the sediment biogeochemistry and benthic ecosystem and providing boundary conditions for models tracking the wider-range impacts in the pelagic. The model will also facilitate the detection of slow/chronic leakages by comparing predictions with routine measurements provided by the monitoring program.
Horizon 2020
All this technology will be launched at the site in Scotland a year before the controlled release in order to acquire an in-depth picture of the natural variability of the environment on a daily, weekly and seasonal timescale. This information will enable scientists to better differentiate natural changes from those resulting from the controlled release.
This project, called STEMM-CCS (STrategies for the Environmental Monitoring of Marine CCS), has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon2020 project under the grant agreement number 654462. In addition to the industry partner Shell, this project will bring together the University of Southampton and Heriot Watt University, Plymouth Marine Laboratory, GEOMAR and MPI from Germany, NIVA, Uni Research and the Universities of Bergen and Tromso from Norway, the Technical University of Graz from Austria and Seascape Consultants Ltd. | 3,617 | 1,761 | 0.000578 |
warc | 201704 | Online Barograph There is no need to tap the screen...
The NPL online barograph has been recording the pressure in Teddington, UK, since 1 January 1998.
The barometric pressure data is derived from an on-line electronic pressure transducer. The measurement uncertainty of this on-line transducer is approximately ±0.3 hPa. The unit hectopascal (hPa) is numerically identical to the millibar (mbar) - see Pressure Units
The pressure values shown are those at the point of measurement, that is approximately 10 metres above mean sea level. If a hole were dug to sea level, the pressure at the bottom would be about 1 hPa greater than at the top. Note that, when estimating a pressure value from the graphs, the uncertainty will be considerably higher than that of the measuring transducer because of limitations in screen resolution.
When using the pressure values, particularly for checking another barometer, it is important to appreciate that the differences in altitude, distance from Teddington and weather conditions may seriously limit the validity of the comparison.
A list of frequently asked questions relating to the online barograph and barometers is given below.
Barograph FAQs The instrument currently used to measure atmospheric pressure for the NPL online barograph is a good-quality, commercially available resonant pressure sensor. Values of atmospheric pressure in Teddington, measured at about 10 metres above sea level, going back to 1 January 1998 and shown both graphically and digitally, can be found on the historical pressure page of the NPL on-line barograph. To the best of our knowledge, the NPL on-line barograph is unique inasmuch as it provides a fully traceable pressure measurement, with a properly calculated uncertainty, and also allows historical data to be displayed both graphically and digitally. Barometer FAQs The most accurate barometers are indeed the mercury primary barometers used at national measurement institutes. Most barometers, though, are secondary instruments rather than primary ones and when considering these it is not correct to say that those based on a mercury column are invariably more accurate than those that are based on an alternative principle. There are many different types of barometer but they fit into two broad categories - those containing mercury and those that do not. Mercury barometers must be transported with extreme care - the prime concerns are to prevent air from entering the vacuum space or the tube from being broken and leaking mercury. Mercury barometers must be firmly supported, made vertical and given time to adopt ambient temperature before attempting to use them. Some barometer measurement principles are listed below; there are bound to be others. Registration
Please note that the information will not be divulged to third parties, or used without your permission | 2,873 | 1,354 | 0.000742 |
warc | 201704 | We’re becoming told to consume properly and obtain in Five portions of vegetables and fruits each day – numerous individuals discover this quota tough to fill! Why don’t you attempt scrumptious
fruit smoothie recipes? The juice as well as berries within this tasty drink counts for 2 ½ of one’s every day portion specifications.
This really is a wholesome fruit as well as protein repair containing pure whey protein. The heavy milkshake-like consistency is produced by freezing fruit as well as whey powder and provides the sense of getting frozen treats in it. This could substitute your lunch and can give sustained power all through the day. Pure whey protein is great for assisting to type muscle, and may assist with weight reduction as a part of a calorie controlled diet plan.
This scrumptious
fruit smoothie recipes serves two, is simple to create and features a total preparation period of 5 minutes. You are able to effortlessly get this recipe within the morning and shop it within the fridge until lunch.
Preparing the tasty Berrie Smoothie!
Location the berries (you are able to also use refreshing berries),pomegranate juice, banana, and pure whey protein inside a blender and mix till smooth and put into Two tall cups and appreciate – at final, some thing that tastes truly great and is great for you personally!!
There are lots of other dishes and suggestions you are able to attempt. A well-liked thickener is coco milk. This scrumptious fresh juice may be put into smoothies to get a much more substantial consistency along with a fantastic, fresh tasting taste. For an exotic mixture, why not attempt mangoes and passion fruit with coconut milk and bananas. Scrumptious!
Do not limit your self to fruit when quenching your thirst – numerous vegetables can truly combine nicely with their fruit cousins when mixed with each other inside a smoothie. Celery includes fantastically with the apple for instance. Carrot gives a brilliant, lively colour to the smoothie and obviously consists of the health-giving type of beta-carotene. Spinach can easily pack a impact when combined with oranges and or bananas.
The good thing about creating fruit smoothies is the fact that it’s tough to go incorrect. So long as you use high quality, entire fruit or vegetables and do not water your item down, you’ll produce scrumptious drinks some time and once more with well being providing properties being an added reward. Lunch guests will probably be extremely impressed in the event you bring a couple of fresh shakes out towards the table to go with a freshly produced lunch. | 2,641 | 1,321 | 0.000773 |
warc | 201704 | Each year, teams of middle school students build and program a small robot to accomplish various challenges, investigate a research topic of their choice and work towards being a cohesive group that demonstrates teamwork, respect, cooperation, team spirit, professional and inclusion.
FLL selects a different theme each year, which is drawn from real events in society.
For 2011, it was “Food Factor.”
In Washington state, there are several regional tournaments and two state championships (Eastern and Western).
Team AI, a group of 9 to 14- year-old homeschoolers (Avery Dailidenas, Davis Luanava, Hannah Hewland, Isa Luanava, Matthew Newland, Natalie Koch and Nicky McDonald) had a highly successful season and brought home gold with an award for “Gracious Professionalism” at regionals and one for “Inspiration” at the State level.
At regionals, the kids were up against 25 other teams and at state, over 50 groups competed.
Team AI began working together in September to create and assemble their robot and program it to do various actions within a specific time period.
Each challenge performed successfully during competition earns the team points, whereas if errors are made, penalties are given.
“The kids had to do things like release “bacteria” (small plastic balls in a container), collect plastic fish from an imaginary ocean, raise a thermometer and turn it to cold, deliver plastic grocery items to a miniature kitchen table and more,” explains Laura Koch, parent of Natalie, 12, one of the students on Team AI.
She adds, “Sometimes, teams are able to do the challenges in practice, but then when competition comes, they have difficulty performing them. Nerves, of course, play a part in all of this.”
For its research project, Team AI chose to investigate the problem of blue plastic bands in chicken nuggets as its topic.
“We were really surprised at how many cases of plastic were found in chicken nuggets,” comments Natalie. “Between 2000 and 2011, over 500,000 pounds of chicken nuggets were recalled for plastic contaminants. That’s more cases than salmonella.”
She adds, “Everyone on our team said we’d never eat chicken nuggets again!”
The kids’ solution to this problem was to recommend using food grade edible plastic tags that wouldn’t be a contaminant if accidentally left in the food.
Judges for the competitions are volunteers from the community. Many are professional engineers and programmers. Each team meets with judges three times: for a technical review of its robot, to present its research and to demonstrate how it learned FLL’s Core Values.
Awards are given in various categories including project research, project presentation, mechanical design, programming, robot performance and Core Values. All groups are assessed on Core Values behavior throughout the competition.
“We were really happy to get awards in the Core Values,” says Natalie. “It’s only the second time in five years that we’ve gotten any awards.”
She adds, “Our team divided up the responsibilities and everyone did what they were supposed to. We had good teamwork and good team spirit and I think we respected each other.”
The local girl enjoyed helping build the robot, which was her favorite part of the project.
Most challenging was programming it to do the specific actions.
“Some of the actions are hard,” she comments, “like having the robot transfer the hoop with the plastic rat to a base and having it retrieve the little trailer.”
Team AI plans to compete again next season and hopes to add to its medal collection, but as Natalie says, “We do it because it’s a lot of fun.” | 3,805 | 1,850 | 0.000573 |
warc | 201704 | A nuclear research reactor in Tehran may hold the key to resolving the prolonged nuclear stalemate between Iran and the West. The Iranian government is running out of the 20 percent-enriched uranium it needs to operate the reactor, and that appears to be making it amenable to compromise.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently proposed that Iran suspend production of some uranium-enrichment activities in exchange for fuel supplies from the United States. Whether the offer is an olive branch or an act of necessity, it is an unprecedented opportunity for Washington and its allies.
The proposal arose earlier this month amid the habitual bombast that surrounds Ahmadinejad’s annual trip to the U.N. General Assembly. “If you [the United States and Europe] give us uranium grade 20 percent now, we will stop production,” the Iranian president told The Washington Post and later, in basically the same terms, The New York Times.
Ahmadinejad clarified that the offer did not apply to the production of 3.5 percent-enriched uranium, which it uses at the Bushehr power station to generate electricity. But the offer is significant nonetheless.Continue reading the main story
While the 20 percent-enriched uranium is used to make medical isotopes in the Tehran Research Reactor, it lies at the perilous dividing line between low-enriched uranium and highly enriched uranium. Stockpiling 20 percent-enriched uranium significantly shortens the time then needed to make crude nuclear weapons. By seeking supplies in the West, Ahmadinejad’s offer may lower concerns that Iran will make a dash toward developing atomic bombs in the near future.
As a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium to 20 percent (and even more), so long as it uses the uranium solely for peaceful purposes and operates under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency. But prompted by revelations that Iran was violating its treaty obligations, the U.N. Security Council has passed six resolutions since 2006 demanding that Iran suspend all enrichment activities.
Yet the Iranian government’s nuclear aspirations remained, at least until recently, unabated. Just this year, it pugnaciously announced plans to triple its production of 20 percent-enriched uranium and started transferring enrichment operations from a plant in Natanz to an underground bunkered facility in Fordow. Despite this boastful defiance, Iran is not yet capable of refurbishing enriched uranium into fuel rods for its reactors.
And now it is also running out of 20 percent-enriched uranium. The United States once supplied the fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor, but the 1979 Islamic Revolution brought an abrupt end to that relationship. In 1992, Argentina supplied 116 kilograms of 20 percent-enriched uranium, which has fueled the reactor to date.
After efforts in 2009 and 2010 to swap the majority of Iran’s stockpile of 3.5 percent uranium with fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor came to naught, Iran launched its own production of 20 percent-enriched uranium. Today, it holds more than 70 kilograms.
Although this is less than the amount required to make a nuclear bomb — about 130 kilograms at the very least — there are still concerns that Iran could stockpile enough of this uranium and then quickly enrich it further in order to produce weapons-grade material.
There is also the concern that Ahmadinejad’s offer may be empty rhetoric. His domestic standing has weakened following his recent public rifts with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. But Ahmadinejad has repeated the offer often enough, and with confirmation from the foreign minister, that it must have the backing of the Iranian political elite, including Khamenei.
And recent statements by Fereydoon Abbasi, the head of Iran’s atomic energy agency, rebuffing the possibility that Iran might halt production of 20 percent-enriched uranium or agree to fuel swaps, should not be taken too seriously. Abbasi is often belligerent — perhaps the result of being targeted for assassination last year — and traditionally neither he nor his predecessors have been included in the Iranian government’s decision-making on nuclear issues. The reality is that Tehran needs nuclear fuel for its research reactor, and it needs it now.
For once, it is strategically expedient for the United States and its allies to take Ahmadinejad at his word. They should provide Iran with 50 kilograms of fuel, without any conditions.
As the failed experiences of 2009 and 2010 demonstrated, setting conditions would be a nonstarter. On the other hand, giving Iran the fuel unconditionally would remove Iran’s rationale for refining uranium to more than 3.5 percent.
The deal would increase Iran’s safeguarded stockpile of 20 percent-enriched uranium to 120 kilograms, an amount large enough to operate the Tehran Research Reactor for seven years at maximum capacity — and help the 850,000 Iranians who currently depend on the reactor’s radioactive isotopes for cancer treatment — but too small to produce even one nuclear bomb.
Such a move would be, above all, a humanitarian gesture, and it would buy Washington good will with the Iranian people and undermine the regime’s anti-American, nationalistic propaganda. But it would be a humanitarian gesture with strategic benefits: curtailing Iran’s enrichment activities and potentially cutting the Gordian knot that has stalled the West’s nuclear negotiations with Iran.
Those who usually observe Iran’s nuclear program through a thick veil of suspicion will be inclined to reject any compromise with Tehran out of hand. But since other aspects of the nuclear standoff between the West and Iran — the possible military dimension of the program, heavy-water production, additional enrichment facilities — are likely to remain unresolved, this initiative is a rare chance to move forward.
Continue reading the main story
Ali Vaez is a fellow for science and technology and the director of the Iran Project at the Federation of American Scientists. Charles D. Ferguson is the president of FAS and the author of “Nuclear Energy: What Everyone Needs to Know.” | 6,287 | 2,846 | 0.00036 |
warc | 201704 | On Thursday, Congress attempted to override President Bush's veto of the SCHIP expansion. SCHIP? Isn't that something to do with health care for children? Absolutely. And here is Bay Area Democratic Rep. Pete Stark addressing the issue with his customary forensic incisiveness:
"The Republicans are worried that they can't pay for insuring an additional 10 million children. They sure don't care about finding $200 billion to fight the illegal war in Iraq. Where are you going to get that money? Are you going to tell us lies like you're telling us today? Is that how you're going to fund the war? You don't have money to fund the war on children, but you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people? If he can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement."
I'm not sure I follow the argument here: President Bush wants to breed a generation of sickly uninsured children in order to send them to Iraq to stagger round the Sunni Triangle, weak and spindly and emaciated and rickets-stricken, to get their heads blown off? Is that the gist of it? No matter, Congressman Stark hit all the buzz words - "children," "illegal war," "$200 billion," "lies," etc. - and these days they're pretty much like modular furniture: You can say 'em in any order, and you'll still get a cheer from the crowd.
Congressman Stark is unlikely ever to be confused with Gen. Stark, who gave New Hampshire its stirring motto, "Live free or die!" In the congressman's case, the choice appears to be: "Live free on government health care or die in Bush's illegal war!" Nevertheless, in amongst the autopilot hooey the Stark raving madman did use an interesting expression: "the war on children."
One assumes he means some illegal Republican Party "war on children." Last Thursday, Nancy Pelosi, as is the fashion, used the phrase "the children" like some twitchy verbal tic, a kind of Democrat Tourette's syndrome: "This is a discussion about America's children … We could establish ourselves as the children's Congress … Come forward on behalf of the children ... I tried to do that when I was sworn in as speaker surrounded by children. It was a spontaneous moment, but it was one that was clear in its message: we are gaveling this House to order on behalf of the children."
Etc. So what is the best thing America could do "for the children"? Well, it could try not to make the same mistake as most of the rest of the Western world and avoid bequeathing the next generation a system of unsustainable entitlements that turns the entire nation into a giant Ponzi scheme. Most of us understand, for example, that Social Security needs to be "fixed" - or we'll have to raise taxes, or the retirement age, or cut benefits, etc. But, just to get the entitlements debate in perspective, projected public pensions liabilities in the United States are expected to rise by 2040 to about 6.8 percent of our gross domestic product. In Greece, the equivalent figure is 25 percent - that's not a matter of raising taxes or tweaking retirement age; that's total societal collapse.
So what? shrug the voters. Not my problem. I paid my taxes, I want my benefits.
In France, President Sarkozy is proposing a very modest step - that those who retire before the age of 65 should not receive free health care - and the French are up in arms about it. He's being angrily denounced by 53-year-old retirees, a demographic hitherto unknown to functioning societies. You spend your first 25 years being educated, you work for two or three decades, and then you spend a third of a century living off a lavish pension, with the state picking up every health care expense. No society can make that math add up.
And so, in a democratic system today's electors vote to keep the government gravy coming and leave it to tomorrow for "the children" to worry about. That's the real "war on children" - and every time you add a new entitlement to the budget you make it less and less likely they'll win it.
A couple of weeks ago, the Democrats put up a 12-year-old SCHIP beneficiary from Baltimore, Graeme Frost, to deliver their official response to the President's Saturday-morning radio address. And immediately afterwards Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and I jumped the sick kid in a dark alley and beat him to a pulp. Or so you'd have thought from the press coverage: The Washington Post called us "meanies." Well, no doubt it's true we hard-hearted conservatives can't muster the civilized level of discourse of Pete Stark. But we were trying to make a point - not about the kid, but about the family, and their relevance as a poster child for expanded government health care. Mr. and Mrs. Frost say their income's about $45,000 a year - she works "part-time" as a medical receptionist, and he works "intermittently" as a self-employed woodworker. They have a 3,000-square-foot home plus a second commercial property with a combined value of over $400,000, and three vehicles - a new Chevy Suburban, a Volvo SUV, and a Ford F-250 pickup.
How they make that arithmetic add up is between them and their accountant. But here's the point: The Frosts are not emblematic of the health care needs of America so much as they are of the delusion of the broader Western world. They expect to be able to work "part-time" and "intermittently" but own two properties and three premium vehicles and have the state pick up health care costs. Who do you stick with the bill? Four-car owners? Much of France already lives that way: A healthy, wealthy, well-educated populace works a mandatory maximum 35-hour week with six weeks of paid vacation and retirement at 55 and with the government funding all the core responsibilities of adult life.
I'm in favor of tax credits for child health care, and Health Savings Accounts for adults, and any other reform that emphasizes the citizen's responsibility to himself and his dependants. But middle-class entitlement creep would be wrong even if was affordable, even if Bill Gates wrote a check to cover it every month: it turns free-born citizens into enervated wards of the Nanny State. As Gerald Ford likes to say when trying to ingratiate himself with conservative audiences, "A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have." But there's an intermediate stage: A government big enough to give you everything you want isn't big enough to get you to give any of it back. As I point out in my book, nothing makes a citizen more selfish than socially equitable communitarianism: Once a fellow's enjoying the fruits of Euro-style entitlements, he couldn't give a hoot about the general societal interest; he's got his, and who cares if it's going to bankrupt the state a generation hence?
That's the real "war on children": in Europe, it's killing their future. Don't make the same mistake here.
© MARK STEYN
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warc | 201704 | 2016 global E&P spending expected to decline 15%-20% in 2016: Barclay’s
“That’s what Friends are For” was the Billboard Top 100 song the last time this happened. Exploration and production spending is expected to decline by 15% this year. That’s on top of a 23% decline last year, making 2016 the eighth decline in global spending in the last 31 years, and only the second consecutive two-year reduction in spending seen in the period.
According to Barclay’s E&P Spending Outlook, which has been conducted annually over the last three decades, the last time a double-dip was seen was 1986-1987 when E&P spending fell 31% and 6%, respectively.
WTI was above $40 per barrel when the survey was initially conducted, however, meaning that expectations for E&P spending could go lower given that WTI is currently hovering near $30 per barrel. Barclay’s expects spending cuts to push closer to 20% if oil prices hold at $40 per barrel.
North American E&Ps are expected to cut into their budgets even further, with expectations of a 27% decline in spending for 2016. So far, only about 15% of companies have officially announced budgets, and those still to be released are expected to be more strongly affected by the price of oil than last year’s budgets because of fewer hedges.
International companies are expected to fare better than those in North America, with the survey predicting an 11% decline in 2016, following a 17% reduction in spending last year. U.S. IOCs are expected to lower spending by 16%, European IOCs by 9% and national oil companies (NOCs) are expected to cut spending by 9% this year.
Capital discipline: easier said than done
Companies have been targeting operating inside of cash flow since oil prices began their rapid decline in November 2014, and many are hoping to do the same again this year, but many have struggled to actually meet that goal.
Oil prices have been a moving target over the past 14 months, and most companies didn’t bring down spending fast enough last year in order to keep spending inside of cash flow. Large-cap E&Ps in North America spent 135% of cash flow in 2015, while mid-cap spent 188% of cash flow, according to Barclays.
65% of respondents last year said they planned to spend inside of cash flow, but only 50% were successful, with 36% of companies spending 120% compared to less than 20% of companies that said they planned to spend that much, reports Barclays.
If WTI and Brent remain in the $34/$35 per barrel range, the North American budgets that have yet to be announced could be drastically lower as companies aim to stay inside of cash flow. “North American upstream spending
could be down 40-50% if current futures prices hold at ~$34/$35 per barrel,” said the Barclays report (emphasis Barclays’). Canada expected to follow the larger North American trend
Canadian E&Ps are expected to reduce their spending by 27.7% this year, closely following the 26.6% decline Barclays sees for North America. Many E&Ps do not break out their Canadian spending versus their U.S. spending, but the firm estimates that Canada represents about 15% of total North America spending.
E&P companies are stretching their capex dollar further
Companies have hi-graded operations and pushed service costs lower in order to keep production commercial in the last year. The survey indicated that 70% of E&Ps have seen well costs fall more than 20%, while one-third said well costs were down 30%.
International spending expected to decline 11% with exceptions
Overall spending by IOCs is expected to fall in 2016 by around 11%, with the largest cuts expected in Latin America where spending is “in free fall.” India, Asia and Australia are expected to cut spending by 13.5%, while Europe and Africa are expected to spend 7.2% and 13.5% less, respectively.
Interestingly, there were exceptions to spending cuts in the two international regions covered in the report. The Middle East, as well as Russia and the Former Soviet Union, are both expected to increase spending on E&P operations in 2016.
A large portion of the expected spending increase in Saudi Arabia is expected to come from Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest national oil company. Saudi Arabia said at the end of December that it plans to cut back spending by about 14%, but its state-owned oil company is still expected to increase spending by roughly 5% as the company continues to produce at as high a rate as possible, according to sources inside of Aramco.
The high production will keep oil well below the actual breakeven levels of many of OPEC’s members, but most have large sovereign funds to use as a financial cushion as oil prices remain low. Strong financial reserves are not universal among OPEC members, however, and those who are not as fiscally stable will continue to damage further as oil prices remain low.
“With oil revenue as the dominant economic driver for each of these countries, pain will not be distributed evenly, creating a distinct line between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots,’” said the report.
One bright spot created by Saudi Aramco’s higher spending is a healthy backlog of construction work for international firms, Barclays commented during a conference call that accompanied the release of the survey results.
Russia expected to increase spending even as the finance minister proposes 10% cuts nearly across the board
The Russian Federation is already looking to redo its budget after setting expectations for oil prices at $50 per barrel in October. Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said the government would propose a 10% cut to spending from that budget – $6.5 billion less than originally planned.
“We need to prepare for the worst scenario,” Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in a speech at an economic conference in Moscow. “We need to live according to our means, including by reducing budget expenditures, decreasing spending on the state apparatus, [and] the privatization of part of state assets.”
Despite the recent calls for lower spending, Russia’s state-owned oil and gas giants are expected to increase spending in 2016. Two Russian companies – Novatek, whose Yamal LNG project is still looking to finish financing, and KazMunaiGas – are both expected to cut spending in excess of 40% year-over-year.
The continued devaluation of the ruble has allowed for some of this increased spending. While certainly not a good sign for the wider economy, a cheaper ruble means Russian oil and gas companies are actually receiving more for their dollar-denominated products. | 6,699 | 2,931 | 0.000351 |
warc | 201704 | Yesterday ranks up there with one of the worst May days I can remember, weather-wise. The thermometer on my car climbed to 100 degress, and the pollen was so thick the backyard looked foggy. My dark blue car turned neon yellow.
Finn insisted on trying to go to the playground for a picnic. It lasted four minutes, what with the sneezing and the burning of hands on the roasting metal playground structure.
We gave up, and spent the day hunkered down indoors. I was feeling edgy, cooped up and headachy. A perfect time to catch up on current events troll for gossip on the internet.
My favorite gossip center is TMZ. I settled in to enjoy some dish, but was immediately struck by all the stories about addiction. There were five - count 'em - FIVE stories yesterday alone that had to do with celebrities struggling with alcoholism or drug abuse. And, tragically, two stories about premature deaths due to the use and abuse of drugs. Click back two or three pages and that number climbs to four.
Of course, there were several stories about everyone's favorite train wreck, Lindsay Lohan. I feel for that girl, I really do, because between her crazy childhood and constant scrutiny by the media, her struggles with addiction have been reduced to fodder for the gossip rags. She has evolved into something of a joke, and I fear one day I'll click to TMZ and read that she has overdosed. Remember Anna Nicole Smith? We all loved to watch her, agape at her antics. She's dead.
These two pictures alone demonstrate what drugs and alcohol have done to this 23 year old (photos courtesy of TMZ.com):
A judge recently issued her a SCRAM bracelet (which randomly tests for alcohol or drugs in someone's system, and cannot be removed, something she had before, back in 2007). My heart sank, though, when I read about a caveat in the judge's order; she can take two drugs that are prescribed to her by a doctor: Adderall and Ambien. Adderall is a stimulant prescribed for ADHD, and Ambien is a sleep aid. In other words: speed and a downer. Abuse of prescription drugs is rampant amongst young people, and her chances of getting sober are greatly diminished if she is taking these two drugs.
Mindy McCready, a recent graduate of Celebrity Rehab 3 for treatment of alcoholism, made the news because her mother called 911, fearing a drug overdose. Mindy admitted to taking 25 pills of Darvocet, a painkiller, as well as another muscle relaxant. She remains hospitalized due to fears of a suicide attempt. Mindy has released statements that her mother "overreacted", and it is impossible to know the whole truth, but yet again prescription medication rears its ugly head.
Rip Torn appeared in court to face charges stemming from an incident in February, where he entered a bank, intoxicated and waving a gun around, confused and thinking he was in his own home. The pain in his eyes in his mug shot makes my heart ache. According to news reports, he completed an alcohol education course and is considering rehab, so it is likely both the attempted robbery charge and two DUI charges will be dropped.
Jason Wahler, from the television show Laguna Beach, is potentially signing on to Celebrity Rehab 4, after a string of arrests due to alcohol related incidents and DUIs over the past few years. Alcohol has aged Jason considerably in the past three years. He is 23 years old.:
Tila Tequila has signed on to Celebrity Rehab 4 as well, for an addiction to prescription painkillers.
All this in just yesterday's news. Add to this the death of Brittany Murphy's husband, Simon Monjack, at the age of 39. Monjack was awaiting heart bypass surgery, but sources say prescription drug abuse played a key role in the deterioration of his health. Brittany Murphy (the actress from Girl, Interrupted, Clueless and several other films) died in December of 2009 at age 32. The cause of death was a combination of pneumonia, an iron deficiency and multiple drug intoxication, a coroner said. The drugs involved were legal and used to treat a respiratory infection, according to an autopsy. Nobody owns the truth, but I see this double tragedy as two lives cut short as a direct result of drug abuse.
If the gossip rags aren't talking about peoples' troubles with drugs and alcohol, of course the next favorite topic is who's fat and who's not. TMZ posted this picture of Ashlee and Jessica Simpson:
Comments about Ashlee's post-baby body (what's left of it) versus Jessica's curves were rampant. Adding to the post-baby body frenzy was this picture of Bethenny Frankel, of Real Housewives of New York, who gave birth sixteen days ago:
We dont' have all day, so I won't go on a tirade about the unrealistic demands this places on women to bounce right back from childbirth. All I will say is someone, please, give that woman a sandwich.
I find his story very inspiring. On the days I just don't feel like working out, or I feel like I can't stand my new healthy diet for one more second, I think about how much courage he had, how he didn't give up. If he can do it, I can do it too.
Don't get me wrong, I wallow in the gossip rags and websites as much as the next person. I think the whole point is that it's almost impossible to look away. But while we're staring, I hope some good can be done, some recognition that drug abuse is killing off young people, that alcoholism is more than a splashy story on the front page. These are very real diseases that are immune to socio-economic, cultural, ethnic and celebrity status.
Even though I look, I wish that people would put the cameras down and reach out a hand instead. | 5,611 | 2,848 | 0.000352 |
warc | 201704 | New Delhi, Feb 29 (UNI) India's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for October-December 2007-08 was today pegged at Rs 8,24,075 crore against Rs 7,60,386 crore in the corresponding quarter of 2006-07, recording a growth rate of 8.4.
The financing, insurance, real estate and business services at 11.6 per cent, the communication sector at 11.3 per cent, and manufacturing sector at 9.3 per cent registered significant growth in Q3 of 2007-08 over the corresponding period of 2006-07.
According to the information furnished by the Department of Agriculture and Cooperation (DAC), in Q3 of 2007-08, the crops -- rice, coarse cereals and pulses during the Kharif season of 2007-08 recorded growth rates of 1.7 per cent, 11.7 per cent, and 20.1 per cent respectively -- over the same season in the previous agriculture year.
The growth rate in agriculture, forestry and fishing, and mining and quarrying lagged behind at 3.2 per cent and 4.9 per cent respectively in this period.
The Index of Industrial Production (IIP), the index of mining, manufacturing and electricity, showered growth rates of 4.7 per cent, 8.8 per cent and 4.6 per cent, respectively in October-December 2007 compared to 6.9 per cent, 11.8 per cent and 9.2 per cent in these sectors in Q3 of 2006-07.
The key indicators of the construction sector, namely, cement and finished steel grew by 5.1 per cent and 4.3 per cent, respectively during this quarter compared to 9.7 per cent and 10.1 per cent, respectively in Q3 of 2006-07.
Among the services sectors, the net tonne kilometers and passenger kilometers in the Railways logged growth rates of 8.6 per cent and 6.2 per cent respectively in Q3 of 2007-08 while in the transport and communication sectors, the production of commercial vehicles, cargo handled at major ports, cargo handled by the civil aviation, passengers handled by the civil aviation and the total stock of telephone connections (including WLL and cellular) registered growth rates of 8.6 per cent, 9.6 per cent, 13.4 per cent, 17.7 per cent and 43.6 per cent, respectively in Q3 of 2007-08 over the previous year's quarter. Aggregate bank deposits, and bank credits grew by 23.6 per cent, and 21.4 per cent, respectively in Q3 of 2007-08 over Q3 of 2006-07.
UNI SD RL KP1815 | 2,266 | 1,003 | 0.001001 |
warc | 201704 | From In Q3 of 2008, as the global financial crisis continued to worsen, SWFs sought to limit their exposure to the riskiness of OECD markets. At the same time these funds sought to put more capital to work in their domestic economies which were becoming increasingly strained.
SWFs continued to shy away from investments in the global financial services sector and continued to resist OECD investments in general, relative to alternatives in emerging markets….. Full Press Release: Source | 496 | 312 | 0.003258 |
warc | 201704 | This is not surprising news for those of us who do not expect the courts to do much in terms of helping uphold a robust Second Amendment right. According to Judge William Skretny, a George H.W. Appointee, the states get to determine what is and what isn’t useful for self-defense:
Unlike handgun bans elsewhere, which affect weapons commonly used for self-defense, wrote Judge Skretny, New York’s law “applies only to a subset of firearms with characteristics New York State has determined to be particularly dangerous and unnecessary for self-defense; it does not totally disarm New York’s citizens; and it does not meaningfully jeopardize their right to self-defense.”
So can we ban any subset of handguns, like semi-automatics, and that’s just fine by the Second Amendment? But we do get a consolation prize:
Judge Skretny struck down a provision of the law, however, that limits a gun-owner from loading more than seven rounds in a gun at a time, calling it “largely an arbitrary restriction that impermissibly infringes on the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment.”
It’s all arbitrary. There’s no public safety issue. They are just trying to ban what they can get away with. If the Second Amendment can’t save NY from SAFE, it might as well not even exist in the Bill of Rights. | 1,349 | 734 | 0.001427 |
warc | 201704 | From Homeschool Grad toSuccessful College Freshman
from Phyllis Paladin
My oldest son, Larry, graduated in July. In late August, he began his freshman year at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Larry was accepted into the Robert E. Cook Honors College at IUP, a brand new, unique program that sounded like it was designed with my son in mind. I was confident that Larry was properly prepared for college and capable of competing in this tough academic environment. Nevertheless, I was relieved when the first semester was over. My son had adjusted well to dorm life and the campus environment, and his first semester grades confirmed my convictions that Larry was right where he belonged.
During Christmas break, Larry and I had many opportunities to talk about these first few months of college life. I was especially interested in areas where he felt he was at a disadvantage or where our homeschool program was lacking. I am now using my son’s suggestions to improve our homeschool program for my younger son and two daughters.
Larry feels that time management skills are veryimportant to academic success in college. In his words, “No one tells me whento go to bed, when to study, or when to go to class. In fact, no one even cares
if I go to class.” It seems that manyfreshman struggle with this freedom and are simply poor at discipliningthemselves to study instead of taking part in one of the many more interestingactivities that are always available. I have made an effort to put my childrenin charge of their own schedules, especially in the high school years. Eachchild receives a weekly list of goals and assignments on Saturday morning, andhas until the following Friday at 4PM “check-in time” to complete them. I stillmeet with each child daily, but they are ultimately responsible for seeing thatwe cover enough material each day. This system may have helped Larry to adjustto college, although procrastination is still a temptation since manyprofessors don’t have “check-in time” until the end of the semester.
Prioritizing is another skill that Larry mentioned. College involves a much greater volume of work than is usually required in homeschool. Since it is impossible to take enough time to do your best job on every assignment, it is important to know which assignments deserve the most time and attention. I’m sure we could teach children this skill around the home. In managing a household, there are always so many things to do that I am constantly deciding what is the most important, what can wait, and what can be “temporarily dealt with.” I intend to involved the children in my decision process and give them more practice in prioritizing.
Larry did run into a few areas where he felt he was at a disadvantage because of his homeschooling. He had to work at adjusting to lecture courses, especially boring lecture courses. Larry’s suggestion is that homeschoolers practice learning in lecture situations and taking notes. We have a very good opportunity to develop these skills during church services. I have begun to give my younger children “sermon worksheets” based on each Sunday’s sermon. I hope this will give them practice in learning from a lecture situation. It also means that I have to take notes and pay very close attention to the sermon and that we all benefit from remembering much more of what is taught at church. However, Larry did say that students should get practice listening to boring lectures. Our pastors are not boring, so we have to continue to look for a source of boring lecturers!
After very carefully guiding my children through all ofthe mechanics of writing a research paper according to the
MLA Style Sheet, copyright 1971, that I am so familiar with, Larrytold me that the MLA Handbook, as itis now called, has been revised. I was teaching my children some outdatedprocedures for citing references and footnoting information. The excitingoutcome of this unfortunate situation, was that my son simply found out thecorrect procedures and used them. It didn’t seem to bother him that he had tolearn something on his own. I would like to believe that learning many newthings on his own during homeschooling prepared him for this experience. I havepurchased a 1997 version of the MLAHandbook and we are now learning updated annotations.
Larry also had to learn a new form of essay writing for his Honors Core Course. He had never done any writing exactly like what was expected of him for this course. Again, he was able to learn the format and got an “A” in the course. It seems that the type of essay that Daniel is practicing for the AP US History exam is very similar to what was expected in the Honors College. Therefore I would expect that an AP course might have eliminated this problem and that our younger children may not face the same difficulty.
A final issue we discussed was that homeschooling is just “too enjoyable.” We all work at letting our children pursue topics in ways that will motivate them and hold their interest. In planning unit studies and choosing topics for long papers and projects, we give our children lots of latitude and flexibility. Larry wonders if this is always a good idea. He brought up an interesting point in that he was required to study topics that he has very little interest in, and he felt that some homeschoolers may have a difficult time in college simply because they have never been required to learn material that they are not interested in or to learn in ways that are not always fun. His point is worth thinking about.
I am more committed to homeschooling now than I have everbeen before. Unless there would be a major change in our family situation, Iintend for all of our children to graduate from homeschool. One aspect ofhomeschooling which I especially enjoy is that
I am constantly learning. Among all that I am learning, I hope tocontinue to learn to become a better homeschooling mom and more important, abetter parent. À | 6,066 | 2,782 | 0.000367 |
warc | 201704 | Many computer books are so heavy that lifting them cause hernia [sic], yet they have less content than your favorite tabloid.
Which made me think about something that I worry about: what’s a good BMI for a book? (By BMI, I mean the fictional Book Mass Index, a related measurement to the human Body Mass Index.) Namely, will people not buy a book if it’s not hefty enough?
As I’ve mentioned earlier, I’m working on a language reference book for VB, something like a K&R or Stroustrup for the VB .NET language. (Whether it succeeds in reaching that lofty goal still remains to be seen.) One thing I continually worry about as I write it is whether the book is going to look good sitting on the shelves between all those behemoth VB books that Barnes and Noble seems to stock. With a mostly-done first draft, it currently clocks in at less than 300 pages, which means it’s going to be puny in comparison, even given some inevitable expansion as I fill in some holes I left in the draft. I’d like to think that it’s just that I’m packing in more information-per-square-inch than other books, but I don’t know.
One thing I’m still debating on whether to add to the book is a section on the VB runtime functions (Left, Right). Technically, they’re library functions, but they’re so closely identified with the language that they are as good as part of it. If I did that, they’d definitely pad the book out nicely (Gosling et al. used this to great effect in their Java book). Of course, that would also mean I’d have to write it.
Ultimately, I think it gets back to something I had to come to terms with when I started working out a few years ago. Being a somewhat competitive person, I would keep track of how I was doing relative to other people in the gym, but over time I observed that no matter how fast or strong or flexible I got, there always seemed to be someone who was a whole lot faster or a whole lot stronger or a whole lot more flexible than I was. I finally decided I either had to quit comparing myself to others altogether and just be happy with my own progress or I had to quit working out. I figured the former was the better option… | 2,229 | 1,175 | 0.000883 |
warc | 201704 | I’m sure some of this works is quite good and helpful, but I’m also pretty sure that we’re too focused on happiness, particularly at the popular level where the
descriptive work of scientist becomes the prescriptive advice of media personalities, much of which seems mainly to affirm our own self-centeredness and, given how the advice is marketed, reinforce our consumerist culture as well.
Part of the problem is that we’re lousy about separating happiness from joy. Happiness has a lot to do with happenstance; they both pertain to occurrences. Simply put, we are happy when good things happen. It’s external and defined by things outside ourselves — very similar to luck. We say a person is lucky because of the things that happen to them.
Joy is different because it’s driven more by internal factors. We are joyful for internal reasons, not external ones. It pertains to inward perceptions and realizations. Instead of luck the mind turns to gladness and delight.
They may both manifest in our wellbeing, at least temporarily, but the differences between happiness and joy add up much more than a pile of split hairs, particularly as the concepts play out in our society. One tends toward grasping and consumption, the other toward contentment and satisfaction. These differences are especially pronounced when the means to pursue happiness are spent in the midst of trials and difficulty, which we are bound to face and which God even sends our way to help mature us, grow us, and conform us to the image of Christ.
John Chrysostom once spoke of the person who has the best of circumstances but is still is plagued by misfortunes. Happiness, he said in so many words, is fleeting. Joy is a different matter. In 1 Thessalonians, Paul talks about the church there “receiv[ing] the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit.”
How can affliction and joy co-exist? “The affliction is in things bodily,” answers John Chrysostom, “and the joy in things spiritual. How? The things which happened to them were grievous, but not so the things which sprang out of them, for the Spirit does not allow it. . . . [S]uch is the joy of the Spirit. In return for the things which appear to be grievous, it brings out delight.”
Whatever our outward circumstances, even very bad ones, our joy is internal because it rests in Christ and the Holy Spirit who indwells us. This is why Paul can say to the Philippians,
Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!… Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus…. I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
There are a million things that can happen each day to dampen our spirits. But our joy is not found in happenstance. It is found in Christ, and he gives us all things — easy things, fun things, hard things — for our ultimate good. | 3,314 | 1,626 | 0.000633 |
warc | 201704 | In the current economic climate, corporations have little incentive for increased investment in IT in general, let alone upgrading from fixed to wireless network infrastructure. Contrary to popular market wisdom, wide-spread installation of wireless networks and accompanying hardware upgrades for seamless, reliable wireless delivery of information services and/or interactivity with fixed networks is likely to be several years away. Longer-term, however, wireless should present a substantial global revenue opportunity.
In general, interviews with IT managers and purchasing consultants indicate that companies are placing a higher priority on security, storage, and hardware replacement over wireless infrastructure. While field interviews reveal that there are unlikely to be widespread increases wireless spending in 2003, few actually plan cuts to their wireless budget in 2003 versus 2002.
To read the full article, go to the Wireless Supersite. | 958 | 541 | 0.001856 |
warc | 201704 | You’ll hear pensions discussed more these days than ever before. There is a lot of information available on pensions and the topic of financial planning for retirement is receiving increasing interest.
But the volume of information about pensions creates complexity. It also brings many different points of view. This section of the site is about StraightTalk. It will give you the facts about the Plan.
There are many resources aimed at different levels of interest and knowledge. So whether you know a lot or a little about the Plan this is where you can find out more.
What does Canada do better than any other country? Bruce Kennedy, Executive Director of BC’s College, Public Service, and Teachers’ Pension Plans, explains why Canada rates best in the world at responsibly funding its public sector pension liabilities.
Retirees from across the province talk about their favourite BC businesses and why they choose to spend their pension-income locally. Plus, read a report about how pension payments to BC public sector retirees and their beneficiaries supported $1.66 billion in provincial GDP and 31,000 jobs in the province. | 1,154 | 656 | 0.001553 |
warc | 201704 | Obama Weathers the Wright Storm, Clinton Faces Credibility Problem.
National Discontent Approaches 20-Year High, Bush Approval at 28%
Summary of Findings
The videos of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s controversial sermons and Barack Obama’s subsequent speech on race and politics have attracted more public attention than any events thus far in the 2008 presidential campaign. A majority of the public (51%) said they heard “a lot” about the videos, and an even larger percentage (54%) said they heard a lot about Obama’s speech, according to the weekly
News Interest Index.
Most voters aware of the sermons say they were personally offended by Wright’s comments, and a sizable minority (35%) says that their opinion of Obama has grown less favorable because of Wright’s statements.
However, the Wright controversy does not appear to have undermined support for Obama’s candidacy. The latest nationwide survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted March 19-22 among 1,503 adults, finds that Obama maintains a 49% to 39% advantage over Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, which is virtually unchanged from the 49% to 40% lead he held among Democrats in late February. Obama and Clinton continue to enjoy slight advantages over John McCain in general election matchups among all registered voters.
The new polling suggests that the Wright affair has not hurt Obama’s standing, in part because his response to the controversy has been viewed positively by voters who favor him over Clinton. Obama’s handling of the Wright controversy also won a favorable response from a substantial proportion of Clinton supporters and even from a third of Republican voters.
More than eight-in-ten supporters of Obama (84%) who have heard about the controversy over Wright’s sermons say he has done an excellent or good job of dealing with the situation. Reactions from Clinton supporters, and Republicans, are on balance negative; however, 43% of Clinton voters and a third of Republican voters who have heard about the affair express positive opinions about Obama’s handling of the situation.
The survey finds that, in general, Obama has a highly favorable image among Democratic voters, including white Democrats. But while Obama’s personal image is more favorable than Clinton’s, certain social beliefs and attitudes among older, white, working-class Democratic voters are associated with his lower levels of support among this group.
In particular, white Democrats who hold unfavorable views of Obama are much more likely than those who have favorable opinions of him to say that equal rights for minorities have been pushed too far; they also are more likely to disapprove of interracial dating, and are more concerned about the threat that immigrants may pose to American values. In addition, nearly a quarter of white Democrats (23%) who hold a negative view of Obama believe he is a Muslim.
Less educated and older white Democrats, who have not backed Obama in most primary elections, hold these values more commonly than do other Democrats.
These patterns suggest the potential for future reverberations from the Wright controversy if Obama wins the Democratic nomination. More conservative beliefs about equal rights and race are not only related to negative opinions of Obama among Democrats, suggesting the potential for defections among Democratic voters, but also are associated with negative views of him in the electorate at large.
An analysis of the survey finds that holding conservative positions on political and social values is associated with a greater likelihood of supporting McCain over Obama among Republicans, Democrats and independents, and all demographic groups. In contrast, however, this pattern is much less apparent in the Clinton-McCain matchup, excepting views about women in leadership roles.
One of the few negative trends for Obama following the Wright affair is that a larger number of conservative Republicans hold a
very unfavorable opinion of him in the new poll than did so in February. The survey also finds that Obama no longer enjoys the favorable image rating advantage over McCain among independents that was apparent in previous polls. White Democrats and the Candidates
Large majorities of white Democratic voters view Obama as honest, inspiring, patriotic, and down-to-earth. Obama’s personal image surpasses Clinton’s on almost every personal attribute tested in the survey, except patriotism.
In addition, roughly twice as many white Democrats say the word “phony” describes Clinton than say it describes Obama (30% vs. 16%). And the gap is even larger in perceptions of likability; 43% of white Democratic voters say the phrase “hard-to-like” describes Clinton, while just 13% say it describes Obama.
Gender makes a significant difference in personal perceptions of Hillary Clinton. Democratic women voters are much more likely than their male counterparts to view Clinton as honest and down-to-earth, and they more often report that Clinton makes them feel proud and hopeful. However, Democratic women voters are about as likely as Democratic men to say the descriptors hard-to-like and phony apply to Clinton.
Views of Obama More Tied to Voters’ Emotions
White voters’ views of Barack Obama are more influenced by how he makes them feel than by specific characteristics voters attribute to him. Saying that Obama makes them feel hopeful and proud are the strongest predictors of the ratings white Democrats give him. And of the personal traits tested, “inspiring” is more closely linked with views of the Illinois senator than any of the others.
On the other hand, views of Hillary Clinton among white Democratic voters are more influenced by perceptions that she is phony than by any other trait or emotion tested. But saying that Clinton makes them feel proud and hopeful also are significant predictors of how these voters rate her. Interestingly, while sizable minorities of white Democratic voters say Clinton is hard-to-like (43%), this opinion does not have a significant impact on her favorability ratings.
McCain Out of the Spotlight
Opinions about John McCain are mostly unchanged in the current survey. In part, this may be explained by his low level of public visibility. In the current weekly
News Interest Index survey, just 3% mentioned McCain, unprompted, as the candidate they had heard most about in the news. That compares with 70% who named Obama and 15% who named Clinton as the candidate they had heard most about.
More positive for McCain, however, is that a growing proportion of Republican voters say that the GOP will solidly unite behind the Arizona senator; 64% express that view currently, up from 58% in late February. Along with this expression of increased partisan unity, the survey finds that by a considerable margin (52%-37%), independent voters say that if McCain is elected, he will take the country in a different direction rather than continuing Bush’s policies.
This comes at an opportune time for the GOP candidate. Bush’s job approval rating has slipped to 28%, the lowest of his presidency. In addition, just 22% express satisfaction with the way things are going in the country. This, too, is about as negative an evaluation of the course of the nation as measured in nearly 20 years of Pew surveys.
It’s the Inflation, Stupid
Americans have grown steadily more negative about the national economy over the past three months. Just 11% of the public rates the economy as excellent or good, down from 17% in early February, and 26% in January. Judgments about the national economy are now as negative as they were during the recession of the early 1990s. In August 1993, 10% of Americans rated the economy as excellent or good in a Gallup survey.
However, deepening concern about the national economy has so far not translated into more dour assessments of personal finances. As has been the case for some time, Americans are roughly divided between those who rate their personal finances as only fair or poor (51%) and those who say they are excellent or good (47%). In December 1993, just 39% rated their personal finances positively, while 60% viewed them negatively.
Rising prices are clearly the public’s top personal concern. Nearly half (49%) say that rising prices are the economic issue that most worries them. In contrast, just 19% name the job situation, 14% cite problems in the financial markets, and 12% cite declining real estate values. Inflation is the primary concern for people at all income levels, although worries about financial markets and declining real estate values register more strongly with Americans with household incomes of $100,000 or more. In contrast, the job situation is a relatively major concern for people with the lowest household incomes.
Other important findings include:
The Wright controversy has not heightened the public’s impression that Obama’s race will undermine his chance in the general election if he is the nominee. Only 21% say Obama’s race will hurt his chances, compared with 25% who held that view in January. One-in-ten voters believe that Barack Obama is Muslim; 14% of Republicans, 10% of Democrats and 8% of independents think he is Muslim. Fewer Democratic voters now think that a long primary contest is a good thing for the party. Just 44% think it is a good thing for the party that the nominating contest has not been settled. A month ago 57% expressed that view. Most Democratic supporters of Clinton and Obama express favorable opinions of the other candidate. However, the campaign has taken a toll on positive views of both candidates among their rival’s supporters. Nearly six-in-ten Democratic voters (57%) believe that Obama is most likely to win the party’s nomination, while 28% expect Clinton to prevail. Last month, 70% said Obama was most likely to win, while 17% expected Clinton to win. Pre-recorded campaign calls, or “robo-calls,” have become the leading form of campaign communication in the 2008 primary season. Nationwide, 39% of voters say they have received a pre-recorded call about the campaign, up from 25% in November. | 10,334 | 4,272 | 0.000239 |
warc | 201704 | *We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we'll assume that you are happy to receive all cookies.
Frequently askedquestions
From the moment you reserve your brand new Persimmon home, we do our utmost to make the whole experience enjoyable and informative every step of the way, not just while you're buying, but after you've moved in too.
Take a look at the answers to a selection of frequently asked questions for a wealth of helpful advice for new homebuyers.
You may also find our online buying guide a helpful step-by-step guide to buying a Persimmon new home.
If you can't find the answer you're looking for, please feel free to get in touch – we will be happy to help you with any query you may have.
Want to get your foot on the property ladder? Take a look at our helpful information for first-time buyers.
Getting onto the first rung of the ladder can be the hardest part of the house-buying process. It can seem like a world of confusing jargon and hidden costs and can make buying your first home seem a bit overwhelming. However, we know this doesn't have to be the case - let us turn the process into a dream for you.
High rental prices can make it hard to save for a deposit. We're aware of this and we will make every effort to advise you on the best course of action. We are often able to provide some help, particularly if you use a Persimmon-nominated mortgage provider and solicitor. In addition, we have schemes designed specifically to help get you on the property ladder and there are many Government-led initiatives which can help you too.
Before you set your heart on a new property, you should consider how much you can afford. Then you need to work out how much money you have and how much you need to borrow. There is also a number of promotional offers that apply from time to time on our developments.
When you visit one of our developments you will see the offers that are advertised. Call in and have a chat with one of our sales advisors. They will explain all the options available to you.
In addition to the cost of your new home you will need to consider Stamp Duty, Land Registry fees, Local Authority search, mortgage lender fees and solicitors costs.
You should also take into account the running cost of your new home including gas, electricity, council tax, water rates, ground rents [if the property is leasehold], service charges [for a leasehold flat] and insurance costs for the building and its contents.
With a new Persimmon home you can be confident you're getting value for money. We build quality homes in a highly efficient way to ensure our prices are always realistic. We also offer a wide choice of property styles and incentives so there is something to suit everyone.
Buying a new home is less stressful as there's no need to wait for existing residents to move out. This also means your new home will be clean and untouched by previous owners, providing you with a blank canvas on which to stamp your own style and personality.
There are many reasons for buying a brand new home and some are explained in Reasons to Buy New. New homes are more energy efficient than older properties and quieter due to advances in sound insulation methods. They are also built to high safety standards to meet strict regulations.
For your peace of mind, new homes are protected by the National House Building Council (NHBC) 10-year Buildmark warranty and insurance should there be any problems.
Apart from these practical considerations, there is the advantage of starting afresh, in a new community, with a blank canvas to create the home of your dreams. Our homes come with fitted kitchens and bathrooms and you have a choice of fittings and finishes. You can also customise your home with our Finishing Touches.
Older properties can have high maintenance costs. You may need to improve the decorations and replace worn out kitchens, bathrooms, windows, wiring etc. If you choose a Persimmon home you may be able to take advantage of one of our many attractive promotional offers to help you buy your dream home.
If you've never bought a house before you might wonder why you need a solicitor to help you. But it's vital to ensure that everything is legally watertight. Good legal coverage is essential and this is where costs can begin to escalate. Not only will we help you find a good solicitor - one we know and trust to do a first class job for you - but we could pay up to £500 towards their services*.
In addition to the cost of your new home and solicitor you'll need to consider Stamp Duty, Land Registry fees, Local Authority search and mortgage lender fees. If you're moving from an existing home you'll also need to take into account estate agent, solicitor and removal costs.
* Some mortgage lenders will not permit the payment of legal fees please check with your sales advisor or Independent Financial Advisor.
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Every effort has been taken to ensure the information provided here is accurate however, particulars regarding local amenities and their distances are for general guidance only. Where schools and other educational facilities are mentioned they are intended to highlight their distance from the development and don’t represent a guarantee of admission or eligibility. Travel times and distances assume journeys are made by car. Times are likely to vary according to travel conditions and time of day.
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Persimmon plc, Registered Office: Persimmon House, Fulford, York UK, YO19 4FE.
Registered in England No. 1818486 | 6,452 | 2,977 | 0.000338 |
warc | 201704 | Accidents and injuries may occur at any moment for pets, just like humans. Having a first aid kit can be vital to your pet’s survival in the case of an injury or accident and may even be lifesaving. Early and prompt first aid may also lessen the consequences of an injury and possibly help shorten the recovery period. As with any emergency, being prepared is one of the most important things you can do to help reduce the complications that could arise because of a delay in treatment.
Tag Archives: pet first aid
If heavy rains and flooding are on the news, or a brushfire threatens your home… Get yourself and your pet ready with an emergency plan. read more | 675 | 408 | 0.002503 |
warc | 201704 | Data Visualization
Pathways for Transferring Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria from Farm Animals to Humans
There are four major pathways in which resistant bacteria can spread from animals to humans. Most commonly, consumers or workers handling contaminated meat can acquire the bacteria on their skin or in a cut. Bacteria can also spread to other animals and into the environment via farm waste runoff. | 404 | 262 | 0.003855 |
warc | 201704 | Stateline Story
Accessing Benefits Online Easier Said Than Done
People who surf the net to find information about their state's welfare program and other social benefits may find themselves adrift in confusing Web sites that don't always deliver.
All 50 states use Web and Internet technologies to provide basic information about state welfare, unemployment and other social safety net programs, but only a few states, such as Pennsylvania and Washington, provide "one-stop shopping" that connects citizens to everything for which they may qualify.
"There's a lot of promise and potential, but of course not a lot of money right now" for states to develop Web sites that provide people with the information they want quickly and easily, said Elise Richer, a family policy expert at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), a think tank in Washington, D.C. "It's a matter of states realizing the Web site is not some little add-on anymore," said Richer, who authored a January report that looked at online benefit systems.
Providing Internet access to government services can save time and often money for both the state and those seeking information about benefits, experts said. Texas, for example, saved about $35,000 and 800,000 minutes of 1-800 calls that unemployed workers did not make asking about unemployment insurance after the state put that information online, said Mark Struckman, research director at the Center for Digital Government. The center is a for-profit research group based in Folsom, Calif. that provides technology services to public and private organizations.
But the challenges can be daunting. The cost to make benefits available online can total hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, Struckman said. Plus, many social programs have complex eligibility requirements that require extensive documentation that can be difficult to provide online, such as providing pay stubs or employment records.
States also must figure out how many of the people they are trying to serve actually have easy access to the Internet and if these people know how to use it. Jim Frech, program manager at the Finance Project, a Washington, D.C. nonprofit research group, said states may be better off if their Web site designs target community and advocacy groups who use the Web site to act on behalf of the recipients, rather than target the recipients themselves.
"I'm a little skeptical about the ability to craft a good user experience that a `family person' could do" alone, he said.
Many states include "online services" on their home page, but some showcase that link more prominently than others. For example, the first link on the Virginia state page tells people to "Get online, not in line" and provides several links for citizens and businesses. Missouri, the "Show Me" state displays "Show Me online services" and "Show Me where to find..." on its state home page.
But allowing folks to go online to apply for health and welfare benefits is proving tricky for states. "It's pretty rare at this point whether someone in the public, sitting at their computer, could actually apply for [health and welfare] benefits online," said Susan Golanka, a welfare and workforce development expert at the National Governors' Association.
The exceptions include Pennsylvania and Washington, both of which have Web sites that allow people to go to one Web site for various social services. The sites for Pennsylvania and Washington allow folks to apply for health care, food stamps and cash assistance. Both sites are translated in an array of languages, including Spanish, Russian and Cambodian.
Washington calls its site "No Wrong Door," with the idea that no matter which social program a person checks out, the computer system will check to see if the person is also eligible for other related service. Struckman of the Center for Digital Government predicts more states will eventually go this route and "create that front door that is single point of entry to social and health citizens of the state."
Frech of the Finance Project said states may want to look to the federal government's Disabilityinfo.gov Web site for an example of a comprehensive Web site. "The federal government ... has clearly leapt ahead of the states in terms of their understanding of how to use the Internet well, both as a strategic communication as well as a delivery arm. The states have now fallen behind," he said.
Here are a few hits and misses with other state online programs:
Health care: California teamed up with the nonprofit California Healthcare Foundation to sponsor a Healthy Children to allow low-income parents to go online to enroll their children in the state health care plan and Medicaid, the joint federal-state program for poor people. Georgia's PeachCare for Kids is similar. Both California and Georgia health care applications are available in English and Spanish. Neither site, however, is prominently displayed on the state home or health care division Web sites, but instead are found only after clicking through several pages. Child support: States that allow parents to submit online applications for child support include Massachusetts, New Mexico, South Dakota and Texas, but parents may have hard a time finding the links unless they know where to look. Massachusetts' child support site is within the state's Department of Revenue, while New Mexico's is a link off the state Department of Human Services; South Dakota's information is on its Department of Social Services and Texas has its child support feature on the attorney general's Web site. Unemployment: Thirty-two states allow folks to go online as soon as they become unemployed to file for their first unemployment check and 14 states plan to go that route, according to a U.S. Department of Labor spokeswoman.
Only three states Hawaii, Mississippi and Vermont have no plans to use the Internet for initial unemployment insurance claims, the U.S. Labor Department official said. States share with the federal government the cost of paying out unemployment benefits, but states are responsible for running the programs.
Some states, like Idaho, prominently display on the state page that unemployment information is available online.
Tags:
Safety Net | 6,300 | 2,837 | 0.000355 |
warc | 201704 | Learn how to determine the Solubility of Pharmaceutical ingredients.
NOTE - A test for solubility becomes a test for purity only where a special quantitative test is given in the individual monograph and is an official requirement.
The approximate solubility of the articles of the Pharmacopoeia are given here primarily as information; they are not meant to be applied as tests for identifying materials. However, they may indirectly help in the preliminary evaluation of the integrity of an article. They have been indicated by descriptive terms in the accompanying table and have the following significance with reference to a temperature of 15° to 30°.
Descriptive Item (gm) Parts of Solvent required for Part of Solute (ml)
Very soluble
Less than 1
Freely soluble
From 1 to 10
Soluble
From 10 to 30
Sparingly soluble
From 30 to 100
Slightly soluble
From 100 to 1000
Very slightly soluble
From 1000 to 10,000
Practically insoluble or Insoluble
10,000 or more
Ankur Choudhary is India's first professional pharmaceutical blogger, author and founder of Pharmaceutical Guidelines, a widely-read pharmaceutical blog since 2008. Sign-up for the free email updates for your daily dose of pharmaceutical tips. .moc.enilediugamrahp@ofni:liamE Need Help: Ask Question | 1,292 | 710 | 0.001442 |
warc | 201704 | We put pictures—whether they're paintings or photos—into frames to help direct the viewer's eye. The frame is a boundary that directs the gaze: it ensures we know precisely where to look. As well as creating a border from a mounted frame and from the edges of a photo itself, it's also possible to bring focus to your subject and compositional strength and depth by using natural frames within your photos. Despite the name, a 'natural frame' doesn't have to be organic in origin, although trees, streams, and cave mouths do indeed create beautiful natural frames, rather the term describes a frame-within-the-frame. Look out for windows, doorways, and arches—in fact anything that bounces the eye back towards the subject—to act as a frame.
Why the eye likes natural frames
Primarily we appreciate images that include natural frames because they direct the eye straight to the photo's subject. As the eye travels towards the edges of the image—and especially if it contains lines that drag the gaze away from the subject—a frame helps to draw it back toward the focal point, just where you want it.
Second, they can bring a sense of perspective and three-dimensionality to an image, giving you the sense that you're looking through one layer of an image and on to another.
A frame can also give a sense of place or give context to your photos, for example, indoors versus outdoors or a modern area versus a historical one.
Finally, we find images that make use of natural frames attractive because it brings a sense of order to the image, in much the same way that triangles bring order to scenes with multiple subjects. They place limits on the scene and provide it with some boundaries.
Composing with natural frames
Just because your scene has a terrific natural frame within it, it doesn't mean to say that you can ignore any other compositional theory. You still need to consider your use of lines, your subject placement, and the balance of the shot. Remember: combining these compositional techniques can help to elevate a good photo to a great one.
Frames and depth-of-field
If you're planning on using a natural frame in your composition, consider if you want the frame itself to be sharp or blurred. If your subject and frame are at different distances, but you wish them both to be in focus, you'll need to use a relatively small aperture to achieve an adequate depth-of-field. Of course, having the frame in focus might prove a distraction and defeat its purpose, in which case using a larger aperture and isolating the subject using a shallow depth-of-field will work better.
Metering
If you're inside a cave or tunnel and using its natural form to provide a frame for a brightly lit sbject on its outside, you will have to meter accordingly. Spot-metering for the well-lit subject might be the easiest option. Alternatively you could dial in some negative exposure compensation should you prefer to stick with matrix (or evaluative) metering.
In order to capture the full dynamic range of such a scene, with its bright exterior and dark interior, you would need to shoot two differently metered images and combine them using post-processing software.
Don't over do it
Using frames-within-a-frame is such an effective compositional tool that it's all too easy to get carried away with them and over-use them. One natural frame within a portfolio is clever; a dozen is cliché. Just because a potential natural frame exists doesn't mean it is the best way to compose the shot; it needs to bear some relationship to the main subject.
If you're not sure if a natural frame is appropriate for your photo, ask yourself: Does the frame add drama to the photo? Does it help to tell a story, add context, or give a sense of depth? Does the frame help to illustrate or enhance the focal point of the photo? If the answer is no to any of these, you might be better looking for an alternative composition. | 3,960 | 1,860 | 0.000545 |
warc | 201704 | Turning phytogenic feed additives into successful products for the animal industry, Austrian company Delacon has been on the market for 25 years. The company shared its experience with 250 delegates during its Performing Nature Symposium in Greece, in November 2009.
By Emmy Koeleman
Thyme extracts can be used as a feed additive in pig nutrition.
Bioactive molecules derived from nature already have a long history in human medicine. Although these molecules
(also referred to as botanicals, herbs or phytogenics) have a history of medicinal (and human food) use, there is little or no history in animal feed applications. In recent years, the ban of in-feed antibiotics, which was implemented in Europe in January 2006, has driven research activities regarding the potential of plant extracts and essential oils as alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters. The potential benefits such as increased feed intake, stimulation of digestion and improved feed efficiency among others have therefore raised the interest among animal nutritionists. However, it is not only in recent years that there were ideas around phytogenics in animal feed. In 1984, Austrian company Delacon took the first steps of developing phytogenic feed additives. Now, 25 years later and backed up by research papers and trials, phytogenics (plant extracts) are approaching a point where they are a standard ingredient in modern livestock diets, as became clear at the symposium.
Mode of action
Prof Dr Wilhelm Windisch from the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences in Vienna, Austria, gave a clear summary on the current alternatives for antibiotic growth promoters. According to Windisch, essential oils from the labiatae plant family (e.g. thyme and oregano) are widely known to exert antimicrobial effects in vitro and several in vivo studies suggest that their overall impact on gut functions is similar to that of AGPs.
“However, we still don't know exactly if the antimicrobial activity of phytogenics is the real mode of action. Enhanced intestinal mucus production through bitter and/or hot substances is discussed as an alternative mode of action reducing the intestinal pathogen pressure in the animal.”
Regarding consumer safety, Windisch said that it needs to be considered that many phytogenic principles are highly absorbable (e.g. essential oils). However, elimination of absorbed phytogenic substances seems to be quite efficient and therefore edible residues do not seem to pose a major concern to consumer safety.
Application in pig diets
Ken Purser from Value-Added Science & Technologies (VAST), USA, gave the audience some insight in the use of the product Fresta F in pig diets. In the US, the product is primarily used in weaning diets and diets for lactating sows. Purser explained a large trial that was done to put the phytogenic product to the test. It was shown that pigs with the phytogenic product gained 5.9% faster and 2.6% more efficient than the control pigs. It reduced the number of small pigs at 63 days with 39%.
Jorge Marin, head nutritionist from Land O'Lakes in the USA explained the use of a combination of this phytogenic with a hydrating gel for pigs. “Water intake is very important and a reduced water intake leads to less feed intake and reduced performance,” he explained. By providing a combination of a phytogenic product in combination with a gel, you get both the health stimulation effect of the plant extract and the hydrating effect of the gel.
Marin explained that this type of product can be beneficial for light, heavy, sick, shipped and vaccinated pigs. Trials that were presented in the presentation showed that the product increased average daily gain (ADG) and feed intake, improved gut health, reduced the pig weight variation and days to market.
Effect on immune system
Prof Dr Jürgen Zentek from the Free University in Berlin, Germany gave an overview of the immune system in monogastric animals and the role nutrition can have to boost it. He addressed that the gastro intestinal tract of animal is the biggest immune organ and the barrier to the 'outer world'. It has the purpose to uptake nutrients but also refuse pathogens from this outer world.
“We can steer this to a certain extent by the choice of ingredients in the animal diets,” Zentek said. He specifically mentioned that the weaning period in pigs is a very stressful event, and in turn give a drop in immune responses. Nutritionists should be aware of this, and add specific immune boosting additives at this stage of the production cycle. Examples of these additives are plant extracts and beta-glucans.
Stefanie Gärtner, also from Berlin's Free University, in Berlin presented her PhD-work on the effect of Fresta F on the adhesion of pathogenic E. colito porcine intestinal cells and on immunological parameters in piglets. The results from her in-vitro trials indicate an interference of the phytogenic feed additive with the adhesion of E. coli IPEC-J2 cells, she explained. The feeding trial showed some differences in the immunological traits between the trial and control group. “However, further studies should be done to explain the consequence for animal health,” she added.
Phytogenics and the environment
Prof Dr Gerhard Flachowsky highlighted that there is still a lot of work to do before an accurate calculation of the so called 'carbon footprints' can be used for regulations or restrictions. He also pointed out that there is also a lot of 'sun' in the rumen as undegradeable roughage can be transformed in high quality nutrients, and that this should never be forgotten even if there is the'shadow' of methane making a big portion of green house gas emissions caused by them.
Carlos Piñeiro, PigChamp Pro-Europe, Spain, pointed out some of the remedies to minimise the ammonia output from livestock production. Livestock produces 37% of the total global methane output, 65% of the total global nitrogen oxide and 64% of the total global ammonia output. “As a livestock industry we therefore have to take our responsibility to find solutions to bring these numbers down,” Piñeiro said. As possible solutions, he considered the reduction of crude protein in the diet – reducing 1 point crude protein can lead to an ammonia reduction of 60%, the implementation of phase feeding, the use of specific feed additives such as phytogenics to improve the utilisation of the raw protein and to reduce the urease activity.
Source: Pig Progress magazine 25.10 | 6,590 | 3,049 | 0.000333 |
warc | 201704 | On Wednesday, March 7, former U.S. President Bill Clinton was in Haiti to highlight the potential impact solar power could have in a country rich in sun but lacking in electrical infrastructure.
As part of his trip, President Clinton, Dr. Paul Farmer, and leaders in the field of renewable energy visited PIH’s flagship Mirebalais National Teaching Hospital. Delegates toured the 320-bed, state-of-the-art medical facility, which – when it opens in mid-2012 – will be powered by a field of solar panels lining the 180,000 sq ft facility’s roof. President Clinton singled out the project as a model of what is possible in Haiti – a country still in the early stages of rebuilding after the massive damage of the 2010 earthquake.
After leaving Mirebalais Hospital, the group visited other PIH facilities that also rely on solar energy, including Centre de St Michel in Boucan Carre, the first PIH-supported clinic powered to receive solar panels, an achievement made possible through PIH's partnership with Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF).
Delegates also saw the recently installed solar panels powering PIH’s Lashto fish farm, a tilapia-growing facility that provides both food and income to a once-impoverished community. Concluding their tour of Central Haiti, the group visited Domond Ecole Bon Berg, one of 19 schools in the area powered by solar energy – the product of a partnership between NRG, a major U.S. producer of green energy, SELF, and PIH.
This trip provided President Clinton, acting in his role as UN Special Envoy to Haiti, the opportunity to discuss viable business opportunities in Haiti with representatives of the renewable energy industry.
The large-scale introduction of solar power in Haiti would significantly reduce the country’s high energy costs, while potentially making electricity available to a far greater number of people. Only 38.5 percent of Haitian households currently have regular access to electricity according to the World Bank – by far the lowest rate of access in the Western Hemisphere. | 2,085 | 1,102 | 0.000931 |
warc | 201704 | Already threatened by climate change and shrinking sea ice, the polar bear also contends with plastic pollution and pesticides in its environment that are harming the endocrine systems and reproductive systems of these mammals. This is a day we can focus on the challenges polar bears face in a warming Arctic, and how we can help.
For example, heating and cooling account for roughly half the energy consumption in an average home. The Thermostat Challenge is part of Polar Bear International's Save Our Sea Ice (SOS) campaign, a series of celebrations centered around action on climate change. It begins each year on International Polar Bear Day, February 27th, and continues through Polar Bear Week in the fall—although you can take the challenges at any time. | 771 | 465 | 0.002173 |
warc | 201704 | I’ve got some good news for life forms that rely on Dihydrogen Monoxide to survive. NASA has announced the discovery of liquid water on Mars, the presence of which greatly increases the likelihood of microbial life on the Red Planet.
“Our quest on Mars has been to ‘follow the water,’ in our search for life in the universe, and now we have convincing science that validates what we’ve long suspected,” said John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. “This is a significant development, as it appears to confirm that water – albeit briny – is flowing today on the surface of Mars.”
“Under certain circumstances, liquid water has been found on Mars” - Jim Green, NASA Planetary Science Directorhttps://t.co/MvErxberG3— NASA (@NASA) September 28, 2015
NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) used an on-board imaging spectrometer to detect “signatures of hydrated minerals… where mysterious streaks” were previously spotted on the planet’s surface. NASA scientists now believe the streaks are caused by trickles of water flowing during warmer periods of the Martian year.
“The mystery has been, what is permitting this flow? Presumably water, but until now, there has been no spectral signature,” NASA scientist Michael Meyer told the Guardian. "From this, we conclude that the RSL are generated by water interacting with percholorates, forming a brine that flows downhill.”
While the actual presence of life has not yet been detected, the findings give NASA a better idea of where to focus their search. The findings also present a major headache for the upcoming Matt Damon film
The Martian, which I can only assume will require an immediate postponement and complete re-shoot in order to account for the new information. | 1,891 | 1,038 | 0.001028 |
warc | 201704 | A new deal for Britain on EU migration?
EU-wide reform is necessary to bolster support for European integration, but Cameron must tread carefully in any attempt to win UK-only 'fixes'
Migration is a huge issue that that affects many member states within the EU. To listen sometimes to our domestic political debate one might imagine that migration was an issue that uniquely ‘threatens’ Britain. The truth is that other member states have experienced migration on a far bigger scale both absolutely and in proportion to their population. Germany and Sweden are two examples. If migration creates political problems within EU member states, where there are important similarities of political culture, then it ought to be possible in theory to develop a common approach. A ‘new deal’ ought to be negotiable.
However, the migration problem is multifaceted as well as politically toxic. Most member states now have a significant political party whose support base largely rests on anti-migrant feeling. Migration is a major political issue for them, as well as for us. This creates an inevitable domestic political angle to any change or ‘concession’ on migration policy that might be offered Britain. For our partners, any specific deal for the Brits could become a major domestic complication in ways that the question of ‘ever-closer’ union or ‘fairness to “euro-outs”’ never would. This poses Cameron with a significant and awkward political choice. Does he accept political reality and narrow the scope of what he can in practice achieve, yet trumpet the outcome as a major victory? Or does he try for a genuine ‘new deal’ on migration which can win support from other member states? In a way it is a choice between the politics of public relations and the politics of substance. But if he goes for the substance, a package deal may involve reforms that would be a hard sell with his target audience in Britain.
The current focus in most of the EU is on refugees: the tide of desperate people seeking a new life in Europe as an escape from the horrors of war and dire poverty in Africa and the Middle East. Of these, many are refugees genuinely entitled to asylum; others are often equally desperate ‘economic migrants’ and the distinction is often hard to draw. The question of how to control these flows, how to assess their refugee status and how to share the ‘burden’ of accepting legitimate new arrivals is acutely divisive within the EU. The British government has accepted that this is a matter of ‘common concern’ to EU member states and has joined humanitarian and rescue efforts, but has so far refused to participate in EU burden-sharing schemes that would involve the UK accepting an agreed quota of refugees. Cameron has agreed only that Britain will, over a five-year period, accept 20,000 additional Syrian refugees from camps in surrounding countries.
Rather, the British government has chosen to put its main effort into strengthening our national border controls at Calais, which we continue to exercise as a non-participant in Schengen, in order to deter migrants from crossing the Channel. The effectiveness of such efforts depends on the continued willingness of the French and Belgian governments to allow the UK to police its border within their territory. The present UK policy is acutely vulnerable to a breakdown in cooperation with our closest EU partners. The British negotiating position on the migration question is far weaker than most of our politicians accept, and still less acknowledge.
In Britain by contrast, over most of the last five years, the debate has mainly focused on ‘freedom of movement’ within the EU. This is also an issue in other parts of Europe: for example, one million Romanians are estimated to be living and working in Italy, but on the whole, in other member states, it is not such a difficult one. The German economy has been needing and accepting migrant labour from other parts of Europe (and Turkey) since the 1950s. In France, there have been periodic demands from the far right to abandon Schengen and reintroduce national border controls on all forms of migration. In the mid-2000s a major public concern was the ‘Polish plumber’ stealing French jobs. But immigration also touches on fears of loss of French identity in face of what anti-immigrant politicians describe as the creeping ‘Islamisation’ of French society. Mainstream French politics has not been insulated from these pressures. Nicolas Sarkozy, in his desperate efforts to win over National Front (FN) voters in the second round of the French presidential election in 2012, pledged to reinstate national border controls. In the autumn of 2014, Marine Le Pen, the FN leader, demanded action to protect the French borders and prevent the ‘floods’ of migrants from outside the EU making their way to Calais in their attempt to seek work in the deregulated labour markets of the UK. Yet for all this sound and fury, the Schengen agreements – in France and other EU countries – that have led to the dismantling of vexatious border controls over much of the continent (from which the UK and Ireland have opted out) have become an accepted and welcome part of modern European life.
Cameron approached the migration issue warily – and he was right to do so. It was not mentioned in his January 2013 Bloomberg speech, except to warn that withdrawal from the EU could affect the lives of Britons living and working on the continent. Until the October 2014 Conservative party conference, Cameron was careful to confine himself to supporting new rules on migration that would apply to new countries joining the EU, not interfere with migration rights for existing EU members. However, the Conservatives had added curbs on ‘benefit tourism’ to their list of renegotiation demands in the light of the UK Independence party’s surge in the spring and summer polls of 2013. These demands encompassed curbing entitlement to unemployment benefits beyond three months residency in the UK, and restricting access to public services free at the point of use, principally the NHS. The media frenzy over the ending of the UK’s transitional controls on free movement of labour from Bulgaria and Romania in January 2014 added to the pressure to sound ‘tough’. In December 2014, Cameron had added to his renegotiation demands a specific proposal to deny EU migrants access to in-work benefits until they had worked for four years in the UK, on the basis that such benefits were a significant ‘pull factor’ in attracting EU migrants to Britain. However, in deference to warnings from the German government and the European commission, he fell short of arguing for the introduction of temporary quota controls on EU free movement which John Major had floated earlier.
Cameron’s caution was for good reason. Free movement of labour is one of the founding ‘four freedoms’ established in the treaty of Rome. It is as much a part of the common market (which is all, according to the Eurosceptics, that we voted to join in 1975) as freedom of movement of goods, services and capital. What’s more, millions of Brits have taken full advantage of it. The question for any renegotiation is whether this freedom is absolute, or can in some way be qualified, and whether to so do, requires treaty change or can simply be obtained through clarifying or amending existing EU directives.
On the issue of so-called ‘benefit tourism’, the evidential basis for believing that abuse of benefits by EU migrants is widespread is thin, if ‘abuse’ refers to those who come to Britain with no intention of seeking work, but with the sole purpose of living a life of idleness and sloth off UK social benefits. Most EU migrants are young people only too keen to work and earn: their employment rate is higher than native citizens of a similar age. Nonetheless, claims of benefit tourism strike a chord across the EU, not just the UK. One reason for this may be that anger at ‘benefit tourism’ is a polite proxy for widespread public prejudice against the Roma, who for all kinds of historic cultural reasons integrate as badly into western societies as in the south-east European nations of their origin, where they suffered centuries of harsh discrimination.
UK tensions over benefit tourism reflect the way in which the British social security system has evolved since the Beveridge report in the 1940s. What started as an ‘insurance’ model has gradually become a means-tested system. Over decades, the British welfare system has prioritised ‘need’ over ‘contribution’, in part because generous contributory benefits were judged unaffordable. There is little earnings-related element in unemployment insurance; instead social benefits mainly reflect family size and housing costs. Social housing is allocated on the basis of need and homelessness, not length of stay on a waiting list. Tax credits vary according to earnings. Benefits that were once universal, such as child benefit, are no longer available to higher-rate taxpayers. Whether or not Britain had seen large-scale labour migration, it is questionable whether the present welfare consensus among the elites chimes with the attitudes of the general public. But the reality of large-scale labour migration has broken the perception of ‘fairness’ necessary to underpin any social welfare system.
Finding acceptable solutions to those problems depends mainly on reform of national social security systems to shift entitlements back towards the contribution principles of William Beveridge. Yet it ought also be possible to change EU law to reflect the legitimacy of the principle of contribution before an entitlement to benefits (and access to other non-emergency services offered by the welfare state) is established. Most social democratic parties, certainly in northern Europe, would advocate such a change.
It should also be negotiable to tighten the rules on so-called ‘benefit tourism’ and send home migrants who fail to find work. There is political momentum among our EU partners behind the demand for benefit abuses to be tackled.. The general principle that there is an absolute right to travel across internal EU borders and an absolute right to work in any member state will be reaffirmed. Yet our EU partners will agree that there is no right to remain beyond a strictly limited period unless migrants demonstrate their ability to support themselves and their families through obtaining and keeping a job. Stricter enforcement of existing ‘free movement’ rights should therefore be achievable.
However, while these actions would tackle ‘abuse’, they would not significantly reduce the scale of internal migration, which is largely driven by economics. The eurozone has been locked in stagnation and at best slow growth. Huge divergences in living standards between all EU member states remain, and between north and south they are growing. In these circumstances, the plentiful supply of jobs in the UK’s loosely regulated labour market will continue to be a strong magnet.
Large-scale eastern European labour migration has occurred in a decade when wages and standards of living for families in the broad middle of the income distribution have been squeezed and on average have fallen. Most economic research disputes the reality of any general causal relationship. Yet it can be no surprise that the public makes a link between the two phenomena. There are clearly some instances of competitive wage undercutting, for example where foreign subcontractors bring over groups of migrant labourers to work at (or below) the minimum wage or where highly skilled migrants can undermine and outperform pockets of labour monopoly that particular groups once enjoyed because of previous shortages of skilled labour.
Some of the labour market problems that UK citizens experience as a result of migration are mainly ones for national labour market regulation: for example, the setting and enforcement of minimum wages or a new ‘living wage’ as George Osborne proposed in his July 2015 budget; the abuse of subcontracting; and the regulation of zero-hour contracts. The UK could take domestic action to make its labour market less flexible. These are not matters the rest of the EU can resolve for the UK, but EU action could help. A less ideologically free-market British government could press for strengthening EU rules on the ‘posting of workers’ that better protect enforcement of minimum wages and collective agreements. This is a Dutch objective for their presidency of the council of ministers in the first six months of 2016, which the UK could back. The UK could also argue for EU curbs on the abuses of some employment agencies. Also, the idea of setting up a new EU fund to help localities that are suffering the stresses of migration should be developed; it is a sensible reform of the EU budget for which the UK should argue.
Numerical controls on internal EU migration are altogether another matter – and clearly impossible within the EU treaties as they stand. Cameron is seeking to find a way though this dilemma with his proposal to deny EU migrants access to in-work benefits – tax credits and child benefit – for four years. In the UK, tax credits serve to top up low wages and are available universally on the basis of family income (wherever the rest of the family lives) not on the basis of past contribution. The impact of Cameron’s proposed tightening of the tax credit rules would be on migrants, the vast majority of whom (to repeat an overworked political sound bite) ‘work hard and play by the rules’. The belief is that a four-year wait before migrants can claim in work benefits will reduce the incentives for EU citizens to come and work here.
However, the proposed four-year stay on benefit entitlements would obviously not deter highly skilled people who come to work in the UK in well paid jobs. Nor does it seem plausible that it would have much impact at the bottom end of the labour market on single young people who come to Britain to work because there is a plentiful supply of low paid jobs – jobs, it has to be said, that employers in many parts of the UK find it difficult to fill with native British talent. The main reasons for this are not much to do with low-wage competition forcing British young people into involuntary unemployment. Rather they reflect: the deep regional imbalances within the UK; the mismatch between the availability of decent housing and the places where jobs are plentiful; the failure of the English education and training to produce people with right levels of basic skill and aptitude for employability; and cultural barriers to undertaking certain types of work such as fruit-picking and service in hotels.
For these reasons, it is highly problematic whether the proposed curbs on in-work benefits would create new job opportunities for British workers or do much to stem migration flows. The likelihood is that they would have a partial but not significant impact. They therefore come into the category of political promises that are dreamt up to address a general grievance that may turn out to have a small practical effect. A legitimate question is whether this is the way to rebuild the appallingly low levels of trust people have in politicians and politics, especially on immigration.
Unfortunately, Cameron’s demands on in-work benefits appear to contradict our existing European treaty obligations, which have been agreed by every member state on the basis of unanimity and supported by successive British governments of all parties. Article 45 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union lays down that citizens of other EU member states should enjoy “equal treatment with nationals in access to employment, working conditions and all other social and tax advantages”. It is difficult to see how the European Court of Justice (ECJ) could regard any new EU directive or national law to deprive EU citizens of access to tax credits and other in-work benefits as compatible with that treaty article.
Treaty change is of course technically feasible, as the foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, has hinted. It might be achievable quickly, if member states agree that the treaty change be made within the simplified revision procedure of the Lisbon treaty, as happened in 2011 when the European Stability Mechanism was established. But such a change to the treaties cannot be made on the simple say so of David Cameron, the European commission or even Angela Merkel, the German chancellor. Every single member state has to agree the change and obtain parliamentary approval within their own country for it.
Why would Poland or other eastern and south-eastern EU member states voluntarily agree to forgo the rights of their nationals in this way? Why should they give in to what they will see as Cameron’s attempted blackmail on the basis of a threat to leave the EU? Most will regard his threat as empty bluster given Britain’s dependence on access to the single market. Is the British prime minister seriously going to put at risk the half of UK goods exports and over a third of our overseas services earnings that depend on access to the European single market, all because he cannot obtain a four-year delay in migrant entitlements to in work benefits?
There are three possible ways through this likely impasse. First, Cameron drops or softens this set of demands: this will of course offer the kiss of life to Ukip. It will delight those Eurosceptic backbenchers now joining the ‘Conservatives for Britain’ group, who hypocritically claim they want to stay in the EU if better terms can be renegotiated, but in fact are itching to condemn the whole exercise as a fraud so they can campaign for withdrawal.
Second, the UK could agree to pay a price in future for getting other member states to agree to a treaty amendment. This price might well involve increased British contributions to the EU budget. The poorer member states who have been the source of much low-skill migration to the UK might reasonably argue that if their unemployed citizens are to be denied their fundamental treaty rights to fair access to labour markets in more prosperous member states, then their member states should be entitled to increased structural fund transfers to promote their faster domestic development. One possibility would be a supplementary fund to the social fund to enable eastern Europeans to receive training and work experience in their own countries without moving elsewhere. Would that be an impossible price to pay?
Third, the government could alter the benefit entitlements of UK citizens so that access to in work benefits would be restricted until after completion of say, two or four years of contribution. This would meet EU non-discrimination principles and treat all EU citizens equally, including British citizens. There is a strong case for this as a desirable reform to rebuild public confidence in our welfare system: a return to the principles of Beveridge for a new century, on the lines that Frank Field, for example, has advocated.
However, this would involve an admission by the government that this major change in Britain’s social security entitlements was being implemented to comply with EU rules. What would the Daily Mail think? They might agree with the policy, but criticise its European inspiration. A weaker alternative would be to argue for a ‘residency requirement’ before in-work benefits are paid: this would restrict entitlements for Britons who had worked abroad (but not to all British resident citizens) as well as migrants from other EU countries. There is some risk that such a policy might come under legal challenge before the ECJ as a quasi-discriminatory measure, though in all likelihood some time only after a referendum had taken place!
On the migration question, as matters stand, there is no obviously happy outcome. Pro-Europeans need to start making the argument that the free movement of people is as much part and parcel of the single market as the free movement of goods, services and capital. Internal EU migration has been a considerable economic benefit all round, including to many millions of Britons. Free movement is increasingly vital to the viability of the public services that British citizens hold most dear: for example, in the NHS, it is one of the few means by which the present shortage of qualified nurses can be addressed. However, the present situation is leading to unacceptable social tensions. All markets, including the labour market, within the ‘social market’ economy of the EU need to operate in a reformed and strengthened framework of social and public interest rules that apply across the whole EU. A major reform package to re-regulate migration within the EU is necessary to bolster public support for European integration. This would involve:
• more proactive deployment of a larger EU budget, to tackle migration pressures at source, both outside and inside the EU, as well as help member states and localities under migration stress;
• better enforcement of the EU common border;
a fair sharing of the refugee burden;
• tightening EU-wide labour market and social security rules;
• a recognition that contribution is a condition of entitlement;
• and action to curb potential benefit abuse.
Yet elements of this reform package could put David Cameron at odds with his own supporters. His UK-centric approach in his renegotiation risks crossing an extremely difficult and dangerous line. He is putting at risk the rights to free movement of which millions of British citizens take full advantage, including the two million British citizens estimated to be currently resident in other EU member states. If he wishes to secure a new deal on migration, then Britain will have to show more sense of collective European responsibility for tackling the migration problem. To promise to ‘solve’ the migration problem with national ‘fixes’ that in practice will affect migration flows very little, would simply undermine further the public’s trust in politics.
Roger Liddle is co-chair of Policy Network. He is the author of the forthcoming book, The Risk of Brexit: The Politics of a Referendum, from which this article is taken | 22,759 | 9,366 | 0.000109 |
warc | 201704 | Elena Kagan and the porn wars Text Size - + reset Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan gave a notable 1993 lecture at the University of Chicago Law School. John Shinkle
“As a free-floating test for First Amendment coverage, that…is startling and dangerous,” he wrote. “The First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech does not extend only to categories of speech that survive an ad hoc balancing of relative social costs and benefits.”
“I think the Stevens case is really a very recent smoking gun….Never in any administration would I expect to see a brief like that out of the Justice Department in terms of a frontal assault on the most basic First Amendment principles,” Crosson said. “Even the very conservative Supreme Court tore them a new one. I was just gobsmacked by the positions they took.”
Yet Crosson said that when she read Kagan’s 1993 article on pornography, the Stevens arguments began to make more sense.
“What eventually dawned on me…is that she wanted to use that case as a wedge to broaden the concept of obscenity—to start using obscenity as a bludgeon to start sweeping in other kinds of bad and worthless speech….It’s dangerous,” Crosson warned.
In Kagan’s law review piece, she dropped her suggestion for using “pimping” charges against pornographers, but continued to embrace stepped-up enforcement of obscenity laws.
“Regulation of obscenity may accomplish some, although not all, of the goals of the anti-pornography movement,” Kagan wrote. She also pressed the notion that pornography is “low-value speech” and that new ordinances aimed at restricting it should be enacted.
At one point she seems to go even further than her Chicago speech, implying that eradicating all pornography and hate speech would be a laudable goal.
“Such efforts will not eradicate all pornography or all hate speech from our society, but they can achieve much worth achieving,” she wrote.
“I have trouble with the references to low-value speech,” said Joan Bertin, executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship. “The notion that low-value speech can be dispensed with, that you can even determine what is low-value speech, is disturbing….There’s, I guess you could say, cause for concern, but the picture is pretty murky.”
But one leading First Amendment academic, Eugene Volokh of the University of California at Los Angeles, said he wasn’t troubled by the 22 mentions of low-value speech in Kagan’s article. “A lot of people, left, right and center, have previously said certain speech is less valuable,” he noted.
Volokh called Kagan’s proposals “quite modest” and said efforts to divine her personal views from the article. “It’s hard to be confident about what she believes, based on the article,” he said.
However, critics complain that Kagan’s writings simply take as a given that sexually-explicit materials cause violence against women—a causal link that many anti-censorship feminists and others hotly dispute.
“Judges who casually assume the alleged harms of unpopular speech can't be trusted with First Amendment freedoms,” said Wendy Kaminer, a Boston attorney and early leader in the anti-censorship camp.
While the debate over pornography has largely settled down in recent years, due in large part to porn’s ubiquity on the Internet, Kagan’s views on the subject are hardly academic. At least one obscenity convict is trying right now to get Supreme Court review. And the court has already agreed to hear a case next term about whether California can ban the sale of violent video games to children—a dispute that raises many of the same legal issues at play in regulation of pornography. | 3,889 | 1,887 | 0.000569 |
warc | 201704 | On Sunday, March 7, 1965, some 600 peaceful civil rights activists gathered in Selma, Ala., to march for equality and the right to vote. What began as a nonviolent protest, ended with an outburst of violence by state police employing billy clubs and tear gas, broadcast on television into homes across the nation. These images galvanized Congress to enact the Voting Rights Act on Aug. 6, 1965.
Just days before the 48th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” the Supreme Court will review Congress’s authority under the Constitution to reauthorize Section 5, a key provision of the Voting Rights Act that requires covered jurisdictions to “preclear” voting changes with the Department of Justice or a federal court. Section 5 is important because it shifts the burden of proof to jurisdictions that have a serious demonstrated history of discrimination, protecting the rights of minority voters from protracted litigation.
Story Continued Below
Legal challenges to Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act have routinely been made after Congress has reauthorized the statute; this is the fifth challenge to reauthorization. The Supreme Court first affirmed the constitutionality of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in 1966, after the state of South Carolina sought to have the act declared unconstitutional in
South Carolina v. Katzenbach. In that case, the court upheld the entire Voting Rights Act as a legitimate exercise of Congress’s powers under the 15th Amendment and cited Congress’s careful study and the “voluminous legislative history” underlying the Voting Rights Act as a basis for upholding it. The Congress continued this careful study prior to each reauthorization.
In 1970, 1975 and 1982, Congress again gathered and analyzed extensive facts, conducting dozens of hearings, taking testimony from hundreds of witnesses and amassing a record of thousands of pages during each reauthorization process, with each documenting significant ongoing discrimination and revealing that covered jurisdictions continued to devise tactics to suppress effective minority participation. In 2006, our committee undertook a similar study, compiling an extensive record that totaled more than 15,000 pages, spanned 20 hearings and included testimony from 96 witnesses representing interests ranging from federal and state executive officials to civil rights leaders. | 2,406 | 1,181 | 0.000865 |
warc | 201704 | New steps will be taken to help us reach our aggressive goal of zero fire deaths.Read More…
Phone: 503-823-3700
Fax: 503-823-3710
55 SW Ash Street, Portland, OR 97204
Portland Fire & Rescue (PF&R) has long been committed to reducing fire fatalities and property loss in the City of Portland and a first step is to make sure all homes have working smoke alarms installed. This Sunday is Daylight Savings Time and it’s a good reminder to assess your smoke alarm status.
Every Daylight Savings, test your smoke alarm and make sure it is functioning. If you need smoke alarms installed, Portland residents can take advantage of PF&R’s Citywide Smoke Alarm Program to receive them. All residents need to do is simply call PF&R’s Smoke Alarm Hotline and their local fire crew will schedule a visit to install alarms. Smoke alarms are necessary on every floor of your home and in every sleeping area.
Working smoke alarms save lives. Most fatal fires occur at night, peaking from midnight to 5 AM, when people are asleep. One-third (33 percent) of fatal residential fires occur during these five hours. Working smoke alarms wake you up, giving you time to escape. Almost two-thirds of home fire deaths result from fires in homes with no smoke alarms or no working smoke alarms.
HOW TO RECEIVE A SMOKE ALARM:
WHO IS ELIGIBLE: | 1,347 | 751 | 0.001362 |
warc | 201704 | BUSINESSES on or moving to the Solent Enterprise Zone at Daedalus have received a boost with news they can now apply for up to £1m of funding each.
Solent Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has reopened its Solent Enterprise Zone Advanced Manufacturing Expansion Fund and has raised the amount that companies can bid for.
Previously, businesses could bid for up to £200,000 but the bar has now been raised, with companies now able to apply for up to £1m each.
The Solent Enterprise Zone Advanced Manufacturing Expansion Fund has been established to support businesses based on or moving to the enterprise zone in Lee-on-the-Solent.
The £2.8m fund aims to create or safeguard jobs at the zone, which already has a number of benefits in place for companies there.
Steve Futter, senior account manager at the Solent LEP, said: ‘The Solent Enterprise Zone at Daedalus has the potential to become the jewel in the UK’s advanced manufacturing crown, which is why we are throwing our full support behind the area and giving businesses there access to a number of different grants.
‘Businesses in our key sectors on the site have ambitious plans for the future and we are happy to be able to match their ambitions with even more money up for grabs as we reopen the fund.’
Anyone interested in applying can call (023) 9283 4893 or email ezexpansion@solentlep.org.uk.
Businesses within the enterprise zone are not the only ones to benefit from access to funding. A similar fund is available for advanced manufacturers across the wider Solent area.
The Solent Advanced Manufacturing SME Fund has £3.7m available to SMEs in the Solent maritime, defence, aerospace, advanced manufacturing and general services support for the defence and advanced manufacturing cluster supply chains.
Application documents for the fund are available at solentlep.org.uk/enterprise_zone. | 1,913 | 925 | 0.001114 |
warc | 201704 | PHOENIX and LONDON, May 29, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Two senior executives from IO, the global leader in software-defined data centers, will present at Datacentres Europe 2013 in Nice, France. George Slessman, IO CEO and Product Architect, and Robert Butler, IO Senior Vice President and Chief Security Officer, will share their visions for transforming the data center and keeping it safe. Mr. Slessman will present on May 29 and on May 30, and Mr. Butler will present on May 29.
Mr. Slessman will examine the transformation of the data center from a liability to a strategic asset that enables big data, convergence, consumerization, cloud, and mobility. Mr. Butler will make the case that the data center is the best place for enterprises and governments to anchor a "culture of security," which is essential to thrive amid today's unprecedented physical and cyber threats.
"Datacentres Europe is an ideal place for IO to discuss the world's biggest IT challenges, from a European perspective. We look forward to timely and thought-provoking sessions with our partners, colleagues and customers," said Mr. Slessman.
Mr. Slessman's presentation is called "End of Life – Data Centre 1.0." It asserts that the traditional data center model is broken and that organizations worldwide must shift away from it. He will examine how legacy data centers cost too much to build and operate, take too long to construct, lack proper security and are unsustainable. Mr. Slessman will outline how IT megatrends toward machine users, cloud and mobility are driving a massive transformation to the software-defined data center. He will articulate a vision in which every important innovation will be made by software, creating a sustainable data center environment that delivers extraordinary capital savings, operational efficiencies and energy conservation.
Mr. Butler's presentation will assess the current scope and level of cyber and physical security attacks, making the case that the data center manufacturer is uniquely positioned to design standards at the nexus of these two existential and interconnected threats. This session will also convey information about real-world attacks and their impact on the businesses and governments involved.
The company's Intelligent Control
® data center infrastructure technology platform is being adopted by the world's largest companies as they seek to reduce operational costs, deploy faster, thin-provision and manage their global data center footprints from a single pane of glass.
The IO.Anywhere
® platform includes standard, secure, and UL-listed data center modules that replace, augment or transform traditional data center infrastructure. The IO.OS ® is the world's first true data center operating system that integrates modular and legacy infrastructure with the entire IT stack, providing unsurpassed visibility, insight and control to optimize data center performance.
Datacentres Europe 2013 takes place on 29-30 May 2013 in Nice, Cote d'Azur, France. The conference brings together more than 1,000 enterprise users, specifiers and providers to discuss key themes including energy efficiency, cloud evolution, DCIM, convergence, finance and investment, market outlook and opportunities among other topics in the datacenter and cloud sector.
About IO
IO is the global leader in software-defined data centers. IO has pioneered the next-generation of data center infrastructure technology, which lowers the total cost of data center ownership for enterprises, governments and service providers. IO technology provides an innovative way to deploy, provision and optimize data center capacity anywhere in the world based on the needs of businesses, applications and users.
IO, the IO logo, Intelligent Control and all other IO trademarks are owned by IO Data Centers, LLC and its affiliates. © 2013.
Forward-Looking StatementsThis news release contains forward-looking information. Except for historical information contained herein, the statements in this document are forward-looking. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual results in future periods to differ materially from forecasted results. Those risks include, among others, changes in customer demand for information technology products or services, changes in supplier pricing actions or terms, customer orders, pricing actions by competitors, changes in laws and regulations and general changes in economic conditions.
SOURCE IO
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warc | 201704 | When it comes to controlling absenteeism among workers in adverse working conditions, don’t underestimate the power of the mind. For a research paper published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Michal Biron of the University of Haifa and Tilburg University and Peter Bamberger of Tel Aviv University and Cornell University analyzed transit workers to determine which factors influence absenteeism in environments in which there is an elevated risk of physical injury (e.g., in the construction industry) or conditions are perceived as noxious or threatening, such as slippery floors, noise, toxic agents or the prospect of physical confrontation, as is commonly encountered by retail, transit and health-care workers.
However, those dangers were not the only determinants of absenteeism. The researchers found that employees were even more likely to skip work if their coworkers took a lax view of showing up, and if they believed their supervisors were apathetic and unwilling to offer help, such as safety training, that might mitigate the risks posed by the workplace. | 1,083 | 620 | 0.001625 |
warc | 201704 | Posted on 18 Mar 2010
After Monday's decision by the Federal Reserve to maintain the target fed funds rate at zero to 25 basis points, Swiss Re's chief US Economist, Kurt Karl, commented, "The Fed reiterated that it will be on hold for an extended period, which we estimate to be until early 2011. Inflation risks are low and employment growth is stagnant, so there is no hurry to tighten monetary policy."
"In the US, a moderate expansion is underway. All items CPI inflation will be about 2% this year and next, but core inflation will be lower. Real GDP growth is expected to be 3.1% this year and 3.7% in 2011. This forecast will keep the yield on the 10-year Treasury note in a trading range this year, mostly between 3.5% and 4.0%. Next year, yields will rise along with the expected Fed tightening,” Karl said.
“The expansions in Europe and Japan remain fairly weak, but China is booming and has begun a series of policy measures to moderate growth. Real GDP growth in Euroland, the UK and Japan is forecast to be 1.3% this year in all three economies. Government bond yields in Europe will mostly be in a trading range in 2010, with - for example - the German10-year government bond yields between 3.1% and 3.5%, because the data will be mixed and the monetary authorities are on hold. The major central banks are expected to launch a coordinated monetary tightening late this year/early next year with the ECB leading the way. By year-end, the government bond yields will be about 3.5% in Germany, 3.7% in France and higher in the UK at 4.4% due to inflation concerns. In Japan, yields on the 10-year government bond will remain low, ending the year at 1.4%. The dollar is expected to stay fairly steady against the euro, the pound and the yen. At mid-year, the Chinese authorities are projected to begin a very modest appreciation of the renminbi,” added Karl. | 1,893 | 959 | 0.001056 |
warc | 201704 | Product Spotlight Featured Research Quick Stats You are here
Nearly 158 million consumers will participate in Halloween activities this year, down slightly from 170 million last year, according to NRF’s Halloween Spending Survey conducted by Prosper Insights & Analytics.
Those celebrating also will trim their budgets, with the average consumer expected to spend $75.03 on décor, costumes, candy and fun, down from $79.82 last year. Overall, average spending on Halloween has increased 54.7 percent since 2005, with total spending estimated to reach $6.9 billion in 2013.
“Still one of the most beloved and anticipated consumer holidays, Halloween will be far from a bust this year,” said Matthew Shay, NRF president and CEO. “After a long summer, the arrival of fall will put millions of Americans in the spirit to partake in traditional and festive activities.”
“Retailers recognize that when it comes to Halloween, consumers’ creativity abounds,” Shay noted. “We expect retailers to stock their shelves with unique costume ideas for adults, children and pets, a variety of candy options and never-seen-before home and yard decor.”
Dressing in costume will once again be popular with consumers this year. According to the survey, 43.6 percent of people plan to dress up and will spend a total of $2.6 billion. Specifically, consumers will shell out $1.04 billion on children’s costumes and $1.22 billion on adult costumes. About 13.8 percent of those celebrating will take the extra time to find a costume for their pets, and will spend approximately $330 million.
Additionally, celebrants will spend $2.08 billion on candy and $360 million on greeting cards. Second only to Christmas in terms of spending on decorations, Americans will spend $1.96 billion on life-size skeletons, fake cob webs, mantle pieces and other festive decorations.
For the first time, NRF asked when people will begin shopping for Halloween. According to the survey, nearly one-third (32.8 percent) begin shopping before Sept. 30. An additional 67.2 percent of consumers will shop in October. Specifically, 43.6 percent will begin the first two weeks in October and 23.6 percent will wait until the final two weeks of the month.
When it comes to inspiration for costume ideas, one-third (32.9 percent) will search for costume ideas online, another third (32.8 percent) will look for new ideas in a store, and one-fifth (20.8 percent) will seek advice from friends or family. Additionally, 14.1 percent will check Facebook for inspiration and 3.8 percent will review blogs. Nearly one in 10 (9.3 percent) will scour Pinterest for costume ideas, up from 7.1 percent last year. Of those buying or making costumes, the average person will spend $27.85, similar to the $28.65 spent last year.
There are a variety of ways Americans will celebrate this year, with handing out candy being the most popular (72 percent). Others will carve a pumpkin (44.2 percent), visit a haunted house (20.3 percent), take their child trick-or-treating (31.7 percent) and decorate their home and/or yard (47.5 percent). Three in 10 (30.9 percent) will attend or host a party.
Despite the anticipation of the popular fall event, one-fourth of U.S. consumers (25.2 percent) say the state of the economy will impact their Halloween spending plans -- nearly nine in 10 (86.1 percent) will spend less overall, up slightly from 83.5 percent last year. Additionally, 32.7 percent will buy less candy and 18.1 percent will make a costume instead of buying one.
NRF represents retailers of all types and sizes, including chain restaurants and industry partners, from the United States and more than 45 countries abroad. | 3,738 | 1,747 | 0.000584 |
warc | 201704 | On Friday, a district judge ruled that Craigslist could legally deny access to its site from a San Francisco Web-development shop called 3taps that helped others sites provide custom interfaces to Craigslist listings–and that 3taps had no right to circumvent that block with a proxy server that cloaked the Internet Protocol addresses of its computers.
The CFAA has been many people’s least-favorite Internet law–a prosecution under it apparently led Internet activist Aaron Swartz to hang himself last winter–for its absurdly generic definition of computer trespass.
In particular, subsection (a)(2) of this 1986 law targets anyone who “intentionally accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access, and thereby obtains [….] information from any protected computer.”
Judge Breyer’s opinion essentially shrugs in agreement with phrasing that exhibits the regrettable combination of being overly broad and clearly written.
As he noted: “Congress apparently knew how to restrict the reach of the CFAA to only certain kinds of information, and it appreciated the public vs. nonpublic distinction–but §1030(a)(2)(c) contains no such restrictions or modifiers.”
And since Craigslist named 3taps in a cease-and-desist letter before blocking its computers’ IP addresses, that settles it.
But what if a site doesn’t address people by name when telling them to go away?
Bring up the “Live Streaming” page of the news network Al Jazeera. Until Tuesday, you could watch real-time video of its English-language coverage. Now it tells would-be Web viewers that the feed “is no longer available in the U.S.,” thanks to its launch of a new, U.S.-market cable and satellite channel called Al Jazeera America.
That statement is, strictly speaking, false. The old feed is very much available in the U.S. to anybody who uses a proxy server. I installed one such program, AnchorFree’s Hotspot Shield, opted into a free trial of its “Elite” service, selected a United Kingdom IP address, and moments later was watching “AJE” live online.
Was it a CFAA violation to route around AJA’s decision to block U.S. Web streaming in favor of a smaller but possibly more lucrative pay-TV audience? By the text of this law, one could argue yes.
Now consider Georgetown University professor Jim O’Donnell, who encountered a glitchy update to an e-reader program on his iPad while traveling in Singapore. O’Donnell wrote on a mailing list that after this Google app had updated itself, “all of my books had un-downloaded and needed to be downloaded again.”
Except they wouldn’t in Singapore, because Google’s e-bookstore doesn’t do business there.
O’Donnell had the luck to have only lost free, public-domain titles, so he could visit the Internet Archive’s collection of out-of-copyright titles to download new copies.
But if this glitch had taken out purchased books, his easiest and fastest remedy would have been to jump on a proxy server that would give him a U.S. IP address.
It’s hard to think of an online retailer so stupid as to sue its own customers for using a simple workaround to recover access to their own purchases. But companies have been known to be dumb on the Internet.
And the CFAA doesn’t say you have to be an elite hacker to be guilty of computer trespass. It just says you have to connect to a server without permission or without sufficient permission; as crazy as that seems, it requires no special trickery or exploits on your behalf.
In other words, the CFAA–even more so than the unbalanced anti-cirumvention provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act–is Congress’s gift to commercial control-freakery. It allows private actors to draw a line wherever they see fit, then bring the hammer of criminal prosecution down upon those who would step over it. Great business if you can get it, but I can think of many better uses for my tax dollars. | 4,077 | 2,096 | 0.000503 |
warc | 201704 | Can the vilified McMansion, in its various forms and habitats, survive a post-recession economy? Many signs suggest the odds are stacked against it. On the other hand, the question of whether the small-house movement will enter the construction mainstream and snuff out the "more is better" mentality is a subject of nuanced debate.
There is no shortage of reasons backing the argument that supersized, garish McMansions are on their way out. Lending standards have tightened, and many buyers no longer have the cash on hand for down payments on fancy homes. Add to that a distressingly high U.S. unemployment rate and resale competition from foreclosures (many of which are McMansions themselves), and the outlook seems bleak for showy homes that many consider emblems of decadence and greed.
Even for those who can afford them, trophy homes constitute an image problem at a time when modesty has become fashionable. One recent CNNMoney.com poll asked more than 33,000 online readers if they thought American homes had gotten too big; 69% said yes.
Demand for big houses could also fizzle as population shifts place families with kids in the home buying minority. Some demographers estimate that up to 80% of new households formed over the next 15 years will be child-free, as Baby Boomers empty their nests and career-driven Millennials postpone marriage and kids.
Arthur "Chris" Nelson, director of the Metropolitan Research Center at the University of Utah, predicts that as a result, the nation could see a surplus of 22 million large-lot homes by 2025. Household sizes are trending smaller at the same time that household budgets have become leaner. That makes butler pantries and media rooms a tougher sell.
In fact, the landscape is already changing. A 2009 poll of 500 residential architects by the American Institute of Architects (AIA) found only 4% of respondents reported clients were requesting more square footage in new projects, compared to 16% in 2008. A subsequent AIA Home Design Trends Survey found significant cuts in consumer spending on features such as in-law suites, three-car garages, and home theaters. Builders sing a similar tune; 90% of respondents in a recent NAHB poll indicated plans to build smaller.
House sizes, which doubled from 1960 to the height of the boom, are now ebbing. The average house breaking ground in the first quarter of 2009 was 2,335 square feet, down from 2,629 square feet in the second quarter of 2008, according to NAHB. Since 2007, median sizes for new single-family homes have fallen nearly 10%. | 2,568 | 1,436 | 0.0007 |
warc | 201704 | Glendale, CA (PRWEB) January 14, 2014
Audio-Digest Foundation Announces the Release of Family Practice Volume 61, Issue 30: Geriatrics for Primary Care.
The goal of this program is to improve use of statin therapy in older patients, and to improve management of anemia in the elderly. After hearing and assimilating this program, the clinician will be better able to:
1. Review data from primary and secondary prevention trials about statin use in older patients.
2. Weigh risks and benefits of statin use in older patients based on evidence and individual clinical findings. 3. Describe features of iron deficiency anemia, anemia of unknown cause, and anemia of chronic disease. 4. Discuss treatment options for myelodysplastic syndrome. 5. Recognize typical features of multiple myeloma.
The original programs were presented by Roy C. Ziegelstein, MD, Professor of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD. Andrew Daly, MD, Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, AB.
Audio-Digest Foundation, the largest independent publisher of Continuing Medical Education in the world, records over 10,000 hours of lectures every year in anesthesiology, emergency medicine, family practice, gastroenterology, general surgery, internal medicine, neurology, obstetrics/gynecology, oncology, ophthalmology, orthopaedics, otolaryngology, pediatrics, psychology, and urology, by the leading medical researchers at the top laboratories, universities, and institutions.
Recent researchers have hailed from Harvard, Cedars-Sinai, Mayo Clinic, UCSF, The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, The University of Kansas Medical Center, The University of California, San Diego, The University of Wisconsin School of Medicine, The University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and many others.
Out of these cutting-edge programs, Audio-Digest then chooses the most clinically relevant, edits them for clarity, and publishes them either every week or every two weeks.
In addition, Audio-Digest publishes subscription series in conjunction with leading medical societies: DiabetesInsight with The American Diabetes Association, ACCEL with The American College of Cardiology, Continuum Audio with The American Academy of Neurology, and Journal Watch Audio General Medicine with Massachusetts Medical Society.
For 60 years, the global medical community of doctors, nurses, physician assistants, and other medical professionals around the world has subscribed to Audio-Digest specialty series in order to remain current in their specialties as well as to maintain their Continuing Education requirements with the most cutting-edge, independent, and unbiased continuing medical education (CME).
Long a technical innovator, Audio-Digest was the first to produce audio medical education programs and the first to produce in-car medical education. Currently, its subscription and annual products are available on CD and MP3, as well as iPhone, iPad, and Android apps. | 3,093 | 1,472 | 0.000682 |
warc | 201704 | Previous Section Back to Table of Contents Lords Hansard Home Page
Lord Howell of Guildford: My Lords, I wish to qualify what my noble friend said--and he is perceptive on such matters--by repeating what I said at the beginning. In trade matters, the pass is already sold and external trade issues which are foreign policy are handled by the European institutions. But on the rest, I agree that when we hear the rhetoric--perhaps we should not take it too seriously--about the need for a European destiny, it is time for some of us to button up our coats. We know about people seeking European destinies. They have done it in the past; we have spilt a lot of blood and made great efforts to stop them, and we do not wish it to start again.
Lord Montagu of Beaulieu rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the damage which could be caused to the engines of a great number of older vehicles, some of historic importance, as a result of the abolition of leaded petrol on 1st January 2000 and what steps they can take to alleviate the problem in the short and long term.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I suspect noble Lords may be rather puzzled as to the motives that lie behind this Question, because there is no doubt that the world at large has welcomed the intentions of governments to phase out lead in petrol as soon as practical, in view of
In the early days of motoring, petrol was sold in two-gallon cans from chemists' shops and the many manufacturers produced their own fomulas. It was not until the 1920s that the first filling stations were set up. As car engines improved in the mid-1920s and were designed for higher compression, it was necessary to improve the quality of existing petrol as it produced poor combustion in such engines, which led to a condition known to drivers as engine knock.
So how did lead get into petrol? Seventy years ago, British motorists, having been beguiled by a teaser advertising campaign featuring a '20s flapper girl over the headline, "Ethyl is coming to give you a thrill", were first able to fill their cars with the new type of petrol--leaded. The search for a miracle ingredient had been instigated by Charles Kettering, the engineering genius of General Motors.
Lord Montagu of Beaulieu: My Lords, I will tell the noble Lord later. The search for a miracle ingredient had been instigated 15 years earlier by Charles Kettering, the engineering genius of General Motors and a research chemist named Midgley, after reputedly trying 33,000 different chemical compounds. The result was tetra-ethyl lead. It was first brought to Britain in 1928 under the trade name "Ethyl" by Pratts Petroleum, the ancestor of modern Esso. Ethyl also enabled the development of the new generation of aero engines which gave this country the Schneider Trophy victory and the Battle of Britain. For decades it was the essential diet of all good car engines.
However, the rise of the green movement has seen poor old Ethyl branded a scarlet woman for containing the dreaded poison--lead, albeit in minute quantities, forcing the gradual compulsory withdrawal of leaded petrol in favour of lead-free.
In the early days there was no knowledge that lead would cause any damage. It is only in the past 20 years or so that the realisation of the harmful effects of leaded petrol has led governments to resolve that it should be phased out as soon as possible. In fact, on 19th June last year the European Union Environment Council, of which, of course, Great Britain is a member, decided that leaded petrol should be banned as from 1st January 2000. From that date leaded petrol would only be made available to specialist interest groups such as classic car clubs--it must account for no more than 0.5 per cent. of total petrol sales--and petrol companies would not be allowed to sell such leaded fuel on their forecourts.
While the demand for leaded petrol is naturally declining as the number of vehicles that need it decreases, current calculations show that unless drivers change their fuel-buying habits, some 4 million motorists will still be using leaded petrol by the year
For those 1.5 million cars, lead in petrol acts as a protective barrier between the exhaust valve and the valve seat into which it fits. Without lead or an alternative valve seat protector, "soft" valve seats can wear away, causing stalling, loss of power and, in some cases, the eventual breakdown of the car.
Naturally, as the news came out of the impending ban on lead in petrol, there was widespread concern--a concern which I am representing tonight. So this is a good moment to declare my well-known interest in historic vehicles, both as president of the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs which represents 293 clubs, with nearly 300,000 members and as chairman of the National Motor Museum.
So how many vehicles are owned by members attached to special interest groups? The Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs reckons that there are 300,000 collectors' vehicles out of a total of 789,000 at the moment registered by DVLA, all built before 1980. Many are still used as family cars, owned by people with modest resources who will be least able to afford the costs of modifications.
So what can be done about it? First of all, derogation can be sought in Brussels, but I am sure that most people understand, albeit reluctantly, that this country's green credentials would be very much damaged if Her Majesty's Government sought to go down that path, particularly as the phasing out of lead in petrol has been decided by the Council of Ministers. I am also aware of today's announcement from the Expert Panel of Air Quality Standards that it wants to reduce further the amount of lead in the atmosphere.
I have two questions to ask: first, in deciding not to apply for derogation, have Her Majesty's Government considered that one or two years' delay into the next century would give vehicle owners a little more time to test the additives and the lead replacement petrol which will be on the market? Secondly, could Her Majesty's Government inform the House which other members of the Community intend to apply for derogation? Rumours persist that most of southern Europe--France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece--are all unhappy with the year 2000 and intend to delay until 2005.
There will of course be new additives to join those which have been on the market for many years and are most likely to come from small suppliers. We just have to wait to see how good they are. While carrying out some research for tonight's debate I consulted the oil companies concerned and the future is not quite as bleak as many people fear. I can report that the chairman of Shell confirmed to me that Shell has been aware of the situation for some time and has been working on the development of an additive effectively to replace lead and that the formulation has been finalised following extensive laboratory testing. It will be available and sold in due course as lead replacement petrol, either to be pre-blended into unleaded petrol or distributed in
It is claimed that the use of lead replacement petrols over the past five years in some parts of Europe has demonstrated that they provide adequate protection for vehicles with soft valve seats in normal everyday use, so it is fervently hoped that there will be an acceptable replacement for 4-star in the UK when the lead ban takes effect in the year 2000.
Naturally, car owners are somewhat suspicious and distrustful and are taking pounds of salt with the claims of success in finding a real replacement for lead. They will be convinced only when they can use and assess the lead replacement petrol and the additives over a period of time.
Oil companies have the technical ability to sell lead replacement petrol in the UK now, but market research shows that the time is not yet right to introduce it into the UK market since customers have insufficient understanding or knowledge of the issues surrounding the phasing out of lead in petrol. They believe that there must be a British standard for lead replacement petrol before it is sold widely in the UK. That would guard against unregulated "wonder additives" which could have undesired side-effects, guarantee a minimum level of valve seat protection and reassure customers that adequate engine protection is being provided when they buy lead replacement petrol.
However, it is some comfort to know that lead replacement petrols containing alternative additives in place of lead are currently being used in 12 countries in Europe, as well as some countries in central Europe and in other parts of the world; for example, New Zealand. Austria has the most market-place experience of using lead replacement petrol, with more than five years' continuous use. That has shown satisfactory results, with no substantiated reports of engine damage in vehicles in normal every-day use.
Since the average mileage and speed are relevant, one would expect many classic cars to be less susceptible to valve seat recession than some more modern vehicles as most classic cars on the road tend to have lower annual mileages, less high-speed motorway use and engines which operate at lower engine revs.
Although one hopes that lead replacement petrol gives protection under all normal driving conditions, it must be recognised that some older vehicles--for instance, historic racing and sports cars--are run under much more severe conditions. Fortunately, the draft EU fuel directive allows for up to 0.5 per cent. of total petrol sold in each member state to be leaded, as long as it is distributed through "special interests groups". There is no doubt that such vehicles run under sporting conditions will require the full protection offered by leaded fuel and will require that fuel at club race meetings and so forth. I should like an assurance that that 0.5 per cent. allowance of leaded fuel will, indeed, remain available and conveniently available for those who require it. The great problem is how it will be distributed and at what price.
Thus I specifically ask Her Majesty's Government to initiate urgent discussions with the major oil companies to try to resolve the distribution problem, bearing in mind that already aerodromes will have to stock leaded petrol and there are many motor racing tracks in the country which could have leaded petrol outlets especially available for historic vehicles attending race meetings. There is, of course, the question of private storage but that will naturally be bound by storage regulations.
I cannot stress too strongly that the motorists with older vehicles including classic cars are deeply concerned and desperate to be fully informed about the issues and plans surrounding lead phase-out, to ensure use of the correct grades and to avoid confusion about future changes. I understand that Shell is actively talking to motoring groups in that regard, but I see the need for a wider approach. I have no doubt that there is a role for the Government to play in publicising lead phase-out plans and thus giving confidence to motorists that oil companies will provide a replacement petrol, which will give the required protection.
Owners' concern and fear about the future is partly due to lack of information and partly due to ignorance. So it is very important that a comprehensive leaflet is introduced as soon as possible to be distributed to those concerned. I should like to see the Government place advertisements in newspapers, motoring journals and club newsletters to explain the situation. There must also be a much fuller information pack to go to garages and so forth; nor must we forget the problems of garden machinery, outboard motors and chainsaws.
To conclude, this question tonight is designed to give the Government an opportunity to inform all those interested of how they intend to deal with this situation in the years to come. What we urgently need now is more open government on this subject, a practice to which "New Labour" promised to subscribe. The noble Baroness can be assured that there are many thousands of somewhat distrustful and suspicious car owners in the country who fear that their cars will be made redundant through no fault of their own and who are urgently awaiting her reply.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, for bringing this subject to our attention tonight. It is a matter of serious concern. I congratulate him on giving us a unique history of the problem and the possible solutions to it. In fact, it was so good that I should perhaps suggest to my chairman of Sub-Committee B that the noble Lord should be invited to attend as a specialist adviser, because he has given us some unique information. I am certainly looking forward to the next instalment on Ethyl, the 1920s flapper, outside this Chamber later this evening.
I declare an interest in that I have two cars which are particularly affected by this situation, one built in 1931 and the other built in 1970. I am not sure whether they can run on unleaded fuel. That is the problem; there is uncertainty about it. The matter was brought to my
I strongly support the elimination of lead from petrol. It has to happen, and it has to happen quickly for the sake of everyone's health, but I believe that the Government have a duty to tell us who is affected, how serious the problem is for motorists and what can be done to mitigate the effects of not having lead in petrol.
I received a very interesting briefing from the AA, which is one of the few briefings that seem to be around. It is not quite as good as that of the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, but it is not a bad start. I will not go through all the numbers again, but what it does mention is that there are 250,000 vehicles with soft valve seats which could be affected by prolonged hard driving. The noble Lord, Lord Montagu, mentioned racing, but the AA also mentions towing a caravan on the motorway. One would not want them to lose all their valves on a motorway.
Whether the solution is fitting hardened valve seat inserts or new cylinder heads is a matter for concern, but it is all going to cost money. I suggest that there are several choices open to the Government before they allow this decision to go ahead. The first is not a good one, and that is to keep leaded petrol. In some communication from my noble friend Lady Hayman it was suggested that this leaded petrol could only be sold through specialist interest groups and classic car clubs. In my limited experience, most of these clubs are run from people's front rooms, and the thought of handing out the two-gallon tins of petrol mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Montagu, in people's front rooms has safety problems which would surely rule it out. It should not even be suggested. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister will say that I have it completely wrong-- I hope she does--but I hope that was not a serious suggestion.
There is a second alternative, which is to ensure the provision of an alternative fuel, if it works. Again, the noble Lord, Lord Montagu, has said that the oil companies are working on it. If it is going to be introduced in less than two years should there not by now be standards? Should there not be agreements with the oil companies that this alternative is available? Should not the public be told that it will work and that their valves and their cylinder heads will work correctly?
There is a third suggestion, which is to provide some support for the capital cost of changing cars, possibly by reducing the age at which the vehicle excise duty is no longer paid. I do not pay VED on my two cars. It could be reduced from 25 years to, say, 15 or 10 years. It is an alternative way to mitigate the effect of spending £1,000 on a new cylinder head.
There are various different suggestions. I do not say that I approve of them all or support them, but it is very important that the motoring public, the millions of motorists who are concerned about this, are informed about what is going to happen in good time so that they can make their decisions about what should happen. Unless satisfactory replacement fuel which can be
Lord Blyth: My Lords, I have an interest in this inasmuch as I have a classic car of 1963. It is a comparatively high performance V8 engine and I am worried about this. I do not use the car very much. Although I am a member of the Daimler and Lanchester Owners Club, I, along with many other people, am simply ignorant of what is going to happen to us.
I started my working life being an apprentice for the Daimler Motor Company shortly after the war. In the service department we had models coming in which had monobloc. In other words, the heads were not detachable so that one had the cylinder head and block combined. These were desperately difficult things to have anything to do with, and I would hate to think that people will put new valve seat inserts in them.
I am worried about my car, which is at the moment being rebuilt and will, I hope, grace your Lordships' car park before the Summer Recess starts. I do not use it terribly much, but I would like the Government to provide us with a guide to the change, exactly as has been suggested by noble Lords who have preceded me. There are a lot additives which one can buy which are totally valueless. That has been the case over the years. Having said that, another noble Lord may use the rest of my five minutes.
Lord Geddes: My Lords, the noble Lord is to be congratulated on his brevity, which I shall try to follow. Our thanks are indeed due to my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, not least because this fits almost exactly into a short inquiry being conducted by Sub-Committee B of the European Communities Committee, to which the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has already alluded.
The directive which we are looking at in Sub-Committee B is known as the auto oil programme, and the papers deal with pollution and leaded petrol. I am paraphrasing. These matters have been the subject of considerable correspondence between the Minister and myself during February and March of this year. Unleaded petrol, or the manufacture of cars suitable for using unleaded petrol, has been mandatory since April 1991. However, in that correspondence the noble Baroness, on behalf of the Government, has said that lead replacement additives are "expected" to be available by 1st January 2000, and that the cost implications are "not expected to be substantial".
This was the area which really concerned the sub-committee, which I have the honour to chair. We have gleaned in the space of our short inquiry that 57 per cent. of the cars currently on the road within the European Union were built before April 1991. Interestingly, that is very close to the UK figure of 55 per cent. Of course, it is acknowledged that not all
My noble friend Lord Montagu also alluded to garden equipment, lawn mowers, outboard motors and such things. There is a whole host of machinery, if I may use that expression, which will be affected by this ban. Sadly, the statistics on the number of vehicles, ignoring garden equipment for the moment, which may well be affected on 1st January 2000 varies, as far as I am aware, between 300,000 and 3.5 million. I believe that my noble friend gave a slightly larger figure. Whatever it is, it is going to be substantial, and I cannot understand--indeed, the sub-committee cannot understand--how the Government can say that the cost implications are "not expected to be substantial". They will be very substantial to the owners of such cars.
In the most recent correspondence, and I do not believe that I am divulging any secrets in this respect, the noble Baroness, who is always extremely courteous--I do mean that and I made that point in our debate last week on drink driving regulations--referred in her letter to the fact that we had queried in a number of instances the points about the withdrawal of leaded petrol, and she says in the letter dated 19th March:
Interestingly, we asked officials from the Minister's department whether they would be kind enough to give us a briefing on this subject before the debate this evening and, albeit very politely, that was declined. We will have the benefit of that briefing--it will be a benefit: I am not being facetious in that respect--in two days' time, on Thursday, two days after this Unstarred Question. Question-marks keeping coming into our mind.
The individuals in this country on whom the ban will bite are, I imagine--we do not have full evidence on this--principally from rural areas. There are some rather important votes for the Government in rural areas, and I say that standing firmly on these Benches. I urge the Minister most strongly, particularly following what my noble friend Lord Montagu said, to consider the derogation to 2005 if indeed the southern Europeans members of the European Union exercise their prerogative in that respect.
I have briefly to declare three interests in speaking in the debate. First, I have an interest in transport matters in general as parliamentary adviser to the Parkman Group, a civil engineering and transportation consultancy. Secondly, I am chairman of a company called Emission Control Systems International. It markets equipment which reduces pollution and increases mpg through promoting greater combustion of the fuel and also enables, I am assured, one to drive a car on unleaded fuel that is not designed to do so. My third interest is that I am the proud owner of a Morris Minor. Now, the Morris Minor is in a quite favoured position in this. As there are around 120,000 Morris Minors on the road and as they have what one might call a cult following, there is available an almost off-the-shelf, modified cylinder head. So this will not be too much of a problem unless people want to keep their Morris Minors in completely standard condition.
Various speakers in the debate have come up with figures. I shall add some more, which were provided to me by Charles Ware, who is the guru of the Morris Minor restoration fraternity. He has gone to the lengths of having parts made for his Morris Minors in a third world country using traditional labour-intensive means and, incidentally, paying people more than the going rate. He tells me that the AA has underestimated the problem. In round figures, in the UK alone, there are 24 million cars on the road. Unleaded facilities have been available for about eight years. If we say that 1.8 million cars a year have been sold in this period, the total number of cars using unleaded fuel comes to about 14.5 million. That means that approximately 9.5 million cars on the road cannot run on unleaded fuel. Many of those cars are otherwise perfectly sound and they would have tens of thousands of miles of useful life left in them. It is therefore essential that viable solutions, by way of additives or by way of equipment such as I have mentioned, are tested in time for their implementation and take-up before 1st January 2000. If that is not done, and if my figures are accurate, I can see considerable disruption to both the motoring industry and the motoring public.
There is a wider issue here which is highlighted by the noble Lord's Question. It concerns the way we produce vehicles and the way we view consumer durables, including cars. Mr. Ware, whom I mentioned earlier, has written an excellent book called Durable Motoring. Taking the Morris Minor as an example, he compares the overall cost of buying a renovated Morris Minor and keeping it in good condition for 25 years with the overall cost of buying a series of equivalent new cars over the same period. The Morris Minor, which lends itself by virtue of its design and construction to such a programme of planned maintenance, proves conclusively to be the more economical proposition. Of course, not everyone wants to drive a Morris Minor!
I mention this because most people who own cars are already caught on something of a treadmill. They have to overcome the financial inevitability of capital depreciation and the mechanical inevitability of the physical deterioration of their cars--the result of planned obsolescence which is built into the production
Lord Monro of Langholm: My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Montagu for initiating this debate. We all know the debt we owe him for what he has done for motoring. I declare an interest as an enthusiastic driver of classic and vintage cars. The magazines Classic and Sports Car and Classic Car, the car club magazines and the Federation of British Historic Vehicle Clubs have all been doing their best to give publicity to this problem. We must try to get some answers from the Government tonight.
Why are the Government so anti-motoring, with a whacking great increase in the fuel tax and the registration fee for new cars? In particular, why are they so anti-vintage and classic motoring? Why have they stopped the rolling road fund exemption of 25 years? I understand from the press that the department is talking about the whole exemption system being scrapped as well. I find it inconceivable that the Government should go ahead and be so against what is, after all, a very attractive hobby carried out by many thousands of people who try to perpetuate the golden age of engineering in this country.
The problem before us tonight is one of lead petrol. My noble friends have given a clear indication of what the problem is. I hope the Minister will bear in mind that the cars we are talking about are, in the main, classic and vintage cars, although many cars made in the 1980s and even the 1990s will run into trouble. They are carefully driven, covering 1,000 or perhaps 2,000 miles a year, the engines are in top condition, there are minimum emissions and they are mostly used in the countryside environment where they do not add to the urban problem of pollution.
Is the Minister absolutely clear about fuel? Does four star red cause the amount of damage the Government say it does? After all, four star red accounts for a very small percentage of the overall amount of fuel used. Has she read--I suppose that everything in her Red Box is read these days--the report in the Sunday newspapers about the research of the United States Environment Protection Agency into diesel fuel which refers not only to the problem of global warming but to the possibility of cancer as well? Is she certain that her department appreciates the problems of global warming as between red and green petrol, bearing in mind the number of cars which use green or red? I believe that the department overestimates the damage that may be done by the relatively small number of classic and vintage cars which want to continue using leaded fuel.
What is to be done? My noble friends have indicated various possibilities. First, the derogation on red petrol could be extended, as the Minister is quite entitled to do within the European Union. Secondly, is she taking any steps to involve her department in scientific research into a possible additive? Is there to be more help on work on LRP, the lead replacement petrol? All this needs to be done urgently if she is not to remove the ban in the year 2000.
Over the years many additives have been produced. How many have proved to be beneficial in this case? I would like to believe that there was some active scientific research being carried out by the Minister's department to help the thousands of people, particularly those with cars built in the 1970s and 1980s, when we come to the inevitable problem.
Noble Lords on all sides of the House have raised the problem of the great expense of grinding out the valve seats and inserting new, hardened seats and guides. That is not always possible with large, four-cylinder engines because the cylinders are so close together and there is not room to bore out valve seats and insert new ones. As the noble Lord opposite said, if one has a fixed-head engine--quite a number of cars had them in the 1920s because of the difficulty of getting a tight seal with a gasket--it is very expensive and difficult to achieve.
From what noble Lords have said on all sides of the House, I hope the Minister realises that we have to find answers quickly, unless the Government are going to give a derogation, which is the obvious thing to do. We should be given two to three years more in order to help to resolve this problem. As a noble Lord said not long ago at a public meeting, the Minister has to stop the relentless pressure to make motoring with classic and historic cars impossible. I hope that she will do something about this.
Lord Steel of Aikwood: My Lords, it is a particular delight to follow the noble Lord, Lord Monro of Langholm, in this debate. He and I were constituency neighbours for three decades in the south of Scotland and we shared many harmless enthusiasms along with political differences. One of them was indeed the driving of classic cars. I agree entirely with everything that he said. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu for introducing this debate. I noticed that one Sunday paper said that I was going to be bracketed with him in this debate, to which someone unkindly said that they could think of a no more appropriate place than the House of Lords to be debating old crocks. I thought that that was not a very complimentary observation. He has, of course, a much larger collection of old crocks than I have. I have only two and I declare that interest.
One of the functions of Parliament is to stand up for minorities. There are two quite distinct minorities affected by the proposed withdrawal of leaded petrol in, let us face it, only 18 months' time. The first has already been mentioned by other noble Lords. They are the hard pressed people in rural areas such as the noble Lord, Lord Monro, and I have represented over the years. They live in areas with no public transport and no alternative. They are often on low wages and therefore drive to work in what are politely called "old bangers". I remember on one occasion having to tell a Minister of Transport that I had come across many constituents of mine who drove vehicles whose value was less than the vehicle excise duty charged each year. That is a particular minority who will be severely affected. I am not making it up. I remember one particular case in the
If my noble friend Lord McNair is right as regards the figures, it will be interesting to have the Government's reaction. The AA claims that by the start of the year 2000 around 2 million vehicles will be using four star leaded fuel. My noble friend has said that the figure is much higher, but whatever it is there is a substantial minority interest in the matter.
The second minority has already been referred to and that is the owners and drivers of classic cars. Here the responsibility of the Government is to provide clearer information as to what is happening. I find that that is what people complain about most. They say to me, "You are a Member of Parliament and surely you know what is going on". I have to reply, "Frankly, I don't". I believe that we are all in that position.
That is passing the buck. The answer is that the people who own these cars have no idea what petrol is safe in what particular cars and for what engines. As regards this whole issue one finds a certain washing of hands. The United Kingdom Petrol Industry Association, for example, in a letter to Sub-Committee B on Energy Industry and Transport, says as regards the reduction of emissions from passenger cars,
My final plea to the Government is that we need more information. Whatever decisions they are making, the matter cannot be left to the petrol industry, the British Standards Institution or the motor industry. The buck stops at the Department of Transport and we really need to know what is happening.
Lord Luke: My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow two such distinguished and erudite graduates from another place. We are all most grateful to my noble friend Lord Montagu for asking this Question. He made an excellent and most interesting speech. However, that was to be expected as there is no one better qualified to speak on the subject of vintage and veteran cars than he.
I also state a small interest. Many years ago I had one well known classic car, the Aston Martin Atom, which was a unique prototype. So I can confirm the strong feelings with which many people tend to regard their valued, and often valuable, old cars. I look forward very much to seeing the car of the noble Lord, Lord Blyth, in the car park. I have been trying to work out what sort it is, but no doubt he will tell me afterwards.
There is no real argument about the detrimental effect of lead in petrol, with the greatest respect to my noble friend Lord Monro. I believe that it has been proven that it is very unhealthy. It is also true that unleaded petrol is proven to be as satisfactory as leaded as long as it is used in a vehicle with the right engine specifications.
It seems to me that the Government have to deal with three separate but interlinked problems. One is very easy, and that is what happens to several million car users who could now, without great cost or inconvenience, switch from leaded to unleaded fuel in their cars. All that is required is some effective government publicity.
The second problem concerns an estimated 1.5 million cars in the year 2000 which will not run on anything but leaded fuel without the likelihood of serious damage to their cylinder heads. Clearly, the solution lies in an additive being found which will do the same job as lead. I understand that research has taken place and a product has even been on the market. It appears that the only delay in progressing to a solution is the fact that the British Standards Institute is going slow on its job of establishing precise standards for fuels containing lead substitutes. It appears that a legal Gordian knot needs to be cut quickly. I urge the
The third problem is the one that prompted the Unstarred Question tabled by my noble friend Lord Montagu: historic cars. I am sure that the Government are aware of the strong and growing sport of racing some of these old cars. This has been going on for about 30 years. That is why some of the additives will not do because those cars are not able to withstand racing. Are the Government aware that already some people are having expensive engine rebuilds carried out to try to eliminate the soft valve seats, because there is considerable scepticism about the proposed 0.5 per cent. of leaded fuel being available only for classic cars after the year 2000? How does one define a classic car? Is it not possible that some of the 0.5 per cent. may be converted to old bangers? How will the fuel be distributed? Will it carry petroleum tax? If so, will it not be beyond the range of all except the rich? Is it not likely that a black market in this fuel will develop? Have the Government contacted the appropriate authorities in Austria and New Zealand, where I understand that leaded fuel has been off the market for some time and adequate substitutes have been tried, tested and proven?
The question of a possible derogation for Portugal, France and Greece has been mentioned. I do not know whether that would apply to Britain even if the Government wished to pursue the ploy of social hardship. But I do not believe that it would be a very long delay even if it was done. There must be some rapid and decisive action soon; otherwise, there will be a lot of confused and angry motorists. It is important to me and to a great number of others because some great old cars will be unable to be used except with inordinate cost and trouble. They are part of our heritage and a great many people care about them. The Government must prove that they care for that part of our heritage as much as they profess to care about other parts of our heritage.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (Baroness Hayman): My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, for giving me the opportunity this evening to make clear the Government's position on this important issue, and one that we recognise is of great concern to many. That has been apparent from the contributions made to the debate. I am also grateful to the noble Lord for the recognition that the future is not as bleak as some people may fear. It may be that I should also declare an interest in that I am the only speaker in this debate who does not own a classic or historic car.
The noble Lord, Lord Steel, said that the buck stopped at the Department of Transport. Of course, it is now the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions and that is where the buck properly stops because we must look at this issue in the round. One must acknowledge, as did the noble Lord, Lord Luke, and other noble Lords, the context in which one is considering this matter; namely, the detrimental effects
I also understand the concerns about US research into diesel. We have a substantial research programme into the effect of air pollutants, including investigation of the health effects of fine particulates. I do not believe that we are neglecting that area. Nor do I believe the Government are neglecting the cause with which the noble Lord, Lord Montagu, has been associated for so long; that is, to ensure that the rich heritage of vehicles that the country enjoys is protected. The reasoning behind the negotiation of a derogation for a small ongoing supply of leaded petrol was primarily to protect the needs of classic car racing. Perhaps I may return to the categories of cars that will be affected in a moment.
Since recognition in the 1960s and 1970s in medical circles of the particular risks of exposure to lead pollution, mainly from emissions from petrol-engined vehicles, lead in petrol has been progressively reduced. Sales of unleaded petrol have been encouraged and today account for three-quarters of the market. These policies resulted in a fall in lead in UK air of some 70 per cent. in that time. This is not something that has gone on only in this country. A number of countries are ahead of Great Britain in this area. Austria, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, the USA and New Zealand have already banned or reduced to extremely low levels sales of leaded petrol. We are not operating completely in the dark. There is experience from other countries. It has been made possible by the development of alternative additives to lead which have been introduced on a widespread basis without any major problems for owners of older vehicles. It was against this background that member states unanimously adopted a ban from 2000 which has been endorsed by the European Parliament.
The Government supported the ban in line with their policy of taking action wherever practicable to reduce exposure from all sources of lead and to ensure that the general decline in UK blood lead levels continues. In areas where there is a concentration of industrial and vehicle lead emissions the ban will make a significant contribution to meeting the kind of levels recommended in the report of the Expert Panel on Air Quality Standards which was published yesterday.
Tonight much has been made of the figures. For example, the noble Lord, Lord McNair, provided some details. It may assist if I give the Government's understanding of the problem and the action that they can take to deal with various aspects. The use of leaded petrol has been steadily declining and now accounts for about 23 per cent. of total petrol sales. We predict that by January 2000 this will have fallen to about 18 per cent. There will however still be a large, though declining, number of older vehicles that will be affected by the
Of the remaining 2.3 million vehicles, leaded petrol currently performs the important function of providing lubricant protection from wear of soft valve seats in the engine. I am very nervous about lecturing noble Lords on these details. I suspect that the engineers far outnumber me. It also provides a higher octane, which many of these vehicles require. However, both of these functions can be fulfilled by practical and proven alternatives that we believe will be available. Octane needs can be met simply by owners switching to high octane fuels such as super unleaded petrol or the new lead replacement petrol. Alternatively, minor adjustments can be made to engines to compensate for the lower octane value of unleaded petrol. These are all practical and proven alternatives for vehicles that need a high octane fuel.
Alternatives also exist for those vehicles which will continue to require lubricant protection. In those countries where leaded petrol is already banned, the oil companies have provided alternatives either in the form of lead replacement petrol, containing suitable substitute additives, or by such additives being sold separately for motorists' use--and also for gardeners' use. What will deal with car engines will also deal with lawn mowers in particular.
The substitutes have, we understand, resulted in few, if any, reported problems arising from valve seat wear for vehicles operating under average, mixed day-to-day driving conditions. Where problems have occurred these have been associated with continuous high speed or high temperature operations such as may be found under high engine load conditions. Those have been referred to either in terms of where vehicles are used in a very aggressive fashion--not, as has been pointed out by noble Lords, the usual use of classic cars--or where they are towing heavy trailers or caravans for sustained periods. It is a question of avoiding prolonged use at high engine speeds or high engine loads, as these may result in very high engine temperatures. Motorists must take care to maintain the engines properly if we are to reduce the risk of valve seat recession. For most vehicles preventive measures by way of inserting hard valve seats--in those cases where we are talking about hard wear--should cost no more than £200 to £400, although I recognise that for more sophisticated and specialist vehicles the cost may be higher. It will depend largely upon the nature of the vehicle. The market experience--
Next Section Back to Table of Contents Lords Hansard Home Page | 42,646 | 16,628 | 0.00006 |
warc | 201704 | The combination of human and computer intelligence could help solve the world’s “wicked” problems. Scientists from the
Human Computation Institute (HCI) and Cornell University agree that human active interaction with machines forms a new paradigm to generate solutions to complex global problems such as climate change and international conflicts.
The study, published in the
journal Science, addresses the fact that humans and computers convey different advantages. For instance, whereas people are good at recognizing patterns and creating abstract ideas, computers are more efficient at analyzing data. The mix of those strengths can serve as an impulse to broaden the reach of multidimensional collaborative networks, which are to date limited by “micro-tasks” that are sent to many people so they can piece together bits of data.
The micro-tasking method has proven to be highly efficient, as it can be seen in the case of Wikipedia. However, it takes too long to produce significant results on a global scale. This is why researchers say real-time human interaction with supercomputers can help find solutions to far-reaching problems, as it allows more collaborative networks to operate.
That kind of large-scale conflicts for which a new approach is required implicates many systems that act simultaneously and tend to generate solutions that have unforeseen consequences, such as corruption led by financial aid given to address a natural disaster. Researchers affirm that micro tasking alone cannot face those tough challenges.
Human computation technologies allow people to have real-time access to crowd-based platforms so that individuals can work from their computer and send their contribution to the next person, who will be in charge of improving or analyzing from a different perspective. This method offers more flexibility in terms of collaborative environments, which allows people to better address the most complex issues.
This new idea is already being tested. The HCI is implementing it in order to improve research on Alzheimer’s disease. Scientists have been combining two micro-tasking systems to generate an interactive environment that makes it easier to create models of the blood flow within test mice’s brains.
“By enabling members of the general public to play some simple online game, we expect to reduce the time to treatment discovery from decades to just a few years. This gives an opportunity for anyone, including the tech-savvy generation of caregivers and early stage AD patients, to take the matter into their own hands”, said HCI director and lead study author Dr. Pietro Michelucci.
Moreover, scientists from the Cornell University are working on YardMap.org, a human computation project launched in 2012 to map global conservation efforts. It enables people to share and build on each other’s work through a map-based social network, aiming to produce scalable changes in terms of global conservation.
Pietro Michelucci, head of the Virginia Institute and co-author on the Science column, pointed out that the collaboration has to be “fun, easy and quick” to attract millions of people.
Source:
Neuroscience News | 3,232 | 1,595 | 0.000642 |
warc | 201704 | Adult Orthodontics
Adult patients present a challenge to orthodontists because they have high
esthetic demands and often have dental conditions that complicate treatment.
In many adults, “black triangular” spaces develop between both maxillary and
mandibular incisors with the orthodontic treatment. This is seen particularly in
patients with pretreatment overlapping of incisors, or triangularly shaped incisor
crowns. The loss of the interdental papillae associated with the treatment may
be of concern to the patients, particularly when the gingival papillae were intact
at the start of treatment. The size of the dark spaces seems to be largely dependent
on the extent of pretreatment incisor overlap, and patients with wide-open
gingival embrasures posttreatment may consider these spaces to be unattractive.
What is the present research knowledge regarding the underlying causes
of the development of “black triangles,” and how can the practitioner modify
these factors to prevent, reduce, or eliminate their development and thus
enhance the esthetic outcome of orthodontic therapy? | 1,124 | 584 | 0.001769 |
warc | 201704 | bankrate.com
Dear Debt Adviser: My question is regarding school debt. I am seven years into a 25-year Stafford loan.
I pay $244 a month, and the interest rate is fixed at 3.13 percent.
I have saved well beyond a six-month cash reserve, but I'm curious if it makes sense to pay off this loan early.
My other debt is a 15-year fixed mortgage at 3.5 percent and a zero percent car loan with 23 months left.
Is it smart to dump such a large amount of cash to pay off a low-interest loan? Thank you. -- Rod
Dear Rod: Great job so far! You have successfully managed your money to the point that you are in a positive cash-flow position and have a substantial emergency savings account in place.
You are now ready for phase two of financial success.
Based on the information you have given me, my answer to your question is no, I don't think you should pay off your low-interest student loan.
I believe you can put your money to work for you in better ways. Here's how.
Because your debts are manageable and at appropriate terms, I believe you should leave them alone and set some more advanced financial goals and work on funding them.
Short- to medium-term goals are those that take from less than a year to three years to fund. Long-term goals are those that take more than three years to fund.
Short- to medium-term goals could be saving for the next car, a wedding, a vacation, graduate school and so on. Long-term goals could be retirement.
Don't make the mistake of thinking of retirement as an old person's game.
You can be financially independent to do whatever you want, when you want. Isn't that more interesting?
I asked financial planning expert Marcy Person at Person Wealth Management Solutions for her thoughts, and she suggested that you use some of your surplus income to fund or increase the contributions to your 401(k), if you have one at work.
This is especially valuable for you if your employer has a matching program, or if you are in a high tax bracket or in need of deductions.
If taxes aren't an issue, she suggested a Roth individual retirement account or a Roth 401(k) as great alternatives, and the younger you are, the better.
Since you have enough income to service your debt, and the rate is fixed at 3.13 percent, she also advises that investing the cash would be a better choice than paying off the loan over time.
"Although the short-term returns may not always appear to exceed the cost of borrowing, the long-term result of investing in a tax-deferred investment will usually far exceed the current low cost on the loan," Person said.
I also want you to start funding other, more fun financial goals: summer trips, a down payment on your next new car or a hot tub for the backyard, for example.
Also, I'd be in favor of revisiting your emergency savings account and adding to it until you reach one year of living expenses.
Six months seems like a long time, but the job market is not so hot right now and a search can take much longer.
So if you can buy some extra time with a bigger account, that's a good thing.
If you still have some money to burn after you have developed a plan to fund your new goals, consider beginning an investment program.
A good financial planner will help you determine how and what investments might best work into your goals and long-term plans.
Steve Bucci is the author of "Credit Management Kit for Dummies." Email him at debtadviser@bankrate.com. See more Debt Adviser columns at Bankrate.com. Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.shns.com. | 3,550 | 1,740 | 0.00058 |
warc | 201704 | July 9, 2009 Tests can tell Alzheimer’s from dementia
Alzheimer's disease and dementia affect memory and behavior but have different causes and require different treatment, Australian researchers say.
Jane Mathias and Jennifer Burke, both from the University of Adelaide, analyzed 81 previously published studies that compared the cognitive testing of people diagnosed with dementia of the Alzheimer's and vascular type. The average age across participants was 75.Of the 118 different tests that were used in more than one study, Mathias and Burke found only two were able adequately to differentiate between Alzheimer's and vascular dementia.
Emotional Recognition Task and Delayed Story Recall were the only tests that appeared to reliably tell the two groups apart.
People with Alzheimer's were better at the Emotional Recognition Task -- the ability to identify facial expressions in photographs and match emotional expressions to situations. People with vascular dementia were better at Delayed Story Recall.
Many commonly used tests -- repeating a set of numbers forward and backward, verbal fluency, drawing tasks -- were unable to distinguish between dementia types.
While these tests may assist in diagnosing dementia, they do not adequately discriminate between Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia, the study authors said.
The findings are published in Neuropsychology. | 1,399 | 720 | 0.001403 |
warc | 201704 | At its heart Catastrophism is about the loss of faith that haunts radical left-wing politics. Through a series of short essays by prominent US writers and activists it maps out the consequences of an end in the belief that radical change can come from mass politics – that is, from organising. In place of organising Catastrophism outlines two ways of doing politics.
The first mode of politics is a kind of determinism: the very nature of capitalism will bring about its demise. Sasha Lilley’s essay gives a good overview of the history of this idea among the left. In its various guises it proposes that there is no need to organise, only wait. The end – through economic crisis or environmental collapse – is coming no matter what we do.
The second is in many ways the very opposite – the truth of the impending crisis and the very fact of its imminent arrival will awaken the sleeping masses and provoke them to action. This idea – that it is the left’s role to bring the truth of the world to the masses, and that this will move them to revolt – is at the heart of much of the radical left and broader environmental movement.
But as Catastrophism points out, this is often far from the case. Truth does not necessarily lead to action. Actually, when it comes to catastrophe and disaster, the truth can play a demobilising as well as mobilising role.
The book doesn’t make a neat connection between the two modes of politics and catastrophe. The history of each as outlined in the book rather speaks to the idea that the radical left has moved between these two positions throughout its history. Determinism and volunteerism would seem to be the two dominant reference points of radical left politics.
Where Catastrophism comes into its own is in identifying both that these points of reference are part of the general problem of left-wing politics at the moment, and that it is in times of crisis that they become even stronger tendencies. The author’s call for an environmental and left-wing politics animated by a faith in people’s ability to change the world is all the more timely.
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Utopia: Work less play more
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Bike courier Maggie Dewhurst takes on the gig economy… and wins
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Utopia: Daring to dream
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Utopia: Room for all
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'The emergence as a potential party of government is testament both to the richness of Spanish radical culture and the inventiveness of activists such as Errejón' - Jacob Mukherjee reviews Errejón and Mouffe's latest release
Survival Shake! – creative ways to resist the system
Social justice campaigner Sakina Sheikh describes a project to embolden young people through the arts
‘We don’t want to be an afterthought’: inside Momentum Kids
If Momentum is going to meet the challenge of being fully inclusive, a space must be provided for parents, mothers, carers, grandparents and children, write Jessie Hoskin and Natasha Josette
The Kurdish revolution – a report from Rojava
Peter Loo is supporting revolutionary social change in Northern Syria.
How to make your own media
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Book Review: The EU: an Obituary
Tim Holmes takes a look at John Gillingham's polemical history of the EU
Book Review: The End of Jewish Modernity
Author Daniel Lazar reviews Enzo Traverso's The End of Jewish Modernity
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Book review: Angry White People: Coming Face to Face With the British Far-Right
Hilary Aked gets close up with the British far right in Hsiao-Hung Pai's latest release
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Sheldon Ridley spoke to students taking part in their first national demonstration.
Book Review: The Day the Music Died – a Memoir
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Power Games: A Political History
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Book Review: Sex, Needs and Queer Culture: from liberation to the post-gay
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'In spite of the odds Corbyn is still standing' - Alex Doherty reviews Seymour's analysis of the rise of Corbyn
From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation
'A small manifesto for black liberation through socialist revolution' - Graham Campbell reviews Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor's 'From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation'
The abolition of Art History A-Level will exacerbate social inequality
This is a massive blow to the rights of ordinary kids to have the same opportunities as their more privileged peers. Danielle Child reports.
Mass civil disobedience in Sudan
A three-day general strike has brought Sudan to a stand still as people mobilise against the government and inequality. Jenny Nelson writes.
Mustang film review: Three fingers to Erdogan
Laura Nicholson reviews Mustang, Deniz Gamze Erguven’s unashamedly feminist film critique of Turkey’s creeping conservatism
What if the workers were in control?
Hilary Wainwright reflects on an attempt by British workers to produce a democratically determined alternative plan for their industry
Airport expansion is a racist policy
Climate change is a colonial crisis, writes Jo Ram
Momentum Kids: the parental is political
Momentum Kids is not about indoctrinating children, but rather the more radical idea that children have an important role to play in shaping the future, writes Kristen Hope | 7,979 | 3,875 | 0.000266 |
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