text
stringlengths 213
24.6k
| id
stringlengths 47
47
| dump
stringclasses 1
value | url
stringlengths 14
499
| file_path
stringlengths 138
138
| language
stringclasses 1
value | language_score
float64 0.9
1
| token_count
int64 51
4.1k
| score
float64 1.5
5.06
| int_score
int64 2
5
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Regardless of a policy’s form, the National Complete Streets Coalition has identified ten elements of a comprehensive Complete Streets policy, as discussed below. For more details on writing a strong, appropriate policy for your community, see our Complete Streets Local Policy Workbook (.pdf).
An ideal Complete Streets policy:
- Includes a vision for how and why the community wants to complete its streets
- Specifies that ‘all users’ includes pedestrians, bicyclists and transit passengers of all ages and abilities, as well as trucks, buses and automobiles.
- Applies to both new and retrofit projects, including design, planning, maintenance, and operations, for the entire right of way.
- Makes any exceptions specific and sets a clear procedure that requires high-level approval of exceptions.
- Encourages street connectivity and aims to create a comprehensive, integrated, connected network for all modes.
- Is adoptable by all agencies to cover all roads.
- Directs the use of the latest and best design criteria and guidelines while recognizing the need for flexibility in balancing user needs.
- Directs that Complete Streets solutions will complement the context of the community.
- Establishes performance standards with measurable outcomes.
- Includes specific next steps for implementation of the policy
Sets a vision
A strong vision can inspire a community to follow through on its Complete Streets policy. Just as no two policies are alike, visions are not one-size-fits-all either. In the small town of Decatur, GA, the Community Transportation Plan defines their vision as promoting health through physical activity and active transportation. In the City of Chicago, the Department of Transportation focuses on creating streets safe for travel by even the most vulnerable – children, older adults, and those with disabilities.
Specifies all users
A true Complete Streets policy must apply to everyone traveling along the road. A sidewalk without curb ramps is useless to someone using a wheelchair. A street with an awkwardly placed public transportation stop without safe crossings is dangerous for riders. A fast-moving road with no safe space for cyclists will discourage those who depend on bicycles for transportation. A road with heavy freight traffic must be planned with those vehicles in mind. Older adults and children face particular challenges as they are more likely to be seriously injured or killed along a roadway. Automobiles are an important part of a ‘complete’ street as well, as any change made to better accommodate other modes will have an effect on personal vehicles too. In some cases, like the installation of curb bulb-outs, these changes can improve traffic flow and the driving experience.
For many years, multi-modal streets have been treated as ‘special projects’ requiring extra planning, funding, and effort. The Complete Streets approach is different. Its intent is to view all transportation improvements as opportunities to create safer, more accessible streets for all users, including pedestrians, cyclists, and public transportation passengers. Under this approach, even small projects can be an opportunity to make meaningful improvements. In repaving projects, for example, an edge stripe can be shifted to create more room for cyclists. In routine work on traffic lights, the timing can be changed to better accommodate pedestrians walking at a slower speed. A strong Complete Streets policy will integrate Complete Streets planning into all types of projects, including new construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation, repair, and maintenance.
Making a policy work in the real world requires developing a process to handle exceptions to providing for all modes in each project. The Federal Highway Administration’s guidance on accommodating bicycle and pedestrian travel named three exceptions that have become commonly used in Complete Streets policies: 1) accommodation is not necessary on corridors where non-motorized use is prohibited, such as interstate freeways; 2) cost of accommodation is excessively disproportionate to the need or probable use; 3) a documented absence of current or future need. Many communities have included their own exceptions, such as severe topological constraints. In addition to defining exceptions, there must be a clear process for granting them, where a senior-level department head must approve them. Any exceptions should be kept on record and publicly-available.
Creates a network
Complete Streets policies should result in the creation of a complete transportation network for all modes of travel. A network approach helps to balance the needs of all users. Instead of trying to make each street perfect for every traveler, communities can create an interwoven array of streets that emphasize different modes and provide quality accessibility for everyone. This can mean creating bicycle boulevards to speed along bicycle travel on certain low-traffic routes; dedicating more travel lanes to bus travel only; or pedestrianizing segments of routes that are already overflowing with people on foot. It is important to provide basic safe access for all users regardless of design strategy and networks should not require some users to take long detours.
All agencies and all roads
Creating Complete Streets networks is difficult because many agencies control our streets. They are built and maintained by state, county, and local agencies, and private developers often build new roads. Typical Complete Streets policies cover only one jurisdiction’s roadways, which can cause network problems: a bike lane on one side of a bridge disappears on the other because the road is no longer controlled by the agency that built the lane. Another common issue to resolve is inclusion of Complete Streets elements in sub-division regulations, which govern how private developers build their new streets.
Communities adopting a Complete Streets policy should review their design policies to ensure their ability to accommodate all modes of travel, while still providing flexibility to allow designers to tailor the project to unique circumstances. Some communities will opt to re-write their design manual. Others will refer to existing design guides, such as those issued by AASHTO, state design standards, and the Americans with Disabilities Act Accessibility Guidelines.
An effective Complete Streets policy must be sensitive to the community context. Being clear about this in the initial policy statement can allay fears that the policy will require inappropriately wide roads in quiet neighborhoods or miles of little-used sidewalks in rural areas. A strong statement about context can help align transportation and land use planning goals, creating livable, strong neighborhoods.
The traditional performance measure for transportation planning has been vehicular Level of Service (LOS) – a measure of automobile congestion. Complete Streets planning requires taking a broader look at how the system is serving all users. Communities with Complete Streets policies can measure success through a number of ways: the miles of on-street bicycle routes created; new linear feet of pedestrian accommodation; changes in the number of people using public transportation, bicycling, or walking (mode shift); number of new street trees; and/or the creation or adoption of a new multi-modal Level of Service standard that better measures the quality of travel experience. The fifth edition of Highway Capacity Manual, due out in 2010, will include this new way of measuring LOS. Cities like San Francisco and Charlotte have already begun to develop their own.
Taking a Complete Streets policy from paper into practice is not easy, but providing some momentum with specific implementation steps can help. Some policies establish a task force or commission to work toward policy implementation. There are four key steps for successful implementation: 1) Restructure procedures to accommodate all users on every project; 2) Develop new design policies and guides; 3) Offer workshops and other educational opportunities to transportation professionals, community leaders, and residents; and 4) Institute better ways to measure performance and collect data on how well the streets are serving all users. | <urn:uuid:e110775a-1378-435a-8940-6cafc8be8a76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/complete-streets/changing-policy/policy-elements | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925769 | 1,527 | 2.28125 | 2 |
To kids, few things are as captivating as an honest-to-goodness fort. They might call it the clubhouse, the hideaway or any of a thousand secret names, but it's all the same--a place built by them, for them, using easy-to-find materials, a few tools and lots of imagination. Like the two-room fort you see here, built of sticks, rocks, rope and that most prized of childhood possessions, an old refrigerator box.
As special as it is to kids, we parents sometimes need to be reminded of what a fort is all about. (We're getting older and, well, forgetful at times.) Fortunately, kids know it's their duty to set us straight--politely, of course. As a writer of children's books and a former teacher who has spent more than his share of time around kid fort-builders, I've sat in on many of these Forts 101 adult education courses. Here's what I've learned.
LESSON NUMBER 1: Nothing can compare to a fort that kids make by hand with stuff they find lying around (not something ordered out of a catalog and delivered by two men in a big truck). Of course, kids can always ask for their parents' help, especially if Mom or Dad has some extra plywood lying around or some cool tools the kids need to borrow.
LESSON NUMBER 2: There's more than one way to use a fort. Sometimes kids want privacy; other times they want a gathering spot, a play area or a sprawling camp-out shelter.
LESSON NUMBER 3: There are some things about a fort that a kid can't divulge. These include how to open the secret storage vault that holds the club's treasures, or the fort's secret password, handshakes and knocks.
LESSON NUMBER 4: Forts are first and foremost for fun. Keeping this in mind, some kids might just decide to forget the secret stuff and make their fort a public place, open to anybody, even grown-ups.
LESSON NUMBER 5: If it's a real, honest-to-goodness fort, no one ever wants to leave.
SAFETY NOTE TO KIDS As with most things that are fun, building a fort has its hazards, too. So be careful: Think before you begin, ask for help with tools, and have an adult inspect your fort (just like they do with real houses) before you move in. | <urn:uuid:b5fab67e-fb7a-44e2-9db7-b4a3c13601bc> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://spoonful.com/crafts/the-perfect-fort | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966024 | 512 | 2.109375 | 2 |
Since 1991, our dedicated corps of Citizen Monitoring volunteers have been taking water samples on a regular basis throughout Delaware's coastal watershed to measure a broad range of important water quality characteristics. The data they gather provides scientists and resource managers with a clearer picture of the estuary's health and the trend information needed to understand and manage the ecosystem.
We invite you to explore our activities and learn more about what our volunteers are doing to help improve the health of Delaware's water resource. Perhaps you, too, will want to take part in providing the timely and accurate data that complements the state's other monitoring programs.
Meet some of the program’s leaders and citizen volunteers here. | <urn:uuid:d68ebf1f-c2f8-450a-8f76-af07a04f4701> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://citizen-monitoring.udel.edu/index.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942224 | 136 | 1.945313 | 2 |
Someone might as well benefit from all those SATs I took last year.
And the Books page (my personal passion), well, stay tuned. If I learned nothing else last year, I have a visceral understanding now that everything takes more time than I think it will.
- Score Decline: College Board Report on SAT Score Decline, 1977. Think: Mad Men meets the SAT. Fun to read...nostalgia.
- Fair Test Rules: The SAT Standard Testing Room Manual published by ETS. READ PAGES 1-11 before taking the SAT (CAPs and BOLD on purpose, for emphasis). Know your rights as a test taker. You deserve a fair test experience. Not knowing your rights could be reflected in your score (said from firsthand experience). Read this post for more details.
- Looking for your old SAT Scores? Click on this College Board link and follow the directions.
- 3 FREE Official College Board SATs: January 2006 SAT, October 2005 SAT, and March 2005 SAT.
- Best SAT Sites: Credible information without having to wade through the College Board's site (overwhelming) or College Confidential (the wild west): Erik the Red, PWNtheSAT, Ultimate SAT Verbal.
More more more tk soon.....
llustrations by Jennifer Orkin Lewis | <urn:uuid:b6618583-6ebd-42ef-8e54-5d4e2f03df95> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://perfectscoreproject.com/2012/01/slowly-but-surely-filling-up-the-site-with-sat-tips-and-resources/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90212 | 274 | 1.84375 | 2 |
SEATTLE -- State and King County officials are discouraging voters from handing over their mail-in ballots to people offering to collect them and drop them off for you.
Secretary of State Sam Reed and state elections co-director Katie Blinn say the state has regulations for transporting ballots that volunteers may not follow.
King County Executive Dow Constantine and county elections Director Sheril Huff say it's legal, but not a good idea to hand over a ballot to someone you don't know.
The Seattle Times reports (http://is.gd/qeiDYb) concerns were raised about the "GOP Victory Van program." State Republican Party Chairman Kirby Wilbur says it was aimed at helping GOP voters in the suburbs, where there are few drop boxes. Republicans say Democrats have been collecting some ballots from their supporters for years. | <urn:uuid:45b79001-39bd-4116-9ff5-e4a9856d3bb0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.krem.com/news/local/WA-election-officials-discourage-ballot-collection-177294391.html?ref=prev | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967776 | 165 | 1.625 | 2 |
María Agui Carter is an award-winning filmmaker, scholar, and President of Iguana Films, a film and New Media company focusing on culture, politics, and history. A graduate of Harvard University, and former staff producer for WGBH Boston, Maria was the only woman director featured in Discovery En Espanol’s Hispanic Heritage Month for her dramatic short, Cleats. Over a dozen of her documentaries have broadcast on public television. She has been a visiting scholar at Harvard University, Tulane and Brandeis, as well as the recipient of Warren, Rockefeller, and CPB fellowships. Her latest production, No Job for a Woman, on women war journalists, opened at the UN Women's Film Festival. Her new film Rebel, a feature dramatized documentary based on the memoir of a Cuban woman soldier of the American Civil War is slated for PBS. She has been a member of the Writer's Guild of America since 2000. | <urn:uuid:58f12b26-29bf-4a75-925c-363ac8c4a150> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nalip.org/media-view.php?id=14 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696383156/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092623-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962153 | 193 | 1.554688 | 2 |
There are two Latin American festivals going on – can you guess where they are? Neither of these festivals are located in Latin America, or even in the United States. Do you give up? The first festival is in its fourth year and takes place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; the second festival is in its sixth year and is happening right now in Seoul, South Korea.
The sights, sounds and smells of countries from all over Latin America filled Kuala Lumpur's Bukit Bintang Park last Sunday. Visitors to the event were treated to booths selling foods and handicrafts from Latin America as well as performances which included everything from capoeira, a Brazilian martial art, to the tango and other dances. Organized by Latin American Embassies in Malaysia, the event provided representatives from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, who worked in collaboration with the Latin American Ladies Association.
Latin America is a continent with a very ancient history, [and it] possesses one of the most dynamic, varied and colorful cultures in the world
- Venezuelan Ambassador Manuel Antonio Guzman Hernandez
Venezuelan Ambassador Manuel Antonio Guzman Hernandez opened the one-day event saying, "Latin America is a continent with a very ancient history, [and it] possesses one of the most dynamic, varied and colorful cultures in the world."
The second event going on in Seoul, South Korea is called the 2012 Latin American Cultural Festival and features multiple photo and art exhibitions, musical performances and lectures which started May 26th and go until June 9th. This year's program is under the slogan, "Latin fever, meets Korea," and is intended to be a cross-cultural exchange celebrating the 50th year of diplomatic relations between Korea and Latin America.
Tracy López is a bilingual writer living outside the Washington DC metro area. She is the founder of Latinaish.com. | <urn:uuid:14b1feb0-b427-4e93-a9f5-3060d2fcb214> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2012/05/25/latin-festivals-big-in-asia/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960812 | 389 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Origin of this Holiday
Our research did not find the creator, or the origin of this day.
It is possible this holiday may of been created by the greeting card industry because we find reference to it on greeting card sites-
"Peculiar People Day is just another weird event to celebrate the peculiarity in one's personality." "Have fun with your friends or sweetheart by doing something really peculiar." "Send crazy and funny Peculiar People Day greetings
Why January and Why the 10th day?
We did not find any reference to why the month of January or why the 10th of the month was picked to celebrate this day.
This holiday is referred to as a "National" day- However, we did not find any congressional records or presidential proclamations for this day. Even though we didn't, this is still a holiday that is publicized to celebrate.
So enjoy the day and have fun with it.
We found recognition from calendar sites and personal Internet sites that blog and share information about this holiday. Some sites talk about all the peculiar people they've met and what made them so peculiar. After all, life would be so boreing if we didn't have uniquely different people now wouldn't it!
How can I Celebrate this holiday?
- Find something peculiar about yourself! - Chances are, you to can find something peculiar about yourself if you look hard enough. Make a game of it with friends. Let each person tell what they think is peculiar about themselves. Be careful- you don't want to tell why you think the person beside you is peculiar- you may get slapped. Plus you don't want to hurt anyones feelings now do you. It's ok to talk about yourself though-
- Every Holiday deserves a party! - Get ready for your next party by shopping for the lastest supplies to make your holday a real hit. We found a place that sales products for children and adult parties both.
- Send Free Internet Invitations! - If your ready to get together with your friends don't forget to invite them by email with these fun Internet Invitations. They are always fun & FREE!
Other Names for Perculiar
Out of the ordinary; odd; curious; unusual.
un-ordinary, extraordinary, strange, uncommon, intriguing, wacky, weird, different, abnormal, and quirky.
Other January Holidays around the world
When is this holiday celebrated?
Peculiar People Day is celebrated annually on
January 10 in the United States!
Happy Holidays everyone!
Today is not the day to poke fun. On this day we are encouraged to honor peculiar people in our life! | <urn:uuid:69598954-62b9-424b-adbc-f57d6ad2fd66> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.gone-ta-pott.com/peculiar_people_day.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00042-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.942431 | 552 | 2.5625 | 3 |
The era of digital medicine just got one step closer to reality. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has for the first time approved a digestible device — a sand-particle sized microchip that can be embedded in drugs to monitor patients' response to treatment, according to a new report in Nature.
The device is currently only approved for use with placebos but Proteus Digital Health, which is developing the technology, hopes approval with other drugs will be forthcoming in the near future. Co-founder and chief medical officer for Proteus George Savage tells Nature the enhanced pills could be used to treat everything from drug-resistant tuberculosis to diabetes.
"The point is not for doctors to castigate people, but to understand how people are responding to treatments," Savage tells Nature. "This way doctors can prescribe a different dose or a different medicine if they learn that it's not being taken appropriately."
So how does this digital pill work? The sensor itself is made of a tiny silicon chip containing trace amounts of magnesium and copper. When a patient swallows it, the pill generates slight voltage which responds to digestive juices. The voltage sends a signal to a patch worn by the patient, which transmits relevant information to a healthcare provider's mobile device.
If that sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, get ready for a whole new world of healthcare. Nature reports similar technologies in the works include implantable devices that wirelessly inject drugs at pre-specified times and sensors that would deliver a patient's electrocardiogram to their smartphone.
Would you feel comfortable ingesting a digital pill? Tell us what you thing of this medical breakthrough in the comments below. | <urn:uuid:9e114db1-6063-4451-90c4-d903032b1421> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://mashable.com/2012/08/02/fda-digestible-device/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00050-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93737 | 344 | 2.875 | 3 |
Summary: Acclaimed by a wide range of experts, The "God" Part of the Brain is a classic. Matthew Alper presents a stunning argument: that our brain is hardwired to believe in a God. He offers a scientific explanation that we inherit an evolutionary mechanism that allows us to cope with our greatest terror - death.
The author also evokes his personal odyssey as he sought to understand why mankind created the concept of a higher power to deal with the fear a ...show morend terror we experience due to our species' unique awareness of the inevitability of death.
The "God" Part of the Brain has sparked praise by scientists such as E.O. Wilson, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner; E. Fuller Torry, "the most famous psychiatrist in America"; and Arnold Sadwin, former Chief of Neuropsychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. The book has been adopted by universities across the country.
Praise for The "God" Part of the Brain
"This cult classic in many ways parallels Rene Descartes' search for reliable and certain knowledge...Drawing on such disciplines as philosophy, psychology, and biology, Alper argues that belief in a spiritual realm is an evolutionary coping method that developed to help humankind deal with the fear of death...Highly recommended."
- Library Journal
"I very much enjoyed the account of your spiritual journey and believe it would make excellent reading for every college student - the resultant residence-hall debates would be the best part of their education. It often occurs to me that if, against all odds, there is a judgmental God and heaven, it will come to pass that when the pearly gates open, those who had the valor to think for themselves will be escorted to the head of the line, garlanded, and given their own personal audience."
- Edward O. Wilson, two-time Pulitzer Prize-Winner
"This is an essential book for those in search of a scientific understanding of man's spiritual nature. Matthew Alper navigates the reader through a labyrinth of intriguing questions and then offers undoubtedly clear answers that lead to a better understanding of our objective reality."
- Elena Rusyn, MD, PhD; Gray Laboratory; Harvard Medical School
"What a wonderful book you have written. It was not only brilliant and provocative but also revolutionary in its approach to spirituality as an inherited trait."
- Arnold Sadwin, MD, former chief of Neuropsychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania
"A lively manifesto...For the discipline's specific application to the matter at hand, I've seen nothing that matches the fury of The 'God' Part of the Brain, which perhaps explains why it's earned something of a cult following."
"All 6 billion plus inhabitants of Earth should be in possession of this book. Alper's tome should be placed in the sacred writings' section of libraries, bookstores, and dwellings throughout the world. Matthew Alper is the new Galileo...Immensely important...Defines in a clear and concise manner what each of us already knew but were afraid to admit and exclaim."
- John Scoggins, PhD
"Vibrant ... vivacious. An entertaining and provocative introduction to speculations concerning the neural basis of spirituality."
- Free Inquiry Magazine ...show less | <urn:uuid:5703bdf5-8cfa-4ab6-a0dd-13147817bae3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.textbooks.com/God-Part-of-the-Brain-Scientific-Interpretation-of-Human-Spirituality-and-God-09-Edition/9781402214523/Matthew-Alper.php?mpcond=Good | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00066-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948142 | 676 | 1.875 | 2 |
A somewhat contentious debate among the behavioural sciences is currently underway concerning Mayr’s division of causal explanations in evolutionary theory. Here I’m going to give you a brief rundown of two papers in particular, before I chip in my two-cents about how other insights from the theoretical literature can inform this debate. It seems the discussion is just getting started with respect to cultural evolution, so it’d be interesting to hear other peoples’ comments from either camp.
Over the years, evolutionary theorists have tried to make logical divisions between the kinds of things we can ask about, with a view to making it clear what exactly scientific studies can tell us. A dominant paradigm dividing two levels of causation for biological features we see in the world is Mayr’s distinction between ultimate and proximate causes. Ultimate causation explains the proliferation of a trait in a population in terms of the evolutionary forces acting on that trait. For example, peahens that prefer peacocks with larger tails (an honest signal of fitness following the handicap principle) will have stronger or more successful offspring, and so this preference proliferates along with larger peacock tails. Proximate causation uses immediate physiological and environmental factors to explain a particular peahen’s penchant for a large-tailed peacock in a mate choice trial, where the signal of the peacock’s large tail elevates the hormone levels in the peahen and copulatory behaviour ensues. Although the behaviour in both of these examples is the same, the levels of explanation are based on different sets of factors.
In Perspectives on Psychological Science last year, a paper by Scott-Phillips, Dickins and West voiced some concerns about these two levels of causation being conflated in the behavioural sciences. In particular, they addressed instances where proximate explanations of traits are being framed as ultimate ones. The paper points specifically to studies of the evolution of cooperation, transmitted culture and epigenetics to illustrate this. Regarding the evolution of cooperation, they point to an instance where ‘strong reciprocity’ (an individual’s propensity to reward cooperative norms and sanction violation of these norms) is purported to be an ultimate explanation of why humans cooperate, rather than a proximate mechanism that enables such cooperation.
Table 1 from Scott-Phillips et al. (2011), highlight added.
Among the examples was the feature of linguistic structure (see table 1 from paper above), where several studies pointed to the cultural transmission process as an ultimate explanation of linguistic structure. They suggest that cultural transmission constitutes a proximate process, because it gives the means by which linguistic structure is expressed – and this is how cultural transmission contributes to what the linguistic structure looks like. One analogy might be that the vibrating of my particular vocal cords is a proximate mechanism giving rise, in part, to how my voice sounds, rather than an ultimate explanation of why I vocalise. Since an ultimate account must suggest how a trait contributes to inclusive fitness in order to explain its prevalence in humans, they uncontroversially venture that the ultimate rationale for the ubiquity of linguistic structure is that it greater enables communication (and therefore increases inclusive fitness by enabling cooperative activity).
An opposing view was later published in Science by Laland, Sterelny, Odling-Smee et al., who suggest that the use of Mayr’s division of ultimate and proximate causation is not helpful to all evolutionary investigations, and even hampers progress. The grounds for rejecting Mayr’s paradigm seem to lie largely in what Laland et al. term “reciprocal causation”. That is, that “proximate mechanisms both shape and respond to selection, allowing developmental processes to feature in proximate and ultimate explanations”. After aligning proximate explanations with ontogeny and ultimate explanations with phylogeny, they suggest that what we may have called ultimate and proximate features are no longer sharply delineated, and that these reciprocal processes mean that the source of selection sometimes cannot be separated. They present an idea from the field of evolutionary-developmental biology that, if a developmental process makes some variant of a trait more likely to arise than others, then this proximate mechanism helps to construct an “evolutionary pathway”.
Figure 2 from Laland et al. (2011)
The paper also highlights developmental plasticity, and gene-environment interaction more broadly (see fig. 2 from paper, above), as a process where reciprocal causation offers an evolutionary explanation conceptually comparable to ultimate causation. Talking specifically on the topic of linguistic structure, they present the debate about whether specific design features of language are attributable to biological or cultural evolution. The paper points out that cultural evolution determines features of linguistic structure – for example, word order – and that the existing word order determines that of future speakers. Indeed, at the Edinburgh LEC we know that transmission by iterated inductive inference under general conditions can explain particular structures in languages. That cultural evolution determines the variation between languages, Laland et al. say, provides evidence that it is an evolutionary force comparable to natural selection (and, therefore, ultimate explanation).
What follows is a collection of my thoughts on the matter, which are (spoiler alert) largely in support of the Scott-Phillips et al. paper. I hope others more experienced in cultural evolution studies than I will contribute their perspective.
It seems to me that there are a few assumptions made in the Laland et al. paper that are not quite in line with how Mayr himself understood the paradigm, and perhaps much can be learned from this debate’s previous incarnation when Richard C. Francis made similar arguments against the ultimate/proximate distinction in 1990. In his critique, he equated ultimate causation with phylogeny and proximate causation with ontogeny – an approach that was rebuked by Mayr in 1993, who made the point that “all physiological activities are proximately caused, but is a reflex an ontogenetic phenomenon?” Mayr’s response is actually rather unhelpful in addressing the arguments fully, and this statement is particularly dense. But what he is getting at here is the idea that interaction with the environment that gives rise to adaptive behaviours (such as recoiling instantly from a hot stove) is itself subject to selection, and thus constitutes a proximate explanation of causation. Relatedly, he points out that most components of the phenotype are indeed the result of genetic contribution and interaction with the environment, which has been successfully explored in biology within the traditional theoretical paradigm.
A perhaps more nuanced account of how we can divide the possible explanations of biological phenomena is offered by Tinbergen in his “four questions”, where ultimate explanations are further subdivided into Function (concerning the adaptive solution to a survival problem favoured by natural selection) and Phylogeny, which is a historical account of when the trait arose in the species, and importantly includes processes other than natural selection that give rise to variation – such as mutation, drift and the constraints imposed by pre-existing traits (see blind spot example below). Proximate explanations are further split into Mechanism (immediate physiological/environmental factors causal in how the trait operates in the individual) and Ontogeny (the way in which this trait develops over the lifetime of the individual). As a simple example, here is the paradigm applied to a trait like mammalian vision that I lifted from Wikipedia:
Function: To find food and avoid danger.
Phylogeny: The vertebrate eye initially developed with a blind spot, but the lack of adaptive intermediate forms prevented the loss of the blind spot.
Causation: The lens of the eye focuses light on the retina
Ontogeny: Neurons need the stimulation of light to wire the eye to the brain within a critical period (as those awful studies of blindfolded kittens illustrated).
A schematic below, adapted from Tinbergen (1963) shows how these levels of causation may interact with one another, which appears to communicate something roughly comparable to the importance Laland et al. place on “reciprocal causation” in the formation of adaptive variants:
Adapted from Tinbergen (1963); Causal Relationships
Applied the to debate outlined above, it would seem that there is no apparent reason that a process of gene-environment interaction – including the cultural environment – can’t itself be subject to selection, or that developmental plasticity itself is not an adaptation in need of an ultimate explanation. It has long been the case that behaviour is no longer understood as either “nature” or “nurture”, but gene-environment interaction, with varying levels of heredity. The “reciprocal causation” suggested in Laland et al.’s paper, is (as they point out) very common in nature; feedback loops are uncontroversial proximate processes in biology. That a proximate process may give rise to a dominant variant of a trait in a population does not explain why it is adaptive, and this points to another problem with the proposing the abandonment of Mayr’s paradigm: a logical division of levels of explanation doesn’t seem to be the sort of thing that can be rendered outdated by empirical evidence. Indeed, claims about the particulars of traits and processes (and languages) themselves are a matter for empirical data – but the theoretical issue about the level of explanation that data is useful for does not itself seem to be subject to empirical findings.
The finding that a proximate process such as cultural transmission gives rise to a trait that is prolific in a population is itself exciting and surprising, and even shows us that the pressure for making language easier to learn gives us adaptive languages to learn; however, it could be argued that it is this process that is adaptive, and that the reason why humans so heavily rely on this process is an ultimate explanation.
One way of resolving these two perspectives may be to place cultural processes that give rise to variation at the level of what Tinbergen labels Phylogenetic (one subset of ultimate) explanation, as it concerns processes which produce some heightened frequency of traits over a language’s history. An explanation at the level of Phylogeny still must make recourse to natural selection at some point, since variants that result from mutation or drift are retained because of their adaptive value (or an adaptive trade-off). This approach may be a problem for the current understanding, which holds that the features resulting from cultural processes are themselves adaptive and therefore comparable to what Tinbergen labels Function.
The problem with this is that calling particular structures of language ‘adaptive’ obscures what it is about Language that is actually being selected for. To flesh out what I mean, I think it’s useful to consult Millikan’s (1993) distinction between Direct Proper Function and Derived Proper Function (… bear with me, it’ll be worth it, honest). The Direct Proper Function of a given trait T can be thought of as a “reproduction” of an item that has performed the exact same adaptive function F, and T exists because of these historical performances of F. Sperber and Origgi (2000) use the illustrative example of the heart, where the human heart has a bunch of properties (it pumps blood, makes a thumping noise, etc), but only its ability to pump blood is its Direct Proper Function. This is because even a heart that doesn’t work right or makes irregular thumping noises or whatever, still has the ability to pump blood. Hearts that pump blood have been “reproduced through organisms that, thanks in part to their owning a heart pumping blood, have had descendents similarly endowed with blood-pumping hearts”.
The Derived Proper Function, however, refers to a trait T that is the result of some device that, in some environment, has a Proper Function F. In that given environment, F is usually achieved by the production of something like T. If I unpack this idea and apply it to language, we can understand it as the acquisiton and production of a device that, in this environment, leads to, say, a particular SVO language, T. The Proper Function of adaptive communication is performed by T in this case, but could also be performed by any number of SOV, VSO, etc Ts in other cases. In other words, the Proper Function of this language is not the word order itself, but communication. The word order is the realisation of this device that is reproduced because of the performance of T in a particular environment, but does not necessarily lead to T in the next incarnation of that device (i.e. My child, if born and raised in Japan, will speak Japanese). We see, then, that a proximate process resulting in what a particular language spoken by a given population looks like does not necessarily speak to the evolutionary function. In other words, it is the device that allows the performance of Language that is adaptive, not the individual language itself.
One question being asked in the study of cultural transmission is why a particular language looks like it does, while we also know that there are 6000 different versions that perform the same (ultimate) function. I would even argue that asking how proximate processes shape languages is actually the most exciting and interesting avenue of inquiry precisely because it’s so blindingly obvious what the adaptive function of language is. But perhaps the value in this endeavour is somewhat neglected, in part, because of the same impression that Francis (1990) had: “the attitude, implicit in the term ultimate cause, [is] that these functional analyses are somehow superordinate to those involving proximate causes” which would be a shame. It seems to me that the coarse grain of ultimate vs proximate perhaps doesn’t do enough to help complex proximate study to position itself in the wider theoretical framework, and the best way to proceed from this might be to couch explanation in terms of Function, Phylogeny, Ontogeny and Mechanism. I think more fine-grained terminology grants us more explanatory power, in this case.
A final question in this debate that came up too many times during discussions with the LEC is: what does keeping the traditional paradigm “buy us”? Well, the first answer to this is consilience with one of the most successful and robust theories in science. The same sentiment has been communicated by Pinker and Bloom (1990), who said: “If current theory of language is truly incompatible with the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, one could hardly blame someone for concluding that it is not the theory of evolution that must be questioned, but the theory of language”. Part of the reason this debate may have arisen is that studies of cultural evolution have used evolutionary theory as an incredibly fruitful way of analysing cultural processes, but additional acknowledgement about how cultural adaptation is different to biological adaptation may be necessary. This difference is an aspect of Laland’s paper (shown in Fig 2) that I think is important, as it’s part of the reason that more nuanced frameworks for cultural evolution are now needed. Without this widespread acknowledgement, cultural evolution may be considered an extension of biological evolutionary theory instead of a successfully applied metaphor. It seems to me that the side of this debate one falls on is well predicted by whether one subscribes to the former interpretation of cultural evolution or the latter.
Knowing which level of explanation current work pertains to is a valuable part of evolutionary exploration, and abandoning this in favour of an approach where proximate processes are explanatory ends to themselves may mean the exploration of Function and Phylogeny may suffer. That said, it is telling, I think, that even in seeking to abandon the proximate/ultimate distinction, we must still exploit this existing terminology in order to explain such a position. That natural selection has explained countless adaptations in all living things is certainly not trivial, and to reject the theory giving rise to ultimate explanations as they’re currently defined is to reject this fundamental aspect of evolutionary theory. The big problem seems to be that we’re coming to understand proximate processes as so elaborate and complex, that a more nuanced framework is needed to deal with the dynamics of those processes. I reckon, however, that such a framework can be developed within the traditional paradigms of evolutionary theory.
Francis, R.C. (1990) – “Causes, Proximate and Ultimate” Biology and Philosophy 5(4) 401-415.
Laland, K., Sterelny, K., Odling-Smee, J., Hoppitt, W. & Uller, T. (2011) – “Cause and Effect in Biology Revisited: Is Mayr’s Proximate-Ultimate Distinction Still Useful?” Science 334, 1512-1516.
Mayr, E. (1993) – “Proximate and Ultimate Causations” Biology and Philosophy 8: 93-94.
Millikan, R. (1993) – White Queen Psychology and Other Essays for Alice, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press.
Pinker, S. & Bloom, P. (1990) – “Natural language and natural selection” Behaviour and Brain Sciences 13, 707-784.
Scott-Phillips, T. Dickins, T. & West, S. (2011) – “Evolutionary Theory and the Ultimate-Proximate Distinction in the Human Behavioural Sciences” Perspectives on Psychological Science 6(1): 38-47.
Sperber, D. & Origgi, G. (2000) – “Evolution, communication and the proper function of language” In P. Carruthers and A. Chamberlain (Eds.) Evolution and the Human Mind: Language, Modularity and Social Cognition (pp.140-169) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tinbergen, N. (1963) “On Aims and Methods in Ethology,” Zeitschrift für Tierpsychologie, 20: 410–433. | <urn:uuid:fb68ace3-8dd1-49de-b3c7-4b4f3808cb81> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.replicatedtypo.com/tag/cultural-transmission | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00009-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934174 | 3,738 | 2.09375 | 2 |
A new study is providing insights into the 2009 swine flu epidemic, and why more serious complications arose in healthy middle-aged people than expected. The researchers say the culprit may be antibodies to seasonal flu found in the seriously ill patients, which might have caused an immune system overreaction in the lungs.
“Nobody really had a good explanation for why middle-aged people seemed to have more severe disease than would have been expected,” says Richard Scheuermann, an immunologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. “This explanation is the first one that I’ve seen that actually makes sense.” [Nature News]
Normally, severe flu illness happens in the very young (who haven’t been previously exposed to the flu and don’t have protective immunity) and the elderly (who have weakened immune systems). Instead of affecting these groups, the 2009 pandemic H1N1 “swine flu” primarily caused severe reactions in middle-aged adults.
An extensive study conducted on school children in Western Canada has proved that immunizing kids and adolescents goes a long way towards protecting the entire community from communicable diseases like the flu, thanks to a phenomenon known as “herd immunity.”
The findings come at a time when vaccine phobia is one of our largest public health concerns, with many parents worrying that immunizing kids can lead to adverse side affects. A recent survey revealed that one in four U.S. parents think that vaccines might cause autism, probably due in part to a 1998 paper published in the journal The Lancet that wrongly linked autism to vaccines–that paper has since been refuted, and fully retracted by the journal.
Now, scientists have more evidence that vaccines provide a public health benefit. Researchers studying youngsters in 49 remote Hutterite farming colonies in Canada found that giving flu shots to almost 80 percent of a community’s children created a herd immunity that helped protect unvaccinated older people from illness. As children often transfer viruses to each other first and then pass them along to grown-ups, the study provided solid proof that the best way to contain epidemics like the recent H1N1 outbreak is to first vaccinate all the kids. By immunizing the most germ-friendly part of the herd first, you indirectly protect the rest of the community, scientists say. | <urn:uuid:f75d68be-5b79-4063-9add-193d3351a504> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/tag/pandemic/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96609 | 484 | 3.609375 | 4 |
A primary task of the Board of Education is assuring that the district has the necessary financial resources to satisfy its mission, to facilitate maximum learning for every student. In order to fulfill this responsibility, the board needs to continuously assess current and projected revenues and expenditures.
The board realizes that school finance is highly regulated with many restrictions placed on both revenue and expenditures. The district treasurer, who reports directly to the board, prepares financial projections and oversees the collection of revenue and the expenditure of funds.
Financial planning is done best when it involves all stakeholders. Our residents are key stakeholders in the success of the district.
In order to bring an increased community perspective to the district’s finances, the Board of Education will annually organize and convene a Finance and Audit Committee to serve as advisors to the board. The committee will be created from interested community members who have legal, financial and/or auditing experience.
The committee will be organized as follows:
- Several community members selected by the Board;
- The Board will appoint one of the community members to chair the committee;
- Board Finance Committee, Treasurer and Assistant Treasurer
The committee will meet on an as needed basis depending on the timing of the tasks listed below.
The intent of the committee is to assist the Board in a financial advisory role and not a decision-making committee. It is not the intent of the committee to partake in the day-to-day operations/decisions of the Treasurer or the district administration nor is it the intent of the committee to address state school funding issues. Some specific tasks of the committee:
- Review annually the forecasting assumptions made by the Treasurer, which leads to the financial projections of district included in the 5-year forecast.
- Share business and financial best practices from the private and public sectors and recommend operational efficiencies.
- Serve as the audit committee and perform the following functions:
- Review the results of the audit;
- Assure that the audit recommendations are appropriately addressed;/li>
- Assure auditors independence from management;
- Serve as liaison between management and independent auditors.
In addition, this subcommittee may be given special assignments such as reviewing the Performance Audit conducted by the Auditor of State. The district’s management will present the Performance Audit report and related findings to the board. The subcommittee will review the Performance Audit and offer advice.
- Review the schedule of levies (timing and estimated millage amounts) based on the most current five-year projections and advise the Board.
- Prepare and present reports on committee activities to the Board at public meetings. | <urn:uuid:ae257ea7-dfd0-4265-bb2a-11a8deaa480a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.olentangy.k12.oh.us/board-of-education/finance-and-audit-committee/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00028-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.954143 | 530 | 2.125 | 2 |
During the 1970s, the late management theorist Peter Drucker recommended that 20 times average worker pay was an appropriate upside ceiling for top executive compensation. Today, CEOs at S&P 500 firms are more likely to be paid more than 200 times what a typical worker earns, according to compensation specialists addressing the issue Is It Time to Reform Executive Compensation?, at the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C. on Sept 27, 2012.
One consequence of increasing disparities between executive compensation and average worker pay is lower morale, said Eleanor Bloxham, founder and CEO of the Value Alliance, a board and senior executive advisory firm.
At the largest U.S. firms, "People feel disconnected from the CEO. They are not willing to share with management what could be fixed or improved. The people on the ground don't feel that top management understands them," she said.
Big pay disparities also impact the effectiveness of the CEOs themselves, because "they become disconnected, not understanding what their employees have to deal with or what their customers are going through. They're in a protective bubble," she noted.
Bloxham was critical of the use of both stock options and restricted stock shares as a large portion of executive compensation packages. Rather than tying pay more closely to executive performance, as they are intended to do, she argued, "You have managers cutting costs to increases the stock price because their pay is tied to stock. And then they cut costs some more. That's what we're experiencing now."
Explosive Growth, Then Stabilization
However, Donald Delves, founder and president of The Delves Group, an executive pay consultancy, contended that, "Today, I do not think that executive compensation is out of control. It's just high, and there's a difference."
CEO pay skyrocketed by 400 to 600 percent during the 1990s, Delves admitted, driven to a large extent by "an explosion in the granting of stock options." Fortune 500 CEOs now make $9 million to $12 million a year, but CEO pay has not gone up dramatically since 2001, Delves said. "In fact, it came down a little bit, and it has fluctuated in a range since then."
He pointed to reforms instituted under the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which barred CEOs from serving on board compensation and audit committees, and, under the 2011 Dodd-Frank Act, new nonbinding "say on pay" shareholder votes. Also, beginning in 2006, the Financial Accounting Standards Board began requiring that granted stock options be recorded as an expense on corporate balance sheets, fueling a decrease in stock options and an increase in time-based or performance-based restricted stock shares, which Delves (unlike Bloxham) believes are more effective than stock options in tying pay to performance.
"The end result is that executive pay actually does move up and down with performance," Delves said. "CEO pay went down during the recession, and as corporate profits came back up, CEO pay went back up. But what do you say to the typical factory worker whose pay has not increased in real terms for 20 years? What do you say to the family whose average household income has actually gone down? That is a very serious societal problem."
"What do you say to the typical factory worker
whose pay has not increased in
real terms for 20 years?"
In Delves' experience with corporate boards, "most compensation committee members want to do the right thing, and they're not trying to just line the CEO's pocket. They are trying very hard to tie pay to performance."
The problem is not that executive pay is high, "it's that average worker pay is so low and that it has not increased," Delves reiterated. "In the 1980s we spent a lot of time implementing gainsharing and Scanlon plans, and other efforts designed to help employees improve the productivity and performance of their company, factory or business unit by sharing in the gains. I haven't seen much of that in a long time."
Instead, "There is an enormous amount of effort and research that goes into figuring out how to pay and motivate the top five, 10 or 15 people in the company. We don't spend enough time talking about how we've going to structure pay to improve the productivity of the rest of the employees. I'm not saying we need to pay less attention to executive pay, but we need to pay a lot more attention to worker pay, and that's where boards of directors can focus more of their attention."
The 'Say on Pay' Sea Change
Holly Gregory, a corporate partner with the law firm Weil, Gotshal, & Manges LLP, agreed that regulation has transformed how compensation committees operate, including new Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rules issued in 2012 to increase the independence of compensation consultants and compensation committee members from the top executives whose pay they are charged with setting.
Gregory called shareholder say on pay votes "a sea change in compensation," noting that "even though the vote is advisory and nonbinding, it certainly has been coercive."
In the year following the first say on pay votes in 2011, companies had to disclose in their proxy statements whether they had considered the shareholders’ vote in setting executive pay, and if so, how that had impacted compensation policies going forward.
While only a small percentage of public companies received a shareholder vote of "no" in 2011 and 2012, negative recommendations by shareholder advisory firms can adversely affect how a company's governance is perceived, Gregory said. "The institutional investors received advice from professional proxy advisers on how to vote, and those proxy advisors have voted against compensation at a greater rate this year than last year, and it's something to watch carefully," she said.
Those cases where shareholders voted against the executive pay package "mostly have to do with a perceived disconnect between pay and performance," Gregory added. "Large institutional investors don't seem that concerned about pay levels, but they are concerned about pay in relationship to performance and how that tracks."
In addition, there are certain pay practices that now are sure to get a negative vote on compensation, "which is why we're seeing far more reasonable perquisites, far less reliance on tax gross ups, the disappearance of option repricing. Boards know that those practices are a key way to get ISS, the largest shareholder advisory firm, to issue a negative recommendation," she remarked.
Say on pay also is driving increased efforts by companies to communicate decisions around compensation in much clearer way, Gregory said, and is driving efforts to engage much more closely with large institutional shareholders, to try to understand their concerns and communicate how the board and the company are looking at governance issues.
Coming up, she noted, Dodd-Frank requires that public companies disclose the ratio of the CEO's pay to the median salary of company workers. The statute did not include a deadline and no rules have yet been issued by the SEC, but once it is required, compensation committees will have to rationalize CEO pay not just as a total amount, but in terms of its relationship with what workers generally earn.
Disclosing Relative Performance
The final speaker, David Walker, a professor of law at Boston University, also pointed to performance-vested restricted stock shares as a means to better tie executive pay to company performance. "When we talk about executive pay today, we're talking about stock, not stock options," he said. “With performance-vested restricted stock, not only do you have to meet the time requirement, but the firm has to hit an earnings target or another benchmark in order for the stock to vest."
Walker noted that in 2000, stock options represented over 60 percent of the average compensation mix of S&P 500 senior executives, and restricted stock represented about 10 percent of pay. In 2011, those figures had largely reversed, with stock options representing less than 20 percent of pay and restricted shares more than 40 percent.
All told, "If you look at the history of our regulation of compensation, particularly equity compensation, it's been abysmal," Walker said. "Limits on deductibility of nonperformance-based pay certainly didn't reduce pay. It might have contributed to the shift into options."
Rather than increased regulation, he recommended further disclosure, including making transparent the average pay period for holding restricted shares before they vest, as compared to a company's direct competitors.
Walker also advocated not tying pay simply to whether the company's stock price rises or falls, since CEO performance can't control the broad movement of the stock market. Instead, he argued, pay should be based on the company's stock price movement in relation to competitors, along with other metrics that are comparable among industry peers.
Stephen Miller, CEBS, is an online editor/manager for SHRM.
Related SHRM Video:
Tie Compensation to Engagement. Executive compensation should be tied to employee engagement, not short-term financial goals, argues Rosie Steeves, principal at The Refinery Leadership Partners.
Related SHRM Articles:
CEO Salaries at Biggest Firms Pass $1 Million Mark, SHRM Online Compensation, August 2012
Viewpoint: Making Executive Pay Work, SHRM Online Compensation, June 2012
The Evolving Say on Dodd-Frank’s ‘Say on Pay,’ SHRM Online Compensation, May 2012
Above-Peer CEO Pay Decreased Shareholder Support, SHRM Online Compensation Discipline, March 2012
Executive Pay Programs Stabilize, Reflecting Best Practices, SHRM Online Compensation Discipline, March 2012
Fewer Companies Offer CEOs Perks and Incentives, SHRM Online Compensation Discipline, February 2012
Related External Article:
Top 1% Got 93% of Income Growth as Rich-Poor Gap Widened, Bloomberg.com, October 2012
SHRM Online Compensation page
SHRM Salary Survey Directory
SHRM Compensation Data Center
SHRM Metro Economic Outlook reports | <urn:uuid:51060f58-699a-4596-8c21-5d68208dd067> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.shrm.org/hrdisciplines/compensation/Articles/Pages/Executive-Pay-How-Much.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701852492/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105732-00001-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.971555 | 2,026 | 1.65625 | 2 |
|Main Index > Detailed Fish Profiles > Miscellaneous species > Dwarf puffer||
27 visitors reading profiles
This page will give a completely detailed profile of the selected
fish, from A to Z. The profiled fish will be chosen randomly by Badman,
and will come from the complete genre of tropical fish. New profiles
are added on a regular basis. If you would like to submit a profile
for the site please contact me. Don't forget to let us know you experiences
with this fish by filling out the
This profile was written by Debbs an active contributor to the site.
Adult Males have a brown vertical line running along the underside
of their bellies. During courtship and aggression behavior, this line
will become thick and dark. Some males have “Wrinkles” behind their
Dwarves should be kept in a species only tank. They are a very aggressive
little fish and will nip the fins off just about any other fish. They
are capable of killing tank mates much larger than themselves with
their relentless picking and nipping. There is one species of fish
that many people have found compatible with dwarves.
Carinotetraodon travancorius are the smallest of the Fresh Water Puffer fish sold in Fish Stores today. They require 100% dechlorinated fresh water. Note: They can tolerate a wide variety of water parameters, but do best as stated above..
All my puffers are males and have no problem with territory. There is of course a dominant male in the group, but that was to be expected and he only claims dominance at feeding. Once in a while I'll see some chasing. The fish are not stressed with this chasing, it seems to be a natural behavior.
Special note on water changes: You also have to be careful when siphoning water from the tank, because their curiosity will sometimes lead them a little too close to the siphon tube! Accidental sucking up of the dwarves are common.
Ren's Dwarf Puffer page.
Policy | Contact
Badman's Tropical Fish
All rights reserved. Reproduction of any portion of this website's content is forbidden without written permission. | <urn:uuid:9cbb0941-7bc0-4255-be61-bf04600c86a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://badmanstropicalfish.com/profiles/profile93.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.933327 | 450 | 1.835938 | 2 |
Fujinon Lenses Dive Into ‘Wild Ocean’ 3D IMAX Film
D.J. Roller, a cinematographer/producer, veteran diver and founder of Liquid Pictures, recently wrapped principal photography on a new IMAX 3D film, “Wild Ocean.” All underwater sequences were shot with two Fujinon HA10X5B-W50 HD Cine Style zoom lenses mounted on a Cameron/Pace Fusion Underwater HDTV 3D camera system.
The lenses are encased in specially made lens barrels for the rig and affixed to custom-designed Sony HD-950 cameras. Roller used that system with two of the Fujinon lenses and one backup.
Roller has led film expeditions on all seven continents but found this particular location to be particularly challenging. According to Roller, it was the combination of Fujinon lenses and the Pace underwater camera system that made it possible to meet the numerous challenges presented by underwater filming.
“The camera technology afforded us longer record times, and the lenses gave extremely sharp images,” he said. “Since the camera and lens are encased in an underwater housing, switching out lenses is not possible. Without the lenses Fujinon developed for the Pace camera, we wouldn’t have had the flexibility cinematically to capture the amazing pictures we did.”
“Wild Ocean” was shot over two summers along South Africa’s pristine wild coast, documenting the annual sardine run. During these “runs,” massive, miles-long schools of sardines swim up the coast in search of food, drawing predators including thousands of dolphins and sharks.
The environmental documentary is expected to be released to IMAX and Digital 3D theatres worldwide this March.
“On other underwater projects, we’ve had the luxury of a research ship and a huge harbor to dive from,” Roller said. “Given that our location was very unique and so wild, we took just two 25-foot Zodiac boats—one for support equipment and one for camera equipment—down river tributaries to get to the ocean.” | <urn:uuid:7ba21b24-4864-40fa-a45f-21bb3720c9e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.tvtechnology.com/prntarticle.aspx?articleid=188009 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945881 | 447 | 1.53125 | 2 |
The Library was established in 1991, shortly after the creation of the Canadian Space Agency and is named after the first president of the Canadian Space Agency.
Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Members of the public must make an appointment.
John H. Chapman Space Centre
6767 route de l'Aéroport
Saint-Hubert, QC J3Y 8Y9
Library tel.: 450-926-4904
Video Library tel.: 450-926-4907
The Larkin Kerwin Library is a bridge to the world of information and a partner in research. It provides access to a collection of scientific, technical and general documents as well as access to a great variety of electronic sources of information. The Library is strategically placed to provide expertise for the retrieval, acquisition, organization and dissemination of information within the Canadian Space Agency.
Employees of the Canadian Space Agency, its partners and other libraries have access to documents in the general collection.
If you are not employees and would like to borrow a document from the collection, simply make a request for an interlibrary loan through your public, school or institutional library (college, university or corporate). Certain documents (periodicals, reference works or controlled-access reports or studies) are not available for interlibrary loan to external patrons.
The document loan period is four weeks and items are renewable, with the exception of documents that have been reserved by another patron.
The library provides a reading room for on-site consultation as well as audiovisual equipment for videos and microfiche and computers for access to the automated catalogue and the Internet. Members of the public must make an appointment to visit the library.
The library provides information on scientific, technical, strategic, business or news-related queries.
Library services are available to all patrons regardless of their expertise. Let us provide you with answers to your research needs. | <urn:uuid:e471af3c-f7e1-401d-85de-d185016dcc7a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/library/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00073-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.914828 | 397 | 1.726563 | 2 |
I’m asked all the time: “Will drinking Green tea or Oolong tea help me lose weight?” My answer has been: “There is some evidence that they can assist in the metabolism of fat in the body. I can say with certainty that if you stop eating and only drink tea, you will lose weight.”
Here is the more scientific version recently published by the British Journal of Nutrition, FirstView Articles. Copyright © The Authors 2011. DOI: 10.1017/S0007114511003849 (About DOI) Published online: 2011
“Tea has been consumed across the globe for centuries, comprising a significant proportion of the habitual diet of many far eastern countries. While its origins have been traced to China, it is now thought to be the second most consumed beverage in the world(1,2). It is manufactured from the leaf and bud of the plant Camellia sinensis, with the manufacturing process determining the type of tea produced, ranging from ‘fermented’ black and red teas, through ‘semi-fermented’ Oolong, to ‘non-fermented’ Green tea.
The black colour and bitter taste in black tea results from the oxidation of a group of chemicals termed ‘polyphenols’ (also known as catechins) by the enzyme polyphenol oxidase. This oxidative reaction is avoided in green tea where the drying and steaming processes employed inactivate this enzyme(1). Sparing these polyphenols is thought crucial to the many health benefits attributed to green tea over the centuries. A growing body of literature has emerged in the last three decades on an apparent plethora of benefits supposedly hidden in this relatively widespread and inexpensive beverage, included among which are anti-obesogenic(3), anti-diabetic(4), anti-carcinogenic(5), anti-bacterial(6) and anti-viral properties(7). In the present review I will concentrate on the first of these: the effects of green tea ingestion on energy expenditure (EE) and fat metabolism. In 1999, a paper was released demonstrating an apparent increase in EE in human subjects over 24 h, resulting from green tea administration(8). Publications such as this have since led pharmaceutical and nutraceutical manufacturers to rush to incorporate green tea extract (GTE) into ‘fat-stripping’ weight management pills and protein shakes aimed at gym goers, athletes and the general public. The value of such a discovery was immediately apparent, both medically and within the domain of sports nutrition and gym use, with sports and fitness magazines such as Men’s Health relaying this information to their readers(9). Were this property of a very cheap commodity verified, it would imply a lucrative market in weight management supplements.
In the present review I aim to evaluate the validity of the evidence which seeks to corroborate these ‘fat burning’ and anti-obesogenic properties of green tea, considering its potential applications, along with a synthesis of putative modes of action…”
READ THE ENTIRE STUDY HERE…
Sip green tea. Feel happy… and skinny? | <urn:uuid:821f0d31-735f-4d44-8b73-efa4d84a8b2b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tealove.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/the-skinny-on-green-tea-and-weight-loss/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.940334 | 656 | 2.5 | 2 |
Study: SD Agriculture Has $21 Billion Impact
by Associated Press
January 18, 2013 7:05 AM
An associate professor at South Dakota State University says agriculture and related industries had a $21.4 billion impact on South Dakota's economy in 2010.
Gary Taylor, an associate professor of economics, says the impact includes more than $8.3 billion in direct agricultural production, $3.4 billion in inputs supplied by businesses and nearly $1.7 billion from increased household spending.
Agricultural processing and manufacturing added more than $8 billion in economic activity.
Taylor says agriculture's total $21.4 billion economic impact makes agriculture the largest single sector in South Dakota's economy. He says agriculture makes up about 19.8 percent of the state economy's total output. | <urn:uuid:07905892-5ed4-4651-86f5-cb11da6afcfb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kdlt.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23479&Itemid=57 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.922784 | 160 | 2.328125 | 2 |
There are shorter ways to get from Egypt to Palestine than through the wilderness of Sinai. Mount Sinai is about 200 miles out of the way—which is bad enough if you are driving a car, but if you are walking and there is scarcely any water or shade, then the detour really tests your patience. You would think that if God were your travel agent, he would know the terrain and the shortest route to Palestine. You would think that if he can divide the Red Sea, a direct and painless route to the promised land would be a snap. Surely he would have given the law at Kadesh Barnea, or Hebron, or by the Jordan, or some place a little more on the way.
The Travel Agent's Philosophy
O, how God must become weary with how often we question his itinerary for our lives. How often we think we know better how to get from here to there! We are so much more prone to grumble with the conductor when the train turns south, than we are to sit patiently and wait for lessons from the Lord. He is a very mysterious guide. We never quite know what is coming next. God would never make it in the travel industry because he is always leading his best clients into the wilderness. He even led his own Son into the wilderness forty days. So it's clearly not because he has something against people that he leads them into the wilderness. He must think there is something good to be gotten out of it. He must think there is no hurry to glut oneself on milk and honey.
In fact, he tells us that the prosperity of the promised land is so dangerous to our souls that only the recollection of some sobering wilderness weaknesses and wonders will pert the river of our self-sufficiency and pride from flooding our lives and drowning our faith. This is what he says through Moses to the people of Israel after a forty year detour in the wilderness, just before they cross over into the promised land (Deuteronomy 8:11–18):
Take heed lest you forget the Lord your God, by not keeping his commandments and his ordinances and his statutes which I command you this day: lest when you have eaten and are full, and have built goodly houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply, and your silver and gold is multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, who led you through the great and terrible wilderness, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna which your fathers did not know, that he might humble you and test you, to do you good in the end. Beware, lest you say in your heart: "My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth." You shall remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant which he swore to your fathers.
There is the philosophy of our Travel Agent in a nutshell. These trips to the wilderness that he provides for his clients are not really detours—no more so, at least, than a trip to the doctor for a smallpox vaccination is a detour on the way to healthy adulthood. He led them in the wilderness, it says, to humble them and test them, to do them good in the end. What good? The full stomachs, and houses, and herds, and flocks, and silver, and gold? No. You don't need 40 years in the wilderness to teach you how to get wealth. The good that God aimed to do through the wilderness testing was to make the people intensely, deeply, and lastingly conscious of their total dependence on God for everything. God aimed to give them experiences in the wilderness which would make it impossible for a reasonable person to say, "My power, my might, or my hand has gotten me this wealth."
The real testing ground of life is the promised land of prosperity. The wilderness is the boot camp, the land of milk and honey is where the battle for the heart is finally fought. There are more scorpions and fiery serpents in the goodly houses, and flocks, and herds, and gold, and silver on this side of the Jordan, than there ever were under the rocks in the wilderness. And none of us is so clever in avoiding their bite or so immune to their sting that we can afford to ignore God's travel plan and bypass the wilderness. The wilderness is God's gracious inoculation against the infections of prosperity. You can count on it, beloved child of God: if you haven't been there yet, you will. "Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, the Lord your God disciplines you" (Deuteronomy 8:5). "For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it" (Hebrews 12:11). The wilderness is never easy; it is never easy. But it is for our good if we will be trained by it. And those who are best trained are most happy, most free, and most thankful wherever their journey leads.
Israel's Failure in the Wilderness
The history of Israel from the exodus when they came out of Egypt to the time of their crossing the Jordan into the promised land can be sketched briefly like this. The journey from Egypt to Mount Sinai where the law was given took about three months. They leave Egypt in Exodus 14 and arrive at Sinai in Exodus 19; so Exodus 15–18 describes the first leg of their wilderness journey. For almost two years the people of Israel stay at Sinai while the laws are given and the tabernacle for worship is planned and constructed. This period of time is covered in Exodus 19 to the end, all of Leviticus, and Numbers 1–10. So from Exodus 19 to Numbers 10 the people are in the wilderness of Sinai.
In Numbers 10:11 the people set out from Sinai toward the promised land. They arrive at Kadesh in the Wilderness of Paran to the south of Canaan, and in Numbers 13 the 12 spies are sent in to spy out the promised land. After 40 days they return. Caleb and Joshua hand in this report: "Let us go up at once and occupy it; for we are well able to overcome it" (Numbers 13:30). But the other 10 spies oppose this decision with an amazing argument—amazing for people who had walked through the Red Sea and spent two and a half years in the desert with God. They said: "We are not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we" (Numbers 13:31).
My guess is that Caleb and Joshua looked at each other in unbelief and then glanced at Moses and then looked back at the 10 spies and cried out, "So what! What does the relative strength between them and us have to do with whether we can take the land?" People who trust in God are always baffled by the practical atheism of nominal believers. If God has said, "Go up and take the land," it is irrelevant that we look like grasshoppers compared to the inhabitants. In fact, that may be all the more reason to go, since God will get more glory that way. Grasshoppers will surely never be able to boast when God gives them the victory.
But in Numbers 14 the people prove that two and a half years in the wilderness has not been long enough to teach them to trust God alone, and they rebel against Moses and against God. In Numbers 14:11 the Lord says to Moses, "How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs which I have wrought among them? I will strike them with the pestilence and disinherit them." But Moses, one of the most patient and committed leaders that has ever lived, applied himself in prayer for the people. He argued with God that God's name would be scorned in Egypt if it appeared that he could not bring the people into Canaan (Numbers 14:15, 16); and he argued on the basis of God's self-revelation on Mount Sinai in Exodus 34:6, 7, that God is "slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and forgives iniquity and transgression" (Numbers 14:17, 18).
So God relented from total destruction and said (in Numbers 14:20–25):
I have pardoned according to your word, but truly as I live, and as the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs which I wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, and yet have put me to the proof these ten times and have not hearkened to my voice, shall see the land which I swore to give to their fathers; and none of those who despised me shall see it. But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring into the land in which he went, and his descendants shall possess it. Now since the Amalekites and Canaanites dwell in the valleys, turn tomorrow and set out for the wilderness by the way to the Red Sea.
The whole class flunked their final exam of the wilderness training and was not allowed to graduate. And all the children are sent back to school. If two and a half years of human helplessness and divine wonders doesn't put trust into the hearts of Israel, then we will make it forty years. And so it was that Israel wandered in the wilderness (cared for by an amazingly patient God) until a generation of unbelievers died out. (This period is covered in the rest of the book of Numbers from chapter 14 to the end.)
It is not hard to see the lesson God wants to teach us from the wilderness experience of his people Israel. God says that even though they saw his glory and the signs he wrought in Egypt and in the wilderness, yet they put him to the test time after time with their grumbling and did not hearken to his voice or rest in his power (Numbers 14:22). The implication is clear: God's purpose in the exodus and in the wilderness wandering was to humble the people (Deuteronomy 8:2), and then to show his wonders for them, so they would learn to trust in the Lord with all their heart and lean not on their own insight or power (Proverbs 3:5, 6). The curriculum in the wilderness is designed to lay bare human helplessness. It is designed to show that Albert Ellis in his Rational Emotive Therapy (RET), which considers belief in God to be a babyish thing, is not so rational after all; that man in the wilderness really is a helpless baby, and unless we turn and become like little children, we shall all likewise perish.
The Advanced Lesson in the Wilderness
But that's just Wilderness 101, a course entitled: "Deflating the Human Ego." The more advanced seminar is entitled, "How to Spread a Table in the Wilderness." The course is a snap if you are ready for it; but if you're not, it can be very humiliating. It is taught in two halves, one going to Mt. Sinai, one going from. The first half of the course was taught in Exodus 16 on the way between Egypt and Sinai. The Israelites have learned the lesson of Wilderness 101 and know they are done for without food. They say, "Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in Egypt, when we sat by the fleshpots and ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger" (Exodus 16:3). Lesson 101 is learned: they are helpless. But now comes the advanced lesson. God says:
"Behold I will rain bread from heaven for you . . . At twilight you shall eat flesh, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God." In the evening quails came up and covered the camp; and in the morning dew lay round about the camp. And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine flake-like thing, fine as hoarfrost on the ground. (Exodus 16:4, 12–14)
A very short course, but a very clear lesson: God can spread a table in the wilderness. And therefore, helpless as we are, we should trust, obey, and be thankful. We should rejoice even in the wilderness, knowing that it is for our good in the end (Deuteronomy 8:16), and that even here our needs will be marvelously supplied.
But Israel did not learn well from the first half of the seminar. The months passed, and soon the miraculous manna was old hat (like the gift of air and health and freedom and family and even salvation). They forgot its source and felt no more wonder at God's power and grace. And so on the way between Sinai and Canaan (in Numbers 11:18) the people grumbled and cried out for meat. "Who will give us meat to eat? For it was well with us in Egypt." They had lost all sense of gratitude, and murmured saying, "O that we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we ate in Egypt for nothing . . . but now our strength is dried up, and there is nothing at all but this manna to look at" (Numbers 11:6).
This attitude makes the Teacher of the seminar very angry, so he tells Moses to say to the people (and this is the second half of the seminar): "The Lord will give you meat, and you shall eat. You shall not eat one day, or two days, or five days, or ten days, or twenty days, but a whole month until it comes out at your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you, because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before him saying, 'Why did we come forth out of Egypt?"' It is a terrible and foolish thing to say to God: "My life would be better if I hadn't ever followed you." Only very shortsighted and stubborn students want to drop out of God's wilderness prep school. It is not easy. Almost nothing worthwhile on earth is easy. But it is absolutely essential if your destination is the promised land.
The explicit purpose that God had in leading his people into the wilderness and doing wonders for them there is given in Deuteronomy 8:16: "to humble you, and to test you, and to do you good in the end." In the wilderness, we are stripped of all the devices by which we give ourselves the impression of self-sufficiency; the test, then, is whether we will be thankful for God's merciful provision and rest in his power; and the good that comes to us is the solid assurance that every looming giant will fall before the grasshoppers of God as we march straight for the promised land on the road of obedience.
God did spread a table in the wilderness, even for a stiff-necked and rebellious people. How much more, then, for those who believe in him and trust his saving power (Psalm 78:21f.).
Trust in the Lord and do good; so you will dwell in the land, and enjoy security. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your vindication as the light, and your right as the noonday. Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him. (Psalm 37:3–7) | <urn:uuid:92ebf74c-546f-42fd-b9df-e449b0d2c286> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/can-god-spread-a-table-in-the-wilderness?lang=en | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.974697 | 3,306 | 2.21875 | 2 |
The Tasmania University Union (TUU) is the students’ union that represents all tertiary students attending the University of Tasmania. The TUU also provides essential services such as independent student advocates, cafes and commercial outlets on campus, as well as running student Sports Clubs and Societies.
One of the main roles of the TUU is to protect students’ rights, and to represent the views of UTAS students on important issues to the University and the broader community. Through its elected student representatives, the TUU participates at every level of University governance, and helps to form and shape University policy and operations. Every year elections are held across all UTAS campuses and all students can nominate for election and vote.
The TUU Student Advocates provide free, independent and confidential advice and support to students who may have a problem that directly or indirectly affects their ability to study. Student Advocates can represent or advocate for you in meetings or discussions with University staff and committees. They can guide you through University processes including appeals, complaints or misconduct findings. They can also assist students experiencing financial difficulties and link you to relevant community and external organisations.
To learn more about what your student union does for you, or if you’d like to get involved, go to Tasmania University Union.
Authorised by the Executive Director, Student Centre
18 February, 2013 | <urn:uuid:25395e2e-ef85-4d31-9e1b-f13b582d5925> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.utas.edu.au/orientation/uni-life/tuu | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.958238 | 273 | 1.726563 | 2 |
By Conor Dougherty
A new study released today by the US2010 Project at Brown University shows how the country has become much more diverse at the metropolitan level. The report scores the diversity of the nation’s metro areas by how evenly a place’s population is spread across the five racial groups: Non-Hispanic whites, Hispanics of any race, African-Americans, Asians and an “other” category that is largely made up of Native Americans, Alaska Natives and people of two or more races.
A perfectly diverse place would have a population with exactly 20% of each category, and would get a diversity score of 100 on the diversity scale. In 2010, the most diverse metropolitan area in the country, Vallejo, Calif. had a score of 89.3 and the population was 41% white, 24% Hispanic, 15% Asian, 14% black, and 6% other.
As the chart below shows, the big economic centers remain very diverse: The San Francisco, Washington, D.C., New York, Houston and Los Angeles metropolitan areas were all among the top 10 most diverse places in the U.S. But many smaller places are high up on the list. Vallejo, Calif., just north of San Francisco was the most diverse metropolitan area in the U.S. Meantime, some of the least diverse places are almost entirely Hispanic: The least diverse metropolitan area was Laredo, Texas, which is 95.7% Hispanic.
To get the full experience of this page, please upgrade your Flash Plugin | <urn:uuid:295d0607-1737-48bb-a950-6cf0790b3cd6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/09/07/which-u-s-cities-are-most-least-racially-diverse/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945231 | 318 | 3.265625 | 3 |
Speakers at the Advanced-Low level are able to handle a variety of communicative tasks, although somewhat haltingly at times. They participate actively in most informal and a limited number of formal conversations on activities related to school, home, and leisure activities and, to a lesser degree, those related to events of work, current, public, and personal interest or individual relevance.
Advanced-Low speakers demonstrate the ability to narrate and describe in all major time frames (past, present and future) in paragraph length discourse, but control of aspect may be lacking at times. They can handle appropriately the linguistic challenges presented by a complication or unexpected turn of events that occurs within the context of a routine situation or communicative task with which they are otherwise familiar, though at times their discourse may be minimal for the level and strained. Communicative strategies such as rephrasing and circumlocution may be employed in such instances. In their narrations and descriptions, they combine and link sentences into connected discourse of paragraph length. When pressed for a fuller account, they tend to grope and rely on minimal discourse. Their utterances are typically not longer than a single paragraph. Structure of the dominant language is still evident in the use of false cognates, literal translations, or the oral paragraph structure of the speaker's own language rather than that of the target language.
While the language of Advanced-Low speakers may be marked by substantial, albeit irregular flow, it is typically somewhat strained and tentative, with noticeable self-correction and a certain grammatical roughness. The vocabulary of Advanced-Low speakers is primarily generic in nature.
Advanced-Low speakers contribute to the conversation with sufficient accuracy, clarity, and precision to convey their intended message without misrepresentation or confusion, and it can be understood by native speakers unaccustomed to dealing with non-natives, even though this may be achieved through repetition and restatement. When attempting to perform functions or handle topics associated with the Superior level, the linguistic quality and quantity of their speech will deteriorate significantly. | <urn:uuid:7c650af7-f0ee-4059-ac75-5caf970696c2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.languagetesting.com/kgic/kgic_actfl_guidelines4.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934248 | 413 | 2.96875 | 3 |
According to the preliminary data of the 2011 Population and Housing Census, of the 1,294,236 enumerated permanent residents in Estonia, 1,101,761 are Estonian citizens. Compared to the previous census, the share of Estonian citizens has increased from 80% to 85%.
During the 2011 Population and Housing Census (PHC 2011), 1,101,761 Estonian citizens living permanently in Estonia were enumerated, which is by 6,018 more than in the 2000 Population Census (1,095,743), including 597,652 women and 504,109 men.
85.1% of the enumerated permanent residents defined themselves as Estonian citizens and 8.1% as citizens of a foreign country. 6.5% of the enumerated permanent residents defined themselves as persons with undetermined citizenship. 3,116 persons did not specify their citizenship. Compared to the previous Population and Housing Census, the share of persons with undetermined citizenship has decreased (from 12.4% to 6.5%) and the share of persons with the citizenship of a foreign country has increased (from 6.9% to 8.1%).
Of the citizens of other countries, the number of permanent residents is the largest among the citizens of the Russian Federation (89,913), Ukraine (4,707) and Latvia (1,739).
More detailed data have been published in the statistical database.
The 11th population census in Estonia was conducted from 31 December 2011 until 31 March 2012. Previous censuses were carried out in 1881, 1897, 1922, 1934, 1941, 1959, 1970, 1979, 1989 and 2000. The next population census will be conducted in Estonia in 2020/2021.
For further information: | <urn:uuid:6b7ce528-b4da-4e82-b5bd-140970885f50> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stat.ee/64306 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959084 | 357 | 2.296875 | 2 |
By Whitbread Prize short-listed author, Tony Sullivan.
In the 1950s Denis Ducane, halfway through his National Service, meets bookseller Martin Carroway and falls for his daughter Petra, a budding concert pianist. But Petra loves another. Demobbed, Denis attends university. He wants to bring middle-class culture to the working-class, but this is forgotten when he falls in love with academia and becomes involved in a ludicrous chase after a first-class degree. Some years later he meets the Carroways again. They are now eager to marry him to Petra, but the marriage is eventually spoiled by a revelation from her past. The couple separate but meet again some years later. However, their reunion is overshadowed by a tragic discovery.
Balancing the Carroway element is Denis’s closeness with his Liverpool family, especially with his younger sister Abigail. Another important theme is the cultural emancipation of the working class during twenty years, illustrated by Denis’s progress as an educator and that of his brother-in-law, a popular playwright and treacherous friend.
Published by The Electronic Book Company | <urn:uuid:340169cd-6d6a-4545-a702-ae11ecff3df0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.amazon.co.uk/CARROWAY-BLUES-ebook/dp/B007M90IPE | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00067-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976685 | 233 | 1.617188 | 2 |
How do you think the new GigE standards will influence the machine vision industry?
Respond or ask your question now!
PLANO, Texas, Dec. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Texas Advanced OptoelectronicSolutions(R), Inc. (TAOS) announced today that every device in each of itsoptoelectronic sensor solution product families is now lead-free and fullycompliant with the restrictions on hazardous substances required by theEuropean Union. Moreover, TAOS has achieved RoHS (Restriction of HazardousSubstances) compliancy seven months ahead of the July 1, 2006 deadline.
RoHS compliancy is a directive established by the European Union thatrestricts the use of six hazardous substances in electronic components shippedinto Europe . The directive will take effect on July 1, 2006 . The RoHSdirective requires that manufacturers be able to demonstrate minimal levels ofthe following identified substances:- Lead (Pb) -0.1% PPM - Hexavalent chromium (Cr +6) -0.1% PPM - Mercury (Hg) -0.1% PPM - PolyBrominated Biphenyl (PBB) -0.1% PPM - Cadmium (Cd) -0.01% PPM - PolyBrominated Diphenyl Ether (PBDE) -0.1% PPM
For the semiconductor industry, the presence of lead in lead framesrepresented one of the biggest barriers to meeting the requirements of theRoHS restrictions, but that is not the only potential violation. "We startedby submitting each of our devices to an independent testing lab to determinewhat corrective actions would be necessary to meet the RoHS requirements,"said Ray King , TAOS, Inc. market specialist. "Many manufacturers equatelead-free with RoHS compliance, but there is more to meeting the RoHSrequirement than getting the lead out of your devices. At TAOS, our mainconcern was to not only make all of our products RoHS-compliant, but to meetour customer's needs by making the product available well in advance of themandated deadline. We consider that to be an important part of providing ourcustomers with complete intelligent optoelectronic solutions, not just a lightsensor."
One step taken by TAOS was a process change to replace tin/lead alloyswith pure tin in the sidelooker, plastic dual-in-line (PDIP) and chipscale(CS) packages. TAOS has chosen to use a -LF suffix to designate lead-freeproducts. The -LF devices are made to be a transparent replacement for thecurrent part number. In the near term, the non -LF devices will continue tobe available for customers to order as well. However, TAOS will eventuallytransition to manufacturing only RoHS-compliant products.
Cadmium is another substance included in the RoHS restrictions. CadmiumSulfide sensors have been the device of choice for many light sensingapplications. However, the use of cadmium sulfide detectors most likely willcreate a non-compliance with the RoHS directive. All light sensors from TAOS,Inc. are silicon-based and contain no cadmium. "We believe that the TAOSambient light sensors will provide an attractive alternative for applicationsin which cadmium sulfide-based light sensors had previously been used," saidKing. | <urn:uuid:4fcc01e8-9566-4c21-bd2e-d6e12ec23f6f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.advancedimagingpro.com/web/online/Industry-News/TAOS--Inc-Announces-Compliance-With-EU-Laws-for-Hazardous-Substances/3$2153 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93264 | 717 | 1.648438 | 2 |
Unipolar and bipolar depression differ significantly, both neurobiologically and in clinical presentation. Existing depression rating instruments, used in bipolar depression, fail to capture the necessary phenomenonlogical nuances, as they are based on and skewed towards the characteristics of unipolar depression.
The BDRS is the first clinician-administered depression rating scale tailored to the clinical profile of bipolar depression. It includes items for rating mixed features, as well as being sensitive to many phenomenological elements found commonly in bipolar depression, such as hypersomnia and hyperphagia, which are not picked up by conventional depression measures.
The BDRS is a validated instrument for the measurement of depression in bipolar disorder. The scale has good internal validity, inter-rater reliability and strong correlations with other depression rating scales. | <urn:uuid:22eec6ba-7810-4ffb-be5e-a4b92d4cba46> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.barwonhealth.org.au/bdrs | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.944165 | 159 | 1.71875 | 2 |
Architecture is a beautiful thing to love | and an even better thing to share
July 10, 2012
New Work ::: The Technology School of Guelmim
The Technology School of Guelmim in Morocco was designed architects Saad El Kabbaj, Driss Kettani & Mohamed Amine Siana. The programme consists of classrooms, workshops, laboratories and a library, as well as administrative spaces, teacher’s offices and office staff housing - there is also an amphitheatre for public gatherings.
The exterior palette draws from the land, utilizing a cladding technique symbolizing both the Moroccan earth and earthern building practices. The massive textured volume of the exterior is in contrast to the smooth white interior spaces. The spaces are brought together with indoor gardens that appear cut from the mass.
The protruding windows and brise soleils that appear carved from the facade show a clarity and understanding of the harsh climate. | <urn:uuid:5ab86a3e-3fe2-4ef0-a686-6bcc3b79a97b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://architechnophilia.blogspot.com/2012/07/new-work-technology-school-of-guelmim.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00062-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.927486 | 194 | 1.523438 | 2 |
Verizon Wireless Settles FCC Tethering Complaint for $1.25 Million
Verizon Wireless was fined $1.25 million on Tuesday over allegations that it restricted customer access to tethering apps.
According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), Verizon violated the openness requirements to which it committed when purchasing 700-MHz C Block spectrum back in 2008. Verizon, however, denied any wrongdoing and said the fine is simply the easiest way to move forward.
In a statement, FCC chairman Julius Genachowki said the fine "demonstrates that compliance with FCC obligations is not optional."
"The open device and application obligations were core conditions when Verizon purchased the C-block spectrum," he continued. "The massive innovation and investment fueled by the Internet have been driven by consumer choice in both devices and applications. The steps taken today will not only protect consumer choice, but defend certainty for innovators to continue to deliver new services and apps without fear of being blocked."
The case dates back to June 2011 when consumer group Free Press filed a complaint with the FCC against Verizon Wireless for allegedly requesting that Google block tethering apps in the Android Market.
The FCC said Verizon required users to subscribe to a tethering data plan if they wanted to use their devices as a hotspot and access the apps in question. That applied to customers on contract and those who paid for data as they used it, the FCC said.
"This case was the first of its kind in enforcing the pro-consumer open access obligations of the C Block rules," said P. Michele Ellison, chief of the FCC's enforcement bureau. "It underscores the agency's commitment to guarantee consumers the benefits of an open wireless broadband platform by providing greater consumer choice and fostering innovation."
Verizon, however, said "this consent decree puts behind us concerns related to an employee's communication with an app store operator about tethering applications, and allows us to focus on serving our customers."
"Verizon Wireless has always allowed its customers to use the lawful applications of their choice on its networks, and it did not block its customers from using third-party tethering applications," the carrier insisted.
Verizon said it has spent billions to ensure that customers have access to an open platform.
As part of the deal, Verizon must also have future communications with app store operators reviewed by legal counsel and report any instances of non-compliance that occurs in the next two years. Verizon employees will also receive training on compliance with C Block rules.
In a statement, Free Press policy director Matt Wood said "the FCC sent a strong signal to the market that companies cannot ignore their pro-consumer obligations."
Despite the deal, "we remain concerned that consumers of other carriers lack the same basic protections that Verizon's customers have under the law," Wood said.
The FCC is currently considering Verizon's planned purchase of spectrum from a coalition of cable providers. Earlier today, Sen. Al Franken penned a letter to the commission and the Justice Department, which urged them not to approve the deal.
"Verizon's plan to acquire spectrum from the cable companies will allow Verizon to further dominate and control the nation's airwaves," Franken wrote. "I am concerned that this transaction poses a serious threat to consumers and to competition that will ultimately result in higher prices and less choice for consumers. If your agencies do approve this deal, I urge you to only do so if you are able to adopt stringent conditions to protect competition and the public interest."
For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.
blog comments powered by Disqus | <urn:uuid:6db0dfa5-0804-4bee-8ec4-3253394ba90c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2407907,00.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.953473 | 730 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Explore the latest research and practice information in group work!Group Work: Strategies for Strengthening Resiliency is a collection of research and information presented at the Twentieth Annual International Symposium on Social Work with Groups. Resiliency issues are explored in relation to children, couples, managers, survivors of torture, poor women, HIV/AIDS affected youth, and other population groups. The contributors were keynote speakers and paper presenters at the symposium. They represent a wide range of fields of practice and experience.For social workers, students, educators, and practitioners, this volume examines how group work can improve resiliency in your community. Here's a sample of what you'll find inside:
- Keynote Speaker Jeremy Woodcock's experiences in his groundbreaking resiliency work with victims of torture
- Alex Gitterman's brilliant exposition of the notions of resiliency and vulnerability--he outlines the current thinking and puts it into a group work context
- case examples that illustrate resiliency in children
- a discussion of how residential settings can function like a 24-hour group and how to use that group effectively to strengthen the resiliency of the residents
- a way to use groups to help develop social and economic capital for poor women through investment clubs
- group themes and practice strategies for group work with couples who have differing HIV statusGroup Work: Strategies for Strengthening Resiliency also contains chapters reflecting the personal experiences of the authors. One shares her transformation from a worker who did case work in a group into a social group worker. Another shares a reminiscence of a personal journey during her formative years as a budding group worker.
From its description of how the use of group work principles and skills can benefit managers and programs to its challenge to group workers to incorporate some community work skills into their repertoire, Group Work: Strategies for Strengthening Resiliency is more than a fascinating read--it is a tool to help you keep abreast of the latest theory and practice in this ever-changing field. | <urn:uuid:99108cbd-dafd-4bd0-9119-44d4a3c927e3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.psypress.com/books/details/9780789014733/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928118 | 416 | 2.125 | 2 |
A Viking Network Info-sheet:
Vikings in Estonia
by Eddi Tomband
Pre-Viking Age contacts
In the following I'd like to share with you some stories about Vikings and our country and the connections between Estonia and Scandinavia in pre-Viking times (500-800).
Evidence from that time has been found in some Scandinavian jewellery and swords, but the main source is Scandinavian and Iceland folklore. In the folklore the lands east of the Baltic sea are known as Eastway, Austrvegir or Austriki, and Russia is known as Gardariki - the state of towns. Also this area was earlier called Svitiod.
The sagas tell about some pre-historic Swedish Kings, who met their death here, but also about the war and the fall of the fourth Swedish King Ingvar, about AD 600. "And in the next summer the great soldier Östen's son Ingvar went with his army to Estonia and they plundered around the place called Stein. But Estonians gathered a large army and began the battle. The army was big and the Swedes didn't resist for long. Ingvar fell and the soldiers fled. The King is buried on the coast at a place called Adalsysla.
The Swedes, beaten, returned to their home and "he waves sing their song for the pleasure of the resting Swedish King". Afterwards Ingvar's son Anund, sword in hand, carried off booty from the Estonian coast. In folklore he's known as "the enemy of Estonians".
All this happened on the coast and some years later the Viking ships appeared again. Inland Estonia
lived its peaceful agricultural life, most people not leaving their own village or parish in a lifetime.
The Viking Age in Estonia
The Market Place
Men became "Vikings" not by choice, but because they had to. A good example is found in "The Saga of the Goths", describing a year in Öland in the 6th century:
Estonia was at that time "a house beside the road" or a staging post. The trade-routes between Northern Europe, through Russia East to Persia, passed through here. Usually trade with Scandinavia happened like this: They came with some ships, each with 30 men on board. Once ashore, they first looked around, and if it was possible, they started robbing people. If they weren't any stronger than the Estonian people, they began trading with them instead. To achieve this, they made a truce with them and exchanged hostages, but after the truce anything could happen.
In time, certain permanent market places were established in Estonia, like Birka at Mälari- the lake in Sweden. It is known that there were several such market places here, but nowadays no-one knows exactly where they were. | <urn:uuid:b302405c-68d1-4704-a5db-e8c8f32768bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.viking.no/e/info-sheets/estonia/estonia.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00058-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980515 | 588 | 2.90625 | 3 |
I have some amalgam fillings still in my mouth and have been considering having them removed, since reading about them being a possible cause for tinnitus and other health problems. I had two removed in the past, and I don't think the dentist was very careful (but I don't remember very well).
The thing is, there is a LOT of controversy about the dangers of mercury in amalgam, but I'm a bit skeptical about what dentists say, especially when they all seem to just copy the same text from each other about how safe amalgam is.
The fact that it has been forbidden in certain countries, but that they aren't willing to pay for the (safe) removal of those that are already in people's mouths makes me more confused.
My questions are:
What's the TRUTH about amalgam fillings? Are they safe or not?
How paranoid should I be about removing them? Is it really more dangerous than letting them stay where they are?
How healthy is this procedure at the dentist that I'm considering going to:
- air (I assume some type of ventilation)
- charcoal (I assume tablets for chelation)
- dental dam (some rubber to protect the mouth) and suction
- EDTA in rinse water (doesn't EDTA cause mental confusion in rats? I know it's in every soap and shampoo, but I wouldn't drink them)
Also, would it be wise to have more than one removed at once?
Do you know what causes tinnitus and if paleo helps with it?
Thanks for any help. | <urn:uuid:02e76327-50f3-48c0-9a2d-1817f850ab4a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://paleohacks.com/questions/105628/the-truth-about-amalgam-fillings | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00000-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.978245 | 329 | 1.671875 | 2 |
If you’re an online retail start-up, establishing a good relationship with your suppliers early on is key. A good supplier can often become more like a partner, advising on the services best suited to your needs and helping out when you need it most. You may not have the clout of Amazon or Tesco, but you should still demand a stellar service from all your vendors.
Not all suppliers, it seems, have their clients’ best interests at heart. Small businesses are being overcharged by more than £3.6 billion by “greedy suppliers”, according to a survey produced by b-to-b group-buying website Huddlebuy.co.uk.
The research found that businesses with fewer than 10 staff are paying up to three times more for goods and services than larger companies.
Huddlebuy found that small firms ranging from information and communication firms to construction companies are spending £1,285 more than they need to, with some spending up to £4,000 too much.
Small businesses are paying more than double what they should on a range of everyday services and in some cases are missing out on discounts of 70 percent, according to the study, which also highlighted sole traders, freelancers and consultants are being overcharged £2.17 billion a year, which is an average of £969 each per year.
Businesses in the London and South East best beware, as the study shows they are being overcharged by £1.3 billion a year, with other businesses in the East of England (£390 million) and the North West (£368 million) also being rip-off hotspots.
The Huddlebuy survey says that the professional business services sector is the worst culprit for overcharging small companies (£1.4 billion annually), while the property sector overcharged small companies the least (£120 million annually).
Saurav Chopra, chief executive at Huddlebuy, says, “The results of this research are simply shocking. Small businesses fighting desperately to survive in harsh economic times are being ripped off by greedy suppliers, whilst big businesses enjoy huge savings from their favoured suppliers.”
This doesn’t have to be the case. Direct Commerce is once again proud to support the ECMOD Supplier of the Year Awards. These awards, held annually during the ECMOD Direct Commerce Show (30th November to 1st December), recognise the hard work and effort suppliers to the direct commerce sector put into securing the success of their clients. This year, cataloguers and online retailers are invited to nominate those suppliers who have gone the extra mile in up to 14 categories, including a new Lifetime Achievement Award.
The beauty of these awards is that the winners are chosen by their clients, not by a judging panel far removed from the coalface. Show your support by voting. It's absolutely free to nominate your chosen suppliers; all you need to do is download the official form (http://bit.ly/SOYA11), complete it and return it by Friday, 7th October 2011--JD | <urn:uuid:bed0c929-ded1-4c64-a6c7-62b97f95f9b4> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://catalog-biz.blogspot.com/2011/09/suppliers-overcharging-small-businesses.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699881956/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516102441-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.97164 | 623 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Dozens of people have been killed in South Sudan during a shootout that broke out at a peace meeting meant to resolve disputes about stolen cattle, according to local officials.
Up to 37 people died in the northern Unity state after gunmen, reportedly including members of security forces, opened fire on the crowd involved in the United Nations-sponsored talks between local leaders, officials said on Friday.
"These guys just started shooting everywhere," said Gideon Gatpan Thoar, Unity state information minister.
Local officials from Unity and the neighbouring Lakes and Warrap states were taken by the UN for talks to the remote town of Mayendit in Unity after a spate of cattle raids, including a brutal attack last week that killed 79 people.
"The fight just started there and no one knew the cause," said Chol Tong Mayay, Lakes state governor, after gathering accounts from witnesses. "People were just shooting at each other, without knowing whose police and army they were."
The assailants, reportedly including rival bodyguards, police, army as well as armed government wildlife officers, sprayed the meeting room with bullets in the battle. The exact cause for the fight is not known.
Mayay said 22 people from Lakes state were killed and 24 wounded, but he did not know how many were killed from the two other states.
South Sudan, which declared independence from its former civil war enemy to the north in July, is reeling from multiple crises, including ethnic clashes, violent cattle raids and rebel attacks.
UN peacekeepers confirmed the fighting, but could not say how many had died. They said the gunfight erupted after one official interrupted the meeting and shouted at his counterpart.
"Four pick-up trucks carrying armed men believed to be SPLA [army] and SSPS [police] then appeared and started shooting indiscriminately at the Mayendit County Commissioner's compound," the United Nations said.
At least 15 people with gunshot wounds had been taken to a clinic in Unity state run by the Doctors Without Borders, the medical aid agency said. | <urn:uuid:b067f443-abd3-430d-9358-792e50e17a1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2012/02/201223164321803993.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.986157 | 414 | 1.664063 | 2 |
Easy-to-Use Safely Monitors Facebook Activity
Monitoring screen time and time on social networks is a tricky beast. On one hand, you don’t want to be the helicopter parents, always looking over your kids’ shoulder but on the other hand, it’s important to know what they’re doing in order to ensure they’re behaving safely and responsibly. Instead of spying, it’s important to create conversations about being a responsible digital citizen. Talk to them about why you need to know who they’re interacting with and who they’re socializing with on Facebook to ensure their safety and make sure they’re behaving appropriately.
Safely Social Monitor is a free, easy to setup service that provides parents with a wealth of information into their child’s Facebook world at a glance and allows you to create the kinds of conversations about what a good friend looks like online and off. Safely allows you to quickly navigate through the information generated about your family’s Facebook activity thanks to the simple interface. A preview of the number of friends your child has, top friends, and photo thumbnails is generated and sent to your email. It also generates a Safely Report with a score out of 100 based on your child’s activity.
It also sends immediate alerts when the software picks up key words or questionable photos through scans. The easy-to-read web dashboard makes for a comprehensive service for busy parents who want to keep an eye on what their kids are doing yet help facilitate conversations about the daily drama of friendships both on and offline.
Signing up for and setting up a free Safely Social Monitor account can be done quickly and in four simple steps. You’ll need to provide your child’s Facebook credentials in order to link the accounts so be sure to talk to them about why Safely helps you keep your family safe.
Image courtesy of Safely | <urn:uuid:913dda80-e22b-49b9-82dc-17ea679a40bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.parents.com/blogs/tech-savvy-parents/2012/07/26/website/easy-to-use-safely-monitors-facebook-activity/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931314 | 398 | 1.632813 | 2 |
The StoryTelling BeanCounter believes there’s a story behind the financial numbers of a business. So we provide cloud technology tools and solutions to help extract and relate the financial story behind the numbers. We aim to make it easy for business owners to understand, appreciate and interpret these numbers to make proactive, informed decisions. Numbers, no matter how compelling, won’t speak for themselves. They need to be explained in light of a company’s visions and goals.
And that’s where we come in. We help you compile your financial information with narrative reporting and financial storytelling. We take the time to explain to you what the numbers really mean. As a service provider focusing on practice and financial management solutions for small and medium businesses, we help customers select, integrate and use online technology solutions to improve business efficiency and achieve business goals and objectives. We combine online business technology tools to help increase productivity and improve profitability, and ultimately unfold the business success story.
We believe there’s a compelling, informative story behind the numbers and that this story needs to be told. And it’s worth telling to the small business owner who needs to have timely financial information to make proactive decisions. Making informed business decisions is key to success.
According to Stewart Marshall, “Financial Storytelling helps you to discover and communicate the underlying business narrative. It is a very human answer to the question: What is going on?”
Why the Business Story? Well, to answer the question, I would like to explore with you the value of the the story in a business setting. To do so, I will make references to Dan Pink’s book, “A Whole New Mind”.
Here he quotes what Don Norman says, “Stories have the felicitous capacity of capturing exactly those elements that formal decisions methods leave out. Logic tries to generalize, to strip the decision making from the specific context, to remove it from subjective emotions. Stories capture the context, capture the emotions…Stories are important cognitive events, for they encapsulate, into one compact package, information, knowledge, context, and emotion.”
Steve Denning, a KM organizational storytelling expert states, “Storytelling doesn’t replace analytical thinking – it supplants it by enabling us to imagine new perspectives and new worlds… Abstract analysis is easier to understand when seen through the lens of a well-chosen story.”
And as Richard Olivier so eloquently puts it, “Logical and analytical abilities no longer guarantee success. Successful businesspeople must be able to combine the science of accounting and finance with the art of the Story.”
Hence the reason why fact (in this case, numbers) combined with story is such a potent combination. With accounting technology tools, the production of numbers (facts) is so readily available and instantly accessible, it becomes less valuable without interpretation (story). So what begins to matter more is the ability to place the numbers in context and to deliver them with emotional business intelligence impact.
So let us tell your story!
Btw – here’s a tidbit about me. | <urn:uuid:c3706d35-2839-4248-a36f-9ed83f33d7bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://storytellingbeancounter.com/about-us/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.923308 | 646 | 1.546875 | 2 |
There was a Prospect Bend Annexation Proposition on the November 3 ballot in Broward County for those residents in the unincorporated area of Prospect Bend.
The city of Tamarac proposed the annexation of this area into their city, this is the third attempt to annex this area. The annexation has been met with apathy more than opposition, voters just do not care. A petition drive and an election last year were tried, but no one showed up to vote last time. This time around ballots were sent to those voters living in that area and the city of Tamarac are hoping they get the results they need this time around. Regardless of the vote, Prospect Bend may end up incorporated within Tamarac due to a state ruling that all incorporated areas must be within a city by 2010. No other city is looking to annex Prospect Bend, so city officials are positive this will turn in their favor.
| Prospect Bend Annexation Proposition
| Total votes
| Voter turnout | <urn:uuid:b471a3c6-f9bd-4346-863d-6b73a96706a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Prospect_Bend_Annexation_Proposition_(November_2009) | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00024-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949479 | 197 | 1.507813 | 2 |
Pi Day happens once a year and we really should celebrate it in style.
Although it happens every year I'm always surprised to find that Pi day has crept up on me yet again. Today, assuming you are reading this on the 14th of March, is Pi day. Of course the date has been chosen because it is 3/14 i.e. third month 14th day and these are the first three digits of Pi.
Now you might think that this is something only worth celebrating if you are a mathematician but Pi has an importance for programmers, computer scientists and just about anyone doing anything practical.
Pi Pie, created at Delft University of Technology, applied physics, seismics and acoustics
At its simplest Pi is simply the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference, but Pi holds many other secrets. The most mind numbing is that it is not only an irrational but a transcendental number. What this means is that while other numbers can be defined as the solution of a reasonable looking polynomial equation - e.g. x^2=2 defines the square root of two as its solution - no such polynomial exists for Pi. (To be precise the polynomial has to have rational co-efficients - there are obvious equations that specify Pi that have irrational co-efficients like x=Pi.)
What all this means is that Pi is a strange sort of number. It has enough regularity to be computable - i.e. there are lots of formulae that can be used to calculate it to any particular digit - but is is also irregular enough to be beyond the range of a simple polynomial.
There are so many things that are interesting about Pi that it could occupy a lifetime's research and for many mathematicians it has and does.
How to celebrate Pi day?
Many people use the tenuous and arbitrary connection between Pi and pie and simply bake and eat a celebratory pie on Pi day. Lucky for us it wasn't called poison or something less edible!
If you have any other good ideas email us and meanwhile we have some related articles you might be interested in:
Yahoo! Gets to the 2 Quadrillionth bit of Pi - it's zero | <urn:uuid:0ed0453f-14ec-477b-bf4a-f1a9d5d815a6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://i-programmer.info/news/82-heritage/2117-march-14th-is-pi-day.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962543 | 458 | 2.390625 | 2 |
eso0415 — Science Release
Two Extremely Hot Exoplanets Caught in Transit
VLT Measures Properties of New Jupiter-Size Objects in Very Close Orbits.
7 May 2004
A European team of astronomers are announcing the discovery and study of two new extra-solar planets (exoplanets). They belong to the OGLE transit candidate objects and could be characterized in detail. This trebles the number of exoplanets discovered by the transit method; three such objects are now known. The observations were performed in March 2004 with the FLAMES multi-fiber spectrograph on the 8.2-m VLT Kueyen telescope at the ESO Paranal Observatory (Chile). They enabled the astronomers to measure accurate radial velocities for forty-one stars for which a temporary brightness "dip" had been detected by the OGLE survey. This effect might be the signature of the transit in front of the star of an orbiting planet, but may also be caused by a small stellar companion. For two of the stars (OGLE-TR-113 and OGLE-TR-132), the measured velocity changes revealed the presence of planetary-mass companions in extremely short-period orbits. This result confirms the existence of a new class of giant planets, designated "very hot Jupiters" because of their size and very high surface temperature. They are extremely close to their host stars, orbiting them in less than 2 (Earth) days. The transit method for detecting exoplanets will be "demonstrated" for a wide public on June 8, 2004, when planet Venus passes in front of the solar disc, cf. the VT-2004 programme.
Discovering other Worlds
During the past decade, astronomers have learned that our Solar System is not unique, as more than 120 giant planets orbiting other stars were discovered by radial-velocity surveys.
However, the radial-velocity technique is not the only tool for the detection of exoplanets. When a planet happens to pass in front of its parent star (as seen from the Earth), it blocks a small fraction of the star's light from our view. The larger the planet is, relative to the star, the larger is the fraction of the light that is blocked.
It is exactly the same effect when Venus transits the Solar disc on June 8, 2004, cf. the VT-2004 programme website. In the past centuries such events were used to estimate the Sun-Earth distance, with extremely useful implications for astrophysics and celestial mechanics.
Nowadays, planetary transits are gaining renewed importance. Several surveys are attempting to find the faint signatures of other worlds, by means of stellar photometric measurements, searching for the periodic dimming of a star as a planet passes in front of its disc.
One of these, the OGLE survey, was originally devised to detect microlensing events by monitoring the brightness of a very large number of stars at regular intervals. For the past four years, it has also included a search for periodical shallow "dips" of the brightness of stars, caused by the regular transit of small orbiting objects (small stars, brown dwarfs or Jupiter-size planets). The OGLE team has since announced 137 "planetary transit candidates" from their survey of about 155,000 stars in two southern sky fields, one in the direction of the Galactic Centre, the other within the Carina constellation.
Resolving the nature of the OGLE transits
The OGLE transit candidates were detected by the presence of a periodic decrease of a few percent in brightness of the observed stars. The radius of a Jupiter-size planet is about 10 times smaller than that of a solar-type star , i.e. it covers about 1/100 of the surface of that star and hence it blocks about 1 % of the stellar light during the transit.
The presence of a transit event alone, however, does not reveal the nature of the transiting body. This is because a low-mass star or a brown dwarf, as well as the variable brightness of a background eclipsing binary system seen in the same direction, may result in brightness variations that simulate the ones produced by an orbiting giant planet.
However, the nature of the transiting object may be established by radial-velocity observations of the parent star. The size of the velocity variations (the amplitude) are directly related to the mass of the companion object and therefore allow to discriminate between stars and planets as the cause of the observed brightness "dip".
In this way, photometric transit searches and radial-velocity measurements combine to become a very powerful technique to detect new exoplanets. Moreover, it is particularly useful for elucidating their characteristics. While the detection of a planet by the radial velocity method only yields a lower estimate of its mass, the measurement of the transit makes it possible to determine the exact mass, radius, and density of the planet.
The follow-up radial-velocity observations of the 137 OGLE transit candidates is not an easy task as the stars are comparatively faint (visual magnitudes around 16). This can only be done by using a telescope in the 8-10m class with a high-resolution spectrograph.
The nature of the two new exoplanets
A European team of astronomers therefore made use of the 8.2-m VLT Kueyen telescope. In March 2004, they followed 41 OGLE "top transit candidate stars" during 8 half-nights. They profited from the multiplex capacity of the FLAMES/UVES fiber link facility that permits to obtain high-resolution spectra of 8 objects simultaneously and measures stellar velocities with an accuracy of about 50 m/s.
While the vast majority of OGLE transit candidates turned out to be binary stars (mostly small, cool stars transiting in front of solar-type stars), two of the objects, known as OGLE-TR-113 and OGLE-TR-132, were found to exhibit small velocity variations. When all available observations - light variations, the stellar spectrum and radial-velocity changes - were combined, the astronomers were able to determine that for these two stars, the transiting objects have masses compatible with those of a giant planet like Jupiter.
Interestingly, both new planets were detected around rather remote stars in the Milky Way galaxy, in the direction of the southern constellation Carina. For OGLE-TR-113, the parent star is of F-type (slightly hotter and more massive than the Sun) and is located at a distance of about 6000 light-years. The orbiting planet is about 35% heavier and its diameter is 10% larger than that of Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system. It orbits the star once every 1.43 days at a distance of only 3.4 million km (0.0228 AU). In the solar system, Mercury is 17 times farther away from the Sun. The surface temperature of that planet, which like Jupiter is a gaseous giant, is correspondingly higher, probably above 1800 °C.
The distance to the OGLE-TR-132 system is about 1200 light-years. This planet is about as heavy as Jupiter and about 15% larger (its size is still somewhat uncertain). It orbits a K-dwarf star (cooler and less massive than the Sun) once every 1.69 days at a distance of 4.6 million km (0.0306 AU). Also this planet must be very hot.
A new class of exoplanets
With the previously found planetary transit object OGLE-TR-56 , the two new OGLE objects define a new class of exoplanets, still not detected by current radial velocity surveys: planets with extremely short periods and correspondingly small orbits. The distribution of orbital periods for "hot Jupiters" detected from radial velocity surveys seems to drop off below 3 days, and no planet had previously been found with an orbital period shorter than about 2.5 days.
The existence of the three OGLE planets now shows that "very hot Jupiters" do exist, even though they may be quite rare; probably about one such object for every 2500 to 7000 stars. Astronomers are truly puzzled how planetary objects manage to end up in such small orbits, so near their central stars.
Contrary to the radial velocity method which is responsible for the large majority of planet detections around normal stars, the combination of transit and radial-velocity observations makes it possible to determine the true mass, radius and thus the mean density of these planets.
The two new objects double the number of exoplanets with known mass and radius (the three OGLE objects plus HD209458b, which was detected by the radial velocity surveys but for which a photometric transit was later observed). The new information about the exact masses and radii is essential for understanding the internal physics of these planets.
The complementarity of the transit and radial velocity techniques now opens the door towards a detailed study of the true characteristics of exoplanets. Space-based searches for planetary transits - like the COROT and KEPLER missions - together with ground-based radial velocity follow-up observations will in the future lead to the characterization of other worlds as small as our Earth.
The team consists of François Bouchy and Frédéric Pont at Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille (LAM) in France, Nuno Santos of the Lisbon Astronomical Observatory, Portugal, Claudio Melo of ESO-Chile, Michel Mayor, Didier Queloz and Stéphane Udry of the Geneva Observatory in Switzerland. Frédéric Pont is now associated with the Geneva Observatory.
The diameter of Jupiter is about 11 times larger than that of the Earth.
See CFA Press Release 03-01.
The Digitized Sky Survey was produced at the Space Telescope Science Institute under U.S. Government grant NAG W-2166. The images of these surveys are based on photographic data obtained using the Oschin Schmidt Telescope on Palomar Mountain and the UK Schmidt Telescope. The plates were processed into the present compressed digital form with the permission of these institutions.
The information contained in this press release is based on a research article which is being published by the European research journal "Astronomy & Astrophysics" ("Two new 'very hot Jupiters' among OGLE transiting candidates", by François Bouchy and collaborators, astro-ph/0404264). OGLE-TR-113b has recently been confirmed by another team of astronomers (astro-ph/0404541). Note also that the discovery last year of the ostensibly shortest-known-period planet orbiting OGLE-TR-3 was later proved to be wrong (cf. Astrophysical Journal Volume 497, page 1076) - it was based on much less accurate radial velocities than for the present results.
Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
Tel: +33 4 91 05 59 00
Observatoire de Genève
Tel: +41 22 755 26 11
About the Release
|Legacy ID:||PR 11/04|
|Name:||Exoplanets, OGLE-TR-113, OGLE-TR-132|
|Facility:||Very Large Telescope| | <urn:uuid:326663a2-9103-4860-a6ef-4d3cee332abf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://[email protected]/public/news/eso0415/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00044-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925166 | 2,342 | 3.328125 | 3 |
Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso
Simply begin typing or use the editing tools above to add to this article.
Once you are finished and click submit, your modifications will be sent to our editors for review.
conflict with Germanicus Caesar
...became consul for the second time. Before taking office, however, he received supreme command over all the eastern provinces. While on this tour of duty he came into conflict with Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, whom Tiberius had installed as governor of Syria. Although Piso criticized and sometimes frustrated his decisions, Germanicus managed to settle the Armenian succession, organize the previously...
What made you want to look up "Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:9e23fcee-e142-46f2-8904-07cfc6500315> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/461789/Gnaeus-Calpurnius-Piso | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948956 | 160 | 2.296875 | 2 |
The NASA/NOAA weather satellite GOES-13 is capturing images of Hurricane Sandy, and the animation below shows the growth of this massive storm over the time period of October 26 to today, Sunday the 28th, ending just after 16:00 UTC (10:00 a.m. Eastern US time):
[You may need to refresh this page to see the video.]
Wow. You can see it forming a clear eye again toward the end. If you live in the northeast US, you’ve probably already been hearing the news and been given advice on what to do to prepare. My take on it? Heed it. This sucker is a big one, and the current forecast looks like it will come ashore in the Delaware/New Jersey region, but will affect the coast for hundreds of kilometers north and south of there, as well as pretty far inland.
Image credit: NASA GOES Project. Tip o’ the poncho hood to NASAGoddard on Twitter. | <urn:uuid:7277f625-5d63-437b-a741-783053407be7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/10/28/hurricane-sandy-intensifies-as-it-grows/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703682988/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112802-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93155 | 204 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Info Dump vs. Insufficient Information
Posted 2 Years Ago
How do you avoid anything that could possibly come across as an information dump without withholding important details instead?
This is a problem for me. I tend to err on the side of caution, leaving things out rather than explaining details that aren't important to the story I'm telling at the time (Does anyone really need, or want, to know that the captain of the Excalibur lived in Tennessee at one time?), but then I have readers telling me that they got lost because they didn't know what was going on... And when I do give more detail of setting, character backstory, whatever, it falls flat. I don't think it's something as simple as my narrative style; I'm generally good at that. The fact that I can't just assume that readers already know the setting - I write sci-fi, after all - doesn't make matters easier.
Some readers have told me that I drop too many names in my stories; others have told me, concerning the same stories, that the mention of people and places outside the events of that particular story is part of what makes the setting believable - that it gives the feeling that there is more to the world than has been told about yet. So I don't know. | <urn:uuid:a97661a6-9362-4e9a-a7fc-15365c65a3d3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.writerscafe.org/forum/Setting-%EF%BF%BD-Imagery/Info-Dump-vs.-Insufficient-Information/4234/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00074-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982411 | 263 | 1.6875 | 2 |
Best of the Beacon for week of July 30
We at the Beacon hope that you take a look at us every day, but we also know that that's not always possible. So, once a week, on Friday, we'll be highlighting some of the top stories of the week. Here are Beacon must-reads from this week.
Hot and dry -- still
The nation's worst drought in decases has led to more than half the nation's counties designated as disaster areas and spurred a House vote Thursday on a disaster-aid program for livestock farmers.
The cows are the picture of health. Surrounding them, trees are shedding leaves and the pasture underfoot is crisp and cracked, long-since gone dormant in the inhospitable heat and drought so widespread this summer. Far too early, cattle farmers are buying feed.
A new study says St. Louis suffers from more - and harsher - heat waves now than it did a half century ago. Is the trend related to global climate change?
There have been a few especially hot days in our city's past. Using hourly weather data compiled by the National Weather Service, we found the maximum air temperature (not heat index) recorded during any given hour in St. Louis, and they all happened in July.
John Busch says he has heard of other farmers simply giving up, cutting their corn and soy beans for silage to feed livestock. Busch does not think he is in that bad of shape, but yields do not seem promising.
Meeting in St. Louis next week, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious will have its first opportunity as an assembled group to consider what to do after the Vatican issued a mandate for change this spring. It calls on the conference to reorganize and more strictly observe church teachings.
Adventure Academy at Ranken Technical College gives teens in high school and middle school the chance to work on tech topics and learn the science, technology, engineering and math skills they can use in their future jobs.
Countdown to election day
Still don't know for whom to vote? Here's a brief summary of the major races and candidates on Tuesday's ballot -- and links to more comprehensive coverage. Now there's no excuse not to vote.
For months, Democrats – white and black – have talked about their concerns that race could play a major role in the battle between U.S. Reps. William Lacy Clay Jr. and Russ Carnahan over the 1st congressional seat and spill over into other contests as well.
Proponents of the federal health-care law hope more Americans will like it once they begin receiving its benefits. Polls show that many Americans who say they dislike the law don't realize it contains reforms that they embrace.
The federal health-care law may not have much to do with a statewide office that runs elections and registers businesses. But “Obamacare” has emerged as a bludgeon for GOP secretary of state candidates against each other.
As Muny-goers flock to "Pirates! (or, Gilbert & Sullivan Plunder'd)," photographer Tuan Lee also stands ready for his next freewheeling adventure. “When you assemble a team to accomplish a certain mission, you feel like pirates,” Lee said. | <urn:uuid:991268cb-ce1c-4297-877d-e6b081b2c035> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.stlbeacon.org/?_escaped_fragment_=/content/26358/best_of_beacon_for_week_of_july_30 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966098 | 663 | 1.515625 | 2 |
“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” which hits theaters this Friday, brings to life what everyone already knew to be true: Before he became the great emancipator, our 16th President was out slayin’ vampires!
This film certainly won’t be the last time Hollywood takes liberties with American history. Which means, it’s time for studios to set their sights on the next ridiculously skewed historical lesson involving our most famous politicos. Why couldn’t Benjamin Franklin take on a Predator? Why can’t Thomas Edison fight ghosts? Why can’t we put Eleanor Roosevelt into a romantic comedy? All valid questions.
Audiences are at the beginning of an entertaining, educational wave of new films involving historical fan fiction, and here are nine pitches for movies Hollywood could (but probably won’t) make.
For more news, features and showtime information on your favorite movies, sign up for the Moviefone newsletter. For the quickest updates, like us on Facebook. | <urn:uuid:7f929523-fff2-48e5-9c41-d8dbf9368c9a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.flagstafftoday.com/2012/06/22/bare-knuckles-van-buren-and-other-ridiculous-ideas-for-political-movies | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698924319/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516100844-00075-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.906951 | 210 | 1.726563 | 2 |
MSNBC's Birthday Present to Charles Darwin: Puff-Pieces on Evolution (Part 1)
With Darwin's 200th birthday recently upon us, the media is pushing Darwinism harder than ever. MSNBC, in particular, has recently posted three puff-pieces about the evidence for evolution. My purpose here is not to exhaustively rebut everything these articles say, but to show that for a lot of the evidence they cite in favor of evolution, there's another side to the story that isn't being represented. It's too bad the media is only telling the public one-side of the story.
Fluffy Evidence for the Dino To Bird Transition
The first piece, titled "9 links in the dinosaur-to-bird transition is intended to bolster the theory that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs. The MSNBC piece cites as its primary piece of evidence the fossil Archaeopteryx, about which it says: "Archaeopteryx's feathers and birdlike wishbone -- along with reptilian features such as a long bony tail, claws and teeth -- are seen as strong evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs." While there is no doubt that Archaeopteryx represents a bird species with a mosaic of some reptilian and many avian traits, these observations are not support for a transition unless the fossil fits a larger, coherent picture of evolution.
Archaeopteryx was a true bird, capable of flight, but where did it come from? The theropod dinosaurs, from which Archaeopteryx is said to have descended, lived at least 20 million years after Archaeopteryx (see Nature, Vol. 400:58--61 (July 1, 1999)). This leaves us with a striking situation: Archaeopteryx, a true bird, has no real candidates for fossil ancestors whatsoever. Given that Archaeopteryx really is a bird, then from what, if anything, did birds evolve?
The theropod-to-bird hypothesis has bigger problems than fossil order. An evolutionary interpretation of the fossil data requires that many specialized features required for birds flight, including feathers, evolved for purposes other than flight. Feathers supposedly evolved from scales, but pennaceous feathers are so well-suited for flight that it is difficult to imagine functional transitional stages between scales and fully functional flight feathers. According to much prevailing evolutionary wisdom, natural selection is not the powerful force driving the evolution of traits necessary for flight. Rather, bird flight has become a mere accident and lucky byproduct of a morphological coincidence. This does not make for a compelling evolutionary story.
And there are other problems. Bird evolution expert Alan Feduccia explains that developmental biology strongly challenges the theropod-to-bird hypothesis. In all egg-laying vertebrates, the digits (i.e. fingers) on the hand develop out of a mass of cartilage. Bird digits develop out of digits 2, 3, and 4 from the cartilaginous array, but fossil evidence indicates that theropod dinosaurs develop their "fingers" from digits 1, 2, and 3. This strongly contradicts the cladistic methodology which evolutionists use to argue that birds must be descended from theropods.
But if birds didn't come from theropods, this leaves a large gap, for there are no nearby fossil candidates for the ancestor of birds. Feduccia concludes, "In spite of some paleontologists' desperate pleas for us to accept through faith the dinosaurian origin of avian flight, the details of the origin of birds remain elusive after more than a hundred and fifty years." If Archaeopteryx is the first known true bird, then again I ask, from what, if anything, did birds evolve? The fossil record does not tell us. There is simply not a coherent picture of evolution through this transitional form. Perhaps a better explanation is that Archaeopteryx represents a mosaic form where an creative designer used creativity to play a variation upon a theme.
The MSNBC site also makes a big deal out of other evidence that appears highly circumstantial and uninteresting. The site claims that certain dinosaurs laid 2 eggs at a time, and that daddy dinosaurs guarded eggs. Two questions arise: Why is this impressive evidence that birds are descended from theropod dinosaurs, and how they know this for a fact? Lots of species lay eggs (of varying numbers) and daddies often get involved with child protection. The article also cites a bird-like feature of "pneumatization" in some theropod dinosaur bones where "air sacs from the lung invade the bone." But again, it has been long known that non-theropod dinosaurs far removed from birds have pneumatization of their bones, so this evidence isn't especially interesting either. MSNBC even cites the fact that some theropods were small as another crucial piece of amazing evidence that birds evolved from theropods. Forgive me if this seems like unimpressive circumstantial evidence.
Finally, the story cites alleged feathered dinosaurs. Assuming that they've found real feathers, and not "dino-fuzz," it's worth nothing that, as Alan Feduccia observes, many of these alleged feathered dinos are "replete with features of secondarily flightless" birds, meaning that they are true birds that have lost their ability to fly and are not evolutionary intermediates. I discussed this in detail at Is the Latest 'Feathered Dinosaur' Actually a Secondarily Flightless Bird?.
Despite the weak evidence supporting this evolutionary story, Phillip Johnson provides a lucid and charitable analysis of the importance of Archaeopteryx: "Archaeopteryx is on the whole a point for Darwinists, but how important is it? Persons who come to the fossil evidence as convinced Darwinists will see a stunning confirmation, but skeptics will see a lonely exception to a consistent pattern of fossil disconfirmation." | <urn:uuid:26a0e939-847d-44f9-aae7-129b7d56160b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/02/msnbcs_birthday_present_to_cha017191.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702810651/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516111330-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943579 | 1,202 | 2.796875 | 3 |
What is KOTO ?
KOTO is a kind of zither. It has been used as one of the main chamber instruments of Japanese traditional music style.
The length of KOTO is about 180cm. A traditional KOTO has 13 strings, being arched tautly across 13 movable bridges along the length of the instrument (right picture). Players make base pitches by moving these13 bridges before playing.
History of KOTO
From 7th to 8th century, cultural embassies were sent to China to learn and aquire its political and cultual system. They also borrowed some music instruments, among which was cheng (KOTO). At first, it was used in court life and later it was played mainly by blind musicians (almost all Japanese pre-modern music were played by blind musicians or monks and court people).
In 17th centry (Edo era), YATSUHASHI-KENGYO (1614-1685), one of the blind KOTO masters, succeeded in moving KOTO to
solo-instrument. Thus he has been known as the father of modern KOTO music. He made many compositions for KOTO music, and many of them are played now. One of his best known compotitions is "Roku-dan (six variations)" (KOTO sound 165K).
In 20th century, Michio MIYAGI (1894-1956), who was also a blind KOTO player, introduced styles of western music into KOTO music. His world-famous composition named "Haru-no-umi(the spring sea)" was ordinaly composed for KOTO and SHAKUHACHI(a kind of flute made of bamboo), but it has also been played by KOTO and flute or violine.
"Isuzugawa (Isuzu-river)" composed by michio MIYAGI (KOTO sound 153K)
cf.Wade, Bonnie C. "Tegotomono",1976 Greenwood Press, Inc.
Back to KOTO home page | <urn:uuid:0c74d7e7-c94d-4ba9-b371-841a750b7967> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~NP5Y-HRUC/kt-what.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980152 | 431 | 3.453125 | 3 |
Editor’s note: Throughout Open Access Week (Oct 19-23), the UI Libraries will be sharing the views of our UI colleagues on the topic of open access.
by Dr. Christopher Squier, Professor, College of Dentistry and Christine White, Librarian, College of Dentistry
Traditionally, the cost of publishing articles in print journals has been borne (apart from page charges for lengthy articles or colored illustrations) by the publisher, based on income, from subscriptions from readers or libraries. This is reasonable considering the high cost of supporting the scholarship that forms the basis of a publication. With open access articles, however, there is now a movement towards freely providing the material to the reader but shifting the cost of publication on the scholar. Fees, which may range from $500 to $3000, are requested from the author, although in a few situations, voluntary donations are solicited to help support a journal (e.g., Edward H. Angle Society of Orthodontists / Angle Orthodontist), or the publication may be subsidized by a publisher’s other journals, as acknowledged by PLoS. Other mechanisms include support from advertisers, such as the Journal of Chemical Education, which notes that “advertising in the Journal plays a significant role in helping to keep your subscription affordable,” or sponsored by an open access individual/institutional membership fee, which provides discounts to authors based on the number of articles submitted for publication (e.g., Bentham Open: http://bentham.org/open/).
There are good reasons to resist moving the costs of publication from the publisher to the author, even when there may be grant or institutional funding to support this. The major objection is the temptation to base publication on the ability to pay rather than on the quality of work, as determined by peers. When costs are passed onto grants or academic institutions, the sponsor is, in effect, paying twice: once for the cost of doing the research and again to publish it, and the support available for new research is reduced. Of course, it could be argued that the institution pays when it purchases subscriptions, but because a large number of academic and industrial organizations all do this, the cost is spread over a large pool.
Should the reader be allowed free access as well as open access? Should the traditional balance be kept between authors, institutions and publishers? These are questions that we must continue to discuss. | <urn:uuid:98bcd775-6989-46ab-bcdb-e3e97498d1f8> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.lib.uiowa.edu/news/2009/10/21/who-should-pay-does-open-access-mean-free-access/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368702448584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516110728-00046-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.949017 | 492 | 1.929688 | 2 |
|Applications:||Art Exhibitions | Cinema | Corporate A/V | Cruise Ships | Live Performance Venues | Live Sound|
|Restaurants/Bars/Clubs | Retail | Sports Venues | Theatre | Worship | Other Installs|
"MythBusters" Uses Meyer Sound Technology to Pit Movie Effects against the "Real Thing"
In a recent episode of "MythBusters" on Discovery Channel, show hosts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman worked with Meyer Sound to investigate whether the "big bangs"—specifically gunshots and explosions—heard in movie soundtracks are sonically faithful to the real events. The episode, entitled "Blow Your Own Sail," was aired on May 11, 2011.
"MythBusters" often calls on Meyer Sound when it comes to investigating audio-related myths. The show, which features a team of special effects and science experts who put some of the most outrageous urban legends to the test, has turned to Meyer Sound to prove or debunk popular claims including the existence of the dreaded "Brown Note" and the ability of high-power subwoofers to set off a rifle. For the recent episode, Savage and Hyneman reunited with "Honorary MythBuster" and Meyer Sound Staff Scientist Roger Schwenke, with the goal to compare highly accurate, on-the-scene audio recordings to their Hollywood counterparts.
"Real gunshots and explosions are too loud to reproduce exactly in a theater and would damage people's hearing," says Schwenke. "So the question is: are movie sound effects simply the real sound played back at a safe level, or have they been changed in ways other than just level."
To put explosive sounds under a sonic microscope, the team used gunshots both naked and as shrouded by silencers, a gasoline bomb, and a C4 explosive charge, with the assistance of audio equipment supplied by Meyer Sound. The recordings of actual gunshots and explosions were compared to movie soundtracks using Meyer Sound's high-resolution Wild Tracks audio playback (32 bit floating point at 48 kHz), HD-1 studio monitors, and instrumentation microphones from Brüel & Kjær.
"We were dealing with extremely fast and loud transients, while real gunshots have extreme peaks of up to 165 dB," adds Schwenke. "They were quite a challenge to record, but we were able to get all the data we needed to discern different sonic characteristics."
Learn more about the "MythBusters" episode by visiting: | <urn:uuid:7ef71e52-01c9-49f8-9e9d-1351c1b22eb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://meyersound.com/news/2011/mythbusters/?type=26 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946642 | 513 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Three Marketing Lessons from the Love BugPublished: May 24, 2000 in Knowledge@Emory
The folks from tech support have returned to their offices. After much intense effort, they have revived overburdened e-mail servers and rescued millions of users from last Thursday's swift, silent attack of the Love Bug virus. For the past few days, newspaper pages and television screens have been filled with accounts from Manila, as the hunt continues for the hackercodenamed spyderwho unleashed the pandemic that crippled corporations and governments around the world. A suspect has been identified, detained, and released. In corporate boardrooms and government offices, security measures to prevent future virus attacks are being debated.
All this is as it should be. After all, the Love Bug is the most devastating computer virus ever, whose toll is likely to exceed $10 billion. And yet, one of its most fascinating aspects was the speed of its global proliferation. According to experts, the Love Bug flashed around the world in just two hours, emerging in Hong Kong and then moving West, knocking out nearly 70% of the e-mail services in countries like Sweden and Germany on its way to the U.S. Melissa, a similar virus that attacked computers last year, took six hours to do its damage.
This prompts a question: Can companies learn any positive lessons from the Love Bug's global odyssey? After all, CEOs and marketing directors are constantly plotting strategies to gain first-mover advantage by rapidly entering global markets with their products and services. Wouldn't they love to know, even as they fret over the damage the virus has caused, how their products could blanket the world in a few hours?
Three Wharton professors Eric T. Bradlow, assistant professor of marketing and statistics, Stephen J. Hoch, chair of the marketing department, and Yoram (Jerry) Wind, director of the SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management believe that is indeed the case. Despite spyder's clearly anti-social motives and the negative impact of her (or his) actions, the Love Bug offers at least three positive lessons about speed, trust and context.
1. Speed: The hacker who wrote the Love Bug was diabolically clever. The virus replicated itself by attacking the address books of those who clicked open the attachment, and mailed copies of itself to everyone listed there. While this massive flood of messages choked e-mail arteries, it did show one thing. If speed of communication is the goal, e-mail is hard to beat as a means of distribution. Says Wind: "The Love Bug showed that it is possible to go instantly from launch to peak market penetration."
Of course, no one in their right mind would advocate that companies try this approach, or even attempt to spam e-mail recipients. Still, several companies have begun to use a benign method called viral marketingan unfortunate term in the Love Bug's aftermath.
The poster boy for viral marketing is Hotmail, a free web-based e-mail service that Microsoft now owns. When Hotmail was launched four years ago, each e-mail message sent by a user contained a promotional message with a URL that the receiver could click to sign up for the service. Result: Each message from every Hotmail user became an advertisement for the service. In 18 months Hotmail had some 12 million users, according to Steve Jurvetson, a managing director of Draper Fisher Jurvetson, a venture capital firm that invested in Hotmail. (Jurvetson cites the Hotmail example in a recent article about viral marketing in Red Herring magazine. He says Draper Fisher Jurvetson coined the term viral marketing in 1997.)
Other companies have rapidly caught on, and now practically every web-based company uses some variant of the viral marketing approach as part of its overall marketing strategy. (Knowledge @ Wharton, too, employs this method. Every copy of its e-mail newsletter contains a request asking readers to forward the e-mail to others who may be interested.)
2. Trust: The reason why viral marketing works is that the message comes from a trusted source. The hacker who wrote the Love Bug's code knew this only too well. An e-mail message from a friend is more likely to be opened than one from a stranger, even if it contains a dangerous attachment. "The reason the virus spread so quickly was that it arrived as an e-mail from known people. It played off people's level of trust," says Bradlow.
Marketers have long known about the power of friendly endorsements. Mary Kay Cosmetics and Tupperware, for example, favor the home party as a sales technique, where a sales person teams up with a hostess to throw a party where cosmetics or kitchenware can be sold. Comcast offers free air time to those who sign up friends for its cellular phone service. America Online provides hours of free access to its online Internet service to customers who urge their friends to sign up.
Such methods allow marketers to tap into social networks, explains Hoch. "E-mail networks are much larger than most social networks," he says, "so the marketing message is more effective. E-mail networks are not as deep as social networks, but they are larger, so there is a tradeoff. People sometimes talk about six degrees of separationwhere everyone is separated from everyone else on the planet by just six people. On the Internet, maybe there are just five degrees of separation."
Distributing marketing messages through social networks does have a downside, according to Bradlow. "From the individual's point of view, it places a burden on the customer when a company asks him or her to become a marketer," he says. "I don't like getting such messages, and I don't like to bother my friends with such messages either. My friends know I'm getting a reward, and people don't like to be used in this way."
3. Context: Another factor that made the Love Bug effective in worming its way across the world was that its message was innocuous as well as seductive. It masqueraded as a love note from someone you knew, and few could resist its siren-like appeal. Many people who saw the message before they heard security warnings opened it out of curiousity. Later mutations of the virus were also clever in what geekspeak describes as "social engineering"in other words, playing upon people's emotions. One version appeared as an announcement about a Mother's Day gift. Still others appeared as jokes. At least one version pretended to offer an electronic nostrum to cure damage caused by the Love Bug.
The lesson for executives here is to present marketing messages in terms that tap into their customers' needs and desires. The danger, however, is that unless this is done in a straightforward, upfront manner, customers can potentially feel manipulated. Says Hoch: "If a marketing message comes to you in the guise of a note from an acquaintance, it might annoy you. It could backfire." Done correctly, however, such messages can have tremendous impact. "If there were a way to do this around a product, it would be an amazing strategy," says Bradlow.
If the professors are right, the Love Bug, for all its devastating effects, also contained the seeds of positive learning. We hope you will find these concepts useful, and we are glad we could share them. Why? Simplewe love you. | <urn:uuid:670d1422-c6a9-4780-8278-8f068495cbe2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://knowledge.emory.edu/article.cfm?articleid=184 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.970023 | 1,519 | 1.757813 | 2 |
A boil water notice has been issued for part of northeast Harris County, and two schools are included in it.
The notice was issued for residents and businesses in Harris County Municipal Utility Districts 106 and 290, which are in the Eagle Spring area.
There was a mechanical failure at a pumping station that caused the districts to lose water service for more than two hours on Tuesday.
The water has been restored, but samples need to be tested. A boil water notice was issued until those test results are known.
Atascocita Springs and Eagle Springs elementary schools in the Humble Independent School District are included in the boil water area. The school district sent letters home to parents to let them know about changes that will be in effect at the schools until the boil water notice is lifted.
- Students will not use water fountains.
- Students will have modified recess and physical education.
- Food Services will deliver food if the cafeteria is not able to prepare food at the campuses.
- Bottled water is available for students taking medication and/or students who do not have a water bottle with them at school.
- Containers of fresh ice water have been delivered to the campuses and have been set up for the students to fill their water bottles. | <urn:uuid:99067fd6-fb50-4bbb-a32b-102033e28b1a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.click2houston.com/news/Boil-water-notice-issued-for-neighborhoods-schools/-/1735978/16481418/-/tn8qjcz/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979766 | 256 | 2.125 | 2 |
The Black-Severn Watershed
Relative to the other areas in the SGBLS region, the Black-Severn River watershed is sparsely populated (less than 54,000 residents) with few large urban or agricultural areas. The land use tends to be a blend of rural residential and crown land settings where population dramatically increases for the summer months as a result of a vibrant tourism industry and seasonal residents. Within the Black-Severn area there are 9 drinking water systems, serviced by 9 municipal wells and 5 surface water intakes (Figure 2-11), with Orillia being serviced by both wells and a surface intake.
The Black-Severn River watershed lies in the north east portion of the SGBLS region. It contains three upper tier municipalities (Simcoe, Muskoka, and Haliburton), one separated city (Orillia), one single tier municipality (City of Kawartha Lakes) and nine lower tier municipalities (Gravenhurst, Bracebridge, Lake of Bays, Muskoka Lakes, Georgian Bay, Minden, Algonquin Highlands, Severn and Ramara).
Areas of settlement (as defined in the Places to Grow Act, 2005) in the Black-Severn River watershed include portions of Simcoe County, The District Municipality of Muskoka, The City of Kawartha Lakes, The City of Orillia and Haliburton County, as well as the location of First Nation reserves. Within The District Municipality of Muskoka, a number of municipalities are to be the focus of development but of these, only Port Severn falls entirely within this watershed region.
The Black-Severn River watershed has been divided into 8 subwatersheds, or hydrological units, with a combined drainage areas of 2,770 km2. The watershed receives approximately 958.30 mm of precipitation annually.
|Subwatershed||Drainage Area Km2|
|Lake St. John||59.82|
|Upper Talbot River||297.30|
|Upper Black River||392.24|
The Black River is the main tributary of the Severn River and extends from the confluence at Washago northeastward into Haliburton County. The river originates at elevations of 366 m and 396 m above sea level and drains several small lakes before entering Logan Lake. Here it is joined by Anson Creek before draining out and flowing south, converging with Head River just before it enters Lake St. John. It leaves Lake St. John and flows north to enter the Severn River at Washago. The Severn River flows into Little Lake and then into Georgian Bay via Severn Sound. The Upper Talbot River subwatershed is also included in this SWP area. The Talbot River flows into Lake Simcoe approximately 5 km north of Beaverton.
The Black-Severn River watershed is part of the Trent-Severn Waterway. As such, water levels and flows throughout the Severn River drainage basins, including the Black River watershed, are managed by Parks Canada, which is an Agency of Environment Canada.
Overall, 1,682 km2 of the Black-Severn River watershed is considered natural vegetative cover, or approximately 60% of the total area. The percentage of natural vegetative cover within each subwatershed varies from as low as 22% within the Lake Couchiching subwatershed, to almost 69% in the Severn River subwatershed; the Upper Black River has the highest coverage at 84%. Wetlands occupy approximately 14% of the Black-Severn River watershed.
Woodland cover percentage is lowest in the Lake St. John subwatershed (45%) and highest in the Upper Black River subwatershed with approximately 98%. Woodlands reduce the speed of overland water flow and erosion, increase evapotranspiration, intercept rainfall, and increase water infiltration to shallow groundwater areas.
The Black River watershed is located within four regional-scale physiographic regions:
- Number 11 Strip, characterized by deposits of clays, silts and fine- to medium-grained sands that occupy hollows and depressions within the bedrock of the Canadian Shield.
- Carden Plain, which is a limestone plain that extends from the Kawartha Lakes to Lake Couchiching and typically has silt to silty-sand soils less than 1 meter in depth.
- Simcoe Lowlands, which extends from the Dalrymple area to north of Kahshe Lake and adjacent to the Black River, is characterized by flat, low-lying plains composed of clays, silts and fine- to medium-grained sands.
- Georgian Bay Fringe, which borders Georgian Bay and is characterized by exposed bedrock with little soils. | <urn:uuid:cb02ce9d-8e1f-43ad-b21a-94a7127769fb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://ourwatershed.ca/sgb/watersheds/blacksevern.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697974692/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095254-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925574 | 981 | 3.296875 | 3 |
joined 10 months, 2 weeks ago
Fort Wayne 912
The 9/12 Project is a volunteer based, non-partisan movement focusing on building and uniting our communities back to the place we were on 9/12/2001. The day after America was attacked, we were not obsessed with political parties, the color of your skin, or what religion you practiced. We were united as Americans, standing together to protect the greatest nation ever created. Our goal is to bring us back to that same feeling of togetherness again.
Our Mission is to inspire individuals and groups to connect with their communities through education, service and dedication to the 9 Principles and 12 Values to which we have committed.
Fort Wayne 912 hopes to provide this inspiration to citizens of Indiana and ultimately to inspire all Americans.
For those who hold out hope for real change, this will be well worth your reading, and sharing. Every member of the New Revitalized Republican Party, and every conservative and libertarian who aspire to run for the Congress and the Senate in 2014 will most likely defeat their counterparts if they adopt all or most of these positions as their…[Read more] | <urn:uuid:a5246838-9235-4c78-8f14-9596b5a8e15a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.teapartypatriots.org/groups/fort-wayne-912-972919352/home/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00004-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.962388 | 233 | 1.546875 | 2 |
- The Simplest and Easiest Soccer Goal. The simplest, easiest, and least expensive type of goal to build is to put two pressure treated 4x4's in concrete, put wood or a metal pipe across the top for a cross bar and hang a net. Your total materials cost, not counting the net, can be in the $50 range. The advantage is that it is cheap, easy, and durable. The disadvantage is that it isn't movable unless you put steel sleeves in the concrete so you can slide the posts in and out. This type of goal is great for backyard use where the main objective is a backstop to shoot into. You can make it 6' tall or 8' tall by 8' wide fairly easily. After having built 3 PVC goals, I would build this type the next time. Five suggestions: (1). Use plenty of concrete and buy some concrete wire to put in the hole to help prevent cracking. (2). Leave the top of the concrete 4" - 6" below the top of the ground and fill that with sand. Later, if you move the posts, you can fill it with dirt so the concrete isn't visible. (3). Put the posts 2 feet into the concrete. (4). For safety, place padding around the posts. (5). Plastic ties do not work well to hold the nets for players over age 12 (they break too easily) and Velcro is expensive and won't last. I think the best ties are a simple cotton or nylon twine; it is easy, cheap and lasts a while. I've heard that Bungee Cords make good fasteners and it makes sense that they would. See below for information on nets and other alternatives.
- PVC Soccer Goals. I have built 3 PVC goals and would think twice before building another one because it is a complex project. The ones I built were 8' tall X 12' wide with a 6' base. If I built one again I would make it smaller (more like 6' tall X 8' wide) because anything larger is really a 2-man job. The problems are that the cuts must be precise, you must carefully plan the cuts and order of assembly and the glue sets up very quickly. Also, once it is finished it may only last a few years because the joints and elbows tend to crack (The larger the goal, the more likely they are to break). Two Tips: If you build one, consider using the plastic piping they use for irrigation systems; it is more expensive but I am told it lasts longer. Also, buy 2 rolls of heavy duty white duct tape and triple wrap all joint and elbows every year or two. Doing so helps spread the stress and should help the goal last for 2 or 3 years before you start to have problems (the amount of problems you have will depend on the size and how much you move the goals around). See below for information on nets and other options.
- Soccer Nets. Soccer nets are usually made from polyethylene (a nylon-cord type of material) and come in different sizes (various heights, width, depth at the top and base at the bottom), cord thickness (2mm, 3mm, 4mm, and 5mm), and mesh sizes ( the size of the squares made by the cord range from 2" to 5.5"). The cost of a net is largely determined by its size, the thickness of the cord and its quality. Tip: If the goal will be used by a player age 12 or older, buy a net with a 3mm or thicker cord, 2mm cord breaks too easily.
- Sources of Soccer Nets. Many suppliers only sell nets in pairs. However, if you check the internet you may be able to find a site that sells individual nets. At one time, Sports Authority did. Tip: you can double up a net if it is too large.
- Sources Of Backyard Soccer Goals. There are many suppliers of goals. Tip: Check the thickness and mesh size of the net and the weight of the goal for clues as to quality.
- Soccer Net Fasteners. I like using pieces of twine or rope. It is cheap, durable and easy; just buy a roll and cut the length you need. Plastic ties won't last and velcro is expensive and only lasts about a year. I've heard that Bungee Cords make good fasteners and it makes sense that they would.
Soccer Coaching soccer coaching tips for youth soccer coaches soccer positions soccer positions soccer drills soccer drills Soccer Drills soccer drills for kids that are fun soccer positions how to coach soccer positions Soccer Rules soccer rules Soccer Positions soccer positions soccer formations soccer formations for 4v4 to 11v11 Soccer Rules soccer rules and kids soccer rules soccer formations soccer formations Youth Soccer Drills youth soccer drills Soccer Drills - soccer drills that are fun and that teach soccer skills
Copyright 1999-2013, David and Kay Huddleston
Legal Notice - Allowed Uses and Copyright Protection. We allow anyone to link back to this article or to www.Soccerhelp.com. You may also copy on paper for handouts up to 10 pages from Soccerhelp.com PROVIDED: you don't remove any references to SoccerHelp, don't give the impression you own the information, and you MUST include "Source: Soccerhelp.com" at the top or bottom of the article. To copy our work without crediting us is stealing and we will protect our copyrights. We would rather be nice than mean, so please credit Soccerhelp.com if you copy any information from this website. It is illegal to post any information from SoccerHelp on the internet without written permission from David or Kay Huddleston, except we will allow quotes of up to one page to be posted PROVIDED you do not remove any references, do NOT disable links, and provided you add a FUNCTIONING LINK on the bottom of the same page that goes to www.Soccerhelp.com and says "Copyright www.Soccerhelp.com, used with permission". The link MUST work for both visitors AND search engines. We have to enforce this due to blatant theft and to protect our copyrights and we hire a service to look for copyright violations. Thanks for your cooperation. SoccerHelp Home Page | <urn:uuid:310674f1-376d-4d2b-b7e1-38645a667c74> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.soccerhelp.com/Soccer_Goal_Soccer_Net.shtml | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.943057 | 1,288 | 1.867188 | 2 |
Home buyers want efficient windows
By Sirena Rubinoff, Networx
More and more Americans are turning their attention to eco-friendly amenities and features during their search for the perfect new home. Some are looking to incorporate their green theoretical leanings with their day-to-day lifestyle. Others are counting on energy-efficient features and appliances to ultimately result in lower bills and less maintenance. Either way, green home details are hot in today's real estate market and are guaranteed to attract home buyers who believe that they add home value.
Home Buyers Want Energy Efficient Appliances
Utility bills seem to be rising by the minute these days, but we have all become accustomed to certain utilities that now we can't live without. Eco-friendly home buyers will want to know that the appliances in their new home will be energy efficient and durable. This doesn't mean you have to replace all of your appliances, but any green appliances that you do have will score points for your home. There are a number of energy efficient products on the market today and if you don't know where to start looking, check out the Energy Star program, which is jointly run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Department of Energy. Every appliance with the Energy Star stamp of approval meets a strict set of energy efficiency guidelines and is made with advanced technologies that utilize 10 to 15 percent less energy and water than standard models. Check out Energy Star for a list of money-saving appliances, including clothes washers, dishwashers, refrigerators, freezers, air conditioning units, dehumidifiers, and more.
Add Home Value with Energy Efficient Windows
If you live in an area with extreme temperatures that require the use of heat or air conditioning inside your home, potential buyers will appreciate efficient windows that actually work towards maintaining the indoor temperature instead of allowing the heat or A/C to be whisked away. Low-E Argon windows and window film are specially made to reflect heat, rather than conduct it. In the winter, this will reduce energy loss in warm rooms and in the summer, it prevents solar heat gain so your rooms stay cool inside. You can easily reap the benefits of Low-E Argon without having to foot the bill of installing new windows. All you have to do is buy and apply a film to the outside of your windows. Yearly savings of hundreds of dollars on utility bills will be a great selling point to energy-conscious potential buyers. Check out energy efficient window frame options.
Boost Curb Value with Ecological Flooring
Bamboo and cork flooring are rapidly becoming popular as alternatives to hardwood floors made of timber. Both green flooring options are cheaper than hardwood and neither involves killing off whole portions of forests. Cork oak, for example, can be harvested every 8 to 14 years once the tree is 25 years old. So, the same tree can provide multiple harvests of water-resistant bark over the course of a lifetime. Bamboo is also a plentiful resource that grows quickly and can be harvested with minimal impact to the environment. Home buyers who are looking for green amenities will appreciate that their floors have not contributed to deforestation, and they will love the moisture-resistant, easy cleaning quality that comes with bamboo or cork floors. Check out Yanchi for high quality and low price bamboo floors or Evora for beautiful cork floor tiles that are a fraction of the cost of hardwood.
Other Ecological Features that Increase the Value of a House
One final way to easily go green in your home before putting it on the market is to replace all of your light bulbs with energy efficient ones. This will save you money while you show your home with all the lights on and it will be another point for you on the potential buyer's checklist of energy efficient amenities. Good luck!
Distributed by Internet Broadcasting. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. | <urn:uuid:13a6359b-c2b3-433a-bc1c-955a932130a3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.wyff4.com/Home-buyers-want-efficient-windows/-/9324882/19006328/-/view/print/-/ke23ol/-/index.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00005-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93702 | 803 | 1.789063 | 2 |
Pieter De Hooch (duh HOKE) was a Dutch painter born in Rotterdam. His father was a bricklayer and there were five children in his family.
When Pieter was 24 he began working for a rich merchant. He was a servant to Justus de la Grange, but was also a painter. He married a girl from Delft, the daughter of a pottery maker. Some sources say they had a large family, others say they had two children, a son Pieter and a daughter Anna.
Some of his early paintings were scenes of soldiers and taverns. He is noted for his courtyard scenes. After he had a family, he began to paint pictures of families and scenes inside homes.
De Hooch and Vermeer were both working in Delft at the same time and their works had similar characteristics.
He liked to paint pictures that showed a lot of light in them. In the painting, Woman Peeling Apples, the sunlight is streaming through the window on the right side of the picture. It is a bright sunny day. Sometimes the light comes from another source as the next pictures in which the windows are on the left. You can observe elaborate tile floors in several of his works.
Woman Peeling Apples
Soldiers Playing Cards
Woman Weighing Gold
In many of his pictures you can see into other rooms, or you can see what is outside. Mother at the Cradle gives us a peek into the next room where the little girl is about to go outside. Notice the Dutch door which is made in two parts. The lower part can be closed and the top half will still be open. In this scene both the top and bottom portions of the door are ajar.
A Musical Conversation gives us a view of the street outside and people walking down the street. The man is playing an instrument called a cittern. What is the woman playing?
Mother at the Cradle
A Musical Conversation
The only large picture de Hooch ever painted was destroyed in a fire in Rotterdam in 1864.
He was devasted by the death of his wife in 1667. Toward the end of his life his paintings became darker in color, possibly reflecting his mood. He died in 1684 at the age of 55 in an insane asylum in Amsterdam.
Gerlings, Charlotte. 100 Great Artists, New York: Gramercy Books, 2006.
Hammacher, A.M., and R. Hammacher Vandenbrande. Flemish and Dutch Art. New York: Franklin Watt, Inc, 1965.
De Puy, William Harrison. Encyclopedia Britannica Chicago: The Werner Company, 1893
Biography of de Hooch
Paintings by De Hooch
Web Gallery of Art
Search Artist Index - H - Hooch, Pieter de
A Dutch Courtyard
from the National Gallery of Art
(explore links below the article)
De Hooch Paintings at Wikimedia
A LIBRARY OF
ONLINE BOOKS and BOOK PREVIEWS
Old Dutch and Flemish Masters
by John C. van Dyck (selected pages) Order
The Figure Painters of Holland, Pieter de Hooch
by Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower 1880(full view) Order
The figure painters of Holland
by Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower 1880 (full view)
The Hudson-Fulton celebration: Catalogue of an exhibition
by Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.) 1909 (full view)
Great masters of Dutch and Flemish painting
by Wilhelm von Bode 1909 (full view)
Preview these Amazon books using the links below.
Dutch & Flemish paintings: the collection of Willem Baron van Dedem
by Peter C. Sutton (selected pages)
Baroque & Rococo
by Marco Bussagli, Mattia Reiche (selected pages)
Old Dutch and Flemish masters
by Timothy Cole, John Charles Van Dyke 1901 (full view)
Most Recent Comments ( See more comments on this page ) 2011-08-15
I was happy to find out about Pieter de Hooch, having come across his name while reading Proust
Leave a Comment View all Comments
Famous Artists in this Series
Index to Famous Paintings
Lessons for Kids
Puzzles on these pages courtesy of
Songs of Praise and Armored Penguin
Picture courtesy of The ArtChive Patron Program | <urn:uuid:fa810d02-7798-47a7-b6f9-57d69d11049f> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://gardenofpraise.com/art48.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00011-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.925145 | 925 | 2.65625 | 3 |
When news happens, text CHRON and your photos or videos to 80360. Or contact us by email & phone.
Greens launch campaign against air pollution in Winchester city centre
1:53pm Friday 30th November 2012 in Winchester
WINCHESTER green campaigners are taking their battle to clean up filthy air to the European Union.
They are to formally complain to the European Commission about the chronic breaking of EU air quality lows.
This afternoon Green Euro-MP Keith Taylor will be in the city to highlight the complaint.
For years the city centre has had high levels of nitrogen dioxide, some 25 per cent over the maximum permitted under both EU and UK legislation.
Long-term exposure to NO2 at these levels is thought to increase the likelihood of asthma attacks and respiratory illness in children.
The campaigners are calling for the problem to be tackled by cutting traffic in the city centre.
Winchester Friends of the Earth asked the city council to produce a plan to meet the legal Air Quality requirements over a specific timescale. The council declined to provide such a plan, says FoE.
Mr Taylor, Green Party MEP, said: “I’m glad that people in Winchester have taken this bold step to voice their concerns about the air quality problem at a European level. Air pollution levels in the town are worryingly high and we’ve seen no serious action from either the city or the county council.
“I’m pleased to be supporting their complaint to the European Commission in Brussels. It’s high time that action was taken to make Winchester a healthier, safer place to live in and travel around.”
Dr Michael Wilks, of Winchester Green Party, said “The health implications of a traffic-dominated town are very serious, both directly and indirectly. Indirectly, traffic inhibits the healthy alternatives to car access to the city – walkers and cyclists are deterred, intimidated and put in positive danger in a car-dominated street system. Motor traffic directly affects the health of Winchester residents through pollution.”
Hazel Agombar of Friends of the Earth said: “As a mother of children in a city centre school directly affected by the traffic, I constantly ask myself why it is that the city council believes it is so much more important to listen to the lobbying of business interests than to try and prevent our children being poisoned. We have waited years for the Council to take proper responsibility for this.” | <urn:uuid:0ce23e7e-0cd6-4cad-bfc7-b54dcb5c12c3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hampshirechronicle.co.uk/news/winchester/10082210.Greens_launch_campaign_against_air_pollution_in_Winchester_city_centre/?ref=nt | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00076-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.941726 | 507 | 1.8125 | 2 |
GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Changes to the NFL's kickoff rules appear to account for a slight decline in the number of concussions reported across the league last season, according to a consulting firm's study of injury data provided by the NFL Players Association.
Jesse David, senior vice president at Edgeworth Economics, said the number of concussions reported on kickoffs decreased by about 43 percent from 2010 to 2011. That led to a slight drop in the overall number of reported concussions, reversing a multiyear trend toward more head injuries, he said.
"Most concussions are happening somewhere else, but kickoffs was one that they felt, I presume, that it was pretty easy to target," David said Tuesday, in an interview with The Associated Press. "And it looks like the rule did what it was supposed to do."
The NFL moved kickoffs up five yards to the 35-yard line last season, an attempt to increase the number of touchbacks and de-emphasize kick returns — one of the most violent and chaotic plays in football.
The reduction in concussions on kickoffs was among the most significant findings in the study by Edgeworth, which has done consulting work for the NFLPA in recent years. Although the players' union no longer retains Edgeworth, it continues to provide data for the firm to study independently.
There were 266 overall concussions reported in 2011, a decrease from the 270 reported in 2010. The number of concussions that occurred on kickoffs dropped from 35 in 2010 to 20 last season.
"Obviously, touchbacks are very unlikely to have a concussion on the field," David said. "Not impossible, because there's blocking going on and that sort of thing, but the big hits are going to be reduced, obviously, by not having a return."
The number of reported concussions had been on the rise since 2006.
"As an economist and a statistician, I can't tell you whether that's due to increased recognition of concussions versus an increased incidence of them," David said. "It's probably both. But nonetheless, you see a pretty significant (trend) over the last five years, roughly. However, in 2011, we saw a decrease — a slight decrease in the total number of concussions, the first time that's happened in several years. And that is entirely due to a reduced number of concussions during kickoffs."
David said the data used in their study comes from the NFL's internal injury surveillance system and classifies injuries as minor (a player missed eight days or fewer, including injuries that didn't knock a player out of a game), moderate (8-21 days missed) or major (more than 21 days missed).
The overall number of injuries increased significantly, from 3,191 in 2010 to 4,493 in 2011. But the biggest increase was seen in the number of minor injuries, and David believes the big jump could be attributed to more accurate reporting of injuries.
"To us, what that says is there's an increased in recorded injuries, but probably not an equivalent increase in actual injuries," David said. "Which means the ISS is simply getting better at tracking injuries, that reflects the increased focus that the league and the teams put on following what is actually happening on the field."
Still, David noted that the number of injuries classified as moderate or major is still on the rise.
David said there were 633 moderate injuries in 2010, and the number jumped to 739 in 2011.
"The game is still getting more dangerous," David said.
And David said there was a new aspect to the data available this year: the opponents when player injuries occurred.
Given their long-standing reputation for rough play, it might not come as a surprise that the Oakland Raiders caused the most injuries in 2011. The Buffalo Bills caused the fewest.
According to the data, the five teams that caused the most injuries were the Raiders, Baltimore Ravens, Cincinnati Bengals, Jacksonville Jaguars and Green Bay Packers.
The five teams that caused the fewest injuries were the Bills, Washington Redskins, Dallas Cowboys, New York Jets and New York Giants — proof, perhaps, that a team doesn't have to inflict pain to win the Super Bowl.
"If you told me the Ravens and the Raiders caused the most injuries, I guess I wouldn't be surprised," David said. "But again, since we only have one year (of data), I don't know how much you want to take away from that." | <urn:uuid:4a349b06-ff14-4405-8174-2e874ad8211d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://news.yahoo.com/study-rule-reduced-concussions-kickoffs-201243582--nfl.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00059-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.980488 | 925 | 1.570313 | 2 |
Southern California is a magnet for space buckaroos. People like Donald Douglas Jr., the man who built the aerospace plant in Huntington Beach that would help build rockets that put men on the moon and satellites into deep space.
Add the name Elon Musk to the list. He's the guy who made a fortune by co-founding the Internet company PayPal, which was sold for $1.5 billion.
NEW VENTURE: Elon Musk founded SpaceX, the aerospace company developing the Falcon family of rockets.
IMAGE COURTESY OF SPACEX
Bill Nye the Science Guy will appear at the Discovery Science Center in Santa Ana from 1to3 p.m. to sign his book, "Great Big Book of Tiny Germs."
Today: UC Berkeley Egyptologist Carol Redmount will appear at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana at 1:30 p.m. to discuss the latest studies by the American Research Center in Egypt.
Monday: Lou Friedman, director of the Planetary Society, will be Mat Kaplan's guest on "Planetary Radio" at 5:30 p.m., KUCI/88.9. They'll discuss Friedman's recent trip to China, where he examined that nation's space program.
Monday: Laura Mosqueda, director of the geriatrics department at UCI, will discuss "Elder Abuse and Dementia: Hunches, Anecdotes and Science," 9 a.m., Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, UCI.
Dec. 15: There will be a full moon this evening. Look 35 degrees above the east at 8 p.m.
Jan. 9: Charles Elachi, director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, will discuss "The Challenge and Excitement of Space Exploration," 6 p.m., McDonnell Douglas Auditorium, UCI.
Jan. 11: The New Horizons spacecraft is tentatively scheduled to lift off for a trip to Pluto and its moon Charon.
Jan. 13: Terry Sejnowski, a researcher at the Salk Institute in LaJolla, will discuss "The Secret Life of Cells," 4 p.m., McDonnell Douglas Auditorium, UCI.
Jan. 15: The Stardust spacecraft, which captured material shed by Comet Wild 2 during a close fly-by in January 2004, is scheduled to parachute back to Earth.
Musk, 34, has invested $100 million of his own money into creating Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, an El Segundo-based company that's trying to develop a new family of low-cost rockets called Falcon.
The first of the boosters was scheduled to launch Nov. 26 from an island near Kwajalein atoll in the Pacific. A last-minute technical glitch on the ground scrubbed the launch. But it hasn't stopped Musk, who has drawn one-third of his 160 employees from Orange County.
Musk was upbeat when we reached him by cell phone earlier this week for an interview. A longer version of the talk is available at blogs.ocregister.com/sciencedude.
Q: Falcon 1 was on the pad, ready to go. Then the problem with the fuel valve happened. What was your gut reaction to having to postpone a maiden launch of a rocket that you've trying to bring to market?
A: I was disappointed. But it was not unexpected. This is an entirely new rocket and an all new launch pad. I anticipated the countdown would be cut short. I was reasonably happy that we reached the T-minus 10 minute mark. On balance, I'm pretty happy with where we are now.
Q: When will you have a new launch date for the maiden flight of Falcon 1?
A: We are working the issue right now. The governing factor is how much time it takes to get LOX (liquid oxygen) sent to us from Hawaii, which is the nearest source. We have a LOX generator plant on our island. But it broke down two weeks ago. So we have to get LOX shipped in.
Q: Before the delayed launch you told reporters, "I actually don't feel nervous. I feel relief." How do you remain calm when the future of your venture depends on successful launches?
A: Well, it certainly would be a big blow to have the rocket be less than completely successful on the first flight. But it would not be fatal. There have been a lot of rocket start-up attempts and none have successfully managed to develop a low-cost vehicle. That's why we decided to start with a small vehicle rather than a big one. We wanted to make sure we have enough funds to cover at least three failures. If we do make mistakes, they wouldn't be amplified in the way they would with a big rocket.
Q: So when do you expect that the Falcon 1 will actually lift off?
A: I think we've got a good chance of launching on our second attempt, which should be in mid-December. I would say that we'll almost certainly launch by the end of January.
Q: One of your press releases says the small payload market "appears profitable." How confident are you that it is profitable, and how long would it take SpaceX to get into the black with small payloads?
A: It's difficult to predict. But I feel pretty optimistic. We haven't launched anything into space yet but we have six signed contracts for individual launches. We have a $100 million contract from the Air Force for launches. We have at least a half-dozen conversations going with customers that are very interested but who won't sign until the first launch takes place. I'm fairly optimistic that at a launch rate of six rockets a year, maybe even a little more, we can have a business that isn't huge, but is nice.
If SpaceX were a car company, our Falcon 1 would be a compact. And we're going on to make full-sized cars while still producing the compacts.
Q: So you'll try to win contracts for rockets that can deliver cargo and, eventually, people, to the International Space Station?
A: We're going to compete vigorously for the ISS resupply contracts. We are the likely leader in that area. But the reason I started this company is to set us on a path to becoming a space-faring civilization. So human transportation is my vision for SpaceX. As for timing, I'd say that within three years we would be taking cargo to the space station and within five years we'd be taking people.
Q: You've spoken of your desire to make this more of a space-faring civilization. The Bush administration has general plans to return humans to the moon after construction of ISS is completed. Do you believe NASA will actually achieve the goal of going back to the moon, or will that go to private business?
A: You could have a combination of the government and private companies like SpaceX playing significant roles in sending people to the moon. We've got to get out of this high-cost culture of space or we'll do less over time, not more There's going to be a crunch in Social Security and Medicare in 10, 20 years. It's not clear to me that space exploration funding would take precedence.
We need to figure out how to do more with fewer dollars or we can forget about going to Mars or the moon. We could end up ceding those boundaries to the Chinese. It's just a fact.
Q: Let me ask about your personal investment in this.
A: I've said that I've invested about $100 million of my own money to date. I would like to raise $50 million to $100 million in private investment next year. But I should say that SpaceX is very close to cashflow break-even right now. We don't have a tremendous need for new capital. We're doing OK.
Contact the writer: Register science editor Gary Robbins can be reached at (714) 796-7970 or [email protected]. Read his daily science blog at blogs.ocrgister.com/sciencedude | <urn:uuid:accb1227-5dc8-40a4-b8aa-dadf24be6103> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ocregister.com/business/space-206051-launch-going.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967762 | 1,667 | 2.0625 | 2 |
Patriarch Michael III of Constantinople
Michael was appointed patriarch by the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos, culminating what had been a highly distinguished intellectual and administrative career. Before becoming Patriarch, Michael III had held a progression of important church administrative offices, including referendarios, epi tou sakelliou, and protekdikos, the last of which was in charge of the tribunal which adjudicated claims for asylum within the Great Church. The most important of his appointments before receiving the Patriarchal throne was the office of hýpatos tōn philosóphōn (Greek: ὕπατος τῶν φιλοσόφων, "chief of the philosophers"), a title given to the head of the imperial University of Constantinople in the 11th-14th centuries. In this role he condemned the neoplatonist philosophers, and encouraged study of Aristotle's work on the natural sciences as an antidote. As Patriarch, Michael III continued to deal with the theological issue of the relation between the Son and the Father in the Holy Trinity. The issue was created due to the explanation that one Demetrius of Lampi (in Phrygia) gave to the phrase of the Gospel of John «ὁ Πατήρ μου μείζων μου ἐστίν», which means my Father is bigger than me (John, XIV.29). Michael acted as the Emperor's chief spokesman on this issue. Michael also ordered a review of Eastern Orthodox ecclesiastical and imperial laws and decrees by Theodore Balsamon known as the "Scholia" (Greek: Σχόλια) (c. 1170).
Michael's patriarchy was marked by the Emperor Manuel's attempts to forge a union with the Catholic Church. Continuing a longstanding papal policy, Alexander III demanded recognition of their religious authority over all Christians everywhere, and wished themselves to reach superiority over the Byzantine Emperor; they were not at all willing to fall into a state of dependence from one emperor to the other. Manuel, on the other side, wanted an official recognition of his secular authority over both East and West. Such conditions would not be accepted by either side. Even if a pro-western Emperor such as Manuel agreed to it, the Greek citizens of the Empire would have rejected outright any union of this sort, as they did almost three hundred years later when the Orthodox and Catholic churches were briefly united under the Pope. In existing correspondence Michael presents a deeply courteous but unbending position on the authority of his Church. The correspondence also show a good working relationship with the Emperor.
Some of Michael III's correspondence with Manuel I survive, as does his inaugural address as hýpatos. Other documents including correspondence with Pope Alexander III have been attributed to him, though they are more likely later apocryphal creations of the 13th century. Michael III can also take credit for acting as patron to the young Michael Choniates, who composed an encomium in his honour, still extant.
- Magdalino, p. 301.
- Kazhdan 1991, p. 964.
- Hussey, p. 155.
- A.A. Vasiliev, History of the Byzantine Empire (1952) chapter 7 in passim
- J.W. Birkenmeier, The Development of the Komnenian Army, 114
- P. Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, p. 21.
- R. Browning, "A New Source on Byzantine-Hungarian Relations", Balkan Studies, 2 (1961), pp. 173-214
- Hussey, p. 173.
- P. Magdalino, p. 301.
- Οικουμενικό Πατριαρχείο
- J.M. Hussey. The Orthodoox Church in the Byzantine Empire. Oxford: University Press, 1986.
- Kurtz, Johann Heinrich (1860). "Dogmatic Controversies, 12th and 14th Centuries". History of the Christian Church to the Reformation. T. & T. Clark.
- Paul Magdalino. The Empire of Manuel Komnenos. Cambridge: University Press, 1993.
|Orthodox Church titles|
|Patriarch of Constantinople | <urn:uuid:9e7acad5-0fb5-4dcf-bfd2-103ebaf836b6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriarch_Michael_III_of_Constantinople | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00033-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934269 | 927 | 2.296875 | 2 |
Top Scholar to Bolster Israel Studies, Contribute to Couple's Legacy
Search begins to fill UCLA academic chair endowed by The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation. The foundation invests in programs in the areas of College Access, Healthcare, and Israel.
Truthful information, good or bad, about contemporary Israel is extremely important to us and society in general.
Last month, after receiving approvals from the Academic Senate and the UC president's office, the UCLA International Institute formally opened its search for a leading scholar of contemporary Israel to fill The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Chair in Israel Studies. Eligible are distinguished scholars in any discipline in the humanities and social sciences, as well as related fields including law. In addition to being a $1 million boost for a nascent Israel Studies Program within the Institute, the endowed chair is a reflection of the legacy of the Gilberts. Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert were art collectors and philanthropists from Britain who adopted Los Angeles as home and committed their efforts to significant charitable endeavors and the future of the state of Israel while assembling one of the world’s preeminent decorative arts collections.
Arthur Gilbert is best known for the large decorative arts collection that he donated to Somerset House museum in London in 1996. Philanthropic work was just as important to the couple, according to Richard Ziman, co-director of the foundation. Ziman explains that they left a "very informal, non-binding list of preferences" for the foundation to pursue after the death in 2001 of Sir Arthur Gilbert, knighted late in his life by Queen Elizabeth II. Rosalinde had passed away in 1995.
Long-Term Aims, UC Ties
According to Janis Minton, Senior Advisor to the foundation, 2004 was a key year in its history. That was when the foundation adopted what she calls a "strategic" and "long-term" approach to its grantmaking by attending to such issues as detailed and ongoing evaluation of the grants' impact, the growth and sustainability of its grantees, and collaborations with other funders. Since then, the foundation has increased its giving in line with Rosalinde and Arthur Gilberts' preferences and the related interests of the foundation directors. The primary areas of concern in Israel are economic development, access to college, social services, and food programs. In United States, the foundation has a philanthropic investment in college access and retention programs for low-income students in Los Angeles, as well as prevention, treatment, and research to combat diseases—particularly two that struck the Gilberts: Alzheimer's and diabetes. Secondarily, the foundation funds arts education programs, cultural institutions, and Jewish programs in Los Angeles, and has an ongoing commitment to UCLA and UC-Berkeley.
As an example of the foundation's innovation in grantmaking, Minton cites its central role in the formation of the Southern California Collaborative for College Access, a coordinating body of 20 non-profit organizations that aim to see more low-income youths in Los Angeles County finish high school, go to four-year universities, and stay there long enough to earn degrees. The foundation provides ongoing support individually to most of the member organizations and to the collaborative as a group.
When the foundation's directors first attempted to tackle the problem of unequal access to college for LA youths, Minton says, they recognized that they had a lot to learn. So, instead of simply sending checks to organizations with an interest in one or another aspect of the issue, the foundation developed a grantmaking strategy to fund college access and retention. It brought together some 30 organizations, assembled two focus groups, and spent two years supporting forums and awareness-building activities for grantees. Results have included new efforts to engage parents, to define pathways to college, and to identify obstacles within public policy to attracting and retaining students from low-income and underrepresented groups. While current member organizations continue to enjoy the foundation's support, the collaborative is also open to non-grantee organizations. (For more information about the Southern California Collaborative for College Access, please contact Alison De Lucca at [email protected].)
The UCLA College of Letters and Sciences administers one of the foundation's Access to College Initiative grants through the Vice Provost's Initiative for Pre-College Scholars (VIPS) in the UCLA Academic Advancement Program. An outreach effort, VIPS seeks to help more underserved Los Angeles and Pasadena high school students to become competitively eligible for college and to go on to graduate and professional schools. The foundation also supports the Pre-Collegiate Academy at UC-Berkeley, where low-income, Los Angeles high-school students with a record of achievement receive tutoring, exposure to leadership seminars and community service projects, and other preparation for college.
As part of its Healthy Schools Initiative, the foundation is currently exploring opportunities to fund the Healthy School Food Coalition and ensure that LAUSD students of all socio-economic backgrounds get safe, high-quality foods. The aim is to create a healthier learning environment while preventing Type II diabetes, according to Sarah Samuels, a consultant for the foundation who holds a doctorate in public health. For this project, the foundation is likely to join forces with The California Endowment and Kaiser Permanente, Samuels said. Funding from the three organizations would boost the coalition's broad efforts and support a full-time liaison between schools and the LAUSD board.
The Los Angeles–based foundation works toward similar goals inside of Israel, including equal access to education for poor students. In south Tel Aviv, it provides breakfast to needy kindergarten and first-grade students with cooperation from civic organizations and Strauss Dairies. Among other forays into advanced medical research, the foundation also funds stem-cell research at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa.
The idea of endowing a chair in Israel studies, explains Ziman, is an outgrowth and extension of the Gilberts' "deep commitment" to "the survival of Israel in every way, shape, and form." According to Ziman, the Gilberts, who had Jewish family backgrounds, were not themselves religious. Arthur, who adopted his wife's surname, was the son of Polish Jews who had emigrated to London before the turn of the century. The Gilberts became "wholly committed" to the preservation of the Jewish state, Ziman said. They made Los Angeles their home in 1949.
The UCLA chair is also the latest concrete response to the more recent emergence of Israel studies as a distinct field of study. In 2003–04, the UCLA International Institute created the Israel Studies Program to pursue research, teaching, and outreach from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Historian Saul Friedlander, director of the now formalized Israel Studies Program, explains that the circumstances under which the state of Israel was created have lent it a cultural, societal, and political "specificity," making it a good candidate for separate academic consideration. A focus on Israel, he says, can lead to the development of perspectives not readily arrived at in Jewish studies, Near or Middle Eastern studies, or any other interdisciplinary rubric. The study of Israel embraces anthropology, economics, geography, history, literary and cultural studies, political science, and sociology. Friedlander holds UCLA's 1939 Club Chair in Holocaust Studies and was the recipient of a 1999 MacArthur Foundation Award, one of the nation's most prestigious creative and intellectual awards.
According to Martin Blank, co-director with Ziman of the foundation, the appointment of an eminent scholar of Israel will further the foundation's "important concern about Israel and its future." He adds that "truthful information, good or bad," about contemporary Israel "is extremely important to us and society in general."
Two recent gifts made by Los Angeles–area couples are expected to bring additional country-specific academic chairs to UCLA. Holders of those chairs will focus on contemporary Japan and the remarkable story of Christianity in Korea.
Published: Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Former Internee Offers Gift to Bring Two Nations Closer Together
More than 60 years after he left the camp behind, this emeritus UCLA professor, surgeon and researcher and his wife, Hisako, have donated $5 million to promote better understanding between Japan and America.
Gift from 'Average' LA County Employees Advances Korean Studies
Immigrant couple gives $1 million, creates western world's first endowed academic chair in Korean Christianity. | <urn:uuid:8b44777a-8926-44fc-ab98-cca4cf3b5993> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.international.ucla.edu/israel/news/article.asp?parentid=47590 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.94982 | 1,731 | 1.648438 | 2 |
I define “new agrarian age” as a society in which rural and urban lifestyles become indistinguishable. Roof top vegetable gardens in downtown Manhattan for instance. A more typical example is a landscape where urban agriculture and rural manufacturing exist side by side in harmony. I saw a photo recently of horses plowing a large garden plot with the Cleveland, Ohio, city skyline in the background.
Some years ago I visited Paws Inc., where Jim Davis, the creator of the comic strip “Garfield” has his business headquartered. The location in rural Indiana (where Davis grew up), is so far out in the country that there was no suitable sewage system to handle the waste from his three big office buildings and fairly large number of workers. He had engineers design and build a greenhouse where plants, fish, and other aquatic animals flourished by feeding on the nutrients in the wastewater while purifying it before its return to natural waterways. Aquaculture and urban culture surely joined hands in that greenhouse. Silviculture too because Davis was also raising tree seedlings in the greenhouse to reforest wornout farm land in the area.
Last week I attended the annual conference of the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association (OEFFA), spending the day signing and selling books and gabbing with people. Those of us who remember the early days of OEFFA were stunned and jubilant at the overflow crowd. So many people wanted to come to the conference in fact, that about 200 had to be turned away because of space limitations, Carol Goland, OEFFA’s executive director told me regretfully. I looked around the main exhibit hall (a highschool gymnasium) crammed with booths where all sorts of organic and natural farm supplies were being sold. I was remembering the early days, when, said Mike McLaughlin, a farmer and OEFFA official since the early days, “we thought that four exhibitors was a major achievement.”
It is difficult to make generalities about any group of humans, but I’d say that today’s OEFFA member is more sophisticated about the possibilities of the new ecological trends in agriculture. Back in the early days, I’d say that we were mostly angry and rebellious at being called radical just because we didn’t like what industrial agriculture was doing. Today’s OEFFA members are more assured about the way forward. They would rather figure than fight. If someone called them radical, they would merely be amused. They are convinced that the agribusiness methods of the past are so obviously unworkable that there is no need to fight anymore. Move on.
And they are moving on. There was something electric in the air. I could feel it. At meetings of industrial farmers these days, the talk is fairly bleak, but here, among new farmers and gardeners with a hundred new ways to produce food and sell it locally, the people just seemed to glow with optimism. I’ve been sitting at tables selling books it seems like forever. This time, buyers would approach me with victorious little smiles on their faces. Something about the way they would pick up a book and plop it down in front of me for signing while they got out their billfolds bespoke an exuberance that was full of quiet confidence. Sometimes a buyer would briskly pile three or four books up and say “How much?” An author’s dream. OEFFA itself had a long table of books for sale. I was told that on Saturday, the big day (I was there on Sunday), people stood three and four deep in front of that long table, buying books. A couple of attendees who stopped to buy a book from me were carrying— you’d never guess what. Brand new pitchforks they had also just purchased. When a farmer buys a new fork and a new book in the same breath, that’s new age agrarianism.
I could be wishful dreaming again. This could be just another spurt in the ancient back to the land idealism I’ve seen come and go twice in my lifetime. But maybe something more permanent is in the offing. Money farming is pricing itself out of the food market, and maybe government, which continues to prop up this kind of farming with artificial money, is being forced to realize that. As farmer and author Joel Salatin, the keynote speaker, symbolized to the world: ecological and organic farmers are here to stay and they are ready to take the helm. | <urn:uuid:33c9a6ea-0d48-4ec4-a755-ae53e63f3873> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.energybulletin.net/print/51732 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00063-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.979759 | 936 | 1.960938 | 2 |
Christians are called to have compassion and to aid the injured, the lost, and the dispossessed. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has a long history of policies and actions to aid refugees in stressed regions. Our nation has grown over the centuries from the influx of refugees from many nations. Since 1940, the United States has provided special refugee status to many thousands of refugees from military conflicts in which the United States participated.
The continuing conflict in Iraq has resulted in millions of refugees and internally displaced persons, yet very few Iraqis have been granted requested refugee status and resettlement in the United States. Attempts by the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to aid the resettlement of Iraqi refugees, including Iraqi church leaders, have revealed this refugee crisis:
• Very few visas to enter the United States have been authorized or issued for Iraqi refugees
• Processing of refugees is extremely slow, apparently due to complex procedures and inadequate personnel resources
• Most Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons, now in the millions, are in appalling, desperate situations in Iraq and the neighboring countries.
We believe that the church must urge our government to address these humanitarian concerns by taking the actions recommended in this overture and that the church itself must respond to the crisis by encouraging congregations to participate in resettlement efforts. | <urn:uuid:9b7ddabb-1901-4005-9f43-763c800cad93> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pc-biz.org/IOBView.aspx?m=ro&id=1417 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00022-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96683 | 263 | 2.421875 | 2 |
The AP reports that a deal has been struck to continue primary management of the Internet by the United States, following weeks and months of controversy. The EU had been pushing for control of the web to be turned over to a supra-national body, such as the UN.
The accord was accomplished at The World Summit on the Information Society, an international gathering to examine the “digital divide” between developed and developing nations. While “the summit was originally conceived to address the digital divide–the gap between information haves and have-nots–by raising both consciousness and funds for projects,” the meeting provided a forum to discuss and come to a resolution: “Instead, it has centered largely around Internet governance: oversight of the main computers that control traffic on the Internet by acting as its master directories so Web browsers and e-mail programs can find other computers.”
U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Michael D. Gallagher said that the new agreement means that the onus now lies with the developing world to bring in not just opinions, but investment to expand the Internet to their benefit.
The fundamental basis for the agreement is the establishment of the Internet Governance Forum, a non-binding advisory body that would bring “its stakeholders to the table to discuss the issues affecting the Internet, and its use.” The formation of the forum essentially follows the recommendations of the UN’s Working Group on Internet Governance made in this past June.
For more on the issue of Internet governance, check out the Internet Governance Project, “an interdisciplinary consortium of academics with scholarly and practical expertise in international governance, Internet policy, and information and communication technology.”
A paper issued earlier this year by the project focuses on “the six factors that need to be taken into account in working out the details of a forum mechanism” (Download PDF here). | <urn:uuid:cf6791a0-9004-455e-a8a5-5bcb86f88b61> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://blog.acton.org/archives/564-yes-icann-no-you-cant.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00008-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.951529 | 386 | 2.578125 | 3 |
After a year in development, IBM has announced the availability of its new systems and solutions PowerLinux, which consist of processor-based servers POWER7 and operating systems that can be either Red Hat Enterprise Linux or SUSE Linux Enterprise Server .
The aim of these new solutions is to facilitate the analysis of large volumes data (Big Data) , industrial management or development of infrastructure services open source.
addition, “ PowerLinux IBM offers solutions in collaboration with its partners, independent software vendors (ISVs) and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). In this way, you can set specific performance required for each workload, offering customers an IT environment based on Linux easier can reduce infrastructure costs and provide more free time technology departments so they can focus on providing new products and services more quickly “, as shown in the official announcement.
One of the most interesting announcement is the fact that Canonical has not wanted to support this hardware, which excel at ZDNet, where he quoted the words of Mark Shuttleworth, founder of the company: “ No POWER endure because after mutual agreement with IBM, there is little or no common front among the user base and Ubuntu POWER . People make use of Ubuntu to deploy server farms, and the POWER platform has been adopted for niche scenarios and mission-critical “.
No related posts. | <urn:uuid:0d5b6f4b-3e29-4c6a-966a-badf438b933a> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://cuduwudu.com/tag/targeted/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.936571 | 269 | 2.09375 | 2 |
Ives From the Steeples and the Mountains
Ives The Unanswered Question
Prokofiev Piano Concerto No 3
Stravinsky The Firebird (suite, 1945)
Yuja Wang piano
Michael Tilson Thomas conductor
London Symphony Orchestra
The ‘unanswered question’ in Ives’ philosophical 1906 piece may be that of existence itself. Religious matters also inflect From the Steeples and Mountains (1901), with its bells that seem to toll from different church towers. The lyricism and spiky humour of Prokofiev’s concerto are a different matter; the composer himself played at the 1921 premiere in Chicago. After the 1910 premiere of his ballet The Firebird in Paris, Stravinsky became famous overnight, with audiences enraptured by his spectacular orchestrations.
Change of programme
Due to changes to the Orchestra’s and artists’ schedules the programme for this concert has now changed. The second half is as previously advertised but the two Ives works and the Prokofiev Piano Concerto replace the original first half (Stravinsky’s Quatre études and Capriccio). There is no change of soloists.
Promoted by London Symphony Orchestra
Part of freeB
Part of LSO 2008-2009 | <urn:uuid:aefffbe2-4241-42ff-a48d-8a56a080e1a7> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/event-detail.asp?ID=7245 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705559639/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115919-00020-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.929156 | 273 | 1.734375 | 2 |
NaupliaArticle Free Pass
Nauplia, Modern Greek Návplio, chief town of the nomós (department) of Argolís, in the Peloponnese, Greece, at the head of the Gulf of Argolís (Argolikós Kólpos). The port, southeast of Árgos, sits on the north slope of twin crags; Itche (or Its) Kale (279 feet [85 m]), the western crag, forms a small peninsula in the bay and is the site of a Hellenic fortress, while the much higher Palamídhion (705 feet), with a Venetian castle, dominates the port from the southeast. The tiny island of Boúrtzi off Nauplia has a Venetian fortress, the Castel Pasqualigo (1471), which was briefly used as a tourist hotel.
Nauplia fell to Árgos about 625 bce and thereafter played little part in Classical history. In earlier Mycenaean times, however, it probably was the maritime outlet for Árgos, for the name Nauplia means “naval station.” The town revived in Byzantine times but in 1210 ce was captured by the Franks and became, with Árgos, a fief of the duchy of Náxos. In 1388 it was bought by the Venetians, who called it Napoli di Romania. It repelled several Turkish sieges but fell in 1540, becoming the capital of the Turkish Morea (Peloponnese). In 1686 Venice recovered it and fortified the Palamídhion rock, but Venice lost control of Nauplia again in 1715 to the Turks, who held it until the Greeks captured it in 1822 during the War of Greek Independence. From 1829 to 1834 Nauplia was the seat of the Greek government. The capital was eventually shifted to Athens under the terms of the 1832 Treaty of Constantinople. In 1941 the British lost several large ships in the gulf while evacuating their forces through the port.
With its Byzantine, Frankish, and Venetian castles and fortifications, Nauplia retains a strong medieval character. On one corner of Syntagma (Constitution) Square is the mosque of Vouleftiko, in which the first assembly of free Greece met. Pop. (2001 prelim.) 13,822.
What made you want to look up "Nauplia"? Please share what surprised you most... | <urn:uuid:a4b064ae-fbeb-4f25-8fc5-c4a7994e6bc3> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/406660/Nauplia | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00045-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.945225 | 535 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Cities in Ohio and Georgia.
(Monitor: t. 479; l. 177'; b. 50'; dr. 5'; s. 9 k.; cpl. 100; a. 2 11")
Marietta, a light draft, single‑turreted, ironclad, screw monitor, was laid down in the summer of 1862 by Tomlinson and Hartupee, Pittsburgh, Pa.; launched as a gunboat early in December 1864; completed 16 December 1864; and accepted by the Navy 25 April 1866. She was never commissioned. Soon after her acceptance Marietta was laid up at Mound City, III. Renamed Circe 15 June 1869, the gunboat carried that name only until 10 August, when she was again named Marietta. Remaining at Mound City, Marietta was sold 12 April 1873 to David Campbell. | <urn:uuid:398a9bd1-0960-40b1-a397-d1c4cbf52291> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.history.navy.mil/DANFS/m4/marietta-ii.htm | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700958435/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516104238-00003-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.964294 | 183 | 2 | 2 |
Untitled [Guanaroca (First Woman)]
Ana Mendieta: Place and Presence
Before graduating from the University of Iowa in 1972, Ana Mendieta had already embarked upon her unique practice of blending photography, body art, earth art, and performance art as she addressed the emergence of feminism and her experience as a Cuban exile.
For her iconic Silueta series, Mendieta placed her body in the landscape, using materials such as crushed flowers, sculpted mud, or ignited gunpowder to literally inscribe her silhouette, and then documented the ephemeral results through photographs and films. Returning to Cuba in 1980 and 1981, she continued to trace female forms on the ground, as in the pieces executed on the beach in Guanabo. She also began carving fertility figures into the caves and cliffs of her native land, which she called Rupestrian Sculptures. Many of these, such as the large Untitled (Guanaroca [First Woman]), were named after indigenous goddesses, simultaneously serving as political and personal assertions of Mendieta’s presence and identity, as well as reminders of ancient traditions of goddess worship.
- Artist: Ana Mendieta, American, born Cuba, 1948-1985
- Medium: Gelatin silver photograph
- Dates: 1981/1994
- Dimensions: 53 1/2 x 39 1/2 in. (135.9 x 100.3 cm) (show scale)
- Collections:Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art
- Museum Location: This item is not on view
- Accession Number: 2007.15
- Edition: Posthumous print edition 1 of 3
- Credit Line: Gift of Stephanie Ingrassia
- Rights Statement: © The Estate of Ana Mendieta
- Caption: Ana Mendieta (American, born Cuba, 1948-1985). Untitled [Guanaroca (First Woman)], 1981/1994. Gelatin silver photograph, 53 1/2 x 39 1/2 in. (135.9 x 100.3 cm). Brooklyn Museum, Gift of Stephanie Ingrassia, 2007.15. © The Estate of Ana Mendieta
- Catalogue Description: Black and white photograph of carved cave Cueva del Aguila, Escaleras de Jaruco, Havana.
- Record Completeness: Best (81%) | <urn:uuid:3830afa1-5120-478d-993d-8a300cdcb615> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/objects/5032/Untitled_%7cGuanaroca_First_Woman%7c | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.918808 | 489 | 2.359375 | 2 |
Jump to:Page Content
"Bank-owned," says real estate agent John Groves, without skipping a beat.
There are other clues. Dirt where a lush lawn should be. Vacant lots on either side. And the sale price: $729,900 for a never-lived-in, 5,500-square-foot, five-bedroom, 3.5-bath custom home that about a year ago was listed for more than $1.2 million.
In a nearby subdivision of this community of 246,000, one of the largest suburbs in metropolitan Phoenix, a foreclosure sign in the front yard of a more modest house signals yet another financially troubled home needing a buyer.
Multiply that scenario hundreds of thousands of times. From Maine to Hawaii, millions of new McMansions, post-World War II bungalows, modern downtown lofts, exurban town homes and inner-city row houses sit empty. This unprecedented glut of vacant homes — one in nine homes across the USA, according to the Census Bureau — will change the real estate landscape for years.
Already, rock-bottom prices in the hardest-hit markets are attracting first-time home buyers who could not afford a home during boom times. Some areas may see real estate values stabilize by the end of this year, as buyers seeking bargains begin to reduce the backlog of homes for sale. At the same time, the availability of rental housing will widen, potentially pushing down the cost of renting.
"We overproduced by 1 million new units," says Edward Glaeser, economist at Harvard University. "Now we have to work our way through the stock."
What happens to the 14 million empty houses, condominiums and apartments and the 9.4 million that are for sale? How long will it take to absorb this massive and unprecedented oversupply of housing?
"Two more years," Glaeser says. His is one of the more optimistic estimates. Projections by housing analysts range from as early as this year in some areas to as late as 2014 in others.
"From a pure need for shelter, we don't need more homes built for the next several years," says John Burns, head of John Burns Real Estate Consulting in Irvine, Calif., who believes the recovery might take five years in some areas. "We clearly overbuilt."
The nation's housing stock increased by 8.65 million units from 2002 to 2007 — a time when the number of households in the USA increased by only 6.7 million. Even after taking into account the need to replace homes torn down or lost to fire and other disasters, there is an excess of 1.3 million units, not including vacation homes.
The nation adds about 1.5 million households every year, but that number is shrinking. The recession, delayed marriage and a slowdown in immigration all have reduced the demand for more housing.
The bad economy forces many young people to live at home longer if they're single. Sharing a home with friends or relatives may be the only affordable option for many who can't keep up with house payments.
"When you have an economic crisis, you can move in with Mom and Dad, take in roommates or move to Mexico, but I don't think there's much household formation," Burns says.
"The highest rate of increase in homeownership (typically) is in ages 30-44, and there are fewer of them," says William Lucy, professor of urban and environmental planning at the University of Virginia. "Those are the likely childbearing years."
Since 2004, the number of households in that age group has dropped by 1.6 million.
The overall U.S. population, however, is still expected to grow by almost 100 million, to 400 million, by 2040 because of strong fertility rates and continued immigration. That will fuel demand for more housing.
Today, homes are still being built — about 700,000 this year, says Arthur C. Nelson, director of the University of Utah's Metropolitan Research Center.
The U.S. will need all this housing at some point, says Robert Lang, head of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. "Population is still growing, and sooner or later, you'll want to move out of relatives' basements."
Burns fears that some working-class subdivisions on the far edge of metropolitan areas will turn into "exurban ghettos" as prices drop and many units are turned over to renters.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is doling out $731 million to 48 states to buy and rehabilitate vacant, foreclosed homes and help low- to moderate-income families buy them.
Susan Wynalek, 53, hasn't witnessed the consequences of the real estate collapse firsthand — only on the news. She doesn't see foreclosure signs or many "For Sale" signs in Freehold, N.J., the affluent town in the far reaches of the New York suburbs, where she lives.
"We bought our house 3½ years ago, and I imagine on paper we're losing money," she says. "But we're staying put."
Just as the housing crisis has hit some areas more brutally than others, the recovery will reach some before others.
"The geography of this is important," says Lucy, who has analyzed foreclosures.
More than half of foreclosures last year were filed in just 35 counties across 12 states.
After analyzing government housing data and estimates and projections by Woods & Poole Economics, an independent economic forecaster, Nelson predicts that housing markets in the West and South — regions hardest hit by foreclosures — will start to bounce back later this year and the first half of 2010. The Northeast and Midwest will have the slowest comeback — possibly beyond 2012, he says.
Nelson adds a cautionary note: "Keep in mind that 'recovery' does not mean 'happy days are here again' " but "that there is sufficient pent-up demand for new housing as to warrant new construction."
Prices won't bounce back much, at least initially. When the recovery begins, homes will be selling at the lowest prices this decade, Nelson says.
Opportunities for some
There's an upside to the nation's housing glut, fed by the crush of foreclosures: Housing gets more affordable.
More than 2.3 million homes went into foreclosure last year. There were 290,000 filings in February alone, up 6% from January.
The number of homes for sale in 2007 soared to 10 million but inched back to 9.4 million in 2008, as construction of new homes slowed and prices sank, Lucy says. That's still almost 40% higher than 10 years earlier, when fewer than 7 million homes were for sale.
Sales of existing homes rose 5.1% to 4.72 million from January to February — the largest sales jump since July 2003, the National Association of Realtors reports.
The surprising increase was driven by buyers taking advantage of big discounts on foreclosed homes. The median sale price was $165,400, down 15.5% from a year earlier and down 28% from their peak in July 2006.
First-time home buyers who could not break into the housing market in the boom years are prime buyers now that prices are at or near bottom and mortgage interest rates are below 5%.
Buyers aren't the only ones benefiting.
Business is soaring for Kennedy Wilson Auction Group, based in Beverly Hills. The company sold more than 1,000 homes at auction last year, a jump from the 120 to 175 homes it auctioned five years ago. The firm has conducted auctions in new luxury developments in Scottsdale, Ariz., Seattle and Southern California.
President Rhett Winchell says that 90% of his customers buy to live in the homes. The rest are investors.
"The format allows first-time home buyers to buy the house of their dreams," he says. "People buying today are getting huge discounts over a year ago. … It's all about price."
His company auctions the units to help developers sell them fast. A unit that would have been on the market for $500,000 sells at auction for between $350,000 and $400,000.
Auctions that sell foreclosed homes — old, new, small, big, homes that banks want to get off their books — appeal to investors who are betting on a turnaround and can get rental income in the meantime.
Another side effect on housing: The demand for rentals has risen since the housing market tanked. Apartments that had been converted to condominiums at the peak of the market have reverted to apartments.
When someone loses a home for failure to make the payments, "they will either most likely rent a single-family home or rent an apartment, but they're not likely to go buy another home," says Elliott Pollack, CEO of Elliott D. Pollack & Co., a real estate and economic consulting firm in Scottsdale.
Tighter credit and stricter mortgage qualifications are likely to push homeownership down from the record 67% it reached this decade to about 63%, Nelson says. "Half of new housing will have to be rental," he says.
Hints of a turnaround
Here in Maricopa County, Ariz., the number of foreclosures ranked 24th in the USA last year — not far behind areas such as Riverside, Calif., Las Vegas and Fort Myers, Fla.
In Maricopa County, there were 117,000 foreclosure actions or one for every 13 households, according to real estate listing firm RealtyTrac. That's six times the number recorded in 2006.
It's not the first real-estate meltdown for Phoenix and suburbs such as Chandler. The savings-and-loan crisis in the late 1980s and early 1990s that resulted in the failure of more than 700 savings-and-loan associations hit this region hard and halted development for a while. The government formed the Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) to liquidate real estate and mortgage loans held by the savings and loans.
The S&L crisis, however, was less sweeping than the current mess, local officials and housing analysts say. It affected commercial construction and developers rather than homeowners.
At the time, many large, master-planned communities already had streets, sewer and water lines and other infrastructure in place but only a half-dozen homes built.
As soon as the RTC took over, developers bought the ready-made subdivisions and started putting up homes. Credit was still available through banks and other lenders.
"The S&L stuff wasn't people moving out of houses," says Jeff Kurtz, Chandler's acting planning and development director. "It was just that growth stopped."
"It was nothing compared to now," former Chandler mayor Jerry Brooks says.
In suburban Phoenix, however, signs of life are sprouting, says real estate agent Groves, 53.
One of his clients is relocating from Southern California and wants to buy two homes, one to live in and one for investment.
Another client, a local buyer, is ready to pay cash for a house he can rent and resell later.
At a recent get-together with friends and colleagues, "absolutely every Realtor at the table was telling stories of how they've got more buyers than they can handle," Groves says.
"It tells me that prices have reached the point where people perceive value." | <urn:uuid:9e8c6fee-3f9a-4547-bfe0-d8e95f246cf9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/rappaport/events-and-news/quoted-in-the-news/open-house-anyone-1-in-9-homes-sit-empty | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705195219/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516115315-00007-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968444 | 2,359 | 1.726563 | 2 |
Not much information is available on Ah Bing, but his namesake remains ubiquitous: the Bing cherry, an American fruit favorite.
The Bing cherry was first grown in Oregon in 1875, created as a crossbred graft from the Republican cherry, and is the most produced variety of sweet cherry in the US today.
For me, the back story is the juicy stuff. I want to know about ingredients and underpinnings -- the stuff that comes before the conclusion. Maybe that's why I've always loved a good obituary.
In this column, I'll be offering "old news" of people and events of the past or not-quite-present, profiling Asian Americans who may not be the most famous or the most influential -- or even the most likable -- but like everyone, have stories of their own.
If you've got a suggestion for someone you want to see profiled, please leave a comment.
The previous issue of Hyphen is available in its entirety for your perusing pleasure. Almost as good as having it right in your hands! | <urn:uuid:ea3516a0-65c5-4556-bb89-262072f42f76> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.hyphenmagazine.com/blog/lisa-ko?quicktabs_1=1 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00037-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.968363 | 217 | 1.929688 | 2 |
Sonic Phonics is a set of 51 electronic Sound Buttons that play individual letter and digraph sounds. Sonic Phonics is all about making phonics fun! Children can use the Sound Buttons to reinforce grapheme-phoneme correspondences, learn to enunciate sounds correctly, and even build and read simple words.
Set contains 51 Electronic Sound Buttons that play individual letter and digraph sounds
Explore letter combinations by building different words
Designed for all children and adults who are learning to read or find reading difficult
Ideal for those with English as an additional language
A Holding Tray is included to display up to five buttons in a row
The Sound Buttons have built-in magnets to allow them to be used on magnetic white boards
Batteries are included and replaceable, (AG13 x 3)
A multi-sensory resource that is motivational and fun!
Supports phonics programmes such as Letters and Sounds | <urn:uuid:6d5cdbe7-aaaa-45ff-87a1-0d63497aa4f0> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.talkingproducts.com/sonic-phonics.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368711005985/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516133005-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.931541 | 196 | 2.90625 | 3 |
The popular inspirational poem “Invictus” by William Henly is a personal favorite. It speaks to my soul. It tells me no matter how tough ones conditions may be, no one or thing can ever take away the spark that makes life worth living. It’s like the fire in the belly that can never be extinguished, it’s always there, some days burning more brightly than others. When my spirit is tired, I stop and listen to what it says. I quite my minds chatter. I immerse myself in my possibility and remember that I am Master of my Fate, I am Captain of my Soul.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Never Let It Rest, | <urn:uuid:d703dccd-3c58-4d08-869d-fd5293def08d> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://neverletitrest.com/2011/10/08/unbowed-and-unbroken/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.907607 | 282 | 1.539063 | 2 |
Archived News Release from 2005
For Immediate Release
High Tides Combined with Storm Bring Potential for Flooding
Redwood City, CA - January 6, 2005
- The storms expected to hit the bay area in the next few days will unfortunately be combined with unusually high tides, and Redwood City is cautioning residents in flood-prone areas to be vigilant and make appropriate preparations. The National Weather Service predicts a wet and cold weather pattern to affect the San Francisco Bay Area Thursday through Sunday, including heavy rains and wind. At the same time, tides will be extremely high from January 6 through January 12. When heavy rains coincide with unusually high tides, the potential exists for an overflow of water.
Creeks, drainage areas, retention basins, and other elements of the City’s storm systems may fill beyond capacity. Redwood City residents in flood-prone areas, particularly those east of El Camino Real, are urged to take measures to reduce the risk of flooding:
- Residents can pick up sandbags on first come-first served basis at 1400 Broadway; when not being used, they should be stored in a dry area or covered with protective plastic to keep them dry.
- Gutters and down spouts should be cleaned and free of debris to assure proper water run-off away from the home, toward the street.
- Do not place trash or debris in the gutters, creeks, or drainage canals, in order to keep catch basins and storm drain openings clear of debris.
- Move electrical wires and extension cords off the floor, if your home is in an area know to experience flooding.
- If residents observe a significant blockage of leaves or other debris in gutters, creeks, or drainage canals, they should call Redwood City Public Works at 780-7464.
- Residents can help us by raking leaves away from the catch basin to allow flow to continue, and leaving them on the planting strip so that rains cannot wash them back into catch basins.
Redwood City’s Public Works Department crews will be out in force throughout this period, working to ensure that the storm water system is operating, that streets, gutters, and drains are clear and running, and that the pump stations and tide gates are functioning. These crews are responsible for taking care of literally thousands of storm drain catch basins (which ‘catch’ the dirt and debris as storm water flows through) and inlets (the grated storm drains you see in gutters), over 100 miles of storm drain pipe, 75 tide gates, 82 open culverts, and over 10 miles of creeks, drainage ditches, and canals.
For the most part, Redwood City is at sea level. Rainwater collects in catch basins, flows to the creeks, then downhill to one of 17 pump stations. These stations pump the storm water into the Bay to keep it from flooding low-lying areas of the City. The City’s 75 tide gates keep high tides from pushing ‘upstream’ and overloading already-swollen creeks and basins, and during low tide the gates let creek water flow into the Bay.
Further general information on disaster preparedness is available on the Redwood City Fire Department's web pages.
Visit Redwood City 's award-winning website at www.redwoodcity.org for information about the City and its services, the community, recreation programs, education, City government, and local business.
Public Works Superintendent | <urn:uuid:e93163db-1b05-4656-b75c-d51c75bf2798> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://redwoodcity.org/manager/news/2005/pr_stormtides.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704132298/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113532-00035-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.917913 | 728 | 1.882813 | 2 |
The year of the tipping point?
By Bob Berwyn
SUMMIT COUNTY — If 2011 goes down as the year that global warming awareness reached a critical mass, it could be attributed to the spate of unusual weather events around the globe. From massive tornado outbreaks in the Midwest, to heatwaves, Mississippi flooding, droughts and more, there appears to be growing acceptance of the fact that the Earth’s changing climate is creating more and more damage and displacement.
That doesn’t mean every year from now on is going to be the same — it’s not a linear equation. But, on the whole, the scientific consensus is that more heat and water vapor in the atmosphere, as well as higher sea levels, generally spell trouble for humankind. Formally, this recognition was expressed in a recent report from the IPCC: New IPCC report links climate change and extreme weather.
The growing public acceptance may also be reflected by the increasingly shrill tone of the last few global warming deniers. On web sites like the ironically named Real Science, poster have taken to name-calling, and characterizing respected climate researchers as “morons” and worse.
And it’s not just coastal areas. Earlier this year, the National Weather released its new “climate normals,” and Colorado stands out like a sore thumb on a national map as the state with biggest jump in average maximum temperatures based on the 30-year increments NOAA uses to establish those baselines: Is Colorado Ground Zero for global warming?
Other significant regional stories include global warming impact on the West’s snowpack: Global warming: Topsy-turvy snowpack in the West and, by association water supplies: Global warming to take big toll on western trout.
If there is any good news, it’s that some research suggests the worst case scenarios under climate models may be unlikely. Studies seem to show that, at some point, the Earth has the ability to attenuate its climate to increasing levels of CO2: Global warming: Runaway temperature increase unlikely.
Scientists also found an answer for what’s been called “missing heat.” Essentially, atmospheric temps haven’t climbed quite as much — or more accurately — as steadily as some climate models would have suggested. Apparently, some of the heat is being stored deep in the oceans: Global warming: ‘Missing’ heat found deep in the ocean.
Of course, global warming isn’t just a science story. It’s also a partisan political issue, and this year, as never before, the Republican Party tried to attack the fundamental science, the scientists and the messengers: House Republicans launch another climate witch hunt.
Here are a few more of the top climate related headlines from Summit Voice:
- Urban ‘heat-islands’ only a small factor in global warming
- Global warming: A tipping point for phytoplankton?
- Global warming: Day of Action under way
- New data helps pinpoint sun’s influence on climate
- Global warming: Arctic temps climb off the charts
- Global warming: Sea levels could rise for centuries to come
- Climate: Sea-levels rising at the fastest rate in 2100 years | <urn:uuid:fab19c36-23ee-46fb-bd29-3aa54eeba0eb> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://summitcountyvoice.com/2011/12/31/global-warming-top-stories-of-2011/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368700264179/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516103104-00057-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.930602 | 673 | 3.140625 | 3 |
Menacing Deep-sea Anglerfish. Credit: Harbor Branch/E. WidderFor centuries scientists have thought of deep-sea pelagic fish as nomadic wanderers, in part because information about them was so limited. However, new results from the ongoing Mid-Atlantic Ridge Ecosystems program (MAR-ECO), a Sloan Foundation-sponsored component of the Census of Marine Life, have revealed that these fishes may in fact be gathering at features such as ridges or seamounts to spawn.
The research has important implications for how deep-sea ecosystems should be managed to prevent devastation by deep trawling activities. MAR-ECO research expeditions have also led to the discovery of as many as six fish species new to science and the collection of some unusually large deep-sea fish specimens.
The first public presentations of results from MAR-ECO will be made at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Honolulu (http://www.agu.org/meetings/os06/), from Feb. 20- 24. On Tuesday, Feb. 21, Tracey Sutton, a fish expert at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution will be discussing the MAR-ECO deep-sea pelagic fish research at a 9:00 a.m. Hawaii Std. Time (2:00 p.m. EST) press conference and at a 2:15 p.m. Hawaii Std. Time (7:15 p.m. EST) scientific session.
"We're discovering all these patterns that we've never seen before," says Sutton, "and now we're working to figure out what they mean and how they got there. The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is proving to be an oasis in the desert , so to speak."
Pelagic fish are those species thought to spend the bulk of their time in open water, as opposed to staying near the seafloor. Classification has historically been determined based mainly on whether the fish are typically caught in open water trawl nets, or trawl gear that collects along the bottom. Deepwater pelagics include some of what most people would agree to be the most bizarre looking animals on the planet. Many, with their oversized fangs, aquatic scowls, and ingenious entrapment devices-- coupled with names such as "vampire fish from hell" and saber-toothed viper fish--are the stuff of pure nightmare save for their typically small sizes. Like the best nightmare sponsors, though, they remain mysterious.
Adequate understanding of the deepwater fishes has been hard to come by because deep-sea fish research has remained extremely limited. Not since the famous Challenger Expedition in the 1870s has a research project collected as many bathypelagic (deeper than 1,000meters) fish samples as the MAR-ECO project. In fact, the deep sea has been so thinly sampled that data compiled by the international Census of Marine Life program have shown that historically, about 50% of animal samples collected from deeper than 3,000 meters have turned out to be new species.
The Mid-Atlantic Ridge is a massive undersea mountain range that runs almost the entire length of the Atlantic about midway between the continents. To date, MAR-ECO researchers have collected more than 300 fish species there using the full spectrum of advanced tools currently available, including massive trawl nets that can be triggered to open and close at specific depths, submersibles, remotely operated vehicles, and acoustic survey instruments. Of the samples collected, more than 30 were species never before known to inhabit the Mid-Atlantic Ridge region, and six appear to be species new to science, though final determination of new species is a long process still underway for these samples.
The team also made a number of extremely rare catches. These include some of the largest dragonfishes and anglerfishes ever collected. Anglerfishes, for example, typically fit in the palm of your hand, but one sample (photo available) weighed in at 35 pounds. Another rare find was a species of whalefish previously known from only one other specimen, collected in 1975. "As soon as I saw it I was very excited," says Sutton. Such sparse sample availability has been the norm in the field, according to Sutton, leading to major difficulties at times in identifying samples that are collected. In some cases male, female and juveniles of the same species are erroneously classified as 3 separate species because only one specimen of each has been collected.
One of the major overall finds of the MAR-ECO project to date, which has included two main expeditions, is strong evidence that deep-sea pelagic fish are more closely associated with features such as the Mid-Atlantic Ridge than ever before realized. As Sutton will explain at the conference in Honolulu, the group has now collected several pieces of key evidence that these fish are congregating at the ridge, likely for spawning.
One key line of evidence was in the surprising numbers of several fish species collected, such as tubeshoulders, which spurt bioluminescent liquid. Past deep-sea work has suggested the fish are rare and widely scattered. "We're used to ones and twos," says Sutton, but we were getting tens, twenties, thirties--laundry baskets of these guys at 2,000 meters, which is pretty unusual." Most of those that were collected were gravid females, suggesting spawning activity.
Important indirect evidence was also collected, namely observation of a never before seen mysterious "scattering" layer at 2,000 meters detected using acoustic devices that generate images of materials or animals found at a given depth. Though there are other possibilities, it is quite likely the layer was a massive fish aggregation, says Sutton, because fish swim bladders and eggs tend to produce detectable acoustic signatures while squid and other organisms can typically only produce faint images.
"As we were making these discoveries, we started to wonder if these fish were coming to the ridge to aggregate and spawn," says Sutton, "This is the fist time anyone has suggested that deep-sea pelagics form groups to spawn and then disperse again, which would require some homing ability or knowledge but I can't even speculate yet on what the trigger would be."
Adding further to the idea of the ridge as a saltwater desert oasis, the MAR-ECO team was surprised to find lush growth on many parts of the ridge. "The bottom was stunning," says Sutton, "There was far more growth and coral than we could have imagined. It looks like a tropical coral reef down there in places."
Sutton says the results of MAR-ECO and other recent projects are pointing to new threats from expanding deep-sea trawling activity, and the need for near-bottom observing systems to regularly monitor deep-ocean ecosystems and their inhabitants. Without reasonable understanding of these resources, including some important commercial fisheries, protecting them is almost impossible, he says.
One of Sutton's MAR-ECO collaborators, Franz Uiblein of the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research, will also be at the press conference to discuss seafloor work on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Using underwater video, he and colleagues have shown that even slight disturbances to the deep seafloor from fishing activities can lead to a loss of biodiversity, for instance in a trawl's path, suggesting that widespread deep trawling can have major impacts on deep-sea life.
Though trawling on the Mid-Atlantic ridge is currently rare, as deep species such as orange roughy become fished out in other areas, trawlers are wandering to new regions. If there are pelagic spawning aggregations at the ridge or other prominent features, they are likely to be critical to the preservation of the species involved, but also likely to become primary trawling targets, which could lead to devastating effects on spawning aggregations.
"It's important that we explore and map out these hotspots before fishing stretches into these areas," says Sutton, "so that we can determine what the real damage is going to be and what needs to be protected." | <urn:uuid:2a3ff404-01ba-424e-9c5d-fa21e14d4d1c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2006/02/24/deepspied_fish.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00036-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.96814 | 1,652 | 3.203125 | 3 |
Let me introduce this blog post by telling a little story about my Montana niece. She has been hitching a team of horses and driving a stagecoach this summer (horses run in my blood to some extent, but as a kid we had a demon-possessed Shetland pony and I have hated horses ever since. But my niece loves them. Sorry, I digress). Anyway, when Holly has not been working she grabs her fly-rod and does a little fishing (see, as I have blogged before fishing runs in the blood too!). She took a little trip to a lake on one day off and posted this picture of her catch (notice the pink fly-rod).
What you see is a larval tiger salamander that ate her bead-head nymph. My niece commented that she caught a salamander because of her mad fishing skills and obviously there were no fish present in the lake because she did not catch any.
I laughed at her claim because she might have been right. Let me tell you why, and ramble a bit about tiger salamanders.
The name of the lake she fished was Axolotl Lake. “Axolotl” is a name given to larval salamanders. Specifically “axolotl” refers to a species of salamander found in Mexico, but generically the name refers to larval salamanders. What do I mean by “larval” salamanders? Larval tiger salamanders are the aquatic form of the species that live entirely in water; they have flattened tails and gills. As adults they loose the gills and live a terrestrial lifestyle, returning to water to lay eggs and complete their life cycle. Here is another picture of a larval tiger salamander I found on the internet:
I am guessing that Axolotl Lake was named “axolotl” because it was full of larval salamanders, and waters that have an abundance of larval salamanders have no fish. I am betting my niece could spend a long time fishing there and never catch a fish. A variety of species of fish love to eat larval salamanders, and the only waters where I have found an abundance of larval salamanders have been those devoid of fish. I sampled a sandpit in central Nebraska one time to see what was in it; the first net we pulled up had a handful of huge larval salamanders and that is all I needed to see to know that there were no fish present.
Now tiger salamander larvae can exist a long time as larvae. They are extremely aggressive predators, but as long as they have plenty of food and clean water they may stay in their larval form. If they get crowded, run out of water or food, they change into the adult form and live the rest of their lives on land. Here is what the terrestrial adults look like:
And here is the National Geographic website where I found that photo with some additional information on tiger salamanders, http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/amphibians/tiger-salamander/ .
OK, let me bring this back to fish and fishing; you know that most of what I blog about has to deal with fish and fishing.
Tiger salamander larvae are a great bait! The only problem is you have to have some salamander larvae that are several inches long, 5 or 6 inches or more, to be good bait. I mentioned above that a variety of fish love to eat larval salamanders. In fact small bluegills and other panfish will nip at the legs and tails of larval salamanders. So, in order to catch some fish, you need larval salamanders that are large enough to keep the panfish from bothering them. If you can get some larval salamanders that are big enough, they are a great bait for bass, pike, muskie, catfish, walleye, you name it, all predator fish will eat ‘em.
However, the adult form is worthless as bait. I suspect that once the tiger salamanders change into their adult form they develop a flavor that is distasteful to fish and other predators. So, if you are at the bait shop and they try to make you a deal on a bunch of adult tiger salamanders–don’t bite.
As I just mentioned, occasionally you can find larval tiger salamanders for sale in the best bait shops. But, most bait shops will never have them, and even in bait shops that do, the supply may be inconsistent. Most of the larval salamanders that I have used for bait have been those I have collected myself. If you have access to some wetlands or small ponds that are devoid of fish, they might be loaded with larval salamanders. Nebraska’s sandhill lakes that are too alkaline, too “salty”, to support fish are often full of larval tiger salamanders. We had one of those lakes back on the old Bauer ranch in the Nebraska panhandle and before the center pivots sucked all the water and dried up the lake, it was full of larval salamanders. My grandparents discovered those “sallies” were great bait for pike up at “Hemingford Dam” (i.e. Box Butte Reservoir). There was even a time or two when a bait dealer all the way from Texas showed up to collect those salamanders from our lake.
Another place I have collected a few sallies for bait has been stock tanks at windmills. Some of those windmill tanks have been miles into the middle of the sandhills, but somehow an adult salamander found a way to lay eggs there and produce some larval salamanders.
Oh, I have to mention one other place where I have seen an abundance of larval salamanders–fish hatchery ponds. In fact, those larval salamanders can be a nuisance in hatchery ponds because there can be so many of them that they reduce the production of fish. All of those larval salamanders will compete for food with the little fish and those voracious little salamanders will eat a bunch of fingerling fish!
If you find some sallies for bait, they can be productive from spring through summer and into fall. Most of the fish I have caught on live larval salamanders have been caught in the summer and into the fall. The best rigging for fishing sallies is to “Keep it Simple, Stupid” (the K.I.S.S. principle). They are a lively bait and you want to use that to your advantage. A single hook from the bottom of the jaw and out the top will allow a live sally to swim and attract a predator fish. Livebait rigging using slip-sinkers is the most common way to fish larval salamanders, but I have caught a lot of fish by fishing them on a variety of jigheads. In a location where you need to suspend the bait over submerged weeds for example, a float or bobber would also work well.
Honestly, I do not mess with live bait a whole lot anymore when I am fishing, for any species. With that in mind, there are a bunch of plastic or rubber salamanders on the market that will also catch a bunch of fish. But, I will tell you that if you have a source of larval salamanders, it is worth the extra effort to collect them and keep them alive for use as bait. Here is a hint, if you catch a bunch of sallies to use for bait, crowd them as little as possible and keep ‘em well-fed (they will gobble up a bunch of nightcrawlers). If you crowd them they will start nipping at each other and those that survive the cannabalism will start their metamorphosis into the adult form which will not do you any good.
I can tell you that “back in the day”, back when I haunted several interstate lakes and several of those lakes had some big smallmouth bass, that in mid- to late-summer when the bite got tough, a larval salamander on a light jighead was my “go-to” bait for scratching some big smallies during the summer dog days. I would just tease that jig and sally through the tops of deep-water submerged aquatic vegetation, Chara or “skunkweed” mostly. I would get the jig head caught up on a sprig of vegetation and then just tighten up and let the bait hang there on it for a few seconds, just getting the attention of any nearby predators. After teasing the bait in the top of that vegetation for a bit I would pop it free and then as it glided back down there would be a “thump” and my line would tighten up–time to set the hook! I would like to leave you with a picture of one of those big smallmouths I caught using larval salamanders, but I do not have any of those in digital form. Instead I will again share a picture of my Grandma Bauer with a Box Butte pike; a fish I am betting she caught on a larval salamander collected from our alkaline sandhill lake. | <urn:uuid:8dd9cc28-cc56-4e87-adc2-1adc05a40c97> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://outdoornebraska.ne.gov/blogs/2012/08/sallies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368701459211/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516105059-00043-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.966821 | 1,976 | 2.25 | 2 |
Published: February 16, 2012
Thomas Nelson Community College (TNCC) has been awarded a $40,000 grant from Dominion Resources to install a green roof on its existing greenhouse on the Hampton campus. TNCC’s Electronics students will gain hands-on experience while installing solar panels in the facility. The College’s Biology students will plan projects that involve use of the space.
Dominion Resources, which comprises Dominion Virginia Power, awarded more than $1 million dollars in grants to community colleges and four-year institutions statewide to support programs in business, skilled craft, engineering, environmental and technical studies. Funding also supports student-led conversation programs. Old Dominion University and Hampton University were also among the recipients in Hampton Roads.
Each grant ranges from $10,000 to $50,000. The grants were made available through The Dominion Foundation, the company’s charitable arm. “Dominion is privileged to support college-level learning,” said Virginia M. Board, president of The Dominion Foundation. “We are particularly interested in funding action-oriented projects that produce results in energy conservation and the preservation of the environment.”
TNCC serves approximately 150 Electronics students. For more information about these programs and others at TNCC, please visit www.tncc.edu.
|Category: General News||Tags: award, Dominion Foundation, Dominion Virginia Power, foundation, grant, greenhouse, TNCC Electronics| | <urn:uuid:c6eaf166-49bf-48ff-82f6-13d03380f4e2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://tncc.edu/tncc-awarded-40000-grant-for-greenhouse-renovation/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00018-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.935956 | 293 | 1.960938 | 2 |
All activities of the Centre are based on the mission statement as formulated in Article 3 of the ECDC Founding Regulation EC 851/2004. Based on this mission statement and following texts in the Founding Regulation there are some core activities within the Centre, mainly:
ECDC is responsible for the surveillance of infectious diseases in the European Union and shall maintain the databases for epidemiological surveillance. Data are collected by the ECDC for case-based reporting from the Member States for the routine surveillance of the 46 diseases plus SARS, West Nile Fever and Avian Influenza.
One of the key ECDC targets included in the multiannual work programme is that ‘by 2013, ECDC’s reputation for scientific excellence and leadership will be firmly established among its partners in public health, and ECDC will be a major resource for scientific information and advice on infectious diseases for the Commission, the Parliament, the Member States and their citizens’.
Identification of emerging health threats (epidemic intelligence)
Epidemic Intelligence encompasses activities related to early warning functions but also signal assessments and outbreak investigation. It aims to speed up detection of potential health threats and allow timely response.
Preparedness and response
The preparedness and response activities aim for a European Union to be fully prepared to effectively respond to any communicable disease threat. This translates in the focus on pandemic and generic preparedness activities, and the support to the investigation and control of public health threats from communicable diseases or diseases of unknown origin.
ECDC Training activities support capacity building in Members States through the organisation of specific short courses and through the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET).
The Centre shall communicate on its own initiative in the fields within its mission, after having given prior information to the Member States and to the Commission. It shall ensure that the public and any interested parties are rapidly given objective, reliable and easily accessible information with regard to the results of its work. | <urn:uuid:01f59926-8a1a-4943-915d-2e8e151aaa17> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/activities/Pages/Activities.aspx | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.934025 | 398 | 2.140625 | 2 |
Federal law currently prohibits taxes on Internet access and e-mail - but that law sunsets in 2014, and some watchdogs said Monday that if the broadly written Measure S telephone tax passes it could allow the city to tax Internet access without additional voter approval.
"How do you say you're not taxing the Internet when the statute specifically says it's covering DSL, Voice-Over-Internet protocol, text messaging, instant messaging and PCS?" said Walter Moore, who is writing the opposition to the measure for the Feb. 5 ballot.
"You don't need a law degree to realize this is a tax on the Internet and wireless and all that."
But city officials said that while the measure is broadly written to cover changing communications technology, it is not designed to tax the Internet.
"For the foreseeable future, this is the law of the land. It's very clear for us it doesn't allow for taxation of the Internet," said Nick Velasquez, spokesman for City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo.
And counsel to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said the city would have to seek voter approval even if federal law changed to allow taxation of Internet access.
"We would have to go back to voters to update our ordinance," spokeswoman Janelle
Measure S would rewrite the city's current telephone-users tax, which has been challenged in court by telephone companies.
The existing tax language is outdated and doesn't expressly cover new telephone-like technologies, such as wireless or Voice-Over-Internet protocols.
Measure S would swap in a Communications Users Tax that includes broad language to allow the city to tax the routing of voice, audio, video, data or other communication information transmitted through fiber optic, coaxial cables, power lines, broadband, DSL or wireless systems.
That could cover everything from a land-line telephone call and a photograph sent from a cell-phone camera to a text message sent via BlackBerry.
The tax would exempt downloaded books, music, ringtones, games and similar digital products.
City Administrative Officer Karen Sisson said the Communications Users Tax was purposely written as broadly as possible.
"We don't know what form telephony is going to take moving forward. You can't foresee what that includes in the future," Sisson said.
Under Proposition 218, the city must seek voter approval every time a tax is changed so L.A. officials drafted the measure in such a way to make it less likely they would have to hold another election to change the tax.
The current tax on telephone service is 10percent and generates $270million a year for the city.
Measure S would lower the tax rate to 9percent, but expand the tax to new services. It is estimated to generate $243million annually.
Voters in the city of Covina voted down a revamped telephone-users tax earlier this year, in part because of concerns that the measure could have allowed the city to tax Internet access in the future.
Pasadena has a similar telephone-tax measure up for voter approval in February, drafted by the same law firm that advised Delgadillo on Measure S.
But in Pasadena, the city and opponents have been battling over ballot statements by opponents who charge that their Measure D would "force" a tax on Internet access.
"The current text of Measure D allows the city to tax Internet access, but does not require it to do so," an attorney for the city of Pasadena wrote in a petition filed in court last week.
Although Los Angeles' measure has similar language to Pasadena's ballot measure, Delgadillo's office said Measure S was drafted assuming the federal ban on Internet taxation would remain in place.
"As it currently stands, federal law does not allow for Internet taxation," Velasquez said.
"That federal law was taken into account as this measure was crafted by our office." | <urn:uuid:978f7f62-c9fd-481c-b4b8-37c2e397571b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.dailynews.com/breakingnews/ci_7687526 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696381249/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092621-00055-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.969968 | 788 | 1.804688 | 2 |
WS/FC Schools SRO Program
The School Resource Officer (SRO) program was first established within the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools system (WS/FCS) in the 1970's. It has since grown to approximately 45 law enforcement officers providing needed services to numerous schools across Forsyth County.
The Forsyth County Sheriff's Office, Kernersville Police Department, and the Winston-Salem Police Department all provide law enforcement officers to the SRO program. These officers are commonly referred to as SROs. They are State certified, sworn law enforcement officers that have received specialized training. SROs are supervised by their respective agencies, dictated by federal, state, and local statutes, and the guidelines of their agencies.
The goal of the SRO program is to provide schools with a positive law enforcement presence, law-related counselor, and law-related instructor. These goals are accomplished by SROs building positive relationships within their schools, providing prevention and education activities, a quick police response to potential crimes, and being readily accessible to parents, students, and the community.
The continued success of the WS/FCS SRO program is founded in the cooperative working relationship between the police agencies, the individual schools, and the community. We encourage you to stop by and meet your school's SRO. | <urn:uuid:0325056a-c8dc-4529-842a-1474038ac1ac> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://wsfcs.k12.nc.us/Page/10781 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368707435344/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516123035-00040-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.972585 | 271 | 1.640625 | 2 |
HIS220 Social Movements of the 1960's
A survey of modern revolutionary movements which produced changes in the structures of societies in transition ,and explores the preconditions for those movements, their ideologies, patterns of leadership, and strategies used to seize power. The course considers traditional theories of collective behavior, and examines recent theoritical and empirical debates about the nature of contemporary social and political movements. Particular emphasis will be placed on the 1960's which encompasses the influence of rock and roll, the civil rights movement, the womens's movement, political problems of the decade, the presidency, student protests, the Vietnam war, and environmental concerns.
Credit Hours: 3 | <urn:uuid:13cb32b3-70e8-4fae-b46e-b07814506fb1> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://williamwoods.edu/catalogs/undergrad_2009/coursedetail.asp?SCID=623 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00051-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.90837 | 135 | 2.15625 | 2 |
A description of the Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) from Cascades Raptor Center.
This majestic bird of prey, our national symbol, has a distinctive adult color scheme – white head, white tail, dark brown body, yellow eyes, and massive yellow beak. As with many other raptors, the female is larger than the male and the sexes look alike. It takes four years for immature birds to develop the characteristic adult plumage pattern, so identifying young birds can be confusing. Juveniles resemble Golden Eagles in being generally brown, but they lack the golden head, and their legs are only feathered halfway to the foot. Immature birds of both species are brown with areas of white; young Golden Eagles have areas of white on the tail and the base of the flight feathers, while young Bald Eagles show more variable patterns of white speckling. The Bald Eagle has a relatively large head, and long, straight-edged wings; young birds have broader wings and longer tails than adults. This eagle flies with slow, shallow, powerful wingbeats, and soars with wings held out flat.
More information on CRC’s resident bald eagles here. | <urn:uuid:55c34920-8211-4a05-91e3-b7ae756e277b> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://fatherhoodetc.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/bald-eagle-photoblog/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706153698/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120913-00068-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.908204 | 244 | 3.640625 | 4 |
Photos and VideosMore Photos and Videos
A federal appeals court Friday ruled against former Attorney General John Ashcroft, saying the ex-Bush official could be held responsible for people wrongfully held as witnesses after the September 11 terrorist attacks.
A man who was held post-9/11 as a witness in a federal terrorism case will be allowed to sue Ashcroft for violating his constitutional rights, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday.
The government's use of material witnesses after the attacks was "repugnant to the Constitution and a painful reminder of some of the most ignominous chapters of our national history," the court ruling said.
The man held said he lost job opportunities and his marriage fell apart after Ashcroft implemented a policy that arrested and detained people as witnesses without evidence to charge them with a crime.
Read more: MSNBC | <urn:uuid:90e37e99-811a-4dcb-9bb8-0c753db7093c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/politics/NATL-Court-Rules-Against-Ashcroft-in-911-Case-57511322.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368710006682/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516131326-00047-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982148 | 175 | 1.570313 | 2 |
He touched his harp, and nations heard, entranced, As some vast river of unfailing source, Rapid, exhaustless, deep, his numbers flowed And opened new fountains in the human heart.
The Course of Time. Book iv. Line 684.
Note 1. This song was written and composed by Linley for Mr. Augustus Braham, and sung by him. It is not known when it was written,probably about 1830.
Another song, entitled Though lost to Sight, to Memory dear, was published in London in 1880, purporting to have been written by Ruthven Jenkyns in 1703 and published in the Magazine for Mariners. That magazine, however, never existed, and the composer of the music acknowledged, in a private letter, that he copied the words from an American newspaper. The reputed author, Ruthven Jenkyns, was living, under another name, in California in 1882. [back] | <urn:uuid:44b2e31c-c6c1-4905-b145-4ac408a59853> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://bartleby.com/100/pages/page597.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708142388/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516124222-00052-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.983373 | 199 | 2.640625 | 3 |
NEW YORK -- Perhaps seeking to accommodate people who made New Year’s weight-loss resolutions, Girl Scouts of America is introducing a vitamin-infused, fruit-flavored cookie called the “Mango Crème with NutriFusion” for the 2013 selling season.
The oreo-like cookie has a vanilla-coconut shell, mango-flavored filling and contains a food additive called NutriFusion. The additive purportedly packs 15 percent of the recommended daily intake of Vitamin B1 per serving, 5 percent of Vitamins A,C,D,E and B6, and all the “nutrient benefits of eating cranberries, pomegranates, oranges, grapes and strawberries," according to the NutriFusion website.
The cookies also are advertised as free of trans fat, hydrogenated oils and preservatives.
Over the years, the Girl Scouts have made attempts to make their beloved treats a little bit healthier. Past cookies include a reduced-fat crispy cinnamon cookie and a sugar-free choclate chip cookie, both retired and no longer available. In Sept. 2011, the Girl Scouts formally pledged to limit palm oil use in all their cookies beginning with the 2012-2013 season (palm oil is high in unhealthy fats, and environmentalists say its production spurs deforestation in certain tropical countries). | <urn:uuid:672a2b34-a7d7-46be-abf2-c07470090dd9> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.kens5.com/news/Girl-Scouts-unveil-Mango-Creme-vitamin-cookie-186973311.html?ref=prev | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368696382584/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516092622-00021-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.93904 | 275 | 1.78125 | 2 |
Pedro Ugarte /AFP/Getty Images
Prior to today's launch, a North Korean soldier stood guard.
Prior to today's launch, a North Korean soldier stood guard. Pedro Ugarte /AFP/Getty Images
The disintegration of North Korea's latest long-range missile shortly after liftoff today may just make that communist nation even more belligerent and more likely to test a nuclear weapon or take other provocative actions, NPR's Louisa Lim reports from Seoul.
On Morning Edition, Louisa reported that because the rocket's failure is perhaps the most embarrassing moment in the North's history, new leader Kim Jong Un and others in the hierarchy will likely be looking for other ways to show their strength.
"In South Korea," Louisa says, "a defense ministry official warned parliament that the possibility of a nuclear test – North Korea's third — or of other provocations is very high. And Peter Beck from the Asia Foundation in Seoul agrees that this failure is likely to make Pyongyang more belligerent."
North Korea must prove to the world "that it can move forward unimpeded despite this failure," Beck says. "I think we're entering into a new era of provocation by the North because it's been so embarrassed in front of the international community."
Rory Medcalf, program director of international security at the Lowy Institute, agrees, telling CNN that "I wouldn't exaggerate it, but the chance of a nuclear test this year is now higher than it was yesterday."
The level of embarrassment felt today by North Korea's leaders was underscored, Louisa reports, by the quickness with which the failure was acknowledged. Within just a few hours after the liftoff and breaking up of the rocket, a grim-faced announcer appeared on North Korea television to say that it had failed to enter orbit.
According to Louisa, that was an "unprecedented moment of honesty." When the previous two such launches also ended in failure, officials just lied about what happened. But having invited the international press in, such a pretense was impossible this time.
As South Korea's Yonhap News Agency reports, "the Unha-3 rocket exploded in just one to two minutes after lift-off at 7:39 a.m. [local time] and disintegrated into about 20 pieces as it crashed into international waters off South Korea's west coast, according to South Korea's Defense Ministry."
The U.S., Japan and other nations, including Russia, were quick to condemn North Korea's decision to fire the missile. They had called for the North to suspend any such action.
The New York Times adds that "the United Nations Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting for later Friday, and American officials said food aid that they had planned to send to North Korea to help feed its malnourished population would be suspended." | <urn:uuid:d0cc1882-9217-4bab-a9af-3f4d90d33e44> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/04/13/150551731/failed-missile-test-may-make-north-korea-more-belligerent | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00025-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.967236 | 583 | 1.835938 | 2 |
The "fiscal cliff" is a fake disaster, a scam to let Congress raid Medicare and Social Security
Big Money has been gunning for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for decades – since the beginning of Social Security in 1935. The motives are partly financial: As one scholar once put it to me, the payroll tax is the “Mississippi of cash flows.” Anything that diverts part of it into private funds and insurance premiums is a meal ticket for the elite of the predator state.
And the campaign is also partly political. The fact is, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are the main way ordinary Americans connect to their federal government, except in wars and disasters. They have made a vast change in family life, unburdening the young of their parents and ensuring that every working person contributes whether they have parents, dependents, survivors or disabled of their own to look after. These programs do this work seamlessly, for next to nothing; their managers earn civil service salaries and the checks arrive on time. For the private competition, this is intolerable; the model is a threat to free markets and must be destroyed. | <urn:uuid:84f82172-453f-4a69-bf9b-68ebcfc18951> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.poormojo.org/pmjadaily/archives/038896.php | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368698207393/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516095647-00038-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.959181 | 230 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Our inability to perceive animal intelligence revealed the limits of our own. Via the Wall Street Journal, Frans de Waal writes:
Who is smarter: a person or an ape? Well, it depends on the task. Consider Ayumu, a young male chimpanzee at Kyoto University who, in a 2007 study, put human memory to shame. Trained on a touch screen, Ayumu could recall a random series of nine numbers, from 1 to 9, and tap them in the right order, even though the numbers had been displayed for just a fraction of a second and then replaced with white squares.
I tried the task myself and could not keep track of more than five numbers—and I was given much more time than the brainy ape. In the study, Ayumu outperformed a group of university students by a wide margin. The next year, he took on the British memory champion Ben Pridmore and emerged the “chimpion.”
A growing body of evidence shows, that we have grossly underestimated both the scope and the scale of animal intelligence. | <urn:uuid:30d1b6c7-0e13-4962-ba1e-e1b16c5c19bf> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://disinfo.com/tag/animal-intelligence/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.956664 | 222 | 2.734375 | 3 |
EMAIL AND PHONE NUMBER ENTITY SEARCH AND RANKING
Entity search has been proposed as a search method for domain-specific Internet applications. It differs from the classical approaches used by search engines which give a “page-view result”: listing the URLs of web pages containing the desired keywords. Entity search returns more structured results listing the specific information that a user seeks, such as an email address or a phone number. It not only provides the URL links to targets, but also attributes of target entities (e.g., email address, phone number, etc.). Compared to classical search methods, entity search is a more direct and user-friendly method for searching through a large volume of web documents. After the user submits a query, the extracted entities are ordered by their relevance to the query. While previous work has proposed various complex formulas for entity ranking, it has not been shown whether such complexity is needed. In this research I explore the problem of whether a simpler method can achieve reasonable results. I have designed an entity-search and ranking algorithm using a formula that simply combines a page’s PageRank and an entity’s distance to the query keywords to produce a metric for ranking discovered entities. My research goal is to answer the question of whether effective entity ranking can be performed by an algorithm that computes matching scores specific to the entity search domain, and what improvements are necessary to refine the result. My approach takes into account the entity’s proximity to the keywords in the query as well as the quality of the page where it is contained. I implemented a system based on the algorithm and perform experiments to show that in most cases the result is consistent with the user’s desired outcome.
School:Kansas State University
School Location:USA - Kansas
Source Type:Master's Thesis
Keywords:entity search ranking computer science 0984
Date of Publication:01/01/2008 | <urn:uuid:02803c71-aad1-4fda-9976-557f9c21e505> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.openthesis.org/documents/Email-phone-number-entity-search-263895.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00031-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.900371 | 393 | 2.125 | 2 |
The Family Studies Arena provides professionals, researchers, instructors and students in Family Studies with information on the range of books and journals by Psychology Press, Routledge Mental Health and Guilford Press, as well as links to various online resources, including societies and associations, upcoming conferences, and support groups
Featured news and products from Routledge Family Studies…
The first research-based text that focuses on the impact of the father–daughter relationship, this provocative book examines the factors that can strengthen or weaken these relationships and the impact that these relationships have on society.
The research is brought to life with compelling personal stories from fathers and daughters, including well-known celebrities and politicians.
Intended as a supplemental text for upper-level undergraduate or graduate courses on father-daughter relationships and/or parenting taught in human development, family studies, psychology, sociology, counseling, social work, and women’s studies, this practical book also appeals to mental health practitioners, social workers, legal professionals, and school counselors interested in these relationships.
Noted for its interdisciplinary approach to family studies, Families with Futures provides an engaging, contemporary look at the discipline's theories, methods, essential topics, and career opportunities.
Featuring strong coverage of theories and methods, readers explore family concepts and processes through a positive prism. Throughout, families are viewed as challenged but resilient.
This is an ideal text for upper-level undergraduate and lower-level graduate courses in family studies, family ecology, and family science offered in departments of family and consumer sciences, human development, psychology, and sociology.
This multidisciplinary text highlights the development of romantic relationships, from initiation to commitment or demise, by highlighting the historical context, current research and theory, and diversity of patterns. Engagingly written with colorful examples, the authors examine the joy, stress, power-struggles, intimacy, and aggression that characterize these relationships.
Paperbacks Direct are topical books that represent the best of our cutting-edge hardback publishing in a paperback format and price. Check out which of our Paperbacks Direct are publishing this month.
Michael E. Lamb has won the 2014 G. Stanley Hall Award for Distinguished Contribution to Developmental Psychology and the 2013 Award for Distinguished Contribution to Psychology and Law, from the American Psychology-Law Society.
For more on the award, click here.
For a full listing of Michael E. Lamb's publications with Routledge/Psychology Press, click here.
Offer Exclusive to our Taylor & Francis Online Readers!
In a major contribution to the era-defining debate, this full Special Issue of Psychological Inquiry offers a range of views on how the Open Access Science movement will impact the study and practice of Psychology and the Behavioral Sciences.
Click here to read the FREE Special Issue in full.
Browse books by subjects/disciplines within Family Studies
Learn more about our diverse book series and collections of our best books
New textbooks in established subject areas for students at all stages of their degree
The courses below offer a listing of the most current textbooks from Routledge Family Studies. You can also continue browsing our complete catalog of textbook options. If you'd like to consult with one of our representatives, browse our contact listings.
Browse and download our Catalogs, brochures and leaflets
Books from Psychology Press, Routledge, and Guilford Press
New and Key Titles 2013 | <urn:uuid:5fb461be-b859-47a3-80cb-f5c7d263120e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.psypress.com/family-studies/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368699273641/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516101433-00010-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.91267 | 694 | 1.625 | 2 |
Oct. 24, 2007
Siemens Science Day Inspires Budding Scientists
Will the egg survive the drop? "Eggs Away!" workshop participants wait to find out. |
Watch Eggs Away! video
of Siemens Science Day
Photo gallery of Siemens Science Day
The kids knew their mission: Save the egg.
Spread across the floor of Earl Hall, they surveyed their materials and strategized. Would drinking straws, Popsicle sticks, a plastic baggie and masking tape cushion an egg against a five-foot drop? The countdown began. The heavily insulated egg plummeted to the ground. “It’s good!” Lauren called, to cheers and applause.
Enthusiasm and inspiration were in large supply at Siemens Science Day held at Columbia University on Saturday, Oct 20th. More than 1,300 students, parents and instructors participated in 20-plus workshops and exhibits, taught by Columbia faculty and graduate students, as well as Siemens professionals and specialists, such as criminalists from New York City’s own crime lab.
From classroom to classroom, students practiced with robot snakes used for surgical procedures, listened to earthquakes and learned about endangered species. Local teachers had their own workshops, designed to provide them with curriculum ideas to make science fun, with titles like “School of Rock Workshops.”
The Siemens Foundation is one of the private sectors’ biggest proponents of math and science education. Since launching Siemens Science Day in 2005, the program has reached 30,000 children nationwide. This was Columbia’s first time hosting the event.
U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, whose congressional district includes Harlem and Columbia, lauded the science day as an investment ensuring “our young people become part of the most educated workforce in the world.” City Councilman Robert Jackson also welcomed participants and presented a proclamation from Mayor Bloomberg.
In the “Bath Bubblers” workshop, Aberdeen Allen, a senior research scientist at Colgate-Palmolive, showed students how to make bath bombs—soaps that fizzle and dissolve in bathwater. “I had fun,” said Jazmine, 8, after attending the workshop. “I also learned that scientists sometimes make mistakes. You shouldn’t get intimidated.”
Graduate student Andy Washkowitz’s exhibit, “Who Stole the Cookies from the Cookie Jar,” showed students how to analyze DNA samples. He marveled at the wealth of interactive play at Siemens Science Day: “I would have found my way to science a lot easier if I’d seen something like this as a kid.”
During the opening ceremony, Nobel Laureate Horst Stormer described one of his most affecting childhood memories: hearing the “beep...beep...beep” of the Soviet Union’s Sputnik satellite on his radio 50 years ago. Rather than competing in the international space race, this generation faces another wake-up call, he said. “Young people like you will address global warming,” adding that he hopes to see many of them at Columbia again—as students.
James Whaley, president of the Siemens Foundation, thinks that is possible. “We inspired some kids today,” he said. “As I was walking out of the egg-drop workshop, I heard a young girl say: ‘I’m going to be a scientist now.’
– Story by Stacy Parker Aab. Photo by David Wentworth. Videos produced by Ed Holt. | <urn:uuid:c14953b6-c1ce-4dec-9927-b084b9c3a8f2> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/07/10/siemens.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368705953421/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516120553-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.952715 | 749 | 2.890625 | 3 |
|NATIONAL NEWS | summer 2008
Upcoming state initiatives may take away your rights—or give you new ones
Reprinted from the Summer 2008 issue of Ms. magazine, now on newsstands.
If a “definition of personhood” initiative gets passed in Colorado this November, you might be investigated if you experience a miscarriage.
If an initiative to end affirmative action is passed in Arizona this fall, you may lose business if you’re a woman who receives government contracts.
If a marriage-discrimination initiative passes in California and you’re a lesbian newlywed, you’ll have to cut short the honeymoon.
In the November election, voters will be deciding whether to roll back equal-opportunity programs for women and people of color, discriminate against gays and lesbians in marriage and adoption, cut public education and threaten women’s health care. The big question is whether voters will buy what these ballot initiatives are selling.
According to public opinion research conducted for the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center this year, voters are heading into the election season with serious concerns about the country and a strong feeling that it is a rudderless boat. Perhaps most disconcerting, voters feel America is falling behind, and that the next generation is unlikely to have it better than this generation does. The research also shows that voters want to address the big problems the country faces.
Unfortunately, many right-wing-backed ballot initiatives don’t give voters the solutions they’re looking for. Instead, conservatives are using these initiatives as divisive tactics to try to distract voters. A good example is California businessman Ward Connerly’s efforts to roll back equal opportunity in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma (see Ms., Winter 2008). Connerly’s initiatives would rewrite state constitutions to ban affirmative-action programs for women and people of color. But the drive for these ballot measures does not necessarily come from within these states: Connerly has been using mercenary signature-gatherers and funds collected by his California organization from undisclosed donors. To date, he’s failed to gain enough support in Missouri to qualify for the ballot, had to withdraw his petitions in Oklahoma because of signature fraud and faces a lawsuit over 69,000 potentially fraudulent signatures collected in Colorado. In Arizona and Nebraska, Connerly has submitted his petitions and is awaiting approval to place the initiative on the ballot.
In the arena of women’s reproductive rights, the right wing is continuing its assault this year with anti-choice ballot initiatives in four states: California, Colorado, Montana and South Dakota. Californians are being asked to pass a parental notification measure that has already failed twice; South Dakotans will be asked to approve an only slightly less draconian version of an abortion ban that failed in 2006. The “definition of personhood” initiative in Colorado—which seeks to overturn Roe v. Wade by redefining personhood as the moment of fertilization—could outlaw certain forms of birth control and ban or restrict common fertility treatments in which multiple eggs are fertilized but only some are introduced into the mother’s womb. A supporter of a similar, failed Montana initiative suggested that women could even be investigated to see what they might have done to cause their miscarriages.
Finally, in California, an initiative has qualified for the ballot that would rewrite the constitution and overturn the recent court decision that ruled gay marriage was constitutional. If passed, only marriage between a man and a woman would be valid or recognized in California. Some believe that this issue will put California into play for John McCain in November by turning out conservative votes, but progressives are energized to protect the court’s decision, and public opinion continues to move against barring marriage for gay and lesbian couples.
Arizonans, too, will vote this fall on a constitutional gay-marriage ban, and Floridians face a measure that would outlaw recognition of all same-sex partnerships. Still in the signature-collection process is an Arkansas initiative to take away adoption rights from "all unmarried couples" (i.e., gay couples).
Progressive women can feel hopeful about a number of other “kitchen table” initiatives on the ballot this fall designed to help families weather the economic recession. In Missouri, for example, signatures have already been submitted for an initiative requiring the state to produce 15 percent of its electricity from renewable energy by 2021. Research by the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center shows that voters believe this is both achievable and necessary to free Americans from dependence on foreign oil and reduce global warming.
Several health initiatives are also either gathering signatures or have qualified for the November ballot, responding to the anxiety of voters about losing health insurance during these tough economic times. Montana is circulating an initiative that would extend health-care coverage to all of the state’s uninsured children, and in Wisconsin, local health-care-reform referendums are moving forward that would ask the legislature to take action on universal health care.
Additionally, a home-health-care initiative on the ballot in Missouri would help the elderly and disabled to continue living independently by better recruiting, training and stabilizing the state’s home-care workforce. In Ohio, petitions are being circulated for a Healthy Families initiative that would guarantee seven days paid sick leave, and in the city of Milwaukee, a similar measure extending paid sick leave is likely to make the ballot. Michigan activists are stumping for an initiative allowing voters to restore the legality of stem-cell research.
While the country engages in a big national election, it’s important to remember that “all politics is local.” Be sure to come prepared with the facts about your local initiatives, so that you know what sort of change you’re voting for.
For more on information on state initiatives, see www.ballot.org.
For more on breaking feminist issues, see the Summer 2008 issue of Ms. magazine, available on newsstands and by subscription from www.msmagazine.com. | <urn:uuid:0fad5261-5fb4-4fe0-998d-ca03ed519156> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.msmagazine.com/Summer2008/whatsonyourballot.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368697380733/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516094300-00065-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947568 | 1,237 | 1.710938 | 2 |
Oak's Letter (オーキドのてがみ Okido's Letter) is a Key Item in the Sinnoh region games which allows the player to access a special section of Route 224 which leads him/her to the Flower Paradise. This item was introduced during Generation IV and with the letter it allows you to capture the Mythical Pokémon Shaymin. It is one of four Sinnoh based event items, alongside the Member Card, the Azure Flute and the Secret Key.
- Japan - April 18th 2009 to May 11th 2009
- North America - September 28th 2009 to November 8th 2009
- PAL - September 28th 2009 to November 8th 2009
- Despite the fact that Oak's Letter was programmed into Pokémon Diamond and Pearl by Nintendo, it was never officially distributed at any event.
- When Shaymin is successfully captured through this event, it is listed as having a Fateful Encounter even though it was caught in the wild. This is due to the fact that only a Fateful Encounter Shaymin can transform into Sky Forme in Pokémon Platinum version.
- When the Oak's Letter event is activated, Marley has different dialogue when the player speaks to her.
- Although this event was accessible through cheating in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, since the first Generation IV games did not apply the Fateful Encounter tag to specific Pokémon, it would never be able to activate Sky Forme in the following game. | <urn:uuid:43cd7d04-b9d6-490c-bafc-b054c0b4825c> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://pokemon.wikia.com/wiki/Oak's_Letter?oldid=366159 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706499548/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516121459-00016-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.960108 | 292 | 1.546875 | 2 |
Sending Ah Gong back to the children
Ng E-Jay / Current Affairs Desk, The Online Citizen
15 June 2009
With contributions from Gerald Giam and Ravi Philemon
Recent proposals to amend the Maintenance of Parents Act suggests an act by the government to pass the buck of caring for the elderly to their children, but this puts an inconsiderable strain especially on lower-income groups.
PROGRESSIVELY encroaching on the private lives of citizens under the umbrella of public interest is a constant refrain of our paternalistic Government.
The recent proposal to amend the Maintenance of Parents Act to allow third parties to invoke it is a case in point.
Granted, all children do have a serious moral responsibility of caring for their aged parents. But the law is an extremely blunt instrument to use in what is primarily a family issue. Family members interact with each other not just at the economic level, but more importantly, emotionally as well.
Resorting to the law to settle family disputes, especially one over financial matters, is not just a rude intrusion into what is primarily private space, but also easily lends itself to abuse. | <urn:uuid:db956f8a-b2ca-4fde-9b14-d7d4199227be> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=3247 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368703298047/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516112138-00039-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.948004 | 233 | 1.53125 | 2 |
Other resources to help you prepare for a presentation to students
Judges and Lawyers in the Classroom (pdf)
Lesson Planning Ideas for Judges and Lawyers(pdf)
Suggestions for Judges on Classroom Visits from the American Judicature Society (pdf)
The Importance of Civic Learning (pdf)
Ideas to help you prepare to talk to a group of students (MS Word)
Judges in the Classroom: A Guidebook for Judges and Teachers (pdf)
A resource from the American Judicature Society. This 64-page guidebook is intended to help judges, lawyers, and teachers coordinate visits to middle school and high school classrooms. The guide contains lessons and Suggestions are provided to assist teachers and judges in planning visits, and a set of talking points for judges accompany each unit. | <urn:uuid:6ec6ee17-2e05-4bf6-b3aa-9019cb82e334> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.pabar.org/public/education/lawday/otherlessonslj.asp | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368706890813/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516122130-00064-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.926119 | 168 | 3.53125 | 4 |
World Mental Health Day
It is the 20th anniversary of World Mental Health Day on 10 October and YoungMinds wants to know what you are doing in your different areas to celebrate.
World Mental Health Day raises public awareness about mental health issues and aims to promote a discussion around the issues including investment in prevention, promotion and treatment services.
World Mental Health Day was initiated by the World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH) in 1992 and many countries adopted it as a means of promoting mental health. Each year the WFMH decides on a theme and produces educational material around the issue. This year the theme is depression.
World Mental Health Day 2012 aims to encourage governments and society around the world to address depression as a widespread illness that affects individuals, their families and their peers, and to recognise that it is a treatable condition. It is estimated that 350 million people globally are affected by depression and the day aims to get the message across that depression is a treatable condition.
Depression is a common mental health problem and symptoms of depression include:-
- not wanting to do things that you previously enjoyed,
- not wanting to meet up with friends or avoiding situations
- sleeping more or less than normal
- eating more or less than normal
- feeling irritable, upset, miserable or lonely
- being self-critical
- feeling hopeless
- maybe wanting to self-harm
- feeling tired and not having any energy.
Two per cent of children under 12 experience depression, and this rises to five per cent among teenagers which is at least one depressed child in every classroom. One in 10 adults can experience depression at some point.
There are a number of ways to get help and treat depression – see more information on our website.
YoungMinds wants to hear what you or your organisation is doing to celebrate World Mental Health Day.
Get in touch on the comments below and let us know what you are doing in your areas or contact [email protected]
There is more information about World Mental Health Day and the World Mental Health Federation here. | <urn:uuid:f9643a36-01f1-4ef9-a5be-9e8ae00b4258> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.youngminds.org.uk/news/blog/993_world_mental_health_day | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704392896/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516113952-00023-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.947553 | 428 | 3.515625 | 4 |
Photo: Robin Pendergrast
Woodstock was chosen as a
Dozen Distinctive Destination 2007
Only 45 miles from Chicago, the small, warm Victorian village of Woodstock, Ill., has a unique and beguiling charm. A treasure nestled in the heart of McHenry County, Woodstock is known for its celebrated town square and downtown historic district, which features a delightful collection of shops, restaurants, galleries and a theatre. Throughout the year, Woodstock plays host to a cavalcade of festivals and fairs, summer band concerts, a Farmers’ Market, and a Groundhog Day celebration commemorating Woodstock's starring role as Punxsutawney, Pa., in the 1992 movie Groundhog Day.
Two historic structures dominate the town square: the Opera House and the 1857 Court House. The Romanesque-style Opera House, with its imposing five-story bell tower and stained glass windows, was erected in 1889 and today remains the town’s cultural and entertainment center, hosting plays, concerts, and performances throughout the year, including the nationally renowned Woodstock Mozart Festival. The Court House is now home to restaurants, an art gallery, a pottery shop and the Chester Gould-Dick Tracy Museum, which honors Woodstock’s hometown cartoonist and his famed detective. Children enjoy the Challenger Center for Science & Technology, which offers numerous programs for would-be space explorers, the city-owned Recreation Center and the Family Aquatic Center.
Not to be missed is Woodstock's Victorian Christmas celebration that begins each Thanksgiving weekend. In a scene like a page out of Dickens, carolers stroll Woodstock’s streets while visitors bundle up for horse-drawn carriage rides around the square, and thousands of miniature lights twinkle from trees and historic buildings.
For these reasons, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the country's largest private, nonprofit preservation organization, has named Woodstock, Ill., to its 2007 list of America’s Dozen Distinctive Destinations, an annual list of unique and lovingly preserved communities in the United States. Woodstock was selected from 63 destinations in 27 states that were nominated by individuals, preservation organizations and local communities. Woodstock represents the very best of small-town America, a place where community and quality of life are values that are revealed in every street and sidewalk, said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. A real, living, dynamic town, Woodstock appreciates and capitalizes on its rich past while keeping a watchful eye on the future.
more information, visit the Woodstock Chamber | <urn:uuid:874c16be-2746-43e3-96ee-52c3eec3894e> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.galleryinthegarden.com/woodstock.html | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00061-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.928113 | 533 | 1.96875 | 2 |
Ford considering safety changes to police cars
Ford Motor Co. is considering modifying its Crown Victoria police cruisers after complaints from state and local governments that the vehicle is unsafe in high-speed, rear-end crashes, a Ford executive said on Thursday.
"We're developing an action plan that represents a total approach to vehicle safety," Ford safety chief Sue Cischke said in a speech at the auto industry's annual Management Briefing Seminars in northern Michigan. "We're trying to make a safe car even safer by advancing the state of the art beyond what was even thought possible."
At least 11 police officers across the United States, including three in Arizona, have died in fires after high-speed collisions involving their Crown Victorias over the past 10 years. Federal safety regulators have opened a preliminary investigation into all Crown Victorias, Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Cars built between 1992 and 2001, since they share the same design.
The large rear-wheel-drive sedan has been the vehicle of choice for police departments and highway patrols nationwide, and Ford has said roughly 400,000 are in service.
The state of Arizona and local governments in New Jersey and Texas have complained publicly and in lawsuits that the placement of the Crown Victoria's fuel tank makes it prone to rupturing when the car is struck from behind at high speeds, such as when a police car stopped on the side of a highway is hit by a passing vehicle.
In June, Ford agreed to form a panel with state officials and police officers to review complaints and make suggestions within three months.
"We accept the challenge that this car is used in a very unique environment, a very challenging, high risk environment, and we're looking at ways to make it better," Cischke said.
She said Ford would like to test fuel tank liners in the Crown Victoria to see if they prevent fuel from leaking. But she added that the company that makes the liners told Ford it didn't have any to spare while it fills orders from police departments.
Cischke also said Ford had turned to other industries for ideas, including talking to helicopter builders who fortified fuel tanks against bullet punctures during the Vietnam war.
My first car was a 67 Mustang Coupe, 2nd one was a 67 Cougar XR-7, 3rd one was a 66 Mustang Coupe. Why did I get rid of these cars for ? I know why, because I'm stupid, stupid, stupid.
My next Ford..... | <urn:uuid:243d5a44-0513-4194-9fe9-bf417fc398bd> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.fordforums.com/f349/ford-considering-safety-changes-police-cars-21892/ | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368708766848/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125246-00041-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.976157 | 505 | 1.523438 | 2 |
A report due out today on Auckland's transport is expected to warn of gridlock for the city if it continues to rely on existing roads.
Mayor Len Brown will be releasing the Central City Future Access Study this afternoon.
The study has been done by independent engineers Sinclair Knight Merz.
Newstalk ZB believes they will repeat earlier warnings that without a rail tunnel, Auckland will need a four-lane bus way running out of the city by 2041.
There is also expected to be criticism of the benefit-cost ratio used by the Government, which calculates the proposed tunnel would only return 78 cents economic benefit for every $1 spent. | <urn:uuid:a0abafdf-d465-4abe-8f64-59d3d2e558e6> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.nzherald.co.nz/news/print.cfm?objectid=10853760 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368704713110/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516114513-00014-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.946169 | 131 | 1.875 | 2 |
N.J. considers $100 million bond issue to buy, demolish houses in flood-prone areas
December 10, 2012By Phil Gregory
A New Jersey Assembly committee has advanced legislation that would provide more money to buy out homeowners in flood-prone areas.
The measure would authorize the state to issue $100 million in bonds for "Blue Acres" projects. If voters approve the bonding, most of the money would fund buying up the houses, their demolition and then preservation of the cleared land for recreation.
Assemblywoman Connie Wagner says residents in flood zones are tired of rebuilding.
"We now know that homes never should have been built in certain areas," she said. "The bottom line is they're there. Do we continue the same pattern or do we try a new approach?"
Wagner, D-Bergen, says $15 million would be allocated for some homes to be elevated.
"Some property owners don't want to leave their communities, and they know that if they elevate the homes that they will be OK," she said. "We also know that municipalities are in fear of losing all of their assessments. They need to have their tax base."
Environmental groups support the legislation, but they would prefer that it be combined into a bond act that would also provide money for other land-preservation programs. | <urn:uuid:0123be67-bc2c-439d-8a8e-3da45f8ca278> | CC-MAIN-2013-20 | http://www.newsworks.org/index.php/local/item/48154 | s3://commoncrawl/crawl-data/CC-MAIN-2013-20/segments/1368709037764/warc/CC-MAIN-20130516125717-00017-ip-10-60-113-184.ec2.internal.warc.gz | en | 0.982902 | 272 | 1.554688 | 2 |
Subsets and Splits