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I was at a training session yesterday discussing the Cambridge exams and some interesting points came up. The emphasis of the meeting was the speaking exam and we had a look at some of Cambridge's most recent releases to try and judge the 'correct' score given. After some reflection I feel that I personally haven't been paying enough attention to cohesive markers and perhaps been playing it a little too safe with my KISS strategy (Keep It Simple, Stupid!). Sure, by keeping things simple and answering the question and having a few fixed phrases at the ready you can pass the speaking exam (attain a level 3 or so), but if you are (or have a student) expecting an 'A' grade then you're going to need to do more. At FCE we need to hear linking devices, such as 'Firstly', 'on the other hand', oh, you get the idea. |
Also, we are going to need to hear more advanced grammar to get that 'A' grade. Let's have some decent conditional sentences, they are not so hard really, and so interesting adjectives (good, bad and nice are just not enough!). |
So, get the basics right, then reach for the stars and have a bit of ambition. |
Exams in May and June for my guys.... get studying. |
Posted by Dave C at 10:52 |
Labels: ambition, CAE, CPE, exam, FCE, KISS, speaking |
Exams Loom |
Travel Chaos reigns across Europe, but as it's no one's fault really, no one complains too much. My Dad was due to come and visit next week, but we'll see. My cousin was on his honeymoon in Rome and was complaining that he was stuck there and couldn't get back to work. My heart bleeds! |
My exam guys are due to have solid exam prep until the exams in June, and because of the Portuguese national exams some of them are unlucky enough to have to do a May exam! It's late in the day to worry too much, but top of my list of things you should revise are phrasal verbs. Set/Take/Get/Make for the moment (you'll see these pop up in class in the next two weeks or so) but keep an eye on these. |
I am also concerned STILL about silly spelling mistakes. Is it just my students who hate writting (sic) practise.<eot>Sustainable Living - UN Helping Thailand to Transition to Zero Carbon Economy |
"Social responsibility and sustainable profit" can go hand in hand according to the chief of Thailand's government pension fund. The UN and some of the biggest players in the Thai economy, are working together to support efforts by the country's finance and banking institutions to speed up the South East Asian country's transition to a net zero carbon economy. |
It is increasingly recognized that the finance and banking sectors can have a huge influence on the economy, through the way that they decide to invest in, and fund, businesses, and in Thailand, the UN is helping the government to raise awareness of the importance of sustainable finance. |
Ahead of a UN-backed event aimed at encouraging Thai finance leaders to adopt sustainable business practices, Eric Usher, the head of the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative, spoke with Srikanya Yathip, Secretary General of the Thai Government Pension Fund (GPF) and Kattiya Indaravijaya, CEO of Kasikornbank for UN News. |
Eric Usher said, "When the UN Environment Programme Finance Initiative began in 1992, as one of the first partnerships with the global financial sector based on sustainable finance, it's fair to say that it was a niche topic. After all, financial institutions don't cut down trees, so what do they have to do with the environment? Since then, it's understood that lending has a real impact: banks can choose whether or not to finance clients who cut down trees, so the actions and policies of banks have a big impact on the environment. Why is sustainable finance a relevant topic for your organisations?" |
Srikanya Yathip said, "Because we believe that our investment decisions can have a transformational effect. If we can rebuild our world sustainably, there will no longer be a need to protect the environment or society. As a pension fund and institutional investor, we are privileged to be able to decide what and where we invest, and we make sure to align our corporate behaviour with the wider objectives of society, as well as look for long-term financial returns. For us, it's about doing well by doing good: Social responsibility and sustainable profit can go hand in hand. And, taking the current situation into consideration, with the extreme pressures we are all facing from COVID-19, if we want to protect our bottom line, we have to protect others." |
Kattiya Indaravijaya said, "We need to care about all stakeholders: customers, employees, suppliers and community. Sometimes that means a trade-off between short term pain and long-term gain. In the banking industry you need two kinds of licence. The first is a banking licence, that allows you to operate. The second is a social licence that we need to earn from the community. If the community cannot survive, neither can we. A recent survey found that 74 per cent of those surveyed do not want to support products that are not environmentally friendly. This shows that society is moving towards sustainable development. If we want to stay relevant, we can't ignore this trend." |
Eric Usher said, "There are two camps today when it comes to sustainable development. Once camp says that recovering from the crisis is the priority, and sustainability should be put on hold. The other camp says that now is the opportunity to invest sustainably, respond to the climate crisis and shift to a net-zero carbon economy. What is your view?" |
Srikanya Yathip said, "In Thailand the government is producing a national masterplan, with a goal of achieving net zero. From what I understand, the government will present this masterplan at COP26. I've seen some drafts of the plan, and it would affect many businesses. The proposed changes include a move to more low carbon power generation, support for the electric vehicle industry, and for the circular economy. We want to be a leader in investing, and we've made a commitment to be a truly responsible investor. We want to join the race to net zero, and develop guiding principles for an action plan by next year." |
Kattiya Indaravijaya said, "Moving to net zero is very important, and we've seen nations and organizations committing to reaching the goal within the next 30 years. That means that everyone knows that it's important, but it will take time and a lot of effort to get there. Kasikornbank is willing to participate in net zero and sustainable growth, by helping our customers to do business in a more sustainable way. We have the policies in place, and the intention to make it happen. We have achieved some of our targets, but we need to speed up and do more as an industry: responsible lending practices must be part of business operations; financial institutions need to work more closely together; and businesses, regulators and consumers need to be engaged on sustainability issues." |
Srikanya Yathip said, "I agree. As a corporate citizen, we have a responsibility to society. Collective efforts speak louder: alone we can do little, together we can do so much, and the sky's the limit." |
A principled response |
GPF, one of the largest investors in Thailand, is currently the only investor in the country to have signed up to the Principles for Responsible Investment, whose signatories are expected to take into account the environmental and societal implications of their decisions. |
Kasikornbank, one of the country's top commercial banks, was the first in Thailand to sign the UN Principles for Responsible Banking. Signatory banks are committed to do business in alignment with the Paris Climate Agreement and the UN 2030 Agenda for sustainable development. |
In September, a United Nations delegation headed by Gita Sabharwal, the UN Resident Coordinator in Thailand, will co-host with Apisak Tantivorawong, the Thai Minister of Finance, Yathip and Indaravijaya, a high-level roundtable to encourage Thai banks and investors to commit to responsible, and sustainable business practices, ahead of COP26, the UN climate change conference due to be held in November.<eot>[archiloque.net] Links - 3rd September 2017 |
Links - 3rd September 2017 |
And so, dear reader, this is where I would like to begin. Unlike most articles in acmqueue, this one isn't about a new technique or an exposition on a practitioner's solution. Instead, this article looks at the problems inherent in building a more decentralized Internet. Audacious? Yes, but this has become a renewed focus in recent years, even by the father of the Web himself (see Tim Berners-Lee's Solid project4). Several companies and open-source projects are now focusing on different aspects of the "content-delivery" problem. Our company Edgemesh is working on peer-enhanced client-side content acceleration, alongside other next-generation content-delivery networks such as Peer5 and Streamroot, both of which are focused on video delivery. Others, such as the open-source IPFS project are looking at completely new ways of defining and distributing and defining "the web". |
This paper introduces the first state-based formalization of isolation guarantees. Our approach is premised on a simple observation: applications view storage systems as black-boxes that transition through a series of states, a subset of which are observed by applications. Defining isolation guarantees in terms of these states frees definitions from implementation-specific assumptions. It makes immediately clear what anomalies, if any, applications can expect to observe, thus bridging the gap that exists today between how isolation guarantees are defined and how they are perceived. The clarity that results from de definitions based on client-observable states brings forth several benefits. First, it allows us to easily compare the guarantees of distinct, but semantically close, isolation guarantees. We found that several well-known guarantees, previously thought to be distinct, are in fact equivalent, and that many previously incomparable flavors of snapshot isolation can be organized in a clean hierarchy. Second, freeing definitions from implementation-specific artefacts can suggest more efficient implementations of the same isolation guarantee. We show how a client-centric implementation of parallel snapshot isolation can be more resilient to slowdown cascades, a common phenomenon in large-scale datacenters. |
This trend poses an additional burden on the application programmer, as these weaker isolation guarantees allow for counter- intuitive application behaviors: relaxing the ordering of operations yields better performance, but introduces schedules and anomalies that could not arise if transactions executed atomically and sequentially. These anomalies may affect application logic: consider a bank account with a $50 balance and no overdraft allowed. If the application runs under read-committed, the underlying database may allow two transactions to concurrently withdraw $45, incorrectly leaving the account with a negative balance. To mitigate this increased programming complexity, many commercial databases and distributed storage systems interact with applications through a front-end that gives applications the illusion of querying or writing to a logically centralized, failure-free node that will scale as much as one's wallet will allow. In practice, however, this abstraction is leaky: a careful understanding of the system that implements a given isolation level is oftentimes necessary to determine which anomalies the system will admit and how these will a affect application correctness. |
We submit that the root of this complexity is a fundamental semantic gap between how application programmers experience isolation guarantees and how they are currently formally defined. From a programmer's perspective, isolation guarantees are contracts between the storage systems and its clients, specifying the set of behaviors that clients can expect to observe — i.e., the set of admissible values that each read is allowed to return. When it comes to formally defining these guarantees, however, the current practice is to focus, rather than on the values that the clients can observe, on the mechanisms that can produce those values — i.e., histories capturing the relative ordering of low-level read and write operations. |
This leaves us with projects that started late because they didn't offer enough value to justify their true cost. This is garden variety failure, in my opinion: it happens all the time. If a project offered a value of 10 times its estimated cost, no one would care if the actual cost to get it done were double the estimate. On the other hand, if expected value were only 10 percent greater than expected cost, lateness would be a disaster. Yes it would be a disaster, but instead of obsessing over "What's the matter with those software folks who didn't deliver on the schedule we gave them?" we need to ask instead, "Why did we ever kick off a project with such marginal expected value?"<eot>This year’s wildfires have devastated many western communities and forests. For many of us, it’s these forests where we recreate, play, and enjoy our lives outdoors. Hydro Flask supports the sustains of the Northwest with the goal of restoring forest health and reducing wildfire risk to our communities.<eot>If you are a provider going through an L3-5 rating, your Lead Assessor will also provide the resources below as part of your orientation call/follow-up and can answer any questions you have. |
Frequently Asked Questions are answered in this document. This is a living document that is developed based on your questions. The most recent version will be provided here, so check back frequently.<eot>Taking the National Debt Seriously :: Gatestone Institute |
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/859/if-you-think-those |
Steve Forbes recently commented that when it comes to the national deficit, voters will put things in order. I certainly hope so. However, it's imprudent to rely just on "hope." Americans need to take notice, stand up, and remind our elected officials that in a democracy the people can change bad leaders.<eot>Nature Bear 4 Light Vanity - 24" |
Home»Shop By»Style & Theme»Wildlife»Nature Bear 4 Light Vanity - 24" |
Item Number: A-STP6410 |
A lovely scene depicting bears and trees give rustic charm to this box-style four-light Nature Bear Vanity. Shown in Black finish with White Mica lens, it is also available with any combination of our multiple finish and lens options. A great vanity light, this one takes four 60-watt bulbs and is made in the U.S.A.<eot>Yanjun (Penny) Liao is an economist and Fellow at Resources for the Future. Her current research focuses on issues of natural disaster risk management and climate adaptation. In a series of ongoing projects, she investigates how flood risk and the design of flood insurance program affect housing markets, the mortgage system, and location decisions of households with different demographics. She has also studied the impacts of disasters on local government budgets, housing markets, and demographic changes. In a secondary research agenda, Liao studies consumer behavior regarding the adoption of clean technology in the electricity and transportation sector. |
Liao is also a research fellow at the Wharton Risk Center, where she conducted her postdoctoral research during 2019-21. Before that, she earned her PhD in economics from UC San Diego in 2019.<eot>You've decided to climb Mt. Rainier, and are thinking about climbing the mountain with a guide service. Who are the guide services on Mount Rainier, and how should you choose? |
Do your homework when selecting a guide. Presumably, all guides who work with a guide service are skilled and experienced; but your actual experience with a service can vary greatly depending on who you climb with. Talk to friends, read reviews, and ask a lot of questions when selecting a guide. At a minimum, your climbing experience depends on it; at worst, your life depends on it! |
The AMGA also hosts a good resource about the value of hiring a guide. The decision of whether to climb with a certified / accredited guide, or not, is completely up to you. Email me for my personal thoughts on this, if you're really interested. |
Choosing a climbing schedule |
Each Mt. Rainier guide service has a suite of offerings for Mount Rainier climbs. Some include one day of mountain school; others include more than one day. Some involve only a few hours of rest at Camp Muir between your hike and starting to climb; others have programs that allow you to spend a day or longer at Camp Muir to acclimatize. Evaluate these details for yourself, and make your own decision about what type of ascent will work best for your fitness level and experience. |
The Mt. Rainier Guide Services |
Three providers are presently operating guide services on Mount Rainier. |
What does it cost to climb Mount Rainier with a guide? |
Climbing Mt. Rainier with a guide will cost upwards of $1,000, when climbing with most services. Some charge extra for food, and most recommend tipping your guides — the guide company will provide details on tipping and any charges not included in the cost of the package, but ask yourself to have that information as soon as possible. |
Outfitting yourself through purchasing new gear is an expensive proposition. Most guide services can provide rentals for the gear that you don't have, at a reasonable price compared to acquiring gear you may only use for this climb. I wound up renting an ice axe and avalanche beacon, and the rentals were inexpensive and quite easy to pick up and return. |
When I climbed Mount Rainier in August of 2010, I climbed with RMI, based in Ashford, WA. I had a strongly positive experience, and can personally recommend guides Melissa Arnot, Solveig Garhart and Carrie Parker who not only guided us to a successful and safe summit, but Melissa and Solveig delivered some of the most clear, helpful instruction on basic mountaineering skills I have ever received. |
I haven't climbed with the other services, but am favorably acquainted with all three. I would climb with any of the three services currently operating on Rainier, but you should make an informed decision based on your fitness, training, experience, and budget. |
Climbing Mount Rainier can be a fun, rewarding experience… it certainly was for me. Our guides went a long way toward helping us feel competent and safe. And, at the summit, Melissa reminded us of something very important, which clients should remember when choosing a Rainier guide service: |
"We didn't get you to the summit. You got yourselves here." |
A great guide will help teach you the tools you need to summit and descent safely, and will help guide your way. The steps you take are yours! |
Sherry Lowe February 2, 2011 at 4:34 pm |
Hi! I am climbing Rainier with five friends this August and would LOVE to learn from your experience. We, also, are going through RMI. What is the best way for me to get in touch with you? |
Gary March 25, 2014 at 9:12 pm |
I am considering a summit — I am 45 with limited climbing experience — I have a 55 year old friend that is not as physically fit – but pretty skilled in climbing —– any suggestions ???<eot>art & media – FlatHED, Inc |
A reimagining of a classic. Designer Andrew Clifford Capener has created the A-1 Scrabble designer edition which features your choice of fonts and a scrabble board and interior box are made out of solid walnut, and the exterior box is made from birch. Each of the 6 board pieces is… |
I met my very first industrial designer when I was about 16. Well, to be fair, he was really just a an 18 year old kid getting ready to go off to Pratt Institute in New York to study Industrial Design. Either way, as a career choice, it was something… |
5 August 2010 Author: Ashawnta Jackson Category: art & media |
The news making that buzzing sound around the water cooler is the proposed plastic bag ban in Portland. It made me wonder; what's to become of the bags we have now? Art, of course. Which, of course, makes me wonder what of the other recyclables? Newspaper? Plastic bottles? The possibilities…<eot>Billie is the Accounts Payable processor at Blue Roc Premier Properties. She joined the company in March 2015. Billie oversees the payables for 16 of Blue Roc properties in Tampa and Jacksonville. |
Following her time in the accounting department at Blue Cross Blue Shield located in Jacksonville, Florida she founded and operated her own contracting business in Tampa for 30 years. |
Building the company from the ground up, she saw first-hand the interplay of accounts payable, receivable, insurance, payroll, and all other facets of account management. |
A longtime Floridian, Billie resides in Tampa and is the proud mother of four adult children. |
Blue Roc Premier, LLC © Copyright 2016. All Rights Reserved. | Blue Roc Premier and its affiliates are property management firms and are not affiliated with the National Equity Investment firm Blue Rock Real Estate, LLC. If you need to contact them - Please visit www.BluerockRE.COM<eot>Police accuse Sharjeel Imam of spreading fear among Muslims, instigation over CAA | India News – India TV |
New Delhi Published on: February 04, 2020 7:21 IST |
Sharjeel Imam accused of spreading fear among Muslims |
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student Sharjeel Imam was spreading false information over the new citizenship law (CAA), the Delhi Police have said, adding, Imam was also trying to instigate people by claiming that Muslims were being put in the detention camps and killed in Assam. According to sources within police, Imam was trying to spread fear among Muslims by stating that they were on the government's radar. He also tried to provoke Muslims by raising the issues of Babri Masjid and Jammu and Kashmir. |
On January 28, Imam was arrested by a Delhi Police team from his village in Jehanabad district of Bihar after four days of search. On Monday, his custody was extended for three days after the initial five-day police custody. |
The police seized pamphlets, laptops and mobile phones from Imam's Delhi house. In one pamphlet, Imam had called the Muslim political and religious leadership "disappointing". |
In one pamphlet, Imam said, "The Citizenship Amendment Bill was passed last week. This law is unconstitutional and intends to discriminate Muslims and put them in detention camps. It has started in Assam and will follow elsewhere." Muslims across India must reject the NRC and the CAA unitedly, it added. |
On abrogation of Article 370, Ayodhya verdict and the CAA, Imam said, "There are more than enough grounds for a strong reaction from Muslims across India". |
Sedition case against Chudawala for 'anti-national' slogans |
Activist Urvashi Chudawala was on Monday booked for sedition by the Mumbai Police for allegedly raising "anti-national" slogans in support of JNU student Sharjeel Imam at an LGBTQ event held at the Azad Maidan last week, an officer said. Besides Chudawala, 50 others were also booked under sections 124 (A) (sedition), 153 (B) (Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration), 505 (statement conducing to public mischief) and 34 (Common Intention) of the Indian penal code, said Pranay Ashok, Deputy Commissioner of Police. |
A complaint in this regard was lodged by former BJP MP Kirit Somaiya on February 2, he said. Tweeting the video of a woman raising the slogans at the event, Somaiya had warned of staging a protest if the police failed to register the case against Chudawala and others.<eot>Amanda B Mallette | Prudential Douglas Elliman RE | Sayville, NY | UrbanRealtyNYC.Com |
Real estate agent, broker in NY, Amanda B Mallette, online profile on UrbanRealtyNYC.Com include address, real estate agency or company, phone number, fax, e-mail and website (if available). Amanda B Mallette can help you to buy, sell or rent any real estate in New York state, can help you buying & selling any type of property such as apartments, houses, villas, condos, homes and townhouses in Sayville, NY. Amanda B Mallette real estate agency, company is Prudential Douglas Elliman RE, located in Sayville, NY, Suffolk county. |
As a visitor of Amanda B Mallette | Prudential Douglas Elliman RE , you can write, submit & share your experience and opinions about this New York state real estate agent, about their services, prices, available properties & more. Your review will become a very useful information for other visitors. All reviews will be verified by moderators at UrbanRealtyNYC.Com.<eot>Trailer workers claim pay rises have been small - North Wales Live |
Trailer workers claim pay rises have been small |
THE war of words surrounding an industrial dispute at a North Wales factory continued yesterday with workers refuting claims they had had good pay rises in recent years. |
The row at Ifor Williams trailer plant in Bala, Cynwyd and Corwen shows little sign of reaching settlement, though members of the GMB have agreed not to strike while negotiations continued. |
Last week the company claimed they paid good wages and prided themselves on being a caring employer. |
But union members scoffed at the claim, alleging last year's pay increase left them, after stoppages, with rises of less than £3 a week, compared to the company's profit of £350 a week per worker. |
Mark Davenport, who has worked for the company for nine years, said he had an eight-year-old payslip showing his take-home pay was £242. currently it is £280. |
He works full-time but still claims £100 in child tax credit. |
"Mark's circumstances are not unusual and this gives the lie to Ifor Williams Trailers Ltd's claim that they pay good wages," said the GMB union's regional organiser Dave Cliff. |
He said the company, whose turnover in 2002 rose by 3.9pc to £45.5m, could well afford to meet the union's pay claim. |
A spokesman for the company declined to discuss individual cases but said they were disappointed at the union's "unhelpful" comments at a time when the conciliation service ACAS had appealed to both parties to enable talks to go ahead in the best possible atmosphere. |
"The pay offer of 3.5pc is a generous one as it is well above the national average settlement of 2.5pc in manufacturing," said the spokesman. |
He said the wages were among the highest in North Wales and over the past decade had risen by 14pc above the rate of inflation."<eot>Free photos of Kawanakajima, Japan | Open City Photos |
Home > Japan > Kanagawa |
Free Photos of Kawanakajima, Japan |
Explore a selection of free-to-use photos of Kawanakajima in Japan. Pictures are taken from a variety of royalty-free websites and include source and creator information. When you use a photo, please be sure to credit according to the source requirements. |
3 pictures for Kawanakajima |
Things to see in Kawanakajima, Japan |
Kawanakajima is a small, isolated island that has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its natural beauty. The island is known for its lush forests, crystal clear waters, and picturesque villages. There are plenty of things to see and do on Kawanakajima, from soaking up the sun on the beach to hiking through the forest. |
How are the photos for Kawanakajima sourced? |
Open City Photos programmatically connects to some popular free-to-use photo sources such as Unsplash, Pexels and Google Places. It does this by inputting a combination of the city and country name and performing a search, in this case "Kawanakajima, Japan"<eot>Three dairy companies lose Famous Brand status_Local—China Economic Net |
Three dairy companies lose Famous Brand status |
Last Updated(Beijing Time):2008-09-20 10:49 |
Three leading dairy companies have been removed from China's Famous Brands list after their milk was found to be contaminated with melamine, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) said on Friday. |
"In order to preserve the reputation of China's Famous Brands, the AQSIQ decided to revoke the titles given to Yili and Mengniu groups (both based in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region), and Shanghai-based Bright Diary," the agency said. |
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