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Devise a graph description language. Implement a method that reads the description of a graph and constructs a graph object instance. Your method should be completely generic--it should not depend on the graph implementation used.
Extend Project by writing a method that prints the description of a given graph object instance.
Complete the implementation of the GraphAsMatrix class introduced in Program by providing suitable definitions for the following operations: GraphAsMatrix (constructor), Purge, AddVertex, GetVertex, AddEdge, GetEdge, IsEdge, Vertices, Edges, IncidentEdges, and EmanatingEdges. Write a test program and test your implementation.
Repeat Project for the GraphAsLists class.
Implement the DigraphAsMatrix class by providing suitable definitions for the following methods: DigraphAsMatrix (constructor), Purge, AddEdge, GetEdge, IsEdge, and Edges. You must also have a complete implementation of the base class GraphAsMatrix (see Project ). Write a test program and test your implementation.
Repeat Project for the DigraphAsLists class.
Add a method to the Digraph interface that returns the undirected graph which underlies the given digraph. Write an implementation of this method for the AbstractGraph class introduced in Program .
Devise an approach using an enumerator and a stack to perform a topological-order traversal by doing a postorder depth-first traversal in reverse.
The single-source shortest path problem on a DAG can be solved by visiting the vertices in topological order. Write an visitor for use with the TopologicalOrderTraversal method that solves the single-source shortest path problem on a DAG.
Devise and implement an method that transforms a vertex-weighted activity-node graph into an edge-weighted event-node graph.
Complete the implementation of the critical path analysis methods. In particular, you must implement the LatestTimeVisitor along the lines of the EarliestTimeVisitor defined in Program . | https://book.huihoo.com/data-structures-and-algorithms-with-object-oriented-design-patterns-in-csharp/html/page587.html |
Russian attack prompted Lebanese buyer to cancel deal after the ship was already at sea
The 10-day heatwave that hit Spain left "more than 500 people" dead, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Wednesday.
"During this heat wave, more than 500 people died because of such high temperatures, according to the statistics," Sanchez said, referring to a public health institute estimate based on excess mortality rates.
Europe counted the cost of a record heatwave on Wednesday as French firefighters brought twin blazes near Bordeaux under control and climate change protesters pointed to the sizzling weather as a wake up call for the continent.
Temperatures of more than 40 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) over previous days have spelled misery for millions and shattered heat records, focusing attention on the impact of global warming.
Cooler air swept in Wednesday, bringing relief to people from Portugal to Britain, but thousands of firefighters continued to tackle mass fires that have broken out in multiple countries in recent days after months of drought-like conditions.
“Our assessment is generally positive. The situation improved overnight,” French fire service spokesman Arnaud Mendousse told AFP from the southwestern Gironde region where two huge blazes have engulfed 20,600 hectares (50,900 acres) of tinder-dry forest since last week.
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The infernos had barely expanded overnight, with lower temperatures and the construction of a 300-metre wide fire break helping stem the spread of the flames.
President Emmanuel Macron was set to visit later on Wednesday to speak to emergency services members and some of the 37,000 people who have been evacuated in the popular Atlantic Ocean region that is teaming with tourists in the summer months.
Two firefighters were severely injured overnight, government spokesman Olivier Veran told reporters.
Separate blazes in the Monts d’Arree area of northwestern Brittany continued to rage on Wednesday, with aircraft dropping water from above. | https://www.khaleejtimes.com/europe/spains-pm-says-more-than-500-died-from-heatwave |
Florim has invested more than $25 million in its United States facilities since acquiring the operation in 2000. Currently, Florim USA is breaking ground on a $2 million warehouse expansion project to better serve growing demand.
The expansion will add 100,000 square feet to the plant's existing warehouse facility. Upon completion of the project in the second quarter of this year, Florim USA will have more than 300,000 square feet of interior warehouse space, including new offices and break areas for additional distribution personnel.
In addition, Florim USA's management team has been retooled. In the third and fourth quarters of 2002, changes were made in Florim USA's leadership, including the promotion of Mirco Migliari to president & CEO, and the addition of Grant Hughes as warehouse & logistics manager. In 2003, David Hartman joined the Florim USA team as executive vice president of sales and marketing. He will lead the company's strategic direction, including distribution, branding, and marketing programs. | https://www.floortrendsmag.com/articles/85236-florim-s-u-s-distribution-gets-leadership-changes-boosted-funding |
AP ChemistryHow many grams of benzoic acid, a monoprotic acid with a Ka=6.4x10 to the negative 5, must be dissolved in 500.0 mL of water to produce a solution with a pH=2.50?
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chemistryBenzoic acid reacts with water to form the benzoate ion by the following reaction C6H5COOH(aq) + H2O(l) ⇀↽ C6H5COO−(aq) + H3O +(aq) The equilibrium constant for this reaction is 6.4 x 10−5 . In a 0.1 M solution of benzoic
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OchemA student needed to determine the percent composition of a mixture that contained fluorene and benzoic acid. The student took 283 mg of the mixture and used the extraction method to separate the components. Then both compounds
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chemistryWater in contact with air is acidic due to the dissolved carbon dioxide. Water in equilibrium with the air contains 4.4 x 10^-6% CO2. The resulting carbonic acid, H2CO3,gives the solution a hydrogen ion concentration of 2.0 x
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chemistry1. if 15.0mL of 4.5 M NaOH are diluted with water to a volume of 500mL, what is the molarity of the resulting solution? 2. in a acid-base titration, 33.65mL of an 0.148 M HCL solution were required to neutralize 25.00mL of a NaOH
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sciencethe melting point of pure benzoic acid and pure naphthol are 122.5 and 123 degree Celsius respectively. you are given a pure sample that is known to be either pure benzoic acid or 2- naphthol. describe a procedure you will use to
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chemistryHow do I do a question like this please help and explain it!! Calculate the pH of a buffer solution that contains 0.22 M benzoic acid (C6H5CO2H) and 0.24 M sodium benzoate (C6H5COONa). [Ka = 6.5 × 10-5 for benzoic acid] Round
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ChemistryThe pH of a 0.002 50 mol/L solution of benzoic acid is 3.65. Calculate the Ka for benzoic acid.
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chemistryi need help solving this Benzoic acid is a weak, monoprotic acid (Ka = 6.3 × 10−5). Calculate the pH and the percent dissociation of each of the following solutions of benzoic acid. Then use Le Châtelier’s principle to
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ChemistryThe combustion reaction for benzoic acid C6H5CO2H(s) + 15 2 O2(g) → 7 CO2(g) + 3 H2O(ℓ) has ∆H0 = −3226.7 kJ/mole. Use Hess’s Law to calculate ∆H0 f for benzoic acid.
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organic chemistryHow to find the volume of hot water required to dissolve the mass of acid, if we have 20g of benzoic acid contaminated with 0.4g of salicylic acid? What is the mass of benzoic acid which participates when the solution is cooled to
Still need help? You can ask a new question. | https://www.jiskha.com/questions/695286/calculate-the-percent-ionizationof-a-0-15-m-benzoic-acid-solution-in-pure-water-nd-also-in |
The Indian Institute of Technology Delhi offers MBA from the Department of Management Studies, the details are as follows:
MBA Full Time
Duration: 2 Years
Eligibility:
The applicant should have a bachelors degree from any recognized Board.
Selection procedure:
The selection is based on the CAT admission test then followed by Group Discussion & Personal Interview.
Fees:
At the time of joining (in INR)
Tuition fee: 25,000
One Time fee: 1,200
Semester fee: 1,235
Refundable security deposit: 2,000
Alumni assoc fee (life): 1,000
T & P Charges: 500
Total (in INR): 30,935
Every subsequent semester (in INR)
Tuition fee: 25,500
Semester fee: 1,235
Other: 500
Total ( in INR): 26,735
Contact:
Institute of Technology Delhi DMS
Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi, Delhi (state)
Map: | https://studychacha.com/discuss/113450-iit-delhi-mba-fees-structure.html |
A modern fire extinguisher can be stored horizontally. The contents are under pressure, and the angle of storage will not cause the system to leak. Proper fire extinguisher storage includes using the appropriate mounting brackets, and being sure that you do not allow your extinguishers to freeze.
Do fire extinguishers need to be kept upright?
While most fire extinguishers, for example, are pressurized and can thus be stored in any direction, a very small number are not. If yours is not pressurized, it must be stored upright. For these, getting some sort of mounting device will help ensure it is never knocked over and thus deactivated.
How should fire extinguishers be mounted?
To prevent fire extinguishers from being moved or damaged, they should be mounted on brackets or in wall cabinets with the carrying handle placed 3-1/2 to 5 feet above the floor. Larger fire extinguishers need to be mounted at lower heights with the carrying handle about 3 feet from the floor.
What does a fire extinguisher on its side mean?
4A is equivalent to 5 gallons of water. The Class B size rating indicates the square footage the extinguisher can cover. 20B means that as long as you sweep the nozzle side to side, there is enough extinguishing agent inside the canister to provide 20 square feet of coverage.
Can I keep a fire extinguisher in my car?
Read full disclaimer. Keeping a fire extinguisher in your car can help prevent a small fire from becoming unmanageable. Be sure the fire extinguisher is rated for Class B and Class C fires by the NFPA, and keep it strapped down in the trunk of your vehicle when not in use.
Can a fire extinguisher explode if dropped?
Can a Fire Extinguisher Explode From Being Dropped? Yes, if dropped too far a fire extinguisher can burst potentially causing damage to anyone nearby. Do not throw or toss a fire extinguisher to anyone because they can drop it or miss it.
Where should a fire extinguisher be stored?
To prevent damage, fire extinguishers should be mounted on brackets or in wall cabinets. They should also be placed in areas that are quickly and easily accessible. The NFPA recommends having at least one fire extinguisher on every floor in the home.
How close do fire extinguishers need to be?
For each type of hazard, extinguishers with lower minimum ratings must be placed no more than 30 feet away, while extinguishers with higher minimum ratings may be as far as 50 feet away.
Where do fire extinguishers go in a restaurant?
By California law, extinguishers in commercial kitchens must be placed so that an employee within your kitchen only has to travel 30 feet to obtain an extinguisher.
How many feet of clearance does a fire extinguisher require?
Most authorities having jurisdiction (AHJ) will expect at least 36-inches clearance in front of the extinguisher as long as it is still visible. They “borrow” this 36-inch clearance measurement from NFPA 70-2011, Article 110.26 for electrical control panels.
What is the proper way to use a fire extinguisher?
Discharge the extinguisher within its effective range using the P.A.S.S. technique (pull, aim, squeeze, sweep). Back away from an extinguished fire in case it flames up again. Evacuate immediately if the extinguisher is empty and the fire is not out.
Can I leave a fire extinguisher in a cold car?
Fire extinguishers can be stored horizontally if necessary and can also be stored in automobiles if the average temperature within the vehicle falls within the UL rating, which is usually -40 degrees to 120 degrees.
Do fire extinguishers expire?
Even if there’s no expiration date, it won’t last forever. Manufacturers say most extinguishers should work for 5 to 15 years, but you might not know if you got yours three years ago or 13. … If it falls anywhere else, the extinguisher is unreliable and should be serviced or replaced. | https://rfd4.org/about-fire/can-a-fire-extinguisher-be-mounted-on-its-side.html |
Hi, welcome to our recipe blog site. Below you can obtain a guide on just how to make extremely yummy Keto Teriyaki Chicken dishes. The manufacturing procedure is extremely easy, you simply require to follow the techniques that we have written on this page. The complying with are the phases of how to prepare Keto Teriyaki Chicken. Please adhere to the directions well.
Prep Time => 5 mins
Cook Time => 15 mins
Totàl Time => 20 mins
Servings => 5
Càlories => 316 kcàl
Ingredients
- 2 Tàblespoons àvocàdo oil
- 2 1/2 Pounds Chicken thighs cut into 1 inch pieces
- 1/4 Cup Soy sàuce
- 3 Tàblespoons Brown sugàr substitute (such às Làkànto)
- 1 Clove gàrlic, minced
- 1 teàspoon Gràted ginger
- 1/2 Cup wàter
- 1/4 teàspoon Xànthàn gum
- Sesàme seeds ànd sliced green onions for à gàrnish
Instructions
- Heàt the àvocàdo oil in à làrge skillet over medium-hi heàt. àdd the chicken ànd sàuté’ until cooked through…àbout 8 minutes.
- In à medium bowl, combine the soy sàuce, sugàr substitute, gàrlic, ginger, wàter, ànd xànthàn gum. Whisk to combine.
- Pour ……..
- ……………
- ……….
Thanks for visiting our blog. Hopefully the directions for making Keto Teriyaki Chicken dishes over can be valuable for you. And also do not forget to share this recipe by clicking the PIN switch listed below, and also share it with all your buddies. | https://farahrecipes.com/keto-teriyaki-chicken-recipes-best-recipes-collection/ |
A 721-meter-long pedestrian suspension bridge opened at a mountain resort in the Czech Republic on Friday and became the longest in the world. Until then, the largest was in Arouca, Portugal, with 516 meters in length.
- VIDEO: Czech Republic opens world’s longest suspended walkway
Sky Bridge 721, as it is known, is located in the northeastern part of the country, in the Kralicky Sneznik mountain range, close to the Polish border and about 200 kilometers east of Prague.
It was built at an altitude of over 1,100 meters above sea level. It connects two mountain peaks and rises up to 95 meters above the valley below.
Offering unusual views for visitors who enjoy heights, up to 500 people can be on the bridge at any given time. However, in the first two weeks after opening the number is being reduced by half.
People on the world’s longest pedestrian suspension bridge — Photo: AP/Petr David Josek
The construction took two years and cost about 200 million Czech crowns (about R$40 million). The bridge will be closed for safety reasons if winds reach 135 km/h (84 mph).
Critics say the site is too big for its surroundings, while others argue that it will attract many tourists to the city, which has a population of less than 500.
CzechTourism believes the bridge can attract tourists from all over the world.
Theo Scheepens, 59, is from the Netherlands and was one of the first to walk the bridge. “Wonderful, impressive, the bridge moves, so you think something is going to happen,” he said. | https://playcrazygame.com/2022/05/14/worlds-longest-pedestrian-suspension-bridge-opens-in-czech-resort-see-photos-tourism-and-travel-2/ |
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It happens all the time. You read an amazing book, one so packed with wisdom that you think it’s going to change your life forever. Then…it doesn’t. Why? Because when you’re finally in a situation where you could use its insights, you’ve completely forgotten them. Time is our most valuable resource, so we shouldn’t waste it. The investment we make in reading should have a positive, lasting impact on our lives.
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No idea could be further from the truth.
Learning means being able to use new information. The basic process of learning consists of reflection and feedback. We learn facts and concepts through reflecting on experience—our own or others’. If you read something and you don’t make time to think about what you’ve read, you won’t be able to use any of the wisdom you’ve been exposed to.
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One of the reasons that we read books is because they offer a rich tapestry of details, allowing us to see the world of the author and go on their journey with them. Our brains can learn not only the author’s ideas but also when their conclusions about how to live are likely to work and when they are likely to fail (thanks to the vast amount of details that authors share about their experiences and thought processes).
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But if you only remember six things after reading this article, it should be the following truths about reading:
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There are multiple strategies for getting more out of what you read. You don’t need to use all these strategies for every book. Using just a couple of them, whether you’re trying to learn a new philosophy or reading a work of fiction, can help you retain more and make deeper connections.
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1) Active reading
2) Remembering what you read
3) Now what?
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Now, if you’re only reading for fun, or if you don’t want to remember what you read, this article doesn’t apply. Sometimes reading is entertainment, and that’s wonderful. But if you want to get some valuable knowledge out of a book, the first step to getting more out of what you read is being active. So what is active reading?
Active reading is thoughtfully engaging with a book at all steps in the reading process. From deciding to read right through to reflection afterwards, you have a plan for how you are going to ingest and learn what’s in the book.
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Each time we pick up a book, the content has to compete with what we already think we know. Making room for the book, and the potential wisdom it contains, requires you to question and reflect as you read.
For example, you might ask yourself:
Active reading helps you make connections within your latticework of mental models. Connections help retention.
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Your first goal when reading is to not be a passive consumer of information. You want to get better, learn something, and develop your critical thinking skills. If you had a good teacher in school, you will have already seen this in action.
To get the most out of each book we read, it is vital we know how to record, reflect on, and put into action our conclusions.
A lot of success in reading boils down to preparation. What you do before you read matters more than you think. Here are five strategies to help you plan and get in the active reading frame of mind.
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There are no rules when it comes to choosing books. We don’t have to read bestsellers, or classics, or books everyone else raves about. This isn’t school and there are no required reading lists. In fact, there’s an advantage to be gained from reading things other people are not reading, because you will gain knowledge and insights that not everyone else has. Focus on some combination of books that: 1) stand the test of time; 2) pique your interest; or 3) challenge you.
The more interesting and relevant we find a book, the more likely we are to remember its contents in the future.
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A good place to start getting context is by doing some preliminary research on the book. Some books have a richer meaning once we know a bit about the life of the author and the place and time in which the novel was set.
For older books, try to understand the historical context. For books written in an unfamiliar country, try to understand the cultural context.
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What are you reading this book for? Entertainment? To understand something or someone you don’t know? To get better at your job? To improve your health? To learn a skill? To help build a business?
You have to have some idea of what you want to get from the book. If you don’t read with intention, what you read will never stick.
Periodically ask yourself questions like: What can I learn from this story? What in this book parallels or pertains to my own challenges? What are the differences? How might I apply some of the insights I’m picking up?
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Before starting to read a book (particularly nonfiction), skim through the index, contents page, preface, and inside the jacket to get an idea of the subject matter. Use this information to situate your expectations and refine what you are looking for as you read.
The bibliography can also indicate the tone and scope of a book. Authors often read hundreds of books for each one they write, so a well-researched book should have a bibliography full of interesting texts. After you’ve read the book, peruse the bibliography again and make a note of any books you want to read next.
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Although it’s not always practical, matching books to our location and circumstances can be powerful. Books will have a greater resonance as they become part of an experience rather than just supplementing it.
When choosing books, take a look at your own situation and decide on genres or authors that might help you overcome any current challenges or give you a fresh perspective. Whatever your state of affairs, someone has been in the same place. Someone has felt the same feelings and thought the same thoughts and written about it.
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Now that you’re actively reading, you’re engaging on a deeper level with the book. You are making connections to your own life, seeing new opportunities and possibilities. The next step is making sure you remember what’s important. Even the most diligent of us get caught up in the busyness of life, and we thus lose those still-fragile connections we make while reading. But we can help with that.
You’ll remember more of what you read if you do the following five things while you’re reading.
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Making notes is an important foundation for reflecting and integrating what you read into your mind.
The best technique for notetaking is whichever one works for you and is easy to stick to. While there are hundreds of systems on the internet, you need to take one of them and adapt it until you have your own system. Some people prefer to record notes on index cards or in a commonplace book; others prefer a digital system. Notes are especially useful if you write on a regular basis, although everyone (not just writers) can benefit from making them.
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Decide that for the time you will be reading, you will focus on the book and nothing else. No quick Twitter checks. No emails. No cell phone. No TV. No staring into midair. Understanding and absorbing a book requires deep focus, especially if the subject matter is dense or complex.
If you’re struggling to stay focused on a particularly difficult or lengthy book, decide to read a mere 25 pages of it a day. It takes only a few minutes to nibble away at a challenging text. Completing a long book in this manner might take months, but at least you will have read it without getting overwhelmed .
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Most of us were taught as children to treat books as something sacred—no folding the page corners, and no writing in the margins, ever. However, if you want to remember what you read and you have the means to do so, forget about keeping books pristine.
Go crazy with marginalia. The more you write, the more active your mind will be while reading. If you can’t mark up the book, do it on paper and note the page numbers.
Jot down connections and tangential thoughts, underline key passages, and make a habit of building a dialogue with the author(s).
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Books do not exist in a vacuum. Every concept or fact can be linked to countless others. Making an effort to form our own links is a fruitful way to better remember what we read.
Building vivid mental pictures is one of the most effective techniques for remembering anything, not least what we read. When you come across an important passage or concept, pause and visualize it. Make the picture as salient and distinctive as possible by connecting it to other ideas already in your brain.
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Another way of building links is to hang everything on a latticework of mental models. Having a framework of deliberately constructed concepts enables us to better understand and synthesize books by allowing us to make connections to what we already know. Knowledge sticks in our memories easier if it attaches to something we already understand.
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When it comes to reading, you don’t need to finish what you start. As a general rule, people who love reading never, ever finish a crappy book.
As Arthur Schopenhauer once wrote, “One can never read too little of bad, or too much of good books: bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.” Life is much too short to finish a bad book. You need to be ruthless and heartless. Don’t let sunk costs guilt you into wasting your time.
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Author and librarian Nancy Pearl advocates the “Rule of 50.” This entails reading the first 50 pages of a book and then deciding if it is worth finishing. The Rule of 50 has an interesting feature: once you are over the age of 50, subtract your age from 100 and read that many pages. Pearl writes:
“When you are 51 years of age or older, subtract your age from 100, and the resulting number (which, of course, gets smaller every year) is the number of pages you should read before you can guiltlessly give up on a book. When you turn 100, you are authorized to judge a book by its cover.”
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So you’ve finished the book. Now what? How can you use what you have learned? Don’t just go away with a vague sense of “Oh yeah, I should totally do what that author says.” Take the time to make a plan and decide how to implement key lessons from the book.
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Reading alone is not enough. We have to contextualize the knowledge. When does it work? When doesn’t it work? Where can I apply it? What are the key variables? The list goes on. If you can take something you’ve read and apply it immediately, it will reinforce the learning and add context and meaning.
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Another way to reinforce the learning is to apply the Feynman technique, named after the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. You can think of it as an algorithm for guaranteed learning. There are 4 simple steps: choose a concept, teach it to someone unfamiliar with the subject, identify gaps in your understanding and go back to the source material, and review and simplify.
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There are endless ways of organizing your notes—by book, by author, by topic, by the time of reading. It doesn’t matter which system you use as long as you will be able to find the notes in the future.
Having a catalogue of everything you learn from reading creates a priceless resource that can be consulted whenever you need an idea, want inspiration, or want to confirm a thought. Over the years, you will build up a bank of wisdom to refer to in times of crisis, uncertainty, or need. It is hard to convey quite how valuable this can prove to be.
Schedule time to read and review these notes.
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“Read a lot. Expect something big, something exalting or deepening from a book. No book is worth reading that isn’t worth rereading.” —Susan Sontag
Skim a lot of books. Read a few. Immediately re-read the best ones twice. While rereading can seem like a waste of time because there are so many other books to read, this is a misunderstanding of the learning process. The best time to start rereading a great book is right after finishing. The goal is not to read as many books as possible. The goal is to gain as much wisdom as you can.
Happy reading!
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“An idea is something that won’t work unless you do.” - Thomas A. Edison
What you read can give you access to untold knowledge. But how you read changes the trajectory of your life.
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Yesterday at spriteCloud, we discussed how Safari is the new IE, meaning that of the major browsers, Safari seems to lag further and further behind in providing an up-to-date Web experience.
Elsewhere, that article turned into a different discussion: does it even matter to end-users if there is one browser that needs to be supported with more effort than any other? Yes it does: we can even calculate how much it matters.
Cloud
Let’s take a quick step back here. When we’re talking about how one browser takes an inordinate amount of effort to support, what we’re talking about is that a cloud app isn’t running properly in that browser without extra development effort. Such incompatibilities can be very minor (albeit annoying) — you might just have to tweak the formatting a little bit to make it work. Other incompatibilities can cause major headaches, for example when you’re trying to provide rich visuals with WebGL.
What we’re trying to do here is to provide a particular kind of filter for deciding how bad an incompatibility is.
Threshold
The discussion we’re referring to included the premise that the pain of supporting a new browser is negligible to the end user if the extra cost for it lies in the millicent range.
While that statement was probably hyperbole, it is actually a fairly good assumption to start out from. A thousandth of a cent is a negligible amount to pay for just about anyone. By focusing on the millicent threshold, we can allow for a thousand special cases before the cost starts to become visible to end users in the form of an extra whole cent to pay. Let’s go with that!
Subscription
Cloud apps are usually paid via some kind of subscription, and for the end user type apps, monthly payments seem to be fairly typical. That means any costs we will look at below are also to be considered monthly costs only.
Compatibility issues often require workarounds that aren’t just implemented once. More likely than not, in order to deal with such issues, your developers will build or use an abstraction layer that takes care of the incompatibilities on the one hand, but always imposes new usage paradigms on the other. That means any new features you add later on will likely also fall subject to the new usage paradigms, and new use cases often reveal omissions or flaws in the abstraction layer.
In other words, compatibility problems haunt you forever, even if you’re being clever about dealing with them.
Calculation
So let’s look at some numbers. According to U.S.News, software developer salaries averaged around USD $96,000 per year. If you distribute that across the Dutch average of 222 working days per year, and assume a nice, comfortable 8 working hours per day, you’ll arrive at an hourly cost for a developer of around USD $54.
Next, let’s see amongst how many users we have to spread that amount in order to make it into the millicent range. USD $54 is 5,400 cents, or 5,400,000 millicents. That means spreading USD $54 across 5,400,000 paying end users will put a burden of a millicent on each of them. That’s your threshold reached.
Let that sink in: a single developer hour a month requires 5,400,000 monthly subscribers to be as cheap as a millicent for each of them.
We’re not talking about single-hour amounts of effort here, though. Even if a developer only needed an hour to fix a compatibility issue, testing needs to happen on all supported browsers. The fix, if it actually works, needs to be rolled out. Then there’s administrative overheads for everything, and so forth.
It pretty much doesn’t make sense to count effort in hours from the perspective of the end-user. Going with a three man-day amount of effort for even minor issues is a conservative estimate, putting all of the above together. So we’ll have at least 3 * 8 * USD $54 in costs to deal with, which need to be spread across almost 130 million paying users to be as little as a millicent.
Comparison
Services such as GitHub are industry darlings reaching some 10 million users or so, only a fraction of which will actually pay for the service. It’s hard finding numbers on paying customers from such services, even if you try to gauge them based on company revenue and standard subscription fees. So let’s as a ballpark assume that to have a million paying customers, you’ll be in a really good shape.
That gives us a way to compare the results from the above calculation with reality a little: if you need 130 million users paying a millicent for a small adjustment to an app, then a million users need to pay 130 millicent each.
That’s still not a lot, but it’s starting to make a difference. Every 7-8 chunks of work this small size result in an extra cent you pay on your subscription.
So let’s scale this up to some more serious development.
Nowadays, for smaller web apps, it’s quite common for an app development team of at least three people to work in sprints of two weeks. In that time, just as a rough estimate, you can get a noticeable set of changes to software implemented and tested, and to a standard that is releasable. An adjustment to work around a badly implemented API may just fall into that category — it really starts depending on just how central to your app the incompatibility is, and how complex the workaround needs to be.
Such a sprint will cost 40 hours per week for two weeks for three people, so 40 * 2 * 3 * USD $54, or USD $12,960. Spread across the one million paying users mentioned above, it amounts to about 1.3 cents each.
It should be quite clear by now that “millicents” may have been a good starting point for defining a truly negligible amount, but that even the smallest changes to software result in whole cent costs to the development company.
Operations
The calculation above completely ignores operational costs, such as cost for hardware (either physical or virtual), rent and administrative overhead. Those costs are much harder to to express in a generalized view, so we’ll guesstimate them. But it means that the whole cent threshold we’re now discussing is highly optimistic.
Scaling up to a medium sized business, you’ll typically find that somewhere between a third and half of the staff are directly involved with software production; the rest fulfil other functions. Your staff cost for any change will therefore double to triple. Adding another 50% per staffer in rent, utilities and similar costs to the business is not entirely out of this world, either.
So that’s approaching a cent for the most trivial change, and any meaningful change must be measured at upwards of five cents each.
Hardware
Mapping hardware costs into this is critical, but difficult. A decent server or virtual machine can be rented for around USD $100 a month, but how much of this does each customer use?
Most systems for the kind of small app that we’re using for our example here will use at least a handful of machines, but will support thousands of users with that handful. When we’re looking for a system that will support a million users, though — just to keep to the same scale as before — the overall costs aren’t so easy to estimate. A whole lot depends on where you host your app, how well your software distributes load, etc., but mostly on how much load it generates. spriteCloud Calliope generates a lot of load.
Just to get into a reasonable enough ballpark, let’s look at Facebook for example. Apparently in 2010, they used 60,000 servers for round about 400 million active users.
You can scale that down quite easily to the one million subscribers scale we’ve been using above: 60,000 divided by 400 comes to about 150 servers.
Once you operate on the scale of 150 servers, renting them for $100 a pop isn’t the optimal choice. You’ll end up saving on operating costs building your own data center, but you’ll have to make a significant up-front investment, too. So for simplicity’s sake, let’s just run with the USD $100 for 150 servers, and say that supporting a million subscribers will cost you round about USD $15,000 a month.
It’s a very sketchy calculation. But it does compare very easily to the USD $12,960 development cost for a two week sprint: in order to just keep everything up and running while your team cranks away on an improvement, you need to add another 50% or so to the cost. Your trivial change exceeds a cent now, and your minimally meaningful change costs in the range of 7.5 cents then.
Compatibility
The last thing we need to look at to put the cost of compatibility into perspective is that for every sprint spent on compatibility issues, you’re not getting a new feature developed (again in our small app example). For that, we’ll need to estimate how much time a development team will spend on compatibility issues. If before we’ve made a few big assumptions to keep everything generalized and simple, here we’re going to make a few more.
A useful way to approach this is to look at it from the testing perspective rather than the development perspective: the cost of manually testing a piece of functionality per browser is relatively constant, which means that if you support the four major browsers out there, each browser contributes to 25% of the testing cost.
Reality is more complex, of course. In particular, development costs don’t scale quite the same to supporting multiple browsers. In fact, as the article referenced in the beginning should make clear, supporting two out of the four browsers comes at fairly negligible cost; it’s the other two that soak up extra attention.
But in lieu of a better metric, let’s take 25% of effort for each browser. That translates to every fourth sprint being spent on a compatibility issue, and that jives reasonably well for GUI-rich cloud apps.
So of every 25 cents you spend on subscription, about 7.5 cents go to compatibility issues. Or for a consumer-grade subscription fee of USD $25.00/month, that’s USD $7.50/month.
Caveat
The example’s small app development team of three people will not be able to support a million paying subscribers. A million paying subscribers would be a very excellent result for companies numbering their employees in the hundreds. That means that the economies of scale that such a company benefits from just don’t apply to the small app developer; their per-subscriber costs will be significantly higher. That makes every number we crunched above highly optimistic at best.
But that should help illustrate the real cost of development even better.
Conclusion
We took a long detour through costing meaningful changes to arrive at a fairly hand-wavy estimate for the cost of compatibility that completely forgoes the results of this detour.
You shouldn’t feel cheated, though.
While the article was motivated by trying to estimate the cost of compatibility, it’s equally worthwhile keeping in mind the cost of development — for any kind of reason. Compatibility with a given browser is just one feature out of an entire bag full, after all!
The picture easily gets muddled by free services numbering their users in the tens of millions or more, and by offshore developers working for a fraction of your local employee’s rate. Either of these, and plenty of comparable factors will make the cost of any change seem absolutely trivial.
However, if those factors apply at all, they only apply to the exceptions of the rule. | https://www.spritecloud.com/the-cost-of-compatibility/ |
A few months ago my friend Maria sent me a video of a bookshelf in her home that was driving her crazy. Perhaps you can relate.
Maria’s shelf never looked tidy. It was always full of stuff, some of which she needed, but some she didn’t. The shelf often served as a catchall space for random things, like earbuds and nail clippers, that she didn’t know where else to put.
She’d tried to declutter the shelf many times, but it never stayed organized for long. This was becoming a big frustration for her, as the sight of this shelf annoyed her every time she walked past.
What to do?
My answer…
Give it the LESS Method treatment!
Because Maria had sent me a video, I sent her one in return, explaining how she could use my 4-step LESS Method to declutter and organize this bookshelf once and for all.
I compiled Maria’s video and mine together. You can watch below:
If you prefer to read the goodness (and see an extremely satisfying “after” shot of Maria’s shelf) scroll on!
The LESS Method is my signature 4-step decluttering method that you can use to declutter any space in your home. It stands for:
Layout your vision and purpose
Empty
Sort it twice
Systemize
Let’s go into each of these steps in more detail.
Step 1: Layout your vision and purpose
I recommended that Maria grab a piece of paper and a pen and write out her VISION for this shelf. For the vision, I asked her to think about how she wanted the shelf to LOOK and how she wanted to FEEL when she saw it.
Then I asked her to write out the PURPOSE for this shelf. When you have a cluttered catchall space, the problem is usually that the purpose has not been defined, thus people feel free to deposit all their random schtuff there! For Maria’s shelf the purpose might have included: charging cords, personal care items, books, etc. It doesn’t matter what the purpose is, just that it is clearly defined in writing.
Once Maria had her VISION and PURPOSE she was ready for step 2…
Step 2: Empty
The second step of the LESS Method is Empty, and it’s pretty self-explanatory: everything out. And I mean everything! This is a step people often want to skip because it seems oh-so-much-easier to just comb through and pick out the stuff they don’t want, but believe me, you will get much better results if you take the time to empty that shelf completely!
Step 3: Sort it twice
There are two types of sorts I recommend: a like-with-like sort followed by a decision sort.
During the like-with-like sort, I asked Maria to get all her similar-type items together. For example, all the charging cords together, all the books together, etc. This is so that she can clearly see the different categories of stuff she has (which will help immensely with step 4) and she can see the totality of how much she has. (We have 10 pairs of scissors, who knew??)
Once the like-with-like piles are done, it’s time to go through each of those piles and make decisions on the items one-by-one. There are only 5 possible decisions: keep, trash, donate, elsewhere, or sell.
Step 4: Systemize
Now it’s time to put back the keepers! Step 4 is the ONLY time I recommend investing in bins or baskets or labels. At this point, you know what you’re keeping (and more importantly, WHY you’re keeping it) so if it would be helpful to put all the charging cords into a basket and label it “cords” this is the time to do that. *Note: the reason I see people fail at organizing is because they try to skip the earlier 3 steps and move right to this one. No, sir! That results in what I call “organized clutter” which is just clutter neatly arranged in matching baskets that cost you $20 each. (And hey, for more systemizing ideas, check out this cool article on how to organize your home, Korean-style.)
Maria took my advice and revamped her bookshelf. She sent me this lovely “after” photo as proof of her success!
I hope this post inspires you to declutter a bookshelf of your own!
If you’d like to learn more about how the LESS Method can help you transform all the cluttered spaces in your home, check out my 6-week LESS Method Live Decluttering Course. It will help you create more clear, open spaces in your home (and head!). Click here to learn more and get on the waiting list for the next round! | https://roselounsbury.com/4-easy-steps-to-declutter-a-bookshelf-like-a-pro/ |
The Caithness Science Festival 2018 is still going strong in its sixteenth year. The official launch was on Tuesday this week with events running every day. Prof. Iain Baikie who founded the festival and still leads a team of enthusiastic people to run it. He thanked a range of people for their support.
At the event farewell was said to former Lord Lieutenant Ann Dunnet who has retired and was a long term supporter and patron. MP Jamie Stone opened the festival with astronaut Duane Carey telling why he liked coming back for a fifth time to the festiaval. Former MP and current Lord Lieutenant John Thurso gave vote of thanks.
A few demonstration tasters of the events for the week were on show to the people who were attending at the new Newton Park primary school.
Every school in Caithness has had events from the festival.
The big Fun Day is on Saturday 17 April 2018.
See photos in the Photo Gallery - link above. | http://community.caithness.org/article.php?id=5954 |
- Central bank digital currency and stablecoins promise considerable streamlining of global payments.
- Regulation of these complex technologies is fragmented both domestically and internationally.
- The World Economic Forum is working to create frameworks for a more coherent regulatory environment.
Globally, there is an accelerated shift towards digital payments and the ownership and use of digital currency. These innovations have also kickstarted long-overdue conversations not just between private enterprise and regulators, but also among regulators internationally and within jurisdictions. The outcome of these conversations will have profound implications on how society harnesses the potential benefits of digital currencies and avoids unnecessary risks.
Policy debates about digital currency have been going on since Satoshi Nakamoto released his bitcoin paper in 2008. The most recent debates focus on two forms of digital currencies: central bank digital currency (CBDC) and “stablecoins” (cryptocurrencies that peg their value to some external reference point). This is why they are the focus of the current work led by the World Economic Forum’s Digital Currency Governance Consortium (DCGC), which has produced eight policy frameworks to guide industry and policy-makers through some of the most critical challenges, opportunities and decisions related to CBDC and stablecoins.
Have you read?
Many digital currencies claim to be created for the purpose of improving existing payment systems and promoting financial inclusion. For a cross-border payment to take place, multiple intermediaries are typically involved, which slows down the process and increases the cost. Digital currencies claim to reduce transactional friction by bypassing intermediaries altogether. Such ambitions, the complex design behind the technology and the existing legal framework have exposed digital currencies to a fragmented regulatory environment with gaps, inconsistencies and redundancies at domestic and international levels.
The DCGC included in its report a detailed analysis of the regulatory and policy gaps and inconsistencies that exist for stablecoins and CBDC. There are four challenges in particular:
- First, existing laws and regulations may not be equipped to provide a legal basis for the existence of digital currency, or to address risks unique to certain forms of digital currency.
- Second, the complex design of stablecoins and lack of coordination domestically has led to overlapping jurisdiction of different regulatory agencies.
- Third, lack of global coordination has led to gaps and inconsistencies with respect to international stablecoin regulation, despite their potential global footprint.
- Finally, gaps and inconsistencies arise when the same risk across different types of digital currencies is treated differently for each respective one.
While different countries take different approaches towards CBDCs and stablecoins, we anticipate that they may be used in the same way by the consumers, and may even operate on similar blockchains. However, one potential issue is that similar types of risks may be treated differently in each case. The motivation for the recent DCGC paper is to help foster a balanced regulatory and policy environment for both innovations, and a way to examine their risks and how to mitigate them.
While the regulatory approach to digital currencies is still being shaped, some principles in law-making may be helpful to regulators who are trying to bridge the gap between innovation and regulation:
- Inter-agency and cross-border collaborations: Due to the complex design and inherent cross-border uses for digital currencies, regulators must work together, both between different domestic agencies and across jurisdictions. There are existing frameworks that allow inter-agency and cross-border coordination. Such coordination could be used to reduce potential regulatory and policy gaps, particularly in areas that concern the definitions and categorization of digital currencies.
- Risk-based approach: Sandbox and innovation labs are common types of risk-based approaches that have been adopted by many countries. Meanwhile, a proposal for an EU regulation on markets in cryptoassets (MiCA) exemplifies a different type of risk-based approach, which creates different levels of regulation based on the potential risks to which a digital currency may expose consumers and society.
The five-step framework for digital currencies
Policy development for digital currencies needs a consistent framework to avoid creating confusion for the payments ecosystem. Policy-makers will need to identify areas where existing regulations are sufficient – and where new regulations are needed for stablecoins and retail CBDC, and for an ecosystem where they will co-exist with other payment methods.
The DCGC paper proposes a five-step framework for identifying, preventing and addressing gaps and incompatibilities: risk-mapping; agency-mapping; forming a task force; setting priorities; and identifying gaps and inconsistencies. While this framework represents an oversimplified view of the legislative process and it may not be able to address all issues identified in the paper, we hope it provides a way forward in addressing regulatory gaps and inconsistencies in relation to emerging digital currencies.
What is the World Economic Forum doing about blockchain?
Blockchain is a technology that enables the decentralized and secure storage and transfer of information and value. The most well-known use case is cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, which allows for the electronic transfer of funds without banking networks. It can be a powerful tool for tracking goods, data, documentation and transactions – and could be relevant to numerous industries.
Blockchain entails significant trade-offs with respect to efficiency and scalability, as well as numerous risks increasingly coming to the attention of policy-makers. These include the use of cryptocurrency in ransomware attacks, fraud and illicit activity, and the energy consumption and environmental footprint of some blockchain networks. Consumer protection is also an important and often overlooked issue with cryptocurrency. So-called “stablecoins” and decentralized applications operating on blockchain technology pose risks to end-users of lost funds and to broader financial stability.
The Forum has driven impact to develop blockchain across industries and ensure it is utilized in a secure and responsible way by:
- Supporting central banks implement blockchain responsibly
The Forum is helping central banks build, pilot and scale innovative policy frameworks to guide the implementation of blockchain, with a focus on central bank digital currencies.
- Implementing blockchain across supply chains
The Redesigning Trust with Blockchain in the Supply Chain initiative is helping supply chain decision-makers implement blockchain, while ensuring that this technology is utilized in a secure, responsible and inclusive way.
- Helping businesses respect green pledges through blockchain
The Global Ledger initiative aims to make sure that governments, NGOs, companies and individuals can verify that environmental commitments are being kept.
Contact us for more information on how to get involved.
To prepare for the future, digital currency policy-makers must consider carefully how they should structure their laws and regulations, as well as how they create both domestic and cross-jurisdictional coordinated structures. This paper supports a measured, coordinated, multi-jurisdictional and inclusive approach in the creation and implementation of policies, laws and regulations, in order to limit the creation of gaps and inconsistencies from the outset. Such an approach could lay the foundation for sustainable innovation, align regulatory frameworks and foster greater global collaboration. | https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/12/cbdc-stablecoin-digital-currency-regulation |
Photo by Sabrina Romano
The annual Northside Common Ministries Food Pantry Brunch Challenge served up some chef specials along with a vibrant atmosphere Saturday, Jan. 31 at the New Hazlett Theater in Allegheny Center.
By Sabrina Romano
The New Hazlett Theater in Northside’s Allegheny Center transformed into a Western saloon with a blue grass band, dancing guests donning cowboy hats, and red picnic tablecloths for the annual Northside Common Ministries (NCM) Food Pantry Brunch Challenge Saturday, Jan. 31. But delicious brunch treats served up by 10 local chefs were the main attraction.
Roughly 250 people came to taste dishes strictly made with ingredients from the NCM’s food pantry. All proceeds benefited the community food pantry which serves over 1,000 individuals and families every month.
NCM director Jay Polizani has organized the event for the past four years.
“(The event) connects directly to our mission to help serve the poor,” Polizani said.
Chefs from Whole Foods and Thai Me Up were among the chefs that came out to support the event.
Barbara McGonigal, a chef from Whole Foods made breakfast strata and oatmeal for her entry. She said it wasn’t difficult serving up tasty treats made with food one would find in a food pantry.
“Some of the best food is the simplest,” McGonigal said. “You can do so much with oatmeal and left over bread.”
Noi Chaisri, a chef and co-business owner of Thai Me Up, cooked up vegetable fried rice and red Thai curry for the event. Unlike McGonigal, Chaisri had a difficult time using ingredients only found in a food pantry.
“It was a challenge to find the ingredients in the pantry for Thai food,” Chaisri said.
Kim Banks, a resident of South Side, said she enjoyed the event.
“Supporting this organization doesn’t have to be hard work,” Banks said.
That is exactly what the NCM proved with its Food Pantry Brunch Challenge. | http://www.thenorthsidechronicle.com/annual-brunch-challenge-helps-local-food-pantry/ |
Diak ka lae is used in Tetun, the local language of East Timor, for “How are you?” The literal translation is “Good or bad?” In response, people usually reply “diak”, meaning good, or “lae”, meaning bad. Diak ka lae is one of the many Tetun phrases and words I have learned here in my time in Dili. Although I am far from being fluent, I know enough phrases to understand some of the patients and to get a basic patient history. As I go on rounds with the doctors and follow up with the patients, I am getting more comfortable in a health care setting. Most importantly, I am also getting comfortable interacting with the patients. Being familiar with the language is one big step in communicating and interacting with patients and their families at the clinic.
After spending over a month at the Bairo Pite Clinic, I am definitely seeing how a health clinic in a developing country like East Timor operates. I work almost daily with the staff and volunteers in providing health care for its patients. I observe and interact with a variety of staff members vital in running the clinic. However, the BPC is steady changing as health care in East Timor progresses. As I am working, I am witnessing the failures of the system and the improvements being made. I believe this knowledge I am gaining is important in becoming better informed as a future primary care physician.
Since I have started working at the clinic, I have been exposed to many medical procedures used to diagnose and evaluate patients. As I am picking up the language here, I am also becoming familiar with the medical techniques and tools being used during these examinations. I am able to understand why these techniques are being used when a doctor uses them and I am able to provide these tools when a doctor needs them. These skills would be useful in the future for work in a health care setting and for facilitating patient care.
I am most proud of everything that I have learned so far at the BPC and the fact that I am able to make myself useful around the clinic despite my lack of knowledge. Most of the volunteers at the BPC are medical students with some medical experience. In the beginning, I was worried that I would not be able to get the learning experience I need or be able help out. However, the doctors and medical students have been very willing to explain and teach me if I had questions. This in return helped me understand what was going on and be able to help them and by extension, help the patients. | http://blogs.brandeis.edu/wowblog/2013/07/26/diak-ka-lae/ |
The increasing focus on environmental sustainability has given a lot of attention to the way energy is generated, managed, and consumed, which is also of particular importance for power systems operation and planning. In this context, the design of modern electrical grids has to tackle several challenges, which include the growing demand for electricity and the consequent need to expand the transmission network, the increase in distributed generation and the need to be located closest to load centres, the obsolescence of the current electricity networks, the adequate management of grid congestions, and the need to reconcile the availability of resources according to system reliability and cost efficiency .
Among the emerging solutions to address these problems, a number of ideas can be distinguished that can be grouped under the term ”smart grid,” which indicates a technical infrastructure that combines pervasive sensor systems , high-speed two-way communications , adaptive control, monitoring and protective systems , with the goal of improving the resiliency and efficiency of power systems, enhancing the grid flexibility, and supporting the large-scale integration of renewable energy generators and electric vehicles.
The key point of the smart grid paradigm, both from a structural and operational point of view, is the presence of a pervasive and reliable communication network through which different devices can interact with each other . To achieve this goal, the use of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) has been recognized as one of the most promising enabling technologies for developing reliable communication services without the need for implementing complex or costly infrastructures. Indeed, the advantages of WSNs include ease of access to remote sites, large area coverage, absence of leasing costs, and adaptability to changing network topology , while the potential disadvantages include uncertainties in quality of service and time delays. However, continuous technological improvements have led WSNs performance comparable to other conventional communication systems , supporting their deployment in various smart grid applications, ranging from building automation, decentralized control and pervasive monitoring.
The IEC 61850 Standard
In this context of supporting pervasive monitoring, IEC 61850 represents a valuable standard for integrating WSNs with substation automation components, by defining technical specifications, communication requirements, and functional characteristics. In particular, this standard identifies the enabling factors that WSNs-based communication systems should satisfy in order to effectively support Smart Grid functions:
- Flexibility, to allow the WSNs to adapt to the future topological developments of the power grid.
- Performance, mainly in terms of the quality of service, and ability to meet the protection and control time requirements.
- Reliability, since the communication services provided by the WSNs could be used to support critical applications.
Satisfying these requirements allows effectively deploying WSNs-based communication systems in both generation and distribution monitoring and control, getting a set of potential advantages, which include:
- Low-cost hardware: wireless communication units can be integrated even in the simplest devices.
- Fault detection and pervasive communication: by installing WSN-based smart sensors on critical devices, it is possible to pervasively monitor the power components operations, thus promptly detecting and reacting to faults and disturbances, which could trigger cascade events.
- High network scalability: thousands of devices (transformers, tap changers, breakers, power quality sensors, transformer temperature sensors, breaker position indicators, etc.) can be effectively monitored, all communicating with each other.
- Pervasive data sharing: the acquired data can be shared to all sensor networks, allowing both utilities and consumers to extract valuable information about the demand power profiles, real-time energy prices, and actual/predicted grid operation states.
Summary
To maximize the benefits bought to practical smart city operation scenario, several open issues should be addressed, which include:
- Enhance sensor robustness to harsh environmental conditions: the sensors are subject to RF interference as well as humidity, dust, or vibration levels that can affect their performance.
- Improve computing resources: sensor computing affects three main resources, namely energy, memory, and data processing.
- Information security and privacy issues: the smart grid can be subjected to external cyberattacks, which can result in loss of confidential information, or in generating large-scale blackouts.
All these issues should be properly addressed in designing reliable WSNs for smart grid communication, by considering all the possible impacts on correct grid operation, and analyzing the technological risks, security standards, and cyber-vulnerabilities involved in the use of the WSN technology.
References
- D. G. Vyas, N. Trivedi, V. Pandya, P. Bhatt, and A. Pujara, “Future challenges and issues in evolution of the smart grid and recommended possible solutions,” in 2019 IEEE 16th India Council International Conference (INDICON), 2019, pp. 1–4.
- M. EL Brak, S. EL Brak, M. Essaaidi, and D. Benhaddou, “Wireless sensor network applications in smart grid,” in 2014 International Renewable and Sustainable Energy Conference (IRSEC), 2014, pp. 587–592.
- V. Madani, A. Vaccaro, D. Villacci, and R. L. King, “Satellite based communication network for large scale power system applications,” in 2007 iREP Symposium-Bulk Power System Dynamics and Control-VII. Revitalizing Operational Reliability. IEEE, 2007, pp. 1–7.
- S. Ullo, A. Vaccaro, and G. Velotto, “Performance analysis of ieee 802.15. 4 based sensor networks for smart grids communications,” Journal of Electrical Engineering: Theory and Application, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 129–134, 2010.
- E. Y. Song, G. J. FitzPatrick, K. B. Lee, and E. Griffor, “A methodology for modeling interoperability of smart sensors in smart grids,” IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 555–563, 2022.
- A. Alhariry, S. Brown, D. Eshenbaugh, N. Whitt, and A. F. Browne, “A survey of sensing methodologies in smart grids,” in SoutheastCon 2021, 2021, pp. 1–5.
- M. Alonso, H. Amaris, D. Alcala, and D. M. Florez R., “Smart sensors for smart grid reliability,” Sensors, vol. 20, no. 8, 2020. [Online]. Available: https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/8/2187
- A. Yarali, Wireless Sensors/IoT and Artificial Intelligence for Smart Grid and Smart Home, 2022, pp. 239–249.
To view all articles in this issue, please go to November 2022 eNewsletter. For a downloadable copy, please visit the IEEE Smart Cities Resource Center. | https://smartcities.ieee.org/newsletter/november-2022/the-role-of-wireless-sensor-networks-for-pervasive-smart-grids-communication |
An inscription on the back, most likely by the artist, reads, "3d tide receeding left the beach wet - head of the Chain Pier Beach Brighton July Evg, 1824 my dear Maria's Birthday Your Goddaughter - Very lovely Evening - looking Eastward- Cliffs & light off a dark grey effect - background - very white and golden light". The work has been painted on a relatively small piece of paper, measuring 14.9cm x 24.8cm x 41.8cm. Related written material by John Fisher suggests that the artist found difficulty in finding landscape scenes to paint around Brighton. Thus, the artist turned to the sea and shorelines around Brighton for inspiration, which he found more accommodating.
Brighton Beach with Colliers represents what John Constable found to be among the more pleasing sights of his time in Brighton. The artist would visit Brighton several times in his life, but this painting is from one of his first trips to the area. At the time Brighton was a fashionable town and he had chosen to visit for the health of his wife, who was suffering from consumption. However, Constable was unimpressed with the area, calling it, "Piccadilly by the sea-side". He found the town of Brighton dirty and uninspiring, though he was quite taken with its large skies along the sea shore.
This painting showcases what John Constable found as some of the more agreeable sights of Brighton. Though known for his love of nature and landscapes, the addition of the coal brigs shows the inevitable encroachment of industrial progress. Constable intentionally avoided painting an overly-picturesque scene, finding them, "hackneyed" and instead choosing to portray what he found to be the pleasantness of a warm summer's day. Brighton Beach with Colliers was part of a batch of sketches that John Constable sent to John Fisher on his first of several trips to Brighton. Other paintings in the same batch include Brighton Beach (multiple paintings exist using this name) and A Windmill on the Downs near Brighton. | https://www.john-constable.net/brighton-beach-with-colliers/ |
We are currently in search of a Senior Manager of Institutional Giving for an Animal-focused organization. The position is based in Marin County, CA. This is a permanent, full-time opportunity with some flexibility in hours and remote work.
ORGANIZATION: Animal-Focused Organization
LOCATION: Marin County, CA
POSITION TITLE: Senior Manager of Institutional Giving
DURATION: Full-time, Permanent with flexible capabilities
SALARY: $65-80K
Position Overview:The Senior Manager of Institutional Giving is responsible for planning, implementing and executing institutional development activities and stewardship of existing relationships, partnering with businesses, foundation, government and other community entities. This position reports to and works directly with the Director of Institutional Giving.
You will work to secure resources from major institutional donors and prospects to ensure sustainability and growth for the organization and its programs. You will oversee the Institutional Giving program and be the leader in the implementation of the strategic plans identifying and articulating goals and objectives and translating them into fundraising opportunities, as well as overseeing prospect research and advising the Director of Institutional Giving on other opportunities. This position is focused on supporting existing external relationships in a way that enhances community involvement yet also in alignment with the internal operations of the organization. This is an ideal role for a development-focused professional with either a proven track record of working with Bay Area corporate donors or commensurate experience and skills to do so.
Responsibilities:
- Steward a pipeline of current corporate relationships and solicit and develop a more robust pipeline by engaging corporate donors through various means and touch points within the organization and soliciting gifts
- Work towards securing and collecting a fundraising goal of $500K+ in institutional giving the first year, contributing to the overall institutional goal of $2.5M and organization’s overall fundraising goal of $7M.
- Monitor progress towards fundraising goals; intervene to adjust strategies or implement new strategies as needed
- Proactively develop efforts to engage foundation executives and their boards via meetings, site visits/tours, presentations, correspondence and stewardship
- Work collaboratively with the development, events and volunteer teams to coordinate annual in-kind requests as well as engagement opportunities for donors
- Meets and collaborates with internal contacts to determine organizational priorities and needs to formulate strategies to promote donor engagement and to identify potential donors
- Possess outstanding writing abilities and ability to write and submit grants
- Coordinate with Marketing & Communications team on stewardship and recognition calendar
Minimum Requirements:
- 2-5+ years of professional experience in nonprofit development/fundraising, community engagement or marketing/sales, experience in institutional giving a plus
- Commitment to goal attainment and ability to engage with high-level volunteers and donors
- Demonstrated ability to establish, build relationships, and successfully secure four-to-six-figure gifts; comfortable conducting prospect research and meeting donors in-person
- Proven track record of securing new funding opportunities or similar, comprehensive knowledge of research, and the ability to identify new funding sources
- Strong interpersonal skills and ability to create and cultivate own leads, while also collaborating on special projects as determined by the Director of Institutional Giving
- People-oriented, collaborative, and hardworking individual with strong and confident written and verbal communication and interpersonal skills, including ability to run presentations
- Experience with MS Office and Raiser’s Edge or similar donor database
- Bachelor’s degree preferred
We’d love to hear from you.
If this sounds like the job for you, we would love to help make that happen. Please submit a resume and cover letter, outlining your interest in nonprofit recruiting to [email protected] with “Senior Manager of Institutional Giving” in the subject line.
Know a friend who would be a great fit? Feel free to send us their resume as well!
Is this position not the best fit for you?
For more information about Careers In Nonprofits and our other available opportunities and workshops, please visit our website at www.careersinnonprofits.com.
Due to the high volume of applications we receive, we regretfully can only respond to those candidates who best meet the requirements of a specific position or whose backgrounds are generally applicable to our client base. Please rest assured that we retain all candidate information for possible future matches, even if you do not hear from us in regard to your application in response to this fad. | https://careersinnonprofits.com/job/nonprofit-senior-manager-of-institutional-giving/ |
Implement Essential Eight security controls
The ACSC strongly recommends the implementation of the ASD Essential Eight mitigations to mitigate threats of most methodologies used by APT actors to compromise computer networks.
Specifically, to combat the threat of this recent spate of malicious activity, health sector organisations should implement the following mitigations.
Enabling multi-factor authentication
Multi-factor authentication (MFA) is one of the most effective controls an organisation can implement to prevent an adversary from gaining unauthorised access to a device or network and then compromising sensitive information. When implemented correctly, MFA can make it significantly more difficult for an adversary to steal legitimate credentials to facilitate further malicious activities on a network.
Using MFA provides a secure authentication mechanism that is far less susceptible to brute force attacks.
Block macros
Where possible, the ACSC recommends blocking macros from the internet, and only allowing the execution of vetted and approved macros.
In many cases, initial infection of a network occurs via an embedded macro in a Microsoft Office document. Disabling all unknown macros can significantly reduce the network’s risk surface.
Implementing regular patching of systems and applications
Software patches are released by device and software manufacturers to fix flaws in previous versions, including cyber security vulnerabilities. Malicious actors are constantly looking for vulnerabilities in devices and software versions that can be exploited. Once a vulnerability is in the public domain, malicious actors will begin exploiting it within a matter of days or weeks. Timely patching of vendor-supported security vulnerabilities is one of the most important steps an organisation can take to protect computer systems from cybercriminals and other malicious actors.
For more information on patching, please visit:
- You need to patch to protect your business online
- Assessing security vulnerabilities and applying patches
Making regular back-ups of critical systems and databases
Due to the large amounts of patient and other sensitive data they hold, health sector entities are a very attractive organisation for malicious adversaries to target with a ransomware attack. Regularly backing up of computers, databases and IoT devices, and choosing automatic back-ups where possible, will ensure quick and easy restoration of critical systems and services. Keep back-ups separate from corporate computers, on separate devices or use a secure cloud service.
Implement additional security controls
The ACSC publishes a comprehensive list of Strategies to Mitigate Cyber Security Incidents.
Health sector organisations should also consider implementing the following specific mitigations.
Alert and educate staff
Consider sending out an organisation-wide alert to raise awareness of the dangers associated with opening attachments on unusual emails. Consider implementing an education program to improve staff awareness of cyber security or how to spot suspicious emails. For more details on how to implement a successful staff awareness program, see ACSC’s Improving Staff Awareness publication.
Email content scanning
Phishing emails have been used to spread malware across a network, with the initial intrusion linked to an email containing a malicious attachment. Email content filters and dynamic email analysis sandboxing capabilities could be put in place to prevent malicious content from reaching users and reduce the likelihood of compromise. To complement this, antivirus software using heuristics and reputation ratings should also be installed to identify and prevent malicious attachments that do make it to end users.
Develop/update incident response plans
Organisations should ensure that they have an up-to-date Incident Response Plan (IRP) that includes procedures to respond to a ransomware infection. In most situations, the aim of the ransomware procedures will be to:
- quickly identify affected systems
- quarantine the affected systems and isolate business critical systems
- identify and implement security controls to prevent the propagation of the ransomware to other systems, and
- preserve evidence for future analysis and restoration from backup.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, systems that support an organisation pandemic response and patient care functions should be considered business critical. The IRP should document a tested procedure for isolating these systems so that they can be quickly placed under protection if a ransomware outbreak occurs.
Implementing network segmentation and segregation
APT actors use techniques that allow them to move laterally within an organisation's network. Network segmentation involves partitioning a network into smaller networks; while network segregation involves developing and enforcing a ruleset for controlling the communications between specific hosts and services.
When implementing network segmentation and segregation, the aim is to restrict the level of access to sensitive information, hosts and services while ensuring an organisation can continue to operate effectively. Network segmentation and segregation measures must be carefully planned, robustly enforced, closely monitored and implemented in a manner that ensures the security controls cannot be bypassed.
Cyber incident reporting
If you have questions about this advice or have indications that your network has been compromised, contact the ACSC or call 1300 CYBER1 (1300 292 371).
Reporting cybercrime
The ACSC manages ReportCyber, an online portal for reporting cybercrime incidents. The portal is designed for individuals, businesses and large organisations to report a variety of computer-enabled crimes, such as online frauds, ransomware, identity theft, romance scams, online image abuse and business email compromise.
Once a cybercrime is reported, the matter is referred to law enforcement and national security agencies for assessment, investigation and resolution where possible. Reporting incidents helps the Australian Government better understand and develop strategies to disrupt and prevent online threats impacting Australia’s interests and the community. | https://www.cyber.gov.au/acsc/view-all-content/advisories/advisory-2020-009-recommendations-mitigate-apt-actors-targeting-health-sector-and-covid-19-essential-services |
Norwalks, a series of stimulating walking trails have been created around Norwest to promote an active, healthy community, increase social engagement and enable residents, workers and visitors to appreciate the diverse natural and built environments within Norwest.
The seven walks, rated from easy to moderate, range from 2 to 4.5 km and make use of the 46 hectares of integrated open space and 50km of walking and cycling tracks that exist within Norwest today.
The walks showcase the diverse nature of greater Norwest, taking in a range of natural and built environments, historical landmarks and future possibilities as Norwest takes shape as a dynamic Smart City of the future.
The Settlers Walk (2.5km) takes in some of Australia’s earliest rural developments including the homestead and outbuildings of State listed heritage Bella Vista Farm Park, while the Ridgeview Trail (4.5km) winds through waterways, nature reserves and the leafy streets of Bella Vista Waters.
On the Innovation Loop (3km) spend time imagining the area in its former life as the Norbrik brick pit, along with its exciting future – as it transforms into a bustling economic and innovation hub with world-class sustainable buildings and vibrant civic spaces.
As the walks are all interconnected people can mix and match or extend their walks to suit their interests and time available. Pick one for a lunchtime fitness session, pleasant evening stroll, or picnic in a park. There are plenty of opportunities along each walk to have a break at a local café or stop for lunch or dinner at a nearby restaurant. As Norwest develops, the aim is to create a truly connected and walkable city with access to shopping, transport, recreation amenities and entertainment, all accessible by foot.
Mulpha Norwest Executive General Manager Mr Tim Spencer said:
“Walking is the oldest and simplest form of exercise, available to all ages and fitness levels. You can go at your own pace, by yourself, with family and friends, or in organised groups.
“Taking time out for a walk is one of the best things you can do, not just for your physical fitness but also for mental wellbeing and general happiness.
“This is all part of our vision to foster a healthy, socially engaged community, connected to nature and neighbours, and foster pride and belonging in everything that Norwest has to offer.”
Walking is a great way to improve or maintain your overall health. Just 30 minutes every day can increase cardiovascular fitness, strengthen bones, reduce excess body fat, and boost muscle power and endurance.
To find out more, visit the Norwest Sales Office for your trail map or download a copy.
For further information and/or to speak to Tim Spencer, contact Sarah Peattie on 0412 239 633.
Mulpha Norwest is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mulpha Australia Pty Limited, which acquires, develops and manages a range of property and lifestyle investments. These include Hayman Island, Intercontinental Hotel Sydney, Sanctuary Cove Resort and Bimbadgen winery. As well as developing the masterplanned communities of Bella Vista in the Hills District and Mulgoa Rise in Western Sydney, Mulpha Australia is transforming the 377-hectare Norwest Business Park into a world-leading innovation, lifestyle and economic hub, with all the features of a ‘Smart City’. | https://www.norwestcity.com.au/news-article/norwest-walking-trails-fostering-an-active-healthy-community/ |
The main elements of the lagering method used by Sedlmayr and Groll are still used today, and depend on a slow acting yeast that ferments at a low temperature while being stored. The German term lager translates as "storage".
Contents
History
Bavarian brewers in the sixteenth century were required by law to brew beer only during the cooler months of the year. In order to have beer available during the hot summer months, beers would be stored in caves and stone cellars, often under blocks of ice.
In the period 1820-1830, a brewer named Gabriel Sedlmayr II the Younger, whose family was running the Spaten Brewery in Bavaria went around Europe to improve his brewing skills. When he returned, he used what he had learned to get a more stable and consistent lager beer. The Bavarian lager was still different from the widely-known modern lager; due to the use of dark malts it was quite dark, representing what is now called Dunkel beer or the stronger variety, Bock beer.
The new recipe of the improved lager beer spread quickly over Europe. In particular Sedlmayr's friend Anton Dreher used the new lagering technique to improve the Viennese beer in 1840–1841, creating Vienna lager. New kilning techniques enabled the use of lighter malts, giving the beer an amber-red rich colour.
Description
Pale lagers tend to be dry, lean, clean-tasting and crisp. Flavours may be subtle, with no traditional beer ingredient dominating the others. Hop character (bitterness, flavour, and aroma) ranges from negligible to a dry bitterness from noble hops. The main ingredients are water, Pilsner malt and noble hops, though some brewers use adjuncts such as rice or corn to lighten the body of the beer. There tends to be no butterscotch flavour from diacetyl, due to the slow, cold fermentation process.
Variations
Pale lager was developed in the mid 19th century when Gabriel Sedlmayr took some British pale ale brewing techniques back to the Spaten Brewery in Germany, and started to modernise continental brewing methods. In 1842 Josef Groll of Pilsen, a city in western Bohemia in what is now the Czech Republic, used some of these methods to produce Pilsner Urquell, the first known example of a golden lager. This beer proved so successful that other breweries followed the trend, using the name Pilsner. Breweries now use the terms "lager" and "Pilsner" interchangeably, though pale lagers from Germany and the Czech Republic with the name Pilsner tend to have more evident noble hop aroma and dry finish than other pale lagers.
With the success of Pilsen's golden beer, the town of Dortmund in Germany started brewing pale lager in 1873. As Dortmund was a major brewing centre, and the town breweries grouped together to export the beer beyond the town, the brand name Dortmunder Export became known. Today, breweries in Denmark, the Netherlands, and North America brew pale lagers labelled as Dortmunder Export.
A little later, in 1894, the Spaten Brewery in Munich recognised the success of these golden lagers and utilised the methods that Sedlmayr had brought home over 50 years earlier to produce their own light lager they named helles, which is German for "light coloured", in order to distinguish it from dunkelbier or dunkles bier ("dark beer"), which is another type of beer typical for the region, being darker in colour and sweeter than helles.
Examples of helles include Löwenbräu Original, Spaten Premium Lager, Weihenstephaner Original Bayrisch Mild, Hofbräu München Original, Augustiner Bräu Lagerbier Hell and Hacker-Pschorr Münchner Helles.
The earliest known brewing of American lager was in the Old City section of Philadelphia by John Wagner in 1840 using yeast from his native Bavaria. Modern American-style lagers are usually made by large breweries such as Anheuser-Busch. Lightness of body is a cardinal virtue, both by design and since it allows the use of a high percentage of rice or corn.
Though all lagers are well attenuated, a more fully fermented pale lager in Germany goes by the name Diet Pils. "Diet" in the instance not referring to being "light" in calories or body, rather its sugars are fully fermented into alcohol, allowing the beer to be targeted to diabetics. A marketing term for a fully attenuated pale lager, originally used in Japan by Asahi Breweries in 1987, "karakuchi" (辛口 dry ), was taken up by the American brewer Anheuser-Busch in 1988 as "dry beer" for the Michelob brand, Michelob Dry. This was followed by other "dry beer" brands such as Bud Dry, though the marketing concept was not considered a success. In fully attenuated pale lagers, nearly all the sugar is converted to alcohol due to the long fermentation period. The resulting clean, lean flavour is referred to as "dry".
Premium lager
Premium lager is a marketing term sometimes used by brewers for products they wish to promote; there is no legal definition for such a product, but it is usually applied to an all malt product of around 5% abv. Anheuser-Busch also uses the terms "sub-premium" and "super-premium" to describe the low-end Busch beer and the slightly higher-end Michelob.
Spezial is a stronger style of pale lager, mostly brewed in Southern Germany, but also found in Austria and Switzerland. Spezial slots in between helles and bock in terms of flavour characteristics and strength. Full-bodied and bittersweet, it is delicately spiced with German aroma hops. It has a gravity of between 12.5° and 13.5° Plato and an alcohol content of 5.5 - 5.8% abv. The style has been in slow decline over the last 30 years, but still accounts for around 10% of beer sales in Bavaria.
Strong lager
Pale lagers that exceed an abv of around 5.8% are variously termed bock, malt liquor, super strength lager, Oktoberfestbier/Märzen, or European strong lager.
BockMain article: Bock
Bock is a strong lager which has origins in the Hanseatic town Einbeck, Germany. The name is a corruption of the medieval German brewing town of Einbeck, but also means goat (buck) in German. The original bocks were dark beers, brewed from high-coloured malts. Modern bocks can be dark, amber or pale in colour. Bock was traditionally brewed for special occasions, often religious festivals such as Christmas, Easter or Lent.
Malt liquorMain article: Malt liquor
Malt liquor is an American term referring to a strong pale lager. In the UK, similarly-made beverages are called super-strength lager.
Oktoberfestbier / Märzen
Oktoberfest is a German festival dating from 1810, and Märzen are the beers that have been served at the event in Munich since 1818, and are supplied by 6 breweries known as the Big Six: Spaten, Löwenbräu, Augustiner-Bräu, Hofbräu-München, Paulaner and Hacker-Pschorr. Traditionally Oktoberfestbiers were lagers of around 5.5 to 6% abv called Märzen - brewed in March and allowed to ferment slowly during the summer months. Originally these would have been dark lagers, but from 1872 a strong March brewed version of an amber-red Vienna lager made by Josef Sedlmayr became the favourite Oktoberfestbier. Since the 1970s the type of beer served at the festival has been a pale Märzen of 13.5 to 14º Plato and 5.5% to 6% abv. Though some Munich brewers still brew darker versions, mostly for export to the USA. The colour of these lagers may range from pale yellow to deep amber, with the darker colours more common in the USA. Hop levels tend not to be distinctive, though some USA examples may be firmly hopped. Modern beers sold as Oktoberfest and Märzen in Europe are mostly pale in colour.
References
Notes
- ^ "Ratebeer Worst Beers in the World". ratebeer.com. http://www.ratebeer.com/Ratings/TheWorstBeers.asp. Retrieved 05/28/11.
- ^ Michael Jackson's Beer Hunter - The birth of lager
- ^ Michael Jackson's Beer Hunter - Beer Styles: Pilsener/Pilsner/Pils
- ^ beer-pages.com - Roger Protz Complete Guide to World Beer
- ^ beer-pages.com - all you need to know about beer
- ^ Helles
- ^ German Beer Guide: Münchner Helles
- ^ Michael Jackson's Beer Hunter - Beer Styles: Diat Pils
- ^ Asahi Breweries | Products | Asahi Super Dry
- ^ Philip Van Munching, Beer Blast, pp 232-233, 1997, ISBN 0-8129-6391-1
- ^ Philip Van Munching, Beer Blast, pp 233-235, 1997, ISBN 0-8129-6391-1
- ^ Michael Jackson's Beer Hunter - Beer Styles: Dry Beer
- ^ "Big Six Breweries in Munich". www.beerdrinkersguide.com. http://www.beerdrinkersguide.com/BDGWebsite/MunichBeer/BigSix.htm. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
- ^ "Food from Bavaria - Regionaltypische Spezialität". www.food-from-bavaria.de. http://www.food-from-bavaria.de/de/reg_spez/einzelprodukt.php?an=113&display_lang=en. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
- ^ "Bierspezialitäten". Märzen. Deutscher Brauer Bund. http://www.brauer-bund.de/bierfans/sorten/spezi.htm#maerzen. Retrieved 2009-04-12.
- ^ "Michael Jackson's Beer Hunter - The birth of lager". www.beerhunter.com. http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/19133-000255.html. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
Bibliography
- George J. Fix, Vienna Marzen Oktoberfest (Classic Beer Style), Brewers Publications, 1991, ISBN 0937381276
- David Miller, Continental Pilsener (Classic Beer Style), Brewers Publications, 1990, ISBN 0937381209
- Darryl Richman, Bock (Classic Beer Style), Brewers Publications, 1994, ISBN 093738139X
Beer styles Beer in the United KingdomBarley wine · Bitter · Brown ale · India Pale Ale · Mild ale · Old ale · Porter · Scotch ale · Stout Beer in Belgium Beer in GermanyAltbier · Berliner Weisse · Bock · Dortmunder Export · Dunkel · Gose · Pale lager · Kellerbier · Kölsch · Märzen · Roggenbier · Schwarzbier · Smoked beer · Wheat beer Beer in the United StatesAmber ale · American Pale Ale · Cream ale · Steam beer OtherBaltic porter · Bière de Garde · Irish red ale · Pale ale · Pilsner · Sour beer · Vienna lager See alsoHistory of beer · Beer style · Beer and breweries by regionCategories:
- Beer styles
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. | https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/194374 |
Kelowna’s Cooper Humphreys , who plays out of Vernon’s Predator Ridge Resort, is in position to potentially win both the Canadian Juvenile and Junior Boys Golf Championships in Quebec on Thursday, Aug. 12. (Black Press - file photo)
Okanagan golfer in hunt for pair of Canadian titles
Cooper Humphreys of Kelowna/Vernon looks to become 11th golfer to win both Canadian Juvenile and Junior titles in same year
Okanagan golfer Cooper Humphreys is in a position to make some history Thursday in Quebec.
Humphreys, from Kelowna who plays out of Vernon’s Predator Ridge Resort, is one shot off the lead in the Junior Boys Division, and holds a whopping 10-shot lead in the 16-and-under Juvenile Boys Division, heading into the final round of the Canadian Juvenile and Junior Boys Golf Championships at Vallee du Richelieu – Le Club in Sainte-Julie, Que., 30 minutes north of Montreal.
Humphreys is trying to become the first golfer since Christopher Vandette of Beaconsfield, Que. in 2018 to win both titles in the same year. The Juvenile championship was added in 1970 with the winner receiving the Jack Bailey Trophy.
The first Canadian Junior event was held in 1938. The 2021 winner will earn an exemption into the 2022 Canadian Men’s Amateur and U.S. Junior Amateur Championships.
Humphreys sits at 11-under-par after three rounds, one shot behind Junior Division leader Jean-Philippe Parr, 17, a Team Canada golf member from St. Celestin, Que., who rallied from four shots back of Humphreys Wednesday, Aug. 11, in Round 3 with a stellar 6-under-par 66. Humphreys shot a 1-under 71 to go with rounds of 66 and 68.
Fellow Team Canada member Owen Mullen of Shortts Lake, NS is tied for second with Humphreys, whose 54-hole, 205 total is good for a 10-shot lead in the Juvenile Division over Owen Kim of Oakville, Ont. Kim’s 1-under total of 215 is good for a three-way tie for fourth place in the Junior event.
Ten golfers have won both the Junior and Juvenile event in the same year, including former PGA member Jim Rutledge of Victoria.
Vernon’s Ryan Vest missed the 36-hole cut by an agonizing single shot. Vest shot rounds of 81 and 74 to sit at 11-over 155. The cut was 10-over.
Austin Armanini of Vernon began the tournament with a 9-over 81, then withdrew.
Humphreys and Vest tuned up for the Canadian Juvenile and Junior tournament by competing in the Canadian Men’s Amateur Championship at the Ambassador Golf Club in Windsor, Ont.
Both made the cut. Vest finished tied for 51st at 6-over 290 with rounds of 73-71-74-72 (Par 71). Humphreys ended up in 62nd spot at 11-over 295 with scores of 75-72-75-73.
Max Sekulic of Rycroft, Alta. won the event at 17-under 267, two shots better than A.J. Ewart of Coquitlam. | |
The 2018-2019 general tree squirrel season will be open from Saturday, Sept. 8 through Sunday, Jan. 27, 2019. Tree squirrels may be taken only in the open zone during the open season, from between one half hour before sunrise to one half hour after sunset. A map of the state’s tree squirrel hunt zones can be found on the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) website, along with the full tree squirrel regulations.
Four types of tree squirrels are game species and can be hunted in California. The Western gray squirrel and the Douglas squirrel are both native to California while the Eastern fox squirrel and the Eastern gray squirrel are introduced and not native to the state. These tree squirrels can be hunted in the open zone during the open season under authority of a hunting license in California. No other validations are required.
A fifth species of tree squirrel, the Northern Flying Squirrel, is not a game species and may not be taken. Flying squirrels are small, native tree squirrels that are seldom encountered due to their nocturnal nature and preference for mature forest habitats with complex canopy structure.
Tree squirrel population levels fluctuate from year to year based on prevailing weather conditions and the annual production of nuts, acorns and seeds for forage. | https://www.gunbuyersclub.com/news/13-hunting-news/6180-california%E2%80%99s-general-tree-squirrel-season-to-open-sept-8-%E2%80%93-outdoor-news-daily |
An interesting paper by Anne R. Diekema and M. Whitney Olsen titled Teacher Personal information management (PIM) practices: Finding, keeping, and Re-Finding information
Abstract:
Primary and secondary (K–12) teachers form the essential core of
children’s formal learning before adulthood. Even though teaching is a
mainstream, information-rich profession, teachers are understudied as
information users. More specifically, not much is known about teacher
personal information management (PIM). Teacher PIM is critically
important, as teachers navigate a complex information space complicated
by the duality of digital and physical information streams and changing
demands on instruction. Our research study increases understanding of
teacher PIM and informs the development of tools to support educators.
Some important unknowns exist about teachers as information users: What
are teachers’ PIM practices? What are the perceived consequences of
these practices for teaching and learning? How can PIM practices be
facilitated to benefit teaching and learning? This study employed a
qualitative research design, with interviews from 24 primary and
secondary teachers. We observed various systems for information
organization, and teachers report their systems to be effective.
Important sources for teachers’ information in order of importance are
personal collections, close colleagues, and the Internet. Key findings
reveal that inheriting and sharing information play an important part in
information acquisition for teachers and that information technology
supporting education creates unintentional demands on information
management. The findings on the nature of teacher information, teacher
information finding, keeping, and organizational practices have
important implications for teachers themselves, school principals,
digital library developers, school librarians, curriculum developers,
educational technology developers, and educational policy makers. | https://pim.famnit.upr.si/wp/?p=308 |
“Thankfulness is the beginning of gratitude. Gratitude is the completion of thankfulness. Thankfulness may consist merely of words. Gratitude is shown in acts.” –Henri Frederic Amiel
I want to thank all of you who visit and read the thoughts, ideas, and feelings that I express each week on this blog. Please know how thankful I am for your support. It means a lot to me.
Today as I was thinking about what to write, I realized that I would very much appreciate hearing from you about the topics that are important and meaningful to you in your survivorship. In essence, I’d like to have a conversation with you about your concerns and offer them a space on this site.
So, rather than just stop with a thank you, I’d like to show my gratitude by asking you what matters to you. I invite you to share your perspective by commenting here. You could also leave me a question, a talking point, an issue or theme that you would like to see highlighted on this blog. In the vein of no stupid questions, all reflections are welcome.
I look forward to us putting our heads together! | http://cancersurvivorsupport.com/reflections/id-like-to-know-what-matters-to-you/ |
OROVILLE — Hikers on Sunday can learn about some of the more remote areas of Lake Oroville Recreation Area when docents will lead a hike to a hidden camping site on the lake.
Experienced docents will lead this free four-mile hike across hilly, uneven ground. The area is considered primitive so there is no running water, flush toilets, manicured trails or paved roads beyond the staging area.
Hkers should dress for the weather and bring a day pack with drinking water and snacks or lunch. Depending on the forecast, people should plan to bring rain gear. The group will meet at 9 a.m. at the entrance gate of the Visitor Center and carpool across the Bidwell Bar Bridge to Forman Creek Recreation Area. Plan to return to the cars about 1 p.m.
This is one of many hikes taking place across the United States on America”s State Parks First Day Hikes. Twenty California state parks are participating.
To find out more, call Lake Oroville Visitor Center at 538-2219.
Sierra Club starts new year in upper Bidwell Park
CHICO — Yahi group of the Sierra Club plans its annual New Year”s Day walk on the south side of the creek, starting at Five-Mile Recreation Area of Bidwell Park, followed by cross county ski trips the rest of the month.
Jan. 1, the group will meet in the park at 1 p.m. People should dress in layers, bring gloves and rain gear. To go, call 899-9980 or 872-8258.
Jan. 7 and Jan. 15, the group will go cross country skiing where the snow is good. People need to have their own ski equipment, bring lunch, water, appropriate clothing and gas money for car pooling. To go either day, call 693-2134.
Jan. 21, beginner and intermediate cross country skiiers can get lessons and improve their techniques. Call 342-7998 or 693-2134 for information on ski rentals, clothing and to make reservations.
Grange to host potluck, discussion on Love Chapmantown
CHICO — Chico Grange will host a potluck and program Tuesday explaining how Love Chapmantown Coalition was formed.
The program is Connecting Neighborhoods for a Transition Through Unstable Times, How Love Chapmantown Was Formed.
The plan is to connect neighbors and offer ways in which people can form their own neighborhood coalitions.
The potluck starts at 6 p.m., the program at 6:20 p.m., and a grange business meeting follows at 7:30 p.m. Guests may stay for part or all of the evening presentations.
It will take place at the grange hall, 2775 old Nord Ave. Call 354-1646 for details.
Feather River Hospital to host Look Good Feel Better
PARADISE — A free session to help women update their looks and their outlooks while undergoing treatment for cancer will be held Jan. 9 at Feather River Hospital, 5974 Pentz Road.
Look Good, Feel Good is a free program offered by the American Cancer Society in group sessions that help educate, inform and support women in treatment. Volunteer cosmetologists or estheticians teach women how to enhance their appearance using complimentary cosmetics and skin care products. Patients also learn how to disguise hair loss using wigs, turbans, scarves, and various accessories.
The program is presented through collaboration between the American Cancer Society, the Professional Beauty Association/National Cosmetology Association and the Personal Care Products Council Foundation. Advance registration is required by calling the society at 800-227-2345. | |
Go to the Customizer -> Widgets. From this section, you can customize the widgets section with the specific widgets you need to place on your website.
Widgets in the footer section
To place widgets in the footer section, you have to first go to Footer Settings, and select a footer template that accepts widgets.
Then, to begin adding widgets, you have to go to the WordPress Admin dashboard -> Appearance -> Widgets.
Drag and drop from the list of available widgets, the ones that you want to place in each of the 3 footer widgets boxes: | https://extendthemes.com/knowledge-base/empowerwp/knowledgebase/widgets/ |
The data on mortgage status were obtained from Housing Questions 22a and 33a in the 2006 American Community Survey. The questions were asked at owner-occupied units. "Mortgage" refers to all forms of debt where the property is pledged as security for repayment of the debt, including deeds of trust; trust deeds; contracts to purchase; land contracts; junior mortgages; and home equity loans.
A mortgage is considered a first mortgage if it has prior claim over any other mortgage or if it is the only mortgage on the property. All other mortgages (second, third, etc.) are considered junior mortgages. A home equity loan is generally a junior mortgage. If no first mortgage is reported, but a junior mortgage or home equity loan is reported, then the loan is considered a first mortgage.
In most data products, the tabulations for "Selected Monthly Owner Costs" and "Selected Monthly Owner Costs as a Percentage of Household Income" usually are shown separately for units "with a mortgage" and for units "not mortgaged." The category "not mortgaged" is comprised of housing units owned free and clear of debt.
This measure represents the middle value (if n is odd) or the average of the two middle values (if n is even) in an ordered list of n data values. The median divides the total frequency distribution into two equal parts: one-half of the cases falling below the median and one-half above the median. Each median is calculated using a standard distribution (see below). (For more information, see "Interpolation.")
For data products displayed in American FactFinder, medians that fall in the upper-most category of an open-ended distribution will be shown with a plus symbol (+) appended (e.g., "$2,000+" for contract rent), and medians that fall in the lowest category of an open-ended distribution will be shown with a minus symbol (-) appended (e.g., "$100- for contract rent"). For other data products and data files that are downloaded by users (i.e., FTP files), plus and minus signs will not be appended. Contract Rent, for example will be shown as $2001 if the median falls in the upper-most category ($2,000 or more) and $99 if the median falls in the lowest category (Less than $100). (The "Standard Distributions" section below shows the open-ended intervals for medians.)
In order to provide consistency in the values within and among data products, standard distributions from which medians and quartiles are calculated are used for the American Community Survey. The American Community Survey standard distributions are listed below.
Standard Distribution for Median Age:
[116 data cells]
Under 1 year
1 year
2 years
3 years
4 years
5 years
.
.
.
112 years
113 years
114 years
115 years and over
Standard Distribution for Median Age at First Marriage
[9 cells]
5 to 9 years
10 to 14 years
15 to 19 years
20 to 24 years
25 to 29 years
30 to 34 years
35 to 39 years
40 to 44 years
45 to 49 years
Standard Distribution for Median Agricultural Crop Sales:
[5 data cells]
Less than $1,000
$1,000 to $2,499
$2,500 to $4,999
$5,000 to $9,999
$10,000 or more
Standard Distribution for Median Condominium Fees:
[15 data cells]
Less than $50
$50 to $99
$100 to $199
$200 to $299
$300 to $399
$400 to $499
$500 to $599
$600 to $699
$700 to $799
$800 to $899
$900 to $999
$1,000 to $1,249
$1,250 to $1,499
$1,500 to $1,749
$1,750 or more
Standard Distribution for Median Contract Rent/Quartile Contract Rent/Rent Asked/Gross Rent:
[23 data cells]
Less than $100
$100 to $149
$150 to $199
$200 to $249
$250 to $299
$300 to $349
$350 to $399
$400 to $449
$450 to $499
$500 to $549
$550 to $599
$600 to $649
$650 to $699
$700 to $749
$750 to $799
$1,500 to $1,999
$2,000 to $2,499
$2,500 to $2,999
$3,000 or more
Standard Distribution for Duration of Current Marriage:
[101 data cells]
.
.
.
97 years
98 years
99 years
100 years and over
Standard Distribution for Median Earnings and Median Income (Individuals):
[35 data cells]
$1 to $2,499 or loss
$2,500 to $4,999
$5,000 to $7,499
$7,500 to $9,999
$10,000 to $12,499
$12,500 to $14,999
$15,000 to $17,499
$17,500 to $19,999
$20,000 to $22,499
$22,500 to $24,999
$25,000 to $27,499
$27,500 to $29,999
$30,000 to $32,499
$32,500 to $34,999
$35,000 to $37,499
$37,500 to $39,999
$40,000 to $42,499
$42,500 to $44,999
$45,000 to $47,499
$47,500 to $49,999
$50,000 to $52,499
$52,500 to $54,999
$55,000 to $57,499
$57,500 to $59,999
$60,000 to $62,499
$62,500 to $64,999
$65,000 to $67,499
$67,500 to $69,999
$70,000 to $72,499
$72,500 to $74,999
$75,000 to $79,999
$80,000 to $84,999
$85,000 to $89,999
$90,000 to $99,999
$100,000 or more
Standard Distribution for Median Fire, Hazard, and Flood Insurance:
[19 data cells]
$0
$1 to $49
$50 to $99
$1,000 to $1,499
$1,500 to $1,999
$2,000 or more
Standard Distribution for Median Income in the Past 12 Months (Household/Family/Nonfamily Household):
[39 data cells]
Less than $2,500
$100,000 to $124,999
$125,000 to $149,999
$150,000 to $174,999
$175,000 to $199,999
$200,000 or more
Standard Distribution for Median Monthly Housing Costs
[30 cells]
$1,750 to $1,999
$2,000 to $2,499
$2,500 to $2,999
$3,000 to $3,499
$3,500 to $3,999
$4,000 to $4,499
$4,500 to $4,999
$5,000 to $5,499
$5,500 to $5,999
$6,000 or more
Standard Distribution for Median Real Estate Taxes Paid:
[14 data cells]
Less than $200
$200 to $299
$300 to $399
$400 to $599
$600 to $799
$800 to $999
$1,000 to $1,499
$1,500 to $1,999
$2,000 to $2,999
$3,000 to $3,999
$4,000 to $4,999
$5,000 to $7,499
$7,500 to $9,999
$10,000 or more
Standard Distribution for Median Selected Monthly Owner Costs/Median Selected Monthly Owner Costs by Mortgage Status (With a Mortgage):
[23 data cells]
Less than $100
Standard Distribution for Median Selected Monthly Owner Costs by Mortgage Status (Without a Mortgage):
[17 data cells]
$2,000 or more
Standard Distribution for Median Total Mortgage Payment:
[21 data cells]
$5,000 or more
Standard Distribution for Median Usual Hours Worked Per Week Worked in the Past 12 Months:
[9 data cells]
Usually worked 50 to 99 hours per week
Usually worked 45 to 49 hours per week
Usually worked 41 to 44 hours per week
Usually worked 40 hours per week
Usually worked 35 to 39 hours per week
Usually worked 30 to 34 hours per week
Usually worked 25 to 29 hours per week
Usually worked 15 to 24 hours per week
Usually worked 1 to 14 hours per week
Standard Distribution for Median Value/Quartile Value/Price Asked:
[24 data cells]
Less than $10,000
$10,000 to $14,999
$15,000 to $19,999
$20,000 to $24,999
$25,000 to $29,999
$30,000 to $34,999
$35,000 to $39,999
$40,000 to $49,999
$50,000 to $59,999
$60,000 to $69,999
$70,000 to $79,999
$80,000 to $89,999
$200,000 to $249,999
$250,000 to $299,999
$300,000 to $399,999
$400,000 to $499,999
$500,000 to $749,999
$750,000 to $999,999
$1,000,000 or more
Standard Distribution for Median Vehicles Available:
[6 data cells]
No vehicle available
1 vehicle available
2 vehicles available
3 vehicles available
4 vehicles available
5 or more vehicles available
Standard Distribution for Median Year Householder Moved Into Unit:
[13 data cells]
Moved In 2006
Moved in 2006
Moved in 2006
Moved in 2005
Moved in 2004
Moved in 2003
Moved in 2002
Moved in 2001
Moved in 2000
Moved in 1990 to 1999
Moved in 1980 to 1989
Moved in 1970 to 1979
Moved in 1969 or earlier
Standard Distribution for Median Year Structure Built:
[16 data cells]
Built In 2006
Built in 2006
Built in 2006
Built in 2005
Built in 2004
Built in 2003
Built in 2002
Built in 2001
Built in 2000
Built 1990 to 1999
Built 1980 to 1989
Built 1970 to 1979
Built 1960 to 1969
Built 1950 to 1959
Built 1940 to 1949
Built 1939 or earlier
Excerpt from:
Social Explorer; U.S. Census Bureau; American Community Survey 2006 Summary File: Technical Documentation.
The data on real estate taxes were obtained from Housing Question 20 in the 2006 American Community Survey. The question was asked at owner-occupied units. The statistics from this question refer to the total amount of all real estate taxes on the entire property (land and buildings) payable to all taxing jurisdictions, including special assessments, school taxes, county taxes, and so forth.
Real estate taxes include state, local, and all other real estate taxes even if delinquent, unpaid, or paid by someone who is not a member of the household. However, taxes due from prior years are not included. If taxes are paid on other than a yearly basis, the payments are converted to a yearly basis.
The payment for real estate taxes is added to payments for fire, hazard, and flood insurance; utilities and fuels; and mortgages (both first and second mortgages, home equity loans, and other junior mortgages) to derive "Selected Monthly Owner Costs" and "Selected Monthly Owner Costs as a Percentage of Household Income." A separate question (Question 22c in the 2006 American Community Survey) determines whether real estate taxes are included in the mortgage payment to the lender(s). This makes it possible to avoid counting taxes twice in the computations.
| |
Another way to look at this very broad essay prompt is from the perspective of how things we say can sometimes commit us to action we may not be prepared to take.
For instance, if you were to complain about a given situation and/or the way the person in charge is handling it, the person in charge may well hand off the responsibility to you. If this were the case, you might find yourself thinking "me and my big mouth." An example on how to structure this essay might look like this:
Introduction
Mrs. McGillicuddy, my English teacher, is not creative in her lesson planning; consequently, I am often bored in her class. Every day, we read a story or poem and she asks us questions about the work's theme and the techniques the author uses. Like I said, boring. One day, Mrs. McGillicuddy heard me complaining about how predictable and unexciting her class is. She smiled sweetly and said that it would be my responsibility to plan lessons for the class for the next week. My big mouth and I had to think of a way to make poems and short stories more exciting for my classmates and me.
To compose the rest of your essay, plan a topic sentence for each of the subsequent paragraphs. You might organize the paragraphs chronologically as you approached the task of planning lessons. For example:
paragraph 2: how you learned the material well enough to teach it to others
paragraph 3: how you designed your exciting lessons that kept all of your students engaged
paragraph 4: how you assessed your students' learning
paragraph 5: what you learned about teaching—and "you and your big mouth"
The takeaway here is the importance of planning your essay's structure before you begin to write, no matter your topic. Once you have decided on your thesis and written your introduction, plan each paragraph's topic sentence, including your conclusion. | https://www.enotes.com/homework-help/essay-me-my-big-mouth-347097 |
Media Release: Commuters suffer as privatisation takes its toll on inner-west buses
It is clear that decisions from the NSW Government to privatise buses have only resulted in disaster for Sydney’s public transport system. New figures in today’s Sydney Morning Herald reveal that privatisation in Region 6 has led to a decrease in on-time running.
Here’s a media release the Tram and Bus Division released today in response:
Commuters in Sydney’s inner-west have been robbed of a reliable bus service, with on-time running plummeting since the NSW Government privatised the service.
Data shows the buses – now run by private company Transit Systems – have failed to meet the on-time running key performance measure of 95 per cent of buses running on time every month since the private company took over the contract in July last year.
Tram and Bus Division Secretary, David Babineau, said the figures are more evidence that when transport is privatised, commuters and workers lose out.
“This is exactly what happens when you sell a public transport service off to the private sector – commuters lose out,” Mr Babineau said. “Commuters in the inner west are being robbed of the quality bus service they deserve.
“We’ve seen it in Newcastle and now we’re seeing it in the inner-west. When bus services are privatised, bus stops close, on-time running goes out the window, routes are cut and workers’ conditions plummet.
“The NSW Government used poor on-time running to justify the privatisation of Region 6 buses. Now we’re seeing that under private hands the figures have actually got worse.
“The private sector, by its very nature, is there to turn a profit. Private companies are more focused on making a buck than in delivering a quality service for commuters.
“The NSW Government should be looking at these figures in the inner-west and ruling out the privatisation of any further bus regions, and commuters in other regions should be looking at this and demanding that their services remain in public hands. | https://tramandbusexpress.com.au/media-release-commuters-suffer-as-privatisation-takes-its-toll-on-inner-west-buses/ |
- This event has passed.
About this Event
EVENT ESSENTIALS
Enjoy the crystal clear air and the stunning scenery as we climb Wales’ highest mountain. The journey will be at a slow steady pace suitable for all levels of fitness on a mixture of good paths as well as challenging sections of rough terrain.Once you reach the peak (1,085m (3,560ft), you will be rewarded with panoramic views, breathtaking landscape, and an opportunity to quietly reflect on the amazing challenge.
ESSENTIALS
Reg Fees: £30 includes Transportion, Personalised Hoodie and Snacks.
Fundraising Target: £300
Women Only Event
ABOUT THE SOLAR WELL
Location: Village Nasar-UD-Deen Khalani, District Sohbatpur, Baluchistan, Pakistan.
Households: 110
Beneficiaries: 2,318 (Each household has got up to 3 families in an extended family living system). | https://muslimcharity.org.uk/walk4water |
As more international companies move toward the global management of real estate portfolios, HOK’s Kay Sargent shares lessons from her years as a workplace strategist, designer, and road warrior.
We live in an interconnected world. With unprecedented rates of global transit — whether for business, pleasure, or immigration — culture is crossing boundaries at an astounding pace, impacting the way we live and work. In the U.S., especially, we are becoming a “minority of majorities” with a heightened awareness of the cultural aspects of various countries. This cognizance is having a ripple effect on how we design.
As recently as 10 years ago, most corporate real estate companies followed a decentralized model in which decisions were made regionally. Some used private offices to reward individuals, while others chose to maintain an open environment that was uniform and equitable. European and Asian locations leaned toward more open, dense environments. North American locations generally allotted more space per person and provided additional private, enclosed spaces.
In recent years, as companies have been expanding globally and centralizing the management of their real estate holdings, the commercial real estate (CRE) model is being viewed through a global lens. Many companies are establishing templates for standardizing their offices around the world.
I recently used Zoomerang to conduct an informal survey of 50 corporate real estate managers worldwide about their workplace solutions. In this article, you’ll find the results — and what they mean for how we implement workplace solutions around the globe.
According to the survey, 68 percent of the companies had global standards or guidelines, 16 percent had regional standards, and 16 percent had none. The responses revealed that many companies have put in place standards to help them streamline delivery processes by leveraging the best resources at hand — regardless of location — and providing a consistent experience and brand for global staff.
Though this centralized model enabled the rapid deployment that many emerging companies wanted to achieve, it had a downside. With a centralized approach that specified a single, standardized model of space delivery around the globe, few companies were able to conquer the challenge of responding to cultural nuances from region to region. Strictly enforced, standardized programs failed in some regions.
Guidelines vs. standards
The challenge facing many companies is determining how to strike a balance between enforcing global standards and addressing regional influences. The survey revealed that 90 percent of companies see work styles differing from country to country, making standardization problematic. Many companies have realized that cultural, legislative, and style issues vary by region and understand that it’s important for the businesses to be good local citizens. To give regional offices more flexibility to respond to the local context, savvy companies have shifted their focus to creating guidelines instead of standards.
Global workspace challenges
The responses of international survey participants regarding how global standards and design issues relate to real estate and the workplace confirmed some assumptions while exposing new challenges. The difficulties facing CRE executives looking to deliver space globally include:
- Supporting flexible work
- Driving down occupancy costs
- Providing consistency
- Adapting to the culture
- Balancing local requirements and global brand strategy
- Breaking through traditional notions of space entitlement
- Overcoming reluctance to change
International success requires a deeper understanding of the different regions of the world, as well as the challenges and opportunities associated with each. Specifically, CRE managers must recognize how different cultures accept or reject trends. Challenges and constraints in many regions include:
- Pre-existing density
- Infrastructure readiness
- Access to natural elements
- Security
- Legislation and regulations
- Demographics and talent limitations
- Availability and cost of land
- Land use and zoning
- Cultural nuances
- Resources
- Economic and political stability
Using local culture to inform global strategy
Seventy percent of respondents indicated that culture plays a major role in determining the design direction and workplace solution. It was noted as a pivotal factor 25 percent of the time, and was excluded in only five percent of the responses.
There is a difference between working globally and internationally. A global approach is one where a company based primarily in one location exports services to other regions or countries. Companies that are truly embedded in multiple countries and understand the nuances of these countries are working internationally. This is a distinction worth noting, as it’s difficult to comprehend and embrace the nuances of a place without having a deeper understanding of the region’s culture.
An example of that challenge is organizational structure. Every company has a corporate structure, whether it’s an adhocracy, clan-based, market-driven, or hierarchical. Though many industries have shifted to a flatter organizational structure, hierarchy still exists in many companies and cultures. In some countries, a hierarchical structure embedded in the cultural fiber permeates into business environments. In India, the Middle East, and South America, the class or caste system ingrained in society often affects the office’s organizational make-up.
When there is a fundamental and deep cultural history of structural difference in status, you cannot remove offices and create a completely open environment. Even in the U.S., we can be more hierarchal than we like to think. In many cases, this hierarchy exists for a reason. The recent rise of adhocracies is a reflection of the rapid growth of many startup companies and the need to create a platform that enables quick, seamless development. Having a structure in which no one is responsible for everything and everyone is responsible for something is a way to empower people by spreading the responsibility and growing as a unit. But not all companies can function in that manner. This model would not be accepted in regions of the world where societal structure is inherent. Australia, for example, tends to be an egalitarian society and thus has been able to easily adapt to activity-based workplaces (ABW) and team/activity-based workplaces (TBW) environments.
Another example of regional attributes and societal norms impacting work is the viability of teleworking in different regions. In cities where commuters can get to the office without major traffic delays, the need to provide telecommuting options may not be as important as it is in New York City, where the average commute can be well over an hour. The same company that might consider a mobility program in the U.S. or Europe due to density and commuting issues could see the same factors in Asia and decide that teleworking would be a viable strategy there. But a deeper understanding of the societal issues in Asia would reveal that many people are living in smaller units with multi-generations. Going to the office and having a place that they can call their own is preferred over working from home.
CRE managers and strategists need to be acutely aware of how these cultural nuances can impact real estate strategy and workplace solutions.
Sense of place
Creating a workspace that staff can relate to is important for attracting and retaining top talent. It’s imperative for global companies to accommodate local influences rather than build all of their offices exactly the same across the globe. Though branding is important, it must be balanced with a sense of place that reflects the community. Color choices, material selection, space allocation, privacy levels, and sustainability are influencing how real estate and space solutions are implemented on a regional level.
Using colors and finishes that are customary to certain regions is key. In India, bright colors are expected. In other regions, however, those palettes could be offensive and more neutral colors may be preferred. Incorporating local finishes and materials rather than importing them supports the local economy and culture while raising sustainability efforts and reinforcing regional pride. These details likely will be important to your next recruit.
There are commonalities across the globe. To create a sense of place and community that is human-centric, regardless of regional influences, the workspace should be:
- Walkable
- Vibrant
- Close to adequate transportation
- A blend of social and professional experiences
- Culturally rich
- Authentic
For up-and-coming “next-use” communities, there is a global preference for accommodations that include:
- Housing
- Retail
- Dining
- Ability to walk to work
Though there are regional nuances, some common themes are emerging in work environments. Key elements to successful spaces include:
- A shift from all-closed or all-open spaces to environments in which a balance is achieved to accommodate all work styles.
- Sustainability is embraced (essential in most projects).
- Occupant health and well-being as a major driver of design.
- Blending of spaces to create areas and communities to work, live and play.
- Addressing the basics (light, noise, comfort) to create a sense of grounding.
- Understanding and designing for organizational DNA and culture.
- Creating a strong sense of place, identity and connection to the community.
- Increasing opportunities for information sharing via multiple means.
- Integration of technology.
- Need for flexibility to accommodate rapid technological advances.
- Creating vibrant, engaging places.
- Ensuring an underlying sense of security and safety.
Even when CRE groups follow these suggestions, implementing global guidelines and delivering next-generation spaces can be a challenge. Each region has obstacles specific to its locale (see infographic). | https://www.workdesign.com/2016/06/global-cre-challenges-opportunities-implementing-effective-workplace-solutions/ |
"Live amongst people in such a manner that if you die they weep over you and if you are alive they crave for your company."
- Imam Ali (A.S.)
We will be closed on March 18th for March break. Enjoy the break!
Our timetable during the month of Ramadan will be as follows:
10:30am - 11:20am: Language
11:20am - 12:35pm: Diniyat
12:35pm - 12:50pm: Break
12:50pm - 1:45pm: Quran
1:45pm - 2:15pm: Salaat
For year 2022, donation receipts can be accessed via the ISIJ Portal at portal.jaffari.org
A step by step guide on how you can access your donation receipts: jaffari.org/receipts
For any questions or assistance regarding donation receipts, kindly contact the Secretariat Office at [email protected] or 905-695-9786
Registration for the session 2022-23 is closed. Please reach out to [email protected] for more information.
"O believers give of what We have provided for you" - Quran 2:254
|Language||10:00 AM to 11:00 AM|
|Diniyat||11:00 AM to 12:15 PM|
|Lunch||12:15 PM to 12:40 PM|
|Quran||12:40 PM to 1:40 PM|
|Salaat||1:40 PM to 2:15 PM|
|08 Apr, 2023||Easter Long Weekend (Closed)|
|15 Apr, 2023||Shab-e-Qadar (Closed)|
|22 Apr, 2023||Eid ul Fitr (Closed)|
|20 May, 2023||Victoria Day (Closed)|
|Full Calendar|
For any questions or assistance regarding tax receipts, kindly contact the Secretariat Office at [email protected] or 905-695-9786
To facilitate an Islamic education that will enable the student to develop competencies that will lead him to aspire to a path of worship and obedience of the Creator, implementation of Quranic edicts and guidance, unyielding love of Prophet Muhammad and his Ahlul Bayt, active anticipation for the return of Imam Al Mahdi and servitude to humanity.
In partnership with parents and the community, our mission is to provide an Islamic education in accordance to the Twelver Shia Madhab and Jafari Fiqh that promotes the advancement of mental, spiritual, moral, social and emotional development through a comprehensive and structured curriculum, Islamically proficient and effective teaching staff, an environment and culture that is conducive to learning, resulting in a respectable, resolute, caring, accountable, and practicing Muslim who is fully aware of his responsibilities towards the Creator and His creation. | https://www.al-qaaim.ca/ |
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
Network Packet Filtering
High-Speed Packet Filter Rule Processing
The present invention relates to the field of computer networking. In particular the present invention discloses a method and apparatus for quickly processing packets that are tested with a large number of rules.
The Internet is a global interconnection of computer networks that share a set of well-defined data communication protocols. Specifically, most computer networks coupled to the global Internet communicate using the Transport Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP).
A very large portion of the computers communicate on the global Internet are coupled to a local area network (LAN) that is coupled to the global Internet with an Internet gateway. The Internet gateway handles all communication between computers on the local area network and computers out on the global Internet. The Internet gateway may perform many different functions such as network address translation, network caching, routing, and packet filtering.
Packet filtering is the task of examining each packet to apply a set of filtering rules. Each packet filtering rule specifies a particular packet filtering policy. For example, all packets incoming from the Internet that are destined for vulnerable server ports may be discarded in order to protect the internal servers on the local area network.
The number of packet filtering rules that are needed depends on the particular application. In simple packet filtering routers for small or home routers, the number of packet filtering rules is relatively small. However, an internet service provider (ISP) that provides classes of service for the internet service provider's customers, the internet service provider will need many thousands of packet filter rules to implement the class of service priority and other customer features.
There are several different current implementations of packet filtering rule processors. The simplest implementation of a rules processor is a linear searching rule processor. In such an implementation, the linear rule processor tests each received packet against each rule in the list of packet filtering rules. The time required to perform this type of rule processing is directly proportional to the number of packet filtering rules. This type of linear rule processing is not feasible for any system with a large number of packet filtering rules.
To provide faster rule processing, improved methods of applying packet filtering rules were introduced. One improved method is known as “rule splitting” A rule splitting system divides the rules into several different sets of rules. When a packet is received, one or more aspects of the packet are examined to determine which subset of rules should be applied. For example, a rule splitting type of rule processor may only examine the Source and/or Destination ports of each packet in order to determine which set of rules to apply. Rule splitting type of rule processors are difficult to implement because rules have ranges associated with them.
Search trees provide another method of improving rule processing speed. Search trees divide the rules into a preprocessed organized format that improves the rule processing to a speed that is a logarithmic function of the number of rules in each dimension. This type of searching works well, but still does not provide a solution that is viable for high-speed network applications that require many thousands of rules. It would therefore be desirable to have an improved network rule processor that can process thousands of network rules.
The present invention introduces a high-speed rule processing method that may be used for packet filtering. The high-speed rule processor pre-processes a set of packet filtering rules such that the rules may be searched in parallel by a set of independent search units.
In the rule pre-processing of the method of the present invention, a set of packet filtering rules are first divided the rules into N dimensions. The N dimensions are orthogonal aspects of each packet that may be examined and tested in each rule. Each of the N dimensions are then divided into a set of dimension rule ranges wherein each rule range defines a non-overlapping contiguous range of values in a particular dimension and the rules that may apply to packets that fall within that rule range. Each rule range may be assigned an R-length bit vector that specifies the rules that may apply to packets that fall within that rule range. If the rules are prioritized wherein only the highest priority rule will be applied then such bit vectors will be organized into an order bit vector wherein the highest priority rule is at the beginning of the rule bit vector and the lowest priority rule will be at the end of the rule bit vector. The rule preprocessing is completed by creating a search structure (such as a look-up table, Patricia tree structure, or binary tree structure) for each of the N dimensions. Each search structure may be used by an independent search unit such that all N dimensions may be searched concurrently.
The packet processing method of the present invention activates the N independent search units to search the N pre-processor created search structures. In one embodiment, the output of each of the N search structures will be an R-length bit vector. In such an embodiment, the N output bit vectors are logically ANDed together to produce a final rule bit vector that is used to select the rule or rule to be applied. If the rules are prioritized, then only the first matching rule (the highest priority rule) will be applied.
Other objects, features, and advantages of present invention will be apparent from the company drawings and from the following detailed description.
A method and apparatus for performing high-speed network rule processing is disclosed. In the following description, for purposes of explanation, specific nomenclature is set forth to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that these specific details are not required in order to practice the present invention. For example, the present invention has been described with reference to an embodiment within a gateway that coupled a local area network to the global Internet. However, the same rule processing engine can easily be used in other applications such as general purpose routers, firewalls, and routers that give priority to packets having a higher class of service. Furthermore, the rule processing teachings of the present invention have been disclosed in a packet filtering application although the rule processing teachings may be used in many other contexts.
Network packet filtering is the task of examining each packet received from a network and then applying a set of packet filtering rules to the received packets. There are a number of uses for network packet filtering. For example, packet filtering can be used to provide security for a local area network by filtering out packets from potential intruders.
Example Packet Filtering Applications
FIG. 1
FIG. 1
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148
illustrates one possible network application of packet filtering. Referring to , a local area network (LAN) is illustrated with a set of computer workstations , , , and coupled thereto. The local area network (LAN) environment also includes a couple of servers and . If the servers and are only used for internal purposes then the internal servers and should only be accessible by internal clients such as computer workstations , , , and .
140
100
130
130
All communication between computer systems on the internal local area network and the global Internet passes through an Internet gateway . The Internet gateway may comprise a suite of firewall applications on a computer system, a packet filtering router, or another type of network component that provides the desired features. Of particular interest to the present invention, most Internet gateway systems provide packet filtering features.
100
141
140
130
130
141
143
130
100
141
143
130
As specified earlier, an important packet filtering application is network security. Specifically, when a network node on the global Internet attempts to establish a connection to an internal server (such as server ) on the local area network then the Internet gateway should carefully scrutinize the associate network packets since the entity attempting to establish the connection may be attempting an unauthorized access. To prevent such unauthorized access, the Internet gateway processes packets with a set of security rules that screen out packets related to unauthorized actions. For example, if the servers and are only to be used for internal purposes then the Internet gateway should screen out all packets originating from the global Internet and destined for the internal servers and . Such screening will be performed by the packet filtering rule processor of the Internet gateway .
141
143
130
100
141
143
There are many different permutations of network security rule policies that may be implemented. For example, if the servers and are only to be used for internal purposes for one set of services (such as an internal database) and global access for other services (such as email) then the packet filtering rules in the Internet gateway should screen out packets originating from the global Internet and destined for the internal servers and only if the service requested is for internal use only. In a TCP/IP environment, the service is usually specified using a TCP port number.
Packet filtering can also be used by an Internet service provider to provide various different classes of service to a set of users. For example, packets from a high priority user will be processed and transmitted faster than packets from a low priority user. With such a packet filtering arrangement, the Internet service provider can charge different prices for different classes of service. There may be many different classes of service offered by the Internet service provider. For example, an Internet service provider may provide a large scale of different services from a free (advertising subsidized) email-only service to a high-speed high-quality service that can be used for low-latency tasks such as video conferencing. Such an application would require a very large number of rules applied to each packet to determine how the packet should be handled (if at all). Current packet filtering implementations are not capable of processing packets with a very large number packet filtering rules with low latency.
Packet Filtering Aspects
Network packets can be filtered by examining a number of different packet aspects. In an Internet application, the most interesting aspects to examine are in the Transport Control Protocol (TCP) packet header (or a UDP packet header) and the Internet Protocol (IP) packet header. In normal Internet usage, TCP packets are enclosed within IP packets.
FIG. 2
210
220
230
illustrates the format of a Transport Control Protocol (TCP) packet. The objective of the Transport Control Protocol layer is to ensure a reliable connection between two computer nodes. Of particular interest for packet filtering are the source TCP port and the destination TCP port . In some applications, a packet filtering device may examine the flags in the TCP packet header.
FIG. 3
310
320
310
320
330
330
340
The TCP packet is typically enclosed within an Internet Protocol packet. illustrates an Internet Protocol (IP) packet header. The objective of the Internet Protocol layer is to ensure that an Internet packet is properly routed from a source node having a source Internet Protocol (IP) address to a destination node having a destination Internet Protocol (IP) address . Packet filtering devices examine the source Internet Protocol (IP) address and the destination Internet Protocol (IP) address . Another important aspect that may be examined is the Protocol field in the IP packet header. The Protocol field specifies the type of protocol being used to transport the packet. If a TCP packet is enclosed, then the Protocol will specify the TCP protocol. Finally, a packet filter may also examine the flags in the Internet Protocol header.
The Rule Processing Task
The task of rule processing consists of examining a set of aspects for a particular packet and determining the first rule that applies to a packet having those aspects. Each packet filter rule can be expressed as a set of ranges for each packet aspect that will be examined. If all of the packets aspects fit within the defined ranges, then the rule will be applied. When a particular aspect is irrelevant for a particular rule, the rule may specify the full possible range. When a particular aspect must match a certain value exactly, the range for that particular aspect begins and ends with that certain value. Since more than one rule polytope may encompass a particular packet aspect point, the rule filter must select the rule having the higher priority.
FIG. 4
Using a set of aspect ranges, packet filtering becomes a problem in computational geometry. Specifically, each packet filtering rule defines a polytope in K dimensions wherein K is the number of packet aspects examined. Thus, given a point defined by the aspects of a packet, the packet filtering engine must find the set of polytopes that encompass the point. For example, illustrates a pair of two dimensional polytopes that define two different rules in a two aspect (dimension) rule space.
FIG. 4
FIG. 4
In the example of , each aspect is a positive or zero integer. The aspects may be addresses, ports, or other content from received packets. Since there are two aspects that are examined in the example of , the rule space is a two aspect/dimension rule space wherein each rule defines a rectangle polytope. Thus, Rule A forms a first rectangle and Rule B forms a second rectangle. A third aspect/dimensional would create a rectangular solid. Further dimensions are not easily visualized but easily implemented in practice.
To improve the performance of a firewall, router, switch, or other network component that performs packet filtering, the present invention introduces a high-speed rule processing engine. The high-speed rule processing engine pre-processes the rules to divide the rules into different packet aspect dimensions. Each dimension is then divided into individual rule ranges wherein each range has a different set of rules that may apply when compared to the adjacent ranges. Each range is then assigned a bit vector that specifies the rules that may be activate when a packet falls within the range. The pre-processing is completed by creating a different data structure to be used for searching each different dimension range. Examples of possible data structures include look-up tables and organized data trees. When a packet is received, all of the search data structures for each aspect dimension are examined in parallel to generate the assigned bit vector for that range. The bit vector results of the parallel rule processors are combined into a final rule or set of rules, that need to be applied to the packet.
Rule Dimension Ranges
FIG. 5
FIG. 4
To implement a high-speed rule processor for packet filtering, each dimension is divided into distinct dimension rule ranges wherein each distinct dimension rule range adds or omits a possible rule from an adjacent range. For example, illustrates the two dimensional rule space of after both dimensions have been divided into distinct dimension rule ranges.
FIG. 5
Referring to the X aspect/dimension of , in the range from 0 to 9, no rule applies. In the range from 10 to 19 along the X aspect/dimension, Rule A may apply. (Note that, the Y aspect/dimension must be examined to determine if Rule A really does apply.) In the range from 20 to 29 along the X aspect/dimension, Rules A and/or B may apply. In the range from 30 to 39 along the X aspect/dimension, Rule B may apply. Finally, in the range above 40 in the X aspect/dimension, no rule applies.
FIG. 5
The Y aspect/dimension of is also divided into distinct dimension rule ranges. Specifically, from 0 to 9 in the Y aspect/dimension no rule applies, from 10 to 19 Rule B may apply, from 20 to 24 rules A and/or B may apply, from 25 to 29 rule A may apply, and above 30 no rule applies.
Rule Dimension Range Bit Vectors
FIG. 6
FIG. 5
After each aspect/dimension has been divided into distinct dimension rule ranges, each dimension rule range may be assigned an R-length bit vector that specifies the rules that apply to that particular dimension rule range. The R value specifies the number of rules that are being applied. If the rules are ordered in priority, then the R-length rule bit vector should be ordered in the same manner. illustrates the two dimensional rule space of wherein each dimension rule range has been assigned a bit vector. Since there are only two rules, the bit vector is 2 bits in length. The first position in the bit vector designates if points within the range may require Rule A. The second position in the bit vector designates if points within the range may require Rule B.
FIG. 6
Referring to , the first range where no rule applies is assigned “00”. The second range along the X aspect/dimension wherein Rule A may apply is assigned “10” since Rule A (the first bit in the bit vector) may apply. The third range along the X aspect/dimension wherein both Rule A and Rule B may apply is assigned “11” since both Rule A (the first bit in the bit vector) and Rule A (the second bit in the bit vector) may apply. The remainder of the ranges along the X aspect/dimension are assigned bit vectors in the same manner. The ranges along the Y aspect/dimension are also filled in the same manner.
FIG. 6
FIG. 6
To use the assigned bit vectors, a packet filtering engine first classifies a received packet into the appropriate range within each dimension. In the example of , each packet is classified into one range along the X aspect/dimension and another range along the Y aspect/dimension. For example, a packet with an X aspect of 23 and Y aspect of 17, written as P(23,17), would be placed into the third range (from the left) along the X aspect/dimension and the second range (from the bottom) along the Y aspect/dimension. The assigned bit vectors from the different dimensions are then logically ANDed together. In the previous example of P(23,17), the “11” bit vector from the X aspect/dimension is logically ANDed with the “01” bit vector from the Y aspect/dimension to generate “01”. The “01” resultant vector specifies that the second rule, Rule B, should be applied. For clarity, the ANDed values of all the different range combinations have been placed onto the rule space of .
If an incoming packet has an X aspect of 27 and Y aspect of 21, P(27,21), then the packet would be placed into the third range (from the left) along the X aspect/dimension and the third range (from the bottom) along the Y aspect/dimension. These classifications would output the bit vectors “11” in the X range and “11” in the Y range that are logically ANDed to produce “11”. The “11” output bit vector means that both Rule A and Rule B apply to the packet. However, if the rules have been ordered in priority then only the first rule in the bit vector, the first one (“1”), will be used such that only Rule A will be applied.
Alternate Embodiment: Rule Range Look-Up
FIGS. 4 to 6
FIGS. 4 to 6
In an alternate embodiment, each range may simply be assigned a range value. For example, referring to the X aspect/dimension of , the range from 0 to 9 could be assigned a range value of 1, the range from 10 to 19 could be assigned the range value of 2, the range from 20 to 29 could be assigned the range value of 3, the range from 30 to 39 could be assigned the range value of 4, and the range above 40 could be assigned the range value of 5. The Y aspect/dimension would be assigned range values in a similar manner. Specifically, in the Y aspect/dimension, from 0 to 9 is rule range 1, 10 to 19 is rule range 2, from 20 to 24 is rule range 3, from 25 to 29 is rule range 4, and above 30 is rule range 5. These range values could then be used to look up a final rule to apply in an N dimensional look-up table. In the case that only the highest priority rule for a given field is needed, that value can be pre-computed amongst all matching rules in a given row and only that rule can be stored for each row in the table. In an embodiment without a pre-computed highest priority rule, the table for the example in might appear as follows:
TABLE 1
Packet Aspect Range Value in X and Y dimension
Output rule vector
1, 1
00
1, 2
00
1, 3
00
1, 4
00
1, 5
00
2, 1
00
2, 2
00
2, 3
10
2, 4
10
2, 5
00
3, 1
00
3, 2
01
3, 3
11
3, 4
10
3, 5
10
4, 1
00
4, 2
01
4, 3
01
4, 5
00
5, 1
00
5, 2
00
.
00
.
.
(Number of dimensions)
Such a table based system might be useful for systems with small numbers of rules. However the memory that would be required is proportional to two times the number of Rules plus one raised to the power of the number of dimensions, expressed mathematically as (2*Rules+1). Thus, the memory requirements grow exponentially. Thus, such a system is not feasible for systems with large numbers of rules.
Rule Dimension Range Classification
As previously set forth, each received packet must be classified into a range along each examined packet aspect/dimension. Since these classifications are data independent along the different dimensions, the classification along each dimension may be performed in parallel by individual logic modules. In this manner, a very complex search may be performed by N logical searching units concurrently wherein N indicates the number of dimensions. With independent parallel searching, a single very fast search module is replaced with N search modules with lower clock speeds. The time complexity in such a parallel implementation is reduces to order of log (2R+1) for a binary tree search on each dimension. Then an additional time is required to calculate the bit-wise logical AND of these results. This method is faster than all previously known implementations.
The rule range classification along each dimension is still a time consuming problem. Every new rule raises the amount of time needed for searching each dimension. Specifically, there will be up to 2R+1 rule ranges in each dimension. (2R+1 represents the worst case scenario.) With a dimension that has m possible variations, the task is to classify the incoming packets having m possible variations into one of the up to 2R+1 rule ranges. For example, an 8-bit aspect in a packet will have 256 possible variations.
A simple method of range classifying is to use a long list ranges that specify the required condition of each range. Such a method is simple to implement but requires far too much time to search.
FIGS. 4 to 6
One of the fastest methods of classifying the incoming packets is to create a look-up table structure that maps each possible dimension value into the appropriate bit vector value for the associated rule range. The following table illustrates one possible implementation of a look-up table for the X dimension of the rule space in . The table outputs the appropriate bit vector based upon the X aspect of an incoming packet.
TABLE 2
Packet Aspect Value in X dimension
Output bit vector
0
00
1
00
2
00
3
00
.
00
.
.
9
00
10
10
11
10
.
10
.
.
19
10
20
11
21
11
.
11
.
.
29
11
30
01
31
01
.
01
.
.
39
01
40
00
.
00
.
.
32
32
The look-up table provides the fastest possible method of classifying a particular dimension into a range with an output bit vector. However, a look-up table is not always feasible. In a system that has a large number of rules and dimensions that have large numbers of possible combinations, the memory required to store a look-up table becomes impractical. For example, a 32 bit IP address has 2possible permutations such that a very large 2entry look-up table would be required. Furthermore, in a system with thousands of rules, each bit vector would be thousands of bits long. Constructing such a large look-up table is not economically feasible.
FIG. 7
FIGS. 4 to 6
Another method of creating a data structure for quickly generating bit vectors is to use a search tree structure such as a Patricia tree or a binary tree. A search tree structure greatly reduces the amount of memory required by eliminating redundant data from the search structure. However, a tree structure will require more processing time to search. Specifically, such a tree search will require a time amount that is a logarithmic function of the two times the number of rules plus one. [Order(log(2R+1))] illustrates one possible tree structure that can be used to quickly search the rule ranges of the X dimension illustrated in .
Since the different aspects of a packet will vary in the number of possible combinations, each dimension can be implemented with a different search structure. For example, one possible packet filtering engine would examine a 32-bit source IP address, a 32-bit destination IP address, and an 8-bit protocol value. In such a three dimensional packet filtering system, the relatively small 8-bit protocol dimension could be classified quickly with a two hundred and fifty-six (256) entry look-up table and the larger 32-bit dimensions could be classified using Patricia tree structures or binary tree structures. All three different dimensions could be searched in parallel using three different searching units. The bit vector outputs from the three search units could then be logically ANDed to generate a final rule bit vector that specifies the rule (if rules are prioritized) or rules (if all matching rules are to be applied) to be used on the packet.
Summary
FIG. 8
FIG. 8
810
illustrates a flow chart that summarizes the teachings of the present invention. Referring step of , the first task is to divide the rules into N aspects/dimensions. The N dimensions are orthogonal aspects of each packet that may be examined and tested in each rule. For example, in a packet filtering system that only examines and tests the 32-bit source IP address, a 32-bit IP destination address, the 16-bit source TCP port, and the 16-bit destination TCP port, the packet filtering engine would be divided into four dimensions.
820
830
Next, at step , each of the N dimensions is divided into a set of dimension rule ranges. Each rule range defines a non-overlapping contiguous range of values in particular dimension and the rules that may apply to packets that fall within that rule range. At step , each rule range is assigned an R-length bit vector that specifies the rules that may apply to packets that fall within that rule range. If the rules are prioritized wherein only the highest priority rule will be applied then the bit vectors will be organized into an order bit vector wherein the highest priority rule is at the beginning of the rule bit vector and the lowest priority rule will be at the end of the rule bit vector.
840
Finally, at step , the rule preprocessing is completed by creating a search structure (such as a look-up table, Patricia tree structure, or binary tree structure) for each of the N dimensions. The N search structures may be different for each dimension. Each search structure may be used by an independent search unit such that all N dimensions may be searched concurrently.
850
850
860
870
880
850
At step , the packet processing may begin. When a new packet is received at step , the method proceeds to step wherein the N dimensions are searched using the created search structures. The output of each of the N search structures will be an R-length bit vector. At step , the N output bit vectors are logically ANDed together to produce a final rule bit vector. Finally at step , the final rule bit vector is used to select the rule or rules to be applied. If the rules are prioritized, then only the first matching rule (the highest priority rule) will be applied. The method returns back to step to process additional packets.
850
890
810
890
820
840
New rules may be added at step . If a new rule is submitted, the method proceeds to step wherein the rule is examined to determine if the new rule examines and tests a new aspect of the packet. If a new aspect is to be tested, then the method proceeds to step wherein a new dimension will be added to the packet filtering engine. Alternatively, if at step the method determines that the new rule will only test an existing packet aspect, then the method proceeds to steps through wherein the new rule is preprocessed to create a new set of rule ranges for each dimensions, new longer rule bit vectors are generated, and new search structures are created.
The foregoing has described a method and apparatus for performing high-speed rule processing for packet filtering. It is contemplated that changes and modifications may be made by one of ordinary skill in the art, to the materials and arrangements of elements of the present invention without departing from the scope of the invention.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The objects, features and advantages of the present invention will be apparent to one skilled in the art, in view of the following detailed description in which:
FIG. 1
illustrates a typical small local area network (LAN) coupled to the Internet through a packet filtering device that filters the packets that travel between the global Internet and the local area network.
FIG. 2
illustrates the format of a packet from the Transport Control Protocol layer.
FIG. 3
illustrates the format of a packet from the Internet Protocol layer.
FIG. 4
illustrates a two dimensional rule space that contains two different rules.
FIG. 5
FIG. 4
illustrates the two dimensional rule space of wherein each dimension has been divided into different rule ranges.
FIG. 6
FIG. 5
illustrates the two dimensional rule space of wherein each rule range has been assigned a bit vector that specifies the rules that may apply.
FIG. 7
FIGS. 4 to 6
illustrates a tree structure that may be used to organize the X aspect ranges along the X dimension illustrated in .
FIG. 8
illustrates a flow diagram that summarizes the rule processing methods of the present invention. | |
Related literature {#sec1}
==================
For related literature on the genus *Isodon* and diterpenoids therefrom, see: Liu *et al.* (1988[@bb4]); Kim *et al.* (1992[@bb3]); Sun *et al.* (2001[@bb7]); Bai *et al.* (2005[@bb2]). For expected bond-length ranges, see: Allen *et al.* (1987[@bb1]).
Experimental {#sec2}
============
{#sec2.1}
### Crystal data {#sec2.1.1}
C~22~H~30~O~5~*M* *~r~* = 374.46Monoclinic,*a* = 8.485 (4) Å*b* = 23.786 (10) Å*c* = 9.930 (4) Åβ = 91.039 (17)°*V* = 2003.8 (15) Å^3^*Z* = 4Mo *K*α radiationμ = 0.09 mm^−1^*T* = 296 K0.36 × 0.34 × 0.32 mm
### Data collection {#sec2.1.2}
Rigaku R-AXIS RAPID diffractometerAbsorption correction: none19620 measured reflections4669 independent reflections2856 reflections with *I* \> 2σ(*I*)*R* ~int~ = 0.070
### Refinement {#sec2.1.3}
*R*\[*F* ^2^ \> 2σ(*F* ^2^)\] = 0.063*wR*(*F* ^2^) = 0.164*S* = 1.004669 reflections524 parameters14 restraintsH-atom parameters constrainedΔρ~max~ = 0.19 e Å^−3^Δρ~min~ = −0.20 e Å^−3^
{#d5e457}
Data collection: *RAPID-AUTO* (Rigaku, 2004[@bb5]); cell refinement: *RAPID-AUTO*; data reduction: *RAPID-AUTO*; program(s) used to solve structure: *SHELXS97* (Sheldrick, 2008[@bb6]); program(s) used to refine structure: *SHELXL97* (Sheldrick, 2008[@bb6]); molecular graphics: *SHELXTL* (Sheldrick, 2008[@bb6]); software used to prepare material for publication: *SHELXTL*.
Supplementary Material
======================
Crystal structure: contains datablocks global, I. DOI: [10.1107/S1600536809027159/ez2171sup1.cif](http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S1600536809027159/ez2171sup1.cif)
Structure factors: contains datablocks I. DOI: [10.1107/S1600536809027159/ez2171Isup2.hkl](http://dx.doi.org/10.1107/S1600536809027159/ez2171Isup2.hkl)
Additional supplementary materials: [crystallographic information](http://scripts.iucr.org/cgi-bin/sendsupfiles?ez2171&file=ez2171sup0.html&mime=text/html); [3D view](http://scripts.iucr.org/cgi-bin/sendcif?ez2171sup1&Qmime=cif); [checkCIF report](http://scripts.iucr.org/cgi-bin/paper?ez2171&checkcif=yes)
Supplementary data and figures for this paper are available from the IUCr electronic archives (Reference: [EZ2171](http://scripts.iucr.org/cgi-bin/sendsup?ez2171)).
This work was supported by the Henan Province Science and Technology Foundation (grant No. 082300450440)
Comment
=======
The title compound (I) is a natural *ent*-kaurane diterpenoid isolated from the medicinal plant Isodon japonica var. glaucocalyx. This plant has been used in antibacterial, inflammation-diminishing and stomachic agents. The structure has been postulated previously based on spectroscopic methods (Liu *et al.*, 1988; Kim *et al.*,1992; Bai *et al.*, 2005). In order to further confirm the structure and conformation of (I), a crystal structure analysis, reported here, was undertaken.
The X-ray crystallographic analysis of (I) confirms the previously proposed molecular structure of (I). Fig. 1 shows its conformation: two carbonyl groups located at C3 and C15, while a hydroxyl group and an acetoxyl group adopt α and β-orientations at C7 and C14 respectively. There is a *trans* junction between ring A (C1--C5/C10) and ring B (C5--C10); *cis* junctions are present between ring B and ring C (C8/C9/C11--C14), and ring C and ring D (C8/C13--C16).
The crystal structure analysis shows that there are two molecules in the asymmetric unit, each with different bond lengths and angles, but which are within expected ranges (Allen *et al.*, 1987). In both molecules ring B adopts a chair conformation and ring C has a slight-twist chair conformation. Ring A is disordered, such that both chair and boat conformations are present, but with the boat conformation as the major component. The ratios of boat to chair conformations are 66.7%:32.3% for C1--C5/C10, and 82.9%:17.1% for C1\'--C5\'/C10\'. Ring D shows an envelope conformation; the flap atom, C14, lies 0.660 (6) Å from the plane defined by atoms C8, C15, C16 and C13 \[0.665 (7) Å for atom C14\'\].
Compound (I) contains seven chiral centers at C5(S), C7(*R*), C8(*R*), C9(S), C10(*R*), C13(*R*) and C14(*R*). Although the absolute configuration could not be reliably determined from anomalous dispersion effects, the negative optical rotation showed this compound to be in the *ent*-kaurane seuies as reported in genus Isodon (Sun *et al.*, 2001), rather than in the kaurane series, and so allowed us to assign the correct configuration. In the crystal structure, the molecules are linked by O---H···O hydrogen bonds into chains parallel to the *c* axis (Table 1 and Fig. 2).
Experimental {#experimental}
============
The dried and crushed leaves of Isodon japonica var. glaucocalyx (10 kg, collected from Hui Prefecture, Henan Province, China) were extracted four times with Me~2~CO/H~2~O (7:3, *v*/*v*) at room temperature over a period of seven days. The extract was filtered and the solvent was removed under reduced pressure. The residue was then partitioned between water and AcOEt. After removal of the solvent, the AcOEt residue was separated by repeated silica gel (200--300 mesh) column chromatography and recrystallization from CHCl~3~/Me~2~CO(20:1), giving 700 mg of compound (I) (m.p. 463--465 K. Optical rotation: \[α\]~D~^20^ -130 ° (c 0.95, CHCl~3~). Crystals suitable for X-ray analysis were obtained by slow evaporation of a solution of the compound (I) in Me~2~CO at room temperature.
Refinement {#refinement}
==========
All H atoms were included in calculated positions and refined as riding atoms, with C---H = 0.96 Å (CH~3~), 0.93 and 0.97 Å (CH~2~), and 0.98 Å (CH), and with *U*~iso~(H) = 1.2 *U*~eq~(C). In the absence of significant anomalous scattering effects, Friedel pairs were merged. The choice of enantiomer was based on comparison of the optical rotation with that of related compounds with known stereochemistry. Disorder in ring A was identified by peaks on a difference Fourier map. Each group of disordered atoms was refined with common site occupancies, and equivalent atoms were constrained to have the same anisotropic displacement parameters. The bond lengths in the disorder groups were restrained to values of 1.210 (3) Å (for all four C═O distances), 1.540 (3) Å (C1---C10, C1---C2, and equivalents) and 1.460 (3) Å (C2\'---C3\').
Figures
=======
{#Fap1}
{#Fap2}
Crystal data {#tablewrapcrystaldatalong}
============
------------------------ ----------------------------------------
C~22~H~30~O~5~ *D*~x~ = 1.241 Mg m^−3^
*M~r~* = 374.46 Melting point: 463 K
Monoclinic, *P*2~1~ Mo *K*α radiation, λ = 0.71073 Å
*a* = 8.485 (4) Å Cell parameters from 12776 reflections
*b* = 23.786 (10) Å θ = 3.1--27.6°
*c* = 9.930 (4) Å µ = 0.09 mm^−1^
β = 91.039 (17)° *T* = 296 K
*V* = 2003.8 (15) Å^3^ Block, colourless
*Z* = 4 0.36 × 0.34 × 0.32 mm
*F*(000) = 808
------------------------ ----------------------------------------
Data collection {#tablewrapdatacollectionlong}
===============
------------------------------------ --------------------------------------
Rigaku R-AXIS RAPID diffractometer 2856 reflections with *I* \> 2σ(*I*)
Radiation source: Rotating Anode *R*~int~ = 0.070
graphite θ~max~ = 27.5°, θ~min~ = 3.1°
ω scans *h* = −10→11
19620 measured reflections *k* = −30→28
4669 independent reflections *l* = −12→12
------------------------------------ --------------------------------------
Refinement {#tablewraprefinementdatalong}
==========
------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Refinement on *F*^2^ Primary atom site location: structure-invariant direct methods
Least-squares matrix: full Secondary atom site location: difference Fourier map
*R*\[*F*^2^ \> 2σ(*F*^2^)\] = 0.063 Hydrogen site location: inferred from neighbouring sites
*wR*(*F*^2^) = 0.164 H-atom parameters constrained
*S* = 1.00 *w* = 1/\[σ^2^(*F*~o~^2^) + (0.0896*P*)^2^ + 0.022*P*\] where *P* = (*F*~o~^2^ + 2*F*~c~^2^)/3
4669 reflections (Δ/σ)~max~ = 0.001
524 parameters Δρ~max~ = 0.19 e Å^−3^
14 restraints Δρ~min~ = −0.20 e Å^−3^
------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Special details {#specialdetails}
===============
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Experimental. The assignment of absolute structure was based on comparison of the optical rotation with that of related compounds with known stereochemistry.
Geometry. All e.s.d.\'s (except the e.s.d. in the dihedral angle between two l.s. planes) are estimated using the full covariance matrix. The cell e.s.d.\'s are taken into account individually in the estimation of e.s.d.\'s in distances, angles and torsion angles; correlations between e.s.d.\'s in cell parameters are only used when they are defined by crystal symmetry. An approximate (isotropic) treatment of cell e.s.d.\'s is used for estimating e.s.d.\'s involving l.s. planes.
Refinement. Refinement of *F*^2^ against ALL reflections. The weighted *R*-factor *wR* and goodness of fit *S* are based on *F*^2^, conventional *R*-factors *R* are based on *F*, with *F* set to zero for negative *F*^2^. The threshold expression of *F*^2^ \> σ(*F*^2^) is used only for calculating *R*-factors(gt) *etc*. and is not relevant to the choice of reflections for refinement. *R*-factors based on *F*^2^ are statistically about twice as large as those based on *F*, and *R*- factors based on ALL data will be even larger.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fractional atomic coordinates and isotropic or equivalent isotropic displacement parameters (Å^2^) {#tablewrapcoords}
==================================================================================================
------- -------------- -------------- ------------- -------------------- ------------
*x* *y* *z* *U*~iso~\*/*U*~eq~ Occ. (\<1)
O2 0.1468 (4) 0.62378 (17) 0.4126 (3) 0.0622 (9)
H2O 0.1223 0.6421 0.3455 0.075\*
O3 −0.1799 (5) 0.69449 (15) 0.3591 (3) 0.0678 (10)
O4 −0.0788 (4) 0.53978 (13) 0.3705 (3) 0.0528 (8)
O5 0.1013 (6) 0.4948 (2) 0.4969 (5) 0.1003 (17)
O1 0.1366 (10) 0.6324 (4) 1.1368 (5) 0.097 (3) 0.677 (9)
C1 −0.1799 (14) 0.6575 (9) 0.9035 (12) 0.0647 (16) 0.677 (9)
H1A −0.2358 0.6891 0.8638 0.078\* 0.677 (9)
H1B −0.2575 0.6331 0.9438 0.078\* 0.677 (9)
C2 −0.0687 (12) 0.6796 (5) 1.0157 (8) 0.077 (3) 0.677 (9)
H2A −0.0502 0.7193 0.9995 0.092\* 0.677 (9)
H2B −0.1227 0.6766 1.1007 0.092\* 0.677 (9)
O1\" 0.1487 (19) 0.6698 (7) 1.1325 (10) 0.097 (3) 0.323 (9)
C1\" −0.173 (3) 0.6548 (19) 0.9108 (18) 0.0647 (16) 0.323 (9)
H1C −0.1763 0.6949 0.8932 0.078\* 0.323 (9)
H1D −0.2805 0.6418 0.9200 0.078\* 0.323 (9)
C2\" −0.082 (3) 0.6443 (12) 1.0439 (18) 0.077 (3) 0.323 (9)
H2C −0.1191 0.6701 1.1117 0.092\* 0.323 (9)
H2D −0.1030 0.6064 1.0746 0.092\* 0.323 (9)
C3 0.0870 (6) 0.6513 (2) 1.0308 (4) 0.0596 (13)
C4 0.1788 (6) 0.6446 (2) 0.9042 (4) 0.0522 (11)
C5 0.0705 (5) 0.64895 (18) 0.7754 (4) 0.0391 (9)
H5 0.0561 0.6893 0.7597 0.047\*
C6 0.1477 (5) 0.6264 (2) 0.6482 (4) 0.0444 (10)
H6A 0.2535 0.6416 0.6425 0.053\*
H6B 0.1559 0.5858 0.6542 0.053\*
C7 0.0559 (5) 0.64180 (19) 0.5227 (4) 0.0442 (10)
H7 0.0513 0.6829 0.5189 0.053\*
C8 −0.1146 (5) 0.62046 (18) 0.5220 (4) 0.0380 (9)
C9 −0.1924 (5) 0.63960 (18) 0.6580 (4) 0.0443 (10)
H9 −0.1918 0.6808 0.6543 0.053\*
C10 −0.0983 (5) 0.62477 (17) 0.7901 (3) 0.0428 (10)
C11 −0.3706 (6) 0.6233 (2) 0.6593 (5) 0.0604 (13)
H11A −0.4033 0.6220 0.7523 0.073\*
H11B −0.4300 0.6532 0.6154 0.073\*
C12 −0.4176 (6) 0.5680 (3) 0.5925 (5) 0.0669 (14)
H12A −0.5306 0.5674 0.5762 0.080\*
H12B −0.3907 0.5370 0.6521 0.080\*
C13 −0.3319 (6) 0.5609 (2) 0.4582 (5) 0.0566 (12)
H13 −0.3673 0.5271 0.4100 0.068\*
C14 −0.1555 (5) 0.55858 (18) 0.4915 (4) 0.0462 (10)
H14 −0.1320 0.5340 0.5685 0.055\*
C15 −0.2106 (6) 0.6491 (2) 0.4093 (4) 0.0500 (11)
C16 −0.3460 (6) 0.6124 (2) 0.3714 (5) 0.0575 (13)
C17 −0.4607 (8) 0.6273 (3) 0.2837 (6) 0.091 (2)
H17A −0.4583 0.6625 0.2428 0.109\*
H17B −0.5426 0.6025 0.2638 0.109\*
C18 0.2971 (7) 0.6944 (3) 0.9021 (5) 0.0727 (16)
H18A 0.2405 0.7292 0.9077 0.087\*
H18B 0.3548 0.6935 0.8199 0.087\*
H18C 0.3692 0.6913 0.9774 0.087\*
C19 0.2760 (6) 0.5904 (2) 0.9127 (5) 0.0645 (14)
H19A 0.3420 0.5913 0.9922 0.077\*
H19B 0.3405 0.5874 0.8346 0.077\*
H19C 0.2064 0.5587 0.9166 0.077\*
C20 −0.0951 (6) 0.5615 (2) 0.8243 (5) 0.0592 (13)
H20A −0.0239 0.5425 0.7655 0.071\*
H20B −0.1990 0.5461 0.8125 0.071\*
H20C −0.0604 0.5565 0.9161 0.071\*
C21 0.0542 (7) 0.5098 (2) 0.3887 (5) 0.0637 (14)
C22 0.1285 (10) 0.4971 (3) 0.2562 (7) 0.106 (3)
H22A 0.2276 0.4786 0.2717 0.128\*
H22B 0.1453 0.5316 0.2081 0.128\*
H22C 0.0599 0.4731 0.2041 0.128\*
O2\' 0.3469 (4) 0.85034 (16) 0.0269 (3) 0.0586 (9)
H2O\' 0.3975 0.8477 −0.0424 0.070\*
O3\' 0.6721 (5) 0.77771 (15) −0.0252 (4) 0.0660 (10)
O4\' 0.5734 (4) 0.93369 (14) −0.0081 (3) 0.0550 (9)
O5\' 0.4016 (6) 0.9800 (2) 0.1187 (4) 0.1003 (16)
O1\' 0.3864 (11) 0.8451 (4) 0.7516 (5) 0.090 (3) 0.829 (19)
C1\' 0.6870 (10) 0.8126 (4) 0.5231 (7) 0.064 (2) 0.829 (19)
H1\'1 0.7421 0.7807 0.4855 0.077\* 0.829 (19)
H1\'2 0.7649 0.8368 0.5661 0.077\* 0.829 (19)
C2\' 0.5725 (10) 0.7913 (5) 0.6304 (8) 0.072 (3) 0.829 (19)
H2\'1 0.5420 0.7531 0.6076 0.087\* 0.829 (19)
H2\'2 0.6284 0.7900 0.7164 0.087\* 0.829 (19)
O1\* 0.350 (5) 0.818 (2) 0.746 (3) 0.090 (3) 0.171 (19)
C1\* 0.666 (8) 0.806 (2) 0.521 (2) 0.064 (2) 0.171 (19)
H1\*1 0.6369 0.7680 0.5005 0.077\* 0.171 (19)
H1\*2 0.7805 0.8085 0.5255 0.077\* 0.171 (19)
C2\* 0.599 (3) 0.8233 (17) 0.658 (2) 0.039 (8) 0.171 (19)
H2\*1 0.6315 0.7962 0.7264 0.047\* 0.171 (19)
H2\*2 0.6387 0.8599 0.6848 0.047\* 0.171 (19)
C3\' 0.4290 (6) 0.8247 (2) 0.6466 (4) 0.0588 (13)
C4\' 0.3273 (6) 0.8314 (2) 0.5166 (4) 0.0476 (11)
C5\' 0.4329 (5) 0.82451 (17) 0.3899 (4) 0.0399 (9)
H5\' 0.4410 0.7839 0.3754 0.048\*
C6\' 0.3526 (5) 0.84739 (19) 0.2639 (4) 0.0438 (10)
H6\'1 0.3479 0.8881 0.2694 0.053\*
H6\'2 0.2454 0.8333 0.2583 0.053\*
C7\' 0.4394 (5) 0.83058 (19) 0.1374 (4) 0.0416 (9)
H7\' 0.4407 0.7894 0.1331 0.050\*
C8\' 0.6112 (5) 0.85099 (16) 0.1395 (4) 0.0373 (9)
C9\' 0.6931 (5) 0.83068 (19) 0.2744 (4) 0.0429 (10)
H9\' 0.6895 0.7895 0.2694 0.051\*
C10\' 0.6046 (5) 0.84534 (16) 0.4075 (3) 0.0415 (10)
C11\' 0.8721 (5) 0.8451 (2) 0.2767 (5) 0.0597 (13)
H11C 0.9092 0.8451 0.3697 0.072\*
H11D 0.9275 0.8154 0.2305 0.072\*
C12\' 0.9178 (6) 0.9010 (3) 0.2136 (5) 0.0667 (14)
H12C 0.8945 0.9313 0.2754 0.080\*
H12D 1.0302 0.9013 0.1977 0.080\*
C13\' 0.8294 (6) 0.9105 (2) 0.0819 (5) 0.0585 (12)
H13\' 0.8646 0.9449 0.0370 0.070\*
C14\' 0.6525 (5) 0.91288 (19) 0.1136 (4) 0.0459 (10)
H14\' 0.6315 0.9366 0.1919 0.055\*
C15\' 0.7050 (6) 0.8232 (2) 0.0252 (4) 0.0501 (11)
C16\' 0.8382 (6) 0.8602 (2) −0.0094 (5) 0.0587 (13)
C17\' 0.9457 (7) 0.8461 (3) −0.0995 (6) 0.088 (2)
H17C 0.9389 0.8117 −0.1437 0.106\*
H17D 1.0277 0.8707 −0.1183 0.106\*
C18\' 0.2105 (7) 0.7819 (3) 0.5205 (6) 0.0732 (16)
H18D 0.1380 0.7875 0.5924 0.088\*
H18E 0.2674 0.7475 0.5350 0.088\*
H18F 0.1532 0.7798 0.4363 0.088\*
C19\' 0.2339 (6) 0.8872 (2) 0.5239 (5) 0.0613 (13)
H19D 0.1804 0.8892 0.6081 0.074\*
H19E 0.1581 0.8887 0.4510 0.074\*
H19F 0.3054 0.9183 0.5170 0.074\*
C20\' 0.6079 (6) 0.9084 (2) 0.4436 (5) 0.0559 (12)
H20D 0.5455 0.9290 0.3788 0.067\*
H20E 0.7146 0.9217 0.4427 0.067\*
H20F 0.5657 0.9137 0.5317 0.067\*
C21\' 0.4459 (7) 0.9658 (2) 0.0084 (5) 0.0643 (14)
C22\' 0.3709 (9) 0.9785 (3) −0.1242 (7) 0.095 (2)
H22D 0.2715 0.9594 −0.1315 0.114\*
H22E 0.4384 0.9661 −0.1948 0.114\*
H22F 0.3542 1.0183 −0.1320 0.114\*
------- -------------- -------------- ------------- -------------------- ------------
Atomic displacement parameters (Å^2^) {#tablewrapadps}
=====================================
------- ------------- ------------- ------------- -------------- -------------- --------------
*U*^11^ *U*^22^ *U*^33^ *U*^12^ *U*^13^ *U*^23^
O2 0.053 (2) 0.099 (3) 0.0356 (15) −0.0010 (19) 0.0084 (15) 0.0041 (16)
O3 0.087 (3) 0.059 (2) 0.057 (2) 0.0069 (19) −0.0092 (19) 0.0131 (17)
O4 0.063 (2) 0.0525 (18) 0.0430 (16) 0.0125 (16) −0.0033 (15) −0.0103 (13)
O5 0.112 (4) 0.113 (4) 0.076 (3) 0.068 (3) 0.006 (3) 0.016 (2)
O1 0.120 (4) 0.138 (8) 0.033 (2) 0.059 (6) 0.007 (2) 0.027 (4)
C1 0.051 (3) 0.097 (5) 0.046 (3) 0.013 (3) 0.007 (2) −0.016 (3)
C2 0.095 (6) 0.097 (8) 0.038 (4) 0.032 (7) 0.001 (4) −0.015 (5)
O1\" 0.120 (4) 0.138 (8) 0.033 (2) 0.059 (6) 0.007 (2) 0.027 (4)
C1\" 0.051 (3) 0.097 (5) 0.046 (3) 0.013 (3) 0.007 (2) −0.016 (3)
C2\" 0.095 (6) 0.097 (8) 0.038 (4) 0.032 (7) 0.001 (4) −0.015 (5)
C3 0.069 (4) 0.076 (3) 0.033 (2) 0.003 (3) −0.006 (2) 0.000 (2)
C4 0.056 (3) 0.064 (3) 0.037 (2) −0.004 (2) 0.002 (2) 0.002 (2)
C5 0.045 (2) 0.038 (2) 0.0333 (18) −0.0027 (18) −0.0041 (17) 0.0023 (16)
C6 0.037 (2) 0.061 (3) 0.036 (2) −0.006 (2) 0.0068 (18) 0.0014 (19)
C7 0.050 (3) 0.053 (2) 0.0302 (18) 0.002 (2) 0.0048 (18) 0.0022 (17)
C8 0.038 (2) 0.043 (2) 0.0332 (18) 0.0036 (18) −0.0027 (17) −0.0001 (16)
C9 0.041 (2) 0.046 (2) 0.046 (2) 0.0038 (19) 0.0025 (19) −0.0091 (18)
C10 0.044 (2) 0.047 (2) 0.037 (2) −0.001 (2) 0.0069 (18) 0.0002 (18)
C11 0.037 (3) 0.088 (4) 0.056 (3) 0.006 (3) 0.005 (2) −0.015 (3)
C12 0.044 (3) 0.088 (4) 0.069 (3) −0.018 (3) 0.003 (2) −0.013 (3)
C13 0.049 (3) 0.060 (3) 0.061 (3) −0.007 (2) −0.005 (2) −0.016 (2)
C14 0.054 (3) 0.042 (2) 0.042 (2) 0.001 (2) 0.003 (2) −0.0048 (18)
C15 0.059 (3) 0.052 (3) 0.039 (2) 0.015 (2) −0.001 (2) −0.003 (2)
C16 0.048 (3) 0.068 (3) 0.057 (3) 0.011 (2) −0.009 (2) −0.011 (2)
C17 0.068 (4) 0.103 (5) 0.100 (5) 0.016 (4) −0.034 (4) −0.010 (4)
C18 0.065 (4) 0.098 (4) 0.055 (3) −0.025 (3) −0.010 (3) −0.003 (3)
C19 0.055 (3) 0.088 (4) 0.051 (3) 0.011 (3) −0.012 (2) 0.011 (2)
C20 0.059 (3) 0.066 (3) 0.052 (3) −0.015 (2) −0.001 (2) 0.015 (2)
C21 0.070 (4) 0.063 (3) 0.059 (3) 0.021 (3) 0.004 (3) −0.006 (2)
C22 0.128 (7) 0.109 (5) 0.084 (4) 0.039 (5) 0.029 (4) −0.035 (4)
O2\' 0.0475 (19) 0.096 (3) 0.0321 (14) 0.0080 (18) −0.0098 (13) 0.0048 (16)
O3\' 0.075 (3) 0.063 (2) 0.060 (2) 0.0144 (19) 0.0030 (18) −0.0161 (17)
O4\' 0.063 (2) 0.0590 (19) 0.0433 (16) 0.0187 (17) 0.0021 (15) 0.0113 (14)
O5\' 0.121 (4) 0.108 (3) 0.072 (3) 0.068 (3) −0.003 (3) −0.019 (2)
O1\' 0.115 (5) 0.125 (7) 0.0296 (18) 0.023 (5) −0.004 (2) −0.004 (3)
C1\' 0.062 (5) 0.087 (4) 0.043 (2) 0.012 (4) −0.013 (2) 0.010 (3)
C2\' 0.084 (6) 0.085 (7) 0.048 (4) 0.009 (5) −0.009 (4) 0.025 (4)
O1\* 0.115 (5) 0.125 (7) 0.0296 (18) 0.023 (5) −0.004 (2) −0.004 (3)
C1\* 0.062 (5) 0.087 (4) 0.043 (2) 0.012 (4) −0.013 (2) 0.010 (3)
C2\* 0.046 (16) 0.046 (19) 0.025 (11) −0.016 (13) −0.019 (10) −0.005 (12)
C3\' 0.075 (4) 0.067 (3) 0.033 (2) −0.012 (3) −0.002 (2) 0.005 (2)
C4\' 0.053 (3) 0.054 (3) 0.035 (2) −0.003 (2) −0.0004 (19) 0.0050 (19)
C5\' 0.047 (2) 0.042 (2) 0.0309 (18) −0.0028 (18) −0.0043 (17) 0.0004 (16)
C6\' 0.040 (2) 0.056 (3) 0.035 (2) −0.003 (2) −0.0070 (18) 0.0007 (19)
C7\' 0.041 (2) 0.052 (2) 0.0312 (19) 0.000 (2) −0.0090 (17) −0.0043 (18)
C8\' 0.038 (2) 0.039 (2) 0.0343 (19) 0.0083 (18) −0.0045 (17) 0.0039 (16)
C9\' 0.041 (2) 0.047 (2) 0.041 (2) 0.0046 (19) −0.0070 (18) 0.0029 (18)
C10\' 0.043 (2) 0.047 (2) 0.034 (2) −0.0011 (19) −0.0075 (17) 0.0014 (17)
C11\' 0.040 (3) 0.082 (3) 0.057 (3) 0.010 (3) −0.010 (2) 0.004 (2)
C12\' 0.041 (3) 0.092 (4) 0.067 (3) −0.010 (3) 0.001 (2) 0.004 (3)
C13\' 0.058 (3) 0.059 (3) 0.059 (3) −0.001 (2) 0.006 (2) 0.007 (2)
C14\' 0.047 (3) 0.049 (2) 0.041 (2) 0.004 (2) −0.004 (2) 0.0032 (19)
C15\' 0.047 (3) 0.062 (3) 0.041 (2) 0.014 (2) −0.002 (2) 0.006 (2)
C16\' 0.052 (3) 0.079 (3) 0.045 (2) 0.014 (3) 0.004 (2) 0.011 (2)
C17\' 0.071 (4) 0.115 (5) 0.080 (4) 0.029 (4) 0.029 (3) 0.008 (4)
C18\' 0.078 (4) 0.084 (4) 0.057 (3) −0.028 (3) 0.006 (3) 0.009 (3)
C19\' 0.056 (3) 0.076 (3) 0.052 (3) 0.013 (3) 0.007 (2) 0.001 (2)
C20\' 0.059 (3) 0.055 (3) 0.054 (3) −0.012 (2) −0.001 (2) −0.013 (2)
C21\' 0.075 (4) 0.051 (3) 0.066 (3) 0.024 (3) −0.006 (3) 0.006 (2)
C22\' 0.092 (5) 0.100 (5) 0.091 (4) 0.042 (4) −0.018 (4) 0.027 (4)
------- ------------- ------------- ------------- -------------- -------------- --------------
Geometric parameters (Å, °) {#tablewrapgeomlong}
===========================
---------------------------- ------------- ------------------------------- -------------
O2---C7 1.416 (5) O2\'---C7\' 1.417 (5)
O2---H2O 0.8200 O2\'---H2O\' 0.8200
O3---C15 1.218 (6) O3\'---C15\' 1.223 (6)
O4---C21 1.344 (6) O4\'---C21\' 1.337 (6)
O4---C14 1.447 (5) O4\'---C14\' 1.458 (5)
O5---C21 1.195 (6) O5\'---C21\' 1.213 (6)
O1---C3 1.212 (3) O1\'---C3\' 1.211 (3)
C1---C2 1.540 (3) C1\'---C2\' 1.540 (3)
C1---C10 1.543 (3) C1\'---C10\' 1.543 (3)
C1---H1A 0.9700 C1\'---H1\'1 0.9700
C1---H1B 0.9700 C1\'---H1\'2 0.9700
C2---C3 1.488 (11) C2\'---C3\' 1.464 (3)
C2---H2A 0.9700 C2\'---H2\'1 0.9700
C2---H2B 0.9700 C2\'---H2\'2 0.9700
O1\"---C3 1.212 (3) O1\*---C3\' 1.210 (3)
C1\"---C2\" 1.540 (3) C1\*---C2\* 1.540 (3)
C1\"---C10 1.541 (3) C1\*---C10\' 1.541 (3)
C1\"---H1C 0.9700 C1\*---H1\*1 0.9700
C1\"---H1D 0.9700 C1\*---H1\*2 0.9700
C2\"---C3 1.45 (3) C2\*---C3\' 1.45 (3)
C2\"---H2C 0.9700 C2\*---H2\*1 0.9700
C2\"---H2D 0.9700 C2\*---H2\*2 0.9700
C3---C4 1.499 (6) C3\'---C4\' 1.548 (6)
C4---C19 1.532 (7) C4\'---C18\' 1.541 (7)
C4---C18 1.553 (7) C4\'---C19\' 1.548 (7)
C4---C5 1.565 (6) C4\'---C5\' 1.567 (6)
C5---C6 1.530 (5) C5\'---C6\' 1.515 (5)
C5---C10 1.553 (6) C5\'---C10\' 1.545 (6)
C5---H5 0.9800 C5\'---H5\' 0.9800
C6---C7 1.502 (6) C6\'---C7\' 1.521 (5)
C6---H6A 0.9700 C6\'---H6\'1 0.9700
C6---H6B 0.9700 C6\'---H6\'2 0.9700
C7---C8 1.533 (6) C7\'---C8\' 1.536 (6)
C7---H7 0.9800 C7\'---H7\' 0.9800
C8---C15 1.533 (6) C8\'---C14\' 1.536 (6)
C8---C14 1.541 (6) C8\'---C15\' 1.546 (6)
C8---C9 1.580 (5) C8\'---C9\' 1.574 (5)
C9---C11 1.562 (6) C9\'---C11\' 1.558 (6)
C9---C10 1.563 (6) C9\'---C10\' 1.571 (5)
C9---H9 0.9800 C9\'---H9\' 0.9800
C10---C20 1.543 (7) C10\'---C20\' 1.542 (6)
C11---C12 1.524 (8) C11\'---C12\' 1.521 (8)
C11---H11A 0.9700 C11\'---H11C 0.9700
C11---H11B 0.9700 C11\'---H11D 0.9700
C12---C13 1.540 (7) C12\'---C13\' 1.512 (8)
C12---H12A 0.9700 C12\'---H12C 0.9700
C12---H12B 0.9700 C12\'---H12D 0.9700
C13---C16 1.502 (7) C13\'---C16\' 1.504 (7)
C13---C14 1.528 (7) C13\'---C14\' 1.540 (7)
C13---H13 0.9800 C13\'---H13\' 0.9800
C14---H14 0.9800 C14\'---H14\' 0.9800
C15---C16 1.487 (7) C15\'---C16\' 1.478 (7)
C16---C17 1.342 (8) C16\'---C17\' 1.332 (7)
C17---H17A 0.9300 C17\'---H17C 0.9300
C17---H17B 0.9300 C17\'---H17D 0.9300
C18---H18A 0.9600 C18\'---H18D 0.9600
C18---H18B 0.9600 C18\'---H18E 0.9600
C18---H18C 0.9600 C18\'---H18F 0.9600
C19---H19A 0.9600 C19\'---H19D 0.9600
C19---H19B 0.9600 C19\'---H19E 0.9600
C19---H19C 0.9600 C19\'---H19F 0.9600
C20---H20A 0.9600 C20\'---H20D 0.9600
C20---H20B 0.9600 C20\'---H20E 0.9600
C20---H20C 0.9600 C20\'---H20F 0.9600
C21---C22 1.499 (8) C21\'---C22\' 1.482 (8)
C22---H22A 0.9600 C22\'---H22D 0.9600
C22---H22B 0.9600 C22\'---H22E 0.9600
C22---H22C 0.9600 C22\'---H22F 0.9600
C7---O2---H2O 109.5 C7\'---O2\'---H2O\' 109.5
C21---O4---C14 116.2 (4) C21\'---O4\'---C14\' 117.0 (4)
C2---C1---C10 115.1 (7) C2\'---C1\'---C10\' 113.4 (5)
C2---C1---H1A 108.5 C2\'---C1\'---H1\'1 108.9
C10---C1---H1A 108.5 C10\'---C1\'---H1\'1 108.9
C2---C1---H1B 108.5 C2\'---C1\'---H1\'2 108.9
C10---C1---H1B 108.5 C10\'---C1\'---H1\'2 108.9
H1A---C1---H1B 107.5 H1\'1---C1\'---H1\'2 107.7
C3---C2---C1 116.7 (7) C3\'---C2\'---C1\' 115.7 (5)
C3---C2---H2A 108.1 C3\'---C2\'---H2\'1 108.4
C1---C2---H2A 108.1 C1\'---C2\'---H2\'1 108.4
C3---C2---H2B 108.1 C3\'---C2\'---H2\'2 108.4
C1---C2---H2B 108.1 C1\'---C2\'---H2\'2 108.4
H2A---C2---H2B 107.3 H2\'1---C2\'---H2\'2 107.4
C2\"---C1\"---C10 112.6 (12) C2\*---C1\*---C10\' 111.4 (16)
C2\"---C1\"---H1C 109.1 C2\*---C1\*---H1\*1 109.3
C10---C1\"---H1C 109.1 C10\'---C1\*---H1\*1 109.3
C2\"---C1\"---H1D 109.1 C2\*---C1\*---H1\*2 109.3
C10---C1\"---H1D 109.1 C10\'---C1\*---H1\*2 109.3
H1C---C1\"---H1D 107.8 H1\*1---C1\*---H1\*2 108.0
C3---C2\"---C1\" 112.7 (19) C3\'---C2\*---C1\* 109 (3)
C3---C2\"---H2C 109.0 C3\'---C2\*---H2\*1 110.0
C1\"---C2\"---H2C 109.0 C1\*---C2\*---H2\*1 110.0
C3---C2\"---H2D 109.0 C3\'---C2\*---H2\*2 110.0
C1\"---C2\"---H2D 109.0 C1\*---C2\*---H2\*2 110.0
H2C---C2\"---H2D 107.8 H2\*1---C2\*---H2\*2 108.3
O1\"---C3---O1 43.4 (7) O1\*---C3\'---O1\' 34 (2)
O1\"---C3---C2\" 112.3 (12) O1\*---C3\'---C2\* 120 (2)
O1---C3---C2\" 102.0 (10) O1\'---C3\'---C2\* 104.7 (12)
O1\"---C3---C2 106.7 (9) O1\*---C3\'---C2\' 120 (2)
O1---C3---C2 123.3 (6) O1\'---C3\'---C2\' 125.0 (7)
C2\"---C3---C2 35.4 (9) C2\*---C3\'---C2\' 33.5 (12)
O1\"---C3---C4 121.0 (9) O1\*---C3\'---C4\' 113 (2)
O1---C3---C4 120.7 (6) O1\'---C3\'---C4\' 120.4 (5)
C2\"---C3---C4 126.3 (8) C2\*---C3\'---C4\' 127.6 (10)
C2---C3---C4 115.9 (5) C2\'---C3\'---C4\' 114.6 (5)
C3---C4---C19 109.3 (4) C18\'---C4\'---C19\' 108.9 (4)
C3---C4---C18 106.0 (4) C18\'---C4\'---C3\' 104.4 (4)
C19---C4---C18 107.2 (4) C19\'---C4\'---C3\' 109.2 (4)
C3---C4---C5 111.8 (4) C18\'---C4\'---C5\' 108.5 (4)
C19---C4---C5 114.1 (4) C19\'---C4\'---C5\' 115.3 (3)
C18---C4---C5 108.0 (4) C3\'---C4\'---C5\' 109.9 (4)
C6---C5---C10 110.9 (3) C6\'---C5\'---C10\' 112.8 (3)
C6---C5---C4 113.5 (4) C6\'---C5\'---C4\' 111.8 (4)
C10---C5---C4 115.4 (3) C10\'---C5\'---C4\' 115.3 (3)
C6---C5---H5 105.4 C6\'---C5\'---H5\' 105.3
C10---C5---H5 105.4 C10\'---C5\'---H5\' 105.3
C4---C5---H5 105.4 C4\'---C5\'---H5\' 105.3
C7---C6---C5 112.1 (4) C5\'---C6\'---C7\' 111.8 (4)
C7---C6---H6A 109.2 C5\'---C6\'---H6\'1 109.3
C5---C6---H6A 109.2 C7\'---C6\'---H6\'1 109.3
C7---C6---H6B 109.2 C5\'---C6\'---H6\'2 109.3
C5---C6---H6B 109.2 C7\'---C6\'---H6\'2 109.3
H6A---C6---H6B 107.9 H6\'1---C6\'---H6\'2 107.9
O2---C7---C6 106.6 (4) O2\'---C7\'---C6\' 106.4 (3)
O2---C7---C8 115.1 (4) O2\'---C7\'---C8\' 114.7 (3)
C6---C7---C8 113.5 (3) C6\'---C7\'---C8\' 112.3 (3)
O2---C7---H7 107.1 O2\'---C7\'---H7\' 107.7
C6---C7---H7 107.1 C6\'---C7\'---H7\' 107.7
C8---C7---H7 107.1 C8\'---C7\'---H7\' 107.7
C15---C8---C7 110.2 (4) C14\'---C8\'---C7\' 121.3 (3)
C15---C8---C14 99.6 (3) C14\'---C8\'---C15\' 99.5 (3)
C7---C8---C14 121.8 (4) C7\'---C8\'---C15\' 110.9 (3)
C15---C8---C9 105.7 (3) C14\'---C8\'---C9\' 109.8 (3)
C7---C8---C9 108.0 (3) C7\'---C8\'---C9\' 108.6 (3)
C14---C8---C9 110.3 (3) C15\'---C8\'---C9\' 105.6 (3)
C11---C9---C10 114.7 (4) C11\'---C9\'---C10\' 114.8 (4)
C11---C9---C8 110.8 (3) C11\'---C9\'---C8\' 111.1 (3)
C10---C9---C8 115.9 (3) C10\'---C9\'---C8\' 116.0 (3)
C11---C9---H9 104.7 C11\'---C9\'---H9\' 104.5
C10---C9---H9 104.7 C10\'---C9\'---H9\' 104.5
C8---C9---H9 104.7 C8\'---C9\'---H9\' 104.5
C1\"---C10---C20 106.6 (18) C1\*---C10\'---C20\' 114 (2)
C1\"---C10---C1 4.2 (17) C1\*---C10\'---C1\' 8(3)
C20---C10---C1 109.7 (9) C20\'---C10\'---C1\' 108.2 (5)
C1\"---C10---C5 107.1 (16) C1\*---C10\'---C5\' 101 (3)
C20---C10---C5 111.7 (4) C20\'---C10\'---C5\' 110.6 (4)
C1---C10---C5 108.0 (7) C1\'---C10\'---C5\' 109.6 (5)
C1\"---C10---C9 109.7 (9) C1\*---C10\'---C9\' 108.7 (12)
C20---C10---C9 114.3 (4) C20\'---C10\'---C9\' 113.8 (3)
C1---C10---C9 105.6 (6) C1\'---C10\'---C9\' 107.2 (4)
C5---C10---C9 107.2 (3) C5\'---C10\'---C9\' 107.3 (3)
C12---C11---C9 117.1 (4) C12\'---C11\'---C9\' 116.3 (4)
C12---C11---H11A 108.0 C12\'---C11\'---H11C 108.2
C9---C11---H11A 108.0 C9\'---C11\'---H11C 108.2
C12---C11---H11B 108.0 C12\'---C11\'---H11D 108.2
C9---C11---H11B 108.0 C9\'---C11\'---H11D 108.2
H11A---C11---H11B 107.3 H11C---C11\'---H11D 107.4
C11---C12---C13 110.3 (4) C13\'---C12\'---C11\' 111.2 (4)
C11---C12---H12A 109.6 C13\'---C12\'---H12C 109.4
C13---C12---H12A 109.6 C11\'---C12\'---H12C 109.4
C11---C12---H12B 109.6 C13\'---C12\'---H12D 109.4
C13---C12---H12B 109.6 C11\'---C12\'---H12D 109.4
H12A---C12---H12B 108.1 H12C---C12\'---H12D 108.0
C16---C13---C14 102.8 (4) C16\'---C13\'---C12\' 111.9 (4)
C16---C13---C12 112.0 (4) C16\'---C13\'---C14\' 102.2 (4)
C14---C13---C12 107.0 (4) C12\'---C13\'---C14\' 107.4 (4)
C16---C13---H13 111.5 C16\'---C13\'---H13\' 111.6
C14---C13---H13 111.5 C12\'---C13\'---H13\' 111.6
C12---C13---H13 111.5 C14\'---C13\'---H13\' 111.6
O4---C14---C13 106.6 (4) O4\'---C14\'---C8\' 111.2 (4)
O4---C14---C8 110.8 (3) O4\'---C14\'---C13\' 106.2 (3)
C13---C14---C8 103.0 (4) C8\'---C14\'---C13\' 103.0 (3)
O4---C14---H14 112.0 O4\'---C14\'---H14\' 112.0
C13---C14---H14 112.0 C8\'---C14\'---H14\' 112.0
C8---C14---H14 112.0 C13\'---C14\'---H14\' 112.0
O3---C15---C16 125.9 (5) O3\'---C15\'---C16\' 127.0 (4)
O3---C15---C8 125.3 (5) O3\'---C15\'---C8\' 124.2 (4)
C16---C15---C8 108.7 (4) C16\'---C15\'---C8\' 108.8 (4)
C17---C16---C15 123.8 (5) C17\'---C16\'---C15\' 122.9 (6)
C17---C16---C13 129.7 (6) C17\'---C16\'---C13\' 130.3 (6)
C15---C16---C13 106.3 (4) C15\'---C16\'---C13\' 106.7 (4)
C16---C17---H17A 120.0 C16\'---C17\'---H17C 120.0
C16---C17---H17B 120.0 C16\'---C17\'---H17D 120.0
H17A---C17---H17B 120.0 H17C---C17\'---H17D 120.0
C4---C18---H18A 109.5 C4\'---C18\'---H18D 109.5
C4---C18---H18B 109.5 C4\'---C18\'---H18E 109.5
H18A---C18---H18B 109.5 H18D---C18\'---H18E 109.5
C4---C18---H18C 109.5 C4\'---C18\'---H18F 109.5
H18A---C18---H18C 109.5 H18D---C18\'---H18F 109.5
H18B---C18---H18C 109.5 H18E---C18\'---H18F 109.5
C4---C19---H19A 109.5 C4\'---C19\'---H19D 109.5
C4---C19---H19B 109.5 C4\'---C19\'---H19E 109.5
H19A---C19---H19B 109.5 H19D---C19\'---H19E 109.5
C4---C19---H19C 109.5 C4\'---C19\'---H19F 109.5
H19A---C19---H19C 109.5 H19D---C19\'---H19F 109.5
H19B---C19---H19C 109.5 H19E---C19\'---H19F 109.5
C10---C20---H20A 109.5 C10\'---C20\'---H20D 109.5
C10---C20---H20B 109.5 C10\'---C20\'---H20E 109.5
H20A---C20---H20B 109.5 H20D---C20\'---H20E 109.5
C10---C20---H20C 109.5 C10\'---C20\'---H20F 109.5
H20A---C20---H20C 109.5 H20D---C20\'---H20F 109.5
H20B---C20---H20C 109.5 H20E---C20\'---H20F 109.5
O5---C21---O4 123.1 (5) O5\'---C21\'---O4\' 122.3 (5)
O5---C21---C22 126.1 (6) O5\'---C21\'---C22\' 127.6 (5)
O4---C21---C22 110.7 (5) O4\'---C21\'---C22\' 110.1 (5)
C21---C22---H22A 109.5 C21\'---C22\'---H22D 109.5
C21---C22---H22B 109.5 C21\'---C22\'---H22E 109.5
H22A---C22---H22B 109.5 H22D---C22\'---H22E 109.5
C21---C22---H22C 109.5 C21\'---C22\'---H22F 109.5
H22A---C22---H22C 109.5 H22D---C22\'---H22F 109.5
H22B---C22---H22C 109.5 H22E---C22\'---H22F 109.5
C10---C1---C2---C3 −21 (2) C10\'---C1\*---C2\*---C3\' 54 (6)
C10---C1\"---C2\"---C3 47 (4) C1\*---C2\*---C3\'---O1\* 156 (4)
C1\"---C2\"---C3---O1\" 147 (2) C1\*---C2\*---C3\'---O1\' −171 (3)
C1\"---C2\"---C3---O1 −169 (2) C1\*---C2\*---C3\'---C2\' 56 (3)
C1\"---C2\"---C3---C2 59 (2) C1\*---C2\*---C3\'---C4\' −22 (4)
C1\"---C2\"---C3---C4 −26 (3) C1\'---C2\'---C3\'---O1\* −164 (3)
C1---C2---C3---O1\" −172.2 (14) C1\'---C2\'---C3\'---O1\' −124.4 (13)
C1---C2---C3---O1 −127.4 (14) C1\'---C2\'---C3\'---C2\* −64 (2)
C1---C2---C3---C2\" −67 (2) C1\'---C2\'---C3\'---C4\' 57.3 (12)
C1---C2---C3---C4 49.8 (13) O1\*---C3\'---C4\'---C18\' −50 (3)
O1\"---C3---C4---C19 80.5 (11) O1\'---C3\'---C4\'---C18\' −87.0 (8)
O1---C3---C4---C19 29.5 (9) C2\*---C3\'---C4\'---C18\' 128 (2)
C2\"---C3---C4---C19 −107.9 (14) C2\'---C3\'---C4\'---C18\' 91.3 (7)
C2---C3---C4---C19 −147.8 (7) O1\*---C3\'---C4\'---C19\' 66 (3)
O1\"---C3---C4---C18 −34.7 (11) O1\'---C3\'---C4\'---C19\' 29.4 (9)
O1---C3---C4---C18 −85.8 (8) C2\*---C3\'---C4\'---C19\' −116 (2)
C2\"---C3---C4---C18 136.9 (14) C2\'---C3\'---C4\'---C19\' −152.3 (6)
C2---C3---C4---C18 97.0 (7) O1\*---C3\'---C4\'---C5\' −166 (3)
O1\"---C3---C4---C5 −152.2 (10) O1\'---C3\'---C4\'---C5\' 156.8 (8)
O1---C3---C4---C5 156.8 (7) C2\*---C3\'---C4\'---C5\' 12 (2)
C2\"---C3---C4---C5 19.4 (15) C2\'---C3\'---C4\'---C5\' −24.8 (7)
C2---C3---C4---C5 −20.5 (8) C18\'---C4\'---C5\'---C6\' 83.3 (5)
C3---C4---C5---C6 −163.8 (4) C19\'---C4\'---C5\'---C6\' −39.1 (5)
C19---C4---C5---C6 −39.2 (5) C3\'---C4\'---C5\'---C6\' −163.1 (4)
C18---C4---C5---C6 79.9 (5) C18\'---C4\'---C5\'---C10\' −146.2 (4)
C3---C4---C5---C10 −34.3 (5) C19\'---C4\'---C5\'---C10\' 91.3 (5)
C19---C4---C5---C10 90.3 (5) C3\'---C4\'---C5\'---C10\' −32.6 (5)
C18---C4---C5---C10 −150.6 (4) C10\'---C5\'---C6\'---C7\' 59.5 (5)
C10---C5---C6---C7 60.0 (5) C4\'---C5\'---C6\'---C7\' −168.8 (4)
C4---C5---C6---C7 −168.2 (4) C5\'---C6\'---C7\'---O2\' 175.4 (3)
C5---C6---C7---O2 174.2 (3) C5\'---C6\'---C7\'---C8\' −58.4 (5)
C5---C6---C7---C8 −58.2 (5) O2\'---C7\'---C8\'---C14\' 45.9 (5)
O2---C7---C8---C15 −70.4 (5) C6\'---C7\'---C8\'---C14\' −75.7 (5)
C6---C7---C8---C15 166.5 (3) O2\'---C7\'---C8\'---C15\' −70.0 (4)
O2---C7---C8---C14 45.5 (5) C6\'---C7\'---C8\'---C15\' 168.3 (4)
C6---C7---C8---C14 −77.6 (5) O2\'---C7\'---C8\'---C9\' 174.4 (3)
O2---C7---C8---C9 174.6 (3) C6\'---C7\'---C8\'---C9\' 52.8 (4)
C6---C7---C8---C9 51.5 (5) C14\'---C8\'---C9\'---C11\' −50.7 (4)
C15---C8---C9---C11 57.6 (5) C7\'---C8\'---C9\'---C11\' 174.6 (4)
C7---C8---C9---C11 175.5 (4) C15\'---C8\'---C9\'---C11\' 55.7 (5)
C14---C8---C9---C11 −49.2 (5) C14\'---C8\'---C9\'---C10\' 82.8 (4)
C15---C8---C9---C10 −169.5 (4) C7\'---C8\'---C9\'---C10\' −51.9 (4)
C7---C8---C9---C10 −51.6 (5) C15\'---C8\'---C9\'---C10\' −170.8 (4)
C14---C8---C9---C10 83.7 (4) C2\*---C1\*---C10\'---C20\' 45 (6)
C2\"---C1\"---C10---C20 58 (3) C2\*---C1\*---C10\'---C1\' 92 (11)
C2\"---C1\"---C10---C5 −61 (3) C2\*---C1\*---C10\'---C5\' −74 (5)
C2\"---C1\"---C10---C9 −177 (2) C2\*---C1\*---C10\'---C9\' 173 (4)
C2---C1---C10---C20 91.6 (15) C2\'---C1\'---C10\'---C1\* −43 (9)
C2---C1---C10---C5 −30.3 (17) C2\'---C1\'---C10\'---C20\' 92.9 (9)
C2---C1---C10---C9 −144.8 (13) C2\'---C1\'---C10\'---C5\' −27.7 (10)
C6---C5---C10---C1\" −173.6 (14) C2\'---C1\'---C10\'---C9\' −143.9 (8)
C4---C5---C10---C1\" 55.6 (14) C6\'---C5\'---C10\'---C1\* −168.0 (14)
C6---C5---C10---C20 70.0 (4) C4\'---C5\'---C10\'---C1\* 62.0 (14)
C4---C5---C10---C20 −60.8 (4) C6\'---C5\'---C10\'---C20\' 70.6 (4)
C6---C5---C10---C1 −169.3 (8) C4\'---C5\'---C10\'---C20\' −59.4 (4)
C4---C5---C10---C1 59.9 (9) C6\'---C5\'---C10\'---C1\' −170.3 (5)
C6---C5---C10---C9 −55.9 (4) C4\'---C5\'---C10\'---C1\' 59.7 (6)
C4---C5---C10---C9 173.3 (3) C6\'---C5\'---C10\'---C9\' −54.1 (4)
C11---C9---C10---C1\" −59 (2) C4\'---C5\'---C10\'---C9\' 175.9 (3)
C8---C9---C10---C1\" 170 (2) C11\'---C9\'---C10\'---C1\* −67 (3)
C11---C9---C10---C20 61.0 (5) C8\'---C9\'---C10\'---C1\* 161 (3)
C8---C9---C10---C20 −70.1 (5) C11\'---C9\'---C10\'---C20\' 61.1 (5)
C11---C9---C10---C1 −59.7 (10) C8\'---C9\'---C10\'---C20\' −70.7 (5)
C8---C9---C10---C1 169.2 (9) C11\'---C9\'---C10\'---C1\' −58.6 (6)
C11---C9---C10---C5 −174.7 (4) C8\'---C9\'---C10\'---C1\' 169.7 (6)
C8---C9---C10---C5 54.2 (4) C11\'---C9\'---C10\'---C5\' −176.3 (4)
C10---C9---C11---C12 −97.5 (5) C8\'---C9\'---C10\'---C5\' 52.0 (4)
C8---C9---C11---C12 36.1 (6) C10\'---C9\'---C11\'---C12\' −96.8 (5)
C9---C11---C12---C13 −42.9 (7) C8\'---C9\'---C11\'---C12\' 37.2 (6)
C11---C12---C13---C16 −49.3 (6) C9\'---C11\'---C12\'---C13\' −43.4 (6)
C11---C12---C13---C14 62.6 (6) C11\'---C12\'---C13\'---C16\' −49.3 (6)
C21---O4---C14---C13 −149.3 (4) C11\'---C12\'---C13\'---C14\' 62.1 (5)
C21---O4---C14---C8 99.4 (5) C21\'---O4\'---C14\'---C8\' 102.2 (5)
C16---C13---C14---O4 −74.1 (4) C21\'---O4\'---C14\'---C13\' −146.4 (4)
C12---C13---C14---O4 167.8 (4) C7\'---C8\'---C14\'---O4\' −49.8 (5)
C16---C13---C14---C8 42.5 (4) C15\'---C8\'---C14\'---O4\' 71.8 (4)
C12---C13---C14---C8 −75.6 (4) C9\'---C8\'---C14\'---O4\' −177.8 (3)
C15---C8---C14---O4 71.9 (4) C7\'---C8\'---C14\'---C13\' −163.2 (4)
C7---C8---C14---O4 −49.2 (5) C15\'---C8\'---C14\'---C13\' −41.6 (4)
C9---C8---C14---O4 −177.3 (3) C9\'---C8\'---C14\'---C13\' 68.9 (4)
C15---C8---C14---C13 −41.7 (4) C16\'---C13\'---C14\'---O4\' −73.8 (4)
C7---C8---C14---C13 −162.8 (4) C12\'---C13\'---C14\'---O4\' 168.3 (4)
C9---C8---C14---C13 69.1 (4) C16\'---C13\'---C14\'---C8\' 43.1 (4)
C7---C8---C15---O3 −24.0 (6) C12\'---C13\'---C14\'---C8\' −74.7 (4)
C14---C8---C15---O3 −153.2 (4) C14\'---C8\'---C15\'---O3\' −154.8 (5)
C9---C8---C15---O3 92.4 (5) C7\'---C8\'---C15\'---O3\' −26.0 (6)
C7---C8---C15---C16 155.7 (3) C9\'---C8\'---C15\'---O3\' 91.4 (5)
C14---C8---C15---C16 26.5 (4) C14\'---C8\'---C15\'---C16\' 25.8 (4)
C9---C8---C15---C16 −87.9 (4) C7\'---C8\'---C15\'---C16\' 154.7 (4)
O3---C15---C16---C17 −6.3 (8) C9\'---C8\'---C15\'---C16\' −87.9 (4)
C8---C15---C16---C17 174.1 (5) O3\'---C15\'---C16\'---C17\' −3.1 (8)
O3---C15---C16---C13 178.7 (4) C8\'---C15\'---C16\'---C17\' 176.2 (5)
C8---C15---C16---C13 −1.0 (5) O3\'---C15\'---C16\'---C13\' −179.1 (5)
C14---C13---C16---C17 159.8 (5) C8\'---C15\'---C16\'---C13\' 0.3 (5)
C12---C13---C16---C17 −85.6 (7) C12\'---C13\'---C16\'---C17\' −87.3 (7)
C14---C13---C16---C15 −25.4 (4) C14\'---C13\'---C16\'---C17\' 158.1 (6)
C12---C13---C16---C15 89.1 (5) C12\'---C13\'---C16\'---C15\' 88.2 (5)
C14---O4---C21---O5 6.5 (8) C14\'---C13\'---C16\'---C15\' −26.4 (5)
C14---O4---C21---C22 −175.3 (5) C14\'---O4\'---C21\'---O5\' 4.0 (8)
C10\'---C1\'---C2\'---C3\' −28.0 (14) C14\'---O4\'---C21\'---C22\' −174.3 (5)
---------------------------- ------------- ------------------------------- -------------
Hydrogen-bond geometry (Å, °) {#tablewraphbondslong}
=============================
------------------------ --------- --------- ----------- ---------------
*D*---H···*A* *D*---H H···*A* *D*···*A* *D*---H···*A*
O2---H2O···O1^i^ 0.82 2.09 2.747 (6) 137
O2---H2O···O1^i^ 0.82 2.09 2.747 (6) 137
O2\'---H2O\'···O1\'^i^ 0.82 2.05 2.764 (5) 146
O2\'---H2O\'···O1\*^i^ 0.82 2.24 2.89 (3) 136
------------------------ --------- --------- ----------- ---------------
Symmetry codes: (i) *x*, *y*, *z*−1.
###### Hydrogen-bond geometry (Å, °)
-------------------- --------- ------- ----------- -------------
Symmetry code: (i) .
| |
PIEDMONT — The beauty and ambiance that trees bring to this city are coveted by its residents.
So when it was announced earlier this year that 48 trees on Magnolia Avenue would be removed to make way for a paving project, residents were up in arms. After several public meetings and robust opposition, the 48 doomed trees were reduced to 18.
The Piedmont Park Commission at its Aug. 7 meeting discussed a concept plan presented by parks and project manager Nancy Kent to keep the street beautified with trees. The tree planting plan would include the entire stretch of Magnolia from Nova Drive to Hillside Avenue. The liquidambar trees, as they’re known, that need to be removed would be replaced with newer trees. Larger trees could be planted where there are no utility wires overhead; smaller trees could be planted where there are utility wires.
The commission favors autumn blaze maple for the large trees and Chinese pistache for the smaller trees. There are about 22 pistache trees at the location now. Kent developed a color-coded map that shows what trees could go where.
“Trees are prominent on Magnolia. We want to get as many on the street as possible,” Kent said.
Commissioner Jim Horner said that, “The pistache is very appealing. This is important to the community.”
Horner also suggested some incentives to homeowners to water the street trees, which is their responsibility. Kent noted that some trees are not watered and get watered by Public Works to save them. Public Works Director Chester Nakahara assured the commissioners that existing trees are generally not removed unless they are diseased or unstable. Several commissioners supported planting larger trees along Magnolia whenever possible.
In other business, Piedmont Center for the Arts founder Nancy Lehrkind presented her idea to create a “Philosopher’s Walk” in Piedmont Park. It would consist of signs bearing QR codes to be read with cell phones on a self-guiding walk that would feature teachings of a different philosopher every month.
“It would be educational for all school grades and adults too,” Lehrkind said. “You could sit on a park bench and contemplate what the philosopher said.”
The commission found the idea intriguing but felt it has to be vetted more. They had concerns about setting a precedent with a “private” program taking place in a public park.
Commission liaison Mayor Bob McBain generally seemed to like the plan.
“It’s a great idea. Let’s see how and where it might be implemented,” McBain said. | https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2019/08/15/piedmont-parks-panel-considers-new-trees-for-magnolia-avenue/ |
VACCINATIONPosted by blitzems in Puppy Info
In the past, infectious diseases such as those caused by parvovirus and distemper virus, have been a significant cause of illness and death in dogs, especially young animals. Vaccination against these and other diseases has proved to be a very effective means of reducing the incidence of these diseases.
There is some variation according to country and region and it is important to discuss a suitable vaccination programme with your local veterinarian. The vaccination will involve an initial course of injections followed by booster injections at various times throughout your dog’s life.
These booster injections help maintain his immunity, but they also provide a good opportunity for your veterinarian to carry out a full health check. You can use this opportunity to ask any questions about your dog’s health, but don’t wait until a booster is due before seeking advice for a medical complaint. Remember, always consult your veterinarian or the practice’s trained nursing staff if you are in doubt about your dog’s wellbeing. | http://www.bravadobe.com/cms/?p=1301 |
Ethel M's awe inspiring Botanical Cactus Garden is Nevada's largest and one of the world's most complete collections of cacti and other succulents. The plants are laid out in a very natural looking three acre setting and, of course, they are all chosen for their drought resistant qualities.
The garden contains over 300 species of plants. Fully half are cacti and succulents mostly native to the American Southwest. The remainder are desert trees and shrubs from the Southwestern U.S, Australia, and South America. All of these plants were chosen for their beauty and their adaptability to the climate of Southern Nevada.
One thing all the plants have in common - a determination to survive in some of the most inhospitable conditions.
Some of the plants offer respite from the sun while others provide food.
Not every plant is harsh and threatening, some produce lovely blossoms in addition to thorns.
And they are a wonderland of textures.
Credits: | https://spark.adobe.com/page/tUeV8ORvKf3ML/ |
The Gros-Horloge is a fourteenth-century astronomical clock in Rouen, Normandy.
En ünlü izlenimci ressam Claude Monet'in (örneğin Nilüferleri ile ünlü) evinden yürüyün ve resimlerine ilham veren bahçelerinde dolaşın.
Rouen Cathedral is a Roman Catholic church in Rouen, Normandy, France. It is the see of the Archbishop of Rouen, Primate of Normandy.
The Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey is located within the city and island of Mont-Saint-Michel in Lower Normandy, in the department of Manche.
The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial is a World War II cemetery and memorial in Colleville-sur-Mer, Normandy, France, that honors…
The Longues-sur-Mer battery was a World War II German artillery battery constructed near the French village of Longues-sur-Mer in Normandy.
The Normandy landings were the landing operations on Tuesday, 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during…
Bayeux işlemesi, 1066 yılındaki Hastings Muharebesi sonucu Normanlar tarafından ele geçirilen İngiltere’nin tarihini Norman bakış açısıyla…
The Mémorial de Caen is a museum and war memorial in Caen, Normandy, France commemorating World War II and the Battle for Caen.
The Abbey of Saint-Étienne, also known as Abbaye aux Hommes by contrast with the Abbaye aux Dames, is a former Benedictine monastery in the…
La Cambe is a Second World War German military war grave cemetery, located close to the American landing beach of Omaha, and 25.5 km north…
The Juno Beach Centre or, in French, Centre Juno Beach, is a museum located in Courseulles-sur-Mer in the Calvados region of Normandy,…
Visit this Neo-Gothic/Neo-Renaissance architectural jewel which houses a museum of religious art and also produces the famous Bénédictine…
Rouen Castle was a fortified ducal and royal residence in the city of Rouen, capital of the duchy of Normandy, now in France.
The Airborne Museum is a French museum dedicated to the memory of paratroopers of the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions of the United…
The Maisy Battery is a group of World War II artillery batteries constructed by the Wehrmacht near the French village of Grandcamp-Maisy in…
Château Gaillard is a ruined medieval castle, located 90 metres above the commune of Les Andelys overlooking the River Seine, in the Eure…
Everything there is to know about the Normandy invasion, you will get to know right here. A must-visit for military history fans.
The Château de Dieppe is a castle in the French town of Dieppe in the Seine-Maritime département.The castle was founded in 1188, and was…
The Basilica of Sainte-Thérèse of Lisieux is a Roman Catholic church and minor basilica dedicated to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux.
Claude Monet, Fransız empresyonist ressam. Oscar-Claude Monet veya Claude Oscar Monet olarak da bilinir. | https://travel.sygic.com/tr/list/normandy-neler-gorulmeli-region:60874 |
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
TECHNICAL FIELD
This application claims priority to Singapore Patent Application No. 10201910680X, filed Nov. 14, 2019, entitled “Methods and Systems for Facilitating Reward Tracking and Redemption Platform for Airline Travellers”, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The present disclosure relates to rewarding airline travellers and, more particularly to, methods and systems for facilitating a reward tracking and redemption platform based on a baggage weight carried by the airline traveller at the time of checking into the flight.
BACKGROUND
Nowadays, many people opt for airline travels as the airline companies provide competitive costs, early booking discounts apart from being a time-efficient means of travel. As more and more people travel through airlines, the airline companies need to maintain various regulations such as baggage allowance, security checks, and the like. It is estimated that if every flight loses a kilogram of baggage weight, it can save more than hundred kilolitres of fuel every year which is equivalent to a huge amount of money saving for the airline company. In order to achieve fuel and cost savings and thereby increase the profits, excess baggage fees are becoming more popular with the airlines, particularly the budget airlines, as a way of seeking extra revenue from passengers. Each airline has developed its own baggage rules governing when and how much excess baggage fees it will charge. For example, any baggage that exceeds the provider-defined weight threshold is typically charged an additional fee that is proportionate with its measured weight.
Moreover, when a passenger has exceeded the baggage allowance, he is either forced to repack and discard luggage at the check-in counter, or he must pay for the excess baggage, sometimes at a different desk, before returning to complete the check-in procedure or baggage drop. This can be frustrating to the passenger, with the potential to cause delays and the possibility for the passenger to miss the flight. Thus, a penalizing system from the airline companies already exists that charges more for higher weight of the baggage, however, currently, there is no reward system available that encourages a passenger to carry baggage with lower weight and earn rewards for the same.
Accordingly, there is a need for techniques that inspire passengers into carrying under-limit weight baggage in flight through rewards, thereby, creating a win-win situation for the passengers and the airlines and, as a side beneficial effect, diverting the environment implications of air travel to a great extent.
SUMMARY
Various embodiments of the present disclosure provide systems, methods, electronic devices and computer program products to facilitate reward tracking and redemption platform for airline travellers.
In an embodiment, a computer-implemented method is disclosed. The method includes receiving, by a server system associated with a payment network, an airline ticket booking notification. The airline ticket booking notification includes a booking information of an airline ticket purchased by a user using a payment card. Using a payment card information of the payment card, the method includes checking, by the server system, if a Universal Account Number (UAN) is assigned to the user. If the UAN is assigned to the user, the method includes retrieving, by the server system, the UAN based on receiving the airline ticket booking notification. If the UAN is not assigned to the user, the method includes assigning, by the server system, the UAN to the user. The method includes linking, by the server system, the UAN to the purchased airline ticket. The method includes facilitating, by the server system, a reward tracking and redemption platform. The reward tracking and redemption platform at least includes one or more reward points assigned to the UAN. The one or more reward points are generated based at least on difference of a baggage weight carried by the user versus the baggage weight allowed by an airline enterprise of the purchased airline ticket.
In another embodiment, a server system in a payment network is provided. The server system includes a communication interface configured to receive an airline ticket booking notification. The airline ticket booking notification includes a booking information of an airline ticket purchased by a user using a payment card. The server system includes a memory comprising executable instructions and a processor communicably coupled to the communication interface. The processor is configured to execute the instructions to cause the server system to at least check if a Universal Account Number (UAN) is assigned to the user using a payment card information of the payment card. If the UAN is assigned to the user, the server system is further caused to retrieve the UAN based on receiving the airline ticket booking notification. If the UAN is not assigned to the user, the server system is further caused to assign the UAN to the user. The server system is further caused to link the UAN to the purchased airline ticket. The server system is further caused to facilitate a reward tracking and redemption platform. The reward tracking and redemption platform at least includes one or more reward points assigned to the UAN. The one or more reward points are generated based at least on difference of a baggage weight carried by the user versus the baggage weight allowed by an airline enterprise of the purchased airline ticket.
In yet another embodiment, a computer program product is provided. The computer program product includes at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. The computer-readable storage medium includes a set of instructions. The set of instructions when executed by one or more processors in an electronic device, cause the electronic device to at least receive an airline ticket booking notification. The airline ticket booking notification includes a booking information of an airline ticket purchased by a user using a payment card. The electronic device is further caused to check if a Universal Account Number (UAN) is assigned to the user using a payment card information of the payment card. If the UAN is assigned to the user, the electronic device is further caused to retrieve the UAN based on receiving the airline ticket booking notification. If the UAN is not assigned to the user, the electronic device is further caused to assign the UAN to the user. The electronic device is further caused to link the UAN to the purchased airline ticket. The electronic device is further caused to facilitate a reward tracking and redemption platform. The reward tracking and redemption platform at least includes one or more reward points assigned to the UAN. The one or more reward points are generated based at least on difference of a baggage weight carried by the user versus the baggage weight allowed by an airline enterprise of the purchased airline ticket.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES
For a more complete understanding of example embodiments of the present technology, reference is now made to the following descriptions taken in connection with the accompanying drawings in which:
FIG. 1
illustrates an example representation of an environment, related to at least some example embodiments of the present disclosure;
FIGS. 2A and 2B
collectively represent an example representation of assigning a Universal Account Number (UAN) using corresponding User Interfaces (UIs) of a reward tracking and redemption platform facilitated on a user device, in accordance with an example embodiment;
FIG. 3
represents a sequence flow diagram representing assigning of the UAN based on an airline ticket purchased by a user using a payment card, in accordance with an example embodiment;
FIG. 4
represents a simplified block diagram representation of a plurality of factors considered to generate reward points, in accordance with an example embodiment;
FIG. 5
represents an example representation of a UI of the reward tracking and redemption platform enlisting a plurality of redemption options, in accordance with an example embodiment;
FIG. 6
illustrates a flow diagram of a method for facilitating the reward tracking and redemption platform for airline travellers, in accordance with an example embodiment;
FIG. 7
is a simplified block diagram of a server system, in accordance with one embodiment of the present disclosure; and
FIG. 8
shows simplified block diagram of a user device capable of implementing at least some embodiments of the present disclosure.
The drawings referred to in this description are not to be understood as being drawn to scale except if specifically noted, and such drawings are only exemplary in nature.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
In the following description, for purposes of explanation, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present disclosure. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that the present disclosure can be practiced without these specific details.
Reference in this specification to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure, or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present disclosure. The appearances of the phrase “in an embodiment” at various places in the specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment, nor to separate or alternative embodiments mutually exclusive of other embodiments. Moreover, various features are described which may be exhibited by some embodiments and not by others. Similarly, various requirements are described which may be requirements for some embodiments but not for other embodiments.
Moreover, although the following description contains many specifics for the purposes of illustration, anyone skilled in the art will appreciate that many variations and/or alterations to said details are within the scope of the present disclosure. Similarly, although many of the features of the present disclosure are described in terms of each other, or in conjunction with each other, one skilled in the art will appreciate that many of these features can be provided independently of other features. Accordingly, this description of the present disclosure is set forth without any loss of generality to, and without imposing limitations upon, the present disclosure.
The term “payment account” used throughout the description refers to a financial account that is used to fund the financial transaction (interchangeably referred to as “payment transaction”). Examples of the payment account include, but are not limited to a savings account, a credit account, a checking account and a virtual payment account. The payment account may be associated with an entity such as an individual person, a family, a commercial entity, a company, a corporation, a governmental entity, a non-profit organization and the like. In some scenarios, a payment account may be a virtual or temporary payment account that can be mapped or linked to a primary payment account, such as those accounts managed by PayPal®, and the like.
The term “payment network”, used throughout the description, refers to a network or collection of systems used for transfer of funds through use of cash-substitutes. Payment networks may use a variety of different protocols and procedures in order to process the transfer of money for various types of transactions. Transactions that may be performed via a payment network may include product or service purchases, credit purchases, debit transactions, fund transfers, account withdrawals, etc. Payment networks may be configured to perform transactions via cash-substitutes, which may include payment cards, letters of credit, checks, financial accounts, etc. Examples of networks or systems configured to perform as payment networks include those operated by Mastercard®, VISA®, Discover®, American Express®, etc.
The term “payment card”, used throughout the description, refers to a physical or virtual card linked with a financial or payment account that may be used to fund a financial transaction to a merchant or any such facility via the associated payment account. Examples of the payment card include, but are not limited to, debit cards, credit cards, prepaid cards, virtual payment numbers, virtual card numbers, forex cards, charge cards and stored-value cards. A payment card may be a physical card that may be presented to the merchant for funding the payment. Alternatively, or additionally, the payment card may be embodied in form of data (e.g., a digital token) stored in a user device, where the data is associated with the payment account such that the data can be used to process the financial transaction between the payment account and a merchant's financial account.
Overview
Various example embodiments of the present disclosure provide methods, systems, user devices and computer program products for facilitating a reward tracking and redemption program/platform for the airline travellers who carry under-limit baggage weight during their flights.
In various example embodiments, the present disclosure provides a server system configured to facilitate a reward tracking and redemption platform that includes one or more User Interfaces (UIs) using which the user is enabled to register on the platform to avail a plurality of features such as rewards earning, rewards tracking and rewards redemption. Upon successfully registering on the platform using a corresponding UI, the user is assigned a Universal Account Number (UAN) by the server system. The UAN is used by the user and the server system for rewards tracking purposes.
In one embodiment, the server system is configured to receive an airline ticket booking notification of an airline ticket purchased by a user using a payment card. The server system is an interchange server associated with a payment network. The server system is configured to retrieve a payment card information of the payment card used by the user to purchase the airline ticket. Using the payment card information of the payment card, the server system checks if a UAN is assigned to the user. If the user is already registered with the reward tracking and redemption platform, the UAN would already be assigned to the user. In that scenario, the server system retrieves the UAN from a database by identifying the user using the payment card information. If the UAN is not assigned to the user i.e. if the user is not already registered on the platform, but has only used the payment card to purchase the airline ticket, the server system is configured to assign a new UAN to the user. The server system also links the UAN to the purchased airline ticket in order to add applicable rewards.
In one embodiment, the one or more reward points are generated by calculating difference of a baggage weight carried by the user from the baggage weight allowed by an airline enterprise of the purchased airline ticket. For example, if the user is carrying 15 kilograms baggage weight and the baggage allowance for the purchased airline ticket is 20 kilograms, rewards points equal to 5 kilograms of the differences are assigned to UAN of the user. The conversion rate to generate the reward points is dependent on various other factors/parameters rather than only considering the baggage weight difference. For example, the one or more reward points are generated based on a time-duration of a travel route retrieved from a booking information of the purchased airline ticket. The booking information is retrieved by the server system from the airline ticket booking notification. In various scenarios, the one or more reward points are generated based on a frequency usage of the travel route, a popularity of the travel route, a popularity of the airline enterprise and the like.
In one embodiment, the server system is configured to facilitate one or more pre-travel promotional offers to the user via the airline enterprise for carrying an under-limit baggage weight. For example, the one or more pre-travel promotional offers are facilitated to the user based on a number of booked tickets for the travel route of the user, an estimation of total baggage weight that would be there for the travel route of the user, an estimation of the baggage weight of the user for the travel route of the user as determined from the past records and the like. Further, in order to encourage the user for carrying an under-limit baggage weight, the server system is configured to deduct one or more reward points by calculating difference between a higher baggage weight carried by the user and the baggage weight allowed by the airline enterprise of the purchased airline ticket.
As more and more reward points get accumulated to the UAN of the user, the user is enabled to redeem the accumulated rewards points using the reward tracking and redemption platform or in-person at the airport. For example, the one or more accumulated reward points may be redeemed by the user using a seat preference, a higher class lounge privileges, an assignment of the one or more reward points to another user, a purchase of an over-limit baggage weight, a purchase of an in-flight meal, a purchase of an in-flight itinerary payment, a cash redemption, a purchase from a different airline alliance and the like.
FIGS. 1 to 8
Various example embodiments of present disclosure are described hereinafter with reference to .
FIG. 1
100
102
104
106
106
108
104
104
104
illustrates an example representation of an environment , in which at least some example embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented. An airport terminal is shown to include a check-in counter , a self-service kiosk (hereinafter alternatively referred to as kiosk ) and a merchant . The check-in counter may be provided with a respective terminal for accessing passenger records via a computer network. The check-in counter typically includes baggage weighing scales, usually mounted underneath a conveyer belt passing to the side of the check-in counter for delivering the baggage to the baggage handling services.
106
106
106
106
108
108
102
108
102
102
The kiosk may include any kiosk via which a traveler may perform travel-related functions and/or access travel-related information. For example, the kiosk provides facilities such as check in for a flight, printing a boarding pass, change a seat on a flight, print an electronic ticket receipt, bag-drop, and the like. The kiosk may also be provided with baggage weighing scales mounted underneath a conveyer belt passing to the side of the kiosk for providing the bag drop facility. The merchant may include any types of businesses carried by the merchant in the airport terminal . For example, the merchant may include retail stores, restaurants, spas, and the like. The airport terminal may also include business class lounges for the passengers to relax. It is noted that the airport terminal may include various other facilities for the passenger and there may be present a plurality of check-in counters per airline, a plurality of kiosks per airline and a plurality of merchants.
104
106
As part of the normal check-in procedure, a passenger/a traveller/a user is required to have his or her bags counted and weighed by an operator working for the airline company/airline enterprise, to check that the passenger is within the allowed baggage allowance for that airline for the ticket he/she is travelling on at the check-in counter . Alternatively, the traveller may be enabled to self-weigh the baggage at the kiosk . In at least one embodiment, if the traveller is carrying a baggage weight lesser than the baggage weight allowed by the airline company, the traveller is incentivized with applicable reward points that may be redeemed by the traveller for various air travel related purchases later.
110
110
To achieve this, a server system such as the server system is disclosed. In one embodiment, the server system is associated with a payment network (not shown). The payment network may be used by the payment cards issuing authorities as a payment interchange network. Examples of payment interchange network include, but not limited to, Mastercard® payment system interchange network. The Mastercard® payment system interchange network is a proprietary communications standard promulgated by Mastercard International Incorporated® for the exchange of financial transaction data amongst financial institutions that are members of Mastercard International Incorporated®. (Mastercard is a registered trademark of Mastercard International Incorporated located in Purchase, N.Y.). Further, Masterpass is a digital wallet facilitated by Mastercard® payment system interchange network that allows the user to check out by storing payment and shipping information in one secure location for a simple, fast, and secure checkout experience on online purchases as well as in shops. For example, instead of filling in or typing his or her e-mail address and a password or providing other information to proceed on a checkout page, the user may be prompted to directly sign into a particular Masterpass wallet for selecting a particular payment card account and/or shipping address and the like, to complete the purchase.
112
112
In a scenario, a user (not shown) purchases an airline ticket from an airline website running on his user device using a payment card. Examples of the user device include, but are not limited to, a personal computer (PC), a mobile phone, a tablet device, a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), a voice activated assistant, a Virtual Reality (VR) device, a smartphone and a laptop. Alternatively, the airline ticket may be purchased from any of an airline mobile application, a travel agency, via a tele booking, in-person purchase from the airport or via Masterpass® wallet application. A financial institution normally called as an “issuer bank” or “issuing bank” or simply “issuer”, in which the user may have an account issues a payment card, such as a credit card or a debit card to the user.
110
Once the ticket is purchased using the payment card, an acquirer server associated with the airline enterprise sends the payment card information of the payment card to the payment interchange server i.e. the server system for verification of the payment card and the cardholder via the payment network. Example of the payment card information include a payment card number (e.g., xxxx xxxx xxxx xxxx where ‘x’ is an integral number) of the payment card, an expiry date (e.g., MM/YYYY, month and year of expiry), a Card Verification Value (CVV) number (e.g., *** where * is an integral number) and the like. Alternatively, the payment card information may include information such as cardholder's payment account number, or any identification number associated with the payment card.
110
110
Using the payment card information, the server system is configured to check if a Universal Account Number (UAN) is assigned to the user. In at least one embodiment, the UAN is used by the server system to assign one or more reward points to the passenger/user by calculating difference of a baggage weight carried by the user versus the baggage weight allowed by the airline enterprise of the purchased airline ticket. In another embodiment, the UAN is used by the user at various participating airline enterprises to redeem the accumulated reward points earned by carrying under-limit baggage weight.
110
112
112
Further, in order to provide the access of the earned/accumulated reward points and their redemption to the user, the server system is configured to facilitate a reward tracking and redemption platform. The reward tracking and redemption platform is facilitated by means of a web application or a mobile application that can run on the user device . The reward tracking and redemption platform facilitated by means of a web application or a mobile application (e.g., Masterpass facilitated by Mastercard® payment system interchange network) that includes one or more User Interfaces (UIs) for reward tracking and redemption is hereinafter alternatively referred to as a reward application that can run on the user device . The reward application allows the user to track his accumulated reward points and redeem the accumulated reward points for future purchases.
110
110
150
112
110
In one example embodiment, the server system may store the reward application and provision instances of the application to end-users on their respective user devices for facilitating the reward tracking and redemption. The end-users may request the server system to provision access to the reward application over a network . The application may thereafter be downloaded on the user devices (such as the user device ) of the respective end-users in response to their request for access to the application. Alternatively, in some embodiments, the application may be factory installed within the user devices associated with the end-users and, as such, the users may not need to explicitly request the application from the server system .
110
102
112
150
150
150
The server system is shown in communication with the airport terminal and the user device via a network such as the network . Examples of the network may include any type of wired network, wireless network, or a combination of wired and wireless networks. A wireless network may be a wireless local area network (“WLAN”), a wireless wide area network (“WWAN”), or any other type of wireless network now known or later developed. Additionally, the network may be or include the Internet, intranets, extranets, microwave networks, satellite communications, cellular systems, personal communication services (“PCS”), infrared communications, global area networks, or other suitable networks, etc., or any combination of two or more such networks.
FIG. 2A-2B
FIG. 5
Since the user is encouraged to carry under-limit baggage weight by way of rewards, the airline industry saves a fortune on the fuel consumption. Further, as the rewards are redeemable at various associated merchant facilities of the airport, their businesses also get profited. Rather than providing only frequent flying benefits to the traveller by the airline industry, by using the embodiments of the present disclosure, the user in incentivized for carrying lesser baggage weight which results in an additional, not yet recognized, benefit for the airline industry. For instance, if a lower than average baggage load is anticipated, the airline may opt to transport commercial cargo on the flight, thereby creating an additional revenue source. Some non-exhaustive example embodiments of facilitating the reward tracking and redemption platform to the airline travellers are described with reference to the following description, particularly with reference to to .
FIGS. 2A and 2B
FIG. 2A
200
200
200
112
collectively represent an example representation of assigning a Universal Account Number (UAN) using corresponding User Interfaces (UIs) A and B of a reward tracking and redemption platform facilitated on a user device, in accordance with an example embodiment. represents a UI A displaying a sign-up/login page of the reward application running on the user device .
200
202
204
206
204
206
208
110
110
As shown in the UI A, a header of the reward application displaying text ‘reward tracking and redemption platform’ is shown. Form fields and respectively seek a username and a password to be entered from the user for signing up for the application. For example, the user may enter ‘[email protected]’ as a username in the form field and a password of his choice in the form field . Upon entering the required information, the user may click a button labeled as ‘Sign-up’ to complete the user registration process. The server system , upon receiving a registration request from the user, is configured to provide the user an access to the reward application to utilize various features of the reward application. Further, upon successfully registering the user, the server system is configured to assign a UAN to the user.
FIG. 2B
FIG. 3
200
200
210
212
110
110
This is shown with reference to that represents a UI B. The UI B displays a message displaying text, ‘congratulations! Your Universal Account Number (UAN) is:’. The UAN is displayed using an information field . The UAN is exemplarily displayed as ‘123456ABC’. Thus, the assignment of a UAN to a newly registered user is completed by the server system . In at least one embodiment, even if a user is not registered on the reward application, a corresponding UAN is assigned to the user by the server system . This is explained in detail with reference to hereinafter.
FIG. 3
300
represents a sequence flow diagram representing assigning of the UAN based on an airline ticket purchased by a user using a payment card, in accordance with an example embodiment.
305
112
110
310
At , a user purchases an airline ticket from an airline website running on the user device using a payment card. As soon as the ticket is purchased, the payment card information and an airline ticket booking notification are sent by an acquirer of the airline enterprise to the server system (see, ). The airline ticket booking notification includes booking information of the purchased ticket. Examples of the booking information include, but are not limited to, a time-duration of a travel route, traveller information (e.g., name, address, mobile number, email ID and the like), flight information (e.g., date, time, name of the airline, originating and terminating locations, flight number and the like), and the like.
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At , the server system is configured to retrieve the booking information. In one embodiment, the booking information is stored in a database of the server system and later utilized to determine one or more rewards points for the traveller.
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At , the server system is configured to check if a UAN is assigned to the user using the payment card information of the user. In at least one embodiment, the UAN is always associated with the payment card of the user. Therefore, at first, the server system is configured to identify and verify the user by matching the payment card information received from the acquirer with the payment card information stored in the database of the server system . If both payment card information match successfully, the user is identified and verified. Thereafter, the server system checks if the UAN is stored against the payment card of the user in the database.
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FIG. 2
At , if a UAN does not exist, the server system is configured to assign a UAN to the user. The assigned UAN is stored against payment card of the user that was used to purchase the airline ticket in the database of the server system . As explained with reference to , if the user has already registered himself on the reward application, a UAN is automatically assigned to him upon completion of the registration and stored against a payment card of the user.
330
Therefore, at , the UAN is retrieved if it is already assigned to the user. The UAN helps the user to receive rewards even from purchasing an airline ticket from an affiliated travel agency. For example, after purchasing the ticket from the affiliated travel agency, the user may be enabled to provide the UAN to the travel agency for adding the applicable reward points for the purchase.
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At , the UAN is linked to the purchased airline ticket by the server system . The UAN generation process completes at step .
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In one embodiment, upon generation and assignment of the UAN, and linking the UAN with the purchased airline ticket, when the user reaches the check-in counter with his baggage to compete the check-in procedure, his baggage weight is calculated by the operator. If the baggage weight is less than the threshold limit, the difference amount of the baggage weight is sent by the airport terminal to the server system via the network . The server system is configured to convert the difference amount to equivalent reward points and assign those reward points to the UAN of the user.
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In one example embodiment, the reward point conversion of the excess weight varies from airline to airline based on the partnership with reward tracking and redemption platform. For example, in case of an excess baggage, reward points equivalent to the difference amount of the baggage weight are deducted by the server system along with the monetary compensation charged by the airline enterprise. This feature additionally encourages the user to carry lesser baggage weight for not losing the already earned rewards in past. The more a passenger contributes in fuel saving to the airline, the more he is rewarded by the server system , thus motivating the passenger to carry lighter luggage.
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FIG. 4
In at least one embodiment, the user is enabled to redeem the accumulated rewards points in future. For example, the passenger would be entitled to use the reward points on his further bookings via payment card-based transactions on any airline in the existing network. For instance, if the user intends to book an airline ticket from India to New York, the user can use the existing rewards for paying a certain portion of that ticket by providing the UAN straight away at the booking portal so as to redeem those rewards. Thus, using a single UAN, the user, the airline enterprise and the server system are enabled to coordinate with one another to manage and redeem rewards with less complexity. The UAN is also used to track user behaviour in future transactions. In one embodiment, apart from the difference of the baggage weight carried by the user, the server system is configured to consider various other factors to determine the reward points for the travel route of the user. This is explained in detail with reference to hereinafter.
FIG. 4
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represents a simplified block diagram representation of a plurality of factors considered to generate reward points, in accordance with an example embodiment. A plurality of factors such as a baggage weight , a length (i.e., a time-duration) of the travel route , a frequency usage of the travel route , a popularity of the travel route , and a popularity of the airline is considered by the server system for reward points generation .
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FIG. 3
The baggage weight based reward points generation is explained hereinabove with reference to . Further, in an example embodiment, the server system may calculate a simple average or arithmetic mean of historically carried baggage weight percentages with respect to the allowed baggage weight of a passenger and may determine that the passenger carries a consistently higher baggage weight. That value may be used by the server system to provide more reward points to the passenger to encourage him to carry lower baggage weight.
404
The length of the travel route is considered in terms that the longer routes are prone to higher baggage weights carried by the passengers. Therefore, the longer routes will have a reward points conversion factor different than the shorter routes. For example, the traveler travelling on an international flight carrying under-limit baggage weight is provided more rewards/reward points compared to another traveler travelling on a domestic flight carrying the same amount of under-limit baggage weight.
406
The frequency of usage of the travel route is considered in terms of both the individual airline, as well as the airline industry as a whole. More frequently used travel routes have a higher conversion factor to determine the reward points. For example, a traveler travelling on a particular travel route is tracked to know which airline is used by the traveler to travel that particular route every time and based on that the reward points are determined.
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The popularity of the travel route (i.e., traffic on the travel route) is considered in terms of number of individuals travelling via the travel route. More popular routes with higher weight carrying passengers have a lower conversion factor. Similarly, popularity of the airline is considered in terms that popular airlines may have higher conversion factor to determine the reward points. In one embodiment, the airline enterprise provides the actual data called addendum data (e.g., route start and end date, destinations, length of travel history etc.) relevant to the above mentioned factors to the server system to generate the reward points. For example, an airline may opt to monitor and evaluate the baggage history for selected travellers over a designated period (e.g., the preceding 5 years, the last flights, etc.) and send the corresponding data to the server system to create rewards or merits.
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An example of considering the flight timings (one more example of a factor for reward points generation ) of two passengers for the same travel route for determining their respective reward points is explained in hereinafter. A passenger is traveling on a Delhi-Mumbai flight (which is heavily booked being a popular route) at 2:00 pm in the afternoon. Another passenger is travelling on the same route using the same airline at 1:00 am in the early morning. Apparently, the amount of weight carried by the passenger at 2:00 pm flight would be different than the amount of weight carried by the passenger at 1:00 am. This scenario will have different implications on reward points generation . Both the passengers will not get the same kind of benefits and the point consumption even if coincidently they happen to carry the same amount of under-limit baggage weight. Further, a person travelling with family generally carries more baggage weight than travelling alone. This will again change the implications of the reward points generation .
110
In one example embodiment, a colour-based score, or level, or a numeric value (examples of the reward points) that is calculated based on measured bag weights as a percentage of its designated flight allotment may be represented to the user using various UIs (not shown) by the server system . For example, a colour based score may be represented by way of a bar which has a starting value of zero kilogram that corresponds to certain reward points (e.g., one thousand reward points) and an ending value of maximum baggage allowance that corresponds to zero reward point. A level-based reward points may be represented by way of allotment ranges, e.g., zero to five kilograms would provide one thousand reward points, five to ten kilograms would provide five-hundred reward points and so on. By looking at such graphical representation, the user is enabled to determine how much baggage he should carry for the upcoming flight to earn the desired reward points.
110
In one embodiment, the server system is configured to facilitate one or more pre-travel promotional offers to the user via the airline enterprise for carrying an under-limit baggage weight. The one or more pre-travel promotional offers are facilitated to the user based on a number of booked tickets for the travel route of the user, an estimation of total baggage weight for the travel route of the user and an estimation of the baggage weight of the user. The estimation of total baggage weight for the travel route of the user is calculated using a predictive algorithm which may take into account other factors such as the previous luggage weight records of the users. The estimation of the baggage weight of the users is considered as a method to discourage users who have a previous record of carrying heavier luggage weight. Further, the airline company gets an option to streamline the weight across routes for each of its flights by targeting the user, through promotions, to carry lesser weight considering the current occupancy. Accordingly, the rewards can be increased or decreased based on the route's demand and supply.
FIG. 5
Thus, various embodiments of present disclosure provide an end-to-end weight-based reward system with emphasis on processes for reward generation, targeted promotional marketing and reward redemption presenting a holistic view of the system. Further, the generated rewards are available on the user's payment card itself. The rewards can be redeemed by swiping the payment card itself, hence reducing the need of additional infrastructure. Additional features of rewards redemption are explained in detail with reference to hereinafter.
FIG. 5
FIGS. 2A and 2B
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represents an example representation of a UI of the reward tracking and redemption platform enlisting a plurality of redemption options, in accordance with an example embodiment. As explained with reference to , if the user has already registered on the reward application, a UAN gets assigned to him. The UAN helps the user to redeem the accumulated reward points on the spot at the airport terminal or via the reward application. Accordingly, the reward application/the reward tracking and redemption platform header facilitates the UI on the user device displaying a plurality of reward redemption options such as a seat preference , an excess baggage weight , lounge privileges , assign your rewards (i.e., an assignment of the one or more reward points to another user), an in-flight purchase , a cash redemption , a purchase from another airline alliance and the like.
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The lounge privileges are shown to be selected by the user. Upon selecting preferred redemption option, the user may click a button labelled ‘Continue’ to submit the option. The server system , upon receiving the user preference from the reward application, is configured to notify the airport terminal of the user preference to make necessary arrangements. For example, the server system communicates with a computer network of a corresponding business class lounge present at the airport terminal via the network such that when the user reaches the lounge, he is only required to provide the UAN to the operator for verification and gets the entry to the lounge.
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In one example embodiment, the user is enabled to divide the accumulated reward points amongst more than one redemption options displayed on the UI . For example, if the user has one thousand reward points assigned to the UAN currently, then he may use two-hundred reward points for the seat preference , six-hundred reward points for an excess baggage weight that he intends to carry for the upcoming travel and still keep a balance of reaming two-hundred reward points. Upon selecting and submitting more than one reward redemption options on the UI , the reward application may direct the user to another UI (not shown) where he is enabled to distribute the reward points among the preferences. In another example embodiment, the reward points can be redeemed in some other form of already existing frequent flyer programs run by the airline enterprise.
110
From the foregoing embodiments and associated examples, it will be appreciated that the capability described herein provides various benefits for all interested parties, including but not limited to the airline travellers, airports, airlines, businesses/merchants located within airports, airline clubs, and the like. Further, the server system provides a mechanism to enroll on the reward tracking and generation platform through various means (e.g., online during a booking process and after completing the booking, online through an enrollment page (e.g., the reward application) even if not booking travel, from a call center, from a third-party system using web service, etc.).
FIG. 6
FIG. 1
FIG. 6
FIG. 6
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illustrates a flow diagram of a method for facilitating the reward tracking and redemption platform for airline travellers, in accordance with an example embodiment. The method depicted in the flow diagram may be executed by, for example, at least one server system such as the server system explained with reference to . Operations of the flow diagram shown in , and combinations of operations in the flow diagram of , may be implemented by, for example, hardware, firmware, a processor, circuitry and/or a different device associated with the execution of software that includes one or more computer program instructions. The operations of the method are described herein with the help of the server system . It is noted that the operations of the method can be described and/or practiced by using a system other than the server system . The method starts at operation .
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At , the method includes receiving, by a server system (e.g., the server system ) associated with a payment network, an airline ticket booking notification. The airline ticket booking notification includes a booking information of an airline ticket purchased by a user using a payment card. The booking information includes a time-duration of a travel route among other information such as date, source and destination and the like.
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At , the method includes, checking, by the server system, if a Universal Account Number (UAN) is assigned to the user using a payment card information of the payment card.
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If the UAN is assigned to the user, at , the method includes retrieving, by the server system, the UAN based on receiving the airline ticket booking notification.
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If the UAN is not assigned to the user, at , the method includes assigning, by the server system, the UAN to the user.
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At , the method includes linking, by the server system, the UAN to the purchased airline ticket.
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At , the method includes facilitating, by the server system, a reward tracking and redemption platform. The reward tracking and redemption platform at least includes one or more reward points assigned to the UAN. The one or more reward points are generated based at least on difference of a baggage weight carried by the user versus the baggage weight allowed by an airline enterprise of the purchased airline ticket. The method ends at step . Further, the one or more reward points are generated based on one of a frequency usage of the travel route, a popularity of the travel route, a popularity of the airline enterprise, a time-duration of the travel route or a combination thereof. The server system further facilitates redemption of the one or more reward points accumulated by the user using one of a seat preference, a higher class lounge privileges, an assignment of the one or more reward points to another user, a purchase of an over-limit baggage weight, a purchase of an in-flight meal, a purchase of an in-flight itinerary payment, a cash redemption, a purchase from a different airline alliance and the like.
FIG. 7
FIG. 1
FIG. 1
FIG. 7
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is a simplified block diagram of a server system , in accordance with one embodiment of the present disclosure. The server system is an example of a server system that is a part of the payment network. Example of the server system includes, but is not limited to, the server system of . As explained with reference to , the server system is associated with a payment network that may be used by a wallet server, an issuer server and an acquirer server as a payment interchange network. Examples of the payment interchange network include, but not limited to, Mastercard® payment system interchange network. The server system includes a computer system and a database . The components of the server system provided herein may not be exhaustive, and that the server system may include more or fewer components than those depicted in . Further, two or more components may be embodied in one single component, and/or one component may be configured using multiple sub-components to achieve the desired functionalities. Some components of the server system may be configured using hardware elements, software elements, firmware elements and/or a combination thereof.
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The computer system includes at least one processor for executing instructions. Instructions may be stored in, for example, but not limited to, a memory . The processor may include one or more processing units (e.g., in a multi-core configuration). The memory includes machine executable instructions for a reward application . The memory can be any type of storage accessible to the processor . For example, the memory may include volatile or non-volatile memories, or a combination thereof. In some non-limiting examples, the memory can be four to sixty-four Megabytes (MB) of Dynamic Random Access Memory (“DRAM”) or Static Random Access Memory (“SRAM”). In addition, some examples may include supplementary flash memory installed via a PCMCIA slot.
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The processor is operatively coupled to a communication interface such that the computer system is capable of communicating with a remote device such as the user device , the airport terminal or communicating with any entity (e.g., an acquirer server, an issuer server, a wallet server, a third-party travel agency server etc.) within the payment network. For example, the communication interface may receive an airline ticket booking notification of an airline ticket purchased by a user using a payment card. The communication interface is further configured to cause display of user interfaces on the remote device . The communication interface may also receive a request for registration on the reward application by a user using a corresponding UI. In one embodiment, the communication interface includes a transceiver for wirelessly communicating information to, or receiving information from, the remote device or other suitable display device, and/or another type of remote processing device. In another embodiment, the communication interface is capable of facilitating operative communication with the remote devices and a cloud server using Application Program Interface (API) calls. The communication may be achieved over a communication network, such as the network .
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The processor may also be operatively coupled to the database . The database is any computer-operated hardware suitable for storing and/or retrieving data, such as, but not limited to, transaction data generated as part of sales activities conducted over the bankcard network including data relating to merchants (e.g., merchants at the airport terminals, affiliated merchants registered for reward tracking and redemption platform, participating airlines etc.), account holders or customers, and purchases. The database may also store information related to a plurality of user's payment accounts. Each user account data includes at least one of a username, a user address, an account number, PIN, and other account identifiers. The database may also store device identifiers and the digital tokens.
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The database may also store a merchant identifier that identifies each merchant registered to use the payment network, and instructions for settling transactions including merchant bank account information (e.g., a plurality of payment accounts related to the merchant interfaces associated with merchants). The database may include data related to a merchant, such as, but not limited to, a merchant primary account number (PAN), a merchant name, a merchant category code (MCC), a merchant city, a merchant postal code, a merchant brand name, a merchant ID and the like. The processor is configured to use the merchant ID to identify the merchant during the normal processing of payment transactions, adjustments, chargebacks, end-of-month fees and so forth. The database may further include issuer account information. The database may also include a list of affiliated merchants on the airport terminal to facilitate the user with reward redemption.
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The database may further include information associated with the account of the user/traveller (e.g., e-currency, e-coupons, e-vouchers, e-discounts, e-offers, reward points, and the like), booking information of an airline ticket purchased by the user using a payment card, transaction history information of the traveller (e.g., which may be used for determining the reward points), the UAN of the user, redemption history of the user, baggage weight measurements history and the like, as well as various combinations thereof. The database may include information such as a frequency usage of the travel route, a popularity of the travel route, a popularity of the airline enterprise and the like as received from the airport enterprise via the communication interface .
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The database may include multiple storage units such as hard disks and/or solid-state disks in a redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID) configuration. The database may include a storage area network (SAN) and/or a network attached storage (NAS) system. In some embodiments, the database is integrated within the computer system . For example, the computer system may include one or more hard disk drives as the database . In other embodiments, the database is external to the computer system and may be accessed by the computer system using a storage interface . The storage interface is any component capable of providing the processor with access to the database . The storage interface may include, for example, an Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA) adapter, a Serial ATA (SATA) adapter, a Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) adapter, a RAID controller, a SAN adapter, a network adapter, and/or any component providing the processor with access to the database .
715
In an embodiment, the processor may be embodied as one or more of various processing devices, such as a coprocessor, a microprocessor, a controller, a digital signal processor (DSP), processing circuitry with or without an accompanying DSP, or various other processing devices including integrated circuits such as, for example, an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA), a microcontroller unit (MCU), a hardware accelerator, a special-purpose computer chip, or the like.
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The processor is capable of executing the stored machine executable instructions of the reward application in the memory or within the processor or any storage location accessible to the processor . The processor , via the communication interface is configured to facilitate one or more UIs of the reward application on the remote device e.g., the user device so as to enable the user to register for the reward tracking and redemption platform. Upon successfully registering the user, the processor is configured to assign the UAN to the user.
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The processor is configured to perform the various operations as explained with reference to method . For example, the processor is configured to receive an airline ticket booking notification that includes a booking information of an airline ticket purchased by a user using a payment card via the communication interface . The processor is configured to look up the database for retrieving the UAN of the user using the payment card information of the payment card. If not available, the processor is configured to generate/assign the UAN to the user.
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FIG. 1
Further, the processor is configured to link the UAN to the airline ticket using the booking information of the airline ticket. Linking of the UAN to the purchased airline ticket results in the one or more reward points being added to the UAN at least by calculating the difference of the baggage weight carried by the user versus the baggage weight allowed by the airline enterprise of the purchased ticket. Linking of the UAN to the purchased airline ticket further enables the user to redeem the one or more accumulated reward points using the corresponding UI of the reward application or in-person at the airport terminal (e.g., the airport terminal of ). The aggregation of baggage weight measurements in the database as utilized by the processor over an extended period of time introduces a number of notable, previously unrealized advantages to the user and the airline enterprise. Apart from the baggage weight measurements, the processor is configured to utilize other factors (e.g., the frequency of the travel route) as stored in the database to determine one or more reward points.
FIG. 8
FIG. 1
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shows simplified block diagram of a user device , for example, a mobile phone or a desktop computer capable of implementing the various embodiments of the present disclosure. For example, the user device may correspond to the user device of . The user device is depicted to include one or more applications, such as a reward application. The reward application can be an instance of an application downloaded from the server system . The reward application is capable of communicating with the server system for facilitating the user with a UAN linked to a purchased airline ticket for earning and redemption of one or more reward points.
800
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FIG. 8
It should be understood that the user device as illustrated and hereinafter described is merely illustrative of one type of device and should not be taken to limit the scope of the embodiments. As such, it should be appreciated that at least some of the components described below in connection with the user device may be optional and thus in an example embodiment may include more, less or different components than those described in connection with the example embodiment of the . As such, among other examples, the user device could be any of a mobile electronic device, for example, cellular phones, tablet computers, laptops, mobile computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), mobile televisions, mobile digital assistants, or any combination of the aforementioned, and other types of communication or multimedia devices.
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The illustrated user device includes a controller or a processor (e.g., a signal processor, microprocessor, ASIC, or other control and processing logic circuitry) for performing such tasks as signal coding, data processing, image processing, input/output processing, power control, and/or other functions. An operating system controls the allocation and usage of the components of the user device and support for one or more reward tracking and redemption applications programs (see, the applications ) such as the reward application, that implements one or more of the innovative features described herein. In addition to the payment application, the applications may include merchant application, common mobile computing applications (e.g., telephony applications, email applications, calendars, contact managers, web browsers, messaging applications) or any other computing application.
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The illustrated user device includes one or more memory components, for example, a non-removable memory and/or removable memory . The non-removable memory and/or the removable memory may be collectively known as a database in an embodiment. The non-removable memory can include RAM, ROM, flash memory, a hard disk, or other well-known memory storage technologies. The removable memory can include flash memory, smart cards, or a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM). The one or more memory components can be used for storing data and/or code for running the operating system and the applications . The user device may further include a user identity module (UIM) . The UIM may be a memory device having a processor built in. The UIM may include, for example, a subscriber identity module (SIM), a universal integrated circuit card (UICC), a universal subscriber identity module (USIM), a removable user identity module (R-UIM), or any other smart card. The UIM typically stores information elements related to a mobile subscriber. The UIM in form of the SIM card is well known in Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) communication systems, Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, or with third-generation (3G) wireless communication protocols such as Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS), CDMA9000, wideband CDMA (WCDMA) and time division-synchronous CDMA (TD-SCDMA), or with fourth-generation (4G) wireless communication protocols such as LTE (Long-Term Evolution).
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The user device can support one or more input devices and one or more output devices . Examples of the input devices may include, but are not limited to, a touch screen /a display screen (e.g., capable of capturing finger tap inputs, finger gesture inputs, multi-finger tap inputs, multi-finger gesture inputs, or keystroke inputs from a virtual keyboard or keypad), a microphone (e.g., capable of capturing voice input), a camera module (e.g., capable of capturing still picture images and/or video images) and a physical keyboard . Examples of the output devices may include, but are not limited to, a speaker and a display . Other possible output devices can include piezoelectric or other haptic output devices. Some devices can serve more than one input/output function. For example, the touch screen and the display can be combined into a single input/output device.
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FIG. 8
A wireless modem can be coupled to one or more antennas (not shown in the ) and can support two-way communications between the processor and external devices, as is well understood in the art. The wireless modem is shown generically and can include, for example, a cellular modem for communicating at long range with the mobile communication network, a Wi-Fi compatible modem for communicating at short range with an external Bluetooth-equipped device or a local wireless data network or router, and/or a Bluetooth-compatible modem . The wireless modem is typically configured for communication with one or more cellular networks, such as a GSM network for data and voice communications within a single cellular network, between cellular networks, or between the user device and a public switched telephone network (PSTN).
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The user device can further include one or more input/output ports , a power supply , one or more sensors for example, an accelerometer, a gyroscope, a compass, or an infrared proximity sensor for detecting the orientation or motion of the user device and biometric sensors for scanning biometric identity of an authorized user, a transceiver (for wirelessly transmitting analog or digital signals) and/or a physical connector , which can be a USB port, IEEE 1294 (FireWire) port, and/or RS-232 port. The illustrated components are not required or all-inclusive, as any of the components shown can be deleted and other components can be added.
600
FIG. 6
The disclosed method with reference to , or one or more operations of the flow diagram may be implemented using software including computer-executable instructions stored on one or more computer-readable media (e.g., non-transitory computer-readable media, such as one or more optical media discs, volatile memory components (e.g., DRAM or SRAM), or non-volatile memory or storage components (e.g., hard drives or solid-state non-volatile memory components, such as Flash memory components) and executed on a computer (e.g., any suitable computer, such as a laptop computer, net book, Web book, tablet computing device, smart phone, or other mobile computing device). Such software may be executed, for example, on a single local computer or in a network environment (e.g., via the Internet, a wide-area network, a local-area network, a remote web-based server, a client-server network (such as a cloud computing network), or other such network) using one or more network computers. Additionally, any of the intermediate or final data created and used during implementation of the disclosed methods or systems may also be stored on one or more computer-readable media (e.g., non-transitory computer-readable media) and are considered to be within the scope of the disclosed technology. Furthermore, any of the software-based embodiments may be uploaded, downloaded, or remotely accessed through a suitable communication means. Such suitable communication means include, for example, the Internet, the World Wide Web, an intranet, software applications, cable (including fiber optic cable), magnetic communications, electromagnetic communications (including RF, microwave, and infrared communications), electronic communications, or other such communication means.
Although the invention has been described with reference to specific exemplary embodiments, it is noted that various modifications and changes may be made to these embodiments without departing from the broad spirit and scope of the invention. For example, the various operations, blocks, etc., described herein may be enabled and operated using hardware circuitry (for example, complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) based logic circuitry), firmware, software and/or any combination of hardware, firmware, and/or software (for example, embodied in a machine-readable medium). For example, the apparatuses and methods may be embodied using transistors, logic gates, and electrical circuits (for example, application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) circuitry and/or in Digital Signal Processor (DSP) circuitry).
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Particularly, the server system and its various components such as the computer system and the database may be enabled using software and/or using transistors, logic gates, and electrical circuits (for example, integrated circuit circuitry such as ASIC circuitry). Various embodiments of the invention may include one or more computer programs stored or otherwise embodied on a computer-readable medium, wherein the computer programs are configured to cause a processor or computer to perform one or more operations. A computer-readable medium storing, embodying, or encoded with a computer program, or similar language, may be embodied as a tangible data storage device storing one or more software programs that are configured to cause a processor or computer to perform one or more operations. Such operations may be, for example, any of the steps or operations described herein. In some embodiments, the computer programs may be stored and provided to a computer using any type of non-transitory computer readable media. Non-transitory computer readable media include any type of tangible storage media. Examples of non-transitory computer readable media include magnetic storage media (such as floppy disks, magnetic tapes, hard disk drives, etc.), optical magnetic storage media (e.g. magneto-optical disks), CD-ROM (compact disc read only memory), CD-R (compact disc recordable), CD-R/W (compact disc rewritable), DVD (Digital Versatile Disc), BD (BLU-RAY® Disc), and semiconductor memories (such as mask ROM, PROM (programmable ROM), EPROM (erasable PROM), flash memory, RAM (random access memory), etc.). Additionally, a tangible data storage device may be embodied as one or more volatile memory devices, one or more non-volatile memory devices, and/or a combination of one or more volatile memory devices and non-volatile memory devices. In some embodiments, the computer programs may be provided to a computer using any type of transitory computer readable media. Examples of transitory computer readable media include electric signals, optical signals, and electromagnetic waves. Transitory computer readable media can provide the program to a computer via a wired communication line (e.g. electric wires, and optical fibers) or a wireless communication line.
Various embodiments of the invention, as discussed above, may be practiced with steps and/or operations in a different order, and/or with hardware elements in configurations, which are different than those which, are disclosed. Therefore, although the invention has been described based upon these exemplary embodiments, it is noted that certain modifications, variations, and alternative constructions may be apparent and well within the spirit and scope of the invention.
Although various exemplary embodiments of the invention are described herein in a language specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, the subject matter defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as exemplary forms of implementing the claims. | |
To reduce the gender disparities in all legal matters, as well as access to social services, ownership of economic resources and access to reproductive health services.
Mission
To educate the general public in Shinyanga and countrywide (Tanzania) on human rights and legal rights, so all will have equal rights and justice in society.
Objectives
1. To provide legal aid among the women, children, people living with HIV/AIDS, disabled, elder and people.
2. To conduct research on policies and laws affecting women, children, disabled, elder and people living with HIV/AIDS, with the aim of using the findings as a tool for advocating their rights.
3. Advocate and promote the increase in youths equal access to opportunities and control over resources at the family.
4. To raise awareness about the importance of girl’s child protection and enhance capacities of communities, local governments and government to strengthen safety nets.
5. To discourage bad beliefs and practices that affect women, grandmothers, children, disabled, and poor people in Tanzania particularly Kahama area. | https://www.end-violence.org/members/kahama-paralegal-aid-organization-kapao |
Improvement of the night sleep quality by electrocutaneous subthreshold stimulation synchronized with the slow wave sleep.
Changes in sleep characteristics were studied under the non-wake-up stimulation with current pulses of less than 1 μA on average, applied to the palmar surface skin receptors during Δ-sleep. A significant increase in duration of the first and second cycles of deep sleep has been found, as well as a shorter latent period before the Δ-sleep onset and a longer time of the rapid sleep (REM phase). The sleep structure improvement was accompanied by the reduced reactive anxiety and depression and an increase in subjective physical efficiency.
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2
Comparison Of The Experience Of ‘being’ As Presented In The Dig By Cynan Jones And To The Lighthouse By Virginia Woolf
Superficially, nothing could be more disparate than the Dig and To the Lighthouse. From being worlds apart in time to the complete contrast in setting and focus of interest, the lowbrow, simplistic concerns of a middle class family in their holiday home could not be further from the unmerciful realism of life in the Welsh countryside. However, on a much closer study, they have much greater affinity.
In To the Lighthouse, the initial focus is the Ramsay’s marriage. A sense of complexity in ‘being’ overshadows the novel. The entangled relationship between the Ramsays demonstrates their particular approaches towards daily life rather than actual interaction. The Edwardian era was limiting for women, although as Woolf was known for her contemporary thinking, uses this marriage to illustrate the alternating expressive and instrumental roles adopted by man and wife which was the social norm at the time. Mrs. Ramsay appears mostly submissive and subordinate to her husband to avoid challenging the constraints of the period. However, hidden beneath, Mrs. Ramsay is much more intelligent than is first depicted, but any demonstration of this intelligence is suppressed by fear. This is clear in the ways they illustrate their own desires. Mr. Ramsay in fact is far more expressive than Mrs. Ramsay by continuously searching for compliments from her – “It was sympathy he wanted, to be assured of his genius” showing his insecurity in sensing her overpowering intelligence. The stream of his constant commentary on his feelings also helps to make us more aware of the way his mind operates. At the start, Mr. Ramsay desires more than anything to hear the words “I love you” from his wife, though she instead decides a smile is enough to convey her equally loving feelings towards him. It is as though he is trying to grasp her sense of security in the world but never manages to. On the other hand this also proves their closeness in their mutual understanding despite their lack of verbal communication, which is also shown in their behaviour at the dinner table “it was not knowledge but unity that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be written in any language known to men”, presenting their unspoken bond. Mrs. Ramsay protects her family, friends – even enemies – and other strong female characters (such as Lily Briscoe) even admire her for her “astonishing power”, yet Mr. Ramsay never manages to fulfil his role of being a husband or father well. This could be because of their completely contradicting personalities – his insecurities a result of being an introvert, heightened by his wife’s extroversion, threatening his masculinity. Attempting to assert himself, Mr. Ramsay never allows Mrs. Ramsay to contradict him “there wasn’t the slightest possible chance that they could go to the Lighthouse tomorrow” emphasising his dominance over her, putting it down to her foolish ideas. This completely contrasts to the relaxed equality of Woolf’s own marriage, as she was proposed to three times by Leonard, and denied the first two abruptly writing in a letter to him “As I told you brutally the other day, I feel no physical attraction in you”. The relationship became even more modern after it was discovered that Woolf had a same sex affair with writer and aristocrat Vita Sackville-West whilst surprisingly, Leonard knew all about the relationship and didn’t object, which would be even astonishing to a modern audience.
In The Dig, there is no internal access into Daniel’s thoughts as such, instead, his feelings of loss are conveyed instead through his actions. Woolf in comparison is much more concerned with the psychological depth and syntactic complexity. Daniels’ isolation adds to how deeply scarred he is by the loss of his wife. The repetition of the word ‘chain’ in the first paragraph gives a sense of him being imprisoned, maybe in his own head, due to this loss, making him an introvert, much like Mr Ramsay. This image also illustrates a sense of dominance similar to Mr. Ramsay as he controls the dog’s freedom with chains. The setting becomes a description of his own self “From the beams hang compact discs, strange astral things in this half-light, now ignored by the sparrows and starlings they are there to keep out”. The building is neglected, and reflects how he is unkempt and neglected too. The discs symbolise the wife, now covered in dust showing how time begins to cover original memories, much like To the Lighthouse, the discs are also a sign of femininity as they were her decorations, and therefore the dust could be a symbol of the male dominance erasing femininity in both books. He is now lost in the world without her, like a ‘drifting piece of loose ash’ showing the similarity between the books, both husbands relying on their wives, like a pillar to support them. In this case however, the character Daniel, is exposed to a brutal reality of losing a significant other, and instead of grasping compliments from his wife like Mr Ramsay, he instead grasps onto any sense of comfort he can, implied by the words “familiar”, “comfortable” and “warmth” as he physically guides the birth of a lamb inside the uterus of an ewe. In his overpowering loneliness, Daniel turns to the animals for comfort. The dogs, cows and sheep give him purpose and although he “craves her help, for some company”, he looks to them as a second best.
Jones’ use of the setting is particularly important in understanding Daniels’ feelings towards the loss of his wife from how the animals are described. “The sheep sighed and crunched, the cattle’s feet slapped as they moved in the mud” which perfectly symbolises the callousness Daniel is going through, with the harsh reality of being. Woolf similarly uses this technique with the actual lighthouse, which stands alone – knocked repeatedly by the solid waves representing the isolation in the character of Mr. Ramsay and his pessimistic thoughts knocking him over. Jones and Woolf also similarly use objects to illustrate their characters’ feelings. “He lifted the boots out of the doorway and set them next to hers” in The Dig conveys how the shoes show togetherness and the complementary difference between man and wife whilst “the backs of the shoes were so long crushed that they had moulded by now to his heels” shows how the shoes remind him of her; although they are worn out, he doesn’t want to replace them in fear of replacing a part of her. Mrs. Ramsay in To the Lighthouse similarly uses ‘boots’ as an analogy exclaiming how she won’t let Mr. Ramsay be the ‘broken shoe’ almost as though she loves him too much to let him become a distant memory like Daniel’s wife Stream of consciousness, a modernist narrative, is an important part of understanding why Woolf chose to write in indirect speech. This technique is one of an anti-romantic free viewpoint which often encouraged questioning the value of cultural norms. To the Lighthouse was in fact one of the most accomplished of the Modernist movement, though Modernism was criticised for disregarding the social world in favour of it’s obsession with language and the act of writing.
Woolf said that a good story didn’t always have to start with ‘Once Upon a Time’ and end with a ‘happy ending’ as it simply wasn’t life. In To the Lighthouse, Woolf becomes the omniscient narrator so that the story appears in a way that reflects the consciousness of the dramatic characters rather than external events, which occupy very little space in the novel. For example, we follow James’s thoughts from the kitchen, to the terrace with Mr. Ramsay and Charles Tansley, and later at the dinner table before following him to bed. It creates the feeling of an unstructured, conscious flow of thoughts to give the illusion that we are inside the mind of a character. This conveys their mental process and therefore helps to connect the reader to the level of being Woolf is wanting to show through a sequenced series of selected moments of consciousness, like the wind that blows through the house. Indirect monologue is used by Woolf to describe her thoughts “let us record the atom as they fall upon the mind in order in which they fall”, supporting this further with a comment in her diary, “the method of writing smooth narrative can’t be right. Things don’t happen in one’s mind like that”. In To the Lighthouse Mrs. Ramsay’s thoughts overlap, at one moment in deep thought about how her children will one day endure “suffering” and “death” and then suddenly interrupted by “the bill for the greenhouse would be 50 pounds.” This illustrates a sense of realism in how the minds of humans actually work, one thought intersecting another all the time. The indirect monologue also acts as a link between interior monologue and omniscient narration “I respect you (she addressed him silently)”, signalling new perspective and clarifies the narrative which could become a chaotic switching between two techniques
In contrast, the Dig constantly shifts from first to third person making it more personal, but also giving multiple perspectives on the characters and their actions. This technique highlights Daniel’s grief as his wife constantly talks over his stream of thought “She had wanted that fixed he thought. She was right” giving the impression he is still emotionally living as a married couple and struggling to move on. Furthermore, both Daniel and the Big Man seem unpredictable to the reader, as if Jones’ only has control over half the story, and is not omniscient. Woolf, on the other hand is almost an omniscient godlike figure, whilst Jones’ structure suggests that he is experiencing the story along with the reader. Although the visual aspect of the Dig is prominent, there is little internal access to thought, instead relying heavily on actions such as when the boy capturing his first badger having a “panicky lump in his throat”. This doesn’t show the psychological depth and syntaficial complexity that To the Lighthouse achieves, although both novels use free association to convey the characters’ disordered consciousness. Both texts continuously shift character perspective interspersed with detailed descriptions of events such as the badger culling and “the strange hernia of bag split and bulbing from the uterus” describing the weak lamb in the Dig, or Mrs. Ramsay telling James the story of the fisherman’s wife in To the Lighthouse, offering alternate views of reality. Direct narration is used in both. In To the Lighthouse, “For how would you like to be shut up for a whole month at a time, and possibly more in stormy weather, upon a rock the size of a tennis lawn? she would ask;”, represents Mrs. Ramsay’s consciousness by writing “she would ask” and later changing it to “she asked”. The semi colons further physically indicate a continuation of consciousness. The Dig similarly, shows this, when the man asks the boy if it was his “first dig? The boy nodded”. It’s been suggested that the boys’ first dig also represents Jones’ first successful book. Finally, as in To the Lighthouse, omniscient narration is found in the Dig critic Max Liu suggests; “omniscient narration allows Jones to show every aspect of a landscape which connects past and present, living and dead, people and animals, as his two protagonists proceed along a tense narrative collision course.” Combined, these techniques help to present the sense of realism and existence, conveying evidence for the question of the presentation ‘being’ in both books.
Art is an important part of To the Lighthouse as it helps to mirror the meaning. The structure illustrated in the design of two blocks joined by a corridor in Woolf’s own notebook, perfectly represents how the book was written. Part One of the novel, which is only a day long, is the block on the right. Part Three, ten years later is the block on the left. The two blocks of time are connected by a corridor of time, the middle section, and illustrates that the surface of To the Lighthouse is only a series of little moments of perceptions, such as Lily Briscoe wanting her painting to look like “the light of a butterfly’s wing lying upon the arches of a cathedral”. This symbolises the fleeting impressions lying on top of a solid foundation and represents how our lives are rooms of moments bursting with intensity. Woolf is trying to illustrate that life isn’t full to the brim of excitement; there are long corridors of boredom with a room here and there to make our lives thrilling. Critics such as Eric Ourback, on the other hand, claim there is no particular kind of narrative structure.
With this in mind, Lily’s painting could be seen to symbolise the difficulty of capturing the essence of her vision. This is underlined by certain characters reactions to her paintings. Mr. Ramsay’s fixed ideas of art, make it impossible for her to paint when he is near by “…he imposed himself. He changed everything” and he concludes that art is unnecessary despite avidly reading and reciting literature. Art is also used to symbolise the lack of admiration men had for women in the Edwardian era. Charles Tansley confirms this view, remarking “Women can’t write, women can’t paint”, reiterating this gender prejudice, which gets in the way of Woolf’s feminist belief in a woman’s ability to make contributions to cultural life. The painting also symbolises the strong bond and mutual respect of women when seeing each other stand up for whatever they believe in, therefore Lily Briscoe becomes a reflection of Woolf by using her art and creativity as a way to escape the domestic constraints of being a woman in that era, although there is also a likelihood that she is also based on Woolf’s sister Vanessa, who used her art to go against the social norms, just like Lily and Woolf herself.
In The Dig, Cynan Jones writes about the rough Welsh countryside portraying an atmosphere which matches the feelings that Daniel would be experiencing whilst grieving; an empty, rawness. The detailed, visual description of the bleak, harsh countryside places Daniel away from rest of the world. The symbolism in “the bare ash branches” is almost like his illness is his physical surroundings keeping him prisoner. Completely alone, it shows how his world was quiet and empty after the loss of his wife “a barking fox could sound as if it were right the other side of the farm” causing him to experience the art of the suffering of being, and succumbing to the myth of a tortured artist. This is almost a reflection of Woolf similar struggle with mental health, attempting suicide three times, succeeding on the third. Finally Jones’ and Woolf’s setting, both illustrate the harshness of the grieving that takes place after losing a loved one. In the background we are aware that the Ramsay’s are grieving for the loss of their son taken by the First World War, however much it is suppressed. More positively, The Dig portrays Daniel’s appreciation for his wife by the use of poetic description of her absence “You can just walk into it and have the chemical sense of her”. His devotion is evident by his actions of holding on to her smallest trace, reminding us of Mr. Ramsay’s need for reassurance from his wife.
Time is another key element with which to compare and contrast To the Lighthouse and The Dig structurally and chronologically. Woolf’s opening with “Yes of course” is in ‘medias res’ which is Latin for in the middle of the plot. This facilitates the theme of time as it opens in mid conversation from the critical point of action, adding a sense of realism, as we are merely looking in to a section of their lives and their experience of being. It also goes against the expected beginning of a story from the 19th century, conveying once again her uniqueness. Homer, in the Iliad also used this technique, to open the poem by beginning in the middle of an argument between Agamemnon (king of the Greeks) and Achilles (best warrior) in the same way as To the Lighthouse opens with an argument between Mr. and Mrs. Ramsay about whether or not they can take their son to the lighthouse. The Homeric similarities are clear. The fluidity of the use of time, with the book having a ten year interval at one point, also helped to explain the recorded history which gives context to the story explaining the death of Andrew Ramsay from the First World War. Although the book appears to have a very small focus, we are always aware of the existence and effect of World War One continuing in the background and its significance to the characters. Mrs. Ramsay was remarkably anxious about her children growing up, wishing James and Cam would never become her “long legged monsters”. She also feared her own decline “When she looked in the glass and saw her hair grey, her cheek sunk, at fifty” though Bankes regarded it as “classical beauty”. Nevertheless it shows an engaging feeling every reader can relate to as aging is just a part of human experience.
Likewise, Jones’ The Dig begins in ‘medias res’, although, unlike the tension of the argument which begins To the Lighthouse, here the atmosphere is initially calm and quiet “the dog stirred as Daniel came between the buildings and got up in its chain and stretched and yawned”. The effect of the polysyndeton also begins in the middle of things, in the morning on a random day. However, differently to Woolf’s portrayal of time, Daniel is almost spared from the anticipation of aging that Mrs. Ramsay suffers from as he seems to romanticize death. This can be seen after a failed attempt to nurse a lamb back to health “The lamb was dead. It was dead and comfortable”. The “comfortable” suggests death is an enviable state; depressed and lonely, the possibility that Daniel wished to be with his wife once again is more than likely. Crushed from the loss he “could not accept that it was permanent and that it was three weeks since she’d died” illustrating the worsening affect time was having on his grief. The torturous thoughts continuously enter his mind, leaving an essence of timeless repetition and rhythmical unease like the symbolism of the sea relentlessly crashing into the lighthouse in Woolf’s novel, or the unrestrainable course of time that eventually led to the houses deterioration.
Strength is an important element in how both authors reveal the theme of ‘being’ through the characters reactions to the brutality they experience. Subsequently, the Dig offers the sense of strength that Daniel is compelled to develop through experiencing Nature’s harsh reality mostly through the use of symbolism in Jones’ language. The setting around him mirrors his mentality, such as the ‘reeds’, “crushed”, “spread” and “trodden over”, abused by the weight of his thoughts. This is represented again with the shard, symbolising Daniel, a solid mound which “wouldn’t move” and the presentation of his thoughts as sheep which “over the years had rubbed against [him]” illustrates how Jones’ figurative language is important in understanding the depth and effect it has on Daniel.
Jones also uses symbolism through the use of animals such as “The black lamb which looked tired and beaten under the lamp” to accentuate further the profoundness of Daniel’s suffering. Furthermore, the Big Man, similarly alone in the world, is symbolised by the badger, whilst the terrier is like his loneliness which “tapped and nipped” at him, though he contradicts himself by taking his anger out on the poor creature, creating a self fulfilling prophecy to become a bully. Ultimately the characters battle each other with affiliating symbolism in the stripes of the badger, the white to embody the goodness in Daniel, and the black for the evil in the Big man. Yet, coupled with the ending of the novel, the “extra patches of black in the badger from the coal” illustrate that in this case the evil wins, the badger is killed, and Daniel succumbs further into the depths of depression no matter how much strength is shown while they fought for their lives.
There are also similarities with the Iliad found with the brutality in To the Lighthouse and The Dig. Homer’s use of the long strong sentences explaining hunting “hounds go circling in to attack, and under the hue and cry a gnashing sound of tusks and teeth is heard; even so now, around rugged Odysseus, the Trojans ran” is also illustrated in Cam’s mind “and it sometimes happens, when a cloud falls on a green hillside and gravity descends and there among all the surrounding hills is gloom and sorrow. And it seems as though the hills themselves must ponder the fate of the clouding, the darkened”. It shows how Woolf compared feelings to rational domestic thoughts, whereas Homer compared feelings to war and hunting, much like the Dig. With this in mind, the harshness of Jones’ writing is comparable to the harshness of the sea, or the deterioration of the house as time progresses in To the Lighthouse as though humans are fighting a losing battle. In addition to this, Woolf’s characters are similarly used to show a progression of strength, such as Mr. Carmichael who although initially seemed quiet and lost, searching for an inspiration in Mr. Ramsay, became “entirely contented” having found his strength after regrettably being unable to fight in the war for being too old. Furthermore for context, as Woolf found inspiration in the war for brutality and strength, Jones makes a strong case that the ethos of his violent attention to detail on either how his wife was killed, the savage killing of the badger, or the explicit birthing of the lambs could be inspired by the Aberfan slate disaster; the natural disaster in 1966 killed 116 children and 28 adults and became a tragedy in Welsh history, all because the NCB had ignored concerns by local authorities. Finished two years before the 50th commemoration, it is almost as though the badger culling is a reflection of what can happen when being is ignored.
Class becomes the finality that ultimately divides the sense of being, not stopping at The Dig and To the Lighthouse. In The Dig, the setting of the rural empty land and the stereotype of farmers strongly contrast with the Ramsay’s Edwardian middle class family. Although Woolf was brought up in a Victorian upper-middle-class family, her understanding of the class conflict was circumstantial but intricate. At the time of writing To the Lighthouse, the 1926 General Strike of the Labour movement took place which caused national unrest. Therefore, Mrs. Ramsay’s compassion for knitting a stocking for the lighthouse keeper’s son, or Mr. Ramsay’s concern over the fisherman’s wages could well be an example of Woolf’s own discomfort with her privilege. Using her art for the greater good, Woolf created the characters of Mrs. McNab a “toothless”, “trodden down”, “caretaking woman”, to help represent the economic climate of the time, illustrating similarities to Daniel’s “alienated” and “weak” position. Furthermore, Mr. Tansley, a working class chemist who had been looking after himself since the age of thirteen, shared a devotion for mathematics and philosophy with Mr. Ramsay, proving that they both have highly educated minds, despite the class difference.
Differently, although Jones’ background is left more to the imagination, there is a possibility that the characters are a reflection of the author. On one hand is the wife, whose death equates to the General Strike in that she “felt a great feeling of wealth and happiness”, and then out of the blue “the horse kicked her”, causing great shock and sorrow. Daniel on the other hand chose a job he put his heart into, without concern for the money involved, and therefore there is reason to believe this is an impression of Jones’ choice to become a writer In conclusion, the physical brutality of the explicit, raw world of The Dig conveying a shocking degree of realism shown through the Big Man could not be further from the less overt, more subtle brutality in To the Lighthouse; existing in the deep divisions of class, gender, family relationships and the First World War. Nevertheless, in the style leading us through the characters’ consciousness in the deep well of grief and dissatisfaction there’s a great commonality in their experience of being. | https://literatureessaysamples.com/comparison-of-the-experience-of-being-as-presented-in-the-dig-by-cynan-jones-and-to-the-lighthouse-by-virginia-woolf/ |
MES School offers an English language-based American program, which provides a firm foundation in the core curriculum areas of Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies, and in addition to the second language French/ German.
The core curriculum is administered using American textbooks and American resources, and is closely aligned to effect a smooth transition into the American Middle School.
MES continually monitors student progress, adjusts teaching strategies, and modifies curriculum in order for all students to achieve success. This curriculum is research-based and proven to be effective with Middle School aged learners. Great care is taken to ensure students develop the confidence, knowledge, and personal, critical thinking skills, and independent learning skills to be successful in High School. Students are assessed through a variety of interim, continuous, and end-of-year assessments.
Students take lessons in class groups and utilize the full range of specialist teaching areas including Science and ICT laboratories and Art and sports facilities.
During their time in the Middle School students study the following subjects:
In English:
In Arabic: | https://mes-hur.com/page/middle-school |
Concord Counseling Services is a drug and alcohol treatment program found at 700 Brooksedge Boulevard in Westerville, Ohio.
The facility uses primary treatment approaches of Individual Psychotherapy, Couples/Family Therapy, Group Therapy. The program offers services in these settings: Outpatient Drug Abuse Treatment.
Concord Counseling Services also allows the following types of payment: Self-Payment or Cash, Medicaid Payment, Medicare Covered Treatment.
Ready To Get Help?
We can help you find the right treatment facility that best fits your overall needs and financial requirements. | https://www.24notes.org/drug-treatment-services-in-Westerville-OH.htm |
Scoliosis is a condition where there is an abnormal lateral curvature of the spine. This means that when looking at someone from behind, instead of a normal straight spine, there may be an ‘S’ or ‘C” shaped curvature.
There are three main types of Scoliosis
Functional Scoliosis – This means that the spine may appear to be curved, however the curve is a result of an abnormality somewhere else in the body, for example due to poor posture or weak muscles.
Structural Scoliosis – This group of Scoliosis has a known structural cause in the spine, pelvis or lower limbs that may be causing a curvature in the spine. These may be degenerative, traumatic or congenital in nature.
Idiopathic Scoliosis – Idiopathic Scoliosis is another form of structural scoliosis that occurs spontaneously for no known reason.
Idiopathic Scoliosis can affect people of any age, however most commonly presents in children and adolescent age groups. In fact, Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS) is the most common form of Scoliosis in children, making up to 80% of diagnosed cases. AIS more commonly affects females and tends to run in families.
AIS progresses more quickly during the rapid growth periods of the patient. This is because the growth plates in the bones are still open which may allow the bones the grow at different speeds. At the time of skeletal maturity, when these growth plates have fused, the curve progression often significantly slows.
Signs and Symptoms
Often patients with AIS have no pain or neurologic dysfunction and may look aligned when viewed from the side. However, there are a few tell tail signs that a person may have scoliosis. These include:
- Poor posture
- A rib humping – from the back, one side of the rib cage may appear to be more prominent than the other.
- Shoulder height asymmetry – one shoulder may appear to be higher than the other
- Waistline asymmetry – one hip may look to be higher than the other, which may also cause one leg to look longer than the other
- Tilting of the head and/or eye line
- Clothes fitting awkwardly or hanging unevenly
- Sidewards curvature observed in the spine when looking at the back
Other symptoms may include
- Muscle weakness
- Mild back pain
Some symptoms of moderate or severe scoliosis include changes in walking, reduced range of motion, trouble breathing, cardiovascular problems, moderate to severe pain, lower self-esteem.
A physical examination usually includes a postural screening, as well as a spinal, orthopaedic and neurological examination. If Scoliosis is suspected, a standing full spine x-ray or E.O.S. scan will be taken from both the back and the side to visualise the spinal curve. Any curvature greater than 10 degrees (Cobb angle) is considered a Scoliosis.
If you are a friend has scoliosis or has a family history of scoliosis, contact Ohana Chiropractic to book an appointment. | https://ohanachiropractic.com.au/what-is-scoliosis-and-what-symptoms-should-you-look-for/ |
RL Weekly 17: Information Asymmetry in KL-regularized Objective, Real-world Challenges to RL, and Fast and Slow RL
by Seungjae Ryan Lee
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Information asymmetry in KL-regularized RL
What it is
The KL regularized expected reward objective (shown above) has a KL divergence term between the agent policy and a default policy, which “encourages the agent to trade off expected reward against deviations from a prior or default distribution.” This default policy can be learned alongside the agent policy to inject additional knowledge. Researchers at DeepMind designed an information asymmetry between the default policy and the agent policy: the default policy is only given partial information. Since some information is hidden, some histories are identical to the default policy. Thus, the default policy is forced to learn the average behavior over these histories and acts as a regularizer. Empirically, this information asymmetry boosts performance in various domains.
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Challenges of Real-World Reinforcement Learning
What it is
Researchers at Google Brain and DeepMind listed nine unique challenges to bring RL to real world problems. The nine challenges are:
Off-line Off-policy Training
To replace a control system with RL, the agent should be able to learn from logs of control system. Limited Samples
Data is expensive, so exploration must be limited in real-world systems. High-dimensional Continuous State and Action Spaces Safety Constraints
Physical systems can harm itself or the environment, so the agent must consider safety both during and after the learning phase. Partial Observability
Most real systems are partially observable, resulting in non-stationarity or stochasticity. Unspecified and Multi-Objective Rewards
It is often unclear what should be optimized in real system, or when there are multiple metrics to be maintained or improved. Explainability
Human owners of RL systems want to understand the agent so to gain insight when the system fails. Real-time Inference
The system must be fast enough to select action real-time. Also, it is also limited from running tasks faster than even if it selects actions quickly. System Delays
Real systems often have unforeseen delays, obfuscating the credit assignment problem.
The authors explain these challenges in detail and introduce relevant papers. They also propose a setting to numerically evaluate algorithms according to these challenges.
Why it matters
Although most deep reinforcement learning algorithms are tested in simulated environments such as Arcade Learning Environment or MuJoCo, most real world tasks pose unique problems that does not exist in current simulated environments. To accelerate deployment of RL methods in the real world systems, accurate specification and analysis are necessary.
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Reinforcement Learning, Fast and Slow
What it is
Deep RL methods have had great successes in multiple domains, including video games (Atari 2600, Starcraft 2, Dota 2) and classic board games (Chess, Go). However, compared to humans, deep RL methods are sample-inefficient: it requires many orders of magnitude more data. Thus, some have been suspicious that deep RL systems do not provide insight to neuroscience and psychology.
Researchers at DeepMind, University College London, and Princeton University counters the claim by 1) describing efforts that have been made to make deep RL more sample efficient, and 2) showing how these methods could provide insight to neuroscience and psychology.
There are two sources of sample inefficiency in deep RL methods. The first source is “incremental parameter adjustment.” Gradient descent must take small steps to maximize generalization and avoid catastrophic interference, but small step sizes result in slow learning. The second source is “weak inductive bias.” Deep neural networks are extremely low-biased, so it has high variance and requires an ample amount of samples.
The authors describe “episodic deep RL” and “meta-RL” to counter these two source of inefficiency. Episodic deep RL avoids incremental updating by keeping a record of past events and using them as a point of reference (learned bias), and meta-RL accelerates learning by leveraging past experience from different tasks through RNNs (architectural or algorithmic bias).
Read more
Some more exciting news in RL:
| |
If you are like most leaders, you struggle with the type of process or leadership approach needed, depending on the decision you are facing. Do you gather input from others, delegate the decision completely, or is it the right time for a unilateral decision? The answer is “it depends,” which so frequently is the case.
A decision-making model can be powerful in identifying the criteria to consider, as well as if, when, and how to delegate decisions to others. One of our favorite models at Evolution Management, Inc., is the Vroom Yetton Model, first presented in Victor H. Vroom and Phillip W. Yetton’s book Leadership and Decision Making in 1973.
Source: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_91.htm
At first glance, the model looks complicated, but when you focus on the seven questions and use your answers to flow through the model, it becomes easier to digest.
Let’s consider an example: You are the new senior leader of a 200-person organization, and you have a number of decisions to be made quickly. However, your employees highly value consensus and have historically been kept outside the room where decisions happen. You would like to help create a more transparent environment where
employees have input into decisions, and at the same time recognize how much time it can take to collect their input.
How do you balance collaboration, time, and the need for a quality decision? The Vroom Yetton Model uses seven questions to help identify what type of leadership approach is needed. There are five leadership approaches you can take:
- Autocratic (A1) where you use the information you already have to make the decision.
- Autocratic (A2) where you consult with your team to gather specific information, and then you make the final decision.
- Consultative (C1) where you ask for members’ opinions individually, but skip a group discussion, and make the final call.
- Consultative (C2) is when you pull together a group for a discussion to gather suggestions, but you still make the final decision by yourself.
- Collaborative (G2) involves working with your team to reach a group consensus, and you primarily are facilitating the group to achieve consensus.
Going back to our example, having a decision-making model will allow you to approach each decision in a way that makes the most sense depending on the situation. You can share the model with your team and managers, helping to build transparency within the organization and building trust with employees that they will be consulted when it is feasible and appropriate.
As you can imagine, the amount of time increases the more Collaborative the leadership style. Taking advantage of a time-limited opportunity may require a leader to make a call quickly.
Perhaps you are preparing to purchase a software program that will facilitate virtual collaboration and project management. As the leader, you have the power to select and purchase a software package, however if it is too clumsy or doesn’t meet employees’ needs then adoption rates likely will be quite low, increasing the risk of company money being wasted. An autocratic leadership approach would not lead to a good decision or solution in this situation.
Following the question tree in the graphic, we might end up with the responses:
- Is the quality of the decision important? Yes, this is a significant investment of money and time to train folks.
- Is team commitment to the decision important? Yes, if the team isn’t committed and doesn’t use the software, it will waste money.
- Do you have enough information to make the decision on your own? Not really, I’d like to understand what features would be most helpful for my employees as they manage their projects.
- Is the problem well-structured? No, there are probably an infinite number of factors we should consider in selecting a software package. I’ll need help identifying and prioritizing them.
- If you made the decision yourself would the team support it? Not likely with this situation; they will be much more likely to support and commit to using the software if they help design/select it.
- Does the team share organizational goals? Yes, we are all committed to supporting our customers and delivering excellent work for them.
This leads us to the G2 leadership style, Collaborative, which means the seventh question isn’t applicable since you are building consensus which minimizes conflict about the final decision. Now you would design a process to gather input, have a team of folks evaluate the options available and recommend a solution.
If you want to build your organization’s capacity in decision-making, you can start with a model like the Vroom Yetton Model and use it to review a recent decision that was made, assessing if another leadership approach might have been more appropriate. You can do this for your own personal leadership development, or support your teams in doing the same and gather the lessons learned to share best practices. Share your favorite decision-making tool or let us know if you conduct this review using the Vroom Yetton Model! | https://evolutionmgt.com/a-better-way-to-make-decisions/ |
It's catching on. One hundred hours, that is. Or rather, "100 Hours." That's how long the ground war against Iraq took, and that's the way it's starting to stick in people's minds and jump off people's tongues: "100 Hours."
That's more than just luck. Not that anybody expected the ground campaign to last precisely that long. But when it all went so well so quickly, the time came to think about calling it quits.And that's when, according to the stories, someone in the White House with "a sense of history" (and good number skills) noticed, more or less: "Hey - if we shut this thing down at midnight tonight, it'll be exactly 100 hours since we started!"
"A sense of history" - and a sense of marketing. The president used "100 Hours" when he went on TV; he used it again when he spoke to Congress. The president's people have been using it, too, every chance they get. But it's not only the president's people; newscasters, commentators - all those molder-and-shaper types - have been using it themselves.
You've got to hand it to the White House: It's brilliant. A good round number - easy to remember, easy to say.
Not that it absolutely had to be a round number, mind you, although "100 Hours" does fill the gap between "101 Dalmatians" and "99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall," which is probably a good thing.
I like the "Hours" part of it, too; it not only smacks of speed, it avoids a potentially messy diplomatic incident. "100 Hours" translates to "Four Days," or "Four Days with a Little Bit Left Over," if you want to get technical about it. The problem is our good friends the Israelis.
They're already sitting in the Guinness Book with their famous "Six-Day War" back in 1967; calling our stroll through the desert a "Four-Day War" (especially since it wasn't the whole war, the way theirs was) might look as if we were trying to show them up - not a good idea, considering all the Scuds they were willing to swallow for the cause this time around.
Sure, "100 Hours" is still shorter than "Six Days," but most people won't bother doing the math, so the Israelis will probably be cool about it.
When it comes to other wars, though -even whole wars - it's no contest. The Thirty Years' War, for instance, not to mention the Hundred Years' War (which actually ran more like 116 years, which just goes to show how sloppy people can get about record-keeping when they let these things drag on).
"54-40 or Fight!" "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo!" "30 Days to a Flatter Stomach!" That's what American history's all about: Playing by the numbers. Just call the roll and see for yourself: "A Thousand Clowns." "Seventy-six Trombones." "Three Men and a Baby." "2 Live Crew."
You've got to admit, "100 Hours" is right up there with the best of them. It's a number with the taste of destiny. Back at the White House, they couldn't be happier. They've already got their eye on another number. 1992. | https://www.deseretnews.com/article/151603/100-HOUR-WAR-A-CLEVER-MARKETING-TAGLINE.html |
In the 15 minutes before his presentation kicked off in earnest, a joke between models captured perfectly the catchy, carefree feeling of Steven Tai’s SS17 collection. Guests to the presentation wandered through an artificial garden, strewn with painstakingly arranged baby’s breath and adorned with wooden standing swings, to admire the angular cuts and fabric combinations that make up Tai’s latest take on traditionally feminine silhouettes.
Less striking perhaps than some of his previous collections, Tai’s SS17 pieces nonetheless do nod to his professional experience. Amongst the pastel pink shorts and gingham blue pinafore dresses, there are rough-edged hemlines – reminiscent of the torn fabrics seen during his time at Viktor & Rolf. As Tai explains, flitting between guests, this is the deliberate result of leaving unfinished the hand-woven fabrics used this season.
Unusually, putting the fabrics and colour scheme aside, starched collars buttoned to the top were clearly the common feature across the collection. Repurposed pussy bows, rather than hanging as a necktie, became a key feature of a dress, ruching necklines and distorting an otherwise classically feminine design. Ribbed sleeveless tank tops served only to emphasise these unusual features and add an oddly utilitarian feel to ethereal pieces. Stood together, the models looked like an assembly of students in a quietly rebellious school uniform. Somewhere between the punks and Ghost World‘s Enid and Rebecca, this is a clique to be part of come Spring term.
Katie Dean
Photos: Krish Nagari
For further information about Steventai visit here. | https://www.theupcoming.co.uk/2016/09/16/steventai-springsummer-2017-collection-presentation-lfw/ |
Dystopia is very popular in fiction, but how close is it to future reality?
Dystopia is everywhere we look in the world of books. Next to vampires, and guys without shirts, it seems to be the most popular and wide-spread of all genres.
It made me wonder if there is a word for an ‘actual community or society that is undesirable or frightening.’ If there’s not, we should probably create one. Leave your suggestion below!
Although I’m not a big fan of dystopian, I have enjoyed a few books such as Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, Orwell’s 1984, and more recently Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. If the success of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and Divergent by Veronica Roth is any measure, I’m in the minority.
Why is this genre so popular? Is it a way for us to feel better about our current situation?
It was 1971 that I read Clockwork Orange, and at about the same time, attended a Hawkwind concert at St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich. It was the ‘In Search of Space’ tour, and Silver Machine had recently been high in the charts. If they have psychedelic rock bands in futuristic dystopian worlds, these guys are it.
I was eventually to see Hawkwind on many occasions, but none of them stuck like that first mind-altering concert. The music was loud and psychedelic as hell, the air thick with weed. But all of that fades to grey compared to seeing the amazing Stacia Blake dancing on a smoke-filled stage, wearing nothing but body paint, and lit by strobes and oil wheels. It’s one of my more enduring memories.
I scoured the internet for some authentic concert footage, but the only video I could find is a sanitised and very tame TOTP version. Anyway, turn the sound right up (push in your earbuds if you’re on one of those things) and slide sideways through time with Hawkwind. I hope you enjoy it.
Thanks for commenting, Liz. Yes, I guess you right about it being the ultimate adventure.
Interesting post! I prefer apocalyptic fiction to dystopian, but it’s a fine line. (I came across more definitions here if you are interested: http://bookriot.com/2015/02/16/defining-end-world-know-apocalyptic-vs-dystopia-vs-spec-fic.
Thanks for stopping by, Yvonne. I find apocalyptic a bit too dark, but maybe I’ve been choosing the wrong books. Any reccomendations? | http://www.ajsendall.com/dystopia/ |
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot: Picking up immediately after the events in Resident Evil: Retribution, humanity is on its last legs in Washington D.C. As the only survivor of what was meant to be humanity’s final stand against the undead hordes, Alice must return to where the nightmare began – Raccoon City, where the Umbrella Corporation is gathering its forces for a final strike against the only remaining survivors of the apocalypse. In a race against time Alice will join forces with old friends, and an unlikely ally, in an action packed battle with undead hordes and new mutant monsters. Between regaining her superhuman abilities at Wesker’s hand and Umbrella’s impending attack, this will be Alice’s most difficult adventure as she fights to save humanity, which is on the brink of oblivion. | https://actionagogo.com/2016/08/09/resident-evil-trailer-jovovich-rides-head-first-into-her-final-chapter/ |
Notional outstanding volumes at Eurex grew 20% year-on-year in January – from 17,054 billion EUR in January 2020 to 20,390 billion EUR this year – while average daily cleared volumes grew by 4% across the same period. Eurex’s euro clearing market share in notional outstanding volume now stands at 20%.
The number of traded financial derivatives contracts at Eurex shows a mixed picture in January, with volumes up for European interest rate derivatives, and down for European equity index and European equity derivatives, for a total reduction in volume of 11%. These figures, and others, are affected by the reduced number of trading days in January 2021 compared to January 2020 – 20 compared to 22.
At Eurex Repo, the leading marketplace for secured funding and financing, volumes were down in January both the GC Pooling and Repo markets.
Business overview
January 21
January 20
Change
Financial derivatives: Traded contracts Eurex Exchange
European equity index derivatives (million)
61.8
78.3
-21%
European interest rate derivatives (million)
43.6
41.4
+5%
European equity derivatives (million)
23.9
25.5
-6%
Total (million)1
129.5
145.5
-11%
OTC Clearing2
Notional outstanding volumes (billion EUR)
20,390
17,043
+20%
8.368
6,343
+32%
Average daily cleared volumes (billion EUR)
249
240
+4%
Compression volumes
0
0
N/A
Repo: Average monthly term-adjusted volume on Eurex Repo
GC Pooling3 (billion EUR)
62.7
91.5
-32%
Repo Market (billion EUR)
60.4
67.9
-11%
1 The total number of contracts traded includes other asset classes such as commodities.
2 Notional cleared volumes including post trading events such as compression.
3 Includes all currencies. | https://deutsche-boerse.com/dbg-en/media/press-releases/January-2021-monthly-figures-at-Eurex--2433156 |
For organisms with complex life cycles, the transition between life stages and between habitats can act as a significant demographic and selective bottleneck. In particular, competition with older and larger conspecifics and heterospecifics may influence the number and characteristics of individuals successfully making the transition. We investigated whether the availability of enemy-free space mediated the interaction between adult goldspot gobies (Gnatholepis thompsoni), a. common tropical reef fish, and juvenile conspecifics that had recently settled from the plankton. We added rocks, which provide refuge from predators, to one-half of each of five entire coral reefs in the Bahamas and measured the survival and growth of recent settlers in relation to adult goby densities. We also evaluated whether mortality was selective with respect to three larval traits (age at settlement, size at settlement, and presettlement growth rate) and measured the influence of refuge availability and adult goby density on selection intensity. Selective mortality was measured by comparing larval traits of newly settled gobies (≤ 5 postsettlement) with those of survivors (2-3 week postsettlement juveniles). We detected a negative relationship between juvenile survival and adult goby density in both low- and high-refuge habitats, though experimental refuge addition reduced the intensity of this density dependence. Juvenile growth also declined with increasing adult goby density, but this effect was similar in both low- and high-refuge habitats. Refuge availability had no consistent effect on selective mortality, but adult goby density was significantly related to the intensity of size-selective mortality: bigger juveniles were favored where adults were abundant, and smaller juveniles were favored where adults were rare. Given the typically large difference in sizes of juveniles and adults, similar stage-structured interactions may be common but underappreciated in many marine species.
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Samhouri, J. F., Steele, M. A. and Forrester, G. E. (2009), Inter‐cohort competition drives density dependence and selective mortality in a marine fish. Ecology, 90: 1009-1020. doi: 10.1890/07-1161.1
Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1890/07-1161.1
Publisher Statement
© 2009 by the Ecological Society of America
All rights reserved under copyright. | https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/nrs_facpubs/18/ |
Good afternoon Raider families! This is Dr. Lanier with important information for the week! Please listen carefully to all details.
Wednesday, December 8, is an early release day. Please communicate with your scholars regarding their transportation plan that day as school will end at 12:20 and all scholars will need to be picked up on time.
All scholars will take district required Case 21 MOY benchmark assessments this week in math and reading on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. All 8th grade scholars will take an additional assessment in Science on Thursday.
Attention 7th grade parents: There is no waiver on the public health annual reporting for the 2021-2022 school term. It is extremely important and time sensitive that your scholar’s immunization and Health Assessments are up to date. Consistent with state requirements, our district has determined that health & safety necessitates that our schools exclude students without updated immunization records from participating in our in-person learning. Please act now to update the status of your scholar impacted by the immunizations and Health Assessments required for 2021-2022. As a reminder, they are Tdap and MCV. Parents, you are responsible for uploading the forms through PowerSchool Parent Portal.
The 2021-22 DPS Climate Survey for Students will be administered online in Social Studies classes for 7th grade students on Monday, December 6. The survey is designed to measure student perceptions about aspects of their schools including:
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Emotional and Physical Safety
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Student Discipline
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Expectations for Students
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Student Support
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Social and Emotional Learning
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Teacher and Administrator Treatment of Students
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School/Classroom Environment and Learning Conditions
In addition, middle school students will also be asked about their participation in extracurricular activities. This year’s survey has been modified to include additional questions related to gender identity (all levels). DPS will use student feedback to determine the district’s strengths and areas for improvement so we can improve our school climate. Our independent research partner, K12 Insight, will analyze the results by school, area, and district to identify trends and specific strengths and areas needing improvement.
Raiders, grab the perfect read with our “Fall Into Reading” Virtual Book Fair! All orders must be made online by registering on the Bedford Falls Book Fair link that is included in the email that accompanies this phone message. Book sales will end on Friday, December 10. Please contact our Book Fair Chair, Kara South, if you have any questions. All purchases support Githens PTA and your school library.
Basketball season is upon us and the Raiders will compete against Lakewood Montessori Middle School on Thursday, December 9, beginning at 4:00. A reminder of the following guidelines for winter sports:
WINTER ATHLETICS
Athletes
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Athletes are required to wear a face covering except when engaged in physical activity.
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Weekly testing is required for all unvaccinated athletes to play.
Spectators
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Indoor venues will be limited to 50% of capacity with the home team getting 80% and the visiting team 20%.
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All spectators are required to wear masks and any spectators without a mask will not be allowed into any venue.
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All concessions will be pre-packaged food and drinks, with a limited number of individuals working to allow for adequate spacing.
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Lobby areas for concessions will be clearly marked for adequate seating and spacing.
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Bags are not allowed in any DPS athletic event.
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Spectators may not reenter any athletic contest after leaving.
All sports ticket sales will be virtual this year through “ticket spicket” and are required for entry. Please use the link provided in the email that accompanies this phone message to follow the steps necessary to purchase tickets. For further information regarding athletics or specific teams, please email either Ms. Stackhouse, Athletic Director, or the coaches. A reminder that middle school students must be accompanied by an adult to enter and attend all athletic events at high schools moving forward. This is part of their spectator and safety guidance at their athletic events. The only exception is when middle school students have received individual invitations from the high schools.
Another reminder that students are required to be in classrooms, seated, with materials ready, and cell phones powered off at 7:30. Students entering the building after 7:30 will be marked tardy. Scholars must be on time for school and we are seeing an increasing number of scholars coming to school anywhere from 20 to 50 minutes late. This is not ok as they are missing valuable instruction needed to bridge learning loss due to the pandemic and virtual learning. Please make sure your scholar is wearing a mask before they leave your home or your car. Masks are required by the city of Durham and Durham Public Schools.
That’s all for now. Have a great week!
Links:
Book Fair: https://www.bedfordfallsusa.com/for-parenank ts/ School Code for registration: GMS1
Contact Kara South: [email protected]
PDF: How to Set up a Parent Portal Account (Eng | Spa)
Video: How to Set up a Parent Portal Account (Eng | Spa)
Web: How to Create a Gmail Account
Web: How to Create a Yahoo Account
PDF: How to Complete Returning Student Process (Eng | Spa)
Video: How to Complete Returning Student Process (Eng | Spa)
Immunization Link: https://immunize.nc.gov/schools/k-12.htm
Register to (COVID) test your student today with this link: https://home.color.com/covid/sign-up/start?partner=tf-dur-684-students
Ticket Spicket: | https://www.dpsnc.net/site/default.aspx?PageType=3&DomainID=40&ModuleInstanceID=10630&ViewID=6446EE88-D30C-497E-9316-3F8874B3E108&RenderLoc=0&FlexDataID=56823&PageID=73&GroupByField=&GroupYear=0&GroupMonth=0&Tag=&Comments=true |
Who Are You Connecting With? -- Next you need to decide which supporters will be sent this email. You can send to your full list by simply clicking the Entire List button.
Or you can choose specifically who to send to, just click the Selected segments of your list, or specific supporters button. The first option will be to choose a segment of your list, these will have need to have been setup ahead of time in the Audience module. Start typing in the segment search box and all of your segments that meet those search conditions will be shown. To choose one hit the + symbol.
You can also add specific supporters if they are not part of the segment you chose. Start typing in the search box and all supporters who match your search conditions will be shown. Hit the + symbol next to the supporters you want to add. You can add as many as you want.
Who should NOT receive this email? -- The last step of this section is to choose who shouldn’t receive this email. Depending on what type of email this is, you have the option to exclude subscribers who are not interested in those email types, or ignore preferences and send to subscribers who aren't necessarily interested in those types of emails. By default, we will automatically not send to supporters who have opt-ed out of the Email Campaign that you are sending to. You have the ability to override preferences and send to them anyway. However, this is not recommended because they specifically took the time to tell you they don’t want to receive this type of email. This could lead to a full unsubscribe or the message being marked as spam by the supporter. Either of these options would lead to poor email deliverability for your organization.
Similar to the above selection you can choose whole segments who won’t get the message or just individual supporters.
Click the Next: Compose Your Email button in the lower right hand corner to draft up your message. | https://support.salsalabs.org/hc/en-us/articles/202958109-Email-Step-3-Targets |
This master thesis aims to provide insight and qualitative information about swellingmechanisms in volcanic rocks, in particular the swelling of rocks related to hydropowerwater tunnels. Additionally, traditional laboratory methods for determining the mainrock material properties controlling swelling behavior are investigated. The rocksamples tested are obtained from the Alimit area in Philippines, where The Alimit HEPPis in its feasibility phase. The hope is to provide an enhanced understanding of theswelling potential of the volcanic rocks, and introduce a suggestion on a properinvestigation procedure to detect potential challenges at an early stage.The first step in this investigation, was to get an overview of the status quo in swellingrock sciences. The further work was based on the leading hypothesis on swelling clayminerals (i.e. smectites or similar groups of swelling clay minerals) to be the main causeof tunnel collapses in previous projects. Other explanations, as the swelling of chloritesand zeolites, and moisture swelling, were also kept in mind during the investigations.The next step was to survey the project case site, located in the Ifugao province of thePhilippines, to get an overview of the geological and topographical features of the area.Sampling of the assumed most dominating rock types, with focus on regions in whichmajor constructions are planned, was performed. The samples were obtained from theborehole core storage of SN Aboitiz (cooperating partner of SN Power/Statkraft) inLagawe, Philippines.The main part of the investigation procedure was to obtain information on rock materialkey properties of the collected samples, by different laboratory test methods. Thesamples underwent mineralogical analyses, UCS-tests, and different types of swellingtests. Oedometer swelling tests were performed at two different institutes (NTNU andKiT), for comparison of methodology and output.The study has uncovered an unexpected swelling potential of strong, andesitic rocktypes, despite the lack of swelling clay minerals in the samples tested. The swellingpressure magnitudes are confirmed by repeated tests, and apply on the results obtainedat both institutes. The swelling potential is assumed closely linked to the high contentof laumontite (zeolite). Content of swelling clay minerals, in particular montmorillonite,iiis detected in other rock types tested. The rock material of these samples are weak anddisintegrated, and thus not up to standards for UCS testing. However, the swellingpressure magnitudes are lower in the weak material, compared to the strong andesiticrock.The comparison of the oedometer methodology in operation at NTNU and KiT,uncovered important differences between the two institutes. The deviations apply onboth the apparatus used, and the procedures of swelling tests. The differences includethe version of the ISRM suggested methods, intern modifications on apparatus andprocedures, and intern traditions in how specific points in the ISRM standard istranslated in practice.Based on the work performed throughout the investigation, a suggestion on an improvedinvestigation procedure is presented at the end of this thesis. | https://ntnuopen.ntnu.no/ntnu-xmlui/handle/11250/2440555 |
Source: Proceedings of a workshop. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-963. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 206 p.
Publication Series: General Technical Report (GTR)
Station: Pacific Northwest Research Station
PDF: View PDF (12.0 MB)
Titles contained within Gene conservation of tree species—banking on the future. Proceedings of a workshop.
The importance of gene conservation in the USDA Forest Service
Prioritization of gene conservation activities in the face of changing climates
Using genetic information to inform Redbay restoration in Laurel Wilt epidemic areas
Applied genetic conservation of Hawaiian Acacia koa: an eco-regional approach
Conservation genetics of the European beech in France
Hybridization and management of oak populations
Gene conservation of Pinus aristata: a collection with ecological context for management today and resources for tomorrow
A holistic approach to genetic conservation of Pinus strobiformis
Forest service access to and use of the Germplasm Information Network (GRIN-Global) database and security backup at the National Laboratory for Genetic Resource Preservation
USDA forest service southern region – It’s all about GRITS
Somatic embryogenesis and cryostorage for conservation and restoration of threatened forest trees
TreeGenes and CartograTree: Enabling visualization and analysis in forest tree genomics
The national program for long term seed storage for ash germplasm preservation
The Vallarta Botanical Garden's advancements in conserving the diversity of native Mexican oaks and magnolias
Important Hawaiian tree species in need of genetic conservation
How New York State saved its ash
Collecting genetic variation on a small island
Saving seeds: Optimally planning our Ex Situ conservation collections to ensure species' evolutionary potential
Synthesizing genetic divergence and climate modeling to inform conservation planning for ponderosa pine
From forest to freezer: a comprehensive seed collection of the Kentucky coffeetree, Gymnocladus dioicus (L.) K
Ex-situ conservation of Quercus oglethorpensis in living collections of arboreta and botanical gardens.
Restoration seed reserves for assisted gene flow within seed orchards
A multi-state collaborative effort to conserve butternut Ex Situ
Germplasm conservation for species restoration: Examples from efforts to restore the American chestnut
role of seed analysis in genetic conservation
Facilitating gene conservation with existing common gardens
Early results from a newly-established provenance test in Valley Oak (Quercus lobata) show significant population differentiation
In-situ genetic conservation of white ash (Fraxinus americana) at the Allegheny national forest
Forest gene conservation programs in Alberta, Canada
Joining forces for genetic conservation
Genetic conservation and restoration of Chamaecyparis lawsoniana (Port-Orford-cedar) in the face of a non-native pathogen and changing climate – on the road to success
Partnerships in the Pacific Northwest help save an endangered species, whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis): an example of dynamic genetic conservation
Seed collection success and failure in fraxinus gene conservation efforts
Butternut health and genetic diversity in New Brunswick, Canada
Federal conservation of western Cypress in the United States
Ex situ genetic conservation of vulnerable high elevation conifer species in the Pacific Northwest, USA
Effect of average growing season temperature on seedling germination, survival and growth in jack pine (Pinus banksiana Lamb.)
Missouri botanical garden’s support of ex-situ conservation with living collections
A new program of work to conduct research in support of gene conservation, restoration, and proactive deployment of red spruce in light of climate change
The importance of site quality to backcross chestnut establishment success
Using American elm in mixed-species plantings to restore above- and below-ground function to degraded riparian buffers
Population isolation results in low genetic variation and high differentiation in Carolina hemlock (tsuga caroliniana), an imperiled southern Appalachian conifer
Determining genetic erosion in fourteen Picea chihuahuana Martínez populations.
Sampling scheme on genetic structure of tree species in fragmented tropical dry forest: an evaluation from landscape genetic simulations
Potential for long-term seed storage for ex situ genetic conservation of high elevation white pine species – whitebark pine and foxtail pine case study
The role of CVS (and FIA) data and genetic tests in assessing species vulnerability to invasive pests and changing climate
Blending ecology and evolution using emerging technologies to determine species distributions with a non-native pathogen in a changing climate
Silvicultural and integrated pest management strategies for restoring eastern hemlock to degraded southern Appalachian mountain ecosystems.
Prioritizing trees for global conservation action: BGCI’s tree conservation agenda
Climate change and forest trees in the Pacific Northwest: a vulnerability assessment and recommended actions for national forests
Genetic conservation planning for forest tree species in Western North America under future climate change: Employing a novel approach to identify conservation gaps
Using climate and genetic diversity data to prioritize conservation seed banking for imperiled hemlock species
Project CAPTURE: a U.S. national prioritization assessment of tree species for conservation, management, and restoration
Benefits and challenges for gene conservation: a view from the UK national tree seed project
Overview of the Camcore (NC State University) and USDA Forest Service cooperative gene conservation program for threatened and endangered tree species native to the southern United States
State of the United States forest genetic resources – summary of a report to FAO international technical working group on forest genetic resources
Camcore: Thirty-five years of Mesoamerican pine gene conservation
Genetic diversity and conservation of Mexican forest trees
Development of new Dutch Elm disease-tolerant selections for restoration of the American Elm in urban and forested landscapes
Dynamic genetic conservation in the presence of invasive insect and pathogen threats to forest tree species of the United States
Accelerating dynamic genetic conservation efforts: Use of FT-IR spectroscopy for the rapid identification of trees resistant to destructive pathogens
Status and future of breeding disease-resistant American chestnut
Assisted diversification for an era of habitat extinction
Why pollen-atmosphere interplay matters to forest gene conservation
Conserving genetic diversity in Ponderosa Pine ecosystem restoration
Genetic conservation and management of the Californian endemic, Torrey Pine (Pinus torreyana Parry)
Genetic-environment associations across the range of Pinus strobus
Genetic differences between yellowwood (Cladrastis kentukea) in wild populations versus urban forests
Kentucky coffeetree, Gymnocladus dioicus (L.) K. Koch: Current abundance in nature and prospective persistence.
Improving genetic conservation of tree species
Plant conservation progress in the United States
Forest gene conservation from the perspective of the international community
BGCI’s Rrole in co-ordinating a botanic garden-centred global system for the conservation of all tree diversity
Coordinating the IUCN red list of North American tree species: a special session at the USFS gene conservation of tree species workshop
Community standards for genomic resources, genetic conservation, and data integration
Development of seed zones for the Eastern United States: Request for input and collaboration!
Conservation priorities for tree crop wild relatives in the United States
Institute of forest tree breeding: Improvement and gene conservation of iconic tree species in the 21st Century
DescriptionThe ‘Gene Conservation of Tree Species—Banking on the Future Workshop’ provided a forum for presenting and discussing issues and accomplishments in genetic conservation of trees, and notably those of North America. The meeting gathered scientists, specialists, administrators and conservation practitioners from federal, university, non-governmental and public garden institutions worldwide. The 81 submissions included in this Proceedings are from oral and poster presentations at the 2016 workshop held in Chicago, Illinois. They update the science and policy of genetic conservation of trees, showcase current successes, and provide guidance for future efforts. This Proceedings is complemented by 11 related papers gathered in a special issue of the journal New Forests (Vol 48, No. 2, 2017). In addition to plenary talks that provided overviews of some national and international efforts, there were concurrent sessions with themes of Conservation Strategies, Pest and Pathogen Resistance, Genetic Conservation, Tools for Tree Genetic Conservation, Conservation Program Case Studies, Designing Seed Collections, Ex Situ Conservation, and Science in Support of Conservation. The meeting was also the venue for special sessions on Coordinating the Red List of North American Tree Species, Innovative Approaches for Assessing and Prioritizing Tree Species and Populations for Gene Conservation, Community Standards for Genomic Resources, Genetic Conservation and Data Integration, and Development of Seed Zones for the Eastern U.S., and a group discussion on Improving Genetic Conservation Efforts.
Publication Notes
- You may send email to [email protected] to request a hard copy of this publication.
- (Please specify exactly which publication you are requesting and your mailing address.)
- We recommend that you also print this page and attach it to the printout of the article, to retain the full citation information.
- This article was written and prepared by U.S. Government employees on official time, and is therefore in the public domain.
CitationSniezko, Richard A.; Man, Gary; Hipkins, Valerie; Woeste, Keith; Gwaze, David; Kliejunas, John T.; McTeague, Brianna A., tech. cords. 2017. Gene conservation of tree species—banking on the future. Proceedings of a workshop. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-963. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 206 p. | https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/55062 |
The traumatic effects of the war in Ukraine may impact not only residents, refugees but also worried family members outside of Ukraine and people who fear the war might escalate to our region. The Traumacenter and the Cordelia Foundation are joining their expertise and experience to provide mental health support to refugees, Ukrainians living in Hungary, volunteers and professionals working with refugees, and anyone affected by the situation.
People affected by the war are in urgent need of immediate mental health assistance. Psychological first aid will not only help them cope with the current mental strain, but immediate support will also help prevent later post-traumatic symptoms.
Hungary was not prepared to receive the sudden influx of refugees. Thus aid workers and volunteers did not have the chance to prepare and receive adequate trauma-informed training. The fact that the majority of the incoming refugees are women and children places further sources of stress and worry
Please support our efforts to provide mental health support to those affected by the current war.
Depending on the amount raised, we plan to provide the following activities: | https://traumakozpont.hu/en/home/mental-health-support-for-those-affected-by-the-ukrainian-war/ |
Stunning Image of Lobster Nebula Captured by Chilean Telescope
While surveying the universe for dark energy, a telescope took the most detailed image of the Lobster Nebula ever, and it’s beautiful.
Located 8,000 light years away in a star forming region of the constellation Scorpius, the image was released on the 12th of September, and measures 400 light years across.
Bright young stars are scattered across the region surrounded by quilts of gas and dust, while at the bright center is an open star cluster, which is a very tightly packed group of very young, and very massive stars.
“Interstellar winds, galactic radiation, and powerful magnetic fields batter the nebula, squeezing the gas and dust inside into twisting streams and braids,” writes Space.com’s Tereza Pultarova.
The image was actually taken in search of that which cannot be imaged—dark energy. The Dark Energy Camera is a device mounted atop the Víctor M. Blanco Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile, and was designed to search for dark energy as part of an international project called the Dark Energy Survey.
The cousin to dark matter, dark energy is another force in the universe which we’ve not discovered any way of measuring other than through its effects on observable matter.
Dark energy is thought to make up most of the matter in the universe, and be responsible for the universe’s continuous and accelerating expansion. This is partly due to calculations made based on its observable effects on visible matter.
Dark matter on the other hand is believed to be a force that keeps the universe from expanding even faster, and used to be the reason that the universe was much smaller than it is today, based again on calculations of its effect in a given environment.
SEE: Glimpse of God? The Hubble Telescope’s 12 Best Photos on the 30th Anniversary of its Launch into Orbit
The final image here of the Lobster Nebula consists of multiple exposure levels layered on top of each other through different filters. This is more or less what the Nebula would look like with the naked eye if it were much brighter than it actually is. | https://mothernature.news/2022/09/15/stunning-image-of-lobster-nebula-captured-by-chilean-telescope/ |
Education Ministry to Increase Promotion of TVET in Secondary Schools
Jamaica News: For the new academic year, the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information will be increasing its effort to promote technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in secondary schools.
State Minister for Education, Youth and Information, Hon. Floyd Green, said this area offers a number of opportunities for young persons, arguing that a “mindset change” is needed to encourage greater interest and participation in the new and emerging careers in this field.
“Part of what we will be embarking on come this September is a really robust career training programme in our secondary schools, as a number of our students are still unaware of some of the new areas that they can go into. A lot of them still have misconceptions about the areas that can bring them significant wealth,” he said.
The State Minister was delivering the keynote address at the opening ceremony for World Youth Skills Day 2018 on July 17 at the Garmex HEART Academy in Kingston.
Discussions are under way with the National Parenting Support Commission (NPSC), the National Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), the HEART Trust/NTA and school guidance counsellors to provide advice to students and parents on TVET careers.
“We have a bad perception of going into skills. We want to ensure that we are going into our schools with our guidance counsellors to have career training sessions where we say to our young people, these are the new areas. We have to partner with the PTAs to counsel the parents, because often they are the ones that discourage our young people (from pursuing alternative career paths). We have to explain to them that these are areas of growth,” the State Minister said. | https://mckoysnews.com/education-ministry-to-increase-promotion-of-tvet-in-secondary-schools/ |
...
Since its creation in 1947, India has been a Hindu-majority country. The 2011 census revealed that nearly 80% of the country’s population are Hindus (more than 1 billion people), with Muslims comprising the next most populous group at 15%.
This demographic breakdown is important. Critics of the BJP have noted that the party based its campaign around a rhetoric of “Hindutva” or Hindu nationalism. The BJP popularized an ethnically divisive discourse in order to gain Hindu votes and create a culture of majoritarianism that would exclude minority communities in India.
This is not the first time the BJP has won an election on a campaign emphasizing Hindu nationalist feeling. But it is the first time it has obtained an absolute majority in the Lok Sabha (“House of the People,” the lower house of India’s bicameral Parliament), enabling it to govern without forming a multi-party coalition.
The term “Hindutva” has come to describe a political ideology that insists India is a Hindu nation (rather than a secular one, as the Indian Constitution defines it). While the party has come to embody this ideology, the roots of Hindutva lie in the late colonial period.
Although occupying a marginal place on India’s political spectrum for most of the 20th century, the discourse of Hindutva emerged at the forefront of Indian politics through a series of incidents. Over more than a century, Hindutva adapted to the anti-colonial national movement and post-independence secularist governance in India.
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- 52 Years Ago, Thelonious Monk Played a High School. Now Everyone Can Hear It. | https://hnn.us/article/173186 |
The work of the earth system governance research community needs to rely largely on public funds from universities, public research institutions, and national and international funding agencies. Existing public funding, however, is often not sufficient to fully fund all research questions that are vital to understanding governance processes and the effects of policies at all levels. Also, policy-driven, solution-oriented research is not always fundable under the major public funding programmes.
What is lacking is, in particular:
Sufficient support for earth system governance scholars from Africa, Asia, and Latin America, including for the participation in international conferences;
Support for solution-oriented, policy-driven research that advances out-of-the-box-thinking;
Support for the free-of-charge dissemination of key research findings, including through the build-up of online collections of research papers, policy briefs, and webstream programmes; and
Support for younger scholars in both South and North, among others with small research stipends.
In order to help address these gaps in current research funding, the Earth System Governance Foundation has embarked on an international innovative funding effort to support its research community and help disseminate its research findings: the “Support the Network” initiative.
The Support the Network initiative seeks to channel financial support in particular to four main causes:
Building a Truly Global Research Programme for Global Problems. At present, most research on earth system governance is conducted at institutions in richer countries in the North, with only marginal participation of scholars in particular from Africa. The participation of scholars from Africa, Asia and Latin America in international research events, such as the Annual Open Science Meetings of the earth system governance research community, is often unaffordable for Southern research institutions, and travel stipends are, at present, still limited. For this reason, we are now seeking support for a special fund for travel stipends to be granted on a competitive basis to highly qualified scholars who are based in developing countries.
Finding Solutions to Vexing Complex Problems: Supporting Evidence-based Policy Research. Most traditional research funding in the social sciences is restricted to disciplinary scientific research. In particular, evidence-based research on policy reforms, including more innovative “out-of-the-box” thinking, is difficult to obtain from national funding agencies, and often lies outside the normal career paths of young researchers. As a consequence, policy research is often weak, and only based on few studies by private think tanks without professional peer review and embedding in academic structures. For this reason, the Earth System Governance Foundation is seeking support for research and writing grants for teams of researchers who can help develop and critically evaluate novel, innovative and possibly ground-breaking policy proposals to address complex problems of earth system governance.
Disseminating Crucial Research Findings. At present, most research findings are targeted at top-level scholarly journals and books with prestigious university presses. Many of these outlets, however, are available only based on expensive subscriptions, and often are written in an academic style that is not easily accessible to a wider, non-expert community. This disconnect between scientific research and public debate is often seen as a major problem limiting the political effectiveness of earth system governance. For this reason, the Earth System Governance Foundation is seeking support for its global research dissemination programme, with a focus on the online education and dissemination programme Earth System Governance TV, and the newly developed Policy Brief series.
Supporting the Next Generation of Earth System Governance Researchers. National research funding has been decreasing in most countries in recent years. Especially hard hit are early-career scholars, who have difficulties in financing their doctoral and postdoctoral work. For this reason, the Earth System Governance Foundation is seeking support for a special fund to support on a competitive basis doctoral and postdoctoral work of highly qualified earlier career researchers who specialize in earth system governance research.
If you would like further information or are interested in supporting the earth system governance research community, we invite you do directly contact us at [email protected].
We welcome contributions to our Foundation’s core programmes by bank transfer to: Earth System Governance Stichting, ABN AMRO Bank N.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Account / IBAN number: NL36ABNA0545 027586, BIC/SHIFT ABNANL2A.
Please indicate in your bank transfer which of the four main programmes you seek to support: (a)Travel funding for qualified developing country scholars; (b) Support for research on innovative policy solutions; (c) Support for online dissemination of research findings, (d) Support for early-career researchers, or (e) All programmes/No preference.
If you envision any other means of cooperation with the earth system governance research community and its supporting Earth System Governance Foundation, please email directly the Foundation’s director, Ruben Zondervan, at [email protected]. | http://www.earthsystemgovernance.net/support-the-network/ |
OUR WORKING AREAS.
Innovative principles and ideas borrowed from different operational fields to always find the best possible solution.
The complexity of the structured machine park in years of experience combined with the ability of skilled workers mean Zava can provide design, assistance and support in different areas of work. From complex and dimensionally important challenges like those of the shipbuilding sector to smaller but equally demanding projects, Zava guarantees the same punctuality and executive precision, in meeting the schedules agreed with the client.
The planning and executive experimentation faced over the years in different areas of work has meant the company and its team have developed keen problem-solving skills, putting in place processes for the constructive exchange of ideas and the innovative use of principles and ideas absorbed by the various operational fields. Employing a process that can be defined creative, the company manages to find and provide solutions and answers that are always innovative and never trivial for any difficulties during the production process.
Lighting sector
The experience gained in the lighting sector for about 10 years is particularly important in the development of company skills. Zava, in fact, supports the productive development of the projects of the client with an autonomous project proposal, developed in collaboration with important names in the Italian design scene, aimed at satisfying the needs of both the private and the contractor.
Zavaluce is the company division created to meet these needs. | http://lnx.zavametal.com/zavametal-home/settori/?lang=en |
Reflecting on Fitness Setbacks & Re-seeking Balance in Warrior Goals
After my military conscription ended in mid 2012, last year’s Day Of Ninja (2013) prodded me to finally get back into martial arts and fitness. My excuse for the delay was not knowing how to add fitness into my schedule as a full-time double-major university student and freelancer without overstraining myself. So, when my degree was completed in November last year, I decided to make significant changes in my lifestyle, organising the first Day Of Ninja movement to kickstart the wheels of motion (while helping other people on their journey). This sudden motivation was partially spurred on by my desire not to be a hypocrite who was only an armchair writer and founder of Way Of Ninja.
Having made my goals transparent on Day Of Ninja, there was pressure to take action on my goals and stay committed. I began getting into a pure callisthenics workout routine with daily runs, focusing on functional fitness rather than aesthetics. I tweaked my dietary habits to incorporate healthier foods. Months into the changes, my clothes were baggier and my pants were falling – while I was of average size when I began (certainly not overweight), my problem area was always the butt. The new routine, surprisingly, dealt with that.
Being Sidetracked with Fitness for Aesthetic Purposes (Yes, I know I’m vain)
Having become leaner, I became sidetracked. Fitness and running were no longer based on function and performance – it became rooted in aesthetics. And I was trying to make things work to the extreme. Rushing to and from work amidst the central business district crowd in order to have enough time to exercise daily, losing my already short hours of sleep and attempting to eat on a prolonged caloric-deficit. My conservative approach to calorie counting unfamiliar foods and estimating activity levels meant overstating my caloric intake and understating my caloric usage to the point that the cumulative deficit was huge.
With the drain in energy and out of control imbalance, I started having small indulgences of food, feel guilty about it and up my activity levels even more. This affected my social life and sleep. And it was also causing issues for my body and mind. I coped with the energy drain by exercising to artificially spike my adrenaline, ignoring the warning signs of knee injury and terrible migraines. Even when my motivation waned, I kept at it out of fear. I was too afraid to rest and recover, believing that taking a break would set a precedence of laziness. I didn’t trust myself to commit to the new fitness routine.
Wake-up Calls through Failures and Plateaus
With the new focus on aesthetics, performance took a backseat. This wasn’t a conscious decision. I was trying hard to achieve both performance and aesthetic goals but ended up failing in both. The fact that I was doing too much, sleeping far too little and eating below maintenance caloric intake impeded my progress. What kept me from making drastic adjustment was the fear that I would return to square one until a few incidents.
1. Returning to Aikido training meant having to accommodate to an additional four hours of training. I did my best to rework my routine, but failed to consider how tired I would be from rushing between transits and how legs day workouts would affect my Aikido seiza techniques.
Within the week of my return, I experienced failure in my routine on Sunday. I could not physically bring myself to complete my run and finish up 1.5 hours of callisthenics. The lack of recovery was draining my motivation.
Out of necessity, I changed the workout scheme to incorporate some recovery time on Sundays.
2. Soon after, there was a day I felt funny but decided to continue an intense legs day routine. While en route to supper thereafter, I felt light-headed and nauseous, unsure if I’d be able to get home without collapsing and then unable to sleep the entire night. It turned out that I caught the flu virus and had been running a high fever. I was advised against working out for two weeks.
I wouldn’t stand for that and asked the doctor what could possibly go wrong. I got a lecture on the number people who died from a heart attack while exerting themselves when affected by the virus.
I learnt to take recovery breaks a lot more seriously from then on while feeling extremely guilty.
The Way Forward
Although I have cut down my routine, I had not altered the fundamental issues that plagued my way of life. My fitness routine involved rushing from one activity to another. At the end of the day, it takes far too long to unwind from the high cortisol levels from being stressed over being able to complete the entire schedule in time. Fitness was an obsession, an addiction.
The irony, however, was that my lack of sleep and insufficient diet kept the body from making leaps in progresses. At a functional level, my gains in performance was minuscule. In terms of aesthetics, I was also going nowhere.
That said, these setbacks point to the direction for my new Day Of Ninja goals. What I can say is that my commitment to the fitness and martial arts way of life remains unwavering. I just need to learn to trust myself to move forward. To stop reacting with exercise out of fear of failure. And to inject fun and variety to my routine.
Evaluating Past Goals (Day Of Ninja 2013 goals)
For details on my 2013 Day Of Ninja goals, please refer to this entry: Fitness, Combat and Parkour Goals Till The Next Day Of Ninja.
1. Attain gold for IPPT (failed)
All stations qualify for gold except Standing Broad Jump.
2. Join Two Running Events in 2014 (achieved)
Joined and trained for five runs, including two obstacle races. Will be joining my last race for the year next week.
3. Return to Martial Arts Training (achieved)
Returned to training in Aikido after a four to five year break from being in the military and then university. Recently graded to third kyu!
4. Incorporate Basic Parkour Training in My Workout (failed)
For the reasons outlined in the above reflections – being overly ambitious in fitness and fearful of experimentation – I never got to integrate parkour in my training.
5. Reschedule My Sleep Timing (failed)
Again, read the above. My terrible sleeping habits are still there and have caused a multitude of issues.
6. Find time to Workout and Run (achieved)
Achieved. In fact I became obsessed with it, to the point that I was presenting symptoms of an exercise addict.
Secondary goals. Join an obstacle race (achieved), Learn a new language (failed)
Obstacle racing was a secondary goal for 2014, but I joined two obstacle races for the challenge and fun of it. I intend to conquer more in 2015.
Didn’t have the time for language learning though.
Day Of Ninja 2014 Goals
Goal 1
Get the gold award for the old system of the Individual Physical Proficiency Test (IPPT)
Details
As part of being in the military reservist, an obligation as a citizen of Singapore, I am required to pass the annual IPPT. Due to a review on the IPPT this year, the military is currently phasing out the old test and replacing it with new standards, which are easier. Instead of aiming for a mere pass, I would like to get the gold award for the old system before it phases out and I have until my birthday in 2015 to take the test.
Last Day Of Ninja in 2013, I made this very same goal but did not achieve it before Day Of Ninja 2014. I managed to get the gold standard for all stations except Standing Broad Jump, which pulled my score down to a Silver. Unfortunately, due to being preoccupied with other goals, my training routine was altered to focus on distance running, causing my 2.4km run timing to increase slightly.
How would I know that I have achieved this goal?
- Be able to complete 2.4km run within 9 minutes and 44 seconds
- Be able to complete at least 39 sit ups in 60 seconds
- Be able to complete the shuttle run in less than 10.2 seconds
- Be able to complete at least 12 pullups
- Be able to jump at least 234cm for standing broad jump
- Be informed of the gold award in the results slip after the test
Why and how is this goal important to me
Because the old IPPT system is considered of a more difficult standard, it would give me the satisfaction to get gold. It would prove to my old self that getting gold was not an impossibility, I need to achieve the gold award before April, which is roughly when the new test applies for me.
How I intend to kickstart this goal
- Do a self-test on the five components to ascertain my present performance and focus on my deficiencies
- Start speed training in 30/60 seconds sprint/jog intervals to get back my old running time
- Train in Standing Broad Jump technique progressively, focusing on one component at a time. As a start, I’d like to train tucking my legs to the chest while in the air and being swingging my arms forward full-force without falling over
- Train in explosive jumps to increasing jumping power
- Train by jumping over low obstacles or over open drains
Deadline to get started: 18.12.2014
Potential obstacles to achieving my goal
- being distracted with achieving other goals
- having my training performance suffer due to my bad sleeping habits
- busy schedule with getting the other Way Of Ninja articles written
How I will overcome the obstacles
I will need to make getting gold in IPPT a primary goal until I take the test within the first quarter of 2015 – the performance for IPPT will be the priority over the other goals. Inaddition, I intend to measure my IPPT standards weekly so that my focus is always on achieving goldstandard. If the weekly standards drop, it would naturally motivate me to do better.
Goal 2
Find balance in life and my responsibilities and recharge my energy levels. Regain the motivation to workout. Become calmer.
Details
Exercise had become an obsession that threw my life out of balance and depleted my energy in other aspects of my life. My problems were mainly being overly ambitious with working out, feeling paranoid or guilty if I ever took a rest day (so I avoided it), not sleeping enough, eating inconsistently and working my schedule rigidly around exercise and work. I had little time for social activities or personal pursuits like writing, movies, reading, nightlife, and others. This just made my daily routine stale, giving me no outlet to de-stress.
This Day Of Ninja, my second goal is to refocus my workout objectives and narrow its scope, stop rushing around between activities, stop obsessing over calories, stop obsessing over staring at the timer to ensure my workout duration was long enough, stop adding sets because I didn’t think I was doing enough and adapt my workout routine. In addition, to boost my recovery timing, I need to avoid not warming up before exercising because of lack of time.
How would I know that I have achieved this goal?
- Be able to watch my eating without stressing on strict calorie counting
- Have reasonable rest days and social days to recover
- Feel a sense of enjoyment (and not dread) when I run or workout
- Be daring enough to mix in spontaneous movements to routine (and not overdo callisthenics so as not to feel too tired to be spontaneous)
- Have time to breathe between transit
- Make sure to warm up before working out
Why and how is this goal important to me
I am sick of obsessing over calories and calculating activity levels. I am sick of not being able to trust myself in excelling. I want to have fun working out. If I continue the way I have been approaching fitness, I will be on the road to giving up or worse, to the hospital.
How I intend to kickstart this goal
- When eating, be aware of what I eat. Roughly get the macros and caloric intake right. If I make a mistake, so be it. No more using exercise to catch up to erroneous calculations.
- Allocate days to rest and recover (or have a low activity day)
- Play and experiment on weekends without staring at the timer. Regain the fun in working out.
- Get my sleep and sense of timing right.
- When the workout gets stale, mix it up.
- Rope friends and family into my fitness goals (they are presently avoiding my calls. Hahaha)
Deadline to get started: 09.12.2014
Potential obstacles to achieving my goal
- Difficulty in changing habits
- Not having time to implement the plan
How I will overcome the obstacles
Inform family and friends to keep me in check and warn me if I’m heading back in the same obsessive cycle.
Goal 3
Train in Aikiken and Aikijo to reach familiarity in movement for all seven Suburi and six Kumitachi. Make further progresses and qualify for second kyu in Aikido in 2015.
Details
Advance Aikido training involves training with the bokken and jo. Having felt the effectiveness in Kumitachi, I would like to gain familiarity with the fundamental movements in the seven Suburi and six Kumitachi. Training in aiki weapon principles also enhances my understanding in combat timing and distance for empty-hand techniques.
I would also like to improve my fundamental techniques in Aikido. I still have major weaknesses in extension and ukemi front rolls.
How would I know that I have achieved this goal?
- Be able to perform all Suburi and Kumitachi movements with reasonable form from memory
- Be able to increase effectiveness of my fundamental Aikido techniques (even by a little bit) by being aware of minor kinks in my techniques and removing them
- Gain familiarity with executing Sankyo and Yonkyo for grading purposes
- Be able to distinguish different forms of kaiten and perform them with a small level of effectiveness
Why and how is this goal important to me
Aikido has been my passion for a long while. My break from Aikido means that I’m out of reach from my old training partners who are now dan grades. I want to be able to discuss and practice techniques at their level. Failure is not an option.
How I intend to kickstart this goal
- Watch Aikiken Suburi and Kumitachi videos as guides (in addition to regular dojo training)
- Train in Aikiken movements, working on one correction per session
- Consciously apply extension in all my fundamental techniques during training
- Slow down my movements initially to catch errors and mold the technique into muscle memory
Deadline to get started: 08.12.2014
Potential obstacles to achieving my goal
- Feelings of exhaustion in the middle of Aikido training, which in turn distracts my focus and observation
- Feelings of anxiety when encountering unfamiliar execution patterns
- Lack of sleep robbing my coordination abilities
- Being partnered with trainees who offer little resistance or excessively early rote-motion ukemi
How I will overcome the obstacles
Get sufficient sleep the night before training and try not to cram in a heavy workout right before Aikido.
Tell my partner to increase resistance or point out his/her ukemi issues so that they can improve, which in turns improves my training experience.
Goal 4
Sleep at least six hours daily. Sleep earlier on weekdays (with exception of Aikido training days)
Details
I have horrible sense of timing when it comes to sleep. I can look at the clock showing 2am and still think it is early, while rushing to do more. When I do stop, I still feel wired from the day and end up sitting on the sofa doing nothing just to unwind. This needs to stop.
How would I know that I have achieved this goal?
- Sleep at least six hours each day
- Have enough energy the following day
- Have the ability to recover
Why and how is this goal important to me
If I continue sleeping little with my hectic routine, I will possibly sink back into melancholy or die from sudden heart-attack. I have experienced chest pains, nausea, migraines, dizziness, sleep paralysis and issues with hand-eye coordination on days where my lack of sleep has accumulated. Honestly, not sleeping makes me stupid. I cannot hold a conversation without losing my thought process. When performing a mental task, I get distracted. My memory lapses some times.
How I intend to kickstart this goal
- Start by developing a sense of urgency to the clock (and consciously push away thoughts to prolong the day)
- Set aside time to prepare for bed and unwind
- Stop all activity 5 minutes before unwinding and preparation time
Deadline to get started: 20.12.2014
Potential obstacles to achieving my goal
- HABIT!
- Unexpected situations cropping up
How I will overcome the obstacles
Rely on a routine initially. Inform family and friends of expectations and new routine to reduce untimely situations. If a situation can be dealt with the next day, then deal with it the next day. Avoid checking emails at the end of the day.
Goal 5
Inject fun and variety into my physical activity routine bu including street workout, parkour, bar athletics and tricking
Details
This goal serves to refocus my fitness routine from being aesthetic centric to being based on performance, function and skills. This makes my routine more rewarding and motivating. Staring at the mirror daily to see differences is depressing. Tracking performance and progress, on the other hand, gives a thrill.
Now, why parkour, street workout, bar athletics and tricking. Being a person with a creative-side, I have always been interested in activities that emphasised on natural movements and artistic expression through movements. These fitness disciplines will be great outlet to de-stress, aside from Aikido and my passion in writing.
Because of my focus on functional abilities, I need to determine the specific techniques, skills and tricks I wish to train in. As always, I intend to start with the fundamentals and progress from there.
How would I know that I have achieved this goal?
- Be daring enough to mix in spontaneous movements to routine (and not overdo callisthenics so as not to feel too tired to be spontaneous)
- Be able to do basic safety rolls and transition to a roll from actual falling impact or height
- Be able to perform three types of parkour vaults
- Be able to do proper parkour landing
- Be able to do a kip up
- Be able to increase my flexibility to do a partial split
- Be able to do 10 seconds handstands
Why and how is this goal important to me
I’m tired of doing the same old routine without trying out functional skills. Parkour was something I was interested in for close to a decade. I need to take action and speak less.
How I intend to kickstart this goal
- Begin by planning and printing out a training plan focusing on the fundamentals of street workout, parkour, tricking and bar athletics
- Follow the street workout plan for the first half of the training duration and leave time for play and experimentation for the second
- Because of my IPPT priority, I will not go full force on parkour and tricking until the second quarter.
Deadline to get started: 02.02.2015
Potential obstacles to achieving my goal
- Not knowing how and where to start
- Feeling self-conscious from passers-by watching
- Not being able to find someone to give feedback on my technique
- Feeling too drained after a callisthenics work out to add spontaneous movements
How I will overcome the obstacles
Self-train in the basics and safety techniques for parkour and tricking. This means safety rolls, landing technique, round house kicks for starters. I must also get used to being watched (something I have an issue due to performance anxiety). For techniques I have trouble with, I will reach out to the local community and online acquaintances and friends in the Way Of Ninja community. | https://www.wayofninja.com/stories/2014/reflecting-fitness-setbacks-re-seeking-balance-warrior-goals/ |
.. Although over 3.6 million basal and squamous cell carcinoma (collectively termed non-melanoma skin cancer or NMSC) and almost 40 million pre-cursor lesions (actinic keratosis) are treated in the US each year, these skin lesions are not dangerous. I have argued that for many frail, older adults at the end of life, the risks of treatment of these highly prevalent tumors may often outweigh the benefits, making nonsurgical management, including active surveillance, a reasonable management option. As these are ubiquitous, slow- growing tumors, patients should be informed of the risks and benefits of all management options in order to make choices consistent with their clinical characteristics, values, and preferences. My goal in applying for a Beeson Emerging Leaders Career Development Award is to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to address the needs of older dermatologic patients with a new outlook informed by geriatrics. I recognize that the science of aging requires a unique skill set, and I cannot be successful in this new field without specific training and mentorship in geriatrics. To accomplish my goals, I need a deeper understanding of geriatric research principles and clinical geriatrics as well as new research skills in qualitative research, patient recruitment, primary data collection, and development and testing of decision tools. Together with my mentoring team, I have developed a rigorous training program that includes outstanding mentoring, structured tutorials, didactic coursework, and presentations at local and national conferences. This training plan will enable me to apply core principles of geriatric science and shared decision- making to the field of dermatology, which will ultimately improve individualized patient-centered dermatology care for older adults. My central hypothesis is that older adults who are fully informed and engaged in management decisions will likely choose more conservative treatment options, report fewer complications, higher satisfaction, and better quality of life. In preparation for testing this hypothesis, I propose to determine the extent of actinic keratosis procedure use near the end of life, using a national database of older adults (Aim 1). By conducting in-depth interviews and focus groups with patients, caregivers, and physicians, I will learn about patients' knowledge and preferences about NMSC and actinic keratoses treatment and barriers to shared decision-making.
(Aim 2). This work will result in a set of evidence-based and patient-driven decision tools that can be used in clinical practice (Aim 3). Accomplishing these aims will provide the preliminary data needed to develop a competitive R01 application to test my central hypothesis by determining how these decision tools impact treatment utilization and patient-reported outcomes in a randomized, controlled trial of patients with limited life expectancy.
.. Non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC) and its precursors, Actinic Keratoses (AK) are extremely common, but these lesions are not dangerous, and current treatment practices may not be optimal for older adults. There is an urgent need to understand the extent of potential over-treatment of AKs among older adults and to involve patients in their own management decisions. The proposed work will evaluate the extent of AK procedure use at the end of life, and develop evidence-based decision tools for NMSC tailored to older adults. | http://grantome.com/grant/NIH/K76-AG054631-01 |
One million memorial inscriptions gathered in lockdown history project
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History dating back more than 1,000 years has been collected in a new online database revealing stories of those laid to rest in Scottish burial grounds.
Volunteers have been working with Dundee-based Findmypast throughout lockdown to gather more than one million epitaphs and memorial inscriptions, all available to view via digital tours.
The collection is the end product of months of painstaking work by volunteers across the country, who spent lockdown transcribing memorials and gravestones from more than 800 burial grounds for the database.
“Scotland Monumental Inscriptions” includes details of Sotland’s most notable figures in history, including kings, queens, Flora Macdonald who helped Bonnie Prince Charlie evade government troops after the Battle of Culloden, and pioneer Adam Smith.
Interest in local history has spiked during lockdown but with travelling restrictions still in place, Findmypast staff wanted to make the information, dating back to 1093, available online.
Users can virtually visit the final resting places of ancestors and famous Scots alike to read epitaphs from burial sites such as Dundee Howff, Edinburgh Greyfriars and Canongate Kirkyards, and Dunfermline Abbey Churchyard.
The database details the lives and deaths of almost 1.1 million people by merging almost 600,000 new records with existing documents already available on Findmypast, to create the largest single collection of its kind.
Notable individuals and memorials include:
‘Scotland’s vilest man’, the Wolf of Badenoch, Alexander Stewart, who is said to have died after a chess game with the Devil.
Flora MacDonald, known for helping Bonnie Prince Charlie to escape with his life after the battle of Culloden.
David Rizzio, the murdered courtier of Mary Queen of Scots and rumoured secret father of King James VI.
The heart of Edward Bruce, Lord Kinloss, buried at Culross Abbey in a heart-shaped silver case clamped with iron between two stones, discovered in 1808 and reburied.
The highest paid magician of his time, Sigmund Neuberger, the ‘Great Lafayette’ and his dog ‘Beauty’. Beauty was given to him by Harry Houdini and they were laid to rest together after dying only a month apart from each other.
The families and forebears of Scots including Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Rob Roy MacGregor.
True life inspirations behind Robert Burns’ poems. Mary Campbell, known as ‘Highland Mary’, can be found along with the ‘Bonnie Wee Thing’ Deborah Davies
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You’ve packed all your things and ready to leave the Tampa area and heading out of town for the holidays. Your return home could be less than relaxing unless you’ve taken a few precautions with your plumbing.
Here’s a plumbing checklist of six tasks you should complete before leave Tampa and head out of town this holiday season.
1. AVOID A STINKY RETURN
Often, we clear out our refrigerator before we head out of town for the holidays and dump a lot of food down the garbage disposal. Always take a few extra minutes to clean your garbage disposal to ensure there isn’t food that will make your home smell while you are away. Run hot water down your disposal with the disposal running for a couple of minutes. Too often, this one little think is overlooked and when people typically come home the house sticks of rotten food coming from their garbage disposal.
2. GET INTO VACATION MODE
Take a look at your water heater before you leave for obvious signs of any problems. If you have a traditional, tank-type water hear and if it all looks clear, dial back your water heater temperature or switch your water heater to vacation mode if your unit offers that option. If it doesn’t have “vacation mode”, turn the temperature down to below room temperature. Doing this will prevent your water heater from working while you are gone.
3. SHUT OFF THE MAIN VALVE
The best ways to prevent a plumbing disaster while away is to turn off your main shut-off valve. This will stop any water from entering your home. Make sure you open up your faucets throughout the home and drain the remaining water out of the existing lines after you shut off the main valve. If there is no water coming into your Tampa home, it’s impossible for you to come home to a plumbing disaster.
4. TINKER WITH YOUR SPRINKLER
If you don’t turn off your main water value, be sure to turn off your sprinkler system. Unobserved small leaks can add up to a big issue when you get back in town.
5. PREVENT FAUCET FAILURE
You’ve likely budgeted for your Holiday vacation, so why let a leaky faucet waste money down the drain? Take a look at this drip calculator that shows homeowners how much that leaky faucet is actually costing in wasted water. Be proactive in addressing any leaky faucets before you head out of town. When it comes to leaky faucets always be proactive and call Cass Plumbing. We’ll come right out and fix your existing faucet or install a brand new one.
If You Want Your Plumbing Inspected Before You Leave Tampa For The Holidays, Call Cass
If you have are in need of a holiday plumbing inspection, the experts at Cass Plumbing can help. Reach out to your local Tampa plumbing pros at Cass Plumbing to take the first step toward getting your home plumbing ready for the holidays
Call Cass Plumbing! Cass Plumbing is the recommended plumber for Hillsborough, Pinellas & Pasco Counties by BestPlumbers.com. They have earned an A+ Rating by the Tampa Bay Better Business Bureau, they have over a thousand 5-star reviews from satisfied customers online, and the have been in business for over 2 decades. You can reach Cass Plumbing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at (813) 265-9200. Call Cass Plumbing for all your plumbing needs! | https://cassplumbingtampabay.com/leaving-the-tampa-area-for-the-holidays-do-the-5-things-to-your-plumbing-system-before-you-leave/ |
Results for Development (R4D) is a leading non-profit global development partner. We collaborate with change agents around the world — government officials, civil society leaders and social innovators — to create strong systems that support healthy, educated people. We help our partners move from knowing their goal to knowing how to reach it. We combine global expertise in health, education and nutrition with analytic rigor, practical support for decision-making and implementation and access to peer problem-solving networks. Together with our partners, we build self-sustaining systems that serve everyone and deliver lasting results. Then we share what we learn so others can achieve results for development, too.
We have a unique and vibrant culture at R4D. Diversity, equity and inclusion are at the heart of our work environment and help advance our mission. Diversity—of ideas, identities, perspectives and backgrounds—is vital to who we are and what we do. We seek people who embrace these values and will help reinforce them. Our work culture is collaborative, creative and entrepreneurial. We operate based on trust and respect. Teams across the organization frequently collaborate on programmatic work and support each other in continuously building a better R4D.
Opportunity:
R4D seeks a highly motivated and dynamic Senior Program Officer to play a key role on the Tanzania Frontier Health Markets Engage (FHM Engage) activity.
FHM Engage is a global cooperative agreement to provide technical assistance supporting local actors to improve the ability of health markets to meet supply-side capacity gaps and consumer preferences, contributing to equitable provision of and access to high-quality family planning and other health services and products in mixed health systems. Led by Chemonics, with R4D as co-technical lead, alongside Pathfinder International and Zenysis Technologies, FHM Engage will work through 16 local, regional, and specialized network implementation partners (NIPs) to deliver lasting results. Building on over 30 years of USAID investment, FHM Engage focuses on strengthening local health markets by addressing the root causes of market failures in the core market functions to create the necessary behavior change that catalyzes supply and demand and supports sustainable change. In Tanzania, FHM Engage aims to increase private sector contributions to achieving national objectives related to voluntary family planning, maternal, newborn, child health, and adolescent, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDs, malaria, and/or other infectious diseases.
As a Senior Program Officer on Tanzania FHM Engage, you will provide technical support to the Tanzania FHM Engage portfolio of work aimed at increasing access to HIV, RMNCAH (including Family Planning) and Malaria products and services. You will ensure that appropriate synergies are leveraged across FHM workstreams in your support to the Senior Technical Advisor, Products and Senior Technical Advisor, Services and you will work closely with local and global stakeholders to achieve the program’s objectives. The ideal candidate will have an understanding of market shaping and market systems approaches across products and services; be a highly motivated and creative problem solver; have strong analytical, communication, and collaboration skills; and have a commitment to excellence and producing results. We are a team that is resourceful, responsible, tenacious, high-energy, and always has a positive attitude.
This full-time position is based in Dar es Salaam and reports to the FHM Engage Tanzania Senior Technical Advisor for Products.
Responsibilities
Lead internal and external partner engagement
- Effectively represent Tanzania FHM Engage Products portfolio in Tanzania externally and within R4D, actively collaborating with others in the organization.
- Actively cultivate new relationships and effectively manage key ongoing relationships with partners in Tanzania, including at the national and sub-national levels of government and private sector associations. (e.g., the Ministry of Health, Medical Stores Department (MSD), Pharmacy Council, Tanzania Medicine and Medical Devices Authority (TMDA), the President’s Office – Regional Administrator and Local Government (PO-RALG/TAMISEMI), supply chain actors, NGOs, private sector importers, distributors, wholesalers, and associations, and USAID/Tanzania and other donors)
- Participate in various technical working groups – and where needed, support the establishment of new value-added ones
- Support the identification and cultivation of strategic partnerships across, and between, the public and private sectors in Tanzania to support access to RMNCAH, HIV and malaria commodities and services
- Develop knowledge management and communication materials to promote the dissemination and uptake of Tanzania FHM Engage work in Tanzania and globally
Conduct high quality and timely analytical work
- Support the development of technical strategies as part of the FHM Engage technical framework to drive market introduction and scale-up of products and services across the public and private sectors in Tanzania
- Structure analytical problems and conduct in-depth and complex qualitative and quantitative research and analyses, including critical review of literature and interviews with experts, to identify bottlenecks in public and private RMNCAH, HIV and malaria commodity and services markets
- Lead the drawing of technical insights from analyses and conceptualize the development of high quality, creative and actionable government, donor, and partner-facing documents, ensuring timeliness of all deliverables
- Support the navigation between different technical approaches and various entrenched views to facilitate common understanding of Tanzania FHM Engage technical vision around increasing access to products and services amongst public and private stakeholders
Effectively implement activities and contribute to the organization
- Develop project work plans and execute activities in timely manner, including proactively and creatively managing problems that arise and anticipating ways to avoid them
- Manage implementation of trainings, meetings, supportive supervision visits, etc., as necessary, and continually reflect on experiences and suggest and implement improvements.
- Contribute to the continued evolution of a positive and collaborative team culture that affirms diversity, equity and inclusion
- Engage fully as a member of the R4D staff team, including participating in staff meetings and other R4D events, and providing administrative support to other team members as needed
- Optimally use human, financial, and physical resources to successfully meet project milestones, objectives, deliverables, and targets
- Undertake all activities in full compliance with standard operating procedures, USAID policies and regulations, and Tanzanian laws and R4D policies and procedures
- Other duties as assigned
Qualifications
- Master’s degree and at least seven years of relevant experience
- Experience conducting market analysis, developing product introduction/scale-up strategies, and/or expanding access to healthcare, specifically in low- and middle-income countries
- Experience working with Tanzanian public and private health sector actors, such as with the Tanzania Medicine and Medical Devices Authority (TMDA), Accredited Drug Dispensing Outlets (ADDOs,) President’s Office – Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG), Ministry of Health, etc.
- Experience working with USAID/Tanzania is preferred
- Demonstrated experience leading the development of high-quality qualitative and quantitative analysis from conceptualization to completion and leveraging that analysis to drive action by decision-makers for ultimate impact
- Track record of building trust, forging partnerships, and conducting advocacy across a wide variety of stakeholders across public and private sector
- Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to develop highly professional work products and present complicated analyses in accessible and compelling manners
- Ability to think strategically, handle ambiguity and work in a fast-paced, open-structure, multicultural environment
- Ability to travel within Tanzania
- Written and verbal fluency in Kiswahili and English required
Please note, this position will be based in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Tanzania nationals are encouraged to apply. This position includes a local benefits package and does not include international relocation or expatriate benefits.
To apply for this job please visit jobs.lever.co. | https://dailyjobs.co.tz/job/senior-program-officer-products-frontier-health-markets-engage-job-at-r4d/ |
Utilities have realised that what was applicable a few decades ago is not relevant to the current situation, as various factors control the operation. It is highly critical for utilities to deliver high-quality water, with no supply interruption while protecting the health and wellness of its customers. Utilities have to work on making informed decisions with a sense of urgency. They face major threats because of climate change, water scarcity, growing global population, availability of fresh water reserves, uncertain economic situations, and so on which need to be addressed for them to perform their functions effectively. Utilities are investing towards making their operations of water supply and wastewater treatment resilient to mitigate the adversities posed by climate change and cope with the increase in population and so on. These challenges will also threaten delivering safe, reliable water along with efficient and affordable services. Utilities are fully aware of these challenges and have invested in sustainability to deliver good-quality water and sanitation.
This study provides an outlook of the sustainability of UK's water utilities. It covers some of the key sustainability indicators and performance of water utilities with respect to these indicators and solutions to address the issues faced by utilities with case studies. The key themes that have been broadly classified under the following:
The study also encompasses an executive summary indicating the average performance of water utilities in terms of sustainability. It also covers top sustainability trends of UK utilities, followed by top predictions for the year 2018.
The study also elaborates on some of the critical future challenges that will be faced by utilities. Some of these challenges include climate change and adverse weather events, increase in population, micropollutants, availability of water treatment chemicals due to depleting resources, and water security. The most important challenge faced by most utilities in the world is climate change. Its implications-drought, flooding, depletion of water quality, and rise of sea level-have been elaborated in the study.
The research not only has information on the performance of water utilities for the last three years but also has case studies and technologies that can be used to improve the performance of these sustainability indicators. For instance, the study provides information on mitigating sewer flooding by providing information on the solutions available, prospects of combined sewer overflow to mitigate flooding, and case studies on green roof management.
The research service covers the Mega Trends that impact the sustainability of UK water utilities. These include innovation to zero, climate change, and smart is the new green. Key growth opportunities include disruptive applications such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and virtual reality. There are many AI and machine learning platforms in the world working across many industries with information on companies that are using AI to address pipe leakage. The study covers examples of water utilities across the world that use virtual reality to perform operation and maintenance of treatment plants.
The study provides a comparison of water utilities with respect to key sustainability indicators. The exhibits also demonstrate how the utilities have performed in the current year (2016-2017) compared to the previous year (2015-2016). | https://www.giiresearch.com/report/fs665641-outlook-on-sustainability-indicators-uk-water.html |
1st Day:
This tour is an excellent way to visit several sites of Greece in 4 days while also spending time in the Peloponnese peninsula, a tour that will introduce you to the most important periods of Greek History. The tour starts with a drive to the Corinth Canal following the coast of the western suburbs of Athens through Olympia Highway. On the way, you will have a view of some Greek seaside villages and the island of Salamis (where the historical naval battle was held between the Athenians and Persians 480 BCE). Our first stop is going to be the Corinth Canal. Opened in 1892 separating the Peloponnese peninsula from the rest of Greece and connecting the Saronic Gulf to the Corinthian Sea. You will have time to walk across on a pedestrian bridge to admire the canal closer, (if you’re game) on some days bungee jumping is an option.
Moving on we will make our way to Ancient Corinth. This ancient city was dominated by the hill of Acrocorinth and the old Castle, the biggest and oldest castle in southern Greece. Ancient Corinth is located at the foot of the hill and includes the Roman Agora of Corinth, the temple of God Apollo and a small museum. Away from its archaeological and historical interest Ancient Corinth is also one of the most popular religious destinations in Greece. This was where the Apostle Paul preached Christianity, was judged by the tribunal in the Agora and established the best organized Christian church of that period.
Driving along the eastern coast of the Peloponnese peninsula we will reach Ancient Epidaurus and the sanctuary of god Asclepius, the god of Medicine, located in a peaceful environment. The best-preserved ancient Greek theater dated 4th century BCE, proof of what miracles the ancient Greek minds could create. You can test the acoustics great even today and climb up until the upper seats just to close your eyes and dream you attended an ancient Greek tragedy.
Continuing, after a short drive, we will reach Mycenae, the site that changed everything we thought we knew about of Mycenae, dated back to the 2nd Millennium BCE, and representing the era of Achilles, Agamemnon, and Helen of Troy. In the site, you will see the renowned Lions Gate (the oldest architectural sculpture in Europe), the cyclopean walls, the burial circle A and the remains of Agamemnon’s Palace. Within the site, there is a modern museum exhibiting the findings of the “City Of Gold” before leaving the site we will make a small stop at the treasury of Atreus, the best-preserved Tholos tomb, one of the finest examples of the Mycenaean architecture.
After that we will travel towards a more recent history of Greece to the city of Nafplion, considered the most scenic city and functioned as the capital of Greece until 1834. It offers you an outstanding combination of fortresses and castle (Palamidi), Bourtzi, a huge port opened to the Aegean Sea and the unique architecture of the old city of Nafplion revealing Venetian, neoclassical and oriental elements. After walking in the idyllic old city we will stop for lunch at a traditional tavern by the sea, and drive up to the castle of Acronafplia for a panoramic view of Nafplio.
Our last drive for the day will be towards Ancient Olympia driving by the cities of Tripoli and Megalopoli finally reaching the western coast opened towards the Ionia Sea. At Ancient Olympia we will stop at a hotel and you will have the time to enjoy the small village in the evening.
2nd Day:
On this day, we will visit the archaeological site and the museum of Ancient Olympia. One of the largest sites in Greece, the birthplace of the Olympic Games and the Sanctuary of Olympian Zeus. Walking in the site you will pass by the Gymnasium, the Palaistra, the workshop of Phidias, the temple of Zeus and you will end up at the Stadium where every four years the Greeks competed for glory and for spiritual elevation, honoring their cities. The museum is also unique as it includes the renowned statue “Hermes of Praxiteles” with its perfect analogies and tools that belonged to Phidias himself. With these tools, he managed to create one of the Seven Wonders of the World “the gold ivory statue of Zeus”.
After the site we will head towards Delphi, driving by the port of Patra (the western Capital of Greece), we will reach the bridge (Charilaos Trikoupis) of Rio – Antirio that connects the Peloponnese peninsula to the Greek mainland. Considered a miracle of engineering this bridge, one of the world’s longest multi-span cable-stayed bridges and the longest of the fully suspended type. Crossing the bridge we will find Nafpaktos a small town by the sea where we will make a small stop for lunch at a traditional Greek tavern having a view towards the battlefield where the naval battle of Lepanto took place in 1571, between the Ottoman Empire and the united western powers. Following we will drive up the slopes of mountain Parnassus, on our way you will have the opportunity to see the huge valley of olive trees representing the Greek olive sea. Passing through the village of Delphi we will stop at the mountainous village of Arachova to spend the night. Arachova is very close to a ski resort, full of traditional houses and shops selling locally produced products. You can walk through the village with its narrow streets and shops on the central street having a breathtaking view of the mountains full of olive trees literally in front of you.
3rd Day:
After spending the night at Arachova we will have a short drive to Delphi in order to visit the archaeological museum of Delphi and the site. Delphi is an ancient Greek sanctuary with a catholic character dedicated to God Apollo. It functioned as an Oracle and was considered ‘the naval’ the center of the world and is today a symbol of Greek cultural unity. The scenic location allows you to have a view of the Greek mountains and two more sites the Gymnasium and the secondary sanctuary of Athena Pronea. In the site, you will visit the Temple of Apollo where Pythia spoke to the oracles, the theater, and the stadium. While in the museum you will be able to see the famous charioteer and Gold Ivory statues. After the site, we will have our lunch at the modern village of Delphi with a view of the mountains of Fokis. Our trip will continue with a drive through the mountains, not taking the national highway, to see the real Greek countryside passing by the cities of Lamia, Trikala, and Karditsa we will reach Kalambaka, a beautiful small city that is dominated by the Meteora rocks standing upon it. Reaching the small town we will settle at the hotel and then drive up around the hills for an evening photo tour on the rocks under the Greek sunset. Returning into town you will have free time at Kalambaka until the next day.
4th Day:
The following day we’ll start in the morning for a visit to the monasteries and a closer look at the holy rocks. On the rocks that are like suspended in the air (that’s what Meteora means) there is one of the largest and most important complexes of Eastern Orthodox Monasteries still in use. Meteora combines natural beauty and cultural heritage a fact that makes them a unique destination between the world’s monuments.
Moving on after having our lunch at Kalambaka we will start heading towards Athens and to our last stop. On our way back we will meet the battlefield of Thermopylae’s. In the historical center of the site, you will enjoy a 3D movie, traveling through the time you will feel the presence of all who died for their freedom under a foreign conqueror. To complete the visit you will see the statue of Leonidas standing right opposite Kolonos Hill where the persisting Spartans left their last breath and after that, we will drive back to Athens.
Inclusions - Exclusions
Private Tours are personal and flexible just for you and your party.
Inclusions:
- Professional Drivers with Deep knowledge of history. [Not licensed to accompany you in any site.]
- Accommodation and breakfast (according to your booking)
- Hotel pickup and drop-off
- Guaranteed to skip the long lines / Tickets are NOT included.
- Bottled water
Exclusions:
- Licensed Tour guide on request (Additional cost)
- Accommodation and breakfast (according to your booking)
- Entrance Fees
- Personal expenses (drinks, meals, etc.)
- Airport Pick Up and drop-off (Additional cost)
Entrance Fees
Admission Fees for Sites:
SUMMER PERIOD: 1 April – 31 October
WINTER PERIOD: 1 Nov – 31 March
Epidaurus:
Full: € 12,00 – Reduced: € 6,00
Winter:
November-December: 08:00-15:00
January-March: 08:00 – 17:00
Summer:
April: 08:00 – 19:00
May – October 31st: 08:00 – 20:00
Mycenae:
Full: € 12,00 – Reduced: € 6,00
Winter: 08:00 – 15:00
Summer: 08:00 – 20:00
Palamidi Castle:
Full: € 4,00 – Reduced: € 2,00
Winter / Summer: 08:00 – 15:00
Ancient Olympia:
Full: € 12,00 – Reduced :€ 6,00
(Archaeological Site of Olympia, Archaeological Museum of Olympia and Museum of the History of the Olympic Games of Antiquity, valid for one day)
Winter: 08:00 – 15:00
Summer: 08:00 – 20:00
Delphi:
Full: € 12,00 – Reduced: € 6,00 Valid for Delphi, Delphi Archaeological Museum)
Winter: 08:00 – 15:00
Summer: 08:00 – 20:00
Meteora Monasteries: (3€ per monastery)
Summer (April 1st – October 31st)
9:00 -13:30 and 15:30 – 17:30 (Closed on Mondays)
09:00 – 15:00 (closed on Tuesdays)
09:00 -17:00 (09:30 – 17:00 on Sundays), (closed on Wednesdays)
09:00 -17:00 (closed on Thursdays)
09:00 – 16:00 (closed on Fridays)
St. Nikolaos Anapafsas Monastery
08:00 -16:00 (closed on Fridays)
Winter (November 1st – March 31st)
9:30 -13:00 and 15:00 – 17:00 (closed on Mondays)
09:00 -14:00 (closed on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays)
09:00 – 14:00 (closed on Wednesdays)
10:00 – 16:00 (closed on Thursdays)
09:00 – 15:00 (closed on Thursdays and Fridays)
St. Nikolaos Anapafsas Monastery
09:00 – 16:00, Sundays: 9:30 – 16:00 (closed on Fridays)
Thermopylae’s Historical Center:
Full: € 3,00 – Reduced: € 1,00
Winter & Summer: (Mon-Sun): 09:00-17:00
Holidays:
- 1 January: closed
- 6 January: 08:00 – 15:00
- Shrove Monday: 08:00 – 15:00
- 25 March: closed
- Good Friday: until 12:00 – 17:00
- Holy Saturday: 08:00 – 15:00
- Easter Sunday: closed
- Easter Monday: 08:00 – 20:00
- 1 May: closed
- Holy Spirit Day: 08:00 – 20:00
- 15 August: 08:00 – 20:00
- 28 October: 08:00 – 15:00
- 25 December: closed
- 26 December: closed
Free admission:
- Escorting teachers during the visits of schools and institutions of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary education and of military schools.
- Members of Societies and Associations of Friends of Museums and Archaeological Sites throughout Greece with the demonstration of certified membership card
- Members of the ICOM-ICOMOS
- Persons possessing a free admission card
- The employees of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports and the Archaeological Receipts Fund, upon presentation of their service ID card.
- The official guests of the Greek government, with the approval of the General Director of Antiquities.
- Young people, under the age of 18, after demonstrating the Identity Card or passport to confirm the age.
Free admission days:
- 6 March (in memory of Melina Mercouri)
- 18 April (International Monuments Day)
- 18 May (International Museums Day)
- The last weekend of September annually (European Heritage Days)
- Every first Sunday from November 1st to March 31st
- 28 October
Reduced admission for:
- Greek citizens and citizens of other Member – States of the European Union who are over 65 years old, upon presentation of their ID card or passport for verification of their age and country of origin.
- Holders of a solidarity card
- Holders of a valid unemployment card.
- Large families’ parents of children up to 23 yrs old, or up to 25 yrs old (on military service/studying), or child with disabilities regardless the age, having a certified pass of large families, certification from the Large Family Association or a family status certificate issued by the Municipality
- Persons with disabilities (67 % or over) and one escort, upon presentation of the certification of disability issued by the Ministry of Health or a medical certification from a public hospital, where the disability and the percentage of disability are clearly stated.
- Single-parent families with minors, upon presentation of a family status certificate issued by the Municipality. In the case of divorced parents, only the parent holding custody of the children
- The police officers of the Department of Antiquity Smuggling of the Directorate of Security
- Tourist guides upon presentation of their professional ID cards.
- University students and students at Technological Educational Institutes or equivalent schools from countries outside the EU by showing their student ID.
History
Corinth Canal:
The famous Corinth Canal connects the Gulf of Corinth with the Saronic Gulf in the Aegean Sea. It cuts through the narrow Isthmus of Corinth and separates the Peloponnesian peninsula from the Greek mainland, thus effectively making the former an island. The canal is 6.4 kilometers in length and only 21.3 meters wide at its base. Earth cliffs flanking either side of the canal reach a maximum height of 63 meters. Aside from a few modest-sized cruise ships, the Corinth Canal is unserviceable to most modern ships. The Corinth Canal, though only completed in the late 19th century, was an idea and dream that dates back over 2000 thousand years.
Before it was built, ships sailing between the Aegean and Adriatic had to circumnavigate the Peloponnese adding about 185 nautical miles to their journey. The first to decide to dig the Corinth Canal was Periander, the tyrant of Corinth (602 BCE). Such a giant project was above the technical capabilities of ancient times so Periander carried out another great project, the diolkós, a stone road, on which the ships were transferred on wheeled platforms from one sea to the other. Dimitrios Poliorkitis, king of Macedon (c. 300 BCE), was the second who tried, but his engineers insisted that if the seas where connected, the more northerly Adriatic, mistakenly thought to be higher, would flood the more southern Aegean. At the time, it was also thought that Poseidon, the god of the sea, opposed joining the Aegean and the Adriatic. The same fear also stopped Julius Caesar and Emperors Hadrian and Caligula. The most serious try was that of Emperor Nero (67 CE). He had 6,000 slaves for the job. He started the work himself, digging with a golden hoe, while music was played. However, he was killed before the work could be completed.
In the modern era, the first who thought seriously to carry out the project was Kapodistrias (c. 1830), the first governor of Greece after the liberation from the Ottoman Turks. But the budget, estimated at 40 million French francs, was too much for the Greek state. Finally, in 1869, the Parliament authorized the Government to grant a private company (Austrian General Etienne Tyrr) the privilege to construct the Canal of Corinth. Work began on Mar 29, 1882, but Tyrr’s capital of 30 million francs proved to be insufficient. The work was restarted in 1890, by a new Greek company (Andreas Syggros), with a capital of 5 million francs. The job was finally completed and regular use of the Canal started on Oct 28, 1893. Due to the canal’s narrowness, navigational problems and periodic closures to repair landslips from its steep walls, it failed to attract the level of traffic anticipated by its operators. It is now used mainly for tourist traffic. The bridge above is perfect for bungee jumping.
Ancient Corinth:
Located on the isthmus which connects mainland Greece with the Peloponnese, surrounded by fertile plains and blessed with natural springs, Corinth was an important city in Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman times. Its geographical location, role as a center of trade, naval fleet, participation in various Greek wars, and status as a major Roman colony meant the city was, for over a millennium, rarely out of the limelight in the ancient world.
CORINTH IN MYTHOLOGY
Not being a major Mycenaean center, Corinth lacks the mythological heritage of other Greek city-states. Nevertheless, the mythical founder of the city was believed to have been King Sisyphus, famed for his punishment in Hades where he was made to forever roll a large boulder up a hill. Sisyphus was succeeded by his son Glaucus and his grandson Bellerophon, whose winged-horse Pegasus became a symbol of the city and a feature of Corinthian coins. Corinth is also the setting for several other episodes from Greek mythology such as Theseus’ hunt for the wild boar, Jason settled there with Medea after his adventures looking for the Golden Fleece, and there is the myth of Arion – the real-life and gifted kithara player and resident of Corinth – who was rescued by dolphins after being abducted by pirates.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
The city was first inhabited in the Neolithic period (c. 5000 BCE) but became more densely populated from the 10th century BCE. The historical founders were the aristocratic descendants of King Bacchis, the Bacchiadae (c. 750 BCE). The Bacchiadae ruled as a body of 200 until in 657 BCE when the popular tyrant Cypselus took control of the city, to be succeeded by his son Periander (627 – 587 BCE). Cypselus funded the building of a treasury at Delphi and set up new colonies.
From the 8th century BCE, Corinthian pottery was exported across Greece. With its innovative figure decoration, it dominated the Greek pottery market until the 6th century BCE when Attic black-figure pottery took over as the dominant style. Other significant exports were Corinthian stone and bronze wares. Corinth also became the hub of trade through the diolkos. This was a stone track with carved grooves for wheeled wagons which offered a land short-cut between the two seas and probably dates to the reign of Periander. In the Peloponnesian War, the diolkos was even used to transport triremes. Although the idea for a canal across the isthmus was first considered in the 7th century BCE and various Roman Emperors from Julius Caesar to Hadrian began surveys, it was Nero who actually began the project (67 CE). However, on the emperor’s death, the project was abandoned, not to be resumed until 1881.
From the early 6th century BCE, Corinth administered the PanHellenic games at nearby Isthmia, held every two years in the spring. These games were established in honor of Poseidon and were particularly famous for their horse and chariot races.
An oligarchy, consisting of a council of 80, gained power in Corinth (585 BCE). Concerned with the local rival, Argos, from 550 BCE Corinth became an ally of Sparta. During Cleomenes’ reign though, the city became wary of the growing power of Sparta and opposed Spartan intervention in Athens. Corinth also fought in the Persian Wars against the invading forces of Xerxes which threatened the autonomy of all of Greece.
Corinth suffered badly in the First Peloponnesian War, which it was responsible for after attacking Megara. Later it was also guilty of causing the Second Peloponnesian War, in 433 BCE. Once again though, the Corinthians, mainly as Sparta’s naval ally, had a disastrous war. Disillusioned with Sparta and concerned over Spartan expansion in Greece and Asia Minor, Corinth formed an alliance with Argos, Boeotia, Thebes, and Athens to fight Sparta in the Corinthian Wars (395 – 386 BCE). The conflict was largely fought at sea and on Corinthian territory and was yet another costly endeavor for the citizens of Corinth.
Corinth became the seat of the Corinthian League, but losing a war against Philip II of Macedon (338 BCE) this ‘honor’ was a Macedonian garrison being stationed on the Acrocorinth acropolis overlooking the city.
A succession of Hellenistic kings took control of the city – starting with Ptolemy I and ending with Aratus in 243 BCE when Corinth joined the Achaean League. However, the worst was yet to come when the Roman commander Lucius Mummius sacked the city (146 BCE).
A brighter period was when Julius Caesar took charge (in 44 BCE) and organized the agricultural land into organized plots (centuriation) for distribution to Roman settlers. The city once more flourished, by the 1st century CE it became an important administrative and trade center again. In addition, following St. Paul’s visit between 51 and 52 CE, Corinth became the center of early Christianity in Greece. In a public hearing, the saint had to defend himself against accusations from the city’s Hebrews that his preaching undermined the Mosiac Law. The pro-consul Lucius Julius Gallio judged that Paul had not broken any Roman law and so was permitted to continue his teachings. From the 3rd century, CE Corinth began to decline and the Germanic tribes attacked the city.
THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITE
In Greek Corinth, there were cults to Aphrodite (protector of the city), Apollo, Demeter Thesmophoros, Hera, Poseidon, and Helios and various buildings to cult heroes, the founders of the city. In addition, there were several sacred springs, the most famous being Peirene. Unfortunately, the destruction in 146 BCE erased much of this religious past. In Roman Corinth, Aphrodite, Poseidon, and Demeter did continue to be worshipped along with the Roman gods.
The site today, first excavated in 1892 CE by the Greek Archaeological Service, is dominated by the Doric peripteral Temple of Apollo (550 – 530 BCE), originally with 6 columns on the façades and fifteen on the long sides. A particular feature of the temple is the use of monolithic columns rather than the more commonly used column drums. Seven columns remain standing today.
The majority of the other surviving buildings date from the 1st century CE in the Roman era and include a large forum, a temple to Octavia, baths, the Bema where St. Paul addressed the Corinthians, the Asklepeion temple to Asclepius, and a centre of healing, fountains – including the monumental Peirine fountain complex (2nd century CE) – a propylaea, theatre, odeion, gymnasium, and stoas. There are also the remains of three basilicas.
Archaeological finds at the site include many fine mosaics – notably the Dionysos mosaic – Greek and Roman sculpture – including an impressive number of busts of Roman rulers.
Epidaurus:
Located on the fertile Argolid plain of the east Peloponnese in Greece and blessed with a mild climate and natural springs, the sanctuary of Asclepius at Epidaurus was an important sacred center in both ancient Greek and Roman times.
Epidaurus was named after the hero Epidauros, son of Apollo. Inhabited since Neolithic times, the first significant settlement was in the Mycenaean period. Fortifications, a theatre and tholos tombs have been excavated dating as early as the 15th century BCE, although it was in the 12th century BCE that Epidaurus Limera, with its harbor linking it to the Aegean trade network, particularly flourished.
Earlier regional worship of the deity Maleatas evolved into the later worship of Apollo, who was given similar attributes. However, it was Asclepius (also spelled Asklepios), whom the Epidaurians believed was born on the nearby Mt. Titthion, who took precedence from the 5th century BCE until Roman times in the 4th century CE. Credited with possessing great healing powers (learned from his father Apollo) and also those of prophecy, the god – as manifested in the sanctuary or Asklepieion – was visited from all over Greece by those seeking ease and remedies from their illnesses either by divine intervention or medicines administered by the priests. The sanctuary used the wealth gained from dedications of the worshipers to build an impressive complex of buildings and to sponsor major art projects to beautify the center. Indeed, many of the offerings given were works of art such as statues, pottery vessels, tripods, and even buildings.
At the height of the site’s importance in the 4th century BCE (370 – 250 BCE), major buildings included two monumental entrances (Propylaia); a large temple (380 – 375 BCE) with the typical 6×11 column Doric layout, containing a larger than life-size Chryselephantine statue of a seated Asclepius (by Thrasymedes) and with pediments displaying in statuary the Amazonomachy and the Siege of Troy; temples dedicated to Aphrodite (320 BCE), Artemis and Themis; a sacred fountain; the Thymele (360 – 330 BCE) – around marble building originally with 26 outer Doric columns, a 14 Corinthian columned cella and a mysterious underground labyrinth, perhaps containing snakes which were associated with Asclepius; the columned Abato (or Enkoimeterion) in which patients waited overnight for divine intervention and remedy; other temples, hot and cold bathhouses, stoas, stadium, palaistra and large gymnasia; and a 6000 seat theatre (340 – 330 BCE). These latter sporting and artistic buildings were used in the Asklepieia festival, founded in the 5th century BCE and held every four years to celebrate theatre, sport, and music. The theatre, with 2nd century CE additions resulting in 55 tiers of seats and a capacity of perhaps 12,300 spectators, would become one of, if not the, largest theatres in antiquity. Other Roman additions to the site in the 2nd century included a temple of Hygieia, a large bath building and a small odeum.
The site was destroyed in 395 CE by the Goths and the Emperor Theodosius II definitively closed the site along with all other pagan sanctuaries in 426 CE. The site was abandoned once and for all following earthquakes in 522 and 551 CE. Excavations at the ancient site were first begun in 1881 CE by the Greek Archaeological Society and continue to the present day. Today, the magnificent theatre, renowned for its acoustics, is still in active use for performances in an annual traditional theatre festival.
Mycenae:
Mycenae was a fortified late Bronze Age city located between two hills on the Argolis plain of the Peloponnese, Greece. The acropolis today dates from between the 14th and 13th century BCE when the Mycenaean civilization was at its peak of power, influence and artistic expression.
IN MYTHOLOGY:
In Greek mythology, the city was founded by Perseus, who gave the site its name either after his sword’s scabbard (mykes) fell to the ground and was regarded as a good omen or as he found a water spring near a mushroom (mykes). Perseus was the first king of the Perseid dynasty which ended with Eurytheus (instigator of Hercules’ famous twelve labors). The succeeding dynasty was the Atreids, whose first king, Atreus, is traditionally believed to have reigned around 1250 BCE. Atreus’ son Agamemnon is believed to have been not only king of Mycenae but of all of the Achaean Greeks and the leader of their expedition to Troy to recapture Helen. In Homer’s account of the Trojan War in the Iliad, Mycenae (or Mykene) is described as a ‘well-founded citadel’, as ‘wide-wayed’ and as ‘golden Mycenae’, the latter supported by the recovery of over 15 kilograms of gold objects recovered from the shaft graves in the acropolis.
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW:
Situated on a rocky hill (40 – 50 m high) commanding the surrounding plain as far as the sea 15 km away, the site of Mycenae covered 30,000 square meters and has always been known throughout history. First excavations were begun by the Archaeological Society of Athens in 1841 and then continued by the famous Heinrich Schliemann in 1876 that discovered the magnificent treasures of Grave Circle A. The archaeological excavations have shown that the city has a much older history than traditional Greek literature described.
Even though the site was inhabited since Neolithic times, it is not until 2100 BCE that the first walls, pottery finds (including imports from the Cycladic islands) and pit and shaft graves with higher quality grave goods appear. These, collectively, suggest greater importance and prosperity in the settlement.
Since 1600 BCE there is evidence of an elite presence on the acropolis: high-quality pottery, wall paintings, shaft graves and an increase in the surrounding settlement with the construction of large tholos tombs. From the 14th century BCE the first large-scale palace complex is built (on three artificial terraces), so is the celebrated tholos tomb, the Treasury of Atreus, a monumental circular building with corbelled roof reaching a height of 13.5 m and 14.6 m in diameter and approached by a long walled and unroofed corridor 36 m long and 6m wide. Fortification walls, of large roughly worked stone blocks, surrounding the acropolis (of which the north wall is still visible today), flood management structures such as dams, roads, Linear B tablets and an increase in pottery imports (fitting well with theories of contemporary Mycenaean expansion in the Aegean) illustrate the culture was at its zenith.
ARCHITECTURE:
The large palace structure built around a central hall or Megaron is typical of Mycenaean palaces. Other features included a secondary hall, many private rooms, and a workshop complex. Decorated stonework and frescoes and a monumental entrance, the Lion Gate (a 3 m x 3 m square doorway with an 18-ton lintel topped by two 3 m high heraldic lions and a column altar), added to the overall splendor of the complex. The relationship between the palace and the surrounding settlement and between Mycenae and other towns in the Peloponnese is much discussed by scholars. Concrete archaeological evidence is lacking but it seems likely that the palace was a center of political, religious and commercial power. Certainly, high-value grave goods, administrative tablets, pottery imports and the presence of precious materials deposits such as bronze, gold, and ivory would suggest that the palace was, at the very least, the hub of a thriving trade network.
The first palace was destroyed in the late 13th century, probably by an earthquake and then (rather poorly) repaired. A monumental staircase, the North Gate, and a ramp were added to the acropolis and the walls were extended to include the Persia spring within the fortifications. The spring was named after the city’s mythological founder and was reached by an impressive corbelled tunnel (or syrinx) with 86 steps leading down 18m to the water source. It is argued by some scholars that these architectural additions are evidence for a preoccupation with security and possible invasion. This second palace was also destroyed, this time with signs of fire. Some rebuilding did occur and pottery finds suggest a degree of prosperity returned briefly before another fire ended the occupation of the site until a brief revival in Hellenistic times. With the decline of Mycenae, Argos became the dominant power in the region. Reasons for the demise of Mycenae and the Mycenaean civilization are much debated with suggestions including natural disasters, over-population, internal social and political unrest or invasion from foreign tribes.
Nafplio:
The city of Nafplio was the first capital of the modern Greek state. Named after Nafplios, son of Poseidon, and home of Palamidis, their local hero of the Trojan war and supposedly the inventor of weights and measures, lighthouses, the first Greek alphabet and the father of the Sophists. The small city-state made the mistake of allying with Sparta in the second Messenian War (685 – 688BCE) and was destroyed by Damokratis the king of Argos.
Because of the strength of the fort that sits above the bay, the town of Nafplio became an important strategic and commercial center to the Byzantines from around the sixth century AD. In 1203 Leon Sgouros, ruler of the city, conquered Argos and Corinth, and Larissa to the north, though it failed to successfully conquer Athens after a siege in 1204.
With the fall of Constantinople to the Turks, the Franks, with the help of the Venetians captured the city and nearly destroyed the fortress in the process. In the treaty, the defenders of the city were given the eastern side of the city, called the Romeiko and allowed to follow their customs, while the Franks controlled the Akronafplia, which was most of the city at the time. The Franks controlled the city for 200 years and then sold it to the Venetians. The Venetians continued the fortification of the upper town and completed their work in 1470. That same year they built a fort on the small island in the center of the harbor called the Bourtzi. To close the harbor the fort was linked by chains and the town was known as Porto Cadenza, meaning Port of Chains. During this period people flocked to the safety of the fortified city in fear of the Turks and forced the expansion of the city into the lagoon between the sea and the walls of the Akronafplia. The new additions to the city were surrounded by walls and many major buildings were erected including the Church of Saint George. But these new walls didn’t matter because in the treaty with Suleiman the First, Nafplio was handed over to the Turks who controlled the city for 100 years and made it the primary import/export center for mainland Greece.
In 1686 the Turks surrendered the city to a combined force of Venetians, Germans and Poles, lead by Vice Admiral Morozini and this began the second period of Venetian rule in which massive repairs were made to the fortress and the city including the construction of the fortress in Palamidi. When the Peloponessos falls to the Venetians, Nafplio becomes the capital. But after just thirty years the Turks once again take control of the city, almost totally destroying it, looting it and killing almost all its defenders. Most of the survivors chose to leave and the city while the Turks built mosques, baths and homes in the eastern style which can still be seen.
In April of 1821 Greek chieftains and Philhellenes surrounded the city of Nafplio and liberated it from the Turks under the leadership of Theodore Kolokotronis. Nafplio became the center of activities that would result in the formation of Modern Greece. In 1823 it becomes the capital of the state which is then recognized by the world powers (England, France and Russia) in 1827.
In January of 1828, Ioannis Kapodistrias is recognized as the first governor and arrives in Nafplion. In 1831 King Otto is chosen as the first King of Greece but a month later Kapodistrias is murdered in the Church of Agios Spiridon.
In 1833 King Otto arrives amid great fanfare to the city of Nafplio where he remains until 1834 when the capital of Greece is moved to Athens.
In 1862 there is a rebellion in Nafplio against the monarchy. A siege by the royal army follows. The rebels are given amnesty in 1862. In 1834 Kolokotronis is jailed in the Palamidi fortress. After the capital moves to Athens, the city of Nafplio becomes of less importance. But it still continues to attract visitors to this very day because its history is virtually the history of modern Greece and because every occupying power has left its mark.
The city of Nafplio is like a living museum. It’s also as lively as any city in Greece.
Ancient Olympia:
The history of Olympia is strongly connected to the Olympic Games. Historical records indicate that the games began in 776 BCE as a local festival to honor god Zeus. However, along the centuries, these games gained more and more popularity and all city-states of Greece would send their finest men to participate in the games. This event was so important for the ancient world that even all warfare would stop for a month so that the towns would send their best youths to participate in the games. This athletic festival occurred every four years and lasted for five days, including wrestling, chariot and horse racing, the pentathlon (discus throwing, javelin throwing, long jump, running and pancratium).
However, the athletes would stay for 1 or 2 months before the games in Olympia to train in the Palaestra. Before the games, the high priestess of Olympia marked the beginning of the games lighting the Olympic flame. Also, offerings and ceremonies in the temple of Zeus and the temple of Hera were practiced to ask for the favor of the gods. The games would take place in the stadium and people would watch them from the hills around it. All athletes were male and would take part in the games in total nudity. Women were forbidden under the penalty of death to part take in the games or even watch them as a spectator. The only woman who could watch the games, and in fact from a privileged spot, was the priestess of the temple of Demeter in Olympia.
There were no seats for the spectators and all people, regardless of their social state, would sit on the ground. The Hellanodikae, a body of priests, were responsible to name the winners. The reward of the winning athletes was a crown made from a wild olive tree, which was enough to honor him, his family and his city for decades. In fact, it was such an honor to be an Olympic winner that their town even pulled down a part of their city walls, as the town would be protected by the winner. At the same time, the political personalities from different parts of Greece took advantage of the games to make speeches and try to resolve differences against each other. The games were also a good opportunity for traders to make business deals. Unfortunately, in 393 AD, the Olympic Games were suspended by the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius, as it was considered a pagan custom. It was the time when Christianity was the dominant religion of the Byzantine Empire and everything connected to the ancient Greek spirit was considered pagan. Thus the games were stopped, the temples of Olympia were turned into churches and important statues, among which the golden statue of Zeus, a miracle of the ancient world, was transferred to Constantinople.
The revival of the Olympic Games in the modern era was an idea of the French Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894 and only two years later, in 1896, the first modern Olympic Games took place in Athens, at the renovated Panathenaic Stadium. Since then, the games take place every 4 years in a different place in the world every time.
Nafpaktos:
The name Nafpaktos derives from nafs which means boat in ancient Greek. The privileged location of Nafpaktos not only benefited the shipbuilding activity but located so close to the Peloponnese made it a nice spot to have control over the western side of the Corinthian bay. During the Peloponnesian War in 455 BCE, Nafpaktos became a chief naval station. In Medieval times, in spite of the many earthquakes, it also worked as one of the most important ports in the area, as it served as a connection between Europe and the Holy Land. Nafpaktos also became one of the most important ports of the Byzantine fleet and it was used as a proper station for diplomatic communications to the West and at the same time to Constantinople. Then, in 1204, Nafpaktos was captured by the Venetians and was recorded as Lepanto on their documents, a name that became very famous after the Battle of Lepanto, an important point in the history of Nafpaktos. In the 13th century, the city was ceded to Michael Doukas Komnenos. During this same century, he offered Nafpaktos to Philip of Taras, the fiance of his daughter as a marriage dowry. The following century, the control of the city passed to the Ottomans. In 1407, Nafpaktos fell under the Venetians again who repaired the old Byzantine walls and fortified the port with a strong castle in order to create a safe station. The Ottomans finally invaded the city in 1499. In October of 1571, the legendary Battle of Lepanto took place between the Ottomans and Europeans, leading to the victory of the Europeans. According to historians, this battle marked the decline of the Ottoman Empire. Among the soldiers to participate in this fight was Miguel de Cervantes, the famous writer who was fighting in the Spanish fleet that time and in fact, he lost his left arm in the battle. His statue is found today at the port of Nafpaktos. Many fights followed to set the town free. Nafpaktos had an important contribution to the Greek War of Independence and many heroes operated there in fact, the statue of Anemogiannis, a Freedom fighter, stands today at the port of Nafpaktos. Finally, in 1829, Nafpaktos earned its freedom and became part of the first Greek State.
Delphi:
Delphi was an important ancient Greek religious sanctuary sacred to the god Apollo. Located on Mt. Parnassus near the Gulf of Corinth, the sanctuary was home to the famous oracle of Apollo which gave cryptic predictions and guidance to both city-states and individuals. In addition, Delphi was also home to the PanHellenic Pythian Games.
MYTHOLOGY & ORIGINS:
The site was first settled in Mycenaean times in the late Bronze Age (1500 – 1100 BCE) but took on its religious significance from around 800 BCE. The original name of the sanctuary was Pytho after the snake which Apollo was believed to have killed there. Οfferings at the site from this period include small clay statues (the earliest), bronze figurines, and richly decorated bronze tripods.
Delphi was also considered the center of the world, for in Greek mythology Zeus released two eagles, one to the east and another to the west, and Delphi was the point at which they met after encircling the world. This fact was represented by the omphalos (or navel); a dome-shaped stone that stood outside Apollo’s temple and which also marked the spot where Apollo killed the Python.
APOLLO’S ORACLE:
The oracle of Apollo at Delphi was famed throughout the Greek world and even beyond. The oracle – the Pythia or priestess – would answer questions put to her by visitors wishing to be guided in their future actions. The whole process was a lengthy one, usually taking up a whole day and only carried out on specific days of the year. First, the priestess would perform various actions of purification such as washing in the nearby Castalian Spring, burning laurel leaves and drinking holy water. Next an animal – usually a goat – was sacrificed. The party seeking advice would then offer a pelanos – a sort of pie – before being allowed into the inner temple where the priestess resided and gave her pronouncements, possibly in a drug or natural gas-induced state of ecstasy.
Perhaps the most famous consultant of the Delphic oracle was Croesus, the fabulously rich King of Lydia who, when faced with a war against the Persians, asked the oracle’s advice. The oracle stated that if Croesus went to war then a great empire would surely fall. Reassured by this, the king took on the mighty Cyrus. However, the Lydians were overpowered at Sardis and it was the Lydian empire which fell, a lesson that the oracle could easily be misinterpreted by the unwise or over-confident.
PANHELLENIC GAMES:
Delphi, as with the other major religious sites of Olympia, Nemea, and Isthmia, held games to honor various gods of the Greek religion. The Pythian Games of Delphi began sometime between 591 and 585 BCE and were initially held every eight years, with the only event being a musical competition where solo singers accompanied themselves on a kithara to sing a hymn to Apollo. Later, more musical contests and athletic events were added to the program, and the games were held every four years with only the Olympic Games being more important. The principal prize for victors in the games was a crown of laurel or bay leaves.
The site and games were managed by the independent Delphic amphictyony – a council with representatives from various nearby city-states – which asked for taxes, collected offerings, invested in construction programs, and even organized military campaigns in the Four Sacred Wars, fought to remedy sacrilegious acts against Apollo committed by the states of Crisa, Phocis, and Amphissa.
ARCHITECTURE:
The first temple in the area was built in the 7th century BCE and was a replacement for less substantial buildings of worship that had stood before it. The focal point of the sanctuary, the Doric temple of Apollo, was unfortunately destroyed by fire in 548 BCE. A second temple, again Doric in style, was completed in 510 BCE. Measuring some 60 by 24 meters, the facade had six columns whilst the sides had 15. This temple was destroyed by an earthquake in 373 BCE and was replaced by a similarly sized temple in 330 BCE. This was constructed with poros stone coated in stucco. Marble sculpture was also added as decoration along with Persian shields taken at the Battle of Marathon. This is the temple that survives, although only partially, today.
Other notable constructions were the theatre (with capacity for 5,000 spectators), temples to Athena (4th century BCE), a tholos with 13 Doric columns ( 580 BCE), stoas, a stadium (with capacity for 7,000 spectators), and around 20 treasuries, which were constructed to house the votive offerings and dedications from city-states all over Greece. Similarly, monuments were also erected to commemorate military victories and other important events. For example, the Spartan general Lysander erected a monument to celebrate his victory over Athens at Aegospotami. Other notable monuments were the great bronze Bull of Corcyra (580 BCE), the ten statues of the kings of Argos (369 BCE), a gold four-horse chariot offered by Rhodes, and a huge bronze statue of the Trojan Horse offered by the Argives (413 BCE). Lining the sacred way, from the sanctuary gate up to the temple of Apollo, the visitor must have been greatly impressed by the artistic and literal wealth on display. Alas, in most cases, only the monumental pedestals survive of these great statues, silent witnesses to lost grandeur.
DEMISE:
In 480 BCE the Persians attacked the sanctuary and in 279 BCE the sanctuary was attacked again, this time by the Gauls. During the 3rd century BCE, the site came under the control of the Aitolian League. In 191 BCE Delphi passed into Roman hands; however, the sanctuary and the games continued to be culturally important in Roman times, in particular under Hadrian. The decree by Theodosius in 393 CE to close all pagan sanctuaries resulted in Delphi’s gradual decline. A Christian community dwelt at the site for several centuries until its final abandonment in the 7th century CE.
The site was ‘rediscovered’ with the first modern excavations being carried out in 1880 CE by a team of French archaeologists. Notable finds were splendid metope sculptures from the treasury of the Athenians (490 BCE) and the Siphnians (525 BCE) depicting scenes from Greek mythology. In addition, a bronze charioteer in the severe style (480 – 460 BCE), the marble Sphinx of the Naxians (560 BCE), the twin marble archaic statues – the kouroi of Argos (580 BCE) and the richly decorated omphalos stone (330 BCE) – all survive as testimony to the cultural and artistic wealth that Delphi had once enjoyed.
Meteora:
Meteora is an exquisite complex that consists of huge dark stone pillars rising outside Trikala, near the mountains of Pindos. The monasteries that sit on top of these rocks make up the second most important monastic community in Greece, after Mount Athos in Halkidiki. Out of the thirty monasteries that were founded throughout the centuries, only six of them are active today.
The history of Meteora goes back to many millenniums. Theories on the creation of this natural phenomenon are associated with the geological movements that occurred over several geological periods. Scientists believe that these pillars were formed about 60 million years ago, during the Tertiary Period. At the time, the area was covered by sea but a series of earth movements caused the seabed to withdraw. The mountains left were continuously hit by strong winds and waves, which, in combination with extreme weather conditions, affected their shape, leaving us with pillars composed of sandstone and conglomerate. In the Byzantine times, monks had the inspiration to construct monasteries on top of these rocks so that they would be closer to god.
The foundation of Meteora monasteries began around the 11th century. In the 12th century, the first ascetic state was officially formed and established a church to the Mother our Lord as their worshiping center. Activities of this church were not only related to worshiping God, but hermits used these occasions to discuss their problems and exchange ideas relating their ascetic life there. In the 14th century, Saint Athanasios established the Holy Monastery of the Transfiguration of Jesus and named this huge rock Meteoro, which means hanged from nowhere. This monastery is also known as the Holy Monastery of the Great Meteoron, the largest of all monasteries.
For many centuries, the monks used scaffolds for climbing the rocks and getting supplies. As years passed, this method was followed by the use of nets with hooks and rope ladders. Sometimes a basket was used, which was pulled up by the monks. Wooden ladders of 40 meters long were also one of the essential tools for accessing the monasteries. Between the 15th and 17th centuries, Meteora was at its prime with the arrival of many monks from other monasteries or people who wanted to lead an ascetic life in this divine environment. However, the prosperity of Meteora during that time started to fade away after the 17th century mainly due to the raids of thieves and conquerors. These caused many monasteries to be abandoned or destructed. Today, only 6 monasteries operate with a handful of monks each. The only nunnery (female monastery) is the Monastery of Agios Stefanos.
Thermopylae:
Thermopylae is a mountain pass near the sea in northern Greece which was the site of several battles in antiquity, the most famous being that between Persians and Greeks in August 480 BCE. Despite being greatly inferior in numbers, the Greeks held the narrow pass for three days with Spartan King Leonidas fighting a last-ditch defense with a small force of Spartans and other Greek hoplites. Ultimately the Persians took control of the pass, but the heroic defeat of Leonidas would assume legendary proportions for later generations of Greeks, and within a year the Persian invasion would be repulsed at the battles of Salamis and Plataea.
THE PERSIAN WARS
By the first years of the 5th century BCE, Persia, under the rule of Darius (522 – 486 BCE), was already expanding into mainland Europe and had subjugated Thrace and Macedonia. Next in Κing Darius’ sights were Athens and the rest of Greece. Just why Greece was craved by Persia is unclear. Wealth and resources seem an unlikely motive; other more plausible suggestions include the need to increase the prestige of the king at home or to quell once and for all a collection of potentially troublesome rebel states on the western border of the empire.
Whatever the exact motives, in 491 BCE Darius sent envoys to call for the Greek’s submission to Persian rule. The Greeks sent a no-nonsense reply by executing the envoys, and Athens and Sparta promised to form an alliance for the defense of Greece. Darius’ response to this diplomatic outrage was to launch a naval force of 600 ships and 25,000 men to attack the Cyclades and Euboea, leaving the Persians just one step away from the rest of Greece. In 490 BCE Greek forces led by Athens met the Persians in battle at Marathon and defeated the invaders. The battle would take on mythical status amongst the Greeks, but in reality, it was merely the opening overture of a long war with several other battles making up the principal acts. Persia, with the largest empire in the world, was vastly superior in men and resources and now these would be fully utilized for a full-scale attack.
In 486 BCE Xerxes became king upon the death of Darius and massive preparations for an invasion were made. Depots of equipment and supplies were laid, a canal dug at Chalkidiki, and boat bridges built across the Hellespont to facilitate the movement of troops. Greece was about to face its greatest ever threat, and even the oracle at Delphi ominously advised the Athenians to ‘fly to the world’s end’.
THE PASS OF THERMOPYLAE
When news of the invading force reached Greece, the initial Greek reaction was to send a force of 10,000 hoplites to hold a position at the valley of Tempē near Mt. Olympos, but these withdrew when the massive size of the invading army was revealed. Then after much discussion and compromise between Greek city-states, suspicious of each other’s motives, a joint army of between 6,000 and 7,000 men was sent to defend the pass at Thermopylae through which the Persians must enter to access mainland Greece. The Greek forces included 300 Spartans and their helots with 2,120 Arcadians, 1,000 Lokrians, 1,000 Phokians, 700 Thespians, 400 Corinthians, 400 Thebans, 200 men from Phleious, and 80 Mycenaeans.
The relatively small size of the defending force has been explained as reluctance by some Greek city-states to commit troops so far north, and/or due to religious motives, for it was the period of the sacred games at Olympia and the most important Spartan religious festival, the Karneia, and no fighting was permitted during these events. Indeed, for this very reason, the Spartans had arrived too late at the earlier battle of Marathon. Therefore, the Spartans, widely credited as being the best fighters in Greece and the only city state with a professional army, contributed only a small advance force of 300 hoplites (from an estimated 8,000 available) to the Greek defensive force, these few being chosen from men with male heirs.
In addition to the land forces, the Greek city-states sent a fleet of trireme warships that held position off the coast of Artemision (or Artemisium) on the northern coast of Euboea, 40 nautical miles from Thermopylae. The Greeks would amass over 300 triremes and perhaps their main purpose was to prevent the Persian fleet sailing down the inland coast of Lokris and Boeotia.
The pass of Thermopylae, located 150 km north of Athens was an excellent choice for defense with steep mountains running down into the sea leaving only a narrow marshy area along the coast. The pass had also been fortified by the local Phokians who built a defensive wall running from the so-called Middle Gate down to the sea. The wall was in a state of ruin, but the Spartans made the best repairs they could in the circumstances. It was here, then, in a 15-meter wide gap with a sheer cliff protecting their left flank and the sea on their right that the Greeks chose to make a stand against the invading army. Having somewhere in the region of 80,000 troops at his disposal, the Persian king, who led the invasion in person, first waited four days in the expectation that the Greeks would flee in panic. When the Greeks held their position, Xerxes once again sent envoys to offer the defenders the last chance to surrender without bloodshed, if the Greeks would only lay down their arms. Leonidas’ bullish response to Xerxes’s request was ‘molōn labe’ or ‘come and gets them’ and so battle commenced.
HOPLITES VS ARCHERS
The two opposing armies were essentially representative of the two approaches to Classical warfare – the Persians favored long-range assault using archers followed up with a cavalry charge, whilst the Greeks favored heavily-armored hoplites, arranged in a densely packed formation called the phalanx, with each man carrying a heavy round bronze shield and fighting at close quarters using spears and swords. The Persian infantry carried a lightweight (often crescent-shaped) wicker shield and was armed with a long dagger or battle-ax, a short spear, and composite bow. The Persian forces also included the Immortals, an elite force of 10,000 who were probably better protected with armor and armed with spears. The Persian cavalry was armed as the foot soldiers, with a bow and an additional two javelins for throwing and thrusting. Cavalry, usually operating on the flanks of the main battle, were used to mop up opposing infantry put in disarray after they had been subjected to repeated showers from the archers. Although the Persians had enjoyed the upper hand in previous contests during the recent Ionian revolt, the terrain at Thermopylae would better suit the Greek approach to warfare.
Although the Persian tactic of rapidly firing vast numbers of arrows into the enemy must have been an awesome sight, the lightness of the arrows meant that they were largely ineffective against the bronze-armored hoplites. Indeed, Spartan indifference is epitomized by Dieneces, who, when told that the Persian arrows would be so dense as to darken the sun, replied that in that case, the Spartans would have the pleasure of fighting in the shade. At close quarters, the longer spears, heavier swords, better armor, and rigid discipline of the phalanx formation meant that the Greek hoplites would have all of the advantages, and in the narrow confines of the terrain, the Persians would struggle to make their vastly superior numbers count.
BATTLE
On the first day, Xerxes sent his Median and Kissian troops, and after their failure to clear the pass, the elite Immortals entered the battle but in the brutal close-quarter fighting, the Greeks held firm. The Greek tactic of simulating a disorganized retreat and then turning on the enemy in the phalanx formation also worked well, lessening the threat from Persian arrows and perhaps the hoplites surprised the Persians with their disciplined mobility, a benefit of being a professionally trained army.
The second day followed the pattern of the first, and the Greek forces still held the pass. However, an unscrupulous traitor was about to tip the balance in favor of the invaders. Ephialtes, son of Eurydemos, a local shepherd from Trachis, seeking reward from Xerxes, informed the Persians of an alternative route –the Anopaia path– which would allow them to avoid the majority of the enemy forces and attack their southern flank. Leonidas had stationed the contingent of Phokian troops to guard this vital point but they, thinking themselves the primary target of this new development, withdrew to a higher defensive position when the Immortals attacked. This suited the Persians as they could now continue unobstructed along the mountain path and arrive behind the main Greek force. With their position now seemingly hopeless, and before their retreat was cut off completely, the bulk of the Greek forces were ordered to withdraw by Leonidas.
LAST STAND
The Spartan king, on the third day of the battle, rallied his small force – the survivors from the original Spartan 300, 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans – and made a rearguard stand to defend the pass to the last man in the hope of delaying the Persians progress, in order to allow the rest of the Greek force to retreat or also possibly to await relief from a larger Greek force. Early in the morning, the hoplites once more met the enemy, but this time Xerxes could attack from both front and rear and planned to do so but, in the event, the Immortals behind the Greeks were late on arrival. Leonidas moved his troops to the widest part of the pass to utilize all of his men at once, and in the ensuing clash, the Spartan king was killed. His comrades then fought fiercely to recover the body of the fallen king. Meanwhile, the Immortals now entered the fray behind the Greeks who retreated to a high mound behind the Phokian wall. Perhaps at this point, the Theban contingent may have surrendered (although this is disputed amongst scholars). The remaining hoplites now trapped and without their inspirational king, were subjected to a barrage of Persian arrows until no man was left standing. After the battle, Xerxes ordered that Leonidas’ head be put on a stake and displayed at the battlefield. As Herodotus claims in his account of the battle in book VII of The Histories, the Oracle at Delphi had been proved right when she proclaimed that either Sparta or one of her kings must fall.
Meanwhile, at Artemision, the Persians were battling the elements rather than the Greeks, as they lost 400 triremes in a storm off the coast of Magnesia and more in a second storm off Euboea. When the two fleets finally met, the Greeks fought late in the day and therefore limited the duration of each skirmish which diminished the numerical advantage held by the Persians. The result of the battle was, however, indecisive and on news of Leonidas’ defeat, the fleet withdrew to Salamis.
THE AFTERMATH
The battle of Thermopylae, and particularly the Spartan’s role in it, soon acquired mythical status amongst the Greeks. Free men, in defiance of their own laws, had sacrificed themselves in order to defend their way of life against foreign aggression. As Simonides’ epitaph at the site of the fallen stated: ‘Go tell the Spartans, you who read: We took their orders and here lie dead’.
A glorious defeat maybe, but the fact remained that the way was now clear for Xerxes to push on into mainland Greece. The Greeks, though, were far from finished, and despite many states now turning over to the Persians and Athens itself being sacked, a Greek army led by Leonidas’ brother Kleombrotos began to build a defensive wall near Corinth. Winter halted the land campaign, though, and at Salamis, the Greek fleet maneuvered the Persians into shallow waters and won a resounding victory. Xerxes returned home to his palace at Sousa and left the gifted general Mardonius in charge of the invasion. After a series of political negotiations, it became clear that the Persians would not gain victory through diplomacy and the two armies met at Plataea in August 479 BCE. The Greeks, fielding the largest hoplite army ever seen, won the battle and finally ended Xerxes’ ambitions in Greece.
As an interesting footnote: the important strategic position of Thermopylae meant that it was once more the scene of battle in 279 BCE when the Greeks faced invading Gauls, in 191 BCE when a Roman army defeated Antiochus III, and even as recent as 1941 when Allied New Zealand forces clashed with those of Germany.
Cancellation Policy
Firstly and most importantly, ALL CANCELLATIONS MUST BE CONFIRMED BY Olive Sea Travel.
Regarding Multiple Day Tours, Cancellation 7 days before your service date is 100% refundable.
Policy:
- As Licensed Tour Guides and Hotels are external cooperators, they have their own cancellation policy.
- Apart from the above cancellation limits, NO refunds will be made. If though, you fail to make your appointment for reasons that are out of your hands, that would be, in connection with the operation of your airline or cruise ship or strikes, extreme weather conditions or mechanical failure. You WILL be refunded 100% of the paid amount.
- Let it be noted that, if your cancellation date is over TWO (2) months away from your reservation date, It has been known for third-party providers such as credit card companies, PayPal, etc. to charge a levy fee usually somewhere between 2-4%.
- Olive Sea reserves the right to cancel your booking at any time, when reasons beyond our control arise, such as strikes, prevailing weather conditions, mechanical failures, etc. occur. In this unfortunate case, you shall be immediately notified via the email address you used when making your reservation and your payment WILL be refunded 100%. | https://olivesea.com/tour/4-days-private-tour-corinth-mycenae-nafplio-olympia-delphi-and-meteora/ |
Why were Shoeless Joe Jackson (and seven of his teammates) kicked out of baseball?
I have to ask another…
Why is Joe Jackson not in the Hall-of-Fame?
And, another…
Why is Pete Rose not in the Hall-of-Fame?
And one more…
Why aren’t Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens in the Hall-of-Fame?
The answers to all of those questions are as obvious as they are plain. The answers can be summed up in one word:
Integrity.
Joe Jackson, his teammates, and Pete Rose were all kicked out of baseball because they were accused (or found guilty) of betting on games or throwing games. They compromised the integrity of the sport. They cheated. Since 1920, baseball has always held a firm line on cheating and gambling. It cannot be allowed. Cheaters will be kicked out of the game and will be on the permanently ineligible list.
Baseball feels that allowing players or managers who cheat or gamble on their games is bad business. Baseball feels that these actions compromise the integrity of the sport.
The games have to be played fairly.
For the sport to thrive, baseball games have to be seen as legitimate. They have to be real. The playing field has to be equal.
Cheating is not allowed. Gambling is not allowed. These things hurt the sport’s integrity.
And, you know what? Baseball is correct to hold firm on all of this. For the game to succeed and thrive, it has to be seen as legitimate. The games have to be real.
Baseball must have integrity.
I’m not here today to argue the cases for or against Joe Jackson or Pete Rose. That’s not the point of this article. This article is simply pointing out why they have received the consequences and punishments that they have received. (And I understand that it is the BBWAA, not baseball itself, that is not electing certain players into the Hall-of-Fame, but the point is clear… cheating, of any kind, perceived or real, cannot be tolerated.)
Baseball must have integrity.
Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, two of baseball’s greatest players, are not in the Hall-of-Fame because of the belief (or the evidence) that they used steroids to prolong or enhance their careers. There is a sense (real or otherwise) that their career totals and accomplishments are tainted because they used artificial means to achieve those ends. Bonds and Clemens are not alone in this; they are just the biggest two names of players denied entry into the Hall-of-Fame because of the belief that they compromised the game’s integrity by cheating.
Cheaters never win, baseball (as an industry) says. Bonds might be the all-time homerun king, but he isn’t in the Hall-of-Fame because he cheated. Clemens might be the greatest pitcher of his generation, but he’s not in the Hall-of-Fame because he cheated.
Baseball must have integrity.
The sport has no room for cheaters – however they cheat.
The game must be played honestly and fairly.
Baseball must have integrity.
For the games to be taken seriously, for the sport to thrive, for fans to have any faith or trust in the games and the game itself, the sport must have integrity.
It must.
***
While baseball takes its strong stance on gambling and steroid use (which, for the record, by and large, I agree with) it is, at the same time, allowing other things to threaten the integrity of the game.
And this has been going on for years. The accusations are not new. They just haven’t been addressed as openly or as apparently as the cases of Joe Jackson, Pete Rose, Barry Bonds, and Roger Clemens (to name a few).
Teams are supposedly cheating. It seems that there are more and more instances of teams using technology to steal signs. Baseball teams are being accused of threatening the very integrity of the game.
There was credible evidence that the Red Sox used Apple Watches to steal signs that gave them an unfair advantage. As this article from the New York Times indicates, the Red Sox are not the first team to be credibly accused of illegal sign stealing. As the article notes, there were complaints about the Mets stealing signs in 1997 and the Phillies doing the same in 2011 – with no disciplinary action taken by the league. After the league investigated the Red Sox actions, the team was fined an undisclosed amount of money by the commissioner’s office (as were the Yankees for a different, but similar violation). Still, the consequences seem rather tame when compared against other actions that also mar the integrity of the game. As part of his ruling in the Red Sox and Yankees cases, the commissioner threatened that draft picks could be lost if future allegations of electronic sign stealing prove to be true.
Then, yesterday, amid accusations for years, new allegations of the Astros stealing signs electronically were reported. According to reports, the Astros have been cheating for years. This claim seems to have been substantiated all over the media as the following articles (just three of many) suggest:
MLB must address sign-stealing scandal after report on Astros’ video espionage
Astros used electronic sign-stealing method during title-winning 2017 season, report says
Astros Accused Of Illegal Use Of Technology To Steal Signs
A key quote from that last linked article reads, “Teams are increasingly wary that other clubs are utilizing technology to gain a competitive edge and steal signs, with one anonymous MLB manager telling The Athletic that such habits “permeate” the league and that MLB has done a “very poor job” policing the issue.”
Will baseball discipline the Astros for this – if proven true? Will there be a severe penalty for cheating?
Doesn’t it seem that amid all the allegations of cheating that baseball has done a “very poor job” in dealing with this issue?
Have not the Astros (and any team that does this type of sign stealing) threatened the integrity of the game? Aren’t they cheating?
This isn’t a new concern, but where has baseball’s strong stance against electronic sign stealing been? Their only public action has been an undisclosed fine to the Red Sox and a lesser undisclosed fine levied on the Yankees.
Does that seem enough? The way this has been handled seems to indicate, at least on some level, that baseball hasn’t taken this very real issue – one that absolutely impacts the integrity of the game – seriously enough.
Further, if baseball does not address this, isn’t the very integrity of the game, every single game, threatened?
Did the 2017 World Champion Astros become champions because they cheated? Did the Astros reach the World Series by cheating again in 2019?
This is a huge issue because it strikes at the very core of the integrity of the sport. It strikes at the sport’s very foundations. Major League Baseball needs to get out in front of this.
The very integrity of the game, the one thing that baseball (and any sport needs above all else), has been compromised. The sport’s integrity has been threatened.
This must be addressed with the same seriousness that the game deals with other examples (gambling and steroids) of cheating that strike at the game’s integrity.
But, sadly, or disturbingly, sign stealing is not the only thing that is compromising baseball’s integrity. There’s more. And maybe, just maybe, this next concern is even greater, because, if true, it also strikes at the very game itself. This next accusation strikes at the fact that it seems the sport is allowing itself to be manipulated or is manipulating the game through the very product that is at the core of the game itself – the baseball.
It is possible that the sign stealing problem isn’t a problem across baseball, that it is a only problem with a few isolated teams. That could be true.
But manipulating the baseballs – that’s not a team problem, or problems with just some teams, that’s an industry wide problem. Industry wide.
And it strikes, maybe even more than anything else, at the heart – the very integrity – of the game.
True or not, there was the sense that the baseball used in 2019 was juiced. Why were so many homeruns hit? Many very reputable experts believe that it was the juiced ball. The juiced ball is referenced in article after article – from blogs to major newspapers. It’s discussed in every media outlet. The fact that the ball has been juiced is taken as a given. Juicing the ball is taken as something that the sport just does, or did, or will do (might do) again.
The amount of articles on this are legion. Here are just a few:
We X-Rayed Some MLB Baseballs. Here’s What We Found
These scientists may have solved MLB’s ‘juiced’ baseball problem
There’s no denying juiced baseballs are behind MLB’s historic home run surge
The fact that Major League Baseball seems to manipulate the very balls that are used in the games strikes at the very heart of the game’s integrity.
Juicing a ball changes the game just as much as a player on steroids. Changing the ball changes the game. Using different balls from one season to the next radically alters the way the game is played, the records that are set, the ways teams are built, and the salaries players earn. It absolutely changes how teams will perform. A General Manager will build a team a certain way based on the data he has. If the ball is then changed, a team, which might have succeeded with a different ball, maybe the exact ball used the season before, might end up losing, or playing poorly.
The ever-changing ball, from one season to the next, is something that strikes at the very integrity of the game. For the game to be taken seriously, the ball cannot be changed from season to season.
But, what supposedly happened this year, for the post season, would, if proven true, absolutely and positively strike at the game’s legitimacy and integrity. Because it seems possible, as has been reported far and wide, that Major League Baseball changed the balls used in game play this year for the post season. It seems that the juiced ball used in the 2019 regular season wasn’t used in the post season and that a different ball was substituted. Again the articles on this are legion:
Have baseballs been altered for October? What to know about the evidence with fewer homers
The Rocket Ball Has Disappeared In October (sub. required)
Could the Dejuiced Baseball Send MLB Into Another Dead-Ball Era?
MLB May Have Completely Changed its Baseballs for the Playoffs and Nobody Knows Why
The Postseason Baseball Has Created a New, Homer-Challenged Reality
What one notices when reading this articles is words like “juiced baseball” are taken as absolute fact. The question of whether the ball is manipulated from time to time is taken as an absolute fact – a given.
If this is true, it’s a big problem.
If this is true, the very integrity of the sport has been compromised. A sport cannot thrive when the rules, or the equipment itself, is manipulated from season to season, from regular season to post season…or ever. This strikes at the very essence of the game.
Its integrity.
But the fact that so many people, serious people, in and around the industry seem to believe that the baseball itself is changed, and was changed again for the post season creates a gigantic crisis of confidence in the games that are played.
Baseball’s integrity is being questioned. And this is not good. At all. The very legitimacy of the sport is being questioned.
And while it seems to be a given that the baseball itself is manipulated, the leaders of the sport are seemingly denying it.
I believe that it’s time for baseball to address these problems transparently and completely. I believe the leaders of the sport have to state, very clearly, that the concerns regarding sign stealing and the balls themselves that are being used are being taken very seriously. The Commissioner’s Office needs to get in front of these issues and demonstrate that cheating and manipulating equipment will not be tolerated in the sport. If necessary, they need to hire firms to authenticate the balls that are used from game to game and season to season to guarantee their legitimacy and consistency. Likewise, if teams have been found to be stealing signs electronically, they need to face harsh consequences – similar to the harsh consequences the players who threatened the game’s integrity feel so that teams are aware that sign stealing, and cheating of any kind is not tolerated and will negatively impact on their chances for immediate success and success in the future.
Baseball needs to get out in front of these issues.
The integrity of the game demands it.
Absolutely.
And the time to do this is right now. | https://www.startspreadingthenews.blog/post/two-of-baseball-s-biggest-problem-s |
The Center for Visual Arts (CVA) galleries at SOU give students and community artists the opportunity to show their current work. The CVA Galleries are coordinated by a student Gallery Director and Assistants.
Exhibition Proposal Applications are currently being accepted for the entire 2020-2021 Academic Year. Applications are accepted for each term on a rolling basis until all slots are filled.
The priority deadline for each term is the Friday of the 5th week of classes.
Individuals with disabilities are encouraged to attend all University sponsored events. If you are a person with a disability who requires accommodation(s) in order to participate in this program, please contact Disability Resources at [email protected] in advance.
Art Building Galleries
The Retzlaff Gallery is the typical white cube type gallery with no windows and three blank walls for maximum hanging space. This gallery is perfect for installations and video. It is often reserved for BFA students to present their final body of work before graduating but is also used by the community and student artists depending on availability.
The Thorndike Gallery (pictured above) is designated for local and out-of-state artists, as well as student work depending on availability. Abundant wall space on the left (three large walls) and three panels on the right with natural light from the floor to ceiling windows.
Marion Ady Building Galleries
These galleries may be used for student artwork either in single, group or classroom exhibits. The areas are also used by local schools and selected community groups as an alternative space for their artwork, including: Best of the Best High school competition; art workshops through Extended Campus Programs; Lithia Springs Boys Home; the Empty Bowls Project.
First level:
101 – Boise Cascade Gallery (nearest elevator)
102 – Meyer Memorial Gallery (facing windows)
103 – Art Program Chairs’ Gallery (nearest print studio)
Second level:
202 – Jeld-Wen Gallery (used mostly by ongoing classes)
Contact the Art Program
SOU Art Program
1250 Siskiyou Blvd. | https://sou.edu/academics/art/galleries/ |
I am interested to the study of the internal structure of the strongly interacting particles, hadrons. This research is carried out at Jefferson Laboratory (614-924-4820), Newport News, VA, and Fermi National Laboratory (Fermilab), Batavia, IL. Currently, I am involved in several 6 GeV data analyses projects at JLab that aim to study the Deeply Virtual Compton Scattering off 4He in addition to the 9784487081 (EG6 rungroup experiment (847) 331-7948), extract a 4106911396 to test various spin sum rules (EG4 rungroup experiment 760-507-4644), and probe the time evolution of elementary configurations of the hadron wave function via the hadronization or fragmentation study of the Λ0 hyperon using the (915) 546-1342 EG2 datasets; the EG2 rungroup combined the Color Transparency (CT) 9363712494 & "analysis note" and (219) 333-0572 (CP) experiments. The latter provides a promising method to investigate nucleon and nuclear structure, construct a theory of super-dense nuclear matter, and disentangle the physics of heavy ion collisions that takes place at high temperatures with the creation of a Quark-Gluon Plasma. The ongoing analysis results will be further enriched once the approved CP experiment will accumulate data with the upgraded 12 GeV electron beam energy at JLab. The upcoming CP experiment is expected to take place in concurrence with the 12 GeV CT program (PR12-06-106 5195586296/360-842-4572). To support the research program of the 12 GeV CLAS (CLAS12, housed in Hall-B at JLab) era, my group leads the developement of the drift chambers calibration and monitoring framework.
On the other hand, my Fermilab research focuses on the Drell-Yan (DY) experiments (Polarized 9044298608 and Unpolarized E-906, also dubbed as SeaQuest, experiments). The former polarized DY experiment intends to extract spin dependent quark and anti-quark distributions of the proton and neutron and study the unique behavior of a correlation between the quark/anti-quark spin and angular momenta. In this project, our group is leading the effort to study the poorly known gluon Sivers/Twist-3 transverse momentum distributions using J/Ψ production, develop an
advanced graphics processing unit (GPU) based multi-threaded framework that will allow an efficient parallelization of the online data analysis, and maintain the performance of two-station tracking chambers in the detection spectrometer. The latter unpolarized DY measurement aims to extract a more precise anti-quark asymmetry ratio, study the quark propagation and energy loss effects in the cold nuclear matter, target nucleus, before the hard process, di-lepton production, takes place, in addition to the measurement of DY cross sections from several nuclear targets to compare the sea quark distribution in nuclei to that in Deuterium. This comparison will allow an examination of the previously published DY results, which showed no significant modification of the nuclear cross section for longitudinal momentum fraction, x > 0.1, unlike the "anti-shadowing" enhancement observed in the deep inelastic scattering and the European Muon Collaboration (EMC) experiments. The SeaQuest data will be able to address the question of whether the anti-shadowing region and the so-called "EMC" effect (depletion seen for x ~ 0.5) exist in the Drell-Yan process. | http://imgservers.com/desperatelyseekingsavings.com/page/2/ |
Before you blog your book, you need to develop a content plan. Your blog-a-book content plan helps you identify your chapters and the blog posts necessary to write the book. But just because you’ve laid out your blogging plan doesn’t mean there can’t be flexibility in your writing schedule.
Sometimes you may not be in the mood to write one of the topics from your blog-a-book plan. Rather than losing your writing momentum, how about using one of the following content ideas to maintain your blogging consistency?
Blog Content Ideas
These suggestions will help you leverage your current blogging activity. Plus, they will provide useful content to your readers when you aren’t writing blog posts intended for your book.
1. Book Reviews
Before you developed your content plan, you hopefully did some competitive research on published books within your niche. Reading these competitive books helps you determine the topics you want to include in your book and the writing style and content layout to adopt. Take notes for each book you read, and use these to write a book review blog post.
Tips for writing a useful book review:
- Include key information, like title, author, and website link, to make it easy for your readers to explore a book further. You can also include buy links, and even better if you’re an Amazon affiliate.
- You may leverage the book’s blurb to write a book summary in your own words. Your recap should give your readers a general idea of the book’s premise.
You don’t have to write long, in-depth book reviews, but the post needs to add value. There’s no point in publishing a book review that is just a cut and paste of the book’s Amazon description.
Look at the topic covered from your unique point of view, and share thoughtful and insightful insights that help your readers determine whether the book is relevant to them.
The ideal time to publish these book reviews is when you have written and published related posts. Then you can add a hyperlink to direct readers from your book review to relevant posts on your blog.
2. Book Club Discussion Points
Some nonfiction books include sample book club questions and discussion points, but this feature is more prevalent in fiction. Close this disparity by creating a set of book club questions for every nonfiction book you read within your niche. Click here for some sample nonfiction book club questions to give you some inspiration to create your list.
When you publish your book, don’t forget to add a personalized set of book club questions at the end. I belong to a nonfiction book club. Even though we don’t always answer every question, the list is a valuable jumping-off point to kick-start our group discussions.
3. Book Lists
You may have amassed a list of books during your competitive research or gathered them during your blogging activities. If so, a book list is an easy way to pull together a blog post when you’re short on time. The benefit of this type of blog post is that it’s a short, easy read.
During social interactions and reading other blogs, you’ll also come across other bloggers’ book recommendations. Even if you haven’t read the book, you can add it to your recommendations list and link to the thought leader who recommended it.
4. Author Interviews
Interviews are ideal for getting somebody else to write content for your blog, but this strategy requires content management. First, you have to solicit and approach authors and encourage them to contribute. Then, you usually have to remind them about the publishing deadline. Finally, when you receive their content, you need to proof (and sometimes edit) before publishing it.
I host an author interview series of bloggers who have written a travel-related book. I pose the same list of questions to every author, just like the success stories on this blog. I like the consistency of this approach; it keeps things simple for my readers and me. Of course, depending on your niche and the authors, you may have to personalize some questions.
When hosting author interviews, set up a simple system to track the authors in the content cycle (e.g., contacted, agreed to contribute, content due date, reminder sent, and publication). I used Trello to track and set reminders, but you could just as easily set up an excel spreadsheet.
5. Discussion Post about Key Topics
Your blog-a-book plan will include a list of posts. Each one should have one key theme to help your readers consume your content without feeling overwhelmed. But sometimes, you’ll write about specific topics that would make excellent discussion posts.
Maybe you’re struggling with your point of view on a specific topic or want to present a balanced argument on critical topics. You feel the need for contributions or ideas to flesh out your content. Create a blog post that summarizes the discussion, and include links to related articles on your blog. These posts are ideal for sharing on social media to gather attention and direct traffic back to your blog.
Ideally, you want to leverage the blog commenting section of your post. But if you get responses on social media, ask the poster if you can add the content to your post as a contribution.
Even if you have a clear idea of your book’s content scope, it’s still good to keep an open mind to what others say on key topics. You may even be surprised by a point of view you hadn’t previously considered that could improve your book.
6. Inspiration and Quotes
Visual posts are ideal, especially if you’re using Pinterest to share your blog posts. However, if you want to keep it simple, use Canva to create an image and quote related to your niche or that you think would apply to your audience. Then share it on Pinterest, so it links back to your source blog post.
You can beef us your blog post content by adding links to other blog posts you’ve written that are related to the quote. For example, if I shared this inspirational quote, “To travel is to take a journey into yourself” (Danny Kaye), I could link to my posts that share travel stories about the emotional impact a location had on me.
Blog Content Ideas
You can start drafting these supplementary blog posts and keep them as works-in-progress. Then, when you’re struggling to create your book content, you have an almost-done post in reserve. The best strategy for blogging is consistency, and the content ideas shared above will help keep your blogging schedule on track and add variety for both you and your readers.
Make sure you have a good foundation of published blog posts that are part of or related to your blog-a-book project. That strategy provides you with plenty of options for adding related content links in any of the types of blog posts mentioned in this post.
What type of blog posts do you write when you’re not in the mood to blog your book? Share your ideas and suggestions in the comments below.
About the Author
Jay Artale abandoned her corporate career to become a digital nomad and full-time writer. She’s an avid blogger and a nonfiction author helping travel writers and travel bloggers achieve their self-publishing goals. Join her at Birds of a Feather Press where she shares tips, advice, and inspiration to writers with an independent spirit. | https://howtoblogabook.com/supplement-blog-a-book-content/ |
SAFETY CULTURE Time to Review
What is Safety Culture?
Safety culture has been described by the phrase it's the way we do things around here. Examining culture is like taking a picture of our values, priorities and attitudes particularly in relation to safety in the workplace. That picture might show a weak or strong safety culture.
Additionally, culture is constantly changing, especially as we encounter new influences, new ideas and ways of doing things. Having a strong culture today doesn't mean that it will be strong a year from now. Reassessment is vital!
Examining our actions and our practices
At any point in time, our culture will have both strong elements and weaknesses to work on! We may ask 'how are we doing and how could we do better?' We can only answer those questions by examining our actions and our practices!
Viewing safety culture in terms of practices is useful as it provides a practical way of bringing about cultural changes. Focusing on practices also places the responsibility for safety culture with senior management. This is because it is the leaders of an organisation that determine what is important and what practices will be followed.
The UK Health and Safety Executive defines 5 key practice areas:
- Management (safety leadership)
- Relationships (honesty, trust, respect and participation)
- Knowledge (systems, rules, training and skill)
- Resources (time and conditions), and
- Reporting (identifying issues and addressing them). | https://nz.pfolsen.com/Safety+Bulletins/x_safety-culture-time-to-review |
Comparison of different accelerometers and gyroscopes from Analog Devices integrated in high-end IMUs.
For the development of robotics, smart agriculture, autonomous vehicles and navigation and stabilization applications, accurate motion capture sensors have played a central role. The requirements in high precision, long mission life and high reliability are not provided by standard consumer solutions. In such high-end inertial sensors for industrial applications, Analog Devices competes with Sensonor, Colibrys/Safran, Silicon Sensing Systems and other silicon MEMS companies.
Analog Devices has developed different accelerometers and gyroscopes. We have selected six of them, the ADXL203, ADXL355B, ADXL362, ADXRS290, ADXRS295 and ADXRS195. In this report, we investigate the differences in manufacturing process and integration of these devices in different inertial measurement units (IMUs) from ADI with different levels of precision.
Most of the accelerometers and all gyroscopes contain one main MEMS device and the corresponding Application-Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) in the same package. All the MEMS devices are manufactured with surface micromachining techniques. The cap and the MEMS sensor are assembled with eutectic bonding or glass frit bonding. Accelerometers are assembled with ceramic packaging or a Land Grid Array (LGA) package and all gyroscopes are assembled in a LGA package.
The same accelerometers and gyroscopes are integrated in different IMUs. For different applications we can find combinations of the same accelerometer and gyroscope. Then every IMU is calibrated for different application grades like robotics, internet of moving things, autonomous machines, avionics, precision instrumentation, guidance and navigation. | https://www.systemplus.fr/reverse-costing-reports/analog-devices-high-end-accelerometers-and-gyroscopes-comparison/ |
The Warren Buffett investment philosophy calls for a long-term investment horizon, where a twenty year holding period, or even longer, would fit right into the strategy. How would such a strategy have worked out for an investment into The Gap Inc (NYSE: GPS)? Today, we examine the outcome of a twenty year investment into the stock back in 2000.
|Start date:||06/12/2000||
|
|End date:||06/09/2020|
|Start price/share:||$32.25|
|End price/share:||$12.47|
|Starting shares:||310.08|
|Ending shares:||460.04|
|Dividends reinvested/share:||$9.56|
|Total return:||-42.63%|
|Average annual return:||-2.74%|
|Starting investment:||$10,000.00|
|Ending investment:||$5,736.13|
The above analysis shows the twenty year investment result worked out poorly, with an annualized rate of return of -2.74%. This would have turned a $10K investment made 20 years ago into $5,736.13 today (as of 06/09/2020). On a total return basis, that’s a result of -42.63% (something to think about: how might GPS shares perform over the next 20 years?). [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
Dividends are always an important investment factor to consider, and The Gap Inc has paid $9.56/share in dividends to shareholders over the past 20 years we looked at above. Many an investor will only invest in stocks that pay dividends, so this component of total return is always an important consideration. Automated reinvestment of dividends into additional shares of stock can be a great way for an investor to compound their returns. The above calculations are done with the assuption that dividends received over time are reinvested (the calcuations use the closing price on ex-date).
Based upon the most recent annualized dividend rate of .97/share, we calculate that GPS has a current yield of approximately 7.78%. Another interesting datapoint we can examine is ‘yield on cost’ — in other words, we can express the current annualized dividend of .97 against the original $32.25/share purchase price. This works out to a yield on cost of 24.12%.
Here’s one more great investment quote before you go: | https://mmjstockwatch.com/2020/06/had-you-purchased-the-gap-in-2000-heres-your-result/ |
In Olney, Illinois, bankruptcy is a legal proceeding in which a person or business has some or all of their debts legally excused, when they are unable to pay them. This hopefully allows them to start over with a clean slate and move on, after having learned to better manage their use of credit in the process. However, bankruptcy is not a free ride, allowing someone who simply doesn't feel like paying their debts to get out of that legal obligation. It is designed to prevent debt which has little chance of ever being paid back from ruining the life and finances of the debtor. It also carries significant long-term consequences, which must be carefully weighed against the potential benefits. For example, bankruptcy makes it very difficult for the debtor to obtain credit in the near future.
Therefore, it is a good idea to talk with an experienced bankruptcy lawyer in Olney, Illinois. They will be able to advise you on the likely legal and financial consequences of filing for bankruptcy, and help you determine if it's the right option for your. Because this determination depends heavily on the facts of each individual case, the counsel of an Olney bankruptcy attorney cannot be substituted.
Types of Bankruptcy in Olney, Illinois
In Olney, Illinois, 3 types of bankruptcy procedures are in common use: Chapter 7, Chapter 11, and Chapter 13. Being governed by federal law, the procedures involved in filing for bankruptcy in Olney, Illinois will be about the same as anywhere else in America. Chapter 7 bankruptcy requires the debtor to liquidate some of his or her assets in order to pay off as much debt as possible. Once the sale of the assets is complete, and the proceeds handed over to the creditors, the debt is viewed as discharged. Liquidation is basically selling assets to the highest bidder. Not all of the debtor's assets will need to be sold, and many types of property are totally or partially exempt, including homes, cars, retirement accounts, and insurance policies. This means that the debtor can keep them. It should be noted that some types of debts are not dischargeable in Chapter 7 bankruptcy, including student loans, criminal fines, taxes, and child support payments. Even when the bankruptcy process is complete, these debts will have to be paid in full.
Under Chapter 13 bankruptcy in Olney, most of the debtor's debt is not discharged. Instead, the bankruptcy court, working with the debtor and participating creditors, work out a payment plan that allows the debtor to pay off most of his or her debts over a longer period of time, thereby theoretically making the debt far more manageable. Once a payment plan is approved by the court, creditors are prohibited from attempting to collect payment under their original agreements that gave rise to the debt in the first place. Although it can be used by individuals, Chapter 11 bankruptcy is used almost exclusively by businesses. Not unlike Chapter 13, Chapter 11 focuses on restructuring of debt, rather than discharging it. Chapter 11 requires that the debtor come up with a reorganization plan designed to reduce debt and cut costs. Before being implemented, this plan must be approved by a majority vote of participating creditors.
One main advantage of Chapter 11 bankruptcy is that it allows businesses to continue their operations while the process plays out. Furthermore, their stock can still be bought and sold.
How Can a Olney Bankruptcy Lawyer Help?
Filing for bankruptcy in Olney is a very important decision, and should not be made lightly. Before filing, one should consult with a good Olney bankruptcy attorney for advice. | https://bankruptcyattorneys.legalmatch.com/IL/Olney/bankruptcy-lawyers.html |
Try this gluten free courgette quiche recipe is a delicious way to enjoy essential prenatal nutrients in a meal everyone will enjoy!
We loved this unusual recipe for quiche – perfect for pregnant women on a gluten-free diet. Flour is replaced with a mixture of blended cauliflower, ground almonds and eggs which adds avoids gluten and adds an additional nutritional aspect to the base.
Ingredients
For the base:
Small cauliflower
100g ground almonds
2tsp mixed herbs (freshly chopped parsley, oregano and thyme works well)
2tsp dried mustard powder
2 medium eggs
A little olive oil to grease the base of your quiche dish
For the filling:
1 medium or two small courgettes sliced then quartered
I onion finely sliced
Clove of garlic, crushed
4 medium eggs
1 tbsp of olive oil
50 ml of milk (use oat milk if your pregnancy diet is dairy free)
Salt & pepper to taste
Method
- Heat the oven to 2000C
- Roughly chop the cauliflower a in a large bowl and blend it with a hand blender until smooth – or use a food processor.
- Empty into a clean tea towel and squeeze out any excess water.
- Put the cauliflower back into the bowl and add the ground almonds, mustard powder and herbs. Mix well.
- Lightly beat the two eggs and add to mixture, blending thoroughly to form a paste.
- Grease the base of an 8” flan dish.
- Spoon in the mixture and spread evenly in the dish, using the back of a spoon.
- Pop in the oven for 10 minutes until lightly browned.
- Whilst the base is cooking, saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil for 2-3 minutes and add the courgettes. Continue cooking for another few minutes until the vegetables soften.
- Whisk up the eggs and milk and add salt and pepper to taste.
- Spoon the vegetables onto the base and pour over the eggs.
- Cook in the oven for 20 minutes or until the egg is firm.
FittaMamma Tip: Add a generous sprinkling of parmesan (or other hard cheese) over the top of your quiche before cooking. A handful of toasted pine nuts works well too – pine nuts are an excellent source of magnesium, essential for your pregnancy diet.
This base is equally good with different toppings – try leeks and cheddar, or mushrooms.
Thanks to FittaMamma Naomi for supplying this delicious recipe to share with other pregnant women
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blackginger
Spinach Omelette
Need inspiration to eat iron needed for your healthy pregnancy diet? This Spinach omelette recipe is simple, so tasty and packed with essential prenatal vitamins!
Spinach omelette has to be our favourite standby – quick, easy and packed full of useful nutrients for pregnant women. The spinach is full of folates and the eggs pack a good protein punch. Serve it with extra salad to add to your five a day of pregnancy vitamins!
Ingredients
2 eggs
Approx. 30g (a good handful) of baby spinach leaves, torn or roughly chopped
1 ½ tbsps grated Parmesan cheese
A knob of butter
A shake of ground nutmeg to taste
salt and pepper
Method
- Beat the eggs vigorously in a bowl and stir in the chopped spinach and Parmesan cheese. Season with nutmeg, salt andpepper.
- Melt the butter in a small frying pan until it’s bubbling. Be careful not to let the butter burn.
- Add the egg mixture and cook for about 3 minutes, until partially set. Push the edges towards the middle with a spatula to let the uncooked mixture flow into the pan to make sure it’s cooked through but still soft in the middle.
- Fold the omelette in half and slide onto a plate.
- Serve with salad.
- Eat immediately!
FittaMamma Tip:
Add a handful of cheddar cheese before you fold the omelette and let it melt slightly in the pan before serving.
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blackginger
Stuffed chicken breasts
Need a dinner packed with essential prenatal vitamins that’s also SUPER tasty? This is it! Stuffed chicken breast with spinach, perfect for your healthy pregnancy diet!
Looking for a supper dish that looks impressive, is easy to prepare and ticks lots of boxes for pregnancy nutrition? Chicken breast is an excellent source of protein with minimal fat – stuff it with mozzarella cheese and sun dried tomatoes for this delicious and colourful dish.
Serve with roasted butternut squash and wilted spinach. Butternut squash is crammed with Vitamin A as well as a whole host of other essential minerals and vitamins including Vitamin B, zinc, calcium and potassium. It’s also a good source of fibre (super important to include in your pregnancy diet to keep everything moving along nicely!). Iron is important for pregnant women and dark green leafy veggies, such as spinach are an excellent source.
Ingredients
1 chicken breast
½ mozzarella cheese
3-4 sun dried tomatoes (use the ones preserved in oil)
Mixed dried herbs
½ butternut squash
A generous handful of baby spinach leaves (go large, they’re so good for you!)
Salt, pepper and paprika to taste
A spoonful of olive oil
Method
- Heat the oven to 1800C or 3500F
- Cut a slit in the chicken breast along one edge to form a generous pocket. Fill the pocket with the sliced mozzarella cheese and the roughly chopped tomatoes. Close up the edge and secure with 2 or 3 cocktail sticks.
- Place in a suitable roasting dish, drizzle over a little of the oil from the tomatoes.Add salt and pepper to taste a sprinkling on mixed dried herbs. Cover with tin foil and cook for approx 35 -45 minutes (depending on the size of the breasts) until the chicken is cooked and the juices run clear.
- Meanwhile peel the butternut squash and cut into thick slices. Remove the seeds. Place on a lightly oiled baking tray and flip the slices so they are very lightly oiled on both sides. Dust with paprika and a sprinkling of salt and pepper to taste. Roast in the oven until soft and gently browned.
- When the chicken and butternut slices are ready to serve put to one side and keep warm.
- Wash and shake the spinach. Wilt the leaves by briefly heating them in a pan until they soften.
- Cut the chicken breasts into thick slices and serve on top of the wilted spinach leaves, accompanied by slices of roasted butternut squash.
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blackginger
Nut Loaf
Looking for vegetarian dinner in your prenatal diet? This nut loaf recipe is packed with prenatal nutrients and a delicious addition to your healthy pregnancy!
This looks impressive but is surprisingly easy and meat free. Unsurprisingly it includes lots of nuts – which are a valuable source of protein and essential fats, especially if you are following a vegetarian pregnancy diet. Why are nuts good for pregnant women? Almonds are packed with calcium and Vitamin E; brazils are a good source of selenium to boost your immunity; cashews contribute a good level of protein and minerals including iron and zinc; walnuts are rich in omega-3.
Ingredients
I onion finely chopped
150 gms of mushrooms
1-2 cloves of garlic, crushed
Splash of olive oil
225gms of mixed nuts (you can buy bags of broken mixed nuts in health food stores that are ideal for this recipe!)
100gms of wholemeal bread
300ml of vegetable stock
Handful of flat leaf parsley chopped
1tsp dried mixed herbs to taste (use your favourite – thyme and oregano work well)
500gms block of ready to use puff pastry (you’ll probably have a bit left over!)
Method
- Soften the onions, garlic and mushrooms in the olive oil over a medium heat.
- Blitz the nuts and the bread in a food processor until quite fine and mix well with the onion and mushrooms.
- Heat the stock to boiling point and add to the mixture, along with the chopped herbs.
- Mix well and allow to cool whilst you roll out the pastry. The mixture should be quite soft.
- Roll out the pastry and use to line loaf tin, reserving sufficient pastry to use as a lid.
- Pack the nut mixture into the tin and top with the lid, sealing the edges with milk .
- Cook in the oven, pre-heated to 1800, until the pastry is golden brown and the mixture cooked through – about 45 minutes.
Serves 4-6 as a main meal, accompanied with vegetables or salad.
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blackginger
Spinach Souffle
Looking for a tasty meal full of prenatal vitamins? This yummy spinach soufflé recipe is packed with folates and vitamins vital for a healthy pregnancy!
Don’t be put off making a souffle – whilst they have a reputation for being a bit tricky this recipe is really not that difficult. And of course we wouldn’t include it if it didn’t tick lots of boxes for your healthy pregnancy diet!
Green leafy vegetables such as spinach contain high levels of folate, calcium and iron as well as vitamins C and E – all essential nutrients for pregnant women. Eggs are a good source of protein for pregnancy too.
Ingredients
450gms of spinach, cooked and drained
60 gms butter
3tbsps of flour
300ml of milk
120 gms of cream cheese (Philadelphia or similar)
4 eggs, separated
Salt and pepper to taste
Method
- Squeeze any excess moisture out of the spinach and chop finely.
- Melt the butter over a moderate heat, blend in the flour and allow to heat briefly before stirring in the milk. Stir over the heat until you have a thick, smooth sauce.
- Beat in the cream cheese, followed by the chopped spinach and allow the sauce to cool slightly before you add the beaten egg yolks.
- You can pause the recipe at this stage if you want to prepare ahead!
- When you’re ready to cook, butter your soufflé dish – or individual ramekin dishes (the recipe should make four generous individual soufflés) and heat your oven to 1800C.
- Whip up the egg whites until stiff then fold into your spinach mixture.
- Bake for 25 minutes until well-risen but still soft in the centre.
- Serve with a tomato and red pepper sauce and a baked sweet potato for a more substantial dinner. Spinach soufflé is not just a healthy pregnancy meal – it’s a healthy any-time meal to share with family and friends!
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blackginger
Pumpkin Risotto
Need a recipe full of vitamins and vegetables? Try this pumpkin risotto recipe, delicious and ideal part of your healthy pregnancy diet
Pumpkins aren’t just good for Halloween lanterns, they’re a great food to eat when pregnant, crammed with lots of lovely beta-carotene which your body converts naturally into Vitamin A, essential for healthy pregnancy nutrition.
This delicious risotto is easy to rustle up and makes a lovely light supper. Serve with a dark leafy salad for extra folate –spinach and watercress work well to give you an extra boost of vitamins as part of your healthy pregnancy diet. We love it!
Ingredients
1 onion finely diced
4 spring onions, chopped
2 large cloves of garlic, crushed
I small pumpkin – to provide around 400g of pumpkin flesh, peeled, seeded and cut into large cubes
25g butter
1 litre good quality chicken stock (hot)
Splash of olive oil
Generous 50g of grated parmesan
Large handful of flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped
200g risotto rice
Method
- Put the cubes of pumpkin on a roasting tray, drizzle with olive oil and roast for 30 minutes at 1800C until soft.
- Whilst the pumpkin is roasting, gently sauté the chopped onion, garlic and spring onion in the butter until soft. Add the rice, stir well and continue to cook until the rice starts to go transparent.
- Add half the stock and cook until the stock has been absorbed. Continue to add more stock – around half a cup at a time, stirring and cooking until all the stock has been absorbed and the rice is soft and creamy.
- Add the pumpkin, parsley and cheese and stir in. It’s good to leave some chunks of pumpkin intact whilst allowing some of it to break up as you stir it into the mixture.
Garnish with more parmesan and a few extra leaves of parsley. Serve with salad.
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blackginger
Salmon with pine nuts and lime
Want to include fish in your healthy pregnancy diet? This tasty salmon recipe is full of prenatal vitamins and nutrients including iron and Omega 3!
This is an easy dish to prepare and perfect for your healthy pregnancy diet! Salmon is rich in omega 3 fatty acids, and pine nuts are high in fibre and a good source of magnesium and iron which all provide important nutrition for pregnancy. Serves two
Ingredients
2 salmon fillets weighing around 130g each
Juice and grated rind of one lime
Chopped parsley
2 tbsp pine nuts
Finely chopped or ready-prepared lemongrass (optional)
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C, or gas mark 4. Lightly spray two pieces of foil with oil.
- Place one piece of salmon in the centre of one foil. Squeeze over half the lime juice, and sprinkle over some of the grated zest, and lemongrass if you’re using it. Sprinkle over the parsley and season with black pepper. Repeat the process with the other piece of salmon and scrunch up the top of the foil to make a parcel. Place in the oven and cook for 15 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and open the foil parcel. Sprinkle over the pine nuts and return to the oven to brown the pine nuts and finish cooking the fish, this should take about five more minutes.
- Serve with new potatoes and steamed broccoli or green beans, pouring over any cooking liquid from the parcel over the salmon
For a variation, add some grated ginger root to the salmon parcel and serve with basmati rice cooked in coconut milk.
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blackginger
Courgette Bake
Need a recipe full of vitamins and vegetables for your healthy diet? This courgette bake recipe is delicious and an ideal addition to your pregnancy diet!
Courgettes are rich in calcium, folic acid, iron and the vitamin A and vitamin C whilst pine nuts are a good source of vitamin K which is essential to bone health and vital for proper blood clotting. And this courgette bake recipe is delicious making it a great addition to your pregnancy diet plan!
Ingredients
1 medium courgette (about 200gms), grated and squeezed to get rid of any excess liquid
1 Free range egg, beaten
1 rounded dessertspoon plain yoghurt (or creme fraiche)
1oz/25gms pine nuts
Chopped fresh herbs eg parsley, chives, mint, to taste
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Method
- Beat yoghurt (or creme fraiche) into egg, add seasoning and herbs, stir in the grated courgette.
- Put in a small ovenproof container, which has been lightly oiled, and sprinkle with the pine nuts.
- Bake for about 25 mins at about 160C and serve with mixed green salad leaves and sliced tomatoes or salad of your choice
As an alternative use chopped and wilted spinach instead of courgette – and it tastes good with freshly grated hard cheese instead of the pine nuts (although you’ll miss out on the Vitamin K!)
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blackginger
Salad Nicoise
Wondering what to eat when pregnant? Trying to enjoy your pregnancy vitamins? Try a Nicoise salad; it’s delicious and packed with prenatal nutrients!
This is probably my all time favourite ‘meal in a salad’! And as a healthy recipe for pregnant women it’s a real winner, full of essential nutrients for maternal and child health! Tuna is full of protein and rich in omega-3 fatty acids to help your baby’s healthy brain development and even those little anchovies are good for your pregnancy nutrition too with bone-strengthening calcium and iron. The hard boiled eggs are packed with protein and a good source of Vitamins D, vitamin A and vitamins B2 as well. And of course the salad is bursting with lovely leaves and veggies too!
Ingredients
2 tins of tuna fish – drained
1 can of anchovy fillets – drained (soak the fillets in milk if you prefer them less salty)
4 hard boiled eggs halved
Handful of pitted black olives
I large lettuce
8-10 new potatoes cooked and cut into chunks
100 gms of green beans, cooked and drained
4 tomatoes chopped
6 cms of cucumber sliced
1 small red onion finely sliced or a handful of radishes finely sliced
For the dressing:
6 tbsps olive oil (preferably extra virgin for a fuller flavour)
2 tbsps white wine vinegar
2 garlic cloves crushed
Juice of half a lemon
1 tsp honey
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
Salt and pepper
Method
- Make the dressing by putting all the ingredients together into a screw top jar or bottle and shaking vigorously to mix.
- Lay the lettuce leaves on a plate and top with the potatoes, tomatoes and cucumber.
- Pile the tuna on top with the eggs
- Arrange the French beans, onions or radishes, anchovies and olives on top.
- Drizzle over the dressing
- Serve with crusty French bread
FittaMamma Tip: Avoid eating too much tuna when you’re pregnant as it can contain environmental pollutants, especially mercury – experts suggest no more than four medium sized tins (drained weight 140g) or two tuna steaks per week. Whilst the mercury won’t harm you it could interfere with your baby’s development. Hard boiled eggs are a good food for pregnancy but raw eggs carry a risk of salmonella and are on the list of ‘foods to avoid when pregnant’.
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blackginger
Tomato and Avocado Salad
Want an easy healthy recipe for your pregnancy diet? Try this Mozzarella and tomato salad packed with prenatal vitamins and nutrients and so yummy!
Ooooh this is one of our favourite salads! It’s easy, delicious and packed with healthy nutrients for pregnant women. Tomatoes are rich in lycopene which is great for boosting your immune system and can reduce the risk of preeclampsia too; avocados are a top choice when it comes to the best foods to eat when pregnant loaded with folic acid, vitamins and monounsaturated fats (the good fats!). Mozzarella cheese is useful source of calcium too …another essential for your pregnancy diet!
Ingredients
1 ripe avocado sliced
2-3 tomatoes (depending on size ) sliced
I mozzarella cheese (make sure it’s made from pasteurised milk) sliced
Pitted black olives
For the dressing
3 tbsps olive oli
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
1 tsp honey
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
1 clove of garlic, crushed
Generous squeeze of lemon juice
Salt and pepper
Method
- Arrange the salad ingredients on a serving dish (that’s easy!)
- Mix all the salad dressing ingredients together in a screw top jar and shake until mixed. Pour as much as you need over the salad. You probably won’t need this amount of dressing so save some for next time.
- Add a few fresh basil leaves to make this salad even more delicious. | https://active-pregnancy.com/tag/healthier-treats/ |
Projected national expenditures related to nursing care facilities and continuing care retirement communities, according to new estimates released Wednesday by the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, will be $174.6 billion in 2018, $191.9 billion in 2020 and $261 billion in 2026.
Annual growth from the previous year will be 3.9% in 2018, 4.8% in 2020 and 5.3% in 2026, according to CMS.
Changes in projected income growth and enrollment shifts from private health insurance to Medicare as baby boomers continue to age into the program will drive average annual growth of 5.5% in national health spending and enrollment from 2017 to 2026, according to new estimates released Wednesday by the Office of the Actuary at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
“While this projected average annual growth rate is more modest than the 7.3 percent rate observed over the longer-term history before the last recession (1990–2007), it is more rapid than had been experienced in 2008–16 (4.2 percent),” the researchers wrote in an article published online in Health Affairs.
National health spending will outpace average projected growth in gross domestic product by one percentage point, the study authors said. As a result, the health share of the economy is projected to increase to 19.7% by 2026, up from 17.9% in 2016.
CMS based the estimates on current law.
“As we’re going through all these projections, it’s very clear that the aging of the population has a significant influence on Medicare enrollment and shifts out of private health insurance,” Gigi A. Cuckler, an economist in the CMS Office of the Actuary, said Wednesday during a call with members of the media. “It’s also very clear that as you go through these projections, the growth in income and in particular, disposable personal income, has a substantial influence on, particularly, projected private health insurance and out-of-pocket spending.”
John Poisal, a deputy director of the National Health Statistics Group in CMS’ Office of the Actuary, told reporters that of the 5.5% average annual growth in national health spending expected from 2017 to 2026, approximately half of a percentage point will be due to the age and sex mix of the population, 2.5 percentage points will be due to medical costs, 1.7 percentage points will be related to use and intensity of care, and 0.9 percentage points will be due to population growth. (See chart below.)
When looked at from this perspective, age accounts for a smaller percentage of growth than the other factors, Cuckler said, “because, as you have continuing of the Baby Boom generation entering Medicare, you have relatively younger and healthier folks entering into the program in increasing numbers. And so what that does is, it tends to dampen the growth in Medicare spending per enrollee, so on net, you have that relatively smaller effect of less than a half a percentage point compared to the other effects. | https://www.mcknightsseniorliving.com/home/news/cms-aging-population-a-big-driver-of-annual-growth-in-national-healthcare-spending/ |
Monday, 25 February 2019
Have you hit upon a brilliant idea that needs others’ buy-in to become a reality? How you communicate your vision will be key to its ultimate success, so follow our tips for ensuring you sidestep these common mistakes.
Your message needs to be clear and concise if it’s to convince others of its merits. Tangibility is crucial too. The athletic coach who visualises her team standing on a podium will discover that ‘row faster than any other boat’ is a much stronger mission statement than ‘win an Olympic medal’ because it leaves each stakeholder in no doubt as to what they must do to succeed. It can take time to get to the core message at the heart of your vision, so carve out some thinking space and don’t rush it.
To move your idea to reality you might need approval from your boss, cooperation from a co-worker and collaboration from subordinates. That will probably mean you have to employ different persuasion tactics to win over the various parties. Think carefully what will inspire each stakeholder to respond positively – perhaps your boss will need to see that you’ve thought carefully about the logistical elements, while your employees will want to understand your passion and how the change in direction will benefit them.
Informal one-to-one chats, detailed emails, group workshops or formal presentations – you’ve many options when it comes to communicating your vision. But don’t over-rely on your personal preference; create an integrated strategy which employs the best channels for each stakeholder and set of circumstances.
Dictating your vision of the future is unlikely to motivate a team. Wherever possible get others involved in the brainstorming and strategic planning stages. Collaboration and participation will mean there are more ideas on the table and that stakeholders feel a greater sense of ownership of the work to be done. When presenting your vision to a wider group, ask for feedback in a way that enables others to feel they can still influence the outcome.
In crafting your vision of the future you may have facilitated countless brainstorm sessions, immersed yourself in research and analysis, lived, and breathed the creative process for an extended period. But when it’s time to communicate your winning idea, you’ll need to bear in mind that your audience is hearing it for the first time. Tell the story of how your vision evolved in a way that clarifies your thinking and engages your audience. You’ll need to speak their language too – simplifying, contextualising, employing (or removing) jargon and technicalities appropriately.
Your audience might be just as excited about your idea as you are, but if you simply share the mission and then expect others to run with it, you might be disappointed. Ensure momentum by assigning actions, talking through next steps, inviting further discussion and taking opportunities to reinforce your key message at regular intervals.
When sharing his commitment to organic produce, the chef Raymond Blanc tells how his mother would send him into the family’s orchard to collect the ingredients for a specific recipe she planned to cook. This story evokes far greater resonance and memorability than were he to simply state his preference for homegrown food. Remember, it’s called a vision because it’s your idea of how the future looks. So use storytelling, analogies and imagery to paint a vivid image others can see with sharpness and colour.
When your idea involves a big stretch on current resources or requires others to think far outside the box, you might be tempted to talk practicalities. But before your audience can buy into the plan, they need to understand the bigger picture – why they should do what you’re proposing. Apple redefined how you listen to music by launching the iPod, a product that puts thousands of songs in your pocket. But at the heart of the launch was the company’s commitment to creating beautifully designed products that challenge the status quo, and it was this core idea (the ‘why’), not the product itself (the ‘what’ and the ‘how’), which made the iPod one of the most ubiquitous products of our time.
The team doing the work to bring your vision to life wants a challenge, but not to embark on a task that’s likely to ultimately fail. Employ SMART goal planning, ensuring your mission is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. Breaking the bigger goal down into digestible chunks will ensure momentum and enable the team to smell success and celebrate milestones.
A leader who demonstrates passion for her vision is much more likely to enlist followers than one who employs fancy rhetoric or relies on a likeable nature to win over others. Think carefully about why your vision matters to you and convey it in a way that ensures others know you are personally invested. Be authentic – a leader who’s not entirely bought into her own idea, or who is simply regurgitating the beliefs of others, is easy to spot. | https://everywoman-app.journolink.com/informed/communication/10-communication-pitfalls-and-how-to-avoid-them |
Manufacturing and services activity plummets in October
Both manufacturing and services sectors contracted significantly in October from their positions in September following the detection of the Minuwangoda Covid-19 cluster on 4 October and the resultant second wave of the pandemic.
According to the manufacturing and services Purchasing Managers’ Indices (PMIs) released by the Statistics Department yesterday (25), manufacturing PMI declined 19.5 index points compared to September 2020 while the services PMI saw a decrease of 12.5 index points compared to September 2020. Accordingly, manufacturing PMI declined to 40.3 in October 2020 with a significant decline in production, new orders, employment, and stock of purchases sub-indices, particularly in the manufacturing of wearing apparel and food and beverages sectors. The production of all manufacturing sectors declined significantly together with the decline of employment in October.
Many respondents in the manufacturing of food and beverages and textiles and wearing apparel sectors highlighted that their factory operations were largely disrupted due to the localised curfew imposed during the month to contain the spread of the pandemic, the Statistics Department said.
“Further, they mentioned that some employees were reluctant to report to work due to fear of the pandemic while many employers refrain from employing their full workforce following health authority guidelines, causing a significant reduction of availability of employees,” the department added.
Further, the stock of purchases sub-index also decreased at a higher pace in line with the decline in production and new orders, as well as increased uncertainty. The suppliers’ delivery time sub-index lengthened at a higher pace, where many respondents highlighted that they experienced a considerable delay in Port/Customs clearance. The sub-index of expectations for manufacturing activities for the next three months declined significantly due to the ongoing second wave of the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly in the Western Province.
Services sector PMI declined to 41.8 in October, underpinned by the declines observed in all sub-indices of services PMI, except for the index of backlogs of work. New businesses, particularly in financial services and insurance sub-sectors, declined in October 2020 compared to the previous month. Business activities also declined in October 2020 mainly in wholesale and retail trade, transportation, accommodation, and food and beverage sub-sectors with the localised curfew imposed to contain the spread of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Further, business activities related to insurance and educational services sub-sectors also saw declines during the month.
The Statistics Department noted that 59.3% of the respondents cited that the decline in business activities is attributable to the negative impact of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic on demand.
The department also highlighted the impact of the second wave on the workforce.
“As cited by several respondents, backlogs of work increased in October 2020 with disruptions to their business activities due to the absence of employees who resided in lockdown areas. In addition, the reluctance of employees to report to work and unwillingness of employers to employ their full workforce due to pandemic-related issues have also affected the smooth operation of business activities during the month. Employment declined in October 2020 owing to non-extension of work agreements of the contract employees amidst a halt in new recruitments,” it said.
Meanwhile, expectations on future business activities also declined in October 2020, largely due to the pessimism prevailing with the country experiencing the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. | http://www.themorning.lk/manufacturing-and-services-activity-plummets-in-october/ |
Astronomy – What Are the Stars?
Stars can play a big role in our lives; they can bring us enlightenment, inspire us and make us laugh or cry. In astronomy, stars are classified as celestial bodies that lie far away from the earths atmosphere and are made up of hydrogen, helium, matter composing beryllium, and metal. Stars can be categorized as white, yellow, red, blue, and green, and are usually found in spiral formations which appear as streaks of light.
Stars are moving objects, and our galaxy has thousands of stars within it. A star is a small, luminous, solid-gas object made up of hydrogen, helium, matter composing beryllium, and metal ( astronomers call these “white stars”). The most distant star in our galaxy is the Sun, which is about 50 million light years from Earth. Many other stars can be seen easily with the unaided eye from the Earth’s orbit, but because of their huge distance from Earth, they appear as very fixed points of light in our night sky. The main sequence stars belong to the class of large stars, and have yellow, red, and orange colors, while the other stars belong to the class of minor stars, which have fainter colors.
There are many theories that explain different phenomena that can be associated with stars. Some theories propose that stars are nothing more than clouds of gas (also known as “regions”) surrounded by a small black disk. Others believe that stars are void of internal matter, and that their outer shell (the so-called “helix”) is nothing more than a very hot and bright “halo” of plasma, which reflects light from stars just like a “halo” around the earth. | https://cosmos-1.org/astronomy-what-are-the-stars/ |
The Greek Society of Criminology and the Centre for Penal and Criminological Research of the University of Athens organised a colloquium on the subject “Criminological Aspects of Migration in Greece”. The meeting took place on the 15th of February 2006 at a large Amphitheatre of the University of Athens, situated in the neo-classical building at the centre of Athens. The large audience had the chance to hear about various important aspects of migration in the light of Criminology through the presentation of the mainly research-based work of the four speakers at the meeting.
Miss Evaggelia Vagena-Palaiologou, Magistrate with a doctorate degree in Criminology, presented a paper on the relatively recent and crucial phenomenon of migration in Greece. It has to be pointed out that Greece is at cross-roads between East and West and almost surrounded by sea, therefore, it is difficult to control the Greek frontiers which are also the frontiers of the European Union. The title of the paper was: “Racism and xenophobia in Greece today – Attitudes of formal social control agents (Justice – Police)”.
According to the research conducted between 1998 and 2003 on 250 public prosecutors, judges and 412 Police officers, it was ascertained that judges consider foreigners living in Greece today partly responsible for the increased national crime rate. They estimate that number of foreigners appears to have increased, but they are certain that foreigners enjoy all the procedural safeguards and are protected by Greek Justice. They do not generally consider them to be dangerous, although a percentage has directly or indirectly been victimised at the hands of a foreigner. Moreover, the speaker pointed out that the police consider the number of foreigners is excessive. They consider them responsible for the increase of criminality and unemployment; they class them more often as offenders rather than victims and they express their suspicion of foreigners’ credibility. Nevertheless, they claim that it is not necessary for all foreigners to be expelled from the country; rather, they see criminal activities as resulting from their poor living conditions and are supportive of legal and equivalent treatment of foreigners and Greeks.
Afterwards, Dr Ira Emke-Poulopoulou (Vice-President of the Society of Demographic Studies, Member of the Academy of Science of New York), spoke about the very interesting “Financial and social consequences of immigrants coming to Greece”. Miss Ekme-Poulopoulou pointed out that migrant inflow contributed to the increase of GDP, the survival of marginal businesses, the amelioration of the welfare fund deficit, the increase in savings, the deflationary effects and Greece’s accession into the Eurozone. Finally the speaker showed, through a series of scientifically documented findings, that migration has a positive influence on demographic evolution in Greece, while it also contributes to the financial development of the host-country. For this reason, the financial and social incorporation of the immigrants is an imperative and the condition for this is the legalisation of their residence in the country.
Afterwards, Mr. Filippos Manolaros, Athenian Appeals Court Judge, presented a Greek research on the subject: “Migrants seen through Greek court decisions”. Mr. Manolaros first outlined the crimes which migrants seem mostly likely to participate in, analysing the offenders’ modus operandi and all the other conditions which usually emerge with such illegal activities. Mr. Manolaros’ speech made an impression due to the evidence from case-law [legal precedent/jurisprudence] and which points out the immense financial exploitation connected to immigration (i.e. trafficker fees, extortion) and, especially, to the female aspect of the phenomenon (i.e. sexual exploitation for financial gain). As for the treatment of foreigners standing trial, the speaker claimed that no discrimination is apparent, but that different treatment is often imposed due to the fact that the foreigner is in Greece illegally and has no fixed residence (i.e. in cases of temporary custody).
Finally, Miss Alexandra Moshopoulou, Doctor of Criminology and Special Counsel of the Ombudsman presented a research study, which was the subject of her thesis at the University of Athens and which concerns the image of migrants’ criminality through the Greek evening press. As the researcher underlined, from analysing the content of two newspapers, it was found that immigrants’ criminal activity is disproportionately reported (quantitatively and qualitatively) compared with official statistics and reporting of native criminal activity. Indicatively, on the basis of the crimes examined, police statistics for known offences show foreigners represent 14.3%, while the two newspapers present a much higher percentage (44.9% according to the Greek newspaper “Apogevmatini” and 36.4% stated by the Greek newspaper “Ta Nea”). Moreover, the research confirmed that the differing bias of the two newspapers influences remarkably the way in which criminality and more importantly immigrant’s role, are presented to public opinion.
Mr. Nestor Courakis, Professor in the Law Faculty at University of Athens and Director of the Centre for Penal and Criminological Research, as moderator of the discussion, made some interesting criminological observations and summarised the key points of each speech.
With the speeches over, Mr. Courakis invited the audience to express their opinion and discuss the matter. The first to speak was Ms. Aliki Giotopoulou-Maragopoulou, Professor Emeritus at University and President of the Greek Society of Criminology, who expressed her reservations on the reliability of the statistics and pointed out the serious problems which are created in relation to human rights by the so-called “white-slave traffic”.
Professor and ex-Minister, Mr. Georgios-Alexandros Magakis’ intervention was very interesting. He emphasized that we should feel shame for perceiving immigrants solely as contributors to crime, and expressed his objection to the gross violations carried out against them.
Worthy of note was the large student turnout at the event – evidence of a particular interest in this specific field of studies, prompting hope that future scientific activities will have capable people to continue this effort. | https://theartofcrime.gr/old/oldartofcrime/old.theartofcrime.gr/eng/index2c3f.html?pgtp=1&aid=1282849267&isFp=1_eng |
Motherhood c. 1970-1990: An Oral History
About the research:
Important social, cultural and demographic changes took place between 1970 and 1990, which all potentially impacted on motherhood in Britain. Growing feminist activism encouraged a reassessment of the place of women in the family and society. The Divorce Reform Act of 1969 precipitated a sharp increase in the divorce rate. The 1970s and 1980s witnessed increasing rates of cohabitation. This collapse of the assumption that childbirth would take place inside marriage was a profound change. Industrial unrest and male unemployment from the mid-1970s meant that the political and economic climate was also altered. Additionally, growing numbers of ethnic minority women, particularly from South Asia, immigrated to Britain in the 1970s and 1980s. Significant developments occurred in the provision of maternity care with the Peel Report of 1970 calling for 100% of births to take place in hospital and the 1974 reorganisation of the health services.
This project questioned how this new social climate challenged existing conceptions of motherhood and what women felt about its consequences. The research wasbased on over sixty history interviews with Oxfordshire women. These were contrasted with sociological and medical studies, educational and advice literature and media representations of motherhood. Reflecting the ways in which oral history offers both objective and subjective information, the research aimed to uncover the experience of motherhood c. 1970-1990, but also to demonstrate how interviewees constructed their accounts. Oral history reveals the subtleties in the experience of motherhood and the diversity of responses, which can challenge existing assumptions and traditional historical accounts.
People:
The project was undertaken by Dr Angela Davis of the History Department at the University of Warwick between 2008 and 2010 as part of a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship. If you have any questions in relation to the project please contact Angela Davis at [email protected]. | https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/research/projects/motherhood/ |
State Legislative Advocacy
This report was last updated in November 2020. It may no longer be accurate, both with respect to the evidence it presents and our assessment of the evidence. We may revise this report in the future, depending on our research capacity and research priorities. Questions and comments are welcome.
What role can state-level or regional policy change in the US play in addressing climate change, especially in the absence of national climate policy? What factors determine which approaches to state-level policy change are most promising? In this document, we share our team's thinking on state-level policy change, our next focus for recommendations. We also present the findings from our initial round of research on a short-list of climate activism organizations we identified through our own search and consultation with climate policy experts. We overview each organization's operations and accomplishments to date along with their organizational structure and finances, and we provide our reasoning on why we did or did not select each organization for further research in 2020.
Note: This is a non-partisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes. | https://www.givinggreen.earth/us-policy-change-research/state-legislative-advocacy |
For many moons, art has been a visual language of our imagination, thoughts and emotions.
It has been proven to have therapeutic influences for anyone who participates, as it is a source to release energy.
At heARTistic we are firm believers that there is an artist in all of us, there is no level that is better than the other.
Our approach to art is to allow each artist to explore the art in their own heart. Our classes are taught differently, we all have a “theme” to follow but we all have the ability to “go off script” and have our art in our hearts truly become a personalized piece of artwork. This type of teaching allows personality and imagination a place to flow and explore creativity, along with providing an environment where our differences are celebrated and embraced.
Our 3 Main Goals in each Workshop / Class / or Party are: | https://www.westoverhillsumc.org/art-workshops/?mobileOn=0 |
Out of this world
A new study of many of the oldest iron objects ever found has discovered that they are all made with metal from meteorites.
Archaeologists think that the technology of smelting iron from terrestrial iron ores was invented in the Near East around 1200 B.C.
But some ancient iron objects are much older than that — including the oldest iron objects known, a handful of iron beads found in a tomb at Gerzeh in northern Egypt that are dated to 3500 B.C. — more than 2,000 years before the dawn of the Iron Age. [Read more about the iron objects from outer space]
Iron-rich rocks
Archaeo-metallurgist Albert Jambon, of the Pierre and Marie Curie University in Paris, used a portable x-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyzer to scan dozens of iron meteorites and some of the world’s most ancient iron objects at museums around Europe and the Middle East.
The analyzer is able to determine the chemical composition of an object with a non-destructive scan of the surface.
Jambon found that iron meteorites have a distinctive chemical signature, with high levels of nickel or cobalt.
His was able to show the XFR analyzer could easily distinguish “meteoric” iron from smelted iron, which has only traces of nickel or cobalt.
Spacey beads
Some archaeologists have proposed that vey early iron objects like the Gerzeh beads were made in “precocious” smelting events during the Bronze Age when smelting iron was generally unknown – perhaps discovered by accident, or experimentation.
But Jambon found that the Gerzeh beads and all other ancient iron objects from the Bronze Age are all made with iron from meteorites – and that the iron-rich space rocks were probably the only source of the metal on earth until the start of the Iron Age around 1200 B.C.
Iron dagger
Jambon also tested this iron dagger from Alaca Höyük in Turkey, dated to about 2500 BC, which is now on display at the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara.
Using a portable XRF analyzer, Jambon was able to show that it is made from iron from space that had fallen to earth as an iron meteorite.
Sphinx Gate
The iron dagger was found Alaca Höyük in Anatolia in Turkey – this photograph shows the “Sphinx Gate” in that ancient city.
The dating of the iron dagger to around 2500 BC puts it at a time when Alaca Höyük was a center of the early Bronze-Age Hatti people.
After about 1800 BC, Alaca Höyük became subject to the powerful Hittite Empire.
Beautiful set
Jambon was also able to test a ceremonial iron dagger found in the tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, and dated to 1350 B.C.
The iron dagger is part of a matching pair two ceremonial knives, along with a blade made from gold – at the time, iron was the much more valuable metal.
A study last year showed that Tutankhamun’s dagger is also made from meteoric iron, and Jambon was able to confirm that finding using the portable XRF scanner.
King Tut's space iron
The dagger was one of three iron objects found in Tutankhamun’s tomb after it was discovered by the British Egyptologist Howard Carter in 1922, in the Valley of the Kings near modern Luxor. The others are an iron bracelet and an iron headrest. Jambon’s research was able to show that the three items came from the iron of at least two different meteorites, which suggests that an active search was carried out for valuable iron meteorites in ancient times.
Ceremonial axe head
This ceremonial iron axe head was found at the Bronzed Age archaeological site of Ugarit, once a city on the northern coast of Syria. It dates from about 1400 BC.
Jambon found that it too was made with iron from a meteorite, like all the other Bronze Age iron objects he tested with the XFR analyzer.
SIG K - iron pendant
Jambon was also able to test several other ancient iron objects, including this iron pendant found at Umm el-Marra in Syria, which dates from around 2500 B.C., and a set of iron axes from Shang Dynasty China that have been dated to around 1400 B.C.
His research found that all the Bronze Age iron objects had been made from meteorites, and not from smelted iron.
SIG K - scanning
Jambon hopes his research will form the basis of a hunt for the earliest smelted irons on earth.
Iron objects dating between 1300 and 1000 BC could now be scanned with portable XRF analyzers, and their metallic make-up compared until the earliest non-meteoric iron is found,” he said
“The very first irons will be recognized from their chemical composition, which markedly differs from meteoritic iron,” Jambon said. | https://www.livescience.com/61218-photos-oldest-iron-daggers-outer-space.html |
I’m not trying to dismiss all the books, courses, movies and professionals out there who claim they can teach you how to turn your life around and attract the love, the wealth, the success or the happiness that you long for. Some of their methods may be effective, and their fundamental premises are generally sound.
Like them, I am a firm believer that our destiny is in our own hands and that we each have the power to co-create a life of fulfillment and meaning, no matter where we come from. But I also know that this is not a quick-fix problem that can be solved by some magical secret.
Based on what the mystery man taught me, and my study of numerous other approaches, I believe that three essential elements need to be included for effective manifestation. The reason many “law of attraction” teachings and techniques fall short of changing people’s lives in sustainable and measurable ways is that they fail to embrace all three elements. I am convinced that all three of these factors need to be addressed in order for each of us to become a powerful creator.
Digging Deep
Teachings on manifestation sometimes fail to dig deep enough into the subconscious roots of our current patterns of creation. If we don’t effectively unearth the hidden beliefs, habits and behavior patterns that may be blocking our ability to co-create, including the cultural programming we’ve absorbed from the world around us, we’ll constantly be working against ourselves. You can’t transform what you can’t see. And just as the subconscious mind can be the source of our biggest obstacles, it’s also the source of our greatest creative power. Simply encouraging people to “think more positive thoughts” only engages the conscious mind. To become an effective creator, we need to find ways to imprint new patterns and desires into the subconscious mind. In my new book, I guide readers into a new and empowered relationship with what lies beneath the surface of their everyday awareness.
Getting Specific and Practical
Human beings are creatures of habit, and the well-worn paths that our lives follow are habits we have developed throughout our lifetimes. Habits don’t change overnight. Very few of us can just decide that we’re going to change something and then sustain a new behavior without looking back. It takes time and patience to change longstanding habits. And it takes practice. Many manifestation teachings don’t include specific practices to help embed the new habits of thought into the subconscious mind. I help others create a personalized tool for transmitting their desires deep into their subconscious and out into the Universe, calibrating the vibrations to the perfect frequency for success.
Connecting to Purpose
The most important element for creating the life you want is to connect your individual dreams and desires to the greater good of the world in which you live. You are not creating your life in isolation. You are co-creating it with the Universe. Yes, you can have the life you want and fulfill all of your personal longings, but if it’s all about you, ultimately you’ll find that the power to deliver deep fulfillment will be limited.
When we hear words like manifestation, attraction and creation, we often associate them with getting. But the real power of the law of attraction is found when we shift our attention from getting to giving. Generosity, love and service are not afterthoughts — things you think you’ll have time, money and energy for once you get what you want. The energy of compassion is what drives a truly co-creative engagement with the Universe. My book teaches you a method of manifestation that integrates the element of giving from the very beginning.
With these three essential keys in place, you truly can co-create the life of your dreams. Are you ready to get to work? Because it will take work. If you’re ready to experience lasting fulfillment in a world where the odds seem to be stacked against it, you’ll need to dig deep to understand why your dreams seem to elude you. You’ll need to study how the Universe works and learn how to make it work for you. You’ll need to rethink your definition of happiness and root out the unhealthy vibrations of fear and subconscious cultural programming that may be blocking your creative energy. You’ll need to become more sensitive to the vibrations of your own thoughts, feelings, and intentions and to those of the people in your sphere. And above all, you’ll need to be committed, not just to your own happiness or success, but to the greater good of the world.
Because if there’s a “secret” that can change your life, it’s this: We’re all connected — from the smallest living being to the farthest star in the cosmos. Of course, that may be the oldest secret there is. But it remains a secret in that many of us live our entire lives without discovering its true transformative power. You can use this secret to manifest the life of your dreams, but it will also change what the life of your dreams means to you.
I’ve always been a straight shooter, and I won’t promise you anything that I haven’t tried and proven in my own life. I won’t ask you to do anything I don’t ask of myself. I won’t tell you it will be easy — because it won’t. I will tell you, however, that anything is possible. You truly can manifest the life you long for.
Originally featured in The Edge Magazine
Manifest the life of your dreams
Mike Murphy shows a simple yet powerful method to tune in to the vibration at the heart of the Universe —the Creation Frequency— and use it to create lasting fulfillment, prosperity, and happiness. | https://mikemurphyunfiltered.com/3-keys-manifest-life-of-dreams/ |
Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:
https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13091/3120
|Title:||Career Barriers of Women Architects in the Construction Sector||Authors:||Aydın, Mevlüde
|
Erbil, Yasemin
#PLACEHOLDER_PARENT_METADATA_VALUE#
#PLACEHOLDER_PARENT_METADATA_VALUE#
|Keywords:||Career Barriers
|
Male-Dominated Structure of the Construction Industry
Women Architects
|Issue Date:||2022||Publisher:||Konya Technical University Faculty of Architecture and Design||Abstract:||It has been determined that the existing studies in the literature about women architects have remained in the background or ignored in the historical process, there are barriers they have encountered in the sector, their visibility in the sector is low and they have left the profession of architecture over time. However, it has been observed that it has not been investigated whether the career barriers that female architects encounter differ according to their career stages. The aim of this research is to fill the knowledge gap identified in this field in the literature and to reveal the career barriers faced by women architects.Quantitative research method was used in this study and data were collected by questionnaire method.It has been understood that the glass ceiling and sexist attitudes, which are among the career barriers of female architects, differ according to career stages.The limitations of the research are that the participation of the participants in the research is based on voluntariness, contacting people through online platforms due to Covid 19, the research is carried out in a limited time frame and the opinions of the participants are limited to the questions in the measurement tools.Within the construction industry, women architects face career barriers throughout their careers. Ensuring that more women architects take part in the construction sector will be an important step in reducing or eliminating such barriers. However, making individual efforts to prevent these barriers faced by female architects during their careers will not produce a real solution.The research is considered important in that it has not been investigated whether the career barriers found to be faced by female architects differ according to career stages and in this context,this study is the first of its kind.||URI:||https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13091/3120|
|Appears in Collections:||ICONARP - International Journal of Architecture and Planning|
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Items in GCRIS Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated. | https://gcris.ktun.edu.tr/handle/20.500.13091/3120 |
Welcome to our Chaparral, New Mexico Food Pantries and Soup Kitchens. Below are all of the Emergency Food Programs provided through Food Pantries and Soup Kitchens in Chaparral, NM and surrounding cities. If you are searching for Chaparral Food Banks - Food banks are distribution hubs. They supply the food to the Soup Kitchens, Food Pantries, Shelters etc. They in turn provide that food to the individuals that need it. Food Banks do not directly serve individuals in need. | https://www.homelessshelterdirectory.org/foodbanks/city/nm-chaparral.html |
The Japan Foundation Prizes for Global Citizenship were founded in 1985 under the name of the Japan Foundation Prizes for the Promotion of Community-Based Cultural Exchange. The Japan Foundation was established in 1972. At the time, the Japanese economy was enjoying ongoing growth, and "international," "culture," and "regions" were the key words of the times. In the 1980s, regional municipalities began to engage in promoting cultural administration. Various cultural facilities, such as civic halls, art galleries, and museums, were built in each region, and municipalities began inviting artists from overseas and holding international cultural events, and this saw international cultural exchange take root throughout the country. In 1987, the "Guidelines for International Exchange in Local Public Bodies" was issued, and the internationalization of the regions progressed further as international exchange associations were set up across the country. However, many of those who were in charge lacked knowledge, information, or personal connections relating to cultural affairs overseas. Because they also lacked expertise, a large number of inquiries and consultations came to be directed at the Foundation. It was against this backdrop that the Prizes for the Promotion of Community-Based Cultural Exchange began to be set up as an attempt by the Foundation to encourage the various international cultural exchange projects taking place nationwide.
Subsequently, cross-border exchanges between citizens gained increasing momentum, and in the latter half of the 1990s, the concept of the civil society and the non-profit sector began to be actively discussed. Around the same time, notions that the Earth's resources and environment are limited and that we all inhabit the same Earth as global citizens had grown familiar. Therefore the name of the prize was amended to the Prizes for Global Citizenship, so even the evolution of the prize's name reflects the history of international cultural exchange.
The significance and potential of the Prizes for Global Citizenship
In fiscal 2016, the number of organizations that won a Prize for Global Citizenship reached 100, and also a commemorative publication was issued. Within that, although there are also organizations whose role has ended and which have ceased or suspended their activities, the majority of them are for the most part ones that are active even now as cores of each region, and their representatives are also leaders in their respective fields. In the course of the selection process, staff members from the Japan Foundation always visit the places where candidate organizations operate their activities to undertake on-site research and hear firsthand from the organizations' representatives, and from members who are involved in the organizations in various ways as volunteers and so on. However, what comes across clearly is that in all cases, the organizations are proud of the regions they are active in and have deep feelings for there. Perhaps as a result of those feelings having been conveyed, the selection committee members held rigorous discussions to select the winners. Naturally, the activities of the organizations that are ultimately selected to receive the prizes are magnificent, but even among those that regrettably are not chosen for a prize, a large number of superb activities are being carried out. In fiscal 2016, three organizations, namely Fukushima Prefecture's Norte Japón (Cosquín en Japón Executive Committee), Kumamoto Prefecture's Kumamoto International Foundation, and Kagoshima Prefecture's Iōjima District Board, were selected. However in all cases, these organizations' efforts to transform regions and try to bring forth new culture are engendering empathy and impressing many individuals, and this is what they have been highly evaluated for, I believe.
The history of international cultural exchange is built on these global citizens' efforts to genuinely transcend borders and differences in culture to exchange and share ideas and information and think and act together. Understandably, it is not as if international exchange only brings about positive outcomes, and the regrettable reality is that various confrontations and disputes are occurring all over the world. That being the case, in what way can people of different cultural backgrounds coexist together on this finite Earth while respecting one another's different values, cultures, and beliefs? The activities of the 100 organizations that have been awarded a Prize for Global Citizenship contain a wealth of wisdom, ideas, and hints for changing this world and for changing Japan's regions as well.
This prize program's job does not end with the task of just awarding the prizes. The significance of this program, and simultaneously the challenge it faces going forward, lies in informing as many people as possible about the activities of the prize-winning organizations that are creating the Earth of the future as global citizens.
Sachiko Kanno
Sachiko Kanno took up her present position after working at the British Council and the Japan Foundation. While working at the Japan Foundation, she was involved in running the Japan Foundation Prizes for Global Citizenship program for supporting international cultural exchange nationwide, as well as managing a large number of events such as symposiums and seminars on international cultural exchange. | https://www.wochikochi.jp/english/report/2017/06/the-bonds-between-regions-and-the-world-that-are-fostered-by-global-citizens.php |
Transition in the Hungarian higher education system, begun with high hopes about ten years ago, has proven to be slow and difficult. Erno Zalai , professor and chair of mathematical economics and econometrics at the University of Economic Sciences in Budapest, Hungary, and a Wilson Center Guest Scholar, acknowledged that he and his colleagues greatly underestimated the magnitude of the political, economic, and cultural gap between East-Central Europe and Western Europe.
Higher education in Hungary and in most of East-Central Europe is deeply rooted in the West European tradition. Before World War II, Hungarian universities were internationally respected and produced Nobel Prize winners. But the Soviet conquest severed the links between Hungarian universities and the West. As a result, the Hungarian higher educational system did not share in the reforms implemented by Western universities in the postwar period. Their institutional and degree structures still resemble those common in Western universities in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Hungarian higher education system is composed of small, highly specialized institutions, which grant different degrees than the three-stage bachelor, master, and PhD or two-stage bachelor and professional degrees common in the West. Course offerings in Hungarian universities are limited to the humanities, sciences, and in some cases law. Professional training institutions, such as medical schools, are not part of universities, but are instead autonomous institutions. Technical training is also conducted by independent institutions separated not only from the universities but from each other, which effectively prohibits students and professors from moving between these institutuions. As a result, young people completing secondary school are forced to make lifetime decisions at the age of eighteen.
Western higher education instead experienced what Zalai described as "massification." Since World War II, it has expanded so greatly that by 1990 approximately 30 percent of West European secondary school graduates entered colleges or universities. The corresponding figures for Hungary and most other East European countries are below 15 percent. Zalai is convinced that massification forced Western higher education systems to develop a continuum of various sorts of schools and degree programs with the necessary flexibility for the next generation of well-educated people to develop their capacities to the fullest and to adjust to societal change.
Zalai recalled that in the late 1980s he and many of his colleagues believed that the Hungarian government would support a transformation of higher education along Western lines, allowing students to move from one institution to another with minimal difficulty. Anticipating such a change, his university moved in that direction. But conservative forces within universities, those who were unwilling to elevate polytechnic institutions to university rank or to let polytechnic students continue their studies at universities, gained the upper hand. They joined government officials in charge of higher education to force passage of a law which consolidated the old structure. Zalai and his colleagues were chastised and forced to reverse the steps they had taken to introduce a three-stage degree program.
Zalai is also firmly convinced that the qualification system for science degrees needs reform. Prior to World War II, Hungarian universities conferred scientific doctorates on a similar basis as German universities. In the 1950s, Hungarian higher education was "Russianized" and adopted the Soviet system of candidate of science and doctor of science as the only scientific qualification degrees. In Hungary there was a university doctorate, which became a title and was not considered a scientific degree, plus a candidate of sciences and an academy of sciences degree. In order to be fully qualified, an individual had to pass through all three stages. Although this system seemed outwardly rigorous, academic colleagues evaluated each others' achievements.
At the same time, the research capacity of universities was greatly reduced or eliminated in favor of research institutes under the aegis of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In addition to serving as the qualifying board for professors and researchers, the Academy of Sciences assumed responsibility for the financing and administration of these research institutes. As the old regime began to crumble in the late 1980s, academy members representing the research institutes struggled with university professors to control the process of conferring scientific qualifications. The result was a compromise that established conflicting standards. Universities were allowed to award PhD degrees, but the old German system of habilitation whereby a university board determines whether a PhD holder is sufficiently qualified to be deemed a professor was reestablished. The Academy of Sciences was given the right to award a doctor of the academy degree. But persons who pass the university habilitation do not need the Academy of Sciences doctoral degree, and those who hold the Academy of Sciences doctoral degree do not need the university habilitation. Zalai is convinced that the solution to this impasse is the establishment of a PhD degree with standards high enough to judge the scholarly capacity of younger professors. The market can then measure the value of professors and researchers in the later stages of their careers.
Universities also face major financial problems. During the Communist era, education was underfinanced, partly because there was no incentive to increase educational opportunities and partly because of the emphasis on industrial development and other economic issues. Whatever budget resources were "left over" were awarded to education, health, and other sectors deemed less important or productive. As a result, Hungarian universities have under-developed libraries and technical facilities and poorly paid faculties. Low salaries were less of a problem in the Communist era when the prestige of being a professor compensated for the small salary, and professors gradually grew accustomed to the necessity of earning about half of their income from other sources. Since 1989, however, new, more lucrative opportunities in areas such as economics and management have reduced the universities' capacity to attract and retain good faculty. In addition, many professors have left to go into politics and administration.
But low salaries are only part of the problem. Zalai cited a recent study of the funding patterns of his university which revealed that between 1990 and 1996 the real purchasing power of the resources provided for items other than wages has diminished by approximately 35 percent. In effect, more and more money is being diverted from higher education to other purposes, in part because government officials know that the universities can rely on assistance from sources such as the European Union and U.S. private foundations, at least temporarily. In so doing, they are ignoring both the transitory nature of such assistance and the fact that it is almost always earmarked for specific purposes and cannot be used to fund university management.
This lack of financial resources means that university administrators cannot modernize their institutions. Individual or departmental interests often take precedence over the commonwealth. Although private funding has selectively improved university facilities, it has not slowed the attrition of talented professors. The lack of resources makes it difficult to provide training in critically needed new areas such as management, business, law, and computer science. As a result, new, commercial colleges have sprung up to meet the strong demand for courses in these areas. They charge relatively large fees, which many parents are willing to pay because they are the growing areas in the economy.
Zalai believes that this development could stimulate traditional universities to reorganize their curricula. His own university began to offer Western-style training for economists and management specialists in 1988. Three-year technical training programs granting a college diploma were also introduced, and the university allowed graduates of commercial colleges to continue their studies toward university degrees. At the same time, he worried that this progress may be reversed by financial constraints. Universities receive considerably less government funding for three-year college diploma students than they do for full university students. In an effort to eliminate the three-year diploma program, the Hungarian Ministry of Education challenged the university's right to issue such diplomas and then decided that all of its students would be considered college students during their first three years of study. The result was a significant drop in the university's income. The faculty protested, and after a year, the ministry offered to restore the funding if the university would end the three-year diploma program. A compromise was reached under which the university agreed to end that program, but retained the right to accept holders of college diplomas into university degree programs. Still, Zalai fears that within two years even this option will be eliminated, and his university will revert to the old Hungarian-German system.
Dr. Zalai spoke at an EES Noon Discussion on June 11, 1997. | https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/138-persistent-problems-transition-higher-education-reform-hungary |
Plastic pollution is one of the major threats to marine ecosystems. Although great efforts have been done to track and measure plastic pollution in Northern Hemisphere ecosystems, little is known about the anthropogenic impact on Southern Hemisphere oceans. Guafo Island is a pristine, remote and highly productive ecosystem located in Northern Pacific Patagonia, were preliminary studies have shown that there is extensive plastic pollution in the reproductive grounds of marine birds, sea lions and fur seals.
That’s why, this project focus in identify the real human (“plastic”) impact in the island, related with the fur seal population health, and intend to classify and track the origin and effects of macro/micro plastic pollution in the Guafo Island marine ecosystem, using fur seals (top predator) as a bio-indicator. | http://www.guafoislandscience.com/the-threat-of-plastic-pollution.html |
A core theme in shounen series is that of friendship. Naruto Uzumaki, the protagonist of Naruto, has that theme driving nearly every plot and is the central way in which most conflicts throughout both Naruto and the sequel series Naruto Shippuden are solved. This article will delve into how friendships came to define Naruto, how he was able to convert enemies into friends, and the key friendship that drove him for most of the series. This article will contain spoilers for Naruto and Naruto Shippuden.
-- Spoilers Ahead! --
Childhood
Naruto grew up shunned by his fellow villagers and classmates because of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox that was sealed within him. As a result, he grew up devoid of any meaningful relationships and had to struggle to gain the attention of his peers and superiors, often by pulling off pranks that further made him an outcast. This same isolation is also what allowed Naruto to understand the worth of friendships, as it’s his first genuine friendship with his teacher Iruka that helped him move forward and mature as a man. Thanks to that isolation and newfound friendship, Naruto would use what got him out of his darkness to help others overcome their own personal demons.
Making Friends of Enemies
No one will ever doubt that Naruto is a skilled combatant, but while it may be frustrating for some, fighting has only ever been the first step for Naruto to pacify his enemies. Life as a genin allowed Naruto to make friends with many of his fellow ninjas once he stopped desperately seeking attention, but the most special friendships he made were with those he once saw as enemies. From the very first significant arc, Naruto’s ability to garner compassion emerges when he befriends the mercenary ninja Haku and appeals to the mass-murdering missing ninja Zabuza Momochi’s feelings for Haku, turning him against a horde of thugs in a final, noble act.
His ability to appeal to his enemies’ better selves continued to grow from there and, during the Chunin Exam, we see the first ripples of what will be the key to Naruto saving the lives of those he cares about. While facing Neji Hyuuga, a prodigy and genius, Naruto was able to overturn his opponent’s fatalistic beliefs. He proved Neji wrong by defying his judgment of Naruto’s fate as a failure, causing him to rethink his philosophy and open himself up to friendship once again. The ripple from this encounter is felt at the end of the series when Neji sacrifices himself to save both Naruto and the cousin he once detested, Hinata.
Naruto’s determination to offer a hand to those stuck in a dark, isolated place despite the pain they may have caused was the key to mending a relationship between the Village Hidden in the Leaf and the Village Hidden in the Sand. After vanquishing Gaara, the host of the One-Tail beast, Naruto’s vow to do whatever it takes to protect his friends shows Gaara that only weakness can come from isolation. Gaara and Naruto find common ground in their similar upbringing, and their friendship facilitates positive relations between both villages for years to come.
There are many more triumphs to speak of, but Naruto’s greatest comes when he befriends the demon within him, Kurama. The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, which made of him an orphan and gave him an isolated childhood, was for a long time an inner demon Naruto was unable to confront. Knowing he needed Kurama to become stronger, Naruto faced off with his inner darkness and was able to purify it by befriending even that. Naruto’s continued selflessness penetrated Kurama’s hatred and the fox was finally persuaded to help Naruto overcome his obstacles.
Friendship with Sasuke
Naruto’s friendship with Sasuke Uchiha, even with a war at hand, remained Naruto’s focus across the series. Naruto and Sasuke found common ground in the academy in their isolation from their classmates, but instead of friendship, it was a rivalry that brewed between them. Still, when they were selected for the same squad after graduating, it was only natural that their rivalry would develop into a friendship. While Sasuke’s desire to avenge his family was greater than the value of his friendship with Naruto, that couldn’t stop Naruto from trying to steer him away from his darkness.
Shippuden focuses heavily on Naruto’s refusal to allow Sasuke to be lost to his dark ambitions. Although Sasuke’s crimes increase throughout the series and he goes as far as attempting to kill Sakura Haruno, the third member of their squad, Naruto refuses to give up on Sasuke. He prostrates himself to convince foreign village leaders not to hunt down Sasuke and continues to strengthen himself so he can defeat Sasuke without killing him. Ultimately, even Sasuke comes to realize that Naruto is a part of him he cannot let go.
Final Thoughts
Naruto answers the question of what comes after the fight is done. While many other shounen protagonists won’t match Naruto’s mercy against his enemies, Naruto has never sought the easier path. Friendship saved Naruto from a dark fate and he vowed to save others from darker paths with his own hand in friendship, no matter how hard that is. Thanks to his ideals, Naruto crafts a world in which world peace seems to have been achieved by the end of the two series. Let us know which of Naruto’s enemy-turned-friends is your favorite in the comments down below! | https://honeysanime.com/shounen-friendship-naruto-uzumaki-from-naruto/ |
The remarkable, surprising, and extensive reformist policies of the new Republic of the Union of Myanmar have sparked interest throughout the international community. As one of the world’s last bastions of both relative isolation and new opportunities, Myanmar has recently become a magnet to which many are drawn.
Governments, international non-profit organizations, and businesses are exploring what they might do in a state marred by intense poverty but possessing abundant natural resources. With a literate and diverse population and a myriad of business opportunities, Myanmar entices with many diverse possibilities for rapid growth and social equity. Hotels are filling up with tourists who now feel more comfortable going to that once exotic land, and embassies may well expand staffs to handle more foreign assistance. Many more international NGOs will join the fifty or so already there, and those that are well established may increase staffs as needs become more visible and access increases. As sanctions against new investment seem likely to be relaxed, businessmen are seeking opportunities. The Burmese government will also have to gear up to meet its newly articulated social goals. All this has raised real estate prices to levels hitherto unknown. The pattern of outward migration by unemployed Burmese seeking work and education abroad may be reversed; instead, immigration into Myanmar by foreigners of many persuasions is expected.
How will all these new actors operate and flourish in an environment where it is the rare foreigner who has ever studied Burmese, a language with no useful cognates in the international arena, and where the competence in English, remarkably high two generations ago, has so drastically shrunk? They will draw upon the talents of those relatively sparse, well-educated, multi-lingual Burmese in the country. An educational system that has been underfunded, tightly controlled, poorly administered, and whose standards were once in the early post-colonial period the highest in the region, has sunk to the lowest ebb. The President of Myanmar has recognized the need for educational reforms.
The result of this influx is predictable, for it has been a pattern in other countries in foreign aid situations around the world for two generations. The prospect for positive change has been an elixir invigorating older programs and establishing new ones. When foreign assistance, public or private, pours into a country, and the government establishes new programs that are important, visible, and where opportunities for advancement are evident, the best and the brightest among the local population gravitate for employment to those indigenous and foreign groups. International public and private organizations usually offer higher salaries than local groups (and sometimes in foreign currency). Even state organizations may offer better pay as incentives to those who enroll in the new, prestigious and visible governmental departments, some of which are even encouraged or mandated by foreign aid institutions. Even if the pay is less than foreign groups might offer, the prospects for career advancement are better than in the traditional line ministries.
So, for a decade or more before educational institutions can catch up with the new demands for modernized skills, the attractions of the new opportunities may drain traditional ministries and government departments; even the staff of local non-governmental organizations may seek other work. In a real sense, then, as foreign assistance and businesses come in and operate, local governmental departments, organizations, and businesses may be diminished. Traditional ministries may lose whatever vigor they might once have had as good staffs seek opportunities elsewhere. The unsustainable equilibrium between the attractions of foreign organizations and the nationalistic and material benefits of working in indigenous settings sometimes take a considerable period to balance.
So as a result, progress on some areas may lead to atrophy in others. Intensive and broad in-country and external training is necessary to enable Myanmar to acquire the modern skills that are essential for the developmental path to which the government is committed. International bilateral, NGOs, and multilateral donors all should carefully calculate both the potential positive, and the risk of unintended negative, impacts of the early period of the openings. Foreign angels are needed, and may be going where before they indeed feared to tread, but they should be careful of where and how they step. | https://www.asiapathways-adbi.org/2012/02/myanmar-rushing-in-where-angels-have-feared-to-tread/ |
Methodist Church, 615 Cleveland St, Wayne, WV 25570.
The program will feature Evan Wilson, Wayne-Cabell Ag Agent who will speak on house
plants and Misty Martin, Director of Marie's House, a recovery center for women
based in Wayne. The menu will feature baked steak, chicken casserole, mashed
potatoes, corn, green beans, pecan pie, Italian cream cake, turtle cheesecake,
along with drinks.
The community service project is for attendees to bring items to support Marie's House in Wayne. Items include pillows and toiletries for women such as shampoo, conditioner, hairbrushes, soap/body wash, lotion, feminine hygiene products, toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, deodorant, & razors.
The cost will be $12 per person and checks should be made payable to Wayne
County CEOS and mailed to our office (WVU Extension Service - Wayne County,
27572 East Lynn Road, Wayne WV 25570) no later than April 15, 2019. Please call
our office at
304-272-6839 for more information. | https://extension.wvu.edu/wayne/family-community/ceos-news/2019/03/13/charleston-area-meeting |
The impetus for this exhibition is to visualize the weight of loss and to focus attention on the need to recognize the inherent dichotomy between life’s beauty and loss. My mobile upbringing taught me that details may differ from group to group, but the core experiences of loss, empathy and belonging are a universal language that connects us. I utilize clay’s unique physical properties of malleability, recyclability and permanence once fired, to explore the dichotomy between strength and frailty associated with these universal connectors. The meticulously crafted beautiful objects draw one into serious and often taboo subjects. The work comforts those who need it, while challenging those who are comfortable.
Each piece in the exhibition was inspired by pivotal moments in my journey of healing after my husband committed suicide. They are not about the loss itself but rather the emotions that followed. Loss, depression, and isolation are universal experiences that the Covid19 pandemic and social distancing have magnified on a global scale. My intention, by visualizing the emotional weight of loss to help people and society develop greater understanding of empathy for those experiencing loss and isolation. I want people to recognize the beauty inherent in all human experiences.
What happens when we physically represent the emotional weight all humans carry around, when we make the invisible visible by physically weighing down into the clay, leaving the imprint of the pressure visible, while removing the object? The focus becomes the impact of an experience, the emotional weight an experience leaves on a person, and it is all the more powerful when the only evidence of the lost object is the mark its absence left.
Porcelain hands, one 3-dimensional, and the other the imprint left by the other person, are displayed on opposite sides of the same wall as if they were touching through the wall. They are unable to connect through the physical and emotional distance. This space between people can speak louder than anything said or not said. I noticed similar feelings of disconnection and isolation while social distancing during quarantine as I did following the death of someone I loved. These experiences provide an opportunity for self-examination, to explore my connections to others and develop empathy.
My work explores the tragedy of loss but also the beauty in it. Love is required between people in order to feel the pain of losing them, as you would not feel the grief of a loss without first experiencing the love, and without the love you would not experience the grief. The pillow of roses, which is the embodiment of a labor of love, is comprised of row after row of roses, forming a pillow with an imprint of head of one who once laid on the pillow. The labor required to form this pillow mirrors the labor required to build and maintain a relationship while each flower physically represents the memories in that relationship.
Every flower, hand formed from clay, represents a memory memorialized, preserved forever, or slowly dissolving, put on display for all to see. Each petal begins as a small ball which repeatedly gets pressed into the palm of my hand to create a tapered shape, hiding a thicker middle that creates structure and strength in what seems to be very thin clay, due to the rim quality. My palm print is stamped on each petal with a final slap between both hands. The petals are then joined one by one, growing from the central shape and formed pinch by pinch. Roses are my go-to flower because they are ubiquitous, used to celebrate birth, death, romance, healing, and everything in between. It allows the viewer to assign their own meaning to the flower.
I find comfort in the making of repetitive objects that can be combined to create something larger and different from the components. Like a rose made from individual petals that is then combined in a large quantity to make an object such as the pillow of roses or the bed of roses, creating a field of memories made visible for all. I find it incredibly fascinating that some cultures believe in hiding one’s true self while others believe in putting one’s true self on display. What happens when we expose our experiences or the mess of our life to all who interact with us? Would it impact how we treat one another?
Clay can be an incredibly strong and durable material, but I push it to its limits, creating visibly fragile flowers that defy gravity in a way that clay shouldn’t. This frailty of a strong material mirrors the human experience. Like a person, my flowers have hidden strength. They are stronger than they appear, yet still fragile. Clay can be recycled in multiple ways, allowing one to edit and create again from the same material. This unique property is utilized in my work to allude to how we, like clay, can be reshaped and begin again anew, formed from the same material, yet different from our past.
The wall of bricks is comprised of hollow unglazed porcelain bricks made from a press mold of a special decaying brick from the turn of the previous century, saved by my grandmother. It was something used, worn, and discarded that someone found value in and used again. This cycle, discarded, saved and made anew, mirrors how someone who finds themselves broken down, running into a brick wall can start anew. The typical function of a brick cannot be performed by these bricks as they are hollow, unable to bear weight, frozen in a state of decay yet still stable and beautiful. Their metaphorical function is enough, just like the person in front of the wall is enough.
I find inspiration in religious practices because they create a sense of community and belonging, while also creating spaces for healing and self-examination. I am inspired by religious symbols, like the Western Wall in Jerusalem, but I am not attempting to replicate nor replace these rituals and practices. Rather I look to them for inspiration and understanding because I strive for these same characteristics within my own work.
I intentionally use beauty to make my work approachable, even disarm the viewer before they realize the emotional weight of the work. We already have enough ugliness in the world, I do not need to create more, in order to ask the viewer to engage with serious subjects. It is hard to get someone to willingly approach topics such as suicide, but art provides a safe access point for tough subjects and can serve to examine and challenge our established beliefs. These objects are enough as beautiful objects, but if the viewer chooses to think about the implications of their content, the object points to a different conversation beyond physical beauty.
We are defined by empathy, love, loss. We choose what baggage to keep as we move forward. Our experiences make us into who we are, but we do not have to be defined by our past and the marks it has left on us. Like the bed of roses, where the memories represented by the unfired roses dissolve as water drips on them, breaking down the clay so it can be formed into something new, so too we can take things, recycle them, and create a new beginning from the used, broken and beautiful bits. It is an opportunity to examine ourselves and practice empathy as we move forward, embracing both life’s beauty and pain through art, despite the weight of it all.
Advisor: Pete Pinnell
Copyright 2021, Amythest Warrington
This project was made possible, in part, with support from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts' Endowment Fund and the School of Art, Art History and Design. | https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/artstudents/158/ |
If You Build It, They Will Come: Building Learning Communities Through Threaded Discussions
Susan Edelstein,
Depaertment Head,
Physical Therapy Assistant Program
Broward Community Colleg
[email protected]
Jason Edwards,
Assistant Director,
Distance Education / Graduate Enrollment,
Southwestern Assemblies of God University
[email protected]
Introduction
One of the chief tenets for a successful and engaging online course is the development of an effective system that provides ongoing student interaction. In the book, Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace, authors Palloff and Pratt note, "it is the relationships and interactions among people through which knowledge is primarily generated. The learning community takes on new proportions in this environment and consequently must be nurtured and developed so as to be an effective vehicle for education (p.15)." This type of interaction allows a student to develop their own understanding of the course objectives plus facilitates how this knowledge will be applied in the "real world."
To accomplish a level of interaction that is conducive to an active and progressive learning community, a facilitator may opt to incorporate threaded discussions as a means of generating or promoting interaction. Just as the architect will design a blueprint to provide the homebuilder direction in completing the house, the facilitator must design and manage the threaded discussion to direct students in achieving the intended learning outcomes. However, if the threaded discussion is to remain an integral part of the online learning experience, administrators must provide facilitators with effective assessment methods to evaluate student's performance and knowledge integration.
Active and focused participation is an expectation of most online courses. Regular contributions to online discussions are integral to the determination that a student is keeping pace with the learner-centered activities and achieving the outcomes of the course. An objective assessment of the effectiveness of participation in discussion forums can quantify for a course facilitator each individual student's commitment to the learning community and involvement in the course content.
The term assessment can be defined from a variety of standpoints; certainly an individual's e-learning experiences will alter the concept itself. For many, the term brings to mind the traditional true/false and multiple-choice tests using some type of machine-graded card and a number two pencil! Yet, the term assessment as defined in New Horizons for Learning's The Building Tool Room: Assessment Terminology: A Glossary of Useful Terms, is the procedure of observing learning. The process may include describing, collecting, recording, scoring, and interpreting of information in relation to a student's learning in an educational setting or context.
One must realize that no single method for assessment is considered ideal. Rather, several methods can be used within a single course to provide a summative evaluation of a student's knowledge, ability and participation. For example in the online classroom, where an facilitator is using threaded discussion to augment the learning process, the assessment method would involve more than administering a formatted exam. A facilitator will be evaluating a student's performance throughout the entire discussion process with attention toward the quality of interaction between the facilitator/student and student/student(s).
According to New Horizons for Learning's The Building Tool Room there are five (5) elements that characterize effective assessment of an e-learning experience:
- The assessment may be a continuing interaction between teacher/ student and student/student(s) and should ideally be part of the learning proces
- The assessment should be a real-world performance by a demonstration of the ability to apply knowledge in a real-life setting.
- The performance should be of relevance to the student and learning community.
- The goal or achievement target should be clearly articulated and communicated to the learner.
Just as the homebuilder will use the blueprint supplied by the architect as a guide to insure the house is completed properly, these five elements serve as the foundation and necessary framework for the facilitator to build the discussion process and achieve the intended course objectives. Yet, as the facilitator begins to add finishing touches to the "house building", additional questions will arise as to how best to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of the threaded discussions within a course and the student's performance in them. These questions will serve to further focus the facilitator in the overall course design as well as aid in the construction of a threaded discussion assessment rubric.
In beginning the construction of a threaded discussion, the facilitator should consider how much time students need to effectively participate. If students are required to complete other assignments while participating in several in-depth threaded discussions, student time management becomes a significant issue. Students may not be able to spend adequate time on an assigned paper nor develop a threaded discussion to its fullest potential. Determining how critical the threaded discussion is to the achievement of the learning objective(s) is a crucial step in the construction process. Duplication of efforts in terms of multiple assignments covering similar content does little to assist in the construction of a learning community and may actually avert further development.
For example, as the facilitator gathers the materials from which the course will be constructed, it is vital to create a list of the objectives along with the means by which the objectives will be met. Furthermore the facilitator will need to address the following areas:
- How much value do I place on the threaded discussion for this module?
- Will the threaded discussion achieve the objective for the module alone? If not, what other activities should be developed?
- How much time is needed by the student to sufficiently complete the module?
- Will the student spend so much time finishing the assignments that opportunity to adequately reflect and apply the module material to their personal knowledge is non-existent?
Additional building blocks that need to be placed in order to move construction forward involve reflection upon how to design a threaded discussion so that it can be a positive learning experience for students. The wording of the topic question, the responses posted to students, the redirection as needed and the offering of encouragement to motivate students to explore additional content areas are considerations that a facilitator must embrace if the threaded discussion is to be a meaningful, learner-centered activity.
- Does the topic question provide a sound base from which discussion can be built?
- Does the topic question relate to the module objective?
- How often do I plan to interact to determine the discussion's direction?
- What "style" of management will I use to insure the discussion is moving in the right direction?
Another construction standard a facilitator must address is how to adequately gauge a student's performance as a course progresses. It becomes imperative to establish guidelines for the level/quality of participation that is expected from the student(s). If threaded discussions are used as a part of every module within an online course, the facilitator can continuously assess student comprehension and application of the conveyed knowledge.
As the facilitator continues the course design process, the assessment of student participation in threaded discussion becomes an obvious cornerstone for successful learning community development. In addition, dependent upon the feedback obtained from the assessment tool, the facilitator can modify strategies to enhance the learning process. As the facilitator builds the assessment requirements for the threaded discussion(s), the following list of questions should be contemplated regarding assessment to achieve its purpose of objectively evaluating a student's performance:
- What role will the threaded discussion have in assessing a student's understanding and subsequent utilization of the learning objective(s) conveyed through the course?
- After the module is completed, what will the discussion "tell me" about the student?
- How do I plan to grade a participation in the discussion?
- Can the quality of participation be assessed without compromising individual styles?
- Should students be made aware of the assessment criteria before the first discussion takes place? If so, should strategies that would permit achieving higher assessment be provided?
- Should the course facilitator intervene to improve participation that is below standard? At what point in the course should the facilitator share his/her assessment that the student is participating below the standard?
- Are the student's contributions to discussions perceived as actual insights or merely statements? Is there an objective way to gauge the quality of postings?
- Should students be required to post a "minimum" number of times? Dr. William Klemm of Texas A&M offers the opinion that a facilitator should "tell the students that they must post x-number of items each week or for each topic. Critics will say that this approach does nothing to ensure quality of input. But it at least gets the students engaged, and hopefully, once they get caught up in the activity, they will strive to improve the relevance and quality of their work, because now they are on display." (p 1)
- Should posts be in response to other student's comments or include original threads as well? Should a combination of simple responses and innovative posts be an expectation?
- Are guidelines established to assure that all participants are using the same level of formality or informality in their posts? Should the facilitator "set the example" for the class to model as discussions progress? In the book, You Can Teach Online, Moore, Winograd and Lange share that in modeling acceptable thread responses, the facilitator can stress that suitable thread responses need to "support any assertions or arguments with reasons and examples." (p. 11.27)
- Should students adhere to specific timeframes for discussion and reflection? Should discussion boards remain open for the duration of the course to permit continuous and ongoing input?
The insight the facilitator obtains from the above inquiries will provide him/her the framework to assemble a rubric. Ultimately, the rubric will aid in structuring the assessment to be more objective and consistent. Further, it will serve to clearly show the student how their work will be evaluated and provide guidelines for performance expectations.
A well-written rubric can provide useful feedback regarding the effectiveness of a student's participation in threaded discussions and offer benchmarks against which to measure and document progress. Actual implementation of a rubric for assessment will largely depend upon the individual facilitator's preference for objective feedback; whether he/she would prefer weekly assessment or summative/formative feedback as the course progresses.
Several universities provide assessment rubrics for participation in each topic area that is offered for discussion. Florida State University's Department of Educational Leadership provides an example of this approach in its online course (EDG 5250): http://edg5250-85.fa01.fsu.edu/assignmentgroup1.htm#65 . This approach requires a more consistent involvement in assessment by the facilitator and provides the learner with frequent feedback as to how effectively they are participating in each topic area.
A sample of a rubric that can be readily adapted for an online course or degree program is provided. This rubric, Assessing Effectiveness of Student Participation in Online Discussions, incorporates the essential materials for building a learning community as a means of objectifying scoring of student participation in threaded discussions.
Several categories for objective scoring are included in the rubric. The categories chosen are reflective of areas which should be considered by facilitators as having significance to the overall structural design of effective learning communities.
- Promptness and Initiative speaks to the student's ability to participate in threaded discussions in a timely fashion which demonstrates self-motivation. It permits commentary on whether or not the student is actively and consistently engaging in the course content.
- Delivery of Post addresses the student's attention to detail in terms being grammatically correct with rare misspellings.
- The category, Relevance of Post, permits an objective assessment of the student's ability to post topics that are relevant to the original discussion with acknowledgement of references if provided. It addresses the student who stays on topic as well as the student who appears to disengage from the course content.
- Expression Within the Post addresses the issue of how well opinions are expressed and how ideas or comments are presented. This category also allows the facilitator to acknowledge the different writing/expression styles of the students.
- Lastly, the category, Contribution to the Learning Community (LC), speaks to the assessment of whether or not the student makes an effort to further the development of a collaborative learning experience. It provides distinction between the student who seems relatively indifferent to the building process of a LC and the student who strives to reinforce the LC as the course develops.
The rating scale ranges from 1 to 4 with 1 being indicative of student participation which is less than acceptable for the development of a progressive learning community. A score of 4 in any category represents the attainment of the highest standard of participation and reflects a bonafide contribution to the learning community.
California State University at Hayward EDUI 6707
Assessing Effectiveness of Student Participation in Online Discussions
Student Name _______________________________________________________________ Unit _____
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|
Category
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|
1
|
|
2
|
|
3
|
|
4
|
|
POINTS
|
|
Promptness
and
Initiative
|
|
Does not respond to most postings; rarely participates freely
|
|
Responds to most postings several days after initial discussion; limited initiative
|
|
Responds to most postings within a 24 hour period; requires occasional prompting to post
|
|
Consistently responds to postings in less than 24 hours; demonstrates good self-initiative
|
|
|
|
Delivery of Post
|
|
Utilizes poor spelling and grammar in most posts; posts appear "hasty"
|
|
Errors in spelling and grammar evidenced in several posts
|
|
Few grammatical or spelling errors are noted in posts
|
|
Consistently uses grammatically correct posts with rare misspellings
|
|
|
|
Relevance of Post
|
|
Posts topics which do not relate to the discussion content;
makes short or irrelevant remarks
|
|
Occasionally posts off topic; most posts are short in length and offer no further insight into the topic
|
|
Frequently posts topics that are related to discussion content; prompts further discussion of topic
|
|
Consistently posts topics related to discussion topic; cites additional references related to topic
|
|
|
|
Expression
Within the Post
|
|
Does not express opinions or ideas clearly; no connection to topic
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|
Unclear connection to topic evidenced in minimal expression of opinions or ideas
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|
Opinions and ideas are stately clearly with occasional lack of connection to topic
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|
Expresses opinions and ideas in a clear and concise manner with obvious connection to topic
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|
|
|
Contribution to
the
Learning Community
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|
Does not make effort to participate in learning community as it develops; seems indifferent
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Occasionally makes meaningful reflection on group's efforts; marginal effort to become involved with group
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Frequently attempts to direct the discussion and to present relevant viewpoints for consideration by group; interacts freely
|
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Aware of needs of community; frequently attempts to motivate the group discussion; presents creative approaches to topic
|
|
|
|
TOTAL
Facilitator's Comments:
Sample Application of Assessment Rubric
In order to determine how "facilitator-friendly" and realistic the rubric - Assessing Effectiveness of Student Participation in Online Discussions – would be in an online course and to assess whether or not it provides dynamic objective assessment of student participation, a practical example of a threaded discussion is presented. The example assumes that the sampling of students presented:
- is reflective of different levels of contributions/participation,
- provides for a variance in the promptness of each post, and
- offers postings that are different to some degree in most of the assessment categories
Practical Example
Within a threaded discussion developing in response to an assignment provided by the facilitator in which students are to post responses re: how gender affects maturity, the following student responses/posts might occur:
Student A: Boys who mature late would have a double whammy--not only are they behind other boys, but way behind the girls too. Early maturing boys would likely be more confident, less self-conscious, etc. Most adolescent girls are so self-conscious, no matter when they mature. I guess I matured on time, although I didn't have the genes for a "full figure," so I felt like I was behind, and was envious of the more "shapely" girls the boys stared at. I would say that the late maturing girls have a harder time early on. Early maturing girls most likely feel better about themselves early on. However, this exposes them to older boys who will exploit them, and experiences they are not emotionally prepared for. Has anyone had a similar experience?
Student B: Negative consequences for early-muturing girls appear to be more severe than for early-maturing boys. Girl problematic behaviors include depresion, eating disorders,and early sexual activity due to their early physical development. Early-maturing boys percieved themselves more positively and had more successful peer relations. However,overall, the research states that late- muturation for late adolescenses has an overall positive impact on there body image, and senses of identity. Took me several years to accept my body and maintain a positive self image.
Student C: I think this like everything else is relative.
Applying the rubric Assessing Effectiveness of Student Participation in Online Discussions, the objective scores for each of the students are as follows:
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CATEGORY
|
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Student A
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Student B
|
|
Student C
|
|
Promptness and Initiative
|
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4
|
|
2
|
|
3
|
|
Delivery of Post
|
|
4
|
|
2
|
|
3
|
|
Relevance of Post
|
|
4
|
|
3
|
|
1
|
|
Expression within the Post
|
|
4
|
|
3
|
|
2
|
|
Contribution to the LC
|
|
4
|
|
3
|
|
1
|
|
TOTAL
|
|
16
|
|
13
|
|
10
The facilitator would determine the range of acceptable participation for each of the modules within a course. For example, scores of less than 10 might indicate that the student is participating below an acceptable standard and strategies for improvement might be presented in order to improve the student's contribution to the threaded discussion and ultimately, the learning community.
Reviewing the scores that the students obtained, it is clear that Student A is participating in all categories to a high degree. It would be further assumed that this student is achieving the learning outcome of effective contribution to learning community development.
Student B is participating at a more average degree. The facilitator may opt to contact the student to reiterate the need for grammatically correct postings which are free of spelling errors and to prompt the student to post in a more timely fashion.
With Student C, a less than acceptable participation is noted in at least two of the categories – Relevance of Post and Contribution to the Learning Community. The facilitator would be obligated to address concerns with the student and may need to develop strategies to assist the student in becoming a more engaged and successful e-learner.
It would be the facilitator's preference as to the frequency of assessment. For smaller class sizes, the assessment rubric could be used as the end of each module or unit of instruction. For larger classes, it may be more prudent to complete an assessment rubric at the midpoint of the class. This approach would permit the facilitator to make suggestions for improvements and detail strategies that would facilitate a more active participation by the student.
Conclusion
An objective assessment of the effectiveness of threaded discussions can quantify for the facilitator each individual student's contribution to the learning community. Viable learning communities are best built from "the ground up" with materials provided by each e-learner – thread by thread – until the very structure itself is stable and free-standing.
As the facilitator uses the tools at his or hers deposal to assemble an environment which fosters this student/student and student/facilitator interactions and the development of learning relationships where "knowledge is primarily generated" (as Palloff and Pratt propose), then the art of utilizing threaded discussions as a means of imparting content is essential.
Just as an architect and homebuilder come together with their individual strengths/abilities to construct and create a home in which a family can live and enjoy life, a facilitator can construct a home for the creation of a learning community where students can visit and embrace the joy of learning.
References
Kerka, Sandra, and Michael E. Wonacott. "Assessing Learners Online: Practitioner File." ERIC Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education (ERIC/ACVE) http://www.ericacve.org/docs/pfile03.htm
Klemm, W.R., "Eight Ways to Get students More Engaged in Online Discussions", Professor, Texas A&M University http://www.upenn.edu/newtools/blackboard/faq/eight_ways.doc
Markel, Sherry L. "Technology and Education Online Discussion Forums: It's in the Response." Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration Summer 2001 - Volume IV, Number 2:1/31/02 https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer42/markel42.html
Moore, Gary S., Winograd, Kathryn, and Lange, Dan. You Can Teach Online, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2001.
Palloff, Rena M., and Keith Pratt. Building Learning Communities in Cyberspace: Effective Strategies for the Online Classroom, San Francisco: Josey-Bass Publishers, 1999.
Simonson, Michael, and Sharon Smaldino, Michael Albright, Susan Zvacek, Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education, New Jersey: Merrill, 2000. | https://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/spring51/edelstein51.html |
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