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November 10, 2017
Are You A Sinner or A Saint?
If you scour the internet, you will find a wide variety of opinions ... some theologians and Bible teachers will call Christians sinners; while others declare we are all saints; and yet others try to walk the line and call us both saint and sinner. But I wanted to definitively know in my heart what I believed, and the only resource that mattered to me was the Bible. So, I began my quest to determine who I am ... sinner or saint.
In a sense, all human beings, as a category, are sinners because we are born in sin. So, it is not difficult to think of ourselves as sinners because we know we are capable of sinning. But when we take a look at the word "saint" in the original Greek (hagios) it is used to designate all believers or people set apart for the Lord and His Kingdom. It is not used to typify those Christians of exceptional holiness, or those who have gone on to be with the Lord in heaven, but rather any and all who are reborn into a new identity.
And Scripture backs this up in 2 Thessalonians 1:10, which reads, "... when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day [that is, glorified through the changed lives of those who have accepted Him as Savior and have been set apart for His purpose], and to be marveled at among all who have believed...".
Now, there will always be those Christians who don't see themselves as this new creation called "saint" and want to cling to their old identity. They will tell you that if we don't still see ourselves as sinners, then what value does the Cross have to us? My answer to that is simple: the Cross is the reason that my identity has changed from sinner to saint; it is the catalyst that transformed me. Did not the Apostle Paul say, "If any man is in Christ he is a new creation. Old things are passed away, behold all things are become new."
True, Paul called himself "the foremost of sinners" in 1 Timothy 1:15. But, as is often the case, we tend to read Scripture out of context. A more careful study shows that he is referring to his former self, i.e., the "old Paul" rather than the new one. And that may be why he tends to refer to the readers of his letters as "saints" to remind them of who they are, and who they have been called to be. And that is an important distinction.
"Saint" is both a description and a calling of the Christian. This is made very clear in Paul's letter to the Corinthians: "To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified (set apart, made holy) in Christ Jesus, who are selected and called as saints (God’s people), together with all those who in every place call on and honor the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours...".
To be a sinner is to be separated from God, with no relationship. But Scripture tells us in Ephesians 2, that "through Him we have a [direct] way of approach in one Spirit to the Father". When we are reborn we enter into a new relationship with our Creator, and we are"fellow citizens with the saints (God’s people), and are [members] of God’s household". We now identify as a saint!
But what about the times we hurt others with our sins? How can we possibly think of ourselves as a saint then? That is where repentance comes in. With this act of confession and asking God for forgiveness, we show a new nature that is in relationship with God; a new nature that is growing towards the image of Christ -- and which definitely is not the nature of a sinner.
So, after all this discussion, and back and forth, how do you view yourself? Are you a saved sinner, or a sinning saint? I will tell you how I have determined this question for myself... I know I am a Christian who is growing in holiness, while still struggling with sin in my life. But that is the old nature that is still trying to control me. I KNOW I am a new creation. I KNOW I have been called to a special purpose and called to be holy because God is holy. And I know Jesus is the ultimate picture of saint. I also know that when we are saved, we are identified with Christ by grace through faith. And I believe that my faith in Christ radically changes not only my identity and my walk, but how God sees me. He no longer sees a broken vessel, but a renewed and restored receptacle of His grace and mercy. How can that be labeled a sinner? From now on, I will only answer to the name Saint. So, I ask my original question to you ... Are you a sinner or a saint?
1 Corinthians 6:11 And such were some of you [before you believed]. But you were washed [by the atoning sacrifice of Christ], you were sanctified [set apart for God, and made holy], you were justified [declared free of guilt] in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the [Holy] Spirit of our God [the source of the believer’s new life and changed behavior].
4 comments:
Are the terms mutually exclusive? I have a hard time picking one. This is something I will have to put some thought into.ReplyDeleteReplies
I believe it is Romans 6 that is a picture of us as sinners. Romans 7&8 point to our transformation into saints. It is a matter of being transformed and Satan likes nothing better than to keep us guessing or doubting. With Christ we are a new creation, growing towards a fullness of the image of Christ. Once that transformation begins, you leave the old identity behind.Delete
Dear Pam,Good morning and God bless your day.ReplyDelete
Yes we are partakers of his divine body and His blood.A new creation.Walking in His Spirit.Now saints.When I was younger and people would ask did I know where I was going when I died and I was still very young in the Lord so I wasnt sure. after awhle I knew where I was going and I never had to hesitate in my answer.I know the same thing now about being a saint or a sinner. | https://www.salvationandsurvival.com/2017/11/are-you-sinner-or-saint.html |
Eifler, Karolin (2010). The PHO2 family of ubiquitin conjugating enzymes in Arabidopsis thaliana and its contribution to plant programmed cell death. PhD thesis, Universität zu Köln.
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Abstract
Programmed cell death (PCD) is essential for various developmental processes and stress responses in the life cycle of a plant. The ubiquitin-proteasome system has been shown to regulate multiple mechanisms with a suspected role in the initiation and execution of plant programmed cell death. However, only little is known about the exact function of enzymes involved in ubiquitylation during cell death responses. This thesis gives first insights into the molecular and physiological characteristics of the PHO2 family of ubiquitin conjugating enzymes in Arabidopsis thaliana and demonstrates the important role of these proteins during the programmed cell death response to abiotic and biotic stresses. The protein family consists of four members that are unusually large for ubiquitin conjugating enzymes and possess in addition to the characteristic UBC domain a long N-terminal extension and a C-terminal domain highly conserved throughout the plant kingdom. Two subgroups can be distinguished according to the homology in the N-terminal part: the two larger proteins PHO2 and PFU2 (PHO2-family ubiquitin conjugating enyzme 2) on the one hand and the two smaller ones PFU1 and PFU3 on the other. PHO2 and PFU2 were identified to be absent from the nucleus and restricted to the cytoplasm. PFU1 and PFU3 were shown to be present inside the nucleus. Only PFU1 could also be detected in the cytoplasm. Whereas PFU1 and PFU3 seem to be rather plant specific, homologues of PHO2 and PFU2 can be found throughout the whole eukaryotic kingdom, but are missing from the model organisms Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Schizosaccharomyces pombe. The closest mammalian homologue is E2-230K, which is shown to display both E2 and E3 function, but its exact function in the cell is still unknown. The more distantly related homologue BRUCE has been described to be an inhibitor of apoptosis. Complete knockout mutants could be identified for PHO2, PFU1 and PFU3, whereas the PFU2 transcript is only downregulated in the T-DNA insertion line analyzed in this thesis. Mutation of either PHO2, PFU1 or PFU2 leads to suppression of cell death caused by expressing a mutated form of ubiquitin in plants. Apart from this, pfu1 and pho2 mutants show less cell death symptoms than wild type plants under ozone treatment. In contrast, the pfu2 mutant line is less sensitive to nitric oxide treatment than wild type plants. In addition, the hypersensitive response to a bacterial pathogen is delayed in the pfu1 pho2 double mutant, suggesting that both proteins are functionally interdigitated. These findings show that the PHO2 family of ubiquitin conjugating enzymes is needed to initiate programmed cell death in response to various stresses presumably by sensingreactive oxygen species or reactive nitrogen species, which highly accumulate in the cell during PCD. Further experiments with recombinant PFU1 and PHO2 protein fragments revealed that especially the C-terminal domain of the proteins is highly insoluble. Various modifications of the constructs were needed to finally obtain a soluble PHO2 fragment containing the UBC and the C-terminal domain, which can be used in future biochemical assays to test the functionality of the ubiquitin conjugating enzymes and to solve the three-dimensional structure of the highly conserved C-terminal domain. | https://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/3249/ |
By Ron Glick
This post was originally published on http://godslayercycle.wordpress.com/. Ron Glick, an indie author of 9 comic trivia books and 5 novels, shares his insights and experiences with intellectual property. Read his latest novel, Dorothy Through the Looking Glass.
In recent months, the subject of intellectual property rights has become a very big issue for me personally. I swear, the last half of 2013 must have been an unwritten copycat movement that I never received the memo on. Out of nowhere, I found myself defending my own intellectual properties on various fronts, all from claims originating in this time frame. However, to make matters worse, it opened my eyes to exactly how under-informed independent (or indie) authors really are on the subject.
As writers, we all recognize the value of a brand. We rely on creating something marketable and unique to grab the attention of our audiences, but it frightens me at how little the indie writer market seems to understand of exactly how sovereign we are in preserving the concepts we create. Worse, not a single indie writer I have discussed this issue with in recent months is even aware of the necessity to aggressively defend what they have created.
For anyone who does not know, I write four series – The Godslayer Cycle, Chaos Rising, Oz-Wonderland and Ron El’s Comic Book Trivia. Each of these are uniquely my own creations, and as such, in order to preserve these, I watch the Internet avidly for anyone else who might be trying to use these names. My approach here is twofold: First, I create a Google Alert™ (www.google.com/alert) for each unique name or phrase that is of potential concern; and, second, I periodically manually search for the terms, as well. Needless to say, I strongly urge anyone who has intellectual property concerns to take these steps at the very least.
Admittedly, Google Alerts is not perfect – in fact, I more often get random unrelated listings than I actually do anything of concern, and not all uses of the terms shows up in their search. Incidentally, it was through a periodic search in early January, 2014, that I discovered three people attempting to use series names which I had created. Of these, two were in pre-print conception, and the third was actually for sale on Amazon. Needless to say, I aggressively pursued these violations and though they are not always easily enforced, I prevailed in each instance.
The reason for this success is that I understand intellectual property law, while others either do not or seek to prey upon the ignorance of indie authors to profit off of our goodwill. There is a reason, after all, that there are not more books named “Game of Thrones” on the market. This article will endeavor to explain precisely why that is.
Most people understand what copyright is. I know that I myself have too often used this word to encompass all of intellectual property law because, quite frankly, it is the one word everyone seems to recognize. If you write a book, it’s is easier to say, “I own the copyright to that,” than, “I own the intellectual property rights to that”. However, it is a failure in many regards to use this kind of bargain basement identification, because it actually deprives you of your full rights under the law.
Intellectual property law is actually a three-fold set of laws, encompassing copyrights, trademarks and patents. The uneducated often think that copyright encompasses all three of these, but it does not. Intellectual property rights are divided into these three separate and distinct areas, and it is extremely important to differentiate between them all, as claiming copyright does not, for example, preserve your trademark rights.
As a quick overview, let me explain briefly what each of these terms means: a copyright protects original works, such as art or writing; a trademark protects names or symbols used to identify; and a patent protects the invention of practical things. So to define these in one word summaries, a copyright protects expression, a trademark protects recognition, and a patent protects creation. As you can see, though these are all related – and certainly some conceptions can certainly bridge these areas – none of these by themselves protect all intellectual property rights.
An important – and often misunderstood aspect – of the rights secured through the intellectual property laws surrounding these protections is that they must be registered with the United States government (or an equivalent government authority outside the United States) to have effect. This is frankly untrue and more than a little prejudiced in how this propaganda is tossed around. The truth is, use alone secures intellectual property rights. This is to say, using the unique property in public or commerce secures your rights. If I advertise the series Godslayer Cycle as a forthcoming series to the general public, then I have created a preliminary trademark claim. If I then offer a product using this name for sale, then I own the trademark. Simple as that. So if you cannot afford the several-hundred-dollar registration fee, do not stress too overly much, since your rights are already protected so long as you use the concept being protected.
Now, this is not to say that registration does not have its advantages. Especially prior to the electronic age, it was very difficult to prove that someone in New Jersey was deliberately violating the trademark of someone in Alaska. The centralized registration in the United States Patents and Trademarks Office would be the best way to secure proof that you either pre-solicited the trademark, or are actually engaged in its use in commerce. Nowadays, when most indie writers use Amazon as their point of venue, the electronic earmark of this mega-marketplace pretty significantly narrows down the possibility of someone contesting who used a trademarked term first, though the pre-solicited area is still best protected by registration.
As to my own issue, when first I came upon the infringements I mentioned earlier, I brought them up in discussion with other indie writers in my circle of friends. Each and every one insisted I could do nothing about the violations because of the commonly misinterpreted ideal, “You cannot copyright a title.” This is also, incidentally, the defense each infringer raised – that I could not stop them from using my brands because I could not copyright a title. That much is true, by the way: you cannot copyright a title – but you can trademark it.
As an example, Godslayer Cycle is a projected series of nine books that I am presently writing – with two of the books already for sale. I created the concept (patent), the name of the series (trademark) and the story itself (copyright). If someone else wrote a series that purported to have two groups of gods vie for control by releasing a set of magical swords in the mortal world to slay their counterparts with an avatar created to seek out and use the swords, I might well have a patent claim since the original concept which I created will have been compromised. However, I would have no claim for a set of gods just creating a set of magical swords alone, since this is really too nonspecific to be considered stealing my concept. Admittedly, patents are the most difficult to enforce in the writing profession, so this is not a claim you would often see advanced – I only mention it as a potential scenario.
Another example, as it occurred here, if someone published a series of books using Chaos Rising as the name of their series, then it would infringe upon the trademark I have for my own series of this name. I began using the name Chaos Rising as a unique identifying brand for my own series of novels in 2011, and anyone else using this name without my express consent for any other series of books violates my trademark.
This incidentally raises a point I am sure at least some of you are thinking – Chaos Rising by itself is not a unique creation. It has been used in movies, fiction and in video games. However, each of these is an independent area and does not violate trademark. If someone created a Chaos Rising card game, for instance (assuming they did not use patented concepts or ideas from my series), then there would be no trademark infringement. The key here is that a trademark is an “identifying” word or label, something that uniquely identifies a specific type of product.
In this example, Chaos Rising for me is a series of literary novels, and the term specifically and uniquely identifies such. The fictional Chaos Rising card game would, as counterpoint, uniquely identify a card game. Presumably, no one searching for a card game would be confused by finding a series of novels by the same name, or vice versa. Of course, there is always the likelihood that someone might believe they have a common genesis or connection, just as someone might think a movie or line of gummie bear candies by that name might reference one or the other, as well, but for the purposes of trademark, there is no way to protect against this.
This being said, I will remind the reader that I mentioned at the beginning that I personally protect my intellectual property rights “aggressively.” This is just as important – if not moreso – as the rights themselves. If someone uses your protected property and you do *not* object, then it dilutes the uniqueness of the property and then anyone else can swoop in and use it. For instance, should you have a small-time hack using your book title whom you believe will never make more than a ten-spot on your property, if you do not raise objection to the use, then you forego the right to challenge a major player who may come along later. You *must* be vigilant and you *must* object, or you run the risk of losing the ability to object later on.
The point of this article, of course, is to emphasize that – as writers – we all have a very strong foundation of rights on which to rely. But we must not only raise awareness of our rights, but we must also takes steps to defend them. And we must do so in spite of the difficulty this challenge may present to us down the line.
And whoever said writing for ourselves was going to be easy?
I welcome any comments to this article, as well as any requests for assistance. I am not a lawyer and cannot provide legal advice, but I can certainly share the knowledge I have on the subject.
Ron Glick (born January 20, 1969) is a community activist, and is presently active in several charitable enterprises. He was born in Plainville, KS. After living in various states, he currently lives in Kalispell, MT. He is the author of The Godslayer Cycle, Chaos Rising and the Oz-Wonderland series, as well as having written several volumes of Ron El’s Comic Book Trivia. He is presently working on the second novel of Chaos Rising. He loves contact and welcomes input on his work through his website at http://ronglick.com. | http://www.digitalpubbing.com/intellectual-property-and-the-indie-writer/ |
Countless other old tales are told and analyzed for the truths and guidance they contain. The Circle of the White Stag was created to gather together those who read An Carow Gwyn and desired to devote themselves further to the way of Fayerie Traditionalism, as it was described in that work. Here we encounter the primitive, sometimes hostile, sensations that we encounter when walking alone in the woods. But friendships will also be made with other human beings, and future chapters of the unfolding of the Circle of the White Stag will be plotted out and written. Practitioners of many traditional sorcerous or magical systems might find this work a valuable resource. The spine may show signs of wear.
Criticism of modern cultural philosophies and ideologies in light of what the Old Ways reveal, forgotten histories underlying many of our cultural stories and myths, and the hidden laws and techniques behind basic and advanced historical works of sorcery all of which are explained in exacting detail are carefully brought together in this substantial and paradigm-shifting work. Take your time with this one. An Carow Gwyn contains over 60 illustrations and diagrams, and gives historical and accessible spells and workings from the Classical to the Elizabethan eras for seeking oracles through dreams, swaying the spirits of forests and graveyards, protection and uncrossing, opening doorways into spiritual regions, and even the supreme act of disassociating from bodily experience and traveling in the Unseen world. If you wish to explore the warmth of a forgotten age, and delve into places long neglected, let An Carow Gywn be your guide for a day or thirty, and return with eyes afire. The bottom of the journaling pages display wise quotes and insightful advice from graduates of Tree Whispering workshops. Goosebumps were not uncommon, even during the tedious tasks of spell checking and fixing line layout. All who are familiar with the metaphysics and Fayerie Faith-related perspectives in An Carow Gwyn are welcome at the White Stag forum and within this shared space.
The companion notebook and journal also provides space to write personal reflections. So it is my first experience ever reading his work. This particular edition is in a Paperback format. World A Yonder A Story Of The World Of can be very useful guide, and World A Yonder A Story Of The World Of play an important role in your products. It was published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform and has a total of 62 pages in the book.
This is life-changing stuff, on every level - mental, spiritual, physical. All members will be given access to the Circle of the White Stag's online forum, lore, and resources, and all will be invited to Circle events when they are held. A wonderful, well-researched, well-grounded work that is both rich and weighty, and at the same time strangely familiar. All pages are intact, and the cover is intact. Dywenys is at present a spiritual concept and reality, a piece of the now-hidden dimension of what was once the Primordial Way of Spirit-Relating in our breathing world.
An Carow Gwyn shows the Old Way of seeing and living in this world for what it truly was, where it ultimately came from, and how it still lives quietly among us. Artisson touches on aspects of lore that are seldom discussed, and then he goes further and deeper, leading a merry dance into an ancient past, and sometimes deeper still into one's self. Just opening the files to work on the book made all my Spirits jump up and pay attention - it has that much power in it. In our dream, it will be one of the chief centers of the renewed Old Ways on Earth. The coverage of basic charms and lore is complete without being obnoxious or trite, but has the subtle but valuable advantage of teaching you how to look at the folklore you know and dig out the hidden secrets.
Truthfully, I've only read the beginning but it has made me laugh, cry and nod my head numerous times. To buy this book at the lowest price,. Full disclosure - I did the layout for this book. An Carow Gwyn contains over 60 illustrations and diagrams, and gives historical and accessible spells and workings from the Classical to the Elizabethan eras for seeking oracles through dreams, swaying the spirits of forests and graveyards, protection and uncrossing, opening doorways into spiritual regions, and even the supreme act of disassociating from bodily experience and traveling in the Unseen world. Also found within this book are four other spells and charms drawn from the ancient magical scrolls: a spell for accomplishing the dreaded feat of Red Necromancy, or appealing to the souls of men and women who have died under unfortunate circumstances to become allies in the accomplishment of sorcerous works, a charm that appeals for protection from the Powers of the Underworld, a spell for gaining detailed dream revelations and visions, and an alternative Herb Swaying Charm for gaining aid from the free souls of plants. A complete philosophical treatise regarding Spiritual Ecology, and how it relates to the Old Ways, is interlaced throughout the book. And put very simply that the 'every man' can understand intellectually.
I haven't read much of Robin Artisson's work before outside of articles but I have been waiting for this particular book for a long time for him to write it. Dywenys may one day exist in this world as trees, forest, running water, stones, hills, and mountains, and the Circle-folk as well as the Fayerie Faithful will plant their feet upon that holy ground. Also found within this book are four other spells and charms drawn from the ancient magical scrolls: a spell for accomplishing the dreaded feat of Red Necromancy, or appealing to the souls of men and women who have died under unfortunate circumstances to become allies in the accomplishment of sorcerous works, a charm that appeals for protection from the Powers of the Underworld, a spell for gaining detailed dream revelations and visions, and an alternative Herb Swaying Charm for gaining aid from the free souls of plants. And to live authentically according to older, pre-Christian concepts, within the modern world. Product Description An Carow Gwyn is an extensive work covering every angle and dark folkloric corner of the ancient Fairy-related beliefs of Europe and the British Isles.
Basia Alexander are visionary Nature communication experts. These five venerable invocations, nearly lost to the world during purges of spiritual texts in ancient times, can greatly expand the capabilities of those assaying sorcerous works within the boundaries of Fayerieism. This alternative culture is a radical departure from the toxic political morass that is the modern world impasse. The need for meaningful and supportive community is real and natural to human beings. Practitioners of many traditional sorcerous or magical systems might find this work a valuable resource. For this twice-yearly Tithe to Dywenys, each member will receive the annual Journal- The Vision of the White Stag- detailing devotional activities, Fayerie and spiritual ecology-related folklore from both sides of the Atlantic ocean, interviews, ritual and devotional works to the Unseen Powers, and news from the Besaw Dywenys, the council that organizes events and charts future plans for the Circle of the White Stag. Practitioners of many traditional sorcerous or magical systems might find this work a valuable resource. | http://efhighschoolyear.ie/an-carow-gwyn-sorcery-and-the-ancient-fayerie-faith.html |
Champaign Urbana Ballet presents Swan Lake, the ultimate ballet! This romantic fable of ill-fated passion and forgiveness is told through beautiful choreography amid magnificent sets – a timeless classic. All performances include the full ballet.
To view What's Nearby to The Virginia Theatre, kindly select a radius and category option from above. | https://www.visitchampaigncounty.org/events/detail/3975/swan-lake-presented-by-cu-ballet/47922 |
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A new paper, published today in the journal Trends in Plant Science, takes a critical look at the 300 year old tradition of botanical monography to determine its role and relevance in addressing some of the challenges arising from the current environmental crisis.
A botanical monograph is a publication that focuses on a plant group, bringing together all known information about those plants, compiled by an expert. The information comes from observing plants in habitat, specimens in botanical gardens and herbaria, and looking at the tree of life and various other attributes of the plant group.
Unprecedented changes in earth’s biodiversity/ biosphere are prompting urgent efforts to describe and conserve plant diversity and scientists argue monographs can help. Plant groups with an up-to-date monograph provide a robust baseline for deeper study, accurate conservation status assessment and conservation actions that can help to protect plants that are increasingly disappearing. However, unfortunately, many important plant groups don’t have a monograph.
Dr Sandra Knapp, Merit Researcher at the Natural History Museum, who co-wrote the paper says;
“Plant diversity is the fabric of ecosystems – understanding their identities and evolutionary relationships is more important now than ever and can play a significant part in conserving the diversity of our planet. Saving our planet begins with knowledge, understanding and appreciation of the other forms of life we share it with, including plants. Tragically these are disappearing at an alarming rate of knots, and unless we act now to accelerate our understanding, we risk losing many species, along with the irreplaceable knowledge they contain.”
Along with Dr Knapp, the authors of the paper, made up of an international team led by Dr Olwen Grace from RBG Kew, propose a criteria to prioritise efforts to monograph all the Earth’s plant groups, with particular urgency for tropical plant groups under imminent threat or with expected socio-economic benefits. The scientists say this acceleration in completion of monographs, especially for these groups, would address the persistent imbalance of knowledge and resource in biodiverse low-income regions, and putting historic northern hemisphere collections, such as those at RBG Kew, to better use.
Monographs are not just ‘by experts for experts’: they are used by anyone who needs definitive, authoritative information about a plant group – conservationists, horticulturists, researchers and local communities around the world. Monographs catalyse species discovery, biodiversity documentation and conservation, and help to understand what wild plants are related to the crops we depend on. With 40% of plants estimated as being threatened with extinction (Kew’s 2020 State of the World’s Plants & Fungi report), the authors say monographs have never been so crucial.
Monographs are uniquely challenging to compile because they bring together so many facets of information, including novel data, maps and illustrations that can be produced only by an expert of the plant group in question. Until the latter part of the 20th century, compiling a monograph would be a life’s work. Today, the internet, digital technologies and rapid advances in DNA sequencing for
the tree of life mean that monographs are now, realistically, within reach even for the most complex, diverse and challenging subjects – like orchids, legumes and grasses – which occur across the globe.
Dr Olwen Grace, Senior Researcher in the Monography department at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and lead author of the paper says: “The increased availability of DNA sequence data and digitised resources now provide powerful resources for a new phase of collaborative efforts in monography, focused on tackling the largest, most threatened, ecologically important, and economically valuable plant groups in an efficient manner. I am convinced that this centuries-old tradition is more relevant than ever to help take care of the Earth’s biodiversity.”
ENDS
Notes for editors
Natural History Museum Media contact: Tel: +44 (0)20 7942 5654/ (0)779 969 0151 Email: [email protected]
About the Natural History Museum
The Natural History Museum is both a world-leading science research centre and the most visited natural history museum in Europe. With a vision of a future in which both people and the planet thrive, it is uniquely positioned to be a powerful champion for balancing humanity’s needs with those of the natural world.
It is custodian of one of the world’s most important scientific collections comprising over 80 million specimens. The scale of this collection enables researchers from all over the world to document how species have and continue to respond to environmental changes - which is vital in helping predict what might happen in the future and informing future policies and plans to help the planet.
The Museum’s 300 scientists continue to represent one of the largest groups in the world studying and enabling research into every aspect of the natural world. Their science is contributing critical data to help the global fight to save the future of the planet from the major threats of climate change and biodiversity loss through to finding solutions such as the sustainable extraction of natural resources.
The Museum uses its enormous global reach and influence to meet its mission to create advocates for the planet - to inform, inspire and empower everyone to make a difference for nature. We welcome over five million visitors each year, our digital output reaches hundreds of thousands of people in over
200 countries each month and our touring exhibitions have been seen by around 30 million people in the last 10 years. | https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/scientists-call-for-urgent-efforts-to-accelerate-in-depth-studie.html |
Hundreds of protesters took to the streets across Lebanon against corruption and oligarchy in the country, grappled by a massive economic crisis after the 2020 explosion of a plant which resulted in a nationwide movement being formed against the government. Protesters lit barricades and blocked roads, causing as much disruption as possible.
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Preconference Workshop Flux Congress 2022
The SYNC lab and Leiden-CID had the honor to be part of the Flux Congress 2022 in Paris, by organizing a preconference workshop about the developmental neuroscience cycle. In this blog, we give you a small impression of the amazing day!
The Developmental Neuroscience Cycle: from Research Design to Societal Impact
When conducting developmental neuroscience research, we all face similar challenges, but these difficulties are rarely reflected in our scientific papers. Questions such as, how to balance between the perfect research design and feasibility? How to manage the data in such a way that it is open and safe? How to translate science to a broader public without being too unnuanced? Pre-pandemically, these kinds of experiences were sometimes shared at the coffee machine or during lunch, but in current times we often have to solve these challenges in solitude.
During this one-day preconference workshop, we wanted to reflect upon several challenges (and opportunities!) that we have experienced in running longitudinal studies. Together with the Flux community, we had interactive discussions on what practical, logistical, and creative solutions we as developmental neuroscientists have for the challenges we concur in our research field.
Optimal Research Design
In the morning session we started the day by discussing optimal research designs, where we shared our experiences with the unique L-CID design, (a longitudinal, neuroimaging, randomized controlled intervention, developmental twin study) and included methodological considerations surrounding the impact that specific choices in the research design have for future statistical analyses.
Next, we discuss lessons learned on running a longitudinal study with annual visits and share and collect tips and tricks to reduce dropout.
Watch the video on the aim, study design and outcomes of the L-CID study:
In small groups of six participants, we discussed challenges and solutions in optimal research design. We also collected tips and tricks for running developmental longitudinal studies. Some of the examples of the posters:
Road to Open Science
During the second part of the preconference workshop, we discussed LCID’s open science vision and challenges we have faced on the road to open science. Simone Mulder talked all about how to organize a multimodal longitudinal dataset. We proposed a data structure template, while explaining how we got there and what decisions were made along the way (for more information, check out this blog).
Up next, Mark Mulder gave a detailed description about roadblocks and things to think about during the process of converting raw data to processed data. Lastly, Lara Wierenga talked about finding a balance between being open and protective, and how to be findable and accessible yet protective. In addition, she introduced some of our open science plans, including the development of a data sharing platform add-on that will facilitate data sharing.
You can find the slides of the Open Science presentation here.
Societal Impact
The afternoon session of the pre-conference program was focused on societal impact: the goal was to both get inspired and to think of concrete ideas for societal impact in everyone’s one projects. First, several examples of how the SYNC lab creates societal impact were discussed, divided into societal outreach (bringing your science to society), co-creation (involving society in science) and citizen science (doing science together with society).
Lina presented on Expedition Next, a science festival for children in the Netherlands that aims to get children excited for science and spark their curiosity. Lysanne talked about Young Xperts, a platform for involving youth in science. This can be done for example by organizing brainstorm sessions, and by sharing scientific knowledge and asking youth to think along about solutions (facts & take action). Finally, Yara explained a citizen science project ‘All schools (collect) together’ where children of primary schools collect and analyze data on whether the voices of children are being heard when it comes to what they find important in their social environment.
Next, in small groups we discussed ideas for making societal impact with our own research. We thought of ideas individually and subsequently divided them into the categories ‘meh’ (ordinary & unfeasible), ‘now’ (ordinary but feasible), ‘how’ (original but unfeasible) and ‘wow’ (original and feasible). We concluded that small steps or ideas could already help making societal impact. Or, as Michelle quoted Sydney Smith: “It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little.” And indeed, at the end of the session everyone was convinced that they could make societal impact with their science!
You can find the slides of Social Impact session here. | https://www.developmentmatters.nl/preconference-workshop-flux-congress-2022/ |
What is excess liquidity and why does it matter?
As a consequence of excess liquidity, market interest rates have stayed low. This means it is cheaper for companies and people to borrow money, thus helping the economy recover from the financial and economic crisis, and allowing the banking system to build up liquidity buffers.
What is a bank liquidity crisis?
A liquidity crisis is a financial situation characterized by a lack of cash or easily-convertible-to-cash assets on hand across many businesses or financial institutions simultaneously.
What does liquidity mean?
Liquidity refers to the ease with which an asset, or security, can be converted into ready cash without affecting its market price. Cash is the most liquid of assets while tangible items are less liquid. The two main types of liquidity include market liquidity and accounting liquidity.
Is high liquidity good?
A company’s liquidity indicates its ability to pay debt obligations, or current liabilities, without having to raise external capital or take out loans. High liquidity means that a company can easily meet its short-term debts while low liquidity implies the opposite and that a company could imminently face bankruptcy.
What is capital event?
Capital Event means a sale or disposition of any of the Company’s capital assets, the receipt of insurance and other proceeds derived from the involuntary conversion of Company property, the receipt of proceeds from a refinancing of Company property, or a similar event with respect to Company property or assets.
Why is it bad for a company to have too much cash?
Poor cash management can harm the company’s performance in both subtle ways and obvious ones. Problems do not just arise from a dearth of cash; having too much cash can also negatively affect a business. Holding excess cash can be like increasing the cost of goods without an increase in prices.
What are unvested options?
Unvested Option means an Option in respect of which the relevant Vesting Conditions have not been satisfied and as such, the Option Grantee has not become eligible to exercise the Option.
What is an exit in investing?
An “exit” occurs when an investor decides to get rid of their stake in a company. If an investor “exits”, then they will either have a profit or a loss (they are obviously hoping for a profit). Example: A venture capital firm decides to invest $40 million in a startup.
How do you exit a company?
Here are seven exit strategies for small businesses to choose from:
- 1) Liquidation.
- 2) Liquidation Over Time.
- 3) Keep Your Business in the Family.
- 4) Sell Your Business to Managers and/or Employees.
- 5) Sell the Business in the Open Market.
- 6) Sell to Another Business.
- 7) The IPO (Initial Public Offering)
What happens to unvested stock options when you quit?
Some employees are allowed to exercise options before they vest, known as “early exercising.” If any of the option shares you exercised are still unvested when you leave your job, the company has to pay to repurchase those shares from you.
Why is excess liquidity bad?
The study suggests that excess liquidity weakens the monetary policy transmission mechanism and thus the ability of monetary authorities to influence demand conditions in the economy.
What is the purpose of the exit interview?
The purpose of an exit interview is to assess the overall employee experience within your organization and identify opportunities to improve retention and engagement. Having a clear set of standards in place when conducting exit interviews can also play an essential role in risk management.
What is a business liquidity event?
A liquidity event is an acquisition, merger, initial public offering or other event that allows founders and early investors in a company to cash out some or all of their ownership shares.
How are exit interviews conducted?
Tip #1: Conduct exit interviews in person Although exit interviews can be conducted via written or online surveys, over the phone, through chat or email, the best practice is to conduct them in person. Exit interviews conducted in person are more effective because they allow for a direct, two-way conversation.
What is in an exit interview?
Companies conduct exit interviews so to hear an employee’s opinions about their job, supervisor, organization and more. An exit interview is a conversation between you and your employer—likely a human resources representative. This is an opportunity to discuss job satisfaction or offer feedback on policy and direction.
Is liquidity good or bad?
Liquidity with a specific purpose in mind is usually positive. For example, there is a clear benefit to having ready access to cash in an emergency fund to cover unexpected medical costs or your expenses between jobs.
Should you be truthful in an exit interview?
As in any interview setting, do not lie during your exit interview. However, you may want to carefully word your responses so you do not burn any bridges.
What assets are most liquid?
The most liquid assets are cash and securities that can immediately be transacted for cash. Companies can also look to assets with a cash conversion expectation of one year or less as liquid. Collectively, these assets are known as a company’s current assets.
What is an exit event?
An exit event is when the owners of a company “exit” the business by selling the business. listing the company (Initial Public Offering, or IPO); selling the assets of the company; or. selling the shares of the company.
What do you mean by exit interview? | https://thisisbeep.com/what-is-excess-liquidity-and-why-does-it-matter/ |
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We are in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution, an unprecedented opportunity to influence the advancement of social justice. How we embrace these opportunities will shape our society and its power structures for generations to come.
There is an extra moral imperative on those of us working in the IT, digital and tech sectors to open up and diversify these discussions about who has the power and influence over the fundamental decisions that will increasingly govern our lives.
Decisions must be influenced by and made in trusted partnerships with our diverse and sometimes marginalised communities, not imposed on them. The rapid pace of innovation across industry and academia is exciting and the potential for societal benefit is transformative. However, finding consensus around ethics, trust and transparency are proving challenging.
This week as part of World AI week, Amsterdam hosts the World AI Summit - the world’s leading and largest summit of its kind - gathering together the global AI ecosystem of enterprise, BigTech, startups, investors and scientists with the aim, according to its organisers, 'to tackle head-on the most burning AI issues and set the global AI agenda'. I’m looking forward to learning from our international partners about how they are driving ethics in AI across different communities and cultures and bringing this home to support the work of the BCS in making IT better for society.
It’s been exciting participating in this debate with BCS members and communities over the past year through round tables, consultations and now at events such as this World AI Summit. There's a general agreement on the imperative of digitally enfranchising populations and communities across the board even if we disagree on the methodology.
Here in the UK, BCS is playing a significant role in driving ethical decision-making by working with the government's Office for AI. BCS Past President and Distinguished Fellow Dame Wendy Hall is advising the Office as its first Skills Champion and we provided the Office with an independent review of how to prime the pipeline to produce more AI MSc graduates, with many of the recommendations taken on board. It's a significant step in the right direction to achieve the necessary skills matrix needed for our country to thrive.
A top recommendation of our ethical AI report, is the need to create a diverse, inclusive, substantial pipeline of ethical, competent and talented MSc graduates, who are highly skilled in Machine Learning and AI. I’m proud the BCS has recognised the importance of an ethical foundation at the heart of any new talent development in its recommendations to the Government.
Based on its own earlier AI review, the UK government has recognised the demand for at least 3000 such MSc graduates every year. We are world leaders in AI research but there is a severe shortage of talented practitioners in this field to improve our country's prosperity and wellbeing.
With competing priorities, politically and economically, those with a progressive, inclusive voice must stand firm in their resolve to champion the importance of professional and ethical standards to encourage trust in AI. It's fundamental to mitigate against the worst negative unintended consequences and biases that may have repercussions for generations to come. And it must be done within the framework of the shifting and fast-paced fourth industrial revolution. | https://www.bcs.org/articles-opinion-and-research/world-ai-summit-getting-to-grips-with-ethics-in-a-changing-world/?fontsize=small |
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By Innocent Onoja with Agency Report
The United States Consulate in Lagos on Thursday called for more concerted efforts to ensure the full inclusion of persons living with disabilities in every aspect of social, political, economic, and cultural life.
Delivering remarks at a program organized by Project Enable Afria in commemoration of the 2018 International Day of Persons with Disabilities, U.S. Consulate Public Affairs Officer Russell Brooks, reaffirmed the U.S. government’s support for the inclusion of persons with disabilities.
Brooks explained that the United States, as part of its foreign policy, works to remove barriers and create a world in which disabled people enjoy dignity and full inclusion. According to him, promoting disability rights is an integral part of the promotion of human rights.
“In pursuing diplomacy that is inclusive and empowering of persons with disabilities, the United States opposes discrimination against persons with disabilities everywhere and in all its forms. If we permit anyone in our society to be accorded less than their full human rights, we are all diminished as a result,” Brooks stated
At the event, rights activist and President of Women Arise, Dr. Joe Okei-Odumakin, and Access Bank’s Head of Sustainability, Ms. Omobolanle Victor-Laniyan, emphasized the importance of the full and equal participation of persons with disabilities in all spheres of society.
In 2017, Project Enable Africa, a Nigerian civic organization that promotes the rights, empowerment and social inclusion of persons with disabilities established a disability-friendly digital hub in Lagos with funding from the U.S. government.
To date, the hub has trained 20 young persons with disabilities in various information and communication technology-based skills, and supports them through mentorship. During today’s event, Project Enable Africa announced a second cohort that will be trained next year. Project Enable Africa is also the winner of the Google Impact Challenge Funds Competition in Nigeria and will receive an award of $250,000.
Project Enable is led by Mr. Olusola Owonikoko, a 2016 Mandela Washington Fellow and 2014 Fellow of the Carrington Youth Fellowship Initiative (CYFI). | https://dailywatchng.org/u-s-supports-full-inclusion-of-persons-with-disabilities/ |
In todays Herald there is yet again another article on the decline of the Church of Scotland….It reflects what we have been saying on this blog for years….
The full report is below….with some reflections afterwards.
QUESTIONS have been raised about how the Church of Scotland’s more liberal approach will help public engagement as a new study found less than one in five say they are affiliated to the Kirk.
The latest Scottish Social Attitudes survey has caused disquiet in some quarters as it reveals that those that say they belong to the Church of Scotland have fallen from 32% in 15 years ago to just 18% in 2017.
It also shows the numbers that say they are Roman Catholic has dipped slightly from 13%, 15 years ago to 12% last year.
But those who say they have no religion has shot up from 43% in 2003 to 56% in 2017.
Ian Montagu, senior researcher at the Scottish Centre for Social Research, said: “This year’s figures reinforce a gradual picture of overall decline in religious identity in Scotland – a decline most keenly felt by the Kirk.”
He said the four per cent of people aged 18-34 identifying with the Church of Scotland is “particularly low”. In 2002 it was 14%.
Mr Montagu added: “As attitudes in Scotland become more socially liberal on issues like same sex relationships and abortion, church leaders will no doubt be considering how to better connect to a changing society.
“It will be interesting to see what impact liberalising measures, such as the Church of Scotland’s efforts to allow ministers to conduct same-sex marriages, have upon these numbers in the future.”
In June, the largest Protestant church in Northern Ireland voted to sever ties with the Church of Scotland due to what it felt was the Kirk’s more liberal attitude to same-sex relationships.
The unprecedented move by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland means the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland will no longer be invited to the annual meeting of the church’s General Assembly in Belfast. And the PCI will no longer accept invitations.
Survey data also reveals that in 2009, over one in three said they had attended a Church of Scotland at least once a month, but in 2017 it had dropped to one in four, according to the survey. Those who went to a Catholic church at least once a month dipped from 60% nine years ago to 52% last year.
A Catholic Church spokesman said “While it is reassuring to see Catholic figures remaining relatively constant, the decline in other Christian churches is very concerning.
“An analysis of numbers however should not ignore the significant social capital the Christian church contributes to Scottish society.”
A Church of Scotland spokeswoman said there were various surveys and reports on congregational numbers and religious affiliation and “differing interpretations of their meaning”.
She added: Our view is that we endeavour to be a Christian presence in communities and a force for good and we will continue to focus on that.
“Jesus called every Christian to be faithful to God and to make a positive difference in the world.
“That is why throughout history you have found Christians fighting injustice and inequality, being a voice for the poor and standing up for those who otherwise were alone.
“Jesus called this being a light in the darkness.
“The Church of Scotland is there to celebrate with individuals and families in the happy times but also to provide support during the difficult and sad times.
“Irrespective of the Church’s popularity, that calling remains the same and is why today you still find Christians active at all levels of society.
“Whether we are many or we are few, the church will always seek to be a force for good in society.”
The Church of Scotland backed a report in May which could lead to same-sex marriages in church.
The General Assembly backed a motion which tasked a committee with drafting church law on the issue.
Its legal questions committee was asked to report back to the annual meeting of the decision-making body in 2020.
The 2016 Scottish Social Attitudes Survey was based on a sample of 1,237 people interviewed between July 2016 and December 2016.
Three observations:
1.Liberalising the Church will not save it –
“It will be interesting to see what impact liberalising measures, such as the Church of Scotland’s efforts to allow ministers to conduct same-sex marriages, have upon these numbers in the future.” We know what impact they will have…because the C of S has been doing this for decades and it is a primary reason of their decline. More of the same methods will results in more of the same results. Going along with the tide means that they will continue to be swept away by it.
2. The Church of Scotland is in denial –
They deny the Church of Scotland will die out….even as it is dying out. I’m up in my home area – Easter Ross – and I’ve just cycled past five redundant churches.
They cite a few success stories to negate the overall picture.
They claim influence and effect out with the gathered communities of the Church in order to justify their own existence. But if people are not gathering to worship Jesus in what sense are they the Church of Jesus Christ? Holding a crèche or a knitting jamboree is not the Gospel.
(Please note that these comments refer to the denomination as a whole and it’s structures. They do not refer to the faithful few churches and the many C of S Christians who are holding on – many of whom read this blog. You know that we pray for you and desire your prosperity and growth!)
3. The Church of Scotland (at least in its official leadership) has no idea what the Church is for –
“The Church of Scotland is there to celebrate with individuals and families in the happy times but also to provide support during the difficult and sad times.” No – that is not what the Church is for. The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. The Church has Jesus Christ as its head. The Church exists to proclaim the Goods News of Christ to all. The C of S has largely become a social work organisation which just reflects the values of our culture. The bottom line is that the Church of Scotland is failing because it is no longer the Church.
Listening to the Radio Scotland phone in this morning, discussing this question, was so depressing…in fact I gave up. The ignorance of the militant secularists phoning in to gloat was to be expected…but it was the religious people phoning in which really made me sad (apart from the one man advocating biblical Christianity whose analysis was spot on)….’there’s too much dogma in the church’..’we need to adapt to the times’…etc.. Old people talking about other old people as being dinosaurs! All of them spoke of religion and their religious clubs. Not one spoke of Christ and his Word. The C of S has done its job….
3. The Legalisation of SSM in the Church will be its death nail, not its Resurrection
The only reason for the Church supporting SSM is because the society has endorsed it. This is the kind of compromising attitude with the world which has always resulted in disaster for the Church. The C of S sees itself as the ‘national’ church – the spiritual voice of the culture. But the Church should be the prophetic voice to the culture, not the sanitised spiritual voice of it.
But not all churches are dying. As the society becomes darker and more secularised the opportunities for the light to shine. Just this week the Free Church officially opened its new Church in Haddington…
I have also been reading this week about FIEC Scotland planting a new church in Aviemore. Meanwhile 20Schemes has just opened their training seminary for church planters in Scotland’s poorest areas.
And this week my own Kirk Session (now itself twice the size of the original congregation I came to in 1992) has to consider how we cope with the growing numbers. Last Sunday morning was the largest we have ever had – if you want a seat with your family this Sunday downstairs you will need to come at least ten minutes early! There will be many young people….
So it’s not all decline. And it is more complex than ‘evangelical churches grow, liberal ones decline’. But one thing is sure. The Church of Scotland is is dying….Yesterday I was in the lovely Nigg Old Parish Church – once a church which saw Rev John Ross go to China and Korea as one of the founders of the now massive churches there. It is virtually dead. In the Nigg Old building there is a reminder of this statement from the grave of Thomas Hog –
“This stone shall bear witness against the parishoners of Kiltearn if they bring one ungodly minister here”.
The stones of the closed churches in Scotland are bearing witness. Ichabod.
(And its not only Scotland…after publishing this article I read this about the Church of England in todays Guardian
The Secularisation of the Church of Scotland – What Really Happened at the Assembly? | https://theweeflea.com/2018/09/07/faith-no-more-the-continuing-decline-of-the-church-of-scotland-the-herald/?replytocom=24902 |
Beautifully illustrated by children's artist Anthony Lewis, with lively age-appropriate text by zoologist and environmentalist David Burnie, the First Dinosaur Picture Atlas explains where dinosaurs came from and how they lived in different habitats across the world.
Travel the globe and spot different species of dinosaur in this absorbing look-and-find book. In addition to the colourful maps showing the world's continents, superb full-page illustrations take readers deeper into the different habitats of the prehistoric world to show how and where dinosaurs and other prehistoric creatures lived.
This atlas will delight young children and is the perfect first dinosaur reference book for both home and school. | https://www.panmacmillan.com/authors/david-burnie/first-dinosaur-picture-atlas/9780753448229 |
Repetitive trauma injuries, or repetitive stress disorder injuries, are covered by workers’ compensation insurance in SC when the injury is caused by an employee’s work duties.
Employers and their insurance companies may attempt to deny coverage for repetitive stress injuries (they will attempt to deny coverage whenever possible for any type of injury), but your SC workers’ compensation lawyer can help you to establish coverage by gathering and presenting medical testimony that 1) you suffer from a repetitive trauma injury and 2) the injury was caused by your work duties and happened in the workplace.
Below, we will discuss:
- What a repetitive trauma injury is,
- Common types of repetitive stress disorders in the workplace,
- Professions that are at higher risk of repetitive stress injuries, and
- SC law that confirms repetitive trauma is compensable under SC workers’ compensation laws.
What is a Repetitive Trauma Injury?
We usually think of workplace injuries as a sudden event that injures a person – falling off a ladder, getting your hand caught in a machine, or a broken arm, for example.
Repetitive trauma injuries are different – they happen gradually, over time. Repetitive stress disorders develop because of repeated stress on a part of the body that results in injury. When that repeated stress is caused by someone’s work duties, like typing, bending over, twisting, lifting, or climbing stairs or ladders, it should be compensable under SC workers’ comp laws.
The Most Common Types of Repetitive Trauma in the Workplace
Although carpal tunnel syndrome is the one most people are familiar with, many different types of repetitive trauma injuries are caused by work conditions, all caused by repeated actions using the same body part causing damage to nerves, muscles, and tendons.
Common types of repetitive trauma injuries in the workplace include:
- Carpal tunnel syndrome – tingling, numbness, weakness, and pain in the wrist, hand, fingers, or arm caused by repeated pressure on the “median nerve” which runs through the wrists into the hands.
- Bursitis – inflammation of a bursa sac. Bursa sacs are found in the elbows, knees, and hips and serve to cushion the area where tendons connect to a bone. Bursitis can result in pain, redness, swelling, and loss of the ordinary range of motion in the affected area.
- Tendonitis – inflammation of the tendon, often occurring in the shoulder, biceps, or elbow, tendonitis is also referred to as tennis elbow, golfer’s elbow, or rotator cuff pain.
- Myofascial pain syndrome – chronic pain caused by pressure on “trigger points” in the muscles that can cause persistent, deep, aching pain and knots in the muscle.
- Tenosynovitis – inflammation of the lubricating sheath that surrounds the tendon where the tendon connects to a bone.
- Cervical radiculopathy – also called a “pinched nerve,” this is caused by damage to the spinal column’s discs. A “herniated disc” can push out into the spinal canal, putting pressure on nerve roots and causing pain and weakness in the affected area. It can be caused by pulling, lifting, bending, or twisting movements.
Signs of a Repetitive Trauma Injury
Repetitive trauma injuries may affect the wrists, elbows, knees, shoulders, hands, feet, back, or hips. They tend to worsen over time, and, depending on the type of repetitive trauma injury suffered, the symptoms may include:
- Pain,
- Tingling,
- Numbness,
- Redness,
- Swelling,
- Stiffness, or
- Weakness in the affected area.
Repetitive trauma injuries can result in permanent soft tissue damage in some cases and should be treated immediately.
Careers at High Risk for Repetitive Trauma Injuries
Any job that requires a person to perform the same task repeatedly with the same arm, hand, leg, or other body part can result in a repetitive stress injury. It doesn’t matter if the objects moved are heavy or lightweight – a stationary body position + repeated movement can result in a repetitive stress disorder.
Types of jobs that often require this type of repeated motion include:
- Offices – typing on a keyboard or filing documents, for example.
- Assembly line work in a factory.
- Seamstresses.
- Machine operators.
- Physical therapy and massage work.
- Construction workers.
- Painters.
- Plumbers.
- Carpenters and roofers.
- Electricians.
- Delivery drivers.
- Farmworkers.
- Musicians.
- Grocery store clerks.
- Stockers or packers.
- Hairdressers.
- Tattoo artists.
Workers in any industry that requires repetitive movements of the limbs, carrying, lifting, use of vibrating tools, or regularly placing pressure on one muscle or joint are at a greater risk of repetitive trauma injuries in the workplace.
Repetitive Trauma Injuries are Covered by Workers’ Compensation in SC
Repetitive trauma injuries are covered by workers’ compensation insurance in SC – they are expressly covered in SC’s workers’ comp laws and the SC Supreme Court has confirmed that workers’ comp insurers must pay benefits for repetitive stress disorders caused by workplace conditions.
SC Code § 42-1-172 defines “repetitive trauma” as “an injury which is gradual in onset and caused by the cumulative effects of repetitive traumatic events,” and provides for workers’ comp coverage when the injury is connected to the employee’s job duties by medical evidence:
An injury is not considered a compensable repetitive trauma injury unless a commissioner makes a specific finding of fact by a preponderance of the evidence of a causal connection that is established by medical evidence between the repetitive activities that occurred while the employee was engaged in the regular duties of his employment and the injury.
Also, under SC Code § 42-1-160(F), a covered “accident” can be defined as “a series of events in employment, of a similar or like nature, occurring regularly, continuously, or at frequent intervals in the course of such employment, over extended periods of time,” when it results in a “compensable repetitive trauma pursuant to Section 42-1-172 or an occupational disease…”
In 2002, in Pee v. AVM, the SC Supreme Court confirmed that repetitive trauma injuries, including carpal tunnel syndrome, are compensable under the SC Workers Compensation Act as an “accident by injury.”
Got Axelrod?
If you have an on-the-job injury in SC, the Myrtle Beach Workers’ Compensation attorneys at Axelrod and Associates can help you to determine whether your injuries meet the definition of “injury” and “accident” under SC’s workers’ compensation laws, file your claim, gather and present your medical evidence, and file any necessary appeals.
Call now at 843-353-3449 or send us a message online to set up a free consultation with a SC workers’ compensation lawyer today. | https://www.gotaxelrod.com/blog/2021/09/%EF%BB%BFrepetitive-trauma-repetitive-stress-injuries-in-the-workplace/ |
FTC Once Again Says Privacy Self-Regulation Isn’t Enough
Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission released the final version of its long-awaited privacy report, calling on Congress to consider baseline privacy legislation and consolidating the principles behind its recent privacy enforcement actions. While the final report largely tracks the preliminary report that the FTC released in December 2010, it does offer a number of changes and clarifications, as well as some important – and timely – reminders about hot-button issues like Do Not Track.
The publication of this report, which follows the February release of the Administration’s “Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights,” comes as Europe is knee-deep in its own reconceptualization of its privacy-protection regime. The EU is currently kicking around a draft regulation that creates strong protections for consumers but also includes some pretty daunting obligations for businesses. The US Department of Commerce has been heavily lobbying for a more nuanced approach to privacy, but has found itself facing a common European refrain: If the US can’t convince its own global companies to respect (European) users’ privacy, then Europe has no choice but to step in and do the job itself. And European regulation will be far tougher on US companies than any privacy law passed here would ever be.
In other words, the fight for privacy protections here in the US is a fight that should engage not just consumers but also American companies.
The Big Picture
In calling for Congress to “consider enacting baseline privacy legislation,” the FTC takes its assertion that “self-regulation has not gone far enough” to the next level, offering actionable suggestions for how to address the failures of self-regulation: privacy legislation and, in its absence, enforcement via the multi-stakeholder codes of conduct being developed through the Department of Commerce.
The FTC also demonstrates an admirable commitment to a technology-neutral approach and one that will be evergreen. In its report, the Commission not only refuses to distinguish between offline and online data, but it also has taken care to construct a framework that will accommodate new, unforeseen technologies.
However, while the FTC does call for shorter, easier to understand privacy policies it continues to emphasize the use of “public commitments” – as opposed to substantively unfair or deceptive practices – as its enforcement hook (that is, when companies violate their public commitments they have engaged in a deceptive practice). We are disappointed that the Commission emphasized neither its power to bring cases against unfair actions nor the reasoning it developed in its 2009 settlement with Sears Holding Corp. In that settlement, the Commission held that Sears had committed a deceptive practice not by violating a “public commitment” but rather by burying a truthful description of its highly problematic privacy practices.
The Commission’s focus on “public commitments” will do little to change an incentive structure that has long encouraged companies to be evasive and vague in their notices to users: Companies are most likely to get called out for violating explicit promises to users, so many realize that the less they promise, the less trouble they court. It’s not a paradigm that gives consumers much useful information about the privacy practices of the products and services they use.
Into the Weeds
Changes to scope
The FTC has tweaked the applicable scope of its framework, exempting companies with fewer than 5,000 customers a year that don’t collect sensitive data or share data with third parties. This narrow exclusion matches those found in past privacy bills (e.g., BEST PRACTICES) and is one that CDT has advocated for.
Don’t cry for PII
The FTC acknowledges in its report that the categorical distinctions between so-called “personally identifiable information” and other information is becoming less important each day. Accordingly, the FTC sets forth the following standard to determine whether a company may properly say it “de-identifies” its customers’ data: A company must take “reasonable measures” to ensure data is de-identified (an evolving standard), must make FTC-enforceable commitments that it will not try to re-identify the data, and must pledge to contractually prohibit other companies with which it shares the data from doing the same. We believe this is a reasonable approach that balances the protection of a broader range of personal data with the need for companies to be able to innovate using data that won’t be tied back to individual users.
Major change in choice/”commonly accepted practices”
Much of the FTC’s privacy report hinges on the idea of “choice.” Consumers need to have meaningful choice over the extent to which their data is collected and used. In both its preliminary report and now this final report, the Commission appropriately sets out situations in which it makes little sense to offer consumers “choices.” For example, when a consumer orders a product online, it does not make sense to give her a choice about whether or not her address can be shared with the company that will be shipping the product to her doorstep.
In the preliminary privacy report, the FTC put forth a set of “commonly accepted practices”: Situations in which companies should not have to worry about offering consumers choice. In our response comments to the Commission, CDT expressed concern that the scope of some of these exceptions was too broad. In the final privacy report, the FTC has changed this formulation to one that matches the Department of Commerce’s “respect for context” principle: When the data collection/use is reasonable given the context of the interaction, companies don’t need to offer consumers choice about this collection/use. While this approach makes some sense, the FTC will need to make sure it is providing appropriate guidance to companies while not allowing them to claim any and all data collection/uses as “appropriate” for a given context.
Privacy concerns raised by “large platforms”
The FTC also calls out the strong privacy concerns presented by “large platforms” (e.g., ISPs, browsers, and operating systems) that have a front row view of consumers’ online activities. Any tracking across sites should be subject to choice, but this is especially important when a platform has access to all or substantially all of a consumer’s activities. Today, an increasingly diverse set of “platforms” have access to such information, so we are pleased that the FTC has not limited its discussion of such platforms to only ISPs. CDT has been concerned about monitoring by such entities for years due to the scope of surveillance, so we are very pleased to see this emphasis in the final report.
Don’t change the rules in the middle of the game: Affirmative express consent for retroactive changes to privacy policy
Consolidating its recent “case law” of voluntary consent orders, the FTC reaffirms in its report that if a company makes a promise to users in its privacy policy about how it will treat their data, it can’t renege on that promise without first getting “affirmative express consent” for these changes. Offering consumers the chance to opt out is simply not sufficient and does not qualify as getting consent. While not surprising – this has effectively been the law of the land for awhile now – we’re glad that the FTC reinforced its intention to hold companies to those few promises that they do make to users.
Do Not Track means just that
The FTC also offers a timely reminder that its expectations for the Do Not Track standards that are currently in development are high. A mechanism that merely allows consumers to avoid targeted ads (but still be tracked) would be insufficient. The Commission writes: “an effective Do Not Track system should go beyond simply opting consumers out of receiving targeted advertisements; it should opt them out of collection of behavioral data for all purposes other than those that would be consistent with the context of the interaction (e.g., preventing click-fraud or collecting de-identified data for analytics purposes).”
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Nashville, Tennessee.- The Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of “The Arts of Japan”, on view from January 12th through February 26th 2012. The exhibition is drawn entirely from the Fine Arts Gallery’s permanent collection which houses over 1,300 Japanese works, encompassing both fine and applied art. Highlights of the exhibition will include two six-panel screen paintings: an early seventeenth-century work illustrating scenes from the Tale of Gengi and an eighteenth-century work featuring vignettes of daily life in Kyoto, each a masterful example of Japanese painting executed in mineral colors and gold leaf; a wide range of fine ceramics from blue and white porcelain to works by artists associated with the rebirth of the Japanese folk art movement; scroll paintings; over fifty woodblock prints by recognized masters of the medium; exquisite examples of lacquer, some embellished with gold and silver; and a selection of illustrated rare books.
Two scroll paintings depicting winter landscapes will be on display which new research has revealed to have a surprising connection. One is by 17th century painter Kano Naonobu. The other, previously thought to be by an unknown artist, has recently been securely attributed to Kano Yasunobu, the younger brother of Naonobu. These brothers, each a skillful artist in his own right, were descendants of the Kano family who led the influential Kano School of painting. For centuries, the Kano family dominated official painting in Japan, passing their closely guarded inkpainting techniques among their family and to a select group of apprentices. “The Arts of Japan” will mark the first time these scroll paintings have been exhibited together as works by the same prominent family of artists.
The exhibition will also feature outstanding examples of graphic arts by such influential nineteenth-century Ukiyo-e artists as Utagawa Kunisada I, Utagawa Hiroshige, and Tsukioka Yoshitoshi. Japanese for “pictures of the floating world,” Ukiyo-e prints were usually characterized by themes of ephemeral beauty or pleasure, often including scenes of Japanese landscapes, attractive courtesans, and the theater. Among the featured Ukiyo-e prints, several will be from Yoshitoshi’s popular series Yoshitoshi Ryakuga (Sketches by Yoshitoshi). These prints, illustrating episodes from Japanese folklore and history, show a comedic and light-hearted side of this typically dark artist. Select prints from Utagawa Hiroshige’s series Fifty-Three Staions of the Tokaido Road will also be on view. This series, drawn from Hiroshige’s own travels on the Tokaido Road connecting Edo, modern day Tokyo, to Kyoto, was the artist’s first attempt at a landscape print series and eventually contributed to his status as the foremost artist of topographical prints of his time. “The Arts of Japan” will also allow visitors to view the evolution of Japanese printmaking in the twentieth century through examples by artists of the shin-hanga and sosaku-hanga movements.
After the decline of Ukiyo-e in the late nineteenth century, the shin-hanga (literally “new prints”) movement, begun in 1912, sought to revive the subjects and style of the traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e, in some instances with added traces of Western aesthetics. At the same time, the sosaku-hanga (translated as “creative prints”) movement rejected the traditional division of labor in Japanese printmaking for a more Western method in which a single artist completed every step of the printmaking process, thus allowing for greater individual artistic control and expression. Examples from shin-hanga artists such as Takahashi Hiroaki (Shotei) and Tsuchiya Koitsu as well as sosaku-hanga artists such as Joichi Hoshi and Reika Iwami will be on display. | https://artnews.conteart.com/artnews/the-vanderbilt-university-fine-arts-gallery-to-show-the-arts-of-japan/ |
Ovarian cancer is a leading cause of death from gynecologic malignancies with an overall survival rate of less than 40%. One of the most popular approaches for treating ovarian cancer is targeted therapy by a drug called PARP inhibitor. The drug exploits specific weaknesses of cancer cells to kill them and has a limited effect on normal cells. PARP is involved in DNA damage repair in the patient. Since ovarian cancer patients are often defective in their ability to repair damaged DNA, PARP inhibitor treatment leads to the accumulation of DNA damage. However, in many cases the cancer cells adapt to the drug and become resistant, and tumors ultimately progress. The resistance mechanisms for most patients are largely unclear. We attribute this to the additional active DNA repair systems in the tumor. Therefore, to increase the clinical benefits of PARP inhibitors, a systematic survey of actionable drug targets contributing to deficient DNA repair is critically needed to devise new strategies for ovarian cancer patients. We hypothesize that these PARP-based combination therapies would exhibit synergy and better killing of cancer cells. Our preliminary data analyses identified several such candidate target genes. Here we propose an integrative approach to systematically investigate regulatory factors involved in DNA repair, and a combination of computational and experimental approaches to unravel mechanisms for PARP inhibitor resistance and to evaluate novel combination therapies.
Because these new drug combinations overcome the limitations of DNA repair deficiency requirement by typical PARP-based monotherapies, we predict that the combination therapies devised here may apply to a large proportion of women with ovarian tumors, regardless of their DNA repair status. We expect that the results of this study will have major implications for understanding the mechanisms responsible for drug resistance, and for developing new combination therapeutic approaches for ovarian cancer patients with high risk of recurrence. | https://ocrahope.org/project/systems-approach-for-parp-based-novel-combination-therapy-in-ovarian-cancer/ |
Rep. Lynch Joins 31 House Democrats to Introduce Resolution Urging Trump to Comply with Constitution by Severing Ties to Private Business
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, Congressman Stephen F. Lynch (D-Boston) joined Congressman Peter Welch (D-Vermont) along with 30 other House Democrats to introduce H. Con. Res. 5, a resolution urging President-elect Donald J. Trump to comply with the United States Constitution and sever ties with private business in order to avoid dangerous financial conflicts of interest.
“By allowing foreign governments to grant personal financial benefits directly to the President and to companies that his family owns, President-elect Trump is putting our democracy at risk. This is in blatant disregard for the Constitution and his ambivalence towards promptly addressing these troubling conflict of interest issues is a distraction from the important work that lies before us,” said Congressman Lynch. “Alexander Hamilton made it clear in the Federalist papers that a ‘weak side in republics, among their numerous advantages, is that, they afford too easy an inlet to foreign corruption.’ Thankfully, Hamilton and our other Founding Fathers had the sense more than two centuries ago to safeguard our democracy from corruption with the emoluments clause which prohibits the President from accepting personal financial gain from foreign governments. Hopefully, the President-elect will abide by the Constitution and place the office of the Presidency beyond such reproach.”
In particular, the Welch resolution “calls upon President-elect Donald J. Trump to follow the precedent established by prior presidents and convert his assets to simple, conflict-free holdings, adopt blind trusts managed by an independent trustee with no relationship to Donald J. Trump or his businesses, or take other equivalent measures, in order to ensure compliance with the Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitution…” The resolution notes that if the President-elect does not address these conflicts before assuming office, Congress will consider the Trump organization’s business dealings with any entity owned by a foreign governmental actor as a potential violation of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause.
In addition to concerns about President-elect Trump’s potential violations of the Emoluments Clause, Congressman Lynch previously raised concerns about the Trump International Hotel lease, which specifically states that “no member or delegate to Congress, or elected official of the Government of the United States or the Government of the District of Columbia, shall be admitted to any share or part of this Lease, or to any benefit that may arise therefrom…” Congressman Lynch supports a full investigation at the General Services Administration about how to best address these financial conflicts of interest to ensure there is transparency about the beneficiaries of the Trump International Hotel deal and whether there has been a breach of the lease. | https://lynch.house.gov/press-release/rep-lynch-joins-31-house-democrats-introduce-resolution-urging-trump-comply |
After 30 years of service and a lifetime of stories to tell, Maryland park manager retires
On his last day on the job, Capt. Dan Spedden of the Maryland Park Service wore his best uniform, including a felt hat and a tie.
“I wore my best uniform, polished it up,” said Spedden, of Hagerstown, who on Oct. 31 wrapped up a three-decade career with Maryland State Parks as a law enforcement officer and park manager.
“I took a last patrol,” he said.
When he retired last month, Spedden was managing the South Mountain Recreation Area — Greenbrier State Park, South Mountain State Park, Gathland State Park, Washington Monument State Park and the South Mountain State Battlefield.
Spedden, 53, was with the park service for about 30 years, rising from a seasonal park ranger to managing the five state parks.
His love for state parks came early.
Spedden grew up in Dundalk, Md., in Baltimore County, and his father was a carpenter at Bethlehem Steel, a company with a plant in Dundalk.
“It was a steel town with rows and rows of row houses,” he said.
“Going out to a state park was just such a contrast with where I lived that I decided at a young age that I was going to be a park ranger,” said Spedden, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in natural resource management from the University of Maine.
His first position was as a seasonal ranger at Assateague State Park.
He wrote tickets for some violations, including feeding the wild ponies that roam on the island.
In 1984, Spedden got a full-time job as a park ranger at Greenbrier State Park.
His job then took him to Point Lookout State Park in St. Mary’s County, where he was assistant manager in charge of operations and helped save a life.
“A St. Mary’s County woman mixed alcohol with a quantity of over-the-counter cold medicines until she was lethargic; she had left a suicide note in her vehicle,” Spedden said in an email. “She then eased herself over a stone revetment and into the Chesapeake Bay. A fisherman alerted me and another ranger, and we jumped in to keep her head above water while avoiding the waves and rocks. We got her to shore with the aid of bystanders and revived her, keeping her conscious until the medevac arrived.”
In 1989, he was transferred back to Greenbrier, and a year later, he became the manager at the park.
Not long afterward, Greenbrier was merged with three other area state parks — South Mountain State Park, Gathland State Park and Washington Monument State Park — to form the South Mountain Recreation Area.
“I drove to Seneca Creek State Park for a meeting. When I drove home, I was managing those four parks,” he said.
Spedden was 30 at the time.
“We used to say that it was our job to protect the park from the people, the people from the park and, this was the big one, the people from each other,” he said.
His work included managing seasonal workers, toll booth attendants, camp attendants, janitors and lifeguards, among other responsibilities.
A park ranger’s job is much more than enforcing fish and game laws, and a significant amount of time is taken up dealing with drugs, alcohol and domestic disturbances, he said.
“These are campgrounds with 800 people on-site. It is hot, people are uncomfortable, people are out of their element. It doesn’t take long for a bad situation to turn worse,” Spedden said.
Once, on a busy summer day, Spedden counted about 900 cars waiting to get into Greenbrier State Park.
“We would have a quarter of a million people visit the park in 90 days,” Spedden said.
One time in the mid-1990s, an extended family from Rockville, Md., visited Greenbrier in several cars, and then left a child behind at the park.
“The kid was roaming around, crying,” Spedden said. “The parents realized they had left him behind and had to drive back. We fed him. We made friends with him. He must have been 7 or 8.”
Spedden remains proud of the “perfect safety record” at Greenbrier’s waterfront during his tenure.
“It was a ridiculous goal to set ... so when the swimming season ended this year, I breathed a sigh of relief,” he said.
In 2005, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources reorganized its operations, and armed rangers became part of the Maryland Natural Resources Police.
Spedden stayed on with the Maryland Park Service because he was above the rank of sergeant, thus becoming a rare breed — a Maryland Park Service commissioned law enforcement officer who also was a park manager.
At the time of his retirement, Spedden was one of only 15 law enforcement employees with the Maryland Park Service.
“Upon his retirement, and that of another employee at the end of this year, we will have 13 LEOs (law enforcement officers) remaining,” said Karis King, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.
Spedden helped establish the South Mountain State Battlefield, which was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011. The battlefield was the site of a Civil War battle in 1862, where about 6,100 troops were killed.
Spedden, while in Hagerstown, has been a supporter of the Hagerstown Suns, and was the chief fundraiser for the Hagerstown Suns Fan Club.
The Spedden family “hosted players during the summertime, players from around the country, three at a time,” he said.
Spedden’s son, Zachary Spedden, is a baseball fan, too, and entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the “youngest sport commentator” after calling an entire nine-inning baseball game in 2002 at Municipal Stadium. He was 10 years old at the time.
Spedden is an advisory board member of the Hagerstown-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau, and recently was awarded a lifetime membership by the CVB.
He also was part of the original committee that formed the bureau.
“He did his job with grace and ease,” said Thomas Riford, president and chief executive officer of the CVB. “I never heard him raise his voice. He really cared about the parks.”
Cindy Ecker, who recently retired as the Western Region manager for the Maryland Park Service and was Spedden’s supervisor for about three years, said he could be creative when it came to finding solutions during budgetary crises.
“He always found a way to help his staff to get the work done,” she said.
Ecker, who began her career at about the same time Spedden began his, said he was attentive to the needs of his employees.
“I’ve always admired him,” she said.
Spedden admits that it is taking him some time to “deprogram” since he retired.
“At various times during the day, I’m still thinking of things I have to do at work, and then I remember it is not my job,” he said.
He is to begin a new job in early December, as director of campus safety and security at Hood College in Frederick, Md.
“I will be scheduling patrols just like I did at the park,” Spedden said.
Kaustuv Basuis a reporter for The Herald-Mail. He can be reached via email at [email protected]. | https://www.heraldmailmedia.com/story/news/local/2013/11/18/after-30-years-of-service-and-a-lifetime-of-stories-to-tell-maryland-park-manager-retires/46167735/ |
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http://www.pambazuka.org/images/authors/hakim-adi.jpgTrade in African slaves underpinned the British economy in the 18th century: the rich and powerful, the monarchy and the Church. So why was an enterprise that was so economically important ended so abruptly in the first decade of the 19th century? Hakim Adi explains...
In March 2007 large-scale commemorative events were organised to mark the bi-centenary of the parliamentary act to abolish the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
This unprecedented commemoration of a historical event, in which the British government itself is playing a leading role, was difficult to avoid.
There has been a frenzy in the British media. We have seen government publications (allegedly designed to enlighten the public); meetings and exhibitions; a debate in parliament; an apology from London’s mayor; the issuing of postage stamps; a service in Westminster Abbey; and release of the film Amazing Grace which promotes the well-established myth that abolition was largely due to the efforts of the Hull-based MP William Wilberforce.
It would be hoped that owing to the vast amount of information that is being disseminated, everyone would be now disabused of such erroneous views; and would be able to place both the so-called abolition and the centuries of trafficking of human flesh from Africa in historical perspective. The commemorative events certainly provide the opportunity for broad and in depth discussion of Britain’s history and the crimes against humanity committed over many centuries.
But are we any clearer about what went on 1807? More importantly, do we know why parliament decided to make illegal an enterprise which had underpinned Britain’s economy throughout the 18th century, when Britain was the world’s leading slave trading power?
After all, Britain was involved in the trafficking of kidnapped and enslaved Africans from the mid-16th century, when this enterprise was pioneered by John Hawkins and Elizabeth Tudor, until the early 1930s, when legislation was still being passed outlawing slavery in Britain’s African colonies.
In the 18th century Britain, as the world’s leading slave trading power, transported about half of all enslaved Africans not only to its own colonies but also those of other major powers such as France and Spain. British ships transported at least 3,500,000 Africans across the Atlantic.
In total, this entire ‘trade’ led to the forced removal of some 15,000,000 Africans, transported to the colonies of the European powers and the Americas. Many millions more were killed in the process of enslavement and transportation. Historians now estimate that Africa’s population actually declined over a period of four centuries, or remained stagnant until the early 20th century.
In 1713 the British government was militarily victorious against its rivals in Europe. By the Treaty of Utrecht (the same treaty by which Britain lays claim to Gibraltar) , it gained the lucrative contract to supply Spain’s American colonies with enslaved Africans.
The government promptly sold the contract for £7.3m to the South Sea company, whose first governor happened to also be the chancellor of the exchequer.
http://www.pambazuka.org/images/articles/302/slaveship_41131b.jpgIndeed the trafficking of Africans was the business of the rich and powerful from the outset. The monarchy was a zealous supporter and beneficiary, as was the Church of England. The slave trade was Britain’s trade in the 18th century. The British Prime Minister William Pitt declared that 80 per cent of all British foreign trade was associated with it. It contributed to the development of banking and insurance, shipbuilding and several manufacturing industries. Most of the inhabitants of Manchester were engaged in producing goods to be exchanged for enslaved Africans. Their trafficking led to the development of major ports of London, Bristol and Liverpool. Today it is difficult to find any major stately home, or cultural or financial institution which is not connected with the profits generated by this trade and the luxury items associated with it such as sugar, tobacco and coffee.
It might be wondered therefore why an enterprise that was so economically important to the rich and powerful in Britain in the 18th century should have been so abruptly ended in the first decade of the 19th century.
The answer requires the abolition of various myths and disinformation peddled since that time. One such myth is that abolition was largely the work of one man – William Wilberforce; and that it was carried out largely for humanitarian reasons. And there is another myth: that abolition was the work of an enlightened parliament, finally acknowledging the barbarism and inhumanity of the kidnapping, enslavement and trafficking of other human beings.
However, on the contrary, it is a matter of historical fact that the struggle to end the enslavement and trafficking of Africans was first initiated and pursued primarily by Africans themselves.
Historians now speak of centuries' long wars of resistance in the Caribbean; of the maroons; of day to day large and small-scale liberation struggles.
But such resistance also took place throughout the American continent, wherever enslaved Africans were to be found. There were also significant acts of resistance within Africa itself, and on many ships engaged in the human trafficking, most famously on the Amistad.
Such acts of resistance also took place in Britain, where enslaved Africans who liberated themselves were subjects of court cases contesting the legality of slavery throughout the 18th century.
It was as a result of this self-liberation of Africans that drew some leading abolitionists, such as Granville Sharp, into the abolitionist movement in the late 18th century. While the resistance acts of Africans culminated in the famous legal judgement of 1772 which declared that it was illegal for self-liberated Africans to be re-enslaved in Britain and taken out of the country against their will. Africans in Britain had organised their own liberation. But they were assisted by the ordinary people of London and other towns and cities.
African resistance to enslavement and kidnapping contributed to growing public support and opposition to slave trafficking in Britain and elsewhere.
In Britain, a popular movement opposing the trade began in the 1780s. It soon became a broad mass movement of enormous proportions, possibly the biggest. It was certainly one of the first mass political movements in Britain’s history, although it is conveniently ignored in most historical accounts.
Hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people eventually took part in this movement which involved the petitioning of parliament and the boycotting of slave-produced sugar. This abolitionist movement coincided with a more general concern with and struggle for the ‘Rights of Man’. Its more advanced elements consciously promoted the view that the rights of Africans were indeed part of that struggle. Therefore what was required was a struggle for and defence of the rights of all.
Africans themselves played a leading role in this movement as lecturers, propagandists and activists. The most notable was Olaudah Equiano, formerly enslaved, whose autobiography became a bestseller. But we should not forget the writing of others, for example Phyllis Wheatley, Ottobah Cugoano and James Gronniosaw.
Africans in London, including Equiano and Cugoano, formed their own organisation, the 'Sons of Africa', which campaigned for abolition. It worked with both the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and the wider mass abolitionist campaign.
But African resistance in the Caribbean and elsewhere was an even more important factor in the abolitionist struggle, since it had the tendency to make slavery both less profitable and more dangerous for the slave owners.
Uprisings by enslaved Africans threatened not just the profits of individual owners but the control of entire colonies and the fate of Europe’s economies.
The most important of these liberation struggles, the revolution in St Domingue, the largest and most prosperous French colony in the Caribbean, broke out in 1791 not long after the revolution in France. Revolutionary St Domingue therefore became the first country to effectively abolish the enslavement of Africans.
In Britain, the popular mass abolitionist movement coincided with wider demands for political change, at a time when the vast majority were denied the vote. It also coincided with crucial economic changes; the industrial revolution; the emergence of new social forces with the workers on one side and industrial capitalists on the other, attempting to consolidate their economic and political domination of the country. The industrialists were sometimes at odds with the economic and political power exercised by those who owed their position to the slave-based economies of the Caribbean.
Mass petitioning of parliament, the only means open to the disenfranchised, against the trade was often strong in manufacturing towns such as Manchester, where perhaps a third of the entire population signed. This was viewed with alarm by the ruling class.
The Prime Minister of the time, William Pitt, recognised that popular sentiment might be used to persuade parliament to abolish Britain’s exports of enslaved Africans to its main economic rival, France. It was Pitt who first encouraged Wilberforce to bring an abolition bill before parliament. Wilberforce’s bill was first introduced in 1791. It was defeated, as were several similar bills during the next 15 years.
But during this period several significant changes took place. First, the French Revolution of 1789. Britain’s declaration of war against revolutionary France in 1793 allowed the suppression of the political activity of the people at home, effectively limiting the popular abolitionist campaign and driving it underground.
The revolutionaries in St Domingue successfully defended their revolution against the French army then against invasions by both Spain and Britain. It is worth remembering that this war was pursued by Pitt and supported by Wilberforce, who clearly did not belief that Africans should liberate themselves.
In 1804 St Domingue declared its independence and was renamed Haiti. The revolution in Haiti contributed to, and occurred alongside, other major insurrections across the Caribbean, in Jamaica, Grenada, St Vincent and elsewhere, which severely threatened the entire colonial system.
Even those Africans forcibly recruited into Britain’s West India regiment in Dominica mutinied. Toussaint L’Ouverture and some of the other leaders of the Haitian revolution became nationally known figures in Britain. Abolition came to be viewed by some both as a means to press home a naval and economic advantage over France and its allies, and a means to limit the numbers of Africans imported into British colonies; thereby preventing the likelihood of further revolutions and maintain the slave system.
It was with these aims in mind that parliament passed the Foreign Slave Act in 1806, banning the export of enslaved Africans to Britain’s economic rivals, a measure that effectively ended around 60 per cent of Britain’s trafficking, but which is now hardly remembered, and certainly not commemorated.
There is no doubt that for many in parliament and outside, the demand for abolition was based largely on economic motives. Prime Minister Pitt, and others had been concerned about competition from St Domingue and other Caribbean colonies even before 1791. They had unsuccessfully sought agreement from both France and Holland to prohibit the trafficking of Africans.
Others were more concerned about what they saw as the subsidies given to slave owners and sugar producers in the Caribbean; and government support for economies and a trade that was declining in importance by the end of the 18th century, not least because there was over-production of sugar.
Others in Britain became more interested in developing direct trade links with India, Brazil and other Spanish American colonies. The trafficking of Africans to Britain’s colonies was no longer so important and was seen as by some as being an impediment to important trading links elsewhere.
These economic motives for abolition have long been associated with the names of Eric Williams and C.L.R. James. Many attempts have been made to discredit them. In fact very similar views were expressed by British historians of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most importantly economic justifications for an end to ‘the trade’ were strongly advanced in the period preceding the Abolition Act.
What is significant is that this explanation for abolition is hardly ever discussed. It has been largely absent from many of the commemorative events so far and even from the government’s own publication which, it is claimed, is designed to educate the public.
Simply stated, this explanation means that the parliamentary act was passed not for humanitarian reasons but because it was in the interests of the rich and their representatives in parliament to do so. And it should be added that it was the actions of people, and most importantly of the enslaved themselves, in the Caribbean, Britain and elsewhere that made enslavement and trafficking increasing inefficient, unprofitable and dangerous.
In 1807 therefore, parliament was persuaded to pass the Abolition Act; partly on the basis of such economic concerns, partly on the basis that limiting the importation of enslaved Africans would likely limit future revolutions and preserve slavery throughout the Caribbean colonies. Partly it seems, because it was seen as a way of diverting attention away from an unpopular war against France and its allies, and persuading the people that such a war was being fought in the interests of abolition.
Of course after the 1806 act it is arguable that most of ‘the trade’ had ended already. Even some of the major established Caribbean planters were in favour of abolition since this worked against the interests of their commercial rivals, both foreigners and those who had acquired newly captured territory in the Caribbean from Britain’s enemies. They reasoned that this might be especially advantageous if abolition could be forced upon other countries as a consequence of Britain’s military and naval supremacy. Other representatives of the rising bourgeoisie supported the measure as a means to limit the economic and political power of those who had hitherto retarded the development of industrial capitalism and ‘free trade’.
The 1807 Act was subsequently used as the representatives of the rich envisaged, not least as a means by which the Royal Naval might interfere in international shipping across the atlantic.
Yet it did not end British citizens’ involvement in the trafficking of Africans nor slavery itself. Following other major insurrections in the Caribbean and similar economic and political considerations, slavery itself was only later made illegal in 1834. But it continued in some areas of the British empire for another century. The trafficking of Africans in general increased during the 19th century. Many British slavers sailed under foreign flags of convenience.
The 1807 Act did not end Britain’s dependence on slave produced goods such as cotton, the mainstay of the industrial revolution. Even that so-called ‘legitimate commerce’ subsequently developed with Africa, such as the extraction of palm oil, was largely produced with slave labour. The act increased rather than diminished Britain’s interference in Africa which culminated in the so-called ‘scramble’ for Africa at the end of the 19th century: the invasion of the continent and imposition of colonial rule.
It is sobering to reflect that Britain’s first colony in Africa was Sierra Leone. This was the region from where the first enslaved Africans had been kidnapped in the 16th century. It was established allegedly as a haven for liberated Africans in 1807, and has now been under Britain’s domination for the last 200 years Much of this time, it has been occupied by British troops, while its shores are still patrolled by the Royal Navy.
Today the government is demanding that even its basic utilities, such as water, should be privatised for the benefit of British multinationals. Centuries of interference by British governments have produced a country that manages to be one of the world’s poorest - and at the same time the world’s leading producer of diamonds.
The trafficking of Africans over many centuries was one of the greatest crimes against humanity. The current commemorative events, which are organised for a variety of purposes, at least provide the opportunity for widespread discussion.
What is vital is that the myths are shattered and disinformation combated. We must ensure that appropriate and adequate reparations are made for slavery, colonialism and all crimes against humanity. People themselves must draw the appropriate lessons from history, one of the most important being that it is people that make and change history; and that therefore, we are our own liberators.
* Hakim Adi is reader in the history of Africa and the African diaspora at Middlesex University, London, UK. | https://www.pambazuka.org/security-icts/wider-historical-context-abolition-transatlantic-slave-trade |
James Pennington’s Fight for African Slave Trade Refugees
In the hot summer of 1860, Americans confronted an urgent refugee crisis. Over 1,400 young and destitute Africans, seized by the navy from illegal slave ships, filled a camp on the sandy beach of Key West, Florida. Their presence forced into public view two issues critically important in our own times: the value of black lives and U.S. policies on vulnerable and displaced people. In response, Rev. James W. C. Pennington, a New York abolitionist and former fugitive slave, argued for compassion, accountability, and inclusion as principles that would serve justice and strengthen the nation.
African slave trade refugees differed from today’s asylum seekers in one critical respect: they had never sought to enter the United States but instead had been brutally dislocated through the transatlantic slave trade. Despite a U.S. ban passed in 1807, many American citizens continued for decades to participate in international slaving. Networks of human traffickers forcibly shipped millions of enslaved Africans to Cuba, Brazil, and elsewhere in the Americas. Increasingly large numbers of children and young teenagers (between 40 to 50 percent of all captives in many voyages) were crowded into the holds of illegal slave ships. Naval cruisers who managed to intercept a contraband slaver found hundreds of captives whose youth compounded their vulnerability.
Yet, in many other respects, “recaptured Africans,” as they were called in the United States, shared similar conditions with the 21.3 million refugees and 10 million stateless people counted by the UNHCR today. Recaptives in Key West had been forcibly displaced from their homes. They had traveled thousands of miles across land and sea, experiencing thirst, starvation, and terror. Adults and children alike had been exposed to violent separations and ubiquitous death.
Recaptives who passed into the custody of U.S. federal agents at Key West gained no respite from fear and uncertainty. Southern planters stalked the guarded camp, threatening abduction. Furthermore, recaptives found themselves detained by a slaveholding nation that was fundamentally hostile to free black existence. In fact, a federal statute standing since 1819 called for the removal—or in modern terms, deportation—of any Africans seized from illegal slave ships.
With slave trade refugees dying daily in Key West, federal officials scurried to oversee recaptives’ transportation “beyond the limits of the United States.” It was in this context that James Pennington challenged U.S. recaptive policy. Writing to the New York World in July 1860, Pennington issued a call for compassion. He appealed to the “hearts, humanity, and consistency of the American people” in responding to “these poor young Africans brought into Key West.”
But Pennington did not merely pity recaptives; he saw himself in them. During his childhood in slavery in Maryland, Pennington too had experienced hunger, family separation, and violence. He knew from his own escape to New York at age twenty what it was like to cross dangerous borders. He understood how it felt to be perceived as a threat to white American freedom. Pennington saw the slave trade recaptive issue as one that concerned the value of human life and particularly the value of black life. “If what concerns mankind concerns me, as a man,” he insisted, “surely what concerns my race concerns me.”
To his radical call for compassion, Pennington added a demand for American accountability. He decried U.S. complicity in creating the crisis of recaptive refugees encamped in U.S. ports through weak enforcement of existing slave trade laws. Naval crews who did manage to capture an illegal slaver, he charged, enriched themselves with prize money. Added to this, American courts refused to convict the few slavers put on trial. Here, Pennington’s critique ran counter to the views of prominent naval officers, such as Andrew Hull Foote, who praised naval suppression of the slave trade as a humanitarian expression of U.S. power abroad.
Finally, Pennington supported a policy of inclusion that flew in the face of the removal law. He argued that to shelter recaptives in northern homes would be “more in accordance with our professed humanity and justice” than a precarious deportation of sick and traumatized recaptives. More than an act of charity, the incorporation of African recaptives in households of “farmers, East, West, and North,” offered a potential valuable source of much needed free labor. From today’s perspective, this vision of placing recaptives as apprentices doing domestic and farm labor bears scrutiny. However, at the time, Pennington’s call for care and inclusion contrasted significantly with prevailing support for either enslavement or removal.
Ultimately, James Pennington did not succeed in his call for recognition of the human rights of slave trade refugees. Many more recaptives died on voyages to Liberia, where survivors began a troubled period of apprenticeship. Yet, Pennington’s letters to the World speak to us today by illuminating critical perspectives on U.S. border policies. In the name of justice, James Pennington challenged white Americans to see recaptive Africans for what they were: displaced and traumatized young people caught in the crosshairs of white supremacy and contradictory U.S. laws. He demanded that the nation understand its complicity in producing recaptives’ global displacement. And, he called for alternatives to the politics of rejection that he believed would not only be right, but good for the nation. | https://www.aaihs.org/james-penningtons-fight-for-african-slave-trade-refugees/ |
Enslavement of Africans
How many African slaves were brought to Brazil?
For 350 years, slavery was the heart of the Brazilian economy. According to historian Emilia Viotti da Costa, 40 percent of the 10 million enslaved African brought to the New World ended up in Brazil.
How many slaves are in Brazil today?
Prevalence. The Global Slavery Index estimates that on any given day in 2016 there were 369,000 people in conditions of modern slavery on any given day in Brazil, a prevalence of 1.8 modern slavery victims for every thousand people in the country.
What’s the black population of Brazil?
An estimated 91 million Brazilians are of African ancestry, according to the 2010 census, which found that more than half (50.7 per cent) of the Brazilian population now identified as preto (black) or pardo (mixed ethnicity).
Who started slavery in Africa?
The transatlantic slave trade began during the 15th century when Portugal, and subsequently other European kingdoms, were finally able to expand overseas and reach Africa. The Portuguese first began to kidnap people from the west coast of Africa and to take those they enslaved back to Europe.
When did first African come to America?
First enslaved Africans arrive in Jamestown, setting the stage for slavery in North America. On August 20, 1619, “20 and odd” Angolans, kidnapped by the Portuguese, arrive in the British colony of Virginia and are then bought by English colonists.
How long did slavery last in the USA?
Slavery lasted in about half of U.S. states until 1865. As an economic system, slavery was largely replaced by sharecropping and convict leasing. By the time of the American Revolution (1775–1783), the status of enslaved people had been institutionalized as a racial caste associated with African ancestry.
What countries still have slaves in 2020?
While over a hundred countries still have slavery, six countries have significantly high numbers:
- India (18.4 million)
- China (3.4 million)
- Pakistan (2.1 million)
- Bangladesh (1.5 million)
- Uzbekistan (1.2 million)
- North Korea (1.1 million)
Where did most of the slaves from Africa go?
Africans carried to North America, including the Caribbean, left mainly from West Africa. Well over 90 percent of enslaved Africans were imported into the Caribbean and South America. Only about 6 percent of African captives were sent directly to British North America.
How did Brazil abolish slavery?
The Golden Law, issued by Princess Imperial Isabel on May 13, 1888, officially ended slavery in Brazil. Its abolition came without a bloody civil war as in the United States (1861-1865) or a slave rebellion as in Haiti (1794). | https://bikenwander.com/cities-and-countries/when-did-the-first-africans-arrive-in-brazil.html |
In which situation is a market allocatively efficient?
Select ONE answer:
- It is when consumer surplus equals producer surplus.
- It is when marginal social benefit equals marginal social cost.
- It is when there are both positive consumption externalities and positive production externalities.
- It is when the value of external benefits exceeds the value of external costs.
Show your workings to arrive at your answer, and explain and justify your reasons:……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
This multiple choice question is suitable for Economics KS5 classes.
The answer is 2
- Allocative efficiency would be achieved where consumer surplus plus producer surplus is maximised.
- Correct: Marginal social benefit equalling marginal social cost ensures that the value society places on the last unit produced equals the cost of that unit.
- The existence of externalities is likely to mean that market failure will occur.
- To ascertain whether allocative efficiency is being achieved, it is not sufficient just to compare external benefits and costs – social benefits and costs needed to be compared.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. | https://multiplechoicequestions.blog/2019/07/16/economics-multiple-choice-question-16-july-2019/ |
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N37.3 km
Bass River State Forest - Camp S-55 - Tuckerton, NJ
in Civilian Conservation Corps
The CCC camp at Bass River State Forest, Camp S-55, lasted from 1933 to 1942, throughout the entire life of CCC. Company 225 served at the camp from 1933-1937 and Company 2201-V, a Veteran’s company, followed from 1937-1942.
posted by: Math Teacher
location: New Jersey
date approved: 11/22/2008
last visited: 8/30/2010
NE37.8 km
Bass River State Forest 1936
Bass River became the first State Forest with the purchase of 597 acres in Nov. 1905 under Governor Edward Stokes program to to acquire and restore depleted woodlands. From 1933-1942 hundreds of men from CCC Companies 225 & 2201 were stationed here.
date approved: 12/21/2007
last visited: never
W81.4 km
CCC: An Army of Restoration - Dover, Delaware
Historic marker celebrating the Civilian Conservation Corps
posted by: ddtfamily
location: Delaware
date approved: 10/13/2014
N132.4 km
Picnic Shelter at Ralph Stover State Park
This Picnic shelter in Ralph Stover State Park was indeed built by the Civilian Conservation Corp.
posted by: chstress53
location: Pennsylvania
date approved: 10/21/2005
last visited: 7/27/2013
N138.9 km
Spirit of the CCC @ Roosevelt Park - Edison, NJ
A beautiful statue representative of all the hard-working CCC boys. The statue is particularly appropriate for this place as it was built by the very same organization to which the statue pays homage.
date approved: 9/7/2010
last visited: 11/12/2011
N156.1 km
Voorhees State Park
Voorhees served as a camp for the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) - FDR's program to get people back to work during the Depression. The CCC planted trees and constructed shelters, picnic sites and trails throughout the park.
date approved: 12/8/2007
last visited: 5/5/2012
NW160 km
Drenkel Field CCC - Reading, PA
Drenkel Field is on Skyline Drive between the historic Reading Pagoda and the William Penn Fire Tower.
posted by: Janila
date approved: 9/1/2018
Copyright (c) 2019 Groundspeak, Inc. All Rights Reserved. | https://www.waymarking.com/cat/details.aspx?f=1&guid=deea6190-d1c2-4f37-a3b4-df7b2173c52e&lat=39.309417&lon=-74.598333&t=6&gid=3&st=2 |
Heat can be applied as either dry heat or wet heat. Wet heat is a more effective means of killing microbiological organisms than dry regarding temperatures and time applied. According to Jay et al (2005), heat resistance is decreased with increased humidity, moisture or water activity. Additionally, there are many other factors that affect the heat resistance or sensitivity of microorganisms. Salts have a variable effect, both positive and negative, on heat sensitivity. Carbohydrates can increase heat resistance by decreasing the water activity of cells. In descending order of impact, glucose, fructose and glycerol are impact carbohydrates. pH values above or below optimum pH of growth will lower microorganism heat resistance. Proteins and colloidal particles act as protective agents and increase heat resistance. Large populations or biofilms can increase heat resistance, possibly due to the excretion of protective compounds. Microorganisms are more heat sensitive during the log phase then during the stationary phase of the life cycle. Growth temperature can also have an impact through natural selection of more heat resistant strains when grown under higher temperatures of the opposite when grown under cooler temperatures. Combination therapies with compounds such as SO2 can also have a compounding on heat sensitivity.
The general hierarchy of heat resistance is essentially a function of optimum growth temperatures. Thermophiles are the most heat resistant, followed by mesophils and psychrophils. Sporeforming bacteria are more heat resistant than non-sporeforming bacteria. Gram positive bacteria are more heat resistant than gram negative bacteria and cocci more so than rods. Yeast ascospores are more heat resistant than vegetative yeast and asexual spores more so than mold mycelia. Sclerotia are the most heat resistant of these fungal types.
There are numerous concepts important to the thermal destruction of microorganisms. Thermal Death Time (TDT) is the time necessary to kill a given number of organisms and is established by maintaining constant temperature while time is determined. D values represent the time required to kill 90% of microorganisms at a given temperature. z values incorporate TDT and offer relative resistances to various temperatures. z values can then be used to determine varying temperature and times to achieve the same killing capacity. For instance, with a z = 8, either 0.35 minutes at 148oC or 35 minutes at 132oC can be used. F values represent the time needed to kill a microorganism population at 121.1oC (Jay et al (2005).
There is little worthwhile use of heat to deal with microorganisms in wine, as there is an adverse effect on the flavor profile and color (Boulton et al 1996). However, historically heat has been used in pasteurization processes to neutralize spoilage organisms (Splittstoesser et al 1975; Pilone 1953). Splittstoesser et al (1975) did show that yeast were generally more heat resistant than bacteria in wine media. More recently, Couto et al (2005) showed that wine heated to 32.5oC experienced significant inactivation of Dekkera/Brettanomyces. There was no sensory data given. Heat can be, and is, used on juices, however this is primarily done to denature proteins and not necessarily used to control microorganisms.
The bottling line must be sterilized using heat. Hot water or steam is sent through filters and their holders, all lines leading to filler, filler bowl and all filler spouts. It is recommended that hot water (entering at 82oC and exiting at 72oC) or live steam (with 2 cm of invisible vapor) flows out of the filler spouts for at least 20 minutes (Boulton et al 1996). Neradt (1982) showed that the incidence of bottle contamination was significantly reduced with the use of increased sterilizing practices, including heat sterilization. In addition to bottling line sterilization, heat can be used to clean tanks, barrels, tools, and any other surfaces that may harbor microorganisms.
Couto, J.A., F. Neves, F. Campos, T. Hogg, 2005. Thermal inactivation of the wine spoilage yeastsDekkera/Brettanomyces. International Journal of Food Microbiology 104: 337– 344.
Jay, J.M., M.J. Loessner, D.A. Golden, 2005. Modern Food Microbiology 7th edition. Springer Scientific and Business Media, Inc., New York.
Neradt,. Fritz, 1982. Sources of reinfections during cold-sterile bottling of wine. American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 33: 140-144.
Pilone, Frank J.,1953. The role of Pasteurizatin in the stabilization and clarification of wines. American Journal of Enology and Viticulture, 4: 77 – 83.
Splittstoesser, D.F., L.L. Lienk, M. Wilkison and J.R. Stamer, 1975. Influence of Wine Composition on the Heat Resistance of Potential Spoilage Organisms. Applied Microbiology, 369-373. | https://wineserver.ucdavis.edu/industry-info/enology/methods-and-techniques/winery-lab-techniques/heat-sanitation-and-sterilization |
Gathered in Brussels on 12-14 October 2022, the Plenary Assembly of the Bishop Delegates of the EU Episcopates makes a strong appeal to Russia to immediately suspend the hostilities against Ukraine and to all parties to work towards a solution to the conflict. They also encourage strong EU cohesion. Read the Statement EN | FR | IT | DE
In the context of the 2022 Autumn Plenary Assembly of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union (COMECE), the EU Bishops elaborated a statement expressing their “deep sadness at the horrific human suffering inflicted on the people of Ukraine by the brutal military aggression initiated by the Russian authorities”.
They also convey the closeness of their Episcopates to “the millions of refugees and to all those who suffer because of this madness of war”, as well as their deep concern that recent actions may “risk a further expansion of the war with disastrous consequences for humanity”.
Bishops call for European unity
Following an in-depth discussion on the war in Ukraine and its increasingly dramatic socio-economic implications affecting citizens in Europe and beyond, the EU Bishops stress “the deep value of the European Union and its founding vision”. They strongly encourage political leaders “to maintain their unity and to remain committed to the European project”.
The appeal for peace
The EU Bishops concluded their statement with “a strong appeal to the aggressors, immediately to suspend the hostilities, and to all parties to open themselves up to negotiation of ‘serious proposals’ for a just peace, to work towards a solution to the conflict, which respects international law and the territorial integrity of Ukraine.”
During the Assembly, the Bishops had the opportunity to exchange with three guests: Klaus Welle, Secretary-General of the European Parliament, Philip McDonagh, Director of the Centre for Religion, Human Values and International Relations at the Dublin City University, and Pascal Lamy, former Director General of the World Trade Organisation and Coordinator of the Jacques Delors think tanks networks.
The Assembly also featured the participation of Pastor Christian Krieger, President of the Conference of European Churches.
Mass for Europe
On the first day of the Assembly, the Bishops and the faithful gathered at the Church of Notre-Dame des Victoires au Sablon to pray for Europe. The Mass for Europe was presided by H.Em. Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich SJ, President of COMECE, and concelebrated by the Bishops’ Delegates of the 27 EU Member States.
In the context of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union, the homily was offered by H.E. Mgr. Jan Vokál, Bishop Delegate of the Czech Bishops’ Conference and Vice-President of COMECE. Read the homily
The next Assembly
The Assembly of COMECE is composed of the Bishop Delegates by the EU Episcopates. The next Plenary Assembly will take place in Rome and will feature the election of a new COMECE Presidency. | https://www.comece.eu/eu-bishops-assembly-appeals-for-peace-in-ukraine-and-in-europe/ |
How do innovation roles help the innovation process?
What do innovation roles involve?
Innovation roles are formal or semi-formal positions/functions within an organisation that are recognised as helping the innovation process. They may be an explicit part of job descriptions or may be more informal roles that people voluntarily take on.
Innovation roles may be connected to specific Innovation Teams or functions relating to Ideas Management Systems.
Innovation roles can help the innovation process by providing clarity around the expectations of who does what in an innovation process – in the case of an agency or organisation, it might involve who to go to for help if you have an idea you want to introduce.
Innovation roles can assist across all stages of the innovation process.
Innovation roles involve identifying specific functions, capabilities and supporters within an agency’s innovation process. This might also involve identifying how the roles relate with each other, any supporting systems or resources in place, and any mandate/expectations of the roles from the agency’s executive.
Roles may be formal and incorporated into performance plans. Alternatively, if the innovation responsibilities are less developed within an agency or organisation, they may be informal roles that people voluntarily take on and do out of interest.
Where possible, innovation roles are likely to be aided by official ‘backing’ within the agency so that the individuals performing the role can relate it to their official responsibilities.
Empowering Change: Fostering Innovation in the Australian Public Service identified the following possible roles and responsibilities within an organisation. An individual may play more than one of these roles at any one time.
Innovation team - The agency’s team of innovation facilitators, who might be responsible for tasks such as providing advice and assistance to sources, coaches and champions, administering any system for managing ideas, advising the provocateur or agency executive on challenges raised and options available, supporting local innovation communities of practice, reporting on innovation activity, and networking with such teams in other agencies. Team members may or may not have additional roles within the organisation.
The following are some possible problems that may be encountered in introducing or managing innovation roles in an organisation.
Diversity – Different people will have different innovation strengths (and weaknesses). Some individuals might be able to carry their idea throughout the entire innovation process unaided, but most will need assistance at some or most stages. This assistance may not just be with innovation but also with other processes – e.g. financial, technical, policy or legal help. Innovation roles may need to reflect this and have a range of people with differing strengths in the innovation process and associated skills.
The following is a checklist of issues that might be considered before formalising innovation roles.
Is there a clear and known innovation process in your organisation?
Is it clear how the different roles will support the innovation process?
Do these identified roles have the endorsement and support of the agency executive?
Have you identified what skills those undertaking the roles will need?
If the positions are voluntary, is it clear what is expected of them?
Is there an identified reporting structure for those in the roles?
“Innovation Roles” a blog post by Jeffrey Phillips on the innovation roles and capabilities needed when introducing innovation into an organisation.
“The Nine Innovation Roles” a blog post by Braden Kelly with an excerpt from his book Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire on nine different innovation roles that people play.
“Innovation Roles: The Bulldozer” a blog post by Jeffrey Phillips on the ‘bulldozer’ role. This post also links to his posts on other roles – the Matador, the Futurist, the Jester and the Tinkerer roles.
“Provocateur of Systemic Innovation” a blog post by George Siemens on establishing a role of a provocateur of systemic innovation.
The Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) has an ideas management system called I-Gen – a systematic and coordinated approach to managing ideas.1 To support this innovation system within the agency there are a number of roles that are taken on by staff (generally in addition to their full time positions).
Sponsor/Champion - A Deputy Secretary who is the overarching sponsor, providing support and advocating innovation within and without the Department.
Idea Proponents - The people who have put forward ideas and who are helped by the I-Gen team, the coordinators, the mentors or other colleagues to progress their ideas. | https://innovation.govspace.gov.au/innovation-roles |
As a beginner baker, I find services where they deliver a box of pre-portioned ingredients with instructions how to bake a cake very useful (and fun!). However, I find that I get kind of lost when I have to bake a cake on my own. I just assume that is due to my beginner skills (or lack of). What techniques should I use when trying to bake a cake from a recipe rather than a pre-portioned box of ingredients?
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1Hi Jessica. The question you ask is primarily opinion based. Opinion based questions are not allowed on this forum. I am going to recommend closing it. Perhaps you can search the forum, and/or post a question that asks a specific question about improving baking skills. The more precise the question, the better. – moscafj Sep 17 '17 at 16:48
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3I'm going to make what I'd call a "heroic edit" to try to keep this question within scope here. @moscafj is correct that this may be a bit too opinion based. What you can ask is how to move from these subscription boxes to recipes without the confusion, so I'm going to make that edit. If you don't agree that this is what you're trying to ask, feel free to roll back, but be aware that your question may be closed. – Catija♦ Sep 17 '17 at 17:23
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Is there any way to merge the two answers? They both have credible and valid information. Each adds to the other and combined would make the ultimate answer. – Cindy Sep 17 '17 at 22:53
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@Cindy : there's community wiki, but then Catija wouldn't get any reputation for upvotes. (I couldn't care less about it ... I mean, I was excited when I passed Darin Senhart, but that was only because he hadn't posted for months. And there were the really early days of the beta when hobodave and I were swapping who was ahead it was so close. These days I try to avoid answering to give other people a chance to get reputation if there's something there that could be cleaned up / clarified with comments). – Joe Sep 18 '17 at 0:16
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1For the record, I think that the original question or a slightly-edited version (essentially, "can subscription boxes help teach me to bake? in what ways? what will I need to learn another way?") is a perfectly fine good subjective question - it's not just asking what's "best", it's asking what works or doesn't work and how, it invites explanation, etc. – Cascabel♦ Sep 18 '17 at 15:59
What you will find helpful is the concept of "mise en place"
Mise en place (MEEZ ahn plahs) is a French term for having all your ingredients measured, cut, peeled, sliced, grated, etc. before you start cooking. Pans are prepared. Mixing bowls, tools and equipment set out. It is a technique chefs use to assemble meals so quickly and effortlessly.
The subscription boxes you're using do this for you. They give you a list of equipment you need, detailed instructions, and they have all of the ingredients measured for you before you even begin. If you watch any cooking shows, you'll see that they often have all of the ingredients ready in small bowls or ramekins. It's the same concept.
So, if you want to move from a subscription box to a recipe, you'll want to do this. While many bakers (myself included) are able to work line by line in a recipe, it's actually better to measure out everything first and then simply add it when the recipe calls for it.
This makes cooking or baking a two-step process which is actually (usually) created in the recipe itself. Though, the absolutely first step you should always take is to really read the recipe completely to make sure you have all of the ingredients that you need and understand all of the steps you're going to take. If the recipe calls for a process you're unfamiliar with like "whip to firm peaks", look up what that means rather than guessing. Once you've read the recipe you're ready to start.
- Collect all of the ingredients based on the ingredients list and equipment based on the recipe.
This means measure them and prepare them as the ingredients list directs.
- If it calls for 1 cup butter in 1/2 inch cubes, softened, you cube the butter and let it soften.
- If it calls for 1/2 cup chopped nuts, toasted, you chop your nuts, measure them and toast them and then put them in a bowl (note that there's a difference between "1/2 cup nuts, chopped" and "1/2 cup chopped nuts").
- Prepare any equipment - grease/flour pans, line with parchment, preheat oven, etc.
After you've finished doing all of these things, clean up your work area and arrange your ingredients neatly. You can put them all in individual prep bowls or, as you get more comfortable baking, you may add together ingredients you know always go together, like spices. This is something you should be careful of, though, as the more you do things like that, the more you have to remember that you did it. It only takes one time forgetting the baking powder to make you regret skipping steps! Only once all of the ingredients are prepared do you move on to step two:
- Assemble the recipe by following the directions for assembly.
Once you have your mise en place, you can easily assemble your recipe by following the instructions. You've already done most of the work - measuring, preparing for the recipe by researching the methods, so now you're just pulling it all together and actually putting that work into use.
Keep track of which ingredient is which and keep your recipe close at hand. Hopefully this will help you see that you can use these baking kits but you can also mimic them with any recipe on the web or in a book merely by doing a little extra work (which is what they've already done for you).
Here's a great image of mise en place for baking all set up and ready to go:
It comes from a blog article about mise en place when baking which I also recommend reading.
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9I'd make one addition -- pull out all of the ingredients first before you start measuring stuff out. That way you'll know before you start if you're missing something. (it also helps to take a peek in the containers if you think you're low and/or measure them first, so you can abort before you get too far in). My mom would put things away as she used them, so she'd know if there was still something out on the counter, she had forgotten to add it (which would help w/ your example of mixing spices together) – Joe Sep 17 '17 at 18:49
Another thing that you'll have to do besides the mise en place aspect is actual food shopping.
This might be the more difficult part, especially for baking, as you're going to run into strange ingredient-related issues:
- It calls for 2 eggs. What size should I buy? In the US, you want Large unless otherwise specified, In the UK and EU, you want Medium. I have no clue for other countries.
- There sure are a lot of types of flour. Yes, make sure to look at the recipe to see if it says something specific (whole wheat, pastry, cake, bread, strong, self-raising/self-rising, all-purpose). If it doesn't say, use all-purpose (aka AP) ... although there can be issues using a southern brand AP flour (eg, White Lily) in New England bread recipe, or a northern brand in an Georgia cake recipe.
- Beware of substitutions. Baking is chemistry, and you can't get things too far off. Baking powder for baking soda or visa versa, molasses for some other sweetener, oil for melted butter. If there's something you're missing or can't find, search on here for it, or check Cook's Thesaurus
Another thing that won't be as important in baking is in how to select food at the store -- meat for roasts or other slow cooking don't typically make good steaks and it's a waste of money to go in the other direction; for most produce you want something heavy for its size, that gives slightly when pressed (not rock hard, not squishy). In some grocery stores, there are knowledgeable employees, but grandmotherly types might help you, too.
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1It might also be worth going shopping with a friend that cooks. They could help you with selection of things. – Joe Sep 17 '17 at 19:30
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1Yes! This is also great advice. And it's why I love the Cook's Illustrated's Baking Illustrated. The first section is all about ingredient selection. – Catija♦ Sep 17 '17 at 22:38
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1People like me would help you in a grocery store too, but I'm not sure how you'd pick me out - maybe just that I don't seem to be in that much of a rush and I'm being careful about picking things. – Cascabel♦ Sep 18 '17 at 20:14
@Catija & @Joe have already both provided excellent input for you. I would like to add two additional resources that can help you tremendously. People all 'learn differently', and you are in the process of 'learning by doing', but for some of us that just isn't enough.
Some people learn best by watching others. There are two television networks completely dedicated to shows about cooking (Food Network and the Cooking Channel, both of which have a strong online presence) not to mention about a billion YouTube videos. Watching these 'experts' do what you want to do can help you become familiar with what you should expect to see, feel, smell, and taste along the way.
As you progress if you want to increase your depth of knowledge there no better [IMHO] source that any of the "Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen" books. What is great about these books (and magazine articles, and t.v. shows) is the manner in which they break down what they have tried, what effect they were hoping for and what they got. If you can find a copy of The New Best Recipe Book from Cook's Illustrated get it. Around page 777 you get an 3 page write-up on Chocolate Chip Cookies, not just a 'recipe' but a dissertation on what is each ingredients role is in the cookie, what alternatives they tried (different fats, sugars, flours...) and how it affected softness, chewiness, thickness, etc. If what you seek is more than A+B=C but a deeper understanding of 'Why' these are the books for you. | https://cooking.stackexchange.com/questions/84465/how-can-i-move-from-subscription-boxes-to-recipes-successfully |
Since the COVID-19 pandemic restricted physical access to resources for teaching and research this spring, educational, research, and cultural institutions have been busy digitizing their collections and creating digital content to assist their patrons. This is a roundup of some recently digitized recipes-related materials and newly created digital content (like videos, exhibitions, and source guides), compiled with the assistance of the Recipes Project community on social media. Thank you to all who contributed! This list is incomplete, as hearty as it is. Also, some digital items have been around for several years, but have recently received an update or reorganization due to increased web traffic during the pandemic.
Crowdsourced Digital Resources
The Early Modern Recipes Online Collective (EMROC) is hosting its annual Transcribathon in coordination with the Wellcome Library and the Royal College of Physicians on 4 March. This is a great opportunity to delve into some digitized early modern English recipe books and transcribe the text to benefit researchers and students alike! For details and updates, visit the EMROC website.
The Sifter, an online database of culinary writing, especially cookbooks and recipes, is now publicly available after years of development. Free for all users, it is a tool in finding, identifying, and comparing historical culinary texts. It currently includes over 5,000 works in multiple languages. Registered users can also populate The Sifter with texts and information, in addition to using the database for research.
Videos
The William Andrews Clark Jr. Memorial Library launched a web series titled “Bad Taste, where we explore what it truly means to be disgusted.” Each episode documents the process of recreating and tasting a historical recipe which seems “disgusting” to modern palates. Episode 1 is about an eighteenth-century recipe for toast water.
The Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library launched a series of brief collection presentation videos in coordination with the recent conference Food and the Book: 1300 to 1800. Each of the five videos highlights a food-related early modern resource in the Newberry’s collections.
English Heritage’s History at Home presents an array of digital content, especially videos, related to English Heritage sites and programming. The site contains videos on Georgian makeup application, Victorian cooking, and grand historic feasts. The site is also family-friendly, with content like coloring pages for children, and tours of historic sites.
Refashioning the Renaissance’s website contains an engaging archive of the project’s activities and experiments involving historic textiles, dyes, fabric cleaning, and fragrances. Many of the documented experiments include brief video summaries, which can be very helpful in digital classroom settings. The project also has blog posts and a podcast to introduce new audiences to these topics.
Digital Collections and Exhibitions
Transcriptions of over eighty manuscript recipe books at the Folger Shakespeare Library are available for full text search in the Folger Manuscript Transcriptions collection. The collection is added to on a regular basis.
The Library of Congress has long hosted a collection of digitized Community Cookbooks; it has been consistently updated since its originally posting in 2009. Here you can find links to nineteenth- and twentieth-century community cookbooks from the United States. In addition to searching for specific items, you can also sort the collection by place or date.
The National Library of Medicine has gathered links to their digital projects, exhibitions, and collections onto a single page. Here you can find links to their digital collections (which include many digitized manuscript recipe books) and exhibitions ranging from the consumption of intoxicants as medical prescriptions and Food and Enslavement in Early America.
Lifting the Lid: 400 Years of Food and Drink in Scotland is an online exhibition at the National Library of Scotland in 2015. It explored 400 years of Scottish food history, telling the story of Scotland’s relationship with food and drink. Here you can find digitized recipes for turtle soup and curry powder, as well as the library’s Burnfoot family recipe books, which include the same recipes by different people over four generations.
The Newberry Library’s Digital Collections for the Classroom contains a wide range of digitized primary source collections for teaching based on collection items at the Newberry. While many collections only mention recipes-related materials in passing, some collections are more explicitly connected, like those on the Discovery of Chocolate, Foods of the Columbian Exchange, and the Medieval Spice Trade.
The New York Academy of Medicine has just posted a new digital collection, Recipes and Remedies: Manuscript Cookbooks. This digital collection boasts eleven fully digitized manuscript recipe books of the NYAM’s physical collection of approximately forty.
The Mexican Cookbook Collection at UTSA Libraries includes a breathtaking array of texts, many available online. Now the collection is even more accessible to public audiences through their recent outreach effort, Cooking in the Time of Coronavirus. Visit the link to find booklets of updated recipes, published in Spanish and English, picked from the collection’s many options.
Digitized Materials
First introduced to the Recipes Project in this 2019 blog post by Rachel Rich and Lisa Smith, the English royal household’s menus for each day when they were in residence at Kew Palace between 1788 and 1801 is now digitized and available on Adam Crymble’s website.
Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library has been busily digitizing since the pandemic began and have kept readers updated about their progress through blog posts. Their most recent includes mention of several items of interest to the Recipes Project community, including fragments of medical encyclopedias, alchemical texts, and instruction on the “treatment of eye sores.”
Digital Collection Guides and Compilations of Resources
McMaster University History of Medicine has compiled a list of digital exhibits based at institutions in North America and Europe. This list is organized into an array of medical history topics, ranging from Canadian cookbooks, significant works of the Renaissance, and Ancient and Classical medicine.
The British Library has just published a collection guide for Food History: Archives and Manuscripts. The guide highlights several physical and digital items at the British Library related to food history; however, the guide is limited to the library’s holdings from the seventeenth through twentieth centuries.
Several institutional libraries have created and updated online resources lists for teaching food history. Examples include lists at the Culinary Institute of American, Marshall University, and Virginia Tech.
Thank you to everyone who contributed a digital resource to include in this post! If you’d like to feature a project, scholar, or institution on Around the Table, please email Sarah Kernan. | https://recipes.hypotheses.org/tag/beinecke-rare-book-and-manuscript-library |
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This application relates to an air flow gauge, more particularly to an air flow gauge intended for use in conjunction with a paint spraying gun atomization circuit.
2. Description of Related Art
Many factories use compressed air as a source of power for operating various types of production equipment. “Compressed air,” which is sometimes referred to as “pressurized air” or referred in spray paint operations as “atomization air,” is defined as free air that has been compressed into a volume that is smaller than the volume the air normally occupies at normal atmospheric pressure. Controlled expansion of the compressed air can be used as a source of power to operate a wide range of pneumatically powered tools. Compressed air is typically supplied from onsite or nearby compressors and piped through a distribution system to a downstream point of use. Paint spraying operations for painting various types of manufactured products, such as automobiles, is one typical use of compressed air.
In a spray paint operation, a paint fluid, which can be in the form of either a liquid or a fine powder, is mixed together with compressed air in a spray gun nozzle in order to atomize the paint into extremely fine particles and to transfer the paint particles onto the surface of the item being painted. One commonly used spray paint gun, referred to in the industry as a high volume low pressure (HVLP) spray gun, generates high volumes of low pressure air that propel the paint particles from the nozzle of the gun toward the surface of the article being painted. Other uses of compressed air include pneumatically powered drills, wrenches and other types of machine tools. The optimum operation of such tools depends upon providing a specified flow rate of compressed air to the tool.
Industrial compressed air systems are commonly controlled by pressure regulation, meaning by regulating the nominal air pressure at a certain point in the system. A pressure regulator might be placed, for example, at or near the compressor, at one or more points on the distribution line, or on a hose used to supply air to the tool. The major disadvantage with this method is that measuring air pressure at only one particular point within the system is not necessarily a good indicator of the volume of air flowing though that particular point in the system. Air pressure drops as it flows through the system, and the amount that the air pressure drops from one point to the next varies greatly depending on the specific system installation and also on varying conditions of usage occurring during the course of the day. For example, in many cases a compressed air system supplies not only spray guns but also other devices used in a paint shop such as sanders, polishers, screw drivers, drills and so forth.
For paint spray operations in particular, one commonly used method for determining whether a sufficient amount of compressed air is being delivered to the spray gun is to place a pressure gage on the cap of the spray gun immediately after the painter has set the spray gun for proper atomization of the paint, but before he actually begins painting. Many operators, however, find this extra step to be a great inconvenience as it interrupts their painting operations. Therefore, this procedure is often disregarded. Another method of checking whether a sufficient amount of compressed air is being delivered to the spray gun is to attach an air gauge to the handle of the gun. However, attaching a pressure gauge to the gun naturally increases its weight. Over a period of time, muscle fatigue sets in, thereby causing the operator to use unnatural arm and wrist actions which, in turn, cause over spray or under spray conditions and other flaws in the paint job.
More importantly, regulating the nominal pressure at any one point in the system does not necessarily mean that the proper amount of air, or even any air is flowing at another point downstream. For example, there may be blockage in the spray nozzle of a paint gun, or a break in the line or some other problem in the system.
Another problem with the traditional method of using a single pressure gauge to monitor air flow in a high pressure line is that the particular gauge being used must be able to withstand the high pressure of the spray system. In paint spray systems, the liquid paint is atomized under high pressure, typically in the range of about 10 p.s.i. for a HVLD spray gun, 25 to 60 p.s.i. for a dynamic air spray and 100-125 p.s.i. for a static air spray. Thus, pressure gauges used on such systems are therefore typically made from very heavy and bulky components and consequently lack the resolution necessary to accurately measure the difference between, for example, 8 and 9 p.s.i. Traditional monitors also lack repeatability as mass and hysteresis of the moving components of the gauge effect the movement of gauge needle. Thus, accurately regulating the pressure and flow rate of air in a spray system is extremely difficult.
It is advantageous to monitor airflow through a spray gun to assure proper performance. Restrictions in the air delivery hose, gun body, and spray gun cap can greatly affect the airflow through them. Varying conditions of hose length, delivery pressure, and supply air temperature also affect pressure and flow rates. For monitoring the air flow it is desirable to use an inline circuit monitor which can be connected to the components to be monitored rather than to disassemble a spray gun system and take the component to a test bench to test the flow rate. An inline flow gauge is especially important when the spray gun is part of an automated machine and is not designed to be removed easily from the control system.
Various types of gauges such as floating ball, turbine, thermal, ultra-sonic, and differential pressure gauges have been used to measure the flow rate of air in high pressure air systems. Such devices are commonly calibrated so that their scales read in terms of cubic feet or liters per minute. They must be carefully made so as to be accurate, yet at the same time, they must be able to withstand the high pressures and also sudden pressure changes or surges that commonly occur in industrial paint spray air systems. As a result, these flow meters typically constitute the most expensive single element in an inline monitor.
Virtually all known monitoring devices for high pressure systems have a number of drawbacks. As mentioned, heavy gauges can withstand sudden pressure changes, yet they cannot accurately measure small pressure differences. Additionally, the narrow resolution of heavy gauges makes them less effective when the equipment is working at low pressures. Light gauges can accurately measure small pressure differences, but they cannot withstand the high pressures and sudden pressure changes in typical paint spray lines. Finally, known differential pressure measuring devices such as floating ball gauges and other devices mentioned above are too expensive to use on a plant-wide basis for many users.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved air flow rate monitoring device or gauge that can accurately measure the air flow of sprays within high-pressure paint spray systems which can also be manufactured at a considerably lower cost than other flow gauges using differential measuring methods.
An improved flow rate meter than can accurately measure and regulate flow of sprays in high-pressure paint spray systems is disclosed. The invention, which is defined by the claims set out at the end of this disclosure, is especially designed and adapted to address several of the drawbacks noted above with respect to the use of conventional, heavy-duty high pressure gauges. Specifically, the air flow rate meter disclosed herein provides an accurate measurement of air flow rates operating at high pressure values and can also withstand sudden pressure drops and surges.
The air flow rate meter disclosed herein comprises a means for providing a low pressure flow meter which can be used in conjunction with gas lines of much higher pressure than the meter or gauge is rated for. The means comprises a meter or gauge mounted within a sealed housing that is connected to the gas line. By mounting the low pressure gauge within the housing, and having the pressure within the gauge and housing equalized with the air pressure in the line, the gauge can be used to detect any pressure drops or surges within the gas line. The gauge is connected to a restricted orifice to measure the pressure drops or surges in the gas line, which directly correspond to the rate (i.e., volume) of air flowing through the line.
More specifically, the air flow rate meter of the present invention comprises a low-pressure meter, (e.g., 0 to 5 p.s.i.), encapsulated within a high-pressure vessel, with both the low pressure meter and the high pressure vessel pneumatically connected to the high pressure air line. Although the system pressure may be extremely high (e.g., 100 to 125 p.s.i. or more), the gauge of the present invention is designed to measure a relatively small pressure drop through a known restriction at a specific point in the gauge. Due to the relationship between a pressure drop between opposed ends of a restriction having known dimensions and the flow rate through the restriction, the flow rate can be measured by calculating the pressure drop across the known restriction.
The durability of the proposed invention is dependent upon equalizing the pressure within the pressure vessel with the outside system pressure. Once the entire system is up and running and fully pressurized, the air pressure in the low pressure gauge and the pressure vessel naturally becomes equalized to the system pressure. However, during startup and shut down, the difference in pressure between the airline and the vessel may exceed the capacity of low-pressure meter and, unless the meter is effectively isolated, damage the internal parts of the meter. Therefore, the vessel further comprises a pressure regulator for regulating the input pressure during startup, and a check value for equalizing the pressure across the gauge during inlet pressurization.
Accordingly, the air flow rate meter of the present invention provides a highly accurate measurement of the air flow rate to the paint spray gun or other air tool connected to the system, yet at the same time is able to withstand the high pressures and sudden pressure changes, i.e., drops or surges, that commonly occur in industrial paint spray air systems. Other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description which, taken in connection with accompanying drawings, set forth by illustration and example certain embodiments of the present invention.
The drawings, wherein a certain presently preferred embodiment of the invention are illustrated, include the following:
FIG. 1
is a top plan view of an air flow rate meter of the present invention;
FIG. 2
FIG. 1
2
2
is a cross-sectional view along line — of ;
FIG. 3
FIG. 2
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is a circular sectional view along line — of ;
FIG. 4
FIG. 2
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is a circular sectional view along line — of ;
FIG. 5
FIG. 2
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is a circular sectional view along line — of ;
FIG. 6
FIG. 2
is a cross-sectional view similar to illustrating the operation of the air flow rate meter in a normal flow mode;
FIG. 7
FIG. 2
is a cross-sectional view similar to illustrating the operation of the air flow rate meter in an over maximum pressure flow mode;
FIG. 8
FIG. 2
is a cross-sectional view similar to illustrating the operation of the air flow rate meter in a reverse flow mode; and
FIG. 9
FIG. 2
is a cross-sectional view similar to illustrating a second embodiment of the present invention.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS
Before explaining the preferred embodiments invention in detail, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited in its application to the details of construction and the arrangement of the components set forth in the following description or illustrated in the drawings. The invention is capable of other embodiments or being practiced or carried out in various ways. Also, it is to be understood that the phraseology and terminology employed herein is for the purpose of description and should not be regarded as limiting.
FIG. 1
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In the drawings, a first preferred embodiment of the air flow rate meter in accordance with the invention is illustrated in at the reference numeral . The air flow rate meter includes a flow gauge , which determines flow based on the pressure differential between the upstream side and downstream side of a tube . The flow gauge is, relative to the overall system pressure, a low-pressure gauge. For a typical paint spray system that operates on a system pressure on the order of 100 to 120 p.s.i., the flow gauge is preferably capable of measuring pressure differentials on the order of about 0 to 3 p.s.i. The low pressure gauge is preferably a conventional diaphragm gauge that includes a diaphragm (not shown), which is an elastic pressure sensing element formed from a thin wall of an elastic or flexible material. A rotating rod and arm (not shown) rest on the thin walled diaphragm. The rotating rod is connected to a geared movement (not shown) through a linkage system (not shown). The rotating rod and geared movement are in turn coupled to a shaft (not shown) which actuates the needle when the diaphragm senses a pressure differential in the air flow, indicating the air flow on a scale marked in appropriate pressure units, preferably in cubic feet per minute. Any conventional diaphragm flow gauge having the required properties is acceptable for use in the air flow rate meter of the present invention.
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As is explained in detail below, one side of the diaphragm is subjected to upstream pressure and other side is subject to the downstream pressure of the tube . The change in pressure on opposite sides of the tube is related to flow rate of the air through the tube . Thus, the pressure differential sensed by the diaphragm is used to calculate the flow rate based on conversions known in the art.
FIGS. 2 and 4
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Referring now to , the low pressure gauge is contained within a windowed pressure vessel or chamber comprised of a transparent cover , preferably formed of Plexiglas, secured to a main body . The body of the vessel includes a base and an open end opposite the base . The open end defines a recess that extends into the body of the pressure vessel towards the base . The recess receives and retains the low pressure gauge such that the gauge rests within the vessel at a level below the open end . To enclose the gauge within the pressure vessel and make the vessel air tight, an elastic O-ring is disposed within a circumferential groove extending around the open end . The O-ring contacts the cover when the cover is positioned over the open end and provides an air tight seal between the body and the cover .
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To retain the cover in position over the recess in sealing engagement with the O-ring , a cap is secured to the open end over the cover . The cap has an outer dimension approximately equal to that of the body and includes a notch that receives the edge of the cover when the cap is positioned over the cover and open end of the body . The cap also has a number of bores disposed along the periphery of the cap and spaced from the notch . The bores extend completely through the cap and are alignable with a number of apertures disposed along the periphery of the open end . When the bores are aligned with the apertures , a plurality of bolts can be engaged within the bores and apertures to secure the cap and cover to the body . The engagement of the cap and the cover over the open end encloses the recess forming an enclosed chamber within the body .
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Opposite the cap , the body also includes the tube . The tube is disposed within the body adjacent the base , with the upstream side and downstream side positioned on opposite sides of the body . The upstream side and downstream side are each separately connected to the chamber in a manner to be described later. Between the upstream side and downstream side , the tube includes a restricted diameter portion or throat orifice . The throat orifice has a diameter less than that of each side and of the tube and generates a pressure drop in the flow of air between the respective sides of the tube by increasing the speed of the air flow. This pressure drop can be measured by the gauge and used to determine the air flow rate through the system.
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The inline flow meter is capable of being used in spraying systems in which the air flows through the system at high flow rates, e.g., flows on the order of twenty-five (25) to fifty (50) cubic feet per minute through the orifice . Also, using a low pressure gauge having a construction, as specified previously in the chamber permits the measurement of fine variations of the pressure drop across the tube . To measure the pressure drop across the tube , the gauge is connected on one side of the diaphragm to the upstream end and to the downstream end on the opposite side of the diaphragm. In the chamber , air is maintained under a pressure equal to the pressure in the downstream end leading to the spray gun (not shown) or other tool that is attached to the system. This downstream end pressure in the chamber contacts the diaphragm within the gauge in order to provide one half of the pressure differential across the diaphragm. The upstream end is connected to the opposite side of the diaphragm to complete the pressure differential and enable the measurement to be made. To protect the low pressure gauge from extreme changes in pressure within the system, a downstream safety valve and an upstream safety valve are housed within the body and are operably connected between the chamber and the downstream end , and between the gauge and the upstream end , respectively, as described in detail below.
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Air under pressure from an atomization air supply, e.g. an air compressor, (not shown) that is coupled to the system enters the flow meter through the upstream end of tube . An inlet passageway having a narrowing cross-section leads from the upstream end to a throat orifice . Opposite the inlet passage the diameter of the orifice expands to form an outlet passageway that leads to the downstream end . The inlet passageway is coupled to an adaptor (not shown), such as by a threaded connection, that is further connected opposite the inlet passageway to the source of compressed air. Similarly, the outlet passageway is coupled to an adaptor (not shown) that is connected opposite the outlet passageway to a hose (not shown) leading to the point of usage, namely, a spray gun (not shown) or other pneumatically operated tool.
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Immediately upstream of the restricted orifice of the tube is disposed an upstream tap leading into the body towards the gauge . The upstream tap enables a portion of the pressurized air flow at the upstream end to be directed into the gauge . When air flowing through the tube reaches the restricted orifice , the flow rate increases due to the constriction of space in the orifice of the tube . Concurrently, a drop in pressure occurs as the air flows through the throat of the tube . The air pressure of the flow through the tube is also sampled downstream of the orifice at a downstream tap in order to enable the gauge to determine flow rate in the manner explained below.
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Air from the inlet passage on the upstream side of the orifice is routed to the flow gauge via the upstream tap , which is formed of a first segment that extends upwardly from and perpendicular to the inlet passageway and a second segment which extends inwardly towards the center of the gauge parallel to the inlet passageway . The first segment and second segment of the upstream tap have a smaller diameter than the inlet passageway and are operably connected to one another by a valve well that encloses the upstream safety valve , whose construction is described in detail below. The safety valve limits the pressure differential applied to the diaphragm within the low pressure gauge through the upstream tap when the pressure differential exceeds the maximum capacity of the gauge , i.e., above 3 p.s.i. When the pressure differential is beneath the maximum capacity of the gauge , air is permitted to travel from the first segment through the valve and into the second segment , which is connected to the low pressure gauge by a gauge inlet passageway that is in fluid communication with one side of the diaphragm inside the gauge opposite the chamber .
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Air entering the outlet passage or the downstream side of the orifice is routed to the chamber and into contact with the flow gauge via the downstream tap . The downstream tap is formed of a conduit that extends upwardly from and perpendicular to outlet passageway . The downstream tap also has a smaller diameter that of outlet passageway and is connected to the downstream safety valve (described in detail below) that operates to protect the gauge from reverse pressure flows, e.g., when the source of compressed air is switched off and the pressure within the inlet passage is exhausted while the pressure within the outlet passage remains constant. Opposite the downstream tap , the downstream safety valve is also connected to the gauge inlet passageway .
FIG. 3
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As best shown in , the upstream safety valve disposed within the valve well contains a flow controlling diaphragm extending across the well , a hollow stem extending downwardly from one side of the diaphragm , a flow controlling ball which is releasably engageable with the stem and a flow controlling ball seat formed in the first segment , and a pressure spring engaged with the diaphragm opposite the stem , which urges the flow control ball out of engagement with the ball seat . The diaphragm is in fluid communication with the upstream side on one side via the first segment of the tap and the chamber on the opposite side by an opening . Thus, the diaphragm can operate to either close or open the valve as necessary based upon the pressure differential between the upstream side and the chamber as applied to each side of the diaphragm .
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The safety valve also includes a backpressure poppet valve that includes a backpressure poppet spring which rests on a backpressure poppet seat . The poppet spring urges the flow controlling diaphragm and ball upwardly against the bias of the pressure spring into engagement with the seat . Thus, the pressure spring and poppet spring are directly opposed to one another and operate in concert with the pressure differential applied to the diaphragm to open or close the upstream valve .
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FIG. 6
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The purpose of the valve well and safety valve is to limit the pressure differential applied to the diaphragm in the gauge when the flow rate through the tube exceeds the maximum displayed on the flow gauge , i.e., the maximum capacity of the pressure gauge , which in this application has been specified to be the rate equal to a pressure drop of 3 p.s.i. across the tube . As air flows through the inlet passage , the flow control diaphragm limits the air flow past the flow-controlling ball and flow-controlling ball seat by modulating the flow rate through the upstream tap based on the pressure differential across the flow control diaphragm . For example, as shown in , in a normal air flow condition a portion of the incoming air flow through the upstream side is diverted upwardly into the upstream tap . A portion of the air flow flowing through the downstream side is also diverted upwardly through the downstream tap into the chamber . The air flow within the chamber then flows downwardly through the opening to contact one side of the diaphragm opposite the upstream tap . The air flow contacting the diaphragm opposite the upstream tap opposes the pressure exerted on the diaphragm by the flow of air through the upstream tap and past the ball . After flowing past the ball , the air flow through the upstream tab is at a pressure even further reduced from that found at the downstream end , such that the air flow through the opening pushes downwardly on the diaphragm in concert with the spring , allowing the ball to be unseated from the seat against the bias of the poppet spring and the pressure of the incoming air, and allowing the air flow from the upstream end to flow through the valve well to the gauge as shown in FIG. .
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FIG. 7
The tension of the pressure spring and the poppet spring are balanced to limit the air flow past the seat when the pressure drop across the flow-control diaphragm exceeds the maximum for the gauge . As a result, the safety valve limits the pressure differential that is allowed to exist across the windowed pressure vessel which equals the tension of the flow control spring . For example, in the situation where the incoming air flow through the upstream end is at a pressure higher than the pressure maximum for the gauge , the upstream safety valve will operate to close off the flow of air through the upstream tap in order to prevent damage from being done to the gauge . As best shown in , when the incoming air at the upstream end creates a pressure differential higher than the maximum rated pressure differential for the gauge , the force of this air urges the ball upwardly into engagement with the ball seat in conjunction with the poppet spring against the downward force on the diaphragm provided by the pressure spring and air pressure generated by the air flow at the downstream end . Thus, none of the high pressure air is allowed to flow through the upstream tap to the gauge , thereby preventing the gauge from being damaged.
FIGS. 2 and 5
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Referring now to , as noted above, air from the outlet passage is routed to the flow gauge via the downstream tap and the conduit . The downstream tap also includes an offshoot connected between the conduit and the gauge inlet passageway , allowing the downstream tap to communicate with the gauge inlet . The offshoot includes an enlarged diameter section that forms a second valve well and seat that encloses the downstream safety valve , which protects the low pressure gauge from reverse pressure flows through the meter . The downstream valve includes a ball releasably engageable with the seat and a check spring disposed in engagement with the ball opposite the seat that urges the ball into engagement with the seat . The spring is configured to retain the ball in engagement with the seat within the range of pressure differentials measurable by the gauge .
FIG. 6
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Looking now at , in a reverse air flow mode where the pressure of the air at the outlet passage and flowing upwardly along the conduit and offshoot is much larger than the pressure of the air at the inlet passage and flowing into the gauge inlet passageway , i.e., is greater than the maximum for the gauge , the ball within the downstream valve is urged away from the seat by the pressure of the air in the conduit and offshoot because the air pressure exceeds the bias force of the spring . This enables the high pressure air flow from the downstream tap to enter both the chamber and the gauge inlet passageway and contact both sides of the diaphragm within the gauge . This ensures that the pressure differential across the diaphragm within the gauge will not exceed the limit for the gauge because the pressure acting on each side of the diaphragm is coming from the same source and should be at the same pressure. Further, the high pressure air flows from the gauge inlet passageway through the second segment and into the first valve wall . In the wall , the air contacts the diaphragm and ball to urge the diaphragm and ball away from one another. Once the stem of the diaphragm separates from the ball , the high pressure air can flow upwardly through the hollow stem and into the chamber to relieve any pressure building that may occur in the gauge inlet passageway .
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In operation, after connecting the gauge to the compressed air system, compressed air flows into the tube through the inlet passageway . The air flow is sampled at the upstream tap . The sampled air travels through the upstream tap and through the upstream safety valve to contact one side of the diaphragm contained within the low pressure gauge . The unsampled air flow travels through the throat orifice of the tube , which increases the velocity of the air flow while also reducing its pressure. The air flow is then sampled again at the downstream tap located on the downstream side of the throat orifice . Air moves through the downstream tap into the chamber and contacts the low pressure side of the diaphragm within the low pressure gauge . In response to the pressure differential between the upstream and downstream air flow samples, the diaphragm moves within the gauge . This movement is then transferred to the rotating rod and arm that are connected to the diaphragm. The rotating rod, connected to a geared movement through a linkage system, moves the shaft and in turn, drives the needle over the scale to generate an air flow rate reading.
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The flow gauge described herein has a rugged construction and can be incorporated in a spray finishing system to measure flows produced over a wide range of pressures. The flow gauge is of simpler construction than flow gauges heretofore used and, therefore, can be manufactured and assembled at considerably lower cost than such conventional gauges. This factor will consequently decrease considerably the overall cost of an air flow monitor. The flow gauge described herein is particularly useful monitoring finishing components, which operate in pressure ranges without large pressure drops across the tube .
FIG. 9
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Referring now to , if it is necessary to provide a digital readout or value for the pressure differential measured by the flow rate meter , the gauge can also take the form of a digital pressure transducer . The transducer is positioned in the same location as the gauge in order to be in contact with the different air flows on opposite sides of the meter . The transducer provides a digital output signal that can be displayed on the transducer or transmitted to a separate monitor (not shown) that can be connected to an automated air flow controller capable of automatically altering the air flow through the system in response to the signal from the transducer .
It is understood that the various preferred embodiments are shown and described above to illustrate different possible features of the invention and the varying ways in which these features may be combined. Apart from combining the different features of the above embodiments in varying ways, other modifications are also considered to be within the scope of the invention.
The invention is not intended to be limited to the preferred embodiments described above but rather is intended to be limited only by the claims set out below. Thus, the invention encompasses all alternate embodiments that fall literally or equivalently within the scope of these claims. | |
Active School Travel (AST) emphasizes the importance of walking, cycling, and public transit. More students using ASST means less cars on the road, less pollution, improved safety, and increased physical activity.
Smart Commute Hamilton and the Hamilton AST Hub work to engage the community and schools in active and sustainable school travel initiatives.
The goal of is to facilitate a measurable shift in travel behaviour towards active and sustainable travel through:
- Policy change
- Infrastructure improvements
- Capacity building
- Education and awareness
- Get a School Travel Plan
- Request a bike rack for your school
Hamilton Active & Sustainable School Transportation (ASST) Charter
This charter serves to inform a long-term commitment to providing support, resources and training towards active and sustainable school transportation. We will work together to encourage safe, healthy and sustainable routes to school through our commitment to these ASST principles:
- Street design for comfort, convenience and safety for all users.
- Supportive land use and site planning.
- Personal and community safety.
- Partnership, collaboration and shared responsibility.
- A culture of active and sustainable transportation.
The City of Hamilton, Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, and Hamilton-Wentworth Catholic School Board are committed to AST as shown in the charters:
- HWDSB AST Charter (PDF, 2 MB)
- HWCDSB AST Charter (PDF, 2 MB)
Contact us
For more information contact:
Callaway Johnson
School Travel Planning Coordinator
City of Hamilton
Email: [email protected]
- Date modified: | https://www.hamilton.ca/streets-transportation/smart-commute/smart-commute-schools |
Develop a performance improvement plan by working with the employee to define deficiencies in his performance, define attitudes that can best improve the deficiencies and set priorities for areas to be improved. Follow up with periodic reviews of areas identified as needing improvement.
- Define performance issues
Work with the employee to list areas where performance is below par. These areas can include behavioral issues or lack of particular skills.
- Explain the expectations
Explain to the employee the expected performance level. List the changes that need to be made for the employee to meet the employer's expectations. The expectations serve as standards against which performance is measured.
- Establish priorities, goals and time lines
Prioritize the critical areas that need to be addressed. Encourage the employee to make realistic improvement goals, and then set deadlines for meeting those goals.
- Develop a method of evaluation
Work with the employee to determine how and when his performance is going to be reviewed. Schedule periodic meetings to review challenges and successes that occur between reviews.
- Review the performance improvement plan with the employee
Review the plan with your employee to make sure he understands it. Explain the consequences of his failure to meet improvement goals. Have the employee and his supervisor sign copies of the plan. | https://www.reference.com/business-finance/develop-performance-improvement-plan-c084738611c279cb |
"Pursuing knowledge, is, indeed, an all encompassing endeavour, in fact, an exceedingly active life. If talking about 'science', you are speaking, at the same time, about pains, patience, tenacity, perseverance, sacrifice, honesty - all these are components not only of an active life, but of the moral life as well."
President Masaryk´s view of knowledge and science (from the book "Talks with T. G. Masaryk" by Karel Čapek).
Education, research and innovation are basic pillars of the development of contemporary society. The trust in research rests on the trust in the integrity of researchers and the reliability of results of their scientific work. The outcome and interpretation of their research can be verified by the scientific community, but cannot be verified by the public for which the new knowledge is intended. Therefore, if science is to remain trustworthy, researchers must observe basic moral principles in their work, and must be people of integrity and honesty. The Code of Ethics for the CAS researchers (Articles I. – V.) includes framework principles of good conduct in science, seeking to support desirable moral standards in academic research.
m. does not hesitate to notify the relevant authorities of violations of ethics in scientific-research work, if aware of them.
h. presents the results of his/her research which are not subject to confidentiality to the scientific public and acquaints the general public with them only after the results have been published in the scholarly press.
e. avoids partitioning acquired results and knowledge intentionally to publish them in multiple journals thereby increasing the number of his/her scientific papers.
g. deduces consequences from a possible scientific misconduct of his/her colleagues.
f. observes objective criteria in evaluating and opponent procedures, adheres to the contractor´s rules and requires the same adherence from the other participants of the procedure.
The following are considered to be conduct incompatible with the fundamentals of ethical conduct in science: fraud, forgery, plagiarism, falsification, distortion, deliberate deception and theft, namely in any phase of the process of scientific-research work from the plan to the publication of the results.
c. in cooperation with all parties involved, the highest possible protection of privacy is observed. A report on the resolution of the dispute must be circulated to all participants and must include measures leading to rectifying the problem if the violation of the ethics of scientific conduct was involved. In justifiable cases, the provision of Article 65 of the Statutes of the CAS, or the respective regulation of the labour code may be employed. | http://www.avcr.cz/en/about-us/legal-regulations/code-of-ethics-for-researchers-of-the-czech-academy-of-sciences/index.html |
Implantation bleeding is one of the earliest symptoms of pregnancy. But the best way to confirm if pregnant or not is to take a pregnancy test after implantation.
A blood pregnancy test gives a positive result 3-4 days after implantation. A urine based pregnancy test gives a positive pregnancy result 4-5 days after implantation has occurred.
If counting from ovulation or conception date, blood test can detect pregnancy 10 - 11 days after conception. While urine test detect pregnancy 12-14 days after conception.
There are various types of pregnancy test, some are more sensitive than others.
Getting a positive pregnancy test after implantation is dependent on 2 factors:
- Your level of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin(HCG)
- The sensitivity of the pregnancy test
How Implantation WOrks
Implantation is the process by which the fertilised egg attaches itself to the lining of the uterine walls.
Implantation usually occurs 6 to 12 days after conception.
You can only get a positive test after a successful implantation.
Ovulation happens around day 12-day 16 of the menstrual cycle.
When a matured egg is released during implantation, it can only survive for 12-24 hours.
If the egg is fertilised by a sperm, conception occurs.
The fertilised egg starts to divide rapidly into multiple cells as it travels down the fallopian tube slowly.
It takes the fertilised egg 6 -7 after conception to get to the uterus(womb).
The next step for the blastocyst is to attach itself to the walls of the uterine lining in other to grow and develop.
After a successful embryo implantation. The embryo will divide into 2 different parts: Placenta and fetus. The role of the placenta is to supply essential nutrients to the growing baby.
After implantation, the placenta produces a pregnancy hormone called HCG.
HOW LONG AFTER IMPLANTATION DOES HCG RISE
HCG level doubles every 48 -72 hours after implantation. It will continue to rise until week 10 -12 of pregnancy. It then drops off after that to remain at a constant level.
Here is a guideline of what HCG level by pregnancy week should be:
HCG levels under 5mIU/ml gives a negative test result.
By week 5 of pregnancy (from your last menstrual period), HCG levels should be between 18 - 7340 mIU/ml.
Implantation Bleeding Negative pregnancy test
It is possible to have brown spotting or light spotting before your period and still get a negative pregnancy test.
This could happen if you didn't wait long enough before testing. A false pregnancy test happens if you test for pregnancy too early before HCG level is high enough to be detectable by most urine or HPTs.
It is generally recommended to wait a week after a missed period before testing.
HOW LONG AFTER IMPLANTATION DOES BLEEDING OCCUR
Implantation bleeding occurs around 6- 12 days after ovulation. This is around a week to a few days before your expected period.
Not all women experience implantation bleeding. So you may still be pregnant and not have any form of spotting before your period is due to start.
Can you take a pregnancy Test when you have implantation bleeding
Don't take a pregnancy test immediately you see implantation bleeding. Wait a few more days or a week after a missed period to test.
Taking a pregnancy test during implantation bleeding can yield a false or negative test result. This is because the pregnancy hormone produced by the placenta after implantation isn't high enough to be picked up by early pregnancy detection test.
Two weeks after implantation bleeding negative pregnancy test
There are many reasons for a negative pregnancy test.
Some of the common reasons are:
- You are pregnant but your pregnancy hormone is not high enough
- You are not pregnant, you had light spotting before period for other reasons
- The pregnancy test is not working properly
- There is something wrong with your pregnancy
If I have implantation bleeding will pregnancy test be positive
It takes about 2 -3 days after implantation for most sensitive pregnancy test such as with the first response test to be able to detect pregnancy.
If you have a negative test result after implantation, It is because your HCG level is not high enough. Wait a couple of more days to test. | https://conceivesuccess.com/how-soon-after-implantation-can-i-take-a-pregnancy-test/ |
Exile has millions of faces in the 21st century. Uprooted gathers their stories: each and every one a unique tale deserving of an audience. Sad as it is, the mere existence of this community is encouraging and inspiring. Presenting their problems to a wider audience is a necessity, a political intervention in a changing world.
'Exile is a dream of a glorious return. Exile is a vision of revolution […] It is an endless paradox: looking forward by always looking back. The exile is a ball thrown high into the air,’ writes Salman Rushdie in The Satanic Verses, the book that drove him into exile.
Every day, many leave their homelands for political, economic, or social reasons. Exile is nothing less than brain drain, impoverishing the land left behind of invaluable knowledge and experience.
As a member of this community, Turkish journalist Can Dündar meets people living in this endless paradox, reorganizing their lives under the most challenging conditions, experiencing loss, and encountering new opportunities.
Not only is this platform a gathering of diverse voices, but it also is an opportunity for the people of the host countries to take a more humanistic look at the notorious refugee problem.
What you will read here are scenes from Can’s encounters: portraits, conversations, observations, outcries, personal memories, and artistic works from the exile community of our time.
Turkish journalist Can Dündar has been living in exile since July 2016.
In 2015 he was arrested after his newspaper Cumhuriyet published evidence of Turkey delivering weapons to Syrian jihadists. The recipient of many international press and freedom awards, Dündar is one of the leading figures of Reporters Without Borders’ Information and Democracy Commission, and the editor-in-chief of exile radio station Özgürüz ('We Are Free').
Subscribe to UPROOTED to receive our stories direct to your inbox.
And please become a member of UPROOTED if you can, to enable this project to stay open and accessible to everyone.
Thank you. | https://steadyhq.com/en/canduendar-uprooted/about |
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By Karen Bong
KUCHING, Dec 11: Building in the field of sustainable development including hydropower is not just a matter of the cost or the availability of the technology, focus must also be given to fulfilling social obligations towards communities who actually contributed to make it possible.
Minister of Utilities Datuk Seri Dr Stephen Rundi Utom emphasised the importance of understanding the impacts of development on people and thus the need to ensure social sustainability to attain the best outcome possible.
“When looking into developing hydropower, it is not only in dollar and cents, not just technology, but the social part of it, the obligation to the people who actually contributed to make it possible for us to build such a huge dams.
“This is very important because as a responsible government, we must make sure that development programmes must strike a balance to support economic growth, environment, social development, bettering livelihood and so on, in a holistic approach,” he said.
He highlighted this when closing the Sustainability and Renewable Energy Forum (SAREF) 2019 at Borneo Convention Centre Kuching (BCCK) here today.
With the expansive state of Sarawak currently housing four hydrodams, mostly in the rural areas, he pointed out there was a need to ensure positive transformation, including socio-economic aspects and improving standards of living of people affected by hydrodam development.
Addressing the SAREF 2019 earlier on, he noted that Sarawak could not escape the impacts of climate change on water-related sectors such as water supply, forestry and power generation mix, which will continue to be predominantly renewable hydropower.
“With the change in the magnitude and intensity of rainfall and associated increase in extreme flood and drought events, we have identified and included these considerations in our strategies and masterplans for water supply and energy development.
“SAREF is a crucial platform to drive discourse on available solutions. All stakeholders must play their parts,” he said.
Rundi also assured that Sarawak fully embraced the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) calling for the cooperation of the public sector, private sector and civil society to contribute towards global sustainability agenda.
“As such, the discussions on how the energy industry, the business sector and civil society can move forward in building a sustainable energy future while helping to meet the UN SDGs has been beneficial as has been the viewpoints from experts and champions of sustainability,” he added.
Since 2010, Rundi said that Sarawak has reduced dependence on fossil fuel generation towards a low carbon economy through renewable hydropower development as a catalyst to drive Sarawak’s next wave of economic growth.
“Sarawak began the transition to renewable energy before the world woke up to the climate change crisis and will continue to harness hydropower potential to power growth, balancing this with indigenous coal and gas for security. | https://dayakdaily.com/rundi-ensure-social-sustainability-in-development-of-hydrodams/ |
GOAL: By 2020 government and donors have integrated ecological approaches into their strategies for responding to climate change, and CSA has supported the maintenance and restoration of ecosystem services, particularly water catchments and habitat linkages for optimal flora and faunal persistence, through the empowerment of private and communal land stewards in three mega corridors.
Climate change is one of the greatest environmental issues of our time. Without decisive action climate change will cause extinction of countless species, destroy some of the world’s most precious ecosystems and devastate human livelihoods.
We, therefore, need to act quickly and take advantage of existing solutions to prevent irreversible damage to our planet.
Natural ecosystems provide significant opportunities to cut emissions dramatically and to preserve the adaptive potential of our biosphere. Through our nature-based approach, CSA is demonstrating the important role that these ecosystems can play in mitigating and adapting to climate change impacts.
In response to the enormous challenge that climate change poses for South Africa, its people and its biodiversity, CSA is rolling out a number of Climate Change initiatives. | https://www.conservation.org/global/ci_south_africa/our-initiatives/building-resilience-climate-change/pages/overview.aspx |
Fire protection engineering, sometimes called fire engineering, is the process through which buildings and other structures are designed to withstand fire and keep occupants safe. Fire protection engineering involves the application of scientific principles and engineering analysis, within the constraints of a regulatory framework, to design the fire protection and life safety systems of buildings and other structures.
Reax Engineering Inc. fire experts have extensive experience in fire protection engineering design of buildings and other structures, including the following:
Fire Modeling for Building Design
Computer fire modeling has become an integral part of fire protection engineering and building design.
Smoke Control System Design
Smoke control systems keep building occupants safe from smoke generated during unwanted fires.
Structural Fire Engineering
Structural Fire Engineering is the application of heat transfer and structural principles to analyze the thermal and structural response of buildings in fire.
ASET/RSET Analysis
For the performance-based design of smoke control systems, and atrium smoke control systems, in particular, an ASET/RSET analysis is usually conducted.
Wildfire Risk Mitigation
Wildfire risk mitigation is the use of engineering principles in conjunction with an analysis of geospatial data to strategically protect property and valued assets from exposure to wildfires. | https://reaxengineering.com/fire-protection-engineering/ |
We are seeking an experienced and professional Retail Area Manager to join our retail team.
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Trade Counter Sales
Brighton tools and fixings are looking for a new member of staff to join their trade counter sales team.
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Retail Assistant Shop Manager - Storrington
Would you like to work for a much loved local hospice charity in a busy, vibrant shop?
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Merchandiser
We are currently looking to build a team of experienced merchandisers to work within a major supermarket chain, supporting the store development an... | https://www.lovelocaljobs.com/jobs/retail-/sales/ |
The Dhamma Brothers is a film that chronicles what happens when two Buddhist teachers enter Alabama’s tough William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility to teach prisoners an ancient meditation technique called Vipassana. In this update, find out how many prisoners have taken the Vipassana program since the filming. Plus, former inmate Charles Ice shares how meditation has given him a sense of peace since leaving prison.
The Dhamma Brothers
The Dhamma Brothers tells a dramatic story of human potential and transformation as it closely follows and documents the stories of a group of prisoners as they enter into this arduous program. It will challenge assumptions about the very nature of prisons as places of punishment rather than rehabilitation. Despite the difficulty in obtaining permission to film inside a prison, the Alabama Department of Corrections allowed a film crew to document, not only the Vipassana program, but many other scenes and settings revealing the daily lives of prisoners and staff.
Before the Vipassana retreat, the men openly express fear and trepidation, wondering what they will find when they look deeply within and face the consequences of past actions and trauma. They are shown packing their scant belongings and preparing for the journey inside, a very short walk down the prison corridor but a sea change in their lives as prisoners. We observe the transformation of the prison gym, a frequent site for violent battles among inmates, into a monastery, a separate, restricted place in which the inmate students can eat, sleep, and meditate in total seclusion from the rest of prison society.
The Vipassana teachers, Bruce and Jonathan, prepare to live and meditate with the inmates. Teachers and inmates, men from culturally different worlds, are locked together in a dramatically revealing process. This is, most likely, the first time non-inmates have ever lived among inmates inside a prison.
Seated on meditation mats on a red rug donated by the Warden, wrapped in navy blue blankets, the men sit still in silence as they journey inside. Their days are punctuated by a strict daily routine of eating, sleeping and meditating.
After the Vipassana retreat, the men tell their tales of pain and self-discovery. The spiritual warriors of Donaldson Correctional Facility discuss their collective experiences and vow to try to maintain their nascent sense of solidarity. In the nameless, faceless anonymity of prison life, where daily life is organized around social control and punishment, Vipassana has offered an alternative social identity based on brotherhood and spiritual development.
The stories of the men at Donaldson Correctional Facility are those of the unseen, unheard, and underserved. This film shines a spotlight upon society’s outcasts and untouchables as we witness them on their Odyssean journey into their misery to emerge with a sense of peace and purpose.
Learn more about the film at – www.dhammabrothers.com
Doing Time, Doing Vipassana
Winner of the Golden Spire Award at the 1998 San Francisco International Film Festival, this extraordinary documentary takes viewers into India’s largest prison – known as one of the toughest in the world – and shows the dramatic change brought about by the introduction of Vipassana meditation. In giving Doing Time, Doing Vipassana its top honour, the jury stated that:
“it was moved by this insightful and poignant exposition on Vipassana. The teaching of this meditation as a transformation device has many implications for people everywhere, providing the cultural, social and political institutions can embrace and support its liberating possibility.”
___________
Winner of the 1998 NCCD Pass Awards of the American National Council on Crime and Delinquency. A distinguished panel of experts found Doing Time, Doing Vipassana to be worthy of recognition and deserving of special acclaim:
“..The National Council on Crime and Deliquency is honored to recognize your excellence in communicating the complex problems of crime to the American people. We hope this award will serve as a constant reminder that your work can make a difference..”
Be sure to view the entire film – catch all 4 segments post on Youtube.
Vipassana
Just returned from a 5-day work period and before that, a month ago, a 3-day sit, at the Ontario Vipassana Centre – an amazing retreat for working on you. The meditation technique was introduced to me by a good friend, Karen King, early last year. And it has literally changed my life – living and eating healthier, more conscious, and not taking everything to the panicked extremes I usually do. Guess that’s all part of life’s process anyway. But Vipassana let’s you see it as it is – as it really is. | https://www.lenhenry.com/tag/vipassana/ |
GTTA president Godfrey Munroe (left) receives his association’s support from Director of Sport, Steve Ninvalle
THE National Sports Commission (NSC) recently presented the Guyana Table Tennis Association (GTTA) with $1M, which will go towards Guyana’s participation at the Pan American Senior Table Tennis Championships.
The GTTA will be sending a six-member team to the event that is set for Lima, Peru, from November 13 to 19.
According to GTTA, Guyana’s men’s and women’s teams have gained qualification to the Pan American championships as a result of the team’s performance, ranking and participation in key events regionally.
The GTTA will make an announcement on the squad in the coming days.
Director of Sport, Steve Ninvalle, said, “The NSC’s support stems from a request for support from the GTTA and the Commission voted to extend a hand relating to assisting with a grant of $1M.”
Ninvalle pointed out that the NSC will continue to assist the country’s sports associations and athletes in their quest for development.
“With the restart of competitions occurring globally in the sport and with world-ranking becoming a major factor in determining qualification for key events, given the COVID-19 pandemic, Godfrey Munroe, president of the GTTA, pointed out “it has become critical that our association is able to have our players participate in key competitions and training camps as a means of having our players continue to gain the requisite exposure and preparation in view of positioning them to gain world-ranking points.
“Munroe said that this will “maximise our chances of qualification and success at key international competitions and games while improving our trajectory at key and major international competitions.”
Further the Pan American championships will be used to select the teams for the World Table Tennis championships in Chengdu, China, in March of 2022, the teams for the Pan American Cup among other key competitions, in addition to obtaining world-ranking points being key in selecting participating teams for the 2022 Commonwealth Games,” Munroe highlighted.
The GTT president stressed that will change the tennis landscape, mostly because of COVID-19, “It has therefore become absolutely critical and imperative that Guyana attend these championships in order to have team gain the necessary ranking points, in order to stay ahead of key teams regionally, so as to be able to gain qualification spots for Commonwealth Games, World championships and maintain our trajectory.” | |
The applicant requests Design Review and Tree Removal Permit approval to construct a new 3-story 4,454 square foot residence and a 613 square-foot attached garage on a vacant lot in San Rafael. The new residence would consist of 5,067 square feet of total building area and 4,527 square-feet of total floor area, which would result in a floor area ratio of 20 percent on the 22,199 square-foot lot. The proposed building would reach a maximum height of 40 feet above surrounding grade. The garage is proposed to be located 8 feet from the northern front property line and 8 feet 5 inches from the western side property line. The house is located 23 feet 9 inches from the northern property line, 8 feet 5 inches from the western side property line, 71 feet 9 inches from the eastern side property line, and 64 feet 7 inches from the southern rear property line. Two trees classified as “protected” as per the Marin County Development Code, are proposed to be removed to accommodate construction of the residence and associated site improvements.
Design Review approval is required pursuant to Marin County Code Section 22.42.020 because the project will result in total floor area that is greater than 3,500 square feet. A Tree Removal Permit is required because more than one “protected” tree is proposed to be removed. | https://www.marincounty.org/depts/cd/divisions/planning/projects/north-san-rafael/pirzadeh_dr_tr_p1813_sr |
Despite an increase in knowledge about the epidemiology of intimate partner violence (IPV), much less is known about interventions to reduce IPV and its associated impairment. One program that holds promise in preventing IPV and improving outcomes for women exposed to violence is the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP), an evidence-based nurse home visitation program for socially disadvantaged first-time mothers. The present study developed an intervention model and modification process to address IPV within the context of the NFP. This included determining the extent to which the NFP curriculum addressed the needs of women at risk for IPV or its recurrence, along with client, nurse and broader stakeholder perspectives on how best to help NFP clients cope with abusive relationships.
Methods
Following a preliminary needs assessment, an exploratory multiple case study was conducted to identify the core components of the proposed IPV intervention. This included qualitative interviews with purposeful samples of NFP clients and community stakeholders, and focus groups with nurse home visitors recruited from four NFP sites. Conventional content analysis and constant comparison guided data coding and synthesis. A process for developing complex interventions was then implemented.
Results
Based on data from 69 respondents, an IPV intervention was developed that focused on identifying and responding to IPV; assessing a client's level of safety risk associated with IPV; understanding the process of leaving and resolving an abusive relationship and system navigation. A need was identified for the intervention to include both universal elements of healthy relationships and those tailored to a woman's specific level of readiness to promote change within her life. A clinical pathway guides nurses through the intervention, with a set of facilitators and corresponding instructions for each component.
Conclusions
NFP clients, nurses and stakeholders identified the need for modifications to the existing NFP program; this led to the development of an intervention that includes universal and targeted components to assist NFP nurses in addressing IPV with their clients. Plans for feasibility testing and evaluation of the effectiveness of the IPV intervention embedded within the NFP, and compared to NFP-only, are discussed. | https://experts.mcmaster.ca/display/publication911542 |
Since the Midspan Study began in 1964 there have been over 200 research papers directly using the Midspan data published in a wide variety of peer-reviewed scientific journals. The majority have been produced in the last twenty years and cover an extensive range of topics - medical, scientific, sociological, psychological and epidemiological. In addition there are published abstracts following on from presentations given worldwide.
The publications are listed either by year of publication or according to topic. Key findings provide more details about what a particular paper has shown on the topic.
Full text of recent publications, subject to publishers’ agreement, is freely available to all via the University of Glasgow’s online repository, Enlighten. | https://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/healthwellbeing/research/publichealth/midspan/publications/ |
On the 24th and 25th of April, the Fordham University will celebrate its “22nd Annual Fordham Intellectual Property Law and Policy Conference”. The event will gather renowned Intellectual Property experts, both from the private and public institutions.
Clarke, Modet & Cº has been invited to participate as speaker in a panel dedicated to Global Patent Developments. On April 24th, Thursday, Ms. Clara Pombo, Vice President of Clarke, Modet & Cº, will analyze the developments of Patent Law in Brazil.
The event programme will feature amongst others, Mr. Antonio Campinos, President of the OHIM (Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market) and Mr. Francis Gurry, General Director of the WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization).
Clarke, Modet & Cº participates as a speaker.
In the current edition, Mrs. Clara Pombo, Vice President of Clarke, Modet & Cº, will explore the current legal situation related to patents in Brazil covering:
Patent prosecution highlights
“The backlog” & expediting examination
ANVISA and prosecution of pharma & biotech patents
“Mailbox Patents”
Likewise, Mrs. Clara Pombo will provide insights on “green technologies”; what the accepted typologies are, the limited number of applications and the strategies to employ when registering them in Brazil. | https://www.clarkemodet.com/en/news-posts/clarke-modet-co-at-the-22nd-annual-fordham-intellectual-property-law-and-policy-conference-held-in-new-york-city/ |
The team here at St James all work towards this set of values. We use it as the backbone of every encounter at the surgery and we strive for our practice to be a caring practice that caters for the needs of all our service users.
I asked the team at St James to come up with ideas for a practice motto. There were many good suggestions, however we all voted and decided that this motto thought up by our Medical Secretary Sarah, sums up our practice ethos perfectly:
St James Surgery: Our Patients, Our Priority.
Our Practice Values Are:
- Caring, respectful, everyone matters
- Improving and developing
- Working together
- Quality, efficient and safe practice
- Fairness, equality, choice
Caring, respectful, everyone matters
Our patients are our priority. We treat our patients with dignity and we work hard to accommodate people’s individual needs. We are a practice that cares; our doctors and staff ensure everyone who comes to our surgery experiences good care and a professional service.
Improving and developing
We review our practices and services, and regularly discuss as a team how to improve. We offer our staff training and encourage development. We also learn from patient feedback and adapt where necessary.
Working together
We work with many other health organisations, public agencies, charities and services to ensure our patients are given choice and support. We also have a great team who empower and help one another by sharing learning’s and experience.
Quality, efficient and safe practices
As a practice we review patient cases and hold regular meetings to discuss processes and procedures in our practice. We encourage ideas and innovation. We review policies and procedures regularly to ensure we are a safe practice. We provide regular training for all our staff.
Fairness, equality, choice
Everyone who comes into contact with our service is treated with respect, and equality. We offer choice to our patients. | https://st-james-surgery.co.uk/practice-values |
We are committed to the principle of equal opportunity in education and employment. Please see MIT’s Diversity Statement and Nondiscrimination Policy for more information.
Faculty and Lecturer Positions
Assistant Professor or Associate Professor in Real Estate Finance (pre-tenure or tenured)
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the MIT Center for Real Estate (CRE), both located in MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P), seek applicants for a tenure-track or tenured faculty position in: Real Estate Finance.
The position: Full-time appointment at the level of assistant professor (tenure-track) or associate professor (without or with tenure), commensurate with the candidate’s qualifications.
Qualifications: Ph.D. degree required (or expected to complete the Ph.D. by the time of taking this position), as well as publications, teaching and research experience.
Due Date: Review of candidates will begin on November 1, 2022 and continue until the position is filled.
Staff Positions
Director of Industry Relations and Executive and Professional Education Programs
MIT Center for Real Estate (CRE or the Center) is an entrepreneurial and start-up environment consisting of a dynamic, multi-disciplinary and team-oriented group of faculty, staff and researchers and graduate students. The Center is known for its world-renowned graduate degree program, offering a Master of Science in Real Estate Development. The CRE is also a research center that includes four (4) world-class research labs: Sustainable Urbanization Lab, Real Estate Innovation Lab, Real Estate Price Dynamics Platform and Urban Economics Lab; as well as a hub and network of thought-leadership for our Industry Partners Program comprised of 30-35 global commercial real estate companies.
The person in this position will co-develop and implement the Major Initiatives of the MIT Real Estate Industry Research and oversee the Center’s Industry Partnership Program to build mutually beneficial relationships between the Center and companies in the real estate industry for the purpose of building the Center’s research programs and generating revenue for the Center. He/she will grow and supervise the Center’s Professional and Executive Education Programs, including Professional Certificate Program, CRE Online courses, and the CRE – Maastricht Global Real Estate Leadership Program.
Due Date: Open until position is filled.
Posted: 10/7/22
CRE Events Planning Associate
Position Overview:
Coordinates, organizes, and provides on-site event logistics technical and AV support to ensure MIT/ CRE classes and events are successfully executed. Position coordinates and provides both advance and day-of support for CRE faculty, staff, students, and partners with events, meetings, classes, workshops and conferences, including day-to-day support and support for major special events. This role manages multiple events with competing deadlines.
Principal Duties and Responsibilities
- For several major special events annually, independently coordinates and oversees event preparation, execution, and break down, including coordiating travel needs of speakers and participants; setting up, monitoring, and managing participant registrations; evaluating and reserving and managing services and event spaces; sending invitations, reminders, and confirming participants and attendees; and providing on-site AV and other event support.
- Coordinates and secures event spaces and staffing in advance and reserves/ schedules sites and services. Identifies, interviews and evaluates potential vendors and service providers and makes recommendations.
- Manages physical and online access for event participants, speakers and visitors, including advance- planning and the timely collection of information required for Tim Tickets, transportation, parking arrangements, space access and preparing.
- Evaluates needs and makes recommendations and implements changes and enhancements for future events based on feedback.
- Creates, maintains and distributes informational and instructional materials related to event venues, rates, catering and support options and AV and equipment-use.
- Conducts training sessions on the use of classroom and hybrid-events-related technology for 40+ students, 10-12 faculty and lecturers, and 12-15 staff and provides on-site support for in-person, hybrid, or fully remote events, seminars and programs. Proactively addresses issues as they arise and troubleshoots emerging problems on the event day.
- Processes requests for third-party AV services and provides on-site AV support, including setup of microphones, cameras, tablets, laptops, and other needed equipment and independently resolves AV and hybrid-classroom technology issues when they arise.
- Manages AV equipment inventories and reservation systems for CRE faculty, instructors, classroom assistants, and staff.
- As part of a team, coordinates and handles the setting up and breakdown of routine events, including catering and refreshments.
- Other duties as needed or required.
- This position involves frequent evening hours and occasional weekend hours.
- This is a one-year term position with a possibility of renewal.
Qualifications & Skills:
MINIMUM REQUIRED EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:
High school diploma or its equivalent; five years of related experience, including some knowledge of AV systems or a willingness to learn; 6-months experience with Zoom meetings and webinars. Must be able to provide excellent customer service; multitask; be on-time; and work independently under limited supervision.
PREFERRED EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:
Bachelor’s degree; five years of related experience including at least one year of comparable, high-demand, competing event and classroom support for both live online and in-person settings; AV-related work supporting courses and events, including setting up and managing in-person/ online hybrid events; and familiarity with MIT operations. Understanding of networked-based AV systems (installed, portable, and online). Posting content to WordPress, EventBrite, or other web-based event registration platforms.
The ideal candidate for this position will have excellent troubleshooting and customer-service skills; is a self-learner who is able to teach themselves systems by finding appropriate resources, reading instruction manuals, watching YouTube videos, and seeking out subject matter experts; takes excellent notes and can document processes in a clear and concise manner for themselves and for others. | https://cre.mit.edu/about/open-positions/ |
The facts are that having your ideas well thought out and a planning a good structure takes very little time and are as important as the bones in your body. It's possible that you may look good without a skeleton and with everything mixed up inside but getting the "body" of the writing to do what you want may be very difficult. When you learn the simple techniques and use them regularly, the results will be clear to you and your readers.
FirstBrainstorm
The process is very simple, begin by thinking of all of the ideas you would like to write about. If you have been given a writing assignment with a topic, think about the various ideas that you have on the subject.
As the ideas come to you, write them down. Don't worry about the English writing style, the quality of the ideas or the difficulties in writing about them, the goal here is to let your creativity work for you.
The next step is to edit your list. Be objective and realistic when you review your list. Eliminate the bad choices, those that will be too difficult, or boring, or not suitable for the assignment. Consider who will be your reading "audience" and what will be interesting for them.
When your list is short enough, choose the most interesting as the main idea for your writing. When you have the main idea, continue the brainstorming and develop a list of ideas that can be a part of the main topic. Once again, edit the list down to fit both the purpose and length of your planned writing.
Click Here for More Tips and Techniques on Writing Brainstorming
SecondOutline
This is the point where you must make your plan to communicate most effectively. Look at your list of ideas and determine what to say and when.
If you are writing a narrative (telling a story) or a process analysis (how to do...) the plan can be simple, start with the first event in the story and continue to the end.
When being informative with a definition or description the best place to begin may be with the information that will give the best, most general understanding of your chosen main idea.
The essay form for giving your opinion and being persuasive will usually require some additional thought and making some judgments about your reading audience. How are your examples, arguments and reasons for believing the way you do going to impact your reader? Whether you are writing one paragraph or a long essay, the best English writing style is to finish with the strongest, highest impact idea.
Beginning with the least effective and then building to the most persuasive point at the end is the surest way of convincing your readers that they should think carefully about your opinions and perhaps believe as you do.
Click Here For More Information On Writing Outlines
ThirdWrite
Then...if you have the time and motivation to make it better, rewrite if you think you can improve.
Look at Some Tips for Your Writing Style and "Personal Voice."
FourthProofread and Edit
Do this yourself if you have to but better still is to rely on a friend, another student or a teacher who is willing to help find errors that may have crept into the writing unnoticed and share their thoughts on what you have produced. Another "set of eyes" will almost always help your English writing style.
Also, please feel free to send us questions and your writing for proofreading and editing by going to our
Ask a Question
page or the
Free Proofreading
page. | https://www.english-editing-express.com/english-writing-style.html |
All undergraduate majors include at least 24-credit hours at the upper division (at least 300-level).
North Campus
Buffalo, NY 14260-1500
Dr. John Cerne
Director of Undergraduate Studies
[email protected]
All undergraduate majors include at least 24-credit hours at the upper division (at least 300-level).
Completion of the major concentration (including the required education courses) provides a strong foundation in content knowledge and a head start on education coursework required for an Initial Teacher Certificate to begin teaching in grades 7-12 in New York. Students must successfully complete the graduate-level initial teacher education program within the Graduate School of Education. It is then possible to complete, within the state-mandated five years, the master's degree required for a Professional Teacher Certificate, provided all New York State requirements have been successfully completed.
SUNY Seamless Transfer is a SUNY-wide program intended to make transferring to UB and other SUNY Schools simple and efficient for SUNY students. SUNY has defined courses that SUNY students can take before transferring which will apply to the major at UB and ensure timely graduation.
Information about the Transfer Path for this major can be found on the SUNY Website. Students are encouraged to contact their academic advisor or department to discuss how their coursework will apply to their degree.
CEP 400 Educational Psychology or ELP 405 Sociology of Education
CHE 101 General Chemistry I
CHE 102 General Chemistry II
CHE 113 General Chemistry I Lab
CHE 114 General Chemistry II Lab
LAI 350 Introduction to Education
MTH 241 College Calculus III
MTH 306 Introduction to Differential Equations
PHY 207 General Physics III or PHY 217 Honors Physics III
PHY 208 General Physics IV
PHY 257 General Physics III Lab
PHY 307 Modern Physics Lab
Four 300/400-level PHY electives (excluding PHY 497, PHY 498, and PHY 499)
Education Electives (11 or more credits, at least 6 credits must be at the 300 or 400 level selected from among the list below)
Honors 3.250
High honors 3.500
Highest honors 3.750
Completion of senior thesis
|Credits Required for Major||75|
|Additional Credits Required for UB Curriculum||32|
|Additional Credits Required for Electives||13|
|Total Credits Required for Degree||120|
Students should consult with an academic advisor to determine how any transfer or exam credit might be utilized in meeting general education, prerequisite, or major requirements.
See Baccalaureate Degree Requirements for general education and remaining university requirements.
Total Credit Hours Required represents the minimum credits needed to complete this program, and may vary based on a number of circumstances. This chart should not be used for financial aid purposes. | https://catalog.buffalo.edu/academicprograms/physics_ba_-_prep_for_tch_sciphysics_requirements.html |
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410 books of Jacob Abbott
Darius the Great
Darius I (Persian: داريوش بزرگ , Old Persian: Dārayava(h)uš; 550–486 BCE) was the third king of the Achaemenid Empire. Also called Darius the Great, he ruled the empire at its peak, when it included much of West Asia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, parts of the Balkans (Bulgaria-Romania-Pannonia), portions of north and northeast Africa including Egypt (Mudrâya), eastern Libya, coastal Sudan, Eritrea, as well as most of Pakistan, the Aegean Islands and northern Greece/Thrace-Macedonia. Darius ascended the throne by overthrowing the alleged magus usurper of Bardiya with the assistance of six other Persian noble families; Darius was crowned the following morning. The new king met with rebellions throughout his kingdom and quelled them each time. A major event in Darius's life was his expedition to punish Athens and Eretria for their aid in the Ionian Revolt and subjugate Greece. Darius expanded his empire by conquering Thrace and Macedon and invading Scythia, home of the Scythians, . . .
Alexander the Great
Alexander III of Macedon (20/21 July 356 – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was king of Macedon, a state in northern ancient Greece. Born in Pella in 356 BC, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16. By the age of thirty, he had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world, stretching from the Ionian Sea to the Himalayas. He was undefeated in battle and is considered one of history's most successful commanders. Jacob Abbott (November 14, 1803 – October 31, 1879) was an American writer of children's books.
Genghis Khan
According to Wikipedia: "Jacob Abbott (November 14, 1803 October 31, 1879) was an American writer of children's books. Abbott was born at Hallowell, Maine to Jacob and Betsey Abbott. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1820; studied at Andover Theological Seminary in 1821, 1822, and 1824; was tutor in 1824-1825, and from 1825 to 1829 was professor of mathematics and natural philosophy at Amherst College; was licensed to preach by the Hampshire Association in 1826; founded the Mount Vernon School for Young Ladies in Boston in 1829, and was principal of it in 1829-1833; was pastor of Eliot Congregational Church (which he founded), at Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1834-1835; and was, with his brothers, a founder, and in 1843-1851 a principal of Abbott's Institute, and in 1845-1848 of the Mount Vernon School for Boys, in New York City. He was a prolific author, writing juvenile fiction, brief histories, biographies, religious books for the general reader, and a few works in popular . . .
Margaret of Anjou
Margaret of Anjou (French: Marguerite d'Anjou) (23 March 1430 – 25 August 1482) was the wife of King Henry VI of England. As such, she was Queen consort of England from 1445 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471. She also claimed to be Queen consort of France from 1445 to 1453. Born in the Duchy of Lorraine, into the House of Valois-Anjou, Margaret was the second eldest daughter of René I of Naples and Isabella, Duchess of Lorraine. She was one of the principal figures in the series of dynastic civil wars known as the Wars of the Roses and at times personally led the Lancastrian faction. Due to her husband's frequent bouts of insanity, Margaret ruled the kingdom in his place. It was she who called for a Great Council in May 1455 that excluded the Yorkist faction headed by Richard, Duke of York, and thus provided the spark that ignited a civil conflict that lasted for over thirty years, decimated the old nobility of England, and caused the deaths of thousands of men, including her . . .
Pyrrhus
According to Wikipedia: "Pyrrhus or Pyrrhos (319/318 BC272 BC) was a Greek general and statesman of the Hellenistic era. He was king of the Greek tribe of Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house (from ca. 297 BC), and later he became King of Epirus (306-302, 297-272 BC) and Macedon (288-284, 273-272 BC). He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome. Some of his battles, though successful, cost him heavy losses, from which the term "Pyrrhic victory" was coined. He is the subject of one of Plutarch's Parallel Lives." | http://www.general-ebooks.com/author/139399-jacob-abbott |
Six ways to increase uptake of family planning
We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Health news every morning.
When France’s President Emmanuel Macron warned at the G20 heads of state meeting last summer that high fertility was a “civilisational” challenge acting as a brake on development in Africa, he was heavily criticised on social media.
Yet his message reflected the longstanding concerns of many observers over local growth, environmental damage and future global stability. It is particularly relevant for francophone western and central Africa, where the number of children per mother is as high as seven in countries like Niger.
Although rising populations can stimulate innovation and ideas, too many people risks undermining progress in other areas highlighted in the FT’s 50 Ideas to Change the World project, from economic growth and climate change remediation to political stability and health reform.
“There will be major pressures on urbanisation, and huge pressure to move to greener pastures,” says John May, a demographer specialising in Africa who is based at Georgetown University. “But there is not the enthusiasm you might expect for family planning. I’m not optimistic.”
As Nigeria’s former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, said recently at a discussion in London, some leaders across Africa argue for a pronatalist policy of maintaining and encouraging high birth rates: they claim the need to populate low-density parts of their countries for strategic reasons including security.
Rising family size in part reflects improved nutrition and health systems which have cut infant mortality, while in some parts of Africa it has yet to be followed by the classic “demographic transition” seen in other parts of the world where birth rates have fallen.
The result is rising pressure on land and ecosystems, helping trigger conflict and diluting the impact of economic growth. As Africa’s population expands sharply, there is also discussion about greater regional and inter-continental migration, itself sparking fresh tensions in other countries.
50 ideas to change the world
We asked readers, researchers and FT journalists to submit ideas with the potential to change the world. A panel of judges selected the 50 ideas worth looking at in more detail. The first tranche of 10 ideas are about meeting the challenges of a growing world population. The next 10 ideas, looking at solutions for growing energy and resource needs, will be published on January 8, 2018.
While there is no doubt that “birth control” has sometimes been coercive, as in the case of China’s one child policy or India’s forced birth control programmes in the late 20th century, modern discussion on family planning has focused on the rights of women to choose when, whether and how many children to have.
Early marriage of women reduces their chance to complete schooling, undermining the potential for development. Early and frequent childbirth carries health risks for young mothers and babies alike.
There were an estimated 134m women with “unmet demand” who wanted but were unable to obtain modern methods of contraception last year. “On the current trajectory we will not reach our targets,” says John Skibiak, director of the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition, an international partnership of public, private and non-governmental organisations seeking to safeguard access to reproductive health.
He warns that the prospect of reduced funding of programmes from donors including the US, which has already cut its support for the UN Population Fund (UNFPA), could cause backsliding after several years of progress. “It’s a real worry.”
Nonetheless, there are a number of innovations which offer the prospect of more effective and widespread family planning for women who seek it:
1. Reproductive technologies
There have long been efforts to develop new approaches to family planning, including male contraceptives. While women’s rights and wishes frequently still remain neglected, long-acting, slow-release injectable contraceptives offer greater potential to give them control. Recent products such as Sayana Press are both discreet and reduce the risk of supplies of more traditional, shorter lasting commodities running out.
2. Supply chains
New ways are being explored to pool the procurement of supplies across regions and countries, with donors providing guaranteed volumes to incentivise manufacturers to invest and produce at low cost. Tracking and partnering between public supplies and private distributors and retailers offers potential to reduce waste and cases where stocks run out. “When you increase supply, demand itself grows,” says Mr Skibiak. This approach is being tested out in a programme in Senegal.
3. Mobile phone outreach
Telephones have the potential to transform family planning. They can help monitor contraceptive supplies and improve distribution. Their wide availability, portability and privacy also mean they can provide advice targeting remote communities, and frequently excluded groups. A study in Rwanda, for instance, suggested young people need more information but often feel family planning services are for married couples and not designed for them. The programme experimented with sending young people information about sexual health via text messages.
4. Working with religious leaders
Some communities within leading faiths — notably within Christianity and Islam — are perceived to be resistant to family planning — as with Catholic objections to abortion. Yet many religious leaders are proving increasingly open to the argument that sexual and reproductive health for women is essential for community welfare. Fighting early marriage and encouraging spacing of children is becoming more accepted. The influence of clerics is pivotal in winning wider support for programmes. The UNFPA and other organisations, for example, are working with leaders in places such as Sokoto, Nigeria and in Chad to change attitudes.
5. Piggybacking with other services
Growing attention is being paid to the value of integrating contraceptive provision into other networks and services, allowing them to reach a larger group. Young mothers, for instance, may prove reluctant to visit a family planning office because of social pressures or simply inconvenience and cost. However, they are motivated to bring in their infants to clinics for vaccinations and more willing to seek contraception at that time. A project run by Care International in Benin, for example, found that when mothers were offered birth control at the same time as vaccinations for children, the uptake of both services increased.
6. Incentives
From microcredit in the Ivory Coast to phone credit vouchers in South Africa, “nudges” from policymakers and modest rewards can have a powerful influence on individual behaviour — whether through greater information on prevention of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases or the provision of contraception services. Marie Stopes, the UK-based reproductive health charity, ran a project in Madagascar distributing vouchers for family planning services via mobile phone. Projects like these have shown that even small cash payments to young women and their families — some unconditional, others linked to indicators such as a failure to become pregnant — can significantly reduce teen pregnancy, school drop out for early marriage, and infection.
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Promoted Content
The FT enlisted the help of readers, researchers and entrepreneurs to find 50 new ideas that will shape the world in the future.
The ideas address the challenges of a growing world population, resource scarcity, handling information as well as healthcare, and look beyond our planet to explore new frontiers and solve common challenges. | https://www-ft-com.ezproxy.cul.columbia.edu/content/12d24648-c565-11e7-b30e-a7c1c7c13aab |
Moving to carbon-free electricity by 2050 appears to be remarkably cheap: Geoffrey Heal: The Cost of a Carbon-Free Electricity System in the U.S.https://www.nber.org/papers/w26084: 'I calculate the cost of replacing all power stations in the U.S. using coal and gas by wind and solar power stations by 2050, leaving electric power generation in the U.S. carbon free. Allowing for the savings in the cost of fossil fuel arising from the replacement of fossil fuel plants this is roughly 55 billion annually. Allowing in addition for the fact that most fossil plants in the U.S. are already old and would have to be replaced before 2050 even if we were not to go fossil free, this annual cost is reduced to 23 billion...
Comments
Moving to carbon-free electricity by 2050 appears to be remarkably cheap: Geoffrey Heal: The Cost of a Carbon-Free Electricity System in the U.S.https://www.nber.org/papers/w26084: 'I calculate the cost of replacing all power stations in the U.S. using coal and gas by wind and solar power stations by 2050, leaving electric power generation in the U.S. carbon free. Allowing for the savings in the cost of fossil fuel arising from the replacement of fossil fuel plants this is roughly 55 billion annually. Allowing in addition for the fact that most fossil plants in the U.S. are already old and would have to be replaced before 2050 even if we were not to go fossil free, this annual cost is reduced to 23 billion... | |
function algebras on ∞-stacks?
fundamental ∞-groupoid in a locally ∞-connected (∞,1)-topos / of a locally ∞-connected (∞,1)-topos
derived smooth geometry
The concept of Euclidean space in analysis, topology and differential geometry and specifically Euclidean geometry is a fomalization in modern terms of the spaces studied in Euclid 300BC, equipped with the structures that Euclid recognised his spaces as having.
In the strict sense of the word, Euclidean space of dimension is, up to isometry, the metric space whose underlying set is the Cartesian space and whose distance function is given by the Euclidean norm:
In Euclid 300BC this is considered for ; and it is considered not in terms of coordinate functions as above, but via axioms of synthetic geometry.
This means that in a Euclidean space one may construct for instance the unit sphere around any point, or the shortest curve connecting any two points. These are the operations studied in (Euclid 300BC), see at Euclidean geometry.
Of course these operations may be considered in every (other) metric space, too, see at non-Euclidean geometry. Euclidean geometry is distinguished notably from elliptic geometry or hyperbolic geometry by the fact that it satisfies the parallel postulate.
In regarding (only) as a metric space, some extra structure still carried by is disregarded, such as its vector space structure, hence its affine structure? and its canonical inner product space structure. Sometimes “Euclidean space” is used to refer to with that further extra structure remembered, which might then be called Cartesian space.
Retaining the inner product on top of the metric space structure means that on top of distances one may also speak of angles in a Euclidean space.
Then of course carries also non-canonical inner product space structures, not corresponding to the Euclidean norm. Regarding as equipped with these one says that it is a pseudo-Euclidean space. These are now, again in the sense of Cartan geometry, the local model spaces for pseudo-Riemannian geometry.
Finally one could generalize and allow the dimension to be countably infinite, and regard separable Hilbert spaces as generalized Eclidean spaces.
Arguably, the spaces studied by Euclid were not really modelled on inner product spaces, as the distances were lengths, not real numbers (which, if non-negative, are ratios of lengths). So we should say that has an inner product valued in some oriented line (or rather, in ). Of course, Euclid did not use the inner product (which takes negative values) directly, but today we can recover it from what Euclid did discuss: lengths (valued in ) and angles (dimensionless).
Since the days of René Descartes, it is common to identify a Euclidean space with a Cartesian space, that is for the dimension. But Euclid's spaces had no coordinates; and in any case, what we do with them is still coordinate-independent.
Given two points and of a Euclidean space , their difference belongs to the vector space , where it has a norm
This real number (or properly, element of the line ) is the distance between and , or the length of the line segment . This distance function makes into an (-valued) metric space.
Given three points , with (so that ), we can form the ratio
which is a (dimensionless) real number. By the Cauchy–Schwartz inequality, this number lies between and , so it's the cosine of a unique angle measure between and radians. This is the measure of the angle . In a -dimensional Euclidean space, we can interpret as a signed angle (so taking values anywhere on the unit circle) if we fix an orientation of .
Conversely, knowing angles and lengths, we may recover the inner product on ;
and other inner products are recovered by linearity. (We must then use the axioms of Euclidean geometry to prove that this is well defined and actually an inner product.) It’s actually possible to recover the inner product and angles from lengths alone; this is discussed at Hilbert space.
Last revised on May 10, 2019 at 11:10:32. See the history of this page for a list of all contributions to it. | https://www.ncatlab.org/nlab/show/Euclidean+space |
The position is a 12-month, full-time, annually renewable position based on funding and performance starting September, 2019 or as soon as possible thereafter. Excellent benefits package including retirement, medical, dental, disability and life insurance. Complete benefits package can be viewed here: https://humanresources.umn.edu/benefits
Essential Job Duties:
1. Counsel and advise senior administrators, department heads, supervisors, and employees on human resource policies, procedures, and best practices.2. Develop appropriate systems to direct, coordinate, and supervise all human resource functions/activities affecting faculty, professional and administrative staff, Civil Service, and bargaining unit employees.3. Work closely with the Office of Academic Affairs to facilitate advertising, screening, and selection of faculty; participate in negotiating the University Education Association-Crookston (UEA) contract; serve on meet and confer committee; and participate in grievance proceedings/contract interpretation.4. Oversee employment services including recruiting, hiring, reassignment, and orientation of new non-student employees.5. Facilitate the development of a campus employment culture that recognizes, affirms, and helps all employees draw upon cultural, communal, and identity-based ways of knowing, being, and doing to achieve performance outcomes.6. Serve as internal consultant and resource to supervisors to promote a diverse and talented work force. Ensure EEO/AA and ADA policies are followed in hiring, promotion and employment practices.7. Interpret civil service rules, negotiated bargaining agreements, professional and administrative policies, employment law, and government regulations.8. Coordinate compensation policies, job classification processes, job re-classification and disciplinary action processes in consultation with the Office of Human Resources in the Twin Cities. 9. Function as a resource person to search committees to include provide or arrange for training, including implicit bias training, to committee members and advising search committees. 10. Develop and lead talent management functions such as promotion of mentoring programs, succession planning, supervisor training, and performance management.11. Facilitate and encourage participation by personnel in professional development programs and opportunities to increase skills, knowledge base, and competencies.12. Maintain appropriate contacts with supervisors, program directors, and employees in order to identify and resolve human resource issues.13. Perform employee relation functions such as coordinate the grievance process and serve on labor management committees.14. Assist employees with questions regarding retirement, health benefits, dental benefits, disability insurance, life insurance, pre-tax deductions, and other employee benefits, and refer to University of Minnesota Employee Benefits as appropriate.15. Facilitate special employee programs such as Employee Assistance Program, Professional Development funds, and other employee-centered programs.16. Serve as HRMS Key Contact person for the UMC campus.17. Serve as Designated Key Administrator (DKA) for the UMC campus regarding financial and operational misconduct.18. Supervise human resource support staff.19. Perform committee and work group assignments as assigned by Director of Finance.20. Actively engage campus, local, and regional communities and stakeholders as an agent and representative of the University.
Required Qualifications:• Earned bachelor’s degree in human resources or related field plus six years of professional human resource work experience.Preferred Qualifications:• Master’s Degree in Management, Human Resource Management, Business Management or related field.• Six years of professional experience directing human resource functions in a government or educational institution.• Experience facilitating training programs and/or directing workshops.• Accomplished record of working with diversity employees and building an inclusive work culture.• Excellent interpersonal, teambuilding and communication skills.
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Continue | https://hrjobs.hrci.org/jobs/12541958/director-of-human-resources-hr-consultant-um-crookston-campus |
IBM X-Force has reported a huge increase in COVID-19-related spam. Malicious domains have also rapidly expanded during the first quarter of 2020.
One of the key fundamental approaches for security is to ensure your security team can identify, investigate and respond to threats. We recommend mining network data to help identify potential vulnerabilities and understand the nature of the cybersecurity threats that have emerged during the crisis. This can help offset increases in phishing attacks targeting remote workers and users interested in COVID-19.
Enterprises need to gain visibility and control over company assets, including home office devices, so they can detect unusual behavior and take corrective actions. Vital clues exist in network traffic; all attacks utilize the network at some point. Visibility into network traffic allows you to uncover anomalies in normal user activities, which could be symptoms of malware attacks.
Today’s environment has brought in more remote traffic and unusual email communications from government agencies and third parties, so focusing on network traffic can still surface phishing attacks and enable your security operations teams to detect, investigate and respond.
Key actions to defend against these attacks are gaining visibility into the network traffic, monitoring user and network behaviors correlating to known threats across the enterprise. In many cases, security analysts have used different tools independently in order to gather relevant information and confirm there is a high risk threat attack under way. The speed of detection and response can be improved if these tools are integrated together to help guide the security administrator through an analysis.
The live webinar “Why APTs Can Be So Difficult To Find, Investigate, And Resolve” at 2 pm (EST) July 21, 2020, and at 9 am (EST) July 22, 2020, brings together security industry leaders from IBM, Gigamon and Endace to discuss effective approaches for quickly discovering advanced persistent threats (APTs) and confidently finding unalterable evidence of these complex threats.
The webinar will discuss how you can decrypt network traffic, correlate this traffic with user behavior analysis, gain insights into the attack and provide a fast investigation pivot into EndaceVision to investigate the network packets for detailed analysis.
Together, these technologies can:
Come see how they work together to provide the ability to quickly detect, investigate and respond to these threats.
Russ works in the technology partner program for IBM Security and drives technology alliances for IBM Security. Russ works on recruiting, go to market activi...
This post was written with contributions from Joseph Lozowski. Comprehensive incident preparedness requires building out and testing response plans that consider the possibility that threats will bypass all security protections. An example of a threat vector that can bypass security protections is “shadow IT” and it is one that organizations must prepare for. Shadow IT is the use of any hardware or software operating within an enterprise without the knowledge or permission of IT or Security. IBM Security X-Force responds…
You've heard all about shadow IT, but there’s another shadow lurking on your systems: Internet of Things (IoT) devices. These smart devices are the IoT in shadow IoT, and they could be maliciously or unintentionally exposing information. Threat actors can use that to access your systems and sensitive data, and wreak havoc upon your company. A refresher on shadow IT: shadow IT comes from all of the applications and devices your employees use without your knowledge or permission to get…
This post was written with contributions from Dave McMillen. So far 2022 has seen international cyber security agencies issuing multiple alerts about malicious Russian cyber operations and potential attacks on critical infrastructure, the discovery of two new OT-specific pieces of malware, Industroyer2 and InController/PipeDream, and the disclosure of many operational technology (OT) vulnerabilities. The OT cyber threat landscape is expanding dramatically and OT asset owners and operators, all of whom understand the need to keep critical infrastructures running safely, need to be aware…
An insidious issue has been slowly growing under the noses of IT admins and security professionals for the past twenty years. As companies evolved to meet the technological demands of the early 2000s, they became increasingly dependent on vulnerable technology deployed within their internal network stack. While security evolved to patch known vulnerabilities, many companies have been unable to implement released patches due to a dependence on legacy technology. In just 2022 alone, X-Force Red found that 90% of all…
Analysis and insights from hundreds of the brightest minds in the cybersecurity industry to help you prove compliance, grow business and stop threats. | https://securityintelligence.com/posts/threats-focus-on-fundamentals-network-security/ |
Brain Function: The Frontal Lobe and the Prefrontal Cortex
Numerous studies have shown that there are correlations found between brain function and violent behaviour. In order to fully understand these studies, it’s important to have a general understanding of some of the functions of these parts of the brain. The brain is labelled as having different “lobes”.
The frontal lobe is one of the “newer” parts of the brain, evolutionarily speaking. One important function of the frontal lobe is to regulate our impulsive decision making. It also lets us make long-term decision making in the sense that it allows us to foresee and imagine possible implications for our actions. It kind of acts like a “break” on our impulsive behaviour. So when you get really angry at your teacher and you want to curse but don’t because you know that it will get you in trouble, you have your frontal lobe to thank.
The impulsivity of young children can be explained through their still-developing frontal lobes. When learning about the brain, it’s always important to remember that brain function is complex and to avoid the allure of simplifying down to claims like “our frontal lobes control our behaviour.” Human behaviour is far too complex, as is the brain, for both to be boiled down to such a simple statement. A more accurate statement would be “our frontal lobes are associated with self-control.”
The prefrontal cortex is the area at the very front of the brain. The cortex refers to the dense outer layer of the brain where 90% of the brain’s neurons are.
One of the first and most famous studies of a man who had severe damage to his frontal lobe was that of Phineas Gage. Gage was a railroad worker who was putting dynamite into rocks while working with a team to lay tracks. As he used a six-foot bar to pound the dynamite powder into the rocks it ignited, essentially making the long steel pole a bullet that fired up through his left eye, through his skull and landed about 50ft away. Gage survived and was even conscious while he rode on the ox cart to the nearest town. As a result of the incident, Gage’s behaviour seemed to change as he went from being a rather mild-mannered man to “no longer Gage” as his friends said. This was in 1948 and Harow, the Doctor who treated Gage, made a few observations about the change in Gage’s behaviour that has made him one of the first and most famous cases that links brain damage to personality change.
Since Phineas Gage there have been heaps of studies into the correlations between brain damage, brain function and behaviour. With modern imaging technology (MRI’s, fMRI’s, PETs, etc.) researchers can investigate further connections between brain function and behaviour.
The biological correlates of criminal behaviour has been the subject of numerous studies. Time and again research has shown that there are common brain functioning and activity differences in criminals when compared with healthy and normal controls.
When researching these correlates it’s important to remember their general function, but not to oversimplify the biological processes underpinning human behaviour.
Studies have shown that there is a correlation between low functioning frontal lobes and violent behaviour. One study compared 279 Vietnam war veterans who had suffered head injuries that resulted in damage to areas of the brain with 57 healthy controls. The researchers hypothesized that the prefrontal cortex helps exert control over primitive reactions to environmental provocation. In other words, when something makes us emotional neurons in our prefrontal cortex fire (i.e. this part of the brain is active) and this helps to stop us from reacting in a violent or aggressive manner. Family observations and self-report forms were used to gather data on violent and aggressive tendencies in the participants. The researchers gathered data on a range of aggressive and violent attitudes and behaviours. The results showed that those veterans who had damage to their prefrontal cortex had higher levels of violence and aggression than the controls or veterans with damage to other parts of the brain. Verbal violence and aggression, as opposed to physical, was more commonly reported. The study found no correlation between the extent of the brain damage and behaviour, but instead found that “disruption to family activities” was more likely to cause aggressive and violent behaviours. (Graftman et al, 1996). In this study we can see that while the evidence suggests there are biological correlates of violence and aggression, there is still an environmental factor that is influential.
Read more about the brain and criminal behaviour at tutor2u.net. | https://ibpsych.themantic-education.com/2016/09/30/criminology-an-introduction/ |
The editors list advantages of this approach as promoting macroeconomic stability (because during a recession the publicly-funded scheme could expand), putting a floor under private sector wages (because in order to hire labour the private sector would need to pay more than the job guarantee programme would), encouraging skills enhancement through training provision attached to the guaranteed jobs, strengthening local economics, and promoting a ‘green economic’ system.
Chapter 2 suggests that a job guarantee programme could act as a brake on urbanisation, globalisation, economic growth, and social and economic change. Chapters 3 and 4, which are rather too alike, outline a ‘degrowth’ economy, and argue that a job guarantee program would ‘dissolve the contradiction between economic and ecological prosperity’ (p. 63), and chapter 4 additionally suggests a reduction in working hours, recognises that trades unions would need to be a lot stronger to achieve this, and offers no other mechanism for meeting the desire. Chapter 5 describes Iranian public works programmes, and unusually for this book calculates the cost; and chapter 6 finds in Buddhism the inspiration for a co-operative non-capitalist economy. Chapter 7 proposes a combination of local currencies, local taxes (payable in the local currencies), and local jobs that pay wages in the local currencies. Chapter 8 proposes a job guarantee for American Indians; chapter 9 suggests that a job guarantee fits nicely with conventional US politics; and chapter 10 offers a rather too long history of the Argentine economy and prescribes an employment guarantee programme as a means to economic stabilisation. Chapter 11 argues that a job guarantee programme ‘would animate the non-invidious re-creation of community, challenge the hierarchy which permeates social and economic relations, and facilitate an institutional adjustment toward a more inclusive provisioning process’ (p. 239) by challenging ‘the institution of ownership and the price system’ (p. 252).
A job guarantee is sometimes proposed as an alternative to a Citizen’s Basic Income. There are at least two significant differences: a Citizen’s Basic Income would offer much that a job creation scheme would offer because it would increase employment incentives and would create a more efficient employment market, whereas a job guarantee would not pay a Citizen’s Basic Income; and whereas a job guarantee will always be expensive and difficult to administer, a Citizen’s Basic Income would not be.
This debate needs to be had. | https://citizensincome.org/book-reviews/murray-and-forstater-eds-full-employment-and-social-justice/ |
This piece of work comprises of a 4,000 word essay based upon the topic of change identified in your formative assessment. You should develop an evidenced-based plan of implementation for the change you are proposing. The assessment criteria for this coursework are outlined below and these are linked to the learning outcomes for the module. Each criterion is weighted and will contribute to the overall percentage of your mark. In preparing to write this essay you also should consult with the Master’s Level Matrix.
Criteria
Introduction
Your introduction should clearly identify your aim and chosen topic for change and provide a brief structure for your essay.
You should contextualise, from a leadership perspective, your justification for the planned change within a defined professional practice setting and evaluate the associated internal and external drivers.
why this is important?
/15%
Discussion
You should demonstrate critical and evaluative discussion on managing an evidencebased planned change.
consider barriers and challenges.
/50%
You should outline how you plan to achieve your change.
Most marks are gained for this section.
Reflection
This section should demonstrate critical reflection of the proposed/actual processes associated with planning a managed change, and evaluate the professional learning which has occurred to inform the leadership role within the context of the defined professional/practice setting. You should conclude this section by setting SMART goals for your future development /20%
Conclusion
Your conclusion should briefly summarise the key points contained within your discussion and reflection sections /5%
Presentation
Overall, your essay should be presented in a structured, fluent, and coherent manner appropriate to this level of study, demonstrating the logical development of a reasoned argument, critical appraisal, evaluation of literature, and error-free referencing. /10%
Your essay should be supported by seminal and contemporary literature that has been critically evaluated.
References ( you should use at least 65 references and for the last 5 -10 year only )
Word Limit: 4,000 words
PLEASE FOCUS ON :
1-MAKE WORKSHOPS FOR HEALTH WORKERS TO BE AWARE OF RADIATION DOSE OPTIMISATION.
2- THE IMPACT OF RADIATION ON PEDIATRIC.
3-UTILISING THE ALTERNATIVE WAY TO DIAGNOSE PEDIATRIC PATIENTS.
4- IDENTIFY THE CURRENT PROBLEM AND WHAT IS OUTCOMES IF WE APPLY THE CHANGE.
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Our academic writers and editors will help you submit a well-structured and organized paper just on time. We will ensure that your final paper is of the highest quality and absolutely free of mistakes. | https://www.thehomeworkmarket.com/the-implement-of-alara-principle-in-ct-scan-departments-especially-for-pediat/ |
Thai Lesson: 12 Most Common Mistakes!
Mistakes are stepping stones to learning! We always encourage our students not to be afraid of making mistakes when they have a conversation with local people.
However, we as Thai language teachers would like to help you to speak Thai correctly.
Thai people always love to hear foreigners make an effort to speak Thai. We always encourage our students not to be afraid of making mistakes when they have a conversation with local people, we would love students to use the lessons they learn in real life. We believe mistakes are stepping stones to learning! | http://www.thaibis.com/Home/news/thailesson12mostcommonmistakes-1 |
Bowles was approached in February 2017 to help bring to life the 2-month modular Management Development programme at La Fosse Associates. This programme was designed specifically for their Future Business Leaders and delivered as a 4-day residential programme.
The challenge was for them to step away from what they are good at within their roles and to engage others to become successful.
The objectives of the programme
One overall programme objective was identified as Managing Self before being able to Manage Others. To achieve this the programme was designed to incorporate the following elements:
Managing Self
- Identify the difference between a sales/professional role and a first line manager role
- Develop an awareness that success in a first line manager role involves a shift in mindset: from “all about me” to “all about team”
- Describe how they want to be perceived as a manager and create their management brand
- Discover own and identify other’s preferred ways of working and communicating
- Recognise that the first line manager role involves a balance between completing your own tasks and managing your people
- Plan and prioritise tasks to hit daily, weekly and monthly objectives (Time Management)
Managing Others
- Use different approaches to motivate individual team members
- Identify the willingness and ability of team members to perform job tasks (Situational Leadership) and delegate accordingly
- Coach individuals to achieve their potential (GROW)
- Provide regular, constructive feedback to the individual about progress being made (AID Model)
- Practically apply coaching and feedback skills to run effective 121s
- Select appropriate strategies to help them handle challenging situations
Did the Bowles programme achieve these objectives?
The programme ended with a session aimed at cementing all learning and developing concrete action plans which were then copied to individuals’ Line Managers. This helped to ensure that they were all answerable to their own commitments.
The feedback received following the delivery of this programme clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of the activities and the subsequent debrief sessions. Delegates identified their own learning points and have successfully put them into practice back in the workplace. | https://bowles.rocks/learning-and-development/our-clients/la-fosse-associates/ |
Many perennials are increased by division or by seed but another easy method to propagate a range of perennials is to take basal cuttings in spring. Unlike stem cuttings where you tend to use the tips of the shoots, with basal cuttings you remove the first flush of growth as it emerges from ground level, hence the name basal! Herbaceous perennials such as lupins and delphiniums are traditionally taken this way and because you cut the new shoots close to the root, they usually root very easily. Other herbaceous perennials that can be taken this way include phlox, physostegia and lysimachia.
With some plants, when you cut the new shoot pushing through the soil, very often roots are already developing at the base of the stem, which guarantees success. Not all plants are ready at the same time, so keep an eye open and when the new shoots are just a few inches long you can take cuttings.
Other perennials that can be propagated now include evergreen types such as heuchera and some hardy geraniums. Shoots growing from ground level can be detached, trimmed with a knife and the lower leaves removed. These cuttings also root very easily, especially when placed in a propagator. Plants grown from cuttings will always be identical to the parent plant and of course, they’re for free! | https://www.gardennewsmagazine.co.uk/garden-jobs/2019/3/27/take-cuttings-of-perennials |
This post is going to be a little disjointed, as I want to cover two relatively independent topics. First, I would like to discuss the organizational readiness of Fanshawe College (my place of employment), leading into the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and then I will shift to how I intend to incorporate some new (to me) concepts of change leadership into my own practice going forward. I hope you enjoy the read.
Fanshawe’s Readiness for Change
While it’s still early to draw any definitive conclusions regarding the success of Fanshawe College’s shift to online and blended learning in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, I would like to illustrate how its organizational readiness for the change will likely have had an impact on the outcome. Weiner (2009) argued that the level of an organization’s change readiness has an impact on the likelihood of the success of the implementation of that change. He went on to indicate three main areas impacting organizational readiness, including Change Valence, Change Efficacy, and Contextual Factors. The Change Valence, or the value an organization’s members put on the need for the change, at Fanshawe was high due to the necessity of that change. Weiner observed that “the more organizational members value the change… the more resolve they will feel to engage in the courses of action involved in the change implementation” (p. 3). In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fanshawe College had no choice but to adjust to the change as a result of external forces demanding a response. In that way, Fanshawe’s members really had no choice but to implement the changes, as they were compelled to act and were highly motivated to see that change be successful. As far as Change Efficacy, Weiner defined this as “a function of organizational members’ cognitive appraisal of three determinants of implementation capability: task demands, resource availability, and situational factors” (p. 4). At Fanshawe, with the exclusion of sufficient time, we had many resources at our disposal, including knowledge, technical supports, and human resources. As far as task demands, for many this was an unknown, but Fanshawe was quick to respond and provide training for those who required it. Finally, in terms of Contextual Factors, Fanshawe quickly put policies and procedures in place that helped facilitate the change. One such example as reported by Theodore (2020) was the Fanshawe Experience Guarantee, which allowed students to defer their tuition to another year if they weren’t satisfied with their program delivery. This policy reduced the risk for students concerned about their ability to be successful in an online learning environment which undoubtedly increased registrations. Another element which provided a positive context in which change could be effectively implemented was a long history of success. Fanshawe College placed first in the province in terms of graduate employment rate, and above average in student, graduate, and employer satisfaction (“Key Performance Indicators”, 2019). This track record of success would have had an impact on the members’ confidence in their ability to realize a successful change implementation. All of these factors combined indicate Fanshawe College’s relatively high readiness for change. In time, it’s my opinion that we’ll likely see a correlation between Fanshawe’s high readiness for change and a successful implementation of the change from primarily face-to-face, to online and blended learning amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
Impacts of the Literature on Future Practice
Following my reading of the literature surrounding change management and leadership, I’ve recognized some similarities to my own approach, in addition to some lessons I can apply moving forward. To begin with, I see some overlap between my approach to change leadership and to what Biech (2007) identified as Theory O. Biech asserted that Theory O “attempts to build bridges between the organization and its employees, partially on the assumption that the involved employees will bond with the organization they have helped change” (p. 4). I’ve long felt that involving as many people in a change in policy or procedure as is reasonably possible is a positive approach. Not only do those participants feel more invested in the successful implementation when they were involved in its development, as Biech suggested, but the leader also benefits from a diverse list of perspectives and possible solutions. Additionally, some new ideas presented to me which I look forward to incorporating into my practice are Appreciative Inquiry and Understanding Organizational Cultural. Biech recounted that Appreciative Inquiry “identifies the best of “what is,” envisions “what might be,” discusses “what should be,” and implements the “what will be,” all from a positive, “appreciating” point of view” (p. 5). I love this positive and optimistic approach. However, I think one would need to be careful to only employ it from a place of genuine appreciation. Any attempt to fake this approach to simply appear to be optimistic would be easily identified as disingenuous and one would lose the engagement of their constituents. I also need to be wary of making sweeping organizational changes in the future, which I have a history of doing. Biech went on to indicate that “if the change is too different from the culture, it will create disconnects and be a continuing stumbling block for successful implementation” (p. 5). For this reason, I need to be conscious that future changes align well with the existing culture of my organization in order to get buy-in from my constituents. | https://malat-webspace.royalroads.ca/rru0162/change-readiness-and-leadership/ |
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The Lindell AC was Detroit’s original watering hole for athletes, entertainers, hometown heroes, blue and white-collar workers alike.
After opening in 1949, the bar became a hot spot for athletes and celebrities staying in the area.
Before long, sports enthusiasts began frequenting the bar to rub elbows with the likes of Mickey Mantle, Muhammad Ali, local favorite Norm Cash, comedian Milton Berle and actress Jayne Mansfield.
One of its most famous visitors was legendary wrestler Andre The Giant. It's well documented how much Andre could eat and drink in one night.
Watch the story of Andre The Giant's epic Detroit binge in the video player above. | https://www.clickondetroit.com/uniquely-detroit/2019/03/12/the-story-of-andre-the-giants-epic-detroit-binge/ |
Table of Contents:
BRICS de-Americanizing the Internet?
This chapter argues that, while the Internet continues to be dominated by the West, in particular the US, in terms of its infrastructure, economics and governance, this domination is increasingly being challenged by the BRICS countries, notably China, Russia and India. China already has the world’s largest Internet population, followed by India, primarily driven by mobile communications. As in the rest of the world, Russia, Brazil and South Africa, too, have witnessed a major expansion of online communication. With the world becoming increasingly mobile, networked and digitized, the question arises whether BRICS communication flows will help to pluralize and democratize information and communication agendas and create a new global communication order, leading to a de-Americanization of the Internet. The BRICS nations are playing a crucial role in this process, given their growing presence and assertiveness related to global cyber-issues, despite some strong divergences within the group. The chapter discusses the process of de-Americanization within five domains: infrastructure, commerce, regulation, weaponization and surveillance of cyber space, and the developmental dimensions of the Internet. In all five domains, the contributions of the BRICS nations are delineated, especially in relation to the dominant agenda setters for the Internet, namely the US and the digital corporations based there.
The infrastructure of the BRICS Internet
The BRICS nations in recent years have strengthened their digital infrastructure for the Internet, a key element contributing to the global digital supremacy of the US, the originator of the Internet (Aouragh and Chakravartty, 2016). From outer space to undersea cables, US-based companies continue to dominate Internet hardware.The growing privatization of global digital infrastructure by mainly US-based
‘space barons’ (Davenport, 2018) has contributed, for example, to the growth of the satellite industry: of the nearly 2,000 active satellites orbiting the Earth in 2019, the US accounted for 849, compared with China at 284, Russia with 152 and India at 57. Similarly, the exponential increase in fibre-optic submarine cables, through which 99 per cent of international data is transmitted, also has a strong US imprint on it, a fact which is resented by countries such as Russia and China (Starosielski, 2015). Major digital corporations - notably Microsoft, Google, Facebook and Amazon - are investing in undersea cables: in 2018 they owned or leased more than 50 per cent of the undersea bandwidth (Satariano, 2019). As the volume and value of global data surges, the storage and processing of digital data becomes a crucial component of infrastructure. Out of 4,422 co-location data centres, 80 per cent were located in developed countries, with the US alone accounting for about 40 per cent of the total (UNCTAD, 2019). Russia, for example, has pointed out that of the 13 root servers essential to the functioning of the global Internet, 10 are located in the US and the other three are ‘on the territory of US allies’ (Japan, the Netherlands and Sweden) (Nocetti, 2015: 121).
US infrastructure projects have strong governmental backing, including the US Global Positioning System (GPS), a vital element of the satellite communications infrastructure and a key part of the US government’s National Strategy for Space. However, some BRICS nations have supplemented if not replaced US domination of the hardware of digital communication. Russia, India and China have developed their own satellite navigation systems (GLONASS, NAVIC and BeiDou, respectively). China has ambitions to create a global system to rival the GPS, especially as the digital dimension of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is concerned with constructing ‘a China-centred digital Silk Road that ties neighbouring countries more closely to China through submarine, terrestrial, and satellite links’ (Shen, 2018: 2692).The country’s Hongyun satellite project,started in 2016,aims to build a space-based communications network to provide broadband Internet connectivity to users around the world, especially in developing countries. India has also established itself as a key player in the budget satellite business: in 2014, it launched Chandrayaan, a probe into orbit around Mars, on a cost of merely $76 million (see essays in Pillai and Prasad, 2017).
The BRICS nations have had limited success, however, in intra-BRICS infrastructure exchanges and cooperation (with the exception of the long-established Indo-Russian collaboration in space technology').The 2012 plan to create a 34,000 km ‘BRICS undersea cable’ network, which would have linked Fortaleza in Brazil, Cape Town in South Africa, Chennai in southern India, Shantou in China and Vladivostok in Russia, did not get beyond the planning stages (Zhao, 2015). If it had been built, it would have been a symbolic act of de-Americanizing the infrastructure of the Internet. The project demonstrated intra-BRICS tensions, which have increased especially in relation to BRI, despite its official discourse of achieving a ‘common destiny’ for humankind. A report by a leading defence-related think tank in India noted: ‘BRI’s overall expanse in general, and its growing control over the digital and space domain in particular, allows Beijing to bend this common destiny towards satisfying its own geopolitical, geo-economic and geostrategic ambitions’ (Lele and Roy, 2019: 56).
China is ahead of almost every other nation in terms of infrastructure for 5G technology, giving it mastery of its own industrial future and that of countries using its mobile services for the new Internet ofThings (loT) (DeNardis, 2020). With the world’s largest smartphone market and Internet population, 5G mobile network investments in China are projected to reach S405 billion by 2030. Privately-owned Huawei, the world’s largest telecoms equipment supplier, with an estimated 40 per cent global market share, is pushing for global 5G projects in 170 countries. China is also ahead of most countries in the field of Artificial Intelligence (Al): A Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan released in 2017, envisages China becoming ‘world-leading’ in certain Al fields by 2025 and evolving into the ‘primary’ centre for Al innovation by 2030.
To achieve this ambition, the Chinese government is working with its leading private corporations, the so-called BAT - Baidu (China’s biggest search engine), Alibaba (Chinese equivalent of Amazon) and Tencent (the country’s biggest social media platform) - to create its Al ‘national team’ (Jing and Dai, 2017). Digital entrepreneurs such as Kai-Fu Lee already speak of China as an ‘Al Superpower’ (Lee, 2018). Unlike China, India’s approach to Al is not so commercial, viewing it not only as a means for economic growth but also for social inclusion. In 2018, the country’s premier government think tank, the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog) published a discussion paper outlining India’s national Al strategy - #AIforAll - which speaks of developing India to serve as ‘a garage or tinkering lab to develop new Al technologies for other developing countries’. It urges Al initiatives to evolve ‘scalable solutions for emerging economies ...’ #AIforAll means ‘technology leadership in Al for achieving the greater good’ (NITI Aayog, 2018: 5). | https://m.ebrary.net/234464/sociology/brics_americanizing_internet |
70 Years of India-Russia Relations: Emerging Trends in Cooperation
Since the establishment of Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership in 2010, both the countries have been trying to explore new areas of cooperation at the bilateral as well as the multilateral level.
India and Russia are celebrating 70 years of establishment of diplomatic relations. Since the establishment of bilateral relations in April 1947 (more than 3-months prior to India’s independence), the Indo-Russia friendship has grown by leaps and bounds. More significantly, the ‘relationship’ stood by the tests of time and survived despite several tectonic shifts in the arenas of – polity, economy, technology and diplomacy.
By recognizing the significance of the relations, both the countries decided to elevate the ‘Strategic Partnership’ to the level of a “Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership” in December 2010, which is a rare distinction in itself.
Since then, the Indo-Russia Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership has been trying to explore new areas of cooperation at the bilateral and multilateral level. Some of the emerging areas of cooperation covered under this partnership are as follows.
Defence Cooperation
India-Russia bilateral defense cooperation is built on strong mutual trust. In recent decades, India-Russia military technical cooperation has evolved from a simple buyer-seller framework to one involving joint research, development and production of advanced defence technologies and systems. Some of the highlights of this cooperation are -
• India has been heavily dependent on Russian armaments with more than 70 percent of its weapons being sourced from Russia.
• Though India has increased its dependence on Israel, France and the USA for defence infrastructure in recent years, Russia is still the largest supplier of defence equipment to India in absolute terms.
• Russia’s equipment pervades all the branches of the Indian military services – Army (T-90 tanks & S-400 Defence systems), Air Force (SU-30) and Navy (INS Vikramaditya). Besides, the jointly produced BrahMos supersonic cruise missile has become a trusted weaponry for the tri-services.
• The decision to hold the first ever tri-services exercise INDRA–2017 is also an indication of deepening bilateral defence cooperation.
Energy Relations
India is dependent on Russia for her energy needs. For an energy starving nation like India, Russia’s assistance in setting up Nuclear Power Plants and exploring hydrocarbon resources is a big relief.
In the Saint Petersburg Declaration released by both the countries in June 2017, New Delhi and Moscow vowed to build an "Energy Bridge” between both the countries by expanding bilateral relations in all areas of energy cooperation, including nuclear, hydrocarbon, hydel and renewable energy sources and in improving energy efficiency.
Some of the highlights of cooperation in hydrocarbon sector are –
• ONGC Videsh Limited has substantive investments of over USD 5 billion in two major oil and gas projects – Sakhlin-1 and Imperial Energy Limited (Tomsk). Besides, Russian companies are engaged in several power plant and oil and gas projects in India.
• In October 2016, a MoU was signed on the joint study of a gas pipeline to India and the other possible areas of cooperation. The agreement was inked between Gazprom and Engineers India Limited.
• On the same occasion, Rosneft agreed to purchase 98% of the stake in Essar Oil for $ 10.9 billion.
• Recently, both the countries expressed interest in launching joint projects on exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbons in the Arctic shelf of Russia.
Some of the highlights of cooperation in the nuclear energy sector are –
• Russia is India’s important partner in peaceful uses of nuclear energy. It recognizes India as a country with advanced nuclear technology with an impeccable non-proliferation record.
• Construction of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant (KKNPP) Units 1 & 2 (VVER 1000 MW units) is an example of fruitful cooperation between India and Russia, which were operationalised in July 2013 and March 2017 respectively.
• Russia also agreed to build four other units of the same capacity in Kudankulam and they will be operationalised by 2025.
Multilateral Cooperation
India-Russia bilateral relations have always had strategic connotations to the other players in the region and the world at large. This is due to the permanent membership of Russia in the UNSC, India’s clout in the community of nations due to its economic strength, peaceful outlook, social diversity and stable and democratic polity.
Some of the highlights of this cooperation are -
• India’s membership in the SCO in June 2017 has become a reality due to the persistence of Russia on the matter. The membership helps India in expanding its reach in the extended neighbourhood i.e. Central Asia.
• Russia is a strong supporter of India’s permanent membership in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).
• The divergence of interests is also visible in the trilateral and multilateral forum such as BRICS, RIC and WTO.
• Russia is also a strong advocate of India’s membership in the elite Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).
• The ‘Geostragetic Quotient’ in the bilateral relations has also been rising in recent years. Factors like India’s animosity with Pakistan, frequent interruptions in India-China relations, especially due to the One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative and the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and Russia’s ambition to have a stake in Afghanistan polity do have a say in India-Russia strategic relations.
• Both the countries have always been united on the major global issues like Terrorism, Climate Change, etc. Issuance of a joint statement on “Partnership for Global Peace and Stability" recently is an indication of convergence of ideas on global outlook of both the countries.
Commercial Relations
Despite the growing volume of the economies of both the countries, trade relations has been the weakest link in the bilateral relations. In 2012, bilateral trade increased by 24.5% to reach USD 11 billion. However, it was declined to USD 7.7 billion in 2016.
To reverse this trend, the following measures were undertaken.
• International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC) – It is an express corridor from India to Russia. It is a multi-modal connectivity project to establish transport networks for moving freight between India, Russia, Iran, Europe and Central Asia. The INSTC also has strategic significance as it checks the growing clout of China under the aegis of Maritime Silk Road initiative.
• In October 2016, a MoU was signed to expand bilateral trade and economic cooperation during the summit level meeting between Modi and Putin in Goa.
• In October 2016, a Memorandum of Cooperation was signed between ALROSA Joint Stock Company (Public Joint Stock Company) and the Council for the Promotion of the Export of Precious Stones and Jewellery of India.
• To boost bilateral trade, both the countries have identified trade diversification has the rightful strategy. The future cooperation will cover aspects like - increasing the share of high-technology products in bilateral trade, fostering industrial cooperation, improving the environment for entrepreneurship and investments and developing cooperation in banking and financial matters between the two countries.
Conclusion
The history has proved that India and Russia are natural allies. While, in recent years, the New Delhi has chosen the path of pragmatism for achieving its foreign policy objectives, it should also factor in historical and cultural relations that she enjoyed with Russia and the Eurasian Region before building need based alliances. | https://www.jagranjosh.com/current-affairs/70-years-of-indiarussia-relations-emerging-trends-in-cooperation-1500040096-1 |
Queer theory is a discipline situated within the broad intellectual tradition of critical theory. Queer theory aims to disrupt the gender binary of male/female, showing that these categories are socially constructed. Yet, surprisingly, Annemarie Jagose spent a significant fraction of her book Queer Theory: An Introduction explaining the historical antecedents and political relevance of Queer Theory, rather than elucidating its theoretical underpinnings. Nonetheless, her work does provide a helpful overview of the movement, its points of agreement, and its internal debates. Below are a selection of notable quotes:
“Taking a constructionist line [i.e. that the category of ‘homosexual’ is a social construct], Foucault argues that homosexuality is necessarily a modern formation because, while there were previously same-sex acts, there was no corresponding category of identification.” (p. 10)
“[Foucault argues that] After 1870 same-sex acts began to be read as evidence of a particular type of person about whom explanatory narratives began to be formed: ‘The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species’ (ibid.).” (p. 11)
“Following a Marxist analysis of class oppression, early discussion papers theorized homosexuals as a population unaware of its status as ‘a social minority imprisoned within a dominant culture’… The Mattachine Society’s political task was to foster a collective identity among homosexuals who, recognizing the institutional and hegemonic investments in their continued marginalisation, might consequently be energised and enabled to fight against their oppression.’ (p. 24-25)
“The founders [of the Mattachine Society] continued to represent homosexuals as a minority group oppressed by the dominant culture” (p. 25-26).
“No longer content to solicit tolerance and acceptance, more radical groups began to model themselves on New Left social movements and to critique the structures and values of heterosexual dominance” (p. 31)
“[Gay liberationists] indicated that bay liberation was not a single-issue struggle and that it could make sense only within an analytic framework capable of dealing with different forms of oppression. ‘Gay liberation’, writes Allen Young (1992:25-6), ‘also has a perspective for revolution based on the unity of all oppressed people–that is, there can be no freedom for gays in a society which enslaves others through male supremacy, racism and economic exploitation (capitalism)’.” (p. 34)
“Homosexuality was represented as an identity repressed by heterosexist power structures which privilege gender-asymmetry, sexual reproduction and the patriarchal nuclear family.” (p. 36)
“Instead of trying (as homophile organizations had done) to persuade psychiatrists to adopt more liberal and less pathological understandings of homosexuality, gay liberationists spoke out against such ‘expert’ opinions, and insisted that their personal experiences be recognizes as authoritative.” (p. 37)
“the logics of coming out assume that homosexuality is not simply a private aspect of the individual, relevant only to friends and colleagues. Instead, it is potentially a transformative identity that must be avowed publicly until it is not longer a shameful secret but a legitimately recognised way of being in the world.” (p. 38)
“gay liberation understood that the marginalization and devaluation of homosexuality was effected by that dominant and rigidly hierarchical conceptualisation of sex and gender which constituted the social norm. In order to liberate homosexuality, gay liberation was committed to eradicating fixed notions of femininity and masculinity: that move would similarly liberate any other groups oppressed by what it critiqued as normative sex and gender roles.” (p. 41)
“Once gender is theorised as an oppressive system of classification, both heterosexuality and homosexuality come to be understood as merely ‘artificial categories’ (Young; 1992:29)” (p. 42)
“a paper [entitled] ‘The Woman-Identified Woman’… deflects attention from lesbianism as a sexual orientation or practice in order to reconceptualise it as a way of being in the world that, potentially, includes all women. The perspective gained from lesbian experience – ‘the liberation of self, the inner peace, the real love of self and of all women’ – is in the words of the Radicalesbians… ‘something to be shared with all women – because we are all women.'” (p. 47-48)
“‘Compulsory heterosexuality’ is also, of course, a key idea for [Adrienne] Rich, who coined the phrase. Unlike Frye, however, she considers the effect of this regulatory order principally as it pertains to women, identifying heterosexuality as ‘a political institution‘ which systematically works to the disadvantage of all women.. In comparing heterosexuality to capitalism and racism, she represents it as structured across a fundamental imbalance of power.” (p. 53-54)
“[Barbara Smith writes:] It was simply not possible for any oppressed people, including lesbians and gay men, to achieve freedom under this system… Nobody sane would want any part of the established order. It was the system–the white supremacist, misogynistic, capitalistic and homophobic–that had made our lives so hard to begin with. We wanted something entirely new.” (p. 67)
“debates in lesbian and gay circles during the late 1970s and early 1980s about bisexuality, sado-masochism, pornography, butch/fem, transvestism, prostitution and intergenerational sex, implicitly questioned the hegemonic binarism of ‘heterosexuality’ and ‘homosexuality.'” (p. 64)
“Variously referred to as intergenerational sex, child abuse, man-boy love and paedophilia, even the semantic continuum of terms used to describe the concept evokes a variety of positions in a debate structured overwhelmingly by such issues as consent, power and the legal definition of childhood… the issue of intergenerational sex continues to be debated vigorously in many gay and lesbian communities. The protection of children is deemed by some to be ethically crucial to the development of gay identity, but is dismissed as others ‘erotic hysteria’ (Rubin, 1993:6). What is the status of different, and arbitrary, age-of-consent laws? Do children have a sexuality and a right to sexual agency? Why is age –unlike, say, race or class– understood as a sexualized power-differential protected by law? Is it possible to eroticise children in an ethical way? These are the questions commonly raised–and by no means yet resolved– in the controversy over intergenerational sex” (p. 70-71)
“ideology not only positions individuals in society but also confers on them their sense of identity. In other words, it shows how one’s identity is already constituted by ideology itself rather than simply by resistance to it” (p. 78)
“Although [Judith Butler’s] Gender Trouble is framed most prominently in terms of feminism, one of its most influential achievements is to specify how gender operates as a regulatory construct that privileges heterosexuality and, furthermore, how the deconstruction of normative models of gender legitimates lesbian and gay subject-positions” (p 83)
“For Butler (1991: 13-14), ‘identity categories tend to be instruments of regulatory regimes, whether as the normalizing categories of oppressive structures or as the rallying points for a liberatory contestation of that very oppression.'” (p. 91)
“[Sedgwick writes] that queer is being spun outward ‘along dimensions that can’t be subsumed under gender and sexuality at all: the ways that race, ethnicity, postcolonial nationality criss-cross with these and other identity-constituting, identity-fracturing discourses, for example’.” (p. 99)
“what is being critiqued in contemporary theory is the very notion of the natural, the obvious, and the taken-for-granted. ‘The appeals to so-called “common sense,” writes Lee Edelman (1994:xviii) “reinforces the hypostatization [reification] of the ‘natural’ upon which homophobia relies and thus partakes of an ideological labor complicit with heterosexual supremacy”. To valorise common sense is naive, if not dangerous… the convergence of knowledge and common sense may be understood more profitably as licensing the operation of unexamined ideological structures.” (p. 103)
“[Cherry Smith writes:] ‘While queer raises the possibility of dealing with complex subjectivities and differences in terms of gender, race and class, it also risks not trying hard enough to resist the reductive prescriptiveness some of us suffered in feminism and the uncritical essentialism that privileges the queerness of gay white men.’ (p. 118)
Related articles: | https://shenviapologetics.com/quotes-from-jagoses-queer-theory-an-introduction/ |
Before there was Nolan & Bale, there was Burton & Keaton. In 1989, director Tim Burton and actor Micheal Keaton had made the very successful Batman, which featured legendary actor Jack Nicholson as the Joker. It helped to make the super hero movie genre credible. The popularity of the film led to the 1992 sequel Batman Returns. After that, Burton left the franchise. Michael Keaton had his own ideas for what the third film should be about. He envisioned a prequel that told the origin of the Batman, similar to Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins. Director Joel Schumacher took over the franchise after Burton’s departure and had very different ideas to what Keaton wanted to do, which was part of the reason Keaton left the series.
On a recent podcast interview, Keaton said, “It’s easy enough to look at what Nolan did and point to it thinking ‘Yeah, this is what I wanted to do a decade ago’. You look at where he went, which is exactly what I wanted to do when I was having meetings about the third one. I said ‘You want to see how this guy started. We’ve got a chance here to fix whatever we kind of maybe went off. This could be brilliant’. Joel Schumacher didn’t want to do it, so I didn’t want to stay.”
Keaton was originally lured to the Batman film series by being shown the critically acclaimed graphic novel “The Dark Knight Returns” by Frank Miller. The Burton films, like the Nolan films, were in the spirit of Miller’s popular story, but Schumacher preferred a more campy approach to the material. The franchise went downhill from there. However, its probably safe to say that we never would have had the hit Nolan Batman trilogy if it hadn’t been for the success of the Burton/Keaton Batman in 1989. | https://www.cinelinx.com/off-beat/keaton-wanted-to-make-a-batman-origin-story/ |
Simulation of the formation of super-Earths in a protoplanetary disk
This is a simulation of the planet formation process. The simulation begins with 125 planetary embryos, each with 0.4 times the mass of the Earth. The gray region marks the height of the protoplanetary disk. At the beginning of the simulation the embryos have strong gravitational encounters that increase their orbital inclinations (y-axis) and leads to many collisions. After the embryos merge into larger bodies, interactions with the disk cause the eccentricities and inclinations to drop and the protoplanets form a chain of mean motion resonances. The new protoplanets also experience torques from the disk that remove orbital angular momentum and causes the planets to drop to lower orbits. While the planets migrate through the disk, they accrete gas from the disk. The color of each body shows the fraction of their mass that is in the gaseous envelope. After the disk dissipates, the planetary system becomes dynamically unstable and two new waves of giant impacts occur. This leaves behind a planetary system with larger planet masses, smaller gas envelopes, and higher mutual inclinations.
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|Work Title||Simulation of the formation of super-Earths in a protoplanetary disk|
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|License||Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)|
|Work Type||Video|
|DOI||doi:10.18113/S1206D|
|Deposited||August 21, 2018|
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This resource is currently not in any collection. | https://scholarsphere.psu.edu/resources/bbe69da3-cae5-4548-aa8d-0d58514c74f5 |
Local authorities asking 'big society' to deliver crisis aid to vulnerable people after social fund budget is cut next April
A Coventry Central Food Bank distribution centre at the Mosaic Church in Hillfields, Coventry. The food bank is run by local churches with help from the Trussell Trust. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian
Tuesday 21 August 2012 13.07 EDT
First published on Tuesday 21 August 2012 13.07 EDT
Local authorities are preparing to invest in charity-run food banks to cope with an expected deluge in demand for crisis help from low income families hit by welfare cuts, raising the spectre of depression-era US "breadlines".
Cuts next year to the social fund, which provides emergency aid to vulnerable people, mean that from April 2013 many councils will no longer be able to provide cash help to applicants. Instead they will offer "in kind" support such as referring clients to food banks and issuing electronic food vouchers.
The move, which is being considered by both Labour and Conservative councils as well as the Welsh government, will for the first time build voluntarily donated food distribution into mainstream welfare provision, and will be regarded by critics as a dramatic substitution of the state's obligations in favour of ad hoc voluntary assistance.
There has been rapid expansion in food banks over the past two years in response to growing numbers of people unable to feed themselves or their families as a result of rising living costs, shrinking incomes and welfare benefit cuts.
The vast majority of food banks do not currently receive direct state funding, and are regarded by ministers as exemplars of the "big society" approach to social problems. They are volunteer-run and exist on public food donations sourced through churches, companies, schools and public "bin collections" organised outside supermarkets.
Labour-run Lambeth council in south London said it was seeking to invest cash to build capacity in two local food banks to help it cope with a "frightening explosion" in crisis need at a time when its resources were rapidly diminishing.
Lib Peck, the council's cabinet member for regeneration and housing, said: "It's absolutely not a road any of us feel happy about going down. It's reminiscent of 1930's USA. But we have to provide for as many people as possible."
The Labour MP for Bristol East, Kerry McCarthy, said it would it feel as if a "line had been crossed" if the state were to start funding food banks as a way of addressing unmet welfare need.
She said: "People should be able to feed themselves without having to go to a food bank. Food bank growth is phenomenal, but if it becomes a mainstream part of welfare provision something has gone awry. We should be discussing the underlying problems, rather than sticking plaster solutions."
Chris Mould, the executive chairman of the Trussell Trust, a Christian charity which runs Britain's biggest food bank network with more than 200 local branches, said it had been approached by the Welsh government and a number of local authorities in London to discuss "deliverable and practical" emergency food assistance part-funded by the social fund.
The trust did not object to taking state funding in principle, he said. Its food banks were already helping thousands of people referred to them by councils and welfare advisors after being turned down for crisis loans.
But Mould said the move could be risky for the charity, which was not designed to provide large scale welfare assistance. He was also concerned that the public would be less likely to give food if the trust was seen to be delivering a service regarded as the responsibility of the state.
The government spent £230m on crisis loans in 2009-10. But under the Welfare Reform Act, responsibility for administering this spending will be devolved to 150 English councils. They will share a pot of money set at 2005 budget levels – which could be less than half the 2009-10 figure. That money will not be ringfenced – meaning that councils can spend it on other services if they wish.
Conservative-run Kensington and Chelsea council in London is proposing to issue credit-card style vouchers – or "gift cards" – in lieu of crisis loans, enabling recipients to buy items at certain shops, likely to be big retailers such as Tesco, Argos and Sainsbury's. Some councils will put blocks on the cards preventing the purchase of alcohol and cigarettes.
Others are investing money in local credit unions, to whom they will refer crisis loan applicants in an attempt to prevent them turning to loan sharks. Households who would previously have been eligible for a community care cash grant will be instead offered vouchers for reconditioned beds, cookers and fridges redeemable at furniture recycling charities.
But it is the plans to refer crisis loan applicants to food banks that will cause most controversy. Experts say the experience of food poverty in the US and Canada, where charity food assistance has become a significant element of the welfare system, shows that while food banks are popular with volunteers, they can be inefficient, unreliable and fail to address the underlying causes of food poverty, such as low pay.
Liz Dowler, professor of food and social policy at the University of Warwick, said: "Despite their apparent 'win-win' appeal to some councils, foodbanks conceal realities of poverty and hunger. They let the state off the hook from their obligation to ensure all have the means to live, and from showing political leadership to grapple creatively with poverty."
A Welsh government spokesman said: "We are committed to do all we can to mitigate the impact of the UK government's benefit changes to Wales and are determined that any future arrangements for the social fund in Wales support our commitment to tackling poverty. The devolution of the funding will allow us to ensure the funds are directed towards those who are most in need."
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Seabird monitoring is the accumulation of time series data on any aspect of seabird distribution, abundance, demography, or behavior. The committee has active participation of seabird investigators from all 5 Pacific states, as well as Canada, Mexico, Russia, and Japan.
The Seabird Monitoring Committee was formed in 1992 to promote:
- a better coordinated program for monitoring Pacific seabirds;
- greater standardization of field methods;
- timely availability of results; and
- effective use of seabirds as indicators of local and large-scale change in the Pacific marine environment.
Currently, its major project is the development of a comprehensive database for seabird monitoring results from throughout the North Pacific. Though not yet available for general release, the Pacific Seabird Monitoring Database includes more than 11,000 observations, each representing an annual measure of some population parameter (e.g., numbers, productivity, survival, breeding chronology, or other) for a given species, location, and year. Those observations comprise about 1,800 time series spanning 1 to 37 years since studies were initiated. Some quantity of information is available on 54 species breeding in 190 locations. A draft version of the database is now undergoing review and error-checking by cooperators; wider distribution via the Internet is anticipated within 1-2 years. For further information contact Heather Renner or Robb Kaler. | https://pacificseabirdgroup.org/psg-committees/seabird-monitoring-committee/ |
Ambiguity is defined as the quality of being open to multiple interpretations. Nonetheless, these interpretations are still limited by the language available on the page. Thus far, we have encountered several short works that emphasize their own openness to being read or understood in different ways, while still relying on writing that emphasizes an overarching theme, or recurring idea that is developed throughout the text. For example, as strange and mysterious as “the Yellow Wallpaper” feels, there are countless “clues,” that suggest the ways in which this story of a hallucinating (?) woman speaks to larger, real-world themes such as the rigidness of gender roles or the conflict between reason and imagination.For this assignment, choose one of the short stories (or the poem) we have studied and:
2.) Make an argument for how the author explores, deepens, or complicates our understanding of this theme using some of the elements of literature we have discussed in class, such as imagery, metaphor or symbol, word choice, sentence construction, dialogue, plot, and structure (the “shape” of the plot, or how the events of the story unfold.) For example, if you were to choose to write on “the Oval Portrait,” you might be interested in the theme of artistic representation. You might then write a paragraph or two dedicated to the imagery of ornate art objects within the bedchamber, one or two dedicated to the effect of Poe’s complex sentences, and one or two dedicated to the meaning of the story-within-the story. Be sure to use quotations from the text! | https://writemypapertoday.com/option-2-analysis-of-a-theme-length-5-pages-sources-3-4-due-february-18th-by-1159-pm-via-canvas-no-pages-files-please-article-to-read-the-yellow-wallpaperby-charlotte-perkins-gilm/ |
Infosys Foundation, the philanthropic arm of Infosys, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation for a grant to create a child-friendly village focused towards improving children’s health, providing education and creating a non-violent environment. Infosys Foundation will disburse this grant over the next three years.
The Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation (KSCF), a non-profit organization, envisions a world where every child is free, safe, healthy, educated and has the ability to discover their potential. Kailash Satyarthi has been at the forefront of the global movement to end child slavery and exploitative child labour and was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. | |
The Safer Homes Coalition Members, led by Forefront Suicide Prevention and the Second Amendment Foundation, is comprised of firearms retailers, second amendment rights groups, health care providers, and suicide prevention experts who came together around a single goal to save lives.
SAFER HOMES COALITION CO-CHAIRS
Jenn Stuber, Cofounder
Forefront Suicide Prevention
Alan Gottlieb, Executive VP
Second Amendment Foundation
Safer Homes Coalition Members
The Safer Homes Coalition at its first 2018 meeting. The original name of this group was the Safer Homes Task Force, Firearms Subcommittee. | https://depts.washington.edu/saferwa/about-us/our-team/ |
Capturing Ecology 2021 – Winning images announced
A close up of a Kumlien’s Gull’s eye, with speckled markings that aren’t quite what they appear, taken by Rebecca Nason, has been awarded Overall Winner in the British Ecological Society’s annual photography competition, ‘Capturing Ecology’.
The winning images and an additional eight highly commended images, taken by international ecologists and students, celebrate the diversity of ecology, capturing flora and fauna from across the planet.
Subjects range from a blood red snail feeding on dead man’s fingers (a fungus found in the rainforests of India) to a rare sighting of the ‘fairy of the Valencian forests’, a recently discovered cave-dwelling bug in Spain.
The winning images from this year’s will be displayed in our immersive virtual exhibition, which is sponsored by Wiley.
Overall winner: Kumlien’s Gull & Friends, Rebecca Nason:
On her winning image, Rebecca Nason – an ecologist and photographer living in Britain’s most northerly harbour town of Lerwick, Shetland – said: “In April 2021, I came across a scarce Kumlien’s Gull as I fed bread to a growing number of Herring Gull sheltering from a Spring storm. A beautiful gull, these birds breed in the Arctic regions of Canada & winter from Labrador west across the Great Lakes.
“When the Kumlien’s gull approached to a good distance to allow for closer full frame shots. I started photographing the eye detail, noting a gorgeous granite coloured iris with dark speckled plumage detail around the eye. It was only when I got home I realised that the speckled patterns were in fact lice clustered around the eye, the Kumlien’s Gull hadn’t travelled alone!
“I am thrilled to win such a prestigious photography competition after entering for the first time this year. I have had a very symbiotic relationship between ecology work & bird photography in my career, so for both to come together in this way to win a competition with a gull image taken on my local patch, is just the icing on the cake.”
Overall student winner: Hidden Lynx, Dani Davis:
The overall student winner is Dani Davis, a graduate student at Florida State University. Dani’s image captures a green lynx spider with its bumblebee catch in the Apalachicola National Forest, North Florida. Green lynx spiders can change colours to match their background plant, a trait which they use when lying in wait for visiting pollinators. When their prey comes close, they pounce, like their namesake cat.
Dani Davis said: “Green lynx spiders are majestic yet voracious predators. Able to take down relatively large prey. With a quick bite, the lynx can subdue their cumbersome prey and feast in peace. Despite hearing of their ferocity, I was amazed to see this lynx with a bumblebee that matched her in size!
“A culmination of experiences in the field surrounded by incredible photographers and naturalists taught me how to tell natural history stories through images. With enormous thanks to those who spent time outside with me, I’m honoured to be the overall student winner for Capturing Ecology.”
Professor Jane Memmott, President of the British Ecological Society, said:
“This year’s photos are of a very high standard and are a pleasure to look through. Overall, the photographs capture a broad swath of biodiversity – from tiny mosses to giant bears. The winner is a beautifully composed photograph of a gull’s eye – it’s visually arresting, pin sharp and very beautiful, hitchhiking lice included!”
Competition judge, Laura Dyer:
The independent judging panel included six highly respected photographers including eminent ecologists and award-winning wildlife photographers. Among them was Laura Dyer, a South African born wildlife photographer, who has an affinity for animal portraits.
Laura said: “Wildlife and nature photography is so vital today, as it helps to showcase parts of the natural world which would otherwise remain hidden from the view of most of us. And it is only by seeing the beauty of nature that we will be inspired to protect and conserve it. These images from British Ecological Society members and students alike help to showcase these wonders.
“The three overall winners this year demonstrate completely different styles of photography and all so beautifully captured. The spider, which at first glance, is almost unnoticeable in ‘Hidden Lynx’ – you can imagine the surprise of the bumblebee as he met his end. The detail in the gull, and how at first glance the parasites appear to be feather markings. The delicate lighting and dancing nature of the image of the recently discovered ‘Fairy of the Forest’. These are worthy winners.”
Full list of winners:
Overall winner: Rebecca Nason
Kumlien’s Gull & Friends: When taking full frame pictures of a Kumlien’s gull, the photographer noticed a dark speckled plumage detail around the eye. It was only when they got home they realised that the speckled patterns were in fact lice clustered around the eye, the Gull hadn’t travelled alone.
Overall runner-up: Roberto Garcia Roa, University of Valencia
The fairy of the forests: One of the few images of Valenciolenda fadaforesta (“fairy of the Valencian forests”), a cave-dwelling bug recently discovered in a few Spanish caves. Wonderful evidence of the extraordinary biodiversity hidden in the dark of cave ecosystems.
Overall student winner: Dani Davis, Florida State University
Hidden Lynx: A green lynx spider (Peucetia viridans) rests on a budding Liatris with its bumblebee catch. Seen in a bog in the Apalachicola National Forest in North Florida, USA. Green lynx spiders are masters of disguise. Able to change colours to match their background plant, they wait for visiting pollinators and then pounce on their prey, like their namesake cat.
Category 1 – Up Close and Personal
An image displaying the intricacy of nature using close-up or macro photography.
Winner: Alicia Hayden, University of the West of England
Beautiful Bryophyte: With the colours of the sunset in the background, the whole scene of this moss growing on a wall in Cornwall looks like something from a tropical rainforest. It shows the extraordinary macro world all around us, and how there is beauty in the smallest of living things.
Student winner: Jack Marcus Smith, University of Cambridge
Beauty in the (Mini)Beast: The image is a high magnification portrait of a blowfly. The photpgrapher wanted to reveal the intricacy and beauty of what many consider a pest. The blowfly is perfect for illustrating complexity in miniature and here they have captured the elaborate nature of each individual microstructure.
Category 2 – Dynamic Ecosystems
Demonstrating interactions between different species within an ecosystem.
Winner: Vijay Karthick, Nature Conservation Foundation, India
It’s finger lickin’ good: Indrella ampulla, an endemic species of snail is an important soil invertebrate that breaks down organic matter in the rainforest floors of the Western Ghats mountain range in India. Here, its feeding on Xylaria sp. fungi, commonly known as dead man’s fingers.
Student winner: Dani Davis, Florida State University
Quick Catch: A tiny Phidippus regius (Regal Jumping Spider) sits perched with a freshly caught Sulphur butterfly. Observed while visiting a bog near Sumatra, Florida. Jumping spiders abound in this habitat. The photographer stared with curiosity at this regal jumping spider doused in yellow scales, holding the butterfly it had just caught.
Category 3 – Individuals and Populations
A unique look at a species in its environment, either alone or as part of a population.
Winner: Roberto Garcia Roa, University of Valencia
Fleeting race: A large flock of gulls performed short but very quick flights to move around a field of rice during the first hours of the morning. The fog in the environment and the fast movements of each individual allowed me to capture this dynamic but also frozen image of such a chaotic situation.
Student winner: Jack Marcus Smith, University of Cambridge
Poisonous Sentinel: A granular poison dart frog guarding his territory. This frog may be small, but it is highly territorial. Males will ferociously defend their territories from rivals. This individual male was photographed in the late evening, perched upon a leaf, a position of high ground to overlook his territory.
Category 4 – People and Nature
An interesting and original take on the relationships between people and nature.
Winner: Molly Dunn, Florence Institute of Design International
Tsunami, Dormant ivy vines reach across a roadside wall blackened at the bottom by car exhaust. The photograph was taken on a small, neighbourhood street in Florence, Italy in the early spring of 2021.
Student winner: John Benjamin Owens, Bangor University/Captive & Field Herpetology Ltd.
Nature’s Landmine, The Russell’s viper (Daboia russelii) often resides within rice paddies. Accidentally stepped upon by agricultural workers, this viper is frequently involved in human-snake conflict, resulting in death and life changing injuries for millions of Indian people, annually. Something to think about when next buying rice in the supermarket?
Category 5 – Ecology in Action
Showcasing the practice of ecology in action
Winner: Pete Hudson, Penn State University
Bat OneHealth: While many of us are suffering with vaccines and regular swabs, the poor bats are also being sampled. At the start of the pandemic, our team were in Bangladesh sampling fruit bats near locations where Nipah virus had infected humans and recording virus and new viral sequences.
Student winner: Joshua Powell, Zoological Society of London, UCL & Seoul National University
Reintroduction in action: Conservation translocations – such as species reintroductions, or reinforcements – are increasingly important tools in conservation ecology. In South Korea, vets from the Korea National Park Service prepare to transport a female Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus) in Jirisan National Park.
Category 6 – The Art of Ecology
A creative and original take on photography denoting ecology
Winner: Raul Costa-Pereira, The University of Campinas
Amazonian mosaic: In tropical rainforests, plants are often colonized by an astonishing diversity of organisms that grows on the surface of their leaves, such as epiphyllous mosses, lichens, and fungi. The photo shows the colourful mosaic of biodiversity on the leaves of an Amazonian palm tree in a forest near Manaus, Brazil.
Student winner: Alicia Hayden, University of the West of England
Spotlight: This spider was spending a lot of time repairing its web, and the streetlamp highlighted the movement of its legs as I took the photo. This illustrates the urban wildlife which is not usually acknowledged, showing the great diversity of wildlife in our urban spaces.
Like what we stand for?
Support our mission and help develop the next generation of ecologists by donating to the British Ecological Society. | https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/capturing-ecology-winning-images-2021/ |
We are grateful that the Daily Bruin has apologized for the offensive editorial cartoon that ran in yesterday’s edition. As individuals, and in our organizational capacities, we have repeatedly emphasized the need for collective humility – to realize when we have hurt others, to show the courage to admit error and to manifest the integrity to make amends.
In a diverse culture, it’s presumptuous to think that we fully know and understand each other; accordingly, we should be mindful about misusing or maligning deeply held cultural or religious touchstones. As the Bruin noted in its apology, “it’s wrong to perpetuate harmful stereotypes – intentional or otherwise.”
We understand that political cartoons have a long history as an important means of political debate. Unfortunately, that history also includes times when editorial pages have descended into racist and anti-Semitic imagery. We can and must do better than that. Speech has consequences.
None of us would like core symbols of our identity appropriated or mocked, and we should be vigilant in objecting if it happens to others. In our fall message to the community, we called upon the campus to elevate the political discourse and reject cheap shots and caricature.
We renew that call today. As we pursue our political passions we must strive to do so without demeaning each other. Wielding the power of the pen carries with it also the responsibility to remember that words and images matter.
Kang is the vice chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Gorden is the interim vice chancellor for Student Affairs. | http://dailybruin.com/2017/02/13/submission-political-commentary-needs-to-be-culturally-sensitive-mindful/ |
The ASEAN Regional Mine Action Center (ARMAC) is calling for research proposals related to ‘Community Perspectives of Humanitarian Mine Action in Lao PDR and Viet Nam’.
Since there is a serious lack of support for the explosive ordnance (EO) victims being identified, ASEAN member states (AMS), together with ARMAC have stepped in with a project entitled; “Enhance Victim Assistance Program or Victim Assistance project; funded by ASEAN-Korean Cooperation Fund (AKCF) to provide support to the EO victims. This project has five indicative objectives, one of which is to undertake research on the aforementioned topic.
It is almost three decades since Humanitarian Mine Action began in Southeast Asia. While operations in the early years focused on EO removing to reduce injuries and fatalities, the contribution of mine action to social and economic development become increasingly important. The United Nations International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) define mine action as “Activities which aim to reduce the social, economic and environmental impact of mines, and EO including unexploded sub-munitions. Mine action is not just about demining; it is also about people and societies, and how they are affected by EO contamination. The objective of mine action is to reduce the risk from EO to a level where people can live safely; in which economic, social and health development can occur free from the constraints imposed by EO contamination, and in which the victims’ different needs can be addressed.”
Mine action operators have incorporated approaches to better involve affected communities in mine action interventions to tap into local knowledge, to ensure that clearance, risk education and victim assistance reflect the priorities and needs of the impacted populations. However, EO affected populations comprise a variety of people of different ages, gender, ethnicity, literacy levels, and economic status. They also include people with disabilities. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have emphasized the importance of “leaving no-one behind”, and the mine action sector has increasingly sought to ensure that their field operation work (clearance and risk education) and victim assistance services are inclusive. However, currently there is a limited evidence-base to demonstrate how well different people in contaminated communities have been able to contribute to and shape the nature of mine action interventions and whether their different needs have been satisfactorily met. The range of approaches applied by the mine action sector in Southeast Asia to include and address the needs of diverse communities has also not been systematically documented. Having a clearer understanding of the approaches implemented to enhance inclusion, combined with the perspectives of the impacted people on their ability to participate and influence, can provide valuable lessons to inform future approaches and greater inclusion.
Research goal, question, target groups and timeline
Goal: The central goal of the research is to investigate the roles of the communities involved in the process of the prioritization of land clearance, explosive ordnance risk education, victim assistance and residual management. In addition, the study is to explore the needs and rights of EO affected communities, especially EO survivors and their dependents can be best addressed by mine action interventions.
Research Question: What has been the level of involvement of the EO affected communities in Humanitarian Mine Action activities (victim assistance services, explosive ordnance risk education, land clearance and residual risk management) in Lao PDR and Viet Nam?
Target Groups and Location: Explosive Ordnance (EO) affected communities and relevant stakeholders in Lao PDR and Viet Nam
- 6 rural EO affected communities in two provinces in each country — 3 communities per province per country (different geographical areas are highly recommended);
- Representatives from related government and non-government stakeholders in each country (ministries/mine action authorities/operators/service providers, INGOs/NGOs/UN Agencies/academic institutions);
Period: 6 months
Who can apply, and what type of proposals may be presented:
This call for proposal of the case study in each country is opened to any research individuals and institutions. Data and evidence based are essential for the research.
The institution/research team in each country will be responsible for managing and implementing the research study in the field and for ensuring that the research is conducted to the best possible standards.
International research advisor will be assigned to support and consolidate the research in both Lao PDR and Viet Nam. The successful applicant working in each country is expecting to collaborate closely among each other and together with the international research advisor to ensure the research process and design in both countries are aligned.
The study will be used:
- as a reference for an assessment on how each activity of mine action is being prioritized;
- as a reference for an assessment of the needs of the EO victims and the project’s upcoming program/s;
- to disseminate to relevant stakeholders including communities, service providers, mine action related organizations/institutions; and
- to share in ARMAC’s digital media for those who are interested in its findings.
Key Deliverables
- Raw data and related notes being produced during the study;
- Research study written in English language (in Word and PDF file formats).
Application Process and Deadline
The research proposal should be submitted to email address: [email protected] by 16 October 2022, 23:00 (GMT +7). Applicants are required to submit a proposal in English following the template provided in Annex I and II.
Workplan and Timeframe
The workplan and timeframe of this research is until 31 March 2023. The execution of this research project is expected to start as soon as possible.
Note:
Incomplete application will NOT be considered, and only shortlisted candidates will be notified. Applicants are invited to apply as early as possible. The applications will be assessed on a rolling basis. More information about ARMAC, visit www.aseanmineaction.org.
Association of the Southeast Asian Nations – a regional organization comprised of 10 Member States i.e. Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam.
ARMAC was established by the ten ASEAN member states (AMS) to serve as a centre of excellence to encourage efforts to address explosive ordnance (EO)/landmines and explosive remnants of war (mine/ERW) for interested ASEAN Member States (AMS) and to facilitate cooperation between interested AMS and relevant institutions. More information about ARMAC: https://aseanmineaction.org/.
In this document, Explosive Ordnance (EO) will be used to refer to Landmines and explosive remnants of war (mine/ERW) and other submunitions. See also mine action glossary: ‘the International Mine Action Standards (IMAS) 04.10’ (2nd edition, amendment 10, February 2019). https://www.mineactionstandards.org/fileadmin/MAS/documents/standards/Glossary_of_mine_action_terms_and_abbreviations_Ed.2_Am.10.pdf
UNMAS, International Mine Action Standards, IMAS 4.10, “Glossary of mine action terms, definitions and abbreviations,” 1 January 2003. | https://aseanmineaction.org/call-for-research-proposals-community-perspectives-of-humanitarian-mine-action-in-lao-pdr-and-viet-nam/ |
The Director of Human Resources (HR) is an in-house position that will provide experienced input and/or lead on governance issues relating to employment practices, and provide expertise and support in the areas of Recruitment, Performance Management, Employee Relations, Employee Engagement, Diversity & Inclusion, Policy and Procedure Development and enforcement, and HR Compliance.
REPORTING RELATIONSHIPS
- Reports directly to the Country Director or her/his designee
- Direct reports may include: HR Manager and/or HR Assistant
- Director or HR position will work closely with the Country Director, Deputy Director, Director of Finance and Administration on management issues.
CORE RESPONSIBILITIES (Modifications may be made at any time)
Key Responsibilities (include but are not limited to):
- Create and update policies, procedures, and guidelines as needed.
- Work with iDE Global office on key HR issues and appropriately secure approval on required HR policies, procedures and practices.
- Lead hiring processes for iDE Mozambique in coordination with Country Director.
- Manage and/or support iDE Project specific recruitment efforts. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to: creation and review of job descriptions and Terms of Reference (TOR), posting of position, selection of candidate, creation of offer letter, and coordination with other departments for successful onboarding of new staff.
- Manage performance appraisal process and assist with goal development.
- Lead in coaching, counseling and advising management and staff to ensure resolution of employment related matters.
- Lead the exit interview process.
- Maintain knowledge of industry trends and employment legislation. Ensure adherence to local legal requirements in addition to advising management on needed actions to remain compliant.
- Ensure submission of staff timesheets and the accurate recording and allocation of time.
- Develop and implement strategies to increase diversity & inclusion within the iDE Mozambique office and projects.
- Design and implement strategies for employee engagement and retention
- Coordination of staff meetings
- Establish a Learning and Development function to support professional development of employees across the business.
- Design, prepare and analyze HR metrics and provide reports that support decision making in specified areas.
- Implement new, and enhance existing staff recognition and reward programs.
- Manage HR software system
- Participate in partner meetings, business development efforts, and reporting as delegated by iDE Country Director.
Requirements
- Bachelor’s degree required (Master’s degree preferred),
- Preferred more than 5 years of HR experience in the above areas.
- Thorough understanding and experience with HR policies and procedures, and understanding of Mozambique Labor Laws.
- Familiarity with all aspects of HR, including compensation, recruitment, benefits, training etc.
- Excellent interpersonal, written and verbal communication skills are essential.
- Ability to lead meetings and presentations, and to interface with all levels of staff with tact and diplomacy.
- Must be a collaborative team player, possess a strong customer service orientation, and be a consultative problem solver.
- Ability to advocate for both staff and management.
- Highly proactive style of work, with a demonstrated track record of developing innovative approaches.
- Must be able to work independently and in teams, as well as demonstrate excellent judgement on when to escalate issues to the Country Director.
- Strong organizational and analytical skills.
- Proficiency with Google suite, Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint required.
- Working business proficiency in Portuguese and English
Benefits
Benefits and pay are varied, depending on position offered.
APPLY
About company
iDE, formerly International Development Enterprises, is an international nonprofit organization that promotes a business approach to increasing income and creating livelihood opportunities for poor rural households. | https://altojob.mais-moz.com/vaga-para-diretor-dos-recursos-humanos/ |
In this immersive program, you will explore the latest advancements and best practices in clinical research—improving your ability to drive health care innovation and achieve better outcomes. Throughout the program, you will learn alongside a talented group of peers from around the world, collaborating to create a deeper and more enduring understanding of the topics.
By attending GCSRT, you will enhance your ability to:
- Design and perform observational and experimental clinical research
- Analyze, interpret and present clinical research data
- Write and revise successful grant proposals
- Lead clinical teams across a variety of health care settings
Want to Learn More?
Get access to the latest information and stay up-to-date on program details by completing the form below: | https://postgraduateeducation.hms.harvard.edu/certificate-programs/global-clinical-scholars-research-training |
Home is where the heart is. Sounds encouraging. And it should be. Home should be the place where our souls are safe, encouraged, and loved. Home should be the best place to be.
But there is another way to think of the phrase, “Home is where the heart is.” And it isn’t necessarily good news. Because the state of our home, especially our family of origin when we are young, has a huge impact on where the heart is emotionally. And if the home system is not healthy or holy we will struggle when it comes to how close we can be emotionally.
Here are 8 Family Systems. What was yours and what do you think was its impact on your heart?
The Functional Family
- Life is essentially defined by your role within the family system.
- Persons understand their value and significance in terms of the task to perform and the amount of work they accomplish.
- The experience of connectedness or intimacy is through the relational bonding that occurs in getting tasks done, and surviving against set-backs and obstacles.
The Dramatic Family
- Life in the dramatic family system is continuously emotionally intense where someone is acting out some form of drama.
- There is typically a crisis somewhere, and the family is emotionally structured around enduring, navigating, and occasionally resolving the drama. Only to have a new one emerge in due time.
- The dramatic family is emotionally exhausting to some, while one or two dominant family members will sustain the drama.
The Traumatic Family
- The traumatized family is one that is defined around surviving traumatic events be they natural disasters or financial devastation or drugs or disease or death or divorce or the adoption of a child with a Reactive Attachment Disorder.
- Depending on the nature of the trauma such as sexual abuse a child will be adversely affected emotionally and the trajectory of the relational dynamics will also be deeply scared and distorted.
- Trauma can serve to bring family together in an effort to overcome and strengthen the relational fabric of the family system or cause it to merely survive and maybe even disintegrate.
The Chaotic Family
- The chaotic family is marked by confusion and the lack of adult leadership and authority and personal boundaries are not respected.
- The adults in particular have abdicated their role of establishing order and ensuring that family practices such as appropriate grooming, sleep patterns, meal times, school attendance, proper attire etc. are established and maintained.
- Often times within these family systems children have to fend for themselves and figure out life by themselves or along with peers.
The Moralistic Family
- The moralistic family is the family focused on keeping the rules.
- Without the rules the lawgiver is usually very anxious and if the rules are broken the rule-giver becomes angry.
- The family typically disregards or dismisses what individuals are feelings. Feelings are typically unwelcome because they are unpredictable and messy. Children in this system are often compliant, at least until teen years!
The Authoritative Family
- The authoritative family is dominated by an enforcer who is in charge and maintains control. The focal point is not primarily a moralistic framework, but the need to control.
- So the enforcer may control not by issuing commands on right or wrong, but through anger, blaming, or physical force.
- The enforcer is not bound to consistency, but may be orientated around his or her personal preferences on any given day or in any given circumstance.
- The emotional atmosphere is unreliable and unpredictable.
Emotionally Entangled Family
- The emotionally entangled family is marked by parents who use their children for their own sense of emotional stability and strength.
- The parent(s) will often confide in their child inappropriate information about their marriage, or family problems. Emotionally entangled families often seek a child to be a mediator between parents.
- The child will often suffer under the demand of being called upon to address adult needs that are beyond their capacity to hold and manage.
The Mature Inter-Dependent Family
- Each member of the family is recognized as an individual. Family responsibilities are clear and role appropriate. Adults are adults and children are children.
- Adults assign age appropriate tasks to children and have age appropriate expectations for teaching personal and family responsibilities.
- Parents maintain authority, sustain clear boundaries, and demonstrate affection toward one another and all family members.
- Poor choices have consequences and discipline is consistent.
- Family members rely on each other for love, support, encouragement, and guidance that is role appropriate.
- Members of the family understand differences between persons and accept differences.
- Members of the family understand that no one is perfect. Apologies and forgiveness are extended and received.
- Disagreements and conflicts are worked through to compromise, mutual understanding or a willingness to agree to disagree. But the fundamental relationships of love and support are not threatened or compromised.
- Individual members are assisted in discovering their giftedness and encouraged to pursue their dreams and desires.
Thankfully, the Gospel is warm and strong enough to handle all of our defenses and dysfunctions. We come to Christ just as we are and, by his Spirit and his Community (the Church) we find forgiveness and healing. When HE is our home our hearts will be in a good place! | https://crosspointministry.com/2016/10/home-is-where-the-heart-isa-post-by-jim/ |
RELATED APPLICATIONS
TECHNICAL FIELD
BACKGROUND
SUMMARY
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/362467, filed Jul. 8, 2010, which is herein incorporated in its entirety by reference.
This invention relates to game tables. More specifically, the invention relates to a game table for a drinking game that allows the user to play alone or against an opponent.
Beer pong is a drinking game in which players throw a ping-pong ball across a table with the intent of landing the ball in a cup of beer/water on the other end. The game typically consists of multiple cups set up on each side set up in triangle formation. There are no official rules, so rules may vary widely, though usually there are six or ten plastic cups arranged in a triangle on each side.
Beer pong is usually played with two teams of two players each, though it can be played with two teams of one person each, or other numbers of players. Each team begins the game standing at either end of the table behind their rack of cups. The order of play varies: both players on one team shoot followed by both players on the opposing team, or players on opposite teams may alternate back and forth. When a ping pong ball is successfully tossed into an opponent's cup, the opponent must drink the beer from the made cup and remove that cup from the table. That cup has now been eliminated from the game. For non-drinkers, the game may be played without beer. Instead, water or soda may be used.
Although the game is typically played on either a ping pong table or a folding banquet table, enthusiasts may create a personalized table for use by friends and visitors. In general, this will be a plywood board cut to proper size, sometimes painted with sports, school, or fraternity symbols and given a liquid-proof coating. Some companies sell tables, and there are companies making portable or inflatable tables. The game can be played on any flat surface, such as a door or dining table.
The most common cups used are 16 ounce disposable plastic cups with ridge-lines which can be used precisely to measure the amount of beer to be poured into the cup. On each side of the table, teams assemble equilateral triangles, with a convergence point focusing on the other team. Games typically use six or ten cups. Each team usually has a separate cup of water, which is used to rinse off the ball. After shooting, teams may dunk the ping pong balls into cups of water in order to wash off the balls.
38 mm or 40 mm table tennis (ping pong) balls are typically used for game play.
There are very few universal or “official” rules. Typically, players abide by a uniform set of “house rules”, which are often consistent within one university or region of the country (e.g., “Ivy League rules” or “West Coast rules”), or may vary on a “house-by-house” basis. The number of cups, bouncing, amount of alcohol, the distance shots must be taken from may all vary.
There are three key ways to shoot in beer pong: the arc, the fastball (or “laser”), and the bounce shot. The most common throwing technique is the “arc” shot, where one grasps the ping pong ball with the tips of the thumb and forefinger, holds the arm at an angle with the ball upwards, then throw by using gentle elbow motion, holding the upper arm parallel with the table.
Some players throw “fastball” style, which uses more of a hard chopping motion to send the ball in a more direct line to the intended target cup. Also, a fastball shot may be favorable if house rules dictate a cup that is knocked over is taken off the table, in which case a fastball can eliminate multiple cups if thrown hard enough.
A “bounce” shot is performed by bouncing the ball toward the cups. Since (depending on house rules) the other team may have the opportunity to swat away a bounced ball, a bounce may be worth more than one cup. In some rule sets, bouncing is not allowed; in others, it is required.
If the opposing team makes the last cup, the other team loses unless they can make either all remaining cups or simply one cup. This is called a rebuttal or redemption. In some rule sets, if the opposing team hits the last cup with both of their balls, no redemption is given to the losing team.
A disadvantage of current beer pong tables is that they do not permit a user to play or practice alone in order to improve their throwing skills The tables are flat surfaces that hold the cups and are open on the ends and sides. Thus, the user winds up chasing and picking up the balls. Alternatively, the balls are stored in the cups when not in play.
Another disadvantage is that players may become annoyed while waiting for a distracted player to take their turn.
Other disadvantages of current beer pong tables include having to deal with cleaning up spilled liquids, organizing loose cups, and washing the ping pong balls.
This invention overcomes the disadvantages of the prior art by providing a game table in which the cups are attached to a scoring mechanism. The cups are positioned within a platform. The scoring mechanism consists of two sets of three cups that are attached to three individual ramps that transport the ball into three individual tubes which visibly holds three balls each. Once a tube has accumulated three balls, it will reject a fourth ball and lets it fall back to the collection point behind it as if it were a missed shot. The collection point organizes the balls into a straight line so that they can be delivered into the air powered return tube. The ball return tube constantly delivers missed shots back to the ball tray which can hold around 30 to 40 balls. The ball tray is positioned right in front of the players. A backboard surrounds the back and sides of the cups to stop the missed shots from landing on the floor.
In an alternative embodiment, the collection point contains an aperture to allow the used balls to fall through into a receptacle positioned underneath the aperture.
In another alternative embodiment, the cup platform is adapted to hold ten cups and the ramps and scoring tubes are not present.
It is a goal of the present invention to provide a table that is low maintenance such that the user does not have to pick up balls from the floor, clean up any spilled liquid, wash the balls, and/or organize loose cups.
It is another goal of the present invention to provide a table in which no liquid in the cups is required.
It is yet another goal of the present invention to provide a table that allows the user to practice beer pong alone in order to improve their throwing skills in as little as 10 to 15 minutes of continuous play.
It a further goal of the present invention to provide a table in which the users are not required to take turns, thus reducing player distraction.
The features and advantages described herein are not all-inclusive and, in particular, many additional features and advantages will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art in view of the drawings, specification, and claims. Moreover, it should be noted that the language used in the specification has been principally selected for readability and instructional purposes, and not to limit the scope of the inventive subject matter.
FIGS. 1 to 18
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Referring to the drawings in general and to in particular, there is provided a game table . Game table has several components including, but not limited to, a ball tray , a ball return tube , and a playing surface having a scoring mechanism . In one embodiment, game table , with all of its components, is approximately 8 feet 4 inches in length.
FIGS. 1 to 4
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In one embodiment, shown in , playing surface is approximately 3 feet 2 inches in width at the front edge, 3 feet in length, and 3 feet 8 inches in height. Playing surface has a bottom portion that is an inverted pyramid in shape. Bottom portion of playing surface is attached to a stand for stability. A backboard is positioned at the rear of playing surface to stop the missed shots from landing on the floor. In one embodiment, backboard is 2 feet in width. The side walls of playing surface may be made of netting. The netting is positioned such that it increases visibility of the play action. The walls of bottom portion are slanted to facilitate collection of missed shots at a collection point . Backboard of playing surface is adapted to receive scoring mechanism .
FIGS. 5 to 10
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In one embodiment, shown in , scoring mechanism consists of two sets of three cups , a series of ramps , and a series of scoring tubes . One example of the type of cups that may be used is plastic cups. Cups are positioned in a triangular formation in a cup platform . Cup platform may be made of plastic. Each cup in cup platform is attached to an individual ramp that transports a ball into an individual scoring tube . Cup platform may be attached to ramps via a sliding clip arrangement. The slope of ramps is at an angle sufficient enough to insure that balls keep moving even if playing surface is not completely level. Ramps and scoring tubes may be made of plastic. Each scoring tube holds three balls . Once scoring tube has accumulated three balls, it will reject a fourth ball and lets that ball fall back to collection point behind scoring tube as if it were a missed shot. Scoring tubes are attached to each other. Balls in scoring tubes are released when the cover of tubes is swung forward from the bottom such that they roll back to collection point . Collection point organizes balls into a straight line so that they may be delivered into ball return tube .
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Ball return tube is powered by a fan (not shown), which blows air behind the balls to send them up the tube. In one embodiment, the fan and ball return tube are made of plastic. Ball return tube constantly delivers the missed shots back to ball tray , which may hold approximately 30 to 40 balls.
FIG. 11
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In an alternative embodiment of the game table of the present invention, shown in as ′, bottom portion of playing surface contains an aperture (not shown) in collection point to allow the used balls to fall through into a receptacle positioned underneath the aperture.
FIGS. 12-13
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In another alternative embodiment of the game table of the present invention, shown in as ″, cup platform ′ is adapted to hold ten cups and the ramps and scoring tubes are not present. In this embodiment, the user is able to practice their throwing skills.
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FIGS. 14-15
FIG. 16
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Ball tray is positioned right in front of the players. In one embodiment, shown in , ball tray is approximately 1 foot 8 inches in width at is base, 2 feet 6 inches in height, and 2 feet 4 inches in length. Ball tray may be triangular in shape. Ball tray is positioned upon a stand for stability. Ball tray has a cover that partially encloses the top half of the tray and one end of ball return tube . In an alternative embodiment, shown in ball tray is uncovered. A cup holder is positioned at the apex of ball tray . In one embodiment, shown in , cup holder is adapted to hold two cups .
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Playing surface , including backboard , and ball tray may made of cardboard or reinforced fabric. The type of cardboard may be paperboard and/or corrugated fiberboard. Playing surface and ball tray may be decorated with artwork to enhance the enjoyment of playing the game. For example, such artwork may include trademarks, sports fields, sports team logos, college or fraternity logos, or even the name of a bar.
The foregoing has been a detailed description of illustrative embodiments of the invention. Various modifications and additions can be made without departing from the spirit and scope if this invention. Each of the various embodiments described above may be combined with other described embodiments in order to provide multiple features. Furthermore, while the foregoing describes a number of separate embodiments of the apparatus and method of the present invention, what has been described herein is merely illustrative of the application of the principles of the present invention. Accordingly, this description is meant to be taken only by way of example, and not to otherwise limit the scope of this invention.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
The invention description below refers to the accompanying drawings, of which:
FIG. 1
is a top view of one embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 2
FIG. 1
is a side view of the embodiment shown in ;
FIG. 3
FIG. 1
is a front perspective view of the embodiment shown in ;
FIG. 4
FIG. 1
is a side perspective view of the embodiment shown in ;
FIG. 5
is a side perspective view of the scoring mechanism of the present invention, shown in a closed position;
FIG. 6
FIG. 5
is a side perspective view of the scoring mechanism of , shown in an open position;
FIG. 7
FIG. 5
is a rear perspective view of the scoring mechanism of , shown in a closed position;
FIG. 8
FIG. 5
is a rear perspective view of the scoring mechanism of , shown in an open position;
FIG. 9
FIG. 5
is an exploded rear view of the scoring mechanism of ;
FIG. 10
FIG. 5
is an exploded rear perspective view of the scoring mechanism of ;
FIG. 11
is a rear perspective view of another embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 12
is a front perspective view of a further alternative embodiment of the present invention
FIG. 13
FIG. 12
is a close up front perspective view of the cup platform of ;
FIG. 14
is side view of the ball tray of the present invention;
FIG. 15
FIG. 14
is a bottom perspective view of the ball tray of ;
FIG. 16
is a top view of an alternative embodiment of the ball tray of the present invention;
FIG. 17
is a close up front perspective view of the cup holder of the present invention; and
FIG. 18
FIG. 17
is a close up top perspective view of the cup holder of . | |
Health Breach Tally: 30 Million VictimsExperts Analyze the Latest Trends
More than 30.6 million individuals have been affected by major healthcare data breaches since September 2009, according to the latest tally from federal regulators. And looking ahead, some security experts believe that the nature of many large breaches will shift, with business associates being implicated more often.
As of March 28, there were 931 breaches posted on the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Civil Rights "wall of shame" website, which lists incidents affecting 500 or more individuals since September 2009, when the HIPAA breach notification rule first went into effect under the HITECH Act.
Of those, about a quarter have involved business associates, who are now directly liable for HIPAA compliance under the HIPAA Omnibus Rule, which went into effect last year. Those business associate-related breaches affected almost 15 million individuals, or about half of the total number of people affected by all breaches on the list.
And some security experts expect that business associates will likely be implicated in even more breaches in the months to come. That's because not only are more vendors, including many cloud services providers, now considered business associates under HIPAA Omnibus, but the method to assess breaches for notification has changed as well.
Under the HIPAA Omnibus Rule, breach assessments must be based on at least four objective factors, rather than the previous, more subjective, "harm standard." Those four factors include: the nature and extent of the protected health information involved; the unauthorized party who used the protected health information or to whom the disclosure was made; whether PHI was actually acquired or viewed; and the extent to which the risk to the PHI has been mitigated.
Jeff Cobb, chief information security officer at Capella Healthcare, which owns or operates 14 acute care and specialty hospitals in six states, notes: "For covered entities, I don't think the [new approach to breach] assessments will impact the number of breaches being reported; however we'll see a spike with BAs," he says. "BAs have always been on the hook with HIPAA breaches, but HIPAA Omnibus solidifies it."
Vendor Duties
Security expert Dan Berger says business associates are starting to wake up to their responsibilities under HIPAA Omnibus.
"We are seeing very encouraging signs that large business associates are taking HIPAA compliance seriously and conducting risk assessments," says Berger, president and CEO at Redspin, an IT security assessment company.
"But business associates often have a more difficult task in securing PHI than providers," he notes. "The nature of the services they provide may involve Web applications, multiple data stores, less HIPAA-aware employees and downstream vendors. In addition, a BA may provide similar services to other non-healthcare customers. Thus, the surface area for potential breaches is greater."
Unencrypted Devices
Lost or stolen unencrypted devices are the most common cause of breaches listed on the wall of shame. And Berger expects such breaches to remain common. That's because a misperception that end-user device encryption is costly continues to prevail, he says.
And it's not just unencrypted mobile devices that have been implicated in major breaches. "I think the desktop theft at Advocate Medical Group, which was last year's largest breach, has brought the issue of desktop encryption to the forefront," Berger says. "But we don't see many providers moving toward this yet. The bigger question at Advocate seems to be why there were so many health records on those desktops."
The July 2013 theft of four unencrypted computers from an office of Advocate, a Chicago-area physician group practice, may have exposed information on about 4 million patients. A class action suit filed against Advocate in August alleges the breach put the patients at risk for fraud.
Cobb says the number of breaches involving lost or stolen unencrypted devices could drop as encryption becomes more common. Meanwhile reported breaches involving hackers or other unauthorized access could grow as the use of breach detection technologies, such as audit tools and log management systems, increases.
The soon-to-be-released Healthcare Information Security Today survey shows that audit tools or log management systems were the top security technology investment planned by healthcare organizations for 2014.
"Monitoring and audit logs give more visibility, you'll find [activity] that you weren't aware of before," Cobb says. Also, as more healthcare organizations role out Web portals to provide patients access with their electronic health information - a requirement of HIPAA and the HITECH Act electronic health records incentive program - new vulnerabilities to data will emerge, he says.
Among breaches added to the HHS website in recent weeks was an incident related to a three-day hacker attack in December against an onsite server at St. Joseph Health System in Bryan, Texas, which exposed information on about 405,000 individuals.
"Unauthorized access as a whole is likely to spike whether from external hacking or insiders," Berger says. "It is only logical that a high value asset such as personal health records will attract malicious and nefarious interest."
To address those threats, "in addition to risk assessments, we strongly recommend penetration testing, better access controls, and network hardening to our healthcare clients," he says. | https://omnibus.healthcareinfosecurity.com/health-breach-tally-30-million-victims-a-6694 |
[N] Newton vs the machine: solving the chaotic three-body problem using deep neural networks
Since its formulation by Sir Isaac Newton, the problem of solving the equations of motion for three bodies under their own gravitational force has remained practically unsolved. Currently, the solution for a given initialization can only be found by performing laborious iterative calculations that have unpredictable and potentially infinite computational cost, due to the system’s chaotic nature. We show that an ensemble of solutions obtained using an arbitrarily precise numerical integrator can be used to train a deep artificial neural network (ANN) that, over a bounded time interval, provides accurate solutions at fixed computational cost and up to 100 million times faster than a state-of-the-art solver. Our results provide evidence that, for computationally challenging regions of phase-space, a trained ANN can replace existing numerical solvers, enabling fast and scalable simulations of many-body systems to shed light on outstanding phenomena such as the formation of black-hole binary systems or the origin of the core collapse in dense star clusters. | https://torontoai.org/2019/10/25/n-newton-vs-the-machine-solving-the-chaotic-three-body-problem-using-deep-neural-networks/ |
Summary: The crystalized healer is one who has balanced their chakras, especially the lower triad, through careful disciplines of the personality (the bulk of the work for the adept). One becomes more and more who one has always been, and this is a felt-gnosis. The sixth chakra becomes the home-base for the healer where one’s will through positive intention (and this is working with Intelligent Energy) taps Intelligent Infinity when desired to produce changes in consciousness according to the working at hand. The healer is detached from the outcome of the healing and sees himself/herself as a channel for the Infinite Creator offered in and through surrender as a gift to the person desiring healing. The receiver of healing is healed through faith in the process, all the while knowing that it is the Infinite Creator within that is doing the healing and is aided by the crystalized healer. If a healing does not occur, pre-incarnative choices are considered and can be examined through meditation. The crystalized healer is one who unflinchingly dedicates themselves to self-inquiry and keeps the chakras as balanced as possible. This is the great work.
For me, balancing the lower triad is accepting as fully as I can, in the NOW, that I am incarnated here in this body at this time for a purpose, under my unique circumstances, for a purpose that gives glory to the Infinite Creator in a variety of ways. This is red ray balancing.
Balancing is then knowing myself, accepting myself as fully as I can, and forgiving myself for my faults without judgement and shame. It is connected to my self-esteem. It is seeing myself in the mirror and seeing the Creator. Much psychological work is done here. This is in part, orange ray balancing.
It is knowing others, accepting others as fully as I can, and forgiving them for their own blindness without judgement and shame. It is knowing the systems that we are part of, accepting them as fully as I can, and forgiving them for their own collective shadows without judgement and shame. It is here in this center where I learn about my false self and its disguises. Do I use my power to manipulate and control or to accept and to love? I begin to learn healthy boundaries here. This is yellow ray balancing.
In all three centers, I learn and intentional enjoy the gratitude of my existence and the existence of life around me. When I feel balanced in the lower triad, I feel a powerful joy surging from me that desires to transcend myself and connect to others (the stirrings of the heart chakra that beckons above). But it’s not a joy that is external, coming from somewhere outside of me, but deeply internal.
I feel an equanimity where I am not overly stimulated emotionally in any way, either by intense sadness or joy. It is not that I don’t feel these feelings or that they are suppressed, but rather it is that I find proper perspective to place upon each emotion so that I can see more clearly how better to navigate in the world while being able to choose actions that further my chosen polarity.
Somatically, when my lower triad is balanced, I don’t feel a tightness anywhere down there but rather an aliveness and connectedness to the rest of my body. If I am out of balance, I feel a pressure, particularly in my 2nd chakra (orange ray) and sometimes a tightness or pressure in my 3rd chakra. If I am angry, hurt, down, anxious, than I may begin to desire to defend myself, manipulate (even subtley) another person to correct the false self’s hurt image. This puts me out of balance. When I catch myself in this state, I can choose to surrender again into the catalyst of it all and offer it up to the Infinite Creator in gratitude for the lesson. This resets my lower triad to a large degree.
In short, balancing the lower triad, for me, is being actively mindful of keeping my side of the street clean and I do this in gratitude.
The Adept is a crystalized healer.
73.19 Questioner: I’ll make a general statement which you can correct. The way I see the overall picture of healer and patient is that the one to be healed has, because of a blockage in one of the energy centers or more, but we will just consider one particular problem… Because of this energy center blockage the upward spiraling light that creates one of the seven bodies has been blocked from the maintenance of that body, and this has resulted in a distortion from the perfection of that body that we call disease or a bodily anomaly which is other than perfect. The healer, having suitably configured its energy centers, is able to channel light, the downward pouring light, though its properly configured energy situation to the one to be healed. If the one to be healed has the mental configuration of acceptance of this light, the light then enters [the] physical complex and re-configures the distortion that was created by the original blockage. I am sure that I have made some mistakes in that. Would you please correct them? —Ra: I am Ra. Your mistakes were small. We would not, at this time, attempt a great deal of refinement of that statement as there is preliminary material which will undoubtedly come forward. We may say that there are various forms of healing. In many, only the energy of the adept is used. In the exercise of fire some physical complex energy is also channeled. We might note further that when the one wishing to be healed, though sincere, remains unhealed, as you call this distortion, you may consider pre-incarnative choices and your more helpful aid to such an entity may be the suggestion that it meditate upon the affirmative uses of whatever limitations it might experience. We would also note that in these cases the indigo-ray workings are often of aid.
75.35 To be a healer by nature one must indeed train its self in the disciplines of the personality.
2.3 The principle of crystal healing is based upon an understanding of the hierarchical nature of the structure of the illusion which is the physical body, as you would call it. There are crystals which work upon the energies coming into the spiritual body; there are crystals which work upon the distortions from spirit to mind; there are crystals which balance the distortions between the mind and the body. All of these crystal healings are charged through purified channels. Without the relative crystallization of the healer working with the crystal, the crystal will not be properly charged. The other ingredient is a proper alignment with the energy fields of the planet upon which you dwell and the holistic or cosmic distortions or streamings which enter the planetary aura in such a manner that an appropriate ratio of shapes and placement within these shapes is of indicated aid in the untangling or balancing process.
4.17 We consider your request for information, for as you noted, there are a significant number of vibratory sound complexes which can be used in sequence to train the healer. The synopsis is a very appropriate entry that you might understand what is involved. Firstly, the mind must be known to itself. This is perhaps the most demanding part of healing work. If the mind knows itself then the most important aspect of healing has occurred, for consciousness is the microcosm of the Law of One. The second part has to do with the disciplines of the body complexes. In the streamings reaching your planet at this time, these understandings and disciplines have to do with the balance between love and wisdom in the use of the body in its natural functions. The third area is the spiritual, and in this area the first two disciplines are connected through the attainment of contact with intelligent infinity.
4.2 The Law of One, though beyond the limitations of name, as you call vibratory sound complexes, may be approximated by stating that all things are one, that there is no polarity, no right or wrong, no disharmony, but only identity. All is one, and that one is love/light, light/love, the Infinite Creator. One of the primal distortions of the Law of One is that of healing. Healing occurs when a mind/body/spirit complex realizes, deep within itself, the Law of One; that is, that there is no disharmony, no imperfection; that all is complete and whole and perfect. Thus, the intelligent infinity within this mind/body/spirit complex re-forms the illusion of body, mind, or spirit to a form congruent with the Law of One. The healer acts as energizer or catalyst for this completely individual process. One item which may be of interest is that a healer asking to learn must take the distortion understood as responsibility for that ask/receiving, thus healing. This is a[n] honor/duty which must be carefully considered in free will before the asking.
5.1 The healer is only the catalyst, much as this instrument has the catalysis necessary to provide the channel for our words, yet by example or exercise of any kind can take no thought for this working. The healing working is congruent in that it is a form of channeling some distortion of the intelligent infinity.
6.1 We proceed now with the third area of teach/learning concerning the development of the energy powers of healing. The third area is the spiritual complex which embodies the fields of force and consciousness which are the least distorted of your mind/body/spirit complex. The exploration and balancing of the spirit complex is indeed the longest and most subtle part of your learn/teaching. We have considered the mind as a tree. The mind controls the body. With the mind single-pointed, balanced, and aware, the body comfortable in whatever biases and distortions make it appropriately balanced for that instrument, the instrument is then ready to proceed with the great work. That is the work of wind and fire. The spiritual body energy field is a pathway, or channel. When body and mind are receptive and open, then the spirit can become a functioning shuttle or communicator from the entity’s individual energy of will upwards, and from the streamings of the creative fire and wind downwards. The healing ability, like all other, what this instrument would call paranormal abilities, is effected by the opening of a pathway or shuttle into intelligent infinity. There are many upon your plane who have a random hole or gateway in their spirit energy field, sometimes created by the ingestion of chemicals such as, what this instrument would call LSD, who are able, randomly and without control, to tap into energy sources. They may or may not be entities who wish to serve. The purpose of carefully and consciously opening this channel is to serve in a more dependable way, in a more commonplace or usual way, as seen by the distortion complex of the healer. To others there may appear to be miracles. To the one who has carefully opened the door to intelligent infinity this is ordinary; this is commonplace; this is as it should be. The life experience becomes somewhat transformed and the great work goes on. At this time we feel these exercises suffice for your beginning. We will, at a future time, when you feel you have accomplished that which is set before you, begin to guide you into a more precise understanding of the functions and uses of this gateway in the experience of healing.
12.31 The self-healing distortion is effected through realization of the intelligent infinity resting within. This is blocked in some way in those who are not perfectly balanced in bodily complexes. The blockage varies from entity to entity. It requires the conscious awareness of the spiritual nature of reality, if you will, and the corresponding pourings of this reality into the individual mind/body/spirit complex for healing to take place. We will use this instrument as example. The portions of its ailment, as you call this distortion complex, that can be perfected in balance are due primarily to a blockage of the indigo-ray or pineal energy center. This center receives the intelligent energy from all sources lawful within the one Creation; that is, lawful in this third-density distortion or illusion. If there is no blockage, these energies pour or stream down into the mind/body/spirit complex perfecting moment by moment the individual’s body complex. This instrument also experiences some distortion of the green-ray energy center which you may call the heart center. It is overly open due to an intensive desire distortion on the part of this mind/body/spirit complex towards service to others, or as you may call it, universal love. This entity, therefore, spends itself without regard to its reserves of mind/body/spirit complex distortion in regard to what you call strength or energy. This distortion is primarily due to the blockage of the indigo ray. As we have said before, the misapprehension distortion of the instrument responsible for this blockage is the basic orientation towards a belief in unworthiness. The unworthiness distortion blocks the free flow of intelligent energy. The seventh or violet ray is unimpaired, this being not only an energy receptor but a sum total of the vibratory level of the individual. The other energy centers are also quite clear. The solution to healing in this case is action that puts into practice the peaceful understanding in humility distortion that the entity is one with the Creator, therefore perfected and not separate. In each case of what you would call ill health one or more of these energy centers is blocked. The intelligence of the mind/body/spirit complex needs then to be alerted either by the self as healer or by the catalyst of another healer, as we have said before.
17.18 Those who heal may be of any density which has the consciousness of the spirit. This includes third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh. The third density can be one in which healing takes place just as the others. However, there is more illusory material to understand, to balance, to accept, and to move forward from. The gate to intelligent infinity can only be opened when an understanding of the instreamings of intelligent energy are opened unto the healer. These are the so-called Natural Laws of your local space/time continuum and its web of electromagnetic sources or nexi of instreaming energy. Know then, first, the mind and the body. Then as the spirit is integrated and synthesized, those are harmonized into a mind/body/spirit complex which can move among the dimensions and which can open the gateway to intelligent infinity, thus healing self by light and sharing that light with others. True healing is simply the radiance of the self causing an environment in which a catalyst may occur which initiates the recognition of self, by self, of the self-healing properties of the self.
38.5 [The ] ability to feel blockages is useful only to the healer. There is not properly a tiny fraction of judgment when viewing a balance in colors. Of course when we see many of the energy plexi weakened and blocked, we may understand that an entity has not yet grasped the baton and begun the race. However, the potentials are always there. All the rays fully balanced are there in waiting to be activated. Perhaps another way to address your query is this: In the fully potentiated entity the rays mount one upon the other with equal vibratory brilliance and scintillating sheen until the surrounding color is white. This is what you may call potentiated balance in third density.
47.8 The indigo-ray body which we choose to call the etheric body is, as we have said, the gateway body. In this body form is substance and you may only see this body as that of light as it may mold itself as it desires. The violet-ray body may perhaps be understood as what you might call the Buddha body or that body which is complete. Each of these bodies has an effect upon your mind/body/spirit complex in your life beingness. The interrelationships, as we have said, are many and complex. Perhaps one suggestion that may be indicated is this: The indigo-ray body may be used by the healer once the healer becomes able to place its consciousness in this etheric state. The violet-ray or Buddhic body is of equal efficacy to the healer for within it lies a sense of wholeness which is extremely close to unity with all that there is. These bodies are part of each entity and the proper use of them and understanding of them is, though far advanced from the standpoint of third-density harvest, nevertheless useful to the adept.
62.26 Rest then in that peace and love and do as you will, as you wish, as you feel. Let there be an end to worry when this is accomplished. The great healer of distortions is love.
66.5 …[The] crystallized healer is analogous to the pyramidal action of the King’s Chamber position. There are a few adjustments we might suggest. Firstly, the energy which is used is brought into the field complex of the healer by the outstretched hand used in a polarized sense. However, this energy circulates through the various points of energy to the base of the spine and, to a certain extent, the feet, thus coming through the main energy centers of the healer spiraling through the feet, turning at the red energy center towards a spiral at the yellow energy center and passing through the green energy center in a microcosm of the King’s Chamber energy configuration of prana; this then continuing for the third spiral through the blue energy center and being sent therefrom through the gateway back to intelligent infinity. It is from the green center that the healing prana moves into the polarized healing right hand and therefrom to the one to be healed. We may note that there are some who use the yellow-ray configuration to transfer energy and this may be done but the effects are questionable and, with regard to the relationship between the healer, the healing energy, and the seeker, questionable due to the propensity for the seeker to continue requiring such energy transfers without any true healing taking place in the absence of the healer due to the lack of penetration of the armoring shell of which you spoke.
66.8 Only insofar as the healer has become balanced may it be a channel for the balancing of an other-self. The healing is first practiced upon the self, if we may say this in another way.
66.9 The role of the healer is to offer an opportunity for realignment or aid in realignment of either energy centers or some connection between the energies of mind and body, spirit and mind, or spirit and body. This latter is very rare. The seeker will then have the reciprocal opportunity to accept a novel view of the self, a variant arrangement of patterns of energy influx. If the entity, at any level, desires to remain in the configuration of distortion which seems to need healing it will do so. If, upon the other hand, the seeker chooses the novel configuration, it is done through free will. This is one great difficulty with other forms of energy transfer in that they do not carry through the process of free will as this process is not native to yellow ray.
66.10 The healer does not heal. The crystallized healer is a channel for intelligent energy which offers an opportunity to an entity that it might heal itself. In no case is there an other description of healing. Therefore, there is no difference as long as the healer never approaches one whose request for aid has not come to it previously. This is also true of the more conventional healers of your culture and if these healers could but fully realize that they are responsible only for offering the opportunity of healing, and not for the healing, many of these entities would feel an enormous load of misconceived responsibility fall from them.
66.12 …the greatest healer is within the self and may be tapped with continued meditation as we have suggested. The many forms of healing available to your peoples each have virtue and may be deemed appropriate by any seeker who wishes to alter the physical complex distortions or some connection between the various portions of the mind/body/spirit complex thereby.
66.13 It was my assumption that these healers are providing what I would call a training aid or a way of creating a reconfiguration of the mind of the patient to be healed as the relatively naïve patient observes the action of the healer in seeing the materialized blood, etc., then reconfigures the roots of mind to believe, you might say, the healing is done and, therefore, heals himself. Is this analysis that I made correct? Ra: I am Ra. This is correct. We may speak slightly further upon this type of opportunity. There are times when the malcondition to be altered is without emotional, mental, or spiritual interest to the entity and is merely that which has, perhaps by chance genetic arrangement, occurred. In these cases that which is apparently dematerialized will remain dematerialized and may be observed as so by any observer. The malcondition which has an emotional, mental, or spiritual charge is likely not to remain dematerialized in the sense of the showing of the objective referent to an observer. However, if the opportunity has been taken by the seeker the apparent malcondition of the physical complex will be at variance with the actual health, as you call this distortion, of the seeker and the lack of experiencing the distortions which the objective referent would suggest still held sway. For instance, in this instrument the removal of three small cysts was the removal of material having no interest to the entity. Thus these growths remained dematerialized after the so-called psychic surgery experience. In other psychic surgery the kidneys of this instrument were carefully offered a new configuration of beingness which the entity embraced. However, this particular portion of the mind/body/spirit complex carried a great deal of emotional, mental, and spiritual charge due to this distorted functioning being the cause of great illness in a certain configuration of events which culminated in this entity’s conscious decision to be of service. Therefore, any objective scanning of this entity’s renal complex would indicate the rather extreme dysfunctional aspect which it showed previous to the psychic surgery experience, as you call it. The key is not in the continuation of the dematerialization of distortion to the eye of the beholder but rather lies in the choosing of the newly materialized configuration which exists in time/space.
66.14 Healing is done in the time/space portion of the mind/body/spirit complex, is adopted by the form-making or etheric body, and is then given to the space/time physical illusion for use in the activated yellow-ray mind/body/spirit complex. It is the adoption of the configuration which you call health by the etheric body in time/space which is the key to what you call health, not any event which occurs in space/time. In this process you may see the transdimensional aspect of what you call will, for it is the will, the seeking, the desire of the entity which causes the indigo body to use the novel configuration and to reform the body which exists in space/time. This is done in an instant and may be said to operate without regard to time. We may note that in the healing of very young children there is often an apparent healing by the healer in which the young entity has no part. This is never so, for the mind/body/spirit complex in time/space is always capable of willing the distortions it chooses for experience no matter what the apparent age, as you call it, of the entity.
66.15 …the crystallized healer has no will. It offers an opportunity without attachment to the outcome, for it is aware that all is one and that the Creator is knowing Itself.
73.17 When the magical personality has been seated in the green-ray energy center for healing work the energy then may be seen to be the crystalline center through which body energy is channeled. Thus this particular form of healing uses both the energy of the adept and the energy of the upward spiraling light. As the green-ray center becomes more brilliant, and we would note this brilliance does not imply over-activation but rather crystallization, the energy of the green-ray center of the body complex spirals twice; firstly, clockwise from the green-ray energy center to the right shoulder, through the head, the right elbow, down through the solar plexus, and to the left hand. This sweeps all the body complex energy into a channel which then rotates the great circle clockwise again from right — we correct this instrument — from the left to the feet, to the right hand, to the crown, to the left hand, and so forth. Thus the in-coming body energy, crystallized, regularized, and channeled by the adept’s personality reaching to the green-ray energy center, may then pour out the combined energies of the adept which is incarnate thus offering the service of healing to an entity requesting that service. This basic situation is accomplished as well when there is an entity which is working through a channel to heal.
73.18 Questioner: Could you tell me how this transfer of light, I believe it would be, would affect the patient to be healed? àRa: I am Ra. The effect is that of polarization. The entity may or may not accept any percentage of this polarized life-energy which is being offered. In the occasion of the laying on of hands this energy is more specifically channeled and the opportunity for acceptance of this energy similarly more specific. It may be seen that the King’s Chamber effect is not attempted in this form of working but rather the addition to one, whose energies are low, the opportunity for the building up of those energies. Many of your distortions called illnesses may be aided by such means.
32.14 …the green ray has been achieved, the ability of the entity to enter blue ray is immediate and is only awaiting the efforts of the individual. The indigo ray is opened only through considerable discipline and practice largely having to do with acceptance of self, not only as the polarized and balanced self but as the Creator, as an entity of infinite worth. This will begin to activate the indigo ray.
41.21 [On removing unwanted thought forms]… This, as all healing techniques, must be used by a conscious being; that is, a being conscious that the ridding of excess and unwanted material from the body complex is the analogy to the ridding of mind or spirit of excess or unwanted material. Thus the one discipline or denial of the unwanted portion as an appropriate part of the self is taken through the tree of mind down through the trunk to subconscious levels where the connection is made and thus the body, mind, and spirit, then in unison, express denial of the excess or unwanted spiritual or mental material as part of the entity. All then falls away and the entity, while understanding, if you will, and appreciating the nature of the rejected material as part of the greater self, nevertheless, through the action of the will purifies and refines the mind/body/spirit complex, bringing into manifestation the desired mind complex or spirit complex attitude.
52.7 Questioner: Am I correct, then, in assuming that discipline of the personality, knowledge of self, and control, shall I say, in strengthening of the will would be what any fifth-density entity would see as those things of importance? à Ra: I am Ra. In actuality these things are of importance in third through early seventh densities. The only correction in nuance that we would make is your use of the word, control. It is paramount that it be understood that it is not desirable or helpful to the growth of the understanding, may we say, of an entity by itself to control thought processes or impulses except where they may result in actions not consonant with the Law of One. Control may seem to be a short-cut to discipline, peace, and illumination. However, this very control potentiates and necessitates the further incarnative experience in order to balance this control or repression of that self which is perfect. Instead, we appreciate and recommend the use of your second verb in regard to the use of the will. Acceptance of self, forgiveness of self, and the direction of the will; this is the path towards the disciplined personality. Your faculty of will is that which is powerful within you as co-Creator. You cannot ascribe to this faculty too much importance. Thus it must be carefully used and directed in service to others for those upon the positively oriented path. There is great danger in the use of the will as the personality becomes stronger, for it may be used even subconsciously in ways reducing the polarity of the entity.
52.11 Well, is there then, from the point of view of an individual who wishes to follow the service-to-others path from our present position in third density, is there anything of importance other than disciplines of personality, knowledge of self, and strengthening of will? à Ra: I am Ra. This is technique. This is not the heart. Let us examine the heart of evolution. Let us remember that we are all one. This is the great learning/teaching. In this unity lies love. This is a great learn/teaching. In this unity lies light. This is the fundamental teaching of all planes of existence in materialization. Unity, love, light, and joy; this is the heart of evolution of the spirit. The second-ranking lessons are learn/taught in meditation and in service. At some point the mind/body/spirit complex is so smoothly activated and balanced by these central thoughts or distortions that the techniques you have mentioned become quite significant. However, the universe, its mystery unbroken, is one. Always begin and end in the Creator, not in technique.
54.15 While it is a primary priority to activate or unblock each energy center, it is also a primary priority at that point to begin to refine the balances between the energies so that each tone of the chord of total vibratory beingness resonates in clarity, tune, and harmony with each other energy. This balancing, tuning, and harmonizing of the self is most central to the more advanced or adept mind/body/spirit complex. Each energy may be activated without the beauty that is possible through the disciplines and appreciations of personal energies or what you might call the deeper personality or soul identity.
Doug, I had hoped to send you a private e-mail but couldn’t find an address. I am also a Christian mystic and have been a student of the Law of One since my awakening in 2011, so you feel like a closely related other-self. I’ve been on the path of purifying and balancing my mind/body/soul complex since my awakening, but over the last year the gas has been poured onto the spiritual fire. The ideal of the crystallized healer seems to be transitioning from conceptual model towards a call for embodiment. | https://universalchrist.net/2017/01/03/what-is-the-adept-the-adept-is-a-crystalized-healer/ |
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2020-01-10 65709
Visual Crafts -- The Craft Trend for Women's Trousers
Crafts of women's trousers start from a new perspective. Main changes lie in the waistband, silhouette and leg openings. Different parts of trousers are decorated by buttoned slit, self-cloth knot or layered crinkles. | https://www.popfashioninfo.com/trends/sea_12335-cat_11130/ |
The complex societies have high degree of division of labor and consequently structural differentiation. Thus economic activity constitutes a specialized activity taking place in special institution framework and distinguishable from other types of social activity e.g. factories, banks and markets are some of the distinct economic activities.
High division of labor implies advanced skills which help in high productivity. The economic organization can easily sustain a large population.
Complex societies due to their high productivity generate huge surplus. They can support conspicuous consumption.
Market exchange is the pivotal form of exchange and money is the universal medium of exchange.
The members of the complex societies have high achievement motivation and the economic behavior is characterized by an intense preoccupation with generation and accumulation of surplus.
There exist a clear distinction between domestic economy and community economy. The domestic units are the units of consumption and supply the manpower to the community economy. The production of goods and services takes place in the larger units which form part of the community economy.
These societies are characterized by the high level of scientific and technological advancements. Economic activity is perceived in secular terms and is based on practical rationality.
High degree of specialization, rapidity of change, predominance of practical and excessive mechanization of production leads to a state of anomie in society and alienate the worker from the product of his labour. | http://www.sociologyguide.com/economy-and-society/Economic-system-of-complex-societies.php |
Olivia Roszkowski is a plant-centric chef, culinary educator and recipe developer. After graduating from the Natural Gourmet Institute of Health and Culinary Arts' Chef's Training Program in 2010, she worked in acclaimed New York City kitchens, including Momofuku Ssam Bar and The Mercer Kitchen. She's since worked in food media creating and editing content, and develops recipes as a consultant.
Chef Olivia instructed at NGI for six years and is pursuing her master's in food studies at NYU. "I enjoy the creativity aspect most," Chef Olivia says of instructing. "I like using my science background to transform plants into familiar flavors that we have all grown up loving. The techniques are so unique in really making plants shine that it is a constant learning process in the kitchen with new daily discoveries." | https://www.ice.edu/newyork/explore-ice/faculty-profiles/olivia-roszkowski |
For her solo show in the Espace Projet gallery, Sarah Margnetti exhibits a large selection of recent works, as well as wall paintings done on site.
A master of the trompe-l’oeil technique, Sarah Margnetti has developed a pictorial style that combines optical illusions with abstract forms. Used in monumental wall paintings and occasionally on canvases, her motifs depict fragments of bodies, most often female ones, whose function is redirected or reappropriated (an ear becomes a body, a body a brain, and so on), or they are worked out in multiple variations. They loom up from or melt into architectural or interior decorative elements borrowed from the world of the stage (curtains, balustrades, seats, etc.).
Among the sensory organs, the ear is a motif that crops up over and over. It vanishes into the knots in the wood of a trompe-l’oeil décor, or extends the decorative scheme of a fireplace, morphs into an artist’s palette, or replaces the eyes in a face. The artist’s practice seems then to point up listening rather than language or vision, playing off and with, mining and undermining, the traditional motifs littering the history of art, especially that of the female body. | https://andymeetswarhol.com/2022/10/15/sarah-margnetti-supportive-structuresmanor-art-prize-2022-vaud/ |
In internal sorting the data to be sorted is placed in main memory. In external sorting the data is placed in external memory such as hard disk, floppy disk etc. The internal sorting can be classified into
1)n^2 sorting
2)n log n sorting n^2
sorting - it can be classified into
1)Bubble sort
2) Selection sort
3) Insertion sort nlogn sorting - It can be classified into
1) Merge sort
2)Quick sort
3) Heap sort
Bubble sort
Bubblesort(a[],n)
Input- an array a[size], n is the no. of element currently present in array Output- Sorted array
DS- Array
Algorithm
1. Start
2. i=0
3. While i<n-1
1. j=0
2. While j<n-1-i
1. If a[j]>a[j+1]
1. temp=a[j]
2. a[j]=a[j+1]
3. a[j+1]=temp
2. end if
3. j=j+1
3.end while
4.i=i+1
4. end while
5.Stop
Here first element is compared with second element. If first one is greater than second element then swap each other. Then second element is compared with third element . If second element is greater than third element then perform swapping. This process is continued until the comparison of (n-1)th element with nth element. These process continues (n-1) times.
Analysis
Here during the first iteration n-1 comparisons are required. During the second iteration n-2 comparisons are required etc..during last iteration, 1 comparison is required.
Merge
Merge sort follows the strategy divide and conquer method. Here the given base array is divided into two sub lists. These 2 sub lists is again divided into 4 sub lists. The process is continued until subsists contain single element. Then repeatedly merge these two sub lists to a single sub list. So that a sorted array is created from sorted sub lists. The process continues until a sub list contains all the elements that are sorted.
| |
How do neuroscientists study the brain's connections to behavior and mind?
Clinical observations and lesioning reveal the general effects of brain damage. CT and MRI scans reveal brain structures, and EEG, PET, and fMRI recordings reveal brain activity.
What are the functions of important lower-level brain structures?
The brainstem, the oldest part of the brain, is responsible for automatic survival functions. Its components are the medulla (controls heartbeat and breathing), the pons (helps coordinate movements), and the reticular formation (affects arousal). The thalamus, the brain's sensory switchboard, sits above the brainstem. The cerebellum, at the rear of the brainstem, coordinates muscle movement and helps process sensory information.
The limbic system is linked to emotions, memory, and drives. Its neural centers include the amygdala (involved in responses of aggression and fear) and the hypothalamus (involved in various bodily maintenance functions, pleasurable rewards, and the control of the hormonal system). The hypothalamus controls the pituitary (the "master gland") by stimulating it to trigger the release of hormones. The hippocampus processes memory.
What functions are served by the various cerebral cortex regions?
In each hemisphere the cerebral cortex has four lobes, the frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal. Each lobe performs many functions and interacts with other areas of the cortex. The motor cortex controls voluntary movements. The sensory cortex registers and processes body sensations. Body parts requiring precise control (in the motor cortex) or those that are especially sensitive (in the sensory cortex) occupy the greatest amount of space. Most of the brain's cortex—the major portion of each of the four lobes—is devoted to association areas, which integrate information involved in learning, remembering, thinking, and other higher-level functions.
What brain areas are involved in language processing?
When you read aloud, your brain's visual cortex registers words as visual stimuli, the angular gyrus transforms those visual representations into auditory codes, Wernicke's area interprets those codes and sends the message to Broca's area, which controls the motor cortex as it creates the pronounced words. But we now know that language results from the integration of many specific neural networks performing specialized subtasks in many parts of the brain.
To what extent can a damaged brain reorganize itself?
If one hemisphere is damaged early in life, the other will pick up many of its functions. This plasticity diminishes later in life. Some brain areas are capable of neurogenesis (forming new neurons).
What do split brains reveal about the functions of our two brain hemispheres?
Split-brain research (experiments on people with a severed corpus callosum) has confirmed that in most people, the left hemisphere is the more verbal, and that the right hemisphere excels in visual perception and the recognition of emotion. Studies of healthy people with intact brains confirm that each hemisphere makes unique contributions to the integrated functioning of the brain.
How does handedness relate to brain organization?
About 10 percent of us are left-handed. Almost all right-handers process speech in the left hemisphere, as do more than half of all left-handers.
What is the "dual processing" being revealed by today's cognitive neuroscience?
Cognitive neuroscientists and others studying the brain mechanisms underlying consciousness and cognition have discovered a two-track human mind, each with its own neural processing. This dual processing affects our perception, memory, and attitudes at an explicit, conscious level and at an implicit, unconscious level.
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Verified questions
ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY
Which process—diffusion, osmosis, or filtration—is used in the following situations? a. Injection of a drug hypertonic to the tissues stimulates pain. b. The urea concentration in the dialyzing fluid of an artificial kidney is decreased. c. A person with extremely low blood pressure stops producing urine.
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ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY
What is the role of alveolar macrophages? a. to secrete pulmonary surfactant b. to secrete antimicrobial proteins c. to remove pathogens and debris d. to facilitate gas exchange
Verified answer
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The cervical region of the vertebral column consists of ________. a. seven vertebrae b. 12 vertebrae c. five vertebrae d. a single bone derived from the fusion of five vertebrae
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ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY
Which famous artist was also a preeminent anatomist? | https://quizlet.com/32438846/ap-psych-midterm-review-unit-3b-flash-cards/ |
The Roadmap to Effective Emergency Aid guides institutions in transforming informal emergency aid (EA) efforts into a comprehensive program that increases retention and completion.
The Roadmap provides colleges and universities with everything they need – tools, resources, guidance, a step-by-step process, and collaborative and experimental practices – to create an effective program that drives results. The program is delivered through virtual workshops and/or in-person convenings led by Reos Partners, coaching, and an online platform for accessing tools, project management, and collaborating with others.
The program is based on learnings from an intensive pilot program, the Emergency Aid Lab, with higher education institutions that focused on determining how to best develop and implement an effective emergency aid program. Led by Reos Partners and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the lab engaged more than 100 higher education administrators, senior leaders, faculty, and students.
The lab built on several strategic partnerships with higher-education-focused organizations, including NASPA (Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education), NASFAA (National Association of Student Financial Administrators), Single Stop, and Scholarship America.
Cohorts of 5-15 institutions will begin using the Roadmap in 2020. Reos Partners aims to offer the Roadmap to hundreds of institutions across the U.S. over the next five years. | https://earoadmap.com/about-the-roadmap/ |
A consortium of several national and regional organizations, experts, and legal resources has created a Q&A about survivor safety and immigration policies for advocates and attorneys serving immigrant survivors of gender-based violence.
Click here
to read the blog
Click here
to download the PDF in English
Click here
for more resources for advocates of immigrant survivors
News This Week
Mass Releases from detention after Texas Court Blocks Childcare Licenses of Family Detention Centers
Statement from Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services
San Antonio, TX -- Over the weekend, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) hurriedly released over 460 mothers and children from Karnes and Dilley Family Detention Center to Casa RAICES in San Antonio, Texas. This massive release to our shelter came after an Austin judge sided with Texas advocates and detained families and ruled against the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services, as well as GEO and CoreCivic, the two private prison companies that operate Karnes and Dilley, by issuing
a final judgement
which prevented the Texas DFPS from issuing child care licenses to ICE controlled family detention centers.
This judgement came down as RAICES and pro-bono volunteers had been pushing back for weeks on a crayon ban in the visitation area at Karnes Family Detention Center. The issue remains unresolved as
the petition
to lift the ban has already gained over 1,800 signatures.
The families released over the weekend were in various stages of the legal processes that normally take place in detention, which stands against ICE's long standing claim that detention is necessary for families to undertake legal processing prior to release. Approximately 25% of families were released without a credible fear interview. The majority of families were released without travel plans, forcing RAICES staff and volunteers to work until 4:00 AM on Saturday night to communicate with families and arrange travel. RAICES has opened additional shelter space at a local church and convent in San Antonio to accommodate the overflow from our shelter.
Click here
to read the rest of this press release on RAICES's website
Click here
to donate to RAICES to help support the influx of released families
Network News and Resources
Let Her Learn: A Toolkit to Stop School Push Out for Girls of Color
School push out begins with discipline policy. And while most discipline codes use seemingly objective language, many policies disproportionately punish girls of color for unnecessary reasons. Dress, hair, and sexual misconduct codes are just a few examples of policies that have a disparate impact on girls of color. These policies often rub up against stereotypes and implicit biases, resulting in more frequent and harsher punishment for girls of color. These practices leave a lasting impact on students' academic performance an
d engagement, not to mention their long-term economic prospects.
Let Her Learn: A Tool Kit to Stop Push Out for Girls of Color gives you the tools to break this cycle and demand more from your school. With this toolkit, you will be able to identify discipline policies that unfairly punish girls of color and advocate for a code of conduct that works for all students.
Click here
to download the Let Her Learn toolkit in English
Haga clic aquí
para descargar el conjunto de herramienta D
éjala Aprender en espa
ñol
Informed Immigrant: Resources on immigration
Here you can find:
Legal information FAQs in English & Spanish (compiled by legal experts at NILC, CCC, SEIU, and others based on questions received by organizations in the states)
A list of over 600 immigrant rights/immigrant-serving organizations (that many of you submitted previously) and their donation links for when allies are looking for places to volunteer/donate.
A legal resource PDF with known and regularly used legal services look up tools
NILC's "Know Your Rights" document.
Visit informedimmigrant.com
Click here for all network news and resources
Training Opportunities
Webinar:
Roadmap for Fundraising Success
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
1:00pm - 2:15pm EST
Gain insight from this year's most compelling fundraising experts and nonprofit leaders. From video storytelling and social media engagement to crowdfunding and dynamic events, this presentation will show you the most effective digital fundraising best practices for your strategic consideration.
*This webinar is available only in English
Click here to register
Webinar:
Homeownership and the Racial Wealth Gap:
Policies & Strategies That Can Make a Difference
Wednesday, January 18, 2017
1:00pm - 2:00pm EST
As the movement to understand and address income inequality gains momentum, policymakers, practitioners, and funders face the challenge of confronting growing wealth gaps by race and ethnicity.
Homeownership is one of the key strategies to reduce the racial wealth gap, however, minorities continue to face significant challenges to entering and reentering the homeownership market.
AFN's live webinar,
Homeownership and the Racial Wealth Gap
, will discuss policy and program solutions, setting up future minority homebuyers for success, a review of today's housing policy landscape, and promising strategies which can promote homeownership for people of color.
Presenters:
Liza Cowan, Global Philanthropy, JP Morgan Chase & Co.
Maurice Jones, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC)
Ellen Seidman, Urban Institute
*This webinar is available only in English
Click here to register
Click here for all training opportunities
Position Announcements
American Bar Association: Staff Attorney
The ABA Commission on Domestic & Sexual Violence is seeking a full-time Staff Attorney to manage national training and technical assistance projects at its Washington, DC office. Funding is from the United States Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women. As a part of the Commission's Technical Assistance Unit, the attorney will have responsibility for working in a team to plan, develop and host national, multi-day, in-person, web-based and telephonic continuing legal education programs for attorneys representing victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual violence, stalking, and human trafficking.
Responsibilities include:
identification and recruitment of subject-matter experts as faculty; coordination of curriculum design; development of publicity and registration materials; development, editing, and publication of written resources; contracting with training sites and other vendors; managing registration; on-site coordination of in-person trainings; and budget management.
Click here for more information on this position
Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence: Shelter Manager
Title: Shelter Manager
Reports to: Co-Executive Director
Roles and Responsibilities: The ATASK Shelter provides housing and advocacy to survivors of domestic violence. It requires staffing 24 hours a day. This position functions to ensure that the ATASK Shelter Program operates safely and efficiently, and shelter clients are receiving the appropriate support. The Shelter Manager is responsible for the provision of case management and advocacy to the shelter clients, in conjunction with their primary case managers. S/he is responsible for the management and coordination of the shelter's day to day operation, the implementation and development of shelter polices/procedures, and supervision of shelter staff. S/he will be part of the management team.
Hours: Full-time, with shifts between 8am to 8pm. Ability to flex time around a 24 hour schedule as needed.
General Responsibilities:
Follow and reinforce ATASK and Shelter policies and procedures for staff and clients;
Implement and enforce shelter rules to promote safe community living;
Develop and evaluate shelter policies and programs as needed;
Ensure that the shelter has coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week 365 days a year and provide back up as needed;
Provide on call support to staff; Provide case management, crisis management, and intervention as needed;
Maintain the physical plant of the shelter; Represent ATASK at meetings, trainings and events;
Role model and incorporate ATASK's mission, values and professional standard to staff;
Other tasks and activities, as needed
Supervisory Responsibilities: Create and monitor shelter staff schedules; Supervise and provide ongoing training for shelter staff, volunteers and interns; Interview, hire, and train new staff and interns as needed; Facilitate monthly shelter meetings; Ensure shelter staff completes and receives daily shelter updates
Administrative Responsibilities: Interface and collaborate with all ATASK Programs and Managers; Maintain and analyze accurate daily and monthly shelter statistics; Complete and submit reports in a timely manner; Develop and maintain up-to-date forms, files, resources, and referrals; Develop budget and monitor expenditures; Assist with grant writing, monitor compliance for shelter grants, maintain relationships with funders; Attend monthly managers meetings; Conduct and attend regular meetings regarding shelter program at ATASK and in the community; Build and maintain relationships with other DV shelters and programs, relevant community advocates and community service providers
Direct Service Responsibilities: Oversee provision of direct services to shelter clients; Collaborate with ATASK advocates and external service providers for comprehensive case management; Support client in achieving goals determined through team wraparound meetings; Maintain updated and accurate shelter client case files via Empowerdb; Appropriately assess and manage crisis situations; Facilitate communal living and communication for a diverse population of residents; Ensure coverage of the 24-hour helpline, log and track calls, and provide follow-up to callers as needed
Facility Responsibilities: Maintain internal and external safety of the shelter through assessing and addressing maintenance issues effectively and efficiently; Plan and oversee capital projects; Screen and interface with appropriate maintenance personnel; Effectively interface with emergency personnel
Education/Experience/Skills: Bachelor's Degree in Social Work, Counseling, Psychology, or related human services field. Master's Degree preferred.
Bilingual English and Asian language speaking preferred
4+ yrs direct service experience, preferably with domestic violence survivors and their families
2+ yrs experience working in a residential facility
2+ yrs supervisory experience Knowledge of the causes and effects of domestic violence, related safety issues, ethnic diversity, gender analysis of domestic violence and multiple oppressions
Intake, assessment, case-planning skills and knowledge of community resources
Computer proficient: ability to utilize Microsoft office, e-mail as significant modes of communication and documentation, Empowerdb knowledge a plus
Strong oral, written and interpersonal communication skills
Good organizational and time management skills
Ability to operate independently, as part of a team and collaborate with ATASK staff and other agencies
Current driver's license and access to vehicle required
To apply, please send cover letter and resume to: Perrie Mo, Shelter Manager at
[email protected]
Click here for all job openings
Blog Post Submissions
Now accepting submissions
We welcome submissions on a number of topics pertaining to domestic violence, family violence, and gender-based violence. These topics include, but are not limited to:
Gender-based violence intervention and prevention programs that are culturally specific
Working with Latin@ youth
Working with immigrant Latin@s
Health care and gender-based violence
LGBTQ Latin@ communities
Children and domestic violence
Building Latin@ leadership in Latin@ communities
Elder abuse
We also welcome photography, video, resources, and other digital material that organizations or people wish to share with our network.
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ABOUT THE NATIONAL LATIN@ NETWORK FOR HEALTHY FAMILIES AND COMMUNITIES
The National Latin@ Network for Healthy Families and Communities is a network of individuals and organizations committed to improving the health and well-being of Latin@ communities. The National Latin@ Network is led by Casa de Esperanza, a national Latina organization whose mission is to mobilize Latinas and Latin@ communities to end domestic violence. The National Latin@Network for Healthy Families and Communities builds on Casa de Esperanza´s experience working in local communities to support families, end domestic violence, and increase meaningful access to services for Latina@s and incorporates a research center, public policy initiative, and training. | https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Q-A-on-Immigrant-Survivor-Safety-planning--resources-on-immigration--and-more-.html?soid=1102350617540&aid=CIZOadvlrIc |
The ace game theorists
While Robert John Aumann applied his mathematical skills to developing his works on repeated games, Thomas Crombie Schelling laid out simple and lucid models of conflict resolution — both expanding the frontiers of Game theory in a significant way
The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2005 was jointly awarded to Robert J Aumann who was then at the Centre for Rationality, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel; and Thomas C Schelling who was then at University of Maryland, "for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis".
Aumann did his BSc in mathematics from the City College of New York in 1950. Thereafter he did his MSc in 1952 and PhD in 1955 — both in mathematics, from MIT. As an undergraduate student, he was particularly interested in number theory and was influenced by the works of Edmund Landau. At MIT he studied modern branches of mathematics like algebraic topology. More specifically, he got interested in knot theory, a branch of algebraic topology that deals with the properties of knots (those tied in ropes). His doctoral dissertation, 'Asphericity of Alternating Linkages', also concerned knot theory, for which his advisor was George Whitehead, Jr.
After finishing his PhD, he joined the mathematics faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1956 and has been a visiting professor at Stony Brook University since 1989. He has also held visiting professorship at the University of California, Berkeley (1971, 1985–1986), Stanford University (1975–1976, 1980–1981), and Université Catholique de Louvain (1972, 1978, 1984).
Schelling did his undergraduate studies in economics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1944 and received his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1951. Schelling did not join the academia immediately after his PhD. He began his career working for federal agencies and programmes such as the US Bureau of the Budget (1945–46), the Marshall Plan in Europe (1948–50), and the Executive Office of the President (1951–53). He first joined the Economics faculty at Yale University only in 1953, where he stayed till 1958. Schelling was also a senior staff member of the RAND Corporation (1958–59), where his analysis of the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union led to his publication of 'The Strategy of Conflict' (1960). After Yale, he moved to Harvard University in 1958, where he stayed till 1990, before moving to University of Maryland thereafter. Schelling specialised in the application of game theory to cases in which adversaries must repeatedly interact, especially in international trade, treaties, and conflicts.
Main works of Robert Aumann
While Aumann was initially interested in pure mathematics and rather esoteric subjects such as 'knot theory', he got drawn to Game theory when he went to work for the Analytical Research Group (ARG) — a group affiliated with Princeton University's mathematics department. One of the problems assigned to him involved defending a city from attack by a squadron of aircraft, some armed with weapons and some sent as decoys. He recalled his conversations with John Nash, who had come to MIT as an instructor and thought that game theory would be appropriate to solve this problem.
Aumann is best known for his contribution to repeated games — the situation in which players encounter the same situation over and over again. He worked on conditions under which cooperation between parties arises; what is cooperation a function of? the number of participants, frequency of interaction etc. He also inquired into the reasons why cooperation is broken off — is it because of short time horizons or because the action of the other party can't be observed? Aumann's ideas were first presented in his 1959 paper 'Acceptable Points in General Cooperative n-Person Games'. Aumann did a more thorough analysis of repeated games in his later work 'Survey of Repeated Games', published in 1981. Aumann's work found applications in varied areas such as price wars, international conflict, wage contracting etc.
Aumann was also the first to introduce the concept of correlated equilibrium, which takes off from the earlier concept of Nash equilibrium. We may recall that in a Nash equilibrium, no player wants to change his strategy, given the other player's strategy. Correlated equilibrium, on the other hand, describes a scene where players receive advice from a trusted mediator (or "correlating device") about what strategy to play. The mediator's advice forms a correlated equilibrium if no individual player has an incentive to deviate from the advice he has received, if he believes the other players are each following their own advice. Aumann showed that the set of correlated equilibria can contain more than just combinations of Nash equilibria: it can include forms of play that aren't Nash equilibria at all, but that sometimes result in a more positive societal outcome than any of the Nash equilibria.
Aumann collaborated with other game theorists such as Maschler and Lloyd Shapley on various aspects of repeated games. With Maschler, Aumann wrote a paper in 1964 titled 'The Bargaining Set for Cooperative Games' on the issue of bargaining in cooperative games. The other work with Maschler was the 1985 paper 'Game-Theoretic Analysis of a Bankruptcy Problem from the Talmud', which is an explanation of a difficult passage in the Babylonian Talmud. This is also referred to as the 'division problem', which is a dilemma of explaining the division of the heritage of a late husband between three surviving wives. Finally, an important joint work with Maschler was on repeated games of incomplete information. This began as a project to help shape United States policy in the arms control negotiations that were taking place with the Soviet Union at that time.
Aumann also collaborated with Lloyd Shapley on the Aumann–Shapley value, which is presented in the 1974 book titled 'Values of Non-Atomic Games'. The 'Shapley value' of a finite multi-person game associates to each player the amount he should be willing to pay to participate. This book extended the value concept to certain classes of non-atomic games, which are infinite-person games in which no individual player has significance. Another collaboration with Shapley was on perfect equilibria in repeated games.
Main works of Thomas Schelling
While he was at RAND Corporation in 1957, and later in the government, he worked on issues such as arms race, nuclear deterrence and international negotiations, wherein he constructed game theoretic models. It was this work that led to his above-mentioned famous book 'The Strategy of Conflict' in 1960. Schelling illustrated his arguments with the US–USSR conflict and explained in simple and clear terms using game theory. One of the areas that 'The Strategy of Conflict' proposed was that international negotiations or arms race were a non-zero-sum game and that cooperation could be a likely outcome. An important insight from his book was that the ability to retaliate is more of a deterrent than the ability to resist an attack—i.e., a country's best defense against nuclear war is the protection of its weapons rather than its people. Also, the uncertainty of an attack was far more potent to preserve peace as compared to the certainty of an attack. To quote from the Nobel website:
Against the backdrop of the nuclear arms race in the late 1950s, Thomas Schelling's book The Strategy of Conflict set forth his vision of game theory as a unifying framework for the social sciences. Schelling showed that a party can strengthen its position by overtly worsening its own options, that the capability to retaliate can be more useful than the ability to resist an attack, and that uncertain retaliation is more credible and more efficient than certain retaliation. These insights have proven to be of great relevance for conflict resolution and efforts to avoid war.
Another work for which Schelling became well known was his 'Essay on Bargaining', which was about the nuts and bolts of negotiations such as threats and promises, secret knowledge and strategies. Tobin remarked on Schelling works thus: "His inspired work on non-zero-sum and cooperative games…We [Yale] had great seminars where he made us decide where [to meet], how we would divide a joint surplus or a mapped plot of land .... For weeks no one talked about anything else. Game theory has never been as much fun or as relevant."
Schelling also proposed the idea of limited or graduated reprisals in his book 'Arms and Influence' (1966). This was adopted by the United States in 1965 as 'Operation Rolling Thunder', which involved the bombing of selected targets in North Vietnam in the expectation that it would deter the North Vietnamese from continuing the war. Even though Schelling had advised against escalating the bombing, the US went ahead with unhappy outcomes. While at Harvard, Schelling applied game theory to international trade negotiations, which led to two highly influential books — Micromotives and Macrobehavior (1978) and Choice and Consequence (1984). The former work explained the tendency of urban neighbourhoods toward absolute segregation.
Schelling was much ahead of his times and had warned against global warming in 1992 and proposed a carbon tax to address it. However, he later became controversial in 2002, when he supported President Bush's withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol on the grounds that there was no solid proof of a link between global warming and greenhouse gases.
Conclusion
Aumann was first a mathematician and then a game theorist. As noted above, he was interested in pure mathematics from the beginning; his PhD dissertation on an esoteric topic such as knot theory testifies this. He got attracted to game theory after a meeting with John Nash and the 1957 Luce–Raiffa book, 'Games and Decisions', which dealt with repeated games, made a big impression on him. But he basically remained a mathematician and brought his considerable skills to the field of game theory.
Schelling, on the other hand, was an economist with mathematical skills nowhere near those of Aumann. But Schelling had a knack of presenting complex problems in a simple and lucid style. However, his forte was conflict resolution and this was amply clear not only in his works reviewed above, but also in his Nobel lecture where he argues against the use of nuclear weapons and speaks in favour of international treaties to curb testing of such weapons. To quote from his lecture:
I know of no argument in favour of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the Senate rejected in 1999, more powerful than the potential of that treaty to enhance the nearly universal revulsion against nuclear weapons. The symbolic effect of nearly 200 nations ratifying the CTBT, which is nominally only about testing, should add enormously to the convention that nuclear weapons are not to be used and that any nations that do use nuclear weapons will be judged the violator of the legacy of Hiroshima. I never heard that argument (was) made on either side of the debate over the Treaty. When the Treaty is again before the Senate, as I hope it will be, this major potential benefit should not go unrecognized. The most critical question about nuclear weapons for the United States Government is whether the widespread taboo against nuclear weapons and its inhibition on their use is in our favour or against us. If it is in the American interest, as I believe obvious, advertising a continued dependence on nuclear weapons, i.e., a US readiness to use them, a US need for new nuclear capabilities (and new nuclear tests) – let alone ever using them against an enemy – has to be weighed against the corrosive effect on a nearly universal attitude that has been cultivated through universal abstinence of sixty years.
On the whole, both Aumann and Schelling's work led to new developments in game theory and a more widespread use of game theoretic models in social sciences.
The writer is an IAS officer, working as Principal Resident Commissioner, Government of West Bengal. Views expressed are personal | |
New translation of Spanish play to be presented in bilingual performances
The Fitchburg State theater program in association with its Humanities Department will be present the American premiere of El Delantal Blanco (The White Apron) by Sergio Vodanovic, newly translated by Luz Elena Denney, at Percival Auditorium in Percival Hall, 254 Highland Ave. Admission is free.
The short play, running about 20 minutes, will be presented twice each night, once each in Spanish and English. The performances will be at 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 20 and Thursday, April 21, and at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 22 and Saturday, April 23.
“This production celebrates the rich teaching career of Dr. Maria Jaramillo of the Humanities Department who will be retiring this spring,” said Professor Richard McElvain, who is directing the show.
“We asked Dr. Jaramillo to select a favorite play and she chose this one because she knows and admires the author, and it investigates the abuse of the lower classes in South American society,” added Professor Kelly Morgan. “It is a subject that has resonance for American society as well.”
The play tells the story of how a lady and her maid, enjoying a day at the beach, turn their worlds inside out and upside down by the exchange of clothing, specifically the white apron emblematic of the serving class.
Morgan asked Luz Elana Denney to translate the work, which will be presented in both languages at each performance. “It will be easy to see it in both Spanish and English and enjoy how the same story plays differently in different languages,” he said.
The performances on Wednesday and Thursday will begin with the Spanish version, followed by the English, with the order reversed for the Friday and Saturday shows.
The casts includes Kiara Pichardo and Delaney Barry, recently seen on campus in Bad Jews (produced by the Falcon Theatre Company and Theatre on Tap), along with Samantha Wheatley, who appeared in the university’s main stage productions The Importance of Being Earnest and Noises Off. Theater majors Stephanie Bisono and Christian Luna Pereyra also appear in the play. McElvain, the director, recently appeared in the Academy Award-nominated film Joy. | https://www.fitchburgstate.edu/news/new-translation-of-spanish-play-to-be-presented-in-bilingual-performances/ |
Election facts by Wilfred Derksen.
Morocco (CIA)
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Morocco (UNancy)
Morocco history (UMiss)
City.Net Morocco
Morocco (ArabNet)
Morocco's WWW Sites
Morroco Web
Made by the company Media Consultants. In English and French.
Moroccan Wildside
AzureNet
Le Roi du Maroc
Marrakesh Express
Culture
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Ethnologue Database
The Ethnologue is a catalogue of more than 6,700 languages spoken in 228 countries. The Ethnologue Name Index lists over 39,000 language names, dialect names, and alternate names. The Ethnologue Language Family Index organizes languages according to language families. | http://africaindex.africainfo.no/africaindex1/africaindex1/countries/morocco.html |
Introduction {#s1}
============
A conspicuous feature of bacterial genomes is the grouping of genes involved in a metabolic pathway into functional units on the chromosome. Early linkage studies of *Escherichia coli* and *Salmonella typhimurium* showed that genes in the biosynthetic pathways of tryptophan and histidine occur on a contiguous region of the genome [@pcbi.1000672-Stahl1],[@pcbi.1000672-Demerec1]. Furthermore, genes are often found in their biochemical reaction order [@pcbi.1000672-Demerec2]. Gene clustering has since become recognized as a widespread feature of bacterial genomes. Grouped genes are sometimes transcribed together as an operon, with shared promoter and operator sequences (for example the galactose operon *galETK* [@pcbi.1000672-Bentley1],[@pcbi.1000672-Jackson1]). Regulatory genes have also been found close to the genes they regulate. A classic example is the *lacI* repressor gene, which resides near but not within the *lacZYA* operon in *Escherichia coli*. The extent of gene clustering is variable -- a given set of related genes may be clustered in one species but unclustered and/or reordered in another [@pcbi.1000672-Lathe1],[@pcbi.1000672-Dandekar1]. Interestingly, most clusters do not contain much intergenic DNA, and in some cases genes even overlap [@pcbi.1000672-EyreWalker1],[@pcbi.1000672-Fukuda1].
A number of explanations for clustering have been considered over the years. The most controversial and influential hypothesis has been the *selfish operon model*, which offers a mechanism for the evolution of clustering without needing to invoke the action of natural selection [@pcbi.1000672-Lawrence1],[@pcbi.1000672-Lawrence2]. In this model, gene clusters persist because the proximity of the genes in question facilitates their collective transfer between species. It applies to genes encoding accessory functions rather than essential genes.
Another model that does not require direct selection to explain clustering is the *persistence model* [@pcbi.1000672-Fang1]. Unlike the selfish operon model, this model has been proposed to explain the clustering of essential genes -- genes that are evolutionarily persistent. The hypothesis here is that by occupying less space, clustered genes are less likely to be disrupted by the deletion or insertion of DNA. In other words, an individual with clustered genes is more "resilient" to the lethal or deleterious effects of mutation. This hypothesis is similar to the idea that genes sharing regulatory sequences by residing in a single operon present a smaller target for deleterious mutation than scattered genes with individual control elements [@pcbi.1000672-Lynch1].
Hypotheses involving direct selection have also been examined. Here, clustering of genes confers a direct fitness advantage to the organism. For example, a scenario in which selection directly favouring the co-regulation of genes can lead to the evolution of operons has been outlined [@pcbi.1000672-Price1]. Apart from efficiently regulated transcription, a fitness advantage may arise through shorter diffusion times for proteins finding their targets when the genes encoding them are clustered. Thermodynamic models have been developed to apply this idea to enzymes and transcription factors [@pcbi.1000672-Svetic1],[@pcbi.1000672-Kolesov1]. The efficiency gained from shorter diffusion times is assumed to translate into a reproductive fitness advantage [@pcbi.1000672-Martin1]. Another mechanism conferring advantage to gene clustering is gene amplification [@pcbi.1000672-Reams1]. In this model, gene dosage is rapidly and reversibly increased by tandem duplication of the genes in question. The closer the genes are, the greater the probability of coamplification. The increased dosage is assumed to contribute to elevated fitness. Other models for the evolution of gene clusters based on metabolic arguments have also been studied [@pcbi.1000672-Kovcs1],[@pcbi.1000672-Zaslaver1].
Other hypotheses have been considered but rejected [@pcbi.1000672-Lawrence1],[@pcbi.1000672-Martin1]. A hypothesis now called the *natal model* suggests that clusters arose by gene duplication and divergence such that the newly formed genes participate in a common pathway. However, the lack of sequence homology for most genes within clusters undermines this explanation [@pcbi.1000672-Lawrence1]. Fisher\'s theory of the evolution of linkage and recombination has been suggested to apply to bacteria [@pcbi.1000672-Stahl1],[@pcbi.1000672-Bodmer1]. Under this theory natural selection favours increased linkage among co-adapted genes -- genes whose products work well together -- because recombination (chromosomal crossover during meiosis) breaks up combinations of alleles with high fitness. However, it has been pointed out that this requires high recombination rates, which are typical for eukaryotes, to work [@pcbi.1000672-Lawrence1]. Although recombination rates are found to be high in some species [@pcbi.1000672-Feil1],[@pcbi.1000672-Spratt1], they are not high enough relative to the cellular generation rate to support an account of clustering based on Fisher\'s theory.
The debate on the origins and maintenance of gene clusters continues, with recent genomic studies casting doubt on the selfish operon hypothesis. First, the prediction that non-essential genes are clustered while essential genes are not has been tested and rejected [@pcbi.1000672-Pal1]. Second, if horizontal gene transfer is an important source of gene clusters, then horizontally transferred sequences should be associated with operons. Genomic data, however, do not support such an association [@pcbi.1000672-Price1]. On the other hand, they do support the possibility that genes and their regulators may have evolved close proximity via horizontal transfer [@pcbi.1000672-Price2]. Third, the selfish operon model is unable to explain the observation that genes in clusters are sometimes arranged in the order of biochemical reactions. A resolution may involve multiple mechanisms, of which horizontal transfer of selfish operons is one [@pcbi.1000672-Fang1].
Here, we re-examine the theoretical basis for explaining the origins and maintenance of gene clusters. By studying a number of distinct models, we provide and discuss conditions under which clustering can evolve.
Model {#s2}
=====
We describe three kinds of models for gene clustering in this article. First, we revisit the selfish operon model [@pcbi.1000672-Lawrence1]. We seek to explore the parameter space and understand in more detail when and why it produces gene clusters. Second, we propose a model based on the Moran process, which tracks individual bacterial cells and in which the total population size is constant. Third, we develop a further model that tracks the substitution of new arrangements, making the assumption that populations are monomorphic. By running computer simulations of these three systems we consider the factors that lead to the evolution of gene clusters.
The assumptions common to all models are as follows. Genomes are made up of circular chromosomes divided into regions; we let kilobases (kb). This genome size is constant over time. There are genes in the pathway of interest. Only a single gene can occupy any given position. The units of reproduction are either species or individual bacteria depending on the model. A genome can undergo rearrangement with probability per step or generation. We explore two processes: first, translocation of a random gene to a random position and second, inversion by which two breakpoints are chosen randomly uniformly and the intervening segment inverted. If the resulting arrangement moves the terminus or origin more than kb the new arrangement is regarded as lethal [@pcbi.1000672-Eisen1],[@pcbi.1000672-Darling1]. Both translocation and inversion are used within the selfish operon framework of Lawrence and Roth 1996, while only inversion is considered for the Moran model and the rearrangement substitution model.
Model of Lawrence and Roth 1996 {#s2a}
-------------------------------
In their influential paper, Lawrence and Roth describe a simulation model that produces gene clusters through a horizontal gene transfer process that is biased towards genes that are physically closer on a chromosome [@pcbi.1000672-Lawrence1]. This is called the selfish operon model. In this model, species in which individuals carry all the genes needed for the function are called "positive" species. Each species is assumed to be monomorphically composed of genomes with a particular arrangement of genes on the chromosome, and fixation is assumed to occur instantaneously. That is, each species is associated with a single arrangement of genes. We are interested in the minimum arc distance along the chromosome that contains all genes, which is equivalently the genome length minus the longest interval between pairs of neighbouring genes. The simulation is initialised with 100 species, with each species given a random set of gene positions. Lawrence and Roth kept the number of species between 10 and 900 [@pcbi.1000672-Lawrence1]. We have implemented this by switching off the horizontal transfer process when the number of species reaches 900 and re-instating it when the size goes under 900. We ran our simulations for 50,000 time steps.
Horizontal transfer leads to a species that lacks the function (a "negative" species) acquiring the function along with the arrangement of gene positions of the donor genome. The probability of horizontal transfer decreases with distance . Although its form is not given in [@pcbi.1000672-Lawrence1], we will assume it is exponential with a decay parameter . That is,The exponential distribution is a natural choice for the size distribution of transferred DNA among bacteria, and has been empirically tested for homologous recombination [@pcbi.1000672-Falush1],[@pcbi.1000672-Jolley1]. Some support for a skewed distribution of gene transfer fragment lengths is found in Ochman and Jones 2000 [@pcbi.1000672-Ochman1].
At each time step, each species or individual can undergo loss of the function with probability . Following Lawrence and Roth, we set the loss probability to 0.001 per genome per time step and the maximum probability of horizontal transfer , occurring when the genes are located in the same minute of the chromosome, to 0.01 per genome per time step [@pcbi.1000672-Lawrence1]. We set by default, under which a 50 kb fragment is 6 times more likely to transfer than one of 500 kb. Because the probability of rearrangement is likely to be very low in nature [@pcbi.1000672-Rocha1], we set per genome per time step by default. Lawrence and Roth 1996 used a much higher value of and we investigate the effect of lowering this parameter from this high value. We studied the effect of varying and by varying parameters one at a time as well as using latin hypercube sampling [@pcbi.1000672-McKay1],[@pcbi.1000672-Blower1] to explore the parameter space. Under this methodology, each parameter is divided into equiprobable regions in the area of interest, and parameter sets are constructed by selecting values randomly from the resulting grid without replacement. A uniform distribution was used for each parameter.
The algorithm we used for the dynamic is as follows.
1. Initialise population as described above.
2. For each species , With probability , rearrange the genome by moving a gene to a random new position.With probability , destroy gene function (the species is lost from the pool of positive species).If the number of positive species is under 900:Horizontal transfer leads to recruitment of a species (from a limitless supply of negative species) with the same arrangement of genes as species , with probability , where is the minimum arc distance between the genes in genome .
3. Compute the average minimum arc distance between genes across species in the population of positive species.
4. Repeat steps 2, 3 until the end of the simulation.
One problem we have noticed with this model is that given a rearrangement event, the genes in question are always affected. A more natural assumption would be that the genes in question are affected with probability , which is the proportion of the genome occupied by the genes assuming that genes are 1 kilobase in length. Thus, we have also run the simulations using this corrected translocation process, replacing step 2(a) in the above algorithm with
1. 2(a) With probability move a gene to a random new location.
This correction effectively lowers the rearrangement probability by a few orders of magnitude.
We have also implemented a version of the model in which rearrangement occurs by inversion instead of translocation. Here, we replace step 2(a) in the algorithm with
1. 2(a) With probability choose two random positions randomly uniformly between 1 and . To implement breakpoints occurring between genes, subtract 0.5 from each of these values.
If ( and ) or ( and ) or () then the inversion is viable. (Recall is the tolerance to imbalance between origin and terminus.) For each gene whose location is between and , move it to its new location given by .
A Moran model of clustering {#s2b}
---------------------------
We construct a model in which the population evolves according to a Moran process [@pcbi.1000672-Moran1],[@pcbi.1000672-Moran2] combined with a process of genome inversion. Here, we track a population of bacterial cells. As with the selfish operon model, we consider a pathway involving 3 or more genes. A population is initialised with all bacteria carrying the same genome with genes placed randomly uniformly on the chromosome. The population size is . Let represent the relative fitness of cells with the genes at minimum arc distance . Genomes with the genes closer together have a reproductive or survival advantage over those with the genes further apart. We use the function to describe this relationship. Because this relative fitness function is analogous to , we use the same symbol () to describe the decay in fitness with respect to distance . An alternative function was also used to ascertain the effect of using a steep sigmoidal relationship. Selection for clustering here can be due to any of the mechanisms discussed in the [Introduction](#s1){ref-type="sec"}.
The algorithm is as follows.
1. Initialise the population as described above.
2. Choose an individual at random. Choose two positions () at random uniformly between 1 and . To implement breakpoints occurring between genes, subtract 0.5 from each of these values.
3. Inversion occurs with probability . If inversion occurs, if ( and ) or ( and ) or () then the inversion is viable. For each gene whose location is between and , move it to its new location given by .Otherwise the inversion is lethal: replace the individual with a random individual from the population in proportion to where is the minimum arc distance between the genes in genome .Otherwise if inversion does not occur, there is random death and replacement. Replacement birth occurs by picking a random individual from the population in proportion to .
4. Record the average minimum arc distance between genes across the population.
5. Repeat steps 2--4 until the end of the simulation.
Following the classical definition of the Moran process, a single generation is time steps.
This process is very slow with high population sizes, particularly when the rearrangement probability is low. The computational demands of running these simulations precluded the possibility of systematically analysing sensitivity to parameters. This motivated us to develop a further model, which tracks the mutation and fixation process without following details at the population level. This model is described in the next subsection.
Rearrangement substitution model {#s2c}
--------------------------------
Here, the population is monomorphic (except during periods of substitution of new arrangements) and so only a single genome arrangement is tracked. Again, the genes in the pathway in question can occupy positions, represents the population size and is the rearrangement probability. The assumption that the population is monomorphic implies that must not be too large. In each generation the probability of a rearrangement occurring in at least one individual is which can be approximated with since is small. The time until the next rearrangement event is distributed geometrically with parameter . We use inversion rather than translocation as the source of rearrangements.
As above we specify selection through an exponential decay in fitness as a function of the minimum arc distance , so that the *relative* fitness of a new genome with distance is , and the selective coefficient is . A new arrangement fixes in a population with probabilityand the time it takes to reach fixation isThese quantities have been derived from diffusion theory in population genetics (for details see [@pcbi.1000672-Kimura1]). We use in place of to apply the theory to haploids, where is the effective population size of a diploid population.
The algorithm for the rearrangement substitution model is therefore as follows.
1. Initialise by choosing a random arrangement of genes. Choose these positions without replacement.
Set , the number of generations to run the simulation. Set current time to .
2. Get random time until next rearrangement event:
3. Inversion: choose two integers at random (uniformly between 1 and inclusive). Subtract 0.5 from each value. Label these points and . If ( and ) or ( and ) or () then the new arrangement is viable. Obtain the new arrangement as follows. Locate all genes between and . Call these positions . For each , place the gene into the new location given by . Go to Step 4.Otherwise, the arrangement is not viable. Set and go to Step 6.
4. Obtain the current minimum arc distance and the minimum arc distance of the mutant arrangement. Compute the selection coefficient:where is the new distance.
5. Compute the fixation probability given by Equation (2). Fixation occurs if a random uniform U(0,1) is less than .
If fixation occurs, find the expected time until fixation given by Equation (3). Set the current genome to the new arrangement.
Otherwise there is no fixation and .
6. Update elapsed time:
7. If elapsed time , stop the process and record the minimum arc distance. Otherwise, return to Step 2.
was set at 50,000 generations. We investigated this model by varying one parameter at a time as well as using latin hypercube sampling to explore the parameter space.
Results {#s3}
=======
Lawrence and Roth model {#s3a}
-----------------------
When three genes are placed randomly around a chromosome with a uniform distribution, the average minimum arc distance between them is around 1900 kb. When the rearrangement probability is or , the selfish operon model [@pcbi.1000672-Lawrence1] produces an initial wave of gene clustering down to around 600--800kb (([Figure 1A](#pcbi-1000672-g001){ref-type="fig"}), also reflected in the rise of the proportion of genomes that are clustered under a threshold ([Figure 1B](#pcbi-1000672-g001){ref-type="fig"}). The maximum population size of 900 is reached quickly ([Figure 1C](#pcbi-1000672-g001){ref-type="fig"}) and the dynamics of clustering undergo a change as a new population dynamic regime sets in. When the rearrangement probability is high, clusters break up until the average minimum arc distance settles on high values ([Figure 1A](#pcbi-1000672-g001){ref-type="fig"}). In these cases, the selfish operon model fails to maintain tight clustering in the long term. In particular, gene clusters do not evolve under the parameter values used by Lawrence and Roth [@pcbi.1000672-Lawrence1].
{#pcbi-1000672-g001}
To determine if there are conditions under which the selfish operon model *does* produce clustering, we re-examined this model by exploring its parameter space. [Figure 2](#pcbi-1000672-g002){ref-type="fig"} reveals the effect of varying the parameters in this model on the average minimum arc distance. It shows that under the original model clustering is only produced when the rearrangement probability is low, the number of genes is small, and the maximum transfer probability is sufficiently high. Under the corrected translocation process, the effective rearrangement probability is lowered by a factor and the probability itself has no apparent effect on clustering. The decay in transfer probability (see Equation 1) must take intermediate values of around for clustering to evolve. If is too low, selection is too weak to promote clustering while if it is too high, the probability of transfer is depressed for most minimum arc distances, preventing selection from acting effectively.
{#pcbi-1000672-g002}
Very similar results are observed when translocation is replaced by inversion, as shown by varying one parameter at a time as well as by latin hypercube sampling analysis ([Figure 3](#pcbi-1000672-g003){ref-type="fig"}). The major difference is that a high probability of inversion does not prevent the evolution of clusters to the same extent as observed in the uncorrected translocation process of [Figure 2A](#pcbi-1000672-g002){ref-type="fig"}.
{#pcbi-1000672-g003}
Moran model {#s3b}
-----------
We further explored the evolution of clustering using the Moran model with selection for gene clusters. By holding the population size constant this model also allows us to disentagle the effects of population dynamics from those of rearrangement and selection. [Figure 4](#pcbi-1000672-g004){ref-type="fig"} shows simulation runs of the process for progressively lower values of : . It was not computationally feasible to run the simulation under even lower, and more realistic, values. The general pattern emerging from these sample trajectories is that the minimum arc distance is reduced through a series of selective sweeps. The time taken until the appearance of a rearranged genome that reaches fixation is long and depends on the rearrangement probability and the population size . The reduction of minimum arc distance is a slow process made even slower by lowering . Using a steep sigmoidal function for selection instead of exponential decay ([Figure 4D](#pcbi-1000672-g004){ref-type="fig"}) gave qualitatively similar results.
{#pcbi-1000672-g004}
Rearrangement substitution model {#s3c}
--------------------------------
The rearrangement substitution model, which "compresses" time by tracking fixation events, is amenable to sensitivity analysis. [Figure 5](#pcbi-1000672-g005){ref-type="fig"} demonstrates that a low rearrangement probability of is able to produce clustering in 50,000 generations. Even lower probabilities lead to weak or no clustering because successful rearrangements that reduce the distance between genes are too rare. Increasing the population size improves the efficiency of selection and leads to clustering. Similarly, increasing the decay in fitness improves clustering. Gene clusters are also more readily formed for pathways with a smaller number of genes .
{#pcbi-1000672-g005}
Similar results are produced when the parameter space is explored using latin hypercube sampling ([Figure 6](#pcbi-1000672-g006){ref-type="fig"}). Minimum arc distance decreases with and and increases with . Distance also decreases with , though this effect is subtle. For (panel B) and (panel C) the correlation with distance is statistically detectable using a non-parametric method (Kendall\'s tau), with -values of and 0.0148 respectively. The corresponding -values for (panel A) and (panel D) were both less than . Note that each factor on its own does not explain much of the variation in distance.
{#pcbi-1000672-g006}
Discussion {#s4}
==========
This study presents new computational models showing that direct natural selection can lead to the formation of gene clusters under appropriate conditions. We have also re-examined an existing simulation model involving indirect selection -- the selfish operon model. By exploring these models under many conditions, we have identified the regions in parameter space that produce gene clustering. In the following, we will discuss parameters as rates rather than probabilities per time step.
{#s4a}
### Selfish operon model revisited and the role of rearrangement rates {#s4a1}
The selfish operon model of Lawrence and Roth 1996 is able to produce gene clusters, but only when the right conditions hold. The overall transfer rate must be high, as reflected in the maximum rate of transfer, and the decay in transfer over distance must be in a suitable range. The rearrangement rate must be low. We note that with a slight correction -- accounting for the probability that rearrangement affects the genes in question -- these rates are indeed effectively low enough for clustering to evolve. When the selfish operon model is modified so that inversion is the mechanism of rearrangement, again gene clusters can evolve, and inversion rates must be low enough to prevent clusters from disintegrating too quickly once formed.
Rates of fixation of rearrangements are typically very low in nature. From comparisons of genomic data the number of rearrangements per genome per lineage varies across evolutionary lineages, but is usually on the same order of magnitude as or a little higher than the expected number of substitutions per site [@pcbi.1000672-Suyama1],[@pcbi.1000672-Belda1]. Rocha (2006) found the substitution rate of rearrangements to be several orders of magnitude lower than the cellular per generation rate of [@pcbi.1000672-Hill1] because of selection against most new arrangements [@pcbi.1000672-Rocha2]. Overall these studies suggest the rearrangement rate may be on the order of per year. The application of these figures to the model of Lawrence and Roth 1996 is not straightforward because the time unit is not set in that model. However, given the wide level of variation in gene content even within bacterial species [@pcbi.1000672-Tettelin1] and the slow process of rearrangement [@pcbi.1000672-Rocha2], it is likely that the rearrangement rate is far lower than the rate of horizontal gene transfer. Our analysis of the selfish operon model suggests that gene clusters can evolve under such conditions.
### A low number of genes in the pathway promotes clustering {#s4a2}
In both the selfish operon model ([Figures 2](#pcbi-1000672-g002){ref-type="fig"},[3](#pcbi-1000672-g003){ref-type="fig"}) and the rearrangement substitution model ([Figures 5](#pcbi-1000672-g005){ref-type="fig"}, [6](#pcbi-1000672-g006){ref-type="fig"}), gene clusters evolved more readily when the number of genes in a pathway was low. It accords with intuition that less time is taken for a smaller number of genes to cluster. Yet large clusters exist in nature. A possible explanation is that clustering occurs in stages rather than all at once. For this scenario to work, subsets of genes already clustered must be held together while the remaining genes move close to the cluster. Biologically, what could make gene clusters an absorbing state? Clusters of genes are sometimes but not always transcribed and regulated together (found on operons). If such genes are separated, their function may be undermined or destroyed. Another possibility is that genes overlap on a chromosome [@pcbi.1000672-Fukuda1]. If the region of overlap is essential to both genes, again selection would act to maintain the clustered arrangement of those genes. It is unclear, however, how widely applicable this mechanism is. Future modelling efforts could include the possibility that selection acts not only on the minimum arc distance but also on the particular arrangement of the genes. For instance, in a three-gene pathway, a genome in which two genes are close together may be favoured over one in which the three genes are spaced evenly over the same minimum arc distance.
### The roles of selection and transfer bias in gene cluster evolution {#s4a3}
As intuition dictates, the evolution of clusters also requires some kind of a bias favouring clusters, which can appear in the form of biased horizontal transfer (the selfish operon model) or natural selection for gene proximity (the Moran model with inversion, and the rearrangement substitution model). In each case the parameters must be appropriate to give natural selection or transfer bias their efficacy to produce gene clusters. In the selection model the population size needs to be high and the decay in fitness over distance must be sufficiently high. Under the conditions we studied, the evolution of gene clusters is expected to occur very slowly. However, billions of years have passed since the last universal common ancestor, providing ample time for gene clusters and operons to have evolved and to have been transferred between species.
We remark that in mathematical models of the level of detail presented here, including the selfish operon model of Lawrence and Roth [@pcbi.1000672-Lawrence1], bias in horizontal transfer is indistinguishable from direct natural selection. The persistence model of bacterial gene clusters described by Fang et al. [@pcbi.1000672-Fang1] represents another model of selection. There, deletions are more likely to destroy gene function when the genes are further apart on the chromosome. This is a form of negative selection acting against non-clustered essential genes. Both the selfish operon model and the persistence model involve a form of indirect selection, and we suggest that either direct or indirect selection, or both, are needed for clusters to form and be maintained. Current models do not and cannot separate these two phenomena. For example, although we specified the Moran model for a population of individual cells under direct selection for gene clustering, it is possible to interpret the same model as one tracking a population of species (as in the selfish operon model) in which selection is indirect, and in the form of horizontal transfer biased towards low minimum arc distances.
We did not attempt to discriminate between the alternative forms of selection or bias favouring clustering. Rather, we have shown that under appropriate conditions these models can lead to gene clustering. A systematic and formal comparison of alternative models is a remaining challenge, which may require a common mathematical framework for comparing the consequences of these alternatives. Although the selfish operon model has been questioned as the sole mechanism for the evolution of gene clustering, we believe it cannot yet be rejected as a contributor on either empirical or theoretical grounds.
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
This work was supported by Discovery Grant DP0987302 from the Australian Research Council, including a QEII Fellowship to MMT. The funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
[^1]: **¤:** Current address: Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, Australia
[^2]: Conceived and designed the experiments: ARF RL MMT. Performed the experiments: SB MMT. Analyzed the data: SB MMT. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: SB MMT. Wrote the paper: SB ARF RL MMT.
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Key players in the Global Social Customer Service Software Industry Market are:
The study analyzes the opportunities and forecasts between the years 2020 – 2027. The report offers detailed insights on the global Social Customer Service Software Industry market elucidating various market segments in the Social Customer Service Software Industry market. Market dynamics that influence the global price, sales quantity, supply chains, demand of goods and services, and other factors of the Social Customer Service Software Industry are market provided in the report. Moreover, a detailed report on the business restrictions and opportunities for the market participants or the ones who want to venture into the Social Customer Service Software Industry market is offered in the research.
By evaluating the market analysis from 2019 to 2028, Researchmoz updated its database of market intelligence reports by adding a report on the Global Social Customer Service Software Industry Market which comprises a detailed analysis on the current trends, opportunities, and challenges associated with the growth of the market in the coming years.
The research report includes specific segments by region (country), by company, by Type and by Application. This study provides information about the sales and revenue during the historic and forecasted period of 2020 to 2027. Understanding the segments helps in identifying the importance of different factors that aid the market growth.
The report conducts a situation analysis of the selected countries to monitor their progress in the global Social Customer Service Software Industry market and provides lessons learned. The strategies implemented by the market players at the regional and country-level and recent experiences drawn from it are given in the report. Contemporary information and data regarding the market share market size, total production, annual GDP, and market forecasts are detailed in the report. Collaboration and coordination activities reinforced by the leading players to strengthen their market position are given in the report.
Market Segmentation by Types:
On-Premises
Cloud Based
Market Segmentation by Applications:
Large Enterprised
SMEs
What the Report has to Offer?
Social Customer Service Software Industry Market Size Estimates: The report offers accurate and reliable estimation of the market size in terms of value and volume. Aspects such as production, distribution and supply chain, and revenue for the Social Customer Service Software Industry are also highlighted in the report
Social Customer Service Software Industry Analysis on Market Trends: In this part, upcoming market trends and development have been scrutinized
Social Customer Service Software Industry Growth Opportunities: The report here provides clients with the detailed information on the lucrative opportunities in the Social Customer Service Software Industry
Social Customer Service Software Industry Regional Analysis: In this section, the clients will find comprehensive analysis of the potential regions and countries in the global Social Customer Service Software Industry
Social Customer Service Software Industry Analysis on the Key Market Segments: The report focuses on the segments: end user, application, and product type and the key factors fuelling their growth
Social Customer Service Software Industry Vendor Landscape: Competitive landscape provided in the report will help the companies to become better equipped to be able to make effective business decisions |
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