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Grey hair usually comes around middle age but early graying is hereditary or genetic and you may inherit it from your grandparents or parents. So, if your mother or father had premature graying of hair, there is a likelihood that your hair may turn gray too. Stress, worry, tension, shock, prolonged misery, usage of harsh shampoos and malnutrition may be other causes of gray hair. However, it may be possible to slow down or delay graying with a good, nutritious, balanced diet and a stress free life through meditation and yoga. Gray hair occurs when the production of a pigment called ‘melanin’ that gives the dark color to your hair and which is present in the hair follicles, reduces or stops. As a young person, melanin is produced in plenty but as you age, the production of melanin is reduced considerably, with the result that your hair starts showing more grey hair. However, scientists have still not been able to fully discover the exact reason for hair turning gray. The belief that pulling one hair causes two or three other grey hair to grow in its place is a myth. I admit I used to think the same too and would be afraid to find out if it was a myth or not. Chances are that coincidently, the neighboring hair may have started turning grey too around the same time, leading you to believe that it has happened because you pulled out one hair. Heavy smokers are more prone to graying faster than non-smokers. Smoking accelerates hair loss and gray hair about 4 times more than non-smoking. So, it would be a good idea to stop smoking for good healthy dark hair and to maintain good body health as well. Deficiency in vitamin B12 has been associated with premature graying. Meat, eggs and milk are rich in vitamin B12. Irregularity in thyroid can also cause grey hair. Start on medication to regulate it. Early menopause which causes hormonal imbalances in the body may also be attributed to gray hair. Homemade remedies for gray hair Gray hair is a condition of a low protein diet. So, have a protein enriched diet of lean meats, whole grains, eggs, soy, cereals and lentils. Iron is also necessary for healthy hair. Dark green veggies, dry nuts, liver, yogurt, beets and fruits should be included in your diets. Iodine that is found in salt is necessary for producing melanin. Kosher salt and sea salt should be replaced with iodized table salt. Bananas, fish, carrots and radishes are rich sources of iodine. Butter made out of cow’s milk may be massaged into your hair roots to arrest further graying. Use melted butter for easy application, twice a week and rinse well after ½ an hour. Juice of amaranth (found in Indian stores) is a good source of folic acid, vitamins and essential minerals. Consumption of amaranth juice of its leaves or seeds is good for retaining the natural color of your hair. Application of juice of amaranth leaves on the hair will keep your hair soft and retain its dark color. Eating chutney made out of curry leaves is excellent for gray hair. Alternatively, add the curry leaves to your dishes like stews, soups, curries, sauces or yogurt. Eating it raw is also good. Boil a few curry leaves in coconut oil, cool it, store it and apply the oil in your hair for an hour, before shampooing, whenever you wash your hair. Take 6 tbsp of henna powder / paste, 1 egg, juice of ½ a lemon and 1 tbsp of instant coffee powder. Mix them all together and apply it on your hair. Wash with a gentle shampoo after an hour. Make a paste of 6 tbsp henna powder, 1 tbsp yogurt, 1 tsp fenugreek powder, 1 tsp coffee powder, 1 tsp each of basil and mint juice and apply it to your hair for three hours and shampoo. Boil 1 cup of amla (dried gooseberry) in 4 cups of water, until the quantity is reduced to 1 cup. After it is cooled down, add 2 cups of henna powder, 1 egg, juice of 1 lemon and mix well. Apply the paste to your hair and rinse off after a couple of hours. Henna, egg white, yogurt, beer and diluted vinegar are good natural conditioners that will give your hair bounce and volume. Consume 1 tsp fresh grated ginger with ½ tsp honey every day. It is very good for controlling grey hair. Try these remedies to arrest gray hair. Don’t forget to fortify yourself with a good diet too.
With the cold winter weather upon us, everyone in our family has donned the heavy wool winter coats. This is good in that it keeps us warm. But it's bad in that it tends to lead to a huge buildup of static electricity. My five-year-old came home from school yesterday in her wool coat, ran across the carpet and jumped up to give me a big hug. She also gave me a static shock that straightened my remaining hair. It looked something like this: tagged: static, electricity, high-voltage arc, Jacob's Ladder, winter, wool
Fledgling small businesses BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman and United Airlines have accepted a challenge by Charles McQueary, the Homeland Security Department's undersecretary for science and technology, to solve the pervasive threat of Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs) fired at domestic passenger jets. The companies, selected from a pool of 24 that sought the contracts, lead teams that will work on adapting defenses already used on military planes and Air Force One. All will test infrared jammers that redirect heat-seeking rockets away from aircraft engines.The three companies face a difficult task. They have only six months and six million dollars between them to create a report for Congress on the feasibility of this kind of defense system. I'll repeat, only $6 million to do the study and create a report. But I think we can all agree that this is something that must be done, no matter the cost, and sooner rather than later. The threat of these weapons hangs like the Sword of Damocles on air travelers in this country, despite remarks made by Asa Hutchinson, Homeland Security's undersecretary for border and transportation security, who said there is "no credible threat information involving shoulder-fired rockets." This head-in-the-sand attitude may seem like prudence, but Mr. Hutchinson obviously isn't aware of the easy availability of shoulder-fired rockets, especially in the Midwest where so many of us use them to hunt game birds like doves, pheasant and wild turkeys. Thankfully, we as voters had the presence of mind to elect Democrats to congress last year. Democrats like Barbara Boxer and Steve Israel who, despite what the know-nothings in Homeland Security say, had the testicular fortitude to sponsor a bill requiring anti-missile defense on all domestic passenger jets as soon as possible. "The threat is simply too severe to allow bureaucrats to set their own timetables to make use of those protections," said Rep. Steve Israel, D-N.Y., who sponsored the House version of a bill by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.Sure, it will cost at least $10 billion for that equipment, but again we all know that no price is too high for safety. Boxer said under the Bush administration's timetable, no planes will have the systems before 2006. "That is not good enough," she said. My only concern in this plan is that even the infrared laser SAM missile jammers won't be enough protection. In fact I would like to propose to the congressional Democrats that ALL U.S. passenger jets should be equipped with radar-seeking guided bombs. I know, you're thinking that might be a bit expensive, but as Boxer and Israel both know we are at war with terrorists and everyone must pitch in if we're going to win. Commercial aircraft are no exception. If a passenger jet is targeted by terrorists with a shoulder-mounted surface-to-air missile, they must be given the weapons to fire back. So write to Israel and Boxer and encourage them to expand their bill. It may cost another $40 billion, but freedom isn't free. tagged: rocket, passenger jets, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, United Airlines, Charles McQueary, Barbara Boxer, Steve Israel, terrorists, surface-to-air missile
Aayaam is a registered non-government organization formed by a group of young, talented, educated and enthusiastic group for the social, cultural, educational and environmental welfare. Organization is working dedicatedly since last fourteen years. The major areas that we are focused on are: - Skill Development of SC, ST, OBC, minorities & women - Environment awareness and protection - Water Conservation - Rural Development - Renewable energy sources & Energy Conservation - Self Employment training and Workshops - Women empowerment workshops - Scientific research and development - Health and Hygiene - Modern Technology in Rural Areas - Social Surveys and FGDs - Research Oriented Projects To carve out a socially equal, educated, environment friendly, energy rich society To build the capacity of vulnerable people (women, children, socio-economic weak people and tribes) through trainings in required spheres and improve the quality of their lives. We are also striving for sustainable development processes for environment, energy and water for clean and green earth. How are we different? It is obvious that we are blend of highly qualified people from diversified fields. As we have experience and expertise of different fields the work itself speaks of quality. We have transformational leaders with entrepreneurial skills who are working towards quality improvement, innovation and moving towards a positive society. It is very rare to find a conglomeration of Engineering, Science, Computers, Literature, Sociology, Animal Husbandry, medicine, etc. under one umbrella. Hence, the output of each project itself is the success indicator. All the members are dedicated, devoted and determined to work towards the success of mission.
Aayaam is actively involved in diversified fields. In last three years, several projects were undertaken in the field of Environment, Education, Research, Household Surveys, FGDs, etc. Several workshops, seminars, public meetings were conducted to generate awareness regarding Environment and General Health Campaigns were organized for well being. State wide household rural survey was conducted and master reports were generated. Skill development Training, Computer Training, Soft Skills Training, etc. were provided to the targeted groups. Study material was prepared for the courses conducted was developed by the organization. Several cultural events were organized to provide platform to young talent to showcase their hidden talents. Few broad areas covered are : Social house hold survey of 103 villages of Madhya Pradesh covering districts Bhopal, Raisen, Sehore, Vidisha, Shajapur, Ujjain, Sagar, Bila, Mandsaur, Neemuch, Nagda, Ratllam, Tikamgarh, etc. was done. Under the campaign 20% of the household per village were selected. A questionnaire focussing on their livelihood, occupation, education, general commodities, living conditions, annual income, land holding, crop pattern, water availability and role of Water User Association was surveyed. These questionnaire were compiled and summarized reports in tabular and graphical form was submitted. Focussed Group Discussion of the villagers alongwith Water User Association was also conducted. Formats, samples photos, reports, etc. are enclosed. Documentation (Print & AV) As stated earlier, Documentation of the above mentioned projects was done. A software was prepared. Data Entry for each village was done and compilation of data in the form of graphs and charts was provided. Summarised reports village wise, district wise, canal wise were prepared for various usage. Video CDs of Focussed Group Discussions was prepared for future referrals and usage. CDs of Small documentary films and Power point presentation were prepared on Conservation of Water, Environment protection etc. Organization is organizing several job oriented programs round the year. The main objective of the program is prepare a candidate in such a way so that he/she must be able to acquire job easily in Front office, retail marketing, etc. Specialized training programs on Computers were also conducted along with Entrepreneur Development Camps etc. Self paced learning material is developed for the students participating in different job oriented skill development program : - Basic Computer Education - Reading Skills - Writing Skills - Office Correspondence - Self Improvement tips for job seekers - Conservation of water Organization is conducting regular workshops, seminars, public meetings, competitions and awareness campaigns to generated awareness amongst the masses regaring global warming, water conservation, Biodiversity, etc. These campaigns are done in urban as well as Rural areas. Campaigns on conservation of energy, usage of alternative resources and renewable energy is also done by the organization. Masses are motivated to conserve energy by showing documentaries, circulating pamphlets and giving tips on usage of CFL etc. is done. ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Several doctorates (Ph.Ds) are there the core group, hence, research is an ongoing activity. Society has done work in the field of environment, water, education, management and Sociology. Other activities of Aayaam - Entrepreneurship training in rural areas - Skill development program in rural area especially to the youth and women viz. fashion Designing, Mobile repairing, etc. - Awareness in rural areas regarding water conservation and cleaning, Roof Water harvesting, Water Shed, Use of waste water, etc. - Training on use of organic manure, vermi-composting, etc. - Campaign on More crop per drop. - Water conservation and protection.
UK mobile operators Vodafone and 3 have asked for permission to run 4G mobile services over the airwaves they use for existing mobile services. Currently EE is the the only UK operator that can run 4G services over those parts of the radio spectrum. Telecoms regulator Ofcom has started a public consultation exercise on the proposal that runs until March 29th and is currently running an auction to sell off unused airwaves that can support 4G services. The two mobile operators want to be able to pipe futuristic 4G services over parts of the radio spectrum that, on their networks, are reserved for earlier generations of mobile technology. Among other things, 4G promises to improve web browsing speeds while on the move and make a host of other mobile applications much more feasible.
Notes from the newsroom on grammar, usage and style. (Some frequently asked questions are here.) In 1990, the phrase “bona fides” appeared four times in The Times, according to our archive: three times in editorials and once in Sports. Last year we used the term — a Latin phrase meaning “good faith” — 93 times, and we’re on a similar pace this year, with 36 uses so far. It’s been a steady increase over all, but with a spike in 2008 and another starting last year, which may provide one clue to the term’s popularity. In the sense of “genuineness” or “valid credentials,” it seems to have become a political buzzword — candidates in the Republican primaries were constantly showing their “conservative bona fides.” That seems like a lot of use for a Latin term that many of us might have trouble saying out loud (BOH-na FIE-deez is the usual pronunciation in English). Be wary of overuse, and consider some perfectly serviceable English alternatives. Depending on the context, “good faith,” “sincerity” or even just “credentials” might do the job. Another problem is illustrated here: Its literary bona fides are certainly in order, and the filmmakers’ affection for the boozy, wanton world of mid-19th-century print culture — for the inky swamp of sensationalistic newspapers and scurrilous magazines from which American literature sprouted — is very much in evidence. As some Latin-loving readers will surely know, “bona fides” is singular, not plural. But “bona fides is …” is also likely to sound wrong to many readers. Better to find an alternative. More Bright Passages A few quick additions to our recent sampling of sparkling prose: Roundly praised, intermittently censored and occasionally eaten, Mr. Sendak’s books were essential ingredients of childhood for the generation born after 1960 or thereabouts, and in turn for their children. … As portrayed by Mr. Sendak, the wild things are deliciously grotesque: huge, snaggletoothed, exquisitely hirsute and glowering maniacally. He always maintained he was drawing his relatives — who, in his memory at least, had hovered like a pack of middle-aged gargoyles above the childhood sickbed to which he was often confined. … A frail child beset by a seemingly endless parade of illnesses, Mr. Sendak was reared, he said afterward, in a world of looming terrors: the Depression; World War II; the Holocaust, in which many of his European relatives perished; the seemingly infinite vulnerability of children to danger. He experienced the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby in 1932 as a personal torment: if that fair-haired, blue-eyed princeling could not be kept safe, what certain peril lay in store for him, little Murray Sendak, in his humble apartment in Bensonhurst? As many readers noted, Margalit Fox’s spectacular obit of Maurice Sendak was filled with memorable touches. António Zambujo gave an exquisite whisper of a concert on Saturday night at the Skirball Center at New York University. … Where the strings set up the understated oompah of traditional fado, Mr. Zambujo’s phrases hovered above it or darted around it, full of dramatic hesitations and elegant arabesques, often creating an emotional climax with a decrescendo. (At times he resembled a singer he may never have heard: Aaron Neville from New Orleans, who similarly rushes into a phrase, pauses unexpectedly or sustains an aching note, at once tense and angelic.) Vivid descriptions in Jon Pareles’s review of a fado singer gave even non-initiates a sense of the artistry. If the prose in those early reviews is not always incandescent, a few of them send up bright flares of recognition. Here is Isle of Capri, where “guests dine off bare marble tables.’’ There is the King Cole Bar, “open only for men at lunch.’’ Other listings set off pangs of regret for places that didn’t last to see this century: Sweets, Bleeck’s, Trader Vic’s, Kleine Konditorei. What is most striking, though, are the head-snapping juxtapositions of linen and linoleum. In one column, Claiborne recommended both a Neapolitan pizzeria and the Colony, the hive of society where Sirio Maccioni studied the art of seating arrangements. In another, Claiborne praised the kitchen at La Côte Basque but had more to say about the food at Chock Full o’ Nuts: ’’There are more than 30 of these first-class establishments in New York. They are neat as a whistle and the sandwiches and pastries are of a high order.’’ A few of many deft touches in Pete Wells’s essay on Craig Claiborne’s legacy. In a Word This week’s grab bag of grammar, style and other missteps, compiled with help from colleagues and readers. But both sides are expected to agree to increase the resources of the European Investment Bank by as much as $12.8 billion, to reallocate unused European Union structural funds for economic growth, to support a financial transaction tax and even, some suggest, to support collective bonds to finance carefully chosen public works projects. But Mr. Hollande does not share the Anglo-German notion that sustainable growth comes mostly from structural changes like liberalizing the labor market and reducing taxes on companies to promote productivity and competitiveness. Avoid the dizzying effect of beginning successive sentences with “but.” The recuperation in Mr. Romney’s favorability numbers, for instance — if it was somewhat to be expected — also reduces the risk of whatever downside-case scenario there was where Mr. Romney substantially underperformed the economic fundamentals. Cloudy with 100 percent chance of too much jargon. They also tweaked their proposed definition of depression to allay fears that the normal sadness people experience after the loss of a loved one, a job or a marriage would not be mistaken for a mental disorder. This double-negative sense is not what we meant; delete “not.” That No. 1 result easily smashed what the movie industry considers the record, set last summer by “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” for the biggest opening weekend of all time. Until next summer, when a different movie has the biggest opening weekend “of all time.” It’s a phrase best avoided. Presidential elections are sometimes described as high school popularity contests on a national level, and the Romney campaign clearly was worried that the episode could define Mr. Romney as a familiar yearbook character: the rich kid with a mean streak. As The Times’s stylebook says, it’s generally smoother to put adverbs between the verb parts: “was clearly worried.” Montero continued to inflict Yankees fans with seller’s remorse after an opposite field home run in the sixth inning gave the Mariners a 2-1 lead. “Inflict” takes “on” or “upon”; make it “afflict.” [Caption] Ruchi Sanghvi, first woman engineer at Facebook. You wouldn’t say “man engineer;” make it “female engineer” or rephrase. Given the amount of high-quality shows idling in my DVR and on-demand queue, channel surfing for live television seems very last century. Make it “number of high-quality shows.” Observers said that though Mr. Hollande was likely to hew closer to the Obama administration on economic issues, he would almost certainly move further away from it on foreign and military policy. The stylebook cautions against the vague “observer” attribution, which some readers suspect simply masks our own analysis. The very riskiness of what Mr. Obama did — some commentators were invoking Lyndon B. Johnson’s embrace of civil rights in 1964, with all the attendant political perils — made it hard to understate the historic significance of what took place at the White House on Wednesday. A common error. We meant “hard to overstate” — that is, the significance is so great that it would be difficult to go too far in describing it. Last summer, the trainer Doug O’Neill was formally sanctioned after one of his racehorses at Hollywood Park in California tested positive for illegal drugs. The stylebook advises against using “sanction” as a verb in this sense. It is ambiguous, because the traditional meaning of the verb is “to approve,” not “to penalize.” Patients are hard to care for at home, and those who are young, strong and aggressive are sometimes kicked out of nursing homes because they are seen as posing a physical threat. The colloquial expression seems out of place in this serious context. After Deadline examines questions of grammar, usage and style encountered by writers and editors of The Times. It is adapted from a weekly newsroom critique overseen by Philip B. Corbett, the associate managing editor for standards, who is also in charge of The Times’s style manual.
Consider it a poem Impervious surfaces are a man-made construct which disconnect us from the organic way of life. ‘Way’ in a literal sense; the way we flatten the surfaces we dwell on and the paths we travel by foot and vehicle is akin to the way we flatten our expected path and dwellings in life. The ground unaltered by man is irregular with various lumps and microclimates, and that varied terrain is more like the emotional terrain we encounter in our lives. We form expectations that the emotional terrain we will experience shall be level and predictable, like the paved surfaces we build, but this expectation is often unmet because it is not the true terrain of this world. The analogy between physical terrain and emotional terrain has other examples too, however occulted, which can be revealed with further reflection. One example is the terrain of learning. With our man-made constructs we learn through steps which lead to doorways; like walking along a path and turning to climb steps up to a door to enter a house. Within a man-made ‘house of knowledge’ there are various doors and maybe even different dwellings, like apartments that share the same floor or maybe take climbing further steps to access. With the terrain unaltered by man we see a different analogous ‘way’ of learning. In the wild our paths are much freer, likely to be irregular and progress in a very organic way unique to each individual’s conditions. There are certainly some points higher than others, but these high points on the path of knowledge are different than that of the man-made way. One may find a slope and climb it, persevering through all its topographic and other challenges. It is unlikely to find a ‘closed room’ in this wild space, yet as one climbs the mountains of knowledge, there will be precipices and plateaus one may peak at. If one climbs further, beyond the ‘false peaks’ that offer what some call ‘half-truths’ on the path of knowledge, one may reach a true peak with the highest view on that individual mountain; the mountain offers a 360 degree view freely from this point to all who earn it. As the mountain gives the view and the traveler takes it, we can remember that some things good alone are better experienced together, and this inspires thoughts of sharing knowledge and experience. A whole different set of analogous lessons is available on that point, by considering how conductance of power works in electrical engineering and how that may be akin to our own personal power and relationship with the force(s) of life in this world.
The Prime Minister’s Office is using Big Data techniques to process ideas thrown up by citizens on its crowdsourcing platform mygov. in, place them in context of the popular mood as reflected in trends on social media, and generate actionable reports for ministries and departments to consider and implement. The Modi government has roped in global consulting firm PwC to assist in the data mining exercise, and now wants to elevate Mygov.in platform from a one-way flow of citizens’ ideas to a dialogue where the government keeps them abreast of some of the actions that emerge from their brainstorming. “There is a large professional data analytics team working behind the scenes to process and filter key points emerging from debates on mygov.in, gauge popular mood about particular issues from social media sites like Twitter and Facebook,” said a senior official aware of the development, adding that these are collated into special reports about possible action points that are shared with the PMO and line ministries. Ministries are being asked to revert with an action taken report on these ideas and policy suggestions currently being generated on 19 different policy challenges such as expenditure reforms, job creation, energy conservation, skill development and government initiatives such as Clean India, Digital India and Clean Ganga. With the PM inviting Indian communities in America and Australia to join the online platform, which he has termed a ‘mass movement towards Surajya’, the traffic handling capacity of mygov.in is being scaled up consistently, the official said. PwC executive director Neel Ratan said that the firm is ‘helping the government’ process the citizen inputs coming through on Mygov. in in. “There is a science and art behind it. We have people constantly looking at all ideas coming up, filtering them and after a lot of analysis, correlating it to sentiments coming through on the rest of social media,” he said, stressing this is throwing up interesting trends and action points, being relayed to ministries. “It’s turning out to be fairly action-oriented. I think it is distinctly possible that 30-50 million people would be actively contributing to Mygov.in over the next year and a half, given its current pace of growth,” Ratan said. Over 100,000 people subscribe to our newsletter. See stories of Analytics and AI in your inbox. PwC’s global leader in government and public services Jan Sturesson told ET the participative governance model being adopted through mygov.in could become a model for the developed world. “The biggest issue for governments today is how to be relevant. If all citizens are treated with dignity and invited to collaborate, it can be easier for administrations to have a direct finger on the pulse of the nation rather than lose it in transmission through multiple layers of bureaucracy,” he said, not ruling out the possibility of using the mygov.in for quick referendums on contemporary policy dilemmas in a couple of years. “The problem in the West has been that the US, Australia and UK follow a public management philosophy that treats citizens as consumers. That’s ridiculous, because a consumer pays the bill and complains, while a citizen engages differently and takes responsibility,” said Sturesson. Source: Economic Times
Volunteer @ Anjali-House! Volunteering is a great way to be a part of Anjali’s work, and the valuable support that you help to provide for the children will be a memorable experience. Anjali House is a Cambodian NGO, and all but one of our employees are Khmer. It is our goal to make our project sustainable by empowering our Khmer staff. The volunteers that are of greatest value to the project are people who have skills, ideas or experiences that they are willing to impart to the Khmer staff so the ball keeps rolling long after they depart. While the time a volunteer stays varies greatly, we have a 1-month minimum required volunteering period for classroom volunteers. This is in order to maximize the benefits for the children and your own experience. For stays between 2 weeks and 1 month, consider volunteering in our office or on a project. Additionally, we ask each volunteer to make a USD $250 contribution to support the running costs of the volunteer program. We are looking for 3 types of volunteers to support our organization: Project based volunteers and groups One of the most impactful ways to help our organization is to come to Anjali-House to work on a project for our center. Large groups and individuals can raise money for a number of projects at our center and then come to Anjali and help build their project. For travel groups, schools, religious service groups, and other large groups we are happy to discuss with you the most meaningful way for you to support a project an Anjali-House. Please contact us directly and we can find a time to discuss your project idea. Examples include: Renovating our library: Raise money and help us renovate our library. Build new bookcases, buy new chairs and cushions, paint the walls, and organize our books. Building new toilets and showers: For a large group with time and resources, you could make a huge difference by helping to build and pay for new showers and toilets for our students to use everyday. Gardening and painting: We have a large vegetable garden that needs constant attention. You can also help paint our school! Administrative, Communications, and Fundraising Support As a small NGO with limited resources, we contribute almost all our funding towards our programs. However, we rely on volunteers to assist with communications, finance, and fundraising efforts. If you have a limited amount of time, or even for a longer stay, consider helping in our office. Examples include: Updating our website: Got great computer skills? Help design and create new web pages and manage old ones. Create donor packets: Help our fundraiser create donor packets for large donors. Help with our accounting Come up with creative fundraising ideas: Help us put on a trivia night at a local pub or develop a small income generating enterprise that we can implement. Depending on your skill set, you can assist our Khmer teachers in running their classrooms. In an effort to provide positive Khmer role models for our students and in order to ensure our sustainability as a development organization, all of our teachers are Cambodian. Volunteers are responsible for the daily creative workshops at Anjali. There are five workshops with different groups of children every day. Workshops can be 50 minute long activities; can be run over a few days or an entire week. It is important that the kids not only have fun in these workshops, but are also provided with an opportunity to learn in a fun environment. These creative workshops focus on learning through art and crafts. These sessions are extremely varied, providing students with the opportunity to explore photography, creative writing, drama, music and play. For example: arts and crafts, game, activities and reading. Other responsibilities include: Assisting a Khmer teacher in English classes Supervising the kids, monitoring their safety and administering basic first aid when required Acting as role models for our students by dressing and behaving appropriately (shoulders and knees must be covered) We ask the volunteers to work as a team, support each other and ensure the workload is spread evenly. Interested in volunteering at Anjali House? If you wish to apply, please fill in this application form and return it to [email protected]. Once approved, successful applicants will need to provide a scanned image of their passport, a police check from their country of residence and to abide by our strict Child Protection Policy. To help make the process of applying for a police check easier, please read this important information. Once you have submitted your application, you will be contacted for an interview and then informed as to whether or not your application has been accepted. If you have further questions or enquiries regarding volunteering, please contact us via [email protected]. You might want to read our tips for volunteering in Cambodia. Volunteers who cannot commit to a month but would like to teach may like to contact our partner organizations Globalteer and ConCERT, who work with a wide range of projects in Siem Reap and who are able to take volunteers for shorter durations. They also provide general information and advice about volunteering in Cambodia. Note: The $250 contribution is to offset administrative expenses for volunteers and serves as a general contribution to our organization; a standard practice at most NGOs in Southeast Asia. Housing, transportation, and food will all come at the volunteer’s own expense as we do not have the capacity to pay for these accommodations. If accepted, we would be happy to help you arrange housing in one of our partner guesthouses. All volunteers have the option of eating a free lunch at our center on workdays.
Stress Test Results Tomorrow Will Dramatically Understate Risk We don't think it's too great a stretch to call tomorrow's EU "Stress Tests" absurd. Why? Consider the following. The stress test results to be released tomorrow. are based on balance sheet data from the banks at December 31st, 2010. No changes in exposure since then are reflected. Furthermore, the macro assumptions work off of a baseline of what the world looked like at year-end 2010. This means that the current state of the world is actually much worse than the so-called "adverse" scenario in many cases. The charts below look at what the EU considered for its "adverse" scenario, namely the backup in sovereign bond spreads relative to German Bunds, compared with what has actually occurred in the market. The starting point for the tests is YE2010. This is the date when the stress test scenario analysis begins. In the charts below we show the amount by which the stress tests assumed sovereign spreads would widen vs. the amount they have actually already widened by. Let's do a quick case study on Portuguese 15 year sovereign bonds, as these are the bonds the stress test assigns the biggest haircuts to under their adverse scenario. Looking at the 15 year bonds of Portugal, the EU stress test assumes the bonds widen by 251 bps against German bunds in an adverse scenario. In reality, however, Portuguese 15 year bond spreads have already widened by 612 bps since YE2010. Under the 251 bps scenario, the EU estimates that the haircut on those bonds would be 30.6%. You can do the math on what a 612 bps scenario means for the haircut. Performing the same analysis on the 2-year Portuguese bonds, the stress test assumes 201 bps of spread widening, when in reality 2-year spreads have widened by 1,860 bps. Under the EU stress test adverse scenario, their 201 bps assumption triggers a 5.5% haircut on those bonds. Given the actual widening is closer to 9x what they've assumed it seems reasonable to conclude that the stress tests will quite materially understate the real risk in the system. This profound ignorance of reality repeats across durations and countries. As such, it will be hard to take seriously the EU's conclusions tomorrow when they announce which banks are adequately capitalized and which banks are not. Portugal, Greece & Ireland are all trading well in excess of the adverse scenarios. Italy is quite close to their adverse scenario assumption. Assumptions of the 2011 Stress Tests If the lead-in section of this note hasn't dissuaded you from the Stress Tests' relevance, here's some additional lunacy to consider. The "Adverse Scenario" in the stress tests makes assumptions around GDP growth, unemployment, home prices, exogenous shocks, and other macro variables. Let's skip straight to the big question: What are the assumptions about sovereign default? - No sovereign defaults. (No, really.) The adverse scenario does not contain a default of any sovereign issuance. Instead, sovereign "shock" is purely a function of higher interest rates on sovereign bonds and higher credit spreads. - No assumption of any change in ratings. (Coincidentally, the EU is considering banning ratings agencies.) - Valuation haircuts are only applied to held-for-trading bonds for each bank - that is, those that are already marked-to-market. The chart below, from the European Banking Authority, shows the assumptions around GDP growth in the 2010 and 2011 stress tests. For those interested in the overview of the stress tests, take a look at the following document, which describes in greater detail what we have summarized in this note. Detailed Disclosures Will Be Forthcoming One thing the stress tests will provide is a great deal of data for individual banks' exposures (or at least what those exposures were at December 2010). Refer to a disclosure template at the following link: One side note is that the stress test data will not be comparable to the BIS data that many investors have used to get a handle on exposures. According to the EBA, the data is aggregated in a way that makes reconciliation "impossible." Market Reaction to 2010 Stress Tests The chart below shows the Euro STOXX Bank Index back to 2009. The market was in an uptrend at the time of the stress test release, and in the 7 trading days immediately following the July 23rd, 2010 release, the index squeezed 9.2% higher. Today, the index is 24% lower than its level on the day of the release. We think this is probably a good way for thinking about how the stocks will trade again this go-around. Remember, it was clear to everyone last summer that last year's stress tests were also a complete joke. Somehow, this time around, the market seems to think that this round of stress tests is much more serious. While that is clearly wrong, the market may well use it as an excuse to move higher in the short-term. Based on the fact that it relies on assumptions that border on disbelief, we think clients should treat with extreme skepticism the likely bullish conclusions of tomorrow's EU Stress Tests (Round 2). While it served as a catalyst for the market to go higher in the short-term last summer, those gains proved short-lived as the market went on to retrace all that and more. Joshua Steiner, CFA
More News From ClimateWire - Exxon-Xto Deal Forces Congress to Reconsider Natural Gas - If Polls Say 'Yes' to a Climate Bill, Why Do Lawmakers Say 'Maybe'? - Another State of the Union Speech Looms, but Climate Activists Want Action - Murkowski Mayhem Highlights Uncertainties With Climate Bill - Sen.-Elect Brown Is a 'Blank Slate' on Climate, Drawing Concern and Optimism The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday said companies must disclose to investors the physical impact that climate change has on assets and the consequences of regulations curbing greenhouse gas emissions. The SEC public disclosure guidance on climate-related risks is seen as a major victory by an army of environmental groups and institutional investors that have pressed the issue since 2007. "This is a big step forward," said Maryland State Treasurer Nancy Kopp, who also chairs the board of trustees for the state's $33 billion pension fund. "As investors, the information being disclosed isn't as useful as it ought to be." The SEC under President Obama and SEC Chairwoman Mary Schapiro has worked quietly on the climate-risk guidance in recent months. But, issued on the same day as Obama's State of the Union address, it drew fire from Republicans on Capitol Hill and at the commission. Critics used imprisoned fund manager Bernard Madoff, the global financial crisis and the contentious politics of climate science as cudgels against the SEC. "Having permitted the now-imprisoned Bernard Madoff to bilk as much as $50 billion from trusting investors, it will now turn its investigative eye to global warming instead of investor protection," Reps. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and Greg Walden (R-Ore.) said in a letter sent to Schapiro this week. Barton is the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Barton and Walden hammered the proposal for being "transparently political and such a breathtaking waste of the commission's resources." 'Guidance' considered binding The commission approved the disclosure guidance on a 3-2 vote. The guidance doesn't carry the same force of law as a formal regulation, but public companies consider it binding. The issue revolves around the term "material risk," which is a regulatory guidepost used by companies to determine what information to disclose to investors. It builds on existing requirements that companies disclose environmental risks, including U.S. EPA rules. Under the guidance, companies should consider whether existing laws or pending legislation and regulations are a risk, and whether climate accords carry some financial risk. It also directs companies to consider whether actual and potential physical impacts should be disclosed, including whether there is a risk of increasing insurance claims in coastal areas due to severe weather or sea level changes. Business trends matter, too. "Legal, technological, political and scientific developments regarding climate change may create new opportunities or risks for companies," says the SEC's guidance. The SEC noted that companies shouldn't ignore how climate change affects their competitive positions. A company in time, for example, might see less demand for energy-intensive goods that result in heavy industrial emissions or, on the flip side, rising demand for "green" goods and services that produce less emissions. Proponents of the regulatory guidance, which by some measures include state retirement funds and other institutional funds worth more than $1 trillion, have banged away at the issue since Obama took office. The George W. Bush administration largely ignored requests that the SEC direct companies to disclose more information about the liability they face from emissions, regulations, rising commodity prices, property damage and the long-term costs associated with replacing equipment. Pension fund is jubilant "Ensuring investors are getting timely, material information on climate-related impacts, including regulatory and physical impacts, is absolutely necessary," said Anne Stausboll, CEO of the $200 billion California Public Employees' Retirement System, in a statement. In a joint release, groups under the umbrella of Boston-based Ceres and its Investor Network on Climate Risk, alongside the Environmental Defense Fund, hailed the commission's action. They noted that it is the world's first economywide climate risk disclosure requirement. The groups requested a formal guidance in a petition filed at the SEC in 2007, with supporting materials in 2008 and 2009. The ball also got rolling in March last year, when the National Association of Insurance Commissioners adopted rules requiring insurance companies to disclose the impact of climate change on their business decisions. Insurers will have to publicly disclose climate risks to regulators and shareholders starting in May 2010. Schapiro and other proponents said the guidance "is merely intended to provide clarity and enhance consistency." "If something has a material impact on a company, then it is something that needs to be disclosed -- that has always been the case," Schapiro said. "It is neither surprising nor especially remarkable for us to conclude that of course a company must consider whether potential legislation -- whether that legislation concerns climate change or new licensing requirements -- is likely to occur," she asserted. If so, she added, companies should disclose the impact on liquidity, capital resources and operations. "Similarly, a company must disclose the significant risks that it faces, whether those risks are due to increased competition or severe weather," she said. "These principles of materiality form the bedrock of our disclosure framework." Opponents come out swinging Commissioner Kathleen Casey, appointed by President George W. Bush, opposed the measure. She suggested that the SEC was trying to please the "social environmental policy lobby," which she said has long pressed the commission on the disclosure issue to drive environmental policy objectives. "The issuance of this release at a time when the state of science, law and policy relating to climate change appear to be increasingly in flux makes little sense," she said. "As we begin to emerge from the worst financial crisis in generations, our consideration of this release today sends a curious signal to the investment community about what we view as the most pressing issues facing the commission," she told her colleagues at an open meeting. "In truth, our disclosure regime related to environmental issues, including climate change, is highly developed and robust," she asserted. "In fact, notably, the release does not attempt to make the case that disclosures relating to climate change have been consistently deficient." Barton and Walden characterized the SEC's guidance differently than the commission did, suggesting the guidance requires corporations "to explain how they are alleviating global warming." The congressmen also accused the SEC of "skirting the time-consuming business of collecting, reading and considering comments from the public." Barton, in particular, fought cap-and-trade legislation passed by the House in June. He has questioned climate science, and has said the costs industry would bear to comply with a federal law mandating cuts in greenhouse gas emissions would be too high. Maryland's Kopp said this isn't about science or politics. More public companies are disclosing their climate change-related risks, she said, but the reporting isn't consistent enough to compare companies against each other. "Neither I nor the commissioners are in a position to enter into a scientific debate on climate change," Kopp said. "All I know as an investor is that it is impacting my ability to make investment decisions, and we need information on material impacts and material opportunities in the companies we invest." Copyright 2010 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.
Philanthropist and Social Entrepreneur A philanthropist and social entrepreneur, Areva is a nationally recognized autism, children’s rights and women’s advocate. She has been on the frontline fighting for the rights of vunerable populations since she was a college student at the University of Chicago where she volunteered countless hours as a mentor to high-risk girls and walked neighborhoods registering voters. She continued her community activism at Harvard Law School writing articles for a socially conscious law journal and volunteering hours at local free legal clinics. In her professional career, Areva has provided thousands of pro bono legal hours to indigent clients; has been a constant voice speaking up for higher wages for homecare workers; has stood up for girls and boys who have been the victims of sex trafficking; and has led campaigns to end healthcare disparities in the African American and Latino communities; When her son was diagnosed with Autism, she launched into action by forming Special Needs Network, Inc., a 501c nonprofit advocacy and service organization in California. Areva’s goal was to change the way the nation perceived and provided services to underserved minority children with autism and other special needs. She seized the opportunity to improve the systems of care in California by inventing new approaches and creating solutions to the state’s fragmented system of care. Areva has galvanized thousands of parents to take action and to become grassroots leaders and advocates for their children and communities. Guided by the mantra “that to whom much is given, much is expected,” Areva has shepherded Special Needs Network from a small organization with a single program to a powerhouse organization with a multi-million dollar budget serving thousands of families throughout the state. Areva has played leadership roles on California autism commissions helping to shape the legislative landscape for individuals with autism. She was a member of the California Blue Ribbon Commission on Autism; the Autism Advisory Taskforce for the state’s only insurance mandate bill; and the California Senate Select Committee on Autism Advisory Taskforce where she served as the Chair of the South Los Angeles Regional Taskforce. Areva also served as the Co-chair of the Autism Equity and Diversity Task Force which examined state spending on autism services based on race and ethnicity. Areva has raised millions of dollars for autism and related causes and has received countless commendations and awards for her work on behalf of children and families including Los Angeles County Woman of the Year, California Legislative Black Caucus Civil Rights Leadership Award, Langston Bar Association Advocate for Justice, L’Oreal Paris Women of Worth, GLAAC Lawyer of the Year, Farmers Insurance Living Legend , LAAAW-PAC Power Pac Award, and KCET Community Hero. For the last 2 years, she has been identified as one of the 100 Most Influential African Americans in Los Angeles and in a city-wide celebration, the City of Lynwood presented her with the Keys to the City after naming her Grand Marshall of one of the largest holiday parades in Southern California. Areva is also a champion and role model for girls and women. She shares her expertise in autism advocacy, nonprofit management and complex legal issues with millions of engaged followers through her extensive social media platforms, regular blog posts and online articles. From serving as a surrogate for female candidates running for elected office to inspiring women to make health and fitness a priority through her regular #ArevaOntheRun posts, Areva has developed a respected and recognizable brand that resonates with women 18 to 55. Through public appearances, speaking engagements, product endorsements, commercials, print, television and online ads, Areva helps women achieve their ultimate goals and beyond and she helps companies reach those women through endorsements and brand alignment. Endorsements and Cause Marketing Arguably one of the most trusted legal and social issues voices on television, Areva uses her platform to promote social matters and causes from autism to women in politics. She also aligns herself with select products and brands. From fitness, beauty and fashion, Areva helps companies attract greater attention and to expand their audiences, buyers and market shares. As a marketing influencer, Areva knows the power of engagement and thus, communicates and provides substantive content to her followers and fans via her blog posts, online and print articles, live broadcast and regular posts. A combination of reliability, useful content output and forging influencer-audience relationships has allowed her to create a rapport of trust and a level of authority that drops to the bottom line.
LAUSD board members made it official last week: Come September, students aging out of Playa Vista Elementary School will be able to continue their studies at a brand new middle school program on the Manchester Avenue campus of Westchester Enriched Sciences Magnets (formerly Westchester High School). The new school is intended to continue Playa Vista Elementary’s popular STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) curriculum, closing the gap in a local educational pipeline. “The new pathway comes to complement the other science-oriented programs serving the Westchester and Del Rey communities: Orville Wright Middle School and Marina Del Rey Middle School,” LAUSD Board President Steve Zimmer wrote in a letter to parents. “We fully intend that all middle school pathways will lead to WESM.” Students currently enrolled in Playa Vista Elementary School get priority admission to the new middle school, with sixth- and seventh-grade cohorts of 100 to 150 students each launching in 2017 and eighth-grade classrooms coming online in 2018. Other students will be admitted by lottery according to various enrollment priority groups. Responding to complaints by Westchester and Playa del Rey parents that the program could fill up before their kids have a chance to enroll, LAUSD is including residents of Westchester, Playa Vista, Playa del Rey and View Park – Windsor Hills in the Group 2 enrollment tier. Students who do not live in the area but currently attend Cowan, Kentwood, Loyola Village, Open Charter Magnet, Paseo del Rey Magnet, Playa del Rey or Westport Heights elementary schools are in Group 3. LAUSD will take enrollment applications between Jan. 27 and Feb. 17, with letters of acceptance going out March 6.
“I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse.” ~ Florence Nightingale Accountability and expectations; two things that go hand in hand. Two concepts that contribute directly to the level of success a person achieves, as well as those around them. Today’s inspirational quote refers to both. When I think about the successes I’ve had in my life, both personal and professional, I can honestly attribute that to my No Excuses attitude. I apply this mindset to not only myself, but those who are in my life as well. It’s a hard line to toe, but it provides a catalyst for people to step up and take charge of their lives, even if we slip up every now and then. For example, like my post today, I talk about how I don’t meditate three times a week, as prescribed by my doctor. I don’t make excuses for that. It’s simple. I am being a lazy ass, not to mention, stubborn. No excuse. I don’t do it. Even though I know I should. Even though I have plenty of time to get it done. Meditation is not a priority for me at this juncture of my life. Still, I should set the expectation high for myself. Make it a demand I thrust upon myself. Commit to meditating as required. Rise above my petty laziness and stubbornness. I should just do it. I should care enough about myself to meet that expectation. In honor of the words I’ve posted to this reflection, here is my commitment. Starting tonight, I will meditate every other day. I will take accountability for my health. No excuses. I will do it.
It’s been a while but here I am with a real post this time. Last night I saw an awesome movie, ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’. I suggest you go and see it now or get it on video whenever the hell it comes out. Otherwise, I’m sure that the more cultured of you in the audience will know what the hell this article is leading up to when I tell you that the movie, being part of that franchise, brought on the typical question that any intelligent lot would ask- What makes one a person? Before we move onto my answer to the question I’ll clear the air up for some of you by giving a brief synopsis of the original film that started the franchise way back when. (Spoiler alert) the first movie in the franchise was called ‘The Planet of the Apes’ and the title pretty much describes the entire movie. It’s a planet ruled by apes but there’s more to it than that. On this planet the humans are the ones enslaved and in cages while the apes are the stronger and smarter overlords of the planet. One day a special human comes from back from a space mission thinking that he will be welcomed home by his fellow humans but is instead captured and enslaved with the rest. Unlike the other enslaved humans he is smart and he teaches them so that they can rebel against their ape overlords. The original film easily brings up the question of what it means to be a person constantly due to the fact that the apes are the ones ruling the humans and it’s not the other way around. The movie I saw last night kept true to the original idea of the series and left myself and my companions throwing out the question of what it means to really be a person. I now bring this question to you all here at A-Soul. What do you all think it means to be a person? Since I expect you all to share your opinions with us here I’ll be the first to share my own. I believe that to be person one does not necessarily have to be human. To me ‘human’ is only a term that describes us as a species while being a ‘person’ is something totally different. Logically I should be able to come up with simple criteria for determining how one can be classified as a person but sadly it’s difficult. Alas, if the question wasn’t a difficult one then it wouldn’t be worth posting here for you all. Amazingly enough, between the last two sentences I’ve managed to come up with a very simple and effective criteria for determining someone as a person. - Thought- Yes, you have to be able to think on your own. I know that there are cases of people who are comatose and have no apparent brain activity but still miraculously function but even so in my opinion you only qualify as human at that point. In order for me to fully consider someone a full person they have to be able to think on their own, without interference by any external forces. - Communication- The second criterion for being considered a person by me is to be able to communicate some form of thought. Be it in the form of a cry or an explicit sentence, you have to be able to communicate some form of thought to me. Even a newborn baby is able to communicate it’s thoughts to me…Mostly by crying but it’s still a form of communication of some thought. - Self Growth/Improvement- The third criteria for being a person according to Poison. All ‘persons’ are capable of this because we are able to learn and as time goes by we grow. Even people with mental disabilities that for the most part leave them unable to function with the rest of mainstream society have proven that they are capable of these two things. Even if they show no sign of improvement we all show signs of growth through our aging and as we get older we begin to act according to our stored experiences. According to these criteria many ‘undesirables’ can fall into my classification for being a person. Since we’re already in the science fiction ball park here I’m going to say robots and artificial intelligences. I’ll be honest when I say I would not mind having tea with the Bicentennial man but I do feel myself falter when faced with the issue of if I could accept an AI as a person. It is for this reason why I want to introduce a fourth and final condition for being considered a person. - Biology- The final condition for being considered a person according to me. Now, I have nothing against you if you could fill the first three but the thing that makes a person a person for me is that we are able to feel pain, grow old, give birth, get sick and die. Through these things we come to understand each other and treat each other with some kind of respect. We are also able to gain emotion, though they vary from person to person. Basically put, biology is not just being something that is born through an act of nature but is also able to feel pain and well…Die. Anyways people, tell me what you think and do be sure to keep me entertained!
YUMA – After losing her job at McDonald’s, Crystal Ryan has been without work for a year and is scrambling to support her 1-year-old son. After submitting 20 to 30 applications, she isn’t picky about where she would work. “It kind of breaks your self-esteem,” Ryan said as she reviewed job postings recently at the Yuma Private Industry Council, a non-profit organization that operates a job-resource center. “You can get an interview here, but you can’t get the job.” In a state where unemployment remains high as much of the rest of the nation recovers from the Great Recession, Yuma stands out. The metropolitan area’s jobless rate of 15.9 percent in August was the nation’s second highest, trailing only nearby El Centro, Calif., according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, Yuma County’s unemployment rate for the month was 29.4 percent, by far the highest in Arizona. Unemployment remains high elsewhere in rural Arizona, with Santa Cruz and Apache counties following Yuma at 18.4 percent and 16 percent, respectively. Unemployment was at 12 percent with residents of rural areas in 2010, as compared to 9.7 percent in Arizona’s urban areas, according to the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service. In June, the Legislature declined Gov. Jan Brewer’s push to accept extended unemployment benefits offered by the federal government for those who have used up state and federal benefits. The governor had cited rural unemployment as a reason to do so. Amid all of this, people such as Roberto Vazquez struggle to find scarce work in rural areas. Despite speaking three languages and having experience as an office manager, he has been unable to find work for three months since losing his job with Wal-Mart in Yuma. “I have a little bit of trouble getting a job, but I have to be positive to get a job,” Vazquez said as he waited at the Yuma Private Industry Council. Yuma’s jobless figures are especially high due to the seasonal nature of agricultural hiring. The county, which is one of the country’s largest lettuce producers, offers jobs during the peak produce season beginning around November, but those same workers file for unemployment when the agricultural work is no longer available, said Patrick Goetz, education and training manager for the Yuma Private Industry Council. The economic downturn forced the loss of state jobs and closures of businesses, sending the numbers even higher, he said. “We work really hard working with folks that are unemployed,” Goetz said. “But you know, there’s just a lot of things that contribute to even a bad situation.” Jobs tend to consolidate in metropolitan areas, according to Marshall Vest, director of of the Economic and Business Research Center at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management. “Many of the counties in the areas outside the two big metros, there just simply aren’t a lot of jobs,” he said. Karen McLaughlin, director of budget and research for the Children’s Action Alliance, an advocacy group addressing issues affecting Arizona’s children, said not extending unemployment benefits had a disproportionate impact on rural areas. “It just was unfortunate for the people who were in that situation because they still don’t have jobs probably today and now they’ve lost their benefit which was not very high to begin with,” she said. Unemployment benefits range from $60 to $240 per week depending on a person’s previous income. And that money is important in smaller communities McLaughlin said. “We know it reverberates through the local economy really quickly,” she said. “Towns that have really high unemployment, they’re going to be suffering because that money’s not there anymore.” The Yuma Private Industry Council’s jobs center, where the number of visitors per week has jumped from about 250 to between 500 and 600 over the past two years, provides job workshops and listings, resume services and more. But even that isn’t going to help everyone, Goetz said. “The unemployment rate is so high and the competition is so fierce,” he said. Ryan said her aunt went through the same program and found a job, so she is hoping to follow in her footsteps. “But it’s just hard every time you do lose a job, you try to find a job again and it’s not easy,” she said. Rural unemployment in August: • Apache County 16 percent • Cochise County 8.5 percent • Coconino County 7.9 percent • Gila County 10.2 percent • Graham County 11.1 percent • Greenlee County 8.6 percent • La Paz County 10.9 percent • Mohave County 10.2 percent • Navajo County 14.9 percent • Pinal County: 11 percent • Santa Cruz County 18.4 percent • Yavapai County 9.9 percent • Yuma County 29.4 percent • Statewide: 9.4 percent Rates are not seasonally adjusted.
More information about Tampers If you want to make a great espresso, tamping is an essential step that you must get right. You don’t want to give your customers something that is below standard and doesn’t taste good. For any barista, the aim is to ensure that the heated water passing through the coffee grounds extracts all the oil which makes coffee taste great. But this will not be possible if the coffee is not distributed evenly in the basket. That’s why you need a good tamper to ensure that the coffee is evenly distributed in the basket. This is simply a tool with a flat base and a handle that presses the coffee grinds in the basket. As an essential barista tool tampers help create pathways for the water and reduce pockets of air in the coffee grinds. Why Do We Tamp Coffee? For those in the business of making espresso, tamping is a necessary step that you cannot afford to miss or do wrong. In fact, the quality of the coffee is greatly determined by how well the tamping was done. The quality of the tamper and the pressure used to level the coffee grinds are two important things that you need to consider. You need to find the pressure that works for you based on your grind setting. Otherwise, you will never get the perfect espresso. For instance, too much tamping pressure can result in a bitter taste, while too little pressure can result in a watery shot. That’s why it’s important to have a tamp in your café. You don’t want to serve your customers with either a bitter or watery cup of espresso. This would affect both the quality of the coffee and your reputation as a barista. A coffee tamper helps you to pack the grounds into the portafilter for delicious espresso. Note that the art of brewing espresso is all about passing heated water through the coffee to extract the sweetness of the beans. If the coffee is un-tamped, then the extraction process will not work properly. This will result in a poor quality espresso, and you will not be able to retain customers. Choosing Your Coffee Tamper You must make sure that you've invested in the best coffee tamp to ensure that quality of your coffee stands out from the competition. This is the only way that you are guaranteed to have regular customers in your café. The most important thing that you need to check is the size of the tamper. The trick is to choose the right size for a perfect fit. the 58mm tamper is generally the most popular size for commercial machines. While shopping for tampers, the reputation of the manufacturer is something that you need to consider carefully. At Barista Warehouse, we have sampled some of the best brands in the industry. One such brand is Pullman. Some of the popular Pullman coffee tampers include Cobalt Blue Flat, Honey Bee Flat, Nexus Jarrah flat, Australian Oak Flea, Pullman big step base, Nexus Checkerboard flat and stealth black flat. Rhino tampers are also popular, for example the Rhino pro silver, Rhino flat tamper, and Rhino pro-black. Note that these varieties come in different sizes for perfect fitting. You may also purchase them in parts such as the handle or the base. Reg Barber is another brand with numerous selections of tampers. They come in different colours and sizes and are also available in parts. You can opt to buy the handle or the base depending on your needs. Other brands that we highly recommend include Pesado and Puq Press. Barista Warehouse is the home to some of the best coffee tampers that you can find in the market. We stock a huge range of tested brands that will help you to brew the best espresso. For us, quality comes first, and that’s why you are guaranteed to get nothing but the best. In fact, we have one of the largest collection of coffee tampers in Australia. You will be impressed by our variety and the competitive prices. Whether you are looking for the parts or the whole tamper, just place an order online, and it will be delivered within 1-4 days.Read more...
Seagulls Don't Eat PicklesBook - 2013 Fish Finelli and his friends set out to find Captain Kidd's treasure, rumored to be buried on nearby Lyons Island, but it seems like the local library director is looking for it as well--and finding the treasure may be the key to saving the island from developers. Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : Chronicle Books, 2013. Characteristics: 155 p. ;,21 cm. Alternative Title: Seagulls do not eat pickles From the critics
The White GiraffeBook - 2008 After a fire kills her parents, eleven-year-old Martine must leave England to live with her grandmother on a wildlife game reserve in South Africa, where she befriends a mythical white giraffe. Publisher: New York ; Toronto : Scholastic, 2008, c2006 Edition: Literature circle ed. Characteristics: 180, p. :,ill. ;,20 cm. From the critics Age SuitabilityAdd Age Suitability blue_panda_940 thinks this title is suitable for between the ages of 8 and 35 SummaryAdd a Summary There are no summaries for this title yet. There are no notices for this title yet. QuotesAdd a Quote There are no quotes for this title yet.
- Family Name - Asteraceae (Sunflower) - Hypochaeris radicata Hairy cat's ear (Hypochaeris radicata) is a perennial that infests pastures, meadows, roadsides, river banks, lawns and disturbed open areas as well as legume and seed crops. It is also thought to be poisonous and is believed to be the cause of Australian Stringhalt in horses. Hairy cat's ear has 1-1.5" wide dandelion-like, yellow flowerheads at the end of upright stems. Rosettes of rough hairy leaves and a clump of basal leaves form from a woody base. Stems are typically leafless ad branched, and contain a milky juice when broken. Originally from the Meditterrean, hairy cat's ear is a particular problem on Vancouver Island, Sunshine Coast and emerging in the southern interior of BC, and impacts sensitive Garry Oak ecosystems. It can displace native plants, especially in open areas, and is a nuisance plant on lawns. Hairy cat's ear enjoys a wide range of habitats but thrives in sunny disturbed areas the most. Control of hairy cat's ear is best when it first appears with hand digging to carefully remove the crown. This invader is persistent and will return following treatments since it has ample airborne seeds that aid rapid spread. Control larger populations with repeated plowing, followed by reseeding or by solarization (plastic cover on soil).
There are many different types of books which one might read. For example: if you’re reading a book that talks about things like covenants and the church then you’re probably reading a book on theology. If you’re reading a book that talks about family life, fatherhood, and children you’re probably reading a book on parenting. If you’re reading a book that quotes regularly from Aristotle, Plato, and the Western intellectual tradition you’re probably reading a book on philosophy. If you’re reading a book that talks about economics, property, and using tax structures to increase your prosperity you’re probably reading a book on business or entrepreneurship. If, however, you’re reading a book that does all of the above, chances are that you’re reading C.R. Wiley’s new book Man of the House: A Handbook For Building a Shelter That Will Last In a World That is Falling Apart. Man of the House is a unique book. In some ways, Wiley’s project is remarkably simple. As Leon Podles says in his foreward to the book: “Chris Wiley provides practical advice for a man to live up to his role as father. […] Wiley helps us see what is necessary to manage a household and its economy well, to provide and protect for a family and to ensure its stability generation after generation.” The idea of “the household” is vital to Wiley’s project. While we tend to water down the concept to reflect some benign image of family life as pictured in The Cosby Show or Leave it to Beaver, Wiley is thinking about something more robust. To comprehend how Wiley uses the term we have to understand how the household has changed over the last 200 years. To quote the book: “We don’t think of our households as centers of productive work. That’s because the economy has largely moved out of the house. During the Industrial Revolution steady work in factories replaced the home economy, and many people were forced to leave home to make a living. In the process the household was reduced to what we think of today – a haven in a heartless world – a place to sleep and eat and maybe watch television” (pg. 30-31). As he explains elsewhere in the book: “To the old way of thinking, a house was more than a physical building. It’s bricks and sticks were a metaphor for something immaterial, but still very real. […] We don’t think of houses that way any more, largely because the economy has moved out of the house. One thing we can say for modern life is that it has a way of cutting things up. We work downtown, we get our food a the grocery store, we go down the block to learn at school, and we get on a plane to go somewhere and relax. Our lives are divded up among highly specialized institutions. But a household is a general-purpose institution. Before we segregated everything in the interest of efficiency, houses were not only economically productive; they were schools, and nursing homes, and dozens of other things. This is a book about building an old-fashioned, general purpose shelter – a real house – not a house made out of sticks and bricks. This is a good time to build one too; the conditions haven’t been this favorable in a long time” (pg. Xvi-xvii). Wiley’s book is as much prescription as it is description. He goes beyond mere analysis to provide a road-map for action. This is a paradigm-shifting book. It provides an entirely new (though actually very old) way of looking at households, fatherhood, family life, and work. Though short the book is packed full of solid content. Wiley’s writing is pointed and persuasive. Each chapter is brief but profound. Few will agree with everything Wiley says, but few will be able to walk away from the book without having their ideas challenged and changed by what they read. Man of the House is a book I want to give to every young man I know who is transitioning into manhood. I’ve never read a book like it, but if Wiley’s ideas can be picked up by a new generation perhaps they won’t seem so unique after all.
Arduino Diecimila and BT reference designs now available. The reference designs (Eagle files) for the Arduino Diecimila and Arduino BT are now available under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license. This is effectively the “source-code” for the boards: both the schematics and PCB layouts in fully editable format. Together with the Eagle Layout Editor (available in a freeware version), it’s all you need to get started making your own custom Arduino hardware. We’ve also posted a document called So you want to make an Arduino? – a guide / policy for making your own hardware. While we hope to see many people creating their own versions of Arduino (and many already are), we’ve tried to set down a few guidelines to help ensure the success of these efforts and the continued growth of the project as whole. Please take a look. We don’t claim, however, to have figured this all out, so consider this policy as a first draft, and post your suggestions and criticisms in the comments. We hope you have fun with the reference design and we’re looking forward seeing what you all come up with!
One of the toughest questions we get asked, and we get asked this a lot, is a variation on the theme of “I have xxxx disease and want to know where I can get a stem cell therapy for it?” All too often, in fact pretty much all the time, we have to explain that there aren’t any therapies available, at least not yet, and that it might be a couple of years before any of the really promising projects we are funding are enrolling patients in a clinical trial. But still the questions come in, fueled in part by all the clinics and centers out there claiming they can treat everything from rheumatoid arthritis to type 2 diabetes and Crohn’s disease. The biggest problem of course is that very few, if any, of these centers and physicians back up their claims with any evidence or studies to show that their treatments work. They have patient testimonials plastered all over their websites. They have lots of very reassuring sounding information, but no evidence or proof that anything they are doing will work. Fortunately there are a growing number of researchers and reporters holding these clinics up to the light to see if what they are claiming could be true. In most cases the answer is a resounding “heck no.” Just a week ago we told you about a couple of recent reports that looked at all the claims about using stem cells to treat sports injuries and whether there is anything to support claims by some cosmetic practitioners that they can use stem cell-based therapies to reverse the aging process (spoiler alert – there isn’t, otherwise I’d be first in line to try them out). But now some mainstream media reporters are taking a closer look at claims these therapies are effective, particularly those associated with top-flight athletes. A recent issue of Muscle and Medicine – an online website that is part of the Sports Illustrated stable of publications – carried a really in-depth and thoughtful look at the use of stem cells to treat superstar athletes. Writer Jenny Vrentas sets the tone in the opening paragraph saying: “It may be the next big breakthrough in the treatment of sports ailments, but for now the use of such therapy is strictly limited in the U.S. – and questions about effectiveness outweigh the answers.” Vrentas carries that questioning attitude throughout, highlighting some of the athletes who talk openly about procedures (we can’t really call them “treatments” because we don’t know if they actually treat anything) but also profiling orthopedic surgeon, James Andrews, who is a proponent of stem cells and is trying to do the kind of study necessary to see if these therapies work or not: Andrews speaks carefully about the potential of stem-cell treatments. He’s hyper-aware of the danger of sensationalizing among his clientele of elite athletes, particularly since many questions remain—not the least of which is how well the treatments actually work. But the early returns have motivated him, as has seeing his top patients go abroad for therapy: “They don’t really know what they are getting,” he says. “Are they getting illegal stuff? We don’t have any control over it, so it’s something we needed to bring back and do in a controlled environment here.” It’s an excellent example of the kind of reporting that can really help people, weekend warriors or anyone else, who are wondering whether stem cells might help them. It highlights the promise, but also underlines the fact that we need proof to back up that promise before it’s ready for prime time.
CANYON LAKE — Don’t think of it as a back-breaking drought of Biblical proportions Think of it as “poor man’s scuba diving.” That’s been net result around Central Texas, as the sun continues its assault and water levels plummet across the state. Normally, you’d have to drop some serious cash on diving equipment and scuba lessons to explore the depths of this mammoth reservoir. But with water levels at an all-time low, you can find all sorts of cool stuff popping up. Parking in Austin is worse than you can imagine Officials have found several vehicles in Lake Travis. Thursday, the Travis County sheriff’s office removed two vehicles from Lake Travis near Pace Bend Park. They picked up a Kawasaki motorcycle reported stolen in June and a 1978 Chevrolet Monte Carlo with a key still in the ignition. Three weeks ago they towed out a two-door 1984 Nissan 300ZX that was reported stolen in 1988 in Austin. Back in 1981, a storm dumped 10 inches of rain on Austin in 4 hours. The 15-foot-tall wall of water that swept down Shoal Creek killed 23, caused $36 million in damages, and washed hundreds of new cars off of downtown lots and into Town Lake. Cops knew about those cars, some of which are probably still down there. These are surprise cars. And that’s case here, where authorities have found three vehicles heretofore hidden by the lake’s waters. Drive TO the lake, not INTO the lake “We’ve had two vehicles pulled out so far,” said James Chambers, acting Lake Manager for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. “I don’t know a lot of history on them.” One was found offshore in Cranes Mill Park, and the other was found at the end of Boat Ramp No. 8. Those were surprises, and have since been dragged out and hauled off. There’s still a truck sitting at the end of a closed boat ramp in Canyon Park, and this poses the biggest mystery of all. Everyone knew the truck — actually just the cab and some parts — was there, said one longtime park worker. It dates back to the early 90s at Here’s the punchline, however — that ramp was closed to the public 20 years ago, Chambers said. That means park workers used a metal gate to block the road, and then used boulders in strategic places to keep militant midnight boaters from getting access to the ramp. The whole thing is surrounded by thick stands of trees, too, so it’s not like someone could’ve squeeze a big ol’ truck down there. Ghost truck? Aqua truck? “There are lots of rumors,” Chambers said. “I can’t address any of them.” Email — Twitter — Forum — Archives
This is the first of a few related posts on the subject of the importance of controlling and constraining your AWS account resource creation abilities particularly in terms of IAM accounts. A recent lesson learned caused us to research the area of unexpected resource usage in an AWS account. Trying out the AWS Batch service inadvertently resulted in the launch of an EC2 c4.large instance which ran for a day before we noticed that it was running. This was a surprise because the launch was not explicit, nor was the instance tagged with a descriptive name. After terminating the instance we realized that with this particular account only a limited set of instance types should ever be run and the AWS Config service can be used to detect things outside of normal operational expectations. AWS Config can be set up using rules that are evaluated and a report generated for anything that fails the rule checks. In this case a rule was created listing the 3 instance types that would be expected to be found for this account. When the Config rules are checked any instance not falling in that list will be reported as non compliant. Note that this service does not prevent the launch of out of norm types but only reports on them so you have to take the action to correct the issue. A subsequent post will cover how IAM policies can be used to prevent a launch in the first place. Associated with this concern in general is the fact that AWS has a large number of EC2 instance types that can be launched of which some have a significant cost. The x1.32xlarge costs $13 per hour for example. It is reasonable to detect this sort of instance running or prevent it entirely before it becomes a cost issue. When a rule is created a trigger is also specified. The rule will automatically be run when a configuration change affecting the specified resources occurs. It can be also be configured to run automatically on a time scheduled basis. Where this is helpful is for circumstances such as detecting when a change is made for something not controlled by policies or otherwise that were in effect at the creation time. Setting up the Config service The following is an example of how the Config service can be used to confirm that only a limited set of instance types are running. The rule can be either custom entered or using one from a set of templates already in place. First select the Config service console. Next select the Rules interface and filter on instance to reduce the set of choices. The template called desired-instance-type is the one we will use for this example. Enter a name for the rule and a description of what it is intended for. Note that DESIRED_INSTANCE_TYPE is the existing rule used by the template. The next step is to select the resource types that you want to be checked for compliance. EC2: Instance has already been set by the template. Associated with that are the InstanceType values that match your needs. For this example we are using m3.medium,t2.micro,t2.nano separated by commas. Next select Save to create the rule. The list of existing rules will then appear. Select the new rule to see the details and confirm that they match what is desired. To confirm that that the rule acts as expected try launching an instance type that is not in the list. After the instance is successfully launched the Confirg service should be automatically triggered and a Noncompliant report status should appear. The instance-id can be selected to go directly to that instance in the EC2 console. Manage resource can also be selected to get to the instance information. Once you confirm that the instance out of compliance entry is the new one then terminate it by whatever method you are most comfortable with. Note that terminating instances also qualifies as a configuration change so the Config service rules will run again. The result should be that everything is once again in compliance. There are numerous other templates that can be used for a variety of resource configurations which may be of interest for your account. From reporting to restrictions AWS IAM policies can be created that will allow or disallow resource usage and then applied to the IAM accounts that should be limited. This would further mitigate the risk around accidental launches due to the lack of familiarity with a service or something like an auto-scaling group that includes that type. Malicious intent is another risk area. AWS accounts inherently have resource count limits protecting the account as well as the account holder budget. These limits can be increased upon request, which means that multiple instances of unexpected types might be automatically launched in the worst case. These measures reduce the impact of the risk but the ability to prevent which is as important as the ability to detect. Since most AWS accounts, particularly small company or personal, are not likely to need the entire set of instance types one strategy is to set up the Config service to include a rule to check for only a limited set and then run the compliance report at regular intervals. Check back with our blog for future posts on this and other subjects of interest.
How would you feel about a couple doing IVF just in order to find the embryos most likely to to be gay… and chuck them out? Does that sound like eugenics to you? What about the other way round: what if a gay couple wanted to maximise their chance of a having gay baby — would you let them screen for and select embryos with the genes that made it more likely they were gay? Then bin the rest? It’s time to make your mind up because after decades of panic about ‘designer babies’ (remember Gattaca?) the future is finally here. On the one hand, as I write in the Spec this week the genes that contribute to different human traits are rapidly being identified. For instance, a recent study of gay men concluded that that male sexual orientation is influenced by genes. On the other hand, we’re getting better and better at screening tiny embryos to see which genes they’ve got. There’s an interesting couple of pieces in the NY Times celebrating screening because it can of course weed out embryos which would otherwise grow up to suffer appalling diseases. But what the cheerleaders for screening don’t much discuss is where, if at all, they’d draw the line. It’d be difficult to rule out screening embryos for gender, seeing as doctors will often allow abortion for ‘family balancing’ reasons anyway. But what about for politically sensitive things like IQ, or sexuality? How would the trans community take it if embryos with genes associated with being transgender were weeded out? These aren’t questions for the future, they’re questions for right now. Bear in mind that in 2008 deaf campaigners won the right to screen for and select a ‘deaf’ embryo — so that they could ensure their child grew up unable to hear. Is that right?
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The issue of the Central Region teenage pregnancy has since remained worrisome, with the latest discovery being that girls now exchange sex for fish which they sell to make a living. According to a report by Graphic.com, some teenagers in the Central region are bartering sex for fish in some fishing communities in the region, a practice that is drastically watering down and affecting the ongoing fight against teenage pregnancy. During a forum on teenage pregnancy in Cape Coast on Wednesday, contributors revealed that teenagers are doing all sorts of unbelievable things including exchanging sex for fish from fishermen to sell to augment family incomes and make ends meet. The forum which was organized by the Ghana Health Service (GHS) with support from the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) to empower queens in to help fight the scourge of teenage pregnancy in the region, observed that poverty levels are high in fishing and rural communities and needs urgent and workable solutions to help provide relief for the most vulnerable in these communities. The District Director of Nursing Services for KEEA, Mrs Juliana Armah indicated that some of the teenagers are school drop outs from very poor or broken homes, adding that such young pregnant girls were usually anaemic and suffered complications during birth. “Some give sex and take fish for their aged parents to sell to augment incomes,” she said. “Their children are also usually malnourished and they perpetuate the cycle of poverty,” she added. Menace of Teenage Pregnancy in C/R Although teenage pregnancy has been a disturbing menace in the entirety of Ghana, that of the Central region has been the most worrisome considering its alarming figures. Based on statistics from the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in 2014, 75,000 teenagers between the ages of 15-19 got pregnant within the year, with the central region recording the highest number – 14,000. In 2017, statistics reveal that a total 497 teenagers got pregnant between January and September in the Komenda Edina Eguafo Abrem (KEEA) municipality of the Central Region alone. Coming to the Abura Asebu Kwamankese district, 280 teenage girls were recorded pregnant by health facilities in the district for the first half of the year. Back in 2016, the GHS also reported that 12,048 teenage girls between the ages of 13 and 19 got impregnated in the Central Region alone. Although the current figures are much lower than what used to be obtainable, Central Region teenage pregnancy figures have remained the highest every year, compared to what is recorded in other regions of Ghana. Recall that the disturbing rate of teenage pregnancy in the Central regions prompted a research carried out by the National Service Personnel Association (NASPA) in Cape Coast around July this year. NASPA through the research discovered that a sex-for-money trade between male students of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) and teenage girls in the area rank high among factors that contribute to the rise in premarital pregnancies being recorded in the region. According to their findings, UCC male students are responsible for a greater percentage of teenage pregnancies being recorded in the region because they lure girls in the area who are mainly from poor backgrounds to bed with money. Ghanaians are however, hoping that Queen Mothers and other concerned bodies will meaningfully look into the matter and address it from the roots in order to bring about a significant decline in the worrisome Central region teenage pregnancy menace.
(Adds Canadian government comment) By Nia Williams CALGARY, Alberta, Dec 20 (Reuters) - Two environmental groups on Tuesday filed for a judicial review of the Canadian government’s decision to approve Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, the first legal challenge to the project since it received the green light last month. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Cabinet on Nov. 29 approved trebling capacity on the pipeline, which ships oil sands crude from Alberta to the Port of Vancouver, British Columbia, despite fierce opposition from environmental and aboriginal groups. Ecojustice, the law firm representing environmental groups Living Oceans Society and Raincoast Conservation Foundation, said the expanded pipeline and an increase in oil tanker traffic will be a “death knell” for a pod of endangered Southern Resident killer whales off the coast of British Columbia. Dyna Tuytel, a lawyer for Ecojustice, said the basis for the lawsuit is that the killer whales are covered by Canada’s Species at Risk Act, meaning the government is legally required to protect them. “The ships’ noise interferes with their ability to communicate and there is increased risk of pollution from major spills and smaller ones,” Tuytel said. “We understand that Living Oceans Society and Raincoast Conservation Foundation have filed an application with the Federal Court of Appeal and we will be responding formally in the coming weeks,” Kinder Morgan said on Tuesday. The Canadian government said it could not comment on the matter as it is now before the courts. Ecojustice had filed one lawsuit on behalf of its two clients against Trans Mountain in the summer, also citing risks to the killer whales and challenging the National Energy Board’s review of the project. Tuytel said that initial case was ongoing, but the court may hear the two lawsuits together. There are around six other legal challenges against the NEB review of Trans Mountain ongoing, filed by municipalities and First Nations on the pipeline route. Tuytel said it was likely those groups would also launch fresh legal action against the government decision. Opposition to crude pipelines in North America has intensified in recent months because of concerns about climate change and oil spills, with protesters blocking construction on the Dakota Access pipeline in the United States. Trans Mountain opponents have also been encouraged by the fate of Enbridge Inc’s Northern Gateway pipeline to northern British Columbia. Approval for that pipeline from the previous Canadian government was overturned by the Federal Court of Appeal because of insufficient consultation with First Nations. (Reporting by Nia Williams; editing by Paul Simao and Leslie Adler)
SEATTLE, April 7 (Reuters) - A Native American community in Washington state filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday against BNSF Railway to prevent trains carrying crude oil from using tracks on reservation land, saying the transport violates a long-standing agreement. The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community says BNSF has been using tracks that cross reservation land in Skagit County, near the Canadian border, to transport crude oil since at least 2012 without seeking approving of the shipments from tribe officials. The complaint also alleges that BNSF, a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, has broken the terms of a 1991 easement agreement which limited the number of rail cars that can use the 130-year-old tracks each day. The lawsuit comes amid growing concern about the safety of moving crude oil by rail following a series of fiery derailments this year in West Virginia, Illinois and Canada. “Experiences across the country have now shown us all the dangers of Bakken Crude,” Swinomish Indian Tribal Community Chairman Brian Cladoosby said in a statement. “It’s unacceptable for BNSF to put our people and our way of life at risk without regard to the agreement we established in good faith,” he said. On Monday, the National Transportation Safety Board issued four urgent recommendations to replace or retrofit rail cars that carry flammable liquids such as crude oil or ethanol, saying a rapid series of changes were needed to ensure public safety. Canadian and U.S. officials have wrestled with making oil train deliveries safer since 47 people were killed in the 2013 Lac Megantic disaster in Quebec. The Swinomish Indian Tribal Community said it repeatedly asked BNSF to disclose how much crude was using the tracks, which run across the northern part of the reservation, and to adhere to the 1991 agreement that limited crossings to one 25-car train in each direction daily. The lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction against BNSF preventing the movement of crude oil on the tracks and limiting the number of trains using the reservation to two per day. The tribe also seeks a judgment of breach of contract and trespass. Gus Melonas, a spokesman for BNSF, said the company had received the complaint and was reviewing it. (Editing by Daniel Wallis and Eric Walsh)
NEW YORK - Residents of the Upper East Side of Manhattan went underground to see what all the noise and fuss in their neighborhood is about -- New York’s Second Avenue subway line. The new line, which is set to open in December 2016, has caused traffic congestion and disruption since the construction project began in 2007. The line was first proposed in the 1920s and had been postponed three times because of financing problems. The monthly tours are organized so residents can see what is going on below ground. The line will run as an extension of the Q line from 96th Street to 63rd Street.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Richard Poplak has traveled all over the Muslim world in search of a commodity many people don’t consider particularly valuable: American pop culture. The South African-born, Toronto-based writer met rappers in Palestine and Israel, punk rockers in Indonesia, Lebanese talk show hosts and exploitation moviemakers in Turkey. He describes his journey in “The Sheik’s Batmobile,” and shows how Muslim culture in the Middle East, Indonesia and elsewhere interacts with the West in often surprising ways. Poplak spoke to Reuters about “The Simpsons,” Pixar movies, and why junk entertainment can help offset extremism. Q: Why did you set out on these travels? A: ”The catalyst was ‘The Simpsons’ being televised. It wasn’t simply dubbing. It was an actual reculturation of the show. Homer is now Omar and does not drink beer or eat bacon. That got me thinking what happens to our popular culture when it’s recultured by people that we’re ostensibly at war with. The boilerplate is that American pop culture is imperialist and floods through other cultures like a tsunami. That is a poverty-stricken way of looking at how cultures interact. “Cultures build on each other and in many places American pop culture has become authentic and indigenous. Kids in Palestine view hip-hop as Arab. They don’t interpret it as American. There’s an exchange going on. Kids in Iran, kids in Palestine, are staking their lives to their pop cultural choices. ‘You cut hip-hop out of my life, you cut a limb off.’ I found that just baffling that this music has become a part of people’s soul. Pop culture is serious culture. We do a huge disservice when we dismiss it.” Q: What were some of the strangest things you came across? A: “The punk scene in Jakarta was just bizarre -- long, weird nights. The weirdest moment I had was in a bar in Muscat, Oman. There I was in a conga line doing ‘YMCA.’ It was one of the most surreal moments of my life.” Q: Religion is in the foreground but a lot of American pop culture is seen as secular. Is there an inherent tension? A; “The second you dig beneath the surface of sitcoms or pop songs, America is a very conservative culture. There’s craven and crass stuff, but it’s a family-oriented culture. Look at ‘Modern Family.’ There’s a gay couple and interracial marriage but ... the values aren’t that far off, and that’s why this stuff resonates, especially in the (Persian) Gulf. Sitcoms like ‘Two and a Half Men,’ ‘Everybody Loves Raymond,’ ‘Friends’ in particular travel well. Hip-hop travels very well. Heavy metal travels well.” Q: Disney and Pixar movies have indirectly led to a revival of the classical Arabic language. How did that happen? A: “Traditionally, a lot of pop culture was Arabized into the Egyptian dialect. Now that’s changing. Basically the Saudis own the license and they own the license for the Disney Channel. Saudis are trying to introduce classical Arabic as the lingua franca of popular culture. It’s this bizarre case of using American product as a cudgel for Saudi (influence).” Q: Are the makers of American pop culture, like movie studios, aware of this audience, and influenced by it? A: “They understand a large part of their gross comes from the international marketplace. That said, they have no cultural understanding, and that’s hugely problematic. We’re losing an opportunity to speak to people. One of the huge examples is how often Arabs are portrayed as villains.” Q: You note that nostalgia is one of the defining aspects of Muslim pop culture. In the West, arguably irony is dominant. Does American irony play abroad? A: ”We tend to be put off by nostalgia in the West, but it’s very real. One of the things I love about Arab popular culture is that nostalgia is a legitimate aesthetic impulse for good art. You have things like hip-hop being bridged by ancient Islamic poetry. In these links, some sort of cultural conciliation is built-in. “The Egyptian guy who was Arabizing ‘The Simpsons’ argued forcefully that irony can exist in Islamic culture, that Homer is as much an Arab as an American. He’s both a total idiot and completely alive. He lives in a world of mistakes where the average guy gets a rotten deal. That’s a universal message.”
PALERMO, Italy (Reuters) - An Italian court on Wednesday found a Tunisian man guilty of trafficking migrants and sentenced him to 18 years in jail for contributing to a 2013 shipwreck that killed 366 people, a judicial source said. A court in Agrigento, Sicily, convicted 36 year-old Khaled Bensalem of causing the 2013 shipwreck and the deaths of the mainly Eritrean passengers, and aiding illegal immigration, the source at the Agrigento prosecutor’s office said. The disaster near the southern Italian island of Lampedusa was one of the worst recorded in the decades-long history of people fleeing war and poverty in Africa on rickety boats bound for Europe. Since the 2013 shipwreck, which prompted Italy to start its now-defunct search and rescue mission Mare Nostrum, a bigger disaster in April killed up to 800 migrants and stunned the European Union into expanding joint rescue operations. Bensalem’s sentence was reduced by a third from the possible maximum penalty because he was given a fast-track trial which cuts eventual jail time for a defendant who admits guilt. Migrant traffickers have exploited lawlessness in Libya to cram people onto unseaworthy boats, charging thousands of dollars for the perilous passage across the Mediterranean. More than 135,000 refugees and migrants have arrived in Europe by sea so far this year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said earlier on Wednesday. Reporting by Wladimiro Pantaleone, writing by Isla Binnie; Editing by Andrew Hay
It’s spring! And everyone is sick. In your office. On public transportation. On the street. Germs are everywhere. You might be sick right now, reading this. When you don’t have your health, it’s incredibly hard to achieve your goals, be productive, or get out of bed in the morning. Even when we’re sick, a lot of us continue to push ourselves. But if you think you don’t have time for your mental and physical health, you need to get rid of something else. It is the most important thing. You cannot reach your fullest potential if you’re not at 100%. Like any practice, it takes consciousness to achieve. How many times are you thirsty or have to pee but instead you read one more email, or organize one more drawer, or make one more call before you simply take care of yourself? I’m literally looking at the post-it on my desk that says, “DRINK WATER & PEE” right now. I’ll neglect these little things in the interest of productivity. But if you’re only running on steam, your work and creativity will suffer for it. No money? No problem. I mean, it’s not entirely true. More money – not to mention more affordable care – would make things a lot easier. But there are free or inexpensive resources out there to help you, if you look. Plenty of cities and states even have free mental health services. NYC has a call, chat, and even text option. I haven’t tried it out yet, but it’s a resource on my list should I ever need it. Looking for a way to meditate? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of recordings on Youtube. Yoga? Yoga to the People has free sessions you can download on their site. Head to your local library and check out books for free or just walk outside. If you’re going to do it, do it right. Take care of yourself, but don’t let self-care be a substitute for action and responsibility. For example, losing your job can be incredibly stressful. But “self-care” of binging The Gilmore Girls on Netflix eight hours a day for a week is not going to get you back on your feet. Make finding a job your full-time job, but eat healthy, take walks outside, read, get drinks with friends, pet cats, etc. Make your valuable time count for self-care, just like you should for everything else. Don’t drop the ball on doing things that actually refresh and rejuvenate you. If you’re not at 100%, none of your work will be either.
Yukon Education Minister forbids Catholic schools to teach Catholic doctrine on homosexuality Last week, Yukon Bishop Gary Gordon thought he was complying with the wishes of the Minister by removing a document outlining the Catholic teaching from a Catholic school website, while noting that the teaching would still be given to students. However, Kent this week said that was not good enough. He ordered the teaching to stop in a letter sent to Bishop Gordon March 19. Scott Kent, Yukon Education Minister, says the government’s Scott Kent, Yukon Education Minister, says the government’s morality reigns supreme in Catholic schools. In comments to Yukon News, Kent said that “religious instructional material and curriculum in the Catholic separate schools,” which are inconsistent with Canadian tolerance laws and policies, “cannot have application in any publicly supported schools in the Yukon.” “There is some concern over the teachings with regard to homosexuality,” the Minister specified. “That is the one concern that legal counsel in government has identified may be in contradiction to the Human Rights Act and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.” The Catholic policy in question speaks of the Church’s loving approach to dealing with those experiencing same-sex attraction. The 25-page document, states: “It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action.” However the document also quotes the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states that homosexual acts are immoral. In the March 19 letter, Kent couches his demand under the pretext of having “students feel safe, welcome, and protected at all schools in the Yukon.” Roman Catholic teachings are inconsistent with… existing laws and policies (and) cannot have application in any publicly supported schools in the Yukon. – Scott Kent, Yukon Education Minister He claims that instruction in Catholic schools in the Yukon offend the “Safe and Caring Schools Policy and the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Policy.” Kent warns that those religious teachings that are “inconsistent with and do not meet the requirements of existing laws and policies cannot have application in any publicly supported schools in the Yukon.” While Kent says he’ll give some leeway to specifically Catholic education, the law comes first even if it conflicts with Catholic teaching. “I recognize that any school-based policy and religious instruction that is developed and implemented for the Catholic separate schools can and should respect broader Catholic values and use language acceptable for those schools; however, it must first and foremost respect and meet the requirements of Yukon Education’s policies and the laws of the Yukon,” the letter said. The Education Minister suggests that the Catholic teaching policy contravenes not only the Yukon Education policies but “likely other laws in force in the Yukon, such as the Human Rights Act, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and other case law on equality rights.” Some teachers in the local Catholic high school have also turned on Bishop Gordon. CBC is reporting that “many teachers” at Vanier Secondary School have asked to be transferred. Katherine Mackwood, the president of the Yukon Teachers’ Association told the CBC that teachers are upset with Bishop Gordon’s direction. LifeSiteNews.com calls to Bishop Gordon and the Education Minister were not returned by press time. Calls to Vanier Secondary School were directed back to the Education Minister’s office. Read the original article here.
December 4, 2017 - Attorney General Eric Schneiderman urged Cardozo law students to be part of the next great transformational movement in American politics. Professor Michel Rosenfeld, co-organizer of the upcoming colloquium "Citizenship, Religion, Identity" In Spring 2018, Cardozo School of Law and Columbia University Law School will host a colloquium on religious conflict. The first meeting on January 18 will be hosted at Columbia, the second will be hosted at Cardozo, and the location will alternate until the end of the semester. Cardozo Professor Michel Rosenfeld is organizing the colloquium along with Professor Jamal Greene of Columbia and Professor Susanna Mancini of Bologna University Law School. Citizenship, Religion, Identity: Intensifying Conflicts and New Challenges Secularization has played a key role in the road to modernization propelled by the Enlightenment. Confinement of religion to the private sphere and even, for some, the “death of religion” has been widely promoted. At the dawn of the new millennium, however, religion has reemerged as a contentious social and political public issue both domestically and internationally. The sociologist José Casanova famously coined the expression “de-privatization of religion” to mark the new worldwide trend. These developments have posed major challenges to the traditional models embedded in the principles of separation of church and state in the public sphere; and protection of freedom of and from religion within the private sphere. Globalization and mass scale migration and the resulting crisis surrounding the nation state has positioned religions to become at once major sources of integration of the polity as well as fomenters of vexing challenges against major tenets of the polity’s predominant culture. An important consequence of this trend is a shift in emphasis from the transcendent nature of religion to its cultural and identitarian dimensions. In Western democracies, this process leads to two consequences: on the one hand, it fosters the hegemonic return of Christian culture and tradition in the public sphere, challenging the principle of separation between church and state. On the other hand, the culturalization of religion facilitates the othering and the marginalization of both non-Christian cultures and Christians who object to the mainstream “culturalization” of their religion in ways they consider to be offensive to their faith. The colloquium will bring together prominent speakers from many countries, disciplines, religious traditions and constitutional cultures to address various salient conflicts and challenges posed by the state of affairs described above. January 18: Professor John Bowen (Anthropology, Washington University at St. Louis): Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts & Sciences Socio Cultural Anthropology Professor Bowen's research focuses on comparative social studies of Islam across the world. In particular, he analyzes how Muslims (judges and scholars, public figures, ordinary people) work across plural sources of norms and values, including diverse interpretations of the Islamic tradition, law codes and decisions, and local social norms. January 25: Professor Jose Casanova (Sociology and Theology, Georgetown) Professor Casanova is one of the world's top scholars in the sociology of religion. He is a professor in the Departments of Sociology and Theology at Georgetown University and senior fellow at the Berkley Center, where his work focuses on globalization, religions, and secularization. His best-known work, Public Religions in the Modern World (University of Chicago Press, 1994), has become a modern classic in the field and has been translated into several languages. In 2012, Casanova was awarded the Theology Prize from the Salzburger Hochschulwochen in recognition of his life-long achievement in the field of theology. February 1: Professor Susanna Mancini (Law, University of Bologna) Professor Mancini is the chair of Comparative Constitutional Law at the University of Bologna School of Law and is interested in the intersection of law and culture, and particularly in law and religion. She in an expert in the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights and has written extensively on cases involving the Islamic veil and the display of crucifixes in public schools. Her recent publications include, Constitutional Secularism in an Age of Religious Revival (Oxford U. Press 2014) (co-editor) and the Conscience Wars (Cambridge U. Press 2018) (forthcoming) (co-editor). February 8: Professor Andrew March (Political Science, Yale) Professor March has taught Islamic Law at Yale and NYU law schools. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of political philosophy, Islamic law and political thought, religion, and political theory. His book, Islam and Liberal Citizenship (Oxford University Press, 2009), is an exploration of the Islamic juridical discourse on the rights, loyalties, and obligations of Muslim minorities in liberal polities, and won the 2009 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion from the American Academy of Religion. He is currently working on a book on the problem of divine and popular sovereignty in modern Islamic thought, titled The Caliphate of Man. February 15: Professor Christian Joppke (Sociology, University of Bern, Switzerland) Professor Joppke is a comparative political sociologist. His past and present research interests cover social movements and the state, citizenship and immigration, integration policies, most recently religion and politics, especially Islam in Western societies. Among his recent books are Citizenship and Immigration (Cambridge: Polity, 2010), Veil: Mirror of Identity (Cambridge: Polity, 2009), and Selecting by Origin: Ethnic Migration in the Liberal State (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005). February 22: Professor Kristina Stoeckl (Sociology, Univ. of Innsbruck, Austria) Professor Stoeckl's research areas are social and political theory and sociology of religion with a special focus on theories of secularization and religious pluralism, religious actors in politics and civil society, orthodox Christianity and church-state-relations in Russia. Her recent monograph is The Russian Orthodox Church and Human Rights (Routledge, 2014). March 1: Professor Andras Sajo (former Vice President, European Court of Human Rights) (Law, CEU, Budapest, Hungary) András Sajó was a judge at the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg. He is a University Professor at CEU and Global Visiting Professor of Law at New York University Law School. Professor Sajó was the founding dean of Legal Studies at CEU. In addition to his stature as a prominent constitutionalist, he is also a distinguished scholar in the human rights field, including media regulation. Professor Sajó has been extensively involved in legal drafting throughout Eastern Europe. In addition, he participated and/or advised in drafting the Ukrainian, Georgian, and South African constitutions. March 8: Professor Reva Siegel (Law, Yale) and Professor Douglas NeJaime (Law, Yale) Reva Siegel is a leading U.S. constitutional law scholar. Her writing draws on legal history to explore questions of law and inequality and to analyze how courts interact with representative government and popular movements in interpreting the Constitution. Her recent articles include Community and Conflict: Same-Sex Marriage and Backlash, 64 U.C.L.A. L. Rev. (2017); Conscience Wars: Complicity-Based Conscience Claims in Religion and Politics, 124Yale L.J. (2015) (with Doug NeJaime); The Supreme Court, 2012 Term — Foreword: Equality Divided, 127 Harv. L. Rev. (2013). Douglas NeJaime writes in the areas of family law, legal ethics, law and sexuality, and constitutional law. His recent scholarship includes The Nature of Parenthood, 126 Yale Law Journal 2260 (2017); Marriage Equality and the New Parenthood, 129 Harvard Law Review 1185 (2016); Conscience Wars: Complicity-Based Conscience Claims in Religion and Politics, 124 Yale Law Journal 2516 (2015), with Reva Siegel; and Before Marriage: The Unexplored History of Nonmarital Recognition and Its Relationship to Marriage, 102 California Law Review 87 (2014). March 15 Columbia break March 22: Professor Susannah Heschel (Jewish Studies, Darmouth College) Professor Heschel is a professor of Jewish studies and the Chair of the Jewish Studies Program at Darmouth College. Her scholarship focuses on Jewish-Christian relations in Germany during the 19th and 20th centuries, the history of biblical scholarship, the history of anti-Semitism, as well as on Jewish feminism and Jewish views of Islam. Her numerous publications include Jewish and Muslim Feminist Theologies in Dialogue: Discourses of Difference, in: Gender in Judaism and Islam: Common Lives, Uncommon Heritage, ed. Beth Wenger and Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet (Philadelphia: NYU Press, November 2014), 17-45. March 29: Professor Asli Bâli (Law, UCLA) Professor Bâli’s principal scholarly interests lie in two areas: public international law—including human rights law and the law of the international security order—and comparative constitutional law, with a focus on the Middle East. Her current research examines questions of constitutional design in religiously-divided societies. April 5 Cardozo break April 12: Professor Christopher McCrudden (Law, Queens University, Belfast, and U. of Michigan) Professor McCrudden's main research focus is on human rights law. He concentrates on issues of equality and discrimination as well as the relationship between international and comparative human rights law. Currently, McCrudden's research deals with the foundational principles underpinning human rights practice. He has focused extensively of the reconciliation between religious freedom and equality on the ground of sexual orientation. He was awarded the American Society of International Law’s prize for outstanding legal scholarship in 2008. April 19: Professor Peter Danchin (Law, Univ. of Maryland) Professor Danchin's areas of interest include international law, human rights, comparative constitutional law and legal theory. His scholarship focuses, in particular, on critical approaches to the right to religious freedom in international legal, political, moral and theological thought. Recent publications include Politics of Religious Freedom (Chicago University Press: 2015) edited with Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, Elizabeth Shakman Hurd and Saba Mahmood and Politics of Religious Freedom: Contested Genealogies (113:1, Duke University Press: 2014). In 2014-2015, he was a Senior Research Fellow in Law at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton where he co-lead the Inquiry on Law and Religious Freedom in cooperation with the Program in Law and Public Affairs at Princeton University. Previously, he was a Visiting Professor in Law and Andrew W. Mellon Visiting Fellow in religious studies at the University of Cape Town.
Now what is to be understood by attitude? Attitude is a psychological term designating a particular arrangement of psychic contents oriented towards a goal or directed by some kind of ruling principle. If we compare our psychic contents to an army, and the various forms of attitude to military dispositions, then attention, for example, would be represented by a concentrated force standing to arms, surrounded by reconnoitering parties. As soon as the strength and position of the enemy are known, the disposition changes: the army begins to move in the direction of a given objective. In precisely the same way the psychic attitude changes. During the state of attention the dominant idea is alertness; one’s own thoughts are suppressed as much as possible, along with other subjective contents. But in going over to an active attitude, subjective contents appear in consciousness—purposive ideas and impulses to act. And just as an army has a commander and a general staff, so the psychic attitude has a general guiding idea which is reinforced by a wide assortment of experiences, principles, affects of all kinds, etc. That is to say, no human action is entirely simple—an isolated reaction, as it were, to a single stimulus. Each of our actions and reactions is influenced by complicated psychic factors. To use the military analogy again, we might compare these processes with the situation at general headquarters. To the man in the ranks it might seem that the army retreated simply because it was attacked, or that an attack was launched because the enemy had been located. Our conscious mind is always disposed to play the role of the common soldier and to believe in the simplicity of its actions. But, in reality, battle was given at this particular place and this particular moment because of a general plan of attack, which for days before had been marshalling the common soldier to this point. Again, this general plan is not simply a reaction to reconnaissance reports, but results from the creative initiative of the commander. Furthermore, it is conditioned by the action of the enemy, and also perhaps by wholly unmilitary, political considerations of which the common soldier is quite unaware. These last factors are of a very complex nature and lie far outside the understanding of the common soldier, though they may be only too clear to the commander of the army. But even to him certain factors are unknown, such as his own personal psychology and its complicated assumptions. Thus the army stands under a simple and unified command, but this command is a result of the coordinated operation of infinitely complex factors. Psychic action takes place on a similarly complicated basis. However simple an impulse appears to be, every nuance of its particular character, its strength and direction, its course, its timing, its aim, all depend on special psychic conditions, in other words, on an attitude; and the attitude in turn consists of a constellation of contents so numerous that they cannot be counted. The ego is the army commander; its reflections and decisions, its reasons and doubts, its intentions and expectations are the general staff, and its dependence on outside factors is the dependence of the commander on the well-nigh incalculable influences emanating from general headquarters and from the dark machinations of politics in the background. I hope we shall not overload our analogy if we now include within it the relation of man to the world. The individual ego could be conceived as the commander of a small army in the struggle with his environment—a war not infrequently on two fronts, before him the struggle for existence, in the rear the struggle against his own rebellious instinctual nature. Even to those of us who are not pessimists our existence feels more like a struggle than anything else. The state of peace is a desideratum, and when a man has found peace with himself and the world it is indeed a noteworthy event. Hence, in order to meet the more or less chronic state of war, we need a carefully organized attitude; and should some superman achieve enduring mental peace his attitude would need a still higher degree of detailed preparation if his peace is to have even a modest duration. It is much easier for the mind to live in a state of movement, in a continuous up and down of events, than in a balanced state of permanency, for in the latter state—however lofty and perfect it may be—one is threatened with suffocation and unbearable ennui. So we are not deluding ourselves if we assume that peaceful states of mind, that is, moods without conflict, serene, deliberate, and well-balanced, so far as they are lasting, depend on specially well-developed attitudes. ~Carl Jung, CW 8, Pages 358-360, Paras 690-693.
I read that the Holy Father made several new cardinals. How did the position of Cardinal come about? How does one get to be a Cardinal? While the position of cardinal is clearly a great honor, it is also a grave responsibility. In 1998, looking forward to the new millennium, the Holy Father exhorted the new cardinals and the whole college: “May the Paraclete [Holy Spirit] be able to dwell fully in each one of you, fill you with divine consolation, and thus make you, in turn, consolers of all those who are afflicted, especially the members of the Church who are most tried, of the communities which suffer the greatest tribulations because of the Gospel. …You are called to help the Pope to lead Peter’s boat toward this historic goal. I am counting on your support and your enlightened and expert counsel to guide the Church in the last phase of preparation for the Holy Year. Looking along with you beyond the threshold of 2000, I invoke from the Lord an abundance of gifts of the divine Spirit for the entire Church, so that the ‘springtime’ of Vatican Council II may find its ‘summer,’ that is, its mature development, in the new millennium. The mission to which God call us today requires attentive and constant discernment. For this reason, I exhort you to be more and more men of God, who listen deeply to His Word, capable of reflecting His light in the midst of the Christian people and among all men of goodwill.” Fr. Saunders is pastor of Our Lady of Hope Parish in Potomac Falls and a professor of catechetics and theology at Notre Dame Graduate School in Alexandria. If you enjoy reading Fr. Saunders' work, his new book entitled Straight Answers (400 pages) is available at the Pauline Book and Media Center of Arlington, Virginia (703/549-3806). (This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.) Pope John Paul II formally named 30 new cardinals on Sept. 28 and will officially induct them into the “College of Cardinals” on Oct. 21. (Another cardinal number 31 was named “in pectore” (“in his heart”), meaning his name was kept secret.) The 30 new cardinals included seven who were officials in the Roman Curia (Vatican offices), 19 archbishops, and four priests whom the Holy Father acknowledged for their service to the Church. They were from 21 different countries, with Archbishop Justin Rigali of Philadelphia being from the U.S. The evolution of the position of cardinal and its duties is reflected in its two possible word roots. On one hand, scholars think the title is derived from the Latin word cardo, meaning “hinge,” thereby referring to an individual entrusted with an important administrative ecclesiastical office. On the other hand, some scholars suggest that the title is derived from the Latin incardinare, a term found first in the Letters of Pope St. Gregory I (d. 604), which refers to the incardination of those clerics who serve a diocese other than the one for which they were actually ordained. Both meanings come to play in the history we have about this office. The title of cardinal emerged following the barbarian invasions, about the year 500. During these years of turmoil, a bishop was transferred to serve another diocese if his own diocese had been overrun and the Church suppressed. In this situation, these bishops were incardinated into the new diocese and would remain there as “cardinal bishops” unless their own diocese revived. About the 10th century in Rome, the senior clergy attached to the basilicas and the 27 “title” Churches of Rome — the original parishes — were called cardinals to indicate a certain prestige of their position. To some extent, this privilege extended to priests serving at several other major cathedral churches, such as Cologne, Trier, Magdeburg, and Santiago de Compostela. Nevertheless, in Rome, these cardinals became a privileged body and were more involved in the liturgical and administrative duties of the Church. By the time of Pope Leo IX (d. 1054), the title cardinal was reserved to the pope’s principal counselors and assistants living in Rome. In 1059, Pope Nicholas II made them the papal electors as well. In 1084, not only were bishops and priests granted the title cardinal but also deacons; for instance, during the pontificate of Pope Urban II, seven cardinal deacons existed, the customary number of deacons who assisted the Pope. Also at this time, the title of cardinal and right to elect the Pope were conferred on bishops living outside of the vicinity of Rome and presiding over their own dioceses. Later, Pope Alexander III (d. 1181) reserved the selection of cardinals exclusively to the Pope in 1179. Over the years, the number of cardinals has varied. Pope Sixtus V (d. 1590) set the number of cardinals at 70 in 1586, after the number of the 70 Elders of the Old Testament. Pope John XXIII (d. 1963) revoked this rule and increased the number of cardinals. In his apostolic letter “Ingravescentem Aetatem” (1970), Pope Paul VI placed certain age restrictions on cardinals: At age 75, a cardinal must submit his resignation as head of an administrative post in the Curia or his retirement as bishop, either of which may or may not be accepted. At age 80, he loses his right to vote for the next successor of St. Peter. With the induction of the new cardinals, the College now has 194 members (not including the one named in pectore) of whom 139 are eligible to vote. As an aside, the normal number of cardinals eligible to vote for the successor of St. Peter is 120; however, Pope John Paul II has exceeded that number, which he has also done in the past. As mentioned, the Holy Father named one in pectore, meaning he reserved the man’s name in his heart. The purpose of keeping a cardinal’s identity secret is to protect him from harm because of the political or other circumstances in which he lives. Such a cardinal is not bound by the duties of cardinals and does not possess any of their rights or privileges; however, the situation reverses once the Holy Father reveals his name and his seniority is dated from his naming in pectore. We must remember that the pope selects those men as cardinals who are “especially outstanding for their doctrine, morals, piety, and prudence in actions” (Code of Canon Law, Canon 351). Usually bishops — actually archbishops since they head very large dioceses — are appointed as cardinals. (If one is not a bishop, he must receive episcopal consecration. However, an exception was made when Father Avery Dulles was appointed as a cardinal; Father Dulles asked the Holy Father not to be ordained as a bishop because being already past the age of 80 he thought he could not fulfill the responsibilities expected of both a cardinal and a bishop.) Especially since the pontificate of Pope Paul VI, the selection of cardinals has better reflected the whole Church throughout the world. With the naming of these 30 new cardinals who include Roman Curia officials, archbishops (including those from such countries as Vietnam and Sudan where the Church faces persecution), and priests acknowledged for their service to the Church, the Holy Father said, “All together, with the multiplicity of their services, they reflect the universality of the Church.” Together the cardinals form a special “college” which has the responsibility to provide for the election of the pope. As the Holy Father stated in his address to the new cardinals appointed in 1998, “[They] constitute the senate of the Church, the first collaborators of the Pope in his universal pastoral service.” The head of the College of Cardinals is the dean who is elected by the other cardinals and approved by the pope. The cardinals assist the pope collegially when they gather in a consistory at his invitation to address questions of major importance. Individual cardinals also preside over an office of the Curia or serve on a papal commission. For example, Cardinal Ratzinger is Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. One last minor point is concerning why the cardinals wear red. The Holy Father stated at the last investiture: “Red is a sign of the dignity of the office of a cardinal, signifying that you are ready to act with fortitude, even to the point of spilling your blood for the increase of the Christian faith.”
CERES-Palais, Raum "Ruhrpott" (4.13) The Käte Hamburger Kolleg Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe devoted the academic year 2016-2017 to the scrutiny of the role of the trans-cendence/immanence distinction (henceforth, TID) in cases of interreligious, intrareligious, and intersocietal contacts. At the basic level the TID indicates a spatial relation, i.e. a transgression of borders, thus establishing a threefold structure of ‘thereʼ and ‘hereʼ and the ‘borderʼ media-ting between the two (the process of interrelation) as a dynamic process. The TID is associated with (1) spatial metaphors, and with (2) ideas of movement (transgressing). The dichotomous structure of the TID enables its basic function as mediation. It does so via contrast, enabling the transformation of unspecific (absolute) complexity into specific complexity. As such, the distinction indicates the (processing) unity of contraries or even contradictions. The concept consists of a binary (dichotomous), but interrelating, distinction that introduces the idea of interplay as well as of process. This internally processing basic unity, seen as interplay, leads to asser-tions guided by a religiously meaningful TID. The main purpose of this conference is to summarize the results of the research carried out in Bochum during the last twelve months. It will do this, during September 6-8, 2017, through presentations given by invited keynote speakers as well as by current and former KHK fellows. The conference will include both specific case analyses of the relevance of the TID for particular examples of religious contacts, and also theoretical reflections on the role of this theme within religions East and West. The participants to the confer-ence will reflect on the thematic complexity and analytical challenges, encountered during the year-long research on the theme of “TID in Religious Contacts,” along the lines of four analytical fields: (a) Knowledge; (b) Experience; (c) Ritual; and (d) Materiality.
Authors: D. Shechtman, I. Blech1, D. Gratias2, and J. W. Cahn3 Journal: Physical Review Letters Affiliations: 1Department of Materials Engineering, Israel Institute of Technology Technion, 3200 Haifa, Israel. 2Centre d’Etudes de Chimie Metallurgique, Centre National de la Recherche Scientiftque, F 94400-Vitry, France. 3Center for Materials Science, National Bureau of Standards, Gaithersburg, Maryland 20760 This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Professor Dan Shechtman of the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion) for his discovery of quasicrystals. His 1984 paper was the first to report an Al-Mn alloy crystal that showed sharp X-ray diffraction peaks, despite its 5-fold rotational symmetry. Prior to this discovery, crystals were defined as molecularly uniform structures when translated in all directions in a crystal lattice. This required that the crystal have 2, 4, or 6-fold rotational symmetry because these geometric shapes could fit together in a repeating pattern without leaving gaps between neighboring units (see below). Therefore, it was thought that only a crystal of an allowed symmetry would produce an x-ray diffraction pattern and could be called a crystal. In their paper, Shechtman et. al. synthesized a non-conducting alumnium crystal with 10-14% manganese. The resulting mixture was crystallized by rapid cooling and showed a diffraction pattern that had six fivefold, ten three-fold and fifteen twofold axes, exhibiting icosahedral (Ih) symmetry. His crystals, however, did not have a uniform structure or periodic structure. When a fivefold symmetric structure is repeated in all directions there is a slight discrepancy in translational distance and the new set of lattice points is offset from the first so that the new set of axes does not produce a periodic crystal arrangement (see below). The paper mentions that this unusual pattern could be explained by twinning. Twinned crystals share similar lattice properties because they grow into one another. Shechtman lists several reasons why the crystals do not exist as twins; twinned arrangements can be translated in all directions, while Shechtman’s crystals could not. Shechtman’s discovery resulted in the redefinition of a crystal as any structure that yields a sharp diffraction pattern.
The Chemistry Department offers lecture and laboratory experiences in all major areas of chemistry—analytical, biochemical, general, inorganic, organic, and physical—and in many special topics, such as structural, polymer, protein, organometallic, computational, and environmental. At all levels of the curriculum, students have the opportunity to work closely with faculty and to become proficient in the use of modern instrumentation and methodologies. As early as the freshman year, students are encouraged to participate in original research. Students may pursue a major in chemistry with a degree certified by the American Chemical Society, obtain a correlate sequence, complete premedical requirements, or explore a wide range of experimental independent projects and interdisciplinary collaborations. An undergraduate major in chemistry is excellent preparation for graduate study in chemistry or related areas such as medicine, environmental science, materials science, public health, and even the law.
Muslim women talk about the importance of modesty in Muslim culture, the decision to wear or not wear head coverings, and the influence of American culture on young Muslim girls. They also discuss how their faith affects their self-esteem (recorded August 2008). Jenan Mohajir currently serves as the program associate for the Outreach Education Training program at the Interfaith Youth Core, where her primary focus is building relationships between the Muslim community and the Interfaith Youth Movement. Prior to joining IFYC, Jenan was a full-time teacher at the Universal Muslim Day School, a private institution serving primarily Arab Muslim students. She received her bachelor's degree in Elementary Education from DePaul University in 2002 with a concentration in Islamic Studies. Jenan is originally from India and grew up in Qatar and the United States. Carli Ann Marie Pierson Carli Ann Marie Pierson converted to Islam at the age of 19. She was the first person in the United States to earn her bachelor's of arts degree in Islamic World Studies from DePaul University in 2006. Since then, she has worked in media and education. This fall, Carli will begin her first year as a law student at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Naazish YarKhan, a writer, editor, and NPR commentator with more than 15 years of experience, is also an expert in interracial and interfaith initiatives. The founder of Refugee Assistance Programs, a non-profit based in Illinois, she serves on the Advisory Board of Poetry Pals, a cross-cultural initiative for school children.
The Year in Privacy Books 2010 Here’s a list of notable privacy books published in 2010. This list contains a few books published late in 2009 that I missed on the 2009 list. \|Adam D. Moore, Privacy Rights: Moral and Legal Foundations (Penn. St. U. Press 2010) My blurb: “Privacy Rights is a lucid and compelling examination of the right to privacy. Adam Moore provides a theoretically rich and trenchant account of how to reconcile privacy with competing interests such as free speech, workplace productivity, and security.” \|Cass Sunstein, On Rumors (Farrar , Strauss and Giroux 2009) A very short essay on the damage wrought by false online rumors and a discussion of how and why such rumors spiral out of control, such as the phenomena of social cascades and group polarization. The book is worth reading, but quite short for a book (only 88 pages of primary text, in a very tiny book the size of a paperback). \|Stewart Baker, Skating on Stilts: Why We Aren’t Stopping Tomorrow’s Terrorism (Hoover Institution Press 2010) A provocative argument for stronger security protections and a vigorous attack on privacy. The arguments against privacy are often glib and dismissive, but the book is worth reading for Baker’s extensive personal experience dealing with the issues. \|Christena Nippert-Eng, Islands of Privacy (U. Chicago 2010) A fascinating sociological account of people’s attitudes toward privacy and their behaviors with regards to preserving their privacy. It contains numerous interviews, quoted copiously, of people in their own voices discussing how they conceal their secrets. Engaging and compelling reading. \|Hal Niedzviecki, The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors (City Lights Press 2009) This book is an extended essay on self-exposure online. It is filled with many interesting anecdotes. The book has a journalistic style and raises observations and questions more than it proposes solutions or policies. The “notes” at the end consist only of a brief bibliography for each chapter, and there are no indications of which facts in the book came from which particular sources — a pet peeve of mine. \|Bill Bryson, At Home: A Short History of Private Life (Doubleday 2010) An extensive history of the home, which as I’ve explored in some of my own writings, plays an important role in the history of privacy. Bryson’s narrative reads well, but he only supplies a bibliography at the end — no endnotes or indications of the sources of particular facts and details. I find this practice to be quite problematic for a work of history. \|Shane Harris, The Watchers: The Rise of America’s Surveillance State (Penguin 2010) An engaging narrative that chronicles the surveillance and security measures the United States undertook after 9/11. Filled with interesting facts, the book reads like a story. \|Robin D. Barnes, Outrageous Invasions: Celebrites’ Private Lives, Media, and the Law (Oxford 2010) There are some very interesting parts of this book, but it at times seems like a grab bag of topics relating to celebrities and its central argument could use more development. Nevertheless, it is worth reading because it discusses some interesting cases and explores comparative legal perspectives on the issues. \|David Kirkpatrick, The Facebook Effect (Simon& Schuster 2010) A fascinating account of the rise of Facebook. There are times when Kirkpatrick seems too sympathetic to Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, but overall, this book is illuminating and engaging. \|Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age (Princeton 2009) An interesting discussion of the “right to be forgotten.” Some of the ground in this book appears to be already well-trodden, but Mayer-Schonberger’s keen insights on data retention and destruction make it a worthy addition to the literature.
In May 2017, the Constitution Unit began a project seeking to understand how the quality of information and public discussion during election and referendum campaigns could be improved. The independent assessment of parties’ policy proposals could be one way of providing the public with high-quality, reliable information. Michela Palese outlines the debate on this topic and reports some initial findings from a research trip to the Netherlands, where such assessment of election programmes is a well-established feature of campaigns. The Constitution Unit, with funding from the McDougall Trust, is seeking to understand how the quality of information and public discussion during election and referendum campaigns could be improved. As outlined in a previous post, we are looking at three potential approaches: directly banning false or misleading statements; promoting the availability of impartial and high-quality information; and fostering citizen deliberation. My research is currently focused on the second type. In this blog post I first outline the state of the debate on one strand of this approach – independent impact analysis of manifesto proposals – in the UK and summarise existing practice overseas. I then relate early thoughts from a research trip to the Netherlands, where an independent institute assesses the economic and financial effects of parties’ election programmes. Manifesto budgeting in the UK The independent assessment of electoral programmes is not a novel idea in the UK. Since 2013, the Labour Party has advocated extending the remit of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to include pre-election costing of opposition parties’ policy proposals. Labour argues this would benefit public debate by ensuring that voters were properly informed and restore public trust in politics by improving policy transparency. Some Conservatives – notably, Andrew Tyrie, the former chairman of the Treasury Select Committee – have endorsed this idea. The government, however, has rejected calls for an extension of the OBR’s remit on the grounds that that the Civil Service Code prevents it from examining opposition parties’ policies and that it should abide by the principle of political impartiality. Furthermore, Conservative MPs have argued that it is necessary to protect the credibility and independence of this relatively new institution, and that drawing the OBR into the highly politicised environment of an election would be unwise. In evidence provided to the Treasury Select Committee in 2014, the OBR’s chair, Robert Chote, indicated support for extending its role. In a letter to Andrew Tyrie, he said that ‘independent scrutiny of pre-election policy proposals could contribute to better policy making, to a more informed public debate, and could help facilitate coalition formation when party programmes need to be reconciled’. However, he also highlighted some issues that would need to be resolved, such as the establishment of ‘clear rules’ for parties, the availability of adequate resources, and the need for cross-party support for the change. Both external and Treasury reviews of the OBR cautioned against expanding its role, arguing that currently the risks in terms of resources and independence could outweigh the benefits. These judgements, combined with the pressing matters surrounding Brexit, seem to have put the debate to rest for now.
writing seminarFairy Tales, Fantasy and Short Fiction T-Th 11:30 - 12:50 (D42) There is more to Ã¢â‚¬Å“short fictionÃ¢â‚¬Â than the short story, and this class is concerned with all forms of short fiction. We will read fables,Ã¢â‚¬Å“folkÃ¢â‚¬Â fairy tales, selections from BoccaccioÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Decameron and BasileÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Pentamerone, literary fairy tales of the Romantic era, and finally some modern tales by Dinesen, Borges, Calvino, Malamud, and Bradbury. We will discuss the effects of writing upon a genre originally oral, the effects of Ã¢â‚¬Å“gentrificationÃ¢â‚¬Â of fairy tales, and the use of fiction in exploring psychology and subverting social norms. The stories studied this semester will provide essential background for Fundamentals of Fiction Writing in future semesters.
Inspired by a recent facebook conversation I had earlier today, I noticed many people think early spay and neuter is perfectly acceptable, despite scientific studies proving it isn’t. By early spay and neuter, I mean, some people were telling a girl to spay her dog before the dog’s first heat. Luckily, very-very few vets will do that. A lot of vets wait until they have finished their first heat, which is a lot better than, for example, 10 weeks. A comment that struck me the most was from a women and it said “I’m not sure where they got their info because it’s wrong. There’s not one vet I know of that would agree with that info.” Now, you would expect a vet to be up to date on the best methods of Animal Health Care, similar to how you would expect a Human Doctor to know the health risks of, say, an operation on an 80 year old person. Sadly that isn’t the case, many vets push people to spay or/and neuter early and often scaremonger them with stories of Pyometra, Testicular Cancer, Aggression Issues. Of course, if there wasn’t any research done on it I would understand why people wouldn’t think twice, but there is research done on it, there is anecdotal facts that back up said scientific research too, that was produced by vets and scientists. The Scientific Study: Veterinary hospital records of 759 Golden Retrievers, both intact and neutered, male and female, 1-8 years old were examined for diagnoses of hip dysplasia (HD), cranial cruciate ligament tear (CCL), lymphosarcoma (LSA), hemangiosarcoma (HSA), and mast cell tumor (MCT). Of early-neutered males, 10 percent were diagnosed with HD, double the occurrence in intact males. There were no cases of CCL diagnosed in intact males or females, but in early-neutered males and females the occurrences were 5 percent and 8 percent, respectively. Almost 10 percent of early-neutered males were diagnosed with LSA, 3 times more than intact males. The percentage of HSA cases in late-neutered females (about 8 percent) was 4 times more than intact and early-neutered females. There were no cases of MCT in intact females, but the occurrence was nearly 6 percent in late-neutered females. – http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0055937 So, as you can see, there are issues with Early Spay and Neuter and it is time people realised this. You cannot take a dogs hormones away and expect everything to be hunky dory. If the dog medically needs a Spay or Neuter, then of course, that is acceptable. Taking a dogs hormones away too early just because of Scaremongering, irresponsible ownership, and the owners lack of research? That isn’t right. Shelter overpopulation is, sort of an issue (i’ll get to that in another post), backyard breeders are 110% a major issue. Well, please welcome an Alternative to Spay and Neutering that prevents babies but keeps much needed hormones: Ovary Sparing Spay and Vasectomy! OSS and Vasectomy is brilliant. It can be done after first heat, dog keeps it’s hormones so will grow properly, etc. Yet will not make Puppies. A Vasectomised dog can mount and tie with a bitch in heat, and no puppies will happen, vice versa too, an intact male can cover an OSS bitch and nothing would happen. Here is a list of vets around the world that do OSS and Vasectomy: This one is just for America: If you still want to neuter/spay your dog a good guide to follow is: Small Breed – 1 year. Medium Breed – 2 years. Large breed – 3 years. Giant breed – 4+ years.
- Guaranteed for 2 full months - Pay by PayPal or Credit Card - Instant Digital Download As a people photographer, I am not a specialist in photographing still forms like architectural structures and interior spaces. However, because I photograph weddings, I often take photos of interiors and locations as part of the wedding photos I give my clients. This is essentially how I learned to develop an eye for detail, form and structure as part and parcel of my work. Let me share with you a few tips I have learned that will hopefully get you started in photographing interior spaces and architecture if you are a people photographer. One of the advantages of still photography is simply that – nothing moves. You can leverage this by playing with your settings, especially the shutter speed. With the camera rested on a tripod or a table, you can play around with very slow shutter speeds to maximize capturing ambient light even in very dark corners, limited light, or night interior photography. If there are lamps and lights that make up the overall ambiance of the room, include them and take advantage of slow shutter speeds and long exposures. You can also keep your ISO low this way and have the bonus of clean noiseless images. It is important to remember that for interiors, you should aim for balanced lighting. Meaning there are no overly dark shadows or overly bright highlights. You want to see the detail in dark areas but not blow out the light areas altogether. Because we are talking about natural light, think about which times of the day which best feature the interior space. Early morning and late afternoon light are the softest. Overcast days produce soft light. Bright super sunny days produce harsher light especially midday and therefore you may want to take into consideration shadows produced in the interior from harsh outside light. In contrast to photographing people, I would normally use these shadows as an artistic element of the photo. Interior spaces however are different and this may not always be appropriate. Early morning and late afternoon light are the softest. Overcast days produce soft light. Bright super sunny days produce harsher light, especially midday. Therefore you may want to take into consideration any shadows produced in the interior from harsh outside light. In contrast to photographing people, I would normally use these shadows as an artistic element of the photo. Interior spaces, however, are different and this may not always be appropriate. Not only is the 50mm lens the closest lens that resembles the human eye (when using a full frame camera), it is also the perfect lens to separate some areas and details of the space without going in too close. In a way, it is an excellent “portrait” lens for spaces, whereas my 85mm is my choice of portrait lens for people. When using wider lenses, I find I have to correct quite a lot of distortion on the edges of the frame. With the 50mm this is hardly an issue. The results are pleasing to the eye and it evokes a very natural look, making you feel like you are within the actual space yourself. This is tricky and the nemesis of many photographers. Most non-photographers are oblivious to white balance. This is especially obvious in weddings where the bride’s dress looks blue and people’s faces register as magenta, yet hardly anyone notices. When I sold my house a few years back, the real estate agents who boasted of great property photography sent a photographer to my house to take some professional pictures. She arrived with a camera on the tripod and a flash head pointed slightly upwards. The lens used was very wide – I guessed around 10mm or 14mm. It took many days before the photos were up online, when finally I saw them, they were all very blue. My home felt so cold and not homely. One of the reasons for that was the incorrect white balance. Personally, I prefer a warm feel to all my photos so I tend to edit towards that side. But do be careful that the whites still look white and not yellow or cream. Remember that what often draws people to an image is a feeling or emotion. Your image becomes all the more powerful if it reminds the viewer of a sentiment, experience, or something that resonates with them. White balance is key in helping achieve this kind of engagement with your viewer. Nowadays, when you browse through interior design catalogues or blogs, you will come across many interior details, arrangements and vignettes that do not show the entire space. Everyone is doing it from high street department stores to high end interior designers. There must be a good reason for it. In order to reinforce engagement and a connection to your audience, details are essential. Imagine walking into a space, or that you are viewing a house for the first time. Before you walk though the door, you survey the outside look of the property and its surroundings. You do the same as you walk in, surveying the overall scene before your eyes. But when you are inside you get closer and see the details. You may want to touch and feel the walls, flip some switches on if they work, or sit on the sofa with fluffy scatter cushions. You want to get close, touch and feel things. It is not only a visual connection then, it becomes physical. This is the sense you want to achieve with your images when the viewer is not physically in the space. That is why close up shots and details are important. With photography, aim to connect with your viewers not only by using visual senses but also with the power of emotion. If you can add a virtual physical touch to this engagement, all the better. When viewers look at your images and say, “I feel like I was actually there.” take that as one of the highest compliments. I hope you enjoyed this little beginner’s journey into interior photography. Of course there are many more tips like straightening horizons and shooting through doors. If you have any other awesome tips, do share them here in the comments below. Thanks for subscribing!
Distribution of Culicoides sonorensis (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae) in Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota: Clarifying the Epidemiology of Bluetongue Disease in the Northern Great Plains Region of the United States Date of this Version J. Med. Entomol. (2011) 48(3): 634-643. DOI: 10.1603/ME10231 The presence or absence of the biting midge Culicoides sonorensis Wirth & Jones (Diptera: Ceratopogonidae), a primary vector of bluetongue viruses (genus Orbivirus, family Reoviridae, BTV) in North America, was assessed on ranches and farms across the Northern Great Plains region of the United States, specifically Nebraska, South Dakota, and North Dakota, as part of a 2-yr regional study of BTV exposure among cattle. Blacklight/suction trap samples totaling 280 2-night intervals were taken at 140 aquatic sites (potential larval habitat for C. sonorensis) on 82 livestock operations (ranches and farms) that span a south-to-north gradient of expected decreasing risk for exposure to BTV. In Nebraska, C. sonorensis populations were common and widespread, present at 15 of 18 operations. Of 32 operations sampled in South Dakota, seven of which were sampled in successive years, 18 were positive for C. sonorensis; 13 of 14 operations located west of the Missouri River were positive, whereas 13 of 18 operations east of the river were negative. Of 32 operations sampled in North Dakota, seven of which were sampled both years, 12 were positive for C. sonorensis. Six of eight operations located west and south of the Missouri River in North Dakota were positive, whereas 18 of 24 operations east and north of the river were negative for C. sonorensis. These data illustrate a well-defined pattern of C. sonorensis spatial distribution, with populations consistently present across Nebraska, western South Dakota, and western North Dakota; western South Dakota, and North Dakota encompass the Northwestern Plains Ecoregion where soils are nonglaciated and evaporation exceeds precipitation. In contrast, C. sonorensis populations were largely absent east of the Missouri River in South Dakota and North Dakota; this area comprises the Northwestern Glaciated Plains Ecoregion and Northern Glaciated Plains Ecoregion where surface soils reflect Wisconsinan glaciation and precipitation exceeds evaporation. In defining a well-demarcated pattern of population presence or absence on a regional scale, the data suggest that biogeographic factors regulate the distribution of C. sonorensis and in turn BTV exposure. These factors, ostensibly climate and soil type as they affect the suitability of larval habitat, may explain the absence of C. sonorensis, hence limited risk for exposure to BTV, across the eastern Northern Plains, upper Midwest, and possibly Northeast, regions of the United States.
Tree-Ring Reconstruction of Western Spruce Budworm Outbreaks in the San Juan Mountains, Colorado, U.S.A. Canadian Jorunal of Forest Research Tree-ring records were used to reconstruct spatial and temporal patterns of western spruce budworm (Choristoneura occidentalis Freeman) outbreaks in mixed conifer forests of southern Colorado. Reconstructions in 11 host stands showed a regionally synchronous pattern of at least 14 outbreaks during the past 350 years. Intervals between outbreaks were highly variable within stands, but at the regional scale outbreak intervals were more consistent. Spectral analyses of regional outbreak time series confirmed periodicities at about 25, 37, and 83 years. Comparison with an independent drought reconstruction indicated that outbreaks typically corresponded to increased moisture, while relatively little budworm activity occurred during dry periods. In contrast to other published reconstructions in Colorado and New Mexico, reconstructions from this study area did not exhibit significant 20th-century changes in the frequency of outbreak occurrence or magnitude of growth reduction. Sharply reduced growth during outbreaks was not clearly visible on the increment core samples, and budworm-induced reductions in tree-ring growth were usually detectable only after comparison with nonhost tree-ring series. This finding emphasizes that defoliation effects on ring growth can be highly relativistic. Hence, caution should be exercised in reconstructing insect outbreak histories based only on visual detection approaches, or without comparison with nonhost or nondefoliated tree-ring control series. Ryerson, D., Swetnam, T. and Lynch, A. (2003). Tree-ring reconstruction of western spruce budworm outbreaks in the San Juan Mountains, Colorado, U.S.A. Can. J. For. Res. 33(6): 1010–1028.
The distribution of fruit and seed toxicity during development for eleven Neotropical trees and vines Secondary compounds in fruit mediate interactions with natural enemies and seed dispersers, influencing plant survival and species distributions. The functions of secondary metabolites in plant defenses have been well-studied in green tissues, but not in reproductive structures of plants. In this study, the distribution of toxicity within plants was quantified and its influence on seed survival was determined in Central Panama. To investigate patterns of allocation to chemical defenses and shifts in allocation with fruit development, I quantified variation in toxicity between immature and mature fruit and between the seed and pericarp for eleven species. Toxicity of seed and pericarp was compared to leaf toxicity for five species. Toxicity was measured as reduced hyphal growth of two fungal pathogens, Phoma sp. and Fusarium sp., and reduced survivorship of brine shrimp, Artemia franciscana, across a range of concentrations of crude extract. I used these measures of potential toxicity against generalist natural enemies to examine the effect of fruit toxicity on reductions of fruit development and seed survival by vertebrates, invertebrates, and pathogens measured for seven species in a natural enemy removal experiment. The seed or pericarp of all vertebrate- and wind-dispersed species reduced Artemia survivorship and hyphal growth of Fusarium during the immature and mature stages. Only mature fruit of two vertebrate-dispersed species reduced hyphal growth of Phoma. Predispersal seed survival increased with toxicity of immature fruit to Artemia during germination and decreased with toxicity to fungi during fruit development. This study suggests that fruit toxicity against generalist natural enemies may be common in Central Panama. These results support the hypothesis that secondary metabolites in fruit have adaptive value and are important in the evolution of fruit-frugivore interactions.
Benefits of Nitric Oxide as related to use of Scalar Wave Lasers for Health and Healing ScalarWave Lasers transmit specific wavelengths to increase nitric oxide and relaxation inducing technology. In 1998, the Nobel Prize was awarded to three scientists for their breakthrough discoveries in the crucial role that nitric oxide plays in the cardiovascular and nervous systems. Nitric oxide has been called a miracle molecule as it… Vasodilates the entire body and circulatory system Activates neurotransmitters, like serotonin, dopamine, endorphins for pain relief Enhances the immune system and increases white blood cells Key for anti-aging, stem cells, telomeres, and sirtuins which are a unique class of proteins linked to longevity Induces the glands to produce subtle compound like oxytocin, PEA, and DMT Activates a sense of euphoria and bliss, as nitric oxide is a close relative to nitrous oxide (laughing gas) Like oxygen, nitric oxide abounds in our atmosphere. The more relaxed and at ease we are, the more our cells fill up with this amazing molecule. New studies have found that cold lasers aka low level lasers also significantly increases nitric oxide at the cellular level. Once you get familiar with using your Quantum Scalar Wave Laser you are never going to want to live without it. The SW Laser supports a whole new quality of life. OVER 250 COLD LASER THERAPY PROTOCOLS NOW AVAILABLE IN NEW eBOOK & AN ADDITIONAL 250 PROTOCOLS IN THE NEW BONUS eBOOK FOR A TOTAL OF OVER 500 PROTOCOLS. NEW eBOOK - Cold Laser Therapy - Over 250 Protocols made easy – the 22 AcuPoint HEALING SYSTEM. Bonus: Includes two popular Auricular Therapy Charts and a dozen more for hands and feet, allowing for many additional treatment options. The second Bonus eBook contains an additional 250 picture based protocols for a total of over 500 protocols. You can order it here: Click here to learn more about AcuLight Therapy NEW! NOW OVER 500 PROTOCOLS! Now you can receive the ORIGINAL 250 Protocols made easy eBook with the 22 Acu-Point Healing System plus comprehensive overview of the Micro-Systems including numerous charts. PLUS, you will receive for FREE, Mr. Prensky's newest eBook just released with over 250 Additional Picture Based Protocols with 283 pages of valuable information. THAT’S 2 BOOKS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE a Virtual Library of OVER 500 PROTOCOLS This Additional Must-Have AcuPoint Protocol Guide contains over 283 pages of valuable information that you can use to support optimal wellness, health and healing. This book features a Visual Depiction of Corresponding AcuPoint Protocols for over 250 common Issues, followed by Q&A, Clinical Studies, a comprehensive overview on Cold Laser Therapy, plus how and why it works. You are going to love it! REGULAR Price: $ 99 SALE Price Only $49 You can Purchase your eBooks right now via the safety and convenience of PayPal. You will receive your downloadable eBooks via email within 5 minutes of purchase. For those of you who are not very computer literate, an eBook is a digital book (in this case a PDF file) that can be read on almost any device (smart phone, tablet and computer), or it can be printed out and read in paper form. If something fails and you don’t receive one or both of the eBooks after 10 minutes check your spam folder and if it is not there, send us an email and it will be sent to you shortly. MORE Essential Educational links about Quantum Scalar Wave Laser: The Scalar Wave Laser System is indicated for temporary relief of minor muscle and joint pain, arthritis and muscle spasm, relieving stiffness, promoting relaxation of muscle tissue, and temporarily increasing local blood circulation. The System is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, mitigate, or prevent disease. If you have a disease or medical condition, consult with your physician or health practitioner before using the Scalar Wave Laser. Use only as directed. No statements made here are intended as medical claims or advice and is for informational purposes only. © 2016-17 Discover Lasers and Kalon Prensky CALL TODAY! Kalon Prensky, 15 year laser specialist - available for FREE phone consultation Mon. - Sat. 8am - 6pm Hawaii Time. Ph 808-870-0348 or Send an email. You can see Kalon's picture on the right side of this website if you are curious. Kalon is here to help.
During this summer while aKademy was filling our minds and consuming our time other things were cooking in the Dutch KDE community. Some people from KDE-NL, the Dutch KDE community, were offered the opportunity to write a book about Linux and KDE. This month the book 'Linux in 10 minuten' was published and officially launched by Pearson Education Benelux and KDE-NL. The book is intended for newcomers who want to use Linux as their desktop. We show them in a step-by-step fashion and in a clear language how to manage their daily computer tasks easily. Jan Verdiesen, Novell Netherlands says: "This book is a great step forward in the adoption of Linux by the masses. Equipped with 'Linux in 10 minuten' it will be even more easy for me to entice people to use Linux." Before you head off to the book shop please remember this book is only available in Dutch (for now). The entire profits of the sales of this book will be donated to KDE-Netherlands. We would like to thank the following people for their time and contributions: Bram Schoenmakers, Ruurd Pels, Wilbert Berendsen, Tom Verbreyt, Fabrice Mous, Rinse de Vries, Marijke Verkaik and Tom Albers. For our Dutch readers there is also a Dutch press release.
“The God of the Bible is the Trinity, and mutatis mutandis, the Bible is read rightly according to the Trinity.” (Hinlicky) R. Kendall Soulen’s book The Divine Name(s) and the Holy Trinity: Distinguishing the Voices (2011) is an interesting, provocative, and helpful study of how to think Christianly about God’s name(s). It is not for the theological novice, but is well worth a careful read. In this work: “a fresh map of Trinitarian language that is simple, yet profound in its implications for theology and practice. Soulen proposes that sacred scripture gifts us with three patterns of naming the persons of the Trinity: a theo-logical pattern characterized by oblique reference to the Tetragrammaton (the divine name); a christo-logical pattern characterized by the kinship vocabulary of Father, Son, and Spirit; and a pneumato-logical pattern, characterized by the open-ended multiplicity of divine names. These patterns relate in a Trinitarian way: they are distinct, interconnected, and, above all, equally important. The significance of this thesis resides in its power to map the terrain of Trinitarian discourse in a way that is faithful to scripture, critically respectful of tradition, and fruitfully relevant to a broad range of contemporary concerns.”
\|Huntington Beach Central Park, 2010\| Walking is my favorite form of exercise. Jim and I walk the trails that meander through the city as often as we can. We also love to head for the mountains to hit the trails there for some hiking. It feels awesome to get outside, breathe in some fresh air, and get the heart pumping with some serious moving about! It wakes me up, gives me more energy, improves my mood, clears my head, and just makes me feel good all the way around. But those are only a few of the very real benefits of hiking. Read on for more. Regular aerobic exercise provides many health benefits. Hiking is a great form of aerobic exercise. Some of the benefits include: You don't have to hike a lot to reap most of these benefits. Just 30 minutes most days will do it (150 minutes of moderate activity per week is recommended, so moderate hiking. You can talk but you can't sing.). You can break it up into 10 minute bouts of exercise, too, if you don't want to or don't have time to complete your exercise routine in all one go. Of course, challenging yourself as you become stronger will help provide even more benefits to your health. Vigorous exercise, such as hiking uphill or with a backpack on your back, provides that challenge. Shoot for 75 minutes per week of vigorous exercise--you can only speak a few words at a time. Aerobic exercise is great, but you also should get 2 to 3 days of resistance training in per week. Body weight, free weights, weight machines--choose the exercises that are the most fun and manageable for you. Like aerobic exercise, gradually increase weight and/or repetitions as you get stronger. You can also vary rest time between sets and speed to change up your workouts. You may want to invest in a pedometer to keep track of your walking and hiking progress. It can be a lot of fun and provide motivation to see how many steps you take each day or during each hike. Are you a hiker? Or are you just thinking about getting into it? What are some tips that have helped make your ventures out into nature more fun, safe, and fulfilling?
Oil pulling is an ancient Ayurvedic therapy believed to promote oral health and detoxification and available data shows promise for this natural health technique. The practice of oil pulling involves the use of food-grade oils, such as coconut oil, as an agent for “pulling” away harmful toxins. Unwanted organisms from the mouth, teeth, gums, and throat are also thought to be removed. What is Oil Pulling? A general oil pulling technique involves swishing around 1 tbsp. of cold-pressed, organic sesame oil in the mouth for approximately 10-15 minutes. Following this, the oil should then be spit out and the mouth rinsed with clean, fresh water. It is believed that the toxins in the mouth are pulled into the oil during the swishing process, and spitting it out results in the removal these toxic compounds. Other oils used in oil pulling include extra-virgin coconut and olive oil, preferably organic and cold pressed. Whether it’s sesame, olive, or coconut oil, all contain essential fatty acids and antioxidants that are good for your gums and teeth. How it Works First, the oil mixes with the saliva, turning it into a thin, white liquid. Lipids in the oil supposedly pull out toxins from the saliva, cementing its claim as an efficient detoxifier. As the oil is swished around in the mouth, it continues to absorb toxins and usually ends up turning thick, viscous, and white. Once the oil has reached this consistency (typically after ten minutes), it is spit out before the toxins are reabsorbed. Potential Benefits of Oil Pulling The increasing interest surrounding oil pulling in the lay population has correspondingly increased scientific scrutinization of the practice. One study showed that oil pulling with sesame oil can boost overall oral health by significantly reducing Streptococcus mutans, a microbe that contributes to tooth decay. Some scientists believe the lipids in the oil reduce the adhesion of bacteria to the teeth and gums, possibly explaining its bacteria-diminishing effects. Other research shows that oil pulling can relieve bad breath. This same research has also shown that oil pulling can noticeably reduce the presence of plaque to support the health of teeth and gums. Research also shows that swishing with sesame oil produces a saponification process, or a process in which the oil produces a soap-like effect in the mouth. Some sources even claim that dental caries, or cavities, have also been shown to be reduced by up to 50% in persons who practice oil pulling. The oil used in this study was sesame oil, perhaps one of the most popular oils used in oil pulling, and showed very powerful activity in the mouth. Just 40 days of oil pulling resulted in a 20% decrease in oral bacteria. Benefits Beyond Dental Health? Many holistic practitioners cite other benefits of oil pulling. It is believed that oil pulling stimulates the lymphatic system and aids in the transport of toxins away from vital organs. The reported benefits of oil pulling include: - Teeth whitening - Clear skin - Improves digestion - Weight loss - Promotes normal sleep patterns - Helps kidney and liver function Is oil pulling part of your oral health habits? What tips, advice, and experience can you share? Please leave a comment below! - Asokan S, Rathan J, Muthu MS, Rathna PV, Emmadi P, Raghuraman, Chamundeswar. Effect of oil pulling on Streptococcus mutans count in plaque and saliva using Dentocult SM Strip mutans test: a randomized, controlled triple-blind study. Journal of Indian Society of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry. 2008 March;26(1):12-7. - Asokan S, Kumar RS, Emmadi P, Raghuraman R, Sivakumar N. Effect of oil pulling on halitosis and microorganisms causing halitosis: a randomized controlled pilot trial. Journal of Indian Society of Pedodontics and Preventive Dentistry. 2011 April-June;29(2):90-4. doi: 10.4103/0970-4388.84678. - Asokan S, Rathinasamy TK, Inbamani N, Menon T, Kumar SS, Emmadi P, Raghuraman R. Mechanism of oil-pulling therapy – in vitro study. Indian Journal of Dentist Research. 2011 January-February;22(1):34-7. doi: 10.4103/0970-9290.79971. - T. Durai Anand, C. Pothiraj, R. M. Gopinath and B. Kayalvizhi. Effect of oil-pulling on dental caries causing bacteria. African Journal of Microbiology Research Vol.(2) pp.063-066, March, 2008.
20% of US population smokes, 100% know that smoking is bad. Smokers use 18% more healthcare costs. The number of times smokers tried to quit before they were habit-free: - 1 time: 40%, - 2-3 times 38%, - 4+ times 22%. Stay in there! Be persistent! Have a plan. Nicotine replacement may cost $40/month, some pills to help stopping cost $100/month (the same cost as a one ppd habit). Consider environmental changes (get rid of cigarettes, ashtrays, lighters), Perform routine changes, Consider substitutes (gum, candy, straws) to keep your mouth and hands busy. List rewards (financial, health, family). Sources of help. 1-866-KANSTOP, 1-800-QUITNOW, http://www.familydoctor.org
Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease, when the body’s immune system attacks itself. In this case the body destroys its insulin-producing pancreatic beta cells. Type 1 diabetics must take insulin everyday to survive. This type usually develops in children and young adults, but can appear at any age. Type 2 diabetes is the most common form with 90% of diabetics having this type. The risk factors for type 2 diabetes are - older age, - being overweight, - family history of diabetes, - physical inactivity, - history of gestational diabetes. This type of diabetes may be controlled with weight loss, diet, exercise, medication and insulin. Gestational diabetes develops only during pregnancy. Women with a history of gestational diabetes have a 20 to 50% of developing type 2 diabetes within 5-10 years. Pregnant patients routinely have a glucose tolerance test (drinking a sugary drink) and then checking blood sugars to confirm that body can control blood sugars well. Symptoms of diabetes include increased thirst, increased frequency of urination, constant hunger, weight loss, blurred vision, extreme fatigue. To test for diabetes, fasting blood sugar is the preferred test. See your doctor if you have risk factors for diabetes or any of the above symptoms. It’s best to know early so treatment can be instituted to decrease long term diabetic complications.
Intervention is process which is directed and educated people resulting face to face session with friends and family which the individual who are facing drug and alcohol problems. Addicts are in many cases unwilling to look for treatment and usually deny their issues. They might not understand how badly they and their loved ones are affected by their behaviour. Intervention aids them in connecting their troubles in life with their substance abuse. The aim of Intervention is to realise, help and providing opportunity to control the drug problem before it getting worse day by day. How Does Intervention Work? The power of education changes the lives of family and friends in addiction cases. Meeting and making friends with people sharing similar struggles in addiction is vital to recovery process. Meeting to share concerns with one who needs assistance to quit is a major step. Can An Addiction Expert Be Of Assistance? Consulting an addiction specialist like alcohol and addiction advisor, social worker, psychiatrist, psychologist or interventionist, can help you with organisation of an intervention that would work. Specific situations related to the alcohol and drug abuse will be thought of by a substance use or addiction expert, and then the best approach will be recommended along with the advice for the best treatment option and aftercare plan that will give best results. Save time by enlisting addiction specialist than trial and error which could lead to problems. Sometimes the intervention can happen at the specialist's office. It may be of vital importance to have the expert attend the actual intervention to assist you stay on track if the one you care about: Has a history of severe mental illness Has a violent history Prone to suicide attempts, makes no secret of it. May be taking several substances which change his mood It is of vital importance to consult an intervention specialist if you suspect that the one you care about can react violently or can hurt himself. Totally. When done with someone who has training and experience in the field of interventions, more than 90% of people decide to get help. Can Intervention Result In Failure? It can. But, as it is told above, most of interventions end with success. An individual sometimes avoid to take help at the Intervention process, but return back to us for help in some cases. Who Gets Involved In Doing An Intervention? Expert participation is essential for intervention success, Drug Rehab Herefordshire reckons. The interventionist will assist you to decide who should be invited to take part in the intervention -- mother and father, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, friends, co-workers, etc. Involving the right people is of utmost importance for the intervention. Where Is The Beginning? Intervention may not be suitable or even necessary for all situations and all families. All things considered, if you think that an intervention may be of help, you should get in contact with your nearest Drug Rehab Herefordshire Affiliate to discover what is the best course for you or your loved ones.
The island of Negros and the neighboring islands of Cebu, Malapascua, Siquijor, Apo and Panay in Central Philippines are endowed with beautiful dive spots that attracted local as well as international dive enthusiasts. The islands are surrounded by deep blue waters with rich aquatic life, coral reefs and sunken ships that made it as one of the favorite scuba dive sites in the Philippines. The Island of Negros where I was born and raised is divided into two provinces, the Oriental Negros in the east and the Occidental Negros in the west. I live in Negros Occidental. In the southern tip of our province, is where you can find several (44) dive sites. One of the town that embraced the scuba diving tourism in our province is Sipalay. There you can find Dive Spot Resorts and PADI Centers. Historical accounts have revealed that a few boats during the war and after the second world war were sunk around the areas in the Visayas. One of these was the ship SS Panay. Its remains can be found in Campomanes Bay or Maricalum Bay, (Province of Negros Occidental website). Another examples are: Abukama Ship, a Nagara Class Cruiser bombed by the US Aircraft off Negros Island on October 26, 1944 (Wikipedia) and Fujinami, a Yugomo Class Destroyer that was sunk by US Aircraft 80 miles north of Iloilo on October 27, 1944 (Wikipedia). There were many others that can be found around the waters of Cebu and other islands in the Visayas. SS Panay on her resting place, Campomanes Bay or Maricalum Bay, Island of Negros. It was believed that the ship was loaded with cargoes and ammunition to aid the resistance movement against the Japanese during the second world war. That sunken ship, therefore, is a rich piece of history of the second world war. Source: Youtube, uploaded by Martin Yee. Earthniversity does not own this video but thanks to Martin Yee and Youtube. With the popularity of scuba diving activities in the Southern part of Negros, these underwater heritage sites are now a concern not only for the local government units but also to the proponents of sustainable environment and development. A few years ago, the United Nations call the attention of countries around the world to protect its underwater heritage sites because it is the common heritage of all people of all states and the world. The underwater heritage sites is not only for those people who have access to it like the divers but it is also for people who has no access to it, at the moment. While majority of the divers are educated in the proper care of the underwater heritage sites, there are unscrupulous divers who cannot resist the temptations of pillage and destruction on these sites. Therefore, changing the face of the Underwater Heritage Sites. Heritage refers to inheritance or patrimony. The coral reefs can be considered as our natural heritage or inheritance from Mother Earth. Tubbataha Reef and Australia’s the Great Barrier Reef are examples of natural heritage sites. Tubbataha Reefs is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located at Cagyancillo Town, Palawan. Source is stated hereunder. http://i674.photobucket.com/albums/vv103/emmanuel_esber/Tubbataha%20Reef/56033393-1.jpg The Great Barrier Reefs, Australia is a UNESCO World Heritage Site It is therefore the responsibility of the Local Government Units to take the lead in the protection and conservation of these Underwater Heritage Sites so that the present and the future generations can learn from them. Here are the suggested steps to follow in formulating a Heritage Sites Protection and Conservation Program. 1. Create a Technical Working Group or TWG, to conduct a research to identify the Underwater Heritage Sites and gather facts and figures about them. One of the best ways to achieve this goal is to conduct a Strategic Planning Workshop on the Protection and Conservation of Underwater Heritage Sites. The workshop should answer the following questions: 1) Who Are We?; 2) Where Are We Now?; 3) Where Are We Going?; 4) How Are We Going To Get There? The final output of this workshop is the formulation of an Action Plan aimed at the protection and conservation of the LGU’s Underwater Heritage Sites. For a thorough discussion on the Strategic Planning activity, please refer to my previous post found here on this website. The title is: Strategic Planning Workshop on the Formulation of the Local Heritage Plan (Lecture Series 1-A) 2. Present the Plan to the Local Development Council so that the LDC can pass a Resolution approving it and submit the same to the Local Chief Executive. This LDC resolution should contain the proposed Action Plan. 3. Have this Plan on the Protection and Conservation of the Underwater Heritage Sites be approved by the Local Chief Executive who will then submit this to the City or Municipal Council for their review and approval. The Council’s approval shall be in the form of a Resolution or if the Plan submitted was exhaustive, the approval could be in the form of an Ordinance. This Ordinance will state the manner as well as penalties in the implementation of the Ordinance. An LGU department or office shall be identified by this Ordinance as the implementing agency or office, defining its roles and obligations to implement this Ordinance. 4. The Local Council’s approval will give teeth, so to speak, to the implementation of various Programs and Projects enumerated in this Plan. 5. Implementation of the Plan will follow. The Environment Office of the LGU will be the implementing agency in cooperation with multi-sectoral groups in the town or city. 6. Monitoring and Evaluation comes after the Plan, its programs and projects have been implemented. 7. Regular performance review of the implementation of the Plan maybe conducted. 8. From these activities additional inputs can be made by the LGU or Local Government Unit. 9. The Technical Working Group or TWG which was earlier organized shall be headed by the Environment Chief of the LGU with the Municipal or City Development Office as the Secretariat. This can be revised by the LGU to suit their needs. The southern part of the island of Negros including the towns of Hinoba-an, Sipalay and Cauayan and the islands of Apo and Siquijor as well as the areas of Dauin and many others are rich in aquatic life, marine resources and underwater heritage sites. If the Great Barrier Reef of Australia is a Heritage and Protected Site, why not create these identified areas of the island of Negros as Underwater Heritage Sites Protected Areas? Various stakeholders are involved in this effort of protection and conservation of our underwater heritage sites. Through Eco-Tourism, several stakeholders are economically benefited here. The scuba dive shops and beach resort operators are our partners in the protection and conservation of underwater heritage sites. They worked hard to construct beautiful resorts, put up facilities, conduct scuba diving activities and other related water sports and they deserve our attention as equal partners in ecological and sustainable development of the area. They can be our partners in achieving the Sustainable Environment and Development of Southern Negros and the rest of the Visayas. If you are a development planner, a member of the Local Development Council, a city or municipal official in the area, an officer of the environment and planning offices, or a concerned citizen as they say, these suggestions are for you. Please feel free to add, revise or improve the suggested activities to suit your local needs. If you wish to comment on this post, please feel free to write it at the bottom of this page. Finally, Earthniversity is re-posting the video uploaded by UNESCO on youtube. The title is: UNESCO Convention on the Protection of Underwater Cultural Heritage. Earthniversity expresses its thanks and appreciation to our sources of information and youtube.
In this bustling Nigerian metropolis of an estimated 23 million people, around 10 million are under the age of 25 and their numbers are rising rapidly. According to global research firm We are social , more than 15 million Nigerians use Over 80% of that number are young people between the ages of 13 and 39. With mass unemployment in Nigeria reaching a peak of 18.8% in the third quarter of 2017, tech savvy and increasingly well connected young people have embraced social media and, in the process, a new generation of high profile and highly paid personalities have emerged. Below are some of the women who have struck social media gold. Linda Ikeji: From gossip blogger to media mogul Smart, focused and passionate about her work, Ikeji says she wants to be the Oprah Winfrey of Africa. Ikeji, who started her social media career with gossip blogging, is now building one of Nigeria's biggest private TV stations with Linda Ikeji TV. "One of the things that drives a business to succeed is passion and I am so passionate about what I do," she says. "People like gossip because it is extremely personal," she says. "They like the honesty, how real it is, how human..." But Ikeji wants to do much more than gossip blogging or owning a media empire. She wants to inspire other young girls to believe in themselves. "There's still so much I want to do that I haven't done but I'm hoping my story, my life can inspire other young girls to go out there and fight for their dreams." Sisi Yemmie: The vlogger inviting her viewers into her home She offers her audience a glimpse into her home life, sharing her favorite recipes and her families likes and dislikes. She has cultivated a large following that has brands reaching out for collaboration. It's a delicate business, making her personal life so public. But it's one that Sisi Yemmie understands very well. "I'm a lifestyle blogger," she says. "What I show is what it is. I don't have time for fakeness. I don't have time to create what is not there." But with this vulnerability comes a sense of responsibility. Sisi Yemmie knows she has to be strategic about what she shares; she has to think about her audience all the time. "I realize there's a responsibility that comes with this platform I have, and now I am always very careful what I say. "I have to think about not just my audience; I have to think about brands and collaborations." Chiamaka Obuekwe: The travel blogger who goes off the beaten track When it comes to visiting Nigeria's most interesting and exciting places, Chiamaka Obuekwe, founder of travel company 'The Social Prefect,' knows exactly where to go. She says her presence on social media has made it a lot easier to connect with people who are looking for exciting places to go in Nigeria. "Ten years ago, we had to go door-to-door sharing our fliers...Now all we have to do is to put a post out on Instagram and in ten minutes people are dm'ing us." She's one of the many Nigerians who, inspired by Linda Ikeji, seek to cash in on the abundant opportunities on social media. Media mogul Linda Ikeji thinks the secret of their success can be found in one thing: their gender. "Women are better storytellers," Ikeji says. "We are very real with our stories."
Pyeongchang (CNN)Diplomacy and sporting endeavor mixed awkwardly at the spectacular opening of the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea, as sworn adversaries sat feet apart while North Korea received a welcome that would have been unthinkable just months ago. Winter Olympics opening ceremony sees historic handshake In a ceremony infused with themes of peace and harmony, South Korean President Moon Jae-in twice shook hands with Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. US Vice President Mike Pence, sitting a few seats away in the same VIP booth, looked stony faced as the extraordinary scenes unfolded. The unprecedented encounter between the two senior Koreans fueled hopes that the Olympics could succeed where a generation of world leaders has failed -- to lay the groundwork, however tentatively, to a process of reconciliation on a peninsula that often appears one wrong move away from nuclear conflict. Minutes into the ceremony, as children skipped through a mythical landscape, Moon greeted Kim Yo Jong and North Korea's 90-year-old ceremonial head of state Kim Yong Nam, the head of the North's Olympic delegation. Kim Yo Jong, the first member of the North's ruling dynasty to visit the south since the end of the Korean War in 1953, smiled broadly as they shook hands. Then, the two figures from opposite sides of a divided Korea watched as athletes from their respective nations marched together under a unified flag. A giant dove lit up the sky, famous South Korean singers sang John Lennon's Imagine and, most significantly of all, athletes from North and South Korea walked in together for the first time in 11 years. The message was not subtle. Drawing on themes of harmony and unity, the ceremony gave Koreans hope -- whether or not it lasts -- that their nations, still technically at war, may one day find peace. The ceremony involved a starring role for the Games' mascot Soohorang, the white tiger, long been considered a protective guardian in Korean history and culture. In an elaborate finale, pre-taped for the TV broadcast to ensure nothing went wrong, more than 1,200 choreographed drones formed the Olympic rings in the sky. Pence, who has been vocal in his criticism of North Korea in the runup to the Games, sat impassive in the frigid February night, rising only when the US team entered the stadium. The US and North Korean representatives did not speak during the ceremony, and Pence did not attend an earlier dinner where he was due to share a table with North Korea's ceremonial head of state. Moon, however, welcomed Kim enthusiastically, greeting her warmly when she entered the VIP box and then shaking her hand again when North and South Korean athletes entered the stadium together. The presence of Kim, who was promoted to the country's Politburo, the senior body of North Korea's communist party, as an alternate member last year, represents a hugely significant move in the thawing of relations between the neighbors. According to diplomatic sources, there is a "good chance" Kim will invite Moon to visit Pyongyang "sometime this year." While the sources say "nothing is final," a visit by Moon to North Korea would be the first time a South Korean President has stepped foot in the country since 2007. That invitation could come when Moon and Kim will meet for lunch at the Blue House on Saturday, after the meeting was confirmed by a South Korean presidential spokesperson. Teams from North and South Korea team entered the arena under the unification flag, a blue silhouette of the peninsula and outlying islands. Athletes from both nations took selfies with each other as they waited to walk into the heart of the stadium. As the Koreans emerged, they were greeted to an ovation from 35,000 cheering spectators. The show of unity and harmony was not lost on Thomas Bach, the President of the International Olympic Committee, who said North and South Korea had set a "great example" for sending "a powerful message of peace." "All the athletes around me, all the spectators here in the stadium, and all Olympic fans watching around the world... we are all touched by this wonderful gesture," Bach said. "We all join and support you in your message of peace". Pita Taufatofua has never been one to shy away from the big occasion. The Tongan athlete who raised eyebrows for going shirtless while carrying his country's flag during the Olympic Opening Ceremony in Rio two years ago, has done it again. Taufatofua braved the 32˚F cold and again appeared bare-chested, wearing only a traditional Tongan mat. The guy knows he has a brand, and he is sticking to it. The 34-year-old, who competed in taekwondo in Rio, will be going for gold in cross-country skiing in Korea. It was left to 2010 Olympic figure skating champion Yuna Kim to light the Olympic flame. Two members of the joint Korean hockey team carried the Olympic Torch up a steep flight of stairs, after it had passed through the hands of short-track medalist Chun Lee-kyung, golfer Inbee Park and soccer player Ahn Jung-hwan. The torch was then given to Kim, who performed a short skating routine before lighting up Pyeongchang.
During the NRA BP Instructor course this past weekend there were discussions on breaks and over lunch about guns, holster, story examples, the 21ft / 2 second “rule”, gun fights and any number of other topics. Gun fights have been the focus of a couple FB groups and blog posts that I’ve read over the past few days as well. I want to put my own slant on this particular topic. As I teach the Personal Protection courses that the NRA offers – or my own flavor of Defensive pistol courses – I will virtually always roll through a couple of topics. They are part lore, and part fact – yet they still offer a sense of urgency to the topic - losing a gunfight may well mean a meeting with St. Peter well before what you consider “your time”. There is the “Rule of 3” . . . most gunfights are finished in 3 rounds or less, in 3 seconds or less and at a distance of 3 meters or less. Numerous stats are sited and quoted regarding this rule but I am comfortable enough with current stats to agree that most gun fights using handguns are going to be at very personal distances. The next thing everyone “knows” is that you need to be able to draw and get rounds on your threat in 2 seconds . . . i.e. the Tueller Drill. I usually encourage folks to dig up the original article and read it for context. Then read Dennis Tueller’s updated thoughts. Whether you have 2 seconds or less, the bottom line for a defensive shooter to keep in mind is that you have next to no time to defend your life – your ability to react quickly and properly is the difference between life and death. Of course there are always discussions on course breaks about the best carry weapon . . . revolver, Glock, 1911 in“God’s own caliber” . . . each shared with passion and each ably defended. (Glock 17 BTW, with a spare magazine! ) This is an interesting discussion for the person new to the carry world; especially if there are some students who consistently carry on a daily basis. The whole concept of “shooting until the threat stops” is always kicked around. It runs the full gamut of thought on what “the threat stops” means. We usually touch on what your chances actually are for being involved in a gun fight. The reality is that it’s ridiculously small . . . and yet, as has been said recently . . . “The only thing that stops a bad man with a gun, is a good guy with a gun!” So how do all these little “rules” and sayings and words of wisdom affect you, YOUR gun fight . . . .? It’s your gun fight. Period. The outcome will depend on your skills, your willingness to engage someone trying to put you in a ZipLoc, your mindset, your will to survive. You can give yourself an edge in a number of ways . . . - CARRY YOUR DAMN GUN EVERY DAY!!! - Train daily, even if it’s only dry fire. - Integrate “Levels of Awareness” or Cooper’s “Color Code” into your life. - Become as physically fit as you can. - Run scenarios in your head . . . as well as a host of other things that we can all bring to mind. But, at the end of the day . . . regardless of the situation, its location, the number of attackers . . . it’s YOUR gunfight. And, it’s YOUR responsibility to train for it every chance you get!
Why do some marriages work and others don’t? Why do some people stay in a bad marriage, while others will leave a relatively good marriage? Some will say love. Romance. Soul mates. On the more mundane and practical side, people will say shared interests, beliefs and goals. As a romance writer and reader, you often see the story end at the point where the characters are married and are now expected to live happily-ever-after. Or, maybe this particular trope is one where they’re forced to marry because of plot reasons, but by the end of the story, they confess their love for each other and then live happily-ever-after. Either way, we end with the characters in love and ready for their happily-ever-after ending. In the real world, more marriage will end in divorce than be successful. At least in America they will. Yeah, not very romance-writer of me to mention that, I know. But, if I want to give my characters a believable happily-ever-after, I need to understand what leads to that happily-ever-after. What makes some marriages work? Well, science has an explanation on why some marriages work and some don’t. It’s called Interdependence Theory. Interdependence Theory states the following. Rewards – there are rewards from marriage (or any social interaction). These can range from companionship to physical intimacy. Interdependence theory has defined them as the following: - Emotional – Positive and negative feelings in a relationship. These are especially important in a close relationship. Ah, here we’re getting to where love comes into play. See, you knew I was a romance writer! - Social – Or how you appear to others. Does being seen with a super model make you feel better about yourself? What about with a stripper? What other social repercussions are there from the relationship? Perhaps you have to attend a lot of operas, and you love opera. But what if you hate opera? - Instrumental – These rewards are achieved when a partner is proficient at handling tasks. Like mowing the lawn, building the kids a tree fort, or doing the laundry without anyone getting stuck with pink socks (true story). Costs – there are costs to a relationship as well. Basically, for all of the different types of rewards (emotional, social or instrumental), there is a corresponding cost. So, just like there are emotional, social and instrumental rewards, there are emotional, social, and instrumental costs. Makes sense. So, DH putting up with my annoying habit of leaving my shoes by the sofa where I kick them off every night would be an example of an instrumental cost my husband has to pay regardless of how many times I’ve promised I’d be better about it. Or going to the annual corporate party for my employer would be a social cost. Sorry honey! Rewards Minus Costs Should Be Positive – Yeah, not very romantic, is it? Sounds more like I’m building a profit and loss statement than writing a romance novel. Yes, I’m sure I’m a romance writer. But science is seldom romantic. However unpleasant it may sound, research has shown that humans keep a record, whether consciously or not, of the net value of a relationship to us. So, you’re in a “profitable” relationship if the rewards outweigh the costs. But, this still isn’t enough to keep people in a relationship. They have to be making “enough” profit. Kind of like when you invest in your 401(k) account. You only have so much money, so you want to select the investments that will net you the most profit for the time you have them invested. Comparison / Opportunity Cost – Once someone has tallied up their total relationship rewards and costs, they will either consciously or subconsciously review their other options. Even if they are net positive, in their account isn’t earning as much as they think it should, they are more likely to end the relationship and look for another. This may explain all of the Hollywood break-ups. Okay, so now that we know this, how can we apply the science to making a romance novel earn its happily-ever-after? I want my happily-ever-afters to be believable. So, here are a couple of ways I can use the Interdependence Theory to make it believable: 1.No Alpha-Holes – A strong male lead could provide a lot of rewards on the instrumental level. He gets stuff done. But even if a heroine loves him, the emotional and social costs of dealing with him are going to be extremely high. Toning him back so he’s still an alpha without being a jerk would help a lot. 2. No Porcelain Dolls – Both characters in the romance have to be active. If either can basically be put on the shelf while the other does all the heavy lifting, you’re going to have a relationship with very high instrumental costs. No matter how much you love someone, if they can’t figure out how to open the refrigerator and get themselves a soda, you’re going to get pretty ticked at them after a while. 3. Opposites Might Not Attract – The whole wallflower with a super outgoing character trope might not end well. If the wallflower really doesn’t like much social interaction, but the extrovert loves it, there is going to be a high social cost to the relationship. Unless, of course, one or the other is the way they are to mask their true personality. The extrovert who actually hates all the parties etc. What do you think? Does interdependence theory hold water in your book? Think it’s bunk? If so why or why not? Any other way that it could be used in writing to give believable happily-ever-afters?
My latest post at Amazing Catechists discusses the spiritual consequences of vasectomy and tubal ligation: Last year, on one of the morning shows, a couple was asked to carry a camcorder around while they debated and discussed their decision to have a vasectomy. After the births of three boys — the youngest only a few months old — they made the decision to go ahead and have a permanent solution carried out because their plate was “full with three small boys.” The segment showed the husband at the doctor’s office having the procedure done. They were interviewed two months later and the wife said, they were “relieved,” “felt the freedom of not having to worry about more children.” The man said the operation was “quick and painless,” “very easy,” “great experience.” And, just to convince all the viewers that vasectomy is the best decision a couple can ever make, the doctor stated that there were “no long-term side effects from vasectomy.” While I find that particular research suspect (i.e. there have been noted long-term side effects), these are not the worst side effects from vasectomy and tubal ligation. The most destructive are the spiritual repercussions. While contraception in itself separates a couple during marital relations, sterilization seeks to separate a couple permanently in their most intimate embrace and the spiritual consequences are far greater and more destructive than any of the physical side effects. Case in point: we know of a couple who became sterilized after having a large number of children. They knew NFP, but they gave in to the pressure to become sterilized. A few years after the sterilization, however, one of their teenaged sons committed suicide. The year after their son died, they sent out letters to many in the Catholic community informing them that they had been involved in intensive spiritual counseling. Here’s what they wrote: “During the night before his death, while our son was downstairs writing his notes to us and spending his last hours in utter hopelessness, there were at least three times when we were awake. It seems that it would have been a simple matter for God to prompt one of us to go downstairs and discover the horrible tragedy that was threatening our son. In fact, He probably was prompting us, but we were not living in God’s order, so we could not hear His prompts.” About their sterilization, they said this: “We knew this was contrary to church teaching so we both went to confession almost immediately afterwards, but we really didn’t have true contrition because of our blindness. Little did we realize the tremendous suffering we would bring to our family, parish and community.” At the time the letter was written, they were in the process of arranging for a reversal. Now, I don’t necessarily agree with the cause and effect situation they present. However, I include it here because they believe that their decision to become sterilized was a contributing factor to their son’s suicide. Other cases in point: three couples we taught NFP to many years ago decided to throw away the NFP charts and become sterilized. Two of the couples are now divorced, one couple is separated. Another couple we know decided to become sterilized. The wife confided in me that she now felt used. Children who know that their parents have been sterilized (despite the teaching of the Church that it is a mortal sin) grow up thinking that they don’t have to be obedient to the teachings of the Church. Sterilization may seem like the easy way out, but in actuality, it permanently and physically separates a couple not only during their most intimate physical embrace, but in their spiritual embrace and separates them from God. It also serves as a poor example to the children. While there are many physical side effects, the spiritual repercussions are far more dangerous to a marriage. For couples who need to avoid pregnancy, Natural Family Planning is a safe, effective and moral alternative to sexual sterilization and allows the married couple to remain as one. For more information on NFP: www.ccli.org or email me at [email protected] Text copyright 2012 Ellen Gable Hrkach Image purchased from iStock
Welcome to the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the Whiting School of Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University. The Department’s research and teaching are deeply interdisciplinary and targeted at solving some of the world’s most challenging problems, ranging from the development of new therapies to conquer cancer to the creation of earth-friendly biofuels and other sources of energy to the design of molecular electronics and more. Here, you will have the opportunity, not only to learn from faculty who are world-renowned leaders and innovators in their fields but also to work side by side with them, creating knowledge and developing your leadership skills through collaborative research. Moreover, the content of our curriculum is on par with the state-of-the-art developments in our field and related disciplines. The Department currently has 18 full-time faculty members and 13 affiliated faculty and research scientists. We are home to 24 postdoctoral fellows, 108 Ph.D. students, 105 MSE students and 343 BS students. Our graduates are in high demand by academia, industry and government, and many find their places in the chemical, pharmaceutical, medical, law and even financial sectors. If you would like more information about the Department and its programs, please contact our Academic Coordinator, Kailey Dille.
THE BIOGRAPHY OF EPICURUS By Haris Dimitriadis “Epicurus, son of Neocles and Chaerestrate, was an Athenian of the Gargettus ward and the Philaidae clan, as Metrodorus says in his book On Noble Birth. He is said by Heraclides (in his Epitome of Sotion) as well as by others, to have been brought up at Samos after the Athenians had sent colonists there, and to have come to Athens at the age of eighteen, at the time when Xenocrates was head of the Academy and Aristotle was in Chalcis. After the death of Alexander of Macedon and the expulsion of the Athenian colonists from Samos by Perdiccas, Epicurus left Athens to join his father in Colophon; for some time he stayed there and gathered students around him, then returned to Athens again during the archonship of Anaxicrates.” (Diogenes Laertius). Epicurus’ parents transmitted to him the democratic spirit, while his experience of the disasters that Athens suffered from the aristocracy and the militaristic regimes influenced him to see life from the point of view of the common man, in contrast with the famous aristocrat sages, Plato and Aristotle. In Samos he was taught by Nausiphanes, and the Platonic Pamphilus. As the island was under the influence of the Ionian naturalistic culture, Epicurus soon moved away from the Platonic beliefs and turned to the materialistic theories of Democritus. At the age of eighteen he was drafted into the Athenian army, where he met his intimate friend, the dramatic poet Menander. Little is known of his life during the following fifteen years. What is known, though, is that he created his own philosophical circle in Mytilene and then in Lampsacus. He returned to Athens in around 307 BC at the age of thirty four to buy a piece of land between Athens and Piraeus, close to the present Agronomic School. There he housed his philosophical school, which he named “The Garden.” Epicurus taught there for thirty-five years, following a simple life, surrounded by men, women, courtesans and slaves, who participated equally in the Epicurean Garden. He died when he was seventy-one years old, in 270 BC. During the Hellenistic period the dominant philosophical schools were the Epicurean and the Stoic, followed by the Platonic, the Aristotelian, the Skeptics and the Cynics. The principles of the Epicurean Philosophy spread throughout the Greek and the Roman world from the Epicurean school of philosophy in Athens. Epicurus was among the most prolific philosophers in history. He authored works, developed in 300 rolls, the fate of which has been ignored ever since the proclamation of Christianity as the official religion of the Byzantine Empire. Through Diogenes Laertius, a biographer of philosophers of the 3rd century AD, three of his letters survived (to Herodotus, On Nature, to Pythocles, On Celestial Bodies and to Menoeceus, On Ethics), as well as his Will and the Principal Doctrines, which is a summary of his philosophy. Ponzio Bratziolini also discovered the poem De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) of the Roman Epicurean poet Lucretius (94-55 BC), in a German monastery, in 1414 AD. The poem is developed over six books and contains the Epicurean views on Nature. In 1884, two French archaeologists discovered the great inscription of the Epicurean Diogenes Oenoanda in Ionia, Asia Minor, which is considered a grand philosophical monument of humanity. A collection of Epicurean doctrines named Vatican Sayings was found at the Vatican in 1888. Opinions on the Epicurean Philosophy were identified in the works of many writers, Athenaeus, Cicero, Seneca, Sextus Empiricus, Plutarch, and so on. Also, new texts are still coming to light from the charred papyri of an ancient villa that was destroyed by the eruption of Vesuvius, close to the city of Herculaneum in Italy. Intellectuals in the period of the Enlightenment embraced the Epicurean principles and spread them around the world. An eminent figure of world history, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), the third President of the USA (1801-1809) and leading author of the Declaration of Independence, wrote in his letter to William Short: “As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurean... Their [the Stoics] great crime was in their calumnies of Epicurus and misrepresentations of his doctrines...” Today, both in Greece and globally, the Epicurean Philosophy is followed and spread by the modern Epicureans according to Epicurus’ will: “Farewell my friends, the truths I taught hold fast.” The Epicurean Philosophy laid the foundations for individual and materialist metaphysical views of the universe. It was a source of inspiration for Marx, as we can conclude from the topic of his doctoral thesis, Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature. Although initially Marx applauded the Epicurean views, he later embraced the Stoic ideas of Hegel, and suggested the pursuance of duty in the context of destiny as the end of life, according to the stoic philosophy, instead of the pursuit of pleasure. The spread of the Epicurean teaching in antiquity owes to its practical spirit, according to which philosophy is not an end in itself, but a means and an aid in achieving the objective of human life, which is happiness. Therefore Epicurus did not give any importance to extensive theoretical, grammatical, historical and mathematical research if it did not contribute to living happily. On the other hand, he attributed the malaise of the people to ignorance and superstition, and proposed the knowledge and application of the laws that govern the nature of the cosmos and human beings as a cure.
ERIC Number: EJ1014578 Record Type: Journal Publication Date: 2013-May Abstractor: As Provided Reference Count: N/A Quiz Today: Should I Skip Class? College Mathematics Journal, v44 n3 p166-170 May 2013 How does selective assessment, wherein one counts only the best "k" out of "n" quizzes set, impact grade inflation? Based on our analysis, a specific quantitative answer can be given to a student who plans to skip a quiz, depending, of course, on the student's quiz writing consistency or inconsistency. Descriptors: Mathematics Instruction, College Mathematics, Grade Inflation, Grading, Mathematics Tests, Evaluation Methods, Student Evaluation Mathematical Association of America. 1529 Eighteenth Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Tel: 800-741-9415; Tel: 202-387-5200; Fax: 202-387-1208; e-mail: [email protected]; Web site: http://www.maa.org/pubs/cmj.html Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education Authoring Institution: N/A
This week in psychology, I chose to answer option #1 for the first impression blog prompt regarding social psychology. This prompt essentially asked me to take two Implicit Association Tests and react to my results. Implicit Association Tests can identify unconscious biases that you aren’t aware that you have. I chose to take the ‘Arab Muslim-Other People’ IAT and the ‘Gay-Straight’ IAT because I felt that they were very relevant in the current sociopolitical context and I was curious as to whether I would demonstrate any strong bias. I felt fairly confident going into the tests that I would do fairly well at answering correctly but when the labels were switched in the tests I found myself reacting quickly and incorrectly. I was pleased to see that I don’t have any particular preference between Arab Muslims and other people according to the test but I was surprised to see that the test said I had a slight preference for straight people over gay people. At first, I was pretty confused by this result because I have a lot of friends who are gay and I don’t feel any kind of aversion towards them or preference for my straight friends. As I began to think things through, however, I realized that when I was growing up all I heard about gay people was negative and even though I don’t have any conscious bias against gay people, it’s very possible that I formed some unconscious connections between homosexuality and negative feelings such as shame and humiliation. I think this test can be very useful for college students and professionals because in both settings, you are required to work with people who are different from you in a variety of ways. These tests can allow you to identify some of the possible biases that you may or may not be aware of so that you can make a conscious effort to overcome those biases when you interact with your classmates and colleagues.
Battery calibration can be performed by software, network management card, or manually. On the newer units (SUA, SMT) software calibration has become more accurate so you can give it a try. On older SU models, it’s best to do the manual hardware calibration. If you’re not getting the run time you thought you should have with the software method, perform a manual calibration to get a more accurate run time calculation. Some people only do software calibration and consider that good enough, others prefer to do a manual calibration as a tried and true way of getting exact run time numbers. Neither is really wrong, it’s a matter of preference. Follow these steps to do a proper manual calibration on your APC UPS: 1. Battery must be at 100% capacity when the Runtime Calibration is initiated/started. (charge the UPS for 24hours prior) 2. The UPS must have 30-34% load on it during the calibration (Constant load, try: lamps, computers, monitors. Measure load % by PowerChute) 3. Disconnect the serial/USB comm cable from the UPS (you don’t want PowerChute to shut down equipment) 4. The battery must be discharged completely (unplug UPS from wall outlet, let the UPS to shut off completely due to a discharged battery). 5. Remove the attached load (ie – lights, computers) 6. Let the UPS charge for 8 hours while OFF (plug back into utility power, press OFF button when UPS turns ON) 7. Turn on UPS (run time should now be accurate) If you’re confused about this process or stuck on one of the steps, email us at [email protected] or give us a call toll free at 866-311-1945.
Water is a crucial element for wildlife. With the right management wet habitats can provide some of the most wildlife-rich areas on farmland. Valuable pollinators like hoverflies need aquatic habitats to complete their lifecycle, as do beneficial insect predators. The vast numbers of insects produced by wet habitats are also a crucial food source for bats and birds on farmland. For wet habitats to achieve the highest possible value for wildlife they need to be considered throughout all farm activities. It is vital to minimise the amount of soil matter, fertilisers and pesticides reaching water bodies as they have a severe impact on water quality. The best wet habitats have clear water that is low in nutrients and free of pollution, allowing typical wetland aquatic plants to thrive. Choose a habitat type for expert advice on how to achieve the most from it.
I’ve still been in the mood to explore the Edo Period. I remembered when my oldest son was in high school and brought home a Japanese exchange student who gave us a little kitty statute to bring prosperity to our home. Of course, when I looked for it I couldn’t find it, but found plenty of pictures on the Internet. It is technically called Maneki-neko which means “beckoning cat.” Of course, there are many stories behind the cat. You can read a few of them here: There are also different meanings and results for different colored cats. I chose black since it helps with good health (or getting rid of evil spirits). Different writings have different meanings. I did see one for green for good health, but I just wasn’t ready for a green cat. Normally the traditional white cat brings wealth and prosperity and is seen in Asian restaurants and shops. There is also confusion as to whether it is Japanese or Chinese. It was the Japanese in the Edo period who developed this character. I knew it was going to be a bit more complex than just making a resist for a pod. Since I didn’t have a particular size in mind, I just made a resist I felt I could get enough detail on and manage. I used prefelts for the first layer and merino wisps for the sides. I also added needle felted noses, cheeks and prefelt and cotton batting for the one arm. Then added three layers of corriedale putting the eyes under the last two and prefelt for the ears. On the back I also made a small tail using needle felted Jacob wool. Not much of it is visible on the wet cat. Then I added some silk with throwsters waste to add a little bling. Then I fulled it and stuffed it with bubblewrap to give it some shape. I did forget to open the eyes. I rewet it and opened the eyes. So, next I will have to add all the details needed to finish.
The tolerance for inconvertible currency released free banks from a heavy burden: paying on demand. In Buenos Aires, the government printed large amounts of inconvertible paper money to finance increasing fiscal deficits. Since the ringgit is now inconvertible overseas, all trade settlements will have to be made in foreign currencies. The currency (Yuan) was made inconvertible and external trade was There are other scientists like Shaubach, former skeptics who converted to the cold fusion cause after having been persuaded by what they claim is growing, inconvertible Even if a currency is convertible in theory, the shortage of hard currency and the lack of effective markets may make it inconvertible Only after the dollar had been declared inconvertible into gold, had been devalued in the Smithsonian Agreement, and still was under downward pressure in exchange markets, did U. Its first commercial step will be to issue dollars 100 million inconvertible bonds (it has yet to appoint an underwriter), and later it will issue shares on the KSE, to attract Pakistani investment, although initially the consortium members themselves will be the largest shareholders. Serious barriers remain on both sides-including an inconvertible ruble and United States restrictions on credit and technology transfer. All but a few developed countries in the first sample had either imposed severe restrictions on international transactions or had inconvertible currencies during the early period. The Chinese yuan is getting more attention today as an international currency but is still inconvertible on the capital account and, like many emerging market currencies, subsidiary to the dollar. In the case of inconvertible currencies contracting the value "0PLN" (in words zero) per unit of currency nonremovable.
If you have an opinion about a proposal to halt the addition of fluoride to Pottstown’s public water supply, then make some time on your schedule on Wednesday. In order to gather public opinion on the proposal — and to comply with Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection rules — the Pottstown Borough Authority will hold public hearings at three different times. They will be held from 9 to 11 a.m., from 2 to 4 p.m., and from 6 to 8 p.m. on Wednesday. All the hearings will take place in the Council Chambers room on the third floor of Borough Hall, 100 E. High St. And even more hearings may take place. Brent Wagner, superintendent of the Pottstown Wastewater Treatment Plant, who is in charge of organizing the hearing, said with snow expected Wednesday, bad weather may actually result in another day of hearings being scheduled. “If it snows, we’ll still hold the hearings, but I’ll set up another one in the future,” Wagner said. “It wouldn’t be appropriate not to have another hearing if people can’t get there because of the weather,” he said. The proposal was first raised during the budget deliberations of the borough authority, during which a spike in the cost of chemicals was noted. Noting that eliminating fluoride from the water treatment process would save $32,000 a year, the borough authority voted 3-2 on Dec. 16 to push ahead with the process by which Pottstown would halt the addition of fluoride to the water. In addition to the cost savings, authority member Don Read said the presence of fluoride in Pottstown’s water could make it harder to market to other water companies. Currently, Pottstown’s is the only public water system in Montgomery County that adds the chemical, which dentists insist is a great public health asset in the prevention of cavities. In fact, Pottstown is one of only nine public water systems in all of southeast Pennsylvania that adds fluoride to its water. Last month, the authority heard from two local dentists, both of whom pleaded with the members to continue adding fluoride to the water, a plea which won the votes of authority members Aram Ecker and Tom Carroll. Bruce Terry, a Phoenixville endodontist, and Elkins Park dentist Bernard Dishler and a representative of the Pennsylvania Dental Association, told the authority that adding fluoride helps prevents dental decay by “40 to 60 percent,” particularly among low-income populations who might not otherwise be able to afford dental care. “Every $1 invested in fluoride in the water saves $38 in dental treatments later on,” Dishler told the authority last month. Since the vote was taken, Wagner said while neither he nor borough hall has been flooded with calls, officials have taken note of the positions being taken in The Mercury by advocates of both positions. “Some of the ‘Sound Offs’ have had very good information,” Wagner said in reference to the paper’s call-in feature. “All the dentists seem to be in favor of it, but everyone else has been saying to remove it,” he said. He added that, personally, “I have no opinion on it.” On Jan. 6, Pottstown dentist Mark J. Piacine wrote a letter to the editor saying he was “shocked” that the authority was considering doing away with adding fluoride. “Our town was among the first communities of its size, a leader in the nation, when it established this dental benefit more than 40 years ago,” he wrote. “Not adding fluoride to our Pottstown water supply would be a definite step backward.” On the other side of the argument, Lorraine Ruppe of Pottstown, in a Jan. 11 letter to the editor, chided “Aram Ecker and Tom Carroll for blindly supporting deceptive dental association spin related to adding fluoride to Pottstown’s water.” She wrote that fluoride’s dental benefits are “topical” and that “swallowing fluoride to prevent tooth decay makes as much sense as swallowing suntan lotion to prevent sunburns.” Ruppe wrote that “peer reviewed science has raised concerns that fluoride may present unreasonable health risks, particularly among children.” She added that it is suspected in contributing to everything from bone cancer to learning disabilities. One day earlier, the Alliance for a Clean Environment published a letter citing a review by the National Academy of Sciences which argued that fluoride may contribute to brittle bones, diabetes, reduced IQ and early onset of puberty.
Get your essay writtenstarting at just $18.00 a page “You speak an infinite deal of nothing.” ― William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice “These violent delights have violent ends And in their triump die, like fire and powder Which, as they...Read more Merchant of Venice The Merchant of Venice was first printed in 1600 in quarto, of which nineteen copies survive. This was followed by a 1619 printing, and later an inclusion in the First Folio in 1623. The play was written shortly after Christopher Marlowe’s immensely popular Jew of Malta (1589), a play wherein a Jew named Barabas plays a greatly exaggerated villain. The portrayal of Shakespeare’s Jew was and remained comic until the late 1700s at which time he was first played as a true villain. In 1814 Shylock’s role was depicted as a character to be pitied, and in 1879 he was first portrayed as a tragic character. Subsequent interpretations have varied greatly over the years, but since World War II he has most often been conceived of as tragic. The Merchant of Venice has been described as a great commentary on the nature of racial and religious interactions. The title itself is misleading, and is often misconstrued as a reference to Shylock, the Jew. However, in reality it describes the merchant Antonio. This ambiguity and misinterpretation has not surprisingly led scholars to continue hotly debating whether Shakespeare meant to be anti-Semitic or critical of anti-Semitism. His depiction of Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, causes the audience to both hate and pity the man, and has left critics wondering what Shakespeare was really trying to achieve. The Merchant of Venice is a very famous comedy by that most talented of playwright William Shakespeare. It was written in 1596 or 1597 after the great playwright had penned down his famous plays like Romeo and Juliet and Richard III. The story or...Read more The Merchant of Venice “Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is still relevant today because it deals with issues which still affect us. Show how two of those issues are discussed in the play. ” Throughout the play a distinction...Read more The Merchant of Venice: A Tragic Play In my opinion the play The Merchant of Venice is a tragic one which is discised as being comic. Many factors of this play are derived from the current voice of situation. The Merchant of Venice could be...Read more Anti-Semitism in The Merchant of Venice It is my strong belief that the play, “The Merchant of Venice”, should be taught in classes. If this play was banned from schools it would most certainly be a form of censorship. While minors...Read more William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice contains many examples that insult Jews because they were the minority in London in Shakespeare’s time. Although many parts of the play could be interpreted as offensive in modern times...Read more <center><b>Show how the plot of ? The Merchant of Venice’ is apparently fanciful but in reality exactingly structured. ;/b;;/center; ;br; ;br;”The Merchant of Venice is a fairy tale. There is no more reality in...Read more Compare and contrast Portia’s three suitors, examining their characters; Shakespeare highlights three of Portia’s suitors, the Prince of Morocco, the Prince of Arragon and Bassanio. He does this to heighten dramatic tension, as these...Read more Many people are villainous in the way they behave. Their villainous acts may be attributed to their desire to destroy others and in turn elevate themselves to a higher financial or social level. However, the root cause of their villainy may be a...Read more We can trace the origin of Comedy to Dionysis- the Greek God of Wine who was hilarious, satirical and irreverent in spirit. Ben Jonson in ? Volpone’ (1605) that is considered to be the greatest comedy in English epitomized the classical...Read more “The Merchant of Venice” is a play that relies on soliloquies to advance the plot, create mood and atmosphere, and to develop character among all the actors. I am here to prove how this happens in two different soliloquies and show...Read more When William Shakespear wrote, The merchant Of Venice, he made a female character that has a huge influence on the play. In most of his work, the women don’t have much power and are not very smart. In the Merchant Of Venice, Portia is a...Read more
- Hyundai was the first to deliver its Tucson Fuel Cell to customers in Canada with a focus on BC in 2015 - First customer in Ontario extends Hyundai's leadership in the fuel cell vehicle segment - Tucson Fuel Cell is a zero-emissions vehicle that uses hydrogen gas stored in tanks with oxygen from the atmosphere to generate electricity for mobility TORONTO--After becoming the first automotive brand in Canada to deliver zero-emissions, hydrogen-powered Tucson Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV) to B.C. families in 2015, Hyundai Auto Canada Corp. extended its leadership with this advanced technology by handing-over the keys to a customer in Ontario. On March 10, Joseph Cargnelli, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder at Mississauga-based Hydrogenics Corporation, took delivery of his 2015 Tucson Fuel Cell vehicle. The transaction was managed by two Hyundai dealership representatives from Don Valley North Hyundai: Arthur Leung, General Manager, and Ashkan Mavandadi, Sales Consultant. "I am extremely proud to be Hyundai's first customer in Ontario to take delivery of a fuel cell vehicle," said Cargnelli. "Hydrogen-powered fuel cell technology has the incredible potential to revolutionize our world by delivering clean energy to meet our every need; this is especially true when it comes to transportation. By offering the Tucson Fuel Cell to customers, Hyundai is taking a significant step toward a brighter and cleaner automotive future; I have been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to drive my new fuel cell vehicle and showcase this technology every day." "Everyone at Don Valley North Hyundai was honoured to have the responsibility of delivering the first Tucson Fuel Cell to a customer in Ontario," said Leung. "The Tucson Fuel Cell is the ultimate expression of Hyundai's deep expertise in developing advanced technology through its substantial investment in research and development. By making this next-generation powertrain available to customers, Hyundai is furthering its role as a leader in the eco vehicle space." In November, 2014, Hyundai Auto Canada announced it would become the first Canadian automotive company to offer its Tucson FCEV to actual, real-world customers. Since the first vehicle delivery took place in February, 2015, six Tucson FCEVs have been delivering thousands of zero-emissions kilometres on the roads of British Columbia. With the expansion to Ontario, the company is further demonstrating the capabilities of FCEV technology and calling for investment in infrastructure development. "There is no doubt in my mind that fuel cell powertrains are ready for prime-time. We have proven that time and again," said Don Romano, President and CEO of Hyundai Auto Canada. "The Tucson Fuel Cell is exceeding expectations with its versatility, range, ease-of-use, and features. We believe that fuel cells are the future for the automotive industry and Hyundai has shown the technology has matured. The next step facing governments at all levels is investing in a network of hydrogen fueling stations so more customers can enjoy zero-emissions driving." Hyundai's advanced fuel cell technology effectively replaces the battery pack used in an electric vehicle by generating electricity from an electrochemical process that involves stored hydrogen and oxygen from the atmosphere. The process does not involve hydrogen combustion, and there are no moving parts within the fuel cell stack. The only by-product is pure water vapour, making the Tucson FCEV a zero-emissions electric vehicle. Further, unlike battery electric vehicles, the Tucson FCEV takes less than five minutes to refuel with hydrogen gas and can deliver an estimated 426 km of emissions-free driving.
Glencairn will welcome approximately 300 JK-6 students during the 2017-2018 school year. After finishing Gr. 6, students attend Laurentian PS for Gr. 7 and 8. Extended day options are available for JK to grade 3 students and Youth Development after school programs are offered for students in grades 4-6. Glencairn Public School is an inclusive learning community that is committed to provide opportunities for each and every student to grow and succeed. We are honoured to be the orthopaedic site in Kitchener, and learn alongside a medically fragile Developmental Disabilities class and an ECO (Environmentally Controlled Opportunity) class. Our diverse population creates an environment of caring and acceptance, and our students are excellent at always lending a helping hand when needed. We are proud of their academic accomplishments, and the way that they show such amazing citizenship. At Glencairn, we have staff and students with severe allergies to scents, therefore Glencairn is a scent free school. Please refrain from wearing the following scents when entering our building: cigarette smoke, perfume, colognes, aftershaves, hairspray, hand lotion, and other scented hair and body products. At Glencairn, we have a dynamic team of professionals that work together to produce a learning environment that encourages academic excellence, while also creating an inclusive atmosphere of respect. If you have questions or would like to seek more information about Glencairn Public School, please call the Principal, Liz Anderson at 519-742-0849, or email at [email protected].
During the 18th century there was a quickening in economic activity in the western world. Historians call this the time of the Industrial Revolution. The process continued during the 19th century, with an even greater quickening of invention and scientific discovery. Huge progress was made in identifying and preventing many diseases. People felt that humankind was becoming god-like in its knowledge and achievements, and that nothing was impossible except the cure of infectious disease - a problem that continued to cause much misery. Ten key developments Some knowledge of 19th-century civilisation will help you understand 19th-century medicine. Developments in the 19th-century included: - A great explosion of industry (and industrial diseases such as dermatitis, lung disease and 'phossy jaw'). - Urbanisation (and public health problems that included 'filth diseases' such as cholera and typhus). - The growth of empires (and contact with new diseases such as yellow fever). - The growth of immense wealth, based on trade and industry (which created the money to spend on medical research and public health). - Great advances in technology (which led to medical machines such as the electrocardiograph). - Improved communications (allowed medical knowledge to spread - doctors gained information from all over the world). - The growth of science and research (which led to medical breakthroughs). - Democracy and socialism (people believed they had the right to good health). The right to health was one of the 'rights of man' claimed by working people during the French Revolution (which was why the medical revolution of the 19th century started in France). - New ideas about evolution (Darwin) and genetics (Mendel) - broke the control of the Church over medicine and medical ethics. - Wars were waged on a greater scale (creating mass injuries that were hitherto unknown, and required new medical and surgical techniques).
chapter 1 - Alegbra and functions (a^m) x (a^n) = (a^(m+n)) (a^m) / (a^n) = (a^(m-n)) (a^(1/m) = msqr(a) (a^(n/m)) = msqur(a^n) (a^m)^n) = a^(mn) x^2-y^2 = (x+y)(x-y) !This is the difference of two squares! chapter 2 - Quadratic functions !completing the square! x^2 +bx= (x+(b/2))^2 - (b/2)^2 !the quadratic formula! ((-b) (+or-) squr (b^2-4ac))/ (2a) equal roots when b^2 = 4ac real roots when B^2> 4ac no real roots when b^2<4ac chapter 3 -equations and inequalitites You can solve linear silmultaneous equations by elimination or substitution you can use the substitution method to solve simultaneous equations , where one equation is linear and the other is quadratic. You usually start by finding an expression for x or y from the linear equation. when you multiply or divide an inequality by a negetiv number, you need to change the inequality sign to its opposite to solve a quadratic inequality you : - solve the corressponding quadratic equation - sketch the graph of the quadratic function - use your sketch to fiind the required set of values. - look back in pride -- you just did matsh ! round of appaluse chapter 4 - sketching graphs cubic curves = - (ax^3) + (bx^2) + (cx) +d - hit x axis three times. example = sketch the curve with the equation y=(x-2)(x-1)(x+1) - 1. when y = 0 x = 2,1,-1 - 1. so crosses x axis at (2,0) (1,0) (-1,0) - 2. when x= 0 y= -2x-1x1= 2 - 2. so curve crosses y axis at (0,2) - 3.when x is large a positive y is large and positive - 3. so when x is positive majority of time y is positive propotionatly - 4. draw that graph with y = x^3 you have to do a table to work out values. y= k/x is a reciprocal function so has asymptotes. CHAPTER 5 - coordinate geometry in the (x,y) plane equations of lines - y= mx+c y-y1=m(x-x1) ---> finding equation of line in the format y=mx+c you can find the equation of the line that passes through the point with coordinates (x1,y1) and (x2,y2) by using - (y-y1)/(y2-y1) = (x-x1)/(x2-x1) if a line has a gradient of a line perpendicular to it hs a gradient of -(1/m) chapter 6 - sequences and series the nth term of an arithmetic series is (a+(n-1)d) ! prooving the sum of the ariothmetic sequence! sn= a+ (a+d) + (a+2d) +... +(a+(n-2)d) + ( a+(n-1)d) sn= ( a+(n-1)d)+(a+(n-2)d) +...+ (a+2d) +(a+d) +a 2Sn = (2a +(n-1)d) +(2a +(n-1)d)....+ (2a +(n-1)d) so 2Sn= n(2a +(n-1)d) Sn= (n/2)(2a +(n-1)d) chaoter 7 = differention the gradiant of a curve at a specific point is defined as being the same as the gradient of the tangent of the curve at that point. if f(x) = n f'(x) = nx^(n-1) the equation of the tangent to a curve at a point (a,f(a)) is y-f(a) =F'(a)(x-a) chapter 4 - n2 f(x+a) is a horizontal translation of -a f(x)+a is a vertical translation of +a every thing is backwards in x land f(ax) i a horizontal stretch pf scale factor 1/a so you mutiply the x coords by 1/a )y is unchanged) af(x) is a vertical stretch of a scale factor a, so you multiply the y coords by a (x left alone) chapter 6 - n2 !The formula for the sum of an arithmetic series ! Sn= (n/2)(2a +(n-1)d) or Sn = (n/2)(a+L) where a is the first term, d is the common difference, n is the number of terms and L is the last term in the series.
I used to work for a well known catalog company ten years ago. The company had three separate catalogs at the time. If a customer called with an order for one, I would ask if they would be interested in one of the other business lines. Sometimes they would accept the offer, and I would arrange to send them a catalog for one or both of the businesses that were part of the company. If they declined the offer, I would make notes on the customer’s account that they did not want additional catalogs mailed to them. The owner of the company had a customer-centered philosophy and appreciated the rights of his customers. He never sold their information to other catalog companies. In his eyes, they were his customers and he wanted to keep them happy by respecting their privacy. Happy customers returned for more purchases, while unhappy customers did not. In my fifth year with the company, the owner sold the business to a holding company who made many changes to the way things had always been done. I started getting calls from upset customers saying they were receiving catalogs they had not done business with, and they were not just our other catalogs, but catalogs from businesses not related to the three we worked with. Some customers said that they called the companies to find out why they were receiving the catalogs, and it turned out that the new management had started selling our customers’ information to other businesses. Many customers were so upset by this that they not only demanded we stop sharing their information, but they also wanted us to stop sending out catalogs. We lost customers and their business because the new owners did not respect the customers right to privacy. I bring up this story because thousands of nonprofits will be sending out their annual year end appeals in just a matter of a few weeks. Mailboxes around the country will soon be filled with envelopes from organizations with a myriad of programs beseeching their recipients for money to support them financially. The problem is that many of those requests will be mailed to people who have never had any contact with them nor supported them before. How does this happen? Why would an organization ask for money from someone who has no previous contact with them? They never gave them money before, attended their events, or even visited their websites. The answer is because those organizations bought a list of names from another organization with what I consider questionable ethics. Nonprofits that buy donor lists at a pretty high cost hope to increase their base and bring in additional income and support, but often the requests they mail end up in the trash or recycling because they have no history with the potential donor. The organization that sells their donors’ information can make a tidy sum for that information, but if their donors have not given their permission, and then find out that this has occurred, in most cases, they will not write another check to that organization again. Sadly, selling donors lists is nothing new in the nonprofit sector. It has been happening for decades, and it will probably continue for decades more, as long as nonprofits are looking for extra cash. Every year, my parents’ mailbox, my friends’ mailboxes, as well my own, will continue to fill with solicitations from organizations that we have never supported, and every year the money invested in stamps, stationary, and various premiums that are enclosed are wasted. Is this really worth doing? What makes an organization think that they have the right to make additional money off their donors’ kindness by selling their personal information to businesses and other organizations? Donors support your organization because they appreciate what your programs do, but the information they provide you as donors is private information. They do not expect you to share their names and addresses with others. In my opinion, organizations should discontinue this practice of purchasing donor lists from other organizations and mailing houses. Send your appeals to those who actually are interested in what you do; those that have given you money before, people who have been to your events, your former clients who have used your services in the past, volunteers, etc. You will get a better return from those people than you will from people with no history or knowledge of your organization, mission, and programs. It is also my opinion that organizations that sell their donor lists are going to lose their supporters in the end. Betraying your donors trust by selling their names and addresses is a really bad idea.
Is it true that the Affordable Care Act does not cover anyone past age 76 for cancer treatments? Dear Fact Finder, This is not true. The Affordable Care Act does not set rules connecting a patient’s age to his covered treatment. The ACA relies upon private health insurance to cover people at their jobs, or at the new exchange/marketplace. At the exchange, the rates charged to people can vary by age (within limits) but the covered services are identical for all customers in the same plan. There is nothing in the Affordable Care Act that sets up a group of people to make decisions about which patients get what care. Insurers can have utilization review functions, which do make decisions about what the plan will pay for. The “death panel” idea was a fiction. As a practical matter, the vast majority of 76-year-olds are covered by Medicare. Medicare’s covered services were not changed in any significant way by the Affordable Care Act.
There are rare opportunities in life to effectively turn back the clock and recreate history. One of these rarities exists in the ability of the beneficiaries of a deceased to effectively rewrite the will of the testator, or if he or she died intestate to write what was previously unwritten. By completing a Deed of Variation or a Deed of Family Arrangement, the beneficiaries can alter or deviate the distribution of assets from the estate of the deceased amongst the beneficiaries, and can even include beneficiaries not in the contemplation of the deceased when the will was written. The primary rationale is to take advantage of inheritance tax and capital gains tax savings, so that the ultimate redistribution of the estate is tax effective. It may be that allocation of assets between different beneficiaries having different tax profiles results in an overall saving of tax, or so that inheritance tax and capital gains tax reliefs are fully utilised. Other reasons may be to make the allocation of assets fairer, or perhaps to allow the assets to skip a generation by passing to grandchildren rather than children. The gifts are treated as having been made by the deceased and not the beneficiaries, avoiding potentially exempt transfers (PETS), which require the donor to survive for 7 years before the gift falls out of charge to tax. A Deed of Variation must be concluded within 2 years of the date of death of the deceased. A Deed of Variation can only be used if: - All the beneficiaries who may be adversely affected by it agree in writing - There is no reciprocal consideration or compensation passing between the parties - None of the assets are subject to trusts or “gift with reservation of benefit” (assets which are gifted away, but still used by the donor – for example a house which is gifted, but still occupied by the person making the gift) - If the rights of minor children or those still unborn, the approval of the Court is necessary. For jointly owned properties, in order to effect the redistribution, there should be a severance of the joint tenancy. While for the purposes of inheritance tax and capital gains tax the joint tenants are treated as if they had severed the joint tenancy in equity, in terms of property law and for the purposes of the Land Registry, a retrospective severance by a deceased joint owner is not possible. Although a useful lifeline to rescue the position where things could have been arranged better, a Deed of Variation should not be relied upon as part of an individuals estate planning. There is no substitute for proper advance planning while the planner is alive and well. If you have any questions on what was discussed in this article or require any further information please contactJames Wolfson by email [email protected].
Estate agents and home owners anxious to sell come up with various ideas to make a house or apartment stand out from the rest of the market, especially in densely populated areas, so that the property sale and consequentresidential conveyancing in London or Brighton, perhaps, can proceed quicker than might otherwise have been the case. Some suggestions, such as creating a tidy and welcoming entrance for potential viewers to gain a positive first impression, are common sense but another proposal gaining popularity is for the owners to supply a history of the home either written by themselves or through commissioning a specialist author. There are a number of so-called house detectives in the UK, who are historians, surveyors or other researchers with a specialist interest and some knowledge. They have set up businesses to help owners discover as much as possible about their homes and the lives of those who previously were under the same roof. Even for a house which is less than 100 years old, a professional researcher is likely to be able to unearth all sorts of fascinating details about who owned the land it was built on, who built it, perhaps how much it cost, whether the street or house name has any significance, past owners and tenants, extensions or building work which required planning permission and, if the deeds are complete, a record of how much the property was sold for at each transaction. In London, with its long and chequered history, links can often be found to famous figures of the past who have lived or worked in a property, perhaps writing a best-selling novel or making an important scientific discovery. Many of these notable people have already been traced and their achievements noted through the placing of an English Heritage blue plaque on the outside of the house. This scheme of commemoration itself has a long history, having been started in 1866 by the Society of Arts. By 2011 around 850 places in the capital associated with particular properties had been recorded. Other cities, towns and villages throughout the UK have copied the scheme and put up signs on heritage sites for the interest of residents and visitors. These include Brighton and Hove City Council which continues to mark the homes and other buildings connected to the many characters who have graced its streets. A particularly famous ‘name’ connected to a house may add a few thousand pounds to its market price but, more importantly, even humble former residents can give cachet to a property and a report containing well-researched information about days long ago may well appeal more to a potential buyer, compared with a similar home without such a document. Residential conveyancing advice from Healys solicitors of London and Brighton Long-established firms of residential conveyancing solicitors sometimes have records of property contracts from the past and may be willing to allow house detectives to have access to them. However, it is important for an efficient transaction that both buyers and sellers instruct a firm of solicitors with a combination of experience and use of modern technology, such as Healys with its offices in the City of London and central Brighton. With its wide range of expertise helping people buy and sell freehold and leasehold flats and houses, the helpful legal team of Healys is well placed to offer advice and representation through all aspects of property law. For more information and advice on costs of Healys’ residential conveyancing services, you can request a call-back via the website, email partner Kiri Kkoshi telephone 020 7822 4148 or, in Brighton, Darina Gowentelephone 01273 669115
Click on the following link for previous layout and posts: https://helpfulinspirationalblog.wordpress.com/ DAILY DEVOTIONAL – Wednesday, July 8, 2015 We are to be considerate (reasonable, fair minded, and charitable) to [everyone even] those outside the church, and not just to fellow believers. This means we are not to seek revenge against those who treat us unfairly, nor are we to be overly vocal about our personal rights. God’s peace is different from the world’s peace. True peace is not found in positive thinking, in absence of conflict, or in good feelings. It comes from knowing that God is in control. Our citizenship in Christ’s Kingdom is sure, our destiny is set, and we can have victory over sin. Let God’s peace guard your heart against anxiety. What we put into our mind determines what comes out in our words and actions. Paul tells us to program our mind with thoughts that are true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and worthy of praise. Do you have problems with impure thoughts and daydreams? Examine what you are putting into your mind through television, books, conversations, movies, and magazines. Replace harmful input with wholesome material. Above all, read God’s Word and pray. Ask God to help you focus your mind on what is good and pure. It takes practice, but it can be done. (NLT) Philippians 4:4-8 – Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again–rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. — Philippians 4:6 (NIV) Andrew Billings (Alabama) titled his story “CUSTOMER SERVICE;” here is Andrew’s story: “‘Your call is very important to us,’ says the typical customer service recording. When I hear that, I think: If it were that important to you, someone would be there to answer! After discovering how long the wait will be, sometimes I just hang up the phone because what I needed wasn’t that important or pressing. “How great it is to contrast that experience with our prayers to God! Sometimes I hear people criticize other people’s prayers because they request seemingly unimportant things: for their favorite sports team to win or for the weather to be nice for a trip they plan to take. Yet, the verse quoted above tells us that there are no unimportant prayers. God can take all these ‘calls’ at once, encouraging us to call frequently and with any kind of request. We are instructed to take all our concerns to the Lord in prayer, not just the life-or-death ones. “What a marvelous feeling it is to share everything with God: the big, the small, and all the things that lie in between!” THOUGHT FOR THE DAY – My call is very important to God. Prayer: Dear God, thank you for hearing all the thoughts we bring to you and for loving us unconditionally. Amen. Prayer Focus: CUSTOMER SERVICE EMPLOYEES To read other stories in The Upper Room, click on the following link: http://devotional.upperroom.org/ PROMISES, PROMISE: https://helpfulinspirationalblog.wordpress.com/promises-promise/ WORSHIP, WORSHIPING: https://helpfulinspirationalblog.wordpress.com/worship-worshiping/ SELF-CENTERED, SELF-CENTEREDNESS: https://helpfulinspirationalblog.wordpress.com/self-centered-self-centeredness/ RESTORATION, RESTORE, RESTORED: https://helpfulinspirationalblog.wordpress.com/restoration-restore-restored/ SEEK, SEEKING: https://helpfulinspirationalblog.wordpress.com/seek-seeking/ REASON, REASONED: https://helpfulinspirationalblog.wordpress.com/reason-reasoned/ NEGATIVE, NEGATIVES: https://helpfulinspirationalblog.wordpress.com/negative-negatives/ May you find comfort, encouragement, guidance, hope, inspiration, love, and peace – https://helpfulinspirationalblog.wordpress.com/. May you also find answers to your question(s) through the Scriptures that address every situation you face, and help with your problems: https://helpfulinspirationalblog.wordpress.com/topics-a-g/ ; https://helpfulinspirationalblog.wordpress.com/topics-h-n/ ; https://helpfulinspirationalblog.wordpress.com/topics-o-u/; https://helpfulinspirationalblog.wordpress.com/topics-v-z/
It’s Wabbit Season! No… It’s Duck Penises! Well, well, well, it appears ducks enjoy partaking in an occasional rape every now and again. But don’t worry, only 40% of the time they have sex is it forced onto the female duck. Where’s a pinball machine and Jodie Foster when you need it, right Daffy? Furthermore, according to the article it also appears that ducks have corkscrew shaped penises. Cinemax, meet Animal Planet. You know, until I just typed the word penis, I never noticed how horrible it sounds when plural. Indeed, this must be the one word in the English language that there should never be more than one of in a given sentence and/or room. Anyway, as you read along the article gets quite disturbing, or hot, depending on your proclivity to bestiality. One sentence really got me thinking, and not just about how I will never order duck in a restaurant again. “Interestingly, the male phallus is also a spiral, but it twists in the opposite, counterclockwise, direction,” said Yale ornithologist Richard Prum in a statement. And it may mean something for people. “We can expect that these types of antagonistic traits are probably widespread and are likely part of the reproductive interactions of all sorts of animals, including humans,” Brennan said. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth Brennan? Brennan is a scientist I think. I can see his 25-year high school reunion now… “Bob, you crazy old sumbitch, how’s it hangin’? Damn, you got fat! What do you do for a living now?” “Oh, I’m a truck driver… how ’bout you Brennan?” “Oh, I study fowl rape, and by fowl I mean fowl, not foul. I have also discovered that the larger a duck’s penis gets, the more it twists like a corkscrew.” At this point Bob has either accidentally sucked an olive down his wind pipe or is extremely turned on. Maybe even a little of both. The only important lesson or insight to take away from this article is the fact that the “scientists” think that humans will slowly evolve into having some of these same traits. Meaning that as men force themselves on (“rape”) women more, the woman’s reproductive system (as a defense mechanism) will create road blocks such as, and I quote, “corkscrew-shaped oviducts”, whatever the hell that is. As the world famous scientist Dr. Ian Malcolm once said, “life finds a way”, and so man will in turn start evolving into having a corkscrew-shaped dong to counter the woman’s mangled who-who-dilly. Finally, our dongs will have a real functional use for the ladies in our lives that they’ll love… it’ll be able to open a wine bottle. Or in my case a large keg. Hi, my names Scott, but the ladies call me Corky, can I buy you a bottle of wine?
The global market for human antifungal therapeutics reached nearly $11.6 billion in 2012 and $11.8 billion in 2013. This market is expected to grow to nearly $13.9 billion in 2018 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.2% over the five-year period from 2013 to 2018. The goal of BCC Research in conducting this study was to determine the current status of the global human antifungal market and assess its growth potential over the five-year period from 2013 to 2018. This report covers approved human therapeutics, with a heavy focus on therapeutics in early development. These new molecular and biological entities are from traditional pharmaceutical sources, naturally derived synthetic chemicals and biological sources as well as the "herbal natural folk medicine" marketplace. If an approved or well-known medicine is being studied in combination with another molecular entity, it is considered a new therapy and often has been included for review. New drug and patent applications are presented as the study focuses on new methods of drug administration, drug clinical trials, and discovery and development. It should be noted that there is a strong emphasis on early research due to the critical need for new and more effective medicines; hence, BCC Research is including a section of medicines intended for human utilization that are in clinical testing as well as information on new and novel in vitro therapies. Greater than 98% of medicines at the preclinical level are terminated prior to their utilization in humans, and the research in this area is vast. We are limiting this research to therapies that depict a positive result or that represent a very rare and novel approach worthy of further review from R&D groups. Our key objective in this report is to present an in-depth analysis of the current human antifungal market and to explore its future direction. In the last five years there has been a decrease in the number of patent applications filed in this area. Between 1990 and 1999 there were six U.S. patents granted-evidence of the evolution of drug resistance and an increasing mortality rate., Fungi are highly resistant microbiological eukaryotic microorganisms. In other words, they are becoming drug-resistant to the approved compounds and some therapies later in clinical development. The therapies are designed to eradicate these fungi through the various antifungal mechanisms of action, such as disrupting reproductive capabilities, destroying cell walls or modifying fungal DNA and cell functioning. It is a given fact that infestations in humans, animals, plants and the environment are on the rise, with many having lethal consequences in both the immunocompetent and the immunocompromised. That being the case, BCC Research was particularly interested in examining the antifungal market growth of developing products depicting efficacy. We are including data regarding the market shift for those products that are now relegated to over-the-counter (OTC) status that previously had only been provided by prescription; moreover, we will identify new antifungal research, development, new drug applications and novel approaches to the market. Previously, BCC Research examined the antifungal market in its 2003 report, PHM029A The Market for Antifungal Drugs, in PHM029B Global Markets for Antifungal Agents and in PHM029C Antifungal Drugs: Technologies and Global Markets. Due to the rapidly changing market, BCC Research chose to reexamine the marketplace through another analysis and project its new growth potential. Additionally, PHM029A focused only on human fungal diseases and associated antifungals; PHM029B incorporated the marketplace for antifungals in the veterinary, agricultural and environmental industries; and PHM029C and PHM029D focused on human therapeutics with an intensive focus on human therapeutics in the developmental pipeline. PHM029E is an update of PHM029D. This report was prepared as a study of the global antifungal marketplace based on fungal infections and infestations with a focus on human therapeutics. Information is presented on the antifungal industry in general, specific pharmaceuticals and chemical agents, new technology within the market, new and novel drug applications and market-related issues. In many cases actual revenue is given for the period of 2012 and 2013, with projections of trends and compound annual growth rates (CAGRs) 2013 through 2018. This study will be of significant interest to hospitals, pharmacies, pharmaceutical companies, biopharmaceutical researchers, pharmaceutical company directors and marketing executives, contract research organizations (CROs), chemists, physicians, nurses, physician assistants, product managers and representatives, and all manner of institutional directors ranging from nursing homes and schools to long-term-care facilities both public and private. It will also be of interest to biologists and those interested in the field of mycology. This study examines human applications both currently marketed and in the development of antifungal technologies. In an extensive analysis, BCC Research examines each market segment, presents its current market status and offers various forecasts for growth over the next five years. Other factors such as Food and Drug Administration (FDA) restrictions, government legislation, fungal resistance and changes in consumerism such as a greater demand for OTC medications and/or natural and alternative remedies are also highlighted. Our financial and sales analysis focuses on the available figures from 2012 to 2013, with estimates for 2018, including CAGR as a percentage. Through an extensive industry survey inclusive of online database searches of industry-specific data sources coupled with financial, trade, government and marketing database sources as well as interviews via correspondence or telephone with independent sources comprising companies, government agencies and academic experts, BCC Research was able to compile data to present our analysis of the antifungal market by market segment. Of the companies and agencies surveyed, the majority were pharmaceutical or compound manufacturers. Additional information was supplied by known industry or trade sources. Mary Anne Crandall is an expert industry analyst specializing in the pharmaceutical industry for over 22 years. She has completed several in-depth studies on various medical topics requiring both medical expertise and excellent knowledge of the pharmaceutical industry. Ms. Crandall has extensive knowledge in the medical field, has an M.S. in psychology and is currently working on her Ph.D.
Local Girl Scouts Learn How to Create Video Games (New York 1) More than two dozen teenage Girl Scouts are taking part in a Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, or STEM, program at the New York Hall of Science this week, where they're learning how to make programming codes and use special software to create 3-D video games as part of the Girl Scout Leadership Institute. Cable news channel NY1 recently ran a story about this new initiative. To view the clip, click HERE. (A Time Warner Cable account is required, so if you're unable to view it, please scroll down for a transcript.) Erin Keplish: “My avatar has blue spiky hair that is probably a foot tall.” NY1: Erin Keplish says nothing is too outrageous in the virtual video gaming world she’s creating. Erin Keplish: “Well, right now, I just built a volcano thing that it’s going to live in, and it also has a house, and I’m making a pool.” NY1: She’s one of two dozen teenage Girl Scouts taking part in a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, or STEM program, at the New York Hall of Science. The girls are learning how to make programming codes, and use special software to create 3-D video games. Calista Lee: “I just feel like it’s a great opportunity to not just pursue my passions, but to meet fellow peers and sisters that have the same passion as I do.” Tatiana Bracht: “I hope to build a nice little abstract house because I want to prove to myself that I can be in that little field of computer technology.” NY1: The workshop is part of the Girl Scout Leadership Institute, which aims to give Girl Scouts real-world entrepreneurial and leadership experience. Organizers say the four-day workshop gives girls a safe and supportive environment where the girls can learn. Karen Lundgard: “They get to work with other girls. They don’t have that intimidation of working with other boys or men in their classrooms.” NY1: And Lundgard says it’s important to introduce girls to STEM programs at an early age. Karen Lundgard: “We found that if girls aren’t getting that experience at an early age, they’re being intimidated by it. NY1: Keplish says there’s nothing to be intimidated about. She hopes more girls look into STEM careers. Erin Keplish: “Instead of women having these pre-conceived ideas about what they’re supposed to do, I think that STEM is just a great place for them to be because it’s innovative.”
It’s open enrollment time around these parts and I personally had a lot of questions about FMLA, Short and Long Term Disability. So I sat down with our HR lady to discuss options and possibilities. In a previous position I did hold short term disability insurance but let it lapse because I had a lot going on at the time and didn’t think to call the company to have them take it out of my bank account instead of my paycheck because I was leaving. Shame on me. In my new position, we have of course, FMLA and Short Term Disability but no Long Term Disability. I questioned whether it was necessary for me to even get short or long term disability because hey, I’m young and healthy and didn’t foresee anything happening that would take me out of work for three months. That’s when my HR lady said: “Ahh, it’s usually the young people who think nothing will ever happen to them and end up having to use their leave time, FMLA and then nothing. Short Term Disability covers the part after you’ve exhausted your leave time because FMLA is largely unpaid unless you’re utilizing leave time during FMLA“. She’s right. I really hadn’t given much thought to short and long term disability needs. She’s like a big sister with great insight and HR knowledge (well, she is our HR lady!). But our conversation gave me a few things to think about: When would I use FMLA? Does FMLA conflict with Short Term Disability? What about Long Term Disability? When does that kick in and is that a separate policy? Can I obtain that on my own or is it something I can only get through my job? Here’s what I came up with: What Is FMLA And When Does It Kick In? The Family and Medical Leave Act is a federal law that applies to employers with over 50 employees. Therefore if your workplace employs less than 50 people then this would not apply to them. In a nutshell the law protects your job in the event you, partner/spouse or immediate family member(s) become ill. You’re alotted time to leave work and take care of them, though this does not mean that you will be paid during this time. Still, most employers allow you to use leave time (sick/vacation) during your time away from work. FMLA would kick in once you’ve notified your employer that you need the time away from work to attend to taking care of any personal or family illness. It all depends how you arrange it with your employer in tandem with state leave laws. For example, you can exhaust your leave time (sick/vacation) and then go out on FMLA or vice versa. Some employers even allow for sick time to be donated by other employees in the event your run out.before or during FMLA. The arrangement of using leave time in tandem with FMLA and short term disability is dependent – again – upon your company policies and state leave time. Please check with them to make sure that you’re in line with their requirements. Here’s the official breakdown from the Department of Labor: The FMLA entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons with continuation of group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave. Eligible employees are entitled to: - Twelve workweeks of leave in a 12-month period for: - the birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth; - the placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement; - to care for the employee’s spouse, child, or parent who has a serious health condition; - a serious health condition that makes the employee unable to perform the essential functions of his or her job; - any qualifying exigency arising out of the fact that the employee’s spouse, son, daughter, or parent is a covered military member on “covered active duty;” or Twenty-six workweeks of leave during a single 12-month period to care for a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness if the eligible employee is the servicemember’s spouse, son, daughter, parent, or next of kin (military caregiver leave). – DOL Can Your Employer Fire You While On Maternity Leave? Though I don’t have kids, I’ve always dreaded having that conversation with my employer. The “I’m pregnant” conversation. I’ll be honest, depending on who you work for – thoughts around “will she come back or ditch us once she’s used all of her paid/maternity leave?” or “will she become lazy and exhaust her leave days during the pregnancy?“. As a director where I work, I’ve never had those thoughts around pregnant staff members but I have heard statements to that effect from my male colleagues in various settings. The answer I’ve come up with is no one knows until the baby is born. In my younger days I thought I’d go back to work after the requisite 6 weeks but as I gave more thought to it I now think I want to be home as much as I can but I don’t know that until the time comes. There’s a stigma associated with being a working pregnant woman and it sucks. Still, I can understand that many organizations need to keep things moving during and after the pregnancy. I personally and professionally have low tolerance for people that manipulate the system to short change their workplace during this time. To answer the question: let’s just say they’d have to make sure that all Ts were crossed if they chose that route. So the answer is yes. Your employer is under no obligation to keep you as an employee while you’re on maternity leave, but they cannot fire you because you are pregnant. Note the difference. This can get tricky, so it’s best to check with an attorney if you feel this is the case or concerned that you may be fired while on maternity leave. Check back tomorrow for the rest of my findings around Short and Long Term Disability. Does Short Term Disability conflict with FMLA and when do they kick in? After or during FMLA? What questions do you have or information can you share about your experiences with FMLA, short and long term disability?
Geographic Information Services Maps are moments in the process of decision-making. -Denis Wood The Legislative Coordinating Commission's Geographic Information Services is the repository of statewide boundary information for legislative use. The office maintains a map library of spatial information, provided by the Census Bureau and a host of Minnesota State agencies, that can be integrated with many sources of information to produce maps and reports of pertinent information for legislators and legislative staff. Such information includes demographics, elections, natural resources and infrastructure to name a few. LCC-GIS also provides the Legislature with the means to do Redistricting once every 10 years in conjunction with the Census. The Redistricting process uses many map layer data sets which LCC-GIS provides and assists in maintaining.
As much as it appears from TV and the newspapers, India's political races aren't getting any more American (or "presidential"), so neither Gandhi nor Modi will have as much influence over the 2014 electoral race as projected. The reason? The Americanization of Indian politics is a myth. The only thing that's been Americanized is the news media. As I recall, the observation that Indian elections were becoming more and more "presidential" dates back prior to the 2004 race, when commentators projected that the electoral process was increasingly being fought by the two national parties' principal leaders -- Sonia Gandhi and Atal Behari Vajpayee -- the idea being that voters would now choose the party based on its prime minister candidate, rather than focusing on the local representatives in the race for their constituency's parliamentary seat. Time and again, this idea has been proven wrong. Though Sonia wasn't a liability with voters, the post-game analysis showed that the Congress won power in 2004 on the strength of the pre-poll alliances that she formed, rather than some cult of personality. Rahul Gandhi's "charisma" was not able to draw enough voters to win state elections in Uttar Pradesh. And various analyses of the success that state leaders like the Congress's Sheila Dikshit, the BJP's Modi and other have shown that they overcome India's usual anti-incumbency wave not on the strength of their personalities alone -- but by dumping their non-performing legislators and replacing them with new candidates. (You can't have anti-incumbency when there's no incumbent!) But over the same period, India's TV networks have become more and more American, as NDTV abandoned all pretense of copying the BBC's more staid presentation, CNN/IBN took on and amped up their American partner's style, and Times Now decided that the next logical move was to ape Fox News. As the style of presentation became American, so did the content -- whether or not it reflected any sort of reality. Does that mean Modi and Rahul can't swing elections? Not entirely. But the other thread of Indian political reporting -- more common in regional editions of the newspapers -- is a better reflection of the pulse of things: India's elections are not becoming more "American" or more "presidential" at all. Rather, regionalism, caste-politics, and other coalition-oriented forces are growing in importance. And every election is still designed, fought and won by parties, rather than people. Which means the most important thing that an individual leader can bring to the table is the ability to identify and forge the right alliances with regional partners. And that Indian media outlets should be modeling their election coverage on a country that's also governed by a parliamentary system.
By Chris Bowler Every year, dozens of new board games release that are choc full of plastic. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, I can hardly claim to avoid the stuff as an avid mini gamer and dungeon crawl fan I own more plastic than some toy manufacturers but today I’m going ask the question, why? Why is that board game publishers choose to produce plastic miniatures? At first plastic may appear to be a cheap alternative to other available products. The price point per miniature drops to an extremely low figure when they are produced in volume. However, the initial outlay costs are not small, the cost of the moulds for plastics can be extremely high. Happily, plastic moulds last much longer than metal and plastic is lighter to ship than metal or wood. However to make this manufacturing process viable the publisher either needs to raise the price of the game or to produce, and more importantly, sell, a vast quantity of the games. This is why companies like Hasbro can produce plastic heavy games at a very low price point, while a company like Fantasy Flight or Days of Wonder has to charge significantly more. However, many games that use plastic do not use high quality sculpts. This seems like an odd business decision. The sculpting fee is considerably smaller than the moulding process, it would seem that if you plan on producing a quality product you should invest at little more on the sculpts to ensure a quality end product. The truth of this can be seen in the success of Super Dungeon Explore. However, it’s not just the sculpts that tend to be low quality, but the material itself. There are two kinds of plastics, the hard brittle kind, such as you may find in Risk and the soft rubbery kind such as that found in Descent. Both such materials present problems. The hard plastic can easily break during shipping, which for companies like FFG, who will replace broken parts, could mean a large second outlay on replacement pieces and shipping costs. However hard plastic holds it’s shape and details better, which is why companies like Games Workshop have used it for years. The soft rubbery plastic neatly combats the shipping issue and the fact that the pieces will be handled by players who may not necessarily know how you should handle delicate miniatures!!! However, this method often results in warped miniatures with a substantial lack of detail. When you consider that plastic in games increases the price point, not only through manufacturing costs but also through the additional weight and increased size of the box for shipping, it begs the question, why bother? What are the alternatives? I’m glad you asked. The alternatives are many. Metal – Metal components would combat the issue of quality, however not of weight or the manufacturing costs. Resin – Resin production is still a developing process. Resin allows for much higher quality miniatures than plastic, with even less weight and a cheaper overall production process. However, they are also less durable and are susceptible to casting issues with air bubbles. Eventually however I believe resin will become the material of choice, although a more durable kind than is currently on the market. Wood – Wood is often used in games. It creates a different atmosphere to plastic, giving a feeling of abstraction. With laser cutting complex shapes are not difficult to produce relatively cheaply. Although wood is not as cheap as plastic the initial outlay is lower making it a viable alternative for smaller print runs. However wood is heavier still than plastic. Cardboard – Cardboard is an alternative that is very affordable. It offers a similar function to plastic miniatures without the associated risks. It also removes the end users need to build and/or paint anything. But, none of this really answers the question, why do we use plastic? We know that plastic makes our games more expensive, we know it’s never going to be as detailed as wargames miniatures, we know it will need assembling and painting, we know it breaks and bends and yet we still continue to use it… But why? Because it looks impressive. Because it feels tactile. Short of miniature gaming there is nothing quite as imposing as a table covered with 3D cardboard layouts with plastic miniatures fighting it out for control. While cardboard or wood may allow you to see what is going on the table, it’s just not the same as a fully 3D gaming piece, painted lovingly to look like your favourite in game character. For me, there is a line between board gaming and miniature gaming. I feel like I’ve reached a stage in my gaming career that I like my games to be complete, in the box, that I can open them and start playing, never having to pick up a paint brush (and paint substandard miniatures) For me, I’d really enjoy the option of purchasing my mini-heavy games “plastic free”, an option where you instead receive the game without miniatures for a moderate reduction. This way I can could substitute in minis from my own collection, which I currently do anyway, without having to pay for mini’s I wont use. But what about you guys? What do you think of plastic heavy games? What is it that makes you like or dislike them? And what do you think the future of plastic is in gaming? Until next week, have fun gaming
Keyword search our books by van den Berg, Phia “Lights!” Jessie announced loudly. Suddenly everyone was awake. Karachi appeared beneath them on the left-hand side. At first they saw only a narrow strip of tiny lights, but soon it broadened. The plane swung sideways as it turned, gliding above the sea of city lights. The children hadn’t paid much attention to the other landings during the trip, but this one became very exciting! Pakistan! Every year, a part of Western Pakistan underwent a drastic flood, washing away all the gardens and homes of the inhabitants. Father Falois, an agriculturalist, was asked by the government to try to control the floods. But life in Pakistan was so different for Bobby and his siblings. The worst part was understanding the people and the gap between rich Muslims and poor Christians. How would Bobby find friends? Would the screaming, proud millionaire’s son, Sadiq, be a friend, or would Jahja, the very poorest of all? Who would be faithful when danger came? Paperback, 123 pages, Black and white illustrations USD 9.95 / CAD 9.95
2 flu cases found in Erie County Flu season might be getting an early start in Erie County. Two cases of influenza were reported Sept. 3 to the Erie County Department of Health, months before the traditional beginning of flu season. The two cases involved different flu strains and were not related. "Sporadic flu cases are common and they aren't a predictor of an early or late flu season," said Charlotte Berringer, R.N., director of community health for the county Health Department. Officially, the cases are part of the 2012-13 flu year. The new flu year doesn't start until Sept. 29, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Doctors at Saint Vincent Hospital are not seeing patients with flu-like illness, said Howard Nadworny, M.D., the hospital's chief of infection control. "We are seeing patients with respiratory illness, but not with the fever and general aches associated with flu," Nadworny said. "We are sending tests to (the lab) but nothing has come back positive for influenza." UPMC Hamot physicians also aren't seeing any flu cases, Hamot spokeswoman Carly Manino said. Flu is a common illness but can lead to serious complications like pneumonia, especially in the very young, elderly, and those with chronic illnesses like asthma and heart disease. It's why Berringer recommends everyone 6 months of age and older get a flu shot. Flu vaccine is already available at many physician offices and drugstores. "It's not too early to get a flu shot," Berringer said. "Its effectiveness lasts throughout flu season and it's the single best thing you can do to reduce your risk of flu." DAVID BRUCE can be reached at 870-1736 or by e-mail. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNbruce.
Green America, a D.C.-based non-profit group, and The Nation magazine launched a campaign Wednesday intended to persuade consumers to boycott Apple products unless the company makes changes in its production and supply chain operations. The campaign is the latest in a string of attempts to get consumers to focus on worker conditions in the myriad of factories that makes Apple products such as iPhones and the components that go into them. A key message of the campaign is that it would cost just $1 for Apple to substitute out benzene and n-hexane, two of the most toxic chemicals used in its supply chain. The figure was derived from asking industry insiders their "best guess" for the cost involved, said Elizabeth O'Connell, campaign director, Green America. The campaign is also asking Apple to create a healthcare fund to pay for the care of workers who have fallen sick working on its products, allegedly due to poisoning from those two chemicals, and to generally improve working conditions. And it's asking consumers to complete a protest letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook and postpone purchases of Apple products until the company makes changes. Apple products are some of the most popular in consumer electronics and its iPhone leads the smartphone sector, so getting users to click and send a protest letter might be a lot easier than persuading them to put off buying the next iPhone. "We're hoping that those who are loyal Apple customers will still write to Apple to voice their concerns," said O'Connell. "We know from experience that once you get a certain amount of consumer pressure, the company will listen to that opinion." Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Apple and its main iPhone manufacturer, Foxconn, have been criticized for several years over the way workers are treated. The issue jumped to the forefront after a string of suicides at Foxconn factories and pushed Foxconn to pledge a change in the way workers live and are treated. Apple began highlighting the issue in its annual compliance report that also sets targets for its suppliers related to working conditions. Apple's most recent Supplier Responsibility Report was published last month. It said Apple had conducted 451 audits of its suppliers in 2013. During the year it dealt with another criticism it has faced in the past, with the verification that none of the tantalum metal used in its products comes from sources that fund armed groups in unstable parts of Africa. Green America is a Washington, D.C., based non-profit organization. It's currently involved in major campaigns against GMOs (genetically modified organisms) and fossil fuel use in electricity power generation. Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Martyn on Twitter at @martyn_williams. Martyn's e-mail address is [email protected]
I love reading about the explanations behind events, situations or things we think we know about but have probably never really thought in-depth aboutI love reading about the explanations behind events, situations or things we think we know about but have probably never really thought in-depth about. This book fits that perfectly! Fascinating explanations backed up by statistics, research and good science as well as theory -- not opinions or suppositions. Some of the connections are unexpected and you may feel uncomfortable with them, because they go against what has been touted or bantered as 'common sense'. That's what makes this book all the more powerful and interesting. [although in the most recent edition their work on climate change is spurious & suspicious and does perhaps cast into doubt some of their other methodology:] The problem with classic economics, and much other thinking on human behavior, is that theories and models are built on the notion that we humans behaThe problem with classic economics, and much other thinking on human behavior, is that theories and models are built on the notion that we humans behave rationally. Well, we don't. We're highly irrational, and often act not in our own interest, hardly knowing what we'd really do under pressure, or excitement, arousal, or other stresses. But Ariely knows -- his research shows we behave "irrationally" but in wonderfully predictable ways - if you only know how to find the patterns. This books shows all the tricks, traps and moments of "huh" that he discovered. Great stuff!...more Thorough, intricately researched, and honest story of the life, death, and continued 'life' of a woman and her contribution to science. Skloot takes rThorough, intricately researched, and honest story of the life, death, and continued 'life' of a woman and her contribution to science. Skloot takes readers on 50+ yr journey, bouncing back and forth in time, and between the science and the pain of the family. Skloot literally takes on the 'burden of the cells'. The book is as much, or more, about the consequences of that continued 'life' of the HeLa cells as it is about their science, or even Henrietta Lacks. An interesting take on science writing and memoirs. ...more Fascinating book from Ms Robbins, who is making a name for herself in the sociology of young adults, education and being a nonconformist. Great storieFascinating book from Ms Robbins, who is making a name for herself in the sociology of young adults, education and being a nonconformist. Great stories, engaging characters, & anecdotes plus sound research and reporting make this a must-read. Compelling work on why those who feel like no one understands them, that they will never 'fit in' or be 'normal', are often the ones who grow up to be the most interesting people. (and really, what is "normal" anyway, other than a setting on the washer?) What can we learn from the geeks, nerds, dorks (yes, they're all different categorizations, especially in the eyes of those in those groups themselves), scenes, emos, jocks, preps, bandies, wannabes and more? Mostly we learn that no one group is better or worse off than others, that all are insecure, all can be happy in their own worlds, all yearn for more, and schools and parents are often the ones making students lives miserable. As a student who painfully lived many of the same moments as the characters in her book, and who easily agrees that middle school may have been more hellish even than high school - this book hit home. At the same time I also recognize that compared to some kids today, I had it easy. I ended up in a high school where I could be a nerd in National Honor Society & National Merit Semi-Finalist, plus a serious drama geek, and also an athlete who lettered in 3 sports. I 'floated', and the hell that was middle-school and early HS, went away. But pressures have increased now, and students who are 'different' today may suffer so much more. This book should be a wake-up call to parents, teachers, and teenagers....more
US 1597823 A Abstract available in Claims available in Description (OCR text may contain errors) Aug. si ,-1926, L59723 s. RANDoLPH LIGHT PROJECTING TTACHMENT FOR SHOES Filed April 4,` 192s H ETLL. @gunna 2# i. E Egf/ f'? ff EL .25E 8 1 I 5 l I Eli-Randalpwmm l 35% W daf@ y 46 in for the purpose of illustration is shown Patented Ang. 31, 1926. UNITED `STATES SIMON RANDOLPH, 0F LYNCH, KENTUCKY. LIGHT-PROJECTING .ATTACHMENT FOR SOES. Application mea Aprnhi, 1925. serial No. 20,732. The present invention relates in general to shoes, and more specifically to novel illuminating means incorporated in the heel structure of shoes.. The primary object of the'invention being to provide a light projecting attachment for shoes, whereby the light rays from the illuminating means may be directed to effectively illuminate'the adjacent surface upon which a person is walking. A further object of the invention is the incorporation within. the heel structure of:y shoes, an illuminating means of the self containing type, and which is so disposed as to prevent direct light rays from the illuminating means striking the eyes of the person wearing the device. j A still further object resides in the novel construction of the device which permits yof easy attachment, ready detachment for replacing of parts, and compactness of parts which permits of the heel structure being of ordinary configuration. Otler objects and advantages of the invention will be apparent during the course of the following detailed description, taken in connection with the accompanying drawing, forming a part of this specification, and in which drawing, ' Figure l is a fragmentary side view of a shoe, and showing the improved illuminating device applied thereto, the illuminating device and its adjacent shoe portion being shown in central vertical sectlon. Figure 2 is a horizontal sectional view taken substantially on the line 2-2 Vof Fig-y ure 1, and looking downwardly.4 Figure 3 is aM slightly. reduced top plan view of the device shown detached from the shoe; and, Figure 4 is a fragmentary bottom plan view of the heel portion of a shoe and showing .the attaching means for the illuminatingy devlce. I Referring to the drawing in deta1l, wherebut the preferred embodiment of the invention, and wherein'similar reference characters designate corresponding parts throughout the several views, the letter A designates a shoe of ordinary construction, including an upperB; a sole portion C, and a lift D, said liftfbeing rigidly secured to the rear portion ofthe sole portion C and forming a fixed upper heel section `for detachably receiving the vimproved heel structure designated as a whole by the letter E. The heel structure E which forms the lower lift for the heel of the shoe comprises a major heel ,section F; a self-contained illuminating ineans Q, and a switch mechanism H. The major heel section F, which may be formed of any suitable material such as rubber, leather, or a composite material, preferably has embedded in the upper surface thereof, a plurality of stud members 5 having enlarged head portions thereof projecting past the upper 'surface of the. section .for engaging in a plurality of similarly arranged yieldable sockets 6 embedded in the lower surface of the upperlift section D. rIfhese stud members 5 and yieldable sockets 6 provide means for permitting` of ready and easy attaching and detaching of the major heel section from the upper lift section D, thus permitting of ready replacing of parts, and allowing yfor interchanging of the'heel structure E should it become desirable to merely attach the light projecting heel structure when travelling at night or.' when passing through dark passageways. Formed in the heel section F, and extendingfrom the .front wall 7 to the rear arcuate wall 8, is a 4pocket of special configuration formed with -the pocket portion 9 preferably flares outwardly as at 12, and terminates adjacent the marginal edges of the ,front face 7. This pocket maybe formed in the heel in any desired manner, either during moulding of the heel.; should the same be of rubber, or during construction thereof should the heel be formed of a plurality of leather lifts. Fitting in the pocket formed in the heel section F, and conforming to the configuration of the pocket, is a metal lining 13 formed at its rear end with a switch housing 14 adapted to fit in the reduced pocket portion l0 with its rear wall 15 closing the rear en`d` of the pocket` and/conforming to the curvature of the rear heel wall 8. Fitting in the flaring i portion`16 ofthe lining 13x and in electrical contact therewith, is a metal reflector 17 provided atfis axial center with a threaded socket portion 18 adapted for threaded reception of an ordinary electric lamp 19 of the shell and central contact type A lens 20 is disposed at the forward edge of the reflector 17 and may bev held in position as by bending the forward ends of the lining 13 about the edges of the lens as at 21. A ,battery 22 of ordinary construction, being enclosed by a layer of insulating` ma; terial 23, and provided atone end thereof with the usual spring contact arm 24, is adapted to be positioned in theinterme'diate pocket portion 9 with the contact arm 24 thereof in electrical contact with the central contact of the lamp 19. When in position in' the pocket, it will be seen that .the shoulders 11 will limit rearward movement of the battery within the pocket. Referring now to the switch mechanism H for completing the circuit through the lamp 19, the same embodies in part, a semi-circular shaped spring contact arm'25 having one end thereof rigidly secured to the bottom wall of the shell of positive terminal of the battery 22 and extending rearwardly into the switch housing 14. Se- cured to one side of the metal housing 14, is. a spring switch arm 26 adapted to have its -free end portion moved into contact with the rear end of the contact arm 25 upon sliding movement of a button 27 mounted in a slot in the rear housing wall 15, and havingthe head thereof extending* outwardly of the housing for permitting Vof ready manipulationv thereof. Y It will readily be seen that upon closing` of the circuit `between the contacts 25 and 26, that a circuit will be completed through the metal lining 1 3 to the shell of the elec"A tric lamp 19 for lighting the lamp. Any suitable means such as cement or suitable fastening elements may be employed for securing the illuminating means within the heel F; and if desirable the channel section 28 disposed at the upper edge of the lens 20 may be capable of being slid transversely of the lining 13 for per-Y parts when such' apart contact arms disposed inwar contact arm. f and described, without departing from the." spirit of the invention or the scope of the .p I claim 1 1. In combination with a shoe including a heel section formed with an opening extending lngitudinally" of the shoe and opening at the lfront and rear walls of the heel, a lining disposed in said opening and includin a rear wall for closing the opening at te rear of the heel, a self-contained electrically operated illuminating means disposed inwardly of the lining ina manner whereby the light vrays therefrom will project from the openin atthe front of the heel, normall `spaced y of the rear wall ofthe lining, and means carried by the rear wall of the lining for moving th' contact arms into en agement with one .another for completing tie circuit througlr the illuminating means. 2. In combination with a shoe including a heel section formed with a pocket flaring outwardly at the front wall of the heel; a. self-contained electrically operated illuminating means disposed in said pocket, a reflector disposed at the flaring portion of the pocket for directing the light rays forwardly of the heel, a lens at the front of said reflector, and switch means for controlling the circuit through the illuminating means. v` ,3. In combination with a shoe including a heel section formed with an opening extending lon itudinally of the shoe and opening at t e front and rear walls of the heel, a metal` lining for said opening having an end wall for closing the opening at the rear of the heel, a battery fitting in said lining and having spring contact arms'of. unlike poles projecting from opposite ends thereof and with the arm at the forward end thereof in engagement with .the central Acontact of an electric lamp, a metal reflector having a threaded socket for receptionJ of the base of the lamp, in contact with the metal lining, a lens positioned at the`front of the reflector, a switch arm-secured at one end to the metal lining and havingits free end portion in close proximity to the rear contact arm of the battery," and 'means carried by the rear wall of the lining ,for moving the free end of the switch arm into. circuit completing relation With said rear 4. A heel structure adapted for detachableconnection with a shoe, comprising "a body' ortion formed withl a longitudinally A ilsefgees mem'. of the batte a, spring contact erm Erojectin 4 rom-: e forward end of' the eer/ery or engagin one .terminal of an electric lamp, a, re ector disposedl about 5 said lamp for kdirecting the lgfht rays therefrom orwarily of the heel structure, a lens disposed et the forward end of the reflector, J and, switch means ispose in the opening rearwardl of the shoulders for completing e circuit :i1-om the opposite ole of the batw ex'y to the oppositetermina of the eectrio amp'.- l
US 6472820 B1 A plasma display panel includes input terminals, each input terminal having conductive lines to be connected to conductive lines in an connection cable, and a connection cable, wherein each of the input terminals has a first alignment mark, having a first portion and a second portion, and the connection cable has a second alignment mark, having a third portion and a fourth portion, the first and third portions and the second and fourth portions having, respectively, the same shapes for alignment with each other. 1. A plasma display panel comprising: a connection cable, and a plurality of input terminals, each input terminal having a first plurality of conductive lines to be connected to respective lines of a second plurality of conductive lines in said connection cable, wherein each of said input terminals has a first alignment mark, having a first portion and a second portion, and said connection cable has a second alignment mark, having a third portion and a fourth portion, the first and third portions and the second and fourth portions having, respectively, the same shapes for alignment with each other. 2. The plasma display panel as claimed in 3. The plasma display panel as claimed in 4. The plasma display panel as claimed in 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a PDP display and more particularly to an alignment process for aligning the input terminals of a plasma display panel and printed circuit cable. 2. Description of the Related Art Referring to FIG. 1, a plasma display panel comprises a front glass substrate 10 and a rear glass substrate 20 spaced apart from each other. The front substrate 10 has a plurality of pairs of scan electrodes on a surface facing the rear substrate 20. Likewise, the rear substrate 20 has a plurality of address electrodes on a surface facing the front substrate 10. The front and rear substrates 10, 20 are disposed such that their electrodes are orthogonal to each other. On top of the scan electrodes are a dielectric layer and an MgO protective layer. A dielectric layer is also provided on top of the address electrodes on the rear substrate 20. Further a plurality of phosphor-coated parallel walls are erected thereupon to define cells. An inactive gas such as argon is injected into the cells after the substrates are sealed at their periphery and evacuated. The PDP displays images when the inactive gas such as argon and/or neon discharges to become a plasma in response to a high voltage difference between the electrodes and ultraviolet light emitted during discharge collides with the phosphor material coating on the walls of the cells to cause visible light emission. Driving signals are generated from a driving circuit board 30 and applied to the input terminals which are terminal ends of electrodes embedded in the substrates via a cable such as a flexible printed circuit 40. One end of the flexible printed circuit (FPC) 40 and the input terminals of the substrates are provided with circular or rectangular alignment marks. However, these conventional alignment marks were designed for automated connection of the flexible printed circuit 40 to the input terminals on the PDP substrates. Thus it is difficult to manually align the FPC to the terminals. Misalignment would cause a short circuit producing defective devices. To solve the above problems, it is an objective of the present invention to provide a plasma display panel having an improved alignment marks on terminal ends of two connecting elements such that they can be more precisely aligned even in a manual connection Accordingly, to achieve the above objective, there is provided a plasma display panel, which comprising a plurality of input terminals, each of which has a first plurality of conductive lines to be connected to a second plurality of conductive lines in an connection cable, wherein each of said input terminals has a first alignment mark, having a first portion and a second portion, and each of said connection cable has a second alignment mark, having a third portion and a fourth portion. It is preferred in the present invention that the first and third portions are round, and said second and fourth portions are rectangular extending from said first and third portions, respectively. Also, it is preferred in the present invention that the alignment marks are gold. The above objective and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent by describing in detail a preferred embodiment thereof with reference to the attached drawings in which: FIG. 1 is a view showing a conventional PDP substrates connected to a driving circuit via flexible printed circuits. FIGS. 2A and 2B are views showing alignment marks generally and in detail on the PDP terminal, respectively, and FIG. 2C is a view of a connection cable, according to the present invention prior to connection. FIGS. 3A and 3B are views showing aligned alignment marks on the PDP terminals and connection cable in general and in detail, respectively, according to the present invention after connection. Referring to FIG. 2A, 2B, and 2C the present invention will be described. Each of the front and rear substrates of a plasma display panel 50 has a plurality of input terminals 51 on two opposite sides. One of them is shown in detail in FIG. 2B with a plurality of conductive lines 51 a, is coupled to corresponding conductive lines 61 a in a terminal end 61 of a flexible printed circuit 60 shown in FIG. 2C. The other end of the flexible printed circuit is connected to the PDP driving circuit board 90. The alignment marks 70, 80 are provided in a predetermined pattern right next to the conductive lines of the input terminal and the flexible printed circuit, respectively. Preferably, the alignment mark 70 in the input terminal has a somewhat square shape with a shape of a key hole, having a circle 71 and long rectangular body 73, cut out as shown in the figures. The alignment mark 70 on the input terminal may be a thin plate and bonded to the terminal. Alternatively, the alignment mark 70 can be a coating of silver directly on a terminal surface. The alignment mark 80 on the FPC 60 is shaped to fit in with the align mark 70 on the input terminal 51 and has a circular head 81 and a rectangular body 83 at a slightly smaller scale so that when the FPC 60 is placed over the input terminal 51 for bonding, the mark 80 does not completely overlap the mark 70. In other words the diameter of the circular head 81 is smaller than that of the cut-out circular head 71 and the rectangular body 83 is narrower than that the rectangular cut-out 73. Also, the alignment mark 80 is a coating of gold directly on the FPC surface. Referring to FIG. 3A and 3B, alignment and connection of the terminals and the printed flexible circuit will be described. First an automated process is explained. The input terminal 51 is cleaned with an alcohol-soaked cloth. The flexible printed circuit 60 with an anisotropic conductive film already adhered is positioned over the input terminal 51. An inspection camera monitors whether the heads 71, 81 of the alignment marks 70, 80 are aligned to ensure the conductive lines 51 a, 61 a are fully aligned. Gold(Au) coated alignment mark 80 allows easy and fast recognition by the inspection camera so that alignment is more precise and faster. Once it is determined that the conductive lines 51 a, 61 a are aligned, the flexible printed circuit 60 is pressed against the input terminal 51 at a temperature of 100 degrees for 2 to 5 seconds before the temperature and the pressure are increased to 170 to 180 degrees and 30 Kg/cm2 for about 20 seconds. By this process the input terminals 51 and FPCs 60 are electrically coupled. The present invention is particularly useful when an automated connection process is down for one reason or another so that manual connection is required. The heads 71, 81 of the alignment marks 70, 80 are manually aligned. Next the bodies 73, 83 of the marks are matched manually. Once the mark 80 is completely fit in its corresponding mark 70, one who is performing a manual connection is assured that the conductive lines 51 a, 61 a of the input terminal 51 and the FPC 60 are in line. Then as is done conventionally, the two are pressed against each other at the temperature of 100 degrees for 2 to 5 seconds before the temperature and the pressure are increased to 170 to 180 degrees and 30 Kg/cm2 for about 20 seconds. By this process the input terminals 51 and FPCs 60 are electrically coupled.
STILLPOINT Archive: last updated 12/14/2007 by Kandyce Kingsley '06 I stood on a sidewalk outside a cinema complex in Delhi and watched a high-caste Hindu man beat an untouchable Hindu boy with all his might. The man's friends watched as he kicked the boy square in the face, undoubtedly breaking multiple bones. The boy never once opened his mouth in protest, never lifted his head or hand to fight back. I knew from that moment on I could never rest unless I told this story and the stories of so many like this boy and his oppressor. Caste is one of the greatest mysteries of India--references to caste, rules about how to treat members of different castes and how each caste is to conduct daily life are found scattered throughout various ancient Hindu texts, but when and how caste became institutionalized and internalized remains a mystery. While things have improved from the days that required Dalits ("untouchables") to walk backwards and erase their footprints to keep the higher castes from being "polluted," caste continues to dictate occupation, living standards and future marriage partners. It limits access to education, health care and other constitutionally guaranteed rights. It shapes worldviews from childhood, teaching that Dalits are made from different biological matter than upper castes and that they deserve their lot in this life because of actions committed in a former life. They are told they are children of a lesser god or children of no god at all. I participated in two SMP (Summer Missions Program) trips to India while I was at Gordon. After graduating I heard about the Dalit Freedom Network (DFN) and saw a blurb on their website about an internship. I did what anyone with conviction and belief and a little post-travel insanity would do: I packed up my car and drove halfway across the country to the Denver, Colorado, area--a state and a city I had never visited--to begin work for a job which, at the time, didn't pay. I'm pretty sure my parents thought I was crazy--I even thought I was a little crazy. I had no idea how I would make my student loan payments, where I would make friends or when I'd next be able to travel to India (or anywhere else for that matter). But I knew I had to do it. It was a crazy idea I haven't regretted. DFN works in four major areas--education, health care, social justice and economic development--in order to affect all areas of the lives of the Dalits, who are truly "the least of these": those among whom, I believe, Jesus would have spent His time on earth. The Dalits comprise 25 percent of India's population, an astonishing 250-300 million people. I am blessed to work for this organization, raising awareness and networking resources with which to do God's work. From fundraising and building schools for Dalit children to coordinating medical service trips and women's empowerment conferences, we are able not merely to listen to the words of Scripture but also to do what they say. Peace cannot and should not exist without justice. As a follower of Christ, I am commanded to "seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless and plead the case of the widow" (Isaiah 1:17, NIV). My four years at Gordon coupled with my two summers in India have imprinted this command on my heart and in my mind.
LCD Display and 3D Overlay with GOverlay Gone are the days of ALT-TAB of viewing the amount of stress put upon your GPU or CPU from game playing. Too much stress lowers the FPS causing stutters or lag time. GOverlay displays instant information using LCDSysInfo for GOverlay or using RTSS for 3d overlay right on top of your games so that all the information you have customized in the setup is within view in a well organized clean display window. Static text display, integrated information (temperatures, fps, etc), an external application, or even a custom text loaded from a remote location. - Overlay for OpenGL, DirectX8, DirectX9, DirectX10 and DirectX111 - Easily customize the information to be displayed. - Live Status, no need to be in-game to customize the displayed output, change it and see the live result in GOverlay before playing! - Without installing external applications such as AIDA64 or OHM, GOverlay will display CPU and GPU temperatures, usages, time and date, frame rate, latency and current DirectX version running (may vary depending on your hardware) - Support for two common applications to load the information they provide right into GOverlay: - AIDA64 Support:: Load the AIDA64 information into GOverlay, shows battery display, network download/upload speeds, memory usage, swap utilization and much more. - Open Hardware Monitor: Load OHM (Free application) into GOverlay, this will display the temperatures, mhz, voltages and much more. - Support for remote information thru INI files: Load a INI file with the information you want into GOverlay, it will update regularly to display the latest information from your file. - Get notified by sound when your CPU or GPU temperatures or other data go over a specified value. - Log the highest value of the data you want, so in case your computer reboots while playing you can see how high the value was.
NEED TO KNOW MEMO Health Information Technology The federal government is at the forefront of a wide range of initiatives involving the evolution of health information technology. In areas ranging from a program to create a joint electronic health records system at the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments to implementation of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, federal agencies are working with players in the health and information technology sectors to push change rapidly. That involves dealing with huge amounts of data and deploying cutting-edge systems to make the health system more efficient and effective. Here are some updates on key recent developments in the health IT world. Access to this report is available to registered members at no cost. In order to provide you with this free service, the Government Executive Media Group may share this member information with report underwriters. When you download a research document, your information may be shared with the sponsors of that document.

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